Full Summary: Beyond being in the same year at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Draco Malfoy, Cedric Diggory, Harriet Potter, Hermione Granger, and Theodore Nott only have one other thing in common. A nine-hour detention in the library on Saturday under the watchful gaze of Professor Flitwick. The Prince, Ministers son, Delinquent, Know it all, and Maniac find their beliefs, boundaries, and bonds tested as they discover, sometimes, you're more than what other people brand you as, and, when luck was on your side, you might just find a kindred soul where you least expect it. Heavily inspired by The Breakfast Club.

Tags: Fem!Harry Potter. Ravenclaw Hermione. Alternate universe- No Voldemort. Harry's Still an Orphan. Fluff and smut. Fluff and angst. Slow Burn. Drug use. Exploration of different types of trauma. Theodore Nott has chronic OCD. Harriet has trust problems, a loud mouth, and sticky fingers. Hermione's a big ball of anxiety. Draco has daddy issues. Mummy issues too. Cedric wants to make everyone happy. They're all a little broken. Coming of Age fic. Chosen families. Don't expect to like a single adult in this fic. They're all dickheads. That's the point. Harriet's a bit of a dickhead too, in the beginning. But Has a Good Heart. Sometimes.

Pairings: Draco Malfoy/Fem!Harry (Main Pairing). Hermione Granger/Theodore Nott. Cedric Diggory/Cho Chang

CHAPTER ONE:

The Second Saturday

"These children you spit on, as they try to change their worlds are immune to your consultations. They're quite aware of what they are going through…" -David Bowie

Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry was a looming smear on the horizon of the Highlands, like a smudge of ink hastily swiped from a first year's end of term essay. Easily mistaken for a frustrated teardrop. A brute of brick and battlements, the seven-story high tangle of towers and parapets, which often resembled teeth and claws at dusk, was an ode to Wizarding might. Crumbled and nothing like it had been four centuries passed. Inside set forty-two staircases, swishing and twisting, and its bowels, where its dank dungeon laid like a gaping maw, burrowed deep into the earth.

Typically, Hogwarts was alive with sound. The hum of chatter buzzed off the towering stone walls in the corridors as students rushed to their next lesson in roving bands. The odd clang of a cauldron exploding adding to the beat. The bass the drawling scorn of Professor Snape tearing down another dithering student while staring down his hooked nose. The pitter and patter of house elf feet puttering in the kitchens, rushing to finish the evening feast. The bubbling of old copper pipes pulsing. The bellow of teachers standing in front of lecture halls trying desperately to keep the waning attention upon them. The click of laughter as a prank was played. Generally by some nameless Weasley in a long line of redheads.

However, that evening, the second Saturday of the summer holiday, brought only silence. The winding halls were empty. The countless paintings slumbering. The beds in the dorm rooms unslept in. No taps or baths burbled in the bathrooms. The Professors and students had left, homeward bound, far away from schoolwork, exams, lesson plans and studying.

Apart from one.

Professor Flitwick.

He sloped through the tables, around the lofty stacks of books, dipping through the alcoves of the grand library, where, sitting innocently on a desk, he found what he had been searching for, though the other four were missing.

An essay.

He plucked it up, the parchment rustling in his grasp as the quill rolled on the table. Thrusting his glasses up his slanted nose, Flitwick read on, the flutter of his lips shifting with the words.

Dear Professor Flitwick,

We accept we had to surrender a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. And, yes, what we did was wrong. We know that, with or without detention. Nonetheless, we believe this essay is meaningless. You want to know who we think we are? Why do you care? Why does anyone? No matter what we say or what we write, you have seen us, and will continue to see us, only in our plainest forms and the most rudimentary designations. Me, Hermione Granger, nothing but a Know-it-all who won't cease regurgitating books she has read and waving her hand in the air. Cedric Diggory, the Minister's son, always the best and always proper, never daring to step a foot out of line. Theodore Nott, the Maniac who can't stop counting or rearranging everything around him. Draco Malfoy, the stuck-up Prince who has everything he could ever want, who won't work a single hard day in his entire life because of daddy's money. Harriet Potter, a hopeless Delinquent who is quickly earning herself a one-way ticket to Azkaban, if she doesn't get herself killed first. Are we right? We think so, because that's how we saw each other at seven O'clock this morning. We we're wrong, as you, and everybody like you, were wrong…

Professor Flitwick smiled.

…Draco Malfoy…

The train chugged to a stop in Hogsmeade station, the doors parting with a pop and a slap of metal. The two platinum blond heads glinted harshly under the morning sun as they stepped off in tandem, right into the deserted platform.

Sneering, Lucius Malfoy indignantly brushed his shoulder with the crown of his serpent headed cane, swiping off imaginary dirt, as his son, Draco, frowning deeply, lip curled as he took a gander around him at the soot clogged stone, and the rusted signs.

"I can't believe you can't get me out of this preposterous thing. It's absurd. Saturday? The second Saturday of summer break? Who in their right mind schedules detention during vacation? It's not like I deserve this. I'm top of my class in Potions, and well on the way to being Head Boy next year. This is ridiculous. Father, please, can't you talk to Flitwick? Explain this is some sort of mistake? Do… Something."

Draco hazarded a glance to his father, but Lucius, as always, didn't meet his eye, much too entrenched in primping his pristine tailored robes from the short train ride. Merlin forbid there was a lock of hair out of place, or a bit of flint on his cashmere jumper. The world would end, surely, if a Malfoy was anything less than perfect.

Draco swallowed down the lump forming in his throat. He didn't really care about the detention, not as much as he had wined about in the last few hours, but-

Fuck.

He just wanted Lucius to do something. Yell at him. Ground him. Take away his broom. Perhaps even clap him up the back, talk about all the times he had detention when he was in school at Draco's age, or… Or… Just be present.

There.

With him.

"I'll make it up to you when you get home, son. I'll leave some Galleons for shopping with Twinky. You can go get that new potion set you've been eyeing. However, I have to be in the Ministry in the next hour. I have no time to waste. Off you go. I'll see you soon."

Draco winced.

That potion set Draco had been eyeing was four years ago, and he had been given it in equal measure already, by both his mother and father, and even once from his Godfather Snape, for the last five Yules.

Worst still was that word.

Waste.

I have no time to waste… On you. Draco could hear it, even if his father would never lower himself to utter the finishing blow. He could feel it burning in his brain. An open wound, festering. Never you. Even here, after ruining his perfect reputation with a detention, a black mark on the Malfoy name, something utterly not perfect, his father couldn't see him.

Draco scoffed and turned away, sauntering off down the station, through Hogsmeade, to the castle waiting for him to spend nine hours of his life in the library.

His father didn't say goodbye.

He hardly noticed Draco was gone.

…Hermione Granger…

Hermione Granger sat inside her father's Volvo hatchback, hunched and huddled in the soft padding of the leather seats, staring blankly at the meandering road before them. A broad road that would lead Hermione up through Hogsmeade and to the castle on the cliff. Hogwarts, where she would spend the next nine hours.

Linda Granger's hands tightened on the steering wheel. Wringing.

"Is this the first or the last time that I will have to do this, Hermione?"

From the backseat, Hermione's head dropped, sagging, as wilted as her voice.

"The last."

Graham Granger, her father, swivelled in his seat, one narrow arm slipping to rest on her mother's headrest as he peered at his daughter over his bicep. She couldn't see her father's eyes through the sun gleaming on his thick rimmed glasses, and her stomach rolled at the tight line of his mouth.

Disappointment.

"It better be, missy. How do you expect to get into medical school, or whatever the wizarding equivalent is, if you have your record full of disciplinary marks? You won't. That's how. All that hard work, all that studying… Gone. Just like that. You'll end up having to settle. Do we, Grangers, settle?"

Hermione shook her head, going through the motions of what came next.

What always came next.

"No. We work hard and get the job done."

A quick nod from her father was all she got for the parroted line, something Hermione Granger was great at doing. A little crumb of recognition for a mimic. That's what she was. A copycat. An imitator. A two-bit impressionist. Nothing she knew, nothing she said, not even her thoughts, were ever truly her own, she believed. Always plucked from the pages of a book. A cheap fraud.

Nevertheless, her mother, as she was prone to do, picked up where her father left off.

"Well, when you get there use the time to study. You have seven exams next year, and two in foreign languages I signed you up for."

Hermione's finger's squeezed the strap of her satchel, weaving around leather until the tips of her fingers turned blue and tingled.

"We're not allowed to use the time to study. The letter said so. We have to leave our wands at the reception desk of the Library for Flitwick, and take our seats and-"

Linda cocked a high arching brow at her through the rear-view mirror, cheeks flushing an irritated pink.

"You will find the time to study. Because of the… Stunt you pulled, you're already three days behind in reviewing your materials. Do you know what happens next? While catching up, you become a week behind. A week morphs into two, and two equals a failed exam. One failed exam and-"

Linda's voice faded to a whirring hum, like that of an angry wasp buzzing about Hermione's head. She'd heard it all before. A million times and more. She knew it. Knew. Knew it like she knew her books, verbatim, word for word, line for line, diagram by diagram and-

"You heard your mother. Well, go!"

Her father barked, head jerking to the side.

Hermione scrambled out the car door, slamming it on her way out. She never, not once, let go of the throttling grasp on her satchel strap as she trekked the lonely muggle road to Hogwarts.

…Cedric Diggory…

Cedric Diggory ducked back from his father's wandering hand, as it went to, again, straighten out the rambunctious curls on his head, squashing them down to strict, perfect order.

"Hey, don't be like that, Cedric. I messed around when I was younger too. Many kids do. Except you got caught. It's that… Brazen streak of yours that won't let you get far in the Ministry when you begin your career after school. Subtlety and discretion is your best friend, as it is with any promising representative of the Ministry."

Cedric reached up and ruffled his auburn curls back to a mess, despite his father groaning at the action.

Some days, it felt like his chaotic hair was the only thing he could control.

Perhaps one day he would shave the entire lot.

Really give his father a heart attack.

But no.

He wasn't brave enough to do that.

Too Hufflepuff, his father always complained.

Meek and timid.

Everyone always forgot that Honey Badgers were the only creature plucky enough, when prodded too far, to rip a bloody lion's balls off with their teeth.

Cedric Diggory was a boy who already had his life planned out. He would finish school and start an internship at the Ministry, aided by his father's contacts. There, he would slowly climb the political ladder. At twenty-four, he'd have a wife and a modest home. By thirty, two shit brained kids, one boy, one girl that he could bring out for the Yule postcards and forget about as soon as they were back out of sight. By forty, young for their kind, he would be the next Minister of Magic.

One. Two. Three.

Simple.

Horrendous.

Scuffing his shoe on the ground outside Honeydukes, where he and his father had floo'd in, Cedric watched a pebble skip along the cobbled path from being kicked. Helpless to change its fate where, when it bounced to the other side of the street, it would roll into a grate and never see sunlight again.

You and me both, bud.

You and me both.

Perhaps this is what he deserved, after what he did to that poor kid in the changing rooms of the Quidditch pitch. The scream, high, shrill…

"Yeah, mum's already chewed my ear off, alright? I get it already."

Amos Diggory tutted, shoulders squaring.

"You want to miss a Quidditch match? You want to ruin everything? Quidditch makes you popular, son, and it's that popularity you will use once you leave Hogwarts for the Ministry. You start your networking here, right now, this second. You waste that, and you have no hope of ever becoming Minister of Magic, as you should. The kids alright, a few bruises and scrapes, nothing Pomphrey couldn't heal. However, what won't heal so easily is your reputation. You need it spotless. Learn to lie once in a while, Cedric. It will take you far."

Do this, Cedric.

Do that, Cedric.

Be this, Cedric.

Don't be that, Cedric.

Go here, Cedric.

Eat this, even if you hate it, Cedric.

Smile, Cedric!

Never forget to smile, Cedric!

Smile, Cedric, even if you're about to burst from the inside out, Cedric!

Smile and play your role and don't you dare trip!

Amos Diggory huffed as Cedric shouldered passed, storming away, hands shoved deep into his pockets.

"I'll meet you right here at nine, don't be late! We have a late dinner with the Greengrass's and it's the ideal occasion to sidle up to their eldest daughter and get some intel! Cedric! Cedric?"

Amos shook his head.

"Kids."

…Harriet Potter…

The meager throng of the Hogshead pub wearily eyed the teen who came tumbling down the stairs from the upper floor rooms for rent. Her clothes were tattered, second hand three owners ago, and swamped her in layers of scraps and ribbons of fabric crudely tied and stapled together. Her big black boots, scuffed at the toes, which looked kind of funny on such spindly legs, thudded on the unsteady parquets.

Whistling as she snaked through the small crowd, she tapped a patron on the shoulder as she slipped by, as slick as an eel.

He turned to look, finding nothing and no one behind him, and missed the gloved hand sneaking to his plate, snapping away with his apple pastry.

The woman about to take a sip from her butterbeer spluttered as her chair leg was kicked, slamming down the foamy glass to yell at the man behind her, who was balancing on the back legs of his own chair.

He argued back, mouth full of breakfast, spitting bits of toast.

Neither saw the glass of butterbeer lifted from the table.

"I told you if you keep that up, you're out. I won't have no trouble in here, even if my brother pays your room fee regularly."

Harriet Potter stopped by the bar, butterbeer in one hand, pastry in the other, and a purple bruise blooming on her jaw from last night's bar fight.

The fucker hadn't taken to losing his hand of cards too well.

Especially to a young woman who had, Perhaps, diddled the deck.

Counting cards wasn't illegal, just... Frowned upon.

The type of frowning that came with a kiss from a fist.

Harriet propped an elbow on the bar, bowing over to Aberforth who diligently wiped down his glasses with a dirty rag.

This pub, with all it's noise, its shadows and dust and half-drunk dreams, was her home.

Had been for the last six months, at least. Since she was kicked out of the Dursleys, after, so many years late, she had swung back at Vernon.

His broken nose had been worth the split knuckles.

The problem was she hadn't stopped swinging.

Not until the muggle police had arrived after receiving a call from a worried neighbour rambling about the noise coming from next door, Petunia screaming, and hauled her into the back of their car, spitting and hissing like a pissed off alley cat. When they found her cupboard after a, once again, far too late welfare check by a paisley wearing social worker, that had been that.

They called it emancipation. It made them feel good, Harriet thought. As if they had freed a pet from a too small cage, only to dunk it into another, stranger, cage altogether.

Good riddance.

She didn't need them.

Harriet didn't need anybody.

With the Potter trust fund as tied up as it was in legalities, she didn't have a single sickle to her name until she was eighteen.

A whole two years away.

Instead, she had to rely on the small stipend Hogwarts gave out to 'kids in need'.

She scoffed.

It was barely enough for this shingled roof over her head and a pair of socks.

From cupboard, where she had to pick the deadbolt locks and slink out to unearth scraps in the kitchen bin, to the streets she now prowled, sticky fingers came in handy.

So did knowing when not to run your mouth.

That was something Harriet hadn't quite got a grasp of yet.

Savagely, she bit into the pasty, grinning brightly with a piece of apple sticking out between her teeth, at the haggard man before her.

"A growing girl needs her breakfast, and you aren't handing out any freebies, are you? And you said that last night, old man. Got a new threat? You haven't kicked me out yet, and you never will as long as you get your coin and I don't burn this place to the fuckin' ground."

Aberforth scowled at her.

"One day kid, you're going to pick a fight with the wrong guy, and you ain't going to get up from the floor he puts you down on. Not everyone's your enemy."

Harriet chuckled as she downed the butterbeer, using the back of her frayed sleeve to scrub away the froth clinging to her top lip.

"Sure as fuck feels like it."

And wasn't that the sad truth?

Orphan.

Homeless.

Destitute.

Yeah, everybody acted the saint until it came down to actually doing what they promised. Then they turned their back and pretended to be deaf. Or asked how much it was to shove a grubby hand up your shirt. That was life, Harriet thought. A never ending trail of broken promises and lies. No.

Life was a drawn-out game of survival of the fittest.

Niceties had nothing to do with it.

Aberforth only put up with her because he got a monthly check out of it. Merlin knew it wasn't because of her sparkling wit. As soon as that money stopped flowing in, which Albus had threatened last week if her grades didn't pick up, he'd kick her to the curb faster than she could say Expelliarmus.

Leave her like her parents.

Like Sirius and Remus.

Like Albus and McGonagall.

Like everybody left her.

Attachments and affection only led to pain.

It was best to stay as far away from those dreadful things as possible.

Slapping the now empty glass down on the tabletop, Harriet braced a hand to her chest, fluttering her lashes.

"Oh, Abe… Are you getting soft on me? Are you really a sweetheart underneath that malingering tongue? That great big bushy beard? Someone call Rita Skeeter; I have a five pm headline."

Aberforth shook his head, gruffly scoffing.

"You're a cunt, kid. A real bloody cunt."

Harriet threw her middle finger up as she left.

"Bite me, bastard."

…Theodore Nott…

Theodore Nott stood beside his parents outside Hogwarts courtyard, thumbing the silver buttons on his new blazer. Six buttons. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.

Six was good.

Seven or five?

Not so much.

It struck him then. Struck him like lightning strikes the ground, sizzling outward, zapping with a boom that bounced around his skull. What if there were only seven seats in the library? Or three tables? Or only nine people? What should he do if there was-

Theodore spun to his parents, palms suddenly clammy, mouth opening, only to see them already turning, strolling away. His mouth shut with a click of clenched teeth. There was no point calling to them. They would only ignore him. They'd done what they saw as their duty, seen him, relatively, safely to school grounds. As far as they were concerned with their broken son, that was enough.

He was enough.

Or not enough.

It was hard, so very hard, to understand which one he fell into some days.

He couldn't be both, surely?

As numbers, those fickle masters of his, couldn't be both odd and even.

Good and bad.

Right and wrong.

In Theodore Nott's world, there was no grey.

There was no room for it. Everything had its place, its number, and that's where it stayed. Safe. Sound. Boxed in neatly. Bad things happened when chaos came. Real bad things. If he brushed his teeth for seven minutes instead of six, he was sure come morning they would have fallen out. If he didn't tap his leg in three bouts of three after first sitting down, his mother would die. If he accidentally stepped on a cracked pavement slab, especially with his right foot, his father would lose his job, and they would end up homeless, starving, and-

Theodore's world had no room for grey, but it did have an awful lot of space for nasty thoughts that whispered poison in his ear.

Theodore checked his pocket watch.

6:27 am.

He stood there, alone, in the frigid breeze, staring at the white face until it struck a minute later. Then he rushed all in one, determined to get to the library, or as far as he could, before the odds came back and ruined everything and made him late and-

Tick.

Stop.

Wait.

Tock.

Go!

Run.

Tick.

Stop.

Tock.

Go!

He knew, just knew it, as he finally made it to the library, a little sweaty and out of breath, where his Saturday detention was going to be held, a whole thirteen minutes late, the worst, most terrible number there ever was, that day was going to be a bad, bad day.

Thoughts?