Ecdysis

Chapter 16 - Summer Before Fifth Year: Rejected

"Is Mum sick?" I asked without turning my head from the passenger side window.

It took Dad so long to respond that I wondered if he was giving me the silent treatment. But then he quietly replied, "She's waiting for you at home." I could barely hear him over the tick-tick-tick of his right indicator as he pulled onto the noisy road.

It was hot out but Dad had picked me up at King's Cross in the Slytherin jumper I'd bought him for Christmas. Was he over-compensating for the fact Mum didn't want to see me? I clenched my hands into fists, fingernails biting into my palms so I wouldn't cry. Mum's letter about Aunt Tilly's dress had arrived months ago. A lifetime ago, it felt like. And she was still holding onto her anger?

"How's Flo?" Dad tweaked the rearview mirror, surveying Rascal in the boot of his new SUV.

The car exuded a plastic-chemical smell as if he'd just rolled it out of the dealership. I should be happy for him. A new car meant my parents were doing well financially. But I simply felt out of the loop. It seemed like the sort of news you would write to your kid about.

"That's Rascal, Dad," I reminded him sourly. "Flo's gone. Remember?"

He tensed. "Yes. That's right. Rascal."

"He's fine, if a little bored. He's had no reason to be busy these last few months." I knew It wasn't fair to antagonise the only parent who seemed to care about me, but home was meant to be a reprieve from the horror of the last few days and it was already starting out all wrong.

"Effort is a two-way street, Hermione," he replied gravely.

I didn't feel like being lectured so I kept my mouth shut. It would have been easy to say 'nice car, Dad' or regale him with questions about why he'd chosen to upsize his car for one I felt was clunky in London, difficult to parallel park and squeeze through narrow roads. My comments would serve as an instant ice breaker. But I was in no mood for ice breakers with my father. Instead of putting on a stupid jumper in the middle of summer, why couldn't he just convince Mum to show up?

I felt none of my usual excitement to be home as we inched along the crowded roundabouts, listening to a symphony orchestra on BBC Radio 3 to fill the silence. It was giving me a headache. I couldn't bring myself to care that I would have my own room again with full access to technology. It was all so dull and underwhelming in the wake of everything I'd been through this year. How had I ever found this city comforting at all?

Our house smelled like warm vanilla-scented candles and the odd medley of home that my nose was no longer used to. Mum did not greet me at the door the way Dad had implied she would. There was no aroma of home cooking in the air. The house was eerily still, and I wondered if Mum had gone out.

Getting Rascal upstairs was a balancing act. He squawked and flapped his wings restlessly, rattling his cage and making it almost impossible not to thump him against the wall. Dad was still in the driveway, manoeuvring my deadweight trunk from the boot of his lofty car. I thought of my Slytherin housemates who had house-elves to do their bidding, or at least magic-wielding parents who didn't have to lift a finger to put things like heavy luggage away. My parents were so inadequate in comparison, their skills so inferiorly Muggle, it was embarrassing.

My room was as I'd left it, but there was a staleness in the air, an unlived dustiness covering every surface. I released Rascal in the tall, antique cage Mum had bought last year, and he seemed thrilled to be liberated from his travel carrier, which he had made a mess of during the trip. I left the reeking cage in the hallway to take outside later, keeping the stench of owl faeces out of my room if I could help it.

Then I lay down on the rug and melted.

The dull thud of my heartbeat pulsed beneath my ribcage as I stared up at the ceiling with one hand over my stomach and the other over my chest. It felt unmoored, my heart, adrift and lonely up north without me.