Fatal Sun - Harry Potter

𝖎𝖛. eclipsed sun

She exited her haven, the hallway walls presenting hundreds of moving pictures that bled down the staircase, a collage of living memories captured by the Tonks family. At first glance you would think you'd entered some sort of shrine for the Tonks' daughters, every picture holding some sort of significance. This included when Dora was a newborn, and Andromeda's eagerness to get her hands on the newest camera resulted in seventy pictures of Dora's mid-day nap, the same midday they had picked it up from Diagon Alley.

When Circe was little and insisted on looking at each picture on their wall and asking 'What was that?' and multiple variations of 'What happened then?' Ted obliged by explaining how the fifteen pictures of the same little baby restlessly sleeping (On the same day, in the same hour) was more of a playful joke that had spanned over the last eleven years. There were a few pictures the Tonks had taken of Circe with her mother when she was a newborn, and those were especially special for the young orphan.

Overall, it was a large collage of sparkling eyes and cherub cheeks, first days at Hogwarts and muggle primary schools, stuffy meetings with Walburga who insisted on seeing her granddaughter once a year while she was still alive. Circe despised the sipping of tea in corsets and stiff small talk over grades and future aspirations, Walburga being careful to dance over the topic of muggles, mudbloods or any other topics that would elicit a wary stare from Ted to Andromeda, who were right in the room next to them. Ultimately, these visits would be cut short as a result of them swooping Circe to a "forgotten visit with the Medi-Witch.' Circe liked the one of her in a pretty blue gown that Walburga had gifted her, which resided next to the two little witches dressed in Halloween costumes with crooked smiles and missing teeth.

The stairs made an awful creaking noise. Much like everything else in their cobbled house, it was old. But it was endearing. And most importantly, it was home. The ivy that curled around their chimney and gray stone outside, the fireplace that was never lit, Circe's muggle knick knacks lying around the house in the most peculiar places, it was all she needed. She finished her descent from the stairs ( thankfully with no mishaps ) and headed in the direction of the kitchen, hoping to watch the sunrise as she drank some coffee and readied herself for the long day approaching.

Today was the day Circe had been dreading all summer, a week passing by since the tragedy at the world cup, and as summer crept closer to its demise, she was due to return to school. She had no worries about the journey or year ahead, just of the goodbyes. They were always the hardest for her, as growing up she never had many other friends her age, thus considering her family the closest thing possible. It made leaving every year that much tougher, the Tonks knit together with the strength of the moon to the earth, placing them as each other's anchors.

Circe had just thrown the wrapper of her crumbly pastry away as her cousin entered the room, pink hair stuck up on all ends, lavender shirt crumpled and stained with various paints. Her face had specks of green and blue from the same paint that stained her shirt, paint splatters a mosaic against her dark skin. As she reheated the kettle on the stove, Tonks looked up to see her little cousin sitting atop the sofa's armchair, a devious smirk resting in the arcs of her mouth. Nymphadora raised a brow, leaning to rest her elbow atop the nearest surface. Unfortunately for her, in true Tonks family fashion, it was the stove which had been steadily rising in temperature since she had clicked the lever. Circe's smirked dropped and quickly turned into an amused expression as she saw Dora realize the mistake that Circe had seen coming.

Dora shook her head mockingly and wagged her free hand at her cousin, a smirk buried in a face of mock hurt, albeit buried poorly since she was currently trying to hold back laughter at her own stupidity.

"Do you really hold such a small amount of regard for your cousin to laugh at her pain?" she asked with faux hurt. Circe stifled another fit of laughter as she walked past her cousin, granting her a fake slap as she exited the room and hollering in her direction.