I Belong

C6

She sat quietly at the dinner table staring at her own plate of mash potatoes ,beans ,steak and carrots .

Leah had made dinner and hadn't put much effort in it .

Athena could hear her banging the pots around  all the way from her room where she'd sat reading The Tales of Beedle the Bard .

The mash potatoes were soggy and the carrots were lumpy and half cooked.  Not to even mention about the beans and the  steak .

But this wasn't why Athena sat staring at her plate in silence .

No it's what happened after her little revelation to her Uncle.

He had sat there with her  beside him on the couch , glaring at her with narrowed eyes for what seemed like hours before he'd stormed out of the house and had banged the door so hard that she'd jumped with her heart racing in fear .

He hadn't come back from wherever he'd gone to until just before dinner and he'd ignored her since then . Not that she minded ,though, it just hurt that her Uncle was angry with her .

Had she done the right thing in running away from England ?. If she'd asked Aunt Andromeda and Uncle Ted , would they have let her come ?.

The answer was no because  Professor Dumbledore had told them that she wasn't to go anywhere except Hermione's and the Weasleys' for the summer .  Why would she get a different answer ?.

Why should she even let an old man like Dumbledore control her life like she was some puppet on a string ?.

She was her own person , wasn't she?.  So why should she be treated like she is nothing more than a chess piece ?.

" Athena", someone spoke up  loudly snapping her out of her thoughts and she realised that someone had been speaking to her .

" Um ... Sorry ,what ?", she asked a little sheepishly looking at the silent faces of the Clearwaters .

" I asked if you wanted to call your folks after dinner and explain to them why you've ran away ", Harry spoke up after a few seconds .

She swallowed ,her throat suddenly feeling very tight. Her Uncle was intelligent , she'd have to give him that . Figuring out that she actually ran away...

She shook her head as her words from that afternoon  played in her mind . She had said in so many words that she'd ran away by telling him that her Aunt and Uncle didn't know she was there . That she was supposed to be at Hermione's.

She'd all but said that she'd ran away . It was easy to put two and two together.

" They don't have a phone", she said in a small voice knowing that ,that was very true . They didn't need phones to contact other people .

Uncle Ted only used a payphone once in a while to call his Muggle family .

Her Uncle Harry  frowned at that. " What do you mean ?. Or are you trying to get out of telling them ?. You know we can get into trouble . They'll say we've kidnapped you or something and ...and..."

Harry's voice trailed off and he sighed in defeat ,his shoulders slumping .

She bit her lip ,feeling guilt push up like bile up in her throat .

Why hadn't she thought everything through before getting on that plane ?. Had she been so set on running away that the consequences seemed insignificant?.

" I'll call Hermione . I'll ask her to send a letter to them . Or I can write one myself ,Uncle . I'm sorry . I just...I just ...I just needed to get away because they were smothering me with their sympathy because my father ....He ....He..."