Flora Abernathy
Hufflepuff • Cookie Baker • Plant Enthusiast • Head Girl • Muggle Born
Childhood
Carlington Bording School. At least that’s what it’s called now. It used to be Carlington Boy’s School. A dilapidated excuse for a boarding school, which is why they began accepting a small percentage of female students, the least they could to get more money from the government.
Flora was only six when her parents sent her there. They weren’t wealthy, but at the time they couldn’t afford to clothe and feed her everyday, so they scrounged up enough money to send her off to the school while they worked tirelessly.
The school was hell for Flora, but not because she wasn’t smart. She was a very small child, so the boys pushed her around a lot, but she also wasn’t afraid to fight back. Punishments were strict and cruel, the headmaster a tyrant and twisted man.
Teachers used rulers for discipline and the headmaster would take a riding crop, raising it up as if to hit them. If they flinched he’d bring it down, if not, then he’d let them go. If they flinched, he’d repeat the action until the student was bloodied, or the stopped flinching, whichever came first.
Flora attended the school for four years, the first two found her with scars on her arms from the headmaster’s sick pass time. The bubbly child she went in as getting buried deeper and deeper.
Girls are meant to sit pretty, and stay quiet. Be seen and not heard.
It was drilled into the girls from day one.
Before then end of her third year there, Flora had stopped flinching when the headmaster raised the crop, and she didn’t fight with the boys, no matter how hard they pushed or what words they said. It started to build a darkness in her.
The only thing that seemed to calm it was the wildflowers that grew near the gates and out by the groundskeeper‘a shed. She’d pick them and learn about them, pressing them over night between text books before pasting them into a journal, making notes about what they were and various traits and uses of them.
Flora was ten, school was nearly done with when one of the older boys stole her journal as she wrote in it; laughing and taunting her, ripping pages out and letting them fall into the mud. She watched in horror as other boys splashed in the puddles and onto the pages to further ruin them.
She walk up to the boy who took her journal, punching him with both fists, screaming until one of the teachers pulled her off of him.
Her knuckles were bloodied as she sat in the headmaster’s office waiting for her parents.
Expulsion.
That was the only option for such a violent and disobedient student such as herself. Her things were packed for her and she was tucked in the back of her parents small car, knees pulled up to her chest. She flipped through the pages that remained in her journal, sniffling softly as they drove home, fingers brushing over one of the flowers pressed and pasted onto the page.
Slowly, as of life were being breathed back into it, the stem rounded and the petals grew more vibrant.
There’s a soft gasp from her, her tears subsiding. She didn’t know that it was her, that it was just the beginning of her magic developing.
When they got home there was a letter on the stoop outside, her mother picking it up.
“Flora, another letter addressed to you, you’ve got a whole stack inside.” She hums, Flora blinking multicoloured eyes at her mother.
A letter? Who’d send me a letter? Or enough for a stack? She thought to herself, head tilted as she took it from her mother, making her way inside as she opens the letter.
“Hogwarts?” She whispers, looking it over. “What’s Hogwarts?”
Sure enough, there was a stack on the kitchen table, her father taking the letter from her.
“School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? Please. . It’s a prank.”
“I don’t think so Michael, they’re too nice, owls were dropping them off. Who would train owl and put this much effort in writing a letter if it was just a prank. . I think it’s real. . My grandma and aunt used to tell me stories. .”
“Seraphine, you can’t be serious.” He looks at her with his brow raised.
“Michael, just let me reach out to my aunt, see if she can help shed some light, plus, it might be good for Flora, and we’ll need to find her a new school come Autumn, and that’s when this says it starts.”
Flora was at the table, opening another letter and reading it before heading up to her room with it, sitting on her bed and carefully opening her journal and pulling out that revived flower.
Was that her?
Early Hogwarts
Flora’s mother wrote to her aunt that evening and as soon as she got the letter, she made her way out, knocking on the front door.
Seraphine opens the door and blinks.
“Aunt Liz, we didn’t expect you, uh, Michael!” She calls as the woman steps in, white hair in a tight french twist.
“Of course I’m here, now where is that little flower at?” She looks around, Flora stepping downstairs in black pants and an oversized sweater, her curls everywhere.
“Aunt Lizzie!” She runs to her and hugs her tightly.
“Now what happened here?” She takes her hands and looks over her busted knuckles.
“Some boys took one of my things and started ripping it up, making fun of me, so I might’ve hit one of them.”
“A couple times and pretty hard too, how did someone as small as you get so strong?”
She guides Flora back up to her room. Up there she tells Flora all about Hogwarts, about the houses and events. It all sounded so wonderful to her.
They spoke with Flora’s mother next, who was onboard and supportive of her attending the school.
So Flora spends the summer with her aunt, together they made trips to Diagon Alley, getting books and robes, an owl of her own before Elizabeth takes her to Olivander’s.
It took awhile, to find a wand.
There’s a hum from the wand maker, disappearing before bringing back a very dusty box.
“This is one I made while studying with another wand maker. . He was well known for mixing woods in his wands. He mixed breeds of trees to achieve this. I made this one from an tree that was a hybrid of an alder and cedar tree. Twelve and a half inches, with a phoenix feather core. It’s fairly temperamental, it’s never belonged to anyone and wouldn’t listen to me.”
She picks it up, her fingers tingling, the front door slamming. The wood is interestingly marbled, the handle was uneven in a way that sat comfortably in her hand, swallowing thickly as she looks up at him.
He smiles and nods, “it’s yours, please, a wand this rare finally choosing an witch, it’d be disrespectful to the wand if I charged you.” Flora slowly nods and thanks him, her aunt guiding her out of the store.
The rest of summer flies by and soon enough she’s on the train, in her Hogwarts robes being whisked away to a whole other world.
She’s in awe as they’re lead through the castle, a few of the kids bumping passed her, brand new too, but people seemed to know them.
She sat quietly, like she was taught in her old school, nervously walking up after her name is called.
“You’re alright,” Dumbledoor spoke softly to her, McGonagall offering a small smile as she ushered her up.
She sits as the hat is placed on her head, gasping softly as it began to speak.
“Hm. . Very interesting. Smart, very smart, but there’s a fire there. . And a bit of darkness. .” Every house was on the edge of their seats as the hat speaks.
“But your heart,” it continues, “your heart is louder than all; gold, loyal. . Kind. You’d fit well in any house, but there is one where you truly belong. . Hufflepuff!”
She smiles as the badgers applauded, laughing softly as she headed over to the house table, being greeted, shaking her hand and patting her shoulder.
This was the first time she felt accepted, completely.
She met the prefect as they made their way to their common room, shaking Sprout’s hand when she came and introduced herself as Flora fell behind, looking at the plants.
Her first couple of years flew by, the school feeling more like home than her actual home did, father rejecting the idea that she was a witch and that magic was real.
Partway through third year, her aunt died, and she left school for the funeral. When she came back, she had slipped back into being quiet and timid again, despite her bubbly self finally coming back to the surface after those first couple years.
She didn’t do much during her times at home, sending letters to her few friends and starting a peculiar collection.
It wasn’t dolls, or books, she had her flowers and plants but this was different. Knives, different metals and handles, designs and from various cultures over a large span of history.
Flora was still that golden hearted girl, pressing flowers to decorate notes, baking cookies at the castle every weekend. Wednesdays she’d take the stale cookies to the lake to feed the giant squid.
She’s almost always catching the train at the last minute, having to get herself to the station without any help since her aunt passed.
She always wears sweaters to hide the scars on her arms, and has a habit of changing her hair colour to fit her outfit.
Later Hogwarts & Adolescence
Coming Soon. . .