Torrance said it all, but I wanted to say hi anyway :) I want to add how elated I am to be posting this! When Torrance first mentioned creating something like this on the phone I actually started screaming and jumping around my room, tripping on binders, clothes, and the rest of my room that is essentially piled onto the floor in one big mess. Kind of random... But you get the picture. Anyway, I hope you enjoy my first chapter and Amory as much as you enjoyed Ryan... If not more.
Remi
Disclaimer: We're are not the owners of anything, we did not create this amazing world. We only chose for our characters to live in it. Creds to JK Rowling!
Chapter 1- Amory
The wind blew back my hair, and although it felt amazing, I knew it was going to be a tangled mess by the time I came down again. Looking around me, I saw trees and houses that looked the size of gnomes. Cold and bitter, the air slapped at my cheeks and hands. Windswept tears sprung to my eyes and I let them fall down my cheeks. The cold felt like competition, a force to battle with in an empty landscape, as if the sky were preparing me for what was to come in the one way it could. I tightened my grip on my broom and flew upwards until I could barely tell which house was mine. I could always tell though. If I looked really hard, I could spot a dot of purple in the grasslands near the river.
I started flying slightly north. I could fly to Bruno's with my eyes closed and both hands tied behind my back balancing on a Nimbus 2000. Although from up here most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the buildings and roads below, I always knew which one was Bruno's. First, there were always a lot of cars parked on the grass outside, an unusual sight for where I lived. Second, there were always broomsticks hovering around the place, kept in tact by safety charms. But I would have been able to tell without any broomsticks or cars. I just knew. My sister always said that my brain was programmed for the skies. I could navigate them without a wand, compass, or map and still arrive where I wanted to go on time.
The shield was located about a quarter mile beyond Bruno's. It was almost transparent, but there was a glossy quality to it, making it look like a photograph instead of a downhill slope to a muggle city. I wasn't sure how it worked exactly. Bruno had tried explaining it to me once, but all I really understood was that it kept the muggles out. I started the descent to the ground and arrived faster then I had expected. My new broom was incredible. The Firebolt 2.0, released only yesterday was the fastest model ever made and I could officially say that it was my broomstick. I had been saving money for a year, waiting for it to be released. I had ordered it specially, and yesterday it had finally arrived in the post.
I walked up the back steps, smiling at the sign on the back door that read:
BrUnO's KiTcHeN. EmPlOyEeS OnLy.
As I walked in, Marci lifted her head from the stove and waved.
"Hey Amory! You're here early! How's it going?" Her voice, light and chirpy, perked up as she spoke.
"Pretty good," I said nodding at my broomstick. Marci's eyes widened.
"That's it?" She asked as she waved her wand at the pancakes on the stove that flipped themselves over.
"Yep," I grinned. Marci abandoned the pancakes and walked over to me with her hands out. She reached for the broomstick.
"Nope," I said, pushing it behind me and grinning. "Although, I am really hungry this morning... and I left all my money at home... and my broom is really really new... and amazing. It puts the Firebolt 1.5 to shame. But.. I don't really want anyone riding it. If it broke it would break my heart... and my stomach," Marci rolled her eyes.
"Free breakfast?" she asked.
"Done."
I hadn't paid for breakfast at Bruno's in years.
Marci's eyes glinted.
"For once we made a fair deal," she said as she turned back to the stove.
"What would you like for break… Oops!" The pancakes had started to blacken. She flipped them onto a plate with her wand.
"Those are yours, Ames." I shrugged. Anything Marci made tasted amazing, burned or not.
"Is Bruno around?" I asked. Marci nodded.
"He's by the lake yelling at workers and handing out extra towels and lotions."
"Anything new with him?" I asked.
"The usual. He fired me yesterday."
"What happened?"
"I was playing with my pygmy puff instead of working. You know how he is," she smiled. I nodded. Ever since Bruno had inherited the club from his father everything had to be perfect. He transformed the mediocre country club into a comfortable place to hang out. There were a couple hotel rooms upstairs, but it was a strict one night only policy. The only time I had ever seen Bruno break that policy was when the Minister of Magic had come to stay last year. It had been all over the Daily Prophet. Ellie had made a point to cut out that article and put it up in the living room. I turned to Marci, faking concern.
"Was he serious?" I asked, knowing the answer.
"Nah. All I had to do was give him a kiss and it was back to business as usual." She laughed and we both smiled. It had been one of the best moments of my life when I found out my two favorite people in the world were getting married. The best of all had been this morning and that was why I was here so early in the first place. Usually, I didn't come to the club until around ten when everything had settled down for the day. Seven was prime rush hour for all the witches and wizards stopping for a quick breakfast. As for Bruno and Marci, they had been dating about two years when he proposed, but only two minutes later she had accidentally dropped the ring in pancake batter.
I walked outside and found Bruno offering towels to an elderly wizard couple. He owned everything within a ten-mile radius but still insisted on doing the small stuff-like handing out towels-himself. He believed that the details defined the club. As I waited for him to finish up his conversation my mind drifted back to that morning.
I had woken up to a shrill cry from the kitchen. It was my sister, Katie. Her job was to collect the mail. While the only reason I would ever get up early was to ride my broom, Katie was always reliably up at the crack of dawn. Jumping out of bed, I had sprinted into the hallway and then the kitchen praying that it was finally here. Katie was standing next to an important looking owl while holding a letter. The letter had a stamp with a beaver, a lion, a serpent, and an eagle on it.
"This isn't…" I was breathless with excitement.
"It is!" Katie's voice was ecstatic. "It's addressed to you. Open it! Right now! Open it now Amory!" I grabbed the letter out of Katie's hands. It was a thick cream colored envelope, and I ripped through the seal in one swipe. Several pieces of parchment fell onto the wood floor. I picked one up and read:
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Booklist.
Katie squealed, and threw her arms around me.
"I knew it! I knew it! I knew you would get it. You've been expecting it for forever! Oh my gosh, I knew you would get it! I can't believe it came! What does it say? Read it to me! Read all of it to me! Will you get to bring your broom? What animal do you want? Do you know who your professors are yet or do you find that out once you get there? Is there a letter from Professor McGonagall in there? Oh! I want to see her signature!" And on and on and on…
Bruno finished his conversation and as he turned away, he noticed me.
"Wow, Ames. You're here early. What happened? Did Marci give you a free breakfast again? I was just telling her five minutes ago that she is such a push over. She just doesn't know how to say no. She better not…"
"Bruno, I got my letter." The words came out in a rush. He froze.
"Did you really?"
"Yes! It came in the post today. Katie freaked."
A smile spread over Bruno's tan face and his green eyes sparkled. He pulled me in for a hug.
"Congratulations Ames! We all knew you would get it!" I smiled.
"Thanks. I wanted to tell you…"
"…So you came flying her early. Are you allowed to bring…"
"…My broomstick? I don't know. It says first years can't, but I don't know how I'll survive without it. And they always make…"
"Exceptions," Bruno finished, "I mean look at Harry Potter. He didn't know how to ride a broom until his first year and he still made the team as seeker! And you've been flying brooms before…"
"…I could walk. Yeah, I know." Bruno and I were constantly finishing each other's sentences. He wore a mask of maturity, but he was secretly a kid at heart. His eyes traveled to the broomstick I still held in my right hand.
"Oh, she's a beauty. I can't wait to get one myself."
"I know. It's amazing, it really is. I already promised…"
Marci appeared in the doorway holding the plate of burned pancakes.
"AMORY! Come get your breakfast! And I want that broomstick!"
"She didn't…" Bruno's face hardened, but his eyes were still sparkling. Marci spotted Bruno, and gestured to me frantically.
"Oops! Come on Ames, hurry. I'm going to get… um…. It's going to get cold." She glanced at Bruno. He was shaking his head disapprovingly at her. I skip-ran over to Marci, took the plate, and handed her the broomstick. As I walked away, I heard Bruno's voice.
"Come on honey! You got to be kidding me. We would have ten times more money if it weren't for Ames! I know we both love her but…" His voice cut off. As I glanced back, I saw his arms unfold across his chest and around her waist as Marci kissed him. I smiled, and went to find a table where I could eat my chocolate chip banana pancakes.
"You think she will be okay?" Marci asked Bruno, anxiously. Bruno nodded slowly, putting his arm around his wife's waist. His eyes were still trained on the door where I had disappeared a minute ago.
"Her life is absolutely perfect," Bruno said thoughtfully, and my eyebrows furrowed at his tone. I stood with one hand on the door behind me, having gone to search for maple syrup because the kitchen was out. I was about to ask what they were talking about, but before I could Bruno spoke again.
"It's not going to be fun for her to discover that the world isn't one big broomstick and pancake fairytale." Marci looked at him sharply.
"You think she'll be okay though, right? I mean with that kind of past… and the way she lives now. She doesn't know that. She's too ignorant. And it isn't like she loves change."
There was something in her tone that reminded me of Bruno's, but I knew what it was this time. Marci had always been the easier one to read.
"She'll manage," Bruno said firmly, his eyes still on the door and his voice a low growl. "She's a fighter and so were her parents. Yes, both of them," he said before Marci could protest.
I had never heard hatred in Bruno or Marci's voice before, but it was unmistakable. Marci must have opened her mouth, but she closed it now, nodding to herself as if admitting something she didn't want to believe true. I turned, and without a goodbye, grabbed my broomstick from where Marci had left it and kicked off the ground.
The wind had calmed down and the sun was shining. I cut through the air like a knife slicing through warm butter. Usually I smiled when I was flying, but that was the last thing I felt like doing at the moment. The conversation whirled around in my head. I'm innocent? What is the world like? Who were my parents?
I heard Bruno's voice over and over again saying the world isn't a fairytale, but it was the tone that got me. Marci and Bruno loved everyone. What had my parents done to them to make them talk like that? And if they are so bad, why do Marci and Bruno still love me? I flew faster and faster, so fast I was almost out of control. I needed to reach home. I needed to talk to Darcy. He would tell me this time. I would make him.
The first sign of my house was the purple streak on the ground. As I got closer, the purple formed into a rickety five story-not including the attic-house that was painted a light lavender. I hovered thirty feet above the ground trying to gain composure. I knew what I was going to need to get through before I could talk to my brother. After a minute of deep breaths, I descended and hovered near the ground. Darcy saw me from one of the million windows, and waved. I waved back in what I hoped to be a nonchalant way. Dismounting my broom, I walked around the house to the broom shed. I pulled open the shed's door, and an old Nimbus 3000 fell out along with a couple spiders. I needed to clean it out again. Spiders loved the shed and there are always at least three hand-sized spiders living there. That's why I had my dad create my own special locker for my new broom. It was made of metal and charmed so it wouldn't open unless I tapped it four times. If anyone else tried to open it, it could have told me who it was, and how many times they tapped. The only person who could access my broom besides me was Darcy.
After storing my broomstick I walked to the back door as quietly as possible. No luck. It opened with a creek and Katie came rushing to me.
"Where were you Amory?" She asked, tugging on my sweater. I lifted her up into a hug and gave her a fake smile.
"I was at Bruno's you silly goose! You need to go down there with me soon and try some of Marci's new chocolate chip banana pancakes. She has this new cinnamon that makes them even better!" Turning away from my sister, I called to the kitchen in a cracked voice.
"Hey Mom, I'm back." I heard a small scream, a thump, and a curse, and Ellie came running into the hall. Although I called her Ellie behind her back, I had never failed to call her Mom when she was listening. She technically wasn't my Mom, but I always called her that anyway. To her face, that is. She said that when I was little it would have been too complicated to try and explain to me that she and Rob weren't my real parents.
"You scared me sweetie!" She said rubbing her head.
"How did I scare you? I was in the hallway. The reason I yelled from the hallway was so that I wouldn't scare you when I walked past the kitchen." I said a little colder then I meant too. Ellie was always jumpy: jumping around the house, up the stairs, or of course at any given sound that wasn't silence or her abysmal singing.
"Well, I was looking up the chimney because I need to call in Charlie to come look at it because… Well you know. You were here the other day when your father tried to come home by flu powder cause he was working late," she sighed, "I told him just losing weight would be a better idea then expanding the chimney so his sorry stomach can fit through it, but he insists that he is perfectly fine with his weight. Which of course leaves me wondering if we actually should be concerned about his weight because if he isn't complaining about something then we usually need to worry about it. I mean I know he isn't overweight, but maybe he means something else like he is stealing the cookies every night and it isn't that pesky pixie that I can't seem to find around the house that he swears he saw once…"
And on and on and on… The only reason I was glad I wasn't Ellie's real daughter was that if I had been I probably would have been just as talkative as she was. I nodded and listened for a couple more minutes, and when she seemed to be done, I turned to walk upstairs.
'"Oh, and sweetie…" Ellie called after me.
"Yeah Mom," I replied.
"Get ready for a big day tomorrow. We are going to collect your things for Hogwarts at Diagon alley. I talked to your father and he is so proud of you. Me and him both. We love you so much darling." I nodded half-listening, and headed down the hallway before she could say anything else that would lead to a ten-minute lecture. I climbed the first set of stairs and paused at the landing. In a quiet voice I said:
"Darcy?" he opened the door immediately and soundlessly.
"Quick! Get in here." His eyes had that tint of mischief in them. Unsmiling, I entered his room. Darcy wasn't my brother, he was Ellie and Rob's son, but I referred to him as my brother because he fulfilled the application perfectly: sometimes annoying, but usually supportive and quick to give me advice on everything he knew a sentence about. He was less talkative then Ellie and Katie, but still a big conversation maker. He just knew the limitations, probably from growing up with both of them. His room was painted electric blue with posters of Quidditch teams covering the ceiling. He put most of his posters on the ceiling because he loved the color of his walls too much to cover them. In the middle of his room was an open suitcase with only a few things inside it. Of course! I thought. He had already started packing. On his wall near the window was a calendar counting down the days until September 1st. I had never understood why he did that, but apparently it was a Gryffindor trend that had been started by Harry Potter when he was at school.
"What?" I whispered to Darcy, so Katie wouldn't hear. Her room was right next door to Darcy's, and so when Darcy and I were together we were usually whispering just out of habit.
"I figured out how to get your broomstick into Hogwarts!" He beamed at me.
"How?"
"You give it to me and I take it with me in my luggage. Since this is my second year, I'm allowed to have a broomstick. So I can pretend like it's mine and…"
"There's no way I'm giving you my broomstick!" I made a face at him. He rolled his eyes.
"Okay, so then I guess you aren't taking it to Hogwarts. And it's brand new, too. What a shame. But it's okay. Your going to have flying classes once a week so you can just ride one of the school brooms then, right?" I glared at him.
"You break it and I kill you. And then you pay for it," I said.
"Done," He smiled at me, and I returned it, rolling my eyes at him.
"You're going to have the time of your life, Ames! I know you will," my fake smile faltered.
"Everyone keeps saying stuff like that, but is it really true?" I asked him. It was the first time I had voiced the question aloud, but by no means the first time I had thought it, even before I got my letter.
"I mean," I continued, "It would be so much easier if I just knew who my parents were. I would feel more comfortable I guess. I know that's dumb, but it's true. Mom will only tell me their first names, and that they died fighting… him… and that's it. And I know you know, Darcy. I know you know. Will you really send me there not knowing?"
Darcy shook his head. I had asked him a million times, and it was starting to wear him down. I could tell.
"I mean what could be so bad about them? Did they abandon me? Is that it? Are they really dead?" Darcy sighed and looked at me. I looked at him expectantly.
"Okay, the only reason I'm going to tell you is because you can't start school without knowing your past. That's one of the things I learned my first year. I don't think many know about you though. Ellie, Rob, and everyone tried to keep everything under the radar."
"Everyone?"
"Yeah. How do you think Mom and Dad knew Marci and Bruno?" It was a simple question I had never bothered to ask.
"They went to school with them?" He nodded.
"They were all in Hufflepuff together along with your Dad."
"Calandra and Michael," I said, naming my parents. But Darcy shook his head.
"Only Michael. Just your Dad," he said.
"Then where was Mom?" I asked. Darcy paused, unsure.
"I really shouldn't be telling you this, Ames."
"Where was my Mom, Darcy?"
"Slytherin."
I stood speechless as he explained everything.
I closed the door quietly, and peeked through the hole in the wood that Darcy had yet to discover. He was leaning back against his closet door with his head in his hands. I wondered if convincing him to tell me had been a bad idea. But Darcy was right. I understood why Ellie didn't want me to know. She had witnessed the biggest war in history. I watched Darcy as he kicked the dresser, muttered a curse, and then went out of my view through the wood door. I shook my head in silent disgust, pushing myself away from his room, and standing on the landing. The war was still going on for Ellie. It would always be. The thought of a peaceful world would never cross her mind. Her mind was permanently stained by the war and by the crime Calandra had committed; that unforgettable, unforgivable act that cost both my parents their lives. For Ellie the war would never be over. Not when someone you love could betray you like you were nothing more then dust.
Suddenly, tears were streaming down my cheeks. My throat burned as I ran up the remaining stairs into my room, and slammed the door. I sat on my bead reading my letter frantically over and over again until the tears slowed. I stared out my window that overlooked the backyard. A gnome had fallen into the fishpond and was splashing around trying to get out. The grass was wilted and the overgrown flowers obscured the walkway completely. A butterfly floated by my window. It hit the glass briefly before it flew higher and out of sight. My stereo was still playing from this morning, and I pushed my window open so sunlight and warmth flooded into the room.
I was going to prove that I was nothing like my mother. My mind was determined now. And every second left me more so. And standing there, with the freedom of summer washing over my face, I made a promise to myself. If I wanted something I was never going to let up until I achieved it.
I leaned out the window and slipped through, climbing onto the roof. I lay back, and watched the sun make its way over the sky. I stayed up there until sunset, imagining myself flying. I'm not sure if I fell asleep or not, but next thing I knew Ellie was calling me for dinner. I pulled myself back through the window, and put the letter back on my bed. I glanced down at the part about the four houses, and sighed.
Only one thought was clear in my mind: I hope I'm not in Slytherin.