Post by BECCA on Feb 28, 2014 17:41:49 GMT -5
[presto]
fourteen
female
ravenclaw
muggleborn
unsure
hailee steinfeld
madeleine ruth ashcroft
 the secret life of madeleine ruth ashcroft Well, okay, it’s not really that secret. I wish I had secrets, but I don’t. My life is not really worth keeping a secret – it’s boringly ordinary. Apart from the fact that I’m a witch, of course. Which admittedly is not boring or ordinary and when I was little was a Massively Exciting Thing, but now it’s just become a normal part of who I am. I mean, most of the people I hang around with regularly are witches and wizards too, so it doesn’t make me special or anything. I haven’t really kept in touch with any of my old non-magical friends, so the only non-magical people I spend time with are my family, and they’re all used to me being a witch too. I use the term ‘non-magical’ quite deliberately, by the way. I know ‘Muggle’ isn’t meant to be derogatory, but I don’t really like it. A lot of magical people seem to use it in this sort of condescending, affectionate way, and see Muggles as these incompetent but friendly child-like creatures who have to be protected for their own good. Well, knowing my family, I wouldn’t say any of that is true about them, except that my brother and sister are child-like. But that’s because they are children. Non-magical people are no more incompetent and do not need protecting any more than magical people. Nor are they always friendly. I’m the oldest. I don’t remember being an only child, though, because my brother Max was born when I was sixteen months old. My mum was a paediatrician and my dad taught Law at a university, which are both reasonably well-paid jobs, so we had plenty of money. I didn’t really know we had plenty of money when I was a kid, though, because I had nothing to compare it with, so I just took it for granted. They’re also jobs that need a lot of education and qualifications, so my mum and dad are both super clever. They think education is important, and we have a lot of books in our house. Maxie and I got on pretty well, which I suppose is unusual for a brother and sister who are that close in age, but there we go. When we got a bit older, Max got tall and I stayed short, and a lot of people assumed we must be twins, especially when they heard our names (and on that note, my full name is pronounced exactly like the name Madelyn; it does not rhyme with washing line). We lived in a big house on the edge of a village in Yorkshire – Mum and Dad both commuted to work. We still live in the same house, actually, though things have changed a bit. It used to be a vicarage, and has a big garden with trees in it, and a field out the back. Mum’s always been into horses, so Max and I had our own ponies from when we were little, and we always had dogs and cats as well. I knew I could do magic from when I was pretty young. I mean, you notice, don’t you, if you can do things that other kids can’t. I kept it mostly secret though. Sometimes I could control it and sometimes I couldn’t, but if something happened without me meaning it to, I could usually talk my way out of it. I was like the children in my books, with my special powers. The only person I told was Max, but he wasn’t that happy about it. First of all he freaked out, and then he wanted to be able to do it too, but he couldn’t. It was the first thing that got in between us. The next thing was Dad leaving. I don’t want to talk about that much. I know divorce is common, and lots of kids have parents who aren’t together, but it doesn’t make it suck any less. I was six, Max was five, and we didn’t understand what was going on. I think I took it better – I suppose I was that bit older. Max started throwing tantrums and just being really angry about everything all the time, and nobody knew what to do with him. Probably a good thing it wasn’t me, or I’d have had accidental magic splurging out of me all the time. I can remember a couple of times at school where they had to get me to go down to his classroom and help calm him down, because he wouldn’t listen to any of the teachers. I could do it better than they could, but he still wouldn’t talk to me much. I missed Dad too, of course – we didn’t see him at all for a while, and then they got things sorted and we started seeing him some weekends, but it was never the same. I still don’t know what they broke up over – I can talk to Mum about a lot of things, but I’ve never dared to ask her that. I can sort of guess though, because Dad had only been gone a few months when Pete moved in. Mum’s my mum, and I love her, and Pete’s a great guy actually, but I don’t know that letting him move in that soon was actually the greatest move on her part. I mean, she had Max and me, and Max was still acting up, and didn’t react too well to Pete. But oh well, that’s all in the past, and I suppose part of growing up is realising that even adults can make bad decisions. Anyway, Maxie got used to him, though they’re still not exactly close. My little sister Lauren was born about a year after Pete moved in. That was when I was eight - she’s six now. Bethany came along two years later, so there are four of us. And we are a family, even though it took a while, and even though Dad’s still our family too, Max’s and mine that is. He’s got a new partner called Mandy, but they don’t have any kids. Mandy’s from America, and she has a son, but he still lives over in the States with his dad. He’s a few years older than me, I think, but I’ve never met him. the hogwarts years So, I mentioned those strange things I could do, and how I knew I was a witch? Well, the summer after I turned eleven, this man turned up on the doorstep with my Hogwarts letter. He talked to Mum and Pete first – I was outside with Max and didn’t even know there was anyone there. So I’m not sure how he got them to believe he might actually be serious. Anyway, they called me in, and obviously I wasn’t too surprised, though it was pretty cool to find out there were hundreds of other people like me, and an entire school for us. Once Mum and Pete were convinced, though, they then had to tell Dad, who I think thought they’d gone round the twist. Even once he’d taken it in, he wasn’t that keen on me being sent away to school, and he and Mum had huge arguments about it all over again. In the end, though, there wasn’t much option. I was pretty fine with it, I mean I knew I’d miss them but I was dead excited about learning everything there was to know about the magical world. Mum went with me to Diagon Alley the first time (she wouldn’t let Max come and he sulked the entire weekend, but Max was doing a lot of sulking at that point – I’ll get to that in a minute), along with the guy who’d brought my letter (he turned out to be Professor Hewer, who teaches Defence Against the Dark Arts). I was really excited about it all, but Mum wandered round with this kind of dazed look on her face and didn’t say very much. Lauren and Bethany were too little to know what was going on (Beth was only a baby still) but Max had to be told all about it, of course. He wanted to be a wizard too, but of course it doesn’t work like that – you either are or you’re not, and he wasn’t. He’d always been moody, though, ever since Dad left, and this was just one more thing for poor Maxie – now I was leaving him too. I feel bad about it now, though I was a bit cross with him then. It’s not like there was anything I could have done about it though! But between Professor Hewer coming and my leaving, he was even worse than usual. And then it was September and I was off on the train. Mum said it was a bit stupid that we had to go all the way to London to get a train to Scotland when we live half way between the two, but the Hogwarts Express doesn’t really have stops. She’s right – it is a bit stupid. There are lots of things about the magical world that don’t quite make sense, but everyone accepts them because that’s how they’ve always been. I suppose that’s true in the non-magical world too, but still, I think there are things witches and wizards could learn from the non-magical world if they bothered to look. They have learnt a bit these days – I mean, a lot of witches and wizards have things like TV and even mobile phones, which apparently they didn’t used to. It’s still normal to use a quill and ink to write with in lessons though, which is sort of ridiculous – a ballpoint takes up a lot less space, is cheaper, less messy, and easier to write with. I mostly use normal pens, even if the quills do look all pretty and fancy. There’s also loads that’s really amazing about the magical world too though. I loved Hogwarts right from the start. The Sorting Hat put me in Ravenclaw, which makes a lot of sense, since learning and trying new things has always been what I love. Plus, I don’t mean to brag and I genuinely don’t talk about it much, but I do get good grades – I always have. And I work for them, but it helps that I have a good memory, and like I say, I love to find things out, so I do a lot of reading and stuff. I’ve never been exactly shy, though it took me a while to fit in completely. I think I tried a bit too hard – no, I know I did, I was an obnoxious brat at times, but what can I say? I was eleven. I did find friends though, quite a few of them in the end. My best friend from the start has been Maria Monroe, but then there’s also Kailen Irving and Felicity Jordan, and I love them all to bits. Kailen took a bit longer to get to know, mostly because he was quite shy and I talked too much, I think, but we’re good friends now. We’re going into Fourth Year in September – I can’t believe it’s been three years since I started Hogwarts. The holidays are nice, because I get to see my family, but I do look forward to going back. Is it weird to miss school? I don’t know – it’s mostly my friends I miss, but it’s Hogwarts as well. just being me So, that’s my life, and this is me. Maddy Ashcroft, fourteen, witch. I don’t quite know what I want to do after school – I quite like the idea of being a journalist, but not just writing boring everyday news and politics; I want to write about the exciting stuff. I like to find out how the world works and what makes people tick – I mean, I generally don’t just want to know what a spell does, I want to know how it does what it does. I can’t always find out, because they don’t really teach that level at Hogwarts, or not so far anyway. But I find out what I can. Mum says I ask way too many questions, and I know she’s right sometimes (she usually is, to be honest, though I’d never tell her that) – I don’t mean to come off as nosy or annoying, I just want to know, and sometimes I get excited and carried away. I tend to question everything, to be honest – and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It’s how you learn, and also how you realise what’s wrong with things so you can fix them. Just accepting things because ‘that’s how they are’ never improved anything. I get on okay with my family. It’s kind of normal, now, having Mum and Dad in different places. And Lauren and Beth, my sisters, are amazing. Sometimes I wonder if one of them’s going to turn out to be a witch too – I think Lauren’s old enough now that we’d probably know if she was, but Beth still could be. Me and Max aren’t close like we were when we were little, which is kind of sad. It’s not like we hate each other though – when I’m home, we still have fun together. But he’s going on thirteen, and he’s got his own stuff to do, and he’s turning into a moody teenager. Well, he’s always been moody, much moodier than me. I’ve always got on with Mum and Pete, though, and these days we just have a laugh when I’m home, whereas Max keeps having big arguments with them. Not that I’m some model kid or anything. It’s really just that I’m not at home most of the year. There’s not much trouble I can get into when I’m home for the holidays – it’s not that easy to meet up with my friends, living in the non-magical world, and we live out in the countryside, so I suppose Mum just doesn’t see any of the stuff I do. Not that I do really bad stuff or anything. I mean, I’ve tried alcohol, but I’ve never been drunk, and I don’t smoke or sleep round or skip class or anything (well, I don’t skip class often). I’ve never had a boyfriend actually, or a girlfriend either. I’ve had crushes on people, but I’m still kind of working things out there – I’m pretty sure I’m not straight (well, I’m 100% sure actually), but I’m not quite sure what I am to be honest. I kind of figure it’ll be obvious at some point. But yeah, I suppose I’m not really that rebellious actually. I don’t get too hung up on sticking to rules for the sake of it though, and I like having fun, so I get detention and things sometimes, but I’ve never been in really serious trouble. Not yet anyway. Maybe that’s all still to come. becca 25 gmt |
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