STRONG, Fred Weasley (1)

00 | Prologue

♫ you're gonna go far, kid

- the offspring

"show me how to lie, you're getting better all the time..."

✧

"Mommy? What's this?"

A glass dropped and shattered on the porch moments later, the sound reverberating in the walls of the small bungalow. Her father ran down the stairs at the sound and paused steps away from his daughter. She stood barefoot in her pajamas on the front drive that summer day, face-to-face with a large owl. It had a small letter with a red seal clutched in its beak, and it blinked down at the girl expectantly.

A moment that would forever change the life of young Priscilla Roberts.

Before today, she kept her hair neat. It was always pleated back in braids that her mother would do every morning like clockwork before school. They'd talk about anything, the new games Priscilla and her friends would play at school, sneaky practical jokes she would pull off without anyone knowing, or a project that she wanted desperately to ace to see the look of pride on her parent's faces. It was a ritual between the two of them that, although cherished, would soon fade into memory.

Before today, her father would bring her home new records whenever he could. The year was 1988, she was ten years old, and had an addiction to rock and roll. Her dad would smile fondly before putting the old records on to play, years of history in his eyes. They would sing, and dance, and talk about their favourite songs. Oh, the stories he'd tell. The time flew by so quickly, he had to keep checking his watch to make sure he'd go back to work in time.

Before today, there were unexplained things that happened all the time. Priscilla figured she had rotten luck or maybe she was cursed. She saw a character get cursed once in a movie, maybe it could happen to her too. For some reason, whenever she was around, glass seemed to break, windows would fly open, lights would flicker, and clocks would mysteriously wind up or down an hour. Once she swore she saw her teddy float above her when she was half-asleep. These events were always at random times, always unexplained, and always righted by her parents.

Before today, there was a room in the house Priscilla wasn't allowed to go into. It's where her mother and father would work in the evenings after she had gone to bed, and during the day while she was at school. In about a year, she will have figured out how to pick the lock with no hands, and would never find what she needed in the file folders on that desk.

Before today, Priscilla Roberts had no idea she was a witch.

As she reached out towards the tawny owl curiously, stories of chosen heroes, magical creatures, and adventure filling her mind, another arm brushed past her's. Her father snatched the letter from the owl and tossed something at it. Priscilla didn't see what it was under the flapping of its large wings in departure.

Her father sighed and bit his lip.

"Daddy?"

Priscilla's mother stood on the veranda, clutching her heart. "Is it...?"

"It is," her father replied, eyes looking down.

"It's what, Daddy? Can I see? Please?" Cilla asked, giggling and reaching for the letter. With a quick warning look that any father would know by heart and a rip of the seal breaking, her smile faded.

"Hogwarts?" her mother asked, voice breaking.

"Worse," her father replied with a groan. He opened the letter and turned it towards her. "Ilvermorny."

It would be years until Priscilla understood the severity of that moment, and even longer to understand why one piece of parchment changed her family forever.