7. It's Been a While
Emma's window was two floors up. No ladder scaled the wall outside it, and the fire escape was down at the end of the hall, not outside her room. Therefore, when something tapped at the glass, Emma assumed it was nothing. Maybe a twig tossed by a gust of wind, or a bird that didn't spot the glass soon enough to turn away. Emma's roommate was the one who saw the owl first.
"Hey, Emma," she said. She was backing away from the window, reaching to go out into the hall even though it was past curfew. "There's a bird trying to get in. An owl."
Emma went and looked, opening the curtains wider, and sure enough. An owl. It was tagged, for identification she thought, until she saw the rolled paper attached to its leg. She turned to report this finding to her roommate, but the girl was already gone, probably to get one of the older girls to help.
Emma didn't bother waiting. The owl blinked expectantly from outside on the ledge, and Emma opened the window. She reached a hand towards its leg, halting a few inches away to see how it would respond. It held out it's leg, twittering as if to hurry her along. Emma took the letter. Behind her, a door slammed and voices grew louder.
"Better leave, birdie, if you don't want to get caught."
The owl bent over and nibbled at Emma's fingers.
"Ow." She pulled her hands and the letter back into the room. When three other girls entered the room, the owl had long gone into the fading dusk light.
"There's nothing here," one of them said. "I have plans tomorrow, next time just wait a few minutes to make sure you're not dreaming."
"I wasn't! I swear! Emma saw it too! Right? Emma, you saw it, the owl, it was right there!"
"I don't know." Emma crumpled the paper into one fist, hiding it from the others. She wanted a chance to read it without them around, even though she reasoned it might not be for her. "It was a large bird, but it left pretty quickly. It probably just hit the glass."
Emma's roommate glared at Emma and stomped back off into the hallway, muttering complaints and curses as she went to go sit by herself in a bathroom or something.
Emma unrolled the now crinkled paper and began to read. She recognized the handwriting immediately, and the way the "Dear Emma" looped together in semi-cursive writing, the way Daisy wrote when she was frustrated or rushed. How she'd gotten an owl to deliver the letter, though, Emma didn't know. The letter didn't clarify anything either, Daisy mentioning people Emma didn't know, classes she hadn't taken, and something called "quidditch." It was all so bizarre, from casually sending mail by owl to the odd references, Emma almost decided it wasn't really from Daisy. Then she saw the signature.
Love, Daisy.
Her first thought was to respond in the same way - send a letter back with the owl - but the owl hadn't returned, and Emma didn't want to depend on the chance that it would. She checked her phone, guessing that maybe Daisy would have texted something. Nothing appeared. She started typing her response there, mostly a lot of questions.
Thumb hovering over the send arrow, Emma paused. She exited the chat, leaving the message as a draft, and slipped the phone back into her bag. Answers could be found elsewhere from places that couldn't lie.
The next day, she biked over to Daisy's house, ignoring the voice in her head reminding her how much trouble she would be in. No one was home, just as Emma expected. She located the spare key, hidden between some flowers and rocks in the backyard, and went in. She didn't waste time on the ground floor, instead taking her search upstairs. First, Daisy's room. She'd searched it before, but she searched it again and found nothing unusual. She'd practically lived in the room some summers, she knew where Daisy would hide things.
Poppy's room was a different story and Emma had no idea where to begin. Unlike with Daisy, Poppy didn't offer an open book. Emma felt more guilty for stepping into Poppy's room without permission than she had simply entering the house.
She started with things that were already out in the open, and it turned out she didn't have to go far beyond that. Even stranger than an owl at Emma's window was the fluffy blue creature Poppy had in a cage. Emma stared at it, at first wondering if she'd imagined seeing the thing breathing and it was just a toy, but then it opened its eyes.
When Emma held out a finger, it came closer and sniffed, retreating with disappointment when Emma wasn't familiar or edible.
Emma returned her search to the surface of Poppy's desk. It was mostly art supplies, notebooks, and stationary, but there were a few books and magazines as well. At first glance, the books were ordinary until she reached one clearly more used than the others and pulled it out of the stack. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. She opened the book to a page bookmarked by a magazine and didn't read a word. The pictures were moving without a screen, without texture, in both the book and the cover of the magazine.
Taking a quick look at the time and guessing she had more than an hour, Emma sat down and started reading.
Poppy's transfer out of school only took a week. She guessed it had been expedited by some form of magic or loophole created by the Ministry of Magic, but whatever it was, she didn't have a problem with leaving early.
Her new schooling didn't take place in any sort of schoolhouse, but a specially organized room in someone's house. The woman, Mrs. Anderson, was apparently a squib (Poppy wasn't quite sure what that was, but it didn't seem appropriate to ask) but had lived in both magical and non-magical worlds, and had made teaching kids her priority. WIth the addition of Poppy, her class size totaled seven.
Two of seven were smaller kids, and Poppy ignored them for the most part. They barely noted her presence when their new books came in anyway.
Then there were the Scamander twins, who arrived with their mother, Luna, who Poppy recognized. They told her that their parents often took them on trips, so they weren't always in class, but they stuck around to get a "well rounded education" before they went to Hogwarts.
Luna held her back before she went in. "I'm glad you're doing this. You being here feels like something good. Like the sun after weeks of clouds."
"Thank you." She wasn't sure what to make of it. Luna had been present at Poppy's first sign of magic, and meeting her here did feel like the start of something, hopefully something pleasant.
Luna's eyes stared into her, understanding but not to the point of being invasive. "Have an open mind, Poppy. You're walking into new opportunities."
Inside, Poppy met the final two students. Both of them would be in her Hogwarts year, assuming she got in.
Charlie, Mrs. Anderson's niece, pulled up a chair for Poppy to sit with them. Her bright smile and dark features contrasted with the boy's slight frown and pale tones. Charlie introduced him as Cass.
Sitting between them, Poppy analyzed their potential as friends and decided she had a much better chance with them than anyone from her old school.
The phone rang three times. Even though she'd been the one to dial, Anna hoped it would never be picked up. She'd have another few hours to prepare herself for when her sister inevitably called back.
Felicity picked up on the third ring.
"Hey, Anna. What's up?"
"Hello. Just wanted to chat about a few things if you're not too busy."
Anna heard the sounds of her sister moving around a space and pictured her putting down cooking utensils, or setting aside a woodworking project just to talk to her.
"I'm free now. You okay?"
"I'm fine, I just had some questions."
"Ooh, questions. Hopefully nothing bad?"
"It's about growing up. School, our mother. Things like that."
Felicity sighed on the other end. "Not sure how much I can help you there, but go ahead and ask."
"The school you went to, was it called Ilvermorny?"
Silence. Anna almost wished she'd chosen to offer a video call instead of just listening to words, or the lack of them.
"Who told you about Ilvermorny?"
"So you did go there?"
"That's not the point, Anna, you're not supposed to know it exists. If people found out you know, well. Actually, how much do you know?"
"Don't worry about the secrecy. Daisy's already been at Hogwarts for over a year, I don't think anyone is going to be bothered by my knowledge of magic."
A pause, and then Felicity laughed. "I should've known. I really should have. It makes sense, magic just skipped you for some reason. And Dudley? How does he feel? And Poppy! Will she get to go as well?"
As soon as the threat of secrecy was gone, Felicity's tone went from cold surprise to rushed excitement. And Anna found herself wanting to laugh as well.
"Poppy may be going as well. Dudley's dealing with this better than I am. He already knew a lot, seeing as his cousin that grew up with him is a famous wizard. Is Harry Potter very well known in the states as well?"
"Potter? He's his cousin?" About five other questions followed the clarification. The two talked on the phone for hours, for the first time able to talk with full transparency, Felicity going into more details about their mother than Anna had ever gained access to before. Magic became a key to something wonderful instead of just an entity Anna couldn't quite get over her fear of. Or maybe now she could get over it, maybe even in time to cheer on Poppy's magical journey.
It's not Monday, it's Wednesday, so maybe I should change to updates every Wednesday. Idk. I'll update within a week either way.
Update: Thanks GreengrassRebel for pointing out POV sections weren't divided.