Disclaimer: I don't own anything. the characters and world belong to the brilliant mind of J.K. Rowling.

A/N: Ok so I saw the Deathly Hallows and even though I'm a Ron/Hermione shipper in the books, the chemistry between Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson has always been there and this movie it was even more apparent in their dancing the scene and Ron's nightmare of a naked snogging session between Harry and Hermione. Those made me rethink Harry/Hermione so I had to write a of what if's story about them.

When Harry Met Hermione

What if Harry wasn't late getting to Kings Cross Station and met a bushy brunette girl first? What if Ron wasn't sorted into Gryffindor? What if Ron wasn't a big part of their lives? Which means no Ginny either. Would Harry and Hermione have ended up together if the circumstances were different? An AU Harry Potter story.

Book 1 – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

He was thinking and talking but when he looked back Hagrid and disappeared, he was on his own. He supposed he didn't someone holding his hand the whole way; he should be able to find the train he needed on his own. So he pushed his cart and looked up at the signs with the platform numbers. He pulled his ticket out of his pocket and looked at it. "Platform 9 ¾." He said to himself. He hadn't been to many train stations in his life well, actually none at all. But even then he was quite sure that they labeled them in solid numbers not fractions of a number.

When he saw the signs for nine and ten he stopped and looked around. "Excuse me" he asks a guard standing nearby. "Do you know where platform 9 ¾ is?"

"Being funny are you? There is no platform 9 ¾" is the reply he got and then the guard wandered off muttering something about time wasters. Harry once again looked between platforms nine and ten hoping to see something different.

"Are you sure?" he heard a woman's voice ask.

"I'm sure, this platform 9 and this is platform 10, platform 9 ¾ should be right here where this post is" said a young girl with bushy brown hair. He looked at the cart she's pushing which was filled with things similar to what he had in his. "I believe we just go through it"

"Excuse me?" he asked moving his cart closer to the family. They all had brown hair and were dressed as any normal family would be, so he had to make sure before he made a fool of himself again. "I'm sorry did you say you knew where platform 9 ¾ was?"

"Are you going to Hogwarts too?" the girl asked as her face brightened up. He's about to answer when she interrupted him. "Of course you are" She said to him. He doesn't know if he's supposed to speak now so he just smiled.

"I'm Hermione Granger, these are my parents" she said pointing to the older couple that stood behind her and smiled at him.

"Harry Potter" he said taking her outstretched hand and smiled at her parents. She smiled back and started to position her cart between platforms nine and ten. He was a little surprised by her reaction, everyone else he met earlier had acted shocked and awed by his name, and she just took it as a regular introduction.

She left her cart and ran to give her parents a hug. He looked away slightly saddened that he had never had that. She ran back to her cart, smiled excitedly at him again and started to run. He watched her head straight for the brick post and disappear. He looked around the station wondering what everyone must be thinking; a girl vanishing into a brick post had to be noticed. But no one saw they rushed about as usual having not seen anything.

He lookede back at Hermione's parents as they too wondered if anyone saw that. So Harry goes to spot she had just occupied. "Goodbye, nice meeting you" he said to her parents and ran at the post with his eyes closed. He opened them when he heard the sounds of a crowd all around him. He looked and saw that he was in a different station, he saw a scarlet red steam engine and the sign Platform 9 ¾. He made it.

"Isn't that brilliant" the girl named Hermione said as she joined him. "An invisible barrier that only we can see" He smiled at her, and then looked back at the post he had just gone through, she was right it was brilliant.

They found an empty compartment, put their trunks on the shelves and sat down. His heart was still racing because everything was happening so fast. Just a few days ago he was a regular ten, well now 11 year old going to regular school and living his miserable live with the Dursleys. Now he was wizard that could walk through walls and he was going to learn how to do magic.

"An entire world exists and muggles don't know about it" Hermione said breaking his train of thought as she opened a book and began to read.

"Uhh…what?" he asked.

"Muggles are non-magical people. Like my parents. I'm the first witch in my family" she said as she smiled proudly.

He lookd at her. "So you didn't know about any of this before?" he asked finding that hard to believe she seemed to know a lot about being a witch.

"Not until I got the letter" She replied "And I suppose that's how it was for you too" she said a little more softly. He heard the pity in her voice she did know who he was, he was thankful that she didn't mention it.

"And your parents were ok with it?" He asked, even though the Dursleys reactions shocked him because they knew about it, but he tried to imagine what it would be like for people that had never heard about the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

"They really don't know what to think quite yet, we were all a little shocked since neither of us had ever dreamed that witches and wizards were real. But they said they were proud of me no matter what I was or wanted to do with my life." She told him. Suddenly a plump boy pops his head into their cart. "Have you seen a toad?" he asked.

They both shake their heads at him."No, sorry" they both answered. The boy bowed his head sadly but then looked back up just as Harry was moving a stray strand of hair from his face. "Blimey, your em'" The boy said. "You're Harry Potter!"

Harry forces a smile onto his face. "I am" he replied with a sigh.

"I'm Hermione Granger and you would be?" she asked the boy who was gawking at Harry's scar. She stood in front of Harry so the boy was forced to look at her.

"Neville Longbottom" the boy answered.

"Good, now we all know each others names" she said and smiled brightly at the young boy.

"Right" Neville replied, ashamed and looked away from his scar. "Sorry" he said. "It's just that your real, the boy who lived is real" he said and then they all heard a scream a few compartments ahead. "Trevor!" he exclaimed and bolted out of their compartment.

"Thanks for that" Harry said to her.

"Not a problem" she replied and closed the compartment door in case they anyone else dropped by to see him. As she did her bookmark fell out and Harry reached to pick it up for her. He looked at and saw a picture of an older wizard with a long beard and the name Albus Dumbledore written on a scroll in front of him. The picture smiled at him and then promptly walked out of sight.

"I'm sorry, but the picture on your bookmark just disappeared" Harry told her handing the bookmark back to her.

"That's alright, he'll be back" she told him. "It's really brilliant the pictures in this world don't just stand still like the ones we're used to they can move freely into any other portraits they have" Harry was amazed everything he was learning about this world and it made him want to learn more.

"Who is Albus Dumbledore?" he asked.

"He's the headmaster at Hogwarts" she replied as she sat down and started flipping the pages of her book to find the page she had lost. "You are quite famous in the wizarding world, Harry" she said as she placed the bookmark in her page and put the book down to talk directly to him.

"Is that common knowledge to everyone? I thought you said you just found out you were a witch" Harry asked wondering if he was the only one that didn't know his story.

"I did, but I wanted to know everything. So I spent quite a lot of time in the bookstore in Diagon Alley. There were loads of old newspapers. Which have moving pictures also by the way" she tells him as she smiled widely. "Your story was in them, you're the only known survivor of the killing curse" She looked at him before she continued. "Cast by the darkest wizard of our time"

"Voldemort" Harry replied then covers his mouth. "Opps, I forgot I'm not supposed to say his name"

"If everyone knows who you-know-who is then we might as well just call him by his name" she replied. "Well anyways Voldemort came from Slytherin, so that makes sense." Harry raised his eye brow at her. "Slytherin, one of the four houses we have a chance to be sorted into" Harry shook his head. "Honestly, Harry haven't you read any of the books that you bought"

"No…I've well… I looked at the covers" he replied sheepishly.

"I couldn't wait to read them; I wanted to know everything there was to know about this new world. I mean just a few months ago I was a regular girl in primary school and now I'm a learning to be a witch." Harry did smile at that, because he knew that feeling. "The houses are Hufflepuff the house that values hard work, tolerance, loyalty, and fair play, Ravenclaw the house that values intelligence, creativity, learning, and wit, Slytherin the house values ambition, cunning, leadership, resourcefulness, and most of all, pure wizard blood, every dark wizard's come from Slytherin." She told him. "And the Gryffindor house values courage, bravery, loyalty, nerve and chivalry"

"Are you sure this is the first you've heard you were a witch?" Harry asked and lookd at her like she was an exhibit in the zoo; he had never met anyone quite as enthusiastic about school as she was. She suddenly stood up and grabed her trunk and pulled out a black rope. "We should be arriving soon, we should change" she said and slid out of the room to find the woman's lavatories.

Harry sighed and pulled on his ropes, she was a strange one that girl. Why on earth would anyone read all the books before the school term started? He supposed he did well enough in school and he did like going there but that was only because it was time away from the Dursley's. She knocked on the door to make sure he was decent before entering. He helped her take her trunk down and they line up at the door and wait for the train to stop.

They walk off the train just as two red headed boys rushed past them with gleeful smiles. They began to move forward when another red headed boy ran past them. "Fred, George give him back!' the boy yelled at the other two who they assumed were his brothers started running faster.

Hermione took a moment to catch her breath since they were almost knocked over by the three boys. "Are you ok?" Harry asked her and she nods.

"Firs' years, follow me" a familiar voice called out and Harry ran over to him.

"Hi'ya 'Arry" Hagrid said to him and Harry looked up at him with a huge smile. He was happy to see the large hairy man. Then he noticed that Hagrid stared just to the left of him. "This is Hermione Granger" he said introducing him.

"Pleasure to meet you, Sir" Hermione said and held out her hand. Harry watched as Hagrid's larger hand swallowed up her tiny one.

"Sir?, jes call me Hagrid" He told her.

Everyone else that joined them stared and pointed at Hagrid most looked afraid and Hagrid either didn't notice or didn't care. "You're not afraid of him?" Harry asked Hermione.

"Why would I be?" she asked innocently. "By his height, I'd say he's half giant"

"You're a smart one, aren't ya. Me mum was a giant and me dad was a wizard" Hargird told her as they made their way down a steep narrow path that lead them to the edge of a black lake. Harry saw a fleet of boats on the shore."No more'n four to a boat" Hagrid called out to them.

Harry tried to see what lay on the other side but it was too dark to make anything out. He followed Hermione into a boat and Neville climbed in after them. They werethen joined by another dark haired boy. "Seamus Finnigan" they boy with an Irish accent said introducing himself.

"Everyone in" Hagrid shouted. "Forward" and the boats started gliding easily against the smooth dark lake. As they neared the other side atop a mountain sat a vast castle with many turrets and towers. Everyone was silent; and stared at the great castle that seemed to loom over them as they neared.

"Isn't grand" Hermione said excitedly. Harry looked down when he noticed her hand had grabbed his which she didn't seem to notice since shes still stared awestruck at the castle. She reminded him of the annoying girls in his class, ones that he didn't like to be around but for some reason he didn't mind when she put her hand on his. He actually liked it, it was softer and warmer than any hand he's held previously, well actually he's never held a girls hand before she was his first.

Tbc…