Before we start I'd like to discuss the title a little. While I am an American (a fact that gets harder and harder to state with an ounce of pride with each passing minute) I do prefer the Anglo-European title more than Sorcerer's Stone like it was in America due to semantics. Sorcerers could apply to any wizard, from powerful warlocks like Voldemort to first year students learning the wizarding ropes. Philosopher means a learned thinker, someone who looks either inward or at the outer world and ponders deeper human existence. Men and Women like Voltaire, Karl Marx, Freidrich Nietzche and *sigh* Ayn Rand. And Nicolas Flamel is and was such a thinker (yes, he was a real person) and could've and did (at least in Harry Potter) create a stone for immortality. And of course, alchemy itself is intrinsically tied to the philosopher's stone, as any fan of Fullmetal Alchemist would know and it ties into deeper medieval, scientific and mythological history. But of course Scholastic Publishing Corporation thought that Americans were too stupid to get the British slang and deeper historical references, much like they thought that we wouldn't get the ending to A Clockwork Orange, and changed the title and the stone to something holey generic. So yeah, screw you American distributors. That explains my preference, now this will be a shorter chapter as Marie will be traveling and thus it time will pass quickly for a bit with only a little bit of the Leaky Cauldron being discussed, as most of this chapter will be internal thoughts and monologues. Try to catch the Shakespeare lines here. I intend to have them appear from time to time. And finally (because I forgot this last time), I do not own Harry Potter or Ed, Edd & Eddy. The licenses are respectively held by J.K. Rowling, At&T and Warner Media.
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And to England then
The sound of hundreds filled the air of London Heathrow Airport as dozens of men, women and children rushed through the halls of baggage claim towards the exit lobby to either the street outside or to the tunnel that lead to Paddington Station. Businessmen, families either going to or returning from vacation, exchange students, pilots and helmsman on break, airport employees and reporters going to and fro like rats, the sea of bodies crashing against walls, elevators, carts and moving sidewalks. Among them was a young pubescent girl with blue hair pulling a black trunk behind her on its rear wheels and carrying a brown ruck sack over her shoulder, inconspicuously blending in with her snow grey sweater mostly covered by a burgundy red short sleeved shirt. The only thing anyone would see if they looked at her for more than ten seconds was an ordinary girl glowering as she charged towards the train station.
Marie trudged through the corridors of the airport, plowing past a rack of magazines as she went towards the train line. She was once again brooding, something that she had been doing even more since her first meeting with Professor McGonagall. While her relationship with her sisters hadn't gotten worse, it hadn't gotten better. May was no longer fearful of her, but she had fallen into a depressed funk that she couldn't get out of despite the rest of her family's best efforts, while Lee now refused to be in the same room as her, glaring at her as if everything that was happening to their family was her fault. As a result, Marie had taken to sleeping on the couch in order to avoid the toxic atmosphere. She was almost relieved when the time came for her mom to take her to Green Bay so that she could start her long journey to wherever her new school was.
She arrived at the terminal and boarded the train to Paddington, sitting down in one of the tables seats by the window. She looked out at the platform, lost in her memory of the last few moments she spent with her mother as the doors closed and the train left the station, an airplane soaring into the rising sun.
The sun was starting to set as a beat up rust red 1970 Range Rover Classic pulled up to the parking lot outside the departure terminal, sliding into the area outside the entrance. Marie got out of the right side passenger seat and walked to the trunk of the car while her mother got out of the left side driver's seat. She opened up the trunk and started to heft her heavy trunk out of the car. "Marie, let me help lift that." Barbra said as she started to approach her struggling daughter. "I got this!" growled Marie, glaring at her mother with eyes blazing with hate. Barbra backed away with a small look of fear in her eyes as Marie hurled the trunk out of the back of the car. Marie then pulled the handle out of the side of the trunk and charged towards the double doors of one of the entrances, her mother jogging to catch up with her.
The two of them entered the lobby check in area, the white floor and walls giving it a sterile feel to in, broken by the rush of departing and arriving passengers and the long and winding lines transporting their luggage to the cargo line that would lead to the planes they would soon board. The sound of hundreds were punctuated with the drone of the escalators, the buzzing hanging in the still air. The two of them walked in silence to one of the lines, slowly creeping towards the front with the speed and energy of a dying snail.
Ms Kanker looked sadly at her daughter as she grumpily shuffled forward another three inches, the traffic jam as lively as hibernating snake. What had once been a close and loving relationship had become cold and fragile. Marie refused to be in the same room as her mother, the feeling of hurt and betrayal increasing with each passing day. Barbra had tried many times to try to reconnect with her, but Marie always shook her off, usually spending any time Ms Kanker was home either locked up in her room or outside in the junkyard. In fact the only reason Marie let her mother drive her to the airport was because she didn't have enough money to afford the bus fare, and even then she refused to talk to her throughout the entire ride.
Another person finished checking the bag in and getting their ticket scanned. The line shuffled forward another foot. The Kankers rounded the end of one of the rope lanes. The noise faded in and out, too lost as they were in their heads to see the world around them outside of vague observations, one doing their best to keep herself from strangling her own mother, the other trying to find the words to say to her daughter while she still had the chance.
"Marie, I know this isn't exactly what you imagined what you would do this year," Barbra started sympathetically before trying to give it a positive spin. "But hey, you're going to Great Britain. None of the Kankers have even left the country before ever since we came over here from Holland back in the 17th century, so you're the first to do so in generations." Marie angrily huffed like a bull, her fist clenching and unclenching the handle bar. Barbra looked tentatively at Marie, but saw that she was listening before sighing. 'Least that's better than last week, though that might only be because she has nowhere to go to avoid me.' Not wanting to stop, she quickly gathered her courage.
"Besides, this might be a great opportunity for you. No record of bullying that could spread, new faces to meet and friends to make, interesting classes and the ability to make a name for yourself. Doesn't that sound great?" "Yippy." Marie replied sarcastically, hoping that this line would hurry up already so that she could get to the front. "You know," Barbra said slyly, "your father would always talk about how great the food was there. Food from table to table stacked in piles more than a foot high." "And the bathrooms run with chocolate milk and paps blue ribbon and the trees are made of bubblegum pops, spare me this sancrine bs, I'm not in the mood to listen to it." Marie interrupted spitefully. The line moved again. Marie turned another corner, putting her directly across from her mother, the crossing rope the only thing separating them. Barbra tried to look her daughter in the eye, but Marie stared resolutely ahead, with nary a flicker appearing on her face.
Barbra looked pleadingly at her daughter. "Marie, I know you hate this, but please don't make what's happening a miserable experience for yourself. I want you to have fun, enjoy yourself and give everything your best effort. If you treat everything at Hogwarts as if it's the worst thing ever, that's all it will be." Marie turned to her mother, her rage simmering beneath the surface. "I'll give it my best, Barbra." she spat, relishing her mother flinching when she called her by her first name. "But I guarantee you that when I come back I'll tell you that I wish to be at Peach Creek Middle School, even if I know I can't." She finally arrived at the front of the line and prepared to register her luggage. "Don't bother seeing me off. I don't want to deal with you right now."
Marie was shoved out of the train at Paddington by the surge of the crowd. She stumbled grouchely through the crowds, sliding between bodies as she fought against the current that threatened to carry her to White Chapel. She was tired. She had had a terrible flight. She couldn't go to sleep on her first flight because it took her only an hour and a half to get to Chicago and by the time her second flight took off it was 11:30 at night. Combine that with the uncomfortable seats and the small child that wouldn't stop kicking the back of her seat at five in the morning and you get yourself a Kanker more than willing to want to strangle someone.
She eventually reached the train line that would take her to King's Cross station and boarded, purple bags hanging heavily from her eyes as she boarded the train and went into one of the compartments. She rested her head against the window trying to sleep, but her mind was plagued by guilt.
'Maybe I shouldn't have said those things to mom. She was only trying to cheer me up.' she thought morosely as the train rumbled through the streets of London, the tall apartment blocks and modern skyscrapers clashing with rococo and baroque style buildings. Angry as she was with her mom, she knew that she shouldn't blame her for what was happening to her, as she clearly had as much control over their situation as she did. But she was eleven, she was allowed to act like a brat for something this important. But that excuse didn't shake away the image of her mother watching her leave in anguished tears.
The train ride passed in silence, the whole time passed in depressed thoughts. She missed her sisters more than anything. She couldn't stand the separation they were going through. She missed challenging Lee's authority, she missed their make up sessions, she missed hanging out with them in the school boiler room, she missed talking with them, she missed pulling pranks with them and she missed hanging out in comfortable silence with them. That was the main reason she resented going to Hogwarts. In her mind, the school's very existence was responsible for tearing her family apart.
She exited King's Cross station and took out the note with the directions and crossed the street, heading towards Camden. Due to her thoughts, the world came in and out of focus like a scratchy radio. Every once in awhile she would return to the real world to see a street sign to know where she was going or a stoplight so that she wouldn't run into a car or a bus. But for the most part she remained caught in the chaos of her mind. The only person she missed more than her sisters was her Oven-mitt. She refused to see him before she left, even after three weeks. She had seen him in the junkyard, and in fact overheard his friends (or at least the short braty one) commenting in bitterness that he had gotten rid of his Kanker while they can't get rid of theirs (least her sisters were still enjoying themselves without her). She wanted to see him, desperately wanted to see him. She would dream about him at night and would wake up needing a cold shower in the morning. But so far she had been able to resist the sirens call and she knew that apart from her sisters he was the only one that knew that she would not be with the rest of the Cul-de-Sac kids at Peach Creek Junior High. She hoped that he wouldn't be as happy as she knew his friends would be.
It was while she was walking down a crosswalk when she saw it, and she wasn't particularly impressed when she did. If you weren't wizard, it was unlikely you would've paid the Leaky Cauldron much notice anyway. Nestled in between a Waterstones book store and a vinyl record store was a grubby looking pub, painted black with peeling paint and an old work sign that looked like it hadn't been changed since the mid 19th century. Marie looked down at her list, wondering if she had gotten the wrong address. When the note refused to lie to her and stated that yes, she was at the right place, she threw it down on the ground and grinded it under her feet for a good minute before she crossed the street and entered the establishment, and the inside wasn't any better. If anything, it looked even worse.
It was a dark and grim place lit by faint buzzing gas lights and a fire on the far side of the room. Smoke hung heavily from the ceiling, most of it produced by a gaggle of warlocks smoking pipes at a table to the right of an angled bar, painted in worn blood red. There were several people here besides the warlock, a few seedy looking wizards and witches, that she could assume, either drinking deeply from large mugs alone at several tables or chatting with each other. She thought she heard someone say how outrageous it was to charge seventeen sickles for an ounce of dragon liver, but she was to busy looking for the owner to care.
She approached the bar, which was helmed by an old bald hunchbacked man with many wrinkles and few teeth, early reminding Marie of a walnut. "Excuse me" she asked politely as she looked over the top of the counter, her eyes barely passing over it. "I'm looking for a guy named Tom, who's supposed to be the owner." The bartender looked over the counter and smiled a comforting smile. "Ah, you must be Marie. Professor McGonagall told me that you would be here some time today." he then extended his hand and shook hers. "I'm Tom, owner and bartender of the Leaky Cauldron. Your room has already been paid for the next four days as well as your tab for the night, so don't worry too much about the cost. Let me show ya to your room, it's right upstairs."
He walked around the bar and gestured Marie towards a set of stairs that lead up to a worn landing of gray chipped paint. She followed him up the steps and down the musty hallway to a decent looking room on the right side. It was simple looking with a queen sized bed, a mirror over an armoire, a nightstand and a dresser of drawers. While sparse compared to most muggle hotel rooms, this was a step up compared to the room she shared with her sisters back home. She rolled her trunk to the foot of the bed and looked around. "Would you like something to eat my dear? I can bring it up to the room if you wish." Marie turned to Tom, a bit in a daze as the realization that this really happening started to set in. "Yeah, can I have some grilled chicken and mashed potatoes please?"
Tom nodded and left the room to get Marie her order, leaving Marie alone with only her thoughts and her memories. She moved around the bed and opened the drawers of the nightstand. She was both relieved and disappointed that there wasn't a bible in the drawer. She walked over to the mirror and parted her hair that she could see her bags. "You really should go to bed dear, nothing worse can for your looks than a lack of sleep." "Augh." Marie stumbled from the mirror in surprise, tripping backwards over her feet as she scrambled back from the armoire. At that moment Tom entered the room carrying a platter with her order and a mug.
"Here you go miss. If you need anything else just call me." he said as he put the tray on her trunk before seeing her on the floor staring at the mirror. "You all right miss?" He asked, neighborly concerned. Marie looked up at him and back at the mirror warily. "I must be suffering from severe sleep deprivation." she said as she stood back up again. "Because for a second I thought that mirror was talking." Tom smiled ruefully at her and chuckled a bit while shaking his head. "Nearly forgot you're not used to talking mirrors. Sorry about this, they usually try to give fashion advice. Not many people take it though." Marie nodded slowly and sipped from her cup, gasping as a scipy liquid went down her throat. "What is this?" she asked incredulously. Tom looked quizzically at her. "It's pumpkin juice. Normal wizard fare that is. Besides, thought Muggles were used to having pumpkin in their drinks." Marie thought about telling him that it was pumpkin spice that Muggles put in their coffee and beer, but she couldn't really deny that he wasn't wrong. "Yeah we do, I just never had pumpkin juice before. Don't really have the funds to afford those specialty veggie drinks." she said morosely.
Tom left with another assurance that if she needed anything she need only ask, leaving her with her meal. She sat and ate the mashed potatoes and chicken, digging in ravinasly. Before long the meal was done, with only the trash remaining. Marie was tired at this point, her eyelids drooping as she closed the shutters. She walked over to the plate and moved to throw the food in the trash when a chicken bone fell off the plate. She threw the rest in the trash first and went over to pick it up so that it could join its brethren in the trash when she looked closely at the bone in question. It was a wing bone, picked clean of meat and sinew, nothing remarkable about it, but it caused a melancholy to fall over her.
Her little sister liked to collect chicken bones, so much so that there was a whole suitcase full of them that she and her sister Lee had buried under the trailer in the dead of night because they were cluttering their room. It didn't matter what kind they were, as long as they were from a chicken then she'd clean them and put them away in her room as long as they were unbroken. May had a favorite bone though and those were wing bones. She liked them the most because of their rounded curves and smooth interiors. Marie always hated May's habit, but for some reason she couldn't stand to throw this bone away. All she saw was her sister's smiling face as she looked at the bone, a smile she hasn't seen in nearly a month.
'The art of our necessities is strange, that can make such vile things precious.' she thought as she turned the bone in her hand. She walked over to the nightstand and slipped the bone into the top drawer before turning off the lights and slipping into a fitful and troubled sleep.
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Sorry about the delay, had a few interviews this week and then I had to watch the dogs because of election day. Hope you catch the lines. See you next week, I'm off to go listen to some Slayer while I can.
