What he said:

"You're worthless, a filthy mudblood; I wouldn't be caught dead looking at your ugly face."

What she heard:

"Worthless… Mudblood… Ugly face."

Those were the words that haunted her for the next four years, as they were close to those that had haunted her for nearly eleven years before. They reminded her of home—pleasant thought, isn't it—and the tortured childhood she'd wanted so desperately to leave behind.

It wasn't easy to make friends when she was teased by the kids in her neighbourhood for her overbite, being called "buck-tooth" and "beaver." Instead, the girl found companionship in the books she read, her vocabulary growing as her hunger for the words that were her only friends increased. In the evenings when her mother and father hosted parties, the girl watched her parents socialise with their friends, seeing the joking way they treated each other and showing her a whole new way to use her adult vocabulary. When she went to school, she spent the breaks with her teachers, who spoke to her about everything and anything, and treated her with the respect one adult would give to another. With this she added a maturity far beyond her years to the skills she'd already learned by being avoided by children her own age, though it could never take the place of having friends.

Then, something miraculous happened. During all her quiet and lonely hours that even her books could not cure, Hermione Granger found she could do magic. Small things, like making her few dolls—given to her as Christmas gifts from far away relatives who didn't know or care what she really liked—move and seem to speak with her; a few birds hatched in a nest on her bedroom windowsill, that before no bird had even perched on; her mother even caught her with a jar of cookies that had seemed to appear out of nowhere.

When her letter from Hogwarts came, the girl was ecstatic. Though she knew she would miss her mother and father very much, Hermione wanted nothing more than to leave behind her childhood "friends" and try to make new ones. Her father had always told her to "put your self out there, and speak your mind" and she had every intention of doing so, but not without some idea of what she was going to say. She had just learned there was a whole other world of magic with hundreds of years of history, and since she knew none of it, she wanted to learn.

The history books of this hidden world—once Hermione got a hold of them—were like precious oysters, waiting to be pried open, and their treasures revealed. The fantastical events were so much like the storybooks she'd read her whole life, she became entranced. She devoured every scrap of information she could get her hands on, not only for the amazement of all of it, but she was determined to learn in the few months before school the whole of what her classmates must have known all their lives. She read and read and studied until there wasn't a single conversation—she thought—that Hermione couldn't contribute to properly.

All too soon, she was saying good-bye to her parents on a magic platform at King's Cross station on September 1st. Hermione hugged them both fiercely, promising to write and make many friends to tell them about when she came home for Christmas holidays.

"Remember what I said, Hermione," Her father started, and the girl laughed, cutting him off.

"Put your self out there, don't be afraid to speak your mind." She said, "I remember, dad."

"I'll miss you dear, please don't get too old without us, okay?" Her mother was starting to cry, bringing Hermione close to tears as well.

"I'll try." She would have said something more, but was interrupted when the last whistle for boarding blew, and she kissed the two one last time before running onto the old red train.

As the Hogwarts Express pulled out of the station, all the other first-years leant out the windows of their cars, calling out last-minute farewells to their families. Hermione felt she'd said all she could, so she waited patiently for the two other girls, bouncing a bit on her seat with excitement.

"My big brother told me there's no roof in the Main Hall, and that when it rains, they hold umbrellas above the tables!" one said to the other, ignoring Hermione completely.

Wanting to be part of the conversation, Hermione piped up, "It's only an enchantment, didn't you know? It's supposed to show the weather outside, but not actually let it affect us."

The other girl giggled. "Yeah Pansy, next you'd say we have to wear lightning rods on our hats during a storm!" she teased her friend, who didn't seem too pleased with being made a fool of.

"Who made you the expert? Do you have any big brothers or sisters that went to Hogwarts, or did your mummy and daddy tell you everything?" She practically hissed at Hermione, who stuttered, a little afraid of this girl who she'd tried to make friends with.

"N-no, my mum and dad don't really know anything about the wizard world." She admitted shyly. "I read about it in my history books."

The scary girl laughed then, and her eyes took on a feral gleam when she looked at the girl. "Hear that, Terra, her parents are muggles. No doubt she's a bookworm because she knows she doesn't deserve to know magic without them."

The one called Terra simply nodded, smiling meanly. "If I'd known I'd have to sit next to a mudblood, I'd never have gotten on the train."

Almost all of the books Hermione had read mentioned the term "muggles" and she was by now clear on the meaning. The name that girl, pansy, called her; she'd read it only a few times, in the stories that scared her, the ones that made her want to stay away from the school and everything about her magic. "Mudblood" was a nasty thing, a disgusting way of saying that someone had no magic in their blood before them, the things that evil wizards had done to muggle-born people, including children had given Hermione nightmares for a week, and her mother had almost kept her home because of them. But the girl had insisted that those kinds of people didn't exist anymore, that the wizard world was at peace and people there were open-minded. That someone would call her that in such a tone, just a little girl on the train for her first year of school shook the young witch to her core, and she felt tears threaten her sight. She stood up and ran from the compartment, into the car bathroom where she could wipe her tears.

When she finally felt calm enough to leave the cubicle, Hermione realised she'd left her trunk in the compartment with the mean girls. She didn't want to go back there, but she had to at least change into her robes before they got to the school. The girl wondered if everyone in the school really was still like that, and would hate her because she wasn't like them; she wanted so badly to be liked instead of avoided or teased like she did back home.

Her fear wasn't as important as her curiosity though, and the girl had to do what she promised her dad. Boldly, she walked up to a boy who looked about her age, and asked; "Would you hate me if I told you my parents weren't wizards?"

The boy looked a bit flabbergasted. "Umm, not really, but could you do me a favour? I'm looking for my toad, my gram gave him to me as a present and I seem to have lost him."

Hermione smiled broadly, satisfied that her instincts had been right. "I'll help you look, I just want to change into my robes quickly." He nodded, and let her into her now empty compartment while he waited outside.

She was excited she'd come close to making a friend, and finding out that not everybody here was prejudiced about heritage. She learned the boy's name was Neville, and the toad's Trevor. She met a lot of different people while asking around, even probably the most famous name she'd read. Harry Potter was a first year too, and Hermione felt kind of nervous being around him, so she babbled a bit with him and the redheaded boy he was sitting with. She didn't really remember his name, but she did remember he seemed kind of grumpy and dirty, so the girl decided to avoid him if she could help it, but she really did want to get to know Harry better, since it didn't say anything about his age or where he'd been living the last eleven years.

When the train finally stopped and Hermione stepped onto the boats that took the first years across the lake to the castle, she was mystified. She knew the school was a castle, but really had no idea how huge and fantastic it would be. Sitting in the same boat with Neville, Harry Potter and the redheaded boy, she stared out across the dark water in awe, her mind reeling as all the facts she'd absorbed collided with what she was seeing, and it made her dizzy. Most of the next few hours were a bit of a blur, but she remembered sharing a house with the three boys she'd almost befriended, and an encounter with a boy version of Pansy Parkinson (the mean girl from the train), both of whom were now in Slytherin, with a bunch of other slightly nasty looking people.

The boy's name had been Draco Malfoy, and looked down at the redhead while trying to make friend with Harry Potter. He never looked at her, even though she couldn't really stop staring, his blonde hair was slightly alluring, as it reminded her of a boy she used to like from home, but who always ran away from her after calling her names and making her cry. Hermione knew she shouldn't like such a boy who seemed to be so mean, and she had to promise herself she wouldn't think about him and get herself hurt. As an eleven year old girl, she knew she had plenty of time to get to know people, and maybe one day have a boyfriend—she hadn't even gotten her period yet!

Anyways, if she could make friends and learn things to live with her magic, it didn't matter if this boy ever looked in her direction. Hermione Granger was strong and smart, and she knew it. This year was going to be a good one, it was going to be the beginning of the best years of her life, she promised herself, as she drifted into a heavy slumber that night.