The Demi-Witch.

The Orphanage

I sat beside the professor in the uncomftable, tiny childs chair in front of the huge mahoganoy desk that the sour woman was sat behind, the light was still bright but my eyes had gotten used to it, my mind was still buzzing, what was this place? Why were we here? I sat in silence, like the two adults in front of me until the sour woman, minutes past, the clock on the wall ticked on and on, but it felt like we were stuck, frozen, in an awkward silence. After what felt like a lifetime, I spoke up. "What is this place?" It came out as a hoarse whisper, I wasn't used to using my voice after the long silence. "Why am I here?" I asked, my voice back to normal, the sour woman turned to the professor and said to her in a strong Cockney accent "Are you tellin' 'er or am I?" The professor looked at me and cleared her throat. "This place, Miss Callaway, is an orphanage, for Wizards and Witches without homes or familes, this is where you'll be spending the remeinder of you're holidays before starting at Hogwarts"

Orphange? I thought, no, no, no! I've heard of theese places, they're cruel places full of mean children and abusive adults, apparently, some would go as far as to call them Hell on Earth! Well, I've been to Hell and there's no way I'm going anywhere that simulated the misery of that place. "But, professor, I-I don't know anything about this place, wh-wha-" She cut me short with "Youl'll just have to work it out, you are strong and smart, child, you shall be fine, I'll see you in September." And with that she disaparated right out of the room, that was it. I was stuck, slowly I turned to the women behind me, she stood up from her giant desk and walked towards the door. "Follow me, then" She said sharply, I jumped and followed her out of the room as she took me on a tour of the dreary building. "This is the kitchen and dining room" She said in a bored voice, waving a her arm dismissively around the room, it had toys strewn across the filthy floor and small cuboards, every corner was filled with about six inches of dust and cobwebs decorated the celing, she moved on to the sitting room which had a tiny couch in the middle of it and again, toys that litered the floor and a small dusty television set, which didn't look like it was even plugged in. I dismissed this and followed the woman upstairs, each when creaked loudly as stepped on them, she brought me to a door and turned to me. "This is your room, you share with Theodora and Merida, bathrooms down the 'all tor yer right, the rest I'm sure the girls'll quickly fill you in about, goodnight." She turned on her heel and left me where I was, I took a deep breath and prepared to meet my new roomates. Everythings going to be fine, I told myself. I hope.

I swung open the door and two girls sat on their beds, they were both my age and as soon as I stepped into the room they snapped their heads up to observe me. "Who are you?" Asked the taller of the two, I was already quite afraid of her, she had long black hair and fierce blue eyes, the shorter girl gasped. "How rude!" She said, she turned to me smiling apolegetically, "Excuse Theodora-" Theodora cut her off with a sharp "Teddy!", the short one ignored her, rolling her eyes, the exact same shape and shade of Teddy's, they looked very alike on this girls hair was short, "She's not very good around new people." She stuck her hand out, "I'm Merida, by the way" she added as we shook, "I'm Azura" I replied, Merida smiled warmly, "What a lovely name!" She said, I smiled back, it wasn't often I recieved compliments from people. I sat on the third bed and tried to think of something to say, eventually I said "So, what is it like here?" I asked, Merida opened her mouth to speak, but Teddy got there first. "Dismal, depressing and lonley" She said, "Not all the time!" Merida piped up, although she didn't sound to convinced, then there was a whisper "Can I come out now?" Then, before my very eyes, a girl floated out from the small box at the end of my little metal bed, she was pale and had scars and bruises all over her body, her hair was coloured every colour under the sun and she was wearing a tattered, torn school uniform, "Azura, this is Betsy" Teddy said calmly, picking up a book and thumbing through it lazily, I couldn't believe my eyes, "She's a-a" I stuttered, "Ghost?" Merida suplied for me, I gulped and nodded, Teddy looked up from her book and came over here, "Listen," She said, her voice soft for once "Betsy is our roomate, but she's a secret, you can't tell anyone" "Oh, please don't tell anyone about me," The ghost said tearfully, "I'll have nowhere to go!" "I won't tell, I promise" I said, I was stunned, this was all so surreal, Betsy bound over towards me, "Thank you so much!" She exclaimed she held her hand out "Nice to meet you Azura" she said, I took her hand and was deeply suprised to find out that her hand didn't go through mine, for a smoky silhouette, she was rather solid.

Over the next few days I got to know Teddy, Merida and Betsy, I learned that Teddy and Merida were sisters, whose parents were killed in a house fire when they were four and have lived here, with Betsy, for the rest of their lives, and that Betsy was thirteen when she died, she was hit by a train shortly after her third year at Hogwarts, in 1959, when I asked her what it was like there she said it was wonderful, she told me she had been a Ravenclaw student and that before her death, she was famous round the school for spending a lot of time in the libary. One day, I plucked up the courage to ask why her hair was so many different colours. "Ah." She said, "Well, when I was tweleve, my father got me to try a potion he had created, that was his job see, and instead of it allow me to grow wings, it permantly died my hair like a giant rainbow" She smiled slightly sadly when she said that, she probabaly missed her father, having a life, being forever thirteen can't be a the best situation to be in. The next day, however she was back to her old self, we went down to all went down to a woodsy area behind the Orphange and played in the stream, Teddy kept jumping in from a tree branch above, consequently making Merida have a siezure every time. We had been there for about an hour when three girls came through the forest, Betsy quickly flew away to hide and Merida and Teddy turned their backs, trying to ignore the girls and pretend they werent there, but the girl who was leading spotted the three of us, she was blonde and pretty, her big blue eyes narrowed and her mouth turned into a sneer. "Well, well, well, what do we have here?" She asked in a nasty singsong voice, I saw both Teddy and Merida stiffen, Teddy turned round "Hello Kate" She said, faking a smile, "Fancy seeing you here." Kate looked straight at me "Who are you" She spat "Azura" I replied "She hasn't been at the orphange long, Kate, so go easy on her" Merida said a little nervously Kate snapped her head in Merida's direction "Don't you dare tell me what to do, you filthy mudblood" Merida looke hurt, Teddy's face was a picture of pure rage, she stormed over to Kate and picked her up by the front of her shirt "How dare you. Apolgise NOW!" She raged, through gritted teeth "For what?" Kate spat back "Knowing her place?" Teddy shook her and said "Aploigise" over and over again, I was scared "Okay, okay I'm sorry!" Kate shouted, Teddy dropped her in the stream, Kate turned to me again "If you ever feel like hanging around with real witches, come to Alice, Verity and me, we'll welcome you with open arms" Shye said, then all three of them ran away before Teddy could do anything, we played in the stream in silence untill sunset, then we went back for tea "Merida, whats a Mudblood?" I asked, she exchanged a look with Teddy "Just tell her" Teddy grumbled "She'll find out one way or another, why postpone it?" She walked, still ticked off about Kate, leaving Merida and me alone. "Well, Azura a mudblood is someon who has non-magical parents, people like Kate, Verity and Alice are purebloods, they are people that are completely made up of wizards and witches and half bloods are people like Betsy, one ,muggle parent, one wizarding world parent" She explained, "Oh" I said, what elese could I say, Kate could poke her friendship, she was clearly racist and I like Teddy and Merida, regardless of their blood status, then another question poped into my mind "Whats a muggle?" "A non- magical person" she answered, I could tell she didn't want to talk about it anymore so I didn't pursue the topic, we walked the rest of the way home in silence, a long, awkward silence.

We saw Kate at dinner, she smirked at us as she walked past, I had only know her a day, but she really made my blood boil.

After that day, we spent the rest of the week starting to pack up, we kept the door firmly closed at this time, making sure not to expose Betsy, "You're so lucky to be going back" She sighed on one particular day, we all exchanged looks, acording to Merida, Betsy always got sad at this time of year and this year was making her extra bad because she would miss us, I felt a pang of gulit, I felt for Betsy, I wish there was a way we could smuggle her along with us.

On our last night we had a special meal, for good luck cooked by Frieda (The sour woman, who turned out to be perfectly nice once you got to know her) after we played games like hide and seek, in a way I was going to miss the Orphanage, it wasn't nearly as bad I thought it would be, once we were sent to bed we had more fun with Betsy, we could tell she was trying to be suportive but every now and again she would let little tell tale signs of jealousy shine through, we all ignored them and enjoyed our last night, when we finally went to sleep I fell asleep once my head hit the pillow, I couldn't wait to see what Hogwarts would bring for me.