A/N: this is a spinoff using The Four concept from my story I Love You, Now What? the sequel to Love Me Or Hate Me.
Sitting in an orphanage, Adeline Maisy stared desolately out of the small paned window. Snow fell gently outside, brushing lightly against the glass and falling like a blanket on London. She lifted her arm and placed it on the small sill, feeling the goosebumps rise on her skin at the coolness of the glass. She exhaled slowly, deliberately, and the glass fogged a small bit. She watched as it faded and smiled to herself. Inhale, exhale. Again, that small portion blurred. Inhale, exhale. And, as she watched in wonder, the entire window fogged until it was nearly opaque. Her inner smile emerged, victorious.
"Addy?" came a questioning voice from behind her.
Adeline whipped around, her wild red hair flying around her head in a fiery halo, her expression filled with fear. The window cleared almost instantly.
The young girl, clutching a teddy bear close, looked at the window in confusion, and then back at Adeline. "Story time?"
Adeline's features smoothed out, and her smile returned, softer. She nodded. The young girl exploded into a grin. Her two front teeth were missing, giving her the look of a cute young jack o' lantern.
"Mr. Snuggles, too?" the girl asked, a hopeful expression.
Again, Adeline nodded.
"Yay!" The little girl danced around Adeline in a joyous circle, reaching out and clasping her hand. Adeline let the girl lead her around the room, skipping. She grabbed the small notebook from her bed as she was pulled past, and the little girl towed her excitedly out of the room.
"Can you draw a new story this time, Addy?" The girl, only about six or seven, though they didn't know her real birthday, beamed. "I like watching you draw. Can you add words this time? Tessa is teaching me to read!"
Adeline pursed her lips, and the small girl caught it. She pouted. "Sister Lisa doesn't have to know."
And again, Adeline smiled and gave an acquiescing nod. The little girl squealed. She pulled Adeline quickly into a room, slightly bigger than the other, and closed the door. Adeline sat on the bed and the little girl hopped up next to her, settling in with her bear on her lap. Adeline opened the notebook near the middle, to a blank page. She picked up the little pencil tied to the side and began to draw. The little girl peered into the book closely, eyes wide. Adeline paused and turned to show her. A woman, tall and beautiful; the rest of the page was blank. The little girl pouted again.
"I wish we had some colored pencils," she said sadly. "I want to know what she looked like in color." She glanced up. "Does she look like you, Addy?"
Adeline shook her head, tugging lightly on the little girl's brown pigtail. The girl gasped. "She looks like me?"
Nodding, Adeline again bent her head to the notebook. The woman was draped in a long gown of sorts, her arm outstretched. In her hand was a...stick?
The girl gasped again. "Is that a wand? Is she a witch? Is she magic?"
Adeline nodded brightly, holding up a finger to gesture 'Just wait'. Next, she wrote in elegant script at the top of the page, "There once was a beautiful woman named Susan."
The girl clapped her hands excitedly, eyes shining. "That's me! That's me!"
"Susan was magic," Adeline wrote next. "She could make anything happen."
Bouncing up and down on the small bed, the little girl, Susan, looked up at Adeline with innocent eyes and said, "Addy, is magic real?"
For a split second, Adeline's smile faltered. She flipped to the back of her notebook and hurriedly scrawled one word in large letters on the last page. She held it up in front of her face for Susan to see.
It read, "Yes."
"Are you magic, Addy?" Susan asked.
Again, Adeline paused. She thought of the window, the mysterious golden coin she had found in the alleyway on her last trip outside the orphanage, the mean boy at the market who had begun clucking like a chicken after calling her names, the boils on Sister Lisa's face after giving her a lashing for her drawings. She thought of these things, looked at Susan, and drew in tiny, neat letters, the word, "No."
Because despite these strange happenings, Adeline Maisy believed she was a normal orphan girl--what those in the magical world called Muggles. But Adeline knew nothing of the magical world. So she, naturally, was quite unaware of the fact that she, on the eve of her sixteenth birthday, was just being discovered by Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as a budding--if late-blooming--witch.
"What can Dumbledore possibly be thinking?" Snape snapped. "The girl is a mute! How is she to be expected to perform at the same level as other students if she is a mute!"
"I have to agree with Severus," said Slughorn worriedly. "How will it be possible for her to perform even the most basic spells with a wand? She'll have to master non-verbal spells immediately, and that is a difficult feat for even the seventh years here."
"Quit whining, Severus." McGonagall lifted her nose at the scowling man. "Dumbledore has faith in the girl's abilities. Are you doubting his judgement?"
"I'm doubting his sanity!" growled the professor.
"Perhaps you would like to say that to him directly," said McGonagall hotly. "We shall simply ask him when he comes back with the girl."
"Do we even know her name?" Slughorn looked nervous, no doubt at being left again out of the loop.
"Her name, Professor Slughorn, is Adeline Maisy."
"Come in," said Sister Lisa stiffly. She opened the door a crack wider, her tone betraying that she absolutely did not want this strange man to come in at all. Sister Lisa was a short, stout woman, but she held herself like a six foot man. Back straight and expression stony, she didn't seem like someone to be won over easily, if at all. Nevertheless, Albus Dumbledore smiled warmly.
"Thank you," he said graciously, dipping his head slightly.
She harrumphed, lifting herself even higher on her short legs. "I understand you're here to see Adeline Maisy."
"Yes, I am." Again, he smiled. His charm was wasted, given her glare, but he plowed on politely. "I do hope I'm not intruding."
"Of course not." And again, her tone betrayed otherwise. "Are you family?"
"Ah, no. I'm here to take her to my school." His eyes twinkled mysteriously behind his half-moon glasses.
Sister Lisa raised her eyebrows. "School? I'm sorry, sir, but I believe you are mistaken. Adeline is not educated--"
"And that, madam, would be the point of sending her to school." His smile widened.
She spluttered, shocked at being interrupted, and said, "I must protest, sir. You must have the wrong girl."
"No, no. Miss Maisy is indeed the right girl. She has special talents that my school needs." He laced his fingers together in front of him and added, "Shall you show me her room?"
"I never," murmured Sister Lisa, but walked quickly down the hall anyway, shuffling her feet and feeling an odd sense of confusion.
She stopped at the third door on the right and stood like a board. "This is her room, sir."
"Thank you, Sister. It will only be a minute." He gave her a reassuring smile, to which she looked alarmed, and opened the door. "Adeline Maisy?"
The girl who looked up was nothing like he had been expecting. Her face was smudged with dirt, her red hair a bright distraction from the drabness of the rest of the room. Under the dirt, he could see skin paler than porcelain. Her eyes, blue as the ocean, peered suspiciously at him from beneath long lashes. She would be very pretty once she was cleaned and her hair brushed.
"Goodness, child," he said, walking to where she sat on her bed and kneeling before her. "When was the last time you had a bath?"
She didn't answer him, simply staring with a mixture of suspicion and open curiosity. Then, suddenly, her hand shot out and closed around a little navy blue book. She opened it, picked up the tiny pencil, and scribbled something on the paper. He blinked at her. What in Merlin's name? Finished, she shoved the book at him with an urgent expression. He adjusted his glasses and looked up at her. She shook her head and pointed back at the open book. Dumbledore looked at the book she held, and the words she had written.
"Two weeks ago," it said.
He looked back up at her face with a look of concern. She cocked her head questioningly. So it's true. "My dear, can't you talk?"
She shook her head, and he was hit immediately with a burst of protective instinct. She pulled the book back down to her lap, hurriedly writing more.
"Who are you?" he read aloud. "Miss Maisy--"
He was interrupted as the book was, once again, shoved into his face. "Addy."
"Addy, then." He smiled. "I am Professor Albus Dumbledore. I am here to take you to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for some long-overdue education."
"Hogwarts?" the book read next. She was clutching it so tightly her knuckles turned white.
"It is my school. I am Headmaster. You see, Addy, you are a witch."
A/N: alright. is this any good? i need feedback pretty please.