It was the day before her first day of school, her first day at Hogwarts. What could be any better than that? But still a frown resided on her face as Dawn chewed on the cheesey meatballs her mother had made just for her. While her family happily chattered about their week Dawn was stuck in head, already missing her family and she hadn't even left yet. Tomorrow would be the start of a great journey and although she had weeks to be excited, after receiving the personally delivered letter and gathering her own school supplies, all of the sadness ambushed her like a wave and no matter how hard she tried she just couldn't get rid of the ache.

Her older brother finally noticed. Confused—her parents had told her siblings that she was going to a prestige academy for gifted students—Clement asked, “Er, are you alright, Dawnie? Mother, she's about to cry—”

Dawn finally burst into tears, covering her face with her hands. She sobbed into her palms, heaving loudly. She wasn't exactly sure why she was even crying, it was just as if all the sadness had overwhelmed her. Usually she was able to contain it; being different was hard in a family like this, full of powerful, popular people who didn't have to work hard at being who they were. Even though they sometimes told her to just be herself, she could erase the memories of them casting strange looks at her, like she was just too different. 

But it wasn't even about that now, she realized. Despite this, she really, really loved them. She felt like the bad one for being different enough to turn heads. It was hard enough not looking like them, not even a smidge, but not she was going off to some school no one in her family had ever heard of, just because she wasn't like them. And she was going to be so far away for so long, away from the only people she really had cared about.

Dawn felt her mother and sister pull her into an embrace and she fell into it, but tears still streamed down her face. Through her blurry vision she saw her brother speaking to her dad, who looked noticably uncomfortable, and she knew that it wasn't because of her crying. Clement was probably asking about the school she was going to, which every knew little about. And her father was forbidden to give too much information, less he didn't want her to attend.

She buried her face into her mother's chest, hugging her hard. Then she pulled away. “I'm sorry, it's just—I'm going to be gone for so long—”

“We understand, Dawnie, you don't have to explain...or at least for now, anyways,” her sister said, darting her eyes suspiciously between her parents. They both avoided her eyes.

Her mother kissed her forehead, rubbing her arms. “You'll do great t-there,” she said, glancing at her father. Dawn felt bad; they had to keep this giant secret just for her sake, and she didn't even feel like she deserved it. She realized that this might really impact the family, no matter how good the cover-up was.

After a while everyone went back to eating and their conversations. Dawn gazed out the window but she noticed her siblings glanced at each other and her every now and then.

When dinner was finished and dishes were cleaned, her mother brought a large apple pie, baked with sweet and sour apples, Dawn's favorite. She felt like crying all over again but she successfully managed to keep it all in. She forced her to be happy, to smile and to be contented, like everything was okay. She did this for her parents, for her siblings, for her entire family; the good thing about being different was that you could feign being different, especially when you had a hurricane of emotions howling inside you.