Countdown

He stays up all night on December 24th - not because it's Christmas (Benjy is Jewish, anyway), but because his eleventh birthday begins as soon as the clock strikes midnight, and Benjy is watching the sky for the owl that will bring his Hogwarts letter.

He's watched three older siblings get their letters, seen three other eleven-year-old Fenwicks disappear onto the Hogwarts Express, and now it's going to be his turn, and who can sleep when the most wonderful birthday present of all is on its way?

There is a gentle knock. "Benjy?" his sister whispers, poking her head through the door. "Are you awake?"

He pushes back the covers and leaps out of bed. "Did it come, Ella?" he asks, throwing his pyjama-clad body at her and gripping her tightly by the arms. "Did my letter come?"

She shakes her head. "Mum told me to make sure you were asleep."

Benjy sighs. Ella is the eldest, the calmest - and the saddest, he thinks, but she never lets it show. "When will it come?" he asks as she guides him back into bed.

Ella shrugs and gently pushes his head down so it rests against the pillow. "When you're eleven."

He checks the clock on his bedside table. "That's in twelve minutes," he says, sitting up to look out the window again. "I can stay awake for twelve more minutes. Please, Ella?"

His eyes are wide and brown and they plead like no others, so Ella sighs and gives in. "Benjy," she says, sitting at the foot of his bed. "I want to tell you something. Something I told the others on their eleventh birthdays."

"D'you think I'll be a Gryffindor?" Benjy asks. "D'you think I'll be a Hufflepuff?"

Ella taps his knee. "Pay attention. I want to tell you something."

"It'll come," he said, glancing at the clock. Ten minutes now.

"It's just - Benjy, if it doesn't - "

"It will come." But his heart has changed its rhythm, because the truth is, Benjy knows there's a possibility it won't come, and that scares him more than anything else in the world.

"Mine didn't," Ella says, and her eyes don't fill up with tears, but she looks blank and faraway. "I waited all night for my letter, and it never came."

"But that's different," Benjy says. Nine minutes until midnight.

She snaps back to reality. "It's not different. I didn't know I was a squib, Benjy. I didn't realize, not at all, not until I was eleven years old and it was midnight and I didn't have a letter in my hand."

Benjy doesn't look away from the clock - partly because he wants to watch the countdown, but also because he isn't sure he wants to meet Ella's eyes. "It'll come," he whispers.

"I just - I want to reassure you." She reaches for his hand. He pulls it away. "Benjy."

He finally looks at her.

"If your letter doesn't come - and I know, it's coming, but if - it's not the end of the world. I thought it was, for me, and I was devastated. I didn't come out of my room for a week. But look. Things turned out alright for me." She sees Benjy start to shift his eyes back to the clock, so she grabs his chin and holds him in place. "I went to a muggle school. I learned how to do things for myself - all by myself, not with magic, and it's damn rewarding to know you don't have to depend on a wand. And I met John. And if you'd asked me at age eleven whether I'd be happy being engaged to a muggle, I'd have told you no. But now that I'm here, I wouldn't change one single thing. Do you understand me?"

(Benjy strains to look at the clock without moving his head. Six minutes.)

"I'm happy, Benjy. Do you hear me? I didn't get what I thought I wanted, but I am still happy."

"It will come," he says, and she closes her eyes and exhales as she lets go of his chin.

"Just promise me you'll be okay," she says, standing up. "If it doesn't come, I mean. Promise me you won't be too upset."

"It came for all the others," Benjy says. "It came for Charlotte. It came for Sarah. It came for Charles. It's going to come for me."

Ella starts to walk toward the door.

"Wait," he says, and she turns. "Will you stay? Just for - " he checks the clock " - five minutes?"

She sighs. "Five minutes," she says, and she sits back down on his bed. They sit in silence, watching the hands of the clock tick-tick-tick away the time, and when it's ten seconds until midnight Benjy lets out a cry and squeezes Ella's hand.

"It's not going to come," he says.

"It'll come," she whispers miserably.

Benjy jumps out of bed and races for the window. It's freezing outside, but he pushes it open so the owl will be able to get inside. Ella doesn't take her eyes off the clock, and Benjy doesn't know it, but her heart is pounding just as hard as his is.

Midnight comes.

Midnight passes.

Benjy stands in front of the window, brown eyes pleading with the stars and the moon and the snow.

There is no owl.

"Benjy," Ella says when ten minutes have passed.

"No."

"Benjy."

Tears. "No!"

"Benjy," and she has her hands on his shoulders, and he spins around and wraps his arms around her waist and absolutely sobs.

She holds him tightly. "It's okay," she says, even though it isn't. "It'll be okay," but she's crying with him.

He falls asleep in her lap, curled up on the floor because they're crying too hard to move back to the bed, and part of him hopes he will never wake up.

In the morning, when he goes downstairs for breakfast, there is a letter waiting for him on the table. "It came in at six o'clock this morning," his mother says, planting a kiss on her son's head. "Owl must have been delayed because of the cold. But it's here. You're going to Hogwarts."

"Happy birthday, son," his father adds, tousling Benjy's hair.

Ella doesn't say anything, just watches from the doorway before she goes up to her own room.

(This time, she cries alone.)

Quidditch League, Round 5

Position: Keeper

Word Count: 1,062

Prompt: Major event for a minor character - Benjy Fenwick (Holyhead Harpies) getting his Hogwarts letter (Event #1)