she's a butterfly, pretty as the crimson sky /nat

[ellie]

Elizabeth sat with her legs dangling off the side of the astronomy tower balcony, flicking ashes off the end of her cigarette, humming quietly to herself as she looked out across the grounds. It was after dinner on a Tuesday evening; the sun was setting over the Black Lake and cast a mixture of oranges, yellows and pinks across the rippling water. The sixty-two-year-old woman smiled gently as she began to swing her legs back and forth like a child whose legs were too short to touch the floor. She was not wearing shoes, mostly because she hated them, but also because she feared that they would slip off her feet and land on the roof of the tower below her. Anyone could have whipped out his wand and summoned the shoes, but Ellie was no good at magic—she had learned that during her seven years at Hogwarts. She had only further proven her point when she told her husband, now dead, that she was a witch and tried to enlarge a spoon, only to melt it after setting fire to its seemingly tough exterior.

The aging woman took another drag from her cigarette before flicking the ashes off and onto the roof below. She was not the only one who had been smoking on the balcony of the astronomy tower. Ellie knew that, though. She caught kids smoking all the time—the astronomy tower was one of their favorite places because none of the professors “wasted” their time walking all the way up to the astronomy tower to see if anyone was there. But that was Ellie’s job. She was the caretaker at Hogwarts and was asked to patrol the corridors from the time she woke up until the time she went to bed. Sometimes she got bored and took leisurely strolls instead of patrolling, but she always ran into students anyway. She had gotten to know many of the students at Hogwarts, just as they had gotten to know her. Everyone knew Ellie was a talker, but they knew she would listen, too, if they wanted her to.

A light breeze blue and Ellie’s hair danced on her head and tickled her cheeks. Even though she had a barrette in her hair, most of it was dancing freely, making her look disheveled. Everyone knew that Ellie was strange, maybe a little crazy, but that never stopped her from doing the things she did.

The door creaked from across the astronomy tower, and Ellie turned her head to see who had entered. She grinned. It was her one-and-only niece, Natalie. She did not know why the girl was in the tower, but she did know that she was happy to see her.

“Hey, butterfly,” she said cheerfully, smiling brightly, her eyes as big and as bright as the moon. “Did you have a good day today?”