January 4, 1974
Professor Ratsel waved his wand across the slab of stone that hang suspended in mid-air. Calandra looked closely at the markings on the stone and flipped a page in her book. Today was the first day they were actually translating things in Ancient Runes.
"Alright!" Professor Ratsel addressed the class. "It's time for you to put all your studying to work."
He gestured toward the slab of stone and continued.
"These runes were carved into this crystalline stone around the sixteenth century. The stone came from the Norrland of Sweden. Those are your parameters for figuring out what these runes say. Use them wisely."
He ran his eye down a parchment on his desk and looked back toward the class.
"You'll be partnered up for this, and no you may not choose your own partners." He said sternly.
The whole class groaned and Professor Ratsel waved them away.
"You'll sit with your assigned partner to work through translations. No more bellyaching. Let's get to it. Michaels, you'll be with Yardley. Fawper with MacDonald, Aster with Black, Baxter with Zinns, Lupin with White, Jasper with Bloom, Ritley with Spinner, and Cole with Mulligan."
He rolled the parchment back up and placed it on his desk.
"Go on and switch seats." He motioned for them to sit with their partners. "And let's see you put your knowledge to use. First pair to translate the whole slab gets a prize."
Students shuffled among each other, gathering their belongings and moving to different desks. Before Calandra could even grab her school bag, Remus Lupin was already walking towards her with a pile of books in his arms and a quill behind his ear.
He slid into the seat next to her and gave a tight smile. She returned his greeting in the same way and gestured toward the slab of stone floating in the middle of the classroom.
"I think we should use the Dalecarlian translations." She said. "Since it came from Sweden. He wouldn't have told us that bit if it wasn't important."
Lupin nodded and chewed his lip.
"I'll do the first half if you want to do the second half." He said quietly.
Calandra looked up in surprise.
"Ok." She said. "That's fine. Do you have your alphabet with you?"
He nodded and pulled a blank piece of parchment toward him and set to work, immediately. He wasn't very talkative, was he? Well, that was fine by her. She opened her book and pulled her own parchment towards her. They didn't speak at all for the rest of the class.
February 6, 1974
Calandra read the letter she held in her shaking hands. Then she read it again, and again, and again trying to make sense of it. She shook her head and sat back on the bench.
No.
Her father must be mistaken. Calandra gripped the parchment in her hands and forced herself to read each word very carefully.
Calandra,
It is with great sadness I write this letter to you. There was a horrible accident and your mother did not make it. I was informed of her passing by the ministry official who found her.
As she would not want any fanfare surrounding her death, there will be no public funeral. She will be interred in the family cemetery where we can pay our respects. I will take you there when you return home during the Easter holiday.
Sincerely,
Johnathon White
Calandra's eyes swam with tears. Her mother couldn't be dead. She'd seen her in Hogsmeade not even a week ago. Her father was just being cruel. He was upset with her over something she did. Her mother was still alive. She had to be. Calandra pushed back from the table and abruptly stood. She'd go prove it. She walked quickly from the Great Hall and ran down the corridor toward the doors that led out of the castle.
She shoved open the heavy wood and ran down the path. She heard voices behind her but didn't slow down or stop. She had just made it to the gate when Professor McGonagall suddenly appeared beside her.
"Ms. White!" she demanded. "What is the meaning of this?"
Calandra moved to walk around her, her lip trembling.
"Ms. White." McGonagall caught her by the arm. "Just where do you think you're going?"
Calandra looked up into the professor's eyes and her resolve crumbled. She flung herself at McGonagall and buried her face in the old witch's robes. McGonagall staggered back a step, then wrapped her arms around Calandra and patted her back. Calandra held up the parchment and McGonagall took it, peering down over her spectacles.
The witch's demeanor softened. She stroked a hand down Calandra's hair and conjured a handkerchief for the young girl. McGonagall let Calandra cry herself out and lay a hand on her shoulder. Calandra felt McGonagall cast her wand and say some spell, but she didn't know what it was.
"I'm very sorry, Ms. White." She said softly. "You're excused from classes today. Would you like to go back to my office? Or perhaps you'd rather go back up to the dorm with Ms. Fawcett."
Calandra wiped her nose and nodded.
"I'll go with Alice." She mumbled.
Professor McGonagall nodded and, wrapping an arm around Calandra's shoulders, led her back up the path. Alice was waiting by the groundskeeper's shack. Calandra sniffed and wiped her eyes.
Professor McGonagall led the two girls up to Gryffindor tower and into their dormitory. She sat Calandra on her bed and knelt down in front of her. McGonagall's face was softer than Calandra had ever seen it.
"I'm terribly sorry to hear this news, Ms. White. I'll speak with the headmaster tonight to arrange for you to go home."
Calandra's head jerked up.
"You're sending me home?" she asked.
McGonagall looked flummoxed.
"I'm sure your father will want to make sure you're doing well." She said. "You can go home and grieve, then come back to school when you're up to it."
Calandra shook her head. She didn't want to go back to that house without her mother in it. She didn't want to have to see her father with his cold indifference.
"I'll go back during Easter." She said.
McGonagall studied the girl and laid a hand on her knee.
"If that's what you'd prefer, then of course you can stay here. We will have to contact your father, though. To make sure he doesn't want you to come home so that he can check on you."
Calandra shrugged. Her father wanted her home about as much as she wanted to be there. Alice came and sat next to her on the bed. McGonagall stood up and lay Calandra's school bag by her bed.
"I'll have supper sent up here for you girls. If you need anything at all, call for a house elf or come find me. I'd like to offer my condolences once more, Ms. White. And let you know we care for you a great deal."
She left the room and closed the door softly behind her. Alice gently pushed Calandra back until she was laying on her bed and crawled in beside her. She wrapped her arms around Calandra and held her tightly. Calandra clung to her and cried. Sobs wracked her body.
"I didn't get to say goodbye." She choked out. "I didn't even get to say goodbye."
February 7, 1974
Calandra went back to class the next day. She didn't want any attention drawn to herself. She especially didn't want people asking questions about why she was missing, so she drank a calming drought McGonagall got Madam Pomphrey to send up, donned her robes, and went to class.
Alice sat beside her in almost every class, peering at Calandra every few moments to make sure she was holding up alright, offering Calandra her notes when she was called on in class to answer a question, and just generally being the best friend anyone could've ever been.
Calandra got through most of the day in a haze from the calming drought. She couldn't bring herself to summon up any emotion until it was almost dinner time. She was bone tired as she sat in the great hall. The calming drought was wearing off, but her exhaustion took over.
She picked at her food as she tried to fight the sadness and desperation that were creeping back into her bones. Alice carried conversations with their friends, sending warning glances to people who steered the conversation to close to Calandra's demeanor.
Calandra swallowed the lump in her throat as she stared down at her dinner plate. She felt like crying. She felt like crying and screaming and breaking things. But she didn't. Calandra didn't do any of those things. Like so many times before when she felt overwhelmed or upset, she buried the reaction deep down and ignored it. It wouldn't do for her to get upset and fling her feelings into the world. She had to keep quiet. So, she did.
February 20, 1974
She braided Alice's hair on the floor of their dormitory. Mary and Lily came in arm in arm talking about their Potions Class. Lily loved that class; she was quite good at it. She always helped Calandra and Alice with homework if they needed it and Slughorn had nothing but compliments about the things she brewed.
"We get to make something that makes you stronger." She was saying excitedly. "Well, not really stronger. But gives you stamina. You could run for ages with the potion. Imagine being in the Olympics and everyone had that potion."
Calandra smiled as she twisted a tie around Alice's hair.
"Ooh." Lily looked over at them. "Will you do mine next?"
Calandra nodded and patted Alice's shoulder.
"You're all set." She said.
Alice walked over and surveyed her hair in the mirror. Lily sat in front of Calandra and ran a brush through her hair. Calandra wrapped a hair tie around her wrist and ran her fingers through Lily's dark red hair.
"Are you all going to go to Hogsmeade next week?" Lily asked. "It's the first trip since Christmas break."
"Yeah." Calandra said, twisting Lily's hair over and under. "I want to go to Honeydukes and get more bubble gum. Alice keeps nicking all mine."
"You told me if I could guess which hand you had it in, you'd give it to me." Alice stuck her tongue out at Calandra. "That's different than stealing."
"Yeah, yeah." Calandra laughed. "I still need to restock."
"My mum loved the sugar quills I brought home over the holiday. She and my dad tried them and the pepper imps." Lily said.
"My dad tried those, too." Mary piped up. "He liked them, but didn't care for the jelly beans."
"Bleh." Calandra said. 'I don't really care for them all that much either. They're only fun if you're playing a game with them. Imagine just eating them on your own and getting grass instead of green apple."
The girls laughed and Calandra tied off Lily's hair. She laid back on her bed and sighed a contented sigh. She still missed her mother, but some moments of the days were getting bearable. Laughing with Alice almost felt happy again.
March 15, 1974
Calandra wandered outside after lunch. Her friends were all working on homework, but she'd finished hers already. The castle walls were starting to close in on her, and flinging open the windows didn't help much, so she'd ventured outdoors.
She walked down the path towards the lake. Calandra had avoided the lake as much as possible up until now. She'd sit by its edge when there was class out here, but never waded in with the other students. Never splashed her feet in the shallows.
She sat on a patch of grass beside a shock of tall reeds and watched the water. Her mother didn't like the water. She said that it was unpredictable and held too many unanswered questions. At school, at muggle school, Calandra learned that the ocean was too deep for anyone to ever explore the bottom. So, in a way, her mother had been right.
But the different species of fish and seaweed weren't the questions her mother worried about. Her mother was worried that the water would reveal the truth. That it would awaken something in her and turn her into a monster. So, Calandra avoided the water.
But her mother was gone. Calandra felt tears sliding down the end of her nose. Her mother was gone, and the water was just water and it wasn't scary at all. It was just muddy water. How could it be scary now? The thing she didn't even know she feared most had already happened.
Calandra peered down at the water and watched as one of her tears made small ripples on the surface. She tore her socks and shoes off and plunged her feet into the cold water of the lake.
She half expected something to happen. Half expected her mother to be right. She looked over her shoulder; she hadn't magically sprouted wings. She stood there, in the shallows of the lake and wished with everything in her that the water could still frighten her.
One of her pant legs had rolled down and water was slowly seeping up the denim material. Calandra's toes were going numb, but still she stood there in the murky water. The giant squid raised a long tentacle out of the lake and curled it around, furling and unfurling it. The wind blew and rustled the reeds beside her.
Calandra sighed and pulled herself from the water. She washed off as much mud as she could, and trudged back up to the castle, shoes and socks in hand. She swung open the doors and walked down the corridor.
"What's this?" Filch's voice rang out through the hallway. "Mud and mess everywhere!"
Calandra looked behind her. There were a couple muddy footprints on the floor, but it wasn't too horrible. She was opening her mouth to offer to clean it up when Filch shook his head disgustedly and pulled a quill from his parchment.
"Detention, it'll be." He said savagely. "You lot will learn, I tell you."
He tore off a piece of parchment and thrust it toward Calandra. She pursed her lips and left the corridor, making sure to track as much mud as she could through the halls. She ducked into the empty Transfiguration classroom and closed the door behind her.
Out of habit, Calandra walked over to her desk and sat down. She read the detention slip that Filch had given her and sighed. She'd have to spend tomorrow night cleaning out the cupboards on the fourth floor.
She laid her head down on the table, trying not to think about what her father would say if he found out she got detention. He'd be furious and her mother wasn't there to buffer. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. She'd be alone with him now, and he hated her so much.
"Ms. White?"
Professor McGonagall strode up to Calandra and peered down at her. Calandra jumped and wiped her nose.
"Why are you in my classroom?" Professor McGonagall asked.
"I…I was…outside and came back in." Calandra started.
"Yes, I can see that by the state of your dress. Did you go in the lake?" Professor McGonagall asked.
Calandra nodded.
"Why?"
"I just….I don't know." Calandra said sadly.
Professor McGonagall set her lips in a thin line; a half smile half grimace. She laid a hand on Calandra's arm and spoke gently.
"I must say, you've held up very well bearing the brunt of the news you received. It is ok to not know all the answers Ms. White." She said. "Not in my Transfiguration class, mind you, but in life."
Calandra nodded and folded the paper in her hands. Professor McGonagall's eyes zeroed in on it.
"What's this?" she asked.
Calandra held it up to her.
"Filch gave me detention. I tracked mud in the castle." She said.
Professor McGonagall gave a long sigh and shook her head. She ripped up the detention note and vanished the pieces. Then, with a tilt of her head she looked around the room.
"I don't see a detention slip at all, Ms. White. Perhaps Filch only threatened you with detention."
Calandra smiled to herself and nodded.
"Off to the dormitory with you, Ms. White. And I'd steer clear of the west corridor if I were you. Young Black and Potter were receiving quite the talking to from the caretaker just moments ago."