Author's Note: I do not own any Harry Potter characters nor the events that correspond to the novels by JK Rowling. Genavieve Dare Belacqua is my own original character and I reserve all copyright on her. :)
Dare Belacqua scanned the heads of the first years surrounding her. She could feel the butterflies rise up in her stomach, threatening to explode. Someone knocked into her shoulder, throwing her slightly off balance.
"Sorry," the person said, glancing up at Dare. The girl looked nervous.
But Dare couldn't imagine who could be more nervous. Dare pushed her bright red hair back from her face.
For the past couple of hours, she'd been unable to convince herself fully that this wasn't a dream, that this was real. She was a witch; she could do magic; she was at a school most unfortunately named Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
* * * * * *
Dare lived in an orphanage for most of her life, unaware of her abilities. Of course, strange things always happened to her when she was upset, angry, or scared, but never in her life would she have thought magic was the reason. It was surreal, to say the least. Her only friends were all much younger than she was; she'd been the oldest at the orphanage at the age of ten. When she turned eleven, she was to be sent off to a foster care home, somewhere in Surrey, away from anything familiar.
Yet, something else had happened when she turned eleven on the second of July. She'd received a most curious letter. Everything about it had been strange, including it's delivery as it had been dropped off by a brawny barn owl, down to it's yellowish parchment, glittery green ink handwriting and more than anything, the address.
Ms. G. Belacqua
The Little Children Orphanage
Room 808, second four-poster bed
Berkshire, England
Dare ripped open the letter when Mrs. Notting, the maid, had handed it to her; she'd never received a letter before in her life and was curious as to who the writer could possibly be.
She took out the letter with trembling fingers, but before she could read it, Penelope – one of the little girls at the orphanage who admired Dare more for her advanced age than anything else – came bursting into the room in tears.
Dare sat the letter down immediately where it slip off her bed and underneath it, not to be remembered until later that night when everyone else had fallen asleep.
She grabbed the letter from under her bed and searched the room for some source of light, but found the moonlight over by the window the only place. She squeezed herself as close to the warm window as possible, straining her eyes as she read the letter:
HOGWARTS SCHOOL
of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,
Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)
Dear Ms. Belacqua,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list
of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later
than July 31.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall,
Deputy Headmistress
Dare reread it fifty times before she finally decided either the moon or another orphan was playing a trick on her. Did they actually expect her to believe this? Well, the average age of all one hundred some children was about five, so higher levels of thinking weren't commonplace.
She searched the letter and realized nowhere on the grounds was there a computer except in the secretary's office at the front of the building. Had one of the orphans snuck in there? Then again, even the oldest orphan, besides herself, was only eight years old. How could sweet, shy, freckled Tomas do such a thing to her? The answer: he wouldn't.
The secretary, surely, wouldn't do something like this. She was textbook strict and preferred to keep away from all the children. Not that she was unkindly, she just had an itching to punish any child that behaved like anything other than an obedient rock.
She decided she would forget about the letter; it was utter nonsense and she wouldn't become part of such an immature joke. It was her pride that hurt worse of all; she had never received a letter in her entire life, yet the first time she did and it was some hideous joke.