I realise that I gave away very little about my life and who I am in the previous chapter. Last night, I finished my Charms Journal for the second lesson. I'll be moving on to the third lesson in all four of my subjects shortly. By now, things have settled down and my timing of charms has 'levelled itself out'. Anyway, let's begin...

My birthday falls on December. I've been a winter baby as far as I can remember, with two sets of presents to accompany it. Then again, I wasn't difficult to buy presents for. A notebook, a sketchpad, a sandbox game - as long as I could create with it, it was the best investment you could ever have made.

Two years ago, the pieces gradually began to fall away from their places. Althea, my younger sister, fell ill. She's one year my junior - that is, she wasn't born in the July immediately after 'my' December but in the next one. At the time, we were in Spain and we'd been warned not to do anything that might cause us illness (I'm not even sure precisely what that meant). There were no doctors in the area. However, she found it an excellent time to fall down two flights of stairs in a cramped little shop. Long story (as) short (as possible), a minor panic broke out and my tugged her away. I presume he performed some kind of healing because she returned on her feet, with only a bruise and a headache to show for it.

My mother questioned it, she wasn't one to let things go. At least not easily. One night, the iron-clad temperament slipped and the truth of my father's lineage came out. He was forced out into the street by sharpened nails and screeching tones. It wasn't the best way to find out. Yet that was no excuse for what happened next.

I started to 'develop'. Magically, I mean. She started to turn Althea against me, buying me dirt cheap things and spending three times as much on her. She told the muggle school I attended that I was 'special', I had 'behavioural issues'. Then came the words. The 'bullies', if you could call them that.

One night, a...plump man came to the door. We'd down-sized to a refurbished, three-bedroom house in a considerably deprived area of England. But, don't get me wrong, I'm far from stately or posh. I've heard slang terms and everything else for the majority of my life. Money doesn't change your tongue. It just changes what you put on it.

I mentioned my uncle. That was him. He was my mother's brother, and I'd soon discover that he was a muggle-born. He'd hidden it well, being the eldest of his lot. Something about a military boys' school. None of this he said to my mother. The tale goes that, whenever a magical child was born into the family, whichever relatives that were of our world would take them under their wing.

However, I never got to know the whole story. I received an owl, informing me he'd been taken into hospital. Saint Mungo's. Unknow, unregistered condition.

So, with that being a little more than brief and a little less than thorough, that's my past. For that reason, before you truly know me, I'll either spin you a tale or become largely formal.