The store looked old and worn, with dust covering the many shelves, and various oddities sat atop the dust. Alli heard indistinct chatter from somewhere in the store, and followed the sound. She found herself in front of an old wooden door, and she lightly knocked. Moments later, her vision filled with light, the door was open, and a middle aged man stood in front of her.
"Dad, that's Alli!" He smiled and moved out of the way so that she could enter. Now, she stood in a modern looking office; the man closed the door and sat down behind the desk.
"I'm Thomas Borgin, Max's father if you couldn't tell." Maxine and her father looked strikingly similar, with one distinct difference, Maxine had platinum blonde hair, similar to Alli's own, while her father had hair dark as night.
"I'm Ro- Alli Hawsham" his eyes lit up
"I know the Hawshams! Well, used to. Cassius and his mother Ade-"
"My parents are muggles actually" she said interrupting, his face fell for a moment, and then a smile again.
"Well, I suppose that's good. The magical Hawshams weren't very good… Well, actually, they were terrible people, they were on Voldemort's side with my father." and again, his smile faded.
"Dad, you're boring her, she doesn't even know what half that stuff is." Maxine interjected smiling, Paige and Lellie laughed.
"Ah, I forget that not all of us grew up around this. I apologize." A soft tapping reverberated throughout the room. Mister Borgin stood quickly and opened what looked like a mail slot that was embedded into the wall. A thick piece of parchment fell into his hands. He inspected it, and then handed it to Paige. Her eyes scanned the paper and finally looked up,
"My mom wants me to come home and finish packing for tomorrow. Let's go Lellie. See you guys tomorrow!" Paige grabbed Lellies wrist, and in an instant, they were gone. Alli's jaw dropped.
"I see Paige got her apparition license this summer" Mister Borgin said, "when you turn eighteen, you can take a course on 'apparition', its a very fast way to travel, just think of where you want to go, and poof. That's very oversimplified of course."
"Are you going to take me to Kings Cross tomorrow?" Maxine asked,
"No, I have a meeting at 7:30, you'll have to gone alone I guess" Maxine frowned, then her eyes lit up.
"I'm going to take you to Kings Cross tomorrow!" Maxine said quickly, fumbling over her words. "You can spend the night too! It'll be perfect! Let's go." And Alli was dragged out of the store. Then her stomach dropped, and her vision went black. She felt her foot touch her head, then her ankle touch her knee. A large amount of pressure was squeezing the sides of her head, then her neck, stomach, hips, thighs, and feet. An instant later, her vision returned. She was standing with Maxine in a large bedroom, it was painted tiffany blue with a large queen size mattress against the far wall. Posters of guys lined the walls, and a pretty white vanity sat in the corner.
"Woah. Where are we?" Alli asked, the dizziness was slowly fading,
"My bedroom silly!" Maxine replied, and then a moment later, "Wait, you mean like, in the world? We're still in Covent Gardens. My dad deals in both muggle and magical business, so we live in the city."
"What was your dad talking about with the 'magical Hawshams'?" Allie asked looking around at Max's huge bedroom.
"Like 40 or 50 years ago this really powerful wizard started killing a bunch of muggle born wizards, like you. Well technically he did it twice but the gist is, a bunch of other really old wizarding families joined his cause, and one of those families were the Hawshams. They did a lot of really fucked up stuff, including help destroy our school. They rebuilt it of course but still. It was a really shitty thing to do."
"Was your family part of it?" Allie asked, worried that her question was inappropriate.
"My grandparents were. My dad was on the other side and fought for the ministry."
"The ministry?"
"The wizarding government. It was essentially destroyed after the whole wizarding war so they came together to completely revamp it. They moved the age you start Hogwarts to seventeen, kind of like University for muggles, and now you can do certain spells outside of school. Overall a much better system in my opinion." Maxine jumped into bed and plopped off her shoes. "Do you want some tea?"
"That sounds wonderful." She needed something to calm her nerves and help her understand everything that was happening.
"Watch this then!" Maxine said excitedly. "My father wrote this spell when he was at Hogwarts. He designed it so you don't have to use a wand or an incantation." She flicked her fingers at a tea set on her dresser. The platter with the cups rose up and floated across the room to the bed. Once it landed, steaming colored liquid began to rise from the bottom of the cups until they were full. Maxine lifted her cup up and began to drink. Allie looked at the platter with disbelief.
"Are you alright Allie?" She asked with concern in her voice.
"Holy shit. This did not just happen." Max laughed,
"Once you finish the cup, if you snap it will refill. I bet you could do that part, it is much easier than transfiguring it from scratch. You just have to focus on the empty cup and visualize a full one." Allie began to drink the tea.
"Wow this is great actually!" The warmth down her throat suddenly made her feel much better and a calm rushed over her. She climbed up onto the bed with Max, and took another drink.
"Why are you being so nice to me?" Allie asked,
"Well, I was in your position last year. I didn't know anyone going into Hogwarts and it took me a while to make friends. You seemed really lost and confused so I thought, 'what the hell, what if she's really cool?' and I brought Lellie and Paige over to sit with you."
"Well thank you." Allie replied, "This has been so nerve wracking for me and it hasn't even started yet."
"It's just a school. There is drama and stuff but it isn't any scarier than muggle school."
"You went to a muggle school?" Allie asked.
"For a little while, my dad wanted me to be able to adjust. I left once my dad could start tutoring me in magic."
"Wow, I would not have expected that."
"I am almost done with my cup, do you want to try and refill it?"
"Sure. So I just think about it being refilled really hard and snap?" She asked nervously. Max nodded. Focusing on the cup, Allie imagined it being filled up just like it did when Max did it. She counted down in her head from three and snapped. The cup stayed empty, Max frowned.
"I wasn't really expecting it to work but it would have been cool if it did. You haven't even done wand work yet, why would you be able to-" Allie snapped a second time, cutting Max off, and the tea began to rise.
"You did it!" Max exclaimed, "That's so cool!" They both took sips from their newly filled cups and began their first night of bonding.
The morning came soon enough. The girls woke up at nine AM and they began to prep for the day. Allie tried to fill the tea cups herself while Max was in the shower. By nine thirty the girls had met up with Lellie and Paige in Diagon Alley for breakfast.
"The Leaky Cauldron is so grimy though, let's go to Plubotts!" Lellie said as they were trying to decide where to eat. The alley was even more busy than the day before, with hundreds of people coming in and out of stores buying supplies for the upcoming year.
"I don't care where we go but we need to hurry if we want to catch the train." Paige complained. The girls headed towards Plubotts, stopping every few steps due to the foot traffic, giving Allie a second chance to look at the items in the storefront. Finally, they arrived at the contemporary wizard bistro.
"Maxine! Come sit with us!" A voice called from across the room. The girls looked towards the origin of the voice, where a table of two men sat eating. They made their way over and sat down.
"How was your summer Max?" One of the men asked, he had dull grey eyes and very white teeth.
"Boring as always." She said smiling, "This is Allie Hawsham, she's a first year. Allie, this is Nat Purgeon." Allie reached out to shake his hand. "And this is Clement Botwright."
"I go by Clem." He said. He had dark brown hair and bright green eyes.
"They are in Slytherin with us." Paige added.
"Which house do you think you're going to get?" Clem asked, looking at Allie like he was reading her.
"She doesn't know, she's a muggle born!" Lellie said,
"But the Hawshams are a magic family?" Nat cut in,
"I guess I'm a different kind of Hawsham." Allie brushed her hair back behind her ears and smiled. The group ate together until it was time to leave. Maxine and Allie retrieved their things and braced for the stomaching twisting feeling of disapparating. The station was bigger than she had expected. Hundreds of people saying goodbye to their families, waiting to board to train. Allie had no one to say goodbye to, so she boarded as soon as she loaded her trunk. She found an empty room almost immediately. Staring out the window, she watched all the peculiar families say goodbye. Adult men in full length robes, hugging their children, mothers in bright colors dancing about. It was an odd sight.
"They're weird, huh?" Allie turned to see a tall attractive boy standing in the doorway.
"What?" She responded.
"The wizard parents. They're really weird. The non-muggle born wizards don't see it because it's what they're used to, but damn it's bizarre." He said, stepping into the room to let someone pass behind him in the corridor. "I'm Bennet."
"Allie. Nice to meet you."
"I'm going to call you 'first year'." He said, smirking. A look of confusion brushed across her face.
"Why?"
"Well, because you're a first year." Maxine, Paige, and Lellie appear behind Bennet and squeeze past him into the room.
"You found us an empty car!" Lellie sang, "Oh hi Bennet."
"I'll get going." Bennet said, raising his eyebrows at the content of the train car and not acknowledging the other girls.
"Ugh Ben is such an asshole. He acted like you didn't even exist." Paige sighed. Nat and Clem soon followed the girls into the train car.
"Hey Allie, do you get motion sickness? Because I have a spell that will fix it super fast." Nat asked smirking.
"Do not say yes to that. You'll end up with green skin or something." Paige responded, he gave her a fearful look then settled into talking with Clem about sports. The train lurched forward, there was no turning back. She was on her way to Hogwarts.