Timekeepers - It's Just About Time

Chapter 4

Emerald slowly opened her eyes, blinking due to the warm sun shining on her face. She looked around only to see her sister sitting next to her while seeming a bit dazed. Her rump was hurting as if she'd just fallen to the ground which, considering her current position, she probably had. Looking at her surroundings, Emerald now also noticed a big house a few feet away from her. It looked old and very abandoned. Although it might have looked quite nice with its big windows, a grey-brown roof, and white wood planks on its walls a decade ago it now looked more like the shrieking shag. There was a big oriel on the left which somehow reminded Emerald of the Ravenclaw tower.
Before the girl could think any further though she got interrupted by a weird scratching sound. By looking to her left she noticed that apparently one of her suitcases had hit a stone and had snapped open. Next to it, a couple of parchments were laying in the grass and Mr. Ipson's magic quill wrote in sweeping motions on one of them. Saphire, who had gotten up already, approached it and gasped surprisedly: "Dear Merlin, it really is writing a letter to Dumbledore! And its handwriting is prettier than yours as well". Her sister, while walking towards her grinning twin, just murmured something like 'Geniuses don't have time for calligraphy'.
Now the blue-eyed girl reached the scene and saw what her sister meant: The big, white quill had put down a whole letter in beautiful writing in only a few minutes and was almost done by now.

Dear Professor Dumbledore, 

It said,

my husband and I have heard about that great school of yours. We have been searching for a new magical school for our two children (Emerald and Saphire Blackstone) since we moved back to England from America. The girls have spent their first two schoolyears in Ilvermorny and have reached the required level of knowledge. We would feel very honoured if Emerald and Saphire could attend Hogwarts after the summer holidays to start their third schoolyear.
Best regards,
Keira & Ewan Blackstone

After the quill had finished its work it slowly sank to the ground and stayed still. The paper meanwhile rolled up, started floating shakily, and finally flew up to the sky disappearing from Emerald's sight quickly. 
The twins stood there for a couple of minutes until Saphire decided to inspect the house from the inside.

There was a wood-paneled corridor leading to a middle-sized, reddish brown staircase and one archway on the left and the right.
"Well, I'm tired so let's look for a bedroom", Saphire stated before disappearing upstairs quickly. Emerald, who was quite stunned by her surroundings, wanted to get to know the lower rooms first and walked inside the left one. Despite the furniture in the brightly lit room being covered in white, dusty blankets the freckled girl could recognize a kitchen with a dining table in a corner. Everything looked very nice and warm even though the wallpaper was missing in some places and there was dust everywhere.
Emerald then went to the other room which turned out to be the living room. It had a fireplace made of red bricks as well as a sofa and a few chairs, all being covered in blankets. There also was a carpet that seemed to have been red with black and green patterns once although it now had more of a dirty brown colour.
After she inspected the lower part of the house the thirteen year old went upstairs to search for her sister. Whilst doing so Emerald came through some kind of bathroom with a strange-looking bathtub and a toilet.
"Thank Merlin wizards have taken over  the muggle toilet technology, I wouldn't want to use an outhouse", she thought to herself. Ongoing with the inspection she found two bedrooms, a small storage room and her sister who was sleeping on a dusty bed. That was one of Saphire's many talents; being able to sleep anywhere at any time. A quite desirable skill, really.

In the next few days, the girls tried some of Rhys' cleaning spells to get the house in shape again. It slowly began to look better and Emerald and Saphire were quite proud of their work. One day they sat at the kitchen table and read the files about the mission again. Suddenly, a loud thud made both of them jump and run to where the noise came from. There, in front of one of the windows, a big brown owl was sitting, looking around confusedly. Emerald lifted it up, removed the paper on its foot, and handed the bird to Saphire. After the blue-eyed girl had unfolded the letter she looked up just to see her sister roughly trying to throw the owl in the air making the brown creature shriek angrily.
Both Blackstone-twins now saw that the letter was a message from Dumbledore himself:

Dear Mrs. and Mr. Blackstone,
I am happy to tell you that we indeed have space for your two children. Although we have to get some formalities done such as verifying if Emerald and Saphire can fully continue their magical education without lacking in knowledge at some points I can assure you that we'll try our best to keep this occurrence as short as possible. We consider it to be the best for both of them if they simply attend the third schoolyear normally but write a few tests about the regarding the amount of knowledge. In case they do miss some information we will gladly provide a teacher to let them catch up quickly. Attached is a list of the needed school supplies for this year.
Kindest regards,
A. P. W. B. Dumbledore

Emerald sighed, resigned that everything had gone so smoothly but was slightly confused about Hogwarts' headmaster not wanting to see any documents of sort.
"So I guess we should go to Diagon Alley quite soon, shouldn't we?", Saphire now asked. Her sister just nodded and went back inside to prepare some things they would need. The girls planned to go there the next day, buy the items they'd need, and be back in a few hours. Nothing hard really. But you know how it is with such trips: Not everything goes as planned...