Stuck AIAOY 2

Chapter 1

Summer at the Burrow was loosely-structured: A handful of chores per child each day that had to be done before Quidditch or reading.  Their homework was also to be worked on a little each day until it was done.  Most of their time was to be spent as they pleased.

Rebecca and Hermione owled back and forth every few days, but the topic of their correspondences was mainly reasons as to why Harry wasn't answering either of them.  By the third week of summer, Rebecca was a shadow that crept around and checked the mail before doing her tasks and slinking away somewhere to be alone with her thoughts.

Her homework had been done and perfected, she stayed active with rigorous Quidditch drills that only Fred and George completed with her every day without fail, and Molly couldn't find a single fault with any chore she did, but Rebecca wasn't in the Burrow.  

Not really.

She was a thousand leagues away wondering why Harry hadn't answered; What could have happened to Harry to keep him from answering.

Most thoughts were sensical, it had to have had something to do with the Dursleys.  But some thoughts were darker and influenced by the events from the end of the year.  Maybe Harry wasn't being kept from writing, maybe Voldemort had found a way back and, consequently, back to Harry.

Rebecca was finding the idea of six more weeks of summer an impossible idea as the days dragged slower and slower.  Outside of her routine, things were growing too hard to do.  When she turned down dessert and opted to go to bed early one night too many in a row, Fred knew something had to be done.

Molly paced in the kitchen anxiously, her eyes straying to the clock where Ron, Fred, and George's names were bouncing between 'traveling' and 'trouble.'  Rebecca wasn't prepared for the barrage of questions as soon as she'd stepped off the last stair that morning, she had only planned on checking the post.

"Do you know where they went?"  Molly asked, knowing of all the children who lived in the house, this one couldn't tell a fib for anything.  "Don't even try lying to me, I will know."

Rebecca's eyes widened and she looked behind her as if there was the possibility Molly was talking to someone else.  "Where who...went where?"  Rebecca looked to the pile of letters and thumbed through them slowly to make sure she read every character on every envelope.  "This is it?"

"Yes, sweets."  Molly was furious, especially since her vagrant children hadn't even had the foresight to close the garage door behind the car they'd stolen, but she set that aside for the moment.  "I can write to Dumbledore, see if he can get through.  I'm sure there's a reason."

Rebecca shook her head.  "I'll give him a bit longer."  Rebecca paused, looking to the ground with hot tears filling her eyes.  She didn't want to cry in front of Molly, she didn't want to cry in front of anyone.  But the thought that had been flashing through her mind more and more left her heart pulling horribly.  "He may just not want to answer me, is all."

"Don't be daft."  Molly chided, setting two tea cups on the counter and charming the water boiling.  "I saw the two of you on the platform, he's not going to be regretting anything.  I'm sure it's circumstance, I know it."

Rebecca nodded, though only to appease Molly.  Arthur had said the same thing yesterday about circumstance yesterday when he'd sat down with Rebecca but it still seemed like the most likely explanation for Harry's failure to respond.  

"Come, have a cup of tea and some breakfast.  I made muffins."  At least there would be one positive to the day.

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"They weren't feeding you?"  Ron asked quietly in the backseat as the sun slowly rose over the English horizon.