Prologue

A small town in Ontario, Canada, June 13th, 1997

Walking home from school was always one of my favourite moments of the entire day. Today more than ever, now that it was mid-June and that everyone could feel the scent of summer in the air, especially the high school students who couldn't wait for the school year to finally be over. For my own part, I was more anxious to leave for university than to spend my holidays at home on my own, like I'd done the previous year and the year before that one as well. University. The freedom I'd always wanted. Sighing, I added another item to my mental things to do list; buy a calendar so I would have the pleasure of crossing away the days that separated me from the moment when I would leave home. Not that home was a horrible place or anything. Yes, I did have my own bedroom (which wasn't really such an accomplishment since I was the only minor in the house) and it wasn't ugly at all. Yes, my parents were nice people who earned enough money for the family to live comfortably. Yes, I was very lucky, everyone said so, and I thought so as well, whenever I saw people living on the streets without anything to eat or a place to call home. But was it really my fault that it felt as though something was just… missing? It had felt that way for a long time now. I just didn't feel at home when I was home. I didn't feel like I belonged when I was among family members or among the people I called my friends. That was the problem; I belonged nowhere. And so I thought, naively maybe, that me leaving this place I didn't belong to would solve everything. I was more anxious than anything to leave for university, because honestly, if that wasn't the solution to my problems, then nothing would be.

"Hey Stringer!"

Grimacing, I straightened up and quickened my pace. Ignore him just ignore him.

"Meliiiinda?" He dragged out my name in such a disgusting manner that I felt as though I had no choice but to intervene.

"What do you want Steve?" I asked coldly.

"No need to ice queen me." Grinning, the guy caught up with me and slowed to a walk beside me. "I need to use your notes for tomorrow's test."

"What's wrong with your own notes?"

"I haven't taken any."

Sighing, I finally glanced at him. He was walking swiftly, his hands shoved into his jean's pockets, and his chin sticking up in the air like he owned the entire world or something. The guy was annoying just to stare at, honestly.

"I don't think so."

"Oh come on, try not to be a bitch, for once, yeah?"

That sentence was just begging for a punch in the face and a quick trip to the ER, and I would have gladly obliged if the person who had said it had been somebody else. Anyone but Steve, the mayor's son, whom my own mother wanted to see me date and who got invited to our house about once a week. It wasn't even worth it to hold my ground against Steve, as I ultimately lost every single time I tried. Except when he asked me out. I wouldn't budge on that issue.

"Fine," I finally said, reaching into my bag and pulling out the notes I'd taken that day during Mrs Meyers' Civil War lecture, "just take them."

He did, folding the papers and shoving them roughly in his own backpack. No thanks. Of course not, I'd learned not to expect so much from Steve. Instead, he slung a lazy arm across my shoulders and tried to smile in a flirty way. Ew.

"So, you busy tonight?"

"Yes. And so are you."

He blinked at me stupidly. "I am?"

"Remember the test tomorrow? You just took my notes so you could study for it." He seemed disappointed, and thankfully let his arm drop from my shoulders.

"Right" he sort of groaned, in a rather good imitation of an angry gorilla, "later Stringer."

He finally left me alone; unfortunately, I'd just reached my house. As I climbed the front steps, I realized that Stupid Steve had just ruined one of the few enjoyable moments of my day by being by my side during most of it. What a jerk. Opening the door, I stepped into the house, kicked off my shoes, threw my jacket on the couch and tripped on the living-room carpet, like I did each and every single day of my very repetitive life. Sighing, I went into the kitchen to fetch myself a glass of milk and found my mom sitting at the table, surrounded by various pieces of paper. She smiled at me as I walked in.

"Hi honey."

"Hey mom." I opened the fridge and began scanning its contents for anything that wasn't fizzy.

"Was that Steve I just saw outside?" My mother's voice sounded carefully uninterested. I knew better than to believe that she was, though.

"Yeah, how'd'you know?"

My mom pointed, in a manner that showed me just how obvious the answer was, to the kitchen window, which showed most of our front yard. Never trust a window, I told myself seriously and had to supress a giggle. It sounded so much like something that Jonathan would have said. The thought sobered me up immediately.

"He was just asking me to lend him my notes for tomorrow's test."

"Oh," and my mom sounded worried all of the sudden, "but how will you study, dear?"

"I already know most of it mom, don't worry."

"I'm not worrying, honey." My mother smiled up at me again. "I know how serious you are with your studies." And I was. It was safe to say that I was a nerd. And a control-freak who couldn't stand it when my room wasn't completely clean. "The perfect daughter", I'd once heard my mom say to a couple of friends some years ago. Was I? I didn't do drugs, didn't drink, hardly ever left my room except to go to school or on the rare occasions when a friend would invite me out. Perfect conduct, yes. But perfect daughter? I wasn't perfect at all. I knew that I had strong temper issues and a tendency to hold grudges. I was also a huge liar. I felt as though I was pretending to be someone else all the time. Pretending, for example, to be the perfect daughter, when I was far from perfect, pretending that everything was alright, that I was happy, that I felt complete, and no, there wasn't anything missing, and no, magic didn't exist, what a curious thing to say, and no, I didn't miss Jonathan at all, why would I, I was fine, completely fine...

Seeing that mom still didn't look reassured, I added:

"But you know what, I think I'm still going to study, you know, just to be sure." And I was relieved to see my mom happy again, trusting me, smiling like everything was alright, everything was fine…

"You do that honey." And as I climbed up the stairs to get to my bedroom, I heard my mother humming a tune happily and felt as though I had succeeded in taking her anxious thoughts away from her. It had been my mission, I realized as I flung myself on my bed and crossed my arms under my head, staring at the ceiling, a mission to keep my parents happy, the family united and complete ever since Jonathan had left. Jonathan. My brother's name brought, as always, mixed emotions: first a terrible ache that came from someplace close to my heart, and then a wave of anger which seemed to swallow the other sentiment completely and that left me almost shaking with rage and grief, my fists clenched tightly at my side. Because it was his fault, his fault entirely that I was still here, alone, unable to show my true self because I had to be strong for everybody, to keep everything under control and running smoothly; when he'd left, he'd destroyed something that I thought was rock solid, as if he'd broken the foundation on which the entire family stood and I had been left to pick up the pieces, to try and make everything fit together without him, to keep the family, the house, standing despite the lack of what he'd taken with him. He'd been selfish, so selfish when he'd left. And I hated him, not just because he'd left, but especially because of how he'd left, and because of that horrible last look…

After the this first wave of emotions, the mental images would come to me; closing my eyes, I would see the two of us playing catch in the backyard, that time when I'd hurt my ankle and he'd had to carry me home on his back all the way from the park, the day that a tall bearded man with half-moon spectacles had crossed the threshold to tell my parents that Jonathan was a wizard and had to go to a special school far away from home to learn how to use magic. I remembered that day only dimly; I'd only been four at the time. But I vividly remembered Jonathan leaving for that place, the train station we'd gone to in London where we had searched for the 9¾ platform until we'd come across a young ginger haired boy and his ginger haired father. They'd showed Jonathan how to cross a pillar over to the platform and the three of them had left, my parents and I unable to go with Jonathan because we weren't wizards like he was. I'd cried a lot that day and it had felt very lonely without Jonathan in the house. I used to go to his room and bury my face in his pillow; I'd close my eyes and imagine him sitting there beside me. But then he'd come back for Christmas, his pockets full of live chocolate frogs and he'd held me in his arms telling me that he had missed me so much, and I had felt so happy to see him there, sitting in his chair at the kitchen table beside me, where he really, truly belonged. He was so enthusiastic about what he'd discovered, and he kept telling us about things that we couldn't even imagine, flying brooms and stairs that moved by themselves and paintings which were alive and could talk to you. He'd say impossible words like Quidditch and Gryffindor and golden snitch and dragons. He'd also taken a picture out of his pocket where I could see him standing beside three boys, arms linked, grinning like crazy and waving at me. "That's Bill," Jonathan had said, pointing at the boy on his right, and I had recognized the ginger boy from the train station, "He's my best friend."

It had been easier when he had left again because he had promised to write, "by owl," he'd said, and I had laughed out loud when he'd said it, unable to imagine such a thing. As the years went by, my family and I became more and more accustomed to the world of magic. I was the one who answered Jonathan's frequent letters, using Sam, his very own owl. My parents were impossibly proud, as I was, of what my father would call "the family's little magician". Even if Jon wasn't at home often, the two of us only grew closer as the years went by. But the distance between home and his school was such that Jon only came home during the summer. I'd asked him, once, why he didn't go to a magic school in America.

"There aren't many wizards in America, even less in Canada. Consequently, there are no wizardry schools here, and since Hogwarts is the best school in the world, most foreign students go there anyway."

"When will I go?" I'd asked like the naïve little nine-year-old that I was. And he'd patted me on the head sadly, telling me that he didn't know that yet.

One day during the summer before my eleventh birthday, his best friend's family, the Weasleys, had invited the four of us for dinner. I'd met an enormous gang of redheads, mostly boys except for one little girl, Ginny, who had been eight at the time. They'd treated me nicely enough, but I'd found everyone's behaviour kind of strange; when I'd asked Jon about it, he'd simply answered:

"They're not used to muggles. They just don't know how to behave around you, that's all."

"I liked the twins well enough, they didn't treat me weird." I had spent the entire evening with the two boys who were the funniest people I'd ever met; together we'd planned several pranks on various members of the huge family, especially on their big brother, the one with the glasses who spoke to everyone like they were the president of the United States.

Jonathan left for his last year at Hogwarts. Then I'd turned eleven, and when no bearded man had come to knock on the front door, I'd cried for an entire day, feeling like a complete failure. My mother had held me close, rocking me back and forth like I was a baby and whispering that her and my father loved me all the same. But how could they when I hated myself so much?

After he'd finished his studies at Hogwarts, Jonathan left to go to Egypt with Bill as a curse-breaker for the biggest wizard bank of London. We had seen him less and less from that point on, but still exchanged at least one letter per week. I missed my big brother terribly, knowing that he had a very dangerous job far away from home. And two years ago, he'd come back home for his twenty-third birthday. My parents had been so happy to see him again, preparing his old room for his return and getting him presents. But when I'd hugged him as he opened the door, his hair longer than I remembered and his face beautifully tanned, as he murmured: "Missed you Jelly", his arms around me, I couldn't help but feel as though something was different, almost wrong.

And then I'd woken up that terrible morning, earlier than usual upon hearing strange noises coming from his room, and I'd found him already dressed, a bag over his shoulder. I had seen that he'd cleaned out his room, taking his posters and every piece of clothing from the shelves, his laptop and an old drawing that I'd given him for his twentieth birthday. I'd stood before him, still in my PJs, looking at him as he'd stared at me, both of us silent. Because I had known what was happening, that he was leaving for good this time. I could see it in his eyes, which were exactly the same colour as my own. I had seen that he was about to disapparate, he'd already done it in front of me, and before I could stop myself I'd raised my hand desperately towards him, as if I could, with this simple gesture, keep him there with me. And that's when he had sent me a look, a horrible, terrible glance, full of disgust and mocking my inability to do anything. And then he was gone. Just like that. Taking everything with him, Jonathan had erased himself from our lives.

I didn't try writing to him, firstly because he'd taken Sam with him and that I had no way of getting in touch with my brother without the owl. And secondly, because of that last look. He'd looked disgusted with me, because I wasn't like him, a wizard. It had hurt me beyond words. It was a stranger who had cast that look. That had been when I'd realized that my carefree, fun and loving brother, with his cinnamon eyes and golden freckles and chocolate brown hair was truly gone.