This story was originally written for an odd-pairing challenge and another challenge of which I cannot disclose until the story is over with. Unfortunately, life got in the way and I ended up moving, so I never got to finish the fic in time, but I happen to like this one quite a bit, so I figured I would share. Enjoy!

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He'd first noticed her in Potions class second year. He knew her name was Granger, of course. He wasn't completely thick, after all, he was just, you know. . . his father called it "slow," and his mother used that infernal word, "special."

Vince knew what special meant, though, and he thought that word applied to other people. Smart people were special. Pretty people were special. Smart, pretty people like Hermione Granger were especially special.

She thought he was stupid, though. Vince had seen the way she'd laugh at him with Potter and Weasley every time Vince's cauldron would blow up or he'd give the wrong answer in class. He even knew about the time she'd tricked him into eating some sort of drugged cake. It had been humiliating, waking up in a closet with no clothes on, and having to explain himself to Filch, all the while being pelted by Peeves with freezing, cold water balloons.

As he grew older, she'd paid little attention to him. Instead, she wasted her time worrying about the red-head or the scarhead, or saving the world from evil or some such rot.

In fifth year, Vince had been partnered up with Granger in Potions class. While she was busy chopping Valerian Root, he'd peeked down into her bag that she'd left open on the floor beside her chair. There were a bunch of these funny little blanket circles in the bag, so Vince had leaned over farther, trying to get a better look.

Suddenly the bag snapped shut, the neat little belt locks tied into place.

Vince peered up at Granger who was glaring at him, wand clutched tightly in her hand. "And just what do you think you're doing?" she snapped.

"What's it to you, Mudblood?" Vince retorted. He heard Greg chuckle from across the room upon hearing the word and stopped himself from rolling his eyes at his dolt of a friend. Greg only laughed because he was supposed to laugh.

"Well," she said in a deep, boisterous voice that sounded suspiciously like his own, "Gee, Crabbe, I don't know. Erm- maybe because it's my bag and my personal property?" Her voice switched from slow and stupid-sounding back to her usual snippity tone.

"You shouldn't have left it wide open then, Mudblood."

Greg laughed again. "Good one, Crabbe," he called.

"How dare you?" she snapped, chopping angrily at a stem of Valerian Root. "You have a lot of nerve, calling me that." She slammed the knife down and fixed Vince with a blazing stare. "Especially when I'm giving you an O for the day!"

Vince scowled. "I could get O's if I wanted."

Granger let out a bark of laughter. "Yes, I'm certain you could."

"Slytherins are 'sposed to be good at Potions," Vince added, lamely.

"Really. What's your excuse, then?"

Because I'm stupid, Vince thought, bitterly. Because I can't read, properly. Because when I see the ingredients I get them all mixed up.

He quickly changed the subject. "Why d'you have tiny blankets in your bag?"

Granger frowned. "Wh-what?"

"Inside your bag," Vince said, giving a small nod with the side of his head. "I saw 'em. A bunch of little blankets. What are they for?"

She made a haughty sound. "I hardly think that's any of your concern," she said in an important voice. "Why aren't you any good at Potions if Slytherins are supposed to be so bloody brilliant?"

Vince put on a haughty voice that mimicked Granger's. "I hardly think that's any of your concern," he said.

Granger scowled at him for a moment and then gave him an odd look.

Vince felt the corners of his mouth turn up against his will. There, he wanted to say. I'm not completely witless.

She let out a short laugh and narrowed her eyes. "Very funny," she snapped, but her face was crinkled with just the slightest hint of amusement.

Vince shrugged and resumed popping the buds off of a sprig of Mugwort.

"Read off the next step," she ordered.

Vince could feel his heart begin to pound faster in his chest. He glanced nervously down at the book as the letters swam before his eyes. He could do this, he thought. He was not going to look stupid in front of Hermione Straight-O's Granger.

"Wh-which was the last step again?" he mumbled, trying to buy himself some time to sound out the letters. Vince knew step four had been "add the chopped Valerian Root," and he desperately tried to remember what Snape had said when he'd read the directions out loud at the beginning of class.

"Add the chopped Valerian Root," she supplied, carefully dumping the chopped bits into the cauldron and lightly brushing her hands back and forth over the steaming bubbles.

Vince gulped. Maybe he could go to the bathroom. He could say it was an emergency. That usually worked with Professor McGonagall. Or at least it had until—

"Hurry, Crabbe. It's beginning to boil and I've got the juices all over my hands. Just read it out loud."

Shite. Shite. Step number five . . . number five. He frantically scanned the page. Ah, there. He'd spotted the number five and began to sound out the words. "Five min- minutes until g-golden b-berries."

Vince cringed. That didn't sound right. Snape hadn't said anything about berries, but Vince had seen the B and the R and he just guessed and fuck, judging by the look on Granger's face he'd guessed wrong.

"What?" she asked, wrinkling up her nose in a way that Vince would have liked had it not been a result of his own inferiority. "What berries? Are you on the right page?"

Holding her hands out in front of her as if they were poisonous instead of just covered in juices, Granger leaned heavily over Vince, her body nearly in his lap, to read the directions out loud. "Step five. Mix until golden brown."

Granger frowned and stood up slowly, giving Vince a curious look. He could feel a hideous flush begin to stain his cheeks and knew how embarrassingly foolish he looked. He'd never worn a blush well. His cousin used to tease him and call him Rotten Tomato Face when they were younger.

"Why did you say that?" she asked him quietly.

"'Cause I knew it'd make you look," he quickly replied. Vince immediately wanted to sink into the ground and die. There was no way she was going to buy that.

Granger made a small "Mmm," sound, then turned back to the cauldron and began to stir.

Vince raised his hand. "Professor, I need the loo, please."

Snape barely suppressed an eye-roll. "When your potion is finished, Mr. Crabbe."

"But—"

"I assume Ms. Granger is not giving you any trouble?"

"No, sir," Vince said.

"Good," Snape said. "Carry on."

"Yes, carry on, Crabbe," chimed Draco from across the room. "Unless you want to attend Remedial Potions with that tosser, Potter."

Goyle laughed. "Good one, Draco."

Vince ignored them. He reached his stubby fingers into the collar of his shirt and tried to loosen his tie. It was getting hot. Really hot. He wiped the sweat off his upper lip and peered back at Granger who was staring directly at him.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said. "Only, could you read me the next direction?"

Vince scowled at her. She was obviously making fun of him—trying to make him read when she knew he couldn't. "Read it yourself, Mudblood bitch," he snapped.

The insult barely seemed to register and instead of snapping back, Granger turned to him with soft eyes. "I-is it difficult for you to read?"

"No!" he retorted, too quickly to be convincing. "I'm not stupid."

"I didn't say you were stupid. I don't think you're stupid."

"You just asked me if I knew how to read."

Granger paused in her preparation and lowered her voice, stepping closer to Vince and making his pulse race. "Crabbe," she whispered, "I don't think you're stupid. But if you have something like Dyslexia, you need to ask for help."

The foreign word made Vince wrinkle up his head in confusion. "If I've what?"

"Look," she said. "My father has it, too. And he's one of the most intelligent people I know."

"What're you talking about?" Vince asked, completely lost. "Your father has what?"

"Dyslexia," Granger said, then widened her eyes as if realizing that Vince didn't know what she was talking about, after all. "You don't know what Dyslexia is, do you?"

Vince shook his head, feeling all the more foolish. He couldn't wait until this class was over.

"It's when something in the brain causes you to mix up letters when you're reading. It's very common."

"Something in the brain?" Vince asked.

Snape began to approach their desk and Granger stood on her tiptoes to whisper into Vince's ear. Her breath tickled his skin and he tensed up at the closeness. "If you want to talk more, I'll be in the Library at seven. Come find me."

….

….

….

Come find me.

Vince had walked around in a daze the rest of the afternoon. Granger had said she'd wanted to see him. He didn't think it was a trick; she seemed far too mature for that these days. Plus, what she'd said about mixing up letters-it was all true. That was what Vince's eyes did when he tried to read. It used to frustrate him when he was younger, but as he grew older and the other "struggling readers" caught up and moved on, Vince had stopped asking for help, figuring that he would always be a bit of a dud.

He'd hurried back to his Slytherin dorm room after supper ended at 6:30 to clean himself up properly for his meeting with Granger. A voice inside his head chastised him as he washed his face, brushed his teeth and applied a hefty dollop of pomade to his hair. It wasn't a date. She didn't like him.

And she was a Mudblood, anyway.

"Just where do you think you're going?" Pansy blocked him, hands on her hips. "Going to ravish some Hufflepuff Third Years, you dapper dog?"

"No."

"Hmmm." She narrowed her beady, over-penciled eyes. "Why's your hair like that?"

Vince shrugged.

"Answer me."

"Get out of the way, Pansy." Vince lumbered past her and picked up his school bag, heading toward the Library.

When he got there, the Library was nearly empty. Small, lit candles burned on each table, casting the room in a spooky glow. Vince had never seen the Library this late before, but he suspected Granger spent a lot of time there.

Swallowing his nerves, he walked quietly up toward her table. She was surrounded by a mountain of books and her brown hair glowed like a fuzzy halo around her head.

"Um. Hullo, Granger," Vince muttered.

Granger whipped her head up with a jerk. "Oh!" Then her look of surprise transformed into a bright smile. "You came."

"Yeah," Vince said, shifting uncomfortably.

"Well, sit down," she ordered. Vince went to sit in the seat across from her, but she shoved over her pile of books and patted the chair beside her.

Vince walked around the table and tentatively sat. He glanced down nervously at the large hands in his lap and began to wring his fingers.

"Now," she said, scribbling something onto parchment and punctuating it with a flourish before setting her quill down. "I've been doing some research on Dyslexia and I've found that the Wizarding World is grossly undereducated about Learning Disabilities. The ignorance is astounding. It's as if Wizards pretend they don't exist at all, which is utter rubbish."

Vince didn't know what she was talking about, but he nodded his head anyway. "Okay."

"The good news is," Granger dug through the pile before her and pulled out a large, blue book, "there are spells that can help. Spells that exercise the brain muscles to assist with letter-recognition and automaticity."

"What?"

"It's not a cure," she said, raising a warning hand to a baffled Vince, "but over time, if we work together, we can train your brain to see letters the way that others see them."

Vince widened his eyes. "What? What d'you mean work together?"

"I mean, I'll conduct the spells and help you with the exercises in the book."

Vince rubbed a hand over his eyes. "I got no idea what you're talking about, Granger," he admitted.

"Reading," Granger said, earnestly. "To help you with your disability."

Vince shook his head.

Granger let out an irritated huff. "Just-come back tomorrow."

"But you're a Gryffindor," Vince argued, pointlessly.

"Yes, I am."

"Well, what's in it for you? We're not friends. Why should you help me?"

"Ah, right," she nodded, seriously, and Vince couldn't help but feel that she was laughing at him a bit. "The joys of research?" she asked with a hopeful grin.

Vince shook his head.

"No? Er-the quest for Interhouse Unity?"

Vince laughed, despite himself and Granger laughed, too.

"Well, you think of the price then," Granger offered, placing a hand on Vince's shoulder.

Vince was beginning to feel sorely out of his league. He had nothing to offer this smart, pretty Muggle-born girl. They had nothing in common. He had no talent, except for smacking around Bludgers with a Beater's Bat. He was ready to call it quits right then and there. It was a dumb idea, anyway.

Vince scratched his head and looked over at Madame Pince's desk. "D'you really think you can teach me to read?" he asked in a small voice, half expecting the rest of the Gryffindor Golden trio to pop out from behind a bookshelf with that little blond camera-boy and turn Vince into the official Laughingstock of Hogwarts. He could picture it now: a snapshot of his big, gormless face under the title "Fifth Year Slytherin asks Gryffindor Genius How to Read."

Granger tightened her fingers on his shoulder. "Yes," she said firmly. "Yes, I know I can."

"I got nothin' to give you back."

"Just," she sighed. "You'll think of something. Biscuits or . . . or a Potions ingredient or something."

Vince nodded slowly. He'd find her something. He'd find her something really nice.

"Okay."

….

….

….

"A diamond necklace?" Granger squeaked, holding the glittering bauble a hairsbreadth away from her brown eyes. Vince grinned at the way it made her eyes shine. It would look really nice on her and he noticed that she didn't have a lot of nice things. Granger was a simple girl—which was fine—but she was too pretty to wear jeans and jumpers every day.

"Okay," Vince said. "Where do we start?" He had been looking forward to their first official session all day and now that he was there he couldn't wait to begin. He was really going to learn how to read—he couldn't believe it.

"Are you insane?"

"Huh?"

"Why would you give me this?"

Vince frowned, feeling hurt. Maybe she didn't like diamonds, after all. Shite. He knew he should have gotten her the emerald one.

"You like emeralds better, right?" he asked, glumly, with a shake of the head. "I knew it."

"Oh," she seemed to notice Vince for the first time. "No-it's . . . Merlin, it's beautiful but it's too much. I can't take this."

"Oh," he said, pushing his chair out to stand up. "I get it."

"Where do you think you're going?"

Vince shrugged. What did she want him to do? "To bed?"

"Oh, no you don't. Sit down."

Vince sat.

"Listen here. If I were to put a price on this lesson it would be worth about two galleons. That necklace?" She pointed at the diamond-encrusted jewels and widened her eyes, "Is worth about ten thousand galleons."

Vince grinned. "You're right! That's exactly what it cost me."

She made another little squeaking noise.

"Wow. You are smart, Granger."

….

….

….

"Non Alphabetum Misciu."

Vince felt the familiar tug in the front of his brain. When they'd begun their lessons, the tightness had worried him—what if Granger had been wrong? What if he ended up completely brain- addled? But soon enough, he realized that Granger was never wrong. Granger knew everything.

"Okay," she said, as the tightness eased in Vince's head. "Read that."

He rubbed at his forehead for moment and blinked until his vision cleared. Then he peeked down at the illuminated ledger that Granger had placed before him. "Put, hood, hook, foot, push, pudding, took, book, looking," he read easily. "The hook in the pudding's foot should be looking more off-put."

Vince frowned. The author of the book was a complete nutter. How was Vince supposed to know if he was reading the words correctly when the sentences made no sense?

Luckily, he had Granger.

"Excellent," she gushed, as if he had accomplished some amazing feat and not just read a primary school sentence. "That was perfect. You've made so much progress, Vince. I'm so proud of you."

"Should we try the Potions book, next?" he asked, hopefully.

"Oh," Granger said, flipping softly through the pages of words that had been adhered to the ledger. "No, I don't think we're up to that, yet."

"You mean I'm not up to it yet," Vince grumbled, suddenly annoyed. "You been up to it since you was eight years old, I bet."

"Now, Vincent," she said, as if she was admonishing a toddler.

"No. This is pathetic. I'm bloody pathetic, Granger." Vince stood up quickly, wanting to be anywhere but next to the girl who made him feel the most inadequate. "This was a stupid idea, anyway."

Granger stood up, suddenly all vim and vigor. "Oh, no you don't. I haven't spent the last two months working with you to have you up and quit because you're suddenly feeling sorry for yourself."

"Oh, yeah? Well, sorry for you, then. Except, oh right. I paid you for it, you cheap bint."

"How dare you!"

"How dare you? Who made you in charge, anyway? You're just some know-it-all Mudblood who bosses everybody around. You think you can just fix everyone and everything and make it all better. Well, you can't."

Granger's face was twisted up in confusion and hurt and Crabbe hated seeing that look on her face—hated it—because he knew she didn't deserve it. She deserved more. She deserved to be spending her evenings with people who could benefit from her help. Granger was a noble Gryffindor and should be helping her kind. Not Vincent bloody, useless Crabbe.

He turned away from her and stomped out of the Library.

….

….

….

Vince had been waiting by the doorway of the Potions classroom for ten minutes. He'd left his sodding bag in the Library the night before. When he'd gone back for it later, the bag was gone and so was Granger.

Granger had it, he knew. He prayed that she'd be kind enough to return it to him and noble enough not to go through it.

Oh, how he hoped she had not gone through it.

"We need to talk," Granger's sharp voice permeated through Vince's cloud of anxiety. Her face looked tight and her voice was strained. "Right now."

"Can you—"

"We have ten minutes before class," Granger said. She shifted uncomfortably, her eyes focused everywhere but on Vince. "Follow me. Now."

Granger's voice left little room for argument. She strode down the hall smartly and turned a corner. Vince ambled clumsily behind. He was in no rush to have this conversation.

It was obvious. She'd looked in his bag.

When they were alone, Granger dug her hand into his school bag and pulled out a thick, red, dragonhide tome. "What's this?" she snapped.

Vince shrugged. "Not yours."

"Not yours, either. I'm turning it in to Professor Dumbledore."

"No!" Vince yelped, reaching out for the book. Granger snatched it away. "It's my father's—he'll murder me if I lose it!"

"What are you doing with a book like this?" Granger spat out the words of the title as if they sickened her. "'Eternal Evil: Forced Blood Sacrifices and Blood Bonds Through Darkest Magic'?"

Vince just shrugged. At least now he knew what the title was.

"Do you—do you know what this is? Don't you understand? Last year, Harry-he," Granger sputtered. She sounded more like she was talking to herself. "You're not one of them, are you? No, you're not. You're not."

"I'm not what?"

"Vince, why do you have a book like this?"

"Does it matter?" he snapped. "Can't read it anyway, can I?"

To his annoyance, that seemed to take the wind out of her sails. "No, I suppose not . . . "

"Gimme back my bag."

"Vince," she said softly. "There was something else. Um. That I saw, when—"

Yeah, he knew. "Gimme my bag back, now, Granger."

"I saw . . . I saw the note you wrote and—"

No. No, this was not happening.

"And I just want to say how flattered I am and—"

Flattered. Flattered?

Vince said nothing, just stood there shaking with rage and humiliation as Hermione Granger unknowingly tore him to shreds.

"And I think you're an incredible artist, Vince. I mean, truly. I'm certain that you," she frowned, "didn't mean for me to see that note or you would have Owled it to me, but you're very talented." She paused. "You're a gifted artist."

Vince took several deep, trembling breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth, just like his nurse had taught him to do when he thought he was going into a fit of rage. "You done?"

She gulped. "Yes."

"Gimme my fucking bag."

Granger held the bag out slightly and Vince tore it viciously from her hands.

He began to stomp back to the Potions Classroom, swallowing the tightness in his throat and hating the weak prickle of tears he felt behind his eyes.

"I'll be in the Library later if you change your mind," Granger's voice called timidly from the corridor.

….

….

….

Vince didn't go to the Library. He stayed in his room, gorging himself on a bucket of Chocolate Frogs and staring disgustedly at the drawing he had made of Granger, head bent over her books, studying in the Library.

He'd felt so inspired when he'd drawn it, so grateful to this smart, pretty girl for wanting to help him. Now his cheeks burned with embarrassment. How stupid. The drawing was pathetic and so was he.

And so was she for that matter.

"I'm flattered," Vince mimicked in nasty voice. "Right. I'll bet"

He picked up his wand and blasted the drawing to bits.

Then he picked up the crumpled note—the one that asked Granger if she'd go to Hogsmeade with him—the one he'd never intended for her to read—and threw it in the Common Room fireplace.

"Stupid Mudblood."

….

….

….

Another Troll on his Defense Against the Dark Arts essay. Vince was never going to pass his bloody OWLs.

"Why didn't you read the directions?" Greg asked, making out Umbridge's sloppy script at the top of the page.

"Get stuffed, Goyle." Vince crumpled the paper into the bottom of his school bag.

….

….

….

This is ridiculous, Vince thought. She'll never go for it.

Not only was Granger undoubtedly angry with him for losing his temper with her and calling her a Mudblood, but she was surely pissed that Vince had been dogging her little club members for weeks with the Inquisitorial Squad and reporting her whereabouts and infractions to Professor Umbridge.

"I realized that storming out of here and calling you a Mudblood was completely counter-productive. I'll never succeed if I can't read and you are the only person who has really tried to help me. I should have been showering you with thanks, but instead I let my own issues get in the way. I was angry at myself, Granger, not you. And for that I'm truly sorry. I hope you'll give me another chance."

Vince had practiced it about twenty times in the mirror, inserting the word "counter-productive" into the monologue when he'd heard Draco use it earlier that day and liked the important way that it sounded.

However, when he approached the girl and saw her head bent familiarly over her ever-present stack of books, Vince remembered why he'd run away from her in the first place—the picture, the note—and grew immediately flustered.

"Her-Hermione," Vince tested out her given name, thinking now was as good a time as any to use it.

Her brown eyes lifted slowly to meet his gaze. She blinked. "Could that be Vincent Crabbe? Of the Hogwarts Inquisitorial Squad?"

"Yeah? Uh-um. Uh-I—"

Granger raised her hands up, mockingly. "I'm terribly sorry for the misunderstanding, Sir. But, as you can see, there is only one of me sitting at this table and it is still only," she cast a quick Tempus charm. "7:00 in the evening. Are there any new Ordinances that I should be made aware of?" She cast a look around her person. "No more than one book allowed out at a time, perhaps? Or—should I tie my hair back? Is it causing any sort of a distraction to the other students?"

"Yeah," Vince said. "I mean-no! No. Stop it." He took a deep breath and tried to compose himself. "Just be quiet for a minute. I got somethin' to say."

Granger sat back in her seat and folded her arms across her chest. "Go ahead, Squad Member Crabbe. I'm all ears."

Vince let out a frustrated huff. "Stop it," he said again, then reached down and removed his Inquisitorial Squad badge from his robes. "There. Better?'

Granger shrugged her shoulders and said nothing.

"Look. I'm—" Suddenly, Vince's mind drew a blank. He had forgotten his speech. "I'm completely counter-productive," he began with a stutter. "Right-no. A-and you should be showered. Er-what I mean to say is that my self-esteem is an issue. No. Well, yeah, it is, but." He cringed as the inelegant words tumbled gracelessly from his mouth.

Granger wrinkled up her forehead, casting him a pitying look.

"Fuck. I was bein' a git, okay? I'm real sorry." Vince waited and when she said nothing, he started to speak again. "I had this all planned out, y'know. What I was going to say. And now I've gone and messed this up, too."

Still, Granger said nothing and Vince was beginning to realize what a waste of time this had been. "Never-mind." Blushing furiously, Vince tossed a parchment drawing on top of her pile of books. "There. Since you like pictures so much."

Sitting in the wide-open, the drawing now looked silly and child-like. What had he been thinking? Did he honestly think his little scratch-up quill-drawing of Granger was going to be a bargaining chip in getting his reading lessons back?

Granger was still silent.

"Right. Great. Thanks, anyway, I guess." Vince shrugged. "For trying. And for all the time you spent helping me."

Granger's head was tipped downward. She was staring at the parchment-drawing, clutching it tightly in both of her hands.

Vince shook his head. "Okay. Bye."

"Wait," Granger murmured in a tiny voice. Vince looked back and Granger raised her head up to meet his gaze. Her eyes looked red and watery. She'd probably been studying a lot lately.

"What?"

"Sit down."

"What-now?"

"Yes, now. Right here." She patted the seat beside her, emphasizing each word.

Baffled, Vince walked forward and slowly sat down beside her. Without warning, she flung her arms around him and squeezed. Bushy brown hair tickled his nose and Vince almost laughed, but he didn't because there was literally a woman wrapped around his large girth—as much as one could be—and bloody hell. What was he supposed to do?

The only woman that had ever hugged Vince before was his mum and that was different because she was his mum.

"Thank you," Granger murmured into his chest and he could feel the vibration of her voice as she spoke to him. Vince reached up slow arms and wrapped them carefully around Granger, patting her softly on the back because that was what Vince's mum always did.

He silently admonished himself. He wasn't his bloody fat mum, for Merlin's sakes! What was he going to say next? "There, there,"? "The other kids are just jealous of you,"? For crying out loud, he couldn't even hug a girl right.

Granger finally unravelled herself from Vince. He discretely placed a hand on the fabric of his jumper. It was still warm from Granger's body heat. It made him want to smile.

"Okay," she said finally. "I accept your apology."

Vince nodded, letting out a sigh of relief. "Back to work?" he asked hopefully.

Granger grinned. "Yes, Vincent," she said, pulling out the familiar illuminated ledger and word cards. She handed him the ledger and a quill and he took the items, eagerly. "Back to work."

….

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