Chapter Text
Moving was always hard. Rain knew from experience that every time her step-father was stationed somewhere new, she had to uproot her life and make new friends and go to new schools. She had never lived in one house longer than two years. One of the misfortunes of being an Army brat.
When Rain was very young--so young that she could no longer remember it--she had lived in Toronto, Ontario. Her mother, Lisa, had been born and raised in the city and Rain would have done so too, if not for John. Lisa Bone had met John when the both of them happened to be in Ottawa (Canada’s Capital) on the same weekend. Lisa had been visiting her ex-boyfriend and Rain’s father, Warren, so as to allow him to see Rain as per his visitation rights. While in town, she had stopped into a near by Tim Horton’s to get a coffee before going home, only to run into John Mackenzie who had been there on assignment for the Army. What that assignment was, Rain neither knew nor cared, all she knew was that they had ended up seated at the same booth talking each other’s ears off for hours. They exchanged phone numbers and mailing addresses and kept in touch.
After that, John visited on and off whenever he had any leave until the day he found out Lisa was pregnant. Upon hearing the news, he immediately hopped on a train to Toronto, stopped at the first jewelry store he encountered and bought the nicest ring he could afford, burst into the restaurant where Lisa worked as a waitress and proposed dramatically in front of all the staff and customers. Lisa of course said yes and within three months had moved to Denver, Colorado. That was when Rain was four.
When Rain was nearly six, they moved to Baltimore, Maryland.
When she was eight-and-a-half, they moved to Sacramento, California.
When she was nearly eleven, they moved to Tokyo, Japan. That was during the Vietnam War. She didn’t see John for nearly two years.
When she was thirteen, John was honorably discharged with PTSD and they moved to Marseille, France in an attempt to put distance between him and the war.
Now, at fourteen, with the world looking on in disgust at Americans and their involvement in the war, anyone who knew them in Marseille and knew they were American made their lives miserable. Their house and car had been vandalised so many times it was pointless to scrub off the graffiti that usually read something like “cochons américains” meaning “American pigs”. Lisa had finally had enough and decided to move again, this time to Cokeworth, Ilfracombe in England, and told anyone who asked that they were Canadian.
It wasn’t entirely a lie as Lisa and Rain were both Canadian and all four of them including Rain’s little brother, Dustin, could speak at least some French, so it wasn’t a hard sell.
Even so, Rain did not look forward to going to a new school and trying to make new friends all while her old friends moved on with their lives and forgot about her. Her parents and brother all made it look so easy; Lisa got a job as a secretary for some firm that did something presumably dull, John used his Army experience with Jeeps and such to get a job at a local mechanic’s, while Dustin was so friendly and charming that he already got along well with the local children who all gathered at a nearby park during the day.
Rain had no doubt that her family would make friends and adjust to their new lives in no time. Come fall the both of them would be attending Pathfield School, her as a fourth year and Dustin as a first year. Dustin had already met a girl in the park who would be going to their school and though she was two years older than Rain, they seemed to get along well. Rain had no interest in meeting her.
This time, she decided, she wouldn’t even bother making friends. It wasn’t like she was going to stay here very long anyway; it was only a matter of time before they had to move again, so what was the point?
“Oh come on,” Dustin whined. “You haven’t been out of the house in weeks! Just come to the park with me, I can introduce you to some of my new friends.”
“What’s the point?” Rain grumbled.
“Ugh! You’re so boring, Rain!”
Dustin stormed out of the house and down the street to the park.
“You should go,” Lisa’s voice came from the kitchen. She poked her head around the corner into the living room where Rain was reading The Hobbit for the billionth time. “You need the fresh air.”
“I don’t feel like making friends right now, mom,” she replied exasperatedly, knowing that’s what she was getting at.
“You don’t have to talk to anyone,” her mother reasoned. “You need to get out of the house for awhile; you’re going to make yourself depressed. Take your book if you want, and read it under a tree. Weather this nice doesn’t last long in England.”
So, to appease her mother, Rain took her book to the park.
It was actually a fairly nice park. There was a small climbing structure on a bed of wood chips and near that was a swing set that was currently occupied by Dustin and another boy around his age apparently trying to see who could swing the highest. All that was separated from a football field by a row of bushes. The field itself was currently empty of any players and beyond it, Rain could see what she thought must be a cricket pitch where several teenage boys were playing. On the other side of the swing set ran a small creek lined with gnarled beech and oak trees. This was where Rain decided she would read her book.
Without pausing to say hi to her brother, she made straight for the shade of a particularly gnarly oak tree, only to find on the other side of its wide trunk two people already occupying the space.
“Watch it!” said one of the people, a young boy about her age with dark hair to his shoulders and a rather prominent nose. “You nearly stepped on my hand!”
“Sorry,” Rain muttered hastily. “I was just looking for a place to read…”
“Well you can’t do it here,” he sneered.
“Come now, be nice,” said the girl to his left. “There’s no need to be so rude.” She also looked about Rain’s age with long red hair tied up in a ponytail.
Rain apologised again and hurried off to find an unoccupied tree.
Hours later--Rain wasn’t sure how many-- she heard a high shrill whistle coming from the direction of her house. Without hesitation, she marked her place in her book and got up, heading for home.
Lisa had always had a talent for making herself heard from blocks away, a talent she had inherited from her own mother. Her children knew that if they ever heard that whistle, it meant they had to come home.
Rain crossed paths with Dustin on her way.
“So came after all,” he noted. “I didn’t see you.”
“I was reading under a tree,” she replied tonelessly.
“Boring!”
Dustin always did this when Rain said anything remotely antisocial. It got on her nerves but she never did anything about it.
Rain privately agreed with her little brother; she was boring. She had done nothing but read books for nearly four years, having no interest in people any more. She hadn’t made a single friend since she was ten. In fact, most people thought she was some kind of freak.
Strange things did often happen around Rain.
Once, while living in Japan, Rain had had a huge crush on a boy named Haruki Fujita and had made him homemade chocolates on Valentine’s day as a part of the local tradition, and left them in his desk with a note that said “I hope your day is sweet”. Sadly the gift was not well received. Rain’s hiragana was quite poor and was a topic of much ridicule, so despite not putting her name on the note, it was quite clear who had written it.
One month later on White Day, the sweets box was returned with a note that said “Your writing stinks”. Inside the box was a steaming pile of dog poop. Everyone laughed and plugged their noses at the smell. Humiliated, Rain burst into tears and suddenly and unexpectedly, the box flew into the air and started spraying its contents all over the students. Rain was miraculously saved from the horror, but from that moment on, her schoolmates would call her “akuma” or demon.
Another time, in France, while just learning French, Rain would mispronounce things all the time, but there was one mispronunciation that she would never live down. That was “beaucoups” pronounced “bow-coo” however, Rain had mistakenly pronounced it “bow-queue” turning the word into “beau cul”. It had happened in the cafeteria. She was trying to tell the lunch lady that she wanted “beaucoups des frites” or “lots of fries” but what she had said instead was “beau cul des frites” or “nice ass of fries”. The lady had not heard her the first time over the din of the cafeteria and had asked her to repeat herself louder. Rain had ended up shouting “nice ass” nearly at the top of her lungs and everyone turned to stare before bursting out laughing.
It would have been fine if that had been the end of it, but every day she would walk down the halls of her school building and students would call out “Beau cul!” as she passed. After awhile it got so irritating that Rain was nearly at the end of her rope. Students who called out to her would often trip and fall seconds after saying it, or else lockers would spontaneously slam open as they walked past causing them to collide painfully with them. The last straw was when someone had tagged her locker with spray paint the words “beau cul”, she screamed out loud in anger, frustration, and humiliation, and in that exact moment every single locker in that hallway burst open and ejected its contents everywhere. People started calling her Jinx after that and didn’t want anything to do with her for fear that she was unlucky.
Rain decided that being boring was better than being a jinx or akuma. At least boring people get left alone. On the bright side, she spoke English very well and didn’t foresee any language barriers this time around, so there was that.
The next morning, Rain woke later than the rest of her family and as a result, was right on time for the post to be deposited on the doormat as she came down the stairs. She collected it and went into the kitchen to get some breakfast.
“Mail,” she said shortly to John, handing it over to him.
John sorted the mail into piles as Rain helped herself to some cereal. One pile was for the old residents of the house, another was for Lisa, a third for John, and a fourth for Dustin.
Dustin always got loads of letters from his friends around the world. Somehow it didn’t matter how far away they moved, he always managed to keep in touch.
Rain never got letters, so it was a surprise when John passed one to her as she reached for the milk.
“What’s this?” she asked incredulously.
“A letter, doofus,” said Dustin, opening one of his.
“Who would be writing to me?”
“Perhaps one of your friends from your old school,” John suggested.
“I didn’t have friends at my old school,” Rain retorted.
She turned her attention to the thick envelope in her hand. It looked like it was made of parchment and was sealed with a wax stamp. The impression in the seal was of a lion, a snake, a badger, and an eagle all surrounding a big letter H. Frowning with curiosity, she opened the letter and read,
Dear Miss Bone,
We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry…
Rain stopped and read the line again, not sure she had read it correctly. Witchcraft and Wizardry? This must be a joke, or a chain letter or something equally stupid. She read on,
We apologise for the lateness of our correspondence and hope that you consider attending come 1 September. A representative of the school will come to your residence to explain the details at noon on 9 August.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
“This can’t be real!” Rain burst out.
“What is it?” John asked looking up from his morning paper.
She showed him the letter. He frowned thoughtfully as he read and reread the message.
“Odd…” he murmured.
“Let me see!” Dustin cried and snatched the letter from his father. “Witchcraft and Wizardry?” he read. “What a load of merde.”
“Dustin!” John scolded him.
“What?” he asked, not looking at all ashamed of his language. “It is! It’s probably just junk mail.”
“Junk mail with a wax seal?” Rain countered.
“Oh if it’s got a wax seal, it has to be real,” he retorted sarcastically. “I suppose you think you’re a witch or something now?”
“I didn’t say that!”
“Children!” John interrupted the bickering. “Enough arguing. Rain, maybe this is a summer school or camp or something. You know like a place to learn magic tricks.”
Rain rolled her eyes. “That sounds like it’s for kids. I’ll pass.”
Without another word on the subject, she dug into her cereal and forgot about the letter.