Wizards & Therapies | An OC Wizarding World Fanfic

Hogwarts

Eliza was faced with silence after Dumbledore left. She cleared away the tea and snacks, doing the dishes by hand before retiring to her bedroom. This house was too big for her, but she had gotten it anyway. It wasn't her idea to live alone when everyone who should have been with her was either gone or opted out.

She opened the trunk at the foot of her bed. Her wand had been left untouched for years. It was cold but with a single touch, she could feel the magic buzzing through it again. The clothes in the trunk were old but still wearable. The robes she could reuse, but she wasn't really willing to walk around in Wizarding fashion. It was rather archaic, stuck in the 19th century and highly impractical when you wanted to blend into the Muggle world. Eliza would keep to the muggle clothing if needed, they were far more stylish.

But that was not what she was looking for. Underneath her clothes was an album. During her years at Hogwarts, Eliza would take photos and get them printed when she came home for the summer. Flipping through the pages, she found her memories. There was the Slytherin Quidditch team, pictures of her, Lily, and the other girls in their year. There was one picture of the famed Slug Club and later on, there was little Harry on his first birthday. It was the last picture she had of all of them together: Lily, James, Peter, Remus, and Sirius had looked up at the camera beaming as Harry, only one-year-old, did his best to blow out the candles. Sirius blew on the candle with Harry and only pretended he hadn't.

Like he snuffed out the lights out of his parents, she thought darkly. Eliza snapped the album shut. She still had some of Sirius' things but those were kept in a separate trunk at the back of the closet. It will stay untouched. That trunk was a can of worms and she knew that if she dwelled on it for far too long, it would hurt her.

When morning came, she made her calls and all the arrangements were done before Dumbledore's ten hours were up. She would rent out the house for a year, under the control of Arabella Figgs who seemed perturbed to be hearing the new arrangement, and handed in her resignation via post.

Eliza looked out onto the driveway once more, hoping that she would catch a glimpse of the grey eyes she had seen in the bush. But it was empty. Eliza looked away.

While she dreaded Sirius, she also felt the need to see him. She had no idea what it would do to her. Would she run to him? Slap him in the face? Scream? Perhaps he would give her all the answers she wanted but never got, or maybe he would laugh manically as he had done the day he killed Peter.

Eliza took only what she needed and stood in the middle of her house. She took it in one last time. Then she closed her eyes, her wand clutched in her hands and fingers holding tightly onto her suitcase. She imagined herself showing up at Hogmeade. Then, like a gun that was shot out of a barrel, she felt a pull in her stomach as she shot forward, her breath getting squeezed as she went through a tube-like contraption.

Then she landed.

Ouff!

On her back, no least. It had been a while since she apperated. Good thing she hadn't had breakfast.

Hogsmeade hadn't changed much since she last visited and neither did the old castle looming in the distance. It was as grand as ever. She still remembered what it looked like coming in from the Black Lake. What a sight it always was, even when the magic of its grandeur had long faded. Hogwarts was the safest place on the planet, even in the hardest of times.

Minerva McGonagall stood at the door waiting for her.

"I saw you all the way up from the castle," Minerva mused. "How are you faring?"

Minerva always treated Eliza with kindness. They were in the Order together back in the war and Minerva knew her as the one who secretly cleaned up after the Marauders sometimes. Minerva used to be her Transfiguration teacher. ThoughStern in her teachings, she made it comprehensible for Eliza.