✔️ 𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐓&𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 → 𝑓. 𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑙𝑒𝑦

00 | C H A N G E S

•••
sometimes beginnings aren't
              so simple.
sometimes goodbye's the only way.
•••

   She appeared during the night. Fifteen year old Lynnea Bailey entered the front door of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place at two a.m., her face expressionless, her emotions dead empty. She looked exhausted, tired, and something in her sparkling green eyes seemed to be forever broken. Unbelievable that just ten hours ago she had been a happy, cheerful girl, that was looking forward to start her fifth year at Beauxbatons Academy. But now her whole life was shattered into a million little fibres.

   With her in the hallway of Grimmauld Place was an old man; his white beard was about a whole meter long, his piercing blue eyes stared through some half moon shaped spectacles into the gloomy corridor. Professor Albus Dumbledore, that was his name, and he was the one to take Lynnea away, saving her out of the ruins of the life she once knew.

   While they were obviously waiting for something to happen, pictures crossed Lynnea's mind; like burnt on her retina, she saw them lying in their bed, eyes staring dead empty up to the ceiling, without seeing it at all. Lynnea had walked into their room, already a strange feeling in her tummy. It was Sunday, and she'd spent the night with her best friend Nicolette. As she came home, there was no sign of her parents, but she predicted them to be still asleep, so she did some breakfast, and then again left the house to take the neighbor's dog for a walk. She first went suspicious, when she returned at around three in theafternoon, and still there was a creepy silence laying over the house. Lynnea stepped into her parents bedroom and all she found were their corpses, without a harm, no scratch, no blood, just silence and empty eyes, cold skin ...

   She lightly shook her head to dispel the pictures, that for sure would haunt her in her dreams forever. But for now she shoved them aside, as she noticed the shadow of a figure moving through the corridor.

    "This, Lynnea", Professor Dumbledore said in the soft voice, that managed to calm Lynnea in a strange kinda way ever since they met a couple of hours ago, "is Remus Lupin."

   The man stepped into the warm light of a torch, enlighting his face. His hair had not few grey strains, large black shadows lay under his eyes, and white scars marked his already pale face. But a friendly smile played his lips, showing, that he was still a young man, that obviously had a hell of a journey lived.

   "Remus will take care for you as long as you're staying here", Professor Dumbledore went on. "If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask him."

   Lynnea managed to crack a smile, as she took the man's outstretched hand to shake it. But there was no chance to keep her lips curled up like this for long, as the grief pulled them back down merciless. Otherwise still she was unable to cry, a numbness killed every emotion that was trying to form inside her.

   "I have to excuse myself for now", the old wizard told Leah, having a look at a watch in his robe's pocket. "But we'll meet again soon, there's still a lot of stuff to point out, before you can leave for Hogwarts at September first. I'll come around in a few days."

   Lynnea nodded shortly, unable to speak, as she was not sure what might happen, if she'd use her lips to something different than pressing tightly together. Professor Dumbledore threw her a last smile and shared a glare with Remus Lupin, before he turned around and vanished back into the night.

   "So, welcome at Grimmauld Place", Remus Lupin said, smiling at her. "As it is late, most of the inhabitants are already asleep. Yet there are still some people down at the kitchen, you might want to meet, before I show you your room."