Hometown Glory

Chapter Ten: Of Good Deeds

"The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, is in its loyalty to each other." — Mario Puzo.

Today had to be the day of attempting to put things together and then sending them all to hell a few minutes later. There couldn't be another explanation for it, really, other than somehow the universe was conspiring against all things related to the heart for the young people of the world and catastrophe ran wild for the day.

"—I do not care!"

She was standing in the middle of a huddled group behind her, all types of arms holding on to her, hands clutching to some part of her as her father's voice roared in the air and she just watched with tears rushing out of her broken emerald eyes at the anger in his voice.

"Mister Potter, if you would just—"

"You stay away from my daughter!"

She felt someone squeeze their arm around her waist, but she really couldn't tell who it was from the loyal throng of cousins around her as she continued to cry. All she could do was stare at the man shouting, face red with curses that he was spewing, and that boy with dark eyes that held the same broken expression she wore.

She didn't know how she got there as she watched everything move so slowly; her hands on her ears, trying to block the sounds of her heart being stomped more and more into fragments of nothing. All she could remember was that one moment Rex Rowle was kneeling before her as she read a book on Arthur Weasley's old armchair, both of them completely alone and sharing a look of long lost love and present heartbreak, and the next James was shoving the boy, shouting obscenities and the others rushed to the commotion that could be heard even outside the barrier of the Burrow.

"I've accepted you as part of this family because of Dominique and her husband," James' loud voice hissed again, "but unless you want a shift in this family because of you, I suggest you stay away from my daughter!"

"Mister Potter, look, I appreciate that you've always treated me like family, but what I feel for Bliss—"

"I don't care about your feelings for my daughter," and there went James again, "stay away from her, boy! I'm not repeating myself again!"

And then at a certain point, after so many emotions circling in the air, her mother had appeared out of nowhere; looking fiercer than anyone had ever seen her before.

And once Emily started yelling—her usual dulcet tone and soft speaking manner was long and gone when she ordered everyone out the room; when she told her husband to lower his voice and act like an adult; and when she had suggested in a very rough, yet polite, manner that Rex find his way home and away from the Burrow.

It was in that moment of blurs and blinding tears, after she heard the crack of someone disapparating and her mother dragging her father off, that she found herself alone now. Sinking to the floor of her great-grandparents' living room with two very clear revelations running in circles inside her head. One, that she was a coward and that she never stood up against her father or said anything in her defense. And two, that she always let Rex disappear from her; dragging her love with him like a shadow that he didn't know was keeping him safe and warm.

She pulled her knees up to her chest, her long waves of black falling over her pale face as she continued to cry in what she was sure looked absolutely pathetic. But at the given moment, she felt that way and there was no purpose of hiding it. This was who she was, she knows that—that girl who does so much for others she doesn't realize she's pretending not to be broken for their benefit. But she is, she really is.

She's brokenhearted, completely dead inside, she's sure, but it's something she knows she's going to have to get used to. It was her choice, she noticed that right after her clear revelations. She was the one who kept herself silent, the one who never stopped Rex from leaving.

"Erm…Hey," looking up from her kneecaps, Bliss' glistening eyes were met with brown ones, Riley's.

"If you're here to torture me some more, Riley, please leave," Bliss managed to squeak out through her tight throat and pressuring emotions.

Riley cleared her throat, looking a extremely uncomfortable on her freckly face as she stared at her second-cousin with intentions of actually leaving the living room. But as soon as Bliss shed more thick tears and looked back down at the carpet of the corner she was currently breaking herself further into, the redhead took in a deep breath and found her voice. "Look, Potter," her voice was low and strained, "I realize that…that I'm a complete bitch and that I don't always treat any of you like family."

Bliss kept her head down, not even a flinch was made to give Riley any insight if she was even listening.

"I don't know if you're aware, since you've been in your sad little bubble of misery," Riley stopped herself, trying to contain that natural venom that spewed out by itself, "I mean…I'm a horrible person, Potter, I am." She continued, a little more careful not to insult her. "I say and do horrible things to everyone around me. Girls in Slytherin hate me because they think I'm too vicious. Can you believe that—of course you can, anyone can."

Another pause.

"I broke Lynx's nose days ago," the redhead went on, "I stole Glorie's diary two months ago, and since then she's been blaming it on Angelique. I blackmailed Zabini into doing my Charms homework for an entire year our Fifth Year just because I could. I mistreat Rory because, as the older twin, I feel in command. I take every opportunity I can get to humiliate the boys in our family. I practically caused the fight between Sidney and Molly. I….I ruin everything."

And at the littlest of cracks that broke Riley's last word, Bliss blinked up; staring at her cousin with teardrops hanging on her long lashes.

Riley carefully lowered herself in the small space in front of the dark-haired girl, her brown eyes still looking warily at Bliss as she continued breathing cautiously. There was a reason for her sneaking back into the living room once Emily had forbade everyone from speaking to her daughter. And as she felt panic and uneasiness creep up her spine, blurring the reason of why she was there at all, Riley was fighting with herself to finally use her heart instead of that sarcasm and natural hate for everything and everyone.

"…Riley, you…you don't—"

"No, no, shut up, Potter," Riley snapped, trying to silence the always predictable need for the older girl to protect and ease everyone else's pain; even when her comforting usually adds more fuel to that fire of misery she keeps flaming herself up with. "Don't start with that touchy rubbish that you're always on about, okay? Just shut it, sit there and….just shut it."

Bliss nodded once, eyes looking directly into the redhead's.

"Two years ago," Riley whispered, "I started noticing the way Rowle would look at you…I think everyone did. It was his last year at Hogwarts, and every witch wanted him. He'd get attention left and right, I even tried talking to him…but none of that really mattered to him. Because he didn't see those other girls…he didn't see me, he just saw you. I could tell, and it made me very angry…I didn't want you to take something from me."

A moment of silence and then the redhead took a deep inhale. (How she hated getting sentimental and deep.)

"I wasn't in love with him," she confessed, "nor infatuated, or really felt anything for him. I just wanted to win…First with all those girls—because you know I've always fancied challenges—and then you. I wanted to beat you because…I dunno, Bliss. I just always assumed everything came so easily to you. You seem to live the perfect little life…but I see that you don't now."

Bliss blinked, emerald eyes rimmed red. "…Why did you ask me to stay away from him, then, Riley? Why did…why did you make me give him up if you weren't in love with him?"

The redhead didn't answer immediately. She instead focused a few seconds of her time on ripping out split-ends on a few strands of her hair; taking her time to find that reason not to run away. "I didn't realize it was a losing battle from the beginning." She ripped another split-end, still not looking up at her older cousin. "Halfway through the fight and the seducing, I realized that he really did love you….Purely, and all that good, mushy, rubbish. It was just a game for me, but for him it wasn't. He was betting his heart out to you, and he didn't care. And then I saw that you didn't either, you were willing to give him your heart too despite everything….

"I push people away, Bliss," she finally looked up, brown meeting green. "Not the way Sidney does, but because I don't want to feel anything for anyone. I'm a bitch because I only allow myself to love myself…But for a moment I believed that I could get Rowle to love me too…but he didn't. He loved you, and for a second I didn't want to believe I'm that repulsive that no one was willing to love me back."

"I gave him up for you," Bliss mumbled to the redhead, "I loved you enough to do so, Riley. Despite what I feel for him, despite everything….Yeah, you are a bitch, but I love you enough to give anything up for you."

Riley smiled lopsidedly, just a tiny bit. "I know," she breathed, "and because of it….I'm going to let you in on a little secret, Potter."

Bliss raised her dark brow.

"I like making people miserable, it's what I do. I like challenging people into doing something they've never done before—partially to see them get hurt, both physically and emotionally, but also because it pushes them to do something they don't think they're capable of." Riley paused, an evil smirk on her face that was accustomed and usual as she carefully stretched her arm forward and extended her palm out to Bliss.

Bliss looked at it, a little warily and cautious like if she expected the girl to have an invisible bomb in her hand. But at something that wasn't totally evil glowing in her dark eyes, Bliss took it. Their palms connecting and warm flesh on each other; their blood-ties rushing together just behind their layers of skin. "What, erm, what does this—"

"Rowle's very depressed and heartbroken right now since James has gone all psychotic and practically threatened to descend Dementors on him if he doesn't stay away from his little princess," the redhead interrupted, "so he's very fragile—as unmanly as that sounds. So, if I were to, you know, pretend to be Rory and comfort him, there could be a chance that he can…fall for—"

"Riley, no!" Bliss pulled back her hand instantly. "Are you really trying…are you going to go and try get Rex back, while pretending to be your sister?"

"Well, he's going to waste, Potter," the girl responded. "Either you go and get him or I will."

And at the instant her second-cousin completed her devious statement, so many more emotions rushed through Bliss like a tornado swiping an open field. Could she be capable of seeing Rex with someone else—which would obviously never be Riley since he hates her and all; nor her twin for that mater. Was she just going to leave him open for the world to take him up and drift him away from her if she didn't fight to keep him by her side? Was she really going to be that almost-eighteen year-old girl who hid behind her daddy to not upset him?

And just as those questions were making her heave air with a sense of panic, the answer came fast to her when Riley pushed it with, "with the things your dad told him today, don't expect him to come back again, Bliss. Stand up for yourself, damn it, you're not five anymore."

Crack.

"Just like I thought," and as she found herself alone in the living room now, Riley's smirk grew more as she rose from the floor. She dusted her dress off, feeling a little warm inside to be able to patch something up—though she knew that there was no need for sorry when it came to Bliss since she always forgave the world. So feeling victorious and a little saint-like, Riley headed out of the room to do her next good deed.

She was trying to make amends with the people she had hurt while being at the Burrow, and that was her greatest challenge to herself.

X

"—Here you go, fresh Pumpkin-juice," appearing into the garden together, practically shoving one another, Violet Greengrass and Athena Malfoy spoke in unison; extending the tray of glasses at the people gathered on the garden table.

Violet frowned at Athena, "…don't you have somewhere to be with your mummy?"

Shoving the young redhead away from her, all while ignoring her nasty comment, Athena took a glass from the tray and extended it to a curly-haired boy with glittering blue eyes. "Here, Greg," she smiled shyly.

Taking the glass politely, Gregory De La Cruz returned the smile to the girl. (But much less shy and flirty.) "Thank you."

Kicking the back of Athena's legs, Violet turned to the other De La Cruz boy at the garden table, extending him some Pumpkin-juice for the heat as the Malfoy girl glared roughly.

And at the obvious rivalry going on for the two boys—which made absolutely no sense—Kendra Weasley exchanged a look of worry with Abel Greengrass and Raven Thomas. It was a known fact that Athena, gentle and smart as she was, had the fury of a furious Weasley mixed with a naturally-conniving Malfoy; and that Violet, as quirky and sarcastic as she could be, had a lot of inherited fury she got from Ginny and Lily. Now, to picture these two girls to leave aside their best characteristics and act upon the worst? Well, that was a disaster waiting to happen.

"Um" with a quick clear of her throat, Kendra tried to speak loudly in her quiet demeanor, "Greg, Javier, you were telling us about Spain?"

"You were telling us about your school," Raven pressed in hope that the two redheaded girls would focus their attention on the boys' conversation instead of sending each other death-glares.

Javier lowered his glass and spoke before his older brother could. "Madragon," he said, "that's the wizardry school we go to."

"It's a very good school," Greg continued on, "best education you can get in all Latin-speaking Europe."

"Your mum works there, right?" Athena asked quickly; automatically enthralled by the passion of learning in the oldest De La Cruz' voice. "I heard her mention it in passing."

Javier shook his head. "No, our papa works there." He corrected her. "He is the Headmaster of the school—well, recently he became. He was the professor for Defense Against the Dark Arts for five years there, but after the oldest Headmaster retired, our father took over."

"Oh," Athena's face fell slightly. (Well, now she looked dumb.)

And knowing exactly that, Violet nudged her second-cousin smugly, but grinned casually at the foreign boys. "So, Greg, out of curiosity—because Athena's dying to know, do you have a—"

"Thomas!" Just as Athena's silver eyes went wide and Violet could make a mess of a friendly gathering outside, Riley came storming out of the Burrow with her hair swooshing back like a wave of fire.

Copying the Malfoy girl's exact shocked expression, Raven shrunk back into her seat as she was quick to identify the redheaded twin that was marching her way towards her; that furious look on her face that was so usual.

"What did you do?" Abel whispered to the girl, looking frightened for her as they could all feel Riley's anger coming towards them like a flow of air.

"I-I—nothing," Raven breathed, more scared as the redhead finally came to stop before them.

Silence instantly fell upon everyone on the table, even the foreign boys who had no idea what was going on—alike the others—were smart enough to shut their lips tight.

Riley raised a brow, her expression fierce as she crossed her arms over her chest. Athena recoiled back as well, taking a chance to inch closer to Gregory De La Cruz as Violet and Javier rolled their eyes at them. And before Kendra could even react to anything, Abel grabbed one of her hands tightly; looking like if he was almost protecting her by the incoming redhead's wrath by the simple gesture.

"Where the hell have you been, Thomas?" Riley's anger smacked everyone on the face as her lips parted and she spoke. "I've been looking everywhere for you, little girl. And, just in case you've yet to notice, this isn't your family's house to be running about freely."

Raven's blue eyes shot opened in fear and nervousness. "I-I…huh?"

Riley crossed her arms. "We need to talk."

The dark-haired girl took a daring move to glance up at Kendra, pleading with her sky-colored eyes to help her.

And at the lingering silence once more taking up the garden, Riley narrowed her brown eyes and snapped, "was I not clear enough? Get out!"

Just as the two De la Cruz boys and Violet and Athena stood from their seats on the garden table, a silkily, yet malicious voice said, "—such a bratty niña."

"—Hey, shut up," with arms crossed and a heated expression on her face, Nia Potter sent a snarl at the dark-haired woman sitting across from her a few feet away from the garden table.

A little distracted from the task at hand, Riley turned her narrowed eyes at the women who had been acting as background this entire time. "Nia," she called Al's wife, "why are you hanging around Al's greatest mistake?"

Ophelia De la Cruz instantly sent daggers at the redheaded girl.

Nia smirked proudly. "Just making sure the trash isn't flying all around the Burrow, darling."

"Erm," raising a very brave hand to catch Riley's attention, Raven cleared her throat gently. "Why…erm, why are you looking for me?"

"I'm going to lay this down easily for you, alright, Thomas?" And there went Riley again, back to her good deed. "Either snog and be with Lynx, or go the hell home."

Raven's eyes widened impossibly more. "…Excuse me?"

The redhead looked annoyed in a quick second. "Look, Thomas, I have a knack for knowing when people fancy each other, alright. And for the sake of my newfound holiness and desire to make amends to people around me, I'm trying to play matchmaker here. Now, be with Malfoy if you know what's best for you."

"I," Raven cleared her throat nervously again, "I don't like Lynx that way, Riley—"

"My well-defined ass, you don't," Riley interrupted with a sarcastic huff. "I'm never wrong, Thomas, okay? I mean, look at Greengrass and Kendra. They're sitting there, inching at each other every passing second, practically on each others lap, and wasting precious time to be with one another by pretending they mean nothing to each other."

Attention was now on Kendra and Abel; both flushed, frozen, and expressionless.

And right when it looked like Kendra was going to open her mouth to aim some kind of defense for herself, Riley said, "prove me wrong, Kenny. Prove me wrong, I dare you."

Kendra shut her lips again, her eyes glancing down at her lap as Abel remained still.

"Now, off you two go," Riley shooed them. "I gave you something to talk about, now figure out what your little prepubescent selves are going to do about this."

Watching as the two young teenagers awkwardly got themselves up from the garden table, Ophelia leered to herself for a second. "Oye, niña," she called, "has anyone ever told you that forced love doesn't last?" Her dark eyes flashed towards the woman across from her, "just ask Nia about it. It's a miracle my dear Al has been with her for so long."

Trying to keep her pride and cool, Nia just smiled nicely at the girl of her past nightmares as she causally fixed her dress. "Oh, Ophelia, not even by force could you get someone to love you," she fluffed her dress again. "That's why you're going to your forties—husband-less, without children, and leeching off your brother's family since no one else wants you."

Glancing at each other for a second from the brawl about to happen with the women, Riley and Raven's focus was shifted when a very familiar blonde boy and Neo came into the yard; a quick-and-easy Quidditch box-set following after them.

Riley's brown eyes lit up, a smirk and relief washing on her face.

And noticing that, Raven started shaking her head rapidly at the intention on the redhead's face. "Riley, no, don't—"

"Oi, Malfoy!" But it was too late, Riley was waving her arm high in the air with all the irritating dramatics she could muster up without punching herself on the face. "I have some news for you!"

"Riley," Raven squeaked, turning a mortified pink and tripping over her feet as she launched herself forward at the redhead. "No, please, Lynx doesn't feel the same—"

"Oh, shut up," Riley snapped at her, elbowing her off of her. "You're going to thank me in the long run, Thomas. You just watch."

"But, Riley—"

"Malfoy!" Ignoring the dark-haired girl, Riley screamed again at her cousin. "I'm talking to you, idiot!"

And a few yards away, Lynx and Neo adjusted the Quidditch balls for their game. "Yeah, I know," Malfoy shot back, "and I'm choosing to ignore you."

Riley glared. "Well, that's too bad." (Breathe, breathe, Riles, you broke his nose, remember? She chanted to herself.) "Since I was going to tell you little Raven Thomas is madly in love with you and she wanted to know if you've finally grown the quaffles to ask her to be your girlfriend—"

And just as Riley was walking away from the garden table, leaving a stunned and flushed-face Raven behind, she laughed loudly to herself as a bludger shot off from the box-set and smacked Lynx right on the face. Looking dumfounded and love-struck as his back collided with the grass from the hit.

Oh, yeah. She'd definitely earned her one-way ticket to heaven now.

And TADA! Riley's not as evil as she likes to think she is...In a way. Whatever. Lol.

Anyway, I'm sorry for those of you who've waited so long for me to upload this chapter, but I had inspiration once again. But now it's back and here you have it. And if I'm not mistaken, there's two chapters left to this and then we're done forever with the "Here We Go Again" series.

Things to remember:

- Riley's Freddie and Evanna's daughter.

- Kendra is Louis' daughter

-Abel Greengrass is adopted into the family and is NOT related to anyone but Violet and Logan Greengrass.

-Athena and Lynx Malfoy, Scorpius and Rose's children.

And I think that's it. (: