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

55.

May 2035

JAMES

One Friday during the morning break, Ella showed up at his door unexpectedly. Most unexpectedly of all, she was alone for a change.

"Are you doing anything?" she asked.

James was always doing something. He never quite seemed to run out of things to grade or lessons to plan during the year. But when his daughter showed up, no, he was definitely, absolutely free.

"All yours," he said, and she stepped inside, plopping down in one of the desks at the front of his room.

"What's up?" he asked. She looked a bit worried.

"Everyone's going on about O.W.L.s," she began. "And how they have to make sure to pass these specific classes so they can get into N.E.W.T. level or they can't pursue the career path they want and how they're not going to bother studying for these other classes, because they don't need those ones anyway and I just... I guess I feel a little lost," she said.

"How so?" James asked. He pulled his desk chair around to sit nearer to her.

"Well, I don't really know what I need to pass," she said. "If anything at all. And I mean.. I'm studying and I'm taking it seriously. I want to do well. It's not that I don't care. It's just... I don't really feel like any of it is super applicable to what I want to do."

"Which is?" James asked, even though he knew the answer.

"Music," Ella said. And then she took this deep breath and tucked her chin down and looked out the window. "And I guess the other thing is that everyone's sort of making me feel like that's not a viable career path and maybe I should be planning for something more steady. Something I know I can make a living at. And then I could just do music for fun, but..."

"That's not what you want," James finished for her.

She shook her head.

"Well," he said slowly, watching her pick at a piece of spellotape stuck to the side of the desk. "When you say you want to do music, what do you envision exactly? What's the goal?"

"Well I'd like to sing," she said. "I'd like to try to be in a choir or something, like that woman said in Hogsmeade. At the show you came to over Easter break."

James nodded. He remembered.

"But I also... I think I want to teach," she said. "Like grandpa."

Elise's dad had been a piano teacher for many, many years. He was the reason Elise could play so well, the reason she'd passed it on to Ella.

"I think you'd make an excellent music teacher," James said.

"I just... I guess I don't know how I'd get started. I mean, could I really live off that? Piano lessons or voice lessons or both?"

"Your grandpa did, didn't he? And your mum grew up perfectly comfortable. Not rich, but never struggling."

"Right," Ella said.

"You know what I think?"

She looked up at him.

"I think you're smart and you're talented and you know what you're good at and what you like and you'll make something happen. And in the meantime, you try your best in school. You take the classes you enjoy and think you'd like to learn more about, even if it's just for your personal knowledge, and you keep working at the things you want to do. Don't stress too much about O.W.L.s. It's just a test. It's not the ticket to your future. Your future is coming for you anyway."