Any child raised as a muggle would find the transition to Hogwarts a challenge. Emmaline learned during her first week of school, however, that she was oblivious to events even within the realm of non-magical. For instance, while she knew the long and ugly history between England and Ireland, the more recent "troubles" incited fresh violence and hostility between the two nations. A few Slytherins called her "Harp" and "Biddy" during a shared lesson and also not knowing that Slytherin was the prejudiced house of the school, Emmaline assumed everyone would dislike her the minute they heard her accent and spoke as little as possible. When called upon in class she clumsily did her best to impersonate the English pronunciation of her peers.
But the conflict between Protestants and Catholics was nothing compared to the conflict between the wizarding world and the church. During her first History of Magic lecture she learned the extent of the witch hunts throughout Europe and America. The only redemption to the act of burning witches and wizards at the stake was that most of them used their magic to escape any true harm. Never the less, she reached for her rosary to insure it was tucked under her sweater vest.
Seasoned food in endless quantities amazed her. Biting into a roasted chicken tasted like Christmas. Pizza made her sigh so audibly that people scooted away from her during dinner. There were no fewer than three desserts at every feast. And she was going to eat like this on a regular basis! Between bites, though, a tremendous weight of guilt sapped the flavor from her food. The young ones back home were in dire need of such nourishment. How much she wished she could save the scraps from her plate and send them on to Margaret and Eliza and the rest. She never allowed herself to take more than necessary during a meal. To see any go to waste bore too much on her conscience.
Music blasting from record players baffled her, along with short skirts, high heeled shoes, heavy eyeliner and mascara. She beheld the seventh year girls as one beholds a circus act.
She also learned that the magical world consisted of more than people with wands. The Black Lake held mermaids and grindylows and the Forbidden Forest centaurs and giant spiders. One look at the immaculate white coat of a unicorn and she knew, without a doubt, that those creatures were gifts from heaven, but the picture of a troll in her Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook made her wonder how the same God could create both.
One day she decided to return to bathroom of "Moaning Myrtle" with her Bible and rosary.
"You're trapped in Purgatory! I can help!" Emmaline insisted.
The phantom just laughed. "There is so much you don't know of death. And life."
As each day passed and the littleness of her knowledge became more apparent, she questioned whether existence had to be divided into black and white, sin and virtue, damnation and blessing, and if there could be a purpose just as important for the troll as the unicorn. Perhaps the world just was and it was her job to trust the wisdom of creation.
Such creation was never so marvelous as when Emmaline was introduced to the Hogwarts greenhouses and gardens. Like large glass cathedrals devoted to cultivation, every smell and shade of green and brown graced her eyes. Creeping vines, wide ferns, and blossoms scattered throughout, she eagerly listened while Professor Sprout began her lecture. As if Emmaline didn't already feel at ease, the short and forthright woman spoke with an accent very similar to her own. If she could speak so confidently, then maybe Emmaline could, too. Some day.
She sat in the Gryffindor common room in a daze. The first week of school was over. What she would do with a free Saturday and Sunday remained a mystery. No clothes to wash. No floors to scrub. No children to chase. No clue where most of the hallways and doors in the castle led. She was an animal newly released from her cage but didn't know where to go. She'd always had a human, young or old, to direct her activities but now the world stretched out too far ahead. One thing she knew: she enjoyed the newfound solitude. Emmaline pulled an Herbology book from her bag and started to read past the assigned chapters when through the portrait came voices entering the room. The group of boys from the week prior had returned. They were always together, laughing and joking. She'd learned the rest of their names: James Potter, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, and of course, Remus Lupin.
Upon seeing him again her insides flickered like the lantern on the table. The boys passed by her chair on their way to the dormitories.
"Hi Remus!" she said.
His friends glanced back at him and broke into fits of laughter.
"New girlfriend?" one of them asked.
Remus rolled his eyes and shook his head. Emmaline wanted to sink into the chair and die. She accomplished the former with success and hid her face behind her book. She peeked her eyes around just in time to see him give her a little smile and wave, likely out of pity, before climbing the stairs.
So much for speaking with confidence.
Well after their chatter died away she still felt cemented to her seat; petrificus totalus!
"Don't let them bother you." A girl sitting at the next table over smiled. She had smooth red hair and soft eyes. When Emmaline looked her way she got up to move closer. "Marauders they call themselves. Pathetically immature little boys, more like. Especially James Potter." The girl's lips flared when she said his name.
"That can't be right," Emmaline replied.
"Believe me, I've known them for two years. No group at Hogwarts receives more detentions. Mr. Filch hasn't slept since they arrived."
"Who's Mr. Filch again?"
The girl waved her hand. "Nevermind."
"I don't understand. Remus was so kind to me."
The girl softened. "Remus is the only decent one of the lot. But he goes along with their gags because they're his best mates. It's a shame." She extended her hand. "I'm Lily, by the way. Lily Evans."
"Emmaline Kelly."
"You're a first year, aren't you?"
"Yes, and you're a third?" Emmaline replied.
Lily nodded.
"Please tell me it gets easier."
"You must be muggle born."
"I...grew up around muggles, yes."
"So did I, and I promise you'll adjust and forget what the muggle world was like just in time to go back and try to live in it again," Lily explained. "I remember when I first got my letter. My parents were thrilled! But my sister...well, she didn't receive one, and it's never been the same between us. That's been the hardest part. Living one life with my family and another here. No matter how I describe Hogwarts, they never fully understand."
"I have something like a sister, too," Emmaline replied. "I wish I could bring them along. All of them."
"'All of them'?" Lily eyed her. "How many are there?"
Emmaline opened her mouth to speak but paused, wishing she'd taken more caution with her words. "Many."
Lily gave a bashful smile. "They do say that about the Irish, if you don't mind my saying so."
Emmaline blushed. "They do?"
"Oh, I'm sorry!" Lily looked mortified. "I didn't mean to be rude."
"It's all right," Emmaline said. "You wouldn't be the first to give me some outside perspective. It's good for me."
"No, no it isn't all right. I should have known better."
Emmaline didn't want the girl to continue feeling bad so she hastily tried to keep the conversation moving. "I don't have any blood relatives to my knowledge. I live with some girls in the same home is all. We act like sisters but we aren't."
It was only after running her tongue again that she realized she should have picked a new subject.
"How many girls?"
Trapped down the rabbit hole, Emmaline looked up for a way out but she was too deep in. "Twenty...nine. Not including myself."
Lily's eyebrows slowly went up. "I see."
"I'm lucky, actually," Emmaline added. "They're all very dear to me. I miss them very much."
"And this home, is it run by the Irish government?"
"No. It's supported by the parish."
"Catholic?"
"Yes."
Lily blinked.
"And while I'm proud to follow God," Emmaline said. "I would prefer for that history to remain private, if you would be so kind."
"I was going to suggest the same thing," Lily replied.
Lily Evans was one of the few people Emmaline would call a true friend in the years to come. She always extended invitations to parties or gatherings though they were rarely accepted. Having lived so long in close quarters with others, Emmaline found she preferred to spend the months at Hogwarts alone, and her peculiar habits didn't attract many eager to make friends anyhow. Gradually, the time she used to spend in prayer and penance was spent tending plants. When she wasn't digging soil or picking off pests or pruning leaves, she was reading Herbology books or volunteering to help Professor Sprout tidy the greenhouses. She gained distinction as the girl who would panic over an unexpected frost or wade out in the rain and mud to cover a cactus that had been left outside during a storm. She still spoke to God, but as a friend beside her in the cool of the garden, not through a medium in a stuffy dark box.
Emmaline smuggled as much fruit from the farewell feast as she could into her bag to take home during the summers. She learned how to pin her hair to hide its growth, and with its wild and curly texture no one noticed the kinks. She found ways of indirectly using witchcraft to keep her "sisters" safe while she returned to school. After all, planting a magic seed in her garden wasn't the same as producing magic from her wand, and the Ministry never took notice. When she was thirteen, the time came for the aging Abbess to relinquish her position and Emmaline convinced the priest to elect a younger, kinder nun to replace her by adding powerfully persuasive herbs to his tea.
No matter the time that passed though, first year into second, second into third, third into fourth, a deep pocket in her heart still held the memory of his kindness, his hand pulling her to her feet. The Marauders polished their own reputation more vigorously each term than the last, pushing the boundaries and turning their teachers' hair grey. And yet every once in a while when Emmaline sat in the common room to catch up with Lily, or Remus and his friends walked past the green house, he would look her direction and smile. It wasn't often. There were times he failed to notice she stood not ten feet away from him. But when he saw fit to acknowledge her, the reaction it induced from her chest made her certain something was coming into being, as sure as the seedlings sprouted to the surface in her rows of pots, his attention was like the sun to her earth. Even small doses could work miracles over the course of months and years.
And the sacred times he would stop to speak with her? Petrificus totalus all over again.
During her first year she was in the library past dinner trying to find a book on gillyweed before bed. She had yet to master levitating spells and resorted to climbing the shelf to reach.
"Easy, Emmaline," she heard a boy say behind her.
Remus came to her side and reached up to retrieve the volume.
"Is this the one you want?"
She was so dumbfounded that when he handed her the book it slipped through her limp fingers. He picked it up and handed it to her again and she held it to her chest like a talisman.
"Classes going well?" He asked.
All she could do was nod her head.
"Good. See you around."
In her second year as she was working in the greenhouse, she spotted some fourth year students' projects. One small pot was labeled "R. Lupin." He was supposed to be growing asphodel but it wasn't flowering like the rest. Emmaline stuck her finger in the soil to feel for moisture. The door opened and Remus came walking inside. She turned to gather some trowels and pretend she hadn't been inspecting his work.
"Wotcher, Emmaline."
She turned and gave him a smile and a nod.
He bent to check on his project and frowned. "What am I doing wrong?" he mumbled to himself.
She picked up a pot with holes in its base and held it out to him.
"What's this for?" he asked.
She tried to speak but no words came out. She cleared her throat and managed to say, "Transfer your asphodel. The soil needs to drain."
He took it from her and held it up. "Thanks!"
A few days later he approached her in the library. She looked up expecting him to be with Sirius or James or Peter but he was holding hands with a girl from Hufflepuff.
"Thanks again for your help," he said. "It was just the thing."
Her eyes were glued to his hand holding another's. Suddenly his warm golden sunshine to her earth was miles of ashen grey storm clouds raining ice crystals from hurricanes. She pried her focus away and towards his face and mustered the most unconvincing smile of her life.
"Don't mention it," she replied.
Fortunately, Emmaline's misery didn't last. A month later the Hufflepuff had vanished back to her corner of the castle. In fact, whenever Remus took a fancy to someone he never stayed with her long. The Marauders did not treat dating as a serious affair, in spite of their affinity for chasing girls.
In her third year, Remus was made prefect. Once or twice when she'd lost track of time he popped inside the greenhouse to tell her to hurry so she wouldn't miss curfew. And once or twice she may have intentionally stayed out late just to see if he would do it again.
Sometimes she feared his effect on her. The nuns said love and lust were the gateways to sin and misery, and while over the years she'd allowed herself to question their teachings, that was the one lesson she couldn't cast aside. She couldn't deny the circumstances by which she entered the world. Her own mother must have felt for some boy the way she did about Remus and lost herself. But surely there could be no harm in her affection for him when nothing would ever come from it. They were intangible feelings kept safe inside her person, never to be shared or acted upon. Even as he walked with her from the greenhouse back to the Gryffindor portrait in the spring of her fourth year, she knew his thoughts must dwell on another. To her horror, she'd seen him bring a girl upstairs from a party in the common room on more than one occasion. Girls could go into the boys' dormitories and if the rumors were true, he and the rest took advantage of that loophole often. As much as it hurt, it kept her safe. He was unattainable and therefore, not a threat.
"Are you looking forward to the summer holiday?" Remus asked.
"Sure," she replied. "It'll be nice to see everyone again." This was half truthful. As much as she loved the other children and respected the new Abbess, she'd become a witch through and through, and found the return to the muggle world each summer, the Catholic muggle world at that, more exhausting than the last. "You?"
"Yes and no. I'm not sure I'm ready for my seventh year to follow on its tail."
Emmaline's heart sank. She didn't want to imagine Hogwarts without him, even if she did only get the pleasure of his company on sparse occasions.
"What part of Ireland are you from?"
She stopped. "You know?"
"I can see why you try to hide it but it isn't necessary," he replied. "Not with me."
She was grateful the night sky covered her blushing face.
"Which part?"
Her mind was befuddled. "The...cold and rainy end."
"Oh, I've been there."
She chuckled. But when she looked his way she noticed a cut on his cheek. "Are you all right?"
"Huh?"
"Just there," she pointed to his wound.
He reached up, touched it with his finger, and cursed under his breath. "I'd better go have this looked at. You're all right to get back on your own?"
She nodded.
"See you."
It was the last conversation they had before the summer holiday. When it came time to pack her suitcase and walk to the train station, Emmaline passed Honeydukes sweet shop in Hogsmeade. There was a little hand-written sign on the door:
"Help Wanted. Inquire Within."
She stopped. The train wouldn't leave for another twenty minutes. Depositing her bag outside the door, she walked inside and was greeted with teals and pinks and the smell of sugarcane. Without any spending money, she'd never bothered to visit before. A kindly old man stood behind the counter while a woman, presumably his wife, dusted shelves packed with brightly-colored candies. They both smiled and the man said, "Something for the train ride home, Miss?"
It would be terrible to disappoint those awaiting her return, but she couldn't help saying, "I'm here about the job."