All
of my life I was told I was normal, just like everyone else in the
neighborhood. I often found strange things would happen to me, like one time
when I was hungry and I found a mysterious plate of cookies that had appeared
out of nowhere in the corner of my room. Mother always said that it was just a
coincidence, that I had just forgotten it was there.

She
said things like this for pretty much anything odd that ever happened to me.
One time I had to run a mile in elementary school to get ready for middle
school, and I definitely didn't want to run it. It was in the middle of a
draught, so there was no chance of rain to come and save me from the torture,
although out of the blue it did. As soon as we got onto the field and the
whistle blew a torrential downpour pelted our skin and lightning cracked
against the sky, saving us from running. When I got home and told my mother how
the sky had listened to my wishes and got me out of running a mile in the
dreadful heat, she said that the end of the draught had been predicted since a
few days before. However, I had seen the news for the last 3 days before the
incident, and as a matter of fact they had predicted the end of the draught the
next month.

I
had just arrived form school that day in fact, in trouble for another one of my
"coincidences". The biggest and scariest of all the boys at school,
Trey, had said that he liked my hair. Unsure of what to say and being the
introvert that I am, I just smiled and walked away. Behind me Trey called back,
"Hey I said I liked your hair."

Turning
back around I said in a slightly quavering voice, "Yeah I know I heard
you, so what?" "It means," Trey said loudly, talking so everyone
in the courtyard could hear him. "...that I like it. When I like something
I want it, why don't you be so nice as to give me your hair," he said with
a smirk. "No!" I cried and began to turn away when he reached out and
grabbed the back of my bag and pulled me towards him. As I started to cry and
he made a move to start yanking at my long red hair, something strange
happened. I felt a cooling sensation along my scalp and neck while the boy with
his fingers clasped in to hair let out a howl of pain as he found he couldn’t
touch my hair at all. Severe burns started creeping up along his hands, causing
him to drop me and turn in the other direction screaming his head off. Even
though I was two times smaller than Trey and never used violence in my life, I
got a discipline and detention, who knew they even had detention in elementary
school!, and sent home to explain everything to my parents.

When
I got home my parents had already gotten a call from the school, I knew they
had because of the looks in their faces. I looked down in shame and expected
them to start yelling, but after a minute of so I got the feeling they weren’t going
to. I looked up and they were both staring at me, not in a mean or angry way,
just staring. After a while my mother said, “We should tell her.” She exchanged
a look with my dad as he replied, “It’s your choice, I don’t care now and I
didn’t care ten years ago.” “What’s going on?” I asked curiously.

My
mother bent down and put her hands on my shoulders. “We have been waiting to
tell you for a long time, but we think you can handle knowing now, especially
since it’s almost time to…I’ll start simpler. There’s a society of people that
most don’t know about; these people can perform magic. These magical people are
hidden from what they call muggles, non-magic people, and use magic in their
everyday lives. This is not a joke!” she said as I got a doubtful look on my
face. “I am a witch, I can perform magic, and so can you. That’s why all of
this strange stuff happens to you, because you have magical abilities. Since
you’re almost 11 now you’ll be able to attend the school where I was trained to
be a witch, Hogwarts School of witchcraft and wizardry!”

I
looked at her a moment and said, “Can you show me?” My mother smiled and said, “But
of course.” And she took out a long thin brown stick, waved it around and
caused the sofa to zoom into the air and settle back down again. She also lit a
fire in the grate and turned back to see my astonished and happy face. From
that day on I dropped out of Muggle School and learned all I could from my
mother before going to Hogwarts. Until that fateful day when I would join the
rest of wizard society I dreamed of what it would be like to perform magic and
be amongst people besides my mother who could do it too. Maybe, just maybe, I
could fit into this new and interesting world!