May 28, 1976
11:57 am
Ilvermorny

"Run!" Anneliese shouted with a huge smile on her face as she sprinted down the grey stone hallways of Ilvermorny, her cranberry colored robes flowing behind her. "Do you honestly think that's fast, you idiot? Hurry up!"

Her tanned cheeks were covered in a flustered splatter of freckles that were accompanied by a heavy blush that happened whenever she ran, no matter how substantial her stamina was from getting chased by teachers so often.

"We weren't all raised on some farm in Tennessee where we got muscles!" Leo shouted back, his chest heaving with the effort of keeping up with her. "Is anyone even following us?"

The two Thunderbirds paused for a moment, looking back at them to see if any teachers had caught them. There were a few moments of silence where they could only hear their hearts beat and the torches with light blue flames crackle before what sounded like a stampede sounded around the corner.

"Yep, never mind, they are definitely following us!" Anneliese shouted, grabbing Leo's hand with her tattooed one and pulling him around the corner with her. "I don't think they'll come this way!"

"No, they won't," Leo said with relief, pressing his back against the stone wall next to hers with a wide smile as they turned their necks towards one another. "Maybe we can actually-"

They were cut off by the Ilvermorny caretaker, Abel Finnegan glaring at them with a lantern in hand.

"I've got you now, you little hooligans," he said in a growling voice that most people would find intimidating, but Anneliese just rolled her dark blue eyes.

"Come on, sir, you know that we didn't do any real harm," Anneliese drawled with a sweet smile. "No one was hurt this time."

"You destroyed the entire top half of the Horned Serpent tower!" Finnegan roared, making Leo's hazel eyes widen.

"It isn't destroyed, it's just turned into cantaloupes!" she shouted back. "Easily undone!"

"Headmaster Sayre said that you might be able to stay if you had good behavior for the last few weeks of school, but that clearly isn't going to happen!" the caretaker shouted, grabbing Anneliese and Leo by their upper arms and dragging them towards his office only a corridor away.

A pit sunk in her stomach at the words might be able to stay, but Anneliese pushed it away as quickly as she could. If there was one thing she had learned at the orphanage, it was that you always had to have hope.

Sometimes her cynical attitude got the better of that lesson.

Finnegan pushed open the heavy birch door angrily, making it slam against the smooth, light blue brick wall only yelling good luck gruffly on his way out.

Much to Anneliese's alarm, Sayre was already sitting at her desk waiting for her and Leo to arrive, as if she had been expecting them.

"Afternoon," Anneliese said clearly, sitting down at the chair in front of the headmaster and kicking her violet converse up on the desk carelessly. "How are you, headmaster?"

Sayre's dark, tight features were completely unamused.

"It has come to my attention that you and Leo Anderson have turned the Horned Serpent tower into cantaloupes?" she asked, yet when Leo opened his mouth to answer, she held up a cold hand. "I expected more from you, Leo."

"Yes mom," he muttered ashamedly as Sayre then turned to Anneliese with a much more unforgiving expression.

Sayre's favoritism towards her son was one thing that made her blood boil, no matter how much she loved Leo. Ever since their first year and beginning of their friendship, Anneliese would unfairly get into more trouble rather than her son.

Some might say it was because she was a muggleborn, or others because she was an orphan, or both.

Whatever it was, Anneliese didn't like it.

"You, Callaway, this is the last straw for you," Sayre said coldly. "Ever since January, your teachers and I have been discussing what to do about you."

"What do you mean, what to do about me?" Anneliese asked, hiding her panic behind a white smile. "You haven't given me any warnings."

"I think the fact that Thunderbird has lost over three hundred and fifty points because of you in the past month speaks for itself," Sayre said. "That was plenty of a warning- and no, don't protest with me."

Anneliese slumped back into the hard birch chair that matched the door.

"You have done enough damage to the reputation of Ilvermorny already, and I cannot fathom what another two years of your disruptive presence will do," she said with a raised chin. "Which is why we have made the decision to expel you."

Anneliese stood up in her chair furiously with a loud screech, as did Leo.

"You can't just expel me!" she cried, ready to punch the woman in her slender face. "I'll do a thousand detentions or whatever it takes, just why?"

Sayre was completely unphased by the passionate display in front of her.

"The arrangements with the orphanage have already been made," she said coolly. "You will leave tomorrow morning so you will have time to move into your new home."

"TOMORROW?!" Leo shouted, his face darkening. "Mom, that's so not fair!"

"She is the exact image of a disappointment to our school!" Sayre shouted back, furious at her son for talking to her this way. "She will gather her things so she may take a Portkey to England tomorrow morning!"

"You can't expel her!" Leo repeated. "Then she'll have to go to that crackhouse Hogwarts!"

"You know what," Anneliese said calmly, pushing in the chair behind her with mock politeness as she looked Sayre directly in the eyes. "They probably have better headmasters and teachers at Hogwash anyway!"

"Hogwarts!" corrected Sayre as Anneliese walked out.

"It doesn't god damn matter when they both sound like a disease!" the Thunderbird yelled.

Leo turned to his mother furiously, opened his mouth to say some thing, and then shut it as he sprinted out after his best friend.

"A, I'm so sorry," he cried, grabbing her tattooed hand to stop her from going any further. "This is fucking insane."

Anneliese's expression was completely devastated at losing this boy because of a stupid cantaloupe.

"We can still write to one another," Leo fumbled desperately. "I'll come and visit!"

"I don't have an owl," Anneliese reminded him. "And I doubt British orphanage are so rich that they're just going to give me one!"

The two of them locked eyes for a few seconds, all protests melting away as they realized the weight of what was happening.

The pair embraced vigorously, hot tears plastering both of their eyelashes down as the thought hit them they might not ever see one another again.

"I'm going to miss you, A."

"You too, Leo."

𝄥𝄞────────── 𝄇

August 31, 1976
9:31 pm
Diagon Alley

Anneliese was never going to get used to how much this place called the Leaky Cauldron smelled like pumpkins. She hadn't even thought that the orange things smelled until then, but now the scent was in the air so much that she wondered how she didn't have curly green vines coming from her hair.

There was the immense relief that apparently Hogwarts was more wealthy than it seemed, and they had paid for her to room at the inn all summer so that she wouldn't have to go to a muggle orphanage.

Most sixteen year olds would be thrilled about this amount of freedom, but it was just depressing for Anneliese because she didn't have any money and had to watch all of the groups of teenagers have fun below her.

Wallowing in self pity up in her dingy room wasn't going to do her any good, though.

After all, thought Anneliese as she pulled the backs of her jeans up while clambering down the rickety stairs. It's not even ten yet.

There was the silent alarm in her head saying that school started the next say and that she probably shouldn't stay up too late, but she pushed it away.

Anneliese instantly felt better from her lonely room when she stepped down into the pub roaring with business, the swing of the night just getting started.

The clinks of glasses of butterbeer and slams of firewhiskey shots down on the wooden countertop were comforting to her, and she took in a deep smell of the flames crackling through the air before sitting down at a stool on the far end of the bar.

She thoroughly enjoyed watching the people come in and out, there was such a diversity that she had never gotten to witness in Massachusetts. Although the barman offered to get her something several times, she declined, not having anything to spend.

Just as she had her dark blue eyes transfixed on a group of warlocks with their pipe smoke making intricate patterns in the air, a boy maybe a year or two older than her sat down at the stool next to her.

Spinning back around on her stool with a squeaky swivel, Anneliese traced a nail absentmindedly across the bones tattooed across her left hand like a skeleton.

"That's an interesting tattoo," the boy said, startling her. "Is there a meaning behind it?"

"Oh, nothing at all," she said with a wide grin as she tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "Or at least nothing public."

Anneliese hadn't been trying to flirt, it was just friendliness that many people misinterpreted as something more. The fact that she was sitting alone at the bar wasn't much of a help either.

"Ah, so she's mysterious and foreign," he said, blue eyes narrowing a bit. "I've never seen you around here before. Who are you?"

Although he appeared friendly, Anneliese could detect a possessive little boy when she saw one.

Keeping that wide smile plastered on her face, the Thunderbird gave the most non descriptive answer she could think of.

"I'm A," she said. "That's what my friends call me."

"So can I call you that?" he asked, moving his stool a little closer to hers.

"No."

He raised a platinum eyebrow in confusion. This boy was clearly not used to getting turned down by a girl.

"Let me by you a drink," he said firmly, not at all a question like it should have been. "It'll be fun."

"Believe me, I'm fine," Anneliese said with equal stubbornness.

"What, you have a boyfriend already?" he asked skeptically. "Why would be leave you alone in here?"

"He's here," Anneliese said, completely falsely. "And he probably wasn't expecting an idiot like you to show up."

"Where is he then?" the blue eyed boy asked coldly. "Or are you just trying to get away from me?"

Ilvermorny had taught Anneliese that when you made enemies, now matter how early, they stuck. And the last thing she wanted was to make an enemy this early on.

Her dark blue eyes scanned the room, looking for some friendly guy until they landed on a group of four boys.

One of them was short with mousy hair that seemed to be looking up to the boy with an arrogant smirk and copper rimmed glasses for guidance every few seconds. The tallest of the four had light auburn hair and green eyes, and seemed to be the least obnoxious of them.

The fourth of them had pools of silver for eyes and shining hair that looked like ink running down in a smooth waterfall. Anneliese stared for a split second, not out of admiration, but out of surprise that they made boys like that in the U.K.

"He's right there," she said smoothly, gesturing to the dark haired boy. "I just wanted to come to the bar."

"Well he doesn't seem too bothered," the boy said, his eyes narrowing further. "Why don't you go say hi to him for me?"

Anneliese raised a blonde eyebrow before clenched his fist a bit.

This boy wasn't going to leave her alone unless she did it.

"Gladly," she said with a tight smile before hopping off the barstool and swiftly making her way to the group of four boys.

The one with the copper frames was the first to notice her moving towards them, and then the tallest. Not caring about their suspicious glances, she looked with wide blue eyes that she hated having to use to Grey Eyes.

"You're my boyfriend," she declared.

And kissed him directly on the lips.

To his surprise, the boy kissed her right back, the taste of firewhiskey on his tongue mingled with something sharp she couldn't quite place.

Opening up one eye, Anneliese saw that the platinum haired boy looked accepting that he had to leave her alone with relief.

She quickly pulled away from Grey Eyes, giving him a charming smile.

"Thanks, darlin," she said, the raced up the stairs to get back to her room as quickly as possible.

"You're welcome," he whispered back, not that she could hear him.

And that was that.

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