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Chapter Text

Cheep. Chirp! CHEEP!

The chirping of the birds always ended up acting as Samantha's alarm clock in the summer - waking her up way before she otherwise naturally would have. She had long ago learned to adapt to this by going to bed early, because her parents had shot down her initial idea of chopping off all the limbs of the large tree that grew in their house's yard, right outside her window.

She yawned, slowly sitting up and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Though she couldn't yet see it, she could feel her long brown hair was yet again a collection of frizzy, tangled puffs about her head. She'd tried putting her hair up in a bun at night, but found she couldn't stand the feeling of it being pulled, even in a loose bun.

After her mind finally felt awake enough to support basic movement, she swung her feet out of bed and hopped onto the floor. Her spotted blue pjs had scrunched up around her torso and upper legs, as they tended to. A few tugs and twists fixed them. Then she headed for the bathroom, which was across and down the hall a small ways. It was far too early, especially for a Saturday in the middle of July, for anyone else to be awake, so she had the room to herself.

Once she'd taken a leak and brushed her teeth, she stared at her freckled visage in the mirror and reluctantly attended to the mess that was her hair. It took a good fifteen or twenty minutes, not to mention lots of gritting of teeth and barely suppressed yelps, but she eventually returned her hair to its usual straight and relatively neat form.

Finished with her morning ritual, she headed downstairs, treading quietly so as not to bother her likely still sleeping parents. Shuffling across the tiled kitchen, she scooped a bowl out of a cabinet, and soon was placing it, a spoon and a box of Ricicles cereal on the dining room table. Soon after pouring the milk and putting it back into the fridge, the sounds of shuffling feet upstairs met her ears, and by the time she was gulping down her last bite, her mother was waltzing into the kitchen.

"Ah, Mark, you're already up!" she said, as though this were a surprise and not exactly what had been happening all summer for the past few years. Samantha winced at the sound of her, technically legal, but no less inappropriate, 'guy' name. In fairness to her mother, Samantha had never divulged her real name, but in fairness to Samantha, she had never been given any reason by either of her parents to expect that they would actually use it.

"Hey, Mom," Samantha grumbled, doing her best to keep irritation out of her voice and mostly succeeding. One did get used to stifling such emotion, afterall.

"Mark! Up nice and early, as usual," said Samantha's dad at his usual thunderous volume. She wasn't sure if it was just that no one had ever actually told him that he constantly spoke too loud, or if he had tried but failed to lower the volume his voice apparently naturally came out at, but at least she was rarely ever surprised by it anymore. She made her way to the sink to wash her bowl and spoon as her father walked past her to examine the inner contents of the fridge.

Her dad was a very tall, very thick man. He had a black beard that was just as thick as the rest of him, but well-groomed, and covering most of his lower face, including above his lips. The rest of his body was almost equally hairy, something he prided himself on, though Samantha honestly found it a little disturbing. Her mother, on the other hand, was very thin and lanky, and virtually hairless besides the top of her head. Interestingly, though, she wasn't much shorter than her husband, something that worried Samantha - she really didn't want to be taller than all the other girls at school... she had enough trouble fitting in with them already. Her mother's short brown hair hung loosely around the shoulders, and her mom's face looked young and beautiful even without makeup, at least as far as Samantha was concerned. She hoped to look so good at 45.

A small clinking and flopping sound from the entrance hall caught the ear of all three family members. Not particularly wanting to deal with it, Samantha held up her wet and soapy hands for her parents to see, a mischievous grin spread across her face. With a roll of the eyes and a small 'harrumph', her father closed the fridge door and went to collect the day's mail. She knew he didn't actually mind too much, though - he quite enjoyed flipping through the daily mail, and had always been rather happy about the fact that their house was the first on the street to be visited by the mail carrier.

"Ah, wonderful!" Samantha heard him say, loud enough to be an announcement. "Good, Mark, I was planning on talking to you today about this anyway!" he said once he returned, sitting at the dining table and dropping all but one of the letters onto its surface. An eyebrow raised, Samantha cautiously sat across from her father, eyes on the mysterious letter.

Silence ensued as her father opened the envelope and read its contents, after which his face lit up and he proudly proclaimed, "You made it in! As I knew you would!"

Blinking irritatedly, Samantha cocked her head to the side and said, "Made it into what?"

Sliding the torn envelope across the table, her father said, with a giant smile on his face, "You've been accepted into Smith Hollow, a prestigious private school!"

Samantha grabbed the envelope, barely stopping it from falling off the table. She tentatively turned it over, irritated to see "M. Johnston" as the person it was addressed to, despite knowing it would be. She pulled out the slightly crumpled letter that her father had haphazardly pushed back into the envelope, flattening it out so she could read it. Suddenly her body went cold, and it felt as though her heart had stopped. "S-Smith Hollow's School for Boys!?" she cried, a definite note of panic in her voice. "You enrolled me in a private all-boys school!?"

Her father's large grin quickly turned into an angry grimace. "Of course I did! It's a very prestigious school!" he said, as though repeating its apparent virtue would make her happier about it. His tone, as always, conveyed the sense that he was both surprised and offended that Samantha would be anything but happy about what he'd just said.

"B-but dad!" she said, trying to prevent the buildup of panicked tears and failing miserably. "I don't want-"

"Why wouldn't you want to go!?" he roared, rising to his feet and thus his full, intimidating height. Samantha's wide hazel eyes flitted over to her mother, last seen by the stove, desperate for any help she could get. But, predictably, her mother was turned away from the incident, tacitly endorsing the whole scene with her silence, but ostensibly letting her husband be the 'bad guy'.

"I'm not-" Samantha started to reply, stopping herself as her brain reminded her of where this well-worn path always led. "I'm not a boy..." she said meekly, despite herself.

The furious man before her visibly twitched, a vein bulging in his neck. "You are a boy, and it's my hope that you attending this school will finally force you to accept it!" He slammed his fist on the table in frustration before standing at his full height once more. "I'm so tired of this 'I'm a girl' nonsense! What's in your pants and on your birth certificate say otherwise. It's crazy of you to try to deny it, and I just won't have it!

Samantha said nothing, staring furiously at her lap, arms crossed and tears streaming down her face. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed her father sitting back down, calmed.

"Karen, I was thinking," he muttered, though even his muttering voice was oddly loud, "tomorrow's Sunday, but the store in London that they sell Smith Hollow uniforms at is open every day. I was thinking you could take the boy to get his uniform."

"Sure, dear," she said, setting a plate of eggs in front of her husband and another in front of an empty chair, which she then sat in.

His smile returning, Samantha's father gave a curt nod and stared back at her. "Hear that, son? Tomorrow you'll get your uniform! I know you're upset now, but I'm sure you'll have a great year, and I'm sure the uniform will look so handsome on you!"

"Sure," she muttered, pushing her chair away from the table and standing up to leave. As she sulked toward the front door, desperate to get out of the house, she heard her father say, "I just don't understand that kid. But Smith Hollow will sort him out, you'll see!"

-----

The next day, Samantha and her mother took a train to London. The still sulking girl had to be practically dragged into the uniform shop.

"Ah, Smith Hollow! Yes, yes, of course!" said the withered old woman at the front counter. "Just this way, and we'll have someone take your measurements."

They were led down a short hallway and into a square, mirrored room. Soon enough, Samantha was standing on a footstool while a pretty blonde woman ran measuring tape up and down her thin, gangly body. After a few minutes, the woman was done with the preliminary measurements, and walked away to grab a uniform. She was back more quickly than expected however, her face confused.

"I swear I wrote it all down, but... Well, the sheet is blank! I must have lost the one I was writing on somehow..." She glanced around, and so did both Samantha and her mother, though Samantha did so half-heartedly at best. There was no extra sheet to be found. "I-I'm sorry..." the woman said, still looking very puzzled. "I'll just have to do it again, real quick..."

Samantha shrugged, in no way trying to hide her apathy for the whole affair. A few minutes later, the woman walked away again to grab a uniform, and this time managed to return with one in tow.

Reluctantly, Samantha began to change into it, but soon dropped the the tailcoat to the ground in a crumpled heap. "It's way too small," she said with a frown.

"It can't be that small..." the woman said, picking it up from the floor. When she held it up in front of her, though, it was obvious at a glance that it was sized for a child five or six years younger than Samantha. The woman stared at the size tag, her face conveying utter befuddlement. "It... it says it's the right size though... I know it wasn't this small when I grabbed it..." She continued muttering to herself as she walked away, presumably to retrieve a different uniform. When she returned, it was with a uniform that Samantha was able to easily, if reluctantly, put on.

Both the black tailcoat and the tan trousers sagged in some places, but seemed to fit well otherwise. The blue tie didn't need to be altered. The blonde woman began pinning certain parts of the uniform up, and after around fifteen minutes had the uniform in a state that she seemed pleased with. As she went to write something down, however, every single pin suddenly fell unceremoniously to the ground, causing all three room occupant's eyes to go wide.

"Mark!" yelled Samantha's mom, hands on her hips.

Flailing her arms around, Samantha shook her head back and forth. "Mom, I didn't! I was just standing here! I barely moved!"

"This poor woman has had enough accidents happen today, young man, and she doesn't need your shenanigans making things worse!"

"Mom, I swear I didn't!" Samantha whined, completely at a loss as to how to prove her innocence.

The blonde woman waved a hand, her face matching the exasperated sigh that escaped her lips. "It's fine. It's.... fine. I'll just do it again, and then we can be done, okay?" She looked pointedly at Samantha with that last line, and Samantha glared back, refusing to admit guilt in any way when she knew herself to be innocent.

About fifteen more minutes later, everything was pinned up again, and about ten minutes after that, Samantha and her mother stood in front of the wizened old woman at the front counter, waiting for the blonde woman to bring out the uniform that they would be taking home. Mere seconds later the woman appeared, and draped the uniform over the counter. Wasting no time, the old woman rang the purchase up, but when she lifted the uniform to hand to Samantha's mother, she stopped, staring at it in irritation.

"Becky!" she called, stopping the retreating blonde woman in her tracks. "This uniform is far too small for this young man! You must have mixed it up!" As everyone besides the old woman's eyes traveled to the clothes, they all realized that, indeed, the uniform was too small for anyone within Samantha's age group.

"I, I... I'm sorry, I'll go fix it..." Becky said, utterly baffled.

"Nice girl, but a bit absent-minded," the old woman said with a smile, folding her arms in front of her as Becky walked away.

With a curt nod and a small sigh, Samantha's mother said, "We'd noticed," Samantha stared at the hall Becky had retreated down, an eyebrow raised. At first, it had seemed like the blonde woman was just very unlucky, but then with the pins suddenly falling out... It seemed to Samantha as though that woman had supernaturally bad luck.

"Here you go," Becky said some time later, dropping a new uniform on the counter, her face noticeably haggard.

Samantha and her mother paid and left without further incident, and when they got home Samantha was reduced to frustrated tears once more as her father waxed poetic about how amazing the uniform looked, and how wonderful the coming school year would be. As soon as she'd scarfed down dinner, she made a break for the stairs, carrying the accursed uniform with her and tossing it angrily to the floor of her room.

She grabbed her copy of Return of the King and plopped onto her bed, doing her best to lose herself in the world of the book. Yet try as she might, her eyes inevitably wandered back to the awful clothes lying on the ground. Eventually, she tossed the book to the ground too, flicked off her reading lamp, and tried to go to sleep, hoping to forget within her dreams the awful mess her life was due to become.

Eventually, sleep found her, but the uniform haunted every dream she had.

The next morning, the chirping of birds waking her as usual, she glanced sullenly at the ground where her uniform lay. Something seemed off about it, though. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, but still, something didn't seem right about the lump of clothes on the other end of the room. Still a bit groggy, she pushed herself to her feet and walked over to examine the offensive cloth.

A few paces away from it, she suddenly froze, eyes wide. Instead of the tailcoat, trousers and tie that had been there last night, before her eyes was a black blouse with blue accents and a tan, knee-length skirt.

"Wh-wha...?" she said, shaking. How in the world could this have happened? It was the same colors as the uniform from yesterday, but it was clearly meant for a girl. "What the bloody hell!?" she yelled in surprise, clasping her hands to her mouth almost immediately.

Standing frozen, she listened intently, trying to ignore the tweeting of the birds to listen for sounds of movement from down the hall. It seemed as though she might be in the clear, but then she heard a telltale creak, and her panic went into overdrive.

In a flash, she scooped the uniform up, practically leaped over to her closet, and flung it open, just as the door to her room did the same. Terrified, her eyes moved shakily to her room's entrance, to see none other than her sleepy-looking father in the doorframe.

"Is something wrong, so...." He trailed off as his eyes suddenly caught sight of the new uniform lying in Samantha's hands, the tan skirt undoubtedly unmistakable from his vantage point.

Puffing up, the tiredness on his face instantly disappeared and he said, "What... the hell... is that!?"

Samantha mumbled incoherently, a deer caught in the headlights of a monster truck.

"Explain yourself, boy! What are you doing with a skirt!?" her father roared, filling up the entire doorway. His eyes cast about the room, then locked back on Samantha. "And where the bloody hell is your school uniform!?"

"I... I-I-I...."

Her father stormed over to her, wrenching the new uniform from her grasp, and stared intently at it, as though he could will it into the uniform it should be with his gaze. "This... these are the same colors as your school uniform! Where the hell did you get this!?" He threw it to the ground, looking angrily around the room. Samantha noticed her mother's head briefly pop into view, only to disappear again seconds later. A few moments after that, her father rounded on her again.

"WHERE IS YOUR UNIFORM, BOY!?" he shouted. Given his normal voice was already basically a shout, when he was actually TRYING to yell, the sound was almost deafening.

"I-I... I d-don't know, Dad.... I..."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T KNOW!?"

Trembling uncontrollably, Samantha tried her best to avoid stuttering as she again attempted a response. "It was... it was on the floor when I went to sleep, but... But then that one with the skirt was there when I woke up..."

"ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME IT JUST MAGICALLY APPEARED? DO I LOOK STUPID TO YOU, BOY!?" her father raged, towering over her as though he were a giant and she were Jack.

"I don't... I don't know, Dad... It was just there..." she said, tears crawling down her cheeks.

"STOP LYING TO ME!" the man roared, gritting his teeth in an utterly terrifying display.

"I-I-I..."

"YOU'RE GROUNDED!" he thundered, finally turning away and stomping toward the door. "If you don't bring your uniform downstairs with you to breakfast, you'll be grounded even longer!" he said, not quite yelling this time. His stomps echoed down the hallway, and as Samantha, still shaking, bent to pick up the new uniform, he suddenly appeared in the doorway again, stormed over, and grabbed it from her tiny hands. "And don't think I'm letting you keep this... this thing! No son of mine is wearing something like that!"

He stormed off again, and Samantha simply stood there, still in a daze from what had occurred. After a good ten minutes of blank staring, mind racing to try to explain how she had ended up in this predicament, she finally walked downstairs.

Of course, she didn't have the uniform her father wanted, and thus she was grounded for "even longer", though he made no effort to explain exactly how long that was. Fortunately, Samantha didn't have to deal with her father's raging for much longer, because he had to go to work at the computer company he worked for. Unfortunately, before he left, he insisted that she and her mother return to London and get a new uniform, to which her mother, of course, agreed.

When she went to sleep that night, it was with another ugly Smith Hollow uniform hanging in her closet. And yet, when she awoke the next morning, she was greeted by another feminine uniform hanging in the exact place the other uniform had been, and later that morning was greeted by more yelling and a further extended grounding sentence.

This whole series of events happened one more time before her father finally decreed her grounded for the whole summer, and decided that the uniform would be kept in a separate room, so that she could no longer "mess with it."

Despite the frustration this whole scenario left her with, a not insubstantial part of her was rather tickled about it. If she had to be miserable, at least her father got to be, to some extent, as well.

The next morning everything seemed to be normal for once. Her father, when he came downstairs, didn't scream at her about the uniform, so she assumed, wherever they had stashed it, that it did not suddenly have a skirt instead of trousers again. And yet, as it would turn out, today would be the start of a more strange series of events than any that had come before, instigated by an unexpected letter that had arrived with that morning's mail, written in emerald green ink.

Chapter Text

"Would you look at this," said Samantha's father, squinting through his reading glasses at an envelope that had been delivered that very morning. A plate of eggs sat before him, still steaming. "You ever seen ink like that before?" He flashed the front of the envelope at Samantha and her mother — the address was written in emerald green ink. "Not sure who 'Ms. S. Johnston' is, though," he said, garnering a confused look from his daughter that went unnoticed. "It's our address all right… and your room for some reason, Mark."

Samantha leaped out of her chair and skittered around the table, nearly slipping on the hardwood floor in the process. The first two lines of the address read, "Ms. S. Johnston, The Bedroom at the End of the Upstairs Hall." She stared, wide-eyed, confused. This letter was definitely for her, but how was it abbreviating a name she'd only ever said to a mirror?

A harrumph pierced her ears, snapping her out of her thoughts. "Must've been for whoever lived here before. You'd think they'd have let everyone know their new address… it's been years." Without warning he ripped the envelope and whatever was inside to pieces. Samantha failed to stifle a yelp. Her father turned his head, eyebrow raised.

"S—sorry," she said, averting her eyes. "I was just… curious."

"It's rude to read someone else's mail, son. You know that."

"Yes, father…" Samantha said, trudging back and slumping into her chair. Her cereal was soggy.

The rest of the day Samantha's mind was consumed by the letter. Ideas swam through her head, most of them entirely unrealistic. Maybe her "real" parents, who'd secretly given her up for adoption, were trying to get back in touch with her. She returned to this fantasy often after arguments with her actual parents. Or maybe a coven of friendly mind-reading witches wanted a new member. Her father loathed witches. But she knew these were both fantasies. She resigned herself to the fact that the letter would remain a mystery.

The very next morning, her father held up two more envelopes with emerald green ink.

"Now really, what the bloody hell is this?" he said, waving the letters around. "I'll have to talk to the post office about this nonsense if it keeps up."

"Dad, could I just take a little...?"

"No, boy, it's not right," her father replied, ripping both letters up, as though this were the correct way to handle misdelivered mail. "Even if this whole affair is rather obnoxious."

"It sure is…" Samantha muttered, earning a sideways glance from her mother.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully, as most of the summer had, even before Samantha was grounded. True, being unable to leave the house wasn't helping, but all she ever did outside was read her books, so it wasn't a huge a loss. No amount of reading could distract her from those letters, though. Not for long, anyway. Tomorrow, she'd be the first one to grab the mail. She'd make sure of it.

The next morning Samantha scarfed down a bowl of cereal, only choking on it once. By the time her parents arrived downstairs, she was sitting patiently, twiddling her thumbs. When the familiar clink-flop from the entryway sounded, she leapt from her chair and dashed for the front door.

"Dear, should we stop him?" her mother said. "You know he's just going to open them if we got more of those letters."

Mere steps from her prize, Samantha heard her father say, "Let him — I'm tired of those damn things anyway. Serves them right."

Samantha pounced on the small pile of envelopes. As she sifted through them, her father said, "We'll still punish him if he does it, though - gotta teach the boy a lesson." She was undeterred

But a moment later, her excitement turned to despair. There was no letter in emerald green ink! None of these even had her name on it. Not even her dead name! Had the sender given up? It'd only been two days! If they'd only tried one more time...

A sudden sharp pair of knocks mere centimeters from her face ripped a scared squeak from Samantha's mouth and sent her tumbling onto her backside. She stared in shock at the door, mind frozen for a few moments before it began debating how to handle the situation. It took too long, however, as shortly after scrambling to her feet her father appeared beside her, hand on the doorknob.

"Hello, can we help you?" he said after pulling the door open.

The woman standing in front of them was quite tall, and wore a serious expression. Her long black hair was up in a professional-looking ponytail, the long braided strands falling well below her shoulders. The woman's eyes were as dark as her skin, and she stood remarkably straight, thought Samantha from a crouched position near her father's leg. The woman wore a very pretty blue jacket and skirt, with a dark blouse. Samantha wanted to look like her when she grew up.

"Hello, Mr. Johnston. I am here on behalf-"

"Whatever you're selling, we don't want it," Samantha's father said gruffly.

The woman seemed unfazed. "I'm here about the acceptance letter you should have received."

Suddenly standing up straight, Mr. Johnston's tone when he next spoke was far different from before. "Oh. Oh! My apologies! I hadn't been told to expect anyone, especially so early in the morning... I'm sorry, I'm not remotely dressed for this."

He moved aside, gesturing for her to enter, which she did, with a small glance at Samantha. "It's quite alright," she replied.

Leading the way into the kitchen, Mr. Johnston pulled a seat out for the surprise guest, explaining to his startled wife, "She's here about the acceptance letter!"

Once everyone had taken a seat - Samantha's father across from the mystery woman, Samantha and her mother to either side - Mr. Johnston spoke once more. "So what is this about, if I may ask? The letter said nothing about a personal visit."

The woman gave a small nod. "Yes, sincere apologies for that. Somehow your daughter was sent a letter as though she weren't Muggle-born, and it took a bit to catch the error."

Samantha had noted a small twitch in her father's face each time the woman had referred to her as the correct gender, but now both she and her parents stared blankly at their guest, all of them equally confused. "I'm sorry," Mr. Johnston said, "'Muggle-born'? What in the world...?"

The woman made a small gesture with her hands, almost like a shrug. "Apologies - born into a family of otherwise unmagical people."

Irritation began to overcome Mr. Johnston's face - a common reaction when he wasn't understanding something. "Are you saying we're uninteresting people? That's horribly insulting, and besides, I fail to see what that has to do with the boy attending Smith Hollow!"

It was the woman's turn to look confused, though Samantha couldn't help but think she looked a lot more beautiful with such an expression than the rest of them. "There seems to have been some miscommunication. I am with Hogwarts, not 'Smith Hollow'."

Rising quickly to his feet, Mr. Johnston bellowed, "Hogwarts!? What kind of a name is that!?" He slammed his fist into the table, shaking the dirty plates still upon it. The woman across from him only blinked. "My son is already set to attend Smith Hollow's School for Boys, and I won't have you trying to fill his head with nonsense about some other school!"

The woman's face showed no emotion. Samantha's father seemed ready to rage some more, when a hand suddenly touched his arm. With a stern look, Samantha's mother said, "What the harm in hearing her out, dear? We should be giving our son every opportunity. What if this school actually turned out to be better for him?"

Throughout this exchange, Samantha's gaze had flicked anxiously between the other three people at the table. She couldn't help but notice that each time her parents misgendered her, the mysterious woman's eyes flicked her way, and she could swear there was a touch of concern in those dark depths.

"I do think it would be better for her, yes," the woman said, ignoring the glares her continued pronoun use gained her. "You see, there's something you don't quite understand about your daughter... well, several things, it would seem, but one thing in particular that I don't belive she understands yet either." Both of Samantha's parents seemed visibly annoyed at that last comment, but both stayed silent, likely due to Mrs. Johnston squeezing her husband's arm.

"Allow me to start over," the woman said, clearing her throat. "My name is Professor Aurora Sinistra, and I represent Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Your daughter," and here she gestured with an open palm toward a wide-eyed Samantha, "is a witch."

"A what!?" Mr. Johnston sputtered, beside himself. "What is this hogwash!? You expect us to believe-"

"If one of you would please bring me a cup, I would be most gracious," Professor Sinistra said, calmly interrupting the tirade.

Instantly leaping to her feet, Samantha scrambled over to the kitchen cabinets. Her heart was aflutter, despite her own disbelief of the woman's claims. She had been taught, as most children were, that real magic didn't exist - that the magicians one could see on tv were simply using tricks and sleight-of-hand, whatever that last thing meant. And yet, a not insignificant part of her desperately wished to believe, particularly because this wonderful woman had not even once referred to her as anything other than a girl - the first time that had happened in her whole life. Standing on her toes, she fairly easily scooped up a cup from the second shelf - she wasn't always happy about her height, being taller than most of her classmates, but she sure was happy about it in this moment.

She sped back to the table, almost shattering the cup when she excitedly slammed it on the table. Her father looked ready to explode, and her mother's lips were pursed to a thin line, but for the moment they said nothing. Samantha barely glanced at them, instead gazing at Professor Sinistra, starry-eyed.

"Watch closely," Sinistra said, pulling out a knobbly stick from her handbag. She gave the cup a quick tap with her stick, and a few moments later it transformed before their very eyes into a very confused white rat. Everyone besides the Professor gasped, Samantha's parents wearing horrified expressions and Samantha herself sporting perhaps the largest smile she'd ever had. With another small poke of Sinistra's stick, the rat transformed back into a cup, as though nothing had ever happened.

"What... how..." sputtered Mr. Johnston, for once at a loss for words. His eyes were like saucers, his face beet red, his hands grasping subconsciously at air. Mrs. Johnston's hands were balled into tight fists, her skin white and eyes as wide as her husband's.

"MAGIC IS REAL!?" Samantha practically screamed, leaning across the table toward Sinistra. The Professor, typically so stoic, seemed unable to prevent the hint of a smile from crossing her lips.

"Yes, Samantha, it is," the elder witch said, her usually cold tone slightly softened.

"Who the bloody hell is Samantha!?" Mr. Johnston cried, suddenly able to latch onto and rage at something that he could understand.

Swiveling her small head toward him and glaring, Samantha said, "It's me, Daddy! That's my real name!"

"YOUR REAL NAME IS MARK!" the man screamed.

"Sir, if you please, I have much more to tell you," Professor Sinistra said, her tone even icier than before.

"I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THIS DAMN FOOL NONSENSE ANY-"

Squeezing his arm hard enough that it probably left a mark, Mrs. Johnston softly said, "Dear. Shut up."

Mr. Johnston slowly sat down to collect himself.

"As I was saying," Sinistra continued, "your daughter is a witch. She, unlike yourselves, was gifted with magical power, and she has been invited to attend Hogwarts, where other people with magical ability can teach her how to use it."

"M-me...?" Samantha stuttered, her interjection visibly surprising her parents. Her heart felt heavy - this didn't seem right. When had she ever used magic? If she was magical, couldn't she have just had her father's mouth close up like a zipper whenever he yelled at her? Couldn't she have made everyone - her parents, her classmates, her teachers - call her the right name and gender, at least? "You must be mistaken... I... I've never done anything remotely magical."

The faint smile returned to Sinistra's lips, and her gaze softened now that it was upon Samantha. "Have you never had anything odd or unexplainable happen around, or to, you? Particularly when you were upset in some way? Nothing at all?"

Samantha's mind flashed back to all the times her father had forced her to get her long hair cut, and how, to the confusion of her parents and her hairdresser, within a week it was back to the exact same length as before. She recalled how, when trying to pee in the boy's restroom one day at school, a particularly rude boy had called and jeered at her from the other side of the stall door. Then suddenly, without any sounds of him having walked away, he was silent. When she exited the stall, no one was there, and later that day she heard that the same boy had been suspended from school for climbing on the roof. And then she thought of the whole situation with her school uniform, how odd things kept happening when they had tried to get one for her, how it kept changing, or disappearing and being replaced, or whatever had happened when it got home.

Professor Sinistra reached a hand out to touch Samantha's, which were still lying across half the table along with her torso. Undoubtedly, the woman had noticed Samantha's change in expression from sullen back to excited. "You have, haven't you?"

"Ma'am," said Mrs. Johnston, her expression inscrutable. "Even if what you're saying is true... and, bless me, it seems as though it is... For a long time now the boy's father and I have been trying to get him to accept himself... to just be, well, normal. We were hoping Smith Hollow would do that, but now you come in, calling the boy Samantha and saying he's a witch, and... I'm just not sure it would be in his best interest to go somewhere that's going to make him even more confused."

Glaring daggers, Professor Sinistra said, "Whatever else your daughter is or is not, ma'am, she is most certainly gifted with magical ability. Whatever other schools you send her to will not be able to teach her how to use or control it. It could prove disastrous not only to your child, but to everyone else in her life."

Mrs. Johnston became tight-lipped again, but Mr. Johnston had no such issue, and his wife made no effort to stop him. "That boy needs Smith Hollow to sort his messed up brain out. You've made it quite clear you're only going to further the lad's delusions. Magic or no, Mark is going to our school, not to yours."

With a sigh, Professor Sinistra bowed her head and stood. "I'm sorry to hear it. Thank you for your time, Mr. and Mrs. Johnston. I wish you and your family the best."

"Dad!!" Samantha yelled, turning to him in a panic.

"Not. One. Word," he responded, through gritted teeth. "See this woman out, and then go to your room."

Her mouth popped open as though she were going to argue more, but she thought better of it. Feeling nothing but utter despair, and a significant amount of loathing for her parents, Samantha slowly shuffled toward the front door, Professor Sinistra following patiently behind.

A meter or two from the door, Sinistra stumbled, a few papers falling out of her open handbag. "Oh, dear, I'm sorry," she said in a monotone. "Samantha, could you...?"

The young girl was already on her knees, picking up the spilled items. Professor Sinistra lowered to her knees as well, and drew closer to Samantha than the girl had expected.

"Samantha," she said, her voice low. "I would like your answer as to whether or not you will be attending. In your pocket you'll find a bit of parchment. Please write your answer on it and send it by owl tonight." Without another word, the woman stood, gave Samantha a curt nod, and exited. The door closed softly behind her, and Samantha, panicked, grabbed the doorknob and threw it open. Maybe she could stop the woman, somehow, or go with her, or... But there was no one there. It was as though the woman had disappeared, and given she was magical, Samantha realized that's probably exactly what had happened.

Trudging upstairs to her room, Samantha ignored the sounds of her father yelling in the kitchen. She tossed open her room door, then slammed it shut again, turning the lock. This was something she had been expressly forbidden from doing, but she didn't particularly care at the moment.

Collapsing onto her bed, she lamented how awful her life was. She had been close - so very close - to an escape from it all... but of course her parents would refuse. As much as Samantha had enjoyed hearing her correct pronouns used, she couldn't help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, things would have gone differently had the woman used the wrong ones. Maybe her parents would have let her go, if they thought the people at the magic school would still be calling her a boy. But then... if Professor Sinistra had called her one, even reluctantly... that would have felt awful. She might not even want to go anymore. She sighed. It was irrelevant now anyway.

She sat in silence for a moment, until another important thought flitted through her head. What was that the Professor had said about an owl tonight? She fished in her pajama pockets, pulling out a neatly folded piece of blank parchment. Well, there was that, at least. But still, what was with the owl? Send it by one? How? Samantha had never noticed any owls outside her windowsill, and even if she had, how was she supposed to make one take her letter, and how could she expect it to be taken to the right place? It didn't make sense.

Worrying and fretting the rest of the day was not what Samantha wanted to do, but it was exactly what she did. Eventually, her father tried to enter her room, and was enraged to find the door locked. Samantha refused to open it, and the two yelled back and forth for a few minutes before the man stomped away. However much he wanted to scream and holler, he'd already grounded her for the rest of the summer, not to mention utterly ruined her life in every other way possible, so she was hardly concerned about repercussions.

As the evening drew on, she still refused to leave her room, even when her stomach growled angrily at her. Far too long after the growling began, she heard the sounds of her parents getting ready for bed. She waited a while after the sounds stopped, to be safe. Then, ever so quietly, she slinked out of her room, down the stairs, and to the kitchen, where she grabbed some cold leftovers of the meal she'd been offered earlier, but refused to open her door for.

She wolfed the food down, then returned to her room, closing and locking the door softly behind her. Turning toward her bed, she nearly fell onto her posterior again from the surprise of finding an owl staring at her through the closed room window. When she recovered herself enough to walk, she cautiously approached, staring into the eyes of the unmoving bird. It held a large envelope in its beak. She slowly opened the window, as silently as she could. Once open, the owl jolted forward and flew straight to her desk. There it sat - still, staring.

"Um, are you... from Professor Sinistra?" Samantha wondered aloud, despite knowing how foolish it was to expect an answer.

The owl nodded.

Eyes wide, Samantha whispered, "Y-you can understand me?" Another nod. "Wow... This magic stuff is so cool! Um, so... That's for me?" The owl, rather than nodding, extended its neck toward her. Taking a few paces forward, she held out her hands, letting the envelope drop into them. The emerald green ink on the front read:

Ms. S. Johnston
The Bedroom at the End of the Upstairs Hall
19 Boodwark St.
Pineington
Surrey

The envelope was thick and rather heavy, made of a yellowish parchment, not unlike what she'd found in her pocket earlier that day. It carried no stamp in the corner. Samantha flipped it over to find a purple wax seal, emblazoned with a coat of arms - a little lion, eagle, badger and snake, all around a big letter H.

She excitedly opened the envelope, taking care to damage it as little as possible. Inside were two sheets of parchment, the first of which read:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL
of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
~
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Ms. Johnston,
          We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
          Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31st.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall,
Deputy Headmistress

The second letter did indeed list the supplies she was apparently supposed to bring with her to school. It was a rather long list that, at the moment, did nothing but cause her more anxiety. How in the world was she supposed to pay for all this? Her parents sure weren't going to do it. It had been a while since she'd spent any of her allowance, so she had a few quid saved up, but she felt positive that it wasn't enough.

Putting aside those worries for the time being, she looked to the end of the letter, where some notes written in a different colored ink were scrawled. They seemed to be instructions - about how to get to a place called 'Diagon Alley', which was apparently where she could buy the supplies - and then about how to enter 'Platform 9 3/4', which didn't sound like a real platform, but apparently could be accessed if you walked straight into a wall or something. None of it made much sense to her right now, but she was sure it would come in handy later.

She stole a glance at the owl, which was still staring her down. The blank piece of parchment that Professor Sinistra had given her popped into her mind. She scrambled to grab it and to find a writing utensil of some kind. A pencil was all she could scrounge up, but she found it didn't work very well with the parchment. Each letter had to be retraced multiple times in order to get it to show up clearly - but it was worth it, she told herself, if it would get her out of Smith Hollow and into Hogwarts.

"Yes, I want to go," she wrote, followed by her signature - barely readable from retracing.

Folding the parchment up, she grabbed the empty envelope and slid the letter inside, carefully placing the other two letters on her desk, to the side of the owl. "I can't actually seal it again, is that...?" The owl nodded before she could finish, opening up its beak. Tentatively, she moved the envelope toward the bird's gaping maw. It bit down, waited for her hand to move out of the way, and then flew straight out the window.

Her eyes followed the creature's departure, gazing up at the star-filled sky even after it had disappeared. The view was mostly blocked by the large tree right outside her window, but her heart was filled with hope nevertheless. A soft, cool breeze caused strands of her hair to sway gently. Collapsing onto her bed, she reached for the letters on the nearby desk and poured over the both of them at least five more times before finally falling asleep.

In the morning she was awoken not by the chirping of birds, but by the sharp tapping of an owl's talons on her windowsill. She sat bolt upright, hair as frizzy as ever, staring blurry-eyed at the bird - the same tawny owl from the night before. It sat right in the middle of the windowsill, an easy feat since the window was still wide open from the night before.

In its beak was another letter, which she grabbed after rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Inside the unmarked envelope was a single piece of parchment, reading simply:

Dear Ms. Johnston,
          I am glad to hear it. We look forward to seeing you on September 1st.
Sincerely,
Aurora Sinistra

Chapter Text

After receiving Professor Sinistra's letter, Samantha had sat for quite some time on her bed, pondering. Way more money than what she could get from only her allowance would be needed. But she couldn't get it if she holed herself up in her room for the rest of summer.

So she did what she knew she had to do. Though she could hear her parents moving around downstairs already and knew they would be likely to hear her, she began getting ready for her day. If they heard, they seemed content not to do anything about it for the time being. Once she'd finished with her normal morning routine, she swallowed her pride and marched downstairs.

She apologized to both her parents - her father in particular. Blatantly lying, she claimed that she'd thought it over, and had accepted that Smith Hollow would be her new school. Given it was a boarding school, though, she wanted to have money on hand in case she needed to purchase anything while there. Therefore, though she knew she didn't deserve it, she requested permission to leave the house - not to go play outside (or whatever it was her parents thought she did) - but to ask their neighbors if she could help with chores to earn money.

Mr. Johnston was ecstatic about this change of heart. So much so that he didn't even feel a need to ground her for all the yelling and insubordination yesterday, which was convenient. "It's been a rough road," he said with a huge smile, "but you're finally becoming a fine young man!" Thunderous laughter shook Samantha to the bone.

Barely suppressing an eye twitch, and with as much sincerity in her voice as she could muster, Samantha said, "Haha, sure am." Of all the lies she'd forced out this morning, that one hurt the most. Almost overwhelmingly so. She'd never agreed with an instance of misgendering before, and she hoped to never have to do so again. Hopefully the self-inflicted wound to her heart would eventually heal. It had been necessary to really sell the whole thing, but that didn't make it hurt any less.

The rest of the summer passed remarkably quickly. Samantha did odd jobs around the neighborhood, spending as much of the day as possible out working, only returning home for meals and sleep. And even then not always - sometimes the neighbors were kind enough to feed her. By the last week of August she had made about 125 pounds, in addition to the 25 pounds her allowance for the past few weeks had gotten her, and the 50 pounds she had already saved up.

She had no idea if this amount of money would be enough to cover her supplies, not to mention a train ticket to London, the train ticket to Hogwarts, food, and whatever else she might need. It probably wasn't. But she was determined to do this, even if she had to go hungry for a bit and sleep in an alley for a night. On September 1st she would be on the train for Hogwarts, one way or another.

The night of August 30th, she made her move. Once everyone had gone to bed for the evening, she quietly packed the suitcase her parents had bought her for family trips (used only once before) with as many clothes as she could fit. As stealthily as possible, she sneaked to the bathroom to grab her toiletries, then back to her room. Once she was sure she had everything she needed, she put her suitcase by her room door and set her alarm, to make sure she was up well before her parents. Between jobs a few weeks back she had walked to the nearest bus stop and waited for a bus, so she could ask what the earliest stop of the day was - 6am.

Her alarm rang at 5:30, and she quickly shut it off. She didn't think it was actually loud enough to wake her parents, but she wasn't about to tempt fate. After quickly changing into something that wasn't pjs, she gave her hair as quick a brush as she could. Once she was presentable, she placed her letter to her parents on her desk, grabbed her suitcase, and vacated the house quickly and quietly, a little under 200 pounds in her pocket. She arrived at the bus stop with about five minutes to spare. Ten minutes later, the bus arrived, and she clambered on. This busride didn't last too terribly long before she was switching to another, and soon after that she arrived at the train station. By about 7am, she was on her way to London, where she would hopefully find this 'Diagon Alley' the instructions had mentioned.

Some time later, she found herself on a busy street filled with shops. There were two shops that Sinistra had said to look between, but at first glance, there seemed to be no space between them at all. She hustled back and forth between them, getting more confused and desperate the more time that passed, until finally her eyes caught something. At first it was really difficult to focus on, but after a few minutes of staring between the two stores, her eyes finally caught it - the Leaky Cauldron. Now that she saw it, she wasn't sure how she'd missed it, though admittedly, the grimy little pub hardly seemed noteworthy, let alone magical. But it was definitely the name of the place that Professor Sinistra had said to go, and besides, weren't witches supposed to boil things in cauldrons or something like that? So the name seemed fitting, at least.

Tentatively, she walked toward the old and shabby-looking front door, dragging her suitcase behind her. Her hand rested on the face of the door for a few moments as she collected her nerves. Then, taking a deep breath and standing up tall, she pushed it open and took a step inside.

The inside was just as dark and uninviting as the outside. Several people, much older than her, sat at various booths and tables, one or two of them sitting up at the bar, chatting with an old bald bartender. A few people looked her way when she entered, but most of them turned back to what they were doing soon after.

Nervous, but resolute, Samantha made her way up to the bar. The bartender and a scraggly-haired woman ceased their conversation as she approached, both of them eyeing her, her suitcase, and her apparent lack of a parent or guardian.

"Did you need help, miss?" the bartender asked, looking mildly concerned and very wrinkly.

Shuffling back and forth, she replied, "Um, y-yes, I'm... um... looking for a place called Diagon Alley? I was told I could get to it from here..."

"You all alone, miss?" the woman asked, tilting her head a little.

"Y-yeah, it's just me..."

Look of concern growing, the bartender said, "But where are your parents?"

"Probably raging about my audacity back at home." Samantha muttered, glaring at the floor. "Maybe watching the telly at this point to try to forget their ungrateful child."

"Aye, so Muggle-born, then, innit?" the woman said, nodding solemnly. "Lotsa times they don' understand 'bout us witches."

"That isn't the only thing they don't understand..." Samantha muttered sullenly.

"Well, so, Diagon Alley, eh?" the woman said with a sudden, toothy smile, pushing herself off the barstool she'd been sitting on. Her teeth were rather crooked, and her white frizzy hair bounced when she hit the ground. "Right this way, miss."

The woman began walking toward a nearby doorway, and Samantha, surprised, glanced at the bartender. His immediate look wordlessly said 'I know', and then quickly changed, with a small nod, to 'regardless, follow her.'

Samantha and her odd new companion traveled out to the back of the bar, into a small walled courtyard. There was nothing remotely interesting out here... a trash can and weeds were the only remotely notable objects around. The instructions Samantha carried in her pocket had mentioned something about tapping bricks... was this where she was supposed to do that?

Almost certainly so, because that's exactly what the woman in front of her was now doing - tapping on a seemingly random brick with a stick not completely unlike the one Professor Sinistra had used to turn a cup into a rat. Could Samantha have even done this without one of those sticks? She supposed she was lucky someone had decided to help her, so she hadn't had to find out.

Blinking rapidly, Samantha realized that the wall in front of them was now a giant archway that opened out onto a cobbled street lined with oddly shaped shops, stalls, objects, and people. She couldn't see the end of the twisty road.

"There's Diagon Alley, miss...?" The woman seemed to be asking for her name this time.

"Um, Samantha," she replied, still staring in shock at the bustling road ahead. "Samantha Johnston." Would magic ever stop seeming so amazing?

The woman extended her hand, and gave another tooth-filled smile. "Nice to meet you, Miss Johnston. Name's Doris Crockford. It's been a pleasure to help you, but I plan to be quite drunk soon, and I've really got to get back to the bar t' do it."

Blinking oddly again, Samantha nodded. "It's fine, Miss Crockford. Thank you, I really appreciate it."

"Think nothin' of it!" Doris said loudly. "You go and have you a great school year, no matter what your Muggle parents say." Samantha knew Miss Crawford was trying to be nice, but part of her still couldn't help but feel a little odd with the way this woman used the word 'Muggle'. Almost like an insult.

Turning away, Samantha paused as Doris gave some parting words. "Harry Potter's starting school this year, you know. Met him meself a few weeks back - nice boy. Nice handshake. It was an honor, lemme tell you. You're gonna have a great year, going to school with him, I'm sure'a it."

With that, the woman walked away, and Samantha did the same. When she looked behind, the wall had reappeared. Worry about how she'd get back through began to mount, but she forced the thought to the back of her mind - one step at a time.

Slowly, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape in awe, Samantha started down the street. Amazing sights greeted her every direction she looked, overloading her brain and making it difficult to figure out what her next step should be.

The bright sun flashed into her eyes momentarily, reflected off a small stack of cauldrons outside a nearby shop. A sign hung overhead, describing different materials the cauldrons were made out of - such as copper and pewter - and various qualities they might have, such as self-stirring. She knew she needed to buy one - her supply list had definitely mentioned it - but she didn't want to lug it around right now, so she decided she'd wait a bit on that one.

Continuing further down the street, she found herself constantly amazed by all the irregularly shaped buildings, the haphazard stands set up in front of many of them, and the odd-looking people walking this way and that, wearing long robes and pointy hats. Kids half her age scurried by, chasing a strangely coloured rat. An owl swooped past overhead. A shop window had bottled spleens and eyes that stared back at her. A long, thin man with a hook for one hand argued with a short hairy woman about how overpriced armadillo bile had become.

This is fantastic, she thought, practically giddy. This was so much better than the boring world she'd always been a part of. Everything here was so odd and she wanted to know absolutely everything about it. What did one even use armadillo bile for? What had caused the prices for them to increase? Was there a recent decrease in the armadillo population? She had no idea, but she really, really wanted to find out.

Quite suddenly Samantha found herself colliding with another person, the pair of them falling to the ground in a heap, one or both of them squeaking in surprise.

"Oh goodness, are you two okay!?" said a nearby voice.

Samantha propped herself up with both hands, discovering a dark-skinned, heavy-set girl beneath her. The girl looked to be about her age. She also looked really irritated and embarrassed.

"Gettoff!" the girl muttered, roughly pushing Samantha away.

Samantha stumbled to her feet, and almost to the ground again, but was caught by the hand of a nearby adult. The hand and the person it was attached to had dark skin - even darker than the girl's. The woman was what one might call 'chubby', though not as much as the girl had been.

"Th-thank you," Samantha said, shaking slightly.

"No problem, dear. Are you alright?" the woman said, smiling.

Rubbing her chest where she'd been shoved, Samantha said, "I think so... is that girl okay?" When she looked, she found that the girl had been helped to her feet by another woman - this one similarly large, but with white skin, freckles, and bright red hair. She also seemed a bit taller. even if it wasn't by much, than the rather short woman that had prevented Samantha's second fall.

The girl glared at Samantha, her round face surrounded by long, thick natural hair. Samantha cowered, just a little.

Flicking the girl's arm, the red-haired woman said, "Knock it off, Demelza. You weren't looking where you were going either."

Reluctantly, Demelza dropped her glare. She patted the dirt off her long black robes, then looked back at Samantha. "Sorry 'bout that."

Patting herself down as well, Samantha vigorously shook her head. "No, it was my fault! There's so many amazing things to look at on this street... it's hard to actually pay attention to what's right in front of me."

Demelza glanced around, seemingly confused. "What? Why?"

A short, high-pitched laugh sounded from beside Samantha. "You're Muggle-born, aren't you, dear?"

Samantha took a step or two away from the woman so she could more easily talk to her. "Oh, um... yes. Non-magic parents."

"But where are they, honey?" said the second woman, drawing near and subtly wrapping an arm around the first woman.

Samantha's eyes, at first subconsciously lingering on the red-haired woman's hand around the shorter woman's waist, suddenly scampered away to the ground over to her right. "Oh, um... they're... they're not here."

When her eyes flicked up for a moment she noted a look of concern shared between the two women.

"But it's fine!" Samantha said, a little too quickly and with a forced smile. Jumping a smidge in her feined excitement, she continued. "I've got a few quid, so hopefully that's enough to get all my supplies, and then I just have to make it 'til tomorrow, when I can get whisked away to Hogwarts!" As though it helped her point, she held the wad of pounds that had been stuffed in her pocket aloft.

The concerned looks didn't abate.

"Sweetie, I'm afraid... that... isn't going to be enough," said the red-haired woman. Samantha's face fell, which sped up the delivery of the woman's next sentence. "We'll help you out though, so don't worry!" She pulled out a brown jingling sack, which Samantha assumed had gold in it or something, from the way the woman's eyebrows raised knowingly at her.

"B-but, I couldn't just let you pay for all my things..."

"Tell you what," said the shorter woman, a warm smile on her face. "We'll take this..." She gently grabbed the wad of pounds from Samantha's hands, which Samantha made no effort to prevent. "And you can just consider it even."

Tears threatened to form in Samantha's eyes, but she pushed them down. Mostly. She still had to wipe her nose a little as she said thanks in a sniffly voice.

"Think nothing of it, dear," said the red-haired woman, beaming. A look of surprise suddenly overtook her face. "Oh, goodness, we haven't even introduced ourselves, have we? My name is Maisie," she said, gesturing toward herself. "This is my wife Prisca," she said with a wave toward the other woman. "And this is our daughter, Demelza," she said, gesturing toward the girl that Samantha noted, with a start, was now right beside her.

"It's wonderful to meet you! My name is Samantha."

"Well, now we're all acquainted!" Maisie said, once again beaming. She took the bag of money back out and handed it off to Demelza. "Why don't you two go start grabbing your supplies, and Prisca and I will go exchange the Muggle money you gave us."

A certain gleam flashed in Demelza's eyes as she stared at the money bag that was now in her possession.

"Keep in mind that we read the list, so we know about how much of that money should come back to us," Prisca said, staring intently at Demelza until the girl stared back.

"Yes, ma'am," Demelza muttered, not bothering to hide her irritation.

"Alright, well, we'll see you two later. Have a good time!" Prisca said as she and her partner began to walk away.

Demelza made to swivel around, but stopped as Maisie's voice called out one last time. "Oh, and like we discussed, you can get yourself a pet, but if you try to bring a toad back to our house I'm throwing it out." Demelza dramatically rolled her eyes. "And buy Samantha a pet too, if she wants one!"

Turning red, Samantha waved her hands about. "You really don't have to, I don't need to take more of your mon-"

A thick pointer finger lightly pressed against Samantha's mouth. Big, dark brown, almost black eyes seemed to stare into Samantha's very soul. "Hush, you. It's fine. Really." Demelza removed her finger, and the pair began to walk down the street. "We're not exactly rich, but we're well off. And my mums are just naturally generous people." The dark eyes flashed over to Samantha again. "Honestly, they'd probably be sad if you didn't get a pet. So unless you just hate animals..."

"I definitely do not."

Demelza smirked, and then the pair fell silent for a moment. "So... what house do you think you'll be in?"

"House?", Samantha replied, tilting her head a little.

With a shake of the head, Demelza said "Oh, yeah, Muggle-born. Well, at Hogwarts, they divide us up into four different school houses, with separate tables and dorms and stuff. They sort us by personality, basically."

Brow furrowing, Samantha said, "How do they do that? Do we take a test right when we get there?"

After a shrug, Demelza muttered, "Sort of - there's a magic hat, is what Mum said."

"Oh, right, something magic, of course." Though imagining a magic hat just made Samantha imagine a mustachioed man pulling a rabbit out of it, which she figured was probably not what Demelza meant.

"So anyway, there's four houses - Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin. Really simply, Gryffindor's for people who fancy themself as brave, Ravenclaw's for booksmart people, Hufflepuff's really friendly and loyal, and Slytherin's the truly clever ones." Her dark eyes caught Samantha's again as she continued. "They've all got reputations and stuff, though. Like a lotta people think that Hufflepuffs are dumb and boring, and that Slytherins are evil jerks, but my mums were from those two houses, and neither of 'em are any of those things."

Samantha nodded, mostly understanding.

With a grin and a thumb pointed to her chest, Demelza said, "I think I'm probably a Slytherin. Much as I love Short Mum, I think I've got more in common with Tall Mum."

Unable to stifle a giggle, Samantha said, "Tall Mum and Short Mum? Neither of them are very tall."

Demelza's grin grew particularly toothy. "Heh, yeah, and they hate it when I call 'em that, too."

The pair of newfound friends laughed, then silence overtook them again. "I... I'm not really sure which I'd be in," Samantha said, her face contemplative. "I mean, I don't have as good a sense of them as you anyway, but... I mean, maybe Slytherin? I don't think I'd be in Gryffindor, at any rate."

"Yeah, I've heard they're kinda full of themselves," Demelza said with an eyeroll. "You don't strike me as one of them either. That'd be great if the two of us were in the same house!"

The girls dipped into a nearby store, called Scribbulus Writing Implements. Though Samantha's list didn't explicitly mention needing parchment or quills, Demelza assured her that they were quite necessary.

"So you all still use parchment and ink that you dip quills in?" Samantha questioned, picking up a vial of invisible ink and wondering what the point of buying something like that would be.

"Sure, what else is there?" Demelza muttered, pushing around different vials of coloured ink, presumably trying to find one she liked.

With a chuckle, Samantha said, "You've never used a pencil? Or a gel pen?"

Crimson ink held a little ways from her face, Demelza's eyes flashed to Samantha and back. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Remind me to blow your mind later," Samantha said, with a toothy grin rivaling Demelza's best.

They left some time later, parchment, quills, and ink (Crimson and Fuschia) in hand.

"So, do you know who Harry Potter is?" Samantha asked while they walked to the next shop, her encounter with Doris floating through her mind.

Demelza gasped. "Oh, goodness, I know I shouldn't be shocked since you're Muggle-born, but... Wow. Not knowing who Harry Potter is." Her face cycled through shocked, to contemplative, to even more shocked. "You... you don't even know who You-Know-Who is, do you?"

"You-Know-Who? Is that actually someone's name?"

"No, no... We just... we don't say his name. Oh geeze this is weird." They stopped, Demelza looking Samantha right in the face. "Okay, so... So basically, years ago, when I was just a baby, there was this really evil wizard."

"That was You-Know-Who?" Demelza nodded. "Does everyone call him that? Why don't you just say his name?"

Demelza replied with a shrug at first. "It's just... no one says it. I think most people who remember when he was around are too scared to. People our age, it's more like habit."

Far too eagerly, Samantha said, "So what's his name, then?"

Demelza's face scrunched up. "Um... it... I dunno if I can." Immediately Samantha's pleading face and big, sad eyes went to work. Letting out a big sigh, Demelza said, "Okay, fine... It's Vol.... Volde. Blah. Voldem- ort."

"Voldemort?"

"Yes, yes, but don't go around saying it all casual like that," Demelza said, waving her hands. "It freaks people out, okay?"

Samantha didn't really understand, but it seemed like an easy enough name to avoid. "Okay, no problem. But, so, what's that guy have to do with Harry Potter?"

Shuffling a little where she stood, Demelza continued. "Well, Harry Potter's a boy around our age now. When he was a baby, You-Know-Who tried to kill him, but somehow, he couldn't."

Cocking her head to the side, Samantha said, "Like... he had a change of heart?"

"No, like he literally was incapable of doing it," Demelza reiterated. "I hear he tried - killed Potter's parents and destroyed the house and everything. But Harry Potter lived. And You-Know-Who... well, no one really knows. Some people think he's dead, some people think he's off hiding somewhere, but no one's seen him since, at any rate."

"Woah..." Samantha and her parents might not be the closest, but the thought of them being murdered made her sick to her stomach. She could only imagine what it must have been like for this Potter kid. "So, I take from you saying 'somehow', no one knows how Potter didn't die?"

Demelza vigorously shook her head. Samantha's enthusiasm seemed to be infectious. "Right, no one knows. But he's the reason You-Know-Who is gone, as far as everyone's concerned, so he's held in high esteem."

"That's gotta be weird, being famous for something you probably don't even remember," Samantha mused.

With a shrug, Demelza said, "Probably. I'd be down for it, though... Minus the dead parents bit."

The pair stopped at several more places, and at each one Demelza had to pry Samantha away from the weird and wondrous things she'd never seen before. The Apothecary smelled like rotting food, but was filled with fascinating things like unicorn horns and Runespoor (whatever those were) fangs.

"So unicorns are... real?" Samantha said, wide-eyed.

Looking like she'd just been asked whether cats were real, Demelza muttered, "Of course they are."

Eyes even wider, Samantha said, "Okay, but, like, dragons and stuff aren't, right? How would Muggles not know?"

"We have to do a lot of work to hide them," Demelza said off-handedly, examining a jar labeled 'dragon liver.'

It proved very difficult for Demelza to stop Samantha's excited rambling after that.The cauldron shop was much less interesting, but the bookstore, Flourish and Blotts, was what Samantha imagined heaven would be like if it existed. If Samantha hadn't been using someone else's money she would've bought more than half the store's contents.

"Hey, let's stop by a pet store next," Demelza said after paying for their schoolbooks, no doubt trying to guide Samantha's attention away from the bookshelf near the shop entrance.

"Oh, yeah, sure!" Samantha said, hand already on a copy of Gilderoy Lockhart's Year with the Yeti.

Pulling Samantha's hand away a bit roughly, Demelza said, "So do you want an owl, or like a cat or rat or something?"

"Um... I'm not really sure," Samantha said, hand still grasping at the bookstand she was being dragged away from.

"We'll stop by the Magical Menagerie, then. They've got owls too, though not as many as Eeylops."

The shop smelled even worse than the Muggle pet shops Samantha had visited. Unlike any of those visits, however, she was here to do more than just look - she'd be leaving with one of these animals, and that thought made her far too excited to be concerned with the smell.

There were so very, very many animals. Owls, rats, cats, snails, toads... even some weird things Samantha had never heard of before like Nifflers and Puffskeins. She had half a mind to get one of the puffy balls, but she found herself most strongly drawn to the owl section. All the animals were appealing - she'd never gotten to have a pet before - but, especially after her encounter with Professor Sinistra's owl, she found herself quite curious about the creatures.

Looking back and forth between the array of owls, she tried to decide if any particularly called to her. They were all quite fabulous, but there was one owl that seemed to be following her wherever she walked, staring at her with big black eyes.

"What kind is this one?" Samantha asked, hardly an expert on owl species.

"Brown, I think," Demelza muttered, hardly sparing it a glance. She seemed far too concerned with a particularly large black cat that seemed utterly terrified of both her and the entire world it was being forced to inhabit.

Whenever Samantha turned her head to the side, the brown owl did the same. It even blinked along with her when she did a few slow blinks. "You're an interesting one... Do you want to come with me?" She could swear the owl nodded. Grinning, Samantha proclaimed, "I like this one!"

"And I like this one," Demelza said. "Look at his goofy fangs." Samantha walked over, but felt able to notice little besides the poor animal's obvious terror. And size. It was a very fat cat.

"I'm going to buy him and love him forever," Demelza said, her voice rather monotone considering the words she was saying.

A short time later they both exited the shop, Samantha carrying a cage with her new owl, Éowyn, and Demelza carrying a crate with her new cat, Pusspants.