All Tangled Up

Chapter One

It All Begins Again

Blurred shapes move in shades of fresh greens, splashes of red and yellow and the sharp light of a summer sun. A blur that could be human climbs up over a ridge, and rushes to and fro, searching. Sounds of the wind in trees echo around, and a voice calls out.

"Tom! Tom, where are you?!" cries the voice, feminine, tinted with slight annoyance and desperation, but at the same time with lightness and good humour. "Boy, come out, or, or..."

At this moment a second shape appears as if from nowhere and collides with the first, knocking it to the ground. A squeal pierces the soft sounds, echoing sharply, and the vague images fade into darkness.

I moaned in my sleep and clutched the pillow as I began to re-emerge into consciousness. Images from my dreams rose up in my mind and swam in a confusing mess. Faces, voices, laughs, places and a dozen other things gradually found an ordered place, and I catalogued them in my mind. Memories had been coming to me in my sleep recently. I had always remembered things about Before, but I tended to ignore them, not to think about them. They weren't relevant to me any more. At least until now, that is. Because I knew what was to come soon. A tapping on my bedroom window, maybe, early in the morning, in the kitchen at breakfast time, or at night as I sat in the living room, watching the box. The owl, tawny, most probably, if my memories were correct, would hold out its leg, dignified, businesslike, offering an envelope of thick, yellow parchment, sealed with wax seal.

There is something you must know about me. It is not that I m a witch, because I am sure you will have worked that out by now, but something a lot less obvious to the eye. In fact, even a witch or wizard would find this difficult to believe. I am very tempted to draw you out with a long build, putting this statement off for as long as possible, but the fact is that it is better to be blunt. Pull off the plaster straight away and be done with it, pain quite and sharp and than gone; just an angry red mark and some sticky substance that is hard to wash off. Ah, but you see, I am drawing out without the intention of doing it. What you must know is this. I was alive before. I had a different name to the one I bear now. There was a time when I was not as Natasha Jeeves.

In short; I died. Or did not die. I am not sure which is the truth. The closest thing to the truth, or thing that is least likely to be completely an utterly untrue, is if I say that my body died, and nine months latter what was Amy Greenwood before was born as Natasha Jeeves. There is not much to it, apart from that, unless, of course, you count what led up to my death, and, as I later found out, what resulted from it. When I died, when I became more conscious of the face that I had died, I was not bitter, though I was sad about the life I had lost. I did not wish for time to turn back. I loved my family, as I had loved the Greenwoods before them. No, it was not until the time I found out the consequences that I yearned, ached for things to have been different. Guilt grew inside me like an abscess, bulbous and ugly and tender to the touch. Not that there were any clues that were apparent to me that could have spelt it out, but if I had acted differently, less head strong, less determined to get what I wanted, than things would have been so much better. Bad, yes, it would still be bad, but better nonetheless.

I am dragging you back to where we began. One bright summer morning in my eleventh year, what seemed like an age since when this era of my life had dawned on me before, I rose sleepily from my bed with memories of a past summer dancing in front of my half closed eyes, creating a half smile on my young lips. It would not be long now.

I descended to the kitchen where I rummaged in the cupboard for something edible whilst wondering how my parents would take it, what my elder siblings would say, and what lies I would spin for my friends. I had purposely found a school where none of my friends had applied, entered a few of the same tests for grammar schools and purposely failed, put my name down for same comprehensives which were far to distant for me to be accepted. I carefully planned my moves, setting up the easiest situation for covering up my soon to be absence from London. And than the piece de resistance; a creative writing competition that I had entered purely for the fun of it decided that I was one of the five lucky winners (I would label myself, modestly, the fourth runner up) of a complete scholarship to a boarding school... somewhere in the north of Britain. Perhaps on a small island somewhere. I written the story and shown it to my friends. I had spent the last year on it, trying to make my success plausible, since I had both played down my knowledge and certain skills had not been developed at Hogwarts on my first time around.

Now there was naught to do but wait, and I stared absentmindedly outside as I shovelled muesli into my mouth. We had a small garden, which my parents, for some god-awful reason that I did not understand, liked to spend the occasional weekend furiously digging and pruning and watering and all those mysterious things you do to a garden to make it nice. Today, however, was a weekend, and my parents were at their respective workplaces, my father a teacher, and my mother something rather boring that I am not sure what to call in the City, and by the City I mean the Square Mile, the original City of London, where all the big businesses preside. Outside in the half-light a honeysuckle climbed up a trellis set against a fence and I dreamed contentedly about what it would be like to return to Hogwarts. For a moment my vision was obscured by an owl as it flew past, which approached the window and sat on the ledge, staring intently at me. I pushed another spoonful into my mouth. I heard steps descend the stairs and my sleepy brother started to complain about the racket I had made when getting up. Not that I made much noise; my eldest brother, Samuel, back from university for the summer holidays, had always slept like a feather.

"... Crashing around the place like an elephant," he said. "Do you know how early it is? Are you mad..."

He'd stopped mid sentence and I snapped into full consciousness. I turned round and he stood frozen, staring straight through me, the blood seemingly haven drained from his face.

"Or maybe that's me..." he said faintly, before suddenly jerking to life, raising his voice. "Amy, you were staring right at it. You are made. There's a bloody great owl perched on the window ledge, girl!!"

It was my turn to freeze, but I thawed out in a second and spun round. Yes, the owl. I had seen it, registered it, but been completely unaware it at the same time. I stood up and quickly walked over to the window, noticing the enveloped attached to its leg. I started to open the window, and called over to my brother to help me push the window up, which he did willingly, though, admittedly he nearly dropped the window on my fingers when the bird hopped into the room.

"This is amazing," Samuel said, excitedly, walking around the creature. "The others aren't gonna believe this. Shall we get them? No, let's keep this to ourselves, eh? Anyway, they won't want to be woken this early... Hey, shall we close the window?"

"No," I said firmly, and when he gave me a look I added, "it's cruel, and anyway, it might go nuts on us."

"Of course, of course," he said. "No, you're completely right. Hey, what's this?"

Bingo.

This was exactly what I wanted him to do. He approached the owl gingerly, whilst I stepped back, pretending to expect the creature to act adversely to this advance. Samuel was quite surprised to find that it did not stir a muscle; it just looked at him disdainfully in quite a patronising way. He cautiously undid the strap attaching the letter to its leg.

"Hey, a letter," he said, gesturing with it towards me with a baffled look on his face. He read the address, and looked up at me, even more confused. "It's got your name on it. And your room; attic bedroom, it says."

My hands had been shaking and I desperately tried to stop them. I looked at the familiar handwriting; it looked like Professor McGonagall was still deputy head. I opened it, read it, though I didn't need to, and handed it to my brother. I was right, I knew it; I still had my powers. How could I not know? Those times when I was angry or afraid... well who would not get into situations where your magical abilities would reveal themselves with three elder brothers?

"This is a joke..." Samuel said. "But... the owl, it's so strange. You could train that, right?"

He approached the owl again and cast a scrutinizing eye over it.

"No one I know who might want to trick me like that could," I said. "Am I a witch, then? Do you think I am? Sam... do you think they exist?"

"I don't know, I don't think so," he said faintly.

"Can you remember that time Billy chased me round the garden with a belt?" I asked.

"Remember?" Sam said, a smile starting to curve on his lips. "Are you kidding? That stuffs family legend!"

"And you remember what happened next?" I asked.

Sam started to laugh, his eyes lighting up with the sight of a frightened eight-year-old me, and a completely baffled thirteen-year-old Billy.

"Why, you ended up on the roof of the..." his voice trailed away. "We never did find out how you managed that one..."

He picked up the letter, reread it, and than read it a third time, his brow creasing. He scratched his stubble and then cleared his throat and started to recite this letter.

" 'If you have any doubts as to the authenticity of this letter try casting your mind back to unexplainable events that have occurred in your, or your child's, life, particularly when they have been frightened or angry.' "

He looked up at me.

"Well," he said. "Yes or no? I'll believe if you believe."

"Like hell I believe," I grinned. "Who wouldn't want to? And it does explain a lot."

And that was that. Sam broke the news to the rest of the Boys then and there; at first they resented the early morning call, then they got pissed off over the lies they were being told, and then they sat in stunned silence. Billy believed first; the memory of "the Belt and Shed" incident had stayed with him. Christian took more convincing, being the most cynical of all three of my brothers, and the least trustful. He read the letter once, than reached for his glasses just to make sure that he had not misread any part. He almost ran down to the cellar to rummage around in boxes for an old magnifying glass, but Billy stopped him and reminded him that the useless plastic thing had been snapped in half years ago.

"Well..." he finally came out with. "I'll keep my mind open about this one."

Samuel and I called an official Jeeves meeting, and assembled the other two round the kitchen table. Sam hit the table with a ladle to instigate silence and bring the meeting to order. Noise dissipated and we sat with our full attention on our eldest brother.

"The issue under discussion at this meeting is principally the letter that young Amy received this morning," Samuel Jeeves said in a solemn and businesslike manner. "I originally wished a meeting on Amy's rather irritating new habit of rising at the crack of dawn, but I think we can all agree that the aforementioned letter is of far more importance."

A noise that could have been dissent came from the direction of Chris, who was current scribing away, who was taking the notes for the meeting. Officially, his was actually Billy's job, but Billy's handwriting would become increasingly illegible as the meeting progress. Why we felt the need to assign this task, I do not know, after all, we all had adequate memories, and the note taker, whoever it was, inevitably stopped taking notes shortly into the meeting. On this occasion, this happened faster than usual.

"So, we're agreed? There are three things we need to do. Reply to the letter, tell the parents, and go to this Diagonal Alley place to see if this is really a truthful letter."

"Sam, it's 'Diagon'," I piped up.

"Hmmm?" he said. "Yes, of course. Right. What's first? Well, I think it's mum and dad that need to write the reply, so we don't have to worry about that, which leaves actually telling them, and then Diagon Alley. I think it's vital that me and Amy should be at both events, as I'll be needed for money in Diagon Alley, and I think mum and dad will less likely to think it's a prank."

Both Billy and Chris snorted.

"What?" said Sam, trying to maintain his seriousness, but not doing very well, as there was a mischievous glint in his eye and

"You're a bloody great liar, that's what," Billy blurted out. "Dad might fall for something like that, but mum sure as hell won't."

Sam chose to ignore this, and turned to me, asking me what I thought the best plan of action would be. I pretended to ponder the question, though in reality I had decided what should be done at least five minutes before.

"Well," I said. "Since we're not one hundred per cent certain ourselves, I reckon we should go to this, eh, Diagon Ally place to confirm what we think we know, and then get something there that'll convince dad, and yes even mum."

No one complained at this, and within minutes we were all dressed and ready to leave, our passes at the ready, change-a-jangling in our pockets, and adventurous flushes on our cheeks. Though Sam and I objected to Billy and Chris coming with us (a family of one 'inexperienced' witch and three muggles wouldn't exactly be inconspicuous or easy to deal with, for me, in Diagon Ally), they were ready before us, and leading the way.

I think I will leave out the commotion we caused on the underground, caught amongst the rush hour travellers, inhaling the fragrant summer armpits (my head was positioned virtually inside one that was owned by an overweight middle aged man). I will merely say that my borthers enjoyed letting rip talking loudly about magic etc. with the Boys, and we got some rather odd looks. Any Ministry worker, or non-muggleborn, come to mention it, would have looked on with shock, fear, and anger, but we knew that no-one in their right mind when this bunch of teenage boys and their pre-teenage little sister were being serious - they must be indulging the sweet girl in a game of make believe.

When we approached the Leaky Cauldron, Billy and Christian were talking about how they could not see the pub anywhere, so I leaned into Sam and whispered to him that I could, so let's loose them, as soon as possible. We did our best, but when we had failed to shake them off by the time we were passing it, so I was obliged to stop them and tell them that it was here.

Oh, how I wished afterwards that I had not brought even Sam to Diagon Alley. I will keep it brief as to what happened. We spent most of the day there, and most of the day I spent my time reigning in my three elder brothers as the bounded from shop to shop, fingering the merchandise. I did not even have time be reminded of memories on that street for the majority our shopping expedition, but in some quiet moments they rose up inside of me and took me unaware, and I had to dig my fingers into my hand until the blood came in order to stop a manic grin and a smile, or a shaking hand and a tear. I remembered about when I visited Mr Ollivander's shop for the first time, or the only time. I had not liked it. It took too long, the day grew dark, and finally he found a wand way back in the storeroom that had lain there so long that the dust had even penetrated the box in which it lay and was thick on it polished wood. Oak, phoenix feather, six and a half inches, good in particular for transfiguration. I had been good at transfiguration, but that is another story. Anyway, I had felt so uncomfortable under the gaze of that man for so long, disliked the way in which he spoke to me, and referred to the wands and the people to whom he had sold them. I did not want to see him again, and as the two younger of my brothers were talking to a group of redheads, I stole into the shop, noticed that horrible man was not there, grabbed the wand in the window, and scarpered.

I returned to my brothers and it seemed that they had made a few friends. There was a pair of twins Chris' age, and someone who must have been their brother, who was Billy's age. The elder of the three did not seem to approve, and sought an ally out in Billy, who turned out to be worse that his younger brother. Before I could take stock of the situation, Samuel arrived with a young woman who sported short, electric blue hair on his arm, introduced her as Nymphadora Tonks, and announced that we were going to lunch, and seeing Billy and Chris' new friends, invited them along. The eldest ginger boy, who turned out to be called Percy, a fact which brought a few sniggers to my brothers and I found it hard to stifle mine, protested, but the twins thought it an excellent idea.

This is what happened at the Leaky Cauldron. My brother Sam got the four boys riproaringly drunk whilst flirting shamelessly with this Nymphadora girl, whom I quite liked, and got quite boistress himself. I tried to calm everyone down a little, and draw attention away from us, to little avail, but eventually I gave up and joined in the revelries.

"You see," Sam said to Tonks, nudging closer to her. "Us, what was it you said you called us, again...?"

"Muggles," said Tonks, with an amused look on her face.

"Well," continued Sam. "Us, muggles, we have our own magical abilities."

"You do?" Tonks said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes," Sam said. "I myself have a particularly... stimulating skill. You might say I have magical fingers..."

"Really? You wouldn't be up to giving me a demonstration some time, would you?"

"Up to? I'd be delighted... but we'd have to go somewhere more private. I have terrible stage fright... I could give you a private sitting..."

I turned my intention away from these two, a mixture of amusement and distaste on my face, to Billy, Chris, and the red haired twins. The twins, Fred and George, were telling my brothers about Quidditch, and I turned away again, since the description of the works of the game were old news to me.

"Natasha!" said Fred, turning to me. "Tasha, Tasha, Tasha," he repeated, putting his arm over my shoulders. "Don't turn away... Tasha. After all, it's you who needs to know this, babe. A crucial piece of knowledge for any witch or wizard, wouldn't you say, George, my dear brother?"

"Absolutely. The most crucial, even."

"Without a doubt."

"Even with a doubt."

They paused at this, but shook off the moment and continued.

"Quidditch," said George. "Is an international magical inshtituashon..."

"Except in the US..."

"...institushonon, inshtishwishshwish, instatishtion..."

"...And it's not like they matter."

"...institution!"

"So, I'm sure you can see it's vital that you learn the rules."

"Yep," George agreed. "Let's see... two teams... we have the keeper..."

George grabbed a menu and placed it at one end of the table, and on this cue, Fred joined in, grabbing three forks for the chasers. A few minutes later the two of them were completing their explanation. Fred waved a glass in his hand.

"So the shotglass..."

"Seeker," corrected George.

"Yes, the seeker," said Fred. "Is of the utmost importance... he..."

"...or she..."

"...or she, can win the game with a single..."

"Wait!!" exclaimed George, smacking his forehead.

"What?"

"We forgot about the broomsticks."

The two boys sat in silence for a moment.

"Crikey," said Fred.

The twins were not able to recover from their vital mistake, as their mortality almost immediately was made clearer.

I would prefer not to go into detail. Put in simplest terms, what happened was Mrs Weasley. Shouting, berating, rolling her eyes, she ordered her boys over to the fireplace, "AT THIS MOMENT", Percy looking self-satisfied behind her, and two awkward siblings, a boy my age, and a younger girl, hovering behind him. Mrs Weasley turned on my brother and Tonks, as they "SHOULD'VE KNOWN BETTER." I saw Fred disappear, after flashing me a grin and a wink over his shoulder, after his brother and into the fire. I felt my face go hot, and tried to block out the yells. The whole pub had gone silent apart from this magnificent woman. Even Sam was sitting there, his mouth hanging limply in stunned silence. I think "AND CLOSE YOUR MOUTH, YOU LOOK LIKE YOU'VE BEEN HIT WITH A MEMORY CURSE!!" was her final remark before leaving.

What a re-entrance into the magical world! No, this certainly wasn't the way that I wanted to begin again.