December 2006

A few days before the solstice, Kiara sat on the floor by her bed struggling to wrap her gifts for her siblings. Every time she almost finished she forgot the tape and while getting it the tension loosened. It wasn't a big deal but it still bothered Kiara. She glared at the ceiling, hating that the one time she needed magic, she wasn't allowed. One year left being an under-aged witch and it irritated her. Sure she could ask Hope but she was sure she could get it this year. She folded the paper one more time around her gift for Kayla, a book about otters that she had translated at school into ancient Greek. That girl's obsession with otters was somewhat worrying but it hadn't gotten to bad, yet. It couldn't be worse than Michael's fascination with curses or Will's encyclopedic knowledge of medicine. Those led to some very strange conversations.

With a triumphant shout, Kiara finished the present. She wrote a note to her little sister and stuck it on with hopefully enough tape. She twisted her hair into a bun and held it up with the pen. She leaned back against her bed, exhausted by the effort involved with the process. Wrapped presents, paper, scissors, and three different rolls of tape covered the floor. Why there were so many she wouldn't be able to tell you. She packed up the presents into her bag before picking up the mess.

"Mama, when are you driving me to camp?" Kiara asked, poking her head out of her room.

Hope looked up from her book. "At eight. I'm not waking up any earlier." Kiara opened her mouth to complain. "Don't do that. No negotiations. You're staying there for the week a few hours without them won't kill you."

Hope hated people disturbing her sleep. Anyone who tried ended up jinxed. The earliest time she had gotten up was seven in extreme circumstances. She told Kiara it was payback for her first year of life not allowing anyone within a block radius to sleep through the night.

Kiara sighed, "Fine, are we still going skating tonight?"

"Yep. Now go back to whatever you were doing. I need to focus, someone is about to die." Hope ignored Kiara's laugh, intently reading her book.

Kiara took out her homework. She might as well get it done now when she had nothing better to do. She spread out everything over her bed. She hopped onto the blue comforter and shimmied into a free spot. Hogwarts gave an unfair amount of work during the breaks. She hated it but the work had to get done. She looked over what she had to do before a specific piece caught her eye. Her stupid Latin vocab from Spell crafting. She huffed and buried it underneath an astronomy map. It annoyed her so much that sometimes she wondered why she took the class, but the warmth that always flowed through her body when a spell succeeded. She missed magic when she came home. The closest she could get was tracing her magic back to her core. But without constantly casting spells things felt muffled. It was different than tapping into her core. Then she could immerse herself deep within her magic but it also spilled out too much. If she did it here in the muggle world MACUSA would send her mom a warning for Kiara's underage magic.

Dimly in her mind, she heard a voice that sounded suspiciously like Regulus lecturing her, "If you do the hard parts now you don't have to do them later."

She frowned at the papers before reaching back for the vocab sheet. She pulled the pen out of her bun and stared at the long list of nouns relating to growing spells. She scribbled down a few words before crossing them out and starting all over again. A few minutes of frustrating silence was destroyed by Kiara groaning loudly and flopping back on her bed.

"You okay in there?" Hope called from the living room, stopping reading for a second at the startling noise.

Kiara made an unintelligible response back.

"Alright, I'll let you deal with that."

Kiara scowled at the far wall before sitting back up. She focused her glare on the work. She ignored imaginary Regulus' opinions and reached for her potions equations. At least that was something Kiara knew how to do. She leaned against the bed frame ignoring the perfectly good desk on the other side of the room. She braced the parchment on a book that she grabbed from her bedside table. This time her scribbles made sense and she sped through question after question. While Kiara was studious she always hated doing homework over the break. In her logical opinion, why should schoolwork flow over into their breaks? The breaks were for resting from the strenuous experience of school. Kiara worked her way through rolls of parchment avoiding the two that were taunting her.

Once Kiara had finished all she could she gave the few she did not finish a glare and shoved them not so gently off the bed. Happy that they were out of her sight she stretched out over the comforter. After a few boring but relaxing seconds of nothingness, she sat back up. Kiara's restless mind could not wait for skating that night. If she just sat there she would start going crazy. Messing with her mother was out of the question. Hope was not one to be interrupted in her books. That was a recipe for disaster. Finn might be up for doing something.

With that thought Kiara leaped out of bed and slid to the door. She ignored the sandals her mother always asked her to wear outside and walked on tiptoes to knock on Finn's door.

"Finn! Finn! I need you!" Kiara kept knocking.

Kiara heard rushing footsteps then a large thump and stifled curse.

After a second Kiara called again, "Finn?"

Kiara had barely any time to prepare herself before the door swung so fast it banged against the wall.

"What's wrong? What's going on?" Finn gasped, holding onto his foot. That was probably the reason for the noise.

"Nothing. Mama is reading and I'm bored." Finn crumpled against the door frame, his breaths coming out in puffs. He tugged on his hair and then covered his face.

"It is bad to kill children. You don't want to go to jail. She's just a kid," he muttered into his hands.

Kiara could not tell if she should feel worried for his health or offended that he called her a kid. In the end, she just decided amused was the best word to sum up her current state.

"So…" Kiara leaned forward with a smirk, "What are we going to do?"

At his lack of response, other than the muttered sentences that were growing concerning, Kiara inched past him to drop onto the couch. She lay upside down staring into the mirror of her living room. The door closed with a thud and more muttered complaints were heard until a slightly less grumpy Finn walked into Kiara's vision.

"You are annoying. I was getting ready to go shopping when you showed up." He pointed an accusing finger at her.

"That's great! I need to go shopping too. We can go together. I need to get some American candy for my friend. She finished all of her Yorks and can't find any more."

Finn gave into her whims and grabbed his coat from by his door. "Well, madam let's ask Hope first. I don't want her to think you just walked out of the house without telling her."

Kiara swung back up and walked with him back to her apartment. Hanging out with Finn was one of the few times she could act ridiculous. He was used to her even more than her friends and she did not have to think how the school would think about her. Years of babysitting made him very adapted to her actions. By now he had learned to just flow with things as they happened.

"Hope, I'm going to take Kiara to the store. I'll get her back before four," Finn called while Kiara rushed to her room to grab money and a bag.

"Please. She keeps making absurd noises. Sometimes I think my daughter has been replaced with a wild beast."

"Mama!" Kiara cried entering the room.

"Have fun, Sunshine." Hope kissed Kiara's head before waving her out of the house.

Kiara pulled her jacket on and followed Finn out of the building.

Good day(maybe night) to everyone on earth. Let's look at what is going on with this story. The forecast for the next few chapters is interesting. It looks like fluff today and fluff next week. Not much plot today. We forecast plot somewhere shortly—no need for raincoats or any coats for that matter. The Solstice is coming up with what looks like plot advancement. That's all for today. Thanks for tuning on to DoC Forecasting! A special thanks to everyone who has commented, favorited, followed, read it in general, looked at the cover, decided that today was a good day to look at this, breathed, smiled, or enjoyed life.

I hope everyone's life is going well. I've been busy for a while and I'm going to be super busy for the next week. My school's show is starting! I still have a few chapters stockpiled for this but after that, I might miss a week or two before I catch back up.

Any questions are welcome. If you liked this chapter, please consider commenting. Thanks for reading!

- Natalie