Alex's POV.
Hi, my name's Alexandra Monique, Alex for short. You'd think I was an ordinary teenager if you knew me, I keep my bad part of my life to myself but the thing is I'm not. I'm fifteen years old, have blonde hair that reaches my elbows, big blue eyes that are framed with thick, black eyelashes and according to a lot of people I look stunning, yeah probably a bit of an exaggeration. But looks can be deceiving anyway, right? Any regular teenager would think I had it all just because I was apparently beautiful but this isn't the case. Even people who knew me well thought I was amazing just because I hid behind a smile; well that's how good of a liar I am. At school I'm the smart, bubbly, fun loving teenager but the one thing that would dawn on me as the clock ticked away was me having to leave school at the end of the day to go home. Well that's what you're supposed to call it right, home? It didn't feel like it, I preferred school. To me, school would be a much better home than where I lived. Maybe if I didn't ever have to go home, my life would be almost perfect, of course not completely, after all no one's life's completely perfect, I would still have to worry about usual things like exams, friends and, well, life. Anyway, the problem with my home was that I never felt welcome, and you wouldn't be surprised if you lived there too. Would you feel welcome if you went home every day from a happy time at school with your friends to be greeted by a skanky step-mother who decided to fuck anything that breathed and a drunken father who spent his time either with her, feeling you up or beating you. To be honest, I much more preferred when my father decided to take his rage out on me than feeling me up, at least physical wounds were easier to deal with than emotional. So, you may have thought when you heard about the life that my friend's think I have that you would kill to be me, but now that you know my true story, be careful what you wish for...
Normal POV.
The door of the apartment slammed shut, as Alex walked through the strangely quiet place. The living area was rather large with light wooden floors and white walls. There was a large sofa in the room with red cushions, a fireplace in front and a large T.V on the wall above that.
"Where is everyone?" She whispered to herself, curiously.
"Harder, Jack, HARDER!" A breathless voice screamed from one of the rooms.
"Oh, wait, never mind," She muttered.
Alex's POV.
This was basically one of the greetings I was already used to from coming in from school. My slut of a step-mother shagging, wait which one was Jack again, oh yeah, my step-mother's boss, which must mean that dad's working late again. If you're wondering why I'm not living with my real mother, well she's dead, she died when I was 11 from a drug overdose. Trust me I did love my mother; at least she cared about me but she had been taken anti-depressant pills for about two years before she died, her way of dealing with my father. So, even I can admit she wasn't a strong person, she wanted to be, she kept promising she would take me away from him but she never had the courage to do it. When she died, you won't be shocked from what happened, my dad announced that he was engaged to some slut he'd been fucking for about a year. They got married when I was 12 and then we moved to this apartment, it is nice to be fair, it's spacious with three bedrooms, mine, my 'parents' and the guest room, which is usually for my uncle (my dad's brother) when he stays. I don't know why he doesn't just share a bed with my step- mother and dad; he spends enough time fucking her in it. Thankfully my uncle isn't over very often. Oh, by the way my step-mother's called Cheryl and my father's name is Dave, just thought you should know.
Normal POV.
Alex was already tired by the time she was home, she had stayed back late though, for football practice. There were only two girls on the team, the rest were boys, there was her, obviously, and her best friend, Ashleigh, who was like the most athletic person she had ever met. She tried desperately to block out the moaning and banging coming from her step-mother and Jack while travelling to her bedroom, and decided, in conclusion, to take a shower in her en suite bathroom. Her bare feet met the ice cold tiles of the bathroom and she quickly stripped off out of her tracksuit. She stared silently at herself in the long mirror on the wall. Her body was athletic with nicely toned muscles and a flat stomach but she was pale, really pale. It's almost like ripping apart two worlds once her clothes were off, when she's covered she looks normal, when she's bare the bruises along the top of her thighs and her chest are clearly visible. There were a couple faint scars across her wrists that she made when her mother died but since then she realised it was stupid to harm herself, even more so when someone else was doing it to you anyway. Her arm reached out to turn the shower on and seconds later she was standing under warm water that made its way down the full length of her body. She had let forty minutes pass before eventually getting out of the shower and wrapping herself up in a fluffy white towel. She wandered through the door into her bedroom; it had a double bed in the middle, with a bedside table and a wardrobe on each side, a T.V on the wall opposite the bed, a large window behind the bed and a smaller one to the side. Her floors were also light wood with white walls; her curtains were turquoise blue and her duvet had black at the bottom that changed into a turquoise blue further up with small flowers coming out that were spread up the rest of the duvet which was white. She did like her bedroom, it was the only place she could escape to, the one place she could be alone, well that was only because she had a key to lock the door. Alex collapsed onto her bed; her eyelids felt like lead, she could barely keep them open. A faint slamming of the apartment door echoed through her ears, followed by the occasional murmurs of people talking. She knew her father was back but she didn't care. Her door was locked and she was too tired to respond to anything. She fell slowly into a deep sleep, her chest rising and falling under the towel that covered her.
A loud bang awoke her; she shot up, breathing heavily. She knew it was nothing to worry about, probably just her father passing out or something. Her blue eyes glanced over at the clock beside her, it was 04:12. Problem was, she wasn't tired anymore, she clicked the switch of the lamp on the bedside table next to her and grabbed her brand new copy of 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix'. She hadn't read it yet, she had only gotten it a couple days ago and with the amount of homework she's had, she didn't have time. Now she could finally immerse herself into the new book of her favourite saga, Harry Potter.
Alex's POV.
I traced the book cover with my fingers, looking at the giant phoenix on the front. I wonder what this book's about, it's only been out in stores for a few days so no one has told me the plot yet, which is how I like to read, when I have no idea what's going to happen. I folded down the first page where it said in large bold letters 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix'. How I would love to live a life like theirs, full of excitement, away from my family. That's one of the reasons why I loved Harry Potter so much, not only did it allow me to get lost in its words but I could actually relate to Harry, except for the part where the crappy people I live with are actually my parents, well Cheryl's my step-mother but still. I looked back down at the book, was it just me or were the words getting bigger? I pressed my hand firmly against the book and before I knew it I felt a strong tug pull me through something. I was spinning around, I could see words, sentences just floating around me as I spiralled out of control in a place I had no idea where I was. I tried to scream but my voice was lost. I held onto the book tightly, not daring to let go. With one last tug, I felt my feet fall firmly onto solid ground, but the ground was stone, so it wasn't in my bedroom. So where was I?
Normal POV.
Alex focused on the room in which she had entered, it wasn't that small, but it wasn't huge. The room was a peculiar shape with stone walls and floor. The walls were also covered in portraits of people. Her eyes shot back to the pictures she had just recently dismissed, this couldn't be possible. They were, moving? The book in which she had been previously holding was nowhere in sight but it didn't stop her from making the connection between it and the room. If she remembered correctly, no matter how bizarre it was, this room matched the same description in the previous books of Dumbledore's office. Ok, this was obviously a dream, right? She pinched herself, nothing happened, she pinched harder, nothing changed. A desk with a chair on each side was sitting not too far from her and beside that was the famous Fawkes, the phoenix, perched on a stand. She spun around to face the door which, if she could recall, led down some stone steps and past a large gargoyle. There was no sign of Dumbledore in the room. This was obviously a dream though, it couldn't be real, she couldn't actually be standing in the office of Albus Dumbledore, a fictional character from a book. But the room was pretty much identical to how she imagined it from the descriptions in the books. This didn't make sense, it must be a dream. But it didn't feel like a dream, no matter how strange it was, no matter how impossible it was. So, what was this?
"Can I help you?" A voice asked from behind her, causing her to jump around startled.