The Unlikely Rose

Christmas and Colds

Emra woke up on the 22nd of December in her grandparents home; Lilith fast asleep beside her. Emra slid out of bed and pulled a robe over her pajama's. She heard her grandfather's snoring from across the hall, but she also heard the sound of the floorboards creaking. Emra wasn't scared by this noise. It was just her father going to the kitchen. Her mother has told him, that while they were at his parents; he should spent the time out of the case and Bunty can take care of the creatures in their basement.

But, like Emra, even if he can't take care of creatures, he's still up at the crack of dawn. Emra walked to the door, passed Alex asleep on the storable cot. His dark hair was so messy, he looked less like their mother and more like their father. Emra grabbed the doorknob and opened the door very slowly as not to wake up Alex and Lilith.

She descended the stairs; knowing that her hair was sticking up in every which way. When she entered the kitchen, she didn't see her father. Her cousin, John, stood at the counter.

Emra approached him "Morning, John." she whispered as to not wake anyone else up.

John looked at Emra and smiled "Morning, Emra."

John was a sixth year Slytherin at school and every girl she talked to had a crush on him. They had good reason to, though. Uncle Theseus and Aunt Diana were both very good looking and John inherited quite a bit of those genes.

He had black hair and blue eyes. And when he smiled, his smile revealed perfectly straight teeth with a clearly visible gap.

Emra stood in the kitchen for a while before going to the living room; pulling Alice's Adventures in Wonderland off the shelf and curling up in the corner to read. Dilly crawled out from Emra's robe pocket and perched on Emra's wrist.

Emra continued to read until she looked up to meet her mother descending the stairs.  'What was wrong?' as Emra watched her mother do nothing, but grab some medicine and walk back upstairs. 'Now I really want to know what's wrong!' But she got her answer. Her father must've caught a cold, because her sister walked down the stairs with a thermometer.

"Lilith?" Emra said from her corner "Is dad okay?"

Lilith nodded with a smile "Yes. Just a bit of a head cold. Mum said he'll be fine with some rest."

Emra smiled and looked back to her book. An hour later, everyone besides her father were up. Her mother was in the kitchen. She was gathering the ingredients to make some some chicken noodle soup for her father. When she had everything gathered, she waved her wand over the ingredients and they started cooking themselves.

Emra's grandmother had begun making them some breakfast. Emra closed Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and carried it with her to the table. Sitting down, she set the book next to her and Dilly crawled off her hand onto the book.

Her grandmother smiled as she looked over at Emra "So, sweet child. How long have you been up this morning?" her grandmother asked.

Emra smirked "The last time I looked at a clock, it said 5:15." Emra said.

Her grandmother shook her head "You're so much like your father." she looked up for a moment and laughed. Through the laugh, she said "You know, when he was eight; he woke up at four in the morning on the 8th of May and decided to go for a walk in the dark."

Uncle Theseus leaned down toward Emra's ear "Here we go. Funny story. Really funny."

Her grandmother continued "-Newt took himself down to the Hippogriff stables, then walked right passed them into the forest. Got lost for nearly six hours, he did! Scared me to death!" Emra laughed as she imagined her father at eight years old wandering the forest. Her grandmother continued "'course, when we came back inside, he was sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl of porridge."