Blessings ; George Weasley

Six

They looked at me and while Nadine stayed sitting, Henry stood up.

George was in the kitchen, drinking out of a glass of apple juice.

"This isn't okay." I said. "You don't show up at my house at ten in the morning. You want to speak to me? Call me."

"Would you have agreed to talk to us if we called?" Nadine asked and tilted her head.

I folded my arms over my chest, gritting my cheek, before exhaling.

"You? No... Henry? Maybe." I shrugged. "So what is it? Why are you here? You know, I'd much rather be asleep than listen to what either of you have to say."

"We just need to tell you something and then we'll leave." Henry said. "We don't want to bother you but you need to be prepared."

Nadine then stood up.

"Abram is out of Azkaban."

"Nadine—" Henry sighed. "...you could have gone about that differently."

Nadine didn't respond. She sat back down while Henry looked at me.

"He was released yesterday. He's gone back to Melissa."

I gulped, unfolding my arms.

"Dad is out?"

Henry nodded.

"But he got life." I said. "He's supposed to be serving life."

"In his case, life was twenty years."

"Right." I nodded. "And he's been in there for how long? Seventeen years? That means he has three years left."

"He got out because of good behaviour." He explained. "And you need to know that he's out in case he comes looking for you. They don't know where I am. They haven't seen me since I was eighteen and they still don't know that Nadine is alive, so you're the only one in danger of him showing up."

Him showing up.

"Well that won't happen." I said. "Because mum... or dad have no idea where I live. The last time I saw mum, I lived in a flat about an hour from London and now... now I live three and a half hours away."

I took a step further into the room.

"Plus, my last name is no longer Willows. They won't find me." I said. "Thank you for telling me though. You can leave now."

They looked at each other and I stepped aside to make room for them to walk through the door, staring at the floor until they did leave.

They didn't say a word to me, but I didn't want them to.

"Am I in the wrong?" I asked George and looked at him.

"What do you mean?"

"It's been three years but I'm still so angry at the both of them."

"Dia..." George put his glass down. "...you have every right to be angry. They may have had their reason to leave, but you were a child and you were left completely alone in an abusive household. Plus... Nadine faked someone's death... Fred's dead, told him I had committed suicide and broke my family for fourteen years. I'm angry too."

I looked at him before I walked closer to him, making my way around the kitchen island. I looked up at him as I wrapped my arms around his back.

When he wrapped his around my shoulders, I laid my head against his chest and closed my eyes.

"I don't really care if my dad is out of Azkaban." I said. "I've got everything I could want and need in life, he doesn't have our address and he doesn't have my surname either. He won't find me and he doesn't have a reason to either."

George brushed his fingers through my hair and I tilted my head back to look up at him.

"Did you call for an appointment?"

"Not yet." He shook his head. "I'll do it now though."

"Okay." I smiled weakly. "Then I'll go brush my teeth and forget that Henry and Nadine showed up here."

He pressed a kiss to my forehead before I stepped back and made my way back upstairs, slipping into the bedroom.

I continued to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror while brushing my teeth.

What I told George wasn't true.

Of course I cared that my dad was out of Azkaban. Seventeen years had gone by. I was twelve, seven months away from turning thirteen when he got locked up.

I was a child.

And now he was out and he got to be free after everything he had done. The death eaters who had been sentenced, had been sentenced to life. Actual life instead of twenty years, but my father... he had probably negotiated and managed to only get twenty.

But now, at the age of sixty-six, I couldn't see him come looking for me. My parents were getting older.

As I brushed my teeth, I walked over to the bin and stepped on the petal to open it, looking at the pregnancy test down there.

I didn't know what I was hoping for. That a second line would have showed up over night?

But there was still only one line to be seen. I closed the bin again, shaking my head as I walked back to the sink.

We just had to keep on trying.