The next morning, Hermione woke up extremely early. In fact, when she glanced at the clock on the wall, it wasn't even 6 am yet. She forced herself to get out of bed even though she wasn't fully awake, and tiptoed to the bathroom, part of the hasty tour given yesterday. She brushed her teeth, took a quick shower and pulled on the school robes before heading back to her bead, where she made the blankets and rearranged the books she had just arranged yesterday. She sat down on the plump mattress and began reading, telling herself that she'd go down to the Great Hall for maybe a small snack and head to her classes soon afterward.

By the time she was halfway through the thick book, her new roommates finally began to stir. When she was ¾ done, almost everyone had already gone downstairs to the Great Hall for breakfast, ignoring her, though Hermione was sure the bullying would come later. When she finished the volume, there was only one other person in the room.

Hermione packed the book in her bag silently, not wanting to talk. She took out the books she'd need for the first class and her wand, which she then used, with a spell she had just read about, to push her bags underneath her bed.

"Wow," the girl clapped. "Impressive. I'm pretty sure that's a fourth year spell." Hermione clenched her jaw and turned around to face Pansy.

"What do you want?" She asked bitterly, not having forgotten the exchange she had overheard the previous night. Her heart clenched at the memory of it, and the familiar loneliness found its way back into her mind.

"Why, I just wanted to know the truth." Pansy stood up and peered at Hermione with her bright green eyes. Her long dark hair was curled to her shoulders in a fashionable bob with bangs. "Are you a mudblood?"

Hermione flinched at the use of the vile insult. "Muggleborn. I'm a muggleborn." Deep inside, she knew that she didn't have to reply, but anger was bubbling inside of her too. "And there is nothing wrong with that."

Pansy studied her for a long second and then burst out laughing. "Nothing wrong with that? Are you sure?" She wiped a tear from her eyes and fixed her robes. "I don't know if you heard, but Slytherin is for the pure. Not for people like you," she spit the word out so hard that Hermione flinched, but didn't look up. She had learnt the hard way that just ignoring the bullies would make them stop.

Hermione only looked back up when Pansy's footsteps faded away. Arms shaking ever so much, she adjusted her books in her arms and quietly walked out of the door that connected the girl's dormitory to the Slytherin common room. As she did, she heard a trickling of water above.

Probably the black lake, she thought to herself. From the high, curved windows, she could even see the lake, and upon squinting, even spotted a large squid float by.

The walls were very gothic, and even had ancient inscriptions in them, perfectly untouched even though they had been there for centuries. As Hermione traced her fingers across the stone walls, she was very aware that some 500 years ago, another girl like her could've done the exact same thing in this exact same spot.

There was a large mantelpiece and rather fancy decorations, which gave the common room a more grand majesty, rather than cozy, though Hermione almost preferred it. The girl's dorms were extremely comfortable, and she was sure the boy's dorms were too. The common room seemed more of a professional area rather than a place to hang out, which a part of her deeply regretted, mainly because she had been almost looking forward to gossiping and whatnot in the common room of her appointed house. Obviously, she probably wouldn't have done any of that sort, but it was nice to think about.

There was also a strange green tint to the room, most likely set off by the murky waters of the lake and the green lampshades. In fact it seemed as if the entire common room had cleverly placed hints of green everywhere. From the frame of the tapestry to the engravings on the walls, everything had some form of green in there. In a way, Hermione enjoyed it. It almost reminded her of her own room... just a lot more gothic.

She had read an article that said every house had an element attached to it. Gryffindor was fire, Hufflepuff was earth, Ravenclaw was air and Slytherin was water. Out of all of those, she personally knew that Slytherin would fit her the best, mostly because she loved the water, and it was the only thing that tamed her curls, even if just for a few seconds. But yet, a part of her wished she wasn't in Slytherin.

Hermione quickly walked out of the common room itself, her head down. For some reason, it was located in the dungeons. Silently recalling the tour given yesterday, she found her way to the Great Hall in a couple of minutes, where she awkwardly walked to the Slytherin table, grabbed a red apple and walked out of there immediately. It was almost time for the first class anyway and she didn't want to miss it.

On her way, she saw familiar platinum blonde hair, and keeping her head down, walked past, silently wishing he wouldn't see her. But her unluckiness struck again, and Draco Malfoy turned around. With him were two boys whose names she remembered being Crabbe and Goyle. They looked more like bodyguards than friends, and Hermione thought that Blaise and Theo were infinitely better friends judging by the scalding, yet dumb looks they were giving her.

"Hey," Hermione grimaced.

"Is it true you're a muggleborn?" Draco asked, instead of replying.

"Maybe?"

Draco's expression turned blank. "My father told me that muggleborns are filthy creatures who stole magic from actual wizards."

Hermione swallowed. "I don't think that's true."

"My father doesn't lie."

Hermione felt more loneliness spread inside of her as the only hope she had a friend turned away and left. Feeling more and more hopeless by the second, she found herself trudging to her first class.

The next week passed by exactly how she thought it would. Hermione was already the top student in her classes and the professors seemed to like her okay, for the most part. She was already also an outcast. In History of Magic, for example, the teacher Mr. Binns, who was a ghost after having fallen into a fire and gotten up to go teach without even realizing, received very negative applause. Everyone called the class boring, but Hermione personally liked it, maybe because he didn't try to include everyone in the lesson as it is and was straightforward with his teaching.

She actually enjoyed the Charms class and was making progress in Transfiguration. She was the only one who had succeeded in turning a match into a needle and Professor McGonagall even gave a rare smile, though it seemed a bit forced.

Maybe because I'm in the rival house, Hermione thought sadly.

It didn't take a genius to realize that Gryffindor and Slytherin quite literally hated each other. It was a house feud and whenever members passed one another, they only exchanged glares, which she didn't understand. Sure, maybe Slytherin got an advantage in the house cup because Professor Snape was rather partial, or maybe the other houses seemed to have a prejudice against Slytherin and for Gryffindor because Voldemort (she still didn't get why everyone called him you know who) was apparently a Slytherin.

Hermione honestly saw a lot of similarities between the two houses. One of Slytherin's qualities was pride, and while a lot of people didn't associate that with Gryffindor, a group of lions aren't called pride for no reason. And although fire and water were seen as entirely opposite and rival, Hermione didn't think so. You couldn't make noodles without either of them (unless you had a stove, but that's not the point).

It didn't matter anyway. All the houses hated her. Slytherin because she was a muggleborn, Gryffindor because she was in Slytherin, Hufflepuff because Justin probably spread some rumors, and Ravenclaw because as far as she could tell, that particular house wasn't very friendly and social, and she often caught them studying her as if they'd see something they'd missed before.

All in all, it was even worse than Hermione's previous experiences at school, but at least now she knew better than to try to fight back. It was obvious that there was no point in doing so. So she just kept to herself.

Friday, the Slytherins had double potions with the Gryffindors, and by what Hermione could hear, the Gryffindors weren't too happy because Snape was extremely partial and hated Gryffindor. A part of her felt as if there was more to it, but she didn't say anything. In fact, she had a feeling the professor didn't like her because he didn't call her at all that day, even though she was the only one with the answer, and continued basically bullying Harry Potter. To her relief, he was also seeming to struggle with some areas of the school, so she wasn't alone in that, but he also had a best friend Ron, who seemed to hate her for some reason. . She had actually even met with Snape the first day, and it wasn't the most pleasant experience.

"So, Hermione Granger, is it?" Snape drawled. His voice was this type of whisper that could instantly hold the room in silence. Hermione kept in mind that only she and Dumbledore remembered the whole going back in time part, so Snape had no memory of it. "You've made quite the fuss. You're a muggleborn, am I right?"

"Yes, sir." Hermione nodded so fast she thought her neck would snap off.

"I have to warn you, my students can be rather... harsh. I would recommend you keep your distance from them."

Hermione swallowed. "Okay, sir."

"You seem like a bright student and I expect nothing better than the bestest of marks from you, is that clear?"

After that, she was locked out of his office and half shivering from some sort of dread. Maybe it was because the Professor had told her exactly what she had feared, or because there was that suffocating pressure again. In fact, even though they hadn't been getting much homework, Hermione hadn't had any free time she hadn't spent outside of the library or studying.

She fell in love with the library at first sight. It was massive, with large pillars and bookshelves that stretched towards the ceiling. There was a sliding ladder and a restricted section, out of which she had already gotten some books for studying by tricking Professor Quirell, the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher that was rather meek and quiet. In fact, she felt almost guilty for using him like that, but he gave off a suspicious aura anyway, so it was hard to feel sorry for the stammering professor.

She had studied so much that even during the short meals that she ate, she always had a book in her hand, always off in the corner of the table, not talking to anyone as there was conveniently at least a two foot gap between her and the other students on the benches. Her parents would be proud of her hard work, although she had no idea what was going on with them.

Hermione had already decided to send them weekly letters, but they had made it clear before she left that they would do none of that, mainly because of her father's fear of owls. In fact, it was only her mother who would take the letters, and while the both would read them, they were probably both so busy that they wouldn't be able to reply anyway. They had just gotten a promotion at the office, so Hermione didn't mention any of her troubles in the letters she sent. The bullying had stopped after the first few days anyway, as soon as she started ignoring everyone.

After all of that, Hermine was staring at her schedule with dread, looking at what was next that day, which was Thursday. Flying Lessons with Gryffindor.