Wandering Waifs: Chapter One
Dear Fanficers and other people too
For your enjoyment I give a Fred/oc fic to you
Please read and give feedback, this took some effort don't you know
So now I must proclaim I have no ownership to show
I do not own harry potter, books and characters like Professor Snape
Nor do I make any profit for writing about things like spell-o-tape
So please, for your great pleasure, from wherever you may hail
Please do enjoy the below well and treasured tale
Dear Daughter,
How strange it is, writing those words. By the time you are reading this my life will have been ended. There are so few, and so many things I must write here, and the time I have found in which to write this is lost to me. My name is Abigail, Abigail Hunter. I was raised first in an orphanage as you may have been for a time, and then by a family of muggles. I am sorry I cannot tell you more of your family from before then, but that is all I know. Now you know who I am. Maybe you wonder about what I looked like, or maybe you already know that I am the woman pictured in your locket; I am not sure which I would prefer.
The man beside me is your father, or him as he looked when we married. Yes, we were married, you were a child born to a family, and you are not unloved. I loved you, well, we both did, but circumstances would never have allowed for your father to raise you, and for that, I am sorry. So, I suppose that is a good way to begin a letter to the daughter I shall never know. Your father doesn't know I'm writing this, after I die he may cease to know you exist. That is all I can tell you about myself, maybe one day you can find your father and he can tell you of himself. Now, my priority of this letter is to tell you of our love, and how you ended up where you are. Please, I beg of you, dear daughter, to read this letter and to accept the name of the man who helped in your creation. Please, read on, and please, as I will ask again and again, forgive me.
All stories have beginnings do they not, and ours did as well. After an impromptu adoption I was removed from the orphanage where I lived my life as a child. I grew up on the same street as your father, but we did not meet till nine years after I first took up residence in the house. The people who raised me were a kind old couple who passed gracefully years before this letter was written. I met your father at the train station on the way to Hogwarts, the school you are or someday will attend. If you go to the twelfth compartment on the left of the seventh car, you might invision us sitting there.
On the day I met your father, I met my two best friends, him, and the red head who broke his heart, and whose son will eventually lead to the death of he who shall not be named. On that same train ride, we met your father's future tormentors, and future allies. I rode in a boat across the lake as you will or have and stood in line with all the other first years. I was sorted into Ravenclaw, your father was sorted into Slytherin, and the red head whose name is Lily and your father's tormentors who would later name themselves the Marauders were sorted into Gryffindor.
I spent my school years in relative peace at Hogwarts with Lily and your father, and my Summers with my adoptive parents and Lily and your father in equal peace. I was relatively invisible, noticeable only for getting your father out of scrapes from time to time. Everything changed in fifth year. Your father and I had been as close as ever, but Lily had been drifting away, even so, a part of your father loved her. Then, he got in a fight with her because of the Marauders, one of which Lily eventually married, a boy named James Potter. After that, Lily never spoke to your father again.
Through the years I was always there for your father, and everything seemed to come to a head in sixth year, for us at least. I was tired of him bemoaning Lily, and at long last I said so; or more exploded at him for it. In that combustion of anger and hurt and resentment I managed to blurt out my feelings for him, and in the confusion and passion of the moment he did the one thing I'd been waiting for since I realized my feeling for him. He kissed me, and I kissed back, and from then on I was happy.
Things from there on were a lot simpler and incredibly more difficult. The difficult bit was the world around us, death, chaos, war; you will probably know of what happened then by now. For your father and I's relationship, things couldn't have been better. We were in love so, a year after we left school we married. In the following years, things became more hectic, your father became a member of the death eaters, and I joined the order, and so, we were on opposite sides of an all encompassing divide. That is why he does not know of you. I will be dead long before he sees me again, my gravestone that is, but when he finds out, I am sure he will love you.
Now, as I have been trying to write throughout this letter, and that I have been erasing every time I try to write "your father" in this letter, I will tell you his name. His name is Severus. That is all I can tell you, besides that I love you very much. Remember to live, to love, and to laugh. I did, and though I don't want you to end as I will, I still want you to find your own Severus and find out for yourself what Dumbledore is always saying, how love is stronger than anything else. Live for me my beautiful daughter, and forgive me, I wish I could be with you now.
LOVE DEARLY,
Your Mother
I have had this letter since my sixth birthday, the first day I discovered my ability to perform magic. I had always been an odd child; quiet, introverted, more so than was usual even for a child who had once resided in an orphanage. I suppose it was in part the fact that I knew how lucky I was that led to my oddness.
It had been my birthday for a few mere hours when it happened. I was sitting under the tree in my backyard thinking, a newly finished book hanging limply in my hand when the neighbor's cat startled me. She had just jumped down from the tree right in front of me and, when I jumped startled from my reverie. I did not come down.
I found myself floating there, I let go of my book and, instead of doing as the laws of gravity dictates, merely remained there, suspended. I was terrified. Barely resisting the urge to scream I simply did what I was so accustomed to. I waited. Slowly, ever so slowly, I floated back down to the ground. Then, in a flash, quite literally, the note appeared. I held it in my hands for the first time and barely registered the weight of it that now seems a part of me.
I read it, confused, barely able to grasp anything but a childlike want for a parent, for my parents. But, then it was over, I folded up the note neatly and, upon opening my locket managed to fit it inside. Closing the locket I closed also the eyes of the two portraits painted in miniature upon the sides.
Every birthday since, I have read the note and wondered. The elderly woman who adopted me, a nice lady named Elaine, has no idea. And every birthday had been the same, until this one.
I had only moments before closed up the locket once more when there was a knock at the door. Upon answering it, a highly petite man entered. He extended his hand and introduced himself.
"Hello, I am Professor Filius Flitwick and I am here to see a young woman by the name of Elizabeth and her guardian Elenora Richter". I shook the proffered hand, saw Elenora come down the stairs, and introduced myself.
"Nice to meet you Professor, I'm Elizabeth, and this is Elenora" and gestured to my kindly guardian. She too introduced herself, and then moved to dismiss me. I lingered in the doorway and missed most of what the two adults were discussing.
A good while later, I was summoned once again, and Professor Flitwick began to explain to me what was going on. "Miss Hunter, you have been invited to attend Hogwarts, a School for the gifted."
With a quick glance at my guardian from Flitwick, Elenora exited the room, leaving me alone. In a rather conspiratorial tone, Flitwick continued "Hogwarts is a school for rather special people, Miss Hunter"
"Like me" I asked, wondering if, somehow, this short man knew of my secrets, and that maybe I would finally find an answer to my loneliness.
"Yes, just like you, witches and wizards" he replied a smile crossing his minute features. "How would you know if I was or not" I asked, feeling far too curious for my own good.
"Well, for one, your mother and, likely your father were witches and wizards and we've also kept tabs on whether or not you've tapped into your magical resources, you have" he answered quite calmly.
I nodded my head and asked quietly in a voice barely louder than a whisper "can I go". In reply Flitwick grinned widely and exclaimed "of course, though we will have to get you an escort to Diagon Alley to get your school supplies."
Calling Elenora back into the room he took his leave with the words "A faculty member will arrive to escort you to Diagon Alley in twelve days time. Seven days after that you will need to arrive at King's Cross Station to take the train to Hogwarts; I look forward to teaching you there."
After that, the rest of the day seemed rather dull and passed slowly. That night I sat in my bed and opened my locket, staring at the minute pictures of my parents before falling asleep.
Twelve Days Later:
I awoke to the smells of Elenora's tea and biscuits and threw my clothes on excitedly, ready to see if Professor Flitwick had been just a dream. I ate breakfast, made my bed, and readied a bag to take with me. Then, I plopped down with a book and waited.
On the last stroke of noon, a knock came at the door. Upon the door being opened by Elenora I found myself face to face with a tall, elegant, bespectacled older woman, Professor McGonagall. With a severe nod of her head at Elenora, she all but swirled me away in her cloaks, her expression softening when she got a look at my admittedly fragile figure.
She side-along apparated me, an experience I can liken only to being shoved unceremoniously through a tire located somewhere without air, and then we were in Diagon Alley. To say I was awe-struck was an understatement; I still don't know how I managed to close my mouth.
We withdrew money from my mother's vault in Gringott's, visited Flourish and Blotts to retrieve my school books, went to the apothecary to collect some basic supplies, and went to Madame Malkin's to buy robes.
Our last stop was to a place called Olivander's, we were there to retrieve my wand. Upon entering, the entire feel of the place seemed to rush upon me as if a sudden wind.
From the back of the shop appeared Mr. Olivander himself. He seemed deep in thought and looked puzzled to see Professor McGonagall but his facial features twisted upward into a rather curious smile upon seeing me.
Instead of asking why we were here he climbed his ladder and pulled down a box. Removing the object inside he then handed it to me proclaiming "Oak, thirteen inches, core of manticore horn, rather bouncy, good for charms; go on, give it a swish"
Upon doing just that, the window behind the Professor shattered rather violently and Olivander quickly reclaimed the wand. Removing another from the shelf he again handed the wand to me, more cautiously this time, exclaiming "Cherry, ten inches, veela hair core, and good for defense spells, slightly springy; let's try this again."
Another swish later and the wand was again taken from me and the vase near his head was repaired. Olivander seemed to size me up once more and after a loud "hmmm", he went to a higher, dustier shelf to remove a wand.
Gently, he offered the wand to me, and, without another word between us, I took it, and the feeling afterwards, well, it couldn't be put into words. Smiling serenely, Olivander proclaimed "willow wood, nine inches, dragon tear core, good for healing, deceptively springy"
After paying him for my wand I left the shop with his parting words ringing behind me "good luck with them". I was then returned to my home left with only seven days before I would ride the Hogwarts Express.
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