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A Tangent – Snapdragons
Who new that graduation would make one sentimental? Lia hadn’t and she had a variety of more or less useful knowledge. Maybe it was logical, spending the better part of seven years in one place, there wasn’t really a way around forming an emotional connection to it and really, Hogwarts wasn’t a place that made loving it hard.
Sentiment was the reason she had stayed in the castle after her last exam, to spend the last days without obligations, without classes, without head girl responsibilities. While the younger students were ploughing through their end of year exams, like Rachel, Julia and Connie, or OWLs, like Salem, Fabian and Libby, Lia and her friends were roaming around the castle grounds in the warm sun of early summer.
For better understanding, these names shall be explained further. Really, Lias family was quite extraordinary. Oftentimes, they were called the ultimate big happy family, which made her just a tiny bit mad, not uncomposed, she was a Slytherin still, graduated or not. Only, her family didn’t have the ultimate form of happiness, and they also weren’t like this on accident. Lia knew her parents and her aunts, uncle and grandpas had worked hard for this stability. So, intermission for a short family history.
Lucas Wright and Ella Fawley had married right after they had graduated Hogwarts. It was a desperate attempt to enable Ella to flee her blood supremacist family. They loved each other of course, but they didn’t love each other like they do now. While Ella was travelling, to finally have a bit of independence, Lucas started working at the Oxford reserve, where he befriended Geoffrey Fisher, an old, sturdy wizard, and Lydia Macen, a young talkative witch. After Lucas had explained his relationship status to her and the two of them had met Ella, they quickly became part of the circle.
Shortly afterwards, Marcy Fawley followed her cousins example and Ella, now Wright, gladly took her in for the time she needed to find an apartment herself. The three women met a muggle called Carolyn Alleny in a bakery in muggle Coventry, when Carolyn had heard them talk about muggle bread being superior. Her sister was a witch and she had always wanted to meet more of the magical population. They weren’t technically breaking any laws, a circumstance Ella was quite adamant about, as she worked in the department of mysteries, so they took her in.
All together they celebrated Christmas at Geoffrey’s house, where he lived with his husband Matthew and his younger brother Ebbe. Long story short, Lydia married Marcy and Ebbe married Carolyn.
Amelia Wright, called Lia, our main character, had been born first, and, two years later, her sister Isabella Wright, called Libby. Lydia and Marcy Fawley-Macen adopted two sets of twins, first Salem and Fabian, who were in the same year as Libby, and then, two years later again, Rachel and Julia. They were slightly younger than Connie, the child of Ebbe and Carolyn, who was the only child of the circle who didn’t have a biological sibling.
To Lia, all of them were her siblings and she loved them. All of them were her family, her circle.
They were here today, everyone. Of course her siblings, all in their school uniforms sitting at their house tables. Libby with Salem and Fabian, together with the fourth of the friend group Imanda Lovegood, all with ruffled hair, red gryffindor ties accenting their red splotched faces, of course they had planned something for today. The four of them were always up to something and while Imanda seemed like the most reasonable, Lia was 99% sure it was her who had the idea to let a hundred little gold fish take a swim around the Hogwarts halls in tiny spheres of water the other day, even though they should have been focusing on their OWLs.
Connie, Rachel and Julia sat at the Hufflepuff table, all with ribbons in their hair, grinning at her. They were always flocking around with others, all sunshine and rainbows and Lia couldn’t for the life of her understand why someone wouldn’t like them. Of course, after Connies outing last summer, people still found a way. Lia had reminded each and every single one of the idiots of how happy her sister looked in her new school skirt. Being a girl wasn’t a crime now, was it? Sometimes you just needed a bit of time to put two and two together.
Her parents, her aunts and uncle and her grandpas were sitting at the Slytherin table, her table, paying rapt attention to Headmaster Longbottom’s speech. The old mans eyes were crinkled with the laughter of a lifetime and the sorrows of his youth couldn’t be spotted anywhere.
Lia herself stood at the very back of the great hall, between her friends Mallory Weasley, long red hair cascading in soft waves over her shoulders and back, and Harley Abbot, shoulder length, dark brown hair messily framing their face making their good looks seem effortless, even though Lia knew it wasn’t. The three of them had shared a dorm since fifth year, since Harley had outed themselves and wanted to change dorms and nobody else had wanted to take them in, which was followed by an endless amount of nights spend sitting on someone’s bed braiding each other’s hair.
The Headmasters speech came to an end and Lia grabbed Mallory’s hand as Harley was called up first. They shook the headmasters hand, then the ones of each teacher, until Professor Black, the Slytherin head of house, finally handed them their certificate. They applauded, after headmaster Longbottom had repeated their name and their status of Slytherin prefect again. Mallory whooped. Lias godmother Marcy did too.
She didn’t really pay attention to the other names, but let each face pass in review, remembering the classes they shared, maybe the prefect rounds they did together, or the duels they fought in the duelling club. Even with the people who she didn’t get along with, because, let’s face it, Slytherins had always had strong opinions, she had had an abundance of memories. When it was Mallory’s turn Lia grabbed Harley’s hand and when the headmaster announced her role of Duelling Club Captain, the two of them whooped, like Mallory had done.
And then, it was her name sounding through the hall. Eyes landed on her, Lia righted her stance and walked between the Gryffindor table and the Ravenclaw one to the podium. The great hall, in which she had spend so many hours, so many feasts, so many sleepy breakfasts, seemed to be bigger than it ever had been, walking from one end to another shouldn’t take all this time, and then suddenly, she was there, shaking Headmaster Longbottom’s hand. He said it had been an honour to teach her and Lia believed him. The teachers repeated similar sentiments and when she reached Professor Black, Lia could barely contain her tears. The small witch with the her silver white hair, who was actually called Ava Helena Potter-Malfoy Lady of Black, smiled at her, the genuine, loving smile, that had been directed at Lia so often before. She told Lia, she would achieve great things and should always fight for her beliefs. And then it was over. Lia stepped from the podium with her certificate while the Headmaster called her name and her role of head girl again and her family cheered and Harley and Mallory whooped in unison.
Libby found Lia and her friends first, in the ensuing chaos of everyone filing out of the portal doors through the entrance hall and out onto the grounds. When Lia stepped out herself, surrounded by her circle, the first thing she saw, were snapdragons. Hundreds of the little flowers. Everywhere, growing on the grass, the trees, every little shrub, every plant was flowering snapdragon blooms even though it wasn’t supposed to. The little pink and white perennials were surrounding the mass of people, laughing students and crying parents. Lia hugged her sister, tight, right there on the front steps of the castle. Snapdragons had always been her favourite, ever since she had been a little child. Of course Libby had been running around with her friends, charming all of the plants to grow something so specific. When she looked up, she saw the Headmaster winking at her, before turning to complete the short journey to the lake. Of course the herbology teacher had helped, maybe he only handed out a specific book, that seemed in style for the happy wizard.
Once they were all settled in front of the dark water, Lia left the bulk of her family and stepped onto the little stand, turning her back to the arms of the squid that were trying to catch the mosquitos. Head girl duties. One last time.
“Hogwarts became my home easily. Even though I had a home already, even though I had multiple homes and so many people I loved. This castle has seen me grow up, this castle is like my seventh sibling and my third parent, like a third honorary grandparent. I won’t assume to know it so well in return, there are so many things I haven’t seen and yet this place feels so familiar. All the good times and all the bad, every exam, long night, every single lesson is preserved within its walls and I am eternally grateful. I will never fully leave its grounds and it will never fully leave my heart.
Whatever we will turn out to be, all of us, whatever might be our path, we will carry Hogwarts with us. Maybe it is a magical gift, maybe it is a beautiful burden, but this will be for ever my home.
I might be going off on a tangent here, but Hogwarts is a central part of our magical society and it always will be. It has survived two wars, so many changes of the ministry, so many students. This is what Hogwarts is for. To give us the roots to grow in the world.
I could say everything here, anything, all of it, but really, I can’t, because the magic of Hogwarts is so vast, so full of power, so intertwined with love, that there are no more words I could add. Maybe this: Thank you, I am Ava Wright.”
All her fellow graduates raised their voices to repeat her last sentence with their own names. The tangle of words was underlined by the splashing of the giant squid and the soft rustle of the magic snapdragons.
She might just be able to face whatever life threw at her. Because Hogwarts would always be her home.