- Chapter Seventy-Five -
"It was just so peaceful and then...boom."
"Come on!" A childish giggle of an old memory travelled through the forest around her. It entwined with the winds and whistled its harmony around the growing vegetation. Squirrels in the trees chittered quietly in reply to the voice that had broken through the wall of soft and peaceful silence.
"Where are you?" A young girl's voice rang out, sounding closer than the one from before. Sticks and twigs on the ground below crunched and cracked as the body she was inhabiting began to move, weaving in between massive trunks and pushing small branches littered with leaves out of her face. "Sebastian!"
Some of the floating blossom in the air found its home on the top of her head, the feathery light touches she felt making it clear. Her arm had just pushed a branch away from her face so she came into a small round clearing of the forest, the large oak tree looming in front of her like a giant reminder of the barricade she was trapped in. Looking down at the hand that was clearing her path of all obstacles, she felt a sense of familiarity at the pale porcelain skin that shone in the sunlight.
The snap of a twig behind the young girl made her swing around to face the way she had just come, her brown hair whipped around with her and the skirt of the black dress she was wearing did too. Everything went silent as she stood in the middle of the eerie clearing, the tree sending a shadow over where she was stood up when staring in the direction of the small snap.
The flapping of a birds wings made her look back behind her and at the large oak tree. A twittering bird rustled its way out of the branches and flew high above the treetops, her eyes followed it and she frowned as it flew faster, approaching the sharp spikes of the gate that stood so tall above the vegetation. She watched with a straight face, void of emotion, as the bird tried to fly past the gates but with a spark of light, the bird disintegrated thanks to the protective enchantments around the gates.
The girl stood still, staring at the empty air near the gates and facing away from the oak tree. A lot of birds flew towards the barrier with no knowledge that they couldn't get past and she saw or heard every single one of them from her bedroom window.
"Boo!"
A pair of hands grappled her shoulders and added pressure, she twirled around with a gasp of fright only to see a young boy laughing in front of her. His skin showed little age, his hair was a neat brown mess and his smile was so wide that it cause a bubble of envy to start up in her stomach. He took his hands off of her shoulders and clutched his stomach as he laughed harder; her chest was rising and falling with heavy pants as he did so.
"That was not funny!" She reprimanded the boy, crossing her arms over her chest and narrowing her eyes at him with a cold stare. The boy only continued to laugh, running a hand through his hair and messing it up slightly.
"It was kind of funny." He retorted, grinning and sticking his hands in his pockets as he bit back another round of laughs he could feel approaching.
"It was not." The young girl told him, shaking her head and uncrossing her arms with childish frustration. She looked around them, the large enchanted gates that surrounded their house in the distance and the large oak tree right behind the boy in front of her. "You're not supposed to go past the oak tree." She sighed and gave him a pointed look as he smiled teasingly once more.
"Mother won't find out, shes all the way back in the house." He said and waved a hand in the direction of the manner. "And we're out here, so we don't have to deal with that."
"She always finds out!" The girl said with another shake of her head, she ran a hand over her face tiredly and crossed her arms once more, attempting to glare at the boy in front of her but he didn't find it very threatening and just smiled instead.
"If we don't tell her, she won't." He reached up to pick some blossom off of the top of her head and she let him brush off a couple of pink ones. As he was about to brush off some white pieces of blossom, another loud rustle and a crack of sticks came from behind them,
Sebastian's head snapped up from looking at her head to looking past her shoulder and at the rustling behind her, his small smile dropped immediately, replaced by an emotion of dread. Seeing this, the young girl turned her head too and stumbled back into the boy in shock when she saw the dark-haired man with a monocle over his left eye and his wand clutched in his hand approaching them.
Before she could try and say anything, to maybe try and act normal and pretend Sebastian hadn't been past the oak tree, hands grappled her shoulders again and turned her around. This pressure was harder than the one from before and as she turned, she could see why; Sebastian had grown a couple of years older, his hair was fully dishevelled, his eyes were frantic and his cheeks had tear tracks going down them.
The girl turned her head towards their approaching father once more but it was quickly brought back to face Sebastian with his hands on her chin.
"Listen to me, Elladora." He said pleadingly and frantically, a shiver of shock went down the young girl's back at the name. "It wasn't him!He didn't kill me!"
Elladora tried to turn again but he gripped her once more.
"No, listen to me!" He pleaded louder, keeping his grip on her face as her eyes grew wide and shocked. "Don't trust him! Don't trust the Phoenix! HE KILLED ME!" The once laughing face was now screwed up in rage as he screamed in her face, Elladora feeling tears travelling down her cheeks as her brother yelled at her.
A bang, and then he was gone.
Elladora jerked her head up with a crazy amount of shock, feeling slightly disorientated but she quickly regained herself. Instead of seeing her brother in front of her, red-faced and screaming, Professor Flitwick was stood staring at her worriedly and she blinked a couple of times, thinking that she may have been seeing things.
Looking around, it became clear that she was no longer in a forest and instead in her Charms classroom. Her book was lay out in front of her, a couple of sentences about the Reductor Curse written down there before it trailed off and she guessed that was whereabout she had fallen asleep. She quickly reached a hand up to dab at the fallen tears that had been a result of her small nightmare.
"Are you okay, Miss Hargreaves?" Professor Flitwick asked with a small look of concern in his eyes, leaning forward slightly.
Elladora nodded slowly, still shocked from the nightmare as she dabbed at her teary eyes with her sleeve. Her eyes were slightly clouded over with though on the nightmare, every time she saw her brother or remembered anything, she became shocked. How could she not?
"Nightmare." She said shortly to Professor Flitwick, doing a quick glance around the classroom. James was trying to do tricks with a pencil, sat next to Marlene McKinnon. Sirius was sleeping in a more peaceful sleep than hers, Remus and Peter were both copying down what they needed to from the chalkboard and Lily Evans was trying to ignore James' voice behind her to the best of her ability since she was trying to work but a smile still ripped up on her lips.
"Never in my years of teaching you have I ever seen you fall asleep." Flitwick continued to talk to her, quieting his voice slightly as he talked. Elladora just wanted him to leave. "Is something troubling you?"
Lots of things.
"Exams." She made up on the spot, nodding her head with a smile. He nodded understandingly and tapped her desk slightly.
"Right, just around the corner." He said and whilst she nodded, she hoped that he would leave but he continued talking with her. "You know, although these levels of examinations are harder, I know you'll do perfectly fine. Try relieving yourself of a little pressure, yes?"
Elladora nodded with a wry smile and with a another short smile from her teacher, he turned to the rest of the class and took in a deep breath.
"Class dismissed!" He announced loudly in his squeaky voice just as the bell went before turning around and walking back to the teachers desk whilst everyone started packing away.
Elladora shut her book with a small thud and shoved it in her back, her capped ink pot following and then her quill being lay daintily on top of them before she zipped her bag up before swinging it around her shoulder and grappling the strap.
She moved her way out of the classroom, still in a state of wary shock. That last bell had been a signal for all Friday classes ending and although most people would go and hang out in their Common Rooms, Elladora had other business to attend to.
•*•*•*•*•
"'Don't trust the Phoenix' what do you think that means?"
"I couldn' tell ye." Hagrid grunted as he heaved the teapot off of the fire and brought it over to the large round table of his house that Elladora had seated herself at it. He propped the teapot onto a round piece of wood that acted like some sort of pedestal and Elladora gripped her large mug more tightly, narrowing her eyeshadow in a slight thought.
"Maybe it was just a nigh'mare and that's that." The man suggested, heaving up the teapot once more and pouring the boiling water into the two mugs they had set out on the table. "I get nigh'mares all the time, the other day, I had one about Professor Sprout mandrakes coming to eat me, ye see?"
"Maybe." Elladora shrugged her shoulders slightly and ran a finger around the rim of her large mug as Hagrid thudded the teapot back down on the wood. "It was just so peaceful and then...boom. Don't trust the phoenix..."
"That's all it was...a nigh'mare." He said with a cheerful nod and she nodded back, smiling slightly. Hagrid settled himself in the chair opposite her with a thud and a grunt, going to smile at her but it faded as he properly looked at her.
She was staring down into her tea, her eyebrows furrowed slightly and her eyes clouded over slightly with distracted thought. He sighed at the look on her face as she bit her lip slightly and he tapped the table in front of her slightly.
"Look at me, Elladora." He said and she looked up at him with slightly pursed lips. "Everyone gets nigh'mares, it might've just been things that ye've been thinkin' about and it distracted ye. Don' ye think on it, don' ye think on it for one second."
Elladora nodded slightly with another smile, sipping her tea quietly and glanced at him. Maybe he was right, Sebastian and her dad because she had been home for two weeks, the phoenix because that was her patronus, the large oak and cherry blossom because of what she and Remus had talked about over the holidays. Hagrid was probably right...it was all just her mind tricking her into something.
"It's been amazin' watch in' ye grow this year, y'know?" Hagrid brought up gruffly, his voice shaking slightly. "Through all yer years here at Hogwarts, ye barely said a word and then when ye showed up here with Black at the start of the year for yer detention, the next day I just knew." He said and let out a shaking sigh, obviously on the verge of years.
"Knew?" Elladora asked quietly, smiling sadly at the sight of the man's tears. He shouldn't waste them on her, no one should. She didn't deserve it.
"That Saturday, Slughorn came down with some questions about missin' wolfsbane. I knew that ye'd been sent out to get some with Black and I saw his reaction when I told him about the wolfsbane. Don' know why he reacted like he did but when I heard the news it was missing, I knew that the two of ye had something to do with that. I knew ye would've have to talk."
Elladora felt her own tears starting to come up now too at the sight of Hagrid's lip trembling, the man was too emotional for his own good but Elladora found that nice.
"I cried that day." He admitted with a small cry that sounded more like a wail. Elladora let her mouth fall agape at the confession as he started to freely cry. "I knew ye'd talked to someone else and I cried because I was- was- was so proud."
He let out another small cry and grabbed a large handkerchief, about to blow his nose heavily but before he could reach up to nose, someone had slammed into him and he looked up shockingly to see that she had wrapped her arms around what she could of his large figure and she was shaking slightly, crying even.
Hagrid was one of the only adults that she knew for a fact that she could trust, having known him for 6 years and time and time again, he had shown incredible comfort. Even in her early years at Hogwarts, he didn't push her to talk and she still admired him for that. He was an adult that could provide the comfort that she needed from an older figure she didn't have most of her life.
She just wanted everything else to fuck off for a while and leave her be in this moment of comfort.
•*•*•*•*•
A/N: wow this chapter is so late, I apologise, i'm not going to go into a small rant because i did that on my message board <3 also if there is any mistakes, it's because this was written on my phone instead of my laptop !
whatever you do, don't imagine Little Talks by Of Monsters And Men as Elladora and Remus because i just did and was filled with both happiness and sadness 🥰