Chapter 2: Start of the Journey
You grab an erasable marker and kneel down on the floor. Opening your notebook, you copy a symbol onto the wooden floorboard that looks like an oval with a circle in the middle, with an F on the right side and a vertically reflected F on the left. You write "The office" above the symbol. Immediately, your room filled with disembodied voices. Clapping twice, you sound proofed the room so that no one else can hear. The door slammed shut and clicked behind you.
You could hear Mrs. Jone's voice. "... Waldgrave? Waldgrave... Let me think..." There was sound of ruffling paper. "Oh, you mean Amy? Oh." A pause. "Ok. Well, I'm not sure she would be the best choice for your school."
"Why would that be? Is she difficult?"A deeper, masculine voice. This must be the visitor! He sounds like an older man. "For it does not matter. We would want her no matter what she's like."
"No no, it's not that..." Mrs. Jones trailed off a little. "It's just... The things she does are... a little strange." There was a shuffling noise, the kind people would make when they shift uncomfortably. So Mrs. Jones does share the opinion with everyone else. You're a freak and everyone knows it, and so be it. You are not ashamed of what you can do. It's the society that should be ashamed of its shunning attitude for people different from most.
"Ah. I see." There's the unfamiliar voice again. "Well, you should probably know that most of the pupils at my school are a little weird, as you put it." There was a noise of paper being drawn out. "Here are the papers."
"I see. Well, everything seems to be in order." A pause. "I suppose you would like to see her?"
"Very much."
There was the sound of footsteps and the scraping of chairs. Quickly, you wiped out the mark on the floorboard with your black t-shirt, concealing the evidence of eavesdropping. You sat on the edge of your moon-and-stars-patterned bed and tried to look as innocent as possible. Remembering, you clapped your hands twice again and the door unlocked. The sound barrier was also let down. The footsteps are on the stairs now.
No more the ten seconds later, there were knocks on your door. You stood up, but it opened before you could answer. Mrs. Jones' face peered into your room.
"Amy? You have a visitor." Behind her stands a tall, elder man with a rather strange appearance. His hair and beard are silver, and are so long they can be tucked into his belt. On his long, crooked nose perched spectacles in the shape of half moons, and behind them hid brilliant blue eyes that twinkled like the sun reflecting on the ocean. He smiled kindly at you. "Don't get too carried away with... you know..." Mrs. Jones trails off.
"I won't." You respond, eyes fixed on the strange man. He is wearing the purple vest of a three piece suit with a navy blue shirt under it and draped by a long gray trench coat, and wrapped by a scarlet woven scarf. On the collar of his shirt was a green polka dotted bowtie, and his left middle finger bore a golden ring encrusted with a large amethyst monogrammed with a golden M. You wondered what that stands for.
Mrs. Jones nodded and left. The stranger held out his hand and stepped into your room. "Hello, Amy." Still smiling, he grasped your hand firmly and shook it. "I am Professor Dumbledore. I would like to offer you a place in my school." He let go of your hand.
"Nice to meet you." His calm and even voice reminds you of someone. But who? "How did you know about me?" You said after a pause. "I've never won an award, heck, I've never even been to school. This orphanage taught us everything. The only documents about me are all legally required."
The man is still smiling. He had taken a seat at the chair behind your desk. "Our school has a special way of finding talent. We find and communicate with students all around the British Isles." his smile widens. "And this place showed particular talent. That is why I, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, personally came to find you."
You were shocked into silence. "I'm sorry, Hogwarts School of what?" You said after a while.
"Witchcraft and Wizardry." Dumbledore said simply.
Another uncomfortable silence. It was broken by you. "I hope this is a joke." But deep in your heart, you know that it was not. Deep in your heart, you've wished for this day to come for years, immediately after your first demonstration of what this man just called "witchcraft". And now, maybe you've found other people like you - special, gifted. Better and envied.
Professor Dumbledore merely shakes his head. He pulls out from his inside pockets a long brown stick that looks like it has joints, and points at the violin sitting in the corner of your room. It immediately floats up in midair and began to play itself.
You stare at it, eyes wide with horror. Then you turn your round eyes onto the professor. He laughs loudly. "You seem surprised. I thought you knew that you were different? We saw many signs of magic from this building, and you seem to be the one producing it." He put his stick thingy inside his coat again, but the connection broke and your precious violin falls from the air. Adrenaline increases your reaction speed: Your hand shoots out, and the violin freezes in midair. The bow hit the ground but bounces off like it landed in a trampoline. Slowly, you lead the violin back into its case, and turn to stare at the oddly dressed man again. He's right, you shouldn't be too surprised.
"It seems that you already exercise great control over your magic. You would make an excellent student, and eventually a brilliant witch." His eyes twinkled even more. "Wool's Orphanage does have its share of incredible magic."
For a while, you are unable to speak. "So it's magic that I can do?" You ask. It may seem so unbelievable, but to you, it seems so fitting. "And there are many others like me?"
"Tens of Thousands," the headmaster said. "And ever growing. You see, sometimes a witch or wizard is born in a completely muggle- that's what we call non-magical people- family."
"And is that what happened to me?" You question. Where had you come from, where will you go? Where did you come from, if this isn't a joke? Are you a mutation? Or did you inherit a special power passed down from your family for generations? You hope that it's the second. IT seems more supreme, more magical.
"I don't think so. We have reasons to believe that your parents are magical." His eyes suddenly are dull for a moment, but yours shines. "I actually personally knew them myself."
"Oh. So they're not dead?" They can't have died if they could do magic, right?
"They are. I'm sorry." He adds in response to the disappointed look on your face. "Magic cannot make you immortal, Amy. You must know that. All humans were meant to be mortal. Nor can it bring back the dead." He interrupted you as you opened your mouth. You quickly closed it again. "They were killed by a very dark wizard, his name is Lord Voldemort. Most of the witches and wizards do not speak his name, but the fear of a name increases the fear itself. And it does not matter now anyway, he is gone. Defeated by a Baby Boy." The last sentence was added to soothe your look of terror.
You looked deep into the old wizard's eyes. Beneath the sparkling blue, there is a silvery layer: thoughts and memories. You learned this trick from the raven: how to read one's thoughts. "Who's Harry Potter?" You ask him. That is the name that was spoken in your own mind, but is not your thought.
"What?" His tone suddenly turned sharp. "How do you know him?"
You shrugged. "It was in your eyes."
His voice turned even again. "Amy, you should know that mind reading is very rude in both worlds. Please do not do that again, and I question where you learned that."
"Sorry, Professor." You apologize. You shouldn't have asked. But you did not plan to reveal your source. Never reveal your entire self to someone you do not trust- and you certainly do not trust this man yet.
"Thank you. However, to answer your question- Harry Potter was the boy who defeated Lord Voldemort." There is no trace of the sharpness previously found in his voice. "But let's talk more about Hogwarts. Hogwarts, as you know, is a school of magic. Here is your official letter of invitation," He hands you an envelope. You open it to find a letter written in green ink directed to you, written by a "Professor McGonagall, deputy headmistress". "But it does not contain much more information. But enclosed you will find more important things. First is the train tickets to Hogwarts," You pull out a small rectangular cardboard ticket labeled nine and three quarters, at King's Cross Station. "And the second is the list of materials you will need during the school year."
At that, you look up. "But I haven't got any money," At the raise of the Headmaster's eyebrows, you add, "I worked in exchange for this stuff." you gesture around the room at the name brand clothes in the closet and the violin, and an entire bookshelf of colorful, leather-bound books. Now that you know of your identity, the books make the scene almost aesthetic.
"Well, that wouldn't be a problem. Your wizarding parents didn't leave you with nothing." Dumbledore smiles again. "There is a wizarding bank at the place where you will get all of your required materials. Your parents have a vault there. I have reasons to believe that it's pretty filled."
"Huh, neat." So your parents have left you a fortune, but you live in a shabby orphanage? "So how would I get there?"
Dumbledore stands up."I will be taking you there." He glances at the clock in the corner of the room. "If we leave now, we would get there by noon, and we will finish around five."
You stand up also. "Well, I'm excited."
"Can we find all of these in London?" You ask, standing at the gate of the orphanage. You had skimmed through the list of supplies and are now weirded out. Parchment! Quills! Cauldrons! You understand that there's a medieval magic aesthetic going on, but wouldn't pens and lined paper work better? And gee, you dunno, a stewing pot? You doubt any shop keeper will take you seriously in the whole British Isles.
"If you know where to look." You think Professor Dumbledore just winked at you.
After a thirty minutes walk, you arrive at a small, ancient looking pub at the corner of a street. It is so small that no one except for those looking for it would give it a second glance.
"Only a witch or wizard can see this place," Said Professor Dumbledore. "Muggles would walk right past it, not knowing that it's here. It's going to be very crowded in there, wizards and witches from all around the country come here."
You step through behind the headmaster, and are greeted by a rush of noise including the tinkling of glass and busy chatting, and occasional loud guffaws. They quiet down a little as they see Dumbledore, but the volume immediately increased again. The place is dimly lit and, to be honest, a little filthy. The tables are wooden and unwaxed or painted, and there are no floorboards. It looks like one of those medieval taverns you would see in video games. Has the wizarding society lived under a rock since the fourteenth century?
"G'morning, Headmaster." The barmaid greets him. Dumbledore merely nods and steers you towards the back. You walk out the back door and come to dead end, with an old brick wall and a battered bin. Dumbledore took out his stick again and taps a seemingly random brick above the trash can. The brick edges into the wall, and the whole wall began to shift, the bricks twisting and turning this way and that, and ultimately, formed an archway leading to an even more crowded street, filled with little shops that are full of what looks like metallic colored antics. You feel your breath being taken away.
"Welcome, Amy, to Diagon Alley." Says Professor Dumbledore.
Author's Note: I would like to say a word of thanks to everyone that is reading this, because you have stuck with me or Amy until at least the second chapter. Please like or follow, I worked hard on this. Please review if you feel like I did a good job or if I need to fix something. I look forward to publishing more :)