Chapter 1: A Plain but Ambitious Girl

I wasn't lying about the Goblet of Fire First Edition; I have First Editions of all seven Harry Potter books, courtesy of my father who collected them for me one by one when I was a child.

For eleven years I was just plain old Jean Granger; it was Dad who called me Jeannie – often with a snatch of David Bowie's Jean-Genie – and it was only later that I insisted everybody use it, after J.K Rowling stole my name.

It was in 1997 that J.K. Rowling gave the world Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, or – as she was known to the teachers at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry – Miss Granger. Hermione Granger, eleven years old, just like me; but a sassy little know-it-all whom we thought we might hate ... until she redeemed herself by being a good friend to Harry and Ron. And then we loved her.

To have someone with my name – okay, maybe just my surname – and my exact age in what was becoming a famous kids' story book ... it was special. It was like having my own secret identity; a fantasy world that I could step into whenever I liked. And I enjoyed a small notoriety at school, too. Not as much as a kid called Potter might have enjoyed; but kids mentioned it ... in a nice way.

I had already read the paperback twice, but Dad ordered me a First Edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and gave it to me for Christmas. I treasured it.

J.K. Rowling was like my personal fantasy writer; giving Hermione, and by extension me, new adventures for the next three years as I went through puberty. She was even beginning to hint at a love interest with either Harry or Ron, which was deliciously appealing because I was getting interested in boys too.

And then they made the movie.

Actually, it wasn't too bad at first. I was fourteen when Philosopher's Stone was released as a movie and Emma Watson, the actress playing Hermione – was only eleven, so nobody saw the resemblance. When Chamber of Secrets came out the following year, a couple of people, adults mostly, made the connection; I had a few people say "You know, you Granger girls DO look a little bit alike."

But a year later when Emma Watson was thirteen – goodness knows what it was like for her going through puberty on a movie screen – and with her face and body changing shape, it became clear that we were more than just a little bit alike; we could have been sisters. The sort of sisters who looked like twins.

Added to the coincidence of our shared age and surname, looking like the "real" Hermione should have made the fantasy even more special ... and for a while it did. Until the trouble.

I turned sixteen in the year Chamber of Secrets was released at the movies. I didn't have a boyfriend – I never had had one – but things seemed to be changing on that front. Without really understanding what was happening, I found myself arriving early for each class at school so that I could stand outside and wait for the teacher to come; and there was a boy doing the same thing. His name was Rick.

Goodness knows how shy kids ever hook up, because Rick and I spent five minutes alone together, three times per day ... in complete silence. I looked at my shoes. Rick looked at the ceiling ... or at his watch ... or anywhere but me. For pity's sake, why didn't one of us have a wing-man ... or wing-woman, whatever!

This must have gone on for weeks, and it probably would have kept going on if one day I didn't look at my watch, lose my grip on my books and then spill them with a shriek all over the floor in front of Rick. It's possible that I orchestrated it; I don't remember ... okay, I DO remember, but I'm not telling.

Anyway, I mouthed some suitable sixteen-year-old curse like 'bugger' and went to ground to start picking everything up; as did Rick ... according to plan ... if there had been a plan ... which there wasn't, so there! We both collected half an armful of my books and stood up, looking at each other for what might have been the first time and still not saying anything. C'mon Rick, meet me half way!

"Here you go," he smiled and gave me a 'happens all the time' kind of look. Well, it was a start.

"Thanks..." I whispered, looking back down at my shoes, " ... Rick," I finished belatedly, looking back up to accept my stuff as he handed it over; my battered copy of Goblet of Fire on the top. Way to go, Miss Cool!

"You're reading Harry Potter?" he asked, fingering the dog-eared edges of the paperback.

"Mmmm," I affirmed. The jobs of the debate team were under no threat from us for the time being.

"That's kind of funny," he said tentatively, as if to suggest that it was only funny in a very austere kind of way, and that he would cease to find it funny at very short notice if I told him it wasn't in the least bit funny.

"Because of the whole..." I gestured roundly at my face and hair, which Emma Watson might have been interested to see if she was ever curious what she might look like in three years' time.

"Yeah," he said, brushing away some tremendously persistent invisible lint on his sleeve. "And because of the name ... you know?"

"Jean?" I asked, frowning with mock confusion.

"Huh?" he looked confused too. "No. Um? Granger. You know ... like Hermione."

"I'm pulling your leg, Rick," I smiled at him.

"Oh!" he smiled back. "Yeah, good one ... Jean." He tried out my name for the first time, pausing as if tasting it, seeing if he liked the feel of it on his tongue. It seemed that he did because he smiled again, wider this time. "I read them too," he said. "They're good." Who said the art of conversation is lost?

The exquisite torture of our first exchange – if that's what you can call it – was mercifully snuffed when some more students arrived for class and we fell back into our gender roles of pretending each other didn't exist.

But with the ice broken, we talked freely for the next week in five minute snatches before class, and not always about Harry Potter. We tried the usual conversational gambits: teachers, other kids, pop stars, TV shows; but it was when we started telling each other about our families that I realised we were in a relationship of sorts.

It was the last period before lunch and we were just about to lose our privacy outside the classroom by the arrival of some more kids when Rick looked at me with a panicky desperation in his eyes.

"Jean," he whispered urgently. "Do you want to ... sit on the oval at lunchtime ... with me, I mean."

He took a few dry swallows trying to get that out and now the other kids were right there, so I couldn't answer without breaking some rule that existed only in my head. I licked my lips a couple of times, looked at him with wide, excited eyes ... and nodded. He smiled, relief washing over his features as he took a step away so that he could concentrate more fully on the task of straightening his cuffs.

I remember every minute of that day in exquisite detail, but for the life of me I have no recollection of what we learned in that hour before lunch. I don't even know what subject it was. I do remember watching Rick for a while ... a fairly long while ... sitting two rows in front and one to the left. I could see his ear, the side of his neck and the corner of his lips. I wondered what those lips might be like to kiss.

I watched the second-hand make its final, tortuous circuit of the clock face before the twelve o'clock bell and felt my heart-rate steadily lift as adrenalin surged through my system. I thought my life as someone who had never had a boyfriend might be in its final moments. I was wrong, sadly; but at the time it was a sweet feeling that I will never forget.