Chapter 1

"Why didn't I feel that I belonged to my parents? How early could I have known that I was not right? I think it has always been part of me. Can a newborn sense her parents' disappointment and feelings of frustration at not being able to change the unchangeable?"
Joan Frances Casey, The Flock: The Autobiography of a Multiple Personality

MATILDA ALWAYS KNEW SHE WAS MEANT FOR MORE, but not in the grand sense of being president, or waiting to get her shot at fame and fortune. None of those things could ever satisfy her. Perhaps once she dreamed small, perhaps when she was 6 years old and wanted only for Ms. Honey to adopt her.

Matilda Wormword learned the truth of the world very quickly in her life, escaping to London with her cheating and lying father, selfish mother, and idiotic brother. It was all the same to her, since she still had her powers to punish them when they did, what she believed, was morally wrong.

It was peculiar.

Matilda was used to weird packages arriving in the mail, ranging from stolen car parts or TVs taken from homes while their owners were out of town. Matilda was used to it. She was homeschooled for this very reason, so she could be home to sign off on those suspicious goods that made her family flee America in the first place.

This was just a letter, marked with her address. However, she had never gotten a letter so fancy before, and she had especially never gotten one with a special wax seal. More than that, it was addressed to her. Matilda Wormwood was written smoothly on the cover, leaving the eleven year old girl rather confused since she had never gotten a letter from anyone before. Not even Ms. Honey, who she had not spoken to in nearly two years.

This was because her parents found out about her correspondence with her old teacher and punished her for being so selfish as to keep in contact with their old lives. Her father was far more careful now with his scams, and her mother had taken a to liking London, making it obvious that hell would pay if Harry Wormwood messes it up.

Matilda glanced around her, as if she were worried that her father would come up to scold her. No such thing happened, and slowly the irrational fear drifted away. Instead, she opened the letter, carefully preserving the beautiful paper.

The contents were even stranger. She read it over and over again, thinking she must have missed something with each read through. She did not.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Of course, it was odd. The academic in her still needed convincing, but as she walked into the kitchen, barely thinking about it before the chair of the table pulled out on its own for her to sit down, she then realized it wasn't that strange. It wasn't unheard of or shocking.

It made sense.

Her family always told her that she was a freak. Perhaps this was why. It wasn't odd. She wasn't alone. However, she might as well have been, because she would never be permitted to go based on how much her parents detested the idea that she left the house for normal school.

Matilda dropped the letter to the ground and it immediately floated up to go into the bin while she wallowed, placing her cheek into her arms, and she thought about her helpless situation. She thought about the magic that seemed to help everybody else but never her. She didn't cry. She was done crying.

She thought it was hopeless, but then again, lately, what wasn't hopeless?

（╹◡╹）

It was late by the time Harry Wormwood arrived home, kicking off his shoes in the middle of the walkway without a care. He saw the package signed for near the door, and thankfully Matilda wasn't in sight of one of his many bad moods. He noticed, however, the oddity of an owl outside his front door, holding what looked to be a letter. Harry wasn't curious enough to open it, so instead he ignored it entirely without a care. His wife was nowhere to be seen, which was annoying considering that also meant there would be no dinner.

Just when he was about to scream at his useless daughter, he caught sight of the girl exiting the kitchen, her hair pushed back in a ribbon and her face sporting a small spot of grease.

"Dinners ready," she told him, hiding the fact that she wanted to put some laxatives in his beer since he had no problem selling shitty cars to desperate people.

However, she didn't do that. If she punished him too often, he would know and her fun would be over. She knew her family was stupid, but such a thing only goes so far. Matilda escaped a lecture for the night, retiring to her room where she spent the majority of her nights reading under a small and dim flashlight. Her parents detested when she read, so she always did her best to hide it when she could.

The sound of the television was blazingly loud, making her contemplate blowing it up again. She didn't, and instead escaped into the world of brave knights who always did what was right and beautiful descriptions of adventures that she'd love, more than anything, to see with her own eyes.

That was when she heard the sound of pecking at her window. She stood up to investigate, only to see the most beautiful owl staring back at her from the small area of space outside her window. She hesitated for a moment, already knowing her father would be unpleasantly annoyed if she let this bird into the house. Her hesitation was only for a split second before she opened the window and saw it, at that owls feet, the letter she had thrown in the bin. It was a new one, as beautiful and as tempting as the last one she had meticulously opened.

She stared at it with a glance of longing, wondering if this were some cruel joke. If it were, she wanted no part of it. She ran to her desk, lifting up the hidden compartment from under her drawer, rummaging through her letters that she saved to be sent to Ms. Honey. She found her note book that held the scribblings of the many letters she wanted to send to her former teacher, but never could due to fear that her father would find out she was still in contact. Maybe a small part of her was afraid to not get a reply.

She scribbled a small message, tearing it out of her book and carefully folding it. She rushed to the owl, feeling foolish. Still, it couldn't hurt. She took the letter it held, holding out her note.

"Can you deliver this back?" Matilda had no way of knowing if the owl knew to whom she was talking about, for she hadn't the faintest idea who sent it. Perhaps this was a cruel joke from her brother, who never took a shine to her. Perhaps not.

The owl held out its leg, taking the letter in its talons and flew off before she could say another word. In its quiet departure, she glanced down, once more at the letter she had read over nearly 100 times. She knew it couldn't be her family who wrote it, since they simply weren't clever enough to go through with it. She didn't have any friends who could have played such a joke, so she had no choice but to assume this could be the real thing.

She took a step back, her eyes narrowing as she watched the window close on its own. Matilda likely always knew what she was, and more than anything, she still wanted more.

Matilda stepped out for a moment, for a breath of fresh air, only to see yet another peculiar thing when she got back from her short trip to the library. It was a woman, in her later years, standing upon the Wormwood doorstep with a rather uncomfortable sort of expression on her face as she inspected the doorbell with a look of confusion. Slowly, she brought her finger up to the button but thought better of it and lowered it back to her side with a frown.

"How do you do?" Matilda greeted, watching the woman freeze.

"You must be Ms. Wormwood," the woman said, paying the girl no mind when Matilda's nose curled in distaste at the name.

"Yes, I suppose." Matilda didn't have to like it for it to be true.

"I am Minerva McGonagall, teacher of transfiguration at Hogwarts," the woman greeted, watching Matilda's brows shoot up. As much as the little girl tried to deny it, she was excited at the very mention of that name. "I got your letter."

The owl delivered it. It opened up more questions in Matilda's mind, but she dared not voice too many. Curiosity had a tendency to get on people's nerves and she didn't want to anger anyone.

Minerva opened up Matilda's sloppily ripped out piece of paper and cleared her throat. "Dear wizards, I wish to attend, but simply cannot due to my parents being bigoted jerks. Please send help."

Matilda's cheeks slightly reddened, pursing her lips with a slight frown. "I know. I wrote it."

"You are hardly the first muggleborn who has had these concerns," Minerva told her, raising her voice firmly.

"What a muggle?" Matilda asked.

"Non magic folk, but no matter that. I am here to help explain things to your family, if you require assistance," Minerva said, and Matilda frowned. "Normally Albus would handle this, but he's simply too busy."

"I don't need help telling them," Matilda said, because she wasn't afraid of that. She was afraid that even if she told them, they'd still never agree. "School is expensive. That's why I'm homeschooled Ms. McGonagall. They would never agree to a boarding school."

McGonagall looked over the girl with a brow raised. "Hogwarts is tuition free. The ministry of magic pays for all expenses." Matilda felt that traitorous bit of hope, and she took a step forward. "What I wanted to know is how, a girl such as yourself," Muggle born, "is so quick to accept a school of witchcraft so easily. Is your magic already manifesting so much?"

Matilda tilted her head to the side, "I always knew I was strange. It all just makes sense." As if to prove her point, Matilda held out her palm and the embarrassing letter that she wrote flew from the professor's hand and into her own.

"That's very interesting." Minerva was staring at the girl in a new light in the wake of her wand-less slide of magic. "You can perform wand less spells without any hinderance."

"It was hard at first, but I suppose now it's like second nature," Matilda admitted, watching the way the professor looked at her. "Is this not normal?"

Minerva shook her head, "perfectly normal."

Matilda, however, was insightful and intuitive. By now she had grown a gradual mistrust at adults, mostly because they always disappointed her. She naturally assumed they were lying until she had proof that they were not.

However, because her father had a surprisingly strong backhand, she had learned not to voice what she was thinking so often. "If I wanted, could I go without my parents permission?"

Minerva McGonagall looked as if she swallowed something sour. It was a long hesitation before she answered. "No. You need a guardian's permission."

Matilda nodded her head, having already expected as much. She knew, although she chided herself for thinking it, that her life might have been so much happier if only Ms. Honey had adopted her. Unfortunately, she was whisked away from America before she could even ask.

So, Matilda did what she always did when she was stressed. She tied her hair up into a ribbon, holding onto more hope that perhaps her parents could surprise her. However, even if they didn't agree, Matilda vowed to somehow make it through anyway.