Cursed Child Years 1-4 | Marauders Era

100 | Summer 1974

Summer 1974

Wednesday 4th July, 1974

The days seemed to stretch out before her. The Manor was filled with tension ever since returning on Sunday. With Elladora's half sanity and Divicci's craze to want to redeem the house of Selwyn, the four siblings had been instantly whisked away to the dungeons or to the hall of the manor.

That was how Elizabeth had spent her days so far. She had a forced routine down now.

Elladora had told Cassilda and Elizabeth to spend every day in the dungeons to polish up on their potion skills. Elladora made the two sister's brew lethal potions that sizzled and boiled in the cauldrons. They spent hours upon hours, daily, in the damp dungeons. Then they would resurface for lunch with blistered and burnt hands and hair frizzy from the humidity of the cells.

After lunch, the sister's were told to join Jake and Jonathan in the hall for their spell work. Of course, the spells they'd been practicing weren't what any normal Hogwarts students should be practicing and were well beyond the curriculum altogether.

Again, after hours of practicing advanced spells with her brother's, Elizabeth secluded herself to the parlor where she spent two hours every evening doing her school assignments. Sometimes one of her siblings would join her and they would sit in a comfortable silence. Then they would be called for dinner and remain in silence until everyone at the table had finished. She liked to end the days by sitting back and reading all the letters her friends had been delivering to her - courtesy of Hilda, who had been sneaking them to Elizabeth every evening - then the cycle would repeat itself, day after day.

With all the bubbling potions, exhaustion with magic and the piles of essays to write, the only thing Elizabeth had to look forward to was the Black Family Holiday. Cassilda and Jake had been leaving to spend time with their friends, from the other twenty seven sacred families, Jonathan had an opportunity for rest because of the full moon tonight, but Elizabeth couldn't see this window being accessible for herself.

Currently, she was perched on the side of Jonathan's bed, wiping the sweat from his forehead. Tonight was the July full moon, Jonathan's third full moon with the pack and of course tonight would be like February's moon, brutal to endure. She'd been running between caring for Remus and her brother, herself and James sitting in the girls lavatory brewing potions as he ran back and forth to deliver to Remus.

She'd seen her younger brother's magic become wild and unmanageable during their daily spell practices, his anger flaring and body aching. She knew Remus was likely enduring the same pain and it hurt her to know that there was nothing she could do for him. Remus rarely spoke of his home life with her, she didn't know if he did with The Marauders, but Elizabeth hoped that he had a good care system in place for the summer and winter.

"I'm fine," Jonathan shrugged her away with as much force as he could conjure.

"Jon, you're not. It's a bad moon tonight, very bad. It also happens to be the first full moon back at the manor. You're stressed and have been on edge since your return, not to mention the fact you also have to spend the night with Greyback without killing an innocent. You're far from fine."

"I've spent months with Greyback. Being in the manor is nothing new to me and-"

"No matter how much time you could spend with this family, you'll never get used to it. Greyback... is another issue entirely."

"I'll admit," Jonathan said as Elizabeth resumed wiping his forehead with a cool flannel. "We have been pushed further than I remember, but I'm adjusting to the workload."

"You can thank Elladora's addled mind for that," Elizabeth mumbled angrily.

"She looks half mad too. Her curls are beginning to look like Bellatrix's." They both let out a soft chuckle at that.