Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Green light.

Blinding green light, everywhere he looked.

“Avada…”

A wizard shrouded in black robes raised his wand high. Beneath the hood was a hideously twisted face, a scar running straight from his forehead down across his features. The corner of his mouth curled high, making him look like a demon fresh from hell.

Reflected in his crimson eyes was a tiny, stunted goblin.

Or was it?

Looking closer, there seemed to be something in the creature’s arms.

“…Kedavra!”

As the final syllable fell, a dazzling, ominous beam of fluorescent green shot forward.

A translucent veil swayed gently in midair.

“What…?”

Did I get transported again?

Suer reached up and felt his head. Not long ago, on his way home from yet another nine-to-nine, six-days-a-week shift, he had been sent flying by a lorry driving the wrong way.

And now, the instant he woke up, he had been met by a flash of green light.

That had sounded suspiciously like Avada Kedavra.

So… had he died again?

“Then where is this?”

“This is Godric’s Hollow, and yet it isn’t Godric’s Hollow.”

A gentle female voice came from behind him.

“Who’s there?”

Suer spun around. Before him stood a pale European girl with her hair tied in a ponytail.

“We gave this place a name–the Misty Dreamscape,” the girl said to herself, her airy voice floating through the silence.

Only then did Suer truly notice his surroundings. The trees that should have been green were a lustrous jade-white. More than that–everything here seemed to be white.

“How did you get here?” Endless loneliness lay in the girl’s eyes, as if she had been wandering this place for a very long time.

“I…” Suer faltered in confusion. “I think it was magic.”

“Oh.”

The girl gave a little hop and leaned back against the tree trunk, her feet dangling in the air as she swung them idly.

“I’m Suer. What’s your name?” Suer asked, looking up at her.

“Me?” She tilted her head. “I don’t remember.”

Then she added, “But everyone calls me Ariana.”

“Everyone?” Suer caught the word at once. “There are other people here?”

“Of course.” She nodded. “Lots and lots of them. But many have already left.”

“Where did they go?” Suer asked softly.

“I don’t know.” The girl shook her head, confusion flickering through her eyes. “It seemed like their time came, and then they left.”

Suer was about to ask more when gentle voices began calling out, one after another, across the gleaming white space.

“You should go,” Ariana said. She jumped lightly down from the branch and walked over to him.

“I should go?” Suer asked, bewildered. “Go where?”

Ariana did not answer. There was only a faint smile on her face.

She raised a hand and gave his shoulder a gentle push.

“Wait, Ariana!”

…

“Ah!”

Suer woke with one skinny little arm reaching forward.

An incomprehensible stream of babble sounded beside his ear, full of delighted surprise.

Huh?

A pair of large hands gently picked him up. They belonged to a kindly looking blonde woman.

Why am I a baby?

Suer was stunned. Yet all that came out of his mouth was more incoherent babbling, accompanied by a wild flailing of tiny limbs.

The woman burst out laughing. As she rocked him, Suer glimpsed a man nearby: handsome, brown-haired, his pale blue eyes resting tenderly on the woman.

Time never stopped for anyone. Ten years slipped quietly by.

The thin, undersized baby grew into a healthy, handsome boy with rosy cheeks.

Suer also accepted his new identity. Suer Ellison–that was his new name.

His adoptive mother, Suli, loved telling the story of the day she had found him. She always said Suer was a precious gift sent from heaven, the lucky angel of their family. Five years after taking him in, she finally became pregnant.

Mr. Ellison and Suli had been overjoyed.

As for the name Suer, Suli had found it written inside a hidden fold of his swaddling clothes on the day she discovered him.

“Bwother…”

A little blonde girl tottered toward the boy, who sat at a table writing and drawing.

“Hee-hee-hee!”

Suer’s eyes softened as he caught the little cannonball that crashed into his arms and lifted her high above his head. The girl let out a bright, silvery peal of laughter.

“Mummy says Angel come tell Bwother it’s time to eat,” Angel whispered, straining to get close to Suer’s ear.

“All right.” Suer nodded with a smile. “Bwother will take Angel to eat din-dins.”

He hoisted Angel onto his shoulders, making her dissolve into giggles.

Hearing their laughter from the sitting room, Suli smiled warmly in the kitchen.

…

“Eat some more, darling.” Suli used the serving spoon to heap Suer’s plate high. “Mrs. Granger next door taught me how to make this today. Tell me if it’s any good.”

“That’s enough, Mum.” Suer stared helplessly at the mountain on his plate.

“You need to eat more. Just look at you–you’re far too thin.” Suli carried on fussing as she used her fork to place a piece of broccoli on Angel’s plate.

“I’m not thin, Mum.” Suer put down his spoon, rolled up his sleeve, and flexed his arm. “I’m strong.”

“Hee-hee! Bwother looks like a big gangly monkey!” Angel still remembered the monkeys she had seen at the zoo a few days earlier, and she burst into delighted laughter.

Suli froze for a moment, then snorted and began laughing too.

Suer’s face instantly darkened.

Dinner ended amid Angel’s relentless attempts to be adorable.

Knock, knock.

Angel’s eyes lit up at the sound. She scrambled down from her high chair and dashed toward the front door. The little girl had recently fallen in love with answering it and never tired of the job.

“Big Sis Granger!”

Her sweet voice rang from the entryway.

“Hello, Angel.”

Accompanied by quick footsteps, a small girl and a slightly older one came inside.

The visitor was the Grangers’ daughter from next door.

By an extraordinary coincidence, she looked very much like the heroine of a film Suer had watched long ago. The same name, the same bushy hair, the same large eyes and delicate little face–and the same pair of prominent front teeth.

It was not as though Suer had never wondered whether this might be the magical world of Harry Potter.

There had been that blinding flash of green light at the beginning, after all, and then the girl named Ariana in that pure-white world.

But how could that possibly be true?

He pushed the thought out of his mind and greeted her with a smile. “Good afternoon, Hermione.”

“Sorry to bother you, Mrs. Ellison. I brought Angel’s medicine.”

Hermione had been about to answer Suer when she spotted the beaming Mrs. Ellison and hurriedly dipped her head in greeting. Still, the thick stack of books in her arms made it obvious that medicine was not the only thing on her mind.

Mr. and Mrs. Granger were both well-known dentists who ran a dental practice in London. Thanks to a doting father and brother, Angel had been indulged with enough sweets to develop a cavity.

Her so-called medicine was a kind of tiny sweet. Suer had tried one before. They came in all sorts of flavors–even orange.

“Thank you.” Mrs. Ellison accepted a small transparent bottle with a knowing smile. “You came to see Suer, didn’t you?”

“N-no. No, no, I…” Hermione’s face reddened as she shook her head, only to nod rapidly a moment later. “I came to work on our assignment with Suer. Our teacher gave us a project, and Suer and I happened to be put in the same group…”

The girl rattled on and on.

Mrs. Ellison merely nodded, her smile growing ever more meaningful.