An Otherworldly Experience (Tom Riddle Era)

Chapter One.

One day, it's 2017, Kelli Watson goes to bed after a normal afternoon of browsing the Internet and getting irrationally angry at strangers about Severus Snape. A perfectly normal night for Kelli.

She dreams of the 1930s. She dreams that she's eleven years old again, a cringe time to say the least. She dreams that she meets Albus Dumbledore and he wants her to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. What better dream she could have? She wishes she'll never wake up, but she has to. She's got school tomorrow, she's a top student and she can't let her grades slip over a dream. Maybe tomorrow she'll do the same thing and go to sleep with Harry Potter on her mind.

Except Kelli notices this dream is getting rather boring. It's rather long. Nah, dreams can sometimes be long, she'll get to platform 9 and 3/4s and then she'll wake up in disappointment, right? Well, she may as well read the textbooks and practice some magic, what could be the harm in that?

She's on the train. Kelli finally realises that this isn't a dream.

☆~☆~☆ So this is where I'm going to start the book, sorry that it feels that it just throws you in but not sorry enough to change it☆~☆~☆

Kelli sat back in her seat, the realisation that she wasn't in a dream finally setting in. But surely, it couldn't be real? Before all this, she was a fifteen year old Harry Potter nerd. She wouldn't call herself a super Potterhead, but she knew a lot of trivia off the top of her head without much prompting. But that was besides the point.

This was real. This was happening. This wasn't a dream. She was sitting on the Hogwarts Express. She was going to Hogwarts. In her imagination, she'd like to think she would be grinning, ready to go and have this amazing adventure. But in reality, she was horrorstruck. She felt like she was going to throw up. Everything felt wrong. She felt like something heavy was on her chest, crushing her. She realised what was happening to her almost immediately, despite never having an attack.

She couldn't breathe. Kelli stood in one smooth movement and moved her head towards the window as the train lurched forward. Kelli stumbled and steadied herself soon after before dropping back into the seat. The stumble was enough  to stop the attack and not so literally ground her again. But her thoughts were racing.

It wasn't that she was nervous about Hogwarts - she didn't even know what to think about that quite yet. It was the thought that she might never see her family again. Her friends. Her phone, her internet friends. Oh God, the internet didn't even exist and wouldn't for a very long time. She'd spent all that time for two months reading all the spellbooks and practicing magic and she hadn't even thought about anyone, thinking it was just a dream.

Then a giddiness snuck up on her. She slowly started to grin despite her anger at herself. Soon enough, the anger was dissolved into a new emotion. Excitement.

She was a witch. Kelli freaking Watson was a freaking witch.

A small laugh left her lips and the door slid open. She turned to the face the other student. "Can I sit here?" he asked politely. He was thin, quite small and a little malnourished. His under eyes were dark from what looked like a lack of sleep.

"Sure," she replied cheerfully. "I'm Kelli Watson," she told him as he took a seat.

He gave a small smile and said, "Tom Riddle."

Kelli's smile faltered. She was going to school with one of the most dangerous wizards to ever exist and she didn't even recognise him when he first walked in. And her falter wasn't something one would exactly call subtle.

"What?" he asked coolly, the polite smile dropping into a rather dark look for an eleven year old.

She chose to lie at him, well, it wasn't a total lie. "Nerves, sorry."

His eyes narrowed a fraction but he nodded anyway. Jesus, Kelli thought. She had to tell someone, literally anyone that wasn't him. Maybe Dumbledore next time she saw him. Professor - she had to remember to call him Professor Dumbledore.

Tom Riddle was an evil monster. She'd have to tell someone that he'd be petrifying students in a few years, that he would kill a student. Kelli looked away from him, out the window. Her previous worries, and excitement forgotten, now her worries were solely on the to be murderer in the compartment sitting opposite her and now for her own life. Wasn't she a muggleborn? Her parents were muggles?

Kelli glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes, trying not to be too afraid. The orphanage really wasn't good to him. He looked so unhealthy. Of course, her own orphanage in London wasn't that fabulous for her, either, and she'd been awful because this was supposed to be a dream. She felt awful for them.

"You're very tense," he commented, clearly not bothering to hide that he was staring at her like she was crazy.

Kelli looked back at him, noticing how squared her shoulders were, how she was holding herself. "I don't like strangers, to be honest," she told him. That also wasn't a total lie, she didn't like strangers. But not enough to look ready to jump out of the window like a skittish kitten.

He nodded, though he looked quite unconvinced. Even Kelli knew as she had said it that it was a poor excuse.

In an attempt to calm herself down, other than running from the compartment, where she would most likely scream, she reached down to her large, light brown trunk and flicked the latches off it. Having thought this was a dream, Kelli had practically just stolen it, picked it up out of the store and just walked out like whatever. Now she felt bad about taking the trunk, now that she knew that this was real life. Her life of crime was short-lived, but totally over now. 

She pulled out a couple textbooks, before closing the trunk again and stowing it back under her seat. She'd already learned a large portion spells out of one the textbooks, she hoped to have learned a few more before she got to Hogwarts.

She took out her wand, an object that she had already fallen in love with. Acacia, 10 and 3/4 inches with a core of White River Monster spine. It took a very long time for the wand to find her, the 26th attempt was when she was found and she basically fell instantly in love with her wand. 

Kelli flicked to a page she had a bookmark in - one of fifteen - and found one of the spells she hadn't learned yet. Yet again, Kelli wished there was internet. She wished she had her phone. And she wished, if they were in the correct timeline, that she would have been able to just google the theory she needed. Although, chances are, it wouldn't be on the internet because wizards didn't need the internet, but Kelli was a muggleborn of the 21st century. She was raised with the internet.

So she cracked open the second textbook and went straight to the glossary. Maybe she'd find some information for her theory. As much as literally everyone hated Umbridge, she was kind of correct when she said that theory helped. But the actual practice helped a lot. 

While Kelli would have appreciated being in the books timeline, she was seriously glad she wasn't because this was a good way to learn history.

"You're studying?" he asked her.

She looked up at him and nodded once. "Take my mind off, um, my nerves." Then she looked back down so she didn't see him react. Kelli didn't want to fear him, fearing him would fuel him. But she was ridiculously afraid. God, she thought, I thought I was way cooler than this.