CHAPTER TWO: LESSONS LEARNED.
Claire, woke up the next day from sleeping three hours, after a while she got tired of looking at her ceiling with a deep longing to get at least a few more hours of sleep. So, she threw on a pair of pants and a sweatshirt and tiptoed downstairs to sneak in a last visit to Ced's grave. 'Claire?' her dad was sitting in the table drinking a huge mug of coffee, he looked old, his hair was messy and grey, his eyes were droopy and red, and he was as white as flour, 'what are you doing?' he asked, 'I was about to go see Ced-' her father flinched at the name, 'your mother tells me your spending the rest of the summer with that Potter boy', 'that's rich, you spent half of last year talking about how nice he was' Claire thought, 'yes, I am spending the summer with my boyfriend Harry and my friends Ron and Hermione' her father scowled at her and mumbled something that sounded like 'Cedric would have never abandoned your mother like this', Claire felt his heart break piece by piece, but she wasn't going to take any more rubbish from him 'well, I'm not Cedric, I'm leaving around noon, so goodbye if I don't get to see you before that' and with that she made an attempt to give him a hug but her father turned his back on her, just like everyone else did.
'I miss you so much Ced, I know that maybe you cant hear me but I'm sorry…' Claire imagined Cedric smiling at her, lying on the grass besides his grave reminded Claire of that summer day last year, when they spent the whole day just looking at the sky. 'Mum and dad hate me, I'm sure they wish it had been me instead of you'.
Claire stayed there until an hour to noon, she stood up and began to clean the clear marble of the headstone, and then she placed the flowers she had bought right outside before entering. 'I love you' she whispered.
She stood up and began to walk back to her house, 15 minutes later; she was opening the door to her house to find nothing but her bags and belongings pilled neatly in front of the door. Her heart began to rise, 'did they really just leave?' Claire walked through the house; there wasn't any furniture, no pictures on the wall, no sign that somebody had lived here just four hours ago. She felt tears begin to fill her eyes, her parents had gone, they had abandoned her, 'its just a dream, just a dream' but as she opened her parents bedroom door she fell to her knees and began to sob, there was no bed, there were still dust marks of where everything had been. 'Mum?' she called; 'dad?' but there was no answer. She ran to every single part her parent's could be, but there was no sign of anything. She entered her brother's room, it was intact, and she threw herself into her brother's bed and began to cry into his pillow. She drifted away and didn't wake up until somebody shook her up.
'Claire?' asked Hermione worriedly, Claire sat up and looked around the room, it wasn't Cedric's it was dark, and smelled weird, 'where am I?' she asked drowsily, 'The Order's Headquarters' Hermione said pushing her back down, 'you need to get some more sleep, you've been through a lot today'. She stood up and got out of the bedroom, Claire tried to remember what had happened, she entered the house but there was nobody there, had her parents told her they were leaving soon but she hadn't listened? Or maybe her mother had packed everything for her so she could go and find them, but where? Aunt Cecil's house? Or maybe her parents didn't want to do anything with her, but would they really leave her? She felt a sudden rush to throw up, 'no, cant be, her parents loved her, there was maybe some sort of misunderstanding' a knock on the door made her jump, Mrs. Weasley entered the room smiling 'hi darling, how're you feeling?' she asked smoothing down Claire's hair, Claire tried to say 'ok' but the words didn't come out. 'Claire honey, we want to let you know that you can always stay with us at our house, its not big but it's something'
'no, my parents will come back' she said a little to sharply, Mrs. Weasley's smiled faded, 'honey, there's something you have to see' she fiddled though her apron's pocket and took out a letter 'here, read it'. Claire took the letter and opened it.
Claire,
We're sorry, but maybe its time to part, its not that we don't love you,
honey, we love you but your father and I cant stay here anymore
We are not abandoning you, we're just leaving for a while, there's an account on Gringotts with your name on it
We're sorry.
Claire, traced the placed her mother had written on with her finger, she still felt the placed she had pressed the pen to hard, 'they left me' she whispered, Mrs. Weasely hugged her 'don't worry darling, we're all here for you' Claire sobbed into Mrs. Weasley's shoulder, what was she going to do? She couldn't just barge into somebody else's life and take over everything.
She cried for hours, not only for what had happened, but for Cedric for not saying what she needed, for not being there for him when he needed it.