Chapter Four:

When I woke up the next morning, Damen had made his way to my room and was sitting right next to me. I sat up quickly, freaking out. "Damen, how'd you get up those stairs all by yourself?"

I heard Ron's laughter from over by the couch. He was eating a bowl of cereal. "I went down to grab something to eat and noticed that he was just waking up when I peeked in to check on him. So, I picked him up and we headed to the kitchen. I put him in his chair and fed him while I decided what I wanted to eat."

My heart swelled at this man taking care of my baby brother.

He continued on, "I figured we'd do a bigger breakfast once you woke up, so I just grabbed a quick bowl of cereal and brought it up here waiting on you to wake up. I didn't set him up on the bed though. He levitated up there and kept saying, Kyreigh. I thought it was cute."

I looked at my brother and he was grinning, "Won fed me ceweal. I want eggs."

I laughed at the way Damen said Ron's name, "Okay buddy." I ruffled his hair and gave him a kiss. "Let me get dressed first."

I put on a salmon camisole, flared jeans, and some turquoise Converse and stepped out of the closet. Ron had Damen by the door, waiting on me so we could descend the stairs as a family. Which, let's face it, we were becoming; Ron seemed to be taking a daddy role to Damen already and I would be the only mother that Damen would remember.

"What shall we do today, Damen?" I asked my brother. It looked to be a beautiful day and we had yet to actually explore the grounds.

"I wanna swim," was his reply running towards one of the windows and pointing out at the pool.

"Deal," I said. "After we eat a healthier breakfast."

I went into the kitchen and began getting out eggs, sausage, and stuff for toast. Ron was carrying Damen again and he set him down in his high chair. I handed Ron a buttered piece of toast and asked, "Damen, do you want strawberry or apricot jelly?"

"Apicot," he replied. "But just a wittle."

Ron put the apricot jelly on Damen's toast and handed it to the toddler.

I started frying up some eggs and sausage, and Ron squeezed some fresh orange juice for us to drink.

I handed Ron the plate of eggs for Damen and flipped over the sausage cooking on the griddle.

Damen was busy eating and Ron came up behind me, pulling me closer. "I enjoyed last night," he whispered in my ear, leaning down.

"I did, too," I said turning my head and kissing him softly on the lips. I finished with the eggs and sausage and we made our way to the table.

When breakfast was over, the doorbell rang.

It was Ginny, Hermione, and Harry. They all grinned and snickered at us when Ron had answered the door. He was still in his t-shirt and boxers, not having bothered to get dressed.

"Hi guys," I said, ignoring the snickering. "We were planning on taking a dip in the pool. Care to join?"

"Sure," they replied in unison.

"I'm going to go get Damen ready." I tossed them some sunscreen. "Make sure to put some sunscreen on."

I picked Damen up and went up to his room. I put on his swim trunks, made sure he was covered head to toe in sunscreen, and gathered his pool toys.

Instead of going up to my room, I just transfigured my clothes into my swimsuit. I heard a knock on the door, "Come in."

Ron opened the door, "Oh," he saw me in my swimsuit, "I was going to ask if you wanted me to watch him while you changed."

I smiled, and said, "Thanks for the offer. I do have something you could help me with though." I turned my back towards him, pulled my hair to the side and looked back, "Can you put sunscreen on my back, for me?"

He stepped forward, taking the sunscreen and squeezing some out in his hands. I couldn't feel how cold the sunscreen was, all I could feel was the heat of his hands touching my back. I closed my eyes, relishing his magical hands massaging my back.

"Hey guys," we were interrupted by Hermione. "Ohh," she said when she saw us, thinking she had interrupted a private moment. "I'll leave you two be. I just wanted to let you know that we were all back from getting our swimsuits. See you out back."

"Great," I said. "We're ready. Ron was just putting sunscreen on my back for me."

I stopped by the hallway closet to grab some beach towels on our way downstairs. I grabbed the pool toys from a chest outside the back door and threw them in the pool.

Damen has known how to swim since he was about 13 months old. I was 8 months old when I could swim unassisted.

I went to the diving rock and dived in. I quickly pulled my swimsuit back up because it started to come off. "Bloody boobs," I thought. I usually wear a tshirt over my swimsuit for this very reason.

I swam over to Damen in the shallow end and threw him a little ways. He laughed and splashed me in return.

Next thing I knew, I was being tossed in the air. Ron had picked me up and threw me like I had done with Damen.

Harry did a cannonball into the pool, and Ginny pushed Hermione in.

"Hello, cousin," I heard a voice say followed by a shadow covering me. I look up to see Draco.

"Hey, Draco," I said. "Care to join?"

Draco looked around at my companions starting to shake his head. "Ummm."

"Yea, join us," Harry said, encouragingly.

Damen splashed him and said, "Pway wif me."

Draco's eyes sparkled, "Okay little cousin."

He sighed in relief at not being rejected, at least that's what it looked like.

"Everybody deserves a second chance," Hermione said, tossing Draco the sunscreen.

We swam for an hour or two before breaking for lunch. We decided to make some sandwiches and eat outside.

We had a huge checkered picnic blanket spread out in the lawn, different types of bread and meats, condiments, pickles, tomatoes, romaine and red leaf lettuce, an assortment of cheeses, and lemonade to drink.

Damen had finished his sandwich and his head was starting to droop. I started to pick him up to take him to his room, when Ron grabbed him and said, "I got him. You finish eating."

I finished my sandwich and laid back, looking at the clouds in the sky. They began to swirl together and words started to form.

Get out. You betrayed your blood. Traitor.

I blinked and it was gone, no one else seemed to have seen the words. 'I must have imagined it,' I thought.

Ron came back outside and said that Damen was asleep.

Just to be on the safe side I asked the house-elves to keep on eye and ear out for Damen. I wanted to explore the maze.

"Hey guys, do you want to explore the maze with me?"

Harry said, "No thanks, I've had enough encounters with mazes. I'm good. You can though."

Ginny said, a little too quickly, "I'll stay with Harry, you guys go."

Hermione and Draco had agreed to go, so off we went. We walked towards the entrance. There were 2 ways to go, "You guys go to the right, Draco and I will go to the left?" Hermione said, grabbing Draco and walking away.

"Why would you want to partner with me?" I heard Draco saying. "I thought you and Weasley had a thing."

"Not anymore," was all I could catch as their voices had faded.

"Is it just me, or are they trying to push us together?" I asked Ron.

"A little too hard," Ron laughed. "After you."

I grabbed Ron's hand and said, "Together."

We walked for an hour, before we came to a dead end with a statue in the middle.

There was a plaque on the bottom,

We do not taint our blood by mixing with the blood of the impure.

it read.

"Well then," I said in disgust.

We turned back around to go the other way from the last turn. I glanced back, checking to see if the statue had had those words engraved in it, there was blood coming out the letters.

We finally made it to the center and found the cottage. Draco and Hermione had beat us to it.

"Hey, slow pokes," Hermione said smiling. Draco just stood around kind of awkwardly. "We couldn't get inside the cottage. Must be some sort of spell."

I walked over to the cottage and tried the door. It opened instantly.

"Must have had a blood spell on it," Hermione said.

We all stepped inside the cottage looking around.

I could see everything my mother touched, maybe not that obviously, but in the way the blanket was folded on the back of the sofa, or the candles on the mantel.

Something glittered in the back of the room, when we grabbed a hold of it, Ron and I, suddenly disappeared.

"I know what this is, it's a portkey," Ron said.

Where we landed, we didn't know. All we knew was that it was dark and soft.

"Lumos," I said lighting the tip of my wand so we could see.

We looked around to see where we were. We were on a bed. I didn't see any doors or windows. We tried to apparate out, but found we were unable to.

"Well, now what?" Ron asked.

"I don't know," I started to say.

We were interrupted by pale mist forming around us.

It was my mother.

"Kyleigh, hunny. If you're here, then that means you are in grave danger. I put another Portkey in the cabin should you need it to get away."

"What do you mean?" I asked the mist.

Instead of answering me, not that I thought it would, she said, "Look for your childhood favorite animal."

She disappeared as quickly as she had come. And the portkey we touched to get here, landed on the bed. We held hands and touched the portkey at the same time.

We landed back in the cabin and were bombarded with questions.

We answered each question as best as we could, still confused by what had just happened.

"Let's get back to the house," I said getting up. "I need to check up on Damen."

We made our way out of the maze as a group.

I immediately went to check on Damen when we got back to the manor. He was playing with some of the house-elves. I didn't see Lubby among them.

I could hear Draco saying goodbye to the others downstairs before hollering up to me, "Thank you for today, we'll have to do it again soon. Goodbye." I saw him leaving as I was descending the stairs.

"There's plenty of rooms, you guys can stay the night. I've got a few games I thought would be fun to play." I walked over to the closet and pulled out the board games. I set them all on the table so they could decide, 'Thank Merlin for magic.' I had about 50 or more board games. I love board games.

We started off with some that Damen could play before it was his bedtime. I told Damen that it was almost bedtime and that he needed to take a bath first. "Won give me baff," he said.

I looked at Ron, who said, "Sure thing buddy."

I watched my two men go up the stairs for Damen's bath. Harry had gone into the kitchen to make some snacks, so that left us girls to talk. "I've never seen Ronald act this way," was Hermione's first thought when they were out of earshot.

I looked at her. I was at a loss of words, Ginny saved me. "My dear brother has grown a lot over the past year. What was with you and Malfoy? You guys seemed a bit close on your way back from the maze."

Hermione blushed but before she could reply, Harry walked in with his arms piled high. "I think I'll go check on Ron, just to make sure that Damen hasn't drenched him in water."

I walked up the stairs and found them in the same bathroom from the first night. They were both playing with Damen's toys in the tub. Ron leaning over the tub. I backed away before I could disturb them and went to pick out some pj's for Damen.