Chapter One

It was the end of the summer holidays and all school students were feeling upset to be returning to their dreaded lessons. That is, all but one. Hermione Jean Granger, age seven, was so thrilled to be starting Year 3 at her new school, Eastern Upland Junior School, that she refused to sleep that night. She had wrestled her bushy brown hair into a ponytail, cleaned her teeth, got dressed into her midnight blue pyjamas, kissed her parents goodnight and clambered into bed. However, she kept her eyes wide open. The excitement of her new school was proving to be too much, so Hermione decided that it would be much easier not to sleep that night.

Looking around her pale blue-coloured bedroom, she stared at her uniform on her desk chair, which had a red jumper rather than the green one from the Infant School. It was neatly folded beneath her grey skirt, white polo shirt, knickers, vest and knee-high socks. Propped up against the chest of drawers opposite Hermione was her equally red schoolbag and matching P.E. kit, both emblazoned with the Eastern Upland logo; a crossed pen and pencil. Inside her school bag was her reading folder from Year 2 (she'd be getting a new one after turning that one in), a large pencil case and a small purse tucked into the inner pocket.

Hermione rolled over and set her alarm to wake her up at seven o'clock. Then, grabbing a large book from her bedside table, she settled down amongst a variety of pillows and blankets and began to read. This was going to be a long night, after all.

At around nine o'clock Hermione could feel her eyelids beginning to droop. No! That wasn't supposed to happen! She was to stay awake until morning! Holding one eye open, she attempted to carry on reading but found that her arm was too tired to even lift the next page.

"Oh no!" whispered Hermione as her book slid off the side of her bed. Twisting herself into an awkward position, she bent down, stretching her fingers as her mattress was quite high up. It was then that she realised just how comfy her duvet was, and how much she wanted to snuggle within its many folds, and that her pillows suddenly looked a lot more inviting. She left her book on the floor by her head, fell back onto her pillow and went straight to sleep.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

"Hermione, sweetheart, it's time to get up for school!"

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

"Hermione? Are you still there?"

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Wiping sleepy dust out of her eyes, Hermione awoke to her mother's smiling face.

"It's your first day of Year 3 today." Mrs Granger whispered.

"Yay!" exclaimed Hermione. Jumping out of bed, she tugged open the curtains, picked her book up off the floor and ducked behind the bed to get dressed. Within minutes she was wolfing down a slice of toast, having her hair coaxed into a plait by Mrs Granger, scrubbing her teeth with extra vigour and lining up her bags against the door, ready to go. In the half an hour she had left before leaving for the bus stop, she posed for lots of photos for her father. Dr Granger had a passion for photography and was always working on the family photo album, which had grown very large over the past decade.

At last it was ten to eight. Hermione waved Dr Granger goodbye as she set down the road, holding hands with her mother on their walk to the bus stop. Hermione was used to this walk as it was the same one she had been on for her Infant School days as well, but she was catching an earlier bus this year.

After 20 minutes they reached the stop, where it began to rain. Swinging her legs in the wooden shelter, Hermione was sat down watching watery droplets cascade down a few inches away from her toes. As she was staring at the pipes, something very strange began to happen. A droplet of rain that was falling through the air suddenly stopped. There wasn't a jolt, it didn't explode or anything, it just… stopped.

Mrs Granger was very confused. Rain didn't normally stop in mid-air, opposite her daughter's face. Hermione was seemingly entranced by the droplet, staring at it and giggling. Without warning other specks of rain began to drift towards the hovering drop making it increase in size. Bigger and bigger it swelled, like it had its own gravitational pull until it was the size of Hermione's head.

And then it fell.

Parental instincts came across Mrs Granger, who covered Hermione and her bags with her entire body as the rain ball came crashing down with an almighty SLOSH! It splattered Mrs Granger's trousers, soaking her to the skin. Turning around, she looked at Hermione who still seemed rather unfazed by that weather phenomenon.

Mrs Granger thought back to around seven years ago, when Hermione was a toddler. She remembered reading on the news that there had been a shower of stars all over England. Perhaps a similar thing was happening right now; yes, that would make sense. After all, climate change was having drastic effects on the planet, so that could have been one of them. But still, how do you explain a drop of rain stopping in mid-air?

The arrival of the school bus snapped her back into reality. Hermione clambered off the bus shelter bench, kissed and hugged her mother, and stepped onto the bus. She found the bus to be full of girls and boys in the same bright red jumper, all talking and chatting amongst themselves. Hermione could see some of her old classmates dotted around the bus but all of them were not alone. The front row of seats remained empty, so Hermione sat down by herself at the front, waved one last goodbye, and the bus drove off down the road.

Mrs Granger watched the school bus drive into the distance, and then headed down the pavement to her home. When she arrived she told Dr Granger about the rain drop, who was just as confused as she was. However, as the morning drew onwards, they both were caught up in other tasks and forgot about the incident, rendering it lost in Mrs Granger's memories.