PROLOGUE
"We touch other people's lives simply by existing." –JK Rowling
There's a good chance you will never believe the story that I'm about to tell you. It's completely crazy, I know it is. That is why you're hearing this. Whether you believe me or not, the craziest things tend to make the most interesting stories.
I used to think that everything happened for a reason; that every event was predestined before it occurred. I have a different philosophy of this now. I think that every event that happens leads to something good, no matter how long it takes you to see what that is. You may never see it, but it's there. It's safe to say I learned a lot in seven years.
I can go back to two specific days that changed my life as I had known it. The first was when I was nine, and my mom died of cancer. It happened so quickly no one could manage to wrap their minds around it. She had seemed absolutely fine and then for two weeks she had a migraine so bad she could only stay in her bed in a dark room. I hadn't seen her once the entire time. She died two months after that in June. In May, it was my twin sister, Alison, and my birthday. That's when she gave us the last birthday present of our lives. Each year she'd give us a book, but this year she gave us seven. She said they would teach us more about friendship, love, and life than we could ever know. The second day was the summer after we turned eleven. Two letters, addressed to Alison and me in a dark emerald green calligraphy, arrived to our house on a hot, July afternoon.
September first came and was filled with anxious thoughts. Walking into that grand, marvelous castle for the first time, I knew exactly how the house system worked. All of the first-year students were buzzing about it on the train. I was certain that Alison and I were going to be separated. Alison screamed the qualities of Ravenclaw. I liked to read, sure, and I was smart. But I wasn't so overwhelmingly smart it was my main quality. I don't even know what my main quality is. I suspected that I'd be thrown into Hufflepuff. Alison was the only one I really knew in the entire castle and I didn't know what I would do without her.
The professor that opened the doors for us led us into the Great Hall and lined us up against the wall. There stood a single stool along the runway. Behind, there was a long table full of teachers. Ahead of the stool were four rows of tables, filled with what seemed like at least one thousand students. Professor McGonagall, whom had led us in, stood behind the stool with an old, dirty hat and a parchment scroll. She directed us to come up to the stool and sit when she called our names. My heart was racing waiting for my name to be called. It was in alphabetical order, so Alison went first. It took three seconds for the hat to open its brimmed mouth and call out "Ravenclaw!" Alison was giddy with excitement as she hurried to her corresponding table. Ravenclaw is exactly what she had wanted. I had no idea where I would fit or what I wanted.
My name was called next and I slowly walked to the stool as I felt the faces of a thousand students staring at me. I looked down to Alison as I sat on the stool, and she gave me a thumbs up before the hat was placed on my head. I looked at her, and I looked to the entire crowd, and suddenly I knew that I would be okay no matter where I ended up, with or without Alison.
That's the spirit.
Was that the hat? The voice rang through my mind and the shock of it made me flinch. I don't know if anyone noticed. In the next moment, the hat yelled out "Gryffindor!" to the hall. The hat was lifted off my head and I walked towards my table, which I had assumed was Gryffindor because of the cheers emitted from it.
There was a lot more than beginning a new school (for wizards and witches at that) that gave me nerves on this day. Alison and I shared a bundle of secrets that not a soul in this castle could know about, and they all came from a stack of seven books.
This comes from a story I tried to write a long time ago. I am now trying to get back at writing, and I'm beginning here. Sorry if the idea is totally cheesy and overused, but hey, it is fanfiction after all.