The Other Side: A Harry Potter FanFiction

Chapter III

It got to the point where Lana had wished she'd never started to follow the man.

            Her head throbbed from all the drinking, her feet ached from all the walking, and her eyelids were getting heavier and heavier as the night wore on.

            She was sure she'd been following him for hours. There was no doubt about that. The problem was that she'd come to realize that there was probably nothing dangerous about him, and she ended up only following him because if she lost him, she'd be completely lost and drunk in a country utterly foreign to her.

            Then the man turned into what looked like a red phone booth.

            Lana kept walking. She figured if she stopped she'd just collapse where she stood.

            As the phone booth came into sight, something amazing happened.

            The man stood in the phone booth, not talking into the phone, but talking to nothing. And then a silver badge popped out of the machine! He took it, and suddenly the booth was moving down. Like an elevator, the booth moved into the ground with the man inside until he disappeared, and a new booth was there, empty and untouched.

            Lana stood motionless, gawking at the large, red phone booth.

            Wow, I'm drunk, she thought, Hallucinating a guy disappearing into a phone booth. That's definitely not normal.

            The same feeling of curiosity that she'd felt when she made the decision to follow him overwhelmed her. She slowly and cautiously stepped towards the phone booth, pulled the door open, and closed it behind her.

            She stood in the booth for a moment, unsure of what to do, and then took the phone in her hand and placed it against her ear.

            A small voice told her to insert some money, and Lana began to panic. She didn't have any money!

            Frantically, Lana searched the pockets of her jeans for any spare coins to no avail.

            Then she looked down and set her eyes on a big, round coin.

            Lana bent down to look at it, and then picked it up. It was sticky with what she hoped was soda, but it would definitely work. She stuck it into the machine and heard the phone's tone.

            Still unsure of what to do, Lana looked around and finally pressed the REDIAL button.

            She heard the pattern of beeps that meant the phone was redialing its last call when suddenly it stopped altogether.

            Confused, Lana stared at the phone when a voice said, loud enough that it made her jump, "Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. State your name and purpose here."

            Lana's eyes widened. The voice hadn't come from the phone. It had come from the air.

            "Um..." she said, "Lana Herondale?"

            "State your purpose," the voice, a woman's voice, repeated.

            "I...um...I was following that guy..." she replied quietly.

            Suddenly a small silver badge popped out of the machine.

            Shocked, Lana reached for the badge and looked at it, eyes wide.

            It read LANA HERONDALE: FOLLOWING THAT GUY.

            "Oh my God," she whispered, "What the -?"

            Then, the phone booth lurched harshly downward, taking Lana with it.

            Unwillingly, Lana let a scream escape her throat and she grabbed onto the walls of the booth for support as the world disappeared above her.

            There was at least a minute of complete darkness around her except for the small light on the inside of the booth.

            Then, the booth stopped and the doors opened up to a long hallway.

            Terrified and still clinging to the walls, Lana took a few deep breaths before stepping out of the booth.

            The walls were lined with gilded fireplaces. The ceiling was high and painted peacock blue, with golden symbols gliding across it.

Gliding! What the hell kind of place has a ceiling that moved? Lana stared around in wonder at the place. The floor was polished dark wood that reflected a large golden statue of a man and a woman, some sort of odd little elf thing, what looked like a goblin of sorts, and a centaur that all spout water into a surrounding pool of water.

            Walking past the fountain was the man she'd been following all night.

            Lana gulped and started after him, trying not to make any sounds as she walked. She didn't want to disturb him, but he was her only hope in figuring out what kind of horrible place she'd just gotten herself into.

            Or maybe she was just really drunk and had passed out in the street.

            Stopping, she quickly pinched her arm as hard as she could.

            Sucking in a breath of shock and pain, Lana shook her head at her own stupidity. This is real, she thought to herself as the man reached a set of golden gates across the hall.

            She bit her lip and continued after him.