The only things that kept me going during the next few days were the books under my bed.

After my initial attempt to crawl through the window, which failed miserably, I spent all my time reading. It was amazing, because I loved books, but have you ever read for a week straight? Or even just for a whole day? Unless it's a really good book, at some point you'll get sick of reading.

After a week, that started to happen to me. The highlights of my days, sadly enough, were when Mara would open my door and give me my food. Normally, a piece of plain toast and a glass of water. I started to worry that they'd starve me to death.

My friends continued to send letters, which were getting more and more frantic as time went by. Luna kept mentioning how owls got lost in the Alps a lot, and blamed my lack of letters on that. Rose kept asking if I was sick, or hurt, or maybe I'd sprained my hand? Arthur's were the same, really. Albus and James's were the ones that showed the most worry.

Then, around the beginning of August, theirs stopped all together. I didn't know what to think. Every day, I waited hopefully for a letter from the Potters, anything at all. I was starting to get very worried.

I stayed locked in my room for two weeks before anything remotely exciting happened. And even then, that was in my sleep.

~~~~

There was a group of three girls, and it looked like they were in Diagon Alley. Only, it looked different than I remembered it. All the witches and wizards looked like they could have stepped right out of the sixties.

The oldest girl, who was ten or eleven at the most, was staring in awe at Ollivander's, and the two younger girls, about nine and seven, were giggling at her and poking her. She wasn't moving at all, just staring at the large display window.

A wealthy-looking couple walked up behind the girls, chuckling. "Ready?" the man asked.

The oldest girl stiffened, then nodded. She was apparently to awestruck to speak. The other two girls each grabbed one of her arms and dragged her inside the store.

A much younger-looking Ollivander smiled at the family from behind the desk. I didn't catch what he was saying to the parents; I was too busy watching the girls.

"Annie, look at all of these!" the oldest whispered, looking a bit worried. "It could take hours!"

"Don't be ridiculous," the middle girl, Annie, said. "Mr. Ollivander won't let it take hours."

The youngest girl brushed her blonde hair over her shoulder and said, "I can't wait until I get a wand."

"So you can do what? Make your dolls fly?" teased the oldest.

Annie poked her sister. "As long as you don't use the Cruciatus Curse on her dolls again, we'll be fine. Go try the wands."

The oldest turned to see Mr. Ollivander holding out a wand. She gingerly took it. When it made a vase explode, Mr. Ollivander took it away and stored it back in its box.

It didn't take long to find a match: a strange looking wand, walnut with a dragon-heartstring core. It was bent, which the girl instantly complained about.

"Ah, yes, a very unusual appearance, but I assure you it will work just as well as any other wand," Mr. Ollivander said calmly.

"All right..." she said slowly, before taking the wand. She smiled at it. "I guess it's not so bad."

"It's unique," Annie piped up.

The mother nodded. "I'm sure you'll do great things with it, dear."

I don't know why, but I woke up suddenly after that. I had a strange feeling that I'd seen those girls before, but that couldn't be right. I shrugged, and glanced at my clock.

3:47.

Strange time to wake up, considering I hadn't been having a nightmare. Maybe something had woken me up.

I almost jumped out of my bed as the doorbell rang. At 3:47 in the morning?

After a few more insistent rings, I heard loud stomps, probably belonging to Mr. Lewis, and the front door opening. Muffled voices filtered down to the basement, but I couldn't even tell who was talking, much less what they were saying.

I was just about to decide that I was too tired to care what was going on, when I heard someone outside my door, rattling the lock. I jumped up, slowly tiptoeing to the door.

Someone pushed it open, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw Mrs. Lewis. Then, I tensed up again. What on earth did she want with me at 3:47 in the morning?

She glared at me. "Get up here," she muttered in a tired voice. I cautiously walked out after her. What on earth was going on?

Mrs. Lewis trudged up the basement stairs, with me at her heels. I was tired, but I was also incredibly curious. Maybe, just maybe, my family had found me...

As Mrs. Lewis pushed open the door to the living room, I had to put my arm over my eyes. The light was blinding after the darkness of downstairs. I tried to squint through the light to see who was here when -

"Astra!"

The next thing I knew, there was a mass of curls in my face, and someone was hugging me. I opened my eyes to see that the overly orange curls belonged to Rose. Albus and James were right behind her.

I felt a grin spreading on my face. "What's going on?"

"You're leaving, that's what," Mr. Lewis growled. "Hurry up." Mrs. Lewis trudged into the kitchen, probably to start making some coffee. Normally, she and her husband woke up around 6:15.

Albus and James waited upstairs as Rose and I stumbled down the stairs to quickly pack my stuff. It only took a minute, mostly because I shoved everything into my trunk before Rose had time to be neat. I even emptied out that box of books and stuffed them into my trunk as well. As I packed, Rose explained what was going on.

"When we stopped getting letters from you, we decided you must be in trouble. So, James decided that we needed to come rescue you."

"Wait, you came by yourselves?" I stopped what I was doing to frown at her. "How? And why is Mr. Lewis letting me go with a group of random kids?" Yes, he hated me, but he wouldn't do anything to jeopardize the money he gets from the government for watching me.

"Oh...well...we said our parents were waiting in the car..." Rose was obviously uncomfortable. "He recognized James and Albus from the train station, and I think he was more than happy to not talk to Uncle Harry again."

"So Professor Potter brought you guys here?"

"Well...no...James borrowed his car.."

"He 'borrowed' the car?" I asked skeptically.

Rose grimaced. "Technically, yeah..."

"And does he know how to drive?"

"Kind of. We only hit two letterboxes. And maybe a cat..."

"You hit a cat?" I yelled. The Lewises cat, Humphrey, was the only living creature in this house who actually seemed to like me. So, I was particularly fond of cats.

Rose didn't answer. "So, anyway, why haven't you been answering our letters?"

"Why haven't you been sending me any?" I shot back.

"Oh, well, James said not to, in case the muggles were reading your mail. And he wanted this to be a surprise."

"Oh," I said. Sounded exactly like something he'd say. "I've been locked in my room for the past two weeks. Mr. Lewis confiscated all my pens."

"Oh...well, good thing we came, right?"

I smiled and nodded. "Definitely. Why did you come in the middle of the night, though?"

"James couldn't find another time to sneak out of the house."

I smiled. "Can you get Ana's cage?"

Rose hopped off my bed and picked my owl's cage by the handle, the helped me drag my trunk upstairs. Albus and James leaped to their feet when they saw us.

"Let's go, then," James said, taking one handle of my trunk. Albus quickly took the other.

"Good riddance," Mr. Lewis muttered. He slammed the front door after us as soon as we'd walked out. The boys put my trunk in the car, then we climbed in.

"Are you sure this is safe?" I asked immediately, as James sat down in the driver's seat.

"What? You don't trust me?" he teased, then started the car.

"Not exactly...do you even know how to drive?"

"Well I drove here, didn't I?"

That didn't give me much hope.

Albus and Rose were sitting in the back, but Albus was leaning in between the front two seats. Rose, on the other hand, had her seatbelt buckled. She was gripping it so tightly that her knuckles were turning white. She made Albus at least buckle up.

A moment later, I knew why. After James incompetently and jerkily pulled out of the driveway, he sped off. And when I say sped, I mean sped. He had to have been going at least 80 kilometers an hour. Luckily, there was no one on the road for us to crash into.

It took about an hour to navigate out of London. Every time we came to a stop, James would slam on the breaks, and we would all fly forward as much as our seatbelts allowed.

Once we'd left the city behind us, James increased his speed to somewhere between 110 and 130 kilometers an hour. It was pretty fun, actually. I could tell Rose and Albus did not agree with that.

By seven in the morning, we were pulling into the front yard of their house. James shushed us all as we quietly climbed out. Apparently, they hadn't bothered to tell Mr. And Mrs. Potter they were going on this rescue mission.

We tested the front door, and it was unlocked, so we cautiously snuck inside. James cast some spell that made my trunk float up the stairs. I heard a small thud that was probably the trunk setting itself on the floor.

We passed the dining room, and were almost to the stairs. I was about to let out a sigh of relief when someone cleared their throat.

We all froze, then slowly turned to see Mrs. Potter frowning at us. Her arms were crossed, and she looked incredibly intimidating. I suddenly found myself wishing that I'd just stayed in the basement.

"Where were you?" she asked calmly. That was even scarier than if she'd yelled.

James gulped and said weakly, "Saving Astra, look..."

Mrs. Potter seemed to notice me for the first time, and she smiled at me. "Hello, dear, how are you?"

"G-good..."

James slowly started to edge towards the stairs.

"Don't even think about it, James Sirius Potter," Mrs. Potter said coldly. He froze.

And the storm finally arrived.

"YOU DIDN'T BOTHER TO TELL US? I'VE WORRIED SICK!"

"It was all his idea!" Albus said, pointing to his brother.

"ALL THREE OF YOU COULD HAVE GOTTEN YOURSELVES KILLED, OR WORSE!"

Rose looked like she just wanted to melt into the wall.

"BEDS EMPTY, CAR GONE, AND NO NOTE! DID IT EVER CROSS YOUR MIND HOW WORRIED I'D BE?! WAIT UNTIL YOUR FATHER HEARS ABOUT THIS!"

"Didn't this happen to Da-"

"Aunt Ginny, we were wor-"

"WHO DROVE? JAMES? YOU COULD HAVE ALL DIED! WHAT WOULD I HAVE TOLD YOUR PARENTS IF YOU'D DIED, ROSE?"

Rose quickly shut her mouth.

Mrs. Potter ranted at them for several more minutes. Throughout it, she kept assuring me that it was not at all my fault. Finally, she seemed to run out of steam.

"Well, dear," she said, turning to me, "are you hungry?"

I nodded hesitantly, and followed her into the kitchen.

Mr. Potter, Lily, and a boy I vaguely recognized as Rose's brother Hugo were sitting at the kitchen table. Mr. Potter was reading the newspaper and trying to act like he hadn't heard a thing. Lily and Hugo didn't even bother trying. They started giggling uncontrollably when James, Rose, and Albus walked in, and James shot them a withering glare. That only made them laugh harder. Once Lily had finally gotten her breath again, she ran over and knocked mine out of me with a hug.

Rose seemed thoroughly repentant, and didn't say a thing during breakfast. Albus didn't speak either, but I think it was more out of fear of his mum than remorse.

Mrs. Potter dumped a huge mound of scrambled eggs onto my plate. "Astra, dear, how have you been?"

"All right, I suppose," I said in small voice.

James rolled his eyes. "Sure, if you call being locked in a basement and slowly starved to death 'all right.'"

Mrs. Potter glared at him, then turned back to me. "We've been worried about you, of course, and Harry would have gone to get you himself if you hadn't written soon."

"It seems James beat me to it," Mr. Potter said. "How did you manage it?"

"Harry, you aren't seriously encouraging this, are you?" Mrs. Potter sounded exasperated.

"What? No...no, of course not." Mr. Potter forced a frown at his sons and Rose. "You should all be ashamed of yourselves." I was almost certain he winked at James, though.

After breakfast, James gave an exaggerated yawn and said, "Well, I think I'll be off to bed-"

"Not so fast," Mrs. Potter said, frowning. "You are not getting off that easy."

Albus sighed. "Yay..."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, Harry," Mrs. Potter continued, "but when Ron and George and Fred stole the car to pick up you, didn't they have to de-gnome the garden?"

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh," James said, letting his head fall on the table.

Mr. Potter nodded. "Yes, I believe that's exactly what they had to do."

"Please don't make us do that," Albus said.

"Well, I believe that sounds like a perfect idea, don't you think?"

"Definitely not," James said quickly.

"Perfect," Mr. Potter agreed, ignoring James.

For a moment, no one said anything.

"Well?" Mrs. Potter asked. "What're you waiting for?"

Rose, Albus, and James all groaned, then trudged out the back door. I followed, curious.

"How do you de-gnome a garden?" I asked as we walked out into the very large garden. "Are they like muggle garden gnomes?"

Rose laughed. "I wish they were."

"Here's a gnome!" James called. He hefted a small, leathery looking creature. It had a large, bald head, and looked like a potato. James held it at arm's length as it kicked out at him with its horny little feet. He grasped it around the ankles and turned it upside down.

"This is what you have to do," he said. He raised the gnome above his head and started to swing it in a circle. Seeing the shocked look on my face, because does that not hurt the poor thing? James added, "It doesn't hurt them!"

"You've just got to make them really dizzy so they can't find their way back to the gnomeholes," Rose said knowledgeably.

James let go of the gnome's ankles. It flew forty feet through the air and landed with a thud in a neighboring field.

Soon, we were all flinging gnomes out of the garden. It wasn't long before a trail of uprooted and homeless gnomes was staggering away.

We spent the rest of the day playing three-on-three Quidditch. It was really fun, even if Lily and Hugo were both only just learning to fly on their own brooms.

All in all, it was the best day I'd had since I'd left Hogwarts.

I didn't think of Wren once.

~~~~

Turns out I made James a year too young. He got sorted into Gryffindor a few days ago!! Aaaaaaaah!

Anyway, if that ever arises as a problem from later readers, I'll have you know that I was unaware of James's age when I wrote the first book.

Sorry if this chapter is too cliche, but these books might parallel the original series a bit sometimes.

"A bit."

Anyway, I have a confession...

I actually didn't know what the main plot to this story would be until today.

But at least I figured it out!

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If you don't you could get killed, or worse, EXPELLED!

~Ellie