Prelude~ A Horrible Start To The Summer

One would imagine that life for Riley Warring, the girl that had helped Harry Potter or the Boy Who Lived keep the Sorcerer's Stone out of the clutches of Voldemort would be better over the summer. After all, she had made three friends; Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, along with a woman by the name of Thea Gray who was a witch hiding herself who had come to work at Mrs. Eleanor Dames Orphanage where Riley still lived who was partial to Riley's side in almost every matter. Instead, Riley found herself trying to avoid being asked too many questions from the girls about what school she goes to, what it is like, where is it and such. Though they are all still completely scared of her still, that doesn't mean they aren't curious about where she'd gone off to for school. All they know was that it was a private boarding school in the country—and that was all they were told by Mrs. Dames who wouldn't say a word more. The few things that had changed since her having gone to Hogwarts was she now had her own bedroom and an owl to send letters to her friends. Every Friday she would write three letters, one for each friend, and send them out at night when it would be harder for any of the girls at the orphanage to see the owl taking flight. Many couldn't figure out why an owl, but she was able to make up a story that she had found it with a broken wing and had nursed it back to health. They didn't buy it, but they weren't about to question her. The letters would come like clockwork, but soon she began to notice that Harry's letters began to dribble before stopping altogether. At this she was disheartened because she had thought they had formed such a tight friendship over the school year. Why would he just suddenly stop writing to her? Then she found out that he had stopped writing to both Ron and Hermione—so it wasn't just her. Ron and Hermione expressed their concern for him, worried that his uncle and aunt might have done something to keep him from sending letters. In one letter, Ron asked Riley if she'd be willing to break Harry out for his birthday—well—their shared birthday but she said to him in reply,

"And how would I get there Ron?" to which he never replied back having apparently never gotten that far in planning. During all this, Mrs. Dames kept her distance from Riley though made sure that Riley kept up her chores and did her end of the work throughout the summer. She loathed the fact the brat had so much more freedom, but couldn't do a damn thing about it. Her employee, Miss Gray, often was the one to deal with Riley and would discipline her to Mrs. Dame's standards—when in reality the two had figured out a way to get around having Thea to use the rod. Thea would take Riley into a room, lock the door, and use the rod against the wall while Riley cried and pleaded for it to stop there for making Mrs. Dames happy and the other children think she was getting her punishment. Mrs. Dames wasn't any the wiser—if anything she was incredibly foolish for believing any of this was even remotely true! Thea was wonderful to the children, treating each of them with equal amounts of respect and discipline though had to show a bit harsher side to Riley to make Mrs. Dames happy. Though—if something broke or something went missing it would turn up rather quickly or be fixed sooner than normal which everyone found odd, but not strange like with Riley. As for the children of the orphanage they were the same, except for Marie who had returned while Riley was away. As soon as Riley had returned Marie, now fifteen, was hell bent on making her life a living nightmare. Marie had spent several months in a special institution for her 'mental breakdown episode' that had been caused from 'serious delusional trauma'—but Marie knew what had really caused it—Riley the witch. And she was sure to catch the little beast in the act. It was during while Riley was outside reading by her yew tree, wand as always hidden tucked away by her waist, that Marie came over. Riley noticed her coming but said nothing, hoping that she'd just go away with no such luck however.

"What are you reading?" Marie asked snatching the book away to see it was a Charles Dickens book and snorted wondering aloud,

"Why are you even bothering with this?"

"Because I want to." Riley said evenly but Marie smirked saying,

"Is this something Miss Gray gave you?" because of from one of her pockets she pulled out a box of matches and Riley's eyes widened as she said,

"You wouldn't!" but Marie had already lit the match saying,

"Why not?" and dropping the match box was hovering the book over the now sparking lit match as Riley stood to try and reach for the book to save it. Only Marie laughing let the book catch—yet it caught so quickly that she dropped it to the ground that hadn't had rain in a week and a half. Riley watched in slow motion horror as the book already partially on fire hit the box of matches on the dry weed covered ground and screamed stepping back several paces. Looking up to Marie for help, she saw her figure going towards the house—but not for help. In Marie's mind—let the witch burn is what she was thinking. Coughing and trying not to inhale the quickly gathering smoke, Riley remembered reading a spell to cast water and tried to recall it. Only she was under aged and couldn't do magic! But—this was to save her life! What if no one got to her in time! But before she could even try and consider the options she heard someone shouting,

"Aguamenti!" and watched with watery eyes from the soot and ash as the fire began to be washed away and the figure of Thea appeared. Collapsing onto her knees, Riley continued to cough and sputter as Thea came over in a rush hiding her wand and asking,

"What happened?"

"Marie—tried—to—" Riley started to say but stopped short from chest pain due to talking. Thea helped her to stand and ushered her inside the house where everyone was coming out including Mrs. Dames who demanded,

"What happened?!"

"It seems one of the girls was trying to set Riley on fire." Thea said with such a deadly serious voice that even Mrs. Dames didn't argue as Thea led Riley to her second floor bedroom. Once there and with the door shut Riley collapsed onto the ground and started shaking horribly all over, tremors of utter fear raked her body as she sobbed.

"They hate me! They tried to set me on fire!" she sobbed pounding the ground with her fist as Thea knelt beside her hushing her softly and gently stroking her hair that was sooty and filled with ash.

"And I'm going to make sure that Marie gets the rod for it. She had no right to leave you there." Thea told her softly but Riley said in a muffled voice,

"I—I remembered a spell about water but couldn't use it since I'm under aged and—"

"Hush, easy now alright? Why don't you go take a bath and clean up while I go talk to Marie?" Thea asked her so that Riley looked up before nodding, sniffling a bit before watching her leave the bedroom. Managing to stand, she went to get her things to head for the bathroom when a voice from the corner of the room said,

"That was a stupid thing of you to do." It was Marie, who had gone upstairs to Riley's room and had found her Hogwarts trunk and had found it unlocked—the one time she had left it unlocked. Stepping out of the shadows, Marie appeared holding one of Riley's textbooks and said,

"So you really are a witch are you? I should have let you burn." Riley felt an all-consuming rage fill her as Marie chuckled tossing the book so that it hit Ebony off his perch.

"Leave my room Marie." Riley demanded but she made a mock hurt face before saying,

"No, I think I'll just take care of what I should have finished outside!" and then she leaped for Riley who stood covered in ash and soot and screamed at the top of her lungs,

"DIE!" she watched as Marie suddenly froze stiff as a board and knew that spell and turned to see Thea with her wand out looking grim.

"Thea," Riley begged but she looked cross, for once at Riley. Coming into the room, she didn't care about Marie who fell flat onto her stomach as she kept her full attention on Riley saying to her,

"Where you about to use magic on her?"

"She almost killed me and was going to try to do it again!" Riley said in defense but Thea shook her head telling her,

"That doesn't matter, you know even if in defense under age magic is off limits and against the rules."

"So now you're on her side?!" Riley shrieked feeling astonished and as if her one savoir she was giving up on her. Upon seeing that that was what Riley was feeling, Thea moved to change what she meant but Riley was already stepping away from her saying,

"Then you're just like the rest of them, even if you are a witch like me. You hate me too! You don't like me you just pretend to because you were assigned to me by the Ministry! I'm just some babysitting job!"

"Riley," Thea tried to reason with her only Riley, grabbing Marie's shoelace, dragged her outside of her bedroom then shoved the woman with amazing strength out of her room too saying,

"If you come in here, you might not find me in here when you do." then she both slammed and locked her door—with a spell she had been working on since she had gotten back that when Thea tried to open the door—it wouldn't unlock with any charm or spell she knew.