It always pained her so to remember. That spot in her heart was soft, and it stung whenever exposed to touch. Not the joyous Quidditch tournaments that got her adrenalin level high, and not those nightfalls spent beside the cozy hearth while being corroded by a tender feeling of relaxation. Those were the golden age, and she was lucky enough to grasp the memories and able to treasure them. But those times were long gone, and she was once left drowning in misery and hatred until someone pulled her up. She promised never to return again, for she had seen dark things in the nature of human beings.
She moved away, of course. She left the castle, what once meant all the happiness and excitement to her as a child. She boarded a train, and ran far far away, leaving the memories behind. Darkness slowly faded away, and she was left with a color of sepia if not brightness of gold and silver. It was enough for her. She was content with her world now as it is.
She, as a grown up woman, cried herself to sleep for days and nights on end when she received the news of her most beloved brother's death, half a world away in America. She was pleased when the chance of adopting the daughter of her brother was given to her, for it was an opportunity to make up for her long years away from home. She was to mend the bonds, and in that way she would honor her dead brother's soul. She flew on a plane, then a train, and then a taxi to the temporary shelter.
And she met Eloise. Brighter, purer, more adventurous and assiduous than any human being she had ever seen, she had seen a vision of her younger self in her vibrant niece, who was slowly recovering from pain of losing her single father. She educated Eloise, she cared for her, she taught her everything she could possibly know, and when Eloise was eleven, it came as expected.
Oh, she was proud for the girl, proud beyond compare. But it pained her even more to see her lovely niece to go to the place of her nightmares again. She battled with her will, and finally decided that it was best for Eloise to go.
She bought two train tickets and accompanied her niece to the place. And after she saw Diagon Alley, she started having nightmares again. But oh, how painful it was - to see her niece so hyped up about the school, and see herself suffering so. She knew that if she asked, Eloise would come home with her without any questions. And for once in her so many years of dedicating and devoting herself to solely Eloise's joy and future , selfishness won over.
She talked with Eloise, she told her about the terrible incidents that happened just decades ago. She left out the part of Harry Potter and his battles with the Dark Lord - every wizard children in the world knew of the tale without her having to emphasizing on it again - but instead told Eloise how dangerous the castle was. She listed wondrous teenagers and people who died battling Voldemort, people who could have had a future to themselves. Eloise needed no further substantiation.
So she had to buy another ticket for Eloise on the returning trip, and they went back to their original home. Only, she wasn't stupid at all - Eloise now have a wand and textbooks and every equipment she needed to learn about what she had learnt. As soon as they were home, she started packing. She bought two plane tickets, and they left for another country. She spent nights and nights with her brows locked deep within thoughts, while Eloise entertained herself with books and the new environment. She was clever, she was the top of the class all the time - she could do this, for her niece and herself.
She tried that spell on guinea pigs, seemingly a joke to her and Eloise. But the day finally came and she couldn't risk putting Eloise to danger. She removed Eloise's Trace, and that day they commenced on their learnings.
She could teach everything to Eloise, but there was one thing she couldn't - experience. Her niece needed her own adventure and dreams in order to survive, and if she was not the evil Mother Gothel who kept locking away her beloved Rapunzel in the tower, then who was she? Yet she couldn't let Eloise go. Eloise was everything she ever had, everything she ever dared to dream about, and she simply couldn't let it go away.
And so on this dark night of autumn, where winds blew chilly outside, Leah Isherwood put her niece Eloise to sleep and lit a fire in the fireplace. Her hands shuddering, she took a deep breath and walked down to the basement.
It was time to face the past. Plus, there were nothing to fear. She had sweet memories to guard her.
Shivering, she opened the old chest. And she saw things - her silly journal as a teenager, all sorts of gifts and owl notes from other students, gifts, robes, outfits, miscellaneous things, but then she saw the maple leaf. It gave a pluck to the strings of her heart, and for that Leah recalled a very special fall just like this one.
The memory was sweet. A sugary feel comes to Leah's tongue tips whenever the nostalgia of it came back to her minds.
A/N: Thank you for reading this story! If you like it, please leave comments and suggestions and all the feedback stuff! I'm new here and I will be publishing more chapters soon. Leah's backstory has character slots open up for claim! If you want your OC to be in the story, just contact me via this platform/comments! 3