This new story is being written from an idea submitted to me by one of my long time supporters Tenzo51 and as it was a particularly fantastic idea I was more than happy to get on board. I will also be using them as a kind of unofficial Beta and collaborator who deserves and will receive a credit in every chapter written.

So we'll be slightly AU with this, it is a femHarry story after all, but using many of the canon components and events, just hopefully in a different and more fun way. As in Silent World and Season of the Witch, OCs and little used characters abound. Also we're setting this twenty years after the time-line in the books since we really want to use some cool tech stuff. If that's not your kind of thing then I advise you to stop now. Same goes for femslash. Lots of that here. Eventually anyway.

I'm hoping for a chapter every two weeks, as I feel that this is achievable, but you all know how crap I can be when it comes to updating so don't hold your breath 'kay.

Having said that, this writing thing is about fun so let's try to have as much of that as we can too.

So let's get started then. Enjoy yourselves I know that I intend to.
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I'm not JKR and I don't make any money from this. Which is a bit of a shame.

DtR xx.

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The Excellent Adventure of a Wolf, a Loony and a Very Bored Heroine.

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1. Weird Science.

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In the cafeteria of Kingston primary school there was the usual delineation that occurred in such places where young people gathered together to learn. The popular kids, the sporty kids, the nerdy kids, they all had their separate areas where they grouped together, some for validation from their peers, others for protection. It was like a zoo with it's own messed up set of rules for the miniature predators and their still smaller prey.

There was one student, however, who did not fit into any of these time honoured roles and she sat alone at a table smack damn in the centre of this blackboard jungle.

If you were to look up the phrase 'socially awkward' in an encyclopedia there would very likely be a photograph of Shelley Elizabeth Potter staring manically back at you just as she was staring at her laptop screen now. With her perpetually messy raven, black hair pulled into a lopsided pony tail, held together with half a dozen brightly coloured pencils, piercing green eyes and the impressive scar on her forehead she was a decidedly pretty, if slightly odd looking, ten year old. And that was before you even got to her clothes. A bright yellow and pink vee necked tank-top over her rumpled, white shirt which almost, but not quite (unfortunately) hid a garish purple and silver starred kipper tie beneath it's overly wide collar. Even though it wasn't purposely designed to do so her outfit had the very welcome bonus of keeping anyone from bothering her. Plus, she at least, thought that it was really pretty.

Every other student here at the State sponsored school wore subtle variations on the dull green and grey uniform but Shelley, in this as in most things, definitely marched to the beat of her own drum. She could not abide dull, lazy and, most importantly, the unimaginative and uninteresting use of colour. As was evidenced by the fact that she had turned up on her first day of school, holding her older cousin's hand and dressed in orange and lilac dungarees with a royal purple shirt and pink wellington boots. She had then proceeded to make her meticulously prepared point about why she should be allowed to ignore the dress code to the faculty. A point which she had won. That this may have had more to do with her headteacher's reluctance to let someone of her staggering brilliance turn down a place at his school over somethinng so trivial as a uniform issue mattered not one iota to her. The important thing was that she had won. Shelley, even at the tender age of six, was rabidly prideful and loved nothing more than getting her own way. Especially since she was always right.

She had managed to take up an entire table designed for six people with her solitary presence. Well her presence and her vast array of notebooks, an expensive looking laptop computer and possibly the largest applied physics textbook that anyone in her school, including the teachers, had ever seen that is. The truth was that science is hard and even Sheley with an IQ of one hundred and fifty eight struggled with some of it. But then she was only ten years old. Well a few days shy of eleven actually but still, there was plenty of time for her to learn new things and increase that. Her own personal goal was to better Kim Ung-Yong's score of two hundred and ten by the time she hit fourteen which, while it would be hard work, she considered achievable. If she worked her breaks as well as in class that is.

As the warning bell rang signalling the end of lunch Miss Potter gathered her computer and her mountain of notebooks into an large, untidy, multi-coloured, beaded bag and stood to leave. This had the undesirable result of displaying the lower half of her selected ensemble for the day to the remaining students and members of staff, all of whom wanted to shudder at it's insanity but wisely repressed the urge. Miss Potter was not known for taking insults to her clothing choices too well and everybody remembered the John Gudgeon incident with stark clarity.

It was a bit bloody difficult for them not to remember it. The insanely smart girl had made that poor boy's life a living hell after he had, very unwisely, laughed at her habitual stripey, blue and yellow stockings and pink tartan skirt. She had, at that point, ceased all extra curricular reading and instead put all of her very considerable brain power to the task of driving young Mister Gudgeon to the very brink of insanity ... before pushing him over with a small smile. It was the only time anyone at the school had ever seen Shelley Potter smile and it was not something that they cared to witness again.

Normally primary school teachers would have been thrilled to see one of their young charges smile but in Shelley Potter's case they were happy to make an exception. Just as they made an exception for the topics, reading materials and schedules of study that she followed in their classrooms. It may have been her cold, emotionless voice that did it, or perhaps it was the fact that she knew more than they did about ... well, pretty much everything really. Whatever it was, they found that the only way to preserve their dignity was simply to allow her to get on with whatever the hell she did in their lessons without their input or interruption. Basically they left her well alone. Which was just the way she liked it.

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On Sunday the Thirty first of July, Shelley awoke with a startled squeak to the gentle rocking of her large cousin tentatively shaking her. Eyes tightly closed and still feigning sleep she reached beneath her pillow and gripped the rough, aged, wooden shaft of her prized possession. Lizzy Borden's hatchet. The very same one that she had reportedly used to hack her parents to death with. Once set, Shelley twisted free and leapt from her bed brandishing the hundred and twenty year old hand axe to face her possible attacker with almost inhuman speed. On seeing who it was that had woken her she relaxed slightly. But only slightly.

"You're in my room. You can't be in my room." Shelley frowned. "Nobody's allowed in my room."

Now Dudley Dursley, contrary to popular belief, was not stupid. If he had been he would certainly have never survived to be the ripe old age of twelve while living in the same house as his extremely smart, extremely insane, cousin. Even his position of facilitator, middle man and occasional enforcer for her 'homework for cash' business that Shelley had been running for the last four years wouldn't be enough to keep him safe if she really thought that she was being attacked. His old friend Piers Polkiss, or 'nine fingered Piers' as they now called him, could attest to just how fast and how violently she responded to threats.

Dudley could live with being scared if he thought about the money, however, as this little side business of hers had proved to be surprisingly lucrative for both of them. Especially after he had moved up to secondary school last September and was able to bring in a more financially powerful class of clientele. It didn't take long for word to get around and after only three weeks at his new school he had everyone, up to and including the sixth formers, coming to him in order to take advantage of Shelley's large brain and her love of homework. This had resulted in a very comfortable standard of living for them and had enabled him to buy that electric guitar that he had been lustfully eyeing for months.

Shelley's more significant cut of their ill gotten gains had paid for her top of the line laptop which she had instantly used to set up an ebay account under a false identity. Since that day there seemed to be a never ending flow of packages into their house all of which disappeared straight into her bedroom. This was actually the first time that he had got to see what she had bought (seriously nobody was allowed behind the pink door of the room marked with the legend 'Daddy's Little Princess', not even Vernon) and, despite the current danger, Dudley was more than a little interested.

The walls were overflowing with hundreds of books, there were a couple of large whiteboards containing some outrageously difficult looking math problems and a huge, plasma screen TV sitting in one corner. And it was here that the most surprising things were. What caught his attention most was the electronic dance mat and the four dozen or so yuri anime DVD's haphazardly surrounding it. Bloody hell, it turned out that his scary little cousin did actually know how to have some fun. You know, normal kind of fun as opposed to what usually made her laugh like scaring the piss out of the local kids with her weird, psychotic behaviour.

Dudley's eyes finally finished their interested gawking and landed on the enraged eleven year old's own emerald orbs once more. Crap. He needed to apologize and to make sure that it was good enough that she would refrain from emulating her strange, American heroine whose hatchet she was still waving ominously in his direction.

"I know and I'm really sorry but mum and dad wanted me to get you for your birthday breakfast Shell Bell."

It was a risk calling her that pet name that his dad used but Dudley felt that he had very little to lose here. Other than his thumbs and possibly his life of course. Thankfully the green eyed lunatic in the Hello Kitty pajamas brightened immediately at this welcome piece of news and tossed her weapon back onto the bed while treating her large boned cousin to a manic grin.

"Oh. Well why didn't you say so Big D. Shall we?"

She offered him her arm and the relieved young man escorted her down the stairs for the start of her birthday celebrations. He was in the middle of congratulating himself for avoiding a potentially very painful maiming incident this morning when she spoke again in that odd and not at all comforting monotone. Her actual words didn't exactly help either and Dudley had to try very hard not to trip and fall down the stairs as she said.

"By the way, if you come into my room uninvited again I'm going to cut something off." She patted is arm tenderly. "But don't worry Dudders it wont be anything that you can't live without. Painful? Yes. Vital? No."

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There was a wide smile on the face of Vernon Dursley as the children came, chattering and teasing each other, into the spacious kitchen of Number Four Privet Drive. He honestly could not recall a time when he hadn't been totally in awe of the girl who he considered to be his surrogate daughter. One look at the little, orphaned scrap of a girl tucked into his hopeful looking wife's tight embrace had set his heart unexpectedly fluttering. Then she had reached out, grabbed his finger with her chubby little hand and giggled at him and Vernon was gone. His grumpy demeanour had evaporated almost overnight to be replaced with a wealth of emotion that few had believed him capable of.

From that day on Shelley Potter had become his darling little 'Princess' and he had lavished all of his time and energy into making sure that she, along with his much prized son, was always healthy and happy. With the blinkers typical to doting fathers everywhere he seemed totally oblivious to her odd quirks and her occasional fits of violent temper, focusing only on how beautiful, intelligent and caring she was. Especially around Dudders. They were more like brother and sister than cousins. Sure they fought sometimes, but they always seemed to resolve these issues quickly and were soon back to their playing, teasing and hand holding.

Petunia had her own reasons for adoring little Shelley that had more to do with the regret she felt for how she had treated her poor, murdered sister than any great overwhelming love for the girl. It wasn't long before this attitude changed, however. As the days and weeks passed since she had found her on their doorstep Petunia found herself more and more enamoured of the curious, inquisitive and exciteable little child who so insidiously wormed her way into the hearts of her and her family. She was a funny (peculiar) and pretty (oddly so) little thing who treated them all as if they were the most important things in the world to her.

They weren't of course, but Shelley was cunning and clever enough never to let them see that. That this was all an act on her part never once occured to either Vernon or Petunia. Dudley knew, but this was because she had made something of a 'partner in crime' of him so he, by dint of close proximity and necessity, saw far more of her ambitious and vicious side. Amazingly he still liked her despite this and they had become rather close.

The Dursley's were just finishing up their special breakfast when the doorbell rang.

Shelley looked up at the huge man (?) in the extremely stylish, to her mind, hairy suit standing and shuffling nervously on the doorstep and frowned.

"No, this isn't going to work. Simple physics dictates that there is no possible way that someone of your size can fit through this doorway without causing significant damage to Uncle Vernon's house. I'm afraid that's not acceptable. Could you perhaps send somebody more size appropriate to have whatever talk you were going to give."

"Err ... yeah ... I'll go and ask the 'eadmaster. 'E'll know what to do fer the best."

"Super." The 'girl-who-lived' flashed him a dazzling smile that made his heart expand so much that he thought it might burst. "That would great. Thanks."

"'Ere, you'd best have this to read while I go talk to 'im." His eyes misted up as he looked down at the small daughter of his long dead friends. "I'll see you at 'Ogwarts Shelley."

Confuse, the girl accepted the yellow parchment package with a nod before distractedly dismissing him with a wave of her hand as she shut the door in his face.

It was a letter written in a slightly pompous form of old English from a 'Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry' informing her that she was a witch and had been accepted to the place for study. Coool. Having new things to learn always excited her. Oh yeah and she was possibly some kind of 'witch' as well but she would need to have a great deal more evidence, backed up by testing and a thorough experimental process for her to be able to accurately confirm that hypothesis. The big man that had made this delivery certainly didn't look much like a wizard, that was for sure.

Perhaps whoever this Headmaster Albus Percival Brian Wulfric Dumbledore sent next would allow her to do some more conclusive examinations and even ... experiments. Shelley loved experiments. The people she performed them on were, generally speaking, much less enamoured of them as her methodology did tend to be a little rough for them. Psychologically speaking as well as physically. This new person was her favourite kind of subject though. One who didn't know her. Fresh meat for the grinder.

Shelley skipped back to the kitchen with a mad, dreamy smile on her face that made her aunt and uncle sigh with happiness and worried her cousin no end.

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The next time the non-descript, red door opened it revealed a stern looking, older woman with dark hair pulled into a tight, severe bun, wearing wire rim spectacles, dark green robes and a tall, pointed hat. Now this looked much more like the witches of her imagination.

"Now this is more like it."

Professor McGonagall blinked at the small, black haired girl in the doorway who was looking at her with an almost hungry expression on her face. It was a tribute to just how different and colourful her clothing choices were that Minerva McGonagall barely even noticed the lightning bolt shaped scar on her forehead. Stripes, tartans and polka dots in bright yellow, hot pink, jet black and electric blue really shouldn't work together ... and they didn't. Not even slightly.

She struggled valiantly in an attempt to keep her bubbling laughter buttoned up behind her fierce, stern, 'Deputy Headmistress' mask. And failed spectacularly.

"Oh the headmaster's going to just love you Miss Potter."

During her visit it had become very clear, very quickly that Shelley Potter was highly intelligent but it was just as clear that the girl had absolute no concept of socially acceptable behaviour or any kind of mental filters whatsoever. Honestly, by the time she left after a surprisingly pleasant lunch shared with the Dursleys and their charge, she was feeling more than a little shell shocked. She had been entirely overwhelmed by the sheer amout of questions that the small girl had asked, about everything from her parents life at school to the nature of magic itself. And all in that strange, flat monotone that seemed totally devoid of any emotion.

She was definitely odd, but otherwise seemed to be rather mature and well adjusted for a muggle raised child finding out about magic for the first time. Or any eleven year old for that matter.

By the time she left that day Minerva McGonagall was thinking that Albus had been seriously overstating the supposedly poor conditions in which the heroine of the wizarding world had been raised. Not that she was going to be sharing that with him. The crotchety old git could get very grumpy if anyone even implied that he had made a mistake of any kind. She would simply arrange to fetch the girl and her aunt the following day and escort them to Diagon Alley as planned wihout revealing just how wrong he had been about the Dursleys capabilities as parental guardians.

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When they met the next day in order to travel to the Leaky Cauldron, Minerva was treated to a different, but equally outrageous and unco-ordinated, outfit being modelled by her charge. She thought that the hat was the worst thing about it until she actually stopped and thought about it as they wandered un-noticed through the pub and out into the shopping district. Then, seeing the reactions of the people that they passed, she got it. The deputy headmistress was rather taken aback by the elegant simplicity of Shelley's solution to the thorny issue of how she could move about in public without being mobbed by an overly grateful wizarding public.

The hat was very large, rather flambuoyant and undeniably ... purple. The kind of violent shade of purple that would give you an atrociously bad head-ache if you looked at it for too long. It was utterly appalling and, in Minerva's opinion, failed as an appropriate piece of headgear on almost all levels. What it did do well, however, was to completely hide the scar which would have instantly given away Shelley's identity and made their task here today a hundred times more difficult.

Honestly, with the clashing colours and her thoughtful, inquisitive expression, she looked far more like Albus Dumbledore's daughter than James Potter's. It was rather disturbing really.

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Gringotts Bank was their first stop to collect some gold from the Potter trust vault that she would need today and, as expected, it stopped the little witch and her guardian dead in their tracks. It was a rather imposing building, inside as well as out, and served as a magnificent intrduction to the wizarding world so it was no wonder that the muggle and her muggle raised, witch niece were wholly stunned by it. Minerva would admit that it was quite rewarding to see the intelligent, confident and composed young girl gawking like that. She had honestly begun to wonder if Shelley Potter wasn't actually some kind of muggle robot with her lack of emotional response to this fabulous new world of magic.

Shelley herself, once she had got over her shock at the place, was having a great time in the bank. She had questioned their odd looking goblin escort so exhaustively that, even the eternally patient 'public relations' specialist that Gringotts used for first time visitors, had become quite short with her. This fun experiment had then been topped by the enormously fun and exciting cart ride into the bowels of the bank which had her and Aunt Petunia screaming with pleasure. Then they walked into the vault and it got even better. If this was only her trust vault then it was a fairly safe bet that her actual family vault was far bigger. And far fuller. She was rich. Like super rich.

Thinking of all the new and exciting research materials that she could buy now was filling Shelley with joy. She noticed that her 'mum' was also staring around at the great piles of gold in the small vault in awe and not a small amount of poorly hidden avarice.

"Would you like some Auntie?"

"You want to give me some of this?"

"Of course I do." Shelley put on her most confused and angelic expression. It had required a great deal of painstaking research and practice to get to this good but now she was something of an expert at faking emotional responses. "I love you Aunt 'Tunie."

She watched detatchedly as her mother's sister got all teary eyed and noticed that even the stern professor was having trouble staying dry eyed at Shelley's super sweet and considerate behaviour. Their goblin guide, Silvertongue, was watching her just as closely and making a mental note to speak to his superiors just as soon as he could arrange it. The manipulative girl with the exhuberant sense of what constituted 'fashion' was reminding him uncomfortably of his old drill instructor in the warrior academy (he hadn't always been in public relations) with her deceptively soft words and her cold, calculating eyes.

He was just thinking how incredibly goblin-like she was acting when she proved him right again by spotting the only thing in this vault other than the galleons and making a bee-line for it.

It was a book. A book in a black, metal cover, poking out from the corner of an ancient looking satchel, mostly buried by the large, shiny coins. A book that looked awfully like a magical Grimoire. A book that this clever little witch was now examining with great care. As she pulled it free, Silvertongue realised that ancient was probably something of an understatement. He kept his peace, however, as the girl played ineffectually with the lock fitted to the front for a while, only speaking when she asked him if this was her's too.

"It is in your vault, human, therefore it must be yours."

He growled out his answer gruffly while his mind raced at the implications of it being here for her to find at all. This was a trust vault, after all, and there really shouldn't be anything other than gold in it. The fact that this dark looking Grimoire was hiding in here too, subverting the almost unbreakable rules and restrictions placed by Gringotts, meant that there was some powerful magic at work. It was disturbing. All the more so when she gave a tooth filled grin at the news and quickly hid the old tome in her ugly bag and away from the prying eyes of her guardians that was even more goblin-esque than her previous behaviour.

The little witch was now reminding him less of a drill instructor and more of the cunning and mighty Ragnok himself. This girl would be one to watch.

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"No bloody way."

The 'girl-who-lived' stamped her little foot and crossed her arms tightly across her chest, an expression of grim determination on her usually blank and placid face. Madam Malkin was accustomed to difficult and recalcitrant customers and was entirely unfazed by the young woman's impressive temper tantrum.

"It's the Hogwart's uniform dearie, everyone has to wear it."

"But it's so dull. Seriously grey and black, it couldn't be any less interesting if it tried and I'm not bloody wearing it. Have you people never heard of a colour pallette?"

"Yes we have, but it's still the Hogwart's uniform and you still have to wear it while you're at school."

Shelley decided then and there that she was going to have to hunt down a way of either dyeing or magically infusing some good, old fashioned primary colours into the drab and dreary clothing that she was being forced into. There was no bloody way that she was spending nine months of the year dressed in that monstrosity of a uniform.

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It took the combined efforts of both Minerva and Petunia to get Shelley out of the bookshop after nearly two hours of excited browsing and a spending spree that would have rivaled Imelda Marcos in an uptown shoe store.

They had been chasing her around, alternately pleading, cajoling, bribing and threatening her for the last twenty minutes but it was only the promise of their next stop on the list that got her moving at last. It took her three trips but eventually three towering stacks of literature were wobbling dangerously on the counter. The payment for and shrinking of this vast library of magical knowledge led to a small twinge of nervousness on Shelley's part as it was the time when her new professor might notice something slightly off.

Hidden away in the piles of books were a couple of large tomes on magical theory and advanced charms that she wanted but was pretty sure would give her guide an aneurysm if they were discovered in her possession. Eleven year old muggle raised witches were probably not supposed to even be looking at this kind of stuff but Shelley was well aware that if she stuck to her first year books then she would have finished them and be bored within a fortnight. Magic was a new area of study for her and she thirsted for as much knowledge about it as she could possibly stuff into her oversized brain.

Unfortunately she had dealt with worthy, but overly concerned, educational figures for far too long to not know how that conversation would go down.

So she hid them in amongst her more innocuous purchases in the hope of avoiding a tedious lecture about learning at a 'safe' (extremely bloody slow) rate.

There were also a few of items that she had seen but didn't dare to buy here today in her present company like; 'The Dark Arts; A Guide to Safe Practice', 'Technomancy for Beginners', and the wonderfully titled 'So You Want to be a Necromancer'. She really did want that (It sounded enormously difficult and fun) and managed to slip away from the adults long enough to grab a catalogue and a large sheaf of 'owl order' forms from the startled assistant before running back out to rejoin her guide.

On her way back outside Shelley managed to bump into the great mane of bushy hair that she had been glimpsing between the stacks all morning, nearly knocking the short, buck toothed witch attached to it over in her haste.

"Sorry."

They spoke in unison as they bent down together to help each other sort out their own piles of freebies and prospective purchases. The bookish girl's eyes widened in surprise as she spied Shelley's latest acquisitions.

"Ooh, are those mail order forms? Now that is a good idea."

And she was gone, heading to the counter in a blur of movement. What a strange girl.

She was right though. This was an absolute score. Now that she had unlimited access to any book that she wanted (well, after she had created another and highly illegal 'of age' identity that is) her summer was looking to be chock full of fun projects that she could really get her teeth into. Now she just had to find some roadkill or a freshly dug grave in a neighbour's garden and Shelley could get on with creating her own personal zombie cat.

She was fully aware that calling the bushy haired girl 'strange' at this point was just ever so slightly hypocritical.

.

Olivander's was next.

There was a fair bit of growling and scowling at both the strange old man's creepy antics and, what she considered to be, the overly long search for her wand. There must be a better way to match a magical with their wand than simply trying everything in the shop. She made a mental note to look into it later. Right now, however, she was a bit distracted by her ongoing search for the 'right' wand. The wand that would choose her.

Forty two wands and an hour later they were still at it.

"Tricky customer hey? Oh well, despair not young Miss Potter, I have many more to go through ... although ... yes, it might work for you. Why not?"

"Holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, supple. Go on my dear, give it a try."

This time she very nearly burned the shop down before Professor McGonagall and the erstwhile proprietor managed to put out the resulting flames and exert some semblance of control.

"Oh my good Merlin, no."

As he repacked the sadly damaged and badly abused wand back into it's box Garrick Olivander stood back and surreptitiously perused the child before him once more. Carefully perused her this time. A lot more carefully.

"Well it seems that you are a remarkably powerful young woman, so why not something just as remarkable and powerful for you." He nodded sagely. "Wait here a moment, I shall be right back."

Given her previous efforts Shelley doubted that anything in this place would suit her and she was starting to worry what would happen if no wand chose her. Would she be 'de-witched' before she had even started? No. She would not let that happen. She would force the next wand that the old man brought her to her will if she had to as there was no way that she was leaving here without one.

When it finally arrived she had been expecting another cardboard box but was surprised when, on his return, the old wandmaker presented her with, what looked like, a miniature violin case. It was beautiful. And old. Like old.

"Strictly speaking this isn't really a wand, but a wand-staff. Reversible of course. You simply touch the knot at the base of the focus here to change it between it's wand and staff forms." He watched Shelley intently as she stroked the magnificent instrument of magic. "Twisted compound of cherry and beech wood, core made from the treated and stretched crown scale of a red emperor dragon, with a basilisk eye focus. My ancestor crafted this over a thousand years ago for the self styled Serpent Queen of lower Egypt, though she never managed to master it."

Reverently lifting the wand-staff from it's case and wrapping her small hand around it Shelley felt it at last. That spark that Mister Olivander had been talking about when they had first begun this epic journey to find her partner in magic. This cherry and beech miracle, that was currently warming her hand and was fairly begging to be unleashed, was it. She had found her focus. And what a focus it was.

~Try me.~

The whisper in her mind was slightly unexpected but Shelley decided that, much like her, magic was weird so she should just go with it.

She whipped around and, taking a moment to recall the memory, perfectly mimicked professor McGonagall's shrinking charm from the bookshop.

"Reducio."

The old fashioned mechanical till shivered slightly before going from a two foot tall, steampunk style monster to a two inch tall toy with a surprisingly loud popping sound.

"Brilliant Miss Potter! I'm sure that you will do great things with that wand."

Mister Olivander's demeanour as he blurted out this statement told her that those 'great things' may not all be either socially acceptable or exactly legal. Not that Shelley cared about any of that as she was having too much fun with her new wand. Then she hit the little knot under her thumb and it smoked as it changed before their wide eyes into it's staff form.

She whipped the four foot staff around in a tight circle, leaving a trail of red sparks before slamming it hard into the flagstone floor and, at the professor's enthusiastic direction, calling out.

"Engorgio."

There was an almighty flash and ear-splitting crack and suddenly the counter was gone. A cloud of sawdust and splinters billowed from beneath the newly enlarged till that now took up over half of Mister Olivander's place of business, dwarfing everything inside and putting a huge hole in the roof, covering the four people in ceiling plaster. Shelley broke the silence that followed this impressive (if wildly destructive) feat of magic with her usual understatement.

"Coool. I mean, whoops and all that, but still ... coool."

Petunia, by this stage, was clapping excitedly and shouting 'oh bravo darling' while at the same time feeling slightly bad for the poor shopkeeper whose store now resembled something of a disaster zone.

Minerva, on the other hand, was speechless. Utterly speechless at the easy display of incredible magic from an eleven year old girl with no magical training who had never even so much as heard of magic before two days ago. Her eyes lit up and she and applauded the feat along with Petunia before adopting her more usual stern appearance and explaining that while it was very impressive, Shelley was not actually allowed to use magic outside of school until she was seventeen.

Shelley frowned at the news. Well that just sucked.

.

Outside the wandmaker's shop in a deck chair in the middle of the Alley a ten year old witch with large grey eyes and straight, dirty blonde hair removed her sunglasses and giggled to herself. The looks that she was getting from the passers by reminded her that this kind of thing was probably why pretty much everyone except her dad called her 'Loony' Lovegood. Not that she cared about that. She didn't have time to care about that. Luna had been 'told' to be here at this time today and, as usual, her inner voice had been right.

It really had been a great show. She couldn't wait until she and Shelley Potter met properly next year.

Having the magesight could be as much of a curse as it was a blessing. One of the downsides was that most people who met her thought that she was crazy. On the upside though, she did get to see the world in a way that nobody else could, all of the fascinating colours and waves of magic and the strange ethereal, creatures that fed off of it.

And they were currently having a field day with all the powerful magic leaking out of Olivander's store along with some fairly thick, purple smoke. The ones that she had somewhat randomly named the 'bilbering humdingers' were having a particularly good time sweeping around with their mouths wide open like whales scooping up plankton. Luna was having such a good time watching her 'friends' that she almost missed he sudden movement inside the shop that indicated the people inside were getting ready to leave. It was time to go.

She sighed sadly as she packed away her chair and headed off to meet her dad in the Leaky Cauldron, thinking that next year seemed a really long way away. But still she had tomorrow to look forward to when she would see the other one. Luna brightened a little at this thought and began to bunny hop her way to the pub.

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After a brief stop at Fortescue's Parlour for some reviving and rather odd, but very tasty, ice-cream the Deputy Headmistress took Shelley and Petunia to their last stop. Eeylop's Owl Emporium. This was Minerva's own personal contribution to the 'girl-who-lived' and her introduction to the wizarding world. She was buying the strange little girl a post owl.

Once inside the shop the older woman was so taken aback by the heat and the ... natural aroma of the inhabitants that she had to step back thus clearing the line of sight for a very special female. The snowy owl that ruled the roost of this emporium swivelled her head to examine the source of the powerful magic that had just walked into her lair. At the sight of the small, brightly coloured witch she nearly fell off her perch. Unexpected. And ... fascinating.

The large, white owl fluttered down from it's place in the rafters, scattering the others from it's path and landed with extreme grace and care on Shelley's left shoulder. Here it continued it's inspection of her at a much more immediate range for a while before declaring herself satisfied with a soft, but firm, preeking sound.

"Oh my what luck. Yes, yes, a match made in Avalon if ever I saw one."

The smarmy sales clerk seemed almost rabid in his eager attempts to peruade Shelley that this particular owl was the one she should choose. Although it was somewhat of a moot point really, since the owl had clearly chosen her. Shelley didn't believe in fate or karma but she did understand that when a clearly magical creature accepted you like this it would be extremely stupid to ignore it.

She turned her head to meet the curious amber eys of her new pet. The girl and the owl stared at each other for a good, long while. Slowly the two of them began to smile (if an owl could be said to be smiling) and they rested their foreheads together. It was a bond, not so much one of owner and pet, but more of equal partners in a shared, coming adventure.

As the odd trio left the store the staff breathed a sigh of relief. Finally someone had bought that grumpy nuisance of a snowy owl and they were now looking forward to having a much easier time of it, looking after their remaining feathery stock.

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On reaching her bedroom that evening and having had the professor perform the enchantment to re-enlarge all of her many purchases, Shelley smiled at the adults as she gave her firm promise to go straight to bed. A firm promise that she had no intention of keeping. How could she? I mean, just look at all of this cool new stuff that she had to learn.

First things first of course though, she would have to find a way around that silly rule about not doing magic outside of school. It was simply unacceptable that she should have access to all of this fantastic theory without having the means to test her skill with it as well as all the gaping holes that she would would naturally find in them. Shelley Potter reached for the advanced charms book and set her extraordinarily beautiful mind to work on achieving her goal of nullifying this stupid 'trace' with all of her customary purpose and enthusiasm.

It took her four hours.

In magic, as in everything else that she attempted, Shelley proved to be incredibly gifted. And, usefully enough, incredibly powerful. Unknown to her, the insanely large magical core that she possessed unlocked it's multiple bindings, melded with her huge intellect and opened a door that a certain old wizard had believed to be forever sealed.

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A very big thank-you here to I LIKE FEAR 1-2 who very generously allowed Tenzo and I to use the reversible wand-staff idea from his very wonderful story 'Broken Angel'. If you haven't read it yet you really should. It's brutal in places but utterly brilliant and I highly recommend it.

Thanks for letting us borrow your cool toy man, we'll try not to break it. Well, not too badly anyway.

Reviews are our cookies and you wouldn't want us starve now would you. Seriously though the feedback would be very helpful on this one guys so do let us know how we're doing with it, and I promise that I will try and answer all of your questions. Of which I am sure there will be many.

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DtR xx.