HUGE thanks to my beta, Maggie!

I LOVED this prompt. I loved it so much that I will probably add more chapters to this story in the future because my brain keeps throwing scenes at me that I don't have time to write. But thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to explore this unusual pairing. I hope I've done it justice, and I hope you enjoy!

Largely inspired by this tumblr post

He was being careful, that was the infuriating thing.

Justin Finch-Fletchley had been at Hogwarts almost two months, and he had learned a lot of important things. Like how easily inkwell ink smudged on parchment. And how handwriting that was never great with a pen became handwriting that was truly atrocious with a quill. And especially how much more it sucked to be left-handed as a wizard than it had ever sucked to be left-handed as a Muggle.

Every piece of homework he'd turned in since the start of the year looked exactly the same - a crumpled sheet of parchment covered in smears, smudges, and enough ink splatters to keep a psychiatrist in business for a year. His teachers were getting tired of trying to decipher his assignments, and while he certainly didn't blame them, he was getting tired of being kept after class and scolded, as if he wasn't aware that his written assignments were disasters and nearly illegible.

It's not FAIR! he wanted to shout. I'm eleven and I'm Muggleborn and I'm left-handed, and the fact that I've been thrown into a castle stuck back in whenever is before they invented a not-stupid way to write, and am expected to be able to use a quill pen and inkwell on NO training is - is - STUPID!

But he had been brought up right, and he could hear his mother in his head stressing good breeding, and he was terrified of making waves. So he swallowed his indignation and promised again and again to get better, to practice, to work on it and improve. Some teachers were more understanding than others. Professor Snape, the Potions master, was the worst.

After a post-lesson reprimand in which words like dunderhead and imbecile had been quite unfairly thrown around - he knew the material! He had proved that by answering questions and brewing good potions! - he retreated to the library to redo the essay Professor Snape had not tried to read because, as he'd said, "actual chickens walking through ink and across parchment would have yielded more legible results."

Fuming and frustrated (but tamping it all firmly down so that his hand wouldn't shake), he painstakingly formed each letter and word with slow and deliberate strokes, never overfilling his quill, never letting it drip. Then he allowed each word to dry completely before dipping his quill in the ink again to move on. His parchment was pristine, each word clear and unmistakeable. He had also been working for an hour, and had only transcribed a measly 200 words.

And then it happened. He reached for his original essay to check the next sentence, and the long, ridiculously bell-shaped sleeve of the ridiculous black robes they were forced to wear for ridiculous and unclear reasons dragged backward across the table, caught the uncapped ink bottle, and knocked it sideways. Horrified, he grabbed for it with his right hand, but it was too late. The contents of the bottle had escaped, and his parchment was greedily absorbing every last bit of ink on the table until the words of his essay were completely obscured.

He made a noise like a strangled donkey, a sound that would have been a scream if he'd had as little control over his voice as he did over these stupid robes and their stupid sleeves. He may have been able to keep himself from screaming, but his fury and frustration could no longer be tamped down, and he turned on the person at the next table and unleashed a torrent of angry words.

"D'you know what I miss?" he demanded of the girl with bushy hair and large front teeth who was in his Herbology class, and who had been quietly reading her astronomy textbook until his outburst startled her into meeting his eye. "I miss pens. Sensible writing utensils that don't drip or leak or splatter, and that don't require inkwells, of all the stupid things. Just - pens, okay? With the ink all self-contained, so stuff like this," - he snatched his blackened, sodden essay from the table and waved it in the girl's direction - "doesn't happen! And while we're on the subject, I miss normal clothes with normal sleeves, and not these - these - monstrosities!" He just stood there, breathing hard for a second or two, then said, "Sorry," in a tone of voice no less upset and intense than his tirade. He sat down hard in his chair and stared at the mess on the table, trying to get himself under control. Trying not to cry.

He would, he decided, give himself just a moment or two to be upset. Then he would pretend he wasn't terrified of Madame Pince and go ask her for a rag or a cleaning spell, and he would start again. He had gotten into Eton, one of the most prestigious Muggle boarding schools, at ten years old. He was not about to let a feather get the best of him. He would also, he decided, move to a different table in a different section of the library so that he never again had to speak to the girl he'd just unloaded on in a rather embarrassing fashion. He'd deal with crossing paths with her in Herbology another time.

"I miss lamps." The voice brought him out of his reverie, and he turned, frowning to find who had spoken. It couldn't be the girl from the adjacent table. But it was. "Light bulbs," she clarified when she knew she had his attention. "Steady, bright light that doesn't flicker. They don't even use, like, kerosene lanterns. It's all torches and candles and chandeliers, which is just baffling to me. You can light up your wand tip, I read ahead in the Charms textbook, but I don't see how that would really help. It'd be like doing homework with an electric torch. Harder, even, because most wands are longer, and the tips are much smaller, so I don't know how that would be useful, or how you'd manage it. I go to bed with a headache when I have to do homework after sunset."

She offered him a tentative smile, which he returned. "Yeah," he said, nodding. "And not to sound like a broken record, which is a phrase no one here understands, by the way, you know what else would make homework, like, twelve times easier? Notebooks."

Her eyes lit up. "Yes," she agreed immediately. "I have a different sheaf of parchment for each class I'm taking, and it's ridiculous. They don't stay neat, mine are all crumpled, and when I want to look something up, it's almost impossible. And takingnotes? You have to hold down the top and the bottom so they don't curl up on you, which they do anyway, and then you also have to write with a quill? I don't have enough hands!"

"I don't take notes," he said, shaking his head, feeling lighter and lighter with every word he exchanged with this girl. "I don't. I can't. I tried, for the first week or two, but I can't write fast enough with a quill, and when I can, I can't read it, and I end up with ink halfway to my elbow, and I was missing half the lesson. So I just stopped, and I rely on my memory and extra books here, and I hate it."

"And how about how they assign homework?" she asked, and she was at his table now, leaning in close with enthusiasm.

"What, in inches? Yeah, that's about the stupidest thing ever. First of all, did wizards just miss the memo on the metric system?"

That made her laugh, and she jumped right in with a reply. "Right? And you want a twelve-inch essay on Goblin Wars? What does that even mean? There has to be a standard - of handwriting size and line spacing and everything! I'm writing twice as much as some of my classmates, just because my handwriting is smaller!"

"Exactly! Why can't they tell us to write 500 words, like a normal school?"

She grinned, and he noticed she was breathing hard. So was he. It was exhilarating, finding someone who understood, who didn't look at him with a blank stare when he started talking about Muggle things. Belatedly, he realized that he'd never introduced himself properly. He knew who she was, because they had Herbology together, and she was always the first one to answer questions, but there was no reason to think she knew his name.

So he said, "I'm Justin, by the way. Justin Finch-Fletchley."

"I'm Hermione Granger."

He smiled. "Yeah, I know. Miss Ten-Points-to-Gryffindor." He meant it to be a joke, but her face snapped closed at the words, and she looked away sharply, like he'd punched her. "I don't mean anything by it," he said in a rush of panic, desperate to explain. "I'm Mr. Ten-Points-to-Hufflepuff in most of my classes, you're just a little faster than me in Herbology. But I get it. You have to prove yourself. You have to prove what you know. That you belong here."

She looked up at that, startled, but it was a different look than when he'd interrupted her reading before. This was a look full of wonder, of connection. "Exactly," she said, her voice barely louder than a whisper. He nodded. "You have to show you're worth all the trouble, especially because there are so many people who don't think we should be here."

"So you start studying before you ever get on the train. You pick up extra books in the bookstore in Diagon Alley-"

"-as many as you can carry, as many as your parents can carry-"

"-because you have no idea how behind you're going to be, you just know you have to catch up-"

"-and how are you supposed to know that you won't actually be behind at all-"

"-at least not in classwork or doing spells or history or anything like that-"

"-yeah, and now all your studying will actually put you ahead and make everyone look at you like you're a freak because you know more about the magical world than they do-"

"-except that you don't really, you don't know anything about the stuff that counts, the everyday stuff-"

"-because no one puts that in books-"

"-no, and no one offers any sort of Wizard 101 class, which they really should!"

In their enthusiasm, neither child noticed how animated they were getting, nor how loud, until all of a sudden, Madame Pince was by their table, looming above them, swelling with fierce fury. "This is a library," she hissed. "Take your shouting to the Quidditch Pitch! And what have you done to my table?"

Justin followed her gaze to the remnants of ink on the tabletop and his sodden essay. "Spilled the inkwell," he muttered. "It was an accident. I'll clean it up if you have a rag."

With a derisive sniff and a pointed glare, she waved her wand toward the table in a fluid movement, and the puddle of ink, along with his ruined parchment, disappeared. The librarian turned and stalked away without another word. Justin sighed.

"So much for trying to salvage my essay. If it was even possible."

"I think it was," Hermione offered in an apologetic whisper. "I think there's some sort of siphoning spell, that would take away the spilled ink but leave the writing. But it's a sixth or seventh year spell."

"Of course it is," he said, very nearly sarcastic. "Because when a seven-year-old messes up his spelling, you make him solve a quadratic equation before he can have an eraser." His frustration was back, but somehow, with Hermione at his table, it wasn't as all-encompassing as it had been before.

"If it was any class other than Potions, I'd offer to copy it out for you," Hermione said, sounding almost shy. "I've gotten pretty all right with the quill."

"If it was any class other than Potions, I'd march straight into the professor's office and read it off, word for word, and then tell them that I'm trying my best and would like it if they'd work with me a bit." He sighed. "I just - I'm smart, you know? I was top of my class, as much as Year Sixes have a top of the class. I got into Eton!"

Hermione's eyebrows shot up at that, and she looked impressed. "Wow. Really? At ten?"

Justin shrugged with one shoulder, a little embarrassed but mostly pleased that the statement meant something to her. "Yeah. But this place . . . it makes me feel stupid, you know? And it's like, I'm lucky to be here. I know that. And I want to be here. I mean, I got into Eton. If I didn't want to be here, I wouldn't be. This place, and magic, it's all amazing, and I want to be part of it. But . . ." He trailed off, lost for words.

"But they make it hard to become a part of it," Hermione finished for him. "Not on purpose. But they take so much of their world for granted, like I'm sure we do, in the Muggle world. But here, we have so much to catch up on that they don't even think about, and so they look at us like we're weird when we either don't know something or work maybe too hard to prove we fit in."

Justin nodded. "Exactly."

The bell rang, startling them both. "I have to get to Charms," Hermione said, the words an apology as she slowly rose from the table and moved toward her books.

"History of Magic," Justin said, and then they both looked at each other a bit awkwardly for a bit too long before turning and packing their respective bags.

"Hang in there," Hermione said, hoisting her bag onto her shoulder.

"Hey, you too," Justin said, and watched her go.

He meant to catch up with her later, he really did. But his schoolwork kept him busy for the next week, and then it was Halloween and someone let a troll, an actual troll, into the school as a joke, and after that, whenever he saw her, she was hanging out with that Harry Potter kid.

But every once in a while, he'd catch her eye across the Great Hall, or pass her in the corridor, or work at the same table in Herbology. And they'd share a smile, a look of recognition. Hang in there, it seemed to say.

Maybe I'll send her a Christmas present, he thought after Herbology one day. I wonder what kind of pens she likes…

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