Sunday, June 4th 2021

Four walls of nostalgia, filled with memories of both beautiful and bitterness. Still, no matter how compelling the wizarding school is, nothing could greet her as warmly as the house that standing on the High Street, the small community of Fordwich, east Canterbury. That Sunday morning started with the calming sound from the steady rhythm of raindrops falling on top of the roof, the sweet smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies from the kitchen, and a small white ball of fur on the left side of the bed, his tiny head was on the pillow, legs moving involuntarily from time to time, wonder what kind of exciting dream the new addition of the Ranvier-Alloway family was having. A truly terrible name for such an adorable fluffy cat, Lucifur Morningsneeze as in the devil, Lucifer Morningstar. His oddball owner surely had her own reasoning why the name was such a perfect identity for the innocent feline. Despite the name, the ‘recently graduated from the first year’ girl has immense love for the cat since the first day at the magical menagerie.

The same goes for Lucifur, either his miniature paws won’t stop trying to catch the long brunette hair of Aurora or snuggled up on her lap and shoulder all day, without caring how many times the little devil made her sneeze. Quite the opposite, it appeared that he was amused by the Ravenclaw’s reaction, or perhaps, did not understand at all.

Plans after plans written on the wall of her bedroom, her training to-hopefully-bring the Ravenclaw quidditch team to victory will start the next day with her new coach, no other than the dedicated best friend of hers, Naomi. Knowing how much commitment her friend usually has, high chance that Aurora will not be able to move an inch after a week of training. The brunette was laying on her stomach, one hand placed below her chin while the other gently stroked the soft cloud. There was no audible purr, meaning, Lucifur was indeed having his best adventure in the dreamland somewhere. The young girl could not take both eyes off of the fluff, her lip slowly curved upward unknowingly. That little outfit Lilian-her mother- made just recently brought another level of cuteness out of the kitten.

Three knocks on the lavender coloured wooden door with a large ‘BE QUIET! MY LUCIFUR IS SLEEPING!’ written on a piece of paper made the sleeping cotton ball raised his head lazily towards the sound before stretching his tiny body. On the other hand, as always, Aurora was not impressed by it, especially with the sign hanging outside her bedroom. A little to almost zero time was spent for her Ravenclaw wit to know the culprit. “I wrote the sign for a reason, you know?” To make it dramatic, there should be an ominous sound playing in the background as she rolled her eyes and turned her head to face Josh, the infamous stepdad, who would not stop teasing the walking time bomb. People must have things that they love to do, that they are incredibly passionate about. In Joshua’s case, it was bothering Aurora. No one would blame him, honestly. Most of the time, the girl’s reaction when annoyed was somewhat amusing. “What sign? I did not see it” And just like that, all hell broke loose from within. If only it was legal to do some spell casting outside the school ground, the incantation of the locking charm would have been spit out from her mouth. Nevertheless, Lilian took away her wand until the day of the summer camp. Even her own mother could not trust the child with such responsibility to abide by the rule. It was for her sake, of course.

Ignoring her own made up rule, the eagle could not contain the urge to press the red button and finally blow up “I PUT IT ON THE D-“ Crossing his arms, leaning against the entrance, he looked at the witch with a smug face and a raised eyebrow, “I thought you wrote it for a reason?” A smirk painted across his face, feeling satisfied with what he just did. On the contrary, Aurora was flabbergasted. Regardless of the umpteenth time the girl became the victim of Josh, she just could not believe that this not very intimidating buff dude has so many guts, how could he use my own words against me?. The tension in the room was over the moon. It was silent for a couple of seconds as the kid, in disbelief, could only respond with an inaudible gasp. “ANYHOW! Let’s curl up and dye!” Said Josh, in an exaggerated excitement.

Dad jokes, why most of the dads out there loves to do peculiar puns? Yes, it is comical if one gets the meaning. However, not everyone is the king of puns. Neither muggle school nor Hogwarts teaches their students the art of terrible puns. Instead of finding it funny, the eleven year old was startled by that statement. “W-what? D-die? Wh-why would I d-do that?” Nobody would deny that both Aurora and Josh would banter from time to time. But even with that fact, the brunette girl trusted him enough to know that he would not do something malicious. Would he? The expression on the witch’s face said it all. Quickly realized the vibe in the air was shortly changing from awkward to even more awkward, clearly, the astonished girl got the wrong point of the one liner. Aurora kept repeating the stepfather’s puns, trying to make it make sense, though, her attempt was undeniably a failure. Poor kid. Lucifur, nonetheless, remained unbothered, casually curled up near the girl’s arm. The sly smile of Josh replaced by a pang of slight guilt. “Curl your hair up and dye it pink, rora-” And yet again, she was taken aback. Not only because of the foolish and ambiguous word play, but the nickname as well. It was new, simple, but comforting.“-Therefore, curl up and dye. Get it?”

True to his word. Not many people have that trait nowadays. This society is full of those callous selfishness infused people who loves to manipulate facts in order to deceive people, just to get what they want or prove them right when they are so far from it. To him, a promise is a promise, and that is how it should be. An agreement had been made through bajillion letters throughout the last Easter break. The pink hair talk was supposed to be merely Aurora being a difficult kid, thinking the stepfather will not allow her to do that, thus, she doesn’t have to deal with his constant presence ever again. But there he was, stood there, holding what seemed like a small bag with some hair products and whatnot. Her once tensed body finally relaxed once more. Sat up from the previous position without moving her right hand because Lucifur was using it as a pillow. “Oh, a-are you serious?” Never learning from the past. The bird didn’t know what will come next, however. Indulging herself in yet another atrocious dad humour. “I am Josh” One of his eyebrows raised, followed by a teasing grin Aurora hated so much. Like mother, like daughter. Lilian does not appreciate her partner’s ghastly jokes. Though, she has higher tolerance than the young eagle.

Despite their different blood status, both Josh and Alexander were not much different in personality wise. Maybe it was his playfulness, or his nurturing self. Perhaps it was the act of kindness, the excitement, or the foolish shenanigans that sometimes he put himself into. If the Hufflepuff healer were here instead of Josh, no doubt that she would hate his sense of humour as much as she hated her stepfather’s. Another glare was being thrown in disapproval. It would be cool if she could do the laser eye thing like superman. “Okay okay, I am serious” Light hearted laughs could be heard from the kitchen, where Lilian cooked some lunch dishes for the family, plus Naomi as she will come over later and stay for the rest of the month. Imagine how full her heart was knowing both of them finally get along. Little did she know, Aurora would come downstairs with her brand new shiny pink hair, similar to her pygmy puff back in her Hogwarts time.

He was a busy man. With all of his usual cramped schedule, telling the older version of the grumpy kid about the hair dye situation might have been slipped out through the back door. Even if she would no approve that decision, she could not do anything to change what has been done, except magically cast the hair colour changing spell. Speaking of the spell, neither the muggle stepfather nor the witch knew about the existence of that life changing incantation. Once the Ravenclaw have it in her brain storage, most likely her hair will be in different shades every single day. Of course, changing other people’s hair for her own hilarity is out of the list. Glints of enthusiasm can be seen in Aurora’s brown eyes, then she jumped out of her bed, making the cloud of fur jolted from his peaceful sleep. The ocean eyes of the feline looked at his owner with so much hatred but continued to sleep in such a typical weird cat position to flex his flexibility. “Okay! How does it work, exactly?” Flopped in front of the full body mirror that was hanging on

the wall, while searching for her humongous hair brush, though, its location was a mystery. A couple of cylindrical tubes be taken out from the creamy white canvas bag. One of them had this eye blinding hot voltage pink colour which terrified the eagle at first glance while Josh started to open a container that seemed like filled with pale blue powder. “First, we’re going to bleach your hair until it’s light enough to add a pink hair dye on top” Bleach? I am not a piece of cloth what are you talking about? She just nodded, pretended to understand each word completely. Through the reflection from the mirror, Aurora took a brief look at the man, in full concentration measured some ingredients and mixed the muggle version of the hair colour changing potion. “Are you sure you can do it?” Sceptical. It was a bit bizarre for her that a big man with a bunch of inks painted on his skin, which both cool but intimidating at the same time could style someone hair which required much patience and precision. “I used to be a hairdresser back in my youth, and people-” he did a chef kiss gesture, “-loved it”.

The smell of the chemical was a little too strong, it gently poked her nostrils with a blunt needle, but hard enough to make her cough a couple of times, nothing major to the point she got an asthma attack thankfully. A small bowl with the thick white mixture was dropped on the floor, Josh’s hand reached for the inhaler that was chilling on the cluttered nightstand. “Whoa, are you okay” The brunette just gave him a thumbs up as she grabbed a sheet of tissue to cover her sensitive gate to the respiratory system. Still handed her daughter’s metered dose medication just in case she needed it followed by a genuine question to make sure she was doing fine, “Are you sure?” With a light nod, she took it and placed it beside her. Once her cough died down, the asthmatic Ravenclaw answered with a muffled voice. "Yeah, th-thanks” When was the last time she thank him in person? Never. Not even through letters. Hearing such a simple word of gratification from his entitled daughter was something else, it was rare, needs to be recorded and published all over the nation. Continued on with the bleach mixture, then he smiled. “You’re welcome, rora”

Hair being brushed, sectioned, clipped, and all things that hairdressers would do, with a technique of highlights onto the brown hair strands to achieve the soft gradation colour from dark to light, making it moderately natural and unintentional. It was not an awkward silence even if they did not talk much and more of the comfortable one. The process itself took about thirty minutes until he got every part of the brunette’s long hair. She had a dream to have hair as long as Rapunzel, but judging from the fact that Hogwarts will be where she receives education for the next six years, that might be not the best idea. Especially with all the monster attacks and fire that happened way too often. An epiphany hit, turned out he was not awfully bad. Not at all, even. His presence used to make Aurora sick to the stomach, she loathed him more than the girl despised half eaten chocolate being abandoned on the side of the road.

One second she was brunette, the next second she was covered in aluminium foils. Her hair, of course. At that moment, the Ravenclaw looked almost similar to the tin man. People could mistake her as his long lost twin. Some more times were needed to make the thick liquid works its magic to lighten her naturally dark brown. The rumbling sound that came from the bird’s lack of food stomach made the girl remembered the chocolate cookie scent earlier that day. It was too good of a smell to forget, especially the chocolate part. Sitting for a really long time hurt her back area, so she stretched her upper body, and proceeded to stand up. She had gotten taller compared to her first year, but it was not much of a difference. A giant and a goblin, that was what it was like when Aurora standing side by side with his stepfather. “I think I’m going to have some cookies, do you-“ For a moment, she paused to clear the invisible lump that was on her throat, “-do you want some?” But then a hand stopped her from leaving the room. A bit rushed, he motioned the young girl to lower her volume, as if there were in a danger.

Are there any spies? Why are there so many spies lurking everywhere? “You might not want to do that” Now that confusion scattered around her thought, thinking of different possibilities and outcomes on the situation. First, the not too extreme one, the cookies were burnt to ashes which is already a crime, the biggest crime that could possibly happen to a beautiful creature such as a cookie. Second, someone or something has the audacity to put a certain type of poison to the innocent cookie dough. If that was the case, her mother must be in trouble. With a head full of foils, Aurora tried to get away from Josh’s grip, but of course, was not working. What did she expect, he was a massive dude while she was, well, an ant. “W-what are you talking about?” Her brain was defocused. What once clear, sunshine, and rainbow, now it was foggy and hazy. Different plots played in her head, thinking of the worst scenario possible. It was as if she was in a moving car, with a random person as the driver and they kept on driving at full speed while the agitated girl sitting in the back seat without any idea of the destination they are going to. The next thing that came out from her stepfather’s mouth will confirm her worry, “It’s- It’s your mother”.

Why can’t some people just talk straight to the point without going around in circles? Maybe it would not be an issue for people who can think rational all the time. It was clear that Aurora was not the type who will use her spare logic in any situation, let alone in danger. Arguably, in her first couple of months in Hogwarts, she was good at hiding her emotions and whatnot. But as the girl grew older, it could not be helped that the brunette changed to be even more sensitive and careful, though, still pretty much clumsy as ever. To be fair, being someone who is easy to panic and overthink because of a small thing was tiring. It was as exhausting as being chased by ten Canadian geese inside a maze. Judging from how many times Josh was messing with the poor kid, she should have known by now that it is a bad idea to just go along with everything the stepdad said. She looked up with teary eyes, “What do you mean?”, At this rate, the eleven year old just wanted to cry, curl up in a ball like

Lucifur and weep in tears. Then she asked once again, “What happened to my mom?” The girl’s emotion was like a roller coaster in a short period of time. Although it’s hard to put the blame on the stepfather since he sincerely did not mean to make the overly intelligence Aurora misunderstood the whole situation. Seeing his kid’s head covered in foils and stood at the edge of her meltdown, of course he needed to clear up his earlier vague statement “O-oh, nothing happened to your mother! It’s just-“ a time consuming pause, made the tin man girl be more agitated than ever, “-she doesn’t know about this-“ His hand pointed out Aurora’s hair “-whole thing”

Lilian was fine. Still pretty much flawless like she always has been. In fact, it was Aurora that will not be fine a second after her mother sees what she did to her hair. Or in this case, what her stepfather did. The scariest thing in the entire universe was not the shadow spider, or the Slytherins in the quidditch pitch, and surely not the mysterious bunny monster. It was her mother’s wrath. Even the toughest dark creatures in Hogwarts would run away from her. If anyone was confused why a short stature kid who has an unhealthy obsession with chocolate radiated this terrible aura, it was genetic. The only difference between Aurora and her mother is that Lilian was not an odd kid back then while her daughter had some screws loose in her head. Before the Ravenclaw knew the real situation, she was scared of the woman’s safety and well being. How the table has turned. Now it was her own life she was terrified on losing.“I-I thought you did tell mom!?” Josh awkwardly scratched the back of his neck, he as well had some type of unsettling feeling when his wife turning into a grumpy hag. “Well, yeah, I might have forgotten.”

The brown eyes now filled with horror. Forgetting something so crucial was unacceptable. The deal was sealed. It was written on the arrangement months ago to convince her mother to let her dye her hair pink, not helping her do it behind Lilian’s back. This was literally a self destruction mission. “C-can we, can we undo this? I- I don’t wanna die, I haven’t had my twelve birthday yet! Oh MY GOD WHAT SHOULD WE DO!?” The brown colour of her hair had been lifted at that point, and Josh is a muggle, he could not possibly do some reverse magic on her. The only thing he could do was run to the nearest store and buy a brown hair dye or just pray. Either way, Lilian would found out sooner or later nonetheless. Loud. That was one of Aurora’s abilities. Most of the time it will not be an advantage, for instance, in this circumstance. In less than zero point three seconds, a concerned voice echoed from the kitchen, getting closer, and closer, “What is going on?” Living in the same house as Aurora for the last couple of years made him at least acquainted with her behaviour and such. His hand grabbed candy from his pocket, it was a miracle that he had one because food was the only thing that will silence the kid.

His head lean on the door of the bedroom, tried to convince Lilian, “NO-NOTHING LILS!-” then shifted back his focus at his way too loud daughter, showed a piece of chocolate flavour candy in front of her face, “-candy?” Have a problem with Aurora? Just give her food, she will be the nicest person you have ever met. “YEAH, JOSH JUST BEING ANNOYING LIKE ALWAYS!” Snatching the candy from Josh’s hand, swiftly opened the wrap and eat it. The candy, of course, not the wrapper. Ever since Aurora was born, people in the neighbourhood complained to the Ranvier-Alloway household about the loud noises that she made and asked them to duct tape their daughter’s mouth. They did not say it that way, unfortunately, but close. “You go wash your hair, dry it, then put the pink hair dye all over your it. While I-“ He paused. This will be the most dangerous mission he will ever put himself in. “-I will try to prolong our life on earth by talking with her, Okay?” And gone was any trace of Josh. He bailed from Aurora’s room, doing whatever he needed to do to save both of their lives, leaving the young girl with head enveloped in foils.

What to do, what to do. To think about not being able to open her eyes when she only experienced one real quidditch match just because of a little hair transformation was horrifying. Not to mention, the Ravenclaw had a terrible loss, twenty versus unlimited points against those snakes. If the herpetology talk was necessary, Aurora could swear they should not be able to fly, or even ride a broom since they slither with their stomach. In addition to that, they don’t even have limbs. The cold air from the rain combined with the upcoming wrath of her mother created such an unsettling atmosphere. Grounded, most likely. Or maybe as worse as pushing up daisies. “Focus, roe, focus.” Tiptoed to the bathroom that was facing the staircase, trying to make zero sound, then abruptly close the door which was quite the contrary of being stealthy. Did not even bother to jump onto the shower,

the bleached hair young girl threw the foils at random places, then dumped her head straight into the sink and desperately get rid of the white-blue ish residue out of her hair strands. “Get off of my hair you-“ what was it called again? “-stubborn bleach!” Both hands searched for her new strawberry scented shampoo bottle, but struggling to find it since she was facing the sink drain, trying to not wetting her clothes and face while making a mess in the process. One pump, two pumps. Was it a shampoo or was it soap? Who cares. Bubbles covered her eyes, one of her hands tried to wipe it off, making it worsen every second. Something was missing. Something important. A towel.

Quick or quiet. Neither, obviously. Aurora walked back, slightly running to her bedroom, leaving water trails behind. Her heart was pounding as if it were having a disco party. Hastily moved back and forth, her eyes looked for a muggle technology that could blow hot wind automatically, perhaps it was hidden under the blanket and whatnots. The cat, on the other hand, just woke up from his long beautiful sleep, finally interested in what his owner was doing. As the drenched bird grabbed the hairdryer, his little paws attempted to catch the hanging cord. “No! bad Lucy!” Clearly, the fur ball did not understand a single thing she said, so, he tilted his head, ocean blue eyes glued to the dangling cable, and let out the most adorable meow she ever heard in her entire ‘almost twelve years’ life. Cute things were her biggest weakness. It was a miracle that those spiders back in the Ravenclaw tower were more in the scary side. If they were cute, she would take one as a pet and probably cease from the earth. “I’m sorry my love, Lucifur, you’re a good cute little devil!” her free hand stroked the cat ever so gently.

This was why she prefers the muggle world over the wizarding universe. Magic was marvellous, truly. But electricity, internet, technology are way superior. Maybe this should be written in her next goal to achieve in the near future, finding a spell or any kind of enchantment to make technology work just fine in the witchcraft surrounding. It would be amazing if one day Hogwarts will have its own wifi, or a karaoke room, or an arcade. Feasibly, those kinds of things were overly advance for such medieval buildings. Starting with electricity first might be a good idea. There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking baby steps. The loud sound from the machine did not startle the cat in any way. He was rather having fun playing with Aurora’s hair that was swinging back and forth. Ten minutes, fifteen minutes, thirty minutes. Thick long hair took a long time to dry, even with the highest blow. A typhoon could not even do the job. Now, she moved on to the pink hair dye. In her defence, Aurora had never watch those beauty gurus or hair dye tutorials on youtube. The only thing she watched was Gordon Ramsay insulting people’s food which was the most entertaining content ever. Once the jar filled with pink thick liquid was opened, without any gloves or any other protection, she dipped her hand right in it and put it in her hair as if it were a shampoo, saturating every strand, and her hands, and a little bit of Lucifur’s fur, unintentionally. The little devil could not stay still even for half a second. The next thing she knew, there were pink paw prints on the floor.

The state of her room was like a crime scene, but pink. She was back in the bathroom, now with Lucifur, tried to remove the stains both on her hands and the cat’s paws. It appeared Aurora did not notice that the hair dye was all over her face as well. About an hour had passed by now. Suddenly, the bathroom door opened. Standing there was a furious woman, with a plate filled with cookies. And Josh was behind her, according to his expression, no doubt he was worried. The pink stain slowly fading away just like the colour on the girl’s face. Silence. Uncomfortable one. Then Lilian spoke first, “I could just wave my wand at you, you know?” What spell would she cast on her daughter? Flipendo? Incendio? “But to be safe, I guess. I haven’t used that spell in- “ It was years ago, Lilian was fourteen, getting ready for her first date with Alexander at the hospital wing. Why that place, you ask? The young Hufflepuff Ranvier was making the room for the injured as his second dorm. A day before the day he supposed to take Lilian to Hogsmeade, an idea popped out of his head to make the love of his life fall for him all over again. Alex stole a broom from a random quidditch person and tried to surf with it, in the air, in the middle of a snowstorm. Instead of sitting down at the three broomsticks with two big glasses of butterbeer, enjoying the white snow that covered the trails, he was covered in bandages, laid down in the infirmary bed. At the Gryffindor common room, Lilian finding excuses after excuses for her to be able to stay in the same place as her crush for a whole night, but not hurting herself at the same time. Book of spells on her left hand while a wand in her hand. She cast the hair colour changing spell but intentionally messed it up. And there she was, side by side with Alexander, neon pink from head to toe, having their most memorable first date ever, surrounded with the other unfortunate students and the school nurse. The young girl didn’t know about it, perhaps it would be a story for another time. She smiled at the flashback of the memory. Those who were gone will never truly go away, and Lilian knew it. “-more than a decade” The tray full of cookies was left on the bathroom counter, then she turned away, legs moved towards the door, then said something before leaving, “Also, you look pretty, pink does suit you.”

Wide eyed, it was quite an unexpected reaction from her mother. Feeling utterly confused, she was not paying any attention to her cat who was just jump out of her hug, still with pink paws. Better use a collar for a couple days so he did not lick the chemical stain. “Wh-what just happened?” The tense look on Josh’s face now replaced with his usual playful expression, “I don’t know, but you’re not in trouble, so, high five rora!” Remember the height differences? He needed to crouched down before reached out his hand towards the short creature. But, she did not move, not even an inch. “Oh wait, are we there yet?” Got up from her previous awkward sitting position, Aurora’s gaze shifted from her stepdad’s hand to his face. Another unexpected thing happened, she smiled at him. The most genuine smile. “sure, why not?” Nothing could describe the joy in his heart. For years he wanted this to happen, and it finally did. Although it was not much, but it was something. As it was stated before, baby steps matter.