Willows, Amelia

More fanfiction.

Amelia Willows stared out of the compartment window, watching a flock of birds flying in their usual military formation over the green hills and disappearing inside a large forest the train was now sailing past. Her compartment was warm and empty and she wondered how much longer it would take for the Hogwarts Express to arrive at her new school. The laughter of other students could be heard in the distance.

She brushed the red fur covering the seats with her index finger, which bore a silver ring in the shape of a cat’s face. She sighed, and stared out of the window once again. Her eyes watched every detail, two eternal pools of blue, and her most astonishing feature.  Amelia was a very difficult person to read, but staring into her eyes was enough to tell that she had been through a lot, been through things a child should never go through.

The train jolted, and Amelia wrenched her neck upwards to where her luggage lay, hoping that it wouldn’t topple onto her head at any point during the journey. She pulled a stray strand of her silvery black hair behind her ear, sacrificing her face, dainty and pale, to the sunlight that lit up her smooth creamy complexion. Her thoughts automatically turned to her black cat sleeping in its travelling pen in the cargo vault. She had procured Midnight, a name she rather fancied calling a black cat with shining green emeralds for eyes, at a renowned menagerie in Diagon Alley. She remembered the distinct smell of wet fur and bird droppings that filled her nostrils as she entered the little shop, prey to the cries of caged animals begging for owners, to be loved…

‘To be loved,’ Amelia thought to herself. She sighed once more. Amelia wondered what her mother was doing right now. She wondered whether she was thinking of her, hoping that the first day of school wasn’t as bad as people said they were. Her mother had only just recently recovered from a very bad depression that had spanned half of Amelia’s childhood, so she pretty much had to get by on her own. But there was only ever one person to blame for that: her stepfather. The story would have certainly sounded inaccurate, as it was generally the stepmother who was cruel, or so stated all of her Muggle fairytale books. However, it was her stepfather in this case, the loathsome drunk who had beaten them senseless for being witches. The fact that he drank like a sailor never helped those moments of fury, and all the time Amelia wanted to get that damned whiskey bottle of his, which no matter how much of it he gulped down always seemed to remain full, and smash it over his head. A sudden stroke saved her the hassle, but what her mother said was the result of too much alcohol never really stuck in Amelia’s head as the truth. Something always told her that her mother had poisoned him. It would have been easy for her anyway, she being a herbologist and all, and the fact that she specialised in poisons only made Amelia’s assumption more logical.

She rummaged inside her black school robes and took out her wand. She held it in the palms of her hands like it were a vicious animal ready to bite her. Everyone said it was a tool of great importance, which remained bound to you for the rest of your life. Placing it back in her school robes, she gulped.

Any passers-by would have found her boring. Truth be told, she was. Her life was as mundane as any other person's life. She longed for a good book right now, the comfort of her own bed, sitting by the fireplace with a warm mug of tea, and surrounded by piles of books. Allowing the silence to drown her, she dozed off.

She awoke later to the sound of the Hogwarts Express braking and the commotion outside in the hallway as students emptying from their compartments pressed against each other. Amelia rubbed her eyes and looked out of the window. It was already dark, and the full moon shone down on a gigantic castle that lay in the distance. This could have only been Hogwarts. Amelia felt nervous.

Standing up and grabbing her suitcase from the tray above, she opened the compartment door to see each and every student already emptying out of the train. She jumped out and followed the black rabble. Her gaze remained fixed to that of the school. Despite her past, which remained dormant inside her mind, something told Amelia that this new school wouldn’t be so bad after all. She would just have to wait and see…

Author's Note

Being a part of the Lumos Alliance staff meant you weren't allowed the roleplaying benefits of being an ordinary student, that is, you couldn't roleplay as a teacher either. This gave rise to the exception allowing members of staff to sign up with another account specifically for anything non-staff related: you could do anything any other normal 'student' member could do, i.e., roleplaying with friends in different threads. Applications worked by giving a brief roleplaying example, which most of the time happened in an unoriginal setting, that of being on the Hogwarts Express heading to their first day of school, followed by a character description/summary:

"My character is the quiet girl in the corner grasping a book for dear life, but certainly not the one who gets picked on. She prefers to keep to herself, lost in some fantasy world found in her beloved Muggle books. She has a passion for learning, and loves to keep to herself, rarely making any friends. This could be blamed on the fact that she had been abused by her stepfather, who became infuriated on hearing that not only his wife but his child too were witches. Her mother also suffered regular beatings. Fortunately, the stepfather had had a stroke. This her mother had blamed on his alcoholic habits, but Amelia knows otherwise. Her mother was, after all, a herbologist, and having specialised in carnivorous plants and more importantly, poisons, the act of slipping something into his drink wouldn't have posed a problem. Amelia's mother fell into a depression, after having lost her first husband in a tragic accident, and her second far from the 'fairytale husband' she had always hoped for. Amelia was too young to remember the death of her first father, and so her mother had married again in the hopes of not psychologically affecting the fatherless child. This obviously took a turn for the worse.

She gradually recovered from her depression, mostly thanks to the support from Amelia, and began devoting more time to her daughter and preparing her for the school she would soon be joining. Because of her past, that of having her childhood torn away from her and being forced to grow up alone while her mother recuperated from her mental issues, Amelia naturally grew up believing that people aren't worth one's time, and that knowledge was one's only true friend. Maybe her experience at Hogwarts will change her opinion on friendship...

Other things about Amelia include her love of cats, particularly black ones, and her attachment to the colour blue. Her eyes boast a magnificent sapphire colour, probably her best feature. She is part French from her mother's side, who attended Beauxbatons, and part English from her biological father's side, who was a published Muggle author. After the death of Amelia’s stepfather, her mother’s original intent was to go back to France, where Amelia could attend Beauxbatons. However, her mother’s depression rendered her incapable of travelling, and hence remained in England.

While she gives off a very mean impression, something tells me that she would do anything to have true friends."

Written 1 April 2009.