Reborn - A Harry Potter Fanfiction

i.xvi chapter sixteen

Spring, 1992; Nicholas Flammel

After that fateful night, the holidays took a slow turn and with each day, the more Ember wished for school to start again. The Phoenix did not show itself again, in dreams or in real life, but that did not mean she was absent of nightmares. Every night the same dream of the burning house would come to her and she would have to hear her parents screams. She'd come to the conclusion that the man and woman were them and now more than ever she wanted to find out who they were.

So Ember committed herself to the library, lost in endless books about lineage and wizarding families. Since starting Hogwarts she'd discovered very few bits and pieces surrounding her parents: one they were certainly and defiantly dead and two, they were most likely from the wizarding world. Well, at least that is what she hoped. The events surrounding their deaths seemed too...magical for her liking. Though she knew not of whether they loved her or their names, she knew she had to find out who they were. Not just for herself, but for the honour of their memory.

It was tricker than expected. It seems the school had no books that provided actual information about the war. Ember had remembered something Hagrid had said ages ago about lots of wizarding families being hunted by the Dark Lord, the figures in black cloaks must've been some of his followers. However, the library didn't offer up any of the gory details...probably as it was a school and children of course were not expected to know such things. Ember thought that to be stupid. How was history not supposed to repeat itself if the children who were its future were not taught about the nitty gritty bits of it?!

It seemed like a fools game. Ember knew she should't have given herself hope, but it wasn't just a desire to know who her family were...somehow, she knew her parent's deaths were related to her recurring nightmares and why the Phoenix suddenly was stalking her. What terrified her most was that every night she woke up with more cuts and more burns. She had stared going to infirmary to get Madame Pomfrey to patch her up, but there were only so many times she could blame clumsiness. Ember couldn't afford for anyone to go poking around deeper in case they found the evidence of Mr Hammond's...lessons.

Ember just had to keep trying. The mystery of her parents deaths and who they were was driving her insane, but the biggest question of all the circled her mind constantly was...how did she survive?

***

The end of 1991 came to a close and with the new year brought a new sense of relief when the students who'd gone home for the winter at last came back. Ember had never been so happy to see Hermione arrive in their dormitory, bags in hand. She'd missed her so much.

"Woah! It's like I'd been gone years!" Hermione had laughed after being tackled to the bed.

"It felt like it!" Ember whined, hugging her best friend tightly. The girls had a lot of catching up to do. That same day Ember, Ron and Harry sat with Hermione in the courtyard, bundled in cloaks and scarfs as they filled her in. They spoke about the invisibility cloak; finding the Mirror of Erised and of course, the lack of luck they had in finding anything to do with Nicholas Flammel. Harry had a spot of news though, for one night on one of usual visits to the mirror, he'd come across a confrontation with Snape and Quirrel. They were having an argument

Ember made sure to leave out the part about the Phoenix and her nightmares. Trusting others was her biggest challenge, but even despite that, this felt like her own challenge and her challenge alone.

Soon enough, the school term started once more. Hogwarts felt like home again, filled with laughter and business. Ember had missed this. There was something tranquil about the peacefulness of the holidays, but the students are what made Hogwarts alive.