Knowledge Arises

Start of Something Beautiful

Year:  January 1985

"Hi my name is Harry. Can I sit here?" Harry said, hoping she wouldn't say no.

"Yeah, sure, Feel free to sit" Hermione replied with a pounding heart. Nervousness ran through her hoping this boy would be nice enough to not blackmail her into doing her homework because of what he saw. When Harry sat down there was a moment of silence between them "May I ask what's your name is?" Harry asked.

"Hermione, my name is Hermione" Hermione replied with obvious shyness and nervousness.

"Hermione I saw you what you did with the book when it was about fall----" Harry was saying until he was cut-off

"Please, please, please don't tell anyone I'll do anything for you I would do your homework and give you my money. Just please don't tell......."

"Sssssssshhhhhhhhhhhh, be quiet, I promise I won't tell anyone. In fact I want to be friends with you." Harry said, cutting her off.

"Friends? So you wouldn't ....... Why do you want to become friends?" Hermione asked. Now she was confused. Normally kids would blackmail her into doing their homework and taking her allowance. Maybe that's his play, he would let her do her homework and make her pay for his meals.

"Before I answer you. I think it's better to answer your question outside where no one would listen. So come on and follow me." Harry said while standing up and walking towards the door, seeing that she was not following him "Come on" Harry said. Hermione stood up quickly and started to follow the boy. Now she really afraid what if he would beat her up, make her do terrible things. Tears well up in her eyes but she prevented it from rolling down to show him she was not weak and vulnerable. Reaching to a secluded place Harry started to speak.

"To answer your question Hermione, is that because you and I are alike. You're a witch, just like me, well in my case a wizard" Harry said

"A witch? Witches aren't real it's just a product of fiction that are in books. There is no way witches and wizards are real" Hermione replied. Her being a witch would explain a lot of things that happened to her but her logical part of mind refuses to believe so.

"Yes you are, how would you explain being able to summon that book that was falling down in fact..." Harry extended his right arm and a stone started to come to him "See what I mean. If I wasn't a wizard I wouldn't be able to do that. In fact there is a society for a witches and wizards as there are many of us."  Harry said.

"Then why was no one aware of it? I mean if there was really a society between us a lot of people would be aware of it." Hermione replied with skepticism towards Harry.

"Because muggles, that what our kind call people who are not magical, used to exterminate our kind. You see, muggles are afraid of what they can't understand. So our society created the ISS or the international statute of secrecy, to protect our people from muggles." Harry explained to Hermione.

"So there is a society where I belong? A place where nothing is wrong with me?" Hermione asked with hopeful eyes.

"Yes, in fact when we turn 11, we would receive a letter saying that we would have to go to school to control our magic better." Harry answered, but was frowning due to the second question. "Why, are there people who think there is something wrong with you?" Harry asked.

"My parents, they used to love me very much, but when they saw me doing magic, they became afraid of me and act as if I never existed and they don't love me anymore." Hermione answered, sniffing as tears were now slowly rolling down her cheeks.  Unsure of what to do, Harry walk towards near Hermione and hugged her. "It's alright, my parents don't love me too."  Hermione pulled back to look at him.

"Why? Are they afraid of you too? Just like my parents." Hermione asked

"No, it's because my younger brother is famous and I am not. They think that I am not worth their attention." Harry answered

"Why is your younger brother famous?" Hermione asked. Harry then explained how a bad man who was terrorizing their society attacked our house and how his younger brother stopped him saving the magical community from dark times and how, since then, his parents started to neglect him and ignore him. After the explanation, Hermione then hugged Harry. "I'm sorry about your parents" Hermione said.

"It's okay, I never think about it too much and would also ignore it, that I can be free once I'm 17." Harry said returning the hug. "So do you want to become friends?" Harry asked Hermione. Hermione then nodded, "Yeah I like that, and I never had friends so...... you're my first friend." Hermione answered.

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Ever since that day Harry and Hermione became best friends. Since Hermione was a year ahead of Harry they would eat their meals together, go to the library together and read and study. Occasionally, they would go to the arcade, book shops to have some fun and entertainment. Both of them would challenge each other in terms of knowledge as they are equally smart. Harry had told Hermione to hold back in classes and not to raise her hands every time the teacher ask questions, and to avoid the kids that bully her as much as possible, and now that Hermione and Harry were best friends, Harry would be a target of bullying too, but he was used to getting away from the attention, Harry taught Hermione how to do it and Hermione had experienced less bullying than before she met Harry.

The Library had been their safe haven, it would be the place where they can escape the terrible life at their homes and the terrible treatment they got from school because of bullying. The teachers didn't even tried to stop the bullying, they see that either Hermione or Harry were being bullied but the only thing they've done is to tell the bullies to stop and would walk away right after. No punishment, no disciplinary action, nothing. This made Harry and Hermione to be distrustful to teachers or authority figures. They had read some books on history, politics and economics to read something different from they usually do and they learned that people who are in authority, can't be trusted as they are people with their own agendas and not infallible.

Harry would bring cheap books from his family's library and borrowed it to Hermione so she can read some wizarding books and quell her curiosity about the magical world.  Eventually, Hermione would found fascination in alchemy because and Harry would provide her books that talks about alchemy. Alchemy was a subject in the magical world that was just a myth in the normal world, to think it would be true and to think all the possibilities she can do because of magic. Her mind didn't go to the unlimited gold and immortality but rather the chemical combinations that would take a lot of natural resources can be obtained with a significantly fewer resources. Harry already had found a passion on engineering, together they would be invisible, together they would be unstoppable, and together they would be in history books that made the world for the better or for worse.

Ever since that day Hermione life had been brighter than before Harry approached her. They now had someone on their side, someone to watch their backs, someone that wouldn't treat them trash like the rest of world had.