Chapter 31 ~ Explanation

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There was silence as Albus and Lily walked slowly down the first passage of the maze. Albus didn't know what to say, so he waited. Sure enough, Lily began once they'd turned right to follow another of the hedgerow gulleys.

''I owe you an explanation Albus.'' Her voice was grim but firm, and again he waited.

''What you saw in the forest last night was me in my true form. My appearance now is caused by an adapted spell cast by Draco Malfoy in the early hours of each morning. It wears off at midnight.''

Albus nodded his head. ''But - what are you?''

She turned her head to rest her serious eyes upon him. ''I am an elf Albus. Not one of those things that works for Father Christmas and dances about in red and green. My people live in a different world to yours, in a version of earth in a different dimension, where the world in medieval times is when I live now.'' She turned her head away. ''Or where I used to live.''

''But if your race live in that world, then why are you here?'' Albus asked her simply. It was hard to take in - a different world, a different time. Yet he was entranced by it all.

''I was sent here when I was just twenty years old, as an experiment by my people. It wasn't fully succesful, I became trapped as an echo between my world and yours, right here in the Hogwarts castle, when Lucius Malfoy was a student.'' He looked at her. Lucius Malfoy? He thought it was Draco. And then her age.

''So - if you were twenty back then - how old are you now?''

She smiled at him. ''I am sixty-seven years old, Albus, young for my kind. We cannot die from age, only from injury, and we do not grow old for centuries.''

He tried to take it all in. Sixty-seven! 

''What happened with Lucius Malfoy?'' He knew Draco Malfoy's father had been cruel. What had he done to Lily?

Her face darkened. ''He kept me there. Found out how to bring me out of it, put me back in it. I was shifted between this dimension and the gap between mine and it. He studied me, used me to create new, dark spells. Practiced on me.''

''And when he died?'' Albus persisted.

''Draco managed to get me out of the darkness, hid me in an old bell tower of a church. He adapted the spell his father had used to disguise me, without any pain this time. Then he sent me here for my last year.''

Albus swallowed. ''Your last year?''

She sighed. ''Yes. Tonight I leave this world forever. I return to my own dimension.''

Silence followed as Albus ran through the facts in his mind. Any muggle would not believe it. But wizarding folk were more used to the other side of things, the magical elements of the world. She let him think, there was a enormous spider up ahead, which she stunned several times. A few minutes later, he came out of his silent thoughts to set his mind on the task. They needed to go north for the center. Turning right, he cast the simple navigation spell. 

''Point me.'' They were going East. 

''Damn it.'' He murmured. Reaching another junction, he cast it again, turning left then right. Left was Northwards.''Come on.'' He turned to look at his fellow champion. 

But she had gone.