Amanda Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

2. Birthdays and Broken Legs

   On July 23rd, 1990, at eight forty-five sharp, Amanda Goodwin was standing on her tippy-toes near the front door of number seven, Wisteria Walk, blinking back tears as the hot, summer sun flooded into her sharp, green eyes. Squinting, she peered through the peephole that almost blinded her, and began searching for the person that she knew was destined to come. He had to come. He came every year, but she didn't know why. Hadn't she asked her grandmother the same thing every year?

   "Gran, who's the boy who comes to our house every July?" she said casually, as she marched into the kitchen, to grab some toast.

   It had been nine years, since Mrs. Figg had spoken to Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall and Hagrid, by the garden wall of number four, Privet Drive, lashing out at all of them as she refused to stand and watch, as the Dursleys mistreated and abused the Potter children. It had been nine years, since she had had tea with Petunia Dursley and had only gone home to stare at a cat, until sunset. It had been nine years, since Mrs. Figg had made the defiant, yet split-second decision to raise Amanda as her own, a decision she couldn't believe Dumbledore had ever accepted. Right now, there was a bespectacled, black-haired, nearly ten-year-old girl in the kitchen of her home, one who did not know who she truly was; one who did not know her identical twin brother was locked inside of the cupboard under the stairs, of number four, Privet Drive, only minutes away.

   "He's no one, dear. Eat you breakfast," Mrs. Figg said all too quickly, the loony, feeble tone that usually filled her gentle voice gone.

   Amanda frowned, "He has to be someone, Gran, or otherwise he wouldn't come here every year. And why can't I see him anyway?"

   "Incredibly shy," she smiled in the best old-lady-voice she could muster, "but he really likes cats, so his parents let him over here."

   "But why July 23rd? Every year since I could crawl. You always hide me from him. You hide me from everyone. Hey, why is it I can't go to a normal school like everyone else? You're not hiding me, are you?"

    If Mrs. Figg could answer this truthfully, there was no doubt she would, with mumbled apologies for her lies filled between sentences. However, she merely turned her back and said, "You're always asking me such silly questions. I suppose there is time and place for questions like these, but now isn't quite the time. You are right though, he will  be coming shortly. Run along then."

    Instead of leaving, Amanda did quite the opposite. She pulled her toast out of the toaster and sat at the kitchen table, stroking her favorite pet, Pandora, a ginger, pug-faced, cat, as she brushed her leg. "Can't I see him this year, Gran?"

    "No."

    "But ple--"

    "No," her grandmother said curtly, "You go up to your room in the attic, like a good gir---"

    "Please, can't I just meet him once? What's his name, and what does he look like?"

     Mrs. Figg scowled, "Go to you're room, Amanda! Now!"  she added, with a look that was most unold-ladyish. She almost fainted as the doorbell rang, followed by the rapping of Petunia Dursley's bony knuckles.

    "Go to your room," Mrs. Figg warned, with not a trace of mercy on her wrinkly face, "or I might just leave you in there, and let you out next Christmas."

   Heaving a sigh, Amanda fumbled down the hallway, Pandora at her heels. She had only reached the top of the stairway, when she saw a tall, pale, blond woman at the door, who she had never seen set foot in the musty, rickety house. Her face alone showed that she did not approve of the cabbage smell that seemed to linger in the stained, peeling wallpaper, moth-eaten curtains, and creaky floorboards. It seemed as though even a speck of grit, goop, grease or grime would make her go up in flames. She sniffed smugly and grabbed the boy standing next to her on the porch, by the scruff of his neck. Amanda could not tell whether she was more disgusted with her grandmother's house, or the boy standing in front of her.