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aletterinthenameofsanity · 1 year

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hoping to do some good in the world (Muslim Hermione- fight me, jkr)

When a little muggleborn girl walks up to the Sorting Hat, a number of purebloods (and a number of muggleborns, to be honest) wonder why they can't see her hair- why her head and neck are covered by a dark blue headscarf.

In the ensuing months, they will learn the word hijab.

---

Hermione Granger is faithful and studious. She hates breaking the rules and is a perfectionist.

(She is also stupidly, irrevocably, wonderfully noble.)

In this universe, as in most others, Hermione Granger carries these traits close to her heart, in her spine and in her head. She holds faith in things that do not have a ready explanation, believes in heroes despite all evidence otherwise.

---

Hermione Granger finds a Summoning charm in her textbooks and figures it out how to perfect it before she even steps foot on the Hogwarts Express. If she is to complete her five daily prayers, then she will need a way to grab her prayer rug easily without having to carry it around all day (the Hogwarts blueprints show a school almost too large to be real- she’ll have to investigate that).

She leaves her first class and her lunch block for five minutes everyday. She heads out into the hallways, summons Abba’s prayer rug, recites a compass spell to orient herself toward Mecca, and recites her prayers.

---

This is not a story about heroes and villains. It is not a story about war and destruction, about magical spells and epic climaxes.

This is a story about the strength of a single girl’s faith.

---

Hermione knows fear. She knows the way that people look at her hijab with suspicion, look at her father like he’ll hurt them and her mother like she’s stupid (despite the fact that they’re both dentists, with their doctoral degrees and a wish to help others). She knows hatred, the way people sneer when they look at her and the way boys at her primary school would tug at her hijab, jeering names at her face.

She knows that Harry and Dean and Lavender and Anthony and Neville and the Patil twins all suffer from the same prejudice as she does, if for different reasons.

When Draco Malfoy spits mudblood in her face, when he curses her origins, she calls upon the spells that she can run past her lips. She summons up a righteous anger borne of years of absorbing others’ hatred, remembers pages and pages of spells. She whips hexes at prejudiced lips, smiles at the crunch of her fist against his face.

---

Hermione Janan Granger does not pray to flawed mentors and old men- she prays to Allah, and to herself. She is more than just a pawn, a fount of unfocused knowledge.

She wants to do good in the world, just like her parents, but she guards her trust close. She bestows it on those who have earned it- Harry, Ron, Ginny, Millicent, Anthony, Neville, Luna- but not on men who people seem to put blind faith in without proof.

Her faith is strong, but it is not without base.

---

She makes friends with Anthony Goldstein, who celebrates Yom Kippur and Hanukkah and the Shabbat prayers with the same devoutness with which she practices her own faith. In a rather secular, magical world, being able to find someone else who puts such effort into their faith is relieving to her.

---

During Ramadan, her mind grows sharp and her spells powerful even as her stomach growls. Her focus increases as her hunger grows, as her faith finds its way past the limits of her stomach and into her bones.

Her dedication to her faith becomes known, and respected. During this month of the year, she is unbeatable even as her skin grows a bit sallow and her stomach grumbles during classes.

(She heads down to the kitchens after sunset and is greeted by a feast. She understands that, magically speaking, it fulfills house elves to provide food for her, but her faith does not abide by slavery of any sort. It is hard for her to process their smiles whenever she asks for food.

So, instead, she thanks each and every house elf, mentions them all by name in her prayers. Perhaps this will help them.)

---

When Hermione tells Harry, the orphan boy, the forced hero of the story, that they are all heroes, she doesn’t mean that they are all saviors of worlds, leaders and princes. She doesn’t mean that they have to save the day, have to be courageous and beautiful and in love.

She means that they are survivors, and that this, in itself, is a heroic act.

---

Her caftan for the Yule Ball her fifth year is modest and beautiful. A long dark blue caftan, trimmed with dark blue lace and embroidered in gold, it is just perfect. Her hijab is dark blue to match.

Viktor Krum looks at her and smiles. “You look beautiful, скъп."

She smiles. “Thank you, Viktor."

Viktor Krum is nothing like the perfect Muslim boy she dreamed of as a little girl, but he is smart, and wonderful, and perfectly kind.

He respects her faith and her boundaries, calls her beautiful. He holds her hands, but does not kiss her. He is the perfect first boyfriend.

---

When she emerges from the lake, her hijab is sodden with water but thankfully still covers her hair and her neck.

---

Viktor leaves at the end of the Triwizard Tournament. Cedric won, Fleur placed second, and Viktor placed third. Despite his loss, he smiles and says, "It vas vorth it, Hermione, because I got to meet you."

Hermione returns his smile. "It was nice to meet you as well, Viktor. We'll continue to write, right?"

He nods. "Of course."

---

Hermione Granger is not meek. She is devout, and focused on her studies, but not meek.

She is full of faith for many things: Allah, education, and herself. She channels this faith into progress, into change.

---

Harry comes to her at the end of fifth year, stomach in his throat. “Hermione,” he says, eyes downcast, “I have something to tell you.”

“Yeah?” she asks, raising her eyes from her book.

“I...I think I like boys and girls.”

She looks at him. She’s suspected for a year or so, ever since his minor obsession with Cedric Diggory last year and the way he stares at Neville’s arse sometimes.

“Okay,” she says, and flips the page. “Tell me when you finally ask Longbottom out.”

Harry sputters, and she smiles.

---

Hermione’s sixth year, she breaks up with Viktor. It is an amicable split, no hard feelings between them. He wishes her luck with school and asks if she’ll mind if he comes to celebrate her graduation next year.

She smiles and says of course not.

---

She walks into the Room of Requirement (a fascinating discovery when searching for an answer to Harry’s Second Task two years ago) and finds Harry and Neville snogging in the middle of the Historic Legends section of the Great Hidden Library.

She clears her throat and they spring apart, looking like they’ve been caught doing something unspeakable. “Mind handing me the copy of the Upanishads, won’t you?” She gestures to Neville, who grabs a copy of the book that she’s seen him reading on the Express and hands it to her. “Thanks,” she says, and heads over to the Muggle Sports section (the far end of the library) so she can read in peace.

---

Hermione graduates top of her class, Susan Bones, Draco Malfoy, and Terry Boot right behind her.

The world is at her fingertips, and all of knowledge is within her grasp. She can change everything wrong with the world.

---

When Hermione Granger is eleven, she climbs a stool and puts a hat on her head. She is told that she will do well in either Ravenclaw or Slytherin, and she smiles.

I want to learn everything, she thinks, and the Sorting Hat shouts her House to the world.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13706415

#first in my fuck jkr series #harry potter #hermione granger #muslim hermione granger #anti jkr #fuck jkr rowling #black harry potter #character of faith #poc hermione granger #hermione x viktor #harry x neville #racism #character study #one of my most popular fics #thought someone here might like my jkr spitefics #fight me in a denny's parking lot jkr

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aletterinthenameofsanity · 1 year

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you and me in this ageless thing (told me I belong in this place) (Sentient Hogwarts- fight me jkr)

The fact that Hogwarts is a magical building is not a strange fact. Most wixes accept it without a second thought. 95% never think to question the wards that have soaked into the building’s foundation over the years, the magic that has drenched its hallways over nearly a millenium. Very few realize that Hogwarts- building of moving staircases and talking tapestries and a giant squid and rooms that respond to wishes- is sentient.

Of all of the students and teachers and house elves that have entered the Room of Requirement- the Room of Wishing Things- most have thought of the room as its own piece of magic. A complex spell, to be sure, but a singular one.

Maybe one or two students in a generation connect with the school as the original founders might have intended.

(Rowena would have rejoiced to know that someday, at some point in between decades and centuries, Magic itself had made the school not only a place of learning knowledge, but a place that carried knowledge itself. Helga would have welcomed the knowledge that the school itself is invested in protecting and supporting its residents. Salazar would have wondered at the full scope of what magic can do to inorganic stone. Godric would have enjoyed the way that Hogwarts has created her own wards, completely separate from anything that any wix has set up in her walls over the years.)

The Marauders are the closest to discovering the truth in their generation. They actually manage to tap into the school’s mind, its heart, with their map. They come up with the idea, the original piece of magic, but it is Hogwarts that not only allows it but allows some of her own magic to seep into its parchment, imprinting her soul onto it.

Three of the boys don’t question it. Only one- a little muggleborn werewolf in raggedy clothes and a craving for knowledge- does, and even he never gets all the way there. He doesn’t understand that the school allows them to create their map- not because of curiosity, or permissiveness. Hogwarts isn’t as calculating as the Sorting Hat.

No, Hogwarts does it because she loves them. She’s always had an affection for pranksters, for troublemakers, for those who test limits and innovate to their heart’s content. It is those kids- the girl gang that called themselves the Serpentine Six in the 1880s, the Marauders, the Weasley twins- that Hogwarts wraps her heart and her magic around, enhancing their endeavours, her magic cheering them on.

***

It is George Weasley who puts the pieces together for the first time.

It’s number of things that leads him to the conclusion.

It’s the Map, with its extensive and limitless knowledge of nooks and crannies, things that no student could ever find out on their own.

It’s the fact that stairs always seem to bend and shape in just the perfect way to let Fred and George get away with their pranks without professors getting caught.

It's the fact that when he makes out with Harry after his victory in the Second Task, the stones warm behind George's back, softening to provide them a soft space to lean against, comfort to have fun.

It’s the fact that the Room of Requirement doesn’t just shape itself to the inhabitants’ wills, but also seeks to protect whoever is inside. The reason why Umbridge didn’t manage to blast her way through before all of the members of the D.A. could get out was because the walls charmed themselves against her.

It’s the fact that George always seems to be able to find a room, a classroom, a closet, an alcove, to take kids to after Umbridge gets to them with her blood quill. Even if it’s not the Room of Requirement, it’s somewhere to take care of kids, to whisper reassurances into ears, to smear essence of murlap over wounds.

It’s the fact that when Harry comes out as Harry, as a boy instead of a girl, the Room doesn’t just provide a room to train in but supplies to transition. Magical binders and facial-hair-enhancing potions and the like. Hermione always gets somewhere private, safe, and tucked aside to make her prayers to Mecca. Dean gets a quiet place to go to light his menorah. Neville gets a soft closet and a spontaneous book of tricks to deal with anxiety, while every room that Angela enters becomes soundproofed, the air filtered around her ears to help her deal with her audiosensory issues.

THe school gives safe spaces. For trans kids, gay kids, religious kids, mentally ill kids. Its magic curls around them, takes care of them, loves them.

***

George sneaks out of bed one night while Fred is busy making out in some back hallway with Angela. He heads not for the Room, not for any logical location, but up to a random corridor on the Sixth floor, away from the kitchen, away from the towers, away from any dormitory.

He places a hand on the wall. "So," he says, voice an excited whisper, "You wanna tell me you're more than just a school? That you've got as many tricks up your sleeve as us Weasleys do?"

The stones warm beneath his touch. The lights glow around him and George smiles. "Thanks for seven years of fun."

Something curls around him, a hug from a ghost, a warm embrace by magic. George's soft smile turns into a beam and he can't help the laugh that spills from his lips as he reaches out, fingers entangling with a sense of pure magic that swirls through the corridors, an affection that is impossible and yet-

George knows, all the way down into his bones, that the school loves him. It loves all of them, all of its students, but him and Fred and all of the troublemakers that have entertained Hogwarts over the years-

It loves them the most.

***

The corridors move for him and Harry when they're sneaking around. The school gladly opens them new passages to avoid the crowds, ways to sneak out to Hogsmeade, ways to get around and find new ways to stick it to Umbridge.

(One thing that George realized, even before he put the pieces together about the school and its sentience, was that Hogwarts detests Umbridge's presence. There are only so many times that she can trip over a rug that magically gathered a crease or miss a step on the stairs or even just find a random bird following her through the hallways, cawing in her ear, before George notices what's going on.)

The school's magic, its heart, rejoices in George's veins. Now that he knows her, knows her truth, she is far more open about showing him love, showing him her secrets, revealing her soul. She doesn't just want to show off for George- she wants George to be able to show off to the boy he likes.

In return, George takes care of the school. He whispers cleaning charms whenever he sees someone leaving mud tracks from Hogsmeade, adjusts tapestries that are starting to list to the side, even repairs burn marks from his and Fred's pranks. It's not entirely needed, but it's a kind of extra care no one has given the school in centuries.

The school loves George and George loves her back.

***

No one will ever know that the fireworks that go off when George and Fred dip from Hogwarts were not planned by the twins. Sure, that's what George will tell Fred, what the world will assume, but the truth will sit between George and Hogwarts, in between the school and her boy.

***

After his brother dies in the final battle, after the battle wins in favor of Harry Potter and the Order, George finds himself not in the burnt out Room of Requirement or next to the rows of bodies in the Great Hall but rather back in his sixth floor corridor, leaning heavily against the wall, his wand dangling listlessly between the fingers of his right hand while his left hand braces itself against the school's singed wall.

There is a sorrow in the air. The school, broken and bleeding, is not grieving itself, but all of the children it has lost.

And George is grieving too. His brother, his other half of his coin, his mirror, is gone.

George has never existed without his twin brother. He has never had to. George has always been the planner, not the showman. What will he be without Fred to be loud, without Fred to cover up all of the ways in which George is not flashy, not showy, without Fred to make him laugh?

A sob is forcing itself from between George's teeth, tearing itself out of his throat. He has not given the tears permission to come, but now that the adrenaline from battle has dissipated, he cannot keep his self-control in place anymore.

Someone places a hand on George's shoulder. George glances upward to find Harry standing there, exhaustion in his eyes and sorrow on his bones.

"The school loved him," is the nonsense that babbles out of George's mouth, and he expects Harry to look at him weird. To question what kind of grief and stress and trauma drove him to talk about Hogwarts like this.

But instead Harry just nods and sits down on the floor in front of George, leaning against the wall behind him. He has always been understanding of difference, kind to things he doesn't know about yet.

George wishes he could think about how fun it was to make out with Harry. How so often D.A. meetings turned into dates after everyone else left. How they had so much fun sneaking around other Gryffindors and Weasleys and even Molly herself, back at the burrow.

But he can't. The words stick in his throat, trapped by his own grief and by Hogwart's sorrow.

Harry leans forward and offers out his hand. "Tell me about it," he says, and he is as weary as George, more exhausted than anyone, but there is still a love in his eyes, a desire to hear George's story.

George's tongue loosens as he lets go of his wand, letting it drop into his lap. He reaches forward and wraps his fingers around Harry's, entwining their hands together, and then lowers their hands to the ground, grazing the floor with their palms as he begins to speak.

The school sings under their fingers. It's not a happy song, but it is a kind one. A reminder of hope.

The school will rebuild, and George will be here for it. Harry will too. They'll both rebuild themselves along the way.

A school and her boys. George and the boy that loves him and the school that loves him.

Magic curls through the air, warming George's chest, and a smile lifts the corners of his lips the smallest bit.

He may have lost Fred, but he has not lost everything. He is still loved deeply, unconditionally, incredibly.

George Weasley opens his mouth and he begins to tell his story to his boyfriend and his school and the ghosts that will forever live in these walls.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/34856014

#fight me jkr #trans harry potter #ao3 #fanfic #cross posted on ao3 #aletterinthenameofsanity #george weasley #Harry Potter #sentient hogwarts #hogwarts is home #muslim hermione #jewish dean thomas #disabled characters #flips the bird to jkr #she can still fight me in a denny's parking lot

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