Mulier Serpentium

“Anything from the trolley dear?” 

Hermione Granger smiled at the plump older witch and offered a hand full of small bronze coins in exchange for a pumpkin pasty, a box of something called Every Flavor Beans (surely they could not mean every flavor), and 2 sugar quills before bidding the kind witch a good day and settling into her seat for the long ride to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. 

She had just managed to snag an empty car after helping a boy, Neville Longbottom she believed his name was, try and find his pet toad. While their search had been ultimately unsuccessful, she had gotten to peak into the occupied cars filled with dozens of what was soon to be her peers, so she was feeling a bit more comfortable with her perceived lay of the land.

She spent the majority of the train ride pouring over her (practically memorized) copy of Hogwarts: A History in preparation for the Sorting Ceremony she would have to participate in before truly joining the ranks of the current Hogwarts student body. 

Ahh yes, the Sorting Ceremony, Hermione had been thinking a lot about what house she thought she would be sorted into. Her first thought had been Slytherin. But, upon further research she had discovered that a muggleborn hadn’t been sorted into Slytherin in over half a millennia so she had moved on quickly from that thought (even if she happened to think green was her best color). 

Hufflepuff was barely even thought of before she tossed it to the side. She quite simply was not nice enough to ever find herself in the house of the overly accepting finders. Gryffindor fell to the chopping block quickly as well, she didn’t see herself as valuing bravery to enough of a level to ever end up in the house of Godric Gryffindor. Hermione found the idea of sprinting head first into battle with no plan quite suicidal and short sited, forward planning and protecting one’s own hind end were much more important in Hermione Granger’s list of important qualities in a person, or house as it were. 

Which of course is how she found herself answering “Oh I imagine I will be sorted into Ravenclaw” when asked by a strikingly fair haired boy who introduced himself as Draco Malfoy while the newest group of first years awaited their escort into the Great Hall to be sorted. Shortly afterward a fight nearly broke out between Draco Malfoy and two boys who names she did not catch (though a severe looking woman who introduced herself as Professor Mcgonagall appeared before anything beyond terse words could be exchanged).

Professor Mcgonagall gave a short speech about the houses they would be sorted into for those who had not come prepared, honestly who does that, before leading the pack of nervous first years up to the front of the Great Hall to begin the Sorting Ceremony.

Hermione quickly realized Hogwarts: A History had somewhat down played how mind numbingly boring the Sorting Ceremony truly was. As name after name droned out of Professor Mcgonagall’s mouth as she moved methodically down the alphabetically listed names of the assembled first year students. By the time “Granger Hermione” was called the wonder at the magical beauty of the Great Hall had nearly worn off (or so she told herself) and so it was with a shuffle and straightening of her shoulders that Hermione primly made her way to the stool and the ratty old hat that would decide the fate of the next seven years, and likely the rest of her life. It would decide her friends, her mentors, and very likely the career she would one day have. 

Her feet dangled about half a foot off the ground once she was settled on the stool that had been provided for those who were to be sorted to sit on. Professor Mcgonagall gave her a reassuring smile as she slowly moved to place the hat upon Hermione’s head of riotous curls. Only the hat barely even grazed the top most layer of her hair when she swore she heard a chuckle echoing in her mind before she heard the hat scream out “SLYTHERIN!” for the entire Great Hall to hear.

A hush fell over the hall, looks of utter disdain being thrown her way almost immediately by the students at the other three tables, before a sea of cheers rang out from the table on the far side of the room, presumably Slytherin. A queasy feeling rumbled through Hermione’s stomach with each step closer to her new house table. Tears threatened to fall down her face; she had grown pretty accustomed to having no friends in primary school, being labeled as “unbelievably gifted” at the tender age of 4 will do that to a child, but she had hoped things would be different here at Hogwarts. 

However it appeared the sorting hat had other plans for her time at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Something told Hermione that being the only muggleborn in Slytherin, a house that she had learned through her reading over the summer was infamous for its churning out of Dark Wizards steeped in pureblood supremacy since the times of Merlin and Morgana, was unlikely to be a recipe for friends…or even acquaintances. This was a nightmare. As Hermione had begun reading the veritable mountain of books her parents had begrudgingly allowed her to drag home from Diagon Alley aside from her school books after her first trip into the Wizarding World (lead by Professor Mcgonagall of Gryffindor of course) it had become very apparent early on in her readings that their were going to be some people who hated her for having muggle parents no matter what she did. 

There were people who thought she at best did not deserve her magic and at worst thought she had stolen it from a wizarding child (resulting in a squib apparently). There were also often Dark Wizards who would pop up intent on murdering and enslaving all muggles and muggle borns (the last time this had happened was a little more than a decade previously apparently). Hermione had decided two things very quickly during this discovery process 1) she was telling her parents nothing about the more dangerous parts of the wizarding world for fear they would keep her away from her first chance at belonging somewhere for fear of their and her safety and 2) she would be avoiding Slytherin like the plague for her own safety, even if it did seem to be the only house she really identified with outside of Ravenclaw. But apparently that stupid hat had other plans.

By the time she carefully slid into a seat next to a pretty girl with long dark curls who introduced herself as Millicent Bulstrode Hermione was almost positive she was going to lose her valiant fight against the tears she had been trying to keep at bay. What had she done in a past life to deserve this punishment? 

Not only would she likely not make a single friend in the blood prejudice house she just got plopped into, but if the sneers and dark looks thrown her way from the rest of the student body were any indication, she highly doubted she would be finding any friends within the rest of the school either. Leave it to me to alienate myself out of even a single friend before I’ve been in the castle for an hour Hermione thought sullenly to herself as she watched the rest of the first years get sorted into their respective houses. Even the screams of utter chaotic glee from the Gryffindor table at the knowledge that Harry Potter had been sorted there failed to rouse Hermione out of her new found gloom. 

These next seven years were going to be an absolute nightmare. 

It was only after “Zabini Blaise” was called out and sorted into Slytherin that the sorting was blissfully over and food sprung up in front of them. After a 7 hour train ride and only pumpkin pasties and sugar quills for food Hermione had thought she would be hungry, but as her fellow first years began congratulating each other on making it into the best house and introductions began taking place she found the queasiness in her stomach not only persisted but increased to a point where food was simply an impossibility. Which is how she found herself sullenly pushing some broccoli around her plate when the girl to her right (who had introduced herself as Daphne Greengrass) focused the attention of her new classmates on Hermione by asking her name.

Hermione turned bright red wincing before straightening her shoulders primly, “I’m Hermione Granger, and…” Hermione steeled her resolve, if they were going to hate her she might as well get it out of the way now. “I’m a muggleborn”

Every conversation at the Slytherin table within earshot quickly came to a halt as the new information was absorbed. Whispers broke out as the news flew down the table to either side of her like wildfire. Hermione did her level best to prevent herself from melting into the floor during the resulting several minutes of tense silence following her announcement while the surrounding students looked to one another, seeming to attempt communication without uttering a word.  

Several somewhat tense conversations were happening in hushed tones between various groups of upper classman and even her fellow first years seemed to be having an unspoken conversation in mostly tense facial expressions and mouthed words back and forth. After some time an agreement must have been reached as several of the older children gave a curt nod to Draco Malfoy prompting him to turn to her before simply stating, “Well looks like you’re our muggleborn then” afterward proceeding to pass her a plate of rolls as if this was the most normal experience in the world. While some quiet conversations continued on up and down the Slytherin table at the very least her year mates seem to have decided that was that and began to include her in their welcome conversations.

Conversations around her quickly picked back up as if nothing had occurred at all out of the ordinary, Hermione even found herself being pulled into a rather fascinating conversation with Millicent (who politely requested she called her Millie), Daphne, and a few other first year girls who’s names she hadn’t quite caught during introductions about hair potions. Daphne was convinced that she could find a potion that would be more than capable of taming Hermione’s unruly curls, all she had to do was send a quick owl to her mum once they were released to their common rooms. 

This news of course thrilled Hermione who had been struggling with her nest of curls for all her life to no avail (her mum had long given up, saying it was a lost cause, and every holiday and family gathering since Hermione had been forced to sit while her curls were ruthlessly yanked into thick Dutch braids so they would look “presentable”), if magic could come to her aid she was all ears. She became so engrossed in her conversation with the girls she barely even noticed the table refilling itself with desserts, it was only Daphne’s insistence that she try the treacle tart that alerted her to the food change. 

“So what do your parents do?” A boy with dark brown hair and a quiet expression asked her over their desserts.

She smiled, “Well they are specialty Healers of a sort. You see muggles have to specialize healing out a lot more than wizards and witches due to the lack of magic, so my parents own a private facility that deals in specifically major teeth and facial reconstruction.”

A petit girl with short black pigtails and a delicate upturned nose chimed in, “It sounds fancy!”

Hermione nodded, “It is, they make a decent living, we have a home in an upperclass suburb of London as well as a summer cottage in France. I’m fluent, my parents made my learning the language mandatory. I’m also conversational in Italian and Spanish. What about you guys?”

It turned out that almost every one was fluent to some degree in French, Blaise and Millie were also fluent in Italian, and Daphne, Draco, and the girl with the pigtails (Pansy) were fluent in Spanish. The boy who had asked her the original question about her parents introduced himself as the and explained that he (as well as Daphne and Tracy) also had fluency in German and Bulgarian so when they all were together they had a decent grasp of the languages spoken on the continent.

Their conversation quickly morphed into an intense discussion about ballet versus ballroom dancing and which was better. The girls all argued both had their perks but ballet was better most of the time as it posed less of a threat of getting ones toes stepped on by young wizards with two left feet. This naturally caused the boys to huff in various states of indignation at the insult to their character and true that the problem was not them but the girls having a difficult time following their lead. This of course led Pansy and Daphne to retort, “Well maybe if your ‘leading’ didn’t involve us fearing for our toes we would be more inclined to allow you to try.”

Soon enough they were being dismissed and told to follow their fifth year prefects down to their common room in the dungeons (a quick announcement was made by both seventh year prefects that there would be a quick compulsory meeting for all years the moment they got down there) “Strange” muttered an older girl as she walked past the group of first years “Usually that meeting is only compulsory for first years.” 

Maybe being in Slytherin wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Hermione and the rest of the Slytherin first years followed dutifully behind two fifth year prefects as they led them down to the common room that they were informed was in the dungeons. Hermione, of course, already knew this as she had read Hogwarts: A History at least a dozen times (it is what had pulled her towards Slytherin in the first place). Once they had been told the password: Merlin they were herded into the common room and ushered onto various couches, cushions, and loveseats scattered around the fireplace at the front of the common room that appeared to have been left open for them.

The prefects (Gemma Farley and Marcus Flint) made sure they were all settled before speaking “Well typically this is where we give you the speech about dormitories and the rules surrounding boys in girls dorms but due to…unforeseen circumstances we have some additions to add to the beginning of this talk which will explain why we have made it mandatory for all upperclassmen where usually it is not.” Gemma glanced towards Marcus who picked up where she left off,

“Right. As most of you probably already know, Slytherins take care of our own.”

“Yeah cuz no one else will!” Rang out from a group of what looked to be sixth or seventh years in the back of the common room.

 Marcus sighed, “That may be, but as far as we are concerned nothing, absolutely nothing is more important than being a Slytherin and presenting a united front to the rest of the school.This is more important than personal politics, outside friendships, or even family. Every witch and wizard that has been a member of Slytherin house since its inception knows this. For better or for worse, outside these walls Slytherins are a single block.” This was met with a chorus of assents.

“With that in mind” Gemma continued, “In case anyone has not heard, amongst our sorted first years this term we got a muggleborn witch, Hermione Granger. This is of course a first for Slytherin, or at least a first since about the 16^th century, so we are going to have to make some sweeping changes to how we present ourselves outside of the common room.”

 “I as well the rest of the prefects for Slytherin understand that this may put some members of our house in a bit of a rough spot. Take this as a forwarding, I and the rest of the prefects are not inclined to care about your personal beliefs. They are just that, personal. But if personal beliefs begin to interfear with the way we comport ourselves in public personal beliefs will then become something we are in fact inclined to care about. Understood?” Marcus glowered out at the assembled students as if daring one of them to say anything against their stance.

 “However, we thought we would give people a chance to voice their issues now so we can all be on the same page in the future.” Marcus turned to address Hermione directly, “I don’t know how much you have read about wizarding culture up to this point but I am going to give you a crash course right now. There are people in this community who will have issues about you based on who your parents are. They will think you have dirty blood, that you grew up raised but filthy gutter rats, that you have stolen your magic. Many of those people are in this house, many of your new dorm mates parents hold these same opinions. That is something you are unfortunately going to have to learn to live with within the walls of the Slytherin common room.” Hermione nodded miserably, though she was shocked to find that the other first years seemed to close rank around Hermione at Marcus’s statement. Draco and Theo made sure to flank her on either side, the boys who had been introduced to her as Crabbe and Goyle were at her back, and the girls and Blaise were in front of her. They were surrounding her in a protection formation as if daring someone to look at her cross eyed for even a second.

 Gemma sent a soft smile Hermione’s way, seemingly attempting to calm the fears of Hermione and her new friends. “However, outside of this common room the colors green and silver mean an ally, understood? Anyone in Slytherin will protect you to the ends of the earth if you are outside this room simply because you wear our colors on your uniform.”

Both prefects turned back to the assembled group after getting an assenting nod from Hermione, “Now if this is going to be a problem for anyone you need to speak up now, so we can handle issues in an open forum. With this in mind, does anyone have a problem with Miss Granger’s presence in this common room? Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

To Hermione’s utter surprise and delight, only one person raised their hand. From the way all the books she had been reading made it sound, she was ready for the vast majority of hands to raise, maybe the books had been wrong?  Several glares were lobbed in the direction of the raised hand, Marcus and Gemma included. “What Fawley? Speak up you bloody prat!” Gemma scoffed at the burly fifth year with his hand raised.

“Now wait a minute! Hear me out before you go jumping down my throat. I’m not raising an issue about her being in Slytherin, Merlin knows I’m a halfblooded myself so I don’t have much a leg to stand on with the blood purity shite. I’m asking a genuine logistics and safety question here!” The boy grumbled. 

Gemma and Marcus gestured as if to urge him to continue, “How are we to keep her safe in the halls? Its open season on a good day if you’re Slytherin these days. That poor girl is about to get fed to the wolves come tomorrow morning, forget the snake pit. At least we abide by the rules of basic decorum. Its the rest of the school we have to worry about here!” Hermione’s face lost all color at the boy’s words. The only positive to this revelation came in the form of her fellow first year Slytherins scooting closer to her, as if closing ranks to protect her in anticipation of the aforementioned outside attack.

“That is an important point to raise Mr. Fawley, and also happens to be the purpose of my presence here. I see you are already ahead of me though.” A sallow looking man in plain black wizards robes with slightly greasy looking hair pushed his way into the Slytherin common room, Gemma and Marcus moved out of the way so he could address the entirety of Slytherin house. “For those of you who somehow do not know, hello I am Professor Snape, your head of Slytherin house. And if it isn’t already obvious, my presence here in this room has to do with one of our newest Slytherin students, Miss Granger.”

He glowered out at the students, “It seems that no one has any objections to Miss Granger’s presence here. If you do and just didn’t want to be called out openly, continue to keep your thoughts to yourself, especially outside the walls of the Slytherin dormitory. If your worry about her presence stems from fearing retribution from your families, know that letters will be sent out to all of them this evening expressing how Slytherin must keep a united front both inside and outside of these walls so it would be imperative to appear…tolerant of our one of a kind muggleborn here in Slytherin house.”

Hermione allowed herself to slowly relax into the steadfast grip of the boys on either side of her. “I think you will find your parents will appreciate the novelty of Miss Granger if nothing else and will be more than willing to allow you to treat her as the respected member of your house I expect her to become. I know from experience Slytherin has a bad habit of treating everyone Half-blood and less as if it is somehow a miracle the hat even placed them here. It would do you well to assuage yourself of this line of thinking, the world is changing, we should change with it. Outside these walls  it is imperative Slytherin presents a united front. If anyone says a single untoward word in Miss Granger’s general direction, or Merlin forbid actually makes moves to accost her, it is expected that any Slytherins nearby punish this person with absolute impunity.”

A range of shocked expressions filled the assembled students at being given essential free reign to hex the student body, “This can range from simply reducing points if you are a prefect to, discreetly, hexing as you see fit. I cannot stress this enough, we cannot allow a single person to think Miss Granger is protected by anything less than the entirety of Slytherin house. As always do not get caught. Are we understood?” Professor Snape then turned to directly address Hermione and, by extension, the rest of the first years surrounding her “If you run into absolutely any problems I want you to report it immediately, am I understood? My doors will always be open for this.” They all nodded mutely at the directive.

A chorus of assents rang out throughout the room and they were dismissed after a brief overview of the rules surrounding boys in the girls dorms (not allowed even a little bit) and room assignments (room with who you want just no fighting and max 5 people to a room). Hermione barely had time to even worry about who she was going to room with before four girls including the two girls she had sat next to at the feast walked up to her with what she assumed were supposed to be disarming smiles on their faces.

“Hi” Millie spoke out primly after a moment of silence, “We were wondering if you would want to room with Daphne, Pansy, Tracy and I”

Turning to the two boys who had become her unspoken protectors on the couch to see what they thought of the offer (no need to get herself into a situation where she would be uncomfortable in her own room) but at their twin nods of approval a true grin split its way across Hermione’s face at the invitation, “I would love to!”

She turned back to the boys, Draco and Theo, before following the girls up the stairs, “Thank you for being my friends, I know you don’t have to and it may cause you headaches with your parents.”

The boys shrugged, “They will understand.” Theo stated simply.

“And even if they don’t,” Draco said with a grin, “We’re only children so there isn’t much they can do but yell at us, someone has to inherit everything!”

With that the two boys ran off after Crabbe, Goyle, and Blaise to hunt down a room of their own on the boys’ side of the Slytherin dorms. The girls giggled as they rushed up to grab an open room on the level assigned to first years, wanting to find the best one before the other girls in their year got the chance. 

They claimed the largest of the three first year girls dorms as their own. It came complete with five four poster full size beds with emerald green curtains to close them off if necessary, silk irredencent silver sheets and thick crushed silk emerald green bed spreads that looked positively divine, an attached bathroom for the girls to share, and a small area with a couch and a couple of oversized arm chairs and side tables clearly designed for socializing amongst roommates.

 There was also a series of empty book shelves behind the seating area that upon inspection revealed they were connected magically to the library and all the girls had to do was simply speak the title or subject matter they were searching for and it would appear on the shelves for use. “Wicked” Millie and Hermione breathed, and then proceeded to giggle at the matching looks of entertainment on the other girls’ faces at their blatant swotiness. 

Each girl also had her own desk for studying purposes as well as a sizable wardrobe and dresser for her things. Both items appeared to have some sort of undetectable extension charm placed upon them so the young witches could keep their sizable wardrobes with no issue, upon hearing how Hermione had been forced to leave much of her belongs at home due to a limited amount of space in her trunk all four of her roommates vowed to write home so their mum’s could get her an appropriate amount of leisure wear and also showed her how to cast an extension charm of her own on her trunk for future use. Each girl also had a small vanity in order to get ready in the morning without having to fight for mirror space in the shared bathroom. In short, Hermione was almost positive her dormitory was bigger than her entire wing of her family’s upper middle class townhome in London.

Being in Slytherin was like a dream come true.

The next morning found the five roommates moving down to the common room as a single unit . Daphne had a smug smirk on her face caused almost entirely by the shiny curls floating around Hermione in stunning copper ringlets “Your magic effects your hair, so magic is needed to tame it” She had explained while running a thick potion through Hermione’s tresses that morning after her shower. This had made sense to Hermione, everything else in her life was affected by her magic, why wouldn’t her hair be? She had nearly cried when she saw how shiny and beautiful her hair was after only a few moments of Daphne running the miracle potion through her historically unmanageable tresses. Magic was truly amazing.

 Daphne had also helpfully told her only to wash her hair once per week to help combat frizz and dryness. Millie had hopped in to tell her that, if she wanted, her teeth could be fixed with magic too (she only knew because she too had had oversized front teeth for years). Hermione had smiled and gushed at the option, and as the girls all began to get dressed into their uniforms for the day, she and Millie had made plans to ask the school healer if she could fix them after classes that day. 

The girls had also been pleasantly surprised to find Hermione’s school robes were to the same fine quality theirs were “My parents and I found Twilfitt and Tattings first you see, and honestly they had similar pricing to Harrod’s, my mum’s favorite clothing store in London, so we had me properly fitted and ordered all of my school and casual robes there before we even found Madam Malkins, Professor Mcgonagall was horrified when she caught back up with us. Tried to convince us to cancel the order because the other place would be cheaper. Offended my father to the highest level, he thought she was saying we were too poor! My mum about had a fit at the insinuation.” 

When the girls had agreed their parents would have reacted the same and agreed that Professor Mcgonagall had been out of line to insinuate they could not afford it just because they were muggles, Hermione felt the previously unknown feeling of belonging begin to settle over her. All of the kids at her primary school had made fun of her for her posh upbringing (and her teeth, and her hair, and about a million other things) and so she feared mentioning the slight would lead to more sneers; it was with a new found sense of happiness that she found her fears were unfounded, she was, possibly for the first time in her life, amongst peers.

She also discovered quickly through their conversations the previous evening that the students in Slytherin had endured very similar upbringings to herself, the only difference being magic. They had all suffered the same language lessons, etiquette training, and dance classes as one another and it was nice to finally have peers to complain about it with outside of the classes themselves. Many of them had used private tutors for their primary educations though, whereas Hermione’s parents had opted for her to attend a public primary school (though she was supposed to begin attending Ark Pioneer Academy for secondary before she had received her Hogwarts letter) due to their belief that community schools were more than adequate for primary education (plus it was easy to supplement education at that age).

Still, Hermione was glad to finally be amongst children like herself. Daphne had also volunteered to assist Hermione in learning about that Wizarding World and the culture she would be steeped in for the rest of her life. From her brief explanation before the girls headed down to the common room Hermione deduced that pureblood society appeared to function quite similarly to the upper class society she had grown up in, if a bit more traditional. Which was something Hermione could easily understand and was confident of her ability to assimilate into fairly easily given time.

They ran into the boys when the reached the common room. The boys spoke in hushed whispers amongst themselves, seemingly waiting for the 5 girls walking down the stairs from the girls’ dormitories. At the matching looks of confusion on Hermione and her friends’ faces Draco began to explain that they had decided to wait for them so they did not have to walk all the way to the great hall alone. The girls nodded in understanding and the group of them began the trek to the Great Hall for breakfast.

“Your hair looks different” Theo mentioned after they exited the common room.

Hermione nodded with a blush, “Daphne helped me with some potion her mum had that works on magical curls. Does it look alright?”

Theo smiled, tugging a curl gently, “It looks great! Also I’m sure it will be a fair bit easier for you to manage now.”

“Very true!” She giggled, “Before it felt like a near-sentient being Merlin bent on making my life. miserable. I like the shiny curls it seems to be content to exist in now.”

It was in the Great Hall that they learned they would be sharing every class this term with each other, and that their first class of the term would be History of Magic with the Hufflepuffs, which both Draco and Tracy lamented was surely punishment. Despite their theatrics, the group of them made it through their first HOM class, as well as Transfiguration (also with the Hufflepuffs) largely unscathed, and both Hermione and Millie managed to transfigure their match sticks into needles on the first try, with the rest of the group managing it by the end of class.

It was when they made it to their first class with the Gryffindors, Potions, that things quickly fell apart. Almost immediately it become apparent that not a single first year Gryffindor had bothered to prepare for the class in advance, despite Professor Snape notoriety for coming down especially harshly on the first day for first years to establish the need for prioritizing his class. This, naturally, made no sense to Hermione. She said as much to Theo, who was her desk mate, he shrugged, “You will notice some people just refuse to take important things seriously. A lot of them tend to end up in Gryffindor. Bravery and stupidity appear to go hand in hand for some reason.”

Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter had stumbled into class moments before the professor had entered himself, out of breath and clearly ill prepared as neither went to bring out their class books or even a spare bit of parchment, instead choosing to sit in the back of the class and snicker amongst themselves with two other Gryffindor boys (whom Theo quietly informed her were Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan) who also looked like they would be more prepared for a mid day romp through the forbidden forest than a Potions class. 

Why these boys seemed to care so little for the high-value education they were receiving baffled her mind, did they not know how expensive the tuition was for Hogwarts? There was a reason the class sizes were so small at the institution, most people could only afford to send their children to one of the Ministry schools scattered about the English countryside. The fact that her peers seemed to be so flippant with the gift they all were being given flummoxed Hermione, and Theo soothed her irritation with assurances that her fellow Slytherins were not so irritatingly arrogant.

Professor Snape, of course, picked up on this almost immediately and upon finishing his rather riveting opening speech (which Hermione noted she, Draco, and Theo had written down in equally elegant script on their respective notes) had descended upon the whispering boys with questions that, notably, the students would not need to know the answers to for nearly 6 months. Not that that was the point. The boys had been blatantly ignoring a teacher on the first day of class, it was as if they wanted to get in trouble. 

Draco and Theo both practically threatened to sit on her hand she went to raise it to answer the Professor’s questions, “he does not want an answer Hermione, STOP” Theo hissed in her ear after she went to raise her hand for the second question even after Draco had hurriedly yanked her hand down when she attempted to raise it after the professor had asked his first question. “But why would he ask a question he doesn’t want answered?” She whispered back hissed back just as harshly, utterly confused why a professor would ask question he did not wish to be answered, “He wants it answered by those idiotic boys, not the students he knows are prepared. Sometimes you have to read the social cues, we’ll talk about it later okay?” Theo had whispered back hurriedly before switching back to studiously writing down everything that came out of Professor Snape’s mouth. 

This whispered conversation with her friend had stuck with Hermione for the rest of the class as she pondered what Theo had said. She hadn’t realized there was a social cue she had been missing at all, was this something she had done in the past? The question haunted Hermione for longer than she would like to admit as she anxiously tried to go back over every interaction she had ever had with a dawning sense of horror at how often she may have been making grievous errors without ever realizing it.

After the professor had written instructions for a simple cure for boils out on the board and instructed them to concoct the potion to the best of their ability with the time remaining the trio turned to each other and quickly relegated out duties for maximum efficiency. While Draco and Hermione would grab ingredients from the storage area Theo would get all three of their cauldrons ready to begin. 

Once the two friends were back they split the needed prep work evenly in order to complete all necessary prep before starting their potion so things would run more smoothly for them during the potion preparing process. Their division of labor ending up working in their favor as all three finished their potions before the rest of the class and all received a surprised huff of approval from Professor Snape as he walked by, even commenting that maybe not all the first years were complete dunder heads this year.

Hermione was excitedly giggling back and forth with Daphne and Pansy towards the end of class once the two girls and Tracy had finished their respective potions at the table behind her when she heard a crash behind her and then the unpleasant sensation of becoming wet. She turned around with gasp to see her and Theo’s respective cauldrons tipping over, their potions ruined. A smug Ronald Weasley was standing in front of their table, grinning as if he had won a million galleons. “Guess the stupid snakes should be more careful about guarding their precious potions shouldn’t they?” He taunted, earning him a chuckle from the two boys behind him.

 Harry Potter was notably no where in site and a quick glance around the room found him trying valiantly to sink into his chair at the back of the room. “We saw you up here at the beginning of class, barely able to keep your hand from shooting halfway to the Ravenclaw tower in your freakish need to be the one to answer. Hows it feel to have your work gone you annoying mud blood swot?”

Tears welled in Hermione’s eyes at the red head’s harsh words. 

She’d been called a freak more than once during primary school…going to Hogwarts was supposed to be the end of that. To see that not only was that not the case, but that her being muggleborn was going to be the source of more endless bullying in the years to come was nearly too much. When was Hermione going to catch a break?!

The answer to Hermione’s unspoken question came in the form of the dour Professor Snape coming up behind her and vanishing the potion soaking the back of her robes before turning his sneer to the assembled Gryffindor boys in front of them. “Mr. Weasley, a few suggestions for you moving forward,” Weasley visibly paled upon seeing their professor behind the three Slytherins.

 “One, if you are going to purposely sabotage another student’s work do try to avoid making it so painfully obvious you are doing it. Rewards are not given to those too pathetically stupid to cover their tracks. Two, if you manage to not completely bungle what I just informed you of, do not sit around the scene of your little crime gloating long enough for an authority figure to arrive and catch you in the act of your insipid childish bullying tactics. Three, do not dare do any of this in my classroom or I will be sure to rain down the most horrific of punishments for I do not allow for bullying of any kind in my presence, especially by those of intellect so low they cannot even follow simple instructions well enough to make a simple boil cure. 50 points from Gryffindor for destruction of student property and use of slurs while bullying, 10 each from your little compatriots for going along with your little scheme, and you can each spend the next week of your evenings with me in detention. Class dismissed!”

All of the Gryffindors quickly grabbed their belongs and made a quick beeline out of the classroom before Professor Snape took it upon himself to remove more house points for their continued presence in his classroom. The Slytherin students however quickly collapsed around their friend, trying to make sure she was alright after her run in with Weasley. After the spill was cleaned up and Hermione, Draco, and Theo were assured they would still receive full marks despite not having vials to turn in. 

Hermione let out a sigh of relief and the group of Slytherins left the classroom en masse and began the trek up to the DADA classroom for their first DADA class with, unfortunately, the Gryffindors. Draco and Theo made sure to be on either side of her the entire walk up, as if they were sentries ensuring she was kept safe from anyone who dared say a stray word in her direction. This was going to be a long year.

As the first several weeks of classes began to take shape around the Slytherin first years, Hermione began to notice a number of fascinating aspects of the relationships between her new Slytherin friends. 

Daphne and Pansy, for example, we nearly inseparable, as were Tracy and Blaise, Greg and Vince, as well as Draco and Theo. This was due, she found, to the closeness of many of her new friends parents. Daphne and Pansy’s mothers were best friends and cousins, so the girls had spent a majority of their days together growing up. While they had clearly decided to bring her into the fold and turn their duo into a trio, she often times felt like she was slightly out of step with them. As if they spoke an entirely different language she was only just now slowly learning to grasp. They often spoke in half sentences and nearly indecipherable facial expressions that Hermione was slowly picking up on but with only a handful of weeks to master them under her belt she felt woefully inept much of the time. This same observation was made with other groups within her assemblage of Slytherin cohorts. 

She also began to notice she was being pulled in a way between two different sub groups of their larger group of friends. Pansy and Daphne often times would strive to include her in whatever they were doing even if they were not including any of their other friends. They seemed to have decided she was going to make their duo a trio whether she wanted to or not, and much of the time she wanted to. For the first time in her life she was getting along with kids her age and she enjoyed talking with Pansy and Daphne about most things. Both girls were wildly intelligent so while they didn’t share in her constant thirst for knowledge they could keep up with her, and marveled at the amount of knowledge she had from her muggle upbringing that they lacked and Hermione would often find herself inundated with questions about things like gravity and the moon landing that had never occurred to her to be fascinating but to the two pureblood girls were as foreign a concept as beauty charms and self cleaning dishes were to her. 

To that end the two girls were also more than happy to field a truly endless stream of questions from Hermione about various parts of wizard life, and even did their level best to educate her on the finer points of etiquette and how a young witch was meant to hold herself, but often times they would end up owling their mothers and the next day would have a book and accompanying letter from one or both women explaining in detail to Hermione how things like gifts, tea, and parties worked amongst wizarding society. 

As the weeks wore on however she noticed more and more that Theo and Draco were also commandeering more of her time outside of group activities. She found herself connecting with both boys more than she ever had anyone in her life. They would discuss obscure bits of magical theory with her for hours, and a steady stream of tomes from both boys’ family libraries had began to circulate between the three friends by way of increasingly bemused owl posts from the boys’ parents. All three had an almost endless thirst for knowledge and would often times build off one another when researching for school work and it was becoming increasingly common with their classes for them to turn in assignments twice and sometimes three times the required length due to extra bits of knowledge pertaining to said subject matter the children would find whilst in the library researching the original assignment.

She found her time in classes almost evenly split between the two pairs of her friends, with her sitting beside Draco and Theo in Potions and Charms, while Pansy and Daphne demanded she sit with them in Transfiguration and History of Magic. A brief scuffle had nearly ensued in their first class of DADA when the four of them began to bicker over who would sit with her before Theo and Daphne had both stubbornly chosen the seats on either side of her at the desk table she had chosen, leaving Pansy and Draco to glumly move to sit at the table behind her that had previously only been occupied by Millie. This switched in Herbology where Pansy and Draco beamed from either side of her in the class while Daphne and Theo glowered from across the room where they were paired with Blaise, who seemed to be fighting valiantly to not be offended at the fact that they very obviously did not want to be paired with him. 

It was strange to Hermione to be such a “hot commodity” for a change. She had always been the odd man out before coming to Hogwarts. Always too strange, too posh, too smart to really fit in well with other children. She had made it through almost an entire 12 years of life without a single friend to her name and now she not only had close to a dozen, but she also was being actively fought over in some strange version of human tug-of-war between four of them. 

It helped that she was at long last amongst peers like herself. While cultural differences still left them flummoxed on occasion it was becoming a less and less often affair. She was learning about wizarding culture and they about muggle culture at a fast enough pace to where often times within a few weeks of school beginning the friends were able to understand the small differences their upbringings had possessed.

One evening in a fit of extreme annoyance she had demanded to know why her 4 friends seemed to want her around so much. It was Blaise who managed to answer her. “Your temperament is almost a prefect mix of a young pureblood lady and a rambunctious pureblood boy. You were raised just like us in a lot of ways so you fit in very well and are taking to pureblood traditions like a duck to water. But muggle culture seems to be several decades if not several centuries ahead of wizarding culture so you weren’t raised to be as quiet and demure as most pureblood girls are in a lot of ways, your mother has a career and you yourself were raised to aspire to one of your own, so you can hold your own with the likes of Draco and Theo where girls like Pansy and Daphne were raised to be good little pureblood house wives that coddle their husband’s egos whenever possible.”

Tracy nodded, continuing where Blaise had left off, “ So when faced with either agreeing with them to make them happy or bringing up areas where they are wrong Pansy and Daphne are 9 times out of 10 going to simper and agree with them, where as you are willing to meet them point for point which is fascinating for them.” 

Blaise went on to explain that for Daphne and Pansy she both could keep up with them when speaking about beauty and fashion and she also brought a whole new set of knowledge to the table with her muggle upbringing so they had a source for muggle fashion and beauty magazines as well as a new friend willing to gossip about cute boys and Weird Sisters albums for hours. In short, they loved her so much because they all just worked perfectly together.

Her parents were thrilled at this new change in pace for her. Her mum waxing on poetic for nearly 4 pages about how thrilled she was that her darling daughter had finally clearly found “her people”. Hermione tried not to feel bad that the “people” she had found were almost definitely raised to believe her parents were barely more than mangy dogs; instead she vowed to herself that she would prove they were just as wrong about muggles and they were about muggleborns. Their parents hadn’t seemed to raise any huge objections to their children being friends with her, even going so far as to offer up their personal libraries and knowledge on witch hair products whenever asked, maybe there was room to change their minds about muggles just as much as they had been changed about muggle borns.

As September bled into October and Halloween began to loom over the castle promisingly Hermione fell into a routine. She, Daphne, and Pansy (who were quickly becoming two of her best friends) would get up at six o’clock each morning to walk from the dungeons to the owlery and back as their form of exercise to keep themselves in shape for the various levels of stair climbing required each day, then they would get dressed for the day (Hermione of course religiously applying the hair potion Mrs. Greengrass kept her supplied with to manage her curls, with this routine Hermione’s hair began to fall in glossy, defined ringlets down to the bottom of her shoulder blades) and then as a group with their other roommates would walk down to the common room where Draco, Theo, Blaise, Greg, and Vince would be waiting for them to walk to breakfast as a group. 

At. Breakfast they would speak amongst themselves about whatever news was coming from home, distribute out sweets or products their parents had sent for the group, or the boys would try valiantly (and fail) to convince the girls that Quidditch was anything other than a supremely dangerous waste of time. From there they would head en masse to whatever classes they had on their schedules that day. Thankfully they had been placed in the same year group as each other by Snape so they had all the same schedules which made everything much easier for sure. After classes were completed the group took to spending the evenings before dinner working on homework and after dinner relaxing and hanging out together either in the common room or, if that was too crowded, the boys’ dorm since they had also snagged the biggest on their side for the first years which was almost identical to the girls dorm, just minus the vanities.

A part of Hermione knew this schedule was in large part due to her, and by extension her protection. Ever since the incident with Weasley and Co in their first Potions class her friends had been paranoid to an almost habitual degree that if she were to be alone for longer than 5 minutes some sort of tragedy would befall their bushy haired friend. 

Consequently there was rarely a moment throughout her days where Hermione was alone outside the Slytherin dorms, she always was surrounded by her fellow snakes who were more than ready, and willing, to hex and curse any person who dared looked at her the wrong way as best they were able. Greg and Vince took her safety especially seriously, going as far as to practically “abandon” Draco most days to make sure Hermione had people to follow her when she wanted to spend hours in the library pouring over tomes for various homework and side projects she always seemed to have unending amounts of (though this was slowly changing due to Theo and Draco taking it upon themselves to join her on her library exploits as they often were just as enamored with the material being gone over as Hermione was, though their friends tried to remind them all library books were accessible from within the common room their was just something different about the feel of doing research surrounded by the musty tomes of the Hogwarts library), or when she craved snacks later at night and wanted to see if the elves could whip her something up in the kitchens. 

It felt nice in a way, it made her feel wanted in a way she seldom had before. Even her parents, love her as they did, seemed to be far more comfortable in each others company than hers. It was not uncommon for Dr. and Dr. Granger to plan spontaneous month long trips to exotic places with little to no regard for if Hermione would or even could come, and truthfully often times the answer was no. Hermione got used to them missing school performances and life events from a young age. Often times being shuffled from relative to relative while her parents were off on holiday, or on a work trip saving lives in some underprivileged country Hermione had only ever heard of in books and on the news. 

She had spent a number of birthdays and Christmases alone, even this year proved to be turning out the same as her parents had told her she would be staying at the castle for Christmas when they sent her a letter and care package for her birthday in late September. The care package had amounted to essentially assurances that they had managed to add another several hundred galleons to her rapidly growing Gringotts account (already they had transferred everything from both her private bank account and her college fund to said account as her being a witch made college a moot point so now her Gringotts account had several fat gold stacks for her to access at her leisure) as well as a heavy winter cloak lined with high quality emerald green fabric that they had apparently ordered from Twilfitt and Tattings when they had been there over the summer (her parents had apparently assumed she would be in Slytherin despite her thinking the contrary). 

When her friends had discovered it was her birthday, and that she had neglected to tell them, a frenzy occurred where over the next several days Hermione was showered with affection as well as multiple packages via owl post of gifts ranging from hair and beauty products (the girls),  chocolates (Vince and Greg), and a leather journal (Blaise), to a stunning dainty silver necklace with a single charmed locket encrusted with a mixture of emeralds and diamonds and imbued with protection charms from Draco and Theo “For when we can’t all be there to protect you” they had explained. 

Inside was a tiny version of two pictures they had taken earlier in the term; one was a picture Hermione had not even known was taken where her and the girls were curled up on one of the plush couches in the common room and she was mid giggle at some long forgotten thing Daphne had just said, the other was of her smiling into the camera smushed between Draco and Theo as Blaise came up behind them making a funny face.  The boys had implored into Hermione an air of secrecy around the locket “If anyone found out all of the protections on that locket ‘Mione it could actually put you in danger in the future” Theo had explained in whispered tones the evening her gift had arrived when they had been snuggled under a blanket in the common room to stave off the chill that had slowly began to permeate the castle in the evenings. 

Hermione had clutched her new locket tightly when Theo’s words had washed over her. She knew, of course, that any jewelry given to a young witch by a wizard could be construed as the two having an…agreement. Seeing as how the two boys had given her something of such high value the rumors would be wild and most certainly not in the favor of her or her two friends. It was enough to make Hermione’s head spin to have…friends… that cared so much about her well being that they would rearrange their entire schedules and shower her in such affection for her birthday was such a novel concept to Hermione that more than once the resulting overflow of emotions on her part after thinking about the love of her new found friends reduced Hermione to tears.

Halloween brought a sense of giddiness to the Slytherin common room Hermione was fascinated with, as if pureblood Christmas was on the horizon, once Vince explained Samhain to her, she began to feel the same giddiness as the rest of her house.

“We can speak with our dead, and they can give us gifts from the ether” He explained one Saturday before Halloween, Samhain, she learned upon Vince’s kind correction. She began to obsessively research what she could about Samhain, and how it worked in the wizarding world while also absorbing absolutely everything her friends revealed about the ancient holiday that predated Merlin himself.

 She was mostly excited for her friends of course. She had looked into Samhain excitedly one evening after Vince had explained the significance to her in hopes that she could figure out how to talk to her maternal grandfather who had died a few months before she had left for Hogwarts. They had always been extremely close, she had spent much of her time growing up there as Dr. and Dr. Granger had often left her there while they had flitted off to one international location or another. 

It had been disappointing to discover that for the most part it seemed Samhain only applied to the diseased spirits of the magical, therefore excluding her grandfather from being able to visit her on the evening of the 31^st of October. But she was still excited to hear from her friends of their conversations with their ancestors, and even more so to see what they had receive from the beyond.

By the time the 31^st of October came around, Hermione was pretty sure she understood the basics of Samhain and, more importantly, how she would hopefully be able to communicate with her Maternal grandfather. Though she knew her chances were slim since he hadn’t been a wizard, the two had been so incredibly close and Hermione desperately hoped she would get to tell the beloved man how she was a witch and that she had a large group of friends finally that accepted her for who she was, weirdness and all. 

It was what her grandfather had always wanted for her, and she was so excited to tell him and see his reaction to the changes in her life since his passing. But first she had to get through her classes for the day. It was after flying lessons with Gryffindor that a conversation between several Gryffindors took place that Hermione did not overhear, but unfortunately for the Gryffindors Blaise and Pansy did.

They had just left their last class for the morning, flying, when Ronald Weasley snorted in disgust complaining about the fact that Hermione had “helpfully” corrected his form earlier in class. She had apparently been making the same mistake the lesson previously and stupid Malfoy had given her extra lessons outside of class to help with both her fear of the broom (what kind of muggle moron is afraid of a bloody broom?) and her inability to control it when in the air. 

Ron had been struggling to get the broom to turn left when the annoying little swot had turned to him and explained in annoyingly painful detail everything he was doing wrong. “Its no wonder the girl has no friends, that stupid mud blood is a nightmare honestly!” 

At that moment the assembled Gryffindors turned their heads when they heard a shriek from the other side of the corridor. Granger was being twirled in the air by Nott while the other Slytherins around them were chanting in glee at Granger’s overcoming her fear on the broom. They were all acting like she had cured dragon pox or something. Ron was about to sneer out his annoyance when Harry and Dean both said with a shrug “It looks like she has friends Ron” and then began walking towards the library to get some studying done before lunch.

Pansy and Blaise glanced at each other after the Gryffindors all left towards their various destinations with matching scowls that promised swift and brutal retribution for the harsh words that had been directed at their friend. She had clearly gone out of her way to help a boy who had been nothing but a nightmare the entire year, which she was under no obligation to do at all. If it had been them in the position instead of her they likely would have given him purposely misleading advice in the hopes he would fall off his bloody broom and do them all a favor and shut the hell up about how great he was at flying when he couldn’t even turn the blasted thing half the time. 

The fact that he returned her olive branch by calling her cruel slurs and complaining about her to his mind numbingly stupid Gryffindor cohorts said all they needed to know about the red headed disgrace of a wizard, Hermione was a hundred times better witch than he was a wizard and Pansy and Blaise would make sure the bloody prat knew it. Ronald Weasley was going to wish he had never uttered a word in Hermione’s direction.

The feast for the eve of Samhain was cut short by Professor Quirrel screaming about a troll in the dungeon and then passing out much to the utter terror of the student body at large. Students were ordered back to their common rooms, even the terrified Slytherin students who kept on asking why they were being sent in the very direction that the now unconscious professor had claimed the killer troll was rampaging through the school. Once the prefects were sure that all students were securely in the common room strong wards were placed on the entrance by the 7^th year prefects that would only allow entry to Professor Snape or the Headmaster.

After everyone had calmed down from the excitement of the mad dash to their common room students started dispersing to their dorms in order to ready themselves for the witching hour of Samhain to begin. The thinning of the veil was already easy to feel as magic lay thick in the air and gave Hermione the same feeling she would imagine one would feel when they had consumed too much wine on a holiday. 

All five girls that called her dorm room home set themselves in the center of the room in a make shift circle surrounding a pentagram that they had constructed with runes surrounding the entire parameter calling for the spirits of their ancestors to come to them on this most holy of nights. As they quietly chanted to themselves Hermione closed her eyes and began the quiet chant she had memorized in the weeks leading up to this night.

O Spiritus ultra Velum 

De hac Sacratissima vigilia Samhain

Supplices te oro

O spiritus ultra Velum.

Veni ad me

De hac Sacratissima vigilia Samhain

Coniunge me in hac terra

O spiritus ultra Velum.

Oh Spirits beyond the Veil

On this most Sacred eve of Samhain

I humbly beseech Upon you

Oh Spirits beyond the Veil

Come to me 

On this most Scared eve of Samhain

Join me in this land

Oh Spirits beyond the Veil

Hermione felt a rush of raw magic surround her as she repeated the memorized latin words a final time before opening her eyes with a gasp. There was spirit in front of her, one she didn’t know. The spirit and Hermione shared an intense look for a few moments, neither seeming to know what to do with the fact that the other was in front of them. It was the spirit that broke the silence first.

“You must be a descendant of my son Jean.” The woman intoned softly in a heavy French accent.

Hermione was stunned. Who was this woman? She had never seen her before in her life. Though she did recognize pieces of herself in the woman’s wild auburn curls and smattering of freckles across her button nose. “Jean? As in Jean-Pierre Granger? Thats my granddad!” Hermione frowned “Or at least he was my granddad, he died last spring. Lung cancer.”

The woman smiled softly, “My boy’s name was Jean-Pierre Arcturus Dagworth-Granger, but I surmise we are safe in assuming he may have shortened a few things to assimilate better with the muggles. Well I may have to try and find him on this side of things, tell him how wonderful I find you. Though that may be a touch difficult since he was a squib…never you mind, I assume this is your first Samhain, since we have not met before. What is your name child?”

“Hermione Granger ma’am”

“There is no need to call me ma’am child, we are family. You may call me Carina”

Hermione beamed up at the woman, “I think I can do that Carina, out of curiosity because im a muggleborn and all of this is sort of a first for me, what do we do from here?

Carina’s resulting laughter warmed Hermione’s heart and she did not stop smiling throughout the rest of her and Carina’s conversation as she walked her through how the rituals of Samhain worked for both sides and what she could do for Hermione during their conversation tonight. She bestowed upon her words of wisdom about the wizarding world as she knew it, and Hermione let her unsurprised ancestor know that not much had changed it seemed in the years that separated Carina from the land of the living.

 Carina also made several enquiries into Hermione’s life, both before and after she found out she was a witch. Hermione regaled her with tales of young Hermione determinedly thinking she must be the smartest girl in the whole world because he could make things move with her mind like the main character in Matilda (her favorite novel growing up) could. She told her of getting sorted into Slytherin, and of her fears surrounded her friends, their parents, and her parents. 

It was when Hermione ended an admittedly quite lengthy tirade about how isolated she had felt from her peers in primary school that it became clear to Hermione she had been speaking for an extremely long time with nearly no breaks, even for air, and that Carina had been patiently sitting there through it all with a slightly bemused smiled that reminded her starkly of her granddad. He would often get the same look on his face when she inevitably went on for hours answering a simple ‘How was school?’ and, without knowing how to pause the over excited Hermione, would end up being forced to listen to her 20 ‘side quests’ as he lovingly called them, before she would answer the question he had asked. 

Once she noticed however her face turned scarlett and she began apologizing profusely for her over-talkativeness, Carina just laughed in response and said she much preferred too much talking to not enough, and to never apologize for being thorough when catching her up on her life. Carina then changed into the fascinating subject of Hermione’s magical heritage. For example, Hermione learned during this conversation that she was related to the wizard that had founded the most prestigious Potioneers guild in the world, which she found quite fascinating and could not wait to inform Draco and Theo of this fun fact about her relation to their favorite subject. Carina also told Hermione to go to Gringotts as soon as she could and claim the Dagworth-Granger estate that likely had been sitting in limbo for decades since Hermione was the first magical person that could have accessed it in the nearly 80 years since Carina’s death (she had died shortly after her son had been born). 

“Also,” Carina brushed a curl out of Hermione’s face, “You are not a muggleborn my dearest. Your father would still qualify as a squib since he is only one generation removed from magic, which, since your mother is a muggle I would assume since it is just you and me here, would make you a half-blood. Not that this changes anything about you as a person, muggleborn or halfblooded (most muggleborns have squib blood at some point anyway) you are still just as amazing and worthy, but you may find your life is a bit easier within the circles you seem to have found yourself in if you present yourself as such.”

Hermione nodded, considering what her great-grandmother had just told her. She wasn’t quite sure what to do with the new information, which was a first for her, so she decided to leave that line of thought for a different time and focus what time she had left of Samhain on Carina. They spoke at length for what seemed like hours about what Hermione should do over winter hols. 

Hermione had a seemingly endless list of tasks set forth by Carina, though the two most pressing were definitely Gringotts and the family manor, though her grand-mere (as Carina insisted she be referred to exclusively) did tell her she should try calling the family elf to see if she would come to her “Tipsy was such a young elf when I died, im sure she is still around!” Carina exclaimed toward the end of the evening, Hermione could swear she was starting to see the beginnings of the dawn through the murky green of the lake.

“Well,” Carina exclaimed, poshly rising to stand, “It appears about time for me to leave you. I do have one last gift to impart however.”

Hermione smiled sadly, she wasn’t ready for Carina to go. Speaking with her grand-mere all night had made the crushing feeling of loneliness she had felt near constantly since her grandfather had passed abate; she wasn’t ready to go back to feeling so alone. “Now child do not be sad, we will see each other next Samhain, I hope to bring Jean-Pierre with me next time but we will see. Now! For your gift, it must be special; I have never given a gift to my descendant from beyond the veil before.”

A giggle forced its way passed Hermione’s lips at her dramatics, Carina seemed to know exactly how to make Hermione feel better. The spirit smirked before bestowing a gift upon Hermione with a flourish. Hermione gasped, it was a book, a truly ancient one by the looks of things. The tome was bound in high quality butter soft leather the color of the most richly saturated Mediterranean waters; the front cover was embossed with gold filigree spelling out the words Magia Purissimum in beautiful calligraphy.

“It is a white magic tome that predates modern magic, its origins can be traced back to before the age of Rome. It is magic in its purest form and I have a feeling that this will both bring you and your friend’s incredible joy to learn but will also offer you protection for when you may need it in future endeavors.” Hermione frowned at the end of Carina’s explanation but was distracted by the shimmer of early morning light over the gold letters of her gift, “It is time” Carina said with a sad smile.

Hermione fought back tears at the thought of not being able to see Carina for a year, she had just found her! How cruel that she could be taken away so quickly! Her grandmere smiled softly at her though, promising next year would be even better since they would be expecting each other, and making Hermione promise to memorize Magia Purissimum cover to cover so they could talk about it next year. Hermione was still mid-response, assuring Carina she would when Carina blinked out of sight and suddenly Hermione was back in the circle her and the girls had made what seemed like a life time ago, body stiff from sitting in the same position on the floor for hours. 

In her arms was cradled the ancient tome on magic from her grandmere and as she glanced around at the other girls, all in various stages of awareness, it became apparent they all had tokens and trinkets grasped within their arms from whomever they had gotten the chance to speak with during Samhain.

Hermione could scarcely believe what had just happened. Her granddad had been a squib? She was a halfblood? She had an ESTATE?! Not to mention, she apparently owned at least one house elf; which seemed absolutely impossible to comprehend. How could Hermione, or anyone for that matter, own a living being? 

Like she was SOMEWHAT ok with the Hogwarts elves situation because they lived good lives and were rarely bothered outside of meal times and laundry, plus she had been assured but the head cook in the kitchens, Dipsy, that all Hogwarts elves were treated very well and Hogwarts often times took in elves that had been freed as punishment so they could still have the protection the was provided to them with their bonds. But this elf, if she was even still alive, had been kept in virtual isolation for what had to be close to a century since Carina died. What kind of cruelty was that? 

Very much in a daze of a mounting mix of excitement and horror at all she had just learned and inherited in one conversation, Hermione stumbled to her bed in a daze. Shutting the curtains around her and casting an advanced spell for silencing that she and Theo had stumbled upon in an advanced charms text book meant for 5^th year OWL students Hermione set Magia Purissimum down on her bed almost reverently before letting out a sigh and calling out a name, one she wasn’t sure if she did or did not want answered.

“Tipsy?”

The morning after Samhain had been strange for the first year occupants of Slytherin. Hermione, Daphne, Tracy, Millie, and Pansy had burst into the boys dormitory mere moments after dawn shouting about how they had very important news. 

As soon as the door closed behind the 5 girls both Hermione and Theo cast muffliato across the whole room so no one outside of the ten of them could here what Hermione was about to say, “My grandfather was a squib of the Dagworth-Granger line. I’m not a muggleborn, I’m technically a halfblood because my father is not a muggle. Also, I am the sole heir to the entire Dagworth-Granger estate, and by extension, wizengamot seat. Or so my great grandmother says. Oh! And I have a house elf! Tipsy!”

Everyone let out a gasp as a neatly cared for elf appeared in front of their eyes. Both her dress made out of a fine tea cloth and the apron protecting it that appeared to have at one point been a cotton sheet from a bed were finely pressed and cared for, if they all didn’t know better they would never guess Tippy had been on her own for nearly a century prior to their meeting her this morning.

“Tipsy is here Mistress!” Tipsy greeted formally.

Hermione flushed crimson, “We talked about this Tipsy, you can call me Hermione!”

“No she can’t!” All of her friends looked at Hermione as if she had suddenly sprouted a second head from no where, “It is a disrespect in house elf culture to refer to the head of their house as anything less that Master or Mistress.” Pansy explained gently.

Millie nodded, “If you forced her to just call you Hermione she would have to punish herself every time she broke respect.”

Hermione gasped in panic and turned back to Tipsy, “Tipsy, is this true? Do you have to hurt yourself?”

Tipsy’s ears drooped and she began ringing her hands, “Yes Mistress, Tipsy can’t let such disrespect go unpunished, even if it is what Mistress says it is what Tipsy should do.”

Hermione sighed, this house elf thing was going to be the hardest part of her newfound heritage. This was a mess.

 As October had bled into November and general animosity towards the young “muggleborn”Slytherin had seemed to drop to nearly nothing by the student body at large her friends had been becoming a bit more lax in their steadfast protection of her, which gave Hermione some much appreciated freedom of movement throughout the castle. They had all decided to keep the news Samhain had brought with it to themselves until they could all speak with their parents and figure out what was going on and what all of this meant for Hermione. Plus it wasn’t like they rightly cared, muggleborn or not they had decided she was going to be their friend, anything else was simply semantics at this point. 

It also helped that Hermione seemed to pick up all forms of magic at a frighteningly fast pace, often time being able to successfully conjure all sorts of charms, hexes, and curses after simply reading about it in one of the various books she inevitably was carting around with her on any given day and as a result had intimate knowledge of spells that were far above her year, she even had a fair few OWL level charms and hexes under her belt (like the Muffliato charm that her and Theo were becoming nearly obsessed with) much to Draco’s continued chagrin as the secret swot in him rankled at someone being better than him at something for seemingly the first time. 

Hermione’s feet made quiet slapping noises on the stone floor as she hurried back to the common room, she had lost track of time in the library and it was terrifyingly close to curfew (in Hermione’s opinion anyway) but she had come across a high level protection spell in a DADA books she had been reading and she had been desperate to learn how to cast it, but this seemed to be one of the few spells that was going to give her trouble as no matter how many happy thoughts she conjured and no matter how many times she repeated the phrase “Expecto Patronum” nothing seemed to happen but a few whims of whiteness out of the tip of her wand. She had given up in frustration when she discovered how late it had gotten with a quick Tempus check with her wand.

However she came to an abrupt halt after turning into the corridor that led to the dungeons to prevent herself from running face first into 3 Gryffindors. Ronald Weasley, Dean Thomas, and Harry Potter all looked like they had seen better days having clearly been coming from a detention with Professor Snape. Weasley looked like Christmas had come early, while his two compatriots looked like they would rather be anywhere else but in that corridor at that moment.

“Mudblood” Weasley said with a sneer.

Hermione sighed, “Weasel. Are you lost? I know this castle must feel unending compared to the hovel you grew up in but do try not to get too turned around.”

His face turned as red as his hair at her comment, “How dare you! Just because those bloody snakes think your special you think you can talk to everyone like you’ve been raised like them? You are nothing but muggle scum! I bet my house looks like a castle compared to whatever cave you were raised in!”

Hermione’s smirk turned into a sneer, “Not that I have to explain myself to you, but if you would bother to ask your so called ‘friends’ anything they would be able to educate you on how muggles truly live. I would watch your tone about muggleborns too, you must realize far more of them reside in your house than mine and Potter, wasn’t your mother a muggleborn? How do you think she would feel, knowing the company you keep is such trash as this? Clearly magic does not come with class.”

She sniffed and turned abruptly away from the deplorable boys to continue on her trek back to the common room, she refused to allow them to make her late for curfew. Hermione felt the magic before the hex had even left Weasley’s mouth and threw up a hasty shield to protect herself. “How-thats a NEWT level spell!” Ron sputtered upon realizing how Hermione had blocked his attack.

Hermione shrugged, “Some of us mud bloods clearly have talent you could only dream of possessing, Weasel.”

It came out of no where, that was her defense. While she was preoccupied with Weasley, Thomas had managed to send a Jelly Legs Jinx her way by whispering the incantation under his breathe and by the time she realized it was headed towards her, it was too late.

She braced for the impact, already thinking the counter curse so that she could hopefully release herself from the effects before she fell and was subject to continued ridicule by the Gryffindors when a pulsing white light came from her locket, knocking back the jinx and causing all three boys in front of her to fall to the ground in a heaping tangle of limbs.

Merlin be good she thought to herself as Weasley narrowed his eyes, clearly sizing her up. When his gaze fell to the locket hanging around her neck he got a look in his eyes that Hermione was positive spelled nothing but trouble. “Fancy necklace you have there Granger, makes a bloke wonder where a mud blood like yourself could come across something so powerful.”

She shuddered when he backed away slowly with his friends in tow. His face promised revenge of the sweetest kind. Hermione was confident this was not the last she had seen on Ronald Weasley.

Hermione was deeply engrossed in Magia Purissimum in the common room in late November when she was accosted by Draco and Theo, the latter clutching a piece of parchment in his fingers with a look of deep melancholy on his face as if the deepest of betrayals had occurred. “Why are you on the sheet of people who are staying for Yule?” Draco demanded, arms crossed and face pinched as if cross.

“Because my parents are in South America on a business trip and won’t be back until after the new year. Why?” Hermione asked, eyes never leaving the passage she had been reading before being so rudely interrupted. She looked up at the boys with a glare when they both huffed, clearly incensed with her answer, “What? What about that sentence irks you too so?”

Theo was the one to answer, “Why did you not ask any of us? We would love to have you over!”

Hermione gave them both a bewildered look, “Well for one your parents are all still under the impression I am muggleborn. While they might be ok with you have a pet mud blood at school something tells me they won’t love you bringing strays home for Yule.” She raised an eyebrow as if waiting for an answer.

Theo’s face grew dark, “Do not call yourself that Hermione! Even if you were muggleborn, which you are not, it would not apply to you.”

Hermione scoffed, setting her tome down in irritation, “Why should I not use it? Everybody else does! I refuse to live my life in fear of a word Theodore. And besides, lets face it, even if/when it does come out that my father was a squib not a muggle there are those who won’t give a dead rat’s behind anyway and I’ll always be a mud blood in their eyes no matter what.”

“Be that as it may, both Theo and I are inclined to disagree on multiple fronts. Our parents do not necessarily hate all muggleborns, they dislike muggleborns who act like we should abandon all of our traditions and cultural heritage because they are not comfortable with things they do not understand, and they do not like the muggles who would sooner kill all magical people and creatures than learn to live amongst us.” Draco supplied primly. 

“You have gone out of your way to make sure you don’t insult any of our traditions and have actively learned to participate in those that have transpired since you have entered the wizarding world. Proven by the fact that you had to participate in the wizarding holiday of Samhain to even know about your squib heritage.” Both boys sat down in the chairs on either side of the armchair she occupied as they both began to beg her to come to their’s for Yule.

Apparently ever since Theo’s mom had tragically died the Malfoys and the Notts had been having a joint Yule celebration so she could go seamlessly between both manors throughout the break. They had even both already asked their parents, just in case it was needed they explained, and both Theo’s father and Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy had sent back their ascent. Hermione would apparently be spending the winter break, not at Hogwarts as she had intended, but at Malfoy and Nott manors. 

Hermione sighed, “I truly do not have a say in this do I?”

Both boys shook their heads in the negative. They would not leave her to spend her first Yule in the Wizarding World all alone. No, she would be going home with them to experience a true Yule, not the muggleized version Dumbledore insisted upon having here at the school each year.

The boys excitedly removed her name from the list of people staying over winter hols and began chattering at break neck speed to Hermione about everything they could do while home for the holidays. Draco explained how his parents had this huge New Years Eve party every year, everyone who was anyone would be there; and Theo recounted to her, in detail, the tradition he and his father had of drinking peppermint hot cocoa and reading new books around the fire on the eve of Yule. 

Hermione oddly found herself getting just as excited as the boys and they spent the majority of the evening excitedly murmuring to one another about the upcoming hols, Hermione’s studying long forgotten. At some point in their excited planning the three had migrated to share the largest armchair they could find so they could all fit and snuggle under a blanket as cold seeped into the common room. It was here that Theo and Draco quietly coaxed Hermione’s favorite muggle holiday traditions out of her, sharing sly grins when they began to form a plan around their findings.

This was how they were found some time later, Hermione long passed out with her feet curled up on Draco’s lap and her head leaned into Theo’s chest as both boys continued plotting in whispered tones above her sleeping form. Theo was playing absentmindedly with her curls as he had become fond of doing since the beginning of their friendship at the beginning of the term. 

Pansy and Tracy walked up tot he two boys, missing the fact that Hermione was curled up between them at first. “Have the two of you seen ‘Mione?” Tracy asked the boys. Both boys hurriedly shushed the new comers and pointed down to Hermione’s lightly snoring form.

Pansy raised a brow but said nothing regarding the intimate closeness of the three friends. This had become common place amongst their group of friends over the past few months, she did worry privately to herself about how Theo and Draco’s parents would react when they inevitably saw them together. She shoved that thought away with a grimace; who wouldn’t love Hermione? She was the easiest person in the world to adore in Pansy’s opinion, hence why they all would protect their friend to the ends of the earth. She was worth it.

“Did you guys see the sheet for who’s staying for hols? Why in merlin’s name is ‘Mione’s name on it? We were coming to find her to scold her about not telling us. We would have invited her to ours if we had known!” Tracy exclaimed with her hands flailing around her as if to add extra exasperation to her rant.

Theo and Draco were quick to assure their friends that it had been handled, “She’ll be floating between our manors for hols, our parents have already agreed” Draco explained. “If you girls want to stop by don’t hesitate, the floo is always open for you guys.”

Pansy and Tracy seemed mollified by Draco’s assurances. If those two said they had Hermione covered, then she was covered. One of the good things about those two’s adoration of her was that they would never let anything bad happen to her. They wouldn’t say the situation was handled if they weren’t 1000% sure it had been. Their friend would not be spending Yule alone at Hogwarts with none of her friends to keep her company, she would be with them. 

Which was all the better in Pansy and Tracy’s opinion. Merlin knew that the boys would make sure Hermione had the best Yule possible to welcome her into the Wizarding World. The best part being that with her at the manors the girls would be able to have easy access to her for the month they were off for Yule. They could not wait to go shopping with her in Diagon Alley, maybe they could even convince their mum’s to allow a luncheon at their favorite tea shop that they were positive their friend would adore. 

The girls nodded their ascent to the boys’ plans before ensuring that the boys planned to send Hermione up to their dorm before curfew in an hour’s time and once they had procured a yes from the boys they slowly made their way up to bed to assure their friends that the ‘Hermione situation’ that had had them all so worried had been solved and she would be spending the hols with the Malfoy and Nott families.

“Do you think she had any idea how important she is to all of us?” Tracy mused to Pansy as they walked up the stairs to their dorm.”

Pansy shrugged with a chagrined smile, “No, I don’t think she has any idea. She definitely has no idea how much she means to Theo and Draco.”

Tracy paled, “Should someone tell her?”

Pansy shook her head, “The boys will when they are ready, I’m not even sure if they have noticed yet and I for one do not want to be the one to break it to them.”

“Well if they don’t figure it out soon I assure you their parents will, that witch is the center of their world.” Tracy pointed out upon opening the door top their room.

Pansy snorted before joining Daphne on her bed, after filling the other girls in on what Tracy and she had been talking about Millie pronounced, “Yeah I’m convinced a blind man could see that from a mile off, and we all know their parents are far from blind.”

The train came to a halt at Platform 9 3/4 after the 6 hour journey through the Scottish and English countryside that led it from Hogwarts to Kings Cross and vice versa. Hermione had spent the ride surrounded by her friends as they all attempted to cram themselves into a compartment suited for about half the children they were attempting to put inside of it. Games of Exploding Snap had been interspersed with a short chess tournament amongst the friends (which Hermione had been miserably awful in) as well as long talks about what they all intended to do with their holiday.

Draco and Theo led her over to a group of three adults that Hermione quickly surmised must be their parents. Theo’s father was easy to pick out with his dark hair and strong facial features that matched Theo’s almost exactly. She had been pleasantly surprised to find the boyish charm she so adored in Theo reflected in Theodore Sr. as well when he bent to kiss her knuckles upon their introduction after insisting she call him Theodore as opposed to Mr. Nott.

Hermione blushed through the rest of the introductions where Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy also introduced themselves by their given names, Lucius and Narcissa, while insisting she call them as such. It was decided that after the children got themselves settled back at home they were to ready themselves for a dinner out in celebration of their return for the Yule holiday.

Draco excitedly gave her a tour of Malfoy Manor as soon as they arrived. Pointing out various ballrooms and dining areas, morning rooms and evening lounges before bringing her to quote ‘the best room in the manor’ with a grin that would have worried Hermione if she hadn’t nearly cried upon entry into said room mere moments later. It was a library. One that was easily twice the size of the one at Hogwarts and with none of the restrictions (Draco assured her). Hermione was sure she had died and gone to heaven.

“You absolutely prat!” Theo’s irritated voice sounded from behind Hermione, “We said we would show her the library together!”

Draco snorted indelicately, “One can only be shown so many ballrooms before they get bored Theo. After the seventh one I had no choice, maybe next time you won’t spend so much time primping in front of the mirror.”

Hermione ignored her two friends bickering in favor of exploring the seemingly endless rows of books surrounding her. She spied priceless first editions as well as multiple tomes she knew to have been out of stock for decades if not centuries. The amout of knowledge she now had open access to nearly moved her to tears.

After much persuading (and the promise of unfettered access once they got back from their dinner) the boys ushered her out of the library and called for a house elf. A tiny female house elf by the name of Pippy appeared in front of them instantly, “Young Master Draco calls for Pippy?” The elf greeted.

“Yes Pippy.” He gestured to Hermione, “My friend needs escorting to her room, and assistance getting ready for our celebratory dinner out. Can you help her?”

Hermione was about to protest that she could dress herself, she was 12 not 2, when Pippy beamed, “Pippy would love to help young Mistress Hermy! Oh Pippy is so excited for a young Mistress! Pippy has been bragging to the other elves for weeks yes she has since she saw that there was a young Mistress! Pippy has a wardrobe made special for the young Mistress yes she does!”

All three children looked at each other in confusion, “Pippy? Why are you calling Hermione Mistress?”

Pippy paled slightly before grasping Hermione’s hand tightly in her own, “Pippy said too much. Young Master needs to go get ready!” 

Hermione suddenly found herself in an unfamiliar, though tastefully decorated, bedchamber. There was a large four poster bed that was clearly hand crafted. The mahogany wood had been lovingly carved with images of unicorns and pixies dancing amongst vines of flowers that twirled around the cylindrical posts that were draped in a sheer curtaining fabric of a pale mint. Her feet sunk into the plush cream carpet as if they belonged there, and she noticed the quiet elegance that the room exuded. The room was light and airy with most of the chamber being accented in shades of mahogany and cream with small dashes of mint added in for pops of color. It looked similar to her childhood room in color and taste if a size again larger, it fit her tastes perfectly.

Pippy interrupted her revelry, “Young Mistress if pleased with her room?”

“It is lovely Pippy, I adore it. Is this your work I take it?”

Pippy nodded, “Yes Pippy did make young Mistress’s room she did. Pippy had to make it perfect for young Mistress, Pippy wants young Mistress to feel at home here.”

Hermione smiled softly at the bat like creature, “You did wonderfully Pippy, I could not have done better myself. You captured my tastes perfectly. Though I just ask you, why do you keep referring to me as your Mistress?”

“She will not answer you, as she has been instructed not to.” Narcissa answered Hermione’s question upon entering her room.

Hermione frowned, turning to Narcissa, “May I ask why?”

“You may,” Narcissa replied while signally to Pippy to begin getting Hermione ready, “While you are prepared for dinner I shall explain. Fair enough?”

Hermione nodded, blushing when Pippy removed her robes with a snap of her fingers and began ushering her in the direction of the attached washroom across from what Hermione assumed was the door to her closet. Already water had been drawn and potions and oils added to the water as steam drifted up from the water. Pippy ushered her into the water before wetting her hair and beginning the washing process. As soon as Hermione was settled in the water Narcissa began speaking.

“From what we have been hearing from our sons, my husband, Theodore, and I are assuming you are likely confused as to why so many of your new friends parents seem so accepting of your presence in our children’s lives. Are we correct in the assumption?”

Hermione nodded, prompting Narcissa to continue. “I suspected as much. Now I must bother you with another question dear. I am aware from my son’s correspondence that you have been attempting to the best of your ability to learn the customs of the wizard world the best you are able. Am I also correct in this?”

“I have been trying, yes. Though I find some parts of the customs quite confusing as there are some customs that are dictated by things that simply do not exist in the muggle world in any form.”

“Like bonds?” Narcissa inquired.

Hermione nodded resolutely, which earned her a hair tug and rebuke by Pippy, “Yes, bonds have been a subject that I find the Hogwarts library is most unhelpful in the research of. It is like they don’t exist! Though I know they must, as so much of wizarding culture and law is founded on the basis of them!”

Her bath completed, Hermione was ushered out of the washroom by an extremely pushy Pippy and plopped with little ceremony in front of an ornate vanity where Pippy began magically drying and styling her hair while muttering under her breath about how pleased she was at the challenge.

Narcissa sent Hermione a wry smile at the elf’s antics and then continued, “Wizards live longer than muggles, yes?”

“That has actually been a source of confusion for me, truth be told. But I have come across that, plus I recently found out Professor Dumbledore in over 150 years old but look closer to 60 or 70!”

Narcissa chuckled, “Yes, Headmaster Dumbledore is quite old from your perspective I gather.” She crossed her feet delicately, “But that is actually a lovely segway. Since bonds and wizarding lifespans seem to confuse you, I believe I can give you an answer to both of your questions, and your question about Pippy, if you are willing to bare with me.”

Hermione noted her ascent in the brief moment Pippy was gone, off to her closet to procure her outfit for the evening. Narcissa’s joy was palpable, “Excellent! Now where to start…ahh yes bonds!” Hermione turned her attention to Narcissa in anticipation, she loved learning new things. “Every witch and wizard who had ever or will ever exist has within them what is called a magical core. This core is what houses all of our magic and consequently all of our magical bonds. Magical bonds are magic in it’s purest form, a magical bond is what creates our magical core in the first place, they are our connection the magic that surrounds us. Understanding so far?”

With Hermione nod she continued, “Some bounds form naturally, life familial bonds and bonds of friendship. These are the easiest to form and the most common, as they form without us having to do anything but care for another. The level of care is what determines the difference between familial and friendship, we will delve into that more later. The second type of bond is bonds made by our own volition. These types of bonds are bonds like bonds of marriage, bonds of secrecy,  house elf bonds, and bonds of guardianship. The third, and most rare, type of bonds are the binds referred to as ‘bonds of magic’ these are bonds that exist due to the laws of magic. There are only two types of bonds that fall under this bond type, life debts and soul bonds. These bonds are not made by people but made by magic, and are therefore unbreakable. Superseding laws of time and death.”

Narcissa paused in her explanation momentarily to prompt Hermione to look at herself in the full length mirror beside her vanity. Hermione gasped at her reflection, Pippy had outdone herself. Her hair fell down her back in shining ringlets, even her hair potion could not accomplish what Pippy had, she wore finely made robes of dark ruby satin with shimmering mocha accents that made her feel ethereal and beautiful. “Thank you Pippy, I love it” she whispered reverently to the small elf.

Pippy’s eyes began to shine with tears of joy, “Pippy aims to please young Mistress” Then she popped out of sight.

Narcissa continued her explanation as the two witches made the long trek to the drawing room where the manor’s public floor resided. “Our bonds are why we live so long, our magical cores work together to keep us free from disease and slow down our aging so we are able to live much longer lives than our muggle and squib counter parts.”

Hermione nodded thoughtfully, “That actually makes a lot of sense. Though, I am still confused why Pippy calls me Mistress.”

Narcissa smiled ruefully, pulling Hermione gently to sit with her in a small alcove on the side of the corridor, “Remember how I mention house elf bonds earlier?” Hermione nodded, “Well their bonds sort of exist in this in-between state straddling the line of Volition bonds and bonds of magic. Due to their unique relationship with bonds, house elves can detect and see the bonds that connect to the family they are bound to.”

“That makes sense, otherwise how would they know who they are bound to?” Hermione said with a smile.

“Precisely. Beside their own bonds, house elves can easily see familial bonds, bonds of friendship, marriage bonds, guardianship bonds, life debts, and…” Narcissa gently clasped her hand, “Soul bonds.”

Hermione tilted her head in confusion, “What dos this have to do with why Pippy referred to me as her mistress?”

“Hermione, a few months ago, before you and Draco even met at Hogwarts, Pippy came to Lucius and I ecstatic after we had taken Draco to Diagon Alley for his school things because she had seen that Draco had triggered a soul bond while out in London that day.”

Hermione’s heart sank. Draco had a soul bond? What did that mean for her? Would this girl even allow her to remain friends with Draco? Narcissa continued speaking reminded Hermione she was supposed to be paying attention, “We were naturally quite confused since we were under the impression Draco already had a soul bond that had been triggered years ago when he was but a toddler.”

“How is that possible?” Hermione’s curiosity won out over her sudden melancholy. “How could he have multiple soul bonds?”

Before Narcissa could answer her question both Theo and Draco came sprinting around the corner, faces pale and drawn as if they had seen a ghost. Hermione rushed over to them immediately, worried something had happened in her absence. After assuring herself they had no injuries, she turned to her boys, “What? What is the matter? You interrupted your mother telling me about soul bonds!” She admonished.

Theo tugged her in a close embrace, “Thats why we came, we did not want you to be told this alone. Once Lucius told us what had happened we raced to find you. We had been suspicious for months now but with our knowledge of the soul bond we never considered that we could possibly-“

“Boys!” Narcissa interrupted, “I haven’t gotten that far yet!”

Theo blushed, chagrined at his own interruption, “Sorry Cissa!”

Hermione crossed her arms, officially irritated, “What is going on? I feel like everyone knows what is happening except for me!”

“You are quite right Hermione.” Lucius drawled from behind the boys as he appeared to finally catch up to them, “If these two had listened instead of sprinting off at the first spot of trouble they would have been told to wait so you weren’t overwhelmed.”

Hermione looked up at the distinguished wizard from her spot sandwiched between her boys, “Well something tells me they aren’t leaving, so someone should just tell me what all of this fuss is about. Narcissa was just about to tell me why Pippy thinks im her mistress.”

Draco turned to his mother and father with pleading eyes, “May we tell her? Please?”

After a short silence, and a conversation made up of small nods and facial expressions both Malfoy parents gave their consent with a long suffering sigh. They informed all three children they were to leave for supper in 30 minutes time and then allowed the three the use of the alcove Hermione and Narcissa had been seated in previously.

Though it was a squeeze, all three children snuggled up on the small loveseat together, limbs tangled together in order to fit. Hermione found herself in her usual spot between both boys with Draco’s left arm around her shoulders and Theo’s hand in her own which allowed her to use Draco as a back rest and Theo held her legs in his lap. Draco turned to Hermione, “We are sorry we interrupted your time with my mum, but Theo and I wanted to tell you ourselves once our dads told us what Pippy and Toddy (one of the Nott house elves) had discovered”

Theo squeezed her hand gently, “Draco and I first met each other when we were three years old.”

“His mum was sick and Theodore asked my parents to watch over Theo so he could better care for his dying wife.” Draco explained from her other side.

Theo continued, “A few hours into my first day here Pippy came up to Lucius and Narcissa declaring we shared a soul bond, though uncommon, a soul bond between two wizards is not unheard of and soul bonds are considered magic of a near sacred level of reverence, so regardless of the stigma surrounding two wizards being together our parents were ecstatic.”

Hermione frowned, “Why have you never told me?”

Draco shrugged, “Soul bonds are hard to explain. We figured it would be better coming from our parents, especially since there are practically no books on the subject at Hogwarts which we knew would drive your little swotty self insane. Its part of why we wanted you to come home with us for Yule so badly. Also, up until about 10 minutes ago, it was what we thought my mum was talking with you about while you were preparing for dinner.”

“But it wasn’t?” Hermione surmised quietly.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Theo said quietly, “Last August, when you were in Diagon Alley school shopping, without anyone realizing it you and Draco must have come into contact. Even brushing shoulders would have triggered it. Lucius and Narcissa ignored it at first as fluke until after we got to school, and you were sorted into Slytherin, Toddy announced the same thing to my father apparently.”

Realization dawned through Hermione, “Merlin and Morgana, you aren’t saying what I think you are, are you?” She made to scramble off the couch but Draco and Theo’s gentle embrace stopped her.

“Don’t panic!” Draco pleaded softly in her ear, “It changes nothing! Nothing at all!”

“It changes everything Draco!” Hermione cried, terrified at the prospect of what she was being told. Her parents were going to freak out, they had told her she shouldn’t date until Uni and now she apparently had two soul mates and she was barely twelve! What would her other friends think? What would the Wizarding World think? Hermione could feel panic nipping at the side of her subconscious. She had never handled things outside of her control very well, and this was something entirely  outside of her wheelhouse, outside of any wheel house she had every come across.

The shook his head, pulling her attention to him, “Hermione, it changes nothing.” At her whispered protest he grew slightly firmer, “Hermione, we have been yours as much as you have been ours since the day we met in September. Everyone knows it, the three of us are practically attached at the hip most of the time unless you are with the girls.”

“But…” Hermione stuttered, “How-why-how did this happen?”

Draco shrugged, “No one really knows. We were compatible, our magic was compatible, and the powers that be decided we are better together than apart.”

“Does it not feel right?” Theo whispered softly, “Would you really want to be with anyone else? Have us be with anyone else?”

This brought Hermione pause. How would she handle them being with another witch? Not well, she thought miserably. The very thought made everything in her rebel in protest, maybe there was something to the soul bond after all. It still terrified her though, how was this something they were supposed to be dealing with? For the love of Merlin they were eleven and twelve years old! They shouldn’t be thinking of who their soulmate would be for years!

“Nothing changes?” Hermione asked after a few moments of silence.

She felt more than saw Draco shake his head, “Nothing changes. It’s still you, Theo and I against the world only now we know that it gets to be the three of us forever.”

“And no one can question why we are so close with you, not even the staunchest blood purist would argue with a soul bond.” Theo piped up.

After that the trio spent a few minutes speaking to each other in hushed tones before slowly ambling towards the drawing room where Theo and Draco’s parents were waiting for them to leave for dinner. They walked in with a few minutes to spare of their 30 minute time frame to the smiles of the three adults. Narcissa shared a hopeful glance with Hermione, a smile bursting from her when the girl gave a small nod in answer to her silent question.

The six of them proceeded to an upscale restaurant a few steps off Diagon Alley called L’elfe Secret that apparently was by reservation only. Each table was set off in a semi private alcove with half walls on three sides and a privacy bubble was erected around each party for added privacy. At Draco’s suggestion Hermione ordered Blanquette de Veau which turned out to be a creamy stew that Hermione absolutely adored and then Draco, Theo, and Hermione elected to split a serving of Mille Feuille before they all decided to take a stroll through Diagon Alley before going back to the manor for the evening.

As Hermione was laying in her bed that night after Pippy had dressed her in silk pajamas with subtle warming charms woven into the fabric she quietly reminisced on how much her life had changed since finding out she was a witch and going to Hogwarts for the first time. It was hard to believe it had only been 4 months since she had waved good bye to her parents before boarding the Hogwarts Express.

 So much had changed, she had changed. For the first time in her life she had friends, best friends, and she felt as if she truly belonged. It was with a contented smile that Hermione drifted off to sleep that night with thoughts of hours spent in the Malfoy and Nott libraries, long days snuggled up with hot cocoa and a good book between her two boys, and the warm familiarity of friendship that she had to look forward to for the rest of her life.