Starry skies and Gardenias

Chapter 5

September first seemed to take its own sweet time to arrive. This irked Isabella way more than she would like to admit.

"Excited?" her father smiled at her at the dinner table, on the night before the day she had awaited for months.

"Anxious?"

"No," Isabella said shortly. "I'm curious though,"

"I'd say it is perfectly fine to be anxious," her father said musingly. "It is a new place. A new world entirely. . .I'll be honest, I still can't believe there were people with magic; real magic living among us! It's incredible,"

"There must be something wrong," Isabella muttered. "If they have to hide away. Something must have happened. Wonder what that is?"

"The past is not meant to act as shackles preventing progression," Mr Jefferson said loftily. 

"The past must be the wind that sets your sail, not the anchor that ties the ship of your life down," Isabella finished.

There was a collective, bittersweet sigh at the table

"Your mother used to say that," her father said. ". . .Anna was full of sayings,"

"The soup is getting cold," Isabella pointed out. "Although I don't prefer hot food, I will say the flavour does waft away,"

Mr Jefferson blinked, as though coming out of a reverie. Then he gave a small smile.

"Right you are,"

"How are the new exported flowers doing?" Isabella asked. "Are you planning on getting orchids this time?"

"I was thinking, orchids or. . ." Mr Jefferson trailed off, thinking.

Isabella nodded along, listening to her father speak about his flowers, while her mind drifted off to her trunk in her room. 

She had packed her trunk a week ago itself. She found herself incapable of thinking about anything but Hogwarts, and so she took to packing her trunk. The thing was that she finished it within an hour, and now she had nothing else to keep herself busy with.

She had packed everything, hadn't she? 

Imagine, if she forgot an important book at home, she'd have to wait for Christmas to get it and for the other months that she'd be at school, she'd have to bear the glares of the teachers.

That would be a nightmare. 

Or she could accidentally forget her trunk in the 'train' in her excitement and not realise until the train was back in London. 

Or she could trip on her robes and fall on her face in front of everyone. The robes sure were strange, they always felt like they were sweeping the floor under them, but it never touched the ground in reality. 

She really wasn't used to wearing those wizard dresses. They were a bit. . .old fashioned. 

They even used quills! She had to practice writing with a quill and ink for about a week until she managed to replicate her handwriting neatly as she did with a pen. Why couldn't wizards simply use pens? They were more efficient than quills anyway. 

Not a surprise, but she didn't sleep a wink that night. 

She watched the sky turn to a deep velvet ebony, the slowly turn into a dark purple, before painting itself a dull blue and then streaks of gold and pink ran across the sky as the sun peaked its first rays from the horizon. 

"My, my, Izzy," her father commented as she trudged down to breakfast that morning.

"You didn't sleep at all last night, did you?"