Chapter Text
Part 1: Chapter 1:
“Mum! Dad! Come on, we’ve got to go!”
“Just one moment, dear, dad’s getting your trunk!”
Hermione tapped her foot impatiently at the foot of the stairs, dashing out to the car the second they came downstairs, her dad carrying the heavy trunk.
The ride to King’s Cross was a tense one- Hermione was on the edge of her seat nearly the whole time, running scenarios through her head. What if she couldn’t make friends? What if she was extremely behind on information? What if people laughed at her, like they had in her primary school, for her bushy hair and overly long front teeth? What if she was sorted into Slytherin, the supposed ‘bad house’? What if there had been some horrible mistake, and she couldn’t actually do magic? No, that was silly, she thought, I’ve already done some magic, just to make sure….
“Alright, Hermione. We’re here.”
Her parents, Hermione noticed, looked just as nervous as she felt. This was the first time she was going to be away from them for more than a week, and she would be at a magical school, no less. Hermione had kept her discoveries of several deaths at Hogwarts over the years to herself, knowing her parents would seriously reconsider their decision to let her go if they knew. She knew she wouldn’t want her child going to a strange school with moving staircases, a forest full of dangerous creatures, and a giant squid living in the lake.
She walked in between them on the way to the platform (Platform 9 ¾- accessed by running at a wall, a fitting way to get to this more than questionable school). Looking around, she could see no other families carrying large trunks, and worried for a moment that she was in the wrong place, at the wrong time- but no, she had checked her ticket a hundred times, King’s Cross Station at 11:00, platform 9 ¾.
Still, Hermione had always been one to worry, and was immensely relieved when she spotted a family of 5 walk through the wall in pairs, the last one pushing a trolley in front of her, a regal owl perched on top of the trunk.
Her parents also relaxed at this, at the confirmation that this wasn’t all one big elaborate trick to get them to run at a wall like idiots. Her dad readied the trolley, and they all ran at the wall, arm in arm.
There was a moment when Hermione panicked, not really expecting to be able to go through, but then she passed right through the seemingly solid wall, and emerged on a bustling platform with the sign “Platform 9 ¾” right above her head.
There were still 15 minutes before the train would leave, so her parents took the time to give her a quick hug, telling her to write as often as she could with one of the school’s owls, instructing her to mind her professors, and, finally, a whispered “make some friends” from her mother. Her father helped her get her trunk into a compartment, and she found an empty spot on the train.
She shyly watched as other students filed onto the train, fascinated when she saw all of the strange outfits and catching the odd snippet of conversation about things she’d never even heard of.
Minutes before the train departed, a round faced boy came peeking into her compartment. “Er- d’you mind if I sit here?”
“Oh, no, not at all!” Hermione said, happy to have someone to sit with. “What’s your name?”
“Neville Longbottom. Are you a first year too?”
Hermione nodded. “I’m Hermione Granger.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes, before launching into a discussion about Hogwarts. Neville looked increasingly more panicked when she started talking about how she’d already mastered a few spells- his Gran, apparently, hadn’t allowed him to so much as touch his wand. They talked about Houses, classes, families, and had just gotten around to Quidditch when a kindly woman opened their compartment door and offered them sweets. Hermione, who had a small allowance of Wizarding money, bought a small amount of several things, curious to find out what they were. Neville grabbed a couple of pumpkin pasties and Drooble’s Best Chewing Gum, and they dove into the small pile.
When they were nearly done, Neville groaned in dismay. “I’ve lost Trevor again!”
“Who?”
“My toad! He’s always escaping, he must’ve hopped out when the door opened!”
“Are you sure he’s not in here?”
They spent several minutes searching through the compartment, checking and double checking pockets, trunks, and under the seats, before confirming that Trevor was, indeed, not in there.
“Well, we’ll just have to ask around the train,” Hermione sighed.
“We’ll never be able to get through the whole thing!” Neville groaned.
“We can split up. We’re about in the middle- you go left, I’ll go right. That way we’ll cover more ground.”
Neville looked reluctant to wander about the train on his own, but seemed desperate enough to find Trevor. “Okay. Thanks, Hermione.”
“No problem. Come find me if you find him.”
And so, Hermione started making her way through the train, making sure to check along the floors. Part of her suspected that Trevor had followed the trolley full of food, so she thought she might have more luck than Neville, who was travelling in the opposite direction.
She ran into a couple of first years along the way. One group, made up of very friendly looking people, told her that they would come find her immediately if they were to find the toad. The next, two boys sitting alone in a compartment, were particularly unhelpful, and she was unimpressed until she realized one of them was Harry Potter after she fixed his glasses.
The compartment that made the worst impression, however, was a little after halfway through her search. A very well dressed group of 4 was snacking on an impressive array of sweets, and a pug faced girl laughed in her face when she asked if they’d seen a toad. “If we saw a toad, we’d throw it out of the compartment faster than you can say ‘pathetic’,” said the one boy, who looked like he was trying desperately to look as adult as possible (and was failing horribly).
A black haired girl tutted. She actually tutted at him. They were eleven, for goodness sake! “Theodore, don’t be a prat. Perhaps it isn’t hers.” And she fixed her with a look that made it clear she would be thrown out of the compartment immediately if it was, in fact, her toad.
“Of course it’s not mine, it’s my friend Neville’s-”
“Ha! Neville Longbottom?!” shrieked the pug faced girl. “Oh, that’s rich, that is, that family’s really gone to the dogs now-”
“More like the toads-” remarked a brown haired girl.
“-Augusta’s definitely losing it, if she’s gotten her grandson a toad-”
They continued their bashing of the Longbottoms, and Hermione took this as her cue to leave, as they clearly wouldn’t help her if they had seen a toad. She never thought anyone could be so rude.
After searching the rest of the compartments, she went back to where she had started, hoping Neville had had better luck. However, he was waiting for her at the compartment with empty hands.
“The people on this train were wildly unhelpful,” Hermione sighed, sitting down opposite him. “One group laughed at me the second I mentioned the word toad.”
“I didn’t have a much better time. Especially when I told them it was mine. No one actually laughed at me, though- that must’ve been a rude sort of group.”
“They seemed to find it terribly funny when I told them that it was your toad. I left when they started talking trash about your family.”
Neville’s face turned an interesting shade of red. “What did they say?”
“Well, that your grandmother was losing it and that the family had gone to the dogs- I left after that, so I didn’t hear the rest.”
He looked strangely relieved. “D’you know who they were?”
“No. They seemed like a bunch of- of Slytherins, and they were all dressed in these expensive looking clothes, and they just seemed horrible,” she told him.
“First years?”
“Yes. Four of them. Only one didn’t join in with the others about your family, she looked rather uncomfortable, actually.”
“Well, maybe she’s alright.”
“No. She was just as mean as the rest of them about the toad, maybe she just didn’t like talking about people’s families?”
Neville frowned, and shrugged. “I dunno. We should probably get dressed soon- seems like we’re almost there.”
Hermione glanced out the window, and, sure enough, it was late afternoon already. She left the compartment so Neville could change, and then switched- this was the first time she was wearing her Hogwarts robes (or any robes, really) and they felt strange, but comfortable.
A large man gathered them together at the platform, before bringing them across a lake that had looked quite a bit smaller in the pictures she’d found in books. She was starting to get very nervous- she’d been unable to find anything regarding the sorting, and had no idea what to expect- what if she was unprepared?
The castle was absolutely magnificent, and Hermione allowed herself a moment of complete awe before beginning to panic again. How was she ever going to navigate that?
McGonagall met them at the door, leading them through a giant entrance hall, and telling them to wait in a side chamber. Hermione was starting to get very nervous, and was muttering all of the spells she knew of under her breath.
“That’s not going to help you, you know,” came a snide voice from behind her.
Hermione whirled around to find the black haired girl from earlier. Throughout the train ride and subsequent trip across the lake, her hair had become incredibly unruly. She was smaller up close, and her eyes were a bit too big for her face.
“Well, what is going to help?” Hermione demanded, a bit irritably.
“Nothing. My father told me no one’s allowed to know what they’re going to do before they go in, but that it was ridiculously easy. Didn’t your parents tell you what to expect?”
“My parents didn’t go to Hogwarts, they’re muggles.”
“Oh. No wonder.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?!”
“Well, you clearly have no idea what’s going on. My father says that mudbloods shouldn’t have a place in our school because they’re stealing magic.”
“What’s a mudblood?”
“A muggleborn. Someone like you. I bet you won’t be able to do the simplest magic,” the girl said haughtily.
“I’ll have you know I can already do quite a few spells,” Hermione shot back. “Who are you, anyway, to judge other people by who their parents are?”
“I am of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black, for your information, muddy. And those probably aren’t real spells you’re doing in that little hovel of yours in the muggle world, when we get to classes you’ll probably be dreadfully behind.”
“I’ll be top of the class, just you wait,” Hermione said. “And-” She was cut off by shrieks from the rest of the students. She looked up and saw a dozen ghostly figures drifting in through the wall, and her eyes widened slightly, even though she’d read Hogwarts, A History and knew that there were ghosts at Hogwarts.
She tuned out their conversation about some Peeves person and glanced nervously at the door McGonagall had disappeared through and tapped her foot.
“Why so tense, muddy? Afraid you’re not going to be able to get sorted?”
“I’m not afraid of anything. And my name is Hermione Granger.”
“So?”
“So, call me that.”
“No, I don’t think I will.”
Hermione ground her teeth. “If you hate me so much, why are you talking to me?”
“I don’t hate you. I just think it’s rather pretentious, acting like you know so much about magic.”
“I probably know more than you.”
The girl opened her mouth to reply, but was stopped by the sudden arrival of Professor McGonagall. Hermione swallowed nervously, and then went with the crowd into the Great Hall.
It was rather overwhelming, with the scores of faces looking at them, and the vast ceiling, bewitched to look like the night sky just like she’d read about in Hogwarts, A History. Up at the front of the hall, there was a table where all of the professors sat, and in front of them was a stool with a ratty old hat on top. When they got to this stool, Professor McGonagall turned to face them.
Hermione waited with bated breath, only vaguely registering that the annoying girl was leaning on her to keep her balance as she stood on tiptoes to peer at the hat. Then, the hat opened something that looked quite like a mouth and started to sing:
Oh you may not think I’m pretty
But don’t judge on what you see
I’ll eat myself if you can find
A smarter hat than me
You can keep your bowlers black
Your top hats sleek and tall,
For I’m the Hogwarts Sorting Hat
And I can cap them all
There’s nothing hidden in your head
The Sorting Hat can’t see
So try me on and I will tell you
Where you ought to be
You might belong in Gryffindor,
Where dwell the brave at heart
Their daring, nerve, and chivalry
Set Gryffindors apart
You might belong in Hufflepuff
Where they are just and loyal
Those patient Hufflepuffs are true
And unafraid of toil
Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw
If you’ve a ready mind
Where those of wit and learning
Will always find their kind
Or perhaps in Slytherin
You’ll make your real friends
Those cunning folk use any means
To achieve their ends
So put me on! Don’t be afraid!
And don’t get in a flap!
You’re in safe hands (though I have none)
For I’m a thinking cap!
The first years stood gaping at the hat while the rest of the hall cheered. That’s it?! thought Hermione, we just have to put on a hat? Behind her, Ron Weasley was going on about how Fred had told him they had to fight a troll.
“When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted,” said Professor McGonagall, holding a roll of parchment. “Abbott, Hannah!”
A girl walked up to the stool, sat down, and put the hat on. It slipped over her eyes. She sat there for a moment before the hat called, “HUFFLEPUFF!”
“The weak house,” her least favorite person grumbled. She was still leaning on Hermione, straining to see over the other’s heads.
“Will you get off?” Hermione asked, to no avail.
“Black, Bellatrix.”
Bellatrix? Hermione watched as the nuisance of a girl strutted up to the school, albeit on shaky legs. There were murmurs throughout the hall, and a table with a bunch of mean looking students wearing green robes muttered among themselves smugly.
“Obviously, she’ll be in Slytherin. All Blacks are, after all, except that Sirius, but he got disowned-”
“Quiet, Theodore.”
Hermione should’ve figured Bellatrix would be sorted into Slytherin- she was currently making a show of swooping up the hat and taking a seat on the stool in a rather indifferent manner. Staring out arrogantly at the hall, she plopped the hat onto her head. This sort of ruined her show of superiority, because Bellatrix was so small that the hat covered half of her face.
There were murmurs in the hall when the hat did not immediately call out Slytherin- and the table in question was starting to look uneasy. Bellatrix was frowning, looking like she was arguing with the hat about something (Hermione wouldn’t have been surprised if she was). After a solid 3 minutes, during which the entire hall fell completely silent, the hat called out, “SLYTHERIN!”
Relief was evident on Bellatrix’s face, along with something that looked a lot like shame.
Professor McGonagall got through several more names, until finally she called up, “Granger, Hermione.”
Taking a shaky breath, she walked up and put the hat on her head.
There was a small voice in her ear: “Well, what do we have here? There’s clear potential for Ravenclaw, certainly a very smart girl-”
I suppose I wouldn’t mind Ravenclaw, Hermione thought to herself. But I’d much prefer Gryffindor….
“Gryffindor, eh? I can see that- brave enough, certainly, it would be a good fit as well- it’s not unheard of, you know, a smart Gryffindor- well, if you’re sure-
“GRYFFINDOR!”
Hermione, grinning, took the hat off her head and headed towards the Gryffindor table, which had exploded with cheers.
Some older students shook her hand, and, smiling, and certainly feeling much better than she had a few minutes ago, she turned to watch the rest of the sorting.