AN: Yael's mother and father are Israeli Jews who emigrated to Britain, where they met and got married, so the family occasionally uses Hebrew words. She calls her parents "Ima" and "Abba" which mean "Mom" and "Dad" and they sometimes call her "motek" which means "sweetie".

It was something of an absurdist masterpiece. It was around 3 pm on a hot and muggy July Tuesday when an actual live owl, carrying a letter — sealed with a circle of red wax, no less — flew into my window and perched on the wooden post of my small bed. It cocked its head to the side expectantly, as if my failure to promptly accept the intrusion and the letter was the event that was truly out of the ordinary. I didn't want it to bite me, if that's what owls do, so I slowly and silently pulled out my phone and texted Ima: there's a bird in my room and she came up the stairs, opened the door to my room, and shooed the owl out with a broom. It left the letter behind on my bed.

My mother gave me a funny look. "What was this bird doing here, Yael?" She asked.

I shook my head in disbelief. "Um. I dunno. It looks like it left a letter." I picked it up. "And it's … addressed to me."

"What?" She asked.

"Yeah." I frowned and read out the calligraphed writing on the front. "'Ms. Y. Sterling, The Upstairs Bedroom, 10 Camden Road, Sutton, City of London.' Wow, that's oddly specific."

"Why was your window open?"

"Ima, I didn't expect a nocturnal bird to deliver me a letter from..."

I turned the envelope over. The wax seal was imprinted with an "H," and some kind of strange looking medieval crest. There was no return address.

"Do you think it's from the Renaissance Fair?" I asked. She shrugged. We had all gone to the Renaissance Fair a few weeks ago to celebrate the end of school. Because we miss a lot of school during the High Holidays at the beginning of the year, my school doesn't get out until the end of June. It's okay though, because my Birthday is at the end of June - June 27th and if I went to a regular school, on top of having to miss for every Jewish holiday, I wouldn't get to celebrate my birthday during the school year.

I opened the letter.

"Dear Ms. Sterling," I read aloud, "We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." I looked up from the letter. "Ima, are you and Abba sending me off to the Circus to become a Magician? I know I'm hard to deal with, but you guys signed the adoption papers when I was two; you can't just send me back."

My mom laughed. "Motek, if we had wanted to get rid of you, we would have done it a long time ago. You're stuck with your Ima and Abba, like it or not."

When I people learn that I was adopted, they sometimes think it must be a really taboo subject in my family. They sometimes ask "when did you find out?" as if my mom sat me down one day confessed that she hadn't given birth to me and that everything I thought I knew was a lie. That's not what it was like for me at all. I usually respond by asking "when did you find out you weren't adopted?" because I knew all along that my Ima and Abba didn't give birth to me, and it never mattered. When I was little, my Ima used to joke that I was picky about getting the best possible parents, so that was why they had to fill out an application before she could be my Ima. I didn't realize until I went to nursery school that not everyone's parents had applied to have their kids, and I secretly worried about non-adopted kids: "what if they got the wrong parents?"

"Anyways," Ima said, "I don't know this 'Hogwarts'. I have never heard of it. It sounds like a joke. Who's the Headmaster?"

I looked at the letterhead. "Headmistress, actually. Minerva McGonagall, D. Mag, Order of Merlin, first class. And the Deputy Headmaster is named Filius Flitwick, he's the one that the letter's actually from. And it says that they..." I put my fingers in the air for fake quotes, "await my owl by no later than July 31st."

Before I could say anything else, there was a knock on the door. My mother turned her head towards Abba's studio "Baruch, can you get that?"

I suddenly felt a strange rush through my whole body, as if an electric spark were jumping from the back of my neck through my chest and spreading all over. I don't know why, but the sound suddenly made me feel shocked and afraid and alive, and I ran down the stairs and I knew it was for me. I made it downstairs just as Abba was opening the door.

At the door stood a thin woman, pale with wild black curls and long fingers adorned with many rings of different sizes and shapes. She wore a dark purple cloak and a matching hat of a tall cone with a wide brim, decorated with small stars and astronomical symbols.

She reached into her sleeve and took out a piece of parchment. "I'm terribly sorry for the intrusion." She stated. "Is this the residence of Ms. Yael Sterling?"

"That's me!" I said, and I walked to the door. The woman shook my hand.

"My name is Professor Aurora Sinistra. I'm here from Hogwarts. I believe you received our letter. Normally, these are hand-delivered in the case where a student comes from a muggle family, but I think the quill was confused because one of your birth parents must have been a Witch or Wizard."

Abba stared blankly at at the woman. "I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're saying. Hogwarts? Muggle? Quill? My English is not the best. I don't know what you mean."

Professor Sinistra raised her eyebrows. "Oh, of course you wouldn't know what I'm saying! You wouldn't have heard of Hogwarts or any of that. Mr. Sterling, I am here to tell you that your daughter is incredibly special. She has great talents that she doesn't even know about yet."

She leaned down slightly and looked me in the eye. "You're a Witch, Yael."