Prologue:

Caspienne Selwyn was a mere four years old when she watched in awe while her older sister Aurora performed her first bit of accidental magic—their mother's purple violets sprang to life the second she started planting them. Caspienne had ran up to her mother and sister from her seat by the creek that divided her house and the woods. Chills ran down her spine when she saw the flowers, already fully bloomed in early spring. How amazing magic must feel…Caspienne couldn't wait until she started doing things like that.

"Mumma, look at what Rory did! When 'm I gonna do that?" She poked her mother, who was planting more violets, which she insisted on growing the mundane way.

Her mother, Diane Shacklebolt-Selwyn, picked her youngest daughter up and smiled. "Just give it another year or two, sweetheart. For now, we just have to worry about if your sister will sneeze and set the curtains on fire," she laughed. Caspienne giggled and went back to the creek where her father sat feeding the fish.

Every minute or so, another shriek of delight came from five-year-old Rory when she made more violets bloom. Her father just chuckled and whispered to her, "You'll be next!"

And one year passed with no magic from Caspienne.

That year was followed by four more years of the youngest Selwyn daughter trying to make wilting flowers bloom to no avail. She would get angry on purpose in the hopes of making a vase explode. She would even stare at her bookshelves for hours on end, try to make a book budge with just her eyes.

It was at age nine that Caspienne realized that she was a Squib. There's not an ounce of magic in me, she thought to herself.

Her parents had realized this far before she did. Her mother looked at her with pity, and her father no longer wanted anything to do with her. When his Ministry colleagues and friends came over, he made sure the conversation was never about Caspienne, but rather about his darling little Princess Aurora. Caspienne wasn't even sure if the other wizarding families near Ottery St. Catchpole knew that the Selwyn family had two children.

Caspienne noticed the subtle decrease in magic being used around her. Everyone always hears about how Squibs are treated much better nowadays, she thought, but why is it being treated like some sort of disability? Even Rory, who she always considered to be better than everyone else, made sure to open her Hogwarts letter behind closed doors as not to upset her. That didn't stop Caspienne from choking on her sobs late at night, being both jealous and angry.

But soon, she learned to play the part of a Muggle. It wasn't hard, really, once she figured out how to dress. She spent days on end observing everyone in Ottery St. Catchpole; the way they talked, dressed, and composed themselves…everything. She even made a friend out of the Muggle girl who worked in The Paper Shop. She soon traded her robes in for denim jackets and flannel shirts. To Caspienne, all she was doing was just separating herself from the world that wouldn't accept her, and moving on to a world that would never really know her. She decided the latter was better for her.

Rory rarely wrote home, but when she did, her letters were brief but kind. Caspienne yearned to know what kept her big sister so infatuated that she couldn't even find the time to write. She wanted to actually see the Slytherin Common Room, not just know that it was 'under the lake'. She wanted to be there, to breathe in the dust of the ancient castle, to know what it was truly like to fit in.

But it was just dumb, wishful thinking...or at least that's what she thought.