[prompt 1] blond hair, blue eyes

[Elsie Märchen]

September 1st, 1966 -- continuing from this thread
Platform 9 3/4

First year, Elsie had come at the last minute. She had told herself it was a bad idea, too telling and too painful. She thought it would be easier to see the clock tick down his departure to the wonder of the Castle from her own bedroom, but in the end the thought of missing his expression when the train started up and pulled away from the station dragged her from the floor to the station. Just a glance, she had told herself, like his wonder could be experienced in a split second between Apparations and Elsie could take it all in and feel better for it.

Bursting onto the platform one minute before the train left, she caught the lightness of his hair and his carefree laughter. Wild, like his mother’s, and it hurt as much as it lifted her pale blue eyes to search for him. Charles waved goodbye to his father from a window, wiping lipstick (she didn't dare think who's) from his perfect face while Elsie smiled. Their eyes met briefly and he smiled, but he would never know she was here for him. Elsie waved helplessly and left before his father could figure out who he looked at.

It had gotten easier after that. She told herself it had gotten easier. It had to get easier.

It was his fourth year now. A late birthday made him older than a lot of his classmates, and he stood proud and tall midst their bobbing heads. Easy to spot on the platform, surrounded by his friends and someone from his family. Elsie leaned against the old brick wall, out of the way of the mill of students, and the gushing parents. Quiet, like every year. A wordless smile and wave was all she needed before leaving once more. Friend of my father’s, was how she heard him explain to his friends years previous, and she had Apparated there before he could see her crying.

Elsie had told herself to stop coming. That he would question why she appeared every September, but Elsie typically used the excuse of her own large clan to dismiss the inquiry when it came up. Typically one Märchen or another ran around the thin platform, finding friends and deserting parents. That one year he wouldn’t notice her, and wouldn’t that be worse? It wouldn’t, though, because Elsie knew it would be worse to think she had passed up the chance to see him.

To see the Hogwarts Express take her secret child to a Castle bigger than he could imagine to teach him how much bigger the world was. That it wasn’t all vaulted ceilings that Elsie had floated him up to, or the plush beds they had jumped on (and fallen off of), the sweeping staircase she had chased him up, or the long dining hall they shouted down to each other. Everything she couldn’t teach him. Never would teach him.

Hermes had never said anything that first year, perhaps because he understood her burning desire to see their son leave for his first year. He never brought it up the second year either. It made it easier, but if Hermes had asked her, Elsie might had admitted there was nothing more she wanted than to be the one to see him off — but, that would raise too many questions, and they knew it was too risky. It was better he didn’t ask.

Another blonde head made through the crowd, back pin straight and robes of obvious rich design. Elsie couldn’t help but snort slightly as the young mother gathered her child up in her arms - blond like Charles - and tearfully put him on the train. Some gibberish on letter-writing and being careful, the nonsense all mothers spouted (not that she would know, really, and not that she ever listened to her mother). The woman, couldn’t be past thirty-five, retreated to the wall beside Elsie, waving anxiously towards the bubbly boy who hung out the window.

“Is it his first year?” she asked, surprising herself and the woman.

[Sylvia Renn]

They had arrived with plenty of time to spare, even with Michael’s insistence that if they didn’t leave for the train by seven-thirty they were bound to miss it. Sylvia waited until nine to leave, and they were still half an hour early for it. “I told you we would not be late,” she said briskly as she gathered his things with one hand and him with the other. “You worry too much.”

“You do not worry enough, Mum,” Michael shot back before quickly looking away from her raised eyebrow. “Er — no, you are right.” He sulked for a few steps at the end of her arm before seeing the expanse of King’s Cross Station and forgetting himself. “Wooooooow.”

Watching him take it all in, Sylvia smiled, glancing around the old station herself. It had been ages since she had seen it, but it would seem nothing had changed since she had left the night of graduation, winded and cast into the real world with only her name and knowledge. It had seemed like she might be swallowed whole, but Sylvia was never one to lose — even if the opponent was everyone else.

“Come on, love,” Sylvia urged, tugging lightly on his hand to guide him to the brick wall. “Take it at a run if you are nervous,” she whispered at his level, but Michael only looked at her with his bright eyes.

“Were you scared?”

“No, my brothers had gone before me.”

Michael took it to heart, and straightened his back. He solemnly took her hand, and the pair of them walked straight into the barrier. Sylvia saw him flinch and close his eyes at the last moment, even as she tightened her hold on him.

Stumbling slightly against the press of people around them, Sylvia quickly guided him away from the barrier. The last thing she wanted was him getting flattened by some other family. As they found a place to load up his baggage, Sylvia pressed the battered old suitcase into his hands. “This was mine, when I went to school,” she said with a small grin. “It has your school robes in it, and some snacks, alright?” She leaned in to whisper, “I snuck in a pack of Exploding Snaps too.” Michael beamed at her, and Sylvia knelt down to his level, nervously fixing his hair and robes.

“Alright. So … be good. Listen to your professors. And Prefects —” Sylvia could go on and list every single thing that Michael should do at the Castle, but it was best to find out most of it for yourself, wasn’t it? “Promise to write, will you, darling? Not all the time, just to let me know that you are doing alright?” Michael nodded his agreement. Grabbing him close, Sylvia shut her eyes against the thought of her empty house, and felt his small warmth tuck into her chest, and his cheek against her neck.

“I love you, Mum, I will miss you and Father.” Sylvia sniffled slightly as she pulled back, nodding. “Oh, no crying, Mum. The other boys will make fun of me,” Michael lamented in a furious whisper. Sylvia laughed as she straightened, weaving through the crowd.

Michael hopped onto the train fearlessly, waving at her. “I love you, Michael, see you at Christmas, okay?” she called, waving fiercely as she backed up.

“Love you!” came his wavering voice, almost lost in the cries of the tens of people around them. Sylvia felt the wall knock against her back, and she leaned against it. She should have insisted he take the day off work to be with her. It would be a long way back home, where Michael would (for the first time in eleven years) not be at the door to greet her with his infectious smile. She dabbed her eyes as she waved again.

“Is it his first year?”

Jumping slightly, Sylvia turned to look up towards the other blonde. Older than she by a few years, with a sad tinge to her blue eyes, distantly French by her accent. The scan of her happened in the span of time it took for Sylvia to realize it was herself she was speaking to, and not a heartbeat later Sylvia smiled easily.“Yes,” Sylvia murmured in reply. “The house will feel … very empty without him this year,” she said with a tearful laugh. “He can be such a rascal, but goodness, he fills the house. Just like his father ...”

“Is yours going into first year too?”

[Elsie Märchen]

The young mother answered with a sad smile, and quiet voice. Her entire countenance was small and unassuming; as if someone had pressed petals into a glass vase. Elsie worried of talking too loudly, lest she blow the slight creature over, or right off the platform to the waiting train that students scrambled on and off of. Much different from the son she waved her damp handkerchief after, who - Elsie laughed openly as he blew a raspberry at some passing boy and promptly got into a squabble before the two disappeared into the train arm-in-arm before she could step forward. The woman seemed equally horrified and amused at the sight.

(She’d learn to love him even with that silliness if she didn’t already, because she seemed like the type that loved her child no matter what, and that was something Elsie knew of, even if she knew nothing else of mothering. She got one thing right. One.)

The woman smiled wryly at Elsie, an expression she returned easily. “I can see the rascal now,” she snorted, folding her arms over her chest as she glanced briefly towards her own rascal of a son. He could fill the entire expanse of the mansion with his smile and compete with the sun if he tried hard enough. (Just like his father.) If this woman thought it was hard going home now, Elsie could only imagine how the years would progress and the house felt emptier and emptier as their little boys grew up and became men in an Unplottable Castle.

She returned every September to the still empty house, and the still empty bedroom, and the still empty hole in her life that she gave away years ago. It was for the best, she told herself over and over that first day, seeing his rich robes and easy smile. He didn’t know struggle, he didn’t know scrambling to make ends meet — there was a lot he didn’t know, and it was for the best, because it had to be. It had to be.

(Let that be two things right, then, if it was the only two things right she ever did.)

This one, though, had all the time in the world with her little one. Entire summers to make up for months away, and entire lifetimes for the rest of it. Elsie felt a mix of jealousy and satisfaction for the mother; at least one of them could have it, right? “It is hard,” was all she offered in quiet compassion for the woman. “But it gets easier,” because one had to believe it first before it became a reality. “You will find things to busy yourself with.”

It was something that Hogwarts robbed mothers of. They missed all the years where their children sprinted through the halls with a group of boys to hex girls’ robes around the ankles. They missed coaching them through their first crush, and nudging them to act and just ask her to the dance already! Elsie would never hold him after his first breakup, where the ache in his heart might be a fraction of hers. They would never see their child struggle with spells, only see their successes back home, never help them through homework, never take care of them when they were sick.

It took their babies and spat back independent men armed with wands.

“Is yours going into first year too?”

Yours. Elsie stifled a flinch as she looked away from the blonde with a casual shake of her head. The tension filled her fist, deep in her jacket pocket, as her teeth grazed her lip to remind herself to watch her tongue. “No, he’s going into fourth year,” she answered, because there were numerous fourth years. And somewhere, deep in her heart, she wanted to pretend like she had any claim to the boy whose laughter curled in her ears even now. It was a desperate cry that was easy to ignore when she wasn’t faced with the prominent distance between them - it was only a matter of feet here, but it stretched into their very blood, his very perception of her. Friend of my father’s.

Out of the corner of her eye, he elbowed a boy in Slytherin robes, both of them pushing playfully and jostling for the door. Elsie’s smile quirked at the side, at least happy that he was enjoying himself. A glance at the clock and Elsie realized they only had twenty minutes before he left. Would this be the year he didn’t notice her? Elsie felt the press of her nails into her palm as she restrained herself from grabbing his attention, looking down before shifting her attention back to the woman at her side. Before she opened her mouth, though —

“Elsie!” Looking up, Elsie’s blue eyes widened to see Charles in front of her. He would grow taller than her. He made her breathless, but not in the same way Kris did. It was gasping for the right words, to make the most of the singular moments they had together. To somehow get across that she still loved him more than the world itself, even if she could give him absolutely nothing. (Even if she was absolutely nothing to him.)

He was a race she had already fallen behind on, but Godric would have to drag her down himself before she gave up before the finish line, and even then, she would crawl the rest of the way.

“Hey, Charles,” she said easily, ruffling his hair. “Off to school again? Merlin, you have grown again! A beanstalk, I’m telling you.” She tweaked his nose, “Write to me sometime, yeah? Let me know you’re doing okay in that stone cold place?” she teased, as he laughed.

“Sure, mom, I’ll be sure to do that. You worry more than the nannies sometimes, you know that? See ya at Christmas,” Charles said in his boisterous voice that commanded both attention and respect, the pristine Pureblood he was supposed to be. He didn’t notice the stricken look on Elsie’s face as he walked off, lifting a few fingers in a teasing goodbye, boarding the train with his growing group of friends.

“That is your boy?”

She should have said no, just a relative, or a friend. I am friend of his father’s, would have been the safest thing to say. The best thing to say, yet Elsie still smiled weakly and looked straight into the vibrant blue orbs of Charles as he waved from the train.

“Yes.”

[Sylvia Renn]

Where in good Godric’s name did he learn that, Sylvia silently hissed to see Michael, pin-straight and in a perfect vest and tie, blow a raspberry at another child. The two started arguing loudly, and Sylvia feared Michael might withdraw his wand as though that would do anything. “Merlin help me,” she muttered, taking a step forward to break it up, cheeks burning from the laughter of the tall woman at her side, before Michael decided to behave and befriend the other boy. Sylvia sighed with exasperation, shaking her head.

When would he learn that being nice to people was the better way to make friends, than throw your temper at them and see who tolerated it? Shoving his playmates with his broom until he found one that shoved him right back was no way for a boy to behave, but no matter how much she told him, he would just retaliate with ‘You shove Icarus with a broom all the time’ as though that was the best friendship to emulate. ‘I never shove him, just sometimes … roughly give him a prototype,’ for the record, but even Sylvia grew weary of saying it.

“I can see the rascal now.” Sylvia couldn’t help the smirk that crossed her lips as she eyed the untucked tail of his shirt in the back. A little ducktail that annoyed her endlessly, but he would never forgive her if she tucked it in now as he raced about the train. Appearances. She impressed that much on him, but for what good if he was unable to keep it up himself? Sylvia watched his bobbing head around the entrances, playing tag with a new found group of friends. He ignored her now, because she was crying and he was proud.

Looking over to the tall woman, Sylvia followed her eyes to another tall creature. Less willowy than she, a budding young man with a ringing laugh and confident stance. While he joked with his friends, Sylvia couldn’t help but slide her eyes towards her own that had gotten into another scuffle. It was seem this mother with her thread-bare cloak (as if Sylvia would miss that worn hem) had done something different than she because Sylvia would never say better, that ended up with a boy that would look rich even in Icarus’ hand-me-downs, while if Sylvia ever dressed Michael in something more casual he could be assumed to be pulled from the streets.

Perhaps it was something in the way the woman looked undoubtedly proud of her son, even as she tried to hide her attention, there was something that opened in her blue eyes whenever she glanced towards the fair boy. It was unlike Sylvia’s exasperated love, where she reprimanded Michael, and told him she was proud later on once he had behaved. She shifted, suddenly uncomfortable until the woman’s voice cut her attention, “You will find things to busy yourself with.”

Sylvia smiled wryly, shaking her head. She was already very good at finding things to keep herself busy with. Out of school? Go into an internship. Dating getting comfortable? Get married. Home life is simple? Have a baby. Motherhood is easy when you hire a nanny? Start a business. Sylvia was always busy, with a hundred more things that needed to get done than could ever fit in her schedule, swallowed by the turn of the day, and fighting her way to victory — because Godric if she didn’t win.

She’d find something else to keep her busy. “Elsie!” Sylvia looked (up, again, this whole family was tall —) to the exuberant boy who stepped close, naming the woman at her side. Elsie shifted obviously, straightening herself, and smiling in a distant way that Sylvia never looked at Michael. Confused, she watched the interaction, and the slight panic that flashed over her face with the boy called her mom. An eyebrow raised.

“That is your boy?” she had asked casually when the boy had left, blue eyes follow him back to the train. Elsie’s voice rung confidently in her ear, even as she said it quietly. “He is —” Sylvia broke off when she turned back to Elsie, finding she had simply … disappeared. “Hm. Handsome.”

Striding forward, Sylvia took a page from Elsie’s book, easily finding her son in the crowd because she knew how to do that much, at the very least. “Michael, come here a moment?”

Confused, he bounded over, hopping from foot to foot in an anxiety to be off once more. Untameable, as though he was something Sylvia ever wanted to contain. She smiled at him, and crouched down to look at him eye-to-eye. “Remember, your father and I are proud of you no matter what,” she said simply. A flash of surprise in his bright gaze.

Sylvia knew that feeling. Love, of course her family loved her no matter what. Unconditional, love for family was something that could never be bound by actions. Pride, why that was something wholly different. Pride was earned, kept, lost. Pride was the weight of their name, and the weight of his parents, and the weight of the world on his eleven-year-old shoulders because he had so much ahead of him. Sylvia’s parents loved her, but they were not always proud of her.

And she swore that Michael, would never feel that way. “No matter what,” she pressed to him, whispered against his brow as she kissed it firmly. They smiled at each other, and Sylvia knew he believed her.

“Okay,” he murmured, then with a wicked little grin — untucked his shirt before running off.

Fin.