The Underground

(Part 2) - Chapter 4 - Threats

Nine-year-old Elizabeth Scamander sat on the rug in her aunt's house playing with her older cousins. William, the oldest, was already attending Hogwarts in his fourth year, Thomas was in his second year, both were Gryffindors. Her other cousin, Nicholas, was in his first year in Ravenclaw. Her uncle Theseus had adopted him the year after she was born, and he was by far her best friend. 

She also had several younger cousins, Jonathan, Isaac and Martin Kowalski, and her aunt and uncle had one more on the way. Jonathan was only one year younger then she was, but she found him annoying and hardly played with him. 

William moved his bishop to take her pawn, and watched as the poor victim's head was cleaved from its body, Elizabeth scowled. Ever-helpful Thomas pointed out a flaw in his brother's defenses, an unprotected rook, and Elizabeth had it skewered by her queen's sword. William scowled, "Stop helping her Thomas! She is good enough at chess without your help." 

Thomas chuckled and pointed out future moves to Elizabeth. 

"Sometimes I don't know why I bother," groaned William, "He never listens to me anyway." 

After Elizabeth, with much guidance from Thomas, had dethroned the king of wizard chess, William and Thomas got out their spellbooks and began to practice their charms. Elizabeth watched them, wishing she was going to Hogwarts. True her Aunt and Uncle did try to keep her interested in doing normal things, like cooking, or cleaning, or (her least favorite) folding, but they were tiresome, and would take less time to do by magic anyway. The thing she liked best though, was painting. She would spend hours at the kitchen table with her paints and brushes, creating detailed works of art. Sometimes her father would bring up one of the beasts he was working with and try to get it to pose for her. This had various results, the worst of which was the Hornfly stabbing through the canvas in search of bugs. The best however, was the portrait of the Occamy that held the prominent place on her bedroom wall. It had stayed still for a full half-hour while she sketched and painted, capturing it forever on canvas. 

Strangely, she had not inherited her father's love of beasts. She enjoyed drawing them and playing with them, but they were simply animals to her. Just another creature of the world. This saddened her father, as he had hoped that she would want to help out with feeding and caring for all the creatures in his case. She did help on occasion, but it felt wrong to take part of the job that made her father so happy, and precious little made him happy these days. She knew that her mother had died just after she was born, her father had told her that, but when she had asked for details he had redirected the conversation to something else and life had gone on. 

Elizabeth went into her room, her little world where boy cousins weren't allowed, and shut the door. She went over to her mirror and looked at her reflection. Messy auburn hair that fell down past her shoulders, prominent nose and chin like her father's, faded pink dress with a long skirt that covered most of her legs, high white socks, no shoes. Absently she patted down a tangle in her hair, hoping it would improve her dull appearance. It didn't. She sighed and lay down on her bed with a book about famous artists, opening it to Leonardo da Vinci. There she stayed until lunch, reading to her heart's content. 

At lunch William was joking about how Thomas had managed to conjure a flock of miniature pelicans in the living room while trying to do a disarming charm. Thomas retorted by bringing up the time William had burned his eyebrows in potions while stoking the fire. Sniggers erupted from Jonathan and Isaac, who had never heard this before. Martin was too young to understand the joke but he let out a loud "HA" purely for amusement. The grown-ups didn't respond, just ate their soup and buns and Queenie tried to get Martin to eat his as well. Martin's soup however seemed to want to go anywhere but his mouth, and soon it was dripping off the two-year-old and onto the floor. Qeenie sighed, summening the rags and magicly using them to wipe up the floor. Over the hilarity of the burnt eyebrow story, Jacob asked her father how his morning was going. 

"I..It's been ok so far, the Riverdragon is showing real improvement, and even the Nifflers are behaving, but I think that's because they're plotting to escape again." He replied in a slow, quiet voice. 

The Riverdragon had been wounded in a flood early in the summer, when the river it lived in had overflown its banks and left the dragon stranded on the shore, an old railway spike driven through its tail. For a month and a half now, it had needed a patch to swim in the small lake in the case, but now the patch had fallen off as real fin had grown in. The Riverdragon was one of seven beasts that her father had in his case. Three were Nifflers, then the Riverdragon, the Hornfly and two Occamys, a small number compared to the beasts he had during the war. Last year, Elizabeth and her father had gone back to where his old house was, the bombed out street had become a row of new buildings, showing that England was recovering well from the war. Her father had told her about the beasts in his basement, and how they came to be under his care. She enjoyed the stories and the ice cream that he had bought on the way back. But it was clear to her that her father was still recovering from the war, and wasn't doing such a good job of it. 

Her tenth birthday was fast approaching and she was pestering her aunt for details on the presents she was getting. She suspected that William was getting her a new set of paints, and Thomas was getting her canvases. But Uncle Jacob had hinted that he and Jonathan, Isaac and Martin were getting her something big. She hoped it would be a magical suitcase like her father's so that she could fit all her paintings in it. 

After lunch was finished and the soup was cleaned off the floor, Uncle Jacob turned on the radio. They had been listening to it more than usual lately, as strange, frightening news was coming from America and the USSR. Rumors that the USSR was creating more and more bombs to threaten America. Rumors that America was making bombs to threaten the USSR. Rumors of uprisings in east Berlin, Communism, famines, floods. And on top of all that, a group of wizards calling themselves the Hallowed, were seeking justice for the death of some guy called Grindlewald. 

The muggle news man droned on and on about the Berlin wall and how it was affecting the moral of people or something like that, Elizabeth didn't pay much attention to him or his Berlin wall story. She was watching her cousins play exploding snap, Thomas winning easily and William getting more and more annoyed. Suddenly the entire deck burst into flames! Thomas laughed at William singed eyebrows and asked innocently, "Want another game?"

(Author's note)

Hi, thanks for reading this, I will try to get another part out soon, so stay tuned!

What are your thoughts so far? Any feedback would be appreciated! 

Thanks again!

-JMSpy49