| A cool breeze shot through the cold streets of downtown London. Cadence Cartwright sat on the balcony of the new flat she stayed in with her grandmother, and felt as the wind blew gently on her face. She just couldn�t believe it. Only days before, she had had parents. Living, breathing parents, standing by her side, touching her and holding her. Yet now they were gone. They had disappeared just like everyone else. After years and years of pretending and hiding, thinking she could somehow escape� it was no use. They were gone, like everyone else always was. Cadence sighed heavily and stared into the black night. It had to have at least been midnight by the time she walked out onto the balcony, and she had been out there for a fairly long time. She watched her breath fog in the crisp night air, and held her place on the chair she was sitting on. The stars twinkled down at her, as if to reassure her that things would someday be okay. But they never would be again. Her parents were gone, and she was a fourteen, about to become fifteen, year old girl who still needed guidance in the path she was taking of her life. Cadence Cartwright was by no standards, an ordinary girl. She had grown up in a wizarding family, and for the past four years of her life she had been trained by her mother and father her witch crafting skills in the privacy of her home. Now that her parents were gone, she didn�t know what she was going to do. After the funeral, she had been sent to live with her grandmother in England. Her grandmother, a witch as well, was going to teach her the rest of what she needed to know. However, Cadence had been in London for over a week now, and her grandmother had been so busy dealing with the paperwork that came with the death of her parents that she had ceased to begin any formal witch training. Cadence didn�t mind that at all, however. She was full and willing to sit around and think. She wasn�t sure how focused she could be on work anyway, what with the thoughts she had swimming around in her head. She kept asking herself what she had done, what could she possibly have said to have this happen. She couldn�t believe it. They had been so careful, they had been so sure, and they had avoided everything the first three times. Yet the fourth time it was finally over, and her parents� deaths had been the ending result. Even in the middle of August, it was still dead cold in the London air that night. Cadence swept her long, light blonde hair into a high ponytail and let her dark brown eyes shift all over the city. She was still amazed by all of it. Beforehand, she had lived with her parents in America, Tallahassee, Florida to be exact. Her parents had been born and raised in London, England, but had moved to America as soon as Cadence was born. It always struck her odd why they lived there when her parents talked of London as if it were the only place the sun shined down upon. She wanted desperately to go there, yet her parents had always refused taking her. She had inquired why they couldn�t go on many occasions, but their answer was always short, garbled, and the subject was changed too quickly for her to know any different. It wasn�t until the last fateful night that Cadence had learned the truth about all of what her parents had kept from her for fifteen years. It wasn�t until that night that she had learned the reason she couldn�t attend the same school of Witchcraft and Wizardry that her parents had attended in London, and why she was what they called a �House Witch.� She hated being thought of as the witch who stayed sheltered in her home for all of her training years, but she had no choice. She completely understood when her parents told her the circumstances that were out of their control was what kept her under house arrest. And it wasn�t like they couldn�t contact the Witching world. Their family owl, Sierra, was the trustworthiest and reliable source they had leading to that world. They received The Daily Prophet, the newspaper that was issued in the Witching world, and often they found letters and inquiries to answer and deal with, ones that Cadence herself had never seen. She accidentally stumbled upon some of these letters later on, after her parents had died and she had packed to move to London. Some of them were from her great-uncle, asking when Cadence would be attending school there, and that they were anxious to get her started with what should have been her first-years. Cadence always felt a large pit in her heart when she thought about what it could have been like to start school with the class that she was supposed to be in. She wanted to experience all of it first hand, and not just from the stories she heard from her parents. Her grandmother was a witch herself, and spoke of the Witching world as if it were the home she always had, but Cadence knew it wasn�t enough. It would have been completely different if she experienced it firsthand, for herself. Her parents had showed her pictures, told her stories, and given her details and great descriptions of the place called Hogwarts. She pictured what it could have been like, being there for her first year. She imagined going through the barrier at the train station, getting onto a large red and black train, arriving at the station, hopping into a rowboat and sailing over to Hogwarts for the Sorting ceremony. She dreamed of being in the same house her father was in. Her mother had been in a separate house, and she and Cadence�s father had met at a Quidditch match. Cadence smiled at the thought of Quidditch. Her father had been a Keeper for his house team, and her mother had been a Beater on her team. After the game, they had exchanged words and from them on, had established a friendship, turning into something more when they left their seventh year at Hogwarts. For the four years that she had been trained in her witchcraft, her parents hadn�t left out Quidditch. They told her about it, and Cadence instantly knew she wanted to be a Catcher, loving the sound of it and the glory that would come from being on a team. So she had trained day and night with her father during the summer or when she wasn�t studying for a potions test or a transfiguration quiz. She had flew on her broomstick in and out of the trees that dotted her backyard, carrying a heavy ball that somewhat resembled a Quaffle (the official ball of Quidditch) and throwing it through three hoops her father had built for practice. Yet once the matching black caskets had been wheeled out together, she knew her Quidditch days were over. The training sessions in the backyard with her broomstick and the wooden hoops her father had made were finished. She couldn�t believe that after four years of practice and fun and smiles and laughter, it was over that quickly. Sierra had come with her to her grandmother�s and had stuck right by her side, not leaving it for one second. She was a loyal bird, and whenever Cadence was feeling particularly down, she would stroke Sierra�s soft feathers for a while and suddenly feel at ease. She hadn�t sent her bird out for any more packages or newspapers yet, but she knew she would when the time was right. Her broomstick, books, wand, and cauldron were all packed tightly away in her bedroom and she didn�t have the heart to pull them all out just yet. It had only been a week, and her grandmother had just begun to persuade her to get back into the normal swing of things. She encouraged her to start Quidditch training again, and Cadence had scoffed and replied, �To what purpose? I�ll never be on any team.� Cadence spent most of her time in her bedroom, thinking about her circumstances and about where her life was going to go now that she had no parents and she was living in England. She loved her witchcraft, her spells, her potions, her wands, her Quidditch training, her transfigurations, and divination. Everything about it made her smile and want to know and learn more and more. She was constantly asking her parents to tell her about Hogwarts, about the classes, the Sorting Hat, the great feasts, the excitement of real live Quidditch matches, the students, the teachers, the houses, the Dark Forest, the ghosts, and all that had to do with the Witching world. Gringotts, Ollivanders, Flourish and Blot�s, and the rest of Diagon Alley. She constantly wanted to hear about it. The mere tales made all of her training and learning worth the while. Of course there was the dark side to Hogwarts and its magic, the stuff she didn�t want to hear and her parents didn�t want to talk about. It became evident the night they had died the reason they didn�t want to talk about the dark side to Hogwarts. Cadence felt a cold tear creep down her face and she saw behind her that a light had switched on inside of her grandmother�s house. The door flew open and her grandmother, a tall, thin woman with her graying blonde hair kept swiftly out of her face and her large brown eyes concealed by glasses stared at her impatiently. �What do you think you�re doing out here in the middle of the night?� came her hoarse, tired English voice. Her grandmother�s tone always had a way of staying neutral. �Are you crazy? Do you want to catch a cold?� she walked slowly toward her granddaughter and held out her warm, aged hand for Cadence to grasp onto, which she did. �I don�t know why you come out here like you do, Cadie,� she began, leading the younger girl into her room. �But you�ve got to realize that things happen for a reason. That�s the way it always has been, and the way it�s going to remain. Now I want you to stay inside and please, get some rest. You need to start getting back in the swing of things tomorrow. We can�t have you running around as an untrained witch, now can we?� Her grandmother smirked, kissing her cheek, and walking out of the bedroom. She stopped and then turned around again. �Goodnight my love. I�ve left your mail on your desk. Please open it and tell me what you think tomorrow.� The door closed and the light flickered off. Cadence walked over to her lamp and turned it on, gazing at the letters on her desk. She didn�t want to open any of them. She knew there were just a bunch of letters from her friends back home, saying how sorry they were and claiming they missed her �so� much, and she didn�t have the energy to deal with it. However, her curiosity got the best of her and she strolled over carefully to see whom the letters were from, with no intention of opening them. The first three were from Sarah Black, her best friend in Florida. She had the same perfect, loopy cursive letters that she had when she and Cadence had attended grade school together. Beneath her three letters was a letter from Phoebe Lee, another good friend of hers. Phoebe�s felt light, and it didn�t surprise her. Phoebe was never much of a deep thinker, and her letter was probably the �Hi, how are you, I�m good, sorry about your parents, wish you were here, love Phoebe,� type. Underneath Phoebe�s letter was one from Damien Brookes, an ex-boyfriend best friend she had back in Florida, and his letter was bound to be long. She smiled to herself when she saw the chicken scratch he had written on the letter and she set his letter aside The letter under Damien�s however, was what caught Cadence�s attention. It was in a square, beige envelope as opposed to the white rectangular envelopes her friends had written to her in. On the up side, all she could make out was her name, �Ms. C. Cartwright� and as she turned the card over in her hand, her excitement grew. She broke the official looking seal keeping the letter contained and pulled the parchment out. Underneath the same seal she had seen on the outside of the envelope, the letter read: �Dear Ms. Cartwright, We are please to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The circumstances surrounding your four years absence from Hogwarts has been taken into regard, therefore upon your arrival, your stature in Hogwarts will remain as thus given to you by your legal witch training guardian(s). You as a fifth year student, shall still be required to report to the Chamber of Reception upon arrival, on the First of September. Please ensure that the utmost attention be made to the list of requirements attached herewith. We very much look forward to receiving you as a part of the new generation of Hogwarts� Heritage. Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandos Professor McGonagall� Cadence stared at the letter in disbelief. Was this letter for real? She was going to Hogwarts, skipping to year four, and perhaps graduating from the same Wizarding School her parents had graduated from? The greatest Wizarding School in her family�s opinion? She closed her eyes and couldn�t believe her luck. Was this was her grandmother had been working on for that whole week of not teaching her? Was she writing to Hogwarts and asking if Cadence could attend her final three years of witch training in the finest school there was? Was she actually going to allow Cadence�s dream to come true? Tears stung at her eyes, and this time, they weren�t tears of remorse, regret, and sorrow. They were tears of complete and utter joy. |
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| Who can say why your heart sighs As your love flies? Only time And you can say why your heart cries When your love dies? Only time |