A/N: I don't own Harry Potter or any related characters
This is for the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Word Count: 851
"Ask Roxanne, she knows everything." Those words seemed to follow Roxanne Weasley since she was able to speak. As a child, she'd had dreams that came true. She'd known things she had no way of knowing. No one was sure what this gift had come from.
Roxanne personally thought it was a curse. Everyone was always seeking her advice, asking her what would happen if they did this or that. Did so and so like them, would they pass this class. Roxanne hated it. She hated the questions, hated everyone looking to her. All she wanted was to be left to read her book in peace.
At age ten she claimed her powers were gone. The relief at no longer being asked a million questions by her cousins didn't last though. The whole family had gone to watch her older cousins playing at Hogwarts. Roxanne had screamed too soon, before they collided. Her lie revealed.
Roxanne looked down at the ground, wishing it would swallow her and spit her back up on the other side of the world, somewhere no one knew about her curse. She'd messed up big time. Suddenly everyone wanted to know things again. Roxanne decided that just because they wanted to know, didn't mean they needed to know.
She closed her mouth and refused to open it. She refused to speak for a year. Her parents tried everything, promising that her cousins would leave her alone. She didn't believe them, they couldn't be everywhere at one time. Her Hogwarts letter came and off she went. Here no one knew about her curse. At least, that's what she'd thought. Her cousins had told everyone about what little Roxanne could do.
She burst into tears that first night, sent an owl begging, pleading to just come home. Her parents told her that they'd see if they could find a solution, but her education was important.
"You're just going to have to make a few compromises. Don't worry, Roxy, you'll be fine," her father had wrote. Roxanne hoped they would figure something out, some way to get her away from here.
Roxanne waited and waited for a solution, she tried to keep her head down, tried to keep from speaking, but every time she managed to start getting everyone to think she might just be normal, something would happen.
The first time, she saved a boy in her potions class from an explosion. The second, one of the creatures Professor Hagrid was training broke loose and Roxanne just happened to be the one who found it. After the third time she used her curse, Roxanne realized she couldn't hide it, she had never been able to hide it.
Slowly, she watched the other students, realizing there were a handful, not her family, that were watching her back. They weren't looking at her to do something amazing. They weren't looking for the answers to a test. They were just looking for someone who wouldn't judge them. Roxanne gathered her courage and walked over to the Hufflepuff table, sitting down at the very end. The two that had been watching her slid over.
"Hi, I'm Roxanne," she announced. They smiled at her.
"Lycan."
"Lysander. Do you want to eat lunch with us?" the taller of them asked. Roxanne nodded. Lorcan handed her a plate and Lysander had the food passed down.
"I like birds, do you like birds?" Lorcan asked, putting down a sketch pad.
"I like some?" Roxanne answered. She realized she wasn't sure where this conversation was going. For once, she didn't see the possible future.
"Ever seen a warbled crested marshshadow?"
"No?" She'd never even heard of that kind of bird.
"I've got a photograph of one, want to see?"
"Sure!"
Lorcan pulled out a folder from his pocket that was full of photographs of birds. The warbler he'd been talking about had a macaroni and cheese colored crest on top of it's pale pink head. It looked so silly that Roxanne couldn't help but giggle.
"If you like that one, wait until you see the next one," he bragged, flipping the page to an even more absurd looking bird.
"See this one is incredible, it's a carnivore and it's badassery knows no bounds, it even tries to attack prey three times its size," he explained. Roxanne smiled at the picture. The idea that a bird could do something like that, that it wasn't afraid of anything made Roxanne want to be like that, to be badass.
Roxanne ate her lunch with the Scamander twins, not looking at the future, but looking at things in the present. Lorcan showed her photographs of birds while Lysander explained all their characteristics and even made a horrible attempt at mimicking their calls. By the end of lunch, Roxanne was laughing as the three gathered their things up. They parted ways for class, but agreed to meet back up in the afternoon.
That evening, Roxanne wrote another letter to her parents, telling them to disregard the previous letter, that she'd finally found some friends here, and they were absolutely not related to her!