Prologue: Can't Carry It with You if You Want to Survive

I never thought the acceptance letter would come, and a part of me hadn't wanted it to. The arrival of the letter only meant that the three years of constant effort to suppress my magic had failed. That after all that time of abandoning my powers, I was still a witch. That I can't ignore the existence of magic. I had made the choice to ignore magic out of survival, because I couldn't bear to think of the evil magic can do, how it so easily ripped my life apart.

And with the letter, considering my current residence at a muggle foster home, came the arrival of Albus Dumbledore. I know a part of me was begging to go to Hogwarts, but I wasn't going to give the magic within me the satisfaction. I had to make it suffer with my indifference. I had to make it believe that I would be willing to give it up. I know Dumbledore saw right through me, but he played along anyway. He made it seem like the coming choice would be the most difficult of my life: would I go to Hogwarts or not? As if it was even a choice. Because I knew, no matter what, that I was going to be at King's Cross Station on September the first.