Hello fanfictioners!
So this will be the typical "OC from this world goes back in time to the Harry Potter universe to save Tom Riddle…"
Or maybe not.
Find out yourselves and let me know what you think. Feedback is my everyday bread.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything recognisable from the Harry Potter novels. I only own the plot from this story and my OCs.
Chapter 1. Dreaming of Magic.
"...and that's how it ends. Bloody stupid isn't it? I mean, the bald evil guy went down easy! He died because the stupid wand belonged to Potter for heaven's sake! I wanted to see some good time action and blood, but no, everything had to end in the most ridiculous way possible! And don't even get me started with the epilogue! It was just a bunch of rubbish, all of it!"
And with that Stella finished her despicable monologue. The girl had been sitting on a school bench during lunchtime complaining for almost half an hour about how stupid the new Harry Potter book was. Though everyone knew she probably hadn't even read it herself, and was just commenting what she had heard from other people on the internet.
Arya Roberts on the other hand was sitting on a table a few meters away as she tried not to listen to the whole thing, but under the table her fists were two hard rocks that would do anything just to be able to hit Stella right in the middle of her pretty face. Arya had grown up with those books and to her they were anything but stupid, the blonde girl clearly had no idea what she was talking about. To be fair Arya didn't like how the story ended either, but she knew things were meant to go that way. She knew Voldemort was going to have silly death; so it could be proven how much of a conceited fool he actually was, and that he wasn't invincible as everyone believed. To Arya it made perfect sense.
But still… there had always been a small part of her that wished things had gone a little different. She could remember how she felt when she was reading the final battle, how deep inside she kept hoping for him to try for some remorse.
But of course it never happened, and it had been a little disappointing.
"So what do you think Roberts? Can you agree now that your stupid obsession is a complete waste of trees?"
It was in that moment that Arya realised Stella's voice was now being directed to her. The girl was obviously saying all that stuff just to annoy the hell out of her; she knew how much Harry Potter meant to Arya. It seemed like a totally different lifetime now, but she could still remember how close she had been with the blonde girl for more than ten years; but those days were over almost as soon they had turned thirteen and started third form. Arya could hardly remember what their falling out had been about, but she couldn't deny it might had been her fault. Back in those days she had felt so jealous of her friend's beauty and newfound popularity that she had ruined their relationship forever.
Not that she felt particularly guilty in that moment, after all Stella had turned into a real bitch in the last years. They were even now.
Arya watched the blonde girl stand up from the bench and walk towards her table, where she was trying to finish an assignment alone. "Piss off James..." the brunette girl said without looking up to her ex best friend. She didn't feel like fighting today.
But Stella James wasn't one to give up easily "Oh aren't we a little grumpy today?" she responded mockingly. "What is it, Arya? Did you finally realise those books are just a big load of shit?"
"I said piss off!"
Arya stood up, grabbed her handbag in an angry and overly dramatic movement and proceeded to walk away from her classmates. She was aware of how much of a drama queen she was being, but she needed get as far as possible from that girl before she did something that would definitely earn her a trip to the headmistress office again.
Boy, did she hate that girl! And the whole college as well to be fair! All the people that went there were so false and superficial… Or maybe she was just feeling excessively hormonal that day. In all honesty Arya was probably just as superficial as the rest of them, and every school in the planet was probably the same. Well except for Hogwarts, but it didn't really exist. Arya needed to set her feet down on the real world—and she also needed to be a wee more optimistic—after all, this was her last year in her sixth form college. One more year and she'll be out of this place and into the real world. Though she wasn't very excited about her future either.
Arya grabbed her keys that were in her handbag and walked directly to her car, she still didn't have her permit, but her Dad didn't care if she took it to school, she doubted he even noticed. The long haired girl was not worried about missing the last two classes that day, after all the semester was almost over and she had miraculously passed all her exams. That was enough to satisfy her. And if she went home maybe she could finish her assignment without anyone bothering her.
Nonetheless as she drove through the streets of London, Arya tried to come up with a reason to stay away from her house for a few some more hours. It wasn't that she hated her family or anything of the sorts—they were fairly alright compared to some other families—things just hadn't been going so good since her mother died of cancer last year. Her father had been so crushed at the beginning he had spent about two months locked up in his office. By now he only came out to go to work and to eat. So it was basically up to Arya to take care of her seven-year-old brother, Anthony.
But still, she couldn't complain. She had a good life and she wanted to be grateful for everything she had. Life had to go on after all, people died every day and it wasn't that much of a special situation if you thought about it, even her own teachers had stopped giving her a special treatment by now. However sometimes she felt weak: every single moment she spent in that house just reminded her how much she missed her mother. But she knew that whining and wishing weren't going to change things, there were many people who had it worse than her, and they acted with unbelievable strength.
After thinking about it for a few minutes, Arya just lowered her head in resignation and took the usual road to her house, she turned on the radio and just sang along to some rock classics. Life really wasn't that bad when there was music around.
Then she arrived home and noticed the total chaos, as always. Her brother had been playing around the sitting room with his cars and trucks; and he had even built a city on top of the carpet. She smiled sweetly as she started to collect as many of her brother's toys as she could hold to avoid making many trips upstairs, and after she was finished she walked into the kitchen so she could get started with dinner.
XXXX
"So how was school today Anthony?" Her father asked while they were eating. "Have you been getting good marks boy?"
Arya couldn't help snorting. "Since when do you care?" Damn hormones, she was really in a bad mood that day.
Joseph Roberts looked back at his daughter with a furious expression. "Don't talk to me like that Arya! I have every right to ask my son a question!"
"No you don't!" She yelled back, even though she hated fighting with her father. Arya loved him very much, but she was just so tired of his depressing attitude. "At least not since you stopped behaving like a responsible father. I mean you don't study with him, you don't play with him, you don't feed him… you don't even get up in the middle of the night to see why he is crying! So unless you plan to change all of that, I suggest you go back to your bloody office and stop confusing u…him anymore!"
Joseph stood up angrily—knocking down his chair—and then left the room in a very soap opera scenario. Had the situation been any other, Arya would have laughed at this. Apparently being a drama queen ran deep in the family.
"Are you alright Ant?" She asked her brother who had remained silent and then proceeded to pick up their empty dishes and place them in the sink.
"Yes, but Ary..." the young boy replied with a worried expression. "Please don't yell at him again."
She stared back at him and smiled sadly. Anthony was her little angel but sometimes it pained Arya how much he reminded her of their mother. And she knew that was partly the reason why their father avoided him so much.
XXXX
It was twelve o'clock when she gazed at her golden watch. She had spent the past two hours reading the Half-Blood Prince once again. It was her second favourite book of the saga, the first being the Chamber of Secrets and she always wondered what could have happened if Ginny had died and Voldemort had come back to life in his sixteen-year-old body.
Arya closed the book and pulled up the covers from her bed until she was completely under their protective warmth. Her day hadn't been so bad, but she was just glad it was over. Slowly she closed her eyes and began to fall asleep; she usually had trouble with this, but tonight that wasn't the case. She must have been really tired. Her last conscious thought was the image of her mother, holding her strongly in her arms as she drifted into blissful happiness.
That night she dreamed some pretty odd things. There was a majestic castle, a woman dressed in white robes, and then her brother kept yelling in the dark, asking for her; but she couldn't reach him. He was so far away from her now, so far away from where she laid pale like a corpse…
Arya woke up sweating like she had run a marathon; she had never felt so scared of a dream before, but this one had been horrible. She was panting strongly; feeling very scared, when she notice there was another person snoring inside her room.
Except this was not her room.
"Holy shit!" She swore aloud when she finally noticed the stone walls and the high ceiling. There were two big beds inside also—the types of beds one usually sees in a Dracula film—and she was sitting on top of one. In the other bed she spotted a black-haired girl sleeping peacefully.
'Where the hell am I?!' Arya thought whilst she got up and walked towards the window, and as she looked down she felt her heart skip a beat at the height. She was obviously in a tower, and a very tall one at that. Below she could see a small lake and some mountains surrounding what appeared to be some sort of castle. 'This is clearly not London! I must be dreaming, how else would I have ended up here?'
"Arya...?" She heard a soft voice calling her name. "Why are you awake? Is something wrong?"
The young girl that had been sleeping rose from her bed and came close to where Arya was standing, paralysed with fear. She was young, probably about eleven or twelve years old, with an angular face and long jet black hair. Her skin was so pale that it didn't even look healthy.
But the real scary thing was that the girl seemed to know her name and Arya was sure they had never met before. But she could still see here there, under the light of the moon, so close to Arya that she could feel her breath on her arm. This dream was getting too realistic for her liking.
"Arya?" The girl asked again and she seemed worried."Are you alright? Why are you looking at me in such a way?" She reached for her hand but Arya took a step back. Nothing made any sense.
"How do you know my name?" She finally managed to mutter. "Where am I?"
The girl stared at her with an evident frightened expression. "What are you talking about Arya?"
But Arya just kept looking at her pale little face, trying not to freak out while she waited for some explanations.
"You are scaring me! Don't you know who I am? It's me your sister Eily… Eileen Prince!" The girl ended up screaming with a desperate tone, as if it was the most obvious thing ever; and tried to reach Arya's hand again, but the older girl kept walking backwards.
"Sister! I don't have a sis..."
And that's when she realised something was really wrong. She had heard, or rather read that name before in one of her books. Eileen Prince… was Severus Snape's bloody mother!
A witch from the Harry Potter world.
That was it. She had finally lost it.
"Fuck!"
Arya didn't know when exactly she started running, and she was only half conscious of opening a wooden door and venturing through the dark hallways. She also had no idea where she was going but that didn't stop her, she had to get away from the girl who was obviously not sane.
Or maybe she was the one who needed to be locked up in the loony bin.
After running for a while Arya noticed she was lost. She had reached the end of a corridor where an enormous red door towered over her. She tried to regain her breath for a few seconds as she pondered her choices, and then decided to open the door.
Inside she found a library with antique tables and red sofas. Arya walked towards the nearest table where she saw what appeared to be a newspaper. Feeling very nervous she took it, and mustering some courage she finally gazed back at it.
27th August 1944
The Daily Prophet
The date and the title were the last thing her eyes saw before some strange force knocked her down to the floor, leaving her unconscious once again.
