Annalicia Malone, Harry Potter superfan
supposed that it was just her luck that her best friend had gotten the Hogwarts letter. What was it, she wondered, that made Daphne more worthy? Why hadn't she been the one? She knew, of course, that that wasn't how it worked at all. Goodness knows she'd researched the heck out of it. It really did have to do with the magic in her—or, in this case, Daphne's—blood. But still. It almost would have been better, better if the whole universe had been fictional, better if the years she'd spent falling desperately in love with magic had all been devoted to a false idol. Better if Daphne, that perfect soul, had gone through the disappointment with her.
Daphne Greengrass Jr, gifted and talented
wished that had been the case. The price she'd paid for the Hogwarts letter, the price she hadn't told Annalicia about (yet, she told herself. She hadn't told Anna yet), was her mother. When the letter arrived she hadn't had the heart to pull her father out of his work-obsessed state for a full three days. But when she finally managed to do it, he was less than surprised. He'd told her that her mother had been a witch, one from Hogwarts, no less. She was now teaching there, with her new husband, no less. Her mother had left them when Daphne was just over two years old. Daphne's father refused to talk about her, but she knew he must have loved her to give Daphne her last name. Daphne could imagine his staunchly traditional family's embarrassment at this, and her dad wasn't one to push things. He always wanted to keep the peace. Very Hufflepuff of him, she thought, though she knew he was a Gryffindor at heart. 'licia and she had spent many of the hours they hadn't spent poring over every available edition of the series sorting anyone they even remotely knew, excepting, of course, themselves. They'd made a pact not to sorry each other until they were sure that neither had received the Hogwarts letter. Daphne had privately thought that Hogwarts probably didn't exist. She'd never voiced it, of course, but she was never as sure as Annalicia.
Now, of course, the irony stuck her, but she couldn't really laugh, could she? It was heartbreak all around. Besides, she thought she might burst into tears.
