A/N: Hi there guys! I'm so sorry about the late update, I can't apologize enough. This is a pretty short chapter because I just wanted to get it up here. Please let me know what you think!


Anomaly

Chapter 15

Winter had leaked into the Daniels' new home, and Melanie soon realized that Hogwarts had spoiled her. No longer did she have magically heated blankets and bed sheets that responded to her body temperature, or warm porridge in the mornings and hot soup in the evenings that seemed to spread comfort from her fingers to her toes. While Mrs. Daniels laughed and poked fun at Melanie, calling her a "witch princess," she insisted that it really was "too cold."

"Is Miss Witch Princess satisfied with her dinner?" she teased.

"At least come up with a better name, Mum," Melanie sighed, poking at her mashed potatoes and missing Hogwarts.

Melanie spent almost every moment of the next week with her mother, ; the heavy weight of her father's death hadn't quite let go yet. However, the very drastic changes in both Melanie's and Mrs. Daniels's lives were too prominent to let the subject even come up. They were constantly chattering about magic, as there was simply so much to tell. Melanie was all too happy to delve into all the little details of magic, and her mother found every part fascinating; she listened and asked questions relentlessly with a hint of longing in her eyes and voice.

To Melanie's slight irritation, Dennis Creevey came to visit a couple times, turning her mother into a giggling mess. This had been assuaged, though, with the pleasant surprise of another visit from Albus, who brought news that Spook's henchwoman Holly Charles had come forward and admitted to the prank.

"Prank?!" Melanie repeated incredulously.

Shrugging, Al nodded.

"Prank?!" she seethed. "If you'd seen the thing like the rest of us, you wouldn't have called it a prank."

"I can imagine," he said, his lips twitching slightly at Melanie's frustration.

"So she really did it? It wasn't Spook?" she said, falling onto her bed with a thump that resounded disappointment.

"So they say, yeah."

She sat up instantly. "What do you mean, so they say?"

Again, Al shrugged. "She came forward. The teachers apprehended her. It's all done."

There was a pause.

"But you don't think she did it," said Melanie in a hushed voice.

Hesitating, Al responded, "It's not about what…I…think."

"Noah," she said firmly.

"Well, Noah and Fred and James, really," he reasoned. "I mean, don't get me wrong. I hate the guy, I do. After what he tried to pull with Lily…but at this point it's gotten ridiculous. There was a confession."

"So what?" said Melanie. "We can still prove it was him, can't we?"

"There's no we," Al pointed out. "They are doing the whole thing."

"Why do you resent them so much?"

"I don't," he said quickly.

"Al…"

"I don't!"

"Okay, okay," she said, throwing her hands up in defense. "I was just…picking up on your…I dunno, body language."

Albus raised an eyebrow in amusement. "Body language?" he repeated.

"Hey, don't judge me," she mumbled, flashing him a smile.

"Since when do you pay attention to things like 'body language?'" he teased. "You're, like, the most oblivious person I know."

"Hey!" she cried, laughing. "I'm very aware of things happening around me, for your information."

"Yeah, sure you are."

"So what else is new?" she asked, quickly changing the subject.

"Well, Grandma Weasley is really excited for the Christmas gathering," said Al, smiling fondly. "So am I, actually."

"So this really happens every year?" said Melanie in awe. "Your grandmum never gets tired, or anything?"

"No, no, some of us host the actual dinner sometimes," said Al. "Like last year, my mum and dad did the dinner, but we still had a gathering at the Burrow. And she doesn't really get tired, because we all help out with cooking and getting all settled."

"That sounds so cool," she said, grinning. "I can't wait to meet everyone, and see everyone from Hogwarts again."

"Yeah...So, have you heard from Noah?" She didn't notice the clipped tone his voice had suddenly adopted.

"No, actually," she said, shaking her head. "I don't know why he hasn't really written back."

"Maybe he's not interested in talking anymore," he suggested.

"Maybe…" she said ponderingly.

If anything, Melanie was most looking forward to seeing Noah, just so that she could demand answers for his cryptic behavior. Neither she nor anybody else could have ever pinned Noah Prewett as the type who would send such mixed messages.

"You and your mum are coming Christmas Eve?" said Albus, bringing Melanie back to the present. "That's just a couple days away."

"Oh—yeah," she said. "She can't wait. Oh, she wants to bring Dennis Creevey, and she wanted me to ask you to ask your grandmum if that was okay."

"It's probably okay," said Al with a shrug. "Grandma Weasley will be all the more pleased to have another guest. After all, the Peytons aren't coming this year."

"Oh yeah…Myra's away." Melanie frowned; she'd been hoping to see Myra, and hoping that there had been some change on the James front.

"Things haven't really changed," said Al, as if reading her mind. "But they did say a rather, er, emotional good-bye. At least, emotional for James and Myra, that is."

"What do you mean?" Melanie scoffed. "A sincere 'hello' from one to the other would be considered emotional for James and Myra."

"Well, they sincerely hugged."

"Really?" said Melanie, eyebrows shooting into her hair. "Sincerely? Like, actually, actually hugged?"

Grinning, Al nodded.

Melanie let out a low whistled. "Damn. Myra must've gone crazy."

"James, too," he said. "He may not know it, but he's just as wild for Myra as she is for him. There's no way he didn't feel the crazy, too."

"Good point," she said, laughing. "Merlin…look at us, gossiping like third year Ravenclaw girls."

Al surveyed Melanie in surprise. "I'm impressed you made a Hogwarts house stereotype there."

She leaned in, her eyes twinkling. "Are you even more impressed at how accurate it was?"

Melanie did not miss Albus's sudden intake of breath and the immediate change in his expression. "Yes," he breathed, all traces of amusement gone.

As she looked in his eyes, she suddenly remembered the first time she saw them…

"You're new," said someone next to Melanie.

Melanie sighed deeply. "Yeah, I am." She looked at the boy who had spoken to her, and found herself staring into the greenest eyes she had ever seen. "Whoa," she said.

He raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"Sorry." She shook her head rapidly. "Just never seen green eyes that bright before."

The boy laughed, and said, "I'm Albus Potter."

…and before she knew it, she was sitting next to him on the floor, his hands were on her waist and she was leaning forward, breathing like every breath was her last and then—

"MELANIE!"

"Bloody—"

"Merlin's smelly—"

"MELANIE WHAT IS THAT?!"

"My mum," she sighed, getting to her feet and hurrying out of her room.

In the kitchen, Melanie found her mother holding a large frying pan in front of her like a sword at a funny-looking creature that was poking around at the cabinets.

"Whoa!" she exclaimed. "I know that! That's a garden gnome!"

"A garden gnome?" screeched Mrs. Daniels. "Well then, why isn't it in the garden?!"

"I dunno…I dunno how to get it out! ALBUS!" she cried. "Get down here! There's a garden gnome in the kitchen!"

Laughing, Al came running down the stairs, rolling up his sleeves. "Relax, would you? They don't do anything."

"Good, then get rid of it. My mum's panicking."

"I am NOT panicking! I'm merely…anxious!" said Mrs. Daniels.

"Okay, okay," said Al, still chuckling. He approached the funny creature cautiously, making gentle coaxing sounds from the back of his throat. Then, without warning, he seized the creature by its ankle, ran out the back door, swung it in high circles above his head, and threw it. It landed out of sight, behind the tall hedges near the fence that surrounded the house.

"Merlin," Melanie breathed. "That was cool."

With a clatter, the frying pan fell out of Mrs. Daniels's hand and onto the floor as she sank, weak-kneed, into a chair, her head in her hands.

"I really need magic, I do," she said feebly.

"Maybe we should get you a blood transfusion," Melanie joked.

It was like all the air had been sucked out of the room. Neither of them had really even mentioned the car accident before this moment. Both Melanie and her mother seemed to be avoiding each other's eye, and both were incredibly thankful for Albus's reentry into the kitchen.

"And that's how you defeat a garden gnome," he said, grinning broadly. "Well, I should get going. Mum's definitely expecting me for dinner and…"

He suddenly noticed the change in the room. "Is everything okay?" he said quietly.

For a moment, it looked as though Mrs. Daniels was going to dissolve into tears. Then, she cleared her throat and said hoarsely, "Yes, yes. It's perfectly fine, Albus. You-you said your mother needed you?"

Al looked back and forth from mother to daughter, seemed to decide that it was not his place to interfere, and merely nodded.

"I'll see you later, Melanie," he murmured, patting her on the arm.

Melanie and Mrs. Daniels didn't see him out. After the door slammed shut, Melanie shut her eyes, muttered, "I'm going upstairs," and left the room without casting her mother another glance.


It was a miracle that she made it to her bedroom without collapsing, that she held herself together just until she was in the comfort of her bed. When she sank into the fuzzy, brown covers, the ones her father had tucked her into for the last fifteen years of her life, Melanie let the grief take her as she had never done before. She'd cried, of course, tears of shock and sorrow. Grief, however, was a feeling unknown to her before this moment.

Melanie's father had been nothing less than her best friend, from when she uttered her first word until she uttered her last to him.

"Daddy, you can't be serious," she laughed, tossing popcorn into her mouth from the backseat of the car.

"I'm dead serious," he replied, glancing in his rearview mirror. To anyone else, he would have appeared solemn and firm, with a furrowed brow and a stiff lip, but Melanie heard the amusement in his tone, like a tiny, glittering star without which the night would simply be incomplete.

"Are you?" She cocked an eyebrow. "You're going to send me away to a school in the country if I have a boyfriend?"

"Absolutely," he said. She could've sworn she saw the corner of his mouth twitch. "Boys in school only have one thing on their minds, Mels. And they're not gonna get it from you. An all-girls school in the country will make sure of that, won't it?"

"William," Mrs. Daniels chastised, smiling slightly. "Come, now. The joke's over."

"It's not a joke, Sharona," he insisted. "And you should find this idea appealing. After all, if Melanie's gone, we'll have the house all to ourselves…"

"Oh my God, EW!" cried Melanie, throwing popcorn at her father's head.

"Hey!" he laughed, "You better hope I don't catch you before—"

She didn't realize that the tears had stopped before sleep claimed her.


"Do you think we'll really need to pack that many clothes?" said Melanie from her mother's bed.

After the next few days of awkwardness, they had slipped into a routine in which they determinedly avoided the obvious elephant in the room and went on with their lives. Melanie insisted to that so-called reasonable obnoxious voice in her head that this behavior was perfectly healthy.

Mrs. Daniels was scrambling to fit her warmest clothes into a small suitcase. "You told me they have a big family," she reminded her. "And big families sometimes can't tend to everyone. I'm just being prepared."

"Mum, they have magic," said Melanie exasperatedly. "Their house will be adequately warm. There's no need to go all into frenzy about packing."

"What if we forget something, Melanie?" said Mrs. Daniels absently as she searched her closet.

"Then the Weasleys will just get it with magic," she answered.

"Magic doesn't solve everything, you know," she replied with her back still facing Melanie.

"Sure it does," said Melanie dismissively. "It makes life so much easier. It'd really be great for everyone to have it."

"Can you please just let me pack, Melanie?!" cried Mrs. Daniels, throwing her just-found sweater on the floor and turning around in frustration.

Melanie started and stared at her mother in shock. Then, she nodded and put her hands up in defense. "Okay, sorry. I'll just leave you alone, then."

"I'm sorry!" she called after her daughter as she exited the room.

Settling into her bed, Melanie hoped with all her heart that Christmas at the Weasleys' would blow a new dynamic into her relationship with her mother.


A/N: Again, so sorry for the late update and for the short length of this chapter. I wanted to show you guys a little bit of the relationship between Melanie and Mrs. Daniels. Also, I wanted to display the tension between Albus and Melanie. I hope I succeeded! Hopefully the next update will come soon. I've got most of Christmas at the Weasleys' written, so it shouldn't be too much wait:)

~Maya