The Manner of the Muggle

Chaoter 1: The Owl at the Window

Amelia Winifred DeLorne was a simple girl who liked simple things. She liked her middle name- Winifred. It was different from those of her classmates. Not outrageously different, but enough to stand out.

She also liked to stand out. She did plenty of that. Especially as she grew older.

When she was five years old, she liked to learn. Not boring maths, but instead she liked English. She was enamored by reading, and gobbled up books like they were candy.

When she was five-and-a-half, Amelia had read a certain paper on her father's writing desk. It was full of big, important words, but one had stood out to her.

In big, bold writing: divorce. When she asked her parents what it meant, they had both grimaced and sat her down for a long talk.

Long talks, Amelia found, she did not like at all.

Amelia, however, did like moving. All of the boxes made it look like an adventure. She loved to pretend she was going off on a space journey.

What she didn't like was the arguments between her mother and father. When it got bad, she was sent to her room while they sorted things out. When it got really bad, she got sent to her grandmother's.

That was okay. She really liked her grandmother.

When Amelia was six and now moving houses every other week, she learned that she liked her father more than her mother. When Papa moved out, she had taken to drinking more. It made her cranky and smelly, but most of the time she slept it off.

Amelia was seven when she had to cook for herself for the first time. She had found a new thing to like.

Amelia didn't, however, like cars. Papa didn't like cars either. That's what made him sleep forever, after all.

Sleeping seemed awfully boring to her.

One day, she got really upset about Papa sleeping. Mum wasn't understanding her, she wanted Papa awake now. Why did he have to sleep so long? It wasn't fair!

That day, a fire had sprung from the oven, even though it was off moments before. Amelia always made sure the oven was turned off.

She had gotten burned that day, and Mum was worried about her. She didn't like it when Mum worried.

The burns were gone the next day, with no scar at all.

That was the day Amelia knew she was more than a little different.

Many strange occurrences followed that day, most common when she had strong emotions.

When her mother was really drunk one day, she wanted to drive to the pharmacy by herself. Amelia, who had just gotten a presentation at school on the dangers of drunk driving, was trying everything to get her to stay.

When all else failed and her mother was about to head off, a sudden thunderstorm had poured in. Even in her drunken state, her mother knew she wouldn't be able to drive in the rain.

Later, they had found out it was only their block that had gotten the freak shower.

But despite the weird things that always seemed to happen to her, Amelia had a good life. She had learned that her father wasn't coming back, and she learned that her mother would always fall back on drinking when things got hard. Amelia had learned to avoid her, as when she was ten, her mother had started to throw things when she got upset.

That was alright, though. Amelia could clean up. And Mum had always fallen asleep before things could go too far.

The day of her mother's birthday, June 22nd, her mother was too hungover to want to celebrate. She had, however, given Amelia £40 to go buy a cake at the nearby bakery so they could eat it later.