Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing recognizable. I do, however, own anything that is not.
Lumos
Have you ever been lucky enough to attend a concert featuring your favorite band? It's one of the most amazing things a teenager can experience in their lives. Looking up with a crowd of thousands just like you into the beautifully sweating faces. Maybe, for one lucky moment, one of the members looks down at the crowd straight at you, sending a gorgeous smile your way. And, after that, the same member strips from his sweaty shirt and throws it into the crowd- amazingly landing directly into your grasp.
I, unfortunately, wasn't lucky enough to attend a concert featuring my favorite band as a teenager. And I wasn't lucky enough to have one of the members of my favorite band stare down at me and smile. And I wasn't lucky enough to catch that sweat stained shirt with my bony, pale fingers.
The only thing worse than realizing that sad thought was knowing I had been only a flat tire away from receiving my chance at that all.
"Damn," Marianna Slovetty cursed as she stood up from her crouched position on the dirt road. Marianna was a priss. Under normal circumstances, she would have squealed indignantly at the realization that the dirt from the road and stuck partly on the bottom of her once immaculately white, short shorts. At the moment, she didn't care. Who could care about something so petty at a crucial time like this?
Her body steadily appearing from behind her rusted, dented and old 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle Nomad station wagon, Marianna's eyes flashed angrily, "Well, the tire's completely flat."
From beside me, Jolene Miller and Abigail Reynolds let out twin disappointed sighs. Walking off a few paces, Abigail kicked the dirt and rocks on the ground angrily. "Oh, well this is bloody fantastic," Jolene cursed in frustration. "You do realize there's no civilization around these parts for close to ten miles…more importantly the concert is nearly twenty miles away-,"
"I know the distances, Jo," Marianna snapped, "I have been driving for the past hour, you know."
Rolling my eyes, I just wordlessly walked around the piece of junk Marianna had often called her car and squatted down to investigate further. With a grim look, my eyes spotted the source of all this trouble. Reaching out, I pulled a rusted nail from the weak rubber tire and held it up to my face. Shaking my head wryly and stood up and yanked Marianna's hand with one of my own, placing the nail upon her palm.
"Keep it," I snapped, "You can situate it affectionately under a spotless glass shield and place it on your mantle. The nail that caused the four of us to miss the best flippin' concert of the century!"
"Oh save me from another one of your rants, please," Marianna rolled her eyes. "If you think you can shove the blame in my direction, do think again. This would have never happened if you hadn't insisted we take the quote, unquote 'short way'."
"Why did we even bring you," Jolene snapped at me, glaring thousands of daggers my way.
I simply raised my eyebrow and walked leisurely in a directionless pace, not answering at all. I wasn't exactly sure the real reason I had been invited…The only reason I could have possibly come up with had been because Abigail was my roommate back home in Surrey. We never really got along- we fought and bickered from the littlest of things like who drank the last of the milk without buying another carton.
Her friends, Jolene and Marianna, weren't fond of me from the very beginning. I'm happy to say those feelings were completely mutual. The three of them were muggles- I'm a witch. They never knew back then and still to this very day no nothing of my secret (not like I'm around any of the three anymore to indulge in that little hush-hush).
Maybe if I hadn't let my own pride get in the way, I might have revealed my secret to them and fixed the tire straight off. Even now I don't know what would have happened if I had done that. We probably would have made the concert on time and witnessed first hand Black Magic casting a bewitching spell on us. Ironic, isn't it that one of the most famous bands in muggle and wizard England happened to be a Wizarding band? I'm sure they always had a tough time holding back their real magic while performing a muggle concert instead of a Wizarding one. I, frankly, would have enjoyed seeing the Wizarding one. But, I think the initial shock of being offered a ticket by Abigail completely tainted my judgment.
So, there we were, the four of us less-than-delighted nineteen year olds stuck in the middle of nowhere, forced to walk to the nearest gas station for a towing truck- which had taken nearly three hours- thus completely missing Black Magic's once-anticipation concert.
Three days after that regrettable episode, word reached me that my father wished for my presence at his home in ChicagoIllinois. Luckily I had just past through my first term at a Medi-witch university (my roommate believe me to be attending Oxford) and had three whole months to goof off and have a great time. Unluckily, the beginning of that break had been tainted with the disappointment of missing the concert.
It had been with great reluctance that I pulled my self out of bed on the fourth day prior to missed concert and fixed myself up to sit on a plane for hours on end. I left the house- unsurprisingly failing to bid my roommate farewell. Before I had left, though, I placed a heavy locking charm on the door to my room, lest Abigail and her horrid friends steal from me.
The ride to the airport had been boring…nothing out of the ordinary and whatnot. The trip to the actual plane had been the same. I've been on a fair few airplanes in my life, having been muggle-born. And, my fear of apparating made it all the more natural that I would take many more rides on them for years to come.
So, the ride to the airport had been boring, and the walk to the airplane had been boring…wouldn't it only add up that the actual plane ride would be the most interesting I'd ever been through in my entire life…maybe even significant enough to alter my life?