Lavenders Story
I have grown up surrounded by tales, some fairy tales completely untrue, some with magic some without ,all very distant outwith my reach and then there were the others , my mums stories of her time at Hogwarts ,School of Witch Craft and Wizardry , of the people there , her friends and enemies , some of then heroes some of them villains and the battles when all the world was in danger from the most evil and powerful wizard in existence : Lord Voldemort . I had dreamed, oh, I had dreamed and hoped and prayed to something, anything that one day I, Lavender Evans, would get to walk those hallowed halls where legends had learned their magic.
And here I was half an hour before my 11th birthday sitting on my parent's worn old sofa in our rather tiny living room, anxiously awaiting the letter, which could change my future. Tick. The clock on the fireplace counts, the minutes, the seconds, until my future will change. Tick. If I do not receive the letter, I would be forever doomed, to a life of still pictures and exclusion and disappointment .Tick.
Oh, my mum's family would understand enough, with only one wizarding parent surely there would be half the chance of my being magical, they would say, it is to be expected .Tick. Still my mums disappointment would be intense, another way in which I was more like my dad than her. As the night sky darkened my dad came into the room and after closing the curtains sat down on the sofa and pulled me against him "whatever happens tonight, we will still love you" he told me "I know that" I replied with a smile, snuggling against his side. But even my dad who had protected me against everything and helped solve all my problems could not stop my mum's disappointment.
It seems inevitable that I will fail , oh I know I have shown signs of magic , and I smiled again , remembering the last time Sophie had tried to pull my hair , HA ! She wouldn't be trying that again any time soon at least, for she had woken up the next day with no hair herself and had been forced to spend the day hiding from the curious glances of the neighbours until her hair had grown back again. But somehow, I feel I will never see Hogwarts, the place of my mum's stories.
At 5 to 12 my mum comes in having just checked on Sophie, my 9-year-old sister who once she reaches 11 is sure to go to Hogwarts , Sophie who is so like my mum that dad often jokes that he has 2 wives not just the one .Mum comes and sits on my other side and we sit in silence lost in our own thoughts .And exactly upon the stroke of midnight a thud sounds from upstairs and mum jumps up from the sofa with look of hope on her face and goes to investigate . Tick.
It is now past midnight , It is now the 9th of August , it is barely half a minute past midnight , and yet I know that what I thought , has definitely happened , I am indeed a muggle , my dad pulls me into a hug saying " lets just wait a bit longer" and just as my mum stands in the doorway a look of crushing disappointment spread across her face there is a knock at the window and dashing to the curtains and pulling the open snaps at my dad to open the window "for Merlin's sake " dad fumbles with the lock and opens the window and a tawny owl soars in to the room and landing , landing on my , my ,shoulder mine not mums , so it cannot be just a letter to mum about her job , I suppose it could be a letter saying that so sorry that I am not magical enough , but with violently shaking hands , I open the thick parchment envelope , with its writing in emerald green ink and special seal , and pull out the letter .
I cannot look, but I must, I must know but I cannot bear to look, dad lifts it gently out of my trembling hands and quickly looks it over and with a sad but happy smile passes it to mum so impatiently rocking from foot to foot, who reads it over with a gasp of surprise, mum cannot let go of it, she stares transfixed at it and after a few seconds dad gently prises it from her hands, without tearing it and hands it to me.
