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mickume

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Instruction was unlike her previous tutoring at home in another way, too. As the young lady of the castle, she had had private instruction in languages, philosophy, history, music, and the like. Here, she was in a room with about twenty or so other young people, only a few of whom she even knew, since three-quarters were from other Houses. She did not have the tutor—or the Master, or the Professor—to herself. It was somewhat difficult to adjust to.

Tom was not instructed in the same groups that she was, either. It was unsurprising; he was certainly very talented and conscientious, and no doubt had advanced quickly during his first year. Hermione hoped that she would too.

She observed some of her schoolmates during the first two days, including the ones not in Slytherin—since it appeared that most of the other pupils did not associate with Slytherins (or Slytherins did not associate with them; it was not quite clear to Hermione what was actually going on).

The subjects that involved the most wand usage were Transfiguration, and Charms and Curses. The instructor for the former was the proudly Scottish McGonagall, who, it happened, could transform into a cat. Hermione had been the first of the group to deduce that the gray tabby cat was her teacher, a second before the animal stretched elegantly and shifted back into natural human form. Perhaps it was the eyes. Hermione had read about this magic in some of the books at the Riddles’ house, but to actually see it—

That would be incredibly useful, she thought longingly. I wonder what type of animal I would become if I could do it. Well, all the more reason to work hard.

The other wandwork course was taught by an exceptionally short professor, Flitwick, who was nonetheless frighteningly good at his subject. Hermione had also seen a person like him before, a member of a performing minstrel troupe that had entertained her household once while passing through. To witness such a person as a powerful wizard, doing magic, was a new idea for Hermione... but the ugly reactions of Draco Malfoy and two rather thuggish boys who hovered near him made it rather easy to accept.

"I can hardly believe that this place is allowing a deformed dwarf to teach," Malfoy had sneered after the hour was up. "They’re fit to be court jesters, nothing more." His followers had chuckled sycophantically.

No, it had not been that hard at all to side with anyone else that Malfoy thought "unfit" to be at Hogwarts.

But Hermione’s favorite class quickly became Potions and Alchemy. At this early stage, there was little alchemy; it was almost all potions. The teacher, Slughorn, showered praise on her almost as soon as he saw her first work—her and Harry Potter, who had also produced an excellent potion. He must have learned from his mother, she thought with some envy. Harry’s work in that one class was better than hers—but hers was a strong second. That was the objective truth, even though Slughorn did show favoritism to young scholars from his own House. It had not taken long for Hermione to observe that all the professors did that, though. And really, she could hardly blame Slughorn for being unimpressed with one of the houses that day, what with the smoldering, stinking, caustic messes that issued forth from the cauldrons of a red-haired Gryffindor boy and a second, awkward-looking boy from the lion house. That necessitated the early conclusion of that subject, as the Potions Master had to repair the damage to the stone tables.

As soon as the pupils were out of Slughorn’s earshot, Malfoy began to harass the unfortunate Gryffindors.

"Another useless Weasley," he drawled to the red-haired boy. "Why do you even bother to come to Hogwarts? Your family chose years ago to renounce your magical heritage."

"Eat shit, Malfoy."

Malfoy laughed. "That’s no way to speak to your betters! Uncouth, savage English barbarian words." He drew his wand to curse the other boy—Weasley—but at that moment, McGonagall turned the corner to enter their part of the hallway. Malfoy sheathed his wand again at once.

They had no instruction after Potions, so they were going to return to their Houses to wash up and put on nicer robes for dinner. The professors, including High Master Dumbledore, were very adamant about proper appearance and hygiene for dinner. To the highborn students such as Hermione, it was only a continuation of what they were used to, but to some it was probably the first time they had experienced grand banquets. Hermione did not know any such people in Slytherin, and she doubted that there were any... but it was apparent from the first day at Hogwarts that some of the young people in other Houses had never had rich food in their lives and did not know how to eat properly.

Hermione felt uncomfortable around these children. They were not serfs, since their families could do magic, could obviously read, and valued education enough to send their children here, but Hermione could not imagine having anything in common with them other than magic itself. It was difficult enough to form connections with highborn young witches and wizards who had come from magical families, though she really thought she had more in common with them than they wanted to accept. The only real difference they had was that her parents could not do magic, so she had not been raised with any traditions specific to those who could. Otherwise, their families appeared to hold very similar customs. How could she find any commonality between herself and a dirt-poor farmer’s child, someone who had grown up with a mother who made potions in a big family cauldron and a father who repaired a thatched-roof cottage and farm tools with spells? She would have no shared frame of reference—and really, they would not even be suitable companions. Harry Potter might not be aristocratic, but at least he was from an educated family. Indeed, the source of their income was magical craft. The shop his father and grandfather had built, he told her after Transfiguration on their first day, sold assorted hand-crafted magical artifacts and unique potions. His own manner of speaking was that of comparatively well-to-do townsfolk.

That did not make him acceptable to Tom, though. Tom had not refused Hermione’s suggestion that the three of them should eat meals together, but he hardly spoke to Harry the first full day except in an icy, unpleasant way. As Hermione headed toward the Slytherin common room to get herself ready to eat, she hoped that Tom would be in a better mood tonight.

Hermione had several fine robes. She donned a particularly pretty leaf-green one embroidered in gold and spring green, smiling as she combed her hair. She had not seen much of Tom all day, so she looked forward to evenings. It was sad to her that she did not get to see him as often as she would prefer, but... she supposed that she was much better off than many young noble ladies. She would get to see him and talk with him every day. And besides, she supposed as she walked into the common room, we would probably get sick of each other if we had all our instruction together plus evenings. When she had lived in his castle over the summer, they had not spent every waking minute in each other’s company. They would not do so after their marriage either, she realized. She was just happy that she had a match; it was the milestone for a noble girl, and it was now achieved, so she wanted to exult in that fact, especially since she had picked the same person her parents had. And also... well... I am infatuated with him personally, she thought with a flush of heat. It was an embarrassing realization, but it was true.

He was waiting for her in the common room, his handsome face expressionless. He did smile faintly as he extended his arm to her to escort her to the Great Hall. They left the Slytherin common room and headed down the stone corridor, which was lit faintly by magic-illuminated candles in recesses in the walls.

Faint chuckles echoed down the hall, coming from the general direction of the kitchens. Hermione wondered who it was. She hoped that she and Tom did not encounter an amorous couple who imagined, wrongly, that they had privacy. That would be embarrassing.

In a moment, they came face to face with Adelaide Lestrange and several Slytherin girls from her age cohort and that of Hermione. They were carrying large filled bags of cloth and animal hide. A strong scent of fermentation came from one. Lestrange’s eyes widened momentarily in shock at the sight of Hermione and Tom. Then, as a group, the girls turned and fled toward the Slytherin common room, continuing to giggle amongst themselves. For a moment Tom looked as if he wanted to pursue them, to find out what was in the bags, but he changed his mind.

"That smelled like drink to me. I bet they found a cask of ale in the kitchens," Hermione said at once. "Should we tell Professor Slughorn?"

Tom scoffed. "If that’s all it is, then absolutely not. There would be no point. Let them get drunk and disgrace themselves, if it’s that. I assume you locked your bedchamber door."

"Of course," she said. "Do you think they’re planning to play a prank?"

"Hermione, if they did anything to you, it would be more than a mere "prank.’ I’m worried that they’re going to ambush you and curse you one of these days."

She thought about that for a moment. "Well, I am careful. And I try not to walk the halls alone. You escort me to my first subject, and I walk with Harry to the others...."

Tom’s face had grown pinched. "Of course," he said tightly.

He did not say anything else for the rest of the walk until they were almost at the Great Hall doors. Then he spoke again.

"I forgot to tell you, that’s a nice gown," he remarked quietly. "Possibly my favorite of all of the ones I’ve seen you wear."

She beamed, deeply flattered. She realized that this was the first personal compliment he had given her that was not about her talent, intellect, or skill at magic. She appreciated those too, of course, but this one....

"I don’t favor gold as much as silver for myself," he continued. "Slytherin colors, you know. But it’s very... becoming... on you."

He himself was garbed in much darker, cooler green with tiny touches of silver in Celtic-style knotwork on the edges. It made his naturally pale tone seem even lighter, but the effect was still good on him. "Thank you," she said, managing to avoid gushing, to her own relief. "You look well yourself."

He nodded confidently. "Yes. We make an attractive pair."

No expression of gratitude for the compliment. Well, she thought, he never did show false modesty to me. At least he is honest with me... and he does see us as a pair.

They entered the Great Hall and swept gracefully toward the Slytherin table, where Harry Potter was currently standing. Dinner began on the hour, and the pupils were to stand until the professors entered the room. Hermione glanced around and noticed that Draco Malfoy clearly did not like this custom. His face was sour and resentful; no doubt he viewed himself as the most important person in the room. Hermione continued to observe and noted that the only younger Slytherin girls present were Daphne Greengrass and Millicent Bulstrode. The rest of them must be in the common room—or someone’s bedchamber—with their contraband from the kitchen.

The professors entered in a procession, walking up the middle to the head table, where they sat. The students followed suit, and dinner began.

Hermione was seated between Tom and Harry, which she had thought would be a pleasant arrangement. She smiled at Tom first, broadly and proudly. Somewhat to her surprise, he returned it, though his smile was fainter and clearly tinged with more possessiveness and pride. She wished that he would warm up to her more than he had so far. She knew that she was not assured anything more than "a good match," but her own parents had had an arranged marriage, and Hermione had never seen them expressing anything but warmth and kindness to each other in private. That meant that even in a betrothal contracted for strategic reasons, it would happen when the parties liked each other, and she had thought that Tom liked her....

Pushing this concerning line of thought out of her head, she turned to Harry and gave him a friendly smile. Alarm passed over his face briefly. His gaze shifted slightly to one side as he faced her, but he managed a brief smile. Hermione followed his unsettled gaze to her other side and noticed that Tom was glaring harshly at the other boy for some reason.

She raised an eyebrow at Tom. He scowled momentarily but turned to his food. "Right, then."

A new idea suddenly entered Hermione’s mind. There was really no reason for Tom to have taken such a dislike to Harry—a fellow half-blood Slytherin, who had appreciable magical talent, and who was being unfairly attacked by the snobs in the house. They should have been able to form an alliance for mutual protection and support, if nothing else. Hermione may not have been a "natural" Slytherin—she would grant that the Sorting Hat was probably correct about that—but it was obvious to her that all three of them, really, were better off as a team. It was irrational for Tom to alienate Harry... unless the idea she suddenly had was correct.

Could he be jealous of Harry? Hermione wondered as she began to eat. Surely he realizes that there is no danger in a friendship between Harry and me. He does not have a title, and he is not trying to woo me away from Tom in any case. He knows and respects our situation. Tom should see that there is no threat.

Hermione was still puzzling over Tom’s behavior at dinner as he escorted her back into the common room. Dispassionately, he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles lightly, perfunctorily, before seeing her off at the door leading to the girls’ chambers.

If he actually is jealous of Harry, Hermione thought as she headed down the corridor, then why is he so cold to me? Is he angry because he thinks I prefer Harry? That idea was baffling to her. Harry was a nice young wizard and she could already tell that they would likely form a strong friendship, but that was all it could ever be. Why would Tom think she would prefer someone who could not offer her the sort of life she was born to, and make a choice that would go directly against the contractual agreement of both of their families—an agreement she herself had asked for independently, at that? It made no sense.

Then she remembered the very first discussion—argument, she thought with a pang—that they had after their parents had told them of the plan. Tom had asked her—yes, spitefully, but still sincerely—what she thought would happen if she met another boy at Hogwarts that she liked better, in defiance of her family’s honor and her own. He did not see it quite the same way that she did, clearly. He apparently did not trust that she would have enough affection for him to stay faithful, and that honor alone might not be enough in the face of that. And yet... he had not liked it when she had rather openly expressed her liking for him, either. Should that not have been a reassurance to him, rather than something to resent? It was all very puzzling, and she decided that she would need to talk with him seriously about everything sooner rather than later.

Hermione was almost at the door of her own bedchamber when the first rotten pear struck her in the back.

She whirled around, looking for the source, instinctively reaching for her wand. Then an unripe apple—hard and painful—whacked her in the back of the head.

"Ow!" she exclaimed, dropping her wand and rubbing the spot where the apple had struck.

A curse shot through the dimly lit corridor, knocking Hermione down. A girl’s unpleasant laughter filled the hall, which several other girls’ voices soon joined.

"Mudblood," a female voice crooned. It sounded rather like that of Adelaide Lestrange.

At once, a pack of girls in hooded cloaks—their faces concealed in the shadows—emerged from the other doorways of their bedrooms. They began tossing rotten food at Hermione, interspersed occasionally with hexes and curses.

Someone dumped a bucket of filthy dishwater over her head, soiling her beautiful robe, leaving a coating of grease and bits of sodden food in her hair. Hermione cried out at the unpleasant sensation of cold, dirty, smelly water. This, then, was what these horrible girls had been doing in the kitchen—stealing food waste from the rubbish and biding their time until she returned. Her fellow young ladies with magical ability, her housemates, the people she was stuck with for however long she attended Hogwarts.

"What did I ever do to any of you?" she exclaimed, fumbling for her wand.

"You forgot your place, Mudblood," Lestrange sneered. "That’s what."

"I have a right to be here," Hermione protested.

"Let’s take her ring," one of the girls suggested to Lestrange, who was apparently the leader.

The black-haired girl considered for a moment before shaking her head. "No. We’re not common thieves, and it really belongs to Riddle’s mother, after all. She’s a pureblood."

"A blood-traitor, though."

"Well, my father told me...." Lestrange trailed off, deciding against saying whatever she had started to say. "No matter. We have more in the sacks, don’t we, ladies? And from the butcher this time."

Hermione let out a cry of dismay and scrambled on her knees into her room, barely avoiding a length of bloodied animal gut. She slammed the door just before Daphne Greengrass and Millicent Bulstrode entered the hallway, so she did not see the looks of shock and disgust on their faces.

Although there was no one to see or hear her anymore, Hermione stifled her sobs nonetheless as she cleaned herself and her fine gown. Tears trickled silently down her cheeks at irregular intervals.

Couldn’t Tom have heard any of that? she thought miserably as she removed the stains from the cloth. He didn’t try to intervene at all. Maybe he was so angry about Harry, and my supposed attentions to Harry, that he didn’t care.

That idea sickened her. Surely there was some other explanation. Tom surely would not stand by and let these girls trip her, throw rubbish on her, curse her....

Maybe they’re right. Maybe I should just go home. Maybe this school is no longer a place for people like me. This House certainly does not seem to be a place for me.

As soon as that idea entered her head, she banished it. No. That would mean letting these bullying, vicious girls win. They had attacked her because they didn’t like the idea of her in "their" space. If she ceded that space to them, they would have defeated her.

Her robe was finally clean. She was deeply relieved that it wasn’t ruined; without magic, it certainly would have been. She sighed and draped it over a chair. It was a pity that she had not bothered to learn a drying charm yet. That would be useful. Her gaze flitted to the books that she had purchased. Perhaps there was a suitable spell listed in one of them....

"She’s a Mudblood," Yvette Rosier, one of Adelaide Lestrange’s co-conspirators, sneered.

"I don’t care!" Daphne Greengrass snarled at Rosier as the Slytherin girls retreated triumphantly to the common room. "It was a disgusting thing to do! And especially for Adelaide—her father is on the Wizards’ Council!"

Tom and Harry glanced up at the group of girls. Their argument was not especially loud, but it was just loud enough for those nearest the door—as the two boys were—to hear it.

"Where is she anyway?" Daphne growled.

"In her chamber, I’m sure," snapped Rosier.

"She ought to apologize to Granger. It was uncouth, what you did. That was something that a gang of feral orphans might do to one of their betters."

"That Mudblood is not one of our betters."

"No, but she is a witch and a young lady. You wouldn’t think of doing that to any other noble girl at this school, for fear of what the girl’s family would do to yours in retaliation." Daphne glanced uneasily at Tom.

—Who was on his feet, glaring hard at the girls. "What happened?" he said, his tone quiet but deadly.

"That lot"—Daphne shot a furious look at the other girls, minus Bulstrode—"ambushed Lady Granger in the corridor and threw rotten food on her. They hexed her, too, and drove her into her bedchamber covered in rubbish."

Tom glared at the girls, then turned back to Daphne. "I see. Is she all right?"

"I don’t think they injured her. She locked herself in her room, I assume to clean herself."

Harry leapt to his feet. "And you are otherwise all right with this?" he exclaimed.

Tom gave Harry a look of utter contempt. "Stay out of this. It does not concern you."

"She is my friend! I’d say it concerns me—"

Tom drew his wand on Harry. "I said stay out of it, peasant!"

"Peasant?" Harry said, his voice cold enough to match Tom’s. "That’s rich. How long have you had your castle, again? And really, you want to make me the enemy right now?"

"For the love of Morgana, shut up." Tom was on the verge of cursing Harry into silence when a shriek from the girls’ dormitories rent the air.

After a quick perusal of her spellbooks, Hermione had finally been ready to return to the Slytherin common room. There, she had vowed, she was going to humiliate the people who had humiliated her. She had some good hexes up her sleeve—not, she had thought darkly, the sleeve of the fine robe she had worn to dinner; it was one of her favorites and the one that Tom had specially complimented, so she was not going to give them the chance to ruin it permanently. But she would march into that room with her wand drawn and take her revenge in front of the entire House. Surely then she would gain some respect.

She had opened the door to the girls’ dormitory corridor—and immediately, a heavy splash of something cold and sludgy soaked her.

She glanced at her arm. Mud. Fury filled her mind. Someone had booby-trapped her doorway with mud. She looked up, observing the burst leather sack that dripped with slime from the banks of the lake, and taking note in a fraction of a second of the other bag....

It exploded in a burst of dark red, coating her in cold, sticky, foul, reeking blood.

Hermione screamed, overcome.

How did they even get this much blood? she thought in horror, sinking to her feet. What did they take from the kitchen? What kind of blood is this? It’s sticky and it smells so awful....

Hermione felt the filth encrust her hair, obliterating her efforts to clean herself from the food—the rotten food, how mild that sounds now, she thought—and she shuddered to think what she must look like. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes and coursed down her face, accumulating mud and blood in their tracks before spotting the stone floor of the castle, so dirtied as to be unrecognizable as human tears....

Of course she could not show her face in the Slytherin common room now, she thought miserably. She curled into a ball and started crying outright, not even trying to conceal her sobs, all thoughts of revenge banished and crushed.

The Slytherin girls dispersed as Hermione’s sobs echoed down the corridor into the common room. Daphne and Millicent looked appalled—and so did Harry.

"Well?" he snarled at Tom. "What about now? They have clearly done something else to her. Are you going to go back there and help her now?"

Tom sneered at the younger boy with disdain. "You idiot," he said. "Boys can’t go into the girls’ area."

Harry’s face fell, and he reddened in embarrassment. "But—what if girls attack another girl, like these did?"

"It’s not something a boy can sort out." He turned to Daphne to ask her to help Hermione, but the former was already on her way.

The girls who had been allied with Adelaide Lestrange attempted to scatter, but Tom gave them a thin, eminently sinister smirk. "Oh, I don’t think so," he said. He turned to Yvette Rosier. "Well? What did she do? I have no doubt that you know."

The girl muttered something under her breath.

"I didn’t hear you."

"Mud and pig’s blood," the girl mumbled.

Tom hissed, snakelike. "Mud and blood. How clever you must think you are," he snarled. His fingers twitched on his wand. "I would so love to curse every one of you, you know."