The rest of the weekend was quite frustrating, and Monday came by as slowly as could possible be. Cherry had awaited a text or a call, or anything really from her girlfriend all weekend, but every hour that passed she got more and more hopeless, nearly beginning to assume that she wouldn't get anything from her.
At first, she thought that Fleur was just busy, after all, she was indeed quite popular, and did have a lot of studying to do, considering that they had a quiz in potions the following week, not that Cherry cared, since after all she no longer went to Beauxbatons academy of magic. She most definitely had time for her girlfriend, but everyone needed a break every once in a while.
But as the day passed and the sun had started to set, Cherry gazed out the window, staring at the glow of the last of the rays from the sun and started to question whether the long distance thing was really going to work out? She reckoned maybe Fleur jus needed a bit of time to adjust to the major change, Cherry did, too, after all.
She recalled the night before she had left the castle, and she remembered them not talking about the future, and she remembered that neither one of them asked the other how they felt about a long distance relationship. What if Fleur never wanted it, but didn't say anything?
Or maybe Cherry was just overthinking it.
That Monday morning, her alarm went off at eight am, yelling at her to get the hell up because it was going to be the day that she was leaving her still brand new home and going to Hogwarts school of Wizardry.
Alicia was in the breakfast making pancakes, a quick breakfast before the taxi she ordered whisked her daughter off to platform 9 3/4. After all this time having knowledge about the wizarding world, one would assume that she'd gotten used to this, but no, she really hadn't. The thought of sending her daughter away to some creepy castle to teach her magic tricks was still shocking to her, even after the six years that her daughter had been attending Beauxbatons.
A few minutes later, Cherry trudged downstairs still in her pajamas, having only brushed her teeth and brushed her hair to the best of her ability. After eating a pancake and a half, she went back upstairs to change and do her makeup.
She had already bought her required uniforms and robes, but was she really going to be wearing them? Definitely not. Instead, she put on a black pleated shirt and a white button down, rolling the sleeves up and unbuttoning the top three buttons. She put on a few black wrist bands and a black choker matched with a silver necklace, and small hoop earrings with a chain dangling off one of them.
Doing her makeup, she could hear her mum yelling for her to hurry up, and that the taxi would be here soon. After yelling "coming!", she quickly grabbed her trunk and her black backpack, along with her camera case, she trudged downstairs with her luggage and kissed her mum on the cheek goodbye, and went outside to greet the taxi driver, who was a brown haired guy who looked to be about in his mid thirties.
She put her things in the trunk and went to sit in the backseat, checking her notifications on her phone while shutting down the attempted conversation that came from the awkward taxi driver.
About half an hour later, Cherry paid the driver and got out of the car, grabbing her trunk and her camera case and bags, not looking up from the mafia! fanfiction on Wattpad she was reading.
Looking up, she saw platforms nine and ten, and remembered what her mum had said about getting into platform nine and three quarters.
Taking a deep breath, she ran straight into the wall, holding her breath, her heart beat rising just by the slightest amount. Opening one eye, she saw that she had crossed over the wall, right into platform nine and three quarter.
The station was mostly empty, due to the fact that it was the middle of October and no one was really going to school at this time. Looking around, she saw the train station guy, and was about to walk up to him when she heard the hoot of the Hogwarts express, coming in from the right. Sighing, she stepped back and let it come to a stop, before it opened and let her in. The door closed behind her and started up again as she went to find a cart to sit in, all which were empty.
Finally settling in a seat, she pulled out her phone again and sent her mum a quick text, telling her that she had just boarded the train, before she went back to reading the same fanfiction that she had been reading earlier.
Not long after, she found her mind drifting to Fleur, and she wondered if she was thinking about her, just like Cherry was.
Maybe she was thinking about where she was right now, what she was doing too. All she had to do was send her a quick text, maybe call her, but all of a sudden it seemed weird, like something about them was out of place, something that didn't fit right.
Little did Cherry know, Fleur was sitting in her room, with a glass of wine, contemplating their relationship altogether, wondering if she should keep trying, try to make this work, or if they should end it, just end it all. I mean, they were high school teenagers. How many relationships involving high school teenagers ever worked out?
Fleur figured that they would probably end up breaking up anyways, why not end it now? Why not end it the second there was a bump in the road, with the two, miles and miles apart, one sitting in a train on the way to somewhere even farther, and one sitting in the two's old dorm room with a glass of wine.
~~
A few hours later, the Hogwarts Express train finally came to a stop, and Cherry stood up, grabbing her trunk and the rest of her bags, and exited the train after waving goodbye to one of the attendants.
When she got off the platform, she saw a burly looking man, hair messy and beard going in twenty different directions, his height rising well over six feet. He looked like as if he was waiting for something, and when he saw Cherry, his eyes lit up a bit and he walked over to her.
"Cherilyn! Glad to see you made it here safely. Now, you got all of your stuff?" he said, coming over to her. "Oh! By the way, I'm Hagrid. Welcome to Hogwarts!"
Cherry muttered a bonjour and dragged her trunk along, the camera case and school bag slung over her shoulder.
Hagrid led her to the pier, where there were a few boats waiting. He went to the largest one and long story short, after a few rough waves, Cherry, Hagrid, and her bags had safely made it across the river, and they entered the school, dragging her bags behind her.
"So! This is where I leave you Cherilyn-" Hagrid started, but was but off by another voice from across the hall they were in.
"Cherilyn! Welcome to Hogwarts!" A rather oldish lady said, walking over to her, after Hagrid greeted her with a nod and left the headmistress and Cherry to speak.
"Just, call me Cherry," she said, correcting her.
"Ah, alright! So, Cherry, welcome to Hogwarts! I am professor McGonagall, and I am the head teacher of the Gryffindor house. Since it is already dark, I must ask you to please leave your bags by the hall, they will be delivered to your dorms once you have been sorted.
The ceremony will take place at breakfast tomorrow, where all the students will be present. I will place the sorting hat on your head, and you will be sorted into one of the four houses at Hogwarts. They are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin."
Professor McGonagall glanced at her bags, and pointed her wand at it, making it move against the wall of the hall.
"For tonight, you will spend the night in the hospital wing, and I trust you have already showered and cleaned yourself up on the train?" she asked.
Cherry nodded, and silently thanked herself for remembering to put a change of clothes inside her bag.
"Aright, then I will leave you be. The hospital wing is over on the right of that corridor, and don't mind the stairs, they... change, sometimes." And with a quick glance around the hall, she left Cherry to fend for herself.
Sighing, she headed towards the hospital wing, and set her bag down on the floor next to one of the beds. Looking around, she saw their was only one other person in the room, a guy who in the dark, looked about her age, sleeping in one of the beds, with a bandage wrapped around his head.
She went into the small bathroom left of the hospital wing and changed into the sweatpants and black T shirt she had in her bag, washed her pace and rinsed her mouth one last time before going back to the small bed that she had set her stuff in.
Too tired to do anything else, Cherry quickly passed out on the rather uncomfortable bed in the hospital wing, dreaming of nothing but flowers and sunshine and an open field of the greenest grass.
~~
Cherry woke up the next morning, tangled in her sheets one of her legs falling off the small bed inside the hospital wing. She groaned as she sat up, fixing her black 1975 T-shirt and grabbing her phone from her bag, which showed that the time was nearly eight.
Class would start soon at around nine, so she had to get up and ready for breakfast. Her mum had given her a map of the school, which she'd already memorized, because if there was one thing she was scared of, it was getting lost.
After trying to find a connection inside the castle, so that she could open and check her apps, she gave up and ended up hacking into the weblinks so that she could use her phone without Wi-Fi, and pulled up the fanfiction she was reading earlier.
After closing it back down again, she looked around, and saw that the boy from yesterday, the one with a bandage around his head, was just getting up like her, sitting up in the small hospital bed.
He had bright red hair that was slightly ruffled and a bit messy, and tired looking eyes, but a smile that could light up a star. From where she sat, he seemed to be about six feet tall. The red head rubbed his eyes and looked up, catching her gaze as he did. Winking at Cherry, he got up and, since he didn't seem to have a bag or anything, left the hospital wing as another lady, probably the nurse, chased after him, which he obviously ignored.
Cherry blushed, as she pushed the blankets off of her and grabbed her bags, heading to the bathroom to change into yet another extra set of clothes that she'd put inside. She was always prepared for these situations, mostly because she learned from Fleur how to, since her girlfriend was always so organized, Cherry picked up the habit from her.
Looking herself down in the mirror, she was wearing a white collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the top buttons down, a black pleated skirt like the one from yesterday, and a black tie that loosely hung around her neck, something that her old schools would never have ever approved of. She was supposed to wear the robe uniform thing, but since when did Cherry ever follow the dress code? She'd already hemmed all of them with jewels and patches reclaiming slurs on them, sewed onto the black fabric.
Her black socks reached right around her thigh, and she wore black platforms with a one and a half inch heel. Her makeup consisted of just a dark smokey eye with thick eyeliner and a rather dark plum lip. her hair was pulled into a low ponytail with a few strands loose at the front. Any misogynistic man on the street would call her a slut, but what did she care? She thought she looked alright and for now, that's all that mattered.
Almost forgetting about one thing, she reached into her bag, and pulled out the dark red flower crown and pulled it over her fading pink hair. She'd have to dye it again soon, she thought, looking in the mirror.
Once she was somewhat satisfied with how she looked, she grabbed her bag and left the small bathroom, and crossed the hospital wing, where the lady named Madame Pomfrey, the same one the red haired guy had ignored, waved to her. Taking a deep breath, she exited the hospital wing, her heart pounding out of her chest, and her eyes eager and lighting up, like fireworks.
~~