Harry Potter and the Lost Daughter
Chapter 1
I guess I'm what people would call a gypsy. Since I was eleven I have lived in cars, tents, abandoned buildings and hostiles. I would not call myself homeless, its too depressing.
My mother died when I was only six and I was put into an orphanage. I don't know who my father is or where he might be today. I decided the orphanage wasn't a place that I wanted to grow up, the streets became my home.
I never begged for money or food. Handouts weren't for me, I worked for everything I had from the first time I stepped out on the street alone, scared and cold. It just made me that much stronger to know that I could do it alone, I didn't need anyone.
I was in New York City when it happened. I had been staying in the park, I didn't mingle with the homeless in big cities due to the fact that I was a sixteen year old girl at this point and aware that I still had all my teeth and I kept myself healthy and clean. I had been attacked once and thats all it took to make me realize that I was safer alone.
The bench I was sitting was nice and cool even though it had to be at least ninety degrees out there. Sadly it had been a hot summer, but August was coming to a close so I would be moving south soon.
"Is this seat taken?" The voice made my head snap up so fast I could have sworn I got whiplash.
He was a very old man. With severely long white hair and a matching beard. He was tall and thin with bright blue eyes that danced under half moon spectacles. His appearance was shocking but not very surprising in a place like New York City.
"Uh.." I said stupidly.
"Shawn." The man said sitting down next to me.
"Yes?" I replied, I still had yet to fully recover from his appearance.
"You know who I am." He said with a small smile.
"No, not really. I don't know."
I did know who he was in a way. I knew his face, his hair, his eyes. I couldn't place a name but I knew I had seen him before, somewhere.
"I have been following you for quite some time Shawn." He said to me.
"Why?" I demanded, my defenses rising back up.
"I made your mother a promise. I am now here to fulfill it."
His eyes sparkled in the moonlight as he looked intently at my face. Normally I would be either afraid or wary of a man who knew me and my mother but whom I did not know personally, but this was different. The man had a calm about him that I'm sure came with age.
"You are so like your father." The man said softly.
I couldn't respond. What was I going to say? My mother had never mentioned him to me, not once. Now this man I knew but did not know was telling me I was like him? Oh how your world can be changed in an instant.
"I would like you to come live with me at my school." The man said turning fully to me now. "I am the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." Now he extended his hand towards me. "Professor Albus Dumbledore."
"Mary Elizabeth Shawn." I said shaking his hand.
"Your not afraid."
"There is not a lot scarier then being a sixteen year old homeless witch in New York City is there?"