Hermione's thoughts

Hermione was at a loss for words as the cold hard facts hit her on the face with all the subtlety of a bullet train.

There has never been a Muggleborn Minister in the history of Magical Britain.

There were no Muggleborn with a seat in the Wizengamot.

No Muggleborn ever sat on the seat of the Chief Warlock or the seat of Supreme Mugwump.

There were no Muggleborns who were Head of their Department in the Ministry.

In fact, there were no half bloods Head of Department either.

The highest position anyone who was not a Pureblood, had in the Ministry of Magic was the Senior Secretary of the Minister of magic and that woman by the name of Dolores Umbridge who was one of the most bigoted person to have ever existed as far as Hermione could tell since that woman had spearheaded several laws and regulations that put goblins, werewolves and centaurs in an even worse position than a 3rd class citizen according to the laws of the ministry.

She wondered how she could have been so blind that she had missed how messed up this whole society was.

Sure, Draco Malfoy, that pompous git had called her a mudblood in more than a few occasions and sure none of the teacher had ever punished him for that but that really didn't mean anything, did it.

It was all just a school level bullying, wasn't it.

She had hoped that he was just be one of those idiot boys who would bully her simply because she was smarter than them but that was apparently not the case here.

Apparently, blood purity was actually a thing, a real thing in this society. And by their standards, she was just a 2nd class citizen with far fewer rights then that of a pureblood.

She wondered how she had not seen the true colors of their society until now.

Had she been so blinded by the discovery of magic that she even forgot to check on how her new world worked.

Had she been lulled into a state of peace inside the safety of Hogwarts to such a degree that she utterly forgot that she would have to join the world outside once she departed from Hogwarts.

Did she even want to live in a society which actively discriminated against her and treated her like a 2nd class citizen based on something as stupid as her blood purity, which was all just a hoax as far as she could tell.

She wondered where she would be if Harry had not barged into her life and opened her eyes to the reality of the wizarding world.

She would probably still be that naive doe eyed child who thought that she would get any job she wants if she just studied hard enough.

But now that she knew.

The problem was that she had no idea what she was supposed to do with this new information.

She couldn't go back to the muggle world and live like a muggle. Not after she had seen the beauty of magic.

Well, she might still be able to go back to the muggle world and be able to the muggle world and join a new school and continue her life like nothing had ever happened.

But she knew that leaving behind and trying to forget about her magic would hurt her more than anything she had ever experienced in her life.

And now, for perhaps the first time in her life, she had no idea what she should do. For the first time in her life, she was well and truly lost.

But then another thought entered her mind as she realized that for the first time, she was not alone either.

Yes. Harry would know what to do considering how he was the one who opened her eyes in the first place.

He always knew what to do.

And she was glad that he was her first friend.

She removed the tears that had come to her eyes when she had realized how she had been lied to when she first entered this world. And by none other then Minerva Mcgonagall herself. A woman whom she respected to no end in the beginning, but a woman who was rapidly losing her respect lately.

Well, technically Minerva had not lied to them but not telling them about the Blood Purity and the war that took place about 10 years ago was wrong. She and her parents should have known about all of this before she entered the magical world.

If they did then maybe they would have thought more before deciding whether to send her to this new school or not.

Perhaps this was exactly why Minerva didn't told them about the dark side of this world.

If Minerva had told every parent the true state of their world then Hermione had no doubt in her mind that few parents would ever send their children to such a school.

A school where their children would be discriminated against because of stupid things like blood purity.

She shook her head from her thoughts and stood up in order to search for Harry and felt a small pride in the fact that she was probably the only person in the whole castle who would have been able to find him.

Whom he had honored with his friendship.

—————

She found him in one of the few abandoned rooms which he had taken for his own use.

For a moment she stopped and wondered why there were so many abandoned rooms in the school.

Was it possible that a lot more students attended classes in the past.

From what she'd heard, a lot of magical families were wiped out in the past two wizarding wars.

And from what she'd heard, a lot of subjects that were taught in the past had now been cancelled as well because of lack of students willing to learn those subjects.

She wondered how it would have felt like if the whole school was filled with students.

As of now, their whole 1st year class didn't even have a total of 60 students.

And that was the total amount of magical children in the whole Britain.

Was it possible that fewer and fewer magical children were being born every year or was the decline in students because of the numerous wars Britain had gone through in the past.

And that was when the good side won the wars.

She shuddered to think what would have happened if the blood purists had won the wars.

But then again, even though the so-called light side have won the past two wars, that didn't mean that the situation got much better for them.

It didn't matter who won the war. In the end, the purebloods still held all the power required to change the laws in order to give equality to muggleborns and the other races.

But why would they, when every law in existence are already in their favor.

She suddenly wondered what would happen in the future when she had her own kids.

Would she sent them to Hogwarts where they would be openly discriminated against only to graduate and join a magical society that's filled with even more discrimination.

She shook her head at that thought.

No wonder why so few students attended Hogwarts now a days.

She was starting to see why Harry did not like Albus-the-leader-of-the-light-Dumbledore that much.

She entered the room slowly in order to not distract Harry from his work and quietly closed the door before putting a few locking charm on it.

Then she attention went to the six 10 inch by 10 inch white plates with red colored ruins carved on it as Harry read instructions on some old tome before checking it with the tablets filled with runes again and again probably in order to find any kind of mistakes in it.

She had no idea that he knew anything about ancient runes but then again, she did not knew much about him at all.

And that was a rather sad thing considering that she was perhaps his only friend in the whole school as well. Well, except for his snake Selena whom he often talked with in Parseltongue.

"What are you doing?" she asked softly as she stood behind him and gazed at the tome he was holding up that showed runes similar to the ones that were carved on the six tablets.

He continued checking up the tablets for a minute before replying "Making sure that I've got the right thing and that I was not hoodwinked by the shopkeeper."

"Hoodwinked?" she asked curiously before her gaze fell back on the tablets once again all of which held a white stone embedded at their center.

She curiously tried to reach for the white stone but was stopped by Harry who held her wrist in a tight grip and gave her a reproachful look that made her feel like a child that'd been caught with his hands inside the cookie jar.

"That's a ward stone. They're not harmful but you should not play with them unless you know a bit more about them." He said as he fell back in a lecture mode "That thing is called a warding tablet and creates a specific kind of ward around a given area when activated."

She digested that information for a moment before asking curiously "What kind of wards do these ones create?"

"These are simple Fire and Explosion containing wards. These wards that are commonly used in magical houses and act as an advanced form of fire alarm system that are being used in the muggle banks and other such building nowadays."

"Though I would admit that most people don't have buy these Ward Tablets since most of the Ward Specialist they hire are fully capable of constructing such simple wards on their own."

"So why did you bought these Ward Tablets?" she asked.

"Because I can't really invite a Ward Specialist inside Hogwarts Grounds now can I?" he said and then with a wave of his arm, all the six Ward Tablets flew in the air and went on opposite directions.

Four went to the four walls while the other two went to the roof and the floor of the room and then at once, they merged into the wall with some kind of magic before the wall returned to it's original shape while she looked wide eyed at the spectacle in front of her.

Even after seeing Harry's command at wandless and wordless magic many times before, she sometimes still found it hard to believe that someone could have such a level of control over their magic.

But then again, he had been learning how to do it since the past four years so that explained a bit about his mastery over his magic though she still doubted if she would ever have such precise control over her own magic that she would stop relying on the wand waves and incantations as crutches.

Especially when after so many days of trying, she was still not able to move a paper by even an inch without using her wand.

And he made it all seem so easy.

She wondered how envious she would have felt if she still saw him as a fellow wizard and not a mentor, even though in truth, he was 10 months younger than her.

Thinking of him as a teacher helped with her envy because she really respected her teachers.

This was probably one of the few times when her blind worship of the authority figures actually helped her.

"There. All set." He said with a grin that she saw whenever he finished a job properly.

"Now I just need to make sure that the wards are working properly." He said and pointed his hand at a piece of paper before narrowing his eyes and in the very next moment, the whole paper ignited. The fire must have burned for a millisecond before a heavy pressure descended on the room and the fire was snuffed out before it could rise even a few inches.

Silence.

"It worked." Harry said with no small amount of enthusiasm and turned to her hungrily and she knew what he wanted and opened her arms before she was enveloped in a tight hug the very next second.

Ever since the first time she hugged Harry, he'd gotten kinda addicted to that feeling and asked for one every time he succeeded in something.

And considering how she never had any friends in her previous school and was attention starved herself, she never objected to those hugs that made her feel loved and wanted.

She supposed that in a sense, it was both lovely and sad at the same time.

Two children. One who was never able to make any friends. Another who was too wary of making any.

But such thoughts were for another time, for now she was simply going to enjoy his warmth for as long as he deigned to hug her.

"Mmm… You're so cozy." He murmured and she felt her cheeks redden.

"Harry." She chided and he gave her another chuckle before allowing her to leave his embrace, leaving her feeling a bit cold without is warm touch but feeling satisfied all the same.

He gave her another warm smile before he went back to experimenting with the wards once again.

At first he simply lit something on a fire and saw the reaction of the wards and she had to admit that they were pretty impressive.

Then he increased the level of fire in a steady pace and watched as the wards dumped down the fire time and time again until he increase the level once again and by the end of it, he was casting explosive curses left and right and each time the explosion was contained by the wards before it could scorch or damage anything too badly.

By the end of it, there was a huge smile of Harry's face and he looked thoroughly satisfied and then she was engulfed into another hug.

"That was awesome." He cried out and she wondered what he was talking about. Sure the wards were pretty impressive but why did he need them in the first place.

When she asked, he grinned at her and replied "Because I'm learning Ancient Runes on my on. And with no one to guide me, I'm pretty sure there will a lot of explosions going on around in here. So I bought these wards as protection."

"Usually only one tablet is used for a single home but I'm loaded and these tablets were not very expensive so I bought six of them for additional safety."

"I also bought a smaller tablet carved with runes that I will be wearing around my neck when practicing Ancient runes. It was much more expensive then these larger ones but it'll do it's job and keep me safe from any harm so it was totally worth it." He said with a smile that often made her realize how truly young he was.

And whenever she saw that carefree smile, he felt the urge to curse his abusive relatives that were the reason why only she, whom he trusted quite a bit, was able to see that carefree smile.

"That's good and all. But why didn't you ask the Ancient Runes Professor to teach you the subject in the first place?" she asked curiously though she instantly cursed herself for her line of thought as she saw his smile fade away and turn into a scowl.

"I did went to her in order to learn." He said with a forced smile "And she told me that she would not teach me until I brought a signed paper from all my teachers saying that I'm well above my peers in their subject."

"Oh…" she said and realized that Harry would never do such a thing.

Even in the small time she'd spent with him, she had come to learn that he was a very prideful person. A bit too extreme if anyone asked her. It was almost as if someone had once taken everything from him and the only thing that he had left was his pride which was probably why he guarded it with such zeal.

He would never discard his pride and go to the teachers and beg them to sign a paper for him. He was too prideful for that. Especially when there were teachers like Snape who were openly hostile toward him and would never sign that paper in the first place.

Not to mention that he would never even converse with Mcgonagall on his own accord after her head of house refused to punish her bullies in any shape or form.

So yes, she could understand why he would resort to such protective measures in order to learn Ancient Runes instead of learning it from the teacher who, in her mind, had no right to decline a student like Harry who respected knowledge more than anything else.

But maybe that was just her bias talking.

She sometimes suspected that the only reason why he even bothered to talk with her in the start was because she was the smartest girl in the class.

And he had even called her cute on multiple occasions though she failed to see why he would ever call her that.

No one, except her parents, had ever called her that. In fact, the boys in her last school were usually quite mean to her, calling her names like Beaverface and Bucktooth.

Not that the boys in this school were any better, calling her names like know-it-all and mudblood.

In the face of all that criticism, she found it hard to believe that someone would ever call her cute but at night when no one was watching her, she would smile to herself and admit that she rather liked it when he called her cute.

What girl wouldn't.

She felt rather lucky that she was Harry's friend and often wondered where she would be without his friendship and constant support.