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Chapter 1: The Visitor
Square jawed Professor Donovan Banks was absolutely delighted to visit his sister and family while visiting London over the summer. He'd spent the last month traveling, collecting memories in the form of moving photographs which he kept in the leather briefcase, always at his side. Whenever Donovan wanted to remember something he pulled out his camera and took a picture of it. In fact, he did this very motion as he approached the Leaky Cauldron while searching for a bus stop. It had been far too long since Donovan had sipped one of their honey melon teas or cracked open a pumpkin juice, but it was neither the time, nor the season as once he clicked the button and his flash lit the tavern, Donovan was off again.
An inky photograph slid out the top of Donovan's camera and he blew on it as the image appeared. Moving ever so slightly as the breeze snagged the trees, the photograph reflected a memory that Donovan stored in his briefcase as he sat down at the bus stop.
Waiting there was agonizing but since he didn't know exactly where his sister's new house was located, it would be too dangerous to apparate. He tapped his leather shoes not in impatience but in rhythm as an old blue's song struck a chord in his head. This was the song, he realized, that he and Ginger use to dance to on the weekends. He would take her in his arms and sweep her across the floor, her golden hair sweeping out as she laughed. Nowadays, Donovan would do anything to stroke that golden hair again.
With a creak of metal, the bus door slid open and Donovan reached into his pockets for spare change. When he pulled out only sickles, he tensed, before remembering to check his vest. There was always something useful in his vest. Donovan paid the bus driver and took a seat in the back, a few chairs away from an old lady with a round face and dark sunglasses covering her tan, wrinkled skin. Musingly, Donovan put a hand to his scruffy grey almost beard. He hadn't quite made a decision to let it grow out or not so it was just beginning to peek out of his once handsome face.
The bus let out in south London where Donovan traveled to a well off suburb called South Cross. This was where Lucy had said she moved. As Donovan searched for the right address, he heard laughing and playing coming from one of the yards. Outside a stone brick house, there was a basketball hoop set up and two kids were tossing a ball back and forth shouting at each other and trying to score goals. The smaller one was a boy who was blonde and scruffy looking. He shouted up at the older girl who had long dark hair, cascading down her shoulders like a fairy tale mermaid. She looked to be quite a bit older than him, maybe in her mid to late teens.
Donovan recognized them instantly. Although it had been a few months, Emily Turing was one of the most notable students at Hogwarts and was not easily forgotten. She was a natural beauty, the envy of every girl in her year and not the mention one of the brightest young ladies, Donovan had ever taught. Her brother, Henry Turing was eight, and not yet old enough to attend Hogwarts but he knew his face very well.
"Uncle Donovan!" Henry cried as the boy caught sight of the older man. He ran towards the professor with open arms and was scooped up into a hug by his uncle.
"Good to see you Henry my boy," said Donovan, smiling as he looked into the boy's shining face.
Emily, who had stopped dribbling the basketball, now held it firmly in her hands and gave the professor a warm, congenial smile as he approached.
"Good afternoon professor," she said hesitantly.
"Oh please Emily," Donovan said warmly. "You can always call me Donovan. I never ask my niece to call me professor."
"Sorry sir," Emily said.
Donovan laughed and traveled to the door where he was greeted by his sister Lucy. As the door opened, the warm smell of pastries in the oven wafted out onto the streets and the cheery face of Lucy Banks-Turing appeared.
"It's good to see you Donovan," Lucy said, giving her older brother a hug and welcoming him inside.
Lucy Banks-Turing was the mother of three but it hardly showed on her girlish figure. She was certainly very beautiful and had the grace of an heiress but couldn't stop agonizing about even the laugh lines crafted into her aging skin. Her hair was still strawberry blonde and her cheeks, full and rosy but here seemed to be something different though about her, Donovan realized. A line of stress seemed to dictate her angular body and she seemed to be wearing a kind of mask as she closed the door behind him.
The interior of the house was spotless and clean. A staircase spiraled upwards to the children's room and below that was a well equipped kitchen. On either sides of the house however was the solution to the cleanliness of a house. Mountains of moving boxes were still piled high and there were swatches of blue paint on the walls, trying to decide the best color to paint the place. It had only been a month since the Turings had moved in yet they were still nowhere near adjusted to their environment.
"So here's our little troublemaker," Donovan said playfully as Alice Turing, the middle child appeared like a ghost behind the kitchen door frame. She was covered in flour and sugar but that didn't hide her small frame and long, golden blonde hair tucked behind her ears.
Alice Turing had just turned eleven years old and on her birthday a rather odd thing happened. She'd learned how to fly. Unable to control herself, Alice had floated out of the house and hovered in the street for the entire neighborhood to watch.
It was perfectly normal for children who had not yet mastered their magical abilities to have outburst such as this but of course, this was completely inappropriate for muggles to witness. After the ministry modified their memories, it was highly suggested that the Turings find a new place to move into in case something like that where to happen again. Now that they lived in South Cross they were adjacent to four other wizarding families and one squib. Safe from the eyes of the general public.
Alice's aqua blue eyes and snub nose disappeared again without saying anything. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment as she was again reminded of the burden she'd laid on her family. They'd packed up their entire house before she'd even gotten a chance to apologize for whatever had happened. She still didn't really know what had happened other than flying was probably the best thing in the world. One minute she'd been watching cartoons with Henry and the next she was four feet above his head.
With a ding, the timer went off and Alice's biscuits were ready. She slid on the oven mitts and reached inside, pulling out a tray of oozing hot pastries. There was a rush of noise for a brief moment as she set the tray down on the empty stove to let them cool. As she looked over her long curtain of blonde hair she saw her mother talking to Uncle Donovan. She was distressed, she realized and Donovan was trying to say something comforting. Alice got closer to listen in but the pair at the moment decided to move into another room. Quietly, Alice slinked out to go play with her cat.
Donovan was shaken. As he closed the door to the guest bedroom, his sister Lucy's calm demeanor shattered into fits of anxiety.
"It's Eric," she was saying as she paced to and fro in the white washed silken room. "He's really got us in trouble this time."
Eric Turing worked for the ministry of magic. He was an auror responsible for chasing down the wizarding world's toughest criminals and that job sometimes came with consequences. Last year the entire office had been under constant death threats made by a small band of wizarding terrorists that had swept through London a few times every so often and caused general chaos and loads of paperwork and cover stories for the ministry to uphold. Donovan remembered seeing the headlines of the Daily Prophet and for a while people thought it would never go away but it did. No one knows why though.
"What do you need me to do?" Donovan asked Lucy, reaching into his vest and brandishing his wand.
"I need you to help me protect the children," Lucy said feverishly. "Eric is gone, I've told the children he's on a business trip but he's gone after whatever is threatening to-" Lucy paused, obviously in too much distress.
"What Lucy," Donovan said gently but with urgency. "What is going to happen to the children?"
"They said they're going to kill them," Lucy murmured and then sat weakly down on the bed.
Across the house, Alice stroked her black kitten's silky head. It purred as it's tail brushed up against her arm and then leaned into a cat like stretch. Alice smiled as Nightlock yawned and exposed her pointy little teeth and then pawed playfully at her flowery shorts. She heard the door open again and the chatter of Henry as Emily put the basketball back in the storage closet. There was more noise as Henry noticed the biscuits were ready and ran towards them before Alice had even had a chance to do the icing. Oh well, Alice thought. At least someone was enjoying them.
Nightlock protested as Alice got up but she made her way up to her room where she kept a writing journal and her new wand from Ollivanders. It had been very exciting to see the famous wand shop and walk down Diagon Alley as a real witch with a real wand for the first time. Her mom had taken her school supply shopping after they'd gotten the letter about a week prior. Though she wasn't legally allowed to use magic outside of Hogwarts, Alice liked to take out her honey colored wand anyway and run her thumb down the floral carvings in the wood. It made her feel special to know that she now had one of these and it was all her own.
Alice Turing's bedroom was what was to be expected of an eleven year old adolescent such as Alice. It was neat, decorative and colorful yet barren as much of her things were still packed down stairs. On one wall was a window looking out onto the street covered by a shimmery starlight curtain. To Alice's surprise she saw her mother and uncle standing out in the street together with their wands out. Some of the other neighbors had come out to join them and they were casting some kind of magic protection circle around the area. In the distance she saw the sun start to set and wondered if maybe they did this every night and Alice was just never up here to see. After all she had only lived here a month.
When dinner was served there was a tense air about the family in which all three of the Turing children seemed to catch onto. They helped themselves to bread, butter and soup but there were hardly any words spoken between the five of them even with Uncle Donovan who Alice remembered as such a talkative and invested man. It was Emily who broke the silence as she began to pester Donovan to tell her what the 6th year's first semester project would be in Defence Against the Dark Arts. She seemed so persistent about getting it out of him that Alice began to wonder if she was really just trying to impress him before term started. Alice didn't think Emily would really be so thrilled to begin reading her text book early.
Just as Alice scraped the bottom of her bowl there was a sharp rap on the door. Her mom's spine seemed to straighten with anticipation but she put on a placid smile and rose to answer it.
"It's okay Donovan," she said as her the professor rose slightly out of his chair as well. "It's probably just a neighbor."
The neighbors did not come by all too often. The surrounding wizarding families consisted of either toddlers or old couples, no one really in Alice's parents social circle's either. Still, Lucy Turing gracefully swept to the door and looked through the eye hole as if it were St. Nick calling on them with a bag full of toys.
"Donovan," she said straightly, but her voice quivered against her will. There was a moment's hesitation where Alice felt her heart skip and yet was utterly lost. "Get the children!" She screamed and the front door slammed open.
