Kate Felanders | First Year | Ravenclaw

Born in Leeds to a Muggle mother and a wizard father, Kate has had a quite mundane childhood. She attended the local public school, received remarkable grades, and abided by the rules... mostly. Only a couple teachers disliked Kate, but to everyone else, she was warm and easygoing.

Kate would always be greeted by her dad when she came home from school. Her mum was a doctor and worked long hours, so Dad took care of the cooking and such. His specialty were pot roasts -- Kate's favorite. To be honest, Kate wasn't quite sure what exactly Dad did for work, and Mum's work schedule sometimes grew hectic, but the three were still a loving family.

In fact, Kate's best memories came from the first few years of primary school when she was getting ready to leave home. Sometimes she forgot to pack lunch, and Dad would quickly whip up something in the kitchen. The bag of crisps flew into the lunch bag and the sandwich would be assembled in midair. It was fun to dodge the leaves of lettuce whooshing around the flat, and young Kate couldn't wait to do that herself.

She had an idea of what magic felt like, though. One time when Kate was six years old, she was being fussy and didn't want to make her bed. "I'm just going to mess it up again when I sleep, so what's the point?" She had said. Her dad tried to reason with her, but little Kate was so mad about this injustice that the bed frame behind them suddenly cracked and split apart. The splintered wood didn't harm anyone, but Kate's dad quickly took her in his arms and went out into the living room. That night, Kate could hear her parents talking in low voices in the kitchen, and caught whispers of "Hogwarts" and a "letter." She didn't know it then, but what she did just then cemented the path she would take in life.

Even so, the day Kate received her Hogwarts letter was a day of mixed feelings. She could recall all the mystical memories of her dad making objects fly across the living room into her hands, but she couldn't bear leaving her Muggle friends behind. She had a solid group of close friends for as long as she could remember, and Kate was scared of attending Hogwarts without them.

That day, her mum had told her, "Katie, don't be frightened-- you'll make friends at Hogwarts! Just because you won't attend the same school doesn't mean you'll lose your current friends. When you come back for the summer, you girls can play together again. During the year, write letters to us often, and we'll tell them what you want to say. Okay?"

"Don't be frightened." Kate sure hoped she would remember that on the first day of Hogwarts.