If you're looking suspiciously at that summary and thinking, h'mm, another Harry Potter wannabe ... well, I cannot tell a lie. This story is loosely based on HP, but with two major caveats: one, it's entirely and completely based in the WW world, with no direct HP references or characters whatsoever (spells may pop up though). Secondly, HP is very male-centric. All the main protagonists and antagonists are male, and women without exception have a supporting/nurturing/whore role (think: Hermione, McGonagall, Molly Weasley, Bellatrix...). This turns that on its head. I have strived to avoid duplicating anything in HP exactly; it is, in fact, little more than a blueprint.

Lastly, enjoy and don't forget to let me know what you think!

One

Mildred Hubble was not like other girls. Other girls had a proper family; Mildred had only an ancient great-aunt and uncle who never seemed to know what to do with her. Other girls liked to sleep in a proper bed in a proper (and probably pink, if Aunt Hilda was to be believed) bedroom. Mildred hated pink and was much more comfortable in her little cupboard under the stairs, the one she'd been allowed to decorate herself with glossy black paint for the moonlit sky and diamanté sparkles for the stars. And most importantly, other girls did not have a special birthmark on their foreheads, one that if you looked just-so exactly resembled a pointy witch's hat.

Aunt Hilda hated the birthmark. She was ashamed of it. Mildred knew this because Aunt Hilda made her grow her fringe long and heavy, so that all traces of the offending purple mark were rendered invisible. Deep inside, small Mildred had liked that mark. She recognised it as a badge of some sort, but of what or whom she could not think-but as the years went by Aunt Hilda's shame made her ashamed too, and by the time she turned eleven she was so used to the fringe that she barely gave it or the mark it hid a thought.

Until everything changed.

First there were the dreams—terrifying dreams that woke Mildred screaming night after night. When Aunt Hilda tried to ask what happened, what frightened her so badly, she looked so ill and shook so terribly that Aunt Hilda gave up. Uncle John suggested bringing Mildred to a shrink but Aunt Hilda shrank (no pun intended) from that; their niece, she insisted firmly, was not crazy. Uncle John subsided as he usually did when his wife spoke in that tone, and Mildred was left to struggle with her night terrors alone. Oddly, they were worse in the hideous pink-princessy monstrosity of a bedroom that Aunt Hilda had created—and as a result, Mildred increasingly chose to sleep in her private little haven under the stairs, much to her aunt's disgust.

Then there was the day they visited the zoo. Mildred hated the zoo; all her life she'd loved animals—any animals—and the sight of them caged and penned made her ache inside. Uncle John and Aunt Hilda never understood this. To them the zoo was a nice day out, an opportunity to gawk at exotic and dangerous creatures from all corners of the globe and perhaps (if the weather was kind) indulge themselves in an old-fashioned English picnic. The weather rarely was kind but Hilda always insisted anyway, and year after year found them crushed together under a tree, with rivulets of water running down their faces and their sandwiches turning to mushy gloop in their hands. On reflection, Mildred decided she hated those soppy picnics as much as the zoo.

And this year, she was determined not to go. She wasn't a little kid any more; if she really insisted on not going they couldn't force her, could they?

Force, it turned out, was one thing. Guilt was something else.

'But why?' Aunt Hilda gasped when Mildred tried to explain. 'You love animals, honey.'

'Not in there, I don't,' Mildred told her, drawing herself up to her full height. She was tall for her age and Aunt Hilda was tiny. 'Animals shouldn't be banged up, like—like a circus!'

'God love us, we've got a tree-hugger on our hands,' Uncle John muttered while Mildred bit into her lip.

Aunt Hilda placed a timid hand on her arm. 'Just give us this year, honey,' she murmured in her deceptively soft voice (Aunt Hilda looked like a sweet little old lady, but she had a will of steel). 'Soon you'll be all grown up and you'll be off doing your own thing.'

Mildred gave in, as she always did. How could she not? She owed them everything, as they never tired of reminding her.

So off to the zoo they went. They had weak coffee in the cafe and wandered round the poorly stocked shop. Then they visited the butterfly house which was the one bit Mildred never minded. The butterfly house was like a different world, a shimmering magical world that seemed straight out of the pages of a storybook. After that was the inevitably soppy picnic and Mildred's mood soured. She knew what came next: the cats.

'Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!' her uncle teased (as he did every year, with a tug of one of her long braids). 'Be good or we'll throw you to the lions, l'il Mil.'

As had become her habit, Mildred ignored him, stalking into the walkways that would lead them around and over the big cats' enclosure. It was the work of moments to 'lose' her elderly and easily confused great aunt and uncle, and before long, Mildred was where she wanted to be: face to face with a lonely Scottish wildcat. Once upon a time the cat had snarled at her and tried to attack her through the glass, but now ... now it was almost as if he recognised her, coming to slither along the barrier between them like a hungry house cat pleading for his dinner.

The sadness in his eyes broke Mildred's heart. It wasn't as if he was a tiger or lion and came from far away; even Mildred accepted that you couldn't have lions and tigers strolling through central London. Scottish wildcats, though ... Scotland was only over the border; the poor thing was so homesick, why shouldn't he go home? As she thought it she put her hands on the glass barrier ... and then ... the barrier was gone! Dissolved into thin air! And the cat was gone too, vanishing with slinky grace while Mildred stared drop-jawed after him and the other visitors screamed blue murder.

That got them thrown out of the zoo once and for all. Nothing could be proved (all the semi-hysterical visitors had been able to say was that Mildred touched the glass before it disappeared and the CCTV cameras backed them up) but the managers of the zoo had banned her, Aunt Hilda and Uncle John on general principles. Mildred was scared and yet somehow exhilarated ... she didn't know exactly what had happened but she'd felt the tingle run through her fingers just before the glass vanished. It was almost like ... like magic.

In comparison to what came next the incident at the zoo was almost fun. Something that Mildred was half convinced she'd imagined because honestly, how could anyone just make glass disappear? What came next was not fun. It was not in the least bit fun—and for those who watched Mildred from afar (without her knowledge or that of her aunt and uncle) it was the final straw. When all was said and done, there were limits.

It all kicked off one night towards the end of Mildred's first (and as it would turn out, last) year at the local comprehensive. Until the bell rang for the end of school it had been a good day; her art teacher had praised her work, she'd only tripped over her shoelaces three times, and she'd actually managed not to break any test tubes during Science. Her teacher was caustically grateful for that last but Mildred only grinned; by the time Christmas rolled round she'd learned that Mr Treasure's bark was infinitely worse than his bite. Somehow, though, in the midst of all that she'd managed to tick off her classmates more than usual—and this time she paid the price.

There was nothing new in that. Mildred had always been a target, thanks to her height and the distinctive purple birthmark. In addition, there was a quality of difference—a difference the other children could not neither understand nor define, but which roused their collective hackles. From the age of seven on, Mildred learned to watch and wait before making her way home; she learned the safe routes and dangerous ones with the same wary care as any hunted animal. Aunt Hilda often wondered why she never had friends, and suggested if Mildred would only come out of her cupboard and stop messing around with her paints, all would be well. Mildred knew that was not true. The safest place for her—the only safe place, it sometimes seemed—was her cupboard.

On this particular afternoon she thought she'd done all the right things. She waited in the library until most of the other kids had gone. She stuck by the main roads as much as she could; even the hardiest of bullies, she knew, were less likely to attack in the open. Then there was only one narrow lane to pass through and she'd be home—but this time, this time …that was where the gang pounced, surrounding her with a human cage. Worse, they were armed with sticks big and small, their eyes glittering with feral glee. Mildred did not scream. There was no point.

They pressed closer, tighter, and her chest constricted.

'What … what do you want?' she quavered.

'Freak,' a boy hissed. She recognised him from her Maths class. He'd always seemed so quiet and polite there … even nice. 'And freaks … don't deserve to live.'

'Especially not when they're freaky witches!' another boy yelled. He grabbed Mildred's long braids with one hand, cruelly jerking her head back. 'Look, she's got a frickin' freaky witchy tattoo!' His free hand pushed back her fringe to reveal her birthmark in all its purple glory.

Mildred was crying by this time, more terrified than she'd ever been, even in her dreams.

'Please … please, leave me alone!'

Her pleas were futile. Indeed, they only seemed to fan the flames.

'We should drown her! That's what they used to do to witches!'

Maths Boy grinned. 'Where?'

Braid Grabber pointed through the trees. 'There, there's a pond—'

Bloodlust and excitement overcoming compassion and simple common sense, the gang cheered and pushed Mildred, still trapped at their centre, towards it. She started to struggle, using her long legs and arms to kick out at her tormentors. They laughed and pressed ever tighter, so tight that she could feel their bodies against hers.

'Please, I can't swim!' Panic was making it hard to breathe and the air seemed thin, but maybe the boy from her Maths class … She tried to catch his eye but he only smirked.

'Wicked. If you drown that'll be one less…' His voice echoed through her skull as the same tingling feeling from the zoo rushed through her entire body. Vaguely she was aware of yelling and squealing, of the tightness around her easing—and then whiteness came and she sank gratefully into its embrace.

When she next opened her eyes the sun had set. She was alone—and Mildred had always been afraid of the dark.

It's not really dark, she told herself, turning painfully to lie on her back, the abused muscles in her neck protesting every movement. The moon's so bright and the stars … They reminded her of her dreams, of flying straight and true above the treetops, shadows in the moonlit sky.

Baby dreams, Mildred thought with a sadness beyond her eleven years, and curled into a tight ball to weep until there were no more tears to shed. Something had changed tonight, she could feel it in the very air she breathed, in the rhythm of the blood pumping through her veins. Something had changed and nothing would be the same again.

'It's time, Constance,' Amelia Cackle announced to her deputy one morning as she looked over the latest communication from the High Council. 'Mildred Hubble has had her magical break-out—and what a break-out it was.'

'Hmmm,' Constance responded, sending her employer a dark look across the office they both shared. It was really too small for two but somehow they made it work.

'Is that all you've got to say?' Amelia seated herself behind her desk, frowning as the movement caused a haphazard heap of papers to drift lazily off it. 'Darn and blast.'

'What do you want me to say?' Constance rose and swooped with enviably easy grace to recover the fallen papers, replacing them neatly in a pile. 'It sounds like those boys deserved everything she gave them.' She paused to shuffle the papers more precisely. 'We always knew this day would come.'

Amelia studied her over the top of her horn-rimmed glasses. 'Be honest. You hoped it would not.'

The younger woman stiffened. 'What I hoped is irrelevant, Headmistress.' She lifted the High Council's letter and scowled at it. 'The events of eleven years ago left that in little doubt, and in any case, Mildred has been down for Cackle's since ... since her conception, I should think.'

'Or very nearly,' Amelia agreed with a sigh as she remembered Mildred's mother, a lovely girl and remarkably talented witch who'd once been Constance Hardbroom's best friend.

'Assuming the child was girl, of course,' Constance was saying, heedless of Amelia's sorrow. 'That was just like Ermen. She always assumed that whatever she wanted would fall into her lap. Ergo, if she wanted a daughter, a daughter she would have.'

'Until she ran afoul of the Morrigan,' Amelia pointed out quietly and Constance flinched. 'Constance, my dear—'

'Don't, Amelia.' The younger woman's voice was strained. 'I—I can't. You know why.'

'I know you were angry and hurting, a furious child,' Amelia said to her deputy's stiff back. 'You've paid for your sins. No-one can ask any more.'

'I can.' Constance whirled to face Amelia and the older woman had to stifle a gasp at the pain written so clearly across those usually impassive features. 'What I did ... and to Ermen—'

'Now's your chance to make amends,' Amelia told her. 'Mildred is Ermen's daughter. She's a complete innocent, and yet she's already suffered so much. She probably doesn't even know she's a witch. You're the first year's form mistress, that means—'

'Amelia, you wouldn't!'

'It is your job, my dear. You said it yourself, you always knew this day would come.'

'That doesn't make it easier,' Constance choked, turning away from Amelia once more and moving towards her favoured spot by the window; a slim, upright and seemingly indomitable figure—and yet so broken.

'I know.' Amelia crossed the room to stand next to Constance; her hand hovered momentarily before she gently placed it on her former pupil's back. 'This wound has bled long enough. It's time for you to find healing and I believe—I honestly do—that you will not find it until you reach out to Mildred.'

'And tell her what?' Constance snapped, her body thrumming with tension beneath Amelia's fingers. 'That I'm sorry that she's had to grow up outside our world? That it's my fault she's an orphan? That I could have saved her mother at least if it wasn't for my stubborn pride?'

Amelia shook her head. 'I'm not asking for the impossible, child. She will learn what happened—how could she not?—but it doesn't have to be from you. In fact, I'd rather it wasn't. All I want from you is that you teach her to the absolute best of your considerable ability because you know ... we both know ... what might be coming.'

Constance turned at that. 'You believe it then? The rumours?'

'I don't know if I'd go that far, but I'm not stupid enough to ignore them.'

'No.' Constance tensed anew beneath Amelia's touch, but this was not tightly corded pain; this was a warrior preparing herself for battle. 'Very well. I will train Mildred Hubble to be the best witch she can possibly be—but don't ask me to love her, Amelia. You can't ask me to do that!'

'I can't and I won't,' Amelia agreed gravely. 'Love needs to be freely given or it isn't love at all. I know you know that and I've an idea our Miss Hubble will know it too.'

'Thank you.' Constance's perfectly straight shoulders relaxed a fraction. 'And the letter? Has it been sent? The others—'

Amelia smiled. 'I'm not sending a letter—or not by post, at any rate. I'm sending Imogen. She can deliver the official letter and bring Mildred back with her.' Sudden tears veiled her eyes and she blinked them away. 'We're getting Mildred back, Constance. She's coming home.'

Constance's lips compressed for a long moment before she said, 'Send Imogen to collect Maud Moonshine first.' Amelia could not hide her surprise and Constance must have noticed, for her lips twitched. 'From what I remember, Maud Moonshine is a good little witch.'

A rare compliment indeed, Amelia thought, amused, but Constance was still speaking.

'More the point, she's a friendly child. It's—it's always easier to start in a new place with a friend, and heaven knows Mildred will need it, especially after that episode.' She nodded towards the letter and her Headmistress brushed her black-clad arm with a commending fingertip.

'That's a good idea, my dear.' Amelia returned to her desk and dismissed the letter from the High Council with a flick that sent it into the flames. 'A very good idea. And now, shall we summon Imogen and tell her the news?'

Taking the hint, Constance snapped her fingers and their gym mistress materialised, a ball suspended mid-air before her and her pretty face creased by a ferocious scowl.

'You know, Connie, this is getting bloody tiresome. Just because—'

Before Amelia could protest, Constance silenced her with a wave.

'Let me remind you, once again, that my name is Constance—but you may still call me Miss Hardbroom.'

Constance's voice was so icy it sent shivers down Amelia's spine and she repressed a sigh. Constance and Imogen had been at daggers drawn since their schooldays, when Constance was a prefect and Imogen a particularly annoying first year. Then Imogen lost her magic...

She shuddered at the memory of those dark days. The Time of the Morrigan ...

'We need you, Imogen,' Amelia said before the old hostilities could resume. She opened her top drawer and pulled out a letter waiting there—waiting for eleven long years. 'Mildred Hubble is ready to come to Cackle's—and we want you to be the one to fetch her.'

Mildred sat in silence in her customary spot between her equally silent aunt and uncle at the breakfast table. Meals were always silent now … had been silent since the day after the attack when Maths Boy's parents came round shrieking about unnatural children needing to be locked up. Aunt Hilda and Uncle John were horrified (Maths Boy's mum was possessed of a particularly shrill voice and they knew without a doubt that the entire street and probably part of the next had heard everything) and simply refused to entertain any explanation Mildred could provide. Even the bruises and the revived nightmares—now full blown screaming fits—could not persuade them otherwise.

'Pass the tea, if you would,' Aunt Hilda said with exquisite politeness and Mildred obeyed, her tongue protruding as she concentrated on not spilling a single drop.

'And the milk,' Uncle John added and she complied. Her hand shook as she tried to pour and a stream of white trailed down the side of his black mug. He ignored it, his gaze fixed resolutely on the mushy heap of Weetabix at the centre of his bowl.

Mildred's throat tightened and she clasped her hands in her lap, willing them to stop shaking. If only they'd shout. Or scold. Or even look exasperated at her clumsiness. At least then she'd know they cared.

Freaks don't deserve to live, played in her mind. They used to drown witches … Perhaps Uncle John and Aunt Hilda would have preferred it if she'd drowned.

She allowed her head to fall forward, hiding her expression before it betrayed her. She was about to excuse herself and retire to the cupboard when the doorbell went, and her head snapped up.

Aunt Hilda and Uncle looked at each other.

'Who's that?' the former demanded, clasping her napkin to her mouth.

'I'll get rid of 'em,' Uncle John promised, rising. Mildred trailed after him into the hall, her native curiosity coming forth for the first time since the ambush.

There was a blue shadow behind the frosted glass that framed the door. Mildred crept closer. The bell rang a second time and Uncle John grumbled and opened it.

'Listen, we don't want anything to do with them Jehovah's Witnesses—'

'I'm not with Jehovah's Witnesses,' the woman in blue cut in. She had a nice voice, Mildred decided. 'I'm here about your niece, Mildred Hubble.'

Mildred started and one booted foot jerked out to kick the cupboard door. Uncle John turned, glaring, and she instinctively shrank back but it was too late. The lady in blue had spotted her.

'Are you Mildred?' she asked, smiling so sweetly up at Uncle John that he gaped and moved to allow her entry. 'I'm Miss Drill. I've come for you.'

'Come for her?' Aunt Hilda echoed. Her tiny figure seemed to expand. 'Why? Who are you? Listen, I don't care what she's done, them boys had it coming. She's a good girl, our Mildred, she is—'

'I've come to bring her to school,' Miss Drill interrupted gently and Mildred's stare swivelled from her newly protective great-aunt. 'She really isn't in any trouble, Mrs Bland.'

'School?' Uncle John was scowling. 'She's already at school. Goes to the local comp.'

'This is a … a boarding school,' Miss Drill said. 'Mildred's name was put down for it before she was born.'

There was a pause as Hilda and John digested this.

'Like Eton?' Hilda breathed.

Miss Drill's eyes sparkled. 'Exactly like Eton,' she agreed gravely. 'Here's the letter from our headmistress as proof.'

'We can't afford no fees—' Uncle John blustered, but Miss Drill was shaking her head.

'They're already paid, sir. In full.' Mildred's eyes widened. 'All we require from you is your signature allowing us to take the child right away. She's a lot to learn!' For the first time, Miss Drill directed the full force of her bright smile at Mildred and it triggered an answering spark within the girl for the first time since that hellish night at the end of last term.

She caught her aunt's arm. 'Oh, please let me go, Aunt Hilda. Please. I'll do my best, I'll work ever so hard—'

'You won't have much choice,' Miss Drill said, a slight edge to her voice that Mildred did not yet understand.

'I'll get my qualifications, I'll be able to support myself—'

'Certainly you will!' Miss Drill agreed. 'Cackle's Academy is a … very good school, Mr and Mrs Bland. Very uh, prestigious. Um, rarefied.'

But as Mildred looked into the faces of her aunt and uncle she knew the battle was already won. She was leaving! She was going to school!