Disclaimer: You know the drill, I own nothing of true intellectual value.

Chapter 1

Institute for Amateur Magicians

"Chrissie, dear, breakfast's ready! Rise and shine, sweatheart!" called the voice of a woman in her early thirties as she passed her oldest daughter's second floor bedroom.

This seemed to disturb the young girl's dreams, making her shift in the comfort of her bed. She groaned, "Mm, yeah, I'm up," but just turned the other way and drifted back to sleep.

The door violently shot open with a loud Slam!

"CHRISTINA HARPTON!"

The girl jumped into a sitting position from the sudden rise in her mother's tone of voice, tousled sandy brown hair flying animatedly around her sleepy face. Her mother chuckled and made her way to sit on the side of the bed and brush her daughter's locks of hair away as she smiled lovingly.

"Come now, Chrissie. Get yourself dressed and come down for breakfast," she cooed, stroking her daughter's hair away from the child's face. "We have a busy day ahead of us."

"Mm," the girl voiced, rubbing and blinking the sleep away. "Alright, mum."

"Splendid. Don't be long now."

Her mother rose and exited the room, humming along the way, as she went downstairs to the kitchen to resume her chores, pausing by the table to peck the cheek of a man in a white button up and navy trousers before she turned her attention to the pan of sizzling French toast on the stove. The man smiled to himself briefly, hiding it with a sip from his freshly made coffee by his darling wife as he absentmindedly turned a page of the Sunday paper he was reading.

"Listen to this, Caroline," he addressed the busy woman who was placing dishes around the table. "This tiny segment right here – Unusual nocturnal aviary behavior; a number of owls sighted in broad daylight all over England."

The woman stiffened for a brief moment, but managed to compose herself and reply with "My, Liam, how uncanny!"

"Must've been bothered by a bunch of rock-throwing hooligans, I'll bet. Kids these days!" he concluded with undoubtful certainty.

"Really, daddy, really?! Owls! I wanna see some too!" A little eight year old jumped up and down in her chair next to Liam, excitement twinkling in her big brown eyes.

"Maybe next time we visit the zoo, Shelly dear," Caroline playfully pressed the tip of her youngest's nose, leaning next to her on the table when she heard hurried footsteps down the stairs. "But you mustn't wake them. They're rather fond of sleeping away the day, a bit like your older sister." The small girl chuckled loudly just when her sister came into the kitchen with the appearance of a recently awoken owl with ruffled hair akin to disheveled feathers.

"Well, morning to you too, Shells! What's all this fuss about me and my distant owly relatives I've been trying to keep secret?" With a wide grin on her face, Chris attacked her little sister in a flurry of tickling, causing the smaller girl to explode in another fit of giggles as an amused smile made its way onto their mother's beaming features.

"Charlotte! Christina!" Liam snapped shut his newspaper onto the table to give them a stern look which immediately ceased all movement. "Behave yourselves at the table. You're gonna make a mess of your mother's hard work."

"Sorry." The two meekly subsided, taking their usual places around the table, and started to eat.

"Now, as we all know, it's almost time for school to start, which also means Shelly's birthday's coming up," Caroline began as the family ate, "So I thought it best that we take the opportunity today to go out shopping, seeing as it's such a nice Sunday."

"Today is gonna be fantastic, I just know it!" Shelly's mood immediately improved upon hearing the subtle hint of shopping for presents.

"You not included, Squirt. It'll be just me and Mum. We'll be getting your presents, remember? And you won't get to see what they are until your birthday. So you're with Liam today," Chris teased, cutting her French toast ferociously, the grin making its way back on her face.

"Aww, really?!" This time Shelly said it with animated disappointment. "But I want to go too!"

"Come now, Princess, try not to sound too disappointed that you get to spend the day with Daddy," Liam chimed in, a knowing smile playing on his features as he resisted scowling at Chris for the inaudible snort she made at the way he spoke in baby tongue. "As I recall, you wanted to see some owls, did you not?"

"You mean..." Shelly's face brightened at the implication. "We get to go to the zoo! Daddy, you're the best!" As the little girl jumped off the chair with shouts of happiness and latched arms around her father's neck to dangle from it, a click and a flop was heard from the hall.

"That must be the post. Fetch it for me, will you Shelly." Liam set his daughter down and she scampered off.

"Isn't it Sunday?" Chris raised an eyebrow and eyed Liam with amused disbelief at his error.

Caroline froze and her eyes shot to the main direction of the door where her younger daughter had gone to retrieve the mail. She could almost hear a pair of feathery wings faintly fluttering away outside.

"It's some advertiser then, littering us with flyers. Bit annoying really, that those're still around nowadays. Spam post on the internet, spam post in the mail at home, there's no end to it," Liam noted, not at all noticing the way his wife nervously brought her fingertips to her stilled lips.

"Daddy?" Shelly's tiny voice sounded from the hall. Chris and Liam turned, confused at the sudden change of mood in the usually cheerful little girl. Shelly reentered the room slowly, peering at the front of a strange thick envelope made of yellowish parchment. All they could see was a purple wax seal on the back, bearing some sort of official coat of arms. Shelly looked up at her father, reluctance evident on her small face. "Is Chrissie going away to another school? Away from home?"

Liam and Chris exchanged confused looks. Caroline shrunk in her seat and fidgeted, her knuckles brushing her lips as fear overcame her like a mountainous wave.

"What are you going about, Shelly? There's no such thing, I assure you." Liam brushed it off with a snort.

"None that I'd know of, anyway. Sick of me already, are you?" Chris joked, sending Liam a smirk which he regarded with another of his warning looks.

"You're getting bloody close, young lady, throwing around remarks like that." He then turned his attention back to Shelly. "It's probably some scam, sweetie. You can go ahead and throw it away."

"But it's got her room written on it and everything!" Shelly trotted to her father and shoved the strange envelope in his face. "Look!"

Now curious, Chris leaned over the table along with her little sister in attempt to catch a glimpse of the contents of the mysterious letter which knew exactly where she slept. As Liam turned it over to inspect the wax seal, something which nobody used anymore, Chris saw neatly handwritten letters in emerald green flash on the front of the strangely stamp-less envelope, clearly addressed to Ms. C. Harpton. It was evident that this could only mean her, Christina Harpton, as her mother had remarried and everyone else in the family were named Miller.

Liam carefully opened the mysterious old fashioned formal envelope and read quietly, raising an eyebrow as his slightly bulging eyes paused here and there. As he did so, Caroline stood mute and unmoving, staring in front of her at her half-empty plate on the table with great worry in the pit of her stomach, now and then throwing cautious looks at her husband, her lips in a thin line. The kids just craned their necks in interest, but were too far away to make out anything that was written.

Finally done with the first page of yellowish parchment, Liam quickly shuffled through the rest and scoffed, "What's this? Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? Hah! Complete rubbish."

Chris raised her brows akin to how Liam was doing a moment ago.

"A magic school!" Shelly exclaimed in wonderment. "Wicked! I want to go too! Can I? Can I?"

"Too bad it's not real, Seashells," Chris teased. "Otherwise I'm sure I would take you with me, you've got my word on it." Shelly pouted when her smirking older sister ruffled her fringe playfully. That letter looked real enough to Shelly, but her sister was insistent on joking about it. "We'd pull bunnies out of hats together and everything!" Chris laughed.

"That's a thought," Liam mused aloud. "Must be some kind of institute for amateur magicians. Card tricks, smoke and mirrors, all that nonsense. You'd fit right in, don't you think, Chrissie, since you often like to play the role of the house jester?"

"Ha-ha, you got me, Liam. I just knew you were full of hilarious input," Chris threw sarcastically and crossed her arms.

"Watch it, Missy." Amusement left Liam and, while once again looking over the letter, he finally chose to address his awfully quiet wife. "These papers however... I must say, they're quite articulately forged. Don't you think so, Caroline?"

Caroline's seat clattered loudly when she abruptly stood up. Everyone looked at her oddly as her hands and lips trembled and she looked at Liam with an apologetic face and deep regret in her eyes.

"By god, Caroline! You startled us! What is it with you?"

She brought a hand over her mouth again to trace her lips with her fingernails and looked away, now avoiding Liam's gaze.

"Mum?" Chris tried, becoming worried herself. Her mother seemed to be having a strong reaction over some bogus letter from a presumably made up school.

"I," she struggled, obviously trying to find the words to explain something complicated. "I should have seen this coming. The signs were all there but I simply chose to ignore them. It seemed convenient at the time." She bit her lip nervously and looked around the room, rubbing the side of her neck. "I'm truly sorry, Liam." He eyed her expectantly. "I know I should have told you... but you never noticed and it never really came up. I thought that since I'm like this now, she wouldn't get the letter, but it was naive of me to think that." She sighed. "Letters were coming in all week and I was just waiting for the right time to explain everything. I was going to talk it through with Crissie first when we went out today, but I didn't think they'd send another one on a Sunday. I didn't want you to find out like that."

Chris and Shelly exchanged looks, both having some wild ideas of what their mother could be referring to.

"What are you bloody on about, Caroline? And what's this ridiculous ruse of yours all about?" Liam tried to laugh it off, but his wife kept her solemn demeanor, which made him a bit uncomfortable.

Caroline exhaled a strained breath and eyed her daughters. "Christina. Charlotte." They jumped a little. "I think you should go play outside for a bit."

"What?!" Chris immediately protested. "If this is about my letter, I believe I have a right to—"

"Now, if you please." Her mother's look turned uncharacteristically stern.

"But what about shopping! And the zoo!" Shelly didn't miss the chance to voice her own worries.

"Out! The both of you!" Liam stood and raised his voice, effectively chasing them off with sullen looks on their faces.

That day the two sisters sat in the back yard, halfheartedly pushing a worn out ball back and forth on the ground. They couldn't bring themselves to utter a word, trying to listen in on the conversation inside and when the voices from the house changed, rising to bitter shouts, the two of them stopped playing altogether and just sat in silence. Shelly was evidently trying her hardest not to cry the whole time. They accurately figured out there would be no shopping for schoolbooks and presents, nor a trip to see the sleeping owls, as it eventually got darker and they were ushered in by their tired looking mother. Liam could be seen outside on the lawn in front of the house, leaning on the side of his car with a glass of whiskey in his hand and a smoke in the other. A feint trace of tobacco could be smelt in the air, coming through the cracked window, along with a quiet begrudging mumbling of "all this time" and "witches in my very own house".

After just the three of them had an unnervingly quiet dinner, Chris went up to her room, changed and threw herself on the bed, wanting all memory of the day to go away as soon as possible. But when Charlotte was tucked in, her mother knocked on the door frame, let herself in and closed the door behind her, giving an effort to smile kindly. Chris sat upright as her mother sat down at the foot of the bed like she had done the same morning.

"Listen, Crissie, I owe you an apology as well. To all of you, actually," she began with downcast eyes, reaching for Cristina's smaller hands. That was when Chris noticed her mother had the mysterious envelope with her. She was placing it in her daughter's hands. "Here. You can read it now."

Caroline smiled warmly as Chris looked back with uncertainty. She observed the thick envelope more carefully this time, taking in the feel of the old fashioned parchment and the animal figures on the unstuck by Liam purple wax seal, surrounding a large letter H. Taking out the papers inside, she read the first one:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF
WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

Headmistress: Minerva McGonagall

Dear Ms. Harpton,

We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely,
Filius Flitwick,
Deputy Headmaster

Chris stared at the neat emerald green letters, not really sure what to make of this new information, and looked up at her mother with a quizzical look.

"I don't think I quite understand what this is all about. And do they mean a real owl?"

"Don't worry dear, I'll take care of that," her mother chuckled. With her hands over her daughter's, Caroline took a breath. She always knew this wasn't going to be easy. "Do you remember, Crissie," she peered in her daughter's eyes, warm chocolate meeting deep dark blue, "what I've told you of your father and I?"

Taken aback, Chris hesitated. Her mother rarely talked about her father, Tim Harpton. It usually seemed to bring her much sadness whenever Chris brought up the subject so she gathered her mother didn't like being reminded of his absence. Several things stuck though, such as her mother's reassurances that they were very much in love, that they married really young, right out of school, that her father had very much loved his daughter as well and that he had very dark blue eyes, the depth of which make them seem black, eyes which Chris had inherited and which probably served as a constant reminder to her mother that he was no longer together with them. It sounded like he was either gone or deceased but it didn't really matter because it was hard enough for her mother to speak of him either way.

"Everything," Chris admitted, "because I don't hear much."

"I see." Caroline smiled sadly and looked down as she stroked her daughter's fingers in her hands. "You've come to terms with that." She stopped suddenly and regained her composure, looking back and holding tightly to the girl's hands. "Well, to begin with, and this might come as a bit of a shock to you, but not everything you believe impossible is such."

Chris pursed her lips at her mother's cryptic words as the woman smiled knowingly.

"Let me give you an example, dear. Remember two years ago, the boy who bullied you that developed a strange outbreak of warts on his face? I should have known better."

"What's that have to do with anything? I swore it wasn't my fault!" Chris was quick to defend herself, to her mother's amusement.

"Ah, but what were you thinking about when the boy was bothering you and calling you names?"

Chris fell silent, not really in favor of where this was going.

"That's right." Caroline's eyes twinkled. "And the mysterious mold which appeared in less than an hour all over the toys I had you pass down to Shelly? You threw a mighty tantrum, I reckon. Can't believe I had the heart to ignore it."

"It's just—!" Chris sputtered, "I was really attached to those!"

"Now that I begin to remember, there was also the bloated basketball incident at school. That was quite obvious as well." Caroline chuckled. "So many things are starting to make sense."

"But I didn't! Really!" Chris was getting desperate. "I know I'm not exactly the luckiest of people but I didn't really do any of those things! I couldn't have!"

Her mother smirked knowingly and motioned towards the letter.

"Could I?" Chris stared with disbelief. "There's no way..."

"Now you see as well how many coincidences make up a fact."

"I can't believe it." Shaking her head, Chris was in a daze.

"But it's true, dear." Her mother smiled.

"You're sending me to a boarding school for freaks because I curse everything around me and can't control it!" Chris cried out dejectedly.

Caroline backtracked a little, not sure how her daughter could have gotten that impression. She laughed full-heartedly, causing Chris to worry if her mother was pulling her leg.

"No, dear, no," she said after she had composed herself, "Heavens no!"

"So," Chris approached carefully, "I'm not a witch?"

"Not in the sense you think of it, dear," Caroline shook her head lightly. "Don't you see?" She cupped the sides of her daughter's face and smiled kindly, drowning into those painfully familiar, deep, dark blue eyes. "You're just like your father and I – a child of the wizarding world."

"Wizarding world?" Chris repeated as her mother lowered her hands to her daughter's shoulders. "There's an entire wizarding world out there? With lots of other wizards and witches? Ones that do magic and all that kind of stuff? Like in games and movies and everything?!"

"Well, not quite but of course there is," her mother exclaimed, but caught herself, "Though it's natural that you'd know nothing of it, no thanks to me."

"And this Hogwarts school is there?" Chris prodded further. "Where I'll be able to learn to do all sorts of magic and incantations and, and—!"

"Yes, darling," Caroline laughed at her daughter' excitement. "Well, they don't live in one place only. We, I mean. Wizardkind is all over the world, living in secret societies without Muggle knowledge."

"Muggle?"

"That is the name wizards and witches use for those who are not," Caroline explained patiently. Chris didn't know whether to be bothered by the sudden revelations or get lost in their wonders.

"But why are you telling me just now, Mum?" Chris felt it unfair. "Surely there is so much I've missed, so much I don't know!"

Caroline's guilty gaze fell and she smiled to herself. "I know, sweetheart, I know." She was expecting her daughter to say something like that. "But we're forbidden to reveal ourselves to muggles and I didn't think you'd turn out to be magical. Not after..." The woman choked on her words and quieted down, as if ashamed of something. Chris followed her gaze to the hands she rubbed together. "I'm not really a witch anymore, Crissie." Caroline smiled weakly as she refused to meet her daughter's eyes.

Chris raised an eyebrow. "Are your powers stolen, Mum?" she guessed, "Or are you banned to use them?"

Caroline eyed her daughter carefully, the weak smile causing Chris to guess some of the pain and sadness held in the next sentence uttered.

"It would've been less excruciating if that were the case, sweetheart."

Chris kept her mouth shut for a couple of good minutes before she spoke again.

"Is that why you don't talk about dad? Because he was a wizard and you had to keep quiet about it? To Liam. And Shelly."

Caroline's eyes shot up in shock and she looked away, brows furrowed. "Yes, part of it." She resigned her willingness to continue the conversation and stood from the bed. "But I've told you all else I can about him and I'd really rather not say much more."

Chris knew she may have pushed her mother too far. But it seemed like the woman had hidden the truth about the nature of their entire existence from her daughter for an entire decade, so she figured her mother could at least give a bit more hints about what her father was like, what he was interested in, what had happened to him. She owed her that much.

"Well, Miss C. Harpton," Caroline adopted an official sounding voice, "I hereby welcome you to the world of wondrous magic!" She finished with an over the top bow at the waist and winked at her giggling daughter. "Goodnight darling." She kissed her forehead. "We'll talk more about it when we're off for your books and Liam's safely out of earshot. Sleep well."

Turning the lights out, her mother left, closing the door, but Chris' thoughts didn't. But instead of her mind racing back and forth, trying to completely grasp the notion that she and her mother were witches, part of a whole secret community, the thoughts circled around her father. As much as she'd struggled to ignore the fact that she never knew him, had not even one single memory of him and grew up without him, the notion of Tim Harpton stayed an enigma Chris couldn't rid herself of throughout her childhood. But she never made it obvious, since it might burden her mother, although she could admit to herself that she was sometimes a bit too cold to Liam, as if hinting that she would never let him replace her real father. Not that Liam tried too hard to be a father figure for her, other than taking upon himself to scold her like he was one, but that was another matter altogether.

Now there was another little fact added to her short little mental list of things she knew about Tim Harpton. And even though she knew it was foolish to cling to the idea of him, since her mother always spoke of him, in the rare instances she did, as if he was gone for good, Chris couldn't just let it go. Especially not now when the mental image of him in her head changed to an amazing wizard with dark blue eyes, who would one day appear out of nowhere, save her from her boring life, the boy who bullied her and her dwindling fickle friends, the unfinished summer homework and Liam's tantrums and take her with him to the wizarding world where every day would be exciting and magical.

Feeling bad about entertaining that thought when the image of her ever so kind mother popped up in her mind, Chris rolled over in bed in a futile attempt to still her mind, but the process repeated into a restless night of made up images of her father, random memories of when she made weird things happen and brief recollections of what she heard from her mother and Liam's fight that afternoon, until she slipped into an equally as restless sleep, dreaming of castles and dragons and elves, where she was an old wizard with a fake long beard, guiding a herd of hobbits and dwarves to battle a swarm of orcs in a overly large version of her back yard.

- x x x -

If you don't hate this it would be great to leave a review. ;)