Dried Leather and Withered Flowers

Chapter 9

Lea is bored. She's so bored that she's considering doing her summer homework.

Well, maybe she's not that bored.

She sighs, propping her chin on her hand and her elbow on her knee. Harry and Adam are... wrestling(?) on the grass in front of her as she sits crisscrossed with her wand in her lap. They had said that they were going to practice sparring, but she thinks that they might just be practicing dancing. They're both lanky and awkward in a teenage boy kind of way. The fact that Adam doesn't seem too keen on punching his little brother and Harry rather fight like wizards than muggles means that their sparring session is going absolutely nowhere.

Bobby had sent them out of the house after their third movie of the day, claiming they were going to "run the damn tape player ragged." Lea had wanted to get out their brooms but apparently muggles live too close for them to fly safely. Adam hadn't seemed to like the idea of being flown in the air anyway.

Sam and Dean have been gone for a couple of days, adding to Lea's boredom. She had hoped that they would be allowed to join their brothers on another hunt, but Dean had only attempted to glare her into submission when she asked to go. When that hadn't worked, he had simply stormed out to his car with Sam in tow, muttering about casts or some other inane thing. That had left Harry, Adam, and Lea to their own devices. Adam had been working his way through the Potter and Winchester books, so Harry and Lea did spend some time answering his questions. Hermione and Ron called at least every other day, so the twins were able to speak with them and Sirius fairly often. Ron had told them yesterday about the ongoing search for them, how Dumbledore breezes in and out of 'Headquarters' (Sirius' house) with vague updates on their progress. Lea has taken that to mean that the Headmaster still has absolutely no idea where they are. In her book, that's a good thing. While Professor Dumbledore has never put her and Harry in outright danger, he's still done nothing to prevent them harm. Him sending them back to the Dursleys after what Harry had experienced in the graveyard was honestly her final straw.

Lea is able to let a lot of things slide, but hurting her brother is where she draws the line. Brothers, now, she supposes. Though, Sam and Dean and Adam don't need her to protect them in the same way Harry does. Dean needs her as a buffer between him and Sam, a position that she's still unsure how she's taken up. It wasn't too long ago that every conversation between her and Dean was hostile. Sam needs her to bounce cases off of and to help research. He reminds her of Hermione a lot of the time. Adam needs her for comfort. He lost both his parents back to back and seems to not know how to handle the grief. Lea has spent several late nights with Adam, speaking in hushed tones over mugs of hot chocolate in the kitchen, listening to him talk about his mother. Still, her older brothers don't need her to protect them, not when they're old enough to protect themselves.

Harry, though. Harry needs her. Without Lea, Harry would blindly follow the Headmasters every command. It makes her sick to her stomach to think about. Dumbledore has allowed Harry to throw himself into danger without a thought for his own well being. Did Lea want to protect the Sorcerer's Stone? Not particularly. She hadn't wanted Snape, as they had thought at the time, to have it, but she hadn't particularly wanted to face her professor down over a rock. She couldn't let Harry go off on his own, though. They always did everything together, she couldn't leave him facing evil by himself. Did she want to go into the Chamber of Secrets? Of course not! Especially knowing what creature awaited them. But, she didn't want Ginny to die, and she definitely didn't want Harry facing a mythical snake with death eyes without her by his side. She gladly stabbed the beast before it could eat her brother, taking a stab wound for her troubles. Lea and Harry had been together their entire lives. She can't remember a time when her brother wasn't by her side. She refuses to experience such a thing.