I couldn't wait to post this chapter. Just couldn't do it.

I'll say this one more time:

I don't own any of J.K. Rowling's work.

When Joan's father replied, the owl he had sent was Gerald. A tawny barn owl, he was very friendly and was Joan's familiar when she had attended Hogwarts.

However, Gerald was not very friendly at all when he had spotted Charlotte-Johanna. He ruffled his feathers and would have attacked the four year old if her accidental magic hadn't kicked in. A few feathers were singed, but the owl refused to go near the little girl.

Thus began the increasing worry for her child. Of her child.

Joan wrote back quickly,

Father,

In a few years, I will return, but not to a magical community. A nice, Muggle community will do since that is what seems to fit your granddaughter best right now.

Gerald attacked her. I dont know if other magical creatures will do the same, even other animals are hostile towards her. We have a few gold fish, and they seem to be the only non-dangerous animal for Charlotte.

I have other worries, but you know me, a worry wart. I'll write you again when I'm prepared to come back.

Love,

Joan O. Fletcher

Joan almost sealed the letter when she had a second thought and grabbed the most recent picture of Charlotte. It was of her in a little witch's hat and cloak from yesterday evening, holding an orange jack 'o lantern candy bucket. Her dark curls were a mess, refusing to be tied back with a simple hair tie, and her pale skin was flushed after running around for candy.

Joan smiled as she sealed the picture in with the letter.

Gerald held out his leg obediently and rubbed against her arm like he used to before taking flight.

When the owl left, Joan went back to her daughter to find her killing with the fish with magic.

"Charlotte-Johanna!" she cried, grabbing her tiny little hands and taking her away from the fish bowl. The fish floated to the top.

"Mama, I wasn' doin wrong, I was jus' playing wit the fish-!"

Then Joan saw it. It was in her eyes.

It was in her daughter.

"Get out of my daughter."

Joan started to shake Charlotte-Johanna, yelling.

"Mama? Mama, you're scarin' me-!"

Charlotte-Johanna's tears were wasted as her mother ran down the hall and slammed the door to her bedroom. She was scared. They were both scared. The child grabbed her blanket and huddled in her closet to cry and sleep.

The mother sat and cried in the corner of her own bedroom, facing the closet which held her secret. In the room over, her new secret was sleeping in a closet.

Joan didn't know what to do anymore. She cried to Merlin for help, for any ancient wizardry that would help her save her daughter.

For what she saw in her little girls' silver eyes was not her child, but a spirit.

Maybe more than a few years, maybe five or six years, and Joan would know what to do for her daughter.

For now, it would be best if her daughter forgot about this ordeal.

Joan brandished her willow wand and went into her daughter's room.

It was June first of the year 1988. Charlotte's last day of fourth grade.

Joan was sweating over the stove cooking beef stew while being cooked by the summer temperatures. The weather report said it would cool down before the storm, as low as the fifties, and beef stew was all she had the ingredients for.

It did help that it was Charlotte's favorite dish.

The blond woman took a moment to wonder when she started to drop the Johanna part of her name.

Oh. Yes. Right after she told her daughter almost everything that she had been hiding these past ten years. Joan thought it went rather well until she assumed that the random explosions and fires would stop because of her daughter's accidental magic. Her own father had told her such strong signs of magic equaled much power, but...

The fire department in this area had been called seventeen times since November second of last year because of Charlotte trying to play with her magic or just losing her temper. Not that they knew it was the small Fletcher family causing the fires, but Joan's job as the sheriff made it easier to handle.

Joan sighed heavily and wiped her sweat before declaring the stew done.

Now it was time to pack.

It took two minutes with magic, it was a two bed room apartment with a combined kitchen and living room. Putting it all into a charmed trunk and a few boxes wasn't difficult.

When she realized she had soaked her shirt with sweat, Joan finally cast a cooling charm through the apartment and went to take a shower.

"Mom? I'm home!"

Charlotte heard the reply from the shower and went to plop down onto the couch. Except there wasn't one.

Her mass of dark hair was pulled back into a thick french braid, many strands sticking to her sunburnt, freckled skin. It annoyed her to no end. She did some research on England and heard it was much milder there than in the Midwest.

Thank God her mother turned on the air conditioning or did magic to make the place cooler.

Charlotte gave herself a bowl of the beef stew while she waited for her mother to get ready to go to England.

She often wondered what this Hogwarts school would be like, but somewhere deep in her mind, she felt like she already knew. She didn't know what exactly she knew, but she knew things.

The ten year old ate three bowls of beef stew before her mother finally was done getting ready and let her shower before her mother Apparated them to their new home.

Joan had explained it as being squeezed through a tube, and that she might feel sick because it was such a long ways away. Her mother had been literally popping back and forth between the two countries to get everything settled, including a new job as an Enforcer at the Ministry of Magic.

Needless to say, they were ready for all but one thing.

POP!

Vernon Dursley was leaving for work early at six AM when he heard a faint popping noise from inside the house that had just sold next door. He paused and looked at the house.

A small, blond woman with shoulder length hair stepped out of her from door and waved at the big British man.

"'ello," she said, her cockney accent only slightly affected from speaking a Midwestern accent for so long, "I'm Joan Fletcher, your new neighbor."

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