Hiding from owls

[Jessame Rose Trewelly]

JR had received a bit of a shock on the arrival of her first owl since the one that had brought her the news of Hogwarts and magic and everything that seemed to be bad in her life. First of all, that it was for her - that was odd; she never got owls. Second, it was from her parents. Huh? Since when did they know how to send an owl? Jess didn't even know how to do that! And third, well, that was the big one!

Dear Jessiose,
I hope you're enjoying Hogwarts more than last time. I think you will be happier there. Tim and I were thinking you might like to stay there over Christmas. Georgie's family has moved to Australia, so you'd have nothing to do around here all summer anyway. Georgie wanted to write you a letter, but she didn't want to give it to us to send, and we couldn't give her your address, of course. I'm sorry, Jessiose, I hope it doesn't upset you too much. But that's why we think it's a good idea for you to stay at school these holidays. It will be too hard for you to come back here and not be able to see Georgie.
Tim and I thought it would be a good chance for us to get away, too. We've booked a holiday to Fiji! We know you'll have a great Christmas with all your new friends, and we'll be thinking of you. Don't worry, we'll send a present for you!
Lots of love
xoxo Sarah and Tim

That was the worst idea JR had ever heard! She was devastated that Georgie had moved to a whole new country, and disturbed that her parents thought it would be a good idea for her to stay at this horrible school surrounded by witches and wizards! So she'd hatched a plan. In carefully disguised handwriting, she'd written, RETURN TO SENDER, ADDRESSEE NOT FOUND on the paper, and rushed up to the owlery, where she'd quickly figured out how to send an owl herself. She'd pretend she didn't know about the whole thing, and go home anyway. Her parents would have to stay in Hickory Bay to look after her over the holidays. They'd have no choice.

And that was why she was sitting at the Ravenclaw table instead of the Hufflepuff one for lunch. She didn't want her parents to be able to send her another owl. Of course, she'd rather be sitting at the Gryffindor table with her new boyfriend, but they'd agreed to keep their relationship a secret. She though she was quite clever as she tucked into a chicken sandwich.

((Woops! There I go again with my superlong posts! You don't have to write forever like I did. I promise the next one wont be as long.))

 

[Anita Martinez]

It was a warm December day at Hogwarts New Zealand and Anita had been making the most of her day off from lessons. Walking around the lawn a bit, settling with a book in the warm summer sunshine and even heading out onto the quidditch pitch for a few hours to take advantage of the peak weather they were having. She had made the team as alternate the year before and was using this off year as a way to prepare herself for any possible games she may have to play in in the upcoming years as a Ravenclaw at the school. But alas around two or three in the afternoon the fact that she hadn't eaten any breakfast came back to bite her as she was ravenous. Opting to fly back to the castle rather than the much slower option of walking.

As she approached the castle she quickly slowed down and got off of her broom. Shrinking it down with a rather weak shrinking charm and shoving it in her bag, hoping it wouldn't spring back to full size in the middle of her meal and cause a scene. With this accomplished she made her way back into the castle and quickly found a seat at the Ravenclaw table in front of several very delicious looking serving trays of food. Anita could already feel her mouth watering and soon had a plate filled with several different things in fairly decent sized portions. She probably looked like a pig but she hadn't had any breakfast and she had been practicing quidditch with some charmed equipment for hours. Anyone who dared to comment or stare could kiss her arse.

She was about a fourth of the way through her food when she suddenly felt something land on her head. She stopped eating, laying her utensils down beside of her plate at this sudden disturbance. Whatever it was felt heavy and just a bit sharp. She shook her head slightly as she realized what it was, she turned her eyes upward and they crossed in a comical manner as she tried to figure out if it was indeed what she thought it was. She wasn't surprised by the sight of the familys rather eccentric owl leaning over to look at her as well. "Mystic, I love you girl. But please get off of my head. Talons and any skin do not make good combination." she said to the owl lightly which immediately dropped a letter and a package in front of her and perched on her arm. It was simply a letter from Juanita wishing her a happy birthday and a gift that Anita would open later, she picked it up and slid it into her bag as well. Feeling warm inside, Juanita had done so much for her in the past year, she hadn;t expected any sort of birthday gift.

 

[Jessame Rose Trewelly]

JR sensed someone sit opposite her at the table, but didn't look up. She knew she didn't belong at the Ravenclaw table and didn't want to bother anyone and risk making a scene. She heard an owl flying towards where she was sitting and cringed, hoping it wouldn't be anything from her parents. However, the owl seemed to stop before reaching JR, and she was glad, until she heard someone speak in slightly accented English.

She looked up to see the girl she'd met long ago at the ice cream parlour in Brightstone. Anita. Jess never forgot a name. She rarely forgot anything.

"Anita, hi," she said quietly, hoping the girl would remember her. She noted with a little envy that she'd received a package. JR never got packages. She never even got letters... until yesterday. "Do you remember me? Jessame Rose, from the ice cream parlour. Who's the letter from?" She spoke quietly and almost apologetically, not wanting to interrupt the girl's lunch.

 

[Anita Martinez]

After eating enough of her food to temporarily satisfy the growling monster of hunger in her stomach and got the package back out of her bag and observed it under the table. It was a decent size, not too large but not small enough to be something over the top like Jewelry. Wrapped in bright red paper with a silver bow. Her curiosity made it hard not to open it right then but Anita had a general rule about not opening any packages she may get [Which to be honest wasn't that many, but still far more than she expected.] at the table, it just seemed too in your face to her for some reason. Which is why she opted to open them in the relative privacy of her dorm.

She had put the package back in her bag and had been folding up the letter to slide back into the envelope when she heard an unfamiliar voice address her. She looked up to see a faintly familiar girl sitting across from her that she had never seen at the Ravenclaw table before, Damn it what was her name?! She decided to just return the greeting happily and hoped the girl would fill in the blanks, she remembered her but she didn't know from where and that would bug her until she found out now. "Hello there." she responded with a smile, glad that the girl went on to ask if she had remembered her. Upon hearing the name everything came back into better focus, it had been at the beginning of last year, right before school had started.

Instead of attempting to lie about the extent of her memory she instead decided to just give a small explanation. "Oh yeah, I remember you now. The details took a bit to come back to me but my memory is pretty foggy at best." she responded with a small chuckle before getting a bite of her chicken, after she had chewed and swallowed she continued, "Oh the letters from my..." she paused for a moment, trying to think of what she should actually refer to Juanita as, Mostly she just called her Juanita. She wasn't her mother but she was becoming like one. Not able to think of anything else she settled for the cold sounding, "...Guardian. My birthday was yesterday and I guess the owls just a bit late." she ended

 

[Jessame Rose Trewelly]

Jessame Rose was glad Anita remembered her. She knew people often needed reminding, which was why she had told her where they'd met. Anita didn't seem as chattery as JR remembered, though. She was worried she might have intruded on a private moment. She still looked bright and cheerful. JR wondered if she looked as happy.She knew she didn't usually, but then, she wasn't usually in love.

"Oh, happy birthday for yesterday! Thirteen, yeah?" JR was a bit confused at the way Anita had hesitated before saying 'guardian,' she remembered her talking about a friendly aunt last time they'd talked. Before she could think about how rude it would sound, she asked the question, "Why do you have a guardian? What happened to your aunt?" The moment it was out of her mouth, she realised how tactless it was. She clasped her hands over her mouth. "Sorry", she said, quietly, and wished she could sink into a hole in the ground.

 

[Anita Martinez]

Upon Jessames well wishes Anita smiled at her, "Thank you." she responded happily before answering the question, "Yep... I'm a teenager! Feels so odd." she admitted with a small chuckle, she was as comfortable as she could manage with somebody she hadn't spoken to since she was Eleven. Looking over at the other girls plate for a moment she interjected, "Hey, you should try some of that red sauce over some of your chicken. It's a bit like ketchup only way spicier, contrasts quite nicely." she said to the younger girl. Dipping a bit of her chicken in the small puddle of it on her plate and eating it.

Anita was glad she had already swallowed when JR asked her next question or she might have had half masticated spicy chicken sprayed all over the place. The bluntness of her inquiry surprised her, which was quite odd considering Anita wasn't exactly known for sugar coating things or beating around the bush, better to get straight to the point. But about a situation such as that it had caught her off guard. She noticed the girl seemed to be embarrassed and decided to tell her, it wasn't like it was a scandalous secret or anything. Just one of the sore points in Anita life. She let out a small sigh, "I talked about her last time didn't I?" he asked before going on, "She died not long after I talked to you actually... Last October. Heart Attack." she said, her voice low as the pain stung at her heart again. Juanita had been an amazing person to her this past year, a major upgrade from the orphanage she had been at that first month.

 

[Jessame Rose Trewelly]

JR giggled with Anita when she said it was weird to be a teenager. It would be her turn soon, she realised. She couldn't wait. She pulled a face when Anita suggested the red sauce for her chicken. "Ketchup? You mean tomato sauce?" she laughed. She knew most people called tomato sauce 'ketchup' in other parts of the world, but they were in New Zealand now, she reasoned, they should speak New Zealand English. "No thanks, I don't like spicy stuff."She preferred her food plain and, well, boring.

As soon as she saw Anita's reaction to her question, JR felt absolutely awful. She listened with sympathy as Anita explained. "Oh jeez! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to bring that up. Oh goodness... I'm really sorry... are you okay?" Jess was genuinely concerned for Anita. She tried to remember if Anita knew JR was a foster-kid or if she'd lied to her and told her she had parents. That was the problem with lying - it was so easy to forget who you told what to. "Is... is your guardian nice?" She hoped to change the subject away from the death of Anita's aunt.

 

[Anita Martinez]

When Jessame looked at her oddly over her choice in wording she raised an eyebrow before the younger girl explained, so it was called tomato sauce here? That sounded a whole lot less appealing to Anita for some reason even though she knew it was made from tomatoes. "Yeah, I guess... But I think I'll keep calling it ketchup." she said with a small chuckle before taking another bite of her ketchup. When the girl declined Anita shrugged "To each their own, I guess where I grew up with spicy foods I have an affinity towards them. I like my food hot hot hot!" she ended with a silly grin.

After she explained just why she had a guardian now she wasn't too surprised to hear a springloaded can of apologies headed her way from the other girl. People had a tendency to do that when they've brought up such a sensitive subject. When asked if she was okay Anita nodded, "Well, relatively speaking I am. Time definitely helps but you don't ever truly get over the death of a loved one you know?" she said, thinking more about her dear mother now. Murdered when Anita was a mere nine years old, and her father who was still alive but dead to her. Jessame tossed out a change of subject and Anita clung to it, not wanting to dwell on what was wrong in her life. "Oh she's very nice, not used to living with so many people. I'm the third girl shes taken in and she has five kids of her own. It's good to live with my half sisters though." she said, not wanting to just blurt out that her fathers ex wife, whos adulterous husbands canoodling brought about her existance, was the one who quite surprisingly gave her a place to call home.

 

[Jessame Rose Trewelly]

JR was shocked, "Eight kids? Wow! That must be great!" She'd always wanted to be part of a large family. "I didn't know you had half sisters. That must be nice. I always wanted brothers and sisters. Maybe I have some out there somewhere." She hadn't really realised she'd said that last bit out loud. She never usually told anyone about that secret wish. In fact, most people here at Hogwarts she had actually lied to and said she lived with her real parents. She'd met Anita before she'd made the decision to lie about that, though.

 

[Anita Martinez]

Anita giggled a bit at Jessames reaction, knowing herself how it was to long for a big family but never think of actually getting it. Anita was one of the lucky ones as far as 'orphans' went. She smiled at the Hufflepuff and nodded, "I love it. When I was growing up it was just my mom and I, then just me and my aunt. It's a big adjustment but it's totally worth it. Do you know any of the Paramores? They're my half sisters." she chirped, highly proud of them, especially being related to the current Head Girl. At her next words Anita decided to think through her words carefully for a change, after a few moments she decided against prying as she said, "I didn't either until I was about ten, quite a shock I'll tell you." After a few more moments she decided to simply give her some encouraging words, "If you do maybe you'll find them some day." she said, empathy written on her face. She knew she was extremely lucky to have a family at all now let alone the one she did manage to fit in to.

 

[Jessame Rose Trewelly]

JR knew the name Paramore, "The head girl? Wow," she smiled, but she wasn't sure if she really meant it. Having siblings would be great and all, but if they were magic? JR thought she could happily give them up. It didn't stop her from wondering though. "Yeah, maybe someday... gosh it would be really great to know who my biological parents were, you know? Do you think I should try and look for them? You found your dad, right?"