Chapter Text
Hermione Granger was used to being called an “unusual” child. While other kids played with building blocks and ran cheerfully after each other, her primary days had been spent with her nose on a book and her hand anxiously reaching the sky every time a teacher asked a question to the class. While usually withdrawn, she could not be defined as quite shy. It only took a small push to light the fire in her eyes whenever she perceived a small injustice around her, eager to correct any wrong, whether it be moral or intellectual, she perceived.
At nights she dreamt of another life, one in which her bushy hair was seen as fierce and her bossy nature was the driving force behind a most wonderful triad of friends. In that life, she was loved and respected by her peers. In that life she was a powerful, magical force. In that life she was just right , she was enough.
But this was not that life. Oh no. While at the tender age of ten she wasn’t exactly bullied, she was… not shunned, but certainly ignored by her peers. She might’ve been tempted to say it was a long process, driven by her overachieving nature and know-it-all personality. Maybe it was only her apparent lack of interest in childlike entertainment that set her on a lonely path, though she actually loved playing with her dolls, enacting scenarios of the future UN Secretary General on the way to achieving final world peace and the end to hunger and discrimination, or of the driven physician, not only loved by her patients, but the driving force in a busy ER while she discovered a cure for cancer that would be spread worldwide at cost, eradicating once and for all the awful disease that was slowly withering her mother away.
No, Hermione knew deep down that the peculiar happenings around her, especially whenever she lost control of her emotions was what left her peers on edge, eventually preferring to avoid them all together, and trying to focus the adults’ attention on her brilliant mind rather than on the floating books or unexplained jumps to reach kittens stuck on the tree that gave shade to her neighbour’s front lawn.
The latest display of “peculiarness” as she liked to call the happenings unabiding of the physical laws she was well aware of, was unsettling to say the least. It occurred the morning before her eleventh birthday. Her Ma started the morning as usual, with a peck on her cheek and the smell of toast and fresh coffee surrounding her. School had started as usual. New books devoured during the summer or even the years before, coloured notebooks, shiny pens, sharpened pencils, and only the company of Tom McTravers during break time, spent scanning whatever new arrivals Miss Honeyman had on the school library’s storage room.
Eileen Granger looked pale. Paler than usual. The lack of breasts after the surgery had left her looking thin, but lately she was gaunt, almost skeletal, still with a sunshine infused smile on her face. After the quick peck she left the room, most likely to check on the breakfast she had going on on the stove.
As she stood up, a loud thump and crack was heard on the Granger household. At an instant the sound of rushing footsteps and her father’s shout to call the hospital alarmed the preteen of the worst. Fast as lightning, Hermione reached the phone and dialed the number on the fridge that she’d memorized all those weeks ago. The succession of events in what she’d later recall as the foggiest day to memory was dizzying. Her mother lay on the floor by the stairs, no blood to be found but at the same time unresponsive to her father’s pleas. A blink and she heard the sound of the ambulance. Another blink and she was at Mrs. Sommers, white knuckles holding a cooling cup of tea. The next blink had her screaming on the floor, tears refusing to leave her eyes as Mrs. Sommers hung the phone and tried telling Hermione that she would have to spend the night on her couch, father could not leave but her Granpa was on his way from Manchester and would take her to Ma as soon as he could. Another blink and she was on the bathroom floor throwing up the little tea she’d drank. As she closed her eyes one last time, she hoped against hope to open them and realise this was all a nightmare. Her mum had just closed her door and was on her way to take the eggs off the stove.
Before she could open her eyes she felt the stinging smell of disinfectant and heard the business of her surroundings. No longer she felt the cold tile under her knees but rough sheets scratching her legs. A sharp gasp was heard to her right, and she opened her eyes to find the hazel behind her father’s thick glasses. Under her, laid her mother, ghost-like, her mutilated chest barely expanding and her cracked lips lacking their usual sunshine.
As tears ran their tracks down her father’s face, understanding and a sense of foreboding trickled down her chest, the feeling of ice spiders down her throat as her logical mind stated three truths:
Firstly, she had somehow travelled to mothers hospital bed, a 20 minute drive by car, without a chaperone, and it was all her. No godly intervention or mystical outside force had moved her. Hermione had willed time and space to arrive at her Ma’s side. Secondly, Mrs. Sommers must be going mad with worry, probably thinking how to explain to Pa and Granpa how tiny Mi just vanished from the loo. And thirdly, she was certain that these were her mother’s last breaths, and that after her soul left her frail body, her life would most likely never go back to little pecks on the cheek, morning toast and the smell of coffee.
Somewhere, a clock struck midnight, and at the same time a small pecking sound startled her father out of his daze. There, at the window, a small brown owl tapped the glass. A letter held at its tiny feet. Slowly, Hermione stood. Somehow, she knew, she just knew this strange envoy held a letter and that it was for her. Keeping her mother under the careful watch of her doting husband, she unlatched the lock and extended a trembling hand. The bird lifted its leg, presenting its missive as if it was the birdly thing to do.
Quickly giving her thanks in the form of a biscuit she must have kept from tea, she stashed the letter for safekeeping on one of her skirt’s pockets, and scampered towards her fading mother.
Grabbing her fathers hand, her focused eyes fell once more on the slowly diminishing breaths that rose and fell at her mother’s chest in an ever decaying pattern. Outside, someone from the staff talked to someone, most likely to her father, probably relaying what both of them already knew. A hand took her mother’s pulse and a nurse tried gaining her attention, but her eyes wouldn’t stray. Not now. Ever so slowly, little Mi reached Eileen’s hand, as if she knew this would be it.
Eileen opened her eyes, and gave one last, sunshine filled smile. “Mi” Her waning voice was filled with that unconditional mother’s love that chased away the tears that arose after another lonely school day “Remember to brush your teeth, they need to be strong, just like you, my little special girl. Rick,” She gave one tight squeeze to her hand “take good care of her, or I’ll come back to beat some sense into you.” Looking pleased with herself, she slowly closed her eyes, and her father called for someone, anyone to check on his wife.
Hermione stood there, her ever burning eyes understanding and her hand ever squeezing her mother's limp grasp.
It must have been near two in the morning, while she waited for her father to sign some papers when she remembered the crumpled letter on her skirt.
Ms. Hermione Granger
Room 214
London Hospital
Whitechapel
London
Carefully, she broke the seal and retrieved two sheets of what appeared to be parchment, she read the first one with a small frown marring her forehead.
Dear Ms. Granger,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry . Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
As you are muggleborn, a teacher will be sent within 3 days to answer any and all doubts regarding your education and the Wizarding World.
Term begins on 1 September 1971.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
She scanned the next page, it contained a list of a variety of school supplies that greatly differed from her notebooks and pencils. Closing her eyes, her already tired mind could only conjure one thought. “Huh. Most peculiar...”