If one house on Gardam Street had to be chosen as a building which was home to witches and wizards, it would have to be the Penderwicks'. The structure itself wasn't very peculiar. The old house was large and comfy, painted a pale olive-green color and finished with sweet white shutters and a swing set in the front lawn. The grass in their yard was wild but not overgrown, and one could find clovers and dandelions there aplenty. By the front door was a wide arrangement of flowers-from a dripping silver moonlight white rose to a golden yellow daffodil that shone like the sun. No, the house was nothing out of the ordinary. And the pets weren't either-although the great black dog sometimes did make a ruckus and one neighbor swore they saw an owl flying out of a window once.

It was the people, really, that did it. First was Mr. Penderwick. Despite the fact he was a professor of botany at the nearby university, he seemed unable to form a coherent thought before moving on to something unintelligible. Half the time he acted like he was some sort of sleepwalker who had opened his eyes-his words made about as much sense. Once, while Mrs. Finch was passing the house to go to the summer farmers' market, she heard him muttering belligerently from behind a newspaper about some "purebloods" and "muggles" and how the whole business needed to be sorted out by "the Ministry" "immediately". Mrs. Finch said that maybe the heat of the day had made her a bit delirious though, after all, she also said she saw one of the pictures on the newspaper move.
Even if you didn't count Mr. Penderwick, there was still something odd about the family. The wife had died five years earlier from some freak illness. None of the neighbors knew what it was or how it happened. All they knew was that a few weeks earlier the pregnant woman had been escorted out of the house and into a van-and then one Sunday morning the newest child was born and she was gone forever. Despite the strangeness of it all, they kept their questions to themselves. Mr. Penderwick was visibly distraught and the whole neighborhood came together for the family, offering enough homemade casseroles and flower bouquets and handwritten notes to fill a cruise ship. But they received no explanation.

Rosalind Penderwick, the oldest child of the family at thirteen, was also the most normal. Neighbors referred to her as "the respectable one," and for good reason. She was always seen helping her three younger sisters-whether it was by kissing their scrapes when they fell or lecturing them when they did something a little less savory. A lot of neighbors thought that maybe she had grown up too fast considering the circumstances-taking up a mother's role in the family. But she was always polite, well-mannered, and with good intentions, so most simply tried to reduce her workload whenever it was possible and shoot her sympathetic looks every now and again.
After Rosalind was Skye Penderwick, and at twelve, she was quite the opposite of her older sister. Not just in looks, although her golden locks and laser blue eyes sure did stand out against the rest of her family's sea of brown-in personality as well. She was always doing something. Sometimes it was something dangerous, like climbing up the tallest tree in the neighborhood at age seven, and other times it was just plain weird. Once, Lily Tamer said she found Skye waving some sticks around in the air with fire coming out the ends of them. Whenever Skye's name was mentioned in conversation, it was always followed by a "you know, the troublemaker".
Following Skye was Jane, who had just recently turned eleven. Jane was a sweet girl, but she took after her father in her wild talk. She was always with a notebook and rambling about magical beasts and poisons and romances. She would strike up a conversation with anyone who showed the slightest bit of interest on a variety of topics-ranging from Animagi (according to her, people who could turn into animals at will) to Divination (a way to tell the future). She sure did have her head up in the clouds, but she was considered harmless by the community.
The last Penderwick was Batty, that strange baby who had been delivered on her mother's deathbed five years earlier. She was young and yet she already seemed to have inherited her family's penchant for oddity. She was always with the family dog-they called him Hound, a normal enough name-and seemed to think he could talk to her. She also was never seen without tacky plastic butterfly wings on her back and whenever someone so much as looked at her, she hid behind whatever big object was nearest.

She was an odd one, yes, but still, not odd enough to warrant investigation or concern. And that was true with the whole family-they were peculiar, but mostly the neighborhood ignored them. After all, once the kids turned eleven they were sent to a boarding school in Ireland for the year, so it wasn't like they were around often enough to really bother anyone anyways. In all, the neighbors found them delightfully quirky and eccentric and pushed their more strange moments to the back of their minds.

"Jane, have you packed all your things?" Rosalind called as she poked her head into the bedroom shared by her two younger sisters. There was quite a split down the middle.

On Skye's side, it almost looked like a new sheet of notebook paper ripped from its rings-it was neat and almost perfectly white, with crisp straight lines and order upheld. The only bits of decoration were Skye's Holyhead Harpies poster and her pegboard with notes on Arithmancy and charts of the night sky. The almost second year rolled her eyes at Rosy from her seat at the end of the bed, her hands easily swinging her wand back and forth between her fingertips-it was a habit of hers when she was bored.

On Jane's side of the room, it was chaos. The walls had been painted lavender at her request, but they were barely visible-covered by the thousands of paintings and doodles and ripped out newspaper articles she had collected over the years. The floor had become a trash pile. It was littered with self-brushing hairbrushes that had lost their charms and Chocolate Frog wrappers that were kicked under the dresser in an unsuccessful attempt to hide them. And oh, that dresser. It was a neat freaks' nightmare; filled to the brim with old toys that Jane couldn't bear to throw away. The stockpile had a wide variety, ranging from the Faery Princess Dolls that couldn't fly anymore but still at weird moments burst into song to the miniature dragon figurines that sneezed fire when the dust around them grew too thick.

"Oh Rosy, thank Merlin you're here!" Jane cried. "I just can't choose which 'Sabrina Starr: The Teenage Witch' books to bring! I mean, I wrote them with my own two hands-to choose one over the other would be a betrayal to my soul, to my blood! How am I supposed to pick? And not to mention the fact that I need to bring my old favorite stories-Lizzie & the Chimera is a classic! Oh Rosy, won't you help me?"

Jane reached out to give her sister a dramatically loving hug, but her arm missed and swung into a draped silver cage.

"Oh!" Jane perked up. "I almost forgot that I have to bring Aristotle as well!"

She rushed to tear off the covering. Rosalind and Mr. Penderwick had bought her an owl while they were shopping for school supplies in Diagon Alley. They had decided to name him after a muggle philosopher because of the old superstition that owls were wise, and the name seemed to fit. The plain brown bird inside the cage gave Jane a condescending look like he was too intelligent to deal with her problems and began instead to preen his feathers.

"Isn't he handsome?" asked Jane. "I know Daddy said we shouldn't let him out until we're at Hogwarts because we don't want to raise suspicion, but I couldn't help myself. A few nights ago, I set him free for a little kip. I mean, its torture to keep him locked up like this! Anyway, he and I are going to be best friends when we get to school."

"Truthfully, he looks like he doesn't give a hoot about you," Skye said.

"Did you really just make a pun?" Rosalind said. A smile tugged at her lips.

"Who, me?" Skye said, and promptly burst out laughing.

"I guess the old saying is true, don't count your chickens before they hatch. I mean look at this egg," Jane said, gesturing to Skye, "she's quacked already!"

The two dissolved into giggles and continued with their pun game ("Time really flies when you're having fun, doesn't it?") as Rosalind dutifully organized Jane's trolley of school supplies.

"I guess it's true what they say," Rosalind said as she ran her fingers down a book spine, "birds of a feather really do flock together."

An hour later and the party arrived at Kings' Cross Station. Rosalind was getting back into the feel of things a little. Whenever they crossed over onto Platform 9 ¾ she always felt briefly out of the loop-the Wizarding World had continued to develop without her in it over the summer (Mr. Penderwick rarely got the Daily Prophet or listened to Wizarding Radio-they were almost like muggles over those few months). She saw now that some new things were in style-she spotted tiny charms wrapped delicately around people's wands and lipsticks that changed color every thirty seconds or so. She would have to ask Anna about everything when they got on the Hogwarts Express.

"Ey, Rosy!" a brash voice called over the din, and Rosalind looked up to see the face of Tommy Geiger, the Gryffindor boy she had helped study Transfiguration last year.

She felt her cheeks warm and against her will she broke into a smile. What was wrong with her? She gave herself a small slap to get back to her senses. Tommy was her friend, she had to stop acting like someone with some school girl crush.

"We've saved a spot for you!" Anna called through the train compartment window.

"That is-if your Ravenclaw genius can stand to be with us Gryffindor jocks!" Tommy teased and she laughed.

"I'm coming!" Rosalind said, and turned to find her family to say goodbye.

Instead, she came upon Skye and Jane in a tense discussion.

"Jane, trust me, you want to be in Gryffindor. Ravenclaw is for the weirdos-excluding Rosalind, of course. The Gryffindors are where it's at. We have enough adventures for five Sabrina book series. And don't get me started on the Hufflepuffs. Anyone who's in Hufflepuff is either a leftover or just the type of sappy do-gooder innocent that I hate. I'm not even going to mention the Slytherins. I mean, they're ambitious, yes, but they lie and cheat to get what they want. I'd rather be a lowly Gryffindor than a successful Slytherin. We're honorable."

"This pep talk definitely isn't biased," Jane said.

"Of course not!" Skye said, mock offended.

In truth, she was literally decked out in Gryffindor colors-all burgundy red and gold. When she had come as a naïve first year last year, she had wanted desperately to be in Ravenclaw. Not just to be with Rosalind, but also because she wanted to prove to people that she was smart-so many people assumed that she could barely whip a word out because of her looks. Yes, she was a traditional beauty-all blue eyes and blonde hair, but she wanted to be taken seriously.
Now, as a second year, she was glad the Sorting Hat had chosen her to be in Gryffindor. She couldn't have survived being in Ravenclaw. Despite its reputation for being "the smart house", its main goal was to encourage people to try new things, broaden people's perspectives-not to show off their smarts or knowledge. Skye didn't think she could last a week of all that. Besides, she heard a rumor that they had to answer riddles to get into their common rooms-Skye couldn't imagine how frustrating that would be. Imagine if you were late to class and you needed to grab something from your dormitory room! Rosalind was much better suited-she loved learning about other people's passions and enjoyed solving riddles and logic problems (probably because she had gotten used to dealing with her sisters' issues over the years).

"Don't mess with her head," Rosalind said, cutting through Skye's thoughts, "whatever house you get into will be fine."

"Thanks, Rosy," said Jane.

"I'm gonna miss you, Rosy!" said Batty, coming up from behind the sisters.

"And I, as well," said Mr. Penderwick, gazing fondly at his girls and readjusting his glasses. "Batty and I will have to manage without you three."

"Oh! Daddy!" said Jane and threw her arms around him in a hug. Skye and Rosalind and Batty found themselves pulled into it as well, and there they stayed, in a throng of warm skin and tight grasps and unsaid goodbyes. When they finally separated, Skye went over to talk to Batty while the others talked.

"I'm gonna miss you, squirt," said Skye, crouching down to get on her younger sister's level.

"Are you sad?" asked Batty.

"No, of course not, why?" said Skye.

"Because it's raining from your eyes," said Batty matter-of-factly.

Skye touched her face and marveled at the fact that, yes, she was, in fact, crying. She never cried.

"It's just sweat," she said, wiping it away.

"Don't worry Skye, I'll sweat for you too," said Batty.

"I'll send you a picture of one of the animals in my Care for Magical Creatures class," Skye said, "and I'll see you on Christmas break."

"Already talking about presents?" Mr. Penderwick asked, coming on to the group.

"No," said Skye resolutely, but maybe she had been thinking of that new broomstick that she had heard could out fly a Hungarian Horntail.

"Of course not," he chuckled, "Rosy says the express is leaving soon, so you guys best get going quick."

"Goodbye, Skye!" said Batty.

"Goodbye!" Skye said.

And she and Rosalind and Jane raced onboard the Hogwarts Express as the steam started to blow and the wheels started to clack and the train started to move.

And there Batty and Mr. Penderwick stood, waving dutifully on Platform 9 ¾ .

Author's Note: Hello everybody who's come upon this story! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I'd love to get feedback on it-so please, comment any questions or critiques you may have! I plan on updating about a chapter every week, although I can't promise that they all will be as long as this one is. And yes, there will eventually by some Skyffery, don't worry hahaha. I got the Hogwarts Houses by taking the Sorting Hat Quiz on Pottermore acting like the characters. I hope you find them accurate! Here's a little list of the characteristics so far:

Rosalind Penderwick-
Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw
Ilvermorny House: Horned Serpent
Wand: Laurel wood with a unicorn hair core, 13 ¾" and quite bendy flexibility
Patronus: Dolphin

Skye Penderwick-
Hogwarts House: Gryffindor
Ilvermorny House: Pukwudgie
Wand: Alder wood with a unicorn hair core, 10" and unyielding flexibility
Patronus: Polecat

Jane Penderwick-
Wand: Cypress wood with a phoenix feather core, 10 ¾" and surprisingly swishy flexibility

Next chapter you will meet Jeffery, and Jane will get Sorted. Comment what house you think Jeffery will get!

-ladybirden

P.S. sorry about all the puns, I just couldn't help myself!