Cap 1. Bloody Snow White
Another rainy afternoon in London, Giulia were by herself at the brick house on one of the most prestigious places on the city: South Kensington. Just a few steps away were the Hyde Park, but from now on the only steps that would be listened on the house would be hers. The girl cleaned the tears that freely rolled from her brown eyes as she placed the family's photo album in boxes on the attic.
There were pictures of the first time she visited London with her parents. She were exactly eight years old and become crazy about the red buses, London Eye, the view of the Clock Tower (as known as Big Ben).
Mom, one day when I grow up I'll study in this country. I'll come to live here and you and daddy will come with me!
And, can I ask you what are you going to study? – my dad asked me with serious interest
Palaeontology! – that were the funniest word she knew by the time – I'll study dinosaurs , and then I'll discover many and many dinosaurs bones around the world!
Palaeontology… Ok then…But know that you still have all the time in the world to decide if that's the career you want to choose.
Well, I didn't went throw with palaeontology, instead of that on the next month (September) I would be starting my business scholarship at London Scholl of Economics (LSE). I had the highest pretentions for my career, I would became a great economist, write a work with brilliant conclusions on how to solve some of he biggest's third world problems. I smiled to myself remembering what my mom told me millions of times…
Giu, darling… You have to think about yourself to, you can't spend your hole life trying to save the world.
Her mother worried because she could see in her eyes the same glitter when speaking about helping others that she saw on her father's eyes. But that wasn't a happy memory, it didn't make me smile since 2 weeks before on my birthday's celebrations. It's been since then that Giulia's white and contagious smile was not seen.
It was summer in Europe, I was celebrating my birthday with my parents on a pic-nic at Hyde Park, not so close to the Serpentine, after all, there were many people there trying to scape from the hotness that assaulted London. I laughed at that, had lived for 17 years and 11 months in Rio de Janeiro, the most wonderful city in Brazil, where the temperatures could reach 40 degrees on summer time, the 32 degrees temperature was pretty ok. By that time, It's been two weeks since we moved to London, the apartment was all clean, with the last boxes on the attic, I told my parents that I wanted to celebrate outside (had ever moved from one place for another? You can't stand any more boxes and staying home when you finish the moving). Today, that's the biggest regret of my life. It was on my birthday that my parents were murdered, and I passed really close.
I don't know, and will probably never know who killed then and tried to kill me. Tough the cause is quite simple: my dad's work. That was the reason why we left for London without any family or friends: witness protection.
No one could know where we were. As I mentioned before, my dad had this thing for helping people, and to do that, sometimes you'll have to deal with really powerful people. My dad had discovered a big scheme of corruption and money laundering inside one of the most prestigious company's of Brazil, all because he – as a lawyer – as helping an ex-employee who suffered abuse insider the said company. While searching he bumped in (literally, he always said that he bumped into a box and then boom, all was on the floor) big information that could expose cases of fraud, explaining their MO and even finding a list that contained names of people that were recently killed by poison. Those cases were all around the globe, the media was covering full time, and then my parents appeared on the first page.
- Bloody apples, bloody Snow White step mother! – I screamed alone kicking boxes on the attic. Many of the stuff felled down at my feet.
I tried to put myself together leaning against the box with my non-university books, after all there was no space in my room to keep then. I outlined a smile seeing 7 books that I spend my childhood (and youth) reading and re-reading. Now I felt like the first character: an orphan, with the parents killed by some strange crazy guy (he used the MO from Snow White with the apples, but that don't really matter right now). I took the third book from the box and started re-reading it while remembering how the days were before my parents death. But while I read, I realized that I remembered every single word written on that book, and in that moment all I wanted was to get a pensieve to release all my thoughts.
I sat on the floor to become more confortable, and felt something against my leg. A weird pendant that I could not recognize from my mother's jewellery that I inherited, but even so…I knew that peculiar form of hourglass with long chains from somewhere. I looked to the book on the floor and it clicked: Hermione's Time-Turner…
I got really confused, my parents had never being to the Harry Potter park in the US, and…they never read any of the Harry Potter books! They knew that I was crazy about it, so it didn't make sense if they bought something related to and hide if from me. I really don't know why, but I decided to open the book on the page that Harry observed Hermione taking the Time-Turner from her vest, and when I opened it, there was a note written, clearly by my mother:
"I knew that one day you would open this book again, because every time you are upset or worried you try to set refuge on this books. We love you dearly, Giu. But if you were able to find an object that looks like Hermione's we're gone, but not completely or forever, let me explain: There's a theory on parallels worlds that proved right, it may sound strange, but we lived our live as you know, here with you, and another life, in Harry Potter's books universe, and as we are dead here, we're alive there.
Seven turns will be sufficient for you to change from the muggle world, where magic don't exist, and to go to the magic world, but know that by doing that you will become 11 years old again, with no knowledge whatsoever from your life in Rio or the short period in London.
Magic flows on your blood from both your parents, we met in Hogwarts years and years ago, on the first rein of the Lord Voldemort. For being afraid of the war, we created a parallel life, 7 years forward our time line in order to see you grow up if the Voldemort returned.
But life without magic is as hard as life with magic, and unfortunately we left you.
If you want to meet us again in the magic world, all you have to do is to turn the time-turner 7 times. You'll be back as an eleven years old, with only one memory: the knowledge of what happens in Harry Potter's books universe, ourselves as your parents in the magic world will not be able to know that, but we – as your "muggle" parents – felt the need to left you with that knowledge.
You are the only one that can choose your destiny.
Love forever,
Mom and Dad"
I re-read the note about 20 times, nothing there made any sense. Parallel world? Magic world? I could become 11years old again, get into Hogwarts knowing what was going to happen? Could I fight to save that world from destruction?
The hourglass felt like a bomb in my hands. To turn or not to turn: that's the question.