Chapter 16

The chapter was named *A Very Slytherin Muggleborn - 1/2* and was part one of a two part chapter series.

## Summary

The first year starts, and our heroes are hiding from each other, pretending not to know each other’s problematic secrets. Of course, in Slytherin House, Hermione is hiding perhaps the most problematic secret.

## Plot

Ten of the fifty first year children in this Hogwarts year were heirs from important families, and not only that, three of them were the respective heirs of the leaders of the Light, Dark and Gray. Dumbledore didn't like it because most of those children had to behave in name of their parents, with perfect pureblood behaviour, thus losing most of their childhood to family politics. Next he beckoned Healer Poppy Pomfrey to look over some children once the sorting finished, because he realized most of them using Occlumency shields and by extension their magical power dwindled throughout the eight hour train ride to dangerously low levels.

In the mean time the children were being sorted and Dumbledore got surprised by the muggleborn Hermione Granger, having signed a vassalage contract with Lord Slytherin. His first thoughts were, that Lord Slytherin finally showed his dark side by ensnaring a poor muggle family to his machinations and due to that Albus wanted them to help to get rid of the contract. McGonnagal, who hold the sorting hat was even so speechless due to the vassalage, that she forgot to put the hat on Hermione's head. Instead the sorting tool simply shouted out "Slytherin" without even touching the muggleborn.

When Harry came up, Albus used a Legilimency probe on Harry, only to find normal behaviour traits like fear, excitement and disappointments about his twin brother. He had also expected Harry to have had a bad childhood due to Petunia's hate over her sister, but it thankfully didn't seem to have happened, like in Tom Riddle's case. After all children were sorted, the feast began and Madam Pomfrey began her rounds through the heir children, she suspected them to have used the most magic throughout the train ride.

She first started with Daphne and chastised her for using too much magic, after using some unknown spell to check something on her. Daphne nodded and snuck a bit of beef to a hidden snake in her pocket. Next Madam Pomfrey went to Hermione Granger using the same spell, saying she did use her magic well instead and due to that had better toxin levels than most of her peers. Hermione tried to ask a question about the unknown spell, but got interrupted because of Neville collapsing on the Gryffindor side, and the healer immediately rushing there.

While eating the food, Hermione experienced a sharp pain in her mind, followed by the headmaster escaping a full grown dragon in her well developed mindscape. She thought about the evil man, who left Harry live all the horrors in the last time line and was extremely angry at him. After the feast concluded, Dumbledore warned everyone about constructions at the third floor corridor and let everyone go to their respective houses. In the Slytherin house, Snape gave a speech, empathizing breeding, disregarding any notions about Lord Slytherin and suggesting to everyone to ignore Harry Potter to the best of their abilities.

The next morning Daphne and Hermione woke up nearly simultaneously, performing all morning chores in sync, yet not speaking with each other until Hermione snapped, wanting to build some kind of speaking relationship since the disastrous attempts during the train ride. Daphne suggested to speak as social equals in private and in public based on their heritages, which Hermione happily agreed to, before both went to breakfast.

They sat at the end of the table, furthest away from the teacher's table and some minutes later also Harry came down, sitting in the middle of the table, being ignored by everyone in Slytherin, as Prof. Snape instructed the night before. Next Prof. McGonnagal came asked Hermione to visit the headmaster office, but Hermione declined stating she could only go there with her new magical guardian, Lord Slytherin. McGonnagal tried to get more information out of the muggleborn, before Daphne started accuse her of some kind of foul play, forcing the transfiguration professor to drop the issue.

The first lesson of the day were Charms, where Professor Flitwick explained the basics of magic, magical power and magical core, using the counting unit Merlins and Flamels. In the mean time Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonnagal prepared for an impromptu visit to the Grangers, to get the vassalage of Hermione Granger explained. Upon reaching the house in Crawley, Minerva realized the magic saturated with a lot of magic due to strong wards, warning the headmaster.

When the door opened, a well clothed Mrs. Granger in wizarding clothes meet them, surprising both magicals, before startling them even more with the invitation to some very good Firewhiskey. In the end Dumbledore asked about their "questionable" choice of a Magical Guardian, but Mr. Granger rebuffed with accusations concerning the really low status of muggleborn in the British magical society, nobody informed them of. Additionally he said that there were no safeguards for those children, that just a decade ago a guerrilla war was going, targeting specifically muggleborn and their parents.

Any counter-arguments by Dumbledore, were firmly and perceptively rebuffed by the two Grangers and in the end Dumbledore did resort to a Legilimency probe, which catapulted him out of the house due to the family having the war wards. It first surprised the transfiguration Professor, upon being explained, that most likely a mind probing courtesy of the headmaster happened, before they started talks about a possible healer's training for Hermione. Dumbledore in the meantime found another way to get to talk with Hermione.

Back in school, Minerva started her Transfiguration class with the new batch of first years. She began with telling that Transfiguration is a class about transforming objects into alternate forms and that they'll need only 5 spells throughout the next years to learn, but instead the mass to be transfigured would become bigger with time. Dumbledore in the mean time went to Gringotts to get the Philosopher's stone entrusted by the Flamels to the Goblin nation.

It was hidden in the Mirror of Erised, thus elevating any concerns Goblin's might have due to that really powerful artifact. In the mirror Dumbledore has seen the dead Gellert Grindelwald and his dead sister. Last Dumbledore talked with John about his outburst on the train against his brother and confirmed that this Harry is not the same Harry who was as the Weasleys during the outburst, because of the Legilimency he performed earlier during the sorting.