Things done in secret

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The days passed slowly for Caelen while everyone else 'battled the house', as Harry liked to refer to their cleaning endeavors, Caelen was always sent away. Away from the potential dangers wherever everyone else was, away from order meetings, and away from the all too frequent disagreements that are so apt to crop up with large groups of very different people residing in a dark enclosed space such as Grimald place. The young girl felt small and invisible most days. She understood Mrs Weasley was only trying to keep her safe but with the constant disappearance of her father and her inability to help she had begun to recede further into herself. Hiding away in her bedroom she shared with her father, when he wasn't out on order business. She spent her days reading his defense and abhorsen books, and, unbeknownst to her guardians, practicing drawing the charter runes shed watched her father teach his class.

A part of Caelen was beginning to wonder if she vanished how long it would take anyone to notice.

Contrary to her depressing thoughts Sirius had noticed the change in attitude. He'd tried to draw her out at supper one evening regaling her with tails of his time at Hogwarts, and the day's events (Ron's reaction to a discovery of saucer sized spiders elicited a tiny grin from the quiet and sullen child). Eventually, however, Sirius' own frustration at being stuck in his, much loathed, ancestral home drew him away until the pair of them flirted past the others silently brooding.

The only moments anyone caught a glimpse of Caelen's true nature was when she'd curl up next to Harry late at night. Harry, having felt unwanted most of his life, understood. During the day he was often busy searching out Sirius, talking with his friends, and 'battling the house' but at night when the small girl would slip in quietly and brokenly whisper, "Harry? You awake?", he'd reassure her as best he could making promises he knew he had no control to keep.

"Remus will be back safe and sound Cae I promise." He'd swear quietly or, "Sirius isn't mad at you he just hates it here, he's restless Cae Cae, just like you."

For the moment that would be enough. Caelen would smile burrowing her face into older boy's shoulder and falling asleep only to awake as the sun rose, alone again.

She couldn't be certain but it was probably that intense sense of loneliness that caused her to do what she did. Moments after she'd once again been turned away she'd found herself standing before the large hippogriff she knew to be Buckbeak. She bowed as she'd learned to do watching Hagrid teach Harry and waited for the magnificent beast to allow her forward. A part of the girl, a rebellious part until that moment she hadn't realized existed, loved the fact that despite their cleaning being too dangerous for her she was able to approach such a creature without fear. "I bet I could help," she pouted in frustration as she scratched Buckbeak's shoulder.

A squeaking caught the creatures attention and Caelen narrowly avoided being trampled as Buckbeak rushed after the sound stomping his impressive claws into the darkness.

It was a morbid sort of curiosity that had the girl reaching into her pocket for the scrap of chalk she'd been using to practice runes earlier in the day. She wasn't going to try to change anything, she wasn't skilled enough really, and she didn't care about the rat's death. Still, she wrote the charter symbols around her quickly, north, south, east, and west. As she marked the final symbol the charters blazed into the floorboards the symbols connecting with blazing lines as they surrounded the girl in a protective square.

For a moment she hesitated, her father's voice echoing in her head as he spoke of the dangers of being pulled under in death, but she ignored her misgivings. Closing her eyes tightly against the world she breathed in deeply and with a final rune, this one drawn in mid air, Caelen propelled herself into death.

A fog seemed to emanate out from the child's feet, frost clumped in her long brown hair and against her eyelashes.  To the outside world it looked as if the small girl were a statue, a frosty ice covered statue standing inside a golden, glowing square, her hand glowing were it stayed frozen at the edge of her final rune, but Caelen wasn't there. She stumbled slightly as the current rushed around her legs attempting to pull her under and passed the nine gates, but steadied herself glancing around the room in an attempt to locate the rat's spirit.

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