Hermione
Frustrated and exhausted, she had tucked herself away in her dormitory early the night before. How any of her friends had wanted to hang out in the common room with so much tension, she couldn’t possibly understand. Though she wouldn’t be surprised if she saw several recovering from thrown hexes this morning in their first period. She had silenced her room the minute she had closed the door behind her knowing she didn’t want to hear their ruckus nor would any of them want to hear her inevitable screams when the night terrors struck.
When she made it to the bottom of the stairs into the common room the next morning, she saw Harry there waiting for her.
“Good morning, Mione,” his voice far more chipper than she had become accustomed to lately.
She lifted a brow at him, “Morning, Harry. Did you stay up with the others or did you head off to bed when I did last night?”
She watched as he ran his fingers through his unruly black strands before rubbing at the back of his neck. “I stayed up for a bit. I had an interesting conversation with Nott during dinner and decided to stay up and keep an eye on everyone in case someone decided to start throwing curses around after a bottle or two. It was definitely awkward, but everyone was mostly polite. Nott and Zabini started up a drinking game so it didn’t take long before the crack started. It all stayed relatively above board though. A few sat around the outskirts like myself and Malfoy, mostly just observing. McGonnagall might be onto something with this shared space though. I’d have never expected so many of us to get along so quickly otherwise.”
She adjusted the knot of her tie and followed him towards the great hall where they were able to pick any seats they wanted for breakfast.
“Thank Merlin I don’t have to sit with Malfoy again,” she huffed.
“Yeah, I’d meant to ask last night how that went… did he say anything to you?”
“Nothing unexpected. We got into it for a bit, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Zabini was surprisingly cordial though.”
“Yeah, Nott honestly took me off guard. I had never really spoken to him before in any of our classes and he wasn’t really involved in the war. He seems like a decent bloke. Apologized to me for his father’s actions as soon as he sat down at the table and then proceeded to ask about what it was like to die as plainly as asking which quidditch team I go for. Bit of an odd guy, but seems to mean well.”
“I was paired with Nott for some of my Arithmancy projects back in sixth year. He isn’t one for small talk or really understanding social boundaries, that’s for sure. He’s never been cruel or made any comments about my blood status though.”
Comparing their timetables, she was relieved to see that their first two classes of the day were together before they would go their separate ways.
When they entered the Defense classroom, the first thing she saw was that all of the desks were pushed against the walls creating an open space usually meant for practicals. Their professor had been introduced during the feast, as the DADA professor had been every year they had attended as a consequence of the curse on the position. Her curiosity couldn’t help but wonder if now that Voldemort was finally gone, the instructor might last more than a single year this time. The wizard was nowhere to be found as they stood there waiting for the start of class.
They all stood there staring at one another silently wondering if their instructor had quit before their first lesson when Hermione felt the air move to her left. Slowly, she shifted her weight to turn herself in that direction without causing suspicion and saw no one there. With the flick of her fingers, she dropped her wand from the holster secured to her forearm into her hand.
She flicked her gaze to Harry to see him subtly doing the same when she heard Ernie MacMillan shout, “Oi, Zacharius, did you take my wand?”
She felt the magic in the air before it could reach her and easily deflected it with a nonverbal protego.
“Of course, I didn’t take your wand MacMillan. You probably left it at the breakfast table.” She watched as the boy patted his pockets searching for his own only to come up short.
The faces of her classmates turned to frustrated confusion and they all began to question and accuse each other as they found their wands missing.
She took a mental inventory of who did and didn’t still have their wand in hand to see that besides herself and Harry, Neville and several of the Slytherins were the only ones to still possess theirs.
Her eyes stared at the lectern in front of the room as the wizard they had been introduced to the night before dismissed his disillusionment charm and appeared before them.
“Good morning, I am Professor Karlsson and welcome to the NEWT-level Defense Against the Dark Arts.” He had a distinct accent indicating that he was likely from somewhere in Scandinavia. “Given that most of you were just in a high stakes, long-running practical of the course, and by that I mean a literal war with a dark magic-wielding megalomaniac, I had expected more of you to pass your first test. Please raise your hand if you are still in possession of your wand.”
Everyone looked around to see that the only students with their hands lifted were Hermione, Harry, Neville, Malfoy, Zabini, Nott, Parkinson, and Greengrass. All of the Ravenclaws looked furious at the realization that they had failed their first assignment.
“I recognize many of you with your hands raised. Mr. Potter and Miss Granger, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised as you were on the frontlines of the war.” He studied the other students, “Ah and Mr. Malfoy, you and your friends were also quite, erm, involved.”
She watched as Malfoy’s jaw worked, clearly not pleased with the implication their instructor was making.
“The rest of you, let this be your first lesson. Never let your guard down. It didn’t take dark magic. It didn’t even take any advanced spellwork and yet in under five minutes I had disarmed more than half of you in this room and your first instinct,” his eyes turned to the Hufflepuff boys, “was to blame each other.”
The two boys at least had the decency to look embarrassed at their mistake. Hermione wasn’t sure what to think about his method of instruction but she appreciated that he at least seemed to take the subject matter seriously and didn’t seem to be against practical lessons, unlike Umbridge who only let them study the theory.
“Pair up, clearly most of you need some practice deflecting a basic expelliarmus.”
Class after class, Hermione went through the motions. By the time she had reached her final period, she was annoyed that she hadn’t had a single lesson without Malfoy’s sneering presence infecting the room. Their final class was McGonnagall’s new Modern Unity course. She found a seat in the back row of the room and placed her bag in the chair beside her to save it for Harry. That had lasted approximately one minute until Minerva walked in and transfigured the rows of desks into what appeared to be one large table resembling a muggle conference table and announced, “You will each be required to sit beside someone new when in this room. Not someone from your old house and not someone you’re chummy with. In this class things will be uncomfortable. There will be tension. Our aim is that by the end of the term, that won’t be the case, but until then, let us all get familiar with one another.”
They all stood there uncertain of what to do, no one wanted to make the first move. Minerva huffed a sigh, “To be expected.” The name tags from the night before suddenly appeared in front of each of the seats.
Hermione found herself a few seats away from Harry’s place but muttered a curse when she saw that she would be spending the next hour seated directly between none other than Pansy Parkinson and Draco sodding Malfoy. In her frustration, she pulled her chair in harder than strictly necessary and apparently had hit Parkinson’s leg in the process.
“Ow, Granger. Watch what you’re doing or I swear I’ll hex your teeth back to their original state,” the dark-haired witch bit.
Hemione only rolled her eyes before she leaned back in her chair, arms tightly crossed against her chest. She just wanted the day to be over. She had Ancient Runes assignments already to work on and would much rather have been sitting in the library doing that than sitting beside these two who would rather she be dead than holding a wand.
Malfoy’s posture wasn’t far off from her own. Out of her periphery, she could see he showed no desire to be there either. She was mentally working through some of the Arithmancy she’d been assigned earlier when a familiar pungent odor overtook her senses.
“I know that some of you are more familiar with this particular potion than others,” Minerva said while looking around the table holding an open vial. Hermione instantly recognized the sludgy brown substance in the container. The thought of the taste almost made her gag simply at the memory. “It is highly restricted, and for good reason, but we have been given permission by the Ministry to utilize it for a specific purpose for this course. Polyjuice Potion, when combined with a sample of a human individual’s genetic material, most often a lock of hair, temporarily transforms the drinker into the physical form of another. With the support of some of the potioneers within the Department of Mysteries, we have developed a variation that will last a bit longer than the standard version to fit the needs of this class.”
Hermione couldn’t help but remember the first time she had attempted the potion and ended up more feline than human. She’d spent weeks in the hospital wing coughing up hairballs. She shuddered at the memory. What the hells could they be having them do with this potion now, she wondered.
Minerva continued, “Some of you might be familiar with an American poem by Mary T. Lathrap, but for those unfamiliar, it goes as follows:
‘Pray, don’t find fault with the man that limps,
Or stumbles along the road.
Unless you have worn the moccasins he wears,
Or stumbled beneath the same load.
There may be tears in his soles that hurt
Though hidden away from view.
The burden he bears placed on your back
May cause you to stumble and fall, too.
Don’t sneer at the man who is down today
Unless you have felt the same blow
That caused his fall or felt the shame
That only the fallen know.
You may be strong, but still the blows
That were his, unknown to you in the same way,
May cause you to stagger and fall, too.
Don’t be too harsh with the man that sins.
Or pelt him with words, or stone, or disdain.
Unless you are sure you have no sins of your own,
And it’s only wisdom and love that your heart contains.
For you know if the tempter’s voice
Should whisper as soft to you,
As it did to him when he went astray,
It might cause you to falter, too.
Just walk a mile in his moccasins
Before you abuse, criticize and accuse.
If just for one hour, you could find a way
To see through his eyes, instead of your own muse.
I believe you’d be surprised to see
That you’ve been blind and narrow-minded, even unkind.
There are people on reservations and in the ghettos
Who have so little hope, and too much worry on their minds.
Brother, there but for the grace of God go you and I.
Just for a moment, slip into his mind and traditions
And see the world through his spirit and eyes
Before you cast a stone or falsely judge his conditions.
Remember to walk a mile in his moccasins
And remember the lessons of humanity taught to you by your elders.
We will be known forever by the tracks we leave
In other people’s lives, our kindnesses and generosity.
Take the time to walk a mile in his moccasins.’
We will be taking a rather literal approach in this course and you will each be spending time not only in the shoes but in the body of one of your peers. You will spend a day seeing through their eyes, being treated as they are treated. This will be done confidentially to facilitate as authentic of an experience as possible. You will be anonymously partnered and on your assigned day your potion will arrive in your dormitory. You and your partner will trade identities for the day and only select faculty will be aware. You will spend a day learning just a small amount of what it is like to be someone else, someone different than you. We hope this will help to break down so many of the stigmas and hatred between many of you in this room because the truth is, you aren’t so different as you think.”
Hermione paled at the thought of someone else in the room spending a day in her body, seeing her scars. She could only hope she’d be paired with someone who wouldn’t use it against her.