Disclaimer: Anything you recognize from Harry Potter and its related works is not mine.
Author's Note: So I don't know about you guys, but I love Granny... enjoy!
Chapter Twenty-Two
Thursday, August 11th 2022
Kendall Home, Barnton, Cheshire, England
Grace stands next to her mother in the kitchen, putting together her father's favorite potato salad and simultaneously keeping an eye on the bread that is baking in the oven. Ashlyn picks up another bowl of salad from the counter and carries it outside.
"Ashlyn, darling, get your brother in here so he can slice up the watermelon," Granny tells her from where she is preparing potato wedges at the table.
"Will do, Gran," Ashlyn steps over Grace's cat Pearl on her way out of the kitchen, who just loves to be in the way when everyone is busy preparing for something. Today, something is a birthday barbeque for Grace's father.
The rest of the family will be arriving in about half an hour bearing more food, no doubt, and Grace finds herself looking forward to it, partially because it will help her ignore that it is once again Thursday. She shakes her head to get rid of that thought and returns her attention to finishing the potato salad.
Mum is arranging little glasses of dessert on a tray. "I'll just be putting this in the basement for later," she says just as Grace pushes the bowl of potato salad aside and true to her word takes the tray and leaves the room.
"Give me a hand over here. Will you, little bird?"
Grace smiles softly and walks toward the table. "What do you need, Granny?" she asks.
The old woman looks up at her from her seat. "I need you to smile a little more. A blind man could see that something's bothering you. So what is it?"
"Nothing, I…" Grace shrugs a little, "I'm just in a strange mood, that's all."
Granny looks at her for a long moment, before inclining her head, which Grace takes as a sign that she's free to continue with the preparations, so she starts washing tomatoes.
Twenty minutes later (just before Grace is done with the tomato salad) the doorbell rings. Her mother hurriedly wipes her hands and heads for the door. Throughout the house Grace can hear the others do the same, as she puts the finishing touches on the salad and Granny gets up and leaves the kitchen. She stops on the threshold though and Grace turns to her expectantly. "Birdie, that mood of yours… it's a window glancing mood." It's not a question. For a moment, she wonders how Granny came to that conclusion but then Hazel rushes into the kitchen as Susan latches on to Granny and she puts it out of her mind to answer Hazel's string of questions about electives that she'll be choosing in nine months at the earliest.
She takes the salad outside, still accompanied by Hazel's chatter and very purposefully loses herself to the good mood that pervades the air here as Hazel once again dashes off to "tell Uncle Derek Happy Birthday real quick". She thinks she's rather successful at smiling and laughing and listening and if she only glances at the sky once she's made sure Granny isn't watching her then that's her business and no one else's.
That is, of course, until the large grey owl appears in the sky and it is Helen of all people who notices it. "Is that another letter from your admirer, Gracie?" she asks laughingly.
Before Grace can reply, Ashlyn rolls her eyes. "Don't be ridiculous, Helen, that's Eva's owl." Grace catches Granny's eye across the table, but neither of them corrects Ashlyn as the owl soars over the table and lands on the back of Grace's chair. She unties the letter from the owl's leg and leans back in her chair as she unfolds the parchment. There are several sheets, one filled with Eva's tiny scribbles, another covered in Luna's loopy cursive and a third, more a note than a letter, really, in Lorcan's neat handwriting, as well as a card.
"The Malfoys send their congratulations and their best wishes, Dad," she says, looking up from Luna's letter. "And a card." She holds it out to him across the table. The rest, the offer for her to stay at Malfoy Manor for a week starting next Friday and the invitation to Luna's annual picnic, she leaves for later.
Helen hangs over her shoulder as she reads Eva's letter, but doesn't discover the note and Grace doesn't point it out to her. Instead she carefully refolds the parchment and waits until everyone has gone home and she is alone in her room to take out the note. It's short, nothing special, but it makes her smile nonetheless.
I hope you're having a wonderful evening, Gracie.
Thank you for reading! Please leave a review? Tell me what you think of Grace's family! Do you have a favorite cousin? And what about Granny?
Next chapter on Friday. Lots of love!