Task #1 - Zeus, God of the Sky: Write about someone who thinks they're better than everyone else. 300 - 3,500
Greatness and glory are all that are important in the world. Greatness was your family name, glory was your history. There were only a few things that mattered when magic was at your fingertips. Your name helped you find your place, it pushed you towards the path of success and happiness.
When you turn six your father sits you down, and his eyes are two stones sunken in a river. You have never seen him so serious. You aren't sure you ever want to see him without the brilliant smile on his lips and laughter shaking off of his shoulders. But it's gone, and he is a statue standing above you when he tells you about Squibs.
"There has never been a Squib born into the Smith family," he tells you, and you attempt to wrap your head around it. You're six; magic is a fact, not a gift. You can't imagine a life without it, but you nod all the same. "You will not be the first."
Your father didn't give you a choice, and you hope that you don't fail him. You want magic more than anything, you want to help pass on the glory and the greatness. You want to be something, anything, and you know that magic will do that for you.
Later that week, you push your mother across the room when she told you no, and your parents cry with happiness.
Glory is one step closer.
You're eight when you learn that you're related to Helga Hufflepuff. Your father sits you down again, and you're nervous. The last time that this happened you were too young to understand, and now you're older and wiser. What other horrors is the world hiding from you?
But he's happy, he's content. His arms are on your shoulder, his lips pulled into a grin. "You have a legacy set out to reach. We are related to Helga Hufflepuff, and you must make her proud, Zacharias."
You feel a sense of power in you. You have had magic for your entire life, and you know why. Magic is your inheritance. Hogwarts is your past, your future. Soon it will be your present, if only you could grow up fast enough.
You promise that you will. There's nothing else to do, and your father sends you off to play. You have your own nursery, and you make it your school. You gather up your other friends and you force them to listen. You have to have the most magic in you, after all. You are certainly the best.
When you get your Hogwarts letter you are ready. You have a legacy to live up to. You are determined, you are proud, and you show your parents the note with a grin on your lips and a song in your heart.
You will do fine, you know it. You are a descendent of a founder. Your blood runs pure in your skin, your magic pulses in your veins. There is no doubt that you will succeed. You are proud and you are right.
You are better than the rest.
Nobody else can claim descent from a founder. Slytherin has lost his family long ago; your father tells you this strongly. Ravenclaw's daughter died, and she had no other family surviving. And Gryffindor? His group was unimportant. Your father says that there are too many to note.
You are one of the only. You are the legacy that Helga had left, you are the remainder of a witch who changed the world.
You go to school with pride and you sit under the Hat, and it is awed. It tells you of your family, of your past and your present and your future.
And you make friends, but not well. You are, after all, better than anyone. You have glory and greatness tucked around you like a well-fitted suit.
And then you're not invited to the Slug Club, and you're suspicious, but you think. You think and you wonder…
But they're wrong. You are, after all, related to Helga Hufflepuff. You're far grander than anyone else could ever be.