The Girl Who Lived: Through Darren Shan

Chapter 1: The night that ended my life

One summer evening I was walking around London. It was rare for me to be able to get out these days with Voldemort on the rise.

Oh! Let me explain who I am. I'm Emma Potter. I'm a witch in my fifth year at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. My parents died when I was one and apparently I defeated the darkest wizard since Grindelwald.

Until about a week ago I was living back my awful relatives because of some sort of family magic that's supposed to keep me 'safe'. I was saved from that awful house one night by what I now know is the Order of the Phoenix. They took me to their headquarters where my two best friends in the world were waiting for me. Ron, Hermione, and I are inseparable.

I screamed and tackled them to the floor when I saw them and then a loud screeching woman could be heard through the hallway. I could make out some very nasty things about muggleborns before she was abruptly shut off.

"Well, that's a nice welcome," I mused.

"Sorry 'bout that Emma. Mum loves to shout," a voice said from the darkness.

"Sirius!" I gasped and hugged him just as harshly as I did with Ron and Hermione.

"What is this place?" I asked. Hermione always had an answer "Headquarters for the Order. Also Sirius' childhood home."

"The Ancient and Most Noble House of Black," Sirius grumbled.

"Emma!" I recognized the motherly voice of Molly Weasley right away.

"Look at you, you're much too thin! Those muggles don't feed you nearly enough! Come have some supper love, we just finished the meeting."

I let myself be ushered to the kitchen where I saw the rest of the Weasley's, except no Percy. Professor Lupin was there as well with the people who took me away from the Dursley's. The real Professor Moody, Tonks, Snape and someone named Doug.

*.*
I had been at 12 Grimmauld Place for over a week now and everyone was giving me some space. I had yelled at Ron and Hermione earlier when I discovered they had been here the whole summer and that is why they didn't write to me.

Dumbledore didn't want the owls to be intercepted and the location of the order to be given away so I had no contact with anyone form the Wizarding World until now.That made me really, really mad. I wasn't talking to either of them and I could see how much it hurt them. I just needed to cool off a little more.

So I snuck out. I know, I know stupid and risky. Especially since I know dementors are sort of after me. This actually might be a bad idea. If I was smart I would turn back.

I was put in Gryffindor for a reason.

While I was walking through the rundown area of London, a flier literally blew into my face. It was for some strange show called the Cirque du Freak. 'Sounds interesting', I thought. 'I'm glad I transferred some of my wizard money for muggle.

At 10:00 pm I started down the road to the city. The show started at 11:30 so I had enough time to get there early. The great thing about being a Metamorphmagus is that disguises are very easy. Since Voldy was looking for me I changed my looks. I made myself look like a completely different person. I'll change back once I'm at the show but the street at night was not safe for anyone.

The theater wasn't far by car but I was walking so I got tired quickly. Once I saw there wasn't anyone around I changed back to my normal red haired green eyed self then walked the remaining two blocks to the theater. It was really spooky and really run down but living in a 1000s year old castle was wayyyy scarier than this at times and the fact that someone (or something) was always trying to kill me. You could say I'm not scared of much anymore. I don't even know what my greatest fear is. I know that I'm not afraid of death in the slightest. It's strange but if I died tonight I wouldn't be scared at all.

I guess the theater had to be somewhere where no one would bother them. I opened the door and went inside. There wasn't much except a man selling tickets and a doorway with a curtain to the side of him. "Are you 21?" He asked standing up.

"Damn you're tall!" And he was, at least 10 feet, probably more! I wondered if he was a half giant like Hagrid.

He smiled. I nodded my head and gave him the money I had and he let me go through the curtain.

The only seat left was front and center so I sat down just as the show started and the giant came onstage. He literally just appeared. I would have thought he apperated but there was no popping noise.

"Good evening I am Mr. Tall. I am the leader of this show and I must warn you, this show is not for the faint hearted so please leave now if you cannot take it."

No one left.

The first act was the wolfman. I had seen Professor Lupin on a full moon so I knew what a werewolf looks like. The wolfman was definitely not a werewolf. He was disgusting and looked horrible! It seemed that he really was half man half wolf. I felt sorry for him though. The wolf blood mixed with human probably made him insane.

The next act was someone called Rhamus Twobellies and as you guessed it, he had two bellies! He could eat anything!

After him was Alexander Ribs, an incredibly skinny man who played songs on his ribs.

"Sirius would really love this," I thought. Anything is better than being cooped up in a stuffy old house. Almost anything.

The next performance was odd it was a tall intimidating man who could have been a Weasley covered in scars and curly red hair whose name was Mr. Crepsley and a boy who looked a few years younger than me and had black hair and looked quite honestly dead. His name was Darren. Mr. Crepsley was wearing an all red old fashioned tailcoat and Darren was wearing a pirate costume. 

'That's probably just part of their act,' I thought.

They started with a spider doing tricks which was quite boring so I started watching them instead of the act.

Snape made us research about vampires as well as werewolves in 3rd year when Professor Lupin was recovering from the full moon.

"They look like vampires," I chuckled to myself.