Flame || F. WEASLEY

Chapter 1- Summer's End

Two letters are waiting for me on the kitchen table as I venture down from my room. My mother is frying eggs in a pan while bread toasts and my dad digs around in the garden outside. The notorious thumping from upstairs tells me that my sister, Stella, is awake. Jace, my younger brother, is already eating a plate of eggs at the table.

"These are for you," he says, holding out the two letters. He's a little sullen when Stella or I got mail, being only a year away from receiving his Hogwarts letter.

"Thanks, bug," I say, taking the letters from him.

The first one is from Malein, my friend and roommate at Hogwarts. She was the first person I ever met in Ravenclaw and she made it significantly less terrifying.

My name is written across the envelope in gold glittering ink, the curves of my name highlighted by thicker lines. Malein loves calligraphy and sometimes I have half the mind to make her write my essays for me. I flip to the next letter.

The second is from Nora.

Nora is a notoriously lousy letter writer. She forgets to send the letter or even write it until weeks after she received the first. I receive them sporadically, and they often don't even address what I'd written about. Nora's contagious optimism shines through even on the page and I find I don't mind if she forgets what I wrote her last.

I tear open Malein's first. Her handwriting is delicate and pretty compared to my messy scrawl of cursive that looks like I only had five minutes to write it. Every word of hers is expertly placed and she always describes things in such detail. She's spent much of the summer visiting her home country, having moved to England when she was 10. She's shown me pictures and I so desperately want to go with her.

She gushes about coming back to Hogwarts, for our second to last year. It's hard to believe that we're almost done. 6 years ago, I sat down across from Nora on the train and roomed with Malein for the first time. My childhood friend, Mini, was sorted into Slytherin and it was the first time in my life I was without her. But we didn't let our different houses keep us apart.

Malein makes a few not-so-subtle prods at my long-term crush, hinting that it may finally be the year that something happens. She's a romantic at heart but this long into the crush, I have almost given up hope it'll ever happen.

She signed her name in a huge flourish at the bottom of the letter and I fold it back up carefully before opening Nora's.

Nora's handwriting is neat and unhurried. She talks about her summer babysitting and enjoying her free time. She truly is the epitome of Hufflepuff. I'm eternally grateful for her sunny disposition and for keeping an eye on Stella, my sister, as she navigates her house. I'm not surprised when she mentions her long-term crush Cedric and how she knows this year will be the year he notices her. She's a romantic too.

Her letter is significantly shorter. As I finish, my mom sets a plate with two fried eggs and toast down in front of me. I thank her with a smile before digging in.

"Are you almost done packing?" She asks. She has a towel thrown over her shoulder and her curly hair is pulled away from her face with clips. People always tell me that I look just like her with my blue eyes and curly hair.

"Mostly."

She gives me a questioning look and I smile sheepishly as my father comes in from the garden. It's true, I'm mostly packed. I'm still struggling with what books to bring and what day clothes would work best. Indecisiveness at its best. She can't act surprised, I got it from her.

"Breakfast smells delicious," my dad announces, sitting down in his chair at the table. "How's school been?"

He directs the question at Jace. Both of my parents were born to muggle families and because of that, we were all sent to muggle school up until age 11. Mini is the child of my parent's friends, sent to a muggle primary school as well.

All of my old muggle friends believe we all go to a prestigious boarding school in Scotland, which is what Hogwarts is in muggle terms. But I'm grateful for it. Sometimes I'm utterly blown away by the amount of pureblood wizards who don't know anything about the muggle world.

Jace waves his fork. "It's been fine. I'm just ready to leave."

Being the youngest, he's grown up listening to everyone's stories of Hogwarts. He's been ready to go since age 7.

"You need to slow down and enjoy the ride, bug." Dad fans himself with a hand, his face bright red from the sun. It contrasts nicely with his dark hair, which is streaked with silver. He was a Ravenclaw, just like I was, while Mom was in Hufflepuff like Stella. What house Jace will join is beyond me, though I'm lucky to have friends in every house. No matter where he ends up, there will be someone there to watch out for him.

Stella chooses that moment to come stumbling into the kitchen. She's wearing a large t-shirt and shorts, exactly what she went to bed in. Her hair is matted on one side of her head and she rubs the sleep out of her eyes as she almost falls into a chair.

"Are you packed?" Mom asks.

Stella grunts.

She surveys the table with squinted eyes before snatching a piece of bacon from a plate. If I had to guess, I'd say all of her things are strewn about her room and that she will wait until the very last minute to throw them all in her trunk.

As she crunches on her bacon, I wave my fork at her.

"What shenanigans do you think Potter will get himself into this year?"

Stella throws back her head and groans. Potter and his friends are the same year as she is and always get the whole year in trouble.

"I don't know, but there's always something."

We were all pretty awed when Harry first came to Hogwarts. He was the Boy Who Lived, after all. But the shine of that title dulled quickly as he brought unholy terrors into the school. Stella, being the same age, particularly dislikes it.

"Are you excited to see Adora?" Mom pipes up from the stove. She's trying to distract us from the whole Voldemort thing and we let her. Stella never passes up an opportunity to talk about her girlfriend anyway.

While Stella chatters about her upcoming plans to go to Hogsmeade with Adora, I let my mind wander. It takes me to Hogwarts, all the way to the Quidditch pitch. After a particularly grueling day of classes, it's where I can let off steam and my frustrations, as well as practice for the team.

Feeling the wind stinging my face as I send the quaffle into one of the three rings is one of my favorite things.

Sometimes Melissa, a Gryffindor keeper, would play with me. Her teeth were always startlingly white against her dark skin when she smiled, which was whenever she successfully blocked one of my shots.

She was the one who introduced me to him.

"Ames. Amelia!"

Stella rips me from my daydream, waving a piece of toast in front of me.

"What?" I ask.

"I said, 'what are you looking forward to?' dear," Mom says, a soft smile on her face.

"Oh. My friends."

"Are you sure it's not a certain red-haired Gryffindor?" Stella sing-songs at me.

"Shut it, will you?"

"Amelia has a crush." Stella draws out the last word, a maniacal grin on her face.

I push up out of my chair, my palm coming down harder on the table than I intended. "I do not."

The look in my sister's eyes is straight-up diabolical.

"Fffff-"

I lunge around the table but Stella takes off, her chair shrieking against the wooden floor. I chase her through the living room, then the kitchen while Jace laughs and Dad yells at us telling us not to break anything.

Stella bounds up the stairs and I'm close behind her, but she manages to scramble into her room and shut the door right before I get there. We're both out of breath and laughing, leaning against opposite sides of the door.

"I'll get you," I tell her.

I can hear her smile. "Sure you will."