The Fall

Eileen returned to Hogwarts with silence clinging to her skin. She washed. Changed. Sat through her morning classes like a ghost wearing her uniform. But by evening, the ache in her chest had sharpened into something else—confusion. Anger. Shame.

She found Callista in the Slytherin common room, seated by the fire, a book open but unread.

Eileen didn’t sit.

“Why did you leave me?” she asked, voice uncharacteristically sharp.

Callista looked up slowly. “Excuse me?”

“At the bar. You left without saying a word. You didn’t come back for me.”

Something flickered in Callista’s eyes. She stood, carefully. Shut the book. And then her voice, soft and wounded: “I can’t believe you’re asking me that.”

Eileen blinked.

Callista stepped closer. Not looming—hurt. Trembling just enough to make her look betrayed.

“I waited for you for an hour,” she said. “I tried to get you to leave. You told me to—Merlin, Eileen—you told me to go to hell.”

“I—I did?”

“And then you laughed. You said I was jealous. That I was silly. That I’d never be what you are.”

Callista turned away, eyes shining. “I thought… maybe it was the drink. But you meant it, didn’t you?”

“No—no, I didn’t—”

“It’s fine.” Her voice dropped. “I suppose we just needed some alcohol to finally hear what you really think of me.”

Eileen’s mouth opened. Closed.

Her memory was broken glass. All she had were splinters—and none of them sharp enough to cut through the fog. Yet, beneath the shame, something whispered it wasn't true. She'd never say such cruelty.

“I don’t remember saying that.”

Callista turned back to her. Eyes wide. Voice shaking.

“But you don’t deny that you could have.”

And there it was. The kill.

Eileen stepped back slightly, as though the accusation had winded her.

It was true—she had wanted to act out for a night. And she had.

She had shocked herself.

What if this was just another thing lurking inside her, waiting? Something sharp and selfish. Something unbecoming.

Something she hadn’t known was hers.

“I never meant to hurt you,” she whispered.

Callista folded her arms.

“You did.”

A long silence stretched between them.

Then Eileen lowered her head.

“I’m sorry.”

Callista gave a long, quiet breath.

Then—gently, forgivingly—“It’s alright.”

And just like that, the noose was back around Eileen’s neck.

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Callista didn’t rush it.

She let the silence bloom. Let the shame take root.

She didn’t have to speak.

Others would.

And they did.

It started with one girl in the common room.

“Did you hear? Prince disappeared last night. Didn’t come back till morning.”

Someone else chimed in. “They say she went to a muggle bar...make of that what you will.”

“There was a muggle man, I heard.”

“No one’s seen her with anyone before, though.”

“The muggle must have approached her...though she apparently didn't complain...”

“You don’t know what happened,” someone murmured.

“Don’t need to,” another snapped. “She went. She stayed.”

“She’s always seemed a little… off since her mum died.”

“Well she's always thought she was too good for us...maybe she's finally found her people.”

The words were kindling.

Callista never lit the match.

Like always, she just handed them flint.

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It was three days before school ended, and Eileen sat quietly by the lake. Her fingers moved absently over the page of a well-worn book, though her eyes didn’t follow the words. The wind stirred the edges. She didn’t stop it.

Somewhere behind her, someone laughed—too loud, too sharp. She didn’t turn. She'd long grown used to the sound of her name being passed from mouth to mouth like smoke.

Graham approached like he always had—with respect, with hope.

He didn’t sit until she nodded. Didn’t speak until her eyes lifted to his.

“I know… something happened." he said, "I’m not asking what.”

She didn’t speak.

“I just wanted you to know,” he continued, voice low and shaking, “that I still see you.”

Her throat worked. Her hands stilled.

“I want the right to try,” he said. “To earn your trust, your heart. I don’t care what the world says. I never have.”

Then, softer: “Will you let me court you?”

Eileen looked at him, and for the first time in days, her eyes filled with tears.

She wanted—suddenly, desperately—to reach out and hold on. But her hands wouldn’t move. Her limbs felt heavy, as if weighted with an emotion too complex to name.

She wished for her mother. Fiercely.

But her mother was dead.

“I’ll think about it,” The words barely made it out of her throat.

They sat in silence.

And despite everything, it was warm.

------------------------------------------------------------------

She told Callista in the evening.

They were sitting by the fire, quiet among joyful faces.

“Graham renewed his offer of courtship,” Eileen said softly, her eyes fixed on the flames. The fire didn’t crackle. It murmured—low and steady, like it knew not to interrupt.

Callista’s hands clenched beneath her sleeves, tight enough to draw blood. She didn't feel it.

“You’re not seriously considering him?” she said, perfectly controlled.

Eileen turned toward her. “He was kind. Gentle. He didn’t ask for anything. Just… a chance.”

“And you think that’s enough?”

“I think,” Eileen said slowly, “it might be.”

Callista said nothing. Not with her mouth. But her mind began to build again.

I gave you the worst night of your life, she thought. And still, you get chosen. Still, he sees you. Still, you have the power to say yes.

So she did what she always did. She smiled.

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Eileen didn’t give Graham an answer. She tried to. Couldn’t.

The thought of him still brought to mind a warm, golden light—but it was dim, like sunlight seen through glass from far away.

Something inside her had stilled. Gone quiet. Gone dark. Like the lake at midnight.

She didn’t know what she wanted. She didn't know what to do. She didn’t know who she was. She only knew that her name no longer felt like hers.

Callista sat beside her in silence all the way home. When they parted, she embraced Eileen tightly—too tightly—drawing the breath from her chest.

“Write me,” she whispered.

Eileen nodded.

The return home was quiet.

Her father greeted her with a nod and a kiss to the forehead. He asked about her marks, which had been flawless. Asked which master she planned to apprentice under.

They talked.

And slowly, Eileen felt her spine begin to loosen, the tightness in her brow start to ease. She hadn’t even realized how tightly she’d been holding herself.

They resumed the rhythm they had shared since Elspeth’s death—an understanding built on shared grief and shared passion.

It was quiet. Heavy, at times. But stable. Steadying.

Her NEWT results arrived, along with a letter from Graham—expressing confidence in her stellar marks, and a gentle request to meet.

She hadn’t replied. Not yet.

But that afternoon, she’d sent off her final apprenticeship request. And she’d resolved—at last—to write back to Graham in the morning.

To agree. To meet. But the next morning, the nausea began.

It didn’t stop.

She brewed the confirmation herself. It was a simple potion—one every well-educated pureblood girl knew how to make. A pale elixir that would turn opalescent if conception had occurred.

She watched it shift from clear to mother-of-pearl in the light. And felt her world tilt.

She did not cry. But she stood very, very still.

Then she went to find her father.

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She told him after dinner.

They’d retired to the family room.

It was quiet.

His teacup moved in perfect rhythm—lift, sip, set.

The fire behind him crackled softly, casting a low glow across the shelves.

Eileen sat across from him, hands wrapped around her own cup, though the tea had long gone cold.

She hadn’t touched it. Not really.

She opened her mouth.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

The words tasted like poison—but they were the truth.

And the truth had to be spoken.

She had to breathe it to life.

“I need to speak with you,” she said, voice hushed.

Augustus looked up from his glass of wine, brows faintly raised. “Of course.”

She stood. Didn’t sit. Her hands shook.

“I’m pregnant.”

There was a beat of silence. Not long. Just long enough for the words to land.

Augustus blinked.

“Come again?”

Her voice faltered, but she didn’t repeat herself. She only nodded once.

And the room changed. The temperature. The weight of the air. The rhythm of his breath.

He set his glass down, very slowly.

“Who?” he asked.

She hesitated.

His voice sharpened. “Who?”

“I don’t know his name.”

That stopped him.

He leaned back as though the words had struck him physically.

“You... don’t... know.” Fury blazed in his eyes—sudden, sharp, dangerous.

For one breathless moment, protectiveness overtook disbelief. “Did someone hurt you?” he asked, voice low and fierce.

But when she shook her head, something in him fractured. The fury faded.

In its place: disbelief. Shock bloomed like frost across his face as he listened.

“No! No, I...I met him—briefly. I went out one night. With Callista. To a Muggle neighborhood.”

He did not interrupt.

“I had something to drink. I met someone. Callista and I parted ways. I stayed. And I…”

She swallowed.

“I followed him home.”

He stared at her for a long, unblinking moment.

Then he said, quietly, as if to himself: “No. That’s not possible.”

“It happened.”

“No,” he said again, rising now. “You don’t do things like that. She—we raised you better than that.”

“I wasn’t thinking—”

“That’s the point, Eileen. You’re always thinking. Always precise. Always aware.
You are not careless. Not Reckless.
Not about things like this—about your body, your future, your life!”

She said nothing.

His voice cracked.

“You don’t vanish into some unknown corner of the world.
You don’t give yourself over to a nameless stranger—
not for nothing but base appetite.”

Her voice was very small.

“But I did.”

And that broke him.

He stared at her as if he had never seen her before.

He said, softly, like someone trying to explain the world back into sense:

“This is not you.”

She said nothing.

“Tell me there’s more. Tell me there was a reason. Tell me it was grief or rage or madness or—something. Something I can understand. Or tell me it was a mistake!”

She looked at the floor.

“I just didn’t want to be me. Not for a night.”

That was when it happened.

He stepped back.

He stepped back, like she wasn’t his daughter but a venomous snake instead—like her words had struck to kill.

And then, for the first time in her life, his voice lifted—not in violence, but in something worse: shattered control.

Shock moved through Eileen like freezing water.

“Get out!”

Her heart stilled.

“Father—”

“Out!”

She left with the echo still ringing in her chest.

And Augustus, left alone, dropped into his chair—heart pounding, breath shallow—and stared at the space where she’d stood, searching for his daughter—and finding a stranger.

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Eileen didn’t pack a trunk.

She left Prince Manor with a single satchel and no destination.

The world felt hollow—each footstep echoing too loudly against the weight of her choices.

She thought of Graham—his steady voice, his quiet persistence, the way he’d looked at her when everyone else had turned away.

Just last night, she’d meant to write to him.

She thought: He would take me in.

She thought: He deserves better than what I’ve become.

She thought: I can’t.

So she didn’t.

She went to the only person she had left.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Callista received her with genuine surprise—Eileen never came without writing first.

“Eileen? What—are you alright?”

Eileen looked like she’d been carved from ice. Her eyes were wide, wet but uncrying. Her hands trembled around the strap of her satchel.

“I told him,” she said.

Callista blinked from where she sat in her family’s drawing room—perched on the edge of a velvet settee, friendly correspondence still open in her lap.

“You told…?”

“My father. I’m pregnant.”

A pause.

Callista went still.

Pregnant.

Eileen Prince.

Pregnant. With a muggle's child.

“Oh, Eileen,” she said at last, rising and crossing the space with arms outstretched, “I’m so sorry.”

Callista quickly folded Eileen into her embrace.

It was the only way to hide the ecstasy glinting in her eyes—the smile already tugging at the corners of her mouth.

At last, Lady Magic had smiled upon her.

Not just rumours. This—this could be a sentence.

Callista would make sure of it.

Eileen stepped inside.

And Callista closed the drawing room door with reverence—

like the mouth of a beast sealing shut over a morsel.

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They sat.

Grimmy, the house-elf, brought over a second cup. Tea was poured.

The silence stretched between them—thin, fragile, and scalding.

“What did he say?” Callista asked softly.

Eileen didn’t answer right away.

Then: “He said to get out.”

Callista’s fingers tightened just slightly around the cup.

But her voice was calm. Measured. Sympathetic.

“Oh, Eileen.”

“I thought he would .... would help me decide what to do. But he didn’t see me.
He saw someone else.
Someone disgraceful.”

Callista reached across the table, took her hand.

“You’re not disgraceful,” she said gently.

And then, with perfect calculation:

“You’re just… alone. That makes everything harder.”

Eileen looked down.

“I thought about Graham.”

Callista’s heartbeat stuttered—then resumed. But her face didn’t flicker.

Eileen didn’t realize the myriad ways her situation could be resolved—the countless doors still open to her. But Callista would ensure she saw only one: the path to utter ruin.

She steadied her voice carefully, hiding desperate resolve beneath manufactured softness.

“Of course you did. He's shown himself to be serious about you lately.” Callista tilted her head. “But would he still? After this?”

Eileen flinched. Blinked. A shadow passed through her. The words were true—but something in them felt… off. But maybe that was just her own mind, playing tricks.

“I don’t know.” she whispered.

“He’s kind,” Callista continued, voice dipped in sorrow, “but he’s a Parkinson. Their family—your family—it’s all about names. Legacies. You’re not just pregnant, Eileen. You’re carrying the child of a stranger.”

Her hand squeezed Eileen’s.

“And not even a magical one.”

Eileen’s breath caught.

“There's nothing wrong with that. But if you go to Graham now, you don’t just ruin yourself. You ruin him. His family will never accept it. They’ll blame you both.”

She leaned closer. “You’d be giving him your shame.”

Eileen was very still.

Now, Callista softened her voice. “There’s a different choice.”

Eileen looked up.

“You don’t have to go to him. You don’t have to go back to your father. You can go to… the father.”

Eileen blinked.

Callista continued, calm and steady. “Tell him. Let him make a choice. Let him offer you something. Anything. You don’t owe the world an explanation. But maybe—maybe the one who made this child with you deserves a chance.”

Eileen looked down at her cup. At her reflection in the tea. Thin. Pale. Unrecognizable.

“I don’t even know him,” she whispered.

“Then go find out. He’s a part of this… maybe he deserves to know. That’s all I’m saying.”

Callista did not smile.

Not visibly. But her hands curled, just so, around the porcelain.