When your Hogwarts letter first arrives, on the very last day of July, your worst fears seem to come true. You'd almost managed to convince yourself that it wasn't coming. Almost. For most the arrival of the letter marks the start of wild dreams of the possibilities the future could hold, but not for you. For you, it just makes it feel as though there's a lead weight settling in your stomach, cold and uncomfortable and so heavy it almost makes you stumble over every step. The weights been there ever since March, since your eleventh birthday, because you'd known what had been coming.
When that god darned owl had crept ever closer over the horizon, highlighted against the early morning light, the weight had grown immeasurably. It had filled your entire stomach and crept up your throat, but your eyes hadn't left it. You'd needed to see it, to watch it, to make sure that it was really happening. It had been really happening.
It's not that you hate magic, or the idea of school, or anything like that. It's not that you don't want to become a fully fledged witch, not in the slightest. In fact, as an abstract idea, you love the idea of studying and school and so much knowledge to take in that you'll never have to stop. You love the stories you've heard of all the incredibly rare books that rest in Hogwarts library. So it's not that you hate education and school. It's more that you dread everything else that you know has to come with it. You dread the judgement and the whispers and the not quite so covert stares.
On her first day of school, Wynonna had written home, begging Gus and Curtis to come get her. To let her come home. 'It's awful' she had written 'they all whisper about me when they think I can't hear, as if I don't know what I did to Daddy'. They hadn't gone to get her though. A part of you knows that with Wynonna, it was more that she was too difficult, to much to handle. As much as your aunt and uncle love her, fiercely and completely, she'd given them just one too many sleepless nights.
Now it's your turn to face the music, and you dread it so much that every time you think about it your blood turns to ice in your veins. You don't want to go, plain and simple, because the though of walking down a corridor with people whispering about you makes you feel positively awful. But you know that you're not going to get all that much of a choice in the matter. Wynonna didn't, not for all the screaming and shouting she did, and so you certainly won't. You never scream or shout or make a scene.
In fact, you know that, deep down, you'll never even let yourself ask. You'll never ask your aunt and uncle to let you stay at home, no matter how deeply you desire just that. Because that's not what they want for you, and you want to make them happy and proud. You'll smile at Gus and Curtis, and pretend that you're excited and happy and you'll pretend that you don't feel sick at the very idea of going to school, because they want you to be a normal kid.
They love you and they want what's best for you. In their heads, Earp curse or not, an education is what you need. If you write to tell them about any whisperings, or bullying, they'll tell you to ignore it and hold your head up high, just as they've always told Wynonna. It'll be different with you though, because you've always been their good girl, from the very start. If they asked you to ignore it, you'd do your damnedest to do just that. Whereas you sometimes though Wynonna went looking for trouble. Wynonna had always been the difficult one, rebellious through and through. They'd never been able to reign her in, and it'd gotten worse once she'd gone to school. There'd been a constant stream of letters about her sneaking off, or being out after curfew, or talking back to teachers. No matter how many howlers had been sent to her, her behaviour never altered.
It was different with you though. Gus and Curtis had raised you, you couldn't even remember Daddy. You couldn't remember Willa either, but Wynonna could. She remembered everything, she was haunted by it all. All you remembered were the nightmares that's she's never managed to shake, no matter how long she went without sleeping, and the muffled screaming and crying into her pillow.
So when the owl taps on the window in the middle of breakfast, you put on a show and act excited to open your letter. You plaster a huge smile on your face and try to ignore the odd wooden feeling inside of you, and if your hands shake as you break the familiar seal bearing all of the houses, well you can pretend the fumble of your fingers with the envelope is excitement to read the letter. And if Wynonna looks at you in that knowing way of hers, as if she can see straight through the act, she doesn't say anything.
On the first day of term, you barely make it onto the Hogwarts Express on time, all thanks to Wynonna. She's late up, all grouchiness and scowls (you think maybe it's part of the hangover from the stolen bottle of Ogdens' finest, and part due to it being this day of the year). It's five to eleven by the time your trunks are on the train, stowed away safely over head, and half of you wishes that she'd wasted just another few minutes on half heartedly packing her stuff and dragging her case to the car.
By the time you've kissed and hugged Gus and Curtis goodbye a couple dozen times each, and promised to write before bed, the two of you barely have time to hop on the train before it starts to move. In fact, as the door swings closed the train starts to lurch forward, chugging it's way out of the station. You lean out of the window, half your body having over the edge, waving wildly to your aunt and uncle, wishing more than anything that you weren't going, that you were staying with them.
The worries that you've tried so hard to ignore all summer are rushing back, and you know that your heart's beating way too fast in your chest. You can feel your palms becoming clammy under your fingers. You worry that you won't make any friends, or that you'll be rubbish at magic, or that people will think you're crazy like they do Wynonna. By the time Gus and Curtis disappear when the train rounds the corner, Wynonna is already gone, leaving you all on your own. You know that she's trying to separate you from herself, to give you your best chance, but it still makes you want to panic.
You find an almost empty compartment, occupied only by a pretty gangly red haired girl (you think that if the nervous look on her face is anything to go by, she must be a first year as well) and you sit opposite her. She introduces herself as Nicole Haught, and when you tell her your name, there's a flash of recognition but a surprising lack of judgment. She has a warm smile on her face, and it doesn't slip when she hears the word 'Earp', and you can feel the smile spreading across your face. The two of you start to talk, and something in you clicks, and as the journey goes by unnoticed it feels as though you won't have to worry about friends quite so much. By the time the pair of you get off the train, you think you've found your first ever true friend.
You're stood in front of the whole school, heart racing faster than it ever has before, waiting to be sorted into your house. Wynonna's sat at the Slytherin table, watching you intently, three seats free on either side of her. She's told you before that people tend to give her a wide berth. She looks like she's steeling herself against something yet to come, possibly the reaction that's about to erupt around the hall. She looks at you with something soft and yet steely in her eyes, almost as if she wants to shield you from the inevitable. You know she feels that you sticking out is gonna be her fault, and she feels bad, you know she does. Still, there's something in the way she looks at you that tells you to be brave. You set your chin and wait for your name to be called.
You're among the first to be called forth, and the buzz of a hundred hushed conversations leap out at you as soon as the 'Earp' part of your name leaves the professors' mouth. Nicole gives you a soft smile as you walk to the three legged stool, all encouragement and curiosity, and you don't have to fake the bravery quite so much. Not now that you have the support of your new found friend.
You sit on the stool, and find yourself wishing that you were taller, more like Nicole, because the tips of your toes are barely scraping the ground. You think that you must look like an idiot, and that you must present a comical sight, and for a second you worry that people are laughing at you amongst the buzz. Then again people are already going to be talking about you, they may as well laugh. When the hat is placed on your head, the end slips down past your eye line and settles somewhere on your nose. You find it's rather unnerving under the darkness of the brim.
The hat starts up its careful consideration, weighing up all the possible options. It hmms and haws inside your head for what feels like eternity, but is, in reality, just the longest moment of your life. Finally, it roars out the word 'HUFFLEPUFF' and the applause that meets this is louder than you were expecting. Students are on their feet, eager to greet you, and the lead weight in your stomach lessens some. Wynonna is stood, the sole person to rise on the Slytherin table for you, and she cheers and hollers louder than most of the other students combined. In that moment, you feel proud of yourself.
You wait for Nicole to be sorted. When she sits in the stool, you keep your eyes on hers, desperately hoping she gets put with you, and you feel rather triumphant when she does. She sits down on the bench beside you, all warm smiles and flushed cheeks and flaming hair and big brown eyes, and it suddenly occurs to you that you don't hate the idea of Hogwarts half as much now you're not facing it alone.
The feast arrives and you eat more than you've ever eaten in one sitting before, until you're so stuffed that you don't know if you can stand without splitting in half. Until you're so tired that even through the happy buzz you can feel your eyelids starting to droop with sheer exhaustion. Then the feast ends and so does the headmaster's speech. All first years are being rounded up by a seventh year prefect, who you think calls himself Dolls, and taken down a flight of stairs and along a passageway. You and Nicole walk past what seems to be hundreds of brightly painted pictures, and it surprises you that even though you know you must be underground, it feels cosy and welcoming.
You find yourselves outside a pile of neatly stacked barrels, and you all gaze at the prefect expectantly. He coughs impressively before bending to tap one of the bottom ones twice with his wand, two short and smart raps. Even through the haze of exhaustion you force yourself to memorise which one it was. An entrance shows itself, and one by one you crawl through. You find yourselves in a warmly lit common room, decorated in buttery yellows that make you think of meadows and early morning sunlight in the summer. Instantly you feel at ease, you think you might not hate it here as much as you'd anticipated. Which in your sleepy haze is quite reassuring.
Before you know what's happening, you're all directed to your dormitories. Girls to the right and boys to the left. You follow the corridor around a couple of corners before coming to a door. You find yourselves in a room that you suppose you should, start calling home if you're going to be here for seven years, and there are three other beds in it. Nicole's bed is the one next to yours, and you can't help but smile when you notice that. You don't know why, but the idea of having a friend so close by is comforting. The other two girls that are to share your dormitory don't look all that friendly, which doesn't seem right for a pair of Hufflepuffs, but it doesn't really matter. You've made a friend, which is foreign in itself, and it makes you feel much, much braver. It makes you feel like you could do anything.
You go to sleep that night, and although the weight is still present, and although you don't know if it will ever entirely leave, it doesn't feel as bad as it did a day ago. You feel more prepared to face the looks and whispers than you know are coming than you ever thought you could be, and it's mostly due to a red haired girl you only met hours ago. Her friendship, new though it is, makes you feel as though you could tackle anything, because you know that you won't have to do it alone.