ᴀ ᴅ ʀ ɪ ᴇ ɴ ɴ ᴇ [1]

09. lullaby

chapter nine

LULLABY

• ────────⋅☾ ☽⋅──────── •

IT WAS A BLISTERING HOT SUMMER'S DAY. The grass was browned with the scarcity of water, the trees withering and twisting towards the shade in place of the sun. No one had put a foot outside for days, save the two odd five-year-olds. The Potters never missed a chance to escape from the house; through rain or shine, they would be seen, without a fail, climbing the old tree on the corner of the park every afternoon.

No one knew what they saw in the half-dead oak. No one really knew how they climbed it, either - the first branch was two meters off the ground.

And so it was that on the boiling hot summer's day, Adrienne and Harry jumped out the living room window and raced to their tree, ascending it faster than ever, keen for the cool shade of the dense leaves. The two settled down in their favorite fork, watching the leaves ruffle with the warm breeze.

"Wouldn't it be awesome if we built a treehouse up here and lived in it?" Harry asked, revisiting a conversation that had been had many a time beforehand.

"Yeah. . ." said Adrienne, smiling happily. "We could be like squirrels and eat acorns and climb to the toppest branch every day," she dreamed, not knowing of the toxins concealed inside the nut.

"Oh, and when winter comes," Harry started, rattling off a tale believable to none but himself and his twin.

The twins sat comfortably in the tree for a while, lost in their own fantasy of scampering up and down branches, leaping from tree to tree.

"Ada," said Harry suddenly, and Adrienne smiled at the sound of her nickname. "Promise me something."

"Anything," Ada said, meaning it. She would go to any length for her twin.

Harry looked at her, bright emerald eyes locking with pale green.

"Promise me that we'll never, ever, hide anything from each other."

"Of course, Harry. I would never, ever, with heather, lie to you or keep something from you. Not for the world," she said in all seriousness.

"Not even for a chance to punch Dudley?"

"Not even."

Harry smiled and nestled into her cold side, his head resting on her cool shoulder. Adrienne closed her eyes, tipping her head back and breathing in the scent of the tree bark.

• • •

I sit up, panting. Though my skin is as cold as ever, my tank top is drenched in sweat, my small blue shorts sticking to me.

Promise me something.

I cringe. For six years, I've stayed true to that promise. And all that was undone in one evening.

I sigh and lie back down, smushing my head into the pillow, running the Hat's words through my head for the five-hundredth time, but not finding an ounce more sense in them than I did the first time. I'd do well in Slytherin, obviously, but the Hat was under strict orders to put me in another house, and my fanatic father would go ballistic if it was Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff, so I was lectured about how I'd fail miserably and then sorted.

Maybe the Sorting Hat finds fun in degrading pupils' self esteem by telling them they'll all die and fail. Maybe that's why Harry was so down. And as for my father, James Potter - he's dead. And he's definitely not fanatical.