Sea Breezes

[Annaliese Vermeulen]

Anna tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear as she sat on one of the docks, paper wrapped chips in her hands. The ocean was really nice. Given how inland Pretoria was, Anna had been to the ocean a total of...zero times in her life. Her workaholic parents never took holidays, and if they did they simply sat around at home reading the newspaper and leaving her and her brother to their own devices. As usual. They'd have the token family lunches but they never really meant anything.

Anna sighed. She'd grown up to be fairly self-reliant, although perhaps rather lacking in social skills. It wasn't her fault, she told herself. It wasn't her fault her parents didn't care about their children. They were just really lousy parents, that's all.

But she wasn't going to sit around and mope over that. She was a strong girl and she didn't need any parental influence to mould her in to being a specific person. She was who she was, and people just had to deal with that.

 

[Jasmine Smith]

Jasmine began to run. She needed to escape, she needed to break free. The house was becoming smaller, filled with the taunts and speech of her family. There was no opportunity for Jaz in the house. She was never given the privilege of speech, and she was never allowed to form her own opinion. Everything she said or did was either commanded or dictated by her father and brothers. How she envied people who were only children. Being one of 7 was hard work. She spent her days escaping or hiding, with a book to draw in. Her mother was finding scraps of time in the busy schedule to teach her to cook, and Jaz found it fascinating. It was like nothing else. The way you had the power to create, to change the food into something delicious. It was magic. Not magic like they would be taught, but magic that even muggles could do. This trail of thought turned to a wisp of smoke as the thought of Hogwarts and blood took over. Why was there such a definition between muggle and wizard? Surely, the jobs of wizards were to help muggles and be protectors of all that is good and proper in the world, to destroy the evil. But that wasn't the way, and Jaz knew that. Evil wizards had bad magic too and used it in carefree ways which Jaz was taught was for the cleansing of bad blood. But secretly, and with her mother's help, she had realized that these theories were wrong and that these evil wizards were truly, evil. Jaz sighed and continued to run. Her views on Hogwarts were mixed. She was delighted to be going, to be free from home and to be able to conquer in a way that none of her siblings had managed. Her elder sister was at Beauxbatons and knew all the manners, had even taught Jaz some when they got along. But they didn't, and she had no friends now.
She reached the docks and came to a slow jog. She saw a young girl sitting on one of the docks with some chips, and Jaz smiled. How she wished she had the freedom to do such a thing. Carrying on running though, she came to her favourite spot, a few docks down and stopped. Standing at the edge, she breathed in the salty air and calmed herself down. Maybe Hogwarts wasn't going to be so bad after all... maybe she could make some friends, and maybe it would work out. Maybe?