I was 11 when I first received my Hogwarts acceptance letter in 1984:
My birthday is October 22nd (Libra if you care about zodiac signs) and because of that, I was already 12 years old after a month and a few days of arriving at school. This happens every year.
My big brother Jacob went missing a few days after coming home. He was expelled from Hogwarts for trying to find the Cursed Vaults and breaking school rules while endangering the students and staff. I was excited to start my school year but pretty nervous about that. I knew people would talk because the Daily Prophet wrote about it.
My hair was quite long and I wanted to cover my face and try to get away from the attention as much as possible. But even nowadays that was never an option for me. As much as the attention brought me good things that I’m grateful for, I still wish I never had it. People forget that aspect about me even my friends because I tend to be patient, receptive and kind most of the times. I’m an ambivert at heart. It’s lovely to hang out and go on adventures with people but I need my alone time too. Please, no socialising for a few hours or days. When I’m in that mood, pretend you don’t know me.
I was upset and worried about my brother. But most of all, I felt determined. And that’s how I purchased my first wand with Mr Ollivander at Ollivanders Wand Shop:
I met my first/one of my best friends/housemate that day at Diagon Alley, Rowan Khanna and we promised to see each other again on the train. Little did we know what the future had in store for us:
September 1 of that year was the day I stepped into Hogwarts, met the other students and the staff. I already knew about the four houses because Jacob studied there and my parents are wizards. We talked about these things tho my mom was strict with us about using magic before we began attending school,
I have friends from each of the four houses, they’re all amazing and unique in their own way, but I’d like to bring special attention to two of them:
Some of my closest friends are from these houses including my bird-boy (that I wouldn’t meet until later in Y3). I got sorted in the same one as Jacob:
I was so happy and so proud - still am - it’s the house I wanted:
Time goes by so fast. It’s a bittersweet feeling. I remember it all like it was yesterday. When I entered our beautiful and cosy common room, the first spell I learned in my first class with Professor Flitwick:
Meeting the bully and Professor Snape. I thought both of them would be my personal hell on earth - Filch and Mrs Norris not included because they’re not really that scary or difficult to outwit, it’s even cute when they try to sound and act mean but have no authority whatsoever - turns out only one of them is a little menace. The other one pretends to despise me like every other student but he actually cares and does the right thing when needed... Something I’ll talk about another time:
I tried many times to give her a chance in the past few years because she’s human, insecure, has problems and a bad past (don’t we all? It’s not really an excuse to act the way she does) despite some nice rare moments, she keeps messing it up and going back to stage 1 so I’ve stopped trying, I don’t care anymore. The first thing she did was sabotage my potion to explode in class and try to kill me and my friend with Devil’s Snare for no reason at all. I never did anything to her. She tries to put blame on my brother’s past mistakes but I’m not my brother and she doesn't get to judge or say nasty things about his disappearance in such an insensitive way. Her situation isn’t any better than ours it’s just hypocrisy of her. And it gets worse, ridiculous, childish and boresome after a while,
I need to focus on my real friends, my brother and the safety of Hogwarts. Like when I met Hagrid, the one that saved our lives, Ben, my first Gryffindor friend. When I played gobstones for the first time ever with Rowan. And I met Penny, the popular girl that always knows all the gossip and is really good at potions:
Who knew I’d become more popular than Penny for just being me and getting in trouble... but alas it is what it is.
Other things happened. I cut my hair, showed more of my face and gained more confidence because I had friends to support me along the way, I flew in a broom (mom wouldn’t let us do it before then) I searched for the first vault in my first adventure with Penny and Rowan and had to save my bully who tried to out best and hurt us again:
I thought I was going to get expelled like my brother, for sure. That’s when the headmaster, Professor Dumbledore, talked to me and assured me that there was more to come and I wasn’t going away from Hogwarts anytime soon. Depending on my choices:
And that’s how my first year as a Hogwarts student ended. I somehow got points for my house and made us win the House Cup (and in the next years after that, too).
If you read until here, thank you. It may be silly for some people, but it’s really important to me to have all of this documented and remembered. Can’t wait to share more.
This post is probably more descriptive than the others I’ll write (that aren’t about Talbott and me) because it was the start of something new/unknow in my life and I represent the same thing to you, I suppose you needed to get to know me better.
