For the first time in the years of the girls' friendship Dawn had been the one to drag the others to the library instead of Phoenix. However, neither her nor Maureen seemed to mind spending more than an hour there with their noses buried in books and Dawn explaining things. When they finally got back to their dormitory shortly before curfew they were all tired and decided to move further discussions to the next day. It was only the following morning that they realised that they had to postpone those plans because of their busy schedule. Luckily they were able to form a study group in Care of Magical Creatures in the afternoon to analyse the behaviour of a winged horse - or basically talk about what Dawn had told them so far.
"So, elves are offspring of demons and angels and they have inherited a minimal amount of nature's magic?" Maureen asked for what felt like the millionth time.
"Exactly and yes, my mother had an affair with an elf, which is why my father, who isn't really my father, had no problem when it came to disowning me," Dawn explained to her with a patience that was unexpected to Phoenix, who hurried to scribble down a few things on her parchment to make it look as if they had done at least a part of what they had been assigned to do.
"Do you have pointed ears?"
"Now it's official. This one's a brain-child," Dawn murmured, making Phoenix giggle. "Yes, I do."
She pushed back a few strands of hair to reveal her ear, which in fact seemed to be less round than theirs.
"Why did you never tell us. You must've known for years," Phoenix asked, softly smiling at her.
Dawn shrugged, observing the winged horse. "For a long time I was quite embarrassed and my father said he would punish me if anyone ever found out. But for the most part I felt like you must have felt when you learned about your powers; anxious if you would still see me for who I am. I guess I only realised that none of it mattered to you after you didn't leave me after what happened with Sirius, but after that it seemed like only a minor problem next to me being without a family."
"I'm sorry," Phoenix apologised.
"For what?"
"For not being there when you needed us. I was so caught up in my own problems that I didn't see any of the hints. I knew you weren't feeling well, but I did too little to help."
Her brunette friend turned around to smile sadly at her. "I admit there were moments when I wished you would see it, but even now I'm not sure if I would be able to explain it. Most likely I'm still not ready to talk about all of it and I'm glad to know that you're here now."
"You know, right now I feel really ordinary next to you two being so special. Can I at least be your sidekick?" Maureen chimed in, making them both giggle.
"I'm glad too," Phoenix confessed and by now she was sure it was the truth, as it was much of a release to finally be able to talk to her friends about everything that was going on. "But Maureen?"
"Yeah?"
"How could a girl with pink hair be anything but extraordinary?"
Dawn started to giggle. "Fair enough."
"Anyhow, did you ask your brothers about any possible elvish heritage?" Maureen inquired, studying what she had written onto her parchment. Most likely it was just an assembly of words, which had no connection to their assignment.
"I did." Phoenix shook her head. "But there's nothing. Well, except for Reg nearly lashing out at me for suggesting that there might be some, what he called, filthy blood in our line."
"Perhaps your myth – what do you call it again?"
"The arphen," Dawn repeated the name of the people in an elvish myth, which according to the brunette girl came in time of need and inherited the powers of the original elves, which were far more powerful than the ones of their descendants.
"Well, these people, do they necessarily have to be of elvish blood or can it be any possible human form?"
Dawn shrugged. "I'm not really sure, but I could pull some strings and we'll have an answer in no time."
"But it's just a legend, isn't it?" Phoenix pointed out. "How do we know that my powers are connected to, well, to your kind?"
"We don't," Dawn clarified. "But it's the best shot we have got so far."
The three of them sat in silence for a while, writing down their observations of the creature in front of them. It was hard to believe that Dawn would be counted as a creature herself, after what she had told them about her real father being an influential elf. Phoenix still considered her own powers unnatural and she wondered if her friend sometimes felt the same. She knew about her father being a creature in the eyes of the wizarding world and not everyone would act the same way about that knowledge, which she had offered her friends. Did she see herself as a monstrous being?
Maureen snapped her out of her thoughts as she kicked her shin.
"Ouch, what was that for?", Phoenix hissed, rubbing her leg.
Her pink-haired friend jerked her head in the direction of something she seemed to consider really exciting. "I think you have an admirer."
Phoenix glanced in the direction, which she had indicated, and caught Rabastan looking at her before he fixed his gaze at another winged horse. "That's rubbish."
"Well, he's been staring at you a few times for the past half hour," Dawn pointed out and chuckled when Phoenix shot her a look.
"No, he's not."
"You seem to be pretty close though, considering he was the first to know about your powers – which kind of hurts my feelings when said out lout." Maureen proceeded to wiggle her eyebrows at her, which caused Phoenix to slap her arm.
"He found out by accident and now shut up, Maureen. We're just friends."
The pink-haired girl sent Dawn a knowing look before shrugging. "Whatever makes you sleep at night."
It was Dawn that really surprised Phoenix, however, as she said: "For what it's worth, I think you'd make a cute couple."