hollow // credence barebone

34. ceasefire's finale

two years later

———

maybe it was because once you're over twenty, time begins to flee from your grasp faster the harder you try to make it run still. one day elise woke up and realised that she was no longer as carefree and irresponsible as she once was. all around, life went on. only she stopped mid-step.

rafael turned nine a couple days ago. he has grown so much both in height and spirit it was almost unbelievable that once upon a time he had suffered a death sentence. he was now perfectly capable of having an attitude and didn't hesitate to badmouth his teachers from the muggle school elise forced him to go. and elise was now legally allowed to sign him up to any school she found fit seeing that her name was now signed on adoption papers.

and no, that was not something she thought about a lot. she wasn't sure if they could ever make a family, much less a mother-son bond. they were more like best friends on a mission to cause miss ungrateful's black fur stand on her spine each time they entered the living room. but elise couldn't imagine rafael going anywhere else. through the months he spent living under her roof, she got strangely attached to the kid. his presence forced her to put more structure into her day so she could provide him three full meals and make sure he slept before midnight. accordingly, she never touched a single bottle of wine again — not even during the new year's party. rafael anchored her in place, not letting her slip away regardless of how close she was to falling apart. both infuriating and amazing thing about rafael was that the boy didn't have to ask what the problem was when he could literally read it from her thoughts easily as the books he consumed in appallingly fast manner.

for now, he was going to a muggle school because elise wanted him to make some friends. rafael was as far from happy as he could be, claiming that all these kids were 'immature and eating snots.' additionally, he got good grades without ever opening the textbook as he once again infiltrated the teacher's head for answers. elise tried hard to make him understand that seeing into people's minds is not a good thing to do. by the way rafael rolled his eyes, her initial guess that he would be in ravenclaw was put into question. she worried she was growing another slytherin.

maybe it was because she was getting old, but she could see bits of herself in the boy. but she supposed there was something else that made her want to keep the boy in her care. on one hand, it was the worry that his obscurus would return, but it never did. rafael's magical core was healthy and flourishing as he had continuously driven her and their pet snake mad with his tricks. on the other hand, those brown eyes of his kept reminding her of a man who half-dumped, half-protected her two years ago in hogsmead. rafael didn't say anything but by now he was getting a little sick of constantly seeing the man's face in elise's thoughts. once, she heard him mutter "why don't you just grab him by the neck and hide in the cellar" under his breath. since then, elise decided to perfect the art of occlumency. rafael kept scowling now that he had to ask about her feelings to know her feelings, so of course he didn't do that. he just stared at her deadly until she snapped, and flicked him on the forehead.

while rafael was drowning in his 'boring and useless' muggle homework, elise was working again. a year before she published another book on brewing potions which had become a competition for libatius borage's 'advanced potion-making,' seeing how she had simplified some of his overly complicated recipes and proved that his ingredients list for a draught of living death was all wrong.

elise never understood why she loved potions so much until she realised that giving her life a structure was an antidote to all life's struggles. similar, potion-making required structure and patience to make it work, least she wanted to brew poison. she had to know all ingredients and their counter-ingredients, understand the chemical reactions each of them had with another. she had to be aware of the importance of following the right order, and the risks of changing even as much as the amount of stirs she made. it was a constant game of counting her chances and experimenting, which had burnt her eyebrows a couple of times. she found this work peaceful and rewarding.