DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Harry Potter series, though I wish I did.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Alex isn't named after the Alex from Wizards of Waverly Place. Just thought I'd make that clear. Anyway, enjoy the story.

There are several types of people in the world. There are the ordinary types, who go about their day-to-day business without looking beyond their front doorstep. There are the visionaries, who try to envision the whole world even as they try to change it. There are the eccentric types, who spend time on one pursuit or many, often unusual. They are often the unexpected philosophers among us, always looking for a new perspective.

Then there are the decidedly not normal types. They are the ones with certain unique abilities. And, according to the aforementioned definition, Alexandria Granger was decidedly not normal.

Alexandria, or Alex, as she preferred to be called, had grown up in a small town. She was the kind who always had her nose in the book, and she definitely had the personality of a firstborn child. Those who knew her would have called her a bit bossy, or a smart-alec (well, smart-Alex), or a nerd. Everyone did-except for her very best friend, a clumsy little girl with bright pink, spiky hair whose name was Nymphadora Tonks. Tonks, as she preferred to be called, was looked upon with great suspicion by Mr. and Mrs. Granger, who only allowed her to associate with Alex because they approved of Mr. and Mrs. Tonks.

But then things started to change.

One day, when Alex was about eight years old, she was playing in the backyard with Tonks. They were climbing a tree and had almost reached the top when, quite suddenly, Alex slipped and fell. Mrs. Granger had seen this happening from the kitchen window but, being inside, had been powerless to stop it. She had shrieked in horror, and then terror, as Alex had seemed to slow in her descent and float quite gently to the ground, landing on her feet.

Naturally Mrs. Granger had sworn the two girls to secrecy. She didn't want word of the bizarre event getting out; it could ruin the Grangers' dental practice. They all soon got over their excitement as Alex's younger sister managed to successfully learn to read at her young age of two.

For the next few years, Alex noticed that the Tree Incident (for so she and Tonks called it in secret) was not the only odd occurence regarding an out-of-the-ordinary ability she noticed. Both she and Tonks seemed to be able to do things beyond the scope of normal human understanding. For example, Tonks could change her hair color and facial features at will, and both girls found themselves causing more and more chaos around the Grangers' house.

Finally, Tonks' parents appeared on the doorstep, after a particularly disastrous afternoon in which Alex and Tonks had succeeded in re-raising a flattened cake, pulling up a rather large tree in the backyard of the Tonks' house by the roots, and teaching Tonks' cat Puppy (for so the girl had named it) to walk on its hind legs and somehow causing it to leap onto the counter and upset the cake frosting. Alex had come home protesting that she hadn't done anything wrong, that she wasn't sure why the tree had come crashing down, or how they'd made the cat listen to them. (She wasn't quite as upset about the cake.) Mr. and Mrs. Tonks had sat the girl and her parents down in the living room and explained everything to them.

They informed the Grangers that Alex was a witch.

Naturally Mr. and Mrs. Granger were confused until Mrs. Tonks explained that there exists a magical gene which is sometimes passed down from generation to generation of Muggles (or non-magic people) until it is bestowed upon the extremely lucky child of a seemingly non-magical family. She told them about how Alex seemed to have inherited this gene. And then she surprised them all by saying that her entire family-she, Mr. Tonks, and their daughter, were also magical.

"Isn't it wonderful?" she had exclaimed. "The girls will be going to Hogwarts together!"

Of course, she then had to explain Hogwarts to the two bewildered Granger parents.

Alex was only half-listening to the conversation. She was struggling to grasp the implications of this revelation. I'm a witch. I can do magic. I'm not normal. I knew it!

When Alex turned eleven, she was greeted by the sight of a large-eyed owl sitting on her bedroom windowsill, a fat letter in its beak. With shaking hands she took the letter, and broke the wax seal on the back.

The letter told her that she had been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Only a few short weeks later, she was on a train, dressed in black robes, waving out at her parents and her younger sister. She was clutching a birdcage in her hand which contained a beautiful brown owl (which she had named Aristides). Tonks sat across from her, wearing a sweatshirt from her favorite rock band, her hair bright pink as usual, and petting Puppy, who was sitting on her lap.

Alex grinned at Tonks. Tonks grinned back. Their lives were about to change.