authorsnote: I've been ruminating on this for a while, so here it is, one last new wip to round out 2024
heavily inspired by emily wildes encyclopaedia of faeries, but very different in content
do let me know if you'd like to see more of this
songrecs: willow - taylor swift
Species Classification: Witch (female).
Description: A person thought to have magical powers, especially evil ones, popularly depicted as a woman wearing a black cloak and pointed hat and flying on a broomstick.
Verb: Miss Hermione Granger had somehow witched the house.
'For all you know a witch may be living next door to you!'
'Well yes we live in Hogsmeade dear'
- Arthur Maybury to his wife Delphine who often liked to quote muggle books.
Crookes was not very happy with her. Her faithful familiar was lying by the fire, glaring, ginger hair ruffled, no purr coming from his frowning mouth, only a glare, but at the same time an unwillingness to leave the room away from the fire, a standoff if you will. After all he may be annoyed, but he won't be cold at the same time, at least not literally speaking.
Crooks has a look about him. An annoyance yes but also a resigned air (still tinged with annoyance) that screams 'Why am I here on this foolish adventure, not curled up at home with a bowl or salmon mousse and my preferred bed (see: laundry basket)?' or perhaps 'Why is that my mistress must traipse around freezing cold Europe instead of also being warm, with her favoured dinner (see cereal, or if bothering to cook pasta, always pasta), and drag me along with her?'
Both valid questions, both she considered.
Considering took all of 30 seconds; Hermione didn't have an answer, well she did, or had, but she was starting to resign herself that perhaps (just perhaps) she'd underestimated this and perhaps (just) Crooks had good reason to be irritated, perhaps (definitely) they would have both been better off at home, salmon mousse, cereal and a glass or saucer of milk each in hand respectively, toes warm and constitutions not threatened by the flurry of snow outside that was decidedly thicker than the weather reports had suggested just a day earlier.
She should have done the weather report herself, truly if you wanted the correct results, why leave it to another?
Back on topic, what was it she was underestimating? Well, the journal she had tucked under her elbow (and the approximately 19 blankets to ward off the chill, warming charms seemed less potent here, a phenomenon she'd have to dedicate some time to alongside her 82 other research projects), told the story better than she could, an objective collection of the facts.
Only the journal didn't tell the tales or her self-doubt, the gnawing in her stomach, and the dark circles under her eyes. All facts too, but not of the academic variety.
It was a lonely place, the edge of the frost-bitten world.
And so, how?, how had she Hermione Granger, recipient of 7 NEWTS, two Wizarding Masteries in Magical Creatures and Transfiguration, Head Girl, all around prodigy, Order of Merlin First Class and proud recipient of the 'Ministry's most organised' award (before she quit in a rage or course, but she still had the certificate, at the bottom of a sad wooden box she'd ignored for a day before the certificate had seen her live up to her name), ended up here? In frozen wizarding Norway, alone (but for Crooks, annoyed as he was he'd never let her come alone), freezing her ass off, self-doubt creeping into her mind.
A sensation she was not familiar with and decidedly did not like.
Well, best to start at the beginning, as she forced herself up, refilling Crooks water bowl and making herself a tea, her precious familiar taking pity on her worries, rewarding her with a helicopter purr as she scratched his ears, steeped her strong British tea (to which she clearly hadn't packed enough), and settled down, mind telling back 11, no 13 months (she was even losing track of time here), to when it all began.
With a yell.
"I quit!" (Said yell)
"Now Hermione!" Her supervisor at the Ministry, Mr Shaftfink, a regrettably unimaginative man who had seemed genuinely baffled at the first bill Hermione had passed across his desk, so much so he'd gone into a coughing fit.
"We don't submit bills to the Wizengmont" He'd stumbled at Hermione's wide-eyed gaze, "We just ensure existing laws are followed and checked"
"What about updating?" She'd asked slightly shrill, she'd turned down about ten other job offers for this poorly paid role in the Department of the Regulation of Magical Creatures, to enact real change, and now Mr Shaftfink (unfortunate name) was looking horrified and was perhaps wondering if Miss Granger was playing a prank on him.
You never know with the youth.
Another coughing fit followed, "Updating?!"
That should have really told her all she needed to know.
Really.
But it hadn't and she'd continued to try, week after week, day after day, hour after miserable hour, to change things, to make things better, until the aforementioned:
"I quit!" (Only once not twice, but we are backing up).
"Hermione I told you the WIzengmont…" Mr Shaftfink started again and Hermione silenced him with her own words. She didn't as a rule interrupt, but today she was all about rule breaking apparently.
"The Wizengmont are useless!" She said outraged, "They don't even look at the bills I submit! Bills that could do so much good, help so many creatures, and people by extension!"
"I told you … "He began again but Hermione's shriek (was it a shriek? A yell? A high pitched curse? None could be sure), cut him off.
In all fairness to Mr Shaftfink with his unfortunate name he had told Hermione not to bother, that the Wizengmont didn't listen to anyone but themselves. They were made up of pureblood snobs (Mr Shaftfink was a half-blood), who had never worked a real job in their lives and had no interest in bettering the lives of others, and most certainly not in helping creatures.
And yet they held the keys to everything, hence Hermione's second shriek of fury (definitely a curse that time), that Mr Shaftfink regretted to tell her (and he did, though more for his own safety than anything else), was 'Just how it was'.
'Just how it was'.
That phrase had lodged itself in Hermione's brain then and refused to be dislodged.
Something had sparked in her, something she had realised; there was no place for her here, operating under the 'Just how it was'.
Hence (and we come back to), the 'I quit'
Though she didn't know when to, not really.
And not for a while.
A long while.
(Too long).
And so here she was, all bluster and furious determination, still there, still present in her bones, just muted, dulled, or perhaps frozen.
She knew she was doing the right thing. Her work at the Ministry had been stifling, and she knew it would only be a hop and a skip to her being part of the problem, instead of working against it.
She had been a fool to think the fall of Voldemort would see sweeping change, no the Ministry and Wizarding Britain all together chugged along at the pace of a particularly slow snail, and even she hadn't been able to fight that.
That sounds awfully like giving up, she reminded herself, and it did, but she wasn't! She was hardly sat at home, she had turned down Headmistress (nee Professor) McGonagalls offer for a teacher position, had reassured Ron no she wasn't on the brink of poverty and did not need a job at the joke shop (Luna, Rons wife of 2 years had told Ron not to be silly, as Hermione needed to go off and find her moon, whatever that might mean), she wasn't giving up on magical creatures, quite the contrary.
No, just because trying to free House Elf's had been met with failure (and a guwarfing room of Wizards all chuckling, all asking the 'naïve Miss Granger', where did she propose they get their servants from? Was she suggesting hired help?!; (cue more laughter), and relations with the merpeople (all very nice with her stunted mermish but with quite firm words that they wanted to be left alone) were as bad as ever, and any attempt to look at deregistering werewolves hadn't even been met with a response! (Literally, the proposal she'd sent in had been ignored so completely she'd had to reassure herself she hadn't imagined writing the 80-page document).
But no, just because any hope of making headway on magical creatures in the Ministry had resulted in abject failure, didn't mean all was a lost cause; did it?
Staying positive had been a struggle over the last year, to say the least.
But the Ministry hadn't been a complete write off (near enough), it had given her a few connections (few being the operative word), grants were thin and far between in the Wizarding World, but though an Order of Merlin, First Class might not pay (literally anything), it did afford her top place among some cheaper grants, and the few stilted connections she'd made in her department saw her get a few more.
She was on a shoestring budget, barely enough to cover her expenses, but she had a budget! And technically a job, one of the grants had come with an offer to teach at St Andrews (the magical department, easily concealed from the human eye, though not Prince William stumbling upon it once, that had been a kerfuffle so legendary a plaque adorned where he'd been obliviated), a shoebox office that she'd vacated upon this trip, but she had a stipend (meagre as it was).
She'd also invested all of the money from selling off her parents assets (said parents were quite happy in Australia, had no idea she existed, but enough tears had been shed over that, she reserved a good cry about that for birthdays, Christmas and the anniversary of sending them away), into a small rundown cottage in Culross in Scotland that she'd done up with magic.
So in summation she had a home (a tiny cottage in the middle of nowhere; bliss), a job (that paid barely more than being a barmaid at the Leaky Cauldron), a budget for this trip (no matter how small), her faithful familiar and a cup of tea, really things could be much worse.
(Oh and they would be, Hermione just didn't realise how much so, not yet, not for a while).
And she had a plan.
For Hermione had realised (belatedly), after her work at the Ministry and months of the inbetween … attempts (she'd get to those humiliating weeks later), that she needed not first to change laws, but the culture around magical creatures.
And not just the culture, but no first the understanding.
Because how much did the public know about the creatures and their plights?
How much did they know at all?
She knew the first step in getting House Elf's, Mermaids, a host of others and yes eventually even Vampires and Werewolfs rights, was to help people understand why they should have them, why they needed them.
And yet getting that done was proving to be a battle.
No one wanted to hear her shrieking on the corner of Diagon Alley with a sign (and she knew that now from experience), or read her leaflets (yes okay her writing had been cramped as one passerby had pointed out, but how else was she meant to convey everything), but she knew what she could do.
Because as much as Hermione had become a smidge of a laughingstock recently (in an endearing, 'Oh is that Miss Granger again? Going on about elf's or is it krups this time? A lovely girl, shame she isn't married yet'), she was still known for one good thing; her brains. She had broken records with her exam results, people knew how clever she was, and she knew that was what she had to harness.
Hence her trip to the frozen ridges of Norway, because in Norway they had one incredibly important thing: a thriving magical creature population.
Cold as it was, it was remote, quiet and just brimming with magic. In her initial research Hermione had logged tens of different species of creature and beast, including an entire Centaur herd, a school of Hippocampuses, a group of Mermaids, an entire glaciers worth of Frost Salamanders, and even a remote Norweigian Vampire Troop rumoured to house a thought to be dead writer. The country was brimming with creatures and beasts she could talk to, study and log information on.
All for her big plan (or rather step one of a roughly 11-part plan to bring equal rights and freedoms to all creatures, not too ambitious really, and of course she would have to do two other continents in the course of this step one, but really they were more step one .5 and step one .75), to educate the masses on the creatures she so cared for, bring them up to speed and then fight for their rights.
Simple really.
This was to be her lifework, and so as cold as it was, as heavy as the snow was falling (quite alarmingly, she really should have predicted the weather herself), and as much as she needed another cup of tea (but should she be rationing), she was excited, something she hadn't felt in months thanks to the Ministry and the general attitude of the Wizengmont.
Her lifework indeed, maps, interviews, descriptions, sketches (not her she was a dreadful artist, Luna would be covering that bit based off Hermiones memories), classifications (for she was building on the work of the great Newt Scamander not destroying it, really), and then recommendations on laws to follow.
It would work! It had to work!
And she would call her lifework …
*Knock knock knock*
An eyebrow raise at the thud of the door, Crooks leaping onto the sofa as though to protect her, and the whistle of the kettle interrupted her train of thought.
Really wasn't that always the way?
But who could be here? In the frozen tundras of Norway? At nearly 10pm? She herself had only arrived that morning, had only finished unpacking an hour earlier, she hadn't even met anyone at the village down below yet, was it a villager?
Well, no, it couldn't be, she glanced at the note on the dining table that had been affixed to the door with her key and a translation charm.
'Hello Miss Granger!
Welcome to Snowdrop Cottage, we are excited to have you as a tenant.
A snowstorm is due to sweep through tonight so introductions will have to wait! There are logs on the fire for you and stew in the pot, we will come by tomorrow!
Also don't go outside after 11pm, just don't, will explain tomorrow.
Hilda'
The stew had been delicious warming her to the ominous ending to the note that Hermione had shivered at but had so far followed; she glanced at the clock; 10:03pm and hesitated as another knock hit the wooden door.
But then she heard a voice, a voice she was surely hallucinating, as she recognised that voice, and surely it couldn't be, no … it couldn't … what?!
There was no hesitation in her steps then as she hurried to the door then (purely to confirm she'd clearly hallucinated the entire episode, what had been in that stew? Or was the cold getting to her already?), ripped it open against the frost, and let out a squeak (more of a squark really), as the person stood in the door barrelled inside, cold and frosty, and decidedly not supposed to be here.
He caught her by the shoulders as she backed up, and then raising his gaze to hers, Hermione's own widened, her brown meeting his grey.
"Gods, I thought I'd freeze to death" He drawled, yes drawled, because that was how he always sounded, like he'd swallowed an aristocratic dictionary for dinner and was spitting it back out worse than it had gone in.
Hermione stepped back again, shaking off his steadying hand, her eyes wide, Crooks had settled back down, clearly sensing no danger, though that was where her precious familiar was wrong.
For Draco fucking Malfoy was stood in the dining hall/living room/kitchen/storage space of her new cottage, looking all windswept and handsome and pale, and handsome, and quite like he was unsure what he was doing here too (only for a moment, Draco Malfoy was rarely unsure or openly displayed any emotion for long).
"What are you doing here?!" She demanded, well aware she sounded shrill.
Though not as shrill as she would in the coming weeks.
"Why I'm here to help you with your disaster of a plan!"
Or even the coming hours.
hahaha and so it begins!
this is very howls moving castle/emily wildes/apprentice to the villain/wisteria society for witches-esque. think cosy fantasy with jokes, a particular tone, some relatively high stakes and idiots falling in love (and not knowing it, and lots of romance and all the tropes, like all of them, I'll be opening the next chapter with an obvious one)
oh and ofc this is dramione through and through
if you like do review, do follow/fav, let me know if you want more
speak soon