"Where then?"
"Not on this Earth."
Hattie Black is the daughter of Sirius Black. Growing up she never had a set home, her parents weren't together and that meant she had to change between houses all of the time. Even during school holidays when she...
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Hattie didn't question Charlie on what he had gotten her, she just sat with him at the table in the Leaky Cauldron and picked at her food. Charlie had taken some of her food from her but he still pushed her to eat more. She didn't protest and ate quietly, her stomach actually hurting from where she was eating so much lately. Hattie also found herself growing more tired because of it as well, her eyes drooping as they finished up eating.
Charlie held onto her hand as they left the pub, nobody questioned it as they could see the girl looking really tired. They continued to look around the shops and he constantly asked if she wanted to buy something but every time she told him no.
"C'mon, you have to want to buy something other than a necklace." Hattie shook her head as they strolled around the bookshop. Charlie stopped and held the girl to look at him, "are you alright?"
"I just feel tired and my tummy hurts a lot lately." She told him, running a hand through her hair so that it moved away from her face.
"That's because you are eating again, your stomach will have shrunk because of the lack of food and now by you eating it is having to stretch and get bigger so that you can eat more and you will be tired because your body is back to functioning properly and having to work a lot more," Charlie explained, his hands rubbing her forearms, "it'll get better, I promise, just like you will."
His hand found hers again and he led her to a corner of Flourish and Blotts specifically for muggle books, his finger ran over the spines of the different books as Hattie, too, looked at them. Her eyes found Peter Pan by J.M Barrie, a personal favourite fairytale she was told as a child.
Hattie plucked it from the shelf and her fingertip ran over the front cover, grazing each of the letters on the front. Opening it, she smelt the pages, it was an old copy but that made it smell even better. Charlie watched happily at the girl flicking through the first few opening pages her lips curling ever so slightly into a smile.
"Are you buying that?" He asked her, breaking her from her trance. She shrugged, "Go on, buy it, you know you want too."
Hattie nodded gently, closing the book and following him to the counter. She placed the book on it and waited for the worker to run it through the till. "Seven galleons and ninety-nine sickles, an extra five sickles if you want a bag." He told her.
"Just the book please." Said, Charlie, as Hattie placed eight galleons onto the counter. The man nodded, handing Hattie back one sickle and she picked her new book up, clutching it to her chest as they weaved their way back out of the shop.
The girl still looked as if she was going to drop and Charlie took it upon himself to decide that it would be best to take her home. They quickly found his mother and informed her what they were doing and if she could let the others know it would be appreciated.
"Okay, dearies, we'll see you when we get back." She pressed a kiss to Hattie's head which was bobbing and falling onto her book droopily. Charlie took Hattie and disapparated back to the home of the marauders, placing his shopping bags on the floor next to the sofa and her book on the coffee table.
Hattie sat down on the sofa, kicking off her shoes and pulling her knees to her chest as Charlie sat beside her, bringing her small frame into his chest, "Do you want me to read you a little?" He offered, pointing at the book.
"I can read for myself."
"I know that silly, I was just offering," Charlie replied.
Sighing, sleepily, she nodded and rested her head on his chest as he leaned forward to get it. Opening the book was like opening a door to a new world and when Hattie closed her eyes it felt as if she was there and everything was happening around her. It was all so vivid.
"All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, 'Oh, why can't you remain like this for ever!' This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.
Of course they lived at 14 [their house number on their street], and until Wendy came her mother was the chief one. She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there is was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner..." As Charlie read on, he could feel Hattie's breathing deepen and her body grow heavier as she shut down, the wonderful world belonging to Peter Pan filling her dreams
For once Charlie knew she was sleeping peacefully with no dreams of suicide, no dreams of wanting to hurt herself and he himself fell asleep not long after, the book staying in his hand that dropped into his lap, his head resting on Hatties.
They were at peace.
BOTH of them were at PEACE.
A/n- Credits to Peter Pan By J.M. Barrie for the opening paragraphs of his wonderful book that is one of my personal favourites. <3
