AN: Takes place the summer before Harry's first year at Hogwarts (whatever year that is, I can't seem to pin down a legitimate time line). Warning: an excerpt from Juliet's diary appears in this chapter. Her shorthand is atrocious. Full references and author's note at bottom of chapter.
At the bottom of this chapter:
Disclaimer
References in This Chapter
Origin of Names
Books Mentioned in This Chapter:
Resources
Chapter One
News
Godric's Hollow, England, UK
Cornelius Fudge sputtered as he choked on his Earl Gray tea. Mopping up his wet chin and beard with a crisp, white handkerchief, he managed to gasp out, "Exchange students?"
"Not exactly, Minister, as I said. A wizarding family is moving to Stratford in a few weeks from America and so I have decided that their children – all of them strong witches, and four of them still in need of an education – should attend Hogwarts. Of course it is up to the parents as to whether they attend, but I thought the invitation should be extended."
Albus Dumbledore adjusted his half-moon glasses on his crooked nose and smiled gently at the flustered Minister of Magic. The Headmaster of Hogwarts knew that Cornelius was incredibly prejudiced against many groups – Muggles, Muggle-born witches and wizards, Squibs, and foreigners at the top of the list. According to Fudge, Americans were second-worst only to the French. But Dumbledore had a feeling that at least three of the four Moon girls would benefit greatly from Hogwarts attendance.
"Are you certain about this, Dumbledore? I mean, nothing against them, but... Yankees? At Hogwarts?"
"Trust me, Cornelius. I have a feeling that this might be... well. Let's just say I have a good feeling."
.
Newark, New Jersey, USA
"I got a bad feeling. I don't know what I'm supposed 2 do. Don't know how 2 react 2 stuff NEmore. I don't wanna B emo. Where do ya draw lines? Emo music = good stuff. But techno, jazz, Celtic, scream-o, black symphonic = rox sox. Don't know if I'm worrying 4 nothing or not. Maybe I'm just eclectic.
Except 4 Mom & the girls. Even Dad's doing it. They always yell me, seems like. I'm 10 – not old enough to be hormonal yet. What the deal? Am I verbally abused home? Crazy? Suicidal or emo? Emotionally void? A repressed almost-preteen trying to achieve self-actualization? Or am I just an angsty panda? Too sensitive 4 my own good? Life is so effing fru-"
Juliet threw her composition book onto the floor at the sound of a painful, avian squawk that shattered her concentration. Glaring out the window of her third-story bedroom, she saw twenty-one-year-old Pamina conjure a flock of birds from the highest fork of the tree that grew beside the east gable. Ever since she'd read Sunlight and Shadow, 'Mina'd been obsessed with calling/conjuring birds. Dull eyes, pale green, took in everything and nothing as her mind evacuated the irritating situation and went back to considering her own.
Tomorrow was her birthday. She would be eleven, eligible for the Salem Institute of Witchcraft in Massachusetts. By rights, the acceptance letter should have come back in May, when she managed to get out of Muggle sixth grade. Now it was near the end of June. No letter. The twins teased, her older sisters and her father worried, and her grandfather harrumphed about it. Juliet did something else.
She brooded.
Her powers had been late in coming, and were hard to control. She wasn't a Squib by any means, and the Muggle blood in her family was so far back in the past (more than eight generations) that she doubted it was because of this that her parents watched her from the corner of their eye, anxious to catch any whiff of potential magic. Unfortunately, the one thing her magic did consistently was so dangerous that her parents wouldn't allow it to happen anymore – when she looked in a mirror, it exploded. Her parents had removed all of the looking glasses except the ones in their room, Isabeau's room (she needed it to do her hair for work), and Pamina's room (Pamina had the unique talent of being able to sing in harmony with her reflection, something quirky enough to be endearing to their parents and considered stupid by everyone else). But for some reason, Juliet's magic only pushed through in that one, destructive method.
Mirrors shattered. That was all. No pictures in the fireplace, no moving objects or knowing things before they happen or sparks flicking out of her fingers. Nothing even close to animal empathy or seeing fairies, nothing like that. Nope. Just exploding mirrors.
Maybe that's why she hadn't gotten her letter. They wouldn't let such a "destructive influence" into their school.
Destructive influence. That's what they called her at school. Her parents couldn't explain away the broken glass in the bathrooms at her schools over the years, and she wouldn't bother. Juliet knew why the mirrors would break. It was no one's business but hers. At the beginning, it had been accidentally-on-purpose. The sight of her reflection, the violent surge of loathing, and the resulting explosion happened so quickly that at first she couldn't stop it and later didn't bother to try. Why should she? Why should she hide how she felt? Pamina and Catherine, a musician and dancer respectively, both said she ought to express herself. Besides, her friends thought it was cool, what she did.
Now, she couldn't control it anymore. She didn't care.
"What's got you so solemn up in here?"
Juliet turned to see her second-oldest sister, Rowan, standing in the doorway. Long, bone-straight black hair hung to her back, she had the classic bone structure that only half of the nine Moon girls had inherited from their grandmother. Brown eyes like malt whiskey, they latched onto Juliet like a laser playing tag. The ten-year-old noticed the Starfire 99 clutched in her sister's hand. It was one of the newest American brooms, comparable to the Nimbus 2000s over in England. Rowan was going flying. Juliet checked her watch and saw that it was almost midnight. Fifteen minutes till her eleventh birthday.
"Why is 'Mina outside still?"
"Conjuring, I think. Don't care. It's midnight. Why you hiding in your room? You never stay up this late just to brood."
Rowan glanced at her little sister's bookcase and decided it was no wonder the ten year old was so depressed all the time. On the nightstand between her bed and bookcase were a stack of paperbacks, all dog-eared, the spines very gently worn: the Diary of Anne Frank, Romeo and Juliet, Romiette and Julio, the Warrior Heir, Flowers in the Attic, the Carnivorous Carnival, Deerskin. All of them, books that were dark and brutal and painful, novels the rest of the girls had given their sister because they were too depressing for the rest of them to read.
"You should get outta here, kid. It's a cool night. We could fly."
"I can't fly, Ro, you know that."
Juliet chewed the inside of her cheek. Her parents bought her a broom every time she got too big for the last one. It sat in the shed next to the other eight, balanced against the wall, accusing her with the layers of dust and the air of neglect that clung to it. No magic. No flying. No midnight flights with the other girls after dark when their parents weren't awake to stop them.
"It never hurts to try, Jules," Rowan replied. "Come on."
"Yes, it does," she whispered, but followed her anyway.
They went to the shed to get the other broomstick. Rowan had her own top-notch broom that she'd paid for herself, but Juliet's allotted broomstick wasn't exactly the greatest. She wasn't the greatest flier, either. Her Cleansweep was held in a white-knuckled fist. Graveyard mold eyes watched Rowan straddle the broom and kick off.
She felt the cold wood of the broom against her skin and shivered. Never had she been able to get off the ground before. The one thing all of her siblings could do – fly – was beyond her. But the ten-year-old slid the broomstick between her knees and closed her eyes. Sweat trickled against her palms. Her heart hammered. It wasn't going to work, it never did....
The hooting of an owl stole her attention. As her eyes opened, a letter dropped to the grass beside her. She glanced at it and saw the official seal molded into the crimson blob of wax on the back.
It wasn't from the Salem Institute.
.
"What is this?" Juliet demanded, holding it out to her parents.
All nine Moon sisters sat on the king-sized couch, staring at their mother and father across the plain, birch wood coffee table. Blake and Jenny Moon looked at each other, one long, meaningful glance, then looked out at their nine children. The letter their youngest daughter held bore the seal of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, one of the two leading wizarding schools in western Europe. Similar letters were clutched in the fifteen-year-old twins' – Sonja and Valeria, both hot-tempered and irritated – clenched fists. Danica, the second youngest at twelve-years-old, didn't even glance at the missive as she tossed it carefully and gently onto the coffee table. Eyes the color of warm honey met Juliet's green ones. Even Dan was nervous about this bizarre turn of events.
"It looks like a letter, to me," Blake Moon replied, shrugging.
Juliet narrowed her eyes at him. Did her parents think she was stupid? Obviously it was letter. Her dad couldn't downplay this like it wasn't important. Were they shipping her and the other three girls still in school off to another freaking continent for school? Why? What was going on? Knowing that both adults would see her clenching her fists, the now-eleven-year-old scrunched up her toes in her shoes. It hurt, which helped her think somewhat more calmly. There was one other explanation for this whole thing, but she didn't know which thought was worse – her parents packing them off, or....
"Are we moving?" Danica asked quietly. Isabeau sat up straight. Catherine, out of habit, flexed her feet, pointing her callused toes, while Pamina pursed her lips and Tanith crossed her arms in front of her chest. Valeria and Sonja made a sound that might have been a snarl in two-part harmony. Juliet felt her chest squeeze shut on her heart, felt her blood freeze. Moving... they couldn't move.
"We were going to tell you after Juliet's birthday," their mother began, but was immediately cut off by the outraged protests of seven of her daughters. Danica said nothing, only watched as her younger sister jumped off the couch and strode back upstairs to her room.
With a muttered oath, Juliet swept into her room, gently closed the old, worn door, and locked it. Then, a hundred-and-forty-eight pounds of preteen threw itself onto her bed. The letter was clutched in one trembling fist. The address read:
Ms. Juliet R. Moon
Right-hand Attic Bedroom
1453 Shiver Spike Road
Newark, New Jersey
United States of America
She hadn't even read it. Now she did. Unfolding the parchment letter, her eyes drank in the handwritten emerald words:
HOGWARTS SCHOOL
of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
-
Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,
Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. Of Wizards)
Dear Ms. Moon,
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 by no later than July 31.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
Juliet's eyes burned. Blinking hard, pressing her knuckles against her gritty eyelids, she rolled over onto her back. Moving. What was she supposed to tell everyone? Her friends? And why England? She figured it had to be somewhere in Britain because anywhere else and they'd be in Durmstrang (which she'd seen a picture of), Beauxbaton Academy (which she'd heard of butter never seen), or that one school in Madrid that she could never remember the name of but had known a kid who went there for a year.
So. They were going to move to England.
Why?
Under normal circumstances, she might have stayed downstairs to find out exactly that. But the witch had felt her chin begin to quiver when it had been revealed that no only were the Moons going to move, but that Jenny and Blake had been keeping this information from the rest of the family. She'd had to make a quick getaway before her lip began trembling. Now Juliet allowed the tears to fill her eyes. They couldn't move to another country! Besides, British people despised Americans! Or so she'd heard on the news. Personally, the frizzy-haired brunette didn't want to risk it.
Someone knocked on her door.
"If you come in, I'm throwing something heavy," she warned, rolling onto her stomach and covering her head with a pillow. If her parents saw her crying, they'd tell her to cheer up, stiff upper lip, all that jazz. Same if Isabeau, Catherine, or 'Mina saw her. Anyone else... imminent torment awaited.
The door opened, and Jenny Moon peeked into her daughter's room.
"Juliet?"
"Madame," she retorted, hiding behind words. "I am here. What is your will?" Trying to regain her composure before her mother attempted to get her to come out from under the pillow, she tried to remember the rest of the scene. Luckily, the film had stuck that part of the play in her mind, so it wasn't difficult to remember.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Her mother asked.
"Not to you."
"Juliet, I don't understand why you're upset. You've never liked going to Muggle schools, and you never seemed to really care that much about going to the Institute. You never play with other children, we're not leaving any relatives behind, what with Portkeys and Apparating and... I don't get it, Jule."
Obviously, she thought waspishly. Never mind that I have to leave behind all my friends. Can't tell you that, since I'm not supposed to be friends with any of them. Jeez. Aloud, all she said was, "There's nothing to get."
"Then why are you upset?"
Finally free of tears and trembling appendages, the eleven-year-old witch pulled her head out from under the pillow and looked at her mother. Jenny Moon, harassed looking, had the same silver-framed glasses she'd owned since age fifteen, the same frizz hair as Juliet, and beautiful, hazel green eyes with just a misting of gray and a spattering of golden brown. If Juliet's eyes had looked like her mother's, she'd have been happy with them. Instead, they were a nameless, nothing color. She'd read a book once where a queen had described her own eyes as looking like fridge mold, but unfortunately, the witch didn't have any of that queen's other compensations (hot king husband, super powers, immortality, long legs, etc.).
"I'm not upset," Juliet lied. If her mom couldn't figure it out, she wasn't going to get it, no matter how carefully the girl explained it to her. "I'm tired. Can I sleep, please?"
"I... guess...."
"Thank you." And she just stopped holding her body up. The tension keeping her suspended vanished, and she flopped back onto the bed like a rag doll. Jenny left her there, eyes closed. When the door closed, Juliet opened her eyes. She read the letter again. It was the end of June. They had to be in England by the end of August. Two months. Just two months, and everything was over. No more summers in Arizona, no more winters in Philly and Jersey. Her garden would die, the Pen of Iron (her middle school's literary magazine) would die without her parents' funding, and she'd be packed off to boarding school.
Boarding school... jeez.
.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything copyrighted by anyone other than me. That's my all-inclusive statement. And my author's note is less than a quarter of the whole of the chapter, so it's not too long.
References in This Chapter:
1 – Sunlight and Shadow is a novel by Cameron Dokey. It's retelling the story of the Magic Flute, an opera done by Mozart (I think). The main character's name in the Magic Flute is Pamina. It's such a pretty name I wanted to use it. All of my character's siblings are named after literary figures. See list below.
2 - "Madame, I am here. What is your will?" is a direct quote: Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene III, line 5 (or 6)
3 – the queen Juliet remembers with "eyes like fridge mold" is Elizabeth "Betsy" Taylor from the Undead and Un... series by Mary Janice Davidson.
4 – The Pen of Iron was a real literary magazine for a high school in a town in Arizona that had the ability to be published in a book (student work, all of it, rated PG13) but the project was forcibly ended by the school administration due to references to alcohol and drug abuse and addiction, suicide and attempted suicide, self harm, physical and sexual abuse, sex, depression, and celebrities such as Kurt Cobain and Marilyn Manson.
Origin of Names:
1 – Isabeau Gray, nee Moon – named after the title character in the movie Ladyhawke
2 – Rowan Moon – named after the title character in Anne McCaffrey's the Rowan
3 – Catherine Doyle, nee Moon – named after the main character in Flowers in the Attic
4 – Pamina Moon – main character in the opera, the Magic Flute
5 – Tanith Moon – named after famous fantasy novelist Tanith Lee
6 – Valeria – female lead in Conan the Barbarian
7 – Sonja – named after Red Sonja, the female counterpart to Conan the Barbarian
8 – Danica – Thuli Thea (Queen) of the Avian shape shifters in the Kiesha'ra
9 – Juliet – title character in Romeo and Juliet
Books Mentioned in This Chapter:
1 – the Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
This is a true story, the real diary of a young Jewish girl during the Holocaust. I've never actually read it because I know that, even if it wasn't true – which it is – it would still depress me horribly and I have enough stress in my life right now.
2 – Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
The famous romantic tragedy by William Shakespeare. I love it.
3 – Romiette and Julio by Sharon M. Draper
It's a modern retelling of the story, except with gangs who are against the black Romiette from dating Hispanic Julio. Happier ending, though.
4 – the Warrior Heir by Cinda Williams Chima
Never read it, but my editor told me enough about it to depress and irritate me, but also interest me. Yeah, I'm a complicated individual (not). I want to read it, I just don't have a lot of time.
5 – Flowers in the Attic by VC Andrews
First VC Andrews novel ever written. First heard about it on PBS. Have read this one. Very dark and disturbing. Interestingly enough, one of 2 books on Juliet's bedside table that deal with incestuous themes.
6 – the Carnivorous Carnival by Lemony Snicket
Book the Ninth of a Series of Unfortunate Events. A must read for anyone. Lemony Snicket is quirky and awesome.
7 – Deerskin by Robin McKinley
This is one of her retold fairy tales (and one of only 2 of 6 I haven't read) but I'm not actually familiar with the story it's based on. However. I do know that it's very dark – unusual for McKinley's fairy tales, which are often quirky and serious by turns – and it is the second book on Juliet's bedside table to deal with incestuous themes. However, this is not an allusion to any molestation themes or anything like that.
Resources:
- Conan the Barbarian by L. Sprague de Camp
- Flowers in the Attic by VC Andrews
- Harry Potter Year 1: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
- Harry Potter Year 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
- Harry Potter Year 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
- Kiesha'ra Volume 1: Hawksong by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
- Ladyhawke (a movie starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Matthew Broderick)
- Once Upon a Time: Sunlight & Shadow: A Retelling of "the Magic Flute" by Cameron Dokey
- Red Sonja (a movie – all the info I can remember)
- the Rowan by Anne McCaffrey
- Undead and Unwed by Mary Janice Davidson