Being Different

“Are you sure you’ll be alright Anne?” said Irwin.

He was standing in the entrance hall with his trunk. It was the first day of the Christmas holidays and the other First Years had already gone. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay?”

“Go home, Irwin!” Anne laughed, “If you don’t go home now, Aislynn and Averett probably won’t even recognise you! Don’t worry Irwin I’ll be fine” Anne reassured him.

“Come on Irwin! We’ll miss the train, have a good Christmas Anne!” called Rolf.

Anne went back to the Common Room, her and Harry were staying at Hogwarts that year because Mr and Mrs Weasley were going to Romania to visit Charlie with Ginny. Harry had wanted to stay at Hogwarts to be with Ron. When she got back to the Common Room it was only fifth and seventh years left and they were all busy studying for their exams at the end of the year.

“Anne!” called Julian friendlily who was sitting at a table studying a book on Astronomy. “I thought you would have gone home with the others!”

“No,” answered Anne “Harry wanted to stay to be with Ron.”

“Ah! I see,” said Julian before returning to his essay.

“Hello Helena!” said Anne curtsying as she spotted the Grey Lady come through the wall.

“Hello, Anne! Have your friends all gone home then?” Helena asked. Anne nodded.

Anne found that she did not miss her friends as much as she thought she would. Anne spent a lot of time with Helena, exploring the castle and asking her questions about her life. She also spent a lot of time with Julian and the other fifth years at mealtimes, sometimes she would sit in the common room doing her knitting whilst the fifth years studied. Percy kept on appearing at the Ravenclaw table during dinner to talk to Anne about her first year and how she was doing. Anne noticed that Penelope kept on looking at him interestingly.

On Christmas Eve Harry came over to chat to Anne, “Hi sis, you want to come over to open presents tomorrow morning with me and Ron, you could bring the mirror and we could open with Sirius and Remus if you want?”

“Ok,” said Anne eagerly.

“The passwords Saturnalia”

“Thanks!” said Anne beaming.

Anne woke up very early the next morning. She had arranged with the elves the night before for her presents to be put with Harry and Ron’s. She pulled on her purple dressing gown and a pair of slippers over the top of her pyjamas.

She walked off to the Gryffindor Common Room and gave the password to the Fat Lady. Anne went running up to Harry and Ron’s dormitory.

“Merry Christmas Anne!” called Harry sleepily.

“What?” asked Ron confused who had just woken up, “Presents!!” he exclaimed and started to attack his pile of presents.

There was a large pile of presents at the end of Harry and Ron’s beds, and there was a huge pile of presents for Anne in the middle of the room.

Anne organized her presents. There was a large stash of Honeydukes chocolate from Michael and Terry. They knew that chocolate sometimes helped Anne feel better when she was upset.

Anthony had sent her a book on Jewish festivals which had a large section about Hanukah. Anne was looking forward to finding out how Anthony and his family spent their holiday season.

Padma had bought Anne some enchanted hair ribbons for her hair. They never got lost and changed colour depending on what she was wearing.

Persephone had sent her a book about the Wizarding community in Greece. Persephone’s grandparents still lived in Greece so she had written to them about getting a good book for Anne.

Lisa sent Anne what the muggles apparently called a ‘stress ball’ which was a squishy ball that she was supposed to squeeze when she stressed out. Lisa had also sent Anne a large number of different types of muggle sweets including starbursts and skittles and Haribo’s. Anne had a sweet tooth, but she had often found wizarding sweets a bit too strange for her liking, so she greatly appreciated the muggle sweets which were much more normal.

Mandy had given her several bottles of ‘never smudge ink.’ Anne was left-handed and got annoyed when she was writing an essay and she would ruin her essay by smudging it with her hand.

There was even a new quill from Julian!

She had also received a large parcel from the Scamander’s! Rolf had sent Anne several bottles of calming potion with a note attached ‘so that you don’t keep on having to go to Pomfrey if you need any more let me know!’ Anne laughed at how well Rolf knew her.
From Irwin, Anne got a book one was on Circe and her interpretations in the muggle and magical world. There was also a large tin of Welsh Cakes from Mrs Scamander which looked delicious and drawings of themselves from the twins. The best of the parcel, however, was the letter.

“Dear Anne,

Rolf and Irwin have told us so much about you! And Remus tells us about you and Harry all time! Thank you for recommending Remus to us for Aislynn and Averett’s tutor, the children won’t start lessons till the new year, but he’s been coming round for the twins to get used to him. He is brilliant! I have never seen anyone be able to handle those two so well they are so well behaved!

I’m glad that you and Irwin have made so many friends in your year! Terry and Michael sound like they never stop talking, it’s a good thing they’ve got a sensible influence like Anthony to keep an eye on them.

Irwin mentions you in practically every single one of his letters! We would love to have you visit us over the Summer holidays. If Harry or your friend Luna that Irwin has told us about would like to come too, they would be more than welcome!

I hope you like the cakes, I made them with dried strawberries and white chocolate rather than dried fruit because Irwin told me that you loved strawberries. I hope you’re not too lonely on your own at Hogwarts this Christmas, maybe one year you can come to visit us for Christmas?

Hope you are well, and you get lots of lovely presents, much love Gwendoline Scamander.
P.S. Landon’s father Newt is looking forward to meeting you if you visit over the Summer.

Wow thought Anne. Irwin and Rolf had certainly been mentioning her a lot in their letters home. Those cakes looked amazing. And she couldn’t believe that Newt Scamander actually wanted to meet her!

Anne noticed there was still more presents waiting to be unwrapped.

Luna and Mr Lovegood had sent Anne a charm bracelet. There was a small cat charm to represent Athene, and an eagle for Ravenclaw, and a small ruby for her birthstone. There was a note with the bracelet which said that the charm would protect her from most common jinxes and fire as well as the nargles.

There were two homemade jumpers one from her granny which had blue and bronze stripes for her new schoolhouse, and the other was dark green with a purple A on it from Mrs Weasley.

Sirius sent Anne an enchanted camera, ‘so that you can take photos of your entourage’, which developed and printed photos almost instantly. He also sent her a large photo album. Anne noticed that there were already several photos of Athene in the album, Athene sitting on Remus’ lap, Athene sleeping on her bed, Luna holding Athene, there was even a photo of Averett and Aislynn playing with her cat which Remus had taken.

Harry had placed his present for Anne with the others. He had got her a copy of Little Women and Good Wives by Louisa May Alcott.

Anne noticed that there was still one large box left. Anne had left her largest present till last on the box was a label saying “Dear Anne, Merry Christmas, So that you have something to over than read all the time, Remus.” Anne looked at the box curiously, Remus always got her books! She lifted the lid of the box and gasped in amazement.

The box was full of fifty balls of wool, all of them in different colours. There was also a few crochet hooks as Anne had suggested she was thinking about learning how to crochet. At the bottom of the box were several pattern books for knitting and crochet.

Ron had just finished unwrapping his presents. “Looks like you’re going to be busy,” he laughed looking from the stack of new books to the huge box of wool from Remus.

“You alright Harry?” asked Ron as Harry was looking confused at his last present.

“Uh yeah I think so…” said Harry “this parcel has no name on it.”

“well go on open it mate!”

“Harry, this was your fathers, he left it with me before he died, use it well” Harry had just lifted a cloak from the wrapping paper.

“That’s dads invisibility cloak!” exclaimed Anne.

“Yeah, you’re right! Sirius and Remus told us about it!”

“It must be from Dumbledore!” Anne realised “Remus said Dad lent it to him before he died.”

“Wow! Cool!” said Ron.

“Well now you’ve got the cloak and the map you two can get in just as much trouble as Sirius and Dad did at school” muttered Anne.

Fred and George now came charging into the room wearing their new jumpers, “Merry Christmas!” they shouted. “Go on get your jumpers on they’re lovely and warm!”

“What’s all this noise?” called Percy only half awake trying to pull on his glasses.

“Percy!” cried Fred.

“Come on get your jumper on!” yelled George.

They had an excellent lunch, the Ravenclaws had put their work away for the day and were having a wonderful time. Everyone was pulling wizard crackers and telling jokes and wearing the silly hats. Anne got a tiny sewing kit which she thought would be very handy. Anne was sitting with Julian and his friends who were all discussing what they had got for Christmas that year.

After dinner, there was a schoolwide house snowball fight. Gryffindors and Ravenclaws versus Hufflepuffs and Slytherins. The Gryffindors and Ravenclaws eventually won and then everyone went in for warm baths.

Anne settled into the common room for the evening. The fifth and seventh years were taking a night off from studying, some of them were playing chess and others exploding snap. Anne chose one of the large armchairs by the fire and spent the evening reading about Jewish festivals so she can have a comparison between what they had done at Hogwarts and how Anthony’s day would have been.

After a few hours, Anne went up to bed. The next morning she got dressed in her Ravenclaw jumper from her grandmother and did her hair with the new hair ribbons from Padma. Anne smiled as the ribbons changed from black to bronze.

She was just eating some blackberries after a piece of toast when Harry and Ron came to join her at breakfast. “Anne you’ll never guess what we found last night!”

Anne listened as Harry and Ron explained about finding a magic mirror the night before. They then dragged her off to an unused classroom. Harry was beaming as he pulled Anne in front of a magic mirror.

Anne was shocked. There she was in the mirror, but she didn’t look like she normally did, there wasn’t even a trace of fear or anxiety in her face. There were four people in the mirror, Harry and Anne who were beaming, Harry’s arm was round Anne. Behind them stood a young couple who didn’t look more than twenty-one. One had Harry’s dark hair and glasses and the other had Anne’s red hair although the womans hair wasn’t quite as long. Her parents, Anne was looking at her family!

Anne backed away from the mirror and saw some words engraved on it. “I show not your face but your heart’s desire,” Anne said slowly.

“What?” asked Ron incredulously.

“The mirror, that’s what the writing says but its written backwards,” Anne told him

“Oh, right!” said Ron.

“Harry, this is amazing but we do have a load of photographs of Mum and Dad, you can see them anytime!” Anne said.

“Yeah I know,” said Harry, “but it’s just not the same!”

Anne understood how Harry felt but she found it slightly creepy. She left Harry and Ron in front of the mirror and went back to the common room to start one of her other new books.