Jane | Harry Potter [1]

one | wishes do come true

"It's almost eleven o'clock in the morning, why weren't you up?" Gertrude asked, looking at Jane's attire up and down with disapproval.

"I had a nightmare," Jane replied.

"That's a poor excuse to be lazy, Jane," Gertrude reprimanded. "There is work to be done and I can't have you slacking off because of something as silly as a dream."

Gertrude had a particular obsession with cleanliness. She wasn't necessarily afraid of germs, but she was no fan of filth. Therefore, she enlisted Jane to essentially be an unpaid housekeeper all day every day during the summer while she worked at her boutique in town.

Needless to say, Jane wasn't exactly a fan, and made many excuses to try and find a way out of it. "Come on, Gertie, can't I just have a few days off?"

"Now why on earth should you deserve such a thing?"

"Well..." Jane trailed off, thinking of a reason. "My birthday is in a week or so," she said with a small smirk, "and I'd like some free time to celebrate it."

Gertrude's eyes widened. Normally she'd simply say a bland "I don't think so" before giving Jane a list of tasks she's required to do for the day, but today she looked unnerved, startled even, but the look only lasted three seconds before she composed herself.

"How old? Ten?" she asked flippantly, opening the door to a cleaning cupboard getting out a sponge and some soap.

"No," Jane scoffed, annoyed at her aunt's forgetfulness of her own niece's birthday. "Eleven."

Gertrude stopped in her tracks, dropping the soap and sponge. Jane rose an eyebrow at her aunt.

"Aunt Gertrude?" she inquired, slightly worried the woman was having a stroke or something.

Gertrude blinked before returning to her regular unbothered expression, scooping up the cleaning supplies from the floor. She turned to her niece and said, "Clean the sink, then the counters, then mop the floors. I want it all done by the time I return." She plopped the sponge and soap in Jane's hands before leaving the house.

Jane sighed in frustration and defeat before leaving to clean the sink and counter tops.

What a hag.

-+-

Later that day, Jane returned to the cleaning cupboard in the hallway for a mop, when she noticed a letter shoot out of the mail slot on the door.

Jane furrowed her eyebrows before picking it up and looking at who it was addressed to, and her jaw fell slack when she realized it was for her.

Jane never got mail. Ever. She had no real friends, only mere acquaintances who never really associated with her outside of class. But it didn't seem to be any normal letter. It was thick and heavy, made of a yellowish parchment material, and the writing was in an emerald green ink. There was no stamp in sight.

To add to the weirdness, the address was creepily accurate:

Ms. J. Tyler

The Last Room on the Second Floor

13 Willow Road

Hendrickson

Kent

Curious, Jane thought to herself.

She glanced up at the stairs leading to her room, which was as you would guess, the last room on the floor. It was meant to be a small office, but when Jane moved in it soon became her bedroom. It had a small, old wicker bed that used to be her aunt's when she was a little girl, and the floor boards were loose so when she'd walk across the room it'd squeak in agony. She had a small, white dresser diagonal from the bed, and a box under the bed as a personal storage space. That's all that really fit in the room, Jane didn't mind. She didn't have much of an interest for toys and things, and it's not like she was sleeping on the porch.