Elle (A Harry Potter Fanfiction)

2. Four Steps

Upon my arrival at the first wizard restaurant I had ever seen, my first thought was of the sheer amount of people present. How could so many people be... magical?

I coughed while walking through a cloud of smoke from a very odd-looking pipe resting on the counter. "Hagrid, what's that?"

"Just don't inhale, Elle, and you'll be fine," he reassured me, rushing me through the pub as fast a possible.

"Violet," I corrected. "For the hundredth time, it's Violet."

"Right," he grumbled. All the same, I was careful not to breathe until we were halfway out the exit. I was nearly ready to scramble free from the dark tavern when suddenly came the one phrase I hadn't known that I never wanted to hear.

"Blimey," the voice that scraped my ears was shrill and excited against the laid-back, sleepy-eyed attitude of the pub. "Lily Potter, is that you?"

"Walk faster...," my current guardian prodded me in the back. Determined to showcase yet another act of defiance, I stopped right in my tracks, directly under the doorframe. "Move please," he whisper-shrieked. I gave a small smirk and crossed my arms, hips swaying only slightly to the left, like the rebel I could never be. "Elle, move!," the thrum of curious murmurs began to escalate to a steady bellow from behind me, almost deafening. Yet again, however, I didn't budge.

"I can swear, that's her!"

"She's dead, though..."

"Look at her nose; it's gotta be Lily!"

"Please, just...," Hagrid grunted, and I could feel his grimy hands trying to shove me through the door frame. Nevertheless, I clung to the peeling wood, more determined than ever just to find out what the crowd was so energetic about. "Elle!"

"Violet!," I corrected him. "I'm not moving 'till I know who Lily Potter is!"

I heard an exasperated sigh from behind me and felt that special tingle of satisfaction. "Your mother," he said hoarsely, itching his forehead. Suddenly the howl of voices slunk back into the sea of background noise. I bit my lip so hard I might've been bleeding... but I didn't care. "Lily Potter was your mother."

I let got of the doorframe and kicked the dirt resting just outside the Leaky Cauldron in defeat. I was my dead mother's look-alike, then. Marvelous. I twirled a strand of dark copper hair, thinking as it tangled around my pointer finger, choppy and sleek. I wondered if maybe Lily Potter was actually as identical to me as I'd heard. Did she wake up every morning to a stubbornly long nose and short eyelashes? Did she look at the scale every morning after breakfast and contemplate not eating lunch? Would she have chewed her fingernails over an A minus? I felt tears welling up behind my eyelids and took a deep breath, not remembering when I had stopped breathing in the first place. Wondering in the first place was pointless; Lily Potter was dead. I would never know how many times she skipped lunch or when her first kiss was, no matter how much I asked.

Little did I know that the next few steps toward a faded brick wall were probably the movements that would exert me the most in my entire life. Those were the four steps that carried me onward into a world where I shouldn't have cared who my mother was or whether or not I was magical; where my life was no longer meant to be a curse, rather a blessing.

"I'm... sorry," said Hagrid quietly as he tapped a few of the bricks, letting the wall crumble away to reveal what must have been the most astonishing sight I'd ever laid eyes on.

"It's no, trouble. Really," I gasped breathlessly upon entering what I would soon come to know as Diagon Alley. Sand-coloured cobblestones swept together to form a winding road lined with bright, colourful shops of all different kinds. People in long, light robes patterned on and across the road, mingling and smiling to their hearts content. I could almost catch a glimpse of clouds just over the cresting rooftops, but as soon as I thought I had spotted a bulbous, purplish storm cloud, it vanished in a puff of dust as if Mother Nature couldn't allow storm clouds to ruin such a beautiful settlement.