These Strange Familiar Things

Prologue

Awkward Expressions

Thump. Clutter. Bang. "Shit!"

It was the profanity bellowed at the top of her father's lungs that jarred her into sudden, shocked wakefulness.

That couldn't be her reserved, proper father. She groaned at the thought of leaving the luxurious warmth of her bed on a summer morning, but also knew that her voracious curiosity would never let her go back to sleep now. It was a fearsome beast when roused, Hermione Granger's curiosity, even at the age of eleven. She sighed, stretched, and pushed back the sheets grumpily, swinging her feet down and padding into the bathroom.

She may have been dying to find out what the commotion was about, but some morning rituals were just too important to miss. Like brushing her hair. Hermione looked in the mirror and shuddered. She had braided her unruly hair before bed, as usual, and it had come out during the night, as usual; it was now a cross between a frizzy brown haystack and a bird's--no, an eagle's nest. It was particularly grotesque today, she noted with a raised eyebrow. Combing the bushy mass into a semblance of order, Hermione brushed her teeth (something which as the child of dentists she knew she would likely be whipped for skipping), and took the stairs down two at a time.

She walked into utter pandemonium. Hermione took a step back involuntarily, her mouth open, as a large brown owl soared past her. It was circling the kitchen, clutching something in its talons, trying to elude Prentiss Granger's magazine-wielding arm as he swatted wildly. The owl hooted madly, acting almost as if it had some sort of important right to be in the Grangers' kitchen, great wings beating, feathers flying.

It was really quite a beautiful creature, Hermione reflected irrelevantly.

Agatha Granger sat in a corner with a bemused expression, watching her husband incompetently chase the bird. Hermione realized what the clattering and banging had been about when her father, looking up at his quarry, banged his knee against a wooden chair. She winced.

"Goddamn it to bloody hell!"

...It also explained the swearing.

Hermione stared in disbelief at the tableau for a few moments, then regained her senses, mind whirring. Something was definitely off about the ridiculous comedy rip-off being played out before her (apart from the obvious, of course). She realized with a start what it was, simple really. She should have noticed at once.

"Dad! Dad, stop," she called, trying to get his attention. The man had insanely good concentration skills. Her mother was still sitting in a chair out of the way, watching the scene unfold as if riveted. She had an odd look on her face, not surprise, but something else...resignation? Regret? Hermione couldn't put her finger on it.

She turned back to her father, who was now standing on a chair and reaching dangerously towards the ceiling fan, where the owl sat giving him an affronted glare. "Dad?" Shaking her head, Hermione went and grabbed his flailing arm, steadying his precarious balance as well as forcing him to recognize her presence. He looked down at her distractedly.

"Yes dear," he muttered.

"Dad, stop chasing the owl," she said firmly. At his look, she added a pathetic sounding "please, Daddy". He lowered his arm and gazed at her, an unspoken question on his harried visage.

We have the same eyes, Hermione thought absently.

"Dad, don't you notice something about this owl? Something strange?"

He exhaled and sat down hard at the table, lifting his head with an incredulous look at his daughter. "Other than the fact that it appeared out of nowhere, unexplainably came down our closed chimney, and is hanging on for dear life to a piece of yellowish paper?" He rolled his eyes. "So tell me."

"Owls are nocturnal. What is this owl doing fully alert during the day? It's a complete reversal of its natural schedule."

Prentiss stared as he processed his daughter's words. The owl, who had been preening its ruffled feathers with an injured air, eyed him warily, flew over to Hermione and dropped its burden on her lap, and flew out through the chimney in the drawing room.

Hermione gaped.

She looked down at the package on her lap. It was a letter. And it was addressed to her. She opened it to find loopy writing on...parchment? But that small surprise was nothing compared to the shocks to come. If she only knew.

We are extremely pleased to inform you that you have been

accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...

The next few hours were a confused muddle of disbelief, wonder and excitement. Her father was absolutely floored by the sudden existence of a magical world, and walked around the house with wide, permanently startled eyes. Hermione saw with some surprise that her mother, contrary to her excitable nature, accepted everything with calm reason, but again Hermione saw that odd look in her eyes, as if she was watching something happen that was bittersweet yet beyond her control.

Being eleven years old, however, and in the excitement of discovering for the first time an entire world of knowledge that she had never known existed, Hermione quickly forgot all about that brief puzzling glance into her mother's mind. She was much too excited about all the new books she was going to get to read.

She did not remember the awkward expression on her mother's face for a long time.

*

The muted clinking and scraping of silverware filled the silence. Meals were always silent for the three who shared this breakfast table, painfully proper, every pale hair in place on each pedigreed head. The kippers were tender, the raspberries ripe and flavourful, the clotted cream fresh. A snowy tablecloth was laid with gold-edged china and fine silver flatware. Diminutive, wide-eyed creatures scampered silently around, anticipating every move of the table's occupants.

The Malfoys were oblivious.

A house-elf scurried into the dining room with the morning's post, barely making it through the massive doors which swung back with enough force to send it flying across the highly polished floor of the foyer into the front door. It approached the haughty head of the household and said in a cringing little voice, wrinkled paw outstretched, "Your owl post, Master Malfoy."

Lucius Malfoy snatched the stack of sealed parchment without a glance at his snivelling house-elf. Putting aside the Daily Prophet he had been sneering delicately at, he rifled through his post with manicured fingers. Letter after letter was tossed into the pile of indifferent paperwork for his desk: reports from the Ministry, something from the Board of Governors, a formal complaint filed against him by some whinging Ministry clerk who claimed he had "acted inappropriately" around her (ungrateful bint, he thought with distaste, flinging it at the elf's head), another letter from that idiot Fudge--ah. There it was, in green ink.

Draco Malfoy

Dining Hall

Malfoy Mansion

Wiltshire, England

"Draco," he drawled smoothly without looking at his son, "your Hogwarts letter has arrived." The boy looked up, excitement colouring his features, turning him for a moment from a snotty, pinched-looking brat to a rather charming (if pale) child. Lucius slit open the envelope and read the brief letter from the Deputy headmistress, and unfolding the supply list, placed it by Narcissa's plate. "Take him to Diagon Alley, will you, and get his school things," he said with obvious boredom.

She didn't respond right away, and looking up Lucius saw that she was sharing a smile with Draco, a proud look in her eyes, and a reflection of the anticipation that shone so brightly in her son's. Lucius felt something dark and bitter at their private moment of connection, and his words came out in an icy rage which startled his wife and son.

"There is no need to act as if the boy has done something to be proud of," he bit out. The other two occupants of the table stared at him, Draco looking as if he had been struck. "You must stop coddling him, Narcissa. It is enough thanks that he didn't disgrace us by not getting into Hogwarts--den of idiotic Gryffindors though it may be, it is still the best Wizarding school in Europe. He glared at Draco, whose face was frozen in an expression halfway between anger and misery, looking as if he was itching to speak. "Something you wish to say to me, Draco?" Lucius asked his son, eyes flinty.

Draco swallowed, feeling very small and weak under that penetrating grey stare. Like stones were crushing him. "No," he mumbled in a low voice.

"What's that?" said Lucius sharply.

"No, Father," Draco said, louder. He blinked back tears he hoped desperately his father wouldn't see, cursing his own weakness. Father would never let him hear the end of it if he started crying now, for no reason. "May I be excused, please, Father?" Draco asked in as steady a voice as he could manage. He squirmed under the stare levelled at him.

"Very well," came the well-modulated answer. Draco got up, for once not caring that his chair scraped the floor in a horrendously ill-bred manner, and fled from the room. As the door swung shut behind him, he heard his father speaking to his mother.

"The boy is a pathetic excuse for a Malfoy. You've ruined him with your mollycoddling..."

He swallowed convulsively and walked faster, then broke into a run, his footsteps on the marble floors echoing in the cavernous halls of the Mansion. As he entered his bedchamber and closed the door behind him with relief, he wished he could have held it in his hands.

His first letter.