I do not own Harry Potter (written by JK Rowling). This piece of writing is fan fiction! It contains original characters and content, as well as information, content, and characters from the Harry Potter series (which, again, I do NOT own). Thank you for reading!
Chapter 1 – The Letter
Phoebe Blackridge swept back a loose strand of hair falling over her eyes. The street in front of her blurred in the heat waves of Arizona's August sun, and the toes of her bare feet curled over the edge of her home's concrete porch as she prepared to venture across the lawn to retrieve the day's mail. One foot out, and she was leaping across the dry lawn in long strides, feet barely hitting the ground as she took her next step.
To avoid scalding the bottoms of her bare feet on the steaming sidewalk, she hopped in place as she pulled the cooking letters from within the metal mailbox. It was one of many other mailboxes that lined an empty street faced by similar old stuccoed houses, each adorned by a grass-less yard and maybe a cactus. Phoebe could feel her feet getting red as she sped back toward the house. The temperature was nearing 106 degrees Fahrenheit, as the news playing on the small television in the kitchen had told her.
"Girl! The mail!" Phoebe heard from within the shadowed house as soon as she slammed the door shut behind her.
Phoebe lived with her grandmother. She had lived in Oklahoma until she was three years old. Then her parents had passed away, leaving behind nothing but a singed photo of the three smiling and wet in a turquoise-watered pool. The photo was burned around the edges and her father's face was blacked out completely, but sometimes, if she looked close enough, Phoebe could almost imagine that the bodies swayed in the pool, that the water rippled calmly behind them.
"Hurry up!" came her grandmother's voice again, and Phoebe sped into the floral kitchen. A near-sighted, nasty looking woman with gray frizzled hair was hunched over the table, squinting at a television that was now playing a late-morning talk show. "Hand 'em over," She growled, thrusting out her thick hand without turning her head. Phoebe handed over the small bundle of letters.
Phoebe had made significant progress in washing the stack of dirty dishes towering out of the kitchen sink before her grandmother looked down from the television that was lighting up the room. Her show was on a commercial break. The old woman began leafing through the letters in the agitated manner in which she did everything. "Bills! Junk!" she scoffed between one and the next. Finally she reached the last letter, a thin, faded yellow envelope.
"Now what's this?" mumbled Nana Blackridge. The comment piqued Phoebe's interest. She left the sink to look at the letter from behind the woman's round back, and the neat, green-inked writing made Phoebe's heart leap in her chest. It read:
Ms. Phoebe Blackridge
11 Magus Drive
Phoenix, Arizona
The unusual letter was sealed by red wax, half-melted from the sun so the seal pressed into it was no longer visible. The letter was not properly addressed, and there was not a postage stamp to be seen. But it had still found its way, the first letter Phoebe had received since she had been sent to the principal's office in seventh grade for taking the teacher's desk and hiding it somewhere in the school. No matter how much Phoebe had tried to explain that it had disappeared on its own, she could not argue her case. Desks did not "just disappear". Her grandmother had been furious with the notice and Phoebe had been grounded for weeks.
Nana Blackridge pulled the letter close to her scrunched face. "To Ms. Phoebe Blackridge, hmm? I don't think so!" she cackled. Phoebe's eyes widened as her grandmother tore open the letter and pulled out a piece of folded parchment. As she unfolded the letter, Phoebe caught a glimpse of the same, green lettering inside, but that was all she saw before her grandmother suddenly stood up from her seat.
"Move!" she growled, shoving Phoebe aside easily although she was at least a head shorter than her granddaughter.
"Give me the letter, Nana!" shouted Phoebe to the old woman, but Nana Blackridge had hobbled forcefully out of the room on her slippered feet, toward the sliding glass door that led into their grass-less backyard.
It was too late. As Phoebe followed her out into the fierce heat of the sun, Nana Blackridge fired up the letter with a lighter she had snatched from an inner pocket of her night dress that she kept there for her cigarettes. It curled and blackened, falling to the dry dirt ground where it disappeared completely in an orange glow.
"There! You don't need to be readin' those unimportant letters." The old woman dusted her hands and hobbled slowly back inside, leaving Phoebe in the immense heat.
Phoebe's eyes did not tear up. She was certain that Nana Blackridge had burned up letters meant for her often, although, before today, the old woman had never dared to commit the act in front of her. Phoebe only clenched her fists in fury, feeling the anger rise up in her until something quite extraordinary happened. Of course, this unusual thing did not bother Phoebe. These unexplainable things often happened when she got angry, but any normal onlooker would have been quite surprised to see several jagged rocks suddenly puncture the ground where Nana Blackridge had been standing only seconds before.
Phoebe stormed back into the house, where she locked herself into her attic bedroom over the garage. The furniture making up the room included a single bed, a desk for her school work, and a makeshift bookshelf made of stacked boxes with boards between every few of them. The rest of the narrow space was lined with boxes and trunks of her grandmother's and her parents' old things.
Phoebe had gone through the things in the attic so often that there was nothing really to look at that would spark her attention. It was summer vacation, but the heat was too overbearing for her to leave the house. There was nothing to do in her room, but she refused to go downstairs for the rest of the day. She knew she could not stand seeing that despicable woman again until her rage had subsided. She reached under her bed and pulled her singed family photo from a wooden box beneath her wire bed, and stared at it until the night fell and she had calmed down.
A necessity for food drove Phoebe back down into the shadowy house, where she stopped before entering the kitchen. The small television in the kitchen was turned off. Nana Blackridge was mumbling furiously into the phone. Phoebe put her ear to the door in order to hear better.
"Y'all told me that no one would hear about what happened!" There was a pause, and then, "no, you listen to me. You will not be taking her away! She does not need to be educated, or whatever it is y'all think you're doing. You know perfectly well that I know what kind of heresy you practice, and I will not have her soul tarnished any more than it already is..."
Phoebe's grandmother fell silent for a long time. She heard the warbling of a furiously talking voice coming from the telephone. Finally, Nana Blackridge gave a long, growl-like sigh. "The answer will always be no. No matter what you devils ask!" The phone was slammed down hard on the receiver. Phoebe wouldn't have been surprised if it had broken.
She backed down the hall quickly when she heard Nana Blackridge shuffle toward the kitchen door. From the shadowed end of the hall, Phoebe saw her grandmother disappear into the living room, and waited for the sound of her bedroom door closing before she slipped into the flowered kitchen.
Phoebe's head buzzed with curiosity. Her heart beat in her throat as she rummaged absentmindedly through the old, yellowed fridge for something she could take up to her room. Who had Nana been talking to, about me being dangerous? Whoever they had been, she had called them devils! Phoebe had never heard her grandmother speak about her to anyone. The woman was a strictly conservative, and held her own taboos about her granddaughter. One of them included an unspoken vow of silence about the girl to anyone, a fact that Phoebe had long ago ceased to question. It somehow felt right that devils were trying to take her—her grandmother was already assured that they had claimed her parents that cursed winter fifteen years ago.
Phoebe took a strawberry yogurt cup from the fridge and a cereal bar from the pantry up to her room, finished them off hungrily, and fell asleep still mulling over what she had heard that night.
Phoebe woke up from the depths of a hazy dream to a thumping and scratching coming from the one, round window to her attic bedroom. She rolled out of her bed, still dressed in the shorts and tank top from the day before. She pulled her blonde hair back into the messy ponytail it had fallen out of in the night as she made her way to the window.
Phoebe gasped as an incomprehensible black shadow thumped against the foggy, grime-covered glass. She waited, and again, it thumped against the glass as if whatever it was trying to find its way inside.
She made up her mind after another second of hesitation. Phoebe reached out with a shaking hand, and undid the rusty latch that held the window shut. As the shadow thumped against the glass for the third time, the window burst open, and a large, gray, feathery ball rolled through the air into the room and landed with a soft thud on her bed. The room was instantly lit by blindingly bright sunlight and scalding air wafted in through the gaping hole. Phoebe closed up the window and turned to her bed. On it, preening itself under its massive soot-colored wing was an owl, a rolled-up letter tied to its taloned foot with a long strip of twine.
Phoebe blinked. She could not believe what she was seeing. Could the owl be delivering a message to her? It had seemed insistent on getting inside her bedroom. How had it known exactly which window to try? The owl's head swiveled toward her, and its massive amber eyes blinked lazily.
Phoebe inched forward slowly, half-filled with excitement, half with fear. She was now standing right in front of the creature, expecting it to attack at any moment. But it continued to sit placidly on her quilted bedspread, watching Phoebe with disinterest.
Finally, Phoebe plucked up the courage to reach for the letter attached to the owl's leg. As if it knew exactly what to do, the owl stretched up it's foot, unblinking, and allowed her to untie the rolled up parchment. Then, the owl reached forward and nipped her gently on the finger. A sudden thought occurred to Phoebe; the poor thing must be parched!
A half-drunken cup of water from yesterday's late-night dinner stood on her bedside table. She picked it up quickly, poured it into a shallow chocolate tin that had been finished off weeks before, and placed it on the floor next to her bed. The owl gave a soft hoot of gratitude and alighted from the bed, lapping up the water eagerly.
Phoebe turned to her bed, still in shock from the creature's appearance, and looked at the back of the letter which she had unrolled. The envelope sealed by red wax was addressed to her in the same improper way in green ink, without postage stamps, but this time with a slight difference.
Ms. Phoebe Blackridge
The Bedroom in the Attic
Phoenix, Arizona
What strange, unimaginable luck, thought Phoebe with delight. Nana can't take this from me now!
Phoebe tore open the letter unceremoniously, finding two sheets of folded parchment. She opened the first, and began to read the same green-inked lettering that she had glimpsed at breakfast the day before.
HOGWARTS SCHOOL
of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
Headmistress: Minerva McGonagall
She read, and her eyes widened. Could this be some sort of joke? But no, it can't be, she thought, her mind racing with excitement. Why go through the trouble of sending it again? And addressed specifically to my bedroom! And there had to have been a reason for all those unexplainable things that had happened around her lifetime—a bush that had burst into flames near her when she had been bullied, her teacher's desk disappearing in middle school, and even yesterday, the jagged rocks that had struck the earth in her backyard.
Phoebe continued reading, resisting the urge to read faster and faster in order to get to the very end of this special letter. She wanted to take in every word.
Dear Ms. Blackridge,
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 September 1st.
As you have most likely heard, students usually begin wizard schooling at the age of 11. However, as your lack of proper schooling in America became evident to the British Ministry of Magic, they have made the decision to accept you into Hogwarts on the grounds that you have been denied access to any American wizarding schools. Please consider this a great privilege. This exception has never been made in the history of Hogwarts.
A schedule has been drafted for you with the aid of the Ministry so that you will be in both first-year and upper-level courses, so as not to seclude you from students of your age. Although your age is that of a student who has already graduated, you will officially be considered a first-year student. Due to the circumstances at Hogwarts in the prior year, there will be several students your age who have returned to finish their final year at Hogwarts.
As the terms of your acceptance are exceedingly rare, a Ministry official and a member of the Hogwarts staff will arrive at your home on August 28th at noon to transport you to Britain. There they will assist you in purchasing your school supplies and with getting situated on the train to Hogwarts.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Headmistress
The second piece of parchment contained a type-lettered list of supplies, which she read eagerly.
PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS. (That goes for you, too!)
The last words were too much to handle. "Broomsticks!" she gasped.
Phoebe leaped off her bed in excitement, and the owl lapping water from the emptied chocolate tin gave a startled hoot. She began to pace the room, filled with a mix of emotions that forced her to use all of her might not to scream out loud.
It was August the 24th! These people would be showing up in three short days! And she would be free! Free of Nana Blackridge's dark, old house. Free of the community college she dreaded attending after the summer! And most importantly, free of the terrible memories she associated with the city of Phoenix. Of her parents' deaths in that all-consuming fire she could barely remember.
A sudden thought emerged at the back of Phoebe's head. How would she pay for all of these supplies? The thought was like an ice-cold slap to the face, and she slumped back onto her bed. The owl was lapping water happily, not bothered by her agitated feet swinging over the sides of her bed.
"It will be embarrassing," she mumbled out loud. "I'll have to ask one of those... those..." and a shiver ran down her spine at the thought, "wizards, for money. There's no way Nana'll pay for this." And Phoebe remembered her grandmother angrily burning the letter in the yard, and the over-heard phone call. She didn't want her to go. She would not let her leave.
But apparently I'm a, a wizard... thought Phoebe, and she found herself smiling. I belong with these people. Not here in this rotten house!
At that moment, she became unconcerned with anything but re-reading the letter, the list of supplies, and puzzling over every sentence of the headmistress's words. There was more than she could imagine that was still unanswered, but Phoebe was determined. She was getting out of here. Her life would soon become meaningful.