A Stolen Memory (Celia)

[Esmeralda Mendez]

Ezzie woke late one Sunday morning to see a bright beautiful summer day. Hopeful that she would be able to do some singing in the park and earn a few extra cash, Ezzie packed up her things and dressed in an old pair of jeans and an overly sized brown t-shirt. (The shelter had provided her with far better clothing, but she tended to get more money when she looked terrible.) She set her case down next to a tree and began to play her base guitar. She set up a microphone borrowed from the shelter and began to sing. She sag everything from "Amazing Grace", to "Can You Feel The Love Tonight". It was getting dark and Ezzie hadn't recieved much money. She prepared herself for her last song, "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion. As she began to play, she noticed a young man about her age come to watch her perform. He had a very kind face, with jet black hair and intense blue eyes. They made her heart melt and her heartbeat quicken that she almost stopped playing. They stared at eachother for the entire song, and when it was over, the boy came over to where she was packing up her equiptment.
"You sing beautifully." He said with a mysterious smile.
"Thank you very much." She said politely, without meeting the boy's eyes.
"Do you mind if I ask your name?"

"My name is Esmeralda, more widey known as Ezzie." She said. "Pleasure."

"Ah, but the pleasure is mine, my sweet." He said, in a rather cheesy french accent. "Care for a long walk in the park, I hear girls like that."

"I don't know," Ezzie said. She knew perfectly well that this was probably just some other trick those arrogant muggles were playing on her. She had fallen victim to their pranks one too many tmes before. "I really should get going. It's getting dark."

"Then I shall come with you!" He said brightly. "I dare say a woman as beautiful as yourself should not be wandering about by herself this late at night."

When he smiled again, Ezzie saw something that was not there before. Instead of that ever so familiar arrogat and misleading look, she saw kind, careful blue eyes that gave Ezzie the feeling he was looking deep into her soul. From this look, Ezzie could tell that he was not another one of those arrogant muggles.

"I think I can handle myself, but if you insist, then I believe that would be fine." She said curtly.

He smiled, then said, "Ethan Jacobs, at your service." He said with a cheesy bow. "May I help you carry your things?" Ezzie smiled and handed him her guitar case.

Ezzie was embarrassed to show him she lived in a homeless sheler, so she just stopped at some random house where it looked like nobody was home.

"Am I going to see you again?" He asked.

"You might." She said curtly.

"Well then, I'll pick you up here tommorow!"

"Oh, no. I'm only here until tommorow. Then I go back to..." Ezzie thought of some place far from London. "...Spain." She continued.

"Oh," He said, with a very sad face. Ezzie thought he was actually serious about seeing her again.

"You know what? Meet me tomorow. Same time, same place."

"Well this is my stop." He handed her the guitar case sadly. "I'll see you around, Ethan Jacobs."

She started walking up to the deserted house, but as soon as Ethan was far rom view, she walked out back towards the shelter.

She remembered this with a smile as she walked around that very park, some two weeks later. The memory as so beautiful, so great, as if it were stolen from the mind of a much luckier person. Suddenly, someone came out of nowhere and crashed into her. She was sure she had seen her before. At Hogwarts, perhaps.

[Celia Richmond]

((Sorry I've taken a long tome to get to this)).

It was a Sunday afternoon, in the middle of August. Celia had recently returned from a week away in Blackpool with her mother and sister, and was glad to be back home. The holiday had been quite surprising-she'd spent some time with Aurpra Chan-a girl from her year, that she was surprised to see there, and they had done quite a bit together. All her worries of the past year seemed to have disappeared that week, as she was having fun...going up Blackpool Tower, going on the pleasure beach, the day in Manchester, where they'd nearly lost Amy, but found her again in the toys section of one of the many department stores around. She had enjoyed her week away, but she did love her home more than anywhere in the world, except, perhaps, Hogwarts.

That Day though, Celia looked out of her bedroom window and sighed. She had nothing more to do with her time. She had no assignments, seeing as she was going into her 6th year and all new courses, it was too soon after her return from Blackpool to have organised anything with her friends, and that day was proving to be very bored. She wanted to go for a walk, but somewhere different to the local countryside surrounding York. Thinking of various places around the country, she settled on London. She didn't really need to go there, as she'd bought her supplies a couple of weeks ago before she went away, all of which were in her trunk, under her bed, but she knew that there were some gorgeous parks around, and decided that she'd spend the afternoon around them.

Landing with a thud in the Leaky Cauldron, having gone there by floo network, she bought a bottle of butterbeer from the bar, and left the pub. Leaving it, she coughed due to the relatively clean atmosphere, after the smokefilled pub, and made her way to the nearest map of London. She saw a nice looking park rather near the centre, which was just round the corner from a tube station. She worked out where the nearest station was, and began to walk in that direction-it was only a 10 minute walk. Then she bought her ticket, found the platform and boarded the underground

After a 20 minute journey, she arrived at the station. Looking at the map outside, she worked out how to get to that park. She reached the park, and started to walk around it, taking in the beautiful scenery, rather out of place in bustling London. Then when she wasn't really paying attention, looking at a squirrel running up a nearby tree, she bumped into someone. A girl, a couple of years younger then her. "Oh, sorry...I wasn't paying attention! Are you alright?" Then she saw that the girl looked familiar...perhaps she was at Hogwarts? "Hey, umm, are you at Hogwarts, by any chance? You look kinda familiar...."

[Esmeralda Mendez]

Ezzie got up, brushed herself off and and smiled. She had a minor scrape on her elbow, but otherwise, she was just fine. She looked around the park, hoping to see Ethan walk up from his handsome blue house, but instead she saw a girl a couple years older than she was. She looked extremely sorry that she had bumped into her and apologized. Ezzie smiled. She had seen her before, but she couldn't exactly tell where. She had probably seen the girl at Hogwarts, for that was where Ezzie spent about ten months of her time. The girl's next statement answered Ezzie's question perfectly. She was a Hogwarts student, probably a fifth or sixth year, in either Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. She couldn't be a Slytherin, otherwise she wouldn't be so nice. She couldn't be a Gryffindor either, otherwise Ezzie would have seen her around the common room.

"Yea, I'm a Gryffindor, going into fourth year." Ezzie said proudly. She was always very proud to be a Gryffindor, and took it as a great offense whenever someone insulted Gryffindor house. Ezzie felt silly. She hadn't even introduced herself yet. She did tend to do that a lot. Sometimes she could ramble on and on, and completely forget to mention who she was. She could tell some people found her habit annoying. She would too, if it was her listening to some random girl blabbering about nothing.

"I'm Esmeralda, by the way. Esmeralda Mendez. You can call me Ezzie though, everyone else does." There weren't really many people she knew, as nobody wanted to really talk to the poor girl in rags. Growing up in a homeless shelter, Ezzie didn't make many friends. There were only the sisters, who asked her too many questions and told her she was going to hell someday when she didn't answer them. She didn't blame them. She had been told by a lot of people that when she died, she'd be going to hell. Her mother and father were among the first to tell her so. When Ezzie had received her Hogwarts letter, her parents tried to drown her in fear of having a witch daughter. They wanted nothing to do with the devil, and in their opinion, if their daughter was a witch, she was no longer part of the family. Ezzie sighed as she waved the memory away from her head.

"So what house are you in? You can't be Gryffindor or Slytherin, can you? I would have known you right away if you were Gryffindor, and you wouldn't be this nice to me if you were a Slyth." Ezzie put her hair up in a rubber band and waited for the girl to reply. She knew it would be a pain taking the stupid rubber band out of her hair later, but she didn't exactly have extra money laying around to go buy a headband, and it was getting very hot out.

[Celia Richmond]

((Sorry it's taken a while...))

Celia smiiled when the younger girl said she was a Gryffindor. "Yeah, I thought you were...you have a Gryffindor type look about you, if that makes sense." Celia seemed to have a nack for predicting what house people were in. Obviously she knew if someone was a Ravenclaw like herself as she saw them around in the common room. Slyths tended to have a rather evil, mischievous look, and tended to look down on people. Huffles tended to be the friendliest of the bunch, and easy to talk to. And Gryffs were just confident and brave. Celia thought that if she wasn't in Ravenclaw, she's probably be a gryff. She was fairly confident and brave-though DADA was one of her worst subjects.

"Going into fourth year eh...good luck with that!" She said at Ezzie's next point. "OWLs are hard work...though probably not as bad as NEWTs will be, which I start in September. Hopefully I'll get good OWL grades..." Celia was expecting to get mostly Os, though nothing more than an E in DADA. History and Potions were also weak points, but she wanted to get Es in them at least, though the exams were hard, and, in the case of History, boring. As for her others, she wanted Os. And she was going to take the subjects she got Os in to NEWT. Although the workload would be hard, she wanted to leave her options as open as possible as she had no idea what she wanted to do in the future. SHe was mostly interested in runes, so possible a rune decipherer in the ministry, or something like that. Or a code breaker.

"Oh, nice to meet you Ezzie. I'm Celia. Celia Richmond. Soon-to-be 6th year Ravenclaw, and prefect. Though I don't know how I managed to become the prefect! There are so many other great people in my house in my year. Ah well, I'm not complaining!" She laughed at what Ezzie said about the Slyths "Oh yeah, I agree. Slytherins can be so nasty. Stuck in their anti-muggleborn ways. I mean, I'm a pureblood myself, but I don't go shouting at people who I know are half-blood, or muggleborn. Hah, I just tend to glare at Slyths that do that. Though I know that some of them are perfectly acceptable people. Hufflepuffs are nice though, and tend to be very friendly. As do Gryffs really. If I wasn't a Raven, I'd be a Gryff I think. When my sister comes here I suppose she'll be a Gryff, but that's another couple of years off yet."

Celia sighed thinking about little Amy. She was a good kid, most of the time, despite being so awfully...difficult! SHe supposed she'd picked up her bits of bad behaviour from her primary school. She tended to pick up things easily. She was a strong willed kid, and would make a great Gryffindor, or possibly Ravenclaw, one day. She'd been through a lot recently though. Her father had returned to try to kidnap her, but their mother had defended her. She was also very strong-willed...Amy was a lot more like her than Celia was. She tended to take after her father more, which worried her. Before the massive arguements, well, 7 years ago it would be now, Celia got on well with her father, but when she saw his violent, abusive side she could no longer bare to look at the man that caused her and the rest of her family so much pain.

"So, what brings you to this park then? Just wanted a wander, or something deeper? Personally I came here just for somewhere different to go. Flooed to Diagon Alley then got the tube over here. It really is beautiful here...easy to take your mind off things in a place like this." Celia smiled slightly at the irony of that. She wanted to take her mind off school and Amy, but those had been her two main concerns here. Ah well, maybe it was best to dwell on these things, so as not to ever forget them.