Promised [F.W.]

Prologue

"Can you tell me a story?"

"About?"

"About you and dad, how you met."

"Well, let's start with this. Imagine: a young girl, short for her age with dark hair and glasses, walking around the living room with her violin in hand. That's me."

And as she played, her body moved along with the music in perfect motions. It was like magic, how people could feel her emotions in the music, even if it was meant to be a different mood, they could feel her own feelings in the music. The two parents sat on the couch and in the dining room listening, and watching. As the song ended, her parents clapped and cheered for her as she set her violin back in her case.

Then, the family sat in the living room on the couch together, talking about the daily news, well the parents mostly. Her father gets a call from a 'work colleague' and excuses himself to leave the room to answer the house phone. But as he does, the mother's eyes had a spark of something it's seen quite often in the day. Disappointment. However, the mother turns to her child with a smile, one that had a great resemblance to her daughter.

The father enters the room once more and announces that he has a conference and has to leave town tomorrow. The mother sighs and the daughter stares at him with a smile.

"How long?" His daughter asks innocently, "where is it this time?"

"A town in Wales," he smiled at her as he sat on the couch and she crawled onto his lap, "a month this time, just in time for your birthday, as I promised."

"What's it about this time?" The girl's mother asked a bit harsher than expected, crossing her pale arms over her chest. The father stared at her with a look in his eyes, like he knew she was onto him.

"There's a problem at the office there." The same reason, the same excuse. But the innocent, oblivious girl never noticed that she never noticed how often he's been gone and how skittish he's been with his work life. Of course, she wouldn't notice, too dense and in her own world.

But it was a month later and she expected him to come back, asking her mother every day when he'd be back. Every time her mother said she wasn't sure or gave her an unknown time, the little girl would go back to her room and sit by the window to wait for him.

Then it was two months later and he hasn't come back, no letter or phone call. The girl kept asking, but every time she asked it became days apart, then weeks. Her heart had felt less and less full with every thought of her father.

After four months she stopped asking, not even mentioning a name or referring to him. Because four months was the girl's birthday and he promised her to be there when she turned eight.

Her hope gave out, but it didn't break her, it only made her connection with her mother stronger. It was like they were inseparable, she would tell her mother everything about her day at school and talk about the world news with her. The girl truly did love her mother. The mother saw something in the girl, in her was the mother's way to happiness. Still, the girl played her violin even after he left. Her music was astounding, something her mother always thought when she played, it was something like magic.

Speaking of magic, on the young girl's eleventh birthday, a woman dressed in green velvet robes and a black pointed hat appeared that night. It was confusing and shocking. The woman told the two about this school: Hogwarts, it's called. The daughter was gleeful at the moment, something she truly believed in was real. But it all made sense to the mother now, why her music had such an effect on people who listened, rare occasions that when she played the listeners often cried, most of which occurred after her father's dismissal of the family.

She was to leave on the 1st of September, two months from then. The witch told them that she would help her get what she needed for the year the next day. And the next day and two months marked the day of something that would evidently change the girl's life.

But not before her life turned sour once her mother grew sick. Something that would later be told. Though that wouldn't stop her from going to school.

The girl wore thick glasses and had dark hair and a smile that resembled much of her mothers but she looked like her father. She was in for a boat ride of a life. And her name was Aster Fiore.