A Legacy of Pain: Rising from the Ashes

Chapter 4: Retail Therapy

Last Time: Elizabeth continued the tea party with the rest of the arrivals. Lucille, a muggle guest, revealed that Clara had been sent to a convent. After some discussion in which Vivian began to defend Elizabeth by belittling Lucille for her past helping of Clara; Lizzy stepped in to calm matters down. Soon though three owls showed up to drop off their exam scores and the young witches headed inside to see how they had done. Elizabeth lamented two A's as failing grades; yet manage to achieve acceptable marks in her other exams. After reading her scores she discovered and extra letter from Weasley before running off with a second unopened letter in hand to find Annie. With the Hogwarts acceptance letter in hand they discovered that Annie was a muggleborn witch and would soon be a first year. Later that evening Poppy stated the night and spoke with Lizzy, discovering that the teen had still been suffering from headaches and was taking her combo potions again. After an emotionally charged conversation the two reconciled and Lizzy agreed to stop taking the potions and allowed Poppy to dump them all down the drain before Annabeth arrived and the three slept together in the same bed to keep away Lizzy's nightmares.

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Several weeks had passed since the tea party and in that time Elizabeth had yet to spend a single night sleeping alone after Poppy had convinced her to tell her parents what had been happening at night. The conversation had been difficult since it required the auburn haired witch to finally tell Evelyn and Nathaniel some small degree of what she had gone through over the past year. Even though she had only told them the minimum amount of details needed to explain the changes and her fractured psyche, merely that she had been hunted all year and that the school had been invaded as a result with her having to fight Ranrok That had unfortunately been enough to frighten her parents enough they had immediately refused to allow Elizabeth and Annabeth to attend school in September. It was only when the ravenclaw had called in Priscilla Sweeting and Madeline Dagworth to talk to them and explain how safe Hogwarts normally was that her parents had finally relented.

Since then Elizabeth had been sleeping with either a visiting Poppy or Annie in her bed every single night to keep her night terrors away. And so far it had worked like a charm. The night terrors never bothered her while her little sun or loveable badger was present. Despite that Elizabeth found herself craving the potions she had grown used to still, though she somehow managed to keep her promise to her girlfriend and not indulge in those cravings. Doing so was so much more difficult than she had expected that it quickly became clear that Poppy had been right about the potential for addiction. Even if it was hard now, it likely would have been even worse had she waited longer.

On Thursday the twentieth of August Elizabeth finished her breakfast with care while reading her copy of The Daily Prophet. The headline was an article on the history of Hogwarts and its founders, something she found a bit odd for the front page considering how famous the school was, but she had skipped most of the article in favor of catching up on more news of the Dricken. Apparently the Ministry had moved the poor creature to a suitable reserve after receiving numerous complaints from concerned citizens over its welfare in London. The news brought a grin to her lips as she filed it away to bring up with her badger next time they spoke.

Across from her at the table, Annie was currently attaching a letter to the leg of the owl Elizabeth had gifted the girl for her birthday earlier that month. "You're so pretty Minerva." The young blonde giggled as she very gently petted the large white feathered Western Siberian Eagle Owl. "Thank you for taking my letter." The bubbly blonde giggled before Minerva cooed softly and flew off while Evelyn let out an exasperated sigh from her seat while shaking her head.

"Annabeth, what did I say about tending to owls at the table? That cannot be sanitary." The older redhead shook her head, though there was a soft smile upon her lips. "I swear it was bad enough when your sister did it, but both of you now? I swear you two will make me go prematurely grey!" Their mother laughed before turning to Elizabeth. "Darling, are you certain you don't want us to come with you today? Your father and I truly don't mind the stares we received last time we visited the Alley to send you an owl. Besides." The woman smirked. "We know to wear robes this time. I am already wearing them after all. Madeline was quite right about maternity robes being far more comfortable." Evelyn chuckled with a pleasant smile.