Chapter 1
'Burrower' was somewhat of a reductive term.
(reductive: adjective. — to reduce one to a simpler label, when one is already quite reduced in stature)
Unfortunately, it described Hermione Granger perfectly. And it was certainly better than being called weasel which was also fitting, given that she lived with the Weasleys. They were a large family, now dwindling in size, and she lived with them and her best friend, Harry Potter, in the Burrow. The underground home hidden beneath Riddle Manor.
They were hiding from the human beings (yoomen beans, as Ron liked to say) — fearsome giants that ruled over the vast and unending world of the manor and its rich, surrounding countryside.
Hermione couldn't remember much of Ron and Ginny's (the Weasley children and her other best friends) older siblings. Many of them like Bill (who was rumoured to be living a pirate's life at sea), and Charlie (who had a particular affinity for birds), and Percy (who overstayed his welcome according to his younger brothers) left long before Harry and Hermione joined the warmth of the underground Burrow. Only Fred and George, the twins, stuck in her memory.
But they were long gone now too, though Hermione tried not to worry about it overly much. Arthur and Molly had always advised that the adventure of finding your own way in the world was a necessary part of every young Burrower's life.
It was a rite of passage.
And with the excitable nature of the twins, Hermione could definitely see how it suited them.
She just wasn't sure she had it in her to do the same — not now that her own age of majority was fast approaching. And not with the incident that orphaned her still plaguing her mind.
(incident: noun. — something that made all the Burrowers above ground disappear from Riddle Manor, leaving only young Harry and Hermione behind)
Hermione, like all Burrowers, was tiny. Diminutive in frame even in the years that passed after the traumatic incident. But what she lacked in size, the curly-haired girl more than made up for in her voracious appetite for the written word.
It shouldn't have been a surprise, as Arthur and Molly had found her in a book in the first place. But Hermione really favoured dictionaries — pocket sized volumes, which she only just matched in height.
Under the floorboards of Riddle Manor's (now mostly abandoned) butler's pantry, beyond the entrance ladder down into the Burrow proper, just beside the thin matchbox walls of Hermione and Ginny's shared room, there was a dry and muddy space, a scuttle which held a forgotten grate. The bars had long since rusted over, and the weeds surrounding it were wildly overgrown, but in the afternoons the warmth of the sunlight would coax out the brunette to read her treasured words, her tongue tracing over each syllable as she parsed their meanings.
Hermione found the exercise a comfort as much as her friends found it a distraction. While Ron and Harry preferred to throw around their quid coin in the shade of the weeds in the garden, and Ginny preferred to bother them when she needed a break from climbing up the flower stalks, Hermione was completely content in her solitude and in her books.
Which is why it was somewhat of a relief when Arthur came home with bad news a few nights later.
The Burrow was warm — Molly already bustling and cooking in the cramped kitchen, with Hermione and Ginny reluctantly standing by to assist as needed, while the boys were somewhere else in the underground home, presumably playing with their much beloved quid coin again.
"There's a new bean up there." Mr Weasley said by way of a greeting, once his wife had taken a breath to let him cut through her own worried exaltations. For her part, Mrs. Weasley stopped completely at his words, her hands full with his homemade coat as she paused in hanging it up onto the nails just below their entrance ladder.
"One of the owners?" Molly asked, her voice already quivering. "Don't tell me they've come back, Arthur?!"
Hermione and Ginny exchanged an alarmed look, the latter wincing as steam rose from the pot she was nursing in her mother's absence. Hermione continued to set the table dutifully, her ears straining to catch more of the conversation.
"Who's come back, Mum?" Ron and Harry, in truly ill-timed fashion, wandered into the room.
"Welcome home, Mr. Weasley." Harry greeted when they saw Arthur by the ladder.
Molly huffed in exasperation at her son's question, before hanging up her husband's coat and calling out to the girls in the kitchen. "Bring in the soup, Ginny!" The Weasley matriarch smiled at the other girl who had finished setting the table. "Take a seat, Hermione dear."
Once all six of them had settled in with their mismatched dining chairs, Arthur began to speak again about his day of borrowing, and the information it netted.
"I didn't catch a very good glimpse of him." He said. "But from what the caretaker was saying to the gardener, he's definitely one of the owners, a grandson, most likely — of the late Mr and Mrs Riddles."
"Why is he here, dad?" Ginny asked curiously, her bowl of soup remaining largely untouched.
"Who cares about that?" Her older brother scoffed around a mouthful of food across the table. Molly reached over to rap him sharply on the head in reprimand and Ron swallowed before speaking again. "How long is he staying, dad? Do you know?"
"I'm not sure, son." Arthur responded tiredly. "As for why he's here, well. They say he's sick."
"That could mean anything for those human beans." Molly sniffed and Hermione had to swallow down the urge to correct the older woman on her pronunciation. "Oh Arthur, will it be safe? Surely, you mustn't take the risk, why poor Hermione will have only reached her majority tomorrow!"
"Should she even go borrowing with you, with this new threat?"
Hermione tried not to squirm as all eyes on the table turned to her. Inwardly, she cursed. The Weasley matriarch was an older lady, so it stood to reason that she could be somewhat conservative, as she considered the dangers of borrowing something for the men to handle, whilst the women were expected to toil away, simply left behind in the home and kitchen.
(matriarch: noun. — Mrs. Weasley's pretense of maintaining power in her home, whilst still 'submitting' to her husband's authority)
"I'm happy to follow your direction, and whatever you think would be safest Mr. and Mrs. Weasley." Hermione said deferentially, but she must have shown some of her true feelings on her face, for Arthur responded firmly nonetheless.
"We'll lay low, Hermione." The older man intoned. "Since it'll be your first borrowing, we'll just be more careful than usual."
"Right on, dad!" Ron almost sprayed his food across the table in his excitement.
"Yeah, cheers Mione." Harry agreed. "Sick human beans are less of a threat anyway, aren't they?"
"That's right, Harry." Arthur replied warmly. "From what I gathered earlier, the boy stays mostly in the master bedroom."
"He must be weak, then." Ron said snidely.
"Hardly a challenge."