My eyes drifted from the warm glow of the laptop screen to the elaborately decorated wand box on my bookshelf. "Practice these spells at home," the professors had said. 

"Practice these spells at home."

I had to, didn't I? 

I set the laptop at my feet. I stepped over to the box. My heart hammered a mile a minute.

I forced myself to take the lid from the box. My eyes fell upon the wand in person for the first time. Birch. Approximately 13". Unicorn hair core. Carvings of water drops running down the surface. They pooled in a ring to form the handle. Beautiful. This one chose me. Didn't it?

With shaking hands, I took the wand out of the velvety mold. As the lessons instructed, I imagined energy flowing up my arm into the wand. I held the wand far away from my face as though it would explode. I heard a light popping sound and turned cautiously to the wand, and it launched sparks from the end in a mini fireworks show.

Sparks.

Sparks like that fateful day when I realized how powerful I truly was. Those sparks hurt a girl. They burned a girl. Those sparks were just a sign of how dangerous I was. And I was terrified again. A louder "puff" noise startled me from my thoughts, and it was followed by a foul smell. I noticed a plume of red smoke had come from the tip of the wand.

Red smoke.....

I threw the wand onto my bed until the panic attack receded so I couldn't set anything on fire. Probably. However, a can on my bedside table did puff and turn into a pickle. Then it hit me- If I could do that, without even meaning to, I couldn't have a Muggle career. I was going to live a quiet life. I wanted to. But I couldn't.  

I told myself, "Okay, scaredy face, now you have to pick the wand up and try "lumos."

With robotic movements, I picked up the wand once more. "Lumos," I told the wand. I imagined the energy coming up and into the wand. An orange glow came from the wand, a little sphere of flame-like light. Was I actually controlling it? Could I be a "Muggle" in the future? My joy caused the sphere to pop and burn a green light. I heard a faint hiss as a cloud of smoke poured from the wand.

Nope.