Hello to all,
Thank you for all the reactions, reviews, favours and follows, it warms me that so many people are taking these efforts. The suggestions are useful and keep offering interesting perspectives, but I hope you will not be disappointed if the story follows a different direction.
Writing this story has been really good to freshen up my English, which I was using a lot in my career a few years ago, but which is less important in my current job. I went back over the older chapters to correct some mistakes and typos, but I have no doubt that there are still remaining errors.
In this chapter I have included some French, which is definitely worse than me English. I have tried to avoid mistakes, but I cannot promise anything. For following the story, the translation is not important, I just thought it was a fun way to illustrate what is happening in Daphne's life.
Once again, thank you for your support,
Best regards, Chuckling Goose.
Bonjour Daphne, Commençons notre leçon de français aujourd'hui. Est-ce que tu peux lire le premier texte de la page seize s'il-vous-plait?
Daphne sighed, pulled her 'Magical French part 1' book closer and opened it. When she had to leave Hogwarts at such short notice, her mother had been determined that she would not fall behind her peers. Over the last weeks she had been homeschooling her and had been a little too enthusiastic for Daphne's taste. She suspected her mother could sometimes be rather lonely in their big family mansion when her father was off to work, Astoria was at school and Daphne at Hogwarts. She was in a way happy that she could spend this time with her daughter. Daphne started reading the text in her book to her mother:
Le sorcier cherche son bâton.
Il regarde la table.
Le bâton n'est pas sur la table.
Il ouvre le placard.
Le bâton n'est pas dans le placard.
Il demande au chien.
Où est mon bâton?
Le chien trouve le bâton sous le lit
Le chien est gentil
Her mother had taken over her Hogwarts schedule, but any free period in her schedule had been replaced by these awful French lessons. This was to prepare her for a start at Beauxbatons magical academy in France after the Easter Holidays. She still could not imagine being away from Hogwarts, she missed her friends and the castle terribly already and now she was never going to see them again?
"Très bien Daphne, fait attention à la prononciation: le sorcier cherche son. Maintenant fait la exercice sur la page dix-sept", her mother said.
"Mum, how long do we still have to continue?" Daphne whined.
"Non, non, en français s'il-vous-plait" her mother answered.
"Ugh, combien de temps nous devons… to continue? Is has been such a long day!"
"Well, ok. Since you have worked so hard today, I suppose for this once we can quit a little earlier. But remember to write your charms essay and study your French vocabulary this evening."
"Thank you mother, I will be in my room" Daphne said while she closed her book and collected her stuff.
Most of all she missed her familiar. She now knew that Dread had not been a crow, but still she felt an emptiness inside of her. Her thoughts still reached out for him, she used to be able to feel the presence of her familiar when she did that, even when he was far away, but now it seemed like something blocked the connection. She feared it was the boy that was shutting her out, or was the bond which they had shared broken completely?
The day when they had discovered that Dread was in fact Harry Potter, the boy-who-lived that had been missing for a year, had turned out to be a day full of confusion and emotion. In the span of less than an hour, she had learned that the Dark Lord was looking for her, the Headmaster had intruded in her mind, her crow had turned out to be a animagus and her father and Dumbledore had entered in a huge fight.
Still, she felt guilty that she had not been there for Harry in the moment of his need. She did not know why exactly the small boy had been hiding away as a crow, but obviously his life had not been easy up to that point. He had looked so scared, alone and vulnerable when he had begged to remain her familiar, and even though the idea that she had been sharing such an intense bond with a boy that was a stranger was weird, she could have just held his hand and could have told him that everything would be alright.
When she had finally managed to collect her thoughts and was preparing to defend Harry, it had been too late and he had flown away. The situation afterwards had been chaotic with Dumbledore dispatching professors to chase after the bird, while at the same time trying to question Daphne to discover if she had any idea where the philosopher's stone could be, this had been the final drop for her father who had dragged her out of there. A quick hug with Tracey who had been waiting outside the Headmaster's office with her luggage had been all she had before leaving Hogwarts for her house.
She did miss Tracey and her other friends awfully much. It had been such a long wait to finally go to Hogwarts, it had been the first step to an adult life and the freedom that came with it. Every day there had been something new to learn or experience. And now she had returned to her old dull life while her friends were still in that wonderful place.
Her father had taken the threat of You-know-who very seriously. He was actively looking for a suitable place in France to leave Britain with their family and the protection of Daphne, who was primarily under threat, was the first priority. For the moment their manor had been placed under the fidelius charm and was hidden from the outside world. However, since it was difficult and expensive to place this charm, only the house was included and the garden was forbidden terrain for her and her sister at this time.
The other thing she missed was her familiar. She did understand her father when he said that a person could not become another person's familiar, but it was undeniable that they had shared something. Dread had found her independently when she had left for Hogwarts and many times after that, her spells were more powerful when he was around, they had been able to comfort or calm down each other on several occasions,… Didn't that mean anything? She though it did, and ever since she lost him, her life had lost some of its colour.
But she was not ready to give up yet. The last weeks at Hogwarts with Dread as her familiar she had started practicing to reach out with her mind to him through meditation. The very limited information that was available regarding the subject, showed that this was key in watching the world through a crow familiar's eyes, like ancient witches had managed before her. You had to almost forget your own body and let your mind wander to your crow. If there was any chance of reaching Harry again, surely this was the way. Maybe, just maybe she could bring him back to her. Maybe they could fix this madness, they could go back to Hogwarts and maybe she could stop feeling like a piece of her had been torn away.
Since she did not know anyone that had actually connected with a bird familiar on this level and since there was in fact not a bird, but a human transformed into one, she could not rely on anyone to help her in these efforts. In her previous attempts she had sometimes felt like she was able to reach him, but whenever she had thought she had felt a glimpse of his presence in her mind, it felt like a door was slammed closed and she was shut out. But once again she lay down on her bed, cast a silencing charm to block out any noise and started the breathing exercises to calm her mind, in the end she would reach her crow.