For as long as Remus can remember he's had a hard life. Constant monthly mutilations of his skin, a absent father, and the trepidation of his blush inducing crush on Anastasia Fox. Anastasia Fox, who flirts with everyone, has matching fainter scars...
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CHAPTER 11 MATILDA
The discrepancy of the mood in the Hogwarts Express as the children and teens awaited to be returned to their home was a stark contrast to the entering months before. The iced over windows represented the chilling nerves of most and the warm train depicted the excitement of others.
Anastasia never talked about the details of her home life, much less any of it. Anastasia felt feelings and lived through them. Whereas to Remus to think was to feel and to feel was to think.
Remus pondered his home life greatly. He would analyze every exchange and was overly aware of the reality into his relationships and the negatives that associated.
Anastasia viewed her own as simply a product of events. She chose possibly for own protection to not question her uncles attitudes and strange ways of life but to let the moment be shared without further thought into the discrepancies of it all.
In a way Peter and her were similar. He knew his father had left when he was young, too young to remember. And that was why it was just his mother and him. He also knew that was why, since a fledgling he would spend mornings with Mister some unmemorable last name and meet a new one the next morning. Peter, same as Ana, never questioned the morality of it.
Sirius didn't have to question the morality of anything that happened in his house. He knew it was always with intent and never out of love.
And James' house was so perfect and brimmed with love, if the slightest thing felt off he would be consumed in a fit of stress, trying everything to ensure everyone was happy all the time.
Lily looked at her family's to be another phase of life, something to be outgrown and acknowledged when appropriate.
–
Anastasia's home was nowhere. Not in the poetic sense but truthfully, it stood on a hill and even from the highest point of the house nothing could be seen but fields of barley and evergreen forest. She lived with her mothers brother Morfin, junior. He lived in the home or rather a structure homogenous to ones in cliche horror movies, he never left. Since Anastasia had a conscience she had only remembered him in this house.
The home was cold, and though built to hold decoration of plenty, paintings, pictures frames, and objects one would gather through years of fortuitous collecting, Anastasia only knew of one object he prized, and made special purpose to cleaning it everyday. Unlike the dust covered shelves she would come home after every break. The Rileys toffee tin box that had depictions of a man and a woman riding on horses with birds surrounding the couple. It sat pretty on the mantle of the fireplace.
Morfin's show of love was flawed. He understood that she hated the lack of white noise when entering rooms so he would always have soft music playing. He remembers when Anastasia was a mere six and wasn't able to sleep and Lana's only solution was found after a rainy day, that the soft pelting of water droplets was equal to sleeping draughts. So whenever Ana came home, every night he would walk out onto the kreaky balcony of the house and cast a facere pluvia spell letting showers continue into the morning. Most of the love he sparsely was able to show went unnoticed by his niece.
Though she knew the man held some sort of tenderness towards her. As to wake every morning and leave her bed unmade,within the eventual point she would leave the room only to enter again with it remade, or how in the quiet meal times when she would finish her food he would place whatever he had on his plate to hers soundlessly.
When Anastasia came back after every break it was all unspoken. Dinners, the subject of what either did, what they would do, if a mishap happened like a break of a glass the clean up would be unspoken. The only time the two truthfully did speak was when Anastasia pursued it, which was rare. She didn't like his wiry voice, it sounded unfit for him as if not his native tongue.
When she would speak, it would be to inform him she was going to the Potters. It was the only place Morfin allowed to be hooked up to his flu system and Fleamont was the only person outside of Anastasia and her parents she had seen her uncle talk to.
When holidays did come most of her time was spent in her hometown and the inhabitants of the Potters, South Devon England and that was how Anastasia preferred it.
-
Christmas at each home was different. James' family had a rule of one gift per member as if to keep the affluent family humble in their wealth.
Lily's family was traditional, with Lily watching her mother, aunts, and grandmothers bake minced pies in the kitchen, and the men drinking their brandy beer in the family room. Lily didn't care for the complaisancey to her fallacy on the flawed hierarchy. One tradition she was fond of was boxing day. The holiday on the day after Christmas where people would take their unwanted gifts and give them to the homeless. She would make it her rule to get her family the most unlikable gifts to each member just to ensure the care for a stranger.
Sirius' Christmas was fake. The rigidity of his parents watching from above as he and his brothers open their presents. Judging eyes making sure each reaction was up to their approval. Evenings with his cousins and their plays on careful words from each of their mouths, with caution as none of the youth held any trust in their own blood. The nights were balls with pure bloods more suffocating than the tight corsets of the females, and the high collar cinched with textile bow ties.
Anastasia and Peter had presents in the morning and the loneliness of the day, usually consumed with whatever they received as pass-times.
Remus surprisingly was the most spoiled out of all of them. His parents would save up in advance, spending all they could on their son. He was always gifted books from any relative and whatever amenities Hope had found in the ads of her magazines, in his stocking was chocolate. His fathers gift was music, records and cassette tapes of plenty. His home never held something so domestically warm as it did on the twenty fifth.
-
The train ride home or rather away from, was pensive. Anastasia sat apathetic, James worried for his friends, Remus introspective, Sirius brooding, Peter wistful, and Lily mad. Mostly mad that Marlene had forged a letter as Lily accepted James' offer to stay at the Potter Manor, whereas also sending her parents an owl to inform them for that trip.
Authors Notes:
I am not loving this but I knew it was needed to happen. Next part might take awhile to get out cause something happenssss, and it's gonna be angstttt. Anyways I want the next chapter to be perfect. But no more hogwarts chapters for till like chapter 15 😱
I have been spending the past few days at the pool reading my new books for like hours on end.
What's your favorite book?
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