It wasn't easy saying goodbye to her that first time. It probably won't ever be easy. My little girl was off to boarding school, but more than that she was entering an entirely different world to the one she grew up in. I remember that she turned back for an instant to wave goodbye to us as we stood on that platform feeling like foreigners. I waved back, smile on my face to hide my fears and my worries. We had been assured that she would be okay, but as her mother I couldn't believe that, no matter how much I wanted too.
My daughter, my little girl, has grown up so fast. She's a young woman now and I barely know her. When she left to go to that school we began to drift apart and there was nothing I could do to stop that. She was excited to be going to a school of magic. At first I was so proud of her. I was so happy that she was special, like I'd always known. Every parent thinks that their child is special but I knew without a doubt that my girl was different. I knew that she was more special than I could ever have imagined and I was right. My daughter was a witch and I was proud to be able to call myself her mother.
I sometimes like to think that we never grew apart. And it does feel that way sometimes, but I know better. And so does she. We grew apart because we belong to different worlds. I will never understand her world and I will never be part of it. I can try as much as I like but that isn't my world. Just the same as she is no longer part of my world. My plain world that is devoid of magic isn't hers anymore. Her life is magic and she wouldn't have it any other way.
I waved goodbye to my little girl that September all those years ago. I welcomed back a young woman that had grown so much in the space of a single year. I will never get the little girl back and I hate her world for that. Magic gave my daughter everything, and took her away from me. I can forgive that world for that, but I wouldn't change any of it, which makes absolutely no sense at all. I suppose that, in hindsight, she never belonged to this world of mine. She didn't have friends and all of the other children in her class thought she was weird. But when she went to Hogwarts, she finally found a place that she belonged. She found friends, and she wasn't an outcast. And what mother could take that away from their child?
I think that the war, their war, changed her. All through her years at that school she grew up with war. Although she never told us what was going, we knew. The Headmaster told us what was going on and we were always aware that when we said goodbye to her that it may be the last we ever saw her alive. The war made her stronger and she experienced things that no young girl need to. It wasn't fair on her to go through all of that but I think that, somehow, she was always destined for this life that she's leading.
I am more proud of her than I could have ever imagined. She will always be my little girl even though she was growing up. The world of magic took her away from me and I hate that. But she is who she is because of it and I wouldn't change that for all the world.