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

29.

December 2034

ELLA

On the twenty second, her parents anniversary, Ella and Juniper spent the night at their grandparents house. They didn't really need to do this anymore. They were old enough to stay home alone. But it had become a sort of tradition and she looked forward to it every year.

Her grandma would bake cookies with them, her grandpa would play Christmas songs on the piano, and then they'd go out walking in the neighborhood after dark and look at all the Christmas lights. They didn't have neighbors at home. Theirs was the only house for a long, long stretch of beach.

They'd come home an hour ago and by all official counts, Ella had gone to bed, up in her mum's old room, now a guest bedroom. In actuality though, she was only in bed, propped up on her pillows with her book, lamplight bathing the room in a warm glow. She had been here a quarter of an hour or so when the door started to creep open and Juni slipped inside.

"Can I come in?" she asked, even though she already had. Ella glanced at her and nodded, scooting over in bed, but then she turned her attention back to her book.

Juni lay down beside her, waiting in silence until Ella finished her chapter and closed the book several minutes later. She leaned across Juni to set it down on the bedside table and flicked out the lamp.

For a few minutes, they lay there in the dark.

Then Juni opened her mouth, and her words started coming out in a rush. "The other day on the train," she said, "when I was yelling at Henry Parker and you heard in the corridor—"

So that's who had been in the corner, out of sight. Ella's insides clenched uncomfortably.

"People were talking about the concert and you singing and everything, and everyone was saying how you were so nice, but they'd had no idea you could sing like that. And he tried to say you were stuck up and uptight. That's why I was yelling."

Ella swallowed. "All that because he called me stuck up?" she asked, trying to sound like it didn't bother her, but in truth, it did. This was the trouble with doing something that made people see you. It gave them permission to talk about you, to form opinions and share them with other people. Sometimes to make things up and pass them off as the truth. She was glad she had turned the light out. The back of her neck felt warm.

"Well, yeah," said Juni. "You're my sister. And you're not. You're not stuck up."

"Thanks," Ella said quietly.

"He doesn't think that anyway," Juni said. "He's just pissed you made him feel bad about himself for treating you like shit." Then after Ella turned her head to look at her, frowning, she added, "Mum told me what happened. 'Cause I was still worked up when I got off the train."

"I noticed," Ella said. They'd walked from the station to Diagon Alley to grab a bite to eat and then taken the floo network home from there. Juni had fumed all through dinner. Even though it was very cold, she and their mum had bundled up and gone for a walk on the beach as soon as they got back and she'd come back looking a little less like she was ready to murder someone.

Juni gave a wry laugh. She rolled onto her side.

"I wish I didn't care what people think of me like you do," she said.

Which caught Ella off guard, because this was not how she felt at all. It was why she had spent so much time hiding, so afraid that if she stood out and people didn't like it, didn't like her, it would break her apart.

"I do care," she said.

"But you don't act like it," Juni said. "You're just yourself. You're the same no matter who you're with."

"I do care," Ella said again. "I just stay where I'm comfortable. I wish I pushed myself like you do. My comfort zone is like this tiny bubble around me and yours is the whole castle."

"Yeah, but that's just because I blend," she said. "I blend with whoever I'm around. Act like them. Try to fit in. I don't really know who I am."

Then Juni changed the topic entirely.

"Do you like that guy who played violin with you? At the concert?"

Ella didn't see any point in lying. "Yes," she said.

"I could tell," Juni said. "The way you looked at each other after."

"Was it that obvious?"

Juni just started to giggle and Ella, in spite of herself, smiled too.

They stayed up for another hour or so — Ella couldn't see the clock to know for sure — talking about boys and school and sometimes complete nonsense. It was the nicest, longest conversation she had had with Juni in a long time.

When they started to get tired, Juni said, "Can I stay here?"

Ella nodded. They curled up, back to back, the way they used to do when they were younger, before Ella had gone to Hogwarts, when they would have sleepovers in each other's rooms.

"Love you," Juni whispered into the dark.

"Love you, too," said Ella. And then even though she was very tired, she lay awake a long time, listening to her sister's breathing, feeling the heat off her back, and thinking about that funny little Christmas song Logan had passed her on the train and especially about the sweet and endearing nervous look on his face as he'd explained what it was.

—-

The following afternoon, Ella had the house to herself for the first time since she'd come home from school. It wasn't for long. Her mum was at work, rarely taking more time off around the holidays than Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but her dad had only taken Juni to the store because she needed to finish her Christmas shopping.

Ella didn't need long, though. She could sight read.

As soon as the green flames had vanished from the fireplace, Ella dashed upstairs to find the little paper from Logan that she had tucked away where no one would find it, then hurried back down to the piano. She unfolded the paper, set it carefully on the music stand, and took a seat at the piano, plucking out the notes one by one. He'd thrown in a few interesting attempts at a chord that made her laugh to herself, but really it didn't sound terrible. She played it through several times, humming along to it so she could remember the tune. She wanted to play it for him when she got back to school.

Not wanting to be caught here, she brought the paper back upstairs before anyone got home, but it was a lot easier to hide the paper than it was to wipe the smile off her face.

"What are you smiling about?" her dad asked when he and Juni arrived back home.

"Oh," said Ella, who had brought her book downstairs with her expressly for this purpose. "Nothing, I just read a funny part."

"Such a little bookworm," he said, smiling fondly.