To Melt Down Gold

Lucius and Narcissa receive post from Severus by the third of September. He informs them of Hermione’s house, congratulates them on their son’s. Leaves out Hermione’s dramatic exit from her first class. Asks them to allow her time to adjust to her new house before calling her home.

“She is going to ruin all of my plans,” Lucius spits, dropping the letter on the table in front of him.

“Your plans? She is in service to the Dark Lord. As are you.” Narcissa does not care for her husband’s whining. Besides, she has already decided that Hermione will be the reason any of them survive the Dark Lord’s second coming. Lucius would do well to remember that his master left her in his care.

“Not if he never regains form. Not if she doesn’t open the Chamber of Secrets and sacrifice a life to bring him back.”

Narcissa resists the urge to roll her eyes.

If the only opportunity that Riddle gave himself to live forever rests on an old diary, he isn’t the wizard he boasts himself to be.

“I want her home this weekend,” Lucius says, standing up and vanishing the letter, in a childish snit that should be beneath him.

“Then I am sure she will be here. Now, can we discuss Draco’s sorting? I want to send him something, but I don’t want to embarrass him.”

Lucius suggests new dress robes. Narcissa sends a three pound box of sweets.

Harry should really thank Hermione. His appearance at Hogwarts becomes old news after her stunt in Potions. 

Followed by an unfortunate underestimation of her own transfiguration skills which results in her desk and McGonagall’s desk running around the halls of Hogwarts squealing together, Hermione becomes quite talked about. 

Luckily, given the magnitude of her accidental magic, most students write it off as a prank by the Weasley twins. Two loud redheads who seem to find joy in disrupting as many people as possible in a given day.

It happens again a couple of days later. 

Halfway through their Charms lesson, Hermione accidentally levitates herself when she tries to levitate her feather.

She loses points for it, which isn’t fair. 

Unlike the Irish boy who sat behind her, she didn’t catch anything on fire. 

But she can understand why it might be frowned upon. Most other students would have no idea how to stop themselves from levitating and would probably hurt themselves.

Hermione merely floats back to the ground and pretends as if nothing happened. 

After class, Theo follows her to the library.

Hermione likes to spend time alone sometimes, just being with her own thoughts.

Theo loves to ask her nettling questions about the muggle world that she oftentimes can’t answer.

Her’s and Snape’s London visits had not prepared her for the Telly and the radio and something called a jackhammer.

Eventually, Theo catches on and things reach a head.

“You aren't a muggleborn,” he claims.

“Yes, I am.”

“You can’t be. You don’t know anything about being a muggle. Not the tube. Or the currency. You don’t even know what a television is!”

“I am a muggleborn.” She probably shouldn't be so stubborn about this.

“And another thing! You have some of the strongest magic I’ve ever seen and you act like you are trying to suppress it at every moment!”
“Don’t shout at me,” Hermione says slowly.

“I’m sorry, but I need something. Some sort of explanation.”

She hadn’t done it since she got on the Hogwarts Express. It is supposed to be impossible within the castle grounds.

Hermione disappears. Blinks away to the Great Hall for a spot of lunch.

Leaving Theo standing in the fourth floor corridor trying to figure out what just happened.

He tracks her down quickly, sliding onto the bench beside her.

Luckily, she is in the middle of a conversation with Harry about someone having broken into Gringotts, so Theo is forced to drop the subject of her ancestry.

“Look here,” Harry says. “Gringotts goblins, while acknowledging the breach, insist nothing was taken. The vault in question, 713- that’s the vault that Hagrid emptied when he took me to Gringotts. It had a small parcel, maybe the size of my fist. What do you think it could be?” 

“It could be anything. The better question is who would be brazen enough to risk the wrath of the goblins?” Hermione asks aloud, though it is her own mind to which she turns for an answer.

Theo chimes in with some theory about the stolen object being a rare artefact and Hermione relaxes, having distracted Theo from his investigation into her origins.

Hermione hides from her classmates in the library. She is getting tired of hearing them pass round stories about the strange things happening at Hogwarts. Expecially how often her name is included in those stories.

She is knee deep in the Ogre Wars when a boy sits down opposite her.

“You’re sort of scary, do you know that?” He asks.

Hermione ignores the redhead boy, not in the mood to be taunted, especially by a Gryffindor.

With the power simmering just beneath the surface of her skin, one chuckle might send her off the deep end.

“Really impressive how you managed to transfigure your desk into something animate. McGonagall alluded that she thought it was a student. Then when I heard about Flitwick’s class, I knew it had to have been you. Not that my brother and I don’t appreciate everyone thinking we managed to transfigure desks into pigs from across the castle,” The boy carries on as though she has lifted her head or given even a small indication that she is listening.

“Have you been doing that sort of thing for long? Insane magical feats without breaking a sweat, I mean,” he clarifies.

Hermione looks up, trying to slow her heartbeat. Lest she turn him into a hairbrush or a rat.

“I’m studying,” she exhales.

“What for? Hermione Granger is the most powerful witch in the first year class. I’ve heard it from several confidential sources.”

She wishes he’d leave. Or insult her. Two things she is a master at handling.

“Who are you?” Hermione asks, exasperated.

“Oh, right. I’m Fred Weasley,” he grins.

Weasley. So he’s a pureblood. If he had her talents, he’d be a hero in the wizarding world. 

“Fred Weasley, I’m not really interested in making friends. Nor do I have the time to ferret out the impracticalities and impossibilities of a first year being able to perform such feats with someone who can’t tell when they are being brushed off.”

He blinks. Twice.

Hermione looks back down at her notes, her bic pen having stopped midword. It was one of the best parts of shopping in London. Severus had let her buy two packs of the blue roller pens.

Instead of hearing him stand up and leave, she hears him tap on the table in front of her in a jaunty pattern like he is knocking on a door.

“I’m afraid you don’t really have a choice in the matter,” Fred says, his voice more serious than it had been a moment ago.

“A choice?” She asks, looking up, unable to ignore him.

“In us being friends. Here’s one more ridiculously long word for you- inevitability. Our friendship is inevitable, Hermione Granger.”

“Are you an idiot?”

“Quite the opposite, actually. My brother and I think we’d make excellent friends.”

“Why?” She sounds exactly as disbelieving as she is.

“That is for me to know, and you to figure out. I’ll leave you be for now, but not for long. You’ve a bright future with George and I at your side, Hermione.”

And then he leaves, grinning over his shoulder at her.

“Strange,” she mutters, returning to the Ogre Wars.

When she gets back to the common room, Harry and Theo are sitting in a corner by the glass, watching grindylows swim by.

“I’m assuming neither of you have done the Potion’s assignment yet?” She greets them.

“How do you even know what the Potion’s assignment is?” Harry asks. 

Hermione sends a mock glare in his direction.

“I bet he writes home to your parents,” Theo says.

“My parents are dead,” Hermione says, mostly for the look of shock that flashes on his face.

Also, she’d grown rather weary of Theo’s constant questions. She supposes the least she can do is reveal to her only friends the truth of her childhood.

Harry cracks a smile.

“Hermione Granger! How dare you walk out of a professor’s class?” Harry imitates a gruff male voice.

Impersonating the guardian she had told him about.

“Lucius never calls me by my name,” Hermione says, sitting down next to Harry.

Theo looks at her with suddenly knowing eyes.

Lucius isn’t a common name in the muggle world, and is an infamous one in the wizarding world. 

“What does he call you then?” Harry asks, so unaware of the prejudice in their world.

“Mudblood,” she says, shrugging to make it seem like it doesn’t bother her anymore.

“What does it mean?”

Hermione smiles softly at Harry. He has no idea what his life would have been like as a Potter had his parents lived. The honour of being from such an old family. He’d been robbed of a life he was entitled to. A life Hermione never would be.

“Both of my parents were muggles. It means that I have dirty blood. That I am not meant to have magic.”

“But you are the best witch I know! Better than the professors even!”

Theo sends Harry a look as if saying that he needs to be quiet.

Hermione appreciates them both.

“Some families in the wizarding world think that they are better than others. They won’t see reason,” Theo says, managing to keep the pity out of his tone.

Harry frowns but doesn’t argue.

“My Aunt called me Freak so much as a kid I thought it was my name,” he says after a moment.

Hermione blinks.

“My dad calls me a disappointment, constantly,” Theo drawls.

All three of them laugh, though it is a bit stunted.

“Can we go eat?” Harry asks, climbing off the bed and grabbing his jumper.

“I am going to eat three chocolate tarts,” Theo reminds them of what Pratch had said they would be serving at dinner.

“I’m going to have fish and chips,” Harry says. 

Hermione follows after them, laughing at their hungry conversation. The three of them are a mess. Hermione had let herself forget how much they all needed each other.