Chapter 1
Hermione Jean Granger had always been too curious for her own good.
When she was five, she asked her parents how babies were made. When she was seven, she taught herself basic algebra. When she was nine, she tried to convince her parents to teach her how to drive.
One day, when she was ten and her parents were both at their dentist practice and she was bored, she decided to explore her parents’ bedroom. Opening a few drawers, her eyes widened when she saw a plastic thing that looked like a thick worm. She tilted her head at it. Her eyes widened as she realized what it was then slammed the door shut, forever traumatized. That didn’t dissuade her search though.
She eventually made her way to their closet. Finding a pair of her mother’s heels, she slipped her feet in them and attempted to walk around in them, pretending to be a high society lady. The heels weren’t too tall, but she still almost tripped.
Putting the pair of shoes back where they belonged, her shoulder bumped a few dresses that were hung up. Moving the dresses aside, Hermione saw a sort of metal cabinet in the wall—a safe. The door was ajar, which was weird; usually, in the spy films Hermione had seen, safes were always closed and the main character had to break into it.
Sticking her head out of the closet, she looked at the clock on her mom’s nightstand; she still had a couple hours until her parents got home from work. She turned back to the safe, and, after a moment of deliberation, opened the door and peered inside.
Most of the contents she found boring—a folder with paperwork, including her birth certificate in it and deeds to their house and her parents’ dental practice building; a small box of jewelry; and a bag of cash—she figured for emergencies in case they had to bug out for some reason.
The only interesting thing she could find was a metal box about the size of a shoe box. She picked it up, almost dropping it in surprise because of how cold it was. She tilted it to see it from all angles. On the top of the box was the name ‘Olive.’
That’s a pretty name, Hermione thought.
On the front of the box was an insignia of some sort, looking like a weird button. Hermione pressed on it with her thumb, but nothing happened. Quirking her lips in thought, Hermione considered her options. She could go to the library and research anything having to do with espionage and try to open the box at a later date or she could ask her parents about the box directly.
It didn’t feel like she had sat there for long, but suddenly she heard the front door open and close from downstairs. Panicking, she closed the safe door as quietly as she could then rushed to her bedroom.
“Hermione!” her dad called. “We’re home, sweetheart.”
“Be down in a minute!” she called back, slightly out of breath from a rush of adrenaline.
It wasn’t until she sat down on her bed that she realized she still held the metal box. Her eyes bulged.
“Oh no,” she whispered, stricken that she had accidentally stolen from her parents.
She scurried over to her closet and found a place to hide it there. As she removed her hands from the box, she felt an unexplained sense of loss. Pausing, she hesitantly reached out and touched it again. A sense of peace rolled over her, coaxing a small smile from Hermione.
Snapping herself out of it, she pushed it to the back of her closet, stood, closed her closet door, and rushed downstairs to greet her parents.