SERPENTIS

01⊙ Ignis Fatuus

⊙ONE_Year One⊙

ignis    fatuus

Foolish fire

A bushy haired girl stared hard at the platforms of the station, hoping to find a glimmer of light- a sparkle- or just about anything to prove she had not been played a bad joke. She knew magic was real, she had visited Diagon Alley herself and had spent hours trying to absorb everything about this supposedly new world. With her random outbursts of magic occurring at the most untimely situations, she had felt rather dumbfounded that she had not been able to draw the answer; gift of magic.

Hermione Granger, at the age of five and camping in the Forest of Dean, had followed the will-o'-the-wisps with utter fascination, cooing at them until she found herself being snatched up into her daddy's arms.

On her seventh birthday party, she had relighted her birthday candles. The incident led into couple of girls shrieking in fear and confusion, and boys asking her to light them again.

During year five of primary school, she had accidentally turned the hair color of her bully into what was a shocking shade of bubblegum pink. She had thought, with a confused but satisfied wonder, that he had deserved it.

But as she had no logical reasoning to provide an answer to her abnormalities she had just simply ignored them, until a certain tabby cat rang the front bell of her house.

A cat. Ringing a doorbell.

At first Hermione had thought she must be dreaming, oh, she really must refrain herself from staying up all night to read. Her parents had seemed to think the same and had stood warily in front of the door, where on the other side sat a cat continuously ringing a doorbell.

Curiosity got the best of her and she had already opened the door before her parents could protest. The cat had leaped into the sitting room with a graceful jump, calmly placing herself on the sofa before it flicked its tail, almost as if beckoning them to sit.

Bewildered, the Granger family had sat down on the opposite side of where the cat sat, which fixed its unwavering eyes at Hermione.

Making sure to cast a few wandless, wordless silencing charm around the house, the tabby cat proceeded to transform itself into its original form.

"What-" Mr Granger exclaimed, "just what in the world-?"

Minerva McGonagall tucked a few loose strands of black hair back into her hairdo and gave them a professional smile. "Good afternoon, Mr and Mrs Granger, and of course, Miss Granger. Allow me to introduce myself. I am the deputy headmistress and a professor of Hogwarts."

When the professor received nothing but blank stares she continued, "I am here to notify you personally of Miss Granger's acceptance to our school. I am pleased to tell you that Miss Granger had been noted for her unusual display of magic, and-"

"Magic?" Hermione interrupted, "what I did until now was magic?"

The black haired woman crinkled her eyes with amusement in the most minuscule way possible, "yes, yes I do hope so."

"And what and where would be this magical school?" Mrs Granger jumped straight into the newly bestowed information. She and her husband had known their daughter was not the most normal child, but magic was the last thing she'd have thought of.

With a flick of a strange looking stick, the deputy headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry materialised a crisp parchment envelope.