Sunbeam

An owl swooped down and landed beside me during my watch and hooted loudly, startling me out of whatever feeling of serenity I had. I looked around quickly; making sure no one saw our hiding place. I glanced at the younger kids in the corner of the crumbling abandoned warehouse that we were staying in for the night to make sure that they were not disturbed. Lu, the youngest, rolled over and sighed in her sleep.

All was calm, besides the owl staring at me with large intelligent eyes.

We were orphans. Children who were abandoned and left to die by our parents. I was eleven, and the oldest. The other children, Lu, Mack and Will looked up to me. After all I was the one who saved them from starvation and cared for them after I found them in dirty alleyways. I couldn't just leave them there, we all had the same problem.

The owl jumped onto my leg and I stiffened. I had a thing against birds, a very large grudge. The thing held its leg out towards me and I realized that there was a message tied to it. It kept staring at me until I warily reached out to untie it, carefully minding the razor sharp beak.

After I did, it hopped on to the ground and took flight. I unfolded the paper. It was much finer than anything I've seen, with a big red wax seal with a large letter stamped onto it. I broke the seal, and stared at the scribbles on the page.

I couldn't read.

Onceler

Miranda hit me again.

"You're worthless." she snarled in my face.

Yes mom, I know. You've told me that every day since I was born.

Slap.

"You were a mistake."

Should have used protection, mother dearest.

Slap.

"It's your fault he left me."

Slap.

No,

Slap.

It's,

Slap.

YOURS!

After eleven years of being hit and Miranda yelling at me and being told that it was my fault that the family had fallen to shambles, I was almost immune to pain. Both physically and emotionally. Almost. I wanted a way to escape. A secret path that my mother could not follow me on. And soon, or else I won't be here much longer.

Miranda stalked away, probably to get drunk again. She has been drinking more than usual. Something was going to happen, and I wasn't going to stick around.

I ran out of the house and down to the stables where I slept. There Melvin, my only friend, brayed at my approach. I petted him briefly then lay down on a pile of straw. As I gazed up at the stars, the silhouette of a bird passed over the full moon. An envelope floated down from the sky and landed on my stomach. I picked it up and read the back.

To Mr. Onceler Smith,

The Stable In The Middle Of Nowhere

On the other side of the letter was a red wax seal with an 'H' pressed into it. I broke it open and read the letter, scanning the words over and over again. Then I looked back up at the stars and smiled for the first time in what seems like forever.

I had finally found my escape.

Rebekah

This can't be real.

I was holding a letter that said was from a school of magic.

Of course it isn't real! You're deluding yourself. AGAIN.

Shut up, Fred.

Could this 'school' help me regain my sanity? It did say that it taught magic. Medicine never helped, so would magic? My parents might finally be happy around me again.

Do you really think that you will tell anyone?

I thought I told you to SHUT UP! You ungrateful little parasite.

Just because you tell me to do something doesn't mean I am going to do it.

I face palmed myself. Why couldn't Fred, this is the name I gave the voice, shut up? He was always nagging, always contradicting my every thought. If I wasn't already mad, he would have driven me to it. This decision was going to be the biggest one I ever made for myself, and he was going to ruin every step of the way.

I'm going.

Your funeral.

Sunbeam

I had no idea what to do. The letter was obviously important, and it was obviously for me, but I had no idea what to do now. So I just told the squirts that we were moving to a new hideout.

"Why are we leaving so suddenly Sun?" Will asked me. He is about 9 years old, and the only one old enough to truly understand anything I ever say.

"Like I said, a new hideout," I told him. "Grab that piece of bread."

And that was when the man in a red bathrobe materialized right in front of me, and made me scream so shrilly that the birds across the street took flight in fear for their lives.

Rebekah

I had to run away. My parents wouldn't let me go, even if I did show them the letter. They would of thought it was just another of my crazy ideas to prove that I wasn't insane. Which I have tried to do something similar to this, but I winded up in solitary confinement until my parents could come get me.

I was glad I lived in London, so I didn't have to go far to reach the Leaky Cauldron. That was the place that the letter said had an entrance to Diagon Alley. Apparently that was a place where I could get all my school supplies. I took my cat Isaac, a bag of blueberry muffins left over from breakfast, 3.98 dollars in change, an umbrella, and my rollerblades. I skated down a couple of streets until I saw the sign. "Leaky Cauldron".

HAHA! I have found it!

Are you sure about this?

Nope. But I'm impulsive like that.

Jack

We used Floo Powder to go to Diagon Alley. Nothing else to really say.

Onceler

I took Melvin and rode to London, and it seemed like he was just as happy as I was to get away from Miranda. It only took us about two hours to reach the Leaky Cauldron. I was about to go in when a girl on rollerblades crashed into us, and knocked me off on to the ground. She fell on her behind, with a little oof.

"Oh, my god!" she exclaimed. "Oh, I am so sorry. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said I stood up and helped the girl up.

My breath caught in my throat when I looked at her face. She was absolutely beautiful, with cinnamon colored curls and kaleidoscope eyes. Standing at about three and a half feet tall, and adorably chubby, my voice wouldn't work. "I- um, I- do you- hey?"

"Are you okay?" she asked, her forehead creasing into a worried frown.

"Yes."

You wouldn't believe me if I told you, but I'm more fine than I have ever been in my entire life.

Jack

It didn't take us very long to buy most of my things. All that I had left was my wand. I hoped it would be something cool like ancient oak with dragon heartstring or something like that. Mum said she was going to take Pippa to the Magical Menagerie to look at some of the animals there, so I went into Ollivander's Wand Shop by myself.

Ollivander, a short plump man with crazy white hair, popped up from behind the counter when the bell connected to the door rang. "Ah!" he exclaimed. "A new student, I presume?"

"Yeah," I said, looking around at all the wand boxes stacked up to the ceiling.

"I know," he dashed between a row of boxes, "what you might like!"

Ollivander came back out with a long thin box in his hands. "This is very nice!" He handed the wand to me. "Well, don't just stand there, give it a swish!" I flicked my wrist and the roof of the wand shop caught fire. Ollivander seemed used to these things happening, and tried to use the aguamenti charm to put out the flames. But as soon as one bunch went out, the farther the fire spread, and Ollivander was starting to visibly panic.

I was starting to get scared too. There were a lot of wands in here, and almost all of them made of wood. What would happen to them if this place burned?

I bent down my head and concentrated deeply, focusing my power. I had no idea if this would work, but I had to try. Instinctive magyk was the most dangerous there ever was, and the hardest to control. I could destroy everything in here before the flames could.

Come on, come on, come on! I thought. Put out the flames!

As soon as I finished the thought, a blast of icy wind swept through the shop and put out the flames on the roof, and everywhere else. I looked up, and saw Ollivander looking at me with a mix of admiration and pity. He nodded slowly, and a tear fell down his cheek.

"They said it would start with the boy," he murmured. "Then the girl would come, yes. The girl."

"Wait, hold on a minute!" I exclaimed. "Someone told you I was coming? What's going on? Why are you crying?"

Ollivander just shook his head sadly, and reached under his counter. He brought out a shepherd's crook, and held it out to me, holding it in both hands reverently. It was a smooth, finely carved piece of oak.

"This is yours."

I reached out my hand slowly, Ollivander nodding his head in encouragement. When my skin touched the wood, another icy wind swept through the small area. Ollivander shook his head again. "Be careful my boy," he said gravelly. "Terrible things are afoot."

He closed my hand around the staff, and bid me good day, as if nothing had happened at all.