It was around four o' clock in the morning when seventeen year old Roxanne Oxford heard the phone ring in her tiny apartment. Reluctantly, she woke up and answered the call.
"Where are you?" a female shakily voiced over the phone. "What are you doing?"
"Mom? I'm sleeping in my room. What hap-"
"Get over here. Roxanne, please, come home." Roxanne's mother sobbed. Roxanne put down the phone and grabbed her wand next to her bed. After apparating to her parent's living room, she found her mother crying on the burnt carpeted floor with the phone still up to her ear. Through her mother's sobbing she heard her named still being said to come home.
"Mom, I'm here. Where's Dad?" Roxanne asked, though by surveying the state of her parent's home, Roxanne was able to answer her own question. She followed the burnt trail on the carpet and walls to the kitchen, where a disgusting odor was being produced. In the ashy and blacked kitchen, Roxanne was able to decipher two burned bodies.
"Rusty!" Mrs. Oxford called out from the living room. "Your Dad and Rusty!"
Roxanne stood still in the archway of the kitchen and dropped her wand. She noticed that one of the bodies, located in the center of the kitchen, had its eyes open; one brown, one hazel, just like Roxanne. Those heterochromia eyes, that Roxanne shared, belonged to her father. The other horribly burnt body in the corner was then Rusty, Roxanne's older brother. A knife handle was sticking in his chest and gleamed very faintly in the dim amber light of the house. The quiver of Roxanne's lip sent her back to her senses. Tearing her eyes off her two deceased family members, she swooped up her wand, found her mother's car keys, and swiftly left for the living room. Roxanne's plan was to drive close to her small wizard inhabited apartment and walk the rest of the way; Roxanne couldn't risk apparating both her and her mother when her emotional state was in the toilet.
"We have to leave." Roxanne said to her mom who was still holding the phone and crying on the floor. "Mom, we have to get to my place." Roxanne pried her mother's hands off the phone and tried to pick her up.
"No! I can't leave them here!" she yelled as she resisted Roxanne's attempts to get her to stand. "We can't, Roxanne." She pleaded.
"We need to go now!" Roxanne begged for her mother to get up. Once she did, Roxanne ran out the front door with her mother on her arm. She put her wailing mother in the passenger seat of her car and quickly ran to the driver seat. After wiping away some tears that had crept out of her eyes, Roxanne shut the door and drove as fast as she could to her apartment.
Along the way a police officer came behind Roxanne and signaled for her to turn over. She swiped her arm over her face to take off any tear streaks on her cheeks, slowed down to a stop, and brought her window down. Her mom was still wailing and sobbing as hard as ever and Roxanne knew it would be impossible to calm her down. As the officer walked up to the window, Roxanne tightened her grip on the black leather steering wheel.
"Not so good morning, ma'am?" The officer asked when looking into the car. "What's that in your hand? I'm going to have to ask you to put it down." Roxanne looked at her left hand and found that she was still holding onto her wand. She did as he said and gingerly placed it on the dashboard.
"Are you aware that you are speeding ma'am?" he asked. She shook her head slowly while looking at the road in front of her. "Do you have an excuse? Is there a reason to her crying and the state her clothes are in?" he asked pointing to the shaking Mrs. Oxford who was clad in a burnt nightgown.
"My dad and brother were burned in a fire at my mom's house." Roxanne said slowly. "I didn't feel we were safe there."
"A fire? Has it died down?"
"Yes." Roxanne whispered.
"And your dad and brother?" Roxanne shook her head and started to cry. "The two of you are going to come with me." The police officer said as he pulled open the car door.
In a matter of minutes, Roxanne and her mother were being escorted in the back of a police cruiser to return to their home. When they had reached their destination, two other police cars were already there when a neighbor had called in about an apparent fire. The neighbor, Mrs. Benson, took in the tearful Roxanne and Mrs. Oxford as police inspected the bodies of Mr. Oxford and Rusty.
Roxanne and her mom sat in a couch as Mrs. Benson went to make tea. Roxanne was the first to talk, asking her mother what had happened.
"A man came to our house," her mother said, "He walked-just came in and walked in our house-and called us horrible names." She took in a shaky breathe and began speaking in an angry tone that Roxanne had never heard from her mother.
"It's your entire fault." Mrs. Oxford spat. "All this deal with magic and wizarding and us so called 'muggles.' That man had a wand and burned your father and Rusty."
"Mom, you can't blame this on me." stammered Roxanne. "I love you, dad, and Rusty. That's why I moved. It's not my-You can't…"
Mrs. Oxford stood up and went to the kitchen to get some tea, or more likely, to get away from Roxanne. From the couch, Roxanne searched for a secluded spot in the house. She found a spot under the stairs and was about to walk over to apparate to her apartment, but she remembered that the police officer wouldn't let her bring her wand.
Roxanne left Mrs. Benson's house and began walking to her mother's car which was about twenty minutes away, on a country road. She snatched her wand off the dashboard and sat still in the driver's seat, her one hazel eye turning golden. The morning light was just beginning to appear and the scenery around the dingy light blue car was silent. The green grass swayed slightly because of the wind, and sparkled from the dewdrops that had appeared overnight; something that happens everyday. 'Life's already moving on,' observed Roxanne, 'and I'm not ready.'