Khalila Aster

Backstory

It's a corona virus-free 2020, and Hogwarts has listened to the magic research groups from all over the world, united on one thing: 11 is too early an age to say for sure whether a person will ever exhibit signs of their magical blood. Imagine the surprise of worldwide witch and wizard late-bloomers as people of any age start receiving Hogwarts letters, from the indignation at the thought of witchcraft and wizardry that some older-generation people might experience to the laughing their letter off as a painful prank that others go through. They never got their Hogwarts letter; who'd rub it in their faces? Next year Hogwarts will hire new graduates to deliver the letters personally, providing a way for explanations to be given and class sizes to soar, but for now - well, for now not many take the letters seriously.

Khalila Aster does.

She had already been planning to move out to college in the fall after her 18th birthday (although she will admit she'd been putting off deciding on where to attend), but that all changed with a single, green-inked letter. A world had opened up before her in just months: out of her parent's home with its stuffy religion and all-too-familiar closets (and not the kind that clothes go in), into the not only the Britain she'd always dreamed of visiting, but along with it the Britain she never dared to hope existed - the Wizarding Britain. Every day before her journey to London was a range of emotions and fights with her family, all leaving Khalila with the same feeling: she couldn't be more ready for Hogwarts.

One self-sponsored plane ride and an ocean later, Khalila was at the Leaky Cauldron asking a withered looking old witch for help getting into Diagon Alley. She'd only found the Leaky Cauldron via the Knight Bus, which filled her heart with wild glee as the first sign that this whole Wizarding world wasn't some cruel hoax. Diagon Alley exceeded all expectations and gave her plenty more questions and experiences for the journal she always carried around, but honestly, it was a blur. So were the two nights spent in the Leaky Cauldron, getting to platform 9 3/4 (though Khalila did remember running at that wall), and the train ride that took place outside of her journal. She used the time and the mostly empty train car to journal everything that she could remember happening to her, but it quickly devolved into letting out her feelings of joy and anxiety and homesickness, whether that last one was for her home in the states or the home she hadn't yet visited.

Adrenaline coursed through Khalila after the train stopped until the sorting ceremony was through. Professor Flitwick, deputy headmaster, had taken her and three other "experienced first-years" in a carriage up to the castle instead of leaving htem to Hagrid's boats. He explained kindly that the classes she and the others would be taking would indeed be first-year level material, but that professors were prepared and eager to help them if they should be curious about more advanced learning, and that their sixth and seventh-years were notified of the experienced first-years' arrival so that they needn't only socialize with the 11-year-olds of their classes. Khalila hung on every word.

She adored waiting with the other, "inexperienced" first-years for the sorting ceremony; she was glad she wasn't the only one with the jitters, and she loved kids. In a few minutes, the Sorting Hat would confirm everything she'd ever felt in her heart surrounding the Harry Potter stories: Ravenclaw, through and through. She'd have a night of far too much food and far too many names to ever recall, but she would remember a promise to learn every one of them, and their faces too, as well as the other first-years she'd met that didn't get sorted into Ravenclaw. She dozed off in a small room of her own, the cooing of her owl, Myra, singing her to sleep, and dreamed of Charms class.