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Y/N boarded the train for the first time at the age of eleven and never forgot that experience. The feeling of adventure flooded her body as she stepped away from the platform onto the train. Her heart hammered in her chest as she stood taking in the train for a few seconds. Then the wonder faded and she moved to find an empty compartment. That was how she first met Harry Potter, her closest friend at Hogwarts.
It was by chance that Harry met the Weasleys and managed to find the platform. When he got on board, he tried his best to find an empty compartment, but most were full. He was relieved to find a compartment with just one person inside and politely asked if he could join them. "Sure," the girl said without looking up from her puzzle. It was one of those dexterity puzzles that Muggles had that required you to separate two loops of wire. He found himself transfixed by the speed at which she solved the puzzle before waving her wand to make it more difficult.
Finally, the silence became too much to bear and he cleared his throat. "Hi, I'm Harry. Harry Potter," He said trying to fill the silence.
"I'm Y/N. Y/N L/N," the girl replied as she continued to work on the puzzle. "If there's anything you don't know, feel free to ask me. Your magic tells me you haven't been exposed to our world until recently."
"Thank you," Harry said watching her continue to play with the puzzle.
Their compartment door burst open and a redhead poked his head in. It was one of the Weasley boys. "Mind if I sit with you? Everywhere else is full."
Harry glanced over at Y/N who vaguely bobbed her head. "Have a seat," Harry said, moving over to sit beside the girl.
Ron didn't react with nonchalance the way Y/N did. Instead he was absolutely floored to be meeting, as he put it the Harry Potter. He drilled Harry on all kinds of things until Y/N put away her puzzle. "Bloody hell, you're that girl!" Ron screeched suddenly when he saw her eyes.
Y/N raised an eyebrow at him with a very amused expression. "Didn't recognize me by name?"
Harry would later learn that Y/N was held as a test subject for a potion meant to enhance a witch/wizard's ability to perform magic. The potion was meant to empower You-Know-Who so he could cast more powerful spells. However, the potion had terrible side effects that no one was able to predict.
The potions altered her sight so she saw the world in a monochrome. There was no color in the world to her. Everything looked the same save for one thing. "The only time I see color is when I see magic. I can see what kind of spell was cast and the intent. The world is black and white like a colorless photograph otherwise. I have to wear these spectacles to modify my vision so I can see color."
Her irises were an everchanging cloud-like halo around her pupils. There was something unsettling about how her eyes were a rainbow of colors and shades.
Harry was the boy who lived. She was the girl who saw magic. Perhaps it was fitting that they became friends.
When Y/N met Hermione for the first time, she was transfixed by the magic that surrounded the brunette. "It's an old soul," she breathed as she tilted her head to get a better view of the way the magic moved. Y/N's spectacles were safely stored as a tattoo on her inner wrist.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Hermione asked her, staring at Y/N. She was bursting with questions, but she held back. The girl was clearly grilled often enough that Hermione decided not to ask too many questions in a day.
"Your magic is old. It means you'll be quite good at it," Y/N hums as she took out her spectacles again.
Y/N liked Hermione a good deal. The girl asked interesting questions and made her curse feel like less of a curse. She didn't feel like a weapon when she was around Hermione. Harry wasn't too bad since he could empathize, but Ron just seemed jealous of her and Harry. She could sense it in his magic. The way it always reacted jealously when she was being asked to explain something or praised. Maybe that's why he snapped at Hermione and told her no one liked a know-it-all.
That's how Hermione Granger found herself crying in the bathroom. Of course, the very day she decided to run to the bathroom had to be the same day when a giant troll was loose within the castle. Y/N followed her there out of concern and was comforting her when the troll burst in. Y/N turned and drew out her wand staring straight at the troll. A grimace appeared on her face, she hated combat. "Stay behind me," she said, her face going blank.
Taking a deep breath, she pointed her wand at the troll and began casting.
To Hermione, it sounded like the singing of a siren. Distant, echoing, and alluring to hear. Y/N's spell didn't sound like what they learned in class at all. It sounded older and Hermione couldn't understand a word of what she was casting. Perhaps the girl was casting in the language that preceded the current way witches and wizards cast spells. Hermione couldn't tell. It didn't sound like a language. While Y/N was in the process of casting, Harry and Ron burst into the bathroom having been searching for Hermione. Y/N was standing between Hermione and the troll, with her wand up and singing or something. Harry saw how the troll was lumbering closer to her and tried to grab its attention. As the troll swung around, he valiantly attempted to fight the troll off. He and Ron were practically cornered when the troll suddenly turned around and face the girls again.
Y/N stopped casting and put her wand away, her eyes aglow. Hermione was the first to see it. The troll's nose began to bleed uncontrollably and then the gigantic creature collapsed on itself. That was exactly when Professor McGonagall burst into the bathroom and found them there.
"Is... Is it dead?" Minerva hated how insecure she sounded in that moment, but she didn't understand how a troll of that size could be incapacitated that easily.
"Yes," Y/N replied calmly as she look at her head of house. "Its brain is liquified."
The other three students looked aghast at the troll on the floor. Even the professors looked at a loss of words at the calm reaction that Y/N had. Evidently, it was not the first time she had taken a life.
Hermione knew that killing the troll was the safest option, but she couldn't understand why Y/N didn't look shaken to the core. "Why weren't you scared that it was dead?"
"It's not the first time I've seen something die or killed something. Why do you think I'm considered the greatest weapon in the wizarding world? It's because I lost that part of myself to them. I didn't have a choice. It was the only way I could survive. Kill as instructed. Follow my orders and get the job done," Y/N said as Hermione's blood ran cold. In that moment, the girl sounded less human and more like a weapon.
But she saw the pain in her eyes. Hermione could see that the knowledge that she was a killing machine bothered Y/N. She spent so long acting as a mercenary that trying to be anything but a mercenary seemed foreign. Hermione swore that she'd break that shell and make sure that Y/N could become a normal girl, like herself. She and Harry were children who were weaponized by the wizarding world. They were icons of hope that were "promoted" to a standing above wizards or people. She could see the weight that they bore on their shoulders as the two who could save the fate of wizardkind and humanity in one go. They weren't children to most of the adults, but weapons. Weapons to obliterate evil and solve their problems.
Maybe that was why Hermione felt so protective of Y/N, she told herself. It couldn't be that she fancied the girl, but because she empathized with her. It was lonely sitting on a pedestal.
And yet, as the years passed, Hermione couldn't help but long for more. The brief hugs Y/N would pull Hermione into seemed too short for her. She wanted to hold the girl in her arms. Wanted to be held by Y/N sometimes. She found herself confused by the way her heartstrings tugged in her chest painfully when Y/N was being hit on by Malfoy again. The heir of the Malfoy family clearly knew that Y/N was a powerful witch and was attempting to give his family the advantage. It seemed that with every year, more people tried to get Y/N's attention and Hermione hated it.
Hermione couldn't seem to place that twinge in her heart when Y/N went to the Yule ball with Harry. The way they laughed and spun on the dance floor past her and Viktor. They looked so happy together, so right. She couldn't help but feel her heart ache as Y/N was swept away by one boy after the next. Each one taking the girl for another spin on the dance floor as Harry and Ron sat off to the side.
It was in her fifth year when she realized how she felt for Y/N. That was the year that Umbridge brought the illegal quills to school. The same year that she saw almost nothing of Y/N. The girl was so busy undoing the wounds of the quills that she never spent much time with friends. She was preoccupied with undoing the wounds on the various students and placing illusion charms to keep the words visible to Umbridge. It was only when Y/N came down with a fever from overworking herself that Hermione was able to spend time with her. Her voice was hoarse and scratchy from overuse and she looked tortured as she lay in the Hospital Wing. But even there, she insisted to Madam Pomfrey that she continue to heal students. Hermione hated how powerless she felt as Y/N suffered and she could not help her.
In their sixth year, Hermione took Y/N to the Room of Requirements and quietly confessed her feelings. Her palms were slick with sweat as she looked apprehensively at Y/N, trying to read her expressions. "I'd love to go out with you," Y/N finally said with a small smile.
Those words were enough to cause a flurry of butterflies to explode in her stomach. For the first time, the bushy haired brunette had nothing to say. The words disappeared at her throat as Y/N smiled at her. Leaning in, the girl asked Hermione, "May I kiss you?"
Not trusting her voice, Hermione nodded.
It wasn't like the romance novels said it would be like. There weren't sparks flying and electricity tingling. Instead, she got a better emotion that flooded through her body. It felt like she was home as their bodies pressed against one another. Y/N's hand ran through Hermione's hair as Hermione pulled her in closer. When they pulled apart breathless, it still felt like home. That was what it felt like, belonging.
When they left the Room of Requirements, Y/N's arm was comfortingly placed around Hermione's waist. Hermione leaned into her touch as she snuggled into the taller girl's side. "So, where to this weekend?"
"Three Broomsticks?" Hermione suggested and Y/N nodded with a smile.
"Sure, that sounds good."
As they walked together, Hermione felt invincible, even Malfoy's taunts did not seem to land because she had Y/N by her side. Y/N was hers and she was Y/N's. It was bliss.