"Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble"
Hagrid found the body in the early morning. Though the lasting embers of summer simmered in the afternoon light, the nights were cold and even the muggles knew not to venture into the woods of the Highlands where fairies and nocturnal creatures threatened to stray you from the path.
"She's alive," Dumbledore said in a surprised tone. "You made it seem like she's dead."
"I reckon she woulda been," Hagrid proposed. "With the werewolves, spiders and all."
"No werewolf but one lives on Hogwarts ground," Dumbledore looked down at the sleeping teenager. Or at least, he assumed. There was a certain youthfulness to her face, one that was robbed from many of the children at Hogwarts with the war at hand.
"She had Hogwarts robes – well, only the cloak, that is. Everything else was normal, so she must be a witch."
Dumbledore frowned, looking at the watch around her wrist. The strap was made out of rubber, as many muggle things were, but the display was most peculiar: a screen that turned on, though it was cracked through the middle.
Peculiar indeed.
Her eyes fluttered open. She blinked a few times before focusing on the two adults before her.
Which, of course, had her screaming.
"Calm down," Dumbledore hoped his tone came off as gentle, but given that Hagrid was there, it must have been a fright. Which told him that she was not a Hogwarts student, for he had never seen her before, and any Hogwarts student knew Hagrid.
"Who are you?" Her accent, though tinged with a British cadence, was mixed with a variety of other sounds.
"I have a better question for you, when are you?" Dumbledore asked. Hagrid frowned.
"Professor?"
"Well, it was August 6th 2024 I last checked," the girl said, confused. "I was at the theatre and Charles the III is king."
"Ye must have knocked ye head real bad, lass. It's 1976, though the date is right. And Lizzy is on the throne!"
She looked at them blankly.
"You're joking."
"No, you can ask Madame Pomfrey."
"Madame Pomfrey?" she said in a high-pitched tone. "No, this must be a dream. Of course I dreamt this up, I must have had quite the fall, you. I presume it's better than dreaming I fell into the 18th century like in Outlander – ouff, how I would hate that."
She pushed her blanket off and tried to get out of bed, but just as quickly as she got up, she fell back in.
"Nevermind," she muttered. "Say, when can I wake up from this?"
"Professor Dumbledore," Poppy Pomfrey walked out from her nurse station and glared at the headmaster. "Can you consider interrogating my patient when she has fully recovered?"
"Of course, of course, Poppy," he apologized.
From all he had gathered, Dumbledore was sure of a couple of things. One, this child was not from here and from the future. Two, she was under the impression she was dreaming, and three, that she somehow knew Madame Pompfrey.
He was deep in thought on his way back to his office. There was so much to do and so many people to contact. Perhaps the people in the Department of Mysteries would know a thing or two about falling through time if that was what happened to the child. Though he'd rather not use his ability to read minds, he knew she genuinely meant what she said.
If you had asked her about her plans that evening, Amalia would have told you that she would visit the Pub by the theater, listen to awful musicians play folk music, and then head straight home for a nap. A well-needed break from her life, because all dreadful things seem to fall on a certain day of the week. For her, that day happened to be Tuesdays.
It's only safe to leave the bog on the Tuesday, she thought of that meme. She should get that printed as a sticker and sell it.
Instead, she would have to admit that the day took a weird turn when she found herself at the mercy of a centaur.
Dear reader, we would have to start the morning of dress rehearsals.
Amalia touched the front of the stays as the costume designer pulled it close at the back. Without it, she thought, she looked like Baba Yaga. Not that it would have been bad –Baba Yaga was her favourite folklore character but surely she didn't wear a strawberry headwrap. In the mirror, she could see her company members powdering their makeup and adjusting their wigs. Her stomach rumbled, feeling a little queasy.
"You're all set," the costume designer patted her back and smiled.
"Are these… Harry Potter robes?" She eyed the yellow lining of her cloak and the particular shape of the hood.
"They were on sale! You can't blame me for using them. They didn't have the Gryffindor cloak, but that's alright. I only need three witches, don't I?"
She let out a weak smile.
"Don't you worry, lass," the costume designer reassured. "You'll be a great witch."
"That's not what I am worried about," Amalia admitted. If you looked closer at her eyes, they were currently bloodshot. She'd spend a good chunk of the morning crying, screaming, and wondering what the point of putting so much work into something was, only for it to be overlooked.
Fat chance, all things given.
She walked out onto the stage to warm up. The other witches waved out to her as they warmed up their voices. She stayed far away from their main actor, who was on the phone with his girlfriend.
"–Yeah we're just practising Macbeth now, the other plays will come later."
A sense of unease overcame her, but she elected to ignore it.
It was strange to walk onto a stage that was full of history, even if it wasn't the original place, per se. It baffled her how they had rented the stage in the first place.
Her drama teacher clapped his hands.
"Alright, let's gather around kids! We don't have a lot of time here, but I need you to really focus today. Today you will learn how to adapt your voice to the wood of this very theatre. We don't have any mics, so please ENUNCIATE, thank you – Amalia," Mr. Bakker called on her.
"Uhm, sir – the trap door is open," Amalia pointed out. "Isn't the cauldron supposed to come up from there?"
Mr. Bakker waved his hand, looking down at his script. "Doesn't matter for now, just stand around it."
She looked down at the trap door, the dark abyss staring back at her, and shuddered. There was something otherworldly about it. It called to her from there.
Come to me, it seemed to whisper. She ignored it. That was her imagination running wild.
It shouldn't look deep, given she had been under the stage before. The three witches arrived from the bottom of the stage, a denotation that they were coming from hell.
While most of it went without a hitch, the open trap door in the middle of the stage created too many mishaps, with many actors nearly falling into the hole. It worked well for the witches.
Until it didn't.
She was supposed to walk around Macbeth, taunting him. However, what people at the time did not realise was just how close Macbeth stood to the trapdoor. She'd done it numerous times in rehearsals, and the day before.
So, when she backed up, what should have been the floor turned into a bottomless pit as she stumbled backwards. A scream escaped her throat and the last thing she saw was the hand of MacBeth's actor trying to reach for her as she fell down the trapdoor.
Amalia waited, but she just kept falling and falling.
And falling.
And just as she was about to pass out, her back hit softened dirt and a pair of hooves towered over her.
Her eyes widened as she turned around in the mud, getting out of the way of the horse-like creature.
"At ease!" a gruff voice yelled.
Amalia got onto her knees and nearly screamed again. The man who spoke was on the horse…no, he was the horse.
He clicked his tongue, reaching behind him.
An arrow was pointed at her.
Amalia held up her hand.
"Don't shoot me!" she squeaked.
"Tell me, are you a hag?"
She narrowed her eyes. "I assure you, I am not that old to be considered a hag."
"The warts, then?"
"Wha–" she grabbed at her face, taking off the fake warts that were on her face. This was ridiculous. "I'm a person, Can you please not point that pointy thing at me?"
A twig sounded in the back, and the centaur let go of his arrow. A whine sounded. Amalia turned around and had to bite her tongue. The body that the centaur had shot was skeletal, its skin stretched over its body, and had crawled its way through the mud of the forest.
"I ask, because a hag is quite able to make an inferi. There are things lurking in these woods, young child. You must get back to school."
She must be dreaming. She must have hit her head while falling down from the trap door. Amalia was sure: this was what her head conjured up for her to believe in while she recovered from that head injury.
At least she wasn't stuck in a Shakespearean nightmare, she thought as she patted the cloak.
She nodded vigorously, and the centaur began to walk off. She stood there for a second, thinking that her dream would teleport her where she was needed.
But it didn't.
"Uhm, sir," Amalia wrapped the cloak around her. "Which way is school?"
He pointed.
Very helpful, Amalia thought and proceeded to walk that way.
At some point, she got so tired that she just found a tree and fell asleep. It was so dark she couldn't see the way out now. She'd wait for the sun and follow it.
So, to Amalia's surprise, she was in a warm room when she woke up. After her chat with Dumbledore and Hagrid, it was all but confirmed.
So, she noted, I must have picked a time before the actual books. That tracks if she were to spend her time here after hitting her head. If she had to pick, it would be a time she could control herself, not following the linear plot of the books.
This was one long dream for her to have; she shook her head. It must be severe. Perhaps she was in a coma instead. That did not comfort her at all.
"What's your name?" It was the day after she first woke up. Amalia told Dumbledore her name.
"Amalia Bonham," Dumbledore nodded. "I've never heard that name before in my life."
Amalia wanted to protest and correct the pronunciation of her last name. It wasn't that hard, but she dropped it. Names had power, and if she was in some limbo, she didn't want anyone to have any power over her.
Dumbledore nodded. "Indeed, Miss."
"Can you not do that, sir?" Amalia asked politely. "I'd rather you be upfront with me."
"I apologise. Can you tell me, how did you end up in the Forbidden Forest?"
She recounted the story.
"Well I was having a rather shit day. We're putting on a play, yeah, and I am jumping in for one of the witches – I'm an understudy, you see. I play at least two characters but don't get to be on stage at all."
"Are you any good?" Dumbledore asked.
"This is a school production, but I like to think I can do it. Either way, I just work backstage," she admitted. "Anyway, my parents tell me they won't come to the play, I find out that the guy I like has a girlfriend, and then the middle of the stage won't close. So I fell down – Oh my gosh," Amalia realised.
That prick.
He said the play's name in the theatre. She shook her head and continued,
"Right, anyway then I end up in the forest, there's a centaur and an inferi. And this centaur thinks I conjured it. Like I can do magic!"
Amalia crossed her arms. She supposed, if this was a dream, that she could do magic.
"I'm afraid, Miss Bonham," Dumbledore threaded carefully. "That you are not in a dream."
"What makes you say that?" Amalia frowned.
"Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble' is an actual spell," Dumbledore admitted. "One that you muggles perform lightly because you don't have magic. Or at least, in your world, magic no longer exists the way it used to."
Amalia let out a laugh out of nervousness. "We have folklore, and shamanism –that stuff exists. My mum believes in it."
"And do you?"
Amalia was a superstitious person. While her mind ruled over her heart, she never dared to mess with those old beliefs. Because what if they were true?
"I don't believe that it can rip me through time and space into a book series I read as a child," Amalia admitted.
Dumbledore gestured at the entire room.
"Alright, give it a week. If you're still here, then will you believe me?"
"And what if I just hit my head so hard I am in a coma and this is just a vivid image my brain conjured up so that I rest?"
"Then who is to say it is not real?" Dumbledore questioned. "In the meantime, you should live here. I could always inquire about it at the Department of Mysteries. I am sure they will find your case peculiar."
It was a little bit outrageous, but Amalia just shrugged. There was no way for her to get out of this. She would give it a week, at least. Then, she would start thinking about how to get back home. There were lots of theories, weren't there? She could return to the spot –dread filled her, that was in the middle of the scary forest with the weird centaur – or she could…
Maybe asking Dumbledore would be better. She would not go the Inception Route and take herself out of this world. If she were unlucky enough, many things could kill her in Harry's world. No, the Inception Route was the last resort.
Harry doesn't even exist yet, Amalia realised. If she remembered her lore correctly, his parents weren't even dating yet.
Amalia nodded.
"Okay," she said in a quiet tone. "I'll stay. But I can't do magic, can I? What's my cover?"
"Well you can be a squib, if you can't do magic, and can help Mr. Filch around."
Amalia blinked.
"Yeah, no. If this is my dream, I CAN do magic, thank you very much," she looked around the room. Wandless magic existed if she remembered correctly, but not everyone could do it well.
She stared at her finger, putting it up like a finger gun. Amalia imagined a flame, how it would swirl at the tip of her finger. Warmth travelled through her arm, igniting the blood vessels before turning into a small flame at her fingertip.
Hell yeah.
"Most impressive," Dumbledore noted. "You can light the candles without a lighter now. You have a month until term starts, and I'm sure you know enough to skip some years…You'll be a sixth year," Dumbledore decided. "We'll see if we can get you to do your owls with the fifth years next Spring."
"Please don't stick me with the sixteen year olds, they are the worst," Amalia begged. She remembered when she was sixteen. The boys were just awful, the girls less so.
"You are seventeen, are you not?"
"Uh, no," Amalia pointed out.
"According to the medical scans Madame Pomfrey did, you are between the ages of 16-18. And you do look young."
"Thank you, it's the genetics," Amalia rubbed her cheeks. "Nah, I can't…"
"We can't immediately put you in seventh year, that would be detrimental to you," Albus apologized. "So I'm afraid you'll have to deal with it."
She groaned, but a voice in her brain told her it wouldn't be that bad. Besides, this was a clean slate. She could start a new life. She could be the teenager she never got to be at times.
You never got to experience those teenage moments, did you? Amalia remembered. She'd spent her adolescent years living up to her parent's expectations, not making any mistakes because her siblings always made them. Here, she was free from all of that. Free from any expectation.
And it's just a dream, she reminded herself. A dream can't hurt.
"Oh alright!" she exclaimed. "I'm seventeen, here. But let it be known I have lived billions of lifetimes since I was that age and I will gladly be twenty-four over seventeen."
The old professor smiled. While she did not fully trust him, she wasn't going to scrutinise him for something he had yet to do. Besides, who is to say that she would be around for that?
A/N: Hello hello, welcome to my new story! If you're reading/read/have read Wizards and Therapies, I've announced this story over there. If you're new here, hello! I am Spring :D
This story will be updated in tandem with W&T (that story is ending after nearly two years). My idea here is to have fun with a character from the 21st century in the 1970s. I also wanted to write a character who isn't bound by the rigidity of the Wizarding Society.
Amalia's full function in the story will come in the Divination realm, so I've introduced Amalia by vector of the Witches of Macbeth. This one could get a sequel if there is enough call for it, but I plan to end it with the First Wizarding War. There can be room for one, though.
Very Outlander, very demure.
Update: I've changed Amalia's age; she's of university age, which is enough to see a difference between the shenanigans of high school and uni.
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