Chapter One: Meeting a Stranger

A/N Here's Chapter 2 everyone! This one is a lot longer than the prologue and more exciting! Please r/r! Chocolate biscuits to those who do!

Disclaimer; I don't own Harry Potter – that's property of JK Rowling.

She was dreaming again and she knew it. But that couldn't stop the dream's relentless progression.

"For you Mag." John was kneling in front of her, his chocolate brown eyes staring into her hazel ones. "I want you to wear it always."

Dream Magnolia reached out to take what he held cradled in his hands. It was a beautiful gold chain with a heavy locket dangling on the end. Her eyes filled with tears.

"Oh John, it's beautiful! I'll never take it off!" As she lifted her arms to clasp the necklace around her neck a cloaked figure appeared behind John. A flash of green light, a glimpse of John's shocked, frozen face and the masked figure removing his cloak.

Magnolia awoke, tears streaming down her face. She'd been having the same dream every night since John died, nearly two weeks. There was something important about the locket and the figure. She had to find out what it was. Glancing out her window she realized it was just after dawn. A brilliant beam of sunlight fell through her window, illuminating a heavy wooden chest that lay at the foot of her bed. Magnolia crawled over the tangle of sheets that lay on her bed and gently touched the heavy lock keeping the chest closed.

The chest had been found under John's bed. No one was quite sure where it had come from and his parents were too grief-stricken to object when Magnolia asked if she could have it. She had had a feeling it held something that would explain John's death. The problem was the lock. There was no key and no way to open the chest without one. As magnolia let her slim fingers slide over the polished mahogany, she closed her eyes and thought of John. When she opened them again there was a corner of white paper sticking out of the trunk. 'That's funny' she thought, 'I could've sworn there was nothing there earlier.' She tugged at it and a single sheet of paper slid out. One side of it was covered in John's familiar writing.

Dear M,

I don't know when you will read this. Hopefully never because if you are reading it, it means I'm gone. The word you want is Alohamora. I'm sorry I couldn't' tell you what was happening, I didn't really know much anyways. But remember, I love you and always will. After all, death cannot stop true love, all it can do is delay it for a while.

-John

Magnolia put the letter down with trembling hands. Reading John's letter had opened a wound in her heart that might never heal. It brought home to her that he was gone, gone forever and his death had been no accident. She was suddenly filled with a new resolve. Some small part of her heart had hardened and crystallized, turning into unwavering determination. Acting on instinct Magnolia waved her hand over the chest and whispered Alohamora. The lock sprung open. A part of her wanted to hesitate, was unwilling to see what John had hidden, what had killed him. Magnolia pushed aside the grief that welled up inside of her and opened the chest. And there it was, glimmering gold atop a small pillow of velvet. There were other things inside the chest, letters, books, a goblet but none of these caught her eye.

The locket she had seen in her dreams, the one John gave her as a pledge of his love, the golden symbol that was linked to his death, lay in front of her. She picked up the chain, locket swinging pendulum-like from the end. The locket was a dark gold, gleaming and rich-looking. Sweeping her long golden locks back, Magnolia mirrored her dream-self and clasped the locket around her neck. All of a sudden the world swam sickeningly. She felt a tug at her navel and the feeling of being swept along at great speeds. Her body was buffeted this way and that all the while spinning before her eyes. The turmoil grew too great and she fainted.

"Bloody hell!" Magnolia tried to wake up. Someone was saying something. She had to wake up. She opened her eyes. A boy – no a young man- she corrected herself, sat in front of her. He was dressed in baggy jeans and a black t-shirt that said "Anarchist." His thick black hair was tousled as if he had been sleeping. His face was pale and there were purple smudges under his brilliant green eyes. 'He too has lost someone' she thought without knowing how she could be so sure. Then he spoke.

"Who the bleeding hell are you?"

Harry looked at the girl who had appeared in his bedroom at Grimmauld Place. She had sun-gold hair that flowed down her back. Her luminous eyes, fading from green to grey, were dulled by pain and grief. Despite this she was also astonishingly beautiful. Something inside Harry twisted and all of a sudden he was filled with the urge to take this beautiful stranger in his arms, take away her suffering.

"Where am I?" The girls voice was soft and melodious. She looked around her with obvious confusion.

"You're at my godfa- at my house," replied Harry. The old familiar pain of Sirius' loss clenched around his heart like a band of iron. To keep himself from betraying his emotions he asked "Who are you?"

"Magnolia M. Dawn. My friends call me Maggie."

"what does the M stand for?"

Magnolia didn't answer but smiled mysteriously. Harry felt himself sinking into the crystalline depths of her vivid eyes.

"Who are you?" asked Magnolia, "and what happened to me?"

"I don't know," replied harry, "Well I mean I do know who I am I just don't know – I'm Harry Potter. And I don't know what happened to you. I was just sitting here when you appeared. It's like you Apparated except I know that that's impossible."

Magnolia lay quiet for a moment thinking about what Harry had said. Either she was dreaming or something very strange had happened. The last thing she remembered was putting the locket on … Worriedly she checked that the necklace was still around her neck. And what had harry meant when he said she'd apperated?

Harry's voice interrupted her reverie. "Where did you come from?"

"I was in my bedroom. I'm from New York. I put this necklace on and all of a sudden I was here. What do you mean I apperated?"

"You know – apparation. But you couldn't have done it here. Maybe the necklace was a Portkey. Can I see it?"

She felt suddenly reluctant to reveal the locket, but Harry's striking verdant eyes gazing into her own hazel ones, now reflecting harry's with a greenish tinge convinced her that everything would nbe alright. She withdrew the locket from where it netsled between her heaving bosom and held it up before his inquiring stair.

He reached for it, their fingers brushing, blood rushed to her face, his ghostly pale complecction darkened slightly. They where both blushing. Magnolia wrenched her hand away, the necklace hung in the air for a second, then harry murmured something under his breath and it flew to his still outstretched hand.

Magnolia's brain was working overtime. She was not attracted to this boy. John was only weeks dead, she had met this strange boy only minutes before. It must have been the feel of another persons skin near her own. She had not touched or been touched since John's untimely and horrifying death. Harry looked as though he was not used to physical contact either. That was all it was. The shock.

Harry opened his mouth, but before a word could escap;e his pale, beautiful lips, the door to harry's bedroom opened with a bang, and a tall, freckled boy with firey red hair came in a flopped onto the second bed in the room. The boy started to complain about someone named harmony and her study hobits until he noticed Magnolia sitting silently next to harry on his bed.

"Who the bloody hell is she"? He asked. Harry glanced quickly at Magnolia, something in his eyes telling her to be silent.

"her name is Magnolia, she is a… transfer student, from the salem school of sorcery. She'll be coming to Hogwarts with us this term, Magnolia this is my best friend Ronald Weasley." Magnolia coirdially stuck out her hand.

"so pleased to make your aquaintance" she said demurely.

"Yeah," Ron shook her hand absently. He looked at harry, "I'm going to get something to eat. Bye."

He left, staring at Magnolia as he went.

"I think," said Harry, not looking at Magnolia, "that we shouldn't tell anyone about where you came from until we know what happened. It could be dangerous."

"yeah." Said Magnolia.

"But you could come to Hogwarts," continued harry, "There's nowhere safter than Hogwarts and we could probably find out what happened in the library."

"What's Hogwarts?" asked Magnolia.

"It's my school. It's a wizarding school. I'll owl Dumbledore and tell him you're coming." Harry got up and left the room.

Magnolia looked around her unfamiliar surroundings. Suddenly very tired she fell asleep on Harry's bed before she could even think about the strange and weird things that had happened.