FATHER
Chapter 11 - Elodie
A few more seconds. A few more tries and it would have been hers.
A real wand. Not some childish imitation made of cheap wood. Not even her own mother's. But hers.
And then it had all gone wrong.
She'd known it as soon as she saw her mum's fingers twitch towards the waistband of her jeans - towards her own wand kept securely against her thigh. Elodie had come to recognise it as the sure tell that preceded being dragged away from whatever it was they were doing - the loud noise at the theme park that ended in tears, the abandoned shopping trip just because some man in a dark overcoat had bumped into her. And now this.
Being forced away from her wand just because something had spooked her mum.
Because something had spooked Hermione, there was no doubt about it.
Elodie knew with certainty that it had been the old man.
Her mum had known him, and he her. So though his strange eyes had unnerved Elodie to no end, Hermione had seemed to take his strangeness in her stride. It wasn't what he looked like then, or even his weird mannerisms… it had been what he'd said.
She'd so desperately wanted to ask. Demand that he explain what he meant by her being claimed. Claimed by who? By what? Surely she was owed that. They were talking about her after all.
But then she'd been dragged away like a toddler and despite her mum's squeezes of her hand as they'd sat side by side on the tube, she'd dared not open her mouth for fear of crying in front of the whole carriage of people.
Her cheeks coloured at the memory and she gathered her pillow into her arms and burrowed her face into it. She hadn't been able to hold the tears in any more when she'd finally flung herself down onto her bed, the slam of her bedroom door still echoing in her ears. Now the fabric was uncomfortably damp against her skin and she sniffed loudly and rolled onto her back, her eyes searching the strange alien ceiling.
It wasn't fair.
She'd had a life back home. She missed the reading nook in the corner of their old sitting room and the pond at the back of the garden full of orange fish.
Now they didn't even have a garden, just a measly old balcony that was barely big enough for the potted plant that her mum had proudly placed out there.
The night before the move, Elodie had once more demanded to know why they had to leave their life behind. Why they had to go to England.
"It's my home", her mum had finally said in that tired way of hers.
"And this is mine", she'd snapped back before storming to her room.
Her tears and protests had been for nothing though. The next morning they'd stood at the local apparition point, their lovely house now empty and silent behind them.
Elodie sighed and fidgeted with the sleeves of her jumper.
If only she had a wand, then she might feel better. If nothing else, moving to England meant getting to go to Hogwarts. Hogwarts. The same school that her mum had gone to.
Even that felt bitter now though.
What use was getting to go to such a famous wizarding school if she didn't even have a wand? She'd be a complete laughing stock - the one witch who wasn't even allowed the one thing that was necessary for magic.
"Elodie", her mum's voice came from behind the door. It opened a crack and the books which she'd piled up behind it shifted marginally across the carpet.
"Go away!"
"Elodie please".
"I don't want to speak to you! I hate you!"
The bulb blew in the overhead light which made her jump and for a moment, she forgot her anger, but then it renewed with a vengeance. "Go away! Leave me alone!"
She could hear her mum's sigh from behind the door.
"Fine", came Hermione's dispirited voice. "Let me know when you're ready to talk".
Elodie stuck her tongue out at the door and then threw herself back amongst the pillows.
All those people shaking her mum's hand, telling her she was brave, how they were indebted to her. One wizard had actually bowed. They treated her like a hero.
Elodie supposed, from what she'd heard of the war, that she was.
But when Elodie looked at Hermione, all she saw was her mum. Thin, pale skinned and with a mass of messy curls which more often than not escaped from their tie to float madly around her head.
She didn't look like a hero. She just looked old and tired and perpetually…frowny. Just like any other adult.
Seeing her with Harry and Ginny had been the first time her mum had looked happy in well, ages.
Some small niggle in her gut made her glance back at the closed door. She knew she'd given Hermione a hard time of it recently. She supposed that it mustn't have been easy to move back, to be so… visible. Though she'd shaken those people's hands, Elodie could tell from her pinched smile that she didn't really like it at all.
All at once, the black knot in her chest loosened.
She walked across the room and picked her books up off the floor, silently apologising to all of them for her earlier rough treatment. When she entered the living room, she was surprised to find that her mum was sat on the sofa, her elbows resting on her knees and her head draped into her hands.
"Mummy?" Elodie ventured, feeling suddenly and swiftly terrible. "I didn't mean it, I don't hate you".
Hermione gave her a weak smile and patted the sofa next to her. "I know", she said as Elodie sat down next to her. She curled up into Hermione's side, feeling the warmth of her breast and a smell that was unmistakably her mother's. As she did, she noticed an old shoebox sat on the table in front on her.
"What's that?"
Hermione sighed and nudged Elodie off of her to lean forward and pick it up.
"I-" she began and then stopped. Her mouth twisted nervously and then she deposited the shoebox in Elodie's hands. "Just open it and see".
Her heart stammered in her chest and for a moment before she opened it, she turned her eyes to Hermione's. Hermione returned an encouraging nod.
"Go on, open it".
Hardly daring to breath, Elodie pulled back the lid to uncover a mass of tissue paper like the sort that often came wrapped around her birthday presents. She could feel Hermione's eyes on her, and as she reached in there was a warm tingling across her fingertips.
Her hand gripped onto something. Cold, narrow, firm.
She pulled it out.
A wand.
It was black. Blacker than any wand she'd seen before. But when she turned it in the light it shimmered with all the colours of the rainbow. She'd never seen anything so beautiful in her life.
"What is it?" she whispered, her eyes still on the wand in her hands.
"It's a wand. Your wand".
"My wand?" Elodie asked, turning her eyes reluctantly to Hermione's. "How can it be my wand?"
Hermione sighed deeply and then gently reached across to correct Elodie's grip on it.
"It was your grandmother's".
Elodie's eyebrows pulled together in confusion as she looked from the wand to her mum.
"But you said your mum was a muggle. Why would she have a wand?"
Hermione's mouth twisted and Elodie heard her swallow. "It' not…". She stuttered and then inhaled deeply.
"It belonged to your father's mother. She was a witch".
Elodie's breath lodged in her throat and for a moment it felt as though she held the entire weight of the world in her hand. She dared not even move for fear that it would suddenly disintegrate in her grasp. The one thing she had ever held of her father's. Delicate. Like a butterfly. Like a breath.
"But you have it" Elodie finally said quietly, as though speaking too loudly might cause it to shatter. "Why?"
"He… your father, gave it to me. To keep me safe".
Elodie stared down at the wand. Her father had given this to her mother?
She edged her fingers around the delicate wooden handle, imagining the ghost of her father's hand on the very same spot. Like a handshake through time.
"He saved you?" Elodie asked in a hushed voice.
Hermione laughed softly though it was a sad sort of sound.
"I guess, sort of".
"How?"
As far as she knew, her parents had met long ago in a bar. They'd sat talking over drinks, two foreigners in a strange land, their linkage back to a magical school in the Scottish Highlands their only connection. And then her father had gone back to England and by the time her mum had found out she was pregnant, she was on her own.
But now, to find out he had somehow saved her mum? That part was new, just like the weight of the wand in her hand.
"I was in danger. He looked out for me".
"Like the time you got your bag stollen and that man outside the shop let you borrow his phone?"
"A bit like that, yes". Hermione gave her a tight smile. "Anyway, that's what Mr Ollivander meant when he said you'd been claimed. You found it back when you were only small. I took it from you and Merlin's beard you cried to high heavens. I never even realised that it could have chosen you then, it just never occurred to me".
Elodie stared at the wand as though she could read the story of her parents within the grain of the wood. As though a surface which she had once thought was clear cut and smooth was studded with details as she drew closer.
"I think I remember", she said quietly.
They both fell silent, looking at the wand in the flickering fire light.
"What should I do with it now?"
"Well, it's yours. What do you want to do with it?"
Elodie shrugged. All her life she'd wanted a wand and now that she had one, her own grandmother's no less, she had no idea what to do with it. What if she accidentally broke it? What if she ruined the one link she had back to a father she'd never known?
Reading her nervousness, Hermione looked down at her and then put her arm around Elodie's shoulders and pulled her close against her side.
"How about I teach you a charm or two?"
"But I'm not allowed to do magic outside of school".
"No, that's true, but you can still practice the wand movements and the spells. Come on. Let me show you one of my favourites. Wingardium Leviosa".
A/N: Please review, it does wonders to the motivation to write :)