Saving Star - Book 2 in the Star of Gryffindor Series

Chapter 1 - Summer

"ASTRA!"

I faintly heard my foster sister yelling at me, though I pretended I couldn't. It was easy to believe: There were two whole floors between us now. I just stared at the pages of my book as I heard Mara pounding down two flights of stairs.

After a minute, she burst through my door, and I looked up, feigning surprise. "Hiya."

She glared at me. "Didn't you hear me? I've been yelling at you for like...like five minutes!"

More like one second, but correcting Mara is always a bad idea.

"No, sorry, I've been reading." I held up my book, The Hobbit, as proof.

She rolled her eyes, but couldn't deny the fact that I probably couldn't hear her from the basement. I mean, I knew I could, but she didn't need to know that.

She remained in my doorway, frowning at me as I pretended to continue reading. It's very hard to rad when someone is probably staring at you, though. After a minute, I put my book down, sighing. "What do you want?"

"Oh! Right." She had been staring the pile of letters perched precariously on the lid of my trunk, actually, not me. "Mom wants you to help clean out my closet, and I obviously can't do it looking like this," she gestured to her hair, "so do my hair."

I slowly got up and pulled my chair out from underneath my desk. "Sit."

Mara's eyes widened, and she shook her head frantically. For a moment, I was confused, then turned my head to see Anastasia, my owl, contentedly sitting in her cage on my desk. Mara had had an irrational fear of owls ever since one had attacked the kitchen the previous year. I sighed, then shoved the chair back in its place.

Mara grabbed my arm and dragged me up the two flights of stairs, then plunked down on her stool after shoving a hairbrush into my hands. "Do what you did on Blaise yesterday."

While I brushed through Mara's curls, Mrs. Lewis wandered in, and started asking Mara's opinion on various makeup products and things as she sorted through the piles of clothes next to her closet door. That was definitely Mara's speciality. Covering up her ugliness with so much makeup that her face looked like an admittedly pretty mask.

Mrs. Lewis completely ignored me. It had been like that with her since I'd returned from school, except when I messed something up (which seemed to happen a lot, no matter what I did). So, she was screaming at me, or pretending I didn't exist, neither of which is called a good environment to raise a child in.

Mr. Lewis had been much worse. He'd confiscated my wand, and any other item with a trace of magic, and locked them in my former bedroom. He'd then shoved me into one of unfinished rooms in the basement. I think he was a bit scared that I could still do some sort of magic without my wand.

Mara tried valiantly to act like nothing had changed, though it only took one mention of my school, or my wand, or anything magical really to set her off screaming and cowering behind the couch. I didn't do that often, though, because I'd only get slapped or worse when that happened.

Of course, I got slapped a lot anyway. I was what Mr. Lewis calls a "problem child."

Maybe I should tell you exactly what was wrong with me.

I am a witch.

Yeah, you heard me right. I'm a witch. And I had just finished my first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. My previous foster family had graciously agreed to take me back in (blackmail, probably) over the summer, so I was stuck with them for at least a month.

It was awful.

Of course, now that I was officially a freak, Thing 1, Blaise, was avoiding me, which was good. Thing 2, Cameron, was a different matter. You'd be surprised what kind of evil stuff a horrible, undisciplined six-year-old boy is capable of. With coaching from Mara, he rose above and beyond his normal brattiness that summer.