A/N: I know it's bloody short. Just trying to sort out the horrid mess that is the timeline, is all...

Chapter 2

Sometime in the future

Dear G,

I woke up this morning and realised I didn't know any more.

Optima corrupta pessima.

M.

The Present: Maralyn's Journal

December 25, 1991

So, cracking out my new Christmas gift! Emily's brilliant; she knew I would love something like this. I hope she liked her gift - it's this witch hat I ordered from a witch-fashion catalogue. She loveswearing hats. Maybe I could buy her some Muggle hats. She'd really like a stetson or a fez!

Also, other Christmas presents I got: two books (Potions and Spells) from Hermoine, weird but tasty wizard-candy from Ron, and a practice-Snitch from Harry - ugh, that Quidditch maniac! He's always been talking about his games; lucky, him, getting on the team. I don't know if I'll try out for the Hufflepuff team when I'm old enough. Quidditch doesn't seem that interesting, even though everyone's always excited over it.

And, my favorite present of all: Neville made me a guidebook of flowers. It's full of beautiful pictures and descriptions of flowers.

Flower of the day - azalea. A pretty pink blossom for temperance (a word which means being simple and fair, being able to hold yourself back on some things, according to Hermoine) and fragility.

MC.

January 18, 1992

I've been thinking about the Spell book I got for Christmas. Most of the spells come from Latin, interestingly. And so do the scientific names of flowers.

An example: the buttercup flower's Latin name is Ranunculus (Rannuncules? Rununcolus?), which means 'little frog'. I don't exactly remember the spelling - Miss Kay (that's my botanist neighbor) showed me this flower once. Maybe I can find a way to write to her; Neville's guidebook doesn't include the Muggle scientific names.

The point is, I've been wondering what might happen if I tried to cast a spell using flower-Latin-names. For the buttercup, would a frog appear? Or maybe the flower itself? I'm not certain...

Maybe I should try.

MC.

NB: Almost forgot. Flower of the day - elderberry. A white/cream-coloured thing for strength.

January 19, 1992

Something strange happened today.

I was lying in bed, reading Neville's book, when I got the nerve to finally try out my magic experiment. So I pointed my wand at a random Hufflepuff banner hanging on the wall, and said Ranunculus. Or whatever you spell it - I don't know.

Anyways, Emily's little owl Walker - he was just lying down in his cage - suddenly hooted, and flapped his wings. His head was tilted to the side, like he was listening to me.

But the thing is, Walkie's injured. Injured, as in really really hurt; he accidentally crashed into rafters or something. He shouldn't be able to move his wings at all. I looked under the bandage Madam Pomfrey put on him, and well...

There wasn't any wounds at all. No scratches, no cuts, bruises, nothing.

Flower of the day - sweet briar. A delightful-smelling pink flower for healed wounds.

Ha.

MC.

Maralyn flung herself down on her bed, huffing angrily to herself, arms crossed. "I don't bloody understand!" she growled to herself, and punched at her pillow quite uselessly.

"What's wrong?" said Emily, stretched out on her own bed, legs set ramrod straight in the awkward angle they always stayed at when the girl was lying down. She put a book down at her side, right beside a pitch black beanie hat. (She'd taken off the hat right when she entered the dormitory; it left her bronze hair a mess of flipped and flopped strands.)

"Stupid, stupid daft things are happening to me, Em," she said, and pounded at her pillow once again. "It's annoying. And kinda amazing. But confusing. So why don't they all leave me alone, yeah?"

"Well, someone'sbrooding."

"I know, I know. Kind of useless making a fuss, right? But my life is weird. You have to grant me that."

"Not really." Emily gestured at the dormitory, at Hogwarts, at the collection of hats that hung, piled on top of each other, on her own personal hat stand, as if to say: Look, see? Everything's normal. Just as usual.

"Do you ever think," Maralyn said, quietly trying to relax herself as she breathed in and out, in and out, "that there could be other magically powerful people other than Harry? Or Dumbledore?"

"Don't be daft," scoffed Emily. "Harry's not anything special. He's just a bloke, like Ron's a bloke, and Neville's a bloke, and hell, like Malfoy's a bloke."

"You're missing the point, Em."

Emily slipped on her beanie, pulling the fabric so that it wouldn't cover her eyes. " 'Cos you're being melodramatic, Mara. I don't know what kind of stuff happened to you, 'cos your life is life. Your wand is your wand. Your robe is your robe. And your legs," she said, "are your legs."

"And my non-legs are my non-legs" Maralyn heard Emily mutter under her breath; and Maralyn sighed at herself, and decided to let it all alone.

Dead grass blooming into green at her feet; feet that run so fast, so fast, sometimes - as if she was swimming through the air. Words that call for owls to land at her fingers; fingers that touch and heal Hagrid's dog, Fang, of his bruises.

Maralyn shoved the thoughts and memories from her mind, telling herself not to dream. She knelt to fetch the trunk underneath her bed; at the very bottom, she gently slipped Neville's flower-book and her journal. She promised herself that she wouldn't touch it; she promised herself that she would let it collect dust.

May 26, 1992

The group trooped through the darkening forest, Hagrid and Fang leading the way.

The sound of branches snapping alerted Harry, and he felt himself detach from everybody else - there was something heavy tugging at his limbs. A familiar weight that turned his body, making him shiver and shake, but he couldn't help wandering away to find-

Dead and dead and dead.

Inexplicably, Harry thought of green light and the sound of screams.

Harry looked down in horror as a dark robed figure cradled a dirt and mossy bundle in its hands; sheet by sheet was pried away by the swing of a wand, and out tumbled a beautiful woman with glass-like eyes and skin and hair.

The figure knelt down to brush the fragile hair from a branch-thin neck. A mouth curved into a jagged smile; Harry saw sharp white teeth glinting in the moonlight.

It bit-

Harry ran.

Meanwhile, Maralyn dreamt of a heaven swimming with meadows of flowers. Tulip buds outline themselves across the sky, and daisies cartwheeled across the wind.

She doesn't want to wake up.

Sometime in the future

Dear M,

We all don't know.

Hold on. Don't push yourself.

G.