Someone was shaking my body, I noticed. I opened my eyes and awoke in the girl's bedroom.

Yara stood next to the mattress I had been sleeping on. She smiled when I looked at her with my sleepy eyes.

"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty," she greeted me sweetly with her warm smile. "Time for breakfast," she said.

"Oh, yeah, I will pull some clothes on," I responded while getting out of the 'bed'.

"We will wait for you downstairs." I heard her footsteps om the stairs a few seconds later.

I thought about what I had said to Yara. Some clothes? I only have the clothes I already wear for all these days. I laughed at it. What I was doing was so dirty. Mom would have been so angry if I had done this at home. I laughed even more. I didn't have to brush my teeth, cause no toothbrush for me to see. So dirty.

I went to the bathroom and washed my face with my hands. I had to do a bit of hygiene after all. I combed my hair with a comb I found on the windowsill in the bathroom. My hair was greasy, like always, but normally, I could comb it very quickly. Now however, there seemed to be knots in my hair. Combing was hard, but I managed to do it anyway. One of the consequences of doing little to no hygiene. Nice.

I went downstairs to see the children, Tom and Yara, already sitting at the table.

I nodded at the group and said good morning. Tom was the only one to say 'good morning' back. His daughters frowned at seeing me. They were not happy about having me in their home- even though I hadn't woken up by them entering their room last night. I must have been really exhausted-. However, I would leave this morning and that was for the better for all of us.

I seated myself quickly on a chair and joined breakfast.

Tom and his son continued a conversation about trains, cause apparently the little boy liked those things. Yara asked her daughters about school which was evidently not a good subject to begin about. The girls got irritated by her questions and answered their mother's questions curtly.

No one asked me a thing and I wasn't unhappy with that. They had clearly learned from the conflict of yesterday and remained silent. And watching the girls sweat and lie about how they did on school was entertainment enough.

When breakfast had nearly finished, the doorbell rang. One of the girls, who were still in the conversation about their school with their mom, jumped from her chair and ran to the front door to open it. She fled from the situation and left her sister behind to talk to her mom on her own. The other sister felt betrayed of course and if her gazes could kill, her sister would have been dead when she came back into the room with the two most annoying officers ever, Brown and Smith.

"Good morning to you all," Smith greeted us. Brown just nodded in my direction.

"Well, to be straight to the point, we are here to pick up Ellea," Brown stated.

I stood up from my chair and walked to the end of the table, towards Brown and Smith. From this place I looked at the family. They seemed really happy together. The sight made a bit jealous again. I knew Severus and I needed to work very hard to ever create such a band together, if that was even possible- which I doubted-.

I walked back to Yara and Tom to thank them for letting me sleep in their home. Tom just said 'you're welcome'. Yara was a bit more emotional.

"Ellea, I know we haven't always been on the same page, but you are a smart and wise girl. You have a good heart, little one. And after everything you have been through..." She stroked her hand over my cheek.

The touch surprised me. The warmth for her hand, the softness. In that short moment, everything reminded me of my mother.

In her face, I saw a piece of my mother, my own mother. Yara's face had become red, her eyes watery. She was suppressing a cry, I saw it happening. And in the moment I gave her a hug. In her arms, I smelled the scent of her body. It remembered me she wasn't my own mother, she was gone, she would never come back. So, I pulled back and simply nodded at her, as if to say 'thank you'. She did the same.

"Goodbye, everyone," I said.

They nodded. Without saying another word, I walked with the officers to the corridor, grabbed my coat, looked one more time over my shoulder and left the house for good.

Smith and Brown had parked their car in front of the house. Smith opened the door to the back seat for me. Brown drove.

Yet again, I saw the countryside with its meadows, animals and trees. I loved it. I loved the utter silence and peace. I also enjoyed very crowded places like city centres. I liked both extremes. What can I say, my mind is just weird sometimes. Luckily, MY mind is MY property. No one can invade it... right. Or could magic do that too? I wondered.

The drive through the countryside wasn't long. Soon, more and more houses filled the sight. Buildings became higher and higher and soon they wore so big, I couldn't see the roof of the buildings through the car window anymore.

The car turned around a corner and entered a parking space.

We stepped out. The two officers walked to the front door of a, what seemed like, a huge police station. They looked over their shoulder to look at me, still watching the huge, modern building. Windows with white window frames, red bricks, a flat, black roof.

Brown rolled his eyes. "Hey! Are you coming or..." he shouted a bit irritated. I got pulled out of my thoughts and ran into their direction.

We walked into the building. Smith and Brown in front of me. Other policemen walked through the main hallway. They passed us like we weren't there.

I looked at the hallway. A high, white ceiling, white walls, brown, wooden doors, windows with closed blinds, a large desk with two female police officers behind it and two big stairs on the end of the hallway, one upstairs, one downstairs.

We took the stairs to downstairs on the end of the hallway. It led us to a smaller hallway. Light blue walls, dark blue doors, other windows with the blinds closed, some opened. On the end of the hallway stood a big corner desk with one female police officer behind it. Uncomfortable, wooden chairs stood next to her desk.

"Hey Carla," Smith greeted her happily.

"Hey Tess," the woman responded.

"We are here with the girl," Smith said and stepped aside to reveal me to the woman.

Carla raised her eyebrows in surprise to see me, only for a brief second, then it was gone. "I see," Carla simply said. "He is in his prison cell. You can go and get him. "You can seat yourself here while waiting, little one." She gestured with her hand to the uncomfortable wooden chairs.

"I'm back in a minute," Smith said, as she walked around the corner.

I glared up to see Brown watching at me. I had never liked his looks at me and I knew that feeling was completely mutual.

I turned around and walked to a row of chairs and seated myself on one. Brown did the same and seated himself next to me. I hated his features, I hated his always arrogant behaviour, I just hated everything about him. People often say everyone has something likeable in themselves. Well, this proved the contrary.

I thought about leaving with Severus. No more thinking about what to say, no more talking with policemen, no more this, no more that, just no more bad things. Well, no more thinking about what to say? Not yet. We were not on that level of intimacy yet.

And then my eyes saw something I had wanted to see so badly. There he was, on the end of the hallway. Severus... With his head hanging down, he walked in my direction.

He's probably so mad at me... I realised. Well, I will know that in a minute.

Brown pulled me out of my reverie with his statement: "You should have talked, you know."

I let his words get into my mind, they echoed through every corner of my brain. Did the man who I hated, despised and scorned actually just say that? I was so done with those kind of remarks. I just wanted to go... how do I want to call it? Home? Severus' house? Or both? I couldn't care at the moment. I had to smack Brown right on his disgustingly perfect nose. I knew that wasn't a smart thing to do, but I wanted it so much! However, I came up with something else.

I turned my head to look at him and smiled ominously. "You know what? Shut up. Just shut up for once. That's better for everyone, I think. At least for me." I had spoken with a faked friendly voice. It had sounded even more evilly than I had intended that way. I had even given myself the chills by acting so wickedly.

Brown stared at me in utter astonishment. He had raised his eyebrows and stared at me. After a few seconds his eyebrows lowered. Now, he scowled at me. He opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by Smith, opening a door on the end of the hallway to reveal…

What immediately struck me was his injured face. A big bruise on his nose, a little one on the side of his neck and a massive black eye. He was an adult man. They were the bloody police! What had they done to him!

I looked at the rest of his body to see if there were more injuries and noticed he wore the same clothes as he had worn at the day he had gotten arrested. However, they were a bit more dirty now. Mud? I couldn't tell. Can it be… no… blood!?

His hair was messy and greasier than I had ever seen. His face was paler, the bags under his eyes bigger. He looked terrible. Completely not himself. The man I knew normally cleaned himself properly and felt a strong aversion for non-decent people. Or well, knew. I knew him for a while now, but we hadn't really talked about ourselves or whatever. I knew nothing about the man. And I doubted if he knew more about me.

He carried his cape, folded, over his left arm, and looked a bit apprehensively over his shoulder.

His walk towards me and Brown seemed like an eternity. He kept staring at me during his walk. His eyes… No emotion to see. Which made me nervous, until I realised that was how he mostly looked at anything. I had no idea what to do, what to say, or what not to say.

He was halfway. I stood up from my chair. I never lost me gaze at him. The closer he came, the taller he seemed to become. Now, I remembered how tall he actually was.

And now, there he stood, opposite to me. From this close, he didn't only look exhausted, he also looked miserable, harrowing and straight out sad.

"Well, you two must be happy to see each other again, right?" Smith asked questioningly. She first looked at Severus's face next to her, then to mine and back to Severus's.

I wasn't planning to answer that question and so seemed Severus, but then turned his head to Smith. "Yes," he simply said with his normal monotonous voice. "I am glad to see her in good health." His voice sounded even more exhausted than his looks gave away.

"Can we leave now?" he asked.

Brown looked at me, then back at Severus. "Yes, you may. Let's get your stuff." Brown walked to the desk with Severus following him.

I seated myself on a chair again and watched Brown talking to the woman behind the desk. She went to another room and returned with a plastic box, which she handed to Severus. He opened it and looked at the stuff. Then, he put his wand in his pocket and tied his belt around his waist.

"Well, let's go," he said irritated as he came back.

I nodded and stood up.

Brown laid a hand on Severus' shoulder. "I want to apologize for keeping your here, Severus," he dared to say to him. Severus's eyes narrowed and his face filled with anger. However, he contained his temper.

"I don't want you to call me Severus. You have no right to. And it's a bit late for apologies don't you think?"

Brown frowned. "I think it's never too late for apologies."

"Then we have another disagreement, haven't we?"

"Yes, I think we have, but that doesn't matter anymore."

"You are right, it doesn't, cause I am going home now. Come on, Ellea." He looked at me and placed his hand on my shoulder. He pulled my shoulder a bit backwards, gently, to my surprise. He got his hand off my shoulder and we started walking towards the stairs.

"Can we give you a ride?" Smith asked from behind us.

Severus stopped walking, looked over his shoulder and said arrogantly: "I can suite myself right now, thank you."

"You remember our agreement, right?" she pleaded.

"I do. Don't worry. You're not going to lose your stupid jobs. Well, not because of me."

He turned his head back, looked at me with a face I couldn't identify the emotion of and continued walking.

We walked up the stairs. None of us spoke. I looked one time back over my shoulder. Brown and Smith were still standing there, gazing at us, tensed.

When I turned back, I took a quick look at Severus to see if he was looking. He wasn't. So a good time to raise my middle finger at the cops behind my back. And as I did so, I had to suppress a naughty smile. Wasn't really working though.

We were upstairs now and walking through the main hallway.

"You can't do that you know," Severus said without looking at me. I turned my head to him in surprise.

He slightly smiled. He still didn't look at me, but said: "however, for now, I allow it. Because of these special circumstances."

I smiled and looked at the front door in front of us. But kept wondering how he could have seen my middle finger. Note to self: Severus has bloody eyes in his back!

We walked to the front door in silence. Officers who passed us, looked open-eyed at us. Of course they do, I thought. We were all over the news.

Severus noticed it too and gazed back at the curious people.

"We were all over the news," I explained to him. "That's why they are staring at us."

Severus looked at me. "I had already expected something like that," he reacted with a sigh.

Severus pushed the front door open and seemed surprised to see the outside, as if he had never seen it before. The sunlight, reflecting in his eyes, revealed that the spark in them had never left. He was stronger than I thought he was. And probably everyone thought about him that same way. How else could they think about him?

Author's Note:

Hey reader!

Are their problems over now? Was the wizard stronger than the Muggles? Maybe. But what about Wizard VS other wizards?

See you next week!