Chapter One: History

There are many schools of magic worldwide, three of them in the United States of America alone. The first and oldest one is The Salem Witches' Institute, located (somewhere) in New England and founded soon after the Pilgrims arrived, nearly four hundred years ago. The second is the Kansas Prairie Songsmith Acadame, located (surprise!) in Nebraska and founded during the Expansion westward, around one hundred and seventy-five years ago. And the youngest is the West Coast Occult College, located (where else?) in San Francisco and founded only about fifty years ago.

Before I arrived at Hogwarts, I was a student at the Kansas Prairie Songsmith Acadame. I was enrolled there as Melantha Cardigan, and that was the only home I knew for almost fourteen years. Students at Songsmith traditionally receive, starting at age ten, five years of music, followed by six years of magic, and then one year of tests to see what they have the greatest aptitude in for their life's work. We must spend the years from ten to fourteen in music classes before we are allowed to even crack open a spellbook. When we do finally begin to learn magic, we must write all our spells as verses to a song, one we've written ourselves. The Magisters, as we call our Professors, have long memories, so we can never reuse a stanza.

Until I returned to England and came to Hogwarts, where I finally met my brother again after fourteen years (although he didn't know we were related when we first saw each other and not for a long while after that), my earliest memories are of my birthday party at age four. I distinctly remember a tall woman with an English accent, her mouth drawn up like a prune, in forest green and black robes and a small pair of glasses perched on the end of her nose, but I never heard her name. She was the one who had escorted me to Songsmith and enrolled me, apparently. She told them I was an orphan, with no family, and would they please take me in and keep me safe. At the time, no one knew who (or what) they were to protect me from, but Magistra Archon, Songsmith's Principal, agreed, and my life began.

You may well ask why they threw a party just for me… it wasn't. My birthday just happens to fall on Halloween, and that's what they were celebrating. My birthday was just a happy bonus for the other kids. Before she left, the English woman in green and black pulled me aside from the festivities and handed me a black leather pack. I looked inside, but it appeared empty. She seemed about to laugh, and then told me that it was a very special magic bag, which would hold anything. She demonstrated by reaching in and drawing out a broomstick. She told me the pack was my father's and the broom was my mother's. I wanted to ask more questions, but she said she had to leave, handing back the pack and broom and disappearing on the spot with a large crack. I put the broom back in and went back to the party, forgetting about the broom until years later, although the pack was very handy for my schoolbooks.

Magistra Archon enrolled me in a Muggle school, Crossroads Elementary as I recall, for the next six years, with the promise that I would speak nothing of magic. It was hard, but I managed, and I even made a couple of friends, Catlyn and Tryna Barns. We were inseparable, going everywhere and doing everything together. Cat and Try were almost identical twins, with Cat being an inch taller and Try having blue eyes instead of gray. They sort of adopted me as their sister, and their parents had no objection. Our years at Crossroads we got into all sorts of mischief, but it was harmless fun.