Part One - New York New York
Severus Snape had completed the necessary preparations to leave for Hogwarts. His trunk had been sent ahead, so that the house elves could unpack his belongings and prepare his room before he arrived.
Annoyed that yet another new professor had filled the Defense against the Dark Arts position he desperately coveted, Severus was still anxious to return to Hogwarts. He glanced back at the sprawling manor, then checked his watch. It was time to leave. He waved his wand and recited the incantation that would take him to the gates outside Hogwarts.
There was a loud pop and Severus' feet found solid ground again. He found himself in an alley that he did not recognize, that smelt strongly of urine and garbage. Flies buzzed angrily around a large green trash receptacle that spilled its contents out onto the pavement. Odd symbols and words were scrawled across the brick buildings in brightly colored paints, which Severus mistakenly took for hexes and spells of a nature he had never seen before.
It was only then that he noticed the old woman staring at him, with her hand clasped over her mouth. She was dressed in layers of ragged dirty clothing.
"Oh my lands!" she exclaimed backing into the shopping cart she'd been pushing. "Oh my aging eyes! You just appeared out of thin air."
Ignoring her Severus waved his wand in the air again. "Appareo Hogwarts!"
Blue wispy smoke streamed from his wand, but he still remained standing in the stinking, dirty alley looking furiously at his traitorous wand. Finally he turned to the woman watching him with rheumy eyes. "Where am I?" he demanded.
"Bedford Avenue," she squeaked, finally removing her hand from her mouth.
"Where?"
"Bedford Avenue," she repeated. "You're in an alleyway between Vinnie's Italian Bistro and Mau Chung's Chinese Eatery. How did you do that?"
"Where?" he asked again, ignoring her question.
"Bedford Avenue, in an alley…"
"You said that already!" he snapped at her. "Obviously I'm not in Diagon Alley."
"I don't know of a Diagon Alley," she said slowly shaking her matted gray head.
"Of course not, you're a Muggle! And a vagrant at that!" Severus replied nastily, turning away from her.
"You're a rude young man." The woman turned from him, and began to push her cart down the alleyway, away from him.
If I can't apparate into Hogwarts, I'll try elsewhere, he thought then waved his wand into the air a third time. "Appareo Diagon Alley!" he cried. His wand made a loud popping sound and green smoke wafted from the tip, however his location remained the same.
"Damn it!" he swore. His wand had been giving him problems for the past two weeks, like turning his water into bubotuber pus instead of tea, and turning the doxies that recently had taken up residence in his manor into bullfrogs instead of making them disappear. But this was ridiculous!
Furious he turned to the woman again, biting back the anger in his voice he asked her, "Tell me exactly where I am?"
She cackled and continued to shamble out of the alley. "You loonier than old loony bin Bonnie if you don't know you're in New York."
"New York! North America! The United States!" He gaped at her incredulously. "How the hell did I get here?"
"I don't know, you tell me. Like I said you just appeared out of nowhere. 'Course no one believes an old woman like me - they all just jealous that the rats don't want to talk to 'em." The woman continued to mutter to herself as she shuffled out of the alleyway, her tattered slippers scraping on the pavement.
Severus shoved his wand into his pocket and strode out of the alley, looking apprehensively at the darkening sky.
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Gwen shifted the paper bags in her arm as she pushed the glass door open with her hip. She just lived a couple blocks around the corner and was grateful that she didn't have far to walk. In this city it would take twice as long to drive to the corner grocery store.
An old woman was sitting on the bench, next to a shopping cart, full of rags and tin cans. An old gray rat was sitting hunched over on her lap, munching on a piece of stale bread. The rat turned its head to look at Gwen with beady black eyes and wiped at its straggly whiskers with a paw.
"Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, you ever hear such rubbish," the old lady muttered to the rat. "They say Bonnie needs to go to a home. I tell you that there are crazy things in this town, but they don't want to hear them from me. You always listen."
Gwen stopped walking and turned toward the old lady.
"Miss, can you spare a dime? Please help an old homeless lady." The old lady called out to her.
Gwen handed her a dollar. "Uh, what's your rat's name?"
The rat squeaked then ran up the length of the old lady's arm and disappeared inside her ragged jacket.
The old lady grinned, exposing rotted teeth. "Oh, he's shy. He hasn't told me his name, yet."
"What was that you were saying about Hogwarts and Diagon Alley?" Gwen asked.
The old lady heaved herself out of the bench as though to leave. "It's rude to listen in on other people's conversations. Besides no one ever believes old loony bin Bonnie."
"I'll give you another dollar." Gwen reached inside her pocket and pulled out another bill. "Tell me what you know about Hogwarts and Diagon Alley."
The old woman grabbed the bill from Gwen's hand, then sat back down on the bench. "I sure am hungry," she said glancing at the bags Gwen was holding.
Gwen thrust an apple into her grimy hand. "Now, please, tell me what you know?"
"I don't know nothing about Diagon Alley or Hogwarts," the old woman replied taking a bite out of the apple and chewed noisily. "All I know is that this strange fellow dressed all in black just appeared out of thin air. I think he was a magician of sorts, an' I think he was trying to go there."
Gwen's eyes bulged out of her sockets and her jaw hung open.
"Oh, I knew you wouldn't believe me. No one believes a poor old woman."
"No, no I believe you. Where did this man go?"
"I don't know. Unpleasant sort if you ask me. Mean eyes." The old lady smacked her lips. "Say can I have another apple?"
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"Mom is gonna be so pissed!" Chasca ran to her mother's bedroom and pulled out an elaborately carved wooden box from under the bed. She took out the slender wand and spell book she found there and raced back into the living room. She opened the book and flipped through the pages.
"Okay, here it goes. Reparo!" She pointed the wand at the broken lamp on the floor as the book instructed. The broken pieces moved back together as though pushed by an invisible hand. Breathing a sigh of relief, Chasca picked up the repaired lamp and replaced it on the table.
Her mother's key clinked in the lock just as Chasca emerged from her mother's bedroom where she returned the book and wand.
"Help me with the groceries," Gwen said handing her daughter a large brown paper bag. Suddenly she spied the blue rubber ball lying on the floor in the living room. "Chasca, have you been throwing your ball around inside, again?"
"No, Mom," Chasca lied sheepishly.
"How many times have I told you to not throw your ball around in the apartment? You are going to break something!"
"Okay, Mom, I wont do it again," Chasca promised and followed her mother into the kitchen.