Author's Note: This has been sitting on my computer taking up space for long enough. Let's see what kind of reception it gets.
Do not message me to tell me that not all Christians are like this. I'm aware. There's a reason why the word "fundamentalist" is in the summary.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and everything that went into it belongs to J. K. Rowling. Everything else belongs to me.
Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Campbell of Little Missenden were very happy to admit that they and their family were perfect, thank you very much. They weren't normal by the standards of regular society, but regular society was made up of misguided miscreants who had little idea of the paradise that they were willfully throwing away in favor of eternal damnation. So they hardly had any desire to be considered what those people considered to be "normal". Besides, they didn't need to be like everyone else. They were perfectly happy with their perfect little life. Joseph was an American whose family had moved to England when his father had received something that he called godly insight. Like his father, he grew up to be a carpenter. Not only that, but he had his own business. He had even built the house that he and his family lived in with his own two hands; the ultimate example of his worth as a man, in his opinion. His devoted wife, Lisa, was the seventh child of one of the few proper (in Joseph's mind) Christian families living in the British Isles. She had strayed from the flock when she was a young child and spent her teenage years living with her heathen aunt and attending a secular boarding school. But happily, she realized the err of her ways, prayed fervently for God's forgiveness, and gave up her old life entirely to answer her true calling. She became the model example of a godly woman; a warm, obedient woman who cooked, cleaned, and cared for her children with a smile on her face.
And they had many children. Shortly after they married at 18 years old, the Lord saw it fit to bless them with a baby girl that they named Mary. They were 38 now, and He had seen it fit to bless them with an additional 16 children. Mary eventually left the fold; lost to worldly ideals. But they still had 16 potential soldiers that He had given them to train up. One damned soul was not a very big loss.
The morning of July 1st, 2017 started off like any other summer morning in the Campbell household. The whole house rose at the crack of dawn. Joseph and his eldest sons, Michael and Matthew, went off to work while his wife and other 14 children started their morning chores. As there were so many children in the household, the four girls over the age of 10 were assigned younger siblings to look after. If they had a buddy that was too young to reliably do their chores, they were responsible for them. Next came breakfast. That day's breakfast was a massive scrambled egg, cheese, bacon, sausage, and kipper casserole that Martha, the eldest Campbell daughter after Mary, had helped her mother cook the night before. After breakfast was cleared away by the girls, the house chores began. While the Campbells were rich in spirit, they were what one would consider to be very poor by worldly standards. To help save money on groceries, they kept chickens and a vegetable garden. While only the girls fed the chickens and collected their eggs, everyone worked under the hot July sun picking weeds, watering, and removing pests from the rows of potatoes, peppers, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and various herbs that they had planted in the half acre surrounding their house. This went on until lunch, when Margaret, the next eldest Campbell daughter, helped her mother make sandwiches. After another round of cleaning up, school began for all of the children under the age of 14. The Campbells never took a break from schooling during the summer. The children taught themselves using books and courses that Joseph had acquired from several homeschooling groups in the United States. They all learned the three Rs and what Joseph commonly referred to as 'character training', while the girls all learned basic household tasks such as making a budget and preserving canned goods. The little ones were taught by their buddies, of course. Lisa did not help much that day; she claimed that her nausea from the baby was really bad.
At around 5 pm, Joseph, Michael, and Matthew returned home, carrying the day's mail with them. Three of the youngest children, Madison, Moses, and Madeline, who had been playing near the front door at the time, froze and stared up at their father. Lisa tittered, still all smiles, and pulled them away with the help of her elder daughters. They were young. They would eventually learn that their father was tired from working for them and that they needed to know when to get out of his way and let him get to having the rest that he deserved. He was supposed to be second to God in their lives, after all.
After the swarm of children was cleared away, Joseph sat down in his favorite arm chair (that only he was allowed to sit in) in the living room and asked if dinner had been started yet. Lisa answered in the affirmative; Martha was working on some fish pies with Modesty and little Moira. (Not that Moira could help much; she was only 7 months old and had just mastered crawling and sitting still.) He grunted in appreciation, turned the radio on the end table next to the chair on (to the gospel station, of course), and went to work skimming through the pile of envelopes on his lap.
About halfway through the pile, after a couple of notices to Lisa from the welfare department, an electric bill, a very threatening letter from the BBC stating that they had not paid for a television license, (something Joseph had no intention of doing,) and a newsletter from their church, Joseph came across a very unusual letter. Instead of in a white envelope, the letter was concealed in brown parchment and stamped shut with a red wax seal bearing a coat of arms that Joseph had never seen before. Written on the back in emerald green ink was the most unusual return address he had ever seen.
Office of Admissions
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Somewhere in the United Kingdom
Joseph didn't ponder for very long about how exactly he was supposed to return the letter if he needed to. Instead, he flipped it over to the front. His face and ears grew red hot when he saw who the letter was addressed to.
Ms. Mackenzie Campbell
The Left Bottom Bunk in the 3rd Bedroom on the 2nd Floor
7 Mop End Lane
Little Missenden
Buckinghamshire
"LISA!" Joseph's voice thundered throughout the entire house. Martha and Modesty stopped cooking, all of the children immediately went silent, and Lisa's Glasgow-like smile twitched slightly. "BRING MACKENZIE DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!"
