Hermione couldn't get back to sleep. Even though it was four o'clock in the morning, she was just too excited. In seven hours she would be going to magic school where she would learn to be a witch. A real witch with spells and potions and maybe even turning people into frogs. There were a few girls she knew who she would like to turn into frogs. Annabeth, Cleo and Felicity were the main three. They were always making fun of her, calling her a buck-toothed frizzy-faced bookworm. But at her new magic school she would finally fit in and have friends.

But what if she didn't? What if she couldn't make friends? Professor McGonagall said there were only a few muggleborn like her. Most of the other first years would already have friends. She needed a way to get them to like her. She had read in a few of her books that when someone went to work at a new place sometimes they would take donuts. She didn't have any donuts, but she had something just as good.

She climbed out of bed and put on the clothes she had taken off the night before because she didn't want to risk getting her clothes dirty for today. She crept down the stairs quietly, careful not to wake her parents. She turned on the light in the kitchen and went rummaging through one of the cupboards looking for what she needed: two boxes of cupcake mix. She quickly read the instructions through twice to check what she needed to add. 1 egg and 90ml of water for each box, as well as a bowl for mixing and a jug to measure out the water.

She quickly found the things she needed and got mixing. Hermione was careful not to make a mess and to stay quiet, but it was still fun and she hoped potions class would be like this. The boxes of mix came with cupcake liners and little round bits of edible rice paper with pictures of Beauty and the Beast on them. They were a gift from her grandmother after she had taken Hermione to see the new Disney film, but her parents had said it was too much sugar for Hermione on her own. Well, Hermione thought, I won't be eating them on my own, I'll be sharing them.

Hermione put the cupcake liners on an overnight tray, and after turning on the oven she started to portion out the mixture. The boxes said that there was enough mix for twelve cupcakes in each box, but Hermione must have overfilled them a little because in the end she only had twenty-one. She considered trying to take a little out of each cupcake and fill up the other three, but decided it wasn't worth it. She set the tray into the now-hot oven and closed the door, and then started to clean up while keeping an eye on the clock. The cupcakes only needed 20 minutes and it was now just past five am.

While Hermione was cleaning she noticed that the cupcake kits had way more cupcake cases than was needed. She was just about to throw them away when she had an idea. There was still half a box of rice krispies in the cupboard that was her cereal. Her parents preferred cornflakes, and the rice krispies would go stale long before Christmas. Hermione had two things that would be wasted, so she knew just what to do. There was some chocolate in the cupboard that was hers, her parents (ever the dentists) rationed Hermione's chocolate out so it was normal for her to have quite a bit in the house. She quickly dried the mixing bowl she had just cleaned and started to break up the chocolate into the bowl.

She stopped half way through as half of the time for cooking the cupcakes had passed, so she carefully used a tea towel to protect her fingers and turned the tray around so that they cooked evenly. That done, she returned to breaking up the chocolate. She put the bowl in the microwave for thirty seconds, being extra careful not to let the microwave ping in case it woke up her parents. She took out the chocolate and gave it a stir, but it was still hard so it went back in for twenty seconds. She repeated that until it was completely mixed, and then she poured the rice krispies in with the chocolate. A little mixing and the cereal was coated in chocolate.

Hermione started spooning the mix into the cupcake liners. She had to work quickly because it was fast approaching the time when she had to pull the cupcakes out of the oven if she didn't want them to burn. Soon, she had twenty-one piping hot cupcakes and fifteen rice crispy treats. The kitchen smelled delicious, and Hermione couldn't help herself from eating one of the cupcakes. It was warm, tasted of vanilla, and it was delicious. She put the cakes and the treats in the fridge and started cleaning again. It was now almost half past five, her parents would be up in an hour and she had to have everything done by then.

What Hermione didn't know was that her mother had been watching her from the dark hallway for the past ten minutes. Emma Granger was always a pretty light sleeper and the smell of the baking cake had woken her up, she had come down the stairs to find Hermione doing a good job in the kitchen. As today was the last time she was going to see her daughter until Christmas, she decided that she was going to be proud of her rather than upset and ruin the last few hours they had together.

"Right, I need to let the cupcakes cool enough before I can ice them, then the little pictures go on top of the icing. I also need to find something to carry them all in," Hermione muttered to herself.

Emma decided to answer. "There's an old platter for sandwiches that I was going to throw out, you can use that."

Hermione jumped and turned quickly when she heard her mom's voice. "Mum! I'm sorry I was just… well the cake mix was mine and so was the chocolate and cereal and I thought-" her mother cut her off as she tried to explain.

"You thought that if you had something to share with the other kids that it would help you make friends. I understand. I wish you had thought of it yesterday, then we could have done this together. Now, let me get that platter for you, and I think I have a few drops of food colouring in the cupboard as well, so we can colour the icing if you want." With that, her mum went into what Hermione called the everything cupboard. Everything that didn't have a place of its own in the kitchen went in that cupboard, and she pulled out a plastic container.

Hermione and her mother first made themselves breakfast (eggy bread) to give the cupcakes a chance to cool. One thing Hermione liked about her parents was just because they had a war on sugar it didn't mean everything had to be healthy. They enjoyed the fried breakfast that Hermione's mum used to make for her a lot when she was younger. It was almost as if her mum was saying that Hermione will always be her little girl, but with the food rather than saying it.

Once they were done eating they mixed up the icing. Emma would spoon the mixture onto a cupcake and Hermione would add one of the rice paper pictures and put the cupcakes in the tray. Working together, it only took a few minutes and they were done. Hermione added the rice krispies treats as well and then ran up to her room to get changed. Once she came back down, she found that her mum had put the tray of treats on her new school trunk and was now sitting on the sofa with two cups of tea, one in her favourite mug. Hermione sat down next to her mum and cuddled in next to her. "I'm really going to miss you and dad."

"We are going to miss you too darling." Her mother kissed her head. Hermione's lack of sleep finally caught up with her, and she dozed off cuddling up to her mum.

-ϟϟϟ-

Hermione had just finished saying goodbye to her parents and had walked through the barrier. She couldn't help but smile at the sight of the scarlet steam engine and all the other kids who were going to be her classmates. She made her way onto the train, looking at everything as she went. She had a little problem getting her trunk up and onto the train, but an older blond girl in blue trimmed robes who was wearing a badge with a P on it smiled at her and cast a spell on Hermione's trunk and suddenly her trunk was as light as a feather and easy to lift.

Hermione started to look for a compartment to sit in. She was hoping to find a compartment with a few other first years so she could introduce herself and try and make some friends, but most of the compartments had a group of older students in them. Those who were already in uniform all had robes that had a colour trim on them. According to Hogwarts, A History, you didn't get a colour trim on your robes until after you joined your House, so that ment even the younger looking ones were at least second years. Hermione was specifically looking for people she would be sharing her classes with and maybe even a dormitory.

She saw a group of people who looked her age. They were already in their school robes and there was no house colour on their trim, so they had to be unsorted first years like her. She hesitated for a moment before steeling herself and walking over, up to the boy who was in the centre of the group. He had blond hair that was jellied and pulled back and pale skin, and he was talking with two boys and two girls. She stuck her hand to him to shake and said, "Hi, I'm Hermione Granger. I don't know anyone on the train, so I was looking to meet some of the other first years."

At first the boy didn't say anything, he just looked her up and down examining her while the other four snickered at her introduction. Finally, he said, "Piss off, you filthy little mudblood."

Hermione froze. What was a mudblood? Just how bad of an insult was it? In her head she could suddenly see that the next seven years were going to be exactly like they were in her previous school. She would be a friendless outcast, she would spend all her time in the library throwing herself into her studies so she would be too distracted to feel how lonely she was, and now she wouldn't even have her home and parents at the end of the day.

One of the other boys suddenly pushed her and she fell. "Hey the mudblood has a tray of cakes." And he opened the tray of cupcakes and rice krispies treats and started to shove them in his mouth. The other boy who hadn't said anything yet strode over and joined him. Suddenly there was a black-haired boy next to her and he was punching the one who had knocked her to the floor. The three boys she had tried to talk to all rounded on the black-haired boy while the two girls put their noses in the air and walked off.

The newcomer was better at fighting than any of the three, but there were just too many of them for him to win on his own. Another student, a red haired boy with red trimmed robes, appeared and broke up the fight with a spell. Hermione noticed that he too was wearing a badge with a P on it and suspected that the P stood for prefect. The prefect demanded to know what was going on, and the black-haired boy explained that the other three had been attacking a girl right outside his compartment. The blond said what was possibly the worst thing he could have said in that situation. "So what, I was just showing a mudblood her proper place."

The prefect gasped in horror at the words, but the black-haired boy got a dark look on his face and punched the blond one in the nose hard enough that Hermione heard a crunch. Before anyone could do anything, the prefect called out "Protego" and there was suddenly a wall of shimmering force between the two groups. The prefect was the next to speak. "Oh dear, it looks like you fell over and busted your nose on the floor. Let's go see the trolley witch, she knows some first aid spells." With that he dragged the blonde boy away and his two gorillas followed while the prefect lectured them about how to behave in a civilised society.

The black-haired boy came over to Hermione and offered her his hand to help her to his feet, a slightly shy smile on his face. " Hi, I'm Harry Potter. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Hermione recognised the name from some of her background reading on the wizarding world. Her eyes flicked to his forehead for a moment looking for the lightning bolt-shaped scar that all the books that mentioned him said was there. Sure enough, just over his left eyebrow was the scar. She took his hand and let the boy pull her to her feet, but she didn't let it go straight away, instead turning it into a hand shake. "And I'm Hermione Granger. Thank you for sticking up for me."

Harry flashed her a boyish grin. "I just hate bullies like that." He picked up what was left of the tray of cakes, most of which were now smashed and destroyed, and handed it to her. "Do you want to join me in my compartment? There's plenty of room?" She agreed and went in to sit with Harry, who smiled with genuine happiness when she accepted. Harry Potter was a bit rough around the edges and he was definitely a boy, but Hermione liked him and she was sure they would be good friends.

Hermione looked down at the tray. Among the broken cupcakes and the smashed rice krispies treats there was one pristine cupcake left. She smiled, as it had a picture of the Beast on it; that summed up Harry well, a good person who was a little rough around the edges. She offered him the cupcake.

"I can't take your cupcake, your parents made them for you," He refused as politely as he could.

Hermione explained the truth to him "No, I made them to share with any new friends I made today. Go ahead, you definitely earned one." She smiled as she spoke, genuinely happy to have a friend.

Harry smiled as well "How about we split it?"

Hermione nodded and broke the cake in half, and the two of them sat there enjoying the cake together.

-ϟϟϟ-

Hermione pulled the tray of cupcakes out of the oven and set them down on top of the cooker to cool. As she did she remembered the first time she had done this.

"Are you sure this is a good idea, mum?" The eleven year old girl standing next to her asked, looking at the cupcakes apprehensively.

Hermione smiled at her daughter "Didn't I ever tell you how I met your dad? I first met him because I took a tray of cupcakes and rice krispies treats with me to the Express. I gave the last one to your father and he insisted on splitting it with me. We were the best of friends from then until we got older and fell in love."

"Really?" The young girl sounded so excited.

"Yes Harmony, really. Now, you clean out the mixing bowl while I find the rice krispies and chocolate. And don't take all night about it, you leave for Hogwarts tomorrow morning." Hermione searched through the cupboard for the chocolate as she thought about the time she had spent with Harry over the last twenty-two years, and despite the struggles they had had she couldn't keep the smile of her face

The end.