Tales from the Ravenclaw Common Room

Isabel MacDougal

by KitLee

It was shortly before the Christmas holidays. Izzy and her best friends Mandy, Padma, and Sue were sitting around a large table in the common room. For once the fifth year Ravenclaws had not had much homework dumped onto them, and the girls were taking full advantage of the rare breather. Padma was reading a book by famous Ravenclaw, J.R.R. Tolkien. Lisa and Sue were intently battling each other in chess, Mandy was staring off into space pausing to occasionally scribble in the huge notebook that nobody was ever allowed to see, and Izzy was busily working in her own notebook. Unlike Mandy, who's scribbles consisted of numerous daydreams, stories, and doodles, Izzy kept her notebook and perfect structured as her own mind. At the moment, she was working on one of her many pro/con lists.

SUBJECT: Remaining at Hogwarts v. Going Home

PROS                    

1. Time to work on extra-credit essays    

2. Will have common room/library to self    

3. Can talk to professors w/o interruptions

CONS

1. No friends staying

2. Very few Ravenclaws staying

3. No peers to help with work

She studied the list and tried to assign points to each item, then add them up. Cons won, 15-12. She considered loneliness to outweigh the possible benefits. Of course, she wasn't consciously including the real reasons. If she were, then the scale would overwhelmingly tip towards the pros.

The best Christmas had been the past one when she had gone to stay with Mandy Brocklehurst. Mandy's father had been gone nearly all of the time, coming home during the day to sleep at odd hours before going right back to work. This was especially good for the girls. They had spent hours in the Brocklehurst family library and playing on the grounds of the estate. There was a house elf to cook the finest meals and to do the girls' laundry. She had been with the Brocklehursts since Mandy's birth, and she clearly preferred Mandy over Mr. Brocklehurst.

This year, though, there could be no such trip. Mr. Brocklehurst would be home, and Mandy refused to let Izzy come. Of their other friends, there was no one else Izzy wanted to spend the holidays with. Padma's Gryffindor sister Parvati would be there with her giggly friend Lavender; and frankly if Sue's family was as competitive and neurotic about grades as Sue was, Izzy did not want to spend an extended period of time with them. And going home was no longer a preferable option.

As an child, Izzy had been raised by her Aunt Danielle. However, when she was ten, she had suddenly died. Death Eaters. Not just any Death Eaters, but Danielle's own sister and brother-in-law, Izzy's parents.

She shivered in the warm common room. They had been quite disappointed upon finding her after years of searching. Her aunt, horrified by the actions of her sister and brother-in-law, had kidnapped Izzy when she was an infant to be raised free from the Dark Arts. There, Izzy had flourished and developed a strong love of knowledge for its own sake. But upon her aunt's death, Izzy's parents regained custody of her. She had learned then that her name was not Isabel Saunders but Morag MacDougal. Even now she wasn't used to it, preferring to go by her middle name Isabel.

Izzy felt guilty about preferring Hogwarts over home, but it was not difficult for her to do so. Home was a place where her parents expressed constant disdain and scorn for her. They had been especially distressed when she had been sorted into Ravenclaw. Especially now that You-Know-Who had risen, Izzy hated being at home with all of her parents' Death Eater friends.

Izzy sighed and stared at the paper again. Absently she flipped through her notebook. She had carefully scheduled her time for the next day as well as every other day that week. That was the way Izzy worked. Her friends teased her for being neurotically organized, but in truth Izzy couldn't concentrate otherwise. She had a hard enough time as it was grasping even the simplest concepts; she didn't want to have to work through her own disorganization.

Izzy sighed, this time loudly enough to cause her friends to look up from their activities.

"What's the matter Izzy?" Mandy asked.

"Oh, it's nothing. I just can't decide whether to stay here for Christmas break." She tried to make her dilemma sound small, but her quavering voice betrayed her.

"Oh, that's too bad," Mandy said. The other girls exchanged looks. They all knew the reason why Izzy was so upset over this, but they were content to let it remain unspoken. Lisa, however, did not understand.

"What's the big deal?" Lisa asked. "If you don't want to stay, you can go home."

"That's not it," Izzy said dully.

"Then what is it?" Lisa demanded. Her overly curious nature got the best of her. "Why are you so upset?"

There was a long silence before Izzy finally admitted, "My parents are Death Eaters."

Lisa blinked in surprise. "Is that all?"

"What do you mean, is that all?" Padma asked. "That sounds pretty big to me."

"Oh, that's not how I meant it," Lisa said quickly. "I was just expecting something worse. I mean, you can go someplace else, right?"

Izzy nodded. "I went to spend Christmas with Mandy last year."

"She can't come," Mandy said dully.

"Oh. Okay. Why don't you come home with me?" Lisa asked.

"With you?" Izzy asked. She mentally began adding up the Pros and Cons.

Lisa shrugged. "Sure. We have a huge house with tons of extra rooms. I've got four older brothers and two older sisters, but they're not at home anymore." She glanced around at the others. She had lately been feeling lonely for friends besides Terry, who was a boy and weird. "You can all come, if you like. My parents like kids and noise and stuff."

Izzy felt herself grin. "Okay. I will." Happily, she picked up her quill and began writing a letter.

Dear Mother and Father,

I will be unable to come home this Christmas . . .