HOAX | George Weasley

I

FIRST YEAR

September 1st

Soot was flying around Platform 9 ¾ in King Cross Station. All around there were kids running around, mothers shouting and one or two owls flying around that had escaped from their cages. Cassie stopped walking a few steps before the train’s door and turned around to bid her father goodbye.

“Alright! This is as far as I can go” Cassie’s father said while kneeling to match her height. “Are you sure you’re going to be fine?”

 “Dad!” she chuckled “I told you, I’m going to be okay, after all, it’s Hogwarts. We’ve been talking about me going here since I could barely speak”

“I know, I know, it’s just going to be weird…you not being in the house” he started getting emotional when they heard the whistle of the train. It was time to go.

“I’ll write to you as much as I can.” She promised. “After all that’s why you got me Ascor, isn’t it?” she questioned him. The day she had received her Hogwarts letter it had been a really special one, his dad was even more excited than her so, wasting no time, they had decided to visit Diagon Alley the very next day. It had been a quiet day, seeing as most of the families weren’t buying the supplies for their kids just yet. Cassie and her dad make the most of the day, buying her school supplies, clothes and most importantly, her pet. Ascor was a barn owl, with beautiful grey and white feathers and big black eyes.  And a temper, seeing as the first thing the owl did when they returned home and set him free was to nipped at her finger and fly off to somewhere else in the house.

Her father made an innocent face upon hearing this accusation “What? No, I got you an owl because you needed a pet, that’s the only reason”

“So, why not a cat?” she inquired.

“I’m allergic” he said quickly.

“You’re not!” she giggled when the whistle blew again. She looked back at the train, almost all the students were already inside “I really need to go now” she looked at her father again. “I’m going to miss you” she said while hugging him, he held her tight. The hardest part about going to Hogwarts was leaving home, in other words, leaving her dad. Almost all her life it’s had been just the two of them, Cassie’s mum had died when she was three so she barely had any memory of her. 

She wasn’t complaining, her dad had made and excellent job taking up the role of both parents, but it still hurted. She often found herself thinking about her, what she would like. If Cassie took up any new hobbies her first thought would be about her mum, did she also enjoyed this? Was that the reason she liked it? She second guessed everything she did because of that. 

Now that she was going to attend Hogwarts, it had gotten worse. As a gift, her dad had given her Cassie’s mum old wand. He had told her that he felt it belonged to her now, that it was part of her and she was thankful for that, but also she wasn’t.

She felt that carrying her mother’s wand felt like a responsibility somehow, like she needed to live up to her expectations even though she wasn’t actually there to see her succeed or fail. She was also worried about the motions of the wand, she had heard about a lot of wizards and witches that used their parents wand and most of the times there were no problem, but what if she was the exception? What if her mum’s wand didn’t agree with her so she’d spend the rest of her life with a faulty wand? It was a lot of pressure for an eleven year old girl.

Breaking apart, she grabbed her trunk and Ascor´s cage and she was off. Once inside the train she decided to sit anywhere, it really didn’t make a difference to her because she didn’t know anybody. When the train finally started moving, she planted her face against the window to catch a last glimpse at her dad, minutes later a dark haired girl sat in front of her.