Chapter 1

Chapter 1

It was a Friday night and Elya Marr was sitting on her bed reading a fantasy book called "Alanna: The First Adventure." She was a very observant 13-year-old, and noticed right away that something was flying towards her window.

At first glance, Elya thought it was merely a bird. But on closer inspection she could tell that it was definitely not a bird. It had a rather odd, lumpy shape, and the girl had no idea what it could be. Curious, Elya immediately opened her window, for the shape seemed to be heading in her direction. As the full, bright, moon flooded the sky with light, she saw what the "shape" was, and gasped. There, flying towards her bedroom window was what seemed to be a boy riding a broomstick? The girl quickly scrambled out of the way as the boy made his way towards her window, and Elya quickly scrambled back to her window when she realized that he had stopped outside of her bedroom window.

Then he stopped, in midair; just outside of he window and said politely "Would you be so kind as to let me land in your room?"

Dumbfounded, she nodded, clearly at a loss for words. As he flew through her window and landed carefully on her purple rug, Elya couldn't help but notice how good-looking he was: black, messy, hair, brilliantly green eyes, and a thin, lightning-bolt shaped scar on his fore head. (She also realized he was about 14 or 15.) The girl smiled weakly at him and sat down on the edge of her bed.

"Not to be rude or anything," she said, "but who are you and what are you doing here?"

He smiled understandingly at her and said, "My name is Harry Potter, and I'm here to inform you of your past, and tell you where your future is er…headed." He smiled at her again. Elya just sat there, gaping at him, speechless.

Quickly regaining her composure, she said, in a rather baffled voice," What are you doing here?" She quickly realized how rude she sounded and said, "Sorry that was rude of me. I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Elya Mlinn."

"I know", Harry said, smiling kindly at her once more, "I'm here to bring you back to Hogwarts, but I suppose I had better explain everything to you first."

"First of all, I'm going to tell you your real name. It's not Elya Mlinn, as you indeed believe it to be, but Elya Halliwell."

The girl just stared at him. "But, but," she stammered, but Harry cut her off. "I'll explain," he said reassuringly. "As I said before, your true name is Elya Halliwell. Elya, you're a witch. This is not your real family, your real family, the Halliwells, were killed by Lord Voldemort, a horrible, Dark wizard, who also killed my parents, and gave me this scar." He indicated the scar on his forehead. Then he waited, looking at her, letting it all sink in.

"But how can that be true?" she asked. "I don't understand. Why didn't my family tell me that they adopted me? Oh, this is all so confusing!"

"Please don't be upset", Harry said walking over and sitting down next to her, and putting an arm around her rather awkwardly.

Elya turned and to him and said "Thanks for the gesture, but wouldn't your girlfriend be upset if you put your arms around another girl?" she asked slyly, smiling up at him, changing from her distraught outburst, to this tricky one.

Harry laughed, and removed his arm. "Actually, I don't have a girlfriend." He blushed scarlet.

Elya looked up at him. "Are you kidding me? A good-looking guy like you doesn't have a girlfriend? You must have had offers, unless you're waiting for some special girl. What's her name?" She said this all very fast and Harry just looked at her, not really sure what to say.

"Er…well, back to you again." Harry said, pointedly ignoring her questions. "Well, as you're a witch, you're going to need training. And the best place for training is Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, in England. It's the best school of magic in England."

"England?" Elya said in disbelief. "But I live in the United States. And I don't know anyone in England. Where would I live?"

"Don't worry about that," Harry said, "It's a boarding school… sort of."

But where would I live during the summer?" Elya asked. She was really very excited and nervous about this and wanted to go, but she wanted to know the stability of her position first.

"I don't really know, but I'm sure Professor Dumbledore will figure something out for you."

"Well, I'm trusting you so, okay. Just give me a minute to get ready, ok? Oh, and by the way, who the hell is Professor Dumbledore?" Elya asked. "Is it cold tonight?" she asked unsure. She didn't know what the temperature was like riding on a broomstick in the middle of the night during the summer.

"Slightly", Harry replied, "there's a little wind, but altogether a very warm and pretty night. But, not to be rude, please sort of hurry because we have another person to pick up. Her name is Linli Ketzel. I believe she's about your age."

"Lin?" Elya asked incredulously. "Of course I know her! She's my best friend! She's a witch too? This is going to be so much fun."

"Well, actually her real name is not Linli Ketzel, it's Linli Carrata, and she's your cousin."

Elya stared at him dumbfounded. "Lin? My cousin? You have got to be kidding me. We don't look anything alike!"

"Ah, but you do," Harry said, "you both have thick, dark red hair and green eyes.

"How do you know what Linli looks like?" Elya asked, confused.

"Dumbledore gave me a picture of Linli and yourself, so that I would know if I was talking to the right girl. I looked at them and noticed the similarities. You two do really look a lot alike."

"Oh," Elya said simply. "Well, lets get going then!"