• Beginnings

  "So this is Diagon Alley" Willow stared in wonder at the scene around her. There were witches and wizards hustling about, and so many strange and fantastic shops she couldn't quite take it all in. One shop to her right was selling brooms. The window display held a sleek silver broomstick, with fire red bristles, and a floating sign above it bore the legend, "NEW! Falcon X1!"
  
  Another shop, directly to her left, had a large sign above the door saying 'Madam Murgood's Menagerie'. The paint on the sign was old, and bits were flaking off, but looking in through the window, the shop was sparkling and tidy. Animals of varying shapes, sizes and species were in cages along the walls, and a fenced off rectangle in the middle of the shop had a sign on the front saying, "The Ideal Familiar". Willow wondered what kind of creature would make an ideal familiar, and soon found out, as a young boy stood on tiptoes to lean over the wobbly green fencing, and emerged again cradling a fluffy, black kitten.
  
  Giles looked down at her, pleased that she was enjoying herself this far. They'd taken a plane from LA to Heathrow, London, and then taken a cab to a seemingly random street, where he had taken her inside a rather boring looking pub. Nodding to the barman, he'd pulled her right through the pub and out to the back, where he'd tried poking at the wall. Willow had started to giggle until the wall had shifted, revealing the doorway to Diagon Alley, where she was now simply drinking in the sights it had to offer.
  
  "Yes, this is Diagon Alley. I believe we're meant to be meeting the others outside Gringotts."
  
  "Gringotts?"
  
  "The wizarding bank."
  
  "Oh." Willow's face shifted uncomfortably as though she'd just realised something. "Others? I thought we were just meeting Dumbledore."
  
  "You are something special to the school Willow. To the whole wizarding world. Naturally the people Dumbledore has told about you are anxious to meet you."
  
  Willow frowned slightly. Meeting Dumbledore was fine; he knew all about her and yet still wanted her to come to Hogwarts, but meeting all these other people? Her stomach sank.
  
  *What if they don't like me? What if they hate me? They'll know what I've done.*
  
  When Giles briskly started off down the cobbled street again it was with a slightly more subdued Willow following him.
  
  *Well if they don't like me, that's fine. I'll just not-like them back. Dumbledore wants me. My friends still think I'm good old Wills. Anyone else can just deal.* Her internal monologue stuttered slightly, *And if you tell yourself that often enough, you might even start believing it.*
  
  "Ah, here we are Willow." Giles pulled up to a stop outside an impressive, if slightly wonky building, and ushered Willow in front of him.
  
  Standing in front of her were an old wizard, wearing a purple gown with golden yellow stars on it, and a long grey beard; a tall imposing figure, with lank black hair, a hooked nose and swirling black gowns, and a throng of redheads clustered around a young girl with plain brown hair and a nervous expression, and a solemn boy with messy black hair and a scar on his forehead, in the shape of a lightening bolt.
  
  "Willow," the old man stepped forwards smiling, and took her hand. "It's so very good to meet you, my dear. How are you finding Diagon Alley."
  
  "It's wonderful," Willow murmured, "thank you for meeting me… Professor Dumbledore?"
  
  The old man in front of her chuckled, and his face creased up in wrinkles. All smile lines, Willow noted. The sort of lines that etched themselves onto you after a lifetime of always seeing the good in everything you came across.
  
  "Yes, you are right Miss Rosenberg. But I am being rude!" He chuckled as though this were some kind of joke. "Allow me to introduce you to Professor Severus Snape," the pale man merely scowled down his rather long nose at her, "Mr and Mrs Weasley," the two adults who were presumably responsible for the red headed army smiled at her.
  
  "Molly, dear." Willow noticed right away that Mrs Weasley… Molly, she corrected herself, had the same kind of eyes as Joyce. Warm, loving and every bit the mother. She choked up slightly, remembering how Joyce had always been more of a mother to her than Sheila Rosenberg ever had. It was Joyce she had gone to when she was sad, Joyce that had comforted them all when they needed it, and Joyce that had made them all hot chocolate with little floating marshmallows. "It's so nice to have you with us. These are mine," she gestured at the red headed children in front of her, "This is Bill; Fred; George..."
  
  "No, I'm Fred!" George said, pushing forwards, before getting a glare from his mother. "Actually I am George. But you'll never be able to tell!" He grinned at her cheekily.
  
  "Fred and George are the trouble makers of my little brood," Molly sighed, "so watch out for them. They own Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, a joke shop, and if I were you my dear, I wouldn't accept any kind of food from them. And these two here are Ron and Ginny."
  
  "Hi," Ginny smiled easily up at Willow, her hair glinting almost the same colour as Willow's in the hot August sun, but Ron scowled and said nothing.
  
  *It starts then,* she thought to herself, *even the children know who I am.* "We're not the last though," Ginny blurted out, after subtly standing on Ron's foot, "there's Charlie and Percy too!"
  
  Mr Weasley looked at his wife, who'd paled slightly at Ginny's outburst. Ginny herself had blushed upon realising what she'd said, reaching roughly the same colour as her hair, and was now studiously watching a beetle crawl over Ron's foot.
  
  *Ah, family problems there. Best to steer clear of Charlie conversations. Or Percy conversations. Or both?* Willow felt confused.
  
  "I'm Harry, and this is Hermione," said the scarred boy, quietly, without really looking at her.
  
  "Nice to meet you," said Hermione, shooting daggers at Ron, who just shrugged at her and attempted to knock the beetle on his right foot off with his left, kicking himself in the ankle in the process.
  
  "You'll be teaching Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny, Willow," Dumbledore added, "these three are sixth years, and Ginny is in the fifth year."
  
  "We're young upwardly mobile professional people," interrupted George. They'd found the term in an old muggle book and thought it summed them up nicely.
  
  "We found the atmosphere at Hogwarts last year to be incompatible with our educational goals," added Fred, smirking.
  
  "We are all," Dumbledore cut in neatly, "members of the Order of the Phoenix. All of us except Ginny, as she is not old enough yet. It is this Order I would like to speak to you about now."
  
  Molly frowned at Ginny, as the young girl was glaring hard at Dumbledore's back. Willow nearly laughed for the similarities between her and Dawn. Both of them thinking they were so much older than they were. Both unwilling to let others shoulder responsibility they thought they should share in.
  
  "Shall we, Miss Rosenberg?" Dumbledore jolted Willow out of her reverie, and indicated that their group should move along the large shopping street.
  
  "I believe that's my cue to leave," said Bill.
  
  "Bill works as a curse-breaker for Gringotts," Molly said, beaming proudly at her eldest son, "he's the best they've got!"
  
  Bill smiled good-naturedly at his mother, before turning to Willow and explaining, "Maybe not the best, but they seem to think I'm important enough that they can't let me away from work long enough for the little chat Dumbledore has planned. It was nice to meet you Miss Rosenberg, I'm sure we'll all be seeing a lot more of you."
  
  Giles placed a hand on Willow's shoulder and she turned to face him. "I think that I shall take my leave as well, Willow," he said quietly. "I'm sure everything will be fine," he added, seeing the panic rising again in her face, "Dumbledore will take care of you, and if I'm not mistaken, there are some very important things he would like to discuss. If you need me at all, for anything, you can always owl me."
  
  Willow nodded quietly. She hoped there wouldn't be anything she'd need to owl Giles about, but it was still comforting to hear that the option was open to her. "I'll miss you," she offered weakly, trying to clamp down on the horribly cold, lonely feeling that was already twisting its way through her gut. *You're being stupid,* she told herself, *Giles hasn't even left yet, and you're with friends anyway. Well, mostly.*
  
  As Giles pulled her in for a hug that was both tighter and more reassuring than she'd expected, he whispered into her ear, "I'm so very proud of you Willow. You will do great things here." He released her, more from a need to breathe on her part than a willingness to let go of her, and stepped back to say his goodbyes to the others. He was going to miss the young Wiccan as much as any of the other Scoobies, but he knew that if either of them were going to get away with their dignity intact he'd have to be strong, and keep his emotions firmly in check.
  
  After the farewells were done, and everyone had returned their attention to Dumbledore, they started off down the street. A few minutes later they stopped outside a small shop. It had a plain white front, with a small sign above the window proclaiming it sold teas, coffees and biscuits. The first thing Willow noticed was how dark it was inside. The room ran lengthways, with the only windows being the two at the front, and the low blue ceiling only had a few candles placed strategically in hanging candelabras. The walls were a similar dirty kind of blue to the ceiling, with wood from half the way down, sanded back to a dark brown. A small greying counter stood in the near right corner, opposite the door, and the wizard behind it gave Dumbledore a sly wink and busied himself cleaning some cups and plates.
  
  Molly immediately dragged Ginny off to one side, and sat her down at a small round table right by the counter. She firmly engaged Ginny in a conversation about school robes, and Willow wondered, as she spotted Ginny straining to get a look at the table the others were sitting on, if it was due to curiosity, or just a strong desire to not have to talk about uniform.
  
  Dumbledore led the others to a long wooden table at the back of the shop. It had a few old armchairs scattered along one length, while the other was parallel to a bench that protruded from the wall, with no obvious means of attachment.
  
  Dumbledore chose one of the armchairs, as did Snape, Mr Weasley and the twins. That left Willow to squeeze onto the bench with the remaining three children, much to the chagrin of the ever-watchful Ginny. She wound up on the end of the bench closest to Dumbledore, next to Harry, and then Hermione. Ron however appeared content to avoid her as much as possible, and sat at the very opposite end of the bench. Hermione seemed to notice his distance, and shuffled along closer to him, in an attempt to make the seating look more casual.
  
  "Now then, Willow, I know you were not expecting this, and I apologise. My owl was about the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts, which I think you would be perfect for," Snape's glare intensified, and Ron snorted, "but I did not think it wise to mention in an owl, what I am now about to tell you."
  
  The door to the coffee shop creaked open, and the people on Willow's table tensed up, until the visitor was revealed to be a small blonde girl, her wand holding her hair into a messy bun at the back of her head, and with a rather dreamy expression on her face. She immediately spotted Ginny and Mrs Weasley, and walked over to them.
  
  "Luna!" Ginny called, as the girl approached, "Thank Merlin you're here! I've been so bored all summer. They kept dragging the others off to meetings, but of course I'm still too young to go." The look on Ginny's face was a perfect indication of whether she felt she was too young to attend the meetings of the Order, and she didn't make the slightest effort to keep her voice down. Willow grinned to herself again.
  
  "What do you know about the wizarding world?" Dumbledore addressed Willow.
  
  "I know there's this really bad guy, Giles told me that on the way over, and I know you've got wizarding schools, cause well, you've asked me to teach in one. That was a big give away. But I didn't know that there was a wizarding world until your letter arrived. Your owl I mean. You can guess how annoyed I was at Giles over that. He made this weird face and everything, and, um…"
  
  *She babbles. Fantastic. One witch with the power to end the world, and it's a damn Weasley look alike that babbles.* Professor Snape's frown intensified.
  
  "I can see we've got a lot to catch you up on, Willow. Allow me to introduce you to your 'Wizarding Studies' teachers." Dumbledore grinned happily, and looked around the rest of the table. "Our story really should begin with our 'really bad guy'…"
  
  

  ---

  
  
  "It's not fair" Ginny moaned to Luna.
  
  Mrs Weasley had gone to the main table to help fill Willow in on what was happening in the wizarding world, leaving the two youngest girls under strict instructions to stay exactly where they were, and not even dream about trying to eavesdrop. Since she'd left their table they'd been commiserating one another about the sever unfairness of leaving them out of whatever the Order was planning next.
  
  "We're almost as old as the others, and after all the stuff in the Ministry of Magic last year, not to mention the stuff in the summer," Ginny glanced at Luna, but she still had her usual dreamy expression on her face, "I can't believe they won't let us even listen."
  
  "Maybe we are too young," Luna mused, toying with the strands of fine blonde hair that had escaped her wand-made bun.
  
  "You don't really think that, do you?" Ginny asked incredulously, her indignant rant cut short by her best friend siding with the adults.
  
  "Well," Luna sighed, and switched to fiddling with her necklace of butterbeer corks, her eyes fixed on the table, "what could I do to help this summer?"
  
  An awkward silence fell between them, as Luna traced her fingers over knots in the wood of their table, and Ginny watched her, trying to think of what to say. She'd finally made a real solid friend, in her own year, someone who didn't care that she'd been possessed by the ghost of Tom Riddle in her first year. That'd put a real dampner on making friends. Sentences like, "Hi, I'm Ginny," were usually met with, "Aren't you the one who was possessed by You-Know-Who?" which in turn led to potential friends slowly and cautiously backing away until they were out of sight. Luna was so dreamy, half the time Ginny wondered if she even knew what had happened.
  
  Luna knew about it, in fact she knew more than anyone else, except for Ginny herself. It just didn't bother her. As she had stated to Ginny, as a matter of fact, possessions happened all the time. Most of the time the person wasn't even aware of it. They would just act slightly differently. Like the muggle who was possessed by the ghost of a mouse, and started squeaking every time he saw a piece of cheese. Ginny didn't exactly believe Luna's stories, but it was comforting to know that her horrific first year didn't matter to the eccentric Ravenclaw.
  
  "Have you heard anything about Blaise?" Ginny asked cautiously, in a tentative attempt to break the silence that had fallen between them.
  
  "No," Luna sniffed and pulled her wand out of her hair. It fell down the sides of her face, and hid her tearful eyes from everyone but Ginny, who was directly opposite her.
  
  "If he dares show his face back at Hogwarts this year, I'll get him," declared Ginny, vehemently. Her mind wandered to the various plans for revenge she had thought about. Luna had been miserable all summer, and the reason for her distress was going to get one hell of a shock when he got back to school. *Draco Malfoy move over, there's a new public enemy number one.* You did not mess with Ginny Weasley's friends.
  
  
  -: Chapter 2 -:- Chapter 4 :-
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