Soulsavers

Hermione

House Slytherin hadn't admitted a Muggle-born student since... well, if it ever had, this lapse in the Sorting Hat's judgment must have been expunged from the record. Hermione's mouth went dry as she asked to be admitted into Hogwarts, and into that house, that must have been crawling with Death Eaters, where she felt she would have the best chance of success.

As a Gryffindor, she had always been on good terms with Professor McGonagall, who had even fought tooth and nail to get her that Time Turner. Her original McGonagall had trusted her, moved mountains for her; this McGonagall wasn't nearly as accommodating. Witches whose names had never been entered into the Book of Admissions, who came out of nowhere with mysterious tales of dead parents in Australia (“I don’t want to say ‘absurd and obviously false” was the best the younger McGonagall could offer by way of tact), and asked to start studying in the last year... “I've been here for longer than you’ve been alive, and I've yet to encounter a request as outlandish and audacious as yours, Miss…

“Granger!”

“Granger, yes.”

“But I promise you, Professor McGonagall, I… taught myself everything I’ll need!”

The Deputy Headmistress subjected Hermione to feat after feat of transfiguration, before finally conceding that Hermione could have plausibly passed the Sixth Year exams if given the chance. Still, she insisted that Hermione be sorted in the traditional way, if ever she should be admitted at all.

Hermione wondered for the first time if perhaps Slytherin would have been the best fit for her in the first place. Then she brushed aside the idea of sleeping in the same room as Parkinson.

“I can't sort students who have not been born,” the hat protested (silently, Hermione prayed). All this time, Hermione realized, she had worried about her blood status, when strictly speaking, she didn't have one - she simply did not exist.

Dumbledore had not long ago admitted a werewolf, Hermione knew that much. He stood alone in staunch defense of people like her. Surely a small technicality like that wouldn't get in her way? In her original tenure at Hogwarts, she would have been sent home had she attempted to attend her seventh year - her presence was demoralizing enough for other students without her share in Harry’s glory - and now the realization sunk in that perhaps waiting a while to avoid studying with Ginny would have been the better bet.

McGonagall even threatened to get the Board of Governors involved. I don't remember you being such a stickler for the rules when Harry's Quidditch career was on the line, Hermione thought. Are you affronted that a witch as clever as I wants to be in the rival house?

Severus

Severus loved Apparition. Muggle modes of transportation were intolerable (when they weren’t on strike); flying made him sick and visions of himself plummeting down into oblivion kept interrupting his focus; Floo powder only worked if you had a fireplace, and even then it was costly and always created a mess. Apparition felt like it had been designed specifically for his strengths: presence of mind, focus, self-contained independence.

He’d turned 17 about six months ago, and for the first time, felt what it meant to be of age. He could do magic, he could come and go as he pleased, he could get his own supplies and open his own bank account and never answer to Muggles or Muggle-lovers ever again.

He breathed in the air in Diagon Alley, where he materialized in a crowd of witches and wizards just like him, going about their business and leaving him well alone. In the real world, he had hoped, people wouldn’t make it their business to harass or assault him. In the real world, degenerates who sought to amuse themselves at other people’s expense were frowned upon, not celebrated.

He needed new robes – he had grown quite tall, and looked ridiculous in the old set. New shoes, charmed to repel dirt (they would keep for longer this way)… school supplies, and then a bank account, all his own. A minor rite of passage, perhaps, but for him it meant the world. His father had always confused the pub for the bank, and Severus was determined not to be like him. He decided to cap off his day’s successes with a pint at the famous Leaky Cauldron, where he would enjoy another privilege of adulthood: not having to feign confidence when asking for a firewhiskey.

The Goblin who had been tasked with helping Severus, Gord, walked quickly despite his stature, but talked very slowly as if to a child. “No one may enter your vault without your permission, and you’ll have to give a sample signature later. I see that no Snapes have a vault here… if you have family members who have holdings here you could consolidate your assets, enjoy stronger protection. No? I see. Well then, your money, please. Or whatever else you wish to store here, if you feel your house doesn’t offer adequate protection.”

Severus suspiciously handed his hard-earned money over to Gord, who examined every coin with just a great a suspicion. Though Severus couldn’t imagine that Malfoy might have given him counterfeit money, he felt he might be kicked out at any moment, and smiled to reassure both the Goblin and himself. Reassuring smiles did not come naturally to him, and he worried that he must look like a thief, but Gord didn’t spare him a look. He did not know Goblins trusted none but their own kind, and that a Malfoy would not have bothered with manners toward them.

“Very well. All seems to be in order here. Congratulations, Mr. Snape.”

The Goblin sounded sarcastic, and Severus brushed it all aside. It didn’t matter. He signed a sheet of paper, having already designed his own signature in the many hours he had spent unable to do magic back home. It was the first time he signed a binding document, but he did it as though he had important business to conduct everywhere, with the same knowing expression he saw his friends’ parents assume as they read important papers.

Rather than Apparate, he walked to the Leaky Cauldron, to break in his new shoes and enjoy his first tour of the street as an adult and the last days of summer. An apothecary chain, Borgin and Burke’s, Flourish and Blotts, Papyrus’s Quills and Parchments, Fortescue’s; elves running errands for their masters, ordinary people talking with their wands out in the open, away from prying eyes.

At last, he reached the pub, where he immediately saw familiar faces, huddled together over the same table, all in black, evidently discussing important - and private - business. “Oi, Snape!” One of them - Rosier - cried out. “Oh, don’t worry about it, he’s a Snake like us, and he’s one of ours,” he told the others. “Will be soon enough if he’s got a brain.”

Severus smiled and Rosier moved to offer him a seat. “We’re already finished here, aren’t we? No one says we can’t have a drink with an old schoolmate. How are you? Graduated yet?”

“Sitting my NEWTs this year, actually,” Severus answered.

“That’s too bad. Timing is everything in life, you know. I hope you’re planning your future carefully… wouldn’t be wise to count on the establishment (he inflected) in the future, if you know what I mean.”

Weary and wary of feeling an outsider, Severus decided he could speak in riddles too. “I never counted on the establishment, Rosier. And the establishment shouldn’t count on me either.” Tom the barkeep approached the table and sized Severus up, eyeing the bag that read “Flourish and Blotts”.

“Do a spell for me,” he ordered him. “We don’t serve underage wizards.” Before Severus could protest this treatment, Rosier wrapped his hand around him and slipped a note on the table. “He’s of age, and he’s with us.”

Tom backed away slowly, his forced smile fading into a scowl. They drank to “your bright future, Snape,” and whiled away the afternoon.

“Next one’s on you, Snape. I hope you’re a man of your word.” Severus drunkenly promised that he was, and wondered if Apparating back home would be wise or if he should sober up. It was a shame, really, that the day had to end. But everything must end, he told himself - and before long, his studies would, too.

Hermione II

Fortunately, Dumbledore's principles prevailed (twenty years younger, he looked much the same). He insisted that anyone who possesses the gift deserves a chance, “and if she insists on graduating here and not at the Australian school we should only be glad that our reputation precedes us even there, Minerva”. Hermione only needed to impress one more person: Slughorn. This time, she didn't have Harry Potter to recommend her, and so this time, she wouldn't deny a connection to the famous potioneer.

“I hear that Slytherin House is the best,” she said. “I didn’t come here all the way from Australia for any less than the best. And I’ll be an asset to your house,” she added with confidence. She had learned how to brew from the man she had come here to save, and Slughorn enthusiastically approved of her creativity and her free spirit, before tactfully asking her if she had happened to have brought some rare specimen grown only in Australia, implying she had already been admitted, and only some paperwork remained before she could slip him a vial of platypus milk. Not without bitterness, she remembered how Severus Snape had commented on her lack of creativity. “You’re just jealous that Prince person is better at potions than you are,” Ron had said. She felt betrayed again, and wanted to tell Ron: You were the jealous one. I just hate cheats. 

In all honesty, though, the revelation that Snape had been the lauded genius Harry had been so enamoured with made Hermione feel much better about herself. The would-be teacher being better than her, and not some nobody who never amounted to anything - that, she could live with.

Ron doesn’t exist yet either. You better forget about all of them. She never did like cheaters, and now she was one. But then, all Hermione had cheated for was a chance to take the test like everybody else. She could live with that, too.

She had been admitted into Slytherin.