A very pretty sixteen year old girl stood in front of the window in her room. A breeze was blowing in through the window, swaying the daisies on her front lawn. She waved to one of her elderly neighbors who was mowing their lawn. She smiled and closed the window gently.
She looked at herself in the mirror and made sure that she looked alright before she left the house. There was no point however. Though Gwen was never one to be self centered, she just knew that she was pretty. She had deep auburn hair that would always shine in the sunlight. Her complexion was bright, and she had a perfect tan. The feature that everyone seemed to stare at the most was her eyes. She had light grey eyes that almost seemed to radiate some kind of hypnotic gaze. People always said that they got lost in her eyes.
Checking herself once more, she looked fine. It was the middle of the afternoon and summer time, so she had dressed accordingly.
She ran down the stairs and as she got to the front door yelled a quick "Mom, I'm going to Jordan's house". She closed and locked her front door and made her way down the street.
Though the look on her face was unreadable, what was going on inside her mind was a completely different story. Today is the day I tell him, she thought to herself. She had something terribly important that she wanted to tell her best friend Jordan. She did not know how he would react to the news, but as her best friend, he would understand.
Jordan was a year older than Gwen. His family had moved into Gwen's little Surrey neighborhood when she was ten years old. The two had been in the same classes in school, and had become inseparable ever since.
She snapped herself from her thoughts as she arrived at his house. Ringing his doorbell, she smiled. She knew that the expression on his face when she told him would be one for the record books.
Jordan opened the door after checking through the peephole to see who it was. The 17 year old opened the door. He was a very handsome young man, and had been the subject of many a conversation among the girls in their school. Gwen knew that he was…attractive. But she had never seen him in this way. He was tall and had an athletic body. His swollen arms were bulging through his fitted t-shirt that bore the words: Tell It To The Man. He had brown hair that he let swoop to the left or right depending on how he felt. His baby blue eyes were bright as the morning sky.
"Hey there stranger," Jordan said brightly, hugging Gwen quickly.
"I'm no stranger," Gwen said, playfully pushing herself past him. She headed into the kitchen. "Where are your mom and dad?"
"They went to my Aunt Sabrina's house, and I just happened to be sick," he responded. "As much and I would have liked to go, I wasn't feeling too well." The sarcasm was ever apparent in his voice.
"Yeah, what was wrong with you this time?" she said.
"I was coming down with a stomach virus."
"Really? Sounds bad…too bad you didn't really have it though."
"Ha, funny," Jordan said, pulling a carton of orange juice from the fridge. "Thirsty?"
Gwen decided that there was no point in continuing the conversation unless she did what she had come over to his house to do.
"No. I came over because I had to tell you something. Well, show you something actually."
"Ha, I knew it. You're actually an alien from Krypton and you arrived in a spaceship. I must say that you have been doing a great job of hiding it all these years."
She laughed. "You're a loser, and not a very funny one at that. But, seriously, I have something that you, as my best friend should know."
Jordan looked thoughtful for a moment. "Okay, I'm all ears."
"Okay. For as I can remember, I have been able to do things. They aren't things that normal people can do."
"Gwen," Jordan took a seat "I…you're starting to freak me out, just spit it out already."
Gwen stifled a yawn. She was not tired, but still she felt like yawning. She was feeling some fire in the pit of her stomach. It was the fear of his reaction. "Okay, pour me a glass of orange juice. Don't hand it to me though, just leave it on the counter."
If Jordan found these instructions to be strange, his face showed no sign of it. He poured the juice and set it in the middle of the counter.
Gwen took a deep breath before raising her right hand. She pointed it at the glass and began to concentrate. Jordan opened his mouth to speak, she he was silenced with a finger. "Watch," was all Gwen said. It took just a little bit over a minute for anything to happen, but when it did, Jordan was shocked. The glass filled with orange juice had floated as though guided by someone straight into Gwen's hands. She took a sip to quench her dry mouth, and smiled nervously at Jordan.
"Gwen…." Jordan managed to stammer out. He was in utter shock. He had never seen anything like that before. The only thing that could even come close to it was The Force in those Star Wars movies that his parents liked to watch. Though, if he didn't know any better, he would swear that Gwen was using wandless magic, but magic didn't exist and the Harry Potter books weren't real. He looked up from his thoughts.
Gwen was beginning to get nervous. More than a minute had passed and neither one of them had spoken. She looked down at Jordan's cat, Tiny, but her stare was interrupted by a sound. A deep rumbling had come from Jordan. However, this rumbling was not some kind of bad thing. It was more shocking than that. He was laughing. And more than that, it was the kind of laughing that seemed to come from hearing something very funny.
"What the hell is so funny?" Gwen asked angrily. She had just made him the only person in the world that she had shared this secret with, and now he was laughing as though there was no tomorrow.
"Dude, the look on your face is priceless. You look like someone just slapped you," he commented before continuing to laugh.
Gwen was angry. However, while trying to stay serious, she began to laugh herself. Within minutes, the two were laughing like school children about nothing. After a while, the laughter died down and Jordan was the first to speak.
"Gwen, I know it was probably hard for you to share that with me, but thanks. It means a lot to me that you came to me with it. Now, you know I've got a lot of questions, so come on little miss. I'm Barbra Walters, and you'll be…well it doesn't matter who you are."
"Jordan, you are a one man show," Gwen said of her best friend.
"How long have you been able to do it? He asked.
"I've been doing it all my life. When I was younger, it would happen when I was feeling a very overwhelming emotion. Like if I was angry, the door would slam, a light bulb would pop, and so on and so forth. Other things would happen with other emotions."
"That's cool. It sounds kind of familiar like something from-never mind. Moving on, who else knows about it?"
"Well, including me and you…just me and you," she giggled.
"Ha...not funny. Do you know what it is that you do?"
"At first I thought it was like ESP or something. But that all I can do…and I'm not sure exactly what it is."
"Well," Jordan began, sounding very much like a psychiatrist giving his diagnosis, "I believe that I know what it is you are doing. I once read about something like this in a very highly respected series of texts."
"Hey genius, what would the name of these texts be?" Gwen asked.
"Harry Potter," Jordan said. He watched Gwen's eyebrows furrow and he held up a finger to keep her quiet as he knew she had something to say. Gwen always had something to say. "Believe it or not, it sounds like you are doing wandless magic. And based on what I know from the books, I believe you are a muggleborn witch."
It was Gwen's turn to laugh this time. She knew how much of an avid fan her friend was to those books. However, she was one of a dying breed; she had never read the books before.
"Jordan, my dear Jordan. I believe that this time you have finally gone off the deep end. I admit that what I can do is strange, but there are no such things as witches."
"Gwen, how can you deny it? Look at what you can do. Your mind is open to the possibility of this, but not to witches and wizards. Mind you, I'm not saying that this is what you're doing, but there aren't many other choices for it. There isn't some little green alien telling you to use it, and last time I checked, you weren't a middle aged white man with a team of superheroes at your disposal."
"Jordan, I would love to believe that what I'm doing is magic, but there has to be some sort of a rational explanation."
"Gwen, you make things float with your hands, and you can make explode. No matter what you're doing, it's magical. Look, all I ask is that you give the first book a chance. If you don't like it, then don't finish it."
"Fine," Gwen submitted. She knew there was no point in starting an argument. Jordan was persistent. "What's the name of the first book? Harry Potter and the Oscars Scone?"
"You're not funny," he said. He ran into the living room and returned with a hard cover book that read Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. "All you have to do is read the first couple of chapters. If you don't like them, then just quit and we will try to find some other sort of explanation."
"Fine," she said begrudgingly.
"Thanks," he said. "Now, get home you little witch." Noticing the look on her face, he smiled. "Trust me, after reading the books, you'll know it's a compliment."
Gwen stared at the book and almost laughed once more. She was going to go and read this book, because her best friend believed her to be a muggle born witch. This was going to be a very long night of reading.