Mirrored from AO3.
The sun peeked over the hills and spread across the dark water towards a small girl sunk to her ankles on the lake's shore, stuck in the half-dry mud and thick reeds. Morgana Briar lifted an arm to block out the light but remained to watch the navy sky alight with pink and listen to orchestra of insects all around her. The summer morning blew cool breeze through her hair, down her skin, and to her submerged feet where it stole the last bit of feeling from her toes, reminding her that her stroll was at an end and morning was to begin. Once brilliant blue peeked through the candyfloss clouds, she freed herself one foot at a time, nearly losing a sandal, and turned back to the woods.
A wall of trees and foliage obscured the way home but because she knew it better than her own body, finding the winding, weaving path was quick work. Roots overtaking it required careful maneuvering for most, but she was surefooted and allowed to pay mind to other things, such as the fraying basket of berries bumping her bruised knees and the angry rumbling in her stomach. With no birds to sing and no rodents to chatter, the wood was empty of everything but buzzing bugs, although something did scurry beneath the brush and disappeared where she couldn't follow. Her woods stopped at the broken remnants of a fence and she stepped into a field of tall grass that stretched on until it touched the edges of the sky. A country road cut through the green monotony, but beyond the dirt was just more field.
Home was a shack standing on a pebble driveway that wrapped around it like a moat, with peeling, white siding, a sombre roof, and a crimson front door framed by two shuttered windows. She passed garden boxes she'd built herself full of vegetables, herbs, and flowers she'd helped grow. A boy five years her elder waited on the stoop, his eyes glued to a scrap of paper and a bare foot tapping not with impatience, but with boredom. Hendry looked up and smiled when she crunched on the rocks.
"There you are, Morii." He turned and motioned inside. "Come in for breakfast."
"What's that?" She nodded to the paper and discarded her mud-crusted sandals beside the steps.
He slipped it into the back pocket of his torn jeans and went to the windows to open the old, flimsy shutters. "Market list. Mrs. Rubinstein offered to help; says the wee ones finished her whole pantry last time." Their Scottish ancestry touched his accent only briefly, a language in his blood but not on his lips, lost to the wind and scattered over the field when he himself was a wee one.
"That was nice of her." Understatement. The old widow of which he spoke lived in town and was the kindest person they'd ever known, sharing her home with their two younger siblings and lending them her truck when time came to sell their measly crops. She'd never cite her dead husband or estranged kids as reasons for her generosity and they never asked, just smiled and repaid her when they could via menial labor and friendly conversation.
The bulk of the shack was lit with natural light and the rest was filled with stark shadows and unease. An old couch sat on a woolly rug eaten by time and faced an unlit, well kept fireplace with a sparsely decorated mantle, above which hung a painting . The shack creaked when the wind picked up and the aged hardwood floor was no better, so the Briar children stepped lightly at all time. She took her basket to the kitchen, separated from the front room by a half wall in ill-repair, and set it on the counter. Hendry returned to the old wood stove where a pan awaited pancake mix.
"Wake them up, would you?" he asked, giving the batter a stir.
"Yeah, alright..."
Morii's sure feet padded out of the kitchen and to the bedroom door at the start of the hallway but stopped when her hand touched the knob. The hall behind her was impossibly narrow and even more impossibly dark, a breathing, Stygian creature that thrived on light and demanded silence. She stood at its mouth and shivered, not needing to see its teeth—a door in the deep black—for the cold anxiety to tangle her guts.
It's Hendry's turn, she reminded herself. Fear of the beast all but defeated, she slipped back into light.
The bedroom was the brightest in the house, with its window uncovered and the half-burnt, lopsided curtains left open overnight. It contained an old dresser that belonged to their father's father, a toy chest donated by Mrs. Rubinstein around the time Morii accidentally set the curtains on fire at age six, and two beds against either wall, made lumpy by thick blankets and small bodies. The right bed squirmed and a foot popped out the side, but a muffled whimper from the left demanded her attention first. Morii crept over and bent down to fold back the comforter, revealing a head of mussed hair and shiny eyes.
"Gana?" came Ewen's voice. She smiled.
"Come eat. It's pancakes and berries today." He nodded and clamored out of bed to slip on his slippers. She went for the other, but before she could reach it, the blankets flew off and out sprang Mysie like a jack-in-the-box, her long hair tangled and her grin toothy.
"Gana!" she cried.
"Mysie!" Morii echoed, albeit much quieter, and scooped her up in both arms, "Good morning." Mysie hooked her arms around Morii's neck, so Morii carried her out with Ewen in tow.
The two youngest were twins and, along with the eldest, bore the most resemblance to their father. The four of them had the same black hair, oval faces, and fair skin—although Hendry and Morii were tanned from long days outside—but while their father had brown eyes, Morii inherited their mother's bright amber. Furthermore, their noses were Greek while hers was narrow, pointed, and sloped upward like those on their mother's side. Yet the most frustrating difference was the fact the five-year-olds were rapidly catching up to her in height, meaning they would get their father's height as well. Hopefully, that was all they'd get from him.
Hendry looked away from the stove and smiled as Ewen wrapped himself around his leg. Carefully, he twisted around with the hot pan and pushed miniature pancakes onto a plate. Mysie licked her lips and began to kick.
"Okay, okay, okay!" Morii laughed and set her down. Mysie darted to the counter and hopped around, stopping to stand on her toes and beam up at her brother.
"Can I have twenty?" she asked loudly.
"He put a finger to his lips and shook his head. "Quiet in the house, remember?" She jutted her lip out. Ewen whimpered and let go of Hendry's leg in favor of eyeing the bowl of berries and chewing his index finger.
As Hendry divvied up the food for the young'uns, Morii went to the couch to clean up the bedding she'd left spilled onto the floor that morning. All of the blankets were ratty except for the off-white comforter recently gifted to her by their elderly guardian angel and all of them needed a good wash thanks to her going to bed with dirty extremities. She paused a moment to scratch a spot of crust when suddenly—SMASH!—something large came through the front door and knocked an empty glass off the counter in its wake. Leaping out of her skin and letting slip a word ill-fitting of an 11-year-old, she spun around and clutched the comforter to her thrumming chest.
On the counter stood a handsome barn owl, its large, marble eyes silently regarding her with an envelope in its beak. It made a soft sound and offered the letter to her directly, stepping and fluttering its wings. She jerked out of her stupor and rushed over to accept it, then the owl took off again, causing Ewen to yelp and recoil.
"What is that, Gana? Who's it from? Was that an owl?!" Mysie shouted, bounding over and latching onto her sister's arm. Hendry hushed her while removing Ewen from the kitchen so he could sweep up the mess. Mysie ignored him, only growing more rambunctious as Morii broke the wax seal and read to herself:
Dear, Ms. Briar, We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
She shuffled to the second page with shaking hands as wide-eyed shock faded into nausea.
Mysie stopped bouncing and looked between Morii's face and the parchment and asked, "What?" Hendry discarded the shards into the barrel they used as a wastebasket and strode over to read the list himself. Mysie stared up at them in frustrated confusion but clamped her mouth shut to await answers.
"Okay, look," Hendry said after a long pause, "We'll find a way to cover it all, don't worry about that."
"We don't have an owl to send a reply," Morii pointed out.
"We'll get one."
Mysie interjected, "I want an owl!"
"A wand alone is—" Morii hushed once he grabbed her shoulder and gave it a firm shake.
"We knew this was coming, just like Mum said. We have some of her old stuff and I put aside Dad's money, so don't worry about it, okay? Leave that to me." She stared up at him for a moment before giving in and punching his shoulder. If she couldn't win the argument, she would at least get a shot in.
"Are we getting an owl then?!" Mysie hopped ecstatically while Ewen looked perturbed by the idea.
"Aye," Morii sighed, "We're getting an owl."