Disclaimer- JK Rowling still owns the rights to Hogwarts.
To Stay Perfect
"You're a witch, Jessica!" Her mother screamed at her. Feeling a small tug at the bottom of her pant leg, she looked down at her younger brother and sister, their light hair obscured in front of their tear streaked faces.
"Why did you have to do this to us?" They sobbed. "Please, come home."
She whirled around, only to come face to face with her father. "You've disappointed us, Jess."
She ran away, falling and looking up into the blue eyes of..
An owl.
She sat up, looking around the dark bedroom she shared with four other girls, the one she had called home for the past month. Serenity was sitting on top of her chest, looking at her rather peculiarly.
"Serenity, what are you doing in here?" She asked, catching her breath and trying to push the dream out of her head.
The owl had become rather fond of the young girl, and visited her on a regular basis, but never in the middle of the night like this.
"Is there something wrong, Serenity?" But the owl seemed content now, nuzzling against her neck as Jessica lifted her hair off the back of her neck and stretched her arms.
She swung her legs over her bed, admiring the blue pajama pants she was wearing, and thinking of the matching top. They were decorated with yellow stars and had been a gift from her mother for her fourteenth birthday. They reminded her of the stationary kit at home, the one she'd used to send the letter to Dumbledore.
She sighed, remembering the dream and her mother's screams, "It's her fault, not mine," She said breathlessly.
"Jess?" A hand reached down and landed on her shoulder. The gentle touch belonged to Katie Beck, a fellow fourth year Ravenclaw whom she'd become quite close to as a friend in the past month at Hogwarts.
She laughed, looking up at her friend in the satiny pink night gown, normally the picture of perfection but with her blurry brown eyes and blonde hair, stuck out in every direction she was anything but, "Hey, Kate. Did I wake you?"
"No, that owl of yours did," She said, pointing to Serenity now sitting on the rumpled white comforter. "The beating of her wings isn't the quietest thing."
Jessica hadn't noticed, being lost in her thoughts.
"Well, we've got Potions first thing tomorrow morning, I'd suggest getting some sleep so you can be awake for it. Snape's been especially strict since AJ blew up that potion and singed off his eyebrows last week."
"How could I forget? It took him the rest of the class to put together a potion to grow them back. Poor AJ, Snape will never forgive him." Swinging her legs back up on to the bed she leaned against the wooden headboard of her bed, "But you've got a good point, I'll go back to sleep."
Katie hurriedly rushed back to her own bed, stifling a yawn and falling back asleep before her head hit the pillow.
Serenity nuzzled her beak against the legs beneath the covers and then flew out the open window beside her bed. Staring out at the window at the dark sky and full, white moon, Jessica looked back on the month she had been at Hogwarts.
The hate her mother had placed in her heart was conveniently misplaced, hidden under the joy of being at the school. She had made new friends and acquired a love for what she studied.
Things were just as she had hoped, perfect. But little did she know that they wouldn't stay that way for long.