Schrodinger's Cat

August 7, 1995

My head darts around as my eyes adjust to the light streaming into the room. Where am I?
"Connie?"
I whip around, feeling in my pocket for my wand only to remember that the Dark Lord had snapped it in half.
"Connie?"
My eyes land on the person calling my name.
Sirius?
"What are you doing here?" I ask. "You are going to get yourself killed."
"It's really you," he says, a smile breaking out across his face. He's lost it. Been tortured.
I look around, searching for Eddie. They must have come together.
The room I am in is different than the room the Dark Lord had been keeping me.
"Where are we?" I ask, stepping back from Sirius. Maybe it isn't him. "Ow!" a sharp pain in my side causes me to lose my balance. My hand lands on a table. Furniture. My bare feet are warm. Standing on carpet.
"Connie, relax. You are safe now," Sirius steps towards me.
I don't have a wand. I don't have the knife I had been keeping strapped to my calf.
My head is pounding.
"Where the bloody hell am I, Sirius?" panic edges into my voice.
One more step and his face is lit by a stream of light.
"Grimmauld Place. My family's house," he says, except I barely hear him because I can't stop staring at his chin. He has a beard. And his forehead is wrinkly.
"You aren't Sirius, are you? What have you done with him? What have you done with Eddie? I won't tell you anything!"
"Connie, you are bleeding. I am Sirius," he actually has the audacity to crack a smile at that. Maybe it is Sirius.
"Why are you so old? Has James convinced you to prank me?"
Even as I ask the question, I know it is wrong. I was trapped in Lestrange's dungeon. I was being tortured for information on the order.
"Listen to me, Connie. I'm so so sorry," Sirius holds up a small wooden box. I know I recognize it, but I can't remember from where. "It is 1995, Connie."

September 1, 1971
It has been exactly seventy-seven days since Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, had arrived at St. Joseph’s Home for Children with a letter addressed to me.

Ms. Connie Derringer
St. Joseph’s Home for Children
8 Wren Mews
Lambeth

Seventy-seven days since Sister Hunin, the woman who raised me, fainted from reading the contents of the letter.
A letter claiming that magic is real. Better than that, it offered me a place at a school that would teach me to use the magic I supposedly possessed.
The only thing more surprising than all of that?
My last name is not Derringer.
As the elderly witch explained, my real name is Connemara Fawley. Not that I plan on telling anyone what Connie is short for.
After seventy-seven days, I have a list of questions a hundred times longer than the list of answers Minerva McGonagall had provided me before she left.
Who were my parents?
How did they die?
Why did they leave me at St. Joseph’s?
On and on, I wondered about my past. Until a week ago, when Minerva McGonagall appeared once more.
She brought me to a magical street hidden right in the heart of London.
She revealed only two things about my past to me that day.
First, I am wealthy. Obscenely wealthy. Buy all of Lambeth and turn it into a theme park dedicated to me, wealthy.
Second, she told me, after much bothering on my part, that my entire family was dead.
I stopped asking questions of her then. Figuring there would be plenty of time to figure out why I had grown up in an orphanage in South London after arriving at Hogwarts.
That evening, she left me with a small train ticket and instructions on how to board the Hogwarts Express, which departed King’s Cross station this morning at exactly 11 o’clock.
I had been nearly an hour early to the station, taking in the high arches and bustling muggles; a word Minerva has taught me.
Now, I am seated in a train car, working on my list of questions once more. When Sister Hunin had given me this lovely lilac journal, I doubt she had intended for me to fill it with things like: Were they murdered?
Who gave me the name Derringer?
Am I in danger?
Will anyone tell me the truth?
A knock at the door makes me jump.
Two young boys are standing in the window, peering into my car. Then, the taller of the two slides open the door and smiles.
“Room for two more?” He asks, already stepping into the small space. Then, without waiting for my response he sticks a hand in my face and grins. “James Potter.”
I close my journal and slide it into my bag. I shake his hand and he sits across from me.
“Connie Fawley,” I say, stumbling over my new last name. Or old last name. Whatever, it doesn’t feel natural yet.
“Fawley?” the second boy asks, plopping down on the striped bench diagonally from me. “Related to Allegra?”
Allegra? My mother? Grandmother?
“I’m not sure,” I admit.
“Maybe not then,” he grins. “I’m Serious.” He offers a hand as well.
Shaking it, I look at him confused.
“Serious about what?” I ask.
For some reason this causes James to burst out laughing. I shrink back, embarrassed by whatever mistake I’ve made.
“Apologies, my name is Sirius. Sirius Black,” he pretends to give a bow from his seated position and I laugh along with James.
“Are you both first years as well?” I ask, taking a closer look at both boys. They are very clean. Cleaner than any of the boys at St. Joseph’s. In fact, if they weren’t so small, I would assume they are much older than me. They carry themselves as if they are royalty. Stiff posture and raised chins.
“Yes, we are,” James pulls a box from his jacket pocket. He pops open the top and holds it out to me. “Bertie Bott’s?” he asks.
I look at the candy beans suspiciously. McGonagall had warned me that magical sweets often came with an enchantment.
“Are they safe?” I ask.
Sirius lets out a short bark of laughter. His eyes are dark, but there is a brightness to them that speaks solely to mischief.
“Some of them. Berty Bott’s every flavor beans. Including soap, earwax, rotten egg, you name it. My brother got a grass-flavored one for his birthday.”
James holds the box closer to me.
I reach in and take out a light brown one. Summoning as much bravery as I can in the face of two mischievous eleven-year-old wizards, I pop it into my mouth and chew.
“It tastes like toast!” I say as the flavor fills my mouth.
We all laugh and continue on in this fashion, taking turns trying each color. Sirius is excellent at picking fruit flavored ones. Poor James accidentally eats one that tastes like sardines.
Quickly, half the box is gone and all three of us are holding our cramping stomachs.

As nervous as I have been for the last couple of months, I am excited to go to Hogwarts.