THE CHOSEN ONE'S CHOSEN GIRL - BOOK 1
chapter seventeen !
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MAYBE I was crazy. But maybe I wasn't. Dad definitely would've told me if I had a second father or someone else contributing to my upbringing, especially if they'd passed away like Mum did, and I'd known that he was bisexual. He was never truly open about it but I knew everything there was to know about my father and he knew everything about me, despite a few aspects of my love life. So, there couldn't have been anything stopping him in that respect and if my third parent was dead, Dad definitely would've told me about them just like he did with Mum. He'd tell me what they were like and all of the adventures they had. Just like Mum. We would've had photos of them around us, just like we did with Mum. Also, I knew that both Mum and Dad were friends with Black anyway, so it was definitely a possibility.
Staring at the ceiling as I thought about this, I groaned in frustration and turned to sleep on my side, closing my tear-filled eyes. I wanted to know where I came from, I thought I deserved to know. Why was I so scared of upsetting my dad? God, I was so pathetic. Tomorrow, I was going to ask him about Mum and why he never told me she was deaf. A tear escaped my eye. I needed to talk to Harry, he knew how it felt to want to know who our parents were.
I wasn't going to talk to Dad before I had that conversation with Harry.
I sighed shakily and wiped my face, staring ahead at the photo of Mum and I. Mum wouldn't have lied to me. I didn't know her but I knew this. She never, ever, would've lied to me about who I came from and who my parents were. Even if it hurt her to remember them. I closed my eyes to let more tears fall and shuddered. I just... Really missed her tonight. Reading her journal before sleeping probably didn't help but I already felt so much closer to her that I didn't care. I'd never had anything that was just hers before.
Hours passed of me watching the photo on my side table and I had fallen asleep a few times for ten, fifteen, maybe even twenty-minute increments before I had enough. It was almost five in the morning so I stood up from my bed, grabbing Mum's journal, and walked out of the bedroom, being careful to not wake Dad up as I closed the door behind me. I sighed, pulling my hair out of the plait I made last night, and ran my fingers through my hair as I walked through to the kitchen.
"Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, and the very next day, you gave it away," I sang softly, twirling around the kitchen, as I placed the notebook down and grabbed a pair of mugs. "This year, to save me from tears, I'll give it to someone special."
I continued to hum and twirl around the kitchen as I made hot chocolate for Dad and I and decided to make breakfast while I was at it. Bouncing around similarly as I did last night, I grabbed the ingredients I needed for pancakes and sipped my hot chocolate. Dad and I came to an agreement that I could spend the day going back and forth between his sleeping quarters and the Common Room with Harry, Ron and Hermione. It was the first Christmas I was able to celebrate with friends and they were staying at the castle too! We had Gryffindor Tower all to ourselves and I was so excited.
Still humming as I slid the pancakes onto my plate, I grabbed my fork and spun around to jump and sit on the worktop, stopping mid-bite when I saw Dad grinning at me from the doorway with raised eyebrows. I smiled sheepishly around my fork.
"You do realise it's nearly five thirty in the morning?" he asked and I nodded slowly.
"I couldn't sleep," I declared after swallowing my pancake bite. "And I was hungry. Pancake?"
He chuckled and walked over to me to slide his own breakfast onto a plate as I passed him his hot chocolate I made earlier, which was surprisingly still warm. He smiled and kissed my head as he thanked me, sitting beside me. We sat in silence as we ate and I had to hide a smile. This was our Christmas. Sitting on the worktop beside each other, scarfing pancakes and hot chocolate down our throats with nothing spoken between us. This was the Christmas I knew and loved.
After five pancakes each, we ventured into the living room, back to the Christmas tree, and sat in the same positions as we did last night. We talked and laughed as the pile of wrapping paper grew beside us, expressing our gratitude when we'd open a present from each other. Around twenty-five minutes after we'd started opening presents, I was clutching a notebook, giggling at some of the notes Harry'd written for me, before Dad fell silent after opening his present. Quizzically, I looked up and grinned. It was the canvas.
"Dess..." he whispered and my grin turned into a soft smile at the barely-audible crack in his voice. "Did you do this?"
"Dean and I did," I clarified, hugging the notebook to my chest. "Dean's amazing at drawing so he did the drawing and showed me how to paint. I did take the original photo without asking to do this though. Do you like it?"
I bit my lip nervously as Dad gazed at me silently before shrieking out in laughter when he pulled me into his chest, kissing my head multiple times. Oh, I was so glad he loved it.
"You know, I had just asked her to marry me in this picture," he reminisced after releasing me from his clutches and I looked at him in shock.
They were going to get married? Tears flooded my eyes as I smiled at the painting. It pained me to hear that my parents had plans for after the war was over but it also comforted me. It meant that they weren't together because of the war or because they had me. They were in love. I shouldn't have second-guessed but I was glad to have it confirmed, I wasn't sure why.
After about an hour and a half, I kissed my father on the cheek and informed him that I'd be back for lunch after spending some time with my friends and he'd only encouraged it when he heard my plan. I laughed as he shooed me away and started my way towards the Common Room in my pyjamas and slippers, marvelling at the now-silent castle. Apparently, only seven of the students of the entire school stayed over Christmas this year and that included me and my friends. I'd never known the castle's busiest corridors to be so lacking of chatter and laughter. It was unnerving honestly but... I also liked it. Hogwarts still felt like its own little world so I felt like I was the only person alive. Cheesy, I know.
Cheerfully giving Sir Cadogan's portrait the password and wishing him a happy Christmas, as he'd replaced the Fat Lady after Sirius Black attacked her, I climbed into the Common Room and made a beeline to the stairs to the boys' dormitory after noticing they weren't by the sofas. Upon seeing me in the doorway, Ron smiled and waved, holding up his box of Honeydukes sweets.
"Thanks, Dessa!" he exclaimed and I chuckled, walking in.
"No prob-- Is that a broomstick?" I gasped.
Harry sat at the foot of his bed with a broomstick floating majestically in front of him and I slowly walked over to the pair in awe. I might have been terrified of heights but I still very much appreciated the beauty of the different broomsticks.
"Not just a broomstick, Dessa, a Firebolt!" Ron said excitedly and my eyes widened at it.
"But aren't those really expensive?" I asked and both boys nodded. "Who got it for you?"
Harry shrugged. "Dunno. Ron, did you find a card?"
"Nothing. Blimey, who'd spend that much on you?"
Harry murmured something about the Dursleys and Ron, who had taken to walking around the broomstick in awe, made the comment that maybe it was Professor Dumbledore because he'd given Harry his Invisibility Cloak without a note. Both Harry and I doubted this. As much as Professor Dumbledore seemed to like and value Harry, he'd never do something like that. The headmaster was many things but he wasn't one to show blatant favouritism. Even if it didn't seem like it was from him. After falling to the bed of outrageous laughter about Draco finding out about Harry's new 'international standard broom', Ron's eyes suddenly glued onto me and I shook my head immediately.
"It wasn't Dad," I declared and both Harry and Ron snorted, making me grin. "Please, if he had enough money for this, I wouldn't have secondhand versions of everything."
Was that mean? Oops. Ron quickly argued that he wasn't in the Hospital Wing the weekend of the match when Harry's Nimbus Two Thousand got destroyed but I followed this with Dad's alibi that he was in his quarters, trying to recover from our illness for Monday. Harry seemed to take note of this and frowned at the two of us. He went to speak again but stopped and I turned around to see Hermione, who was holding Crookshanks. Poor Crookshanks looked extremely disgruntled with the string of tinsel that was around his neck. I was surprised that he'd even let her do it to him.
"What're you three laughing about?" she asked and I smiled, walking over to my friend to scratch her cat's ears. "Oh, Dessa, there's a present on your bed."
I furrowed my eyebrows but nodded, thanking her and walking towards our dormitory, and left the trio to talk. I hummed in confusion as a single, very large, parcel, wrapped in brown paper, laid on my bed, just like Hermione said it was. I thought Dad had collected all of my presents from the house-elves. Nonetheless, I walked over to it and started ripping off the paper, being slightly cautious in case there was a card in it, before gasping. My hands shook as my fingertips lightly stroked the black leather of the case in front of me and they found the metal clasps quickly after. It was like I was on auto-pilot as I undid the clasps and pulled the top part off, my heart beating erratically fast.
It was the guitar. The beautiful blue guitar that I'd wanted from the second I laid my eyes on it.
I froze as I stared at it. Was I dreaming? This couldn't be happening, there was no way it was laying on my bed in front of me, I'd not seen it since October.
"Odessa?" Hermione asked.
I turned to face her and she gasped, stepping towards my bed to investigate the guitar too, as I started to peel away at the paper to find the card, my eyebrows furrowing when I couldn't find an envelope anywhere. But Hermione was enamoured, just as I was when I was first faced with the guitar in Mr Maestro's shop.
"Oh, Odessa, it's beautiful! Did your father get this for you?"
"I-I don't know, I don't think so," I said and she looked up at me, her smile slowly disappearing as she took my words in. "There's no card and Dad would've had it in his quarters if it was from him."
She stared at me then back at the guitar, murmuring something I couldn't decipher, as I reached out to pluck each individual string. I couldn't help but smile at the sound, more melodic than the guitar I had now. It did need some tuning but that was okay. But Hermione's flickering stare between me and the guitar stirred something uneasy in me, almost as if she knew something sinister that I didn't.
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MY dad was a quiet man at the best of times and Christmas was Mum's favourite holiday so it wasn't out of the norm for him to be a little subdued. However, he seemed unusually quiet when we sat down for lunch in the afternoon and I felt bad for wanting to discuss the guitar I'd been gifted by someone unknown. So I didn't and we ate our Christmas meal in silence with Dad's radio softly playing Christmas music. It was nice, in all honesty, to eat lunch with my father once again. Of course, I did miss talking and laughing over a wondrous feast with my friends but I'd missed this too. It was like how everything was before, before I stepped out in the real world. Except Dad was a little more talkative than this. As I swallowed a potato, I sighed and set my cutlery down to stare at him for a few seconds,which caused him to stop eating too. He looked at me quizzically.
"Is everything okay, Dess?"
I ignored this.
"Dad, is Hogwarts making you miss Mum more than usual?" I whispered and watched with a heavy heart as his small smile started to fall.
Dad took his napkin and wiped his mouth as he pushed his almost-empty plate away, sighing defeatedly as he closed his eyes. I watched as he leant his head back before looking back at my plate. Stupid Odessa, why'd you have to say that? You idiot. I went to pick up my cutlery and cut my vegetables up once more but his voice stopped me, caused me to look back at him. His small smile was back as his gaze was set on me but it was sadder now. I felt awful.
"Everything makes me miss your mother more as the years go by," he admitted and I nodded. "I took a walk around the castle grounds while you were in Gryffindor Tower and... It made me remember the last day before Christmas break the first year your mother and I were acquainted. It'd snowed about two feet overnight and I saw her in the distance, she and her friends were having a snowball fight. James had seen them and, being one of your mother's childhood best friends and also absolutely besotted with Lily, he couldn't resist. He started a war, boys against girls."
I chuckled tearfully and his sad smile only grew as he continued. I sipped my pumpkin juice.
"They absolutely slaughtered us. Though, I will still argue that it wasn't a fair fight, four against six and sickly, weak, teenage me being one of those four," he carried on and I gave another wet giggle with a playful eye roll, which brought some mirth into his expression."I couldn't take my eyes off of your mother though. I'd never heard such pure laughter before, never seen a smile so wide that it looked like it was going to split open skin. That smile never seemed to slide from her face. In fact, I remember the way she laughed when she caught James with a snowball so perfectly that it'd knocked his glasses off and made him fall to the ground. It was happiness like I've never known."
"Dad..." I whispered, noticing how tearful he was getting, but he shook his head.
"No, it's okay, Dess," he replied. "Come on, finish your food. Your friends are probably waiting for you."
I wanted to argue, to tell him that my friends could wait, but there was something in his voice that stopped me before I could. I didn't want to leave him on his own, not when he looked and sounded so sad, but he wanted to be alone, at least for now. The least I could do was oblige. So, with no protests from me, I shoved my vegetables into my mouth, grabbing my napkin when I felt a drip of gravy spill out of my mouth, and left a lone potato with a small group of brussels sprouts on my plate. Dad smiled as I stood up to kiss his cheek and walked out of his quarters, back to Gryffindor Tower.
Conveniently, Harry and Ron had been walking back to the Common Room from the Great Hall at the same time and they both smiled when they saw me, waiting for me to catch up to them. Once I had, I asked them where Hermione was and Ron's smile turned into an eye roll almost immediately as he said she was talking to Professor McGonagall, all three of us snorting in laughter as we joked about Hermione asking to take more classes. I loved Hermione like a sister but she needed to learn that there was more to life than school and books. Truth be told, I was worried about her.
It was like clockwork. Harry and I made a beeline to our respective dormitories to retrieve our now-prized possessions and met Ron by the fireplace as soon as we set foot into the Gryffindor Common Room. Ron stared at me confused when I plonked myself and the guitar case on the floor, so did Harry when he noticed as I opened the case and picked up the guitar. It still took my breath away.
"'Sn't that the guitar from that music shop in Hogsmeade?" Ron asked and I nodded, holding it to my body. "Who got you that?"
I shrugged. "Don't know, there wasn't a card."
Harry's head snapped back in my direction at my words as he held his broomstick servicing kit and I looked back at him, only just noticing the similarities. We both were gifted the one thing each of us wanted more than anything else and neither had a card. Their senders were mysteries to us. However, before I could point this out, Hermione had returned. And she wasn't alone. I scrambled to my feet, still holding my guitar as I stood beside Harry.
"Professor McGonagall."
Our Head of House said nothing at first. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as Hermione scurried away, grabbing a book and opening it upside down, and I had to stop myself from staring at her so plainly. Stepping towards us, Professor McGonagall spoke.
"So that's it, is it? Miss Granger has just informed me that you have been sent a broomstick, Potter," she said and the boys and I looked over at Hermione, whose face had turned bright red behind her book. "And you were sent a guitar, Miss Lupin. May I, Potter?"
But Harry had no choice, she'd pulled the Firebolt from him before he could even think about an answer, and I watched her nervously, keeping a tight hold of my guitar. She inspected the broomstick intensely and then her gaze flickered over to my guitar with the same intensity.
"Hmm. And there was no note on either parcel? No card? No message of any kind?"
"No," we both said in unison.
At least she had the decency to look pitiful when she said her next words.
"I see... Well, I'm afraid I will have to take them you two."
Then she tore the guitar from my grasp and Harry and I started bursting out questions, needing to know why she was taking them away. She said that she needed to check them for jinxes, though I wasn't sure what jinxes could possibly be cast upon a guitar, and Ron had let out a pained noise when he found out just what she had planned to ensure the safety of Harry's broomstick. Harry and I tried to argue that there couldn't be anything wrong with our things but Professor McGonagall stopped us. Her voice was kind when she explained but it did nothing to soften the blow.
"You can't know that, not until you've flown this, Potter, and you've played this, Miss Lupin, and I'm afraid they're both out of the question until we are certain that these have not been tampered with. I shall keep you both informed. As well as your father, regarding your guitar, Miss Lupin."
Then, as if this meant nothing to her, our Head of House turned away from us and left the Common Room. I stared ahead in shock for a second or two, so did Harry, before I faced the girls' dormitory for my coat, hat, scarf and gloves. I couldn't stay here now, not with what Hermione's had done. Once I had everything on, I stormed down the stairs and started to walk out of the Common Room, scowling at Hermione's voice.
"Dessa, please wait. I can expla--"
"Don't you think you've done enough today, Hermione?" I snapped, facing her and watching her face fall as her eyes shone with tears. "Leave me alone."
Then I left, potentially leaving a valuable friendship or three behind.