Just as Roxy suspected, when she had finally kicked everyone out just before midnight, Lily was nowhere to be found, and the only recollection that anyone else could give Roxy was of seeing the flaming-haired girl sneaking off with someone who was oddly reminiscent of Tolkien Smith. Roxy was left behind to clean up the Burrow by herself, which she did with much grumbling and threats to Lily's life the next time she saw her.
When she finally went to bed at almost three in the morning, she climbed the stairs slowly, exhausted from all that she had had to do. Roxy stopped just short of the landing where the sign 'Property of Fred and George Weasley' hung and slipped back down one set of stairs.
She had no desire to deal with any weird 'things' in the house, whether they were real or just paranoid delusions brought on by alcohol and stress.
Two days later, Roxy got up and prepared for the day; after a quick—cold—shower, she picked out a blouse that wasn't too casual but also didn't make it seem like she was trying very hard to dress up. Breakfast consisted of burnt toast and eggs, and then she headed outside to check the wards one last time. It would be just her luck that someone picked today of all days to break into the Burrow—when she wouldn't even be on the property.
Today was her uncle Harry's forty-eighth birthday, and she knew that Mum would have more than a few choice words to say to Roxy if she didn't make at least a brief appearance at the Potter house to say hello. At least Mum wasn't expecting her to bring a present—Roxy had never been very good at figuring out what sort of things other people would like, and she would never have been able to figure out what Uncle Harry would want.
Finally deciding that there was nothing else at the house for her to do, and that she could put it off no longer, Roxy stepped outside of the wards and concentrated on her aunt and uncle's house, Disapparating from the grounds with a small pop.
When she opened her eyes, Roxy was standing in front of the Potter house, a large, pretty place that was absolutely massive compared to the small flat that Roxy had grown up in; she knew there were enough bedrooms for all three of the Potter children, not to mention a spare room for Teddy and two sitting rooms. It was two-storey and had a large backyard—Roxy recalled hours-long games of hide-and-seek spent with the Potter children.
"Roxy!" Aunt Ginny bustled out of the front door to greet Roxy, her brown eyes shining merrily as she came over to hug the girl. "It's wonderful to see you again! How's staying at the Burrow doing you? Lily says she's stopped by to visit a few times already—" Roxy snorted, but Aunt Ginny didn't seem to notice. "—and though we do all miss Mum's cooking while she's gone, I've no doubt that the rest of their holiday will fly right by and soon she'll be back."
Aunt Ginny led her around the side of the house to where the gate was; very nearly the entire family was already here. Uncle Percy, Aunt Audrey, and Aunt Hermione were loudly discussing Ministry work while Uncle Ron occasionally threw in random comments that made the other three adults roll their eyes at him.
Albus, Lily, and Rose were setting up a table full of food while James stacked presents up in a teetering pile that would probably fall over at any moment. Roxy waved hello at her mother, who nodded back before continuing her discussion with Hugo.
"You know Roxy, we're all so proud of you. Tenth in your year is very excellent. I don't know if Harry and I properly congratulated you last month, but I wanted to make sure you knew that you've done excellently, considering all that's happened…" Aunt Ginny continued chattering, one arm still wrapped around Roxy's shoulder when the girl spotted someone across the yard that she had hoped to never see again.
"What's Matilda Longbottom doing here?" Roxy asked, not able to keep the scowl off of her face. The girl was sitting down with her two sisters, fourteen-year-old Alice who would be a fourth year Slytherin in September, and eleven-year-old Hannah who would be a first year this year.
"You remember, don't you Roxy? Neville and Harry have always been friends." There was a warning tone in her aunt's voice, hinting that it wouldn't be very smart of Roxy to start any fights here, at her uncle's birthday party. "It would be rude not to invite him, especially since his birthday was only yesterday. Besides, Matilda isn't a bad girl, if you give her a chance. Maybe you two could talk and sort out whatever issues you have."
Roxy stared at her aunt, wondering when the cool ex-Quidditch player had become such a…such a mum. 'Talk it out'? That was what you told a little kid who was having a temper tantrum, not an eighteen-year-old who was staring daggers across the yard at the girl who had made her life at Hogwarts harder than was necessary.
She took a deep breath, trying to maintain her composure. Mum would kill her if Roxy started a fight with Matilda. "I think I'm going to get something to drink, actually," Roxy said loudly, untangling herself from her aunt's grip. "Thanks for inviting me Aunt Gin."
"Oh…alright." Her aunt sounded disappointed that Roxy wasn't attempting to reach out with an olive branch to make peace with Matilda Longbottom, but she only tilted her head and sighed before making her way over to the now squabbling Potter children, who were bickering about the presents that had fallen into the treacle tart.
Roxy wandered off in search for someone to talk to when her eyes fell on her older cousin Lucy, who was sitting apart from the rest of the family, a small piece of cake sitting on a plate next to her, with only a few bites taken from it.
Her cousin Lucy was, well…the best way to describe Lucy was eccentric. A bit like Luna Scamander, though without the fascination with non-existent animals. Lucy seemed to live in her own little bubble most of the time and hardly noticed when anyone was making fun of her. She had been a seventh year Hufflepuff when Roxy first entered Hogwarts, and even now, Roxy couldn't really say she knew Lucy very well.
Though she was not on very good terms with most of the family, Lucy had taken to avoiding their cousin Victoire most of all, seemingly almost frightened by the sight of the elegant blonde; though no one had initially understand why Lucy seemed so bothered by Victoire every time the family got together, Lucy's sister, Molly, had eventually informed them that Lucy—innocent, sweet Lucy that no one had ever even known had a boyfriend—had been pregnant.
The baby, if it had lived, would have only been three months younger than Remus. Lucy, despite having lost her unborn child four years ago, didn't seem to be recovering. She had lived with Molly up until this spring, but had moved in with Louis in May. Lucy had no job, she hardly ever spoke to anyone, and Louis had mentioned that Lucy had nightmares that woke him up because she couldn't stop screaming.
Roxy, of course, had never lost a child, but she could imagine it was probably pretty difficult to have to come to family dinners every Sunday afternoon and see Victoire coo over little Remus and William and wonder what it would have been like to have a child of your own.
"Hello Roxy," said Lucy when Roxy sat down next to the slender redhead. After Roxy, Lucy was the shortest of the Weasley cousins; at only one hundred and fifty-five centimetres, she was just a little taller than Roxy was, but was just as thin. The veins on her wrists were very blue against Lucy's pale, nearly translucent, skin. "You seem in need of advice."
Roxy shrugged. "Maybe I do, though I'm so turned around at this point that I couldn't even tell you what I would need advice about. I mean, this is all so confusing and I barely even really believe that any of it is actually happening outside of my own head."
Lucy tilted her head, indicating for Roxy to elaborate.
"Well, it's just that I feel like weird things have been happening to me since—since, like, graduation. I feel like I'm always being watched, and I wake up in places where I know I didn't go to sleep. And—and then, two days ago, Faith and Emily were over—"
"At your party."
Roxy gave her cousin a startled look, but the other girl only shrugged and gave her a serene smile. "R-right, at my party. And, well, Faith kept saying that there was someone in the house t-that didn't belong. Then, later, I went upstairs and I felt like something was just, um, calling me into one of the bedrooms. It was so weird, you know?"
Lucy continued to smile, which did very little to make Roxy feel better. "I know what's going on Roxy. They're talking to you finally. They are trying to reach out to you, to make their presence known to you. Oh, this is wonderful! You've been chosen by them—you should be proud Roxy, very few people are chosen by them, but they want you to see them."
"Who does?"
"The spirits, of course." Lucy leaned back, looking pleased with herself. Roxy stared at her, slack-jawed. Maybe the similarities between Lucy and Aunt Luna were more prominent than Roxy had ever guessed before.
"Sorry, what? Did you say spirits? As—as in, like ghosts?"
"Of course. Though they are little more than mere shadows now, doomed to roam the earth." Lucy shook her head, forlorn. "The poor dears. I'm not surprised that they have picked you, though. You're very much like me."
Roxy bristled slightly at that comment. She liked Lucy well enough, but it was hardly a compliment to be compared to her slightly mad cousin.
"Lucy, you do realise that all of the ghosts disappeared ages ago, right? Like, over twenty years. So whatever is attempting to 'communicate' with me—if that's even what's really happening and I'm not losing my mind—then it isn't ghosts or spirits or spectres. They aren't around anymore—and besides that, even if they were, why would I be their person of choice to bother?"
"As I said, ghosts look for people like you or me, people more attuned to grief, because they know that we understand the sting of death more easily than the average person." Roxy had the sudden urge to slap the serene smile off of Lucy's face. Was she making fun of Roxy now?
Roxy squinted at her cousin, but Lucy seemed genuine enough. She obviously believed whole-heartedly that what she was saying was true—as bafflingly impossible as the whole situation was.
Lucy had always insisted that she was more 'in tune' with 'supernatural forces' than the average person, but when it came to the ghosts, she just had to be wrong. Everyone—from the most official and certified members of the Ghost and Ghoul Division at the Ministry to even the youngest child—knew that the ghosts were gone and they wouldn't be coming back.
So Lucy was doing her normal self—she had to be, seeing things that weren't there, like her 'imaginary friends' again, the ones she had seen as a little girl and at Hogwarts, which had gotten her teased quite frequently by other students. The ghosts were just another fantasy for Lucy, who wasn't able to handle reality and so created ghostly friends to keep her company. They couldn't be real.
Lucy smiled at Roxy once more, though this time, her corners twitched and struggled to maintain a happy appearance. "You don't believe me." Roxy started to protest, not wanting to hurt Lucy's feelings, but the older girl only held up her hands. "It's okay, I understand that you don't. It took so many people long enough to believe that they were gone and you have always lived in a world devoid of ghosts—or, rather, what you believe to be devoid. It is the only life you know, so I don't blame you for being hesitant about their return."
Roxy looked down at her hands, befuddled. Lucy sounded so—so sure of herself, so confident in her beliefs, as preposterous as they were. Because the ghosts had left, hadn't they? All the spirits and poltergeists and such—they were all gone, weren't they? Packed up and left for something else. Perhaps they, after centuries of being barely-there spectres, had decided to move on to something better, something more interesting.
She could understand the sentiment of wanting to change your existence so drastically that you ran away from everything you'd ever known. Roxy had dreamt of doing something similar; disappearing into thin air, waking up one day with a new name and a new life where everything in the past was gone for good.
When she looked up again, it was to find the seat next to her was now empty. Lucy had slipped off, floating across the yard, looking every bit the ethereal faery that she always spoke of. Lucy had all the grace that Roxy had never achieved—and never would.
Roxy shivered against a sudden breeze, wishing she had thought to bring a light jacket. She noticed Professor Longbottom and Uncle Harry laughing together over cups of punch, and she wondered if that would be her and Jo in thirty years, attending each other's birthday parties, their children running amok, and having a laugh about the old times.
She tried to imagine it, picturing Joanna and some dark stranger, two or three little kids at their feet. Roxy smiled at the thought, but when she tried to insert herself and Kieran into the thought, with a daughter or a son of her own, she couldn't see it.
Well, Roxy thought to herself, that's not very much of a surprise, is it? You've never been able to picture a future with him, really. Kieran's nice, but you want something more…she couldn't finish the sentence, because, to be honest, Roxy didn't know what she wanted.
And not just when it came to future partners—she didn't know at all what she wanted. Her time to sign up for an internship with Henrik's was running short—Roxy had, at best, two weeks to make a decision—and yet she couldn't make up her mind about whether or not that was the right choice for her or not.
Her go-to defence had always been that Roxy didn't want to rush into things, to make a hasty decision only to regret it six months or a year down the road, but she knew the truth; Roxy had no clue what she intended to do with herself for the next forty or fifty years. Sure she liked making potions, but what if it was too challenging or not challenging enough?
All of her other cousins—even flighty Lucy and can't-tie-me-down Lily—seemed to have some sort of idea of what they were going to do. Lucy at least had her delusions of ghosts that had nothing better to do than harass Roxy. Lily was a photographer for The Quibbler, when she wasn't too busy getting drunk off her arse.
Even Dominique had apparently known what she wanted to do with herself, even if all that was had been to throw herself into the Thames and give up on everyone and everything.
"You're doing some hard thinking, aren't you?" A small blonde had taken up Lucy's seat, quietly nibbling at a sandwich. She was slightly chubby, but had high cheekbones and a small nose; Roxy took a moment to place her as Alice, Professor Longbottom's middle daughter. The Slytherin.
"What makes you think that?"
"Well, you just seem so…intense." Alice shrugged. "Like you're really concentrating on something hard. That's how my mum gets when she's trying to remember something. Her face goes all screwed-up, like this," Alice wrinkled up her nose, furrowed her brow, and closed her eyes, "and you were doing something sort've similar, so I thought maybe you were trying to think about something that takes a lot of effort."
Roxy carefully looked the younger girl over, curious how such an insightful little girl hadn't been placed into Ravenclaw. "Hm. I suppose I was."
"Am I interrupting? Mum doesn't like it when I interrupt."
"No, you're fine." Roxy remembered asking a similar question to her older cousins, trying—and failing—to get their attention because she had a question. "You're a Slytherin, right?"
"Yep." Alice seemed proud enough of herself, chest pushed out and the hint of a smile playing at the edges of her lips. "Dad and Mum were shocked at first—though that makes a bit of sense, doesn't it? Neville Longbottom, Gryffindor extraordinaire, war hero, and his daughter gets tossed in the house of snakes?" Alice rolled her eyes. "But you understand how it is. You were a Slytherin too."
Roxy nodded. She remembered Alice a little better now. The strange girl who wore the boy's uniform all the time and who slept on the couches in their common room instead of in a dorm with the other Slytherin girls. Everyone had always made fun of her a little, because Alice was just a bit off, just a bit too different.
"What're you gonna be, a fourth year?"
"Yeah, and I can't wait. Mum says it's the last real year before they start pushing you to 'be an adult' and start making decisions about what you want in life—" Roxy thought Mrs. Longbottom had the right idea. "—though Tilly's always trying to convince me that every year is the year I need to start focusing more." Alice grimaced.
"Don't you like your sister?"
Alice raised an eyebrow at Roxy, who only looked down at the girl innocently. "She used to complain about you all the time. 'That Weasley!'" Alice matched her sister's high pitches almost perfectly, making Roxy snigger. "'She's such a pain! She thinks she's better than us, just because she's a Slytherin. Honestly, what kind of Weasley gets put in Slytherin? That's the house of snakes!' Tilly stopped complaining so much about Slytherins after I got sorted, but she doesn't like you very much. Or, at all, really."
"Well, the same goes for her." Alice and Roxy smiled at each other, connected in their mutual dislike of Matilda Longbottom. "Your sister always drove me crazy at Hogwarts. Sometimes, I almost felt like she had made it her life's mission to antagonize me and my friends."
"She's the exact same way at home, always bothering me and Hannah. Tilly is always telling Hannah to watch out this September, because we can't afford another Longbottom in Slytherin. It makes Hannah cry, of course, because the poor girl is very sensitive, but I always want to punch her afterwards. She's making fun of my house! She's making fun of me!"
Roxy made noises of sympathy while the girl continued to rant about everything that her older sister did to drive Alice crazy. It sounded like Matilda was just as much the annoyance at home to her siblings that she had been to Roxy at Hogwarts.
"So what's your sister even doing with herself anymore?" asked Roxy casually, hoping Alice would tell her that Matilda was just another tragic story of the once successful student who now lived at home and did nothing with her life. It would be nice to hear that the great Matilda Longbottom was just as much of a failure as Roxy felt herself to be.
"Oh, well, Tilly works in the Department of Magical Cooperation. I don't really know what she does there—she acts like it's all very mysterious when I'm sure that all it is really is just sorting out goblin debates—but I think they hired her almost straight out of Hogwarts. People were begging, really, for her to work for them, since she was, y'know, top of her class and everything." Alice shrugged, like it didn't really mean anything to her one way or another. "The good thing is that she's moving out in a few weeks, so I won't have to deal with her excessive bragging."
But Roxy felt something burn inside of her. Matilda Longbottom was already working at the Ministry; so was Jo and Kieran. Her cousins were all busy being successful in their own careers, and now all of her friends—and her worst enemy—were following the same path to a happy life.
She knew why they were already employed and succeeding. Everyone else had something driving them, everyone else had purpose. But Roxy was just stalling, sitting around and letting herself become more and more paranoid by non-existent delusions. If she could only find that same sense of purpose like everyone else, maybe things would go back to normal. If she could only find something to push her—but that was it!
She had something already.
Roxy pulled out the letter she had been carrying for weeks and nodded to herself. She needed a quill—after all, she finally had something to write.
