Trapped In Time: Love's Secrets (Adult)

Chapter Three

The world was black velvet, no twinkling lights or reflected moonlight to hint at life below. Once in a while Shannon risked a peek hoping she’d see anything that might signal the end of this petrifying ride, only to moan softly and bury her face back into the black stiff body before her. Finally the wind stopped whizzing through her ears and blowing through her long messed hair. She risked another peek and saw that they were just above a dirt road leading to yet more blackness as Severus touched down and planted his black booted feet on solid ground.

“Dismount” Severus said tonelessly and Shannon pried her laced fingers off his chest and stepped over the broom handle on wobbly legs.

“Where are we? You’re not going to dump me in the woods are you?” Shannon grinned nervously and tried to finger comb her hair back down.

A sarcastic smile was the only reply. Carrying his now innocent looking, every day broom, Severus started forward and Shannon followed wordlessly. The road was well kept and smooth with short grass lining either side, grass that led on to a thickening forest as dark and eerie as one would expect in a fairytale. A fairytale with an evil witch who eats kids, Shannon thought to herself and couldn’t help glancing ahead at Severus and giggling.

“You are not as funny as you think you are” Severus’s voice carried back to her and killed any remaining laughter building in her chest. Shoot, did she say that out loud? She was sure not, which only meant she had to guard herself even more carefully; build a mental wall and maintain it.

They walked another while in silence and Shannon looked around to see a few lights glowing in small square windows. The dirt road had changed gently into a smooth cobblestone road.  Severus turned to her and watched carefully. Was she seeing the town? He could not understand how it was possible, but she was definitely looking at the buildings ahead. With that unsettling knowledge, and again no word to Shannon, he continued down the road.

Together they passed through the small town of Hogsmeade, Severus casting his thoughts around trying to reason out this strange situation and Shannon staring with wonder at all of the places she had read about before. They were different from the movies and books but like Severus, only in the slightest details. A sign was green instead of black for example; the buildings smaller but she suspected much larger inside. It almost looked like a cute little old English village, except for the words on the signs and the displays in the windows.

As they came near the end of the other side of town, Severus stopped again. This time, he did address Shannon, his curiosity getting the best of him. “What do you see?” he asked, doing his best not to look in the direction of the beautiful old castle far up on the hill. To a muggle who had come this far, she should now see a large pile of rubble with danger signs and tape, blocking her progress.

Shannon looked all around her once, and then she spotted it. It was the most enchanting thing she had ever seen. Moonlight illuminated the old towers as if it were a spotlight shining lovingly on the star of the show.  The mountainside not jagged but well laid out and inviting, gently sloping up to the castle along the smooth dirt road that from her vantage point looked as if it winded its way through more shrouded dark forest.

“Hogwarts” Shannon whispered breathlessly. This was incredible and impossible, not to mention insane. Hogwarts was real, all the characters were real and the stone walls of the magnificent castle would hold the stories of centuries. Of the boy who lived and the dark wizard who tried to take over. “Amazing” she breathed again, smiling her genuine admiration.

Shock was closer to what Severus felt as his mind sped into over drive, was this girl who appeared on his doorstep a witch? If she was, how did she hide it so well and why was she frightened of something as mundane as riding a broom? Surely that had been real; if she was acting, she could be very very dangerous. He needed to speak to Dumbledore, before the girl did. Perhaps he would say he had been busy reinforcing the anti muggle charms and got distracted, that might make more sense, even if this was the infallible Dumbledore in question.