Chapter 30: Samhain Excitement

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31 October 1991, Hogwarts

The conversation flowed from there. And hours later, when Harry went to bed, he thought of the bushy-haired girl with fondness and realized that he had fun just talking with her about magic and their classes. What an odd turn of events.

After that fateful day, Harry and Hermione started a tentative friendship. They met practically every day in the library and spent a couple of hours discussing books and classes. Sometimes, they just stayed quiet, reading, and just enjoying their company in general. Harry found that the girl was strangely mature in some areas, yet absolutely childish in others. She was as hopeless as he was when it came to social situations, but unlike him, she was also almost desperate to please people.

The trick was to use logic against her when she's being stubborn. Hermione respected logic more than anything, which would have been a great thing in muggle school. He could easily see the girl becoming a famous surgeon or a researcher, but magic spat in the face of logic. Oh, she could memorize spells and magical laws, and she could probably succeed in her life, but as long as she keeps theorizing magic in a logical manner, she will never step out of the cage she built herself. She will only experience a fraction of what magic was, and that was a tragedy. Harry has tried many times to explain the symbolisms and chaos that magic represented, but she didn't even try to understand.

Still, Harry enjoyed her company and was starting to see her as much of a friend as Blaise, Tracy, and Daphne. He didn't even hang out less with his housemates because he only hung out with Hermione during his usual library time. And normal eleven-year-olds would do their best to avoid reading dusty old tomes for hours.

Although Harry did put his foot down with a few ground rules, such as no one knowing about their friendship, because of what might happen if the other Slytherins knew of them. But the girl didn't care as long as he didn't use her to get out of doing homework.

Harry woke up this morning feeling apprehensive. It was Samhain, or Halloween as it was being celebrated currently. The entire castle smelt of baked pumpkin and spices. Honestly, he wouldn't have minded if it wasn't for the fact that this was an insult to the original ceremonies. Magic goes into certain cycles depending on the seasons, and certain dates. Samhain is the day of the dead, where the veil between the living and their lost ones is at its thinnest. It's known as one of the most intimate ceremonies in the magical world, and Dumbledore's reforms had turned it into the muggle holiday about pumpkins and candy.

The sad thing was that most of the school didn't even realize it. Their parents were pushed towards celebrating Halloween, that they didn't even think of teaching the traditional holidays to their children. It was disgusting and the atmosphere in Slytherin reflected this as they sneered in disgust at the orange decorations and carved pumpkins. It was a direct insult to their heritage, and one of the biggest reasons muggleborns are discriminated against by the old families.

Thankfully, the first year Slytherins brightened up when Flitwick revealed that they would be learning the levitation charm. Making things float was one of the most basic skills any wizard needed, and it was a very common spell that everyone was excited about. As expected, Flitwick demonstrated the spell by levitating Perk's toad and the pile of books on his desk.

"Now, don't forget that nice wrist movement we've been practising!" squeaked Professor Flitwick, perched on top of his pile of books as usual. "Swish and flick, remember, swish and flick. And saying the magic words properly is very important, too -- never forget Wizard Baruffio, who said 's' instead of 'f' and found himself on the floor with a buffalo on his chest."

Harry's partner was Blaise, which was a nice break from being forced to partner with Hermione. The girl was nice and everything, but she always tried to admonish him whenever he tried to experiment.

Harry pointed his wand at the feather in front of him, "Wingardium Leviosa".

As he expected, the feather started to float up and down following the movement of his wand. It wasn't actually that difficult, and Harry had learnt this spell in his first week in Hogwarts. It was actually part of a family of spells, that dealt with the telekinetic movement of objects. Of course, the spell only worked by levitating the object up and down depending on where the wand pointed. It's not permanent and it can't go left or right. It was just that, a levitation spell.

Its sister charm, the Levioso charm was a spell that levitated an object for a selective amount of time – which depended on the power of the spell – making it easy to cast other spells at the object since it doesn't need to be constantly reapplied.

Harry did learn a lot of telekinetic spells from that family because of their usefulness, and had tried to craft a general telekinetic spell, but failed miserably at it. It was a long-term project anyway, but such a spell could be very powerful in both daily use and combat.

Blaise looked exasperated at him when he got it on his first try and tried to cast the spell again, which failed, to the frustration of the young boy.

No one seemed to have done the same, and Harry let his feather float down and looked at Blaise, "Make sure that you coordinate the spells and wand movements. And don't forget to picture the feather floating in your mind."

After a few tries, the boy's feather twitched and with the blinding smile he returned Harry had made it all worth it. Harry returned it, "Keep practising, it's how you'll get better."

The young Potter turned to see what was happening. All the students were glaring at their feathers while yelling the incantation. Seamus Finnigan, which had partnered with Longbottom, ended up somehow burning his feather, and the professor had run to stop the fire from spreading.

Next to them, was Ron Weasley that was partnering with Hermione. Both of them looked miserable. Weasley kept foundering about making nonsensical wand movements and mispronouncing the incantation. Honestly, that boy had a mismatched wand that was so worn down that the unicorn hair was slightly visible on the top. The boy had very little hope to succeed as a wizard by using a wand like that. And it was proof of the Weasley family's favouritism of his older siblings that they gave Percy a new owl and robes for being a prefect and didn't even give Ron a proper wand to learn magic.

The boy was practically shouting in Hermione's ear, "Wingardium Leviosa!"

The girl seemed to snap at his spitting, "You're saying it wrong. It's Wing-gar-dium Levi-o-sa, make the 'gar' nice and long."

"You do it, then, if you're so clever," Ron snarled.

Hermione rolled up the sleeves of her gown, flicked her wand, and said, "Wingardium Leviosa!"

Her feather rose off the desk and hovered about four feet above their heads.

"Oh, well done!" cried Professor Flitwick, clapping. "Everyone see here, Miss Granger's done it!"

She turned and gave Ron a smug smile and he glowered at her. Longbottom sent a stinging jinx at her back when the professor turned when Malfoy called for him. By the end of the classroom, Neville and Weasley were still very angry.

The redhead loudly complained, "It's no wonder no one can stand her, she's a nightmare, honestly."

Longbottom burst into laughter at that remark, which made the rest of the first year Gryffindor follow his lead. Of course, Hermione had heard him, and she ran away with tears visible in her eyes.

Harry looked at his friends, "I'm going to the bathroom. Save me a seat in McGonagall's class."

They nodded and walked to the transfiguration classroom, while Harry followed his crying friends to the girls' bathroom. She was sitting on the floor sobbing her eyes out. He cleared his throat making the girl stiffen, then relax when she saw him, "What are you doing here, Harry? This is the girls' bathroom."

"I'm checking in on you, silly. I have to say that you don't look good."

The girl snorted, "Yeah. I guess I don't."

"Come on. You can't say that Weasley of all people made you cry. The only people I know that are dumber than him are Crabbe and Goyle."

"But he's right," Hermione protested, "No one likes me. I don't have any friends, and everyone laughed at the joke. I thought that it would be different here, that I wouldn't be as lonely as I was in the muggle world."

"Magic or not, humans are humans. Magical children are just as dumb as muggle ones. And come on, I like you well enough, and we already said that we're friends." Harry said, trying to console her.

"Look Harry, it's not the same and you know it. Sure, we talk a bit every day, but we don't hang out. I'm a Gryffindor and you're a Slytherin. For Merlin's sake, Harry, you don't even want people to know that we're friends. You're my friend, and I'm happy about it, but I'm still lonely."

Harry struggled to answer that. He couldn't really say that he was enough since he really only talks to her a few hours a day about schoolwork. Oh, they liked each other well enough, but the house rivalry was a big wall stopping their relationship from progressing any further than study buddies.

The young Potter deflated, "I see your point, and it's not impossible for you to not have any friends, they don't have to be from your house. Try befriending the Ravenclaws, they're nice enough, and I know that Padma Patil is a lot more interesting than her sister."

Yeah, Harry did talk to the girl a few times. He was curious about how magic in India worked and was disappointed to see that it was somewhat similar. Apparently, the colonization of the country happened in the magical world and muggle one as well, and the Indians adopted the British magical ways. She did mention that there were a few tribes and monasteries that still practised the 'Old Ways', whatever that meant.

Hermione seemed to brighten up slightly, "I guess I could. I never really talked to them before."

"Now, come on, we're going to miss Transfiguration if we stay here."

"I don't feel like going, to be honest," the Gryffindor protested.

Harry didn't know what to say to tell her to come to the feast. According to the stories, she would be attacked by a troll during the feast, but he couldn't guarantee that Longbottom and Weasley would be able to save her, or if they would even try to go after her in the first place.

"You sure you don't want to come?" Harry asked.

The girl nodded, "Yeah, there's some thinking I want to do."

The Slytherin nodded solemnly and went to Transfiguration class. He didn't even pay attention during the class, distracted by what might happen to his friend. Hermione didn't turn up, and Harry didn't see her all afternoon.

When evening came, Harry went to the great hall with his friends. Of course, Dumbledore seemed to want to go all out when insulting every traditionalist in the school with countless decorations and animated monsters.

Yet, Harry was still worried for his friend and the danger she might be in. Fortunately, Harry relaxed when he saw that Professor Quirrell was sitting on the high table talking enthusiastically with Professor Sprout. Perhaps, the man wouldn't be releasing a troll in the castle, and Hermione would be safe. The stories were somewhat unreliable after all.

Of course, that hope was dashed when Harry saw Filch, the caretaker, slam open the hall doors and sprint into the hall with an expression of terror on his face, "Troll – in the school grounds – thought you ought to know."

The man then sank to the floor in a dead faint and with him any hope he had that Hermione would be safe.

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I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.