((If my writing is starting to really suck guys please tell me. Reviews are welcomed and appreciated! Sorry if this chapter is kind of boring, I didn't want to jump into anything too much and I was having anxiety of my fic today. Not fun. 3 Thank you to everyone who followed recently))
The familiar air of Chateauroux filled her lungs as they exited the small wizard's café in the old downtown area in which her family lived along with the rest of the wizarding population. Josie tugged up Fred's scarf around her face as the cold chill that blew through the old boulevards stung her cheeks. The Desmarais home was one of three "small" apartments over a pastry shop owned by a wizard couple that lived next to them, her mother's studio just next door. The building was ancient, the walls covered with snow dusted ivy kept living by a charm the owners cast each year, the bright green brilliant against the white walls and frost.
Her father opened the door to the stairs, the entrance secluded in the small alleyway between two buildings, and the family of three rushed in, Josie leading the way up the spiraled metal stairs to the landing. Taking the keys from her father, she unlocked the boring brown door and entered the home she had grown to miss. The apartment was much larger on the inside due to the glory of magic, the seemingly small one bedroomed with kitchenette apartment branched out through reality into their four bedroom, two bathroom home that Josie had grown up in. The rooms were decorated in deep reds and purples, dark wood meeting bright white walls that were scattered with art and photographs, gold light fixtures lighting the rich space. Her mother was an artist, her canvas branching from her easel to her home.
In a fit of un-ladylikeness, Josie took off across the foyer and into the living area, flipping over the back of the deep red ornate couch and scrambling to the balcony windows to look out across the city, old architecture dusted with snow and the castle in the distance. Wizards in swirling robes walked the streets of the magic market, children bundled in thick coats following blonde witches in pale frocks doing their Christmas shopping as they came and went from the stores below. She returned the pale gold curtains to their place before turning when the fireplace caught, flames brushing against the white brick as her father returned his wand to his pocket.
He smiled at her, walking over and ruffling her hair. "I'll take your things to your room. "He said, kissing the top of her head and heading down the hallway. Her mother had been left standing in the doorway, smiling softy when she caught her daughters eye before walking over to her. "We'll go out for tonight and tomorrow I will make a big breakfast. Mr. and Mr. Giroux are bringing you a box of your favorites to welcome you home." Her mother spoke in soft French, Josie struggling to fall back into hearing it. Her father spoke in English to her, because he had wanted her to be bilingual, but her mother struggled with speaking anything but French. She could write English well enough, but speaking was harder for her. Her mother only learned it in the first place because when she had met her father he was re-learning French after moving back into the country to take care of his parents, and Delephine had decided to attempt to learn English to make the growth of their relationship easier. This was a story Josie had heard on every single anniversary they'd had since her birth.
"Thank you." Josie said softly in French. Her mother took Josie's hands between her own, kissing them. "I'm glad to have you home Josephine." She said softly, her eyes sparkling with pride. "You've grown so much in just a few months, I'm very proud of you…and I'm sorry for not seeing earlier that you were not going to be the girl I was convinced you needed to be." Josie smiled, nodding her head slightly and looking at the ground. "I tend to go by Josie now by the way…" she stuttered softly, worried of her mother's reaction. "Do you want to be called that?" "If it's not too much to ask." "Then Josie it is." Her mother said with a gentle smile. "Thank you." She said softly, smiling widely as her anxiety lightened.
The sound of paws softly thudding across wood floor pulled them from their mother daughter moment, and Josie looked up in time to see a small tabby kitten jump onto the top of the couch and mew softly at her. She walked over to pick up the young cat, its tail puffed out as it sniffed her new Hogwarts smell.
Jones was a small mostly blonde tabby with a crooked tail and golden eyes. Josie had gotten the tiny kitten in the middle of the summer, and it hadn't grown much at all since then. She cuddled the kitten under her chin as she moved towards her room, Jones mewing repetitively in excitement. After passing her father in the hallway, Josie nudged open the door to her room with her toe, slipping in the crack of the doorway.
Her suit case sat at the end of her bed, open as the clothes flew out of it and separated into clean and dirty, a spell probably cast by her father. The clean clothes folded themselves and went into the open draws of her pale grey dresser, the dirty ones piling themselves on the floor to be washed. Jones wriggled out of her arms and jumped onto the platform her bed sat upon, curling up in the cat bed that sat below her pillow.
Josie flicked on the lamp that sat in the corner of her room and drew open the curtains of her small window, the setting sun casting an orange glow across the thick black rug and deep blue blankets. She hadn't realized how much she had missed her room, the comfort of her bed surrounding her as she threw herself back against the collection of pillows and the fluffy comforter, her old stuffed rabbit flopping over from her sudden arrival. The room was very much Josie, meaning it was very much what Josie needed in a bedroom. It was comforting and calm, the dim lights, soft materials and cool colors keeping her anxiety to a minimum. Posters of muggle bands and movies, paintings her mother had done for her, quotes, and photographs covered her walls, colors standing out against the white paint. Stars covered her ceiling, something her mother had painted her when she was very small by her request, her father enchanting the painting to move with the stars in the sky not matter what time of day it was.
She had just noticed a vase of blue and white roses amongst the clutter on her dresser when her father popped his head into the room. "You should probably get ready to go out for dinner lapin, it's getting late and your mother is hungry. And you know how she is when she's hungry." He made a frightened face to signify the nightmare her mother was when she hadn't eaten enough, causing Josie to giggle as she sat up. "Give me a minute, I won't be long." She said softly, getting up and heading towards her closet, an indent in the wall with a curtain in front of it.
Many of the clothes Josie owned would make her grandmother squirm, much to Josie's delight. Her grandmother thought she should wear mostly white and pale pink, only dresses and skirts and pretty pinch-y shoes, the elderly woman set on her granddaughter being the picture of ladylike closet was mostly dark purples, all shades of blues, white, silver, black, and the new found assortment of red and gold from her father's gifts. Josie pulled on a knitted shirt and long skirt, slipping into an old pair of boots and a thick jacket, patting Jones on the head before heading out her bedroom door.
Splashing water on her face and shaking her hair out in the bathroom, she faltered before she went to meet with her parents, ducking back into her room to grab Fred's scarf off her bed and turn off the light. The floor creaked under her feet more than she remembered, her stomach churning uncomfortably at the thought she might have put on more weight at Hogwarts. She had thought she felt more jiggle than usual while cheering at the last Quidditch match, her tights squeezing her thighs more than usual.
Her father found her staring at the floor boards in front of the bathroom, her lip swollen between her teeth and her mind swimming with the negativity that the twin's light had always pushed into the shadows. Woolen yarn was clutched between her fingers as she rung the scarf in her hands. She was snapped out of her thoughts by a rough hand taking hers, her eye's focusing on the matching set that belonged to her father, the tall man crouched in on himself to look up at her. His forehead was set in lines of worry, something it had done since she was little whenever she had an attack.
"Are you alright?" he asked softly, blue eyes fierce with worry as he stared at her. Josie reached out her hand to trace the lines in his skin with her thumb; her heart falling at the realization that she had given him those. "I'm sorry." She muttered softly. Her father cracked a smile, standing up and taking her hand. "You always used to do that when you were little. Your hand was much smaller compared to my head then." He chuckled. Josie smiled, the expression halfhearted. "Guess everything got bigger." She muttered, but the words did not catch on her father's ears as he led her by the hand towards the front door where her mother waited for them.
They ate dinner at a small restaurant a street down from the apartment, and returned to their home with full stomachs and light hearts. She had told her parents everything she could about Hogwarts, talking excitedly for hours over the multiple courses that she had forgotten came in a French meal. She returned home and took the longest hot shower she had ever taken before heading into her room to bury herself under her blankets.
But once she entered the room she was struck by something that was not there when she left. A sweater was laid across her bed, Jones curled up underneath one of the sleeves. She was confused as to why it had been set there and not put in her closet or into the laundry by the spell. The answer was soon given upon closer inspection. George Weasley's sweater had gotten mixed in with her clothes when she had packed, and the spell her father had cast had not known what to do with it since it was not her clothing.
Josie sighed, promising herself to write them a letter in the morning before climbing in under the covers, Jones settling in on her pillow by her head. The stars above her moved slowly as the earth turned, and she found herself thinking if Fred and George could see the same stars she could, or if they could even see them at all from where ever they were. Her mind continued to wander, unable to find a place to settle so she could fall asleep. After what seemed like hours she became annoyed with her restlessness, and grabbed a book from the drawers beneath her bed to read by the light of candle on her nightstand. After a while of reading, in a state of drowsiness, Josie grabbed the sweater off the end of her bed and pulled it on over her nightdress to fight the chill that was creeping through the window panes.
She soon tumbled into dreams of the twins, her fingers tucked between the pages of her book, the smell of gunpowder and chocolate filling her with each slow, soft breath taken from between still kiss tingled lips.