⚡︎
┄┄ .•* 𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐍𝐒 *•. ┄┄
(Read the Author's note at the bottom of the
chapter. I will be explaining some things!)
*•. chapter one .•*
────── *•. ⚡︎ .•*──────
Annora was sure that the sneaky little sun rays, soaring through the white curtains of her room, and hitting her square in the face, progressively making her eyelids burn off, were a sign her father was giving her from above. Thus, groaning, she opened her eyes and glared back at the damned sun.
That was probably not the brightest idea, as soon, her eyes were burning and as she blinked, her vision was blurred and covered by back swirls and dots.
Finally able to get rid of the black blurs covering her sight, from her place on her bed, her curly blonde hair sprawled upon the pillow like a halo, and her limbs looking as if they were in a brawl with the sheets and lost, Annora lazily turned her head to the side, looking over at her muggle alarm clock.
She blinked.
And, as if the time displayed by big red numbers on the screen of the black alarm clock had just registered in her brain, Annora shrieked.
In her defense, though, she had just fallen out of bed. On the other hand. . . . that was due to her jumping in surprise, startled by the time, and ending up on the floor beside her bed, her hair covering her face and one leg tangling in the air.
Annora huffed, blowing her hair out of her face and sweeping it aside with one hand as she detangled her leg from the bedsheets, quickly scrambling to her knees in front of her nightstand and snatching the muggle alarm clock to her.
10:15 am
"Holy mother of Quodpot!" Annora cursed, climbing up to her feet and putting the clock down hastily.
"Mom!" Annora shrieked as she bolted from her room, running a couple of steps needed to her mother's room and bursting the door open.
"What?" her mother said, her voice muffled by the fact her face was buried in the pillow, she, too, looked as if she lost a fight with the bedding.
"It's a quarter past!" Annora said, her voice getting high-pitched.
"Past what?" Olivia grumbled through her pillow.
"Ten!"
A few seconds was all Annora had to wait before her words were able to make sense in her mother's brain. But once they did—
"Holy—ARGGHHH!"
Like Annora, Olivia had jumped in the air, missing the mattress on the way down and promptly falling off the bed with a screech.
"Why didn't you wake me up earlier?!" Olivia asked from the floor, blowing her hair out of her face.
"I was asleep!"
"I never heard anything so irresponsible, Annora!" said Olivia running a hand through her hair and detangling herself from the sheets.
Annora gaped putting her hands on her hips. "You are the one supposed to wake me up, Olivia!"
"Whoa! Have some respect, Annie!" Olivia huffed as she stood up, fixing her cotton pajamas. "I'm your mother!"
"That—That's the point I was trying to make!" Annora said in disbelief and Olivia laughed.
"Come on! We have to get ready, " Olivia said as they passed through the door. "The electricity must have been down so we're a tiny bit late."
"A tiny bit?" Annora asked, trying, and failing miserably, at raising an eyebrow.
"Well, if you go get ready and make sure you have everything in that outdated bag of yours—"
"—you mean my trunk?"
"Then we'll have enough time."
"What about you? Are you going in pajamas? What about food? I can't work without food!"
"Annie, stop asking questions, I have everything under control, " Olivia said with a smile ushering Annora to her room. "We'll go to Page's on the way. And I'm going to get dressed. Now hurry!"
"Fine!" Annora huffed as she entered her room.
Olivia smiled proudly as she saw her door close and turned to her own room.
For her it was just yesterday that they were in the little white hospital room, with the broken light that wouldn't stop buzzing or the weird sterilized smell mixed with sweat and nerves. The place where her baby was born.
She remembered that looked at Edmund, his face sweaty from having his hand squeezed to death (and later on finding out that he had dislocated something) as he tried to decrease Olivia's pain, easing it, and she knew he was thinking the same. From that moment, Annora was their life.
They were both really young, both just seventeen when they ran off to the United Kingdom. They had fled, leaving everything behind, in order to be able to start their new family. And a few months later, Annora was born.
Unmistakably, their life wasn't all unicorns and rainbows, with no obstacles or mishaps. In fact, their life was far from perfect. But all that mattered was that they were happy. All that mattered to Olivia was just that: Happiness.
And now, now her little Annie was off to school. Off to Hogwarts, a wizarding school in Scotland.
After getting ready and dressed in some of her casual clothes—though, and she wouldn't admit it to anyone, they were slightly more fancy, seeing as she was going to be in the presence of other parents and didn't want them to think she was too young to properly raise her child. Olivia left her room and a smile tugged at her lips as she saw Annora at the end of the hall by the front door.
Her curly blonde hair was pushed back by a teal bandana. She wasn't, yet, wearing her school robes, and instead, Annora had some high-waisted denim bell bottoms on, and one of her dad's old muggle t-shirts—one that Olivia had to charm in order to not swallow her daughter whole. She was humming a song under her breath, her outdated bag (her trunk) at her feet as she looked over the pictures on the wall.
Olivia's heart clenched slightly, her smile faltering, as she saw her daughter's lips twitch into a sad smile.
Even if she couldn't see it, Olivia knew just which picture she was looking at. It was the picture of Edmund and Annora, on the rooftop of the apartment building during a bright and starry night. Annie was barely four when it was taken, laughing like crazy on her father's shoulders. Edmund was smiling at the camera—the same smile Annora had.
"Ready?" Olivia called out as she approached her daughter and Annora snapped her head to her mother.
"Ready."
"Great, " Olivia clapped, grabbing the house keys along with the car keys from the stand on the wall. "It's ten-thirty. If we take five minutes to get to Page's and grab something to eat on the way, then we're fine."
"Ooh, Joe better have my strawberry muffins, " Annora said with a giddy smile as she grabbed a hold of her trunk (which was charmed by her mother to be lighter and have more space inside).
Olivia laughed as she opened the door, ushering Annora out. "I bet Joe has better things to do."
Olivia grabbed her daughter's trunk from her and led the way to the stairs. "Now hurry, Annie. We have to get you on that train!"
"Aye aye, Captain!" Annora saluted excitedly and began racing down the stairs of their apartment building, laughing as she jumped the last couple of steps and almost fell over on the ground floor. "Do you think Lils is late?" Annora asked loudly from the bottom of the stairs.
"Nah, " Olivia said back as she reached her daughter. "Even if the whole town's energy was out, the Evans have those fancy alarm clocks that work with batteries. Just for a situation like this."
"Right, " said Annora as she opened the front door of the building. "That and Lily is one of those."
"Oh right, " Olivia shuddered, closing the door behind her. "A morning walker."
Annora giggled as she raced again to their car, waiting for Olivia to open it when she reached it and got inside.
In less than five minutes they reached the famous little cafe of their little town. Page's. Olivia had been working there since a few years back; she needed to find a way to support them. Over the years she had found a really good friend in the old man that owned the cafe. Joseph Page, or Joe. He was always there to help her when she needed double shifts and couldn't leave Annora alone or at the Evans.
So, since she was little that Annora joined Olivia in her shifts at the cafe and talked the ears off of the clients that went there for the coffee or food and eventually stayed there for the cute little girl and her babbling (though some weren't too fond of her). Annora usually found interest in talking to the group of single spinsters and old widows that passed there. They had all the gossip of the small town and Annora usually laughed a lot during their conversations.
Once they got to Page's, Annora took off from the car and burst into the place, giggling as a man spilled his water over himself, she sent a sheepish smile his way and ran to hug the chuckling old man by the counter.
"Joe!" she greeted as she wrapped her arms around the man.
"Alright, little Nora? Excited?" Joe asked Annora as she pulled away and she was only able to grin and nod at him.
Joe looked up as he saw Olivia approaching them and looked back at Annora. "Well, I reckon going off to a fancy school deserves a strawberry muffin. Don't you, Liv?"
"I don't know. . . ." Olivia said with a shrug while tapping her chin with her finger. "In my book, school is already a prize in itself."
Annora pulled a face.
"First, I'm not five anymore, " Annora said with a scowl. "I'm eleven, you don't need to talk to me like I'm a kid!"
"Right, " Joe said solemnly and looked at Olivia with a disbelieving face. "How could we have forgotten, Livy? She ain't a kid no more."
"Shame, " Olivia said clicking her tongue. "Well, only kids are allowed in that fancy school of yours. So, how about you stay here and clean toilets like a grown-up, Annora?"
Annora pulled another face.
"Fine, I'm a kid, " she said with a huff and turned to Joe with her angelic face (that did not, in any way, work on Olivia, but it sure did work on Joe). "Can I have a strawberry muffin now?"
Joe chuckled as he grabbed a couple of strawberry muffins, put them in a paper bag, and handed them to Annora.
Olivia and Annora both thanked the older man with bright smiles and hurried out of the cafe, rushing to the car and speeding away in the direction of King's Cross station—as Annora ate her breakfast carefully, aware of not getting crumbs on the car.
When they finally got to the station, Olivia grabbed her daughter's trunk as they hurried inside the station, until they reached the place between platforms nine and ten. Frowning at each other as they didn't see any platform 9 and 3/4.
"How do we do this?" Annora asked, squinting her eyes between the platforms and back at the ticket in her hand.
"No idea, " said Olivia with a shrug. "I didn't go to school here."
Annora bit her lip with a grimace. "So you don't have any little, tiny, minimal, tinsy idea of how to get to the platform that apparently doesn't exist?"
"Nope, " Olivia said popping the 'p'— "Wait! Look!"
Annora snapped her head the way her mother was pointing, where a family of four, not too far away from them, was standing.
Annora immediately realized why her mother pointed them out. With the way the parents were coldly glaring at the muggle passer-byes, grimacing as some passed close to them. With the way, they were dressed in old robes looking as if they belonged in the eighteenth hundredths, and the way the father was grabbing onto two big dark trunks. Well, they were clearly wizards.
Annora observed the two young boys. Like their parents they had jet-black hair, that looked elegantly cared for even from far away. The older one looked as though he just wanted to be able to get out of his mother's grip on his shoulder. The younger one, looked about her age, and slightly nervous, though his face was pulled in a blank expression. He turned around and caught Annora's eye. She smiled warmly at him and much to her confusion he only looked away from her again.
"Come on, " Olivia mumbled to herself as she too observed the family. "Do something!"
And much to Annora's amusement, they did.
Her eyes widened as she watched them start to walk right at the wall between the platforms. She didn't know if they were really that dumb or just playing. Why would they run into a solid brick wall?
And then her jaw dropped when they passed right through the wall. Well, she never expected that. And then she heard her mother scoff and turned to her with mirth in her eyes.
"What?"
"What do you mean, what?" Olivia asked, clicking her tongue. "Didn't you just see what I saw? These britt mages are total show-offs!"
Annora burst out giggling at her mother's face and Olivia rolled her eyes as she grabbed her daughter's hand.
"Come on, Annie. You have a school to go to and I have a bottle of Chardonnay to drown my sorrows back at home."
"Mom!" Annora hissed looking around. Olivia laughed.
"What? I can't feel sad my little baby is leaving me?"
"You can, " Annora consented with a nod. "At home with the Chardonnay! Not here with people watching!"
"Honey, people are only looking because we're beautiful, " said Olivia rolling her eyes. "Now let's walk through a fu—forking wall!"
And so they did and when they got to the other side all Annora could do was gape.
The wizarding platform, as opposed to the muggle one, was bustling with people.
Everyone was rushing around, trying to get their kids on the train, making sure they didn't forget anything. Children greeting their friends, or hugging their parents goodbye. Owls were hooting and Annora could even swear she heard cats hissing. Mothers were crying, along with some fathers and Annora smiled. Then she heard the hiss of the engine.
Training her gaze on the train, Annora felt as if her jaw dislodged from her skull. The Hogwarts Express, stood tall on the platform. Its scarlet color catching the eyes of the people around them. It was impressive—
"Holy shit!" Olivia muttered beside her and Annora rolled her eyes at her mother. "See? See what I told you about them being show-offs?"
"Mom, it's beautiful," Annora snapped, still gaping at the scarlet locomotive. It looked like something out of a movie. "And. . . . I have to get on it before it leaves."
"What? No, you don't," Olivia said with a dramatic gasp, pulling Annora into her and caging the little girl in a hug.
"Mum!" Annora hissed, trying a hard as she could to get out of her mother's death grip without messing up her already untamable hair. "Let go!"
"Annie, I'm serious," Olivia said sternly, ignoring her daughter. "If you get on that train, we're over!"
"I don't even know how to answer that," said Annora, finally being able to make her mother let go of her and snatch her trunk from Olivia. "But I do know, I really have to go!"
"Fine," said Olivia with a dramatic sigh and pulled her into a hug again. This time a real one, one that was merely saying goodbye and not saying if you leave I'll snap your neck. "Don't get too British. Your father and I worked really hard for you not to get an accent, and though it didn't exactly work you still have some American in you, don't ruin it."
Annora rolled her eyes and kissed her mother's cheek before starting to walk away.
"Remember it's ass, not arse!" Olivia called out, making some people pause to look at her weirdly. Annora blushed furiously, looking at her mother with a glare. "Relax, honey. And write to me every day!"
"Every month?" Annora asked with a smile, walking backward and away from Olivia. "I think I can do that! Bye!"
"Bye, Annie!"
Annora smiled one more time before turning around to face the now intimidating-looking train. She took a deep breath and got on the train.
Annora gulped as she saw the older students messing around, going from compartment to compartment, talking loudly and happily about their holidays. She walked down the carriages, looking at every compartment in search of her friend Lily.
Lily Evans was in all but blood Annora's big sister. They had met when Annora was five and Lily was six. That was when Olivia first started working at Page's, and Rose Evans was a regular customer. The woman was one of the first clients Olivia tended to, and she took a liking to Annora's mother.
Being older and having two daughters, Rose Evans knew the struggle it was sometimes, and she couldn't even begin to think what it would be like to be a single parent. Thus, she started offering to take Annora on some days, to give Olivia some time alone, or simply help when she had to work double shifts. Now the Evans and the Hale women were a family. They had basically adopted Olivia and Annora into their little household.
"Nora?"
Annora smiled as she heard the familiar voice, and beamed at the sight of the redhead girl, standing by a compartment door with a contagious grin. "Lils!"
Excitedly, Annora walked back to the few compartments, frowning slightly, not knowing that she missed one, and was immediately brought into a hug by Lily.
"I thought you wouldn't show up," Lily said honestly as they pulled apart. Annora frowned. "The electricity was out!"
"Oh."
"And I know that with no alarm clock, you can't wake up."
"I can too!" Annora protested and Lily raised an eyebrow. "I can! But usually after—eleven—fine!—noon."
"Exactly," Lily said waving her hands around.
"Fine," said Annora with an eye-roll, "I admit. If it wasn't for the sun I'd never be on this train."
Lily chuckled at her friend. "Now, come on! You have to meet my friends."
⚡︎
Anyway, this is the first chapter of the Prequel of Twists, or in other words, TURNS.
It's placed in the Marauder's Era and is all about Hermione's mom, Annora Hale, and her time at Hogwarts. I hope you go and read it cause I think it will be great!
Well, that's it. Thank you for reading this, along with my stories, I truly appreciate it.
~Lexi