Delicate | James Potter

summer '76

~

"Alice! Come inside, tea is ready!"

Alice jolted upright. She'd been lying under the large apple tree at the bottom of her garden, nearly asleep under the warm, evening sun. As she did, her notebook and pencil went flying. The girl had been attempting to better her talents at drawing, however each attempt was just as bad, if not worse, than the last. The half finished sketch of her mum looked more like a troll than her mum, and the shaded flower could have been mistaken for some sort of deformed insect.

"Coming." Alice shouted back. She picked up her things and took them to the table before rushing inside to the kitchen. Her mum was the type of person to insist every single window and door was opened wide at even the slightest bit of warmth, and so there was a gentle breeze even inside her home. She didn't mind though, it was nice.

"Did you finish your drawing?" Wendy asked as her daughter took a seat next to her at the table.

"Uh," Alice briefly considered showing her mum the sketch, then decided against it, "no, it was... yeah, no."

"Oh that's a shame." The woman frowned. "I wanted to see."

Alice just laughed an awkward laugh before helping herself to the mash potatoes. Their chat consisted of very little, mainly news about the local town. There was a new couple and their twelve year old son moving into a house on the street opposite and a missing dog and that was about it. There was the heatwave too, leaving everyone incredibly hot and clammy, but it had been discussed so many times now it had lost it's exciting factor. A lot of their conversation involved Wendy asking Alice about wizarding stuff, though she was a bit out of touch with that too.

She never payed for the Daily Prophet so honestly didn't really know much of what was going on considering she was the only Witch in the nearby area (as far as she knew). It was usually Dorcas, or even June, who would keep her up to speed on these type of things, but both had been a little distant this summer. They'd all gotten the train home together and for the most part it was fine, and she'd even met Dorcas for the day a few weeks ago, but there was still something a little off.

"They'll come round." Her mum had told her when she'd asked what she should do. "It's just new for everyone. They're not used to it, you're not used to it, bla bla bla... in a month or so you'll all be closer than ever again."

Alice supposed it were true. Ultimately they were her friends and she loved them more than anything; things would return to normal soon enough. Perhaps she'd even write and ask if they wanted to stay for the weekend soon.

Alice was just telling her mum, for the hundredth time now, about the differences between house elves and garden gnomes when the phone rang. She stood to answer but Wendy waved a hand at her.