The Chosen One [#Wattys2016]

THE BOY WHO LIVED

PICTURE ABOVE: Mrs. Augusta Longbottom

Mrs. Augusta Longbottom of seven, Aspen Avenue, Devonshire, was a formidable looking old woman who lived in a two-storied house near the turnstile. She was tall, thin and bony, with a long neck and greying dark brown hair that she wore in a tight bun at the base of her neck. She was the talk of the neighbourhood, for she had never, not once in the past year that she had been residing here, taken time to know her neighbours. She owned a horrible ginger cat with an attitude, dressed oddly and on the sole occasion, was visited by people who were even odder. The Longbottom's neighbour, a short, dumpy woman by the name of Patricia Prewett, was the friendliest woman in all of Devonshire and yet, even she had been put out by the intimidating woman. The backyard mostly comprised of rude ten to eleven year olds in various stages of poverty living in utter terror of the old woman, which was why Mrs. Longbottom chose to ignore the locality even more.

Her husband, Mr. Harfang Longbottom Jr, was a bald, plump man who was as similar to his wife in nature as a hedgehog is to a poodle. He was a genial, good-natured man, whom the neighbours preferred to deal with, when his witch of a wife wasn't around. However, he was highly eccentric in his mannerisms and very forgetful, so much so that when he lost his eightieth pair of spectacles, his wife was heard shouting by the neighbours about how she wished she could magically improve his eyesight so that they didn't need to visit the optometrist time and again. This led to a lot of sniggering amongst the children and a good deal of twig waving and abracadabras.

When Mr. and Mrs. Longbottom woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. However, Mrs. Longbottom's soon realised that her husband had forgotten to close the cat flap and given the cat an opportunity to run away. She dressed in her usual emerald green cloak, pointy heel shoes, and a vulture topped stuffed hat that she wore for her daily stroll and marched outside to buy the groceries before she lost her temper and kicked her husband out. She carried a bright red handbag in one hand and a walking stick in the other. There was nothing about the cloudy sky that appeared sinister or exciting to her. There was nothing that said that the day was going to be mysterious. A large, tawny owl fluttered past her but she paid no attention to it.

Meanwhile, the Longbottom's neighbour too had decided that she needed to buy her daily fare. Just as she was locking the front door, the old woman strode by, causing Mrs. Prewett to shuffle back and avoid her. Only after she saw Mrs. Longbottom turn the corner did Mrs. Prewett decide to continue her stroll to the market. She had always considered her husband's mannerisms peculiar, but the old woman could give him a run for his money.

It was on the corner of the street that she noticed the first sign of something even more peculiar — Mrs. Longbottom talking to a cat. And the cat nodded! For a second, Mrs. Prewett didn't realize what she had seen. She looked around to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Devonshire Avenue, but she sat on her haunches, just like all cats did, quietly staring as Mrs. Longbottom scurried away. What could she have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light. She blinked and in that moment, the cat disappeared.

As Mrs. Prewett walked around the corner and up the road, she gave herself a little shake and put the cat out of her mind. As she walked, she thought of nothing except that she needed to buy apples too. She decided to make apple pie for her husband. After all, he would be returning home after almost six months now.

As she weighed the merits of the different apples sitting in their respective crates, she couldn't help noticing through the glass window that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in cloaks. Mrs. Prewett couldn't bear her elderly neighbour who dressed in funny clothes — the getups you saw on people – but seeing more of them dressed similarly annoyed her! Why couldn't people wear normal clothes! The nerve of them! But then it struck her that this was probably some silly stunt — these people were obviously collecting for something. Or perhaps, Broadway actors on their way to a theatre show.