18.
Airborne Joyride's
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Avalon didn't exactly enjoy shopping, but her mother did and that was why she spent her last day of freedom before going back to Hogwarts trying on ridiculous dresses she would never be caught dead in.
"I feel like little bow peep," said Rose walking out of the changing room in a pink and white polka dotted dress. Avalon snorted, she was wearing a black and purple dress that made her look like Cinderella's evil step mother.
"Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore." Stormy skipped out of her dressing room in a short, light blue checkered dress.
"Guys, I don't even know how to get this on," said Dorcas through the changing room door. She then came out with a bunch of rags that she had wrapped around her like a towel. The four girls stood next to each other, looking into the large mirror and burst out laughing.
"A whole day here in Diagon Alley, and this is how you want to spend it?" Euphemia shook her head at the girls before hopping out of her seat, "if that's the case, then I'm going to have a look around. Meet me at the leaky cauldron at half-past twelve for lunch."
When she left they got out of their dresses and tried on some more. Once they had exhausted the place and had tried on every hideous dress there, they left and went to go get ice cream.
"So, have you figured out why Sunny is so mad?" Asked Avalon licking her chocolate ice cream.
"Well," said Stormy, "she mentioned something about you calling her disappointing."
"What I never said that, I said that Dorcas would be disappointed in her."
"If you said that then clearly she'd be upset. Sometimes I swear your as clueless as your brother," said Dorcas, Avalon looked at her strangely.
"Well I didn't know she held your opinion so highly," defended Avalon.
Stormy snorted, "she's not only sometimes as clueless as her brother, she is as clueless as her brother."
Dorcas went red at this and cleared her throat.
"Firstly I'm nothing like my brother. Secondly Stormy you were there, if you are so knowing, you could have told me why she was so angry."
"I zoned out after the first four sentences."
"Hey guys is that Professor Cain?" The three of them looked over at where Rose was pointing and sure as eggs there was Professor Cain apparently wearing a skirt suit and a wig. They watched as she walked into the Daily Prophet headquarters.
"Guys I don't think that was her," said Stormy, "even though that was her face."
Curious Avalon got out of her seat and left her friends confused as she headed towards the Daily Prophet building. Stormy, Dorcas and Rose decided that letting her go alone would be a huge mistake and followed her. The four girls entered the building and were immediately met with the front reception.
"How can I help you?" Asked the woman with a horrendous bob cut. Avalon felt like she really needed to follow Professor Cain's look alike. After reading that letter in her desk, and after having that reoccurring dream she knew there was much more to her Defence Against Dark Arts teacher then what she let on. Avalon looked at her friends for help, but Stormy and Dorcas looked just as stuck as she did, and Rose seemed to be contemplating.
"Errr," shuttered Avalon trying to come up with a good plan.
"Hi, my name is Rose Plummer. You wrote an article about my family and I was wondering if you still had the picture you used. I seem to have lost mine." Rose saved them with such fluency that Avalon no longer had any doubts that she was sorted into the wrong house.
"Right you're the child that those poor muggles had at Hogwarts," cooed the woman giving Rose a sympathetic look. Avalon could feel her friend shift, obviously annoyed at the look she had been given. "I'll just go ask about that picture now, if you'd take a seat. It should be in our archives."
Avalon wished she had her brothers Invisibility Cloak because it would have made what she did a lot easier. Rose and Dorcas sat and waited for the woman to find the photo, while her and Stormy attempted to sneak passed the other receptionist so they could find the Cain look alike.
"What's this all about?" Asked Stormy as they tiptoed passed the front desk and into the hallway that contained what looked like all of the offices.
"I promise as soon as we get back to my house, I will tell you all everything," she said, and she meant it. She saw the look alike walk out of one of the offices and down the hallway in thankfully the opposite direction to where they were hiding.
The two of them snuck up the hallway. They went into the unlocked office that had Rhea Cain, Journalist on a plaque stuck to the door. Avalon immediately went for the messy desk. She shuffled through papers, looking for anything and everything that would explain that stupid dream she was having. Stormy stood by the door being look out just in case. Avalon went to the bottom draw and pulled out a bunch of opened letters. She flipped through them, but still nothing sparked her eyes, until she came across a photograph.
"Twins," she mumbled looking down at the moving photo. She probably should have put two and two together when she had seen the look alike, but the logical explanation had completely slipped her mind.
"She's coming," said Stormy sounding slightly panicked. In the heat of the moment Avalon threw the photo as well as the bunch of letters she still had in her hand into her coat pocket and she and Stormy ran out the door. Luckily for them the girl was looking down at the paper in her hand, so the girls were able to quickly run out of the door and down the hallway back to their friends who were talking to the receptionist.
"Why?" Was all Dorcas asked when they had left the building.
"As soon as we get home," promised Avalon zipping up her jacket so the letters didn't fall out. There was something going on she could feel it, with all of the strange things happening around Hogwarts, and her dream.
"Your necklace. Wasn't that black a while ago?" Avalon looked down at her necklace, and sure enough Stormy had been telling the truth. It was red.
"What time is it?" She asked.
"One o'clock."
"Crap we're half an hour late."
When the girls got home the first thing they did was lock themselves in Avalon's room.
"Explain," said Dorcas hopping on her mattress that was once Lily's.
"Okay so it all started when I had this crazy reoccurring dream. Well it wasn't really a dream, but a memory from when I woke up in hospital after I had lost all my memories."
"You lost all of your memories?" Asked Rose. Avalon sighed, she had completely forgotten to tell her. Now that she thought about it Regulus didn't know either.
"That's a story for another day, but basically I fell of a broom, almost died and now I don't remember much passed the age of seven."
"That explains why you are like you are," mulled Rose.
"That I'm like what?" Asked Avalon curious.
"Stupid."
"Hey!" Avalon was pretending to be offended, but really she was happy that Rose thought that they were close enough to playfully insult her.
"I don't mean intellectually," she elaborated, "I meant your spontaneous, as in the I've seen death before type of way, and it will probably get you killed one day."
"That's so much better. Anyway I was having this memory about this crazy man in St Mungo's." Avalon went on to explain her dream in great detail, her friends seemed very confused by the end of it. "Then by pure coincidence I came across a letter in Professor Cain's desk draw that conveniently referred to her as Captain Jr, and said all this other suspicious stuff."
"Like?" Asked Stormy suddenly very intrigued by what was being said.
"I can't remember." All three girls sighed at her. "Well not exactly anyway, it just said that she betrayed everyone and that if she failed it would make someone very bad, very mad."
"Voldemort?" Said Rose, both Stormy and Dorcas shivered at the name. Stormy always joked but she would never actually say the name, because Avalon knew for a fact that her family had convinced her it was an ill omen.
"Probably, I mean who else?" Said Avalon. She then decided to do something she promised not to, she told them about what happened in the forest on her birthday.
"James almost died?" Said Dorcas alarmed, "and no one told us?"
"Dumbledore told me not to-"
"I don't trust that old man," said Rose interrupting Avalon's explanation. Stormy gasped.
"But he's Dumbledore," she said like it was all the explanation anyone needed.
The girls spent the rest of the night with Avalon's record player on full volume. Rose was sat on her bed, reading a magazine. She would scoff every two minutes and then go off about society's unrealistic expectations. Dorcas was writing a letter to her Grandmother and humming to the song that was playing. Avalon was drinking hot chocolate and packing her trunk, which she hadn't done yet, even though her mother had been constantly telling her to. Stormy had the letters Avalon had stolen scattered on the floor and was looking through each one individually.
"Most of these are just Daily Prophet Correspondents and creepy fanmail," said Stormy holding up a letter, "like this one is from a guy named Luke who wants to marry her."
"You know it all might be an exaggeration," said Dorcas, "a crazy dream and a crazy coincidence."
"Maybe, but-"
"Ava my baby sister, we have something to show you and bring your friends," interrupted her brothers obnoxious voice from the other side of the door.
"If I come out there and there is some sort of prank waiting for me, I will ring all four of your necks," called Avalon back at him, before opening the door.
"It's in the front yard," he said before taking off down the hallway. Stormy and Dorcas dropped their letters, Rose dropped her magazine and Avalon drained the rest of her hot chocolate, before they all went to meet the four Marauders in the front yard.
A motorbike.
"Oh Merlin," wad all Avalon could say as she circled the bike.
"It's Sirius's we brought it this morning," said James with a grin, "we charmed it to fly."
"You inherit a lot of money and this is what you choose to do with it?" Said Dorcas in exasperation, "you could have done anything, fed some starving orphans even, but you choose to buy this death trap."
"Obviously," Sirius winked at Rose, who rolled her eyes, "the ladies love it, besides I still have some left. Know any orphans?"
"You," said James, "now you can get the hell out of my house."
"You love me," said Sirius jokingly laying his head on James's shoulder.
Stormy who was standing next to Remus ran her hand along exterior, "it's already got a dint in it."
Avalon got down to examine it and just like her friend had said there was a large indent.
"About that, don't tell mum but we might have ran into some muggle police officers," explained James shaking off Sirius's head. Avalon looked at him with a placid face.
"And some Death Eaters," added Sirius, Avalon redirected her gaze to him.
"But good news," finished James, "if me and Lily have a baby I want to name it Elvendork."
"You're an idiot, the both of you," Avalon told them, in a tone that screamed I'm not surprised at all, but you two are both still morons.
"So," grinned Sirius, "who wants a ride?"
"No way," said Dorcas taking a few steps back.
"Rosie, you first," he said wiggling his eyebrows in her direction. She bent down, picked up a rock and threw it at him.
Saying yes was the best decision Avalon had ever made, she definitely went to bed that night with a newly founded appreciation for flying Motorbikes.