Y/n Cordelia Granger lived a happy but simple life in the suburbs of London with her parents and younger sister, Hermione, until her 11th birthday. As the day's sun beamed overhead, the young girl was covered in its light that glimmered with the pro...
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The early morning sunlight trickled in through Ginny's window and shone past her curtains into her room. The white fabric had been lazily drawn shut the night before and as a result only covered about half of the glass pane. However, all the girls were too exhausted from the mishap at Harry's house and the twins' subsequent row with Mrs. Weasley to notice its half open state before their eyelids simply became too heavy to keep open.
Birds outside began to sing to one another as rays of light ran over Y/n's closed eyelids, and the sound made her lips quirk up into the ghost of a smile in her sleep.
She'd always loved the way birds warbled to each other, the way they spoke with their own secret language. She both admired and envied how freely their chirping melodies left their beaks and drifted across the sky.
Y/n drifted back to a peaceful sleep, but within minutes the golden haze of dawn had creeped into Y/n's slumber and pulled her from her dreams. Her eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks like the flapping of butterfly wings against the wind as she slowly blinked her eyes open. She rubbed the sleep out of her weary eyes the best she could, but stars lingered in her eyes. Still, she was smiling softly even as her bones creaked in protest when she began to sit up.
There wasn't a time that had ever existed that was more beautiful than the dead of night or the break of dawn in her mind. With people tucked comfortably in their beds, the animals and the world were free to play their music without the cries of war disrupting them. Y/n enjoyed it like nothing else. There was a sense of reverence in the brief moments she'd never been able to find anywhere else.
Y/n was in the middle of the thought when a creaking floorboard interrupted her contemplation.
For a moment, she was sure she imagined the noise; Surely, it was just a trick her tired mind was playing on her. Then she heard the noise again. The quiet groaning of wooden floorboards under the weight of someone's feet.
Her eyes flickered back and forth from the closed door to the comfortable bedding she was nestled under as she tried to decide what to do. Hesitantly and admittedly a bit regretfully, Y/n decided to leave the warmth that encircled her so temptingly to investigate the source of the noise.
She pushed her blankets back and let her bare feet meet the cold floor. She crept to the door as quickly as she could without waking Ginny or Hermione. Her hand paused midair as she started to wonder what in Rowena's name she was doing, but she shook herself out of it and even with no answer to her own question she let her hand close around the doorknob and push it open. She slipped out of the crack in the doorway she'd created just in time to see the back of a fiery red head of hair.
The vibrant color did nothing to tell her who was walking around the curious house this early since it didn't exactly stand out at the Burrow the way it did in other places. However, the movements of that particular redhead, the way their head swiveled around to ensure they weren't making too much noise, how each footstep fell with a practiced ease of sneaking around but also a gentleness, and the tall almost intimidating nature that was immediately contradicted by the friendly nature that radiated off them told Y/n exactly who it was.
