First published fanfic. Review gently

Published 5/06/11

Edit published 9/06/11

When Professor McGonagall shows up on Hermione Granger's doorstep to tell her about magic, she doesn't mention prejudice against muggleborns, doesn't mention fighting a war against a man who should be dead.

She doesn't mention a number of things that the Hermione, who's such a bright girl, should have picked on, would have picked up on if she wasn't so excited about being magic.

(Hermione is excited because she has always been aware of how she doesn't fit. Too bright, too clever to be anything but an outsider.)

She's eleven and excited because Diagon Alley is everything it should be, straight out of a fairytale, witches in robes, cats and broomsticks, and it's real. Then she runs into Theodore Nott, not that she know who he is yet, and he sneers. Mudblood taints the air and she's still a witch but some of the magic is gone.

If only she knew.

Her dad buys her an ice cream at Fortescue's to console her because she still doesn't belong.

She's eleven and scared for her life as a troll tries to kill her.

She knows who Harry Potter is of course. Everybody knows who he is.

She still doesn't expect him to save her. But there's a flicker of something that is not Harry as he takes down the troll and it's definitely not Harry that nods approval at her lying.

There's a litany of Slytherin's that call her mudblood after Nott but only when Harry and Not-Harry aren't around because they're all scared of him.

And then there's a stone and a basilisk's reflected eyes and it's Not-Harry that sits by her bed when Madam Pomfrey wakes her up. She hugs him and he recoils because neither Harry nor Not-Harry likes being touched.

Still it's her that breaks the contact and he asks if he can call her Mione 'cause Hermione is lovely but too long. She would have died for Harry (and Not-Harry) then.

Then there are dementors and Not-Harry floats to the surface more and more. Really she's surprised she's the only one who notices. She broaches the subject across homework in the library and Not-Harry calls her clever and they leave it at that.

She hits Malfoy because Not-Harry wants to kill him, and would have if she hadn't stepped in. When Malfoy flees (because there is no other word for it noble pureblood her ass) she glances at Harry and watches him pull himself back together.

Then they're by the lake and thirteen is far too young to die but then so is eleven and Not-Harry who is too calm for her like says in words that break the silence mutually agreed upon over homework and hot chocolate and sunny days with bare feet trailing in the lake. "I call myself Freak."

He drives off a hundred dementors and she kisses him because he is hers and she is his and that's all they need.

They are fourteen in the few happy months of that year and Ron tries calling her Mione and she flips out on him. The sound of Harry's laughter startles them both because it is like and unlike Harry's laugh. She watches him out of the corner of her eyes and sees Freak's awareness watching them and laughing.

Then Harry's name comes out of the goblet of fire and when she fearfully exchanges looks with him, she can't find a hint of Harry in his eyes and Not-Ha- Freak marches through doors that swallow him whole.

She's fourteen and learning to kill alongside Freak and what remains of Harry. Mione and Freak know that war is coming.

It's not their war.

It's Harry's parent's war and to be frank Harry doesn't even exist most of the time. Why should they fight?

Voldemort returns and Freak is the only one left after that encounter.

She tracks him down to the highest tower and they sit on the edge feet dangling, implicit between them the understanding that they could jump. She tells him about finding out about being magic.

He offers to kill Theodore Nott at the end of it, and it startles a laugh from her hysterical and high. They are children talking war, waiting for something better.

Freak (she doesn't even think of him as Harry anymore and the label Not-Harry has faded) tells her to leave after his first detention with Umbitch. She understands. Her things had been packed for months.

His hand is bleeding.

She's enrolled in a magic school in Australia three days later. When she picks up the Daily Prophet she laughs. You can go fuck your Greater Good is something Freak would say.

A week later Freak shows up at her door with a trunk, an owl cage, and a key for the house across the street. She introduces him to her parents as Harry Potter.

His hands are trembling (post-cruciatus she thinks) but besides that he's fine and when her parents leave them alone with pointed looks at her open bedroom door, his head buried in her hair.

"We're free?" She's quiet not wanting to break the moment but she has to know. She's fond of her parents even if she keeps them entirely in the dark and this move wasn't easy for them. She could hardly explain about the homicidal insane wizard after her best friend's head. Voldemort was never bothered much by collateral damage.

"We're free."

When Professor McGonagall showed up to tell Hermione Granger about magic she didn't mention prejudices or the war. McGonagall didn't mention the Greater good. She didn't mention trolls, or deatheaters or werewolves. She lied about Hogwarts being the safest place in the world. But she didn't lie about it being the most beautiful.

It's Home. And mudblood Mione found somewhere to belong.