Chapter 4
It took a week and a half for Hallie to begin to feel as though she were settled in and finding a routine within Professor Fig's home.
She had always been of a more shy and reserved sort, slow to put her trust in others. In her days at finishing school she had mostly kept to herself. She had quickly been deemed a strange girl when she had arrived in silence, dressed in a black dress, and making a point to avoid anyone around her. It had not taken long for most of the other girls to begin to avoid strange Hallie Edmund, who often sat alone, hiding in corners, or staring listlessly out windows.
Hallie had almost preferred it that way there anyway. Most of the girls there were mean and cruel. Spending time around them would be risking being bullied. Competitiveness ran rampant within the school. The girls who did best were almost guaranteed to live out happy and wealthy lives, thanks to the respected opinion and recommendations of Mrs Abbotford.
Hallie had spent her time there feeling extremely isolated. Even with so many other girls there, she had kept them all at arms length. The instructors there were not very kind either. They only cared for whiping the girls into shape so that they could keep the school's sterling reputation. The sooner the girls there became respectable and fine young women, the better.
Professor Fig, however, seemed to have a talent for bringing out a calmness in her that she had never known before.
It felt strange at first to be there. She felt like she was imposing, but Professor Fig was good at reassuring her that she was welcome there.
He kept a fairly routine schedule. Every morning he would rise before her and he would already be making breakfast when she arrived in the kitchen. She suspected that he rose with the sun, because no matter how early she tried to rise, he was always up before her. She couldn't be tempted to rise before dawn to keep up with him, though. She hated extremely early mornings. Professor Fig did not seem to mind that she didn't though.
After breakfast they would begin her studies, starting with reading school books, then potions, then spell-casting, herbology, and then Astronomy. They would break for meals and in the late evening to relax. Being in his home gave them a lot more time to spend on her studies.
She quickly found herself enjoying her studies and time. It had been a long time since she had been allowed to simply be a kid, no responsibilities beyond learning. She had tried to offer to clean or cook, but Professor Fig had been firm in that he would not allow her to do so. He insisted that any free time she had between learning be just that, free time.
Despite all the time she was spending on her studies, she had not had this much free time in ages. Professor Fig had plenty of books in his home to pique her interest. For the first few days she had scoured the shelves of his study, picking up the occasional book. His collection was impressive. There were several books that were in languages she couldn't read. Between that and his collection of strange knick-knacks, she got the impression that he was well traveled.
Today, instead of reading after they finished lessons, she opted to go upstairs to retrieve her sketch book. Every day this week that had drawn nearer to the hearing had made her more nervous, so she felt the urge to return to the one thing that might clear her mind.
She made her way back downstairs and sprawled out on the floor of Professor Fig's sitting room with the sketch book. She had grown to like this room in particular, with its warm, inviting colors and heavy wooden furniture with plush cushions. It was exactly the sort of room she pictured should be full of happy people, mingling and laughing comfortably. She looked up at a photograph of who must have been a young Professor Fig and his wife, dancing cheerfully in their frame. His hair in the photo was black and his skin smooth, but the sideburns and thick swept back hairstyle and blue eyes were unmistakable. His wife was pale and blue eyed, with pretty, curling brown hair tied half up to reveal a very beautiful face. They looked so in love. She wondered if they used to have visitors here often.
Do all pictures in a wizarding home seem alive like his do? At least she hadn't heard them speak, that would really be strange. She wondered about the photos, but she had not asked him about them the first time she saw them. Actually, she had chosen not to ask him about his wife at all since he had revealed to her that she had passed recently. He had mentioned her here and there on his own, but it was very clear that his heart still ached deeply for the loss. Sometimes he just looked so sad when he thought she wasn't paying attention.
After a while, Professor Fig meandered into the room with a book and two hot mugs of tea in hand. He had taken to bringing her tea also in the afternoons, after he had seemingly noticed that she had taken a liking to the room. After giving her her mug, he settled into his chair by the fireplace and opened his book to read.
****
Eleazar was a full chapter further into his book before he glanced up and noticed Hallie's nose was mere inches from the book on the floor before her. The quill in her hand was moving in a steady and constant motion against the page.
He smirked quietly to himself. It had not taken him long to notice that when she was particularly absorbed in something she was doing, she would lean forward closely to it as if she were about to fall into it. If she was particularly enjoying whatever it was, her face would soften and the tension she seemed to always carry would melt away. It somehow made her look even younger. Whatever she was doing now had her completely enraptured.
He leaned forward to try to see what she was doing over her shoulder.
"What are you doing," he asked curiously.
"Hmmm? Oh - I ... just drawing," she said, looking up at him.
She shifted to the side a bit so he could see the page. She was part way through drawing an incredibly detailed image of a fox hiding inside of a mossy fallen log. Even incompleted as it was, the picture was breathtaking.
"This is beautiful- how ever did you think of such a thing!?"
"Oh, I don't know, I just draw what's in my head or what I see."
"May I," he asked, interested to see what else she had drawn in the book. She closed the book and held it out for him to take.
Every page was filled with something different. Images of people; dancing, talking, standing around, bustling city streets and marketplaces, building and architecture, landscapes, forests, meadows, and animals. A few pages wrinkled with paint under brilliantly colored images. Most of them were in heavy graphite or ink. All of them had a realistic detail to them that made them near life-like.
"There used to be more," she said as he flipped through the pages. "Charlie burned the other ones when he got mad at me once. And I ran out of paints, so most of those are not in color."
He frowned a bit at her words but chose to focus instead, on praise. "They are incredible ... did someone teach you this or- ," he trailed off as he spoke.
"Thank you," she responded sheepishly. "And no, i've just always done it. My mother once said I'd been doing it for as long as I could hold the brushes and pens."
"Well, they could rival some of the paintings i've seen hanging on the walls at hogwarts."
"They do not- you exaggerate!"
"I do not," he fired back, laughing at her incredulous response.
They spent the rest of the evening in laughter, bantering back and forth at one another. The books and drawings that had previously occupied them forgotten and set aside.
The next day they had both risen and started their day in bright moods. He felt certain today would be a good day. Eleazar had not felt this good in months, perhaps Matilda had been right. He couldn't tell her that though, she would be entirely too smug if he did.
He was reading over Hallie's essay that she had just finished on shrinking solutions at the kitchen table as she attempted to brew the potion in question under his observation. In light of her struggles with the subject of potions, perhaps he should have been keeping a closer eye than he was.
A sharp yelp drew his eyes away from the essay as he looked up to see Hallie bolting backwards away from the cauldron. It was bubbling and frothing over the lip rapidly in a massive slow-moving wave. Wherever the bubbles touched turned melty and sizzled as it went. He lept forward and waved his wand, the bubbling mess vanishing as he did so.
"I-I'm so sorry!" Hallie's voice cried out from behind him, "I didn't mean to-"
He whiped around to face her, reaching for her shoulders so that he could get a better look at her. His immediate concern being that she might have been hurt. Before he could reach her though, she lept backwards further, hands cupped over her face and trembling.
"Hallie! Are you alright!?"
"Im sorry!"
Her behavior only served to alarm him more as he took a step foreward to her and she recoiled again.
"Hallie are you hurt?"
"Hallie!"
Why was she not answering him? He needed to know exactly how hurt she was so that he could help her. He stepped foreward again.
"Hallie?"
Bending over slightly to level himself with her, he caught her wrists, afraid she might try to pull away again. She held firm her position with her hands pressed over her face so that he could not see it. She had gone completely rigid as she stood there trembling. Her breaths were heavy and rapid.
Then it hit him. She wasn't hurt, she was afraid.
She had worked herself into a complete panic over this. Was she afraid of him? The thought sent a pang through him. He hadn't meant to frighten her.
"Hallie," he said softly, speaking to her as if she were a wounded animal. "Hallie, i'm not going to hurt you. Its alright. Its alright."
It took her a moment to respond to his words. The resistance in her arms slackened and he was able to gently pull her hands away from her face to meet her eyes, which were glassy. She still stood tense and her breaths were coming in sharp little gasps. Too quick to properly catch air.
"Listen- deep breaths, okay? You're okay. Take slow, deep breaths-"
Her breathing began to steady slowly with his coaxing. Tears welled in her eyes as it did so, but her tense demeanor melted away.
"Im sorry," she said meekly. She looked embarrassed and defeated, but not afraid of him. Perhaps it wasn't fear of him that had caused her reaction, but an automatic response, born from the need to react that way in the past.
He should have blasted the girl's brother through the wall when he had the chance.
"Its alright," he replied.
Throwing etiquette out the window for a moment, he pulled her in to hold her in a brief hug. She stilled in his arms and seemed to regain herself.
*****
As Professor Fig pulled away, Hallie eyed the floor and opened her mouth to speak, but he interrupted before she could apologize again.
"Hallie don't let it worry you. There isn't a witch or wizard alive who never made a mistake or blew up a cauldron or two in their lifetime. It is a part of learning. I daresay, if the worst mistake you ever make is causing a cauldron to froth over, you'll be doing incredibly well for yourself."
She couldn't help it when her lips twitched upwards a bit at his humor.
Having spotted her near-smile, Professor Fig's blue eyes sparkled mischievously and he gave her a larger smile of his own. Cheeky, she thought, he knew he had gotten away with his attempt at humor.
"How about we take a break and pick back up on our lessons in a bit," he offered.
"Okay."
Hallie made her way toward the door, but paused in the doorway. She turned to Professor Fig.
"Thank you," she said softly.
"Think nothing of it, my dear," he replied.
Despite her little fit of panic only minutes before, she headed upstairs feeling lighter than she had in a long time.
For the first time in her life, it occurred to her that she might be somewhere that she was truly safe at.