We seated ourselves on the couch and in the nice red armchairs. On that moment, Yara came back in with her girls. She placed the tea on the coffee table on seated herself next to her husband on the couch. The girls went playing with their brother and pretended not to pay attention to us.
"So, I have heard you are from London," Yara started. "That must be quite different from here, isn't it?" Tom gave her a disapproving look, but said nothing.
"yes, it is. Less crowdy," I replied in a monotonous way.
"I understand. Less shops and so on," she commented.
Silence. Very uncomfortable silence.
"Girls, why don't you go and show Ellea your room?" Smith asked.
The girls looked to her and walked to the door, I followed.
Their room was on the first floor. A normal girls room. Very pink. Not my taste. A bunk bed, a desk, two wardrobes and a mattress on the ground.
"You sleep on the mattress on the ground," Hannah said firmly.
I nodded and looked out the window. I saw other houses. Nothing special actually, but everything was better than talking with them.
"So you have magical powers?" Amy asked mockingly.
I looked at her in confusion. How could she know that? Only the police knew a bit about the magic thing... the police. I remembered I could trust no one.
"Show me," Amy demanded.
"I can't do magic," I stated firmly. Lying. What else could I do?
She frowned. "My dad said you think you can, so do it," she tried again.
"I have never said I can." I told her politely.
"Whatever. A witch who doesn't want to do magic, how pathetic." She and her sister laughed, even though It wasn't that funny at all.
"You are just insane. But don't try anything tonight. Hannah does karate and she won't mind to kick your ass."
"What would I try?" I asked her, even though I knew she meant trying to kill them or something.
"Oh, I don't know! Trying to curse us or kill us!" she nearly shouted.
"I would never kill you, don't worry. And I can't do magic. I just told you," I told her monotonously and walked out of the room. I was done with their stupid behaviour. I found out I just couldn't stand those girls. So arrogant, so dumb, so easy to hate. Bu staying polite was the best I could do. And denying of course.
I walked down the stairs, through the corridor, but stopped in front of the door to the living room. I had heard someone say my name.
The door was ajar, so I listened to their conversation.
"So nothing? You got no information out of him?" I heard Tom ask.
"No, nothing usable," I heard Brown reply.
"But what did you get?" Tom asked.
"Well, he told us he has lived in that house his whole life. We checked it and that's right. We have got nothing more."
I smiled. I knew Severus wouldn't talk to them. We had both done a great job till so far, cause the officers were clearly frustrated by it.
"And the questioning in the neighbourhood? Nothing?" Yara asked a bit panicky.
"The people in his street say he isn't that much at home. Only during the holidays. We are going to ask him where he stays in between."
I smiled again. I knew where he went between the holidays, but would never tell them and I knew Severus would do the same.
"Come on! You can't tell me he isn't saying a thing! Aren't you guys pressurizing him!?" she asked more irritated now.
"We are doing everything we can, but that psycho doesn't release a thing! We let him get some sleep in a prison cell without pillows, blankets or any kind of comfort, he hasn't had the opportunity to wash himself in days, we even tried to make a deal with him, but nothing works! We are breaking all kinds of rules for this case, but it still doesn't work! He keeps his mouth shut! Just like that awful girl!" Brown shouted at Yara.
My jaw dropped. They had been torturing him. If I just hadn't been so dumb, I could have known the police was still searching for me at that time. All of this could have been avoided.
"Why would she lie? You are on her side," Yara said a bit nicer than before.
"I don't know yet. We can only guess," he replied sadly.
A little silence occurred in the room, but Yara broke it. "Maybe her story is just the truth," she said silently.
"The truth!? The truth!? Really!? She is clearly lying! I am an officer, remember!? I'm trained to see when people are lying and that girl is obviously lying!" he yelled at Yara.
Smith had been very silent during the conversation, but jumped in now.
"Calm down, Sam," Smith said comforting, but Brown couldn't have it.
He jumped out of his seat and shouted: "Calm down!? How could you even be so calm!? We are going to lose our jobs if we don't solve this case. They are never going to forgive us for braking so much rules if we don't succeed!"
Smith jumped out of her armchair too and grabbed his cheeks with her small hands.
"We still have one day, remember?" she asked him in the same comforting way. "We can do a lot in one day." She smiled.
1 day? Because they have nothing against him of course. No evidence he is an abductor or whatever. 1 day and all of this will be over.
"We are going to ask Ellea," Tom said. Brown and Smith turned around to look at him.
"That sounds like a good idea, Tom," Smith said. "We have to go now. We come back tomorrow morning,"
I felt hands on my upper arms. They pulled me back to the stairs. I pulled my arms back to body and saw Amy and Hannah. They gestured to ran upstairs. I heard footsteps in the living room. Good time to go indeed. We ran upstairs, to their room. Hannah closed the door behind us and we were alone in their room.
"So, why were you eavesdropping on them?" Amy asked strictly.
"They were talking about me," I said honestly.
"Yeah, we heard that..."
Footsteps in the corridor.
"Thanks for letting her stay here," I heard Smith say.
"That's okay, you know that," Yara responded politely.
I heard the front door open and close again. Brown and Smith were gone. I sighed. Them gone meant time for relief. My relief didn't stay unnoticed.
"Why are you so relieved?" Amy asked strictly. "Don't you like them?"
"Not particularly," I answered monotonously. I noticed I spoke monotonously quite a lot. Apparently, there were also other similarities between me and Severus. Other than appearance.
"Why not?" she asked curiously.
"Don't ask so much questions," I snarled to her. Too much questions? Another thing Severus hated too. First it was comforting to find another similarity between us, but now it freaked me out. I didn't know if it was a good thing to have similarities with him.
Amy frowned in surprise. "You don't have to act so toplofty. You should be thankful for everything we do for you. You are allowed to sleep in our room, eat from our plates..." she started, but I interrupted her.
"It's not your decision, Amy. It's your parents', so shut up and don't act like a mean girl."
"a mean girl? Me?" she asked sarcastically and looked at her sister. The both of them laughed. "We aren't acting like mean girls. You are just unthankful and delusional."
"I can't blame you for acting that way," I said without any emotion in my voice.
They looked in confusion.
"It's hard to suppress what you are." I smiled virulently, turned around and walked out of the room.
I walked downstairs- to the living room-. Tom and Yara sat on the couch in complete silence. They looked at up at me when I came in.
"Hey," Yara said with a fake smile on her face.
"Hey" I responded.
What followed was an uncomfortable silence. We all knew I had heard them talking.
"I'm going to cook. Want to help?" she asked.
"Sure," I replied to escape the uncomfortableness.
Yara got off the couch and walked towards the kitchen. "I have already prepared everything before you came here, so we only have to cook it," she explained. "We are going to make Shepherd's Pie. We only have to put the ingredients in the oven dish. Then we put that in the oven. And then we're done."
"Did you ever do this before? Making Shepherd's Pie?" she asked curiously.
"No, but I saw my mom making it once," I answered honestly. How stupid, Ellea. That's actually what she wants. Now she has a reason to start about your family, I thought right after it.
"Was she a good cook? Your mom?" she asked.
"Average, I think. Are you?"
"I don't know. Tell me after supper."
Yara opened the plastic boxes with ingredients and explained what I had to do.
I did just like she had explained and things went fine until she started talking again.
"It must be hard for you. Losing your parents. And then that thing with... how do you call him?"
"Severus." I replied honestly.
"Well, that thing with Severus. What is it actually?"
Very well played. You try to do this unnoticed, don't you? Playing dirty, right? I know how to play dirty too, Yara.
"He appears to be my biological father. My mom wrote it in a letter addressed to me." Technically I wasn't lying, it was the truth.
"So you went to his home? Or did he come to you?" she tried.
"I went to his home," I replied honestly again.
"Impressive you did it all by yourself," she complimented me. I smiled. She smiled in return. She must have thought I smiled because of her kindness, but I smiled because I knew too well what she was up to.
"So all the claims of the police aren't true?"
"They aren't."
"But why won't they listen to you? Is your story so strange to them?"
"apparently."
She asked to many questions. She had to stop.
"So there's nothing with an abduction or something?"
"No."
"You know you are safe now, right? You can say everything you want to say. You never have to go back there if you tell what happened," Yara said sweetly, but I scowled in response.
"So you don't believe me either? Fine. Then you don't. Your problem. But that man is my father and I will go back and live with him if you like it or not!"
Yara had stiffened.
"No questions anymore!? Did you lose your tongue!? You want to know more, don't you!? Just ask me now, cause tomorrow I will be gone! Yes, I have heard you and the officers talk. You guys have nothing! And there is nothing to get! My story is the truth!" I threw the empty bowl, I had in my hand, on the kitchen counter. Luckily, it was a plastic one. Otherwise the place would be littered with broken glass, but I was actually a bit disappointed it wasn't a glass one, cause now my statement had a lesser impact.
I scowled at her. Yara just looked confused. She looked at the bowl on the counter and then back at me.
"Why are..." she couldn't finish her sentence.
"Just shut up!" I yelled at her. My face turned red. Adrenaline rushed through my veins. Why couldn't those stupid people just shut up! I wasn't going to tell them anything and they had to know that by now. I was too afraid they would notice something odd about the story. What if I made a mistake and changed my story a bit? How would I save myself out of that one?
"But..." Yara started and again, but she couldn't finish her sentence, cause I yelled: "Just shut up!" More adrenaline now. More stress. More emotion.
And then... BOOM! The Shepherd's Pie exploded. Food all over the walls and ceiling. The remnants of the pie dripped off our clothes.
We looked in utter confusion at the oven dish. "What did..." she looked at me, but now it was her own fault she couldn't finish her sentence.
I knew what was happening. It was me. Well, my powers... my magic. But I couldn't tell her that. I decided in a brief second it would be the best if I just left the scene, so I just turned around to walk away, but was stopped by a tall man, Tom.
"What is going on here?" he asked confused.
"Nothing anymore. We are done," I replied monotonously and passed him to walk out of the kitchen. I ignored the mess that was dripping down the walls, which was hard since it was literally everywhere.
Tom didn't try to stop me from walking away. Neither did Yara. Better they didn't. I would have gone completely mad if they had tried and more things would have gone wrong. Who knew what could happen. I could have blown up the complete house maybe. Who knew. Who knew.
"I'm going for a walk," I said to Tom and Yara while I walked to the corridor. I didn't turn around, but felt their gazes in my back.
I passed the stairs. The two girls sat on the steps and looked at me in silence. I just looked back at them, grabbed my coat, opened the door and walked out.
Author's Note:
Hey reader!
There is also a new chapter for The Magical Daughter (Snape's perspective) story, which you can find in the stories I have written. It's chapter five. And there will be no chapter(s) next week due to this.
I think you have heard this so many times already, but I feel the need to say it. We are in a difficult time right now. Not only my country, not only my continent, the whole world is in big trouble. In the statistics of my story I can see that the readers of this story are all over the world. We hope we will get out of this Corona-crisis and quarantine is one way to help mastering it. I hope I can make your quarantine a bit nicer by uploading these chapters.
I want to give some special hope to the Italian guest-reader who has already been giving me reviews from the beginning of this story. I hope you are doing fine. I hope your family is doing fine. I can't imagine how your life must be right now. I only see the situation in your country on television and I feel already bad by seeing it. Your life must be turned upside down, but don't worry. We, as world, will get through this. Stay strong!