The Great Hogwarts Electricity Debate

"So, Hermione, who did you pash first? Ron or Harry?"

"Go away," Hermione said, but a smile was tugging at her lips. It was springtime and she and Seamus were sitting in the library, grinding away on the latest Potions essay. Well, Seamus was grinding away, she corrected herself with some satisfaction. She herself was sitting pretty at six inches over the length limit.

"Ah." A grin split Seamus's lips. "So it was Viktor then?" Hermione didn't reply. "Or perhaps it's that you're not interested in boys then? Is Ginny the lucky lady?"

Hermione finally put down her book and looked him in the eye. "You know, Seamus, one of the tell-tale signs of having no love life is an obsessive interest in those of others."

"If that was true then Colin Creevey would never be short of female company," Seamus retorted. "So it is Ginny then." Hermione rolled her eyes heavenwards. "That's why you don't have a lot of time for Dean. You're jealous. He stole your bird. I've got it, haven't I?"

"You couldn't be further off the mark if you tried," Hermione said. She stood and began to gather up her books. "And I have nothing against Dean. No, I don't have any time for him, but I have time for very few people at the moment. And so should you with NEWTs in less than two years time. Now I, unlike you, did not spend all weekend procrastinating so I have actually finished my essay. Goodnight, Seamus."

"Aw, c'mon," Seamus beseeched, but his eyes were twinkling in amusement. "Don't leave me lonely, Hermione."

"You mean, "Don't leave me to finish the essay by myself, Hermione"," she corrected. "Goodnight, Seamus."

She was still grinning when she left the warmth of the library, but once the memory of Seamus's company had faded from her brow creased in thoughtful silence. While her life was certainly not short of company, one of the disadvantages of having two males as her closest friends was that everyone assumed she was seeing at least one of them, which meant that she ended up seeing no one. Not that she particularly minded. Unlike Lavender and Parvati, she wasn't obsessed with everything in pants. But it would be nice if people didn't assume, that's all.

Viktor hadn't assumed. Their age gap, however, meant that romance opportunities had been limited. She had been only fifteen when she had met him but was wise enough to know the dangers of dating someone older and more experienced, and despite his celebrity status he was respectful and had not pushed things along in that area. Her appeal to him she understood well enough. In his line of business he wasn't often exposed to girls that had anything of substance to say, and she was much better versed in magical matters than mascara. Which wasn't to say she couldn't be pretty, she reminded herself fiercely. She had never forgotten the slack-jawed look on Malfoy's face when he had recognised her at the Quidditch Ball that night. It was just that she had better things to do with her time; that was all.

But now that she was older, she was beginning to question exactly what Viktor's appeal was to her. At fifteen that had been easy enough. He had been a nice change from the immature boys whose idea of expressing interest in her was spilling things over her during Potions, as Neville did, or worse, making fun of her front teeth. But even Neville had come a long way over the past two years, and so had she. And now that she was of age, Viktor was bound to expect more from her, both emotionally and physically. It wasn't that she didn't feel ready, but she had always thought that she'd find someone equally inexperienced and they would develop that aspect of their relationship together rather than finding herself playing the wrong role in a student-teacher scenario.

Another thing was that with Ron continuing his prefect duties and Harry with enough of his own problems completely unrelated to his role as Quidditch captain this year, she had found her social circle widening just a little. Seamus, she spent a lot more time with, and she found him a more amusing study buddy than Harry or Ron had been. Her experiences with Neville in the Ministry of Magic last June had also created a bond between them that had been previously non-existent. Not that their conversations centred on much other than Ginny, but she still appreciated the company. She just couldn't help but wonder if there was more out there.

The sound of footsteps broke her musings. She looked up and saw Padma Patil emerging from another hall. Padma was Parvati's twin, a Ravenclaw far more reasonable than her silly sister, and also a student with a Muggle mother. And therefore just what Hermione was looking for. She had sounded out enough of the Muggleborn students on her latest "lost cause," as Ron fondly referred to it, and it was time she starting approaching the half-bloods for their thoughts. Her hand scooting into the box she carried always under her arm, she started forward.

And felt her feet taken out from under her.

Hermione shrieked and felt her head snap back as she fell. There were many pinging sounds as the badges, free from their box, spun on the floor around her. A pair of hands grabbed her arms and hauled her to her feet. Whoever the person was, he couldn't have been anyone threatening because Padma, who had stopped at her scream, was continuing on to the library. She turned around.

Dean. Dean Thomas. Tall. West Ham fan. Muggleborn. Former DA member. Ginny's latest. Funny how you could spend over five years in the same house and attend the majority of your classes with someone, yet still know hardly anything about them. "Thank you," she said.

"You're welcome," he replied. He had released one of her arms so she could turn around and face him, but was still holding the other. For someone with such slender fingers - artist's hands, she remembered he was good at drawing - he had a strong grip. "I don't know how you missed seeing someone as tall - and as handsome - as me, but I'm sorry that I knocked you over." Hermione continued to stare blankly up at him. "Alright then, so maybe only the "tall" part is accurate."

"It's alright," she said, rubbing the back of her neck. "Nothing hurt but my pride." Truth was, her tailbone was throbbing something awful, but she wasn't about to let Dean know that. "And the "handsome" part is-" she remembered Ginny and hastily altered what she was unthinkingly about to say "-not inaccurate." To cover her confusion, she bent down to retrieve her things but a hand on her shoulder stopped her. She looked up at Dean.

"I'll do it," Dean said, and started to gather her books and badges back together. A couple of minutes later he had replaced all the badges but as he handed the box back to her, reached inside and pulled one out. "Is this your latest campaign?" Rather than snide, as Ron's tone would have been, his was lightly teasing.

"Yes," she said, regaining some of her businesslike demeanour. "It's SITEC. Students for the Incorporation of Technological Education into the Curriculum."

Dean raised one eyebrow at her. She had often bemoaned, but never before regretted this acutely, how she had been unable to come up with a decent acronym. "Technological education? Like computers and other stuff that our families use?" Hermione nodded. "But you can't use electrical appliances in Hogwarts. The magical currents in the air make them go completely haywire. You're not the only one who's read Hogwarts: A History, you know," he added with satisfaction at her expression.

"Yes, but I'm sure if a really good wizard put their mind to it, they could make Muggle appliances compatible with Hogwarts' magical pocket," Hermione said. "I mean, someone like Flitwick who knows what they're doing, or even Arthur Weasley - since education comes under the Ministry's responsibilities - if they could make it so that we could type up our work on laptops, imagine how much less work we'd have to do! I know that we're still in our sixth year, but it's never too early to start thinking about NEWTs. Do we really want to suffer the way we did during OWLs?"

Dean scratched his head. "Let me get this right," he began. "Hermione Granger, looking for a way to do less work? I think I just saw Crabbe and Goyle flying past. Get it? Crabbe and Goyle? Pigs?"

"I got it," Hermione told him.

"Ah yes. It was only Ginny who didn't get my jokes."

"I don't learn just anything that's shoved under my nose," Hermione said indignantly. Internally she wondered if the past tense in his last statement had been intentional, but firmly tucked the thought away. "I just want what students do with their time to be worthwhile. I don't believe in giving us a lot of busy work, which would be drastically reduced if we owned computers and could type up our work on those instead of having to rewrite everything whenever we get an assignment that requires more than one draft. What do students learn from that?"

"Not to make mistakes?" Dean suggested. Hermione cocked her head at him. "Joking," he said quickly.

"All I'm looking for," Hermione continued, "is an improved economy of time and students to be doing things that will help them in the future. I mean, I stopped taking Trelawney's class because I thought it was bad time economy. The same premise applies here. Not to mention that it's a great opportunity for us to give back to the school."

"Us?" Dean began to back away. "Hang on, I never said-"

"Not "us" as in SITEC members, silly," Hermione said. "You're not a member yet. I haven't even given you a form." In her fervour she missed how Dean had quickly tucked both hands behind his back. "I meant us. You and I. Muggleborn students. Don't get me wrong," she began hastily because Dean was beginning to frown, a rebuttal on his lips, "we have just as much right to be here as they do, but we're taking all the knowledge from their world and without sharing anything from ours. We're pillagers. Cultural rapists. This is something we can teach them. After all, isn't Muggle technology nothing more than a substitute for magic?"

"True," Dean ran his hand over his chin thoughtfully. "But I refute you."

Dean was the first person under the age of eighteen that she had come into contact with who used the word "refute." Other than herself, of course. She stared at him for a moment. Dean stared back. She unintentionally recalled a giggling Ginny recollection of what a good kisser Dean was and felt herself go hot. "Well?" she said.

"One," Dean began, "technology doesn't have a good track record with saving time for people." He was gearing up for a lecture. She could tell because she had done the same thing many times herself. "Sure, it saves time itself in that it takes less time to do each individual task, but it doesn't exist in a microcosm. When we can save time on something, we can do more. When they see that we're capable of doing more, they give us more to do. And then we're crushed for time until the next technology update wave comes along, and then once they figure out we're actually coping they give us more to do. So we're constantly being pushed back to square one."

"Dean," asked Hermione, "who are they?"

"Teachers. Parents. Public Officials. Anyone who's trying to make us give up some of our lives to aid theirs. Anyone who tries to exhibit some kind of control over it."

"You're beginning to sound like Luna. It's not a conspiracy." She rose a sceptical eyebrow at him.

"Isn't it?" he asked, stepping closer and bringing his eyes a little closer to hers. Her eyes widened at the intense expression at his. "I don't mean anything like Fudge breeding a Humperdink army or whatever the hell Luna was banging on about last year, but consider this for a moment. Do the government and schools serve us, or do we serve them?"

"They serve us," Hermione said, ignoring the small bite of doubt at the back of her mind. "We elect the government, and helping us to learn is a teacher's job."

"Is it really that simple?" Dean persisted, a small smile dancing on his lips. Nice lips, as she had noticed earlier, and rid herself of such thoughts with a mental shake of the head. "Was Umbridge helping us to learn with all she did last year? Was Cornelius Fudge serving the public by denying the return of Voldemort for months? I don't think so."

Hermione blinked. Harry was one of the few other people who could say Voldemort's name without flinching. Even Ron, despite his courage, almost had a hernia every time Harry named the darkest of wizards. Dean was made of sterner stuff than she had initially realised. Sure, he didn't appear outstanding academically, but neither did he seem to be struggling. And just because he didn't trumpet his good grades didn't mean he wasn't a capable wizard. He did okay in the DA classes Harry held last year, and for all she knew he could have been almost as talented as Harry, or - her. "You only gave one reason," she said.

"Two," Dean continued, cutting off her flow with a raised finger (a gesture she shared when in the midst of a debate), "do you really think it's worth trying to teach pureblood students how to find their way around computers? The likes of Malfoy already have enough ways at their disposal to harm Muggles without knowing how to hack into our organisational infrastructure. They could invent magical superviruses that would bankrupt industrialised nations, shut off power, disrupt the police force. If they could figure out a way to curse people via the internet, well, they'd be no stopping them, wouldn't there? They could be everywhere."

"I didn't mean teaching them about the internet," Hermione protested, anxious at the thought of Death Eaters being able to torture hapless Muggles with the Cruciatus curse through a modem. "Just how to word process, things like that."

"Which would then give them the ability to figure out how to use the internet just fine by themselves," Dean finished. "You know that argument some of the more elitist pureblood families make about keeping us out of the school because we don't know enough about the wizarding way of life to respect it? The same thing applies in reverse."

"But not every pureblood family is like the Malfoys," Hermione persisted. "What about the Macmillans, the Johnsons, the Weasleys-"

"The Weasleys are precisely what I'm talking about," Dean said triumphantly. "I mean, not Ron, the twins, or any of their other children - they're fine - but the parents. Arthur is fascinated by our lifestyle. He thinks Muggles are cute. Puppies are cute. Kittens are cute. You don't think people who are cute are equal to you, do you?"

"Wizards don't think we're beneath them," Hermione said. "You just don't know Mr Weasley like Harry and I do. I mean, sure they're curious about Muggles when they meet them, but we were the same way when we arrived here - well, I wasn't because I read all the books and knew how everything around the school worked anyway - but look at us. People think they're better than someone else because of the school they go to, where they grew up, what religion they practice - my point is that people think their way is the best way and their way of trying to help others is getting them to adopt their lifestyle. There's no better example of that in our history than colonisation." She remembered Dean's skin colour and blushed, wondering if that was the best example to use. Fortunately he did not seem offended. "That's not something that's exclusive to wizards, Dean," she continued. "That's human nature."

"And that's exactly what you're doing right now," Dean said.

The truth was so shocking but so thoroughly without doubt that Hermione could think of no way to refute it. She clamped her mouth shut and stared fixedly at a spot on the wall over Dean's shoulder. For all her mockery of Luna, at that moment she realised that there were more similarities than differences between her and the Ravenclaw. They were both stubborn and insensible to others' attempts to make them see differently and in some ways her causes were just as far-fetched as the fifth year's conspiracy theories. House elves did not want to be freed, and computers had no place at Hogwarts. "I guess I just get tired of always having to switch from one culture to the next," she said finally. "When I come here, I'm a witch, but when I go back home, it's like that life doesn't exist. At least that's how my parents seem to see it. They act as though because I'm in the Muggle world and I can't do magic in front of them because of the school rules, that nothing has changed. But it has. And here it's the same story. No one seems to want to know about me being Muggleborn. The purebloods are either discriminating against me or pretending that I'm the same as them."

Dean stared thoughtfully down at her. "Isn't that what you want though?" he asked. "To be recognised on merit alone and not have attention drawn to anything else?"

"Well, yes," Hermione began, then shook her head. "Yes and no. I don't want attention drawn to it in a negative way. When I found out I was a witch, a Muggleborn witch, that was the first time in my life that I've ever been discriminated against for what I am. Although I guess that's not the case for you," she added, and the black boy grinned ironically. "What I'm trying to say is that I just want some recognition that I'm different, and for them to respect that I'm not the same as them. That's what I was trying to do with the computers, I suppose, trying to bring some part of my world into this one."

"So that they're not so separate anymore?" Dean suggested.

Hermione nodded. "And I don't know which one is my world anymore. The Muggle one has my family in it, my past, but this one is what I am. I'm not a Muggle. I'm a witch. But I just wish I had something here that was a part of both of those worlds." Her eyes fell upon Dean and her eyes widened in sudden understanding and she stepped back a little. "Oh."

Dean was watching her with an unreadable expression. Prior to this she had known little about him, but one thing she did know was that he had a very expressive face. So for his face to be inexpressive to this extent could only mean that he was consciously trying to hide something. "How's Ginny?" she gulped. Dean's eyebrows rose. "I mean, she's awfully busy with Quidditch practice these days. I haven't seen her since-"

"You would have a better idea than me," Dean told her. "We broke up at last month."

Hermione's expression cleared. "I'm sorry," she said.

"Don't be," Dean said. "I'm not. And she can't be either. She's just started to see Blaise Zabini. He's alright as far as members of that house go," he assured her at the look on her face. "I mean, he's sly and puts himself first, but he's no worse than anyone else in that respect. And he has nothing against Muggleborns."

"But he's never been very polite to me," Hermione counteracted.

"He's never been polite to me either," Dean said. "But he doesn't like many people, for that matter." His mouth twitched. "You could say he discriminates against everyone equally, and therefore no one. Except Ginny, that is." Hermione laughed. "But I don't see why I should be standing here talking about Ginny, or be with Ginny, when there could be someone ten times better around the corner I could bump into." His expression turned serious. That word choice couldn't be deliberate. It just couldn't- "How's Viktor Krum these days, anyway?"

"Oh, things between us are dying out," Hermione said airily. After the owl she would send him the next available moment she would get, things between them would indeed be dead and six feet under. "I don't think we're right for each other."

"Does he agree?" Dean asked.

"No," Hermione shook her head.

"Too bad for him then, huh?"

"Yes," she agreed. "Too bad for Ginny too." But not for me, she added silently.

"Well, I'd better go to the library and help Seamus with his essay," Dean said reluctantly. A smile twitched at Hermione's lips; so he didn't take her completely for granted and had arranged backup. "But remember, you can come and talk to me whenever you miss home too much."

"Likewise," she said. "And thank you." The Muggle world and her family were her past, and therefore would always be a part of her. But it would be foolish to deny those abilities that had been exposed and developed during the last six years. Her future was at Hogwarts. She turned to watch Dean's departing back and smiled. Yes, her future was indeed at Hogwarts.

The End