The minister of magic sat at a desk on the opposite side of the room from Demelza, staring off into the distance.

"The trial of Mrs Demelza Murray is about to begin, so I must ask that you all take your seat." the patter of feet echoed through the clean black and white chamber. No other sounds could be heard and all colours seemed muted except for a dot of pink in the middle of a sea of black robes and tired faces.
"Are you ready to begin Mrs Murray?" the minister asked

"Yes, I think I am, Minister Fudge," Demelza told him. The minister removed his green bowler hat and placed it on the desk in front of him.

"Does the court have your permission to use veritaserum truth serum?" he asked.

She said nothing, but instead nodded and looked around the room for the potion. when she saw the witch holding the bottle she held her mouth open and waited as the three drops were placed on her tongue.

"A test, just to see if it has worked," he took the hat off his desk and held it out at arm's length.

"What do you think of my hat?" he began putting it back on his head but was only halfway through when she stated loud and clear.

"It's ugly and it makes your head look far too big," she knew what she had said and had no regrets in regards to how it made him feel. Though it was clear he didn't take it well as he could be seen removing it slowly hoping no one noticed it, everyone did. He cleared his throat, though the actual reason he did it was unclear. He played it off as he got everyone's attention.

"Now the big question: did you or did you not kill your sister?" the eyes surrounding her felt like tiny daggers cutting into her. She felt a lump developing in her throat, but she eventually replied "yes", then utter silence and a struggle to fight back tears.

"Why did you kill her?"

She could only say, "I didn't mean to?"

"For the sake of the court could you tell us how she died?"

"We went to a cave," she told them.

The cave was in the middle of nowhere when the two sisters entered it. Only they and one other knew of its existence, but they both entered - one more confident than the other.

"Hurry up, Grace. You're such a Hufflepuff."

"What's wrong with being a Hufflepuff?" her sister's black and yellow scarf was illuminated by the light at the end of both their wands.

"I'm kidding. There's nothing wrong with it."

The cave went deeper but as they moved forward the light at the end, cast by Lumos, began to turn red then finally vanish. The two sisters were overwhelmed by an endless sense of cold.

"We should turn back," Grace said.

"No, the heart is here. We just have to find it then everything will be fine."

Parts of the cave wall crumbled away rolling to the floor around them.

"This way," she said, pointing to a hole the shifting rocks made about half their size.

"It is at times like this I regret never becoming an animagus," she said, trying to distract from the pain and the wet feeling on both their hands and knees.

"What do you think your form would be?"

They thought about it as they passed through the cave, but both eventually answered what the other experienced with their Patronus. As they crawled through the cave, for what felt like days but was actually about three hours, they found themselves in a large chamber of dark stone with cross symbols carved into the walls that all lead to the centre, an alter of unrecognisable origin with nothing on top, not even dust.

"It has to be there," she pointed to the altar and looked around the room.

From the corner of Demelza's eye, she could see a light in a small pit in the ground.

"Grace, could you check that out?" Her tone made it more of a demand than a request, really. The top of the altar had a line running down that middle that looked like it would open as it did but slowly. When the alter did open, there was nothing but a note resting at the bottom which said: "You come seeking power but you leave empty-handed - G. M."

Demelza ran towards the pit, "We have to go. I have a bad feeling about this."

"I can't," Grace told her sister.

Grace tried pulling her hands away from the orb but they were being held there by some sort of electricity. Demelza dropped down into the pit and tried to separate them but to no avail, the cave began to collapse. Rocks fell from the ceiling, narrowly missing the pair.

"You have to go," Grace told her sister.

"I won't leave you here."

"If you do go, we will both die and all of this would have been for nothing," silently the pair looked into each other's eyes. "Just promise me one thing?"

"Anything," Demelza responded.

"Find the heart. Because if you don't I would have died for nothing."

"A fascinating story but I fail to see how it was you who killed your sister," Fudge said.

"If it wasn't for my obsession with the heart no one would have died," the court, at that moment, filled with a barrage of unrecognisable noise from the people on the stands.

"Quiet!" the minister yelled slamming the gavel on his desk, " I cannot sentence you for the death of your sister because you did nothing to directly harm her. However, you won't be leaving for your continued attempts to harness the power of the dark arts. All in favour of punishment?" everyone around the courtroom put their hand up.

"Didn't you hear what I said? I need to find the heart. If I don't, her death would have been for nothing!" she pleaded.

"You should have thought of that before you started meddling with the dark arts. It never ends well. " he turned to one of the guards at the back of the room.
"Take her away," his wand followed her out the door and into an almost deserted corridor.

"I'm sorry, but, I have to do this," she told the guard.

Before he could react, She grabbed his wand not with the intention of harming him but of disarming him. She snapped his wand in half then ran. The wand cracked, louder then she had expected, and she punched him in the face followed by her grabbing her hand yelling, "Muggle films make it look so easy," before sprinting down the hall to a large main hub with over a hundred different fireplaces with a bowl of ash next to each of them. She grabbed a handful of flue powder and stood in the fire threw it to the ground, green flames erupted around her.

"Diagon Alley!" she yelled before the world around her gave way to darkness and she woke up in the Leaky Cauldron.

She left the pub before anyone could see her face, ducking in and out of a large crowd of people until not even she knew which shop she was about to enter until she was face to face with Ollivander and a boy around the age of eleven who stood in the corner trying to cover his blue eyes with his black hair. He was just given his first Wand and was playing with it until she had entered.

"Mrs. Murray? I didn't expect to see you here," Olivander exclaimed as he looked up from the counter. She began looking behind him at all the wands stacked on the many shelves.

"Maybe you should practice your divination," she began brushing the Ash from her black dress and out of her hair at the same time she gave some explanation as to what happened to her wand by saying,

"I need a new wand. I lost mine in a duel."

"That wasn't very smart. Did they disarm you?" he asked as he walked to the back of his shop and took one from the shelf.

"I would prefer not to talk about it."

His grip on the Wand seemed loose, as though he was going to drop it, but he didn't.

He placed it on the counter and said, "Try this one, It should work," the case her new wand came in had the words "blackthorn wood dragon heartstring core 9 inches" written on it in golden writing. Before she even cast her first spell with her new with it, she felt a connection.

"How odd, how very odd indeed," he said stroking his chin, a smile on his face.
"What's odd?" she asked looking at the wand admiring the colour which was darker than her last Wand.

"When you first got your wand, the wood was Ash Wood" he explained, taking the wand from her and balancing it on his index finger. "But now it's Blackthorn. It appears something within you has changed and by the looks of it very recently."

He gave her the Wand back and told her the cost, seven galleons, which she paid with the cash she had planned to buy drinks with. The boy was about to leave the shop, having got what he came in for but as he touched the handle he stopped.

"Do you know where the book shop is?" he asked both the adults in the room.

To which Ollivander responded by asking, "Aren't you here with your parents? Surely they know where it is?"

"My dad is a muggle and my mom is busy at work trying to avoid being fired," the boy responded.

"You must be Andrew. Shame about what happened to your mother," he told the boy who was apparently called Andrew. Ollivander looked away from Andrew and towards Demelza. "Would you be willing to take him there? It's a big day for wand selling and I don't know what will happen if I leave."

"Sure," she said. "I'm going there myself anyway. I need to buy a book about magical history."

They both left the shop together, Andrew following a few steps behind both hands deep in his pockets - as if looking for something that wasn't there.

"Nervous? I was, too, "she said, trying to sound like as much of an authority figure as possible. "But you'll get used to it. By the time your third-year rolls 'round, it will be easy sailing from then on. But no matter what happens you'll probably do better than your mom."

The pair stopped outside of Flourish and Blotts, a shop, that from the outside, looked as though it was leaning at a slight angle.

"You knew my mom?" he asked, waiting outside of the shop for an answer.

"Yes I did," Demelza responded. "She was friends with my sister, Grace. Both of them were in Hufflepuff."

The shop was similar to Ollivander's in design. A desk at the front with rows and rows of shelves behind them. However, Ollivander's had wands and Borgin and Burks had books. Books about every topic in the wizarding world, from animagus to zoology.

Andrew looked at the letter and saw that the list told him all the books he would need. Demelza went straight to the back to find the initials G.M in any books related to the dark arts or the defence. Thereof, she found five names: Gregory Marling, Grant march, Gwen Mich, Georgia Mort, and George Moore all five names came from the same books 'Unattainable Goal' by author Greg Miller.

She looked at the counter and saw that Andrew had already found all nine books he would need and was paying for them, though he struggled to carry them. She walked over, grabbed them herself, and looked placed them in the bag.

"Thank you," he told her, taking the bag off her and pulling it along the floor as if it was on wheels. She paid for the book and walked out of the shop, carrying it under her arm.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Andrew asked standing next to the door holding his copy of 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them'.

"Unfortunately I didn't. I fear that the only place that has the answers I need is the restricted section of the Hogwarts library." she sighs, defeated.

"What were you trying to find?" Andrew asked.

"My sister and I were exploring a cave last week when we found this note,"
she showed him the note which she found in the cave and had kept safe in her sleeve.

"Do you know who this "G.M." is?" he asked handing the note back to her.

"No," she responded. "That's why I got this book."

"Maybe I could help," he told her. "I've been told I'm very good at solving puzzles."

She paused as if weighing her options.

"If you want, but I will not be responsible if anything goes wrong. Agreed?" she held her hand out and Andrew shook it excitedly as he responded:

"Will we be communicating using owls?"

"Yes," she responded stepping back. "Tell your mom Grace misses her."

"I will, bye," he said as she ran towards the wall that separated the alley from the Leaky Cauldron.

#harrypotter
#fanfiction