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Day 1, Part 2

I have to say this because some day, Mom is going to get around to tearing the pages out of my trip journals and pasting them into a scrapbook. The pages will probably be squeezed between too many pictures of Arm Pit without his shirt and Dad with a sunburn and receipts from all the trips we made to the grocery store, so what I write is IMPORTANT in remembering what really happens on this trip.

So I have to say this… I am NOT crazy.

Like I completely acknowledge that seeing Harry Potter on vacation is nutso, and I am the first to admit that this isn’t exactly the first time something like this has happened. But that’s a story for another sort of journal.

I am not crazy. Maybe some part of me realized that being in the UK meant I was about a million times closer to JK Rowling and so about a million times more likely to randomly run into her on the street. That happens, right? I mean, JK has to leave her house occasionally, right? I bet people run into her all the time.

But thinking you might spot JK on the street is TOTALLY different then expecting to run into Harry Potter. And not just because I'm a Muggle and can’t see Wizarding travel spots. There’s also the whole fictional character aspect.

This guy, though, looks just like Harry Potter should, and not like that teeny weeny leprechaun Daniel Radcliffe. For one, this guy has dark hair that rises and falls in unruly spikes all over his head, completely free from the help of any hair product. DanRad had the mussed Beatles bowl-cut until his stylists just completely gave up.

For another, he’s skinny. I mean REALLY skinny, with that sort of inverted chest thing that some teenage boys can rock. As in… maybe someone has been keeping him in a cupboard under the stairs and under feeding him. That sort of skinny.

He catches me staring at him. Uh-oh. Stalker much, Ally?

He says, “Hi?” Like it’s a question. Maybe hi? Maybe ‘please stop staring at me like a deranged goldfish and state your business’?

“HI!” My voice is too loud and I think my face is going to crack into pieces and fall off because I’m smiling so big. Definitely going with deranged goldfish. BE COOL, ALLY. BE COOL. “I’m Ally. Allison. Ally Cope.”

That. Was. Not. Cool.

I try again. “I’m staying here for the summer,” I sound all casual. My family travels abroad all the time. We’re awesome like that. “I’m American.”

HP-boy glances over his shoulder toward the lake to see if I’m talking to someone floating out there in the water. Nope, Boy-Who-Looks-Like-The-Boy-Who-Lived. I AM TALKING TO YOU.

“Oh.” I decide he must be shy. Poor thing. Maybe no girls ever talked to him while he was living with the Dursleys. I should hug him. Maybe he really needs a hug.

I hug him.

I AM HUGGING HARRY POTTER. I AM BEING SHOVED AWAY BY HARRY… Wait. In my spazoid frenzy, I seem to have lost my cool for a minute, but I definitely have more control over myself and all my impulses now. Will not hug stranger on the dock, no matter what fictional character he looks like.

By the way, dear Trip Journal, his eyes are green. Be still, my heart.

“Sorry about that. I’m American,” I offer again, by way of explanation. We are a cultural entity unto ourselves, you know? So maybe he just thinks any weird behavior can be explained by that.

Doesn’t work. “You mentioned that.” He pulls one of those rubber inner tubes from the water and drapes it over his shoulder. It could not be more apparent that I’m freaking him out and he wants to get away from me.

“So that’s how we say 'hi' and 'nice to meet you',” I explain. I might be following him a little bit, but it isn’t the creepy type of following. He totally knows I’m there and slows down so I can walk with him.

“That’s odd. I have cousins over there, and we never have issues with undesirable embraces,” Potter!Clone shifts the inner tube so it’s between us. I think it is supposed to keep me from hugging him again, but this kid doesn’t know me very well if he thinks a big rubber tire is going to keep us apart.

Hey, kid? I’ve been to the Rubber Museum. Yeah. I’m epic.

Wait. Cousins? In the US? WHEN DID THE DURSLEYS MOVE TO THE US? I really hope they live in Idaho or somewhere under-populated by defenseless Muggles. I can totally see it now. Vernon Dursley, Potato Farmer.

“But what cupboard would you live in?” I say to myself, only I say it out loud and get a strange look from the boy. “What’s your name?”

Say Harry Potter. Say Harry Potter. SAY HARRY POTTER.

He stops on the path. “Al.” For a minute, he looks embarrassed, and I wonder if he’s lying to me. He’s HARRY POTTER. Not Al. No one is named Al except on old mobster movies.

“It’s nice to meet you, Al.” Harry Potter.

“Erm. Yeah. You too, Ally-Allison-Ally Cope.” The edge of his mouth curls slightly, like I amuse him. “This is me.” He points at the cottage next to ours before heading toward it with his big rubber tube.

Al is getting away!

“Hey.” Oh. Crap. He glances back at me. “Is… everything inside your cottage the same color?”

He grins at that. “It’s all purple. Lupines.”

He just smiled at me. I’m totally going to be friends with Harry Potter.