Chapter Twenty One
A/N: Thank you to Cake323, triggbc, Ismaran, pottermum, Guest and for reviewing.
In the weeks after she had received the letter from their father, Crystal had become so much happier, and for that Phoenix could not be more grateful. The magical bond between twins was heavily dependent on their moods, draining the energy from both of them if one was feeling weak, and their bond now had never been stronger. That was, until another envelope arrived with Godric, that threatened to tear them apart again.
Phoenix unfolded the page once more, forcing herself not to tear it into scraps the second she read that awful woman's name. Crystal would need to read the document as well and Phoenix was not sure she would be able to describe it better than yelling profanities if she did not have the item to hand.
"Phoenix, you're going to be late for Quidditch practice if you don't hurry up!" Crystal yelled, appearing through the door a few moments later. Phoenix winced. She held the same Quidditch position as her mother, not a comparison she wished to make at that moment.
"Gem, come here a minute." Phoenix sighed, as soon as her sister came into sight. The younger girl read her face easily, coming to sit beside her in silence, clutching her hand to comfort her.
"What is it?" she questioned, her voice trembling a little. The fear had been instilled in her at a young age, however accidentally, the aftermath of a terrible war that decimated their own family.
Phoenix relinquished the envelope, rising from the bed and moving to pace on the other side of the room. She could not stand to see the contents again, or to see her sister's expression as she read. Crystal frowned for a moment, before removing the sheet of card from the envelope. It was barely a moment before she gasped, the colour draining from her face.
Phoenix Potter and Crystal Weasley,
Ms. Romilda Vane
and
Mr. Harry Potter
request the honour of your presence
at their marriage
Saturday, 19th June 2011
At half past two o'clock
The Potter Estate, California
"Please tell me this is a joke." Crystal sighed, looking up at her sister. The older girl shook her head, but the younger already had her head in her hands. "That's only three months away! And there's another two weeks until we go home for the holidays. We can't do anything until then."
"Even when we go home, we still don't have a plan." Phoenix pointed out, the gaping flaw both of them would rather have ignored. "I don't even know what is home right now, Mum's or Dad's."
This time it was Phoenix who had the epiphany, her face lighting up with a beaming smile that could have put a firefly to shame. Immediately she grabbed a piece of paper, starting to note down her ideas. Crystal could not help but smirk a little at that. Clearly her sister's time of acting like her had left some habits behind.
"Right, so what we'll do," Phoenix explained, drawing a load of illegible scribbles onto the page. Crystal was tempted to retract her earlier thought at the sight. "We'll both go to Mum's, say we want to give Dad some space to do some last minute wedding stuff. She'll be thrilled. Then we'll tell Mum about what's happened, convince her to come to California, stop the wedding, get rid of Romilda and get back together with Dad!"
"Woah, hang on a minute!" Crystal exclaimed. "You can't expect Mum and Dad to just get back together, just like that."
"Why not?" the brunette argued, tossing her curls over her shoulder. "They're perfect for each other, Gem, they belong together."
"It doesn't mean they'll get back together." the younger girl sighed. "They might do, but honestly, they've probably spent too long apart."
"Why are you being like this?" Phoenix questioned, her stare dark and fiery. She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks, her anger growing. "You're acting like you want them to stay split up."
"Of course I don't." Crystal responded, her tone just as calm as her sister's was furious. "I just don't want to get my hopes up when it might not happen."
Phoenix felt her anger ebb away slightly. She always wondered how her sister was able to do that, put out the fire like a bucket of water tossed onto a flame. However, it was only as Crystal read over the paper plan that she realised it worked both ways, something inside her younger sister ignited by her own passion.
"We've got to try." Gem agreed, glancing at the wedding invitation out of the corner of her eye. "Even if they don't get back together, and they might do later on, we can't let Dad marry someone else. Especially not someone like her."
"So you agree with my plan?" Phoenix asked, a little smug that it was her idea they were using. Her younger sister offered a playful shove in the shoulder as a response, wrapping her arm around her twin's back.
The two retired to bed not long afterwards, once Crystal had discreetly written out the plan in a neater, more organised way. Phoenix was watching her out of the corner of her eye, but made no comment, happy enough that she and her twin were united in their plan.
"Flamey?" Crystal asked, when her sister was only minutes away from sleep. The older girl blinked a couple of times, sitting up to look across the room. "Do you really believe they might get back together?"
"Of course I do." she answered, with all the confidence she could muster. It was not quite true, if she was completely honest. She had the same doubts as Crystal, whether all their efforts might eventually come to nothing. However, she simply had to choose to believe everything would be fine.
The two took the same action at the same moment before they lay down to sleep, their eyes turning to the magically-healed photograph of their parents, taken on their wedding day, a reminder of what had once been and, if they had anything to do with it, what would soon be again.
A/N: The plan is in motion! Please review!