Evans

Backstory

Exchange student

I was born into a muggle family, with no magical lineage to speak of (as far as I’m aware). Because of this it was quite a shock when I, at the age of 11, received a letter from Shadow North (the Swedish Ministry of Magic) informing me of the existence of the magical community. Naturally this left me and my family at a bit of a loss for what to do, but after a brief period of re-adjusting we promptly started looking at my options for magical schooling. The ideal option would have been attending the Durmstrang Institute. A highly prestigious boarding school just a few hours away? Perfect!.. Right?
Well it would have been if it wasn’t for the fact that the Durmstrang Institute, in the year 2020, still doesn’t accept muggle born students.
That left two options:
1. Apply to Hogwarts or Beauxbatons Academy of Magic. Leave home at the age of 11 years old, to live at a boarding school in a foreign country hundreds of miles away and that spoke a language I didn't understand. Or:
2. Stay in muggle school for the time being. Learn just enough magic (through homeschooling or online education) to survive and hopefully not bow myself or somebody else up until I’ve finished my muggle education and felt ready to further pursue my magical academic currer.
I choose the second option.

Of course I was resentful at first. I could have been at magic school doing magic stuff but they didn’t want me so now I have to stay in normal school doing normal boring muggle stuff. It felt like I had gotten a glimpse into this wonderful world just to have it be ripped out of my arms again. I grew out of it, eventually. I hardly even hold a grudge anymore… It’s fine.. I’m not even mad anymore… Totally…
My parents did try to keep me informed about the goings on in the wizarding world. For my 12th birthday they gave me subscriptions to five different wizarding newspapers. I read them until they started to fall apart, and then I read some more: factual and fictional, advertisements and gossip magazines. Whatever material from the wizarding world I could get my hand on, which wasn’t a whole lot, really. I was a passive observer of the wizarding world, but not a part of it. Wizard culture is a bit different in northern europe. Since most pure blood wizards went to the Durmstrang Institute, the institutes purist, pro-dark art viewpoint has bleed into the rest of the culture. Although Durmstrang has improved/modernized significantly since the Igor Karkaroff days, Dark arts still aren’t that taboo in the culture I grew up in.


Okay. So. Long story short I’ve now left home to get a real education. It’s all very new, exciting and terrifying. The culture and customs are all so unlike what I’m use to and I have so much to learn. Although I have to say, watching some students try to convert Galleons to Knuts and Sickles, and then to muggle pounds, at the breakfast table the other day made me think maybe taking those extra muggle math classes weren't such a bad idea after all.