Chapter 2 - Visits

"Hullo, Mum. Hey Dad, how are you doing today?"

There was no reaction. Her parents were just staring kind of blankly at the wall behind her. Holly lowered her eyes, she hadn't gotten used to talking to them like this yet. Absent-mindedly picking at her glove she continued.

"I turned 7 yesterday, so happy birthday to me I guess. I got some new roller skates, roller skating is my favourite, and some cute dress patterns I plan on sewing. Aunt Petunia also promised she'd look for your old school things in the attic so I can maybe get to know you better, or at least what you liked to do back then."

It went unsaid how there wasn't really anything to get to know about them now. But just thinking about them like this made her eyes burn with tears. She quickly wiped them away, no need to dwell on their condition when she couldn't do anything to help.

She stayed for an hour longer, telling them about what she had learned in school that year, how she even got into sewing thanks to her aunt wanting her to have a respectable ladylike hobby after she'd scared Petunia half to death with all the scrapes and bruises she got when she was still learning to roller skate. (Which was funny since she must have bled just as much from poking herself with needles as she did falling with her skates)

At least that's what her aunt always claimed when she asked about it, but she did notice how it helped her improve her fingers dexterity and in turn how her hand writing improved from the chicken scratch that it was before.

Eventually Holly got up, said her goodbyes and left their room. After thanking the nurse at the station for their work she hurried out of St. Mungos to the Cafe her aunt was most certainly already impatiently waiting for her. She'd stayed a little longer than she had told Petunia. Hopefully she wouldn't have to do an extra chore for the trouble.

St. Mungos felt totally different for Christmas, the walls were decorated and all the staff she met were smiling at her. While greeting her parents, she took off her hat and jacket and sat down in one of the chairs. She was still a little sweaty from ice skating with Dudley all afternoon so she had really wanted to get out of all the layers she was wearing.

She'd had a great time laughing at Dudley and his friends bumble about on the ice, slip and land on their arses. Poor Diddykins was so disgruntled that he'd demanded she help him stay upright. All that had accomplished was that he pulled her down whenever he fell due to his superior mass. Sorry, his heavy bones as uncle Vernon and Dudley would claim. But it was all in good fun, she and Dudley made jokes about it all the time.

Holly pushed the hair that had fallen in her face when she took off her hat behind her ear. It was always a mess, even more so when she had kept it longer. Now it barely hung past her ears in a messy, wavy bob, but it still went all over the place. Looking at her parents she knew exactly who she had inherited that feature from.

"Merry Christmas Mum and Dad. I knitted some scarves for you. Aunt Petunia told me not to pack them up so I'll just lay them on your table. The green one with red christmas presents on it is for you mum. The dark blue one is for you dad, I wanted to add snowflakes but it was too complicated so now it's just white dots, sorry."

Holly sheepishly scratched the back of her head at the admission. She'd spent a good while making them and was pretty proud of how they turned out besides the snowflake debacle. Hopefully one of the nurses or healers would see them and help her parents put them on. She felt silly giving them scarves when they never really had the chance to wear them, but she couldn't think of anything else, nor did she have the means to acquire them.

"I read in your charms book that you can animate the patterns on clothing but obviously I can't do that without a wand. All the magics sound so interesting, I can't wait to actually perform them and not just read about the Theory. Also mum, you have really pretty handwriting. I wish mine looked even half as good. But all your notes have been a great help."

And she wasn't exaggerating. All the notes about wand movement tips and correct pronunciation with phonetic spelling was a godsend. Though Aunt Petunia had forbidden her from actually practising since she was worried about Holly accidentally doing magic with no way of reverting whatever she did. Just in case.

She had fought with aunt about that until she was told that *magic is dangerous and should be practised in a safe environment, even your parents with a finished education couldn't stop whatever happened to them*.

That had shut her right up and she knew the fight was lost. At least she could continue reading her mum's school books, just that would already be a huge advantage.

She stayed for a little while longer just talking at them.

"Anyways, I got to go. Dudley wants to watch some show on the telly later and if he's late he'll be mad at me for days. I'll visit again soon. Love you, bye!"

"Happy Birthday mum, how are you today? I got you some roses."

Presenting the flowers with a smile she took out the little vase the nurse had given her, got some water and placed them on the night table by her mum's bed.

"I didn't want to get you lilies cause I imagine you would always have gotten those for your birthdays."

It had been almost 2 years since she found out about her parents' condition and she still only knew her mothers birthday thanks to her aunt. But she knew practically nothing about her dad, apparently wizarding hospitals didn't keep those kinds of records. Sounded like rubbish to her, but from what she'd heard about magicals so far didn't get the impression that they liked following logic.

Like, why have the entrance to the school train in one of the busiest train stations in the world? Not to mention that students from all over Britain had to travel to London first just to travel back where they might be coming from. Granted they had almost instantaneous modes of transport, but why not travel to the nearby town directly? Maybe it was a tradition from when those didn't exist. And it was probably a good way to guarantee everyone arriving at the same time for the feast. Though, what would happen if someone missed the train?

"Do you remember how I wasn't allowed to practise wand magic? Well, ever since then I've been reading into the rune elective and I finally performed magic deliberately with it!"

It hadn't been anything marvellous, she'd just made a pebble float for a bit, but it was progress nonetheless. Holly had practised with the rune carving tool for months before she finally noticed the subtle warmth of something flowing into and building in her hands, whenever she was carving, like it was described in the book. The only problem was that there seemed to be some kind of blockage that prevented her magic from leaving her body.

Holly didn't know if that was normal, as the book mentioned nothing about it. With lots of practice feeling out her magic, she had found small gaps in the blockage though. Just pushing into them didn't bring any results, only once she tried focusing small amounts of magic with pinpoint accuracy did she manage to explore the gaps.

If Holly had to describe them, then a labyrinth was the closest she could think of. She had to painstakingly find the right pathways in every gap, but if she took the wrong "turn" and hit a dead end she'd have to start all over again. Not to mention that many of the gaps didn't lead anywhere and just a couple of them were an actual path through the blockage.

Then it had taken her another couple of weeks to direct her magic (how brilliant was that? She had actual magic and could use it) into the carving tool and produce working runestones.

At least they would have worked if she didn't fudge up the runes all the time.

The book also hadn't mentioned that it'd hurt so much to force the magic out of her hands, maybe it was due to the blockage and it'd go away naturally over time, but Holly couldn't wait that long. It had progressively gotten easier and hurt less the more she practised, so she wasn't overly concerned. SHE COULD DO MAGIC!

Once Holly wasn't distracted by the pain anymore and had enough experience under her belt she'd managed to carve a triplet constellation forming a triangle of Ehwaz, which looked like the capital letter M, to symbolise transportation and movement. Uruz for freedom, in this case the freedom of gravity. It reminded her of a crooked table . And lastly Gebo, looking like a big X, representing balance and partnership to make the previous two work together.

There were a variety of runes with similar meanings and interpretations that could work to achieve what she'd been trying to do, but she'd had a feeling that this combination would bring about the intended effect.

She'd had to direct her magic into the finished rune sequence for a bit to charge and activate it. The pebble tried to float out of her hand the moment there was enough magic to sustain the runes effect which was rather impractical. There was no mention of a way to keep magic in the runes without them or a way to activate them at a later time in the material Holly had found in her mum's old trunk. She'd have to read ahead into the later year curriculum if they had anything or work on something herself if she wanted to utilise runes to make anything with practical use.

It was kind of disappointing that Ancient Runes was only offered as an elective for third years and above. Runes was by far her favourite and she couldn't wait to learn more runic languages beyond the elder futhark that Hogwarts started out with.

Besides runes, potions was the second most interesting one to read about. Especially because her mum had kept an entire journal on the experiments she did with her friend Sev. All the jokes and their interactions in the writing made her mum seem so much more alive than just whatever notes were written for the other subjects. Potions also reminded her of learning to cook with her aunt, using super specific instructions to mix ingredients a certain way and up with something yummy if you did everything right.

Though potions were decidedly not yummy, even if Sev had tried to find a way to remedy that issue.

Since she could only learn the dry theory for the rest though, she focused on her normal schoolwork, runes and whatever struck her fancy that day. There had to be something left over to learn at school after all. And of course she made enough time to play with Dudley and his friends, skate and spend time with aunt Petunia sewing.

Holly was saddened to find out her mother hadn't taken care of magical creatures. She loved animals and all the different creatures that were mentioned in Defense sounded so intriguing that she had wanted to learn more about them. Only with no way of getting books about them she'd have to wait till Hogwarts.

Snapping out of her musings Holly continued telling her parents about her magic studies and what she had been up to since her last visit. She left once her father was taken away for physical therapy. Those were far and in between, Holly had overheard one of the healers blame some stingy goblins, though she had no idea what goblins had to do with anything. So she was happy to depart and let them get to it.

Stumbling out of a room and onto her hands and knees Holly took a second to catch her breath. Her stomach was churning and she was close to throwing up. Tears threatened to spill out of her eyes when she finally looked up. She had been at school and the next moment here in this sterile looking hallway. How had she gotten here? Even if she had really wanted to not be at school anymore, this isn't what she had in mind.

Getting up and looking around Holly noticed the signs on the wall marking the way to different areas with names that she remembered being wards in St. Mungos. She'd apparently come from a room called apparition point, whatever that was. Her heart soaring with relief she rushed in the direction of her parents' room, past confused nurses and when she collapsed in the chair by her mum's bedside all Holly could do was start sobbing.

The week had started so well with finally making a successful rune matrix in a triangle form, with a triplet constellation in each corner. One for the float function, another for charging and holding magic and lastly an activator and deactivator.

She had been so ecstatic that she didn't even question when the new transfer student Amy had asked her out to ice cream. Ever since the scar incident the girls in her class and her had a kind of truce, they didn't interact beyond the bare minimum and everything was fine. So Holly hadn't expected to make friends with the new girl.

Amy had been really nice, they'd talked about their favourite books, hobbies and shared some ice cream. When it was time to leave Holly had even been kissed on the cheek and thanked for the good time by a bashful Amy. Life was looking up, she was progressing with her magic and had made her first female friend in years.

Of course it had all come crumbling down the next day when she had gone to greet Amy during lunch break who was sitting with some of the other girls. Amy's face had gone from happy to outraged the moment she spotted Holly. She'd started screaming, calling Holly disgusting for tricking her into it and other words she didn't know the meaning of. Joined by the other girls in the verbal abuse, Amy had gotten brave and pushed her over.

Holly was so confused and hurt that she'd just ran away, which is when she ended up here. Had Amy confused her for a boy and had had a crush on her or something? Sure, Holly had shorter hair than most girls, but she looked nothing like the boys in class. Maybe that had been the appeal? That she looked like a really pretty boy with long hair.

There was a tap on her arm that startled her and made her look up. It was her mother, smiling and holding out a pen for her to take. Slowly reaching out and taking it, she couldn't help but notice her mum looking at her with sad green eyes, before they became unfocused again and the smile dropped off her face.

Clutching the pen to her chest she tried to suppress the tears, Holly was a big girl and wouldn't cry over spilled milk. All that ended up doing was making her bawl even harder when she couldn't hold it in anymore.

It took her quite a while to calm down. Since she had buried her face in her arms her gloves were filthy with snot and tears now. Holly grimaced, and headed to the adjacent bathroom to clean herself up. After splashing some water in her face and wiping the water and snot off she felt much better.

Now to go look for a nurse to ask for help in contacting her Aunt to get picked up. All her things were still at school after all. She was sure there'd be disciplinary action taken by the teachers. Hopefully she wouldn't get detention for leaving during school hours.

In the end nothing much had happened, it was declared a misunderstanding that led to some bullying and no one was punished. What a load of rubbish, honestly. Though Aunt Petunia did give her a piece of her mind when they'd gotten home for worrying her by doing magic in public and just disappearing.

From then on she was branded as some kind of deviant, the other girls refused to talk or even work with her in class and honestly, Holly was glad for it. She didn't want to be friends with such shallow people anyways. She had done nothing wrong and was singled out for being a little different.

She'd be turning 11 soon and couldn't wait to finally go to Hogwarts. They'd just left the Zoo they had gone to for Dudley's birthday trip when he'd demanded they buy more gifts since he'd gotten less than last year. As much as she loved him, Dudley really was getting spoiled rotten by his parents.

The zoo had been brilliant, Holly had never been this close to such exotic animals. The penguins had been so cute with their waddling that she had squealed. Dudley had been so embarrassed that he'd ran ahead of them to keep his distance from his "annoying girly cousin" as he'd called it.

They had watched a crocodile getting fed and it was brutal. It was a stark reminder to have a healthy amount of respect for any animal. Holly excused herself to go to the loo afterwards, since she'd had a weird feeling of being watched the whole time she was in the reptile house.

When the others finally emerged as well Dudley had complained that the snakes were really boring. She felt bad for the animals in there to be honest, locked in tiny glass cases and getting gawped at by people all day. So she'd just patted him on the back sadly and led him to the souvenir shop. Being reminded of herself and her parents she had bought a small statue of a sleeping pair of lions and their cub that was playing with the fathers tail. Of course that was when Dudley had remembered about the missing gifts and decided they had to leave right then to go buy them.

Not wanting to have to go along, she'd asked to be dropped off by St. Mungos so she could visit her parents while they went shopping.

Holly pushed open the door to her parents room and was struck dumb. There was someone already here sitting by her mother's bed, not a healer or nurse, but an actual visitor. A smile spread on her face and she skipped over happily. It was a man wearing all black, with greasy black hair that was actually longer than her own. When he turned to look at her she was met with a large, hooked nose and a dark stare that would have discouraged her if he wasn't the first other visitor for her parents she'd ever met.

"Who are you?"

When all Holly got as a response was a sneer she continued politely, hopefully not laying it on too thickly.

"Please excuse my rudeness, I'm Holly. May I ask your name? Were you a friend of my mum's?"

She thought he'd ignore her again so she was surprised when a soft voice answered her.

"I am Severus Snape, Potions Master of Hogwarts. And yes, I… was a friend of your mother's."

He was a Hogwarts professor? Holly had so many questions she wanted to ask, before she was distracted by another detail.

"Severus, as in Sev? The best friend mum experimented on potions with, that Sev?"

Sev glared at her before he responded.

"Yes, but to you that is Professor Snape or just Professor is that understood?"

"Yes Sir!"

What followed was an awkward silence with them just looking at each other. Eventually Holly dragged another chair over from the table to the other side of her mother's bed.

"So, how is teaching at Hogwarts?" She asked tentatively.

A simple "Dreadful" took all the wind out of her sails.

"Oh, I see" Putting her hands in her lap and looking down Holly went quiet.

There was a quiet sigh. "It wouldn't be so bad if not for all the bumbling dunderheads not giving the art of potion making the respect it deserves. The students seldomly think about why certain steps are necessary or how the properties of the ingredients combine to make the magic happen."

Holly thought she could understand. If no one appreciated all the work and thought she put into her runes projects, then she'd be decidedly disgruntled about it as well. Though she preferred people not knowing they were hers and instead soak in the happiness her creations caused. Like last Christmas when she'd made a bunch of pebbles glow different colours and soar around the childrens ward. The laughter and cheery atmosphere was all the recognition she needed, even if it did get the staff in a tizzy. Holly would love to do something more special in the future when she could finally integrate charms with the runes, she'd already figured out how that worked. Professor Snape didn't need to know that she'd done magic outside of school though.

"I understand how that would be aggravating. I was helping aunt Petunia cook and almost ruined the roast by not paying attention and using cinnamon instead of cumin. She threw a fit and stopped me in time."

"Please, never compare cooking with potions ever again." Professor Snape's deadpan expression made Holly grimace.

"How is living with her, with Petunia?"

"Well, I have to do chores for pocket money which is fair enough. While she spoils Dudley wherever she can she keeps me at an arm's length most of the time. I think she's afraid of magic and that I'd end up like mum. But she knows that I have to be able to defend myself so doesn't discourage me from learning from mum's old school books. Please excuse my rambling, I don't usually do that!"

Great first impression Holly, way to go.

"It's… fine, Lily used to be just as excitable at your age. But I'll have to leave now, lots of exams to fail yet." With a nasty smirk he stood up and began gliding towards the door with his cloak billowing behind. That was so neat, she'd have to look into how he did that.

Scrambling out of her seat Holly gave a slight bow

"Thank you for visiting my mum, may I write to you about her in the future?"

Opening the door professor Snape glanced over his shoulder and with a quiet

"You may." disappeared down the corridor.

Holly released a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. That could definitely have gone worse. Now she just hoped she didn't fudge it up in the future. She couldn't wait to finally meet someone who'd know her dad. Holly knew practically nothing about him.

With that thought in mind Holly sat back down, she still had some catching up to do with her parents after all.