Chapter Text
Making friends was not something I was certain I could do.
I think that’s what I said the second time I met her.
I remember these events the same way I remember most events that heavily impacted my life; with a vague recollection of the date and a vivid recollection of the season. It had been a summer afternoon, distinctly in the school-less portions of the year (though that meant little to me at that time) and I had been allowed to venture out into the outside world for once, within the vicinity of magical London, where I had been loitering outside The Apothecary.
This is me, of course, someone who has zero interest or ability in potions, let alone the finest aspects of the art.
I really was just bored, dreary from a life yet to be lived. I had little interest in the summer activities and even less so the magical world around me, which would have made people look at me with inquisitive faces had they not all been mesmerized by the cluster of days off and the existence of something as magical as magic itself.
I suppose I must admit that I was enjoying this time to an extent, but it was so much time that I had no idea what to do with it.
I guessed that staying at the castle would be odd for someone like me.
Really, I was supposed to be here to collect my supplies for the upcoming year, which I had already done, and it wasn’t as if I had anywhere else I needed to go, so instead I loitered the outside of uninteresting shops to look like a less suspicious person, or rather, a person less interesting and not worth focusing on.
I had no particular goal in doing this. I was mainly killing time.
Initially, I had loitered in front of the Quidditch Supplies Shop, not because I was truly interested in sports, or because I even particularly enjoyed broom handling, but rather to give off the image that I was that type of person. The type of obnoxious sports fan that nobody would approach or give a second glance to, only for the shop to be inundated by a wave of people my age gawking at the latest broomstick. It was there that I realized my fatal flaw in planning.
I had been trying too hard.
Of all the things in the magical world, the thing that excites kids the most is broomsticks. When I had thought I was projecting an unapproachable image, I was, in reality, trying harder than anyone else to fit in. I was presenting the image of someone who would actually be happy receiving a kit of wood polish and twig clippers.
That was why I had, after another round of slowly circling the alley, my gaze lingering on but not fully taking in the stores I walked past, I ended up leaning against the window of The Apothecary.
I had been here so long that I had started to think about minor annoyances- the first pangs of hunger revealing themselves, my last meal having been five hours before, my exhausted legs ready to sit down, my arms sore from holding onto bags containing my schoolbooks and robes, when an unexpected sight came into view.
Rather, the unexpected sight had crashed into me not unlike how a meteor crashed into Earth and wiped out the majority of life on it several million years ago, though it was slightly less dramatic than that.
The crash had been a fittingly mundane affair with few eyes lingering on us. I moved to walk past the Apothecary door and she had moved through the door and into me, and we both fell onto our backs in opposite directions.
I wondered briefly, why had my timing been so poor? What had the girl been focusing on that made it so she didn’t notice someone in front of the door she was opening? Why had nobody warned or caught either of us?
But following these questions was my gaze returning to the girl, and before I noticed her frizzy hair or her buck teeth or her distinctly non-magical garbs, I noticed the presence of a skirt that, in my position, offered minimal privacy for the girl, its contents in plain sight for my eyes alone.
I hadn’t managed to pull my eyes away in time for the girl to not notice where I was looking. Of course, it had been imposed on me and I understood that the gentlemanly thing to do is to avert one’s eyes, but in my youth I was mesmerized by my lack of understanding of the concept. Why must I avert my eyes? Why must I look down at the floor? What about this image held meaning to me? It was like the image of this invasion of privacy was being burned into my mind, the searing heat of a cast iron brand making quick work of my brain and ensuring it never left.
I was sure that even decades from now, master legilimens would only see the image I was presently seeing, still in focus in my mind, along with the impossible question of “Why?”.
By the time my senses finally returned, the girl was already standing up and collecting her bags, the brief instant of questioning and desire for understanding over within her eyes. Perhaps none of these questions had even flitted across her mind as being ones someone could hold, but I could see it.
Her eyes. A deep brown, like they were carved from a mossless oak, they stared at me while she collected herself.
Slowly, I began to do the same, pushing some books that had somewhat slid out of their paper bag back into, and folding the sleeve of one of my robes back into its own home, and I stared at the girl, mind racing as to what she might know about me. What she might be thinking about me. What she might do to me. What she might be thinking about doing to me.
She finally stepped out of the doorway, and we were face to face, blocking the entrance to the rarely entered potions shop.
“I didn’t look.”
On instinct, I had tried to placate by lying. I hadn’t even known what I was going to say before the words ended up leaving my mouth. The girl didn’t respond, she only stared at me as she adjusted the bags in her arms, clearly a heavy weight for her to carry.
I don’t know when I began sweating. It hadn’t been a particularly hot day.
I don’t know when my mouth dried up. I hadn’t felt particularly parched today.
Finally, the girl glanced around my person before holding out her bag, saying:
“Can you help me carry this?”
I could feel the restrained ‘please’ on her lips, as if her mind had already deemed me not worthy of the polite addition. I had been standing there gormlessly for a few moments that I almost missed her dropping the heavy bag into my waiting arms, my load now tripled by this added weight.
“I honestly don’t know what to say.”
The girl strode forward, her index finger and thumb pinching the sleeve of my inner shirt and she walked me through the crowds, the people naturally breaking up for us, as if we were Moses parting the red sea, were the red sea masses of magicals who typically ignore their surroundings on a continual basis.
Eventually, the girl’s dragging had ended in front of an ice cream parlor- Fortescue’s, a parlor founded by a kindly old man who was formerly the history professor at Britain’s leading magical school before the then young Professor Binns had taken the position in the 1800s.
That impromptu history lesson on those who teach history lessons had been a way of distracting myself from the continued stare of the girl, her eyes radiating a curiosity. Curiosity of what, I was not certain. Perhaps she was curious how my entrails would look if she dragged them out in a curse-creating ritual, or how my soul would look when a dementor pressed its lips against my own.
Instead of any of the ideas flitting around my head though, the girl just grabbed her bag out of my arms and put it down on the table. Then, she finally opened her lips again.
“You know, it’s not polite to look there.”
How awkward.
I wasn’t sure as to this girl’s intentions now. Perhaps she intended to turn me into a manservant for the day on threat of exposing my wandering eyes for the world to see. The usage of magical memories was well known in blackmail circles, and I had seen discarded copies of Witch Weekly, often they came with one-time-use pensieves, so the reader could view the lurid contents of a damning memory, and while memories couldn’t be used in a court of law… What did it matter if your reputation was tanked?
How could I become an intense person where everyone knew where my eyes had wandered?
Not only that, this girl was giving me a look of peculiarity that made me awash with guilt, desperate to release myself from this mortal coil and- please just stop!
“I’m sorry! I really am sorry!”
A desperate plea, one I made with my eyes clenched shut. I dimly tried to peek open an eye and saw a smile touching the girl’s lips.
“But I thought you didn’t see anything?”
My world shattered, my clenched teeth breaking apart with the shards causing blood to flood down my throat, tears filling my eyes, all while my heart stopped, making further blood flow to my throat impossible, but the possibility of living flew out the window.
But sadly, that was only a fleeting image of a more idyllic world. Instead I was here, standing in front of a girl my age who had caught me in a precarious lie, leaving me at her fingertips, a simple plaything that had been trapped in a prison of his own making.
“What I meant to say was that I didn’t see anything bad! Of course, not that there was anything bad to see! I was just apologizing for knocking you over! Apologizing for getting in your way!”
A wave of conflicting reasons left my mouth, and oddly the girl’s small smile got a little bit bigger, dimples on her cheeks exposing themselves. I slowly started to back away, hoping I could leave before she could ask the dreaded question to seal my fate, only for the worst possible thing to occur.
“My name’s Hermione. Hermione Granger. The spelling is a bit weird but- nevermind. I’ll be going to Hogwarts in September- I presume you’re going as well, correct? What’s your name?”
What’s your name?
What’s your name?
What’s
Your
Name?
The absolute worst case scenario had made itself clear, and it was thus: the girl asking for my name was a sign that she wanted further control over me, seeking to overtake my life on the basis of myself being a deranged madman looking up the skirts of other girls in my age group, someone not fit to be welcome into society, but she would guide me onto the right path, she would be the Buddha, leaving a spider’s thread for me to grab onto with all my life and hopes and dreams, in the vain wish to escape into paradise.
I considered my options. I could tell her my name and hope that my punishment will be swift, decisive, and leave me well enough off to survive longer in today’s cursed society.
Or, I could run.
My feet had started going before I even realized what I was doing, but a grip on my sleeve stopped me.
“Hold on!”
It was the girl (Hermione, I mentally corrected), I looked back at her, fear infesting my brain as she gave me an oddly pitiful look- was she feeling bad for what she was about to do to me? You’re the one doing it! Stop it!!
“Why are you heading back to the Apothecary? I was just about to get us ice cream.”
Hermione was right, I was about to run off in the direction of where we had just been and- wait.
“Ice cream?
My confusion was evident even when I heard myself speak those words.
“Yes, I’ve never had magical ice cream before and it seemed like you’d been here before, so I was hoping you could help- my parents are dentists and they would never let me try a lot of flavors.”
So far, Hermione had given me three vital pieces of information in our info-war of sorts, where I had given zero. Were this a game of Chess, I’d have performed a masterful gambit after an opening placement fumble, putting her in check. I already had this much:
Her name is Hermione Granger.
She is going to Hogwarts.
Her parents are dentists.
“I just like red bean ice cream.”
This was said as casually as I could bear it, trying to feel out the trajectory of the conversation. Was she… not intending to blackmail me and turn me into her manservant on the threat of ruining my life?
It hadn’t been until we were both sitting down and eating distinctly red bean tasting ice cream that I realized this simple fact.
Hermione Granger was just an eleven year old muggleborn girl and not a horrible witch hell bent on ruining my life.
“You never said what your name was.”
I was too put out from my initial theories all being false to attempt to craft an elaborate conspiracy as to her desire to learn my identity, so I flippantly answered the question.
“I’m nobody special. Charlus Potter, at your service.”
It was presumptuous of me to presume she automatically knew how to spell my name based solely on hearing it- what if my accent caused the ‘-er’ to register as an ‘-ah’ would be something I could think, but it was my understanding that by this point, everyone knew my name.
“Oh, well, it’s nice to meet you… Charlus.”
She stumbled slightly on the remarkably formal first name for a boy my age (in spite of her own incredibly odd first name), but she didn’t skip a beat after that, enjoying her ice cream while eyeing her bag of books. I eyed it as well, curious since it went far and above the required reading list I had received this morning.
I had to wonder what a girl of her disposition was doing with An Alchemist’s Cookbook: From Eternity To The End Of but I supposed it wasn’t my place to question a girl’s interests, even if they proved to be bordering on the realm of terroristic activities.
“I suppose you want to ask why I kept dragging you along, huh?”
To be honest, the thought likely crossed my mind while I was being dragged along, but I think I wasn’t in the state of mind to properly confront that concept without leaping to the most absurd of conclusions.
“It never crossed my mind, no.”
As she finished her ice cream, my eyes honed in on her features. The buck teeth jutting out with each lick, the bits of sugary frozen milk getting stuck to her frizzy hair, the pinches of fat still in her cheeks that I’m sure an overly fond aunt loved grabbing. No matter how I looked at it, this girl with an incredibly odd name was astoundingly mundane.
“Truthfully, I just wanted… someone to help me carry all those books.”
The gap between words didn’t go unnoticed by myself, though I assumed in spite of her current disposition regarding said pile of books, she simply wasn’t verbose enough to form the sentence. We were eleven years-old afterall.
“Oh, well, I didn’t mind.”
Truthfully, my arms were exhausted and even now, holding this delicious frozen treat was a taxing effort that made me realize my attempts at appearing flippant and someone not to be paid attention to didn’t so much as increase my intensity as it did increase my own perception of my pathetic nature.
“So, are you starting Hogwarts this year as well, Charlus?”
“Yeah, it’s my first year as well. I just need to do a bit more shopping and then I'll be ready I suppose.”
An odd element to this conversation had been rearing its head for a while, but this question made me quick to realize what that odd element was.
“Say, you don’t know who I am, do you?”
“No..? Should I have? I don’t think I’ve seen you before today- and I have quite the good memory I’ll have you know.”
Hermione had the beginnings of an embarrassed blush on her cheeks, something I registered as a bad misstep in the conversation at this point, but also a sign of my current reality.
Here I was, dressed up in indistinct clothes with my hair down, all so I could end up locked in awkward moments with someone who didn’t even know who I was.
Does it sound like I have the beginnings of a complex?
“Oh, no, it’s just I… thought you looked a bit familiar, though I guess I could be wrong.”
I didn’t try to lie, but sometimes it came naturally despite my horrific ability at it. Hermione didn’t seem none the wiser to my illicit actions though.
“Oh, anyways, I’ve just been simply fascinated by this world- to think, this entire other side to everything we know has always been there, just under our noses, and I had to grab a book on everything I could find. It’s a shame wizards haven’t created an encyclopedia yet, I could’ve bought one of those instead of all of these- though I guess it would’ve been just as big if not moreso. Did you know that Flourish and Blotts has a discount on history books right now and a markup on school books? They thought us children wouldn’t want to learn the history of this world, and that sounds absurd to me personally, that there’s an entire rich unseen history that has been happening concurrent to our own, and they believe that there would be people not as interested in those! History was always one of my favourite classes next to science, maths, English of course, and I didn’t really enjoy music but I enjoyed the theory elements of it, and it was-”
The girl sure knew how to talk.
I did my best to nod and sound interested as Hermione rattled off various parts of muggle history and their significance and how the presence of wizards could completely change the understanding of them. I didn’t quite understand it, but her radiating passion made up for my lack of understanding I supposed.
“-and I got one book in particular, The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, can you believe this, it’s like the wizarding equivalent to our own world wars, and your second world war only ended relatively recently. We’ve been a post-war country for decades, but for all of you it hasn’t even been a single decade, truly fascinating.”
I recognized the book and not so much the rest of her rambling.
“Oh, would you mind if I looked at that book? I’ve been thinking about buying it.”
It astounded me that I could lie so often in a single conversation. The handed over book was exactly as I expected, a moving cover that shifted from the face of the first dark lord of the twentieth century, Grindelwald, to a silhouette of the second, a man very clearly You-Know-Who as he had been called since his initial rise to power some time before my own birth. I thanked Hermione and held a very vapid conversation with her as I made to do something I would never think to do- not until I had this current opportunity at least.
Opening the book, I hovered across the contents until reaching near the end, a passage titled On The Fall of You-Know-Who, and, while Hermione was significantly distracted in a passionate diatribe on the benefits of reading fiction with the same analytical one bestows to non-fiction, I clenched the offending pages with my fist under the table and tore. Painfully, slowly, the pages were released from the binding, and I made sure to keep nodding along to Hermione’s one-sided talking, until finally I felt the pages become released from the confines of the book, upon which I crumpled them into my hand and I let the book slam shut, placing it back into the girl’s overfilled bag.
“Maybe I’ll grab a copy next time I’m out here.”
My smile did its best to hide the annoyance I had at the statement. I had only seen over fifty arrive as gifts when it was first published two years ago. Presumptuous of the author to assume the dark arts of this century had fallen with a decade remaining, but I suppose it’s never too early to get the jump on a marketable book idea.
“Well… it looks like my parents are coming over here.”
Hermione sounded distant in that moment, as if she didn’t like the idea of departure, though my own mind was elsewhere, the crumpled pages warm in my fist, my thoughts too focused to notice her emotions projected onto this scene.
“Charlus, it was nice meeting you. Thanks for the help.”
Her smile wasn’t the prettiest. The dimples and teeth I had noticed earlier, and combined with her chubby cheeks, it gave the impression of a chipmunk caricature made human.
But I suppose, these imperfections are what connects the magical to the mundane.
“It was nice to meet you too, Hermione. Maybe I’ll see you at Hogwarts.”
Our departure was awkward, clearly neither of us had much familiarity with the conversational department, and I made off away from her with nary a backwards glance. I had been hoping to return to the castle using the floo at the leaky before it got clogged up by the noon rush finally leaving, but my departure was stifled by another presence.
“Hello.”
It was a soft, quiet voice, hard to hear in the rumble of a few dozen conversations happening in the cramped shopping alley, but I could tell it was directed to me. I didn’t have to look far to find it- just looking down caused me to be eye to eye with a blonde haired girl. Perhaps she was my age, perhaps a bit younger, but I could tell she radiated an unprecedented intensity.
“Uh, yeah, hello?”
“Hello.”
Wonderful conversation.
“I just need to get around you if that’s okay.”
“That’s fine Charlus.”
I had only realized after I had already arrived at the castle that she had said my name.