Prologue
I was not your typical child.
Well, magical child. No exceptional muggle child can even compare to a normal magical child.
I was not your typical magical child.
I never snatched for my parents' wand when I was little. They would leave it on the kitchen table by accident, and come sprinting back in fright ten minutes later. It would be in the same place as always, never moving. I would stay in the same place as always, no scratches, no burns, and definitely no seared off hair.
To the unobservant eye, I would appear indifferent, perhaps even opposed to magic.
But that was never, will never, or could ever be the case.
Whenever my great aunt Minerva visited, I attached myself to her leg. Aunt Minnie, as I called her, was the most fascinating person I knew. Whenever she came to our flat in London, Aunt Minnie would immediately sit in the living room and wait for me to hop in her lap. I was intrigued by her tales, by her wonders. She told me stories of her wildest classes, of spells gone wrong. She would demonstrate the latest spells that she learned to my delight. I was infatuated by her magic, and hers alone. My aunt was the only person that ever really fascinated me. That is, until a boy named Harry Potter joined her class.
I grew up with the name Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived, the wonders. No one defeated Voldemort.
Which gives another reason to call me an oddity: I didn't say He Who Must Not Be Named or You Know Who.
Only Voldemort.
My parents would hush me in public, and scold me in private. It just seemed like the most ridiculous thing to me- if Voldemort is gone, why must we still stay in fear of his name?
But Harry Potter was a source of constant curiosity to me. He was an anomaly, a strange occurrence that never should have existed in the first place.
When I was eight, Harry Potter first appeared at Hogwarts. He was sorted into Gryffindor, my family's house. Well, my mother's side. Mum, Grandmother, Aunt Minnie- they all were in Gryffindor. Dad, Grandad, and Uncle Derek were all in Ravenclaw. Except for Aunt Lucy, she went to Beauxbatons.
Aunt Minnie was constantly exasperated that year whenever she traveled to our flat. Everytime we asked why, she would respond with the same three words: "Potter, Granger, Weasley."
Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ronald Weasley.
They were Aunt Minnie's favorites, along with Neville Longbottom. I suppose she saw through the students that acted like angels in front of her, and devils outside of class. She would tell me how they reminded her of herself when she was younger, when she was on the Quidditch team and top of her class. She would sometimes hint at a rebellious past, but nothing more than a hint.
But Harry Potter became more and more famous throughout the years.
I received my Hogwarts letter, signed by Aunt Minnie, on November 1st, my eleventh birthday. I was elated, and my parents were ecstatic as well. We all expected it, of course. But a Hogwarts letter is something from a dream that I could never quite fathom into reality. The following June, however, my parents received the news of the dementors in Hogwarts. Soon word of Sirius Black's escape leaked into the Daily Prophet once more, and I read every issue after the first, the booming headline capturing every part of my brain: Mass Murder Sirius Black at Large Again.
Though not directly mentioned, I would find lines suggesting Harry Potter's interference with the whole event. Those fascinating me.
My parents were hesitant after the dementor fiasco, of course, especially after word got out that during the year, the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was an actual werewolf. Let alone the fact that Sirius Black had been inside Hogwarts, but Aunt Minnie of course calmed them, told them about the new safety precautions, and assured them that the werewolf was tame and quite a nice man.
They agreed after that.
And so after the longest summer of my life, filled with Bertie Botts eating, wand getting, and robe fittings, I was ready for Hogwarts. And I couldn't wait a minute.