A/N: While any iris symbolises royalty, wisdom and valour, the colour of the bloom also affects the message that the flower carries.
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Chapter 5: Abeona
Hermione Granger was nervous.
She sat at her father's desk in the wood-panelled study on the evening of August 31st, toes just brushing the carpeted floor as she swung her legs back and forth. Textbooks sat next to corresponding piles of filled notebook paper, each topped with carefully handwritten chapter summaries on scrolls of parchment. She had read through each of her eight prescribed first year textbooks innumerable times and had supplemented her knowledge with extra books she had purchased during her three subsequent trips to Diagon Alley.
Still, she felt underprepared.
It had taken weeks for her to get a handle on using a quill - why the wizarding world hadn't adopted the use of biros and notebooks was beyond her - and even then it had irked her that she hadn't managed the lovely cursive script in the calligraphy book she had borrowed from the local library. Hermione Granger was many things, but artist she was not.
Reaching out and smoothing her hand over the cover of Hogwarts: A History, Hermione couldn't help but smile. It certainly had taken pride of place as her favourite book, despite its tendency to gloss over what Hermione thought was fairly important information. The Sorting Ceremony, for example, was mentioned frustratingly little, and when she had asked the proprietor of Flourish and Blott's for further information he had leaned over the counter, tapped her on the nose and infuriatingly quipped, "You'll find out soon enough!".
She turned her attention to Modern Magical History and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century and felt her eyebrows pull into a frown. Her father had always taught her to take any text without proper referencing with a grain of salt and she couldn't help but feel that the information in the book, at least regarding the most recent events, was slightly misrepresented. After all, how on earth could a one year old baby kill one of the most feared dark wizards of all time?
She had tried to find further texts concerning one Harry Potter but grew vexed with the amount of fiction she was presented with. She had even consulted Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Geneology, which she had come across by chance while searching for a text on wandlore on a low shelf at Obscurus Books, but the pretentiousness of both the title and contents had made her lip curl with distaste.
"You are the picture of overprepared, dear."
Hermione jumped and watched her mother step into the room.
"Don't you think its time you finished packing," her mother said, running her fingers through Hermione's hair. She reached out her hand, grasped Hermione's little one in hers and led her out of the study.
Hermione looked down at her neatly packed trunk and brushed her fingers over the vinewood box that housed her wand. She still felt a thrill every time she was near it and it was absolute torture not being able to try the spells in her textbooks.
Hermione's mother handed her a small but heavy pouch that clinked as it settled into her palm. She pulled at the drawstring and peeked inside, her dark eyes reflecting the gleam of wizarding currency. She was still astonished that goblins were honest-to-goodness real and a feeling of uneasiness returned as she thought back to the time when she had first met one. Her father had mumbled something about why things weren't to be fed after midnight, to hysterical giggles from her mother, but both had quietened considerably when a goblin glared at them over the golf-ball sized rubies he had been inspecting.
"Now, that should last you until Christmas," her mother said, smiling.
"More like until next summer! The pound to galleon exchange rate almost gave me a heart attack," laughed her father as he clicked her trunk closed.
"Thank you, mum, dad," Hermione mumbled, looking at them in turn with tears welling in her eyes. She had only just realised that it would be nearly four months until she was back home again.
"Come here, sweetheart," her mother said, opening her arms to Hermione as her father reached over to tug at one of her curls.
"It's not as bad as all that, dear. Write to us often and we will write back - now that we know how to attach letters to those blasted birds - and you will be back at home before you know it."
Hermione laughed through her tears. Her father had expressly forbade her from owning an owl - he had a strong dislike of all birds - but had begrudgingly consented to delivery owls addressed only to Mrs Granger, grumbling about the backwards nature of wizarding society.
Mr Granger hefted the trunk into his arms and exaggeratedly staggered out of the room, followed by a giggling Hermione. Mrs Granger smiled, standing from the bed to lean against the door, looking into her daughter's bedroom. It was almost painfully neat - the bed made with corners tightly tucked, books arranged meticulously on numerous bookshelves by genre and then alphabetically by the author's last name. It already felt empty.
Mrs Granger stepped forward and slid a slim book from the third shelf, lovingly brushing the cover. She turned and strode out of the room, joining her husband and daughter as they prepared for the journey to King's Cross.
Hermione fidgeted as she sat in the empty compartment having bid a tearful goodbye to her parents moments beforehand.
She had already changed into her school robes, pulling her hair back into a barely contained ponytail dubiously secured with a green ribbon that she had received from her grandmother last Christmas, and settled herself onto the plush seats. As the train pulled out from the station Hermione glanced up at her trunk, which was stored securely in the overhead rack, and then down at her wand which was clutched tightly in her hand. She looked around surreptitiously and slid the compartment door partially closed, before whispering the incantation for the illumination spell.
The tip of her wand lit up brilliantly and Hermione bit her lip to keep from squealing. She pointed her wand at the seat in front of her and repaired the unraveling seam with a sharp jab and a mumbled 'reparo'. With a twist of her wand and a whisper the window unlocked with a click.
She glanced at the book her mother had given her, placed carefully by her side, and then looked back at the wand.
"Wingardium Leviosa," she murmured hesitantly, swishing and flicking her wand, mimicking Professor McGonagall as best she could. The book remained stubbornly on the seat next to her.
"Try elongating the 'oh' in 'Leviosa'."
The cultured voice made Hermione jump and the book clattered to the floor. Leaning against the compartment door was a pale boy with a pointed chin, arms folded across his chest and legs crossed at the ankle. He was smiling openly, gesturing his hand for her to continue.
"Wingardiam Leviosa," she muttered shyly, and couldn't help the pleased smile she sent the boy as the book rose into the air.
"Impressive," the boy chuckled as he stepped forward and closed his hand around the book, keeping his grey eyes firmly on hers.
"Window locks are tricky," he said. "Especially on the train. They reinforce those you know."
She nodded timidly. She did know. It was in Hogwarts: A History.
"I feel I would have remembered you if I had seen you before - after all, you're wearing the right colours," he said, nodding imperiously at the emerald ribbon winding through her hair. "You must be from the continent."
Hermione opened her mouth to reply but before she could he had glanced down at her book, features pulling into a sullen frown.
"What are you doing with this? I know the continent is more liberal with these things but a lady of good standing shouldn't have books like this."
Hermione blinked, confused. A lady of good standing?
"It's my book. My parents bought it for me when I was born."
Palms clammy and the sick feeling of deja vu twisting in her gut, Hermione watched as the boy dropped the book as if burned, features contorting with disgust. He stepped quickly backwards, as if trying to put as much distance between them as possible, lip curling into a sneer.
"Filthy mudblood," he spat, eyes flashing as he stalked away.
Hermione could feel her chest contract and her throat burn and she swallowed against the tears. This is how it had started before. Hateful glares and horrible names, only this time it was because of her non-magical ancestry, not her know-it-all tendencies. She had a feeling before long it would be for both.
Hermione quickly bent down to pick up the book, brushing the dust from the cover and tracing her finger over the little illustrated rabbit.
"Excuse me," began a timid voice and Hermione shrank bank in her seat, head snapping up to see a round-faced boy hovering near the door.
"Sorry- sorry to bother you," he stuttered, fingers clenching and unclenching around the handle of a polished trunk.
"I was hoping I could share your compartment. The other one I was in - well, he had a few friends and we couldn't all fit, so I..."
He trailed off, staring at her as she rapidly blinked back her tears.
"I'm muggleborn," Hermione said abruptly.
The boy opened and then closed his mouth, a little frown on his face, and Hermione could feel her heart sink.
"Okay?"
Hermione blinked and so did the boy, who then tentatively shuffled a little further into the compartment. The wheels of his trunk became stuck in the track of the compartment door and he struggled to pull it along behind him, one arm wrapped around a terrarium that contained a glistening plump toad.
"My name is Neville. Er, Longbottom," he said, bobbing his head at her awkwardly and perching at the edge of his seat as if waiting for her to tell him to leave.
"Hermione Granger," she murmured. "You really don't mind that I'm muggleborn?"
"No - should I? Gran said there are some people who don't like muggleborns but it's - well, it's not an issue for me," Neville said quietly, smiling tentatively at Hermione when she did the same.
"It's nice to meet you Neville."
A/N: I always wondered who Hermione had shared a compartment with on her first journey to Hogwarts.
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