Prologue

Madame Beaumonde, of St. Elizabeth de Farge Orphanage didn“t know what to do. She had seen almost everything in the way of children. Children tearing up couches. Children breaking down doors. Children trying to saw down a tree. She had even seen children being quiet! But never, NEVER in her life, had she seen a child on the ceiling. Not tied to the ceiling. Not climbing on the rafters. But literally sitting upside down on the ceiling. Acting perfectly normal.

It was a young girl of barely five years of age, acting as if the floor were the ceiling and the ceiling were the floor. She had been up there all day. First running around, laughing. Then talking animatedly to the children on the floor. When it was naptime, she lay down to take a nap. When it was time for lunch the older children, thinking it was a great joke, tossed food up to her, and she caught it laughing. Always there were children underneath her, the youngest children asking excitedly how THEY could do that. The children just a little older discussing who could have created such a brilliant prank. It was great fun to make Mrs. Beaumonde hysterical. The oldest of all (and perhaps the more practical youngsters) wondering how this was possible.

Still she was on the ceiling. All the way through dinner, all the way through bedtime she sat, played, cried, and napped all on the ceiling. Finally, Mrs. Beaumonde decided that there was nothing for it. She decided to call the police.

The police refused to come. Why would a child be on the ceiling? Maybe Mrs. Beaumonde should sit down and have a strong cup of tea. It was perfectly understandable that she may get a little stressed with all those children to manage. Find somebody to fill in for her for the day, and have a lie in. But not once did they mention any way to get a child off of the ceiling.

She talked to the girl. Coaxing her to get down, then begging, then bribing, but the girl would not budge! She talked to Madame Beaumonde: reciting her alphabet, requesting stories, crying over lost friends, crying for her mother, but she never got off the ceiling.

All night she slept on the ceiling. Madame Beaumonde paced and fretted and worried. She asked advice from everybody: her family, her friends, her aunt. She even called her second cousin once removed who she NEVER talked to, but she couldn't get the child off the ceiling!

The clock ticked farther and farther into the night.

9:00 P.M.: An hour after the young girls bedtime. She was asleep.

10:00 P.M.: Preteens bedtime.

10:30 P.M.: The room with the young girl in it was roped off.

11:00 P.M.: All older kids have to go to bed.

11:30 P.M.: Madame Beaumonde fell asleep in her chair.

12:00 A.M., midnight: The young girl wakes up and promptly starts bawling.

Madame Beaumonde shot out of her chair in surprise. Then she sat down again calmly thanking whatever all powerful entities existed that the other children's beds were in the west wing, and the staff's beds were in the north. The child and herself were in the east wing.

And now she had a different problem: how on this Earth could she calm down a child on the ceiling.

She sat down in her chair. Then, there was a crash of thunder. The child started crying louder. Crying at the midnight storm. At this rate of luck, Madame Beaumonde wondered if the children in the west wing would wake up anyway. She sighed.

She tried to comfort her. No luck and, "YOUR NOT MY MOMMA!" was all she got.

"I know I'm not your momma, but I still care about you... no shhh ... shhh, just go back to sleep..."

"I don't want to sleep!" the child wailed, though Madame Beaumonde (perhaps a little hopefully) thought that she detected a slight drop in the child's tremendous volume. Then, there was a crash of thunder, and the child cried louder. Well...this was NOT how she thought that she would spend her Friday night. In fact, this was not how she expected to spend ANY night. At all. Ever.

The child's cries (Madame Beaumonde had been unable to calm the girl down) had finally died down around 3:00 A.M. and Madame Beaumonde was FINALLY able to go to sleep.

HP

The next morning when Madame Beaumonde woke up she was suprised. Why was she in the east wing? She was in a small room that was roped off on all three sides, and early morning sunlight was filtering through the curtained window. She was sitting in a high backed wooden chair, and in front of her, on the ground, was a small girl. Madame Beaumonde recognized her; she had been brought in a couple of weeks ago. Until now Madame Beaumonde didn't even realize she didn't know her name.

The girl was curled up on the floor asleep, her mouth open slightly, and a small noise (that sounded suspiciously like a snore) was coming from her mouth. She had dark, straight hair, cropped up around the ears, and she looked happy and peaceful.

Madame Beaumonde stared. She had woken up, in the east wing, with a child, and had absolutely no memory of the previous day, and a strong suspicion that it was Easter, though she KNEW that they had celebrated that holiday only a few weeks before. And, even now the child was waking up.

"Good Morning Madame Beaumonde," said the little girl respectfully. "It was fun being on the ceiling!"

"What!?"

"On the ceiling, it was fun." Madame Beaumonde was struck by how peculiar it was to be looked at by a child as if you had two heads.

"...Of course it was... what's your name?"

"Adriane, but I like it when people call me Stormy. Johnny calls me Stormy. I like the name Stormy. Johnny said that he liked the name Midnight too, but I told him I liked the name Stormy better so he agreed to call me Stormy. Do you like the name Stormy?" Adriane looked at Madame Beaumonde expectantly.

"Yes, I do honey, but I was asking for your full name."

"Adriane, weren't you listening? Adriane Midnight Storm."

It was a strange experience to be struck by a strong sense of irony, and to have no idea why. "Is that what your teachers call you sweetheart?"

"Yep!"

Suddenly Adriane jumped up and said, "Johnny! Johnny probably wants me to tell him ALL about what it was like on the ceiling. I better go."

Before Madame Beaumonde was able to get in more than a few short words, Adriane 'Midnight Storm' was gone.

Madame Beaumonde sighed and rubbed her temples. She had a headache! Suddenly there was a huge crash from outside the East window. She peered outside to see a tree cut down, and a bright turquoise haired young man disappear. So once in all Madame Catherine Beaumonde“s long days at St. Elizabeth de Farge Orphanage she had absolutely no idea what to do.

HP

This is not my work. These are not my characters if you recognize them. Why was Teddy there for a standard underage wizard spectacular magic memory charm? This all belongs to J.K. Rowling.