The rights of Harry Potter characters belong to JK Rowling. New characters and changed magic theory belongs to me – Sketch.

Please remember this is an alternate reality of the world of Harry Potter.

Magic had always existed. It connected life and brought harmony between those who had little to none and those who filled to the brim with it. Yet, as magic grew, so did its use and how others performed it by using magical objects. Before wands, there was wordless magic, and though some could do magic by just their emotions, others could bend the magic to their wills. That magic was considered old magic, ancient magic. Ancient magic passed from family to family, and only a few in the said family could have the gift for their body-the vessel-had to be strong enough to be a conduit for the magic to flow effortlessly.

America, Border, Texas

Isla was a happy and intelligent naïve girl. Who knew one day could change her life. No longer was her life fine and dandy. What started a typical day had become one of confusion and frustration. Isla wanted to scream, cry, hit, and sleep them away like all ten-year-olds. Today was her birthday. She was to be home opening presents now. 1980 was looking to be the best year because it was her last in elementary school.

Her parents were going to allow her some freedom today. She was finally able to go out with her older sisters and watch the last of the hippies hand out their flowers. They had promised her to take her shopping to get her first rock vinyl of the one and only David Bowie. They were also going to teach her why one was not to trust people, including those who did drugs. That lesson was irrelevant, she believed. Out of the two she had, her older brother took drugs all the time in his room. His low mood and calm personality were a bit frightening for her liking. She would never touch any drugs, thanks to him. Isla was surprised at the denial her family had of his actions. They ignored it. Acted as if he was okay.

Now, back to her miserable day.

It had started as it usually does in her house. It was Sunday. Sunday meant early morning church dressed in her best dress (which she despised), but this time ended with many people giving her well wishes for aging another year. Thankfully she had prepared herself for a lot of cheek pinching. Then, when she got home, her family of eight did a good cleaning of their rooms and the small adobe they occupied. Once that was completed in just under an hour, she and her sisters helped their mother cook. She was the youngest of four girls, so she got to do the easy chore: just cutting up vegetables and staying out of the way of the bustling bodies.

By the time she was eight, she should have been promoted from her cutting duty to enter the stove cooking cycle, but a mishap with frijoles and a pan becoming a mini-bonfire had kept her from helping her siblings for another year. How was she to know that heated oil and a cold can of beans would interact in such away. Also, it wasn't her fault that she thought it was cool when the fire had burst forth. She was a kid. When she told her friends, they had even thought it was awesome.

Sadly, she stuck with cutting the vegetables and fruit that day did her mishap happened. She had been cutting into a tomato and making slices before she proceeded to chop them up. Her mind had wandered about the rest of the day. Her hand slipped and nicked the side of her finger. Now, it wasn't an I-am-going-to-die nick. It was a paper-cut-looking nick. It wasn't deep, but it had started to bleed a lot, surprisingly for something so small.

Like all mothers born in Mexico, her mother went into a panic mode of Spanish talking and hand movements. She had quickly grabbed Isla's hand, started asking for the saints to bless her child to make sure she did not die (which Isla fervently told her she wasn't), and quickly dashed the girl to the skin while screaming (her mother would call it shouting) for the other girls to move away.

Now Isla was a trouble-friendly person. She was also clumsy. Her clumsiness was to an extreme that there had been one time in her life that she had run into a pole and knocked herself unconscious. Her coach had been impressed. She had managed to stop the hockey but also the game. Her parents…were not happy. She had received a lecture—a long one.

Well, the dashing and the panic mode her mother was in was not an excellent combination for a clumsy child-like Isla. The sink her mother had taken her to was next to the stove. Isla's elbow accidentally smacked into the pan's handle that was cooking. It flipped into the air, and its hot contents were about to drop on the poor ten-year-old girl. Isla put her hands up and closed her eyes, waiting for the scalding liquid to burn her, but nothing happened. One eye opened, followed by the other. She was shocked to see the pan floating in the air over her, frozen. Her mother had let her hand go and went to the floating products. Isla watched her mother wave her hands above, below, and to the side of the pan. She was looking for how her older daughter enacted the trick.

"Dio mios!" her mother shouted and then crossed herself with the sign of the cross. Her mother pulled Isla away, and the pan and its contents came falling to the floor.

The bang of the pan was followed by many loud pops and cracks as people just came into existence in the kitchen room. They dressed like the people she read about had dressed in the early 19th century. They had wood stick things pointed at her family. Then together, they pointed the sticks at her.

"I come in peace," Isla squeaked out pathetically.

Again, like a normal Mexican mother, Isla's mother roared like a lion, and out came a clean flat pan. Its aim: the people who were threatening her daughter. Isla was impressed as her mother took down the two closest to her. One of the group members stopped her mother's attack by mumbling a word and waving their stick. Her mother froze in position.

"Mama!" the girls all shouted in fear, and this brought her two brothers and father into the room, who then went to fight back the people who did not belong in their home. One of the people looked angry, and with a large wave of their stick and more odd words, the family was put to sleep…except for Isla.

"You are coming with us," the angry man growled from underneath his short pointy hat.

Thank you all for reading. I have original stories on my substack and old indie comics I created at my substack ( sketchart(period)substack(period)com) that are available for viewing. Some of them are free and others are paid subscriptions. The paid subscription plan allows me to continue my writing to keep my equipment updated and pay bills.