A Totally Normal Family
The Evergreens were a totally normal family.
If anyone asked them that is what they would say anyway. And perhaps most people would believe them, until they of course looked a little closer.
Helen Evergreen, the mother of the family, was what we modern folk might call “a Girlboss”. She was a doctor at the local hospital and specialised in neuroscience, her work hours were all over the place and it wasn’t odd for her to be called in to work in the middle of the night. Besides her work ms. Evergreen frequented the local bookclub, was vice president of the tennis club and was overall a staple of the community. She was also the victim of quite a lot of gossip, since she herself was not a Housewife in a society that much preferred Housewifes to Girlbosses.
No, the title of Housewife went to her husband Adrian. That is not to say mr. Evergreen wasn’t an accomplished man himself, for he had studied child psychology and had several years of helping traumatised children under his belt. A fact that no doubt will be hilariously ironic later in the story. Mr. Evergreen, as Housewife, was in charge of keeping the house whole and more importantly taking care of their two daughters, Sarah and Lenore.
Sarah evergreen was certainly not the cause of the abnormality of the house, while she was going through puberty and certainly made no secret of her teenage problems, she was not any worse than any other 13 year old.
She went to a private school for 5 days in the week, and endlessly complained about the drab uniforms that “clashed horribly with her hair”. Her hair being a bright sunny blonde, and the uniform being a pale yellow.
The Problem, not that anyone in the family would admit it, lied in the youngest daughter: the almost eleven year old, Lenore Evergreen.
Lenore Evergreen was first and foremost, adopted.
The matron of st. Anne's Orphanage had found her lying on the doorstep on a cold summer's night. The wind had blown her blanket away and lenore had let her healthy set of lungs loose on the poor orphanage. By the time they found the note that had been attached to her, the weather had made it entirely unreadable - which had left her without a name. From age 1 to 5 the other kids had named her Jane Doe, the name commonly used for unidentified corpses.
During her time in the orphanage Lenore was switched around from family to family, constantly cycling through names without one ever sticking. No family ever adopted her for longer than a month. The matron of the orphanage she originated from would say that this was very reasonable, in fact she had warned the Evergreen family not to adopted the child. “Strange things happen around that girl” she had said. The Evergreen family had opted to ignore the warnings. They had adopted the child and promtly given her a proper name.
The matron certainly hadn't been wrong about the childs peculiarities, they soon discovered. At age 6, the Evergreens discovered little Lenore walking on the ceiling because there was a spider on the bed. At age 7, her school reports stated that she had stolen a classmates book and turned it into a butterfly - not that the teacher or classmates seemed to remember it later. At age 8, she wilted every bouquet at her grandpa’s funeral, supposedly because her grandpa did not deserve them. She was right about this, Grandpa Ernie was a huge bigot, but that didn’t change the fact it shouldn’t have been possible.
No, Lenore Evergreen was certainly not a normal child. When asked about how she performed these miracles, she would answer “I just followed the humming, can’t you feel it?”.
It wasn’t until the Funeral Incident that she realised that most people could not, in fact, feel the hum of magic that swirled around her. The Hum, was something that had been around her as long as she could remember. It was in her fingers tips when she made flowers bloom. It was in her dreams, where she always dreamt of the same grass field. It was in her heart whenever mr. Evergreen read her a new fantasy book.
Mr. and ms. Evergeen where very aware of the peculiarities of their daughter. Unfortunately there wasn’t a parenting book for magical children, but they were above all else Good Parents, and unlike Lenore's previous families they were willing to try.
Since mr. Evergreen was a child psychiatrist, the family decided he would be the Housewife. This was no doubt the right decision, as mr. Evergreen quickly discovered that the Outburst tended to happen when little Lenore was emotional. She was scared of the spider, so she hid on the ceiling. She was excited about her classmates drawing, so she made it come to life. She was upset about her grandpa’s death, so she wilted the flowers. The pattern continued in every outburst.
So he taught little Lenore how to control her emotions. How to meditate. How to rationalise. How to feel ones emotions without letting them rule you. Overtime these lessons must have worked, since the Hum had turned from earsplitting and overwhelming into a comforting melody. Mr. Evergreen also taught her about her culture, or atleast the closest proximity he could find: Fantasy books. She grew up with tales of dragons and mermaids, of hobbits and evil rings, of spells and wands. But an important distinction to make is that these tales weren’t told as fantasy by mr. Evergreen. They were cautionary tales. Lenore was taught how some fantastical things could be sour at their core, and how to recognise those signs.
She was taught she did not have to be a hero because she was special. No matter what. She did not have to save the world, or go on epic quests, or defend the city from evil. All she had to do was come home.
Lenore Evergreen was loved.
And that, my dear reader, was perhaps the biggest gift of all.
And her inevitable downfall. For Lenore was a Witch.
And Witches belong in the Wizarding World, not the Muggle world.