Author's Note: I'm a sucker for a bit of drama. I hope you guys like this chapter as much as I liked writing it. And please review if you have the time!


It wasn't even that I was a witch that really drove the wedge between my mother and I. It was that I'd tried to hide the confirmation of what I was. My Hogwarts acceptance letter came a month before my eleventh birthday, and I'd swiped it from the rest of the day's mail while mum was fixing breakfast and Derek was reading the morning paper. I'd stuffed the letter under my pillow the moment I'd finished reading it, and that night I drew it out to skim the letter again, doing the same the next morning.

Every word was pivotal to me; every mark on the letter held my future.

Dear Samantha Wood,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on September 1. We await your owl no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall Deputy Headmistress

I even carefully scanned the names of books and supplies I'd need several times, plotting in my mind how I'd go about getting it all, even though it was still the middle of April. The next few days of my life were strange. I felt above it all, above mum and Derek and ADD, because here was what I needed to know; I was magical. I had a place.

It was stupid of me to pore over the letter every free chance I got, but I was greedy and wanted to read it again and again. Halfway through it for what seemed like the hundredth time—and yet it was still fresh and new like I was only just seeing it—mum came bustling into my bedroom with a basket of clean laundry in her arms, balanced against her hip.

"What's that, dear?" mum asked distractedly, looking away as she started to put away my clothes. I sat on the letter, unsure of what else to do, but mum had taken a second look and saw the envelope. Recognition crossed her face like a tide; it swept down over her and she snatched in a shallow breath. Sticking her hand out and flapping her fingers at me impatiently, angrily, she said, "Hand it to me. Now."

"But mum-" I argued, still sitting on the letter, grabbing my pillow and smashing it down in my lap "-it's mine."

"Samantha, give me that letter," mum shrilly demanded, dropping the laundry basket at her feet. Her hand flexed and strained as she shoved it in front of my face. I sat perfectly still, staring up at her, blinking away the blurry outlines. A vein was throbbing in her neck. "Give it to me!"

Mum moved so quickly and I wasn't prepared to be knocked aside, pushed off balance. I teetered over but caught myself with my elbow against my mattress, struggling to stop my mother from scrabbling at the letter. She yanked it free from beneath me and held it so tightly the paper crumpled and a corner ripped.

"Mum!" I yelped, jumping to my feet and eyeing the letter like it was the most precious thing in the world. "Mum, don't! You'll ruin it!" I was crying, frustrated tears brimming hot in my eyes. I felt so childish for it, but that letter was my escape.

"Stop it!" mum shrieked. "Your brother got one of these awful letters and now he's as bad as your father! I will not lose you, too. You'll be better off forgetting about this, Samantha."

She hustled from the room with my letter. I followed without a moment's hesitation, in a daze as she went into the kitchen. I watched like a statue as she went to the oven and flicked on one of the gas elements, only just realizing what she was going to do as she lowered the letter towards the blue flame.

"No!" I screamed, darting forwards and throwing myself at my mum, desperately trying to save the letter. She grabbed my arm and dropped the letter on the element where it blackened and burned. Without thinking, unsure if I even felt it, I clawed at the ashes of the letter, hoping to save at least a corner of the parchment from the flames.

"Samantha, oh my god!" Mum was yelling again, and suddenly my hand was thrust under cold water running from the tap, a smell like something cooking filling the air. I blinked, and then came the pain. Mum kept shouting but all I could do was cry and shake, the skin around my fingers and the heel of my palm blistered and red and throbbing white hot. Mum had picked up the phone and was now wailing at someone on the other line. "Please, please. Come home! She needs the doctor! I mean now! Please!"

I laughed. Mum froze, absently lowering the phone from her ear as the sound burbled unwittingly from my lips. I laughed again. Slapping the phone down on the kitchen counter, mum grabbed my shoulders and turned me to face her, giving me a quick and violent jostle.

But still I laughed. I cackled and giggled and snorted, and cried. And then it became nothing but crying, and whatever insane humor had struck me dissolved into horror and I was sobbing with my face pressed against my mum's shirt as she hugged me, rocking me from side to side, murmuring something over and over in my ear that sounded like, "It'll be okay."


Derek drove me to the emergency room when he got home, twenty minutes after mum called him in a panic. The adrenaline had left my mother pretty quickly, leaving her red-eyed and lethargic. I was still in pain, still too alert, and I needed one of my pills. They would have helped to dull the sting, at least a little. That's what they did.

But I'd already taken my dosage that day, though the sharp shock of the burn had scorched away the methylphenidate in my system. Mum had given me a home brand painkiller, though it did nothing.

I whimpered as Derek pulled the car to a stop in front of the hospital, jostling my aching hand. I had it stuffed in a bucket of melting ice, but it was hard to know which was worse, the heat or the cold.

"Alright, come on," Derek said tenderly, carefully. He got out of the car and shut the driver's side door, coming around to help me out of the passenger's seat. He gripped my good arm and kept me steady as I climbed awkwardly from the car, biting down on my lip to keep myself from crying again.

Derek led me into the hospital and waved a nurse over, the woman giving an affected exhale when she saw my hand, ushering me through to a sterile room down the corridor from the reception area.

"That's a nasty burn," the nurse said when Derek had helped me sit up on one of the hospital beds. The nurse held my wrist as she turned my hand over, the air hitting it and making it throb with the pulse of my boiling blood. The woman side-eyed Derek and then looked at me, bending down slightly at the knees so her eyes were at a level beneath mine and she could look up into my face. "How did this happen, sweetheart?"

"I burned myself," I muttered blankly, staring blankly at the ice in the bucket. When the nurse released my wrist, I slid my hand back into the welcoming cold.

"I'll be right back," the nurse said. "With the doctor, alright? You hang tight." She bustled from the room, leaving me alone with Derek. He sighed and patted my back.

"You gave your mother quite the fright," he said. I nodded, looking at my hand. The skin was red and inflamed, but I had white blisters on my palm. I'd never burned myself before, not to this degree. It was almost fascinating the way my skin had started to bubble like plastic. I retched.

Derek cried out in surprise as I leaned sideways and vomited on the floor at his feet, my stomach lurching in every direction. He managed to jump out of the way and move to my other side, pulling some of my long, straggly hair back as I continued to retch and choke, bringing up the contents of my stomach.

"Sammy!" someone exclaimed. "Oh, Merlin, baby girl are you alright?"

I looked up, wiping the sick from my chin with the back of my good hand. Dad was running into the room, shouldering Derek aside as he reached me. He wrapped one arm around my shoulders, his other hand clutching against the side of my head as he pulled me to him. My cheek came to rest against his abdomen and I let my eyes slide shut, happy now that he was here.

"Jonah, what are you doing here?" Derek was asking. "How on earth did you get here so fast?" He kept talking, but dad wasn't listening to him. He slipped his arm under mine and helped me stand, though I had to lean against him for support as my stomach gave another nauseas roll. He winced at the puddle of vomit on the floor and we stepped around it, Derek on our heels. "Where do you think you're taking her?"

"To a family doctor," dad gritted out from between clenched teeth, helping me hobble along for a while before he apparently lost the struggle with himself and scooped me up into his arms. I thrust my burned hand away from myself in order not to let anything touch it, burrowing against my father as he cradled me.

"Jonah, I can't let you take her," Derek said, shaking his head. He put his hand on my dad's shoulder, but he angrily shrugged it off.

"Go home and tell my wife that Sammy's gonna be fine," dad growled. Derek froze, his expression turning into the same methodical look he got during therapy sessions, something tickling at his mind.

"She's my wife, Jonah," he said quietly, somehow the low quality of his voice making his words sound incredibly loud to my ears, and my dad's. I felt him stiffen, his arms tightening around me.

"Yeh," dad eventually barked, "and Sam's my daughter."

He moved quickly away from Derek, out the hospital doors, and turned on the spot in the parking lot outside. With my eyes closed, I felt Enid disappear behind us, below us, somewhere. I was going home.