Iris didn't even bat an eye, sliding over in the bed a little as Hermione slid in beside her. Hermione paused and gave her a gentle hug before nudging Iris to lay down so they lay facing one another. Hermione didn't say anything, she merely looked at her friend. Hermione was making it clear she wasn't going anywhere and was content just to listen to her. It wasn't the first time Hermione had listened to Iris after a bad dream.
Iris couldn't stop another small smile, at the surge of relief that the sudden closeness brought her. There was just something inherently comforting about the friendship between herself and her best friend. Buoyed by that, Iris began to relate the dream she just had. She started by describing the ruins of Diagon Alley, the anger and pain from the perspective she had shared, but she had stopped there, lingering on those feelings. They seemed really important for some reason, and she was avoiding the part about Voldemort.
Hermione for her part, just listened, she let her friend talk at her own speed. She kept her eyes on Iris' face, reading as much by the emotion on her friend's face and eyes as she did in the story itself.
Hermione and Iris had been best friends for three years. They had met on their first train ride to Hogwarts. For the both of them it had been a revelation and they had been nigh inseparable ever since.
Hermione had been nervous about this entire new world that she had just been told about, and shown a very brief glimpse of. Professor McGonagall had come to her house and demonstrated transfiguration and a few basic spells. It had proven an explanation for the weird events that seemed to plague Hermione growing up. Her parents were as relieved that there was an explanation as they were when they learned there was a school for her. She had also gotten a glimpse of the magical world in Diagon Alley when they had shopped for her school supplies.
And it seemed to Hermione that before she could turn around, she was off on a train to spend ten months at a school for something she would have said was impossible mere months earlier. She had read every one of her first year books in an effort not to be behind everyone else she was sure had grown up knowing magic.
Iris on the other hand was well aware of the wizarding world, and was sitting in a cabin in one of the train cars, bracing herself for what was about to happen. She had spent the last nine years mostly in seclusion with her family, who didn't socialize much beyond a very narrow group of friends.
Most of the Noble houses, and the pureblood families without that designation, made a point of throwing one social event a year as a sort of "status symbol." And almost all of them gathered for the Ministry Balls that were held twice annually. Once, right before the summer solstice and once on New Year's Eve.
Iris knew that she was part of if not the sole reason that the Potter family tended to be viewed as reclusive and kept to themselves in recent years. When she had been old enough to understand, her parents had sat down and told her their reasoning. They had explained the events of the Halloween night when her grandparents died. They had also explained how the Wizarding world had reacted to the fall of Voldemort, especially when the news had somehow gotten to the public about her exposure to the killing curse and the public reaction. Though Iris' mother had expressed that she thought Dumbledore had mentioned it to someone to someone and the knowledge had snowballed from there. They didn't want Iris to be surprised by any attention she might receive on their occasional trips in public. Her mother had actually taken Iris and her sisters from time to time into muggle London where there was much less likelihood of them being recognized.
For several years after that night, her parents were concerned about death eater attacks and reprisals; and indeed had been targeted no less than four times before she was five years old. After the attacks died down, they remained reclusive simply to shield Iris from the overwhelming fame that she had garnered for a night she couldn't even remember.
This wasn't to say that the Potters simply holed up and saw no one. Iris and her siblings were raised around a tight knit group that was for all intents and purposes, her family. Including her "uncles" that were over no less than four or five nights a week. Now that she was old enough for Hogwarts, she was more than a little nervous, though relieved to know she wouldn't be going alone. Her mother Lily had taken over as the Muggle Studies professor.
Dumbledore had seemed reluctant to hire Lily as a professor despite his friendship with the family. He had expressed concern that Iris would never socialize or make connections if her family was always around. However Iris' parents had both objected. If Dumbledore wanted any of the Potter children at Hogwarts, the Potters wanted to be close by for safety.
It was James Potter, Head of the Most Ancient and Most Noble House of Potter who put his foot down. If Dumbledore couldn't agree to their presence in order to protect their daughter, then the Potters would have no choice but to home school their children. The mere suggestion had horrified Dumbledore. And when it was pointed out how far behind the times the current Muggle Studies professor was, he had finally agreed.
So her family would be close by while she was at school. It was a big relief to Iris since she didn't want to be out of her sister's lives for that long. The twins, Azalea and Ivy were going to be starting Hogwarts the following year, but the youngest, Rose, was only five. Iris didn't want to be absent from the majority of her life. Her parents would be staying in the professor family quarters, so Iris would be able to see them regularly.
For Iris, Hermione was the first person she ever met who didn't grow up around the "Girl-Who-Lived" hoopla for her entire life. It wasn't that Hermione had no clue who she was. Hermione had immediately proven that she was very academically minded and into books by being able to identify Iris in not one, but three books, even as a muggleborn.