We reached Severus' house after a short walk through the countryside and the maze of streets which formed his neighbourhood. The way home- after our conversation- had been in silence. It had been very uncomfortable for me. I couldn't discover Severus' feelings about it- his features were hard to read at the moment and actually always-.

Severus got the key for the front door out of one of his pockets and put it into the lock. He sighed first, then turned the key and pushed the door open. It opened with a little squeak, which seemed to make Severus more tensed.

He stepped in as the first of us two and gasped at what he saw. Books all over the place, randomly pulled out of the bookcases, some still in the cases, but most of them out, lying at the most strange places. Some books laid open, on random pages, on the floor. Severus scowled and walked with big steps, to not step on books, to the kitchen.

Plates, cups, bottles were outside the cupboards and standing on the table, fragments of glass on the floor. They had left the fridge ajar. The glasses on the table reflected the yellow light which came through the crack

I stood in the living room and had been watching him through the open kitchen door. He scowled and growled and had no idea where to start cleaning up the mess.

He turned his head and looked at me, then to the bookcase next to me. I followed his gaze, to the bookcase with the secret basement door. Would the police have found his potions basement? Severus look revealed he thought the exact same thing.

Severus swiftly passed me and stopped in front of the bookcase, his hand on the pocket with his wand.

He touched a shelf three times with his wand. I watched him and the bookcase carefully and after a few seconds, I heard noises coming from the bookcase. The bookcase opened like a door and revealed the stairway behind it like the last time.

He stormed down the stairs, his hair falling in front of his face. I ran to the stairs and peeked through the door post. He was downstairs already, nothing to see. I doubted if it was wise to go downstairs. Severus was stressed out, angry and tired.

I heard Severus sighing in relief. If I had to believe the sound of his breath, everything was okay. No one had found the basement. A big relief for the both of us.

After a moment of sounds of bottles, boxes and jars, he came back upstairs.

"Everything is normal down there. Just like I had left it. They haven't found it," he said.

"Well, that' a good thing."

"Obviously," he snarled.

I ignored it and asked: "Could they have found it then? With all that magical protection?"

"Do you think I would worry about it if I knew for sure they wouldn't find it?" he said irritated. He quickly walked up the stairs, to the bedrooms. I heard him snarling, hissing and growling, but I couldn't hear what he said. The only word I could make out was 'Muggle' and I could imagine he didn't use it in a good way.

I heard him open another door, then footsteps on stair treads. He had gone to the attic. The sounds became softer and a moment later, I couldn't hear Severus' hissing and growling anymore.

I looked at the mess and saw all the books behind me. The people who had done this had really taken the time to create a chaotic mess to clean. It would take hours to do so. Or maybe one flick of a wand.

I decided to already start cleaning the mess. Maybe Severus was too tired to do magic. I could imagine it took a lot of energy to do so. Or not, but I picked up some books and placed them back into a bookcase.

I came across books with titles as 'Potions and their magic' and 'Plants of Mother Nature'. Titles which sounded way less interesting than the books I had read before, but worth a look later on nonetheless.

Severus walked down the stairs to the living room, I heard his close steps. He looked at me, a bit surprised.

"Are you already cleaning?" he asked incredulously.

I nodded and placed another book in a bookcase.

"I haven't asked you to do that."

"Nope."

"Then why are you doing cleaning?" he asked irritated and incredulously at the same time.

"I just thought it was a good idea," I stammered.

"I can do it with magic, you know? Much easier and faster," he remarked calmly, his look questioningly. "Come and stand next to me," he commanded.

As soon as I stood next to him, he got his wand out of his pocket. He waved with it and the books flew up and into the bookcases.

I bit my lip while I looked at his magic. I can really get used to this.

"I will organize them later," he said when he was done. He walked to the kitchen and waved his wand again. The cups, plates, bottles, everything disappeared into cupboards. He pointed his wand to every cupboard each and its doors closed. He didn't even need a wave with his wand to clean up the glass on the floor. Only pointing was enough. He walked to the fridge, looked inside of it and then closed it with a slight push.

"You should really learn me how to do that," I complimented him.

He walked back into the living room and seated himself in an armchair. "You should stop being so amazed about magic," he stated.

"I wasn't amazed," I commented. "I just think that if I know how to do that, I can save myself a lot of time cleaning stuff in the future."

"A clear case of: not my job," he said and put his wand back in his pocket. "Hogwarts is going to do that."

His face revealed he didn't believe me." I have seen Muggle-borns who adapted way faster to the magical way of living than you do."

"What's a Muggle-born?" I asked.

He sighed. "A subject for another time. But first, tell me about what you know," he demanded. "Take a seat."

The change of the subject came as a sudden surprise, but I had expected this to come.

Staring at the ground from a sitting position felt mentally way more comfortable than from a standing position. I sighed and started talking. "Well, ehm, I think it's the best to start with the day I met you."

Severus leaned back in his chair and watched me attentively.

"When I stepped onto the train, I noticed the title on a newspaper someone was reading. It was something with the words 'missing orphan' and I knew they meant me."

"How could that possibly be you? How does the newspaper know about your case? Was your story really that frontpage worthy?"

His words were very, very badly chosen, after all that had happened, but when I gave it an objective look, the question didn't seem so strange anymore.

"That's because the police knew about it," I replied.

"And how does it come the police knew?" he asked even more angrily than his eyes were.

"Well, two cops..." I couldn't finish the sentence. As if something was blocking my throat. The day those cops had showed up at my doorstep. That day had turned my life completely upside down. My family, gone. The people I had loved the most during my entire life, dead. And suddenly, I had no one anymore.

"Those two cops what?" he asked irritated.

I looked up at him with my watery eyes. And somewhere in that cold face of him, I knew he felt something. A feeling he had to stop asking so much question and just wait for a later moment. But he pushed the feeling away and pretended to feel a thing.

"The day that my mom and dad died, I was home on my own. Two cops came to my home to tell me they had died and that I had to pack my stuff and go with them."

Severus nodded.

"When I had packed my stuff, we walked to their car. My old neighbour came out of her house and handed me a letter from my mom. She told me my mom had told her to give it to me when they would die when I was still very young."

"The letter in which she told you about me?" he asked.

"Yes." I simply replied. "They drove me to the police station. They gave me a place to sleep in a prison cell. I decided to read the letter and discovered the existence of magic and me being a witch and about... well... you and me."

Severus nodded. "I understand," he said while looking at me, attentively.

"So you just took off on your own?"

"Ehm, yeah, I thought that was the best thing to do with all this magic stuff."

"I guess so."

"The next morning a woman took me to a pub to get breakfast. I pretended I had to go to the toilet and climbed through a small window. I walked back to my house to get some stuff and Rowan the owl It became evening and I desperately needed a place to sleep. I climbed over the fence of a house and slept in someone's shed that night. That night, I also wrote a letter to Hogwarts in the hope of finding you."

"How did you react to it?" I asked him curiously.

His face revealed he didn't like that question and so did what he said: "surprised."

It was silent for a couple of minutes. Severus nor me knew what to say until Severus said: "what did you do then?"

"Well, after that night, I went to the train station to go to Cokeworth, cause that's where you would live according to my mom. I bought a ticket and went to the train. A man started talking to me and the more I tried to stop his intention to start a conversation, the more he wanted it. Later in the conversation, he recognized me as that missing kid."

"So you started running?"

"I ran out of the train and sprinted over the platform and through the railway station. I ran and bumped into a group of man. And you know the story from there," I ended my story.

Severus raised his eyebrows to indicate how surprising he found the story to be. "That explains a lot, I have to say." He took a deep breath and asked: "why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"Honestly, I kind of forgot about it. I mean, I met you, the person who is apparently my biological father and who is apparently a wizard, just like apparently me. And that kind of distracted me, I guess."

"So you forgot to tell me you were searched by the Muggle police?" he asked incredulously.

"Ehm… Yes, actually," I replied softly.

How could you forget something like that!?" he snarled like it was barely a question.

"Everything was just so overwhelming," I tried to justify my actions. However, it had little to no effect.

"Are you stupid!?" he yelled and jumped out of his chair. "Do you realise in how much trouble we could have gotten into!? And I do not only mean with the Muggles! I also mean the trouble with the Ministry of Magic! What if they get to know this! We can't save ourselves out of that!" he yelled.

I doubted what to say, but he had to know about that cat-lady.

"I think they already know," I stated softly.

Severus startled and stared at me with his dark eyes, now full of fear. "What? But… then…, he stammered.

"When you were with the police, I stayed at a house to have a place to sleep. And when I took a walk there was a cat who turned into a woman." As I said, I realised how stupid it sounded, but I was in a world of magic now. Anything was possible. Nothing was stupid.

"McGonagall," he whispered.

"Yes, that was her name."

"What did she tell you?" he asked as if he was in a hurry.

"The woman told me she knew you and that she and other people, like Dumbledore, were watching our situation."

Severus sighed and hid his face in the palms of his hands. He looked desperate. I hadn't seen him being this way ever. He was never desperate. He was always so calm and emotionless. But now, He let it all go.

"The woman told me we were all over the news in the Wizarding World."

Severus buried his face deeper in his hands.

"I told her the complete story and that you would be released the following day. She decided we would not need help and that we could do it on our own. So, maybe we aren't in that much problems after all," I tried to cheer him up.

"You think we are not in trouble!?" he shouted. "If I…" He groaned in anger. "If I didn't know better I would think you know nothing about the bloody Ministry! You have no idea where they are capable of, do you!?"

"No, I don't."

"What the hell DO you know! We can't solve this, Ellea! Don't you understand!" He buried his pace in his hand again. "Why do I even say 'WE? It's ME who needs to solve this mess. You are just a child," he said it as if I was useless, which hurt somewhere, but it was not like he wasn't right. How could I help fixing stuff that had to do with magic? I knew nothing about it.

"The following day, they brought me to the police station. And you know what happened next."

Severus nodded. He had calmed down a bit. I saw he wanted to say something, but couldn't find the right words. I gave him some time but, he said nothing.

"And what happened to you?" I asked a bit too curiously. I was pretty curious at how he had gotten those wounds on his face. And even though I knew he wouldn't want to say it, I had to ask.

Severus looked up, surprised. "I don't think that's important," he tried to sweep the question away.

"I have told you about me, now you should tell me about you, that's fair."

He frowned. "Your story was important to discover if we are in even more problems. And we ARE in more problems," he sighed. As he looked at the ground, light shone on his forehead which revealed the drips of sweat on it.

"We will solve the problems," I said positively.

"What the hell is wrong with you!?What do you think will happen!? Do you think the Wizarding World has no kind of police to see if the laws are being observed!? Or do you think the Wizarding World has no laws at all!? Well, it doesn't care what you think, but we do have laws and police and you will learn to know them, because we are in big trouble with them!" He wiped some sweat of his forehead. "I broke the law. Muggles have seen magical stuff in my home, that's prosecutable. Do you know where prosecuted people go to!? To a place called Azkaban! And that's way, way worse than Muggle prisons, Ellea. Dementors torture people there. Dementors drain people of all their happiness and leave them with their worst memories. Long-term exposure to those creatures usually leads to insanity and even death." he explained, while his forehead produced way more sweat than before. "But don't worry, you won't go there if they come for us, oh no. Who knows what will happen to you, but I'm sure it's not going to be you who is going to pay for your mistake of not telling me you were searched by those bloody Muggles."

"I'm sorry."

"Oh, shut up, will you!? I'm done with your excuses!" He looked at the ground and sighed. "Go upstairs."

"But maybe-"

"Go upstairs!" he yelled, his eyes wide, a frown on his forehead, the sweat still visible.

I startled, quickly did what he had said and ran up the stairs to prevent more problems between us.

Hey reader!

Like I had said last week, I will announce the winner of the puzzle this week:

And it is (drum roll):

Our Italian guest reader!

His/her answer was correct and therefore he/she got the choice which house Ellea will be sorted in in the last chapter. He/she chose Slytherin and so shall it be.

Thanks for reading (and leaving your answer in the reviews) and see you next week!