Written for the Mother's Day Competition

Also Written for the Minor Character Bingo Card Competition, where the character was Mary Cattermole and the prompts were: shove, ice and hopeful.


Ellie and Alfred had been fighting a lot more since we'd left. The hard, frozen ground beneath our feet seemed to bring out the harsher sides of us all, like we were embodying the scenery. As I watched Ellie shove Alfred to the ground once more, I realised there was only so much bitterness a mother could take.

"Elizabeth Cattermole, what in heaven's name do you think you're doing?" I shouted, admonishing her as best as I could.

"But, mum, he said I looked like a snowman!" she argued back. She was nine now, and she was already growing to be tougher than either her father or I had ever been. Is that what war did to people?

"Ellie, please, you're making a bad situation worse," I told her, defeated.

The five of us, we'd never had much. We'd been comfortable, I suppose. We'd been to church every Sunday for as long as any of us could remember. We'd worked hard, and been able to take them to the Dorset coast for holidays. One year we went to Cornwall, where Maisie discovered the story of the Mousehole Cat and fell in love.

It had been a real shock to the likes of us. We'd never harmed anyone. But they didn't come at night, when the lights were out and the doors locked. They didn't even come with Dark curses to end lives that had barely begun. They came through our own Government, through the ones who'd had our best interests at heart. Through our laws, our officials, our jobs and schools.

"Will we ever get to go home?" Ellie asked. I didn't know what to say. I looked at my daughter, with the same red hair I'd loved so fondly in her father.

"I have hope," I said, smiling at her through my sadness.

The truth was, we'd spent all of our savings getting us here. Greenland, I thought, was a very ironic name for this land of ice and mountains. I didn't know much about the country, but it was far, far away from Chislehurst Gardens. It was quite apt that we chose here, I thought. Reg had been out everyday to try and find work, but so far nothing had been fruitful. He was a hard worker, but no one was willing to take a chance. The dour mood seemed to have followed us. But we couldn't stay in this little motel forever. There weren't even enough beds for us all, and the peeling wallpaper reminded me too much of the hope that was slipping away from us.

"Hope for what?" Ellie asked, sounding much too old for her nine years. "Hope that a seventeen year old boy will kill a mature, experienced wizard? The darkest wizard that's ever been known? Hope that they'll all realise they've been bad boys and girls and get slapped wrists and ask us to come back?" Her words shot daggers right through me. I was trying so hard to keep myself together for my children, but they could make things so hard for me, sometimes.

"Ellie, you didn't see him. You didn't hear his words, love. He knows what he's doing, I'm sure of it. Your father and I, we'll get our old jobs back. And our home, St. Matthews will be just like we remember it. They'll even still have the same vicar," I told her, hopeful that every word I said would prove to be true. "You'll see, love."

"Well excuse me if I don't believe it until I do," Ellie replied, and I had to force myself to hold back the tears that threatened. The truth was, I didn't know what the future would hold. I was too busy trying to get through the day.