Disclaimer: all references to the Harry Potter series are the property of JK Rowling. And also I do reference gypsies in my story. I am so sorry if I offend anyone, and any corrections on the history or culture of the Romany gypsies is appreciated. Thank you and I hope you enjoy!

I groaned still half asleep. Someone was poking me. Wait... No pecking at me. "What the...! Ew get off of me!" The familiar white barn owl that had been making its nest in the ceiling of our theatre flapped it's wings and moved to perch on a fraying velvet chair a couple of feet away from me. But before doing so, he dropped a yellowed envelope on my chest. "How peculiar," I said to myself, "who would write to me? Practically no one even knows I exist." Holding it up to the light leaking in from the holes that speckled the boarded wall, it read:

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 Miss Aloisia Odam,

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 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

On the second page, a list of supplies were included. Finally, I thought, the letter that the clan was talking about. I mean I knew that they talked about a school for magic existing, but I never actually thought I would be attending it, especially because they kept me on a ridiculously short leash all of those years. I sighed, once more relieved of my decision to leave the gypsy family to wander the streets on my own, the plan has turned out to be better than I thought.

Sitting up, I looked around. Dawn. All of the other kids were still asleep. Tents, makeshift lofts, and sleeping bags with stands of dirty hair poking through the top were strewn about the whole building. We were the street kids. The ones who ran, the ones who escaped. All 40 of us lived here, ages ranging from 6 to 19. I was 11, no 12 actually just turned today (June 7). It wasn't a glittering palace, but it was something we could call home. Most of us begged on the street, others pick pocketed, and some of us had trades, like myself. I read people's fortunes. Yes, the infamous palm and tarot card reading, a skill I picked up while still traveling with the Romany gypsies.

But it isn't all of the hocus pocus that most other fortune tellers perform. I could swear I see their futures. I mean you can't tell from the outside. It isn't anything grand like what happens during seance, but I can tell its something. I just get this feeling. Like when I see the cards or their palm, I'm having deja vu. Like I'm remembering a dream I've had the night before. And this morning, this would-have-been-regular-London-foggy morning, the letter proved my suspicions. I was a witch. I indeed had magical blood running through my veins. Even my snot was magical.

Suddenly, the world seemed as if everything had a yellow tinge to it. A good yellow tinge. The kind that is produced when the sun is out and the light mixes with the atmosphere. The kind that comes with the feeling of elatedness. Everything looked beautiful today. Even as I looked into the cracked mirror propped up against my only wall, my grimy self looked kind of pretty today, strike that, approaching pretty. My mousy brown colored hair, became lustrous. My pale skin no longer looked sallow but rosy and milky, and my eyes went from a moody shade of teal to a crisp blue-green.

I slapped myself. This. Slap. Is Only. Slap. A Dream. Slap. I shut my eyes close as hard as I could till the pink back of my eyelids turned as black as a moonless night. I opened them, blinking till my sight changed from blurry to normal. Nope. Not a dream. This is real, and I Aloisia Eleutheria Odam, at last, can turn this nightmare of a life on its toes... Ow my cheek.

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The next two months flew by fast. All I did was work. It was a summer of odd-jobs: a table busing, dish washing, lawn mowing, magazine selling summer. I promise I didn't pick-pocket. Okay maybe once or twice. Stop looking at me like that. I'm a gypsy okay? Its in my nature. I'm a street urchin and I need those Hogwarts supplies. The owl that nested near me had also become increasingly friendly. I think he likes me, so I've decided to take him as my pet to Hogwarts. I've given him a name to: Galileo.

It was July 30th. Just two days till the school year starts and the last day I could buy school supplies from Diagon Alley. Yes I know about Diagon Alley. Before I knew that I was a witch and when I was still with the family, me and the older gypsies would travel here to pick up certain ingredients that you couldn't find in an ordinary market. Ah Drats, I thought. The one place where I could run into a gypsy is the one place I have to go in order to get away from them.

I walked down to the middle of London and stopped at an alleyway sitting between a cheery cafe. The grossly familiar alleyway glared back at me, the shadows taunting me, daring me to turn my back and walk away. Challenge accepted. With my head held high, but not too high as to let my hood slip from my head, I walked to the end and I stopped at the towering brick wall at the back. Standing in front of it with closed eyes I chanted breathily "lapideas ut aquae" three times. Slowly the brick wall liquified, and a small section from the middle rained onto the ground to reveal an archway. Cautiously... I stepped over the threshold of the portal and into the new alleyway.