By the lovely
Pilgrim at the dark arts!
D= I am me and not J.K, the only thing I own is Imogen for now;)
Chapter Three: “Hey this is not orange juice?”
Sticks there here again, but now I know that they are really called wands. Wait, how do I know this, that only means what I thought was a dream is real, and what I see is a dream, I am not at home, I don’t even think I have one anymore. I am never going to find out who this man is, and about what he is saying to me.
The young man behind the counter goes to open his mouth and form words. “Welcome to-”
BANG! What? Was that a door slam? Am I really ever going to find out what he was going to say to me? My eyes open wide to find that the light of the day is creeping in to the room. As I roll over and see Frankie in his cage, next to the books I looked at last night before I went to sleep.
“JAMES, I WANT TO PLAY TOO,” a little girl yells, and then bangs her arms on what I can only guess was the door that was slammed before. I hear a sob, I don’t know why or how I got here but I sat next to the little girl, well Lily. For the first time I notice that we have the same colour hair but mine has some brown through it where her's is just red.
“Lily what’s wrong?” she looks up to me with her tearful brown eyes.
“They-y-y said that I can’t play-y-y-y,” she sniffed through the sentence. And I knew just what I should do but not really knowing if this could be a way to make enemies with James and Albus. So I did the next best thing.
“You know what, Lily, let's go do something else, it will be more fun,” I said as I got up and offered her my hand.
“Ok, want to play snap in my room?” Lily is no longer crying but smiling. She walks towards the room, her room; I can see that whole room is yellow, so this must be her favourite colour. She has the same poster over her bed as Albus gave me yesterday of the Harpies; she has a toy box at the end of her bed with some dolls and teddy arms and legs hanging out.
“Is snap your favourite game?” I ask as it is the only one I have heard her say that she wants to play.
“No, but it’s the only one you know how to play.” I have to say she is smart, but there has to be something I know how to play. We sit on the floor as she pulls out some cards from the shoe box that was next to her bed.
“Well, you could show me some other one.” I pick up some hexagon shaped card and see Harry looking at me. ”Why's he on here? What are they?”
Lily laughs at me. “They are Chocolate Frog cards. I have lots of them but James has the most; one day I will have more than him. Oh, Dad's on them because he is Harry Potter.” She gives me this look like I have just asked her if the sky was pink.
“I know his name.” She looks at me like there is some hidden meaning behind it.
“No one’s told you have they?” What is she talking about, I know who he is. Lily just points at the card as if to say read it. But I don’t get why he is on some silly card. I look down and turn it over and read the back
~“Harry James Potter
The Boy who lived, the Chosen one, the Saviour
of our World....’
“Lily, what are you not telling me?” She grabs my hand.
“Dad's a Great War hero, but Mum and Dad can tell you better than I can.” She pulls me down the hall and the stairs. Please don’t let me fall and this time I don’t. So happy that I didn’t show Lily how bad I am at walking down stairs. She keeps pulling me into the kitchen and to the table where Harry is sitting and Ginny is cooking what I can only guess is breakfast. She looks to be cooking way too much for six people; it looks more like ten.
“Good morning, girls.” Ginny is still as happy as she was when she said good night. “If you want to sit down, breakfast will only be few minutes off.”
“Mum, Dad,” Lily spoke; she has the ‘it’s important’ sound in her voice. I don’t think talking about this over breakfast is the best idea she has had, but she is going to do it anyway. “Imogen needs to know about you, Dad and the war.” And as she said this James and Albus walk in with pjs on and then I remember that I am still wearing mine. I go red with embarrassment, but as red as Lily has just gone, for she is looking anywhere but at her Dad. She then takes the card from me and holds it up to give it to Harry. He takes it and looks down at it; the only sound in the room for the next couple of awkward moments the come to pass is James and Al’s voices. Then Ginny puts some food at the table.
“Come on, sit down, all of you, I won’t have you eating cold food.” Ginny pours four glasses of what I can only say is orange juice and puts one in front of me. Lily leaves her father is sitting next to Albus who pick up a conversation about someone called Rose and Hugo. James looks at me as we sit next to each other, opposite Albus and Lily. They start eating and then I see why she has cooked so much; the three boys have most of the food on their plates before Ginny has even sat down. They are just as big of eaters as Josh, but they are just like ‘my father’.
“Well, Imogen, there is no reason for you not to know about the life I have had and what it is like to be living with The Boy That Lived.” Harry looked like he was trying to say the right words, or he was just trying to find them. “When I was one years old both my parents were killed by a dark wizard. His name was Tom Riddle, but he went by the name of Voldemort, and many others, but that was the main one. Well, he tried to kill me too, but I only ended up with this scar.” He lifted up his fringe on the right and I could see a lightning bolt scar. “This scar acted like a link between the two of us. After the death of my parents I went to live with your grandparents. When I was eleven I found out I was a wizard.”
“Hey that’s when I found out too.” Me and my stupid mouth, I got to think first. James, Albus and Lily seem to be just eating their breakfast without saying anything just listening, but I can see a smirk playing on James' lips as he shovels the food in.
“Yes, that is, that’s when Muggle-borns first find out.” I nod; I am not going to say anything, so I don’t sound like a newbie anymore. “Well, I went to Hogwarts, that is when I found out the story about ’The Boy Who Lived.’ I had never been told about my past till then. Over the years I met Riddle again and he chased me for years. When it was meant to be in my seventh year, I was on the run with my two best friends, Ron and Hermione, because he had taken over the Wizarding World. Then the 2nd of May, 1998, was the day he was killed. Many people died in the Wizarding World war; too many had to die or suffer on the sides of the war. But in the end we won the freedom of the Wizarding World.”
XXX
So I now know the story that everyone else in the Wizarding world knows, and I don’t know if I believe it. It’s not like I think they are lying to me, it’s just that I never heard of any of these things they are telling me about. Harry looks at me. “If I was you and been told this, I think I would have the same look on my face you do, Imogen,” he says as he laughs it off.
“I just can’t believe that all that happened to you and it was all at the age you were at school.” I don’t think I could be brave enough to do any of that.
“Mum is a War Hero, too,” came Lily’s voice just before she drank her orange juice.
“She led all the students of Hogwarts, the Hogwarts Resistance,” Al said in a proud voice.
“All but the Slytherin helped,” James said in a pissed off tone.
“Gin, he has spent too much time with your brother,” Harry said with a chuckle.
“I think you mean your best friend.” Ginny went to say something more but was cut off.
“Imogen, what house do you want to be in? I want to be in Gryffindor,” James asks me. There are houses at school?
“James, I don’t think she knows what you’re talking about,” Albus says, much to the annoyance of James.
“Shut up Al. Well, if you’re so smart why don’t you tell her,” James says angrily back to him.
“James, Albus, I will not have you two fighting at this table,” Ginny says. That causes both boys to say sorry and yes mum. If I had to guess, I would say they are scared of their Mum, but I don’t know how; she is a lovely lady.
“Well, you see at Hogwarts they have four Houses that you can be in. They are: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin.” Harry spoke up to me over the little fight that the two boys are having. “Boys, listen to your mother and stop it now. Anyways, as I was saying,” looking back to me, it was like he could feel the look that Ginny was giving him to say something to the two boys, “Gryffindor is for the brave, Ravenclaw for the smart, and Slytherin for the cunning and Hufflepuff for loyalty.”
“I hope you’re in the same house as Fred and I, he is my best mate.”Well that showed me that James wants to be my friend.
“He is also our cousin” Al snaps at James.
“What house were you in?” I ask Harry, but it's Ginny who answers me.
“We were both in Gryffindor, as well as our families.”
“We will be happy if you or any of you make it in to any house as long as you are happy and healthy.” Harry makes it sound like I can pick the one I want and they will still want me; well, I hope so anyway.
“So we can be in any house, and you will still love us?” But it wasn’t me that got to ask the question that I wanted to, it was Albus who had beat me to it.
“Of cause we will,” Ginny answers this one.
“If we are in Slytherin I don’t think Uncle Ron will talk to us.” James’s statement gets me worried; does this mean I will end up with nowhere to live? And who is Uncle Ron?
“James, you know he will love you and still talk to you.” Ginny is starting to get angry now
Harry laughs. “Or you know that ’Mione will never talk to him till he talks to you again.”
“Harry, you’re just as bad as James.” Ginny is now laughing with him. “I’m starting to think he gets it from you, not Ron.”
“Mm, has any one in your family not been in Gryffindor?” I am able to get out a question.
“Well, no, but we have friends that were in other houses. Our close friend, who is just like family, was in Ravenclaw,” said Ginny. Harry looks down at his plate and looks like he wanted to have said yes. So James wants me to be in the same house as him, and he wants to be in Gryffindor, that means I am going to have to be brave.
“Imogen, Ron and Hermione are coming over for dinner tonight, so you will get to meet some more family before we go over to my parents' house on Saturday.” I think Ginny was just saying this so she could change the subject. Is that the Uncle Ron that James was talking about? “They will be coming over this afternoon at four o‘clock.”
“Mum, do you think I could Floo Hugo and ask if he can come over early, because we want to go catch some frogs down at the pond.” Lily looked at her mum with a lot of hope. Do you think that I will ever get to make friends with some one that will be able to understand just how confused I am? All this talk has made me very thirsty. I go for my drink and even though I hate orange juice (I would never drink it with a ten foot pole at number 6 or anywhere for that matter) I down it in one gulp.
“Hey, this is not orange juice.” I just stare at my empty cup.
“Once you're dressed you can Floo him.” Ginny now looks at me and her face is saying to me what are you talking about?
It’s Harry that answers me “No, it's not, it is pumpkin juice.” Then he smiles at me as James, Albus and Lily all give the same look as Ginny. And Harry answers their unasked question. “They don’t have pumpkin juice in the Muggle world, they have orange juice, but I have to say it’s not nice.”
“I know what you mean. I hate the stuff.”
“Did you like the pumpkin?” Ginny asks with her face back to a smile.
“It's nice, different but nice.” I say this as I start to get lost in my own thoughts. What other drinks do they have? What about foods? If they try to give me eye of toad or brain of snake, I am out of here....
XXX
So we all finished breakfast and I go up to my room to get ready for the day or the room that I have been told is mine. I don’t feel that it is mine like I did with the one back at number six, it’s not that I don’t want it. Its more I feel as if I am waiting for Harry to tell me to leave at any moment.
I don’t really know what I am meant to wear. The more classic witches wear black dresses with capes, but the ones on that TV show ‘Teenage Witch’ have normal clothes on. I stand there looking at my clothes, the ones that Harry brought back from number 6; I can only guess Mum put them in a bag for him. I love my mum but it kind of feels weird to call her that after what HE said. The words flooded over my head again. “I HAVE NO DAUGHTER, only a son.” At the thought of those words I fall to the floor, I hold myself in a tight ball and cry like I have never before.
They don’t want me anymore. I will never get to ride my bike with Josh up to the shop. Or I never get to stand out in the yard to wait for mum to get back from a business trip. Or just sit on Dad's lap to hear him read a story. They are things I will never get again. I am the strong one out of Josh and I, you know that I am going to prove everyone wrong who doesn’t think I can do this. Because I know I can. I get up off the floor and put on a pair of jeans and a green top. I walk over to the window and look out it. It’s the best feeling I have had since I came here; it’s not sadness or anger but its hope, and that’s what I have.
There’s a knock at the door “Can I come in?” I don’t know if it’s Albus or James but I know it’s one of them.
“You can come in.” He opens the door and there is James looking at me. I don’t really know what to say. I just look back out the window and I can only guess he is looking around the room. He knows I have been crying, I can tell, but the strange thing is he does not ask questions about why. I’m pretty sure he knows why. But he goes about like I have just been laughing, and you know what, I like it this way.
“Is that your brother?” He did not ask me why I was crying. I can’t get over it, my face is still all blotchy and my eyes are red. I look over at the photo; that was a happy day and this one is going to be too.
“Yer, that’s Josh. He was my best friend; I hope you get to met him.” I wonder if he will be allowed to come here and meet them?
“You both look happy there. You still can be best friends with him.” He says that with a smile, then sits down on the bed. “By the way, Mum wanted me to tell you that Hugo and Rose will be coming over soon.”
“Are they our age?” I don’t really think asking if he thinks they will like me or not would be a good idea when I don’t even know if James and I are friends.
“No, Rose is the same age as Al and Hugo the same as Lils. There’s one thing I should tell you, this family is not small.” He is now looking at some of my books on my shelf that Harry put in here. “But tonight you will only be meeting four of them, and Teddy as well, but he lives here only on the weekends these days.”
“James, how big is this family?”
“Well, mum has six brothers and they all have their own families now. Oh there is also the Longbottoms and Scamanders.” He said this with a laugh. I think it’s more because I just stared at him with my mouth open. “I think I better tell you about them all, so on Saturday when we have a family dinner you will know what’s going on.”
“Ok.” I’m still in shock, just nodding along and sitting on the bed next to him.
“I will be back then.” He got up and walked out towards his room and then came back with a book. He sat down next to me on the bed and opened it. There was a photo of five people, the two oldest girls have blond hair but the youngest girl has a mix of both, with the man with red along with the boy.
“I will start with the oldest, Uncle Bill and his wife Aunt Fleur. They have three kids, Vic short for Victoire, 16, she is in 6th year, Dom short for Dominique, 13, 3rd year and Louis 12, he is in 2nd year.” He pointed at each person as he went. I'm sure that Bill has scars on his face; I wonder what happened. Fleur has to be one on the prettiest looking women I had ever seen.
Then he turned the page, and I was met with seven more people. The man has red hair as well as the two older kids and the lady has brown hair, same as the two middle kids, but the youngest looked to have a mix of both. “Uncle Charlie and Aunt Rory have five kids, Jackson, 13, 3rd year, Elizabeth or Liz, 11, in 2nd year, Benjamin, 9, Abigail, 8 and Paige, 7.”
Well now I am getting what he meant that they didn’t have a small family. He turned the page and I was met with four people, the man had red hair and the lady had blonde hair, but both the two girls had strawberry blonde. “That’s Uncle Percy and Aunt Audrey, Molly, 9 and Lucy, 7. Oh, and don’t take any rule that only Percy tells you seriously, he is anal about them. Just do what we all do and don’t listen.” I am quite sure that it’s only James that doesn’t listen to him.
The next page has just one man on it and he looks very happy; he has the same smile that Ginny has. But he also looks a lot younger than any of the other men which James has shown me in the book. “That is my Uncle Fred, he was one of the bravest men that my dad has ever met.” James looks sadly down at the page but there is pride in his voice. “He died at the Battle of Hogwarts. When you met Uncle George, that’s his twin, he will tell you the best stories about him.”
The next page has a family of four and the man is missing an ear. Wow? I wonder if he can still hear out of the ear drum. What kind of a question is that? I wonder if he can even hear. He has red hair and the lady has dark brown hair. The boy has red and the girl has dark red, almost brown, hair. I am kind of getting the idea that pretty much everyone in the family has red hair. “That’s Uncle George and Aunt Angelina. That’s Fred, he is going to be coming to Hogwarts with us, and that’s Roxy, short for Roxanne, she is 10.”
The next one has another family of four, the man also has red hair and the lady has a light brown. But the girl has red hair where as the boy has a mix of both, as if it could not make up its mind which one it wanted to be. “That’s Uncle Ron and Aunty Hermione, the ones you’ll get to meet tonight. Uncle Ron likes to tell stories about when he went to Hogwarts; he is dad’s best mate so he is always over. Mum and Aunt ‘Mione are the same, so we’ll be at one another’s house a lot. That’s Rose and Hugo. Hope I did not scare you with the big family, but that’s the ones that are related to me, but I'll just show you one more.”
He turned over the page and there was a boy on it with James, Albus and Lily. It was moving just like the rest of them but the boy’s hair was changing colour. How is he doing it? “That’s Teddy, and yes his hair changes colour. It’s because he is a Metamorphmagus, which means that he can change his appearance at will.” It was like James heard my question. It would be so cool to do that.
James and I kept looking at the photos and he showed me his Grandparents and ones of Christmases, Easter, birthdays and just some random ones. He also showed me ones of my aunt and uncle, well his Grandparents, and that’s when I saw just how much I did look like my Aunt Lily. He gave me one of the photos of her and I put it with the one of Josh and me. In the end I think I became friends with James after we talked about different things. He was amazed when I told him what an iTouch was.
We went down to play with the others after what I can only say was about two hours. I found that Hugo and Lils (which she has told me to call her) are like best friends in that they are always trying to play with the older ones, but then they get bored, and then just go play together. Al (he did the same as Lily, I think this means they are starting to like me) and Rose seem to have the same thing. I got the feeling that James was happy I was here so he had someone too. Rose and Hugo both were just happy to have me to play with and join in their games. I also met Teddy as he came over about lunch time. We are now all just outside in the garden.
“Hey, Imogen, I am Teddy.” I shook his hand. We talked about the different things that there are between the two worlds. He told me about Flooing, and I got the impression that it’s like a telephone but you can also go through it.
XXX
“Imogen, can you come here a minute?” I heard Ginny’s voice from inside. I walked to the house and through the door to be met by her, Harry and the two people that James showed me to be Ron and Hermione.
Harry put his hand out for me and I took it. “Imogen, I would like for you to meet Ron and Hermione.” They looked at me with smiles on their face and then Hermione did just what Ginny had done when I met her; she hugged me.
“Call me Aunt 'Mione and welcome to the family.”
“Hi.” I didn’t know what to say, and I just said the first thing that came into my head. “Your jumper is a nice colour.” How stupid did I have to be? Then Harry and Ron just start laughing. So I guess they think I was trying to be funny. Well I was not.
“Nice to meet you, Imogen.” Ron says after he stopped laughing, but the reason he did was more because Hermione give him a look that, I’m quite sure, could kill. “So how do you like the Wizarding World so far?”
“Ron, she has only been here two days.” Hermione then pulled out a box from her bag and handed it to me. “Happy Birthday,” Ron said at the same time as 'Mione. I just wanted to know how she pulled something out of the bag that is three times as big as the bag, just like Ginny had the day before.
“How did you do that?” All eyes on me. It’s like they don’t get what I mean. “The bag is smaller than the box. How?”
“Oh, the bag is charmed to be bigger inside than it looks on the outside. It’s been made to hold more stuff.” The looks must have been because I did not say thank you. I said thank you and opened the box and inside is a book called ‘Hogwarts A History, the complete second edition’ and some funny looking paper and pens. But they were not pens, they were the old ones that they used in the 1800s.
“How can you write with feathers?”
“We don’t use pens or paper, we use,” pointing to the pen like ones,” the quills and this is parchment,” 'Mione said. “It’s how we write in the Wizarding World.”
We all sat at the table in the dining room. I notice that all the chairs were a different style and colour, but it was like they were meant to be that way. There was lots of talk at the table of a game called Quidditch. I find out that Teddy is the Captain of his house team Gryffindor, and that a lot of the summer the family plays it. Also that Ron and Hermione only live a couple of streets away and I am welcome there anytime.
After dinner they asked to come to the kitchen with Hermione and Ginny. I kind of don’t want to go, there is a voice in my head telling me not to go in but I do it anyway. They both sit at the table and I follow their lead. There is a long silence and Hermione is the one to break it. “I am a Muggle-born too, and I know how weird this world comes across at first and all the surprises it holds. But do try to remember that you will always be seeing something new; even now I myself find new things still today. Our world is not up to date with the new technical ideas that the Muggle one is. We are just starting to find people having TVs in their home.”
“James told me that he doesn’t even know what an iTouch is. Do you have computers?” Ok, maybe not the best question yet again, but it’s out there now. Ginny just has the same look that James did when I said iTouch.
“Well, we don’t, and a lot of homes don’t have home phones either because too much magic affects electricity,” Hermione said and she just looked at Ginny’s face with amusement. “Now I know this will all came to a shock to you, but we want to know a couple of things.”
Ginny is able to find words again. “We hope that’s alright with you?”
I think for a bit and I come to the conclusion that I don’t have anything to hide. “That’s fine, but can we please not talk about them.” I give them my best you know who I mean look. Ginny and Hermione share a look that says we better not go there.
“Have you ever done anything when you were mad or scared that you cannot explain?” Ginny looks at me and waits for the answer.
“I once turned Josh’s hair green just because he told me my hair was fire.” Just because my hair is red doesn’t mean that it’s on fire or is fire. “He looked funny at the time,” I said as I laughed. “I also smashed the pictures on the wall back at number 6.” They don’t really ask many more questions, they just tell me some more about this world, and what I am likely to see and hear. And I want to hear more and more. Once we finish they stay in the kitchen and I go into the lounge room.
“Well, I think it’s time I told you a story that could get me in trouble.” Ron starts looking around as him and Harry, who are sitting on the couch. James sits on the floor and pats the spot next to him for me. I take it as Al, Rose and Hugo find somewhere else to sit and Teddy just sits in the arm chair. “Ok, well we were in first year at the time and I kind of upset Hermione, so she didn’t come down to dinner. She was crying in the bathroom.” Ron looks across at Harry as if to take over and he does.
“Then one of the teachers comes in to tell the school that a troll was walking around the school near the dungeons. Well, we are being taken back to our dorms when I remember that Hermione doesn’t know about the troll.”
Ron takes over. “We find the troll in the bathroom that she is in. First she locks herself in a cubicle and the troll crushes the one next to her, so Harry and I start to try and get the troll’s attention.”
Harry laughs. “You’ll want to know the line that did get the troll to notice us and stop trying to kill Hermione. Ron said “Hey, pea brain!”” He can’t go on with the story so Ron takes over.
“Hey, it worked and I didn’t hear you complain about it at the time. Then this silly one,” pointing at Harry, “decides to jump on the troll's shoulders, and then the troll grabs him by the legs. Of course that leaves the saving up to me and I get out my wand and get the troll club. I then wack the troll in the head and knock it out.”
“Are there really trolls?” I find myself asking before its too late, but they think I am trying to be funny and they just laugh. All of them but Harry, he just gives me the ‘I am sorry look.’
“That’s what I said when we were told it got out,” said Harry. Harry and I share a knowing glance. This world is not the same one I was in last week. To me this could be as well as another planet.
A/N= Hey, So I would just like to thank you for taking so time out of you busy life and to read this, and I would also like to thank the people that have reviewed the first two chapters.Thank-you all and hope that you reveiw this one as well to let me know how you think that this chapter has gone down. I really like to know how you feel that I did with the Harry part, it was weird to write hope it came off alright.
7/9- so about the wait and the hope that this is a new chapter (I know how much this gets you down after a big wait) but I am just having a few little probles and now that I only have a couple weeks till exams so there may not be anythink new till this is over. Till then check out my other story,'the Light in the Dark' its more a story of how one of the character from this story that you have yet to meet came to be where they are now.
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