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This was all Weasley’s patronising fault or maybe that bigot Malfoy’s. Either way Hermione had had enough of the patronising pleasure that she could count to ten and tie her own shoelaces by the time she started Juniors. As the only black person in the picturesque Kent village her parents had chosen to raise her - hell the only black person she'd seen outside trips to London, Lenny Henry, and American telly her parents wouldn’t have approved of - at eleven she’d had her fill of small minded racist middle and upper class Brits and was half wishing her parents had left her in the Central African orphanage they’d found her rather than subjecting her to a Kent Grammar.
Her Hogwarts letter had been a relief and rather less of a surprise than Professor McGonagall had expected. She and her parents had been ignoring and trying to find explanations or excuses for the strange things that happened around her for years. One of the major positives of finding out she was a witch was that the Wizarding world didn’t seem to care much about skin colour. So to find out she was part of another minority, alternately hated and condescended to was a kick in the teeth. To experience both sides of that on the train to school had her stewing. All that had been going through her mind when the Sorting Hat dropped on her head was the furious thought that she would prove that she wasn’t some kind of pet chimpanzee, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise that the hat promptly yelled 'Slytherin' without any consultation.
Slytherin was the one House she had dismissed out of hand. It had a strong emphasis on ‘Wizarding tradition’ dating back to its founder and while the Wizarding world cared little for skin colour, there weren’t enough black Wizarding families in the UK that she could pass herself off as half-blood successfully and Flourish and Blotts had been lacking in books about Wizarding Africa. So she would have to admit to being muggle raised which meant she was a target of the ‘traditionalists’ and their purity agenda, whose House she had just been dropped into. Joy.
That her time at Hogwarts wasn’t going to be pleasant was made clear their first night. The password for their common room was 'purity' in September and changed to 'mudblood' in October. The only rules their Head of House, Professor Snape, had were don’t make me notice you and don’t get caught. When the other girls refused to share with a mudblood, the prefect shoved her trunk at her and told her, 'Find somewhere more suitable for your kind', then shot a stinging hex at her face when she didn’t move fast enough.
The unused room she found after a sleepless night exploring the depths of the Slytherin dungeons and dodging curses was small, damp smelling and dusty. The room was far back in the Slytherin dungeons at the end of one of an unused corridor. To Hermione the many unused corridors and rooms hinted that once there were far more students at Hogwarts than the 40-50 students a year of the current population. The door was, like the common room door, a slab of stone that opened with a password originally the unimaginative and oft repeated in Slytherin 'Salazar, greatest of the Hogwarts Four'. It took her two days to work out how to change it to 'Invicta' for her home and herself and it’s lack of obvious Wizarding connection to her. Containing, just a broken desk and chair, so far out of the way, and with nothing worth anything to any other Slytherin she thought the room a good compromise. Not risking the wrath of Professor Snape for being caught outside the common room after curfew and shitty enough that the rest of her Housemates could justify letting the mudblood have it rather than risk their Head’s attention themselves. Not a good enough compromise that she wasn’t going to spend every moment she could out of the dungeons or that she wasn’t going to research how to protect the room and herself from her House.
Not that being out of the House was a protection she quickly learnt. Slytherins, especially lone first years, were the target of hexes and jinxes from the other three houses and being outside the welcoming arms of Slytherin just kept her Housemates’ curses legal. Slytherins were also always considered to be the instigator by every teacher other than Professor Snape - even if it was three seventh years against one first year, and the teachers aren’t inclined to reward a student who already knew too many curses for being well read. So she didn’t earn points for Slytherin by knowing the answers, just lost them for fighting which Professor Snape berated her for in their common room. He made clear that in his eyes it was her muggle heritage that was responsible for her inability to learn. He then turned a blind eye as the House took their frustrations out on her except to remind her not to make him notice her by going to the Hospital Wing. It was her responsibility to work out how to undo what her Housemates have done to her, without missing lessons, being caught out after curfew or fighting in the corridors.
She didn't try to help Ron with the levitation charm. She was still the first in the class to successfully cast it but Professor Flitwick prefers to wait for a student he hasn’t taken points from three times this week for fighting and who doesn’t permanently have her nose on a book of offensive spells to congratulate. Instead she glared at the current littlest Wesley when his whirling arms put his wand too close to her face and buried herself back in Scrivener’s Curses, Hexes, and Jinxes for the Discerning Wizard. She really wanted to be able to pick up her Transfiguration textbook that evening rather than doing her homework with a library copy again under Madame Prince’s disapproving frown.
She did successfully cast the spell and Ron was still sore about a mudblood doing better than him and a Slytherin to boot but 'Slimy Snake!' hissed at her back without a curse or hex to follow up was a positively friendly interaction for Hermione so she didn’t end up crying in a bathroom. She did skip the feast though, the peace of the unused classroom she found and an apple she grabbed at breakfast far more appealing than sitting at one end of Slytherin table and watching the rest of her House eat but not eating herself because they won’t let the filth touch anything but scraps and she will not lower herself to eating their scraps.
So she still didn’t know about the troll but no one went to find her. Instead she tripped it over a banister - she was very familiar with the tripping jinx already - and dropped its own club on its head with the levitation charm when it didn’t stay down. Making sure your enemies stay down was the first lesson Slytherin taught her. The second was curse faster than your opponent, never be caught without your wand in hand and something disabling on your lips. A troll’s hide is tough but even they don’t survive a three story drop followed by a club to the head from four stories.
Not that there are points. Professor McGonagall paled to learn that a first year was capable of killing a fully grown mountain troll and Professor Snape was forced to notice her again. She lost twenty points from Slytherin for not being at the feast - McGonagall - and got detention for a week with Filch - Snape - plus another lecture, and following curse the mudblood session, in the common room.
Detention with Filch is the best thing that happens all term. Filch threatens violence and medieval torture devices to everyone but the worst he ever does is drag her around by her ear and Hermione had endured far worse at her Housemates’ wands. In detention she cleaned and discovered places students rarely go and where the kitchens are. House elves are something she had to look up when she has time but right now it means eating more than a piece of easily transportable fruit for lunch and dinner.
She was holed up in one of her secret places during the first Quidditch match enjoying the quiet of the mostly empty castle but not willing to risk a more trafficked area. The only people who can find her outside classes now are the Weasley twins, vicious bastards that they are. So she missed Quirrel jinxing Potter and Snape trying to save him. No one distracted Quirrel, instead Potter plummeted to the ground breaking his back and skull. Higgs catches the snitch. Slytherin celebrated loudly and publicly, both their win and Potter’s injury.
Rumour, so persistent even an outcast like Hermione knows, had it Potter would survive but he wouldn’t play Quidditch again this year if ever. Her Housemates’ glee made her more of a target and she was back to losing points for fighting and catching Professor Snape’s attention. 'Idiot girl', 'know-it-all' he hissed when he had to acknowledge her in public. 'Muggleborn' that sounds more like mudblood and 'simpleton' in the common room before he let his House punish her for existing.
She continued hiding, studying and waiting for Christmas. Resorting isn’t a thing, you belong where the hat places you. If the school hates your house and your house hates you for your upbringing, well maybe you deserve to be hated, says British Wizardry. After all you always have your head in a book of hexes or curses and you’re always starting fights. Change yourself, or don’t because we’ll always know you’re a slimy snake who can’t be trusted. She could hope to change schools but Durmstrang doesn’t take muggleborns and she didn’t expect that Beauxbatons would be any more welcoming to a Slytherin muggleborn. That and she suspected there were compulsion charms involved in her parents acceptance of their magical daughter and her education. Compulsion charms that mean their response to letters saying everyone hates me and my Head of House lets them physically hurt me is to tell her to try harder to make friends and brush off a mountain troll broke in to my school and nearly killed me.
Christmas holidays came on far too slowly. A dragging slog through getting up an hour before curfew ends, washing in an unused bathroom and leaving the common room to survive the less lethal curses of the rest of the school until just before curfew when she returned to her House. They then rush by far too fast. A boring magic free blur of church, social visits and family, none of whom may know where she goes to school or what she learns at school. Her parents allowed her to buy three magical books, on the history and traditions of magic in Africa and specifically Central Africa, and for the first time to see and hold copies of their records, everything that they know about her life before they adopted her aged two.
It was with mixed relief and anxiety she boarded the train back to Hogwarts, her precious records safely stored at home. It felt like she was missing a limb to lock her wand away in her trunk and use no magic but it had been nice not to have dodge spells every waking moment and sleep in a heavily spelled room. She packed a sleeping pad and sleeping bag, this time. While the elves could provide her a bed and now clean the rooms in the Slytherin dungeons she uses, she was very aware it was only the lack of value that keeps her room hers. She can’t out cast a seventh year but people would notice if a Slytherin slept in empty classrooms always and that would draw Professor Snape’s attention to the people who prevent her from remaining in the room as much as it would on her. He may not like her, he may hate her for her upbringing but he doesn’t want to have to deal with her.
Back to dear old Hogwarts and the lovely tradition of Gryffindors ganging up on a single Slytherin and cursing them. She managed almost a week before anyone properly noticed her, she doesn’t count friendly cursing of any old Snake as noticing her.
January marked Potter’s return to classes for the first time since he fell, she vaguely noticed. He walked slowly and was clumsy in a way he hadn’t been before. The Gryffindors surrounded him, a protective ring separating him from the rest of the school, until their first Potion’s class of the term. Snape rearranged the class seats to account for Potter’s absence, moving her partner to work with the newly single Wesley and leaving her alone in a back corner that he never went near. Weasley was ready to work with Potter again but Snape orders him to the back.
'Granger, assist Potter.' Snape hissed paying attention to her in class for the first time in months.
Potter was obviously uncomfortable in close proximity to a Slytherin. She was not happy to have her brewing time interrupted. Under Snape’s lax supervision she’d long since stopped following the curriculum and started brewing what appealed to her or she needed. Still she wordlessly prepared Potter his ingredients as the instructions called for quickly, then ignored him. At the end of the lesson Potter had failed to brew the required potion. He fumbled the crushed snails adding them too fast and didn’t stir in a clean figure of eight pattern but Snape didn’t come to their corner so she counted the lesson as a success until Potter dropped his bag trying to pick it.
Immediately Snape was at their corner, vanishing the remains of her mild abrasion lotion and glowering at them both, 'Detention with Filch, Granger.' he ordered. 'What did I tell you to do?'. She assumed it was a rhetorical question because he bit the next sentence out with barely a pause. 'Assist Potter, you imbecilic child. Help him pack his bag and carry it to the next class for him.' he turned and swept away.
Potter looked mortified but if all Snape wanted of her was to act as Potter’s servant then it was a step up from what he normally wanted, so she packed his bag noticing his notes were unreadable and carried it up to Gryffindor tower, taking a circular route. Along the way something made her stop and make him copies of her notes. She bled for her impulse but she had bottled as much lotion as she could use before it spoiled before Snape vanished it and Potter smiled at her when he saw her on Monday.
For the Spring term every time Snape saw her and Potter in the same room and she wasn’t toadying for him, he would hiss in his strangely carrying whisper, 'Asist Potter, imbecile!’. The insult to her intelligence varied with repetition but the insistence didn’t.
The Gryffindors objected and the other teachers looked at her suspiciously, but after a month of Hermione carrying his bag and giving him a copy of her carefully written notes every lesson the Gryffindor and Slytherin first years shared and walking him to class then running off to her own when they didn’t the teachers got used to it and assumed his ready mudblood servant would adapt for his injuries as they didn’t. The Gryffindor first years got bored of hexing and jinxing her with the few offensive spells they knew but the older Lions didn’t. Vicious the Weasley twins might be they didn’t compare to the Carrow twins once the dungeon door closed.
It was strangely nice. The other Houses didn’t hex Potter or seem to want to harm his stuff so while she was serving him she didn’t get hexed in the corridors and after a month of serving him she didn’t lose points when other Slytherins hexed him and by default her. She had to run around twice as much as other students getting to her classes on time, do twice the work in potions and herbology, and provide notes for him but this term was better than last. She was disappointed to see his slow improvement.
‘Granger,’ Potter said very quietly on the last day of the spring term, 'I can say I still need your help next semester.'
'You think Weasley could withstand that.’ she asked
'It wouldn’t be a lie.' Potter got quieter with each word. 'I couldn’t carry my bag all day and potions...' he trailed off. She nodded, barely and they separated, her for the train, him back to the castle.
Easter holidays were the same strange mix as Christmas. She was used to watching her back for curses and having her wand ready at a moment. To put her wand a way in her trunk and not use magic for a month felt like an amputation. Especially now she was studying for exams which aren’t marked blind and every Slytherin knew you need to be twice as good as a Gryffindor for the same mark. This time it was with more relief than anxiety she stepped on the train back to Hogwarts.
The normal routine of helping Potter prepare ingredients, carrying his bag and taking notes returned as soon as she got back to Hogwarts. He might not notice his slow improvement but having left for a month she could see he was better, steadier on his feet and quicker to walk. She could feel her freedom in the halls slipping away from her but Potter had some Slytherin tendencies and he kept falling over his feet in front of teachers just enough that she was carrying his bag right up to the last day of term. His fine motor control of his hands didn’t improve as fast. He was still fumbling his cutlery over on the Gryffindor table as badly in June as had been when she got back for the Summer term and she could see his frustration. He was not pretending not to be able to make the fine motions required for Charms. She’s got another year of taking his notes and preparing his ingredients at least.
'Do you know Nicolas Flamel?’ Potter asked out of nowhere. She’s skipping her free lesson to trim his plants in Herbology.
'The Alchemist?'
'I guess.' Potter shruged. 'Something’s hidden in the castle. Something to do with this,' he gestured to himself and nearly knocked the watering can off the table, 'and Nicolas Flamel.'
'He taught Headmaster Dumbledore.’ she said slowly. She might not have much respect for the man or his lauded Lions but she keeps that inside her head. She turned the question over drawing together one sentence asides over multiple texts read for other reasons. ‘He created the Philosopher's Stone.' she finally answered. Potter looked blank, ‘It turns lead into gold and produces the Elixir of Life. Worth trying to kill the Boy-Who-Lived over.'
'The person who did this.' Potter didn’t bother gesturing again. 'I think they’re the person killing unicorns,' he trailed off and then, 'the person who gave Hagrid the dragon’s egg’. She hid her surprise behind trimming his plant. Malfoy wasn’t lying about that, she thought. Potter didn’t seem to need a response. 'Ron thinks it’s Snape.' he shrugs.
She lets him come to his own conclusions but Snape seemed unlikely to her unless his defeated but not destroyed Dark Lord wants the stone. To be honest she thought if Snape wanted a Philosopher’s Stone, he’d work out how to make one himself. The odd conversation ended there and wasn’t raised again.
Hermione studied, mostly how to survive Slytherin House and African traditions but incidentally for her exams, she assisted Potter per Snape’s hissed instructions, let Malfoy’s laughter that the ‘mudblood has found a master’ roll off her back, and cursed Urquhart so badly Farley can’t fix it and he spends two nights in the Hospital Wing. Urquhart gets the lecture this time.
She carried Potter’s bag out to the large tree he wanted to lounge under after their last exam and is about to leave when he grabbed her hand, 'He knows how to get the Stone.'
'Snape.' Weasley injected but they both ignored him.
'We’re going to stand.' Potter said like the little hero he is.
'You’ll die. You’re a first year.' she spat, 'You’re a Lion. Tell someone, they’ll believe you.'
Potter looked at her, his too slim and small body calling her on the lie. 'Tonight. The out of bounds corridor. Will you come?' she shrugged and left but she thought he knew that meant yes. Behind her she could hear Weasley spluttering about telling the slimy snake.
Potter didn’t seem surprised to see her half hidden in an alcove but Weasley did. Fluffy was asleep already. Some part of her mind took the time to scream about keeping a Cerberus in a school but that is reflex she already knew this school doesn’t care about the safety of a quarter of its students, finding out it doesn’t care about the other three quarters wasn’t that big of a surprise.
The Devil’s Snare they landed in burnt at her touch.'Sprout' Potter mutters beside her.
Fire comes easily to her. A simple ignition spell was the only one she could cast wandless and her first instinct when something unseen grabbed her. Devil’s Snare doesn’t like and is very vulnerable to fire. The ignition spell on its own would have done the job but when combined with the nice fire hex she’d been studying it disappeared in seconds. Weasley looked scared. Potter didn’t
The next room was filled with flying keys. 'Flitwick.' Potter said as he spotted the key. Weasley caught it. 'Don’t have the grip.' Potter told him when he suggested Potter fly. The door opens to a chessboard. 'McGonagall.'
'Granger?' Weasley asked.
'I don’t play.' she replied.
'Me then.' Wesley took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and played them across then sacrifices himself in the penultimate move. He was so pale she could count his freckles from across the board the entire time and she was reminded of how young they were.The cushioning charm she cast might have been against the rules but she’d seen enough blood, mostly her own, this year. Weasley sounded hurt not dead as he was dragged from his horse.
The door on the other side opened to a foul smelling room with another mountain troll. This time, already dead. Potter didn’t have a teacher to attribute.
'Quirrel.' she said stepping around the troll while part of her gibbers in remembered fear. ‘He wrote the most recent book on trolls in the library.’
Fire springs up on both doors as the entered the next room. There is a collection of potion bottles on the shelves. 'Snape.' they said simultaneously.
Snape’s test is a logic puzzle that she solved easily with only enough of each potion for one person to go forward and one back. Hermione was not a Gryffindor and easily conceded to Potter’s desire to go forward and for her to go rescue Weasley. She carried healing potions and knew how to use them, he didn’t.
She sent him through the fire, with a hand shake not a hug and no inspiring speech, and rescued Weasley who was looking sick. His shoulder and hip wrenched so he couldn’t stand unassisted and nasty grazes down most of one side but no head injury despite the white queen smashing him over the head. With Weasley leaning on her left shoulder, they made their way out of the gauntlet. At the entrance they met the Headmaster, idling outside not rushing to rescue in the way he implies he was, she let Weasley do the talking. Dumbledore sent her back to her common room before rescuing Potter. Keeping her promise to Potter, she made sure Weasley made it safely to the Infirmary first with a list of what she’d done to him and samples for the Matron she’d never met before descending to the Snake Pit.
Potter was confined to the Infirmary and she to detentions with Filch outside classes for the last week of term. Apparently preventing Potter from getting injured by being the boy hero this world wants him to be was implicit in 'Assist Potter’. More than two words were needed for the extent of the responsibilities Snape was giving her. Weasley didn’t talk to her so she was reliant on the rumour mill to find out if Potter succeeded as well as nearly dying.
The End of Year feast was celebrated in green and silver at least to start. She was there, dragged by her ear by Farley - sitting at the end eating a meal exactly as she likes it thanks to the house elves to her House’s displeasure - when Dumbledore announced last minute points. Weasley, Potter, and inexplicably Longbottom received points for their part in preventing Quirrel from taking the Stone. She didn’t get any but that wouldn’t fit with Dumbledore’s goal of giving his Lion’s the cup. Watching her Housemates anger and disappointment was its own reward. Potter seemed indignant at the omission but his protests are ignored by the surrounding Gryffindors and only someone looking at him in particular would notice from the other tables.
She met Potter at the Gryffindor entrance and carried his bag and trunk down to his train carriage with her own. 'Looking forward to summer?' he asked as she turns to leave.
She shrugged, 'Muggle raised. Not casting magic or even being around it is odd.'
'Oh.' Potter looked glum. 'I have to go back to my Aunt and Uncle. They’re muggle.'
She winced in sympathy, they shook hands and she left him with a carriage of Weasleys to protect him on his way home, dodging a friendly jinx from the Weasley twins. It wouldn’t have even hurt.