Homecoming
Coming back home was hard.
It should not have been, and Davina Longbottom knew that very well. But as she stood behind her childhood home's door, darkening Hogsmeade around her, almost ready to knock, she wanted to turn away, hide and never come back, never see the familiar house with friendly lighted windows again.
She rubbed her hands. It was January, and the evening wind was freezing. She had tried to find her mittens, but hadn't succeeded. The ring in her left hand was cold and Davina knocked quietly, feeling the wood under her knuckles.
She didn't have to wait long when the door opened – no one ever had to wait long on the Longbottoms' doorstep. Dad looked older than he had looked when she had seen him last time, the lines on his face were deeper and the hair on his temples was gray. But when he saw Davina, he smiled. A small, cautious, hopeful smile which made Davina regret everything.
"Hey, Dad."
"Davina."
He stepped aside and she came in from the cold wind. Davina knew what he was hoping from the bottom of his heart, that three-worded sentence which would make him happier than he had ever been. 'I left him.'
But Davina couldn't say those words, just hid her left hand behind her back and breathed in the scent of home and childhood. "Where's Mum?"
"She went to see Alison." Dad frowned and it was obvious he wanted to add something but decided not to.
Davina hated it. They couldn't even be comfortably in the same room anymore, or talk about the simplest things. Of course Mum was visiting Allie, the only child who didn't bring them constant worry and disappointments.
"Do you want tea?" It was a feeble attempt to make conversation, but Davina gladly accepted it and said she'd love to have some.
Dad escaped to kitchen to make it and Davina walked to the living room, fingers and tips of her ears prickling as they started to melt. Every piece of furniture and thing was on its right place, even Mum's reading glasses were on their usual spot on top of the dresser.
On the shelf were four photographs. The first from left was her parents' wedding picture. They were smiling, happy and almost painfully young, only a little older than Davina herself was now. She lifted her left hand and pressed the ring against her lips barely noticing what she was doing, then waved to them.
In the next photograph was laughing, plump some months old Allie. Davina smiled a bit to the tiny, fat fists of hers and envied sister's pretty blonde curls, almost too long for such a little baby. Allie had always been the beautiful one, even as a child.
Conn's picture was next. He was standing, holding tightly the chair, face lit with pride and childish joy. Davina looked at his big, brave blue eyes and tried to remember when their fire had gone out and been replaced by faraway numbness. She sighed and touched the photograph-Connor's little red cheek before turning to the last picture – her own.
The picture had been taken her first birthday, she was sitting on the floor, dressed in a frilly white dress, her hair sticking out to every possible direction, eyes wet with tears and – if you looked closely – a drop of drool on her lower lip. Davina hated the photograph, or had hated when she had looked at it last time. Now... now it was just a rather cute memory from the time she could never remember.
"Davina?"
She turned around; Dad was standing in the doorway and when she compared him to the young man smiling in the wedding photograph, her heart ached. He would be fifty-one next July, but he looked closer to fifty-eight.
"The tea is ready."
Davina followed him to the kitchen and sat down to table. Dad had put some brownies, her favourite kind, to the same plate he always put them, and it was both warming and wrenching. They both were loss at words. Davina wrapped her arms around herself and only after she saw the glistening of her ring she realised it had not been a very smart move.
Dad looked like he wanted to say something about it, but he held his tongue again and poured tea for her instead. The can and cups were the same as always, even the taste of tea hadn't changed a bit.
Maybe that was what made coming back so hard for her. Home hadn't changed, but she had.
"How are you doing?" Dad asked, lifting the tea cup to his lips.
Davina shrugged. "I'm fine. I – we are engaged." And, she added in her mind, we'll get married as soon as you two learn to get along. Which you soon will, because you both are good persons. You are.
"I see." Another sip of tea, a great way to avoid the unwanted subject.
Davina looked out of the window. The Hogsmeade was almost completely dark by now. It was getting late and it was time to leave. She would come back sooner or later, but right now she couldn't handle all this.
Dad helped the jacket on her and then, quite suddenly, continued the discussion from the kitchen.
"But what I really wanted to know was how you live, how he treats you." The word 'he' was said with such a venomous hate Davina flinched a little.
"Dad, we don't live in street."
"Of course you don't."
"And he's not cheating on me, either."
"Of course he isn't."
"You are so stubborn. You both are, two stubborn idiots."
"Don't you have mittens or anything?"
Time to give up this time. She kissed his graying temple and left. The snow scrunched under her feet as she left her childhood home and father behind her.
Soon Dad and Rigel would realise they were acting like the greatest jerks in the whole world, and soon everything would be well.
Soon.
A/N: The photographs really exist. Except that they don't move, 'Allie' has brown hair and 'Conn' is a girl. :)