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I was born on a cloudy day in Greenville, Mississippi on September 8th 2012 to Edward and Mary Trajan.

My father and mother met at college when my dad came to the US from England to study computers. They were incredibly good friends from the moment they met; it was probably one of those cliche things like love at first sight. Their relationship really blossomed after my maternal grandparents died when my mom was twenty. My mother has no siblings; the only person she had left was my dad. My mom tells me about how he introduced her to his parents who let her stay with them if she had time.

We weren’t the richest family. My father didn’t like to use my grandparent’s money; he felt like he was leeching off of them and their success.

When I was three years old my sister Emma was born.

When I was four, my father passed away in a car crash when we were in London visiting my paternal grandparents. This is sadly one of my earliest memories; I might not have been in the car, but I remember the feeling when I heard that he wasn’t coming home from the grocery store. I remember feeling of my heart breaking in a similar way to the vase that shattered when I started to cry. My grandma who was very distraught cleaned up the shards and put them in a container; cleaning always helps her cope. She didn’t even notice that I was a the cause of the vase breaking; she didn’t even know it was my first instance of magic, but I don’t blame her.

After my father died, we moved to London for two reasons. One reason was to stay closer to my fathers grave, so we could visit him. The second reason was that we still didn’t have a lot of money, and my paternal grandparents offered for us to live with them.

I didn’t have very many friends growing up; instead, I liked to stay inside and read books. I read many different books from nonfiction to sci-fi to fantasy, but the ones I liked the most were about wizards; after all I dream an awful lot about them. My favourite book was a massive fictional book called Hogwarts a History. My grandma gets an updated copy from a friend every year; the book is amazing it feels so life like.

Even though no child likes to admit that they like one parent more then the other, I did prefer spending time with my dad over my mom, or maybe thinking back on this makes me recognise the time I spent with my dad as more important because he isn’t here anymore. Loosing my dad made me very secluded, so I didn’t have many friends growing up.

I did, and still do, have one friend growing up; her name is Caroline.

If I was given the choice of having a hundred good friends or one best friend, I would choose neither I already have the greatest friend I could ever have. She is the most important person in my life aside from my family.

We spend so much time together. We first met on the day of my dad’s funeral. Caroline and her mom were walking back from an early day at the park; it was expected to rain later that day. They saw my grandparents getting into the car that would take us to the funeral ceremony. Caroline and her mother, who introduced herself as Margaret, came up to us in a way that from what I remember felt gentle and caring.

Margaret politely asked if she could know who passed away. From then on I don’t remember most of the conversation; I do remember before we left Caroline, who was wearing a purple dress that contrasts from the white or sometimes pink clothes that she mostly wears; I don’t remember anything after that besides what my mom and Caroline tell me. My mom tells me that Caroline hugs me causing me to break down in tears, but not let go. Caroline tells me that she remembers after we broke the hug, I bent down picked a white rose that was growing on one of grandma’s bushes besides us and gave it to her. Supposedly that is where the vase full of white roses in her room comes from; she must have self-pollinated the flower because I never saw any other flowers get picked.

The day after the funeral, Margret and Caroline came over with baked cookies asking if we wanted some. I apparently came over and stood next to mom. I do remember parts of the moment; more specifically I remember hearing the part about how Caroline helped make the cookies.

My mom invited them in. Even at our young age we initially bonded over me loosing my father and her growing up without a father just by talking about our experiences. Over time she brought me out of a shell that quickly formed after my father died and before I met her. We would spend time reading books together, pretending to be magicians together, and lay on our backs and look up at the stars. All of that we did on the roof of our porch which conveniently had access to both of our rooms.

When I was nine, Caroline’s mother passed away. I tried to do the same things to help her with her loss that she did to help me with mine. I will say that I am hopeless at baking, but Caroline found it funny. She somehow managed to salvage the recipe that I completely botched.

Caroline is the only person that I would trust to accurately describe my mentality because family has a certain amount of bias. Caroline has described me as wise, caring, intelligent, strategic, studious, and oblivious. I can see why I am wise, intelligent, and strategic because I love reading and playing chess or games that require strategy with Caroline; I always seem to know the best move in chess. I am a very studious person, so I can see why she said that. Everybody says kind whenever they positively describe someone, but I guess I will take the compliment. She also says that I am very oblivious; she especially says it when I see her looking at me with a smile when we are laying on the porch roof. I don’t think I am oblivious.

I will miss her more then I will miss anyone else because I connect with her in a way that I don’t understand. It feels like she knows me more personally than my now eight year old sister, my mom, or my grandparents. I say that I will miss her because of a very weird experience that happened on my eleventh birthday.

On my eleventh birthday, I was sitting at the table with my grandparents, mother, sister, and Caroline. The doorbell was suddenly rung, and my grandma went to go check it out. A woman in strange clothes walked in asking for me; I went up to her, and she held out a letter.

I grabbed with letter and looked around; I saw my grandma and grandpa. Grandma asked me if I was going to open the letter. I opened the letter, and I saw that it was from someone named Solomon Lear. I was invited to a school called Hogwarts.

My mother asked several questions which were all answered by the professor. My grandma and grandpa also revealed themselves to be squibs.

The following day Grandma and Grandpa took us to a place called Diagon Alley to buy school supplies. We decided to wait until before the school year to get my robes and wand.

After the nearly a year long wait, I was set to turn twelve in a month; it was finally time to get my wand and uniforms.

I first went in to a shop that was called Madam Malkin’s. I got measured and weighted 143 centimetres and 35 kilometres respectively.

After I bought the robes, I then ran off with Caroline nearly dragging her because I was holding her hand. I then went into the wand shop, and Caroline followed me inside. There was a very elderly man; he measured my dimensions. He asked me questions about the clothes I like to wear, brown pants and white shirts. He looked at the colour of my dark brown hair before he asked Caroline for the colour of my eyes, and she instantly responded that they were dark brown, but she also said that they looked light brown when light shines onto them. I looked at her, but she just shrugged and smiled at me; females are weird.

That is the events up until now; I leave tomorrow.

- August 31st, 2024

Caroline, Marcus’s best friend, is a light-skinned girl with blue eyes and silvery-blonde hair.

Caroline was Marcus’s neighbour, but she is a home-schooled girl who is a year and six months older that Marcus.

Caroline also grew up without a father. Her father Garrett was murder on his way home from his job when she was two.

Caroline’s mother, Margaret, became close friends with Marcus’s mother due to them both being widows.

From the first time he saw her, Marcus thought Caroline was the personification of an angel stunningly beautiful, smart, and kind. They would grow quite close.

Margaret would develop lung cancer when Marcus was seven. Margaret died two years after she caught the disease.

Before Margaret died, she first asked for Mary to be Caroline’s legal guardian, and Mary did just that.