[Disclaimer: Except for Alice and the extra scenes and modifications, everything belongs to JK Rowling. ]
Alice was awake.
She could see the faint glow of the morning sunlight behind her closed eyelids, could smell salty sea air.
But she didn't open her eyes.
She lay there lazily for a while. She almost felt happy.
Happy.
Happy.
Ohhhhh no.
Why was she feeling cheery today? Being happy when waking up never bodes well for her. Something bad was going to happen today. Maybe Dudley was going to push her off the stairs. Maybe today was the day Aunt Petunia worked her to death.
Oh God.
What if Aunt Marge was coming to stay with them?
Alice immediately shot straight up on her bed with a gasp.
This wasn't her bed. She was on a couch.
All the events of last night came crashing down on her.
Her eleventh birthday. Butter cake. HAGRID. Hogwarts? Her parents. Dudley's tail.
THAT'S why it smelt brackish around here. She was still in that house on the rocks.
A large, warm some thing had fallen off of her and onto the ground when she'd sat up. She looked down to see that it was Hagrid's scruffy, brown coat, which had landed on him.
Hagrid was still here.
So…So it WASN'T all just a dream?
She'd been half-convinced that it was, in the few seconds she was up. A feeling of extreme joy and hope started expanding inside her chest.
It was all real. Hagrid on the floor right next to her (she had felt terrible about this last night but he had insisted), the half-eaten cake near the smoking fireplace, her acceptance letter clutched in her hand.
There was only one thing that had the power to dampen her happiness.
Her parents.
Hagrid had told her everything last night.
x_x
"Yer parents didn' die in a car crash, Alice. Downrigh' insultin' fer yeh ter go around believin' tha' when everybody else in our world knows the story."
Alice suppressed the emotions threatening to overwhelm her — anger, confusion, anticipation…FEAR — and asked quietly,"How did they die?"
Hagrid hesitated before saying,"It migh' be like a legend among us, but that doesn' make it any easier to explain." He sighed heavily. "I s'pose I should start with the wizard responsible fer all of it."
Someone was responsible for her parents' deaths? "Who?" she pressed.
"You-Know-Who."
Alice furrowed her eyebrows."No, I don't know who."
"No, You-Know-Who."
"No, I really DON'T know who."
"No, I mean it was YOU-KNOW-WHO!"
"Oh. Yunohoo."Alice paused."He foreign?"
"NO, we call 'im You-Know-Who 'cause everyone in our world knows who he is an' no one likes sayin' his name!"
"Why not?"
"Blimey, Alice, they're still scared! See, this wizard, he-he was bad. Real bad. Bad as you could go. His name was…"
Hagrid opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.
"Maybe you could write it down?" Alice suggested tentatively, because Hagrid really did seem terrified of saying the name out loud.
"Nah, can't spell it. Alrigh'. VOLDEMORT." Hagrid shuddered, like someone had dumped a bucket of icy-cold water on him. "Please don' make me say it again. Anyways, You-Know-Who, was one o' the most powerful wizards ever. But him being evil an' all, he used all that power to try and take over the wizarding world. Recruiting followers, killing those who didn' want ter join him. Terrible times, Alice," Hagrid looked deep into her eyes, trying to convey how bad things had been."Couldn' trust anyone, people dying left, righ' and centre. It really did seem like he was going to take over. But it all changed in one night. No one rilly knows why, but he turned up in the town yeh lived, looking fer yer family. A-And find them, he did. He broke all the defences outside yer house, got inside an'-an' he —" Hagrid sighed heavily."He killed 'em."
Her parents had been murdered.
Alice didn't make a sound as Hagrid took out a tablecloth-sized handkerchief and wiped his eyes."Sorry, but I knew yer parents, Alice, an' nicer people yeh couldn' find." He exhaled."Anyways, once h-he had…Well, he turned to you. He tried ter kill you too. But he couldn' do it. Ever wondered how yeh got tha' mark on yer forehead? That's no ordinary cut. That's what yeh get when a powerful, evil curse touches yeh. This man, he-he took care of yer parents, demolished yer house! But he couldn't kill you. And THAT'S why yer famous, Alice. No one who had made it into his hit list survived an' he'd killed some o' the best witches an' wizards of the age — the Bones, the Prewetts — an' you was only a baby, an' you SURVIVED."
x_x
Something in Alice's heart clenched at the memory and her breathing quickened. She shut her eyes tightly and continued to go through what happened next.
Uncle Vernon had interrupted after that, declaring that Hagrid was full of it and was attempting to brainwash people. It probably didn't help Hagrid's case that Alice had softly asked whether he was sure he'd gotten the right Alice because if she was who he says she was, why hadn't she been able to turn Dudley into a mushroom or something whenever he'd given her a black eye? That was when Hagrid gently questioned whether nothing had ever happened to her that she couldn't explain. Alice hadn't replied, her mind racing with all those inexplicable incidents that had plagued her life, which by the way, included the Brazilian boa constrictor. Her lack of response was once again, incentive enough for Uncle Vernon to start ranting again about how he didn't want her anywhere near any evil cults lead by some crackpot old fool who called himself the headmaster. This had been Hagrid's breaking point for he had exploded at this last insult ("NEVER INSULT ALBUS DUMBLEDORE IN FRONT OF ME!"), drawn out a pink umbrella from his coat and swung it in an arc. A pink, curly pig's tail had sprouted from Dudley's massive behind, making all three Dursleys shriek words in languages unknown to man, and disappear into the room where Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had been sleeping in, slamming the door.
Best moment of her life.
Alice couldn't help the snort of laughter that escaped her at the memory.
A shuffling sound had her peering down. Hagrid was awake.
He looked at her with one eye."Yer up? Grea'. Loads ter do today. Best we be off."
Alice could barely contain her excitement at these words.
x_x
After a speedy journey by boat from the house on the rocks (Hagrid had used magic and had also requested her not mention that to anyone as he had after the Dudley incident as well, and Alice, eager to see more, had agreed), and a long, uncomfortable trip using the subway which had involved everyone gaping at the two of them, they were in London, standing on a busy street, in front of a tiny, dirty- looking pub. Buried between two taller buildings, it looked to Alice like she wouldn't have even noticed it had Hagrid not pointed it out to her. This might actually have been true, because Alice got the weirdest feeling that only she and Hagrid could see it right now, in that little street full of people.
When they stepped through the doorway, the noise outside immediately faded.
'Soundproof?' Alice wondered, as she scanned the place. It didn't LOOK any different from an ordinary bar — dim lighting, soft rock music playing from unseen speakers (she'd never heard the song before though), a few groups of people milling around, drinking and chatting. The only slightly odd thing she could see was that all their drinks had smoke coming from them.
Hagrid walked over to a bald old man who must be the bartender.
"The usual, Hagrid?" The man enquired, rubbing a large with a white cloth.
"Can't today, Tom. On serious Hogwarts business." Hagrid replied importantly, clapping a hand on Alice's shoulder.
Tom's eyes fell onto Alice and he gasped. His mug fell onto the counter with a thunk, but he paid it no heed as he whispered,"Good lord, can it be? Is this—"
The entire bar had gone completely quiet all of a sudden. Tom looked up at Hagrid."—Alice Potter?"
"In the flesh," Hagrid grinned.
"Well slap me in the face and call me a flobberworm, it's Alice Potter!"
Tom had shouted the last part out as he climbed over the counter and grabbed Alice's hands in his own.
"Such a pleasure, Miss Potter, such a pleasure," he said, smiling tremulously.
In a minute, the place was full of the sounds of chairs being pushed back and people rushing over, each one trying to shake Alice's hand first.
"Welcome back, Miss Potter!"
"I can't believe I'm actually seeing you, Miss Potter!"
"Oh my God, this is really happening, I can't even-"
"I shook her hand again. GUYS I SHOOK HER HAND TWICE!"
Alice was completely overwhelmed by all the attention. She had turned red in the face, as her hand was seized by several disembodied hands amidst the crowd of people, again and again, and shaken violently. Hagrid, glancing down at her, immediately took a hold of the situation.
"Aright, aright. Everyone back up. We have other stuff ter do so we'll be off now," He shouted above the babble and steered Alice away from the mob.
She could still hear them all chattering excitedly and Tom saying reverentially,"Alice Potter, in MY pub…"
She looked up at Hagrid with wide eyes. He grinned down at her."Told yeh you was famous."
Alice was trying to wrap her head around what had just happened when they stopped in front of a brick wall. Hagrid took out his pink umbrella again and tapped a brick in the middle of it, and the wall melted away.
A bustling cobblestone street stretched on in front of them, with quaint little shops on its either side.
"Welcome,"Hagrid announced."To Diagon Alley."
Alice stepped forward without any hesitation.
x_x
Alice sprinted behind Hagrid to keep up with his giant footsteps. The two of them had just walked out of Gringotts, the wizards' bank run by goblins which, Hagrid had said, no one would be foolish enough to rob, ever. It was protected by powerful spells and enchantments, as well as an array of magical creatures like trolls and dragons ("Crikey, I'd like a pet dragon," Hagrid said wistfully. "A pet dragon, huh?"Alice responded thoughtfully. "Hagrid, there's this movie I think you'll really like…" "Movie? What's tha'?")
Alice needed money to buy the items she required for school. This was why they had gone to the bank, so that she could withdraw money from the vault which contained all that her parents had left for her after their death. And what a trip it was. Involving a poem warning any potential robbers of the consequences, conversations with goblins, and high-speed tram rides with a goblin named Griphook as their guide through underground passages, their visit to the bank really had been something else.
Alice's vault was deep underground and was opened with a little golden key which Hagrid had been carrying. To her amazement, the vault was filled with heaps and heaps of golden, silver and bronze coins. She couldn't believe her parents had left her so much; She'd barely gotten five bucks from the Dursleys all these years and there lay a small fortune in her name, buried underneath London. They had also carried on to another vault 713, even deeper underground than hers, which Griphook said was a high-security vault. The thing was entirely empty except for one tiny, grubby little package lying sadly on the floor. Hagrid pocketed it and refused to reveal anything about it saying that it was 'top-secret Hogwarts business' and that Dumbledore himself had given him the task of fetching it.
Alice had felt curiosity burn within her but forgot about it as soon as they stepped out of the huge, white building onto Diagon Alley. Her mouth was wide open, as were her eyes, trying to take in all of the sights at once.
"Got yer letter, Alice?" Hagrid asked loudly, so that Alice could hear him above the hubbub of the people swarming around them. "The list of the things yeh'll need is in there."
Alice took out another smaller piece of parchment from within the envelope and perused it.
"Uniform, books, cauldron, scales, phials, telescope," Hagrid read out loud, peering at the list from above Alice."Oh, and yer wand, o'course. Tell yeh what, why don't you head on over ter Madame Malkin's over there and I'll go buy summat ter eat fer both of us?"
Alice felt a bit nervous, entering the shop. A squat, smiling woman immediately headed over to her.
"Hogwarts, dear?" the woman asked, smiling. When Alice nodded her head, she ushered her over to a corner. "Over here. A young man being fitted up just now as well."
The woman, Madame Malkin she assumed, stood her up on a little red stool, next to a pale, thin boy with silver-blonde hair who was being measured by a tape all on its own. In an instant, another set of tapes whizzed over to her side and started doing its job. Madame Malkin went back to man the front door again.
As she was being fitted, Alice felt the boy's gaze on the back of her head. She started feeling a bit self-conscious and patted her unruly black hair onto her forehead.
"You Hogwarts too?" came a voice from behind her.
Alice let out a breath she hadn't realised she had been holding and turned around."Uh, yeah. You too, huh?"
The boy regarded her for a moment before nodding his head."Got all your stuff yet? Father's buying my books and Mother's gone over to Ollivander's. After I'm done here, I'm taking Father to buy me a racing broom," he drawled, silver eyes glinting excitedly.
"Like the-the Nimbus?" Alice asked hesitantly, dredging up the name from an image in her mind—throngs of teenagers on the street outside gawking at a shop window which had a sleek-looking broomstick on display with the label Nimbus 2000. She didn't want to look dumb in front of a potential friend.
"Yeah, the Nimbus 2000, that's definitely the one I'll get," the boy answered, looking pleased. Alice felt like pointing out that the price underneath the name looked pretty outrageous, but he seemed very confident so she kept her mouth shut. "I'll smuggle it into school somehow. It's a stupid rule, anyways, why can't first-years be allowed to play Quidditch? I play Quidditch, by the way," he continued with a self-assured smirk. "Father says it'd be a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house's team. Do you play?"
Alice felt embarrassed as she said no. She didn't even know what Quidditch was. Would it be lame to ask him?
"I'm sure you like Quidditch though."
"Uhmmm…" This conversation was not going too well.
The boy looked slightly disappointed. "Well, you can watch me play for my house at any rate and you'll like it then because I'm really good at it. Know what house you'll be in?"
Oh God the questions were coming too fast. "Um…no."
"Well, no one really knows till they get there," he said indulgently. "I know I'll be in Slytherin, all my family have been. Imagine getting Hufflepuff though. Yeeeesh. I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?" The boy had a disgusted expression on his face now.
Good grief, was there nothing she could talk about with this kid? "Uh.."
"Do you know our scarves and stuff take up our house colours once we get Sorted? Mine'd be green and silver then, the Slytherin colours."
Alice just nodded her head slightly, eyes wide, trying to take in every bit of information she could.
"Green and silver is a great combination, don't you think? I think it'd suit me very well, the green colour of my house,"he drawled on. Alice wished she could get in a word but he was looking at her as he spoke. "Green like the colour of your eyes."
Alice stared at the boy, non-plussed. For the first time, he looked less than confident as a pink tinge crept up his pale cheeks and he looked away.
There was an awkward lull in conversation until the boy spoke up again. "Woah, look at that dude!"
Alice turned around to look at whoever he was talking about. Hagrid was standing outside, grinning and waving two large triple-scoop ice creams in the air.
"Oh, that's Hagrid,"Alice replied immediately, pleased that she knew something the boy didn't.
"I've heard about him. He's some sort of servant at the school, isn't he?" The boy remarked.
"Uh…no. He's the Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts,"Alice corrected him, frowning.
"Sounds fancy when you say it like that. I've heard he's sort of savage," the boy said with obvious distaste. "Like he lives in a shack on the edge of the grounds, gets drunk every now and then, tries to do magic like us, and blows stuff up."
Okay, Alice didn't feel like being friends with this kid anymore. "I think he's great."
"Do you?" The boy said, like he thought she lacked good judgment skills. "Why are you with him, anyways? Where are your parents?"
"They're dead," Alice said curtly.
"Oh, sorry." His apology was awkward and Alice couldn't tell if there was any sincerity behind the words. "They were our kind, though, weren't they?"
"They were witch and wizard, if that's what you mean." Alice was feeling more and more uncomfortable by the second.
"That's good. I don't think they should let the other sort in, do you? I mean, some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they got the letter." The boy shook his head critically.
Alice didn't reply. She kept her gaze on her feet, face reddening.
"What's your name anyway?" He asked curiously.
"That's you done, dear." Madame Malkin was back and was smiling at Alice.
'Thank God.' Alice leapt down from the stool without answering the boy's question and paid the lady.
"I suppose I'll see you at Hogwarts, then," the boy said, kind of moodily, from behind.
Alice left the store without so much as a backward glance.
x_x
Needless to say, Alice had a million and one questions for Hagrid after the encounter with the pale boy. She asked him about Quidditch, ("It's sort of like so-soccer, 'cept it's played on broomsticks. Kinda hard to explain all them rules…") about Hufflepuff and Slytherin ("School houses. There's four of 'em."), whether one school house was better than the other ("O' course not! All the houses are equally good. 'Cept for Slytherin. There wasn' one witch or wizard who went bad who wasn' in Slytherin. But other than tha', they're all the same.") and if being from a Muggle family somehow made her inferior or weak ("Yer not from a Muggle family, Alice. If he'd known who yeh were… He's grown up knowin' yer name if his parents are wizarding folk. Anyway, what does he know about it? Some o' the best I ever saw were the only ones with magic in 'em in a long line o' Muggles. Look at yer mum! Look what she had fer a sister!")
After polishing off the ice creams, Hagrid took a skipping Alice over to Ollivander's wand shop. This was it, the most exciting part of their trip (which really is saying something), the part that she had been waiting for.
A small tinkle was heard as they pushed open the door to the shop. Alice looked around with wide eyes. The place was surprisingly magic-free, as far as she could see, for a wand shop. And yet it wasn't. There were no measuring tapes or quills or any other non-living thing moving about on its own. Nonetheless, the whole place tingled with some secret magic. It was dimly-lit, but she could tell that the shop was a lot bigger than it seemed from the outside —rows and rows of large, dusty cupboards disappear into the gloom, thin boxes stacked in them.
Alice glanced at Hagrid, nervous again and not really sure what she should do. Hagrid nodded at her encouragingly. She stepped forward.
"Good afternoon."
Alice jumped and wheeled around, looking for the source of the voice. Her eyes widened when she spotted a pair of glowing white orbs in the semi-darkness which were moving."Uh, hi."
The orbs glided forward out of the darkness. The form of old man materialised around them. He was watching Alice with those those orbs that were his eyes.
"Ah yes, " he said softly. "Yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Alice Potter." His voice seemed to caress her name. "You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work." Alice felt like she was part of a weird staring competition with the man, who she realised was Mr Ollivander. "Your father, on the other hand," he continued, still peering at her, "favoured a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration. Well, I say your father favoured it — it's really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course."
Alice sucked in her lips, not sure what to say. But Mr Ollivander apparently wasn't expecting her to. He moved toward her and reached out a long, white finger to part her messy fringe.
"And that must be where…" He touched the lightning-shaped scar on her forehead. "I'm sorry to say I sold the wand that did it. Thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands… If only I had known…"
He sighed quietly and looked up. "Rubeus! Rubeus Hagrid! Oak, sixteen inches, rather bendy, wasn't it?"
"It was, sir, yes, " Hagrid nodded his head quickly.
"That was a good wand, that was. But I suppose they snapped it in half when you got expelled?" The old man suddenly had a steely look in his large eyes.
"Er - yes, yes they did, " Hagrid replied, with less gusto now. "I've still got the pieces, though," he added brightly.
"But you don't use them?"
"Oh, no, sir, " Hagrid responded promptly.
'Oh so THAT'S what's in the pink umbrella.' Awareness dawned on Alice .
"Well, now, Miss Potter," the old wandmaker said, clapping his hands together. "Let's get down to it shall we?"
x_x
Alice laid down on the creaky bed in Dudley's second bedroom. A feeling of uneasiness was poking at her insides. It wasn't the because she had taken an hour to find the right wand (holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches) which apparently was not too common among wizards. Mr Ollivander had progressively grown more and more excited as she tried out one wrong wand after another, so she figured it wasn't that big a deal. But it was what he had said to her after she'd chosen—or rather after she had been chosen by— her wand. He kept muttering, "Curious… Very curious indeed…" When asked what was curious, he replied that the phoenix whose feather was inside Alice's wand, had given another feather, just one other. And that one had ended up in the very wand that had given Alice her scar.
She was wand-twinning with the wizard who had killed her parents. Perfect.
"Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember... I think we must expect great things from you, Miss Potter... After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things — terrible, yes, but great."
Those had been the parting words of the old man.
Probably not the best thing to say to weedy eleven-year-old who was totally new to all this.
Alice had been insecure about the whole ordeal as it is. She was famous, for something she didn't even remember! Everyone expected so, so much of her! How was she supposed to live up to all of their hopes? Hagrid had given her a very encouraging pep-talk on the way back, but it hadn't really helped alleviate her feeling that she was going to be big failure at all this.
Alice turned over to lie on her tummy. She really hadn't wanted to come back here, but Hagrid had insisted. He'd also given her a ticket, informing her that she had to be at King's Cross Station on the first of September, waiting on Platform Nine and Three Quarters for the Hogwarts Express, and that that she could contact him using her new snowy-white owl, which he'd bought for her as birthday present, despite her flustered protests.
Although she had never looked forward to anything more, Alice was also feeling dreadfully nervous.
What would the future hold?
_
A/N: YAHHHH! I DID IT! I STUCK TO MY DEADLINE! And if you know me, you'll know HARD and RARE this is!
I kind of rushed through this chapter, so please, point out any errors in it to me and help a girl out.
I'm very excited about this fic now, so I probably will upload the next one just as fast. :D
Review? Pweease?
xx
P.S. What about that Draco/Alice scene eh? ;)