Ordinary People

Things as they are---

Hermione Granger knew she was not beautiful. No one had ever told her this, of course, but she'd managed through the years to figure it out on her own.

Not that there was anything wrong with her, in particular, she supposed. Nothing out of the way. Now that she'd fixed her buck teeth.

She frowned at her reflection in the mirror, automatically straightening her collar. Oh well--she was actually about fifteen minutes early at the moment; she could afford a bit of shameless self-mockery. Hermione looked more closely at her reflection, wincing at the obvious bags under her eyes. They didn't help her a bit. Nor did their cause--she hadn't been sleeping well since she'd arrived at Hogwarts this term.

Of course, no one seemed to be in a particularly good mood. There was too much of an air of...anticipation.

It was unspoken. This was Harry Potter's seventh year. Voldemort's time for a final strike on Hogwarts. The final battle, as it were. No one mentioned it, but Hermione noted a definite subdued air in the student population. Even Draco Malfoy had been quiet for a change.

All the professors were on edge. Dumbledore was very nearly brisk with students and Snape downright poisonous. They moved in groups--rarely did you see a single professor out prowling the halls. And every student knew that being out after curfew meant at least a hundred points from their House. Past nine PM, you could hear a pin drop at the other end of the castle.

But it wasn't all seriousness--they were still children, after all, for all that they'd been asked to shoulder adult burdens. Lavender Brown wailed about her on again, off again relationship with Justin Finch-Fletchley to anyone who offered to commiserate with her, Ron Weasley showed up periodically in the common room armed to the teeth with Honeydukes' sweets and bottles of butterbeer, and even Harry laughed that morning in Potions when Blaise Zabini's cauldron exploded on Professor Snape and he literally sprouted daisies.

And in the middle of all this sat Hermione. Neither flesh nor fowl nor good red herring.

Her friends had been surprised when she hadn't made prefect and thus been overlooked for the Head Girl position, but Hermione herself knew better. Grades notwithstanding, she spent too much time in trouble to be asked to reprimand others for the same activities she herself indulged in. And recently, even her grades had taken a dip. Not noticeable to anyone save herself, but a dip was a dip.

About halfway during her fifth year, she'd realized she was nearing the end of what Hogwarts was going to teach her. It had saddened her at the time; after all, Hermione lived for knowledge. To know more and to be able to use that to help people--that was what she craved. She studied because she wanted to, no other reason. And some time during that year, she'd basically finished learning the Hogwarts curriculum. Two and a half years too early.

And so, Hermione's brain crying out for other knowledge, she'd turned to other subjects. Muggle ones, many of them--literature, both wizarding and Muggle, mathematics, physics, chemistry, history, even art. But she also continued to study vigorously in her magical subjects, particularly Potions and Transfiguration. She began reading the journals, learning what ideas were current and what ideas were groundbreaking.

Hermione also found herself shocked at how ignorant the wizards doing the publishing seemed to be. Wizards were so wrapped up in the application of magic, they'd never bothered with the theory of it. Through all of her vast research, Hermione couldn't find a single wizard or witch who had made an honest attempt at determining the origin of magic or even the mechanics of it.

So she delved deeper, the selfish drive to answer her own questions pushing her. Hermione slowly began integrating her Muggle education into her wizarding one, trying to think of magic in terms of biochemistry, in terms of physics, in terms of mathematics. Boldly, she'd begun to submit her ideas in paper form to various journals through anonymous owl post under the initials H.G. Right off the bat, Hermione realized that she would never be taken seriously as a sixteen year old witch just beginning her sixth year of training, so she took great care not to give away any hints as to her identity.

She had been greatly surprised when her first paper was accepted immediately for publication in a fairly prominent journal. A second and third followed in quick succession, and Hermione soon found herself engaged in written debates with some of the greatest wizard minds of her time. She received letters and queries by the handful, causing Harry and Ron to tease her mercilessly about secret admirers. She had, of course, not informed anyone of her moonlighting as a scholar of magical theory and had no plans to.

But yes--her schoolwork suffered slightly for it. She no longer cared much about her grades. How could she, when she was working on ideas so much more interesting? Why should she bother to remember the twenty-three uses of mandrake root when she was trying to pin down the exact origin of magical energy manifesting in a single individual?

If the professors noticed that their pet student was no longer scoring a hundred percent or higher on every exam, they chose not to comment on it to her. Besides, it wasn't as if she was failing. She was still consistently scoring above ninety percent and she knew that she could have gotten at least fourteen NEWTs in her sleep during her sixth year. Her OWLs, in fact, had been the highest the school had seen since Tom Riddle came through.

And so, Hermione's status as the Gryffindor Know-It-All had declined a bit. Her fellow students still pestered her for help on occasion, but she was just as likely any more to toss out the title of a book for them to read than to actually give them the answer they were looking for.

Even her rock-solid friendship with Harry and Ron was more faulty than it used to be. With Ron joining the Quidditch team their fifth year as Keeper, he and Harry had one more thing in common that she didn't share. They still palled around and kept up the pretense, but it was half-hearted at best. Hermione could barely keep her eyes open once they started on a Quidditch discussion, and neither boy hardly ever bothered to ask her what she was up to any more.

But she didn't blame them--Harry was justifiably worried about the upcoming battle and Ron...

Well, Ron was Ron. Big and cuddly and unconditionally loveable, but not generally the most perceptive Gryffindor in the pack. And any more, he was way too busy chasing after girls to pay much attention to anything else.

Hermione had once fancied that she had a slight crush on Ron, back during her fourth year. She'd been flattered that he'd gotten so angry about Viktor Krum, and she'd spent the entire summer convincing herself that she was in love with him.

And then her fifth year. As soon as Hermione set eyes on Ron in Diagon Alley for their annual meeting, she knew she had been lying to herself. Ron and Harry were more her brothers than anything else. Ron hadn't been jealous--he had been trying to protect her from getting hurt, just as he would have Ginny. She was no more in love with Ron than she was with Crookshanks. He and Harry were the closest people in her life--she felt more comfortable around them than anyone else.

Even her parents, and that hurt to admit.

But, truth be told, they'd always been a little unsettled by their odd daughter. She'd had so much trouble as a little girl because of her burgeoning magical abilities, and then she'd compounded it by going off to some strange school to learn more about such nonsense. Hermione knew that her parents were still hoping that she would come home, marry a nice boy from a well-to-do family, and start supplying them with grandchildren to spoil.

All of these thoughts brushed briefly through Hermione's mind as she stared at her reflection, taking in the relatively standard features of her face, the curly hair that still defied control even after countless haircuts and different hair-care products, and the utterly not special figure, neither helped nor hindered by her school uniform. Someone no one would even look twice at, and to date, someone no one ever had looked twice at.

Well, except for Viktor Krum. Briefly. Until he'd gotten back to Bulgaria and noticed the legions of girls following him around asking for autographs.

Hermione sighed and gathered up her textbooks, making her way slowly to the door. It had been nice to be noticed.

She made her way to the Potions classroom without incident and slipped into her usual seat beside Neville a full three minutes early for class.

"Not as early as usual, I see," Neville remarked to her with a slight grin.

She returned the grin. "I was caught up in my daydream of you," she said cheekily.

"You watch it, or I'll tell Ginny on you," he replied.

Hermione laughed. Neville Longbottom was perhaps the greatest surprise of her year. Somewhere between his fourth year and his seventh year, he'd turned from a timid, pudgy little boy into a tall, broad young man with nearly beautiful features and an easy smile. Of course, he was still terrified of Potions (more accurately, of Professor Snape), and so most of his self-confidence disappeared once he walked in that door, but outside of that arena, he was one of the most well respected prefects on the grounds.

And of course the perfect picture was completed with the perfect girlfriend, Hermione thought without rancor. Ginny Weasley had blossomed into a kind, sweet, absolutely beautiful young woman, and she and Neville were wonderful together. Not even Ron complained about his baby sister and her boyfriend.

But her thoughts were interrupted as Professor Snape billowed into the classroom, a glare permanently fixed on his face since they'd set foot on the grounds in September. Not even Draco Malfoy tried to test his patience these days.

Hermione had it from Harry, who was allowed to attend the meetings of the Order of the Phoenix, that Snape'd had a very difficult time proving his loyalty to Voldemort when he returned three years ago, and lately his motives had been questioned again.

Certainly Snape looked as sleep-deprived as any of them, and Hermione absently noticed that he often winced as he sat down or moved quickly. She supposed that being tortured nearly nightly and playing spy against the most evil man alive would tend to put one in a bad mood.

"We will begin NEWT revisions today," Snape said softly and without preamble "The Potions NEWT is a practical one and covers all seven years of your coursework. You will, of course, continue to study the more complex brews in an outside effort--I will assign weekly essays on these brews. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately for you, most of these potions require too much time to be brewed in a classroom setting. Although I consider each of these essays to be testable material, so do not be surprised if one or more show up on your midterms or even on some of your NEWTs." Here he looked at Neville, who swallowed loudly. "Today you will brew the Swelling Solution you made during your second year without the benefit of a textbook. Each piece of information that you must look up will cost you five percent of today's grade. Now, get started!" he barked.

Neville jumped in his chair.

"Relax, Neville," Hermione muttered. "This is an easy one. You just dump everything in the cauldron and let it boil for an hour. Remember?"

"I...I think so," Neville stammered.

"Granger!" Snape snapped from behind them, causing both Neville and Hermione to jump. "Recall that you will not be permitted to give Longbottom instructions during his NEWTs and behave in kind. Ten points from Gryffindor."

"Yes, sir," Hermione mumbled, feeling her cheeks redden. She automatically gathered together the ingredients she needed and began chopping, shredding, and skinning.

Fifteen minutes later, she had a happily bubbling cauldron full of what would be Swelling Solution in an hour. Adjusting the burner so that it would not boil over, Hermione surreptiously pulled out a notebook containing some equations she'd been puzzling through the night before and began reworking them. She also tried to keep an eye on Neville so that she could intervene if he worked himself into the middle of a complete disaster. So far, he seemed to be doing all right, although he'd needed to check his book once to verify some ingredients.

The classroom was fairly quiet. Snape stalked from table to table, examining potions, deducting points here and there. Hermione was so absorbed in her work that she barely noticed him beside her, criticizing the consistency of Neville's potion (although thankfully not the color). She did, however, notice him when he came to a halt at her table.

"Miss Granger..." he practically hissed.

"Sir?" Hermione dragged her eyes from her work with no small degree of effort.

"What is this? Doing Arithmancy homework in my classroom? Twenty points from Gryffindor and put it away immediately." Snape's glare intensified.

Indignation welled in Hermione's breast. Her potion was fine, so what was it to him if she chose to do something else while she waited for it to finish? "It's not Arithmancy, sir," she said boldly.

He leaned in closer, eyes widening at her audacity. "I see equations, Miss Granger, and I believe the only subject those are required for is Arithmancy."

"No, sir, I am working out the Principle of Second Quantization," she told him, inwardly relishing the gasps of her classmates as she continued to talk back to Snape. "My potion only needs to simmer for thirty more minutes, and I did not trust my earlier figures and wanted to recheck them."

Second Quantization? she saw him mouth, losing the glare momentarily. But then it was back, deeper than before. "Detention, Miss Granger," he returned in an even tone. "And put that book away. I will not tell you a third time."

For a single moment, Hermione considered defiantly ignoring him, but in the end, her common sense won out and she grudgingly put the notebook back in her knapsack. She kept her head bent over her cauldron for the remainder of class, making sure her Swelling Solution was flawless and thinking of horrible things to do to Snape and mentally going through the equations she'd been working on.

She all but sauntered up to his desk after he dismissed the rest of the class. "I believe I have a detention to discuss, Professor?"

He nodded shortly. "Return to the classroom tonight at eight PM. I'm sure there will be plenty of cauldrons in want of a good scrubbing."

"Yes, sir," Hermione retorted with a frown, not trusting herself to say any more. She turned to leave, slinging her bag over her shoulder.

"Oh, and Miss Granger?" he called after her.

"Sir?" She turned to face him questioningly.

"Why are you working on graduate-level Muggle physics problems?" he asked.

Hermione started at the look on his face. He wasn't scowling (for once) and seemed genuinely curious. She permitted herself a cheeky grin. After all, she already had detention and points from Gryffindor had ceased to bother her years ago. "They're interesting. And I'm curious about the origins of magic from a more mechanical perspective," she said truthfully, forgetting for a moment just who she was talking to.

Snape's eyes showed his surprise. "Have you ever read the Magical Review Letters?"

"Periodically. Why?" Hermione wanted to laugh--actually, she'd published her second paper in MRL.

"There's an article in there. Six months old, by now. But I think you might find it of some interest. Apparently there's a wizard out there who has a similar curiosity. I can't remember the title, but the author's a fellow who goes by H.G. He's made quite a splash in the academic community lately."

"Thank you, sir," Hermione said, making a hasty exit from the classroom before she lost her composure. Her own work was being recommended to her by the most hated professor at Hogwarts, who had gone from snarling at her to genuinely interested in her. Bizarre.

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Severus Snape considered himself a difficult man to surprise. He paid too much attention to his surroundings to be genuinely taken back by much of anything.

He had early on consigned Miss Granger to annoying overachiever in his head. One of those poor children who overcompensated for their real lack of intelligence by showing off what knowledge they had and memorizing books and that sort of thing. Their goal in life was to be number one. But in general, their ambitions stopped there. A hundred percent on a test, valedictorian of their class, whatever they could achieve that did not require actual independent thought. Book learners. Hard workers.

It had never occurred to him that Miss Granger might actually be brilliant. In fact, when he'd taken note of her grade slips over the past two years, he'd simply assumed that she'd found her wall and could go no higher.

But today, when he saw her working on problems in Muggle physics that he hadn't ever seen before simply for her own benefit, he'd finally had to consider the possibility that Miss Granger might be a true intellectual. That maybe she hadn't read her way through the entire Hogwarts library (as reported by Madam Pince in Miss Granger's fifth year) because she felt the need to show her knowledge off to her classmates but because she'd genuinely wanted to understand the information contained in those books.

So her infamous OWL scores were not the product of a need to be the best. Rather, they came from the fact that Miss Granger might really be the best without a great deal of effort. And that would also explain why she hadn't groused over not making prefect. She knew as well as any of the professors why she hadn't been given the position and understood (and perhaps even agreed with) their decision.

Severus frowned. He was unaccustomed to having his entire view of an individual so radically altered.

Miss Granger might be worth teaching.

In fact, if his suspicions were correct, there was probably very little he could teach her any more. Twelve years of teaching rudimentary potions to idiot children rather dulled the intellect. He hadn't published a paper in more than five years, although he was currently working his way through H.G.'s theories, trying to come up with a decent rebuttal to them. There was something about H.G.'s logic that did not sit well with Severus--he just couldn't determine what. It was as if there was a next step that H.G. had not taken in his work that was numbingly obvious to Severus.

He had a sneaking suspicion that he did not have a good enough grasp on the Muggle sciences to formulate his thoughts properly. And he certainly wasn't going to expose his ignorance to one of the world's greatest minds. No--research first, then rebuttal.

Idly, Severus' mind drifted back to Miss Granger's physics dabblings. Maybe she could...

No! Severus immediately berated himself. What was he thinking? A Gryffindor and one of Harry Potter's best friends? No, he would put all of this nonsense out of his head and work the theories out himself. Miss Granger had admitted to being unfamiliar with the work of H.G.--she couldn't possibly be helpful.

Of course, he told himself right on the heels of that thought, if she had managed to come up with the same ideas as H.G. completely independently, she was even more brilliant than he secretly suspected.

No matter. She would serve her detention, he would antagonize her as usual, and he could push all thoughts of her out of his mind.

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"So, Hermione, what was all that in Potions today?" Harry asked his friend at supper that evening.

"I don't know what you mean," she replied testily.

Harry frowned. "Don't be stupid on purpose, Hermione. It doesn't suit you."

Shrugging, Hermione grabbed a roll from the basket and began to butter it. "I just didn't want Snape to think I was catching up on homework in his class."

"So what were you doing?" Harry prodded, taking a roll for himself.

"Like I said," Hermione replied. "I was reworking out the Second Quantization. I can't quite figure out how it's useful and none of my books explain it very clearly."

"See, Hermione, I don't know as many words as you, apparently," Harry said sarcastically, grinning at her. "I know you think you answered my question, but--"

"All right, all right," she cried. "I'm sorry. Look--it's just something I've been working on out of some Muggle physics textbooks."

"Muggle physics?" Harry echoed. "Why are you studying that?"

"It's interesting," Hermione said. "And besides, I really think that wizards could use some of the same constructs used in particle physics to investigate the nature of magic. I just need to learn more about the formalism to be completely sure. At first, I thought it might be biochemical, and I still do to some extent. I mean, how would we be able to manipulate the energy otherwise, if it wasn't wired into us genetically somehow?"

Harry threw his hands in the air. "You've lost me, Hermione!" he cried as soon as she paused to take a breath. "I'm sure it's all fascinating stuff, though," he said quickly as she glared at him. "I just don't see why it bothered Snape so much that you were working on it during class."

"I should be doing Potions in Potions class," Hermione reminded him. "That's all there is to it. And it bothers him to have a student talk back besides."

"When's your detention?"

"Tonight. In about twenty minutes, in fact," Hermione said, checking her watch.

"What's in twenty minutes?" Ron asked from Harry's left, suddenly deciding to join the conversation instead of staring longingly after some nameless sixth year Ravenclaw.

"My detention with Snape," she told him gloomily.

Ron gave her a compassionate look. "Well, good luck, love," he replied.

"Thanks. I'll need it. Actually, I should probably go ahead down to the dungeons--wouldn't want to be late." Exchanging one last look with her friends, Hermione gathered up her books and left the Great Hall, making her way back down to the Potions classroom.

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