Ophelia Potter: The Hidden Child

Fahgrenten April 13th, 1985

A/N: MIDNIGHT CHAPTER RELEASE ENJOY. As I promised this chapter is much longer than our prologue and I hope you enjoy the suspense and terror that our main character goes through.

Unedited by the way, English may be my first language but I never claim to be good at it.

Feili tried brushing her fingers through her knotted locks of hair, despite it being chin length it still was matted and dirty. She wouldn't usually put this much effort into her appearance but there were people visiting today to see the children. Sunday, after church, was the day that children were adopted. At the age of six, she had better luck was what the older ones told her. That she was more likely to get taken in by a nice family. But in truth, Feili didn't want that and it never happened. She wanted the family in her locket.

She pried her locket open with her dirt-encrusted fingernails, the hinges were starting to rust together. The picture inside was a smiling family, A beautiful woman that had a warm smile. Nathaniel, an older child at the orphanage told her that this had to be her mother and the man holding the little redhead baby, her father. That they look familiar like he met them once. The one that always made her smile the most though was the black-haired boy looking down at her, whose face she couldn't see. She had a brother at one point. If anyone asked she'd claim that the photo used to move, no one would believe her except for Nathan who remembers his family of wizards. He was the first one to tell her about magic, Hogwarts, and everything about the wizarding world he could. Which wasn't much considering he was very young when death eaters slaughtered his entire family except for Nathan who was hidden in a secret room. Children being hidden during raids was common and even practiced, Nathan explained once, repeating what his mother told him. His mother was a half-blooded witch who married a muggle man and then paid the price.

Speaking of Nathan, He came running into her room almost running into the dresser she shared with six other girls. "Feili! C'mon them rich folk coming today!" He exclaimed, waving his hand through her curls untangling them and cleaning them. Nathan was decent at wandless magic and could untangle hair and levitate their food from the kitchens when they needed it, but not proficient at much else. It's not like they were actually untangled, just looked like it. He was the best at illusions and practiced as much as he could considering the year after next he'd be going to Hogwarts. Fieli had once asked him how he could control it so well unlike her random bursts of magic when she was upset and he responded in turn with he learned how to control it to survive but didn't share much more.

Fieli closed her locket, pulled off the donated nightgown some of the church ladies had donated, and pulled on what used to be a blue dress that only had two small holes and the rest patched together by some older girl who aged out. She also pulled on her best and only pair of shoes she owns, as she runs around barefoot quite often before running out of the door into the bare common area steeping over soaked floorboards from the leaky ceiling.

She stuck her hand up just in time as the matron called her name with a role call. "I'm here Ms Spen!"

Ms. Spen was a young hateful woman of twenty-five. Fieli had no idea why or how she came to be in charge of an orphanage full of children. She thought Fieli was a reincarnation of the devil with her red hair and left-handedness, not to mention the magic she accidentally performed at times.

"Fieli Red! Get in line now, girl! Hurry up!"

She quickly stood by the other children her age. Ready to greet people who entered the door, yet no one came. Ten minutes in, Ms. Spen was about to impatiently instruct the children back to their rooms when a strangely dressed lady with a vulture hat entered the room with a pudgy boy behind her.

"Fresh meat?" a boy near Fieli snickered.

His sister who pulled on her plaits during class, hissed back. "Too much skin on him."