Aly rode up on the King's Cross train; it was sunny, and her orange-painted house in Welwyn Garden City took her mind off summer camp. That may sound like a dream, but it was quite the opposite of what the young witch desired; camp had been the happier times, and already coming home was shaping up to be the nightmare of the summer.

Hesper hadn't come to pick up her daughter at the station. Instead, Becca was waiting - a sweet house-elf, of course, and more like a mother to Aly than her flesh and blood ever had been, but not the person anyone would expect to arrive after two months of not seeing her only remaining family member who hadn't died or disowned her. Aly reluctantly went home with Becca to an empty home, wondering if anyone even wanted her at the Salinger family manor or if she'd just have been better off breaking into Hogwarts and camping out in the Ravenclaw fifth-year dormitories she would call more of a home soon anyways.

Merlin, her house felt haunted, now. And not in the good way, like it would have been if Benjamin Salinger had come back as a ghost to entertain and laugh with his only child. No, it felt haunted by the echoes of bygone fights, the ghost of herself sitting on the bed in her room, a perfect indent where she'd left it for King's Cross on the 1st of June two months prior. Haunted not just by memories, but by possibilities of the future being just as scarring as the past.

If that was what her future was shaping up to be, Aly wanted no part in it.

She went down to an empty first floor and dined alone.

Hesper had taken to spending long hours at work again, which wasn't something that Aly necessarily disliked. It gave her the run of the house, with doors now mostly unlocked, and for the first time in her life, the teenager could enjoy some sense of freedom within her childhood home. No longer was she Rapunzel locked in the tower - not that the fifteen-year-old would have understood that reference, but nevertheless, she seized this freedom and used it, sneaking a few times into the neighbouring Muggle city center of Welwyn Garden City. Pawning some of her mother's lesser-worn jewelry and silverware gave her enough Muggle seed money to figure out how the currency worked, then wander around spending it purchasing odd Muggle knick-knacks and such, which she displayed proudly on the shelves of her room like trophies from a winning Quidditch match.

If Hesper wanted to see them and ground her or trouble her otherwise, she'd have to come into Aly's room first. She'd have to speak to her first. And Aly knew that that scenario was rather unlikely in today's current political climate.

Which is why, when Aly came downstairs for dinner one evening just a week before she was supposed to head off to Hogwarts for her fifth year to find none other than Hesper Livingston-Salinger seated at the seat to the right of the head at the dining room table, the young Ravenclaw froze in her tracks. What was she to do, or say? It was the first time she had seen her mother since the month of May.

Luckily, Hesper took the lead, gesturing to the chair across from her. "Sit," the Auror bade, more of a command than a request.

Dumbly, Aly moved to take the seat, only now noticing that there was a wizards' chessboard on the table between the two chairs, perfectly set up to play a match. Wizards' chess had been a favourite of her parents when Aly had been growing up, though she'd never actually played, just watched as her father and mother had duked it out in a battle of wits in which they were usually quite evenly matched. So she knew, vaguely, how to play. Even if she had never quite done it herself.

Of course, Hesper was set up with the white pieces. She always had to be first.

"Pawn to C4," her mum ordered as Aly settled into her seat, still not saying anything. She eyed the board, unsure quite what to do.

Instead of a move, she asked, simply: "Why are you here?"

"What, I'm not allowed to play chess with my daughter?" Hesper snapped from across the table. "It's your move, Alyssa."

Aly's jaw clenched; she complied anyway.

Pawn to E6. Knight to C3. Pawn to D6. Pawn to D4.

Knight to C6. Pawn to D3.

Rook to B8.

Bishop to D3.

This went on for a while, with no words exchanged between mother and daughter other than tactical moves, which to be honest was not much different from the norm. There was simply much less yelling as both strategised their next move and the five beyond that, until finally a king was cornered by two rooks, forced to move back and forth in a repetitive dance til finally there was no outcome other than a draw within the foreseeable future. It may not have been checkmate, per se, but it was damn close, and Aly couldn't help but be proud of herself.

"Checkmate...?" she voiced, tentatively. "Well, kind of."

Across the table, dark eyes narrowed at her in frustration. "That much was evident, Alyssa. There was no need to gloat."

Aly blinked in surprise, taken aback for a moment; unsure what to say, she just pointed out, "I wasn't... gloating? That's just what you say when you've won, kind of, and I think I pretty much won this game. But I'm fine to go again, if that's what you want."

Hesper's nostrils flared, the rest of her face unreadable; her posture was, as always, ramrod-straight, with her shoulders pressed down and back, and Aly attempted to imitate it, though of course the imitation would never compare to the real thing. "You're being a sore winner, Alyssa. Nobody likes a sore winner, but worse, they never win again."

This time, Aly shrank back from her mother's words. Not because they affected her, necessarily - no, it was more the way that they were spoken, in such clipped tones with something that was not quite sarcasm but not quite bitterness either dripping from every syllable. This was the tone that she always heard right before they got into a screaming match, and that was not what she was looking for tonight. Instead, she just mumbled: "You seem mad."

The second the words left her mouth, Aly knew she'd made a mistake. Hesper's gaze darkened further, her shoulders shrinking back as her neck elongated almost to the point of seeming unnatural, veins popping along the side; every muscle in her body visibly tensed, her entire form seeming to radiate wrong move, wrong move, wrong move. Aly had always been quite good at reading people, and perhaps that stemmed from Hesper herself, who had always walked a fine line between unreadable and the most open book of all.

"How many times have we talked about this? You cannot tell me what I am feeling."

"No - I didn't," Aly protested. "I told you what you seemed to be, to me. My interpretation. I just - are you -"

"No, I heard you quite well!" Hesper shouted, rising to her feet; the dining chair toppled to the ground behind her. "First a braggart and now a liar? I didn't raise you to be this way, Alyssa-"

"You barely raised me at all!"

Again, a mistake. Hesper's demeanor grew colder and colder with each that Aly made, as they shouted and screamed and argued for what seemed to be forever, but was perhaps only the next forty minutes. Hesper blamed Aly - Aly blamed Hesper - and back, and forth, and back, and forth, like the world's most exhausting tennis match, until hot tears pricked at green eyes just as dark remained stone, and Hesper turned away with a huff.

"You're right, of course. It's all my fault, just as it always is. I'm a terrible mother. Perhaps you would just like to go live somewhere else."

If said sincerely, perhaps Aly would have believed them.

But she knew that Hesper didn't really mean any of that. She had always been a true master of the art of guilt, weaving fault and blame like threads between her fingers. And, as usual, Aly fell for it - hook, line, sinker, and loom.

"No - Mother, I didn't say that - you're not a terrible mother," she pleaded after the retreating form of Hesper, who had apparently decided that this was quite enough arguing for her and she was done with the conversation. "Mother - Mum - I promise, you're fine. I'll stay here. I won't leave. Mum!"

Too late. The kitchen door slammed behind Hesper, and that was the end of that.

Aly didn't speak another word for the rest of the week. Who was there to speak to? What reason did she have to say anything?

She packed for Hogwarts in silence, meticulously folding each piece of clothing - each Ravenclaw tie, each pair of dark robes emblazoned with house crest, each white dress shirt, each pleated grey skirt or matching pair of trousers - with careful fingers as they squished for room into her trunk.

She snuck one last time into the Muggle city center in silence, communicating in nods and pound notes. She'd finally gotten the hang of the currency, at least enough to properly spend it and not ask too many questions of the children running amok in the main square.

She took her trunk into her hand in silence on the early morning of September the first, looking at her childhood room with its stone walls and shelves covered in Muggle trinkets in silence, too. She'd be back next summer, probably, but after the past year, who was to say exactly when she would be returning?

Not Aly, that was for sure. She was not to say exactly much of anything.

She descended the stairs with trunk in hand, and Hesper was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Becca waited patiently at the foot of the steps to take her to King's Cross for another year of an escape from the hellhole that her life had become outside of school. Merlin, she couldn't wait to board that train, to get back to her friends, to get back to living. But it was hard to get excited when her wounds were still fresh from the month of "break".

She thanked Becca outside of the station, her voice raspy from disuse, before heading inside.

At least she'd tried.