After nearly 5 months of her self-imposed near-isolation, her father had finally given up on asking her to come back. Or maybe he just thought that she would come to her senses soon enough on her own and move back home. The recommendation that she come "just for a quick visit" still came up about every other week or so though. He never made the suggestion to come visit her himself and Violet never offered.

But Violet wasn't about to go back to her regular life either, despite being unable to actually voice those concerns to her father. So she made due with vague comments of "just a few more months" and promises to come by at Christmas. Either way, their conversations ended up stilted, redundant, and, well, kind of boring.

Violet loved her father, of course, but if she had to hear him ask one more time about her 'new' position at the hospital that she'd been working at for several months now, she might just hang up on him. But this call was different.

"Have you cleaned out the guest bedroom yet?"

"The guest bedroom?" she said distractedly, trying to brush away a fly swarming around her head without tripping over the overflowing trash can. (She'd take it out tomorrow, ok?) It had been around 4 months and she had barely set up her bedroom, much less bothered with the rest of the house. "What's in there?"

"Not much, just some of my things from when your mother and I first started dating," he responded casually. Violet frowned. Edward Sinclair didn't do 'casual'. "I just thought you might want to see them."

She didn't.

"What kind of things?" she asked to be polite.

"Oh, it's some old photographs and of my Hogwarts textbooks should be there since your mother was always so interested in learning more about it. I think my first wand might even be there-"

"Dad."

"You used to play so much with it as a child. The elm wood was so suited to you, remember?"

"Dad." Violet interrupted tightly.

Having grown up surrounded by magic his entire life, Edward Sinclair was unable to fathom how his only child had sworn off using magic for the foreseeable future. Violet knew he was trying to be supportive of her recent break from, well, everything, but he had always had trouble keeping himself from interfering when things weren't going according to his plan for her.

"Violet, I'm only looking out for your best interests." His voice turned stern, a tone she was unfortunately familiar with from her teenage years. "You can't keep living like this, like some sort of hermit. Do you even have any sort of plan for your job?"

"No, but-" Her voice cracked and he jumped on her open weakness.

"You need to get back to your regular job and your regular life by the end of this year," he commanded. "You can come stay with me, of course, but I need some sort of timeline for when you're coming back."

"How about never? Is that a clear enough timeline for you?" she snapped back through the lump in her throat. She hung up the phone, immediately feeling guilty.


Violet was getting pretty tired of being woken up in the middle of the night by strange noises. It was no good for her sleep and she was really starting to get some anxiety about the noises one day being some sort of serial killer and not just some random animals in her backyard. She seriously contemplated just going back to sleep and ignoring it.

The scratching that had woken her up originally started up again from her back door, this time accompanied with a large thump. Violet turned her face into her pillow for a muffled groan but got out of bed. She crept forward and very slowly cracked the door open, still keeping the chain on the door latched.

The dog (because what else would it be) gave a pitiful whimper upon making eye contact with her. She gasped and immediately slammed the door shut. What did it want?

Violet took a quick moment to remind herself that it was just a dog and not some sort of stalker who had followed her back to her house. A whine from the other side of the door convinced her to peek out once more.

This time dog had had laid down with its head between its paws, looking up at her mournfully. She sucked her teeth. The fur on the dog's front left paw was matted with blood. While she couldn't see the injury itself very clearly, he wasn't putting much weight on it and holding it gingerly.

Violet eyed him nervously before running to get her wand. If she was going to let a wild animal into her house, she needed to have something on hand to defend herself with. While her 'no magic' ban was still in place, it was either either her wand or some large kitchen knife. Violet could envision herself tripping and stabbing herself accidentally all too well, so the wand it would be, magical morals aside for now.

She took a deep breath and unlocked the chain on the door. She looked out for a third time. Seeing the dog still patiently waiting with perked up ears made her feel slightly better. But not much.

"Ok, I'm going to let you in now. But no jumping on anything." She was probably going crazy by talking to a dog but she figured it couldn't hurt to lay out the ground rules.

Violet finally opened the door fully and pressed herself to the wall, careful not to brush up against the dog as it gently padded inside. The dog sniffed around her living room before settling in on her couch. Her white couch.

She winced but there wasn't much she could do at that point. Taking the fluffy blanket draped across the back of the couch, she hesitantly kneeled next to the dog. He opened one eye to look at her warily but didn't move as she placed the blanket on him.

"You're not that scary, are you?" she said in a soothing voice, reaching out to scratch behind his ears. "You're just a big fluffy softie."

The dog let out a disapproving snort but closed its eyes and relaxed as she pet it. Though there were some tangled spots, its fur was for the most part surprisingly soft, Violet mused as she continued to pet it. As her hand drifted past the dog's head to pet its side, she felt something sharp unexpectedly pierce her.

Hissing, she drew her hand back and lifted up the blanket to see if he had scratched her but his paws were all tucked under his body. Instead, it was the tip of a feather that had poked her. A surprisingly large feather that was tangled in his long fur. Violet spent several minutes trying to untangle it with no success. To his credit, the dog did nothing but lazily flick his tail at her in annoyance. Finally she gave up and cut it out with a pair of scissors.

The dog curled in on itself after she pulled it out and ignored her. Violet stared at the feather in her hand that was practically the length of her elbow to her fingertips. She glanced dubiously at the pigeons in the trees right outside her window, the only birds she had ever seen in her area. There was no bird she could think of that could be this large.

Even worse, she could feel the strain of magical energy thrumming through the feather. She ran her fingers over it, trying to get a read on it but all that she could tell was that it was part of the feather — or, more accurately, the creature it came from. It definitely wasn't a Phoenix and Thunderbirds were supposed to be even bigger than this. Theoretically if it was from a Thestral, she should be able to see it, although she hadn't actually encountered one to know what it looked like yet. The sizing was probably correct for that but it didn't feel quite right.

Strangely unsettled over the idea of a magical creature running loose so close by, Violet left it on her living room table, not wanting to keep it close but unwilling to throw it away yet.

Violet considered taking a look at his injured paw but the dog had tucked it away under the blanket and didn't appear to be in any severe pain. She decided to leave it for tomorrow and, after putting out a bowl of water by the couch, went to bed, making sure to lock her bedroom door behind her.