Make Me.

Book 3 - Chapter 10

Remus spent the entire night in the Hospital Wing with his daughter, who had scooted over to the edge of her mattress to try and make room for him and his gangly limbs. She was only partly successful in her endeavor, as every so often one of his feet, followed by a knee or, at times, his entire leg slid off the bed and threatened to take his entire body with it down to the floor. Eventually, Ellie found herself situated between his legs, right in the middle of the bed, her mess of long, curly black locks of hair splayed out over his chest. Ellie was falling in and out of sleep the entire night, partly because her body was exhausted and in a state of disrepair and partly because Madam Pomfrey kept coming over with small doses of whatever potion she had taken earlier that day.

It wasn't until around six o'clock in the morning that Ellie woke up a final time and felt no threat of her eyelids closing again for quite some time. Madam Pomfrey was fast with another dose of the potion, but Ellie refused, earning a chuckle from her father, who sprayed hot coffee all over her back with a puff of air coming out of his nose. Ellie was mid stretch, still groggy with her much needed sleep.

"Remember, like father, like daughter?" he murmured, looking over his mustache at the matron who was giving the pair tucked in bed a stern, motherly sort of look. It was a minute or two of intense staring and waving of a small potion bottle through the air between them before Madam Pomfrey gave up on dishing out the dosage.

"Thanks," said Ellie with a sigh, letting her body collapse back onto her father's chest. Another small puff of air escaped him.

"You're very welcome, darling. I know the feeling. . ." Remus said, setting his disposable coffee cup on Ellie's bedside table. His hand moved from the cup to her head, tilting it backwards towards his face, and he planted a big, wet, coffee-smelling, fatherly kiss on the top of her head. "And, if I do say so myself, your hair looks absolutely stunning." A cheesy grin spread across his face as he spoke.

One of Ellie's hands shot up to the back of her head, feeling around. It was odd how quickly she was getting used to being able to see nothing more than blurry shapes and blobs of color. Her hair was no longer laying down her back. Instead it was twisted and knotted into two plaits, clung to her head, and flying down over her shoulder blades. They felt constructed correctly, but poorly so, nothing like the handiwork of Daphne Greengrass.

"I thought you didn't know how plait hair. I've asked you a million times to do it and you always said you didn't know how or that you were poor at it. I mean it's poor but not that poor."

"First off, I'll take that as a compliment. Second," - he sighed - "I haven't plaited hair in a long time. I let my skills decline and never wanted to let you walk around with poorly looking hair. Plus, your hair is much longer than -"

He stopped himself from finishing his thought.

"Longer than. . . ?" Ellie said, lingering on the words and turning to face her father, looking for an answer.

"Longer than an old friend's," he finished with a knowing smile.

Ellie squinted at him and though it didn't make her vision any clearer, she knew exactly what face he was making. It was a face of slyly withholding information, one she knew well, seeing as she used the face often herself, and learned from the best teacher.

"You're not going to tell me, are you?" said Ellie.

"Not in the slightest," said Remus, tapping a finger on the girl's nose.

"What happened to -"

"Hey, no secrets is my rule for you, not the other way around."

"I don't think it works like that."