Ellie was trudging back from school. It was few days after her 12th birthday, she should have been happy, nothing to worry about. The weather warm, the paths dry and the view out to sea stunning. Taking the short cut through the sculpture quarry as usual, the shapes and forms that usually cheered her up making no impression today. None of the usual mysteries and wonderment that would swirl around in her head; no not today, on this walk home it was just consideration of the newly set homework.
Ellie blamed J K Rowling for her gloominess as she, Ellie, had devoured every word of her biographical exposé of the wizarding world, the descriptions of magical London and the Hogwarts School. On her tenth birthday she had felt just another few months and then I will get my letter. But no, her eleventh came and went, somehow she knew she had been missed. How could the system have failed her, they must miss some muggleborns, surely not even a magical system could be 100% fool proof. It can’t be that good, can it?
And then her twelfth birthday also came and went with no surprises, no giant banging a fist on the door, no odd looking cat sitting on the garden wall, no letters with the strange crest and the green writing. All a bust, all her dreams and hopes shattered. As she passed the sculpture of The sword in the stone(1), today not even a trial attempt to remove it, if Hogwarts didn’t want her she doubted Merlin did either. Excalibur was just a myth, just like Diagon Alley, all of it just a made up muddle to sugar coat the truth of the humdrum world. The sight of The falling man carved into the cliff face(2) was just another notch into today’s downbeat mood. There would be pink buns for tea though, a story sold(3), some fiction did make sense.
The old stick lying on the path drew her eye, and in aggravation she kicked it. It squawked, and threw out a bunch of petunias. Startled she grabbed it, with her hand tingling, wondering. Could this really be a wand? Before she had time to properly assimilate the thought a silver haired man asked politely if he could have his stick back. “Are you Draco” she stuttered.
The ringing of a bedside alarm was the only answer she received.