Harry grabbed Hermione by her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes. His emerald orbs seemed to wipe all thoughts from her mind.
"You - will - be - fine."
The door creaked.
Hermione whipped her head around just as the door opened halfway.
The pressure on her shoulders vanished and when she looked back, so had Harry.
"Hermione!" Sophie Roper bounded into the room, followed closely by Padma.
She quickly gathered her wits. "Hey Sophie. Padma."
Padma strolled up to the semi-circle of chairs and leaned on one, eyes slightly widened. "Hermione,"-she gestured towards the silk covered object on the wall-"is that what I think it is?"
Sophie landed in a chair and started fishing in her bag.
Hermione smiled. "Probably."
Padma let out a long breath. "Whose?"
"Introductions soon, I promise."
They chatted for a few more minutes and were soon joined by Justin and Kevin.
Dean was last, a few minutes after their agreed time. "Sorry about that, had to shake John Potter."
Padma frowned. "Didn't he want you to come?"
Dean shrugged. "I didn't want to tell him. He hates Slytherins." He indicated Hermione.
Padma looked ready to say something else.
Hermione frowned. Best not to let this get political. She cleared her throat.
Her five classmates turned their attention to her.
"Umm, thank you for coming." She took a breath and continued. "So, in the last year, you all found out you were magical. Except Padma, of course."
Padma nodded.
Hermione continued. "I found out a few years earlier, but this is still all pretty new to me too. I've been doing much of the same education that many of our friends do before they go to Hogwarts, but I still didn't walk down Diagon Alley until I went to buy my wand."
The semi-circle nodded. Sophie had a muggle notebook on her knees.
"This world is very different from the world we come from. We're all given an introduction lecture when we're given our Hogwarts letters, but it leaves out a lot of things - a lot of important things."
She took a breath. "When I was in Diagon Alley, I met Justin here." She nodded at Justin who smiled back. "And we talked briefly about this. He asked if we could set something up to teach the details that the school can't or won't teach. And here we are. Sorry it took so long."
Her audience all made 'it's all right' motions. Kevin grinned.
She smiled sheepishly. "The reason it took so long, is I wanted to arrange something special and usually only available to old families." She indicated the silk covered object on the wall. She grasped the silk. "Allow me to formally introduce you," she pulled off the silk, "to Portrait Elizabeth Greengrass, the former Lady Greengrass, and Heiress Daphne Greengrass's grandmother."
The surrounded muggleborns's eyes widened, while Padma looked both surprised and impressed.
Portrait Elizabeth smiled an elegant smile that revealed the wrinkle lines under her fierce, ice-blue eyes.
"She will make sure I don't miss anything. Any questions?"
Padma raised a hand. "I didn't know you were allowed to bring paintings into the castle."
Hermione shrugged. "It's not common, but it's not against the rules. Some students bring them in to act as tutors and to communicate with their families without using owls. Why do you think we're not allowed to hand in dictaquilled essays?"
"You mean…?"
Portrait Elizabeth took over, her voice oozing quiet nobility. "Yes, Dear. In fact, it was during my time that the rule was introduced. A Hufflepuff was caught handing in essays written by the portrait of his many times great grandfather. I was lead to believe that the fool forgot to adjust for changes in the language."
Sophie was carefully taking notes.
"So," Hermione picked up a piece of chalk and wrote, 'LESSON ONE' on the blackboard. "We'll start with what exactly happened with Justin and Malfoy and go from there. There's a lot of background to cover."
And thus she began to explain, assisted every so often by Portrait Elizabeth Greengrass. She explained about pureblood privilege and how it came into being, and how it was different from noble privilege. She explained why people like Crabbe and Goyle resented muggleborns, and how families like Malfoy, Nott, and Parkinson had long ago boxed themselves into a position where they had to support purebloodism to maintain their business interests, despite themselves already being noble, and how after many generations they'd come to genuinely believe in a cause that at first they'd supported merely out of market pragmatism.
She explained about the discrimination that muggleborns faced in the workplace and gave examples of many of the common tricks that unscrupulous wizards would use to trap muggleborns into less than favourable situations. The blackboard was now covered in chalk.
"This," she said, holding up an ornate looking piece of parchment, covered in silver like markings, "is Gringotts contract parchment. It is charmed with all sorts of protections and safeguards to ensure that the person signing it is signing only what they think they are signing, and nothing more."
In her other hand, she held up another piece of parchment. "This," she continued, "is normal parchment like we use in our school essays. Padma?" She turned to the Indian witch who jumped at the sudden address. "What is the very first thing we learn about family business?"
Padma took a deep breath. "Never ever, ever, ever sign anything that is not written on Gringotts contract parchment." The words sounded like they'd been forced into her brain over four dozen lessons and probably had been.
Hermione nodded. "Exactly." She glared around at her wide-eyed peers. " Anyone could spell this with anything !" She waved the normal parchment in their faces. "You could sign away your life savings! You could sign a confession for a crime! You could even accidentally marry off one of your own, as yet unborn children!"
Kevin stammered. "But, the law-"
...
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