The Little Lightning Girl

1- Third Year Begins Suspiciously Normally

(Above is Alana Faye)

The summer passed by without even a hiccup. It was a nice change, to go for more than a week without a major catastrophe dragging me away from my routines. No one visited me in a dream to boss me around, no one pulled a quest out of the Oracle yet again... a real summer break. For the first time since I'd been informed of my heritage, I had a fairly normal summer. Other than the fact that most of the holidays were spent training to fight monsters at a camp for demigods, that is.

But because my last several years had been nothing short of absolute chaos, I felt nervous almost every day. I felt like I was forgetting something, and was just waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Chiron to tell me about a mission I was required to go on. But June passed, then July, and then I got my Hogwarts letter in August, and was quite frankly amazed at how smoothly the time had passed.

The day after I got my letter, I asked Chiron for permission to go to Diagon Alley. Unfortunately, Adrian and Maya were both with their father in California, and I'd have to make the trip by myself. Thankfully, once I got to Diagon Alley, Rose and Albus were meeting me and we figured we'd shop together.

So on the morning of August twenty-fifth, I hopped into the fireplace in the Big House and promptly disappeared into green flames with a shout that hopefully no one heard. I landed in the fireplace of the Leaky Cauldron and immediately decided that I'd choose somewhere else to land next time, if I could. Right in front of me, was the protruding bum of the aging barman, Tom, who didn't seem to notice that his arse was blocking a young witch from entering his shop.

I cleared my throat, which he didn't seem to notice, before speaking up, "Tom, I'm right behind you."

It became immediately apparent that the reason Tom had been hunched over was because he'd fallen asleep leaning on his mop. Standing up. He woke with a start and stumbled into a table before righting himself and turning to look at me. I smiled at him and he squinted as if he couldn't see me clearly, though I was only a few feet away.

"Oh, you're the little girl that Mcgonagall brought in a while back! You're Kailani's granddaughter. I could've sworn you were her for a moment or two. "

"Yes, Kailani was my grandmother. I'm Alana. It's good to see you, Tom, but I really must be going." I exited the fireplace and backed into the enclosed corner of the pub and pulled out my wand to tap at the bricks.

The alley was just as magical as it had been the first time I beheld it. It didn't seem all that long ago that I'd walked through the archway behind Professor Mcgonagall and gaped at the street before me. I'd told Rose and Albus to meet me at the ice cream parlor, and when I approached the building, I saw a head of unruly black hair sitting opposite a tumbling mass of red curls, and I grinned.

"Al! Rose!" I called out, walking towards their table.

Rose gasped at the sound of her name being called and she immediately tackled me in a bone-crushing hug. I laughed and hugged her back immediately. I laughed even more when another pair of arms wrapped around both of us, Albus.

"I missed you so much! We didn't see each other at all this summer! You'll never guess what happened in June, because I-"

I snorted at the stream of chatter that left the redhead's lips, "Oh come on, save it for the train, please! We've got time to swap stories."

"We spent most of the summer in France, so I got to visit Kaley but America is a bit too far to just pop over and back," Rose continued talking, despite my pleas.

I frowned appreciatively, "Did you now? T'es-tu amusé?"

*AN: Translation: 'did you have fun?'