Maeve Lilythorne

Backstory

I grew up in a quiet "wizarding" household. My mum was a witch, she had attended Hogwarts as a Gryffindor, and my dad WAS a Muggle, when I was small, Death Eaters attacked London, and my dad, caught in the chaos, didn’t survive, but other than that, life was mostly normal, the kind of normal where teapots whistle at the wrong times and brooms hover just long enough to sweep under the table. I liked it that way. Ordinary, predictable, safe.

That changed when I was ten.

I had been wandering near the riverbank behind our house, the one where lilies and lotuses bloomed each summer. I wasn’t looking for trouble, just exploring, when I saw it, a small magical creature, glowing faintly in the twilight. It was beautiful and fragile, like it didn’t belong in our world at all. I wanted to help it. I really did.

But when I reached out, it panicked. A stray charm it had been carrying exploded in a tiny burst of sparks. I felt the heat, smelled the smoke, and then everything went wrong. I wasn’t badly hurt, just a deep burn on my arm, but the shock left me shaking. The creature disappeared into the trees, and I couldn’t help feeling responsible. For weeks, I avoided the river, avoided magic, avoided reminders that sometimes, things you care about most can go terribly wrong in a heartbeat.

It wasn’t the end of the world, but it felt like it. I pressed lilies and lotus petals into my notebooks, letting them remind me that beauty could survive, even after disaster.

When my Hogwarts letter arrived a year later, I was terrified and thrilled at the same time. Boarding the train, clutching a pressed lotus petal in my pocket, I realized I wanted to try again. Magic could be dangerous. Magic could go wrong. But maybe, just maybe, I could make it work for me, if I was careful, and brave enough, and willing to learn.