Chapter One: Hogwarts

Fifteen Years Later – Present Day

Calanthe Rogers closed her bedroom door with a loud slam that shook the house. Struggling, she turned and tried hard to lock the door before her brother, Michael, caught up with her. Her fingers had just brushed the lock when a large force lurched against the door from the outside. Mike hadn't even bothered to try knocking, just thrown himself at the door. Mike was three years older than Calanthe, who was eleven, making him fourteen years old and much stronger than she was.

Using the moment when Mike withdrew for another attack at the door, Calanthe shot the bolt into the lock. The door shuddered against Mike's new attack, but it did not give. Calanthe let her body slide to the floor against the opposite wall and sighed.

She let her eyes close briefly, trying to remember what had started them fighting this time. It was something about what she had said when a friend of his came over the other week… the trouble was, Calanthe couldn't even remember what she had said. The fact was, ever since her brother had turned fourteen years old he had been aggressive in his attempts to be cool – attempts, he said, that she was ruining. Calanthe sighed and glanced around the room. She knew that soon her brother would tire of throwing himself against the door of her bedroom and go find something else to do until she came out – something Calanthe did not intend to do until their parents got home.

Calanthe could remember a time when she and her brother had been friends – or at least, a time when they had not been enemies or a time when her existence had not been a total embarrassment to him. Calanthe wished things would go back to the way things were, but according to her brother, she was weird. Just plain weird.

Mike wasn't the first person to consider Calanthe weird. The term had first been applied to her by her Kindergarten teacher. Calanthe had found it hard to make friends with her classmates in Kindergarten, and so she had turned to the fairies that played in the school gardens. The trouble was, no one else could see the fairies. Her teacher had recommended counseling. After a while, Calanthe had learned to convince herself that the strange creatures she had called fairies were only butterflies – it was dangerous to think anything else. There had been quite a few incidents of that sort. And there was also the fact that Calanthe could heal unnaturally quickly. When she had broken her leg in three places in the third grade after falling out of a tree, she was better in a week. The doctor had looked at her as though she was some sort of a phenomenon and asked her mother if he could 'run a few tests,' on her; her mother had firmly refused.

Sometimes, Calanthe thought that she could make things happen just by thinking about them. Her brother's friend Jacob had been teasing her once about not having any friends, and then a tree limb had suddenly fallen on him. He had been rushed to the hospital and it turned out he only had a mild concussion, but Calanthe hadn't been able sleep that night. She was absolutely terrified of what she had done.

And so she had grown up this way; not quite accepted by the people around her and yet not quite shunned. The truth was, although Calanthe wouldn't admit it to herself, that she was very lonely.

She leaned back against her mattress and eventually she fell into an uneasy sleep. She awoke several hours later when there was a knocking sound at her door.

"Calanthe?" asked her Mother.

Calanthe blinked a couple of times to clear her eyes, and then she got up and opened the door. Her mother was standing there with a worried expression.

"Calanthe, did you apply to any boarding schools without telling your father and I?" her Mom asked.

She paused, genuinely shocked. "No," she said truthfully.

"Well," said her mother, "there's a man downstairs called Neville Longbottom. He says he's a teacher at a boarding school called Hogwarts, and that you've been accepted to go there."

Calanthe's head was spinning. She had never heard of any place called Hogwarts. She didn't know what to say.

Calanthe's mother looked at her worriedly.

"I suppose I should go talk to him," Calanthe said, slightly dazed. She went to walk downstairs. Calanthe's mother watched her go, wondering if her daughter was being quite truthful about not having applied to this school, and, more importantly, whether her daughter really wanted to leave home.

Neville Longbottom sat on the Roger family's sofa drinking a cup of tea that had been graciously (he thought) provided by Calanthe's mother. He looked around the room for any signs that might give him a clue to what sort of people lived in this house. One of the first things he noticed was that everything here was neat and clean. Colors were tastefully chosen for the walls and furniture, and the room was filled with light. There were photographs on the walls, showing family of four. Neville stood up and went over to the nearest photo (which he was amused to see was not moving) and peered closely at it. The children it showed were small, so the photo must have been taken quite some time ago. It was of a girl and a boy playing at the beach. The boy was probably around five years old and he sat partially in the water with a pile of sand in front of him, clearly in the act of building it higher. It wasn't the boy who held his attention. It was the girl, around two years old, who was sitting opposite him, clearly helping shape the pile of sand her brother had created into a castle. He scanned the walls for a more recent photo of Calanthe, and caught sight of one only a few feet away. It showed a girl with dirty blond hair sitting on a swing hanging from a tree. She was wearing thin, oval-framed glasses and had very pale skin. She was very petite in figure. Neville noticed that she wasn't looking at the camera, but at the ground a few feet away from herself. Neville became engrossed in looking at the photos around the room. He wanted to be a little better prepared for what to expect from this girl – Professor McGonagall's files on her had been limited, to say the least.

In the days since she had become Headmistress, Professor McGonagall had developed a new system for how to break the news to Muggleborn students that they were, in fact, Witches and Wizards. A member of the staff went to the homes of these students and explained it to them and their families. This was easier than just sending the letter and asking for permission to visit – sometimes the Parents of the child in question would simply become scared or contemptuous at the idea of magic, and refuse the visit when the Witch or Wizard staff member came to call. Or else they would think that they were being scammed. After a while, Hogwarts had simply revised the system to give no warning to these families before coming.

Neville felt a tingling on the back of his neck and turned around. An eleven-year-old girl was sitting in a chair opposite the sofa, looking at him. She was dressed in Muggle clothes, and her hair hung loose. It was shorter than it had been in her picture, just brushing her shoulders. Her eyes, he noticed, were slightly watery and grey. He hadn't noticed that in the photos.

Slightly embarrassed that she had caught him peering so closely at her family's photos, Neville went to go and sit down on the sofa. He then leaned forwards and held out his hand. "Hello Calanthe, I'm Mr. Neville Longbottom," Neville said.

Calanthe's expression didn't change, although her eyes were interested. Her gaze made Neville slightly uncomfortable, although he didn't show it.

She held out her hand, "Nice to meet you," she said politely. "I'm Calanthe." Calanthe didn't know what to think. She was really curious about what this man was doing and about his school, but she was also a little wary; maybe it was the fact that she had never even heard of Hogwarts before or maybe it was that she hadn't applied to it… but it was also the strangeness of Mr. Longbottom himself. He was wearing a suit jacket over a pink polo shirt with swimming trunks and dress shoes. No wonder her mother had been so nervous! Calanthe wondered that her mother had worked up the courage to let him into the house!

"Now," said Mr. Longbottom, "perhaps your mother told you that I represent a school called Hogwarts, and that I am a teacher there?" He settled back against the sofa.

Calanthe nodded. "Yes," she said, "but I've never heard of it before."

It was Neville's turn to nod. "Well, you wouldn't have," he said. "You see, the existence of Hogwarts is somewhat of a secret."

"Wha…" Calanthe began, but Mr. Longbottom cut her off.

"Let me explain," he said.

Calanthe waited.

Neville sighed. He had tried to explain about Hogwarts before with mixed results; some of the children believed at once, others once he asked them to think of unusual things about them, and others only when he did magic in front of them. He never enjoyed the explanations.

"Let me see," said Neville. "Where to begin…" his voice trailed off for a moment while he collected his thoughts and shook them into order like a pack of cards. Calanthe just sat there, listening. It made Neville feel slightly pressured to begin. "Hogwarts is an unusual sort of school," he started. "You might have noticed that you didn't have to apply to go there – that is because no one does. No one can apply to attend Hogwarts. This is because not everyone is able to go there. Not everyone has… qualities that we are looking for. Some children are born into these… qualities. I'll just keep calling them that for the time being before I get into what these things, these abilities actually are. Well anyways, Hogwarts is quite an unusual place, filled with quite special people. And we're always keeping a lookout for children who fit these qualities. And you, Calanthe, do."

"What are they?" Calanthe asked. She was pretty curious, although the idea that people from some school had been stalking her was pretty scary. For some reason it didn't really worry her though.

Neville took a deep breathe; the moment of truth had arrived. "These children – like you – are, well, magical. They can do magic. Hogwarts is a school for these children and it teaches them to become Witches and Wizards."

Calanthe sat absolutely still. She hadn't been expecting that. Then, what he said caught up to her; this man was saying that she was a Witch! Was this a cruel joke? Would her brother really sink as low as to pay someone to make up some bogus story like this? But then she remembered Neville himself – he didn't seem like the sort of person who would do this kind of thing, but that didn't mean anything really. But for some reason, she couldn't shake off the feeling that this wasn't a joke.

Neville was watching her. At first, he saw her face tighten. But then, a thoughtful look crossed her face. "Have you ever made things happen that you can't explain?" he asked her quietly. "Things about you that are unusual?"

Calanthe realized in surprise that there were things like that about her. She looked up at Mr. Longbottom in wonder, before she remembered that if this was a prank, he would probably have been told that anyways. "Can you do magic?" she asked. She knew that, if this was a prank, she would get it later for asking. But she couldn't help being curious and anyways, if he couldn't do magic then she would know for sure that this was a prank.

Calanthe wanted to believe with all her heart that it was real, that maybe there was somewhere where her weirdness would be totally acceptable. She waited for Mr. Longbottom's answer.

Neville smiled. "Yes, I can do magic. Would you like to see some?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. She shifted suspense fully in her seat.

Neville smiled and then calmly turned a sofa cushion next to him into a white rabbit, and then levitated it up into the air with his wand.

There was a gasp from the doorway. Calanthe's mother stood there, staring at the rabbit floating in mid air. "It's true," she whispered. "Magic…" she looked at Calanthe. "When she was a baby, she could make her toys float across the room towards her. When she got older, it stopped happening but I always remembered…" her voice trailed off.

Neville was struck by the uncomfortable-ness of this situation. Calanthe was simply sitting and staring at her mother, her mouth slightly open. "Why didn't you tell me that?" she asked.

Calanthe's mother put her head in her hands. "How can you tell someone something like that?" she asked. Then she took a deep breath and tried to steady herself. She succeeded, for the most part. When she looked up at her daughter and Mr. Longbottom again she looked much calmer. "So, Mr. Longbottom," she said. "Would you care to tell us more about Hogwarts?"

Neville was relieved that everything had turned out so well and that Calanthe's mother had not freaked out on him. He had several bad memories in which the unhappy parents of Muggle children had started throwing things at him… and he, of course, had not been allowed to use any magic of any kind against them.

After turning the rabbit (which had started nibbling on his shirt) back into a cushion, Neville started to explain about Hogwarts. He explained that every student spent seven years there and at that time they left school either to seek more training (some Wizarding jobs required this) or to start work. He explained about the Ministry of Magic and about the laws against Underage Magic. (Calanthe's mother was very happy about the latter, although Calanthe herself wasn't.) He also explained a lot about Hogwarts its self; the Houses, House Points, the classes Calanthe would be taking if she chose to attend. At the end of the monologue, he asked "I take it, from your interest, that you do want to attend?"

Calanthe glanced at her mother. As Mr. Longbottom had talked, she had become steadily more excited. Imagine going to a school which was a castle – no less – to learn magic! When Calanthe's mother saw her face, it was full of hope.

And so, even though Calanthe's mother was not happy to send her eleven-year-old daughter away, she said, "Yes, it sounds as though it would be dangerous not to train her up in any case. She will, though, get to come home for the holidays?"

Neville let out an internal sigh of relief; this had gone quite well. "Yes, yes of course," he said. "And now for the matter of your school supplies… I can take Calanthe in to buy them all. There is a place in London – which isn't far from here. Your house is just outside of Oxford, yes?" – Calanthe's mother nodded – "Anyways, the place in London is called Diagon Alley. You can get everything there… a start up fund should be equal to around two hundred of your pounds, depending on how much you want to spend on your supplies and things."

"Do wizards have different money from us?" Calanthe asked.

Neville looked at her in surprise. "Oh, yes," he said. "But I won't attempt to explain that now – it isn't that it's complicated, it's just that we don't have much time if you want to go to Diagon Alley today."

"Today?" Calanthe's mother asked in surprise. She clearly hadn't expected anything to happen this fast.

"Yes," said Neville, standing up. "It's already August 20th, and term starts on September 1st – in eleven days. I'm going to have to go back to Hogwarts tomorrow to get ready for the start of term. I'm sure you understand."

"I could take her to get her things," said Calanthe's mother, in a slightly hurt voice.

Neville smiled. "With all due respect, Ma'am," he said, "it would be better for Calanthe to have a citizen of the magical community with her. Our world is rather different from the Muggle – err Non-Magic world. It might be rather hard for the both of you to navigate on your own. And that reminds me – Calanthe?"

Calanthe looked at him.

"Here's your letter. Inside is the total list of books and equipment that you'll need and also," he looked at Calanthe's mother, "students are allowed to bring pets. The pets that are allowed or in fashion this year are Owls, Cats, Salamanders, Pigmy Puffs (you won't have heard of those), and Squirrels. Pixies used to be on the list, but they got banned when people started setting them against their classmates and having Pixie wars. Oh well. Anyways, I need your permission to allow her – or not – to get a pet."

Calanthe's mother struggled for a second before saying, "Okay then. Just not a Salamander or a Squirrel. Any of the others should be fine. And don't," she hesitated, "let her get anything dangerous."

Neville smiled. "You can count on it. Hogwarts would fire me if I did."