"Dumbledore"
He outstretched his hand, his eyes crinkling.
"June Dove" She shook his hand firmly.
June never had it easy at Dominic's orphanage for girls. She had never be the one to be social; she seeked comfort in herself and, other than herself, books. That often made her a target for others surrounding her.
Amber, her roommate specifically, had it out for her. She would be absolutely horrid to June, always teasing her relentlessly and playing mean tricks on her. June never felt as she could stand up to her.
Until the incident.
June had kept 2 objects absolutely sacred to her, which meant they were on her at all times; her mothers necklace and a photograph of her, her mother and her father. They stood underneath a small fig tree in the front of what looks like a new house, her mother carrying June while her father kissed her cheek.
These two objects were the nearest in reach when she was found in an abandoned house, police barging in, expecting to find something worse than a boney 12 year old.
These items stayed tucked inside her pockets wherever she went.
When June went into the shared bathroom with the others, she left her clothes out on the bench. She had just come in from a mass mud fight with Amber, with mostly Amber throwing mud at June, and June hiding on top of trees to throw mud from her above.
"Hey! Come back here!" Amber yelled after her, snickering and laughing with others as June disappeared around the corner of the building.
It was only when June put her clothes back on when she realised those items were gone.
She looked everywhere. Her room, the gardens, every step of the way she had taken, from her room to the bathroom to the library; even her steps from the day before.
The sky grew darker as dinner was called on the speaker. Pumpkin soup; Fall was brewing in the skies of the northern hemisphere, with rain becoming more common every day, wet orange and red leaves scattered on the grounds.
"Here's your soup, June" Amber snickered as she slammed a bowl of hot pumpkin soup in front of the startled girl, whose once-dry book pages had been splattered with orange liquid. She sighed before wiping off the soup as much as she could, flipping onto the next page of the book Pride and Prejudice.
Stirring her soup in one hand, she scanned through the words on the paper. Her hand suddenly jolted; why was something hard in the soup?
She closed her book absentmindedly, fishing for whatever was hard in her soup. Small particles of white paper was coming out onto the metal spoon, then more, and then, more the grand finale, June had scooped out a whole chunk of paper, which looked like a photograph, wrapped around in her mothers pendant necklace.
She stopped in her tracks.
Her hands began to shake, and her head pounded. The faint sound of laughter and giggling arose as June looked around to see Amber smirking with others. Before she knew it, she was looking straight at Amber, her eyes fixed on her head, wishing her so much pain that June felt almost evil.
That was when Amber's head began to swell up to twice the size of her own.
*****
"Do you know why I'm here, Ms Dove?" The man in front of her asked. He had arrived into the main office a day after the incident, as well as the stream of angry girls that worshipped Amber.
"Sir, I'm sorry, but I really don't have time for this. She, clearly, does not have what you're looking for, for...whatever that is" Ms Dominic sighed, looking at wooden door as if girls would barge right through it.
"Ms Dominic, if I could just have a few minutes with her alone" He smiled promisingly at the sharp-faced women, as she huffed and walked right out of the room, with loud yells being heard the moment she opened the door.
"Look" June started, her eyes finally meeting his, " I know what this is for. I swear I didn't do anything. I'm not sure what happened; you're not going to send me away, are you?" She rushed out, frantically.
"Ms Dove, I'm here for an opportunity" He stated.
"I am apart of Hogwarts" June looked confused.
Was that a mental health camp?
He laughed as if he had read her mind.
"Ms Dove, this is a school. A school for Witchcraft and Wizardry" He said, his eyes twinkling.
She blinked, her mind racing.
A school? As if for witches?
She stood up suddenly. "I don't know what you're saying, I promise I'm not a....a witch!"
June had read enough books to know what they did to witches. Humans had terrorised them and wiped out the entire species. Her soup-covered necklace and photograph lay cold in her pocket.
"Ms Dove, if I may" Dumbledore gestured to the lump in her pocket, still seated.
She hesitated, reluctant to give it to the strange man. After a while, she sat back down again, reaching into her pocket to bring out the remains of her to cherished objects.
He stared at them in his palm for a while, before reaching into his pocket, pulling out a thin, brown stick with looked as if it was carved into a particular shape. June watched curiously as he muttered words, waving the stick around, and there fell into her palms a fully clean and complete photograph of the family, as well as the untangled silver charm necklace.
"How did you-" June started, looking up at him.
"Magic, Ms Dove" His eyes twinkled once more, before tucking away the stick in his pocket.
"You have much to learn" He smiled, standing up and brushing off non-existent things off his lap.
"Learn?" She stood up, rushing. "Look, I don't even know you, how can I make sure you're... real?" She stood, his back facing her.
"I think you know what you should do" He replied. "I will be waiting outside for another 5 minutes". He turned around as he said this, opening the door to hear loud screeching from other girls.
"Now be quick, you're already running late. Otherwise you may miss your sorting" He smiled, waving his wand in the air and then turned the corner and walked down the stairs.
The sound of the girls arguing instantly became faint as he disappeared down the stairs.
She stared, bewildered at the items in her palms.
What would my parents want me to do?
She decided against it, and in around 3 minutes, was to be found standing outside the building with her brown briefcase in her hand.
*****
I rewrote this as when I rewrote this the first time it didn't save!! Hopefully this works 🤞