The Girl Everybody Forgot

By Raekitty13

Disclaimer: I think this would be an appropriate time to mention that A. I am NOT J.K. Rowling and B. I sincerely apologize for not posting in almost a year X_x

Author's Notes: Again, I am terribly sorry that this is so late. Who would've thought a Pre-Med degree would be so demanding? But I've missed writing dreadfully despite all the super-fabulous labs and reports and exams… As a forewarning, however, I feel so rusty at writing. If this chapter sounds more like a biology lab write up than a fictional story (with characters that are not my own) I apologize, but I promise to get back into the swing of things.

Thank yous: First and foremost a HUGE thank you goes out to those of you who have reviewed in the past. Next, but not by any means, secondly, here's a GINORMOUS thank you for all of you reading this now =] You guys rock.

Chapter Ten-Many Warm Welcomes

Kelsey and Mrs. Fewer dropped me off at the orphanage where I expected to see a large group of girls waiting for us, but nobody stood outside. It had to be the weather, I reasoned, as another cold wind swept through my hair.

As much as I had been looking forward to coming home I suddenly felt shy. With not a single soul standing outside, peering through windows or rushing out the door, I felt more like an outsider than I ever had before.

"Didn't you send them an owl about us coming?" Kelsey asked, sounding just as skeptical as I felt.

We were at the right orphanage, right? It's not like there could possibly be more than one dull gray brick building, repainted around the base with multicolored childish handprints from the youth of miserable, parentless girls. The round green bushes in front of the door way looked the same as ever and the name chiseled into the arched doorway, creating a flame-glazed, bold engraving of the name of my home, a name I would never forget, regardless of the décor. Saint Augustine's Home for Girls.

This was the place alright.

"Yes," I whispered, wondering if something had happened, something horrible.

"So where is everybody?" Kelsey demanded. "I know I wasn't here very long, but this seems rather unusual."

I nodded and she continued. "Did you want me to go in with you?"

I looked at her wide eyed, unsure of what to do.

"I was planning on saying hi anyway," Kelsey shrugged. "Don't want them to think I'm an arrogant State's girl or anything."

"Whatever your choice, dears, make it quickly. The taxi isn't going to wait forever," Mrs. Fewer pointed out. "And it's kind of hard to get one quickly around here."

I clutched my animated Christmas doodles to my chest and tugged on my trunk handle. It was now or never. And it really wasn't like I could walk away from here. This was my home, the only one I had ever known. And my family was inside. Maybe they just hadn't realized the time. They were all busy working on last minute gifts or dreadful homework, possibly even the headmistress's chores. As kind as she was, her chores always left us giving each other an earful afterwards.

"I'll go in alone and tell the girls you said Happy Christmas and the like," I said, smiling at Kelsey, my fear subsiding tenfold. "That way you don't lose your taxi. Happy Christmas! I'll deliver your gift by post!"

Kelsey still looked skeptical, "You sure, Cal? I'm more than willing to go in with you."

"We can always wait around for another taxi," Mrs. Fewer said, but I knew she was just saying so to be polite. They had a flight to catch. Kelsey and Mrs. Fewer were going to spend Christmas with Ted back in the States.

"I'll be fine. Besides, you don't want to be late for Mr. Fewer, now do you?" At her blush I couldn't help but smile. I knew that feeling.

"Happy Christmas, Cali," Mrs. Fewer said with a smile. Kelsey echoed her sediments and gave me one last hug.

"You'd better send me letter by owl as often as you send them to Oliver," she glared at me, but I couldn't help but laugh at her mock seriousness. "I'm being for real here, Cal," she pressed, now having to work harder to conceal her own laughter. If there was one thing I learned at Hogwarts, it was that my laughter was pretty contagious.

"I will," I promised. "Now get out of here already!"

As soon as I had waved them off, I bounded up the stairs and pulled on the double doors. The doors, however, did not open as they would have if the Headmistress had known I was coming. Caught a little off guard I shrugged it off and mentally suggested that they had forgotten the actual day I was coming home. Maybe they thought I wouldn't be in until tomorrow.

I pressed the little buzzer by the door and waited patiently for the door to be opened. After about two minutes I was beginning to wonder if the place had been shut down. I pulled away from the door slightly and peered through the window to my left. Lights were on and there appeared to be people moving about, not that I could really tell who, considering the windows were all beveled for privacy reasons.

When the door finally opened, the Headmistress looked down at me in surprise. "Cali? Whatever are you doing here, my dear? You didn't run away did you?"

"Run away?"

"I'll have to report you, you know. I can't have you coming back here. They'll be looking for you."

I was dumbfounded. "I haven't run away. School's out for Christmas. Didn't you get my letters?"

"Letters? What letters?" She seemed perplexed, but only for a moment. "Cali, you really shouldn't be here. If school is out on recess you should really be at home."

But I was at home. Wasn't I? What the heck was going on?

"Headmistress, could you invite whom ever happens to be on the doorstep in? It's frightfully cold outside," Jasmine asked from behind the Headmistress.

"Jasmine?" I called excitedly, trying to peer around the Headmistress. Maybe the girls just hadn't shared my letters with the Headmistress. A simple misunderstanding was all that was taking place right now.

"Cali?" Her tone didn't sound excited. It sounded surprised, but not welcoming at all.

Jasmine pushed her way forward, around the Headmistress and I could see all of the other girls converging into the hallway from multiple doors. They all wore the same cold, secluding scorn.

"What are you doing here?"

"What do you mean? I'm home for Christmas. I sent you all letters telling you that I was going to be here."

"Letters?" Haley gave a coarse, hallow laugh. "Is that what you've been telling yourself? That you've been sending letters to the dear 'sisters' left here in the orphanage? You could've actually sent one. Or told us that you had been adopted. I thought I was your best friend, Cali. You know, different from all the other 'chosen' girls. But I guess not. You're exactly the same. You get adopted and you ditch us, entirely.

"What's the matter, Cali? We're not good enough to fit into your 'new' family? We're too poor? What? Huh?"

She was shouting at me and it brought tears to my eyes. That wasn't the way it had been. I had written to them. Maybe not as much as I should have, but I had still done it. Oliver had witnessed it. I'd sent them with the morning post.

And then it hit me. It hit me so hard that the papers I had been clutching to me chest dropped to the floor, scattering everywhere in the wind. Franki's voice rang clearly in my head, "Haven't you realized that muggles really can't be in on this stuff? People like you and Peter are lucky you can tell your families. Not that most would believe the kind of stories we brujos can rattle off, but the Wizarding world is supposed to be a secret, Querida."

Somebody had been intercepting my post. Somebody had been stopping my letters and had never told me. If I would have known, I would have fixed what was said. I wouldn't have mentioned any magic. I would have simply written to them as if I wasn't a witch. I would've done whatever it took to keep them as friends, as family.

The other girls were yelling at me too, adding to the din, but I couldn't hear them, couldn't understand them either. All I could hear was Franki's reprimanding again and again. Why hadn't she told me earlier? Why hadn't anyone told me?

I should have known when I hadn't gotten a single response. It was so hard to think that something was going wrong at home while living a life of bliss at Hogwarts.

"I tried," I whispered in comparison to the roar in my head. "I tried. They must've stopped me."

"Who, Cali? You're new parents. Did they try to stop you? Don't feed us that kind of crap. Get out of here." Haley had said it, but I knew based on the facial expressions of the other girls, that they meant it too.

"You changed, Cali," Jasmine sneered at me. "As soon as that Kelsey girl came into the orphanage and started filling your head with stupid fantasies about magic and witchcraft. And then you decided to ditch us entirely. Hope your new sister's as good to you as you are to us."

And then she pushed me out of the doorway. I stumbled backwards down the stairs, landing in a drift of freshly sprinkled snow. I hadn't noticed it coming down silently in the background, and I wouldn't have noticed it now if it hadn't stung my hands like gravel. Everything felt like a knife cutting into me. Their jagged accusations, their sharp shoves and their devastating mistrust and dislike of me nearly killed me.

I pushed myself up from the ground and reached for the handle of my trunk blindly. Tears clouded my vision, but I ignored them, trying so hard to quite the roaring tide of emotions and angry voices resounding inside my head. Finding the handle I gripped it tightly, turned and ran. I ran as far as I could, up the hill behind the orphanage to my favorite hiding place, the old willow tree on the far side of the hill. There I collapsed against the trunk and folded in upon myself, sobbing uncontrollably.

I don't know when I noticed the warming sensation in my pocket. It was probably around the time when I ran out of tears to cry. Or maybe when I had grown so cold that even my runny nose had solidified, either way, all I knew was that it was freezing, I was freezing and then suddenly there was warmth. I dug my hand numbly into my pocket where the warmth was radiating from and realized that there was a soft voice whispering my name over and over again, urgently.

My hand wrapped around something sharp and flat. Pulling it from my pocket I realized that it wasn't only radiating heat, but light as well. After my eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness in the growing darkness I recognized the small shard of glass Oliver had given me just before I left King's Cross Station. It was the two way mirror and in the very center of it was an all too familiar, anxious face. One I wanted to see now more than anything. It was the face that symbolized my ticket to my past and hopefully my future.

"Cali? Cali, what's wrong?" His voice was music to my ears, instantly calming the raging storm that had been brewing in my head.

The Wizarding World was real and I was a part of it. Furthermore, I might not have a family at the orphanage, but I wasn't alone.

"Oliver," I croaked, realizing for the first time how sore my throat was. Taking a deep breath I told him what had happened. "How did you know I needed you?"

"I'll explain that later, where are you?"

"Behind the St. Augustine Home for Girls. Why?" I asked, still wondering how he knew I needed a friend.

"That's the one out in West County, right? And your favorite place is below the willow tree you doodle on your potions homework?"

I stopped pondering his magical ability to know when I was emotionally unbalanced and just stared at the mirror. "You saw that?"

"Cali! Focus for me and answer the bloody question!"

But I couldn't focus. If he'd seen my tree doodles then he had probably seen my random Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Wood scribbles too…

"Cali!"

"Yes, I'm under the willow tree," the same one I drew standing over our future wedding ceremony. Silly, I know, but come on, every girl's got her crush! And at eleven you really do think that's all there is to life. Finding that one really cute boy and then getting married to him. Living happily ever after. I mean, that's what you believe in once you get over that whole, boys have cooties thing. And with Oliver, believe me. You'd drop that "boys have cooties" thing in a heartbeat. As a matter of fact you'd start contemplating whether or not cooties are actually all that bad…

"I'll be there in five minutes, Cal. Hey Mum!" and then he was gone.

"Wait! Wait! Five minutes?" My sudden confusion pulled me out of my blushed phase quickly. How the bloody saints of Augustine and frogs alike was he going to get here in five minutes from Scotland?

"Cali! Cali, dear, where are you?" The strict voice of Professor McGonagall wafted toward me from the far side of the hill, but I would have swore it wasn't her due to the fact that all the strictness was gone and in its place was nothing but concern and a bit of well masked panic. "Cali!"

And then she rounded the top of the hill. I almost didn't recognize her either to be honest. She was dressed in jeans and a sweater underneath a knee length green trench coat.

"There you are!" She proclaimed when she laid eyes on me, relief brightening her well worn face. "I've been searching everywhere for you! I couldn't find you at the school, or King's Crossing. And then I got a call from your orphanage mistress. Cali, are you alright?"

"Why were you looking for me at school and King's Crossing? And why on earth did the Headmistress of Saint Augustine's call you?" I demanded more harshly than I should have. But to be fair she totally took me by surprise.

"Now, Cali," She said in a soft reprimanding voice, one I was surprised she possessed. "There have been a few miscommunications between the two of us and if you calm yourself we can discuss them back at home."

"Back home?" I cried desperately. "This is my home! Or at least it was…"

"Cali?" Oliver was suddenly standing by my side, an old shoe in his hand. Two grown adults, one a pretty woman with dark brown hair and blue eyes like the sky and the other a tall man with Oliver's sandy hair were each holding on to the shoe as well.

"In order for you to attend Hogwarts, the Orphanage Mistress of Saint Augustine's required that you be adopted, Cali," McGonagall continued despite her added audience. "So I signed the forms. I tried to tell you on several occasions, but you were never to be found, especially today."

I thought back about storming off to the library before lunch was over, getting kicked out of the library, planting the stink bomb and using the secret passageway onto the train and then receiving Oliver's Christmas present and diving into the taxi. I probably was pretty hard to find today.

"Why didn't you try to tell her sooner?" Oliver asked, voice as angry as I felt. "You shouldn't've procrastinated!"

"Oliver," His mother's voice was chiding, but quite, reminding him to respect Professor McGonagall. Her hand, I noticed, when I turned to face him, was on his arm. He shrugged her off, however, and came to stand directly behind me, his long lanky arm protectively slung around my slender waist.

"The paper work wasn't finalized until today and Professor Dumbledore and I were unsure as to whether or not Cali would be allowed to visit her childhood home. If a visit was possible we wanted her to make her proper goodbyes. Judging by you emotional state, dear, it appears as if nothing has gone right today," she was talking to me, I could tell immediately because her tone changed from one of indignation to one of concern.

I shook my head and felt the dark, dreary tentacles of hopelessness and heartbreak creep upon me from the very shadows of my shattered heart. I couldn't even voice a simple "no" without my voice getting caught in my throat. The sound resembled a warbled, mutilated whimper foreign even to my own ears. Oliver's arm tightened around my waist.

Final I muttered, "What am I going to do?"

"You can come home with us," He turned his head to look back at his parents, "Right, Mum? Dad?"

They nodded quietly in the back ground and I swiveled my head back in the direction of McGonagall.

She seemed to notice the way Oliver was standing. Her eyebrows arched slightly and she inclined her head towards us. "I was planning on taking you back to my house so you could get used to the arrangements, but I can see that you are in need of a bit of a pick me up that only a close friend can manage. I can't have you stay with them all break, you'd be overstaying your welcome-"

"Hardly," Oliver scoffed.

McGonagall continued, "And you really should get used to your new living space at my house before summer rolls around. If the Woods don't mind, I'll let you stay until Christmas evening."

Again, the Woods nodded behind me as my head swiveled between all of them.

My heart was starting to swell again, unthaw slightly. Don't get me wrong, it was severely damaged, possibly beyond repair from my welcoming home part, but I didn't feel quite so alone. I had a place to go. Two places actually. And I was wanted, maybe even loved. That kind of realization can't go unnoticed by the heart for too long without some sort of response.

I wanted to cry all over again, this time out of sheer relief and happiness.

"Is that alright with you, Cali?" McGonagall was still watching me like a hawk. I must've looked quite the mess.

I nodded, afraid to talk for fear of making a wretched noise like I had only moments ago.

She nodded in response and added, "I'll be along to pick you up then shortly after Christmas dinner."

When she turned and vanished into thin air only moments later, Oliver slipped his other arm around me and pulled me toward himself. He held me there tightly, in the hollow of his chest, gently stroking my hair. I hadn't realized I was crying again until I heard him hush me gently, whispering how it was all going to be alright.

"There, there, dear," His mother cooed, coming up behind us both, draping a warm blanket over my shoulders.

Someone, I'm guessing his father, pried the handle of my trunk from my stone cold fingers and awkwardly patted my hand as Oliver continued to hug me. Once my hand was free of my luggage it was like they were suddenly unparalyzed and were moving of their own free will. I reached my arms around him and pulled him closer, squeezing my eyes closed, hoping to hold back most of the next onslaught of tears.

"Now, Oliver," I barely heard his mother whisper, "Don't let her go. I'm going to activate the portkey," before the world beneath my feet began to spin.

I clutched myself to Oliver even tighter, too far lost in my own misery to realize that I was no longer standing outside in the cold.