Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Duh. I probably should've be starting another doc all things considered, but oh well. The plot bunnies have triumphed again. Hope you enjoy the story

Summary: Does the fanfiction realm need another original character insert? Probably not. But here's my take anyway.

Alexandra Hughes didn't at first realize she'd been transported into the World of Harry Potter. Then again, there were plenty of clues.

I panicked.

Completely lost it.

I'm telling you, I've had panic attacks before but this was the King of all panic attacks. Mothers were steering their kids away from me it was that bad. I couldn't breathe. I'm pretty sure I was hyperventilating. My eyes might have even rolled back in my head at some point. I collapsed where I was and started crying. Nobody stopped to ask what was wrong, or see if I was okay.

They all just shot me weird looks.

I could barely move. I was too afraid too, because of the illogical circumstance I found myself in. It took a while before I felt like I could stop panicking. Before I felt like I dared move. But you can only cry so long before it seems silly to keep crying. Eventually my heart rate calmed a bit and my breathing became less ragged.

Nothing had changed while I had briefly checked out of reality. I was still sitting on a city street. I was the weird one in this situation. My surroundings were perfectly normal, except they weren't. People streamed by on the sidewalk while I sat huddled against the brick wall, wide-eyed and waiting for the other shoe to drop. The mundanity of city life moved on.

Logic dictated that everything was fine. The sun was shining. I was unhurt. However I was feeling a little paranoid about trusting logic, because it was not logical . Sure, everything around me was utterly normal looking, except for the fact that it couldn't be, because last time I checked I had been getting out of my car in the parking lot and getting ready to carry my groceries into my apartment.

Definitely not standing on a sidewalk in a busy city.

I was plenty lucid and wide awake. I was still clutching my plastic grocery bags even, and my backpack still lay across my shoulders. I stuffed the bags into my backpack. I didn't know why but it seemed like a good idea to have my hands free.

I had either gone totally off my rocker or...or...I wasn't quite sure what.

Logic dictated that maybe I'd wandered downtown? Driven to the wrong spot? I finally paid a little more attention to my surroundings, but there wasn't a parking lot in sight. Just a little park across the street, and a row of shops to either side of me. A stoplight at the corner.

I started as a car came careening down the wrong side of the street, but nobody else seemed to notice. The car was an old one, the shape something from my vaguely remembered childhood…

It wasn't on the wrong side of the street, I realized, as another one zipped by and nobody else panicked like I was. In my defense, terrorists had been using cars to hit people lately...but in fact...I squinted at the driver of the next car to pass by. The steering wheel was on the opposite side of the car…

I took some deep breaths. Okay. No, I wasn't in downtown Newark. But I could salvage this. I could make this be okay.

"Hey!" I blurted, startling a passing guy in a business suit. He looked rather vintage. They all did, but it hadn't quite sunk into my brain yet. I didn't want to believe it.

"Can I borrow your cell phone?" I asked, trying not to seem crazy and like I hadn't been bawling my eyes out just a few minutes ago. I don't think it worked

He looked baffled, and edgy. Like I was making him nervous.

"What?" he asked.

"Your phone?" I asked again, feeling desperate.

"There's a phone booth over on the corner," He told me, waving his briefcase in the direction. Indeed, there was a bright red telephone booth there. I blinked at it stupidly. I had never been in the presence of a red phone booth before. I hadn't seen a pay phone for years.

"Here," He continued, digging in his pocket to remove a wallet, I tried to protest as he held out a bill and some change, but he waved me off, "You look like you need it more than me," he said. I took the money with numb hands. I opened my mouth to say something else but he was already off the street again before I could bring myself to say another word.

I stared at the unfamiliar coins in my hand.

I glanced about me one more time, uncomprehendingly, between the phone booth and the obviously not American currency. Britain. I was in Britain?!

I'd only ever traveled to Europe once before, and never the U.K. I had no idea how I'd gotten here.

How was it possible?

I already knew, based on what little evidence I had gathered, despite the illogic of it, that there was no way in hell that I was going to be able to call anyone I knew. Probably.

Unless I had stumbled on a convention devoted to nostalgia, I was pretty sure I'd somehow gone back in time.

I noticed a newspaper machine near the telephone booth. Another relic I hadn't seen in years. There used to be one in my neighborhood when I was a kid. I'd usually be sent with a few quarters to buy one. I liked to check the movie times and my dad had read the rest.

I was strangely drawn to it. So I got to my feet and approached. Another man beat me there and slotted his coins in to retrieve the paper. He tossed me an extra copy with a wink "No need to waste your money, eh? They can afford one lost paper for a pretty girl like you." I stammered a thank-you, at which he brightened.

"American, huh? In town long?"

"Um, Probably not." I mumbled. The man frowned, "I see how it is. Bloke gives a girl a compliment and she brushes him off…" he grumbled, walking away with a scoff.

"Your love life is the least of my problems right now dude." I muttered at his retreating back. I tucked the paper under my arm and went to stand against the wall again.

May 3rd 1989. It was a Wednesday...but it was supposed to be Monday. I hadn't even been born yet. My fingers smudged the ink as my hands tightened on the newsprint.

"This has to be a joke." I informed the air in front of me, lowering the paper. I glanced at the phone booth. Well, there was one number I could call.

The booth smelled like piss and I was wary of touching the phone itself, but I had to know. I deposited the coins, connected to the operator, then gave her the number I knew had not changed since the late 1960s.

I held my breath as it rang, once, twice, a third time…

"Hello? Moden residence, this is Eleanor speaking."

"Grandma!" I said, half in relief, half in wonderment.

"I'm sorry, you must have the wrong number." She informed me politely.

Whoops. She wasn't exactly a grandmother yet. Wouldn't be for another year and a half. A stranger to me this woman was, but her voice long missed, made tears come to my eyes, "W-wait!" I said hurriedly, pressing the phone against my ear harder, "You must have misheard, this is...Alexandra Hughes...could I speak with Amanda please? I'm a friend from college." I lied, and it made me sick, lying to my grandmother.

My grandmother who had been dead for over a decade.

There was a pause. My heart was pounding loudly in my ears.

"There's no Amanda here, dear." The reply sent my stomach plummeting. I tried one last time, "But this is the Moden residence? Are you sure?" I felt nauseous.

"I'm certain. I don't have a daughter." Came the reply, politely confused, "Forgive me, but you sound upset. Are you alright?" She asked, kindness in her tone. That was my grandmother alright, I thought, tears in my eyes again. I didn't want to hang up, but I couldn't keep her on the line. She didn't know me. Apparently, she'd never know me, because my mom didn't exist.

"I'm fine, thank you. S-s-sorry. I-I must have had the wrong number after all." I clutched the phone harder to my ear.

"Quite alright. You have a good day."

"Goodbye," I said.

Wait, don't go. I wanted to say.

She hung up. The dial tone rang in my ears.

I hung up the receiver. My grandma was alive, but she didn't know me. My mother didn't exist.

So not back in time. A parallel universe?

The walls seem to press in on me suddenly. I fumbled for the door and stumbled into the air.

What now? What did I do now?

Cold fear filled me and I choked.

Away. I had to...get away.

I stumbled across the street. I made it to a trash can before I threw up. Barely.

I spat bile into the can. A young woman looked at me with disgust in her eyes as she passed. I spat again, but the taste of acid lingered in my mouth.

There was a bench a little ways away. I claimed in and laid down. The sun shone serenely above me.

Facts:

I was in a foreign country.

I had (almost) no money

The bacon in my backpack was probably going to spoil.

It was 1989.

My mother apparently didn't exist.

I couldn't go to the authorities. I had no documents. I didn't exist. Maybe if I was a kid I could get away with it, but not as an adult. I didn't think my acting skills were good enough to claim amnesia. I didn't want to be in trouble with the law. What was I supposed to do?

I needed money.

But...even in...the future...people were undocumented. They had jobs, houses, cars, and stuff. My job is...was...a stupid call center job, but I also was an artist on the side. I could draw.

A little hope made me feel better. I did have some skills. This was a city, so there were probably tourists. I could do caricatures. I had pens and pencils with me, though no sketch book, but I bet I could buy one with the money I got.

I sat up and opened my backpack, pulling my water bottle out. I drank some. I had some food. A box of cereal, a loaf of bread, peanut butter, a box of mint tea, milk, bacon, and eggs.

I immediately threw out the eggs, bacon, and milk. It was not like I could cook them and they were heavy.

Maybe I could find a hostel. The bill I'd been given said 5 pounds. I'm sure it was worth more than I was used to 5 bucks being, even without conversion, but I was also sure it was still not enough to buy me a place for the night.

It was still day time. Sometime in the afternoon I judged. My grandmother had answered the phone, and the time difference was only a couple of hours to the east coast. I felt sad again, but I pushed it away. I had other things to do.

It was easy enough to walk until I found store that sold some art supplies. I had more than enough cash for a nice sketchpad and some markers. I then walked towards where I saw the traffic heading and people moving towards.

I was in London. There was no mistaking those famous landmarks. I quickly found a park and set up. I sketched some random caricatures, displayed them on a bench, plastered on my nicest smile, and started asking people if they wanted their face drawn.

I had to lower my prices as the first few people told me they were outrageous, but I was used to charging more. Caricatures were easy, quick, and by the time the sun started to go down I had gone through half of the paper and had a reassuringly large wad of cash.

I'd done caricature work before, for fairs, conventions, things like that. I usually did pretty well at these places, and the money made me feel a lot better.

It did make me feel nervous to be carrying that much cash around. I would have to figure that out because I couldn't carry it around everywhere and I probably couldn't open a bank account either. Not without identification. I'd probably get the cops called on me with my accent and suspicious lack of identification.

I also had to be careful because unless times had changed that much, selling art on the street could break a law somewhere.

I had food on me, and my hard earned money wasn't something I wanted to spend unless I had to. I was able to ask my last client of the day to direct me towards a cheap hostel.

The place wasn't the nicest, but the rates were a lot less than I'd been expecting. I paid for a week in advance. The room I got had bunk beds and lockers in which to store your stuff. I had to pay extra for bedding and a towel, but I'd expected that. Somebody was already asleep in the top bunk on the right so I took the bottom bunk on the left.

The bathroom down the hall had generic flowery smelling soap in the dispensers but I welcomed the hot water as it coursed over my skin. Food wasn't allowed in the room but I ate some of my bread and peanut butter anyway, washing it down with water refilled in my bottle from the tap. I hope it wouldn't upset my stomach.

I listened to the noisiness of the city beneath the thin blanket. I needed new clothes. I needed a lot of things, but for now I was clean and had a full stomach. I should be grateful for that. I burrowed under the covers and the exhaustion of the day crept over me until I was fast asleep.

My days passed in much the same way for a few months. I would get up, eat, find a spot with tourists, then draw most of the day. I only stopped for lunch and at night. I switched it up from caricatures to drawing scenery and landmarks. The usual kind of junk you can buy in a scenic area.

I stockpiled my cash in my backpack and switched hostels frequently. I didn't want anyone to question why I was staying in one place too long. I bought second hand clothes and washed them frequently. I couldn't carry much so I only bought what could fit in my backpack. On rainy days I staked out cafes and peddled my art there.

One cafe owner liked me enough that she offered me a job. Between the art and my job as a waitress, I was doing really well. I was tired, and I was still baffled as to why I was here, but I was making the most of it.

I wasn't the kind of person to wallow in despair. I was hard working. I didn't mind boring jobs as long as they paid. I took as many hours at the cafe as I could and sold my art on the side. I had even picked up a few clients who wanted paintings. I had a pretty steady income.

I had just over a thousand pounds in two months, and so I started looking for an apartment. My boss helped me find one, provided references, and soon I had my own place. It even came with a stove and a fridge. No other furniture though. I slept on the floor for awhile until I could afford a bed.

It was around this time that logic started losing me as a lifetime fan again.

I had seen...well some odd things.

Nothing as odd as appearing in the middle of 1989 London from 2017 Newark, NJ, but still…

Odd.

The first odd incident happened about two months after I had started living in London and I was still bouncing around hostels. I had been drawing a picture of the Thames when I saw a strangely dressed man just vanish.

I actually flinched hard enough to drop my pencil. He had been wearing the oddest combination of a tutu, jeans, and a fisherman's rain coat. With a fedora. I had assumed he was a performer of some sort. I had even included him in my sketch, thinking it amusing.

I wasn't so amused now. He hadn't vanished in plain sight exactly, just walked behind a tree and then not walked from behind it. But the tree wasn't that thick, He should still be visible. Only he wasn't.

Having recently been a disappearing reappearing person myself, it was concerning.

I watched for over an hour, but the strange fellow never came back.

About a month later, I saw three owls, in broad daylight, swooping through the street as I opened the blinds in the cafe in preparation for opening. An owl in London would have been strange enough, but three of them! Very strange. I could have sworn they were holding something, but they flew too fast for me to be sure.

Linda, my boss, had seen them too.

"Reminds me, oh a few years ago, we had owls flying all over the place. Nobody could figure it out, but it was such a sight! They went away after a few days, but I'll never forget." She said, tucking a gray strand of hair behind an ear, "Haven't seen one in daylight around here since."

I peered out the window, but the owls were gone again.

Something about the conversation pricked at my mind. I felt like I was missing something important.

After that I kept noticing more and more odd things. A double decker bus went careening wildly down the street, nearly hitting people several times, swerving into oncoming traffic, but nobody else seemed to notice. I had flung myself against the side of a building, but I only earned myself a bunch of strange looks from passerby.

I seemed to see strange people, by which I mean strangely dressed people, vanishing all the time. I'd see someone walk down an alley and vanish. Or duck into a phone booth and then vanish. Once I was even close enough to hear a strange popping noise.

And I couldn't tell anyone. They'd all think I was crazy, and I was only mostly sure I wasn't.

Another time, I was walking down the street past a condemned department store, Purge and Dowse (which had amused me because of the strange name so I liked passing it on my way back to my apartment) when I saw someone looking distinctly ill step right through a window and vanish.

I stopped in my tracks and stared. Either I was going nuts, or I was sensitive to people vanishing. I knew it wasn't entirely impossible (after all, I had done it) but I couldn't understand why nobody else seemed to notice.

I avoided going past that place anymore.

A week later I was frightened and angry. I'd seen a nice looking elderly lady vanish earlier. I was feeling anxious and cornered. I had no idea what was going on, or who to turn to. I paced my bedroom floor. I felt an odd pressure, almost a restlessness building under my skin, but I had no idea how to relieve it.

I was so tired, but I couldn't relax enough to sleep. For all that I'd wondered if I was going crazy, I had never felt like I was going insane before. Now I did.

A loud bang from a car backfiring outside made my heart nearly jump out of my chest. Simultaneously everything on my bedside stand flew off of it and hit the wall. My half full water glass literally flew in a straight line and shattered against the wall, followed by a book and a bottle of ibuprofen.

Silence. I was once again frozen and panicking. Vanishing people were one thing but levitating glasses were quite another!

I felt cold and hot all over. I couldn't breathe.

"What the fuck?!" I shouted, clutching my chest. I nervously edged closer, but all I could see were the broken fragments of glass and spilled water. I fished my book out and shook the water off of it.

I stared at the broken glass, but it remained broken glass. I accidentally stepped on a piece and swore when I went to get the broom and dustpan.

Nothing else flew across the room that night, or any other night.

I slept fine that night, strangely enough. I was so tired. So very tired. I went to work the next day in a much better mood.

A week after that, I was practically clawing the walls with anxiety again, but this time, it was my kitchen towel that spontaneously combusted. I quickly doused it with water and I stared at the charred remains.

I buried them as deep in the dumpster in the alley as I could.

Strangely, my nameless anxiety was gone. You'd think it would be the opposite, with these strange occurrences, but for all that I'd been restless and like a sleepless zombie for several days, now I slept deeper than I could ever remember doing before.

I lasted two more weeks before I had another incident, but this time, it wasn't in my apartment.

I was in the cafe, serving people as best as I could. I was exhausted, having been unable to sleep at all the previous night. I was feeling very stressed out because we were busier than usual and the other waitress had not shown for her shift. My feet were killing me, and the customers were being snottier than usual.

I was aggravated, and not watching where I was going, and I ended up dropping a whole pot of tea all across the floor on my way back out to the dining room. I was about to burst into tears from frustration when all of a sudden...the teapot was whole again and sitting on the counter. There was even tea in it. The mess was gone.

"You okay? Thought I heard a crash." Linda said, popping her head around the corner.

"Fine. I'm fine." I replied, picking up the teapot and placing it back on the tray. I waited until she turned away before scrutinizing the pot. I was still tired, but I didn't feel half as stressed suddenly. I was sensing a pattern.

"Somebody is fucking with me." I muttered, and turned away. Strange self-repairing teapot or no, I had a job to do. I'd think about this later.

"That's the third incident in a muggle area this month." Kinsey said frustratedly, shaking the report in Adames face.

Adames sighed, and took the parchment. "Probably just a muggleborn kid. Just an unusually powerful one." She said, trying to placate her partner.

"Too strong. Whoever it is mucking about with their magic shouldn't be doing it so close to muggles, and it's too close to wizarding dwellings. Which is the only reason we're picking it up at all!" Kinsey huffed.

Adames inwardly groaned. There hadn't been much going on in the Auror department recently, and Kinsey was probably just going a little stir-crazy. He was like a kneazle with a puffskein. He wasn't going to let this go.

Well it wouldn't hurt to check it out, and it would probably get him off her back for a bit. She'd much rather be chasing down miscreant wandless magic outbursts than dark wizards.

"Alright then. We'll check it out if it happens again." She told him, wearily handing back the report.