Chapter 13

Elle followed close behind Isidre the next morning, as the group of first years wove their way around the towering trunks of the forbidden forest. Rose had protested loudly when she had first realized where they were going, but Albus had pulled her aside and spoken a few terse words that no one had heard. Since then, she had kept her silence, though her disapproval was apparent on her face. Elle knew where they were going, but the rest looked upon the small clearing with curiosity plain on their face. They all took a seat to rest in a loose circle in the center, all eyes on Scorpius, who was carrying a bulky bookbag.

Elle was sitting directly across from Scorpius, so she had a plain view of his face. He looked slightly better rested than he had the previous day at the Quidditch match, but not by much. The dark purple bruises left by a sleepless night's heavy hand traced the underside of his eyes and the hollows of his cheeks. He was pale, paler than usual. Elle couldn't be sure, but it looked like he had lost some weight as well. She assumed these changes had been happening over the course of several weeks, but they had passed so gradually that she hadn't noticed. She sat directly before him, and consciously compared the boy she saw now to the one she'd welcomed back to Hogwarts from the holidays – it was grim.

Scorpius started speaking, his voice quiet. "Before I start, I want to apologize for my family" Scorpius said tiredly. "Don't apologize" Albus cut in, crossing his arms "no one gets to choose their parents." Scorpius gave him a small nod, but grimaced and continued "my grandfather, if you don't know, was a deatheater. He is a blood racist, arrogant, snobbish fool." Rose clapped her hand over her mouth. She had never heard someone speak about their family like this, Elle thought. She looked around the circle until her eyes rested on Isidre. He was staring at the snow in front of him, his hands in small fists. The words he'd said about his own grandfather's death, only a few feet from where they were now, echoed in Elle's head. 'Good riddance.'

"No one chooses their family, Scorpius" Elle said now, repeating Albus's assurance, but looking at Isidre instead. He peeked up at her from his lash line and offered her a weak smile. Scorpius cleared his throat, ready to go on. "I told all of you on the train that Elle wrote to me about her mother's necklace. Isidre thought it might be an ancient rune. As soon as I read that, everything clicked. My family has an heirloom that has been passed down through the generations for nearly a thousand years." With that, Scorpius pulled the object out of his bookbag. It was a large, leather-bound book of untold age. As the young students craned their necks to get a better look, shivers of revulsion ran through the group. There was something off about the cover.

"There's something not right about that book" Sam said, looking a bit green. Rose nodded, scooting back a little bit from the circle. Scorpius agreed. "This book is laced with dark magic. The cover is a mix of ancient runes and old English. It's a written language no one can read anymore. But the title is remembered by the Malfoy family." His lips were pursed into a thin line. As he lifted a finger to stroke the cover, Elle saw that his hands were shaking. "Roughly, in the English we speak today, this book is called The Noble Pedigree." It traces the pureblood families in Britain from the years of the early 1000s."

"Er.. Scorpius" Albus cut in, "I know that purebloods are a nasty business, but a family tree isn't actually dark magic. And what does this have to do with runes?" Scorpius sighed "the oldest wizarding families in Britain have ancient runes to represent them, back when they were more like clans than nuclear families. Some of the old families had them translated to normal English letters, like Slytherin's locket, which I'm sure most of us have seen at the war museum on Grimmauld place." Rose, Albus, and Ruth nodded in agreement to this. Scorpius continued "but some families kept the rune. Malfoy has a rune, it's engraved into the mantlepiece of every hearth at Malfoy manor, where my grandfather lives. This book" he said, holding it up again "has a record of every family that ever had a rune. Most of them have died out since then, and of the living ones, most have abandoned their rune. Some don't even know their family had a rune. It is a well-kept pureblood secret. A symbol of superiority."

Elle's head was already swimming. A family rune? Her friends had gently broke it to her in the library that her mother might have come from an old wizarding family, but if she had been wearing a rune, this would be an undeniable truth. "Can I see the book?" Elle asked, reaching out. Scorpius shook his head. "I'm sorry Elle, I can't let you open it. I'm not sure you could." Everyone looked at Scorpius oddly at that statement. "I told you this is a book of dark magic" Scorpius said. "There's only one way to open it. If someone who isn't pure blood tries, they'll be cursed. They might even die. Purebloods guard their secrets." He said grimly.

Everyone watched in shock as Scorpius pulled out a pocketknife. He laid the large book on the snow in front of him. Then, to the gasps and cries of his friends, he lifted his sleeve and cut open a newly healing scab, about three inches long. He gritted his teeth and pressed the bleeding arm onto the black leather. The pattern stamped onto the cover started to swirl around his arm. Light started leaking out of the book. Finally, after what felt like decades but was probably only a minute or two, the book opened of its own accord. Scorpius pulled his arm back gingerly, wrapping the bleeding cut in a bandage he produced from his pocket. "If the blood you offer isn't pure enough, the book won't open, and you'll get cursed." He looked to the book with hatred in his eyes. "This is a Malfoy family heirloom. This is my legacy." The silence in the clearing was all encompassing. No one knew what to say.

Finally, Elle knelt forward to examine the book, being careful not to touch it. She wanted to tell Scorpius that he should have never done this for her, it was too dangerous, and it was hurting him. But he'd already done it, and the book was open. She needed to know what he'd found. "The book opens automatically to the Malfoy page" Scorpius explained. He traced his finger over the symbol drawn intricately on the top right corner of the page. Elle, upon close examination, could see the similarities with the symbol on her mother's necklace. Scorpius flipped through more of the thick parchment.

"All of the so-called 'sacred twenty-eight' are in here." Elle nodded, though she didn't understand. "You can see here" Scorpius said, tracing the line next to the symbol "that every family name is right next to the crest. The next few lines describe the family, their motto, if they have one, their founders, that kind of thing. After that they get into the bloodline. The book is so long it took me a while to find the right page, but here is your symbol Elle." Scorpius stopped his page flipping, resting on a page towards the back of the book. Elle frowned, studying the symbol. It was definitely a match for her mother's necklace. But something was off about the page. She couldn't place it, until Scorpius pointed it out. "This page has no family name" he said, tracing the blank space where the name should be. "I don't know why. I'm sorry Elle, but that's all I can tell you. You're a part of an ancient family, but you have no name."

Elle sat back in her original spot in the circle. The forbidden forest rose up and around her, and as she looked to the treetops, she had the curious feeling that she was shrinking. "Elle" Rose said from her left. Elle didn't turn to look. She was dimly aware of Rose laying a hand on her shoulder. Ruth soon joined in from the other side. But Elle couldn't feel them. She was shrinking so fast the world was already far away. The treetops were looming above her, higher and higher, until she was sure she was seeing them the way an ant would.

"I'd like to be left alone" Elle said at last. She didn't acknowledge her friends protests. She didn't see their faces. She was an ant. Eventually, the clearing was quiet. She lay down, her eyes never leaving the foliage above her. Suddenly, her view was occluded. She raised her arms, meaning to shoo away whichever of her friends it was that had been sent to comfort her. Scorpius was always the one who knew what to say. She realized, when the figure about her whinnied, that it wasn't human. Out of her reverie, she sat upright, scrambling to get her back against a tree. The thestrals were back in the clearing, one of them looking at her curiously. Cautiously, she outstretched a hand to pet its muzzle, but the thestral shied away. Elle frowned. A voice, a human voice, from across the clearing called out. "They don't know you well enough yet. They need some time before they let you pet them." Elle turned to see Isidre, who was stroking the back of a thestral with one hand.

"I don't want advice" Elle said, venom in her voice. A very big part of her still didn't feel real. None of this was real. "I know" said Isidre. "I don't have any to give. I just thought you might want to see the thestrals again." She noticed the leather sack at his feet. He'd called them here with meat again. Elle tried to smile but found she couldn't manage it. Instead, she sat, tucking her knees into her chest. "Thanks" she said quietly, as she watched the thestrals come up and nuzzle Isidre affectionately, before they quietly dispersed into the gloom of the woods again. Isidre shrugged. "Dinner?" he asked her. Elle nodded.

Elle tried her hardest to act normally for the next few weeks. She attended all her classes, did all of her work in preparation for her upcoming exams, spent time with her friends in the library, and even continued to explore the school grounds. But nothing was the same. Nothing was the same, because her mother was from an ancient, ugly family, and Elle was too. Nothing was the same, because Elle wasn't sure her mother was in danger anymore. Maybe her mother was the danger. The hate she'd started to feel when she'd first found out her mother was magic started to bubble up again. Elle welcomed the feeling like an old friend. She relished in its lovely cruelty.

None of her friends ever brought up the day in the clearing again. But she could feel the unspoken words hanging about her head. She knew that they would be happier if they could just focus on their first year of classes, like normal eleven-year-olds. All the other students around her seemed so cheerful and innocent. Elle felt enormous guilt. She was drowning, and she was bringing everyone down with her. Slowly, she started to pull away. It was easier that way. She reasoned that her friends would be better off if without her.

She had felt her friends pulling at her, begging her to come back to them for a while now. But she was walking on the other side of a dream. She was there, physically, but mentally she was very far away. She had taken the feelings she had had in the clearing and shrunk them up until they were nothing. She had locked them in a little box and buried them in her mind. The only side effect is that she was now buried away as well. It was better to feel nothing at all than to confront the hard emotions stewing in her chest. It would take a miracle to bring me back at this point, Elle thought to herself. Soon they'll give up. The thought twisted in her stomach like a knife and she smiled in grim satisfaction.

The miracle came in late March, and the miracle was Ruth Feng raising her voice. The entire time that Elle had known her, Ruth had not spoken more than a decibel above a whisper. And Ruth was screaming at her. It was late evening, and Elle and Ruth had the Ravenclaw dorm to themselves. She had been sitting on the windowsill, absentmindedly petting Cat, her thoughts somewhere else again. "Elle. ELLE" Ruth repeated, making Elle jump out of her skin. For a second, she was back on earth. "LISTEN. TO. ME." Ruth yelled, her voice breaking. There were tears in her eyes.

"Okay" Elle said softly. "I'm listening." "Why are you doing this?" Ruth asked. Her normally pale face was blotchy and red. Elle blinked twice. "Doing what?" she asked, her voice started to feel far away again. She turned to look back out the window, but Ruth was there now, pulling her face to look her in the eyes. "Don't leave again" Ruth begged, "don't you dare. I've been so lonely." Elle looked at her in confusion. Ruth was so close to her face now that their foreheads were almost touching. Her eyes were a deep dark brown, and they were drowning. Elle frowned. Only she was supposed to be drowning.

"Elle. Please" Ruth said, her whole mouth trembling in that awful exaggerated frown that you get when you're trying not to cry. "Please, Elle. Come back. I've missed you." Elle wanted to look away, but Ruth was unblinking. She could feel the roar of blood in her ears, rushing up against the dam. It was going to buckle. She had to look away, or everything would spill over. Ruth still did not blink. Elle did not look away.

"It hurts too much" Elle sobbed, the hot tears choking her throat. Ruth let out a gasp, and then they were hugging, and crying, and even laughing a little bit at the dramatic absurdity of it all. "You can be sad" Ruth said finally, her voice thick from tears. "Just be here. I don't want to lose you, Elle." Elle hiccupped once and nodded, sniffling. "I'll try" she said.

Elle slept better that night that she had in weeks. The next morning, she waited for Ruth before she headed to breakfast.