Mira smiled at her two best friends before parting ways, walking down her street alone. The three had just finished school for the term, and had two lovely weeks stretched out before them just begging to be taken advantage of.
The girls had already planned their trips to the nearby beach, alongside forced trips to the library from Mira. Sleepovers galore were waiting for them, a result of Amelia's dad going on a business trip and trusting her home alone for the first time.
The girls were very different people that fit together nicely.
Amelia took what was coming and used it to the best of her advantage. She just kind of rolled with anything that came her way and it always worked out nicely for her in the end. She was very pretty in an innocent way, pin-straight dark hair always hanging delicately around her shoulders. It framed her slim pale face nicely-her hair and face contrast had earned her the nickname of Snow White at school. She had a very clean record at school besides being one of the worst behaved students; she just seemed to never get caught.
Libby followed Amelia like a lost puppy; but in no way did that mean she could be pushed aside. She was stuck by Amelia's side like a conjoined twin. You never got one without the other. The blonde beauty knew perfectly well how attractive she was-her light makeup and slightly revealing clothes told everyone that. But she remained modest all the same, never going any further than a few flirty smiles.
Her dirty sense of humour had horrified Mira at first, but the girl quickly became accustomed to it and eventually joined in on the jokes. The girl also had a fascination with food-any time it was near, the whole world seemed to cease to exist. Any food that she saw and had never tried, she bought it. It was a wonder to Mira how she didn't hang over the tops of her jeans. She never stopped eating-she was often compared to Robert Downey Jr. and his habit of pulling food from nowhere to snack on.
Mira herself was average, in her eyes. She was the nerd of the group, the fond nickname of 'Bookworm' thrown at her often. Any fictional world anyone could possibly think of, Mira knew it like the back of her hand. Harry Potter was her favourite by far, closely followed by anything Marvel. A straight A student without even trying, she often had to take charge of Amelia and Libby and force them to do their homework. Which, of course, to the delight of the other two, meant that she did it for them. Her dark curly black hair used to be long, but when a boy commented how well it would suit her to be longer and a certain way she snatched Libby's scissors ('Hey! I was using those!') and chopped it all off before his horrified eyes. It had started to grow back from that little episode, almost at her elbows once more. She had a pale face much like Amelia's, but hers was sharper and more angular. Scarier. Normally, she was the quiet one of the group. She was the only one that actually behaved (Amelia's fake reputation didn't count in her eyes, the girl was a devil) and whenever the three faced a dilemma, Mira seemed to have an endless amount of knowledge on it. No matter how random.
Reaching her house, Mira's smile slipped from her face. The front door was wide open. It shouldn't be wide open.
Normally, any teen would just go in the house and up to their rooms. But not Mira. She knew something was wrong the second she entered. Her mum's car was nowhere in sight, her dad was very paranoid when it came to leaving the door open. The atmosphere alone made her tense, a depressing weight hanging in the air. She supressed a shiver and dropped her schoolbag at the base of the stairs, taking a few tentative steps further into the gloominess.
"Mum?" she called. "Dad? Are you home?" No answer. She wasn't expecting an answer. Their holiday wasn't due to end for another three days, and if they returned early then she would have surely been informed. It wasn't like they had no way to contact her. No, they weren't home. But someone was.
She decided to keep her mouth closed, thankful that her soft voice hadn't travelled far into the house when she called out before.
Taking a quiet breath she crept forward. Quick footsteps and angry hushed voices were coming from the back of the house, becoming louder the closer that she approached.
"Where is she?" one hissed angrily. "It was meant to be a simple in and out job-her stupid father-" She moved toward the door, peeking in the gap in the slightly open door before holding her breath to hold back a small cry of confusion.
She recognised the people in the room-well, she recognised where they were from. Death Eaters; almost exactly as the films depicted them. Why were people dressed as Death Eaters hiding in her house?
Panic flooded in her chest as footsteps rapidly approached the door and she grabbed the nearest object to her, lifting it high over her head and standing on the chair beside her. She winced slightly as the corner of the metal photo frame came down on the persons head and they crumpled to the floor awkwardly. She dropped the bloody frame as her breathing constricted. Did I just kill a man?
"Parkinson?" A gruff voice called. She quickly bent down and checked the person for weapons-all she could see was the wand hanging loosely from his limp fingers. Mira quickly snatched it up-ignoring the unwelcoming warmth that erupted in her arm-before creeping backwards and slipping back into the kitchen, where there were multiple escape routes. She heard a curse and gulped. Maybe she shouldn't have acted so violently toward the first man. They could always be people hired to make her feel like she was actually in the universe of magic and muggles. The door to her left slammed open, revealing a very angry looking man. She couldn't see much of his face besides wide eyes, flaring nostrils and snarling lips. He raised his wand against her. She didn't know what possessed her to do it-maybe it was the yearning in her chest for this to actually be real-maybe she was just playing along. But she raised the other wand straight back at him.
"Flippendo!" She yelled. Her body tensed in shock as a blinding light came from the tip of the wand, exploding into the surrounding air and colliding with the middle of his chest. He flew back and hit the wall. The whole house began to shake.
He was big, yes, but he wasn't big enough to shake the building.
England didn't get earthquakes-it wasn't in the right place on a plate boundary. There was an old fault line somewhere-but it was highly unlikely that it would suddenly become active again.
Either way, the house was slowly collapsing around her. Doorways were the safest place, weren't they? Moving swiftly, she stood under the doorway and made sure to keep her arms over her head just for safety-she didn't exactly have a helmet within her reach. A large chunk of ceiling collided with his head just as he tried to stand to his feet, knocking him down for good. Soon enough the shaking stopped, and the house was still once more. One glance out of the smashed window made her have a double take-no other house on the street seemed to have been affected. Nor did it look remotely like her street.
Sure, the houses looked similar. But they were an range of different shapes. Mr Turring's car was no longer the sleek black Bentley that he flaunted, but was now an old blue box car. In fact, all of the cars looked different. All of the paved over gardens were now full of an array of plants. The streetlamps were old-fashioned. She slowly crept toward the window and glanced out, fearful tears burning at her eyes as her throat threatened to close up. Something was wrong. Very wrong. Sudden footsteps over the rubble made her spin on her heel, the wand in her hand gripped tightly and raised sharply. Three figures were at the door, picking their way over the rubble and peering in curiously. Her eyes zoned in on the wand clutched in the woman's hand and instantly her heart began hammering painfully in her chest with anxiety.
"Stupefy!" She cried. She hardly let herself register the shock that passed over the people and herself at the working spell before the ducked into the kitchen and ran all the way through it, coming out on the other side and ducking into the airing cupboard. She could hear the people yelling to each other and held her breath, shrinking further back behind the piles of towels and trying to calm the shaking of her hand.
"Homenum revelio." A voice hissed. Her heart sank-wasn't that the spell that alerted the caster where people were? And the voice was right outside the door. She had lost the element of surprise. These people were trained in magic, she had no hope. But, just maybe, she could surprise them again.
As soon as they open the door. Her mind told her, her fingers wrapping around the plank of wood beside her as her eyes fixed on the doorknob through the gloomy darkness. All she was focused on was escaping. As soon as she got away form the house and these people, the better.
"In here." A gruff voice said, and before she could ready herself the door had swung open.
"GAH!" She yelled loudly, jumping out and swinging the wood with all her might. It collided with a mans head and he stumbled back, but didn't go down. She gripped the wand tightly in her other hand and jabbed it backwards sharply into the woman's stomach as she brought the wood down with a thunk on the last mans head.
Whilst they were in pain and distracted, she turned and began sprinting away. Something wrapped around her foot and she was sent crashing to the floor, where ropes quickly bound themselves around her and her weapons were wrenched from her hands. Her jaw was aching with the impact with floor, her tongue burning and pouring blood from where she had bitten it. With a muffled groan she rolled onto the floor, sending a wary glance at the adults slowly coming to their wits and thrashing as hard as she could against the restraints.
"One over here." The woman called. Mira hadn't even realised that she had disappeared. "The other is in the kitchen."
"How did one girl take down two death eaters?" One of the men asked darkly, approaching her. She struggled even harder, regretting even splitting up from Amelia and Libby earlier. She should have just gone to one of their houses; like she had been doing all week so that she wasn't alone. He was walking funny, and with wide eyes she realised he had a wooden leg. Scars marred his face and every inch of skin visible, a large chunk was missing form his nose, she wouldn't have believed it possible to be...him. Not until she saw the electric blue eye whizzing around its socket. She felt the bile rise in her throat and rolled onto her side, emptying the contents of her stomach all over the dusty floor. His brown eye didn't look away from her as he raised his wand and flicked it casually, vanishing the mess before pointing steadily at her.
"Who are you?" He asked in a booming voice. Mira felt herself involuntarily shrink back, and was surprised when the woman shoved his arm up and the wand away from her face as she hissed something angrily at him.
"She's scared, Moody. Try taking a more gentle approach." The other man straightened up, honey-coloured eyes shimmering softly in the light as she crouched down near her and flicked his wand. She flinched, but was surprised when the binds melted away. She sat up slowly, eyeing them warily before scooting her back into the wall and rubbing her wrists.
"Who are you?" the man asked softly. "I'm-"
"Remus Lupin." She whispered in shock, eyes open wide. The woman's name passed her lips softly before she could stop herself and she cursed her big mouth as they all froze.
"W-What did you say?" the woman asked in a shaky voice. Mira noticed her hand discreetly wrapping around the wand tighter. "How do you know our names?" Mira began stuttering, eyes wide and hands shaking as she pressed herself into the wall and braced herself for another spell.
"I-I-um-I-"
"We aren't going to hurt you," Remus told her softly, moving forward slightly. "We're here to help."
"I know." she choked out.
"Why did you attack us then?" Moody scoffed.
"I-It was dusty. I didn't know who you were!" She defended weakly.
"But you do know who we are, don't you?" he snapped back. She gulped and lowered her head awkwardly, racking her brains for something-anything-she could do to get herself out of the situation. Moody saw her eyes dart to the door and suddenly both of his eyes were unnervingly trained on her-she was embarrassed about the shiver that went down her spine-and he scoffed and shook his head.
"I don't think so, kid. Stupefy."
YOU ARE READING
Bookworm
FanfictionWhen Mira Harfield's life is completely flipped upside down, she is forced to navigate her way through a completely different world. Armed with nothing but a wand and knowledge, she goes head to head with the most feared wizard of all time. Not ever...