Identity Crisis

The bright sunlight of the Autumn afternoon made me blink my eyes to adjust them. I looked around to find that I was in a large field of yellowing grass. There was a slight chill in the air announcing the arrival of fall but summer hadn’t completely left.

I could see a figure coming at me, but the sun blocked out most of their features. It wasn’t until they were right in front of me that I saw the face of Amaris King, my old school friend, smiling down at me. She was preserved perfectly from our last first school year together. A bright eyed, blonde haired vixen. Her school skirt hiked up just above school regulations like usual, one more button undone than allowed. Her long hair piled on top of her hair and secured with chop sticks. It was the most welcoming sight I had seen in a long time.

“Hey Sierra!” She was positively alive to me. I wanted to bottle her youthfulness.

“Hey Amaris!”

She helped me to my feet and I threw my arms around her in greeting. She lifted me off my feet just like old times and I was overcome with laughter, begging to be put back down. She obliged but grabbed my hand and pulled me along after her. We began running through the golden field. Me struggling to keep up, Amaris continuing on at full speed.

It was fun for awhile, but soon I began to lose my momentum and yelled after her to slow down. But she wouldn’t. She had begun to go faster and faster. Her grip on my hand never loosening. The warm autumn air began to chill and the sunlight started to fade. I didn’t feel as carefree as I had minutes ago.

“Where have you been Sierra?” I heard her say the words but she didn’t turn around. “We’ve all missed you so much.”

I continued on behind her. “I had to go Amaris! Hogwarts wasn’t safe for me anymore!” I was tripping over my own feet now. On the verge of being dragged.

“So you abandoned all of your friends? Really Sierra, I would have thought better of you! Being scared off by poor little flint.” Her pace was now almost supernatural.

I had now completely given in and was being dragged behind her.

“Please stop!” My voice was desperate and raspy. “ I can’t go on any longer!”

“Oh you!” The playfulness in her voice had became unnerving. There was a bite to it. “I can’t stop now. We’re going to be late for the Feast silly!” She came to an abrupt stop. “Oh wait! We’re already here!”

We were in front of a large stone entrance. She had finally let go of my hand and had started walking into a large hall. It was in fact the same great hall that we had spent so many mornings , noons and nights in, except all of the tables had been taken away and it was elaborately decorated. The walls were draped with the finest dark red silk. Silver candelabras holding hundreds of candles bathed the room in the softest light.

Amaris’s school uniform had been changed into elaborate emerald green dress robes. Her hair now hung down around her shoulders in elegant curls. She looked exactly the way she had the last night I saw her. And in the same way I now looked the way I had the night I left Hogwarts. I had my travel cloak on and was carrying my broom. It was if we were recreating a memory from long ago. Only this time i told myself I wasn’t going to leave. I was going to stay and watch the feast I had left behind.

I watched from the shadows as Amaris, who seemed to have completely forgotten about me, made her rounds about the festivities. Everyone I remembered was there. Dean, Parvati and Lavender made awkward conversation as Harry led Hermione on the floor for a slow dance. Cho, stunning in pale blue silk stuck mainly around the musicians stage.

But my eyes were on the look out for someone else. Someone I hadn’t seen for too long.
I scanned the room with no luck. But then the familiar smell of cigarette smoke drew me across the room and out onto the terrace. To my disappointment it was empty. However the smell had grown stronger and I started to descend a set of stone stairs. They kept going on and on until I found myself in a garden. No not a garden, a cemetery. One that seemed to go on for miles.

Fascinated, I weaved in and out of the different head stones. Being careful to be respectful to their owners. Some contained the names of famous wizards I had only read about in my text books, but I started seeing familiar names as well.

I bent over a large headstone engraved with the name, ‘Ronald Weasley’ engraved on it. The shock of it made me stumble backwards, knocking over a small dove statue. I picked it up and put it on its plaque, horrified as I noticed yet another familiar name; ‘In memorial of Hermione Granger’. In a daze I started looking at the other graves, each name containing someone I had once known long ago, and some containing faces I had seen only moments before. The graves seemed to go on forever.

My head was spinning, and the smell of smoke was strongest now. Whatever I was looking for was getting closer.
I came up to the last tombstone, which marked an empty grave. It was the largest yet. There was a giant stone angel perched on top of it which cast its shadow on me as I made out its inscription.

‘Here lies the future of the wizarding community.’

I stepped back and and contemplated what I had just read. “What the hell is this all about?” My voice boomed throughout the large area.

“It means that the future of the wizarding community is dead if you don’t do something about it.” The unmistakable brogue of Seamus Finnigan spoke to me from up above. I fell backwards, narrowly avoiding the empty grave. The stone angel shifted its position and landed beside me effortlessly. Of all my years growing up and being surrounded by magic, this was still the weirdest thing I had ever seen.

The figure picked me up by my shirt collar and made me stand beside him.

It picked up a long cigarette and held it up to it’s sculpted lips, taking a long drag. I needed a reality check, and quick.
“You’re wondering what the feck is going on.” He blew smoke rings into the air.

I nodded in agreement, dumbfounded.

He continued. “You have to remember miss sky, I can read you like a book. Always could.”

I looked away from him, willing myself out of this awful place.

“You’ve been hiding from life too long Sierra. You’ve turned away from the people who love you all because you have been afraid. But it’s not too late. There is still time to vindicate yourself and your friends. This doesn’t have to be the fate of the wizarding community. You could change it.”

I turned abruptly and faced the semi-familiar face. “Listen! I left the world of magic because I wanted to have a normal life! I wanted to walk down a corridor and know for sure that the room I headed towards hadn’t magically changed. I wanted to complain about my tax return to my totally average neighbors. To know that when I wake up in the morning that for the most part things will be the way I left them the night before.”

He had a vacant expression on his face, which only served to make me angrier.

“Is it so wrong to want security and stability? I just want to be safe and not always be wondering what is next in store for me!”

“You’re never going to know what is going to be around the corner, whether you live in the muggle or the magical world. And you can’t avoid the future by running away from your past. Whether you like it or not, You’re going to have to face your fears. There is really only one alternative.”

I stared at him nonplussed. “And what’s this alternative?”

In one swift movement he leapt back onto the giant tombstone. The engraving on it had changed. I read my name off of it out loud at first and then trailed off into silence. The next thing I knew I was falling backwards into the grave. I reached out in front of me in desperation but found no aid. I hit the bottom of the grave with a thud.

I woke up in bed with a start. Even though I was no longer dreaming everything still seemed hazy and the smoke I had smelt while sleeping continued to linger. In fact, the smell seemed to be getting stronger. I sat up in bed and looked around me.

Flames surrounded my small living area and were gaining momentum by the second. I jumped off my bed and pulled my shoes on. I ran for my bag that had been miraculously untouched by the fire. I pulled on my coat and headed for the door,testing the door knob to see whether or not it was hot. Thankfully it was still rather cool. I opened the door and was about to exit when I remembered the envelope that was still on my bedside table.

‘I could just leave it there to burn’, I thought, taking another step out of my apartment and into the hallway. But the dream I had just had had creeped me out enough to realize that I needed to know what that letter was about.

Leaving my bag by the door I ran back inside my apartment and grabbed the envelope. Returning as fast as I could to the front doorway. I went to check on my neighbors but their doors were all open and as soon as I made it down the stairs to the outside of the building I found everyone accounted for.

We watched as the fire trucks came to our building and helped put out the blaze. It was over almost as soon as it started. In fact you couldn’t even see the flames from the outside of the building.

When everything was under control one of the firemen walked up to our group of tenants.
“I have to admit that in all of my years of work for the firehouse I haven’t seen anything like this.” He took off his helmet and held it at his side.
“It seems that while quite a few apartments had very minor and almost unnoticeable fire damage, one suite was completely ravaged by the fire.”

With the way my day had been going I was not surprised at all when I learnt that it had been my apartment that had been destroyed by the fire. Every last part of it made unlivable. When I went to see if anything could be salvaged I discovered something out of a horror movie.
Everything was charcoal black. The damage was most evident on the walls where the dark smoke damage seemed to have splashed itself on the walls. Nothing had survived the fire. Everything I had owned in the past 2 years was gone forever.

No one knew what had started the fire. They wrote it up as electrical damage and told me that it would be back to normal in one months time. I took my bag and that damned manilla envelope and headed to the only place that I knew I could go. My parents house.