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I was born in the year of the Dragon. Unlucky year to be dragon, my mother would tell me.

"But Ma," I would say, "that's not real astrology, that's Chinese astrology. We're in Britain--see, look my sign is a Cancer, you see the crab? Up in the stars...no, not suicide maiden. That is the crab. These are English stars."

And my mother would go, "Hnnh, you think I do not know the heavens, don't believe your own mother."

That was the way my mother was. And when I showed her my wand, brand new from Diagon Alley, my English spellbooks, the British things I would be taught at Hogwarts, the real magic, my mother would say, "Real magic! Wah! So much more--our ancestors are rolling in their graves. My age you be married, making mother in law happy, doing Chinese magic!"

Mother in law! Honestly, I was eleven. When I left for Hogwarts my mother warned me many times about being good so bad ghosts wouldn't get me. I was always told about ghosts as a child. My mother was not cruel, she did not want to scare me. That was what Chinese people did. We had fought so many, so many years. About real magic, about proper manners, about cutting my hair, or listening to the WWN. Me and my mother fought, until I entered Hogwarts, my first year. And when I came home we did not fight anymore. Here is the story of that year; of my mother's past, of my future. The story of my mother, now as clear as the coral beads that fall into a clean, shining pond. The story of me, and my mother, my namesake, Cho Chang.

Ai, Goddess of Mercy, don't have my daughter flattened by this train, Hogwarts Express. Bah--in China we use rickshaw, only no one to pull it--it went all on its own. Only meinlul, Muggles, use people as rickshaw pullers. But this train! Luling wrote yesterday told me all about a train crash, in America. Fifty people die. So senseless--yes, Luling said it was a meinlul train, but still, can't be good luck. Train crash in America, who says train can't crash in England. I try to tell this to my daughter, say, be careful, don't hurt, be good or you will be dead, like those American meinlul's--a ghost. But my daughter frowned and said I spoke bad English. Maybe so, but I had best Chinese. Peking, nice and wealthy from my fathers side, Soochow on mother's side. Soochow is best accent; not many people speak it. Even Luling says I speak best Chinese, and she came from Shanghai. I tried to tell my daughter this so many times. How even though I don't say it perfect, my heart will tell her this. But she laughs and says, "You're British, you can't be a silly old Chinese witch. People will think you bind your feet!"

Bah--bind my feet? No, only meinlul's do that. So painful. I try to tell my daughter we have magic, Shrinking spells for large feet, no pain. But my daughter doesn't listen. She isn't listening to me now, talking to her other English friends. Wah--not one of them Chinese! That one over there looks Japanese even. And that boy, maybe one year older, look like snakes coming out of his head, not lucky at all.

"The trains leaving any minute Ma. See you later!" And my daughter, she waves to me out that red train, and slowly it goes away. She doesn't hug me, she doesn't say "I miss you already." She is too full of pumpkin juice and this English excitement to hear me say, "I love you," in my perfect Chinese, Soochow accented voice.

"Was that your...mom? Magda says as the Hogwarts Express begins to go faster, whirring through London, and out into the countryside.

"Yeah, that's my mom," I answer sullenly. It's cloudy out. I always hated cloudy, indecisive, weather.

"Is she English?"

I get that a lot. "

Yeah, she lived here all her life, and her mom before that, and before that. She speaks perfect English, she' s not very talkative though."

It isn' t really a lie.

"Oh."

Which is just what I need, a potential new friend to think I' m weird. I sigh-even when she' s not hovering over me, ma ruins everything.

"What house do you think you' ll be in?" Magda asks. She looks uncomfortable.

"I don' t know. I hope I' ll get in Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw."

"Hufflepuff?"

"Yeah, everyone there's really nice, I heard."

Magda rolls her eyes. " Who told you that?"

"Some third year."

"Probably a Hufflepuff," Magda says. I can already tell we're a lot alike, favoring short phrases to long drawn out ones.

I force a giggle, "He was really handsome though."

"Let me set you right" Magda leans to me, as if telling me a secret. Her eyes are brown, matter of fact, the sort of person who never thought ghosts hid under her bed.

"Hufflepuffs are idiots. Not too nice to say, but it's true. Slytherins, you know them, they' re just horrible so forget them. Gryffindors can be nice, yeah, but they're real show offs. Everyone says last year when they lost the House Cup to Slytherin they were sulking for weeks. Ravenclaws where you'd be best, I can tell."

Ravenclaw...it really doesn't sound too bad. The sky begins to clear, the sun is shining and I'm thinking, Ravenclaw. No, not bad at all.