Chapter 3: Not where I had to be.
"Please come now, I think I'm falling. I'm holding on to all I think is safe. It seems I found the road to somewhere, somewhere we'll be safe" One last breath, Creed.
August 1994As far appearances go, the place was not quite so different from Catalos, where Arien used to live. It has streets and avenues, houses of brick, stone, gardens and parks. But there are also buildings far larger than the ones dorianians built at home. There are also some very weird vehicles, stores (or at least Arien thought it was a store), and people walking by in odd attires (it seemed much more appropriate to winter than midsummer, to Arien's better judgment). That girl also saw a huge marble building that had a plate with golden characters, though she could not identify the language. Or the runes, for that matter. People went by chatting loudly, and most of them seemed to be content enough, even excited- however, Arien could not make anything of what they said.
A middle-age matron had been observing her for some minutes, amidst the chaos of younglings running around, with the parents close in their tales trying not to loose sight of them. Arien registered, with some shock that they were mortals. The matron says something to a bald man, who was currently trying to tame a handful of hyperactive children, and approaches the elfling with a comprehensive smile on her face and asks something, but again, Arien cannot understand the words.
"I'm sorry." Arien said, trying desperately to find a breech in the woman's feeble mental shield. It shouldn't be so hard, since there was not much of a barrier, and Arien was used to the procedure in her own home, but she was tired and hungry and it seriously interfered in her concentration. A little crowd of redheaded people walked in our direction. "Is this Antar?"
"Antar? No, it's the Diagon Alley, dear"
There. Arien had made it. The connection was far from perfect, but it would do for the moment. "I was told this was the road to Antar. I've travelled eight months to get here. Could you tell me where I go from here? To reach Antar?"
A bald man behind the matron eyed her between suspicion and merry curiosity "You are doing illegal apparating?"
"What is apparating?" Arien retorted, only mildly surprised the man had intruded in the dialogue.
"You're not a muggle, are you?" one of the boys asked her. It appeared they were all family, and decided to launch at her all at once.
"Muggle?" Arien asked in absolute numbness. She was growing dizzy with all those people she had to keep track of. The thoughts were loud and confused, making her head spin all the more.
"Of course not. No muggle can get in the Diagon Alley, don't you know?" the lady replied, as if it was the most obvious thing.
Arien felt the dam breaking then, and started crying quietly. That was it. After everything that she went through, she was going to die in the hands of those insane people.
"Don't cry, baby. What's the matter with you?" the lady said in a very motherly way, running a hand in the elfling's hair. Arien continued to cry and sob. Everything that could possibly go wrong had gone wrong.
"Ron! Hey, there Ron is!" cried a petit girl with frizzy brown hair in the other side of the street, followed by a dark boy with green eyes. The couple ran to where Arien was with the redheaded family - or at least Arien was convinced it must be a family.
"Where is the city?" the elfling asked, not sure of what else she should say.
"We are in the city, dear." The lady said, still not understanding why the poor child was so upset. The matron eyed the small wagon suspiciously, no doubt wondering how the girl had managed to enter with that vehicle into Diagon Alley.
"This is not Antar. Do you know where the peredhil are?" Arien asked, saying the name in sindarin.
"Where are what?"
"Never mind. How do I go back to the marble gate?" and then the people around the elfling were stunned for good. The couple had joined the group by now. Everyone stared at Arien as if she was a dragon or some other equally perilous dark creature.
"Where have you seen a marble gate? There's no marble gate." Said a tall boy.
"I've just crossed a marble gate!" Arien yelled anxiously. How could they be arguing in such a stupid thing? She knew what she had just done, and she had just crossed a marble gate! "I went down the dark forest, went to Fangorn to get the coordinates, then back to Dark woods, crossed all wasteland, passed Rhûn Sea and entered the city at the foot of the Arneth Mountain. It's simple!"
"I beg your pardon?" the brown haired girl returned the glare the dark lad threw her. "Honestly."
Arien thought she'd have better chances at trying to invade Lothlórien.
"Dear, are you all right? You look so pale!" the lady stated, oblivious to the elfling's recent burst of bad temper.
"I'm lost." Arien said, holding her head with both hands.
"Look, we have to buy the children's supplies for school. But I don't think we should leave you here on your own. Do you have any family? Someone we could contact? Anyplace you could go?"
Arien sighed, remembering Ilmarë had told about her first meeting with Glauco. It was deeply ironic that her daughter was now in a similar situation. And similarly, she sensed these were good people, in whom she could trust.
"No, they are dead. That's why I came, because Antar is the only place safe on Middle Earth."
"Middle earth?" they asked, as lost as Arien.
"Yes." The elfling replied curtly.
"Molly, what do you think?" the man asked the woman, quietly, but the elfling could not help but hear. Humans were always thinking they could talk quietly enough so she would not listen, but she always did.
"I think we must do something. I cannot leave her alone like this."
"Percy can take care of the children as they buy the rest of their stuff. Let's go back home and try to figure something we could do," he said.
"How old are you, darling?" asked the lady, her arm over Arien's shoulder.
"I'm twenty years old." Molly looked down at the children with a barely concealed sigh of irritation.
"You look younger." Said the man, suspiciously.
"I turn twenty-one in four months," Arien said wearily. One could always use the excuse of being a lost member of the numenorean people.
"Let's use the Floo powder at the Leaky Cauldron's fireplace." The bald man said again.
"What?" Arien couldn't help but give a little cry. The situation was growing weirder and
Weirder.
"We travel through fireplaces with this powder, dear."
"Through fireplaces? Is it a... is it like a secret passage? I'd rather take the road, thank you."
"What will we do with this wagon, Arthur? We can't bring it through the Floo net."
Arien gave a horrified look to the wagon. It had sheltered her, it had given her transportation, and it had been her home for all the time she'd been in the wild. She would not bear to be parted from it... And then her gaze fell on the scarce bags of clothes behind her, two small boxes with vegetables that were barely still proper for eating, and a more than well-worn map.
A map.
"Here!" Arien took the Middle earth map from under the smallest bundle of clothes and showed it to them. "I lived here. Then I travelled all this way, till this point here, you see. Now, I think I am lost but if you tell me where I am, I can find the path again."
The lady - Molly- looked at Arien as if the elfling was crazy.
"Dear, I think this is going to take a while to solve. See you have brought plenty of things with you. Do you have a Gryngotts vault?"
"What is Gryngotts?" Arien inquired immediately.
"It's a bank. You put there your money, and they keep it safe for you. Then you can take what you need, as you need."
"Is it safe?"
"Yes, the safest place to keep something precious, behind Hogwarts."
"How could I get one? One vault, I mean?"
"You just go there and ask. You pay a little tax, also, but that's minimal."
"A fee. I see. Well... if it's safe... I guess walking around with them might not be wise. But how would I take the wagon inside the building?"
"Oh, dear!"
Molly and Arthur took Arien to the bank, as their older son took care of the children who finished buying school stuff. Arien was convinced it was best to leave there most of her goods, and for some reason also a small number of clothes. She kept only some money- Arthur tried to convey to her their complicated exchange rate, galleons, sickles and knuts; two books and some clothes.
Someone went off to 'send an owl', and Arien realized she really did not wish to know what that meant. Arthur said he was going to take the wagon, he promised. She was startled enough when Molly gathered the group of human children and put them all into a bright purple carriage that appeared from nowhere and travelled in an absurdly fast pace (And with precious little care, also, considering all the sharp turns and close calls with trees, other carriages, and even solid buildings). The elfling was so shocked with everything she saw when we got to that 'bus' stuff, the fact the wagon was waiting for them when they got home was small wonder really.
When Arien got there, surprises hadn't finished. She thought she'd never understand how that building didn't fall. And how Molly cooked by merely waving a stick of wood, how the boys flied with brooms. And they told there was a Ghoul at the basement.
They ate outside the main building because there was not room for all inside, and then Arien went straight to bed, as they discussed her endlessly. The last thing she heard was that Dumbledore had answered and promised to come early in the morning. Then everything went black.
The sun shone through the curtains of the girls' room. The other girls were still asleep, but Arien thought they wouldn't be for long. The elfling can hear plenty of noise downstairs. It was better to go down and have something to eat.
She was only starting to eat whatever it was that Molly put in front of her- some kind of creamy stuff made of oat- when she heard it. An old man, jumped out of the fireplace, which had green flames as he passed. Her mouth fell open. And that was not a pretty sight, with all the food in it.
"Hello, dear child. You are Arien, I suppose." Arien closed her mouth and swallowed fast.
"Yes. And you must be Dumbledore." she stated.
"Yes, I am here because the Weasleys told me they had a mystery for me to solve. Seems you are far away from home, dear." His eyes were deep blue and glittering, wisdom and compassion in his voice.
Arien started to tell him the whole story, from when her parents met till the day she appeared in that 'Diagon Alley' city. He listened very carefully to the tale, interrupting only to ask some things. They talked plenty about 'her world', as Dumbledore put it.
The elfling brought him her maps, showed the places she'd been through, people, countries, traditions, races, and told all she knew about the history of Middle Earth. Lunch was being served when they stopped talking. They were watching the elf lots, and she knew they were thinking she was mad and came up with the whole story.
"May I use you owl, Harry?" He asked to the dark-haired lad.
"Of course, Professor." Dumbledore then took a piece of parchment out of his pocket and wrote hurriedly on it with a feather. When Harry brought the owl down the old man attached the parchment on her legs and told her where she had to go.
"Deliver this to Professor McGonagall, please." The owl flied away. We spent some time just standing there, in silence. Arien began to feel sleepy. It was naptime.
"Now, my dear, I'll have to check out some tables, but I do believe you crossed an interdimensional gate. If I am right, there is a chance you may be stuck in this reality forever." He said quietly. That woke her up fully.
"What? You mean, I can't go back?"
"There might be another crossing-gate to your world, but these things don't happen often. It may take some time. In the while, what do you plan to do?"
"I don't know. I was going to Antar because I would be among my kind, there. But now. I don't know. I just don't know." her voice trailed off.
Dumbledore looked at her so kindly. Arien kept looking to her shoes, not willing to face anyone, but still able to sense everyone in the room.
He took off one of those sticks they used to charm things and handed it to the child.
"Give this a wave." He said playfully.
"I'm not sure. it's dangerous." She had seen a lot, and had developed a healthy fear for all kinds of wooden sticks.
"It won't do you any harm. Just try." He teased me, and the Weasley family was flabbergasted. Arien thought it was a bit too much for them to handle. Arien took it, carefully, and waved a little.
A hawk materialised and flied. Arien was too surprised to speak. Dumbledore looked like one that was assured of something rather expected, and smiled broadly. He was pleased, so it couldn't be bad.
"Molly, I do believe the girl must go back to Diagon Alley. She has to buy her required supplies. Arien, I do believe you got yourself in the Hogwarts School Witchcraft of and Wizardry. "
At that very moment, a chestnut owl flied to Arien, and dropped a yellow envelope, with a heraldry on it. Arien turned to the professor quizzically. He just raised an eyebrow.
"Haven't I told you? Open it."
The elfling opened the envelope and found two letters inside, which she had to give for Hermione to read because she could not decipher the runes.
"But how?" Arien asked, amazed, when Hermione finished. He had talked to her not even half an hour before the owl delivered the message.
"We're wizards, Arien. And you'll be, too." Dumbledore said. "But you need to buy your supplies. If you give me the honour, Arthur, Molly?" the couple just nodded.
"All right, then. I'll take you to shopping, miss. Let's go through the Floo net." He threw some powder on the fireplace and it turned green.
"You have to say the name of the location clearly. And keep your elbows close to your body and your eyes shut until you start losing speed. Be careful you don't fall on your head." He said, and yelled to the flames:" Diagon Alley!" Arien sent an nervous glare to my hosts, waved goodbye and did the same.
September 1994
Some days later, they went to the Station in cars from the ministry. Hermione had seen to it that Arien had a passing knowledge of the culture of their world. That meant a really intense course on something they called roman alphabet- the runes they used to write-, English and even a thing or other in Latin. Molly told her all Arien had to do was to walk through the wall between platform nine and platform ten. But Arien would did not cross that thing alone. Not after the marble gate. The elfling pulled Arthur and Molly with her – they were grown up wizards, after all. Ron kept laughing at her till Hermione looked at him in a way it would make hell freeze. Arien have went aboard the train with her new friends, and they quickly accommodated themselves in a cabin.
Arien felt as if her life was swirling as fast as that vehicle was running across the landscape.
After many long hours of travelling, the train stopped at a little village. There was a plate saying 'Hogsmeade'. Arien left not minding about the trunks, as Har-r-ry had told her it would be taken magically to our rooms.
Then a giant called the first years and Arien bid her friends farewell and entered a boat with the other novices, all nervous and excited like herself. At the end of the boat ride the Deputy Headmistress- Professor Minerva McGonagall instructed and led the novices in line to the Great Hall. Albus Dumbledore made a little (and bit of crazy) speech, then the sorting ceremony had begun.
Arien thought maybe that world was not so bad after all.