[1] PARADIGM ↳ Harry Potter

-ONE: LETTERS

    RAVEN SCAMANDER is many things: lover of all creatures (magical or non-magical, doesn't matter), young witch attending Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft, a great chef... the list goes on. But one thing she is not, is a good daughter. At least, her mother's attitude towards her has led her to believe this.

    This is why she has been spending most of this summer by herself, taking care of her neighbor's variety of magical birds while he has been away from home, far away from home in Africa, working with dragons. He is getting to be an old man now, that Mr. Wilde, and he has taken many lonely winged creatures into his home to care for them. Only, he has not had much time for them this summer, so, Raven, upon hearing this news, was quick to volunteer to take care of them.

    Her eyes have scanned over the detailed pages of Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them at least a million times, and not just because it was written by her great grandfather, but because she has a life-long goal to learn everything she can about magical creatures.

    On this beautiful summer afternoon, she feeds Mr. Wilde's Jobberknoll, as she has done a hundred times before, and scans the pages of the Daily Prophet, searching for something interesting.

    Of course, there's always something interesting in the paper; this is the wizarding world for goodness sakes.

    A song — so loud that it pierces Raven's eardrums — echoes through the vast and many halls of the Wilde house. She covers her ears and winces, leaving the room and advancing down the hall, trying to find the source of the noise.

    "Should've known it was you," she says, grasping her twelve and a half inch wand and pulling it from the inside of her demim jacket, pointing it at the shrieking pink Fwooper. "I love you and all... silencio!" The bird falls quiet under Raven's spell, mouth still parted as if it were still singing the irritating song. "...but if you keep doing that, you will drive me insane."

    She strokes the bird in attempt to be affectionate, but it only scowls at her and turns away, flying across the room to join the other variously colored Fwoopers.

    A few years ago, when Raven was just ten years old, she witnessed Mr. Wilde enchant and charm each room in his house to fit the needs of each species of bird. Some of them actually look like forests, and Raven can hear the sound of birds chirping and singing mixed with the sounds of rushing water whenever she steps into a specific room. It's all very pleasant to her ears, and she finds comfort in the peacefulness of it.

    Another day passes slowly. Raven is cleaning up the kitchen at the end of a tasty dinner when she looks up to see her owl swooping into the room, through the open window above the sink. The brown bird, dotted with white and yellow spots, lands with gracefulness upon the island in the kitchen, small folded up slips of paper tied to each of his small feet.

    "Hello, Winston," Raven greets happily, for it has been almost a week since last she has seen her owl. "Lovely weather, isn't it?" Winston chirps and blinks, his wide eyes staring curiously at his owner. The girl unties the letters from his foot, before giving him two sickles as payment. "You might as well head home, I'll be there in a moment."

    Winston chirps happily and swoops out the window to the house next door, leaving Raven alone to read her letters. The first one she opens is from her dear friend Harry Potter, who she is quite sore at because he has not sent her one letter this summer, except the one she is opening now. She understands that the muggles Harry lives with are unhappy about him being a wizard, but she has sent him loads of letters, some short, some extremely long. She had hoped for one weeks ago, but it's only now, three days before she sees him back at school again for their third year, that he bothers to send a reply.

    Raven only gets even more upset when she opens up the letter, hoping to find lines and lines of writing, only to see two short sentence scratched in the middle of the paper:

   I'm staying at the Leaky Cauldron. Drop by if you get a chance.

                                                    -Harry

    She scowls, half tempted to shred the paper and toss it into the trash. However, she just inhales deeply, releases it sharply before putting the paper in the front pocket of her jeans. She shoves aside her angry feelings towards Harry for the moment and unfolds the other note, half expecting it to be from Hermione Granger or one of the Weasleys, a large wizarding family who she is very close with. But the note is from school.

    Like the beginning of the first two years, Professor McGonagall, teacher of Transfiguration and Deputy Headmistress at Hogwarts, has sent the students a copy of what they need for the coming school year. This time Raven is surprised to find something else attached to that list, and at first glance she sees that it is a permission form for parents to sign to allow their children to go to the village close to the school, Hogsmeade.

    Her mother would sign it, no doubt, but mostly just to get her daughter off her back. Mrs. Scamander works with the Ministry of Magic, which is how Raven got introduced to the the Weasleys. The father, Arthur Weasley, also works with the Ministry.

Emma Scamander is obsessed with her work. Raven hardly ever spends quality time with her mother, and when she does get a few moments, she is interrogated about her grades and friends. It seems like she barely knows her mother at all.

But that doesn't matter to her as much anymore, because she has Hogwarts to look forward to. In the past two years at the school of magic, Raven has made a handful of wonderful friends. It doesn't matter to her what happens at home as long as things are going good at school.

A sharp tap at the window pulls Raven from her thoughts of Harry and school. She jerks her head upwards, watching her owl swoop inside the house once again in an impatient demeanor. Her notes are folded up and placed into her jean pockets, Winston lands with a swoop on her outstretched forearm, and the two leave the house after making the appropriate rounds to make sure all the lights are off and the doors locked.

Much to her dismay, but not altogether surprising, Raven's mother is not yet home when the girl walks into the house. The air inside is drastically colder than the warm summer air outside, like it always is. Raven sometimes wonders if and why her mother has enchanted it to be like that: eerie and dark and freezing. It chills her to the bone.

She does not bother turning any lights on as she walks up to her room. Nothing in this house seems to like being touched by her warm fingers, so she pulls out her wand once again, finding comfort in the feel of the thin familiar wood against her fingers.

"Lumos," she whispers. The tip of her wand lights up, casting a warm glow on the wall beside her and the staircase in front of her. When she steps into her room and closes the door, she lets her small and spacious room be basked in the shallow light of her wand.

"Nox," Raven says in a hushed whispers, taking away the light and emerging herself and the room in total darkness. "Incendio." Like a lighter producing fire, the light at the tip of the wand is replaced with orange heat, which she takes with her across the room, holding it to each of three candles, emerging the room in a pleasant smell and the warm candlelight.

Her room is always like this.

With a sigh, Raven puts the fire out at the end of her wand, placing it on the dresser and changing into her pajamas. When she finally hits the mattress, she pulls her school books from her bed side table and opens them up to where she left off with her work last night.

Why do they have to have work to do over the summer? Raven asks herself many, many times. She resumes with her work and mentally curses herself for putting all this work off until the very end of the summer.

***

First chapter done, who knows how many more left?

Also, just a heads up, this first part that takes place during the third book will not be fully based on the romance between Harry and Raven... that will come later. Sorry, but I have plans for this story which include them getting together later rather than sooner.

But, something exciting will happen in this part (it doesn't happen in the books or movies), that I hope you will find entertaining :)

—M