I still don't own anything. It all pretty much still belongs to J. K. Rowling.
I'm sorry for having taken so long to publish this. Life sucks honestly and blocks in my thinking for stories suck even more.
She only stops when she's sure she's far, far away from the Zoo.
Taking uneven breaths and feeling her pulse skyrocketing, she looks around and thinks to herself, maybe I should've thought this through.
Because now, she's lost in the middle of a city she knows nothing about and maybe she should've thought about what she was to do after she ran and-
No, she had to get out there. She couldn't live one more day with those people, she'd go insane. What they did to her - the starvation, locking her inside the cupboard - was unforgivable. How did Harry handle it? He had handled seventeen years with them. Well, eleven and then the summers after school. But still. She has ten years with that family and has the urge to just go back and hurtthem because they just can't keep in living like they didn't abuse a child and they need to be punished-
Something nearby explodes and she jumps, along with a couple of people that are passing her.
She feels the same humming as before - her magic - around her like a second skin and wills herself to not explode anything else.
Control, she thinks. Controlcontrolcontrolcontrol!
Something else explodes and there's a shriek. She takes a deep breath and runs away from any prying eyes. Going through the streets of a city you never really knew or saw before, she realizes, makes everything much worse. She doesn't know where to go. Where is she?
She's completely lost.
Should I ask for directions?, she muses to herself but then deletes that idea immediately.
Where would she go? She has nowhere to go, except back to the Dursleys and she's not going back there.
After a while, her legs begin aching and the injuries because of the glass dry out but still hurt when she moves. She should've treated them right away. Are they gonna leave scars? Well, another scar to the collection, she supposes, remembering the lightning bolt scar on her forehead.
Her lips and throat's dry and she just wants to drink something and eat because her stomach has been growling for the past hour like crazy and squeezing itself painfully. But no having any money on her is a slight problem. She curls up against a wall and shuts her eyes, grabbing her hair. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. She repeats those words over and over until she's calmer and the humming of magic disappears.
It's weird how empty she feels without the magic being there around her, exploding things. It's hard to explain but it had been like it was everywhere. Magic was literally everything; it was like air, it was like her. It was her. She's magic. Magic is her. It's inside her and she can access it any time.
She focus on a small stand that is a coupled of meters away from her and tries to think about how it felt when the magic awakened just a couple of hours ago to make something happen but there's nothing. She doesn't feel anything.
Before, she had felt it rushing through her body, humming happily around her like a second skin . . . she had felt power when the glass had shattered and she had watched Dudley get hit by the shards and cutting through his skin.
She had felt so powerful.
She could be so, so powerful.
Magic had felt so good. Yes, it was out of control but it had felt so, so good to wield it and have it. And she wants to feel it again and again and forever.
Magic hadn't existed in her world (unless it was those cheap tricks which were kind of impressing, if she has to admit) and now that she saw it in person, felt it running through her veins (real magic and hers, all hers), she wants to do it again; to feel it again.
Does she want to go to Hogwarts and learn more about magic? Not really but it's the safest place for her, she supposes. She could train her magic and control there, find ways to keep herself out of trouble because hell, Harry and his friends always ended up in the middle of everything. Ridiculous honestly. She's not gonna do that. She's gonna be as invisible as she can be. Well, as invisible as she can be being The Boy (Girl) Who Lived. She doesn't want to get involved in anything and much less getting involved with the whole thing revolving around Voldemort. If she can have her way, he won't ever return.
But somehow, she has a feeling she doesn't have much of a say in that particular part of this life.
Prophecies and pre-determined destinies are hard to fight.
She decides that just staying curled up in here isn't the way so she pulls herself up and tries to find a coffee shop or just a place where she can just drink something because hell, she's thirsty. It wasn't hard to find a small one so she quickly crosses the road, ignoring all of the people that stare at her and walks inside, the bell above the door ringing and attracting way too much attention for her to handle. Keeping her head down, she moves towards the counter and looks up to the young looking waitress, who is looking at her in concern.
"Can I have a glass of water, please?" she asks, not really looking at the girl in the eyes.
The waitress looks at her colleague and then back at her, "Y-yes, of course but a-are you okay?"
She feels a spark of annoyance at the question but the girl was just concerned so she quickly gives her smile, nodding, "Yes, I just need a glass of water please."
The other gives a nod and proceeds to fill a glass cup and gives it to her. She thanks her quietly and goes to sit down on the table by the corner, sipping occasionally on the warm water. She doesn't know how long she stays there, ignoring people staring at her and sending the waitress who keeps asking if she's okay away. The sky has turned into a mix of blue and orange and she thinks that the sun is setting. It's been a long time, she muses, looking out of the window.
"Can I sit with you?"
Startled, she looks up - a middle aged woman is standing in front of her, a steaming cup in her hand and a warm smile on her face. Dark brown hair is framing her face and her unusual grey eyes are locked on her emerald green ones. She shifts awkwardly and looks back down to her cup. The sound of the chair's feet scratching against the floor makes her shiver and curl into herself and it's a clear sign that the woman is now sitting beside her.
"Why are you alone?" the woman asks quietly, sipping from her own drink.
She simply shrugs.
A silence falls between them until the woman tries again, "Do you live nearby? Is that why you're here alone?"
She just shrugs again, clearly showing her that she does not want to answer.
There's a small sound - could be a sigh or something else, she's not sure - and she shifts some more, locking her hands underneath her thighs; something she does when she's nervous.
"What's your name?"
Is this woman dumb? When is she gonna realize that she's not gonna say anything? She sips at her water once more.
"I wanna help you," the words sound desperate and she's suddenly even more suspicious because no one would insist so much with a stranger, "You look like you need help badly."
She figures that maybe she should leave now and get away as fast as she can, so she rises to her feet, leaves the glass on the table and sprints across the small cafe and makes her way out as quickly as she can.
A hand grabs onto her shoulder before she can get far and she winces in pain, yelping and there's a murmured and apologetic, "Sorry," and when she turns, there's the damn woman again. Why can't she just leave her alone?
"I don't want your help," she snaps, knowing she sounds childish but doesn't care about that.
The woman frowns, her hand still hanging in the air. After a few seconds, it goes down, "You clearly need help," the words have a touch of impatience and annoyance now, she notices, "And I'm not heartless to leave a child alone when she's clearly hurt."
"But I don't want your help," she says, slowly and word by word as if the woman was a young child who didn't understand.
"Then I'll call Child Services."
She stills, looks at the woman carefully and doesn't let the surprise she's feeling show up on her face. What?
"You being out here alone can mean many things," the woman says, with a knowing smile growing on her lips, "Either you're an orphan or abandoned child or maybe you have a family but maybe you're not happy with them and just ran away? Or maybe . . . you're not happy with them because they don't . . . treat you right?"
She can't help but flinch as the woman's words hit spot on. She takes a step back, hands shaking.
Well played, woman, she thinks. How cunning of her to use that against her.
The woman catches the small movement and her eyes soften, holding a pale hand out, "I just wanna help you."
She considers her options. Refuse and have this woman call the services and they take her back to the Dursleys, a place she definitely does not call home (never has, never will) so the protective charm or whatever the house had because of Petunia being of Lily's blood and whatever that mambo jumbo was didn't matter anymore. She's clearly no longer safe there.
Or go with this woman, even though it's not safe either but now nowhere is safe for her. She doesn't have a safe place for her to be in, except maybe Hogwarts but she won't go there until she receives her letter.
And what if this is woman is just saying that she wants to help and ends up taking her back to the Dursleys?
Let's just go, she thinks to herself with a snap, and get this over with. If something happens. I'll fucking blow everything up.
Decision made, she nods but doesn't take the woman's hand.
"My name is Maryse," the woman says, in an attempt to make conversation, she realizes, as they start to walk, "What is yours?"
Oh, she's definitely not saying it, especially when her name is the way it is and she doesn't know who this woman is. She remains quiet and from the sigh she hears, the woman momentarily gives up.
What if this woman was ordered to find her?
The thought crosses her mind then and it nearly makes her stop but she doesn't. She remains calm and steady, so it doesn't raise any suspicions. What if she is? Maybe the Minister of Magic figured out that the Girl Who Lived was wondering around (because of the Tracer, she remembers faintly. Every wizard and witch has a trace so it could be a possibility that this woman was sent to get her) and sent someone to get her, someone that would be able to get to her. She wasn't that hard to be recognized by wizards and witches on the street. Her damn lightning bolt scar is a dead give away.
It could be, she reasons, eyeing the back of the woman's head.
The woman doesn't seem . . . magical, for the lack of better word but then again, neither did any wizard that'd walk in the Muggle world, she's sure. And would there be a way for her to know? Could she sense it maybe? Can wizards or witches feel another person's magic? She can feel her own magic, humming pleasantly under her skin, ready to surface anytime but with the woman she can't really fell anything? She doesn't really have any memory of wizards being able to feel each other's magic having been mentioned in the books?
But then again, her memories from Before seem to be fading.
It's getting harder to remember any moments from when she was a child Before or when she went to school or when she worked. When she tries to recall back, the first memories that surface is with Lily and James and although she's not mad about that (no matter what, they're still her new parents and did a better job than the ones from Before), it's frustrating that her memories are getting all mingled and some of them fading.
She still knows the main events that will happen but details about other stuff seem to flee from her mind and she doesn't know how to stop it.
I can't, it's her definitive thought because there isn't anything she can realistically do to stop memories from fading.
She just has to deal with what she can remember.
"Uhm . . ."
She looks up at the woman - Maryse - and stops a few feet away from where she's standing. They're in front of a building with at least seven floors. She doesn't recognize it, nor does she recognize the street but then again, she doesn't really know anything about where she is. Maybe I got it wrong, she wonders to herself when she observes the normal and mundane building, maybe she's just a young woman that wanted to help me.
"Shall we?" the woman is saying, reaching for something on her purse - keys.
She waits until the door is open and until Maryse is inside to get inside. The inside of the building is . . . rotten, to say the least. It reminds her of the building where her apartment had been Before. One look at this place and it's clear that's its one of those places where people that don't get much out of their work can live.
They go up two floors and Maryse is opening one of the doors, moving aside to let her inside, eyes on her.
Since I'm here, she thinks and gets to ready to do something should anything happen, her magic waking and bubbling under her skin at the thought.
"Would you like something to eat?" the woman asks her and before she can refuse, her stomach growls quite loudly, making the grown woman smile, "I think I have something from yesterday . . ."
She doesn't listen to what the woman is saying. Something feels wrong. She can't quite point out what it is but there's something and it makes her alert and her magic flares up on instinct when her breathing gets harsher.
There's a knock in the door and she's flying away from it at lightning speed.
Crap, she thinks, this was a bad, bad badbadbad idea.
"Wonder who could it be?" Maryse mumbles to herself, sounding quite confused as she moves towards the door and grabs the handle.
She hides behind a door as she hears the sound of the door opening and then she hears a soft, "Good afternoon."
"Uh, good afternoon. Can I help you?" Maryse sounds confused so it's not someone she knows.
Who the fuck is it?, she wonders and wants to peak but she shouldn't.
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I believe you can. I'm looking for a young girl, you see."
She freezes and holds her breath, her magic humming and trying to surface as panic begins to spread over her body.
"I'm afraid there's not young girl here," Maryse says, voice strong, "You're looking in the wrong house."
Theres a pause and then, "No, I believe this is the right house. Miss Potter, I know you're there."
What the fuck, she thinks when she hears her last name being spoken so easily by this person. Who the fuck is it? She doesn't recognize the voice. It sounds old and warm but she doesn't know anyone- Wait. No. It can't be. But he'd do something like this, wouldn't he? When it's about his Golden Boy (Girl, in this case) he'd do anything to place her exactly where he wants. She forces her feet to move and she's moving out of hiding and she raises her chin and her eyes meet light blue eyes behind half-moon spectacles and all she could think about was, fuck.
There were many outcomes she thought about but this one, having Albus Dumbledore personally coming to get her, passes all of them.
The old man smiles, when she moves forward towards the door, "Miss Potter, it's a pleasure to make your a-"
She slams the door on his face before he can finish.
This chapter was quite hard to write and I'm not completely satisfied with the result but it's how I wanted the story to go so I'm leaving it like this.
Also, I may or not have a small grudge against Albus. Can you tell?