Life is unfair…Or is it?

Chapter one

It was a warm summer day and the sun shone brightly in the wizard tower yard. Septimus Heap was busy trying to feed his dragon without the latter biting his hand off and his tutor, Marcia Overstrand was watching him fondly.

Septimus had just come back from a terrible Queste that could have been the end of him, Jenna (the princess but more of a sister to him), Nicko (his brother), Snorri (a young girl to whom Nicko had taken quite a vivid interest in) and Beetle (Septimus' best friend who worked at the manuscriptorium).

"OK Spitfyre. That's all I have for you!" said Septimus to his pet dragon, a tad apologetically. He turned around and Marcia quickly stopped smiling; slightly embarrassed of how attached she had become to her sweet apprentice.

"Well that took a while!" she muttered grumpily, fanning herself with her hand. "It's getting quite warm out there!"

"Yes." Agreed the apprentice and the two wizards walked across to the door where they finally reached the refreshing coolness of the wizard tower.

"Goodness me Silas! How many times to I have to tell you; she is tyrannising him!"

"Don't be ridiculous Sarah. You know Septimus enjoys his days with Marcia! And besides, there is not much I can do; he is her apprentice after all."

"But it's been a month! A WHOLE MONTH since I haven't seen my son. I'm sorry but I am not going to stand this sort of behaviour anymore! Even Jenna agrees Marcia is strict and she knows Septimus better than we all do. This woman thinks she can just go prancing around in those shoes of hers and letting others do the work for her. She is paid so much yet, she pays no attention whatsoever to anything anyone tells her! Do you realise it is Septimus, who almost died trying to get Nicko back, who rescued her from DomDaniel, who went and got Jenna from Simon because Marcia wouldn't believe him?!

Tell you what; I have had ENOUGH of this! I'm going to talk to her!" And on those words, Sarah stormed out.

She made her way to the tower, fuming silently and trying to think of the best way to talk to M— No!, thought Sarah, I won't even say her name this way, I'll refer to her as Madam Overstrand.

She reached the few steps that would lead her to her son's sanctuary and hastily climbed them. Now all she had to do was find Marcia. That was quite an easy task as chance had it the extra-ordinary wizard was yelling at Catchpole over the detergent he had just spilled on her shoe.

"FOR GOODNESS SAKE! CAN'T YOU BE CAREFUL! THESE SHOES ARE EXCEEDINGLY HARD TO MAKE AND THEY—oh hello Sarah."

Marcia stamped her foot down in annoyance. Why was it people always managed to get housecleaning devices on her? And in public places too! Some 2 years ago she had been forced to go around with a bucket on her foot for at least half an hour until someone consented to help her take it off. She was the extra-ordinary wizard for god's sake, she was meant to be respected!

"FOR GOODNESS SAKE! CAN'T YOU BE CAREFUL! THESE SHOES ARE EXCEEDINGLY HARD TO MAKE AND THEY—oh hello Sarah."

Sarah Heap at the wizard tower could only mean trouble, thought Marcia grimly. It did not help that the mother of her apprentice looked uncharacteristically angry.

"Where is Septimus?"

"He is cleaning the library."

"Cleaning the library??!!" Marcia was getting a bad feeling at the pit of her stomach. This would not be good.

"Well yes, as he does everyday!"

"EVERYDAY?! For goodness sake do you ever do everything for yourself? What kind of an extra-ordinary wizard are you?! If only Alther was still here." That was a mean comment and Sarah was not a mean person. She had actually meant to say this in a very low tone but being unaccustomed to shouting; she had only decreased her volume as she would normally and had therefore spoken those last words just loud enough for the entire silent hall to hear. Marcia suddenly felt very exposed. Now, one of the wizards would come to her defence and she would have to thank him later, something which she hated to do. But to her surprise, none did and instead, there was a common murmur of agreement.

Abruptly, Septimus erupted out of the blue – well actually out of the staircase.

"Hey, I think Marcia is a great extra-ordinary!" he commented confused. It was not his mother's style to say things like that and he could recognise the hurt expression on Marcia's face as one that did not appear very often. Over the four years he had been apprenticed to Marcia, he had come to know that her biggest fear was not to reach up to the community's standard and, most importantly, to be measured negatively to Alther.

"Septimus, there you are!" smiled Sarah with the barest trace of guilt in her normally soft features. The young boy wondered if she was aware that she had just publicly humiliated his tutor, something that the latter would never forgive her. He sighed.

"Hi mum!"

"Hello darling, what are you doing? I thought you were housecleaning?"

"Um yea, I was but I heard screaming, so I came down to see what was happening…"

"You heard us all the way from the top floor?"

"Oh but I wasn't in the library, I was trying to catch the spider before they actually come up because then, they're way harder to catch and, I'd rather not getting bitten by them again."

"Again?" asked Sarah, her former anger returning.

"Err yea…" Septimus seemed to realise he had said something wrong. "But it was fine, Marcia put some venom on it and—"

"VENOM? That's it! You wizards are all crazy! Crazy do you hear me? And there is no way I am letting my son be apprenticed to someone who doesn't even care about him! Septimus you can go home now!"

"What but—"

"No buts Septimus. Now!"

Something told the former apprentice that now was not the moment to argue and besides, he was far too shocked to do anything. He miserably trailed over to the doors and walked.

"Right, I'll be back this afternoon to officially cancel Septimus' apprenticeship." Finished Sarah in the coldest tone she could muster. And on that, she walked out.

Marcia stared at her, the injustice of it all hitting her hard in the face. Septimus had been one of the few people she cared about most in the world. And he still was. No Sarah Heap would change that!

"Well," she turned to the crowd of wizards that had clutters around. "Don't you all have better things to do?"

Tadaa! Here goes my first Septimus Heap fanfic. Don't think that Septimus stopped being Marcia's apprentice because its not finished!