Chapter 1
Summer, 1947
Thursday July 31,1947
"Happy Birthday!"
The entire house felt far too stuffy with the assortment of various wizards crowding around his family to watch his mother blow out the candles. A feeling like electricity shot up his arms as he maintained a false smile that felt almost practiced. Carefully, he licked his dry lips and reached a steady hand up to push unruly curls out of his line of sight.
He shuffles uncomfortably under the dozen of watchful eyes, although none were pointed directly at him more so in his direction, and wonder how much longer it would take before he can make his escape. The sun had gone down and all the other children had all wandered off by now leaving him behind in the sea of lightly boozed up adults and dull casual conversation.
He found it left much to be desired.
He glanced once more at his mother whose attention had now been shifted away from her birthday cake and to her friend, Irma Black, a woman in her early thirties with a rather nasally voice that Fleamont personally found like nails on a chalkboard with her own set of wild curls that could rival his own. He sucked his teeth in distaste and eyed the hallway to his room that had previously been empty the last five times he'd planned to make an escape but now was occupied by a tall girl around his age with crossed arms staring directly at him.
He froze completely.
Did he have something on his face? Perhaps he looked ridiculous. Maybe there was someone behind him? No if there hadn't been. He would have sensed them but nonetheless, despite himself he turns to check that it was him she was looking at. There was no one behind him. When he turned back to see the girl he found that like the other children she had wandered off, headed towards the door out into the backyard.
This was his chance to make it out of the party and back to his room however as he began creeping away from the crowd he found himself not heading down the hallway he'd been eyeing for the last hour but instead towards the cracked open door out of the Manor. He finds the sound of angelic giggles of glee to his left and without much thought he rounds the corner of the outside gate towards the golden garden lights, a charm his mother adored especially in summer. The familiar high arch of perfectly grown white lotus flowers greeted him as he followed the sound.
"Aye." the giggles increased after a melodic Scottish twang filled his ears. His mystery girl was a Scottish witch? "good lad."
His heart squeezed as he glided around the arch into the open garden. There she was. She was crouched down low with the Potter family dog Archie. She looked as if she belonged there kneeling among the Tulips grinning widely, proudly displaying the gap in her front teeth as if she'd just come home and this was her pet she'd missed while she was away. Fleamont found himself coming to the realization that this stranger looked ethereal under the lights. Maybe she wasn't real at all. He thought.
Perhaps he thought too loudly because as soon as it crossed his mind she looked up at him as if sensing his presence and her smile disappeared and her hands retreated. She simply stood to her full height a couple of inches taller than he was, which he found shocking. Not many people his age stood taller than him. Then she proceeded to straighten her skirt and hair and just stand there staring at him then the arch way then back to him.
He opens his mouth to speak.
She clears her throat loudly.
They both freeze.
Fleamont purses his lips awkwardly. This was not going as planned fittingly enough because he had no plan to begin with. What was he going to do? Why had he followed her? He opens his mouth again this time managing to tumble out a single word.
"Archie." He says, his own accent feeling thick in his throat like he'd swallowed a toad. The witch looked unimpressed, raising a strict eyebrow with the exactitude of someone twice her age. Like a stern school tutor daring a child to fall out of line.
"The dog, my dog. His name is Archie." With the second call of his name Archie approached and plopped down at Fleamont's feet leaving the witch to make a brief face of unhappiness before it turned back to nothingness.
"And I'm-" he begins only to be cut off and have his sentence finished by a scream into the night.
"FLEAMONT, DEAR! Come say your farewells to Professor Dippet for the evening." His mothers voice cuts through the air like a hot knife through ice.
He grimaces.
"Fleamont. My name is Fleamont Potter." He smiles awkwardly offering his hand out of politeness and practice, though a wave of gratefulness filled him when she didn't take his perspiring clammy hand. however, it just as quickly shifts back to nerves when she says nothing but a low hum of acknowledgement.
Off In the distance a stern voice of a stranger can be heard calling for her children and the girls head tilts curiously
"And you are-" he tries to prompt to be thwacked by his mother's angry tone.
"FLEAMONT." His head turned towards the arch of the lotus and back. He licks his lips in thought but by the second glance at the way back home the girl was gone.
"Coming mother!"
Fleamont finds his way inside to converse with his future headmaster mind filled with the mystery of the Scottish garden witch.