Thank you all for the wonderful reviews. I hope that this chapter will live up to your expectations. This chapter and the next one will be setting the stage for what will happen. I know that I've been slow in updating, life is craziest when I want it to slow down for just a bit. Please enjoy and I love hearing your thoughts, both good and bad, so please review.
It was amazing how things seem so different when you were a foot taller. The houses that all had seemed so large and majestic when she was younger somehow seemed ordinary, each following the others pattern, nothing to differentiate them from the other. But she knew that each of those houses held a story from her childhood. There was the house with the old lady who had so many cats, and treated them as children. There was the house that Mandi lived in years ago; so many memories crowding Mina's mind.
Mina had decided a few weeks ago that she had to get away. Her best friend Usagi was so wrapped up in her future husband, and the other senshi were working hard to regain their lives and their ambitions. Lita was busy trying to get into culinary school so that she would have even more skills to run her own restaurant which had always been her lifelong dream. Ami was busy studying every second so that she could get into the exchange program with one of the most prestigious universities for pediatricians. Ami had always wanted to follow her mothers foot steps but wanted to specialize in saving the children as they would be the ones to continue to shape the future they had so recently saved for a fourth time. Rei was making up time working and studying with her grandfather to run the temple. As much as Rei liked to complain she was never more at peace than when she was working in the temple. That left her alone to figure out what her dream would be now. She knew that one day she would be famous, if their glimpse into the future was correct, so the need to be an idol now did not hold the fascination it had when she was younger. As she watched her friends, Usa especially, she just wanted a family to come home to, to love and watch blossom. In the end, Mina figured the best way to figure out her future would be to visit her past.
Soon she came to her home. Of course it was lived in by another family. Just as she was walking by she saw a young boy run out the door, followed quickly by his flustered mother yelling "Daniel, slow down hun, the toy store will still be open when we get there!" which made Mina smile, wishing for the innocence of the boy who's only trouble was how many toys he could talk his mom into buying for him.
She looked over at the Dursley home. It was still as impeccable as ever, but now it was being kept up by a team of hired people instead of one scraggly boy. Mina had never been as happy as when she received a letter from Harry telling her that he got a scholarship to a school out of town that would let him stay there for 9 months of the year for free. She could hear the happiness and shock in the letter. In all the years and the stories since than, that was one of her favorite moments for her lifelong friend.
Mina smiled as those good memories from the last years filled her head. She was never quite sure how she received her letters from Harry. For the first few years she did not receive much mail at all, then in later years it seemed that they would speed up in getting to her. The oddest thing was that they were delivered by a snowy white owl. In one of Harry's letters he explained that one of the projects at school was to train an owl instead of a carrier pigeon for easier travel. She wasn't quite sure why it was easier than mail, but since she never had to worry about postage she was ok with it. The major problem was that she would have to have a letter ready whenever the white owl appeared, instead of responding to what was written in the incoming letter. Eventually they got in a pattern and their friendship grew over the years, with her explaining some of her frustrations in very vague terms and his telling of triumphs as well as problems. She treasured every letter, looking forward to them with an anticipation that she would rather not explain.
Just as she was going to turn around and begin to head back to her hotel, the door opened and there in the doorway stood a tall, lanky black haired attractive young man with a lighting scar on his forehead. Mina was momentarily scared that she has simply imagined him into being, but then he turned to see her and stopped in his tracks. "Mina," he whispered.