The Survivor

Bonus scene: Christmas with the Notts 1991

As they got off the train, Violet was nervous. She didn't know what exactly to expect from Theo's parents. Sure, they wrote to her a few times to check up on her, but that was it.

Most adults in her life didn't like her. They would complain about her guts and tell her she was trying to hard to be an adult when she was just a child. She didn't want her friend's parents to dislike her as well. She wanted them to like her, so she could take at least some of Theo's stress away. Just like he knew her well, she did too. She could tell how much it weighted on him not knowing how exactly this Christmas would go. She planned to do her best to make it a happy one.

Waiting for Theo and she, at a distance from all the parents fighting to reach their children were Theo's parents. They were wearing matching Christmas jumpers and they were looking around for them, not seeming to be able to see them. They weren't pushing or yelling like the others and were simply scanning through the crowd with smiling faces. Mr Nott even whispered in his wife ear to make her laugh. It was the first time Violet saw a husband try to make his wife smile.

As soon as Theo saw them, his face lit up and he wanted to run towards them, but he remembered that he had Violet with him. She looked extremely nervous and jumpy, he couldn't leave her. He took her hand and started rubbing circles on the back of it, trying to make her relax. He couldn't even imagine how jumpy she was and how being away from Harry might also be finally catching up to her. He stood by her side with a smile. "It'll be amazing, Letty. I'm sure they'll love you." He offered her his best attempt at encouraging words.

The two adults finally spotted them and their smiles became even wider if that was possible and they started to move their way.

Mrs Nott was the first one to reach them and wasted no time to give the two a very brief hug. "We missed you so much, sweetheart. You've definitely grown since you left." Said Mrs. Nott to Theo as she gave him a second and longer hug. She missed her baby even if he wrote to her. Call her a mother hen, but she liked to have him close and so did her husband. They enjoyed his experiments, his loud laughter and his passion for gardening, not that anyone besides the two of them knew of it. Her son was very secretive when it came to that side of him. She then let go of him to go to his father and turned her attention to Violet. "I'm so glad to finally meet you in person. I know we talked and all that, but I couldn't hug you through the letters." She smiled warmly and hugged her close. She loved hugs and from the little Theo told her and the little snippets from the letters from Violet she wanted to give her the best Christmas.

She heard so many stories in the letters from her son and the other kids about her. They all seemed to like her and think very highly of her. She was quite excited to get to know her better since she couldn't exactly talk to her a lot through letters since she understood her hesitation at sharing things via paper when her owl could be stopped by people and others could also read what she wrote.

It took Violet a few seconds to return the hug. She wasn't very used to affection. Her brother never really was for physical contact, so she only hugged him or took his hand when he needed comforting. Luna was more for acts of service and words of affirmation, so she respected it and didn't really go for hugs or handholding unless it was a special occasion. Only after befriending Theo she started to be more open to physical contact since her friend seemed to be glued to her side and kept randomly hugging her or holding her hand, even offering her piggyback rides.

She asked herself in that moment if her mother would've hugged her that way when she returned from Hogwarts. Would her parents have been as welcoming to her friends as Theo's parents seemed to be. Maybe her dad would've been upset over her choosing to spend most of her time with Slytherins and not trying harder to spend time with her brother. Would her uncle Padfoot be upset that she wasn't in Gryffindor like him and the rest of her family. Would her uncle Moony be glad to answer the million questions she had about Muggle books or would he send her away to ask someone else. It was very hard for her to make sense of how her family would've been like. All she had as a reference were memories from when she was a baby and she was terrified of the possibility of them not being as supportive and amazing they were in her mind.