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Hermione pulled at the collar of her dress and wished she’d worn different shoes. Reverend Archibald “Just Call Me Archie” Turner sat on a bean bag chair in the front of the room trying to relate to a group of Young People of Christ. “And the devil has a hold on you- right between your legs,” he droned on. She rolled her eyes.
She perched on a stool in the back rather than slumping into a beanbag, and shifted her knees to one side.
Ladylike.
Never letting on that she was the devil’s spawn.
Hogwarts would be starting in less than a week, she reminded herself.
“Archie” was winding up. She opened her mouth and the Apostles’ Creed spilled out.
“I believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth” Typical. Mother Magic was also a creative force.
“...On the third day he rose again” Did that make Christ an Inferius? she wondered. Hmm, maybe a vampire.
“...the forgiveness of sins” Not in her experience. Sins, those infernal, never dying, constant sins must be paid for, bled for. She shifted again, and wished she could just cast a cooling charm.
They caught her in the train corridor before she could return to her compartment with Harry, Ron, and Neville. She tried to shift past them, but Daphne Greengrass stepped sideways into her space. Breast to breast, they stood there staring at one another.
“Excuse me. I want to move past.”
“But we don’t want you to,” drawled Draco, shoving himself forward, leering at her as his eyes traveled over her uniform. “We want to chat.”
“Sorry. I’m busy.” She tried to brush past them.
Crabbe and Goyle blocked her way. The two of them took up the entirety of the corridor in front of her, while Parkinson, Davis, and Astoria Greengrass now stood behind her.
“You don’t belong here, little Muggle.” Daphne ran one manicured nail down the side of Hermione’s face and then snagged up the thin chain around her neck.
Hermione’s breath caught as she was pulled forward by a delicate finger wrapped in a thin strand of metal. “I-I-I’m a w-witch,” she managed to stutter.
“A w-w-w-witch?” laughed Malfoy, slapping her arse and forcing her to stumble into Daphne. “Are you sure?”
Fury burned in her belly as Astoria’s tinkling laughter cascaded over the group. “I’m as magical as you are, Malfoy.” She turned her head to glare at him.
“You know?” he drawled. “I don’t think you are. I don’t think you’re anything.”
“Go back where you belong,” sneered Parkinson. “Back to the other animals.”
They all snickered at the reference. Hermione bit her lip trying to control herself. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of knowing how much it hurt, how much it twisted inside her.
She heard a train compartment slam in the distance.
Malfoy crowded into her from behind, but it was Daphne who snapped the necklace off her neck, the cross pendant falling to the train floor.
“Oops!” she simpered, smirking at Hermione. “Sorry.”
Hermione didn’t know what to do. She wanted the pendant back, but she refused to kneel in front of this crowd, and she couldn’t bend over without her arse pressing back into Malfoy.
Astoria rolled her eyes. “A witch, are you?” she mocked. “Accio.” The charm flew up into a dainty white hand.
Hermione’s cheeks burned.
A breeze blew down the corridor from an open window somewhere, making the debris dance. A chocolate frog wrapper twisted past her feet.
Daphne snorted elegantly. “If you belonged here, you’d know what to do with this,” she said, pulling Hermione’s wand out of her pocket. “But you haven’t a clue, have you, little Muggle?”
Malfoy snickered. “Can’t even manage a summoning charm. May I, Daphne?” He held his hand out for Hermione’s wand. But when she passed it over, he allowed it to fall between his fingers. It clattered to the floor.
“I’m bored here,” he drawled. “Let’s go.”
And as he walked off, he made sure to trod on Hermione’s wand, the snap sounding sharp even over their echoing laughter.
“And I hardly need add that I have never been more disappointed in Hogwarts students.”
Hermione looked at her feet. Professor McGonagall had been yelling for about twenty minutes now. She hadn’t meant to tattle, but with her wand snapped, she’d needed permission to visit Diagon for a new one. One thing led to another, and the Professor had gotten the whole story from her.
“Detention, for all of you,” snapped Professor Snape, looking thunderous.
Hermione’s eyes widened. He didn’t usually punish his own students, but she supposed with Professor McGonagall looking on, he could hardly ignore the bullying.
“Oh, rather more than that, I should think,” added Professor McGonagall. “I believe a loss of significant privilege would be a more appropriate consequence for their despicable actions. None of you will be attending the Yule Ball this year, nor any Hogsmeade weekends, nor any Quidditch matches. The wanton destruction of another student’s wand is unconscionable and will not be tolerated at Hogwarts.”
“You want me to what?” Blaise looked at his girlfriend in confusion.
Tracey smiled. “I want you to ask her to the Ball.”
“But–”
“Blaise, I can’t go, but you can. You weren’t stupid enough to get wrapped up in Malfoy’s idiotic schemes.”
“Malfoy’s a prat. You’re better than him and you know it. Better than all of them.”
“I don’t think people are better or worse, they just get smarter. I’m smarter now, and I can see through Malfoy’s pathetic posturing.” She shrugged. “But I was there. Anyway, you should ask her. She’s not that bad, really.”
Blaise had his doubts about that. “Not that bad?” he echoed.
“She’s really smart, and she helps others. She’s always doing what she can for Longbottom, and she manages to keep Weasley more or less in check. Imagine what he’d be like without her.” She rolled her eyes. “She didn’t deserve what we did to her. You’d treat her well, help her understand better about Yule and the traditions.”
Blaise sighed. “Fine, I’ll do it.”
“You will?”
He nodded. “As long as you remember that I’m yours first and always.”
“You wouldn’t let me forget.” She smiled and leaned up to meet his lips in a kiss.
To My Daughter,
I have prayed–and I still pray–on my knees! I go to God on your behalf that He remove the fires of hell that surround you, and root out the devil within you.
Yet you persist in your evil.
Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it. And I have trained you in Godliness.
But perhaps, it is my evil, my sin, still rooted in you. I should have killed myself when he put it in me. Sin never dies. I can still see him looking at me. That way. And he took me, and he took me again, and with the smell of a cheap roadhouse whiskey on his breath. And I liked it. Damn my dirty sin, I liked it.
And now, you want the same, with this boy, this Blaise–he’ll laugh at you, you know. They’re all going to laugh at you.
You should be celebrating Christmas–not this devil’s day. You should be praying for the cleansing of your soul, not cavorting with men in a heathen celebration.
But you’ll do what you please, without care that your mother is on her knees before God, asking Him to take Satan’s power from you.
It’s gone on long enough. Conceived in sin, you were, and this is the Devil’s work in you.
I pray for you.
Your Mother.
Hermione had burned the letter from her mother. She had burned many letters from her mother, all on the same theme. No one would convince her to stay home from the ball. She was a witch, she would celebrate Yule, and no one, not even Christ himself, would change her mind.
She didn’t know why Blaise had invited her to the Ball, but he’d seemed so nice, so kind–so different from the other pureblood Slytherins around him.
She’d said yes before she could think what Ron or Harry would say.
And it had turned out okay.
Well, Ron wasn’t speaking to her, and Harry looked shocked, but Blaise had shown up outside the Gryffindor common room, given her flowers, escorted her into the room on his arm, and the whole thing was like a fairy tale.
There were ice sculptures and fairy lights throughout the hall. Evergreen branches decorated the walls and table centerpieces, and snowflakes gently fell from the enchanted ceiling, melting into nothingness just before they reached the guests.
She couldn’t stop the smile if she tried.
Blaise seated her first, and then slipped into the chair next to her. He looked so handsome, and even though she knew he didn’t like her–not like that–she felt appreciated. Seen in ways she couldn’t quite explain.
And for maybe the first time in her life, no one was calling her evil or dirty.
They chatted quietly over dinner, sharing their table with some Ravenclaws Hermione knew from Runes. She caught sight of Harry struggling through the meal with Percy Weasley on one side, and a very disgruntled Parvati on the other, and stifled a giggle.
This was nice.
Then, they danced.
Her heart just about beat through her chest, and she felt lighter than air spinning around the room in Blaise’s arms.
And when they were called to the top table as King and Queen of Yule, she felt everything in her freeze in a perfect, glorious moment.
Blaise took her arm.
He looked into her eyes.
They stepped up on the podium together.
He took her hand and spun her.
Everyone was staring at them, seeing them so happy.
Harry began the applause, and then, they were clapping and calling her name.
The crown settled over her hair.
Without warning, she felt something hot and wet fall on her head. Red dripped down into her face and over her dress. Iron filled her nose, iron and rot. She gagged. Her hands lifted up, and she looked at Blaise, who stepped back, horrified.
Someone had magicked a sash around her in a mockery of the one she should have had as Yule Queen: Mudblood, it read.
And that’s when Hermione broke.
She stared out at the tables, all the perfect witches and wizards with their traditions and their snobbery and their pure fucking blood.
The ice sculptures shattered in her anger. Shards sharper than glass flew out and ripped those perfect faces to shreds. She’d show them blood.
Fires started at every table. The evergreen ignited and sparks flew, catching dresses and dress robes. One of the teachers started forward, wand out; with a glance, Hermione snapped the wand and sent the Professor flying across the room.
They were screaming now.
She stepped off the platform.
The house banners behind her lit up.
Around the room, centerpieces exploded.
She stepped through the carnage. Malfoy and his little group of minions had snuck in and were now cowering behind the drinks table. She overturned it on their heads, smashing them to the ground.
Daphne screamed as her spine broke. Crabbe and Goyle were crushed beneath a Yule log, unable to move and not magic enough to levitate it. She blasted Malfoy right through the top table and his crumpled body lay beneath the Hogwarts Shield.
She strode through the growing smoke and chaos with her head held high. She might be the devil’s spawn, conceived in sin, a mudblood, filthy, dirty, dirty, stained and dirty, but she was leaving these hypocrites to fend for themselves.
Drenched in blood, her hair sticking to her scalp, her skin beginning to itch, she walked calmly out of the Great Hall.
She had business with her mother to conduct before the night was out.