Chapter 4

Passers-by would have looked into the window of Flourish and Blotts that afternoon and seen a bizarre sight. A nineteen-year-old blond witch, covered in soot and dust, held up a large white royal python and cried whilst appearing to speak to the creature in a strange made up language. The pair were quickly asked to leave the establishment and the girl made her way down Diagon Alley grinning.

Aurora didn't bother to use her wand to cast the spell needed to clean the grime off of both her and Jerome. Finally, she could use her powers without fear that she would be seen using both wandless and non-verbal magic. She had reasoned that she should conceal the full extent of her powers in her own time because people were already scared of her.

"We made it Jerome. I can't believe we fucking made it!" Aurora giggled as she sat down at an outside table of a coffee shop next to Ollivanders. The sun beat warm on her back and she slipped off the cardigan containing Jerome, placing it in a bunch on the table so that Jerome could nestle in it unseen by passers-by. A nice looking plump witch came over and asked if she could take her order, and she asked for a nice cup of tea and two scoops of strawberry ice-cream thanking the witch. When the waitress had disappeared out of view, Aurora summoned her purse from inside her trunk and fished out three sickles and a knut to pay for the tea and ice cream.

"Good riddance to that time, that's what I say." Jerome slithered into a comfortable position on in the bungled cardigan. Aurora frowned.

"Hey, I still have parents to get back too, and my two brothers." she sighed. "And uni. I'll go back to that old life as soon as I'm done here."

"Bloody muggle" Jerome hissed. Aurora stuck her tongue out and smiled at her friend. The waitress came back with her tea and ice-cream and placed it on the table infant of her smiling. Then the plump witch screamed at the top of her lungs when she saw the snake curled up in the young girls cardigan.

Aurora quickly covered the snake with her hands and apologised to the witch. "I'm so sorry he scared you, ma'am! He's very tame I promise you, wouldn't hurt a fly." The older witch caught her breath and smiled slightly. "That's quite alright dear. Just gave me a fright is all." Healing dramatically, she conspicuously looked over both shoulders before continuing. "But you'll do well to do a better job of hiding him. Not so many others would be understanding of a creature like that. T'is the symbol of dark magic you know."

Aurora smiled politely and placed a reassuring hand on the witches shoulder. "It's an unfortunate myth, that one. I'm about as dark and this strawberry ice cream." And both she and the waitress laughed wholeheartedly as she walked away. When she had gone, Aurora silently wondered to herself whether or not she had lied. Was she not a dark witch? She did speak parcel mouth and had used her fair share of dark spells in her past life. But not this one, she reasoned. In the last week that she had gotten her powers back, she hadn't used any dark magic. So perhaps she was as good as strawberry ice cream. She smiled and hoped that would last a bit longer.

"So what now?" Jerome asked, snapping the young witch out of her thoughts. She spooned a large mouthful of strawberry ice-cream into her mouth and smiled feeling far more content that someone who had been thrust seventy years into the past really should.

"We'll head to the Leaky, grab a room for the night. I'll do a a little research on Borgin and Burkes and head there first thing in the morning." She smiled, casually dismissing thoughts of the fact that tomorrow morning she would come face to face with the man who was to become Lord Voldemort.

"And what happens if you don't get a job there?" The serpent asked seriously. Aurora thought about that for a moment. She hadn't considered a plan B.

"I guess we'll have to find the necklace another way" She shrugged, not wanting to diminish her spontaneously good mood. She took a sip of her tea and felt herself relax. She watched the medley of witches and wizards walk past. The first thing she noticed about witches and wizards of the time period was that muggle attire was far more scarce than in that of her own time, or even the nineties. In fact, what the witches and wizards before her were wearing was just downright bizarre.

It was understandable that in a far more prejudice, post-war time period, anything related to the muggle world would be around upon by the upper classes. But what confused Aurora was why it seemed appropriate to instead wear similar attire to that of muggles in the eighteen hundred. Witches wore dresses with corsets and laced boots. Some wore hooded cloaks, of all different colours. The men wore waistcoats and shirts with pocket watches. Some wore top hats, others wore long trench coats despite the summers day. It seemed that the fashion among wizards in this time period was to look as old-fashioned as possible. Aurora sighed, she had very little to wear in her trunk that would coincide with this. She half found herself worrying that she'd come to the wrong time period entirely, but after she'd started to flick through the copy of The Daily Prophet she saw that the date was exactly what it should be.

The headline on the front cover read 'GRINDLEWALD CONTINUES TO CAUSE HAVOC IN EUROPE' and the article outlined the trouble that he had caused. There were many similarities between this account of events and the many that she had read in her own time about Voldermort. Witches and Wizards were disappearing all over the place and more and more Ministry Officials were being identified as corrupt. She skimmed the first page and looked through the rest of the paper. There wasn't much of note, but she decided to slip the copy into her trunk for reading later.

After finishing her ice-cream and tea, Aurora scooped up her things and headed toward the Leaky Cauldron. She was greeted by a young man who went by the name of James, and showed up to her room. She noticed that the room which in her own time would have been tattered, with flaking paint and creaky, splintering floorboards, was now, in this time, freshly painted and airy. The window was open, to welcome in a pleasant summer breeze and the bedding looked new, white and crisp.

"Home, sweet home" she laughed to herself before plonking her trunk onto the bed with a thump before flicking up the latch and starting to unpack.

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the next day sh awoke with a strange feeling of elated motivation. Surprisingly, all things considered, she had slept well and now, found herself in an unnaturally good mood. Sun shone through the translucent, white mesh curtains and the almost too warm heat of the room was released by the slight summer breeze sweeping in through the partially open window. Aurora laid there for a moment, feeling extremely comfortable and thought to herself that despite everything, she was so incredibly grateful to be alive and healthy. Out of habit, she reached over to the bedside table to check the time on her phone. 8:02am. Happy she hadn't overslept, she took a high of relief. When her eye caught the 'NO SERVICE' message on the top left corner of the phone screen her stomach knotted slightly with the idea that she was entirely cut off from the rest of the world that she once knew.
She shoved those unwelcome thoughts to the back of her mind, nothing would stand in her way today. She was here on a mission and she would succeed; prove that old wretch Kindlefeather wrong and arrive back in her own time ready for him to begrudgingly award her status as a free witch.

Energised once more, she put on some music on her phone, cast a silencing charm on the walls of the hotel room and turned up the volume. Jerome slithered unhappily out from his blanket and hissed loudly above the loud 90's pop song. "Must you?" he asked slowly, clearly annoyed.

"I'm afraid I must, dear Scaly-Pants." She replied, sticking out her tongue and left out of bed, singing loudly.

Laughing, she stepped into the shower, scolding hot and smiled as she felt any stress in her muscles melting away. She was so glad she had slept well, she'd need all her wits about her today. After washing her hair, rinsing and drying herself she stepped out and wrapped herself in a soft fluffy towel. Glancing at her reflection in the mirror, and contemplating what she was going to do that day, she realised it may well be in her best interest to look pretty. Well, damn hot actually.

As much as it pained her and went against al of her feminist views, she couldn't deny that she would have to manipulate at least two men in the coming hours and that's always a lot easier if they find you attractive. So, once dry with teeth brushed and sparkling clean, she stood infant of the full-length bedroom mirror wearing a set of pretty lilac lingerie, matching suspender belt and nude nylon stockings. First port of call was the hair. At present, it was a light dirty blonde and trailed well down her back in scraggly rat tail curls. Her hair had always been long and unkept and i has never given it much thought until now.

In this time period, fashionable, forward thinking women worthier hair short, in a bob or cropped at the bottom of the ear. Whilst, on the other hand, the majority of women, innocent, conservative, lady-like women, wore their hair long, rarely down, but in intricate up-dos.

Deciding that in order to have people think more of her than a diets young virgin from the country, whom could be easily manipulated, she needed to create and image that showed her to be a little more of a force to be reckoned with. She needed to cut her hair short.

She knew a spell and got to work transforming her lanky locks into a sophisticated cropped bob, and lightened the colour to a striking ivory colour blonde with a glamorous shine. Sleekeazy's ensures her new blunt cut hairstyle remained speak and straight.

The hair complimented her petite, slender features and as she hadn't had a chance to eat dinner, she was looking exceptionally trim. Although she would have liked to believe that it was due to her feeble attempt at going to the gym a few weeks prior. For makeup, she took inspiration from Marylin Monroe, adopting her signature sweeping eye but replacing the retro bright red lipstick for a more subtle pink.

Finally, she decided on the outfit; a light, almost transparent pink blouse which clung to her thin wrists but otherwise flowed loosely, which was perfect for the warm summer's day. The light blouse, with a silk lilac camisole top underneath, was paired with a high-waisted pencil skirt with a nude floral pattern. It clung to her slim frame and showed off what few curve she had.

"Well?" Aurora turned to Jerome. Nerves began to constrict her chest and seemed to rest on her shoulders like a feather bower made of lead. Her heart had sunk into a sea of the doubt once she finished getting ready. What if it wasn't enough? What if she wasn't enough?

"You look divine, Darling" Jerome reassured, slithering up her arm and wrapping himself around her wrist. "But you must eat something. I haven't traveled back this far in time for you to simply disappear." Aurora rolled her eyes and laughed. On another day she might have questioned why she allowed herself to be chastised by a snake, but on this occasion, she was so thankful for his company, she didn't mind.

The nineteen-year-old witch trapped two brown files from her suitcase and made her, with her companions wrapped tightly around her wrist, made her way downstairs in search of a quiet spot to get some breakfast and read up a little more about Borgin and Burkes.

Finding a small, isolated table in the corner, she sat down and call the attention of James, the nice young man who has checked her in yesterday who was now acting as the waiter for the breakfast service. He gave her a wink and a cheeky grin once he had taken her order of a cup of tea and a blueberry muffin. She took his flirting as a sign that she was pulling off her new look.

When James returned with her breakfast, Aurora was already engrossed in her reading and had spotted something that had excited her.

"2nd September 1949: Tripple Cursed Skeletal Hand - 20 Galleons, Enchanted Music Box- 75 Galleons 3 knuts, Slytherin Embellished Ring, 105 Galleons."

it was an inventory taken from the shop on this very date. Aurora re-read the last item 'Slytherin Embellished Ring" and scrambled to find the broacher she had brought which showed many historical artefacts which had passed through the hands of Borgin and Burke since they had first opened their infamous shop. It included pictures and a short printed paragraph about each artefact. There, on page seven was the Slytherin ring she had seen so many times before. The magical photograph showed the sparkling reflection of the diamonds moving in the light. The ring, when she had last seen it, was warn by Lucius Malfoy, one of The Dark Lords more bespoke Death Eaters.

Aurora had stayed at the Malfoy's mansion with Lord Voldemort when he had utilised it as the Death Eater's headquarters. She had made friends with the youngest Malfoy, Draco and so Lucius was always kind to her. On one, not so important night, whilst the greatest wizarding war in history waged outside the door. Lucius told Aurora about the ring, over a nightcap of fire whisky. He had told the young witch himself that his grandfather, had bought the ring as a graduation present for his son, (Lucius's father), Abraxes Malfoy, after he had finished Hogwarts. Abraxes, in turn, gave it to Lucius when he graduated. Aurora still remembered the pained look in Lucius's eyes when he came to the realisation that his own son, Draco, would not be receiving the ring for the same happy occasion any time soon.

Allowing her mind to wonder, Aurora asked herself whether it was more likely that Draco received the ring for a kind of sick 'congratulations you survived the war' present, or perhaps after the war he returned to Hogwarts. Perhaps he died, she hadn't attempted to look up the records of any of her old friends.

Forcing herself back to the task at hand, she focused on what this all meant. Lucius's Grandfather would be buy-in gate ring today. Aurora was willing to bet that he would probably pay double the amount the inventory read, it was such a precious heirloom in her own time, and a plan started to form in her mind.

Shoving the rest of the blueberry muffin into her mouth and slurped the remainder of her tea, she caught the eye of a disgusted James who she assumed thought her to be a refined and civilised woman up until that point.

She smiled at him as she ran back upstairs to grab her things and settle Jerome down. She was ready to go and get herself a job at Borgin and Burkes.