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There were originally 28 ancient Halls; each had ruled their territory since time immemorial. Or so everyone assumed. Some of the Halls had faded into oblivion (or rather, some had been shoved off the cliff into oblivion) or were crumbling into obscurity. Some had doggedly maintained the status quo, unwilling to expand or contract, whether by benevolence or by shifting interests. Some had strategically chosen allies and forged matrimonial ties with the other powerful Halls. They’d positioned themselves perfectly, accumulating territory from the decrepit Halls, power (whether perceived or real) from their willingness to push the boundaries of magic and influence from their penchant for finding and extracting the most precious natural resources.
Hermione had been born to a mother from Longbottom Hall and a father from Abbott Hall; both parents possessed no magic and both Halls possessed little ambition. She’d keenly felt the weight of both categorizations, aware that she was at the bottom of the power pyramid and desperate to be anywhere but.
Her youth started off sweet - her parents raised her with nothing but love, content in their occupations as non-magical medicinal researchers. It was a respected field in both Halls, although much less so outside of them. They provided her with all the books they could get their hands on, feeding her thirst for knowledge from a young age.
But when her magic manifested, it became clear she would need more than her parents could give her. The Longbottoms were patrons of the Grangers, being renowned magical horticulturists themselves, so they took Hermione in. She was placed in school with their son Neville, a shy but endearingly sweet boy who never failed to know when Hermione needed a hug and when she needed to be left alone.
Upon entering their thirteenth year, the most talented magical children were sent to a school in the north between the territories of Halls Shacklebolt and Selwyn. Hermione excelled at school, making friends despite the stigma around being born to non-magical parents. Any bigoted resistance was met by a concentrated burst of her unyielding determination to reduce such obstacles to dust at her feet.
The longstanding chess game between Halls accelerated during her fourteenth year. The Longbottoms were caught in a suspicious potions “accident”, leaving them trapped inside of their own minds. Neville wasn’t old enough to ascend the throne and was utterly devastated by the incident, so their territory was forcibly and unceremoniously incorporated into Crouch Hall. A similar story happened to the Macmillan’s; their Hall was swiftly absorbed by the Yaxley’s.
In the following years the powerful Halls moved in sync, corralling the weaker ones into striking deals dividing territory and resources. Those without magic had always been pushed to exist near the fringes of society, but now there was no place for them except the outskirts. They languished, extracting resources and laboring for the ruling Halls. Barely surviving. Several influential objectors disappeared or died mysteriously.
Some of the Halls on the borders of their world stayed out of the conflict, relying on distance and terrain to deter the coalition building itself on the shoulders of other Halls. Some of the small Halls simply collapsed into themselves, becoming entirely insular.
Hermione had watched from school as the world became bleaker by the second. Righteous rage boiled over when her parents wrote to tell her that they’d been moved to a new area along with all the other non-magical families. There were riots in some of the territories, people angry about the path they were being forced down, but word of the brutal response from the ruling families spread quickly. Society had always had divisions, Hermione had been all too aware of them from the very moment of her birth, but they grew deeper as the imbalances mounted.
Several of the heirs went to school with Hermione, so lines were rapidly drawn in the sand. She had everyone categorized, studying up for the inevitable moment the conflict breached the doors of Hogwarts.
Hermione’s Notable Figures on the Side Opposing the Rise in Tyranny:
Neville, heir to Longbottom Hall
Hannah, heir to Abbott Hall
Ron, one of many heirs to Weasley Hall
Ginny, one of the many heirs to Weasley Hall
Harry, previously of Black Hall (having crumbled)
Luna, of Ollivander Hall (now decrepit)
Padma and Parvati, (twins) of Shacklebolt Hall
Hermione’s Notable Figures on the Side of said Rise in Tyranny:
Draco, heir to Malfoy Hall
Theo, heir to Nott Hall
Blaise, of Malfoy Hall
Pansy, heir to Parkinson Hall
Marcus, heir to Flint Hall
Daphne, one of the heirs to Greengrass Hall
Astoria, one of the heirs to Greengrass Hall
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In addition to everything going on outside of Hogwarts and her mounting indignation about her response to Draco Malfoy, Hermione’s sixteenth year saw her magic further blossom. It had always been powerful, rising up to match her temper and will, but for the first time she felt it as a persistent living thing in her chest. It was her most precious possession, a thing she cradled and protected fiercely.
As her intelligence and natural skill with magic made her stand out more and more in classes, the Notable Figures on the Side of said Rise in Tyranny steadfastly picked away at her defenses. Pansy’s tongue was vicious in its cruelty and accuracy, Blaise’s bright smile almost always hid absolutely wicked intentions, and Marcus’ eyes lingered a few uncomfortable beats too long on her body every time she crossed his path.
She knew she was smarter than them (she was at the top of their class after all, rivaled only by Draco). She knew her worth had nothing to do with them. She knew it all.
But that didn’t stop the comments from landing sometimes.
Luna had found her once, hunched over her knees by the lake.
“Are you all right, Hermione?” Her soft hand found Hermione’s shoulder as she sat next to her on the grass.
Rapidly blinking back the tears, Hermione didn’t yet dare look Luna in the eye. “Y-yes, of course I am. Just thinking about our exam in Runes.”
Luna hummed gently, stroking Hermione’s back in soothing circles.
After a few minutes, the words spilled out without Hermione’s permission. “I just don’t understand. Why do they hate me so much?”
“You’re wonderful, Hermione." Luna leaned back, tilting her face towards the sun. "Do you ever get mad at the sun for blinding you when you look at it?”
“Of course not,” she huffed, “There isn’t any sense in getting mad at the sun for simply existing within range of my eyeballs.”
Luna just hummed again, pulling Hermione into her side.
%%%
Hermione loved her friends dearly, but sometimes she wanted to strangle them. It seemed that even as the conflict unfolded outside the school, none of them except Luna were willing to open their eyes and examine their world for what it was. They thought that the source of the inequity was the recent conglomeration of the powerful Halls - as if that had completely shifted the very foundation of society in just a few years. As if her parents hadn’t been looked down upon for decades, as if she hadn’t always been ridiculed for the absurdity of her intelligence in the face of her “breeding”.
Her frustration was often most acute with Ron; as they’d grown closer, perhaps bordered on something of a crush on his part, she’d tried to swallow down her reactions every time he’d say something insensitive or obtuse. But it happened a lot - Ron would speak, Harry would flinch, Ginny would roll her eyes, and inevitably Hermione would snap.
She was worried constantly. The nagging feeling of dread lingered at the place where her neck met her torso, often forcing her food back up. She saw the writing on the wall - the world was changing and her place had been at the bottom before the changes. There was nowhere for her to go except up, but the ceiling grew thicker every day. Someday relatively soon, she knew, they’d add spikes to the ceiling. It was akin to slow suffocation. Asher knowledge, skill, and power grew, as she got closer to that ceiling, the air became thinner. Sometimes it all bubbled up and she snapped, breaking things in her room or hissing something cruel at one of her friends. The world wasn’t designed for her or others like her, but she would make it fit.