Chapter 3
Bumping into a stranger was not what Fred had in mind when looking at the potions texts that were on sale. The fact that the stranger was a rather small girl with very curly hair, one that he had never seen before, registered in the back of his mind. Said girl let out an audible oof as she stumbled backwards. "Sorry about that. I wasn't watching where I was going." She said. "That's okay. The isles in here aren't very wide. I'm Fred by the way, who are you?" he replied helping her up. "I'm Hermione, Hermione Granger." The girl, Hermione, replied. "Mya, where did you go? Have you found your books yet?" a voice called out from two rows over. "Coming Mum, I still want to find one more book," Hermione called. "I have to go now, it was nice to meet you Fred." She said before hurrying past him. When she had walked past him he turned to the shelf of books she was looking at. Potions in the Real World was on sale for 3 sickles. "Hey George, how much did we bring?" he called back to his brother. 'Uhhh, 1 galleon and 5 sickles." Came the response from over his left shoulder. Fred grabbed the book and turned to go back to his brother. "I found a book that would be good. It has recipes for colour changing potions and other stuff that would be good for pranks but it looks like a serious book and its only 3 sickles." Fred said shoving the book under George's nose. George looked at the book, flicked through a few recipes and nodded at Fred. "If we get this then we can only get one new textbook you know that right?" George said, Fred nodded. "I know but we can share. I think this book could help us with our pranking during the holidays." Fred replied. George shrugged at him and turned to get the new textbook off of the shelf.
Hermione turned and walked away from the redheaded boy, Fred, moving quickly into the Charms section. She grabbed a book on practical applications of charms to trunks, bags and other everyday items and flicked through it quickly. She added it to her other two, Hogwarts; A History and Potions in the Real World. She met up with her parents and Professor McGonagall at the counter and put her books on top of the stack of school textbooks. Her mum looked at the titles and smiled. "Those look interesting dear, could I read them when you've finished?" she asked and Hermione nodded. "Of course, mum. I thought that I might try making a few potions in preparation for the class. It says that you can make the entire first and half of the second-year potions without need for a spell and I want to see if I'm any good." Hermione replied. Professor McGonagall raised an eyebrow at her, "you must be careful with that Miss Granger. The ingredients for several potions can have explosive reactions if put together incorrectly, the Cure for Boils potion especially. If you forget to remove the cauldron from the fire before adding the porcupine quills it will explode and cause boils and pimples to erupt on the places that the potion touches." She said. Hermione nodded, "of course, professor, I'll be cautious and read through the recipe twice before attempting it" she replied with a slight frown.
Professor McGonagall shrunk down all of Hermione's school shopping and led the Granger family to the trunk store. "This will be our last stop for the day. You will need a trunk with at least one compartment, though some of the older students come back a few years into their schooling and get a trunk with 3. The more compartments a trunk has, the more expensive it will be." She said leading them into the store. Inside were trunks made of different types of wood, different sizes of similar makes were stacked on shelves. There were even some made of metal, though they cost 100g for each compartment. "Daddy can I get 2 compartments please? One for my books, and one for everything else?" Hermione asked, looking at her father beseechingly. "It depends on how much that will cost Mya. We only have 25g left, and a lot of these trunks are 20g a compartment." Dan replied, looking at the large trunks. "Good afternoon Professor McGonagall, another muggleborn for school?'' a voice came from the back of the room. "Afternoon Mr. Jeffers, yes, Miss Granger hear needs a good trunk." The professor replied. A larger black man came to them and introduced himself, "Good afternoon, I'm Terry Jeffers, I'm a muggleborn as well." He smiled at them and held his hand out to Mr. Granger. "Nice to meet you Mr. Jeffers." Dan said shaking his hand with a smile. Hermione was looking around at the trunks and embellishments on them. She stopped in front of an ash wood trunk with a phoenix burned into the top. It was only 15g and Hermione thought it was gorgeous. "Dad, I want this one please. It's really nice, and only costs 15g." she said turning to the adults in the store. Dan nodded and turned to Terry, "We'll take that one thanks Mr. Jeffers." He said to the proprietor of the store. Terry nodded and pulled it off the shelf. "That'll be 15g for the one compartment, and 25g for two as today I've been giving discounts on first trunks. If you need another compartment after that it will be the same price as the original trunk. I can add more if you come in with the trunk down the line." Terry said. Hermione turned to her father and looked at him with puppy dog eyes. Dan sighed and pulled out the 25g that they had left. "we'll have two compartments thanks, if one of them could come with dividers that would be great." He said, handing the galleons over. Terry nodded and pulled an almost identical trunk off the wall, the only difference between the two was that the new one had no details on it. He pulled out his wand and used it to merge the trunks. Once they had fully integrated he closed the lid and added a thumb switch by the latch. "This switch will switch between the compartments for you." He said handing the trunk to Dan and smiling at Hermione. "Good luck at Hogwarts, miss Granger." He said as they walked out of the store. "Thanks, Mr. Jeffers." Hermione replied.
Professor McGonagall pulled the family into an alcove, "This is a good enough place as any to leave from, Miss Granger if you would please put the other items into your trunk, I will set up our portkey to take us back to your house." She said, pulling the paperweight back out of an inner pocket in her robes. Hermione nodded and opened the first compartment of her trunk and put her shrunken school supplies in it. Once done she locked the trunk back up and picked up one side of it. "Here, now remember, don't let go." McGonagall reminded them holding out the portkey.
Once they had landed in the living room, Hermione opened her trunk and took out the shrunken purchases for Professor McGonagall to resize them. The professor took each bag, regrew them and handed them back. "You will need to pack your trunk and be on Platform 9 and ¾ on September 1st by 10:50am. To get to platform 9 and ¾ you will need to walk through the barrier between platforms 9 and 10 in Kings Cross Station. The train will leave at precisely 11am, so it is best to get there a little early. Bring a few galleons on the train so you can buy some sweets." The professor said with a small smile. "I will see you on September 1st Miss Granger."
The rest of the holidays passed in a blur for Hermione. She couldn't wait to get to Hogwarts and learn real magic. She did manage to read almost all of the course books, and she created a cure for boils potion perfectly. She also had started to practise conjuring small balls of fire at night, so she could read after she was sent to bed. It took about a month for her to be able to create a small fire, like the tip of a candle, to hold in her hand or on the tips of her fingers. Still she could only hold it for about 5 minutes before she became tired and had to put it out and go to sleep.
On the 1st of September Hermione was dancing around excitedly at seven am. Her parents were barely awake, drinking steaming hot mugs of coffee and watching her with a fond amusement. The family moved about their morning routine and did a last-minute check for any things that Hermione may have missed. Collecting a few books from her room to read on the train and putting them in her messenger bag. She also grabbed a notebook for drawing in and her pencil case. Pulling her trunk towards the front door, she stopped outside the living room and ran inside to get a book on learning Spanish off of the second bookcase on the right. Returning to see her father picking up her trunk, Hermione opened her messenger bag and added the Spanish book to it.
On the way to the station Hermione could hardly contain her excitement, she was bouncing in her seat and humming a tune under her breath. Jean was smiling at her daughter, trying not to think about the fact that they wouldn't see her until Christmas. Boarding school was a big step for the small family. Dan was driving, so he couldn't watch his daughter but he was slightly glad for that. He didn't think that crying was an appropriate reaction to sending his witch daughter to a magic school.
Thank you for the love on this story.
Sorry this is taking so long to update but I don't write more than one chapter at a time and I upload the chapter pretty much as soon as I finish them. Next chapter should be the Hogwarts Express and the first few months of the school year.