Emily awoke the next morning, her head aching from all the thinking she had done the previous night. Seldom sleep was achieved, because she had been too busy running numbers across her fingers in disbelief, trying to grasp at the idea that she had been sent back in time.
She was a witch in the 1940's.
The soft sheets draped over Emily's body lazily and her hands tightly gripped the pillows behind her head, her body tense with stress. Her hair felt knotted and bushy and still smelled of smoke from the night before.
Sun streamed through the windows, landing in patches on her face. It all must have been a dream. All of it. She was at home, in the world of muggles with her grandparents, and her grandmother would soon wake her up, and tell her she had to get ready for another snooty party.
She had convinced herself that this was true until she sat up, and saw that the room she was in was not her own. It was just as rickety and dusty as the rest of the leaky cauldron, and the floor shook as the muggle train loudly rumbled by. Emily began roaming her hands over anything she could touch within reach, reassuring herself that it was actually real.
A moment passed… and then she flung herself from the bed and sprinted to the bathroom. Emily turned to look at herself in the mirror; her wild hair falling over her shoulders, veins in her eyes popping with stress from last night, and deep purple circles underneath them. Her skin was blotchy and her lips swollen. Though, Emily wasn't highly concerned for her looks, it came as a reality check to her. This was her, standing in a world she thought to be fictional.
There was a knock at the door. Emily spun around, startled, and suspiciously approached the door. She grasped the doorknob and turned, poking her head out the doorway slightly.
"Ms. Angeline?" A tall, official looking man said. Emily nodded in acknowledgement. "We have been assigned by the minister to escort you this morning into Diagon alley."
Emily swallowed a thick lump in her throat, and gave a quick nod.
"I'll need a moment," she croaked, her voice dry and dehydrated. Then, she shut the door, pressing her back to it, and allowing herself a moment to breath. Diagon alley… she was going to diagon alley…
Another moment or two of shock passed, and Emily's breathing became louder and louder as the excitement slowly built. Then, her entire face lit up. She grinned broadly as she waltzed back into the bathroom to try and fix herself up.
This was real…
Emily Angeline Smith was going to Diagon alley!
The alley was incredibly busy. The cobblestone roads were packed with witches and wizards shuffling past one another, holding various magical items; whether they were animals, or potions, spell-books, or wands. The noise was overpowering, and for the first few moments, Emily felt a little sick with intimidation. The anticipation she felt made her stomach churn with nerves.
Then, all the windows of the magical stores came into view, and she completely forgot to be nervous. There were broomsticks and sugar-quills, magical cauldrons and beautifully designed witches hats, floating solar systems and delicious magical candies; Emily had died and gone to heaven.
As the minister had explained to Emily, money would not be a problem for her. The goblins had been all but too gracious once she told them who she was, which she found odd considering goblins were not the friendliest of folk. It had taken the lot of them almost an hour to reach her vault, which Emily could only imagine was located at the very bottom of the bank. When she got out of the cart, she could hardly breathe for the oxygen was so stale, and everything smelled moldy.
When the brass vault door swung open, Emily took one look, and almost passed out. She unknowingly backed up into one of the aurors, her jaw dragging along the floor. Jewels and other priceless artifacts were stacked up along the sides of the room, and random piles of gold were placed miscellaneously around the vault. Golden silverware and ancient priceless art pieces were mounted on shelves too high for her to reach. The entire scene glittered expensively, and Emily almost felt tears in the corners of her eyes. It was overwhelming. She had never had this much money in her entire life. Her grandparents had, of course, but they never trusted Emily with any of it.
However, Emily had always been responsible with whatever little money she did possess, so she was careful about how much she removed from her vault that day; a few bags ought to suffice for a year. When she was finished, she glanced longingly back at the mounds of treasure before the small, wobbly goblin closed the vault with an echoing bang.
Once Emily held the money in her hands, it felt like there was nothing she couldn't do. She wanted to buy everything in her line of sight, and secretly wondered if she had enough money to purchase the entire alley. Everything was attainable, and her hands itched to reach down into the bags, and just throw out money everywhere she could. But no… she had to control her impulses, and be wise about what she bought.
A few magical spell books and quills later, the aurors were obviously starting to get annoyed with Emily. Not that she blamed them; she was like a chipmunk on drugs, and continuously bounced from one store to the next, eagerly piling things up to buy. The men could hardly keep up with her. They had almost lost her a few times, which Emily may or may not have done on purpose. She didn't really enjoy their company anyway, for Emily had always loved to shop, and these men were just dragging her down.
Finally, once Emily had everything (including her wand, which she had been the most excited to get), the aurors forcefully hustled her back to her room at the leaky cauldron. Emily wanted to stay, and even tried to hide herself from the men so she could look around some more, but such ideas were foolish. These men captured dark wizards for a living, so did she really think that she could avoid them for long? They found her instantly, and were not amused in the slightest. After that, Emily knew that they would not be escorting her back to the alley again.
Once they had all returned, the aurors all bid Emily a bitter farewell, before leaving the establishment, clearly thrilled that the day was over.
But for Emily, it had only just begun.
She spread out her newly purchased things along the floor of her room, twirling in a circle excitedly. She held her wand in her hand, and let the warm feeling of the wood sooth her nerves. It seemed like a normal enough wand (sycamore and dragon heartstring), but something about it felt different… Emily knew that a wand was supposed to feel the best to the person it chose, but her wand felt more powerful than what she had imagined; almost like it was harnessing her magic from her. From what she recollected, the magical transaction between a witch and her wand wasn't a two way street. The wand wasn't supposed to take magic back!
Emily decided to ignore this strange feeling, and give her wand a try. She remembered all the spells from the "fictional" Harry Potter books that she had read; though, just knowing the spell alone might not be enough to actually make it work.
Well, she thought, no harm in trying.
"Accio!" she said, pointing her wand at a vase on the nearby table. Suddenly, it flung itself towards her with a vengeful force, and Emily cried out as she ducked. The vase went flying over her head, and hit the wall behind her with a crash. Startled, Emily looked down at her wand, then back at the shattered remains of the vase on the floor.
Then she started to laugh. Uncontrollable giggles bubbled out of her throat, and she clamped a hand down on her mouth to try and control them. Once she had managed to, she pointed her shaking wand hand at the vase.
"Reparo," she commanded. Almost too quickly, the vase repaired itself until it was like-new!
It was enthralling.
For the next few hours, that was all Emily did: break things and repair them. She also experimented with some other spells she knew, like levitation, and disarming. The thrill of this newfound magical power sparked something inside of her… something that felt like it had been missing for a long time. It filled that gap perfectly, making her feel complete. Emily flung herself onto her creaky bed with a delighted squeal, and she gazed at some of the trinkets that were now flying past her head. Her heart was filled with a warm happiness, and that was how she fell back asleep.
"WAKE UP!" Someone shouted loudly into Emily's ear.
Her eyelids popped back in frenzy, and Emily let rip a startled scream before she toppled out of her bed. She hit the ground with an uncomfortable sounding thud.
Groping around for her wand on the bedside table, Emily threw her head up over the side of the bed, and aimed.
"What…?!" she cried, her body spastically moving from side to side, thinking she was under attack, but the only thing she saw when she looked up was a young girl about her age.
She had short blond hair styled in a pixie cut, and small blue eyes. She was quite petite, as far as 14 year old girls go, and hardly looked like a threat. Her arms were crossed stubbornly as she watched Emily flail about.
"Finally, you're awake! I don't know what kind of sleeping spell you used last night, but whatever it was, it worked."
"S-spell…?" Emily stammered, still quite unsure as to what was going on.
"Yeah! You wouldn't wake up! You're the most hardcore sleeper I've ever met!" the girl said, her tone a mixture of annoyance and admiration. Emily rubbed a sore spot on her back where she had fallen.
"Oh, so you do this often? Shouting in people's ears to wake them up?" She retorted stubbornly, starting to get back on her feet. The girl rolled her eyes.
"Only when they're refusing to get their lazy arses out of bed," she admitted. Emily gave her a sarcastic grimace.
"What do you want? Why did you wake me up?" she asked, irritated. The blond girl shrugged.
"Tom the barman downstairs asked me to," she explained, "It could be because the Hogwarts express leaves in about an hour, and you've hardly got anything packed."
The irritation dissipated, and was replaced with utter panic as Emily looked at the time.
"Ohmigod! I've got to go!" She cried, and looked around at all of her magical things strewn about on the floor. She began gathering them all up into her arms in a messy fashion, and wildly looked around for some kind of suitcase.
"Here," the blond girl said, flinging a brown bag from the closet, and handing it to Emily. She looked up at her graciously.
"Thanks," she said, and opened it with a snap. She didn't even bother to fold anything, but just slammed it all into the bag, which was much roomier than she expected it to be… probably some kind of magical enchantment that she didn't know how to do.
Still whirling around and grabbing anything she could get her hands on, Emily found that there was a second pair of hands assisting her. She met the blond girl's eyes with confusion, to which the girl only smiled.
"Even though you're clearly not one of those neat freaks who folds everything, you'll probably still need some help if you want to catch the train on time," she said, smirking. Emily paused a moment before she smirked back.
"Emily," she said, sticking out a hand.
"Anne," the girl replied, taking it with a firm grasp and shaking. Then, they continued to fling things into the bag as fast as they could.
To Emily's great amusement, the two girls made quite a team; Emily shouted out what she was missing off the top of her head, Anne miraculously found whatever it was, and shoved it in the bag.
"Standard book of spells, grade 4!" Emily yelled, looking around wildly for it, when something hard smacked her on the back of her head. She turned to Anne with a scowl, who gave her a guilty shrug.
"Found it!"
Emily picked the hard cover book off the floor, and bitterly chucked it into the bag.
Somewhere amongst the chaos, Anne had managed to find some jeans and a t-shirt for Emily to wear, which Emily threw on as fast as she could so she could continue packing.
"You can't very well get on the express in your nighty, can you?" Anne pointed out.
"It's a long train ride!" Emily replied indignantly, "And my nighty is comfortable!"
Anne threw the clothes into Emily's face, not even bothering to respond. Finally, when there was nothing left to pack, Emily zipped up her things, and threw the bulky mass over her shoulder.
"I think we just broke the record for fastest packing!" Emily noted. Anne rolled her eyes.
"It would've gone a lot quicker if we could use magic. Come on, we've got a train to catch!"
"We?" Emily asked, stopping in her tracks. Anne turned to look at her, confused.
"Well yeah… I need to get to Hogwarts to somehow."
"Oh, right!" Emily agreed, completely forgetting that Anne was approximately her age, and therefore undoubtedly attending Hogwarts as well. Anne gave her an appraising look before throwing the door open and clambering out of the room. The creaky floorboards were obnoxiously loud as the two ran down the halls.
"Wait for me by the door," Anne said, "I've gotta get my stuff to."
She didn't even wait for Emily to nod in response before she took off down a separate hallway, turning the corner with a messy little hop. Emily just kind of stood there, holding her things, not really sure as to what just happened.
I think you just made a friend, a small voice in her head said.
A few more seconds of silence passed, and then Emily's lips turned up in a wide smile.