Chapter One - The Muggle with Magic
It was mid-August, 2002 when two twin girls, Carly and Caterina Ravenclaw-Hawken, received letters, carried by owls. They were the product of the joining of two Pureblood families (Hawken and Ravenclaw) and had awaited their Hogwarts letters for years.
"Ooh, sissy, what House will you be in?" said Caterina, excitedly ripping open her letter. "Ooh, I can't wait to be in Ravenclaw!"
"Ravenclaw, probably," Carly replied, sullenly doubting this, even as she said it. Of course, most of their maternal family had been in their prominent ancestor's House, and both girls were very creative and artistic.
Atarah Spoon, a friend of the girls, who was their neighbor in the village of Ottery St. Catchpole, had just completed her first year at Hogwarts, and was in Hufflepuff. Today she was going to meet up with them to buy course books. She came with two older boys—Abe Stanch, a Fourth Year, and Patrick Dublin, a Third Year, as well as Abe's little sister, around Carly's age, whose name was Della. She acted very sad.
"Hi," Carly said, eyeing the girl as she met up with Atarah, who introduced her companions.
"Well, let's be off then," Atarah said brightly. From her pocket, she procured a blue-glowing object, and it didn't look like something Carly thought she'd like to touch.
"What's the Portkey?" she asked.
"Oh," said Atarah, "That's Della's retainer."
Carly smiled weakly and put her finger on the retainer, as did everyone else. Soon they had spun out of Ottery St. Catchpole and cascaded into the pub, the Leaky Cauldron.
"Hello, Miss Spoon," said the barman, Tom. "And Messrs. Stanch and Dublin. Morning, ladies," he added to the Hawkens and to Della, the latter of whom merely shrugged dismissively in reply, her head bent.
"What's wrong with your sister?" Atarah whispered to Abe. He cast his gaze over at her miserably, before replying, "Della didn't get a Hogwarts letter. She's a Muggle."
"Oh," Atarah said. "Should we have breakfast here?"
The group, at large, was all for a bit of porridge, so they ate at the Leaky Cauldron. Carly sat beside Della. Everyone was chattering about House Quidditch teams and whatnot, and Carly decided to say something to Della.
"Psst, Della."
"What?" Della said, wretchedly. She turned her head up slightly to face Carly.
"It's okay to be a Muggle," Carly said. "I bet you can do all sorts of things wizards have never done before."
Della shrugged. "I always thought I'd be magic, because Abe is, and because…well, I can make things happen that probably shouldn't, on their own. Watch."
She picked up her spoon, and Carly watched. Della tossed it into the air, and, hand outstretched in its direction, watched it float around the room, knocking into an old, bald wizard's ear and upsetting a glass of pumpkin juice.
"You must be magic," Carly said. "Your letter must just be late."
"Even if I do turn out to be a Muggle," she said, and said the last word with deep resentment, "can we still be friends?"
Carly grinned. "Of course," she said. "I'd like that a lot."
Caterina had two half-blood best friends named Tessa Wise and Ariel O'Toole. They took off in search of robes while Carly and Della segwayed from Atarah and the two boys and looked at books, animals, and potion supplies, buying everything on Carly's list. Carly bought a brown owl which the girls named Ceridwen.
"I hope you do turn out to be magic," Carly said to Della, "because I think it would be so cool to go through school together."
Della seemed to like hearing this. At last they came to Ollivanders.
"Wands," Della said, with such angst in her voice that Carly almost didn't want a wand herself.
"Stay out here with Ceridwen, will you, Della?" Carly said. Della fingered the owl's beak.
"Sure," she said, with a sad smile.
Carly walked into the store, positive Della's green eyes were boring into her back, though she didn't turn around. She tried out a whole sloo of wands until a thirteen-inch sassafras wand with a phoenix feather core felt very warm in her fingers. She was just about to pay for this wand when an idea dawned on her.
"Please, Mr. Ollivander, I'm rather interested in wandlore…" she began. This was not a lie; she was rather taken with wandlore. "I was wondering if I might buy another wand."
"Instead of this wand?" the old man replied, taken aback. "That would be highly inadvisable. This wand is perfect for you, and very powerful."
"No, sir, I wanted to buy this and another wand. One that would be for…say, a very smart, loyal, and sweet person."
"Ah, yes…" he said. "I have a wand like that...Oak, unicorn tail hair, nine inches. Try it out?"
Carly fingered the wand. She thought of Della very hard, and the wand seemed to feel a bit warmer than was natural in her fingers.
Della saw Carly leaving the wand shop with two long, narrow boxes.
"This is for you," she said to her friend, who was taller than she was.
Della took the box, her eyes shining. She opened it.
"Oak, unicorn tail hair, nine inches precisely," Carly said. Della hugged her.
"It's beautiful. Thank you."
"Hey, you're going to be my best friend, I can tell already. And I will tell Professor McGonagall I saw you do magic, okay?"
That night, Della slept over at the Hawkens' house. She and Carly practiced all the magic in The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1. They practiced Charmwork and Transfiguration. Della's spells were more accurate than Carly's.
"Do you know what House you want to be in, when you're at Hogwarts?" Della asked. Carly considered. Most of her maternal-maternal family had been in Ravenclaw, and most of her paternal and maternal-paternal family had been a mix of Gryffindors and Slytherins. "Maybe Ravenclaw," she replied. "It's the House for artsy-fartsy people, I suppose."
"Yeah," Della said. "Abe's in Hufflepuff."
"I've never really considered that as a possibility, but Hufflepuff is the House that values loyalty, and that is the most important virtue, in my opinion," Carly said.
Della nodded. "I agree. A lot of people make fun of Hufflepuff House, I hear."'
"Yeah, they do," Carly said.
"But I don't think there's anything wrong with a House for people who are loyal, and patient, and hardworking."
"Neither do I," Carly said.
"I value loyalty more than bravery, or creativity, or resourcefulness, because necessity is the mother of invention, and any of those three can stem out of loyalty," Della said.
"I really hope you're in my House, whatever it is," Carly said.
The two girls seemed to have decided that Della was in fact a witch as Carly boarded the Hogwarts Express on September the first. "I'll write immediately," Carly said, "And I'll mention it to the Headmistress that you're a witch, okay?"
"Have fun," Della said. The two girls hugged each other.
The engine whistled, and Carly jumped onto the train with Ceridwen's cage, popping up in a nearby window of an empty compartment. Della jogged over to her friend's new location. "Expect Ceridwen in a day or so, alright? I'll write when I get to my dorm tonight."
"Okay," Della said. Tears shone in her eyes.
"We'll fix whatever went wrong," Carly said. "Really, we will."
Della nodded and Carly squeezed her hand. "Tell me what House you're in."
"I promise it'll be Ravenclaw," Carly said, with a grin.
"Maybe," Della said. The train began to move.
"I'll miss you, Della!" Carly called.
"I'll miss you, too, Carly!"
Della tried to keep up with the train, but eventually Carly had to duck her head back in to narrowly avoid losing it on the wall of a tunnel. She was alone; she had somehow been separated from her sister and her other friends. She sat and thought, for maybe an hour, about how poor Della might have to live as a Muggle until she turned eighteen. Her new friend—that poor, sweet girl—why couldn't she come to Hogwarts too?
A small, dark boy with a long, wan visage and prominent ears opened her lonely compartment door. "Do you mind if I sit with you?" he asked.
"Not at all," Carly said. "I'm Carly Ravenclaw-Hawken, I'm just starting. Who're you?"
"Dan Slytherin, first year," the boy said. "Are you related to Rowena Ravenclaw?"
"Yeah," Carly said. "Direct descendant, they tell me. Wait—holy—you're Slytherin? As in Salazar Slytherin?"
"Yes," said Dan, a tad morosely. "My great-great-great grandfather was Ophiuchus Slytherin, Salazar's lesser-known younger half-brother."
"Wow," Carly said, awestruck. "I mean, beside my sister…I've never met another relative of a Founder."
"What House do you want to be in?" Dan asked. "Ignoring the fact that you're related to Ravenclaw…?"
Carly's mind strayed to the poor Muggle-born witch at the train station. "I hope I'm in Hufflepuff," she said, with finality.