Chapter 2: Enter Host Club

It took a whopping seventy-two hours for Hermione to regret enrolling at Hogwarts Academy.

On Monday, she got lost on her way to class and ended up in a first year Potions class instead of the Advanced Ancient Runes course she'd signed up for. The Potions class was strangely being held in a large, open room with plenty of natural light and Slughorn was a good deal younger than she remembered. He had long, salt-and-pepper hair held back in a ponytail and a substantially smaller belly. He was also, inexplicably, Korean.

Still, other than his outward appearance, he was the same old Slughorn with the same old nepotistic personality and same old Slug Club, to which Hermione found herself invited within the first class. Then, at lunchtime, a third year suffered a burst of accidental magic, and Hermione's hair had been partially doused in sticky toffee pudding. She severed her ruined locks with a hasty Slicing Hex before Madam Pomfrey finished up working with the hysterically crying third year, and left the Great Hall for a shower. Luckily, the pudding washed mostly out of her robes, but she had to wear them damp to her next class. The fact that her curly hair only came to the bottoms of her ears didn't bother her much- in fact, she began to wonder why she hadn't cut it short earlier. She'd also received a thick-framed pair of zero-prescription glasses from Dumbledore, whose note explained that wearing them might make her less recognizable if she found herself meeting someone she might know from her timeline. Obviously, this point was thoroughly moot now thanks to her butchered hair, but Hermione still put them on anyway.

It was hard to make friends, especially since she was starting out in her sixth year while everyone else seemed to have gone to school forever. At most, others seemed to either give her strange looks for wearing her plain, black robes to class, or ignored her completely. Also, Hermione found herself irritated at how casual everyone seemed to be about their studies. It was as though nobody studied at all! They just expected their rich parents to give them jobs after school, or worse, had few plans to do anything after graduation. The final straw had been when she'd gone to the library, looking for a quiet place to study, and found herself in the throes of a cocktail party. She was scandalized when she saw a fifth year (who should not have been drinking the flute of champagne that was precariously perched in his hand) accidentally spill half a glass on a particularly old tome.

"The library is a place for studying!" she'd hissed under her breath as she turned and stormed from the room. "Not socializing!"

She said socializing as though it was a dirty word. And, to some extent, it was. Hermione did not want to belly up to the rich and influential and charm them into giving her a handout. Though she knew it was probably harder to get ahead on merit alone, she felt as though she ought to be able to do so without sacrificing her morals.

Stomping up the stairs, Hermione finally reached the fifth floor and caught her breath. It was only when she saw the tapestry of the dancing trolls (they were tap-dancing in this universe instead of dancing ballet, she noticed), that she remembered- the Room of Requirement! Nobody had known about it in her timeline until Dobby had told them in their fifth year.

Oddly enough, as soon as she passed the space on the wall, the door materialized almost immediately. She tried the door, sighing with relief as it swung open silently.

"Finally, I'll be able to get some studying done!" she said, relieved, squinting as the bright light of the room beyond filled her eyes.

When her eyes adjusted, they immediately widened with something between shock and horror as she saw the assorted group of boys standing before her. They were clustered around a green velvet chaise lounge, with a very familiar blond boy sitting on it as though he had just been crowned king.

"Welcome," a young Lucius Malfoy purred, "to the Hogwarts Academy Host Club."

Hermione stared, one eye twitching at the scene before her, and backed up slowly towards the door. Behind Lucius, stood a young version of Severus Snape holding a clipboard and wearing small, rectangular glasses. They suited his angular face and hooked nose quite well, actually, and his expression was one of cool disinterest. He wore his long, fine, and silky hair pulled back from his face.

"Ah," Lucius rumbled, practically dancing his way over to where Hermione stood, "it's our one and only transfer student, come to taste the pleasures of our fine club!"

"I hear he was accepted on a scholarship by Dumbledore himself!" said one of the red-haired twins, who was most definitely not Fred or George, but whom Hermione would have put money on being at least tangentially related to the Weasley or Prewett clans. Actually, now that she thought of it, she had noticed them in a few of her classes, which meant that she was probably in the same year as they were.

"Granger, wasn't it?" Hermione was pulled out of her thoughts by the sudden close proximity of Lucius' sparkling gray eyes. She'd only ever seen the older version of him sneering or scowling, so seeing him with such a friendly, welcoming disposition was somewhat unnerving. "I must say, I hadn't expected that this little bookworm would make his way up here so quickly. Are you finally settling in, Granger?"

Hermione found herself backing up and then turning slightly to her side as Lucius gracefully advanced upon her. He seemed unaware that his proximity made her nervous, and before she could stop him from doing it, he pressed a finger under her chin, tipping her face up to his in a decidedly seductive manner.

"Don't worry, young man, the Host Club is happy to serve you, regardless of your sexuality," he said softly.

"I-I'm not-" A full-body chill ran up Hermione's spine and she jerked backwards instinctively- the last time Lucius Malfoy had been close enough for her to feel the heat of his breath against her lips, he'd been threatening to kill her and her friends at the Ministry.

Something bumped against her back and she twisted around to see a giant, ornamental vase tipping in the opposite direction. It was the sort of thing that was not only large, but looked unspeakably expensive. Immediately, Hermione grabbed for it with her hand, and then tried to pull out her wand, but she was far too slow. The vase shattered into thousands of pieces, and a ghastly shrieking noise emanated from it before dissipating into the air.

Hermione slowly turned back to where Lucius was standing with a frozen smile on his face.

"That is going to cost you, Granger," Snape said from behind her, and she jumped, turning to face him. "My name is Snape. Severus Snape, and I am in charge of the financial solvency of our club. How, exactly, are you expecting to repay us? That was a priceless antique with an authentic and ancient Divining Charm interwoven into the porcelain. Our club was planning to auction it off later this year at the Yule Ball."

"H-how much?" Hermione stuttered, still frozen.

"Over one hundred thousand Galleons, according to the goblin that appraised it. But, from the looks of you, I doubt you've got that much money in your coffers." Snape's expression was mild, as though they were talking about the weather, but she could see the small pull of his lip that signalled that he was trying hard not to sneer.

"But I don't- I'm not…" Hermione trailed off, wondering how she was going to get out of such a dire situation.

"A-ha-ha-ha! I thought so! You're broke, aren't you?" Lucius had recovered and was now leaning on Snape's shoulder, looking down at Hermione with a cocky look that was much more like the Lucius Malfoy Hermione knew and remembered. He was pinching his chin with his thumb and forefinger in a mock-thoughtful sort of way that made Hermione want to slap him. "So, then, if you're not going to pay us back with money, then perhaps you can pay us back...with your body."

Hermione flushed instantly and pulled out her wand. "Don't you dare touch me!" she shouted.

"Relax, relax," Lucius said, stepping away from Snape and circling around Hermione. "I didn't mean it in a perverted way. After all, we are civilized wizards, are we not? No, I think that from now on, you shall be the Host Club's dog- running errands for us and doing our bidding as needed until you pay back what you've destroyed."

"Can't I just...repair it?" Hermione swished her wand in a complicated pattern and reformed the vase once more.

The twins clapped together, and a short, blond boy who looked somewhat familiar ran forward and bent over to look at it, his eyes huge with curiosity.

"Wow!" he said, his voice high pitched and full of enthusiasm, "I've never seen such fine spellwork, Granger!"

He grinned up at Hermione, his face as innocent as a child's and his blue eyes sparkling. "Nice ta meecha! I'm Gilderoy, but everyone calls me Gilly! Heehee!"

Hermione couldn't speak. She felt as though she was about to choke on her tongue. He was so...tiny. She resisted the urge to pet him on the head.

A tall, strong-looking boy with dark black hair and stormy eyes appeared at Gilderoy's side and silently picked him up and carried him away under one arm.

"Awwwww! You're no fun, Regulus!" Gilderoy pouted, but let himself be carried back to the couch.

Hermione wasn't quite sure but she thought she heard Regulus mutter something like "could get hurt."

"It's worthless without the ancient Divining Charm," Snape scoffed, shaking his head and drawing her attention, "and those haven't been in use since the fourteenth century. Even then, you'd have to be chosen for innate talent in the divining arts and then apprentice for at least three years before you could cast them reliably."

Hermione stomped her foot in frustration. "Right. Hogwarts: A History had a section on that."

"Precisely," Severus replied, smiling for the first time. His smile seemed curious, as though he knew a secret.

Hermione's shoulders slumped with resignation. "Fine. What do you need me to do?"

"Well, starting out, you can go get some high quality snacks for the lovely ladies who will be stopping by shortly," Lucius replied, handing Hermione some money and a Portkey made out of an old, greasy shoelace. "This will take you to London and bring you back when you say Portus. Now shoo, boy!"

"Don't even think about taking any of that money for yourself," Snape said, sneering somewhat openly now.

"I wouldn't dream of it!" Hermione replied, jutting her chin out at him in a haughty manner.

It was only once she'd Portkeyed away to Diagon Alley that she realized what had been bothering her.

"Wait. Did he call me a boy?" she wondered aloud. "Whatever. I need to get the stuff and get back. They can call me a rampaging hippogriff for all I care, as long as I can just do my work and get this over with."

With that, Hermione counted through the money, frowned at how little it actually was, and then decided to exchange some of it for Muggle money at Gringotts. After all, she happened to know of a Muggle market that was only a few blocks from The Leaky Cauldron. If she'd learned one thing growing up the daughter of two humble, self-employed dentists, Hermione knew how to be frugal with her money.

"Damned rich people," she muttered under her breath as she stepped back out through the bank doors. "Well, at least it can't get any worse."