Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
We walked down to the Great Hall, arm in arm, same as usual. Our normal end of the table was already filled with Hendrix, Austin, Frank, and Remus, waiting patiently for us extremely slow girls to arrive and eat our last breakfast them. I slid into one of the empty spots between Frank and Remus, Calgary filling in beside me. Hendrix and Ash were directly across from me, then Austin and Antoinette.
"Sad, isn't it?" Calgary said mournfully as she stabbed a piece of sausage with her fork. "Our last breakfast at Hogwarts…" She shook her head, as if the memories were too much for her to bear.
"Sweetheart, you do know that we're going to be coming back here next year? And for the next five years after that, too?" Ash said, in a tone only slightly condescending. "No need to get all sentimental."
"Shut up, Ash." Calgary crinkled her perfectly formed nose. She shook back her grown-out, now shoulder-length blonde hair from her face and glared hard at the opposing girl. "It's alright that I'm sentimental, maybe I won't be coming back to Hogwarts. Maybe I'll go to Beauxbatons or something. Sometimes I wonder if it's all worth it, dealing with your sorry selves every day…" She shook her head at all of us, but we could all see the twinkle of mirth in her eyes that told us she was kidding.
"Dramatic much?" I teased, reaching forward and stealing the piece of buttered toast off her plate. "Jeez, Cal. You'd think someone already offered you that acting position in America by the way you're throwing those lines around with such exaggerated patience." And with Calgary, you knew it was exaggerated. The patience she used around us came with deep sighs and lots of eye rolls, tapping of her fingernails on tabletops and stomping her feet on the ground.
"Oh, hush, Nymphadora!" Calgary squealed. "It's not fair, you always end up on Ash's side!"
"I'm on your side, Calgary," Antoinette said loudly-- louder than normal, even. I suppose she was just trying to make our roommate not as jealous that Ash and I had such a close friendship that she'd not formed with any of us.
"Why are we taking sides, exactly?" Austin asked softly, juxtaposing nicely with his sweetheart's loud, sharp tone.
"I mean, it's not like it's a fight. Just Calgary and Ash going head to head, like every morning," Hendrix agreed with Austin verbally, but I could see that if it came to the time to take sides, he'd be sure to take sides with the girl whose hand he was not-so-secretively holding under the table.
Ash twisted her face into a look of mock disgust. "Thanks for the support, Hendrix."
"Anytime, love." He smiled widely, and she had no choice but to giggle and wipe the look off her face to smile too.
I gasped inwardly; 'love'? Already? Not only was my dear Ash only twelve years old and Hendrix thirteen, but they weren't together. Not like that. But I suppose you couldn't help what came out of your mouth when you were talking to someone you were so infatuated with, that was most likely the case with the two.
"You two are disgusting," Antoinette said, speaking the words that I'm sure the rest of us at the table-- except myself and the lovey-dovey couple-- were thinking. "Honestly; wouldn't you prefer to wait a few years, until you could actually be together without making the rest of us vomit?"
I snorted and got a dirty look from Ash. Hendrix closed his eyes, to keep his cousins from reading the look in his eyes that would assure us of his thoughts. Granted, his thoughts were mostly centered around the raven-haired, brown-eyed girl sitting next to him, so we could pretty much guess what they were and be correct without having any assurance at all. Hendrix was rather obvious, anyway; the Weasley in him shone through with incredible brightness on that major personality point, one of the few Weasley traits that the boy really had.
He was lucky to be such a Lovegood; I would love to be able to say I had more Lovegood than Weasley traits, but alas, it wouldn't be so. My mother had to go and be born a Black and make her daughter just like her, filled with the bad temper and sharp tongue that came with the surname, even though I had never and would never possess it as my own.
"They'll be worse in a few years, Nettie," Austin said. "Much worse." Antoinette nodded and giggled.
I quietly sighed, hoping no one could hear me as they continued to banter. I didn't want to leave Hogwarts. I didn't want to leave our breakfast chitchat and our days out by the lakes for endless hours running around my house with my multiple siblings and cousins and whoever else came along.
"What's wrong, Nymphadora?"
As soon as the sigh left my mouth, the table was silent and they were all looking at me. Remus had spoken first.
"Nymphie, are you okay?" Antoinette reached out and grabbed my hand. Ash put a hand on my shoulder; Calgary pouted sympathetically.
"Yeah, I'm fine," I lied quickly; too quick. My cousins were smarter than that, as were Ash and Remus. Calgary, Frank, and Austin, not as close to me as the other two, caught up with the others in realization after a few moments.
"Tell us, Dora," Hendrix demanded.
The minute Hendrix spoke, my stubbornness crumbled. It always did with Hendrix, I don't know why. I took a soft breath. "Everything is always changing, isn't it?"
"Of course it is. If nothing changed, we wouldn't be here," Remus said wisely. "If nothing changed, our parents wouldn't have ever met. Harry Potter wouldn't have defeated Voldemort," he shot three separate pointed looks at Antoinette, Hendrix, and I for being related to Harry. "Hermione Granger would've never married Fred Weasley; Paige Black wouldn't have ever moved over from America to meet George Weasley. We wouldn't exist, and neither would they."
"I didn't need an explanation, Remus," I said sharply. Remus had a tendency to be a large pain in my bottom when he acted so pretentious, and I usually verbally abused him for it. "Especially not one I could have formulated on my own."
It wasn't so much that I was angry with him for explaining change the way he did as I was juts angry that he was so right. Change was necessary, and I despised it.
"I apologize, Nymphadora," he said loftily.
Blasted intelligent, self-obsessed, precocious idiot. He couldn't even just say he was sorry like a normal bloke, but had to use such language as, "I apologize." And he couldn't, Merlin forbid, call me Dora or Nymphie like everyone else, it always had to be Nymphadora.
"Yeah," I stood up from the table and turned on my heel, taking off down the small aisle between the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables in order to avoid talking about change anymore. Not a smart idea to do that alone-- I'd never ventured past my three cousins' table without at least one or two people with me. It wasn't a smart thing to do, definitely not.
Lily-Marie stepped out in front of me as soon as I was blocked by a few tall, stocky fourth year Gryffindor boys. She was soon joined by Elisabeth and Allison, all three of them wearing the same identical evil smirks.
"Hello, Lily." I nodded at her, then at Elisabeth and Allison. "Elisabeth, Allison."
"Hello, Nymphadora. I have not talked to you in quite a while, that is quite awful for such close cousins as ourselves…" Her sisters chuckled to themselves.
"About as close as Draco Malfoy and the Hippogriff that attacked him," I scoffed.
"I suppose I should verbalize the reason for blocking your path this morning," Lily said after a few moments of silence.
"Would be appreciated, yes," I said.
"Well, Nymphadora. Your dear three cousins, us, have a proposition for you."
"What would that be, dearest Lily-Marie?" I could only imagine.
"You were sorted into Gryffindor, as was our sister, Antoinette. That has made us the shame of our family, almost as unwanted as darling Sirius, the poor boy. I am sure that you are aware that Antoinette is the favorite in our family." Typical Lily-Marie; ignore my need to hear the proposition so I could deny it and disappear, but continue prattling on.
She was like the villain in all of those Muggle shoes on Aunt Hermione's television; they always had a huge speech about how they were going to destroy the world unless the hero did something for them, instead of just getting to the point already and laying down the deal.
"Our family doesn't have a favorite, Lily-Marie." Which is not really a lie.
"Oh, but they do. And it is Antoinette. My sisters and I would like to beseech your help… to embarrass Antoinette and cause someone else to move into the Weasley family spotlight."
"And who would that someone else be?" I asked, pretending to be extremely interested in their offer.
"You, Nymphadora. Nymphadora Hermione Weasley, the favorite of our family. How spectacular would that be?"
"Not very," I replied rudely. "And you are aware of how much I hate being in the spotlight. Now, Lily-Marie, thank you for wasting my time. I'm sure I'll see you and your sisters surrounding a cauldron sometime in the near future, preparing a poisonous apple to take Antoinette to her death. Goodbye now, dear cousins."
As I walked away back towards my friends, I think I'd have been less surprised if Sirius had jumped in my path proposing that I brought him back to be accepted by our family once again. I left my three cousins with slightly shocked expressions on their faces. I hoped they hadn't seriously thought I'd agree to help them with their plan.