Aquila Mag

Backstory

My name is Aquila Mag and I’m 16 years old. I was born with a muggle mother, Jade; a magic father, Griffon; a muggle brother, Brock; a muggle sister, Tan; and a magic sister, Ariella.

My father started Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry when he was 10 years old, and graduated a decade later. He was born in Mexico, North America and lived there until he finished school, then left to start a business in New York as a broom maker. There he met my muggle mother, Jade, in a bakery and four years later they got married. When my mother first found out she was pregnant with their first child, my sister Tan, they thought she would have magical abilities. By the age of nine, my sister still showed no signs of magical abilities and so my parents decided a change was in order. They packed up shop and moved to London where they then got pregnant with my sister, Ariella. The shop was below the apartment they lived in, so that both my parents could keep the business going and look after both children.

A year after Ariella was born, they got pregnant with me and moved into a small house on the outskirts of London. My father kept his shop open and commuted to work everyday for 3 years, until my mother got pregnant with their last child, my younger brother Brock. My father closed up his shop but continued to make broomsticks in the basement, and sell them to the shop in Diagon Alley.

When I turned 11, I was sent to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to join Ariella. My dad told me all about Ilvermorny and his house, Thunderbird, so I was very confused with how the school worked. My sister was sorted into a house called Gryffindor, but the hat took a while to choose apparently. The same thing happened to me, except I got sorted into the a different house, Ravenclaw. My favourite subjects were always flying, defence against the dark arts and the care of magical creatures. Unfortunately, my least favourites were always transfiguration and arithmancy. I’ve never been good with numbers and I never felt the need for transfiguration, but I did surprisingly well in it. I have my little group of friends in school and I get on well with most of the boys, but there’s always someone every now and then that’ll make a comment on me being foreign or being a ‘half-blood’. Luckily, none of my family was here when Voldemort rose to power, but I’ve learnt all about it during my history of magic classes and a lot of people in school have told me about it.

I’ve always tried to look for the deeper meaning behind things, which has always given me a better understanding of people’s emotions and things that have happened. Sometimes, however, I put too much trust in people and often expect loyalty if I’ve given help or been kind, which doesn’t always happen.

When I finish school, I aspire to be many things: a journalist for the Daily Prophet, a magizoologist, a Quidditch player for the Holyhead Harpies and an auror. I never want to work in a plain muggle job, the idea of an ordinary, magic-less life seems too dull to even comprehend. Magic gives me a way to further help people and animals, and if I’m being totally honest, make life easier and loads more interesting.

Around a week before I left for Hogwarts, my parents got me a ginger cat. Beautiful, really fluffy with a mane like a lion’s and the cutest little pink nose. I named him Gingernut, like the biscuits; they didn’t have them in Mexico or New York, and my parents loved them when we first moved to London. My mum said when we were little, she used to soak them in milk for us to eat. He’s a sweet cat, follows me everywhere and loves cuddles. The perfect type of cat, especially when I feel homesick at Hogwarts; he comes and curls up on my lap and just purrs, he’s like a hot water bottle.

I hate being in a different house to my sister because she’s not there when I want her to be, but if I really need her, I find someone to get her from the Gryffindor dorm room for me. It’s going to be hard next year since she finishes school, so I won’t have her here with me anymore. I don’t like being away from any of my family since we grew up so close and the year Ariella left for Hogwarts, I missed her a lot. I write to them as often as I can, but my mother sends me a letter everyday at breakfast. I enjoy reading them, it helps me to miss them less. I go back home every holiday to see them all and sometimes Ariella comes, but she’s relatively popular and spends some of the holidays with her friends. It can be hard with half of us being magic and the others not. My mother’s banned us from using magic in the house, even when it comes to jobs like cleaning up, she says it’s lazy and that we don’t have to do it at school so we should do it here. She has a point. That’s one thing I hate about going home… I love magic. Although sometimes, my mum asks my dad to do little tricks after dinner, it’s my favourite part of the evening. We all sit around the fire on mismatched furniture and watch him create sparks dance or paper swans fly.