another love; harry potter

initium

\ wherein the journey begins /

"HEY PHEOBE, LOOK AT THIS," a voice called, bringing my attention over to a blonde girl who was waving me over. "Look at this!" I strolled over to the green-eyed girl curiously, raising my eyebrow at the girl who was acting suspiciously excited. We'd just entered a store that was a couple blocks from school, thinking it would be a stress-reliever as we had our finals coming up, so it was pretty abnormal for the girl to be this excited about something when our first exam was the next day. 

she was so childish, so young, so loving. she always did overthink too much.

"What're you so excited about?"

"Dunno, but I think it's your area of expertise," Sophia replied, a teasing grin on her lips. I frowned and followed her gaze to a small, shimmering gold object that glinted in the sunlight when you looked at it the right way. 

"It's a time-turner!" I said excitedly, studying it carefully. I looked back at my friend, who was looking at me weirdly, waiting for me to elaborate. "It's like a small, necklace version of the time- machine from 'Back to the Future'. Except it...doesn't go back to the future. Just, like, back to the past." I shook my head, rolling my eyes and saying quickly, "it'd make a lot more sense if you bothered to read the-"  

"-Harry Potter books, yes, yes, you only tell me to read and/or watch them every hour," Sophia scoffed, turning to consider the rest of the quaint store which I was suddenly noticing looked more and more like a full-on Harry Potter souvenir shop. "I have a life, Pheobe, I don't have time for this...magical nonsense." I fought back the urge to debate with her on the topic and instead turned back to the glimmering necklace that had originally caught my attention. 

"How much is this?" I muttered to myself, reaching over and turning it to read the price, only to let out a small gasp when I read it. 

"Well?" Sophia said expectantly, now surveying a rack of dresses nearby. "How much?"

"Oh, uh, doesn't matter, it's not really that cool anyways," I said, trying to sound offhanded, but Sophia being Sophia, she saw right through it. 

"Don't worry about it, you...uh...Pottyhead? I'll buy it," said Sophia, gently picking it up and walking over to the counter. I widened my eyes at the girl as I rushed over, seeing her take out some money out of her purse and hand it to the man behind the counter. 

"No- no, Sophia, really-" but it was too late, the man had given her the necklace back. He looked up at me and cocked an eyebrow. 

"Would you like a refund?" He asked, looking between the two of us with raised eyebrows. Sophia looked at me with a smug grin, waving the necklace back and forth. She knew she had won this battle. 

"No thank you, sir," she said with a smile, walking back over to me. 

"Soph, you really didn't have to do that."

"Whatever do you mean? I simply thought it'd look good on me." Sophia slipped on the necklace and looked at her reflection in a nearby mirror. "No," she said with a fake pout. "D'you want it?"

"Do I- no! You used your money on it, you keep it!" She rolled her eyes and threw the Time-Turner in the air, and I gaped at her for half a second before reaching up and barely catching it. 

"Whomsoever catches thy necklace shall keepeth thy necklace," she said in a thick accent as I scoffed, feeling the grooves of the necklace. 

"Thank you so much, Soph-"

i wish she didn't take it. maybe we both could have been spared all the pain. 

"Hello." said a voice suddenly. I nearly jumped, looking to the source of the sound, only to see the cashier who had given Sophia the necklace not a moment before. "Sorry. Didn't mean to frighten you, but I was wondering- are you the witc- sorry, person, who is to keep this extraordinary device?" The cashier asked me, looking at the necklace in my hand. I could've sworn he was about to say the word witch, and I looked over at Sophia, who was distracted by one of the purses on sale. 

"Yeah, I'm going to keep this extraordinary device," I repeated uncertainly. "Why?" 

"Be careful with this. This is not your ordinary necklace," he said seriously, before dropping his voice to a low whisper and adding, "it goes back more than a few hours." 

"Yeah, ha..ha." I grinned nervously, slowly backing out of the store. "Sophia, c'mon!" I hissed, waiting for the girl to catch on and meet me outside the store. When she finally came out with a confused expression on her face, I took one last look at the cashier before I started running.

"Where-are-we-going?" She said between pants. 

"Just- I dunno- far away from that guy!" About a moment later, I decided it was far enough, and grabbed Sophia's arm, dragging her towards a small café nearby. "I think there's something up with that store," I said carefully. She scoffed.

"You think? I was pretending to be distracted 'cause I heard it too! And they were selling cloaks! Cloaks are so last century."  

"They were selling cloaks?" I frowned. "Cloaks..."

"They were so gross, though. And they were selling the kind of hats you wore for Halloween last year!"

"Wait...the witch hats?"

"Yeah." I ran a hand through my long dark hair, deep in thought. A man nearly called me a witch, the same man who owned a store where he sold Harry Potter trinkets, which wouldn't usually be odd, except that no Harry Potter store I had ever gone to sold cloaks and witch hats. "Let's just go home and forget about it." Sophia said instead. I hesitated before following her back towards her home, but I couldn't just forget that someone had almost called me a witch. 

Something strange was going on.