thank you for clicking on this story and giving it a chance. I promise to try to not let you down! by the way, she isn't going to be eleven for the whole story, just the first few chapters and maybe a few flashbacks later in the story.
*if you see any information incorrect, please let me know!!! (lots of harry potter wiki has been used)
August 31, 2017
The sun emerged over the hills as Scarlett rested her head on the plane window's cool glass. She glanced to her left, where a stranger sat, fast asleep on the smooth ride. Scarlett wished her mother and father could be sitting with her, but she knew a trip from America to the U.K. for the 3 of them wasn't in their bank account. There was only enough to spare to send her to and from school (and she couldn't come home for Christmas, to Scarlett's sadness). But she was okay with it, because Scarlett was still astonished this was happening to her. She was a witch, going to the famous wizarding school, Hogwarts. And she was only eleven!
She felt the smooth paper of her 'first year' shopping list. The man who came to her house a few months ago to tell her and her family of her powers, also explained how when she arrived in London, a kind wizarding family would accompany her to buy all of her needed items for classes and home her for a night (the day before students got onto to Hogwarts Express), as it was now a new requirement. The family would also have her money that the school gives students with parents who are not wizards.
When the plane landed, Scarlett was accompanied by a flight attendant to a taxi, where she was taken to Charing Cross Road, where she would meet the family that would take her to buy a cauldron, books, robes, and what Scarlett was most excited to buy: a wand. Especially after the man showing her family a 'levitation spell' at her house, she wanted to learn all of them.
All of the traveling was nerve racking to Scarlett, as she was young, surrounded by strangers, and has never been without her parents, except for public school. But she told herself it would all be worth it, right?
When the taxi arrived at its destination, a busy street lined with plenty of shops and restaurants welcomed Scarlett; but what caught her eye was a creepy old, broken down shop, that looked quite odd between all the lively and colorful stores around it. Scarlett climbed out of the taxi, and her nerves kicked in right when the driver gave her her suitcase and sped away. She glanced around frantically, looking around for the familiar faces of the family on the picture in her pocket. Suddenly she saw them, a boy her age and a girl slightly older standing next to a tall blonde man and short brunette woman, their parents. The Millers, the family accompanying her. They wore robes, quite unusual compared to the other residents of London- and the rest of the world.
Scarlett looked down to the picture, just making sure it was them. With the reassurance, she rolled her suitcase up to the family.
"Hello, Mr and Mrs Miller?" She blurted, louder than she expected.
"Are you Scarlett Crane?" Mrs. Miller spoke softly, her accent popping.
Scarlett nodded. "Thats me."
"Nice to meet you Scarlett." Mr. Miller said, shaking hands with Scarlett. He looked down to his son and daughter. "This is Augustus and Alicia."
"Gus." The younger boy corrects, and Scarlett waves to him and his older sister as they both do the same back.
"Well, now that we know each other, lets get going!" Mrs. Miller smiled, as the family and Scarlett followed her into to the old shop, the Leaky Cauldron, much to Scarlett's hidden dismay.
Scarlett realized after walking through the abandoned shop, that was actually a wizard restaurant and was quite busy and packed with wizards, only a few unaware muggles dining inside. She followed Mrs. Miller to a door in the back of the diner, where a brick wall stood.
"Oh yes! I almost forgot!" Mrs. Miller exclaimed, turning to Scarlett. "Reduico!" She waved her wand at Scarlett's suitcase, and as a flash of light hit it, the purple rolling bag immediately became the size of her hand.
"Whoah! Why would you do that?" Scarlett exclaimed, picking up her almost doll sized suitcase and holding it in her small palms.
"You wouldn't want to be rolling that around all day would you?" She smiled, and Scarlett did the same. She already loved the wizard world already, and she had only known it for a few months, it was quite magical.
"No." Scarlett laughed. Mrs. Miller clutched her wand and tapped the wall in a pattern Scarlett had trouble remembering, no matter how simple it seemed. Like magic, the bricks popped out of place and moved to the side, making a huge doorway.
Scarlett followed behind the family, taking it all in. It was Diagon Alley. Shops of all sorts hung out in funny ways along the curvy stone path of the street. Dozens of people- wizards- roamed and shopped, crowding the large strip of stores.
"Scarlett! We have to hurry before Ollivanders gets too crowded!" Alicia says frantically, grabbing Scarlett's hand, snapping her out of her gaze and pulling her forwards.
"Oh right, sorry." She replied as if she knew what Ollivanders was, and caught up with the family.
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They weaved through the crowd to end up in a old narrow building. It was an organized disaster, as ladders climbed up shelves packed with thin boxes. Mr and Mrs Miller sighed when they saw the line, as the Millers and Scarlett were only a few dozen people behind the front.
"Okay. Here's the plan. Alicia, you take Augustus and Scarlett to Flourish and Blott's, and make sure they both buy the correct books. You too okay? Then come straight back here." Mrs. Miller ordered, as Mr. Miller put two small bags of gold coins into Alicia's hands as she nodded. "Go along!"
The three shuffled out of the narrow shop, and headed through the crowded street to the store of a name Scarlett thought Mrs. Miller said. Alicia looked around the crowd as if she was searching for someone, but Scarlett didn't notice, because she was looking around herself, but Gus did.
"Looking for you boyfriend James?" Gus mocked and Alicia turned bright red.
"Shut up, Augustus!" She shook her head.
"Gus!" He corrected.
"So your American, eh?" Alicia asked Scarlett, taking the conversation off her love life.
"Yes." Scarlett nodded.
"Cool. I like your accent." Gus compliments, and Scarlett smiled.
"Thanks. I've never been to the U.K. before. I like your accents too." She replied.
"Well, we don't travel much either. Just to see our dad's side of relatives, but thats only once every few years." Alicia explained.
"Even though Mum's family is way more fun!" Gus laughed.
"How so?" Scarlett asked.
"Oh, our Mum's a witch. Our dad is a muggle." Gus said.
"Muggle?" Scarlett asked again, dumbfounded. She didn't really like not knowing things, so she was determined to know everything.
"A person who is incapable of preforming magic." Alicia explains perfectly.
"Like your parents!" Gus blurted out.
"But that doesn't matter." Alicia corrected him as if it was an insult, which left Scarlett dumbfounded once again as she did not take offense.
"Being a mudblood isn't bad!" Gus argued.
"Augustus! Don't use that word." Alicia said, quite sternly.
"Fine. Muggle-born." He sighed.
"So I'm muggle-born? Is there other muggle born?" Scarlett asked as the three entered the small store. A few people where inside, browsing and buying, usually for last minute school supplies.
"Yes and there's tons of muggle borns, don't worry. You know how back then, people with darker skin were kind of shunned by racist people?" Alicia asked and Scarlett nodded. "Well some families and people are kind of racist to people who are muggle born. They usually are families with only wizard relatives, or pure-bloods."
"Oh." Scarlett looked around the book store, hoping no one would know she was muggle-born.
"Hey, Scarlett, lets go find the books we need. Lets split the list." Gus suggested, because he was conveniently going into his first year too. Scarlett agreed as Alicia headed to the other side of the book store. After they sorted out who would get what, Scarlett and Gus headed to a bunch of shelves that where filled with first year books. Scarlett thought it was quite funny she was basically going back into first grade, only she knew how to read and write.
Without looking if anyone was in her way to grab the desired copy of The Standard Book of Spells Grade 1, Scarlett accidentally bumped into a boy with white blonde hair.
"Watch it!" The boy hissed after he turned around to face Scarlett, as he eyed her up and down. "Mudblood." He laughed with his friends surrounding him.
"Good one." Scarlett laughed and grabbed two copies of the spell book, one for her and one for Gus. She felt the nervous butterflies after she moved on to the next shelf out of their sight.
"That was odd." One of the boys said, next to him. "It didn't bother her."
"Was she American?" Another pointed out to him. The boy who insulted her seemed to be the leader.
Scarlett had no idea what came over her. She laughed as if the insult went from one ear and through the other. Maybe it was because this world was so new to her, the insult really had no meaning. And if being a muggle was so bad, she wanted to be the best.
"Why was Scorpius Malfoy making you laugh?" Gus asked Scarlett from behind, jump scaring her, making her almost drop the two copies of History of Magic she grabbed off the shelf.
"Oh. Um," Scarlett started, not knowing how to tell him Scorpius insulted her to her face.
"Well, let out with it!" Gus pushed.
"He called me a mudblood to my face, a-and I laughed at him." Scarlett avoided the shame by finding the stack of Magical Theory and grabbing two of them. To her surprise when she turned around, Gus had his hand up for a high five.
Scarlett high-fived him, and he chuckled. "Whats the high five for?"
"Thats brilliant! You laughed at Scorpius Malfoy's face! He's the worst person on the planet!" His grin stretched from ear to ear, only making Scarlett giggle.
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After checking out separately (Scarlett using her own money from Hogwarts), the three jumped in line with their parents, who were second in line at Ollivanders.
"So Scarlett, what house do you want to be in?" Mrs. Miller asked Scarlett. Scarlett was glad she knew about the houses at Hogwarts, yet she never gave it much thought about which house she wanted to be in.
"I don't know." She shrugged.
"Alicia is in Ravenclaw." Mr. Miller said.
"I want to be in Ravenclaw or Gryffindor. At least they always win in quidditch." Gus said. Quidditch, something Scarlett only knew because of a book in Flourish and Blott's. She scanned the back, where it explained how it was a favorite sport of wizards where they fly on broomsticks and try to get a ball in a hoop. Scarlett used to play basketball back at home, so she hoped the skill made her at least decent at Quidditch to play.
Finally it was Gus and Scarlett's turn to get wands. Scarlett bit her lip in an effort not to smile about the wand. She was determined to get a wand to learn many charms.
Gus went first, and after knocking over a chair and pulling a few boxes off the shelves with two wands that didn't quite work well with him, he found one he liked. Hawthorne wood that stretched over a foot long. Alicia laughed at Gus when Mr. Ollivander said it had a unicorn center, but Scarlett was just too excited to laugh.
She came up to the counter, and wand after wand, none of them just clicked with her, ad you could tell because they made a huge mess in his shop. Scarlett went through at least 5 wands, and after she felt as if maybe she was just a muggle.
"No." Scarlett felt the hard Hazel wood wand he had given her. She set it back on the counter, upset that she was taking so long. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry, dear!" Mr. Ollivander smiled sympathetically. "I've had a few customers go through dozens of wands! Your just determined. I can feel it- wait! I know this one wand that will fit you perfectly!"
Scarlett didn't get her hopes up though, because he said that for the last three. The wand maker climbed up the ladder, reaching a height way off the ground. He grabbed a sleek black box, and brought it back down to her. She carefully opened it, to see a wand shorter than Gus' but darker. She picked it up and clutched it, it fit pretty well, better than the others.
"Give it a wave!" Mrs. Miller encouraged after she noticed Scarlett just staring at it. Scarlett waved it, and perfectly, some of the mess she made after previous wands cleaned up.
"I think we found a winner!" Mr. Ollivander smiled as Scarlett did, looking down to her new wand. "10 3/4 inches, alder wood, with phoenix feather core!"
Scarlett felt like a wizard, and she loved it.
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For a good 2 hours, the Miller family and Scarlett bought all the necessary items for the school year. It was Alicia's third year, so she didn't need as many things as Scarlett and her younger brother.
"Mum can I have a pet please?" Gus asked, making Scarlett wondered if she had enough money to buy a pet. "My early birthday present?"
"Okay, fine. Your present from us. But you must be very responsible and feed it every day!" Gus' mother said sternly, and Gus nodded.
"Scarlett with help me with it!" He smiled, looking to Scarlett for her support. "Right Scarlett?"
"Um, yeah!" She reassured the Millers as they entered the store who's name was too long for Scarlett to remember. She knew it had owls in it though.
"No owl though, Augustus. You have school owls for sending us mail." She told him. Cats meows and owl screech along with some croaks filled the shop with lots of noise. Alicia mentioned earlier she had a cat, so Scarlett assumed Gus would choose a toad or something. But to her surprise, he was browsing at all the cats himself. "Scarlett, would you like to get a pet? You have some money left."
"Oh, yes!" She smiled.
"What about an owl? Its more appropriate for you, because your parents live overseas and the school owls cant go that far." Mr. Miller suggested.
"Thats a brilliant idea Frank!" Mrs. Miller smiled. In delight, Mrs. Miller brought Scarlett over to the cashier. "Which owl can fly all the way to America and back?"
"America?" The gray-bearded man said, astonished. "Well the longest flier here, is the screech owl, I suppose! Yet it is 15 galleons, ma'am."
And after shopping for awhile, Scarlett realized how much a galleon was and how much the school had actually given her, which was quite a lot. Mrs. Miller looked through the rest of the money and smiled, giving the man 15 galleons. "Even enough to spare! We'll take it."
Scarlett smiled at Mrs. Miller as the cashier picked up a cage and brought out an actual owl. Mrs. Miller liked having Scarlett, because she reminded her of Alicia when she was young, except way more excited for school.
Scarlett took hold of the cage, which was way heavier than it seemed, so she placed him on a table beside the cash register to wait for Gus. The small bird was no bigger than a water bottle, which Scarlett thought was adorable. He was sleeping, his wings cuddling himself and his small ears bent back. Different shades of white and brown feathers made the owl have a beautiful pattern, well at least to Scarlett it was beautiful.
"A shy one, he is." The cashier told Scarlett. "But boy, does that little guy love to fly. A trip to America and back will sure have him happy."
"Thank you." She told the cashier and Mrs. Miller, and they both smiled in her happiness.
Right when they finished, Gus found the cat he wanted, and he was just as happy as Scarlett. It was a fluffy white cat, and when he sat it back down, surprisingly no hair stuck to him. The cat immediately laid down on the counter, and Mr. Miller laughed.
"I'm going to name him Ace." Gus whispered to Scarlett, telling her because she was going to help him care for it, after all. "What are you going to name your owl?"
"I don't know yet." Scarlett told Gus. She assumed they where like immediate friends, because his family was the only people she actually knew, and Scorpius Malfoy didn't count.
"You want some help? I've got some books at home that show you what the name means. Ace means lucky, unity, and someone who is noble. And I like it."
Scarlett laughed. "Yeah, sure. I like it too."
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
Mr. Miller drove the family to their home in a small neighborhood. He explained how it was full of wizards, mostly half-bloods because of the magical and non-magical properties of the houses, making a pair of wizard and muggle both feel at home.
The Miller's light blue house was very cozy, its 2 floors feeling bigger than it was. Mrs. Miller set out Scarlett's items in the living room, but turned her suitcase into a traditional trunk to better blend in with the kids at school or how she worded it: 'stick out like a sore thumb'. Scarlett then packed her things with the help of Alicia while Mrs. Miller cooked dinner. They had spent pretty much all of their day at Diagon Alley, and once they got home, Scarlett realized how much her excitement was hiding how tired she was. After putting her trunk into the car along with Alicia and Gus', she collapsed on the soft couch.
Scarlett silently groaned as she had to sit up when Gus sat next to her, a book in hand.
"Heres some cool names I picked out for the little guy." Gus smiled, motioning to Scarlett's small owl who was still sleeping in his cage, which was placed on the coffee table. "Tinnu; it means twilight. Berion; protector. Daer; great wing. Faro-"
"Wait. What was the last one?" Scarlett interrupted.
"Um, Daer. Great wing."
"I like that one!"
"Oh me too! It means great wing, so its good for his long flights to your parents."
"Yeah! Thanks Gus!" Scarlett smiled, as she opened Daer's cage. Scarlett picked the small owl up, and he awoke immediately to her touch. "Here, Daer."
Gus handed Scarlett an owl treat, and she put it to his beak. Daer rubbed his beak on it, but didn't bother eating it. Scarlett pursed her lips, not liking the rejection from her owl.
"Its okay Scarlett, you've only had him for a day. He'll warm up to you soon, I promise." Gus reassured.
"You sure?"
"Yeah. Ace wont take a treat from me either, but he will soon, I bet."
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
Mrs. Miller cooked up some very good spaghetti (she may of used a little magic), and Scarlett asked lots of questions, about wizards, about Hogwarts, about magic, along with Gus, who was curious, even with the things he didn't know.
After dinner, Scarlett helped clean up without magic, even with Gus' complaining how his mom could just use magic to clean it all up quicker. And even with Mr and Mrs Miller's pushing for Scarlett to sleep in Alicia's room, Scarlett was okay with just sleeping on the couch. But the real reason Scarlett wanted to sleep on the couch: she wanted to read. She had never done this before, but for some reason, magic was interesting. She took out a pen she brought with her, and wrote notes in the margins. She read and read, until she fell asleep, the nerves and excitement of her first day of school in the back of her mind.