Abigail's Riddle (HP fanfic)

Prologue

August 29th, 1938

     I unfold the little, yellowing piece of paper, smoothing out the creases.  My eyes read every last word, examine every little crevice of each single letter, daring the paper to prove itself wrong.  I run my fingers gently over the text, but the ink doesn't fade.  It's there.  I'm not delusional.

        My fingers trace over the white, now soft, sheet of paper dreamily.  I take it by the corners, slowly pulling it open to reveal the looping hand writing.  The creases are so thick, it’s a wonder the paper hasn’t split into four.  Not that it would matter.  I’ve had the letter memorized for weeks now.

                Still, I take the time to read each and every word.  I observe each cross in the t’s, each one somehow slightly different, and how the headmaster forgot to dot a few of the i’s.  The words seem so fictional, so ridiculous, yet they make so much sense.  If the letter was addressed to anybody else, I would laugh.  I would tell them it was a lame sort of practical joke.

                But somehow, with my name written elegantly at the top, it seems due.  Everything makes sense.  The way gravity would act oddly when I fell, how unfortunate things would happen to people who bullied me,  and how elated I would feel after showing them what I could do.

           I'm a witch.

     I remember distinctively when the letter first appeared.  I remember approaching the house one day, and noticing the post man drop something onto our doorstep on his way to the mailbox.  I remember picking it up, shocked that it's addressed to me.  Never, in my entire life, had I received a letter.  I had tucked it into my pocket, and run through the door into my little room without even a greeting to my parents.  I had promptly ripped it open, speed read it, and preceded to levitate several pillows in excitement.

     Before I got the letter, I thought I was merely insane.  When girls I didn't like got hit by flying branches, owls flanked around me, when I ended up in places I never walked to, or floated down from a tree I misplaced my foot on, I thought I was delusional.  I thought maybe my thoughts were so complex, that I was so zoned out at times, I ignored those steps I took to the other side of the school when Mary and her friends approached me slowly.

     Now I know I’m not.

     I'll finally be somewhere I fit in.  I've always felt odd, even at home.  My little brother and my mother stare at me like I’m mental when I read my textbooks in less than a week, or spend my free time memorizing interesting facts, or when I went to school leaving my shirt tucked out, or leaving my curly blonde hair down in its natural state.  Maybe at this new school, at this Hogwarts place, there will be more people like me.

     As I repack my trunk, I can't help but grin.  Even my barn owl, Tessa, is excited.  She knows this will be something new.  There will be girls like me.  They might add a little rainbow splash to their black cloaks.  Because I've always known somewhere, somehow, I was going to be accepted.  After all, if there’s so many girls out there like the ones in my school, the ones who are so focused on having their hair kept in a tight bun daily, there must also be a group of girls like me somewhere.

     I pray that I’ll find those girls, those friends, tomorrow on the Hogwarts Express.  Unfortunately, prayers aren't usually answered; especially mine.  I've come up with a theory that someone has blocked the pathway between my thoughts and God's to-do-list.  Nothing ever goes my way.  This is the first thing in my entire life that feels completely and utterly right, so I forgot to doubt it.  I let myself rely on this one, tiny letter, to change my life.  To me, there were no more factors.  I shouldn't have expected this to be any different.

     The next day, I’m just as excited.  I repack my trunks once again.  My brother is in a fully fledged tantrum due to my boasting.  Everything is going according to plan.Tomorrow morning I’ll be on the Hogwarts express with other First Years.

     When I hear the news, all my hopes crash and nobody helps me clean them up.  After all, the letter is only that; a letter.  It’s not a promise for a secure and happy life.  It’s simply telling me that I’m accepted somewhere.  Not that I’ll be able to actually make it.  Not one person tells me "it’s okay, go on to school, we'll take care of things for you".  Like always, I’m the one left responsible.

     It's dreadfully selfish of me, honestly.  When I got the knock on my door from the shaken neighbour, telling me the news, the first thing that went through my head was "No school". 

     That's certainly not supposed to be what flies through my head when I hear that my mother has passed away.  But me, that's what my thoughts revolve around.  I even admit to being mad. 

     Like any other daughter, I broke out into tears.  Yet, somehow, it’s not the fact that I’ll never see my mother’s face again, or hear her wind chime of a laugh.  It’s that I’d be missing out on the first year of my life, which had been perfectly planted into my mind.

     Somehow, I find myself angry at my mother for not being more careful.  I only get angrier when I realize how selfish I’m being.  George, my little brother, will be the one suffering.  After all, the only family he has now was a selfish sister.

     Suddenly, with a simple strike of lightening, any hopes I had about training, becoming a better witch, making new friends...is gone.

     The Hogwarts express will be leaving tomorrow, and I'll be the only First Year who isn't on it.