A/N: A new story. I wrote this days ago but the upload feature has not being working for me. I hope you all like this one, I wanted to do one based on Sybil for a long time, and this one is her learning about herself and the pressures on her as a Hallow. I hope you all like it and please review.

What A Hallow Is

Chapter One

The Assembly

Sybil Hallow woke up to the sound of an alarm and turned over, slowly opening her eyes and moaning as she saw it was half seven. She hated early mornings, but she had no choice in the matter, she had lessons to attend. She lay in bed for ten more minutes before she forced herself out of bed, and Sparkle, her familiar meowed at her as way of greeting.

"Morning Sparkle" Sybil said, stroking the black cat on the head and hearing her purr happily. She looked and saw the cat was running low on food, so she filled up the bowl and the cat tucked into her breakfast happily as Sybil left her bedroom to start getting ready.

"Hey Sybs, good sleep?" one of her best friends Beatrice Bunch said, as she left her bedroom. Sybil nodded.

"Yes it wasn't bad, how about you?" Sybil asked and Beatrice nodded.

"It was good, I just wish it had lasted longer" Beatrice replied as they made their way to the bathroom to use the toilet and wash. After they were both done, they walked back to their bedrooms in order to dress into their uniforms.

Sybil put on her uniform and did her hair in her plaits like she did every morning. She looked at the time and saw it was eight fifteen and breakfast was about to be served, so she left her bedroom and joined Bea, and her other best friend, Clarice Twigg, to make their way to the dining hall.

Breakfast was as usual, barely tolerable for them to eat, Sybil had hoped Ethel had being lying about the awful food when she had spoken about it in the summer before she started, but she was sad to discover the food really was as bad as her older sister made out.

"I love Fridays, five lessons instead of six, because of assembly" Beatrice said happily, glad to have one less lesson to attend. Every Friday an assembly was held for the school, sometimes they were boring, with Miss Cackle just telling them about any concerns or changes she thought they should make, but it still beat lessons.

"I disagree, I don't like Fridays, I for one enjoy the extra lesson" Clarice replied. The bespectacled girl was smart and loved to learn, so she was one of the only pupils who actually liked doing extra work. Sybil smiled and looked at her friends.

"Speak for yourself" the blonde girl said as she spooned some more of the paste into her mouth and grimaced, the taste was something she could never get used to. It was like she was eating paste.

After their breakfast, the girls made their way to the hall for assembly, of course with all the students doing the same thing, there was a crowd, so the girls spoke quietly amongst themselves as they waited, before taking seats together in the middle row at the front. They had to sit by year groups so Sybil and her year were at the front, and Ethel and the rest of the second years were behind them and so forth.

"Good morning girls" Miss Cackle said to them, beaming at them as if it wasn't nine fifteen on a Friday morning and they were going to be full of energy.

"Good morning Miss Cackle" the girls chanted back. The woman smiled and turned to the chanting teacher Miss Bat, who was sat at the piano.

"Let's start with the singing of our school song" Miss Cackle said. This again was normal for assembly, the woman thought it woke the girls up and got them ready for the day ahead if they sang the school song to start with. The students stood, and started to chant along to the music.

Beatrice smiled and nudged her friends, who looked at HB and smiled, they always found it amusing to see the normally strict serious woman singing, they assumed they were not the only students who thought this as they saw the students at the side of them smirking as well. They finished singing and then sat back down.

"Thank you girls" the woman said before she smiled at them, about to start her announcements.

"Girls I have some very exciting news to share with you" the woman said, as she looked around the room. Sybil and her friends looked at each other, all wondering if it was actually exciting or just something Miss Cackle herself found exciting.

"As you are all aware, Halloween will be upon us in a short few weeks, and this year The Great Wizard will be visiting us for the event" the woman said. She then smiled and her voice got higher, clearly excited by her news. "So we are going to be putting on a performance for the Great Wizard, each year group is going to perform something different and then we are all going to sing at the end" the woman said and Sybil heard squeals from behind her, the girls who liked acting and being the centre of attention clearly excited.

"From now on, Friday mornings will be for rehearsals for the performance, and I expect all of you to do the best you can" the woman said. Sybil bit her lip, her chest hurting as she realised that she would have to perform in front of the Great Wizard on a stage, she knew she would mess up whatever it was they had to do, and she glanced at her friends. Beatrice looked happy and even Clarice looked happy at the idea of being able to show of what she had learned. Sybil looked at Miss Cackle, trying to get rid of her doubts.

But she was so worried, she didn't even hear the rest of the announcements because she had gotten herself worked up, and she was only shook back to reality when she realised everyone was starting to stand up to leave, and she stood up, her friends talking as she did so.

"This will be great, I hope we do something really interesting for our performance, although we are first years so it probably wont be as good as the other year groups" Beatrice said, as she walked with her best friends, knowing the older students will properly have the most interesting acts.

"I am looking forward to showing him what we have learned this year" Clarice said smiling. Sybil sighed, wishing she was excited like her friends, and as they walked into the corridor she saw girls gathered and talking happily, Mildred and her friends, Ethel and Felicity, in fact everyone seemed to be really excited, all except for Sybil.

"What is wrong Sybil? You look like you have just being told we have double potions" Clarice said knowing it was something she would enjoy, but not Sybil, it would in fact be her worst nightmare.

"I don't want to be in this performance, I will only mess it up" Sybil said nervously, not having the confidence to believe in herself.

"Don't say that Sybil, you will do great" Beatrice told her but Sybil shook her head, feeling depressed after the news. She was worried about it, she just knew it would go wrong.

The rest of the day was not fun for Sybil, everyone in the school was so excited, it was all anyone was talking about, in lessons, at mealtimes, and even the teachers seemed to be happier than normal and seeing everyone happy about it only made her less happy and she was therefore glad to be back in her room that evening, just her and Sparkle. Clarice, Beatrice and her didn't share anymore, they had gotten their own rooms when they fixed up the school. Normally, she liked the company and it had taken her a whole to settle into her own bedroom, but today she was glad she was alone.

"What am I going to do Sparkle? This performance is going to be awful, whatever it is we do I will mess it up" Sybil said, biting her lip as she stroked her cat, feeling the pressure getting to her.

She was a Hallow. She thought that was both a blessing and a nightmare. She loved how close she was to her sisters, and she would not want to have any other siblings, but being a Hallow was hard. You were expected to know everything and be brilliant at everything, and unlike Esmie and Ethel who seemed to have a natural talent for living up to this expectation, Sybil struggled academically. She was bad at potions and flying, and spells was her only strong point. She knew nerves were something that held her back and properly made things worse for her but she knew she would never be at the same level as her sisters, Miss Hardbroom told her all the time how much better they were than her, and Sybil had started to understand over the year why Ethel was bitter, she had heard the woman say Esmerelda was better than Ethel too, and it hurt a lot to hear that, Esmerelda would always deny it and tell them not to listen, but it wasn't that easy. Miss Hardbroom properly didn't know or just didn't care how much them words hurt the girls.

"Maybe one day I will be a proper Hallow" Sybil said with a sigh sadly as she kept stroking her cat, who cuddled up to her, able to tell she was sad. Sybil was worried about ruining the perfomance for the whole school and just wished she could be better at living up to her family name.