Bethany opened a parchment envelope, sealed with the familiar seal.

"Dear Miss Wilson, We are pleased to inform you."

With a smile on her face she put the letter down. This was it, she was going. In one month's time she'd be at Hogwart's, for the second time round.

Fifteen years previously, she had received a letter with the same seal, with the same opening words. Her mother's concerned face when she took Bethany to the garden to talk about the contents of the letter came to mind as Bethany thought of the original letter. Her mother knew all about Hogwart's, she received her own letter on her eleventh birthday, but had chosen not to go. Like many of her female ancestors, Bethany's mother had to make her own decision. Muggle or Witch? And also like many of their ancestors, her mother chose muggle.

Mrs Wilson had known for eleven years that this moment would come. The moment the doctors had said "It's a girl!", she started to plan this moment in her mind. As Bethany began to grow up, she was fascinated by the world of magic, although as far as she was concerned it was contained in the world of make-believe. She was marked out as an "odd child" all the way through her early years. Clearly intelligent, but definitely odd. Her teachers at school hadn't felt it was natural for a child her age to always have her nose in a book. So, it was with great apprehension that her mother waited for Bethany's eleventh birthday.

That morning, her mother collected the post. When Bethany came tearing into the kitchen, she was confronted by the sight of her mother sat quietly, alone, at the table with a thick parchment envelope in front of her.

"Would you follow me to the garden, please Bethy?"

With a silent nod, Bethany followed her mother to the garden. Her mother sat on the bench in the herb garden, with the parchment envelope resting in her lap.

"What's wrong mum? What's happened?" Bethany had never seen her mother looking so anxious. Something had happened. Was dad alright? What about her brother? Granma?

"Nothing's wrong, sweetheart. But it's time to tell you about your true family history.

"I know you used to believe strongly in magic, not the conjuring and sleight of hand, but witches and faeries. I also know you still want to believe it is true. So perhaps this won't be so difficult for you to believe as it was for me on my eleventh birthday. Magic IS real. It's not some wonderful idea that makes stories more interesting, it exists. There is an entire community of witches and wizards, living alongside the non- magic people. And there's a special school, a magic school. Which you've been accepted to." She handed Bethany the parchment envelope from her lap.

Tearing open the envelope, Bethany stared in amazement at what she now held in her hands. She was a witch, this was so great! But why was her mother so concerned? Why weren't dad and Jake included in this little chat?

"So, magic is real and I'm a witch. Sounds good so far, so why the long face mum?"

"This is where the family history comes in," she couldn't bring herself to look Bethany in the face. How was she going to cope with this? "Up until about two hundred years ago, every member of our family attended Hogwart's. We are descended from one of the strongest lines of pure wizard-blood. Until Phoebe. She was the youngest daughter, spoilt rotten according to family legend. Like the rest of her family she attended Hogwart's, she graduated, then she fell in love. With a man who wasn't a wizard. A muggle.

"Her father wasn't going to have it. His favourite little girl wasn't going to marry some lowly muggle. She was going to marry a fine, upstanding member of the wizard community. Someone with Pureblood, like her. Phoebe had no intention of obeying her father. She didn't pay any attention to his threats, she was his favourite. he wouldn't really disown her. But he did. Phoebe was cast out of the family. Her wand was broken, her money taken away. She was a poor woman for the first time ever. And she was forbidden to do magic. This time her father's threat was heard. But she had a husband she loved, and started to make a name for herself as an herbalist and healer. For most of her life as a muggle, she ran an apothecary shop in London.

"In time she had children. First came a son, then a daughter two years later. As her son's eleventh birthday approached, Phoebe grew nervous. How was she going to explain this mysterious letter turning up? His birthday came and went. No letter arrived. Relaxing, Phoebe stopped worrying. Until she picked up a parchment letter addressed to her daughter, with that familiar seal. You see, something happened when she was disowned. The magic could only flow through the female line. No son produced has ever received a letter, and no offspring of the sons have received letters. You have a clear matrilineal to Phoebe. This is why you have the letter.

"But, you don't have to go. In the last two hundred years, only three of the women to receive letters has chosen to go. The last one was your great grandmother. The rest of us didn't go for various reasons: fear of change, fear of our fathers, disbelief, and - especially for the generations close to Phoebe - feelings of dishonour and humiliation at Phoebe's actions.

"But it's your call. Your father knows we're having this chat, that's why he took Jake to collect the last bits for your party. No-one will judge you for deciding either way. Take your time, give it some thought."

"I don't need to think about it," Bethany interrupted her mother. "I want to go."

Bethany's mother left her sat in the garden to think about her decision. Her mother had insisted on Bethany not making her final decision until the next morning, giving her plenty of time to try to understand what she would be leaving behind her if she chose to go. Looking around the herb garden, Bethany suddenly felt more alive than she had done in her short life.

Her birthday party went off without a hitch. Her friends from school were there, as were a handful of her brother's friends. There was just over a year between Bethany and her big brother, making them much closer than most siblings at that age. Bethany's friends were fun, but she didn't have much in common with them. It was clear to her that they weren't going to be friends for life no matter what choice she made. Jake on the other hand, was more of a best friend than a brother. Bethany desperately wanted to talk to him about her news, but her mother had been very clear that this couldn't be discussed in front of their friends. For the first time ever, Bethany found herself wishing her party would end.

It was late once the clearing up had been finished after the party was over. Mrs Wilson wasn't overly concerned about her children going to bed early, as tomorrow was Sunday. She was well aware that Bethany would want to talk to Jake, something she was completely in favour of. Jake knew that Bethany had been offered a place at a school in Scotland and that it was her decision as to whether or not she went. Their mother hadn't told him exactly what kind of school it was, that was another choice for her little girl to make. Mrs Wilson couldn't help feel that Bethany was too young to make these decisions, but there was no-one else who could make them for her.

"Jake! Can I have a word with you?"

"What is it sis? I'm shattered and need to get to bed soon" Jake stifled a yawn as he turned towards his sister.

"It's about this school that's accepted me. The one in Scotland. I want your advice." Bethany still hadn't decided whether to tell him the type of school it was. The idea of keeping anything from him seemed wrong, but how would he cope?

"Mum said something about that. I'm not sure I can be of much help though, it's just a case of do you want to leave us behind, isn't it?"

Bethany decided to bite the bullet and tell him the whole story. She told him what had happened that morning, the letter, the family history, everything. He sat in shocked silence while hearing things he would never have believed before. Part of him felt that this had to be a joke, but he knew his little sister too well to really believe that. When Bethany finished, Jake continued to sit in silence.

"Hmmm, I think I get why it's such a big deal if you go or not. This is way too major to flip a coin for or something." Bethany watched her brother's face go through a range of emotions, before finally settling into the natural expression of her loving brother. "If you change your mind about being a witch, can you pack it in and become a, what was it, nubble?"

Bethany grinned at her brother's mistake, it was already starting to feel like her world. "It's muggle, you donkey. And yeah, I think I can. If Phoebe could I ought to be able to. But I can't do it the other way round. Mum's said that she can make small things move by thinking about it, but nothing else. I'm not sure I could be happy knowing that I might have been able to learn all this amazing stuff and turned the opportunity down. If I decide not to go, then I've missed out on it forever."

"Sounds like you've made your decision then. Accept the place, if you hate it come home and we can pretend it never happened. But if you love it then we'll have a proper witch in the family. Either way, you'll still have me as a brother. that's something you can't change!"

And so Bethany accepted the place at Hogwarts, with the blessing of her family and the knowledge that she could quit whenever she wanted. But Bethany couldn't see that happening, especially after she started reading her schools books and visited Diagon Alley, the main magical shopping area hidden in central London. Her mother felt small pangs of jealousy that her little girl was going to get to experience this world in its entirety, something she now could never do. But those decisions had all been made a long time ago.