About 3 years ago I wrote this thinking about that fic trope where Hermione turns out to be related to one of the big pureblood families. It used to live on my tumblr, but I got rid of my tumblr relatively recently.

Hermione is thirteen and pretty much all she knows about Lucius Malfoy is that he's Draco's dad, he hates muggleborns and he abuses his servants.

Then she gets back from France with her parents and she has no idea where she put her Gringott's key.

That's... embarrassing. She decides against letting her parents know. They can drop her off at the Leaky Cauldron and she'll see if she can get a replacement at the bank.

The bank is all marble and brass and heavy dark wood, and the sounds inside are muffled by a series of enchantments that keep everybody's business muffled and unintelligible to outsiders.

It's not that big a deal, as it turns out. It's humiliating but, for a fee, the sneering goblin at the bank will take her blood and match it to the vaults in their possession.

"Er," she says, eyeing him. Twelve sickles is a lot, really, but it's not as though she has any other option if she wants to access her vault. "Yes, please. Sorry."

The goblin doesn't look particularly mollified by her apology.

"Blood," he says brusquely, sliding over a scrap of parchment.

Obediently, Hermione pricks her finger and smears her blood on the parchment.

The goblin tugs it away before it's even finished spreading. "Wait here."

She waits.

And waits.

And waits.

Almost thirty minutes later, the goblin returns. This time he comes out from behind his tall desk and demands she allow him to take the sample again. This time, he wants to use a small, wicked looking knife.

"Why?" she asks, peering curiously at the blade. It has a silvery sheen, and would be quite pretty if it didn't also look so very sharp.

"It will strip enchantments from your skin," he warns her with a nasty smile.

Hermione hesitates. She doesn't trust his smile. But after another second she agrees, because she really does need to purchase her school things. She offers her hand.

She looks away when he cuts. The pain is less than she's expecting - the knife is sharp. It's shallow, but she bleeds red and fast anyway.

This time the goblin whisks her blood away upon his knife.

Annoyed, Hermione puts pressure on her bloodied fingertip.

This time she waits less than three minutes. Her goblin returns with another, bigger goblin in tow.

"You've access to any of these six vaults," says her teller, looking very peeved indeed.

Behind him, the larger goblin gives her a grim look up and down - then he leans in, says something she cannot understand to her teller, and strides away.

Hermione is more distracted by the vault numbers written on the parchment. One of them is, thank goodness, hers, but these others - ?

She runs her finger along the tiny cursive line of account details, picking out- "I think there's some mistake," she says shortly, because, no, that says 'Malfoy' and that's...

...well, probably an opportunity to do something really unkind to a really awful young boy, actually.

Not that she will. But Draco's face when somebody told him they'd all been robbed blind would bring her a certain internal satisfaction. He'd been beastly to her and all the other muggleborns under threat from Slytherin's monster.

The goblin gives her a sour look.

"This isn't my family," she tells him firmly, making eye contact over his long, pointed nose.

"They're the vaults matching your blood," he disagrees. "We tested. Twice."

And... yes, they did, but. But.

"There's something wrong with the test," she insists.

"You think that, if you prefer," he says, indifferent and implacable, like she's shouting orders at the tide. "Which vault?"

Unfortunately, Flourish and Blotts closes at five and she's already wasted too much time here.

After a disconcerted pause, Hermione gives her own vault number, and the goblin checks it off the list and hands her a new key.

"Do not," he says, "lose it."

"I won't," she promises, and ignores the derisive noise he makes in response.

In the end, Hermione collects her money and goes to buy her school things. It's a weird coincidence, and it's even worse that the bank doesn't want to investigate it - she'll write them about that later, she decides - but it's just an administrative error on somebody's behalf, obviously. It can't even be very common, considering the goblin's evident faith in the bank's processes and Gringott's reputation.

Outside the bank, Hermione does her school shopping in record time and then makes her way back to the Leaky Cauldron at a brisk walk. Sirius Black screams silently from wanted posters on every spare bit of wall in the Alley.

Hermione eyes the posters. He's a death eater, if she believes the Prophet. The paper has no reason to lie about it that she can see. And... the last year taught her a lot about how people view muggleborns in the Wizarding World.

The Cauldron is brightly lit, warm, cheery and welcoming. There's a flash from one side, and the warm light turns briefly green - a witch tumbles out of the Floo with her hat askew and makes a beeline for the bar.

"Where have you been?" Molly demands, swooping down upon her as soon as she enters the building.

"I didn't have my key, so I had to talk to the goblins," she says, abbreviating the whole encounter for convenience.

"I was starting to get worried. We do have a killer on the loose -" Molly clicks her tongue and brushes aside a tumble of hair to get a better look at Hermione's face. Whatever she notices must reassure her. "But you're all all right? You have all of your things?"

"Yes, Mrs Weasley." She nods toward her bags.

"Goodness me, that's a lot of books. How many subjects are you taking?"

Hermione opens her mouth to say 'all of them', but it doesn't really turn out to be a question.

"Percy took three electives, you know, but he couldn't keep it up for more than a year... Oh, go on, then - Harry and Ron are over at the table." She points, and Hermione leans sideways to see around a wooden pillar - Harry and Ron are playing a very one-sided game of chess. Harry doesn't seem to mind that he's losing terribly.

"Thanks." Hermione darts away from Mrs Weasley's kind but overbearing presence to spectate.

The Monster Book of Monsters bites her three times before she secures it with a belt. Is Kettleburn insane?

Will I ever write more on this? I kind of hope so? I really love the idea. But I also think it's one of those ideas that you either accept has no end point and will just be a novella length ""unfinished"" fic of ideas and worldbuilding and silliness, or an idea that needs a very tight plot so you do stand a chance of finishing it. Anyway, it's a one shot for now!

If you liked something about this fic, and you're up for leaving a review, please feel free to let me know! Good night.