Harry had once told Hermione that his mother had told him that he had a habit of making people face their truth. She had been right, because Harry had shown her more truth in a few days than she thought she would have faced in a year if she had never met him.

And one of the ones that struck her most deeply, was that the Magical World may not actually be very magical after all.

In her former school, a rumour had spread that one of the teachers, Ms. McArdle was a convicted murderess. Within a week, some parents had pulled their children out, and many others were threatening to sue the school if she wasn’t fired immediately.

Ms. McArdle had left, and it was only about a week later, when Hermione overheard her parents talking, that the girl learnt that Ms. McArdle had never even killed anyone; she had accidentally pushed her abusive husband down a flight of stairs. He had broken his neck and was crippled but was very much alive.

Ms. McArdle was never even convicted since it was an accident in self-defense, and yet she’d lost her job over it.

Professor Snape was a Death Eater, everyone important knew he was a Death Eater, and they let him teach at Hogwarts anyway.

They let him teach Harry. And Harry’s reasoning for why chilled her even more.

“An overwhelming majority of the powers that be in The Wizarding World are pure-bloods. And most purebloods, even the ones who don’t realise that they do, discriminate against muggles and muggleborns. And since most Death Eaters—except for the absolute worst, all of whom are now in Azkaban—saved the worst of their treatment for muggles and muggleborns, well... because I find it really hard to believe that Lucius Malfoy, or any other Death Eater, would have escaped Azkaban if even half the purebloods in the ministry had lost family to them like the Weasleys did.”

It was funny, really. When Hermione had first read about the war, it had been horrifying, yes, but in a distant way. The same way it was when she heard about wars being fought in distant countries.

Her mother had thanked God that all the people who would do something like that had faced justice. Because that was what the books had said. That the Death Eaters had lost when Harry slew their master, and they were summarily rounded up and punished for their crimes.

But they hadn’t been. They still walked around instead, free men and women, sitting in positions of power, while their master spent his days finding ways to come back to life.

Hermione almost sighed. Facing the truth was hard work.

*****

Sunday, Sept. 8

Sleeping in her bed when she knew Harry was perched in a corner of the common room, hiding, wasn’t easy.

In fact it was impossible, so at some point past midnight, Hermione snuck downstairs to keep him company.

She could tell that the boy appreciated it, but she could also see that he felt guilty about being the reason she was down here. And eventually, he made her promise to go up to her own bed if he went up to his.

Hermione didn’t really want to, she preferred being down here with him where she knew he was safe, and she most certainly did not want Harry anywhere near that man up in his dorms.

For a split, silly moment, Hermione wondered how her father would react if he found out that she was, technically speaking, planning to spend the night with a boy.

Both her parents had expressed some concern when they’d found out Hogwarts was a co-ed school, but her dad had certainly been more troubled by it.

Hermione imagined what the expression on his face would be like, and as she did she came to a realisation; she hadn’t written her parents since she came to Hogwarts.

She’d barely even thought about them in all that time.

It made sense, she supposed, her relationship with her parents had always been somewhat strained ever since she magically set the kitchen on fire when she was six.

Ever since, they’d adopted a hands-off approach with her, out of fear of setting her off.

This wasn’t even the longest she’d gone without seeing them. But it was the longest she’d gone without talking to them, so she asked Harry for a favour, “Harry, can I borrow Hedwig? I need to send a letter to my parents.”

Harry blinked, pausing in his packing up of his blanket. “Oh. Uh, Hedwig, can you help her out?” He asked the owl where she stood watching over them, and Hedwig let out a little hoot.

“Thank you, Hedwig,” Hermione said.

“This is the first letter you’ll be sending home, right?” Harry asked, and Hermione nodded. “Would have thought you would have written them sooner,” he said thoughtlessly as he stood with his folded blanket under his arm.

“I forgot,” Hermione said, then hesitated for a bit.

“We’re not very close,” she added finally, because if she couldn’t trust Harry with the truth, then who could she trust.

Harry looked genuinely surprised. “You’re not?”

Hermione was glad. Harry had told her that he knew very little about her personal life, because the books had provided virtually zero details on it. And she believed him. She did.

But she was still glad to see confirmation. To know that she would be the one to share her memories with her friend.

So she did. She told him all about how she had gotten angry that day over something she could barely remember, and fire had poured out of her mouth.

It hadn’t lasted long, barely even a second, but it had set the table alight all the same.

Her father had put it out before anything extreme happened, but it had been a defining moment; the moment when her parents could no longer ignore all the odd things that happened around her. The moment when her parents began to draw away.

Sometime while she told her story, they’d sat back down, and were cocooned in Harry’s blanket to keep out the cold.

It was nice and warm, and Hedwig’s glowing eyes were surprisingly comforting to see.

“I don’t think they like magic very much,” Hermione said. “I think it scares them. They were rather offended when Prof. McGonagall said I was a witch, you know. We’re Christians; Catholics.”

“Ah!” Harry intoned, and Hermione nodded.

“It was clear they weren’t very excited about it, but they agreed to send me here, because they thought it would be better if I was with my kind.”

Harry winced, then said, “well, that’s the problem then.”

“What?”

“Your parents, they have a biased view of magic. Think about it; first their daughter does a bunch of weird stuff they try to ignore, then she goes all Uchiha on them and almost burns down the house. And after that has been left to fester over a few years, McGonagall comes up and proclaims you the w-word. And I doubt finding out that the Magical World had its own little war where muggles were casualties helped a whole lot.”

Hermione thought about it, and realised that what Harry said made sense. And that realisation caused frustration. “But magic isn’t all bad,” she argued needlessly.

“No, it’s not. It’s beautiful and wonderful and amazing, but your parents don’t know that.” Then Harry smiled at her and Hermione just knew he had a plan. “And that’s why we’re going to show them.”

*****

“You have a camera?” Hermione asked the next morning when she met Harry in the common room, and the boy just rolled his eyes.

“I’m rich, Hermione. Of course I have a camera,” he said, and it was Hermione’s turn to roll her eyes.

It was a Polaroid, and Hermione was about to ask if it could take magical images when Harry raised it to his eye and said, “smile.”

The flash was bright and unexpected enough to make Hermione grimace and flinch.

“Harry, what did you do that for?” She complained, blinking the spots out of her vision.

The picture slid out with a whirr and Harry took one look at it before bursting into laughter and offering it to Hermione.

It was a magical photograph, and Hermione’s likeness in it was scowling fiercely at the camera, and would, every few seconds, shake her fist threateningly while screaming soundlessly.

What in the world?

“I told you to smile,” Harry said. “The enchantment on the camera uses your expression to base the loop’s behaviour. A smile gives you a happy, waving picture, and a frown gives you, well, that.”

Hermione scowled at Harry, then, faster than he could react, she snatched the camera from his hand, kicked him in the shin, and as he yelped in pain, took a picture.

It came out exactly how she’d hoped; in the picture, Harry held his shin in one hand, and was hopping on one foot while bawling his eyes out.

It was perfect.

Of course, such a blatant act of war could not go unanswered, and very soon, both tweens were locked in the age-old struggle of taking embarrassing pictures of each other.

The camera barely survived.

*****

Harry’s plan was simple; take a few nice images of Hermione and Hogwarts, and maybe even throw in one or two pictures of some magical creatures if they could.

Simple, elegant, and hopefully, effective.

It lasted as long as it took for the other first-years to hear about it.

Naturally, Lavender wanted pictures of her taken too, and Dean and Helen wanted to send pictures home too, since their families had never seen Hogwarts either. Neville asked if he could get a picture of the fireplace to send to his Gran, while Faye, when Harry had carelessly wondered aloud if Spirit would be up for some pictures, had sworn her undying vengeance on him if he didn’t take her to see the baby unicorn too.

And that was how, after almost three hours of posing and, for some reason, changing outfits, the Gryffindor first-years all trooped down to Hagrid’s hut.

The huge man was more than surprised to see them all, but when Harry asked if he could introduce everyone to the unicorns, he readily agreed.

Meeting Spirit again was wonderful. The little unicorn was just as spirited as always, and seemed even happier at the sight of more people to play with.

Unlike the last time they met Spirit however, she and her mother were not alone, instead they were with about a dozen other unicorns, three of who were foals like Spirit.

The older horses had been surprised at the presence of so many human children at first, but having Hagrid along really helped. He talked to the unicorns like they could understand him, and it actually seemed like they could, because after introducing the Gryffindors to the herd, the foals were allowed to play with them.

Hermione didn’t know which of them started it, but somewhere along the line, the Gryffindors began messing around with the Colour-Changing Charm, and very soon the little unicorns were blue, green, and purple, and the human children were all the colours of the rainbow.

It was a very good thing Hagrid turned out to know the General Counter-Spell.

Unicorns were not the only creatures they saw while in The Forbidden Forest, there were many others, but the most memorable was a hippogriff that Hagrid kept them from approaching and told them to bow at. It was big and fierce and rather scary, but, as impressive as it was, it could not compare to the centaurs.

Unlike what Hermione had thought, the human halves of centaurs didn’t look all that human. Their faces were noticeably equine, and their bodies were furry, well-muscled, and bare, even the one female among them. Hermione went red and averted her eyes, much like every other Gryffindor.

Well, the girls averted their eyes, the boys were trying, and failing, to.

Harry, Hermione noticed, didn’t look away.

She was about to chastise him for his indecency, when one of the three centaurs approached.

The hair on his head and chin was a red more fiery than even Ron’s, and the fur across his entire body, both human and horse, were different shades of the same. He was big, his every step seemed to radiate strength, and he was approaching Hermione and Harry.

Hermione caught the centaur’s eyes and she froze, unable to look away. Hagrid said something but she didn’t hear it, the Gryffindors around her shuffled backwards nervously but she didn’t even notice, all she knew were those endless eyes, like staring into the center of the universe itself.

In front of she and Harry now, the centaur stooped, leaning close enough that she could feel his breath on her face. It smelled of herbs and mysteries.

The centaur peered at her closely, then at Harry, at her once more and back again. He seemed... puzzled.

“Firenze,” the female centaur called, and the eyes that had entrapped her so much finally looked away, allowing Hermione to blink again.

“These things happen,” the female centaur said. “It is not our place to question.”

The centaur, Firenze, looked back at Hermione and Harry once more before pulling back.

He returned to his brethren, throwing one last glance at the two of them before walking off.

“Bloody hell,” Ron said.

“Yeah, that was... crazy,” Dean agreed. “I think I got goosebumps.”

“Do you guys know him?” Faye asked, and Hermione shook her head. “Then why’d he walk up to you like that?”

No one knew, not even Hagrid. No one but Hermione and Harry. Because what else could it be?

And if the centaurs could know, then who else could?

*****

The letter ended up much longer than she’d thought it would be. There were none of the... heavier topics, of course, just the little things; classes, a few teachers, etcetera.

The bulk of the letter ended up being commentary on the many pictures she was sending with it.

She really hoped this would work.

With the whole thing having snowballed so immensely, all the Gryffindor first-years, besides Harry, were now writing, and sending pictures, home.

Harry was writing too, but it was a letter to the editor of the Prophet, and when she asked him why, he said he wanted to send them some of the pictures from today. The ones that featured Hagrid.

Harry thought that Hagrid could use some good publicity, and Hermione, suspecting that it had something to do with his otherworldly knowledge, went along with it.

She randomly suggested Harry write an article to go with the pictures, and he agreed, as well as roped her into coauthoring it.

They called it The Gentle Giant of Hogwarts, and Hermione really hoped it wasn’t too terrible.

She’d written essays and such for school before, of course, but this was a piece they were sending for publication in an actual newspaper. She couldn’t help but be nervous.

She almost found herself wishing it would be rejected.

Hedwig carried both Hermione’s letter and Harry’s, and when the owl returned that same night, a few hours later, she had a reply from Hermione’s parents.

It was a short letter; her parents had loved and were awed by the pictures, and they were glad she was enjoying herself in school and making friends. Hermione cherished it, as well as the Polaroid of themselves they included.

Their article was in the Prophet the next morning, and when Hagrid read it, he burst into tears at the staff table and came over to crush them in a bone-creaking hug.

It was rather embarrassing, but Hermione didn’t really mind.