Hermione Granger stared dumbly at the letter in her hands. She had gotten up to fetch the mail from the letterbox as she did every day in between her maths and science assignments. Usually, there was the normal assortments of bill and advertisements and the occasional note to her parents, but today there was a letter addressed for her. It was a large, smooth envelope addressed in a flowing hand. Why would somebody send something like this to somebody like her?
Unable to stop herself, she settled back in at her desk, and carefully opened the envelope, pulling out the letter inside. She took a moment to appreciate the aged look of the paper before the words that were on it fully sunk in.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? You are a witch? Was this some sort of poor joke? Hermione knew that magic wasn't anything outside of storybooks, though she did dearly love to read her fantasy books. What people had dismissed as magic in ancient times was easily explained by science now. Though whoever had forged the letter had done a rather good job with the details, she mused, looking at the supply list. A pointed hat and a magic wand? Basic enough. But scales for potion making and the titles of all the books? This scam went beyond the normal practical joke.
A line at the bottom of the letter caught her eye. "Please send your reply by owl."
Hermione laughed, and returned to the rest of her homework, eyes travelling back to the letter every so often. About to get up and head downstairs to her parents, she grabbed a piece of paper on a whim, scrawling a brief note on it before sliding over to the window. It'd be a good laugh, even though she knew she could hardly send a letter with an owl.
Feeling foolish, Hermione stuck her letter out the window and waved it around. As she had suspected, nothing happened. She sat and waited a few more minutes. Standing back up, she muttered under her breath, "What's a girl got to do to get a letter to Hogwarts?"
Hermione fell back into her seat as an owl rushed the window. Her heart pounded as it perched delicately in the window and stuck its leg out as if this sort of thing was perfectly natural. Which it most certainly wasn't. With unsure hands, Hermione slid the letter into the tube on the owl's leg. It flew away the moment she pulled her hand back.
She sat in the window, staring at where the owl had been, until her mother called her down to supper. Training an owl to collect the post was an awful lot of trouble to go through for a mere hoax.
She picked at her dinner. This was bringing up far too many questions that Hermione simply couldn't answer. She found her mind going in ridiculous directions, and she tried her best to reign in her curiousity. If she truly could do magic and was a witch, that would explain some unusual events which happened around her. Hermione hadn't ever known why some of these things happened. But the whole point of witches was that they could cast spells and put curses on their enemies (at least according to the stories). So then why couldn't Hermione control hers?
She grew more and more frustrated as she stomped up the stairs to her room. She sat down again at her desk, when she felt an odd tingling sensation in her arms. Her desk started to rattle underneath her, lifting up a few inches from the floor.
Excitement flooded Hermione. This was the sort of proof she had been searching for within herself. This odd feeling combined with odd circumstances?
She did not sleep that night, trying with all her might to summon the tingling again, but without success.
