Chapter Six

"Boleyn, Anne:
Born: 1507 (?)
Died: 1536
Queen of England 1533-1536"

Merely two days after I had first seen her face, I found myself once more staring at it- this time reading the article below in the process. It did not tell me much more than I already knew, and quickly I closed the book again, still dissatisfied with my so-called "new" knowledge. The only new thing I had learnt was, that Queen Anne Boleyn had been a witch- but then again even that did not come as a great surprise. I had learnt at a very young age that many important and famous persons in the history of the muggle world had been witches or wizards- and after all, whoever had ever read anything about Anne Boleyn could never think that very unlikely.

And yet I decided that no, history books could not bring me the answers I needed. I could only hope my dreams would ever be able to, but since there was little or no variation in them, even that hope was easily taken away from me.

So I went on- went on with that blissful determination of the young, and in a- vain- attempt to forget about Anne, I threw myself even more at my classes- or, especially, at one particular class.

I had fallen in love with Transfiguration from the first moment onwards. It was my great talent, too- the way it still is. I have many faults and arrogance is, luckily, not one of them, but still I could not but feel pride and a strange sort of- happiness when I first managed to change a match into a needle. It was, perhaps, a relatively small achievement, but to me it meant the world.

I had always an intelligent child, quick to learn and be taught, but finally I had found my one, great talent- the one talent everybody has and yet not everybody discovers- and I revelled in it.

And no, I cannot deny that I liked the teacher as well. I don't believe that what I felt can be labelled love back then- after all I was, despite all relative maturity, still a child and he was older than my father- but what I did feel for him was respect. Much respect, and a strange form of adoration which I would later start to label as a "teenage infatuation".

There was also a third emotion involved.

It took me a very long time to find out exactly what it was, and even now as I sit here, a witch of middle age, knowing everything I did not know back then, I find it hard to give it a name.

Perhaps "recognition" would come closest.

I immediately felt I knew him much better than I did, and now I know that it is mutual. My teenage infatuation resulted, namely, in a marriage, and as my husband looks over my shoulder as I write this- one of his more terrible habits- he cannot but add some lines of his own. I will not add them here, for I believe they are coloured by his present feelings- like all memories in some way are- but I can add that he shared that bizarre feeling of mine.

Recognition.

We became friends very easily, even despite the distant student-teacher relationship we always managed to maintain in front of the rest of the world. I believe it was by the start of my second year at Hogwarts that he invited me for our very first chess match- and my triumph on that day made those chess matches into a bi-weekly event. It is a habit we even now still have. Both he and I were good at chess and used to winning- we were a challenge to each other, the way we were in many ways.

I don't have to emphasise, I think, that we both knew the rest of Hogwarts and in particular, the teachers, did not need to know about it. We did nothing wrong, of course- I was twelve!- but still we understood the power of gossip, and I remember having a very strong feeling of "not wanting to lose this".

For yes, of course I fell in love with him- and, to my utter surprise, he with me. The feeling of recognition only stimulated our mutual admiration- which we, may I add, kept a secret for even each other for at least five years. I was sixteen already when he first, tentatively, kissed me, and even then I know he felt guilty.

And yet that guilt was overshadowed by something deeper- as if we were meant for each other. I hear myself snort at this line- have I descended into corny sentimentality?- but it is the truth.

And the woman-in-grey and her questions were almost forgotten.

Yet it was Albus who would lead to answers in the end.