Attention all; this is a revised version of life in the shadows; Amy potter. I didn't like the direction it was taking so I've removed the original and am re-writing it. hope you like the new version

In the shadows; Amy Potter

Disclaimer: I wish...but that's never going to happen is it!

Chapter 1; Ruckus at the Reptile House

Strange things had always happened around Amy Evans. She was used to books flying off shelves when she was looking for them, strange dreams of flying motorcycles and blue twinkling eyes, but this was different, this was wrong. It wasn't the first time Amy thought she was going crazy, but it must be a bad sign if you all of a sudden hear snakes talking to themselves.
"Oh God, I am going mad"

"What's that, dear?" The ageing ice-cream lady asked her kindly "N-nothing," Amy replied as the snake slithered by, hissing and shouting "I'm free! I'm free!"
She had paid for her ice-cream and sat on one of the benches lining the footpath outside the reptile house by the time the screaming adults and weeping children had come stampeding out.

At the end of the line of frantic people, a small group of people walked out. The first was a rather big man with a bushy moustache. He looked extremely angry and was dragging a young boy after him. The boy was about her age, with black messy hair. He was rather skinny and she could see the sellotape holding his round-framed glasses together. He seemed resigned to his fate of being dragged through the busy zoo. Amy felt sorry for the boy. He looked as though he was used to this rough treatment.

As she stared, he looked at her and his hand reached up to rub his forehead. She mimicked this unconsciously. His eyes…

Next in line was a skinny tall boy who looked excited rather than scared. He kept jumping around and talking to the rest. She caught bits of the conversation.
"- I'm telling you, Mr. Dursley, he was talking to it. I swear!" The big man said nothing but his face was turning more and more purple coloured.

At the end of the procession, a rather horse-faced and bony woman with pursed lips was crying hysterically and had both arms wrapped around one of the fattest children Amy had ever seen. His mop of blond hair made him look like a pig in a wig. He was shaking and had a towel wrapped around his wide shoulders. They were led off by a zoo official into the staff lounge, with promises of tea. Amy wished she could follow the strange group. She felt oddly drawn to them. But the cold wetness of the ice-cream melting and dripping onto her hand woke her up.

Deciding it was time to go, she walked the two miles back to the orphanage that was her home for all intents and purposes. Amy hated the place. It was dark, dingy and extremely old. She crept in through the back door, sneaking through the kitchen and past the office. She snuck up to her small room where she spent most of her time. It was just as she'd left it; peeling paint and scratched, old furniture. Most of the rooms on this floor were shared between two, but nobody wanted to room with her. She was always different to the other children. An outsider. The others were wary of her. She was bullied by some and ignored by the rest. Over the years this had made her tough. She realised she didn't need friends to achieve her goals. All she needed was herself. She had made it this far on her own after all.

Amy had been left at the doorstep of the orphanage when she was just a year old. This was nothing new to the staff here. What they did find odd was the letter the year old child was holding. It explained to them everything they needed to know about her. Her name, age, that she had no living relatives and that before her parents had died they had put her name down to be enrolled at a rather selective boarding school and that the fees for this were already paid. All the orphanage knew about the school was that the headmaster would visit them "when prudent" to discuss the finer details.

She walked over to the small mirror on the door of her narrow wardrobe. Sunlight streamed in from the window, making her hair gleam like fire. She pushed back her hair to peer at her face. Her eyes were instantly drawn to her forehead. Amy wondered why her hand had been drawn to that spot.
Hmm, weird.

She was brought to the present by a sharp voice.
"Where have you been?" the no-nonsense matron inquired.
"Around," Amy replied, moving away from the mirror.

She was not in the mood to be interrogated yet again. It wasn't her fault that the orphanage security was minimal, that a locked door was no match for a going-on-eleven year old; that the big gate was easy for her to climb, or indeed that she could successfully sneak into a high security place like a zoo.

"You know you are not allowed to leave the grounds without permission, young lady"
"Yeah."
"You are aware that I specifically told you not to leave this room today, after yesterday's fiasco?"

Amy was indeed aware of this. But no matter how long she spent trying to explain, no-one believed her that she did not start the food fight. The truth was that she didn't know how it had happened. One minute, Jeremy Cook was teasing her, calling her The Ginger Ninja, and the next, her dinner was on his face!
"Yeah," was all she said, knowing that disagreeing would get her nowhere.

"Why must you deliberately disobey me?"
"'Cause," she replied, knowing as soon as she said it that it was a big mistake. The matron glared down at her as if she had uttered a disgusting curse word.
Oh, shit.

Half an hour later, Amy was scrubbing the downstairs toilets, muttering murderously.

That night, after a very long shower, Amy lay in bed wondering - as she did most nights - about her parents. How had they died? What would her life have been like if they hadn't?

When she was seven, she had picked the lock to the office and had found her file in the dead of night. She had hoped it would contain some information that would be useful, but there had been next to nothing; just records of her troublemaking and useless details like that. There had been an envelope addressed to the matron in green spindly writing but try as she might she couldn't get it to open. She had gone to bed that night, tired and disappointed.