Disclaimer - All MI and HP stuff is owned by cassandra clare

Chapter 3 - Travelling

"We will be arriving at our destination in approximately 10 minutes. Please fasten your seatbelts in preparation for landing." The captain's voice blasted out from my headphones through which I was trying to watch a movie. As I registered what he had said I stretched and glanced over to the window, past the woman who had sat next to me for the last 2 hours. THe ground was approaching fast and I could already make out the cars as they whizzed down the motorway to their individual destinations. As the plane finally touched down on the runway, I looked around at the unfamiliar scenery. In my hand I held the letter from Professor Dumbledore, explaining what I was to do to get to Hogwarts. As the captain's voice came over the loudspeaker again, this time wishing us a good visit, my mind flashed back to this morning, when I had bidden my parents goodbye.

"9:30 flight to Heathrow now boarding from gate 3," the crackly voice emitted from the loudspeaker, and at her words people began to get up from their seats and make their way to the said gate
"Well, I guess we should head over then," my dad said, making a poor attempt at acting normal, like sending his daughter off for a couple of months wasn't a big deal.
"Yeah, I guess so," I replied, and I slowly rose up from my chair.
"Do you have to go now? We could wait for a couple of minutes more," mum said eagerly, not trying to hide the fact that she hated to have to let me go. To be honest, the novelty of being a warlock had long worn off and I hated the fact that I had to leave my parents. But I hid it from them because I knew that if they knew I didnt want to go then it would make it harder from them to let me go.
"No, Jane we can't," dad said softly to mum, laying a hand on her shoulder, then going back to his painful attempt at excitement, continued, "we wouldn't want Hermione to miss her plane, would we." From the look that mum shot him at this statement, it was clear that that was exactly what she wanted. Then she stood up to join us and together we made our way towards the gate that would separate us. As I made to pull my boarding pass out my carry on bag, I was suddenly seized into a hug by my dad. I relaxed and hugged him back, breathing in his cologne and the cheap washing powder mum used for our clothes. When he released me, he cleared his throat and said gruffly,
"You won't forget us, will you? While you're off learning and having fun," although he spoke lightly I could detect a hint of real fear behind his words.
"Of course not dad," I reassured him as I turned to hug mum, but before I could she had clutched me to her and squeezed me rather painfully. As she hugged me I could feel her thin frame shake as she cried.
"Last call for the 9:30 flight to Heathrow, you are boarding from gate 3," as the female voice echoed once more over the speaker I carefully detached myself from my mother's arms and walked towards the boarding gate. As I hurried down the hall I glanced back at my parents, two lone figures standing stationery in the bustle of the airport, and hoped that my mother didn't feel the damp patch on the back of her shirt.

I shook my head to clear the memory from it and stood to depart the plane.

After I had collected my luggage I turned to the letter I still held in my hand.

Dear Miss Granger, the letter read, in slanted handwriting, please find enclosed; your plane ticket to meet me, your booklist and some wizard money that you would so well to familiarize yourself with. The large gold ones are galleons, the silver ones are sickles, and the little bronze ones are knuts. There are 29 knuts to a sickle and 17 sickles to a galleon. I will meet you at Heathrow airport at precisely 1:00 on the 10th of August.
Yours in magic,
Albus Dumbledore

I looked up from the letter, feeling slightly panicked. The short note had not said anything about where to meet him. Heathrow was suddenly a big airport when you think about trying to find one person. Trying to stay calm I thought through the options in my head. As I went through and discarded most options, the best one seemed to be to wait out the front of the airport, so as to spot him going in. My decision made, I picked up my trunk and headed for the doors. As I was approaching the exit I noticed a group of guys standing next to the door. Taking a deep breath, I resolved to ignore them as I strode towards the door.

"Hey darlin'. Where you off to in such a hurry," one of the asked as he stepped between me and the door. I kept walking, resolving to ignore their comments.

"What's a good-looking girl like you doing waiting in an airport by yourself?" another asked, probing me for infomation as he joined his friend in blocking my exit.

"Perhaps she's waiting for her boyfriend?" Another questioned, as he tossed his sandy hair and leered at me. Acting on an impluse I looked up to meet their eyes, and stated,

"Well yes, in fact I am," as I fixed them with the steeliest glare I had.

"Bit quick in defending herself, ain't she," the comments came more and more as I continued towards them, still intent on getting to the door. When I finally reached them, all of them were between me and the exit. I'm not naïve about the way I look, and I knew that they thought me much older than I was. I also knew that I was way out of my depth and that the best option was to go round them. My heartrate accelerating, I steered sharply to the left in order to bypass the idiots.

"Oi! Where do you think you're going? We were still talking to you!" the guy that seemed to be the leader called out, and caught at my arm as I tried to walk past them.

"Don't touch me," I shot back at him, panic colouring my voice. Not because of them, but because of the tingling in my fingers that had started to grow.

"Oooooo, serious aren't you. Whatcha gonna do to us?" One of them sniggered as the grip on my arm tightened.

"I am serious. Let go of me now," I said again, my panic growing as I curled my hands into fists to hide the sparks that had began to dance between my fingers. The boy holding me started to grin, his teeth flashing under the harsh lights of the airport.

"Look at her hands, she's got them into fists now. What's she gonna do, beat us up?" he said, putting a fake scared tone into his voice. At the sound of his mocking voice I snapped. He should be afraid of me. I should be the one holding him, not the other way round. I was warlock, and a Child of Lilith. I pulled myself up to my full height and shook my hair out of my face as I calmly met the tawny eyes of my oppressor.

"Beat you up?" At his statement I laughed, a mocking laugh, to rival his mocking tone, "I don't need to beat you up." With that statement I uncurled the fingers of my hands and loosened the power that resided within me, trusting it to do the right thing. The tingling increased and their was a slight bang and suddenly I was alone in the airport. Upon finding this, I panicked, wondering what I had done, but I had hardly time to berate myself for unleashing my power before I noticed the boys some 10 metres away crowding around the leader, who seemed to be sporting a large burn on his hand, the hand that had been holding me. As if he felt my gaze on him he looked up and saw me. As he met my eyes I saw the pained expression on his face be replaced by something that suprised me, fear. At the sight of his expresssion, I was jolted into realising what I had done. I had burned someone. I had used my powers willingly and had caused someone pain. But before I could finish comprehending what I had done I felt a hand on my shoulder. Startled, I whirled round, wondering who it was. As I saw who it was I relaxed visibly. After what I had just done, I didn't particually fancy looking for Professor Dumbledore, and now I didn't have to.

"That was a very bold move, Miss Granger," said the man whom I had been about to go looking for, "it was also a very risky move," he continued and fixed me with a piercing gaze as he removed his hand from my shoulder.

"I-I-I'm v-very s-s-sorry sir," I stuttered back at him, quailing under his much more successful stare than mine had beeen.

"I cannot really say that it is alright, because it is not. However, it was a successful piece of magic and therefore there was no harm done, and you look shocked and tired and so I will leave my lectures to a later date," his gaze now became a lot less scary and the twinkle in his eyes became a lot more prominent. He gently steered me towards the exit as behind me I heard the muttered comments of the boys behind us,

"Freak."

"Did you see that fire?"

"Yeah, it was green."

"She burned me."

"You weren't the only one."

"We were just havin' a laugh."

"Why'd she have to go all bitchy on us?"

"And the man with her, what a joke."

"Yeah, freaks"

"Both of them."

"Freaks."

Just before we reached the exit Dumbledore stopped and turned to face the boys, who backed away at the sight of our faces. However, their fears had no need. Dumbledore simply pulled out his wand and muttered a seemingly nonsense word. But as I watched the boys eyes slide in and out of focus I knew that he was performing magic. As the boys came to, the looked at eachother and wandered off, without a backward glance at either of us.

"What did you do to them?" I asked, my mind still reeling from the comments they had made.

"Nothing major. It was but a simple memory charm. None of them will remember you, or what you did," Dumbledore replied, smiling down at me as we headed outside into the warm summer air.

We walked without a particular destination in mind, so it seemed, except to get away from all civilisation. For a bit the silence surrounding and between us was comforting, as it gave me time to get my wits back after the incident and the journey. But, after about half an hour of trudging through streets with no name, it began to get dark and I wondered what I had got myself into.

"Umm..." I croaked, my voice hoarse from lack of use. I tried again, "Professor, where exactly are we going?"

"To Hogwarts, Miss Granger," He replied, seeming surprised at my question.

"But where is it? How are we getting there?" I asked, trying a different tact on my questioning. To this, he chuckled lightly to himself before answering my questions.

"By apparation. Your actions back at the airport caused me to forget that you are very new to the world of magic. And before you ask what apparation is, it is a magical form of teleportation, which enables a witch or wizard to move from one location to another, almost instantaniously. Ah, this should do it," He proclaimed as he stopped and walked a couple of metres into the dark forest, that was next to the path on which we had been walking. With some trepidation I followed, wondering, again, what I had got myself into. As we stood in the shadows of dark trees he held out his arm and gestured for me to take. Relunctantly I did, as I did I blinked and suddenly we were in a different place. Startled, I looked around for a sign of where we had been, but there were none.

"You are looking a tad shocked, Miss Granger," Dumbledore pronounced, as he smoothed his beard.

"Well, yes, I am. How did that happen? We were there and then I blinked, and suddenly we were here!"

"You do not have any side effects? Nausea, headache, body parts feeling like they left London unwillingly?"

"No, not at all."

"Did you feel anything when we travelled, such as an unpleasent sqeezing sensation?"

"Nope, nothing, sir," I frowned, wondering whether I was meant to have felt something. But then, I didn't see him going over to puke in a ditch, so why should I? Suddenly, I felt a wave of tiredness and just wished to be in a bed, and go to sleep. Instead, I trudged slowly up the hill towards the large castle that was sitting on top of it. Normally I would have been impressed by the silent castle, sitting imposingly on a hill, in the middle of Outer Mongolia, for all I knew. But I was just too tired.

I listened blearily as Dumbledore told me about the school, and its history, but upon seeing my exhausted face, smiled and instead gave me a book that he said would "help to sate my thirst for answers" and led me up some stairs, and through some doors, and down some corridors to where thankfully a bed was waiting for me, with my pajamas on it and so, bidding my headmaster goodnight I climbed happily into the bed and fell fast asleep.

Chapter three up, sorry it took so long. i was really bogged down by "back to school" homework! :(

But hopefully ill get chapter 4 up soon! :)

- BrownEyed Girl