Chapter One: My Mother's Trunk
My mother had a favorite saying for whenever she felt I was not behaving as a young lady of my station should. "Acacia, you were born to privilege," she would declare, clasping her hand with the other and bringing both to rest on her lap one slow and deliberate movement at a time. "And for that privilege, you must pay the price. Privilege comes at a price. Power comes at a price. And for you, my daughter, that price is your decorum." This lecture was always calm because ladies of my mother's station didn't scream. It was also always private, as the self-same ladies never aired their grievances with only daughters in a public way. My mother's lecture was always perfectly graceful and genteel...which made it the absolute worst part of my childhood.
In my defense, this favorite lecture did not come often as, while not the perfect daughter, I was, for the most part a well-behaved one. I combed my hair, was kind to the servants, and only made the occasional mess of Father's library. The worst that could be said of me was I was too smart for my own good, prone to insomnia, headstrong, and much too restless to be the proper little doll that my cousin, Catherine, was. I was also perhaps over-gifted in the magical arts.
Now, do not be mistaken, magic, like bloodline, was a valuable source of power and my mother did not hesitate to instruct me in all the basic conjuring, charms, and potions that a noblewoman may need. Indeed, she was much more open-minded than Catherine's own magicless mother, and I was beyond grateful that she had the patience and talent to teach me. ...But Mother saw no need for training beyond her own skill set. And learning magic was all that I spent my sleepless nights thinking of. When the yearning got too strong, and my restlessness too great, the devil's greatest tool snuck out to snare me: curiosity. It was always curiosity which landed me in my messes - usually amid a great, stinking puddle of melted calduron and burnt goosefeathers. Or, in one particular morning's case: feet stuck permanently to the ceiling with all my hair turned a bright fuscia.
"I swear, Mother, I wasn't trying to do this," I promised, from my uncomfortable perch. My ears and cheeks felt hot with blood from being upside down so long and my legs ached from having to hold the weight of the rest of me. I was stuck in a narrow space right next to the canopy of my poster bed, and my fickle cat, Diana, had lept atop the wardrobe to hiss and claw at me. I was only barely managing to escape her, while also holding up my night skirts so that I did not expose myself. I had been stuck so for over two hours now, and on the whole, felt very out of sorts. "Do you think I was trying to do this?" I said with utter exasperation.
Down on the floor, my mother heaved a tiny sigh and looked around at the mess of my spell-making. The conjuring circle I had made of chalk and herbs was about the only thing still in its place on my worktable. Everything else had been knocked aside - pillows and blankets torn from the bed and every item in my wardrobe spilled over the floor as if a cyclone had struck it..Or, perhaps, Catherine.
"I am not certain what to think of you anymore, Acacia," my mother admitted. Her ever-neat fingers prodded gently at spilled circle of sage and dried witchbane. The chalk gave a startling sputter of pink light and then fizzled into ashes. She withdrew her fingers to a safer distance and shook her head. "Certainly I can't deduce from this clutter what ever it was you were intending in the first place. I doubt Merlin himself could."
"It was a good plan," I insisted, grabbing the top of the poster to steady myself and give my legs a bit of help. "I was going to fix the curtains of my bed as you said we should. I did the Color Change Charm and tried to add to it a sticking spell to get the loosening weave to fix, but..well, I just underestimated the side effects of mixing the two charms."
"And now it is you that is stuck..and changed of color I see." Mother's green eyes swept thoughtfully over my surely-pinked features. My knees quivered as I tried, futilely, to once more pull the sole of my slipper off the ceiling - or my foot at least from the slipper. ..It was not successful except to let Diana take another chunk of flesh from my shoulder. Quite calmly she asked, "Why did you not do first one spell and then the next?" ...Anytime someone uses logic to point out the flaws overlooked in a moment of poor decision-making, well, it doesn't feel so kind to the one hearing it. Which probably explained why my face grew even redder at that point - smarting with embarrassment and indignation as well as three hours of blood rush. I was getting close to crying - the worst part of being frustrated, as I hated crying as much as I hated getting a lecture. "Or, perhaps," Mother continued, "Practice on a small item before using it to attack a set of bed curtains that is much bigger, and perhaps, even more stubborn than you?"
"I was trying to save time," I ground out, fighting to keep my voice steady and not shriek. "A good witch is always efficient in her magic use, isn't she?" Mother looked pointedly around the room at the very large mess. I coudln't bear to look, and I couldn't find any reasonable way to defend myself either. This certainly wasn't a more useful way to take care of anything. And..worst of all, there was nothing at this point I could do. I couldn't get my legs free. I had to do it.. My throat tightened up and I squeezed my eyes tight against those stupid, stupid tears. "...Can you - can you just.." a deep breath sustained me to choke out the words, "Can you get me down, please?"
Mother nodded slightly. "I'll go find your father's wand," she agreed.
Once she was out of the room my knees limp with complete relief. Call it pride or foolishness, but having to ask my mother's help put more strain on my nerves than doing risky magic or hanging from the ceiling did. Sniffing, I wiped my eyes free of frustration-tears. Very unladylike, I shoved my skirts around my legs. By clamping my legs together, I was able to wipe my nose on the sleeve of my bedraggled nightgown without the skirt falling back down over my head. "Oh, Diana, this morning has not gone well," I groaned. I got scratched again for my observation. "Imbecilic cat. I don't know why I even put up with you."
That evening, after the formal dinner my mother always hosted, I was summoned to appear before my father. By that point, my hair had nearly returned to it's typical auburn, but my cheeks were still a bright pink after all the teasing I had endured from my nanny and maid. My father was an older man, Mother being his second wife, but while his hair had turned gray, his mind was still as sharp and keen as his sword. He ruled very well our little holding and kept our small garrison in perfect condition - a fact that meant I had never experienced the cold reality of hunger or danger that most have. He was a good man, a strong man, but I never really knew him. With the nature of his summoning, I could presume that he had heard about my gaff of earlier, and in fact, the first thing he said upon my arrival was "I hear someone is restless enough to climb the walls, Acacia."
Heaven help me and my fair skin, but I blushed again. Truly, if born a boy, I never would have been able to become a play actor nor a spy, for my emotions were always being given away by my too-hot blood. "Forgive me, Father. I had not meant to cause an uproar in your household."
"An uproar?" Father repeated. His lips drew together into a thoughtful frown. "Was it so upsetting? Your mother, I know to have been inconvenienced, but -" I opened my mouth to interrupt, but he continued, "I had not know it so bad as all that, very well, my only daughter, I shall have to ponder upon a solution to this. Say your prayers and go to bed, I shall have you and your mother an answer by the morning."
I was stunned: summoned, chastised, and so dismissed in but two breath's time. If it weren't for my mother's firm arm coming beneath my own, and her hand at my back guiding me away, I might have stayed staring blankly at my Father's features for upwards of an hour. (Very much not an appropriate response..) When we began to climb the narrow spiral staircase to the tower of my mother's solar and my own room, I found the grace to speak again. "Is he - Is Father angry? He didn't seem angry? What is going to happen? Mother? What did Father mean? Did you say something to him? I didn't think I had done something so bad! The only thing spoiled besides my hair was the rushes. I didn't even melt anything this time, and all the dogs have fur yet - What did he mean 'a solution'? Mother?"
My words and I chased her up the stairs and all the way into her chambers where she only too calmly began to go through the large trunk that contained the most precious linens. Finally, my petite mother turned and quelled my questions with a single look. I mumbled an apology and sat myself down on her and Father's stiff bed. She nodded her approval and made me sit there in my agonized silence for a good three minutes before speaking. "Acacia, your father is no stranger to the difficulties you have had this past year." Her deliberate pause was to allow me to think back on all the various mayhem my spell-writing had gotten me into. It was a little too easy to remember some of them. The squashes as large as wagon wheels that tasted of fennel and baked apples stood out particularly. (In my defense, I had been trying to make harvesting easier, and instead had nearly had a revolt thanks to the revolting-tasting vegetables.) Or there was the time I had tried to freshen up the privy by magically convincing live roses to bloom in the wooden walls...I hadn't planned on the thorns. None of that, of course, could even start to stack up to how my father had laid an entire field fallow for the next ten years in order to be sure that no one would disturb the deeply buried bodies of some very unsettling five headed monster chickens. ...I hadn't been able to stomach white meat since.
"That said," Mother continued, "He and your uncle have been looking into solutions. They are going to make the final decision tonight."
My heart lept. My uncle? Mother's brother was none other than one of the most important contributors at Grandfather's school! "Uncle Wilhelm?" I gasped, nearly falling off the edge of her bed with the sheer magnitude of the implication. "Father and Uncle Wilhelm? Mother! Am...am I going to go to Hogwarts?"
Hogwarts!
The very name sent my soul singing! Hogwarts! The school of witchcraft and wizardry that was as much legend as dream! I had longed to go since I very first heard of it spoken. To gather with others of talent and learn all they had to know! To meet the greatest witches and wizards and to study at their feet: Sorceress Rowena Ravenclaw. The world's post powerful Hedge-Witch Helga Hufflepuff. Oh, and no one could forget the foreign mysteriousness of Salazar Slytherin, a wizard so powerful he could charm even snakes to speak their secrets to him. I had grown up with mythical tales of such powerful women and men spoken at the dining table and when clustered around the hearth. My own grandfather, Godric Gryffindor was friends to these wondrous creatures and it was his idea to built the school - a school that my uncles and male cousins had all attended. Catherine and I used to whisper to each other wild tales of how a pair of matching hippogriffs might one day arrive at the gates of my Father's keep and whisk us away over the wild moors and craggy cliffs of Dover until at last we reached the Black Lake. We would be welcomed and go immediately, of course, to the top of the class, out-performing all the boys and making our dreadful cousins cry at their unexpected defeat. Nothing in the world could have brought me as much joy as the thought of smashing the bully Randulf's face with a good hex or two..once I learned how to actually cast a hex, of course.
All these wild, giddy thoughts could not keep contained in one, single girl and I eagerly joined my mother in removing every single linen from the trunk - flinging them as quickly onto the bed as I could. "It is! It is that, isn't it?" I swooned with the bellowing tail of a flung tablecloth. "And this - this is to be my trunk. My very own trunk where I shall keep my spellbooks! Oh, Mother, will I finally get my own wand? Oh, please, please say 'yes!' Say it is so!" I grabbed both her arms as though she were my Father's resolve and if I just held on long enough she would crumble and Father would say that I would, indeed go. "Is that what Father and Uncle Wilhelm will discuss? Please, oh just give me that hope, Mother, and I shall be as happy as a meadowlark for all the days that I live!"
After fifteen years of living with my Mother, I had the ability to read her expressions quite well..even the very small ones. The way she hid her eyes from mine and the faint easing of her lips - I squealed with joy and hugged her tightly. "Now, now, Acacia," she urged with her gentle way as I danced around, "They haven't decided certainly quite yet -"
"But we are packing my trunk?" Even I could tell that my eyes must be sparkling with eager joy.
And now my mother's lips curved into a wonderful, sweet smile as she affirmed, "We are packing your trunk. So long as your father agrees to all the arrangements, you will leave tomorrow with Uncle Wilhelm. And yes, Acacia, you will be going to Hogwarts."