Anna sat in the back of the bus, looking out of the window without really seeing any of the buildings and shops pass by. Her jean-covered knees were pulled back against her chest and her feet were propped up against the seat in front of her. A small backpack was pressed between her side and the window. Her face was partially covered by her curls, that were as wild as ever, and her hands were covered by the too-long sleeves of her thin polyester jacket. Her clothes were all hand me downs, obviously, and didn't fit her well but she took what she got.
Mrs Yeats had given her money to buy new clothing. She had won a scholarship, Mrs Yeats said, she couldn't go to this school looking like a rag doll. Anna silently agreed, she definitely didn't want other magical people looking down on her. Finally she would be somewhere with people like her, finally she could talk to equals. She didn't want to give them a reason to exclude her, not when she had a chance to belong.
A small smile tugged at her lips. She had to find out all that was important in the magical world. Simple history, background information, small things that would help her navigate through wizarding life. When there's information out there, there is no excuse for being misinformed.
She wouldn't have to buy all that many clothes, she had new clothing which she never used. Mrs Yeats just didn't know it. Every once in a while she would collect the allowances and buy herself something new, as a way to congratulate herself for something, so now she would have more money to properly buy what she needed. A frown pulled at her lips. First she would have to ask for help with the magical money, the golden, silver and bronze coins. The Professor had forgotten to teach her. She would have to find a bank -there had to be a bank somewhere, right?- where they could explain the currency and she could change the... muggle money she had gotten for wizarding money.
The rest of the bus was empty, since it was quite early on a Saturday, so Anna just smiled a real smile. It wasn't like anyone could see her.
"Here you go, one hundred galleons, fourty sickles and fifteen knuts." The strange being said. His voice came out as a hiss through his pointed teeth and his small black eyes were narrowed at her. His face was full of wrinkles and the few white hairs he had fell limp over his small hunched shoulders.
Anna put the coins back in the pouch and smiled at it- him- whatever she should call it- him. "So, seventeen sickles to a galleon and twenty-nine knuts to a sickle?" She confirmed.
The goblin, Ragnok, nodded. He had changed her pounds for wizarding money and explained it to her, patiently repeating his words whenever necessary, even if he seemed irritated to have to do so. He led her back to the street through halls and halls of marble, black and white, and gold details and statues and suits of armour. It was truly impressive and she didn't stop herself from gaping. It didn't seem like the goblins liked the wizards much, so the more she flattered them, the less inclined they would be to do something that might hurt her. Right?
She was young, not stupid.
Again she politely thanked Ragnok for his help and walked off in the direction he had said Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment was, which sold trunks amongst other things. The shop had two stories, and its front had dark wood paneling on which the shop's name was painted in gold. Silver and gold stars glittered all over the walls. Hesitantly she pushed open the door, causing a soft bell to chime as she stepped in.
It was early and the man behind the counter seemed asleep. He woke up when he heard the ring, however, and smiled a wide, enthusiastic smile at her. He scuttled from his spot, wiping his hands on a leather apron he wore around his waist, and stood in front of her, still grinning. Ginger curls sprung from under a faded red cap and strong smell of... cider?... surrounded him.
"What can I do for you, lass?" He asked.
"I was wondering if you have trunks. I'm going to Hogwarts this year, you see. But I can't take anything too large with me." Anna kept her eyes fixed on the man's reddened ones and smiled sweetly.
"Of course! Come along, come along."He waved her through to the back of the shop. "You're here mighty early though."
"I don't sleep all that much." She answered. "I had to take the bus early."
"Muggle-born, are you?" He asked lightly.
"No." She bit out. "My parents were just busy." She lied through her teeth.
Anna was sure he had meant it well, or at least not badly, but she felt insulted. Born from... those ignorant fools? Please.
"Here we are." He showed her a pile of large wooden trunks. Next to it was a smaller pile of what seemed to be large wooden briefcases. They had thick leather straps to keep them closed that matched the leather handle on top. "You said something smaller, right? These have an Undetectable Extension Charm, so they fit the same as a trunk, but they're easier to carry around." He rubbed the back of his face and smiled a crooked grin. "They haven't caught on much since most kids just use their parents' trunks nowadays."
She walked to one of them and picked it up. Its handle was smooth and felt comfortable in her hand so she wouldn't tire from carrying it around for long periods of time. "How much does it cost?"
"Just ten galleons, lass." He waved the price off. "I have the lowest prices in Diagon Alley!"
Anna raised an eyebrow but didn't complain. Approximately seven pounds to a galleon, which would be seventy pounds for the trunk... She guessed she could afford it... at the moment.
"I'll take one." She said and held it out to him.
"Great! Can I help you with anything else?" He asked as they walked back to the counter.
"No, thank you. I need to find everything on the school list." She held up the envelope. "I'll come back if I need anything from here through."
The man, who had never introduced himself but she assumed was Wiseacre, laughed good-naturedly. "Alright then, lass. That'll be ten galleons."
Anna carried her briefcase down the street. She already had her quills and parchment, her cauldron, her potions supplies, her scales, and her robes -which she had been able to buy first hand thanks to Mrs Yeats' gullible and kind donation- so now she walked to Obscurus Books, a bookshop in the far back of Diagon Alley (actually somewhere called Knockturn Alley) where she hoped to find all the books she needed. Granted, they would all be in Flourish and Blotts, but so would the rest of the wizarding world. At eleven in the morning on a Saturday a lot of wizards and witches were in Diagon Alley, shopping, and she just needed somewhere quiet right now. She was tired of smiling and nodding and being polite the whole morning.
She walked in the shop and started browsing the shelves. She looked at her list.
Magical Drafts and Potions
Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1
The Dark Forces; A Guide to Self-Protection
One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi
A History of Magic
A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration
Hogwarts; A History
Most of them seemed interesting. The history ones for sure; she was always interested in the way people behaved and reading about people's screw ups was more than slightly hilarious. Potions seemed fascinating and so did charms and transfiguration, but defence against the dark arts? What were the dark arts? Wasn't magic just magic? It was probably a cultural thing that she didn't understand.
Anna frowned confusedly, but kept looking.
"Can I help you?"
Anna jumped and turned around, holding her hands up as if to push someone away. She came face to face with an old wrinkled woman. Ash grey hair hung loose down to her hips and her frail frame was wrapped in a thick woollen cloak, even if it was summer. The woman's cold faded eyes looked her up and down distrustfully before focussing on her face and widening.
"Who are you?" The woman asked, sounding oddly startled, even if she was the one that had appeared out of nowhere.
"Anna." She answered. "Anna Connors."
"Anna Connors... and what are you doing in my shop?"
"Flourish and Blotts was too crowded." Anna whispered. The woman scared her. She was proud to say that not many things scared her, but this... person made chills run down her spine and her mouth turn dry. She licked her lips nervously. Her back was pressed up against the bookshelf and even so the woman stood hunched over her. Their noses almost touched and Anna could smell the damp, dank air that clung to the shopkeeper.
"Too crowded." The woman turned away and waved to her over her shoulder, urging her to follow. "Too crowded, she says."
Anna followed the strange woman, albeit wearily. She walked after her to the counter at the back of the shop. It was dark back there, only a single candle burned on a small clay plate on a shelf and it lit up the space. Behind the desk, a dark purple curtain, detailed with beads in wavy patterns, shone in the light. The curtain was still moving slightly, as if the woman had just hurried out from behind it, and the metal rungs that held it up made a small squeaking sound that made Anna grit her teeth.
The air smelled of decay and mothballs.
"You'll want a Hogwarts packet, won't you... Anna?"
"Yes, please. The first years'."
The woman nodded without looking at her and whipped out a wand from her sleeve. The wand was thin, as thin and frail looking as the woman, long and made of a pale wood that was twisted into a spiral. She waved the wand and looked back at Anna.
"The books will be ready in a minute, look around while you wait."
Anna stood still for a second before hesitantly turning around and losing herself in the maze of shelves again. Many books caught her eye. Many of those books were of what could be called a dubious nature by the ones that made a difference between 'light' and 'dark' magic, she supposed. Probably, considering what she knew to be considered 'dark' and 'light' in the fantasy books she'd read. Anna didn't care about that and, as she gently stroked a book called Secret of the Darkest Arts she felt a slight pulling sensation somewhere in her chest. She froze in shock. The magic inside her was reeling, like it did when she used it, but now it moved unbidden. A frown appeared on her face as she forced it back into submission, as she had done the whole day with the hallucinations. What did it matter if she saw gory and disgusting scenes wherever she went? She didn't want to see them so she wouldn't. Anna never did anything she didn't want to do.
A flash of green engulfed her vision but she knew it wasn't real, she'd seen it often enough to know. She scrunched her eyes tightly and counted to ten, calming her breath. After a few seconds she slowly opened her eyes again, sighing in relief at the absence of the stinging in her gut that she got when her magic was active. In the dark she could make out red eyes, but they weren't disappointed. She didn't know what they felt now.
Did her having magic mean that those eyes were real?
A small scream escaped her throat as a bony hand grabbed her shoulder from behind. Anna whirled around and came face to face the woman once more.
"What?" She snapped, her fear momentarily forgotten but then remembered again as she met the woman's eyes.
"Your books are ready." Her wheezing voice sounded. "But you can stay as long as you like." The sunken eyes trailed to the book in Anna's hands and widened slightly in alarm. "You can come here whenever you like miss... Connors."
Anna stared at the woman in a daze and nodded slowly. "Thank you."
"Come then."
Again Anna followed the woman, but now she was led to the back of the shop, past the purple curtain. There was a small room with grey walls and dark wood on the floor. Rough furniture lay spread around and some armchairs stood before a large stone fireplace. The fire was lit and it bathed the room in a warm but eerie light. Without thinking, Anna walked to one of the armchairs and sat down, keeping the book clutched tightly in one of her hands and her briefcase in the other. Her eyes landed on a pile of books on a small table. The titles belonged to the books on her list and they were bound tightly, as if to be taken away. Those were her books.
"Here." The woman placed a simple glass tea-cup on the arm of her chair. Inside it was dark tea, nearly black. Anna sipped it and a strong bitter flavour spread through her mouth. The woman could have poisoned it, but somehow Anna though that the woman didn't mean her harm. Surely if she'd wanted to hurt her she would have already?
Grey eyes trailed to where the adult stood in a corner, pouring herself tea.
"What's your name?" Anna asked, not bothering to keep her tone falsely polite. This woman could look right into her soul, Anna believed, and she had already seen the bitterness in it.
"Agatha." The woman said.
"Thank you for letting me come here, Agatha."
The sun was almost setting as Anna stepped out of Obscurus Books to get the last item on her list. A wand. Her suitcase was heavier than before, what with the packet of books -which Agatha hadn't charged her for, surprisingly insisting on not being paid- and Anna was forced to half drag half carry it down the street. Most of the coloruful shops had already closed and the windows were dark, but when she got to Olivander's there was still a light burning and the sign still said 'open'. Anna sighed in relief, not because she wasn't coming back to Diagon Alley, which she was, she just wanted to have her wand today.
A small bell rang as she stepped through the door but she paid it no mind as she set her briefcase down by the door. Her soft sneakers squeaked loudly as she walked to the middle of the silent room. She placed her hands on the dusty desk and cleared her throat.
Almost as soon as she had done that, a staircase slid into view, carrying a willowy man with grey hair. His eyes widened slightly as she saw her, but she ignored it. For some reason many people had done that, but she could not know why. Agatha, Anna seethed, had been unwilling to tell her. She had lied to Anna's face and said she didn't know what she was talking about. So now Anna ignored it and smiled charmingly.
"Excuse me, mr Ollivander?"
"Yes, child?" Ollivander stepped down and stood in front of her. The smile he directed at her was more than a little forced, but Anna refused to acknowledge that.
"I need a wand. I'm starting Hogwarts, you see."
"Yes. Yes, of course." The man seemed to shake himself out of his shock and opened a drawer. A measuring tape flew out and started floating around her, measuring the distance from shoulder to fingertips, from shoulder to toes, between her eyes and many other ridiculous places. Ollivander turned away from her and walked among the rows of boxes.
"What is your wand arm, miss...?"
"Connors. Anna Connors. And... I mostly use my right arm but I can write just as well with my left. I prefer the right, though." She said, trying to ignore the tape that was now measuring her head.
He turned around and shooed the tape off, coming to stand just a few paces away and looking straight at her. He squinted slightly but the whipped back around and stalked back the way he came.
"A yew wand, definitely..." She heard him mumble. "Too familiar..."
Anna frowned but then smiled immediately as Ollivander walked back with a large pile of wand cases in his arms. He put the carefully on his desk and started talking without looking at her. "Yes, you definitely must have a yew wand. Yew is for unusual customers, yes, always... different. They never have a timid of mediocre wielder, but then-" His eyes shot to her. "I think you are neither."
He looked back down at the desk, where he had been dividing the wands into three piles. "Not too many unicorn hairs, those are for the purest of hearts and the yew wand are for those who wish for greatness. That kind of person very rarely doubts any of their actions, they have their own rules they follow..." His eyes landed on the tallest tower, which consisted of only six wands. "Dragon Heartstring... Yes, that is the biggest chance." He picked one of and opened it. He held it out to her.
Anna looked into the box. On a soft copper toned fabric lay a long thin wand made of dark wood. The bottom of the handle was of a lighter wood and a trail of it traveled up to the tip of the wand, curving around it gently. Anna traced the lighter wood with her finger and couldn't help but frown. It felt wrong. Her magic coiled in around itself, deep in her stomach.
"No, not that one." Olivander snatched it away and put it on the other side of the desk. He grabbed another box and held it out. This wand was shorter, the wood was lighter, but the handle was curved at the end, creating a loop which held what seemed to be a small bead of ember.
Anna picked this one up. It felt...heavy, uncomfortable, but she waved it anyway. The windows shattered, making her jump away and hurriedly put the wand back into the case. "Sorry, sorry sir." She mumbled, but Ollivander shook his head in dismissal and waved his own wand.
The windows were fully repaired at the same time that Ollivander held out another wand. Anna stared at this one. It lay in the box, on a thin sheet of silver cloth. The wand was of bone white wood, and very long. The handle, which was separated by a thin strip of black wood, had carving in lines crawling up the stick, like ivy or lightning. The slits in the wood were filled with that seemed to be green ink. Anna picked it up, feeling the rough surface of the wood carefully, and had to suppress a smile. It felt good, it felt right. It felt like having a third hand.
She waved it and, to her surprise, a thin fog appeared in the room. The fog moved for a second before starting to disappear as in a sort of glitter.
"That one it is then. Nine and a half inches, fairly flexible. Yew and Dragon Heartstring, from a Peruvian Vipertooth." Ollivander studied her carefully. "Yew wands are very powerful, miss Connors. I trust you will be... reasonable with your use of it."
Anna could barely contain a scoff as she nodded, smiled and paid him his thirteen galleons.
Narcissa kissed Draco's head. "If you misbehave, Draco, don't get caught." She smiled down at him.
Draco looked up at his mother and grinned, showing off his pearly teeth. "Of course, mother."
Lucius chuckled and placed a hand on Draco's shoulder, before letting his eyes trail over the other families on the platform. Beside him, Narcissa turned Draco around and pressed him to her chest, where he would stand until it was time for him to go. Narcissa loved her son; he was her world, she would do anything for him, and now he was leaving. He was growing up. Tears welled behind her eyes but she blinked them away, as a proper pureblood lady should. Her fingers clenched on Draco's shoulders and he wriggled uncomfortably. She didn't notice. She couldn't get her sister out of her head. Narcissa couldn't imagine the pain Bellatrix must have gone through when they took Annabelle, she didn't want to imagine it.
If Annabelle was alive, she would be going to school this year, so the Malfoys kept looking around, as did the rest of the former inner circle that was present. Draco had been told about his long lost cousin, how could he not be? She was family. Pureblood family that had been wrongfully taken away from them. In any case, she should have been returned to them when the Dark Lord fell, and for that, most of all, Narcissa would never forgive Dumbledore.
Then Lucius gasped and Narcissa's eyes shot to his face. Then she turned to scan the area at which he was looking and, finally, they landed on a young girl who was pulling a briefcase behind her. She was wearing muggle clothing, she saw with disgust, grey shoes and those horrible jeans with a green loose shirt. Her hair was Bellatrix's though, heavy black curls fell across her shoulders and back and she paused to wipe some locks away from her eyes. From this distance they could see that her skin was pale and that her body was thin. Narcissa had never traveled with a time-turner, but she knew that Bellatrix had looked exactly as this girl did now.
The girl stopped and straightened up, as if feeling the gazes, but when she turned around she didn't look at them. She looked up, at the glass ceiling as if relieved of something. A tiny smile pulled at her lips, which were identical to Narcissa's, and her eyes glittered. Grey eyes.
"Rodolphus' eyes." Lucius mumbled.
"Where?" Draco asked, looking around wildly.
"Calm down, Draco. There." Narcissa gently directed his face to where Annabelle stood.
"She looks like aunt Bellatrix... in the pictures you showed me." He said.
"Yes, she does." Narcissa said, smiling fondly. "Get to know her, Draco, but pretend you don't know her. Find out about her life, and invite her over for christmas. We'll tell her everything there."
Draco nodded and carried off his trunk, entering through the same door as he saw his cousin enter the Hogwarts Express.