The Road to Nowhere • Fantastic Beasts x OC

one • an odd little mission

"You know why I called you in here," Albus tells me.

He doesn't ask, he tells. I've practically lived with this man for seven years and I'm still not used to it. It's probably the thing about him that annoys me the most. He's used to giving orders, so much so that he's almost forgotten the concept of asking altogether.

"No, I don't," I say monotonely, shaking my head.

"Did you not read the letter?"

"What letter?"

"The one I sent to you last week. I only had to send it down to Hogsmeade, you should have received it."

I tilt my head back and think, swinging in my chair a little and staring up at the ceiling. There's a window in the ceiling, one that I've somehow never noticed before. Come to think of it, that's probably why the room always has a draft coming from seemingly nowhere.

The window is currently closed; it's raining. I forgot my umbrella on the way up to the castle so you only have to look at me for that to be obvious. My hair is hanging long and limp against my back, and you can see spots of the water sticking all over the fabric of my brown coat. My hands have gone pink and feel like I've just plunged them into a bucket of ice.

Stop thinking about rain, Aurora. Mind on the task.

That's what Darwin Brightly told me. "Mind on the task." Usually, he said it during Quidditch practise. I was Ravenclaw's keeper, same position that my mother was, though some people say that I didn't keep at all. I can't really argue with that. I'm surprised I was never kicked off the team. But still, it's bold words coming from Brightly as he was only ever two years above me. He's a professor now. I've deliberately avoided him every time I- okay.

Mind on the task.

I don't receive letters. People don't write to me. I'm not that sort of person, and Albus knows that.

There was the yearly letter from the headmaster stating all the supplies I needed to buy for the new school year. There was the occasional merit congratulating me in my DADA classes, or my bi-yearly streak of temporary suspension orders. In our third year we were assigned a pen pal from Ilvermorny, but mine didn't seem interested in writing to me at all after the required six weeks. Good riddance, Cyril Van Vesper. All he ever wanted to do was talk about was dragons.

Anyway, other than those, there was never anything waiting on the doorstep for me. It was always things for my father.

Although, a few days ago, I did recieve a rain-soaked envelope from my owl, Phoenix. I think it said Aurora on the front, but it was hard to decipher it, even with all the spells I was aimlessly firing at it to try and make it dry. Eventually I made the mistake of connecting drying water to fire, and before I could think my decision through, the entire thing had already gone up in my wand's flames.

Hm.

I think I'm realising what might have happened.

"Oh," I think out loud, fixing my gaze with my uncle's again. "That letter."

"What? What did you do?"

I clench and unclench my fist, making a quiet explosion noise with my mouth. I follow this gesture up with a hesitant "sorry."

Albus pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes for a few seconds. If I had a knut for every time he did this after I said something, I'd be rich.

"I really am sorry," I continue. "It was raining, so it was soaked. I tried drying it, but... I wasn't thinking, you know what I'm like."

He sighs, and opens his eyes again. "You're right, I do know what you're like," he says. "Which is why I'm already questioning why I'm choosing you."