Brighter Than the Sun

Prologue

I think waiting a long time for something makes it more gratifying.

For example, I'd wanted to go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry since Chiron told me all about my mom. But when I was eleven, I couldn't. I had a job to do, a camp to defend, some fellow demigods to help find.

Usually, the satyrs did most of the work, but from time to time, they would run into monsters and need a hand – er, hoof.

So I'd gone to Ilvermorny in Massachusetts for the first two years of my schooling. If Chiron needed anything, I would be close enough to hurry back. Headmistress Henderson knew about my being a demigod and arranged a Portkey to Camp Half-Blood (I didn't see why we couldn't have done the same arrangement with Headmaster Dumbledore of Hogwarts, but oh well) whenever I needed one. But now, the number of monsters had decreased and it was safe enough for me to go transatlantic to the British school that my mother, Aileen McKeon went to.

She'd died when Death Eaters had questioned her about the Order of the Phoenix. Shortly after, I was given to my grandmother, Dorothy McKeon, who decided she was too busy with her social life (the McKeons are well-known in England. We're like the Malfoys but we're not Pureblood Supremacists.) to take care of a five-year-old, so my father, Apollo, claimed me and took me to Camp Half-Blood.

"Aisling!" a familiar voice called. I turned around. Speak of the devil. There he was, with a small trail of my siblings following him.

"Dad!" I exclaimed, surprised. Usually he was too busy with his godly duties to visit. "You came?"

"Well, it's not every day I have a daughter going to a school of Witchcraft and Wizardry! Especially the one her mother went to. Man, I remember the day Aileen went there. She was so little, and..." He trailed off, noticing the look on my face.

I smiled awkwardly. It was kind of weird to hear my dad talk about my mom that way. When you really thought about it, despite the fact that he looked college-age, he was thousands of years old.

It was even weirder that he decided to talk about her in front of my half-siblings, who all had different mothers. Some of my older siblings frowned with resentment.

"Anyway," my father said, deciding to get to the point. "Your mother left this for you. For when you went to Hogwarts. Ta-da."

He presented a big, long, box wrapped in scarlet wrapping paper and a golden ribbon and set it on the Apollo table. The Gryffindor colors. Mom had been a Gryffindor. My siblings and a few stray campers gathered around to see what was inside such a big package. I untied the ribbon, lifted the lid, and gasped.

"What? What is it?" everyone asked, excited. I grabbed hold of the handle and lifted the broom up. A racing broom. Everyone else looked at it, confused, but I examined it.

It was a Golden Arrow, the updated version of the old Silver Arrow. It looked kind of like the Firebolt I'd been trying to save up for. Mahogany, sturdy yet sleek. Aerodynamic build.

"Wow," I murmured. Some of the kids in Hermes Cabin looked at it and started snickering.

"Wow," one of them snarked, imitating me. "A real, live, fancy, glorified broom!"

"It's a racing broom, ignoramus," I said, rolling my eyes. "You know, for Quidditch." Then I turn to my father. "Thank you."

He grinned and pulled out a quiver full of real Enchanted Gold Arrows.

"Well, now that I've delivered the Quidditch Golden Arrow, who wants an archery one?"

"ME!" My siblings yelled.

That night, I sat in my bed, feeling the curves of my new broom, happy to have it. I wondered what Hogwarts would be like and what House I would be in. I'd been sorted into Thunderbird at Ilvermorny, which apparently is the equivalent of Gryffindor. I also wondered about the teachers there, and how well they were going to take my dyslexia and ADHD. Headmistress Henderson had shown me how to do a translator spell my first year, so that would at least solve the dyslexia problem.

I continued my thinking about Hogwarts until I fell asleep, my broom in my hand.

BRIGHTER THAN THE SUN

STARRING

Taylor Swift as Aisling "Ash" McKeon

Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter

Emma Watson as Hermione Granger

Rupert Grint as Ronald "Ron" Weasley

Jake Abel as Luke Castellan

Mckenna Grace as Annabeth Chase