Trinity

Chapter 1

Sarah

I am not your average teenager.

Let me put it to you this way. What usual sixteen-year-old girl has books like The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 6, Advanced Potion Making and Magical Theory sitting on her bookshelves, a telescope pointing out of her bedroom window, moving photographs dotted across her bedroom walls and in frames on her bookshelves and her desk, and an eagle owl perched on the end frame of her bed?

I am a witch.

But at the same time, I'm not your average witch. It may sound a little strange to you, but there is a whole other side to wizardkind. They are called the elementals - men, women and children with the ability to see into the past and the future, stop time, levitate, and even shoot fire from their bare hands.

And I just happen to be one of them.

Never heard of us? I'm not exactly surprised. We generally don't advertise our existence to the rest of the world. Imagine the chaos it would cause if the rest of wizardkind - and indeed, humankind as a whole - discovered that we walked amongst them! No, we're best left to our own devices. It may be a somewhat solitary existence, especially if there are no other elementals living nearby, but it's safer for everyone.

There is one thing in particular that distinguishes elementals from the rest of the magical world, aside from the obvious, and that is the non-reliance on our magic. The majority of us live as Muggles do, and we use a combination of our elemental powers and magic rather than just straight magic. It's admittedly easier that way, especially if an elemental misplaces their wand. If a 'regular' witch or wizard loses their wand, unless they can use wandless magic then they are well and truly screwed. I am more than used to living as a Muggle by now, and my notebook computer just happens to be one of my most prized possessions. I've even been known to take it to school with me - I am a sixth-year student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And before you remind me that nothing electrical or electronic will work at Hogwarts (as the know-it-all Gryffindor Hermione Granger used to repeatedly remind me, ad nauseam), let's just say that it's very useful to have the power of electricity at my disposal.

Though I do admit, even though I like being an elemental witch, it's hard being in the minority. There are only three other elementals at school that I know of. They are my brother and sister, Grant and Maggie, and also my instructor and Astronomy teacher, Professor Sinistra. So I more or less have to keep what I am a secret, unless of course I'm at home, I'm talking to my siblings, or I'm attending a training session.

All that is about to change, however. I'm about to go to Australia for a year, to attend one of the two schools of magic there. And for the first time in many years, I'll be with my 'own kind' every day of the school year, rather than for just a few hours every week. And I'm quite looking forward to it.

* * *

I sat down at my desk late one afternoon in mid-January and unpinned an envelope from my noticeboard; I had put this off for long enough. I slit the envelope open and slipped out the folded sheets of paper.

Dear Miss Abernathy,

Thank you for your continued interest in attending Southern Cross Academy as an exchange student for the 2000 school year. Your airline tickets, along with a list of required books, clothing and other equipment, are enclosed with this letter.

Your flight to Sydney, Australia, leaves from Heathrow International Airport in London on the seventeenth of January at seven o'clock in the morning, with stopovers in New York City and Los Angeles - one of your fellow exchange students, Taylor Chambers, will meet you at Los Angeles International Airport. A representative of the Academy will meet you both at Sydney International Airport on January nineteenth.

Please note that, due to Australian quarantine laws, international students are not permitted to bring their own animals to the Academy. They may, however, ask their parents or guardian to send their owls on ahead if they wish to.

We look forward to welcoming you to the Academy on January thirty-first.

Yours sincerely,

Sarasvati Richards

Vice-Principal, Southern Cross Academy of Elemental Magic

"Shit," I muttered. Seven o'clock in the morning? I was barely able to function before nine, and yet I was leaving England at the time I normally got up. This had to be a joke.

Still, I knew there was no backing out now. My enrolment at Southern Cross Academy was complete, and if I didn't show up at the airport next Monday I was going to miss out on the experience of a lifetime entirely.

"Mum?" I called as I headed downstairs, the letter from Southern Cross Academy in hand. It was unusually quiet - my brother and sister were both away at school, and Dad was at work, so while it was something of a shock I wasn't exactly surprised.

"What?" my mother called from the kitchen; she was cooking a curry of some sort. The spicy aromas of cumin, saffron, paprika, turmeric and garam marsala filled the air - chicken balti and biryani, my favourite.

I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a wooden spoon from the draining rack, dipped the spoon in the curry and licked some of the sauce off. "Needs more chilli," I said. My gaze then drifted across to the front page of the Daily Prophet that had been held to the refrigerator with magnets since the middle of 1998 - the headline read HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED DEFEATED!, with the sub-headline of Harry Potter to be Posthumously Awarded Order of Merlin, First Class. "And I wish you would take that bloody article down; it's been up there for nigh on eighteen months now."

Mum looked over her shoulder at me. "Why should I?" she asked. "It just proves that I was right."

"One, you are the one and only person in this family who even gives, or gave for that matter, a toss about Harry bloody Potter. Two, I'm sick of seeing it every time I come downstairs. And three, you're a Precognitionist - of course you were right about it, but you don't need to throw the fact in everyone's faces!"

Mum reached over with her free hand and tweaked my nose. "You get yourself trained up a bit, and then you'll be able to see as far as I can." She stirred the curry, humming to herself. "Now, what did you come downstairs for?"

I sighed. "My flight to Australia leaves at seven o'clock in the morning from Heathrow." I held up the letter. "And I can't take Ariadne with me; I'd never get her past customs."

"Oh dear," Mum said, her tone somewhat worried.

"'Oh shit' is more like it, but yeah." I sighed. "I'm going to be a freaking zombie."

"You'll live. You can sleep on the plane if you like."

I scowled. "Mum, it'll be my first international flight. I won't want to sleep."

"Sar-bear, babe, you won't be missing much. A flight's a flight. Noisy, cramped, and with horrible food. You're better off sleeping - you'll thank yourself once you get to Sydney."

"I'm not going straight to Sydney. I'm going to New York first, then Los Angeles." I unfolded my letter again. "It says another exchange student will meet me in Los Angeles - someone called Taylor Chambers." I wrinkled my nose. "Funny name."

"There are some people who would call your name funny, Sarah," Mum said sagely. "Go and set the table please; tea's almost ready."

"Yes, Mum..."

* * *

"You didn't forget anything?"

I rolled my eyes. "No, Mum. Everything is in my trunk- suitcases," I amended hurriedly. Talk like a Muggle, talk like a Muggle, I reminded myself.

"And you know how to un-Transfigure your suitcases when you get to school?"

"Of course I do, Mum. And talk like a Muggle for Circe's sake; everyone will think you're a raving maniac."

I adjusted the clasp of my heavy black cloak and gazed out of the windows, allowing myself a quiet sigh. It was D-day - five-thirty in the morning on the seventeenth of January. Mum had thought it prudent to get to Heathrow a good ninety minutes before my flight was even due to leave, although I wasn't able to check in until six; Dad had had to leave early for work and so hadn't been able to come to the airport. And that left me with almost nothing to do, save for sitting on my suitcases and staring into space.

Mum pointed at my cloak. "Shouldn't you put that in your suitcase?" she asked pointedly.

"I'm cold," I said; I allowed myself a shiver to prove my point. "They've got the air-conditioning turned up far too high; it's winter, it should be warmer in here than it is." Though maybe my mother had something of a point. My House badge, the bronze eagle of Ravenclaw, was displayed proudly on the front of my cloak, sewn there with my own hand the weekend after my Sorting. Family tradition, my mother said. Though really, tradition didn't have a whole lot to do with it, being that I was adopted and all.

I sat down on the larger of my two suitcases and propped my chin up in my palms, balancing my elbows on my thighs. Boredom was well and truly beginning to set in. It was times like these that I wished that I had one of the powers that my dad and my sister shared - both of them were able to shoot bolts of coloured lightning from their fingertips, and Maggie often conjured lightning balls to amuse herself whenever she was bored. I had long ago stopped wishing out loud that I had an extra power or two, having grown sick of hearing my mother's standard response - "Sarah, give me a list of all the powers you don't want, and I'll engrave that list on the head of a pin."

I spent the next half-hour alternating between staring into space, prowling around WH Smith and pacing around near my luggage, impatiently waiting for six o'clock. When a sharp, high-pitched tone sounded from my digital watch, I sprang to my feet and snatched up my laptop case, looping the strap around my neck and settling it on my left shoulder.

"Be careful," Mum instructed after I had checked in and relinquished my suitcases. "And write as soon as you get to the Academy."

"I will, I promise," I assured her as we embraced.

"And for the love of Merlin, please, behave yourself."

I resisted the very strong urge to roll my eyes. "I always behave myself, Mum. Name me just one time that I haven't."

"Hexing a Gryffindor prefect, perhaps?"

"She was asking for it!"

Mum sighed, exasperated. "Perhaps you should have been in Slytherin."

I cocked one blonde eyebrow and grinned. "Hey, works for me; I always said that green was my colour."

She laughed. "Go on, off you go. You'll miss your flight."

"Not bloody likely." I quickly kissed my mother on the cheek and gave her a tight smile. "See you in December, earlier if I get myself kicked out..." And having fired off that farewell, I turned around and headed off toward the point of no return...and the beginning of the next great adventure.

* * *

Taylor

"What in the world is Powerball?"

I blinked and looked up from reading my battered and torn copy of Powerball Strategies: How To Cheat Without Getting Caught at the owner of the voice. Standing before me was a tall, wiry girl with straggly blonde hair, her thin frame draped in a black cloak that was fastened at her throat with a silver clasp. From what I could gauge thus far, having only heard her speak once, she was British.

And I did not like the British.

"It's a sport," I said curtly.

"Merlin, there's no need to be so rude," the girl muttered. Her gaze flicked down to, presumably, read the printing on my T-shirt, which read American Elemental Youth Sports Association. "Elemental?" she asked, her tone hopeful.

"Water," I confirmed.

"I see." She stuck out a hand. "I'm Sarah Abernathy," she said. "And you are?"

It can't hurt, the ever-present voice in the back of my mind whispered. She looks harmless enough. And besides, she's an elemental. Heeding the advice of my mind's voice for once, I took her offered hand. "Taylor Chambers. Looks like we found each other, then."

"Indeed." She nodded to the vacant seat beside me. "You don't have some imaginary friend sitting there, do you?" When I shook my head, she sat herself down and stretched her legs out in front of her. She wore ordinary Muggle clothing under her cloak - jeans and a white T-shirt. "And now I'd like to repeat my first question. What's Powerball?"

I looked at her sharply. "You're an elemental, and you have no idea what Powerball is?" She shook her head. "Kurva drát," I muttered. "Do you want the short or the long explanation?"

Sarah shrugged. "It doesn't particularly bother me."

"It's the elemental version of soccer. Football," I amended upon seeing the look of confusion on Sarah's face. "It's exactly the same game, but we're allowed to use our powers to distract the other team. Within reason, of course. It's a lot more entertaining than just plain soccer."

"Ah." She nodded. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." I gave her a smile and returned to my reading.

To a born-and-bred American elemental such as myself, it seemed incomprehensible for someone to never have heard of my world's most popular sport. I had grown up playing Powerball, just like many of my friends had, and during the summer I played on the youth squad of the San Diego Strikers. The rest of the year, I was off at school - I studied magic at Amargosa Valley College, as a junior student and one of the few elementals in the whole student body of over two and a half thousand. At last count there were twenty-five, maybe thirty, spread from sixth grade to senior year.

But even in the elemental world I am a rarity. One of my powers is so rare that only six elementals in the known world possess it - the power to understand and fluently speak foreign languages without having previously studied them. In other words, the power of speech. It's my favourite power out of the seven that I currently have. I say 'currently' because, even though I'm close to adulthood, I may end up with a couple more powers by the time I'm twenty-one. Not that I want any more; I'm having somewhat of a hard time keeping track of the ones I already have.

And though it's not an elemental power, I'm not half bad at playing the guitar, either.

"So you're an elemental, right?" Sarah asked somewhat suddenly.

"Yes," I said without looking up from my book. It had been nice and peaceful before she had shown up. It seemed that not many people were heading to Sydney tonight. Though it was only nine-thirty in the evening, so for all I knew there could be more coming. I was therefore going to enjoy the peace and quiet while it lasted.

"What powers d'you have? I mean, if you don't mind me asking."

Actually, I do mind, I thought acidly. But even though I wasn't willing to admit it, I was glad that Sarah was the one asking the questions, rather than the other way around. I closed my book and dropped it back into my open backpack. "As long as you tell me what yours are," I said.

"Of course."

I counted off on my fingers. "Water, telepathy, telekinesis, empathy, time, lightning and speech," I recited.

"Water, telepathy, electricity, precognition and materialisation." Then her mouth dropped wide open. "Seven powers?"

"It's not as great as it sounds," I said. "I'm always wishing I had one or two less. I can hardly keep track of them."

"Did you say you had the power of speech?" Sarah asked.

"Yes." I spread my hands wide. "You caught me. I'm the lucky North American who got landed with it." I thought for a second. "Au wui waht lei dui an chut lei yuen hau bai ju hai lei go see fut dau, sau yi lnei hau yi geen do au teck do lei go see fut biu see!" I spouted off, resisting the very strong temptation to start laughing. "Roughly translates from Cantonese to English as 'I'll pull your eyes down to your ass, so you can watch me kick the shit out of you!'"

Sarah let out a snort of laughter. "I like that."

"Thought you might. I think most water elementals have similar senses of humour. Want to hear some more?" Sarah nodded. "Okay, how about this. Prendre cinquante à soixante pas en arrière. Prendre plusieurs souffles profonds. Sprinter en avant à toute vitesse. Faire un triple saut périlleux en l'air et disparaître dans ton propre cul. French for 'Take fifty to sixty paces backwards. Take several deep breaths. Sprint forward at full speed. Do a triple somersault through the air, and disappear up your own ass'." She laughed again, and I smiled. For a Brit, Sarah was a pretty cool chick. At least I would know someone before I arrived at the Academy - that had to count for something.

"Hey, want to see something really cool?" I asked. "We'll need to go over into Burger King for me to do it; I need a flat surface, and the floor doesn't count."

"I'm surprised you have any more tricks up your sleeves, but all right," Sarah acquiesced.

The two of us found seats in Burger King (which, rather surprisingly, was practically empty), and I dug around in my backpack for my bottle of water. "Can you grab me a straw?" I asked as I unscrewed the cap and placed it on the tabletop.

"This doesn't involve you shoving the straw up your nose, does it?" Sarah asked warily.

"You'll see." When Sarah didn't move from her seat, I fixed an expression of great impatience on my face. "Now, if you don't mind. I would prefer not to do it this way, but the other method involves me going back home to San Diego and hurling myself into the ocean."

"All right, all right..." She stood up and walked over to the counter, coming back with a plastic straw; she handed it to me and sat back down in her seat. "Now what?"

I dropped the straw into my water bottle, catching it before it was completely submerged. "Watch closely, because I do not like doing this. It hurts like crazy, not to mention that it gives me a headache." I stuck the end of the straw up my nose, closed my eyes, and then very quickly sucked some of the water up through the straw. "Jesus that hurt," I muttered as I opened my eyes.

The look on Sarah's face could only be described as priceless.

"What the fuck?" Her eyes were wide open, and I suspected they had been since I started my little party trick. "How the hell do you do that?"

I shrugged and recapped my water bottle. "It's pretty much an extension of my water power. I just happen to be able to breathe water. It's more for survival than anything else - it definitely comes in useful when I'm surfing, fall off of my surfboard and get dragged underwater." I grinned. "But it's also good for the shock value. I just don't do it like that very often, not only because of the pain factor, but because it's not good for me."

"How long can you do it for?"

"At the moment, half an hour. Any longer and I start getting one hell of a headache."

We spent the next few hours getting to know each other a little better, both of us having realised that if we were going to be sitting beside one another on the flight to Sydney, we should probably have something to talk about if either one of us got bored. After we had the basic details about one another, our conversation turned to one of the things we both had in common, aside from being elementals. As it turned out, we were both adopted.

"When did your parents tell you that you were adopted?" I asked. It was now a quarter past eleven, about half an hour before our flight was due to leave, and the departures area around gate 48B was quickly becoming a madhouse. Sarah and I had luckily been able to find our old seats, and I had cast a Muggle-repelling charm around us so that we wouldn't be disturbed.

"Mum and Dad told me as soon as they figured I was old enough to understand," Sarah replied. "I think I was about ten when they sat me down and told me."

"I figured it out on my own," I said, completely unable to keep a note of pride from creeping into my tone. "My dad, my mom and my sister are all dark-haired, and I'm blonde." I tugged on a couple of locks of my long blonde hair. "And the Chambers family, all the way back to the Mayflower, has always had dark hair as a 'hallmark', I suppose you could say. Anytime someone with a different hair colour marries into the family, it's not carried on. My parents confirmed it right before I started at Amargosa."

"You're intelligent and powerful," Sarah commented, sounding impressed.

"Intelligence doesn't have anything to do with it. I just tend to notice things like that." I shrugged. "And I'm not powerful. I'm not even fully trained yet."

"Well, neither am I. But not only can you speak every language fluently, you can breathe water - if that's not a sign of power, I don't know what is."

I was about to open my mouth to argue when an announcement came over the airport public address. "This announcement is for all passengers travelling on Qantas and American Airways flight 108 to Sydney, Australia. We are opening boarding at this time to families with small children and special needs passengers only - first and business class passengers may board when ready. Please have your passports and boarding passes ready."

"Typical," Sarah muttered. She sank back into her seat and undid the clasp that was holding her cloak fastened. And I got my first look at the printing on her T-shirt. It read I hate everyone. Please make a note of it.

"Nice shirt," I said evenly.

"Yes, it is, isn't it?" Sarah smiled. "It's made quite a few people back off, let me tell you." She raised an eyebrow at me. "Not you though, obviously."

"I like my girls to have a bit of fire in them," I said.

She frowned. "You'd better not be trying to come onto me," she said, her tone suspicious.

"Please. We only just met a few hours ago."

"I take it you've never watched Dharma And Greg, then." She started tapping her foot on the floor. "Come on, I want to get to Australia this century if you don't mind..."

At around half past eleven, the call for economy class passengers to begin boarding came over the public address, and the two of us began gathering up our things; I dispelled the Muggle-repelling charm before we moved off to join the queue.

"Nervous?" I asked Sarah as we stood in the queue; she had put her cloak back on and refastened the clasp by this point, and was swaying slightly in place.

"A little," she admitted. "I don't like the idea of being in the air so long without a break..."

"It'll be fine. I've been overseas more times than I can count, and you have absolutely nothing to worry about. Trust me."

Sarah barked out a laugh. "And that's what I'm worried about. You've got nothing to worry about if the plane crashes - you can't drown. Most of us aren't exactly as fortunate as you." She squinted slightly. "But you're right. We'll be fine."

"Whoa, whoa, back up just a minute. First you're nervous, and then you're saying everything will be fine?"

She tapped her right temple. "Precognition, remember? The most trouble we'll have is a bit of turbulence going over Hawaii."

"Well, if you say so..."

"And I do say so, Taylor," she said assuredly. "I do."

* * *

Miriam

"Chances are what you feel...is like everyone else...who is wrong, what is real...you can ask yourself...but if you find a way...you can always carry on..." I sang to myself as I tossed random items into my school trunk. It sat wide open on my bed, an assortment of junk already tucked safely inside. With two days left until I was due to be at Sydney Central railway station, time that I needed to pack was running short.

And it didn't help either when my fourteen-year-old sister kept ducking in and out of my room, claiming she needed to look for something.

"Miriam's choking the cat again!" Josephine sang out as she passed by my open bedroom doorway. She shot one of the rubber bands from her braces at my owl, but aimed too far to the left and sent it flying at my crystal ball.

"Piss off Josephine!" I yelled as the rubber band bounced off of my crystal ball. I snatched up my wand and pointed it at my open bedroom door. "Colloportus." The door slammed closed, and I smiled in satisfaction.

By now, you would think that a Ministry owl would be coming swooping through my bedroom window, bearing a rap across the knuckles in letter form. Not so. I live all the way down in the Southern Hemisphere, in the Land Down Under - Australia for the uninitiated. And we have very different ways of doing things here. The Australian lifestyle is so laidback that nobody would even consider reprimanding an underage witch for breaking the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Wizardry, if we had one that is. Sometimes it's actually necessary for kids to use magic outside of school, especially those witches and wizards living out on remote dragon stations in the Outback. There's no such thing as the Statute of Secrecy here, either, because there's really no need for it. Pretty much every Muggle here thinks that anyone carrying a wand is participating in some sort of New Age ritual. The Ministry of Magic has taken to encouraging that particular viewpoint, which means that less time is spent reprimanding members of the general population, and more time is spent on the more important things.

I put my wand down and pointed one finger at my crystal ball. For some reason, I couldn't use my wand to levitate it as well as I could with my bare hands, and I really didn't want to have to repair it again if I dropped it. You can only repair a crystal ball so many times before the cracks become permanent. I flicked my finger at the sphere and it began to rise slowly from where I kept it on my bookshelves; I started to levitate it toward its case, which sat open on my desk, a silk scarf laid out ready for me to wrap around the sphere when it was safely in place.

I had positioned the crystal ball right above its case when the doorknob started rattling. Without taking my eyes off my target, as it were, I grabbed my wand and aimed it at my bedroom door. "Alohomora," I said, and the door unlocked and swung open. "What?" I asked upon seeing my mother standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips. Excellent peripheral vision is a blessing sometimes.

"Miriam, why were you yelling at your sister?" my mother asked.

"Because she was pissing me off, why else?" I sighed. "What do you want?"

"Are you packing already?" she asked.

"Yep." I flicked my finger and the crystal ball dropped into its case; I went over and picked it up, wrapped it in the silk scarf and put it back in. I closed the lid, latched it and put it in my trunk. "Have to be at Central on Saturday arvo, and I don't particularly feel like getting in trouble for being late. Wouldn't be good for the new school vice-captain to get a detention before the year's even started."

"No, I suppose not." I looked over at Mum, and she grinned somewhat maliciously. "But seeing as you're packing now, you can tidy your room tomorrow."

"Aw, Mum!" I complained. "It's tidy!"

"There are rubber bands all over the floor, Miriam."

"Oh I wonder why that is," I said sarcastically. "Josephine keeps coming in here and pinging her rubber bands at my things!" I waved my hand at the mess of small, neon-coloured rubber bands and they coalesced into one semi-solid mass, before jumping into my outstretched hand; I walked to my bedroom door and deposited them in Mum's outstretched hand. "Tell that sister of mine that if she doesn't stop harassing me, I'll zap her well and good." I conjured up a ball of green lightning, adjusted the colour slightly so that it looked like a glowing tennis ball, and started spinning it in mid-air above my open palm. "Either that or I'll hex her. I'm not really fussed." I waved my hand to disperse the lightning ball and looked at my mother, one eyebrow raised.

Mum shook her head and sighed. "Sometimes I really am glad that the two of you are in different houses. If you were both in Atitjere-"

"Or if we were both in Kalkaringi," I interrupted as I dropped to my knees and stuck my head under my bed, looking for wayward spell books.

"You'd be at one another's throats all the time instead of learning magic," she finished as if I hadn't even interrupted.

I stood back up, having located my soccer cleats and shin guards, and tossed them into my trunk. "So what're we having for dinner?" I asked.

"What do you want?"

I shrugged. "Dunno. Pizza, maybe?"

"We had that last night, Miriam."

"Lasagne, then. But it has to be the really good stuff, not the store-bought shit." I glanced around my room, at everything that still needed to be packed, and blew a few strands of hair that had escaped from my plait out of my face. "Oh, I don't have time for this. Pack!" I waved my wand in a long, sweeping motion and watched as everything I needed for school flew neatly into my trunk. "Much better." I tossed my wand onto my desk and walked to my bed, latched my trunk closed and dragged it off my bed onto the floor.

After dinner, I retreated to my bedroom once again, turned on my TV and threw myself on my bed. In my hand I had the letter that Southern Cross Academy sent out each and every January. Ordinarily, I'd give my letter a quick skim-read and then hand it off to my mother, but this year I'd chosen to give my letter a closer read, and had been amazed to discover that I was the new school vice-captain - which meant that next year, Southern Cross Academy would have a school captain from Atitjere House for the first time in over fifty years. Before I'd received the letter, I had been seriously questioning the point in going back - I had the minimum qualifications that were required by the Ministry of Magic, and I wasn't legally obliged to go back if I didn't want to. Mum had even told me that if I didn't want to continue on to Grade 11 and 12, she and Dad would be fine with it. Of course, I now had something other than Powerball that was worth looking forward to, and I'd decided to go back to the Academy for another year.

With the nightly news on Nine serving as a backdrop, I read my letter through once more to make sure that I hadn't missed anything.

Dear Miss Kennedy,

Welcome to the beginning of the 2000 school year at Southern Cross Academy of Elemental Magic. Please find enclosed your book and equipment lists.

The Academy is pleased to inform you that you have been elected the new school vice-captain. You are therefore requested to meet the school captain, the vice-principal and the school principal on February first in the school library after the end of the day's classes.

The Indian Pacific to Adelaide leaves from Platform 1 at Sydney Central terminal at 2:55 pm on January twenty-second. However, students are reminded that they must be at the station and signed in with the supervising teacher for their House by two o'clock. Term this year will begin on January thirty-first.

Yours sincerely,

Sarasvati Richards

Vice-Principal, Southern Cross Academy of Elemental Magic

Satisfied that I hadn't overlooked anything, I folded it again and lay back against my pillows. The wall opposite, which my desk stood against, was decorated with quite a few things - framed certificates, posters, photographs and charts - but the most prominent thing was a tapestry of the Southern Cross Academy crest. It was simple in its design, yet deep in its meaning - simply put, it was the Southern Cross, the same constellation that held pride of place on the Australian national flag and that the school was named for, against a background of sky blue. The four stars that made up the cross itself were worked in the school House colours of red, blue, green and yellow - the yellow Alpha Crucis at the bottom, the red Beta Crucis on the left, the blue Gamma Crucis at the top, and the green Delta Crucis on the right. And between the yellow and green stars was the white Epsilon Crucis - our Unity Star. Our school motto was 'One But Many' - while we as students represented the Academy as a whole, it was undeniable that we were all different. That in itself was one of the reasons I was proud to be a student at Southern Cross Academy.

The news was still going - the newsreader was detailing the next-to-last-minute preparations for the Muggle Olympics, to be held in September - so to amuse myself I conjured up a ball of blue lightning and bounced it from hand to hand. I had six powers, which for me was the limit - I didn't want or need any more. It was getting difficult keeping track of them. I ticked them off mentally - water, lightning, shape shifting, telekinesis, healing and telepathy. I mostly used my shape shifting abilities when I wanted to sneak out into the Academy grounds after curfew, but aside from that they weren't particularly useful. My healing abilities were mostly put to use during the Powerball season and Potions classes, and had led to my Head of House suggesting I take up a career as a Healer, ignoring entirely my prowess on the Powerball pitch. But the rest of my powers...I loved being an elemental, but I didn't get as much of a thrill out of my powers as I used to.

The sound of something hard striking my bedroom window snapped me from my reverie, and I sat up, slipped off of my bed onto the floor, and walked over to the window. I slid it open and stuck my head out to see my friends Inanna, Kali and Artemis standing on the footpath outside. "What do you guys want?" I yelled down.

"Wanna go play Powerball for a bit?" Kali yelled up. She held up her cleats.

"Yeah, just gimme a sec!" I yelled. "See you in a few minutes!" I closed my window again and found my sneakers, hopping around my room as I pulled on first my left shoe and then my right. After I had undone my hair and brushed it again, I pulled it back into a high ponytail and found my soccer ball.

"I'm going out with the girls, Mum!" I yelled as I came downstairs, knowing that my mother would know I was talking about Inanna, Kali and Artemis. "I'll be back before dark!" An hour wasn't nearly long enough for a good game, but it was good enough. And after grabbing a banana from the fruit bowl on the bench, I ran out the back door, leaving it to slam closed behind me.