Neighborhood

Homes:
Armistead House: Where Avery Armistead lives with her father and her brother during the summer.
DeGroot House: Amy DeGroot and her family.

Avery Armistead lay on her stomach across her bed, legs tucked together in the air and her chin propped up on her fist as she held the phone to one ear with the other. She was talking to her close friend, Amy. They had known each other for a while, haven met in school and then spent plenty of time together. "So," Avery was saying, "How's your summer been going? It's been pretty quiet around here. Mostly I've just been reading."

Reading was definitely right. Avery had found an old book of her dad's about the school she was sure she was going to be going to in the fall, Hogwarts. After all, if she was going to be going there, she wanted to at least know something about it. Her father had some stories about it, although he didn't always tell her everything. She had learned from him that he had been in Ravenclaw during his school days though.

That was one thing that was worrying here. Avery liked to spend time with her friends, and her other close friend, who also lived in the same neighborhood would surely be going to Hogwarts. But Amy was from a muggle family, there was nothing to suggest that she would be able to go with them. And Avery knew that she would deeply miss that friendship.

"Hmm, it's all quiet over here too," Amy replied. She was lying on her stomach in the living room, setting up what could quite possibly become a death trap with the phone's wire. It was stretched all the way across the room at about stomach level in a way that could seriously startle an unsuspecting passer-by. Amy knew this, and she was half-hoping to catch one of her parents by surprise.

Carefully putting another card on the castle she was building on the carpet, Amy added, "I found a toad in the garden yesterday, but you know how mum is with amphibians, so I couldn't keep him. Otherwise, nothing weird has happened." She inspected her structure closely to make sure that it wouldn't collapse anytime soon, and carefully lifted yet another card.

A sudden burst of air made the entire thing tumble. "Aww man," Amy whined, looking around to try to figure out what caused the disturbance. "I'm terrible at making... card... er..." An owl was sitting on the back of her couch. It was a spectacled owl, by the looks of it, which confused Amy to no end because she was sure that they weren't native to Britain. "Hold on a second, okay Avery?"

The owl, realizing that it had gotten her attention, stuck its right leg out with an apparently self-important glare. There seemed to be something tied to it.

"Sure," Avery agreed, rolling over onto her back and staring up at her ceiling, despite the fact that there was absolutely nothing of interest on it.

She didn't have to entertain herself with that for very long, however, because she was interrupted by a tapping on the closed window of her bedroom. Looking over in that direction confirmed her initial thought that her Hogwarts letter had finally arrived.

Still holding the phone to her ear with one hand she opened the window and let the owl in with the other. It fluttered to her bed where it landed and stuck out it's leg to her. Tilting her head in order to hold the phone in place against her shoulder, Avery untied the letter and watched the owl take off out the still open window. Smiling, Avery turned the letter over to see her name written in fancy lettering, the Hogwarts seal on the back. Yes, it was most definitely her Hogwarts letter.

The second Amy untied the ribbon-and-paper thing from the owl's leg, the bird flew off and out the window. Amy decided that it had to be the second- or third-strangest thing she had ever seen in her life. Shrugging, she looked at the paper she'd been given and unrolled it. It was an envelope, sealed with a coat-of-arms with a lion, badger, raven (or was it a crow? Amy wasn't too sure), and a snake. "Hogwarts school of..." she read, squinting slightly. "Uh. What."

She shook her head and picked up the phone. "So... Avery? You still there? Because I think my house just got a double-dose of weird."

"Yeah, I'm still here," Avery said, still holding the phone between her ear and her shoulder as she slit open her letter with one finger. "What's going on?"

She carefully unfolded her own letter and read it silently to herself.

Dear Miss Armistead,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress



HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WHICHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

UNIFORM
First-year students will require:

1.Three sets of plain work robes (black)
2.One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear
3.One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)
4.One winter cloak (black, with silver fastenings)
Please note that all pupil's clothes should carry name tags.

COURSE BOOKS
All students should have a copy of each of the following:

A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Switch
Practical Defensive Magic and Its Use Against the Dark Arts
A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot
The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk
Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger
One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore
Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling

OTHER EQUIPMENT

1 wand
1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)
1 set glass or crystal phials
1 telescope
1 set brass scales

Students may also bring and owl OR a cat OR a toad.


PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS

Amy hesitated before answering, opening the envelope and reading the letter inside.

Dear Miss DeGroot,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and- "Avery, did you decide to pull some sort of prank on me?" she asked, not believing what her eyes were telling her. "And, if you did, where in the world did you get a spectacled owl?"

-and Wizardry. . Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress

Amy fumbled for the second sheet of the letter, which seemed to contain a list. "Then again, you aren't really the sort of person to pull pranks," she mumbled, only half speaking to her friend. "And we both know that the one who would pull something like this is on vacation at the moment. So... if this isn't a prank, can you please tell me why I'd have an owl giving me letters and wrecking my card castles?"

"There's an owl in your house?" Avery blinked in surprise. Could it be possible? Surely she would have noticed if her friend had some sort of connection to the wizarding world, unless she was one of the students who would be joining the school as a muggleborn. But anything could be possible... her family managed to keep their magical abilities hidden from the rest of the neighborhood.

Grinning, and trying to hold back her sudden hope and excitement, Avery asked, "Did the letter the owl give you happen to be about a school called Hogwarts?"

Amy groaned. "I should have known. You really are just messing with me."

Even still, she kept reading the letter. "Although it's a very well-planned joke, I've got to admit. It would be cool if I could have a pet toad. They're cute."

"I'm not messing with you!" Avery protested,"Really, how long have you known me for? Am I really the sort of person to capture an owl and send it to you with a letter that means nothing? Don't you see, this is amazing! Now I don't have to worry about next year, you can go with me! And you can have a pet toad, toads are normal pets at Hogwarts. Not as popular as a cat or an owl, but many people still bring them!"

Avery was very excited. Her friend could go to Hogwarts too, so long as she could convince her that it wasn't a joke.

Amy held the phone back a bit from her ear - her friend could sometimes get a bit loud when she was excited. "Woah hey back up the what who huh?" She asked, trying to keep a grip on what was going on. "Seriously, what's going on? Are you expecting me to believe all this?"

"Of course I'm expecting you to believe all this," Avery said, "Listen, I know this may be surprising and a bit of a shock to you but it's all true. I've been hiding for years that my family has magical blood in it! Well, my dad does anyway. My mum wasn't, one of the reasons she took off those few years back. And I'm not sure if my brother inherited it, but I did! And anyone in England who has magical powers is accepted into Hogwarts to learn how to use it! You must have it too, otherwise they wouldn't have sent you that letter!"

"Magic." Amy said flatly. She stopped to think about it, reading over the letter. On one hand, if this was a prank and she went along with it, she would look remarkably stupid. On the other hand, Avery really wasn't the type of person who would pull a prank like this. On the first hand again, there wasn't supposed to be any such thing as magic, and if she could do magic, she would probably have noticed by now. Back on the second hand, if she didn't have any training, she might not notice it, and the letter said it was a school-

"I'm giving myself a headache," she finally declared.

"Hang on a minute, all right, Amy?" Avery said, trying hard and probably failing to contain her excitement. "I'm going to hang up the phone and come over. I've just got to see this for myself!"

Barely waiting for the other girl to respond, Avery put down the phone, stuffed her own letter into her pocket and ran for the door, pretty much running the short distance to her friends house and knocking on the door.

"All right then," Amy replied, and waited for the 'click' that indicated the end of a call.

It didn't come.

"...And she forgot to hang up again," Amy mumbled to herself, hanging up her own end of the line. "Brilliant." Since there was nothing else to really do before her friend arrived, she decided to read through the letter a bit more carefully.

Avery knocked on the door to Amy's house, almost bouncing in excitement at the idea that her friend had gotten a letter to Hogwarts.

"The door is unlocked!" Amy shouted from the living room. "If you tell me you're coming over, I expect you to show up! Which means that you don't have to knock! You are allowed to just walk into my house! We've known each other for a while, haven't we?"

Avery opened the door and hurried into the house, ignoring the usual greeting that she got almost every time she came over. After all, it was polite to knock before rushing into someone's house, wasn't it?

"Show me the letter!" She said, clearly excited as she pulled out her own and held it up so that Amy could see it. "See, I have one too! We're going to Hogwarts! The finest wizarding school in all of Europe!"

Amy held her own letter up next to Avery's. They did match, with the only difference being the 'insert-student-name-here' sections. Which meant that the entire thing was, quite possibly, for real. Which just brought up more questions. "The finest wizarding school in Europe? How many schools can there be? And how in the world have people not noticed them by now?"

"There aren't that many," Avery said, "I know of two others. And we keep our world pretty well hidden from the muggles, which means non-magic people. Only people who have magical powers can get into the wizarding places, and I'm pretty sure there's enchantments on them to keep people from just stumbling on them."

"Pity," Amy commented, adjusting to the idea of being able to use magic a little too easily. "It would be kind of funny if non-magicky-type people could stumble over them. I mean, considering how I reacted to this letter thing here," she waved the Hogwarts letter to illustrate her point, "I could only imagine the reaction of some poor schmuck stumbling into an entire village or school or whatever of this kind of stuff. Actually, I'd pay to watch that. It'd be a good laugh."

"The point is for them to not find out that any of that exists," Avery explained, "The wizarding community only wants people who belong there to actually know about it."

Just then there was a knock on the door.

"The door is open!" Amy called. "Unless you're a burglar or a salesman or something, in which case I'd like it if you went away!" She hesitated for a minute before looking at Avery. "That was... kind of stupid of me, wasn't it?"

Avery grinned in amusement. "Yeah, probably."

The door was opened and Professor Minerva McGonagall stepped into the room. She wasn't wearing the usual robes that she wore in the wizarding world, however, instead wearing an emerald green dress so that she would blend in better when visiting the families of the new muggleborn students. However, her hair was still up in it's usual tight bun. Minerva surveyed the room, her eyes resting on the two girls. "One of you is Miss DeGroot, I presume?"

"That would be me, so who are you?" Amy asked, looking the stranger straight in the eye. "And should I be concerned?"