Naked in a Field of Shattered Glass
Fiction by: Lemony Flavored Paopu Fruit
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, but Shannon and Anastasia are mine!
Prologue
It all started on the first day of December.
The first snow of the season fell gently that morning, coating the already frosty ground of the city park. Lovers walked down the white path, arms interlinked, their steps leaving their shoe imprints on the new, virgin snow. Children in the field rolled up balls of snow into lopsided snowmen. A man in a business suit sat on a park bench, reading his newspaper. Students who had missed the school bus hurried passed the couple, hoping to catch the city bus instead at the stop on the other side of the park.
A petite, sandy haired girl stumbled hurriedly as she hurried after her classmates. Her coat rippled in the air as a breeze gusted through, chilling her spine. Finding the only solution to pull her coat closer, she did so. The edge of her turtleneck tickled her cheeks, pink from the cold, but she only breathed into her cupped, gloved hands, intent on warming them from the bitter chill. Her orange backpack thudded against her back, only hooked around one shoulder, as she sped into a faster run. She was lagging behind, and needed to catch up to her peers.
Almost at once, she collided with the man in the suit as he stood, folding his paper under his arm. Her backpack slipped off of her shoulder and collided with the ground, spreading some of its contents across the white ground. In a hurry, she apologized profusely and scooped up the spilt contents before hastily stuffing them into her pack. Without another look back at the man, she swung the orange backpack over her shoulder and hurried ahead.
The man watched as the girl quickly disappeared down the park pathway, and as soon as she was out of sight, he smiled and looked down at his feet. Lying right there in the snow was a yellow spiral-bound notebook. He bent down and picked it up delicately, as though it may contain something important. Idly, he flipped through the pages. There were notes and short pieces of writing in long, cursive, neat handwriting, and cute scribbled sketches upon the pages. None of this interested the man, but as he stopped at the back cover, he saw in the same long, flourished handwriting:
Property of Anastasia Rutherford
The man snapped the notebook shut, a pleased grin on his lips. "Miss Rutherford, you better be prepared." He murmured to himself, tucking the notebook under the same arm as his newspaper. The grin never bothered to leave his lips. "For this is the last hour of your existence." In a blink of an eye and a faint pop that was easily disguised by screeching of car wheels in the distance he was gone.
For the lovers linked arm and arm, the day was to become one to reminisce about in their old and gray days.
For the children in the field, the morning was to be lost in memory.
But for the young Miss Anastasia Rutherford, that hour marked the beginning of an adventure of unforgettable proportions.