2.| ✮𝓛𝓸𝓿𝓮, 𝓑𝓲𝓵𝓵. ✮ {𝓑. 𝓦𝓮𝓪𝓼𝓵𝓮𝔂}

\\𝓉𝒽ℯ ℯ𝓃𝒹\\

epilogue (5/5)

The summer months seemed to end abruptly as the morning of September first hit, sending the inhabitants of Shell Cottage into a frenzy. "Dad!" Georgia shouted from her bedroom overlooking the garden, "What did you do with my green flannel? I was going to wear it today!"

"Who says I did anything with it?" Bill called back, standing behind the island-counter in the kitchen and pouring himself and Eleanora steaming mugs of coffee.

There was a racket and a sudden thumping noise from Georgia's room. Bill and Eleanora raised their eyebrows at each other, then Georgia shouted, "You were the last one to do laundry!"

Bill sighed and set his mug down, starting towards the stairs. "Might've put it in your pile," he said to Eleanora on his way out. She shrugged and started adding cream and sugar to her coffee, gazing out the window as she did so. The day was warm and breezy, a light wind blowing across the beach and making the trees up on the hill sway back and forth.

Bill returned in a minute, saying, "It was in her closet. Have you seen her room lately? It's a mess."

"Well, we've got to start thinking of what we're going to do with it when she moves out anyway," Eleanora murmured softly. The fact that her daughter would be starting her final year at Hogwarts was just beginning to hit her. "Reckon she'll be moving out once she finds a job."

"Ahhh, I wouldn't bet on it," Bill said in a comforting voice. "I mean, I at least lived with my parents for my first summer after Hogwarts. Then I moved back after Egypt, so it's not like she'll be gone forever."

Eleanora nodded her head, still lost in thought. "Think she'll stay close? And visit us?"

"El-" Bill moved around the counter to wrap his arms around Eleanora's shoulders from behind and bury his face in her hair. "-El, of course she's going to stay close. We're a family. We're nothing like you were with your parents- she's not going to try and distance herself-"

At that moment, Georgia jumped the last four steps on her way down to the kitchen and landed catlike on the floor before joining her parents at the counter. "Ugh, will you two save all the gross stuff until after I'm gone?" she said, pouring herself a cup of coffee and pouring only a bit of sugar into it, the same way Bill took his. "Honestly, it's embarrassing."

Bill chuckled and looked up at his daughter, not removing his arms from around Eleanora. Then, in a half-joking tone, he said, "Georgie, you're not planning on abandoning us completely after school, are you?"

Georgia let out a derisive snort and then choked on her coffee for a second. "Are you kidding? I haven't the faintest idea where to go after school. You're going to have to put up with me for at least another summer." Then, muttering under her breath about them 'trying to get rid of her,' she went back upstairs to fetch her trunk.