December 27th lupislune's entry!
The faint scent of charred wood hung on the air as the smoldering embers hissed quietly in the stone fireplace, cooling from the evening fire. Monumental black serpent shaped andirons protruded from the firebox taking up a majority of the space on the equally large hearth. The fireplace took up just a portion of one of the walls in the not so modest sized room. Rich wood and bold auburn colors covered the walls. A tastelessly gaudy gold chandelier hung from the center of the room although it was not lit.
A rip from a letter being opened interrupted the near silence and Harry unfolded a heavily scented bit of parchment. He began to read, an expression of disinterested frustration slowly growing upon his face.
“Is that another one?” a ginger haired girl said as she folded down the copy of the daily prophet she was reading just enough to see Harry haphazardly restuffing the envelope in the dim light, tossing it onto the console table next to where he was sitting.
“Yeah, it is,” Harry said, picking up and examining the next piece of mail.
“You would think those letters would have stopped by now,” the ginger haired girl added, readjusting the reading candle next to her. “After all, it has been over fifteen years since you left Hogwarts”
“I thought so too, Ginny, but there will always be someone who thinks they can write a new perspective on those events, I suppose,” Harry responded as the girl went back to looking at the paper.
A door slammed from somewhere above them. The unmistakable sound of a child running down a hallway filled the air. Harry followed the sound with his eyes as it reached, then climbed down the stairs, then across the creaking wood of the entry hall, to just outside the partially opened heavy wood parlor doors. The door began to squeak as a pair of small hands appeared around it, sliding it open.
“Daddy, I can’t sleep. Albus keeps saying there is a boggart under my bed,” a young girl in tartan pajamas, sleeves slightly too long, said as she appeared from behind the doors. Harry exchanged a quick glance with Ginny, then smiled brightly. “Why don’t you come over here and lie down next to me on the sofa, Lily, and after this pile of mail, I’ll fix ol’ Albus.”
Lily beamed, made her way over to the sofa, climbed up next to her Dad, fluffed one of the pillows, and reclined against it. Harry unfolded a crimson blanket from the back of the sofa, covered Lily, and continued looking through the mail. Harry made it through several pieces more pieces of mail without incident, grinning at a Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes catalog as he shifted position slightly.
An ember from the fireplace popped suddenly, and Lily jumped,. “It’s ok,” Harry said, putting the catalog aside, “it is just the fire.”
“Daddy?” Lily inquired in a sleepy voice, “You never told me how you and mommy met.” Ginny shifted in her chair.
“Are you sure?” Harry said glancing toward Lily, a curious grin growing on her face. The young girl shook her head. “I’ll tell you, but you have to try and get some sleep, Ok?” he added. Lily nodded; hear eyes now filled with sleepy excitement.
“It was the morning of my day at Hogwarts. My Uncle Vernon had left me at the train station, and I was trying to find Platform 9 ¾. There were people everywhere trying to stay dry from the rain while hurrying along as to not miss their trains. A few times I almost overturned my trolley dodging their hurried disorganized motions. I was getting some pretty odd looks too from the muggles for carrying around an owl,” Harry laughed, quite amused. “While making my way through the crowd, I had asked several people how to get to the platform, but they either ignored me or asked me if I were crazy.”
“How did you finally find the train?” Lily asked.
“After some time, I made my way to the area between platform nine and ten, and that is where I ran into this group of red haired people talking about muggles. There were six of them in total, and four of them were carrying items similar to what I had on my trolley. One was a bit younger than me, a girl, with flowing red hair, and the last one; I later came to find out, was their mother. I watched three of them walk through what looked to be a solid wall before I asked one of the people remaining how to get onto the platform. Their mother was more than happy to show me how to get onto platform 9 3/4, but I couldn’t help but notice the younger girl that hid behind her mother, giving me shy but inquisitive looks in between her mother’s words. It gives me tingly feelings in my stomach just thinking about it. The way she looked at me for those brief moments was mesmerizing. You know, I think that she might have been a bit taken with me, even though we had just met.”
Ginny snorted from behind the prophet.
“I didn’t see much of her after that until the following year,” Harry continued frowning slightly in Ginny’s direction, “But I was nearly always thinking about her. When I had the chance, and when I wasn’t studying, I would try to get your Uncle Ron give me information.”
“I became good friends with your Uncle Ron, the first year at Hogwarts which allowed me to pester him a bit more about that young girl back on the train platform. I even got umm….’invited’ back to the Burrow the next summer,” Harry said with a rather excited tone. “I arrived early one day in June. The cool morning air was still crisp as I made my way into the Burrow’s kitchen with your uncles. Your grandmother invited me to sit at the table while she coerced the events of that morning from your uncles. But that is a story for a different time.”
“Then your mom came down the stairs, and met my eyes. She was everything that I remembered from the previous year on the train platform, except for maybe being a bit taller. We exchanged few words over breakfast that day, but through the days and weeks that followed filled with playing Quidditch, chasing the gnomes out of the gardens, and trying to get another look at that flying car, we started to become good friends. That summer I came to realize how amazing she was, although it be several years before we actually saw each other romantically,” Harry sighed, almost mesmerized in nostalgia. “Your mother was and still is one of the fiercest, powerful and loving witches I have ever known.”
The orange embers of the fire had long since burned out and cool air was now escaping into the room from the fireplace. Harry put down the last piece of mail, sighed again, and glanced over to Lily. She was fast asleep, clutching onto the crimson blanket with her small hands.
“You have a very interesting version of events,” Ginny said grinning coyly as she set the paper aside, stretched and rose from the chair across from Harry. “I’m going to head to bed”
“I’ll be right behind you,” Harry yawned, slowly rising from the sofa, scooping Lily up in his arms and following Ginny up the stairs.