Chapter 1
The orphanage never got post, at least the children who occupied it never did. Until a tawny owl fluttered up to a girl with red hair and brown eyes window. Agatha or Quincy weren't back from errands yet so she opened the window and let the bird find a perch on her bed post. The letter that was wedged between the bird's beak was addressed to her in green ink.
Miss Rose Evans
The Third Window on The Second Floor
Flora's Girl Orphanage
Dartford
Rose couldn't believe what she was seeing, a letter addressed to her. She stared at the envelope for who knows how long before she heard the sound of her roommates voices and footsteps approach their room. She quickly fed the owl some of the food stored in her room and the tawny owl took off. Rose had just enough time to hid the letter underneath her mattress as Agatha and Quincy entered barged into their shared space.
Agatha was tall for ten and had very beautiful blonde hair that fell to her shoulders. Still her teeth which were rotten and crooked made Rose wince every time she saw them. Agatha was a year younger than Rose but two years younger than Quincy who acted like their mother even though she had never had a mother figure in her life. Quincy had sandy hair paired with stellar blue eyes and was beautiful from head to toe. Then there was average Rose who attracted so much attention from her abnormal hair, and it wasn't the good kind of attention.
"Rose you should have come with us, Walter was looking for you with a flower bouquet in his hands,"Agatha told her. "He told us that he would drop by later to give them to you."
"That was until I told him that Miss. Flora wouldn't have a boy around here after five," Quincy added.
"Thank you so much,"she tell Quincy. "That boy has a strange obsession with my hair. It's rather unhealthy."
"Rose, could open up a window it's so stuffy in here,"Agatha said. "It's such a nice day too." Rose looked out the window and remembered the tawny owl that had appeared just minutes ago in the same window. As she opened the window a gust of wind came into the room and cooled everything down but the badly hidden envelope that had been addressed to Rose had been blown from it's hiding place underneath the light mattress.
"What's this,"Agatha asks picking up the letter.
"It's nothing," Rose blurts out and lunges for the letter that Agatha had grasped in her hand.
"It's a letter Quincy,"Agatha explains," addressed to Rose. It has our window and floor and everything."
"Strange, tear it up because it might be a predator,"she tell Agatha. Rose knew Quincy was trying to protect her due to past events but she still felt the anger bubble up inside of her. The windows smacked shut and the glass from the window shattered. The girls screamed and you could hear a herd of footsteps making their way to the room.
"What in God's name happened here?"Miss Flora asked. Rose turned to face the old woman. "Alright questions later but let's get you girls out of this room, I'll send Jane to clean up the glass. We need to make sure you aren't hurt." Miss Flora was a nice old lady but her looks made other people think different. She had a stern look set on her face and her gray hair was always worn in a tight bun.
It was the next day and after the questions were answered the previous night Miss Flora decided the windows shouldn't be open when the wind was blowing. As a result the house was stifling and all the girls in the house sat on the porch drinking ice water while they took turns reading out loud the novel Little Women per tradition during the summer.
It was an average afternoon until the post came with three more letters addressed to Rose. "Why how can this be?" Miss. Flora exclaimed when she was handed the letters. Rose looked towards her with a hopeful glint in her eyes. "Let's hope it's a distant relative who would like to give some of you girls a home." That raised everyones spirits. As Miss. Flora tore open the letter she got a quizzical look on her face. "It was addressed to the wrong person," she explains and Rose's heart dropped.
For the next few weeks more letters came then ever before and for the middle of July that was saying something. The day before Rose's birthday she could have sworn she heard JAne call the post man by his first name which was Henry. Letters not only came by the mailman but by owls like the tawny one that delivered the first letter. Rose went to bed that night very spooked out and afraid that Miss. Flora might kick her out because of all these letters.
Rose was awoken very early that morning by the whole orphanage singing her happy birthday. A smile spread across her face as they presented her with the special breakfast, waffles with whipped cream. A specialty only served on birthdays which every girl except little baby Julia got to enjoy. Rose dressed in a black skirt with a short sleeve shirt with a flora pattern. She tied half her hair up with a purple ribbon and slipped on her nicest pair of dress shoes she paid for a few months ago.
The girls all played a game of tag in the backyard until the house received a visitor. He was dressed in black robe and he had inky black hair. The man introduced himself as Professor Snape and asked to see Rose Evans.
She sat across from him in the dining room, he scowl gave him a mean sort of look. "You know if you smiled more you'd look nicer,"she told him. Rose could've sworn she saw a glint in his eyes as if he was remembering a distant memory.
"My smile is none of your concern Miss Evans,"he tells me. "We are here to address your schooling."
"Well I'm going to the cities public middle school of course," she tells him.
"Have you not read the letters we've been sending you,"Professor Snape asks.
"I've received them but I haven't read them. Miss Flora said they were addressed to the wrong person,"she tells him.
"There was no mistake Miss Evans. You have been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,"Snape informs.
"What?"
"You're a witch,"he says.
"No way."
"Have you had anything peculiar happen to you?" he asks. The day the first letter came entered her mind. When the windows slammed closed and the glass broke the wind wasn't blowing.
"I think I shut a window and broke the glass,"she tells him.
"You're parents attended this school," the Professor tells her. Rose couldn't believe it, her parents. No way.
"Did you know them?" No answer but he whipped out a piece of parchment and a quill.
"Just tell me if you are accepting the invitation or not,"he says.
"Why of course I will," she answers. He scribbles something down and a tapping sound echoes through the room. Snape opens the window and nestles the letter in the beak of the same tawny owl that delivered her first letter.
"Now let us go and get your supplies,"he tells Rose. They exit the orphanage and walk down the street to the nearest bus station.