What if Hermione ALSO lived on Privet Drive?
What if Hermione ALSO lived on Privet Drive?
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Voice Acting & Narration: Steven Waters @bobablackfly602
Writing: Myself, @nicholasmartin6526, @khuz377 , @WatashiNoKuraiTenshi, and @PathofDragonsRadio
What if Hermione Granger also lived on Privet Drive? Let's explore the depths of it in the video.
The summer Hermione Granger turns six, a removal lorry pulls up outside number five, Privet Drive. The day is hot and still. The Granger family steps out, suitcases in hand, and the curtains of number four twitch like clockwork.
Petunia Dursley appears within the hour, casserole in oven mitts, Vernon Dursley behind her in his Sunday tie. Appearances must be maintained on Privet Drive, and a new family represents an opportunity. The greeting is rehearsed and pleasant, the casserole still warm, the smiles fixed in place.
Mrs Granger thanks them. Mr Granger shakes Vernon's hand. Hermione hovers behind her mother's leg, already studying everything: the symmetrical hedges, the polished door knocker, the boy hiding behind Vernon Dursley's bulk.
Dudley Dursley, also six, sticks his tongue out at her.
Hermione narrows her eyes. She has met bullies before. This boy feels like a bully.
Then comes the warning. It is delivered in the kitchen, over biscuits, when Hermione has been sent to play in the garden with Dudley, who is currently torturing a beetle with a stick. Petunia leans in across the table and lowers her voice to the conspiratorial whisper of suburban gossip.
Petunia(confidential): There's something you ought to know. About my nephew.
Petunia(grave): He's troubled. Disturbed, really. We took him in out of charity when his parents died. Drug addicts, the both of them. Killed in a car crash. The boy has problems. Outbursts. Tantrums. We do what we can.
Vernon(adding weight): Best to keep your daughter clear of him. For her sake.
The Grangers exchange a look. They are dentists by trade and trust people by habit. They have no reason to suspect their new neighbours of inventing a slander against an orphaned child. They thank the Dursleys for the warning. That night, over dinner, they tell Hermione gently to play with Dudley if she likes, but to stay clear of the dark-haired boy at number four.
Hermione, who has already decided Dudley is a horror, says nothing. She nods at the warning, after all, her parents said it so it must be true.
Five years pass. Hermione grows into a clever, lonely child whose primary friends are library books. She sees the dark-haired boy through windows and across pavements. He is small and quiet and never seems to be wearing clothes that fit him. The warning stays with her. She keeps her distance, but she keeps watching.
The summer Hermione is eleven, two letters arrive on Privet Drive within a fortnight of one another. One slides through the brass slot at number five and trembles in Mrs Granger's hand. The other is shouted about, locked away, multiplied, and finally delivered by a giant in a tweed coat.
Hermione's parents take the news with dazed practicality. How could they not when their daughter is, in fact, magic? There is a quiet evening of tears and tea. Then Mrs Granger rises, wipes her eyes, and announces that there is research to be done.
By the end of the week, Hermione has read A History of Magic twice. She has annotated Hogwarts: A History. She has compiled a list of names and events that recur with frequency, and one name appears more often than any other. A boy who survived. A curse that rebounded. A scar.
A boy who happens to live across the street.
Hermione sits very still for a long while. Then she gets up, smooths her skirt, walks across Privet Drive, and rings the doorbell of number four.
Petunia opens the door and her face does something complicated.
Hermione(polite, firm, 11): Good afternoon, Mrs Dursley. May I speak to Harry, please?
Petunia(thin): Harry is busy.
Hermione(cheerful): I'll wait.
She does. On the doorstep. With a book. For forty minutes. Petunia, who has spent eleven years cultivating a reputation for normality on this street, eventually surrenders. Harry is summoned from the cupboard under the stairs, blinking, holding his too-large glasses against his nose.
Hermione looks at him. The clothes that hang off him. The thinness of his wrists. The careful, watchful eyes of a child who has learned that attention is dangerous.