Chapter 1 – Prologue – Witch

I leave Bigby a note, just like he asked, saying thanks and I'd see him next summer and have a good year. It is brief and stilted, as I'm not at all sure what to say. I'm honestly still a little puzzled as to why he wants me to do it in the first place.

The Alley always takes a while to come awake in the morning, so no one sees me drag my trunk from behind the parlour and through the pub. The air is crisp and chill on the walk between the pub and the station, and I use it to brace myself against the foreknowledge of a whole nine months of sharing a room with Rosemary and India and Alexandra and Kay again. We'd all be of-age this year. Only Alexandra and I had turned seventeen before the end of sixth year, along with all of the boys except Jon and Gideon. But all of us being of age only means that there will be more ridiculous pranks to avoid besides the odd pinched arse and rigged parcel.

I try not to think how strange it is that this is the last time I will walk through the barrier to the Platform. That the scarlet train will never again wait and whistle for me. I try not to think that I am going into my seventh year, that N.E.W.T.s are looming and that I have only very vague plans for the future. I'm going to apply to the Euro-Glyph School, but I eventually want to be able to help kids like me, and you need real money to do that, and I have exactly five Galleons, sixteen Sickles, and fifteen Knuts to my name.

But all that is for the future. For now, I board the train, one hand dragging my trunk, the other tucked into my hood to keep Edgar company. He sleeps more, now that he is older. Nearly eight is old for a ferret, and he is rickety. Though, Alexandra's cat is nearly thirty, she claims, and he doesn't look a day over five, so there's really no telling with magical pets. Edgar may well outlive me. I doubt it though. We were both Muggles first, he and I.

I choose an empty compartment and settle in. I expect no one to join me, and no one does. After six years of schooling together, my year-mates have learned to avoid me. I suppose it's partially my fault for being asocial and blunt, but it's not like they ever made much of an effort either. But anyway, the train ride passes uneventfully. I read for a while, and play with Edgar, and stare out the window absently. I wonder who the new Defense professor will be. Since it's my N.E.W.T. year, I want it to be someone good, not another fop like Lockheart. Memories blur my vision of the rushing countryside, pull me back in time, through the petty dramas and sincere struggles. I would never pretend my life has been anything extraordinary, but it's the only one I've got, and parts of it have been alright.

-o-

It was a hot Saturday in mid-July when the doorbell changed my life. I was eleven and one month old, sitting on top of the refrigerator, teaching myself the Cat's Cradle with Edgar slouching around my neck, asleep. The clock ticked on the oven, counting down the hours till I could safely go to bed.

The doorbell went and I looked up, nearly hitting my head on the ceiling, both surprised and anxious. It was Mum's day off, and she was sleeping. She hated being disturbed when she was sleeping, and I learned ages ago how much easier it was to stay out of her way on her day off. That was why I was on top of the fridge, actually. Mum was short, like me (though we looked totally different in every other regard), and far less nimble, particularly when she'd been drinking, which is nearly all the time. So the top of the fridge was my safe place, unlike the usual places like under the bed or something.

The bell went again and I scrambled down, first to the counter and then the floor, apologizing to Edgar as I jostled him awake. It wasn't that I really cared whether Mum got her nap in or not, but if she woke, she'd be cross, and I'd be the only one around when the person at the door left. And I would rather avoid that situation.

I opened the door, expecting Mr. Ronden from downstairs come to nag us over our leaky bath that was ruining his ceiling, he claimed. But it wasn't him, that was certain. It was a woman, for one thing, a very tall, stern woman with black hair in a tight bun, rectangular glasses, and a green dress. It wasn't actually a dress, but I didn't know what else to call her clothes.

"Yes?" I said.

"Is this the Linese residence?" she asked, peering down at me with badly concealed disdain.

I became aware of my grubby shirt and shorts, scabby knees, the dirt and mess behind me in the hall, and the ferret on my shoulder.

"Yea," I answered, bristling. "Who're you? Are you a lawyer? Did the landlord send you?" I couldn't remember if Mum paid rent last month.

"I am not a lawyer," the woman said haughtily. "My name is Professor McGonagall. If you would invite me in, I shall explain further."

I narrowed my eyes at her. "A professor? You mean like a doctor? Mum's fine. She's been following the steps and everything." Not true, of course, but if they took her away to sober up, they'd seriously put me in a home, not like when Mum just threatened.

"Young lady, I am not here about your mother. Are you…" She drew out a page of paper from her sleeve and examined it. "…Nita Linese?"

I scowled up at her. "What if I am?"

"Then I am here about you."

My stomach dropped. I pulled Edgar down off my shoulder and cradled him tight against my chest, even though it hurt. "You can't have him back! He wasn't happy at the school and he's mine now! Go away!"

As I was about to slam the door, Mum shouted from the other room. "Nita! What in the name of god are you screaming about? I'm trying to sleep, you wretch! Don't make me come out there!" I cringed.

"Nothing, Mum, sorry," I called, hoping to defuse her temper before I got the hard end of it. "Just someone stupid at the door." I glared up at the professor woman, making it clear I blamed her for the situation. "Go back to sleep, I'm sorry."

"Actually," the professor called. "Might I come in? I need to discuss something about your daughter."

"About Nita?" The couch springs squealed as she got up. "What's she done now?"

I quickly stuffed Edgar under my shirt. Mum didn't know I had him. She wasn't very observant when she was drunk, which was nearly all the time, and I had hoped to keep him secret a trifle longer.

Like I said, Mum and I didn't resemble each other except in height (though I was only eleven, and hoped to get taller). I was blond while her hair was dark brown, mine fluffy and hers lank. Her eyes were a watery, bloodshot blue and mine dark hazel. She was thickset and I was skinny, but I was also more active than her, so that might have been about lifestyle rather than body type. And she regularly reeked of liquor.

The professor woman did not look impressed as Mum came around the corner. She was in her dressing gown and slippers, her hair was greasy and disheveled, and her eyes were puffy and red. But I knew that half-asleep and more than half hungover was when she is at her least scrupulous. I watched her warily as she came down the hall.

"Mrs. Linese, I am Profess—"

"I am not married," Mum snapped. The professor blinked. I tried to disappear into the wall. "I will not be called Missus by some dowdy old lesbo like you. Who the hell are you? What the hell do you want?"

The professor drew herself up, clearly incensed. "I am Professor Minerva—"

I didn't hear a lot of what followed due to Edgar squirming around in my shirt. I had to hug him awkwardly against me to hide the lump of him from Mum, and he had no problem demonstrating his displeasure with claws. I had tried explaining again and again that it really hurt my old burn when he did that, but he has this thing about enclosed spaces. Just then it took all my effort not to cry as his little nails dug into the old burn on my chest.

I looked up again in time to see Mum break under the professor lady's very steely stare, and she reluctantly invited her in. Professor McGonagall swept past me, and I closed the door and followed them into the sitting room. Mum resumed her spot on the sofa, and the professor took the only other seat in the room, the armchair Mum got from Gran's house when she died. I stood awkwardly at the end of the hall, peering in. Edgar had moved around to the small of my back, so I could hold my hands behind me to support him without looking suspicious.

"What's Nita done now?" Mum asked impatiently, reaching for a ciggie and lighter.

"This not about what she's done," the professor replied rather stiffly. "It's about what she is."

"A bloody nuisance," she muttered from behind her cupped hand. I scowled. She inhaled and sighed out smoke.

"Miss Linese, your daughter is a witch."

Silence followed this announcement.

Mom's hand shook as she tapped the ashes off her cig. "You're insane," she said, suddenly seeming entirely sober. "Nita isn't special. She's just a bastard brat her father left me saddled with eleven goddamned years ago."

"I assure you I am not insane," the professor woman replied coldly. "Incidentally, what was the name of her father?"

"God only knows." She took a deep drag of smoke. "Luke, I think, or Duke. More foreign-sounding, but he was a Brit alright. He was blonde, like her." She jerked a nod in my direction. I knew all this, of course. My father was her least favorite thing in the world, and so he was her most favorite thing to scream at me about. I seemed to have a lot in common with the bloke, despite never having met him, and Mum having practically no memory of him.

The professor woman raised her eyebrows. "A surname perhaps?"

"Well I don't know it, do I? We only ever did shack up once."

The professor woman pursed her lips, clearly displeased. She abruptly turned to me, eyes keen and hard. I started, not used to being the subject of such close attention. Mum's skepticism aside, I was starting to doubt the woman's sanity, even if she called herself a professor. But… maybe. Maybe, you know.

"Nita, I want you to think for a moment."

I shifted from foot to foot, looked to the side, back to her. Nodded.

"Have you ever done something, or made something happen that seemed impossible? Things the other children can't?"

Something in my chest expanded. "I learned French really fast, before they fired the teacher. And I can talk to animals. At the zoo last year, the chimp told me they took her baby away."

"She makes things up for attention," Mum declared angrily. "She let the damned creatures out that day, God knows how, and nearly got herself expelled."

The professor woman nodded slowly, not taking her eyes off my face. Excitement rose in me. "Is it real? Magic?" I asked eagerly. "Do you teach it? Is that what you're a professor of, magic? Is there a school for it? Will I go there? When does it start? Can I go now?" She raised the flat of her hand to me, and I fell quiet, bouncing on the balls of my feet.

"This is for you." Again she reached into her sleeve and brought out a large envelope made of thick, crisp, creamy paper. On the front in green was written my name and the address of our flat. I took it eagerly with one hand and turned it over. There was a wax blob with a picture in it holding it closed, a sort of old-fashiony one with four animals around a big H. I was excitedly considering how to open it with one hand when Mum interrupted from across the room.

"No!"

I jumped, cursing myself for an idiot: never forget Mum, never never never! "Nita's dull and boring and normal! I named her after a character on telly, for God's sake! She's not going to any weirdo school. I won't have it. I won't pay for it! If she goes, she's never allowed back here!" A clump of ashes fell off the end of her neglected cig, and she cursed furiously and swiped them off her leg to stop them from singeing her dressing gown.

Professor McGonagall was staring at Mum like she was witnessing someone grow a second nose. "Miss Linese, your daughter has already begun exhibiting magical abilities. Not sending her to Hogwarts is not only unfair to her, but dangerous to everyone, including yourself. She needs to learn to control her powers so that she doesn't accidentally hurt someone. And Hogwarts is one of the greatest magical schools in the world."

"I won't stand for it," Mum repeated angrily. "You take your—your letter or whatever back from her and get out of my house! She's not going and that's final!"

Professor McGonagall stood stiffly. "Very well. You have made yourself abundantly clear." She turned to me. "I'm afraid I need to take that from you." I didn't move, so she reached out and gently took the letter from my numb fingers. "Enjoy the rest of your day. Miss Linese, would you show me to the door?" I nodded, my mind beginning to rumble furiously. I didn't know about Professor McGonagall or Hogwarts till ten minutes ago, and magic was just make-believe, but in that time, it had become the single most important thing of my life. I wanted to go to Hogwarts and learn magic from Professor McGonagall. And I would. I didn't care what Mum said. I'd get there somehow. Something in me flared as we got near the door, and I turned around and put up my hand to make her stop. I turned, opened the door, said "Goodbye," loudly enough for Mum to hear, and closed it. Professor McGonagall looked bemused when I tiptoed into my room, just next to the front door, but followed me quietly. I kicked the door shut behind her and said "I'm going. I don't care what she says, I want that letter and I'm going." Sensing we were safe again, Edgar crawled out of my shirt and draped himself around my neck.

The Professor's face showed approval. "I had hoped you would say that." She pulled the letter from her sleeve again and handed it to me. Both hands free now, I ripped it open and devoured the words. A bloke named Dumbledore… what's a Mugwump?... accepted at Hogwarts!... await my owl? What?... DRAGON HIDE GLOVES?... where am I supposed to get all these books?... an owl OR a cat OR a toad…

"Can I bring my ferret instead?" I asked, looking up.

She smiled thinly. "I suppose an exception can be made."

"And… where do I get all these things? A wand? What's pewter? Or phials?"

In response, she pulled a big feather out of her sleeve (where was she keeping that stuff?) and took the second page from me. "If you come to this address at this date and time, I will be there to show new Muggle-born families around Diagon Alley. I will explain everything then." She handed the paper back and I read a few neat lines of writing, starting with 'The Leaky Cauldron' and ending with 'Sunday the 8th, 11 AM'. "It has been my pleasure, Miss Linese. I look forward to seeing you then."

I nodded, and went to open the door to show her out.

"Oh, that won't be necessary." I turned and looked at her in puzzlement. She smiled again and drew her skirts in close. As I watched, she took a step forward and vanished with a sound like a table leg breaking. My mouth fell open incredulously.

"Nita!" Mum shouted from the other room. "What the hell are you doing in there?"

"Nothing Mum," I called faintly, not taking my eyes off the spot of McGonagall's disappearance. "Just… dropped something."

I was so learning how to do that.

-o-

Mum worked on the eighth, so it was easy to sneak some money and leave the flat, and take the Tube to Leicester Square. I got a little lost, but I finally got there just in time to see Professor McGonagall disappearing into a nondescript pub, trailed by about twenty nervous-looking adults, all with kids my age, so I joined at the end and tried not to get noticed.

Honestly, I shouldn't have worried. Once we got through the pub, everyone was too busy being flabbergasted by everything around us to pay the least attention to me. I was too busy being flabbergasted to pay any attention to me. Everywhere I looked, strange people and things, magical people and things, and I wanted to see and hear all of it and two eyes and ears were not nearly enough.

Professor McGonagall led us at far too fast a pace up the length of the street, which she called Diagon Alley. She pointed out important landmarks, like the bank where the parents could switch Muggle (which were people who couldn't do magic) money for magical money, and the main book shop, and the wand shop, and the apothecary, whatever that was. Soon enough she bid everyone a good day and the families dispersed along the Alley, chattering and exclaiming over all the wonderful, incredible things they'd seen. I approached Professor McGonagall warily. She peered over her rectangle spectacles at me.

"Miss Linese. I'm pleased you could make it. I take it your mother…?"

"She has work," I said quickly, which was entirely true, but not quite properly contextualized.

She pursed her lips. "I see. Does she intend to return with you later for your school purchases? I assure you, pocket money won't cover what you need."

"I know, but, um, she says I can go and everything, but… she won't pay…. So I don't know…"

"I see… Well, for very rare cases, the school does have a fund to assist needy students in purchasing their books and robes. Unfortunately I did not bring such dispensation with me today as I was not sure whether anyone would need it, but I can withdraw the amount from Gringotts quite easily. This way."

She led me back up the Alley to the bank, and then inside, which we didn't do before with the other families. There were two sets of doors, one of bronze, one of silver, and I became more and more cowed with each step I took. I'd never been in such a swanky place before. It was like everything was made of gold and jewels. But that wasn't the thing that really caught me up: it was the bankers themselves. They were short, and weird, and grouchy looking—

"They're goblins," Professor McGonagall told me quietly. "Do try not to stare."

I quickly averted my eyes and gazed at everything besides the bankers—and there was a lot of that, so it wasn't hard—till we arrived at a long, tall counter with a row of goblins seated behind it, all engaged in important-looking money-related things.

"Good afternoon, Gornhuk," Professor McGonagall said cordially to the goblin we were in front of. I peeked around her nervously.

The goblin laid a huge magnifying glass down and fixed his attention on the tall woman. "Professor…" His voice sent shivers of delightful terror down my spine. "What can I do for you?"

"I need a short term loan on behalf of Hogwarts so that this new student can buy her supplies. Twenty Galleons should do."

I watched, fascinated, as the goblin selected a long sheet of paper from a stack near his neighbor's elbow and scribbled on it at some length. Eventually, he passed the page and the feather he wrote with across to Professor McGonagall. "Your signature." He sounded bored. She signed her name with a couple small flourishes and passed the page back up to the goblin. He perused it critically before grunting, "Very well," and tucking it away into a drawer I couldn't see. "Twenty Galleons," he continued in a lecturing tone. "To be paid back by Hogwarts by the end of the week with two Knuts interest." He produced a leather pouch from somewhere and opened another drawer I couldn't see. He lifted up a coin, golden and shining and practically as big as my head, and showed it to me. I didn't blink until it disappeared into the pouch. Nineteen more followed the first Galleon, and then he handed the pouch to Professor McGonagall who handed it down to me. It weighed a lot, but it was a good kind of weight: it meant I could do things, like buy all my school supplies and go to Hogwarts. I was beaming as Professor McGonagall led me back out into the Alley, where the chill fog wrapped me in its comforting Londony embrace.

"I'm afraid I must leave you now, Miss Linese," the professor said, and I craned back to look at her face. "I have to return to the school to make ready for the arrival of you and your classmates." I glowed at the idea. "I trust you have your letter and list of supplies? Good. Ask any shopkeeper for directions and they'll point you where you need to go. I look forward to seeing you in September." And she was gone in a swirl of emerald robes, not with the Vanishing Crack like before, but normally, striding off into the mist.

I spent the rest of the day shopping. I went to a place called Flourish and Blotts for second-hand books, Madam Malkin's for second-hand robes, the Trunk Depot for a second-hand trunk, and a few other places where the things couldn't be second-hand, like the apothecary, which turned out to be like a druggist for things to make potions with. It all sounded a bit like chemistry, but more fun because it had magic.

The last thing on my list, by unconscious design, was a wand. It was getting on in the afternoon by then, and I hoped finding a wand wouldn't take long. The peeling gold letters over the door read, Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C., and a single slim wand lay on a purple velvet cushion in the display window. The air seemed to smell different as I dragged my new trunk inside: thicker, somehow, but cleaner at the same time, but somehow like everything I had ever smelled rolled into one.

"Hello?" I called nervously, and my voice seemed to echo away unnaturally fast. There was a rattle from deeper in the shop, and then an old man's head appeared, with hair like Einstein and eyes like weird white marbles that seemed to be too big for his face. I guessed he must be the Ollivander the shop was named after, or a very distant descendant of the one the shop was named after.

"Oh, hello, dear girl, hello!" he called, and the rest of his body followed his head out of what seemed to be a very tight space between some shelves. There were loads of shelves, actually, all jammed with tiny boxes that I assumed held wands. The sheer number dizzied me. "Here for your first wand, are we?" he said cheerfully, coming up to the rickety little desk. "No, ah, parents with you, eh?"

"They have work," I lied by omission. "I hope this won't take very long," I added, truthfully this time.

"Well, that remains to be seen," he said seriously. "It is the wand, after all, that chooses the wizard, not the other way around."

I was mystified and no clearer on the timeframe as he returned to the shelves and started pulling out boxes, seemingly at random. Meanwhile, a measuring tape leapt off the counter top (startling me badly) and started laying itself along various lengths of my body, getting more and more bizarre as it went along (why would it need to know how many times around my ankle it could go?)

"The thing about wands, dear girl, is that each one is unique and different just like each witch or wizard. There are different types of materials to make up the cores, for example, and different types of wood give wands very different personalities. In fact, my family has a little rhyme, if you'll indulge me: Rowan gossips, chestnut drones, ash is stubborn, hazel moans…"He went on at some length. All the while, he was pulling wands off the shelves, creating a bigger and bigger stack on the little desk. I wondered if Edgar was doing alright at home by himself. I didn't leave him alone very often, and never for such a long time. I hoped he wasn't peeing on everything.

"Well, let's just start with these, shall we?" He clapped his hands and rubbed them together eagerly. I stared at the pile of wand boxes, appalled. He wanted me to try all of these? But I had to be home soon! Leaving me no space to protest, he opened the first box with a grand gesture. "Here we are: apple wood and unicorn hair, eleven and a half inches, quite stiff. Give it a bit of a wave, see how you get on." He handed me the wand as if passing along the Royal Jewels. I took it gingerly and gave it a little twirl. A warm feeling spread through my hand, and a tiny little gold finch appeared from the tip and flew around the room, tweeting happily. Not for the first time that day, my jaw dropped. I just did magic.

Mr. Ollivander's mouth fell open too, actually. "What, on the very first one?" he exclaimed, sounding oddly offended. "Why, how—how very unusual! Dear girl, you do quite take the fun out of it. But you know, we really might try just a couple more, just to make sure it wasn't some fluke… I say, the very first one!"

He yanked my wand away—and it was my wand, I knew that like I knew my name—and gave me another, claiming it to be ebony and dragon heart string, nine inches, pliant. Holding it gave me goose pimples and I shook my head decisively. He gave me another (fir and unicorn hair, thirteen and three quarter inches, whippy), and it made a shrill angry whistling sound for a second before he snatched it back away. The next one was mahogany and phoenix tail feather, eight and a third inches, quite stiff, and it made me actively nauseous, so I nearly threw it back to him. I was getting impatient anyway, and my tone wasn't quite respectful as I said, "Mr. Ollivander, I want my wand back now. It chose me, like you said. Those other ones are rubbish and I have to go."

He looked startled but not angry. "Well… yes, I suppose… yes, you must be right, dear girl, of course… it simply amazed me, is all, to have found a match so fast, yes… Well, that will be seven Galleons if you please, I'll just wrap this away for you so you're not tempted, eh?"

I paid (my little purse was nearly totally empty now, but I had books and robes and a trunk and potions things and a wand…) and left again through the brick wall and the pub, and took the Tube home and hid my trunk under my bed and ordered a take-out curry just in time for Mum to get home and scream at me for not doing any of the cleaning I was supposed to. But I didn't care. I was a witch and I was going to Hogwarts. All I had to do now was figure out how to get to King's Cross on the first of September…

-o-

It took a devil of a long time to walk to King's Cross. Our flat was deep in South London, so it was ages to lug my trunk all that distance, even taking the Tube part way. I thanked God that Edgar was a very well behaved ferret, but I still got a lot of odd looks from motorists and fellow Tube-riders with him poking his head out of the hood of my sweatshirt.

I got to the train station at twenty past ten, so I had plenty of time to look for the train. At Diagon Alley, Professor McGonagall told us to find Platform Nine and Three Quarters, and the Hogwarts Express would be there. Now, I had never been to King's Cross before, or any train station bigger than a Tube stop, but I was fairly sure that Platforms tended to come in whole numbers.

Commuters and travelers swirled around me, paying no mind to a lost little girl besides to toss the occasional curse if I got in the way. I edged out of the flow of traffic, eyeing around to see if anything looked suspiciously magical. There were Platform Nine and Platform Ten, perfectly normal and busy and non-magical. Tucking Edgar deeper into my hood, I prowled forward, intent on getting to the bottom of this. I had to, really: Professor McGonagall said the train left at eleven sharp, so I had to find it before then. I focused on the problem, searching out anyone who seemed out of place, or in a hurry, or just different or something. Too bad that the train station seemed full of that sort of person, particularly the hurrying sort. The big clock struck the half hour and my heart sped up. I absolutely had to find the Platform!

Propping my trunk on its end, I stuck my hand in my hood to pet Edgar, as I could feel him getting anxious, and leaned up against a square brick pillar. Which was suddenly not there anymore.

I pitched backwards, arms pinwheeling, legs staggering to try and keep my balance, which I failed to do and landed flat on my face. I must have flailed myself around a little too hard. I felt the impact all along my right cheek and eye socket, and I thought I'd bitten the inside of my mouth. But all of that fell out of my head when I managed to scramble to my feet and look around. A big, scarlet steam engine was idling at a platform I knew wasn't there just a second ago. And there was a crowd of people next to it that I knew wasn't there a second ago either. They were definitely the sort of people I was looking for: weird magicky people with owls and trunks and pointy hats and clothes like I saw in Diagon Alley. And they were all talking excitedly and greeting each other and I felt very small and separate all of a sudden.

Edgar poked his head out to see what I'd done and chittered excitedly in my ear. I scratched his head and smiled nervously. Apparently I'd found Platform Nine and Three Quarters.

I felt a touch on my shoulder and spun around so fast I nearly fell over again. A blond man stood just behind me, with a girl a few years older than me behind him. She had bright pink hair and a quizzical expression. The man looked a little bemused. "Sorry to startle you," he said. "But is this your trunk?" I looked down and indeed it was.

"Thanks," I gabbled. "Sorry, just sort of, um, fell through the uh, wall, thanks." I grabbed the handle away from him and backed up nearly to the edge of the Platform. The man gave me a puzzled smile and he and his daughter moved down towards the crowd by the train.

"See?" I heard the pink-haired girl say. "Her parents let her come alone, and she can't be more than twelve!"

I stood still and let my heart settle again. My breakfast Wheaties suddenly felt like a stone in my stomach, and my pulse was a rushing waterfall in my ears. A lot had happened that day: until I got there, to Platform Nine and Three Quarters, there was a chance I would go back home to Mum and go back to my usual school in a week and forget all about Hogwarts and magic and Professor McGonagall and gone right back to my life. The life that I didn't particularly like, but the one I knew how to deal with and live in… But falling through the brick wall onto the Platform changed my life and I knew that the only way to go was forward. Never back to Mum's flat or my old school or anything.

Spine stiffened by this resolve, I took hold of my trunk and dragged it along the platform towards the press of witches and wizards and the train, belching steam across the crowds. I didn't know why none of the other students had gotten on the train, so I stood awkwardly next to one of the doors and waited for something to happen, watching kids my age with their families and petting Edgar.

A great steam whistle went off as the clock tolled the hour, and nearly scared me out of my skin. All the students made a mad dash for the train, yelling cheery goodbyes and blowing kisses and being tossed last-minute parcels. I was pressed on ahead of a great herd of kids, all pushing and shoving and pulling one another until they finally dispersed into cabins on either side of the carriage. I stood, feeling dazed, until I felt the train start to move and realized I should find a seat.

There was an empty cabin near the end of the carriage, and I settled in. I spent most of the ride glued to the window, watching rapt as the city and countryside rushed past. I had never been out of the city before, and the wide-open spread of green fields mesmerized me. I let Edgar out of my sweatshirt and he explored happily. I was only disturbed twice during the whole day, once when a few older students poked their heads in wondering if I'd seen someone called Lola Cole, and the other time when an older woman in a cap and apron came by pushing a cart and asked if I wanted some candy. The Wheaties had long since disappeared from my stomach, and I was very hungry, but I was also hyper-aware of my finite purse and I reluctantly refused.

It got progressively darker outside and little lanterns came to life inside. Edgar crawled into my lap and went to sleep, and I started drowsing too till the train started slowing down and it occurred to me that maybe I should get my uniform on. Edgar protested sleepily as I shifted him to dig around in my trunk, which had gotten pretty jumbled over the adventures of the day. All the layers (tee shirt, jumper, and robes now) were heavy and uncomfortable on my burn, but I gritted my teeth about it.

It was full dark when we pulled into a new station and students poured out of the train in an excited burst. None of them seemed to be taking their things, so I hesitantly left my trunk in clear view on the floor. Of course, I kept Edgar with me. He curled around my neck as he usually did, but it was even more comforting now in this strange new place.

The new platform seemed to be at the edge of a little village, and the general current tended to the left. I made to follow it until I heard a big, gruff voice shouting "Firs' years! Firs' years this way, come on now, don't be shy!" I turned around and saw the most enormous man I had ever seen in my whole life. I was sure he was a giant. He was three times as tall as me and six times as wide, or maybe ten. He had a big ferocious beard and a stinky coat and a lantern on the end of a stick, which was mostly the only way I could see him. Most of the rest of the students had drained away by then, and perhaps forty of us new ones were left with this huge man.

"'Ere we go then!" he called, and turned and trundled off into the darkness, the opposite way the other students went. Exchanging many dubious glances, we followed.

The gigantic man led us along a narrow rocky path, sloping steeply downwards until we came to a dark little beach lined with rowboats, except they didn't have oars. "Climb on in, four to each boat!" the man called, and there was a fumbling rush as we all clambered in, some of us trying to push the boats into the water first, others just getting straight in. I wound up with three other kids, all boys, none of whom looked at me. Even though there were no oars, the boats slipped smoothly from the beach and drifted across the water. The boat with the big man was in front, and he was so huge there was only room for two students, who looked like they were about to be squeezed out of the boat altogether.

But I was looking at the sky. I'd lived in London my whole life, with the street lamps and car headlights and shop lights left on overnight. Who ever knew that buried under all that light, there were so terribly many stars? There must have been a million of them, all glittering and gleaming, different sizes and some were very slightly different colors and there was a great long cluster of them just there… Could that be the Milky Way? I always heard the stars are beautiful, but I never knew it before that night.

All of a sudden, gasps and exclamations rose from the other boats, and I looked around, wondering what they all saw. It didn't take long to figure out: we were sailing towards a castle. A big, huge, proper castle, with towers and big buttresses and all the windows lit like in a fairy tale.

"Hogwarts…" one of the boys in my boat murmured. I found my mouth was hanging open again.

Time seemed suspended as we drifted ever closer. The castle sat on a big bluff above the lake we were on, so it seemed to rise higher and higher into the sky as we got closer until it eventually disappeared behind a big rock, and a little boathouse came into view. The boats unerringly took themselves into the structure and bumped up against the docks on either side.

"Alrigh'!" the man called. "Ev'ryone out!" We scrambled from the boats (Edgar digging his nails into my neck as our balance shifted), all knowing that we were nearly to the school. The big man led us out of the boathouse and along another rocky little trail, this time going uphill. The castle reappeared, rearing up in the sky like the most exciting monster ever. We got closer and closer, and soon we arrived at a stone-paved courtyard butting right up against the castle wall. There was another person waiting for us there, a long slim person who resolved into Professor McGonagall as we got closer.

"Thank you, Hagrid," she said as we gathered around her. "I'll take them from here."

"Very good, Purfessur," Hagrid rumbled. "Good luck, kids. I'll be seein' you lot 'round." And he lumbered back down the trail.

Professor McGonagall surveyed us gravely, and I swore her eye caught on me for a long second, before she turned smartly on her heel and went toward the doors into the castle. We didn't have to be told to follow. We were tense with energy and excitement as she led us through the doors and into Hogwarts itself.

Again, I lamented that I had only two eyes, as they weren't nearly enough to take everything in. The castle was lit by torches, there were big pictures on the walls that moved, and I could have sworn there was a staircase moving off through a distant archway…

A girl on my left screamed shrilly and the whole group turned to see what the matter was.

There was a ghost near the ceiling. A ghost that leered at us in a most disconcerting way. He had puffy, old fashioned pants on and lots of puffy hair. He was also upside down.

"Oooohh!" he squealed. "Ickle firsties! Having a good day so far? Lovely little train ride, a very picturesque sail across the lake? Well, just wait till you meet the trolls that live in the—"

"PEEVES!" Professor McGonagall shouted, and I jumped a little. I hadn't thought she was capable of such volume.

"They'll gobble you right up and still have room for—"

"I'll call the Baron!" Professor McGonagall threatened, and the ghost named Peeves actually looked scared for a moment.

"Well, you can't blame me for trying to warn them, Professor ma'am." His voice became wheedling. "It's only their best interests I have at my ghosty old heart—"

"Peeves," she said again, and he disappeared with a sound like a fart. The girl who screamed and a couple others were crying, but I was just impressed. Professor McGonagall earned my respect the second she stood up to Mum, but now she bossed ghosts around too. I couldn't wait to learn from her. I wanted to learn to boss ghosts around too.

She ignored the crying ones and addressed us as a group. "In a few moments, I am going to take you through the doors behind me and you will greet the rest of your classmates. You will be Sorted into one of four Houses. You will have classes with your House-mates, share a dormitory with them, and have your meals with them. For all intents and purposes, they will be your family." I roll my eyes. "In the most positive sense of the word," Professor McGonagall amended. I glanced up and saw she had fixed her gaze on me, the very faintest smile on her lips.

Professor McGonagall turned and led us through a pair of massive doors, and we were engulfed in a sea of floating candles and strange, curious faces. I found myself walking quietly, like I did when Mum was sleeping, and immediately started taking big confident steps instead. I may not have known nearly anything about this place, but I could still be brave about it. There were four big long tables stretching from the door to the raised stage at the end of the hall, where there was another table length-wise. That one was populated with adults, so I assumed they were teachers. In front of the table was a small three-legged stool, and on top of that was the mustiest, grubbiest, most patched and faded old hat I'd ever seen. Professor McGonagall stepped up next to it, and the cluster of us new students stayed down behind. Then, a big seam opened up near the hat's brim, and it talked! I thought my jaw literally hit the floor. I was too gobsmacked to hear a thing it said, and barely regained my composure when Professor McGonagall did that thing where she pulled a roll of paper out of her sleeve and started calling names. The first, a girl named Calliope Aaron, went to Slytherin, and there were cheers from the table on the far right where all the students wore green ties.

I was called up after a boy named Michael Lee who went to Hufflepuff. McGonagall looked more imposing there than she did in my flat, so I was especially careful to lift my chin to make it clear I wasn't scared as I took the stage. I took a seat on the three-legged stool, looking out over the eagerly upturned faces, hearing the cheery anticipation that filled the Hall: where would I go? McGonagall settled the Hat over my head and darkness obscured my vision.

"Oh-ho, here's an interesting one," a little voice muttered in my ear. "Runaway, are you? Interesting. Already telling lies to McGonagall and Ollivander, that's always a good sign. Quite determined, I see, that's always nice. Goal-oriented, that and the lying make me think Slytherin. But a voracious learner, and a very strong mind once you learn how to use it, that's Ravenclaw. And that's a funny little language talent you have there, that'll certainly be fun. But you're here to prove a point, I see, so Hufflepuff would never do. You're here to learn, but not for learning's sake, so Ravenclaw is out after all. And your morals are a little too prickly for Slytherin, not to mention the Muggle-born bit. And you're pigheaded and stubborn, so it'll have to be…" The voice rang out strongly, echoing through the hall. "GRYFFINDOR!"

The Hat lifted off my head and I stood, grinning in spite of myself. A bunch of people were waving from the table on the far left, and I scampered over and joined them. A tall boy with red hair and freckles reached from way down the table to shake my hand, calling that his name was Charlie Weasley, he was a Prefect, and I should tell him if I needed anything. I wondered if the butterflies in my stomach meant I was in love. So many incredible things had happened recently, why not love?

There were nine new Gryffindors besides me, and I didn't remember any of their names except one called Wendell Abrams the sixth, because that was just so stuck up. I was the last to join the long table, cheered and applauded like all the others. We watched the rest of the Sorting with barely muted excitement, and listened to an old Gandalf-ish looking man who introduced himself as the Headmaster who told us to stay out of the Forbidden Forest, since apparently the name hadn't been enough in the past, and not to do magic in the corridors, and other random things, and then he clapped his hands and food appeared on the platters in front of us. I wasn't sure I wasn't hallucinating from hunger. And it looked amazing. I grabbed everything I could reach and started stuffing my face, not even looking at what I was eating.

Conversation began around me. All of us new Gryffindors were right at the end closest to the teacher's table, and talk naturally centered on introducing ourselves and making friends.

One of the boys spoke up first: "My name's Gideon Grown. I'm from Glasgow." He had neat dark-red hair and brown eyes.

"I'm Isaac Hanson," said the boy across from him. He was chubby, and his curly blonde hair and blue eyes made him look like a cherub. "My dad's a professor at Oxford." I took an immediate dislike to Isaac Hanson. Something about him put my hackles up.

"My name is Wendell Abrams the sixth," said the boy I'd noticed earlier. "That means that there have been five Wendell Abramses before me, all the way back to my great-great-great-grandfather." His brown hair was carefully arranged, it seemed to me, and his glasses made him seem older than he was.

The girl right across from me spoke next. She had green eyes and wavy dark brown hair. "I'm Rosemary. My surname means 'perfect' in French. My dad says it's good that I turned out perfect or we would have to change it." Her teeth overlapped on the side.

"Your surname is Parfait?" I asked.

She looked over at me, startled and irritated. "No."

"That's French for perfect though."

"No it's not. My surname is Haine and it means perfect." She tossed her dark hair confidently.

I laughed. "No it doesn't! Haine means hated. Your ancestors must have got on the wrong side of someone important once. Your dad really told you it means perfect?"

Rosemary narrowed her eyes at me. "And your name is…?"

"Nita Linese," I said. "It doesn't mean anything, as far as I know."

She pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows, which made her look meaner but somehow prettier too. "So your name means 'nothing'? It's a good thing you won't have to change it then."

The two girls on either side of her giggled, and the boys grinned. Recognizing that I had made a potentially serious error, I tried to backtrack, saying, "Names don't have anything to do with your personality or anything. It doesn't matter what they mean." Just then Edgar poked his head up over my shoulder from where he'd been lying in the hood of my robes like it was a hammock, and the other girls startled back, one of them letting out a little scream.

"A rat!" one of them cried.

"He's not a rat," I protested. "He's a ferret and his name is Edgar."

Edgar clambered up to stand on my shoulder and hissed at them. He could tell they were being mean to me.

Rosemary looked at me and sneered. "Nothing Girl and her mutant rat. What a perfect pair."

I didn't make any friends after that because unfortunately Rosemary Haine became queen bee of our dormitory and might have literally forbidden anyone from talking to me, I never found out for sure. Not that I helped my case. In Muggle school, teachers regularly pulled me aside to deal with some 'problem' I'd created with another student. So even when one of my classmates did follow the urge to speak to me, I usually fumbled it. I didn't mind, somehow. From what I observed, none of them seemed like particularly wonderful people. Rosemary was stuck up and rude as her first impression had led me to believe, and she easily brought two of the other girls, Alexandra and India, into her orbit. The last girl, Kay, seemed to stay out of it for the most part, but hung out with them because I didn't seem cool enough to risk being shunned for my friendship. The boys were just stupid. They did occasionally interact with me, but usually to tease, so I learned to ignore them. That, or hexed them, even if it got me detentions. Whichever I felt like.

Nevertheless, my first year seemed to fly past. Potions would have been my favorite class except that it was taught by Snape, so my real favorite was Charms. I turned out to be rubbish at the class Professor McGonagall taught, and I was highly disappointed with myself. But honestly, who ever thought of literally turning something into something else just because you didn't like it? Some things can't be changed. Mum taught me that. But other than that, History of Magic was deadly dull, Herbology was cool when we worked with plants that wanted to kill us, Astronomy was boring even though the stars were pretty, and Defense Against the Dark Arts was just weird. Professor Barthing seemed to spend most of class time either sleeping at his desk or having animated, one-sided conversations in front of the class. Since I was only a first year and not allowed at Hogsmeade weekends, I only heard off the gossip mill that he got in a huge row with a Spanish chap at the Hog's Head near the end of the year and started a duel. Witnesses say the Spanish chap cast some kind of spell and Professor Barthing disappeared in a cloud of blue smoke and hasn't been seen since. I have to assume that got blown up in the retelling, but there's a part of me that really believes it.

I stayed at school over Christmas and Easter holidays. Having the castle more or less empty for those short weeks was wonderful. I got to wander and explore, and play with Edgar in my dorm room without the other girls telling me he was nasty. Some of them gave me sideways looks when they saw I wasn't packing at the end of term, but where was I to go? Not Mum's of course. I'd have to face the problem eventually, unless there turned out to be a Hogwarts summer school, but in the meantime I lived in the castle, learning magic. Friendlessness and mean or weird teachers aside, I was in heaven.

-o-

I stepped nervously into the pub. I'd only passed through twice: once with Professor McGonagall and the other Muggle-born families the previous summer, and the other time yesterday afternoon when I finally found my way back from King's Cross. Neither was a lengthy visit, but I didn't know anywhere else to go. Mum said I couldn't come home if I went to Hogwarts, and I had gone to Hogwarts. So I couldn't go home. Old friends from my Muggle school would ask where I went, and I couldn't tell them. Besides, would they even remember me? No, I had to find something in the magical world. Even if that meant sleeping in my trunk behind Bigby's Magical Tattoo Application Parlour. But I didn't want a pity-party: even with the cauldron, my trunk was actually pretty roomy inside, quite big enough for one skinny just-over-twelve-year-old and one chubby ferret, though it'd be better once I sold my books back to Flourish and Blotts like they said I could last summer.

But that still left the problem of eating.

"Are there any chores I can do?" I asked stridently over the noise of the customers coming in and getting settled. It seemed like half the Alley was there for lunch.

"Get out!" the man behind the bar shouted at me. His face looked like a walnut, it was so wrinkly and brown, and he looked like he was doing about ten things at once. "I don't need kids getting underfoot. What can you do that magic can't?"

All of a sudden, my stomach howled, advertising the fact that I hadn't eaten since yesterday's breakfast at Hogwarts. The man glanced at me shrewdly and I tightened my jaw to hold back tears. "Are there any chores I can do?"

He stared at me for a second and I stared back. "Ach…" he grunted gruffly. "There's dishes to do in back. Wash yourself first though. I'll not have a grubby dish girl."

Relief washed over me and I scampered past him towards the door he'd pointed out. "And be earlier tomorrow!"

I went back every day for the rest of the summer. I knew Tom, the barkeep and owner, was mainly letting me help because he felt sorry for me, and I tried not to feel resentful about that. At that point, I was fairly pitiable. But all it meant was that I'd have to work hard to pay him back someday.

The scariest thing that happened over the summer was when Bigby found me. I was using my afternoon to try to waterproof my trunk. The rain was late and hard, and I discovered that the seams weren't entirely tight enough to keep me dry. I found an old piece of tarp and tried just about everything to get it to stay: some bent old nails I found, some string I had, a few other things, but nothing worked.

I huddled under the thickening drizzle, cursing the failure of yet another attempt, when I heard someone clear their throat behind me. I spun around on my haunches and lost my balance, toppling sideways into a puddle. Edgar was perched on top of the trunk, and hissed at the man who startled me.

Not, I thought, that hissing at that man would do very much. He was short for a bloke, though obviously not nearly as short as me, with no hair and so many muscles I couldn't count them. But on every visible inch of his skin, there were tattoos. And they weren't normal ones either: they moved. I knew that it must be Mr. Bigby, the namesake of the tattoo shop I'd been sleeping behind for the past couple weeks. I froze, my bum still resting in the puddle. There weren't many people who would take kindly to finding a squatter behind their bins, and the man looked like no exception. In fact, he looked like the sort who'd kick me around and trash my stuff and go home to a warm supper without a second thought.

He crossed his arms.

I flinched.

"I've been wondering what kinda little thing might've been hiding back here," he said. His voice was a rumble I felt in my bones, and I remained as still as I could, not sure whether this was a prelude to the kicking or something else. "You've been here for seventeen days, arriving June twentieth. Day after the school gets out. Tell me."

I said nothing. Just stared.

"Can't go home? Stuck here?"

"Are you going to beat me up?"

He frowned down at me. "No."

I cautiously shifted onto my knees to get my bum out of the puddle. "Why not?"

"Why should I?"

"Because I've been sleeping behind your bins!" I cried, getting angry at the man's refusal to act normal.

We went back and forth stupidly like that for a while. It took Bigby a long time to convince me that far from wanting me tarred and feathered for squatting on his property, he actually wanted to help. Once I got that through my head, I cautiously accepted his offer to let me sleep the night in the back room of his shop. He told me it would be safe: no one was there during the night, and all the doors had magic-resistant locks. When I finally dragged my sodden trunk inside, glaring at him distrustfully the whole time, he showed me the light switch, told me not to touch anything, locked the door, and left. I looked around curiously once he was gone. It was a small room, the door and window behind me, a large mirror on the wall to the left, the rest of the wall covered in sketches and paintings. The right wall was made up of loads of shelves and cabinets full of papers and pens and brushes and paints. It looked like the art room at my Muggle school, only more organized and cleaner. Directly in front of me hung a purple velvet curtain in a doorframe, probably the division between the front of the shop and the studio itself. In the middle of the room and taking up most of the space was a large scrubbed wood table covered in paint and ink stains.

I wasn't able to fall asleep for a long time, not quite able to trust the situation. But finally, curled up in a corner behind my trunk, with Edgar around my neck like a slightly damp scarf (I was pretty soggy too, no denying it), I dozed off.

I woke early the next morning as the sun's rising rays poked at my eyes. It took a moment to remember where I was, but when I did I lurched to my feet (Edgar protesting as he was rudely jostled awake) and set about hauling my trunk outside behind the bins again. Whatever had compelled the man to let me sleep in his shop would surely have worn off by the time he got in, and it would be wise to have made myself scarce by then.

Having stowed my things, Edgar and I ventured out into the Alley. Only a few people were around, some sleepily putting up awnings, some just standing around talking. I wandered along for a while, at a bit of a loss for what to do. Tom at the Leaky Cauldron had told me to come back today to do the dishes again, and to be earlier, but he probably hadn't meant eight in the morning.

So I spent three hours industriously trekking up and down along the Alley, learning where each shop was in relation to the others, and finding all the little streets that split off the Alley-proper, like the one Bigby's parlour was on. Knockturn Alley looked a bit dodgy, so I steered clear of that, but otherwise is was an interesting couple of hours.

I got to the Leaky Cauldron at ten sharp, nervously waited to be acknowledged by Tom, and dashed into the kitchen, relieved, when he nodded to me. my work in the kitchen was straightforward: scrub charred pots and pans, all caked and slimy, until they were needed for cooking, and stay out of the way when the two cooks, Jacek and Arlo, got in an argument over something, which was often, but rarely serious. It was soothing, to know exactly what I had to do at any given moment.

The rest of the summer went surprisingly well. Bigby and I had another fight that evening when I went back to where I'd left my trunk, only to find that he had taken it inside and wasn't taking no for an answer about me sleeping indoors. I was incredibly pigheaded back then, just like the Hat said, and didn't like listening to advice, even if it was for my own good.

I eventually gave in, of course, and spent the rest of the nights of July and August curled up on his floor with a thick wool blanket, Edgar a snug little lump next to my neck. I always made sure I was gone by the time he came in, and that everything was tidy. And I never went in at night until he was leaving. The parlour was his place of business, after all, and I didn't want to be a burden. And my duties at the Leaky Cauldron gradually expanded too: by the time Bigby even found me, I was helping Mary, the day maid, clean rooms upstairs before beginning the lunch dishes. She had the same name as Mum, but I liked her anyway. She taught me where people were most likely to forget things, and sometimes let me keep the things we found, like a pair of shoes that had got kicked under a bed that I could grow into. When I got the letter from school telling me what supplies I needed, I spent the money only very reluctantly, getting the cheapest second-hand books, and robes it would take me years to grow into. But when the first of September rolled around, I was eager and ready to go.

Second year began inauspiciously. Alexandra's cat nearly ate Edgar the first night back, and Alexandra blamed me for the damage Edgar did to the nasty creature's face. The new Defense Professor was an Auror from the Ministry, a man named Gondil, and obviously had no idea how to handle kids and gave out detentions left and right. Fortunately, he was only allowed to take one year away from his job, so his position had a timer on it. It took me nearly a month to get the hang of the amount of homework the teachers expected of us as second-years, and by then I had missed the opportunity to sign up for any clubs. I had thought I might try the toad chorus that year just for fun, but it didn't work out.

It was late in October when I approached Professor McGonagall. I'd been thinking about this subject since summer when I'd heard some particularly strange-looking wizards talking in the pub, and it had taken me this long to work up the nerve to ask her about it. I didn't know if she was mad at me for doing so badly in her class last year, but I'd been keeping a low profile just in case.

"Miss Linese, stop skulking back there. What do you need?"

I started, and went forward without thinking about it. "I was wondering if there are any magical languages," I blurted out. McGonagall blinked at me. "I mean, in my old school, my Muggle school, they taught us French, except the teacher got caught with drugs I think and we didn't get a new one, but still—"

"I understand what you're asking," she interrupted, and I shut up. "Next year, you'll be able to sign up for supplementary classes, including Ancient Runes, but we do not offer any actual languages, no. Are you interested in them?"

"Well, I'm quite good at them is the thing. I sort of miss learning then."

She looked at me consideringly over her rectangle spectacles. "There are no particular languages reserved for wizards, to begin with. You will note we wizards of the Isles retain the use of the English tongue. French wizards speak French, Spanish wizards Spanish, et cetera."

My face must have fallen because she went on at once in a reassuring tone.

"But there are languages specific to the wizarding world, which Muggles know nothing about."

I looked up at her eagerly, and she smiled as much as I had ever seen her smile. It wasn't much, but anything from the stern Transfiguration Mistress was something.

"Goblins, for instance, have their own language. Merpeople as well, and I believe historically Veela had their own dialect, but that may have died out since they interbred with wizards."

"Is there anyone who can teach me any of those?" I asked eagerly. "I mean, except the Vee… Vee… the extinct one?"

"I know the Headmaster is fluent in Mermish, but I'm afraid he's far too busy to give out private lessons. However, Professor Flitwick knows Gobbledegook, the language of goblins. I know he can curse in it, at least. His grandfather was a goblin, you see. Would you like me to raise the subject with him?"

I nodded emphatically. "Oh yes please, ma'am, yes please, that would be very—"

"I understand, Miss Linese," she overrode me and I shut up again, this time fighting down a grin.

I got a note the next morning at breakfast, the first piece of mail I'd ever received. It didn't come from an owl, but fluttered down from the teacher's table to land gently on my plate. I seized it and had to read it three times before my mind caught up with my eyes:

To Miss Linese,
I am delighted in your interest in learning the language of my
forefathers. While I am not fully fluent, I know enough to tutor
at the beginning level. Since you have Charms today, please
do see me after class and we will sort out a roster which is
agreeable to us both. Sincerely,
F. Flitwick

I looked along the teacher's table till I spotted the little professor down on the other side of Dumbledore, to see he was watching me with a happy smile. I waved his note to show I got it, and he waved back. I finished my little breakfast with great gusto.

It took me nearly two months to become fluent in Gobbledegook. I didn't know if this unusually long time was due to it being a magical language or because Professor Flitwick himself wasn't fully fluent with it himself, but either way, by the end of the term, I knew it better than he did and our lessons had become merely a fun excuse to eat cupcakes in his office and come up with the silliest sentences we could. My lessons continued for the rest of the year, but after that he said he felt a little silly giving lessons to a student who knew so much more than him, even if they were lessons in name only. So we canceled them. He did demand, however, that I explain how I learned the language so fast, but the only thing I could say was that I had always been very quick with languages. Back when she still got sentimental rather than angry, Mum told me I was speaking full sentences at 2 years old, and it only took me two weeks to learn French when we got lessons in school. He didn't like that answer very much, but he did say that I could come by any time I had any problems even though I wasn't a Ravenclaw, or just if I wanted a cupcake.

-o-

I had never been to the Hospital Wing before and I was nervous as I stepped over the threshold. It was a crisp Saturday in April, and the long chamber did a good job of letting in the light with its many tall windows. I was still nervous though.

A fourth year Ravenclaw girl was leaving just as I arrived, smoke trailing dismally from her ears. Madam Pomfrey was clearing some small things off a table at the end of the ward. I heard her muttering "…year, miss Knight, every year in with hay fever…If you'd just learn to skip Herbology…" and I cleared my throat nervously. It was a small sound, like a mouse getting its tail stepped on. I scowled to myself. She looked up. "Yes?"

"Um…" I whispered. "My, um… my… um…"

"Speak up, child, gracious," she snapped, motioning me closer.

I paced about half the ward's length towards her and said, "My chest hurts."

"Are you having trouble breathing?" she asked swiftly.

I took an experimental breath and winced. "No, it feels on top of my ribs."

"Well, come here then and we'll take a look."

I shuffled the rest of the way forward and stood, hunched and embarrassed, and she waved her wand across my chest, looking focused.

"Nothing seems to be wrong, child. Come behind this curtain and take off your top, we'll see what we can see."

I hesitated, knowing what she would see and not at all sure I knew how to explain.

"Well, if you can't see if anything's wrong, I can just—"

"Nonsense, child, come here and we'll get to the bottom of this alright."

"Yes, ma'am."

She waved her wand and a set of hospital curtains drifted towards us till they were standing around me. "Tell me when you're ready," she instructed, and snapped the curtain closed. Very, very slowly, I took off my robe and the tee-shirt beneath.

"Okay," I called reluctantly. "You can come in."

I heard the curtain whisk aside and Madam Pomfrey tutting. "Child, I can hardly diagnose your chest by staring at your back."

Cringing at her sarcasm, I turned around, staring at the flagstones under her feet. I heard her gasp though. Even with my arms crossed protectively over my chest, my burn was obvious. It covered most of my chest, starting less than an inch below my collarbones and going down almost to my bellybutton. It was discolored and shiny and so ugly that I avoided mirrors, even when I had clothes on. And I was very careful about wearing clothes.

"Child, what is this!?" Madam Pomfrey snatched my arms away from my chest, the better to examine me.

"It's not new," I said quickly, though she could no-doubt tell that.

"Where did it come from?" she demanded, seizing her wand again and prodding me with it. A bluish mist materialized, which I hastily stepped away from.

"It's old," I told her quickly. "You can't heal it."

"I think I'll take my own council on what can and cannot be healed, young lady," she said sternly, but put her wand away. "How did that happen?"

I gulped. "I was eight. I was cooking, and I pulled a pan of hot grease on myself."

"What! And your parents didn't take you to St. Mungo's?"

"We're Muggles. She's a Muggle, that is. We did go to a hospital, but they couldn't do much."

"Even the simplest burn potion would have done wonders for this, and they send you home with a great nasty—" She pulled herself up short, probably thinking about my feelings or something. It wasn't like I hadn't been thinking the same things for four years. She looked down at me for a long moment. "Dear girl, I could heal that in ten seconds in any of a dozen ways if you wanted."

For a moment, I wanted it. For a moment, I saw myself free of the constant pull on my skin, the hunched shoulders caused by the taut old scar. I could stop being careful of mirrors. I could stop being afraid of what everyone would say if they ever saw it. I would be free. Maybe I could make friends. But…

"No, it has to stay there," I said finally.

She was as confused as I expected her to be: it's a great ugly burn. Who wouldn't want it gone?

I answered the unasked question: "I need it to remember."

She looked cranky and confused. "Then I really don't understand what you expect me to do."

"I mean… this pain is new. It's not the burn. What is it?"

She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Where is it, precisely?"

"Sort of all over here," I said, pointing along the top of my chest.

Her face softened unexpectedly. "Dear girl, those are your breasts coming in."

"Oh." I didn't know how to feel about this news. Puberty was always a thing of the future, a word I knew, but not a concept I understood. Boys got tall and hairy, and girls got breasts and periods. But that wasn't going to happen to me, was it? I had so many other problems to deal with. And were breasts supposed to hurt so much? I shared this last question with the Matron, who chuckled and Summoned a pair of chairs for us.

"It's not uncommon for a girl to experience pain when her breasts begin budding, but I suspect your burn may be making it worse. Your skin needs to be able to stretch to accommodate the new tissue, and your skin isn't able to."

"Isn't there anything you can do?" I asked desperately. I couldn't keep feeling this way forever! And she was a magical doctor for God's sake!

"I may be able to add to the tissue's elasticity without getting rid of it altogether—though why you don't want it gone, I still do not understand. Do you want to try?"

I nodded eagerly, sitting up as straight as was comfortable and bracing myself for whatever was coming. Madam Pomfrey raised her wand and waved it in a gentle, complicated pattern over my chest. I squeezed my eyes shut as a weird tingling spread over my scarred skin, and the pain began to subside.

I blinked once the sensation faded. "It still hurts a little," I told her.

"Yes, it's likely to until your breasts fill in all the way. I've given your skin a little room to grow in, and if they stay small, it should be enough. But if it begins to hurt that way again, you can come back and we'll do it again."

"Yes ma'am," I said as I put my shirt back on.

"Now." She moved to put the curtain away, and I remembered that we were in the actual Hospital Wing, not our own private office. "Is there anything else you're wondering about? About how your body will change as you grow up, for instance?"

I hesitated. "What do I do when I start to… you know… bleed?"

I spent nearly an hour in the Hospital Wing with Madam Pomfrey, asking every question I could think of, all of which she answered kindly and truthfully. She even got me a cup of tea. When I went back to Gryffindor Tower, my chest hurt less, and I felt strangely competent about the future.

Once summer came around again, I took up where I had left off, with only a little trepidation as I reestablished the routine. Bigby grunted and ushered me inside the first night I was back, but Tom greeted me cheerfully and put me right back to work. He even let me do a little serving when it was particularly busy, and I split the tips people left with the other waitresses. I had the afternoons off, as before, so I found odd jobs to do around the Alley: running messages and errands, and shelving things at Flourish and Blotts and cleaning the owl pens at the post office and sweeping the floor at Florean Fortescue's in exchange for a banana and other things like that. I usually got a handful of Knuts in the bargain, or even a Sickle, and slowly accumulated a tiny fortune that I guarded like a dragon. I even tried Gringotts and nervously tried speaking Gobbledegook to one of the goblins behind the counter, and even though they were impressed by my proficiency in their language (at least, I was pretty sure they were impressed as opposed to outraged), they weren't interested in paying me to do anything, so I stuck to other things.

Bigby and I became more friendly too. I persisted in leaving the premises before he arrived, but from time to time he would stay late and make us supper on a little levitated tin plate with a magical flame beneath. He'd cook eggs and sausage and pour frothing beer into two big mugs and let me have one, which is where I learned how to drink properly. He would tell me about his customers sometimes, and I would tell what I had overheard from an exchanges in the pub, or out in the Alley, like what people were fighting or gossiping about, or if they were flirting.

I realized I was enjoying myself that summer. It was such a strange feeling that it took me almost a whole week to put words to it, and when I did I felt quite strange. A good kind of strange though.

Back at school for third year, Professor Thompson certainly made up for Professor Gondil. Defense became the favorite class around the castle almost instantly. Mainly, she didn't give lots of homework, which, since we were third years in supplemental classes, made her especially popular with my class. The boys also liked her because she was wicked gorgeous. Long dark hair, light blue eyes, curves like nothing they'd ever seen before. She promptly became everyone's crush. I liked her because she was a good teacher.

Ancient Runes was by far my favorite new class though. It was language-based, so I was automatically good at it, even though there was no spoken component. Care of Magical Creatures was interesting, but there was only so long a Bowtruckle could hold my attention. Divination turned out to be nonsense. Its saving grace was that it was hilarious, and I nearly laughed out loud when Professor Trelawney told me I was destined to die young and tragically. It was great fun to make up the most horrible predictions and interpretations possible, especially since Rosemary, Alexandra, and India all took it extremely seriously and adopted looks of horrible offense whenever I said something ridiculous.

Of course, I didn't make it a priority to go. And sometimes events, or people, conspired against me.

The castle was warm since it was early in the year, and everyone wore light clothes under their robes. Too bad we were on our way to stupid Divination instead of doing something interesting outside. But, up the five-hundred and twenty-eight stairs we went, mourning the loss of the beautiful day outside. I was seriously considering dropping Divination. I was already in Care of Magical Creatures and Ancient Runes, so I'd be taking enough classes even if I got rid of Trelawney and her stupid predictions about my death. Honestly, as if the worst evil the world had ever known had any interest in me. Trelawney had bats in her hat, just like Professor McGon—

A sharp pain in my bottom startled me out of my thoughts. I gave a high-pitched yelp and spun about. Gideon and Isaac were a couple steps below me, smothering giggles in their hands. I'd turned around in time to see Isaac retract the hand guilty of the pinch, so it was on him that I focused. They thought they were invincible. I proved them wrong. Isaac's eyes widened when he saw my expression, which meant he got a wonderfully clear view of my foot as it connected with his face. I felt a crunch through the thin sole of my shoe and he reeled back and tumbled down the stairs till he got to the closest landing.

I followed, ignoring the gasps and a couple screams that rose around me from my classmates and our Hufflepuff counterparts. Isaac had his hands clamped over his nose, which did nothing to prevent the blood from gushing out around his fingers, or stop me from grabbing his ear and dragging him further down the stairs.

"What are you doing!" Rosemary shrieked. "We have class! Where are you going! Nita, you monster!"

"I broke his nose," I called back. "We're going to the Hospital Wing."

Isaac flipped between crying and shouting at me the whole way down through the castle, but summoned the final vestige of self-control when we approached the Hospital Wing. But I beat him to the punch, so to speak, when Madam Pomfrey saw us.

"I broke his nose," I said succinctly, pushing Isaac forward.

He whimpered as his stumble jostled his nose, and glared at me hatefully. I raised my eyebrows at him.

Madam Pomfrey fixed his nose without comment (I filed the spell, 'episkey,' away for later use), Vanished the goopy blood off his face and robes, and sent us on our way with only a slightly reproving look in my direction.

I knew Isaac wouldn't go back to class, so I followed him up a couple stories and along a couple corridors till we got to the Transfiguration room. He didn't so much as look at me the whole time, which I was fine with.

When we reached McGonagall's classroom, he didn't hesitate to barge right in, interrupting her class. I hung back outside.

"Professor McGonagall, Nita Linese just broke my—"

"MISTER HANSON!" McGonagall's voice rivaled a train whistle in volume and pitch. "HOW DARE YOU INTERRUPT MY CLASS IN SUCH A FASHION! DETENTION! GET OUT!"

Reeling, Isaac reappeared in the corridor. With enormous effort, I restrained my laughter long enough to discreetly poke my head around the doorframe and say, "Sorry, Professor, he's just a bit frazzled because I broke his nose just now. Very sorry for the disturbance. I'll be by later to arrange my detention."

The ringing laughter of the sixth year Slytherins and Ravenclaws followed us down the hall. That day went down as one of my favorite ever, especially since McGonagall excused me from detention once she learned why I'd broken his nose in the first place.

She did threaten to suspend my Hogsmeade visits if I got in any more trouble though, so I was careful to keep quiet for a time. I didn't want her to examine my permission form too carefully anyway. Lacking access to either parent or legal guardian, I got Mary to forge Mum's signature before I went to school. Unfortunately, I swiftly learned that visiting the village was really only fun if you were willing to spend money, which I wasn't. But it was nice to get out of the castle once in a while, and I didn't want to lose the privilege.

I got used to being ignored even more thoroughly by my classmates. Breaking Isaac's nose and the subsequent lack of punishment led the others to call me a pandering teacher's pet, which tied the bow on my position as social pariah. I got a lot done that way, actually. No one bothered me when I studied, so I got good marks in everything except Divination and Transfiguration, which persisted in being incomprehensible. I wondered if I'd be allowed to drop it after fifth year. And to everyone's sorrow, Professor Thompson announced after Easter holiday that she'd be leaving at the end of the year because she was pregnant.

Someone heard from a seventh year that there had been a new Defense professor for every year he'd been at Hogwarts, and that's how the rumor that the job was cursed got started. I heard Wendell in the common room one night telling Alexandra and Kay that there hadn't been a Defense teacher who lasted more than a year since before his father started Hogwarts. Since it was Wendell I didn't take it very seriously (and Alexandra and Kay clearly didn't either), but I was curious about who the new one would be for the 1991-92 school year.

A/N

Welcome to my new fic!

I'll post chapters on Tuesdays.

Nita is my pride and joy so please be kind to her.

All characters (except for mine) are owned by JK Rowling, Warner Bros, etc.

E.I. signing out