BEGINNING OF PART ONE
II. The Wave
She remembered a dim room, and her father, who seemed very tall, lifting her high in the air. She was four, and twelve years later she would stand at exactly his height. He laughed and tossed her in the air, and she—little Julia—was screaming with joy, pale hair flying. When she was six, her father moved to America, alone.
She remembered her cousins' paddling pool, on a bright day in Ottery St. Catchpole. Mya and Kate King, they were named, and they were older and bossier, so Julia hit Mya for calling her a swot.
She remembered Amanda, tiny Amy crawling across the floor, Amy walking and talking.
And she remembered the first time she used magic. She was at the ocean with her mum and Amy. Amy had a white sunhat that made her look like a mushroom, and Julie had a new red swimsuit. Margaret, their mum, was sitting on the pebbly sand, just watching the horizon. Julie hopped through the breakers with Amy for a bit, but she was seven and Amy was just four, and she didn't want to spend all her time with such a baby. She struck out alone, aiming for a craggy black rock rearing out of the sea a ways away.
It was farther than she thought, of course. But Julie was a strong swimmer, and fearless, with her clumsy breaststroke (or frog stroke, as her mother taught it.) She swam slowly but steadily for a good ten minutes before she reached the rock. It was slippery and hard to climb onto, and she cut herself on the black stone, but she was stubborn as well. Finally she stood up. There were a few dismal pieces of seaweed clinging to the tiny island, and a seagull circled above. When she turned and looked back to shore, it took her a moment to spot her mum. She had stood up and was looking out towards Julie. Amy was still hopping about in her puffy white hat. Julie waved at her mum, and she waved back, shouting something, Julie could tell. She didn't care. She was by herself now, and she liked it. She turned away and sat down on the scratchy, silt-covered rock, and stared out to sea. A sailboat was passing by.
A splashing surprised her, and she spun around, scraping her legs. Margaret had swum after her, and she was fast, long legs scissoring, arms pushing herself through the water like a badger pushing through earth. She grabbed on to the rock's edge.
"Julia Martha!" she hissed. "Couldn't you hear me calling you back? What were you thinking, swimming out this far?"
"Mum, no!" shouted Julie. "I can swim, I wanted to be by myself! " And suddenly she saw a wave coming towards her, away from the beach, ripples madly colliding, turning around and growing in size, until it crashed down on her mother's head.
In the silence that followed the breaking of a wave, Julie sat with her mouth open. Then she sprang up, suddenly worried, but Margaret had already surfaced, spluttering, hair plastered to her face.
"Mum—sorry—I don't know how that happened—"
"I know," said Margaret grimly. "Come on, you can hold on to my shoulders on the way back."
They were both silent as they swam back, Julie meek and ashamed, Margaret thoughtful, with her mouth set in a forbidding line. Amy was still hopping through the breakers, still looking for all the world like a mushroom in her little white hat, just as if nothing had changed.
Amy showed her magic much earlier than seven, and in much smaller ways. Maybe when she was five, they started to notice strange things about her. Toys that had been lost for weeks would reappear without explanation. When she got raspberry jam all over herself, it was gone by the time Margaret dragged her to the bathroom. She learned how to read in just two days, and once, when she had hurt herself and was crying, a shower of silver sparks came down from her bedroom ceiling.
Everything was easier for Amy. She never picked fights in the schoolyard, coming home bloody and triumphant, holding another girl's tooth, the way Julie did. (Margaret told her to throw it away, but she kept it, put it in the shoebox under her bed.) Amy never got enough detentions to earn herself a suspension. (Margaret made Julie do schoolwork every day of the week she was out, until seven at night.) In fact, Amy never earned any detentions at all. She was good at controlling her magic and keeping it secret. Julie, however, once mysteriously ended up fifteen metres high in a tree, while being chased by a group of her many enemies. She tried to say that she was simply a very fast climber, but the fact remained that half the schoolyard had seen her at the bottom of the tree one second, and ten seconds later at the top, and no one was that fast. She wasn't punished, simply because there was no school rule that she seemed to have broken, but she was viewed with a great deal of suspicion after that.
In fact, Julie didn't really make many friends at school. She would sit with the boys in her year, who tolerated her because she was good at football and had beaten most of them in fights. But none of them really interested her. Amy, on the other hand, was friends with everyone in her nursery school, and then with everyone in primary school. For Amy's birthdays, Margaret made lemon cake and had nine or ten little girls and boys come to their house. For her birthdays, Julie got a ten-pound note from her mother and a ride into Inverness, where she would buy herself as many books as she could afford.
And then when the expected letter came on her eleventh birthday, Julie thought her mum might have gone into the bedroom for so long just to cry. She'd gone into the washroom and wet her eyes and pulled back her composure, but there are only so many times you can go to sleep in your mother's lap and not learn her face—learn how her mouth crumpled a little bit when she was upset, her cheeks paled when she was angry, her eyes crinkled when she smiled.
Amy was excited. She ran around and around the house, three rooms on the bottom floor, and then she thundered up the stairs and down again. Julie read through the two sheets of paper over and over again.
…you have been accepted…witchcraft and wizardry…wand…may not own a broomstick…
"Where do I get all this stuff?" she asked suddenly.
Margaret took the list out of her hand and held it up to the light. "London."
"Really," said Julie sarcastically. "They sell magic wands, in London."
"Yeah, they do," said Margaret.
Amy stopped bouncing. "Can I get one?"
"No!" said Julie and Margaret at the same time.
Amy frowned at them.
It was April, Easter holidays. They stayed in a small hotel in Uxbridge, and they took the Underground to all the touristy places—Hyde Park, the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square and Julie's favorite, the Tower of London.
On Friday Margaret took them into the busy center of town. Crowds of ordinary-looking people rushed by. The shops were large, shiny and new. Julie scanned the street, looking for anything that seemed magical at all. Her mum kept a firm hand on each daughter's shoulder as she marched them towards a large record store. But they didn't go in—instead, Margaret pulled the girls over to a small, dingy pub, one that Julie hadn't even noticed at first. The Leaky Cauldron, she read to herself from the sign.
A small bell tinkled. The pub was dim and shabby, with five or six odd-looking people sitting at the rickety tables. A tall, stooped man was behind the bar, wiping and putting away glasses. He peered at them.
"Is that—Margaret Fraser!" He put down the glass in his hands and smiled. "It has been a long time."
Julie and Amy turned and stared at their mother. She had never mentioned the fact that magical people might know who she was.
Margaret smiled tight-lipped. "Tom. Yes, it has, I'm afraid, but no time to catch up. We're heading to Diagon Alley."
Tom nodded and gestured them around the bar. He followed them into a small courtyard, empty aside from a few dustbins. Julie wondered if perhaps they would have to climb into them.
"Shopping for yourself or the kids?" asked Tom.
Margaret clearly didn't want to prolong their conversation. "Kids," she said, jerking her head toward her older daughter, "Julie's going to Hogwarts."
Tom inclined his head at Julie. "Congratulations."
"Thanks," replied Julie very quietly.
Tom tapped a brick on the wall with his wand. The girls stood wide-eyed as an arched doorway opened up. But their mother was unmoved, hands on the girls' shoulders, face set.
Margaret Fraser, Muggle, led her daughters into a brave new world.
A/N: This story is also on ao3. My user name there is psapfo as well and it's usually updated sooner over there. I'm keeping it up to date here though since I have a couple readers on here! This is a fresh edit of the first few chapters as of 3/19/16, if you are rereading and see a few spelling changes that's why. Thanks for reading and especially thanks for reviewing-it makes me so happy.
