Chapter 2
“Do I have to go back to the dursleys?” I asked Snape, looking at him with my best puppy eyes but it didn’t seem to work. He looked at me with his cold, black eyes and nodded his head, “yes, you need to go back to your relatives”, he spat the word relatives out with venom in his voice, “but don’t worry, they won’t dare to hurt you any more, I made sure of that. If they do hurt you take the knight bus to diagon alley and send an owl from the owlery to me, I will come and remind them what happens when they hurt an innocent child”
“Thank you so much Professor, I don’t know how I could thank you”
“You don’t have to, I am doing this not for you but for your mother”, he said, as we walked down the alley, “You know, your mother and I were friends back at school, she was a most gifted witch with curious eyes… you know, she actually was a parselmouth, meaning she could talk to snakes… she was special, in so many ways…”
Wait what? My mom was a parselmouth? This world seemed to differ in more ways than I had first thought… What else could’ve changed? Were the horcruxes even the same ones as before? This was troublesome, very troublesome. But now, we needed to get back ‘home’. So, Snape took my hand and we side along apparated. There was that same sensation again and I was in front of privet drive number 4, wearing one of my new dresses, a yellow one with flowers on it. Wearing a dress felt oddly comforting, maybe being a girl won’t be as bad as I initially thought.
I knocked on the door and not even 20 seconds later, Petunia opened the door, “Oh- it is you”
She showed me into Dudley’s second room, which now was mine and she had already moved all my stuff there, which wasn’t much. Just some old clothes, which I would never wear again and some other nicknacks, broken toys that had been given to me after Dudley destroyed them.
I spent the rest of the day studying my spell books, learning new spells, such as Oculus Reparo, which repaired my broken glasses, as well as the normal Reparo spell, lumos and nox. Over the next few weeks, I was mostly in my new room, reading anything and everything I could get my hands on and trying out as many of the spells as I wanted. I knew that once I was done with my first year at Hogwarts, I was no longer allowed to cast spells in my home, so I did the most out of this time. My birthday came and went without any celebration and I just continued studying. It was really dry but it was magic! Who wouldn’t go through this to learn actual magic?
Of course, I didn’t only study charms, I also did transfiguration, brewed some simple potions and read up on all the more theoretical subjects, such as Astronomy and History of magic. As the weeks turned into months, the day of my first trip to Hogwarts came closer and closer and I was practically vibrating in excitement. As the days marched on, I kept on learning and practicing, improving myself further and further. I had read through almost all the books and mastered a good half of the spells and potions in my books. I felt like a lesser Hermione. She and I would probably get along swimmingly, after all, we were both so fascinated with magic that we wanted to learn everything about it.
Speaking of knowing everything, I learned a lot about how magic functions.
There was indeed something like a magical core, like in all those fanfictions, a well of magic located in your gut which fueled magic through magical circuits which connected every part of the body with the core. When you cast a spell, you channel magic from your core up into both your arm, lungs and head. Your arm, because that was where your wand was, which could be ignored if you were strong enough. Your lungs because the magic is imbued into your voice, this too could be omitted. And last but certainly not least, magic flowing through your head because there had to be intent to cast a spell, this was the only part which couldn’t be omitted. Omitting one of the three pathways was already difficult enough, doing so with two was almost unheard of, only the biggest players, like Dumbledor or Grindlewald could do that and even then, it was still very draining and not very practical. Parseltongue functioned similarly to casting a spell, only that all the magic was channeled into the lungs, no wand required. Parseltongue was also something I learned about more as I practiced it with the garden snakes in the backyard. Now, I could switch between parseltongue and english on a whim, no longer needing to see a snake in order to use it. Apparition was apparently a mix of intent and spreading magic throughout the entire body at once, allowing it to disappear from one location and reappear at another, though I of course didn’t try it, don’t want to be splinched and loose my legs or something. I also made short trips to diagon alley over the months, restocking my potion ingredients and just strolling throughout the alley. On one of those trips, I found a medi witch that was able to repair my eyes, making me no longer need any glasses, though I still wore the frames on my face just because I liked the way they looked. It was a painful and costly process, 15 galleons for one eye. Most people couldn’t just spend that amount of money on a whim, I was the exception, not the rule, for I was loaded, thanks Potter generational wealth. Most working class wizards or witches earned 200 galleons a year after taxes, not accounting for spendings. Potion ingredients could cost a pretty penny but most wizards and witches didn’t need to buy ingredients for potions and those that did had better paying jobs. So, for most, it was a thing that they had to save up in order to get their eyes fixed, which was why there were still wizards and witches wearing glasses. Now, 200 galleons sounded like very little but it was actually quite a bit. As a magical person, you only needed to buy a bit of food, much less than a muggle would need to buy, since you could replicate food with a moderately difficult spell, that all Hogwarts students were taught and buying furniture wasn’t all that important, since you could just transfigure stones into furniture. Really, a well equipped wizard or witch didn’t need all that much money to live. There were expensive things, such as a broom or a wand but generally you only needed to buy one, unless you play quidditch professionally but then, you earn way more money anyways.
The weasleys were only so poor because they had so many children. Clothes were one of the few things that most wizards can’t make themselves without further training and with growing boys and girls, you need new clothes regularly. Ingredients were another problem and each child had to bring the ingredients for potions themselves. There was a communal cabinet full of ingredients at Hogwarts but you needed to ask for permission from Professor Snape to use them and like we already established Snape is a dick, through and through. Most likely, only the Slytherins were permitted to use the cabinet. So, yeah Ingredients were one of the main money drains for those like the Weasleys who didn’t have much when it comes to money.
Anyways, back to the story at hand, I got my eyes fixed and now was the time for me to go to the Hogwarts Express and onto Hogwarts itself.
I used the Knight bus to get to Kings cross, paying a few sickles and then being on my way. I dragged the trunk behind myself, which was itself enchanted quite like my money bag, to be bigger on the inside and feather light. It wasn’t as big as, say, Newt Scamander’s suitcase, it was only a bit bigger on the inside, just enough to fit all my books, my clothes and my other equipment with a few square centimeters to spare. So, I walked up to platform nine and ten, where I could see the Weasleys standing before the barrier between platform nine and ten. They didn’t even try to hide that they were wizards, seriously, they were all in robes. Though strangely, no one seemed to notice. I myself was dressed in a light blue dress. I walked over to the obviously magic family and asked, “Hello, is this the entry to platform 9 ¾?”
“Oh, yes, dear, you must be another first year… don’t worry, my son Ron is also here for the first time. You just need to walk through that barrier and you are done, the Train should already be there. Do you want one of my boys to demonstrate? I know how daunting it can be your first time”, Mrs Weasley offered. I just nodded my head.
“Percy, if you would”
“Yes mom”, Percy, the prefect, walked up to the barrier and just kept walking, disappearing in the blink of an eye.
Next, I walked through there and was met with a train station, full of children with their parents, saying goodbye to each other. There were many children with cages full of owls, or transport boxes for cats, one kid -presumably neville- with a toad. It was full of life and I just walked past them all, making my way into an empty compartment and I waited, looking out the window, gazing at the crowds. I could see the weasleys standing at one end of the station, Molly checking up on each of her kids before they were off to Hogwarts for another year of learning.
Soon, all the children had boarded the train and at exactly 11:00, the train left the station. It wasn’t long before Ron Weasley came into my compartment asking, “can I sit here? Everywhere else is full”
“Sure”, I smiled at him, “You have some dirt on your nose there, just so you know”
“Thanks”, he rubbed at his nose, not helping the smudge on him, only spreading it further.
“I am Ron, Ron Weasley”, he introduced himself, holding out his hand. I shook it, “And I am Holly, Holly Potter”
“Are you really?! Whoa, that scar looks wicked”, he stared at my scar, which made me feel a little uncomfortable but I had to get used to it, this would be my life now. The scar wasn’t anything like the movie scar, it actually looked like a lightning bolt, arching across my forehead, too big to be hidden behind my crows nest of hair.
“Do you remember anything about- you know, that night?”
“Only a piercing green light”, I shrugged, “I was a baby, I don’t have many memories from back then, I can’t even remember how my parents looked like”
“Oh- I am so sorry, didn’t want to bring back any bad memories”
“It is fine, like I said, I don’t remember much. Say, what house do you think you’ll be sorted into?” I asked him, trying to deflect the conversation into happier territories.
“Gryffindor, definitely, my whole family was in Gryffindor and I don’t intend to break that tradition”, Ron explained, “it is the house of the brave and I am very brave, my mom says so”
This was the moment that reminded me that we were still children, no matter how mature I might be -due to my past life-, I was still in the body of an 11 year old child, going to school with other 11 year old children.