Authors Note: As much as I'd like to admit that I own Harry Potter and all the fabulous characters in the book, I do not. They all belong to the Brilliant mind of Jo Rowling, except for my own, OC characters.
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It was the summer of 1971, and was already off to a rather boring start. School had only ended a few weeks before, and now, there was nothing to do in the small village of Dalkey, Ireland. Sure, there was the beach, but it was just so overdone. Braylyn Lovett couldn't help but sit around the house, staring out the window, or listening to the radio. At that very moment, The song 'Cry Baby' by Janis Joplin was softly playing through the small speakers. The eleven-year-old lay sprawled on her bed, her pillow clutched under her body as she listened.
"Hey, Bray?" Her older sister, Kitty knocked, and stuck her head through a crack in the door "Dinner's almost ready, and Ma wants you to set the table"
"Fine" she told Kitty, stretched out, and slid off the bed, turning the radio down as she left her room.
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"But Ma, Pa, really it was the most beautiful thing I have ever been apart of" Bridget mused, holding the hand of her new fiancé, Gerald.
Bray had grown up in the shadows of her three, perfect, redheaded sisters. Bridget was the oldest at 19, the most gorgeous one of them all, but was none to bright. Then came Molly, who was 17, and at the top of her class. Next was Kitty, who's real name was Catherine, but everyone called Kitty. She was smart, pretty, and kind to everyone.
Bray had always felt left out, and that she was never good enough by her sister's standards. Of course her parents had never told her that, or even let on, but it's hard to be unique in a house where the older girl's had already done it.
"It's just wonderful" Her mother said, mopping the tears from the corner of her eyes "I am so proud"
"Yeah, but they aren't going to have to pay a fortune for the wedding" Her father grumbled, winking at his youngest daughter.
"John, how can you say that" Her mother sounded horrified, but maybe it was the prospect of having to pay for the wedding, or just the way he said it that made her exclaim.
"Easily, because it is the truth" John answered, patting his wife's hand and giving her a small grin "Now, come on, we have to finish eating before it turns to ice before our tongues, and then you know what will happen. Would not be fun to have an ice block of peas stuck to your tongue"
"Your incorrigible" His wife muttered, as the family began to eat again.
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The next few days seemed to bleed into each other, growing duller as the hours passed. Bray decided to go talk to Kitty to pass the time, and traveled up to the attic where Molly and Kitty shared a room. She stopped at the door, and was about to knock, when she heard her name.
"You know Bray is a freak, Kit, I donno how I would put up with a creepy little sister like her, thank god I have all brothers" Jane told her crisply.
Jane was Kitty's dearest friend, but Bray and completely hated each other. Once, Jane had called her a straggly dustmite, and then she started screamed. A large, green and brown toad had dropped onto her head. She angrily accused Bray of doing it, but Bray told her that she didn't know how it had happened, and she hadn't put the toad up there. She did not mention to Kitty or Jane that she had been thinking it.
Later, she had told Molly, who looked at her skeptically "Baby, you know you can't just think of something and it happens, it probably got into the house by itself"
"And climbed into the rafters?" Bray asked skeptically.
"It had to have gotten there somehow" Molly told her.
Bray had never known how the toad got there, or where it went after falling onto Jane's head, but that was far from her mind as she listened at the door of her sister's room.
"She is not a freak" Kitty told Jane, and there was a creak as though she has adjusted herself on her bed.
"She is too a freak, she is always making nasty things happen, like the toad, or the mice"
"Like she could have put the toad in the rafters, she is to short, and she is afraid of mice, so how could she have put them in your purse?"
"Maybe she's a witch" Jane's voice permeated from the room, and Bray felt herself growing angry "She is always hanging around, funny like, maybe the church will see her as what she really is and burn her at the stake"
Jane's sour laughing and her sister's defense fell short when a loud crash echoed through the house.
The door was flung open, Bray standing there wide eyed, and her sister's mouth forming a perfect 'O' as she looked desperately at the shelf above Bray's head on the opposite wall. All the glass figurines that belonged to her mother where smashed against the walls, the glass falling off the shelf in a fine powder.
"Bray…who...what did you do?" Kitty asked, her eyes fearfully returning to her younger sister.
"I didn't do it…. It just happened" Bray protested, tears rolling down her face.
"Come on, we better go tell mom" Kitty told her, as Bray caught the look from Jane, a mean, cold look.
"Witch" Jane muttered once the two sisters' left
OC) Yeah, I hate Jane….R&R