After Hogwarts

Chapter 6

PEAKS School

Lizzy was sad, Harry and Hermione had just left and it would be a couple of days before the rest of the students arrived and the term started. Lizzy's pity party was interrupted by an elf that just appeared in her room. "You are the one who is part of the great Harry Potter family? I am called Connie and I am to watch out for you like Buddy promised the great Harry Potter. If you have a need for something then just call Connie and I will fix. But you not tell other students or Mistress Alana, okay?" the elf said in a rush. Lizzy was surprised until she remembered the elf from the shopping center that had talked with her and her parents.

"Connie, Harry left an elf at my parents house and I am sure he would like to know you are watching out for me. Is there any way to let him know? His name is Ralph" was all Lizzy got out before Ralph appeared. "You be calling Ralph Miss Lizzy and Ralph is here" Ralph said, then he saw the other elf standing there. "Greetings sister, I am called Ralph and I have been charged with protecting Miss Lizzy and her family while she is going to school here. But I not allowed to stay with her while in school. Make job very hard."

"Greetings brother, I is called Connie and I will watch Miss Lizzy while at school and let you know if she in trouble. You nice looking elf and you visit elfs here at Peaks any time you likes" was Connie's reply.

Lizzy felt better now that she had two elves watching out for her and two new friends too. She thanked both elves for being her friends and watching out for her since she had not ever been away from home before that she remembered. Lizzy asked how her parents were doing and Ralph told her they were fine, but missed Miss Lizzy very much.

Lizzy got to meet her Head of House the next day; he was surprised to find out she had already called an Air elemental after all this was her first time at school. He asked if he could meet Lizzy's elemental, so Lizzy called Annie and introduced the two. "You must call on your elemental frequently so she can grow here in this realm. The more you have contact with her the stronger she becomes. The headmistress has told me that you are related to Ms. Granger and Mr. Potter, those two were a breath of fresh air, if you'll excuse the pun, when they were here. If you are half as talented as those two you will not have any problems. They both set many school records during their terms here, and some of them are still to be broken or even tied", he said.

It was the night of the welcoming feast and Lizzy got to meet all the new students in her house, she also got to meet her roommate who wasn't very friendly. Alana introduced all of the staff to the new students and gave a brief rundown of the rules and regulations.

The next morning Lizzy was up at 530am and outside to do her morning run, she only made it 5 miles before it was time to go back inside and clean up for breakfast. When Lizzy went back in her roommate was upset because she had been woke up by Lizzy leaving for her run. "Is this going to be an everyday thing, your getting up before daylight and making noise? If so then we need to come to an understanding, I don't do mornings and don't like being woke up by a cow like you. Only mundanes get up and exercise not magicals, we use magic to take care of that or anything else we need." was as far as the girls got before Lizzy had her up against the wall. "Connie, could you please get a senior student or the house head for me before I have to injury this poor excuse for a human being?" was all Lizzy said.

It was only a few minutes later when one of the senior girls showed up and asked what was wrong. Lizzy didn't even let her roommate speak, "This poor excuse for a human being is close to being exterminated. She thinks the world revolves around her and that nobody should be up before lunch. I don't know about you but I have classes this morning and would like to have something to eat first. This thing had the nerve to complain because I wanted to shower before breakfast after my morning exercise. If this is how this school works then I am in the wrong place".

The senior girl asked Lizzy to let the girl down and to let her speak so an informed decision could be made. After hearing the girl's side the senior said, "My name is Cathy and I am the one responsible for this set of rooms. First off, I think it is great that Lizzy wants to exercise as a strong body makes a strong core and that makes for better and stronger magic. This was a philosophy expressed by one of the most respected students to attend Peaks, Hermione Granger, and she set records we are still looking for a way to achieve. Secondly, we don't allow fighting in the rooms. But since this wasn't a fight no rule broken. Thirdly, if you ever insult someone because they think different than you or if you put someone down because they want to make themselves a better person I will kick your ass myself. Now you Miss Primadonna can start packing as you will be out of this room by lunch, Ms. Nelson was here first and she stays. DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?" the girl started out of the room but turned around and asked, "Lizzy, would you mind telling Hermione I said HI the next time you see her. I really respect that woman, she taught me a lot – not as much as Harry, but a lot".

Lizzy was almost finished with breakfast when her Head of House came by to give out schedules. "Ms. Nelson, I heard about the incident this morning and I want to thank you for not hurting that girl, she has been moved to another room. Now don't take this the wrong way, but since we have extra beds would you mind having the room to yourself?" Lizzy thought about it for a second and agreed that would be fine, she wasn't used to having anyone else in her room anyway. The first thing on her schedule was orientation with the headmistress and it was scheduled until lunch. So Lizzy was off to the room indicated.

Lizzy had only been in the room for a few minutes when her ex-roommate came in and tried to start something. The next thing the girl knew she was against the wall and up by the ceiling and Lizzy was standing there with a confused look on her face. Standing behind Lizzy was a pissed off looking elf wearing camouflage shirt and pants pointing his finger at the girl on the wall. Just as the Headmistress came in two things happened, the elf disappeared and the girl fell to the floor. Alana asked what was happening and Lizzy said she didn't know, one minute she was sitting there and the next the girl had attacked her then flew to and up the wall. When Alana asked the girl for her side of the story the girl denied attacking Lizzy until another student said she had been complaining about Lizzy all morning and had made threats.

"Both of you girls see me in my office after this is over, and I want you on opposite sides of the room during orientation. This is a first for me, a new student in trouble before orientation even starts" Alana said before walking off.

After the orientation Lizzy made her way to Alana's office. Once both girls were inside and the door closed Alana started with her lecture. "Ms. Abernathy, this was the second time this morning you attacked Ms. Nelson, the first was verbally in her room before breakfast. Then you are seen to physically attack her less than three hours later. As I understand it both times you wound up against a wall. Personally, if someone had done that to me once I would stay as far away from them as I could. Now, Ms. Nelson may I see your wand please?" Alana examined Lizzy's wand and saw the last spell was over 24 hours ago and then returned it. "Sorry but I had to check and the last spell was 24 hours ago and it was Lumos. Lizzy, would you please tell Ms. Abernathy and I what happened to the last person who made you upset?" Alana asked.

"If you mean that man on the farm, one second he was there and I blinked and he was gone. They told me he was found about 100 miles away in some man's shack." Lizzy answered.

"And the two men before that?"

"They were found 100 miles away in the same shack"

"I see; it appears that if someone upsets you or makes you mad they end up far away very suddenly. I thank you for not sending Ms. Abernathy away, that would have caused so many problems and way too much paperwork for me. Ms. Abernathy you will serve one week in detention with an instructor to be decided. If there is another such infraction then you will be sent home and your wand snapped. I believe that would make the third time you were kicked out of a school, which means the only option left is public schools. Go eat lunch girls and stay as far away from each other as possible, even in class" Alana instructed.

Lizzy's first real class was History of Magic. The first thing the instructor did after calling roll was to have each student come forward and have their wand examined. When he got to Lizzy's wand, "Oh my, a Potter Special. Those are hard to come by, or so I've been told. You are one lucky young lady". The rest of the class was spent going over the goals for the class. Next up was household magic which was followed by Intro. To Magical Spells.

By the end of the day Lizzy was tired, not so much physically but mentally. Who knew there were spells to do so many things in the home, didn't those magical families do anything the old fashion way – by hand? "Next thing you know they will say they have a spell so you don't have to pull down your pants to go to the bathroom, that sounds gross." Lizzy thought as she walked to the dinning area for supper. About halfway through the meal Lizzy heard an uproar coming from across the room, it was the Abernathy girl and she was yelling at one of the instructors, something about shovels and crap.

Later that night as Lizzy was looking over her schedule for the next day, math was first followed by American History then Physical Education. After lunch the first thing was something called Communication and it was a two hour class, the last class of the day would be Social Skills. It appeared that she only had magical classes on Monday and Friday. Someone knocked on her door and when she told them to come in it was Cathy.

"Hey Lizzy, just doing my rounds and checking on all my girls to see how you made it through the first day. Any problems you need to talk about, besides Ms. Abernathy?" Cathy asked.

Lizzy told her that so far it was just confusing trying to find all the classrooms, the maps helped a lot but she wasn't used to moving from class to class yet. Then Lizzy asked about the disturbance in the dining area at supper. "Oh that, that Abernathy girls was assigned detention with the Herbology instructor and her first nigh is to help spread the fertilizer around the plants in greenhouse 3. When she objected to 'shoveling shit' she was given the option of going home or doing her detention, unfortunately she elected to do the detention so we still have to put up with her. That fertilizer is made from dragon dung and it smells really bad; it has to be mixed with other things or else it would burn the plants, well now Ms. Abernathy smells the same way. Her new roommate wouldn't even let her back in the room at first until she took a shower, not that I blame her." Cathy explained.

"Say has the Head said when you are supposed to start learning how to call an elemental? Some kids have no problem with that but some don't ever get a full-fledged elemental to appear, like me. You must be connected to Air since you're in this dorm." Cathy continued.

"Oh, I am sorry for you, an elemental can be so much fun, especially when you need someone to talk to. I know my friend Annie always helped when I was young, even if everyone thought she was made-up. I'm supposed to call her every night so she can get stronger but I had forgotten. Would you like to meet her?" Lizzy asked as Annie just came into existence.

Lizzy introduced the two to each other, but had to relay what Annie said to Cathy since she couldn't hear her. Cathy was surprised to see a 9 year old call a real elemental, an elemental that looked a lot like Lizzy. The three girls spent a few minutes talking and then Cathy said she needed to go see the rest of the girls in her section but she would check on Lizzy each night and if Lizzy needed any help with homework just to ask. After Cathy left Lizzy and Annie spent almost an hour talking, Lizzy did most of the talking, before Annie had to leave as she was getting tired.

When the second day was over and now Lizzy knew what Communications was all about, Reading, Writing, and Speech lessons. Phys Ed had been a joke, Lizzy hadn't even done enough to sweat much. These magical people were so lazy, but the instructor had said the gym would be opened at 6am for anyone who wanted to use it for a morning workout when the weather was bad. The only thing was you had to have a partner to use any of the machines or weights, but that made sense in case something happened. "Maybe I can get Cathy to go with me" Lizzy thought.

Social Skills was so boring, they would be learning how to eat correctly and how to sit and walk and dance. But the dancing was something out of the past and the music was really weird. Who cared what fork you used, a fork was a fork. Lizzy already knew how to sit and walk, she had been sitting since she was 1 and walking since she learned how to stand on her own. When Cathy stopped by Lizzy was told to be sure to set a password for the door so nobody else could get in the room. The senior sponsors and the Heads had an override password for emergencies so it was not necessary to share passwords.

Lizzy got into the habit of calling Annie every night about the same time and Annie was looking more like Lizzy every day, she was getting more solid too and could even hug Lizzy a little now. By the end of the first week Lizzy was sure that most of the magically raised girls would never make it in the real world outside of school, they were just too lazy. But Lizzy had found one other girls who might be willing to go running or exercise with her, she had asked Cathy but Cathy said she needed her beauty sleep – as if.

It was the middle of October and when Lizzy got up one morning it was snowing hard outside and there was already snow an inch deep on the ground, no running today unless she went to the gym. When Lizzy got to the gym she was surprised to see several older boys running around. A sign on the wall said that ten laps equaled one mile, so Lizzy would need to run at least 60 laps to get her 6 miles in for the day. Lizzy started her laps and was about halfway through them when she noticed the Phys Ed instructor watching her.

As Lizzy finished her 61st lap the instructor came over and told her to walk one more lap so her muscles wouldn't cramp up, he called it a "cool down lap". As she was leaving the gym to go shower, the instructor told her to see him in class that day for some special instructions. When Lizzy got to Phys Ed the instructor asked if she had any workout clothes that would be suitable for use on the machines, something like shorts and a tee? Lizzy said she did in her room and was told to wear them in the morning instead of her jogging suit. He spent an hour, after getting the others started, showing Lizzy how to use some of the machines and the safety procedures for each machine. From that day on Lizzy would do a real workout while the rest of the class just played.

Two weeks later the instructor asked Lizzy if she might be interested in joining the unofficial martial arts classes on Saturday mornings. "We don't do dangerous stuff but we have fun and it helps tone up the body and increase your endurance, besides it makes for a lot better reflexes that will come in handy later on when you start Defense classes. When he said this was an idea started by Harry and Hermione Lizzy was ready to join.

Lizzy had found out that she didn't need the stamps her parents had sent with her, she had used one to write her parents so far and she wrote at least once a week. Instead of using stamps she used "Elf Post", she gave her letters to Connie and from there they were given to Ralph, so her parents got them the same day; and her parents, mostly her mother, did the same thing but in reverse. Cathy had taken to visiting more and more and had been a real friend whenever Lizzy got upset or got lonely.

Thanksgiving week was when Lizzy's official Wedding invitation came. Inside was a note from Hermione asking Lizzy for her sizes so the appropriate dresses and robes could be ordered for Lizzy to wear to the wedding. Lizzy didn't have any idea how to get her sizes so she asked Cathy for help. Cathy said she should have already learned that spell in household magic and then showed Lizzy how to do the spell and made her practice until Lizzy could do it perfectly and without her wand. Lizzy sent Hermione the measurements and sizes that the spell produced, but why would you need to know how far it was from your ear to to your shoulder or from ear to ear across the top of your head?

Back at the Nelson house things were going very quietly. Ralph was getting bored since he wasn't allowed to do much around the house, but he did spend a lot of time visiting Peaks and one special elf named Connie. Connie kept Ralph aware of anything that went on that involved Lizzy. Lizzy hadn't had any more trouble since he had caught that other girl attacking her and had held the girl high up on a wall until the Headmistress came. Then the first trouble came, Mr. Nelson had gone outside to work in the barn as they called it when Ralph heard his name called. When Ralph got to the barn he found Mr. Nelson on the floor and he seemed in pain. Ralph used the little training he had in first-aide to immobilize the man and popped him to the house and got Mrs. Nelson. It turned out that nothing was broken but Mr. Nelson's knee and ankle were twisted and he wouldn't be walking much for a while.

That did it, Ralph got busy. If it looked weak it was made strong, if it looked broken it was repaired using elf magic. If Mr. Nelson needed to move from one place to another Ralph floated him, the doctor had said to stay off that leg and Ralph made sure he did. And when a fox got the chickens upset the fox disappeared and the chickens never had to worry about any other predators getting inside the hen house again. Ralph made sure he told Miss Lizzy about the accident and that her father was being well cared for by Ralph. Mr. Nelson tried to tell Ralph not to do some of the things but Ralph relied, "You is hurt right now, Ralph take care of you. When you better Ralph let you do what you needs to do. You tell Ralph what needs doing and Ralph do it until you better". That ended any argument since Mrs. Nelson agreed.

Thanksgiving was to be a long weekend, classes would let out at noon the day before and not resume until the following Monday morning. Lizzy wanted to go home for the holiday but it was a long way home and if her parents drove up to get her they would only have one day at home before they had to bring her back. When Lizzy mentioned her problem to Connie she was told, "You no worry, Connie fix". At lunch on the day before Thanksgiving the dinning area got a shock, an elf in starched BDUs appeared next to Lizzy and asked if Miss Lizzy was ready to go home and see her parents. The next thing Lizzy knew she was in her own living room and she could smell where her mom had already started cooking Thanksgiving dinner.

Ralph gave a loud blast on a whistle and said, "Ralph is needing attention of Miss Lizzy and her family. You is to enjoy company of each other, Ralph be fixing big meal for family, so you all stay out of Ralph's kitchen. Lunch tomorrow is to be served at 1pm and Ralph not take any argument." The next day Ralph walked into the living room wearing what was his version of a suit and told them that lunch was served and it was getting cold. When the family sat down food appeared on the table, there was the largest turkey Lizzy had ever seen and there were many different dishes to go along with it. The plates had both the Potter and the Black crests on them as did the silverware. "Would Miss Lizzy's family want this help you self or formal service?", Ralph asked. They decided that help your self was what they wanted, but Ralph did the carving.

When they told Ralph to sit down with them he almost cried, "Elves not eat big meal with those we serve, it not right." "Ralph, you sit yourself down right this minute; you are not a servant, you are family so you eat with us and I will not take any argument", Mrs. Nelson said firmly, Ralph cried but he sat down and ate with "his" family. When they were almost as stuffed as the turkey, Ralph told them to save room for dessert. All the food disappeared and the table was refilled with many different cakes and pies and a few puddings. Once they had had their fill of dessert Mrs. Nelson asked what they were going to do with all the left overs. Ralph got quiet and looked down at his feet, "Miss Lizzy's family not be mad but left over food sent to big house with many kids but not much food, kids get big meal". "What big house with lots of children?" Mr. Nelson asked and Ralph told them sign said "State Home for Children".

Lizzy said she wished she could see the looks on the kids faces, not to mention the staff's faces. Ralph said he could fix it so Miss Lizzy see faces but they not see Miss Lizzy. Lizzy found herself in the dinning room and the kids were all enjoying the big meal, the staff had surprised looks on their faces but were eating too. Ralph snapped his fingers and all of the desserts were on a table off to the side. "Miss Lizzy see them but they no see Ralph and Miss Lizzy", Ralph said. When the two returned home all three Nelsons told Ralph how proud they were of him and thanked him for reminding them that it was good to think about those who had less than they did.

Lizzy had enjoyed her visit home but it was time to return to Peaks. Ralph popped her back to her room and said if Miss Lizzy needed anything to call him or let Connie know. Lizzy was busy remembering everything that had happened over the weekend and especially the looks on her parents faces when they saw how big Annie had gotten. Lizzy had gotten another surprise over the long weekend, she had found out she could ride inside Annie while Annie flew around and with some help from Ralph nobody saw them. It was Monday night when Lizzy got the chance to talk with Cathy and compare their weekends.

A/N: Well we have caught up on what is happening to Lizzy at school. Most of this was taken from her letters to Harry and Hermione, that "Elf Post" is something else. Next up Christmas and a wedding or two. Well it seems that my Beta and helper has forgotten about the weddings for now, they will be posted as soon as "we" get them written.

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