However, as a result, Iris had ended up on the Ravenclaw quidditch team, with a gleeful Professor Flitwick announcing they had the makings of a good team. It had also earned her quite the stern scolding and lecture from her mother. The scolding would have been a lot more serious if both her Father and Uncle Sirius hadn't been giving her gleeful looks and thumbs up signs when her mother's back was to them and her attention was firmly on Iris.
Aside from quidditch, Iris and Hermione were absolutely joined at the hip. They both competed for the top two spots in all of their classes with a select few others in their year. The difference between them and others, was where individual students might compete for top spots in a specific class, Hermione and Iris were in the competition in nearly every class, with the exception of Herbology, where Neville Longbottom was clearly tops.
The competition for the top spots could have easily have turned unfriendly, but any concern that would happen was erased after the events of their first Halloween.
Hermione had been dealing with some natural issues, missing her family and such. She was only 13, though she'd only turned 13 a few weeks into school, and it had been 2 months since she had seen her parents; and it would be another two months before she had a chance to see them again. Added to some of that homesickness was an interaction she had with another student and it had been a very bad day for her.
Hermione had just been trying to help Ronald Weasley, in their charms class. They were attempting a levitation charm, one of the basic ones, and he was having lots of trouble with it, and it was one that she mastered without too much trouble. In retrospect, what happened was entirely predictable. Hermione had already had more than one interaction with Ron after a class in which he called her a know-it-all and a bookworm. Ron was a brash and loud Gryffindor and he didn't appreciate being shown up by a muggleborn. Especially not after all of his bragging about growing up around magic. He wasn't the only one who felt that way, but he was by far the most vocal outside the bigotry Hermione received from Draco and Slytherin House.
After the class where she had prevented him from poking out someone's eye, or worse, blowing something up with his erratic wand waving, Ron had felt that she had publically humiliated him. He had called her an "ugly, insufferable, friendless, know-it-all who had no business in Hogwarts in the first place."
Hermione had spent the rest of the afternoon and evening crying in the girl's lavatory, She had even briefly considered going home, of course that was until a 14-foot tall troll had lumbered into the bathroom to join her. For one brief moment Hermione thought that she was about ready to lose her life.
Then Iris had shown up.
Iris had not been enjoying the Halloween feast much anyway. It had always been a somber night for Iris and her family.
Her father and her Uncle Sirius and Uncle Remus were especially somber on that night. Her Dad's parents had died that night and all three of them were incredibly close to her Dad's parents. They had taken in Remus without hesitation despite his illness, and later taken Sirius in when family tension in the Black home had gotten too bad for him to bear.
The three men had not only lost parents or surrogate parents that night. But a fourth person they were friends with, Peter Pettigrew had been attacked by death eaters and killed as well. Her Dad later told Iris that they destroyed Peter's house with so many bombardment curses that they later found pieces miles away. The only thing that was left of Peter's body was a finger they found in the wreckage. All three said it was just like losing a brother.
They usually went and visited her grandparents' graves and Peter's grave and afterward just had a quiet night in together. The Halloween Feast at Hogwarts was anything but quiet. It was loud and energetic and festive. The students were all celebrating the death of Voldemort. But all Iris could think was that they were all celebrating the death of her grandparents and her own unlikely survival.
There had been an announcement in the Great Hall about the troll, after Quirrell came stumbling in frantically before fainting in a pile between the tables. The teachers had ordered the students back to their common rooms and Iris had immediately gone in search of Hermione, Neville had seen her peel off from her housemates and had followed Iris. Iris had sent Neville to find a teacher when they heard the scream from the bathroom, and had charged right in.
Hermione had remembered vividly Iris pulling out her wand and firing stunning spells at the troll. While the spells themselves seemed to have little impact on troll, at the very least they got its attention. The troll turned its attention from the witch cowering in the remnants of a broken stall to the witch firing spells at it, and tried to hit her with his club.
Iris had managed to avoid the swings with deft movements, though she had limited area to move with, and ended up getting clipped on the arm, snapping the bone there. Hermione had used the distraction to use one of the few spells in her arsenal at that point to lift the club from its hand, and then drop it on the troll's head. It had knocked the troll out.
Hermione hadn't waited for reinforcements to take Iris to the infirmary, and had learned firsthand, that an irate Professor Filius Flitwick Ravenclaw Head of House, and Deputy Headmistress Minerva McGonagall, Gryffindor's Head of House had nothing on an irate Professor Lily Potter, worried mother.
Even Madame Pomfrey had found someplace else to be when Lily was on a rampage. Hermione was thankful that very little of that anger had been directed toward Iris or herself. She almost felt bad for Professor Dumbledore when Professor Potter turned her wrath on him, demanding to know how a troll got through the wards and into the school.