In the darkest corners of my subconscious lays a memory. A memory so dark, so evil, my
active consciousness has chosen to repress it. It's my fifth birthday: August 13, 1995. Me and my mom
had just finished cake, when mom starts to freak a little from an unknown source. She grabs me and
throws me in our basement, a place I am normally banned from. I look around and see pictures of
Grandma, and green and silver clothing. Suddenly I hear the front door open, and I realize this is what
mom was hiding me from. There's a little peep hole in the trap door which I use to see what's going on.
I see a strange man with a black goatee is chasing mom around. Both are holding sticks. He points his
at mom, mutters some gibberish, and a green flash hits mom. He then starts looking around the house
to find something. I hold as still as I can when I hear what he is looking for: me. I had no idea how I
heard it, since he didn't say anything, but his voice pronouncing my name rang clear in my head. After
five minutes of searching, he left. He obviously had no clue about the trap door. After I was sure he left,
I came up from the basement and went over to mom. There she lay, on the floor, dead. There was no
blood, no proof of her death, but there she lay. My grief and fear turned to rage, and I blacked out.
When I regained consciousness, I was outside, my home on fire. I looked around and saw the man who
saved me, a man who looked a little like Santa Clause. I asked him what happened, and he explained
everything. He told me the truth about the terrible powers bestowed to me, and the truth about my
destiny.....
"Rachael? Rachael! Rachael, are you with me?" asks Harry. I turn to my best friend of
six years, his bright green eyes staring at me from behindhis untidy black hair.
"Yeah, I'm with you," I say to him. I know I have the attention span of a squirrel, but
lately, it's been a lot worse. I don't know why, but my mind wanders to a memory that I normally have
buried in my subconscious. I turn back to my window and stare at my reflection: a small 11-year-old
with purple hair down to my shoulders and yellow eyes framed by elliptical spectacles.
"Really? Then what did I just say?"
"To scoot over 'cause somebody wants to sit with us."
"That is not..." he stopped his sentence short as he saw a boy with flaming red hair
standing in our compartment's doorway.
"Do you mind if I join you? Everywhere else is full."
"Yeah, sure, go ahead," I say, as I turn back to my window. He and Harry start
introducing themselves to each other, talking about Harry's scar. I don't join in. It's not that I'm anti-
social, I just prefer not to talk about myself, especially my mark. Harry turns back to me and starts
arguing again.
"That is not what I said. You so were not paying attention to what I was saying."
"Harry, honey, shut up," I say, "When you get a girlfriend, she is so going to be the one
wearing the pants." Harry rolls his eyes. Something catches his eye outside our compartment.
"Rachael, I dare you to go up to that girl right there and tell her she stole your height."
I look out the door way and see who Harry is pointing at: a tall-assed motherfucker.
"What? No! No way in hell!"
"I triple-dog-dare you to."
"That is not fair."
"You still have to do it. You know the rules." Sighing, I get up off my seat and wander
over to the amazon and pull on her belt loop, seeing as I can't reach the hem of her shirt. She looks
down at me. Pointing at her, I say, "You stole my height." I can't believe I'm actually doing this.
"What?!"
"I'm sorry. My friend triple-dog-dared me, and, you know, you can't turn down a triple-
dog-dare."
"What the fuck is a triple-dog-dare? Are you high?" she asks me, clearly annoyed.
"Okay, you know what a dare is, right?"
"Do I look like I give a rat's ass about any of this, el munchkino?"
"Okay, let's just say my friend was being a jackass and making fun of my shortness" I
say, trying to make the explanation easier. She grins at me.
"You're not short, you're fun-sized," she says.
I roll my eyes. "That makes me feel so much better."
"Well, I could go back to calling you a munchkin..."
"Fun-sized will do." I start to walk away when she calls back to me.
"Hey! I don't actually have any friends, so would it be cool if I sat with you?"
"Are you going to step on me if I say no?" I ask jokingly.
"Well, now I'm debating it," she says, mockingly.
I shake my head and wave at her to follow me to the compartment. As I enter the
compartment and sit down, I hit Harry in the arm. The amazon queen sits down next to him.
"Ow! What was that for?" Harry asks, rubbing his arm.
"For being a jackass," I retort while rolling my eyes.
"How was I being a jackass?"
"You went straight from dare to triple-dog-dare."
"Nothing is fair in war!"
I sigh. "You're right. Nothing is fair in war. How would you like me to ro-sham-bo your
ass?"
Harry puts his hands up. "I withdraw, Rachael, I withdraw."
"Smart choice, Harry." I look around me at the mess in the compartment. Obviously the
lunch trolley stopped by. Realizing how hungry I am I look at Ron. "Ron, pass me the jellie beans." He
passes me a box. I start looking through the flavors, and they have some god-awful ones too, like
booger and, god forbid I ever taste it, vomit. I take a handful, sort them, and sure enough, the first one I
eat is earwax. So gross.
Harry stops my sorting and asks me, "So Rachael, who's the amazon?"
Before I can answer, the amazon says, "I'll uppercut your skinny ass if you ever call me
that again, Mr. Jackass," and punches his leg. I'm already liking this girl.
"Is today like national punch Harry day?"
"Just because you're the Boy Who Lived does not mean you get special treatment."
"I'm Aeryn. There you go... jackass," says the amazon while punching him again, this
time in the arm.
"What was that one for?"
"I was bored." Aeryn shrugs and grins at me. I can already tell we're going to make a
great duo. She leans her head back and is soon asleep. I turn back to my window when Harry asks,
"Did you bring your medication?"
"Yeah. Of course I did." Stupid, stupid medication. About four years ago, my doctor
diagnosed me with, not one, but two mental illnesses: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Bi-polar
Disorder. And the only way to keep me from going homicidal is my medication: 3 lithium pills and 2
OCD pills in the morning, 3 lithium pills and 2 OCD pills at night. 10 pills a day, 7 days a week, 52
weeks a year. My doctor almost added another set of pills that day. Luckily, my doc is a squib and
recognized that my "schizophrenia" wasn't actually schizophrenia, but telepathy. The only reason he
recognized this was because of my mark. For some reason, my mind wanders to this day six years
ago...
I have been at my aunt's house for almost three weeks now. I just started grade school.
It's recess. I wander around, looking for something to do, when I hear a muttering from beneath the
slide. I bend down, and see a boy, about my age, sitting there, trembling. "What's wrong?" I ask.
"My cousin is trying to beat me up," he says.
"Which one's your cousin?"
"That one." he points towards a group of boys.
"Which one? The one that looks like a giant pig in kid's clothing?"
He giggles a little.
"I'll be right back." I leave the slide and wander towards the group of boys. I pull on the
shirt of the pig-looking boy. "Hey. It's not nice to beat up other kids, especially if they're your cousin.
He looks at me funny. "Why do you care?"
"Because it's not right."
"And? What are you gonna do about it, small fry?"
The only thing that makes me madder than innocent kids being picked on is being called
a 'small fry' I jump on top of him, knocking him to the ground, and start hitting every inch of him I can
reach. "Don't-Call-Me-Small-Fry. Don't-Bully-Other-Kids!" It takes three older students and two
teachers to pull me off of him. Next thing I know, I'm in the Headmaster's office. After being grilled for
beating up an 'innocent' kid, I leave to go home. On my way out, I run into the kid under the slide.
"Thank you," he says.
"For what?"
"For standing up for me. Nobody's ever done that for me."
"Why don't you tell your parents?"
"Because they're dead. They died 5 years ago."
"I'm sorry. I lost the only parent I had three weeks ago."
"Oh, man. I'm sorry." we walk in silence for a couple seconds. "By the way, my name's
Harry."
"Mine's Rachael." I take a closer look at him and notice a lightning-bolt-shaped scar on
his forehead. "What's that?"
"This? Souvenir from the car crash that killed my parents."
"Oh. Hey, do you want to be friends? I mean I just moved here and have no one except
my aunt Charolette and Uncle Victor, and you seem to need someone to hang out with...
My thoughts are interrupted by Harry telling me we're almost there.
"You should get changed."
"All right." I rummage through my trunk to find my uniform, and my wand falls out. I
go to pick it up when Ron gasps.
"Dude! That wand is about half your size!" he exclaims. "Where on earth did you get
that bloody thing?"
"Diagon Alley," I shrug. Once again, my mind wanders. This time to about two weeks
ago...
"I can't believe your a witch!" exclaims Harry. We're leaving Gringott's, where I just
took out a tiny portion of the bloody fortune my mother left me, and heading towards Ollivander's, the
wand maker. We enter the shop, which is dark and crowded from floor to ceiling with shelves upon
shelves of wands. An elderly man, whom I can only assume is Ollivander, peeks out from behind a
shelf.
"Ah. I see that the prodigal child returns to this world. Ms. Dalton, how are you?"
"I'm...fine...sir," I say, starting to freak out a little. What the fuck does he mean by
'prodigal child'?
"I remember the day your mother came in. Wonderful woman. Shame what happened to
her. Her wand was 11", made of mahogany, magical core made of unicorn hair," he says while taking
my measurements. "Hmmm. Well, let's test some." After what seemed like hours of testing wands, he
finally handed me the one that became my own. 20", oak, with dragon heartstring as its core. Of
course I get the biggest fucking wand in the building. I look over at Harry. "Not a fucking word about
it, or, I swear to Jesus fucking Christ, you will find this thing in your arse." Ollivander looks over at
me.
"She's very sensitive about her height," says Harry to Ollivander.
"Ah...."
The train lurches to a stop. I look out the window to see nothing but blackness. I finish
putting on my robes, shake Aeryn awake, and follow Harry and Ron off the train. As soon as Aeryn
catches up to us, I hear a loud, booming voice.
"Firs' years! Firs' years over here!" I walk in the direction of the voice and see a man
who dwarfs even Aeryn. Harry shows up at my side. "All righ' there, Harry?" He asks. Harry nods. The
giant man goes back to herding the first years in this general direction. "C'mon, now. Any more Firs'
years? Okay. Mind yer step now! Firs' years follow me." We start going down a slippery slope. I slip a
couple times. After a while, the giant man leads us to a fleet of boats. "No more than five to a boat,
now." I get into one with Harry, Ron, the boy who lost his toad, and the bushy-haired girl helping him
to find it. Within 15 minutes, we're on castle grounds. The grounds are enormous. We walk through the
front doors and up a flight of stairs, where a very stern looking witch is standing. She says something
about sorting us into our houses, which are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. She
disappears and reappears, leading us through the doors. We gather in a cluster in the middle of a hall.
By the looks of it, it's a dining hall. The witch gets everyone's attention.
"When I call your name, please step up so you can be sorted." She starts going through a
list, which appears to be alphabetical. Finally she calls my name. I walk up and sit on the stool, and she
places the hat on my head.
"Hmm. You're going to be very difficult to place. A fair amount of courage, loads of
intelligence, a strong loyalty to friends and family, and... what's this? A strong desire to prove yourself.
Slytherin, my dear, would be the sensible place for you to go.
"Don't you dare put me in Slytherin," I mutter. I had already heard too much about this
house to want to be in it.
"Slytherin, my dear, runs in your veins."
"I don't care if my entire family has been in Slytherin, I'm not gonna be in there."
"But Slytherin..."
"I SWEAR TO JESUS BLOODY FUCKING CHRIST, YOU PUT ME IN BLOODY
FUCKING SLYTHERIN, I WILL TURN YOU INTO A BLOODY FUCKING STREAMER!!!"
The entire hall falls silent. Then, two boys, whom I can only assume are related to Ron,
stand up and shout, "We call dibs on her!"
People at the table start cracking up. I distinctly hear the hat mutter to himself, "I don't
get paid enough to deal with this. So I guess the house you belong to is... GRYFFINDOR!" I take off
the hat and go sit next to the twins to watch the the rest of the sorting. Then the witch calls Aeryn's
name.
She walks up the stairs and sits on the stool. The witch sets the hat on Aeryn's head. The
hat seems to be talking to her in her head like it had done with me.
"How does the make you feel?" she asks the hat.
The hat continues on.
"Are you sure that's a decision you're ready to make?" she asks the hat.
The hat seems to be annoyed by now. This is clearly not the hat's year.
"If you put me in Slytherin, Hogwarts is going to need to find a new sorting hat," she
says, smirking.
"We call dibs on her too!" The twins yell.
"GRYFFINDOR!"
The witch takes the hat of Aeryn's head and Aeryn walks towards the Gryffindor table
triumphantly and sits down next to me. Next is Aeryn's brother, followed closely by Harry, then Ron.
All three of them end up in Gryffindor. Then, finally, the tables magically fill up with food. After
dinner we all head up to our common rooms, and from there, our dormitories. I am sharing a room with
the bushy haired girl, who I now know is called Hermione, Aeryn, and two other girls, one named
Pavarti, the other Lavender. I start to get undressed, when Pavarti gasps.
"What?" I ask, although I'm pretty sure I know what's coming next.
"You're a telepath!" she exclaims. Lavender drops her hairbrush. It falls with a dull thud.
"A telepath. As in someone who can read people's minds?" Lavender asks. I nod. "I'm
not sleeping in the same room as someone who can invade my privacy that easily." The tension in the
room is so thick you could cut it with a goddamn spoon.
"Fine. You know what? Fine. I'll go sleep in the fucking common room." I grab my
trunk and walk out. Laying on the couch, I doze off. A few hours later, I'm getting shaken awake. I look
up and see Harry standing over me.
"What are you doing out here?"
"One of the girls didn't want to sleep in the same room as me, so I left."
"Is it because of your...ability?"
"Yup."
"Well, just because you're different, doesn't mean you shouldn't sleep in a nice bed.
Come on." He grabs my hand and leads me to his dorm. "You can sleep in my bed."
"Where will you sleep?"
"We're small enough. We can both fit onto it." Too tired to argue, I lay next to him and
fall asleep.