October 1991

Violet wasn't surprised to find Hermione sitting alone at a table in the library.

After a little bit over a month at Hogwarts, she more or less knew all of the kids in her year. She already knew like half of them before, from craft school or from silly tea parties or whatever, or bumped into them somewhere else like Sùjūan, but over a month was enough time to learn everyone's names (though she did sometimes mix a few of them up still) and at least a little bit about them. And she was also getting a feeling for who was friends with who and who didn't like each other, but it was harder to figure that out — Violet would admit that she could be kind of iffy about understanding complicated social things. But it wasn't hard to, you know, notice who spent a lot of time together, anyone could see a pattern.

There were a few loners in their year, she noticed, people who didn't seem to really want to talk to anyone. In Hufflepuff, she thought Lily would have been like that, but the Hufflepuff girls all stuck together for things, and while she was still shy and quiet she...seemed to be slowly getting more comfortable? That was Violet's feeling, she did talk more, even if she was still super shy sometimes. Wayne also didn't talk much, but he was friendly enough, and was always hanging around people, so she didn't think that counted, really.

In Ravenclaw, there were Stephen and Kevin, who Violet mostly thought of as super swotty types who weren't interested in silly things most of the time — which was fine! Some people were just like that. Susan also went off alone a lot, but that was just because Seer stuff got too much for her sometimes, that was a different kind of thing. Slytherin had Millie, who could be shy sometimes, and Theo always preferred to sit alone, and hardly played with the other kids at all, off reading by himself. Tracey was always following Daphne around, so she was there with everyone...she just barely ever spoke aloud. That wasn't new, though, Violet first met Tracey years ago now, and she was always like this. Greg and Vince also didn't talk much, but they were like Wayne in that way, she thought.

In Gryffindor, there was Dean, kind of? He seemed a little quiet, and awkward sometimes, but not really as bad as some of the other kids. And he was nice! They'd gone drawing different parts of the Castle and the grounds together a couple times now, which worked out well enough. He wasn't really close with any of the other boys at first, but now Violet thought he was becoming friends with Seamus — Seamus was a super noisy talkative sort of boy, and Dean kind of perked up a bit while they were together and turned into a noisy talkative sort of boy with him, which Violet thought was a good thing? Helping him come out of his shell, like, she thought it was cute!

(She knew better than to say so, though — some boys didn't like being called cute.)

And then there was Hermione. Violet didn't really see Hermione much — the only class Hufflepuff had with the Gryffindors was Herbology, and also Astronomy with everyone else — they'd only ever spoken a few times, but her classmates gossipped, so she still picked up things. The feeling she got was that the other kids thought Hermione was annoying, and kind of weird? Supposedly she tried to answer every single question professors asked, when she was called on rattling off a big long complicated paragraph that sounded like she was directly quoting the textbook — Olivie checked once, in Potions, and that time at least she actually had quoted the textbook, almost exactly word for word. She had a habit of correcting anyone who was doing something incorrectly nearby, or would get a bit snitty about people breaking rules, and even corrected people's grammar sometimes, most of the other kids found her very very annoying.

Violet hadn't noticed, the classes they had with Gryffindor weren't normal ones with lectures and stuff, but she heard that Hermione had a really hard time sitting still at her desk. She'd end up kind of wiggling, shifting back and forth in her seat, her pen clicking against the top...

Her roommates really didn't like her. Fay did mention that Hermione and the others weren't really getting along, but Fay didn't talk to the other girls much either, so she didn't have much to say about it — most of what Violet heard about it she was actually told by Padma, who got it from Parvati. Apparently Hermione could be very particular about stuff. She didn't like people touching her things, or even really coming into her part of the room — like in Hufflepuff, the Gryffindor girls were all in one big room — she insisted on making a timetable for the showers and got irritable when people ignored it, and she got annoyed with Megan for playing her music too loud, and Lavender over her perfume. Once, Padma said she'd even yelled at Parvati for lighting incense in their room...and, when Parvati explained she had to for a religion thing (basically praying, Violet thought?), Hermione instantly stopped, and her face went very very red, and she stammered out an apology and then went to hide in the bathroom for a little bit.

(After talking about it, they decided some smells must bother Hermione sometimes — when yelling at Parvati, she did mention something about getting a headache? Violet taught Padma a charm to teach Parvati which would keep the air close to herself, so Parvati could still do her thing without bothering Hermione. Padma never told her if it worked, but she never mentioned the problem coming up again either, so.)

There were a bunch of other things Violet had heard at some point, about Hermione being weird and difficult, which made, like, all of Gryffindor and most of the rest of the kids in their year not like her much. She was pretty sure Hermione didn't have any friends, at all, and she never really saw her talking to anyone outside of class? Seeing Hermione sitting alone somewhere reading a book was very normal.

But, Violet had a funny feeling about Hermione. She'd had a funny feeling about her to start off with, but it only niggled away at her more and more as she heard more about her.

They came to their usual table in the library — Violet kind of had a study group going now! It was just the Hufflepuff girls, minus Leanne, and Susan and Padma and Sùjūan from Ravenclaw. Violet and Padma were friends now! They only kind of knew each other from silly noble parties and stuff before, but then Violet helped her relearn stuff she lost when her bond with Parvati broke, and they started hanging out more, and now she was around a lot. Padma was nice! Kind of quiet and nerdy, more than she remembered from before school, but she kind of just assumed that was from the bond breaking too. Sùjūan was super swotty, spent most of her time outside of class either doing their homework or studying something on her own, and never really wanted to do anything else — that would be a lot for Violet, but it made her a really good person to have around when they had homework to do or were revising or whatever.

Or, well, sometimes she also tried to teach Violet Chinese — she was learning a little bit of Gaelic from Violet too, but not too seriously, she didn't want to confuse it with Cambrian — or would ask Violet about art or Susan about being a Death Prophet or Sophie and Sally-Anne about muggle stuff. She guessed, more than specifically wanting to work on school stuff, Sùjūan was just super curious about everything. Which, that was cool! Violet liked learning things too, she just didn't have the brain energy to do it all the time, like Sùjūan seemed to.

Anyway, people started settling in, but instead of sitting down Violet whispered (library quiet), "I'm saying hi to someone qw-quick."

"Did you want us to come with?" Sophie asked, looking a little confused — Violet thought she might not have caught it, she didn't always understand things if she wasn't looking at the person as they said them. Which was a little weird, but whatever.

"No, that's okay, I d-don't want to crrr, crowd her." She felt herself begin to lock on the first sound, paused to take a breath. "Be back soon."

Hermione had multiple books spread across her table, a muggle-style notebook splayed open, lines and lines and lines of notes scrawled down the page. Glancing over the books as she walked toward the table, Violet frowned — these were, like, history and magic theory books, and had basically nothing to do with what they were doing in class. That was odd.

Anyway, Violet came around the table, plopped down in the chair across from her — Hermione twitched, blinked up at her. Or not quite at her, a little bit to Violet's left, but in her direction, at least. "Hello, Hermione. Are you autistic?"

Hermione's face kind of went scrunchy, her eyebrows pressing down around her eyes and the corners of her lips pulling back making her cheeks press up. It was kind of a funny look, Violet didn't know how to interpret that...but it was hard to say if that was because she was bad at reading expressions, or if Hermione were bad at making them. For a few seconds, Hermione stared at (near) Violet, before eventually saying just, "What?"

...Which, that was fair, Violet guessed? She had just randomly walked up to her and asked if she had a weird brain thing, that was maybe rude. "I was j-jah-j– wondering, because, Shannon t-talked to me about it — that's my therapist, Shannon — and, I noticed you d-d-do a lot of the autism things she told me about. I was wondering, and, and, I d-don't think I've ever met another autistic pah-person before. No, Mathúin, I s'pose..."

Hermione was quiet for a long moment again — but the funny look was gone now, her face going mostly blank. And, she was looking closer to Violet's face now, she thought, but like around her clavicles or something. Watching her like, Violet did the same kind of thing when she was nervous. "You're autistic?"

"Yep! Or, not officially, like, on paper? Shannon said she wasn't a specialist, so she wasn't c-c-c-c– it wasn't something she knew as well. I was seeing her for other stuff, but, but, but, yeah." She noticed Hermione was kind of scowling down at her book again, her pen tapping on the desk. "Um, I, you can t-tell me to leave, if I'm bah, bothering you."

"Lucky," she muttered.

"What?"

"You're lucky you weren't seeing a specialist — behaviour modification is awful."

"...Behaviour modification? Oh, is that what they call the stuff they do with autistic people? We, we d-, we, it was a long time ago, I think Shannon said something about tch-training ch-ch-children, like dogs? or something?"

Hermione's scowl got worse, she shook her head. "Yes, it's literally the same thing — applying positive reinforcement to encourage approved behaviours and negative reinforcement to discourage unwanted ones. Whatever pretty words professionals might like to dress it up with, it is effectively simple operant conditioning, the same techniques people use to train animals."

"Oh, well." Violet frowned. "Hey wait, autism is a brain thing, right? It's j-j-j- the way our brains are wired. So, how, how, how, how, you can't tch-train people out of that? How does that work?"

"It doesn't — the patient internalises the approved system of behaviours to avoid being punished, but they're still autistic. They simply don't present the symptoms as much." Letting out a sharp sigh, Hermione leaned back in her chair a little, set her pen down on one of the books. This was only a guess, but Violet thought she'd just realised how much noise she was making with the tapping, and forced herself to stop. "I was only in it for a couple months before my parents pulled me out. They told me I wasn't allowed to read anything other than what was required for school for a week, and I had a really bad meltdown."

Violet wasn't entirely sure what Hermione meant by meltdown — she vaguely remembered Shannon might have said something about those, too long ago — but she didn't have to know what they were to get that whatever it was had been bad enough to convince Hermione's parents to quit the treatment. "Why would they d-d-do that? You're, like, always reading."

The funny scowl had been easing off a little over the last little bit, but her eyebrows dipped into a frown again — visibly tensing, Hermione watched her for a moment before relaxing again. Violet didn't know what—

"Oh! I wasn't making fun! I was only saying, I d-don't even know you yet and I know you like books, that seems like a mean thing to do."

"...Oh." Hermione blinked at her a couple times — a little surprised Violet wasn't making fun of her for reading a lot, she guessed. She shifted in her chair a little, then said, "That's how behaviour modification works: if you do something wrong, they take away something you like, and if you do what they want you can have it back again. I was already under a lot of stress from trying to follow the rules, and... My parents decided that they couldn't bear to continue torturing me for the promise of uncertain future benefit — to paraphrase my mother, 'torture' was what she called it."

"Yeah, no kidding! That sounds awful." She was trying to think of how she would react if Mum was trying to get her to, she didn't know, stop humming when she wasn't paying attention, or talk normal, and didn't let her... Well, she didn't even know what Mum would take away, even — it was hard to imagine her doing that. Because that would basically be Mum trying to make her unhappy, on purpose, and that was just a weird thing to think about. "I think it'd be hard to trah, trr-trust Mum, after that..."

"They stopped — they didn't have to do that. Behaviour modification is the standard treatment for autistic children, so nobody would have judged them for it if they didn't pull me out. They put up with a lot from me, to be honest."

"I wasn't saying I think your parents are bad, I was only— My first family weren't so nice, you know. I was thinking, if Mum started ch-trying to make me unhappy, on purpose..." That was a really scary thought. Violet did not think she would have dealt with this behaviour modification stuff very well. So, when she thought about it, that was probably why Shannon had recommended against it — she used to make a point of making sure Violet felt safe with Mum and Muime (and Mum's other sex friends, before it was only Muime), she must have realised this stuff would be a problem for that. "Thinking b-b-back, I'm happy Shannon said not to bother, that's all."

"...I'm not an expert, but I guess your therapist thought a healthy relationship with your adoptive mother was more important than eliminating autistic behaviours."

"Yeah. Anyway!" Violet said, trying to shake off the weird mood that thought had put her in, "I wah-wasn't here to talk about that. I'm think, I'm think, I'm– D-do you want to c-c-c-csh— Ugh! I'm sorry, t-talking is hard."

Frowning to herself a little, Hermione muttered, "That's all right." She hesitated for a second, before picking up her pen and holding it out toward Violet.

"Oh! That's nice of you, but, but, but, I'll k-khheep it in mind for a super bad day." Hermione dropped the pen again with a little shrug. "Anyway, I was asking if you want to come sit with us."

Hermione blinked at her in surprise again, glanced over to the table her little study group was sitting at. "Really?"

"Sure! We're planning on working on our D-D-Defence homework, um, but, but if there's something else you wanted to do. What are you working on here, anyway?" she asked, leaning a little forward to look over the books Hermione had gathered up again. "These aren't school books. Ooh, Mum has this one..."

Shifting in her chair again, Hermione said, "I'm catching up. I know nothing about magical Britain — it's a whole separate society with its own history and culture and everything, and I didn't even know it existed before earlier this year. I can't help but feel out of place."

"Oh, well. I g-g-g-get it — I did the same thing, when Mum found me, though I was still little then, so I was mostly rr-rrreading kids' books — but you're maybe thinking about it too hard. Most kids our age don't know that much."

Hermione frowned at her. "Really." There was a hard note on her voice Violet didn't quite know how to read. It didn't help that she was used to trying to figure out normal people, she didn't have a lot of experience reading other autistic people.

Shaking off that thought, she said, "Yeah, like... Okay, they'll know their family history, and a little bit about Myrddin and the first Wizengamot and stuff, and the rr-rree-religion on this side is d-different, sorry, and there are holidays and, like, different mmmusicians and storybooks or whatever they had when they were little. But, you know, my Mum has this book," Violet said, tipping up one corner of Cambrian Kingship and the Wizengamot, from Cunedda to Llewellyn the Last, "but that's because she's a nerd, she has a lot of history books. I'm certain no one in our class has rrread it, or knows much about the topic. I know a little about Llewellyn, but j-j-ccchhh– the first Potters helped end his c-country. I'm not even sure who C-C-C-Cunedda is."

"...Really."

"Yep. I'm not trying to fool you, promise. Do, do, do, do mmmuggle kids our age know this kind of thing?"

Hermione shifted in her chair again, her shoulders rolling in a shrug. "I don't know what children our age can be expected to know, to be honest — I was pulled out of primary school. Twice, actually. I was homeschooled, I don't know what other children are taught."

"Mm, I stopped primary when Mum found me, but I went to crrraft school. Um, that's like mm-magical primary, but, but, it starts in year three maybe? Yeah. We had a history c-c-class, but it was super basic, like, stuff about the first Wizengamot and, and whatever. There was more stuff, but that was specific to Ireland, and G-G-G-Gaelic Scotland, only the ch-kids who went there too will know that stuff already. I would lend you my books, but, they're in nnnGaelic. Bleh, hate that letter. There was lit-lit-literature, and stuff, but, that wasn't in English either. Other kids, it would be like that too, you know, different stuff, depending on where they went for school, if they went to school, and what part of the c-country they're from."

"...If they went to school?"

"Yeah." Violet shrugged. "There isn't public edge, edge, education on this side. Most people didn't gah, go to primary school, and, only some went to craft school. It's not free either, you have to p-p-pay for it."

By the funny frown on Hermione's face, she didn't know what to think about that idea. "Hogwarts doesn't charge tuition."

"Yes it does — muggleborns g-g-g-go for free, everyone else has to pay."

"...Oh. I didn't know that. That doesn't seem fair." It wasn't, Violet guessed, but they did it for reasons of keeping Secrecy — it was a whole big compromise they made centuries ago now, just the best solution they could figure out at the time. Hermione stared intently down at her notebook for a moment, her tongue running over her teeth. "They really don't have universal public education? not even through primary school?"

"Nope. Hermione, there are a lot of p-people in this country who can't rrread. The magical side is behind in some ways, this is one of them. So, my point, p-p-p– they weren't t-taught a lot of things you're behind on. Because a lot of the other kids did-did-didn't have school before coming here, at all. The things they know you won't are, like, c-c-c-culture stuff, but you won't lllearn that from a book, anyway. You pick that up t-talking to people. You know, by being here? How I learned Irish stuff, making friends with the neighbours."

Hermione had gradually slumped back in her seat, her brows dropping heavy above her eyes. Staring at nothing, her fingers played with the corner of the page of one of the books — turning over everything Violet had said, presumably. After a few seconds she muttered, "I'm not very good, at making friends."

"It's hard, right? Normal people are confusing."

"You seem to do all right."

"Well, I'm rrr-wwr-really nice, so pee, people put up with me being weird. That, and, and, they're used to me by now? I've known, like, half of our class for years, from crrraft school, or silly fancy parties. And I'll be there, and www-w-ww—" She forced out a huff, rolling her eyes. "We can be friends, if you want."

Hermione blinked a few times, really fast, surprised. "...Really?"

"Yeah! Why not?"

She didn't say anything for a few seconds, her eyes wandering over the bookshelves around — occasionally jumping back near Violet, but not quite straight at her — her fingers tapping at the edge of the table. Eventually she said, "You weren't making fun of me, in Astronomy class."

"What? Oh! You mean our first one? No, I wasn't making fun! I was..." Violet shrugged. "I was tr-t-trying to make friends, you know. Space is cool! And I don't know anyone else who knows much about it."

"Oh. Sorry, I thought..." Hermione didn't say exactly what she thought Violet had been doing, just shrugged. "I'm not doing your homework for you." There was kind of a funny tone on her voice, like, not quite a question, but maybe a little reluctant at the same time? She didn't know, Hermione was even harder to read than most people.

Also? That was an odd thing to say. "Did, did, did, did people pr-pretend to be your friend so you'd do their homework for them?" Hermione just shrugged again. "Well, that's stupid. That's not why I'm here. And, and, and, I think they can t-t-tell our handwwrriting apart."

Hermione's lips twitched. "I saw your calligraphy, in that article. Do you always write like that?"

"Not with all the pictures and c-colours, but..." Violet stood up, leaned over the table and picked up the pen. In the margin of Hermione's notes, she wrote, Hello, Hermione! Let's be friends! She did it mostly in her normal handwriting, except with a little extra on friends — she added tiny little flowers on the tail end of the F and the top of the D, and replaced the dot on the I with a heart.

"...I think they'll be able to tell our handwriting apart, yes."

Violet giggled, grinning down at her. That was definitely true — close up, it was obvious that Hermione's handwriting was very bad, some of the letters all squished together and messed up, in places not even following the lines very well — but she thought Hermione was partly just saying that because she didn't know how to respond to what Violet wrote. It was kind of cute, was all. "So...wanna c-c-come sit with us?"

"Yes," Hermione said — right away, not even hesitating to figure out what she wanted to say this time. She did still sound a bit...quiet and tense and distracted, like she was nervous and wasn't really sure this was a good idea, but Violet guessed she'd already decided a minute ago.

"All right! Um, you can j-j-jah– leave the b-books out, there are spells that'll put them back."

"...The library is magic?"

"Yeah! Isn't magic awesome?"

It didn't take very long for Hermione to pack up her things — she only had a couple notebooks and a pen out, and they just closed up the books and left them at the edge of the table for the reshelving spells to catch. Or, all but two of the books, which Hermione thought sounded interesting enough to want to keep, despite Violet's whole point about her not being behind and all. She didn't argue about it, though, it was obvious already that Hermione loved reading, Violet didn't see why she shouldn't have a few extra books for fun. Most other kids probably wouldn't think reading was fun but, well, Susan and her neighbours and whoever else didn't think puzzles or embroidery or drawing were fun, so. Did Hermione like puzzles? Violet had space puzzles! They were really cool, she'd show her later.

Hermione's bookbag was very full, but that wasn't really a surprise, it always looked like that...though Violet really didn't think her two new books were going to fit in there. She was carrying that thing all the way up and down from Gryffindor? Anyway, once Hermione had all her things again and was ready to go, Violet lead the way over to the table her friends were at. They noticed she was on her way back, most of them already looking up before they got there — she was pretty sure those were confused looks they were giving Hermione, not sure. Coming up to the table, she said, "Everyone, this is Hermione, she has the same funny b-b-brain thing I do. She's my friend now, so be nice."

Hermione's face went very red — that was also kind of cute, but Violet didn't want to embarrass her more than she already had by pointing it out.

Short one for you this time. The next one is going to be longer again — there's actual plot happening, gasp.