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GOBLET OF FIRE.
SIX hours was how long the drive to Diagon Alley was.
And Ophelia spent half of it wallowing in how glum she was to leave Guernsey and Piper, and the beaches and the rolling sea, the occasional stone dolmen and the flowering hedgerows and fields, and the way people didn't drive so bloody recklessly. By the time they were even close to London, she'd tired of her mother's CDs and the radio, and was content to stare at the clusters of cars travelling beside them.
They had no idea, she often thought, they have no idea I'm on my way to a magic shopping spree, they have no clue magic even exists. The existence of Muggles in Ophelia's life had been a constant, and she knew them inside out, and rather a lot she felt pity for them. Magic had brought so much to her life, even in how controlled it was, that a life without it seemed unbearably dull. She rarely vocalised these thoughts - her mother was never too keen on the talk of how Muggles lives were boring considering she herself had grown up surrounded by magic but with none of her own.
"I was thinking an owl," her mother said aimlessly. "Netty had one that would bring us mail but the owl wasn't hers. I quite honestly think she had stolen it entirely after a while."
"We'll see," Ophelia replied, admittedly only because she couldn't decide. An owl was useful but you couldn't exactly cuddle up with it, a cat couldn't deliver mail but it would be a nice pet to have, and a toad... well, Ophelia could somehow teach a toad a trick or two.
"I remember," her mother excitedly said, "when I came here first, we had this ice cream. Oh, it was wonderful. It changed flavours depending on the person. We'll get some when we arrive, I think, give us a boost before dinner."
It was August 31st.
It had been thirteen days since Ophelia had replied to that letter and her life had wholeheartedly changed since. Her mother seemed to perk up at the thought of returning to London, and subsequently its wizarding scene, and Piper had thrown such an ice-cold veil over their lessons that it threw Ophelia into a deep shock for a week. Her teacher had not been happy in the slightest. Piper had insisted Ophelia needed this level of isolation to focus, that she was simultaneously both too far behind and too far ahead the other children, that Hogwarts wasn't safe. Ophelia had taken them all with a neutral face, hand clasped around that Chocolate Frog card, and had only cried into her pillow thrice with anxiety.
Her father's job in Cardiff meant that he was unable to visit her before she left for Hogwarts, but she'd expected as much. Mr Levitt had never been an outstanding figure in Ophelia's life - her parents 'living apart' but not divorced (she wasn't ever sure what the difference was.)
Regardless, she'd penned a sweet letter and sent it off to him even after a long call between the two of them. He didn't seem terribly happy either, and Lia knew it was because her father was terribly avoidant of all types of magic. His brother had died in some sort of magical accident, and it only served to solidify that embitterment towards the wizarding world. All Ophelia really had in terms of the wizarding heritage was a small bank account in something called Gringotts (she much preferred her simple Muggle one) and a distant connection to a few cousins over in the French school of Beauxbatons, to which she had never been invited.
