If I May Be So Bold (A Harry Potter Universe Fanfiction)

5.

September 1, 2034

ELLA

Not long after Ella found her friends on the platform, Iris was on her to tell Kyrie what had happened last week. Kyrie had spent the last month of the summer in Spain and had come back all tan and glowy.

"Tell me what?" she asked, bright eyed.

Ella glanced around to make sure no one was nearby them that might overhear. "Okay, you can't freak out and we can discuss more later when people aren't everywhere, but-" She took a deep breath. This was harder to say in the daylight. "I had my first kiss."

The words felt strange on her tongue.

Kyrie clapped her hand over her mouth. "Who?" she asked, voice muffled.

Ella couldn't even say it. Not when she could see him standing down at the other end of the train.

"Henry Parker," said Iris for her, her eyes wide with delight.

And then the two of them dissolved into gleeful giggles, but Ella suddenly felt so weird.

She glanced back at Juni, flitting from one person to the next, then at her parents, watching them both from a little ways back.

"I'll be right back," she said, and she left before they could ask where she was going. They could wait, but this conversation, if she was going to have it, couldn't.

"Mum, can I talk to you for a minute?" she asked. Her mouth felt very dry again, like it had when she'd told Iris. She didn't know what was making her do this.

"Of course."

But her dad was standing right there, too, and even though she was usually so much more comfortable with him, she couldn't talk to him about this stuff. This was mum territory.

"Alone?" Ella added, careful not to look at him.

They walked a little ways away. Ella glanced back to make sure they'd gone far enough her dad wouldn't overhear.

"I don't want Juni to get in trouble," she said.

"For what?"

"Do you know Henry Parker?" Ella asked. She felt her cheeks get warm just saying his name.

"I've heard the name," her mum said. "I doubt I'd recognize him."

"He showed up at home last week. He said he was there to pick up Juni for that pool party but she'd already left. I thought you should know, because I know we're not supposed to give our address out without asking first."

"Oh," said her mum, and Ella thought she seemed the tiniest bit disappointed. Not disappointed in Juni or anything. Not like a parent disappointment. It seemed like she was a little sad that that was all Ella had said. "Well thank you for letting me know."

Ella swallowed hard. She looked down at the ground. "Uhm... something else happened. When he came over."

Her mum kept quiet. That was one of the reasons Ella didn't like talking to her about stuff. She always waited for you to come out with it. Her dad would prompt. He would sometimes give you an out or an excuse without even meaning to. Her dad had conversations and her mum just listened.

"Well he wanted to see the water and stuff and we talked a little bit. I didn't want to be rude and just tell him to leave. And then uhm... he kissed me." Her cheeks were burning now. She was glad she had her back to her dad so he couldn't see her face.

When she looked back, her mum had this funny look on her face like she was trying really hard not to smile too much.

"Well, that's very exciting," she said. "I'm not surprised a bit. Who wouldn't like you?"

"I don't really know what to think about it," Ella said.

"Hm," she said. "Do you think you might like him?"

Ella shook her head. "I don't know. I've never thought about it. I don't know him very well."

"No one knows each other very well at first," her mum said.

Ella rolled her lips together and looked away. She caught sight of him and he was laughing with someone. His smile made her feel weak.

"Where is he? On the train already or out here somewhere?"

Ella just looked his way and his mum followed her gaze.

"Blue shirt?" she asked.

Ella nodded.

"Oh, El, he's cute. Don't you think?"

Ella didn't answer this.

"I don't even know why he did it," she said. "He's never talked to me before."

"Maybe he just never had the chance," said her mum. She put her hands on Ella's shoulders, held her at arms length and looked at her. "You don't always let yourself be noticed, sweetheart. You deserved to be noticed."

And then she pulled Ella into a tight hug that kind of took her by surprise because again, she and her mum were not really that close. It wasn't like she never hugged her goodbye at the station. It wasn't like they had a bad relationship. It was just her mum didn't usually say things like that to her, things that made her feel like she really knew who Ella was, like she understood her. She loved her mum and she knew her mum loved her, but she usually treated Ella so carefully, like she was trying so, so hard to do things right. Something about that hug didn't feel careful, and her words didn't either.

"Get to know him a little," her mum said, still holding on. "If you want to. I trust you. You know yourself."

—-

The train didn't feel the same now that Ella was a little bit in charge. As a new prefect, she wasn't given the bulk of the responsibility, but she still had to patrol the corridors three different times (they were assigned shifts at the beginning of the journey) and so she spent a third of the day outside of the compartment where Iris and Kyrie sat with a few other girls from their year.

They saved her seat, but every time she returned, it felt like she was outside the conversation having missed so much of what had been said. So mostly when Ella came back, she sat and stared out the window, watched the countryside pass by at full speed and wished it were the ocean.

It was almost a relief when her final shift came around and she had a reason to leave again.

Or at least, she'd thought it was until she saw Henry Parker heading her way with a couple of friends. They were laughing about something and he wasn't looking where he was going.

She thought maybe she could slip past unnoticed, but his friend gave him a playful shove and he nearly he collided with her. Ella ducked out of the way just in time.

"Woah," he said, catching himself on the wall. The laugh was still etched on his face. Then he saw her, and his expression turned funny. One side of his mouth twisted up and his eyes changed and he just said. "Hey," and sort of raised his eyebrows at her.

"Hi," Ella squeaked out, and then Henry Parker turned around and kept on walking. Ella's face was burning. She didn't think she'd ever blushed so much. She felt sweaty all over.

He turned around and her heart started pounding, but all he said was, "Prefect?" and she nodded. "Figures," he said.

She had no idea what that meant.

When he turned back around, Ella faced away from him and kept walking the other way up the train corridor. She shut her eyes for a second and sent up a silent prayer that Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff wouldn't have Defense Against the Dark Arts together this year. If she had to sit in her dad's class with a boy who had kissed her right there in the room, she would simply die.