The Hogwarts Letter
The telephone rang.
“Daddy will be back in a sec, Anna,” Philip Hitchens picked Anna off his lap and onto the couch, and placed a bookmark on the current page of the picture book he was reading to her. When he returned, after hearing the brief report on the legislation passed the previous day, he found Anna bent over The Tiger Who Came to Tea, her grey eyes moving over the pages, seeming to read like she understood everything.
Anna was 2 years old.
*****
Willow Hitchens was staring at the computer screen for the last thirty minutes. Vicky had given her the home version of the work software (though, her exact wording was “people-neglecting-their-work version”), disguised as a home finance software, which she claimed was safe to install on their home computer so they could work from home and “not use the excuse of needing to stay at home to justify their indolence”.
Willow and Philip had tried and given up installing the software last night. They used their home computer only for the basics and their work computers were set up by Vicky, whose only instruction regarding the installation was to “put the CD in the slot and do what the screen says”. The problem was that the screen was saying nothing. Willow was hoping that the computer, not having the same processing power as their work computer, was just taking a long time to read the CD, and that the instructions will appear any minute now. However, from the last thirty minutes, their family photo from the previous year’s vacation stared back at her.
Philip had taken Kevin to his football practice, and Willow had promised to take Anna to the park.
“C’mon mummy, we’re getting late,” Anna whined for the third time.
“Yes, sweetie, just a minute, Aunty Vicky’s new budgeting software’s just about to load.”
Anna huffed, put her ball and frisbee on the study table, and walked to where Willow was seated in front of the computer. She then pulled the keyboard and mouse towards herself, and before Willow could say anything, proceeded to punch a few keys on the keyboard. The instructions appeared, and before Willow could process it, Anna had already started clicking the mouse, not even stopping to read the instructions. The software was installed in 7 minutes, 5 of which were taken by the green loading screen.
Anna was 5 years old.
*****
Kevin Hitchens was an above-average student, except in maths, in which he got straight A’s. That was the reason why his maths teacher, Mrs. Smith, who believed that each student needed to be academically challenged in order to improve, felt the need to assign extra work to her favorite student, which happened to be a single but extremely difficult question this week.
Kevin was pretty sure that vector calculus wasn’t part of the high school curriculum, and the notes that Mrs. Smith had given to him - which he strongly suspected were from her own college days judging by the aged papers - assumed that he already had the knowledge of partial differential equations, which he did not.
He heard Anna’s chair being pushed and he raised his head from his impossible homework to see her cross the study room to his desk with her notebook in hand.
“Wanna exchange homework, Kevin?” Anna offered, showing her notebook that contained some 4-digit multiplication problems.
Anna hated her repetitive maths assignments, which she claimed that she could use a calculator for, if not for the need to show her working; and when reasoned that she will not always have a calculator in her pocket, replied with utmost confidence that she will. Kevin hated his long English essays, which he believed were always on boring topics. So, they would sometimes exchange their homework through mutual understanding. Anna’s writing skills, though not outstanding like her maths skills despite ignoring her homework, were passable, likely due to her early start at reading books.
“It’s calculus, Anna, vector calculus. Even I don’t understand half of it,” Kevin sighed.
Anna frowned, which came out more like a pout. Kevin looked back at his homework.
“You know what, even if sit for another 2 hours, I am not going to understand this stuff. Give me that, and then we can go play Super Mario. I will ask Mrs. Smith to explain it more clearly,” Kevin put his pen down, and picked up a pencil.
Anna grinned, swiped away his books and notes from his desk, and placed her notebook in front of him.
He worked out the calculations with ease, and looked towards Anna’s desk across their study, where she was writing something. He walked just in time to see Anna draw a box around her final answer.
Anna was 8 years old.
*****
Anna was heading up the endless flight of stairs to the third floor.
Anna was at Aunt Vicky’s house. Although no one referred to it as one, it was more of a mansion, with a lot of stairs without any thought of sleepy and innocent children having to ascend them for breakfast on their birthday. She wondered if it was just her small legs, or even Sara would have felt equally tired. Anna couldn’t really compare. The memories of her previous life, although still sharp and detailed, felt less personal after eleven years, like she was given some autobiography and she had memorized the details.
Anna unconsciously glanced at her reflection on the flawless marble stairs. Anna didn’t understand how Aunt Vicky kept the house so clean, she had never seen any househelp around. Anna’s, Kevin’s, and Mum and Dad’s rooms were only used during birthdays and Christmas; and Anna suspected that the ballrooms, conference halls, and theater were left unused and locked for decades, if not an entire century. Still, the entire house looked spotless. The only active part of the house was the east wing, which contained the office from where Aunt Vicky, Mum, and Dad oversaw the working of Hitchens & Co., a company that manufactured giant valves for chemical plants.
Kevin, too, had decided to join the company after his birthday in June, unexpectedly abandoning his plans of going to Cambridge. He was even taking some business lessons from Mr. Tanaka, a Japanese strategist.
Anna finally climbed the last stair and walked towards the dining room, where Kevin, Mum, Dad, and Aunt Vicky were waiting for her, dressed for the day. Aunt Vicky was holding open an umbrella to her side, on the table; and its need became clear when Kevin pulled a string just as Anna crossed the door, and a swarm of purple paper butterflies flew from the ceiling towards the ground.
“Happy Birthday!” they all chorused, though there was some spluttering sound from Mum who had accidentally kept her mouth open for the paper butterfly.
Anna grinned and ran to hug them.
After a warm hug from Kevin, Mum, and Dad; and a bone-crushing one from Aunt Vicky, they all finally settled for breakfast, on a too-big dining table, which was less than one-sixth occupied even after all five of them had taken their seats.
“We prepared the pancakes,” Aunt Vicky sing-songed.
“More like sieved the flour, Aunt Vicky.”
Anna was familiar with their antics, so she poured maple syrup on her pancakes and took a bite, partly to make for the lack of popcorn.
“Well, little Kevin - ”
“I am not little.”
“- we all have our expertise, and mine just includes supervising you lot while you cook. And being cool and awesome, in general.”
“Well, in that case, my expertise is - ”
Anna wasn't able to gain insight into Kevin’s expertise because something big flew through the window and dropped a thick envelope on Anna’s maple syrup-soaked pancakes. She picked it up and her first thought was that it was convenient that the envelope was wax-layered, or it would have been soaked in maple syrup. However, that thought was quickly dismissed when she saw the seal, a wax seal to be specific, with the Hogwarts logo on it. She turned the envelope and it was addressed to her, Ms. Annabeth Hitchens.
She couldn’t decide what was more surprising: the fact that she was in the Harry Potter universe or the fact that she was a witch.
She raised her eyes and everyone else was as shocked as her. Mom was the first to recover.
“I think, we should discuss this further in the office,” she managed to say with a neutral expression.
Anna would have raised an eyebrow, but she had more important things to think about - like the fact that she was a fucking witch, in the fucking Harry Potter universe.
So, she quietly followed everyone to the office. Once inside, Aunt Vicky shut the door, pressed some buttons, and moved some bearings on the large mechanical component behind the door, the existence of which had escaped Anna’s notice, the few times she had been inside the office.
“So,” Kevin said after a brief pause “Anna is a witch?”
“Yeah, it seems so,” Aunt Vicky finally turned from the door.
It was then that Anna realized that her family was shocked, but not confused.
“Will you believe us if we told you that a secret society of wizards exists in our world?” Dad finally addressed Anna.
“Yeah?” Anna managed. She wasn’t sure if should act confused, excited, or in denial.
“It's a long story, why don’t you read your letter first, Anna?” Aunt Vicky broke the brief silence.
Anna tore the seal and pulled out the acceptance letter and the list of supplies. She noticed the date and it occurred to her that she will be in the same year as Harry Potter. Was the universe playing a joke on her? She quickly read the contents - everything was the same, McGonagall was the deputy headmistress, Dumbledore the headmaster. She looked up at the adults and Kevin, who was an adult too now, his eighteenth birthday was in June, but Anna still wasn’t used to referring to him as an adult.
“I know it might be too much, but let’s start at the beginning,” Mom continued after taking a deep breath, “There is a secret society - ”
“Quick question, if it is so secret, how do you know about it, and why don’t I know about it?” Anna was pretty sure her family was muggle. Kevin went to school with her, for one. He could be a squib, of course, but Anna would have noticed if Mum, Dad or Aunt Vicky had a wand.
“Well, I got told about it after my birthday this year, after I turned eighteen. Everyone does in the family. However, since you are a witch, you need to know about it earlier,” Kevin explained.
“Okay, cool. Coming of age family secrets. But how do you know about it if it is such a secret society?” Anna was on the verge of having an anxiety attack. Wizards had legilimency, how was she supposed to hide her reincarnation?
“And I thought muggle-borns got a professor’s visit?” Kevin looked up at the adults for answers too.
“It’s probably the wards making them think that it is a wizarding house,” Mum waved her hands.
“To answer you, Anna, listen, in 1868, there was a - ” Dad continued after Mum, but was interrupted.
“I think it will be better to show her, Phil,” saying that Aunt Vicky opened a drawer on her desk and moved something in complicated motions, and the floor of the corner of the room began to move. Slowly, it became wide enough to enter.
Aunt Vicky stepped onto the stairs that had appeared below. Kevin stepped down next, and Anna followed. Mum and Dad trailed behind.
Anna had expected a dark basement, but they emerged in a well-lit hall, twice the size of their dining room. The shelves were filled with books and odd trinkets. They didn’t stop for any intro-to-wizarding world book, like Anna was expecting after seeing so many books. Instead, they walked to the end of the hall towards a painting and Anna jumped when the woman in the painting tilted her head after seeing her.
“Well, isn’t she quite young to be here?” the woman said before Anna had recovered, “You must be Annabeth, from the description I am told, young, and definitely a Hitchens with those dark hair and grey eyes.”
Mum ignored the painting-lady’s question and looked at Anna with a serious expression.
“Anna, this is your great-great-grandmother, Isla Hitchens, née Black.”