FicWad

Andrea Moran was not an ordinary child. Not even close, to be perfectly honest.

For one thing, she was a witch.

But even other witches and wizards would consider Andrea and her family incredibly odd.

Her father was a wizard, but a rather eccentric wizard. he owned a horse ranch on a hidden island just off the Coast of Donegal. Well, the ranch was the island. He did raise some ordinary horses. But most of the horses on their property were magical. Unicorns and winged horses and omen horses and all kinds of magical equines.

They even had a few Abaths. Someone had tried to import them illegally. And the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures put them in her father's care. They were too delicate to survive another long journey between Ireland and Malaysia.

And her mother.

Her mother wasn't a witch. She wasn't even human.

She was an Arctic Harpy.

Yes. That's right. A harpy. A vicious, wild harpy.

At least, that's what the wizarding world at large thought of her mother's people. They were convinced they were violent and barbaric. Nothing anyone could say to the contrary would change their minds.

Never mind that Andrea's mother was the greatest, most wonderful being Andrea had ever known. Who loved Andrea and her father so much that it was hard to believe anyone could care that much.

They didn't care.

So Andrea didn't even try anymore.

She'd given up trying to change witch's and wizard's opinions on anything so simple as the price of dragon liver by the time she was six.

At least, the rest of her family didn't hold the same opinions of harpies anymore. Not since they'd actually met her mother, long before Andrea had been born. Her cousins, aunts, and uncles all loved Ursa. She'd helped them with several sticky situations - Arctic Harpies were unparalleled diviners, and gave excellent advice.

Ursa wouldn't have put up with anything else from Adrien's extended family.

She was widely respected among harpies and other sentient magical creatures and was the matriarch of her flock. If the Morans hadn't treated her, or her other children who were all fully harpy, with respect Andrea wouldn't have come about.

Her and her people were extremely proud. She would likely have given them some nasty scars and never seen Andrea's father ever again.

But her family's acceptance was something very singular. Which stemmed from the fact that the Morans were considered quite odd indeed. Her father's family was made up almost entirely of adventurers, naturalists, duellists, and Quidditch players. But she did have one cousin who was a boxer. And an uncle who was an accountant. And was thus considered a little strange by the rest of the family.

Because of that, they were a lot more widely travelled than most people in the wizarding world. The fact that they'd chosen such occupations meant they were far more daring than most wizards too.

Harpies really didn't faze them all that much, considering what they got up to on a regular basis.

Other wizarding families wouldn't have been quite so easily swayed to acknowledge such a thing as Andrea as being anything other than the foulest of crimes against nature. Which Andrea had been made aware of all her life, for her own safety. So she wouldn't go around telling everyone she met about the fact that she could grow wings and talons whenever she wanted. They might get a bunch of former Death Eaters banging down their door if she did anything like that.

And it was for that reason Andrea wasn't at all looking forward to her eleventh birthday.

When most magical children turned eleven they were able to start attending magical school and learn actual magic. Not just the little tricks and titbits she picked up from her family members when they whipped out their wands.

But Andrea knew that if her family's badly kept secret got out to anyone else, no other parent would want her attending the same school as their children. Not at Hogwarts. Not at Queen Maeve's Druidic Academy. Nor Beauxbatons. Definitely not Durmstrang - they didn't even allow muggle-borns to attend.

Andrea didn't know the names of any of the other magical schools in Europe. She knew there were a lot. But she didn't think any of them would have a different outlook at letting someone like her in.

She couldn't see her dad letting her go any farther than the continent for school.

Her mother would probably freak the fuck out if anyone even mentioned sending Andrea that far away within her considerable hearing range.

So she wouldn't get to go to wizarding school. There was no hope of it.

Her dad could home school her, between times while she helped him care for the horses. But that was a bleak possibility to Andrea. Their home was a lonely place, unplottable and hidden in the North Sea. Her and her father were the only sentient beings who lived there full time.

The only people who came to visit were her mother's flock and her father's relatives.

Other than that, the only things Andrea had to talk to were the horses. They were good listeners, but one-sided conversations got boring and frustrating very quickly.

Half of the reason she wanted to go away to school was so she could speak to someone she wasn't related to for once. Who would actually speak back to her. What she wanted more than anything, desperately wanted, was some friends.

A friend.

She'd be happier than any other creature on earth if she had just one friend. Who didn't have four legs and hooves.

Because she was cripplingly lonely. Most days she ignored how miserable her isolation made her. But she wasn't always successful in doing so. Some days she was overtaking by the feelings of misery and loneliness. Those days were indescribably terrible.

She couldn't bare living like it for the rest of her days until she was old enough to move away.

Her father was quite content with their quite lives with little to no human contact. But Andrea wasn't. She craved company. So much so that she was genuinely considering writing to every wizarding school on the planet to see if they would take her. She didn't care if she had to learn Japanese. Andrea just wanted to go.

But she was sure that would be the stupidest thing she could do. Hadn't her father always told her not to reveal her parentage to anyone she didn't absolutely have to? And she certainly didn't have to tell the headmasters of every magical school on the planet about it.

There was nothing she could do but wait and see if she received any letters.

However unlikely that was.

As her birthday drew closer and closer Andrea grew ever more upset. Though she tried very hard not to show it. But her father seemed to know how she was feeling anyway, despite her best efforts.

She became resigned to her fate of remaining on their little island for the foreseeable future. It didn't seem so bad, really. Not when their long winter had blossomed fully into spring. Their almost untouched island, green as the most precious of emeralds. Topped with diamond like spring snows here and there. With flowers and trees blooming everywhere you looked. It looked like paradise.

If paradise was wind-whipped and absolutely freezing all year round. Permanently above the snow line. Even in summer.

She grew to accept her reality when her birthday was less than a week away. She could wait until she was older to go out into the world. Most people would give all the galleons in their vaults to live in a place like she did.

Andrea would be grateful she would be allowed to buy a wand and learn magic at all. That she was considered a witch and not a magical beast. Or some illegal breeding experiment and dragged away by some Unspeakables. Merlin knows what they'd do to her if they had the chance.

She shuddered to think of it.

But she put those thoughts to one side forcefully. Instead she thought about the trip to Dublin she was going on with her father. All of the new and wonderful things she was going to get so she could do her classwork. The happy thoughts, once she focused on them, overpowered the despair she was feeling easily.

One way or another, she was going to learn magic.