The Miraculous Effects of Darkness

Chapter One

Anika bit her lip as she stared at the scarlet steam engine. She cast her eyes up and down the crowd of students wishing their loved ones goodbye and then glanced up at Caractacus Burke, who stood behind her surveying the crowd. It was a few more moments before he looked down at her.

"Now Anika, ensure that you look after yourself," he said, "make sure that you eat well and optimize every opportunity that should be presented to you."

Her eyes were alight with excitement, but she tried to contain it, knowing that Mr Burke was not fond of extreme displays of emotion.

"Ensure that you maintain regular contact with us, as we will with you, since this is why we purchased your owl." The man's eyes flitted to the owl in its cage, who appeared to be asleep at that moment. "Now, go and find yourself a compartment."

Anika allowed her face to spread into a wide smile before she grabbed both her owl's cage and her trunk and dragged it towards one of the doors to the steam engine. With help from an older girl who pulled her trunk onto the train. As she did so, Anika cast her eyes back towards Caractacus, who was already walking away.

She pulled her trunk down a few carriages before she was finally able to find an unoccupied one. She very quickly realized that she was not going to be strong enough to put her trunk in the luggage rack overhead. Having placed the cage with the sleeping owl on a seat within she contemplated for a few minutes what to do with her trunk, before finally deciding to push it up against the wall below the window and use it to stretch out her legs, effectively creating a rather comfy bed.

By the time that she settled down on her seat, her owl had woken up and was staring at her inquisitively. Anika met the gaze of the owl and cocked her head to one side. She had chosen this owl in the shop for one very specific reason, its feathers resembled the colour of her hair greatly, which was a rather unique thing.

For her whole life, Anika's frizzy, jet black hair had been partnered with a stripe of shockingly white hair on the left side of her head. This, partnered with her eyes- one of which was a very light shade of blue and the other almost black- had always given her a striking appearance, which in her experience often led to questions which she could not answer.

Having spent her childhood in Borgin and Burke's, she did not encounter many people her own age. The one time that she had, the boy had immediately grabbed the white strip of her hair and tried to pull it out, thinking that it was some kind of wig. The child's parents had noticed this, and spent the next ten minutes apologizing to Mr Burke, who directed Anika to go upstairs. She had sat on the stairs and overheard the conversation between Mr Burke and the customer.

"That hair though- is it natural?" The customer asked.

"Yes, the girl had it ever since she first came here," said Mr Burke.

"Any idea why?"

"We have our suspicions."

"Care to share any of them?"

"Perhaps some form of dark magic, although we've never been able to find anything that would cause such side effects. Perhaps we will never know."

Anika had gone to sleep that night wondering exactly what made her look so different. It had never particularly bothered her, but other people seemed to react strangely to her appearance.

The owl hooted, bringing her back to the present. It cocked its head to one side, giving it a rather comical appearance.

"I know that you don't like the cage," Anika said to the bird, "but I can't let you out right now. You'll be able to stretch your wings when we get to Hogwarts." The bird hooted again in response. Anika shook her head slightly at the bird, before turning to look out of the train window.

Out on the platform, students were saying their final goodbyes to their families before darting onto the train as the time for departure ticked closer. Anika watched as a short redhead girl hugged an older girl with dark hair tightly, before breaking apart and waving excitedly at two adults, whose faces bore wide smiles. The girl hurried towards the train door before disappearing onto the train. Anika continued to watch the family, all three of whom were waving at the train, which now began to very slowly move forwards, belching steam onto the people waving on the platform.

The train began to slowly pick up speed, and in no time, the family that Anika had been watching was out of sight. She continued to stare out of the window as the last family members disappeared from view and London rose up around the tracks once again.

She felt a smile begin to play on her lips, and a ball of excitement welled up in her stomach. She was finally going to Hogwarts, the place that she had been dreaming about for years. An escape from the strange darkness that always seemed to fill Borgin and Burke's. She would finally be able to learn some of the spells that she had read about from the books that Mr Burke had given her to enhance her education.

Knowing that the train ride was going to be a long one, Anika shifted so that she could open her trunk. She located a bag of owl treats and put a few in the bottom of the cage to tide the grouchy owl over until he could be released from his cage. She returned the bag of treats to her trunk and groped around until she found The Standard Book of Spells: Grade 1. She had already read it once but had decided that she would pass the time better by re-reading the book, which had by far been her favourite of all of the textbooks which she had read since purchasing them in July.

She settled in for the long train ride. 

And hence starts the story!
~Em x