Looking back, it seemed inevitable that it wouldn't last. Nothing lasts forever, and something as extraordinary as this was certain to burn itself out much sooner than that.
She had never been normal. Things happened around her; weird things. Her cousin had nicked her My Little Pony and was holding it just out of her reach, taunting her as she tried to get it from him, when all of a sudden he had yelped and dropped it. He had run to his mother with his reddening hand and Sally-Anne was vaguely aware of her aunt scolding him for playing with hot things as she took her toy back to her favourite little corner. Except this time, she'd imagined the pony trotting around her field doing fantastical things and scaring away all the mean ponies who wanted to hurt her.
The incident with the pony was soon forgotten, as most things are. The more time passed, the more certain she became that it had been a daydream, until her memory grew fainter and one day she just forgot.
More things happened eventually, of course. There has never been a shortage of mean people or trying times. However mild her childlike issues may have seemed to her parents, they were gigantic to her, and her magic worked to protect her and solve them. She would be being scolded for getting mudcake all over her face, then suddenly her face would be clean. She would be crying at the thought of not knowing where her teddy was, then suddenly it would be there in front of her. Eventually it got to the stage where it couldn't be attributed to her toys or her imagination. Each situation had one thing in common: she desperately wanted something to be different than it was. She eventually had to accept the fact that she was the common denominator, and that scared her.
Black sheep and family skeletons are usually associated with teenagers or adults, people who have had some say in their transgression. But Sally-Anne was well and truly whispered about. Her aunt refused to let her children play with her, afraid that whatever she had would rub off on them like some infectious disease. Her grandfather treated her normally but would always watch her in concern when she wasn't looking. Her older brothers tried to work out what was happening but couldn't make any sense of it. Her friends wanted to catch whatever it was, but knew that saying that would be deemed sacrilegious.
The day her letter came was the best and worst day of her childhood. Of course, there were other better and worse days, but her childlike enthusiasm allowed any number of days to have these labels. Still, it was a relief and a burden, a liberation and a shackle. She finally knew what she had, what was wrong with her. It wasn't just her, or just her being crazy, or just her whole social circle seeing things. It was a thing, a legitimate thing, and it was alright. But on the other hand, it was an affirmation that there was something there, something wrong with her. It might be a systematic thing, but it could be a systematic disease just as easily as a blessing. The letter assured her of other sufferers, or blessed ones, or whatever she should call it, but it also assured her that she was among their number.
Her parents hadn't wanted her to go. It was too far away. It was too removed. It was too total. They would have to trust her in the hands of strangers who claimed they could do genuine magic tricks and wanted to teach her how to do it too. They would have to accept that her life would no longer be theirs, would no longer be relatable, would no longer be normal. They didn't want her to live a common life, but they did want her to be normal. It's easy to say that nothing and no one is normal; it's harder to believe that when your youngest child may be about to embark on a life so different to what you're used to that there are legislations to keep them from one another.
She had gone, of course. After they had sent back a hesitant reply, Pomona Sprout had arrived to reassure them. The motherly professor had claimed that the accidental magic would keep getting worse as she grew, particularly during the hormonal imbalances of puberty or of pregnancy, if she didn't learn how to control it. She had claimed that there were a number of Muggle-born students at Hogwarts and that Sally-Anne would feel welcome. She had claimed that the castle was beautiful and idyllic and the grounds were expansive. She had claimed that the girl would be safe and happy. She had claimed a lot of things.
When she reflected back years later, she felt a lot of ambivalence about her first year. The castle was gorgeous and there were moments, when she looked out her dormitory window or when she returned from herbology, when she felt like she was a fairytale princess awaiting her time to shine. Her friendship with Emma was the first one in her life that hadn't been underlay with a sense of difference and judgement. She found Neville appealing in his blundering adorableness and rather fancied herself in love with him, although she knew from her parents' letters that eleven-year-old crushes weren't love and she should be careful not to do anything sexual with any boy until she was older. It was strange, though, being separated from her family. She had to send any letters to her friends through them so that she didn't have to explain owl post, and she had to heavily censor her letters to make sure that she never let anything slip that indicated that the school her parents had sent her to 'to make her forget her penchant for silly magic tricks' was really facilitating the development of said magic tricks. And while there was never any open animosity directed towards her, probably because she excelled at blending into the background, she could tell that Professor Sprout's claims that Muggle-borns were commonplace was the truth stretched to its technically correct limits.
Things were strained at the end of that year. It was nice seeing her parents again, but she couldn't show them what she had learned, so all they had to see from the year was a report card discussing things that they didn't quite understand, a daughter's-best-friend who seemed lovely and polite, and a mostly happy daughter.
Her second year was in no means ambivalent. It was completely and utterly scary. The appointment of Professor Lockhart had been wonderful, his charm and looks making her like what she had previously found a confusing and dry subject. The Valentine's Day celebrations had made her once again feel like she was living in a story, and her mood hadn't even been dampened when Emma had quietly asked whether Sally-Anne minded her sending Neville a singing Valentine seeing as she'd promptly found that her persevering love for him had fizzled out upon their return to school – or when Neville had blushed and shyly thanked her friend and walked around with her for the next few weeks before they broke up. What had dampened her mood, or what really had set her mood, were the attacks. The cat had unsettled her, but was fairly easy to brush off in her relief that that horrible caretaker wouldn't have his partner in terrorising students anymore. It was harder to brush off the Duelling Club incident. Or Justin and Nearly Headless Nick. She had always seen Harry as a fairly decent, if quiet and awkward, boy, but couldn't see any other conclusion than that was the heir of Slytherin. After all, it did seem awfully strange that a baby could defeat a Dark Lord without having some kind of special heritage up his sleeve. While she knew that Hermione Granger was safe, she couldn't help but feel vulnerable. If Harry was picking off the people who annoyed him, she'd better be careful to avoid him (without seeming like she was avoiding him; which was easy, given that they'd only briefly spoken) so that she could stay off his radar. She hadn't written home to her parents, knowing that they would have pulled her out of school, but her resilience was already wearing thin. It had snapped when Colin was found petrified. She'd written home saying that one of the anti-Muggle-born people had struck out at a classmate and she was scared. Professor Dumbledore got her parents' owl the next day. She went home the day after that. She only told Emma and Neville why.
Watching her wand get snapped was painful. Still, she supposed that being petrified or killed would be worse. Besides, she was homesick.
It took her a while to reacclimatise to Muggle life and schooling. Her parents paid for a tutor to help her catch up. The school was told that Sally-Anne's fancy boarding school had wound up being some kind of hippie/New Age institution that focused on yoga, life skills and nature courses rather than serious academics. Of course, Sally-Anne had then had to learn basic yoga and about nature to make it believable. She was back in the swing of school before the end of the year. It took her longer to stop reaching for her wand for comfort or almost mentioning quills and parchment and Quidditch.
She wrote to Emma and Neville regularly until August 1997. They were vague about the goings-on at school but admitted that there was increased danger. She saw them both, separately and together, every summer, but it was never quite the same. Before going back to school that year, however, they'd both written her to say that bad things were happening, far worse than second year, and that it was imperative that no letters were sent either way until those things were resolved. She hadn't known about the war, not until much later. She still felt a surge of relief when they both wrote again June 1998 to let her know that they weren't in a talkative mood but would be okay and were contactable once again. There had been an unvoiced divide, though; they had been through so much, most of which they never told her, and were dealing with trauma and politics and becoming adults, while she was still a seventeen-year-old focusing on school, friendship problems, her first job and her first real boyfriend.
She didn't know it, but the fact that she had renounced her magic was what kept her safe during the war. The Death Eaters weren't overtly fond of her, but they were more concerned with the Muggle-borns who were still trying to be a part of their world; to them, she had become a random Muggle. One who they wanted annihilated; later.
Their wedding day was beautiful. The ceremony was small, just their family and close friends. She had considered inviting her new boyfriend but hadn't been ready to break that to him yet. Secretly, she also hadn't wanted him to encroach on that part of her life. Sally-Anne was the maid of honour and smiled as she walked down the aisle next to Harry Potter, who had introduced himself to her at the rehearsal under the misconception that she had gone to a different wizarding school. Neville looked stunning and much more confident, having lost his childhood adorableness and awkwardness at some point during the war, and Emma looked radiant. Sally-Anne had enjoyed talking to them in the lead up to the big day and at the reception. That didn't change the fact that they had dealt with so much more than her, or that she regularly caught herself wishing that she had stayed at Hogwarts so that she could share that, and the ease at which they could flick their wands to shape matter to their will for convenience or entertainment, with them.
At least she had learned to control her magic. Her future was plagued with the knowledge of missed opportunities and different experiences, but at least she could be normal – and safe.
A/N I just want to thank my brother for reading over this for me. He often proofreads my stories and tells me whether or not he likes them, which gives me the confidence to post them as they are rather than stressing about it first. This is one in particular where I liked the idea but, when rereading it a few weeks after writing it, wasn't sure about the execution; without his assurance that he liked it, it would probably still just be sitting in some hidden part of my hard drive until I got up the motivation to fundamentally rewrite it.