A Rude Awakening
“I still can’t believe it!” came a shrill whisper but a metre from Hermione, still laying on her bed, her eyes closed. She had been like that for many minutes, just listening to the endless prattle of her fellow Slytherin girls. “A Mudblood in Slytherin? What next? A Squib? ”
Although Hermione didn’t know the meaning of either words, she suspected they weren’t awfully nice.
“Pansy!” a softer voice cried admonishingly. “You shouldn’t use that sort of language—it’s not right!”
“What rubbish! I can say it—you agree, don’t you, Davis?”
“Of course!” assured Davis eagerly.
“See, Daphne? Her father was one, and even she agrees! It’s—it’s just not done! ”
At that, Hermione heaved her thick blankets off of her, glaring at her Housemates. Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass were under the covers of the latter's bed, with Davis standing beside them, looking too wary to actually touch the bed. Their heads all whipped around to watch Hermione as she stormed out of the room and into the lavatory.
She didn’t care about their thoughts, Hermione assured herself. They just wanted to make themselves feel stronger by hurting her.
Unfortunately, being treated like a spectacle wasn’t limited to the dormitory. As soon as she entered the common room, people began to fall silent and look at her—some with fascination, some with disgust.
But that didn’t matter to Hermione. Not when her first class at a magic school was coming up!
Hermione had never been even a second late to any of her classes. Not when she was being teased by her classmates, not when her grandmother had fallen ill, never . Unfortunately, maintaining that consistency in a magical school was a seemingly inconceivable aim. Why else would Hogwarts be designed in a manner more akin to a labyrinth than a school?
The ever-shifting floor plans had seemed to be brilliant to Hermione when she had been excitedly tearing through Hogwarts: A History , but when faced with its true nature, the flaws in her past thoughts had never been more apparent. Hogwarts Castle itself came across as semi-sentient; worse, if that was true, it clearly used its limited intelligence to hamper the first years in their journeys to classes. Hermione had followed Gemma Farley’s exact directions to a tee, but at the seventh turn left, she’d appeared approximately four feet away from where she’d been mere minutes ago.
And then there were the other factors—the moving staircases (with enchanted trick steps, to boot), the doors that weren’t doors at all, and Peeves, a poltergeist that relished in the students’ anguish. Thankfully, Hermione had managed to avoid the wads of parchments he had thrown at a group of passing-by Ravenclaws on her way to Transfiguration, her first official class.
As she sat at the desk smack-dab in the middle of the front row, Hermione was pleased to see that few students had come as early as she had. Once her parchment, quill, and inkpot were laid out neatly, Hermione patiently waited for the class to begin. The minutes passed by, and her fellow first years began trickling in, stopping only once the bell had boomed throughout the castle.
Professor McGonagall rose promptly. “Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," she said sternly, striding across the room. "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned."
With a flick of her wand, her desk turned into a pig. Then, it changed back. All the class got awfully excited—even the mean Slytherin girls had stars in their eyes at the awesome sight. But then, McGonagall went on, teaching the actual basic theory behind the art of transfiguration; for some reason, that awe dimmed in the other students. Not in Hermione, though. She took frantic notes during the lecture, even though she’d already memorised the textbook, and seized every opportunity that Professor McGonagall offered up to show off her knowledge.
“Now,” said the Transfiguration Mistress, drawing two circles on the blackboard, labelling one ‘ Natural World’ , “what, in transfiguration, is the other world?”
Hermione’s hand shot up. Thankfully, it was the only one to. “Well, I’d say that the other world is the conceptual realm,” answered Hermione eagerly, beaming at the professor. “Of course, there are various names for it —the Aether, Non-Being, the Forms, and whatnot—but they’re all the same, really. All it is, is just..well, a ‘blueprint’, I suppose, of the natural world. Every concept has physical reflection, and what decides that are the ‘essential traits’, which basically means—"
“Yes, I think that’s quite enough,” interrupted Professor McGonagall, beginning to draw more on the chalkboard. “One point to Slytherin, Miss Granger.”
The lecture continued, and after what felt like ages, Professor McGonagall finally set the students a task: to turn matchsticks into needles. Hermione, who had already done so on the train, gnawed on her bottom lip guiltily. She didn’t deserve praise for having a head start, did she?
As all the other students around began to fruitlessly wave their wands about, Hermione looked around. On her right, the round-faced blond boy she had helped on the train, Neville Longbottom, was fearfully staring at his wand, as if it’d bite him. To Hermione’s left, Ron Weasley was hissing the incantation endlessly, to little effect.
“It’s not that hard, you know,” she said to Neville tentatively. “All you have to do is think about the necessary concepts whilst performing the wand motions and saying the incantation perfectly. No need to be scared.”
Neville gave a jerky sort of nod, before returning to staring at his wand.
Hermione sighed.
“Oh look,” came a whisper from behind, “the girl who hasn’t even cast one spell yet thinks she knows it all!”
Small little giggles escaped from Parkinson, Greengrass, and Davis, the latter being by far the loudest. Turning to look at their efforts, Hermione was greeted to the sight of no progress on their parts. In fact, Parkinson and Greengrass, like Neville, hadn’t even picked up their wands.
A scoff was Hermione’s only response. She turned to her own matchstick, lifting her wand: “ Ignis Lignum Acus! ”
The surface of the matchstick rippled, almost like water, before slimming down, gaining a point at the end. At the same time, it acquired a more and more silver colouring and a metallic sheen. But a moment passed, and before Hermione was no longer a matchstick—it was a needle, albeit an imperfect one.
“Professor, look!” cried Hermione excitedly, as if she hadn’t performed that same feat only a day ago. “I did it! I did it!”
“Good work, Miss Granger,” said Professor McGonagall. Her tone was neutral, but upon her usually tight face, a small smile was apparent. “Two points to Slytherin. It is a rare feat to make any change to the matchstick in one’s first lesson, much less manage a complete transformation. You should work on improving your result for the rest of class—there are clear impurities within the metal, and the needle’s eye is a bit too tiny.”
After a long while, consisting of making slight alterations to her original work before even accomplishing a complete UnTransfiguration as well (something that had made Professor McGonagall even more pleased, the older witch even giving her many interesting recommendations for extracurricular learning) , the bell rang, marking the end of Hermione’s first class. She sent a smug smirk at the Slytherin girls, flouncing off to Herbology before they could say anything.
Herbology, the study of magical flora and fungi, was taught in the greenhouses by a rather plump, cheerful witch named Pomona Sprout, whose grey hair was almost as uncared for as Hermione’s own brown mane. Professor Sprout, similarly to McGonagall, had begun with a long lecture, consisting of a conceptual overview, followed by a basic introduction to a singular topic. In this case, the ‘topic’ was on Delightful Daisies, magical white flowers which bloomed as one told jokes to it. Quite a bit easier than Transfiguration—with the exception that students were forced to pair up.
Among the other Slytherin girls, Parkinson and Greengrass squealed and went off together immediately. Tracey Davis and Millicent Bulstrode gave each other distasteful glances, but the boys had all paired off—Malfoy with Nott, Crabbe with Goyle, and Blaise with a short Ravenclaw girl wearing a ponytail.
“Didn’t want to have to work with the half-blood,” said Bulstrode with a sneer.
Davis rolled her eyes. “Didn’t want to have to work with the half- troll .”
They went off together, sniping all the way over to their station. For once, Hermione felt respect for Tracey Davis—Millicent Bulstrode towered over all the other girls, and had bulkier muscles than most teenage boys. One would have to be very brave to go out of their way to anger her—or very stupid, Hermione supposed.
Fortunately, Mandy Brocklehurst, a tall Scottish girl with freckles and mousy-brown hair, was left all alone alongside Hermione once everyone else had already gone, and so they went to their assigned station, relieved there hadn’t been an odd number of students. Brocklehurst was pleasant and obedient enough, although Hermione would’ve preferred someone just a bit more responsive. Hermione had been practically talking to herself for half of the class, for God’s sake!
The rest of the week passed by in a flash. Charms, taught by a cheery, old little man called Filius Flitwick, was not quite as theory-heavy as Transfiguration—but, unlike with the latter subject, wand-waving was strictly off-limits for now. Astronomy was held every Tuesday at midnight, taught by Professor Sinistra, a no-nonsense woman only in her mid-thirties or so. Of all her classes, this was the one Hermione was most unprepared for—there hadn’t actually been any official textbook (the text for Potions and Herbology, and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them both did have some chapters on stars, planets, and their magical effects, but nothing comprehensive), so Hermione was forced to stay behind class to ask the professor all the books she would need to be properly be prepared for the final exam. For whatever reason, the professor had seemed taken aback by the question, even confusedly asking Hermione whether she thought an exam would be coming up soon.
On Wednesday was Hermione’s first History of Magic lesson. She’d been terribly excited for it ever since she’d found out that it was taught by a ghost . A ghost! According to legend—‘legend’ as in the whispers of Parkinson and Greengrass in the dormitory—the teacher, Professor Binns, had been very old and had, one day, just fallen asleep whilst grading papers; he had then died, unaware. And so, poor old Binns had gone to work as usual the next day. And then the next. And then the next…
But History had been more boring than even imaginable. There had been no classroom interaction, no individual activities—solely endless note-taking on events Hermione had already read about in the textbook! Still, Hermione was nothing if not diligent. At least, more so than her Housemates: Davis and Greengrass had nodded off, and Parkinson was too busy fawning over Malfoy to pay any attention to the content.
“So you know what my father did?” asked Draco Malfoy loudly, the tops of his pale cheeks turning red as he smirked. “He told the Emperor of Ethiopia that a couple of lions on the palace grounds would really go a long way in developing his image, since the peacocks really helped us Malfoys develop our own. That’s actually why their crest now has a lion on it, did you know?”
“Oh, I didn’t!” exclaimed Pansy Parkinson, her brown eyes shining with admiration. “But that’s so amazing! Tell us more, won’t you?”
The row behind Pansy, Blaise Zabini mocked her, putting on exaggerated, girlish affectations as he pretended to fawn over Nott. They burst into quiet laughter at Pansy’s expense—something Hermione would disapprove of usually, but she could make an exception for Pansy Parkinson.
Over the past week, outside of her classes, Hogwarts School had not exactly proved the most welcoming place for Hermione. The reason as to why? Because Pansy, for whatever reason, had developed an obsession with ruining her day. She didn’t ever attack Hermione, or even speak to her directly much; but she still tortured her.
Everyday, the sound of giggles lingered around Hermione; they always stopped once she looked at the source—gaggles of her fellow Slytherin girls, typically led by Pansy. Whenever Hermione entered her own dormitory, it was as if all conversation always ceased, her roommates all pausing to stare at her. Then, there were the little things—making slight comments on Hermione’s frizzy hair, her too-large front teeth, her supposedly ‘grating’ voice…
But it was fine, really. Even if all the Slytherins shunned her, as if she carried a plague of some sort. Even if the non-Slytherins avoided her, and had begun to call her a ‘know-it-all’, just like her Muggle classmates at primary school had.
It was fine. Hermione was fine .
When the bell rang, and lunch had started, Hermione was one of the last to leave. She had nothing much to rush too, besides the empty section at the very end of the Slytherin table. Past her, Ravenclaws and Slytherins alike went out, all with their respective friends.
“Mudblood,” came a small voice in her ear, and Hermione stumbled. Pansy strode in front of her, looking back with a wide smile.
Hermione’s nostrils flared. “That’s incredibly offensive, Parkinson!” she hissed. “That term is a slur .”
Pansy mouthed something suspiciously close to ‘And?’.
Something within Hermione snapped. “I’ll report this to Professor Snape!” she whispered back, giving Pansy a smug smile. “See how much you enjoy detention! ”
For once, Parkinson looked fearful—Hermione found that she rather liked that. Hermione walked past her, hurriedly running down the marble steps for two flights, until she had reached the dungeons. The stone-flagged floors were not exactly the safest for speed-walking upon, but Hermione took that risk, the torches hung up on the walls lighting her path down the dim, straight corridor. At the very end laid a door: Professor Snape’s office.
Hermione grinned.
Two days had passed after Hermione had reported Pansy and the Slytherin girls for their rude, bigoted behaviours, and they’d been acting much more respectably. No longer did they keep on endlessly giggling at Hermione, or call her any more awful slurs. They kept things cordial, if cold, but that was alright with Hermione. As long as they could live with each other, free of issues, this dynamic was acceptable to her.
Her first class of the day was Defense Against the Dark Arts, which, before, had been many of the Slytherins’ most anticipated course:
“Who’ll be the best at Defense, you think?” Zabini had asked boredly, twirling his wand absentmindedly. “We all know who’s the best at, well, everything else—" His catlike eyes shifted to Hermione for a moment, and she pretended not to notice, too engrossed in her book on the Levitation Charm. “But knowing how to actually apply that knowledge is a bit different, no?”
“I’ll outdo everyone else, naturally,” Malfoy had said, Parkinson at his heels, furiously nodding. “Who else knows as many jinxes as I do?”
“Can’ wait for Defense,” Goyle had said in his usual booming voice, his stubby fingers wrapped around his equally stubby wand . “Fighting the Dark, and all.”
Malfoy, for his part, had wrinkled his nose. “Don’t be an idiot, Gregory!” he had snapped, scoffing. “We are the Dark!”
But once they had actually had the class, their opinions on it had soured quite a bit. Professor Quirrell was a young man—so young, in fact, that he was only a few years out of Hogwarts—and, from what Hermione could gather, a rather intelligent, knowledgeable one, at that. He clearly knew his stuff—his theoretical knowledge of Dark creatures and defensive charms was undeniable. And yet…he didn’t seem like the type of man to actually fight them off. Professor Quirrell was a stuttering, fearful wizard—he had gone both speechless and motionless after a Ravenclaw boy, Anthony Goldstein, had entered his classroom too quickly. Although he claimed that the purple turban he always wore had been gifted to him by a Yoruban prince for getting rid of a troublesome zombie in his principality, no one really believed him.
The fact that his classroom reeked of garlic wasn’t exactly something that endeared him to the student population, either.
As with the first class, the Slytherins’ second class proved a disproportionately theoretical class, with little-to-none actual spellcasting. And, unfortunately, Professor Quirrell wasn’t even half as engaging as Flitwick was. On the bright side, he was better than Professor Binns, at least. Despite his constant anxiousness, he did seem to enjoy his job to some extent—something that could not be said for that lifeless shell of a ghost. Hermione was sure that the only reason the History teacher was still on staff was because he didn’t have to be paid—it’s not as if ghosts need food, clothes, or any material goods at all, after all.
Afterwards came Double Potions with the Gryffindors—a class that Hermione had been eagerly anticipating for the entire week. At first, Hermione had been a bit scared—she’d heard rumours that Professor Snape wasn’t exactly the nicest man. But that couldn’t be further from the truth! Yes, when Hermione had informed him of the Slytherin girls’ horrible treatment of her, he hadn’t seemed the most sympathetic. Yes, he had even kicked her out, saying that the ‘silly ongoings of little girls were of no importance to him’. But despite his outward behaviour, the Slytherin girls had still changed—he had obviously told them off in private, even if he wanted to portray himself as uncaring. Professor Snape really was a good Head of House, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. Hopefully, he was just as good of a teacher!
With only a minute left to spare, Hermione made her way into Potions classroom, where she sat at an empty table with Tracey Davis. All of the other Slytherins were at different tables. The only two leftovers were Tracey Davis and her, the only non-pureblood Slytherins in their year. Unlike Hermione, though, Tracey was a half-blood and had ingratiated herself with the other Slytherins by sucking up to them as much as possible. Truly, Hermione had never known a human could function entirely normally without a spine until now.
Professor Snape began class by taking the register, before gazing at the class in front of him with the full intensity of his pure black eyes.
"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion- making," he began, after finishing with ‘Zabini, Blaise’. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but the entire class sat on the edge of their seats. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses ... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death – if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."
Silence followed this intimidating yet inspiring speech. Hermione was on the edge of her seat, desperate to start proving that she wasn't a dunderhead.
"Potter!" Professor Snape called out suddenly, his sallow face drawn into a nasty expression. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
Hermione's hand shot in the air.
"I don't know, sir," Potter said.
"Tut, tut – fame clearly isn't everything. Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?'
"I don't know, sir."
"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?"
Hermione’s hand was still up; Snape’s eyes were still tracked on Potter, and Potter alone.
"What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfs- bane?"
Hermione abandoned her seat, now on the tips of her toes, her hand stretching towards the ceiling. She was the only one who knew the answer—why was Professor Snape not picking her?
"I don't know," muttered Potter. "I think Hermione does, though, why don't you try her?"
Smatters of laughter broke out across the classroom; Snape’s hard expression solidified even further.
"Sit down," he snapped at Hermione, who hurriedly obeyed. "For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?"
All assembled rapidly scrambled to start on their notes. Nobody wanted to be Professor Snape’s new target, Hermione especially.
"And a point will be taken from Gryffindor house for your cheek, Potter." said Snape coldly. He turned to the class, giving all of them an equally disdainful look. “Hopefully, the rest of you are a bit more prepared than Mr. Potter is. Begin working on a simple Boil-Cure Potion!”
Hermione jumped up, hurrying off to gather all the ingredients necessary from the cupboard. Once she returned, Davis was giving her an odd look:
“He doesn’t really expect us to do it without any prior experience, does he?” she asked confusedly, glancing at her armful of supplies. “And—are you sure you’re a Muggle-born, by the way? How do you even know how to brew this?”
Hermione scoffed. “It’s simple—all the instructions are on Page 34 of the textbook,” she informed the other girl, adding the snake fangs to the mortar. “Could you fill your cauldron up with water while I grind the fangs to powder?”
The other girl nodded, and went off, heaving her pewter cauldron along. It was tough work, to grind solid fangs into a fine powder, but after quite a while, Hermione managed to do so. By that time, Davis had ignited the fire underneath the cauldron, the water within giving off vapour as it bubbled away. With a stable, steady hand, Hermione poured in the vial of flobberworm mucus that she’d gotten from the cupboard. She waited, until the liquid before her turned a bright magenta.
After that, Hermione lowered the temperature of the fire ever so slightly—so as to heighten the reactivity of the mucus—and sprinkled in the crushed fangs, making sure to keep Davis stirring counterclockwise all the while. She added the dried nettles and horned slugs after, making the potion turn a lurid green. Then, there was a shriek.
Neville Longbottom and Seamus Finnegan’s shared potion had melted through their cauldron, spraying all over poor Neville and onto the floor. It spread, and spread, until every student stood on stools, to avoid Neville’s fate of angry red boils all over.
With a sweeping motion from Professor Snape, all evidence of the potion’s existence vanished—barring, of course, Neville’s various injuries. The blond boy looked up to the Potions Master, sniffling and teary-eyed.
Snape sneered. “Idiot boy!” he hissed. "I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?” Then, he scoffed, turning to Neville’s partner, Finnegan. “Take him up to the hospital wing!”
“That’s awful, isn’t it?” whispered Hermione sympathetically. “If only he’d just followed the directions…”
Davis gave a thin smile, nodding.
Hermione turned off the fire, then, turning away to reach for the porcupine quills. She turned back, dropping them in—but, oddly enough, the potion didn’t become a maroon-ish colour, as she’d expected. No, it simply increased in viridescence…
She gasped. Underneath the cauldron, the fire was still burning—the same exact mistake Neville had made! Hermione hurriedly reach forward, to take it off-
For a moment, Hermione couldn’t feel anything. Then, pain came. Boil after boil popped up on her skin, covering her from head-to-toe as she squealed. Her shoes were burned through, the potion dousing her feet, making her cry out and stumble into her chair—even standing was impossible, when boils had appeared on the soles of her feet!
Hermione’s head whipped around, to find Tracey Davis, and she found the half-blood girl a few paces back. Just out of range. Her face was blank, and her lips pursed.
“Again?” demanded Snape, Vanishing Hermione’s potion. “You two are both receiving zero marks!” He sneered at them. “Davis, take her to the Hospital Wing!”
“You don’t understand, professor!” cried Hermione out, through her tears and snot. “She—she set me up! I took the cauldron off the fire, but -!”
“Leave, you foolish girl!” he hissed, whirling away; his black cloak billowed behind him as he swept to Malfoy and Nott, to praise their ‘ amazing ’ work. Behind him, Malfoy shot her a superior smirk.
Hermione shot up, but cried in pain when her feet hit the ground.
“I’m really sorry about that,” whispered Davis, as she helped Hermione painfully hobble down the dim, draughty corridor “but it was either you or me. You really angered Pansy when you tried to get her in trouble. She’d have my head if I’d refused. You understand, don’t you?”
“Perfectly,” hissed Hermione, now bunny-hopping up the steps.