A/N This is a companion piece to my fanfiction Scorpius Malfoy and the Very Strange Year. If you haven't read it, I recommend you do, as this will not make an awful lot of sense! If you have, this might give you some insight into the birth of 'Mouse' :)
Jasmine 'Minna' Grey was having a bad day. It had started bad this morning when she had slept in, missing a compulsory lecture, and then it had gone downhill from there. Lost wallet, no credit on her phone and to top it all off she had failed her last assignment. Failed! And to rub salt in the wound, she would have got a first if it hadn't been for the technicality that failed her. Sometimes, Minna thought she was not cut out to be a student.
So now waiting at the bus stop, she slipped on her headphones and tried to drown out her surroundings with the music of her favourite band.
Suddenly, a flash of movement caught her eye. She glanced but there was nothing there. She looked again, this time making very sure to keep the whatever it was in her peripheral vision. There it was again, a definite shape, a sort of warping shimmer in the air. She went back to her music. It wasn't the first time she'd seen weird things, the sort of thing no one else could see, not the first time strange things had happened around her. It wasn't going to be the last, Minna knew that much. But then another shimmer caught her eye. This time, it didn't disappear the second she focussed.
This is new she thought. A humanoid shape was stealthily moving towards the first shimmer but then something even newer happened.
The first shimmer suddenly bolted and the second looked around in what Minna thought must be confusion.
All of a sudden, the air, which had been up to that point unseasonably warm for a March day in the north east of England, grew cold, and the other person in the bus stop shivered, affected by the strange drop in temperature. Then, Minna's stomach dropped. Every awful or terrifying thing that had ever happened in her life suddenly came rushing back. The first strange thing, what happened to the other children. The time she had lost her temper, snapped, and every light bulb in her high school had simultaneously fused. John Langan. The other people in the bus stop seemed to be experiencing a similar phenomenon. The shape suddenly stopped being a shape, and became a person. A slightly oddly dressed person, but a person nonetheless.
Then Minna saw it. A hideous, cowled figure, too tall and skeletal to be a human. The fact that Minna seemed to be the only one who could see it also suggested the creature wasn't normal.
I'd pretty sure there'd be a lot more screaming if any one else could see that thing.
It suddenly reached out to the not-so-invisible man and Minna, seeing that he seemed oblivious, knew she had to do something.
"LOOK OUT!" She screamed, not caring if she seemed insane to passers-by, just knowing as she somehow did, that if she didn't warn the stranger, something really, really bad was going to happen.
At her shout, the stranger's head snapped up, clear grey eyes widening and paled when he saw the thing. He whipped out a wand? From his sleeve and muttered something glowing and silver burst from the end, driving the creature back.
Standing straighter, the man exhaled shakily and replaced the wand.
It's the stress. I actually passed out and I'm hallucinating. Again. Minna knew she sounded ridiculous, but it was the only explanation of which she would even allow herself the possibility.
Because there is no way magic can exist.
And then the man was there, standing in front of her, talking to her, and she had to use all of her theatrical training not to blush, because, well, the man in front of her was, despite the slightly eccentric dress sense, incredibly attractive.
"What was that? What did you do? Are you all right? Are you…are you-" Minna eventually trailed off, knowing that even though she sounded ridiculous as it was, there was no way she was going to say the word magic. The man, a little older than Minna's 19, she reckoned, laughed,. It was a husky laugh that despite the completely insane situation she had landed in, sent pleasant shivers up her spine.
"Calm down. I'm fine. As to your other questions...well, that's a little more complicated. Especially since you could see it, but seem to have no idea what the Dementor, that's what we call them, was. How about we go somewhere a little more private, and and I answer your questions?"
Minna nodded, taking in the extra information.
"There's a café not far from here, we won't be bothered there." She said. The man nodded and gestured for her to lead the way, subtly flicking what must be a wand out of his sleeve again and waving at the other man at the bus stop, who's completely stunned expression suddenly shifted and became dreamy.
I have a strong suspicion I wasn't meant to see that...
They got to the café, Minna very deliberately not breaking into interrogation until they were sat down, despite her journalistic impulses screaming at her to get a story!
"So..." she eventually said, sipping her coffee, unsure of how to broach what she had just seen
"So..." The man replied, an amused smile lifting his face.
"What exactly, are you? Because I've never seen anything like that before and I've seen a lot of stuff before, and that was just crazy. Who are you, are you some sort of-"
"Hey, hey!" The man held up a hand, forestalling any more questions. "Can I at least first ask a question?"
"Um, yeah?"
"What's your name?" The normality of the question shook Minna out of her freak-out,
"It's Minna. But who are you?"
"Well, Minna, this is pretty hard to believe, but promise me you won't laugh, or accuse me of being a lunatic?" The stranger was solemn, sincere
She nodded.
"My name is Nathaniel Greengrass. And I'm a wizard."
A/N So, what do you think? The next one I'm thinking of doing is Minna and Scorpius's first meeting. Something I had a great time imagining, teeheehee.