Alright so I'm pissed that the pretty formatting I had this in is gone because of the stupid editor messing things up. Enjoy and ignore the ugliness.
Survey of the Day:
Name: Killian Piper Alvy.
Age: 13.
Hair Color: Blond.
Birth Date: February 12.
Birthplace: Atlanta, Georgia.
Favorite Movie: I couldn't pick.
Favorite Animal: Panda.
Favorite Food: Probably sushi.
"Bah." Thus came the sigh of the bored now-teen Killian Alvy as she sat in her usual spot at her desk, lights off and computer on, head resting on her hand, with her elbow rested on the desk, now even too bored to finish surveys. She had been left at home alone again, and was filling out surveys as she always did when she was bored and alone, hoping to update her blog with nothing but the survey. She never did anything to blog about anyway; she wasn't even sure why she had it anymore. Last time she checked, no one had read it in three years, and even then, she'd only accumulated 17 views. Her family had gone to her younger brother's football game. She knew nothing of the sport, really, and the fact that he brother was this so-called "quarterback" meant nothing to her, and had no effect on her desire to go watch him play over staying home with better things to do.
She typed into the search bar as a subject of interest to her came to mind. Although a teenager, ready to enter high school, Killian still felt no real excitement about the ordeal. She was better than high school. She needed more than that. In fact, any sort of higher education was of little interest to her, she had all she needed. She was extremely intelligent as it was already. She really preferred to learn what she was interested in at her own pace, and at home. After much pleading and convincing her mother that she had no friends to share high school with anyway, she had been allowed to switch to homeschooling. She was pleased with this. Even though it was technically still the same low-level work, she'd be able to complete it at her own pace, incredibly quickly, and hopefully graduate early.
For now, however, she sat at her computer, reading up on Alchemy, her newest learning endeavor. It was almost like magic, what they did. Though she was quite certain it did not exist, she was still curious as to how it was ruled out that it didn't. It was quite amazing how the alchemists had figured out combinations of materials that mixed together would create other materials, completely different, yet molecularly the same.
She looked at an ad on the right hand side of the webpage. "Do You Believe In Magic?" it read in bright, sparkling, blinking letters. It was really too distracting to ignore. She scoffed. The thought of magic was nice, but from what she'd read, such things were not scientifically feasible. The notes within her alchemical readings had proven such. Thousands of years of research and transfiguration of objects is still not possible. The subject is dead, to say the least. If magic did exist, surely the scientific world would have found some hint as to its existence somewhere, rather than proving it's impossibility over and over again.
Her head began to ache as she made her one-sided mental debate, and she dropped her head backward onto her chair with a cushioned-leather-y thud.
Within a moment, there was a power outage. 'Great,' she thought as she closed her eyes for a moment, egging her headache away, 'four and a half hours of notes lost in an instant. Just lovely.'
She lifted her head to look at her blank monitor in dismay, but she found that the screen itself was still active. A small blinking pixel-image of a bird was blinking at her. Upon closer inspection, she concluded that the image was that of an owl, wide-eyed and staring at her, blinking in and out of the black screen. The owl itself was gray in color with large yellow eyes. She was in shock as she looked around the room and out her window. Power was on in everyone else's houses, and nothing was on in her room except for her computer monitor. In fact even that didn't even sound like it was on, it was simply projecting an image without power. This was just too freaky. She crawled under her desk and unplugged the monitor, letting out the breath she had been holding the entire time as she raised herself back to sit up and relax. She'd have a large intake of air once more, however, as the owl was still there, blinking brighter now than before.
She was a bit speechless as she had a stroke of insanity, reaching for the mouse. When she grabbed the mouse, a pointer immediately appeared in the top right corner of her screen, it was gold in color, with a line of red, green, blue, and black. The pointer itself was massive and unnecessarily detailed, with a thinner stripe within each of the larger ones, gold within the red, silver within the green, bronze within the blue, and yellow within the black. She moved it to the small owl in the center and clicked it. The screen went blank for a moment before an image appeared. It seemed to be scanned parchment. She began to read aloud, and was a bit curious as to why it was addressed to her house.
Branwelts Academy, USA
A HSWW Sub-Academy
Central Island Port, USA
Killian Piper Alvy
The Lime Green Room, Floor 2
At 42 Bracken Trace
Atlanta Metro, Georgia
Thank you, new student Killian, for keeping the nation greener,
and accepting this letter electronically. Should you wish to have a
paper copy owled to you for your records, please say so now. You will be
billed in the amount of 3 Galleons for postage and parchment costs.
The letter ended there, and Killian simply stared. She had no idea what this was about, or what to do right now. She hadn't applied to any schools. Did her mother do this? After all of that pleading and effort to convince her to let her be homeschooled, she put her in private school? She sighed. She could never have anything her way. She stayed silent for another moment before another set of words faded into the parchment and she read on.
Excellent choice. Silence is golden, as they say.
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to Branwelts Academy,
a HSWW SubAcademy here in the grand old United States. We are a sister school to
none other than the great Hogwarts itself, formed by a colleague of our dear and missed
Albus Dumbledore, who wished that those in the America's have such a great opportunity
to hone their skills as young witches and wizards in today's world. Our school is a contemporary
approach to this way of schooling, located on an island in the center of the country, and wholly
dedicated to your future.
Now things were creepy. Had this mentioned... "Witches and wizards?" She said to herself. She opened her eyes wider as the letter seemed to respond to her words.
Uninformed on this matter? That was expected, my dear, as you are but a
muggle born child. Even checking your family history shows no record of
magic within your bloodline. Quite rare, really, and very interesting.
Regardless, before we continue any farther, let me introduce myself. My
name is Gregory Jambit-Madin VII. No one really calls me by that name,
however, so you may call me Professor Madin (That's muh-DEEN, if you
wish to know), and I am the headmaster here at Branwelts.
It has been noted in several places that you show a promising amount of
magical prowess within yourself, and we wish to help you use and control
that magic. A date of note, showing what we mean within our records.
April 14 of this year, you used magic. Perhaps you remember this day yourself.
It was true that that day held some odd occurrences. It had been her friend's birthday. A big one as it was her thirteenth, the beginning of her teenage years. The party was going wonderfully until her ex, a boy named Adam, who had broken her heart several times now, arrived to cause trouble. At first he seemed innocent, merely talking to people at the party, but Killian kept her eye on him, making sure he was staying innocent. It was when there was no one to talk to that she noticed odd behavior. He peeked into her gifts, laughing at some of them, and that sparked her annoyance. She could feel the hairs of her body standing on end, which didn't happen often.
He made his way over to a table of girls and began flirting with them, while she saw her friend watching sadly from the distance. She walked over and distracted her immediately, her anger growing. It wasn't until nearly the end of the festivities portion of the party that things started to get out of hand. Her friend had tried to talk to him, but this had only made him angry, and he was yelling and making a scene, totally ruining this big day. He made his way to the table with her magnificent cake with a murderous intent. She knew what was coming, and she was infuriated. She felt every hair on her body stand on end, pick straight as her anger peaked with the flipping of her cake table. Every balloon in the area popped, and the cake landed perfectly safe on the ground with a slow descent. She couldn't really remember the rest of the day after that, she passed out a moment later and woke up an hour later with some water and a piece of cake in the living room of her friend's house. She supposed that could have been her that caused all of that. She continued to read the screen.
These things can be explained in two ways. Denial will tell you that it was coincidence,
but your heart says otherwise. There is something inside you compelling you to do more
with yourself, that your purpose is out of your world.
Everything began to make a bit of sense, but then she came down to it. This is a scam. A stupid, overdone scam. This was crazy. She had no magic ability. Magic didn't exist. She couldn't be reading this. She had to be dreaming. She shoved it off as a dream, letting it continue. Perhaps she'd wake up and her computer would be on, and nothing lost. She continued.
I congratulate you on this momentous moment, and do hope you have
someone to share it with. All of your questions and inquiries can be
answered upon your first day of school here. An escort will come to
retrieve you on August first.
Thank you, and I hope to see you soon.
Sincerely,
Professor Gregory Jambit-Madin VII
As soon as she finished reading the Professor's name, her power returned, and she plugged her monitor back into the wall. Surprisingly when it came back on, all of her things were still open, as if the power had never gone out at all. She wasn't even interested in the subject any longer, however, and sat dumbfounded in her seat. Had that really been a magical thing? Had this odd note been the truth? She had to tell someone. The letter had hoped she had someone anyway.
She picked up her cell phone and dialed a set of well-known numbers, pressing the green button, and waiting for the ring. A classical song began to play instead of the ring, some sort of fancy ring thing the phone company offered.
"Hello?" The answer was more abrupt than she had expected, and quite a change from the pretty classical music that had just been on, and she was silent for a moment. "Hellooooo?"
"Oh, hey, Alyssa. It's me." She spoke loudly into the phone. For some reason Alyssa seemed to have trouble hearing the phone sometimes.
She hadn't talked to Alyssa in a while, so they caught up on things they'd been missing. You see, the two used to be neighbors, and went to school together, but Killian's parents decided to move away, and the two were separated. Good for them, though, that they both had cell phones and could call each other whenever they needed to. She remembered when she had met Alyssa, back in elementary school.
Little blond Killian had been minding her own business in the reading center, scanning over a book on the effects of ocean currents on the weather, her other second grade friends were busy playing on the playground past the window. Her eyes lifted to see a female figure standing on top of the playground, completely still. The other kids stared. How had she gotten onto the roof?
She seemed to have a moment of realization as to where she was, and began to panic, crying and calling for help. Some teachers rushed to help her, and she was brought back inside. She sat at the table next to Killian, and looked rather scared. Killian took a good look at her before making her move. Her clothing choice had been rather odd, very brightly colored, whereas Killian preferred the more dulled tones of clothing. Her face was cute, and her skin an olive tone, and her hair was a lovely brunette color. She was nice enough, Killian determined, and introduced herself.
"I'm Killian." She gave a light smile as the girl's eyes lifted. Surprisingly, she was not crying, but held a happy, evil sort of sparkle in them, like she'd just accomplished something.
"Did you see the way they ran? Ha!" She laughed a bit. "They're calling my parents now, saying I've had a fit and I need to come home." She looked out the window. She had done that on purpose. "Oh, and I'm Alyssa." Her eyes sparkled as she gave a large grin. This girl was… interesting.
"So you did that on purpose? How did you get up there?" Killian's facial expression showed the determination to know how she had completed this, perhaps she could do something similar someday and have her parents come get her. Alyssa's face grew a bit scared, as if she didn't want to give away any secrets. Then her smile returned and she replied.
"Well, I climbed it of course! The Gras family has always been known for their excellent climbing skills!" With that, she stood and placed a fist over her heart, standing dramatically. She sat down a moment later. "But, no, really. Don't try that. It's dangerous."
Killian nodded slowly, eyes wide. This girl…
In the present, however, the two had been talking about what they'd been doing for school since sixth grade, and how their families were. After a few minutes of catch-up, Killian's tone dropped to a more serious level.
"Alyssa… I need to talk to someone about this." She spoke a bit quietly; as though everyone else could hear her if she talked any louder.
Alyssa's voice grew concerned. "What happened?"
"To be honest, I'm not really sure where to start, or how to explain this. I find it hard to believe myself, but I needed to talk to someone about it. My power went out and-"
"Oh that's all? Power goes out all the time, are you stupid? Probably some idiot hit the power box."
"No, no. Only my house's power went out, and then my computer-"
"Well maybe they only hit your power-"
"Oh, would you let me finish, Alyssa!"
"Yeah, sorry." She heard her friend chuckle on the other end; she knew how she hated being interrupted before her story was finished. She was thankful for the slight comic relief, however. It made this a bit easier.
"Anyway, everything was off, but there was still an image on my computer screen. So I grabbed the mouse, which worked somehow, and clicked it. When I did, this, like, letter thing popped up telling me I was going to go to some school for magic. It was really weird, and freaky, and I needed to tell some-"
"Branwelts?"
"What?"
"Was it from a school called Branwelts?"
"Yeah, I think so. Why? Did you get it too?"
"Well, yes, but mine came by conventional owl. I guess they got a new system. Little more low-profile I guess." What? What was Alyssa going on about? "Go downstairs, I'm coming over."
In the background she could hear Alyssa telling her mother she was coming to her house. How was she going to get here without her mother? She walked down the stairs and sat on the comfy couch in their living room. She hated waiting.
There was a click, and Alyssa was gone. "She hung up on me." She threw her head back. "She thinks I'm crazy. She's probably coming over to pad my room and lock me in. Maybe Branwelts is something crazy people see. Oh, god, I'm insane."
There was a flash of light, and Killian's head shot up. Alyssa was walking forward from her fireplace. Her eyes grew wide. "How… how did you do that?" Her voice was scared and exasperated.
"Floo powder. It's a magical way of travelling. A bit rough sometimes, but it works." Flu powder? "So you got into Branwelts? That must mean you've done magic."
"I've never used magic, it doesn't even exist. I don't know how you did that, but it was scary." As Alyssa sat down on the couch with her, Killian scooted away a bit.
"No need to be scared. I'm a thirteen year old girl. It's not like I can even do anything interesting magic-wise yet, I'm not in school. Luckily you'll be coming with me. This whole time I thought you were just a muggle and that I'd never see you again. Seems like we'll be together in school again though." She smiled widely. "I thought I was going to be all alone."
Killian sighed. It appeared that two worlds that shouldn't meet were coming together quite quickly. "So what is this Branwelts. The letter wasn't very informative."
"You probably should have asked it a few questions before it went away, then." She laughed. "Though I'm sure you didn't know what to do with it anyway. Branwelts is a school for people who can use magic. Witches and wizards. It's an accelerated learning school for American students. It was founded about ten years ago by decree of Albus Dumbledore, the greatest headmaster of Hogwarts, a school in Europe." She got more comfortable as she seemed to be trying to recall word-for-word something she'd read about the school. "My mother was telling me all about it. Apparently it's some really modern school, something that hasn't been seen other places. The new headmaster is a young muggle-born, so I'm sure he's trying to keep things up-to date, what with the email and such."
"First off, that wasn't an 'email,' that was like hacking into my computer. And second, what is this 'muggle' word I keep hearing. If I'm one, I'd like to know what it is, thanks." She sat a bit closer, now more comfortable with the situation.
"It's just a word for people who can't use magic. You're not a muggle though, you're a witch. You're only muggle-born." She sat silent for a moment. "Mother will be coming over in the morning to talk to your parents. I'll come too, but for now I'm going to go home. It's late, and your parents will be wondering how I got here if they come home while I'm here. I'll see you tomorrow." With a big grin, she hopped off of the couch. Killian watched her leave. Alyssa reached into the pocket of her purple jeans, and pulled out some powder, throwing it into the fireplace. Flames erupted, blazing at her. She turned to Killian and waved. "Bye." She stepped into the flames and they disappeared. She was gone.