CHAPTER SIX:
It was with a great deal of excitement that the Gryffindor first years– plus Hermione and Millicent– poured over their new timetables, handed out by their Heads of Houses before the professsors had left them to finish their breakfasts in peace. Reading out names of classes such as 'Astronomy' and 'Introduction to Charms' and 'History of Magic', Hermione couldn't help but feel a great thrill of excitement, one that was reflected by those around her.
"We've got Defence Against the Dark Arts, Potions and Astronomy together," she said to Neville excitedly. "Ooh! And we've got Double Transfiguration first today!" she added, beaming at Millicent at the thought of three whole hours of Transfiguration! "I can't wait!"
"Gran says Transfiguration is one of the most important branches of magic for a wizard to learn," Neville said nervously.
"I've heard it's really difficult, and that Professor McGonagall is really strict," Millicent added, also looking much less enthusiastic then Hermione felt.
"But the more challenging the subject, the more interesting it is," Hermione argued, earning her twin looks of disbelief from her new friends and some of the other students around her who overheard, and an approving nod from a tall, lanky, red-haired and freckled boy with a prefect's badge pinned to the front of his robes.
Hermione and Millicent ended up saying their goodbyes to Neville and Dean and set off for their first class with a generous fifteen minutes to spare in order to find the Transfiguration classroom. The Gryffindor prefect, who'd introduced himself as Percy Weasley with a slightly surprised look when she'd asked him, had given them directions and Hermione had a fairly good idea of which area of the castle it was he'd been talking about. Despite this, she quickly realised that locating her classrooms wasn't going to be as easy as she'd hoped– sometime in the last thousand years, someone had had the bright idea to charm the castle staircases to move. It was extremely disconcerting to suddenly find yourself on the wrong side of the castle and on the wrong floor with just five minutes left to get to class on time. Thankfully, she and Millicent weren't the only ones to arrive slightly flushed and out of breath, just seconds before the clock tower started chiming.
They quickly found a desk together at the front of the class, and Hermione bit back a viciously pleased grin when she noticed Pansy, Tracey and Daphne were conspicuously absent– and, unlike a handful of Hufflepuffs who burst into the classroom after class had already begun, red and out of breath from their mad sprint to try and make it on time, none of the three Slytherins turned up. Professor McGonagall gave the students a generous five minutes to find the classroom, her lips pressed into a thin, unimpressed line, before starting her class.
"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," she began sweeping a stern look over the very silent class. "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned."
She then changed her desk into a pig and back again and everyone, even the students who'd been around magic all their lives, all seemed very impressed by this. Hermione thought she may have to lower her standards, somewhat– after witnessing her god reshape reality with a snap of his figners for so many years, it was difficult to appreciate the smaller acts, no matter how extraordinary they surely were.
The class was rather let down when they quickly realised they weren't going to be changing the furniture into animals for quite some time, but Hermione was very interested in the lecture Professor McGonagall gave them. She was intrigued to learn that Transfiguration leaned heavily on the early theories of the Ancient Greek philosophers Leucippus of Miletus and his pupil, Democritus, who in 440 BC were the first to come up with the concept of "atomos"– the atom.
Transfiguration focused on the alteration of the form or appearance of an object, via the alteration of the object's molecular structure, and it utilised early atomic theory in its explanations for how to do so, and performing a successful transfiguration required an understanding of the basic atomic structure of an object– which was certainly more complicated than simply waving a wand and saying a few words in Latin, as most of the students seemed to have been expecting!
Leucippus and Democritus's atomic theory of the universe and understanding of atomic structure was startlingly close to the atomic theory Hermione had learned back in her muggle Physics and Chemistry classes, which certainly gave her an advantage in understanding Professor McGonagall's lecture, as well as the notes and diagrams that a floating piece of chalk was writing on the chalkboard for them to copy down. Up until now, the magic she'd performed had relied mostly on a keen understanding of her magical core, and even her time in the past with Morgana, Merlin and the Founders hadn't delved so deeply into the actual theories behind how magic worked. She found that the near-scientific basis from which Transfiguration was based an interesting change compared to her previous magical studies, and she really understood now what Loki had been referring to, when he said he'd be teaching her 'trickster-style' magic, as opposed to the magic she'd be taught at Hogwarts.
It wasn't until the final half hour of the three-hour class that they were given a chance to apply the theory they'd just studied by turning a matchstick handed out to them into a needle. Despite the very different approach to magic, Hermione found she was still easily able to apply the newly-learned theory to succesfully transfigure her matchstick– the only one in the class to manage to do so, though Justin had managed to make his match go silver and pointy. Hermione couldn't help feeling smug that it was the two muggleborns in the class who had managed to grasp the complicated concepts and apply them, and Professor McGonagall's resulting smile and award of five points to Slytherin had her nearly glowing with pride.
The first years then had a short break before lunch, which Hermione took advantage of to drag Millicent with her to the library. Professor McGonagall had explained that while in the muggle world only fragments were known of Leucippus and Democritus's vast bodies of work, the wizarding world had many preserved copies of the ancient philosophers' writings that were free to them to access, and Hermione was keen to get her hands on them.
The library at Hogwarts was even more magnificent then Hermione remembered. Back in the days of the Founders, it had boasted an impressive collection of books, but in the time since that collection had grown tenfold, with the library itself having been expanded in size to fit them all, with the tens of thousands of books stacked on the thousands of shelves arranged in hundreds of narrow rows.
As they entered the doors to the library the librarian, a very thin and irritable-looking dark-haired witch with a long, hooked nose, sunken cheeks and skin like parchment, immediately swooped over to them in a swirl of black robes and undisguised suspicion.
"Can I help you?" she asked tightly, and Hermione nodded eagerly.
"Professor McGonagall told us that the library has copies of the works of Leucippus and Democritus that we could borrow," she explained, and the librarian's eyes narrowed further, but she gave a short nod.
"Very well, follow me," she instructed, turning sharply on her heel and striding towards the shelves. Eagerly inhaling the scent of old books that lingered in the air, Hermione trotted after her, Millicent at her heels, as the witch led them through the stacks. Hermione was quick to notice that the library still wasn't organised via the Dewey Decimal System, which had her pre-emptively wincing in anticipation of future frustration. Still, she predicted that she'd be spending enough time in the library that it shouldn't take too long to pick up on its style of organisation.
The librarian stopped before one of the shelves, and Hermione's eyes widened in appreciation as she eagerly took in the names of various ancient Greek philosophers, including Leucippus and Democritus. She wondered how many of these were considered 'lost' works in the muggle world, and felt as if she could just burst with excitement.
"You'll find the texts you're looking for here," the librarian said shortly, "but I warn you now– if you rip, tear, shred, bend, fold, deface, disfigure, smear, smudge, throw, drop, or in any other manner damage, mistreat, or show lack of respect towards any book in this library, the consequences will be as awful as it is within my power to make them."
"I would never!" Hermione said, horrified at the very thought of such disrespect. The older witch gave her a narrow-eyed, assessing look before nodding shortly.
"When you have selected the books you wish to borrow, you may check them out at the counter," she said, before leaving in another swirl of dark robes.
"Oh Merlin, she's terrifying!" Millicent breathed, looking after her with wide eyes. "My sister warned me that Madam Pince is like a dragon guarding her hoard when it comes to her books, but wow!"
"Oh, you have siblings?" Hermione asked, interested, while neatly filing away the librarian's name for future reference.
"Yeah, um, half-siblings– my father's family," Millicent explained, shifting a bit awkwardly. "I don't see them much, and my half-siblings are all older than me– they've already graduated. My father, he, uh... he doesn't really like to acknowledge that my mum and I exist unless he has to."
Hermione winced. "My parents are a bit like that too," she admitted, "they... weren't happy to learn about me being a witch."
"I think me being a witch is the only thing my father is happy with," Millicent muttered, and seeing the awkward unhappiness on her new friend's face, Hermione wanted to both hug Millicent and deliver a hefty dose of just desserts on Millicent's father. She settled for squeezing Millicent's hand instead, and her friend's cheeks went pink, even as Millicent hesitantly squeezed her hand back.
Madam Pince was waiting for them at the counter after Hermione had finally narrowed her choice down to one each of Leucippus and Democritus's works, and Hermione waited patiently as the librarian inked out the details of the checked-out texts in a massive tome, before carefully storing both texts in her bookbag and heading off with Millicent to lunch.
Arriving in the Great Hall, she was disappointed to see that Pansy, Tracey and Daphne were also present, apparently having either gotten free or being set free from their beds, and she made sure to smile sweetly at the three girls as they all shot her venomous, withering looks.
"What did you do to them?" Millicent hissed in her ear as they sat down at the Slytherin table.
"Taught them why it's not a good idea to attack me in the middle of the night," Hermione answered, with a sweet smile. "Pass the jam?"
"You're mad," Millicent sounded almost wondering as she handed down the pot of strawberry jam, which Hermione slathered liberally over two thick slices of fresh bread, still slightly warm from the oven.
"I was quite annoyed with them, yes," Hermione purposefully misunderstood. Millicent just shook her head, in a sort of horrified amazement.
After lunch, she and Millicent accompanied the rest of the Slytherin first years to their next class of the day– Herbology with the Ravenclaws. Hermione had never been a fan of gardening, but Professor Sprout was a warm, friendly woman and her explanation of the overlap between Herbology and Potions, a class Hermione very much was looking forward to, and of how beneficial it was to a witch or wizard to be able to identify, care for and know when to harvest different herbs and fungi to achieve their optimal effect was certainly motivating.
Plus, she had to admit that the tour Professor Sprout gave them of the greenhouses was surprisingly fun, especially dodging the creeping vines of one of the plants in Greenhouse Four which kept trying to tangle around their ankles, ducking the fruits thrown at them by what looked like an apple tree, if only apples were purple and smelled like sulphur when they split open, and watching Pansy shriek when a pretty, sweet-smelling flower she'd bent down to sniff had tried biting off her nose.
Their final class of the day was History of Magic (with the Hufflepuffs again) which Hermione was quite astonished to learn was taught by a ghost! According to Millicent's whispered explanation, Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staff room fire and got up next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him.
Hermione wasn't sure of the wisdom of a ghost teaching a class that required them to learn so many names and dates, considering Professor Binns had a very limited capability of interacting with solid objects that apparently didn't include being able to write lecture notes on the board. Students had to pay close attention to the ghost's lecturing to jot down their class notes, something which wasn't made easy by the professor's droning voice. Still, Hermione came out of her last class of the day with the firmly cemented opinion that Hogwarts was mad but utterly brilliant. All the best things in life were, really, but Hogwarts truly was something else.
Her cheerful mood lasted right up until she stepped into the Slytherin common room and had to immediately duck a sickly-orange curse aimed at her head, and it was only her hasty reflex of shoving Millicent aside that saved her new friend from being hit by the rebounding spell.
It struck her quite abruptly that the lack of harassment she'd experienced from her fellow Slytherins that day could very well be her Housemates having taken Professor Snape's warning after the Welcome Feast to heart in the worst possible way. House problems were to remain within the confines of the Slytherin House common room– but unfortunately for her, it seemed her very existence apparently qualified as a "House problem".
Easily tracking the curse to its caster, a sneering sixth year surrounded by a group of other students, Hermione could feel the eyes of the entire common room on her, waiting to see how she'd react. Hermione was honestly tempted to retaliate, but through sheer willpower alone she bit back the urge; she'd outsmarted a god by outthinking him, not acting out on impulse. So instead of starting a fight where she was badly outnumbered, she settled with memorising the older student's face– she wasn't ignorant to the fact she was going to prove herself to her new House and she certainly wasn't without her own vindictive streak, which the sixth-year was going to have to learn the hard way.
Ignoring the snickering, Hermione cut her way across the common room, her head held high, heading for the girl's dormitories. Millicent hurried after her, a worried frown on her face. "Um, thanks," her new friend said quietly, once they'd left the common room, and Hermione smiled at her, only slightly strained.
"Don't worry about it– you were only in danger of being hit because you were next to me, anyway," she said, and Millicent's worried frown deepened.
"I don't think that's the last time something like that will happen," she said nervously, and Hermione sighed.
"No," she agreed, grimly, "no, I don't think so either."
::
Hermione and Millicent were right, not that Hermione had doubted it. The very next morning, despite rising nearly with the sun, she found herself once again ducking a curse the moment she set foot within the Slytherin common room.
This time, it was a lone fourth year who'd sent the spell at her, more the fool to him– he'd have been better to attack with safety in numbers, instead of assuming that his more advanced age came with more advanced skills. Hermione watched in satisfaction as an enraged Vashti shrieked her fury, the disguised phoenix launching herself from where she'd been perched on Hermione's shoulder to dive, talons outstretched, at the boy, raking bloody lines down his face. The boy cried out, trying to get his wand up to curse Vashti, only for her clever phoenix to rip the wand out of his hand and swoop back over to her, dropping the wand into Hermione's outstretched hand.
'Thank you, sister-of-my-soul, that was just perfect!' she praised, and Vashti preened.
The boy's face had twisted in rage and he started storming over to her, apparently prepared to use force to reclaim his wand– another mistake on his part, assuming that she knew no magic yet, or any self-defence for that matter. Hermione didn't even bother to pull out her wand as she waved her hand in his direction, and the resulting burst of magic knocked the boy arse over teakettle, leaving him sprawled out on the common room floor, stunned and groaning.
Hermione swiftly exited the Slytherin common room before the fourth-year even managed to get back on his feet, ducking off along one of the side passages she remembered from her time exploring with Sylvianne and Helena. Considering the early hour, she knew better then to head straight to the Great Hall which at this time was likely lacking any professors, not when she knew that was the first place that boy would surely look for her.
Spending some time wandering around the dungeons wasn't exactly a chore, anyway; in fact, it was almost painfully nostalgic. She'd spent such wonderful afternoons exploring these same passages with Sylvianne and Helena; why, it was in these very dungeons that they had come face-to-face with the boggart, a terrifying encounter that had formed a close bond between the three of them, one that she mourned losing to this very day. Besides, there was something down in the dungeons that she wanted to check.
It didn't take her long to find what she'd been looking for. A thousand years ago, three young girls had nicked knives charmed against blunting from the kitchen and carved their initials into a stone wall. Now, a thousand years later, those initials remained etched into the stone; H & SS & HR. Hermione crouched down so she could reverently trace her fingertips over the aged markings. Here was proof, unmistakable and undeniable physical evidence, that her god really had taken her one thousand years in the past, that she truly had met the Founders and their children, that she had befriended Helena and Sylvianne, and that it was not the first time she'd walked this castle's halls.
Sensing the swell of emotions rising inside her, Vashti crooned soothingly from the phoenix's position perched on Hermione's shoulder, projecting waves of warmth and comfort through their bond. Hermione smiled slightly and reached up to stroke Vashti's silky-soft feathers. 'I'm okay, heart-sister,' she promised, and Vashti rubbed her feathery cheek and against Hermione's, not seeming convinced. 'I'm okay,' she repeated fondly, before standing up back up. 'Come on, darling-mine, it's about time to head up to the Great Hall for breakfast, I think. The professors should have started arriving by now.'
'Breakfast?' Vashti perked up. 'Will they have berries?'
'If they don't, we'll go to the kitchens and get you some before my classes start,' Hermione promised, and Vashti trilled in excitement, fluffing out her wings.
Hermione took the long route to breakfast, careful not to pass anywhere close to the Slytherin dungeons, where that boy or his friends could be waiting for her. She entered the Great Hall with a skip to her step, and she couldn't help her smirk when she noticed the boy who'd attacked her was sitting at the Slytherin table, bloody welts down his face and all.
He spotted her immediately too and quickly rose to his feet, but Hermione didn't head for the Slytherin table. Instead, she made her way directly to where her Head of House was eating his breakfast up on the staff table, reading a newspaper as he did so.
Professor Snape looked up as she approached and arched a dark eyebrow. "Can I help you, Miss Granger?" he drawled, and Hermione smiled sweetly up at him.
"I hope so– I'm afraid I found another wand laying around, professor," she said with as much earnest innocence as she could convincingly fake, fishing the boy's wand out of her pocket as she did so. She placed it on the staff table in front of Professor Snape, whose eyebrow rose even higher at the sight.
"How careless of its owner," her Head of House said dryly.
"Really, really careless," Hermione agreed, blinking innocently up at Professor Snape. "Anything could have happened to it! The owner is very lucky I decided to hand it in to you."
Her meaning was unmistakable, and the corner of Professor Snape's mouth twitched slightly in what she suspected was a sign of glowing approval. Probably. Maybe.
...well, he clearly didn't disapprove, at least.
"Go eat your breakfast, Miss Granger," Professor Snape ordered, and Hermione smiled gratefully at him and nodded, before turning back to approach the Slytherin table.
The Great Hall wasn't so noisy that the fourth-year boy had been unable to hear her conversation with Professor Snape, and his face was tight with rage and humiliation both as she sat down at the table, next to Millicent who was already there.
"You'll pay for that, Granger," he said lowly, his eyes glittering with malice.
"You'll need a wand first," Hermione replied, giving the boy her best imitation of one of Hati's smiles; sharp-toothed and predatory, like the wolf Hati was.
One of the older Slytherins at the table snorted and glancing over, Hermione recognised him as the same boy who'd laughed the night of the Sorting when she'd mocked Draco. He was lounging back on the bench and grinning, his amusement easy to read. His eyes, though... Hermione could feel the hairs on the back of her neck prickle in warning. There was something off about his eyes, something detached and cold about them– not to mention, at the sound of the older student's amusement the boy who'd attacked her and whose wand she'd stolen in retaliation seemed to twitch away from the older boy, his eyes darting back down to his breakfast as if he'd spotted something very fascinating in his porridge.
Hermione didn't like it; it made her uneasy, and she had faith in her instincts. Despite the fact that the older Slytherin had twice shown amusement at her verbal smackdowns of other Slytherins, ones with undoubtedly "Pure" blood, she resolved in that moment to keep her distance from whoever he was, instead turning to Millicent and smiling at her.
Millicent did not smile back. "Are you okay?" her new friend asked her quietly, sounding worried enough to startle Hermione. "You were gone when I woke up this morning, and Bole was storming about the common room, furious as a Bowtruckle whose home-tree was chopped down and used for kindling!"
"Sorry, I didn't mean to worry you," Hermione apologised. "I'm an early riser."
"And Bole?" Millicent asked, lowering her voice to barely a whisper, her eyes flicking over to the fourth-year boy– 'Bole', apparently, and Hermione took care to commit the name to memory.
"Ah. He tried to attack me," she explained to Millicent, making sure her voice was just as hushed. "I gave him the Pansy Parkinson treatment. Honestly, Purebloods are so helpless without their wands, it's quite funny."
"You're going to get yourself killed!" Millicent hissed despairingly and Hermione grinned at her.
"Regret making friends with me, yet?" she asked cheerfully, and Millicent just sighed, shaking her head even as her mouth tugged into what looked like a reluctant smile.
"No. Which probably makes me about as mad as you are."
"Oh, without a doubt!" Hermione assured her, and Millicent's smile broadened for a few precious moments, before it fell again, worry replacing the humour.
"This isn't over," she said softly. "The other Slytherins are still unhappy about your Sorting– and they're going to take it out on you."
"I know," Hermione said, solemn but determined. "But I'm going to show them exactly what a muggleborn is capable of."
She was going to force Slytherin House to eat its own prejudices, she was going to make them respect her and what she was capable of; she was Hermione Jean Granger, High Priestess of Loki, dear friend of Sylvianne Slytherin, and these intolerant, discriminatory children weren't going to defeat her.