Two short knocks came from the
hallway outside my room, quiet as if they were made with a single knuckle.
"Poppy?" I looked up to see my mother's face peeking through the
slightly ajar door to my bedroom. She smiled softly, a little sadly, and stepped
through the doorway.

I said nothing as she entered the
room and crossed to my bed where I squirmed most inelegantly on top of my
gigantic suitcase in an attempt to get it zipped up. It was stuffed to the brim
full of books and knick-knacks: anything and everything pertaining to the
magical arts that I had collected over the years was in that suitcase. Clearly
I did not understand the concept of ‘packing light’.

My mother watched me for a
moment, struggled to keep down a laugh, then gestured for me to halt my
wrestling of the suitcase and stand up. I came off of the suitcase, sighing
with frustration and tugging my hand through my disheveled hair as I did so.

"Look at me," my mother
said. When I failed to meet her eyes, she took my head in her hands and turned
me to face her. "You'll be great. You've spent so much time studying
already that I am sure you will have no problems with the coursework." I
opened my mouth to protest, but she cut me off. "Just try and make some
friends. Please."

I laughed dryly. "Mom, you
know that friends aren't really my strong suit. Let alone teenaged ones."

She sighed, fully aware of my
social ineptitude. "That may be the case." Her hands dropped from my
head. "But," she continued, turning to face my suitcase, "you
will be learning lots of things this year. Making friends might just be one of
them."

It seemed that we had this talk
more often than we did dinner, so I was not too hopeful on my prospects. But
still I wondered about how I never had much luck in befriending muggles. Maybe
witches and wizards were different? Would I fit in there?

We did, eventually, end up
getting the suitcase to close. It took a bit of jumping, several encyclopedias
and copious amounts of pushing, but we managed.

Φ