Prologue – The Prophecy
Fawkes mewled from his perch. Albus Brian Percival Wulfric Dumbledore peered over his half-moon spectacles, before rubbing his eyes and setting down the parchment he had in his hands. The first year register lay on his grand desk. The year that James and Lily Potter's son was finally attending Hogwarts was upon him. The Boy Who Lived, destined to vanquish The Dark Lord, or die trying. A grim fate indeed, to be put on someone so young and vulnerable, Albus thought to himself. This was, however, something he had been preparing himself for, fully intending to guide the young wizard as best he could. He had just hoped his best would be good enough.
Albus silenced his train of thought, for guests were arriving at his office.
"Come in Severus", he spoke and the door to his office swung open. Severus Snape strode in urgently, hand in hand with the silvery eyed, shaking Sybil Trelawney.
"I think you will want to see this, Headmaster," said Snape, his voice wavering slightly as he placed a firm hand on Sybil's shoulder. This may have been an attempt to comfort the seer, but from Severus, the gesture seemed imposing and forceful. Dumbledore stood now, his face dark and serious.
"A prophecy, Severus?"
"I think it is best," he said, bringing Trelawney to stand directly in front of Albus, "If you see for yourself."
Dumbledore nodded, drawing his wand, and placed a gentle hand on Sybil's thin-skinned, quivering face. It was not common for a prophecy to have this much of an effect on the seer, as much as it was common for her to have any true prophecies at all. But this time was different. Albus place his wand to the side of the seer's temple and pulled a blue, silvery strand from her very mind. Snape pulled a small vial from his black robes and extended it to Dumbledore. He placed the memory strand delicately in the vial before bringing it to a shallow stone dish placed in the corner of the room. He emptied the vial into the Pensieve and entered the memory.
Blurs of light and whistles of noise whirled around Dumbledore as the memory began to come into focus, and he could see clearly now he was in the staffroom at Hogwarts. The memory of Snape watched as a quivering Trelawney, her eyes rolled into her skull, spoke in a raspy, reverbing voice. "The Dark Lord and The Boy Who Lived shall face each other, and neither can live while the other survivesssss," she rasped still, breath seeming to escape her body and then catching again, "but their fates rest on The Coward's Daughter and her actions will lead either's downfall", Trelawney heaved forwards, falling on to her hands and knees, shaking uncontrollably now. In a strangled whisper, the final words escaped her. "She. Must. Choose." Sybil Trelawney collapsed, as the world fell away into fog, and Albus Dumbledore returned to the present.
His eyes were wide, and he gripped the edges of the Pensieve tightly. His mind was panicked, racing at lightspeed, before he composed himself, striding over to his desk again.
"Severus, send an owl for the ministry, they'll want the department of mysteries sufficiently updated." Severus nodded wordlessly.
"Your interpretation, headmaster?", Snape tried to speak coolly, but there was a hint of alarm in his voice.
"My interpretation," Albus replied, picking up the first year register and scanning over it before settling on the name he was looking for, "is that I must ask for more of your help, my friend, than perhaps is fair of me. Could you keep a watchful eye on one of our new first years, Emma Merellius."
Emma Lemerrius was perhaps the most muggle-like a Pureblood could be. It was only after Emma had vanished into thin air during a stressful mock exam in school, that her father David had revealed both his and her true nature.
"I'm...a witch?" Emma repeated, perhaps three or four times, her brow furrowed in confusion but also concentration. Whenever in a bout of hard concentration, Emma would grind her teeth loudly, and pull at her strawberry-blonde hair. Oddly enough, this actually seemed to help her collect her thoughts.
David reached across the kitchen table they were both seated at and placed his hand on top of his daughter's.
"I know it's a lot to take in bu-" David began, but was cut short.
"It all makes sense now!" Emma gasped, standing straight up from her seat and placing her hands either side of her narrow rosy face. "When all the birds burst out their cages at the pet shop when I was seven, that was you?!"
"No, actually", David smiled, "That was you."
Emma gawped at him, slack-jawed and wide-eyed. Then slowly, her face contorted into the widest, brightest smile David had ever seen on his daughter's face. Emma pinched herself hard, David frowning at her as she did, winced, then started beaming again.
"This...", Emma whispered, her head held in her hands, "is just brilliant."
Emma stood, smiling giddily at the air for a few moments, before throwing her arms around her father. The pair laughed, one with excitement and the other with amusement.
"I'm a witch." Emma affirmed.
"Well, you've still got a lot to learn, after all, I've had you believe you're a muggle your whole life." Emma's father said this last part rather sheepishly. Emma looked up at him, confusion evident on her face.
"Muggle?"
David sighed. "Like I said, a lot to learn."
With the secret out, her father seemed to throw any previous reservations about revealing the wizarding world to her out of the window. He had decided they were moving.
Emma adjusted well to the new home her dad had moved them to. He hastily explained to her after arriving in a large studio-like wooded hut, with bookshelves stretching twenty feet to the ceiling and messes of quills and papers strewn across the floor, that she would be staying at Hogwarts soon and she wouldn't have to stay here long if she didn't like it. Emma, however, was in love. She skipped from shelf to shelf, pulling more books than her small frame could carry from them. She had decided early on she would need to familiarise herself with the new world around her, especially if she was going to a wizarding school in just a few short months.
It had been just two months since her father had told her about her true nature. Emma sat at a large oak table, far too big for just the two of them who dined there, skimming through Magic Through The Years. While Emma had originally leapt into her fathers recommended reading material with enthusiasm, it wasn't long before the dull ramblings of dusty old witches and wizards started to bore her. Her dad insisted she pressed on, however, and reluctantly she did. It helped that while she read, a large teapot would occasionally float towards her and refill the mug beside her.
Emma looked up when he heard a chair being pulled up at the table, and saw her father now sitting opposite her. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but then closed it again. And again. And again. He repeated this process for at least twenty seconds while Emma looked on, bemused. The bemusement soon turned to annoyance, however, and she dropped the heavy book on to the table with a thud.
"Dad, please just spit it out" she pleaded.
He sighed and looked directly into Emma's eyes. "Why aren't you angry with me?"
"Huh?" Emma was taken aback. Angry with him? Emma couldn't even remember the last time she had been angry with her dad. Not even after she had been grounded for four weeks when she stole Sarah Magill's Yo-Yo. She knew she had deserved it, and felt deeply ashamed long after she had been ungrounded for her actions. Emma and her father had, for the most part, a perfect understanding of one another.
"Why would I be angry with you?"
Her father guffawed. "Why? I've been lying to your whole life! I let you believe you were completely ordinary for ten years!"
Emma furrowed her brow. She could see the guilt on her father's face, as he now struggled to meet her eye. He had lied to her. The thought hadn't even hit Emma amid all the excitement, that her father had kept a life-changing secret from her for years. And yet, even after fully understanding the magnitude of her father's dishonesty, she was not angry.
"Well, no." Emma said, crossing her arms before giving her dad an interrogatory stare. "But why?"
"I...can't tell you."
Emma threw up her arms in frustration. Now she felt she could be angry. "Well, what's the point then, of you coming here all guilty-looking, then keeping more secrets from me?"
"Because you know I don't like to talk about your mother."
"Oh." Emma's frustration was extinguished. "Oh. It has to do with mum then." Emma's mum had been dead for as long as she could remember. Something Emma had always felt slightly guilty about was that she didn't really care. She had never known her. And her father was more than enough for her. Emma was sometimes curious enough to ask about her, and while her Dad would always reply, she never felt the response was worth seeing the pain in her father's eyes. Her father would sometimes show her old photos of her mother on very rare occasions, but Emma took no pleasure in looking at a picture of a stranger.
"I can tell you it was for your safety.", her father said. Guilt was still painted over his mousey features, and his messy blonde hair was shiny with sweat.
Emma stood up and planted a kiss on her father's brow. "Then that's good enough for me."
The pair smiled at each other and embraced.
Emma was relieved to finally be rid of her luggage, her arms sore from dragging her suitcase along the platform. Aboard the Hogwarts express, she heaved her trunk into an empty compartment, and crashed onto one of the seats, her breathing heavy. She was finally here, Emma thought to herself. It wouldn't be long before she would be practising the spells and charms she had read about from one of the many books in her dad's 'recommended reading' list he had given her. Emma could barely contain herself and even as she began to catch her breath, it wasn't long before she began panting again with excitement, like a dopey dog. But then Emma frowned. An empty compartment. Emma had been looking forward to meeting more people like her, if only to have things explained about this new world she now lived in. It had been less than five minutes before the train had started moving, before Emma became incredibly, unapologetically bored. She had twirled her wand several times between her fingers and tried to read one of her preferred textbooks, Magical Drafts and Textbooks, by Arsenius Jigger, but to no avail. Deciding her luggage would be fine where it was, Emma resolved herself to find someone to talk to or, failing that, to at least have a wander around the interior of the brilliant scarlet train.
Just a moment after stepping outside of the compartment, Emma yelped and nearly hit the ceiling as she jumped in shock. Something dry and scaly had shot up her sleeve and was wriggling around on her wrist. In a panic, she shook the end of her arm above her outstretched hand and a small, brown toad fell into her palm. Emma stared at the toad. The toad stared back. Ribbit.
Emma giggled at the amphibian that lay in her hand. "Nice to meet you too."
The frog gave another Ribbit.
"You know you scared the living hell out of me," she brought the toad up to her face, looking at it closely, her eyes squinting from behind her short, blonde hair. "I've never seen a Toad before. I've seen Frogs, those are basically the same, right?"
If Emma didn't know any better, after the Toad's next ribbit, she would say it sounded offended.
Then a thought struck Emma. Maybe she had achieved what she had set out to do. Maybe this was another witch or wizard! She had read about magic being used to turn people into animals, though the process behind it had been far too boring to read.
"Nice to meet you, are you a first-year at Hogwarts as well?" she spoke at Toad.
The Toad stared back.
"Trevor!"
Emma looked up and saw a small, round-faced boy running down the carriage towards her, nearly tripping over his own feet. Emma wordlessly held at the frog towards him, her face somewhat reddening by the fact she had just been trying to converse with a toad.
"Th-Thanks. I've been looking for him for ages, I thought I had lost him," the somewhat chubby boy explained, short of breath.
"I like him. Trevor's a cool name."
"Um, thanks?", the boy replied hesitantly, clearly unsure if Emma was joking, but confused at the sincerity in her eyes.
"I'm Emma Merellius," Emma offered her hand to him.
"Neville Longbottom," Neville replied and went to return the handshake. Unfortunately, the hand that he had offered her was also the hand he had been gripping Trevor the Toad with. Now free from his clutches, Trevor leapt from Neville's hands and went bouncing down the train. "No, Trevor!", Neville yelled after him, and gave chase again, nearly stumbling over. Emma couldn't stifle her laugh at the situation, and followed at a run behind him, the two chasing the frog down the carriage.
They had eventually managed to wrangle Trevor again, and Emma had led Neville back to her still empty compartment. She had tried to meet more people, but as most compartments were full it was difficult and awkward to stand in the doorway of a full compartment while trying to exchange pleasantries. Emma instead passed the time chatting with Neville, and this was how she learned Neville was (failing to find a nicer way to put it) a bit of a wimp. He fretted and whined about what tasks they might be put through before being sorted into their Hogwarts house.
"It's just a hat."
"Just a hat?", Neville asked, dumbfounded.
Emma explained the process of the sorting ceremony the same way her father had explained it to her while she waited in line at Olivander's.
This did not help. This simply made Neville stress about how his grandmother would react if he wasn't sorted into Gryffindor. They had long arrived at Hogwarts, boated to the castle, and arrived at the great hall to begin the sorting ceremony, and Neville was still quivering slightly with anxiety and fear. Emma pushed herself through the crowd of first-years to stand beside him and whispered in his ear.
"On the L's now Neville, you'll be sorted soon."
"Oh don't remind me," Neville groaned, "If I get sorted into Hufflepuff, Gran will disown me,"
"Stop worrying," Emma gave him a light slap on the arm. "All you've got to do is go up, put the hat on, take it off, then come back." Neville was not reassured and gulped nervously.
"Longbottom, Neville." called Professor McGonagall
All Emma could do was hold her head in her hands as Neville fell over in his haste to rush to the sorting hat. A mean spirited laugh echoed from some of the first years, and Emma could only imagine this was how parents felt when their child fell over on sports day. It took a while after Neville had finally pulled on the hat for it to shout "GRYFFINDOR!". Emma beamed at Neville, and gave him a big thumbs up, but had to hide her head in her hands again as Neville forgot to take off The Sorting Hat before running to the Gryffindor table. When Neville finally took his seat after returning The Sorting Hat to the head of the Great Hall, the sorting ceremony continued.
"Merellius, Emma."
Emma had grown a little impatient with the ceremony leading up to this but strangely she had now wished her name had been called later, rather than sooner. She thought Neville a bit of a fool for his stressing, but nerves began to take a hold of her, as she slowly stepped up to The Sorting Hat, unusually aware of the clack of her footsteps on the stone floor. It felt like an eternity before she had reached the seat upon which the hat was placed. After placing the hat on her head and placing herself in the chair, Emma almost jumped out of her skin as a voice echoed through her mind.
"Yes, most definitely, that's an easy one. A little creative though...no, not enough wit for Ravenclaw."
Before Emma could even think of protesting the hat's insult, it yelled, "GRYFFINDOR!".
The Gryffindor table clapped as Emma rushed to join them. This wasn't because she was hoping she would be sorted into Gryffindor, she was just starving.