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Let Her Go
The first day of school is an exhausting, beautiful, incredible day of discovery and an exercise in terrible loneliness.
Ellie is eleven years old, and in all those years, she's been the new kid more times than she can count. But in the past month or so, her life has been completely turned upside down. It all started with a letter, and following that letter, a visit from a woman calling herself Marlene, holding a small, wrapped package containing a wand.
She'd have wanted you to have it, Marlene said. And then she'd taken Ellie to get her clothes and her books, and opened her to a world she'd never known existed, but on some level, had always belonged to.
The thing that sticks with her, though, is the name from her mother's letter.
Severus will take care of you. Try not to give him too much of a hard time. Try not to be as stubborn as me.
Severus.
Questioning Marlene about the name hasn't gotten her much. Only some vague mention about him being a teacher now. At the school she's going to.
Now, though -- now, she waits in line with the other first years, feeling frozen and sick, palms sweating. There is an enormous line before they make it to her name, and by then, there are only a handful of children left.
She is tiny in her new robes, her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, her plain black tie already askew. Tiny, fragile, and staring intently at the old, dirty hat as if she's expecting to have to beat it into submission.
"Williams, Ellie!"
Now or never. Face flushed, she steps from the line and grips her hands into fists, heading for the old, dusty hat. She almost trips.
Ellie is eleven years old, and in all those years, she's been the new kid more times than she can count. But in the past month or so, her life has been completely turned upside down. It all started with a letter, and following that letter, a visit from a woman calling herself Marlene, holding a small, wrapped package containing a wand.
She'd have wanted you to have it, Marlene said. And then she'd taken Ellie to get her clothes and her books, and opened her to a world she'd never known existed, but on some level, had always belonged to.
The thing that sticks with her, though, is the name from her mother's letter.
Severus will take care of you. Try not to give him too much of a hard time. Try not to be as stubborn as me.
Severus.
Questioning Marlene about the name hasn't gotten her much. Only some vague mention about him being a teacher now. At the school she's going to.
Now, though -- now, she waits in line with the other first years, feeling frozen and sick, palms sweating. There is an enormous line before they make it to her name, and by then, there are only a handful of children left.
She is tiny in her new robes, her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, her plain black tie already askew. Tiny, fragile, and staring intently at the old, dirty hat as if she's expecting to have to beat it into submission.
"Williams, Ellie!"
Now or never. Face flushed, she steps from the line and grips her hands into fists, heading for the old, dusty hat. She almost trips.