As I stood in Kings Cross station staring at the wall between platforms nine and ten for the sixth year in a row now, I felt relieved to finally be heading home. You see the thing about me is pretty simple to understand, if you open your mind enough to accept my differences. Are you ready to hear my big almost unbelievable secret? Well here it is, I’m a witch. Yes you read it correctly, I’m a rather brainy and well let’s face it brilliant witch at that, oh and did I mention I’m also extremely modest? Well I guess I should fill you in on a few things from my past ‘six’ years as a witch, I say six lightly as I did not randomly turn into a witch one day six years ago, no of course not, I was born this way, it was however six years ago I discovered my true identity.
So years ago when I was nothing more than a strange little ten year old girl, I say ‘strange’ because it’s one of the nicer terms used to describe me during my childhood, I awoke to a knocking on my front door one warm Saturday morning in August. Lazily I got up and rubbed my still sleeping eyes trying to get them to open, eventually after some extreme rubbing they obeyed. I was hoping whoever was at the door would give up and move along down the street to annoy their next victim, however no such luck for me I’m afraid. I grumpily made my way down the stairs to the front door where I expected to be greeted with the vile postman I had so many encounters with over the past ten years of my life. To my surprise however I was met by a rather tall man, with hair longer than mine and whiter than a dove, a beard the same calming colour that was so long, it was actually tucked into his belt as he peered at me through half moon spectacles with such vibrant piercing blue eyes (that would give my similar blue eyes a run for their money!) However the long hair and beard where not the strangest thing about this friendly looking stranger, oh no, what captured my attention the most was his choice of outfit. He was dressed in long deep red, almost maroon robes, yes robes. He looked like he had walked straight out of a Halloween costume magazine. As the curious and slightly outspoken ten year old child I was I, very characteristically, blurted out my thoughts…
“Are you some sort of party entertainer? Because you’ve got the wrong house, sorry Gandalf, but hey lovely outfit!” I smiled at him. He just stared back at me with a rather peculiar expression on his face and I noticed a friendly glint in his eye, his whole presence seemed almost calming and serene.
“Actually Miss Regal, it’s you I’m here to speak with, and as for my outfit” he gestured towards his robes “it’s actually my day to day attire” he finished smiling at me. His ’day to day attire’, so he dressed up for fun, not business? Well that’s daring, I liked this man. I liked anyone who didn’t fit the norm. However, my thoughts snapped back to what the friendly stranger had just said, he knew my name and he was here to speak with me? About what? Honestly Tamara, quit talking inside your head, maybe if you expressed your views you’d get some answers?
“Um, how do you know who I am, and uh, speak with me about what?” I hastily gushed, adding quietly “sorry, no rudeness intended” as I realised my approach hadn’t exactly been friendly.
“No rudeness received” the nice man said raising a hand dismissively “however I would prefer explaining things to you inside if you don’t mind” he finished.
“Oh um, that might not be the best idea, you see my parents are upstairs and well, not to be rude, but you look kind of odd and they don’t exactly like odd if you know what I mean…” I stammered, quickly adding “of course that’s not my opinion on you, frankly I think you look wicked! And well I actually quite like odd, I mean I’m pretty odd myself, well not so much odd more of a-a freak!” I rambled catching myself on and coming to an abrupt halt. I looked down feeling extremely embarrassed.
