It was the third day of school, and already she hated it with a passion. And for Hermione Granger, it took a lot to get her to hate anything. Her parents had promised it would be different, that going to a new school would mean new friends and fitting in. But no, it was the same here as it had been in the last three schools they had placed her in. Being new automatically put her on the outside of all of the groups, and her mind? Well that had a tendency to get her in to trouble. It's not that she hadn't tried to heed her parents' warnings; she had really tried to follow them. Don't bring attention to yourself. Be nice to everyone. Try not to answer all of the questions in class. Stay away from the bullies. She really had tried. But she was only seven years old, what was really to be expected?
Day one had ended with her losing her lunch allowance and the watch her mother had given her for her birthday the previous year simply for being on the wrong side of the playground. Hermione had also been on the receiving end of several glares after she had gone running to the teacher, pointing at the perpetrators with tears in her eyes. She had gotten her watch back, but it had been broken. Day two hadn't been much better, having had to spend a good portion of the day hiding out and rushing to class, doing her best to avoid the bullies that had gotten to her the day before. She had been good in her avoidance of them, but when the teacher began asking questions of her in class, they had all begun to snicker with each answer she got correct. It was only when her mother had picked her up that she had found out about the spit-wads that had dried and stuck to the back of her frizzy hair. It had taken then near on forty minutes that night to remove them all.
So by day three, she had already broken three of the four warnings her parents had given her. She had dashed into the school and to her desks, ran as quickly as she could to each of her classes, and kept to herself as well as she could. By the end of the day, Hermione had that she had made it through free of the bullies and their jeering, only to run straight into Billy Thompson, the leader of their little group, as she tried to run to her cubby in her home room. Falling to the floor, tears began to fall as a tirade of insults against her smartness, her hair, her clothes, and every little thing a boy could pick one crashed over her. It had seemed that she would have laid curled up on the floor forever, listening to the torrent of filth coming from the boy, until he had insulted her parents. That had been the last straw, and all thoughts of appeasing her parents' warnings went out the window as her fist smashed into Billy Thompson's nose.
And so, at the end of day three, Hermione had been escorted to her mum's car by her homeroom teacher, and had to standby as her teacher spoke with her mother. She'd received a stern talking to on the way home, and had pleaded with both her mother and father after dinner to let her stay home and be home schooled. The response she'd gotten had been less than what she wanted and as she listened to her mother mutter on about tuition payments, she realized that she was going to have to deal with this problem for as long as she could.
Emotions had away of getting away from her, and it was on this night, when her anger, frustration, sorrow, and disappointment were at their highest, that she had her first true dream. Young as she was, she didn't know any better, but when she grew older, she would soon know the difference between the stuttered, disjointed pattern of her normal dreams, and the smooth, sequential evenness of the true dreams. But on this night, she wasn't older, and she didn't know better. It was a night of great importance for the years to come, because it was the night that she'd found her first proper friends.
It was relaxing, this place, with no sounds of the city, no horns honking, no televisions blaring, and no shouts from the neighbor's house. Instead it was calm. The was a breeze what wound itself around her, jostling the curly strands of her hair as it swept by her and into the limbs of the trees near by. She could hear the gentle rustle of leaves as the branches moved with it, and could hear the soft gurgling of water of the creek that she was now sitting at. The sun her face made her skin delightfully warm, and she smiled as she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath while the light of the sun brought the lids of her eyes to a bright pink hue. Her toes crunched into the sand at her feet, and she sighed in the delight of it.
What she had not expected was the splashing that soon broke her reverie, followed soon after by childish giggles. With trepidation she opened her eyes, only to see three children frolicking about in the cool water, throwing waves of water at each other as best as they could. All had the same black wispy hair, and similar facial structure, leaving Hermione to believe that they were all siblings. Two of the children - one girl and one boy - looked to be close to her own age, while the other was obviously an older brother of theirs. She remained quiet, unsure of how her presence would be taken, as her history with meeting new children had left very much to be desired. So instead of standing, waving, and doing something else to make herself known, she sat as still and as quiet as she could manage.
She watched silently as the two younger siblings rushed the older boy, each taking hold of leg and grappling at him, rowdily attempting to make his knees lock and cause him to fall. Instead, they rather reminded Hermione of the monkeys she'd seen at the zoo, scrambling to try to reach the tallest branches that were their brother's arms. The young girl soon gave up sliding down to play in the water, while the juvenile boy clambered up to the teen's shoulders. The boy pulled at the teenager's hair, cackling maniacally, causing the teen to laugh heartedly as he awkwardly tried tickle his brother. Hermione watched with astonished eyes as the young girl had a globe of mud between her fingers, but instead of simply holding it, it was hovering between her hands. It was almost like a magic trick, like the magicians she had seen while at the fair the year previous with her parents. While the girl's older brother was distracted by his sibling's antics, the young girl pushed the globe out with a motion of her arms, causing it to fly through the hair and hit her elder brother right smack in the middle of his face. His expression of shock was so amusing that his siblings broke out into raucous laughter, and Hermione couldn't help but to join in.
Hermione quickly quieted however when the siblings stopped their play in the water, the eldest doing his best to wipe the mud from his face as they all turned to look at her. The girl jabbered excitedly at her, in a language she did not know, while the youngest boy offered her a cautious smile. Again, the girl said something in that foreign language, and the teen stepped forward, placing himself between Hermione and his siblings? Words came from his mouth, and she knew he had to be asking her something, but she had no way of knowing how to answer. She tilted her head curiously, as he repeated the same sequence of words. No, she did not know what he was saying, so she shook her head and shrugged. The young boy tugged at his brother's damp sleeve, muttering something up to him, to which the teen nodded, looking at Hermione cautiously.
The teen took a step forward, his hands held in a placating gesture, his tone soothing, as if she were a deer about to dart off. He took a deep breath, and with a wave of his hand, a stream of blue mist floated around her. He continued with his comforting words, unknown as they might have been, and so Hermione stayed still, despite her worries over the mist that surrounded her. After a few minutes where the mist simply formed a ring around her, the teen nodded his head, seeming to not see what he had been looking for, and disbanded the mist with a bright smile.
He stepped forward, bringing his hand in front of him in an offer of what she could only assume was a handshake. She timidly accepted his hand, much to the delight of his two younger siblings, who suddenly rushed forward, chattering excitedly. The teen gestured to himself, and spoke slowly, "Garrett." He then waved at his sister, "Bethany," and then to his younger brother, "Carver." Names? She thought, thinking that they didn't sound so far off from names she had heard before. Garrett gestured to herself and cocked his head to the side, giving her a questioning glance. "Hermione," she responded with a great grin on her face. Again, he smiled brightly at her and nodded, as his siblings started to push them both back to the water, obviously intending to include her in their games. And so she spent the afternoon with her newfound friends, splashing and causing mischief in the stream.
Never before had she been so sad to awaken in her bed the next morning.
