A/N: I was looking through old drafts and ideas as I started rewriting "Dragons speak Parseltongue too, you know," and I found this. I have no idea when or if I'll continue it, but I love this concept so much that I figured I would share the idea with you guys. If anyone is interested in adopting or continuing a version of this, please shoot me a PM! I would love to see others' takes on this.


High King Ragnok looked at the piles of paperwork on his desk with a sigh. As much as he enjoyed being king, along with all the perks of the job, he was a warrior at heart, as all goblins were to some extent. No one had challenged him for his title in what seemed like decades, though it had probably only been a few years. No one had come even close to beating him in such a long time that many had simply given up on getting the throne until he had grown old and weak, but he longed for the adrenaline rush, the challenge, and the satisfaction of defeating a skilled foe. He sighed again. In all likelihood, that wouldn't be happening any time soon, so he figured that he should probably get back to work. He glanced at the mountain of paperwork on his desk and changed his mind. Maybe a walk among the humans would help with his restlessness.

"Barclaw!" He called out to his main guard as he stood.

The aforementioned goblin immediately entered the room and bowed low, his green nose coming close to the ground. "Yes, High King?"

"I'm going for a walk. You and 6 others are to go undercover as my guard."

Barclaw nodded. This was not unusual behavior for the King; he often liked to go out with as little fuss as possible, something about not being surrounded by 'idiots who think sticking their noses as far up his ass as possible will get them into his good graces'.


Ragnok looked at the alley around him and grinned. The pettiness of some of the humans never failed to amuse him. While he was looking, a human who wasn't paying the slightest attention to where she was going walked straight into him. "Clumsy harlot wench." He muttered under his breath, fully aware that his guards would be able to hear him. He did have a reputation to uphold, after all. What he did not expect, however, was that the human would also be able to hear him, which was the only explanation that he could come up with as to what she did next.


Hermione Granger was not having a good day

Her day had actually started out quite well. She woke up feeling refreshed and excited, looking forward to getting her supplies. Even better was the fact that that morning her parents had dropped her off at the entrance of Diagon Alley, deeming 'nearly 15' as old enough to get her school supplies without their help. Of course, the fact that there was a dental convention in town didn't have anything to do with it.

She had gone to Gringotts to exchange her pounds for Galleons, the coarseness of the goblins not even putting a slight damper on her mood. After all, with so many basic rights denied to them just because they weren't human, it was perfectly understandable that they might resent wizards and witches.

No, the real reason she was so upset was Malfoy. She had just gotten in line to pay at Flourish and Blott's, her arms crammed with books, when the blonde ponce had 'accidentally' bumped into her, sending both her and the books flying, which had created a domino effect in the line. It had been a huge mess, but luckily no one had gotten hurt. The same could not be said for the books, however. There were pages everywhere, partially torn, crumpled, and some had even been splattered with ink from broken bottles. Of course, a few people had gotten splattered with ink as well, and Hermione was one of the lucky few. Luckily, a few Reparos and Scourgifies from some of the adults had fixed it, but still, Malfoy had purposely vandalized books.

Many embarrassed apologies later, Hermione had made her purchases, and, after the witch at the counter had helpfully shrunk them for her, made her way outside. "That stupid, arrogant, poncey, toerag bastard son of a nonce captain!" She huffed under her breath. She shook her head to rid herself of those kinds of thoughts and turned towards Fortesque's. Hopefully some ice cream would cheer her up.

She walked into the crowded ice cream parlour, and she'd finally gotten through the line and gotten her ice cream, so she went to sit down in the only spot available- a small two person table right next to the counter. She closed her eyes as she savoured her chocolate-caramel-mocha-cookies-and-cream and God knows what else concoction.

As Hermione finally started to relax after her stressful day, she failed to notice the people behind her. There was a woman with three young children, all looking to be under 6 years of age, getting ice cream. The poor woman was so frazzled she failed to notice one of her children tripping over all the feet in the small space, spilling his ice cream right into the lap of one Hermione Granger.

Hermione jumped as the cotton-candy-bubblegum ice cream (which conveniently had real bubblegum and cotton candy in it) splattered all over her clothes, face, and got stuck in her hair. The woman looked horrified. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry! Jimmy's so clumsy, I should have kept a better eye on him! Here, let me clean you up." And, for the second time that day, Hermione was scourgified. Now, the feeling of being cleaned by magic wasn't exactly unpleasant, but it wasn't exactly pleasant either. It felt almost as though she had allowed rubbing alcohol to dry on her face, but then the woman added in yet another spell. "Munda Leniterum." Hermione looked up, startled. "Bet you never learned that spell in Hogwarts, huh?" The woman smiled. "With little kids making messes all the time, I learned that Scourgifies leave you feeling kind of icky. That's a little trick I learned along the way."

Hermione gave the woman a strained smile, bidding her good day as she ruefully threw away her now ruined ice cream.

And this was how an extremely irritated Hermione ended up walking down the street... straight into a surprisingly sturdy goblin. Both of them nearly fell to the ground, and before Hermione could even begin to apologize, the goblin sneered at her. "Clumsy harlot wench." He muttered under his breath, but she heard him all the same.

Hermione saw red. This. was. it. She was not going to put up with any of his crap. Before she could even consider the possible repercussions of her actions, she slapped him in the face. Or at least, she was aiming for his face. He was still moving when her hand made contact, so she missed. Instead, her fingernails ended up swiping across his throat as if they were claws. Four angry red lines appeared, and miniscule droplets of blood began beaded up along the deepest cut. Hermione was horrified, but that was nothing compared to the goblin's reaction. He put his hand to his throat and pulled it away quickly, then just stared at it. "You drew first blood." He muttered incredulously. "I inadvertently issued the challenge and you drew first blood."

Before Hermione could ask what that meant, there was a bright flash of light. The small group of spectators that had gathered to watch their altercation were pushed back as she and the goblin were torn apart by the mysterious force. The two of them were lifted up in the air, and as the light intensified Hermione started to hear an androgynous voice chanting in a harsh sounding language that she didn't understand at first, but then began to comprehend bits and pieces until it was discernable to her. It was strange; she understood the words, but they didn't sound quite like English.

"Defeated by a worthy foe, you are stripped of your title as King. All hail new King, Hermione Throatslasher."

Hermione's eyes widened in shock. "Oh shite." Was all she managed to get out before the light exploded in a brilliant flash of colors, completely encasing her in its radiance. People screamed, whether in pain or shock she didn't know. As the light faded away, Hermione was revealed, except instead of her normal muggle clothing, she was wearing short robes in green and brown tones with brown pants peaking out from underneath. They were loose and flowing, and changed seamlessly between colors, making it seem as though she were a collage of the Earth itself. The sleeves were long and draped down from her arms, the design very similar to that of traditional Asian clothing, and there was a sash around her slim waist holding all the fabric in place. The most captivating additions, however, were the glittering golden crown perched atop her head, and the sheathed dagger tied in with the sash. The crown was a thick, handsome piece of craftsmanship; diamonds, rubies, saphires, and emeralds decorating it, forming what appeared to be letters. The dagger wasn't visible, but the sheath was encrusted with what looked to be the same design as the crown.

Hermione slowly floated down to the ground, and the moment her feet touched, the goblin whom she had attacked went down on one knee, putting his right hand in a fist over his heart and keeping his eyes lowered. Seven more goblins appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and went down into the same positions as the one she had mauled.

"What are you doing?" She asked, panicking. "Look, I'm sorry I tried to claw your face off, but I was having a really bad day, and you didn't even give me a chance to apologize for bumping into you, and when you said what you did I just snapped, and I'm really, really sorry and- wait... What am I wearing?"

The goblin whom she had gone psycho on spoke, still refusing to look up from the ground. "Those are the traditional coronation robes of the Goblin High Monarch, along with the crown and dagger of Hephaestus."

Hermione gaped, "Wait, how can I be wearing coronation robes?! I'm not of royal descent, I'm not even the correct species!"

"We are a warrior race, Your Highness. The crown goes to whoever defeats the Monarch in hand to hand combat."

Hermione, being the scholar that she was, completely forgot about the crowd of people craning their heads to get a better look at what was going on, the fact that she was wearing Goblin nation coronation robes, and the fact that they were addressing her as though they thought that she was the friggin' goblin king, which she was pretty sure that she was both the wrong gender and species for, and went straight into 'Hermione mode'. "But- but- how do you know that the best fighter will be the best ruler? How do you prevent corruption?"

"The dagger and the crown, Your Highness. They only appear to those worthy." He responded.

Hermione barely had time to take in this new information before what he had said earlier. "Whoever defeats the Monarch in hand to hand combat? If I'm- that means you-" She facepalmed. "Bloody hell, I attacked the Goblin King!"

"Former Goblin King, Majesty." The Goblin to the right of Ragnok corrected her, looking at her in slight awe while doing so."

Of course, the second that the piece of groundbreaking news that Hermione had been successfully ignoring up until that point got stuck in her face, she fainted from the shock.