A/N: Hello! This is a fanfiction that I have been working on for years, but have decided just this year to go back into it and rewrite it a bit. I really do hope you enjoy it! It is based off of the Harry Potter series, and all of Jo Rowling's work is her's and her's alone. Anything mentioned that is related to her content belongs to her and I do not take credit for it. Anything else is 100% my work and no one else's. Thank you for taking the time to read it!
I was running as fast as my clunky feet could take me. My mum had always said I had big feet for such a little girl, but I loved them. When boys would tease me on the playground, it made it easier to stomp on their foot and get away with it as it just being an accident.
Over the bushes, under the low trees, and right across the lawn; I raced and raced until my vision started to blur with beads of sweat. I couldn't wait to share the great news with my best friends! I recapped what my mum had said to me just a few minutes before:
"Laya, dear, would you please come into the kitchen?" called mum, while I was watching a movie with my cousins in the next room.
"Sure, Mum," I called back.
We paused the movie, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and I hurried into the kitchen to find myself surrounded by my family. There was silence for some time until my dad spoke me and my brother, Joseph.
"Kids, we wanted to tell you something important that will be happening, effective immediately. As long as you guys think it's alright," he added with a smile.
"What is it, Dad?" moaned Joseph, with an agitated tone. "I was busy playing with the worms in the backyard."
"Well, we were thinking about… moving up here, just down the street from your little friend, Skye," said mum, with her twinkling blue eyes watching us excitedly.
"Oh my god, really?! I can't wait to tell Skye!" I exclaimed, jumping up and down.
"Really and truly?" he wondered, his eyes brightening.
"Yes dear, of course!" my mum responded. "So do you both agree on moving up here? Because we will start the moving process immediately."
"Yes, yes, yes!" we cried in unison.
"Good then, it's settled. We'll head back to Silvermill tonight and start packing," mum smiled excitedly. "As soon as you tell your little friends about it, of course."
That is when I had taken off to Skye's house to tell her. According to my mum, my dad had gotten a better job offer here in Aldrose. In the city we were about to move out of, he was a superintendent at the building we lived in. A man by the name of Mr. Harshop was offering him a position as a farmer here in town, which is what my dad has always dreamed to be. So once we moved, he would start immediately at Mr. Harshop's farm.
A few minutes later, I had finally reached Skye's house and yelled up at her window.
"Skye! Skye!" I shrieked. A little red head popped out of the window upstairs.
"What?!" she hollered back, obviously annoyed.
"If Brad is over get down here now! I've got awesome news!" I grinned up at her.
"Alright, alright. Keep your hairnet on."
I paced the pavement in front of her front door and pondered what their reaction was going to be. Brad and Skye had been my best friends for years, but I only got to see them occasionally when my family would visit my Aunt in Aldrose. I didn't have a lot of friends in Silvermill, so whenever we got the chance to visit I made sure to spend as much time as possible with them. So when they emerged from Skye's house, I practically jumped onto both of them in excitement.
"I'm moving just down the street from you, into that big old house!" I squealed with delight.
Skye and Brad both gasped at the same time.
"No freakin' way!" Brad exclaimed, wrapping his lanky arms around my shoulders. "Now we all get to hang out all the time! How come you're moving?"
And I retold everything that had just happened for the second time that day.
"Laya! Come help with the rest of the boxes!" called my dad from the moving truck.
"Coming Daddy!" I replied as I hurried over to the back of the truck.
I tried to help as much as I could, by bringing in lighter boxes and some pillows, but most of the work was done by my older cousins Jeff, Jonathon, and Jason. A few hours later, with a few short breaks and some delicious homemade lemonade from my aunt, and they were done unloading everything.
The old house on the end of the street, near the bridge, was now rightfully ours! It was fairly large, with four floors including the basement and attic. I later learned that the term for the design of our house was "Victorian", meaning it looked old with a lot of pretty white trimmings to contrast the dark grey paint that was sort of chipping. It also had a ton of windows circling the entire house.
It stood awkwardly among a row of equally as awkward houses; two one-story houses, a three-story house that was painted canary yellow, a house that looked like a miniature castle, two with balconies that rimmed the entire second floor (one of which belonged to Skye's family), and a house that looked as if it were built mostly underground.
The interior of the house was quite incredible. Most of the walls were covered in wallpaper, but it wasn't that ugly wallpaper that you see in someone's grandmother's house, it was a nice light blue colour with white trimmings and intricate designs. Right now it was full of boxes and awkward furniture, but after another hour of rearranging, my parents had managed to unpack and organize the living room and kitchen in the way that they wanted. As they were doing that, Joseph and I were in our rooms unpacking our own belongings.
I was in love with my bedroom because it was painted the most beautiful light purple I had ever seen. My cousin Jeff had helped me set up my wooden poster bed and hang the white canopy from the ceiling that draped around it. After he had left, I was set to the task of putting all of my clothing away and organizing my freshly-painted white bookshelf. The shelves were jam packed with more than just books. I had a few stuffed animals, a soccer ball, a few knickknacks that my Nana had given me, and a couple family picture frames.
I adorned the walls with a few of my favourite things: a signed Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban poster, signed by J.K. Rowling herself; a Sailor Moon poster; an England flag; and a couple of pictures of Brad, Skye and I. I also made sure to hang up my mirror and the chalkboard that I had gotten for Christmas last year.
Once I had finished putting away everything, I ran downstairs and into the kitchen to find my mum making dinner.
"Hello sweets," she smiled lovingly. "I'm making your favourite, cheeseburger pasta!"
"Awesome! Is it okay if I go and get Skye and Brad after dinner? I want to show them my new room!"
"Maybe tomorrow, dear. I want to have a few days, at least, for just us in this house," mum laughed.
"Your mother is right, Laya," began my father as he sat down at our kitchen table. "We need to enjoy this new place before we invite new people into it."
"Okay," I sighed, sitting down beside him.
"How about we go set up our little library in the attic instead?" Mum asked, setting out plates.
I agreed excitedly and rushed through my dinner so that we could get started as soon as possible. The attic was a circular shape, with a door to one side leading off to another smaller room for storage. There were only two small windows high up, so we had to bring up two tall lamps in order to have some good lighting. When mum and I went upstairs we found the bookshelves already set up with boxes of books stacked in the middle. There were five separate bookshelves, about six shelves high. There were all side by side, following the circular shape of the room, with a Persian rug laid out in the middle for us to sit on. There was also a beanbag chair, which is what I sat on to sort through boxes. We sat there for about an hour in comfortable silence.
"Mum, the Septimus Heap books by Angie Sage go near the Harry Potter books, right? Because it's kind of the same storyline and has wizards and witches and things like that," I asked, while picking up a big set of about four books.
"Actually," replied mum from her cross-legged position on the floor. "That should stay out because the next book is coming out this weekend and we'll need to be able to find it."
"Oh alright," I mumbled as I stacked the books on top of the big cedar chest in the middle of the room. "Mum, I think we're about done and I'm getting kind of sleepy. Can I go get a snack and then go to bed?"
"Yes, of course dear," she sighed. "I'll just finish up the rest on my own. Goodnight," she finished as I leaned down to plant a kiss on her cheek and give her a big hug.
"Thanks for helping me, G-G-Goodnight," I yawned as I half-stumbled down the stairs to the kitchen, only to find my brother still awake. "Joey, you should be in bed. It's ten o'clock at night!"
"There's a spider in my room and Dad is getting rid of it," he mumbled from his large, awkward hands covering a beet red face. "And don't you dare say a thing to those friends of yours or I'll hide worms in your cereal," he added with a glare as he brushed passed me to head upstairs.
"Whatever," I laughed after his heavy footsteps on the stairs. I got myself a little snack of vegetables and dip then headed off to my own room.
After finishing up my snack and reading a poem or two out of the Edgar Allan Poe book my Nana had bought, I changed into my pajama's and climbed into a nice warm bed and fell asleep instantly.
Over the next few days while my family cleaned things up and organized their possessions in the places they wanted, I decided to explore the house and my first stop was the attic. I was excited that we had so much space in this house, compared to the tiny apartment we used to live in.
So I spent the good deal of about three hours wandering through the second room of the attic and looking through all the boxes my parents had stored in there. As I was leaning on one of the bookcases in the main attic room, the bookcase moved just a touch. I jumped and turned around to look at what happened and gasped.
There was a little door, about three feet tall, just behind the bookcase. How did no one notice this while putting the bookshelves up? I bent down to slide it open and peered inside to find it pitch black. I waved a hand through the darkness, but I ended up just freaking myself out. I ran into the storage room and found a flashlight.
I couldn't see much, the light wasn't very bright. It looked like a tunnel of some sort. I sat there for a moment, my eleven-year-old imagination running through all the crazy and awesome things that I could find in there. Eventually, child's curiosity took over and I crawled into it on my hands and knees, a big smile on my face.
I had only gotten two crawls through when I heard my mum call. I groaned loudly and crawled backed out of the tunnel. I gently nudged the bookshelf back into place and made sure to leave the flashlight on one of the shelves so I knew which bookcase it was behind. I wandered back downstairs to help mum clean, but was excused later when my Aunt Sue arrived to check out the house.
I walked down to the basement to see if I could find any other secret doorways or passages. However to no avail, as there were just dusty corners and a creepy cellar for more storage. I abandoned my quest and skipped into the kitchen for some lunch.
Three long days after we had moved in, mum finally allowed me to bring over my friends. She said we were pretty much settled, minus a few boxes here and there, and since my aunt's "approval" had been given to the cleanliness (mum rolled her eyes at this), we could now have guests over. Before she even finished her sentence, I had dashed out the door and down the street to Skye's house.
"Skye?" I called up to the window.
"In the back!" I heard distantly. I raced around the house to find Skye, Brad and Skye's sister, Summer, playing in the pool. I hurried up on to the dock just as they climbed out of the water.
"Do you guys want to come over? We're done unpacking and everything," I smiled brightly. "Summer can come too if she wants. She can play with Joseph."
"No thanks, yuck," replied Summer. "He's an ugly boy," she added with a disgusted face and ran back into the house giggling as Brad gave her a disbelieving look.
"We'll just dry off, change and head over," sighed Skye, shaking her head at her sister's immaturity. "You can come inside."
Ten minutes later we were walking over to my house ready to look around the "big old house at the end of Highpine Street" which was now the "Melrosen residence". Some of the local teenagers had tried to scare us off the first day we had gotten here, telling us the house was haunted and that we'd be tormented, but my mum told them to scurry off.
"I can't wait to see your room. From what you say it sounds awesome," murmured Skye, all dreamy-eyed.
"I'm really excited to show you guys the library! I found something super awesome!" I exclaimed as we hurried all the way up the stairs.
"Wow, this is like a personal library. You have so many books!" exclaimed Skye, and Brad hurried over to examine the 'Fantasy' section that mum had labeled.
"This place is truly amazing, Laya," Brad marveled, looking around at all the books. "I'll be here almost every day to read. You know you could charge kids just to take out bo-" he stopped as he saw the look on my face.
"None, I repeat, none of these books will leave this library unless I give permission or, of course, it's you guys," I smiled at the two of them and they all burst out into giggles.
"You reminded me of that scary librarian, Madam What's-her-face, from Harry Potter," Skye smirked.
"Yes well, I was hoping to get that reaction. Okay now back to business. I've found this really cool tunnel behind one of the bookcases. Hmm, now where was it?"
I found the flashlight that I had placed on a shelf, and asked Brad to help me nudge the bookcase over carefully. It moved to show the small door and I grinned really largely.
"Cool, where does it go?" asked Brad kneeling down to have a look.
"I haven't been able to go through, I always go far enough, and then it stops. So I used it as a small hiding place for things which I love dearly," I replied, as I opened the little door to reveal small knickknacks and things.
"Wicked!" Skye and Brad sang together, as I closed it back up smiling.
"Let's get back to our search," I said, nudging the bookcase back over the door.
After about twenty minutes of exploring, Skye had found something in the far right corner of the storage room. Brad and I walked over and kneeled down to examine her findings.
It was a small little door, the same height as the other one I had discovered. When Skye slid it open, it revealed a big long box about the size of my leg, and we all pulled it out onto the floor between us. I first read the note that was taped across the top.
"To whoever may find this, you have made a great discovery. You will have plenty of adventures in this great old house and find other great objects and surprise holes! But first, the items contained in this box shall help you a great deal. Have fun, my dear. Good luck."
When Brad pushed it open, we couldn't believe our eyes. There was a small candle, which was pretty much all melted down, with matches and another set of candles in one end. Beside that was a long box, around twelve inches. I pulled it out and opened it to find something pretty incredible.
"It's a wand! Just like the ones they have in Harry Potter!" I exclaimed in a loud whisper, pulling it out of its box and showing it to the others.
"Laya, look at the bottom of the box! There's some writing," exclaimed Brad. "This box contains a wand that may seem fake to the Muggle eye, but actually it is real. Go ahead, try it out. Do some simple spell that you may know from one of those Harry Potter books which have become so famous in your world."
"Oh my god, it's a real wand! Let me see it again," I said, wide-eyed.
"Oh I doubt it!" Skye laughed. "A Harry Potter fan probably lived here before you."
"Nonsense," I scoffed, snatching the wand from her hand. "Wingardium Leviosa!" I said strongly, pointing it to the candle in the box. To our surprise, it actually levitated! Just like in the book.
"No freaking way!" whispered Brad furiously.
"Look there's more wand boxes in there," Skye pointed as Brad pulled out two more boxes for both of them. They each tried the same spell and it also worked.
"Look, there's a map as well," Skye whispered.
She pulled out this obviously very old piece of paper and unfolded it. Oh my god, I thought, no way! It was a map almost exactly like the Marauders Map from the Harry Potter books except instead of a map of Hogwarts, it was a map of my house and a little of the surrounding area.
"I can't believe it! You know, we should try going through the tunnel, there could be more interesting things in there," Skye exclaimed as Brad examined the hole with the flashlight.
"Uh, I don't know guys, don't you think this is a little weird?" He grimaced, staring into the seemingly empty black tunnel. "I mean, there's a box with wands in it and they work? It just doesn't feel right."
"Don't be silly, Brad!" Skye laughed. "You're just scared."
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
"Am-"
In the midst of their silly argument, the flashlight died. That got their attention
"Do you guys know the 'Lumos' spell?" I asked, motioning to the wand. "It's really easy, watch. Lumos!"
My wand lit up a little, almost like it was lit on fire. Brad, still skeptical, tried it out and it worked. He mumbled something unintelligent as Skye lit up her own wand as well. I smiled at both of them and gave Brad an encouraging nudge.
I crawled into the whole, with Brad following after and Skye trailing in last. We travelled for quite a bit; it had felt like an hour, and we were getting tired and hungry. Brad had complained multiple times that we should just go back, but Skye and I were much too excited. Finally I heard some talking coming from a door a few feet away with a little light seeping through the bottom.
"You can turn off your lights now." I said, but when they looked confused I added, "just say 'Nox'."
We crawled towards the little door and I pushed it open carefully. Once we were all out and kneeling on a hardwood floor, we stood up and brushed ourselves off quickly. We slid the wands into our sleeve to hide them, like we had seen in the Harry Potter movies. We looked up and gasped in unison. We were standing in what seemed to be the Leaky Cauldron, right out of the Harry Potter movies!