Well, considering J.K. Rowling was kind enough to be vague in her (crappy) epilogue, she left a lot of loose ends, with the exception that Hogwart's School was still open, and that there was a completely new Headmaster, and since her book leaves endless capabilities for original characters, I've decided to do my own "My Character goes to Hogwarts" fic, set ten years after the Battle of Hogwarts. Mostly follows canon, with a few Artistic Liberties taken, and a few canons deviated. Due to my obsessive love for the guy, Snape was somehow saved after he was attacked by Nagini, come on, why would Voldy attack him with Nagini instead of Magicking him to death if he didn't have some small hope he'd live, and then proved his innocence with his memories in the Penseive.
My mother opened her mouth for the longest period of time I had ever heard her speak to me individually. And, oh boy, did she have stuff to say. Well, she started with a few false starts, words like 'I didn't mean for you to end up this way' and 'I thought it wouldn't happen to you', but eventually gathered her thoughts.
"Boo," She looked straight at me. Oh god, that pet name. "I have been hiding something important from you and your father for a long time." I could almost feel my father frown. "Me and your Aunt Tracey can use magic. We're witches. Well, could use magic. After a few years of training on how to use them, I learned that I did not want my powers, I wanted to live as a normal human.
"I'm not saying it's the right choice for you, but it was the right choice for me. Especially when I fell in love with your father." I had kind of gotten that impression, after the 'I didn't want them', she seemed like she was trying not to cry. "I had thought that since I had given up my powers, that you would be born without magic. However, it looks like you inherited them. I should've known, you displayed little bits of power since you were a baby, I did my best to keep them from being noticed.
"This confirms it though. You're a witch, Boo. It seems that renouncing my powers before I got pregnant did not prevent you from inheriting it. I'm telling you this so you know. I tried my best to raise you so you'd be a normal girl, but it looks like that couldn't happen. If you want to stay here with us instead of going learn about your magic, if you want to renounce your magic and be like me, I will completely support you."
I thought about it for a minute, looking away from her face. It makes me nervous when it seems like people are about to start the water works. It sounded very much like she expected me to shun my powers, and give them up like she did, but I was curious. I couldn't help it. It's like the forbidden fruit. I get curious, if something is explicitly told to me that I can't or I shouldn't, I want to. Within reason, or course. I can see why I need to wear my seatbelt, and not smoke, and stay away from strange dogs.
But this was something that could apparently be taught and harnessed. If I was going to have them, I might as well use it, right? And if I knew, I was going to try to use them, but if I wanted to use things like this, I wanted to learn how to do it well. Sort of like drawing. I don't just do one decent drawing at be happy. I strive to be the best. Even though with that I have no teacher, almost no natural talent, and there were a ton of nights where I just couldn't draw anything at all.
"But what if I want to accept this part of me. What if I want to learn how to use this power?"
She looked stunned for a few seconds, like she actually expected me to immediately shun them, like she did after she dropped out. "You have to know what you're getting into."
"Then what am I 'getting into'?" She hesitated, and gripped my hands like a woman in labor.
"Well, Hogwarts is a boarding school, so you won't be able to see me and your father except on school holidays..." She trailed off, and I could feel her acrylic nails digging into my skin, which I knew were done it their typical French manicure style.
"I can always send you letters, right? I was fine every time you went on vacation and left me with friends." Friends whom I had no relation to, did not like and had kids "about my age" who actually usually turned out to be quite a few years younger and were completely irritating, considering younger kids cling to me like I promised them free candy to follow me around.
"You can write, but staying at a relative's house for two weeks isn't the same as going to a boarding school, Boo."
"I'm sure I'll be fine with that." She squeezed my hand even harder. I think my hand is going to break.
"You'll have to make all new friends."
"I've done that three times Mom, I'm sure I can do it again." I have friends. We just don't like to hang out after school. We have great fun on breaks and whispering in classes and during recess. We just don't really hang out outside of school except that one time we went to see Lord of the Rings, and our Star Wars Marathon, which turned out to be super fun and a terrible idea, because each of the movies are like six hours long.
"And you've never seemed to get any better at it. You still don't have many friends. I don't want you to be lonely." I hate when mom tries to sympathize with me. I know she a counselor, so it's sort of her job, and it carries on into the rest of her life, but she can keep her sympathy with the drug-addicted, alcoholic kids at her job.
"I have enough. We don't take to hanging out after school. We hang out at lunch and during recess and stuff. It won't be any different from being at a boarding school. Hanging out on school breaks and stuff."
"And what if you get sick?"
"Mom, I haven't gotten sick since I was seven, and that was because I was at a sleepover and had too many potato chips. I'm sure they have a nurse."
"Well... I won't be able to convince your teachers to let you pass if your fail a class."
"Only you, Mom, would see your child fail a class and go yell at the teacher. I've been a high-grade student for as long as anyone can remember, I'm sure I'll be fine there." Besides, the curriculum, from the books, looked really interesting. Plus, I like reading, so those textbooks and class are probably going to keep me entertained.
"Well... If you're sure..." She looked very awkward at that moment, like she truly thought I wasn't going to want to go. Her hazel eyes swirled around in her sockets, as she tried to think up another point to convince me to stay. Truth is, the more she protested, the more I wanted it. It's probably better than here, Hogwart's boarding school in England probably looks better on a resume than the small, limited, US Government-run Guam High School.
I nodded. I'm not going to let something like this pass me by.
"It's not going to be easy... The curriculum isn't like the stuff they have here."
Really? I thought it was going to be the same. No. That's quite obvious mom. "I know."
She leaned back into the couch, and cradled her face in one hand, finally releasing my near-broken hand. "I'll... I'll write back a letter tonight, and ask the Headmaster to arrange a portkey for us to take us into London and asking about your braces. We'll go the morning before the Hogwarts Express, well, that would be evening here. Are you going to be okay with the time zone difference?"
"I'll be fine. I don't go to bed until like four in the morning, that's like nine at night in London." I really didn't get why she was treating it as such a big deal. It seemed kind of obvious to me, Hogwarts, interesting curriculum and a more reputable school, or Guam Elementary/Middle School, simply expanding on the same curriculum I'd been learning my whole life.
Something about it just struck me as common sense. I think I'd rather spend my time mixing potions and learning about the weird properties of magical herbs than English, a class which I hate, despite loving reading and writing, Math, which comes so easily to me I get bored, Science, which bores me with all it's memorization, and Social Studies, which is also just a ton of memorization.
My mother has never been a reasonable woman. She's the kind of woman who insists on dressing to the nines even though she's in her mid-thirties and has a mombutt. I pondered this while I watched her write a letter to the school's headmaster.
She had one of those odd facial structures which confused you to whether it was a heart-shaped face or a rectangular face, with a square jaw, wide forehead, small chin, and thin lips. Her hazel-brown eyes were set far back in their sockets and framed by fake lashes with about half a tube of mascara, and eyeshadow along the same green-brown as her eyes. She had a set of eyebrows that were nearly waxed-off, but you could tell didn't have the arch they were given to begin with.
Hollowed-out, high cheekbones, with a few wrinkles from her smoking, even though she used some wrinkle cream. It had a light dusting of freckles everywhere, and long, horse-like teeth, that I knew took five years of braces to get straight. Her hobbies included, well, all I ever saw her do was sit in the kitchen or out on the patio, drinking boxed wine like it hadn't already gone out of style, either talking to her friends or watching TV, never cooking or doing any kind of yard work.
Her hair was kind of thin and raggedy, bleached to blonde once a month, sometimes by friends, other times by me, but unable to cover up a few grays. She was of an average build, but she had some kind of surgery early in my life that caused her breasts to swell to bizarre proportions when compared with the rest of her. She was sort of sheltering and paranoid, a bit of a smother, none of these characteristics, either physical or personality-wise, I had inherited, except my tooth placement.
I sat observing her, chin on the table, as she held the ballpoint pen in hand, a plain white sheet of paper out, in her semi-cursive handwriting addressing the "Headmaster or Other Acting Hogwarts Figure," regarding my attendance, getting a portkey, whatever that was, into London, having me bring her chihuahua with me to school, what to do about my braces, which needed to be readjusted every month, and whatever else hit her fancy at the time, as I can't read her handwriting well.
I saw my braids twisting on the table in front of me.
"Hey mom, shouldn't I cut my hair so that I don't accidentally burn it off with a spell or it falls into a cauldron or something?" I looked up through my blunt bangs, seeing a look of shock across her face for the umpteenth time that night. Her whole face darkened.
"Of course not. I'm sure if you keep putting it in braids like you do now, it won't get in the way. It's really a shame you put them in those, you know, it's nearly down past your butt." I've been looking for a reason to cut it for a very long time too.
"But mom, even in braids, it get in the way with even my normal life here." I hate my long hair. It tangles at the slightest provocation and takes forever to shampoo, it's hot, when it gets this long there's really not much you can do with it, the ends get stringy and broken, and when the wind blows it attacks everything.
"No. That is final. We've worked too hard to grow it out." I sighed and looked at her irritated face. More like she worked to hard convincing me not to chop it off. Watch me set it on fire during the school year during potions.
She folded the paper into thirds and stuck it in an envelope, sealing it and putting a name to the front, and only a name. Just the school's name, Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizadry, then after, "regarding student attendance". No address, and went out the front door, finding the owl, which shouldn't be on Guam, which was now spending time over a bloody carcass of a shrew, found somewhere between when I fed it popcorn this afternoon and now, and was sitting on one of the trees.
Upon spotting the envelope, it let out a shrill cry of what I would assume would be discontent of having to fly so far, and returned to the ground, and my mother simply gave the envelope to the owl. It's brown feathers puffed up, and it moved it head in a few circular motions
It took the letter into it's beak and used some kind of owl trick to put the letter in it's talons and took off, and flapped hard for altitude in the still tropical air. It's an interesting thing to watch an owl fly. You wouldn't expect a creature built like that to be a graceful flyer, but it's movements were sort of elegant, in a weird sort of way.
And all of a sudden, the owl disappeared, it quickly sort of dissolved into the evening sky. My breath hitched. Magic? Or did the poor owl get vaporized? My mother must've seen the dumbstruck look on her face and clarified it for me.
"If an owl has to go overseas or some such, they've set up magic so that the owls can transport from the borders of their own country to near their destination." I continued opening and closing my mouth like a fish, unable to say anything. I continued staring at the spot in the sky where the owl had disappeared. The first few stars had come out, shining through the colorful sunset. The Sunset Grill lit its torches up on the ridge of the mountain to the left of our neighborhood.
It seems no one else noticed the out-of-place owl taking off with a strange unmarked letter in its talons and disappear into the night. It made me wonder just how much the world didn't pay attention to.