Slytherin robes adorned this eleven year old girl named Annie Lewis. It is only the first week of classes, of course, so she is very busy, but Annie always has to the time to wonder how she ever thought she'd end up in anywhere but Slytherin. In this house, you did whatever you can to achieve your goal, had the cunningness of a wolf, and the ambition of a war lord. Though, everything comes with a price; the other Houses sneer at her as she walks by, at the very edge of a pack – because a Slytherin never goes alone for fear of attack, especially first years – as if she has the Black Plague. No matter if she is a Muggleborn, (which means she's an outsider in the Common Room as well) it only matters that she's Slytherin.
Annie has also taken the week to make a list of almost every Wizarding Snack she can find out about. From Chocolate Frogs to Cockroach Clusters. It's all on a near two meter long piece of parchment, and she takes it with her, one Sunday morning that they don't have classes, along with a Muggle pen. Everyone else is asleep, as it's only seven thirty in the morning, and she hopes to dear God that Headmaster Dumbledore is awake. Annie Lewis was on a mission – no, she was going for salvation. Salvation from being alone in it all, even if it means the chance of being put into Saint Mungo's Crazies Ward.
With her pen in hand, as well as the directions to Dumbledore's office written on a scrap, she heads to the ever iconic gargoyle that leads to her Headmaster's office. Raising her pen, and ready for a wait, Annie begins to recite the candy names.
"Lemon Drops," Nothing.
"Sherbet Lemon," Nothing.
"Bertie Botts Every Flavored Beans," None.
"Licorice Wands," Too bad, so sad.
"Blood pops," THERE.
The gargoyle jumps out of the way, and Annie steps into the next room. She finds it utterly amusing at the ways that Magic imitates the Muggle World, both this one and her own. Stepping onto a moving stair, she lets herself enjoy the ride up. It very well may be her last. It is sooner than she expected, though, to be faced with Headmaster Dumbledore's office doors. So she knocks, three times, loudly. Almost like Hagrid, when he picked up Harry – she's not really supposed to know that – or when he knocked on Hogwarts' doors the first night.
"Come in, Ms. Lewis," An elderly voice calls, and Annie sighs, both in relief and anticipation. Worry, maybe.
She enters quietly, tucking her lists, pen and scrap into her robes and politely sits in the cushioned chair in front of the Headmaster's desk. His blue eyes aren't twinkling, but staring at her in wary curiosity. Annie is a wild card, and she knows that. Maybe after this, she won't be, but who knows?
"Ms. Lewis, what can I do for you this early morning?" Headmaster Dumbledore asks, as if he doesn't know what she's going to say, and maybe he doesn't, maybe he isn't using Legilimency like many fans had wondered. Maybe.
"Sir, if I asked you to listen to a story I had to tell, and not interrupt or ask questions till it's over, and to put your faith in me for this one thing, would you do that? Even if I am a Slytherin?"
She's gotten his attention, as well as the portraits attention. Damn, she hadn't thought about the portraits. What if they paraded her story across the school and everyone went raving about her 'insanity' or her 'seer'-ness? She didn't want that attention, never had, but she was practically asking for it, sitting here, in this room, with this old man. Maybe she shouldn't have come. Maybe.
"I believe that I can do that," Headmaster Dumbledore says, lacing his fingers together on the desk over the paperwork clearly laid on it, "What kind of a story is it?"
"That depends. You could think it all hypothetical, you could think me insane, or you could dare to believe me, believe the words I am about to say," She whispered with the little confidence she had; she'd always been good at acting when it was needed, but was utterly terrified at this point in time.
"I think I shall take my chances."
"Great. Good. Here goes nothing," Annie is whispering all her prayers to anyone who may be out there, and begins;
"Picture this. Instead of there being one world, one universe, there are two. Parallel and the same, except for one thing. One world has Magic, filled with Witches, Wizards and Muggles, while the second world does not. The second world has only Muggles, and maybe that's why time moves faster there, because by the time it was 1981 in the World of Magic, it was 2012 in the World of No Magic," He's staring at her in plain amusement, raptured entirely in her story; some of the portraits are, as well, but not most.
"Our story begins in the World of No Magic, 1998. This is a special year, for two reasons in my mind. One of those reasons, is that it is the year that our main character was born, Amelia Smith. The other reason is that the seventh book in a series was published, though we'll get more into that later. Amelia, though, we must focus on first here," She gave a wistful smile, along with a chuckle. It was so weird, talking about one's self in the third person, "Amelia was born in the heart of America, Kansas. She already had an older brother, Jack, who was a year older, and her parents were happily married. In 2000, she would get a younger sister, Talia. Amelia would grow up in Kansas, hardly leaving it at all during her life.
"Amelia's family wasn't very rich, but nor were they so poor they had to live on the streets. They were entirely of Muggles, they believed. After all, Magic, to them, was just a thing of imagination. Amelia, though, had a great deal of imagination. People often said she needed to get her head out of the clouds, and back on Earth, because she needed to learn common sense. It was good that she didn't, though. Amelia would come to need these clouds of imagination, for they would become her Earth," Dumbledore tilts his head here, only slightly, looking at her with eyes filled with emotion she can't decipher. When was she ever good at seeing emotions in eyes, anyways? Never, that's when.
"Now, that book series I spoke of, the one made of several books. They were written by a British woman going by the name J.K Rowling. I won't tell you the titles yet, they would spoil the story far too much," She winked half-heartedly, aware of the portraits that were all listening now, "They weren't written about their world, no matter how much everyone of that world believed. They were written about the other world, the World of Magic. These several books told of seven and a half years of a single boy who grew up to save his world, just like his Mother had when he was a child, no matter if his people thought it was him.
"Amelia grew to love these books with such a passion that she had two sets of them. She used their slang, she used their insults, and dreamt of being apart of that world. Of course, she didn't want to be anywhere near the end of the fourth book, for that was when everything bad began. She thought she would be so very brave, that she would save the day, so that none of her favorite characters had to die, only the bad ones.
"Well, one day, Amelia got the chance to be brave. This was 2012, and Amelia was thirteen. Amelia wasn't athletic, and she hated going outside any more than she had to. One day, her father told her to get the mail, and though Amelia groaned about it, and bitched about it," Many of the portraits gasp, and Headmaster Dumbledore gives her a look, to which she smiles sheepishly and apologetically; it was the only word she could come up with to describe it, all her thought out thinking beforehand was gone, so she had to come up with her words now, "Amelia goes outside, and she smiles at the neighbors across the street. They are newlyweds, and since the mother wasn't able to get pregnant, they had adopted a four year old boy. Amelia thought little Nathaniel was very cute, and liked to say high. She did, when she walked to the mail box.
"But then," Annie swallows here, a lump forms in her throat, and her voice becomes a bit higher than before in grief, "But then Nathaniel threw his ball a little too hard. That ball went right into the street and stopped in the middle of it, and a car was coming very fast down the road. The car held a teenage girl, too busy with her phone to watch anything else," There's a dark feeling in the air, as many realize what is coming.
"Nathaniel doesn't notice this, but Amelia does. Nathaniel's parents don't realize it till Nathaniel has made it halfway to the ball and Amelia has dropped the mail to the ground. Amelia thinks that time has frozen for what seems a lifetime, as she see's Nathaniel in her mind getting run over. She feels so sick at the thought, and there's no time to think, she just acts. Amelia is running, grabbing Nathaniel by his armpits and throwing him to the side as she kicks the ball away. He lands in the grass, screaming and crying as his parents rush to his side," Annie has tears in her eyes now as she remembers, and so does Headmaster Dumbledore and some of the portraits.
"It's too late for Amelia though, and the car is upon her. And for a split second, she thinks time has frozen again, because the car is but an inch from her, and she can see the teens face as she realizes what is about to happen. Amelia wishes so very hard right then, that Magic is real, and that she can just Apparate away, back to her bed and sleep it off. And the craziest thing happens, as she feels the hot metal of the car hood touch her nose.
"A loud, obnoxious crack sounds through the air, like a gun going off, and suddenly, Amelia Lewis isn't sitting in the road anymore, though the World of No Magic will think she has died that day," Headmaster Dumbledore looks like he wants to ask a question, and his eyes have a slight twinkle in them now.
"Now, we switch to the other world, the World of Magic. It is 1981, and it's only days before Halloween, that fateful day," Realization dawns in Headmaster Dumbledore's eyes, but he's still looks confused, "Amelia Lewis has appeared on the doorstep of a family, a family of Muggles in Muggle London, newly-weds who can't have children. But Amelia is not the same anymore, no, she appears to be a baby. A fourteen month old baby," A gasp runs through the room, "All that she has with her is the now too-big shirt she had on when the car nearly hit her, and a note with her initials on it, A.L.
"The family takes her in and names her Anna Louis. Amelia, now Anna, gets a new family, a new birthday, and a new life in the World of Magic. But…" Annie paused, ignoring the looks she was getting, "A baby's mind is not made to deal with the knowledge of thirteen years, and so unconsciously, she locks it away. It won't be till she is five years old that the memories will come back, and she realize the significance of her parents' stories about her having an all-out bawl fest that Halloween, or that she has nightmares regularly about a bald man with red eyes, no nose and the face of a snake, shooting green lights out of a stick," Headmaster Dumbledore takes in a deep breath, as does Annie.
"It won't be till she is six that she finds out that she isn't in the World of No Magic anymore, but the World of Magic. She'll find it out by seeing a Wizard disappearing with a crack in an alley, after the Obliviators come and dismiss the fact that she is six years old and won't remember," Annie grins at this, "And when she is eleven, some might have questioned how unsurprised she is to see Professor Minerva McGonagall on their doorstep with a letter on parchment, because Anna has learnt how to be sneaky and cunning, and how to imitate a British accent to sound so very native, and she can't wait to go to Hogwarts and be put in a House.
"No longer does she want to be a Gryffindor, though. Because she thinks about the books, and the years that will come and all the pain and war. She doesn't want to be there, in the heat of the action, because she is afraid. No, she'd rather be in Ravenclaw, barely mentioned in the books till the seventh, always ignored. None of her fellow first years would know how amazed she felt, meeting Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, the Weasley twins, and all of her favorite characters, even if they were all sneering at her for being a Slytherin, which in retrospect was where she was obviously going to with all her secrets to hide. No one would realize the awe and amazement she felt every time she entered a new room. The others would learn to accept it, but she would feel awe because she remembered growing up without and being told it wasn't real and believing it.
"But Anna doesn't want to be alone, she never has been, and she wants to tell someone her story so badly it hurts. How, mentally, she feels like an adult and how much she admires her Headmaster and her Head of House for what they have done and what they will do. And she knows the person to go to is her Headmaster. And so, with the knowledge that he uses candy as his passwords, she makes a list and goes on an early Sunday morning when everyone else would be sleeping. And she puts her faith and trust in him believing her and spills her guts," She took another deep breath, feeling very steady, "The first book was Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. The second book was called Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. The third book was called Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The fourth book was called Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The fifth book was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The sixth book was Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. The seventh and final book was called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows," Her eyes unconsciously went to Headmaster Dumbledore's wand.
"And so, Anna Lewis, affectionately called Annie, now sits in front of her Headmaster after spilling her soul, and waiting, whether he choose to send her to St. Mungo's for being crazy, or does the unbelievable and believes her," She pauses, "Either way, I am happy that I have told someone."
There is silence then, throughout the office, until the portraits are shouting. Some of them call her crazy, some of them silent, some of them believing her. Headmaster Dumbledore stares at her long and hard, and Annie meets his eyes with a regretfully hopeful look.
He raises his hand and silence comes.
"Ms. Lewis," He pauses, "Would you rather be called Smith?"
"I have been Lewis for ten years, sir," Annie replies with the tiredness a child shouldn't have and a jaded look in her eyes that no one but an old man should have, "I am no longer able to claim that name. I am now Anna Lewis, and that is that."
"Ms. Lewis, then," Dumbledore sighs, and gives her a smile, "My poor girl, you have suffered more than I can bear to think. Mentally twenty three, yet eleven at the same time. Tragic."
"So you believe me?" Annie feels so hopeful it hurts.
"Yes, my girl," How many times had she dreamt of being called that as the main character? It feels amazing, and so relieving.
Before she knows it, Annie is crying, tears of relief and joy, and blubbering her thanks. The Headmaster conjures a tissue for her.
They agree that she won't just tell him the future, instead she'll be his consultant when needed. Annie feels more peaceful than ever before, and suddenly realizes why Headmaster Dumbledore might have been so easily accepting of death.
Not much changes for her about school.
Annie didn't mind.
I just wrote this many months ago, decided to post it on here. Basically, I wanted to have an OC-insert who didn't try to keep things a secret. Probably a lot of mary-sueness going on with Annie, but whatevs.
Oh, guys, I've got a Tumblr now. Not just for Fake-Me Angela Moon but for Real-Me. As in, you'll find out my real name and you'll see a picture of me, and find out my age, and holy shit should I actually be telling you this?! If you want to know, just PM me and I send you the link. Like hell will I put it up here.