The Difference in Reality [A Harry Potter Fanfiction]

Summer of Year 3: Chapter 2

"Watch out! Crazy animal coming through!"

Oliver ducked just in time. "Whoa! Phoebe, be careful!"

Phoebe chattered loudly as she passed by, almost as if she were laughing, then ran straight into Willow's flying form. She landed flat on her back, Fidget cautiously peeping out of his fanny pack. Willow giggled and landed next to Phoebe, who crossed her arms, grumbling at her caretaker.

"Aw, what's the matter? Can you not outrun a hawk?"

Phoebe grunted. She threw a stray soccer ball at Willow, who caught it with surprising agility.

"Ha! I've figured that one out, too, you silly girl!" Willow said triumphantly. "Your little tricks don't work on me anymore!" Phoebe made a face. "No, don't go pouting on me! I won fair an square! Even you know that!"

Phoebe rolled her eyes and sauntered moodily down the hallway into the greenhouse. Willow and Oliver followed her. The greenhouse still retained its original fresh, sweet, and soothing scent, despite the amount of magical creatures now occupying the space. Griffin perked his head up from where he was sleeping. He blinked groggily a few times, then yawned and flopped back onto the ground. V, Patch, and Felicity were all curled up next to his stomach. Phoebe stomped over and laid herself across Griffin's flank. She quickly fell asleep, even though she was in one of her moods.

Willow checked her watch. It read 6:13am. No wonder they were still so sleepy. Unlike her and the rest of her family, the magical creatures were not exactly morning people. Willow sighed. She was going to miss them while they were in Uganda, but they were going to be well-taken care of by the best in the magizoological field: Newt Scamander. He had agreed to take them back to his enormous research facility in order to make sure they were all healthy as could be- and to enjoy their company, of course. Willow's dad had told her plenty of stories about the old man simply spending an entire day with groups of magical creatures just to have fun. He claimed to be studying their behavior the whole time, but he was Newt Scamander! He already knew exactly what every magical creature would behave like, down to the most complicated of them all. Newt was simply going to play with her creatures all day long, and when she thought about it, that was almost a vacation in itself for her creatures, too.

"Hey, Willow? You're glowing," Oliver whispered.

Willow glanced down to see all of her veins lighting up in that warm, honey colour that her hands glowed with while they were healing someone. She groaned. "Great, my powers are at it again." Oliver appeared completely lost. "Oh, sorry. I should explain. Cebba miscounted the amount of new powers I would receive in my last power-up. Instead of one, I got two, possibly three. One of them is this glowy thing that happens whenever I'm near something that is possibly dangerous- you know, a physical extension of my mental sixth sense. It's kind of annoying, because it's draining. Another one that might be happening is piggybacking off the sixth sense: my powers keep reacting on their own to perceived danger. Thankfully, not too much around my magical creatures, as I love them too much for the danger to cross that threshold, but around anything I'm even wary of, they lash out to defend me. It's...kind of dark. I'm hoping to drop those powers. The third one- okay, I'm sorry, but it's the coolest thing ever. Watch this!"

Willow took off at a dead sprint at a tree. Right before she ran into it, her eyes flicked to another, and she pulsed her powers. Willow suddenly found herself tumbling out of the other tree, slightly disoriented but otherwise fine. Oliver ran to her side.

"Whoa! How did you do that?" he squealed.

"I have absolutely no idea, but Cebba showed it to me a few weeks ago, and I've been trying to get better at it ever since," Willow explained. "It's super exhausting every time I do it, but it gets better each time, little by little. I don't even get a headache afterwards anymore!"