Chapter Twelve
A/N: Thank you to fandomdaydreams for reviewing.
The heat of the flames finally died down, and Crystal stepped forward out of the grate, glancing left and right at the place which would now be her home. She had not been escorted from the American Ministry, merely pointed to the correct grate, as her father had apparently returned home early to greet her. Well, technically, he had returned to greet Phoenix, but he was not to know of the deal they had made. 'He probably doesn't even remember me.' she thought.
At a loss for anything else to do, the girl moved forwards, spotting a balcony across the other side of the room, and knowing from her sister's lessons that this was the balcony that looked out across the whole of the surrounding country. 'That's just like home in Devon.' she observed, regretting this immediately, as homesickness panged in her chest. She chastised herself mentally. 'I can't let myself think like that, not now. I'm here to meet my dad, not to miss my mum. We never know when one of us might give the game away, so I should make the most of it while I'm here, before I have to go back to Mum. Besides, this is what I've always wanted, to get a chance to finally meet my dad, to see if all the stories I was told were true, to see if he's just a stupid man who abandoned his wife and child, or if he was the hero I always dreamed he'd be.'
A sudden noise in the distance startled the girl, and she jumped. She did not know what the noise had been, but an educated guess told her that it was the front door closing. Desperately, she tried to slow her breathing. 'This is it.' she thought, over and over again. 'This is it. This is it. This is it.'
"Flamey, is that you?" called a voice, a male voice, and Crystal felt her heart nearly stop. It was her father, it had to be.
"Yeah, it's me." she finally managed to respond, trying to hide the tremor in her voice, as she did with her hands, clasping them tightly together to try and still them. She did not want to be given away so soon, by a detail as small as shaking hands.
And then the door to the sitting room opened, and he was stood there, right in front of her, as real as the sunlight streaming through the window. 'That's him.' she realised, a smile appearing on her face. 'That's really my dad.'
"What are you staring at, silly?" her father asked, and Crystal flinched for a second, having been so far away that she had not noticed the joking element to his voice. "Do I have something on my face?"
"No." she responded quickly, trying to force herself to small, although her brain could hardly recognise any instruction right now, not when she was still in a state of shock. Thinking it might be a good idea to actually explain herself, she quickly searched her mind for a story, and came up with one that was a half-truth at worst, thankful that she had all been a quick thinker. "It's just been so long since I saw you, I didn't recognise you for a second."
"I thought the same with you." he pointed out, and Crystal's heart skipped a beat in her chest. Did he know? Had she really been so obvious? "You must have found your inner Madame Maxime, you've shot up! You're almost as tall as me now!"
The girl had to stop herself from breathing a heavy sigh of relief. He had only meant that she had grown; he hadn't recognised her after all. There was a slight sinking feeling in her chest, but she ignored it. 'I wish he did recognise me, for me.'
But that wasn't why she was here, and if he did recognise her, then he would send her straight back to Devon with her mother, where she belonged. 'I can't let him do that.' she thought, trying to oppress the part of her that just wanted to tell him outright who she was. 'Anyway, this isn't just about me. If I mess this up, and he send me home, then Phoenix will have to come home too, and she won't have a chance to spend any time with Mum. I'm not going to ruin this for her.'
"Hey!" her father called, and she started a little. He had a smile on his face that she could not help but return. "Lost in a daydream, were you? That's not like you."
"Yeah." she told him, and a spark of inspiration came to her mind. "I started to daydream a lot at Beauxbatons. Well, it was better than listening to those boring teachers!"
As she had expected, the man laughed loudly at the joke, and she laughed too, loving the new side of herself she was discovering by pretending to be Phoenix. 'Well, I guess she is the other side of myself.' she reasoned. 'She's my twin sister.'
"So, do you want to go out and play some Quidditch?" he asked his daughter, and she nodded happily. Before she had met Phoenix, Crystal had loathed Quidditch, and would always stay well away when her cousins played it at the Burrow. But now, after a great deal of tutoring in rules, goals and positions from her sister, she was starting to find a love for the sport that she had never realised before.
But even if she had not been starting to enjoy the sport, from what little practice she had managed to do with Phoenix by sneaking out to the fields after dark, she would have gone and played anyway. Not because she wanted her father to believe that she was Phoenix, although she did, but to spend some time with him, something she had been dying to do all her life.
'I may only have a little bit of time left here.' she thought. 'For all I know, Phoenix could mess it up and give away the game to Mum. But while I'm here, I'm going to make the most of the time I have. Just me and my dad.'
However, then she walked outside, and a single glance at the patio, and the chair occupied by a woman on it, told her that she had been wrong.
A/N: I know I left a bit of a cliffhanger with Crystal, but next chapter is Phoenix, and I'll keep alternating like that until they meet again. Please review!