A/N: Hey this is my first EVER Harry Potter story so be nice okay. This is set in seventh year and the war between Voldemort and Harry is over. Harry won, of course. I don't really know how to start this, so if it's really crap, just tell me! Okay, I'm blabbering, on with the story...
Prologue
Evelyn arose from her bed as the bell clanged near her. She threw off her sheets, but quickly made herself look presentable. She wiped the sleep from her eyes and groaned. She hated getting up at half-six in the morning. She didn't see the point. The girls were always ready before the boys, no matter how long they spent drying their hair.
"Up! Up! You don't want to be late for breakfast! Come on, Evelyn, show example to those younger than yourself!" Yelled the house-mistress, Mrs Wilson.
Evelyn was eighteen, and an orphan from the age of three. This old place had been her home for the last ten, although Mrs Wilson was more like the evil stepmother from Cinderella than a motherly figure.
After tidying her bed sheets, Evelyn grabbed a towel and ran into the girls' bathroom for her routine morning shower. Out in ten minutes, she was dressed and at the breakfast table before seven.
While munching through a bacon roll, something unexpected happened to her. Mrs Wilson sat down beside her. She swallowed her mouthful as quickly as she could without choking.
" Evelyn, dear, come to my office once you are finished. We have much to discuss." She said kindly. Evelyn wondered what the old witch was up to, wherever did 'dear' come from.
Ten minutes later, she was outside the housemistress office, nervous for the first time since she had arrived here at the age of eight. She knocked quietly and was met with a screech, 'come!"
"Ah, Evelyn, "Mrs Wilson began, "Since you are now eighteen, your life is now succumbed to many more responsibilities. Am I right?"
"Yes, Mrs Wilson."
"Ah, yes, right. For the past six years, we have been sent an annual letter from a Scottish boarding school. The school is 'Hogwarts'. Have you ever heard of such a place?"
"No, ma'am."
"Right, of course you haven't. Well, there is no other way to say this, Evelyn. You are now the oldest in the orphanage, and the board believe you do not need out support or guidance any longer and are sending you to this school."
Evelyn stared at her in shock; they were chucking her out?
"Close your mouth, dearie. Yes, I am afraid I must obey the board. Now, the school begins in one week, so beforehand we must get all of your books and such."
"Why am I being sent to this school? What's so special about it?"
" Apparently your parents, before they passed on, bless their souls, entered you into this school as according to its' charming headmaster, it is something of a birthright that runs in your family."
"Do I have other family at this school?"
The old lady shuffled through some papers. "Ah. Now there's something we never knew." She looked mystified and stared at the paper in her hands for quite a while.
"What?"
"I'm afraid you do have family. A younger brother."
"And he's at this school?"
" Apparently so. The only catch is, he doesn't know you exist as you haven't been attending the same school."
"Why were we sent to different places?" she asked, confused, but also hurt.
A deep, gruff voice broke the silence from behind her. "I suppose I can explain that." He muttered. He was an old man with a tremendously long beard, and sat in a chair beside the door. Evelyn certainly hadn't noticed him when she came in. Perhaps he had slipped in unnoticed.
He stood up and took the empty chair beside her. He turned to Mrs Wilson, could we have a moment Ma'am?"
"Yes, of course sir." That was probably the first suggestion Mrs Wilson had ever agreed to, Evelyn mused.
Evelyn looked at the old man, and looked into his eyes. Pity and excitement were held in his pupils. Evelyn felt both intrigued and scared. " Who are you?" she asked in a shaky voice.
"Dear child, "he said in a voice almost friendly, a comfort to her ears, "I'm not going to harm you, don't be afraid." In a single second, her nervousness had disappeared.
"I am Professor Dumbledore of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." Evelyn shrank into her seat, but then jolted forward with a thought.
"You have got to be kidding, right?"
"There is no joke here." He exclaimed with a completely straight face.
"Oh. So, a school for magic really does exist! Like 'The Worst Witch'?"
"I suppose. Except we use wands."
"Okay, "she said, registering this new information. "So what has all this got to do with me?"
"Your brother, is a wizard. Which means you are a-"
"Witch? Just a guess." She muttered as he nodded. She looked on in wonder.
"Me, a witch? That cannot be right! Can it?"
"Has something ever happened in your life that you couldn't explain? Like a door in a school that never existed before, giving you a way to escape the bullies? Or a new layer of warmth when you were cold?"
"How did you know about the secret room?"
He tapped the side of his nose. "I have my ways."
"Okay, let me get this straight. I am a witch. I have a new found brother, who is a wizard and who I never knew existed. Moreover, you want me to go to this school? Away from here?" she asked, counting the items on her fingers like a primary child.
"Yes."
"Deal. When do we leave?"
"That was a quick answer. Do you really want to leave that much?"
"I suppose I would miss some of the younger girls. But I could write to them, right?"
"Yes. By owl."
"But I don't have an owl!"
"Well, we'll just have to get you one then."
"I don't have any money!"
"You thought your parents didn't leave you anything?"
"Well, I had a bit to last me all these years from a local bank account, set up before they died. It was as if they knew they were going to die."
"They knew a lot of things. But we should never know." Evelyn nodded in understanding.
"So what of my brother? Does he have name? Where has he been all of these years? Why was I sent to a different place?"
"At the time of your parents death, your brother was still just a baby, still feeding on breast milk. You were staying with a friend of your mothers that night. Your brother was the only survivor of the explosion that night. An infamous evil wizard killed your parents. Your brother received his revenge last year when he fought with Voldemort in a duel and won. He was sent to your aunts' house. No-one knew where you were, so you stayed with the friend, until she died of cancer five years later."
"Aunt May. I was so sad when she died. She is the only family I've ever known."
"Well, I'm sure your brother will be happy to finally meet you, though he doesn't know of you yet. Your aunt is only just telling him the truth about what she knew about your family. He was not treated as well as we had hoped while at that house. He now lives in London with his fathers' best friend, Remus Lupin. Hogwarts is like a home to your brother, since he never felt at home with his aunt and their irritating son, Dudley."
"You still haven't told me his name." She remembered.
"Ah yes." He reached into his breast pocket and fished out two photographs.
"I should explain something before you look at these. Magic photo's move. They capture a piece of someone's memory, so when you look at these photos now, the people within them will still be playing football, or waving or even, well, the strangest I've seen is someone kissing the camera. Not a very pleasant picture." He squirmed at the memory as he passed Evelyn the pictures.
He pointed to a couple waving. "Those are your parents, Lily and James, a month before their wedding." He pointed to a boy around her own age. "This is your brother, Harry, he's seventeen."
TBC....
PLEASE REVIEW!
Kirsty
