Precedentemente: “...if I answer either way, I’m telling you your mother’s name, and I told you I can’t do that...” “...I can’t see why I can’t know her name...” “You do know her, love. You don’t need her name. You know your mother. I see her in you. How and why else do you think I get by, huh?” ...She’d thought the hurt had long healed. But awhile ago, she seemed to have peeled off the scab. Now the wound was exposed again. And as with all exposed wounds, it stung... “I’m sorry I prodded you about D-dad. I won’t do it again.” ...Hermione felt it best to just smile and kiss Thalia. She buried her face in her daughter’s neck and breathed her in. Her panacea... “I’m actually excited and hoping I’d get a glimpse of your other daughter.” “None of your cheek, boy. You have as much reason to be told you don’t have to come with us and if I stare a hole in Pansy and Patrick’s table, I’ll be merely building on what you have begun.” “Owl me tonight. Your house...” “Slytherin...” “Gryffindor, you git...” “Make us even prouder of you, darling...” “No, no, she doesn’t have to do a thing...Just be your pure, angelic self...” “I love you...You’ll be fine. And I’m so sorry about the agreement, love. Can you forgive me?” When he arrived back near Pansy’s backyard, he leaned against the nearest tree and sighed, holding it in as long as he could without breathing out... Merlin, he’d breathed the same air she did in the last half hour...
They were three window panes apart. Both took a deep breath as the Hogwarts Express rounded a corner and the platform with their parents on it disappeared in a cloud of steam. In perfect sync, both smiled, pushed off the window, looked up and down the corridor and then weaved through the tide of students still not ensconced in compartments to the end of the train, to the luggage cars.
Callie arrived first. She easily spotted her trunk. It was stacked between eight others. She pulled on her trunk’s handle. It didn’t even budge. She pulled again, only to frantically push all the trunks back. The tower had threateningly leaned toward her.
Lia entered the car just then. Her eyes widened for a moment before she dashed to join Callie in righting the wall of trunks. When they felt safe again, they grinned at each other.
“You don’t have your wand with you, too?” Lia asked.
Callie smacked a hand on her forehead.
“Oh, you do,” Lia said gregariously. “Don’t worry, it will take a while, I reckon. I mean, we’ve never held wands for long for the last decade, have we?”
Callie smiled and nodded, blushing. She took her wand from under her sleeve, from the wrist-holder her grandfather had given her, and with a muttered incantation and a flick, her trunk slid out from between the others and landed on the carriage floor with a soft thud.
“My wand’s in my trunk ” my mum thought it safer that way ” not that I can pull that off, myself. The spells I know are mainly to do with melting marshmallows and turning crushed grahams into veritable weapons at the dinner table. Can you...?”
“Which one’s yours?”
Lia pointed to the trunk on the very top of the column where Callie’s had been.
“Tirare trunk!”
Lia’s trunk landed right beside Callie’s. The two girls both stepped backward and in matched movements like earlier pulled their trunks apart and horizontally, end to end. They then sat on their haunches before their trunks.
“Our initials are almost similar,” Callie remarked.
“Are they?”
“T and C rhyme, and then our second name and surname initials are switched.”
The trunks were engraved just under the latch in gold and script. Callie’s with C.G.M; Lia’s with T.M.G.
“I hate my second name,” Lia said as she unlatched her trunk. The brass bar clanged and bounced thrice. “Well, not ‘hate’ it, per se. My mum will say ‘hate’ is a strong word. But better be passionate than bland, wouldn’t you say? My Nana Helen says I’m just hyperbolic, just like my Poppy Logan. And speaking of Poppy Logan, my second name is the name of his mum. I love my great-nana, but her name’s her name. It suits her, not me. My mum just had to have bad taste in names.”
Callie had not moved all this time, politely listening and looking at the speaker, who, on the other hand, had retrieved half a dozen square pewter dishes with lids secured with Spellotape. At Lia’s touch, the Spellotape easily peeled off, as if spelled to do so. Lia grinned. “They know I kick my trunk, see, so they took precautions. But they also know I can kick worse when kept too long from my s’mores.”
Callie ogled curiously, remembered her manners, blushed again, and gently opened her own trunk. The latch made not one sound.
“What is your second name? Mine is just ‘Grace’. My grandmother is always saying I’m their undeserved blessing and that I will bring honour to the family.”
Lia’s glance at the other girl’s trunk became a stare. It was as if everything was kept in place with magic. The clothing was even in individual sleeves of tissue and the whole interior of the trunk was giving off a sweet scent, a fresh, tangy one, like some wildflower or fruit. Lia inhaled. ‘Grace’ grabbed a box and opened it to reveal black mary janes (also wrapped in tissue). It was polished, fine leather, not patent. Lia’s face showed approval. ‘Grace’ looked at her with a shy grin and slipped into the shoes. The pink fluffy things she’d been wearing, she stuffed unceremoniously into a pocket in the trunk lid. Perhaps it’s because ‘Grace’ was blushing again that Lia made no comment.
“‘Grace’ is nice. ‘Maura’ is””
“Nice, too!”
“If you say so... It means ‘persistent’. So Mum says it suits me more than I know, since I never back down on anything. When I was a baby, she says, I slept when I wanted to. No amount of feeding, rocking or singing can convince me otherwise.”
“You must have been a trial.”
“You talk almost like my Nana Helen. But yeah, you’re right. My uncles used to have shifts watching me on those nights when I refused to sleep.”
Callie closed her trunk with a smile, a somewhat sad, wistful smile.
“My dad says I was a right angel when I was a baby. It’s only now that I’ve become...not so compliant. I was supposed to go to Beauxbatons, you know. I insisted on Hogwarts.”
“Why in Merlin’s name were you supposed to go to Beauxbatons?”
“We live in France.”
“You’re a Maura yourself!”
They smiled at each other. When Lia also closed her trunk and sat down on top of it, Indian-fashion, with the pewter things on her lap, Callie did the same, but she kept her feet on the floor, ankles crossed.
“May I know what those are?”
“Of course you may.” Lia smiled, her fond amusement of this prim and proper companion of hers apparent. “Are you a pureblood?”
Callie lost her smile and shook her head. “My mother’s a Muggleborn. Why do you ask?”
“You just seemed like someone from a very fastidious pureblood family for a second there. I mean that as a compliment. You are what my Nana Helen would call ‘well-bred’. She’s given up on making me one. She says I have too much male influence to become a proper girl. I have seven uncles, you know. I’m thick as thieves with four of them. Oh, and my mum’s a Muggleborn, too. Now, may I know if you have eaten s’mores before?”
Callie, who had obviously been wary at the talk of blood, almost sighed in relief and smiled. “Of course you may. I haven’t. What are they?”
In response, Lia opened the largest dish. It must be the one our dear Hermione packed. Neatly partitioned and lined with pinked cookie paper. Lia tilted it for ‘Grace’ to see.
“But those are graham squares, aren’t they? And peanut butter... marshmallows... chocolate slices.”
“Very good!” Lia said with theatrical approval.
Callie grinned.
“All these together make a s’more. They eat it during summer in America, in camping season. Poppy Logan and I eat it year-round. My mum still gives him the evil-eye sometimes for introducing it to me. It’s his one indulgence. He’d been eating it even before he met Nana. Introduced to him by an American friend in university. He and my Nana Helen are both dentists ” that’s what they call Muggle Healers who take care and fix teeth ” but nothing and no one can stop him making and eating s’mores.”
Callie nodded away to this long discourse. Not just politely. She was intrigued.
“Now, I’ll get to show you the spells I told you about. My Uncle Ron taught me. And then when Mum caught me making a fire in my rubbish bin, she taught me better.”
Callie laughed, nodded again and stayed put although her survival instincts screamed for her to back away.
Lia took a graham and placed a thick chocolate slice on it. She then took another graham and plopped it on the peanut butter. With many flourishes and turns, she separated graham and peanut butter and carefully laid the smothered graham beside the one with the chocolate slice. At last, she took her wand after licking the fingertips of her right hand. With her left, she took a marshmallow.
“Great, I forgot the sticks for the mallows, they’re under my backside right now... I know! You can levitate it! Can you?”
“I can try. I’ve read about the incantation and theory in our book.” She pointed her wand at the marshmallow on ‘Maura’s palm. “Wingardium Leviosa!”
After dancing on Lia’s hand for several seconds, the marshmallow did float onto thin air and stay there.
“Brilliant!” said Lia. “Now, I just need to you to hold on for a second.” She pointed her own wand at the marshmallow. She grinned at ‘Grace’, who had slight trepidation on her face. “Don’t worry; I have this spell down-pat. I’ve done it since I was eight! Only on marshmallows, mind. Flamare!”
The white marshmallow was instantly engulfed in a ball of blue flame.
“Now we count to six. It takes thirty seconds in a real hearth or camp fire, but Mum’s bluebell is hotter,” said Lia. “How long did I talk? One, two””
“What are you playing at?”
Callie and Lia jumped. The flame-ball that was the marshmallow plopped onto the carriage floor and hissed for a second before a small pile of sand covered it, coming from a wandtip. Our two girls followed the wandtip to the hand holding it and discovered a tall girl with black hair and blue eyes. They looked from her to the ‘anthill’ and back.
“What were you two doing?” the girl asked. The crest on the left breast of her robes showed she was a Slytherin. She walked over to Lia, looked at the pewter dishes and at the graham with the chocolate slice and the one with the peanut butter. She apparently didn’t understand s’mores either because she only shook her head in bewilderment and then in indignation.
“First, you’re not supposed to be here. You’re supposed to be in a compartment, with your fellow students, not your trunks. Second, I will let you go, but I will separate you, just in case you team up again and set bigger things on fire.”
Callie and Lia exchanged looks.
“Come along, you had better follow me before I lose my lenient mood and give you detention before we’re even at the school.”
Callie and Lia exchanged looks again. Earlier, they’d been cowed. Now, they were outraged.
“First, we were just about to go look for a compartment. Grace just changed into her shoes and I got my s’mores.”
“Second, we weren’t setting anything on fire; Maura was just melting a marshmallow, showing me how to make a ” er, sweet.”
The tall girl had been peering into compartment windows. She came to a stop and gave a smile to Callie and Lia.
“First, thank you for your imitation and your explanations. Your charmwork is quite impressive for first years. Just please wait until you get to class before you demonstrate your skills again. Second, I’m Priscilla August, Head Girl, so you will do as I say. Which one’s Maura?”
Lia raised her hand.
“Nice to meet you, dear. You go here.” Priscilla slid the compartment door open and gently but firmly shoved Lia inside. “You can meet up with your sister again later.” With that and without waiting for Lia to answer, Priscilla shut the door again.
“We’re not sisters.”
“Oh, you’re not? I’m sorry, Grace. Here you go.” Priscilla opened the fourth compartment door from Lia’s.
“Please don’t dare push me. I’ll go by myself.” It was said quietly, almost humbly, but something in Callie’s eyes made the older girl submit and leave.
When Priscilla went back to the prefects’ carriage, the Head Boy, Quillian Ellington-Shaw, stood up and offered her a cauldron cake.
“Where had you got to? I thought I’d wait for you and see if you have anything more to say about the meeting before I go join my mates,” he said.
“I caught two first year girls playing with this cute little blue fireball in the luggage car.”
“Did you report them?”
“No. I didn’t even take their names. Actually, I believed their story that they were only melting a marshmallow. I startled them when I walked in. The flaming marshmallow fell and I poured sand over it. I feel quite bad about it.” Priscilla punctuated this with a laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Quillian asked.
“Oh, nothing. It’s just, they defended each other and themselves when I first arrived, but by the time I’d told them who I am and separated them, they’d denied they were sisters. Funny how the threat of detention works, isn’t it?”
“They were sisters?”
“Anyone would have seen that.”
Mum,
I know you will calculate I’m still on the train. The sun is setting and we’re only some miles from Hogsmeade. I know because I’m sitting with a bunch of third years and they’re all excited about the trip to the village. Two of them are purebloods, but they haven’t ever been there without their families before. Me, too. But what I’m thinking about is the Sorting. Yes, I’m being my vixen self, sending you this letter so that I’ll have the excuse of not having Erato with me right after I’m given my House. I’m ducking and grinning right now.
There is one other first year here in our compartment, and she’s the one who lent me this little writing table thing that goes on your lap. Her name’s Dionelise Ellington-Shaw. She’s here because she’s shy. Her brother is one of the third years here, Maximillian. They have another brother, who is Head Boy, Quillian. Maximillian and Quillian are both Gryffindors. Nelly (apparently, Dionelise’s like Elizabeth Grayson, Mum, she has a name for each of her moods. She’s ‘Nelly’ when she’s nervous. When I first came in, she was so happy and introduced herself as ‘Lissy’) said she hopes she isn’t separated from her brothers. I told her if she’s placed in Slytherin, I’ll be her bodyguard. She laughed. She’s really pretty, Mum. She has red hair ” not like Aunt Ginny’s. Lissy’s is sort of like very dark wine, it looks almost purple in some lights. And her eyes are pale blue. I want to paint her.
But I met a prettier girl earlier. You know, that one wearing her bedroom slippers I told you about at the platform? I met her in the luggage car. She was about to be buried under the trunks but we both righted the tower of them, don’t worry. And then she pulled out her wand and did this neat spell you haven’t taught me yet and pulled out her trunk and mine from the pile. She changed into her shoes and I dug for my s’mores.
We talked a bit. She was nice and ‘well-bred’, like Nana Helen would say. Even sitting on our trunks, her back was straight, Mum, and she crossed her ankles very daintily. I don’t think I’ve ever used that word before. Dainty. She was dainty. She had brown hair, exactly the same shade as yours, Mum, only not so thick, and beautiful grey eyes.
Her second name’s Grace. I don’t know her first name or surname! And neither have I told her mine. Just my second name. We were really preoccupied talking about other things, I reckon. And making s’mores. Not that we made even one, mind. The Head Girl just has to walk in on us just as we were flambéing the marshmallow of the first s’more. Of course, we dropped the flambé on the floor (in case you’re wondering, Grace was levitating the marshmallow. I forgot to get the sticks from my trunk. That’s safer and cooler, isn’t it, levitating the marshmallow? Why didn’t I think of that before?) and then the Rotten Timing Head Girl buried it in sand. And then she hauled us away and plunked me in here like some naughty kitten. I think Grace is some doors down. We didn’t get into trouble, R.T Head Girl was in a lenient mood, she says, and she just separated us. I thought about going to Grace, but I remembered you, so here I am in my assigned compartment like a good girl.
I’ll write again soon. Go to bed happy, Mum.
Lia
PS: Why are there Howlers but no ‘Huggers’?
Father,
How have you been since we last held each other? I’m very well, and happy. I’m sitting with another first year; we have the compartment all to ourselves. Before you ask with ridiculous and unbecoming paranoia, she’s a girl. Her name’s Ronquilla Feliciano. Only, she hates her name, and she only told me about it a second ago when she decided she really likes me. She asked me to call her Kia. She has five other names, too, but she likes none of them. She’s an only child in both her mother’s and father’s families. I think that’s the reason she got piled with names.
I’m glad you didn’t pile me with names, Daddy. Calliope Grace is enough and I love it, too. Have I ever told you that? Tell Grandmother. Or... dare I hope it ” Was it my mother who named me? Of course, I can never tell I’m the only child in both my mother’s and father’s families, either... Don’t make a sad face, Daddy, I’m ducking and grinning right now.
Britain is beautiful. I’ve been dying to blurt this since that book signing. That summer, it was dog-hot. But I didn’t complain. Now it’s a little too cloudy than I’m used to. But I’m not complaining either. I feel like I’m home, even though you’re not beside me. Is that odd or not? I’m glad to say I was born in this country. And I’m so giddy I’m going to Hogwarts, where you and Mum studied. Will I be sleeping in your bed, Daddy? Will I maybe find Mum’s special table in the library?
I had a little incident awhile ago. Don’t worry, I’m alright, and I haven’t been given detention. We were only wrongly accused of starting a fire. Before you lose your dignity, Father, and before you cry, Grandmother: in actuality, we were only melting a marshmallow ” remember that soft, sweet Muggle candy M. Murier gums on sometimes, Grandfather?
Before I met Kia, I met Maura first. She found me in the luggage car and rescued me from murderous trunks. Again, don’t worry, I’m alright. I just momentarily forgot my wand, Father, and pulled at my trunk in the pile. Maura helped me steady the trunks and then reminded me of my magic. I pulled out my trunk and hers with my wand. I changed into my shoes. She took out sweets.
We talked. Daddy, I wish all the girls I meet will be like her. Kia is nice, too, thankfully. Maura made me laugh. She’s very light-hearted. Frank, too, she doesn’t mince words. But she isn’t rude. I can tell she was a little amused by my manners. She said nothing of it, except ask if I’m a pureblood. I told her my mother is a Muggleborn. She asked because she says I seem like a very well-bred girl, someone the fastidious purebloods will have taken pains raising. And you did take pains, right? Isn’t she nice, Father? Her mum’s a Muggleborn, too. Maura has seven uncles! Maybe that’s why she’s quite boyish in her ways and she’s also quite close to her ‘Poppy Logan’ (Grandfather, would you hate me very much if I start calling you Poppy Lucius?).
Kia is a stunning brunette, but Maura is a smiting blonde. She has such sweet brown eyes.
Maura isn’t even her first name. It’s her second name! Likewise, she knows me as ‘Grace’. We forgot to exchange names. We were too entertained with talking and melting that marshmallow. I forgot the name of the confection she was about to create. It involved grahams, chocolate, peanut butter and the marshmallow, which she melted with a very clever flame spell. Before we could finish, however, Miss August, the Head Girl, arrived. She wasn’t really hard on us, and I think she did believe that we were only melting a candy. She just separated us. She put Maura in one compartment and me in here with Kia. I wanted to get Maura to join us, you know, but I remember Grandfather’s face. Even though he will deny it vehemently, I know he wants me to do perfectly in school. And by perfectly I mean, pristinely, with no blots whatsoever both in my academic and conduct records.
Daddy, tell Grandfather he must stop being hard on himself. He had done right by me. You and Grandmother, too. I promise I will be your pride and joy.
Give everyone my love. I’ll write again soon. To Aunt Pansy, too.
Calliope
Two owls, one tawny and one black, burst out of the Hogwarts Express, inclined their heads to each other as if in recognition, and then flew off in opposite directions.
The din was loud and boisterous as usual as the scarlet train pulled to a stop at Hogsmeade Station. Callie was craning her head, looking for a blonde mane. She saw many, but not the one she was looking for. At the other end of the crowd, Lia had even taken to shoving and parting bodies as if they were reeds in search for an elusive brunette.
Before long, Hagrid was there, bellowing for his ‘firs’ years’. Callie and Lia both abandoned their search and allowed themselves to be buffeted to a boat.
After what seemed like an epoch, there it was, Hogwarts Castle.
And then, there it was, the Sorting Hat.
It sang a song Callie and Lia would both dutifully relay later to their respective parents, but just then, they heard nothing save a faint buzz in their ears and the thud of their hearts. Professor Flitwick began to call names. They passed on unheard beneath the buzz and the thud except when the names meant something to either Callie or Lia...
“Ellington-Shaw, Dionelise!”
“SLYTHERIN!”
Dionelise looked like she would burst into tears. The brothers Ellington-Shaw rose to their feet ready to rush to their sister. After almost a minute of tense silence in which Dionelise remained frozen on the stool, her face red and her eyes glistening, she stood up and went to the cheering green-and-silver table. Eyes followed her. But she didn’t faint on the bench. On the contrary, she accepted and returned handshakes. And then, to the astonishment of the Hall, she turned and smirked at her brothers...
“Feliciano, Ronquilla!”
Wincing, Kia went to the stool, sat down and put on the Hat.
“GRYFFINDOR! And you lot are to call her Kia!”
There was laughter. “My apologies, Miss Feliciano,” Professor Flitwick chuckled.
“Granger, Thalia!”
The teachers and students noted the name. It was a name of note. Eyes expecting a brunette saw a blonde.
In the throng of first years, Callie, smiling, murmured to herself, “So that’s her name.”
“SLYTHERIN!”
Dionelise hugged Lia. Priscilla August leaned over, smiling. “Maura is a second name, perhaps? Are you related to Hermione Granger?”
Lia had expected this. “And if I am? You won’t cast me under my mother’s shadow, will you?” she said affably, and then turned back to the Sorting. Grace was still there.
“Malfoy, Calliope!”
Again, the teachers and students noted the name. It was a name of note. Eyes expecting a blonde saw a brunette.
In the table of Slytherins, Lia, gaping, murmured to herself, “So we are sisters.”
“GRYFFINDOR!”
Kia hugged Callie. Quillian Ellington-Shaw leaned over, smiling. “Are you related to the Wiltshire Malfoys?”
Callie had expected this. She was thankful Quillian did not sound even remotely hostile. Neither did any of the others on the table. She gave them her seraphic smile, the one that bends even her grandfather to her will. “And if I am? You won’t cast me under my father’s or grandfather’s shadow, will you?”