Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter!

A/N: Thank you so so so so much to everyone who submitted their characters to this story! I really appreciate it! CHARACTERS STILL ACCEPTED - submissions are still open! Please hurry up though because either the next chapter or the one after that will be the final character list, and after that, the SYOC will officially close.

Here's the first chapter. This one is just about Jonah, but don't worry, you're OCs will appear very very soon ;D

Again, thank you to all who submitted, and keep submitting!

In a small, white, two bedroom house in Riverdale, New York, Romella Harrington put down the telephone.

"What did you do now, Jonah?" Romella sighed, exasperated. She had just received another phone call, Jonah knew from his school, informing her that his teacher wanted to, once again, speak with her about his behavior in school.

Jonah knew exactly what he had done. The trouble was, he hadn't really done it. Weird things always happened around Jonah Gray. He didn't mean for them to happen; they just did.

Earlier that day, he had accidentally turned a girl in his class's hair green. He hadn't meant to do it - how could he purposefully turn someone's hair green? But it had happened. The girl, Rachel Appleton, had just been calling him a freak, (which was not an unusual occurrence for Jonah Gray) but this time, it had set him over the edge, perhaps it was the obvious contempt in Rachel's voice, or the hideous sneer on her face. Whatever the case may be, Jonah had felt himself fill up in anger, when all of a sudden, Rachel's dark curls had erupted in a puff of smoke, and emerged a pale green color.

This particular day just so happened to be the last day of school of that year and Jonah was more than relieved. He had no real friends at school. They all thought he was a freak. Occasionally, some kids would offer him a kind word or smile, out of sympathy, but for the most part, he had no one.

The teachers also were not very fond of Jonah. They all thought of him as "that odd boy."

"Well," Romella's impatient tapping of the foot snapped Jonah back to the present.

"Uh," Jonah could feel the color rising to his cheeks. "I turned a girl's hair green." He looked down at his shoes.

Romella shook her head, "what am I going to do with you, Jonah, turning hair green? I don't see how they can possibly blame you for this, though. How on earth could you have done it?"

Jonah had lived with Romella for four years; ever since he was seven. His parents had died of unknown causes when he was three and he had been sent to an orphanage where he lived for four years until he was adopted by Romella Harrington: a middle-aged woman with blond hair streaked with gray and ice blue eyes that always gave the impression that they were looking right through Jonah.

"I don't know," Jonah replied. "I never mean to do anything. It just sort of . . . happens."

"I know, Jonah. I know. Well, at least you'll be rid of that place for a few months now, won't you?"

Jonah nodded.

Romella checked the time. "I'd better be going to meet with that teacher of yours. You be good now, you hear me, Jonah?"

Jonah grinned. "Sure, Mellie."

Romella raised a heavily-arched eyebrow at him. "Jonah Benjamin Gray, what did we say about calling me by that horrendous nickname?" she clucked her tongue impatiently.

"Sorry. Romella."

"Jonah . . ."

Jonah sighed. "Yes, I will behave while you're gone, Miss Harrington."

Romella smiled, "that's better." She ruffled his black hair before exiting the small house, pulling the door closed behind her.

They lived in a small, white, two-story house. On the top floor was Jonah's bedroom, he supposed he should clean that up while Romella was gone. She had been asking him to do it for ages, and he felt as though he should - he sort of felt guilty for disappointing her so many times in school. After all, she had been so kind to take him from the orphanage. He would hate to have her think that he did not appreciate it. He knew that Romella did not blame him for all the strange things he caused in school. But nonetheless, the school did and she was probably disappointed about that.

Jonah slowly trudged up the wooden staircase to his bedroom.

As he entered the room, he checked his appearance on the mirror on the wall and fixed his dark brown hair where Romella had ruffled it.

His bright blue eyes stared back at him and he sighed, setting to work.

He picked up a few stray articles of clothing as well as some other miscellaneous objects strewn throughout the room.

The time went by slowly, but eventually Romella returned.

Jonah ran back down the stairs. "So, how was your chat?"

"The usual," she replied.

Jonah felt a pang of guilt at this - he had a "usual" for how his legal guardian's meetings with his teachers to discuss all of the things he did at school.

"Did you manage to do anything productive while I was gone, Jonah?"

"Actually yes. I cleaned my room like you've been asking."

Romella beamed. "Wonderful! You can go watch some TV if you'd like now that you're finally done with that."

Jonah smiled and as he sat down on the couch he remembered the date: it was Friday, June 22. That meant that his birthday was only two days away! Jonah was excited. He did not have any friends to invite over, but every year he and Romella celebrated with cake and an outing to a special place of Jonah's choice.

Romella worked part time as a nurse at the local hospital in order to support herself and Jonah.

Jonah reached for the remote control to turn on the television when Romella's sharp voice called from the entrance hall, "Jonah! There's a letter here for you!"

A/N: Okay, so that was the first chapter. Thank you for reading it and I hope you liked it! Please keep submitting your characters - I love all of them and I can't wait to get more :) Also, all staff positions at Redingway are currently open, so if you would like to submit a character for one of those, PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO DO SO! You can still submit other characters but I just wanted to let everyone know that I don't have any teachers or other staff members yet.

In addition, if anyone who likes the Hunger Games wants to submit a tribute to my story, the 1000th Hunger Games, I would really appreciate it! I'm having a hundred tributes in that Games (you can see the story for more details ;)) so I really need more!

Thanks again, and I really look forward to writing about your characters as well as receiving more of them ;)

Remember that either the next chapter or the one after that will be the final character list and after that submissions will close, so please submit soon!