I do have an excuse for how long it took this chapter to appear.
See, back in July of this year, my old hard-drive decided it was time to die and took all my files with it on its Viking funeral. While a good chunk of my stuff was backed up, I wasn't expecting to lose the functionality of my relatively brand-new computer before I'd had it even a year, so I didn't back up anything that was written after Dec 2, 2017. So the huge amount of rewrites I made on this story was just flat-out lost. The old version was backed up, but it was old version, so I've been having to rewrite these chapters AGAIN. If this has ever happened to you, you know it can get tedious sometimes. Motivation was a wee bit hard to come by until recently.
Chapter six here is more like a rewrite of a rewrite. Rewrite number 1 ballooned it into two chapters, but looking back, it seemed like too much time to spend with this OC. So this, rewrite 2, brought it back down to a single chapter.
Remember how I said back in the first chapter that there would be OCs and some of them would have ongoing story-lines? Well, here's one of those OCs. Read without judgment, if you could. I know how iffy it is introducing OCs at all, but also independently of any canon characters.
Chapter Six:
The flashbang heatwave of July had passed, bringing with it the expected downpour of rain that came in wave after wave. London was thoroughly drenched during the first few days of August. The River Thames rose high enough up its embankments that the public was advised to be watchful of possible flooding.
By the fourth of August, the clouds seemed to have drifted down to the ground, settling across the great city in a swathe of fog. But London always seemed to look its best when the fog banks rolled down the streets, as though it filled in the cracks and obscured the worst details. It distilled the light, giving the neon signs more prominent glows. The warmly lit fronts of the coffee shops and the cafes and the chippies were even more inviting through the gloom and grayness. Annie eyed them hungerly, but she felt the emptiness of her pockets more keenly than the emptiness of her stomach.
She hunkered in the mouth of a narrow alley just off King's Road. Once a private royal road, it was now a bustling street of commerce with shops bursting from every corner and a little further along there were stately townhouses for some of London's most privileged citizens. Even in the foggy damp, enterprising young men and women scurried to and fro, taking advantage of the absence of crowds. King's Road was normally packed when the weather was acceptable, but the proper mod girls knew that sometimes the best deals could be found when there was no one else on the street.
Annie watched the fashionably dressed ladies and the dapper men stroll along, sometimes arm in arm, and something burned low in her gut. Maybe jealousy. It could have been hunger too. Either way, she was stuck with the knowledge that they had something she didn't.
They had a long of things she had only dreamed of.
They had nice clothes, for one.
When it came to clothes, Annie had no choice but to depend on the goodwill of her neighbors because even the second-hand shops were just a touch too expensive some days. There were many children in her tower block and most of them were a little older than her. The boys especially were rapidly outgrowing their shirts and trousers. The surviving clothes that weren't immediately handed off to a younger sibling went to Annie's mother for inspection. Annie had learned to accept the sports-themed T-shirts and the stained hoodies with a grudging grace and put forward a front that she was just happy to have clothes on her back.
She was always happy to have clothes on her back, make no mistake. If she was going to freeze in the winter in an unheated flat, she'd rather do it in several layers of clothes than none at all. But she longed for brand-new clothes that weren't just underwear.
What Annie really wanted was a pretty skirt. Something brightly colored with delicate embroidery. A skirt that was soft and new and one she wouldn't feel embarassed to wear. The only skirt she had was a dowdy navy-blue. An itchy woolen thing, the bottom hem of which had crept up past her knees a little while back. She wore it to school because it was one of the few nice clothes she had.
The older girls in her tower block hung on to their skirts as long as possible, modifying and expanding the hems to keep up with their waistlines. By the time the skirts were worn down enough to get passed along, the waistline had been expanded so much that it wouldn't have fit Annie anyways.
The mod girls who swanned down the street did so in their finery, the expensive dresses swooshing around their knees and their feet tap-tapping along in those little buckled shoes. They wore neat little hats and carried sort of frilled umbrellas as boldly colored as their chunky purses.
But more importantly, at the moment, the well-dressed shoppers of King's Road had money. Fat little wallets and overflowing purses, bursting with more money than they really needed. It was like they were just begging Annie to come and relieve them of a few pound notes. She didn't need much; maybe fifty pounds altogether. A little for her to get a spot of lunch and the rest could go into groceries for the rest of the week.
She and her mother were getting by, if you defined it as keeping a roof over their heads. But Rosaline's waitress job only raked in a pittance most months and by the week rent was due, they were going without meals in order to make sure they had enough money to keep the landlord happy for this month too.
Fifty pounds. Some bread and tea and jam. Annie would happily live off toast for a week.
Annie eyed the shoppers, trying to determine which one would be an easy mark. There was a trick to it, one she hadn't quite figured out. Something about the way they walked or the swing of their arms gave insight to how closely they were paying attention. The quality of their clothes was the only one Annie had sorted; the highter the quality, the wealthier they were. And the rich were less likely to be carrying any money with them, because they liked to show off how unconcerned they were with their finances by never setting foot inside a bank.
The eleven-year old girl finally spotted a potential candidate: a woman in her mid-twenties or thereabouts, in a blue dress, white tights, and white shoes. Her umbrella was blue too, but her purse was a gaudy orange satchel. Her hair was two long brown braids that hung down almost to her waist and tied off with very purple ribbons. A spot of brightness against the gray that had overtaken London.
She was staring intently into the window of a shop, more importantly. Annie adjusted her cap so it cast a bit of a shadow over her face, hitched up her backpack, and stepped out of the alley. She strolled up the street as casually as she could, shoulders a little hunched. The sidewalk was narrow and it didn't give her much room to plan a stealthy approach, but it made it a lot more convenient to bump into the mark if needed.
You don't see me. I'm not here. I'm just part of the background. Ignore me ignore me ignore me. Annie thought fiercely.
The woman was apparently transfixed by the shiny sparkle of a gem-studded necklace behind the glass window. So transfixed that she didn't notice Annie's approach, nor did she feel a small hand slipping into her purse and lifting away her billfold.
Annie pushed the billfold up her jacket sleeve and then shoved her hands into her pockets with a manufactured shiver, like she was cold. Just in case anyone had noticed her. No one had; she had a perfect track record so far, but she didn't want to chance it.
She turned the next corner that came to her and hurried down the tiny alley there. It didn't go all the way to the parallel road, but made a right turn and then a left to empty on to the adjacent street, creating a little blind spot from both ends. Once in that blind spot, she took the billfold out and opened it to count the bank notes and almost gasped aloud.
Just over a hundred pounds, in assorted fives and tens and twenties.
Her hands shook a little as she counted the bills again, just to make sure she hadn't miscounted the first time. It came out the same. She was holding just about a hundred pounds. More money than she had ever seen in her life. More money than even her mother made on a single paycheck.
Bread! Milk! Maybe even some chicken! Annie realized, breathing very rapidly now.
She had money to buy food. And other things. Her mother had been trying so hard to stretch their laundry detergent. Toilet paper. Oh god lord, they could go back to actual toilet paper for a while. Annie's bum might actually recover from the old rags they'd resorted to.
And lightbulbs! That would make her mum happy, having lightbulbs again.
Annie extracted a single five and then exact change for the bus from the bundle and slid it into her pocket. The rest she stuffed away into the bottom of her backpack, where there was a little inside pocket. Where it would be safe as she went through the rest of her day. Buoyed by her success, she left the alley the opposite way she had entered and made her way back around to King's Road to the nearest bus stop.
She lived in Whitechapel, a rather poor choice all around. As if there had been a choice to make. At the time, her mum Rosaline had been strapped for options and cash, after two years of living on her own, attempting to keep fed and clothed both herself and a toddler who always seemed to be coming down with the sniffles. The newly opened Ainsley Towers, a new block of council housing, had simply been the most affordable option. The building supervisor had been more interested in filling the flats than caring about who did the filling. Three men later, Rosaline had been able to make the first month's rent. She had been picking up odd jobs ever since.
Stepping off the bus, Annie spotted the dizzyingly tall towers on the corners of the block. They were the tallest structures around, looming over the squat buildings of Spitalfields. She looked up at the tower, ignoring the people passing by her, and remembered exactly why she had left the flat this morning.
Her mother was entertaining company.
Rosaline's current and, so far, most lasting job was at what might be called a pub. It served pints and pub grub during the day, but when the sun went down, the curtains went up and the waitresses came out to dance in appallingly little clothing. Every now and again, a waitress was expected to entertain a client in the privacy of their flat.
It was Rosaline's turn for that.
Sighing, Annie turned away from the street to Ainsley Towers and made her way to one of the more well-trafficked road. There was a lovely tea shop a few blocks down and around the corner. Her mum called it a place of ill-repute, if only because she thought very little of the strange foreign man who ran the place.
The lettering out front of the shop was very foreign; so much so that she couldn't begin to guess what language it was. It was a little smoky inside, but it was warm and out of the pouring rain and the proprietor greeted her with indecipherable words and a broad smile.
Annie paid first for her tea -- a strong dark bitter brew that tasted spicy and always burned at her throat with the first few sips -- and also a rich sweet pastry that had a nutty flavor and a flaky crust. The tea and the pastry balanced each other out nicely. She took them to her favorite squashy armchair by the window that looked out onto the street and then took one of the library books out of her bag.
When it came to genres, Annie certainly had a preference for the high-fantasy stories. Tales of wizards and kings, good and evil, kingdoms at war, magic and might, wand and sword! There were dashing rogues with hearts of gold and handsome princes who stood for justice. Stately queens and beautiful princesses who were stubborn and bloody-minded, but good-hearted people who got their princes in the end. There were dragons and centaurs and elves. Wise old crones and evil old hags. Fairies who had stolen away the heir to the throne and squabbling nobles locked in perpetual power-plays. Stories like these had a lot of backstabbing going on in the royal court, but it gave the story a sense of mystery and intrigue.
Not that it truly needed mystery and intrigue to keep Annie turning the pages.
She had probably single-handedly kept the entire fantasy section on the library shelves, for as often as she had checked the books out. She loved curling up with a good fantasy story and getting lost in the tales of magic and royalty. Even when the books ended, she continued the stories in her head, imagining herself in the place of one of those princesses who populated every story from front to back. Sometimes she was the missing heir raised by traveling nomads who had to take back her kingdom from the evil king who had usurped the throne. Sometimes she was the princess who had been kidnapped by a dragon, except the dragon needed help only she could provide. And sometime she was the magician's apprentice who had been tasked with destroying a great evil that her teacher had failed to defeat the first time around.
Sometimes, those stories were the only thing that kept her going when her mum had the bad days.
It went without saying, for the most part, that Annie Jones longed for something more out of her life. Born to a single mother with nary a dad in sight. Born to a teenager, moreover, who had been shut out by her family for the sudden shameful pregnancy. Rosaline couldn't seen to keep a job down for more than a few months. Seven months so far with the current one, but she was pretty good at spreading her legs. She talked a lot about making sacrifices for her daughter's future, but from Annie's current vantage point, she couldn't see any future for herself.
Right now, though, she questioned whether or not she would even go to secondary school this fall. It seemed more prudent to find a job with some ethically-questionable establishment who thought nothing of employing an eleven-year old girl. She could dry dishes or sweep the floors or clean the windows. She wasn't useless.
But for now, she was content enough with her tea and pastry and a good book. The future would still happen tomorrow. She'd worry about it then.
Annie had just finished both the last of her tea and chapter four of the story (where the magician's apprentice had to disguise herself as a boy in order to undertake the quest) when she noticed there was a man sitting across from her. Her favorite corner of the tea shop had two armchairs and a shared table between them, so acquiring a short-term neighbor was normal. The standard procedure was the politely ignore one another. It wasn't the man's physical features that made her pull a double-take. He had gingery-blonde hair and eyes that were the gray color of wet pavement; all very normal.
It was his clothes.
They were, at best, a mish-mash of various Victorian era stylings that she recognized from her time spent perusing the books, trying to date the ghosts of Whitechapel based on what they were wearing. The man had successfully managed to pick the ones that didn't look too odd put together. He didn't stick out very much; not here in London where the fashion trends were odder than a six-toed cat. It was just that they stuck out to Annie who recognized that the clothes had come from at least six different decades. He didn't seem to have done it for authenticity's sake, but rather because that was what he'd felt like wearing when he'd gotten up this morning.
Before she could look away, he noticed her staring and smiled at her.
"Good afternoon, little miss." he said in the cultured tones of someone who did not live in London. "I don't mean to interrupt your tea-time, but is your name Joanna Jones?"
Annie startled a little and was instantly on the defensive. Having total strangers known one's name was generally a worrisome sign.
"Ah, ah, nothing to worry about, young one. I'm not here to hurt you." the man said soothingly. Which, in her mind, was a sure sign that he was here to hurt her. "My name is Leo Mietius. I'm a professor from an exclusive boarding school in Scotland and your name has made our list."
"I dinnit apply to no boarding school." Annie told him, heavily exaggerating the East End drawl. She placed her bookmark and snapped the book closed.
"I know you didn't. Invitations are sent based on merit." Professor Mietius said.
"I ain't a good student. Not good enough for some boarding school." Annie said, a little bitterly. It wasn't her fault, really. The teachers weren't interesting. Her attention always wavered and she spent the lesson doodling in the margins of her notes.
Professor Mietius smiled warmly. "I assure you, Miss Jones. This invite has little to do with regular academics. Might it be possible for us to convene at a more private location, so that I may explain it to you?"
"What's wrong with right here?" Annie asked, not about to go anywhere with a total stranger, no matter what he was claiming to be. Always stay in public if you could help it. It was the earliest lesson Whitechapel had taught her.
Professor Mietius shrugged hesitantly. His eyes glanced around the tea shop and then he said: "It's a bit exposed..."
Annie shrugged. "That's your problem, ain't it."
She half-expected the good professor to leave. Sometimes, all she needed to to was make it clear that she wasn't going anywhere with the creeps. The tea shop's proprietor was good about making sure she was able to stay out of trouble. He had intercepted a few creeps on her behalf. He didn't speak much English, but having a man yell at you in a foreign language you didn't speak was a very off-putting experience.
But the professor didn't leave. Instead, he peered at the walls of the alcove thoughtfully. Then he stood up and took something out of his trouser pocket. He was facing away from Annie, so she couldn't make out what was in his hand. He did something to the wall and then went over to the other nearby wall and probably did the same thing. He did not, however, return the thing to his pocket before he turned back around and Annie's jaw dropped when she saw it.
"It" was a stick of wood to anyone else, but there was no mistaking that it was highly-polished and cared for more than any mere stick of wood oughta be. Frankly, Annie had read too many fantasy novels to doubt what the professor held.
"W-What is that?" she asked anyways. She didn't think she could get the word out on her own.
Professor Mietius smiled as he returned to his seat. "My dear, I think you know exactly what this is." he said, presenting the stick with both hands.
Annie stared at it for a long moment, taking in the gleam of the polish that brought out the natural whorls, down to the engraved leather on the handle and the tiny little gemstone set into the bottom. She knew what it was. She knew what it was, but the word was stuck in her head. Because it couldn't be real.
"Sh-Show me." she whispered. "Show me it's real. Please."
Professor Mietius gave that warm smile again and took the stick's handle. He said: "Bulla partum." and flicked it until small clear bubbles floated out, shimmering with iridesence. Annie caught one on the tip of her finger before it popped. She smothered her delighted laugh down into a giggle. It was real!
"Of course it's real." Professor Mietius said kindly. He didn't miss the way her eyes followed it as he stowed it back in his trousers. "Miss Jones, when I say that I am a teacher an exclusive boarding school in Scotland, well... I think you're clever enough to sort that one out for yourself."
Annie's mind didn't so much as race as it fell right over in a maddening combination of overwhelming excitement and utter confusion and flailed like it was trying to swim in a shallow puddle of water. It made no sense at all, yet it made all the sense in the world and she struggled with the dichotomy of it.
She had always known that she was different from the other children in the tower block and at her school. The other children couldn't poof into existence little glowing marbles of pure light. The other kids couldn't make themselves go unseen or catch teacups before they could smash on the floor. They couldn't make the spare sponge help them clean the chalkboard. She had always recognized what she was doing, but she hadn't dared put the word to it for fear that it was all some wonderful dream and naming it would wake her up. It was all she had, this fantastic little secret. She guarded it fiercely.
Annie licked her lips. "It's magic? Real magic?" she whispered.
The world didn't go up in smoke on the next blink. She was still in the tea shop, the book her lap and butterflies in her stomach.
"Oh, very much so." Professor Mietius nodded, smiling secretively. "And there are hundreds of us, Miss Jones. Thousands of witches and wizards just like you and me all over the world right at this very moment, living hidden among the regular people."
Annie really liked the sound of that "us". Like she finally belonged somewhere.
"And I'm a... a witch?" she asked, her throat dry. "But my mum ain't..."
Her mother didn't have any magic at all. That much Annie was certain of. Rosaline had never made fire appear in her bare hands or conjured light in the dark and, perhaps most telling of all, she had never made any of her mean boyfriends just go away. She hadn't made them stop hurting her daughter.
"My mum isn't magic." Annie said at last.
"What about your father?" Professor Mietius inquired.
Annie shook her head. "I don't know anythin' about my dad."
And by nothing, she meant that almost literally. Except for the fact he'd obviously existed at one point. It wasn't unusual in a place like Ainsley Towers for the kids to be short a parent or two. Not unusual for this part of Spitalfields. But every single one of Annie's neighbors seemed to have some idea what had become of their missing parent. A drunken sot. Deadbeat. Ran for Spain. Moved to Wales with some floozy. Dead. But Annie couldn't even ask. The one time she had felt brave enough to venture a question, her mother had gone pale and unresponsive for hours.
"Then for all intents and purposes, you're a Muggleborn." Professor Mietius said. "'Muggle' is what we call the non-magical people, like your mother. Without knowing who your father is, it's difficult to know if you're a really halfblood or just a Muggleborn. There's ways to find out, I think, but you might have to wait until you're of age."
"Does-- Does it make a difference?" Annie wondered. Did it matter if she was halfblood or Muggleborn?
"That depends." Professor Mietius commented. He stuck a hand under his jacket and fished around in some inside pocket until he took out an envelope. "Here, this is yours." he said, passing it over.
"It's just got my name on it." Annie said, seeing no address listed below her name. She flipped the envelope over and found it held shut with a wax seal.
"There's a magic quill at the school which helps us find students like you, but evidently, it drew a blank when it got to you." Professor Mietius said with a little laugh. "So we had to find you the old-fashioned way. I'm sorry it took so long. Normally we have all of the students squared away before July thirty-first and goodness if it isn't the fourth of August already!"
"I live in Ainsley Towers. You can see it from just about anywhere in Spitalfields." Annie pointed out.
Professor Mietius waved a hand dismissively. "I am the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and it is my great pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Jones."
He executed a little bow from his seat, a rather sweeping gesture. Annie giggled and then bit down on it. Very suddenly, she wanted to sound grown up and mature. If she was a witch - a real proper magic-slinging witch - then perhaps she oughta try acting the part. And witches didn't giggle. They cackled.
She was a witch. Magic was real and she was a witch! Somewhere not out there but here in London itself was a whole other world hidden away, full of magic wands and stately robes and schools for magic! And it was all waiting for her.
"Will I get a wand?" she asked excitedly
"Yes, of course."
"Are there broomsticks to fly about on?"
"Naturally. If you're into that sort of thing. Never was my cup of tea--"
"Are there dragons and unicorns?"
"Yes, though I've never personally seen a unicorn. I saw a dragon from a distance once--"
"Where'd you say the school was again?"
"Hogwarts is very far north in Scotland, up in the Highlands--"
"What's it look like?"
"It's enormous castle almost a thousand years old, but it's so steeped in magic that it's constantly changing. It never looks the same two years in a row." Professor Mietius said fondly.
Annie's blue eyes sparkled in anticipation. "And I'm going there, right?"
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves." Professor Mietius said, waving hands in a 'calm down' gesture. "You have a few hoops to jump through before your attendance is a sure thing."
"Whaddya mean?" Annie asked nervously. Her fingers tightened a little around the edges of the envelope, with a vague thought that it might be snatched away from her. If she wasn't mistaken, in the envelope was her invite to the school, welcoming her into a world she had never dreamed existed. Magic and old castles and a secret society of wizards right here in the heart of London!
"It's simply policy to ask for an on-the-spot demonstration, to show that you have some conscious control over your magic." Professor Mietius explained. "The problem with you is that the you have not performed any significant magic in a few years, to the point that the Ministry's automatic trackers lost a bead on you. It's almost like you can no longer do magic."
"But I can do magic." Annie said quickly. She let go of the envelope long enough to rub her hands together, producing a glow of yellowish-white light that hovered just over her palms like a gentle mist. There was no doubting what that was.
"Light conjuration. Even a Squib can do that." Professor Mietius said, giving a snort. "Light. Moving things around. Parlor tricks, Miss. Jones. I mean real magic. The kind that makes your hair stand on end and your spine tingle-"
"I can see ghosts." Annie interrupted, feeling a touch desperate now. "I can see all the ghosts in Whitechapel. Probably all the ghosts in London if I looked hard enough. That's magic, innit?"
Professor Mietius clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "Not as such. Let me demonstrate."
Without so much as a 'by your leave', he clasped one hand around hers in a squeezing grip. The next thing Annie knew, everything went black and there was a great crushing weight all around her. The pressure was enormous, like she was being shoved down a tight rubber tube. It felt like iron bands had wrapped around her chest. Her eyeballs were being forced back into her head, her eardrums were about to burst, and she was going to choke before she ever took another breath--
Rain spattered her face and the pressure vanished instantly from her body. Annie sucked in a lungful of the cool, slightly smoky air of London. Wind whistled past her ears and for a moment, the only thing she could see in front of her was Professor Mietius and the strange-looking sky behind him. She wasn't in the tea shop anymore, but before she could get her bearings, Professor Mietius grabbed the front of her jacket and let go of her hand.
She tilted.
It was like that one time she had nearly fallen backwards off her bed; a sudden sense of emptiness behind her and nothing to catch her. And there wasn't much under her feet except for a metal rail.
"Professor!" she yelped, grabbing his arm with both of her hands.
"I don't recommend looking down." Professor Mietius said calmly.
Annie looked down.
The River Thames was below, brown and thrashing itself into whitecaps.
"Aaaaaahh!"
Professor Mietius sighed. "I told you not to look down."
"What are you doing?!" Annie cried, clinging tighter to the professor's arm. They were standing on the upper walkway of Tower Bridge above the river. Or rather, Professor Mietius was standing on a more solid platform where the workers likely stood when they up here and he was leaning her out over the side.
"Helping you, Miss Jones." the professor said calmly, like he wasn't the only thing between her and a plunge to her death. Possibly to her death. The river was sixty-four meters down (two hundred and thirteen feet) and that might not be enough to actually kill her. She could break every bone in her body instead, and still not die.
Not right away.
It would come slow instead. She'd sink right to the bottom of the Thames and drown, rather than dying from the trauma of the impact.
"How is this helping?!"
"It's simple. If you have not shown your true magic by now, it's because you have not been properly motivated." Professor Mietius explained. He had to raise his voice a little in order to be heard over the wind. "Magic shows itself most often in life-or-death situations, especially in Muggleborns and halfbloods. So I'm putting your life in danger."
"You're going to drop me?!" Annie squeaked. Her heart was racing so fast she barely felt it. Or maybe it had stopped altogether, holding its own breath in anticipation of what came next.
"What else did I bring you up here for?" Professor Mietius asked, smiling. "You don't want to die, so your magic will act in accordance to your desire. You'll save yourself. You'll probably slow down your fall. Maybe you'll float down the river afterwards. Like a cork! Magic, you know. It can do anything you want it to do." He shrugged, like he was reconsidering his words. "No, you're a Muggleborn, for all that it matters. You don't know after all."
The cool wind bit at Annie's fingers and she felt cold all over, except for her chest where there was a strange sort of heat rising in it. And the tears that stung her eyes. Tower Bridge had a speed limit of no more than twenty miles an hour, but at least sixteen hundred people crossed the bridge every hour, in form of pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists, and sort of thing had a way of shaking the bridge in a way that was imperceptible unless you were high enough to feel it. Up there, level with the walkways, it was impossible to ignore.
"Why are you doing this?!" Annie demanded.
Professor Mietius smiled kindly. "I'm helping you, Miss Jones. You want my help, don't you?"
"You're crazy!" Annie howled. "What if nothing happens?! What if I die?!"
"Then you were simply never meant to become a part of this world, Miss Jones." Professor Mietius replied, like it was the most obvious conclusion. "There are many things I dislike." Then his calm expression turned into a snarl. "But one thing I hate with a passion is filthy Muggleborn trash like you having the nerve to demand entrance to our world when you've done nothing to prove yourself!"
He shook the eleven-year old as hard as he could. Annie's foot slipped off the rail.
"Professor, please!" she cried. "Please, what have I done wrong?"
"What you've done wrong is that you've done nothing right in your entire life." Professor Mietius growled. "You have a power at your fingertips that Muggles have only dreamed of. Your words have the ability to reshape the world around you! Yet you've squandered it like every other chance you were ever given!"
"I don't understand!" Annie wailed.
How could she fail at something she had never known about in the first place? You couldn't win or lose a race if you didn't even know you were supposed to be running it.
"At this rate, you never will." Professor Mietius said, sighing. It managed to sound fussy and put-upon. "You've squashed your precious magic down in some foolhardy attempt to look normal. To appease the delicate sensibilities of the Muggles who would sooner cut out your heart than accept that you are their superior. Now, instead of nurturing the magic in you to come out gently, I have to force it out of you like this!"
Annie became aware that she was shaking like mad, her knees knocking together. She didn't understand what was going on- That is, she understood perfectly that the professor seemed to be trying to kill her, but why. The kind man from the tea shop had suddenly turned into a raving lunatic who wanted to drop her off the top of Tower Bridge because- because she wasn't showing "true" magic? How he was even defining that? How was making light and catching teacups not true magic?
Professor Mietius's face softened slightly from the snarl. "I am sorry it had to come to this, my dear." he said gently. "But there isn't much time left before the students head up to Hogwarts for the school and thus we have no time to do this the gentle way."
He's going to drop me. He's really going to drop me. Annie realized.
The crushing feeling suddenly came back, squeezing her ribs and her lungs and her head until she thought they would burst. Then the ground was solid under her feet again and she stumbled, her knees folding under her. Annie the pavement hard with her knees and hands. It took her a frantic second to realize that Professor Mietius was no longer holding onto the front of her jacket. That he was sprawled on the pavement several feet away. They were in a dingy alleyway now, just off the river where the rainwater dripped down from the eaves. Through the gap in the buildings, she could see one tower of the bridge. Gasping, Annie scrambled backwards away from the mad professor until her back hit the dirty brick wall.
"You Apparated?!" Professor Mietius yelled, trying to fight his way loose from the coat that had wrapped arond his knees. "You Apparated us both?!"
"I dinnit do anything!" Annie yelled back.
Professor Mietius seemed past the point of listening. He raised his wand, whirling it like a lasso above his head, trailing a sickly washed-out yellow from the tip. Annie shrank back, intensely aware that she was exposed, vulnerable, and that she had no way of fighting back, even if she knew how.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
*BANG!* went something like a car backfiring. Annie's eyes flew open in time to see the mad professor slam into the opposite wall. He slumped to the dirty pavement, stunned but still conscious. A woman strode down the alley with all the predatory grace of a stalking lioness. A stately beautiful woman the likes of which Annie had never seen no matter where she went in London. She held a wand in front of her, its tip glowing an angry yellow deepening to a dark red in the center. Mietius growled and tried to wrangle himself back upright on uncoordinated limbs, flipping his wand this way and that, albeit with no effect.
"No, I don't think so." the woman said in a sweet, honeyed voice. "You've tried quite enough already, you horrid little man. How dare you."
She drew her wand-arm back like she was winding back to throw a baseball and heaved it forward just the same. The yellow glow at the wand's tip unfurled like a many-tongued whip that wrapped around the man's arms and shoulders and chest. Then it lashed upwards, flinging the professor into the air about the buildings and hurled him out of sight, presumeably towards the river. The woman watched the sky for a moment before she seemed satisfied with the results. Then she turned to the eleven-year old girl.
"S-Stay back!" Annie yelped, pushing herself against the wall, heedless of the cold rainwater that snaked down her neck.
"Oh my dear." the woman said softly, sweetly. The elegant lines of her face relaxed into a loving smile. "No one is going to hurt you anymore. I promise."
Her voice was so gentle and warm that Annie wanted to believe her right away, but a little niggle of common sense told her to be careful. She had always listened to that little niggle of sense in the past. It had kept her out of trouble before.
With delicate steps, the woman walked over to Annie and crouched down out of arm's reach. The smell of summer flowers wafted towards her. The woman - the witch had lustrous reddish-maroon hair that curled about her shoulders and lovely golden-brown eyes. Her lips were a shade of bright red that stood out brilliantly against her sepia-toned skin. She wore a thigh-length purple-ish dress that hugged the ample curves of her bosom and hips. Her legs were bare all the way down to the open-toed black stilettos. The one concession she had made for the weather was a thin lacy, gauzy black shawl over her shoulders. Long dangling earrings, a ruby necklace, and odd sorts of silver bracelets wrapped around her wrist all the way up the back of her hand. She was every bit as beautiful and majestic as Annie had imagined a good witch to be.
"It's all right, love." the witch said sweetly. "My name is Ileana Frost. I'm from Hogwarts."
"That's what he said too." Annie retorted. But she also noticed that she wasn't trembling quite so badly anymore and some of the chill in her fingertips was fading. She felt... safe. Safe around a stranger; that was new.
Ms. Frost smiled, a gracious and almost doting thing. "Precious little darling. The difference between myself and Mr. Mietius is that I'm not lying." she said assuringly. Her voice alone radiated more warmth and kindness than seemed possible. "It's true that he-- well, he was the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts -- I don't imagine they'll let him back after this. But the way he went about his duties..." She made a soft tutting noise.
"He said-- He said they had trouble finding me." Annie said, eyes darting around as though she expected him to reappear. "Because I hadn't done any real magic."
"Real magic?" Ms. Frost repeated incredulously. "A bit of light? Making things move about?" she inquired, getting nods both time. "Oh darling." She touched Annie's hair lightly. "That is real magic."
"Really?"
"It came from a real witch, so it couldn't be anything else."
A tight little knot of something that had been sitting in Annie's chest started to uncoil. Relief trickled into her veins.
"Then why'd he say all that?" she asked.
"Because he's a terrible little man with terrible little ideas who should not have been permitted anywhere near a child." Ms. Frost said, stroking the girl's hair tenderly. Annie wasn't quite sure when the woman had gotten close enough to do that, but maybe it didn't matter.
"But enough of that! It's rather chilly out here. Perhaps a cup of tea. I know a lovely little place near the Seven Dials." she suggested.
"I was in a tea shop. Up in Spitalfields." Annie said. She gasped. "My things! They're still there! I can't lose a library book!"
"We'll collect your things, darling." Ms. Frost assured her. She stood up smoothly and extended a hand, with long elegant fingers. "And I'll tell you everything you need to know about Hogwarts and this grand new world you belong to."
Belong. It was such a nice word, Annie mused, taking the woman's hand to stand up. Her skin was silken soft.
"What about Mum?" she asked, anxious again. "I-- I don't think she'll take it so well if we've got tell her I'm going off to a magic school. Mum's not really all- there. In the head. I don't even know if she'll understand it."
Her mum got free drinks at the pub, among other things, so she didn't always come home sober and sensible.
Ms. Frost made a thoughtful face for a moment. "Perhaps we can say something a scholarship and a wonderful opportunity, yes? She'll understand that. She'll be so happy that her daughter was accepted into a marvelous school."
Annie thought about that. It wouldn't be lying, technically. She would be going away to a very nice school and she would have far more opportunities for a successful future than her poor mum could give her with that titty shack dancing waitress job. Her mum would certainly understand that.
"Okay." she said.
"We'll talk it out over tea." Ms. Frost said, wiggling her fingers, inviting Annie to take her hand. "Now why don't you show me where that tea shop up in Spitalfields is and we'll get your things, yes?"
With a small smile, Annie took the woman's hand and allowed herself to be led out of the dingy alleyway. If she had looked back, she might have seen that Tower Bridge had a brand-new addition to it, however temporary. And it might have made her worried.
From a hangman's noose tied to the underside of the upper walkway, Professor Mietius's corpse swayed above the traffic.
-0-
I hope that wasn't too painful.
Annie and Ms. Frost up there are both relatively new OCs of mine. They're transplants from an original story that I'm still world-building for. I needed to fill out the ranks of staff and students alike and I'd already plumbed the depths of my Throwaway OC list, so I figured why not. There's a few of them in here. I grabbed the ones I was having the most trouble sorting out, personality-wise. If I'm going to stumble on their characterizations, I'd rather do it here than on something I want to get legit published one day.
It didn't quite make it into this chapter, but Ms. Frost does have a staff position at Hogwarts. Again, we're torching canon here and there. I expanded the staff roster of Hogwarts to include positions like hall monitors and common room monitors and other non-teaching positions that are mostly dedicated to keeping the students from blowing the roof off. I always figured the Marauder Era had a larger student body than Harry's day, so that would necessitate a significantly more robust staff in order to keep the student-to-teacher ratio within an acceptable range. If you really count, Harry's day appears to have no more than 20 adults running around Hogwarts at any given time. It get worse if you take JKR's assertion that Hogwarts has 1000 students during Harry's day (if you assume 40 per year is the average, it's really closer to 300).
Just remember going forward: There's a point to which I'll completely disregard anything JKR has stated since finishing the series and this can include any revisions made in re-printed editions of the books because I own the 1st edition Scholastic print, American release. As in, my copy of GoF has the James-Lily Who Died First mix-up.