Two years later, Gemma stood, fidgeting, in front of Albus Dumbledore's cluttered desk.
The strange clickings and whirrings of the various contraptions in the office and the whisperings of the portraits combined to grate horribly on her already frayed nerves, but she stayed silent.
The old wizard looked at her appraisingly over the top of his half - moon spectacles. Her mentor, Blair Flourish, put a hand on her shoulder reassuringly, and Gemma relaxed a bit. Her mind went back to the last two years, a flurry of training and education and personal liberation.
She had wandered the English countryside for months, stealing clothes and food from various farmhouses as she passed them.
Originally she had felt a guilty twinge each time she did so, but it was fair, she thought; I have little, no, less than that, and they have much. Besides, she always payed them back somehow; de - gnoming their gardens if the residents were away for a long period of time, or leaving a written 'thank - you' in coal on the kitchen table.
She had scraped by for weeks, until she worked up the nerve to ask an elderly couple how to get to London. She didn't want to be recognized, but she had no way to clear her name out in the country, and until she cleared her name, she had nothing; no identity, and no allies.
She had reached London two weeks later, stowing away on the back of a farm truck, and entered Diagon Alley behind a group of twittering woman who scrupulously ignored her.
She didn't blame them; she looked a wreck, Gemma knew, but there was no way to improve her condition at the moment.
She was only 13; hopefully, her age would fool people into believing her innocent. Her goal in Diagon Alley had been simple: get a wand, get out, find shelter.
She walked into Ollivander's wand supply; she had been imprisoned in the summer after her first year, so she had only seen the shop once.
She remembered that it's caretaker had been old; that and the fact that it was the only wand supplier to all of Britan compelled her to enter the establishment.
Gemma was counting on the hope that he wouldn't realize who she was; although her case hadn't been public by any means, it was still a large risk to take. But there had been no other way. As soon as the door closed behind her, she felt a wand pressing at the nape of her neck.
So much for that idea.
"Ah, Miss Brighton, I presume? I've been expecting you, my dear. The Minister warned me you might be stopping by."
The pressure from the wand disappeared, and Gemma spun around to face the voice.
"Although, as I don't particularly like Minister Fudge, you are in no danger of being turned over to him," said Ollivander, staring at her without blinking.
Creepy.
"However, you cannot stay here. I have made arrangements for you to stay with a trusted friend until the time comes when you can safely show your face on the streets of London again. I myself am too well - watched, and these are dark times, dark times indeed," he mused, half to himself.
Gemma, who had been silent, first in relief, then in fear, and now in shock, spoke up. "So - so you think - you don't think I did it?"
She was annoyed at herself for how childish her voice sounded, but at the same time, an ally would be priceless, and to find one so unexpectedly...
"Of course not, my child," the aged wizard said, waving a skeletal hand carelessly. "Imperious curse, obviously! But then, of course, Fudge never did have the mind to see beyond his wand. 10 inches, Alder tree, grindylow tendon core, by the way. A creature as stupid, grasping, greedy, and ugly as our esteemed Minister himself. Now that's what you'd call ironic. Although perhaps not so much; the wand chooses the wizard, you know. Makes me wonder what yours will be," he said pensively, guiding Gemma into a back room.
She followed without complaint; he could have stunned her long before now, and he hadn't.
Plus, she needed a wand.
Now, nearly 24 months later, she stood, feeling the wand's weight settled in the back pocket of her dark blue denims ('Who d'you know who's lost a buttock?" the violet-haired woman asked Moody interestedly' LOL).
14 inches, rowan wood, a Dog of the Damned's hair for the core.
Even now, the thought made her smile grimly; the wand chooses the wizard.
Now that's what you'd call ironic; the Dogs, sometimes called the Hounds of Hell, were a force to be reckoned with.
Of course, they also had flames for eyes and generally foamed at the mouth.
Gemma resisted the urge to look in a mirror.
After being fitted for her wand and being reassured that it was completely free of charge, she had been informed that the 'friend' Ollivander had arranged for her to stay with lived three shops down from his own; Mr. Blair Flourish, owner of Flourish and Blotts bookstore.
His partner, Blotts, having died in the last war, Flourish had run the shop alone ever since.
He was an avid reader, and had filled the post of Hogwarts' DADA professor a number of years ago, until every other member of his family was killed in a single Death Eater raid during the First War.
He had quit the position after only a year of service (that damn curse again), and opened the bookshop with John Blotts, his long - time friend from his schooldays. They had lived there in a small apartment above the shop until John died in a Death Eater raid on the Alley during the First War.
Now, though, he was more than a simple bookseller: he was a respected, if relatively unknown, member of the Order of the Phoenix.
But then, secrecy was imperative to the cause.
He had agreed to take Gemma in out of the kindness of his heart; he was to each her all the subjects she needed to know to return to Hogwarts.
It would be hard work, but as there would be no summer break or weekends and Flourish was an accomplished professor, he felt sure that he could pull it off.
He was a strange man; the losses he had suffered would have made anyone else in his position bitter and resentful.
Instead, they built a thirst for revenge in his heart, and a need for justice in his soul.
Gemma had spent nearly two years with the man, catching herself up on three years of missed classes.
She respected Flourish for his intellect and innate sense of fairness, and he returned the feeling, holding her in high regard for what she had come through.
He didn't know what, exactly, had happened to tun this young girl into a hollow shell, but he knew enough.
Flourish had resolved to give her back some semblance of a normal adolescent life, although this was nearly impossible, as she was not allowed outside of the spelled rooms behind the bookshop.
She grew to love Flourish as the father she had never had, and he to care for her as well.
She knew various members of the Order; Ollivander and Flourish had assumed (correctly) that she was to be trusted.
After being incarcerated in Azkaban for years, she was hardly about to join the group that had put her there; besides, she did not know who was in the Order, only the few members who stopped by the shop, and didn't know their plans (excluding, of course, stopping Voldemort).
So she applied herself to her studies, studiously not thinking about the day, if one would ever come, when she would be free. Flourish, too, tried to forget his young charge was a convicted criminal. And he mostly succeeded.
Except for, that is, the day Flourish was walking back to the shop with a cone of Florean Fortescue's best InvisiIce, cherry flavoured, for Gemma.
His attention was caught by a poster flapping erratically in the wind, adhero - spelled onto a peeling bulletin board in the center square of Diagon Alley.
Heart beating loudly in anticipation (for it already knew what the paper read, even if his mind hadn't quite caught up yet) he approached the board in trepidation.
His eyes scanned the page quickly, widening when they got to the end.
He snatched it off the board and dashed the rest of the way to his shop, grinning like mad.
"GEMMA! GEMMA, LOVE!" he called into the shop, dancing in a circle.
An old witch, browsing the cooking section, edged carefully away from the seemingly insane shopkeeper.
In the back room, bent over a bubbling cauldron, Gemma straightened, brow furrowed in confusion.
Blair had never called for her before; they would both be arrested if anyone discovered she was there. That must mean...
She ran out into the main room. "Have they..."
"They have!" Blair said, picking her up and spinning her in a circle. The elderly witch dropped her books on the floor and backed towards the door.
When Flourish had set her down on the floor gently, Gemma dropped into a nearby armchair. "I don't believe it," she said faintly, eyes wide. "Are you sure?"
"Sure as sugar, honey!" Flourish said, calming down a bit.
And that had been that.
Gemma had been dropped off at the Ministry, to get an official pardon and payment for the years she had spent in the company of the dementors.
On her way out, she caught sight of a worried - looking young boy, her own age, with messy black hair and bright green eyes disappearing into an elevator, pursued by a flock of paper planes.
She recognized him from her first year at Hogwarts...Harry Potter. But what was the Boy - Who - Lived doing in the Ministry of Magic?
Dismissing the thought from her mind, she focused on the more exciting issue: she was free.
She immediately fire - called Blair to let him know that she was cleared, and asked to go out on a foray into Muggle London.
Having received her caretaker's approval (he had been licensed as her legal guardian with the release papers), she set off.
She needed a new wardrobe.
Four hours later, she returned to the bookshop, arms laden with bags.
With jeans, long - sleeved tees, underwear, socks, shorts, a jumper, make - up, Muggle CDs, and a great number of other things, she felt content.
For some reason, understandable, perhaps, because of her history, most of the clothes were darker colours.
Her favorite purchase was her Vans sneakers; canvas with black and white checkers, they were comfortable and cute.
Changing quickly, she slipped them on and headed out into the wizard - filled Alley, she sighed, jingling the money she had recieved from the Ministry in her pocket.
Four hours after that, she returned to the shop, happier than she had been in a bit.
School robes, cauldrons, potions ingredients, and other school - related items filled her pockets, shrunken magically.
She had bribed an old man in Knockturn Alley to do an underage piercing, and now had pierced ears, as well as studs in the upper part of her ears.
It had stung like hell, but it was worth it, she thought, looking in the mirror over her dresser. Smiling broadly at Flourish's exuberance at his 'daughter's' new appearance, and her new haircut (she had decided that the 'ex - convict' fringe she had aquired wasn't quite her look, and had gotter it cut to just above her shoulders), she went down the street to let Ollivander know she was free.
That was two items from her list checked off. All she needed to do now was find Sirius.
A week later, she stood in front of Dumbledore's desk.
"Yes, I think you'll do quite nicely. We'll keep you in your old house, if that is permissible, and you'll be studying as a fifth year, as your studies appear to be up to par. Bravo on that, by the way, " spoke the Headmaster after a moment of silence. "And congratulations on your liberation. Welcome to Hogwarts, Miss Brighton. Lemon Drop?"