Before the Dawn | George Weasley

28

I sat alone in the kitchen of McDowell Manor, gazing out the vast windows into the open green countryside stretching beyond the edge of the property. I sipped from a cup of tea, letting my mind wander.

It'd been almost two months since I'd gotten Jamie's response to my letter, urging me to leave Edinburgh and come and live with her family in one of their several houses for the summer.

Two months since I'd repacked my trunk with everything I owned and slipped the vial of sleeping potion Fred and George had gifted me in our fifth year into my father's morning tea.

Two months since I'd walked out the front door of the small house I'd grown up in, unsure if I'd ever go back.

I knew my father would never forgive me; he had bought two plane tickets to Atlanta, where he had planned on hiding us away in some small farm town. But I couldn't do it, and he knew that. I wondered briefly if he'd go without me.

Now, I was the first one awake, the early morning sunlight filtering through the curtains, and I had never felt more alone.

Jamie's family was polite, but it was like they could smell the poverty on me—I knew how I must have looked, running away from home with everything I owned packed into a single trunk, but still I didn't like the way they looked at me. That said, Jamie treated me no differently than she usually did, which provided some relief.

Lucian stayed with us for a couple weeks earlier in the summer, which was fun, as I hadn't expected to see him at all. On warmer nights he and I would take our broomsticks out for a fly, enjoying the wind in our hair and the escape from reality.

In the months since we'd left Hogwarts, I'd received a handful of letters from George, each of them frustratingly vague and listing various reasons why I couldn't come visit him yet. I knew he and his family had relocated, but he wouldn't say to where, and while I understood why, I missed him more and more with each passing day.

With only a few weeks left in the summer, I was itching to leave. I wanted to go back to Hogwarts, back to the place where I had everyone who meant anything to me all in one place.

Thea tapped at the back door window, drawing me from my wistful thoughts. I stood to let her in, planting a kiss on her forehead and laughing softly as she let out an affectionate hoot. She lifted her foot and I untied the two letters from around her leg. One was from Hogwarts – my supplies list, I suspected – and the other from George.

I set the letter from George aside and tore open the Hogwarts letter first, my eyes scanning over its contents. I had talked Lucian into gifting me his books from the previous year, so all I needed to buy were a few expendables.

Jamie wandered downstairs, then, her mouth parting in a wide yawn. 

"Is that your Hogwarts letter?" she asked sleepily.

"It is," I confirmed. "I reckon yours is on its way as well."

She hummed in agreement, eyeing the envelope I'd tossed aside. "There's something else in there."

I looked over with a frown, then met her eyes with an incredulous look. "Maybe I'm Head Girl."

Jamie burst out laughing. "Can you imagine?"

I grinned, shaking my head, and picked up the envelope once more, a silver badge tumbling out. I picked it up, reading its inscription, and my jaw dropped. "I'm Quidditch Captain!"

Jamie let out a squeal and threw her arms around me. "I knew it! Congratulations, Mackie!"

I looked over the shining badge with a sense of awe. Of course, I had wanted to be Captain, had secretly dreamed of it since I first made the team in my second year, but I'd assumed it would go to Miles or Draco, seeing as both of their families contributed heavily to the school financially. Light glinted off the badge's silver surface, and I suddenly felt giddy, my spirits lifted for the first time all summer.