Hello. I told you that this story was probably gonna stay a one-shot, yet here I am, making it a two-shot. I tried to do this a few months back, but it just wasn't grabbing me then. So . . . here's A Five Year Old's Solace, take two.

And, I also must take this time to tell any Fullmetal Alchemist fans who are reading this, if you haven't already, you might want to look at my FMA story, In Truth, None of it Was Fiction. I will be updating that one later today.

Anyhow, you probably want to read this story. So I'll let you.

An eleven-year-old Hermione Granger jittered anxiously on Platform 9 ¾. When she had received her letter earlier that summer, she couldn't believe it! She, an ordinary girl with ordinary parents, had actually been recognized as a witch!

She had always believed in magic, though she had never known why. Maybe there was just something exciting about how it completely defied any and all of the laws of science she had been raised to believe in. In fact, she had been quite concerned that her parents wouldn't believe her when she showed them the letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She would never understand why they did.

Hermione quickly decided that shuffling from one foot to the other impatiently wasn't going to help her cause. Grabbing her trunks, she quickly backed up to one of the benches that lay on the platform. After sitting down, she flipped open her trunk and grabbed the book that was lying on the top: Hogwarts: A History.

After discovering that she was, in fact, a witch, she had quickly tried to get her hands on as many wizarding books as she could. She would hate to show up in a completely new world, just to be ignorant about it. But- she was curious. There was one name that kept popping up, in almost every book that she read. A name that she recognized. One that she never thought she would hear again. Harry Potter.

It had been troubling her for the past month or so, since she had first seen it. She had vague memories of a young boy, a park, and running around a field on sticks. Surely . . . they couldn't be the same person? The book talked about a boy who had survived a killing curse, a celebrity among the wizarding world. The boy in the park looked as if he knew nothing of it.

Well. She would just have to find out, some way or another.

A couple minutes later, the train rolled in, blowing steam everywhere. Squinting, she grabbed her bags and made her way into the train cars, finding an empty booth. (A/N- More train cars? Uhg.) After pulling her Hogwarts robes out of her trunk, she arranged her baggage on one of the overhead racks. There was no point in delaying getting changed, so she quickly dressed in her new robes.

She denied the offer of the snack cart. She really wasn't all that hungry- she suspected it was nerves. Hoping to calm down a bit, she left her compartment to take a walk down the train.

After reading about the different houses in Hogwarts, she found it fun to look into the different compartments to try to predict what houses her soon-to-be classmates were in. Those with their noses in a book were sure to be Ravenclaws, the ones with a determined spark in their eyes would be Gryffindor, and then the sinister-looking ones would be Slytherin. Those she couldn't identify she just put into Hufflepuff.

She was almost at the end of the train when she came across one compartment, containing two boys. One was red-headed and sorta wimpy-looking, while the other had dark hair and glasses. She heard the two of them arguing over a 'spell' that the red-headed boy had 'cast' over his pet . . . rat.

Unable to contain herself, she strode into their compartment, telling them off. She was just leaving as she caught the dark-haired boy's lips move.

Minny? Harry mouthed, unable to quite comprehend it. He hadn't forgotten that one day, years ago, when he found the only friend he had ever made back at the Dursleys' house. They had played . . . witches and wizards. He only now found the irony in that.

But there was no way that the both of them were actually witches or wizards. He was still having a hard time believing that he was a wizard. It just seemed so surreal.

The girl-who-he-thought-was-Minny paused for just a second, before exiting their compartment and walking down the hall. Harry was left wondering whether it was actually her or not.

"Well, that was rude," Ron said through a mouthful of candy.

Harry supposed that his new friend could see it that way, considering how she had walked into their compartment and basically started preaching to them. But . . . he forgot about that as he held onto the hope that his old friend and that girl were the same person.

Weeks went by. Harry never did find out if they were the same person, much due to the fact that his new friend, Ron, had decided that Hermione was a know-it-all stuck-up brat that should be avoided. Harry was torn. He wanted to talk to the girl Hermione, but he didn't want to lose his friendship with Ron to do so.

He ended up cornering her in the library one night, after returning a few books that he borrowed earlier that week. She was in the nonfiction section, sitting at one of the tables, reading one of her tome-like books. He walked down the aisle cautiously, not quite expecting what he would get.

"Excuse me?" he asked softly.

She jerked around. "Oh! Harry. I didn't see you there."

Oh, shoot. How should he do this? "Uhhm . . ."

"Yes."

"What?" He was confused. He hadn't even asked his question yet!

"I said, 'yes.' Yes, I am the girl you met six years ago."

So this meant . . . "You knew it was me?"

"Well . . . the memory of the day itself is kind of fuzzy. But I recognized your name. I didn't really think it was true, though."

Harry smiled. "It's kind of ironic, really. We played witches and wizards that day in the park."

She laughed. "It's not so much 'playing' anymore is it?"

"No, not really."

The two of them were silent for a few minutes, having run out of things to say to one another. Finally, Hermione spoke up.

"I tried to find you, after that day. I looked the Dursleys up in the phone book when I was around seven. The man who answered the phone was really rude, though. He wouldn't let me talk to you."

Harry cringed. "Sorry about that."

She shrugged. "After that I just sort of forgot. I'm sorry."

"That's alright." Harry paused. "Uhm, listen, Ron doesn't really like you, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to talk to you after this, at least while he's around."

"I'm sure he'll be okay with it eventually," she responded.

The two of them talked in the library until curfew, and they had to go back to their dorms.

"I honestly thought I would be put into Ravenclaw," Hermione admitted to Harry as they walked back.

Only a few days after that was the incident with the troll in the bathroom. After that, the 'Golden Trio' couldn't be separated for anything. Harry never told Ron that he knew Hermione before they came to Hogwarts, or that the two of them had made friends before the troll incident. There were some things that his friend just didn't need to know.

I hope that was okay. I don't like how the ending went, but it could just be me.

Anyhow, I think that's as far as I can take it now. I can't really see how I can extend this story further . . .

And do you know how hard it is to spell 'talk' when you're thinking it in a British accent? You just want to spell it 'tolk' instead . . .

So, anyways. That's me. I will see you all again if I write another Harry Potter story, or if you read my other stories . . .

Sayonara!