Granger's Tale Continued

And the scene re-formed. Harry looked around. He was on platform nine and three quarters, and Granger stood beside him, next to a thin, sour-looking woman who greatly resembled her. A tall, burly brown haired man stood scowling next to them

James was staring at the family of three a short distance away. Granger seemed to be pleading with her father.

". . . I'm sorry, father, I'm sorry! Listen—" She caught her father's hand and held tight to it, but he angrily tried to pull it away. "Maybe once I'm there, I'll be able to go to Professor Dumbledore and persuade him to change his mind!"

"I don't—want—you—to change his mind!" said John Granger. "You go to that stupid castle and learn to be a—a. . . "

His brown eyes roved over the platform, over the cats mewling in their owners' arms, over the owls, fluttering and hooting at each other in cages, over the students, some already in their long black robes, loading trunks onto the scarlet steam engine or else greeting one another with glad cries after a summer apart.

"—a freak!"

Gramger's eyes filled with tears as her father succeeded in pulling his hand away. He would have struck her if they weren't in public.

"I'm not a freak," said Granger, tears in her eyes.

That was a horrible thing for her father to say. But her father was a horrible man in many ways. He was angry because Headmaster Albus Dumbledore told him in no uncertain terms that Hermione was to be at the train at the proper time without a single mark on her or he'd personally hex his nads off. John Granger might be able to bully the women in his life, but not Dumbledore. He had been reduced to verbally abusing his daughter and he did so furiously.

"That's where you're going," said her father with relish. "A special school for freaks. You and that Potter boy. . .weirdos, that's what you two are. It's good you're being separated from normal people. It's for our safety."

"Freak!" he spat at her once more, then grabbed her mother's arm and strode away.

The scene dissolved again. Granger was hurrying along the corridor of the Hogwarts Express as it clattered through the countryside. She had already changed into her school robes, had perhaps taken the first opportunity to take off her dreadful Muggle clothes. At last she stopped, outside a compartment in which a group of loud girls were talking. Hunched in a corner seat beside the window was James, Sirius sitting beside him.

Granger slid open the compartment door and sat down opposite James, pressing her face against the window. Sirius rolled his eyes and James glanced at her as she began to very quietly cry.

"Hermione?"

"I don't want to talk to you," she said in a constricted voice.

"Why not?"

"My father h-hates me. Because of Dumbledore."

"So what?"

She threw him a look of deep dislike. "So he's my father!"

"He's only a—" James caught himself quickly; Granger, too busy trying to wipe her eyes without being noticed, did not hear him. He had been about to call him an abusive prig.

"But we're going!" he said, unable to suppress the exhilaration in his voice. "This is it! We're off to Hogwarts!"

She nodded, mopping her eyes, but in spite of herself, she half smiled.

"You'd better be in Gryffindor," said James, encouraged that she had brightened a little.

"Gryffindor?"

One of the girls sharing the compartment, who had shown no interest at all in Granger or James until that point, looked around at the word, and Harry, whose attention had been focused entirely on the two beside the window, saw his mother: slender, red-haired and with that indefinable air of having been well-cared-for, even adored, that Granger so conspicuously lacked.

"Of course, Gryffindor. Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?" Lily asked Sirius, who was lounging on the seat opposite her.

Sirius did not smile.

"My whole family have been in Slytherin," he said.

"Blimey," said James, "and I thought you seemed all right!"

Sirius grinned.

"Maybe I'll break the tradition," he said, turning to Lily. "Where are you heading, if you've got the choice?"

Lily lifted an invisible sword.

"'Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart!' I've read all about it, and Gryffindor produces the greatest, most attractive witches and wizards."

Granger made a small, disparaging noise. Lily turned on her.

"Got a problem with that?"

"No," said Granger, though her slight sneer said otherwise. "If you'd rather be breasty than brainy—"

"Where're you hoping to go, seeing as you're neither?" interjected another witch.

Lily cackled with laughter. Granger sat up, rather flushed, and looked from Lily to the other witch in dislike.

"Come on, James, let's find another compartment."

"Oooooo. . . "

Lily and the other witch imitated her lofty voice; Lily tried to trip Granger as she passed.

"See ya, Whoremony!" a voice called, as the compartment door slammed. . .

And the scene dissolved once more. . .

Harry was standing right behind Granger as they faced the candlelit House tables, lined with rapt faces. They were being sorted according to their positions in line rather than surname. Then Professor McGonagall announced, "Potter, James!"

He watched his father walk forward and sit down upon the rickety stool. Professor McGonagall dropped the Sorting Hat onto his head, and barely a second after it had touched the messy black hair, the hat cried, "Gryffindor!"

Harry heard Granger let out a tiny groan. James took off the hat, handed it back to Professor McGonagall, then hurried toward the cheering Gryffindors, but as he went she glanced back at Granger, and there was a sad little smile on his face. Harry saw Lily move up the bench to make room for him.

James took one look at her, seemed to recognize her from the train, folded her arms, and firmly turned his back on her. .

The roll call continued. Harry watched Lupin, Pettigrew and Sirius, join James at the Gryffindor table. At last, when only a dozen students remained to be sorted, Professor McGonagall looked down at Granger.

"What is your name, my dear?"

"Hermione Granger."

"Granger, Hermione!" Professor McGonagall announced.

Harry walked with her to the stool, and watched the professor place the hat upon her head.

"Slytherin!" cried the Sorting Hat.

And Hermione Granger moved off to the other side of the Hall, away from James, to where the Slytherins were cheering her, to where Lucius Malfoy, a prefect badge gleaming upon his chest, rubbed Granger on her shoulder as she sat down beside him. .

And the scene changed. . .

James and Granger were walking across the castle courtyard, evidently arguing. Harry hurried to catch up with them, to listen in. As he reached them, he realized how much taller they both were. A few years seemed to have passed since their Sorting.

". . . thought we were supposed to be friends?" Granger was saying, "Best friends?"

"We are, Hermione, but I don't like some of the people you're hanging round with! I'm sorry, but I can't stand Avery and Mulciber! Mulciber! What do you see in him, Hermione, he's creepy! D'you know what he tried to do to Mary MacDonald the other day?"

James had reached a pillar and leaned against it, looking up into her slightly pinched face.

"That was nothing," said Granger. "It was a laugh, that's all—"

"It was Dark Magic, and if you think that's funny—"

"What about the stuff Evans and her friends get up to?" demanded Granger. Her color rose again as she said it, unable, it seemed, to hold in her resentment.

"What's Evans got to do with anything?" said James, totally ignoring the fact that Lily and her friends targeted Hermione every chance they got.

"Evans gets away with bloody murder all the time. And what about your friends, James? I know you all go out at night and there's something weird about that Lupin you hang around."

"He's ill," said James. "They say he's ill—"

"Every month at the full moon?" said Granger.

"I know your theory about Lupin," said James, and he sounded cold. "Why are you so obsessed with Lily and Lupin anyway? Why do you care what they're doing?"

"I'm just trying to show you they're not as wonderful as everyone seems to think they are."

The intensity of James' gaze made her blush.

"They don't use Dark Magic, though." He dropped his voice. "And you're being really ungrateful. I heard what happened the other night. You went sneaking down that tunnel by the Whomping Willow, and Lily saved you from whatever's down there—"

Gramger's whole face contorted and he spluttered, "Saved? Saved? You think she was playing the heroine? She was saving her neck and her friends' too! You're not going to—I won't let you—"

"Let me? Let me?"

James' bright brown eyes were slits. Granger backtracked at once.

"I didn't mean—I just don't want to see you made a fool of—She fancies you, Lily Evans fancies you!" The words seemed wrenched from her against her will. "And she's not. . . everyone thinks. . . big gifted witch—"

Granger's bitterness and dislike were rendering her incoherent, and James' eyebrows were traveling farther and farther up his forehead.

"I know Lily Evans is an stuck-up chit," he said, cutting across Granger. "I don't need you to tell me that. But Mulciber's and Avery's idea of humor is just evil. Evil, Hermione. I don't understand how you can be friends with them."

Harry doubted that Granger had even heard his strictures on Mulciber and Avery. The moment he had insulted Lily Evans, her whole body had relaxed,and as they walked away there was a new spring in Granger's step. . .

And the scene dissolved. . .

Harry watched again as Granger left the Great Hall after sitting her O.W.L. in Defense Against the Dark Arts, watched as she wandered away from the castle and strayed inadvertently close to the place beneath the beech tree where Lily and her three cohorts sat together. But Harry kept his distance this time, because he knew what happened after Lily had hoisted Hermione into the air and taunted her; he knew what had been done and said, and it gave him no pleasure to hear it again. . .

He watched as James joined the group and went to Granger's defense. Distantly he heard Granger shout at him in her humiliation and her fury, the unforgivable word:

"Coward."

The scene changed. . .

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not interested."

"I'm sorry!"

"Save your breath."

It was nighttime. James, who was wearing a pair of pajamas, stood with his arms folded in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady, at the entrance to Gryffindor Tower.

"I only came out because Sirius told me you were threatening to sleep here."

"I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you a coward, it just—"

"Slipped out?" There was no pity in James voice. "It's too late. I've made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends—you see, you don't even deny it! You don't even deny that's what you're all aiming to be! You can't wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?"

She opened her mouth, but closed it without speaking.

"I can't pretend anymore. You've chosen your way, I've chosen mine."

"No—listen, I didn't mean—"

"—to call me a coward? But you call everyone of my House coward, Hermione.. Why should I be any different?"

She struggled on the verge of speech, but with a contemptuous look he turned and climbed back through the portrait hole. . .

The corridor dissolved, and the scene took a little longer to reform: Harry seemed to fly through shifting shapes and colors until his surroundings solidified again and he stood on a hilltop, forlorn and cold in the darkness, the wind whistling through the branches of a few leafless trees.

The adult Granger was panting, turning on the spot, her wand gripped tightly in her hand, waiting for something or for someone. . .Her fear infected Harry too, even though he knew that he could not be harmed, and he looked over his shoulder, wondering what it was that Granger was waiting for—

Then a blinding, jagged jet of white light flew through the air. Harry thought of lightning, but Granger had dropped to her knees and her wand had flown out of her hand.

"Don't kill me!"

"That was not my intention."

Any sound of Dumbledore Apparating had been drowned by the sound of the wind in the branches. He stood before Granger with his robes whipping around him, and his face was illuminated from below in the light cast by his wand.

"Well, Hermione? What message does Lord Voldemort have for me?"

"No—no message—I'm here on my own account!"

Hermione was wringing her hands. She looked a little mad, with her bushy brown hair flying around her.

"I—I come with a warning—no, a request—please—"

Dumbledore flicked his wand. Though leaves and branches still flew through the night air around them, silence fell on the spot where he and Granger faced each other.

"What request could a Death Eater make of me?"

"The—the prophecy. . . the prediction. . . Trelawney. . . "

"Ah, yes," said Dumbledore. "How much did you relay to Lord Voldemort?"

"Everything—everything I heard!" said Granger. "That is why—it is for that reason—he thinks it means James Potter!"

"The prophecy did not refer to a man," said Dumbledore. "It spoke of a boy born at the end of July—"

"You know what I mean! He thinks it means his son, he is going to hunt him down—kill them all—"

"If he means so much to you," said Dumbledore, "surely Lord Voldemort will spare him? Could you not ask for mercy for the father, in exchange for the son?"

"I have—I have asked him—"

"You disgust me," said Dumbledore, and Harry had never heard so much contempt in his voice. Hermione seemed to shrink a little, "You do not care, then, about the deaths of his wife and child? They can die, as long as you have what you want?"

Granger said nothing, but merely looked up at Dumbledore.

"Hide them all, then," she croaked. "Keep him—them—safe. Please."

"And what will you give me in return, Hermione?"

"In—in return?" Granger gaped at Dumbledore, and Harry expected her to protest, but after a long moment she said, "Anything."

The hilltop faded, and Harry stood in Dumbledore's office, and something was making a terrible sound, like a wounded animal. Granger was slumped forward in a chair and Dumbledore was standing over her, looking grim. After a moment or two, Granger raised her face, and she looked like a woman who had lived a hundred years of misery since leaving the wild hilltop.

"I thought. . . you were going. . . to keep him. . . safe. . . "

"He and Lily put their faith in the wrong person," said Dumbledore.

"Rather like you, Hermione. Weren't you hoping that Lord Voldemort would spare him?"

Granger's breathing was shallow.

"His boy survives," said Dumbledore.

With a tiny jerk of the head, Hermione seemed to flick off an irksome fly.

"His son lives. He has his hair and looks, precisely his looks, except for the eyes. You remember his messy hair and his face, I am sure?"

"DON'T!" shrieked Granger. "Gone. . . dead. . . "

"Is this remorse, Hermione?"

"I wish. . . I wish I were dead. . . "

"And what use would that be to anyone?" said Dumbledore coldly. "If you loved James Potter, if you truly loved him, then your way forward is clear."

Granger seemed to peer through a haze of pain, and Dumbledore's words appeared to take a long time to reach her.

"What—what do you mean?"

"You know how and why he died. Make sure it was not in vain. Help me protect James' son."

"He does not need protection. The Dark Lord has gone—"

"The Dark Lord will return, and Harry Potter will be in terrible danger when he does."

There was a long pause, and slowly Granger regained control of herself, mastered her own breathing. At last she said, "Very well. Very well. But never—never tell, Dumbledore! This must be between us! Swear it! I cannot bear. . . especially Evan's son. . . I want your word!"

"My word, Hermione, that I shall never reveal the best of you?" Dumbledore sighed, looking down into Hermione's ferocious, anguished face. "If you insist. . . "

The office dissolved but re-formed instantly. Granger was pacing up and down in front of Dumbledore.

"—mediocre, arrogant as his mother, a determined rule-breaker, delighted to find himself at the center of things, attention-seeking and impertinent—"

"You see what you expect to see, Hermione," said Dumbledore, without raising his eyes from a copy of Transfiguration Today. "Other teachers report that the boy is modest, likable, and reasonably talented. Personally, I find him an engaging child."

Dumbledore turned a page, and said, without looking up, "Keep an eye on Quirrell, won't you?"

A/N I ended the rewrite here, although I actually did the entire Pensieve memory. It's just that it became incredibly boring because all the interaction hereafter is between Snape and Dumbledore and I only had to switch Granger for Snape and change the pronouns to feminine. It just wasn't interesting enough, so I spared y'all. Well, it was a good role-reversal writing exercise at least and fun to dabble in. Thanks for reading.