Chapter 10

Elle had meant to go back to the Ravenclaw dorm that night, but when she'd made it to the stairs, they seemed insurmountable. She didn't want to walk through the warm common room, full of students chatting and studying the night away. She didn't want to crawl up to her bed and try to cry quietly enough that the other girls wouldn't hear. Curfew was fast approaching, however. Elle decided to do something that she hadn't done in a very long time. Something she hadn't done since her first night at the Leaky Cauldron in fact. Elle decided to become invisible.

Her disillusionment charm was stronger than ever, now that she had a wand and some training under her belt. Elle roamed the halls until near midnight. She could feel the pile up of thoughts in the back of her mind, crowding her brain and threatening to spill over. She sidestepped Goyle easily on the fifth floor, standing silently in an alcove where she could've sworn a suit of armor should be. She bypassed Peeves farther along, who appeared to be polishing all of the handles of nearby doors with shoeshine.

Finally, without really meaning to, Elle found herself in the owlery, a place in the castle she had never been. The moon was up high at this point, and most of the owls were out, either delivering letters or hunting. Still, there were soft hoots as she entered. She dusted most of the owl droppings off of a window ledge, and finally sat, tucking her knees beneath her chin. She perched there, trying to mull over the small things that had happened today, if only to put off confronting The Big Thing that was thudding dulling against the back of her skull.

She found out that detention wasn't half bad. Gryffindor had won their first Quidditch match of the season. Louis had yelled at her over something called O.W.L.s, and she'd had lunch with Scorpius. She was reminded that she was hungry with that thought. Hurriedly, to quiet her growling stomach she moved on. Albus had lied to everyone about his homework. Why? Because she didn't want to see his Dad, Elle thought. She recognized the danger of thinking of Albus's Dad a moment too late and tried desperately to find another subject to latch on to, but it was no use. The Big Thing had shot up to the forefront of her mind, and there was no more escaping it.

Her mother was most likely a witch. Harry Potter didn't know who she was. Elle herself couldn't remember anything about the only place she'd ever called home. Most importantly, her mother had been magic, and her mother had chosen to leave her behind. With magic, you could do almost anything. But her mother hadn't even tried to bring Elle. Bitter tears starting carving rivulets down Elle's invisible cheek. All this time she had thought that her mother had been out there, somewhere, helpless. But her mother wasn't helpless. She had magic. All of a sudden, Elle wasn't so sure she wanted her mother to be found at all.

November passed Elle by as if she were a passive observer and not an active participant. She had shrugged off her friend's questioning, and was now isolating herself, mountains of schoolwork before her. She finished every essay a week before it was due. She practised incantations until her voice went hoarse. She read every book she could find that was even tangentially related to her classes. All this, she did so that she could sink into her bed every night, too exhausted to even think about her mother. Some nights, it even worked.

It was a cold weekend in December now. Elle was curled around the base of a giant tree on the bounds of the forbidden forest. The quiet peace was still as enticing to her as it had been the first time she'd neared it, but she was still too weary to cross it's border. She was reading a giant book on herbology and was picking her way through a particularly challenging chapter on magic fungi when Scorpius approached her. "I'm reading, Scorpius" Elle called out, turning away from him "I'm busy." Scorpius ignored her and sat next to her on the roots of the giant tree, his nose and cheeks pink from the cold.

"We need to talk" Scorpius said after a quiet moment. "There's nothing to talk about" Elle said, holding her book up higher over her face. "Bullshit" Scorpius replied. The swear word made Elle involuntarily lower her book for a moment in shock, and Scorpius met her eyes. "You told Albus there's something going on with your family, and I saw you with his Dad. I know Harry Potter is an auror. I saw you sign up to stay at the castle over Christmas holidays on Friday." Elle scowled. She didn't want everyone in her business. She wanted to sink into her pain, and soak around in its immensity. It can be so deliciously lovely to hurt yourself sometimes.

"You wouldn't understand" Elle said stiffly, trying to turn away and return to her book. Elle could feel Scorpius looking at her unblinkingly, but she refused to meet his gaze. "You don't think" he finally said softly "that I know what it feels like to love and hate your parents at the same time?" The trunks of the great trees around them rose to the sky, and the layers and layers of dead foliage were still grouped around their edges, where evergreens and big thick branches had prevented drifts of snow to form. The result was a stagnancy of noise, so that Scorpius' words seemed to hang in the air between them instead of echo itself into oblivion. Elle turned to look at him finally, meeting those words like a slap in the face.

Elle's story was told slowly at first, and then all at once, the worlds tumbling out with growing urgency. Scorpius sat in silence and listened, until he was sure that Elle was done. "I don't want to find her anymore" Elle finally said, pausing to breathe for what felt like the first time in a while. Scorpius chose his words carefully as he replied: "You're being unfair." Elle looked at him incredulously, already regretting having confided in him. Scorpius seemed to correctly read her face, because his next words were harsher "You are being unfair, and you know it Elle. You still don't know why she left. She might've had a very good reason. If she was magic, haven't you considered the trouble she's in is also magic? And that's why she never found you."

Elle sighed. She felt put out and defeated. Of course, she'd thought of that, eventually, but she hadn't wanted to consider it. Because it was much easier to hate her mother and be hurt than it was to consider the complexity of the thought that her mother had hurt her because she loved her. It would make her feel guilty and conflicted, to hate a hate that came from love. She didn't say any of this out loud, but Scorpius seemed to not need to hear it. He put his hand on her arm gently. "Let's go back to the castle" he said. "It's well cold out here."

Elle hadn't needed to ask Scorpius to pass the story along to her friends, to save her from repeating it. He had just done it. Though Elle hadn't spoken much about the subject again, she had warmed up to her friends. It was the day before Christmas break when Rose thumped a large folder onto the table in the library that the young students frequented. "Alright Elle" she said, "I've read the archive of the Daily Prophet going back five years, and there are no reports of magical disappearances similar to your mother's." Elle looked up from her astronomy chart incredulously. "Wha-" Elle started to say before Rose cut her off. "Don't ask me what I've been doing. I've been trying to help. You haven't given us much to go off though." Elle looked around the table to all her friends, who were nodding in agreement. "I've been looking up memory charm reversal spells with Scorpius" Albus said, "but they're a bit tricky. Most say that to get it right it has to be the one who cast the charm in the first place who reverses it." "We've all been reading about different things to try and help" Sam agreed, pulling out a wad of maps of the London underground out of his bookbag. My Dad thought I was mad and I wrote him for these."

Elle was so touched she didn't know what to say. She just smiled, hoping to convey her gratefulness that way. "There's one part I didn't tell Scorpius about properly" she said, pulling out a scrap piece of parchment. "My mom's necklace, I mentioned it, but I didn't draw it out for you. Mr. Potter seemed to think it was important, because he didn't let me leave until he'd made sure the sketch that he'd made of the symbol was right. I reckon that's our best bet." Sam seemed to be opening his mouth to say, 'why didn't you just say that in the first place', but Ruth kicked him from under the table, and he closed his mouth again.

"Brilliant" said Albus, smiling. First thing when we get back, we'll take out every book we can find about wizarding symbols and see if we can find a match" he said, peering at the odd-looking necklace Elle had drawn crudely on the parchment. "I wish you'd just have told Flitwick that you wanted to come stay with us" Rose added "we always spend a week at our Nan and Grandad's place. There's so many of us there, I reckon half of the adults wouldn't even realize there's an extra kid. And it's Albus's birthday on the 29th, so there'll be cake then." Elle smiled, but shook her head "nah, I'm looking forward to the break. I want to get finished with 'Hogwarts, A History' finally, and I'll need peace and quiet for that." Rose shrugged. Elle kept to herself that mostly the reason she'd rejected the offer was because she wasn't ready to see the happy Weasley family. She missed her quiet Christmases with her mum a little too much.

Before she knew it, Elle was waving her friends off to the train station in Hogsmeade. After Sam had run back to grab his forgotten jumper and Elle had said goodbye again, she turned to face the now eerily empty castle. She let the smile fall from her face. It would be a long and lonely break, she thought gloomily to herself.

The next morning Elle was surprised to find that the four big tables in the grand hall had been replaced with a small table in the center of the room. McGonagall was sitting at its head, daintily eating a buttered crumpet. "Good morning Elle" she said, dabbing her mouth with a napkin. Elle mumbled her return greeting, all too aware of the curious faces peering at her from around the table. It was uncommon for a headmistress to know a first-year student's name. Elle took her place and scanned the room. There were maybe 20 kids eating total, most of them older students. There seemed to be only one other student around her age that had stayed for the winter holidays, a small Hufflepuff boy that she didn't recognize – he wasn't in her cohort.

Still, Elle was feeling brave today. The prospect of staying by herself in the library all day was appealing, but she had already finished all of her ongoing assignments. Plus, last night had been a heavy snowfall and she was itching to try and charm a snowball. She'd seen James Potter bewitch a snowball to follow his friend Dafydd around the herbology greenhouses with great success, and she reckoned the charm couldn't be too hard.

"Hey!" Elle said, chasing after the Hufflepuff who was heading back to his dorm, shoulders hunched. He hadn't said a word at breakfast. The boy turned towards her, confused. "Are you in first year as well?" she asked, slightly breathless. "Yeah" the unknown boy said, still sounding surprised that Elle was speaking to him. "Well, my name's Elle" Elle continued "and I was wondering if… well…" Elle stuttered, suddenly feeling quite shy, "Do you want to come and have a snowball fight with me" she blurted out, blushing. The boy scratched his head uncertainly. His hair was tightly cropped, so she could see his ears turning red. "Sure" he said finally, cracking a small smile. Elle grinned. "Okay! Meet me near the front doors in five minutes, I've just got to run and get my hat and mittens."

Through the course of the late morning and early afternoon, Elle discovered quite a few things. Firstly, the mystery Hufflepuff's name was Isidre Clockwise, and he was very nice once she got to know him. Elle had a feeling he hadn't made many friends at Hogwarts. She also found out that bewitching snowballs was harder than it looked. Coincidently, she also found out that the sensation of a snowball zooming straight down the back of your own jumper was a decidedly unpleasant feeling. Finally, the two first years traipsed back to the castle, exhausted from their day of fun.

Elle sat next to Isidre at dinner, who was downright chatty once he warmed up to you. His favourite subject was Herbology, and Elle had made the mistake of telling him about the book she'd just finished on magical fungi. As they were leaving the hall, Elle shot over her shoulder "same time tomorrow? I'm going to look up that snowball charm tonight, I think I can perfect it with a few more hours practice?" Isidre smiled widely at Elle, looking like he could barely believe it. "Sure" he shrugged, trying and failing to seem nonchalant. He practically floated down the hall to the Hufflepuff dorm. Elle looked at his retreating form, bemused. She didn't know why he was so surprised that she wanted to hang out with him. He was quite nice.

Elle went to bed happily. This winter break might not end up being so lonely after all, she thought to herself. Cat was purring contentedly next to her face, seeming to agree. Things weren't perfect, not with her mother still gone, but things were better than they'd been when she was trying to bear it all alone. For the first time in a long time Elle let herself remember the words her mother often said to her as she tucked her into bed "Good night moon, have a good dream, goodnight Elle, my lovely moonbeam."