"Sailor Time!" I shouted suddenly, "She called me Time!"
I was lying in a bed, I must have passed out. But now I couldn't remember what I had just remembered, only that someone used to call me Time. The room I was in had two beds, I had been tucked gently into one of them, and someone had left me some clothes at the end of the bed. The clothes were a little too small I discovered as I pulled them on, but they were supposed to be loose, so it didn't show much. It was a peasant blouse and a pair of boot-cut jeans; how I knew this I didn't know. But know I did.
After donning the clothes I left the room and looked around. I guessed the kitchen would be on a lower floor, so I took stairs down. As I did I heard voices.
"Who is she Harry? You shouldn't have brought her here," It was Mrs. Potter's voice.
"Mate, it's a nice idea and everything, but what can we do about her? I mean you said she's Rose and Albus's age right? Another teenage girl is going to make things better? Not really," A man's voice said sounding annoyed but trying to be patient.
"Harry, I think we need to get rid of her," A second woman was in the conversation.
"But Hermione, she doesn't know about wizards, but she was in the Auror's department at the ministry. I was going to detain her for questioning, but she barely even knows her name. She seemed interested in Albus, so I thought she could at least talk to someone her age before we did anything else. I figured she would let something slip with someone her own age," Mr. Potter justified himself to them. I found myself mouthing the word 'auror' but I didn't know what it was.
"How did she get there then?" Hermione asked irritably.
"I saw how she got there. She appeared out of nowhere. For a moment she had shorter hair and a very strange sailor thing. Then her hair was longer and plastered to her head with grease, and her clothes were what you, Ginny, first saw her in. That clock of hers though, that was an hourglass shaped like a rosebud," Mr. Potter told them quietly. My mind reeled, where was the Ruby Watch? I turned to rush up stairs to search the room I had been in when I tripped over nothing and fell down the stairs.
I screamed on my fall down, because the stairs were steep, but I never touched a thing. I looked around and saw a girl my age pointing a stick of wood at me. She was glaring at the older Potter boy who was pointing a similar stick at the place where I had been a moment ago. Albus was pointing his stick at the older boy. The adults were rushing up the stairs only to find me hovering over them.
"What are you three doing?" A bushy haired woman asked her voice filled with venom. It was the voice who had been addressed as 'Hermione' a moment ago.
"James made her trip, and she would have fallen down the stairs if I hadn't caught her with a spell, Mother," The girl my age said. I realized she had the same bushiness to her hair as Hermione, but this girl's hair was red.
"Oh did you now James?" Mrs. Potter asked her voice equally pregnant with venom as Hermione's had been.
"You were saying we should get rid of her anyway. Why couldn't I have done it for you?" James asked sourly. The four adults stared at him completely dumbfounded.
"How could you even think of it James?" Mr. Potter asked his voice full of hurt, "How could you even think to do what would rent your soul in two?"
"I wouldn't have killed her! The fall wouldn't have killed her!" James shouted sounding desperate.
"Yeah, a fall you started," The girl said turning to glare at James, "I'm going to let you down, so be careful." She told me calmly as she moved her wand. I moved in unison. When I was dropped to the floor (she dropped me when I was less than an inch above the ground) my knees collapsed and I fell to the floor on my butt, rather than on my feet as the girl had clearly intended.
When I looked up all seven of them were staring at me. I pushed myself shakily up from the ground, and then I did something instinctively. I bowed in the traditional Japanese fashion.
"Forgive me for intruding on your home and family. But thank you for the hospitality. I'll gather my things and leave if you like," I offered trying to appease them.
"Do you know what year it is?" The red-headed man in the back of the group asked suddenly.
"No, I truthfully haven't a clue,"
"Could you figure it out knowing that today is your fourteenth birthday?" The red-head asked
"Yes…2650," I answered after giving it a moment of thought. From their expressions I had gotten in wrong.
"No, it's 2022…I think maybe she's harmless enough. Who knows from what you said she was saying, maybe she's a witch," the red-headed man said the last with a laugh.
"Fine, since we have plenty of extra room I suppose we can let her stay here. I guess that can be her birthday present," Mrs. Potter said and turned away.
"You know I love you little sister," The red-headed man said following his sister down the stairs.
"Yes, yes, you love me because I did something for a girl who is obviously more polite and better company than you dear brother. That really requires gratitude doesn't it?" Mrs. Potter said shaking her head at her older brother.
"Aww, you don't mean it do you? I'm Harry's best mate!" the man said still trailing her.
"I swear Ginny's going to end up killing him out of shear annoyance one of these days," Hermione commented shaking her head at her husband's foolishness.
"Well we know I can stop her, I taught her what she knows of dueling magic," Mr. Potter said proudly as he and Hermione went after their spouses.
"Don't you love it when the adults forget you exist?" The girl my age commented as the adults reached the downstairs, "I'm Rose Weasley. These two dunderheads behind me are my cousins, as ashamed as I am to admit relation to James at the moment."
"I'm Emma Macay," I answered soberly.
"I know. But you seem to understand the horror of boys, any reason why?"
"I don't really know," But the shadow of a memory made me shudder, "I need to cut my hair."
"Okay, I'm sure Aunt Ginny has some scissors in the kitchen. She's just like my grandmother that way," Rose said leading me off. I heard one or maybe both of the boys follow us downstairs.
"I think we can be very good friends," I told Rose quietly.
"Well of course, we'll have to be if you're going to live in this house and survive the boys," Rose said seriously.
"I don't doubt. Are these your clothes? They're a little small on me, but you're a little smaller than me," I asked curiously, hoping they were hers for no real reason.
"Yeah, they are mine. But we really need to buy you your own clothes," Rose said calmly, "What kind of clothes do you like?"
"I can't remember. But I think layers would be smart, that way if I get hot I can take a layer off, and if I get cold I can add one." I told her.
"Oh, well we'll get permission to go shopping for clothes tomorrow. We'll need to get muggle money from Uncle Harry, or maybe Mum could give us some. They both grew up with muggles. Oh yeah, we'll have to take muggle transportation though," Rose told me as we reached the bottom of the stairs.
"That's all right, I wasn't much pleased with the fireplace traveling thing I did earlier. It wasn't very comfortable," I told her feeling a jerk of relief at the thought of buses, cars, and subways.
"Who was the red-headed man?" I asked Rose uncomfortably, perhaps I wasn't supposed to know who he was.
"That's my dad, Ron Weasley, and I guess you wouldn't have met my mom either, she's Hermione Weasley," Rose told me looking a little abashed at her parents thoughtlessness.
We went into the kitchen to find Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley putting a "Happy Birthday" banner on the wall the muggle way. Mrs. Potter and Mrs. Weasley were baking a cake laboriously reading the cookbook. They all startled a little when they came in, but then they went back to what they were doing.
"Aunt Ginny? Do you have a pair of scissors?" Rose asked loudly.
"Yes. What for?" Mrs. Potter said opening a drawer and pulling scissors out.
"I need to cut my hair," I said with a slight shudder. The hair was really starting to freak me out. I couldn't figure out why though, that was behind another locked door, but it was directly related to the fact that I could understand why James would have tried to knock me down the stairs, and why I felt such pity for him for having thought of it.
"Oh? Alright then. Go cut it in the bathroom though," Mrs. Potter said giving the scissors to me. I thanked her and Rose followed me asking incessantly how I was going to do it. In response I asked if she could lead me to the bathroom.
The bathroom Rose led me to was spacious and had a fully stocked tub. So I scrubbed all the grease out of my hair and dried it before I started cutting. My hair reached a good two inches past my shoulders. So I started by hacking my hair to a level even with my shoulders. Then I trimmed it until it rested a little past my chin. Then I attacked the hair in my face trimming it until there were bangs resting on my eyebrows. Looking in the mirror gave me a shock of remembrance.
Tears rolled down my face and my shoulders wracked with sobs. Rose seemed at a loss as to why I was crying, and so was I truthfully, but she hugged me and rocked me until I quieted. I looked at her entreatingly, and she didn't ask me why I had cried. For that I was glad.
"So what do you think of this?" Rose asked me the next day as we were shopping. She was holding a red and gold plaid skirt. I looked at it a minute then lifted a blue and silver skirt with the same pattern from the rack.
"I like this one better. I feel there's a connection to those colors," I told her grabbing other skirts in similar styles and colors.
"Hey what would you do if you really were a witch?" Rose asked suddenly. I paused, I knew Rose was going to ask it sometime today. So I had thought of how to answer, and so I told her the truth.
"I don't know. I'm not sure if I'm going to be here very long," I told her gently, "But I think I'll try to get some kind of schooling. Maybe even this Hogwarts you and your family talk about so much."
"You'd love it at Hogwarts. You could wear as many pleated skirts as you wanted. More than you wanted," Rose told her happily picking out tops to go with my rapidly growing pile of blue, gray, white, and black skirts.
~*~
Hi again, this is chapter two, and I realized that I haven't thought of any good chapter names….Of course I'm just now working out where each chapter starts and ends (I have over 15 thousand words written, it's going to be long). I think this chapter is important because I wanted to show how Emma ended up a part of the Potter family. I also wanted to explain why James wasn't going to be a big part of Emma's life from here on out.
Next chapter has some good moments, and I'm not sure where I'm going to end it, But we'll find out a little more about who Emma is then. Well bye then!