Chapter Two
Goodbyes, Strange Boxes & Weasley Singing.
'Feed me the words to explain this urge,
with pressure and squeeze, from points underneath.
The streams in your skin are ready
and I can, so I will, just as long as you instil,
this fear in my heart…
I just hope that you aren't alone.'
There's only so much one can take before one loses it, and I think I've hit that point. Two weeks… you'd think they'd just forget the fact that I'm not eighteen yet – by two sodding weeks – and let me come with them to Bulgaria. But no they can't, because I'm "not yet eighteen". God, if I hear that one more time I'm going to blow my stack worse than Oliver did that time we lost to Hufflepuff… not pretty.
Roger is being especially clingy today and I really don't know why. Fred and George keep singing some stupid song they made up about Roger thinking I'm his sunshine and reason for breathing, but I honestly think that the boy is frightened shitless of the fact that he could die tomorrow. I mean, giant country in Bulgaria of all places? Oh sure, it's not like Bulgaria was listed in yesterday's Daily Prophet as one of the top five countries not to visit on your next holiday or anything.
'You are his suuuuuuuuuuuunshine, you are his summer shower of refreshing raaiiiinnn…'Argh. I cannot believe that they are still singing that.
They started it this morning - waking me up two hours too early, I might add – and haven't stopped yet… it is now eight in the evening.
'Roger, I know you've sworn off all violence since I kicked your butt at wrestling last week, but can you please, please kick one of them?' I beseeched of the nearest person to me, who just happened to be Roger himself.
Happy to oblige, Roger kicked out and caught the closest twin – Fred – in the back of the thigh, causing his right leg to buckle beneath him and send him toppling to the floor.
'Violence is the first sign of denial.' George informed both myself and Roger as we sniggered at Fred's howls of protest.
'Kaaaaaaaaaaaaa-tieee?'
Rolling my eyes, I stood up from my chair.
Only one person ever called out to me like that, and that person was Oliver. As Fred so aptly puts it, for someone so incredibly convinced of his masculinity, he is very effeminate in some ways… like when he calls out my name (off the quidditch pitch) or his fingernails have dirt underneath them.
'Coming Oliver!'
Nodding a grateful farewell to Roger who was now sitting with his fingers stuffed in his ears, trying in vain to concentrate on the book in his lap as the twins began a hearty rendition of 'Everybody Dance Now' which I'd regretted teaching them the moment they'd had the words memorised perfectly.
'Eeeeeeeverybody dance now! Doo-doo-doo-doo…'
Making my escape, I scampered down the stairs and followed the dulcet tones of my best friend's voice as he argued with a rather grumpy Bill, who'd Apparated in rather late from the little apartment he shared with his wife Fleur in France (which was inconveniently next door to his mother-in-law).
'Look, all I'm saying is that Quidditch drills are a good idea, but crack-of-dawn quidditch drills aren't… yes I know the Death Eaters aren't going to wait until a respectable time of the morning to attack us, but four am is a little too extravagant.'
As I walked down the hallway towards the downstairs lounge room, I cringed. If Oliver thought I was going to take his side in a argument about dawn drills, then he was seriously stuffed in the head. Although, that might be thanks to my stunt with the quaffle yesterday, so perhaps I owe it to him… loyalty… dawn… loyalty… da- nope. No friendship is worth dawn wake-ups.
'Katie! There you are!'
Dammit.
'Look, we're talking drills for Bulgaria… and I suggested that some quidditch drills would be good for our co-ordination, y'know? But Bill won't hear of it.' Oliver berated me as soon as I stepped foot in the door.
Opening my mouth, I searched desperately for a way out, and before I could control what my mouth and body did, I muttered "I'm staying out of this" and walked straight back out again. Pressing my back to the wall next to the doorway, I smiled as Bill's laughter spilled out into the hallway. Oliver didn't sound amused.
I started to contemplate going back in to tell Oliver just exactly what I thought of his dawn drills, when Charlie came sprinting down the corridor.
'Katie! Katie, are Oliver and Bill in there?' he asked, panting.
'Erm, yeah… why?' I enquired, frowning slightly – it wasn't like Charlie to be in such a rush for anything.
'They've pushed Bulgaria forward; we're leaving in three hours.' He said over his shoulder as he walked into the room.
Dammit.
'Okay, everyone right to go?'
Mr. Weasley's cheerful question was met by seven mournful glances, each one seemingly gloomier than the rest. My own must've been beyond mournful… I was struggling to keep the tears back.
'C'mon you lot, it's not going to be that bad!' Mr. Weasley continued on bravely, apparently unaware of just how much each of them wished he would just shut his mouth at that particular moment in time.
'I can't believe you're going so soon.' I whispered to Oliver, who was standing beside me with an arm around my shoulders.
'We'll be back before you know it, Kates.' He whispered in return, pulling me tighter into his half-embrace.
'Five minutes gentlemen.' said Lupin, checking his watch and turning around to draw Tonks into an iron-grip hug.
Taking this as the cue to say their final goodbyes, everyone began their somewhat painful farewells.
'We'll see you soon kiddo.' Charlie said to me with a trademark grin, pulling me away from Oliver and placing a brotherly kiss on my cheek.
'Take care Katie, you'll be able to come with us soon enough.' Roger assured me, with an affectionate ruffle of my hair.
'Keep Ginny occupied for me, will you?' Bill hissed in my ear as he embraced me in a similar way to Charlie's kiss, 'she's going to go nuts without anyone around.'
Nodding, I smiled weakly before I was drawn into a large bear hug from the twins.
'Look after the shop for us Kit-Kat?' Fred asked.
'We've told Lee, Ange and Alicia they're to help you out, alright?' George added as they let go of me, giving Oliver a chance to say a proper goodbye.
'Okay.' I affirmed shakily, turning around swiftly and pressing my face into Oliver's chest so no one else would see me cry.
'Hey…' Oliver said quietly, surprised at my uncharacteristic display of tears, 'hey… woah. It's not that bad Kates.'
'You have no idea, Oliver, so don't tell me it's not that bad.' I hissed, clinging to his body as tightly as possible, 'Just don't do anything stupid, alright?'
'You know me, a man of sense and safety.' He said with a laugh, managing to extract a slight giggle from me, 'Oh God Kates, if only I didn't have to go.'
'Tell me about it.' I agreed, inching away from him and wiping my face on his sweater, 'I'll write to you every day.'
'You better.' He said sternly before smiling and reaching into his backpack and pulling out a small wrapped box with my name written on a gift tag attached to it, 'I was going to wait and give this to you on your birthday, but seeing as how I might not be here for it, I thought you better have it now.'
Taking it from him, I made to unwrap it but he outstretched a hand to stop me.
'Wait until I'm gone… trust me. It'll give you something to write to me about, okay?'
'Uh, okay.' I replied, placing it on the little table next to me.
'Thanks.' He said quietly, reaching out and kissing me tenderly on the cheek – something he never usually did.
'Alright, you've had more than your five minutes, so we have to be off.' said Mr. Weasley, trying to extract himself from Mrs. Weasley's vice-like grip.
Tearing themselves away from their relatives, loves and friends, the boys and Lupin formed a sprawled, very boy-ish semi-circle and smiled at the rest of us grimly. I winced as I heard the snuffles of Mrs. Weasley and Ginny from behind me… I was trying so hard not to cry.
'See you all soon.' said Bill with a little smile, uncharacteristically forced.
We remained silent, except for Mrs. Weasley who dissolved into fresh tears and stumbled into the kitchen, Tonks trailing after her reluctantly, unable to tear her gaze away from Remus.
'Go Tonks, I'll write to you…' Lupin said quietly, reaching out and touching her hand, before pulling away and coughing awkwardly.
I was stunned at such a display of affection from my old teacher. Although everyone knew how much he loved the younger fuschia-haired woman, it was rare to see him so tender and raw.
'Okay, you all remember the photographs you've been shown? Right, well then, let's go… on three now.' Mr. Weasley glanced at his wife and only daughter, before pulling his wand from inside his coat.
Biting his lip, Oliver cast around in his various pockets for his own wand, seemingly unable to look at me.
'One…'
I felt a smaller hand grip mine, and I turned suddenly to see Ginny standing beside me, tears silently pouring down her delicate face.
'Two…'
I choked.
I couldn't breathe, I couldn't see, I couldn't hear… there was nothing but Oliver and the rest of the boys most important to me in my life, all standing in a line as if they were cattle waiting for the slaughter.
'Three!'
There was an assortment of Apparition cracks, before they all disappeared.
I was barely aware of Ginny sliding down the wall behind me; I was unfeeling, numb as anything except the fact that I was being left behind. Again.
'Katie?'
Alicia's gentle voice startled me from my reverie and I turned to see her pale face and quivering lips. She and Angelina were gripping each other tightly, as if transferring each other's pain to the other, and they stretched out a hand each, inviting me into their embrace.
I stared at them for a bit, glanced at Lee who was stroking Ginny's neck tenderly, and cringed afresh at Mrs. Weasley's miserable howls echoing from the kitchen. And then I turned and walked slowly up the stairs to the bedroom I shared with Ginny – and Hermione when she was here – and locked the door behind me.
And for the first time since I could remember, I cried so hard that I could barely breathe… sobbing myself wretchedly into an uneasy sleep, curled up in the darkest corner of the dusty room, with only the echoes of my own crying to comfort me.
Oliver…
It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life, leaving Katie behind like that.
She's normally so stubborn and untouchable, and then she went and broke down in my arms, just when I needed her to be strong for me… when I needed her perpetual smile and witty remarks the most. My strong, unbreakable Katie dissolved into the first tears I'd seen her shed since she broke her leg at the age of twelve, after a ten feet fall from a school-issued broomstick.
As we trudged through the assorted vegetation of some Bulgarian forest, my thoughts were only on her. The idea occurred to me that giving her the present early might not have been such a good idea after all, considering how upset she was at the time… but nevertheless, I'd given it to her now, and there was no going back. Hopefully it would cheer her up, even if just for a little while.
Our endless march was silent, each of us were too buried in our own misery to say anything. Even the twins were being uncharacteristically quiet: Fred had Angelina's locket in his hand and was fiddling with the chain, and George was just striding along morosely, no doubt missing Alicia already. Bill, walking next to me, yawned loudly, disrupting the hushed atmosphere, and earned himself seven glances in response to his emission of tiredness.
'A kilometre to go.' Lupin said quietly, hoisting his pack further up on his back and falling back into silence, an additional note of sadness in his already melancholy grey eyes.
'What was in the box you gave Katie, Oliver?' asked Charlie from my left, making me choke.
Bill, who was the only one I'd confided in about the gift smiled and told Charlie to mind his own business.
'I'm just curious, is all.' He muttered indignantly, offended.
'You'll find out soon enough little brother.' Bill said with a wink at me.
I didn't know quite what to do… I couldn't believe I'd actually given her the box after all. With everything else going on, that was the last thing I should've done.
Looking at me curiously, Charlie allowed an eyebrow to raise itself at me but said nothing more.
Merlin, I'm a first-class idiot.
Katie…
I woke up so suddenly that I cried out: as if someone had slapped me in the face.
Casting my gaze around sleepily, I discovered that someone had managed to heave me into my bed and placed a blanket over my exhausted form. I was thankful, the early hours of the morning were decidedly chilly and as I blinked blearily, trying to regain some kind of clarity, I drew the knitted rug tighter around my shivering body.
Oliver's face swam into my hazy vision, and the emotions I'd managed to hold at bay whilst sleeping came flooding back all at once. Screwing my eyes shut tightly, I forced the tears to vanish and leapt out of bed. Snatching the blanket up, I wrapped myself in it and tip-toed out of the bedroom, careful not to disturb Ginny, whose breathing was still shaky, as if she'd only just managed to cry herself to sleep.
As I crept downstairs, I caught a glance of light from the sitting-room that Bill and Oliver had been in earlier, and I headed for the warmth of the fire-lit space. Passing the alcove, I did a double-take as I spotted the gift Oliver had pressed in my hand before he left. Picking it up, I pulled my blanket tighter around me and shuffled down the hallway towards the sitting-room.
Tonks was sitting in an arm chair, her normally cheery face stark and disturbingly haggard. She looked up as I entered and managed a brief smile.
'What're you doing up at this hour?' she asked quietly, continuing her gaze into the dancing flames in the fireplace.
'Couldn't sleep. You?' I returned, sinking into the arm-chair opposite her and playing with the ribbon on Oliver's gift.
'Same.' She sighed with a great exhale of breath, blinking and consequently startling me when her eyes changed colour suddenly, exchanging their usual attractive violet-blue for a more bitter shade of grey, 'Oops.'
'Does it happen accidentally sometimes?' I enquired curiously, watching her large eyes with interest.
'Sometimes… usually when I'm a little out of sorts.' She replied, blinking and groaning as her fuschia hair swapped its neon colour for a morbid hue of blood-red.
I nodded, understanding more than I think either of us realised.
I sat watching her for a few minutes as she tried desperately to get her hair back to its normal colour, finally settling for a more serene mahogany colour, which sort of glowed eerily in the fire's dim light.
'What's that you've got there?' she asked interestedly, breaking our companionable silence.
'I dunno.' I answered truthfully, finally remembering the gift I'd been so eager to open earlier, 'Oliver slipped me this just before he left and told me not to open it until he was gone.'
'Gone as in left for Bulgaria, or gone as in…' she didn't finish her sentence; she didn't need to.
I drew a breath in sharply, before emitting a resultant cough.
'Oh, definitely left for Bulgaria.' I said hurriedly.
'Open it then.' She said with a shrug, leaning in closer as I tugged at the gold gift-ribbon.
Peeling the ribbon and paper off slowly, I unveiled a small box and a note, folded into as small a square as he could apparently get it. I heard Tonk intake a small breath as she saw the small box, but when I glanced at her curiously, she merely smiled and nodded, inviting me to open the note which I now held in my shaking hands.
It was a rather long note, written in Oliver's untidy scrawl, but at the top, there was a boldly written instruction, obviously meant just for me.
DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU'VE OPENED THE BOX.
Placing the letter beside me obediently, I pressed the little button on the side of the velvet box and – crash!
Tonks had leant too far over the arm of her chair, consequently tipped it over with an echoing bang of wood on wood. 'Oh no! I'll have woken the whole house up now!'
We sat in a horrified kind of silence, as the sound of footsteps creeping down the stairs filtered into the room.
'What's going on?' asked a small voice curiously from the doorway.
Tonks and I both jumped, screaming in fright.
Frowning, an exhausted looking Ginny smiled faintly at the sight of the pair of us – Tonks lying sprawled on the wooden floor, her limbs entangled in the spindly arm chair, and me gripping the arms of my own chair with whitening knuckles.
'What's in the box then?'
I groaned.
Did privacy even exist in this place?
'Go on then, open it…' Tonks urged me, pulling her legs out from under the chair tenderly, as Ginny came and sat down on the chair next to mine, glancing curiously at the little box sitting meekly on the floor in the middle of us.
Obviously not.
A/N: lyrics - 'Points Underneath' - The Honorary Title
Hello darlings,
how are we all this lovely evening (or whatever time of the day it is where you are)?
Okay, no prizes for who guesses what is in the box, but hey, i needed to make it a little less cliche, and so you are given a sort of cliffhanger.. ooohhh... haha.
Erm, well, this chapter is dedicated to Kailey Hamilton.. actually this entire story is dedicated to her, as she has honoured me by translated a fair few of my KBOW stories into Spanish.. she is pretty much amazing, and so, if I may, Kailey this is for you. hope you enjoy it.
I've had a few people say they preferred the old 'World On Fire' better, but I have to say this... WoF just wasn't that good. BUT, it did get me started on this whole huge plot that is now the basis for this story, and it spurred me on to actually planning a story for once.. this story will be good (i don't want to sound arrogant here, honestly). I have HUGE plans for it, it should be fairly lengthy.. and hey, if all else fails, i have pictures for you to lust over. especially the pictures of Oliver, Charlie and Nicolas (who is yet to come).
So, that's enough of my rambling Author's Note.. ooh, except that I have a FictionPress account now which contains one original story and a whole stack of my own original poetry. If you like my writing, you should like my poetry... the link is on my profile.
Thanks a lot everyone, I'll try and update again soon.
Love,
Ash xx