Hello readers, yes I know its been a while and i have no excuse. All I can do is sincerely apologize to you all.

It had been two weeks since I first met Jack, and in that time I have come to a number of very important conclusions.

The first? Im a long long way from home. Once I found out the name of the town I was in I used a map Jack had in his bookstore to see where I was. I will admit I panicked a little.How in Merlin's name did I get to Australia of all places. Once I saw London on the Television (and what an ingenious invention that is!) I will admit I panicked. A lot. But can you blame me? Since I woke up I haven't been able to recognise anything as remotely familiar. I feel as if I am on a completely different world. That or I somehow travelled forward in time.

No, im not joking. I distinctly remember dying over 100 years before the current date. So either I moved forward in time, Im in an alternate universe or I completely lost my mind and am really in a coma somewhere thanks to some spell of Gellerts.

Of all those options I don't know which I find more preferable.

The second thing I learnt? It is that I am completely cut off from the wizard world. Either they are so well hidden even I can't find them, or they don't exist here anymore, if they ever did. How do I know this? Well, I spent the first five days looking for any sign of magic. And so far I haven't been able to find a single thing. I even used magic in front of some children in a park in hopes someone would come find me for exposing magic to muggles and still nothing! This eventually left me with the conclusion that I was stuck without help from the wizard world for the foreseeable future.

The third thing I learned? The world is absolutely fucked. There are creatures called Endbringers that go on a rampage every few months and destroy a city. Nobody can stop them except for some glowing man who seems to think that creatures that can destroy cities deserve the same priority as a cat stuck in a tree. There are also people with fantastic powers that are enough to impress even the most narrow minded of wizards.

However most become villains, end up dead or become sociapathic mass murderers that nobody seems to have an answer for.

Okay, to be fair, some people become heroes, but more often than not they end up dead because of the aforementioned endbringers or sociopathic mass murderers, meaning nobody wants to be a hero and they are heavily outnumbered. As far as I can tell, these fights between heroes and villains is only bringing the world closer to it's end.

Im surprised there aren't more people panicking over what I see as the inevitable end of human civilization. Civilians cheer over their favourite capes, have long heated debates over who would win in a fight and seem to do pretty much everything in their power to ignore just how bad the situation is. I can't say I blame them though, nobody wants to live in constant fear that their home would be the next to be wiped off the map, especially if there's absolutely nothing anybody can do to stop it.

About the only positive thing to happen to me in this past few weeks is that Jack provided me with a place to live and a job working in his bookstore. The place isn't anything fancy, just a spare room in the back of the store that I had to first clean the spiderwebs and dust out of. But it's a lot more than I expected. The job on the otherhand is complete hell.

"Im sorry ma'am but can you please stop your daughter crying, some of the other customers are complaining."

"Why I never! How dare you tell me how to parent my own child! I'll have you know that im trying to teach her that she doesn't get everything she wants. "

"It's just that she's bothering the other customers ma'am."

"I don't care. I didn't see a sign asking for silence."

"It's a bookstore ma'am, it's hard to read over the sounds of your daughter's tantrum-"

"Tantrum? My daughter is not having a tantrum!"

"Ma'am she's literally screaming right now."

"How dare you! I want to speak to a manager."

I took a deep breath to compose myself before putting on a fake smile and answering. "Right away ma'am, I'll go get him."

I turned away and started walking towards Jack's office without giving the bi- the uh lady any time to respond.

While I was walking I heard the pitch of the screams go up a notch and winced. Damn, I hate kids.

I walked up to the blue wooden door and knocked three times softly. A soft "Come in" answered me and without any hesitation I opened the door and walked in.

Jack's office was nothing special, it was actually pretty bare. The walls were white with a few pictures. Jack, a blond woman and two twin girls probably around 8 or 9 are the sole occupants in the frames. I've never met them and I've been into Jack's apartment quite a few times now for evening tea, this leads me to believe that they aren't around anymore. Im scared to ask about what happened, something tells me I don't want to know. I shiver at the stillness of the images before one catches my eye.

It's a picture I've seen before up in Jack's apartment, he must of moved it here recently. It shows his two daughters and a cape at what looks like a fair of some kind. It's actually a cape that I recognise, Pegasus. She was fairly popular around here until she disappeared two years ago. She supposedly had the ability to make forcefields that shined like rainbows and could stop momentum dead without any affect on the object. Apparently she once lay the forcefield on the ground to catch a man who jumped off a building and he got up without a scratch. My lips quirked up a little at the expression on the two girls faces, they were positively glowing. It looked like they had a good day.

I turned towards Jack who was watching me from behind the contraption on his desk. I took a step back, as technology often seems to break if I spent too much time around it, and I speak. "Sir, there's a customer who asked to see you."

I saw him release a slight sigh before he started standing up and grabbed his coat off the back of his chair. "I have to leave now anyway, one of my suppliers wants to speak to me about a proposal of some kind. What does the customer want?"

I grimaced slightly. "Probably to complain about me, her and I had a disagreement."

He looked slightly amused by that "Was this disagreement over the screaming I heard earlier?"

"Yes sir."

At that he let out a slight laugh "I'll take care of it kid, and how many times have I told you to call me Jack?"

"You are my boss, it's only proper."

Jack sighed again, probably knowing it was useless to argue. I grinned slightly. "Right, anyway, why don't you go on lunch now kid, I'll tell Jamie to watch the store while you're gone. You look like you need a bit of a break from the customers."

I tried to hide my breath of relief but failed miserably if the way Jack laughed on his way out of the office was any indication.

My lunch breaks here basically consisted of me eating my sandwiches as fast as I could which was about five minutes or so then spending the rest of the hour trying to practice magic.

Trying being the operative word. Without a wand I am basically forced to start from scratch with my wandless magic. This basically consists of me going through a spell in the first year syllabus over and over and over again, until I can consistently cast the spell wordlessly and wandlessly. It is nothing but pure torture. Remembering every individual spell is easy thanks to my photographic memory but actually performing the spells is another matter entirely.

Throughout my time at Hogwarts there were very few spells that I was unable to cast on my first attempt once I understood the basis of how they worked. But now, here I am, 8 years later and a much more powerful wizard struggling with possibly the first spell an ordinary wizard learns.

Winguardium Leviosa. The levitation spell. Here I am. Albus Dumbledore. One of the better wizards to come out of Hogwarts in living memory (Which for wizards is quite a long time) Struggling with a first year spell. Oh how far I have fallen.

To be fair, a lessor wizard would of probably taken years to get to this point on even just this one spell. I am progressing, remarkably quickly in fact, but it is still incredibly frustrating that Im not even close to the level I was at by the end of my first year.

I let out a sigh as the bed started shaking about a foot in the air. I started lowering the bed slowly to the floor and collapsed exhausted when I finally set it down. There is a reason that this is one of the first spells learnt by all witches and wizards besides for it's relative simplicity. Being forced to hold a spell for so long stretches the magic in a wizard and goes a long way to helping a wizard learn control. Which is the reason that I was focusing on this spell so much.

While I was frustrated, I also couldn't help but feel proud of myself. While yes, with a wand I am able to lift tons with this same spell and I am currently nowhere near that level I can't help but smile at my progress. At Hogwarts we were taught that wandless magic was the pinnacle of a wizards ability, with most wizards taking months to years to be able to cast the simplest of spells with any type of success. Yet here I am, not even a two weeks after first trying to learn and I am already further than many wizards who have been practicing for years. Im already able to cast a spell consistently wandlessly and nonverbally.

My smile falls a bit as I think about how truly pathetic the list of spells I currently have at my disposal is. The levitation spell, Lumos and a weak reparo. I unfortunately haven't been able to replicate the accio charm, which comes as no surprise. Stress and strong emotions can often have a big impact in the strength of spells cast. So no, I don't have many spells at all, in fact it's not a stretch to say I might struggle in a duel against the average second year student, especially with no offensive spells.

I might be struggling with even the simplest spells at the moment but given a few years with the speed I'm progressing? I might be somewhere much more manageable.

A grin overtakes my face as I walk back into the hell that is customer service.

line break ...

"Thank god thats over."

I chuckled slightly at Jamie's words as I started counting the money in the cash register.

"So what do you say Albus?" She asked.

"Hmm about what?" I scrunched up my eyebrows as I turned to look at her standing by the the door.

Jamie gave off an exaggerated sigh and shook her head slightly, the shoulder length brown curls passing slightly in front of the blue of her eyes. I would of believed she was annoyed if it weren't for the grin on her face. "About coming out tonight with a few friends of mine and I? Don't tell me you weren't listening to me earlier."

I honestly had no bloody clue what she was talking about but I was not going to let her know that.

"Im sorry Jamie but I'm busy tonight."I put on an apologetic expression while I thought up an excuse of why I couldn't go. The truth is I would much rather spend my time practicing magic.

She looked slightly disappointed "Oh. What are you doing tonight then?"

"I uh, I'm gonna go to the community college and look for part-time courses. You know see if anything stands out."

'Thanks for the excuse Jack.' Lets just hope he doesn't catch wind of this, otherwise I'm actually going to have to take his advice which will mean I have less time for magic.

"Oh! Are you going there straight after work?"

I didn't really like the way her face suddenly lit up but I've already dug myself into a hole. "Uh, yeah."

"Great! I live near there, we can go together!"

Damn.

line break...

The college was not in a nice part of town. The closer we got to the university the more signs of poverty I saw, maybe it's because the university is deeper into the city? I don't really know but what i do know is that it made me slightly uncomfortable to think of Jamie walking through here alone.

That's not to say that the area was completely run down, because it wasn't. It was the subtle things that had me on edge. Such as the graffiti on some buildings that often repeated similar patterns making me think they might be gang signs, the increase in litter found on the streets and just the caution I saw in not only Jamie's eyes but in the eyes strangers as well.

Not that she let my sudden caution deter her from making conversation. I can honestly say I've never met a person so outgoing before." So what are you thinking of studying? Wait, no let me guess. It's maths isn't it?"

I couldn't help myself from grinning a little. This girl just has a way about her. "Maths? Why would you say that?"

"Come on Albus I've seen how smart you are. I saw how quickly you added up the cost of all Mrs. McKenzies books in your head."

I couldn't help but laugh "So now just because I added up a few books I'm a maths genius."

"It was more than a few books Albus. There was atleast a dozen of them plus there was discounts involved, and you added them up and gave her the correct change in like five seconds!"

There was a time when I would of preened at such a compliment. Proud of my intellectual superiority I would of grinned smugly and tried to be humble in my response while secretly thinking she was right to say such words. Those days ended with my sister and a response got stuck in my throat.

...

"Are you okay Albus?"

I laughed shakily while shaking my head a little. "Yeah, yeah I'm fine. Just considering if I should take maths. "

Jamie looked slightly concerned but mercifully decided not to confront me on an obvious lie.

There was a few moments of uncomfortable silence before I started up conversation again. "So how far away from the college are we?"

Jamie looked slightly relieved for the topic. I get the sense she doesn't like silence very much." Not too far, we turn right by the McDonalds over there and then it's only a few more bloc-"

"Help, oh my god please help me!" A girl no older than 14 ran out of the alleyway that we just walked past screaming bloody murder.

Jamie of course immediately decided to help. She grabbed the girl by the shoulders when she came up to us. "Sweetie what's wr-"

"It's my brother, please help. He-He just collapsed and now he just wont wake up."

Something about this situation just didn't seem right to me although I couldn't put my finger on it." Jamie I don't think we..."thats as far as I got before Jamie started sprinting into the alley."should go..." I watched Jamie run for a few seconds before swearing to myself and chasing after her.

line break...

I never considered myself unfit. I always felt that as far as wizards go I was pretty average fitness wise. But watching Jamie and a fourteen year old girl pull away from me made me reconsider.'I guess magic has made wizards pretty lazy.'

After dragging myself around yet another corner while breathing like a troll I was a bit torn on whether or not to be happy I finally reached our destination.

On one hand there was a muggle male pointing something at our faces and if the expression he has is anything to go by it is a weapon of some kind.

But on the other hand I was tired of bloody running.

"Good job sis. You did perfectly." I saw the little girl stand a bit straighter behind her brother while I was trying and failing to catch my breath.

"Alright you two I want no heroics now hand over everything you have or I will not hesitate to shoot you both."

I looked over at Jamie to see her silently complying. Her eyes were extremely wide and her face looked like chalk. It took her multiple tries to put her hand into her bag. That is until the man walked up to her and forcibly took the bag from her. He then pointed the gun back at me."Well? What are you waiting for?Phone, wallet. Now!"

There was a moment even if very brief where I thought about telling him to go fuck himself. Then I remembered that it wasn't just my life on the line and it passed. Silently I complied and gave him my wallet with my meagre savings inside. "I don't own a cellphone."

This seemed to make him falter for a bit before he decided to come up to me and pat my pockets while eyeing me warily.

He gave a small grunt of acknowledgment before walking back over to his sister.

"Okay now i want the both of you to lay down on the ground and cou-"

"Wait! You missed her necklace." The older of the two seemed surprised to be interupted but he followed his sisters advice regardless and approached Jaime once again.

Jamies eyes started watering when he pulled the necklace out of her shirt revealing a crucifix attached to a chain. "Please, please don't take it. It was my mothers. Please."

He took a second to look into Jamie's eyes before ripping it off her neck.

I closed my eyes at the sound of her whimpers. As much as I wanted to do something the necklace wasn't worth our lives and without a wand I didn't want to risk it without knowing what that weapon was able to do first.

The sound of crashing made me snap my eyes open."Josh!" Our youngest assailant cried rushing to her brother who was now leaned up against the wall with his eyes closed.

"Surrender in the name of Justice!" A young male voice shouted. I looked behind me to see a frankly ridiculously dressed young man standing with his hands on his hips in a pose that was probably supposed to be heroic.

He was wearing a yellow overcoat that seemed way too big, as well as a helmet that I have seen motorcycle riders wear. While I was trying to process what in merlins beard was happening he walked past us before kicking the weapon that was now on the floor towards the wall and bending to pick up the necklace that was dropped next to it. He then turned around and started sashaying towards a shell shocked Jaime.

While this was going on I spared a glance towards our assailants. The older boy, Josh if I heard his sister right, was slumped against the wall surrounded by a rapidly growing pool of blood while his sister was frantically shaking his shoulders and calling out his name. A sense of dread filled me when I realised he wasn't breathing.

All while this was happening the newcomer approached Jaime and spoke with a voice that was probably supposed to be charming. "I believe this is yours fair lady." he said while holding out the necklace to an incredibly pale Jaime.

She reached out with skaking hands and grasped it.

"Now theres no nead to fear for Pulse is here to save the day and rescue the fair maiden." He said while bowing his head toward Jaimie.

I could see the gears turning in her head, trying to figure out what to say before a sudden flash of horror filled her face. "Look out!"

Pulse whirled around but it was already too late, the young girl had acquired a gun from somewhere and was aiming it at him with a look of rage on her face.

An incredibly loud bang filled the alleyway at the same time Pulse released some type of energy from his hand. I watched as the energy hit the girl and her chest caved in before she was thrown into the alley wall with a sickening crack.

The sheer noise was enough to snap me out of the shock the last few moments had put me in and I started racing towards the girl before a sound of pain from Jaime made me turn back to her.

She was lying on the ground with blood pouring out of her chest. Before I could even really register what had happened I was in the floor next to her with my hands pressed against the newly formed hole.

"Jaime, Jaime stay with me. Stay with me. We're gonna get you help okay. Stay with me."

I couldn't tell if she could understand me or not but I knew at that moment I would never forget the look in her eyes for as long as I would live.

Fear. Thats the only word I could use to desribe it. Pure fear. As she gasped and gasped to get her breath back I could only focus on the fear in her eyes. As she grabbed my hand as if pleading for me to save her the only thing I could focus on was how scared she was. Thats when I grabbed the crucifix and put it in her hand and started trying to think of a spell that would fix this.

"Episkey. Reparifors. Vulnera Sanenturs. Apapneo. Episkey! Episkey!" I became increasingly desperate as each spell failed.

"Oh my god. Oh my god. Is she okay?" The moron in a costume asked as he put his hand on my shoulder.

My desperation suddenly turned to anger. " Back off!" I screamed as my magic lashed out at the source of my rage.

He flew back into the wall of the alley but luckily his helmet protected his skull from being smashed like his victims.

Just as quickly as my anger came it was gone and I was speaking to Jaimie with a desperation I didn't even know was possible. "Come on Jaime, hold on. Hold on." What could I do? I had to take her to a hospital and hope muggle healers could help her. But the hospital I went to was too far away from here and I didn't know of any others.

It was with mounting horror that I realised she was going to die. "Oh god. Not again. Not again. Please Jaimie. I have to get you to a hospital." It was as I saw the light in her eyes start to dim that my desperation reached new heights and my magic responded.

We vanished from the alley with a crack.

As always criticism is welcome as long as it's constructive.