Some days
A/N: Hello everybody! This is my very first fanfiction. I know the beginning might seem a bit slow, but things will definitely speed up in the next chapter. So give it a try ok? Reviews are also very much appreciated.
Speach will be indicated like this: "Bla bla bla"
Thoughts like this: 'bla bla bla'
Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything except the people you don't recognize. It's all JKR's. (Do you really think I'd be wasting my time on fanfiction if I owned HP? I'd be making sure Luna/Neville was canon!)
Chapter I: Realizations
Alex swept her long, ebony hair over her shoulder. Her emerald orbs showed tears in it, her face was red. All in all, she didn't look very pretty at the moment.
The girls across of her noticed this, and their cruel mouths laughed harder. "Oh Alex, you're hilarious!" they said. "You didn't really think we wanted you at our party, did you?"
Alex had thought this, and that was the reason she stood here now, completely humiliated by a group of five girls. 'How could I ever have thought that they'd let me be apart of their group? They're the most popular girls in school, oh I'm such an idiot.'
Her thoughts were interrupted by Sarah, the most nasty and vicious girl of them all. She had dark black hair – it was as dark as her heart – that she used to completely charm the boys around her. Right now, Sarah innocently looked at her with those cold eyes of her and patted her shoulder.
"Don't worry, Alex. I'm sure Jason wouldn't have liked you, even if you hadn't entirely shamed yourself by showing up in such a ridiculous attire, and then attempting to get into our party by singing all three of the Lord of the Rings' soundtracks." Sarah said nastily.
Alex wrenched herself away from Sarah and ran. 'Stupid! Why can I never do something sensible? Oh I've completely ruined it now.' When her thoughts became more and more desperate she pushed herself harder and harder. Her blood pounded in her ears, her breathing was ragged, and she was starting to develop a stinging pain in her sides. But Alex was grateful for the pain, for it took her mind off the very unpleasant thoughts and images that Sarah's words had elicited. And eventually her feet found her home again.
She had always been good at running, which was a necessity in the Froud household. Her father was not a nice man, you see. He was fond of beating his only daughter until she was lying in a bloody heap at his feet. She was never good enough, fast enough, smart enough or beautiful enough for him. He had wanted to have a son, and that's why he punished Alex every day for being born a girl.
It was for that reason that she wasn't very keen on going into the house. Her father would undoubtedly not be happy that she'd sneaked off again. But she took a deep breath and walked inside. The first thing she noticed was that the house around her was empty. Too empty. Chills ran down her body, and she looked around frantically. But she found no sign of her father.
No! No!
Something was terribly wrong, she could feel it in the very air. It was sizzling with energy, raw, furious energy. Something horrible, something otherworldly had come into her house. And that something had been looking for her. She just knew it, like she knew the sky was blue and the grass green.
But it was also gone now, and Alex decided she needed to eat. (You can't very well fight evil on an empty stomach!) She grabbed some snacks with her on the way upstairs, pausing only when she passed a mirror. She pulled a face when she caught sight of her reflection. Her face was still an ugly red, and her eyes looked dull. Sighing, she reached into one of her pockets, pulling out her glasses. They were basic black, and not very pretty at all. She looked at them with disdain; she'd asked her father if she could contacts instead of glasses, but he hadn't allowed it. She tried to go without glasses most of the time, but she'd noticed that not wearing glasses for a long time gave her headaches, and her eyes would start to irritate too.
She shook her head in annoyance and jammed the glasses in place. And as her thoughts threatened to trail off to the evenings' happenings again, she forcefully pushed them out of her mind. 'I'm not going to be thinking about that right now, there's much more important things going on at the moment.' She squared her shoulders and deliberately walked to the computer.
While waiting for the computer to start up, she unwrapped a chocolate bar and started to eat. Her rumbling stomach wasn't quite happy with the fact that she'd chosen to eat something which hardly satiated the hunger it felt, but Alex didn't care. There had been many a time she'd gone through days without eating – a punishment her father liked to dish out often – so she was more than equipped to handle it, and really, she thought she deserved some chocolate after the earlier events.
After she'd finished a second chocolate bar Alex went online to search for anything at all that could make sense of what had happened in her home. First she searched on basic keywords, but she soon found out that that wouldn't help her quest at all. Searching for 'energy' or 'dark energy' brought her to numerous physics and cosmology sites. And while that was certainly interesting, it wasn't what she was looking for. And using 'otherworld' only brought her to websites about movies, TV series and books. It also lead her to Celtic mythology, but that hardly seemed what she were looking for; there was no reason for beings from those 'Otherworld' to come into her home. Alex didn't become truly frustrated until she tried to search under both 'magic' and 'energy'. Most of the websites coming up were related to RPGs, or just plain didn't make sense when she related it to her situation.
But Alex were not about to give up that easily. She tried all sorts of adjectives she associated with the energy she had felt earlier in the room in combination with the previously used words. After two hours, Alex was ready to admit that she was at her wit's end. She had tried so many words that she'd even ended up on a Harry Potter website – which really wasn't helpful at all. She wasn't happy in admitting defeat, but she was just too exhausted to go on searching. Just when she wanted to shut down the computer, a little pop-up window appeared.
How odd… Alex thought. 'Even disregarding the fact that I don't have any windows open at all, we also have an excellent pop-up blocker.' But then she focused on the pop-up itself. It was a rather large window, with only a picture of a blank piece of paper on it. While she moved the cursor to click it away, she was startled as letters suddenly started to appear.
Hello Alex,
I take it you are rather desperate for this message to start appearing. Very well then, if you are that anxious to find out the truth I suggest clicking what needs to be clicked.
This confused Alex, and she stared at the letters, trying to make sense of it all. While she was staring, new words appeared.
The big flashing dot, you idiot.
Blushing, Alex clicked on the dot. Nothing could've prepared her what was to come. The air around her grew hot and oppressive, nearly suffocating her. All sound disappeared, save an irritatingly high tone that tore through her ears and gave her a splitting headache. All electrical equipment but the computer had ceased to work. As the computer screen suddenly went black, she couldn't see a thing anymore, and the darkness pressed down on her as a blanket. Alex tried to stand up but found that her body failed to comply. She struggled against the invisible ropes holding her in place, and as the air grew more and more suffocating she gasped for air. The air that made it into her lungs didn't feel like air at all, rather, it felt as if she were trying to breathe in cotton candy. Panic gripped her as she noticed that no matter how hard she struggled, she couldn't get any oxygen in her lungs. Her head started pounding even more, and she started to lose the feeling in her body. 'I'm going to faint.' Just as she was thinking that, the computer screen flared to life again. A portal appeared, and before Alex could think one more thought, she was sucked into it.
The first thing Alex became aware of was that she was lying on the floor. It was a cold floor, and rather dirty too. 'Cleaning would be a good idea,' she thought absentmindedly. Suddenly two more senses returned to her. She heard a few hushed voices talking urgently, though she could not make out the words. Her sense of smell told her she must be somewhere in a hospital, as she was surrounded by that sterile scent that people always associated with hospitals. The next thing she became aware of was that her whole body ached. Every muscle from her arms to her toes made itself known, especially those in her chess area. 'Wait, if I'm in a hospital, then why aren't I in a normal bed? Why am I lying on the floor?'
She opened her eyes and tried to sit up. This brought her to the attention of the other people in the room, who hurriedly walked towards her. 'Bloody hell it's dark in here!' she thought, followed by, 'Oh no! I'm swearing in British, that can't be good.' Before she could articulate her worries she was enveloped in a strong hug.
"Are you all right? Merlin, we were so worried about you," spoke the woman who held her. She looked Alex up and down and then pulled her in for another bone crushing hug. "We had no idea the situation was that bad. Thank Merlin you're all right, we were worried sick!"
"I was not worried," a voice from behind the woman said in mild disdain.
The woman turned around to look at the person behind her. "Of course you were," she said affectionately, "you don't have to hide behind that mask of yours right now…"
Her eyes had adjusted to the dark remarkably quickly, and because the woman had moved, Alex could finally take a look at both of them. The woman didn't seem to be very tall, perhaps only reaching 5'2", but she radiated a regal aura, and she was absolutely beautiful. 'Even Sarah would be jealous.' The woman had gorgeous straight chocolate brown hair which came to rest on her shoulders. Her body had curves in all the right places, and her eyes were absolutely breath-taking. They didn't seem to be able to decide whether they would like to be brown, or green and as such the colour changed constantly. But it was not when she fixed her gaze on the other person when she let out an audible gasp.
"ALAN RICKMAN!" she screamed in surprise. 'Oh my God, oh my God. I'm here with Alan bloody Rickman. Oh my God.'
While the woman started to laugh, the man wasn't happy about it at all. In fact, he seemed ready to kill her. "Please do try to keep the noise level down, will you," he hissed, looking around quickly to see they were still alone.
"Oh dear," the woman said, slapping over her mouth. "You're right, Sev, I'm sorry." She looked apologetic, but 'Sev' just huffed in reply. She fixed her gaze back upon Alex and explained: "No he's not Alan Rickman, his name is Severus Snape and because we were busy planning out a secret mission we were rather surprised when you contacted us." She had said all that in a tone of voice as if Alex would know who Severus Snape was.
"Secret mission? Contacted you?" Alex asked stunned. "How did I contact you?"
"Why, you tried to look us up on your Intarweb, didn't you? Apparently, something has happened to tip you off to our existence." The woman studied Alex carefully. "I don't know what, but something went wrong when we attempted to transport you back here. You were supposed to get through the portal with no effort at all, instead you end up here half-dead on our floor. Any idea how that happened?"
"I… When I came home my dad was gone, and I knew something had come into our house. I was frightened. I thought that perhaps the Internet would help, but that plan turned out to be a very bad one – though, not really I suppose. How did I get here? Where is here? How is this all possible?" Alex started to panic a bit at the end of her story, and now she was quivering on the floor.
"As Penny said, you got here through a portal, do try to pay attention. As for your other questions, you're in England and this is possible because Penny and I set up the right spells to transport you back into our dimension," Severus said with a bit of contempt in his voice.
"Normal people don't go through portals and get transported into other dimensions. Normal people don't even know that there are other dimensions. I'm oh so sorry that I didn't immediately understand what had happened to me," Alex replied hotly. She stood up and backed away from Penny and Severus, not trusting them after the explanation they'd just given her.
Penny sighed and threw an irritated look at Severus. "There's no reason to be afraid of us, honey. I understand that this is stressful for you – especially after that rather horrible way of arriving here – but we really aren't going to hurt you." She stopped after that, seemingly not sure how to word her next question. She bit her lip and ask: "May I… may I ask what you know of us?"
"Know? I know absolutely nothing! No, don't move!" The last was directed to Severus who had attempted to walk to her. He sneered at her command, but obligingly stood still after a harsh look from Penny.
"We made sure the dimension you were sent to had documentation about the events happening here. I believe we'd 'inspired' someone there to write a book about it. You have not read it?" Penny's voice sounded bewildered, and she was wringing her hands. "Oh Severus, what do we do now that she doesn't know a single thing about our world?"
Alex looked from one to the other. She was still unconvinced that she was safe here, but she wasn't sure who the most dangerous of the two was. Though Severus was quite definitely not a pleasant person to chat with, it seemed that Penny had some sort of power over him – which made her very dangerous in Alex' eyes. And the talk about some sort of book wasn't helping either. A nagging feeling had started to develop at the mention of that, and it drove her crazy that she couldn't find out which book Penny had been talking about. "What book?" she finally asked, keeping her eyes trained on Penny.
To her surprise it was Severus who answered. "As far as I've heard, it's more than one book. All of the titles start with 'Harry Potter'," the disgust in his voice was obvious, and Alex made a mental note to find out why. However, at the mention of Harry Potter she instantly knew which books they were talking about, and why she hadn't read them.
"Oh them," she replied. "Yes, I've heard about them. You'd have to be living under a rock not to have heard about those books."
"Then why didn't you read them?" Penny asked. "If they're that popular surely you must've wanted to see for yourself if that was deserved."
"I would've loved to. Unfortunately, my dad didn't like it when I read – as he said it – trash while I should be doing my best to study and get good grades. You see, my dad doesn't exactly like me, so why would he want me to allow me to do anything that might bring me pleasure?"
Penny looked shocked at that. But she recovered her composure soon enough, and shook her head. "That man wasn't your father, honey. He was just someone we'd chosen to give you to for safekeeping. You're from this dimension – that's why I mentioned you being transported back – but we couldn't keep you here. You were simply too important. That's why we hid you by someone we thought was trustworthy. I now see that we made a grave error." Her strange, now emerald, orbs had tears shining in them. "I'm so sorry, my daughter. I'm so sorry that you haven't lived the good life you were supposed to. Forgive me."
Alex was in shock. Her body was rigid and the only movement she made was the clenching and unclenching of her fists. Finally she started to speak. "You took me away from my loving home and placed me in another dimension to live with a man who is abusive. Then, for the next sixteen years you never once think to check upon me, to see if I were doing well. You never once try to find out if perhaps your daughter would be mistreated. You never once cared enough about me to see what kind of person I'd turned out to be. I could've been dead and you wouldn't have known! And now you ask me to forgive you? Forgive you! For sixteen years of pain, of living with the knowledge that my supposed father didn't love me. For sixteen years worth of being beaten by the person that was supposed to care for me. For sixteen years of anxiety, knowing that some day my dad might snap and do me some serious harm. How dare you!" Tears were pouring out of her eyes and she didn't make the slightest move to wipe them away or to stop the flow. Her shoulders were shaking with both rage and sadness.
When Penny made a move to come to her she backed up until she stood with her back against the wall. "Stay the hell away from me!" she screamed, trying to hold the other back. But Penny had no intention to stop. She advanced on Alex and didn't stop until she was directly in front of the shaken girl.
"I know you angry, and rightly so. But please, try to understand. As you haven't read the book I don't think you realize that you were born into a war. A vicious war that would've killed you if we hadn't moved you someplace safe. I honestly thought I was leaving you in capable hands. Your mother was an old friend of mine willing to take you in. She and her husband had their memories wiped clean of their old existence, and had a different one programmed into you. I didn't knowingly leave you in the hands of an abuser. And as for you dying, I would've known. Believe me, I would've known."
The silence after Penny's words stretched out. Penny didn't retreat but stayed very still, looking at Alex with remorse in her eyes. Finally Alex started to talk: "She died, my fake mother. She died when I was only one year old. Perhaps that's why he got abusive, perhaps that's why he…" She couldn't continue the sentence because fresh tears started to leak out of her eyes. She buried her face in her hands, but was surprised when she felt Penny draw her in a hug. Not resisting, she leaned into the comfort her mother gave her.
It was a while before Penny finally released her. Alex looked at her mother and bit her lip. "What do I do now?"
Penny gave her a sad smile. "We'll get you in contact with the right people, and I'll tell you all about your destiny; the reason we brought you to another dimension."
A/N: Well that was that! I hope you enjoyed the story. R&R please! That would make me really happy. Also, if you have any questions just ask them. I'd be more than happy to answer them.