Emily Potter and the Cursed Vaults

Chapter 1 - The letter

'Dear Emily Potter,

You have hereby been ACCEPTED into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The term starts on the 1st of September. You will find enclosed a list of all the necessary equipment. We will be awaiting your owl.

Thank you,

Professor Minerva McGonagall.'

Emily read the letter aloud to herself for the third time as she poured tea into two mugs. She still couldn't believe it. FINALLY! She could leave home and be a witch, just like Harry and her parents. She unfolded the attached list and started reading, but in doing so she spilled hot water on her hand.

'Ouch!' she yelped, running over to the sink to run it under cold water.

'What are you doing girl? Bring us the tea at once!' Her uncle Vernon bellowed from the living room. Harry swooped in and grabbed the two cups of tea, delivering them to their uncle and aunt before rushing back to help Emily.

'I'm fine.' Emily huffed. she switched off the tap. She could barely even feel the pain over the exhilaration she felt coursing through her veins. Harry grabbed some paper towels and went to clean up the rest of the water, but he stopped when he saw the letter.

'You got in!' he exclaimed, holding the letter up.

'Yeah,' Emily tried to suppress her excitement, trying to act like it was every day she got accepted into the best wizarding school in the whole world.

'Aren't you excited?' Harry raised one eyebrow as he dabbed up the mess.

'YES! Obviously!' She replied. She handed him his letter, which had been sitting unopened on the windowsill.

'Don't tell me she got a letter from that retched school of yours, Harry,' Vernon grumbled. He gulped down the rest of his tea and shuffled to the kitchen, snatching the letters out of Harry's hands. He groaned and handed them to Aunt Petunia, who had just stood up to see what the commotion was about.

'Great. Another witch.' She sighed and threw the letter back down on the kitchen bench. 'Well, too bad. Thanks to Harry, you aren't allowed to go. I'm not driving all the way to the train station for just one of you like last year. Throw that in the trash will you Emily?' she nodded to the letter and strutted off to her bedroom. Emily scowled at Harry and snatched the letter up.

She turned and ran off to the cupboard under the stairs. After Harry moved upstairs, she finally had the small space all to herself, but it still wasn't much.

She sobbed into her pillow for what felt like hours. She was distraught. She finally had the chance to live up to her brother, and she couldn't go. She couldn't send an acceptance letter because she didn't have an owl and Hedwig wasn't allowed to leave her cage.

She had always been in Harry's shadow. From the moment she found out he stopped Voldemort the night their parents died, she knew he would always be the most important. And he was the oldest. He was the one who got Dudley's old room, not her. She had to stay in the cupboard they had previously shared. She sometimes wished her parents hadn't hidden her under their bed, so Voldemort could have found her and killed her and she wouldn't be cramped in a cupboard in her horrible Aunt and Uncle's house. She thought all this as she cried, but she was eventually too tired to be sad anymore so she fell asleep.

She didn't get much sleep though. She woke up at midnight to a loud crashing coming from Harry's room above her. It sounded like someone had broken the window or something. Her first thought was Dobby, who seemed to have a knack for appearing at the most inconvenient times, but then she remembered he could apparate, so it couldn't be him. She sprinted upstairs and shoved open Harry's door to see him standing at the window, whilst a big (flying?) car pulled on the bars with a rope.

'What's going on?' Emily yelled over the deafening noise of metal bending.

'It's the Weasley's! They're taking me to theirs so I can go back to Hogwarts!' Harry shouted back at her.

'Let me come with you!' she yelled, anger building up inside her as Harry hastily packed his trunk.

'No way. It might not be safe! Remember what Dobby said,'

'I'm only one year younger than you, idiot, and since when do you care about what Dobby says? I'm coming whether you like it or not!'

'Well we're leaving really soon so you can come if you're ready in time!' he smirked and she ran back downstairs to the cupboard.

She packed a small bag with all of the essentials and ran back up just as Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia came out of their room, yawning and rubbing their eyes. Vernon's weary eyes snapped open when he saw what Harry was doing, and in seconds he had run across the hallway to Harry's room. Emily shoved past him and threw her backpack into the boot of the car. A red-haired boy who she presumed was one of the twins turned it around and opened the back door.

Emily leapt inside just before Vernon got to the window. But Harry was still in his room, fiddling with the lock on Hedwig's cage. He gave up and pulled out his wand. He muttered "Aloha mora", and the cage sprung open. Hedwig shot out the window so fast she left Uncle Vernon stunned. He stood there staring for just long enough that Harry had time to grab the other twin's hand and haul his upper body into the car. Uncle Vernon grabbed his shoe, but the car was moving too fast, and he fell out the window and into a bush. Ron and Emily laughed as one of the twins scrambled into the back seat.