Hi all. We don't really expect anyone to read this, we're doing it purely for fun :) But in the case that someone is reading this, then- hi!

There are actually two of us- I'm Torrance and my best friend Remi is my partner in crime. So our story is kinda confusing. For every chapter there will be two parts- one from my characters perspective, and one from Remi's character's perspective. My character is Ryan Mencing while Remi's is Amory Finch. For each chapter it will look like two different chapters, but just know that they cover the same stuff from both perspectives.

The story will start the year Albus Severus Potter goes to Hogwarts. Exactly where the story will go... well, we're still figuring that out. We do know for sure that it will span all seven years of Hogwarts, but from that point on it's all up to the characters.

We'll be updating at least every two weeks, but hopefully more frequently than that. Chapters will vary in length, but definitely not in quality.

Reviews would be great, but we're not review whores... yet.

We hope you enjoy the story.

Torrance

Disclaimer: We don't own anything you recognize- all of it goes to the well-dressed JK Rowling. Cheers to her.

Chapter 1- Ryan

It all started with that first pair of high-tops. While they were artfully faded and ripped by my mother's favorite designers, there wasn't really anything particular or unique about them to anyone besides me. They were my first show of active rebellion. I was nine then, so I still kept myself with one toe inside the line, but I was no longer sitting like the little passive good girl my mother and father expected me to be. The designers weren't that hard to contact- all i had to do was sneak into my parents house and look up the number on her assistant's computer. I didn't really have to sneak though. I could have stomped in and yelled my presence for all it mattered. Everyone who would have inhabited the house had left on a trip again. As soon as I stated my last name to the designers who had been doubtful about me, they made sure my shoes arrived the next day rain or shine. That's when I knew that Shakespeare had it all wrong. What's in a name? he asked. I wish I could have been there to inform him that there was a whole heck of a lot. The Mencing name was power.

I fell asleep that night under the cover of fragile excitement that comes from careful planning and a nearly complete plot.

The shoes arrived in the morning just as planned. They were perfect and I couldn't have been more happy. They were my quintessential baby step into rebellion. I slipped them on for the first time and didn't take them off unless absolutely necessary. The times that were deemed necessary were few and far between for it was I who decided when these times were.

When my parents and entourage returned from there trip to Spain or China or Italy or wherever their travels were my mother never noticed the shoes. She didn't so much as glance at me long enough to notice that the pre-approved patent designer ballet flats no longer enveloped my feet. In fact, she didn't glance at me long enough to say hello, how are you? for she did not even glance at me at all. How could she have when I was hundreds of meters away from her, watching from my balcony through the large French glass windows that encircled the spacious living room. The lap pool lay in-between us with its crystal bar and state-of-the-art pool house. I was alone in the 'Children's House' as my brother and I had dubbed it. It was more of solitary confinement than a house. When I had made the mistake at six years old of asking my mother why David and I had to live separately from them she stated with clear disdain that my father didn't need children distracting him from his important duties and that, really, my brother and I were better off elsewhere where we would be seen to perfectly by the help. She had then picked up her ever present newspaper and lifted it up until all I could see of her was eight sleek fingers adorned with a french manicure and an elegant sleek wedding ring. This view came to define my mother for me. The ring was platinum with a single sharp diamond, perfectly shined and cared for with a commanding, but impersonal, air to it. The hands were perfect- perfect size, perfect shape, perfect everything. They looked soft and smooth and as if they had never done work. I hated those hands.

After six months the shoes still fit perfectly and I couldn't have been happier. They were my favorite pair and I wished more than anything that they would always fit me. A year later they still fit me while my other shoes had been replaced at least four times because they were too small. My dirty clothes bin turned into more of a garbage bin than a place to be picked up and washed to be worn again. I was growing too fast to really become attached to any of the material good that were abundant in my family. Two years later the shoes still fit me. There must have been other signs that I was different, but the shoes became the only one that mattered.

I had always felt that I was different. How could I be the same as everyone else if I never interacted with people my age other than my brother. David was my most constant companion, but it had started to become less frequent visits and conversations. He was a junior at Oxford and he couldn't make it back to be with me as much as he would have liked to and certainly not as often as I wished for him to be there. David was my best friend, indeed he was my only friend. We were close in a way that only comes about from an absentee family. In the eight short years I had with him at home I depended upon him as my protector and my guiding light. When he left I was on my own. All that was left for me was the help and my tutors. They were all too scared of my mother's lashing tongue and quick temper to speak to me in any more than the most polite manner and the whispers that there was something different about the small Mencing girl certainly didn't help. There were quiet stories of vases breaking and a little girl that could get from the balcony to the roof in a single bound when she thought nobody was looking. I had heard these stories, I could hear them down in the kitchens while I lay on the roof. I assumed my hearing was exceptional, but as I looked down at the letter that had arrived in the post today I wondered if maybe there was something more.

The letter and the envelope it came in were both a heavy cream colored parchment. The envelope did not have a stamp and was addressed in sweeping crimson strokes. It was addressed to me, Ryan Mencing, but even stranger was where it was addressed to- The Children's House. David and I had not told anyone that we mockingly called it The Children's House, we had been very careful. There was something very off about this letter. I carefully opened the letter while glancing around to make sure that neither the help or an early tutor would barge in on me.

Dear Ms. Ryan Mencing,

I am pleased to inform you that you have been accepted as a pupil into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

I drank in every word that was printed into the letter with a feeling akin to triumph and the belief that this was entirely too amazing to be true. The lists of book titles that I was supposed to buy at a mysterious Diagon Alley were exotic and curious with words like 'charms' and 'transfiguration', or my personal favorite, 'potions.' At the bottom it noted that as a first year student I would be allowed one pet, either a cat, toad or owl. My brow furrowed at that and I wondered what in the world one would do with an owl? Even curiouser was the fact that first years were not allowed to bring broomsticks. The letter seemed to make a broomstick out as a privilege- but in what type of world would a broomstick be a privilege? If cleaning the floors was what this school considered fun and only applicable to students older than eleven, I most certainly did not want to know what was considered fun for the first years. It was at this point that I considered this all a joke, some sort of hoax or ruse. An angry employee who had been freshly fired from his employment by my mother had probably decided that it would be funny to go out with a bang by taking out his range on the little strange Mencing girl.

I feel a strange disappointment at that realization that this is all a hoax, as it must be. But I am also filled with a cruel sense of reality. Of course it wasn't real. Why would something so fantastic and... and.. simply magical happen to me?

I took the letter and glared at each defined shape that had been stamped into the fine paper and then slowly tore it so that each fiber in the parchment slowly snapped. When all that remained was shreds of the previously majestic letter and it's envelope, I turned to the fireplace, fervently hoping that it was already lit so that i wouldn't have to call for the maid to light it while she would pretend not to be staring. Even though I knew there was no fire in the grate, as I turned around the unmistakable warmth of licking flames seemed to appear our of nowhere as I wished for them. My mind turned back to what the letter had said, that I was a witch with powers. I quickly turned from the thought and tried to convince myself that I had simply not noticed the warming fire before. When I had almost managed to convince myself of this fact, I threw the scraps of parchment into the fire all at once. Brushing my hands off from the fuzz that had come off of the paper during the tearing process, I started to turn from the fire when suddenly they turned a bright emerald green.

I stumbled back immediately and let out a small gasp before covering my mouth to prevent any other noises from popping out that would alert the help of anything wrong. And then, where there had just a few seconds ago been only burning parchment, was a very stately old lady whose posture defied the grey in her hair that was pulled back into a very tight bun. Her spectacles were thin rimmed and distinct, a type that were certainly not currently in style and might never have been. She was rather tall and would have been even without the blocky, but sensible, one inch black heels she wore. Another foot was added to her height by a very tall black pointed hat that tilted slightly to the side, the type that are sold with green face paint and cobwebs for a 'witch' costume. The dress she wore suited her with its powerful black tartan. Over her dress she wore an odd sort of coat. It could have been described as maybe heavy black wool made into some sort of judge's bath robe. Her eyes were bright and a shade of green that edged on grey. They were several shades darker than the color of the flames that she had just stepped out of, but out of everything, what really shocked me the most was the badge sewn upon the stately woman's robe thing. Even from my half-cowering position from across the room I could still make out the gold H that adorned the background of green, red, yellow, and blue.

It was that very same H that had been pressed onto both the envelope and letter that were currently scattered ashes.

I gasped again, unable to hold it in.

"Ms. Ryan Mencing, yes?" asked the lady. I held my breath for a moment and slowly breathed out through my nose before responding through a slight nod.

"Cat got your tongue?" she chucked as though there was something I didn't know- which was probably very likely. I felt like there was a lot I didn't know right then, "My name is Professor McGonagall. I am the Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and I am here explain to you that the letter you just threw into the fire was indeed very real and that you, Ms. Mencing, are no ordinary girl."

After eleven years of being called abnormal I was used to it, but there was something different about the way she said it. When she said it I was almost glad I wasn't 'normal', being the opposite was better.

"You are what we call a muggleborn," she continued and addressed my silent question, "A muggle is someone who does not posses magic. A muggleborn is someone who has magic, but is born to two muggles. This is your case. Have you noticed anything strange around you? Things happening that aren't percieved as possible, situations aligning themselves to benefit you?"

My first thought was of the high-tops which I was wearing at that very moment. I glanced down at them and the Professor noticed.

"They are my favorite," I said as my first words to someone with magic, "These shoes. I got them nearly two years ago and they still fit, but everything else I have I grow out of within the month. Is that magic?"

Professor McGonagall sternly inclined her head slightly, but I saw a slight twinkle in her eye that put me somewhat more at ease.

"Indeed, your power can manifest itself in many ways when you are young. This is one of them."

I looked at my well-worn shoes with renewed awe, much like the day when they had first arrived. She then continued.

"You will go to Platform Nine and Three Quarters at King's Cross Station on Euston Road on September first. The train leaves at eleven o'clock sharp, so do not be late. I will be back tomorrow at nine in the morning to take you to Diagon Alley where we will purchase your supplies. Now, I'm afraid I must go for I have one more muggleborn to attend to," Professor McGonagall reached into her pocket and brought out an antique compact. The compact held glittering emerald green dust much like the flames that had brought her here and I knew that this powder must somehow make the fire that way. I realized as she took out a pinch of the stuff that she was really going to leave.

"Wait!" I rushed forward, "But I have so many questions!"

She turned back to me and gave me a small smile.

"I have learned through experience, Ms. Mencing, that many questions are answered if one only has the patience. Remember, nine am sharp. Good day," she concluded and with that the powder went into the fire and she stepped inside it before spinning away.

I sat down on my bed and stared at the fire. I remained this way for what must have been a half an hour, but I could not bring myself to move. It was only when the words 'boarding school' floated through my head that I realized I had a problem. If I was going to be gone most of the year, what would my parents think? But just as quickly I realized that this was not that big of a problem. It had only been a built in reaction that came from reading too many stories with concerned parents. I saw my mother rarely, my father barely at all. When I did see my mother it was either in passing and never very important or at important functions where we would all have to act as one happy, perfect family unit. Only at these events did I glimpse my father. I just had to keep up enough of a ruse that would keep anyone from noticing or caring at those functions. All I needed was my brother.

By the time that David finally picked up the phone it had been hours- tea and dinner had been eaten and I was curled up in my bed calling him over and over again praying he would finally answer. When he finally did I was relieved.

"Hello, sis, whats the matter? What is wrong?" he asked with obvious concern. It was not often that he got over fifty missed calls from his sister, in fact, it had never happened before.

"David! Hello! No, nothings wrong, well...sort of," I replied and proceeded to explain to him that I was going away to a boarding school in England, but that our parents had no notion of this nor did I want them to. All I needed from him was to cover for me the few times our entire family was together.

"And how do you suppose I do that?" he asked.

"Just come up with some excuse for me... tell them I'm on a trip to help the victims in Haiti or that I'm visiting my friend whose father is the Duke of Canterbury or something of that nature. Just make it believable and noble enough that they can brag about it to the press and get away with it."

"Alright Ry. I'll do it, but you better write me from your boarding school. Are you sure it's just a normal boarding school that you just randomly decided you wanted to go to?" he asked. I could hear the suspicion in his tone through the phone and I knew he scrunching his eyebrows and narrowing his eyes on the other side of the line, just like he always does when he's trying to figure something out.

"Yeah David, promise. Don't worry, I'll be fine. I have to go now. Thank you Dav, really. I'll miss you! Love you, bye," I promised him.

"Bye little sis. Love you too. And for the love of God, write me," he said and then hung up with a clear click.

I dropped the phone onto my bed side table and collapsed onto my king sized silk covered bed. I needed to get to sleep because tomorrow was a huge day. Tomorrow was going to be a new day. Tomorrow was going to be the start of a new life. Tomorrow, I was going to Diagon Alley.

Tomorrow.