Characters: Ron, Hermione, Rose, Hugo
Prompt #68 Lightning
Fearless
The clouds were low in the sky and a heavy breeze had picked up through the street, blowing stray rubbish around. Not so long ago, children had been out there playing under the trees, or using their skateboards to roll down the gentle decline at the end of the road. Now, they were all safely inside, watching the brewing storm from their windows.
Hugo Weasley was one such child. His nose rested on the window sill as he watched the sky grow darker and darker by the second. Behind him, his sister pulled on his arm, telling him to move away. She was frightened of the storm. She didn't like it when the sky lit up with harsh streaks of lightning, or when the thunder filled the silent room with long, loud cracks.
Hugo didn't mind, though. He liked watching the storm. He liked everything Rose was afraid of.
His mother sat on the couch by the fire, a book on her lap and heeding the storm no attention. Her eyes darted across the page as she took in every word of what she was reading. With every clap of thunder, she merely glanced up to check on her children and then returned to what she was doing.
Hugo wasn't sure where his father was. At work still, he assumed. Maybe he was waiting for the storm to die before he came home. Maybe it affected Apparition.
"Hugo!" Rose squeaked after another crash from outside. She tugged his arm a little harder than before, trying to lure him away from the window.
He shook her off, staring at the lit-up sky in awe.
"Mummy, tell Hugo to get away from the window!" Rose exclaimed.
Their mother once again glanced up from her book. "If Hugo wants to watch the storm, he can," she said. "He's in no danger."
The trees swayed violently in the wind and rain was pelting down, hard. Hugo could hear it on the roof and coming down the chimney. If it had been a normal fire, the rain would have extinguished it, but it blazed brighter than ever, keeping all three of them warm.
There was a very loud crack of thunder and Rose took a giant leap to where their mother was, burying her face into the comfort of her warm body. Hugo watched as another flash of lightning lit the sky and seconds later, an even louder crack.
"When's it going to stop?" Rose cried, covering her ears and hiding her head behind her mother. She had now put down her book and was holding Rose tightly.
"Soon," she promised.
From somewhere Hugo couldn't see, there was a pop that informed him his dad was now home. He appeared moments later from the kitchen, his hair soaked from the rain.
"Where have you been?" Hermione asked him.
Ron took off his coat, drying it – and himself – with his wand. "We were out... and then it started raining," he replied simply. "It was bloody awful, too. We had to wait for most of the storm to pass before we could Apparate away." He looked around at his wife and two children, noticing Rose with her face buried into Hermione and Hugo's nose resting on the window sill, watching the storm. "It's storming across most of England," he said.
"Make it stop!" Rose cried, pressing the palms of her hands harder over her ears. "Make it go away!"
"No!" Hugo argued. "Make it stay!"
"It will be gone soon, sweetie," Hermione soothed, rubbing Rose's back gently.
There were a few more lightning flashes, followed by cracks of thunder which caused Rose to move onto Hermione's lap. But, even as he watched it, Hugo saw that the wind was dying and the rain was slowing. The time between the lightning and the thunder was growing further and further apart.
After a while, Rose finally found the courage to lift her head away from her mother's shoulder. "Is it gone?" she asked timidly.
"Just about," Ron answered, coming over to join Hugo by the window.
Hugo smiled up at him. "Cool!" he exclaimed.
Ron laughed. "Only you would think a storm like that was cool, mate," he said. "You probably would have thought differently if you had been standing out in it like I was."
Now that the thunder had turned into soft rumbles in the distance, Rose deemed it safe to also wander over to the window. She pressed her forehead nervously against the window as the rain droplets ran along it.
"Why does it go away?" she asked.
"Will it come back?" Hugo questioned.
"Rosie, it goes away because the wind blows the clouds away above, meaning the storm will probably go somewhere else now. Hugo, it's meant to storm again tomorrow."
Rose groaned, giving her brother a revolted look. He simply beamed.
"You're just a scaredy-cat," he said.
"Am not!" Rose argued, folding her arms and glaring at him.
"Are too! You were scared of the storm. You're a big scaredy-cat."
Rose opened her mouth to argue, but was dragged away by their father. "Remember what happened last time the two of you got into a fight," he said. "It was a trip to St. Mungo's I would like to forget."
Hugo poked his tongue out at his sister. "Scaredy-cat," he said, before running as fast as he could from the room. Rose was a fast runner.
The original prompt for this was 'lightening' but the prompter said they were happy for us to interpret it as 'lightning' so I did. I hope you enjoyed this one. Your reviews would be greatly appreciated.
