Our assignment was to write about someone receiving and about to open a letter, with the piece ending with the action of opening the letter. The objective was to make the reader aware of how the recipient feels about getting the letter, and eager to find out what it contains. I really wanted to do something like a muggle-born getting their letter to Hogwarts or something, but as I was writing it I quickly decided that it would be much more interesting if it was Hermione... Let me know what you all think!
"That morning, she awoke with a start. Shaking off
the odd feeling she had, she went about her morning normally; she brushed her
teeth slowly and carefully, and attempted to tame her bushy curls. She got
dressed and crept downstairs to eat the delicious breakfast her parents had
made for her before heading off to their practice. She loved to read while she
ate, in fact, she read whenever she could. She had just started a new book when
the family cat jumped onto the table and spilled her tea. She ran hurriedly to
clean up the mess, and then went to put the cat out where he could dry off
without making a mess.
As she knelt down to the
steps where she placed him, she noticed a letter. She was so distracted by this
peculiarity that she didn’t notice the tawny owl flying away just above the row
of houses. ‘How bizarre…’ she thought, she thought, no one ever left mail on the
steps. Curiosity brewing inside her, she gently picked up the letter. The first
thing she noticed was that it was heavier than normal letters, it had thicker,
old looking paper. ‘Parchment? How very peculiar…’ she thought. She had only
ever seen it in museums that her parents took her to. She wondered who was
writing to her parents in such a fashion, and with such an important looking
wax seal as well. When she flipped it over she nearly tripped over the cat, the
first thing she saw there on the front, in velvety green ink was a perfect “H”.
The letter was not addressed to her parents as she had assumed, but to her.
She sat quietly down on
the steps, the cat nestled up against her feet. She stared at the letter,
unsure what to make of it. The return address was equally as puzzling, it
sounded like something made-up from one of her books. She was shaking, half
with excitement, half with complete and utter terror. She stared at the letter
for only a moment before she placed it neatly on the kitchen table and walked
away. It was hardly 10 minutes before the curiosity had completely eaten away at
her and she snatched up the letter and glared at the return address. ‘This
couldn’t have to do with… No one even knows.’ she said quietly, the cat gave
her a weird look. It was her most well-kept secret, she was the only one who
knew, so why were these people writing to her, was it some sort of joke? Who
would do this, how did they know? She put the letter back down and walked out
of the room, sat down on the sofa and stared at the television. She glanced
back to the kitchen; she had to open it- she just had to. What if somehow these
people knew her secret? But, what this was real, what if she wasn’t a freak?
She jumped off the sofa and grabbed the letter again. She was so tempted to
open it, but something was holding her back, she turned it over to the front
again, where her name was written. Slowly, she moved her eyes up to the return
address. There it was, the word that had caused her such suspense;’…witchcraft’
it said. For a moment she hesitated, everything logical told her to throw it
away, but in a moment, she would tear the seal open and hungrily read the words
written inside."
