Chapter 7
"Right. That's it." Elle looked up from where she had been gazing gloomily out the library window, watching as the light drizzle of rain hit the panes, scattering the dim afternoon light. Sam had stood up from his chair and was looking determinedly at the group of friends that surrounded him at their usual library table. It was only the second week of the term, and so the library was fairly deserted, with only a few seventh years (mostly Ravenclaws) scattered about.
Rose, Ruth, and Isidre had also looked up at Sam's proclamation, but Albus continued to hunch his shoulders, staring determinedly at the parchment below his hand. It had been two weeks since Scorpius had spoken to him, or really anyone in the group. Elle was finding it very difficult to practice spells in class, since her usually attentive partner had been giving her no feedback or encouragement. This annoyed Elle in an abstract sort of way – it gave her the impression of something that would have been a very big deal, if everything else in her life had been normal. If anything, the annoyance only highlighted the distance between herself and who she could've been, which was an idea that hurt even when she gave it only a glancing thought, so she had been avoiding the subject entirely.
It was clear that it would need to be resolved soon, because both her and Albus, who were, if she was being honest, the moodiest of the group, were becoming rather insufferable. And Sam seemed to have finally had enough. His next words surprised Elle however, because they were not about Scorpius, at least not in a direct way. "Today, we're going to have fun." Ruth smiled in a mischievous way and started packing up her back hurriedly. Clearly, there had been some discussion behind this.
Rose took one longing look at the book in front of her, where she had been reading the assigned chapter (two weeks ahead of the rest of the class) for her divinations class. Rose was very fond of the teacher Firenze, who she described often as "wise" and sometimes, by accident "dreamy." After intense deliberation, Elle had chosen ancient runes, kinimagic, and arithromancy as her electives, and so she had never actually met the mysterious professor, who never took his meals in the great hall. Rose sighed, but with a good-hearted rap on the head from a roll of parchment in Sam's head, she begrudgingly packed her schoolwork away.
Isidre looked at Elle questioningly, his hand hovering over his own schoolwork. Various parts of his hands were stained with black ink – he was an astonishingly messy writer. Elle was conscious that he was waiting for her approval before packing up. This was another thing that was annoying Elle at the moment. Ever since Isidre had confessed he thought she was the 'heir', whatever that meant, he had seemed to defer to her for all decisions. Granted, it may be because she had brushed him off brusquely when he had tried to talk to her about it the next day (Isidre was perpetually worried that someone was mad at him or that someone disliked him). However, that only seemed make his behaviour towards Elle more annoying, since the annoyance was now infused with guilt.
Maybe Elle was a little mad, she wasn't sure. She hadn't wanted to discuss with Isidre that day, or even up until this moment, because she still couldn't figure out what she felt about the whole thing. Every time she tried to hold the feeling in her mind to mull it over, her ears started to buzz and there was an uncomfortable distribution of pressure in her veins, like when you go to an amusement park, and you ride a spinney ride. Any thought she'd half started to form slipped away.
Elle started to roll her eyes at Isidre's obsequious gaze, but the guilt crept in, so she covered up the gesture by turning to look at Albus. Albus, feeling the heat of the eyes on his head muttered "not interested." Elle thought it was so petulant that it was almost a challenge, and suddenly she was determined to have a great afternoon. She rose and packed up hers and Albus's bags with a flourish of her wand. Albus paused, gripping the quill in his hand tightly as it attempted to fly away. It took him a moment to register that the quill was now hovering over empty space, the roll of parchment where he had been doodling rude words neatly rolled and tucked away. Sam grinned triumphantly.
Elle had to continue to hold Albus's bag hostage as they traversed the halls, Sam leading the way with a bounce in his step. They reached their destination quickly, only having to take one detour to avoid Peeves in the second-floor corridor, who had procured a bucket of black paint and was busy adding bikinis to the suits of armor.
The corridors were quite full, an overflow of students who were avoiding the bad weather but enjoying their weekends outside of the library. For Elle, who spent most of her free time in the cavernous room full of dusty books, it was like entering a whole new world. Isla waved cheerily at her from an alcove, where her and a group of girls her age were playing a game of exploding snaps. Clementine Kettleburn was walking down the halls, proudly holding the hand of a Gryffindor in their year, Calum Bell. Daffyd Jones was holding a box of something that growled, and discreetly charging first years a galleon for a look. Sam had to physically drag Rose away from the scolding she was about to attempt to give him.
"We should hang out outside of the library more often" Elle found herself murmuring. Albus, who was the only one within earshot, harrumphed, which Elle privately thought was a last second effort to hide a snort of derision. Elle rolled her eyes again, the obstinate desire to force Albus into a good mood returning.
The small group reached Sam's destination quickly. It was one of the many unused classrooms in the lower dungeons, which were unfavoured due to their tendency to be drafty and damp. Someone (Elle strongly suspected Ruth) had attempted to correct for this by covering the floors with rugs. "Aren't they lovely?" Ruth asked, gesturing to the floor which, upon closer inspection, was actually covered in tapestries. "I found a whole broom closet full of them when I was trying to find the loo on the sixth floor" she explained. Many of them had holes or burn marks, and few had been eaten through by moths in certain places. They were certainly tapestries that had been stored away at some point, meant to be repaired, but someone had forgotten all about them.
"and I nicked these candles from the great hall" Sam said, scrunching up his face as he whispered a spell. To his delight, the tip of his wand produced a small flame, and he eagerly lit the wicks. "I, uh, can't get them to float like they used to though" Sam said, looking out the corner of his eye at Elle, who obliged him with a wave of her wand. Soon the small classroom was bathed in the warm yellow light of candles. There were pillows to sit on, and produced from a pocket of Sam's bag, both exploding snaps and gobstones.
"This is wicked" Rose said with a grin, and both Isidre and Elle nodded along. Even Albus had a glint in his eye that he couldn't hide. The prospect of the afternoon went from good to great when Ruth upturned her own bag and produced an impressive collection of sweets. "Usually, I'd ration these, but with Hogsmeade coming up…" Ruth trailed off, blushing slightly. Elle stubbornly kept the smile on her face.
Obviously, her and Isidre had been banned from Hogsmeade. Mr. Potter had actually come to the flat in the summer to tell her himself, which Elle had thought odd. He seemed to be truly sorry for her that she couldn't go with the rest of her friends. Elle had tried to be polite since he had looked so sincere, but she privately believed that there was no way that Mr. Potter understood how truly monumental a blow it had been.
But the hideout was so lovely, and her friends had clearly put in so much effort, that Elle was determined not to let the accidental comment sour her mood. She leant over the pile, selecting a sugar quill to suck on, and said "you better bring me back one of each of the treats from Honeydukes" Ruth smiled and nodded, laughing slightly when Elle pointed out that she would have to "start selling charms essays" to afford it.
If there was one thing in this world that could revive Albus Potter from a bad mood, it was sugar. And slowly, after approximately half his body weight was consumed in fizzing whizzbees, licorice wands, ice mice, and jelly slugs, Albus was actually smiling. He even laughed at Sam's reaction to getting a bertie bott's bean that he insisted must have been "earwax" flavour.
The afternoon whiled away in alternating games of exploding snaps and gobstones. Rose always shrieked when she was eliminated in either, a habit that Elle typically found irritating, but the giddiness of the sweets in her stomach and the warmth of the room made the sound more endearing than grating.
Elle endeavored to teach her friends some muggle schoolyard games, and found, to her surprise, that both Rose and Albus were familiar with hangman and M.A.S.H.. Elle was the only one who remembered how to fold a cootie catcher however, which salvaged a little of the lost pride in not being able to introduce anything new and exciting. Soon everyone was having their future told, trying to avoid the lecture on 'real' divination that Rose was eager to give.
As the candles burned down, long shadows began to dance around the room. Elle leaned back against a pillow contentedly, listening to Ruth and Rose giggle over a game of M.A.S.H. where Sam had just been told he would be living in a mansion, married to a flobberworm – number of kids, job, and method of transportation yet to be determined.
It struck Elle then that she was happy. Truly happy. She half-closed her eyes, soaking in the feeling, wanting to remember every aspect of the sensation. She was almost uncomfortably full, and her fingers with sticky from sugar quills. There was a pleasant warmth on her face from a nearby floating candle. Her friends were laughing uproariously at the prediction that Sam would be having twelve kids with a flobberworm. In this moment on earth, many things were wrong. But Elle didn't have to cast her mind around the entire globe. She could stay here, in this tiny room. And in here, everything was alright.
Elle felt, rather than saw, Isidre flop down on the pillow next to her. It was a moment before either of them spoke, and Elle stayed in the room of joy she had created for as long as she could. "It's not all bad, is it?" She asked finally, looking over to Isidre. There was a smudge of chocolate on his upper lip. He returned to smile she offered him.
Every other time that Elle had tried to think over what Isidre had said to her, she had been alone. Today, when the room was full of her friends, the air had changed, become heavier, altered by a quality she could not describe but had to do with presence. And she found that when she spoke, the words came easily. She caught the ideas before they slipped away, and they stayed there in her mouth, curling cleanly around their tongue, as if they had always been docile and willing to be spoken.
"You think that he's chosen me, that he wants me to be the heir." Isidre was playing with the frayed edge of a burn hole in the tapestry beneath his feet. It depicted a unicorn and a maiden, but the maiden's face was gone, giving way to the stone floor beneath. He was playing with the halo of golden hair that remained. "If he thought it was me, he would just be trying to kill you, and get me back. But he wants to catch you. That day, in Diagon, I don't think he ever meant for me to be coming back with him. He wanted you, but he knew that once he took you, I'd be hidden away. I think he wanted to end it cleanly, right then."
It struck Elle as a morbid thought, that their father had meant to kill Isidre while Elle was playing with pygmy puffs and daydreaming about what she would name one of her own. "Isn't he forgetting something?" Ruth asked softly. Elle hadn't realized they had all gathered round to listen until she spoke. Isidre looked up. In the dying light, Elle noticed a shadow of a cheekbone. His face was thinning as he grew older, losing the roundness of youth.
"He doesn't get to choose the heir, does he? It's based on birth." Elle nodded, but her brother didn't react. She looked at Isidre, tracing his scar with her eyes. For once, she didn't shudder. "Isidre" she said softly. He turned to look at her, and in the soft candlelight she could see that his eyes were wet. "He doesn't get to choose." Isidre nodded mutely.
By now, the candles were really close to burning out, and the shadows began to move about everyone's face like they were trading horror stories. The effect might have been scary, if it wasn't for the invincible feeling of the circle they formed, the sense of unity the suggestion of a campfire brought forth. Elle felt very close with everyone, as if some primal instinct had surfaced, and that she was readying to face the threat of the night and she needed people by her side.
"We have a choice though, don't we?" Sam asked. He wasn't talking about who the heir was. "We do" Elle said. Her gaze was fixed on the wall in front of her. There was a gap in her circle, where Scorpius should have been. All eyes had been drawn to the spot where Elle now gazed, and there was understanding in the silence. The circle was broken. And night was quick approaching. With the dying of the candles, the draft had returned. There was gooseflesh on Elle's arms. "We'll always have a choice" Elle whispered. Half a beat later, in a voice even softer than her own, Isidre breathed the word "choice." He'd repeated what she'd said exactly.