The wind was as quick as lightning as it whipped my honey blonde curls in my face, and I imagined that it left red welts to match the sharp sting. I forced myself to keep walking through the powerful gusts of wind that fought so hard to push me back, but it was no use. The harder I pushed against the wind, the stronger it got.
Back at Hogwarts, I was a nobody. I was just another aspiring witch who would amount to nothing. My looks were adequate, but I was no great beauty. I was hardly stupid, but by no means was I the smartest, so I couldn't be in Ravenclaw. I was used to being alone and I wasn't good at making any real connections with others, which ruled out Hufflepuff. I wasn't a coward, but I wasn't courageous either. As I had no friends and both of my parents were long gone, I had nobody to be brave for. Therefore, Gryffindor was out. As many times as I'd tried, I'd never been good at plotting and planning, and I was far from cunning. If I hadn't spoken Parseltongue, the language of snakes often associated with the Slytherin house, it would have been impossible for me to have been placed in Slytherin. However, I did speak Parseltongue and therefore the sorting hat placed me in Slytherin. Even in my own house, I was a misfit. I wasn't like the rest. While the others were loud and rowdy in the Slytherin commons, I spent my time lying in bed, reading and traveling to the mystical worlds books took me. I had not one friend to spend my free time with, not a single confident. Aside from the Sorting Hat, nobody knew about the fact that I could speak Parseltongue, not even Headmaster McGonnagal. Nobody cared enough to talk to me and find out. I faded into the background like a wall or a bench. Nobody would've noticed my presence if they had walked right past me. But that was all about to change. I was not who they though I was. Merlin, I was not who I though I was!
Suddenly, my concentration was broken by a gust of wind that sent me flying backwards. I landed sprawled out face down on the cold packed dirt with a thud. My body hurt, but there was no time for pain. I turned around and pushed myself up into a sitting position slowly and painfully before quickly jumping up to stand on my own two feet. I pushed against the fierce winds with all of my might, sheer determination coursing through my tingling veins. The determination was there, I realized, but that was not the reason my veins were tingling. I felt pure power travel up through my feet, and I shuddered as goosebumps appeared all over my body. The energy ascended up my feet and coursed through my veins, giving me a strange rush I had never felt before. It travelled to my fingertips and was unable to travel any further, yet the high remained. I glanced down at my fingertips, and I jumped with shock. They were glowing electric blue, and there was a bright blue light that was crackling between them like static electricity. I warily held my hands out in front of me to get a better look, and before I could realize what was going on, the whistling of the wind ceased.
As I looked around what was left of the Forbidden Forest, I couldn't help but wonder if Trelawney's prediction that I had so blatantly disregarded had some truth to it. Was I really the catalyst, the most powerful wizard in existence? It seemed impossible at the time. I was just Emma, plain and simple. My last name had been unknown since the day I was left on the steps of a little muggle orphanage in a little wooden basket. I was a nobody from the beginning, a filler of space, always unwanted, always a nuisance. Nothing changed when I first got my letter to attend Hogwarts just a few months ago. I was still a nobody and a nuisance, despite the fact that I could now use magic freely, not that I had ever felt the need to. My magic was unpredictable, wild, and I avoided using it as much as possible. It scared me that within my frail body there was so much power that I could not control. It was as if there was this force inside of me, fighting for control. I regarded my magic as an alien. It somehow felt detached, seperate, as if it were not part of me at all but only an extension of me. Therefore I evaded this alien, and I had always succeeded in doing so until now.
It felt as if I was only a bystander as my body bent over to pick up my wand where it lay motionless on the ground. The pair of eyes that lit up a deep shade of red did not belong to me. It was not my shaky hand that pointed the wand at Hogwarts. It was not my mouth that began uttering foreign words of which I could not comprehend. My body trembled with fear. I could not control my actions. I fought with this alien force within myself, desperately straining to turn the other way and race all the way back to the Slytherin girls dorm. This had all been a mistake, a terrible error.
Just hours before at supper, my owl, Nymph, had presented me with my very first letter. "Dearest Emma," the parchment paper, yellowed with age, had read. The words were hand written with an old fashioned sort of elegant scrawl. "You don't know me, but I know you like the back of my hand, my dear, sweet Emma." The words had startled me. Nobody had ever called me dear or sweet in the entirety of my eleven years. I read on. "It has been approximately ten years since I've set eyes on my beautiful daughter, so would you kindly do me the honor of meeting me in the Forbidden Forest tonight at midnight?" It was not signed. The shock of the letter hit me like a blow across the face. I did not know which part of the letter to focus on first; the fact that this man claimed to be my father, or the fact that in order to meet him I would have to sneak out of the Slytherin girls dorm and into the forbidden forest so late at night.
When I had furtively tiptoed past the magical wards and slinked off into the forbidden forest to meet my mysterious father, I thought that I had made the right choice. However, now that I was in the thick of what appeared to be some terrible plot against Hogwarts, I was regretting my decision with every ounce of my being. The reality of my situation struck me all at once. I was alone in the forbidden forest, and I had somehow lost control of my magic.
"Hassssssa ashni maahaaa visti…" I barely heard the words escape my lips before I collapsed in a heap on the floor of the Forbidden Forest. The world went black.
