Once Upon a Time we were all children. And when I was a child, I liked dandelions, but I did not like my sister. We fought constantly without a mediator between us, except the dandelion. My parents were careful not to let them grow in the lawn, so when one was found, it was sacred. We'd look at each other, wide-eyed with excitement and sprint, stopping just short of trampling it, and gingerly pluck it from its stem, making sure not to knock off the seeds. Because they were in such short supply, we would share them. I would close my eyes, she would close hers, and one of us would abruptly shout out, "Done!" after making the wish, and wait for the other. Then, in awe of the magic of dandelions, magic that we refused to stop believing in, magic that would one day grant our wishes, we would scatter the seeds with our breath which quickly swept them away with a breeze.

My sister and I are best friends now. We both write, and one day we noticed a reoccurring theme in our pieces, childhood and dandelions. It was only then that we realized that the beginning of our friendship was this magical little flower that we put all of our faith into, our hopes, dreams, aspirations, innocent desires and childish needs.

But we are all dandelions, not just my sister and me. I know that you used to pick them in secrecy so that no one else knew how much of your wants you wished on every day on these flowers. But they did it too. We all did. We were all children hoping for something that only the wind knows besides you. We Are Dandelions.

Now that that's settled, I'll just go ahead and tell ya that my name is Rachel. You'll see that I'm really a Once fan, which is the fandom I'm writing for now, and an HP fan, which is probably a fandom I will never write for. I never thought I'd be on here, but one night with my sister I was watching The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and after watching my two daily episodes of Once, I was starting to commingle the two. I realized that there was never a story line for Hunchback, thus far (for the record - it's 25 days until season 4 starts *yay!*), and came up with this plot. I paused the movie, shifted to face my sister, excited to the point of squealing, and began to rattle off to her my ideas. Finally, this first story's plot of mine was formulated, with some help from my sister (she supplied the cookies that kept me going that night) and here I am, with a huge plot and no time to write. That, kiddies, is how I got here.

P.S. - Quasimodo is the janitor from season one, episode "Skin Deep" in the basement of the Storybrooke Hospital. Regina passes him. Then he is seen again in the last episode of season one "A Land Without Magic" as Jackson passes him. He's the creepiest guy ever, and my sister and I LOVE this dude - we joke that he is our favorite character, so I had to use him.

P.P.S - This isn't about the story. I think it's very important for you all to know that the song that begins the second episode of season one ("The Thing You Love Most") is called, "Don't Be Shy" and it is by my FAVORITE artist ever, whom I loved before ever watching Once, named Cat Stevens. That is the perfect marriage between two of the loves of my life, so I felt like sharing, but also I think it's important to know because if you liked that song you might want to look him up, he's super cool you'll fall in love forever and be eternally entranced.