Chapter 1: Home
The warm Summer sun kisses the already freckled skin, painting it golden and brighter than the slither that remains in the shade of a wooden roof. Two young boys, with flaming red hair speed around on short broomsticks with a Quaffle. Cressida's lips are pulled upwards by her cheeks at the sight, silently remarking that they are already showing signs of becoming the next generation's Quidditch team. Hopefully for Gryffindor.
"A refreshing cordial," comes a light and melodic voice from behind her as the wooden barn door shuts. Cressida's smile widens as she glances over her shoulder. Elias walks towards her with two glasses of a tropical looking drink in each hand.
"Thank you," she says, taking one for her own. Turning back to the two young Weasley boys, Elias joins her on the edge of the small veranda. "How long do you reckon they'll be at it. It's been at least two hours since they started."
He takes a long breath then lets it out with a quiet chuckle. "Another two," he guesses mirthfully. "If you went back inside probably a little earlier. Little Bill has taken a liking to you."
Cressida laughs into the rim of her glass, savouring the sweetness. "He's a sweet boy."
Elias, newly graduated from Hogwarts has come to the Burrow for a few days to coincide with her own visit. The twins are inside somewhere, talking with their sister and Arthur had left early that morning for his job at the Ministry. He'd just been transferred to the Department of Muggle Affairs and is more than ecstatic to get his day started.
Elias and the twins were not in any particular sort of work yet – officially, anyway. In the few short letters between them, she'd discovered that they began attending meetings with the group they told her about all those weeks ago. The Order, they called it. From the lack of information both in the letters, and that which they tell her in person, Cressida figures that she's not yet welcome to the knowledge of its context.
The Burrow is a large, yet very small feeling place; cluttered and filled with odd pieces of equipment. But it has a strange homeliness that is almost the opposite of James' perfectly clean manor, yet both are just as comfortable as one another.
"You said you were going to France," Elias says after some time.
Cressida nods. "Next week." The end of July is already nearing, and having spent the entirety of it at her own home, her heart aches for the Potter manor. But tomorrow morning, she is returning home from the Burrow. "It'll be fun, but, I'm nervous about being somewhere so new."
"Everybody is," he replies with a content sigh. "With this job, I'm travelling quite a bit and I'm a train wreck of nerves."
"Glad to hear someone admit it," she laughs, leaning against one of the posts. "James and Sirius never would. Remus might, but he doesn't show it."
"And Peter?"
"Scared of everything," she answers, "so he doesn't really count. You are careful, aren't you? Doing whatever you do?"
A single brow perks momentarily, peering at her with mirthful taunting. "Concerned about me?"
"Yes," she admits without reluctance. "You and the twins. I don't have many friends and I'd hate to see something happen to the ones I do have."
The front barn door creaks open, Elias and Cressida's eyes turning towards it as a plump, and very pregnant woman comes out from it with one hand on her hip, the other blocking the sun. "Boys!" Molly calls. "Come in for lunch!" Her hair is just as red as her son's and husbands, framing an already fiercely motherly face. Bill and Charlie either don't hear, or do not care to listen to their mother and continuing zipping about on their broomsticks. "For heavens' sake," she mutters.
"Don't worry yourself, Molly," Elias soothes with a confident smile.
"We'll go get them," Cressida adds. "And sit down for a while, you've been busing around all morning."
Molly drops her shoulders slightly in relief of having the extra hands, beginning to turn away from the large field yard. "Sit down? The only time I sit down is to take a shit."
Elias and Cressida hold their giggles until she is well and truly back inside. Sauntering forward onto the grass, she watches the young pair continue to fly around. Elias stands nearby, already knowing exactly what they have to do. A game that was unofficially invented where the young boys would fly close to the ground, and the two older ones would try and catch them.
Cressida eventually does so, one hand wrapping around a lanky Bill, the other gripping the short broomstick. The child laughs wildly as he hangs almost over her shoulder. "You're too slow," she teases him, peppering his face with kisses.
Elias catches the young Charlie who doesn't want to stay away from his brother for too long. Bill shrieks, pushing her face away with his small hands. "I-I'm a big boy!" he cries. "I don't need kisses!"
Cressida laughs easily, stopping her pampering at his request. "Big boys get kisses too, you know. Your mummy and daddy kiss all the time." His face morphs into disgusts which only elicits louder chuckles from the young woman. "No kisses then."
"No kisses and this one doesn't want to be carried," Elias muses, letting Charlie run off by himself to the house. "I think they are big boys." Bill shrieks again in agreement, nearly crawling out of her arms and dropping to the grass before trailing along after his brother.
Cressida and Elias share fond smiles, walking back to the house in the boy's trail with the sun warming their skin and the grass tickling their ankles.
Xx
At the end of a short dirt road sits a shack-like house, painted with a crusted white that flakes off in many places. Two cars are parked unevenly on the grass in front; one recognisable, the other not. Not an unusual sight.
With an overnight bag all that she has with her, Cressida slowly makes her way back to the place she refuses to call home. Elias had disapparated them back just a short walk away as she used to excuse that she had muggle neighbours and didn't want to be caught appearing out of nowhere by them. A lie of course, as their neighbours weren't for another half a kilometre down the road.
The walk up to the house is not as long as she had hoped for and too soon is she back on the doorstep. The metal door handle creaks and grinds as she pushes down on it, the sound only continuing as the door swings open. "Mum?" she calls, hoping that she'd be the first face she can find. It smells of beer and smoke.
A wave of relief washes over her as her mother appears from the kitchen with a short, white apron on. "Sweetheart," she greets. "I thought you wouldn't be home for another day yet."
"I said I'd come back Friday," Cressida shrugs. Her eyes glaze around the house, wondering where the guests are.
The inside is just as broken as the outside looks. Cracked tiles in the kitchen and wooden floors in desperate need of polishing – or better yet, replacing. The wallpaper is an odd blue and creamy-yellow pattern of floral swirls that is so hideous, that Cressida would much rather strip it down and have the bare wall behind it to look at every day.
With the retreat of her own room calling, Cressida heads towards the hallway and barges her shoulder against her bedroom door that is cracked open. There isn't much inside it other than a heap of miscellaneous belongings that mostly come from, or are needed for Hogwarts. The window is broken in the lower right-hand corner from a stone smashing through it once. And her dressers' top draw is unusable from the large dent that makes it impossible to pull out.
What doesn't belong in her room, yet is there, is a hefty figure lying on her bed that she doesn't recognise. The owner of the car most likely.
With a stiff jaw, she turns back around and marches towards the kitchen. "There's someone in my room," she declares as though her mother wouldn't already know.
"Oh," her mother mutters, blinking rapidly. "Yes, I'd quite forgotten. We'll just-"
"She'll just be sleeping on the couch," a low and firm voice interjects. Cressida keeps her head forward, but her eyes dart to the side where her father emerges from the bathroom. "Garret's gone and done himself at the last drop-point. Deserves a bed for a few nights."
And your own daughter doesn't, she feels like demanding. But who knows what such a remark would get her? Certainly not a bed. "Fine." Lugging her bag towards the living room, Cressida begins making preparation to sleep there for who knows how long; fluffing the single cushion and sourcing down a light blanket.
The Hawthorne's family dinner is nothing unusual; which means that tension is high and the ears are accustom and tuned into everybody else's movements. Cressida resists speaking as much as she can, choosing to answer questions rather than be the one to ask them. Hogwarts is not spoken of. Behind her, in the living room is a large tv with crooked antennae. It's the only position that will get them any sort of comprehendible image. Ten minutes into their evening meal, something on it catches her father's attention and his presence all but disappears as he stares intently over her shoulder.
Though they had believed Cressida not to be returning for another day, and hence why her room had become occupied, the occupant does not leave for another three – and without so much as a glance in her direction. Though by now, she has learnt to ignore any and all guests in the house. They're not to sort of people that she'd like to talk to anyway.
Her nose shrivels at the stench the man left in her room, but the familiarity of it is more than enough to forget that the sheets haven't been washed yet. With not much else to do outside, Cressida pulls her Hogwarts trunk from underneath her bed and unlocks the latches. It is still filled to the brim even after a month, the red ties neatly rolled down the very middle between two grey jumpers. She starts sorting through the belongings, leaving what has no need to return to her wardrobe.
The almost mechanical and automatic movements slow as her she spies a single white envelope; tucked right into the side of her suitcase. Cressida doesn't remember what it was for. Disregarding the shoes in her hand, she plucks it from its spot, scanning over the envelope itself as to see if it gives her any clue but there is nothing. "What are you?"
Untucking the lid that hasn't been sealed properly, Cressida peeks inside. Her fingers that play around the edge of the paper freeze and something inside her stomach drops. The muscles in her mouth try and move to form something to say, but nothing comes.
Inside the envelope is a stash of muggle money. Well over a thousand just from sight alone. Her frozen muscles quickly come to life as her head snaps over her shoulder towards her bedroom door which is still shut. "Holy shit," she hisses, running her thumb along the stack. Where had it come from? And more importantly, who put it there?
Not many people have had access to her trunk. The girls from her dormitory are the only ones who could have accessed it through the year – or any other female Gryffindor. The only other place it has been is the train, but even there it was stashed away with all the other trunks. And muggle money. Well, nuts and galleons would be a bit hard to slip in a discrete envelope to amount to the same, but who in their right minds would slip money into her trunk? Did they even mean to?
Thinking as fast as she can, Cressida pulls open her bottom dresser draw and stashes the envelope under her socks. She can hear her father loitering about in the hallway. Even if the money was not meant to be put there, the muggle currency makes it desirable to her father and she'd have to have it transferred back to wizarding currency at Gringotts as soon as she can. And then perhaps find the owner.
As naturally as she can, a little breathless nevertheless, Cressida returns to unpacking her trunk, only nodding when her father opens the door and reminds her not to close it again.