baby birds and other adventures
dirgewithoutmusic
Summary:
Harry did not know this and would not know this until Mrs. Granger mentioned it casually over a Christmas dinner years and years later-- but she and Mr. Granger reported the Dursleys for child abuse and neglect, over and over.
The reports got lost-- minds scrubbed down, papers vanished-- but they kept calling in reports. They considered kidnapping. They couldn't imagine why the wizarding world might want to keep their chosen one somewhere so toxic, why they might want to keep this underfed child and his messy hair with those people.
"My mother left me a blood protection spell," said Harry, whose scar had not ached in years. He poked at his mashed potatoes under the focused attention of Mrs. Granger's stern little forehead wrinkle. "I had to live with family, blood family."
"Then they should have made them treat you right," Mrs. Granger said, as though it was that simple.
Mr. Granger gave Harry another helping of peas.
Notes:
the-queen-sees-all asked "What if Harry and Hermione had met before Hogwarts?"
Work Text:
The first time Harry Potter met Hermione Granger, she was standing with her chin up and her hands on her hips a few paces from the old olive tree in the schoolyard, glaring into the far distance. The wind was trying to twist and buffet her hair into her face, but mostly it was just tangling cheerfully with itself.
Dudley and Piers were busy kicking all the other kids off the play structure, so Harry had retreated out into the grass. He stood a safe distance from the weird girl who was pretending to be a statue and thought wistfully of lunch.
"There's a fallen bird's nest," the girl said in a rapid and certain tumble of syllables. "The boys knocked it out of the tree, but I chased them off and I'm hoping the mama bird comes back. I'm Hermione Granger. We just moved here."
"Harry," he said.
"How'd you get that scar?" she said.
"Car accident."
"That's a weird scar for a car accident."
Harry shrugged. "It killed my parents."
She blinked quickly at him and even at that distance he wished vaguely that she wore glasses, too, because her gaze was something that really felt like it should have some built-in bluntedness. "Mine are dentists. Mum's taking me to the library after school, want to come?"
-
Before they went into Diagon Alley, Harry asked Hagrid if they could find a payphone. Hermione picked up on the first ring.
"Harry! Where have you been? I've been trying and trying to call--"
"Sorry, yeah. Um, so, I'm not coming back to school next year, I..." Harry drifted off, staring at Hagrid's massive moleskin shoulders. The giant man saw him looking and gave him a tentatively cheerful little wave. "It's been weird, Herm." He pressed his forehead into the phone stand, but not too hard. "I think you're the only thing I'm really going to miss."
"Harry," Hermione said and Harry started to frown, because that wasn't her stern and startled voice. That was the voice that meant she was off down a charging war path of other thought and might not have heard him at all. "I've been reading."
"Of course you've been reading," he said. "I've been being forcibly hidden from a swarm of post office owls--"
"You're in books," she said in breathless delight, squeaking over the telephone line. "First thing we did, of course, after the professor explained, was get her to escort us to a bookstore-- a whole bibliography, Harry, a whole world's bibliography I haven't even touched-- how am I ever going to--" She took in a little calming breath, and murmured, "Different infinities, it's okay, Hermione, okay." A sharp exhale and then she tumbled right back into her rushing rivelet of a sentence. "And I picked up a good dozen, besides the school books, of course, and Harry, you're in books, in Dark Wizardwork of This Century and A Modern Wizards' History and October's End: A Biography--"
