Before It Began
In the year 2008, by a strange twist of fate, Alison Peverell receives a letter dated the year 1991. However, it is addressed to her, at her current address. She packs for Hogwarts anyway, but when she steps through the barrier onto Platform 9¾, she's not just stepping from the Muggle world into the Magical one, she's stepping into another time, the time she was supposed to be in all along. She meets people she's heard of her entire life. She hears some names she's learned to respect, others she's learned to hate. But they're children, no older than she is. Why should she hate them when she doesn't even know them, when they don't even know how they will turn out? Is it possible that she can change fate? Or was everything over before it began, and she just meant to be a bystander in the coming war?
Last Updated
05/31/21
Chapters
1
Reads
529
Prologue
Chapter 1
25
June, 2008
Birmingham, UK
An eleven-year-old girl sits in her back garden, reading a book. An owl suddenly appears next to her, carrying a letter in its beak. She takes the letter, but the owl perches on her shoulder.
Standing up on unsteady legs, the girl closes the book and walks inside, calling for her parents. They meet her in the kitchen, where she opens the letter and reads it aloud.
Dear Ms. Peverell,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed list of all necessary school books and equipment.
Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
She lowers the letter and looks up at her parents. “You have some
explaining to do…”
When her parents finish explaining, she sits there, a stony look on her face, before storming upstairs to her room, where the owl flies off her shoulder to perch on the top of her wardrobe.
Beginning to pack her things, she grabs the letter and takes one last look at it, before realizing that something is off. “Dumbledore died the year I was born…”
Rushing back downstairs, the letter in one hand, a pen in the other, she slams open the kitchen door and slaps the letter down onto the table in front of her mother.
"Alison Michelle Peverell!" Her father is irritated, but she just waves him off, circling things on the letter that shouldn't be there.
"Look at it." She straightens up, gesturing at the letter, "Take another look at it."
Mr. Peverell lifts the parchment from the table. "Headmaster Dumbledore… 1991… Deputy Headmistress McGonagall…"
"I don't understand." Mrs. Peverell looks at her daughter, confused, "What is it?"
"Dumbledore died the year I was born." Mrs. Peverell's mouth drops open at the nonchalant way Alison talks about the death of the much beloved wizard. "Minerva McGonagall is the current Headmistress of Hogwarts. The letter has my name and our address, but is dated from before I was born. They send the letters the year the student goes to the school, so how would a letter from 1991 end up in 2008?"
