A/N: Stand in position Round Ten Y3 of THC, Standing in for Gryffindor Year Five Position. Standard, Prompt "Why do you smell like that?", Additional Courage, Muggle AU, New Roommate AU, Characters may appear OOC. Wordcount w/o Author's Note: 1438
It was a semi-cold fall afternoon as Hermione Granger walked down the winding path to where her new place of residence was going to be. Her brown, bushy hair glinted blonde in the sunlight, and her pale skin made her glow in a semi-ethereal way. She breathed out a puff of cold air, and was delighted to see that it was cold enough to see her breath.
She didn't know much about her roomates; she'd met them at a party a few weeks ago and they'd said that they could use an extra roommate. This had been wonderful for Hermione to hear because, at the time, she'd been looking for a place to stay during college. The two girls were her age so it wasn't unheard of to be friendly, and she knew she wouldn't be staying with creeps. She'd gathered their contact information and said a goodbye as she'd left the party.
And here she was now, walking through a parkway in the center of Valencia, quite a big city indeed, where she was accepted into university. She was lucky that the two women lived near a metro station, otherwise she would never know how to even begin walking somewhere far away. Maybe she'd have to get a bike, yes that would work nicely. You see, Hermione was courageous—not that many people would think that at first about the shy bookworm, but she was. She'd do things to get out of her comfort zone, and she'd try new things she'd never done before. And despite her conservative upbringing, seeing different people and their lives affected by this, her views had changed, and she was courageous enough to leave her church on her own, instead of trying to get excommunicated like others had suggested. She was thinking about these things when she ran into something, or rather, someone, who'd walked by her on the street.
"Sorry!" she quickly said, before realizing that whomever it was probably didn't speak English anyway. She should've said Lo Siento, but she was too late for that now.
"No it's fine, it was my fault," came a female reply from beside her.
She looked to her right to see a pale-skinned girl with fiery red hair.
"Ginny! Thank god it's you," she said, happy that it wasn't some stranger and that she had, in fact, ran into one of the young women she was going to be sharing an apartment with. Ginny Weasley was her name; she was the partner of Luna Lovegood, a blonde-haired girl with an airy personality. Hermione smelled something that reminded her of lilacs and, oddly, cinnamon. It took her a moment to realise that the smell was coming from Ginny.
"Why do you smell like that?" Hermione asked, rather bluntly for her personality.
Ginny laughed and stood up, brushing herself off, before answering the question Hermione had asked. "Well I used a lilac essential oil today, I'm trying to make it smell less potent but I must've failed." She paused with a laugh before continuing. "And the other thing is cinnamon, I use a homemade cinnamon shampoo," Ginny said, which gave Hermione a million other questions, but she'd have to wait to ask them, for she was being pulled along by Ginny, presumably back to the apartment where she'd be staying for the extent of her University days.
When they arrived at the tall, square building, she noticed that Ginny wasn't heading to the door, but to a set of buttons on the side instead. She gave Ginny a questioning look as she pressed the top button, standing on her tiptoes to do so. Then she stood back and waited, which confused Hermione even more. In a few seconds Hermione heard a click, and watched Ginny head over to the doorway and open the door. Hermione followed, intrigued by the amount of courage it must've taken Ginny and Luna to learn all these things about this place, that clearly wasn't their home country.
Hermione entered the building and followed Ginny up the stairs, to the penthouse floor, which she realised they must live on. When the elevator doors opened, Hermione's nose was filled with the smell of sage. Looking around, she saw plants and crystals everywhere. Herbs, flowers, hanging plants. A counter sat in the middle with what looked like a dried up bundle of leaves smoking on the counter next to some potted plants, pots, soil, and a couple packets of seeds.
Hermione had always loved nature, but she'd never been allowed to have any plants inside as a child. And she'd never been able to keep them as gorgeous as the ones she saw in the house. As she looked to her left, she saw a rather large balcony which happened to look smaller due to the fact that it had fruits and vegetables covering its surface. She noticed that much of the house she was going to be staying in had plant life, or the preparations for plants. There was aloe, ivy, jade, various succulents, trees, including a cinnamon tree, jelly bean plants, and many more. She saw various bags of soil spilling onto the floor in random spots, and the walls were painted with murals of plants.
Luna emerged after a few minutes, her hands covered in dirt as she wiped them on a pair of brown pants with mandala designs on them.
"Welcome to our humble home," Luna said to Hermione airily, walking up to her and whispering something Hermione couldn't quite make out.
"What did you just do?" she asked the free spirited young woman.
"I blessed your energy," Luna replied with a quite serious tone.
"What do you mean… blessed?" Hermione asked yet another question that normally she wouldn't be inclined to ask, but she was feeling rather courageous as of today.
"Well, in our faith," Luna said, pausing to gesture to herself and Ginny. "We believe that you can bless things to cleanse them of negative energy." Luna ended her sentence with a sort of song like tone, which was how she normally spoke, but Hermione hadn't quite known that.
"What, if I may ask, is your religion exactly?" she asked Luna, or Ginny; either could answer if they wanted to.
"We're aligned with the Wiccan faith," Luna replied, and Hermione noticed that Ginny had gone outside to tend to the garden on the balcony.
"Oh… can you tell me more about it?" Hermione inquired.
"I don't think I know hardly enough to be qualified to tell you, but you can feel free to search it!" she replied.
Hermione had already eaten dinner, so she decided to go to her assigned room, which was surprisingly empty, except for a variety of seeds and flower pots that she assumed were for her. Once she'd unpacked, she spent the entire night looking up everything she could about Wicca,, and she found that she quite liked the religion. It was nature and self based, or so she came to find out, and she quite enjoyed that aspect. She supposed that it'd be new and scary to try it, but she wanted to be more adventurous, more courageous in her life.
She'd ended up going to sleep at around midnight, and when she woke up, she walked to the kitchen to see Ginny preparing breakfast. Looking around, she noticed that Ginny and Luna were vegans, another thing she figured she'd do, while courage surged through her. She sat down on a bar stool that was made out of an iron frame, with glass on top of an ivy plant that had grown down the sides of the chair.
"Good morning Hermione, did you sleep well?" Ginny asked thoughtfully.
"Yes, I went to sleep late; I was looking up what Wicca was," Hermione replied, which made Ginny look up at her as she dished out the breakfast.
"Oh, and what did you find?" Came the airy voice of Luna from behind her.
"Well, I found out quite a lot actually. It sounds quite pleasant," Hermione said.
"And?" Luna asked, sitting down on a bar stool of her own.
"I want in," Hermione said, which made Luna laugh an airy laugh that seemed like it was the reason that the plants were so healthy.
The rest of the day was spent learning about how Ginny and Luna practiced their religion, and how it affected them and their lives. Hermione was courageous, she had moved to a new place, taken on a new religion, and even decided to become vegan. Courage can be found in even the shyest of people, if they only try to find it.