Managing The Mischief ~ Sequel to A Master of Mischief

~ Chapter 5

**Alithea’s POV**

I sit staring at the stars. There’s a sort of homey feeling here, a kind of warmth despite the icy snow.

“What the- Alithea?!”

“Hi Papi,” I say. Papi stands in the gateway, looking shocked.

“I thought you stayed at school!” he exclaims, hurrying up the path, “how did you get here?”

“Train,” I reply, “I walked from the station.”

“That must have taken you hours!” he cries, opening the door and ushering me inside, “come on, you must be freezing!”

He conjures some flames in the fireplace and forces me to sit in front of it. I take off my coat, hat and gloves and shake the snow off them. Papi bustles around in the kitchen for a while and then brings out two steaming mugs of hot chocolate with a pink and a white marshmallow.

“Alright, talk,” he says. I take a long sip of hot chocolate.

“I didn’t want to go home,” I say, “but I didn’t want to stay at school. I would’ve been the only Gryffindor there.”

“Why didn’t you want to go home?”

I shrug.

“Too many people.”

He watches me carefully for a long time.

“You’re so much like your mother,” he says eventually.

“No, I’m not!” I protest. He smiles.

“Yes, you are,” he replies, “this is the exact thing she did when she was pregnant with you. She went off on her own and hid out here for a few weeks.”

“I’m not like her,” I insist. He chuckles.

“If you say so,” he shrugs, “come on, it’s late. You should be in bed.”

He leads me upstairs to a small room with pale green wall paper. There’re pictures of Papi with a small, black haired baby.

“This was your Mum’s room,” Papi says, “she hasn’t slept here since she was three, but everything here still reminds me of her.”

I look around and think of Mum. There’s a picture in one corner that she must have drawn. It’s of a daffodil.

I change into my pyjamas and get into bed. Right beside the bed is a picture of Mum as a toddler, surrounded by people, all of them smiling and laughing. Tears burn my eyes. She doesn’t know what it’s like to be in a big family. Everything was always about her. She was never lonely.

I pull the picture down and thrust it under the bed.

“Do you want to go to the Burrow for Christmas?” Papi asks the next morning. I shake my head.

“Don’t tell them I’m here,” I say. He nods once and checks his watch.

“I have to get to work,” he tells me, “don’t go straying off, okay? Stay in the house.”

“Okay.”

I walk out into the backyard and look around. It’s only very small, but on one side there’s a nice garden. Well, I could imagine it being nice in spring. On the other side is a wild mess of blackberry bushes. I can see something blue in the middle and walk over to look. It’s a blue ball. I find a stick and use it to drag the ball out.

It’s about the size of a bludger and it was probably bouncy once, but now it’s stiff and brittle. If I dropped it, it would probably crack.

A few snowflakes begin falling onto it. I look up and see them tumbling towards me. The ball falls from my hands as I lift them up towards the sky. I feel the ice hit my hands and melt, pooling in my palms. The snow falls on my face, soft as a feather, catching in my hair and eyelashes.