On the train to Hogwarts, Lizzie finds a compartment – she finds a compartment that she gets kicked out of because we're seventh years, firstie and you don't get one to yourself, now get. Lizzie tries to search out another compartment, but by now – eleven oh five, the train already out of the station and no-one waving anymore – everyone is settled somewhere.
Actually, there are a few stragglers, but they're older or late meeting with their friends. There's one other first year searching for some place to sit.
"Hey," he greets glumly, shaggy copper fringe hanging over his eyes. Lizzie waves shyly, Hedwig on her shoulder hooting softly. "You've got your own owl?" he questions, sounding jealous as he huffs, pushing past her. Lizzie stumbles slightly, hurrying to save her trunk from being pushed over by the unhappy boy.
Lizzie grew up in Little Whinging, where Dudley and his friends would play Lizzie Hunting and would rip her dresses just to snicker while Aunt Petunia shouted at her. She's used to not having friends and for other children treating her horribly.
I thought I could start new here, she thinks on the Hogwarts Express. Apparently not.
After primary school, usually, rather than walk home and risk the bullying attitude of her cousin, Lizzie would escape to the library. However, no matter how much she read about camping, she still couldn't create a small fire for herself in the garden shed when Uncle Vernon locked her in on purpose overnight.
With magic, it's the same. Lizzie gets her classwork done, hiding from her classmates who wonder where Harry Potter is and studies all sorts of magic. Transfiguration is the type she likes best, she thinks, but transfiguration is hard.
Professor McGonagall refuses to teach Lizzie how to transfigure herself. You are a beginner, Miss Evans. When you're older, perhaps. When she asks her to do it, instead, Professor McGonagall shakes her head and offers her a biscuit, picking out a book for her to read from her personal bookcase on the Ministry of Magic's regulations on transfiguration magic. Later, she sends her another in the post, wrapped in brown paper with a note saying, open in private.
Lizzie is eleven. It's going to be another six years before she's old enough for Professor McGonagall to legally transfigure her into a proper girl from a boy. She has to stop growing first and to become a proper girl, Lizzie would have to take potions first to make the transfigurations permanent, potions she can't brew or consume until she's an adult.
Madam Pomfrey only confirms what the second book says, but offers to teach her some small magic tricks that she wouldn't have grown up with in the muggle world, offers to support her.
Other books she finds that don't quite make sense talk about support bases, made of people who she trusts. Lizzie thinks that for however horrible her relative are, how she lives in a cupboard instead of a bedroom and how she spent countless nights curled up in the garden shed.
Lizzie thinks of her reserved, unkind aunt and uncle and Dudley's aunt Marge, who used to be called Roger and wonders whether support base applies to them, too. Lizzie doesn't love them, but they gave her dresses; Lizzie doesn't trust them, but they let her change her name from Harry Potter to Elizabeth Evans.
The Dursley's aren't a support base, she thinks, reading the wordsbear all or part of the weight of; hold up in a dictionary. I dangle by a thread with the Dursley's. I'm a puppet spelled alive, knowing they can tangle me up and break me whenever they like.
Magical theory doesn't make sense to her, all together. They study it in each class – in charms, transfiguration, potions, defence and even herbology. Lizzie understands it all separately, but she just can't see the connections.
Lizzie goes to Professor McGonagall, her first port of call, but her head of house isn't the person to go to, apparently. Professor Flitwick will be able to explain more, in depth – though perhaps one of your elder housemates would be able to help you. A prefect, maybe.
Professor Flitwick gives a long, understandable speech on magical charm theory. When Lizzie asks how that connects to something or other in transfiguration, how witches and wizards create magic, how they control it and use wands like they do, he hesitates.
I'm afraid I haven't studied this type of magical theory in some time, Miss Evans.
Lizzie knows then that her available teachers – that she likes, that have posted office-hours, that don't hate her – can't help her. She turns to the library for help and all she gets for her efforts is intelligible gibberish from a NEWT-level analysis comparing the hover charm to a propeller-feet transfiguration.
Wandering the castle is a habit she takes up. Hogwarts is a maze of the weird and wonderful. On the first floor there's a room that has trees and stars inside; on the fifth floor there's a broom closet with a faded mural of two witches transforming into wolves painted across the wall; behind a portrait of a deaf wizard in dungarees, shelves go from floor to ceiling, full of fluorescent yellow flowers that blow bubbles full of gas that makes Lizzie cough.
I need a teacher who can show me my place in this, she thinks one day that she wanders, pausing at a junction of corridors to imitate a moving tapestry of a man attempting to teach strange, giant creatures ballet. I need a teacher to show me what magic is. I need a teacher.
A strange cricketing sound comes from behind her. Lizzie twirls around, bag swinging slightly. Her eyes widen as she sees a small door, newly-appeared and half-open. Creeping forwards, wand at the ready – not that she knows many spells, but Lizzie does know the theory for a stunning spell –
"Oh, what now is this?" a strange voice comes from the door, before a small green being pops their head through. Lizzie stares at them and they stare at her. It's old, I think, Lizzie notes the white hair coming out of their long, pointed ears, sticking out from the side of their green, domed head.
"…hello?" she greets, before the being looks her up and down in a critical manner.
"Young, are you. Strong with the Force."
"The Force?" Lizzie questions, before hazarding a guess at what they might mean. "You mean magic?"
"Magic, the Force, things that be one and the same," the being says, before disappearing back through the door.
Lizzie lurches. "Wait!" she shouts, before following the being through the magic door.