Magical New Beginnings

Dorian never fit in at all with his family, even from a young age he was something of the black sheep of the family when compared to his cousins. One cousin was into cars and motorcycles and was on the fast track for prison, the other was into airplanes and swords and in his spare time, torturing the neighborhood animals. Dorian's other cousins spent every weekend at their dads house and though Dorian occasionally went and spent the weekend with them it was always clear he wasn't welcome. Dorian was always the kind that when presented with a problem or challenge he would take it head on until he or the whatever or whoever he was up against was down for the count. Dorian liked to read and was always interested in different countries and their histories, their legends and lore, the problem he faced was as much as he loved reading, he hated libraries as the librarians always told him what he was reading was "Too advanced, too difficult for you." and he insulted their intelligence in kind. One day at the library Dorian was suggested a book about King Arthur and Merlin and the knights of the round table. Dorian was interested in magic, not the "Is this your card?" kind, rather he was interested in true magic. Being only 6 years old he had to believe that something, anything could be better than his reality. The interest in magic was hanging on by a thread as the closest thing he knew about magic was Santa and his aunt had shattered his view on Santa and magic the year before when she punched him as hard as she could in the face after yelling "Stupid little bastard, Santa isn't real!". His aunt was always the "Children should neither be seen nor heard.", charming woman. Though that was hardly the first instance of physical abuse by his aunt or really anyone in his family, the loss of believing in something as simple and pure as Santa hurt more than the punch.

After he devoured the book on King Arthur and finished it Dorian fell asleep only to wake up to the sounds of cursing and what sounded like someone searching for something. Dorian rubbed the sleep from his eyes and went into the front room to find his Mom looking frustrated and frantically searching for something. She told Dorian to help her find her keys and Dorian instantly knew why she was upset and quickly started searching, after fifteen minutes of searching she found her keys in the bottom of her purse. She turned and smacked Dorian and called him worthless since it took fifteen minutes for her to find her own keys. This was the final straw, as soon as she was gone Dorian waited for thirty minutes til he was certain she was gone for the day before he went to his room and loaded up his backpack with some clothes and his life savings, what little there was left as his older cousin religiously raided his piggy bank. It didn't matter to him that it was summer time in Arizona and the heat was driving everyone a little crazy, he was tired of being abused physically, being told he was stupid etc. Dorian was only 6 but being a latch key kid he knew his way around town fairly well, he didn't know exact addresses but he knew landmarks, like the dinosaur McDonald's, the different malls and whatnot. He decided he was tired of the desert and had heard everyone talking about how the east coast got snow, that it was green so on and so forth and decided on Boston Massachusetts. He didn't know what it was about but had heard a movie called "The Boondock Saints" was about a couple of Irish guys in Boston and would be coming out and decided since he was of Irish descent he would like Boston.

Dorian made his way to the interstate with his backpack and hid in truck beds that he thought were heading North and lucked out when he finally got into a truck bed that took him to Phoenix, from Phoenix Dorian found a Greyhound bus station and found a bus that was heading to Texas. Dorian wasn't able to purchase a ticket without an adult accompanying him so he made a show of dejectedly walking away only to find the bus and hiding in the storage compartment behind some luggage of paying customers. In the dark little storage compartment time lost all meaning, bathroom visits were impossible and when the bus finally came to a stop in El Paso Dorian ran from the bus and everyone that was on it til he was certain no one was still following him before he finally found a place to relieve himself. He went into a gas station and bought some food, the only thing he had eaten since the slap two days prior. Dorian slept on the streets of El Paso, digging in trash cans for a couple of days til it was safe to try to sneak onto a bus again. This pattern continued until he got to Boston, Dorian knew that the East coast was much cooler than Arizona, he wasn't prepared for how cold it was, how different the city layout was from his hometown in southern Arizona. He was used to a grid system, Boston was confusing, roads winding back in on themselves, and people; so many people. Dorian walked around trying not to look too out of place, not wanting to draw attention to himself. He spent a few months on the streets of Boston, picking pockets, stealing clothes, rummaging in trash cans for something to eat, hiding in the darkest places he could find at night to avoid being found by anyone before he decided that the people of Boston, the gangs, the random strangers, they were all just as bad as what he had ran away from. He was sick and tired of Americans, in his youthful naivety he figured hiding on a bus worked, planes couldn't be too different right? He made his way to Boston International Airport and started looking at flights heading out of the country. There were so many flights leaving every day to different places, he couldn't decide. He went every day for three days before he decided that he would try England after remembering the book about King Arthur and Merlin, but how was he going to get on the plane? Where would he hide? Dorian made his way to the gate and found himself getting pulled into a group of people that were heading back to England from some church mission somewhere and must have miscounted or something since they got him in their group. Dorian looked at the airport worker stupidly when asked for his passport and boarding pass, he started trying to say someone else had it when they looked at him and commented "You don't sound like the rest of the group. No accent.". Dorian felt his heart rate increase, in an instant he played out the worst case scenario of being caught, turned over to the police and being sent back home. Before he could blurt out an answer the airport workers eyes glazed over and they smiled at him before waving him along so he could board the plane. Dorian was one of the last ones on the plane and found an empty seat and took it, his eyes moving among everyone else on the plane nervously the entire plane ride.

Once they landed in London, Dorian took his time getting off the plane, he didn't have anything aside from the clothes on his back, having lost his backpack after getting jumped, beaten and robbed by the gangs in Boston. Once he got off the plane he saw that everyone was being guided through a line in customs where their passports were being stamped and luggage checked. He wasn't sure how he got past the Airline worker the first time but definitely didn't want to risk it. Once he was clear of the tube from the plane, Dorian made a break for it, for being 6 years old, and only 3 feet tall he was unnaturally fast. He ran through the crowds and out of the airport and onto the streets of London taking turns at random until he was thoroughly lost and knew for a fact that he wasn't followed. Dorian was common looking enough, small, dirty blonde hair, thin. He was wearing a jacket he had stolen in Boston so he wasn't too cold however he knew winter was coming up and soon the clothes he currently had wouldn't cut it. Dorian walked around and familiarized himself with his new surroundings. After night fell Dorian really felt the bite of the cold and he started looking around for places to get some new clothes or at least a place that would be warm for the night. Dorian found a church and even though he wasn't religious knew that everyone was supposed to be welcome. He sat in the very back of the pews away from everyone and enjoyed the warmth even though he didn't pay attention to the sermon. Sometime during the service Dorian nodded off and was woken up gently by the priest. "Good evening my son. What brings you to the house of the lord tonight?" the priest asked and Dorian answered honestly, but remained wary as he had heard enough clergy molestation jokes that it made him paranoid and suspicious of priests, fathers, rabbi's whatever. "Its warm in here, I'm sorry, I'll leave now." Dorian said standing up and moving quickly to the opposite end of the pew to make space between him and the holy man.
"We have some clothes in the lost and found, coats and whatnot that may be a bit big on you but undoubtedly warm." the priest said with a genuinely kind smile. The priest didn't know anything about Dorian but knew by his demeanor that he was nervous, probably scared and slow to trust. It hurt the priest to think one so young had been through so much that made them take on the characteristics of a stray animal. The priest walked slowly, careful not to make the already skittish young American boy any more nervous than he already was and opened the door to a room with coats on hangars, donated shirts, socks, pants, gloves, scarves etc all washed and folded, organized neatly. The priest backed away and looked at Dorian who was still well out of arms reach of the priest "Grab some things that fit and feel free to come back whenever, the house of the lord is always open." the priest said before heading back to the pews to organize the bibles and whatnot, Dorian slowly entered the room and quickly grabbed a few things, a coat, a couple of shirts, a pair of gloves, and a scarf before running out of the church and into an empty alleyway before putting on his new coat, gloves and scarf before walking with his shirts through the alleyways until he found a cluster of warehouses, he found an empty warehouse with a chain link fence around it. Dorian walked around the fence and found a spot where it was chained and locked, he was small enough to slip through that part of the fence line and warily made his way into the abandoned warehouse, it was empty, devoid of people, other homeless which made Dorian smile. Dorian searched the warehouse and found an old office that locked from the inside. Dorian settled in for the night.

5 years pass, Dorian had settled into the abandoned warehouse, the little office now had a bed of stacked newspapers he had snagged over the years, a blanket and a stack of books and notebooks. Dorian picked peoples pockets in crowded areas, he never took much from people as he felt bad about stealing and didn't want to be greedy. Often times he would only take a few dollars and once in a while return the wallet to the person saying they dropped it and sometimes they would thank him and give him some money for being such a kind young man. Dorian was a regular at a secondhand book store, just because he was homeless and an illegal immigrant to the country didn't deter him from educating himself, as Mark Twain had said 'I never let my schooling interfere with my education.'. Much of the money went to furthering his education and returning the books or trading them when he had read through them and taken notes on the subject matter. Most of the time the book store would let him take books for free knowing he would return them within a couple of days. Once in a great while Dorian would splurge and buy a full on meal though most of the time he would dig in the trash cans. A couple of weeks prior Dorian had seen an owl inside of the warehouse and it had a letter addressed to him.

"Mr Dorian St. James

Top floor office of the abandoned warehouse

Harringay Warehouse District, London."

Dorian's first words were "What the hell?" before opening the letter out of sheer curiosity.

"Hogwarts School of Witchraft and Wizardry

Headmistress Minerva McGonagall

Dear Mr. St. James, I am pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, term begins on September the first. We await your owl and should receive word from you no later than July thirty-first.

Sincerely yours,

Minerva McGonagall."

Dorian dropped the letter and laughed to himself. "Whoever wrote that must be out of their mind. I don't know who they are or how they found me, who the hell trains an owl to deliver a letter?" he asked himself still laughing before getting dressed for the day, thoroughly ignoring the rest of what was in the letter. Every day more and more owls would show up leading to more and more letters. He never chased the owls off as they were pretty and they were bringing him letters, letters he could burn for warmth and cooking. He only burnt a few letters at a time in an old coffee tin so that there wasn't much smoke that would bring attention to the warehouse and he could heat up the can of beans or whatever he had rather than to eat it cold. On July 31st when Dorian woke up and found a silver tabby cat hanging around the warehouse, he couldn't get close to it before it would move away from him. Dorian smiled, "another stray" Dorian thought before he headed out for the day so he could pick some pockets and see if there were any more books he was interested in. Dorian spent the day and picked a few pockets, he didn't find any books and out of the hundred plus dollars he had stolen that day he picked up some fried fish sandwiches from McDonald's and picked up a small carton of milk before making his way back to the warehouse. Dorian arrived back and saw the silver tabby had made its way into his little office room and was laid across his stacks of books and stationary. Dorian slowly made his way to his pallet of newspapers that was his bed and sat down before opening up one of the sandwiches and set it on the ground and slid it across the floor to the stack the tabby was laying atop of and opened the little carton of milk and leaned over slowly and set it next to the sandwich before opening up the second sandwich for himself. "Hope you're hungry pretty kitty. The milk is still nice and cold." Dorian said softly so as not to spook the stray. The cat looked at the sandwich and milk before looking around the room slowly before settling its eyes back on Dorian. Dorian looked around the room himself and sighed but smiled a bit. "I know it isn't much but its home, we can share it if you'd like." he said to the cat. What happened next made Dorian drop his sandwich.

The silver tabby stood and jumped from the books and midway between jumping from the books and landing on the ground the silver tabby transformed into an older woman in green robes with a broach, hair pulled into a tight bun, a stern expression on her face and a pointed witches hat like you would see on Halloween. The woman stood a few steps away from the stunned Dorian who couldn't help but look at her dumbly, mouth agape. "Mr. St. James, my name is Minerva McGonagall. From your coffee tin I see that you have been receiving my letters, common courtesy dictates that when someone takes the time to write you a letter it is only polite to write a response even if the response is negative." she said looking down at Dorian and his flabbergasted expression with a warm smile. Dorian didn't know what to think aside from he had lost his mind. A cat had turned into a woman who was now lecturing him in etiquette on responding to correspondence.

"Look. Crazy cat lady… You were 'awaiting my owl', I don't know what you do in your spare time but I'm trying to survive here, I don't have time to catch and train an owl to send a letter to an unknown location so..." Dorian says before Professor McGonagall held up a hand to silence him, he didn't know why but she had an aura of authority about her and even though she was non-verbally telling him to shut up, he was going to follow that order to the letter.

"Mr. St. James I am not crazy though I do have a fondness for felines as indicated by my animagus form, I am simply here to inquire whether or not you will be attending Hogwarts this term." McGonagall said, her voice had a certain edge to it that let him know her patience was wearing thin. "So let me get this straight… You tracked down a homeless, illegal immigrant, turned yourself into a cat to find out if I planned to learn how to Abra-Cadabra stuff?" Dorian asked with a cheeky grin only to receive a scolding look from McGonagall. "I have absolutely no intention of teaching you to 'Abra-Cadabra' stuff as you so eloquently put it. However if you have ever done anything that you couldn't explain when you were angry or scared that you couldn't explain then we have a place for you at Hogwarts. Where you can not only learn to control magic but you could use to to do marvelous things you have only dreamed of." McGonagall says and Dorian starts thinking of all the times he was angry or scared, like when he was at the airport and the airline workers eyes glazed over as though they were drunk, when he had been caught picking pockets and the same look spread across the persons face before they handed all the money in their wallet over to him and letting him go. "Even if I do believe you it's obviously a private school, that means tuition and as you can tell." Dorian says gesturing to the room and its contents. "I don't think I'll be able to afford it. Hell, I can't even go to a public school given my situation, let alone go to Pig Pimple." Dorian says, his voice now hard, fighting past the lump forming in his throat after saying how bad his situation was out loud. "Hogwarts." McGonagall says through a stiffened jaw at Dorian saying the wrong name of the school. "Is a private school, however there is no tuition, though the school supplies and uniform must be paid for, there is a fund set up for 'in distress' students and forgive me for saying it is clear that you fall into that category. And whether you decide to come to Hogwarts." McGonagall says, once again driving the name of the school home. "Your immigrant status has been taken care of." She said as she handed over a piece of paper that looked official stating that he was now a legal immigrant to the UK. Dorian looked over the document to make sure it was the genuine article before looking back at Mcgonagall. "Trying to bribe me?" Dorian asked curiously. "Is it working?" McGonagall asked with a smirk that threatened to turn into a full blown smile. Dorian looked around the room at his meager belongings and realized that his entire existence could be packed up in all of about five minutes, but this woman, McGonagall, if even a fraction of what she was saying was true then it was already a great improvement on his situation. "Can I pack some things before we go?" He asked, the words barely more than a whisper. Mcgonagall nodded and Dorian loaded a couple of books and all of his notebooks and pens into a bag, grabbed all the money he had saved over the years from its hiding place among the many newspapers before turning towards McGonagall. "So what's first?" Dorian asked which made McGonagall smile. "Take a breath and then take my hand Mr. St. James." she said with a smile. Dorian did as he was instructed and as soon as he took McGonagall's hand she turned on heel and then it happened. Dorian felt a pull, almost as if he was being pulled from inside, the sensation started from his stomach before he felt like the was being twisted and scrunched together while being folded into a ball, his vision blurred as though looking through a kaleidoscope and just as quickly as it started the feeling was over. He was standing with McGonagall on a street and he felt the urge to vomit but didn't. "Impressive Mr. St. James, most vomit on their first apparation." she said complimenting him. "I have a strong stomach as you can imagine." Dorian said honestly before looking around and seeing an old pub "The Leaky Cauldron?" Dorian asked curiously. "Our first stop of the day Mr. St. James." McGonagall says with a kind smile before walking towards the pub. Dorian held the door open for her which earned him a polite nod from McGonagall, call it his paranoia but his instincts told him to make sure he had nothing between him him and the door if he needed to make a break for it. Dorian looked around the pub and noticed a few things. It was around 3 in the afternoon so there weren't too many people in the pub, it had a warm feeling to it and the bartender was wiping the counter as much cleaning it as keeping himself busy doing something, anything. Deciding that if needed he could make a clean break for the door before entering the pub after Professor Mcgonagall who was waiting on him with a look on her face that was a mix of curiosity and pity before the bartender looked up at them both. "Ah good afternoon Professor Mcgonagall, what brings you round this afternoon?" the bartender asked before his gaze settled on Dorian. "Just getting Mr. St. James prepared for his first term at Hogwarts." Mcgonagall said, saying the name of the school while looking at Dorian to make certain the name of the school was thoroughly implanted in his brain.

Professor Mcgonagall led him to a brick wall and tapped her wand in a sequence around a missing brick causing the other bricks to move and create a doorway for them onto a busy street lined with different shops all selling different things. "Welcome to Diagon Alley Mr. St. James." Mcgonagall said with a smile when she saw Dorians face.