Soulmates or Just...Mates?
I looked out the plane window, thinking about what had happened over the past two weeks.
• • •
"It's not fair! You can't just make move with you to England just because you met someone on-line! I HATE YOU!!" I stormed up the stairs, and slammed my door, hard, feeling satisfied at the sound echoing around the house. Numbly I sat on the bed, thinking about the bombshell that had just been dropped on my life. My love-crazed mother was moving me and my bratty eleven year old sister to England, because, get this, she met this GUYonline that she thinks is the ONE. Sure moving to England would be fun for her and Chloe, but I'm seventeen years old, my whole life is in New York, I can't just drop everything and move. It would be hard enough if I was an average teenager, but I'm not. I'm a friggin' witch for god sakes.
I heard my mom come up the stairs and stop outside my door.
"Go away!" I said, but, being my mother, she opened the door and walked right in. She sat beside me on my bed.
"Honey, I know this is going to be hard, but you have to trust me on this. This move is going to change our lives. Just think, in two weeks you'll be on a plane on your way to Hogwarts, the best witch and wizard school in the world! Much better than the local one you go to now."
"Except for the fact that I like the school I'm going to now. And in case you haven't heard, Hogwarts was practically blown up by the darkest wizard in the world!"
"Now sweetheart, that's true but it's been repaired since then. Why can't you just go along with it for once, you always have to be so difficult? In two weeks you will be packed and on a plane to England, and that's that." She got up and walked downstairs.
"Next time, close the door!"
• • •
And two weeks later, where do you think I was? If you guess a plane, ding, ding, ding we have a winner. I regretfully packed my bags and was ready to go to England. Maybe not ready, but at least I was going, right? And just to let you know, the seats on planes are actually quite comfortable, but don't tell my mom that, but the food is a whole other story. It looks like someone barfed and then fried it. And it doesn't taste much better. Let's just say that if I never have to go on a plane again, I will be eternally happy.
By the time mom picked me and Chloe up from the airport I was too tired to think much and couldn't bother look out the window to see the scenery, even though Chloe was practically shouting every time we past something even a tiny bit interesting. And when we pulled in the driveway I barely glance at the house. I just grabbed my bags and went into the house. I was half way up the stairs before I remembered that I had no clue where I was going.
"Your room is the first on the left, Sophia. I had it painted lime-green for you."
I continued climbing the stairs and opened the first door on my left. My mom wasn't lying when she said she had my room pained lime-green. It was bright enough without the light on. I stumbled around until I found what felt like a bed and collapsed on it. That night, I had several strange dreams, although, none of them made any sense.
I had two weeks left of summer holidays, and I planned to make the better of the first day in England by going sightseeing, without Chloe. But, as always, something had to screw it up. That day both Chloe and I got letters from Hogwarts, accompanied by list of what we needed to bring. Apparently my mom had contacted the new Headmistress, Professor McGonagall, and told her about our 'predicament'. According to my letter I was suppose to go to Hogwarts next Friday to get sorted into a house and I was ok with that, since I had nothing planned (a duh!) but today was the day we went shopping for our supplies, my mother said contently.
"Since I have to work today, Sophia, I'm going to ask you to take Chloe to Diagon Alley and get all of your things that you need. I don't want to have to rush. I'll send you with 200 gallons, that should be enough for you books and things," she turned to face Chloe, "if there's money leftover you can buy an ice cream." She handed me a heavy bag filled with coins, "Go to the Leaky Cauldron, they can help you there, just tell them you Miranda's daughters." She picked up her purse and hurried to the door. "When you get home there'll most likely be a present in your rooms," she called over her shoulder.
Two hours later Chloe and I were standing in front of the Leaky Cauldron. All around us muggles were going on about their day not even glancing towards the grimy building in front of me.
"Do we have to go through here," Chloe whined beside me.
"Suck it up; I want to go in there about as much as you want to. But if we don't mom will have a total spaz on us and probably forbid us from doing anything fun. Like," I thought for a moment, "playing quidditch in the backyard. Now get moving." I gave her a little shove towards the door.
Inside it was even dirtier than I could have imagined. I walked slowly up to the counter.
"Hi, my name's Sophia and this is Chloe, um, we're Miranda's daughters and we were wondering if you could help us get to Diagon Alley?"
"Ah, I was wondering when you girls would show up. The name's Tom, follow me."
We followed him into a small room where he tapped on the wall. Suddenly the bricks began to move apart and form an arch. This might sound like a weird experience to you, but I'm a witch, and that's how we do things.
I looked at Tom, "Thanks for the help Tom," I said. I took Chloe's hand and stepped into Diagon Alley without looking back.
Surprisingly I managed to weave around people pretty easily, and within an hour Chloe and I were weighed down with books, although the coin pouch was feeling a bit lighter. Our next stop would be the robe shop. We stopped along the way to admire the Nimbus 2008 in a window, it was the newest broomstick there was, and I was dying to own one. I had bagged my mom months before to let me get one but she always refused. Both Chloe and I stood there, our mouths watering at just the thought of flying on it. A few minutes later a repentantly pulled myself away and half dragged Chloe to Madam Malkin's Robes for Any Occasion. Another hour later we were back outside with brand new robes. The last stop was the wand shop because Chloe didn't have one yet. But I'll skip the boring summary. When we had everything we needed and we still had some gallons left, we walked to the little ice cream place. We both ordered gigantic sundaes and took them outside to eat.
As we were sitting down I noticed a group of six people to our left. I gasped and looked away. And then looked back again. I knew who those people were! Well at least most of them. The one with the wild hair and green eyes was none other than Harry Potter, and the girl to his right with the fiery red hair was his girlfriend Ginny Weasley. To her left was her brother Ron, you could tell from his hair, and his girlfriend Hermione Granger. To her left was Luna Lovegood. The last boy I didn't recognize and I read Ginny's blog every week. I must have missed something, I thought. Then it hit me. It was Neville Longbottom. He was only mentioned a couple times but he was there at least. Forgetting about our sundaes, I started to drag Chloe back to our house where I could think clearly again. Being around people that famous made me faint.
By the time we got back, Chloe was still complaining. "I didn't even get to finish my sundae. We haven't had ice cream in months," she whined.
"I know, you've said that five times already. Get over it; we can go back another day." I opened the front door. "Didn't mom say there would be something for us when we got home? I wonder where they are."
"There probably in our rooms, duh!" Geez, one minute she's a whiny little brat and the next she all happy 'cause she gets a present. Kids these days! But I had to hand it to her; she was a pretty smart kid.
I climbed the stairs slowly. I was about three quarters up when Chloe started to squeal. "Oh my god! Mom got me an owl! I can't believe it! I'm gonna call it Feathers!"
"So creative!" I muttered. I finished climbing the stairs and turned to my room. Lying on my bed was the new Nimbus 2008.