Chapter Text
It started with the troll.
Hermione Granger knew that pride was one of her flaws at an early age. It really wasn't that hard.
What kind of child doesn't have a single friend to name even before they hit ten years old?
She had always been a bit of a know-it-all, and even as a little girl, she liked things neat, organized, and right. She corrected people when they were wrong, even adults, and found it very difficult to stop herself when someone said something utterly, irredeemably stupid. Her voice had that unfortunate tone—just sharp enough to be annoying, and her eyebrows lifted just enough to scream “you didn’t read the book, did you?”
She wasn’t malicious. She never meant to hurt anyone. But she also didn’t know how to be softer, or quieter, or more fun, and eventually she stopped trying to force herself to be someone she wasn’t.
Still, she had hope. She told herself it didn’t matter. That she would be alright in the end. Her grandmother—her favorite person in the world—had told her once, very seriously, that if she worked hard enough, got into a good university, found a career that paid well and did what she loved, then friends and people who loved her would surely come. They would just… appear. People like that always found each other, right?
She clung to that idea like a security blanket. A promise, folded and tucked into her chest.
She just needed to work hard.
And then all of that went down the drain the moment she found out she was a witch.
It came in a letter. A letter. A literal parchment envelope sealed with wax like it was the 1800s. For about two minutes she had thought it was a prank—maybe a museum sweepstakes or something for tourists. But then the owl came back. And stayed. And her mother screamed. And her father actually dropped his tea.
Things changed after that. Radically. Wildly. Wonderfully. But, fortunately, the Grangers adapted well to change.
Within days—no, hours—her parents had raided every magical bookstore within an hour's drive, ordering everything from beginner spellbooks to wizarding history to obscure guides titled things like So You’re Raising a Witch: A Muggle Parent’s Guide to Surviving Magical Adolescence. Her mother read through half the books herself. Her father drew up study schedules like he was preparing Hermione for a magical A-levels exam.
Of course, spellwork would come later—no wand, no practice—but theory? Theory was her playground. And her father said that theory should be memorized and understood before application. It was practically a law in the Granger household.
And that’s exactly what she did.
She buried herself in every page. Every term. Every wand motion. She knew the difference between a bezoar and a mandrake root before she stepped foot in Hogwarts. She memorized the twelve uses of dragon's blood. She practiced Latin until she could almost guess what a new spell would do just by how it sounded.
And once she got to Hogwarts?
She excelled.
The highest grades in every class, perfect scores on her homework, always the first to raise her hand in class—sometimes before the teacher even finished the question. She corrected mistakes in the textbook out loud. She knew the rules, and she followed them. All of them. Hermione Granger was thriving in the wizarding world and she loved it.
She was obsessed with being a witch.
Everything was new and magical and hers. She could already see it—the golden academic path stretching out in front of her like a storybook road. It glowed. She glowed. Magic was going to be her great triumph.
And then came the teasing.
The usual kind—the snide remarks, the whispering behind her back. “Teacher’s pet.” “Know-it-all.” “Walking encyclopedia.” It didn’t matter that she was right. In fact, that somehow made it worse. She answered every question and got eye-rolls in return. She lost count of the number of times someone groaned the second she opened her mouth.
And worse—no one seemed to care about the rules! Points were deducted from Gryffindor almost daily by students who acted like it was a joke. Detention was a rite of passage, apparently. Authority was ignored. Teachers were mocked. And Hermione found herself spiraling—because wasn’t everyone here supposed to want to learn magic?
And then… there was Ron Weasley.
Honestly, she thought she might get along with him. He was a fellow Gryffindor, clearly had a big family, and sat next to Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom—two people who were, at the very least, polite to her. She figured they might include her, maybe even see her as useful.
But Ron Weasley never stopped complaining. He had something sarcastic to say about everything she did. If she tried to help, he called her bossy. If she raised her hand, he muttered under his breath. If she corrected a spell, he groaned like she was personally trying to ruin his life.
Even when she lowered herself to his level—his level—and offered help with a spell, earning house points in the process, what did he do?
Throw a tantrum. Publicly.
Honestly, she expected that from someone like him, but what made it worse was watching Harry and Neville. They didn’t agree with Ron—she could tell—but they also didn’t say anything. They stayed silent, awkward, clearly uncomfortable, but not brave enough to speak up in her defense.
That? That hurt.
And now, here she was.
Alone.
About to die from a literal mountain troll in the girl’s bathroom because she let herself be affected by some idiot’s words. Because she let herself cry.
She should have gone straight to the common room. Should’ve ignored them all and gone back to her books. But no—she had wanted to be liked. She had wanted to matter to them.
And now a troll was going to rip her apart.
She ducked into the narrowest space she could find—a small crevice between two sinks—and squeezed herself in tight, trying to press her body into the shadows. The troll was massive. Taller than the doorframe. Its gray skin glistened with a horrible oily sheen, and it smelled like rotting cabbage and sweat. It grunted and smashed its club into the nearest stall, wood and tile flying like paper scraps.
Hermione screamed.
And then—“Hermione!”
She flinched and peeked out from behind the sink to see the three idiots—Harry, Ron, and Neville—charging into the bathroom like it was a battlefield. Harry was in the lead, wand raised, his face pale but determined.
She would’ve been touched by the concern—really, she would’ve—if it weren’t for the fact that they had zero plan and were going to get themselves killed.
What were they thinking? What could three first-years possibly do against a full-grown troll?
She watched, mouth agape, as Harry grabbed the nearest object—a wooden plank from a broken cubicle door—and hurled it straight at the troll’s face.
It hit.
The troll roared, spinning around to face them, and for one terrifying moment, Harry looked like he regretted every life decision that led him to this point.
“Now what?!” Ron yelped, stumbling back a step.
“I’ll pull the club while you guys get Hermione!” Harry shouted, already moving before either of them could stop him.
Hermione stared in horror as he lunged forward, grabbing onto the troll’s club with both hands and dangling off of it like a deranged, bespectacled ornament. His body swung wildly as the troll lifted the club higher, clearly more annoyed than injured.
It should’ve been impossible, but somehow, Harry was now climbing up the club, trying to reach the troll’s head.
Neville looked like he was about to faint.
“Hermione, let’s go!” Ron yelled, waving her toward him. “Stop staring at Harry!”
But she couldn’t stop. Her eyes were glued to him, wide and disbelieving. She had never seen anyone do something so idiotic and brave in her entire life.
Chaos erupted around her as Ron and Neville scrambled to help, both shouting half-finished spells, trying not to hit Harry by accident. Harry was now upside down, the troll holding him by one leg and swinging him like a rag doll.
“Swish and flick, swish and flick,” Ron muttered like a chant, wand shaking in his hand as he tried to summon up the only spell they’d properly learned that day.
The troll raised its club high, furious and roaring, and Harry—hanging by his ankle—had just enough presence of mind to pull his body upward before the swing could hit.
“Hurry!” he shouted.
Ron and Neville tried again—“Wingardium Leviosa!”—and while the club did begin to lift, it was nowhere near fast enough. The troll barely noticed. In fact, it looked even angrier.
And then—
“Don’t hurt him!” Hermione shrieked.
She surged forward, wand in hand, voice cracking with panic but focused enough to cast the charm with a flick of her wrist.
The club shot upwards, higher than it had before, hovering just above the troll’s reach. The creature blinked stupidly, confused—until gravity did its work. The massive club dropped back down and hit the troll square on the top of the head.
The troll staggered. Released Harry. And collapsed with a thunderous boom onto the tile floor.
Harry fell flat on his face.
Thirty minutes later, all four of them were back in Gryffindor Tower—soot-smudged, exhausted, and emotionally fried—after getting the lecture of a lifetime from Professor McGonagall, a disgusted sniff from Snape, and an overly dramatic scolding from Percy Weasley.
Ron had finally apologized for what he said—grudgingly, awkwardly, but sincerely. Neville had been nervously grateful that they all survived and was currently staring at the fire like it held the meaning of life.
Harry? Harry was just happy none of them died.
Hermione?
Well…
Hermione Granger found her partner for life.
xxxxx
"Dear Mum and Dad,
How are you? Hogwarts is great. I can't wait to get back home and tell you all about it. I tried starting telling all about it in this parchment but I'm afraid the owl wouldn't be able to carry that much once I finished writing everything I wanted to say.
I miss you a lot, especially Grandma. I hope we can visit her in France when winter break starts.
This is Hedwig, by the way! Isn't she pretty? She likes bacon so please fill her up with some before she leaves. She's Harry Potter's owl – he's my friend! – and he told me I could use Hedwig to send letters back and forth with you anytime I wanted."
Hermione sat back a little from the parchment, nibbling the end of her quill as she reread what she had written so far. The parchment, already filled with her neat, careful handwriting, was starting to curl at the edges from where she had nervously handled it. She gently smoothed it out with her fingers, her brows furrowed in thought.
Was it enough? Too much? Did it sound like she was bragging? She hoped not. She’d already trimmed down a good three paragraphs about the architecture of the library and another two describing, in great detail, the subtle variations in magical theory across her textbooks.
She wanted to share everything. She wanted her parents to know how much she was thriving. How her whole life had changed.
Especially after that night.
She paused, her mind drifting as it often did now, to the memory that had quietly taken root in her brain like ivy — the bathroom, the crashing of the troll, the sting of fear sharp in her chest like ice — and then Harry. Bursting through the door like some manic Gryffindor hero, eyes blazing, calling her name like it meant something. Like she meant something.
She shook her head quickly, cheeks flushing as if someone had just said all of that out loud.
Back to the letter.
"Anyway, I'm alright and the professors and my classmates are all okay. I think I'll send in another letter after a few days!
Love,
Hermione.
P.S. Please tell Grandma that I found him!"
Hermione stared at the final line for a long moment, quill frozen in mid-air as though her brain hadn't caught up to her hand yet. I found him.
Merlin’s beard, she really wrote that.
The blush that colored her face this time was deeper, spreading from her neck to the tips of her ears. She bit her bottom lip and tried not to smile like a lunatic. She failed.
She wasn't sure when it had solidified in her mind—probably somewhere between Harry leaping onto a fully grown mountain troll and the moment he dropped in front of her like a gift-wrapped, half-conscious miracle—but the conclusion was now firm.
Harry Potter was hers.
Not in the overly dramatic, possessive way that witches in those silly romance books acted. No, nothing ridiculous like that. Just... in a quiet, gravitational sort of way. Like how the moon belonged to the night sky, how ink belonged on parchment, how stars belonged in her Astronomy chart.
She folded the letter carefully, taking the extra effort to line the edges just right, then secured it with the Hogwarts-issued wax seal, even though she doubted her parents would notice.
Hedwig watched her with the kind of patient judgment only an owl could manage — cool, elegant, and vaguely condescending. She had perched herself nearby, golden eyes following Hermione's every movement with what felt like pointed amusement.
Hermione reached into her satchel and pulled out a napkin wrapped around three small pieces of bacon she'd stashed from breakfast.
"Hello, Hedwig," she greeted, offering the bribe with a hopeful smile. "It looks like we'll see more of each other soon enough. Can you please bring this to my parents?"
Hedwig gave a low hoot and extended her leg with dignified grace, as though to say ‘Well, obviously, that’s what I’m here for, child.’
Hermione tied the parchment securely and gently ran her fingers over Hedwig’s feathers. They were softer than she expected — like satin dusted with snow.
"They're Emma and Daniel Granger," she added, enunciating carefully as if Hedwig needed help with names. "If they're not at home, maybe check their dental clinic? But, um, don’t go by the side window. You might scare the patients. Try the window at the back — the one near the orchid pots. That’s their office."
Hedwig gave what Hermione was certain was an exaggerated blink and a sound that suspiciously resembled a sigh. Hermione blinked. Did owls actually roll their eyes?
She watched in awe as Hedwig took off, the snowy wings catching a beam of soft November sunlight filtering through the Owlery window. The owl soared with practiced elegance, slicing through the cold air before disappearing past the Hogwarts grounds, a tiny speck against the vast grey sky.
Hermione stayed where she was, chin tilted up as her eyes tracked where Hedwig had gone. The chill of the Owlery didn’t bother her — not when her heart still fluttered from sending that letter, not when the air itself still felt different after that night. Brighter. Alive.
She was about to turn on her heel, preparing to head down for lunch — Harry would be waiting, hopefully not piling his plate with just treacle tart again — when something caught her attention.
There was a sudden flurry of wings. A blur of motion and a few disgruntled hoots echoed through the space as a rather large group of owls began to swoop in through the open windows. Hermione instinctively ducked as feathers and wind rushed past her, her hair flying into her face and making her squeak. One of the owls let out a slightly offended screech as it adjusted its flight path to avoid colliding with her.
Once the chaos settled, Hermione straightened up and blinked at the sight in front of her.
A small flock of owls — no fewer than seven, all different sizes and breeds — had landed haphazardly across the stone floor of the Owlery. They were panting lightly, wings half-raised as they caught their breath, clearly exhausted from a long, burdensome flight.
Hermione took a cautious step closer and then paused, eyes narrowing.
They were carrying something. Something big.
The package was clumsily wrapped, slightly lumpy in shape, and tied together with an unfortunate knot of twine and brown paper. It looked like it had been dropped a few times. Maybe kicked. One of the corners was sagging from the weight, revealing a glimpse of wood — was that mahogany?
She blinked again and crouched down beside the largest owl, who was sitting next to the package with a world-weary expression that screamed 'I did not sign up for this.'
"What are you lot carrying?" Hermione asked softly, offering a small piece of leftover bacon as a peace offering. She looked over the paper with growing curiosity and scanned the smudged ink on the address label. And then her lips parted in surprise.
"Oh."
There, scrawled in messy, slanted handwriting that looked like it had been written in a hurry and possibly with jam still on the fingers, was the name of the recipient.
Harry Potter.
Her eyebrows shot up.
xxxxx
It was after dinner, and the warm, golden glow of the Gryffindor common room flickered lazily against the stone walls. The fire crackled steadily in the hearth, casting soft shadows that danced across the walls and ceiling. The usual buzz of students chatting, playing Wizard’s Chess, or racing through last-minute homework filled the space with the kind of cozy chaos that only Hogwarts could provide.
In one quiet corner of the room—tucked near a window with a view of the twilight sky—Harry, Ron, and Neville had made themselves comfortable. This particular spot had slowly, and rather unconsciously, become theirs. A shared understanding among the four of them had marked the area as a sort of unofficial territory, their own small patch of calm in the castle’s wild sea.
Their schoolbooks were spread out across the table in front of them, parchment rolls half-filled with scribbled notes, and ink pots standing like sentries beside mugs of hot cocoa and half-eaten pumpkin pastries smuggled out from the Great Hall.
Ron was slouched in his chair, doodling in the margins of his Charms essay and periodically stealing glances at the chessboard set up beside him. Neville was chewing thoughtfully on the end of his quill, brow furrowed in determined focus as he tried to remember the difference between a Forgetfulness Potion and a Befuddlement Draught.
Harry, meanwhile, was hunched over his parchment, glasses slipping a bit down his nose as he frowned at his handwriting, occasionally pushing his fringe out of his eyes in frustration.
That was when the sound of footsteps echoed softly from the stairwell that led up to the girls’ dormitories. All three boys looked up in unison, blinking in mild surprise as Hermione came into view, descending the last few steps with the steady, deliberate pace she always carried.
She had a package in her hands.
A rectangular, brown-paper-wrapped bundle tied with thick twine, cradled carefully in her arms like it was something precious and far more fragile than it likely was.
“There you are,” she said, walking briskly toward them, her bushy hair bouncing with every step, her expression unreadable but firm. “Here, Harry. This came for you earlier today when I was sending a letter to Mum and Dad.”
Her voice was neutral, but Harry caught the tiniest edge to it—something like quiet urgency mixed with a trace of reluctance—as she passed the package over to him. Her fingers lingered just a bit too long as she handed it off, as if she hadn’t quite made peace with giving it up.
Harry blinked and took it with both hands, confusion flickering across his face. “For me?”
"That's a broomstick!" Ron whispered loudly, his eyes lighting up with immediate recognition. He practically bounced in his seat, leaning in so close it was a wonder he didn’t accidentally fall into Harry’s lap.
Hermione resisted the powerful urge to roll her eyes. Of course Ron knew. Boys and their Quidditch—it was like some sort of primal instinct.
She didn’t understand it. Not really. Flying around on broomsticks, chasing after enchanted balls, crashing into people midair like it was some noble feat? It all seemed utterly reckless and loud and dirty. Not at all her kind of thing.
Still… Harry would probably be brilliant at Quidditch.
Even if the only time she’d ever seen him on a broom was during that flying class disaster, where everything had gone sideways in the blink of an eye. But even then—especially then—there had been something undeniable about the way Harry moved in the air. Something wild. Natural. A little dangerous, in that way only Harry could manage. Like gravity had decided, just for him, to take a short break.
But all of that was beside the point.
Hermione sat down next to him, not bothering to ask if there was space. She simply wedged herself in with practiced ease, nestling into the small gap between Harry and the arm of the armchair as though it was always meant to be hers. Her shoulder bumped gently against his, and she didn’t move away.
Instead, she pulled out her book—Magical Drafts and Potions, third re-read this week—and opened it to her current chapter, pretending to read while peering at the corner of the package Harry was now untying with cautious fingers.
She could feel the boys buzzing with excitement beside her. Harry had barely peeled back the paper before Ron let out a gasp loud enough to earn a few shushes from a nearby group of second-years.
“Blimey, Harry! That’s a Nimbus Two Thousand!”
Hermione didn’t look up, but her lips pressed into a thin line. She could almost see the stupid grin spreading across Harry’s face without even glancing at him. That soft, lopsided kind of smile that always seemed to creep in when he was genuinely surprised. The kind that made her chest feel tight and infuriatingly warm.
Of course someone sent him a broom. And it's a Nimbus Two Thousand. That was the best broomstick on the market. Fast, sleek, cutting-edge. Every boy in Gryffindor would be tripping over themselves for a chance to touch it.
Hermione kept her eyes trained on her book, turning a page she hadn’t finished reading.
She wasn’t jealous, exactly. That would be silly. Childish. Beneath her.
She was simply alert. Attentive. Protective.
Because it mattered who sent it. It mattered why.
And if anyone—anyone—thought they could swoop in and buy Harry’s affection with flashy broomsticks and mystery parcels, they had another thing coming.
Without another word, she shifted closer, just slightly, enough for her knee to rest against Harry’s under the table. She buried herself further into the pages of her book, every now and then glancing at the boys out of the corner of her eye.
xxxxx
So the broomstick was actually sent anonymously—though not so anonymously once one put the facts together—by Professor McGonagall herself.
It was, without question, a bend—if not a flat-out obliteration—of several school rules. First years weren’t allowed their own brooms. Let alone top-of-the-line models almost owl-delivered straight into the Great Hall wrapped like birthday presents. But, as it turned out, those rules apparently did not apply when the first year in question was Harry Potter.
Hermione had read the Hogwarts rulebook. Three times. She knew the regulations by heart—first years could not try out for house teams, let alone be recruited for them. There was even a clause about broomstick use during unsupervised hours.
But that didn't seem to matter. Not when McGonagall had that look in her eye—the one she got when she was both proud and quietly smug about knowing she could get away with something because she was the one doing it.
It was, in Hermione’s opinion, absurd.
Still, here they were. A cold breeze rolling through the early morning mist of the Hogwarts grounds, the Quidditch pitch echoing with distant clangs and whistles. The sky was dull grey, with the sun making only occasional, half-hearted attempts to shine through the clouds. The stadium’s high towers loomed like silent guardians around the wide expanse of turf and air, stretching open like an ancient coliseum.
Hermione sat on the bleachers, halfway up, bundled in her scarf and cloak, a steaming mug of hot chocolate cupped carefully in her gloved hands. The wind nipped at her cheeks and tugged at the edge of her curls, which had frizzed slightly in protest at the morning’s dampness. She had stationed herself with full view of the pitch—front row to disaster, as she had begun thinking of it.
Her eyes narrowed slightly as she watched the figures below.
Harry was there, of course—her Harry—on the field with Oliver Wood, the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain, who was gesturing with theatrical enthusiasm about some sort of flying maneuver. His arms flailed with each explanation, his expression the kind of manic cheer only true Quidditch fanatics possessed. He looked as though he lived for this, practically vibrating with excitement.
Harry, on the other hand, looked a little dazed. He was nodding—politely, if not entirely convincingly—as Oliver demonstrated how to loop, dive, and bank while explaining the importance of “keeping your eye on the Snitch, always.” Hermione was sure that if she were close enough, she’d see that telltale little crease forming between Harry’s brows—the one that always appeared when he was trying to act like he understood something he absolutely did not.
Not that he didn’t try. Oh no. Hermione had made sure he knew the rules. She had taken it upon herself, once she’d caught wind of the Quidditch match preparations, to prepare Harry thoroughly. Quidditch might be a chaotic, illogical sport with more dangerous elements than any responsible adult should allow children near—but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be well-informed.
She’d spent three hours going over the rulebook with him.
Three hours.
Well, two hours and fifty-two minutes, technically, but she rounded up because the last eight minutes had been spent discussing hypothetical penalty calls and whether the Keeper could legally enter the scoring zone. Harry had looked like he was about to melt into the floor by the end of it, blinking slowly and nodding in that passive, exhausted way that made her reluctantly ease off.
She had almost felt bad for him. Almost.
So she had let him go. For now.
But she’d promised they’d review again the night before the actual match. A promise that Harry responded to with a look that was somewhere between mild panic and hopeful denial.
Silly Harry.
As if she would ever be tired of teaching him.
Hermione took a small sip of her hot chocolate, the warmth a welcome contrast to the crisp air that nipped at her fingers. The drink was thick, rich, and sweet—borrowed from the kitchens after a well-timed trip with Neville, who had shyly asked for help with his Astronomy charts and somehow been roped into “accidentally” finding the corridor that led to the portrait of the fruit bowl.
Now, from her perch, she watched with cautious interest as Oliver walked Harry over to a locked crate sitting in the middle of the pitch. The Captain bent down, unhooked a few heavy latches, and with a dramatic flourish, threw open the lid.
Out flew a Bludger.
Hermione nearly choked on her hot chocolate.
The iron ball shot upward into the air like a cannonball, swerving violently and then doubling back with a speed that made her stomach clench. It tore through the space above the pitch, then dipped, curved, and went tearing toward Harry and Oliver with reckless glee.
Oliver just stood there, watching it.
Hermione narrowed her eyes, the mug of cocoa now entirely forgotten in her lap.
What exactly was he doing?
And why was Harry—why was Harry—holding a bat?
She stood up slowly, alarm bells ringing in her head.
Surely, surely he wasn’t actually intending to—
BAM!
The sharp, reverberating crack echoed across the stadium as Harry brought the bat down in a fluid, startlingly powerful motion. The Bludger shot back into the sky with a wicked spin, vanishing momentarily into the grey clouds above. Harry, for his part, was grinning—broad, delighted, breathless with adrenaline—and Oliver was clapping him proudly on the back like he’d just won the World Cup.
Hermione’s jaw dropped.
“Is he an idiot?!” she muttered, just barely stopping herself from shouting. “What kind of lunatic lets an eleven-year-old boy hit a Bludger with no helmet, no supervision, no common sense?”
Her voice was low but furious, the words half-hissed between clenched teeth. Her grip on the wooden bleacher was so tight her knuckles had gone pale, and her scarf had begun to slip from her shoulders as she leaned forward, eyes locked on the pitch like a hawk preparing to swoop.
She could not believe this.
Of all the irresponsible, ridiculous, utterly insane things to allow—why would anyone let Harry be used as some sort of human target practice for Bludgers?
Her heart hadn’t quite settled back into her chest yet.
Hermione continued to glare holes into Oliver Wood’s back from her seat, seething silently as the Bludger reappeared and began another pass.
She didn't trust it. She didn't trust him. And she certainly didn't trust enchanted iron cannonballs flying at her Harry.
Not on her watch.
xxxxx
"I’ve been meaning to ask you, Harry," Oliver Wood said suddenly, his tone light but with a hint of hesitation, as Harry slowed down his broom after finishing the first few laps around the pitch.
The Nimbus 2000 dipped slightly before steadying under his touch, its responsiveness so sharp that Harry was still getting used to the way it practically anticipated his movements. His heart was racing, cheeks flushed from the cold wind that had whipped past him during the high-speed circuits. The sky above was a dull winter grey, the kind that seemed to suck the color out of everything beneath it, making the stadium bleachers look more weathered and the grass below more muted. Still, the rush of flying had its own brightness—its own pulse—and Harry felt it thrumming in his fingertips.
He was still catching his breath, his grin wide and windblown. "What?" he asked, wiping a hand across his face, his hair sticking out in odd directions.
Oliver cast a cautious glance toward the stands before steering them both toward a lower hover, guiding their brooms to hover just a few feet above the ground. He leaned in a little, lowering his voice as if sharing some closely guarded secret. One arm was casually draped over Harry’s shoulders, pulling him into the kind of overfamiliar huddle that older boys did with younger ones when they were trying to be friendly, or conspiratorial.
"Your girlfriend—that Granger girl—is she mad at me or something?"
Harry blinked. "What?"
Oliver motioned slightly with his head in Hermione’s direction, careful not to turn too far. She was perched halfway up the bleachers, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, hair a windswept halo of controlled chaos, and her expression… well, her expression did not exactly suggest ease or amusement.
"I don’t mind her watching you practice or anything," Oliver added, a bit sheepishly. "But she looks like she wants to murder me with her eyes."
Harry was just about to laugh it off, say something like "Oh, she’s just like that," but the words caught in his throat as realization dawned on him—what exactly had Oliver just called her?
His face went crimson, heat blooming across his cheeks like a flare, and he jumped slightly away from Oliver, flailing his hands in alarm, his Nimbus wobbling under the sudden movement.
"She’s not my girlfriend!" Harry sputtered, eyes wide, voice cracking like a first-year's potion vial under pressure.
Oliver chuckled, entirely unfazed. "Oh, it’s alright," he said with an easy grin, brushing it off as if Harry had just denied some long-standing, obvious truth. "We don’t really mind people in a relationship on the team, just as long as it doesn’t mess with practice."
Harry groaned inwardly. He wished the Bludger had hit him. Or that the ground would swallow him whole right then and there.
"She’s really not!" he insisted again, voice an octave higher than he intended. He rubbed the back of his neck, looking anywhere but toward the bleachers.
Oliver scratched his nose with the back of his glove, thoughtful. "Oh. I just assumed… Well…" he trailed off, not finishing the thought, but leaving plenty of space for implication to fill in the blanks.
Harry glanced upward again—he couldn’t help it—and there she was.
Hermione had now stood up, her posture tense and focused, arms still crossed, but she seemed to be trying to figure out what was happening below. Her eyes were squinting, not from the light—because there wasn’t any—but from that suspicious sort of curiosity she often got when she was trying to decode a difficult puzzle or when someone was touching her books without asking.
She was staring right at them.
Harry quickly looked away.
He could feel the flush rising again.
"Well, don’t let it get to you," Oliver said, clapping him solidly on the back with a captain’s practiced nonchalance. "I don’t really gossip, but I hear things. Some of the girls in the common room have been saying stuff, and I just thought you two were, y’know... dating or something."
Harry made a soft, strangled noise in response.
"W-We aren’t really like that…" he said finally, his voice quieter now, more uncertain.
"So just really good friends then?" Oliver asked, his tone genuine, like he didn’t really care either way and was just trying to make sure things weren’t tense between both of the younger students.
Harry didn’t answer at first. He looked back up again, as if Hermione herself might give him the answer.
She was still frowning—but the edges of it had softened. Now, she looked more worried than angry, like she was two seconds away from marching down to the pitch to check if he’d fallen or broken something. Her body was leaned slightly forward, hands gripping the rail, and her lips were pursed in that determined way that meant she was moments away from speaking her mind.
Harry felt a strange twist in his chest. He didn’t really know what to make of it—any of it. Ever since the troll incident, she had been... there. Always. Quietly attentive, relentlessly helpful, and oddly fierce in the way she defended him during classes. It was as if something had shifted, and she had appointed herself unofficial bodyguard and rule enforcer of his life.
Not that he minded.
Mostly.
"I guess?" Harry answered, hesitant, still trying to figure out what it even meant to be more than friends when he barely understood friendship in the first place. He wasn’t exactly used to people worrying about him—or hovering near him with chocolate in their satchel or books about Quidditch rules they didn’t even like. But Hermione did all that. And somehow, she made it feel… normal. Like he deserved that sort of care.
Oliver shrugged easily. "Okay then," he said, giving Harry another solid pat between the shoulder blades. "Well, tell her I’m not bullying you or anything, yeah? Because honestly, I feel like if I say the wrong thing, I’m going to get attacked by a stray spell."
Harry watched Oliver laugh, entirely good-natured about it, before turning back toward the center of the pitch. But Harry lingered for a moment longer, his eyes drawn once more to the girl in the stands—who was now very clearly ready to descend the stairs and stomp her way onto the field if he so much as sneezed.
He wasn’t entirely sure Oliver was wrong about the spell thing.
xxxxx
"H-Hey, Hermione," Harry called out as he coasted through the crisp morning air, the tail of his broom slicing gently through the lowering mist that clung to the Quidditch pitch. He glided toward the bleachers with practiced ease, though his landing was still a touch wobbly—he was new to all of this, after all—and came to a gentle stop just below where she was sitting.
The wind had grown colder, sharp and impatient as it swept through the open stands, sending flurries of loose grass and dirt skittering along the floorboards. The sky above was the sort of early-winter gray that made everything look slightly blurred at the edges, as if the world were slowly icing over. Harry rubbed his hands together to bring some feeling back into his fingers before settling into the seat below Hermione, the broom resting across his knees.
"Practice is over," he said, craning his neck to look up at her. "Oliver’s putting the Quidditch set away. It’s freezing out here. You shouldn’t have waited for me."
Hermione, who had pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders, looked entirely unbothered by the cold. She gave a small shrug, her cheeks rosy from the wind, curls tangled from the gusts. Her expression was somewhere between pleased and self-satisfied.
"I don’t mind," she replied, her voice light, like it was the most natural thing in the world to be sitting in the icy stadium for an hour just to wait for him. "I brought hot chocolate. The twins told me how to get into the kitchens, and I took Neville with me this morning. Did you know that our meals are made by house-elves?"
She was already reaching into the small enchanted tray beside her—something she had charmingly over-prepared, as usual. Despite the chill, the cocoa she handed him was still steaming, the surface topped with tiny marshmallows that floated lazily like soft white boats. The sandwich—neatly cut into triangles, crusts gone, cheese melted just right—smelled as though it had just left the pan.
Harry blinked at it all, bemused but grateful. “That’s… wow.”
He listened as Hermione continued speaking, her voice drifting into the kind of rapid yet rhythmic tone she used when sharing something she found genuinely interesting. Her words flowed easily, bouncing from house-elves to the different flavors of hot chocolate the kitchens could make, to how Neville had been delighted by the whole experience and kept asking if the elves could make apple pie for breakfast.
Meanwhile, Harry watched her with a soft, amused look. The way she spoke—so animated, so completely in her element—made him smile even as the wind bit at his ears. He didn’t interrupt, not even when she offered him the tray, passing over the warm cocoa and sandwich.
"Here, eat up," Hermione said. "I already ate mine. We can go back if you want, or we could just stay and finish here while you rest."
Harry could barely get out his "Thank you" before taking a large, eager bite of the sandwich. The warmth of the food spread through his chest like a small fire, chasing away the lingering chill in his bones. His stomach, previously tight from nerves and adrenaline, unclenched in a slow wave of relief.
He hadn’t eaten much earlier, too anxious about being alone with Oliver for his first real Quidditch training. Despite Oliver being friendly, it was still daunting—being eleven, being new, and being Harry Potter all at once. This day had left him buzzing and exhausted in equal measure.
He let out a small, satisfied noise as he ate, the sandwich absurdly delicious in its simplicity. The cocoa warmed his hands and his insides, and Hermione drank hers quietly beside him, letting the moment stretch. The only sound around them was the distant creaking of the stadium under the wind, the hum of castle magic whispering in the stands, and the occasional squawk of a bird roosting somewhere in the rafters above.
It was peaceful.
Comfortable.
Probably a few minutes passed like that—just the two of them sitting there, close but not quite touching, the kind of silence that only existed between people who didn’t need to fill it.
Then Hermione shifted slightly and cleared her throat. Not a loud, obnoxious sound, but just enough to signal that the quiet was now officially over.
"So," she said, casually enough that Harry tensed instantly. "What were you and Wood talking about earlier? You looked… disturbed."
Harry nearly choked on his bite, sputtering mid-chew. He coughed loudly, hand smacking his chest while Hermione leaned in, patting his back gently.
"I-It was nothing!" he wheezed, eyes watering slightly from the coughing fit.
"Doesn’t seem like nothing," Hermione said, raising a brow, watching him with that calculating expression that always made him feel like she could see straight through him.
"Honestly, Hermione, it really was nothing," Harry insisted, looking anywhere but directly at her. He took another aggressive bite of his sandwich, hoping to chew his way out of the conversation. "He was just… teasing me about something."
Hermione’s eyes narrowed, just a fraction. Her frown deepened—not the full-on glare she reserved for misbehaving classmates, but the smaller, subtler one that suggested her brain was working overtime.
"Is he bullying you?"
Harry turned toward her quickly, his expression equal parts confused and offended. "What? No! He isn’t. Oliver’s a good guy. He was just… curious about stuff, that’s all."
Hermione nodded slowly, but something in her didn’t fully settle. Her brows were still furrowed, and the way she was watching him now had shifted—there was a new layer of intensity in her gaze, something colder and more protective creeping into the warmth of her usual concern.
Harry didn’t notice. He was too busy finishing his sandwich and trying to pretend the conversation was already over.
But Hermione noticed.
He hadn’t said everything.
There was something he wasn’t telling her. Some piece of the story left floating unspoken in the space between his words, and she didn’t like that—not one bit. And she especially didn’t like how he was looking away from her as he said it. That was always a sign.
That’s it, she decided, straightening her posture slightly as she finished the last sip of her cocoa.
She was going to have a word with Oliver Wood.
Soon.
Very soon.