Chapter 2: The Order
Her feet landed out of the Tardis with a loud KER-PLOP! As she accidentally step into a small puddle. The cold and damp air sharply hit her face and she tried not to shiver as she drew her cardigan closer around her. The street glistened in the dim yellow streetlight, appearing as if it had just drizzled lightly.
Emily scanned the area with her eyes, her brow rising in concern and confusion as she looked.
It was a very unwelcoming neighborhood, and definitely not one you would want to be around at that time of night. The apartments had peeling paint and crumbling doorsteps, some even had broken windows; only they were patched up with fabric and tape. The trashcans lining the street were filled and overflowing with garbage, causing the air to be riddled with a mixture of unpleasant smells.
Emily Held her breath and couldn't help a feeling of disappointment wash over her. It was all too... Normal.
She had expected something far more whimsical, scary even, being that they were in a different dimension. But the only thing interesting about the dark street was the drunk man passed out on a doorstep just a few apartments down.
Emily looked away from the intoxicated man and made her way toward the Doctor. He was standing in the middle of the street, seeming to be taking in his surroundings. He only glanced at her for a moment when she stopped and stood beside him.
"Looks like London." He stated simply, nodding toward a small dusty British flag sticking out of a potted plant on one of the doorsteps. The plant was a sickly yellow and it was obvious it hadn't taken care of very well.
"Are you sure we made it to another dimension?" She asked, a bit of doubtfulness laced within her voice.
"Of course!" He looked down at her and met her eyes. "Why wouldn't we be?"
Emily shrugged and looked at the apartments before asking, "So what now?"
"I don't know."
"Do you know anything about this dimension? Maybe who to go to for answers?"
The Doctor gestured in front of him. "The answers are here Emily. The Tardis always brings me where I need to be."
"So you're basically telling me you have no idea what to do."
"None in the slightest."
A moment of silence fell upon the two as they stared in front of them, hoping that the answers would show themselves. But whatever they were waiting for never came, and Emily soon couldn't help but break the silence.
"It just seems too... Too ordinary."
The Doctor smiled. " I have come to realize that it's never wise to trust ordinary. It's just a façade, a means of hiding something, really. Just think of when you meet someone, they might seem nice when you first meet them, but little do you know they could be hiding something. Something they wish to remain unseen."
He rambled quickly but Emily was able to follow, and was surprised at how true his words really were.
"Is this place...this street hiding something Doctor?" She asked.
He nodded and turned his gaze back to the apartments facing him. "It sure is." He paused, "And I can sense it doesn't want to be found."
"But we're going to find out anyways, aren't we?" Emily said with a smile.
"You know me too well." The Doctor said smiling before he ran up to the apartment and started running his hands along the wall, as if trying to sense something. Emily followed but stayed a good distance behind and allowed the Doctor some space.
Nothing had stirred, not even the drunken man. The lights, however, flickered a bit before returning back to their normal dim yellow light, making it so that she was just barely able to make out the street name.
Grimmauld Place
The name sounded extremely familiar, but she couldn't place it. She stepped a bit closer to the Doctor when she realized that the street gave her the creeps. The whole street was silent, as if it was waiting and watching. Secretiveness hung in the air like a dark cloud and she now knew what the Doctor meant by it wanting to hide something from them.
"Do you feel that?" Emily asked. The air felt like it was buzzing slightly.
The doctor nodded and moved on to apartment number eleven and continued moving his hands along the wall. "There's something here... Something very powerful."
Emily swallowed hard at his words, She knew that his senses were much more heightened and refined. Whatever she was feeling, he must have felt ten times stronger.
His palm brushed over the faded black door without hesitation, and he only stopped when he reached the crack of the building where it met the next apartment.
He looked over his shoulder at her and whispered, "It's here." Before whipping out the sonic screwdriver out of the pocket of his brown coat.
Emily secretly fangirled and leaned in closer as he scanned the wall, the screwdriver lighting up and buzzing as it went.
Suddenly the Sonic screwdriver started blinking wildly and bells and whistles sounded off in protest.
"Ugh!" The Doctor exclaimed as he started hitting it against his palm and it soon stopped and became still again, a bit of smoke rising from it and disappeared into the cold air.
"What happened?" Emily asked concerned.
" I've never seen readings like this. " The Doctor said in awe. " It's something very powerful and forceful. Almost destroyed the screwdriver right in my hands!"
He turned back to the wall, staring in deep concentration. Emily Looked up at the number eleven nailed above the door, one of the numbers hung crookedly revealing a bit of rust where it use to sit. Her eyes glanced to her left at apartment ten and then to her right to apartment thirteen.
Her eyes narrowed as she stared at the number thirteen nailed above the door and murmured, "That's strange."
"What is?" The Doctor asked.
"They completely skipped apartment twelve and went to thirteen. The Doctor looked at the numbers as she had done before and turned to her grinning as if she was a genius.
"Not skipped." He said, his voice low as if not wanting any one else to hear, "Hiding."
"There's no way that a whole apartment could be hiding."
"But how to make it appear?" The Doctor mumbled to himself, completely ignoring Emily's comment.
She sighed as uneasiness built up inside her, " Maybe a password or command?"
"YES!" The Doctor said as he clapped his hands and turned toward the door and yelled. "Open!"
"Maybe you have to ask nicely." Emily suggested.
The Doctor rolled his eyes, "It's a wall. It doesn't have feelings."
"Weren't you the one that said not to trust ordinary?" She said with a smirk.
The Doctor sighed dramatically before asking the wall again, "Will you please open?"
Everything remained still and the only thing that could be heard was Emily trying to stifle her laughter, her small shoulders shaking up and down in the failed attempt.
The Doctor turned around to face her and gave her a playful glare, "Well, why don't you try it?"
Emily shrugged and walked up closer to the crack and tried to think of a possible way to open it. The familiarity of the street name nagged at her and she tried to place it in her thoughts.
Apartment number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London.
Her body stiffened as she remembered exactly where she had crossed the name. How could she ever forget when she had read it so many times?
" I remember!" She said excitedly as she turned toward the Doctor.
"Remember what?"
"This is where the order meets." She whispered.
"What order?" The Doctor asked, the volume of his voice matching hers.
"The order of t-" Before she could finish her sentence, the ground began to shake and a loud grinding sound filled the air as apartment twelve started pushing it's way into view. It wasn't long until it had finished and they both stared up at the dark apartment in front of them. It appeared as though no one else had heard the commotion, and if they had, they didn't care to look.
The apartment seemed to be in better shape than the others beside it. The sliver doorknob was a great contrast the black door, which was barely peeling, and the silver knocker of two snakes entwined gleamed in the moonlight. Emily figured that this street must have been fairly nice years ago.
"I can't believe it's real." She said, more to herself than the Doctor.
"You recognize it?" He asked.
"All of this is described exactly in a fiction book back in our dimension." She said as her wide eyes met his, "You don't suppose that means the characters are real also?"
"Only one way to find out."
They both turned toward the door and stared at the doorknob as if waiting for it to magically open. Seeing that she knew more about this world than the Doctor, she placed her hand on the cold knob and turned it and was surprised it wasn't locked. She took a deep breath before pushing the door open, and revealed what was inside.
The door opened silently with ease and a dark hallway was revealed. The only light in the hallway were a few oil lamps lining the wall. Emily made her way inside, stepping lightly so her steps wouldn't echo on the wooden floor. A staircase was to her left and painted pictures hung disorderly upon the wall. Some of the pictures were vacant, but there were also a few where the painted people were sleeping. Emily watched their chest rise and fall and had to remind herself that she wasn't dreaming and the paintings were actually moving.
Remembering what had happened in this house she glanced at the Doctor and whispered, "Be very quiet, you don't want to wake anything."
He nodded but gave her a questioning look; she looked back in front of her and was able to make out the door at the end of the hall. She headed towards it but her foot caught onto an umbrella stand, which curiously resembled the bottom half of a goblin-like creature.
She and the stand fell with a loud CRASH and she cringed as the sound echoed throughout the halls. If their presence was unknown, it was surely known now. Screaming erupted inside the house and the black velvet curtains below the stairs flew open to reveal another painting.
The woman looked like she was possessed with pale yellowing skin and black beady eyes. The woman screamed as if being beaten and her eyes were rolling about. Her screams seem to have woken up the others in the portraits above the stairs and they began to join her in a song of pure madness and hatred.
Emily and the Doctor both tried to block out the sound by covering their ears, but the woman was too loud.
"Impure of blood! How dare you filthy the house of my fathers! YOUR KIND IS NOT WELCOME HERE." Her voice seemed to boom throughout the house while she continued to scream.
"Well, she's not very hospitable." The doctor yelled over the woman's noise.
"STUPIFY!" A male voice yelled above the commotion and Emily saw a bright light hit the portrait and the curtains drew back, causing the woman to become silent once again. The Doctor ducked as more portraits where hit with a bright light and in only a few moments the apartment was silent and all was still.
Emily got up form the floor and stood by the Doctor, only to see three people in front of them with their wands pointing straight at them.
"Told you we should get rid of that umbrella stand." A young lady with bubblegum pink hair says to the two men beside her." A complete hazard."
"Works as a great alarm though," the man next to her said with a slight smirk, but his expression returned to seriousness when his gaze fell on the two intruders
"Who are you?" He asked. He was tall and thin man and his wand was still pointed toward Emily. He was pale with light brown hair that was flecked with grey and his clothes were shabby and worn.
"I'm Emily, and this is the Doctor." She said in the calmest voice she could muster.
"Doctor who?" The woman asked.
"Just the Doctor." The Doctor said before whispering to Emily, "What are they pointing at us?"
"Wands." She whispered back and he mouthed 'AH!'
"Death eaters, no doubt Remus." Another man with bright red hair said to the man he called Remus. He must have not heard the Doctor's question.
Emily's heart leaped inside her as she realized that it was Mr. Weasley, Remus Lupin, and Tonks who were standing in front of her. She had always adored them in the Harry Potter books, but judging by the hardness in their eyes, they were not happy to see her.
"We aren't Death Eaters!" She quickly said and showed them her left forearm, clear of any dark mark. "Just Muggles."
"Muggles?" The Doctor asked turning toward Emily, obviously not completely threatened by the wands pointed at his chest. "What are muggles?"
Emily only dared to move her eyes to give him a warning glance and whispered, "Us!" through her teeth.
"Oh right!" He said winking, being a bit too obvious, "We are muggles!" He sent a beaming smile to the others and rocked back and forth from toe to heel.
"Enough with this!" Mr. Weasley said a bit frustrated, "Who told you of this place?"
Panic rose inside Emily as she scrambled for a response, she really didn't want a curse thrown at her face so she decided to go with the truth. "J.K.Rowling"
The others looked at each other confused. "Who?"
"She's an author in our dimension who wrote about you and this place. Your whole world is a story of fiction where we come from."
"That is the craziest thing I've ever heard someone say." Tonks said giving Lupin a dubious look.
"Oh but it's all true." The Doctor said.
Emily watched as their eyes narrowed, they didn't believe one word and she knew that their time was running out.
"Something attacked me from your world, we are only searching for answers." Emily said as she tried her best to show her true intention through her eyes. Their eyes searched hers, but they still seemed uneasy to trust her.
"Please Moony," She said turning to Lupin using his old nickname and noticed a slight softening in his eyes, "We need your help."