Chapter Text
“Learning was so dangerous: for how could one tell in advance, while still ignorant, whether a thing could ever be unlearned or forgotten, or if, once known and named, it would invalidate by its significance the whole of one's former life, all of those years wiped out, convicted at one blow, retrospectively darkened by one sudden light?”
― Margaret Drabble, The Waterfall
June 18th
Professor Quirinus Quirrell quit his post as Muggle Studies professor shortly before breakfast. By lunch, the news was all over the school.
Gossip usually spread quickly at Hogwarts but, in that lazy period between the end of exams and the summer break when students had little to do but talk, it could put Fiendfyre to shame.
“Heard he screamed at Dumbledore and said –”
“Shove the job –”
“I heard he cried.”
“I don’t think that’s true because I heard he smashed up a chair and threw it at –”
“You can still cry while throwing a chair!”
“Obviously, but your aim would be –”
“Just classic ‘Querulous’, really, isn’t it?”
Hermione Granger heard fragments of many tales. Some of them – like the one in which Quirrell ripped open his robes and screamed so fiercely that Dumbledore’s phoenix burst into flame – were utterly ridiculous.
Some of them, though, were close to the truth. Bewilderingly close given Hermione, as far as she was aware, had been the only witness to the event other than Dumbledore and Quirrell themselves.
At the request of Professor McGonagall, she had been taking a list of recent detentions to Dumbledore when she overheard the discussion. If discussion was what it could be called.
It had, to Hermione, sounded more like a rant on the part of Quirrell. A very high-pitched rant. A rant about “ill-behaved, bullying little toerags”, a “continued lack of respect” and “not being taken seriously.”
“I am being undervalued, Dumbledore!” Hermione had heard from the other side of Dumbledore’s closed office door, the unfamiliar belligerence in Quirrell’s voice stopping her in her tracks.
“Quirinus, you are highly valued, I assure you. Please don’t –”
“No!” A slamming sound followed by a yelp, like someone had whacked a desk and regretted it, made Hermione wince. “I should have done this years ago. I’m going!”
“Where are you going, Quirinus?” Dumbledore had asked the question in that way of his that Hermione had noticed he had. Polite – interested, even – but with a sharp edge of condescension that could slice through a person's bluster like it was nothing more than soft butter.
Not Quirrell’s, though. Quirrell had patently had enough.
“Away! ” he’d cried. “To make my mark on the world. I’m a great wizard, Dumbledore. Wasted here, I tell you. Wasted! You’ll see it one day.”
“I can see I’ll have a job talking you down,” Dumbledore had said, sounding both tired and amused. “You will be a difficult man to replace.”
“I will?” It sounded like Quirrell had stopped at that and Hermione could easily imagine his perplexed blink. “Yes, I will! And I’ll be going tonight, Dumbledore. Don’t try to stop me!”
Quirrell had worked himself up into such a pique that he hadn’t even noticed Hermione pressed against the wall when he’d hauled the door of Dumbledore’s office and stormed down the stairs, his billowing cloak whipping her on the shins.
Several long seconds of silence had followed, finally punctuated by the sound of Quirrell sharply ordering the gargoyle at the base of the stairs to move faster.
“You have something for me, Miss Granger?” Had been Dumbledore’s eventual invitation for her to enter.
He hadn’t said a word about Quirrell and Hermione hadn’t wished to overstep the mark by asking about him. It had been remarkably easy to simply pretend that nothing unusual had happened. Dumbledore was good at that.
“Did you hear?” Neville asked in an undertone as soon as Hermione sat down to lunch in the Great Hall. “About Quirrell?”
“Oh, I heard alright,” Hermione said lightly, pulling a basket of bread over the staff table towards her plate.
As apprentices, she and Neville sat towards the end of the table. There was an element of hierarchy to the arrangement but they found that they didn’t mind – it allowed them to converse in peace, which was especially appreciated when they wanted to discuss matters that weren’t strictly professional. Sex and relationships, for instance. Or unutterably juicy gossip.
Even though their professors had become colleagues, the former dynamic lingered and likely would for many years. All they had was each other and they didn’t mind in the least.
“Wait,” Neville said, his eyes widening as he watched Hermione hurriedly scoop up some butter with the edge of her knife. “You mean you heard? Or you mean you heard?”
Hermione’s hand stilled, the butter knife pressed into the soft bread, her gaze flicking meaningfully to Neville’s out of the corners of her eyes. “I mean I heard.”
“Oh?” Neville pushed a plate heaped with meats and cheeses towards her as a sort of makeshift offering and Hermione began layering them onto her bread, not looking at him. “What was it like, then? As bad as I’ve been hearing?”
“It was certainly loud.”
Hermione took a bite out of her sandwich, feeling Neville’s eyes on her bulging cheeks as she chewed slowly.
“You know,” she finally said, “Dumbledore said Quirrell would be hard to replace but he didn’t seem to try very hard to keep him.”
“Well, Quirrell’s been giving out about how he’s going to go for years,” Neville said, shrugging. “Been getting louder and louder about it, too. Dumbledore’s not one to waste his time.”
“I think he was trying to call Quirrell's bluff,” Hermione muttered, glaring into the bite missing from her sandwich like she hadn’t been the one to take it. “Stupid thing to do – the man wasn’t playing his cards close to his chest as much as throwing them in a burning pyre and dancing around it.”
Hermione huffed out a sigh through her nose, turning to Neville with a frown. “Muggle Studies will be a hard post to fill. With someone decent, anyway. Not before the start of the new school year.”
“It’s not like Quirrell was that great at it.”
Hermione tilted her head in acknowledgement of Neville’s point before taking another bite of her sandwich.
Quirrell hadn’t always been a bad teacher but when he had taken up the position of Muggle Studies professor at a remarkably young age, it was likely that he had not envisioned still being in it nearly two decades later.
By the time Hermione had come into his class, he had treated his subject, and the students of it, as something of an inconvenience – like they were holding him back. They had responded to his martyred attitude by making him the butt of a great many jokes. It hadn’t helped his dissatisfaction.
“It’s a subject that needs a good teacher,” Hermione said, depositing her sandwich on her plate with a dissatisfied air. “Someone who actually cares.”
Neville nodded and mumbled something that sounded like agreement without committing to further discussion; by this point he was all too familiar with Hermione’s feelings on Muggle Studies and wary of saying anything that might instigate a rant. They only had an hour for lunch, after all.
Muggle Studies was one of the school’s most underserved subjects. This was, in Hermione's eyes, the result of a combination of things. Firstly, and most superficially, Muggle Studies classes didn’t involve any actual magic and Hogwarts students liked nothing more than a chance to prove their magical mettle.
More significantly, though, there was the devastating combination of the general disdain wizards felt for Muggles and an unenthusiastic professor who was simply not equipped or willing to combat that.
Over the years, class numbers had dwindled, with many of Quirrell’s students selecting the subject because they saw it as an easy ‘O’ and little else.
To Hermione, Muggle Studies had the potential to be so much more than that. For some in the Wizarding World, particularly cloistered purebloods, it was likely the first meaningful encounter with the Muggle world that they’d have.
As Hermione saw it, it was an opportunity to engender an interest in – and respect for – Muggles themselves. It was an opportunity to start an attitudinal shift.
From her first days in the wizarding world as a Muggleborn, Hermione had been made to feel like she would never know enough. The overriding message had been that her Muggle upbringing had been a waste of nearly eleven years and she had better eschew her connection to that world in order to prove just how much she deserved and wanted to be in the magical community.
Almost ten months of each year for seven years – her most formative years – had been spent at Hogwarts. After a fashion, the wizarding world had bled into her summers, effortlessly pushing out her Muggle friends, hobbies, and even holidays with her parents.
At first, she hadn’t questioned it because desperation to belong had overridden everything else. But when she’d reached her last years at Hogwarts and found that Muggle Studies had become her primary means of engaging with the world she’d been born into – the world in which her parents still lived – she’d started to doubt. Started to become angry. Started to ask why.
It just didn’t seem right that she should have to deny a whole part of herself in order to belong. Especially because her fellow witches and wizards still found ways to exclude her – to make it clear that her Muggle associations would always set her apart or hold her back.
This had been made absolutely clear as graduation had approached. Hermione had discovered that, despite her exceptional grades, despite her years as a Prefect, she didn’t have the requisite connections or the summer internships to compete for Ministry jobs like her pureblood and half-blood peers.
No one ever denied that she was a witch but the word ‘Muggleborn’ was always attached to her accomplishments – a largely unspoken, though sometimes whispered, caveat.
But when witches and wizards were being taught about Muggles by professors who didn’t care, professors who made themselves and their subject a laughing stock, what hope was there of change?
If only, she thought, Muggle Studies could be taught by someone who cared about the subject, about Muggles. Someone who could make the students care. Someone more like – well…more like –
“Neville,” Hermione said slowly, drawing an absent ‘hmm?’ from him as he poured himself a goblet of pumpkin juice. “What if I replaced Quirrell?”
Neville folded his lips between his teeth, eating a fledgling smile as he finished pouring his juice.
“What?” Hermione asked, her eyes narrowing.
Setting the jug down carefully, Neville finally gave her his full attention. “Well, I just feel like you’d like to replace every professor, given half the chance.”
“Shut up,” Hermione snapped, her cheeks warming. “I’m serious.”
“You’re McGonagall’s apprentice,” Neville pointed out. “And I honestly think you’re the first person I’ve ever seen her even slightly rely on. You really think she’d be willing to lose you?”
“I’ve been her apprentice for five years, Neville,” Hermione said, absentmindedly pressing her forefinger against the pumpkin juice jug to catch a bead of moisture that was running towards the table. “We’re not going to need a replacement Transfiguration professor any time soon – not that I’m unhappy about that.”
Shaking her head, she shrugged helplessly. “I’d just sort of…like to start having my own classes, y’know? I feel ready.”
Neville nodded with a mix of understanding and pity. He had only been Sprout’s apprentice for two years and he was already coming to Hermione at regular intervals, his excitement and ideas for classes making him chafe at the confines of his secondary position.
“Then tell her that,” he said, like it was the only reasonable thing to do which, Hermione supposed, it was. Certainly, it was the most productive.
It was just after dinner when Hermione found Minerva McGonagall in her private office.
Now that they were just whiling away the last few days before classes broke up for the summer, Hermione wasn’t entirely surprised that her former professor was reclined in a squashy red armchair by her fire, a glass of sherry in hand and a heavy book balanced in her lap.
It was a side of the stern woman Hermione could never have imagined during her time as a student but now she knew that side of her. It never failed to amuse Hermione, though, that, even in such a state of repose, McGonagall kept her hair pulled tight in a bun.
“Minerva,” Hermione said, peeking her head around the door while knocking lightly on it to draw attention. “Would you mind if I had a word?”
Without missing a beat, McGonagall closed the book in her lap with a thump and gestured to the chair across from her with an open hand.
Hermione crossed the room swiftly and sat on the chair’s edge, the anticipation of making her request rendering her unable to completely sink back into its comfort.
Despite it being a warm evening in early summer, the fire was blazing. Almost as soon as Hermione sat down, she found herself tugging uncomfortably at the neck of her robes, a ticklish trickle of sweat starting a long slide down from her armpit. McGonagall, meanwhile, appeared to be at her ideal temperature.
Within two waves of McGonagall’s wand, a glass of sherry had filled itself and soared across the room to attempt to press itself into Hermione’s hand.
“Oh, no,” Hermione said with a weak smile, keeping her fingers curled against the increasingly aggressive nudges of the floating glass. “I’m really alright.”
“Nonsense,” McGonagall said briskly, lifting her own glass to her lips and making a shoo-ing motion with her free hand. “Take it.”
Relenting, Hermione allowed the small glass to slide into her grasp and she swore she could feel it shiver in satisfaction at having fulfilled its command.
Staring into the amber liquid for a moment, Hermione decided to be good company and took an experimental sip. It was rich and faintly sweet, reminding her of the nutty biscuits her mother liked to bake around Christmas.
Licking her lips appreciatively, Hermione looked up to find McGonagall watching her patiently and smiled. “Sorry,” she said with a self-deprecating laugh. “It’s nice.”
“I have been known to enjoy a small glass,” said McGonagall with a knowing smile of her own. “Or two.”
There was a pause in which McGonagall inspected the visibly nervous Hermione over the wire-rims of her spectacles. "What can I do for you, Hermione?” she asked.
Swallowing, Hermione fidgeted with the glass she had lowered into her lap. “Well, it’s er –” Just say it. Say you want to replace Quirrell. “It’s about Professor Quirrell.”
McGonagall’s thin eyebrows rose and her lips parted with understanding. “Ah, yes,” she said, her chin drawing towards her neck as she looked down into her sherry. “Albus did tell me you were an unfortunate witness to…” She trailed off, her lips pursing disapprovingly and her gaze straying to the fire.
“Quirinus was a very good student, you know, in his time at Hogwarts,” she added, her expression appearing far away. “But always very sensitive to the opinions of others.”
Hermione nodded, not entirely sure what she was supposed to say to that. She had, after all, known nothing but the dissatisfied and fractious Quirrell. He hadn’t spoken to her much. In fact, once he'd marked her down for an essay being 'excessively long'. Having marked essays herself Hermione now understood his frustration but a tiny, resentful part of her still held it against him. It had been a very well researched essay.
“I hope you weren’t too upset by his outburst?” McGonagall asked, returning her attention back to Hermione. “Had I known he was – well, let’s just say I wouldn’t have sent you up there, I assure you.”
“No, of course,” Hermione said, shaking her head. “It’s not that. It’s…well, I was just wondering if there had been any thoughts as to his replacement.”
Frowning slightly, like she found Hermione’s keen interest curious, McGonagall said, “Albus will have to put an advertisement out as soon as possible. I believe he plans to send one to the Prophet in the morning. Merlin only knows how long it will be before we get even a single response.”
Sighing sharply through her nose, McGonagall took another, seemingly fortifying, drink of sherry.
“He will have a job finding a replacement, I can tell you that much,” she added, fixing Hermione with an exasperated look. “Muggle Studies is, unfortunately, not traditionally a subject that’s had the great and the good of the academic world clamouring at our door.”
“Minerva,” Hermione began, turning her glass between her fingers, the base pressing into her thighs. “What if…” She raised her gaze to McGonagall’s, finding it steady and piercing. “I was just thinking: what if I replaced Quirrell?”
“You?”
Hermione nodded, encouraged by the fact that McGonagall’s response hadn’t sounded utterly incredulous as much as politely surprised.
“Hermione.” McGonagall paused, like she was considering her next words carefully. “I was always under the impression that it was your ambition to teach Transfiguration. You are, after all, my apprentice.”
“It –” Hermione cleared her throat softly. “It’s my ambition to teach, Minerva. And it’s my desire to be useful to the school – to the students. I think I really could be – useful, that is – as the Muggle Studies professor.”
Lips pursed, McGonagall appraised her. “Muggle Studies is a subject that Muggleborn academics have tended to avoid,” she said tactfully. “Most of them prefer to… branch out.”
Hermione knew that McGonagall was not the kind of witch who thought anything of a student’s blood status. They were either talented, promising and hard-working or they were not – their background meant nothing to her but, still, Hermione’s expression hardened.
“You mean they like to teach subjects that make it easier for them to distance themselves from their Muggle heritage,” she said, somewhat surprised by her own bluntness.
“Yes,” McGonagall replied, taking that as permission to be equally as blunt. “You are an immensely skilled witch, Hermione. I wouldn’t like to see you pigeonholed or underestimated.”
“I’m not ashamed of being a Muggleborn, Minerva." Even if it could make things difficult, Hermione knew she was not the problem. “Maybe by becoming the Muggle Studies professor I could help some of our students cultivate a similar pride. Or challenge some preconceptions.”
When McGonagall looked hesitant, Hermione added, “Change has to start somewhere. What better place than here, with us?”
Such idealism earned Hermione a tired but compassionate smile. “I can’t pretend it wouldn’t make our lives a lot easier,” McGonagall admitted on a sigh. “You’re more than ready to begin taking your own classes, as I’m sure you’re well aware.”
The fire crackled, discordantly merry as McGonagall inspected Hermione, her expression tight. Hermione couldn’t help but hold her breath under such scrutiny.
“You really want it?” McGonagall finally asked. “To teach Muggle Studies? I’m more than happy to give you charge of one of my OWL Transfiguration classes, you know. I’d already been considering it for next year.”
“I do,” Hermione said earnestly. “I do want it.”
Though the idea had only come to her that afternoon, Hermione had become oddly attached to it. She had visions for her classes, hopes for her students. She could make Muggle Studies a useful, interesting subject. More than something students selected because they saw it as a bit of a soft touch.
“I believe you,” McGonagall said, straightening up purposefully in her chair to set her now empty glass on a small side table. “Well then, I suppose there’s no time to waste – we might save Albus a letter.”
By 9pm, Hermione was seated in Dumbledore’s office, a lemon sherbet she had accepted but could not bring herself to eat clutched in her sweaty palm, while Minerva McGonagall pleaded her case.
“And this is what you want, Hermione?” Dumbledore finally asked, his twinkling blue eyes inspecting Hermione over the rims of his half-moon spectacles. “To replace Professor Quirrell?”
“Yes,” Hermione said with a firm nod, trying to inject as much certainty into her voice as possible. “It is.”
“You've a great aptitude for transfiguration,” Dumbledore said, his voice gentle but undeniably leading. “Minerva and myself have been most pleased with you. You're sure you would not rather continue on your current path?
Hermione pursed her lips. Dumbledore was, in the eyes of many, the champion of Muggles in the wizarding world. It was thanks to him, after all, that much of the most recent legislation for the protection of Muggles and the advancement of Muggleborn rights had been passed. Yet here he was, having already lost one Muggle Studies professor, attempting to dissuade a perfectly willing and qualified replacement.
Sometimes Hermione wondered if he didn’t like good ideas quite as much when they did not spring from his own mind.
“I’m very sure, sir,” Hermione said, meeting his blue eyes with certainty. “I think I could do a lot of good in that role. Besides, I’ll still pursue my interest in transfiguration on the side.”
Dumbledore’s eyes drifted to McGonagall who lifted her shoulders ever so slightly and said, “She’s ready to take classes, Albus. More than ready. And we cannot pretend she’s not an ideal candidate – known to the students and personally invested in the subject.”
Dumbledore nodded slowly, clasping his hands on the surface of his desk. “Minerva’s clear confidence in you is enough for me,” he eventually said. “I would be delighted to have you in the role.”
Hermione brightened but, seeing her perk up, Dumbledore raised a cautioning hand. “You are, however, still very young to be given a professorship. Even with your years of experience as an apprentice.”
Hermione frowned. She was around the same age Quirrell had been when he’d taken the job. Before she could point that out, Dumbledore explained, “In recent years, the school’s governors have become somewhat more… invested in our – my – teaching appointments.”
Through Dumbledore’s beard, Hermione thought she could see a slight downturn to his lips that suggested he wasn’t entirely pleased by the board of governors’ interest. It went some way to mollifying her.
“They have expressed a desire to vet new appointments,” Dumbledore continued. “Assess their qualifications and their backgrounds.” His eyes flicked briefly to McGonagall before returning to Hermione, piercing her. “Your relative youth may give them pause.”
“Surely, professor, my years of experience as an apprentice should go some way to alleviating any concerns they have,” Hermione replied. “I’m not exactly coming from nowhere. The parents know they can trust me with their children.”
Hermione had created lesson plans, taught classes, marked essays and invigilated OWL examinations. That wasn’t to mention the good relationships she had forged with her colleagues – she was a far better option than any outsider and the more she thought about it, the stronger she felt about it.
“Indeed,” Dumbledore agreed. Quite jovially, too. “Still, I anticipate that you will receive an invitation to a meeting or an interview over the summer before your appointment can be confirmed.”
“Does that mean you –”
“Yes, Hermione. It means I will be putting you forward as a candidate. The only candidate, I might add.” Dumbledore’s eyes gleamed, a wry smile curving his lips. “Let us see if that doesn’t help to twist their collective arm, hm?”