The Unfinished Letter

The Floo Network originated in colder places than Australia. There aren't many fireplaces in this country, so, besides the ones at the Ministry, our transport systems are just doorways.

I stood in the darkness, at the point between the Ministry fireplace and my apartment front door, and knocked.

Dad opened up, staring at me as I stepped out of the void and into the world again. "Romy?"

"Hey."

He was still staring at me strangely.

A streak of yellow caught my eye. Oops, I hadn't changed yet. I'd donned cute blonde tresses before sauntering along the Sydney streets as delicious witchy bait. I usually changed back before returning home.

I concentrated, sending waves of power out to my hair, and it shrank back into my skull until it was its usual dishevelled black mess. My skin twisted and warped, stinging a bit, like I'd just stretched a plastic sheet tight over it. No more cute, perky, white girl for me.

My hips throbbed as they decreased three sizes. These hips, I could admit, rocked skinny jeans. I'd actually stolen the jeans complaint from one of my best friends, Evie Winter, who did the curvy thing with aplomb but hated skinny jeans with draconian fury.

Dad watched my transformation warily. Both he and Mum were muggles, but they'd been alerted to what I really was early on, when my baby hair changed from black to orange one sunny afternoon. The wild panic was hushed up quickly when Ms. Mathers, the principal of the only magical school in Australia, arrived to tell my parents that not only was their daughter a witch, but a Metamorphmagus, and I was welcome to attend Wattlegum the year I turned eleven.

I don't think they ever really believed, even when I elongated my neck to look like a swan on my third birthday, or when I short-circuited the computer from across the room when I was angry that Dad wouldn't let me go to the year four dance, or when I'd turned Mandy Bromman's hair green for class photos after she'd laughed at me for getting a kookaburra for Christmas. (I hadn't been able to help my emotional outbursts, but I wasn't exactly sorry for them. Kooky is way better at delivering mail than the Australian Post Office, and Mandy shouldn't have laughed at him.)

"Everything go okay?" Dad said as I headed for the adjoining kitchen. "You… er… catch the guy?"

"Dad, you know I can't say anything." I tossed my wand on the bench, flipped on the jug, and got out two mugs. "It's classified."

"It isn't right," Dad muttered, fetching tea bags. "Someone's out there killing children and those Ministry people set up my daughter as bait –"

I kissed his cheek. "I'm fine. Everything's fine. It's magic, nothing's going to happen to me. Now can you make the tea? I need a shower."

My borrowed uniform was damp. If I were at school I could steam dry it and clear off the dirt, but I wasn't allowed to do magic until classes started. Not unless I was on a sting.

After I'd showered and put on a wash, I joined Dad for a cuppa, and we stared out the window at the rain falling and the brick wall of the next building. Kooky sat in his little tree in the corner, his eye on my gingernut biscuit.

"Are you sure you want to continue with this Auror business when you've finished school?" Dad said after a silence. "We worry, you know. It does our hearts bad."

I patted his shoulder. "They need me."

"They need your power. If magic is so invincible, why can't they just replicate your abilities?"

He had me there. I'd been using the whole "magic is might" thing to keep Mum and Dad from stressing out, but they were smart, and they knew the magical world wasn't as perfect as I'd made it out to be.

I was saved from having to answer by a tapping on the window. Mags the magpie was waiting outside with a letter. I jumped off the couch to fetch him.

Mags belonged to my other best friend, Pippa Blakely. When I let him in he shook his feathers and waited while I untied the letter. The fact that Pippa hadn't just texted me meant it was going to be essay-length.

I unrolled it and frowned. Actually, no, it was quite short.

Hey Romz,

Oh my god, you wouldn't believe it, but I ran into Ky bloody Green in Arbour Alley, that worm, we live a continent apart and he decides to get his books on the same day I'm fetching mine god, anyway you wouldn't believe what he said to me about who's coming to Wattlegum this year – he always knows everything, ugh why WHY – anyway, you're going to keel over and die when you find out –

Shit. Did we have Dreamtime homework? Shit shit shit, I haven't done it, and Aunty Shelly is going to set the Bunyip on me, shit Romz, I'm going to have to cut this short. See you on the boat.

Pips

Typical. I'd reminded her three times over the summer to do her Dreamtime homework.

"What's Pippa writing to you for?" Dad said, feeding a piece of raw bacon to Mags. "She'll see you tomorrow."

"Oh, I don't know, something about running into Ky Green, but she got distracted halfway through." I folded the note and put it in my box of letters from my friends. "I'm sure it was just the usual. He said this, I said that, he's such a stuck-up jerk, blah blah blah."

Dad snorted as Mum walked in with the groceries.

"Oh good, Romy, you're home," she said, kicking off her heels. "Help me with this, will you?"

We unpacked the fresh vegetables and meat as Mum asked the same questions as Dad about my most recent sting, and I gave her the same answers I gave Dad.

"It'll be okay, Soo," Dad said, opening the window again to let Mags fly home. "She's going back to school tomorrow, and the Ministry won't be asking her to do assignments while she's studying for her final exams." He turned to me. "Right?"

"Sure," I said, thinking of the Portkey system Valentine had set up at Wattlegum, of the extra defensive training Ms Mathers had arranged, of the folder filled with disguises I'd been given to practice my shapeshifting.

I gave what I hoped was a reassuring grin. "Everything's going to be fine."