Sharon Graham – my mother, that is – was only eleven years old when her share of the story began. Previous to this point, she had been just another perfectly innocuous and inconspicuous muggle girl – except for the fact that, of course, she was not a muggle at all. Funnily enough, though, nothing could have come as bigger of a surprise than Sharon's first letter to Hogwarts, and then the second, the third, and all of the following.
At first, her parents had strongly opposed to the letters, believing them to be a hoax. In their minds, it was already bad enough that their daughter had fell in love with the idea that she might possess magical powers, let alone have something that would further fuel her imagination. As such, they decided to keep it a secret.
To be fair, most muggle parents are understandably surprised when they first receive a letter from a witchcraft school intended for one of their children, but it's their reactions that truly set them apart. Mr. and Mrs. Graham, in particular, were said to be a very obstinate pair of persons, and while most parents eventually start having second thoughts about their own scepticism after connecting the dots, those two were uncommonly harder to convince. It took a visit from Professor Granger and several generous demonstrations of her own power for the truth to finally sink in. Indeed there was wizardry in the world, and indeed was Sharon a witch in the making. Suddenly, all of those unexplainable occurrences didn't seem so strange anymore…
The late professor Granger, you should know, was already Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts at this point, although that was not the reason of her coming. A dearest and very close friend of mine, the aged lady was already by then the only remainder of the "three musketeers", and carried the heavy responsibility of meeting an old friend for the very first time, all by herself. I'm talking, of course, of my mother.
The young and naive Sharon Graham could tell right away there was something eerily unsettling about the way Professor Granger behaved towards herself. Whenever Sharon wasn't looking, she'd promptly feel the weight of Granger's stare on her back; but every time she turned around, Hermione would be looking somewhere else and avoiding direct contact. Other than that, though, Sharon had nothing but nice things to say about the Head Mistress, for Granger had been polite, patient and genuinely impressive in her demonstrations. Her parents, too, had been left with a positive impression of the old lady, and were soon growing used to the idea of Sharon being a witch and leaving them over a boarding school somewhere in Scotland.
After closely following all of the instructions left by Professor Granger and making all needed arrangements for her trip and stay in the Hogwarts castle, Sharon was left with nothing to do but wait and mark every passing day on a calendar, hoping for the time to fly by; and after what seemed like an eternity, the 1st of September finally came, a lot sooner than Sharon had ever expected.
Author's Notes: The first update came in fairly quickly, so I'm actually quite happy with myself. ^_^
I'm also really happy that I've received my first review from a curious reader already, so my honest thanks go to Julienne Black. I hope this small chapter won't let you down.
Please, if you're a reader and have come this far, don't leave without reviewing! XD I don't need nor want fake praising, even because there's not really much to praise as of yet (in terms of quantity). I just want for people to let me know if they're interested in my 'fic'.
Now, enough with the begging. :-P The second chapter will probably be written from Sharon's own point of view instead of her son's, and don't worry because I'll eventually explain the reason for this. :-) As for the release date, I hope it'll happen within a week.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything that is J. K. Rowling's own creation and I bear no monetary purposes. Do not sue me.
~ Cláudia Cel'arte / Aaminah