AN: Yay! The first chapter I write on my own! Next update should be within a week, if all goes well.
DavidoDaVinci
Chapter 3: My Parents
Merlin furrowed his eyebrows. "I- how… yes… how did you find out?"
Ivy shrugged. "None of you are closely related to me," she turned to Merlin. "You taught me how to time travel and you all speak differently around me."
Salazar grinned and looked over at Godric. "Heh, I told you she would be smarter than you."
Godric glared at him and Rowena whacked the back of his head playfully.
Merlin shook his head tiredly. "So, now that you have figured that out, it is time to tell you why we called for you. I will not beat around the bush. You must go back."
She frowned. "Why? Am I too old?"
Helena leant over and gave her a hug. "No. Not because you are too old, Ivy. Because you have a right to know."
Ivy nodded slowly. "Will I be able to come back?
Rowena smiled at the younger witch. "You will always be welcome to come back. Your parents will think you missing if you do not go to Hogwarts in your time, however."
"So how… how long do I have before I have to go?"
Merlin cleared his throat awkwardly. "You must return by daybreak on your eleventh birthday."
Ivy let her shoulders sag as tears started to pour down her cheeks. Salazar sighed and brought her in for a hug. Ivy relaxed slightly and wrapped her arms around his neck as she sobbed.
'If I have to go in only a year,' Ivy thought to herself, 'Then I'll just have to make this the best year yet!'
OoOoOoOoOo
Over the next few months, Ivy rounded off the finer details of the Hogwarts curriculum. She finished her NEWTs with full marks on each subject and moved on to further advanced magic.
The students, after learning of her situation, spent every possible moment with the young witch. Ivy was in one of the four common rooms almost every evening, playing games with her friends. Either that or she was out on the quidditch pitch.
Merlin had taken her forward in time for her ninth birthday to see a 'quidditch match'. None of the four founders had heard of the game before but after Ivy came back sporting a wide grin and tons of merchandise, they set a pitch up in the Hogwarts grounds and started to teach the students how to play.
Ever since then, Ivy had been out on the pitch for at least ten hours a week. Nothing anyone else said could stop her. Merlin had told her that a new broom had come out recently in her time and she would be allowed to get it when she moved to the future.
As a parting gift to Ivy, the five adults had decided that they were going to give her access to their bank vaults and any important artefacts that might manage to make it to the future. She was informed that she would be able to spend as much of the money as she wanted – seeing as there would be no one else to spend it – but to not use it all up in one go. Ivy huffed and told them she wasn't that immature to which the five exchanged a sceptical look.
oOoOoOoOoOo
They apparated just outside 4 Privet Drive in 1991. Merlin wrinkled his nose.
"Never liked the smell of the 90s. Well, Ivy, in there are your uncle, Vernon; aunt, Petunia; and cousin, Dudley, all with an edited memory so that they now believe you have lived with them for ten years. You should receive your Hogwarts letter in a few short days. Good luck," he said, clapping her on the back, and before she could turn around and say thank you, he had disapparated.
She knocked on the door, timidly, and waited. The person who she took to be her Aunt Petunia, opened the door, with a sour look on her face.
"What took you so long, Ivy?"
She shrugged, sheepishly.
As it turned out, the Dursleys were a selection of three of the worst people Ivy had ever met.
Aunt Petunia was her mother's sister, she was very thin, tall, and had a very long neck, which was apparently good for spying on her neighbours. Uncle Vernon, conversely, was a man with a short and wide body shape, with no neck, and a moustache he valued above his life. When he got angry, his face became a dark, vibrant purple, and what was visible of his neck became hidden. Their son, Dudley, was hardly any better. He was a year older than her, and, for lack of a better word, really, really fat. He was roughly the size of a small killer whale on steroids, by her estimates.
It seemed as though when modifying their memories, Merlin had forgotten to make them positive, since they all displayed intense disliking towards her at all times, while the parents doted on Dudley. They were aware of magic, and hated it.
At one point, Dudley shoved her into a door frame in order to get into the kitchen first, and when the Dursleys heard, they blamed Ivy for pushing Dudley, despite the clearly visible marks on her left arm.
Because of this, she was not at all sad to leave them when her Hogwarts letter finally arrived. She was just about to tear it open, when Vernon saw it, and, snatching it out of her hands, saw who it was for, and promptly threw it into the fireplace. She went up to her room, in tears, and fully believing that she would never go to Hogwarts again, when, after only eight minutes had elapsed, an owl flew through her window, and threw an identical letter onto her lap.
After that, there was fortunately nothing the Dursleys could do to stop her from going to Hogwarts. She had read the letter, and had written a reply back before Vernon could come up the stairs and ask what the heck all that racket was, with a few more choice words. Unfortunately, they still had the power to make her life a living hell. She was given even less food than usual, and Dudley was being fed even more, which she was fairly certain was going to be pretty horrific for his later life.
Finally, when it appeared that the school had snuffed that the Dursleys had no interest in helping her get any magical supplies, a half-giant called Hagrid turned up at the house, much to the displeasure of three of its four residents.
"Hello, hello!" he said, beaming down at Ivy when she opened the door, and just about giving her a heart attack.
When faced with this enormous man, the Dursleys all had slightly different responses. Uncle Vernon pulled out a rifle he kept under his bed for safekeeping, which Hagrid promptly bent into the shape of a banana. Aunt Petunia attempted to make him go away, which, when it became apparent would not work, was replaced with squeals and hiding behind the sofa. Dudley told him to take his parents first. None of them had any complaints when he walked out, with Ivy following suit.
"Who are you?" she asked, as they made their way to a safe spot to apparate.
"Rubeus Hagrid. Keeper of keys and grounds at Hogwarts. You'll know all about Hogwarts, o' course."
Ivy nodded.
oOoOoOoOoOo
Hagrid tapped the brick wall before them with a pink umbrella that she took to be a hidden wand just as she was exiting through the back of the leaky cauldron. She scratched her forehead absent-mindedly, feeling the shape of the lightning bolt scar marked into it, as though with some great physical force. Maybe she could finally find out about its origins. Her attention was drawn back to Hagrid when the bricks started interlocking, and moving apart to reveal a long, thin street.
Diagon Alley must have changed a lot more than she thought.
The shops were rather different to how she remembered them. There was a Quidditch store, called 'Quality Quidditch Supplies', that sold broomsticks, quaffles, and so on. It occurred to her that the broom being shown first and foremost was no longer the Nimbus Two Thousand that she was familiar with from this time period, but a Nimbus Two Thousand and One. Because of course it was. It wasn't as if it had only been twelve months or anything. Beside it, as ever, stood Ollivander's, the brilliant wandmaker that must have been around for considerably longer now. Her eyes wandered to a small shop with a sign that said 'Daily Prophet'. Probably a newspaper with that sort of a name. Her eyes spun around to the other side of the street, where there now stood Madam Malkin's robes for all occasions, Flourish and Blotts, a shop with a long line that she was told was a bookshop, and an Ice Cream place, which she annoyed Hagrid into letting her go into.
Despite all that, it retained the spirit it had done the best part of a thousand years ago. The stony, pebbly road that lay in the middle of the street was unchanged, except being more worn down and more hygienic than before. The Knockturn Alley that had only recently been erected for her remained nearly untouched from what she could see from it, except that the regulars she had met had, naturally, since been replaced.
They wandered aimlessly for a while, before Hagrid pulled her into Magical Menagerie, a pet shop. He gave her the option to bring an owl, a cat, a toad, or no pet at all to Hogwarts. She picked out a black cat with white socks, who she named Amaya, and Hagrid handed over a galleon and two silver sickles to the owner of the shop. Amaya stared at her for a few moments, before leaping up onto her shoulders and going to sleep.
After that, it was off to Flourish and Blotts, which had a considerably shorter line than before, where she bought all the books she would need for the upcoming year. The Standard Book of Spells (Book 1), A History of Magic, and Magical Theory were ticked off the list very quickly, and with a lot of ease, but A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration was tucked away in a very unkempt portion of the shop. One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, and Magical Drafts and Potions were both in Herbology and Potions sections respectively, whereas Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was in a completely different section than where it should have been. Finally, Dark Forces: A Guide To Self Protection was the only spellbook to be upstairs. Ivy indulged herself in some of the more advanced books she found in the corners of the bookshop. She had no doubt she knew all of it already, but she was interested in seeing how books had evolved. By the time they had paid and gotten out of the shop, an hour had passed.
After another half hour of hap-hazardly ticking things off the list, it was off to Ollivander's for the final thing on the list, a wand. For all the training she had been through, she had to admit it would have looked suspicious if she hadn't been to get a wand despite already having one.
"Ah! Ivy Potter! I was wondering when you would get here!" came an old voice from behind the counter when she walked in, and after only a moment, the man she took to be Ollivander straightened himself up, and rubbed some clearly visible sleep from his eyes. "Shall we begin?"
About half an hour (and about sixteen failed attempts to find a wand) later, she left the shop with a wand in hand. It was eleven inches long, made from holly, and contained a phoenix feather. She found that she preferred this wand to her old one. When she had waved it, it had produced purple and red confetti, which was, in her opinion, some rather dull magic. Regardless, Ollivander had been pleased with this, although he had said that an aspect of the wand was rather unexpected, though what aspect that could be she had no idea.
She was brainstorming the possibilities when she bumped into a family of three, muttered 'sorry', and turned when the mother, who looked almost like her, dropped her bag and let her jaw drop open.