A/N: Hello, everyone! This is my first fanfiction in about five years. We're all very excited. As you know, it is a Harry Potter story. This in no way means I own Harry Potter or anything even remotely interesting. I have a Game Boy Color. That's it. Anyway, the entirety of the HP world belongs to the incomparable J.K. Rowling.
This story is set post Harry Potter's time at Hogwarts, but before his itty bitty baby Potters begin running around the place.
With a crinkly snap and a small puff of dust, Kathleen Mockridge returned Uncommon Spells of the Nineteenth Century by Bartimaeous Billingsley to the shelf in Florish and Blotts. As she turned away with a flick of her dark hair, she noticed a girl about her age frowning thoughtfully at a copy of Unfogging the Future. For a second, she appreciated the girl's apparent aptitude for a study not available until a student's third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. But her feelings soon turned to a bland form of disbelief as the girl held the book at arm's length with a wildly inappropriately furious expression and said loudly at the pages, "BUT WILL I BE IN GRYFFINDOR? YES OR NO? HELLO?"
Unfortunately, their eyes met just as Kathleen was trying to disgustedly turn away.
The girl's eyes widened in excitement. "Hey! You're a magic person, er, a witch right? You know about magic stuff, right? Who are you, anyway?"
"Kathleen," Kathleen said stiffly. Then, for emphasis, "Kathleen Mockridge."
The use of her surname didn't have the effect she had anticipated; in fact, it didn't have an effect at all.
"Listen," the girl bounded over, holding out Unfogging the Future, "can you make this work? I don't know how to do it. I really want to know what House I'll be in at uhm. What's it called? Oh wait, you go to that school right? Like, you know what I'm talking about?"
"Hogwarts?" supplied Kathleen, with one eyebrow cocked. "I don't go there yet, I'll be a firs-"
"Yes! Yeah, gosh, why is the name so weird? Anyway, I got this weird letter and I was like, 'Ha, this is funny,' but it looked really official so I read it again, and you know what, it made a lot of sense. I thought I was going crazy because weird stuff happened sometimes, you know, to me, and the letter was like, 'Oh, no, you're just a magic person,' and I liked that better than the idea of being crazy. And this guy came to my house, he was like, I thought he was, I don't know, he was wearing a suit but he looked wrong in the suit, you know? I mean, the suit didn't suit him and-WAIT OH MY GOD, DID YOU HEAR WHAT I, I DIDN'T EVEN MEAN TO, OH MY GO-"
It was then that the girl, whose name was Aileen McMartin, noticed that Kathleen hadn't been present for anything since, "got."
"Right," Aileen said a little sadly, turning back to replace Unfogging the Future on the shelf. This Kathleen had been the first person her age she'd come across since the man in the suit –Ministry Official, she reminded herself, from the Ministry of Magic- brought her here through a place called The Dirty Cauldron or something.
Naturally, she wasn't as excited as that Mockridge girl probably thought she was. In reality she almost couldn't believe her parents had allowed her to leave the house without them. It was nervousness that sped up her babbling. Her parents seemed to know this man, at least, whom they introduced as, "Richard, from the Ministry" –Ministry of Magic- she mentally corrected again. Before the front door of their comfortingly mundane home closed, she witnessed them share a knowing smile.
It was the same smile, she noted anxiously, that had so frustrated her throughout her life. The smile was there when she was six and somehow refilled her own cup of apple juice without ever going near the fridge. The smile was there when she was eight and her archrival Dennis Fenway suddenly found himself in a frilly pink bunny sweater at her birthday party. And the smile was there when she read aloud the name Minerva McGonagall, Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
During the car ride, which also seemed just slightly off somehow, You-Can-Call-Me-Richard had explained to her that she was a witch. She had magical powers. Which meant the letter was for real. Which meant she was actually going to a place full of other people who could use magic. Which meant she'd be taking magic-classes or something. While being a witch.
Instantly her mind flipped over to every stereotypical witch thing she'd heard. Witches, she gathered from her collection of information, were old and more often than not, unattractive. Aileen didn't really think of herself as attractive or unattractive, putting more stock into how far she could throw a baseball or how cool she could look in a backwards hat. Maybe this connected somehow.
But then, she realized with a pang, would other girls at the school be unpretty as well? This frazzled her a bit. She liked girls a lot. Especially the pretty ones.
Her eyes snapped to Richard, her mouth halfway open before she even processed how she wanted to phrase this question. What came out was, "Is this an Ugly School?"
Richard laughed for about eight years but never actually answered her. Horrified, she followed him out of the car into the Dirty Cauldron place, through the back, into a brick-walled courtyard, and, after a few taps of his wand on the brick wall, they went through the brick wall -through the brick wall- and into this bustling street of things.
One thing she quickly realized was that magical people, witches and wizards, were most definitely not ugly. Richard had to grab her by the scruff of her sweatshirt to keep her from following a tall, brunette woman right into a shop.
"You'd like to explore, then?" he said, amused.
"Yes!" she said shrilly.
"Well that's lovely, but you're eleven and we have a specific list to follow." Richard, suddenly serious, whipped the copy of her Hogwarts letter out of his pocket. "We're nearest the apothecary, so let's pick up your potions kit first, shall we?"
And so she stumbled along the streets of what she learned was Diagon Alley, sometimes trotting after Richard into the correct shops, and sometimes having to be forcefully grabbed and steered.
After a few hours that rushed by like the broomsticks Aileen had to be pried away from, Richard offered to, "carry this lot back to the Cauldron, right?" He hitched up a few parcels threatening to spill over onto the street, and added, "Go get your books from Florish and Blotts, yeah? Your list, oh blimey, it's in my pocket, if I can just, oh." It fluttered to the ground where Aileen snatched it up and shot off like a cork. The wrong way, naturally. "And I'll meet you there," he finished to himself.
Presently, Aileen took her hand off the spine of Unfogging the Future where it had lain absently. This book probably wasn't on her list. It looked complicated when she'd opened it and hadn't been at all responsive. But then again, she reflected, maybe the books here were the same as books at home, and had to be patiently read. A quick glance around confirmed her suspicions; everyone she could see was flipping through the books and definitely not shouting at them.
Her eyes caught on a blonde girl plucking a book purposefully from a shelf and checking it against a list. A list a lot like her own. The girl was around her own height too. Maybe this girl was also going to be a first year at Herg… at… at the magic school. She strode over, determined not to mess up this meeting like the one before.
Plus, she wanted to hear the name of her school again.