Chapter 1

Iris Rose Harriet James Daffodil Potter was several things. One of those things was a girl. Another would soon be eleven. A third was stuck in a tree.

There were few things Iris liked about herself. One of those was her names – she just had so wonderfully many of them, as if she was named by a whole committee of people who argued endlessly about her name. It made her feel very important. Another was her scar, which I'm sure you've heard about. Another was her hair, which was a dark red-violet. The last, her cat ears and tail, was also the chief cause of the last of the first set of things which she was – namely, her current location halfway up a tree.

Iris had been accosted by Dudley's dog, which he had begged for after seeing how much it hated her. As her instincts demanded, she had promptly ascended to the safe haven of this tree. Unfortunately, her instincts were less forthcoming on how to get down again, and so there she was when an owl landed on her head, reminding her that she hadn't eaten dinner.

Sadly, her meal would have to wait, for the owl escaped death by shoving an envelope in her face.

As Iris read the letter, a catlike grin spread across her face like jam on toast, except instead of toast it was her face.

IRHJDP

Half an hour later, Iris was still stuck in the tree. In this time, however, she had done some thinking, and came to the conclusion that she should try to send a reply. Using the old pencil stub in her pocket, she wrote out a message on the back of the envelope:

'Hello. Your school sounds very nice and I'd love to go if I ever manage to get down from this tree. Love, Iris Rose Harriet James Daffodil Potter.'

She was less certain about how to actually send it. She reasoned, however, that if birds could carry messages, then cats, being much better, could as well. As such, she waited until she saw a cat – there were always a few around, thanks to Mrs. Figg – and dropped the note as close to it as she could manage. "Could you take that to Hogwarts?" she asked.

To her surprise, the cat abruptly turned into a person. "You're a Nyarselmouth?" asked the stern-looking woman in surprise.

"You're a person?" asked Iris in just as much surprise.

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Iris stared at her reflection in a shop window, trying to get her bearings. Conveniently, her scar was nearly a perfect map of Diagon Alley. (Of course, its helpfulness was questionable, since Diagon Alley was pretty much just one street in a sort of zigzag shape.) She had just come from Gringotts (where she had caused several goblins to weep and swear allegiance to her on the spot by remembering their names), and armed with a sack of gold, she was ready to go shopping.

Meandering into the first store that caught her eye… Well, actually, there wasn't a store there that didn't catch her eye. But anyway, Iris went into Oc Trunkman's Ocquipment. The shopkeeper, presumably Oc Trunkman, took a hard look at her and said, "You'll be wanting the Independent Student Starter Pack, then?"

"Probably. I have lots of money to buy things. What is it?" said Iris.

"Oh, you know. An emergency portkey, a wand holster that suppresses the Trace, a self-shrinking trunk with a portal to a fully-furnished manor inside, a disguise kit just in case you don't turn out to be a metamorphmagus, lockpicks, Polyjuice, Veritaserum, a book on how to become an animagus, a book on ancient magic from a country of your choice… You know, the usual."

"I have no idea what half of those things are. I'll take it," said Iris.

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Having spent all of the money she'd just withdrawn on the best possible trunk (she had kept asking about further upgrades until Oc assured her that it was, in fact, the best trunk that could possibly exist within the laws of magic), Iris returned to Gringotts for more money.

"Great Lady Iris Rose Harriet Daffodil Potter, you have returned!" gushed a goblin.

"Hello, Bitecoin. I need to visit my vault again to get some more money."

"You managed to spend all that already? Perhaps you'd prefer to set up a Gringotts Credit Card Bag, then," Bitecoin suggested.

"Nah, I'll just set up my trunk so it can open into my vault," Iris replied.

"I mean no offense, Great Lady Iris Rose Harriet Daffodil Potter, but the security would be…"

"Nah, trust me, my trunk has more than enough security. I could keep a dragon in here and it would be totally safe."

"Well, it's your gold. Oh, and there's a provision to give you early access to the main vault if you demonstrate a need for more gold than the trust vault is intended for. Since I like you, I'd say spending that much within half an hour of leaving here qualifies."

"Sweet."

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Iris had been at Madam Malkin's for several hours, describing her clothing. It took far more time than was really warranted and interrupted the flow of her shopping trip, but clothes were really important. Finally, Madam Malkin got fed up and sold her a pendant which would allow her to change her clothes to whatever overly specific outfit she wanted, accompanied by flashy lighting, gratuitous twirling, and convenient ribbons barely concealing her nude but flashing body. It was activated by saying "Transformicus Maxima".

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Ollivander handed Iris the third-to-last wand in the store, and it suddenly erupted with a loud buzzing sound. "Curious, curious. Nine inches, ash wood – a cutting from Yggdrasil – pink and sparkly, with a dual core of phoenix feather and Kyber crystal. Excellent for love magic. But oh my, how curious that this wand should choose you when its brother, why, its brother gave you that scar…"

"Love magic? That's a thing?" asked Iris.

"That's the part you asked about? Not the cryptic… Whatever. Yes, love magic is a thing. It tends to involve giant lasers."

A catlike grin once again spread across Iris' toast. Er, face. Whatever.

IRHJDP

The rest of Iris' shopping passed relatively quickly despite all the random strangers that kept talking to her. She got a cat that could teleport, which was named Odin, as well as a bunch of school supplies and a bunch of books. She spent the next several weeks studying in her trunk until it was time to head to the station, when she asked Odin to teleport her there.

"Right, so where's Platform Nine and Three-Quarters? …Meh. Odin, could you be a dear and teleport us to the platform?"

She got a few odd looks at this, as passerby heard her request as a bunch of nyas and such. The space where she had previously been got even more odd looks, as passerby obviously saw her suddenly disappear. Of course, all the people running headlong into a wall and passing through it got just as many. September first was always a very busy day for Obliviators.

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Iris was joined in her compartment by Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, and Neville Longbottom. She had been talking to the former when the latter two came in asking about a toad, and Ron was trying to turn his rat yellow. It didn't work.

"I don't think that's a real spell," said Hermione. "It's certainly not in The Standard Book of Spells, Grade One or Grade Two..."

"Yeah, but there are tons of great spells that aren't in there," said Iris.

"Like what? I'm sure they'd include them if they were really important…"

"Like this! Haato Basuta Cannonnn!"

The onlookers' mouths were almost as gaping as the hole in the side of the train.

"Er… How about we find a new compartment? One with plausible deniability?" suggested Ron.

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"I heard Iris Potter was in this compartment," said Draco Malfoy. "Is it true? Are you her?"

"Yep, and I've even got the ears to prove it," said Iris. "Nya."

Malfoy then went off on some tangent about the "right sort" of people or some such. Iris wasn't really listening. She'd written him off when he utterly failed to find her ears adorable. Such a person could hardly be called a person at all, so devoid he must be of positive emotions. He was more like… a fish. A tasty, tasty fish.

Anyway, the point is, Malfoy held out his hand, and Iris tried to eat it.