Disclaimer: Anything you recognise isn’t mine. The basic idea for the plot isn’t mine, as this is written for a challenge on portkey, made by Femtedd. Hope you enjoy it.

A/N: I couldn’t resist writing this idea, and once again I apologise to my usual readers for leaving you hanging while I work on these challenges.

Hermione watched Harry rub his forehead in wonder, his emerald eyes staring at the heavy parchment in his hands in a mixture of confusion and surprise. “Well what is it?” she prompted, nosiness getting the better of her. He’d been staring at the parchment for a good fifteen minutes now, and she was getting impatient. She’d first come here for a meeting with him, but Harry had ended up getting an owl delivery, and once he had read it he had just been staring at it. Even the most patient person couldn’t stay quiet for that long, especially when Hermione herself was so curious to find out what could have stunned him so speechless.

Harry finally tore his eyes away from the loopy writing and stared at her with a slightly dazed expression. “I just inherited a mansion from my late great aunt’s, nephew’s, cousin’s, sister’s, husband’s niece. Apparently she had a fondness for cats, and they’ve been ruling the household for a good two years before a neighbour realised she was dead....”

Hermione blinked, still trying to get her head around how this woman was actually related to Harry. It didn’t seem like she was at all, but then she supposed anyone who was related to the great Harry Potter would try claim the relationship, however distantly.

“What are you going to do?”

Harry frowned and scratched his messy, black hair. “I suppose I’ll have to check it out and sort out all the passing over of the house, but I’ve got that conference in Madrid…” He paused and looked at Hermione with that same expression he always used to when he was about to ask her a huge favour. His eyes would get a hopeful and yet slightly apologetic gleam in them, his body would instinctively move closer to hers, and that small, crooked smile would settle on his lips. Damn him for knowing her weakness; she could never resist that face.

“I don’t suppose you could check it out for me, could you?”

Hermione willed herself to be able to say no, but she had always had a soft spot for Harry, and faced with that winning smile there was no way she could do it. “Yeah, I can. Just tell me the address and I’ll go there later today.”

“Thanks Hermione,” Harry said with a grin. “You’re the best.”

She only smiled weakly, idly wondering why she always ended up doing the dirty work. Harry would owe her for this.

The mansion turned out to be a lot nicer than Hermione had initially thought it would be. The grounds looked a little over-grown, with thick grass reaching up to her knees, but the house itself looked inviting, if a little old. It was made all of rusty brick, and in the evening sun she knew it would look like it was on fire. If she were more of a romantic turn of mind, Hermione was sure she would find the old mansion terribly exciting by letting her mind slip into fantasies and make up gruesome stories in how the cat-loving woman had died, as well as pretending it was haunted and goodness knows what else. As it was, Hermione was not so fantastical, and walked steely through the overflowing, jade grass to where a glimpse of stone could be seen peeping out near the door, her only thoughts directed on inspecting the house and then getting the hell out of there.

She took a deep breath and placed her hand around the cold metal of the handle, giving it a firm tug, but the great wooden door refused to be budged.

“Well that can be dealt with,” Hermione muttered to herself, unperturbed by this minor hiccup, and whipped out her wand to unlock the door. It still remained stubbornly locked, and seemed to be mocking her with its door-like smile thanks to the glass windows situated like triangular eyes. She glared at it, hands fastening on her hips in frustration.

“Fine, if that’s how you want to be.”

The door did not answer, and feeling rather irritated, Hermione kicked it for good measure. She was surprised to find her foot go right through door in a sickeningly fast motion, her brain not expecting anything to happen but a loud thud of her foot hitting the door. Squeaking in shock, and slight pain, Hermione glanced down and noticed her foot stuck in a giant cat-flap. Honestly, did this woman house baby tigers? That got her thinking though, if she couldn’t get in through the door itself, than surely she could get in through the cat flap?

Pleased with her rapid thinking, Hermione aimed her wand at herself and said the incantation for a shrinking charm, her body instantly growing smaller until she stood at around knee height on a fully-grown man. She smiled in a satisfied to herself, pocketed her wand, and pushed the flap open with her now tiny hands, scrambling through awkwardly and falling haphazardly on the floor. Groaning to herself in pain, Hermione raised her head, her eyes falling on two small feet standing in front of her. She paused, her body stiffening, and raised her eyes to see a small creature with a large bat ears, it’s bulbous green eyes watching her rather dottily. It was a house-elf, and judging by its somewhat glazed expression, a rather shortsighted one as well.

“Um, hi,” Hermione began, quickly scrambling to her feet. “I’m Hermione, I’ve come to check the house for Mr Potter.”

The house-elf blinked a few times and then graced her with a large, gummy smile, its teeth obviously having fallen out a long time ago. “You must be the new house-elf,” it squeaked in its high pitch voice.

“No. I’m a witch, but-”

The house-elf gasped. “You lies, you do, and not a very nice lie it is either. To say you are a witch when you are clearly a house-elf is a very bad thing. Didn’t your family teach you anything?”

Hermione tried to protest, but the stubborn little elf would have none of it. It placed its wrinkly hands on its equally wrinkly hips and gave her a stern look that looked rather senile at the same time. “You are not going to do that flighty nonsense around here, Miss, now you get out of those human clothes and into your house-elf gear.”

Frustrated, and still trying to persuade the house-elf into accepting she was in fact a witch and not a house-elf, Hermione suddenly found a bony, little finger pointing at her eyes.

“What are you doing?” she asked apprehensively, but that was soon made clear as the elf snapped its fingers once, and instantly Hermione’s clothes were replaced by what looked like a tatty pillow case, with holes ripped into it for her head, arms and legs. She blinked, stared in stunned silence at her body so recklessly clothed, and realised that there were no pockets.

“My wand!”

The old house-elf’s eyes narrowed. “You had a wand! OH, you are a bad, bad house-elf.”

Hermione sighed, ignoring the senile house-elf’s ramblings. Now what was she going to do? She had no wand, was wearing only a pillowcase, and she was tinier than even Professor Flitwick and had no way to change back to her normal size. This was just perfect… she didn’t think her life could get any worse.

Something whacked her on the bottom, the sharp pain startling her out of her depressing thoughts, and Hermione’s eyes fell on the wrinkled house-elf now holding a giant wooden spoon at her menacingly. Apparently life could get worse, and just had.

“You is to come with me, and I shall teach you how to be a proper house-elf. The new master is coming soon, and I expect you to be able to serve him properly.”

Hermione just stared. There was no way she was going to serve Harry. Her clothes and wand had to be around here somewhere, and she was going to find it and change back to herself if it was the last thing she did. She may care about house-elves, she may be the only person to ever start up a society like S.P.E.W, but she had never, ever wanted to be one herself, and she would not stay as one that was for sure.

‘You seriously owe me for this, Harry.’

A/N: So, incredibly short chapter, but think of this as a prologue of sorts. The next ones will be much longer! I hope you liked it, and of course feedback is most welcome.