Year 1, Chapter 2

Elle slept for nearly twenty-four hours. When she woke up, she was so disoriented she felt as if she'd dreamed the whole thing up, everything that had happened in the year that had passed and culminated into the perplexing conversation with the ancient old lady who had given her soup and told her she was a witch. She had half expected her mother to call out to her from the kitchen, which was also their bedroom, and dining room, and living room, to wake up because she was going to be late for school, just as she had done so many times before. But it hadn't been a dream. The only voice calling out to her to wake up was the deep purr of Cat, who had taken sentinel position at the door as soon as Elle had passed out, just as he had looked over her while she slept so many times before. The disappointment had been hard to swallow. However, the excitement of the wizarding world lay right outside her door and focusing on that made her situation almost bearable.

A witch. She couldn't believe it. She had always known that things happened to her that were very strange, but before last night it was just another reason to think herself a freak and an outcast. The fact that she was so forgotten that she could disappear without a trace had not been a comforting thought, and it certainly hadn't been a talent she held with pride. Elle had never had many friends, even before her mother had disappeared and she had left school. People often mistook her shy silence for haughty airs, which was a very bad thing to have in the rundown city primary she had attended. In reality, most people just puzzled her, but it didn't mean that being invisible to them didn't sting. Either way, she had always been a bit of a loner. There was tiny glimmer of hope in her chest that maybe now, if she joined other witches and wizards in their world, she would fit in better.

The very first thing she did when she awoke was read her letter in its entirety. It was a long letter, written in deep purple ink, that described the basics of the Wizarding World. How to travel to Diagon Alley to purchase school supplies. The length of the semesters, and where the train would be picking them up (platform nine and three quarters gave her pause – she didn't know where to find that at King's Cross, which felt odd since she had explored it from top to bottom while hiding from the cold winds this winter). The letter ended with a stern warning that practising magic outside of Hogwarts was strictly forbidden. While initially disappointing, this ended up being a comforting thought to Elle. If underage wizards were forbidden from practising magic, maybe she wasn't as far behind as she had originally feared she would be. She had always been a good student (another reason the kids excluded her), but she was worried how that would translate to the study of magic. The last page in the envelope was her list of school supplies. She played with the drawstring of her money pouch nervously as she read it.

Elle's mother had been a proud woman. They had never had much, but Elle always had three meals a day, a birthday present, and two packages under the tree at Christmas time. It was all she needed, and to ask for help for frivolities would be considered unspeakable. But still, there had been the time that Elle had broken her arm after falling from a very tall tree ("a miracle that's all you broke!" the doctor had said) and her mother had accepted a ride to the hospital from another mother at the park instead of taking the longer bus route. And her mother always told the story of how Grandma Smith, who had no relation to them, had taken Elle's mum in when she had nowhere else to go. They'd lived with her until she died when Elle was three, and Grandma Smith had left them the flat. They were family, even if not by blood. Elle's mum had taught her when it was appropriate to accept help, and when it would just encourage pity, a lesson that Elle had learned quickly. While Elle had never held this much money in her hand before, which made her nervous, this felt like help that was appropriate.

After she had read and reread the letter three times, to make sure she hadn't missed a word, Elle took a very long bath. The bath water had to be changed twice before she was satisfied, but finally, after tugging a brush through her hair until she was teary eyed from pain and frustration, she emerged from the bathroom almost a completely different person. Her hair, which had previously been matted and clumped, brown from the dirt and grime of London's streets, was returned to its original honey gold. She felt like a person again. Her old clothes, stiff from dirt, were thrown out in favour of the outfit that she had found folded neatly on the end of her bed. The pants were much too big but stayed on alright with the belt looped to its tightest rung. The shirt was a forest green, which brought out the similarly coloured flecks in her hazel eyes. They had clearly been scrounged from some lost and found the pub kept, but Elle didn't mind. They were clean and soft, and all she needed.

With a deep breath, and a reassuring purr from Cat, Elle, clutching her school list in her hands, walked downstairs into the Leaky Cauldron pub. Immediately, she was taken aback. The once empty room was roaring with life. She sat on one of the barstools. The barmaid, a different girl from the night before wordlessly placed a sandwich in front of her. Elle couldn't help her cheeks flushing a bright pink. Her staying at the pub had clearly been discussed amongst staff. She didn't dwell on it long however, as there were so many characters to look at around her. To her right a tiny man with the longest black beard she had ever seen was in a lively discussion with a tall woman with bright pink hair. She caught a snippet of their conversation but most of the words, like quidditch, seeker, and firebolt made no sense to her. A table just behind her was full of men wearing robes of splendid colours, and they seemed to be talking about something called 'goblin relations.' Elle's head was already swimming, and she hadn't even left the pub to shop yet.

After a quick lunch, she nervously followed the next witch she saw leave towards the entrance to the alley. She had only just opened the door when all the bricks on the wall in front of her started to move of their own accord. Elle watched, wide eyed and amazed, as the archway took form and revealed the amazing street in front of her.

"Hurry up dear, or the door will close again" the witch, seeming to intuit much from Elle's facial expressions, encouraged.

Elle stepped through the arch and entered into what seemed like another world. She spent the first hour in Diagon Alley walking up and down the blocks, soaking up all there was to see. Each shop window seemed more interesting than the last, one with golden gadgets whirring or floating or sending out puffs of multicoloured smoke, and the next with books piled high with all sorts of interesting titles such as How to Master the Wronski Feint and 100 Other Quidditch Maneuvers, or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, a Complete and Terrible Biography. Even more amazingly, all the pictures on the covers moved. There was a purple joke shop at the end of the street that had streams of children around her age running in and out of its doors, giggling all the while. Elle wanted desperately to join them but shied away from the idea for the time being. The kids would likely ask where her parents were, and Elle didn't want to think up an explanation for why she was doing her school shopping all alone just yet.

Slowly, Elle got her bearings and she started to work through her school supplies list. She already had Cat, so that was one done, and pretty soon she was struggling under the weight of bags carrying aging schoolbooks and second-hand robes. Her potions kit was pretty dinged up, but she thought most of everything else was in pretty good condition. The robes didn't fit properly, but that couldn't be helped, there weren't sizes small enough to fit her slender frame. Still, they weren't too bad, and maybe she would grow into them. Overall, she was optimistic, perhaps stubbornly so, that she wouldn't stand out too much on the train to Hogwarts.

The last stop on her shopping trip was to get a wand. This was the moment Elle had been putting off, because it seemed to fill her with nervous energy. How did she pick a wand? She knew nothing about magic, and she was afraid her ignorance would show completely in the wand shop. Still, there was a part of her that was desperately excited. To have a wand would make her feel like a real witch. It would make all of this day seem real. It would make her feel like she belonged in this world. With a deep breath, her and Cat (who had been dutifully following her all day) entered the shop that read Ollivander's: Makers of fine wands since 382 B.C.

The interior of the shop was by far the smallest and dingiest Elle had seen all day. There were no fabulous displays, and it wasn't bustling with traffic either. All that was there was a single spindly chair, and thousands of tiny boxes, packed on top of each other, spanning from floor to ceiling from every wall and disappearing into rows. Elle stood awkwardly for a moment, unsure of what to do.

"hello"floated a whispery voice from the gloom of one of the rows of wands "that's a lovely cat you have there" Pale silvery eyes emerged first from the gloom, followed by a slender witch with dirty blonde hair, wearing an odd assortment of skirts and shawls. "Are you here to buy your first wand?" she asked, still with an air of dreaminess about her. Elle could only nod, taken aback by this sudden apparition. "My name is Luna Lovegood" the wand shop woman stated, answering a question Elle hadn't the courage to ask. "I've taken over this shop from my dear friend Mr. Ollivander." Elle jumped at the last word, but only out of surprise of finding a tape measurer measuring, of its own accord, her lanky arms, the width of her chin, and just about every other measurement you could think of.

The strange woman seemed to pay the tape measure no mind, so Elle tried her best to follow suit. "What's your name?" the woman asked, as she began to run her fingers over the rows of boxes, pausing every now and again before moving on. "Elle" the girl answered, unsure of how to go about the business of asking for a wand. "That's a pretty name" the woman replied, oblivious to Elle's discomfort. Almost out of sight she finally stopped and pulled a box from the shelf. "I think we should give this one a go. Black walnut with unicorn hair. 6 inches. Quite bendy." she said, bouncing across the room and handing the dusty box to Elle. Elle stood there holding the box, trying her best to look like she knew what came next.

"Open it up and give it a wave" Luna instructed gently "see if the wand connects with you. The wand chooses the witch you know" she explained, "it's always been that way." Elle held the wand in her hands and gave it a firm flick. A box a foot above her and to the right gave a half-hearted wiggle, but that was it. Luna tutted and took the wand and box away, moving with more energy now. "Ooooh I always love a match that isn't all that it seems on the surface" she stated breathily, pulling wand boxes from seemly random places along her walk. Elle was trying very hard not to appear crestfallen that all she had managed on her first go was a faint wiggle. As the pile of boxes being sorted into the 'no' pile to her left grew, she became even more determined to prove herself. After one wand managed to throw the spindly chair across the room, Elle beamed brightly. Luna's eyes lit up in response. "I've got an idea for you" she said, standing up abruptly and disappearing into the shadows of the rows.

Luna emerged a good minute later, holding a long box caked in dust. "An old one. Very picky. Eleven-and-three-quarter inch, dragon heartstring, acacia, and reasonably supple" she rehearsed, giving off the wand stats that she had offered to Elle every time she had picked up a new wand, though she thought Luna had figured out by now that she hadn't a clue what they meant. The moment Elle took the slender wand in her hand she knew her search was over. A warm feeling rose up her wrist and when it reached her heart the wand let off a shower of white gold sparks. Luna beamed. "A match! How exciting. I know this wand has been waiting for someone like you for ages" she stated. Elle couldn't help but return the wide smile.

After she had paid for her wand Elle's money bag was very light. Still, she had taken care to save a bit of extra money. Always good to have an emergency fund she thought to herself, another lesson her mother had taught her. She returned to her room at the Leaky Cauldron exhausted but elated. This had been the best day of her entire life. Cat seemed to agree, as he was already curling up in her new (well, new to her) robes and purring contentedly.

Elle spent the next two weeks in a constant state of wonder. She often walked the streets of Diagon Alley, just watching all the commotion around her. She read her schoolbooks voraciously, each day finding new things to be amazed at. She picked up even more interesting facts listening in to the conversations around her at the pub, where she took all her meals. Some of the regulars at the Leaky Cauldron had even started to teach her how to play exploding snaps, a delightful card game that occasionally ended with a bang, which Elle thought was great fun, much to the dismay of the innkeeper.

Despite her best efforts however, Elle couldn't help but feel a twinge of guilt every time she enjoyed herself for too long. She felt as if she was leaving the memory of her mother behind, and the thought horrified her. She had received a letter by owl (a shocking experience, which her new pub friends found hilarious) from McGonagall that told her a formal inquiry had begun at what she called the Ministry for Magic, which sounded very official. Still, there was a big part of her that felt as if she should still be on the streets, looking for her herself. The intensity of these thoughts only grew as she approached her day of departure from London.

She was especially miserable on August 31st, the day before her departure which also happened to be her mother's birthday. It was the second birthday that had passed since her mother left, and she missed her so fiercely it made her stomach hurt. Thoughts kept swirling in her head that she was betraying her mother by going off to Hogwarts. She even half packed her suitcase after dinner, with the intent of leaving the Leaky Cauldron behind, but Cat kept getting in the way, and stealing socks from her trunk and hiding them under her bed. Eventually she collapsed on the floor with tears of frustration, which was when Cat decided to crawl out from under the bed and into her lap, staying with her until she calmed down. She stroked his head thoughtfully. She really did think McGonagall had been right when she said that Elle's mum would've wanted her to go to school.

"I'm going" she said out loud to herself, because hearing her voice made her feel more decided "but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop looking for her, even from Hogwarts." After that, she started packing again, this time for her train trip the next morning. Cat did not seem to protest at all and had mysteriously lost interest in his game of sock hide and go seek.