A/N: Hey guys! I spent a really long time earlier today editing this, and so I'm just gonna put this out here. I will revise and re-publish the next chapter within 3 days or 1 comment/follow- whichever comes first! R&R, please! If you like this story tell me; it means a lot!

Also: I'm not a girl. Or a boy. ooh.

~Auggie

Everyone had a talent. That was just the way the world worked. Even if it was just a little talent, there was something everyone was good at, enjoyed doing, a 'passion' or a 'hobby' if you were averse to the t-word. The world ran on talents, advanced on talents, was made better and more beautiful by talents. Even if your talent was a nice smile, or a good sucker punch, or something not as beautiful as art or music or science- it was a talent, and it was yours. Everyone had a talent.

That was Clara Oswald's way of thinking about it, at least.

For godsake, the place she lived was called G&T by everyone, save paperwork. 'Greta & Tamara's Home For Orphaned Children,' the peeling sign over the door read, but for as long as just about everyone could remember it had been G-and-T, or G-T, or some combination thereof. Its name suited most of its inhabitants, who were exceptional or at least good at something or other. Some were obvious- Celia sketched beautiful portraits with broken pencils, Lydia messily backflipped across the sun-scorched grass. Maíra had a small orphanage of abandoned animals running in the back shed that she thought nobody knew about. But Clara could also see how Joanne danced with her afro springing around, how Ricky with his hands in the dirt brought little carrots and tomatoes to life. She watched Nina fight other kids out her window, looking out for her best friend. Nina had a talent, and an ugly one, but a talent nonetheless.

(And so if everyone had got a talent, it only logically follows that if, perhaps, a certain girl was talentless she would be…. ah, yes. No one. The aforementioned girl would be no one.)

Clara knew she was no one.

And it's not like she was a complete failure. It's just that she wasn't really… talented. Slightly more graceful than average, she knew, but nowhere near enough talent to dance. A good enough runner, but always outstripped. She simply didn't understand art and music, didn't know why people would put in so much time for such a meaningless thing.

She didn't like to think about cooking. It was one of the only things she liked, really loved with her whole heart and soul. She felt like she understood it, on some quiet level, like there was something about cooking and food that really spoke to her. Soufflés, especially, had been her mother's favorite, and so she threw herself into their making with an exuberance that outshone the sun. But (no, Oswald, don't think about this or you'll end up crying into the flour and ruining it, and maybe your blouse too) she fumbled in the kitchen, clumsy and offbeat, and ended up with burning eyes and burnt food. Her fingers slipped around the utensils, messed up the oven, confused the ingredients. (The one thing you love, you can't even do right. Amazing, Oswald, you've outdone yourself.)

(Quit crying or you really will mess up your blouse, and then you'll have to borrow one from Nina and make up a story about how you fell in dirt or did something to ruin a nice shirt.)

She lived in an orphanage. She'd lived there for a while now. The kids were mostly nice, if stuck in their own worlds. Rae and Jack made up stories, worlds, universes that they immersed themselves in. Lydia ran around, never tired, somehow never getting ancient and hopeless. Nina glared at tall boys and tensed her too-dark-to-tan shoulders and picked fights, and even Nina, the girl Clara knew best, was somehow aloof and distant. Brady sat in chairs meant for smaller children and flipped between caring for toddlers, bottle feeding infants, and being tense and too large for the small life he was living. Nina fought him sometimes.

Life was normal, budget was tight. Greta and Tamara still kissed and argued over funny and serious things, the bunkbeds had rough (but clean) sheets. She'd given up on her dream of being adopted when she grew out of an 'adorable' child into a chubby, insecure, talentless tween. The three melded together with talentless at the center. She was talentless, and therefore was insecure, and therefore knew she was chubby and was insecure about that. (And now, see, the lack of talent had become such a part of her normal self-description that she had to consciously edit it out when meeting new people.) She was resigned to life as a worker, maybe in an office, probably in an office. She wasn't rich or special or anything.

And then there was a soft bell chime, ding-dong, at the door, and everything in her life exploded.

"Oswald? Clara? It's for you." called Trisha, a busty blonde teen with one ton of ex-boyfriends and two tons of snark and makeup. She was normally quite frigid towards Clara and the other, younger residents, but having mail… that was a special occasion indeed. Normally, it was spam, addressed to the matron. Only a handful of the children had gotten letters since Clara could remember, but here one was, on thick creamy expensive paper, addressed quite clearly to her.

Clara Oswin Oswald

First Floor, Third Bunkbed to the Left, Top Bunk

140 Remy Road, Lancashire

She stared in amazement at the crest, old-fashioned and robustly colorful, so out of place l. From… "Hog- warts," Clara said, sounding it out. "Hogwarts." She grinned and tore open the package, a little too big to be solely a letter.. "My god." And then the doorbell rang, again, and Clara jumped as a woman with an austere look and a forced smile on her face stepped in briskly. in… was that a witch hat? (Well, it was pointy and black and it flopped over slightly on top so Clara could hardly be faulted for calling it a witch hat. Witch hat it was.) Clara stared up with the remnants of the fancy packaging in her hand and a guilty look on her face.

"Ah. Miss Oswald. Might I see your guardian?"

"M' guardian?" Clara looked up, wide-eyed, at the rich and queerly dressed lady. "Th' matron, you mean? Yeah, I'll get 'er." She ran off, spreading the word, bragging quietly. "There's a fancy lady 'ere, with fashion clothes! T' see me!" She grinned and ran off to fetch Matron.

"No offense, but… who are you? An' whaddaya want with our Clara?" The second matron, Ms. Tamara, was in a brown apron with a faded logo plastered across the front and was rocking Robbie, a small toddler. A bit casual for the occasion, maybe? I mean, this could change my life.

The woman furrowed her eyebrows, causing the hat to tip minutely forward. Clara was hit with the sudden impulse to laugh out loud, and she didn't know why, so she pinched her fingers together and watched for the woman's response. Please, please, please, I want.

"My name is Professor McGonagall. And I am here to offer Clara a place at a school for people with… special abilities. You might know them as magic." Clara furrowed her eyebrows, slowly picking up the letter and the envelope and backing up. Was she insane? Just her luck, to get picked up by a crazy, crazy woman."Ms. Oswald has magical abilities." And oh yes, of course. She was going to be the laughingstock of the whole orphanage.

But still. This was a rich woman, who could maybe, possibly, get offended if Clara pointed out the fact that magic is a dream that orphans don't get to have. So Clara sat and watched, still somehow clinging onto a grain of she's-not-insane hope, as she withdrew a- a stick?

The woman flicked the stick (hah, there's a bad slant rhyme) and a binder on a table- what?

The woman twisted her wrist slightly and something happened with the stick. A sort of reddish glittery bolt of light shot out from its end and hit one of the shabby binders on the table. The binder shook, went suddenly still, and then began to levitate, moving steadily up until it was almost half a meter above the ground.

Belatedly, the woman said softly, "This allows me to perform spells."

And, okay, maybe Clara wasn't crazy after all. But that left magic as the only option, and- the woman said Clara had magic, right? Could she.. maybe….

Clara drew in her breath. The matron sat down, heavily, on the bench, and Clara looked anxiously at her. Please please please anything. A rich lady to see her. A rich lady to take her away. Magic? She didn't think she'd ever wanted anything more in her life. (Except to cook, maybe.)

"What's your name?" Tamara asked, and this time Clara did laugh, short and quick, a soft giggle.

"Minerva McGonagall. Professor McGonagall." She pushed the hat slightly back on her head and turned to Tamara. (Ms. Tamara, Clara knew, but she'd known Tamara as such almost all her life.)

And now Clara turned her head to look at Tamara, adn she could almost see the wheels turning- Clara was half-invisible, known only in passing, and children were so expensive, but she loved all of them, and-

"This school- where is it? Is it gonna have rooms, food, proper education? Will she get enough exercise?" McGonagall had won, and Tamara was worrying because if Clara was going to go then she was going to get a right proper send-off, with enough maternal worrying to last her until she graduated.

"It's in England. She's going to be under adult supervision almost always, boarding and meals are provided, she can join sports teams if she wishes." McGonagall left Clara with more questions than answers. "May we leave? We're on a tight schedule."

Tamara raised her eyebrows at Clara, who looked at her and began nodding. It wasn't certain, but either she could stay here as a talentless loner or possibly, maybe, get a chance to travel and leave and be special.

"Alright. But- but- your school is gonna hafta sign some paperwork for me. You need t'-" She was grasping at straws.

"We'll send you the paperwork. Our headmaster could come by in a while, if that would ease your mind? Or if you need him to... sign anything?" McGonagall had half-raised eyebrows and a sharp tone. She looked down at Clara with a half-smile. "Shall we?"

"Tell Nina bye. And that Joanne should keep dancing. Thank you." It was all very sudden, this 'leaving home'' thing, starting and ending in ten minutes.

She didn't have any luggage worth keeping. That was a surprising revelation, and one that would've lead to more mental stuff if she hadn't been walking out of the orphanage with an actual, real, live, witch.

"Professor McGonagall," she interjected, feeling like she was interrupting something besides the silence. She suddenly felt very shy. "It's nice to meet you," she said quietly. "And- what's that stick?" She couldn't help herself. She was overwhelmed with curiosity about this strange, tall woman, and this new world she was entering.

"It is called a wand." Her English was precise and crisp, making Clara self-conscious about her own Lancashire street accent. "And it is one of the major conduits of magic."

"One of the major conduits?" Her curiosity would be the death of her, one of these days.

"The other major conduit, although much less reliable, is controlled primarily by one's emotions. It is nonverbal, non-wand example almost every young witch and wizard will show signs of this type magic. Being able to will yourself to safety if in danger, taking magical revenge on bullies, and other things… of the sort. Whenever you feel strong emotion, magic will… well up inside you, try and protect you. It's one main way we can find magical children, especially in non-magical households." Clara's face was somewhere in between ghostly white and tomato red.

And there, Clara thought, it is. I knew it, knew I wasn't magical, knew I shouldn't have done it, and here's my proof. There was a bubble of dread growing inside her. Oh, shit, oh well, better get this over with. She looked up sadly, her face slightly blotchy. "I've neva' done any of that."

Professor McGonagall sighed slowly. "Yes, well, that's why we didn't pick you up earlier. Weren't obviously on our radar. I assure you, you are in fact magical. Just… unusual in that respect. Hogwarts starts on September 1st."

Clara looked up, amazed. "That's tomorrow!" And wow, for magical people they needed a new scheduler.

The professor sighed. "Yes. That's why we need to hurry." She grabbed Clara's arm. "This might be slightly uncomfortable." And then she twisted, and Clara was pulled headfirst into a vortex, swirling and tumbling and sick to her stomach. The air was pulled out of her lungs as her body was squeezed into an infinitesimally small space, and then squashed into a tunnel, a soundless, lightless tunnel. And just when she could bear it no longer, when her body had given up all hope, she was shoved back into everyday life- "We moved," she said incredulously. "From Lancashire ta—London? That's… far."

"That's evident. Please do attempt to keep up," McGonagall said crisply, easily hiding her shock at Clara's quick recovery from the Apparation and stepping towards a pub.

Clara looked around shyly. "Why are we going towards… the Leaky Cauldron?" she said softly, questioning its pronunciation- and the title in itself. It was a witchy title, for sure, but… wasn't that too obvious? "Is it… something to do with getting into the wizard world?" Clara was never sure of herself around this woman. She was surprised when Professor McGonagall looked at her, eyes wide, and nodded.

"Muggles- they are non-wizarding persons- cannot see it. Look." She pointed at the families, the teens, the blushing couples, and the other people passing by the store as though it did not exist.

"But who're they?" Clara asked quietly. She pointed at a black-robed family, in sharp contrast to the jean shorts and tank tops on this hot August day, with a father and a mother leading two tall sons through the door. "They look like-" "Wizards. And they are." Professor McGonagall pressed her lips together, walking faster as her hands tapped, white-knuckled, on the side of her odd robe. "A very old, pureblood family, with very traditional values-"

"What are purebloods?" And there she was, again, absolutely no clue. Such a weird world this is.

"Of course." McGonagall pursed her lips. "Purebloods are those born of two wizards: 'pure' genetics, if you will. They've grown up in the Wizarding World, are supposed to be better with magic and things," she told Clara, who felt the small sinking pit in her stomach beginning to grow deeper and deeper. The bubble of dread was growing, back from four minutes ago.

"My god," she whispered softly. "I'm talentless again." Once more, she was sinking to the bottom- not the worst, but through no fault of her own, inferior. "My god," she said again, even quieter, in a voice only meant for her. "There go my chances. Again. Talentless."

"Talentless?" a cool voice next to her said. "Well, let's see."