AstarothZyran: No worries! After this chapter, the next few chapters are very Nessa/George heavy. We can only avoid the big, difficult conversation for so long. As for your questions, Nessa looks exactly like Lily — thick, dark red hair that's very long, probably about waist length. Almond-shaped, green eyes. Very short — I think 5'2" is where I imagine her at, although I can't remember if that's where I put her in the last story or not. I also imagine her with delicate features: softer cheekbones, button nose, small/round ears. Dainty but fierce is how I picture her, honestly.
As for my favorite scenes…oh boy. I suppose it depends on which relationship we're talking about. For her and George: From the last story, the Acromantula scene always stands out to me. I've gone back to read it a couple of times while writing this section of the series, truth be told. I also think about the Halloween chapter in this one a great deal (after Sirius Black broke in). For Tori and Nessa: likely, looking through the photos of Tori's mom. For her and Fred: their first run when he tried to make her uncomfortable. What have been some of your favorites so far?
Guest: As long as credit is given, go for it!
My flare is horrific this time around and I've missed work today, so I'm posting additional chapters. Two of them, in fact. Because I have conditioned myself somehow to feel better every time I post something. So enjoy lovelies!
Chapter Sixteen
Nessa really had no idea how she'd been convinced to get on the train with her friends.
She was sure she'd protested something fierce, but somehow she'd still been dragged onto the train with the three of them, with a trunk full of clothing that Tori had thrown together very haphazardly on her behalf. It took a great deal of self-control on her part to stop herself from pulling the trunk down from the shelf and re-organizing the entire thing.
When she'd been dragged back down to the common room with her trunk, which Tori had thrust at George unceremoniously, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were sitting in the furthest corner of the common room. She and the twins were the last to leave the castle, given the silence that surrounded them.
She'd hesitated then because her brother looked horrible. About as horrible as Tori did. It was clear he hadn't gotten much sleep, if any, and he looked sort of shell-shocked. Or apathetic, numb. He'd tried to put on a brave face as she'd approached and Hermione and Ron had grimaced at her, looking as though they were trying to plead her for help.
"You're going to the Burrow then?" said Harry, noticing the twins and Tori hovering awkwardly behind her.
None of them really knew how to process the events of the previous day and that seemed pretty clear at this point. Tori and Harry were refusing to look at each other entirely, and Nessa thought she saw tears in her best friend's eyes again before she'd looked down at her nails in a move that was supposed to convey indifference.
"Well, I — I suppose so," she said hesitantly, looking between the three younger students anxiously. "Tori doesn't want to go alone, but if you need me to —"
"I'm fine," he said with a weak attempt at cheerfulness. She looked hesitantly back at the twins, who grimaced at her and shrugged helplessly. "You should go. You deserve a break from everything."
"So do you," she responded quietly, looking back at her brother. "And it's Christmas. We should be together and you're clearly upset —"
Harry eyed her with a hard look.
"I'm not upset," he lied. Nessa took a slow breath in through her nose to avoid griping at him for lying to her. "You staying here won't change anything. Go to the Burrow with Tori. She needs you more than I do."
Nessa chewed on her lip in hesitation.
It hardly seemed fair that this statement was both true and false. Tori clearly did need her at the moment, no matter how much she pretended she didn't, and the thought of spending weeks without her when she was so clearly on the verge of cracking gave her a great deal of anxiety. Especially because Tori did not ask anyone for help when she needed it. If Nessa told her she needed to stay here with her brother, her best friend would put on a fake grin and pretend that she was perfectly fine.
But her brother was the same. And he was clearly just as emotionally exhausted as her best friend. She'd spent all of her life worrying about him and sacrificing to make sure he was happy. The fact that she was now in the position to choose between the two people she'd have laid her life on the line for made her heart feel like it was being ripped out.
There was no way for her to be there for the both of them at the same time. And not a chance that she would let Tori stay behind when she needed the twins just as much as she needed her. Not when putting off a conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley would be the worst possible decision she could make at the moment.
There was no correct choice to be made here and she knew it. And she hated it with every fiber of her being.
"Go, Nessa," said Hermione gently. "Harry's right. She needs you. We'll be here with Harry the entire time and I'll write if we need anything."
Nessa looked between her and Ron, who was smiling at her in support. A part of her wished to point out that the two of them had been just as likely as Harry to end up doing something stupid, but the truth was, she didn't know how to help Harry with processing the information they'd learned. She wasn't sure she'd processed it herself, and, truth was, she needed Tori and the twins as much as they needed her at the moment. And perhaps that meant Harry needed Ron and Hermione in the same way that she needed her own friends. Lord knew Harry was the absolute worst person to go to when she needed comfort, and he was just as likely to find her presence overwhelming when he was already trying to work through his emotions on his own.
She sighed heavily and looked between the three of them.
"Alright," she agreed quietly. Harry seemed to relax a little as the words left her mouth and she tried not to roll her eyes. "Just — Just promise me you aren't going to do anything stupid while I'm gone, Harry."
He rolled his eyes, but crossed his arms, glaring out the window.
"You sound like Ron and Hermione," he groused.
Nessa relaxed a little more because at least someone else was on her side about this.
"Harry, I'm serious," she said firmly. "If you want me to leave you here, then I want your word that you won't go looking for Sirius Black. Promise me."
"I promise."
The words came out angry and spiteful, but she didn't care. They rarely promised each other anything, but when they did, they never broke it. She looked over at Ron and Hermione next.
"Don't let him do anything stupid, please," she said seriously, trying not to wince at the pleading edge in her voice. "And write if you need me."
"I'm not a child, you know," Harry snapped, still glaring out the window.
The three of them ignored him entirely. Ron nodded at her once and Hermione stood to give her a hug.
"We promise," she said quietly. "You can trust us —" she knew she could, but her brother was such a pain in the ass that it still worried her to leave him here. " — Let us know if Tori needs anything. Have a Happy Christmas, okay?"
After that, she'd murmured her goodbyes to her brother and Ron and wished them a Happy Christmas as well. She'd hugged Harry hard on the way out, and while he may have usually been very annoyed by her refusal to let go after the acceptable amount of time, he'd squeezed her back just as hard and made no comment about the tears in her eyes as she'd pulled away.
The entire train ride was a bit awkward overall. She and Tori had spent several hours in complete silence, looking out the train window numbly.
Even despite her relief that Tori was no longer avoiding her like she had the Dragon Pox, there were still so many confusing emotions of her own to really work through. Grateful that the two of them were still friends. Confused about the news that her parents had been betrayed by their best friend. Angry that their best friend had had the audacity to do something so horrible and that her parents had been too ignorant to see the betrayal in front of them. Guilty for feeling that way because they were dead and being angry at them for something that wasn't really their fault felt like a betrayal to their memory.
The empathy was the worst of it, however. Empathy for her brother, whose own desire for a family matched her own, and had just been informed that the closest thing to family he had outside of his sister was the exact reason he didn't have one at all. Empathy for her parents, who must have been terrified when they'd noticed that Voldemort had found them. That they were going to die and that their children might as well. The devastation they must have felt knowing that there was nothing they could do to stop it. The devastation that one of their own friends had been the spy, the one to betray them. The denial to accept it at all.
Empathy for Tori, whose entire life had been overturned and likely had no idea how to process the changes to it. Who was clearly unsure about her role within the Weasley family, the only family she'd ever really known in the last ten years.
Nessa really wasn't sure what the hell she or Tori could say or do that would return their lives back to normal. Or as normal as their lives had ever really been, considering the fact that their best friends were the Weasley twins and her brother had a hero complex and a set of madmen trying to kill him at every turn.
There was such a mix of emotions to work through and Nessa wasn't sure what to say to help her best friend process them.
Not that she could have even if she had known.
Fred and George were clearly trying to keep the tone in the compartment as light as possible, despite the overwhelming silence permeating from Tori and Nessa in the corner. Lee Jordan had joined them in the compartment, flirting incessantly with Angelina Johnson, who was taking the entire thing in stride. Lee seemed to think it was odd that neither Nessa or Tori was saying anything at all, but he was too polite to have said anything to them. Which, truthfully, Nessa found a bit surprising considering his best friends were also the Weasley twins, and she'd count the two of them about as far away from polite as anyone could ever be.
Alicia had also joined them in the compartment, and was being much sweeter to George than she really had been in recent weeks. Nessa wasn't entirely convinced that it had anything to do with her seeing the error of her ways, but only because they were going to be apart for several weeks and the fact that she and George were refusing to speak to each other at the moment after the entire Cedric secret debacle.
George, however, seemed somewhere between wary and delighted by Alicia's sudden change in attitude toward him. They were sitting very close together, whispering to each other as if no one else in the compartment existed to them at all. Nessa would normally have found this hurtful, but the hope on George's face really just made her want to cry because he deserved better than being jerked around by someone else.
Truthfully, Nessa would like to have ripped out Alicia's very pretty blonde hair, but that seemed incredibly irrational and maybe a little jealous.
The second half of the trip passed for Nessa about the same for her, except she didn't have to keep awkwardly meeting Tori's eyes and smiling sadly at her every twenty minutes. The exhaustion seemed to have caught up to her completely, or maybe she just wanted to stop thinking for a while, because she'd spent the rest of the trip sleeping with her head in Fred's lap.
Nessa had no idea how she could sleep so soundly with so much noise going on around her, but she supposed that she'd likely have had to train her body to ignore it when she'd grown up with nine people in a relatively small space.
By the time they'd reached platform 9 ¾, Nessa was bordering somewhere between overly anxious about the impending conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, slightly irritated by the cuteness of George and Alicia, and maybe a little jealous of Tori for having gotten to take a nap. It was even more odd that the four of them hesitated for so long after they got off of the train, all looking at each other for some signal of who was going to approach the Weasley family first.
Fred eventually sighed heavily and led them through the throng of excited chattering people reuniting with parents and siblings. They found Mr. and Mrs. Weasley near the back of the platform, Mr. Weasley speaking animatedly with a tall man with thick, wavy brown hair. He had a ruddy face with a scrubby, brown beard and was standing next to a very pretty woman, who was clearly his wife. She didn't seem terribly interested in whatever conversation her husband was having next to her, but was looking eagerly around the platform.
"Oh, there you are!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed, happily, cutting off her husband's animated Quidditch discussion with the man standing next to them. She pulled each of them into a strong hug, giving Tori an odd look when she pulled back a little too quickly. "Nessa, dear, I didn't know you were coming!"
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Weasley, I —"
She was cut off by the tight hug she was immediately wrapped in.
"Nonsense, dear, you're always welcome," she said happily, patting her fondly on the cheek. "We've got plenty of room. I'm so happy to see you, dear. How is Harry?"
She hesitated a little. The concern on Mrs. Weasley's face was clear, but she didn't think she could lie very convincingly at the moment. And getting into the conversation in the middle of the platform didn't seem like the best idea.
She jumped when the man next to Mr. Weasley gave an excited shout next to her and waved viciously to someone behind them. She sighed and focused on Mrs. Weasley again, just as Ginny and Percy were joining them, but her attention was pulled away from giving an answer again when someone stepped extremely close to her and she was enveloped in the smell of the outdoors.
"Cedric, m'boy," said the taller man, stepping forward to clap his son on the back in a one-armed hug. Mrs. Diggory stepped forward as well to envelop him in a hug and Nessa shifted a little out of the way, so that they could have a moment to themselves, but Mr. Diggory was so loud and boisterous, it was almost impossible for her to focus anywhere else. "I was just telling Arthur here that you're the Hufflepuff Quidditch Captain. How's the team playing?"
Cedric smiled politely at Mr. Weasley, who was showing polite interest in the conversation.
"It's been a bit of a rough start," Cedric said modestly. Fred and George scowled at him as if the conversation alone was just another reminder that Hufflepuff had unfairly beaten them in the first game of the season. "We've got some hard work ahead of us if we want to beat out Gryffindor for the Cup."
Mr. Diggory chortled.
"Yes, but you've beaten them once before, son," he said boastfully. Cedric shifted uncomfortably next to her and smiled down at her guiltily. "That'll be something to tell your grandkids, Ced…You beat Harry Potter!"
"He fell off of his broom, Dad," Cedric said with an eye roll. "I don't think that really counts as —"
"Oh, don't be modest, Ced! The best flier will out, I always say! You didn't fall off of your broom, did you?"
Nessa might have been offended by the discussion of her brother's flying skills because she was fairly certain that her brother was better than Cedtic, although she'd never have said so. But she mostly found it amusing how boastful Mr. Diggory was of his son, and found it even more amusing that it made Cedric so uncomfortable. She'd never seen him so embarrassed before. It was sort of endearing.
"Well, I think we should reserve that judgment for another time," snapped Tori, who clearly did not find the conversation even half as amusing and was still holding some resentment toward their loss. "How about a rematch, Diggory? Unless you're too chicken to see who the better flier is."
"Tori!" Nessa scolded immediately, but Fred and George grinned widely and raised an eyebrow at their classmate.
Cedric chuckled good-naturedly.
"Name the time and place, Hastings," he said confidently, and Tori responded by grinning at him devilishly and eyed him from head to toe appreciatively. Subtlety was really not her strong suit. Nessa nearly groaned in mortification, but Fred rolled his eyes and placed a hand over Tori's eyes, so she started laughing instead. "I already offered the rematch, as you'll recall."
Tori huffed and shoved Fred away from her when he refused to remove his hand.
"Always a good sport, our Ced! If you can beat Harry Potter once, you can do it again!"
Cedric said nothing, but looked down at Nessa apologetically, resting a hand on the small of her back as he leaned forward to speak in her ear.
"I'm really sorry about him, Nessa," he said truthfully.
She opened her mouth to wave away the concern, but Mr. Diggory cut her off again, having clearly heard his son speaking to her.
"Oho!" he said excitedly. "Vanessa Potter! Well, no wonder Cedric is being so modest —" Nessa wasn't sure that was the real reason, as she'd never known Cedric to be boastful by nature, but she didn't say so. " — but even you must admit that the best man won! No disrespect to your brother, of course!"
"Merlin, Dad —"
Nessa cut him off smoothly, a polite smile on her face.
"We can agree to disagree on that, Mr. Diggory," she said. "Although, I suspect we might both be a bit biased."
Cedric grinned at her as his father faltered in his prideful speech in surprise at her response. The shock did not last long, however, and he chortled good-naturedly again, slapping Cedric on the back again.
"Well, I can certainly see why you like her, Cedric," he said, beaming. Cedric did not look at all mortified by this being said in front of the Weasleys by any means, and smiled at her lopsidedly when she blushed. "She's got some spunk, I'll give her that. We've heard all about you, of course."
Tori was grinning again and looking between the two of them. Nessa could say whatever she wanted, but she wasn't moving away from the older Hufflepuff and didn't seem at all bothered that his hand was still resting surely on the small of her back.
"Good things, I'm assuming," she said slyly, looking between the two of them.
Fred and George huffed at her in irritation, as if Tori was making things worse. Nessa glared at her and ignored the excited whispering between Mrs. Weasley and Ginny at the new development in the conversation.
"Ignore her, Mr. Diggory," Nessa said primly. "Victoria hasn't yet learned to mind her own business."
Cedric snorted in amusement as Tori rolled her eyes.
"Well, I think I've been embarrassed enough for one day," he said jokingly. "And you're making Nessa uncomfortable, Dad. It's not helping my chances." Nessa huffed at him and pushed him playfully away from her with a roll of her eyes and a smile. He was a shameless flirt. He laughed and caught her hand in one of his, pulling her in for a hug and lifting her off of the ground. "I'm only half-joking, gorgeous," he said quietly in her ear, setting her feet back on the ground. "I'm persistent, if you'll recall."
"I recall," she said with a smirk. "But I'm thinking this is a bit different than convincing me to get on a broom."
He hummed contemplatively and tilted her face up to look at him.
"Perhaps, but you can't blame a bloke for trying," he said softly, brushing his lips against her cheek and stepping back with a polite nod at the Weasleys. "I'll see you after break, gorgeous. Happy Christmas!"
And then he'd stepped back to grab onto his mother's arm and they disappeared with a loud CRACK. Nessa blinked in surprise — she'd never seen anyone apparate before and it was sort of unsettling.
"Just friends, my ass," said Tori skeptically.
"Victoria Marie Hastings, you watch your mouth!" Mrs. Weasley scolded.
"Don't encourage this kind of behavior, Tori," said Fred with a roll of his eyes. "He's still a great, brainless git."
Nessa opened her mouth angrily to defend him when George grumbled his agreement, but Mrs. Weasley spoke again.
"Well, I think he was very sweet, dear. He seems quite taken with you." she said, happily, looking a little giddy that one of them had some sort of love life. She asked Tori every summer if she was seeing someone, but Tori was notorious for not tethering herself to anyone for longer than a week. "And he's very cute, but I suppose that makes sense. Amos was always —" she cleared her throat quickly when Mr. Weasley raised an eyebrow at her with an amused twinkle in his eye. " — Well, you could certainly do worse than a Diggory, is all I'm saying."
Nessa caught Ginny's eye and they dissolved into a fit of giggles. George rolled his eyes.
"Well, of course, he's taken with her," he said in irritation. "Look at her, she's gorgeous," Nessa gaped at him like a fish and Tori dissolved into a fit of giggles herself at the expression on her face. Fred smirked and rolled his eyes. "Doesn't mean he isn't a slimy git. She can do better than Pretty Boy Diggory."
"Yeah, like who, George?" said Tori with a raised brow. She was clearly enjoying herself far too much.
Mr. Weasley was looking between Nessa and George in confusion before he seemed to come to some sort of understanding. Before George could say anything else, he smiled brightly and clapped his hands together.
"So, how has your first term been?"
-o0o
The first night at the Burrow had been horribly awkward. Tori was avoiding conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, who had clearly taken notice of their adopted daughter's change in behavior. George was also behaving very strangely since his angry admission on the platform. He kept eyeing her anxiously and had nearly dropped the bowl of potatoes when she'd passed them to him and their fingers had brushed accidentally. Fred found the entire thing very amusing and kept handing Nessa things to pass to George, no matter how ridiculous the items were. When he'd handed her a bar of soap to give to George, she'd chucked it at his head instead.
By the time dessert had ended, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley seemed to be well aware that Tori had heard something and had excused the rest of them to speak with her. Tori had refused to say anything unless Nessa and the twins were there with her, so the three of them had reluctantly, and awkwardly, sat in the corner while the argument had unfolded.
It had been brutal, and was possibly one of the most heartbreaking conversations that Nessa had ever witnessed in all of her life. Neither Mr. or Mrs. Weasley denied that Sirius Black was Tori's biological father, and had expressed that they'd always intended to tell her, but it never seemed the right time to do so. They weren't sure how to broach the subject entirely and hadn't wanted to upset her.
Tori had become angry then because she was already upset from having to hear it come from someone else when it should have been them. She'd been angrier still that they'd lied to her and told her they didn't know who her father was or where he'd been. That they'd told her he'd just disappeared during the war.
Tori's anger had attracted Ginny and Percy, who Nessa saw eavesdropping quietly on the stairs through the kitchen door, but before she could say anything, the conversation had become too emotionally fraught to interrupt.
Tori had said some things Nessa was entirely sure she'd regret — whether today or tomorrow or in ten years — and had told them she didn't know how to trust them now, that she wasn't sure how to believe that they had her best interest at heart when they'd chosen not to tell her, but that she felt like they had been too afraid of what it would mean for them when she knew. How it would affect their family more than how it would affect her. That they'd had every opportunity before she'd gone back to school to say anything to her at all. She'd asked them if she needed to be concerned for her safety and they'd told her that they were taking every precaution they could and that the only people who knew her true parentage were the teachers, themselves, Fudge, and a handful of Voldemort's followers.
Her mother and father had been very secretive about her birth, especially after Lily and James Potter had been targeted by Voldemort himself and they'd never married, preferring to remain friends and parents, rather than being tied down to each other. Carla and Lily had been best friends as well, and Carla had made sure no one knew anything about Tori's father for fear that it would put her friends and daughter in danger as well. When the war had ended and Sirius Black had been arrested, Carla had been devastated by the news.
Mrs. Weasley had said that she was in denial that he'd have betrayed them — or her and their daughter — and refused to accept that he'd done anything to hurt the Potters. But the evidence against him had been overwhelming and Carla had no alternate explanation as to what had happened, other than the fact that she knew him well enough to know that he'd never betray his friends. Mrs. Weasley insisted that their intention had always been to tell Tori of her heritage, as it was what her mother would have wanted, but they'd decided to wait until she was of age. But then Sirius Black had broken out of Azkaban and they had been afraid that telling her would have caused her to want to go searching for him.
The silence in the room at this point had been loud and it was clear that Tori had no idea how to process this information. Based on the look on her face, Nessa wasn't entirely sure she believed they were telling the full story, but Nessa was certain by the devastation on the Weasleys' faces that they had. The residual doubt would last longer than Tori likely wanted to admit to herself or to them.
Mrs. Weasley had then pulled out a small box of photos that they'd kept aside. They had been filled with photos of her and her father before he'd been taken to Azkaban. They'd kept them to give to her when she came of age and they told her the truth about her father. Fred had gotten angry then because they'd deliberately hidden something from her and it was a piece of her that he believed they had no right to take from her, no matter what they thought of her father.
Nessa agreed, but could also understand their hesitance in telling her or in showing her the photos. Even if she did agree that they'd been very stupid in not telling her once he'd broken out. Tori did not deserve to find out the way she had. Tori, however, seemed uninterested in the photos, and had only stared at the box with a blank expression.
"Was I just a charity case to you?" she'd said brokenly, interrupting Fred's current tirade at his parents, who, surprisingly, were allowing him to air out how he felt instead of admonishing him for speaking to them so harshly.
They'd all flinched and turned to stare at her then, Fred stopping talking so abruptly that Nessa thought he'd choked on his words, but Tori hadn't been looking at any of them. She'd just stared at that unopened box of pictures without blinking. She sounded completely shut off from emotion when she'd spoken again.
"Was I just the sad little girl who was locked in a closet and listened to her mother be murdered right outside of it? The one you could take in and she'd just be happy that someone cared enough at all because her life was just so horribly traumatic and lonely? Did you think I wouldn't want to know any of this? Or did you think that I would — that I would leave if I knew the truth? Love any of you any less? I don't — I don't understand any of this. Am I here just because you feel responsible to my mother?"
Mrs. Weasley had looked at her then like she'd slapped her and her eyes had filled with tears. She'd reached across the table then and grasped Tori's hand in both of hers. Tori flinched, but she hadn't pulled away from her.
"Of course not, Victoria," she said firmly, her face lined with grief. "We loved your mother, of course we did. But we loved you just as much. We were heartbroken about your mother, but we did not take you in because we felt badly for you. Which we did, of course, but it was more than that. We took you in because we loved you then…and we still love you now."
Mr. Weasley cleared his throat, taking his glasses off and rubbing them on his shirt.
"We've made mistakes where you're concerned, Victoria," he said matter-of-factly. "With all of you. We aren't perfect parents, no matter how much we wish we could be. But you are our daughter just as much as Ginny is. And it was never our intention for you to have found out this way. We should have told you far sooner. You deserve to know where you come from, and it should have been from us, not from Harry."
Tori had said nothing, but Nessa had started crying then and she'd had to hide her face in George's shirt so that her best friend hadn't noticed.
"And maybe a part of us was afraid that if we told you, it would change the way you felt about your role in this family," said Mr. Weasley honestly. "Maybe we were worried it would make you feel like less of a Weasley —"
"I'm not a Weasley," Tori said softly.
"You are in all the ways that matter, Victoria," he'd responded, eyeing her over the rim of his glasses. "You will always be a part of your mother and father. And it is never our intention to take that from you. We'll answer any questions you have about them and we'll be honest with you about everything moving forward. But you are family to us as well. If you're angry with us, we understand — you deserve to be. But no matter what happens, you will always be a Weasley. Maybe not in name or blood….but you always have a place here with us."
Nessa closed her eyes, her forehead resting against George's chest still, as she attempted to get herself under control. She really should have protested more when Tori insisted that she stay. Except she'd looked so panicked at the idea of having the conversation on her own without any support and it had felt like a punch to the gut.
She really hadn't said much throughout the entirety of the conversation. She wasn't sure what to say for one thing. It was a loaded conversation with so many emotions tied up within it. A very complex situation that she wasn't totally familiar with. Normally when Tori got worked up, she had to step in at some point to stop her from saying something stupid or hurtful, but this conversation in particular had not felt like one of the times that she was needed for that purpose. None of what Tori felt or had to say seemed at all irrational because the situation was so incredibly asinine that if she hadn't been privy to the entire conversation, she'd have assumed Tori was joking if she'd told her.
The twins, for their part, had said very little as well. They'd flinched a couple times when Tori had hurled hurtful words at their parents, and George had had to stop Fred from stepping in a couple of times when Tori had gotten too upset with a hand on the shoulder, but otherwise they seemed to understand that letting Tori speak without a filter was likely the better of their options.
The silence in the room was heavy now and thick with emotion. Nessa nearly felt like the air around them was so oppressive that it was clogging her throat and making it hard to breathe. No one said anything as they waited for Tori to respond or make some sort of decision that would put an end to the conversation.
Taking a heavy breath, she pulled away from George and turned to face the table again. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were still looking at Tori with a mixture of apprehension, sorrow, and concern, but Tori was staring at the box still. Fred was standing behind her, looking horribly stricken about what they were supposed to be doing to help.
When the silence dragged on, he shot a panicked look at Nessa. She cleared her throat and took a step toward the table.
"Victoria," she said softly, but firmly. Tori jerked and looked up at her immediately. Nessa tried not to gasp in pain at the depth of emotion darkening in the swirling gray of her eyes. "What do you need?"
Tori opened and closed her mouth several times without saying anything, like she'd forgotten how to speak altogether. Fred shifted anxiously, but stopped when Nessa shot him a hard look before returning her gaze to her best friend's. She said nothing as she waited, trying not to push as they stared at each other.
"I want — I want to get out of here. I can't breathe in here," she said finally, ripping her hand from Mrs. Weasley and stumbling back from the table hastily.
Nessa didn't say anything as she walked over to the door and grabbed their coats and handed Tori's to her silently. Mrs. Weasley looked very worried, but when she opened her mouth to say something, Mr. Weasley placed a placating hand on her arm and shook his head at her. Nessa gave him a grateful smile as she slipped on her coat. Giving the twins a warning look when they attempted to follow, she followed Tori into the snow and wind and let her decide where they were headed.
Tori hesitated outside the door, looking forlorn, but she remained silent until finally taking off toward the garden on the side of the property. Nessa shivered and hunkered down into her peacoat a little more as she followed. The "garden" was really more dead plants and weeds with a scattering of gnomes that she could hear grumbling from under some of the bushes, even through the wind and blowing snow. The treeline at least helped with some of the chill, blocking out the majority of the wind coming in from that direction.
Tori continued on in silence, slipping through a copse of trees to the left of the garden. Nessa followed silently, more like her shadow than anything else, and stepped out onto a rough dirt trail that she'd never noticed before. Tori seemed fairly confident of where she was going, however, and continued along the path until they'd reached a small clearing in the trees. There wasn't a whole lot out here, but it was clear the Weasley children and Tori had been frequent visitors while they were children.
There was some sort of rickety playground that was rusted and had clearly been left forgotten as they'd aged. A tire swing was blowing in the wind and there was a scattering of toys — broken bicycles, dolls missing heads (she didn't want to know), various knick knacks — but Tori ignored them all and continued on to the big oak tree that was in the middle. It was the only tree within the clearing and looked like it had a treehouse within its branches that was clearly being held together by magic.
Tori shook a rope ladder to free it of snow and tested her weight on one of the steps. Which Nessa thought was fair, considering it looked like it was seconds away from disintegrating. She strongly suspected — or maybe hoped was the more accurate word — that it was held together by magic as well.
"This isn't a suicide plot, is it?" she said warily as she followed behind Tori, moving very carefully on the rungs of the ladder.
Tori snorted above her as she continued climbing.
"And I'm supposed to be the dramatic one."
When they'd finally made it to the top and pulled themselves through to the balcony at the top, Nessa blew on her fingers in an attempt to warm them and followed Tori into the small space. She really should not have been that surprised that it was so much larger on the inside than it should have been based on its size from the outside, but she gaped anyway.
It was at least triple the size inside than it should have been. It was scattered with clutter — a table with Exploding Snap, Gobstones, and Wizard's chess piled on the top of it, a corner dedicated solely to a doll house and several dolls who were fortunate enough to still have their heads, and a random assortment of balls scattered about.
The entire place was like stepping back into a time capsule. There were long forgotten pictures scattered around one of the tables, each chair surrounding it a different color. The pictures on the walls had all been labeled with names, some that were clearly Mrs. Weasley's handwriting, others that had been clearly written in the untidy writing of the children that had drawn them. She looked at one that clearly was supposed to say George, but the capital G was backwards and he'd forgotten the e in the middle, so it read 'Gorge'.
"He cried when Molly told him that he'd spelled his name wrong," Tori said, noticing the picture she was looking at. "Told her the picture was ruined and he hated it. So Fred spelled his name wrong on his to make him feel better."
She pointed at the picture next to it with a painted fingernail, and Nessa smiled a little. She had no idea what the picture was supposed to be, but the F was backwards and he'd left out the r, so it read 'Fed."
"What are these pictures even supposed to be?" she inquired.
Tori snorted.
"They said they were birds, but personally, I think they look more like dogs," she said, moving to take a seat on one of the bean bags in the corner.
"That's a very long nose for a dog," said Nessa, tilting her head to the side and squinting in an attempt to see whatever the twins had been seeing. "Looks more like an anteater to me. If an anteater had wings."
Tori rested her head back against the wall behind her and closed her eyes, but there was a wide grin on her face.
"Don't tell them that," she warned. "They're very protective of those birds. Charlie told them they looked like demons and they pushed him off the side of the treehouse."
Nessa gaped at her.
"You're joking."
"No," she said, laughing. "Broke his arm. Wasn't the first time either. Arthur put a cushioning charm at the bottom after that though."
Nessa hadn't put too much thought into whether she'd have children in the future, but if she did, she severely hoped they were nothing like Fred and George Weasley. How Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had managed to keep their hair for so long was a mystery to her. Although, maybe the balding spot on Mr. Weasley's head was from his twin sons alone.
Tori fell silent, so Nessa walked around looking at the pictures that lined the walls. She found it interesting how closely the photos aligned with the Weasley siblings' interests, even into adulthood. Charlie seemed to draw dragons and Quidditch most often; Percy was always holding a briefcase, something that made Nessa roll her eyes even if she was smiling a little at the thought of a smaller Percy stuffily carrying a briefcase around after his father; the twins liked to draw explosions and weird, silly faces that she couldn't quite place the expression of.
Tori's were all of her family. Nessa could see the progression of the photos as the time passed. Younger Tori drew pictures of herself, her mother, and a stick figure that had wavy black hair that Nessa assumed was what she remembered of her father. Some of them had a large black dog in them as well. As the years passed, the pictures morphed into just her and her mother. Eventually her, her mother, and all of the Weasleys. And likely the most depressing of all, only her and the Weasleys, always surrounded by the Weasley twins, and with her mother nowhere in sight. There were several with which she'd drawn her mother up in the clouds above them.
Looking at the photos, Nessa couldn't help but feel a little sorry for her best friend. They had the same tragic story, generally speaking, but at least she didn't remember much of her parents. Somehow it felt more painful to be able to remember them and have lost them anyway than not to have remembered them at all. Although, she supposed that was relative. She wondered if Tori ever pitied her for not having any memories of her parents at all, but she didn't ask.
Instead, she turned on her heel and flopped herself down onto the bean bag across from her best friend and said nothing. Eventually, Tori broke the silence.
"What do I do?"
Nessa stared at her.
"I don't know," she said honestly. "What do you want to do?"
"I want to go back in time so that I don't have to know who my father really is. I want to go on pretending that he's some nobody who ran out on me and my mom or maybe some hero who died in the middle of the war."
Nessa sighed. It would certainly be the easier option, if they could just pretend like nothing had changed. Although it didn't seem the healthiest choice.
"Just because you know who he is now doesn't mean you have to give him a place in your life," she said gently. "He doesn't deserve more energy than you have left to give him."
Tori stared at the ceiling above her, but didn't say anything for a while.
"And what about Arthur and Molly?"
"Tori, I — I'm not really in the position to tell you how to feel about this," she said hesitantly. But when Tori said nothing, she sighed heavily, and decided to just go for the truth. "I think you're totally justified in being upset with them. And I think you're the one who gets to determine under what terms you choose to forgive them. And when that forgiveness is deserved."
"But?" said Tori with a smirk and an eye roll.
"But," said Nessa with an eye roll of her own. "I think you should remember who they are to you. They made a stupid choice and there are consequences to that, but they're still the only family you've ever known. And they love you just as much as they love their own children. You and I both know they do. Punishing them in your anger isn't going to make you feel any better and pretending you don't know they love you will only make you feel worse."
"Am I a bitch for being angry with them?"
"No," Nessa snorted. "I think you should be angry for however long you need to be. I'm just saying not to forget how much they mean to you while you are. It's much easier to mend the bridge than it is to rebuild it completely."
Tori sighed heavily and ran a hand over her face.
"You don't need to have all of the answers right now, Tori," Nessa said firmly. "I know you've always been good at hiding your feelings and pretending you don't have any, but it's okay to just take the time to feel how you feel. You can always figure out what to do after that."
"I feel a little selfish for whinging about my family problems to you when my father is the reason you live with those horrid Muggles."
Nessa rolled her eyes.
"You aren't whinging," she said firmly. "Besides, we both have glaring family issues. It isn't a competition."
"We could make it one," Tori offered. "One shot for murderous parents, two for someone trying to kill us or our family, three for every time we end up whinging to each other about our family problems."
"What's the end game?" said Nessa incredulously. "First one to alcohol poisoning wins?"
Tori snorted.
"Take ourselves out before someone takes us out instead."
"That's morbid, Victoria."
She grinned at her unapologetically. They fell silent again and Nessa wrapped her coat around her more tightly, wishing she could use magic outside of school if only to warm herself up. If the Weasleys had used any warming charms on the treehouse, it had certainly run out by now. The wind and snow beat against the walls, but the sound was somehow peaceful after everything else they'd been through.
"Do we have to go back inside yet?" Tori said eventually, chewing on her lip. "I mean, I know we have to eventually, but I just — I want to avoid my problems a little longer."
"Well, fortunately for you, the two of us have always been good at that," said Nessa jokingly.
So they stayed out there for hours, talking very little and avoiding the world outside for just a little bit longer.
-o0o-
Tori's reaction to the news is such a hard thing for me to write. I'm not familiar with the feelings associated with something like this, although I can imagine how it might feel. Emotionally complex for sure, so I'll try to stay true to that.
Good news, though: Next chapter is very happy. Very little angst, so thank God for that. See you soon!
Up next: Girls' night