Arcadia

Hermione has always had trouble making friends. People found her uncanny, much too bright and knowledgeable for her age. When Hermione tried to play with her classmate at recess, the children would feel intimidated and instead of explaining the rules of their games to her, they would push her out by saying things like “you’ll think it’s stupid…”. Her papa, Paris, said that her classmates were simply intimidated by her intellect, that nothing was inherently wrong with her. That with time, the great equalizer, they would warm up to her. “You’re not the problem, dandelion. You just have to wait until the others catch up to you.” Her mother Hélène would half-jokingly formulate insane plans to trap the other children into being her friends when her husband was out of hearing range. “You could steal Éloïse’s pencil case and then help her find it ? She would feel indebted to you and include you in their games then…all you need is an opening chérie.”

After years of trying to overcome the strange stillness that follows her as she tries to interact with her classmates, Hermione retreated to books and spent her time discovering and cultivating new knowledge to amuse herself instead. Sometimes her professors would even be gracious enough to hold short conversations with her about one subject or another. She had hoped to carry on as such and finish her year 6 at her old school, but an incident last winter was one incident too much in a series of inexplicable providential incidents surrounding Hermione, and the school found a pretext to just get rid of the common denominator. For indeed where most children avoided Hermione, some children reacted to the feeling of being threatened with offensive outbursts. These few would seek her out and attack her out of unease. While Hermione had been caught in a handful of childish slaps and hair-pulling, sometimes strange incidents occurred to the attackers. Benjamin tripped and broke a tooth. Mel lost her voice for two days. Valerie developed alopecia after getting her hand stuck in Hermione’s hair at recess and saying how gross it felt.

The incidents were rare enough and nothing could truly be traced back to Hermione. She did not exactly will these things to happen, after all (with maybe the exception of Valerie). She just wished for the harassment to stop. While alopecia seemed to sufficiently cow Valerie into avoiding Hermione, her best friend Mel kept glowering at Hermione at a distance. This changed last February. It was Valentine's Day and the air was prone to mischief and reckless love confessions. The whole school had an afternoon free of classes and they could mingle with the other classes for a handful of different Valentine’s Day crafting. Hermione decided to go to the baking workshop. Unfortunately, as Hermione finished tying her little apron on, the teacher animating this baking workshop announced that the children would need to pair up for this activity due to the amount of students interested, and the limited number of stations available.

As the children quickly paired up, Hermione expected to be - as usual - left out, and to collect her fellow loner to form a team. “Hermione, would you like to team up with me?” Hermione startled and looked into the eyes of Mel warily. “You usually team up with Valerie” stated Hermione, looking around at the bustling students to find Mel’s best friend. “She’s making heart garlands next door” lightly replied Mel with an easy smile. “So? Wanna team up with me?” Hermione felt uneasy as Mel wasn’t exactly nice to her usually. But she would not look a gift horse in the mouth, especially since she spotted the snotty third grader behind Mel looking for a partner. She would like her cookies to be snot-free, thank you very much.

“Sure thing” replied Hermione with a shy smile. Maybe her papa was right after all, and finally her classmates were ready to befriend her. With an excited flutter in her heart, Hermione settled next to Mel at a baking station and they dutifully followed the instructions from the teacher. They worked in a comfortable silence, occasionally asking the other to hand them an ingredient to add in the bowl. The girls cut out heart shapes from their cookie dough and placed them on a baking tray, waiting for mister Vincent to pick it up and bake them. While cleaning their station, Mel spoke to Hermione again. “How will you decorate your cookies ?”

“I’m thinking about making dandelions with the icing,” replied Hermione. Mel raised an eyebrow. “Dandelions?” Hermione blushed a little “It’s… My dad calls me his dandelion. Because of… you know. My hair. It’s a nickname.” Mel chuckles and Hermione blushed harder. It’s the first time they say anything remotely personal. Is that what friends do? Talk about their lives…

“How fitting,” said Mel with a crooked smile that resembled more of a smirk. In a conversational tone she continued “They’re an invasive sort of weed, are they not ?” Hermione froze a little and glanced up at Mel who was focusing on making purple icing. “Uh… yeah” answered Hermione, a little thrown off about the comment. It was innocent enough. She shook her head to clear her mind. Mel had been cordial the whole workshop, there was nothing more to the comment.

As Mister Vincent brought out the cookie tray to each station to cool down, he told the class sternly “Don’t touch the trays, they’re very hot!” The students were still milling about with food colouring and icing, some drawing out their design on paper while the cookies cooled. Mel let out a sigh. “It’s taking so long, could you check if the cookies are cooled now?” asked Mel. Hermione hovered her hand over the tray “It still feels -” and let out a cry of pain as Mel pushed her hand down on the tray, burning her palm. Her yelp went unheard in the brouhaha of the excited classroom and Hermione struggled to pull her hand away as she watched Mel’s self-satisfied smirk through tear-filled eyes. “That’s for Val’s hair, you filthy weed.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, Mel pulled her hand away from Hermione’s with a drawn out cry and crumpled to the ground cradling her own hand while Hermione cradled hers and let the tears spill down her cheeks. Mister Vincent ran over “I told you girls NOT to touch the tray! Oh god, oh god, I’ll be in so much trouble”. He paled as he looked at Hermione’s left hand and its burn mark “That looks awful. Put cold water on it under the tap… Mel, do get a hold of yourself please and get up!”

But Mel was clutching at her right hand and sobbing while yelling “It’s her fault! She broke my hand!” Mister Vincent was taken aback, as was the rest of the class which froze and looked at the spectacle. Hermione felt a burning anger coursing through her “No! SHE burned MY hand! I didn’t do anything!” But when mister Vincent asked to see Mel’s right hand, Hermione saw with shock and horror that the girl’s fingers were crooked and limp. All five of Mel’s fingers were broken.

-

The principal did not believe Hermione’s innocence. Hélène had fought with the principal and stated how her daughter was attacked first and was only defending herself. And if Hermione was expelled, then so should Mel for burning her daughter’s hand. The principal sighed “Mrs Granger, Mel accidentally pushed Hermione’s hand on the tray. That does not permit Hermione to resort to… such excessive violence in retaliation to an accident. The girl suffers five broken fingers from her dominant hand, which will significantly pose a challenge for her studies…” In the end, the principal already made up her mind to remove Hermione from the school. She agreed to let Hermione finish her school year provided there were no other incidents and transfer to a new school in the Fall without a note to her academic file about the incident if Hélène agreed to keep the event hush hush and forget lawsuits. The school did not need bad publicity.

Hélène stormed out of the principal’s office with Hermione, and brought her daughter to have hot chocolate and told her that she did well to defend herself, no matter what the school said. “I’ll always support you Hermione, don’t let these…” Her mother went a little bit red trying, no doubt, to hold back bad words “bullies walk all over you.”

-

And so this day of September 19th, 1990, saw Hermione sitting by herself in the courtyard of her new school, sitting on a bench under the sun with a book on nebulas propped open. The sun rays dancing through her frizzy hair formed a soft halo around her small heart-shaped face. While such a mane would have eclipsed all facial features on any other face, Hermione’s big mismatched eyes put up a good fight. One amber from her papa and one light blue from her maman, both surrounded by a subtle dark green ring. That, and her two front teeth which were a bit too long and kept her mouth always slightly half-open when she relaxed her features. As a very recent member of the 11-year-olds-girls club, Hermione has started to feel a little bit self-conscious about being too much. Her hair, her eyes, her teeth, her brain… why couldn’t her body choose and stick to one too-much feature?

She was only halfway through the third week of her new school, but the same subtle ostracization has already taken effect. Hermione was not bullied - not yet that is. But slight frowns and uneasy lulls in conversations accompanied her every step like a cloak that shunned people away. Maybe because of that funny feeling the students and staff have when they are close to her, an inexplicable sense of unease and anxiousness. Hermione still held out the hope that maybe a change of school would not be the worst thing ever. Maybe this new Mel-free new school would be more welcoming to her.

Hélène has been trying to convince her husband Paris to move their practice back to her homeland, wishing for Hermione to know the other half of her culture and saying how maybe the French children might be more open-minded to Hermione. Although mother and daughter conversed in French and often visited France on holidays, it is simply not the same as everyday-living at Cagnes-sur-Mer, where even time is tempted to slow its pace under the hot sun and people are actually happy because they are not stuck in Londonian traffic, under the cold rain and grey skies. Cagnes-sur-Mer is home. And she is trying her best to convince Paris to move to France, if not the south of France, for Hermione’s high school education, with little success for now. You would think being named after a French city would have held some sway. Alas.

The white swatch she received this morning for her birthday beeps to remind her that she had five minutes to make it to class, pulling her from her daydreams on nebula explorations. Maybe I’ll become an astronaut or an astrophysicist. Hermione briskly makes her way to class and greets her teacher with a quick smile before settling down in her seat. As the class is filling in, Hermione strikes a conversation with the teacher to start her plan to acquire lunchtime conversationalists. A group of boys walk in as the bell rings. One of them coughed out kiss-ass as he walks past her, making the rest of the boys snicker behind him. Hermione was used to those sorts of low-handed insults, but she flushed all the same, feeling anger flaring up below her heart. She turns to glare at his back as he tripped on an invisible tile on his way to his seat in the back.

“Let’s talk about that later sweetheart,” offered the teacher who did not hear Samuel. “Settle down, settle down!” 

-

Hermione packed up her things quickly at the end of the class, excited to get back home to celebrate her birthday with her parents, who both promised to come home early from their dentistry practice tonight. She walks out of the school gates to see her papa’s unmistakeable curly hair waiting for her outside of their car, smiling and waving at her. “Papa!” smiles Hermione, running over to her father and into his embrace.

“Happy birthday dandelion! How was your day?” asked her father, looking briefly around to see if any potential friend would drop a goodbye to his daughter.

“Good! I got a book on nebulas from the library. I think I would like to be an astronaut. Or an astrophysicist”. Paris looked down at his daughter with a warm smile, messing her hair further and saying “An astronaut, huh? That sounds like a lifetime of adventures, your mother might decide to join you if you ever left for space and leave me with a telescope to watch over you”. Hermione laughs freely, for her mother would most certainly find a way to squeeze her way onto her space missions. She would never pass up such an opportunity.

As they got home, Hélène had decorated the house in purple and white balloons and a lovely handmade strawberry shortcake sat in the middle of the table. “Bonne fête ma chérie!” said Hélène as she enveloped her daughter. “Merci maman!” exclaims Hermione, holding her mother tight. She felt so relieved and loved when she comes home to her parents and that never fails to mend her heart at the end of school days. As Paris made tea for their afternoon birthday party delight, a knock sounded at the door.

“Are we expecting anyone, Paris?” asked Hélène with a slight frown, getting up to get the door. “Not that I know of” replied Paris idly “If it’s a Jehovah’s witness just close the door, they are too persistent to reason with”.

Hélène opens the door to see a man in his late thirties, close-shaven and dressed in a light blue ensemble made of silk and an adorable meringue-shaped blue hat resting on his light brown hair. When he smiled, a dimple revealed itself on his left cheek. “Madame Granger ?,” asked the stranger. Surprised to be addressed in French by default, Hélène replies in her mother tongue with a raised eyebrow “Yes, that would be me. And you are ?” 

“My apologies, my name is Alphonse. I am a representative of the Académie de magie Beauxbâtons,” replied the man with a smile. “Normally, we would simply send a standard letter to children with at least one magical grandparent, since the family would already be in the know of the wizarding world. However, mademoiselle Granger is an exceptional case, since she lives in the United Kingdom, apart from her magical family in France.”

“I beg your pardon, une académie de magie ?”

“Aah… I see I did well by making the trip!” replies Alphonse, nodding his head in thought. “Your daughter, Hermione, is a sorcière”

“You are mistaken, my parents are not at all wizards” says Hélène suspiciously, trying to close the door on what she thinks is an elaborate scam. “We are not interested, au revoir monsieur”

“Un instant!” exclaims Alphonse “If you would allow me, I can show you-”

“Maman ? All is well ?” asked Hermione  in French as she pokes her head around her mother to look at the stranger.

“Ah! Mademoiselle Granger!” exclaims Alphonse, set on convincing this young witch to join the Academy. This is his first venture into a recruiting visit and the Headmistress very much insinuated that Hermione Granger would be a most welcome addition to Beauxbâtons, Alphonse, with her signature severe glint in her eyes, which meant Alphonse had better convince mademoiselle Granger. The girl’s grandmother must have been a force to reckon with for the Headmistress to take a particular interest in the little girl in front of him.

“Don’t talk to strangers, ma chérie” says Hélène as she pushes her daughter’s head back behind her. “Go join your papa. I am coming.”

“Mesdames, s’il vous plaît, allow me five minutes of your time!” says an increasingly thrown off Alphonse, losing all sense of propriety as he lodges his right shoe in the doorway, preventing the door from being further closed. A muffled crack sounded behind Alphonse.

“What in the name of Godric is going on here?” asked an older lady behind Alphonse with a Scottish lilt. She was dressed in an emerald Edwardian era dress, her neat silver-coloured chignon pulling her facial features tightly and her head was topped by a beautiful black velvet wide brim hat, with three little borago flowers on the side.

Hélène pauses her door battle with Alphonse to stare at the strange lady who just appeared out of thin air. A persistent magician and a time traveller all in one day? Is that Paris’s idea of entertainment ? Alphonse turns around and sniffs haughtily. “Madam, I am here to invite mademoiselle Granger to attend Beauxbâtons Academy of Magic, as her previous family members did before her”

“Her previous - our records registered Miss Granger as a muggleborn” says the lady, looking confused.

“Well, for Hogwarts, sure, but Beauxbâtons has knowledge of at least one family member who attended our academy. It is tradition for one family to attend the same school of Magic, non?”

“Well, granted, but I must still inform Miss Granger of her invitation to attend Hogwarts. The choice of school will be left to her.”

Hélène trying to close the door again made Alphonse turn back to the mother with a put upon sigh. He did not expect competition to come so swiftly. “Madame, please let us explain”. Hélène looks between the two strangers, part of her genuinely curious about these strange characters, and the other part of her being sceptical and wanting to celebrate her daughter’s birthday in peace. But she figured these two people would not go easily without saying their piece, and Hermione is looking between the two strange characters with an avid interest which she recognizes as one she would not easily let down, so she relented and invited them in.

“Paris! We have guests!”

“My love?” asked Paris as he walked towards the doorway to see what the fuss is about. He led them bemusedly to the living room as Hélène dropped by the kitchen to bring some tea. The two guests sat in armchairs facing the sofa on which Hermione and Paris sat, waiting for Hélène to join them. The older lady cleared her throat. “Forgive me for this sudden visit, my name is Minerva McGonagall and I am the Deputy Headmistress and transfiguration teacher of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

“And I am Alphonse de Clercy, a representative and alumnus from Beauxbâtons Academy of magic” says Alphonse a bit pompously with his charming smile.

“Witchcraft and magic?” asked a perplexed Paris, raising an eyebrow to Hélène as she walks in. “Darling…” started Paris, trying to figure out if this was another one of his wife’s little mischiefs.

“No” replied Hélène with a smirk. “I wish I had thought of it though.”

“Magic?” asked Hermione, ignoring her parents’ antics. “What do you mean?”

Professor McGonagall and Alphonse looked at each other before facing her. “It means that you, Miss Granger, have magic in you,” kindly replied Professor McGonagall.

“Vous êtes une sorcière, très chère. You are able to make the impossible, well, possible! Your maternal grandmother was a sorcière d’exception, herself an alumna of the académie” added Alphonse in French, ever trying to sway this young witch to go to France.

“Grand-maman? Non, I really don’t think so”, says a frowning Hermione. Her grand-maman might be a free spirit, yes, but she was also very much normal and never gave Hermione the impression she was anything even remotely witch-like. Grand-maman is a gentle soul, and a patron of the arts.

“Could you converse in English, please?” cuts in a mildly annoyed Minerva.

“Ah, of course” easily replies Alphonse with a none too subtle smirk. “Madame Granger, I have to inform you that there are records of your birth from a witch named Myrène Poirier in France, 1958. However, you have not shown up on the Académie’s records as a witch, but Miss Granger here did. The magic seemed to have skipped a generation”. Hélène sat there frozen in shock and disbelief.

“You are mistaken. Myrène Poirier was my marraine, not my mother” Her childhood was a bit hazy. She never really questioned it, thinking her memory to be a bit faulty. She also felt a bit angry. If this was all true, why did her mother never tell her she was adopted? Was her godmother a witch ? Hermione was always special, her and Paris’s little miracle. Their daughter also has this fuzzy energy about her, almost like static electricity. Sometimes the air gets charged around her when she feels big emotions and a metallic taste lingers on the tongue before a small incident happens. Was that… magic? An inherited gift, apparently, which skipped her? Was this why her hypothetical mother abandoned her? Hermione’s voice shakes Hélène out of her thoughts and the beginning of bitter thoughts, and she tries her best to stay grounded and figure out what this revelation meant for her daughter.

“Prove it,” says an authoritative Hermione as she looks at Alphonse and Minerva. “Prove that you are magical”.

Minerva stood up, followed quickly by Alphonse who did not want to miss the opportunity to show what Beauxbâtons could offer the little witch. With an elegant flourish he pulls out his wand and charms the tea set to dance around the coffee table and conjures three little blue birds to fly around the living room while chirping a small comptine to which the tea cups were dancing to. They then gently settled on Hermione; one on her head, chirping happily, one on her shoulder, and one on her left hand, nuzzling her. Hermione laughs joyously, with wide shiny and happily surprised eyes as she carefully caresses the conjured bird on her hand with her free one. Hélène and Paris were in awe, openly gaping at this beautiful magical show.

Minerva clears her throat, attracting Hermione's eager eyes on her. She transforms the coffee table on which the cups were dancing into a pig, which made Hermione laugh and shocked Hermione’s parents even more. The cups stopped dancing with their newly unstable dance floor and cluttered together in the centre of the pig’s back, holding onto each other to avoid falling down.

Alphonse looked unimpressed and wrinkled his nose at the older witch with a silent taking the hog in Hogwarts a bit too literally, are we not ?  clearly written on his face. Slightly miffed, and not one to let a pompous man one-up her, she swiftly shifts herself into a cat, and back to her usual self with no apparent effort. Now that bit of magical prowess left Alphonse with a slack jaw.

Without a word, both witch and wizard set everything back to right, only leaving the blue bird Hermione was petting. “ That was incredible!” exclaimed Hermione excitedly. “You mean I can also do that?”

“We can certainly teach you!” “If you apply yourself, my dear,” replied the magical adults at the same time.

Hermione beams and looks to her parents, both already knowing talking Hermione out of that will be a challenge. The adults started conversing about the locations of the schools, tuition and curriculum while Hermione uncharacteristically only half listened in. She was too excited about the prospect of learning magic, and also elated that there was a reason, an explanation, as to why she was so different from the other children. Magic! Although she wanted to believe her parents when they kept saying nothing was wrong with her, she had started to doubt their words. But now everything has an explanation. Nothing is wrong with her, she was just magical, and next year she will be able to join other people like her and finally -finally!-have friends!