A Cornish Encounter
Aug. 14th, 2005 02:34 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
snowballjane.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
femgenficathonTitle: A Cornish Encounter
Author: Snowballjane
Rating: G
Spoilers: None whatsoever.
Summary: It’s the summer before Hogwarts and Hermione longs to make a start on her studies.
Beta-reader: Many thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
forodwaith for a quick and helpful edit.
Words: 1,521
“Hermione! Hermione, sweetheart! Where have you got to?”
A woman’s voice, laced with exasperation, drifted on the sea breeze and echoed around the rocks at the cliff base. The girl who had been crouched beside one of the rock pools, book in one hand, magnifying glass in the other, sighed as she scrambled to her feet and straightened the sun hat atop her bushy curls.
“Here, mum!”
With a last wistful glance at the life-filled puddle, Hermione flipped the book closed and began the complex series of hops and jumps back to the soft, pale sand. All but one of the creatures in the pool had been in her book, but the only thing she had been allowed to bring to the beach was a rather simplistic children’s guide to shorelife, not the big illustrated nature encyclopaedia her dad had got from Reader’s Digest.
Still, she liked to think that the unusually bright pink anemones would not have been in there either. They would be in Fantastical Beasts and Where to Find Them when she got her copy later in the summer.
She could hardly stop thinking about the book list she had been sent for her new school. If only she could go to this Flourish and Blotts’ shop now, so that she could start reading them. From what little the letter had said, she would be starting far behind students from wizarding families, who would obviously have been reading about magic all their lives.
She had done her best to find books at the public library that might give her some basics in the subjects she was to study. Obviously knowing more about non-magical creatures would help with identifying and finding the ‘fantastical beasts’ she was to learn about, and the same went for plants and herbology. Astronomy might have different uses in magic, she supposed, but the stars would hardly be in different places.
So she had dragged a bag full of books along on the family’s annual beach holiday. Now if they would only give her time to study.
“There you are dear,” said her mother, flapping along the beach in a black swimsuit, flip flops and an enormous wide-brimmed sun hat. “Come along, you’ll be late for the kids’ club.”
Hermione groaned. She’d been made to play beach cricket the previous day, but her mind had been on medicinal plants and her teammates had jeered at her for missing easy catches. “Don’t be like that, Hermione,” said her mother. “You need to mix with other children; it’ll be good practice for when you start at your new school.”
***
A nature walk. It had sounded almost promising at first, certainly better than cricket, maybe even educational, but it quickly became clear that the kids’ club leaders hadn’t the first idea about nature. Not that they stood much chance of seeing anything that wasn’t rooted to the ground, anyway. The dozen or so children trooping along the sand dunes were making so much noise.
The leaders -- a skinny young man in shorts and t-shirt and a young woman with waist-length hair whose Exeter University Drama Society t-shirt suggested she was a student during term time – chatted together and paid little attention to the supposed project of the afternoon.
Most of the other children had arrived in pairs or trios of siblings and cousins, while those who came alone had greeted friends made during the previous day’s game. Hermione walked up to three girls of around her own age.
“A nature walk should be excellent along this coast,” she told them. “We might see a Large Blue butterfly. They were completely extinct in this country until a few years ago when they brought some over from Sweden. And did you know this area is home to Britain’s rarest breeding bird? It’s called the Cornish Chough. So we should definitely look out for that.”
“Yeah,” said the tallest of the three girls, her lip curling into an unfriendly sneer, “that’d be lots of fun.” She turned the back of her pig-tailed head on Hermione. “Did you see last night’s Neighbours?” she asked the other two. “We couldn’t get decent reception on the telly in the caravan.”
Hermione knew that the deliberate exclusion of her from the conversation was intended to be hurtful, but it was hardly as if she was missing anything interesting. If only Penny were here, she would have enthused right back at Hermione and the two of them would have enjoyed a friendly competition to spot the most species during their walk, just as they did on school trips.
Oh, but Hogwarts would be full of girls like her and Penny and they would talk about books and all the cleverest magics late into the night. It would be wonderful.
A yellow butterfly fluttered by and Hermione scribbled a description on the ‘nature notes’ pad she had been handed at the start of the walk. Either none of the others had noticed the bright wings, or they just weren’t bothered. One of the soap opera fans snorted.
“Are you always this much of a swot?”
Hermione was trying to come up with an impressive retort when a loud jabbering noise erupted from beyond the next sand dune. It sounded like no bird sound Hermione had previously heard and she was still mentally running through all the birdcalls she had read descriptions of, when a swarm of electric blue creatures dive-bombed the group.
One of the blue things grabbed Hermione’s nature notes pad and flung it into the soft sand. Looking around she could see a group of them using the student girl’s hair as a kind of maypole while she squealed and flailed at them. Another small swarm were flinging sand into the eyes of the soap opera fans, who were screaming and crying. Two of the younger boys were curled on the ground, shaking with fright.
Oh yes! These things, whatever they were, were magical creatures all right. Hermione grinned, ducking out of the way as two of them attempted to drape her with soggy seaweed.
She retrieved her pad from the ground and used it to bat at some of the blue things hovering in the air in front of her. They bounced like rubbery balls and stopped stunned for a moment before rejoining the fray.
“Stop it!” she scolded. One of the creatures flew right up in front of her face, pulling out its tongue and wiggling its fingers by its ears. With a lightning flash instinct that she had never shown in sports, and never known she had, Hermione caught the creature in her hand. Ignoring the pandemonium all around, she studied the wriggling blue creature. It was about five inches tall and had no obvious means of flight, so it must be staying airborne by magic. It reminded her of the mischievous elves in one of the Arthur Rackham-illustrated books of fairy tales that she had loved when she was younger. Was that what it was? An elf?
The other creatures were still pinching and poking and pulling the hair of the other kids’ club members, but, Hermione noticed, they were doing no real harm other than being really annoying. She let go of the creature in her hand and took a hard swipe at it with her pad, as if serving at tennis.
“Go away!” she shouted, plunging forwards towards the terrified younger children, swatting more of the creatures.
“Get up,” she told the boys, shouting above the shrill noise. “These things aren’t dangerous. Look! You can get rid of them like this…”
Within moments, Hermione had shown the whole group the art of swatting the jabbering blue things. Once the children started to fight back the creatures soon gave up, swarming off into the distance, turning back just once to pull a variety of rude faces.
***
By the time they had walked back to the promenade, where their parents were waiting, the incident was being described as an ‘insect swarm’. Hermione wondered whether any of the others had got a close look at the creatures, but even if they hadn’t, no one could really think insects pulled hair or made that kind of noise.
Still, everyone did seem to have a clear memory that she had been the one who saved the day, which was very pleasant. Soap opera fan Sarah shared her sweets, while Mary, the tall sneering girl told her all about how brilliant Bryan Adams was, and how she loved the song that seemed to have been No.1 all summer.
“You can come shopping with us, if you like,” said Mary, making it sound like a well-deserved reward. She almost said yes. It was nice to be liked and it would stop her mother nagging her to be more sociable. But she couldn’t imagine it would really be all that interesting. There were books to be read and she was running out of holiday in which to read them.
“No thanks,” she told the other girls, as she caught sight of her parents waiting at the kid collection point. “I have swotting to do.”
The End.
Author: Snowballjane
Rating: G
Spoilers: None whatsoever.
Summary: It’s the summer before Hogwarts and Hermione longs to make a start on her studies.
Beta-reader: Many thanks to
forodwaith for a quick and helpful edit.Words: 1,521
“Hermione! Hermione, sweetheart! Where have you got to?”
A woman’s voice, laced with exasperation, drifted on the sea breeze and echoed around the rocks at the cliff base. The girl who had been crouched beside one of the rock pools, book in one hand, magnifying glass in the other, sighed as she scrambled to her feet and straightened the sun hat atop her bushy curls.
“Here, mum!”
With a last wistful glance at the life-filled puddle, Hermione flipped the book closed and began the complex series of hops and jumps back to the soft, pale sand. All but one of the creatures in the pool had been in her book, but the only thing she had been allowed to bring to the beach was a rather simplistic children’s guide to shorelife, not the big illustrated nature encyclopaedia her dad had got from Reader’s Digest.
Still, she liked to think that the unusually bright pink anemones would not have been in there either. They would be in Fantastical Beasts and Where to Find Them when she got her copy later in the summer.
She could hardly stop thinking about the book list she had been sent for her new school. If only she could go to this Flourish and Blotts’ shop now, so that she could start reading them. From what little the letter had said, she would be starting far behind students from wizarding families, who would obviously have been reading about magic all their lives.
She had done her best to find books at the public library that might give her some basics in the subjects she was to study. Obviously knowing more about non-magical creatures would help with identifying and finding the ‘fantastical beasts’ she was to learn about, and the same went for plants and herbology. Astronomy might have different uses in magic, she supposed, but the stars would hardly be in different places.
So she had dragged a bag full of books along on the family’s annual beach holiday. Now if they would only give her time to study.
“There you are dear,” said her mother, flapping along the beach in a black swimsuit, flip flops and an enormous wide-brimmed sun hat. “Come along, you’ll be late for the kids’ club.”
Hermione groaned. She’d been made to play beach cricket the previous day, but her mind had been on medicinal plants and her teammates had jeered at her for missing easy catches. “Don’t be like that, Hermione,” said her mother. “You need to mix with other children; it’ll be good practice for when you start at your new school.”
***
A nature walk. It had sounded almost promising at first, certainly better than cricket, maybe even educational, but it quickly became clear that the kids’ club leaders hadn’t the first idea about nature. Not that they stood much chance of seeing anything that wasn’t rooted to the ground, anyway. The dozen or so children trooping along the sand dunes were making so much noise.
The leaders -- a skinny young man in shorts and t-shirt and a young woman with waist-length hair whose Exeter University Drama Society t-shirt suggested she was a student during term time – chatted together and paid little attention to the supposed project of the afternoon.
Most of the other children had arrived in pairs or trios of siblings and cousins, while those who came alone had greeted friends made during the previous day’s game. Hermione walked up to three girls of around her own age.
“A nature walk should be excellent along this coast,” she told them. “We might see a Large Blue butterfly. They were completely extinct in this country until a few years ago when they brought some over from Sweden. And did you know this area is home to Britain’s rarest breeding bird? It’s called the Cornish Chough. So we should definitely look out for that.”
“Yeah,” said the tallest of the three girls, her lip curling into an unfriendly sneer, “that’d be lots of fun.” She turned the back of her pig-tailed head on Hermione. “Did you see last night’s Neighbours?” she asked the other two. “We couldn’t get decent reception on the telly in the caravan.”
Hermione knew that the deliberate exclusion of her from the conversation was intended to be hurtful, but it was hardly as if she was missing anything interesting. If only Penny were here, she would have enthused right back at Hermione and the two of them would have enjoyed a friendly competition to spot the most species during their walk, just as they did on school trips.
Oh, but Hogwarts would be full of girls like her and Penny and they would talk about books and all the cleverest magics late into the night. It would be wonderful.
A yellow butterfly fluttered by and Hermione scribbled a description on the ‘nature notes’ pad she had been handed at the start of the walk. Either none of the others had noticed the bright wings, or they just weren’t bothered. One of the soap opera fans snorted.
“Are you always this much of a swot?”
Hermione was trying to come up with an impressive retort when a loud jabbering noise erupted from beyond the next sand dune. It sounded like no bird sound Hermione had previously heard and she was still mentally running through all the birdcalls she had read descriptions of, when a swarm of electric blue creatures dive-bombed the group.
One of the blue things grabbed Hermione’s nature notes pad and flung it into the soft sand. Looking around she could see a group of them using the student girl’s hair as a kind of maypole while she squealed and flailed at them. Another small swarm were flinging sand into the eyes of the soap opera fans, who were screaming and crying. Two of the younger boys were curled on the ground, shaking with fright.
Oh yes! These things, whatever they were, were magical creatures all right. Hermione grinned, ducking out of the way as two of them attempted to drape her with soggy seaweed.
She retrieved her pad from the ground and used it to bat at some of the blue things hovering in the air in front of her. They bounced like rubbery balls and stopped stunned for a moment before rejoining the fray.
“Stop it!” she scolded. One of the creatures flew right up in front of her face, pulling out its tongue and wiggling its fingers by its ears. With a lightning flash instinct that she had never shown in sports, and never known she had, Hermione caught the creature in her hand. Ignoring the pandemonium all around, she studied the wriggling blue creature. It was about five inches tall and had no obvious means of flight, so it must be staying airborne by magic. It reminded her of the mischievous elves in one of the Arthur Rackham-illustrated books of fairy tales that she had loved when she was younger. Was that what it was? An elf?
The other creatures were still pinching and poking and pulling the hair of the other kids’ club members, but, Hermione noticed, they were doing no real harm other than being really annoying. She let go of the creature in her hand and took a hard swipe at it with her pad, as if serving at tennis.
“Go away!” she shouted, plunging forwards towards the terrified younger children, swatting more of the creatures.
“Get up,” she told the boys, shouting above the shrill noise. “These things aren’t dangerous. Look! You can get rid of them like this…”
Within moments, Hermione had shown the whole group the art of swatting the jabbering blue things. Once the children started to fight back the creatures soon gave up, swarming off into the distance, turning back just once to pull a variety of rude faces.
***
By the time they had walked back to the promenade, where their parents were waiting, the incident was being described as an ‘insect swarm’. Hermione wondered whether any of the others had got a close look at the creatures, but even if they hadn’t, no one could really think insects pulled hair or made that kind of noise.
Still, everyone did seem to have a clear memory that she had been the one who saved the day, which was very pleasant. Soap opera fan Sarah shared her sweets, while Mary, the tall sneering girl told her all about how brilliant Bryan Adams was, and how she loved the song that seemed to have been No.1 all summer.
“You can come shopping with us, if you like,” said Mary, making it sound like a well-deserved reward. She almost said yes. It was nice to be liked and it would stop her mother nagging her to be more sociable. But she couldn’t imagine it would really be all that interesting. There were books to be read and she was running out of holiday in which to read them.
“No thanks,” she told the other girls, as she caught sight of her parents waiting at the kid collection point. “I have swotting to do.”
The End.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-08-14 02:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-16 02:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-14 03:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-16 02:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-14 06:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-16 02:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-15 12:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-16 02:25 pm (UTC)And yes indeed - I watched plenty of Neighbours as a swotty teen!
no subject
Date: 2005-08-25 10:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-15 03:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-16 02:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-17 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-17 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-23 03:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-26 03:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-02 04:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-24 06:57 am (UTC)