Tradition

30/09/96
A week had passed since her bizarre encounter with Parkinson and Hermione had delved further into the available books she could find trying to uncover more about the traditions of her friends. She had discovered that most of the actual traditions were passed through families but more importantly most families were all either dark or light. There were exceptions- like Sirius- but most of the time a family’s magic called to each other as strongly as their love for one another did. She found this fascinating but could find nothing further than a one paragraph passage deceiving the phenomenon within the footnotes of a huge history book. The history book itself was about the rise and fall of Grindelwald with the footnote being attached to a paragraph slamming the usage of dark magic in the fight against him but Hermione couldn’t really find herself caring cause at the end of the day it was called ‘dark’ magic for a reason. It was evil. Even she who know little do wizarding tradition was at least well aware of that little piece of information. Deciding to bring this up with Harry over dinner, she finished up her research for the day.

“You know I was reading a book as a bit of light reading and came across something that I didn’t really understand,”
“Yeah what’s that ‘Mione?” Harry asked between mouthfuls.
“Well that all wizards come from light and dark families.”
“Obviously, I mean what’s not to understand there?”
“But I don’t get how you know whether you’re light or dark.”
“You just ask the family it’s not hard ‘mione,” Ron chimed in.
This sentence was all it took to throw Hermione off the edge. “Not all of us have the privilege of having our family understand and be able to help us.”
“Yes yes, we know that but it’s not like you’d need to know ‘mione after all you’re muggleborn do it doesn’t affect you too much,” Harry desperately tried backpedaling.
“But I’ve seen other muggleborn leaving to join in so why not me? Am I just got good enough huh?,” Hermione was close to tears now.
This left the boys stunned and stumbling over tired and rubbish excuses, all of which landed on deaf ears as Hermione quickly departed from the table dinner forgotten.
She missed the confused looks of her housemates and she missed the pitiful looks of those muggleborns lucky enough to be blessed with friends who thought to include them in their traditions.

Deciding her dorm was too obvious a hiding place should the boys come looking for her, Hermione headed in the complete opposite direction- down the stairs and towards the dungeon. She didn’t know where she was going and didn’t care, no one would see her anyway cause they were too busy at dinner so
what did it matter where she went.
What she hadn’t anticipated was that not all students were present that evening for dinner, Astoria watched Hermione storm past with pity and quickly took off after her.
“Hermione? Are you okay?”
The shout of a feminine voice brought Hermione back to the real world and away from the thoughts running across her mind.
“Yes?”
“I’m a slytherin, you’ll have to lie better than that to convince me, so what’s wrong?”
Hermione thought she must be seeing things but she could swear she saw kindness in Astoria’s eyes,now suspicious Hermione quickly turned on her
“Not to be rude but why do you care? You’re friends with Parkinson, who makes it her life goal to make my life a living hell.”
“Was this Pansy? Did she do this?”
Astoria seemed entirely unsurprised at the possibility that it could have been but strangely also almost angry at this idea.
“No. Just my so called friends,” Hermione bitterly muttered back, unsure of why she was opening up in the first place.
“Well, you can sit with me tomorrow if you’d prefer?”
Now Hermione was sure that the glimmer in her eyes she had previously mistaken for kindness was in fact a level of mischief but for once in her life Hermione could not find it within herself to care, nothing that Astoria and Pansy could throw at her that could possibly hurt more than the rejection that she suffered at the hands of her friends. So she agreed.