Kirsten's opened her mouth to scream, but a filthy hand beat her to it, muffling the sound. The curly headed girl made to move away from the body that belonged to the hand covering her mouth, swiping her leg in the direction.

"If you shut up and calm down, I won't hurt you." The deep and raspy voice was one that belonged to a man.

Processing his words, the teenager made the decision to stop struggling and felt the man's grip loosen, his hand no longer on her mouth.

Out of all the things that could happen...

Inhaling a deep breath of fresh air, Kirsten turned around slowly to get a good look at the stranger. With the help of the full moon, she got a better look at the man than she thought she would have.

The man was ghostly pale, gaunt even. His cheeks were sunken and eyes were hollow. Long dirty matted strands of hair fell onto his face and onto his shoulders. She would have to be blind to not realize how malnourished the man was.

"Oh my God. What the hell did I do to deserve this?" she muttered to herself in a low voice. "I'm going to be killed by a zombie!"

The gaunt man must have heard her as he let out a bark of laughter.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said once his laughter ceased. His eyes watched her carefully, and she noticed his brow furrowing as he stared. She couldn't help but stare at him either.

Never in a million years did she think she would be in this scenario. And even further, she didn't ever think she could trust the words that would come out of a man like him, but somehow she felt she could trust his word in not hurting her.

For the moment that was.

"Okay," she said slowly, holding her tongue before she could add in a comment that would surely piss him off.

"I just want you to do me a favor is all, alright? And then you can go," he growled, looking at his hand. "Do your parents know you're out here?"

Silence.

She didn't dare answer that. She was much more careful than an average thirteen year old. Who was she to tell a complete stranger that she was an orphan?

A stranger that looked oddly familiar at that. She wasn't known to connect with homeless men, considering she was just a thirteen year old girl. It was rather disconcerting how familiar he looked actually.

"Have we met before?" she questioned, noting that he averted his gaze to the ground. "You look familiar."

His lips twitched up into a twisted smile at her words.

She waited several seconds for him to reply but there was no response.

"Okay then… did you see where that dog went?" she asked him.

"You're looking at him."

Oh no...the man was an absolute loon.

"And I'm next in line to the throne," she replied, her mind still trying to comprehend what the man told her.

He shrugged his shoulders in an indifferent way as he looked at her with a smile on his face, revealing his yellow teeth.

The man had to be off his rocker if he wanted her to believe he was the dog, but she could play his game. "Well, I hear noises in my head."

He raised an eyebrow at her confession, as if wanting her to explain. "Well the noises sound like heartbeats... Oh and apparently I threw a girl halfway across a room today using my mind."

She had thought he was going to laugh at her. Who wouldn't laugh if someone claimed they were telekinetic and hearing heartbeats pounding in their head?

Instead, she saw his curiosity pique and his eyes brow furrowed into a frown.

"You're eleven."

It wasn't a question.

"Thirteen, actually," she corrected him, narrowing her eyes.

"And you never got a letter from Hogwarts?" he asked her.

"Hog-what? I - What's Hogwarts?" she asked, confused at what the man asked her. Why would he guess her age was eleven and mention such a weird name. She didn't think the man would take what she said seriously, but here he was sitting in silence and most likely thinking of other weird questions to ask her.

"It's a school," he said, sighing heavily. "Where people like us go to when we're young."

"People like us?" she asked, raising a brow.

Was he referring her to a mental institution?

"You really don't know, do you?" he asked, skeptical that she didn't know something so obvious. "The Ministry should've detected you the moment you first performed magic."

"You're kidding right? Magic doesn't...exist," she said the last word quietly as memories rushed to her mind. Her class had taken a number of field trips to visit exhibits in Westminster the other year. She remembered a group of oddly dressed people, wearing what looked like robes a judge would wear. But that wasn't what nabbed her attention. It was the conversation they had among themselves. She had overheard the group using the words "cauldron" and "witch" multiple times, and how they would "owl" each other. It clearly came as a shock to her that full grown adults would congregate and have a full blown discussion that would incorporate those words. But if she took what this stranger before her said now, and combined it with the odd incidents she always seemed involved in, it kind of made sense that would be the case.

Still the idea of magic sounded so...odd.

She had always thought she was like the mutants she'd read about in the comics that Aaric lent her.

Certainly not a witch.

"Show me then. If magic exists, you can prove it," she demanded. "Turn into the dog."

The man let out another laugh, shaking his head at her.

"Then you've got to promise me one other thing."

"Name it," she replied, wondering what the man would want.

"Don't tell anyone you've met me," he stated, tone more serious than she would have liked.

"Lucky for you I don't have anyone to tell. Well, anyone that would believe me," she told him, earning her another daunting smile from the man. "I guess that means you won't tell me your name since your obviously hiding from someone."

He snorted and she smiled. "You're an intuitive one."

Silence.

"It's Padfoot."

Kirsten shot him a look of interest, but mentally scolded herself. The name had to be a fake. And as much as she'd like to dig further to get the man's real name, she knew it couldn't result in anything good. There was a reason why he didn't tell her his name. He wanted to stay hidden, whether it be from her or other parties.

"Don't let your curiosity get the better of you. Trust me when I tell you that you don't want to know me," he said, practically reading her mind. She would have huffed indignantly but she kept it to herself. The man didn't currently pose as a threat to her, but who knew how quickly things would change if she were to provoke him.

There was another moment of silence when Kirsten watched the man once again, trying to piece where she could've seen him before. He was staring at his left hand and her eyes landed on a yellow gold band wrapped around a finger on his left hand.

"Married?"

His eyes left the gold band on his finger and landed on her. She heard him grunt as an answer but couldn't tell what that meant as he looked back down.

"Kids?"

"One…but…she was only a baby last time I saw her…" His voice was so quiet, and she couldn't believe how soft it went. "And they both…"

He didn't finish but Kirsten didn't need him to. She could tell what happened was a tragedy for him.

His wife and child were dead.

Watching the man staring at the ground, Kirsten Carlisle found herself feeling sympathetic for him. She never had to go through such a hard loss since she didn't really have much to lose in the first place.

"I'm so sorry," she apologized. "My parents...I didn't know them. I've been an orphan since I was a baby."

Kirsten pulled out the long gold chain, a pendant in the shape of a bird hung from it. The teenager had always kept the precious item tucked under her shirt since it was given to her last December. Madame DuPont had come by her room on her thirteenth birthday and surprised her with a box, containing the necklace. The woman mentioned that it belonged to Kirsten, and was originally on the girl's neck when she was found on the street, and had kept it safe for her until she felt she was old enough to have it around her neck once again. DuPont was incessant that Kirsten promise not to show it to anyone in the orphanage.

"My name's Kirsten," she told him.

If she didn't know any better, she would say that she said the wrong thing because of the man's response. At first he still looked quite sullen, eyes traveling to her face. And then widen as they landed on the pendant her fingers were playing with.

"Where did you get that?"

"It's my necklace. The matron at the children's home said it was around my neck when they found me," she finished. The man's eyes flashed up to hers and Kirsten shocked at the look in the man's eyes. They were searching her face frantically.

"Did you say you were hearing heartbeats?"

"Yes, for a while now –"

"And your caretaker, did they ever tell you how you were found?" he interrupted her, grey eyes examining her face.

"I - Well, yeah. DuPont said they found me in the dead of night on Halloween," she answered quickly, watching him carefully. This seemed to set him off cause he stood up immediately. His hands were raking through his dirty matted hair in what seemed like frustration.

"Those bastards -"

"Look, I don't know what I said wrong," she said, raising her right arm in front of her in a means to calm the man down. "Just please don't hurt me."

"The last thing I want to do is hurt you - I just can't believe -"

BANG!

Whirling her head around, Kirsten's vision was blinded by a sudden light. On instinct she jumped back from the empty road and in an unbelievable second later, a huge vehicle with a gigantic pair of wheels pulled up in front of her. She spotted golden words written on the side.

The Knight Bus.

Her jaw dropped when a young man around the age of eighteen or nineteen in a purple uniform leaped off the bus and in front of her.

"Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. Just stick out your wand hand, step on board, and we can take you anywhere you want to go. My name is Stan Shunpike, and I will be your conductor this evening," the young man said. He looked at her with a slight frown on his face.

Did she look that horrible?

"What happened to —"

"Nothing," she said, cutting him off before he asked anymore questions.

Like he should be asking them anyway.

Wait, did she just hear him say witch and wizard?

Her head whipped to her left, where Padfoot was just standing only to no longer see him there. Instead, there was the silhouette of the large hound she fed earlier in the distance.

No way.

"Where would you like to go, Miss…?" he said, trailing off so she can give him her name.

"Kirsten," she added quickly, looking up at him with a quizzical gaze. "Did you say anywhere?"

"Sure did, Kirsten."

"How much would it be to get to West End?" she asked, pulling out money from her pocket. "On Charing Cross?"

"Eleven sick —" Kirsten looked up at him in time to see him eyeing the money. "Oh you have them Muggle money?" he asked, turning back to the Knight Bus.

Muggle money? What the hell was this bloke jabbering about?

"Oi! Ernie! How much of them Muggle money to get on the Bus?" he yelled back, dropping his professional manner.

"Three pounds," she heard another voice mumble back.

Pulling out three one pound coins, she handed them to the young conductor and made sure to put the rest of her money securely in place.

"Now where's your luggage?" he asked, peering his head around to see. Kirsten motioned to the bag on her shoulder.

"That all you got?" he asked, looking at the bag skeptically.

"I travel light," she replied, boarding the bus after he nodded his head for her to follow.

What she was met with made her mouth drop more than when the bus initially popped up out of nowhere.

Instead of seats, there were half a dozen brass bedsteads beside the curtain windows and candles burning on the bedside tables. It didn't take long for her eyes to land on the only other passenger on the bus. Jet black hair framed the face of a bespectacled boy, who was sitting on the bed behind the driver. His eyes caught hers and she found him staring back.

"You can get the one next to that boy over there. His name's Neville Longbottom," Stan told her, pointing to a bed right next to the boy. "Lucky he asked for West End before, because that's the next stop."

The young teenager walked to the bed and settled herself down in a daze.

She had either finally gone mad or she was dreaming.

"Neville, this right 'ere is Kirsten," Shunpike said, dropping his professional manner once again. The curly headed teenager saw the boy's familiar emerald green eyes look curiously at her behind his round spectacles. He strongly reminded and resembled her old friend from primary school. The way his hair was messily matted down, green eyes bright, and scrawny figure hardly fitting in the clothes he wore...

It can't be —

"So you going to Diagon Alley like Neville here?"

"Dia-what?" she asked, confused. She had no idea what he was talking about, but that could also be due to the fact that she was somewhat preoccupied with the boy named Neville.

If that even was his name.

"You foreign or sumthin'?" Stan asked, curious himself.

The young man was asking too many questions which wouldn't usually bother her, but she was currently processing multiple things at the moment. Like how the man from earlier stated he was the dog. Or his statement of magic existing. Or how he started to behave like an outright loon at the mention of her name. Or how this bus suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Or how the conductor mentioned the words witch and wizard so casually. Or how the boy called Neville Longbottom was most likely a childhood friend of hers, who definitely did not go by the name Neville Longbottom.

So she sort of wanted to slap Stan Shunpike for being a bother while she was currently processing the strange turn of events.

"No," Kirsten answered, a frustrated smile graced her lips. "I'm heading to Diagon Alley too."

"Righto not gonner be long," Stan said. "'Old tight, then…"

BANG.

Kirsten's body jerked backward from the initial speed of the bus and she came to the quick conclusion of lying down on the ground until the bus would come to a halt.

They were definitely going over the speed limit.

"So, God, I know I haven't prayed since…ever, but I really, really need for you to have mercy on me because so far this night has been a living nightmare. I know that I haven't been a good child and all, but running into strange homeless men isn't my thing—" Kirsten mumbled under her breath, but was cut off as her head slammed against something else and she groaned out in pain.

"Thanks," she said sarcastically, glancing up at the ceiling and rubbing her head. "You really answered my prayer."

Pushing herself off the ground, Kirsten looked to see that the object that slammed into her was the boy named Neville.

With his hair disheveled from falling, Kirsten spotted a familiar scar on his forehead.

"Harry?"

His green eyes widened in shock, confirming who he was.

Kirsten Carlisle's night literally couldn't get any stranger.

"You two 'right? We're already here," Shunpike said, coming closer.

Already having dealt with crazy people for too long, Kirsten grabbed her bag and bolted straight from the bus only to come face to face with a man wearing pinstriped robes and a bowler hat.

No, no, no, and nope.

Kirsten immediately turned to her right in a rather quick pace, ducking her head down as she made her way down the street and away from the bus. She didn't want to be anywhere near the man, but she wanted to be close in proximity to wave Harry over when he got off the bus. She had some serious questions for him.

However, it seemed like the man wearing a pinstriped robe was waiting for him as she spotted the man putting his arm around Harry and leading him into a pub.

She sighed out and shook her head, not wanting to follow them in immediately.

The light breeze of the night hit her face and Kirsten involuntarily shivered. The young teenager went to grab a bite to eat while gathering the courage to go back to the bus stop. Her legs carried her quickly down Charing Cross only to stop in front of the place that bus dropped her off.

The green eyed boy was brought back to mind as she stared at the door he went through with that oddly dressed man man. She couldn't be wrong about who he was. That lightning bolt-like scar that ran down his forehead was more than enough proof. And he still looked the same since the last time she saw him, only a bit taller.

Kirsten's eyes raked over the name of the Leaky Cauldron: Pub and Inn before grabbing a hold of the knob and opening the door to enter. As she walked in, she observed the dimly lit room.

"This isn't dodgy at all," Kirsten mumbled to herself, glancing around the place. It was then that the man from earlier, wearing the same pinstriped cloak, came into view as he appeared from a room beyond the bar.

"Excuse me, but are you the innkeeper?" she asked the man. He stopped fastening his cloak and looked up to face her. His eyes widened as he stepped forward to get a better look at her, eyes widening further as he glanced down at her chest where the pendant lay, before looking back up into her eyes.

"My word," the man breathed, closing more of the distance between them. He blinked several times while surveying the girl before him.

"Am I that banged up?" Kirsten muttered, frowning. The man either ignored her or didn't hear her.

She hoped for her sake that it was the latter.

"You can't be…dear, what is your name?" he asked cautiously.

She almost laughed.

The man was acting like how Padfoot was reacting when she told him her name.

But this man didn't need a name...

She had half a mind to lie but decided against it.

There was a reason for his reaction. Padfoot also reacted similarly as if he knew her, or of her since she never met the man in her life. Maybe if she told this character, he would be able to fill in the blanks for her and understand why two strange man seemed to know who she was.

"Kirsten. Kirsten Carlisle," she answered, confused but she stared at him curiously as he started muttering to himself.

"Can't be….same first name….surname's different though," he mumbled incoherently. Of course her surname wasn't even real considering she was only a baby when she first came to the children's home, but he didn't need to know that.

"Listen, I only wanted to know the name of this place. I thought a friend of mine entered through here," she told him, wheeling around to leave the shady pub.

"Don't leave," the portly man said abruptly.

"Sorry?" she said defensively. Her eyes narrowed at the portly man and she sized him up. She was very tall for her age and was notably taller than the man in front of her. If need be she could easily take him or outrun him.

"Where are your parents, Kirsten?"

An old man in a pub asking her where her parents were…. She already made several poor decisions for the night. She wasn't about to make another.

It was definitely time to get the hell out of there.

Wrenching the door open, she felt the night air hit the side of her face as it entered the room; her eyes not leaving the man so he doesn't make sudden movements without her noticing.

"Nothing strange has happened to you in any way, has it?"

It was not only the question that stopped her from walking out, then and there, but it was the look on the man's face. She let go of the doorknob and faced him; her grip still tight around the handle.

"Strange? Like that bus from earlier? That was completely mad," she admitted him, a chuckle escaping her lips. "There were beds in there, you know. Who could even sleep with a madman driving like that."

"You were on the Knight Bus?" he questioned, and she nodded her head in response.

"Minister, I thought you have already gone," another voice filled the room. Kirsten's eyes drifted over to the man who just entered the area. An apron over his nightshirt, the man looked at her with wide eyes.

Minister? Did she just walk into some sort of strange mob oriented pub?

"Kirsten, are you familiar with magic?"