Chapter Ten: Whispers of the Past
"Of Course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?" -Albus Dumbledore
Azalea could remember her ten-year-old self and the wonderment she felt upon feasting her eyes on Hogwarts for the first time. It felt as if she and Harry had finally found a home. A place where they'd actually fit in.
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"Gryffindor!" The hat cried after several minutes. Ten-year-old Azalea got of the stool after seeing the gesture from the elderly witch and was met with an explosive round of applause.
"We've got the Potters! We've got the Potters!" Two red-headed boys' shouts projected clearly to the front. She gave a small, shy smile and sat down at the table clapping the loudest for their new coming member: the Gryffindor table. As soon as her butt met the mahogany seat beside her brother, the two red-headed boys immediately introduced themselves. "Hello, I'm Fred-"
"-and I'm George, "-and you must be Harry and Azalea Potter!" The first one said, finishing up the sentence.
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"...the adventure ends here, children. But don't fret. The world will know our story. How I was too late to save the girl. How you to tragically lost you minds at the sight of her mangled body. So... you first Miss Potter. Say goodbye to your memories."
"No!" cried a twelve year-old Harry as he tried to get in between the curse to save his little sister. There was no need for the sacrifice though, since the spell backfired on him, causing his body to be thrown back into the cave's wall.
"Harry!" A eleven-year-old Azalea screeched as the stones of the chambers came down in a result of Lockhart's crash. The stones created a wall, acting as a barrier between the siblings and friend.
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"...but I want to go with you," a thirteen year-old Harry and twelve-year-old Azalea said to their leaving godfather.
"One day, perhaps," he said, his voice getting soft as he looked at his godchildren. James 2.0 and James' little princess he nicknamed them. "For some time, my life will be too unpredictable. And besides...you guys are meant to be here."
"-but you're innocent," Harry cut in.
"And you know it. And for now, that will do," he said, guiding his godchildren to sit down on a stone bench. "I expect you're both tired of hearing this..." He said, turning to talk to Harry directly, "...but you look so much like your father. Except your eyes. You have-"
"My mother's" Harry finished, with a smile stretching onto his features. Sirius gave a chuckle and nodded, his focus now on her.
"You look like your father too, you know," he said, cupping her face in his hands in a fatherly manner. Azalea gave a small giggle when he added; "just with more feminine feature, or course."
"It's cruel that I got to spend so much time with James and Lily, and the guys so little. But know this: the ones that love us never truly leave us." With those final words of wisdom from their godfather, he got on and departed on Buckbeak, fading into the onyx-black sky.
~
Everyone, including a bewildered thirteen-year-old Azalea, gasp when another piece of parchment shot out of the Goblet of Fire. She was put into a paralyzing-like stop though when the voice of Dumbledore called out; "Harry Potter!" It was almost felt as if someone had just casted the Bombarda curse on her as she saw the equally as shocked Harry walking to the front.
'This can't be good,' she thought pessimistically.
~
The room was dead silent, except for the vigorous scratching of the quills of the smooth, parchment paper. A fourteen-year old Azalea was also apart of that group. Her quill scratching away at the paper with constant glances at the demon covered in pink standing cozily at the front. Behind the gigantic ticking tongue of a clock, staring with a sickeningly sweet smile at the struggling students.
The silence was soon disturbed however, when a sound was heard just outside the door. Everyone turned to face the door in sync as Professor Demo-Umbridge elegantly walked towards it, heels clicking on the ground with every step. As she walked closer and closer to the doors, the thudding got louder and louder.
A couple of seconds of her looking around outside the door, a flaring spark flew around in her face before intruding through the doors. Fireworks exploded around the room and the students laughed in joy at the unexpected disruption. Following the distribution with moments delay, Fred and George came bursting through the doors on broomsticks. It threw all the students in a frenzy and they all threw their papers into the air and starting laughing and enjoying the fireworks.
The finale you ask? Well that was the morphing of the firework dragon casing the really pink professor out of the room.
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"...I have a task of great significance for you, Azalea. I need you to, using the time turner, travelled back to 1943 to Lord Voldemort's time, or known as then as Tom Riddle."
Azalea shot up from her laying position, gasping heavily as the dreams - or memories that fluctuated from good to bad in her head, played on repeat. The dark-haired witch sat on the edges of her bed, looking around the room, discombobulated from her surroundings. Laying back down, the witch tried to get back to sleep but with no avail. She stayed up for hours, eagerly waiting for the multi-coloured morning sky to wear it's head to relax her like it usually did. To relax her from these whispers of the past.