Granger residence, Putney
7 September, 1991
Dear Hermione,
Dad and I were very happy to get your letter, brought to us by a lovely black-feathered owl who is currently roosting on the back of one of our kitchen chairs (with a paper spread underneath—I know you said the school owls are well-trained, but I didn't like to take any chances). Rest assured we fed her well.
Of course we're proud of you! Please don't worry about that. It's so good to hear that you've settled into life there at the school for witches. It's a bit strange, not being able to offer proper advice about what to expect at a boarding school of this sort. I went to a day school myself, and boarding school was always something rather out of Enid Blyton for me. I certainly would never have dreamed of a school like your Hogwarts! I know there were incidents that occurred at your old schools that sometimes made it difficult for you to feel really at home with the other students. With so many other girls and boys there who are able to use magic and understand what it's like to have those very special gifts, it must be a great deal easier to find compatible friends to study and socialise with. ("With whom to socialise," I should say. Miss Montgomery would never have approved of a dangling preposition, and I expect your Professor McGonagall wouldn't either!)
Your House Prefect, Percy Weasley, seems a good sort of friend and mentor to have, although it might appear a bit strange for a boy of his age to have much to do with a girl of yours, so you can't expect him to be available all the time what with his other duties and responsibilities. It was very kind of him to take you under his wing and inform you of the things you needed to know and what to expect in your classes, and he sounds intelligent and responsible. As for the girls in your year that you mentioned, Miss Lavender and Miss Patil, I'm sure you'll all get along splendidly. Do be sure to give them a little friendly assistance in their schoolwork, should they need it, but don't push it on them either. Sometimes students require a little time on their own to learn the material and feel entirely comfortable with their studies, and even mistakes, provided they are small ones, can be quite helpful in the learning process. So be careful not to actually take over for them, but let them work things out for themselves, should they need to. (And Miss Montgomery would not have approved of that split infinitive, either. Dear me. Perhaps I should go back to school.)
It sounds exciting to meet someone like Harry Potter, who is so famous among the wizards. It must be rather difficult for him to grow up surrounded by so much attention. I'd imagine he'd be happiest if everyone treats him like an ordinary boy at school, although I realise this is not an easy thing for people to do sometimes. Since he is in both your year and your House, I'm sure you'll be in classes a great deal together. I'm no expert at dealing with famous people, so I can only try to put myself in his place and use my common sense. He's probably all too used to people fawning over him or being excessively shy around him, so if you do find yourself interacting with him, just be as pleasant and natural as you can. I'm sure you'll get along quite well with all your classmates if you use your good sense and judgement with them and don't push too much.
I'd say that that Sorting Hat has you pegged quite nicely! I don't know if I'd call you "domineering" exactly—that seems a bit negative—but it's true that you can be a bit forceful at times and it startles people. Different people have different priorities, and unfortunately not everyone finds studying and doing well in classes and exams as instinctual as you do. Though I'm quite glad that you do enjoy your classes and getting to the bottom of things—I'd love you just as much if you were the sort of girl who runs around with a clothespin in her nose and looking like Cinderella in rags, but it's much easier on my motherly nerves that you aren't! I'm relieved to hear that your House suits you so well. I wouldn't presume to say whether the Hat is truly magical in itself or perhaps if one of the masters hadn't got to know the students previously and is doing the speaking for the Hat, if you take my meaning—but in any event, it sounds as if someone there is a very shrewd psychologist and judge of character.
I'm afraid this has been rather a prim and motherly letter—rereading it, I feel an awful lot like Polonius, that dreadful bore!—and I don't want it to be all finger-shaking advice. Your account of the enchanted ceiling and the Sorting Hat and learning how to transform a match into a needle are such marvellous and exciting things. It's hard not to feel a little like a hungry little girl looking into a sweetshop window, with her nose pressed up against the glass and her hands leaving marks because she's trying to almost force herself into that wonderful, tantalising place just before her. I remember being a little girl myself and visiting a Stately Home, craning my neck to look up at the ceilings covered with golden sunsets and cupids peeping from behind clouds and so forth, and wishing I could go up there and play with them, they seemed so close and so real. (And now you know why I always glance up at the ceiling when I go into a strange place—I'm automatically checking for skyscapes. I was teased a great deal for that in school.) We have IMAX theatres and projection screens in our world, but it's not the same thing as being in a real place outside and experiencing the wonders of clouds drifting across an open sky or a wave catching on a rock and sending the salt spraying to your lips. Your letters are a bit like that—I'm sitting in the cinema watching the movie, but you're out experiencing a whole, great world for yourself in a way that I'm simply unable to. I'm so very glad that you have a chance to learn about both the world of wizards and our own life in the non-magical, technological world. Surely both have good things to offer the other, and someone like you can help bridge the gap between them.
Don't be afraid to send the owl again if you need dental floss or a new toothbrush or anything like that. I'm sure there are spells to prevent tooth decay, but there's nothing like hands-on brushing to make really sure they're clean.
Your loving mother,
| Isabel Granger |
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written by Teka Lynn
February 18, 2003
All rights to the characters and setting are held by J K Rowling and
whoever else holds them, including, but not limited to, Bloomsbury Books,
Scholastic Books, and Warner Bros. This fanwork was created solely for
fun and has no legal or financial connection to the Harry Potter
novels.
Since Rowling hasn't revealed Mrs Granger's first name so far,
for the purpose of this letter I named her Isabel, after a character in
the Shakespeare play Measure for Measure.