Prologue
The candlelight flickered low in the Leaky Cauldron, causing the long shadows of the room to dance across the wooden surfaces and stone floor. It was warm, bordering on uncomfortable, made worse by the crackling fire of the enormous hearth that was one of the main focal points of the dining area. The pub was nearly free of patrons at this late hour, most of its guests having retired to their rooms or stumbled their way out through the Floo network or into the streets of Muggle London. The few folks remaining were a group of regulars, huddled in their usual, almost ritualistic semi-circle in front of the bar to trade the same old gossip as always with the innkeeper.
One table, however, was still occupied, two figures sitting shadowed in the far corner of the room. There, a silver-haired wizard sat silently, his teacup held delicately in his long, deft fingers. A small hint of a smile played at the corner of his lips as he gazed across the table at his companion. He sipped his tea thoughtfully, his elbows propped on the table's gnarled wooden surface, and he occasionally gave a slow nod of his head in response to a murmured comment from the young witch seated in front of him.
The girl sat with her back to the room, fully absorbed in a second-hand transfiguration textbook. She gripped her wand in the awkward grasp of one just learning to wield magic, her hand closed tightly into a fist around the handle as though trying to squeeze her spells out by force. She pointed her wand tip at the wooden match in front of her, quietly – almost hesitatingly – muttering her intended incantation. The match did something that could only be described as ‘rippling’, its wooden stem bubbling as though a boiling liquid. It lasted for only a fraction of a second, then it was gone. In its place, a silver sewing needle laid reflecting the orange glow from the fireplace.
The witch looked up, her lips slightly parted in an expression of astonishment. She seemed to search the wizard’s face, as though waiting earnestly for his acknowledgement. His gray eyes glittered at her over the rim of his teacup, and he gave her an approving incline of his head. At this, the girl excitedly swept aside the needle and tugged her book closer, turning the page with enough enthusiasm to rip it from its spine.
The elder wizard gave a quiet chuckle, repairing the page for her with a subtle flick of his index finger. He watched as she returned to her studies, her head bowed to the book, nose only inches from the page as she fought to read in the dim light.
They had repeated this routine every night for nearly two weeks. Every evening, over a dinner of questionable stew and stale bread, Professor Eleazar Fig tutored the young girl in every subject she was expected to know going into her fifth year of schooling at Hogwarts. He had initially been skeptical, thinking the school headmaster had most certainly been mistaken in assigning him to deliver the girl’s acceptance letter. No wizarding child grew to the age of fifteen without demonstrating some form of magical ability, even those of Muggle descent.
And yet here he sat on the eve of the first day of term, feeling something akin to pride as he witnessed the young witch performing magic that most children spent nearly their entire first year struggling to achieve. She seemed to take to her magic with relative ease, quickly absorbing the professor’s abbreviated instruction on everything from spellwork to potions, herbology, and even the history of magic. She proved to be a fastidious student, working her way through several battered quills and sheet after sheet of parchment as she made notes to herself in small, even handwriting. There was little doubt in his mind that she would rise to the challenge of catching up to her fellow fifth-years, provided she was able to keep up this pace.
Professor Fig took his time, allowing himself to nurse a second cup of disappointingly weak tea before finally reaching across the table to gently touch the girl’s arm. Her dark hair fell away from her face as she looked up at him, her fingers still holding her place on the page. She offered no resistance to his suggestion that she finish her work and go up to her room for the night. Their travel to Scotland the next day would take hours, and he suspected she had allowed herself very little sleep over the last fortnight. She packed her things away in her school bag, not bothering to stifle a yawn before she bid the professor goodnight and disappeared up the staircase.
He sat for a moment in pensive silence, then drained the remainder of his tea and cast a skeptical glance at the dregs collected in the bottom of the cup. He had never been one to put much faith in divination, but that never stopped him from looking for shapes and patterns in the wrinkled, soggy tea leaves. Seeing nothing recognizable, he pushed his chair away from the table and rose to his feet, realizing only now how tired he truly was. His lesson plans would have to wait another night, he thought, choosing to shove aside the self-reprimand he felt at yet again procrastinating his work until the last minute. After all, his wife Miriam had always told him he produced his best work under pressure, and who was he to argue against her?
As he wearily ascended the stairs and reached the second floor landing, he made a quick glance at his mentee’s room. He was unsurprised to see the dull gray glow of wandlight escaping through the gap under the closed door.
He didn’t mind. The girl’s work was cut out for her, and he fondly recalled his own years as a student, the gentle rocking of the Hogwarts Express lulling him into an inescapable nap after a long night of sleepless anticipation.
The upper floor of the inn was silent, save for the groan of the wooden building around him as he entered his room and changed into his nightclothes. He turned down the bedsheets and slid beneath them, leaving the other half of the bed uncovered – an old habit from the days when Miriam would come to bed long after he had drifted off. As he rested his head into the pillow, he swallowed the familiar thickness in his throat as he fought to clear his mind of the memory of waking to feel her body settling gracefully onto the mattress beside his. The way that, even in their later years together, she would force herself into the crook of his arm for a short moment of closeness before rolling her back to him to sleep.
Merlin, he missed her.
They had never had children. Never considered it, really. They had both been so focused on their research and their careers until they were too old to try. He would have liked to have at least one child, especially now.
With her gone, he was alone.
The time he'd spent with his pupil these last weeks had touched something in him. The part of him that died with his beloved wife had awakened. He could feel it, a piece of his heart taking interest like a curious mooncalf. It was more than the relationship he typically shared with his students – she needed him. While it was perfectly normal for new Muggle-born students to experience trepidation when first entering the wizarding world, the reality was that at fifteen years old, she was likely facing a very challenging experience integrating into the student population. The other students had spent the last four years learning and growing together; she, on the other hand, would have no one.
He could empathize.
His final thought before drifting into to oblivion was to marvel at how much the girl reminded him of his clever, bookish Miriam, and to wonder if a daughter of his own would have been the same.