New Romantics | Hermione Granger Book IV

|08| Chapter Eight

E I G H T

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It was weird for Saffron to think about how her parents had spent the bulk of their Summer holidays in the house that she was staying in for the night before they were due to leave for the Quidditch World Cup the next day. As Sage showed them around the Gill residence, the home she had grown up in right on the cusp of the Lake District, a memory was spoken about for each and every corner of the house. Whether it be the burn mark on the corner of the bed that Maya was going to be staying, that had been a result of Sage's sister Lilah unsuccessfully steaming her hair and almost burning the entire house down, or a dusty set of gobstones that looked as though they hadn't seen the light of day in a century- though according to Sage it had only been a decade, but Saffron's presumption was close enough.

Beautiful was an inadequate word to use in describing the land around them. One could have argued that it was similar enough to Squires in Holyhead, as the scenery around them certainly had similarities. However, unlike Squires, the Gills was far brighter and lacked any of the dull structures that were around Squires. Moreover, it was evident that Sage wasn't too concerned with ensuring that the place didn't have so much as a speck of dust on it.

Her demeanour in regard to everything was far more low-key in comparison to Squires, which Saffron and Rachel (who were sharing Sage's old room) were particularly grateful for.

"I already love it here," Rachel let out a loud sigh, collapsing dramatically into Sage's old bed, as Saffron took a seat in the spare one opposite her. "It's so lovely already,"

Their tour of the house had just finished and Sage had given the Mitchells time to get their bearings of the place and to distribute their belongings as they saw appropriate. Maya had her own room, staying in Sage's older sisters Lilah's room, whilst Rowan was sharing with both Noah and Harry, who were currently outside at a nearby swing, chatting away animatedly. That made Saffron feel confident that she too would get on with Noah. Harry might not have had the best judgements when it came to heightened life-threatening situations (or, perhaps he did consider they hadn't died yet, Saffron, however, thought that the fact that they almost died meant he didn't have a good read) but he did have a good read on people. Saffron saw no reason by his apparent read on Noah wouldn't hold up to his actual character.

"Yeah, well, don't get used to it," Although she was optimistic, Saffron didn't want Rachel to put all her eggs in one basket as they might still have to go back to Squires next Summer. "I don't want us to get our hopes up, you know?"

"I wish I could think like that," began Rachel, sitting up straight on the bed and moving over to examine a bookshelf hanging over the end of it. "But I can't, my hopes are up higher than they ever have been before," There was a pause that Saffron didn't even have the chance to fill as Rachel let out a small gasp. "Wow, look at this!"

Saffron moved and sat down beside Rachel at the edge of her bed to see that her sister was holding a polaroid. Her mouth hung ajar at the sight of it, more specifically at the sight of the five girls in it, all of whom were giggling up at Saffron and Rachel, completely bemused by whatever device they were using to capture the moment. They couldn't have been any older than sixteen and Saffron's heart felt a strange combination of wholeness at the sight of happiness but emptiness knowing how things turned out for, at the very least, four of the five in the picture.

At the left-hand corner, on the outskirts of the group, was Harry's mum Lily, with her flowing auburn hair and eyes that looked like they had been taken out of Harry and put into her. Beside her, was Amanda, who looked similar to how she did today both in her physical features and how she carried herself, as she looked the most serious out of the group. Maybe that was why she clashed with Sage, as it was clear from the polaroid that Sage was the least serious of them all and was in a fit of hysterics for whatever reason. Then came Saffron and Rachel's mother, Prina, who had the ribbon that was nested in Saffron's hair at that very moment attached to her own. There was only one in the picture that was unbeknownst to them, a girl with dark curls and light brown skin, grinning across at the other four girls from that edge. Saffron hadn't seen her in any of the pictures she'd been given of her parents before.

"They look so happy," gushed Rachel in delight, beaming down at the picture in admiration. "This must have been a year or so before she had Maya,"

Rachel had grown to be delicate in how she mentioned their parents. She was prone to upsetting herself, even if she didn't show her sadness to her siblings, she felt it herself and did her utmost to minimise it. Hence, why she didn't specifically reference their mother as being their mother, rather merely as 'she'.

"Yeah, they do," Saffron smiled down at the picture fondly. Similarly to how Rachel felt, Saffron too was pleased to see her mother looking happy. They knew very little of substance about her. Everything they knew had come from a third-party source and was word of mouth. Pictures provided them with a sense of proof and justification in their belief that it was a sickness that took their mother away from them, not that she made the choice herself. 

However, even though it was nice to see their mother smiling broadly in the picture surrounded by friends, there was one thing that Saffron focused on above all. 

Who was the unknown girl in the picture and why hadn't she heard of her to this point?