Wizards & Therapies | An OC Wizarding World Fanfic

Slug Club

"A penny for your thoughts?"

Eliza's father sat across her from her seat at the fire escape. He handed her a glass of coquito and patted her on the knee. "You've been very quiet since you came back. Normally you'd be baking something by now."

"I'm too sad to bake," Eliza leaned her head against the wall. After a quizzical look, she elaborated.

"I told you in my letters."

"I have. The neighbours have been wondering about the owls," Father said amused. "I told them I've been laying out traps for my newest magic trick." He reached behind her ear and produced a quarter.

Eliza rolled her eyes, but it was meant affectionately.

"C'mon. What is it?"

Eliza pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around it.

"When...when mum married someone who was anti-muggle, how did you feel about that?"

Father crossed his arms and looked at the ceiling in thought. Eliza never talked about her mother much with her father. Her parents had written letters to each other, mostly about Eliza, but outside of that Eliza didn't know if they kept in touch.

"The Rosier dude? Oh I couldn't give a damn about him," Father said honestly. "For the longest time I held it against your mother that she married someone like that, but I did wonder if it was done out of necessity. Guess I'll never know now, right?"

It didn't help Eliza at all, so she let out a big sigh.

"What is it?"

"It's Sirius."

"It's always serious these days."

"Viejo!"

Father laughed. "Just needed to see you smile. "Dime, what's wrong?"

"I talked to Harry yesterday," Eliza told him about the encounter and what it was like to show him all of the pictures. Her father listened intently, scratching his beard every once in a while in deep thought. "And I... I don't know. It made me think about what it would be like if all of those things never happened. You should have seen the kid's face when he told me he would rather live with me."

"Well, why can't you? I'm sure the Dursley's would gladly give him up from what you've told me."

"Dumbledore's orders."

"Dumbledore be damned," Father crossed his arm and gruffed. "But what does this have to do with that – " her father said a vulgar word.

Eliza told him her suspicions, the way that things never added up properly. Her father knew those days well. It had taken Eliza two years to go back to London, let alone take a step into the wizarding world of the city. The closest that Cornelius Fudge had offered her was a small audience with Black in Azkaban.

But she had refused. She couldn't do it. She couldn't look him in the eye. She would have cracked.

Her father listened intently.

"I think," he said slowly. "I think you need to talk to him, if you ever get the chance."

"We won't get the truth if they suck his soul. That's what they wrote in the Daily Prophet. They will never let him talk," Eliza took out the newspaper that she had been sitting on and thrust it into her father's hand. She'd carried it with her for weeks. "I'll never know why it all happened."

Her father took out the glasses he kept in his pocket and read through the article.

"What kind of justice system is this that doesn't put people on trial?" he frowned.