The days turned from fall to winter, and Hermione used a few of her Avon galleons to buy herself a Slytherin cardigan to wear during classes, matching most of the other girls in her dorm. The dungeons were considerably colder than the rest of the castle, and the first years all determinedly tried to learn warming charms together, despite charm's advanced level of magic. Hermione was the only one able to get it at all, but not to a very good degree, and not enough to keep a person warm.

Instead, she taught her classmates how to charm bluebell flames and put them in jars to keep warm, which impressed them. Theo, ever innovative, ran off and brought back empty potion vials, and soon they all had mini bluebell flames in flasks and vials stashed about themselves in all their pockets. Hermione even stitched one of them into the tag of her cardigan with her sewing kit. She knew her hair would cover the bump on her back.

Over time, the Slytherin girls gradually began wearing makeup. Hermione was impressed with how subtly they pulled it off. It started with mascara and eyebrow grooming, then concealer was added as they slowly added more to their routines. Pansy and Daphne began to use their hair curlers immediately, even helping to curl Tracy and Millie's occasionally. A warming charm to heat the metal was much easier to cast than a proper heating charm, and Hermione suspected it would be the one charm Pansy would ace without question on their finals at the end of the year.

The Slytherin boys tended to view the girls' changes with small suspicion, as if something was off, but they couldn't quite tell what – but the rest of the first-year boys seemed very appreciative. Hermione noticed Tracy and Millie's self-confidence grow as boys started to look at them, and she was happy for them, though a large part of her wasn't entirely thrilled with how this was all coming about.

The galleons, though, she needed. If she was determined to establish a House of her own, she would need money to do so. She was well aware of the kind of sums the older pureblood houses threw around as pocket change, and she knew she needed seed money to try and earn a fortune of her own. Somehow.

Classes continued to follow predictable patterns, and Hermione found herself easily at the top of most of them. She enjoyed the challenges Professor McGonagall would throw at her, but even those were getting easier to master, with her expanded core. Herbology was interesting, and Hermione wondered if it would tie in with Potions class at a higher level. Charms continued to be easy, and Potions…

Potions was the class where Hermione had the most fun.

Part of her felt distinctly bad for enjoying Potions so much, as a definite part of her enjoyment was seeing Snape berate Ron Weasley. Another part of Hermione felt pleased at it, though, and oddly touched by her Head of House's loyalty – he'd started yelling at Ron after the incident with the troll. Neville was still largely hopeless, but Snape had taken to sighing and vanishing his messes and making him start again without as much fuss, which seemed to help Neville to be slowly improving. Hermione wondered if Neville was only doing as poorly as he was because he was scared of Snape – Neville's essays always seemed alright.

The other fun part of Potions was brewing them. Hermione and Theo formed an excellent team, quietly bickering with each other in the back of the classroom on what to try and how to improve what they were brewing. It was also mentally challenging to be brewing the same thing, but different, in two different cauldrons at a time. She and Theo were getting very good at working as a team, able to anticipate the next move the other would make, though not all their experimental potions were successful.

Snape had given them a small testing kit, to begin figuring out what kind of substance they'd made. Hermione recognized some of the small pieces of paper as litmus tests, but there were other round parchments designed to have a drop of potion on them and change color diagnostically. When they were successful in making a known potion, the parchment would turn a glowing green. Whenever they failed, there was a dull red glow. Whenever they ended up with a poison, it would turn black, and an unknown substance that was safe to consume and would have some effect generated a blue. Hermione asked after the charm to make more of the strips, but Snape waved her off, saying it was something of his own creation, and very difficult to replicate.

Every night, Hermione was dutiful with her magical exhaustion training. Levitation was still the best and fastest way she'd found to exhaust her power reserves. She'd gotten good enough to keep her mahogany chest floating for long periods, so she was working on her bookcase next – with all the books on it, it was much heavier than her chest. She was considering trying her own bed after mastering the bookcase, but she was worried about the noise she might make if she failed. The last thing she needed was the other girls investigating what she was doing making loud noises after they were asleep.

As time continued, November easing into December, Hermione found Christmas rapidly approaching. She signed up to go home with the other Slytherins, which brought some mocking remarks from the older students that Hermione steadfastly ignored. Muggles or not, she desperately missed her family, and she had things she needed to do away from the school anyway. She wasn't about to celebrate the holiday with a group of people who still largely judged her.

Christmas, however, brought up a new issue: gifts.

Hermione had found a guide of sorts on gift-giving in a very, very old hostess manual for Yule. While there were rules on what presents to give clearly outlined, it was difficult not only to update the book's suggestions to more modern times, but to classify her classmates into the categories needed for giving appropriate gifts. Gift giving for Christmas was a big deal, and the last thing Hermione wanted to do was accidentally slight someone, or unknowingly give someone something romantic without the corresponding intention behind it.

There were so many possible categories, too. There was "Friends," but also "Close friends," "Acquaintances," "Allies," and "Coworkers." There were also categories for "Enemies who don't know they are your enemy," "Possible future romantic attachments," and "People of tainted blood whom you can't dismiss."

Hermione found herself making note of all the suggested gifts in the last category, intending to keep of list of anyone who sent her something from it.

By the time the break finally rolled around, Hermione was bouncing on the edge of her seat the whole ride back to London, and after exiting Platform 9 ¾, she ran to her parents and hugged them with all her might. Her father chuckled as she buried her head into his chest.

"Well, well. Did someone miss us?" he teased.

"Of course she missed us," her mother said, a smile in her tone. "The question is, how much did she miss us?"

Hermione felt her heart lift at her parents' voice.

"You have no idea."