Chapter two
Elle was running.
There was something about the thrill of it all – the ache in her chest with every shaky breath, the cyclical, rhythmic, almost soothing nature of cadence, the tired stretch of muscle. There was a satisfaction to beating her previous times, to eking out another kilometer on the revolving track of the treadmill before collapsing in exhausted defeat. It was a thrill.
Okay, so maybe it wasn't as good a flying. But Elle firmly believe that nothing was as good as flying. Unfortunately, flying hadn't been an option. Elle was not allowed to leave her London flat, where she had lived all summer with an amiable, if slightly overbearing, retired auror, Miss Goldstein. Once a day, accompanied by two juniors aurors who likely had pulled the short straw in rounds, Elle went for a long walk around the city. For the rest of the waking hours, Elle was not allowed to leave the confines of the high-rise building where her flat resided. The aurors had taken to calling her Rapunzel, and nickname that, once explained by the muggle-born apprentices, everyone seemed to take up. Elle quietly thought that a better nickname would have been 'Fido', since she likened her daily sanctioned exercise to that of a dog's.
The only solace that Elle had found, other than her usual comfort in dusty old books (of which Miss Goldstein thankfully had many), was the gym. Elle had taken up a strict new regime, starting off her mornings with a treadmill run, and cutting up her afternoons with push-ups, pull-ups, and any other movements Elle could remember from her Quidditch dry-land training. The double workouts, combined with the long evening walks, had brought about a change in Elle.
She had taken a grim satisfaction in watching her skin stretch and bulge in new ways. Her arms, which had once been wiry, more bone than flesh, had now risen and fallen in peaks and valleys of muscle. Her thighs now grew and shrunk in turn as she took a step, different muscles flexing and relaxing visibly as she moved around. She had also, somehow, grown taller still. She towered over the tiny Miss Goldstein and had even overtaken many of the young aurors who accompanied her on her walks.
Miss Goldstein always nagged her when she disappeared to go off to the gym again. She was under the impression that too much exercise would stunt her growth. Elle really wasn't fussed either way – she was now as tall as many of the boys a year or two above her at school, she reckoned, and if she grew any taller, she would threaten to overtake even the ones who had finished growing. It was also new, this summer, that Elle realized she cared about that. She couldn't exactly put her finger on why, but she thought she might prefer if she wasn't heads taller than her entire class, especially the boys.
And so, Elle continued to run, and lift heavy things, and anything else she could think of. Each day was excruciatingly long, but the weeks of the summer holiday actually passed rather quickly, until Elle found herself nearing the end. Her letters to her friends started to speak casually of 'when we're back', making the subtle change in their minds from far away dream, to an eventuality soon to be achieved.
It was about two weeks before September first that Elle returned from her early morning run (a particularly difficult one, where she had been playing around with the 'hill' setting on the treadmill) to several guests in her kitchen.
"Oh my God, finally!" an exasperated voice called out as soon as Elle opened the door, kicking off her trainers. Elle looked up with a grin to find the familiar voice's face. Albus grinned from the table, standing up so abruptly he almost knocked over the cup of tea in front of him.
The other two figures also turned to face Elle. The older man was Harry, who Elle had not seen all summer, but who she met on considerably better terms than she had last year, since he had stuck to his word. Elle had received monthly owls updating her on his department's progress. For the first time in two years, she had received information that went deeper than "we're not sure of anything". This, of course, had Its pros and cons – while Elle was no longer in the dark, she also knew that her mother was almost certainly being held captive at the moment, and if she had escaped, the auror office had heard nothing of it.
The third and final guest was, to Elle's surprise, James Potter. The older boy was reclined easily in his chair. He had grown taller, and his shoulders had widened considerably. Elle was suddenly very conscious of how red she was in the face, and just how dark and wet her shirt was under her arms.
"You, erm, didn't mention you were coming" Elle stammered lamely as way of introduction. Harry smiled apologetically. "Sorry about that, Elle. I did ask Albus to let you know in his last letter." Albus grinned unabashedly. "Yeah, I forgot" he declared.
Elle fought the urge to roll her eyes at Albus in front of his father. "Right. I'll just uh, pop in the shower. I guess we're off to Diagon Alley?" "Right-o" Albus replied "Rose'll be there. Scorpius too, I reckon since I did remember to write about it to him." This time Elle did roll her eyes.
All in all, it was another half an hour before Elle was directing the Potters through the tube station, her soaking wet hair tied back into a neat plait. She found out that Mr. Potter was quite adept at using muggle transportation, but that Albus and James had never done so before (it was a big part of the reason they had not gone ahead with their mum and sister to shop when they had realized they would have to wait for Elle). Albus's eyes were shining in excitement, and Elle had to kept telling him to hush, since he was loudly proclaiming how interesting it was that "these people can do all of this with petrol and electricity" and that "there is no way they dug all this without a bit of…" Elle dug her elbow into his chest and he coughed, "a bit of, uh help" Albus finished.
To Elle's relief, they managed to make their way to the Leaky Cauldron quickly. Elle wasn't sure if she was the only one who had noticed, but James had not said a word to her the entire trip. Something about his silence, and the fact that she had noticed the silence, made her uncomfortable. Thankfully, a familiar bush of brown hair was sitting at the table nearest the entrance, and as soon as Elle was inside, she had to brace herself, lest she get bowled over by Rose, who was hugging her rather aggressively.
The next hour was filled comfortably with Rose's chatter, who, despite having written Elle at least once a week, still had an apparently unending stream of information to tell her. Elle tried to divide her attention between listening and watching the goings about around her – the alley was teeming with throngs of people – the official Hogwarts lists for textbooks had been late this year, so there were a greater percentage than usual of families doing their shopping at the last minute. Elle spotted Archie, her fellow Ravenclaw Quidditch teammate, who grinned at her over his large chocolate sundae from Florian Fortescue's ice cream shop. Her dormmate Clementine Kettleburn proudly showed off her new pygmy puff, which she had just purchased, and that Elle had to admit was rather cute.
All of Elle's attentional control was dedicated to listening and looking at the same time, so she hadn't interrupted Rose at all as she spoke their way through their shopping list. Albus had given up all pretense of listening to Rose half an hour before, and now only spoke up to interrupt her, asking them, and any person they came upon that they recognized, if they had seen Scorpius about (no one had).
Finally, Elle's arms were filled with books (she realized with satisfaction that her arms were barely trembling under the weight of them), and the teens had come to the end of the list. Harry was waved down near the purple joke shop that Rose had been talking about for the last fifteen minutes by Albus's mother, who was holding the hand of a very overwhelmed looking redhead that Elle recognized as Albus's sister. Standing next to Ginny was another familiar face – Elle grinned broadly at Teddy Lupin, who returned the greeting.
"Right" Harry said, wiping the sweat off his brow. "You guys can stay at the joke shop with Teddy while Mum and I take Ginny to get her wand", instructing Albus, who nodded vaguely, already more interested in the shop's display than in what his father had to say. Elle noticed Harry speak lowly in Teddy's ear before he left, and Elle realized, for the first time since she had left the flat this morning, that she was still being protected and was never left unsupervised. Even though she knew logically that it was the safe thing to do, she couldn't help but feel a twinge of embarrassment in her stomach, and she found that it bothered more than she could even remember being embarrassed to have bothered her before.
Elle's embarrassment was soon forgotten however, when she stepped foot into the joke shop. James immediately took off in the direction of his friends, who were waving him over from the staircase bannister, grinning and holding up objects that Elle did not recognize but could confidently guess were only used for mischievous purposes.
Elle paid James no mind. If anything, she was glad that his silent, brooding presence was no longer souring her morning. Rose excitedly took her by the arm, giving her the tour of all tours. She pointed out all her favourite products and, to her surprise, Teddy (who was following them closely) chimed in his own opinion every now and again. There were so many interesting sights, sounds, and even smells, that it took Elle quite a while to realize that Albus had quietly slipped away from the group. Elle tried her best to look for him in the crowded joke shop without giving away to Teddy what she was doing, and soon realized that he wasn't in the shop at all.
Elle had actually been rather slow to pick up on Albus's absence. He had barely even stepped into the shop, when James waving off to Teddy had given him the opportunity to subtly extricate himself from the group. He'd waited by the door for a few minutes, carefully eyeing Teddy to see if he noticed his disappearance. Teddy never looked around the shop for him, however. He spent most of his time looking at Elle, and if he was scanning the room, he spent his time scoping out the adults of the shop.
As soon as he realized it was safe, Albus quietly made his exit from the shop. He was glad that the streets were filled to the brim – he (much to his chagrin in most other situations) was still very small for his age, and so the gaps in the pressing bodies that he found were easy for him to squeeze through but would have made it exceptionally difficult to be followed. In this way, Albus skillfully made his way through the sweaty sea of bodies.
It only took Albus minutes to arrive at his destination, but it was there that he hesitated. He knew the entrance to Knockturn alley only because his brother had sussed it out when they were kids and had very nearly escaped down it to go explore. After that, his mother had forcibly taken her eldest son by the hand whenever they passed the area, despite his mounting protests the older they got. If she had been with them today while getting their supplies, Albus was sure that she still would've done it, despite the fact that James was now fifteen and a good foot taller than his mother.
The brief amusement the mental image of his mother guiding his brother across the street by holding his hand was enough of a reprieve of nerves to give him the courage to step out of the sunlight and into the Alley. Albus suppressed a shiver as he steeled his nerves further. He was briefly regretting his decision, convincing himself that "just because Scorpius had said that he used to go shopping in this alley didn't mean he still did, and that maybe it was better if he just went back to the joke shop, and that good lord how was it so cold and dark a mere meter from the bustling streets of Diagon Alley, and look at the size of that spider, that's it, I really am turning back-" Albus' inner dialogue stopped short when he saw a flash of extremely blonde hair turn a corner in front of him. Albus grinned and headed deeper into the alley.