Rating:
PG
House:
The Dark Arts
Characters:
Hermione Granger
Genres:
General Action
Era:
Multiple Eras
Spoilers:
Philosopher's Stone Chamber of Secrets Prizoner of Azkaban Goblet of Fire Order of the Phoenix Quidditch Through the Ages Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Stats:
Published: 01/30/2005
Updated: 01/30/2005
Words: 1,437
Chapters: 1
Hits: 547

Dear You, Love Me

Kelsey Potter

Story Summary:
The summer before her third year, Hermione signed up for an inter-collegiate pen-pal program, then promptly forgot about it...until she received a letter from one Brynja Snorrisdotter. Taking place starting in the third year and moving on up.

Chapter 01

Posted:
01/30/2005
Hits:
547
Author's Note:
Dedicated to my friends Caterina, Ellie, Erin, Kayla, and Kelly Rae, all of whom served as inspiration for Brynja's friends.

Dear Hermione,

Hi! My name is Brynja, Brynja Runa Snorrisdotter. (Whew! That's a mouthful, huh?) It's pronounced BRIN-ya ROON-uh SNORE-eez-dot-ter. It's Scandinavian--Brynja means "armor" in Old Norse, Runa is the feminine form of "Rune", and Snorrisdotter literally means "daughter of Snorri", Snorri being an Ancient Scandinavian name meaning "attack, onslaught". My family came over from Scandinavia (you know, Sweden and Norway) and we still cling a bit to the Old Ways. (Dad always pronounces it like that--with the capital letters.) Anyway, I got your name through that inter-collegiate pen-pal program thing--my Wizarding Relations class is doing it as a project, and I drew your name.

So, anyway...like I said, my name is Brynja. I'm thirteen years old--like you, I think your form said--or very nearly. My birthday is October eighth. I'm an eighth grader at The Williams School in Norfolk, Virginia--it's a private school. I'm also an eighth grader at Hampton Roads Nightshade Academy of Magic. I don't know how much you know about Hernam--that's what we call it anyway--so I'll do my best. Here in Virginia, a lot of the people are Navy folks, which means they move around a lot. If you send them to a boarding school, they have to keep attending despite the moves, and traveling can get kind of expensive. So, someone got the brilliant idea of having a kind of public school, like the Muggle school systems. However, there was the problem of location--Hampton Roads is a large area--and the only place the founders could find to have the school was in use during the day. All looked lost--until they decided to make it a night school. Because a) it's a night school and b) the older you get, the more you have to do after school (regular school, I mean), we actually start the school in kindergarten or first grade. I started in kindergarten, which means I've been attending for nine years. It all depends on when you're reading. Really, I could have started back in preschool. Not to brag or anything, but I was reading by the time I was about two.

On to the mundane. Do you have any siblings? What about pets? I have a little brother, Jerker. In English, that's Erik, but in Swedish it's either Jerker or Jerk. (The J is pronounced like a Y, unless I'm really annoyed with him.) Jerk is eleven. I also have a dog, Max, who's half-beagle and half-basset. My parents are looking for a companion for him. I used to have a cat--two, actually--first Shadow, then Smoky. We gave Shadow away because my mother thought six was too young for me to have a pet. Smoky broke her back and died.

Classes are a safe subject, right? At Williams we have your basic core classes--English, Social Studies, Earth Science, Algebra I--and then French, Music, Art, PE, and the option of Band. I take Band--I've taken it since fourth grade, when the option became available. I play the flute--first chair (woo-hoo! Go me!)--and I own my own. It's an Armstrong, closed hole, secondhand. It's a pretty nice flute. Then at Hernam, our core classes are Transfiguration, Charms, Potions, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Wizarding Relations, and History of Magic. Then we have several optional classes, starting in sixth grade: Care of Magical Creatures, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Astronomy, Magical Arts (like using music or art in magic), Divination, and Herbology. Besides the core classes, I take Ancient Runes, Magical Arts, and Arithmancy. I'd've taken Care of Magical Creatures, except that my best friend talked me out of it; I'm a total failure when it comes to plants--I just kill them. I see no point in Divination. What good is it to know what's going to come? We can't change it--we might wind up causing it ourselves--and all we'll do is live in constant fear, waiting for whatever we predicted to come true. What about you? What classes do you take?

What are your hobbies? I like reading, writing, Forensics (that's public speaking, not digging up dead bodies), a little drawing (I'm no good at it), and riding my bicycle. Do you have a lot of friends? I have a few: my best friend Chrysanthe Crass (she's Greek), Elissa Hayes (Elissa's short for Elizabeth), Eireann Bacume, Kali Robertson, Callie Raye Analle, and a few other friends here and there. I'm not very social. Most of my friends are my books.

I just have a couple more nosy questions, and then I'm done, I promise. How do you pronounce your name? Are you a boy or a girl? What do your parents do? My dad's in the Navy and my mom teaches preschool. Do you have anything you sleep with at night? I have this stuffed cat, a white one that purrs when you move it, that I've slept with since I was seven.

Anyway, that's it. I can't think of anything else right now, so I'll sign off. Please WBS (that means Write Back Soon)!

Love,

Brynja

~~~

Dear Brynja,

Hello. I'm Hermione Granger. I was pleased to get your letter, and I'd love to have a pen pal. My full name is Hermione Jane Granger. Hermione is an English name, said to be the daughter of Helen of Troy; Shakespeare used the name in A Winter's Tale as the name of his queen. It's derived from "Hermes", which means "cairn, pile of stones" in Greek. Jane is the feminine form of John, which means "Yahweh (God) is gracious". Granger means "one who ran a large farm or Grange". Kind of boring, I guess.

Like you, I'm thirteen. However, my birthday is a little before yours--September nineteenth. I'm a third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I don't go to Muggle school anymore--as you pointed out, Hogwarts is a boarding school. I can't really give you much history on the school, as I'm sure you already know it. I didn't know any of that stuff about HRNAM, and I don't admit that sort of thing easily. I also started reading at an early age.

I don't have any siblings--I'm an only child--but I do have a pet, for the first time in my life. I have a cat, a ginger tom. His name is Crookshanks. Poor thing, the witch at the shop said he'd been there for ages, no one wanted him. I love cats--always have--but I've never had one of my own, so this is a big deal for me. I'm very pleased. I'm sorry about the loss of your cats.

Our core classes here at Hogwarts are Transfiguration, Charms, Potions, History of Magic, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, and Astronomy. Starting our third year--this year--we can take electives: Divination, Muggle Studies, Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, and Care of Magical Creatures. I'm taking all of them, even though I'm Muggle-born--I think it'll be so fascinating to study them from the wizarding point of view. (And that'll be an easy class to take!) My Transfiguration professor says that Divination is a load of rubbish--very imprecise--but I'd like to try it for myself before forming an opinion one way or the other.

I like reading, too. I'm not a very big writer, though, and I've never done Forensics. I can't draw to save my life, and I'm not athletic enough to bicycle. Besides reading, I mostly study--or pull my best friends out of scrapes. I don't have a lot of friends either, but I do have two best friends, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. I met them on the train our first day at Hogwarts, but I really didn't get to know them until Halloween that year. They saved me from a mountain troll. I got them out of trouble for it. We've been friends ever since. I'm glad--those two have needed me to save their necks more than once. I get along pretty well with Ron's sister Ginny, as well as the other two girls in my year--Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown--but I think I'm even less social than you are, because that's just about it for my friends.

My name is pronounced Her-my-oh-nee. As you might have guessed by now, I'm a girl. My parents are dentists (I know, I know, it's fairly boring, but bear with me.) I actually don't sleep with anything anymore, unless you count Crookshanks. And if you want to know something exciting about me, my last name was almost Puckle--my mother was engaged to a Marvin Puckle, but broke it off because she found out he was courting two other women.

Nice to write, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Love,

Hermione.