The Secret Cousin

Chapter Thirteen: Arrival at Hogwarts

The next couple of weeks passed pretty quickly. Albus and Emalia had visited Diagon Alley, gathering the supplies she would need. Albus chose a time that would be less stress on Emalia. He did not want to overwhelm Emalia with the hustle and bustle of students and their parents getting what they needed for school.

 Although in hindsight it probably would have made more sense to bring her when it was packed full of students. Practice for Hogwarts.Albus worried about how Emalia was going to be able to cope when surrounded by hundreds of people. She had yet to deal with that sort of situation.

 It was not as if Albus kept her secreted away, at least not as much as he thought he should. Emalia herself was apprehensive about crowds, and even though she acted like she did not care about attending Hogwarts, he could tell she was anxious but excited about starting there.

The day finally arrived. It was time for Emalia to attend Hogwarts. Albus was nervous, he did not want to force Emalia to travel on the Hogwarts Express, but he felt as if she needed to. It was of course, a rite of passage for all first time Hogwarts students.

Emalia was against it wholeheartedly. Albus was able to gently persuade her that this type of interaction would be good for her, so she relented eventually.Albus had agreed that she would travel by portkey to platform nine and three quarters, an hour and a half before the train was due to depart. 

Albus would travel with her and then meet her at the school later in the evening. Her trunk was all packed, her muggle clothes were laid out on her chest of drawers, her robes and wand were packed into a small bag. Griffin was hooting happily in his cage.

Emalia went over to let him out to hunt. He hopped from his ledge onto Emalia's hand, gently wrapping his talons around her hand. Emalia stroked his feathers and he hooted happily. She walked over to the window opened it and let Griffin fly out to hunt for the night. She watched him as he flew out into the dusky sky until he disappeared from her vision.

Emalia did not sleep well. She was anxious about the year ahead, and afraid. She did not want people to know that she was cursed, she did not want to be a freak. She just wanted to be her normal self, but that was stolen from her. 

She was afraid to let her emotions show, as she did not want to change into that harpy creature again. The pain she felt, and the way she looked, well it scared her. Emalia got up and ran a bath, she cleaned herself, fixed her hair and got dressed into her muggle clothes.

When she arrived downstairs, she saw that Albus had prepared breakfast for them both. He kept his eyes on her as she sat at the table and began to eat her scrambled eggs. She sighed and looked up at him. 'I will be okay Albus' she smiled weakly.

Albus looked into her eyes and smiled warmly 'I know you will be my dear, I have no doubts about that. You are strong and resilient; you have shown me that much in the past couple of months.' 

He paused before continuing 'I just do not want you to cut yourself off from everyone. I know this is hard for you, but friends will help you through the toughest of times. Don't forget that.'

He finished and got up from the table. 'I will be back shortly; I am just going to use the floo to go over to Hogwarts. I will bring your belongings with me.' He said cheerily 'Less stress on you.' Emalia smiled and thanked him. Inside she felt relieved at least that was one less thing to worry about.

Albus was gone for about thirty minutes. Emalia sat on the purple couch that was in the living room. It was old and worn, but it was her favourite seat in the house. It felt like home, family, and love. Casting her memory back to when she was about six or seven, Emalia thought about the nights she would spend sitting tucked in beside Albus as he read to her stories from The Tales of Beadle the Bard or Hogwarts a History or Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. They were her favourite ones.