the magic of ice

daigon alley

Sirius Black was true to his word. Four years later, Elsa received a letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, saying she's been offered a place there. She could talk of nothing else for the whole day. She was so excited. She would not calm down. She wondered what it would be like to finally be around kids who knew how she felt. To be part of a group instead of watching from afar.

There was just one slight problem. She had no idea how she was going to get her school stuff. She'd never walked around the village of Arendelle, but she was pretty sure they didn't sell wands and spell books cauldrons.

There was a knock on her door and her father entered. He closed the door behind him and walked over to his daughter, who was jumping on her bed enthusiastically.

"Hey, Dad," Elsa laughed.

The king chuckled. "You'd better not let your mother see you doing this," he said. "Princesses aren't supposed to be jumping on their beds like a maniac."

"Anna does it," Elsa replied. "Why can't I?"

The king sighed in mock exasperation. "Anna's eight, and she's not going to be future Queen."

Elsa stopped jumping immediately. She hated it when her parents mentioned that. It wasn't fair. She didn't want to be Queen. She didn't like the thought of having a lot of responsibilities. She didn't want the whole kingdom to look up to her. It was just too much. And trading goods with the other islands were so boring. Everything was so formal and you had to talk to people you didn't even know. Elsa had been to one of these meetings with the royalties of the other islands to "get the feel of it". She'd tried to act interested, but in the end she gave up and started discreetly making little snowflakes under the table. If only Anna was the older one. She'd be able to get away with almost everything.

The king noticed the sudden change in his daughter's mood and laughed lightly. "I'm joking, Elsa. Don't worry. That's not why I came here."

"Oh," Elsa said and the smile reappeared on her face. She noticed for the first time since her father walked in that he was holding a small cubed box. She slid off the bed, quite ungracefully for a princess, and skipped over to him. "What's in the box?"

The king took the lid off the box and pulled out a pair of small white gloves. "These gloves are to help you to control your power, so that you don't accidentally freeze anything if you get angry."

He passed the gloves to Elsa, who studied it for a while before putting them on. She grabbed her table lamp in both hands to test it out. To her delight, it worked. There was not a speck of ice on the lamp. She placed the lamp back on her bedside table and embraced her father in a hug.

"Thanks, Dad," she said.

The king hugged her back, smiling. "Shall we go outside now? I'm sure your mother and Anna will want to say goodbye to you."

Elsa nodded, although not entirely confident. She remembered the way Anna had convulsed and jerked about when she had struck her with her magic. She was scared of doing the same thing again. But she followed the king out anyway.

As soon as she had put one foot out of her room, Anna surprised her with a hug. "Elsa!" she squealed delightedly. "Come on, you're going to be late. Mr Dumbledore is here."

Elsa blinked, taken aback. "Dumbledore?" she repeated. "But I thought Sirius was coming."

Anna looked confusedly at her big sister. "Who's serious? Why would anyone want to be serious?"

Elsa laughed at Anna's interpretation of Sirius' name, but deep down she was feeling guilty. Sirius was the reason Anna was standing here today. He was the reason Elsa was going to Hogwarts. But he was also the reason Anna couldn't remember any of the events. Sirius had used a spell and modified her memory so she wouldn't remember anything about what Elsa could do.