Years have passed since Ally Gordon read the Harry Potter. It was one hell of a experience. Nostalgia kicked in whenever she thought about it. How it smelled...and felt and meant ...to her personally. Not the books, the world. The Hogwarts, as it was written on her school backpack. She couldn't pick even if someone forced her to as to what she loved more...the setting or the characters. A bit of a rebel she was. One frosty cold afternoon during December, she was returning from the school and her feet got stoned at the sight of a banner saying 'major book sale' at the front glass of the book store. A lot of characters were printed on the poster ranging from Frodo and Gandalf to Bella and Edward to Percy Jackson and Annabeth but all that grabbed her attention was just one...'the boy who lived'.
Her pocket was much less of a concern when it came down to Harry Potter. Her feet moved towards the store and her eyes staring intently at the banner. She seemed to be on autopilot. Without wasting another minute, she cruised inside the store rummaging through the book shelves and trying to find her hidden pearl. After a lot of searching she finally came down to the one and only section devoted to Harry Potter. She felt like such an idiot wasting this much time on the other shelves. Her heartbeat quickened as she saw the stack of it. After picking one random part of the series which turned out to be "the order of the phoenix" she sniffed it and smiled while hazing around if someone just caught her doing that...
But then her mind also said to not care about anyone.
She picked up a bunch of hardcovers all being the last four parts in the series and headed towards the counter. The counter was strangely empty despite of the sale going on which she giggled at due to the treasure that she carried.
"Your name?" The man behind the counter asked.
"Ally...Ally Gordon."
"40 dollars, Ma'am."
Ally took the change out and paid him the money and started to head out of the shop with the brown paper bag containing her books.
"Excuse me, please." The man at the counter called out to her
She turned around
"Yes?"
"It's just that you're our first customer and on top of that you're lucky to have selected Harry Potter. I mean you could have gone for any other series in the sale."
"What do you mean?"
"There is a small gift we stay he'd with our hardcover 'Harry Potter' sale. And since you are the one who bought these so I think you should have it."
"What's the gift?"
"It's packed actually. We never know what the customers end up getting. Mostly there are watches, stationary items, action figures etc."
"Okay, that sounds cool."
"Yes, you may choose."
The man lifted a big carton filled with gifts of different shapes and different colored wraps.
"Let me just bring them all out." He added.
The man tilted the wooden cardboard box and let all the gifts slide down on the counter and one of them fell down on the ground.
"Can you pick that one up?" He asked
"I think I got mine."
"Great!"
She lifted the bluish silver shimmery wrapped little cube box. It wasn't as big as the ones that came out of the carton. In fact some of them could be made out but some were just too big that she wondered what could possibly be in those. But this little cube felt right and that's why she took it home.
Without eating her lunch or even changing she rushed upstairs into her room and sat on the bed while looking at the cube one last time with the wrap on.
Taking a paper cutter, she cut the scotch tape and unraveled inside it.
It was a velvety black box from inside and after opening it, she found a ball inside it.
A glass ball. It was really cute but she kept staring at it for a while as to what did it have jn resemblance to Harry Potter and that's when it hit her that it was actually miniature of hogsmeade within. She bought it up close and examined every little detail.
"I LOVE IT!"
But...
There was something missing...something that took tiny little pieces away from it being the perfect hogsmeade.
She kept it on her study table and went to freshen up and change her uniform to get into something comfortable.
"Ally, lunch is ready." A woman called out to her from downstairs.
"Just a sec, mom."
She patted her face dry with a towel and grabbed her sweater from the bed and headed downstairs. Hours passed by as she ate and watched television and also did her homework.
It was ten in the night by now.
She headed back upstairs and grabbed 'The Half-Blood Prince' from inside the paper bag and decided to read it in the moonlight as it was full moon that day. She kept the paper bag just beside the ball on the table and as she was about to head towards the window, she heard something crash...
She turned around to see but she didn't have any time as the room for filled with excessive vibrant light that it shielded her vision to utmost extent.