Inspiration: This Is Home || Cavetown

Amelia had spent the last three days in what the twins called 'her version of moping'.

Every morning Amy woke up an hour later than she usually did, still getting up earlier than most of the students in Gryffindor. She'd follow the twins to breakfast, do whatever classes the morning held for her, and then head to the library.

Neither boy really payed attention to her choices in literature, but were content to wait at most 1 hour for her to finish be boring. Then they attacked, forcing her from the library to some other exciting place. This could range between an afternoon out in the cold air, playing in the snow and returning with rosy cheeks and laughter in their eyes, to something simpler like a meeting with Harry, Ron and Hermione.

The twins seemed to always hold the medicine to the pain Amy was feeling inside, and she was addicted to it.

"So...which one do you like?" Hermione asked one afternoon in the library. Ron and Harry had abandoned her for the twins, and both girls refused to join them on whatever excursion they had been planning. The two sat peacefully in the library, finding solace in the rustling of pages and smell of parchment.

Amy's head popped up, "Uh...sorry, can you repeat that?"

Hermione smirked in her knowing way, "Oh come on Amy, Ron's convinced you have a thing for Fred, but I think it's George. Am I right?"

"For once, neither of you are right. I don't...like either of them like that. They're just my friends." Amelia stated simply.

The girl across from her raised her eyebrows, "Amelia, it's just me, you can tell me! I'm your friend aren't I?"

Amelia raised her hands in joking defense, "It's true! For once in this world a girl is actually just friends with two cute guys, crazy right?"

"See, you called them cute!" Hermione whispered, leaning over her book.

"I never said I was blind, 'Mione." Amelia replied coolly.

This sent both girls into a fit of giggles.

Life at Hogwarts was changing Amelia. For the first time in her life she wasn't scared to eat in front of others, to lounge and lay about for long periods of time, to be lazy...to be comfortable. Her mind and body found this incredibly relaxing, and her magic showed it, as did her grades.

Although some of them dropped slightly, certain homework assignments were marked as 'ingenuitive' and a 'new perspective'. In a way, she was braver.

And the Twins were helping her find that bravery.

She'd play her first prank on the fifth wednesday of her Hogwarts life, laughing as the familiar paint cans dropping over Lavender Brown's robes. Her reactions nearly got them caught, but the thrill of the escape had her asking for more chances to join the extreme pranksters in their escapades...but that was now very hard to do so.

Professor Umbridge was having a wonderful time attempting to catch Amelia at any number of awful, expellable things that Amy was certainly not participating in. Often Amy would find herself in a detention she didn't deserve, but McGonagall was always the professor she would spend that time with.

It was when she learned of the painful ways Umbridge punished her students that Amelia felt a burning hatred for the woman.

Amy entered the common room late with the twins to find Hermione soaking Harry's hand in a bowl of warm water. "What happened?" Fred asked, his eyes sparkling with merriment, "You go too quick in the showers?"

George elbowed his laughing brother, "Nah mate, probably frostbite from quidd...what the bloody hell did you do to your-"

Harry and Hermione shushed them quickly, "Not another word about it if you're gonna announce it to the whole common room." The chosen boy whispered frantically, "It's not that bad."

The twins clustered around him, George took the hand out of the water and looked at it with a worried curiosity. "Dean Thomas was talking about this...I must not tell lies thing, he said she used blood as ink with this quill thing-"

"The Black Quill." Amelia said softly.

Four heads turned in amazement towards her. "She never…" Fred started.

"She didn't!" George exclaimed.

Amy shook her head, "She hasn't...but unfortunately I've...that is to say, I've read on it before."

None of them were convinced, but Amelia ignored them. She sat beside Harry and took his hand from George's, placing it back into the water. "Where's Ron?"

"Getting some dittany." Hermione said nervously, "I hope he doesn't get caught…"

Ron burst through through the hole a second later, breathing hard. "Almost got cornered by Filch! This should last us a week at least."

"At the rate Harry's going, it won't last a few days." Hermione quipped, fumbling with the cork.

Amy held out a hand, "Let me...I've used it before."

The five pairs of eyes in the room watched her curiously as she poured a few drops of the essence into the water itself, then took her hand and gently squeezed Harry's wrist. He crumpled up his nose, expecting pain...but it was only a twinge as the skin started to heal. "How did you do that?"

"Learned it from experience. It's like brushing your hair I guess, when you hold the roots close to your head it doesn't hurt as much when you hit a snag."

Watching the letters fade, Amelia felt memory take over. She took out Harry's hand, then after 25 seconds returned it to the healing water. At some point she caught herself humming something quietly as she continued the care.

The twins settled themselves on the couch opposite Amelia and Harry, while Ron perched himself on Hermione's chair. "What's that song?" Hermione asked, smiling slightly as she witnessed any tension drain from Amy's face.

"It's an old song...The Sailor Bold I think it's called. Draco...Draco's mum would hum it sometimes." She corrected herself quickly. "It's just an old song we got used to hearing."

Ron inhaled quickly, sitting upright as he woke from the almost-sleep he had been lulled to. "Oh...ah...I should probably-"

"Get some rest, Weasley." Amelia reprimanded softly, "You too, boys." Her eyes turned and locked on the twins, who grumbled and started up the stairs with farewells. Ron joined them, waving to his friends before disappearing around a bend.

Hermione was next to leave, promising Harry she would help him with his potions scroll the next morning.

Amelia and Harry sat quietly for another half hour, listening to the tune Amelia continued to follow. He was getting tired, but Amy could tell he didn't want to sleep.

It was the way he stared boldly into the lit fireplace, as if daring it to extinguish. The way his hand shook from exhaustion, and the way he forced his eyes to remain open.

"Nightmares?" Amy queried, smiling softly as he turned to look at her quickly.

"Ah...yea, I guess you could say that." He mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. Harry's eyes danced around the room as if dying to light on anything of importance to point out, to change the conversation.

Amelia set the water down, taking the small towel beside her and wrapping his hand in it. "They aren't anything to be ashamed of, Harry. You've got a lot of questions...more then any teenager should have...and just know if you ever need someone to talk to about it, I'm here. I may not understand it, but I'll listen to you talk."

He finally looked her in the eyes, and found nothing but kindness. There was no pity, for she didn't pity him in the least...but there was an understanding.

Harry nodded, "I'll ah...keep that in mind."

Amy smiled, then stood to her feet. "I'd keep this in your bag if I were you...might come in handy." She handed him the essence of dittany...and than it slipped.

Her hands were still wet, she hadn't dried them. The bottle fell towards the ground, Harry went to reach for it...and than the bottle had stopped moving.

An inch from the ground it hovered, levitating in the air as if waiting for Harry to catch up to it.

The second his hand firmly grasped the bottle it returned to it's normal gravity. Harry turned and looked behind him for the Gryffindor who had 'Wingardiumed' his essence...but nobody was there. He looked long and hard around the room, and than down at Amelia's hands for the wand he had surely missed earlier.

There was no wand.

His eyes traveled up and looked at Amy's, and blue met blue.

She was scared. He could see it, she was terrified of something. Perhaps he hadn't seen the person who had caught the bottle, perhaps she didn't know how it had happened either...but all of these theories were shattered as she spoke.

"Please...don't tell anyone."

And as Amelia fled up the stairs, Harry realized who her mysterious 'wandless magic' friend had been.


4 months had passed since Draco Malfoy had last heard from his best friend.

No, that wasn't completely true. A letter had been sent by her mother to his which had entailed a small note for him. It had obviously been extremely supervised.

Dear Mr. Malfoy

I dearly miss you and hope to see you again someday soon. I hope my absence will indeed make our hearts fonder.

Sincerely, Mrs. Adams.

However cold and un-Amy like it had been, he still kept it in a small box under his dresser, along with the other smuggled contraband Amelia and he had taken from their adventures.

Draco knelt on the floor and pulled the thing out, locking his door and turning to the bed. He opened the dark oak box and carefully lay out each item on the bed, organizing them by their looks rather then by their timeline. He had memorized each object by now, refusing to lose Amelia in even these simple ways.

There was a broken black rock that Amy had insisted was an Indian arrowhead. Draco had found this at the bank of the faux river that the house elves had been magically building over several days in their garden.

He picked up a coca-cola bottle cap that he had promised to make into a necklace for her.

That was something he daily regretted.

A golf ball that had somehow ended up in Amelia's window box, a fist sized glass orb that didn't quite match the colors that were on any side of it at once, a straw doll with a small purple vest…

Each item was his and Amy's memories, their own personal pensive into a past that he refused to forget.

Draco sat on the bed and looked out at the garden.

The sun was setting. The flowers were starting to bloom, the trees blossom...spring was here and nearly gone.

He would be 8 soon.


I know, I'm obsessed with Cavetown.
Thank you to everyone who have been reviewing! I'll be answering some questions at chapter 15, so start asking them now in Reviews!

One of my favorite things to do is find inspiration for each chapter. Unfortunately that can't happen all the time, BUT I have some news coming up at chapter 13 so keep your eyes open for that.

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