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BELLA DIDN'T LIKE SUMMER MUCH, not since she'd gotten her first Hogwarts letter and learned that she didn't have to be stuck at the Dursleys her whole life. Ever since then, summer had felt like a waiting game, something she just had to make it through as best she could before getting back to the place and people she loved.
This summer, she and Harry had taken to lying in the flower bed outside Number Four. He had started because he was trying to listen to the evening news, and every time he tried to in the house, the Dursleys acted like he was scheming to commit war crimes – if only they knew it was very much the opposite. Bella didn't share that particular purpose in her own flower bed lounging. She lay there during the day, when Harry didn't, and she liked how secluded it was, how cool the dirt felt against her skin during the sweltering heat of the summer. It was far too hot for England.
Sometimes, when she closed her eyes, she was even able to imagine she was back in the chest with Moody. Things had somehow been much simpler then.
Most of her time was spent doing household chores, though. The Dursleys seemed to miss having built-in servants when she and Harry were at school, and they worked them harder than ever over the summers to make up for it. Dudley had gotten stranger this summer, too – he was usually off galavanting with his gang, terrorising the neighbourhood kids and destroying public property, because he was obviously a Kool Kid™, but when he was in the house, Bella noticed that he was very often looking at her.
She didn't notice at first, so she didn't know how long his staring had been occurring, only that the first time she'd caught him was almost definitely not his first session of watching her. It was when she was dusting the living room, as she'd been callously instructed to by her aunt, and Dudley was sitting on the couch, watching TV. It was raining that day, so he couldn't go out with his friends, and she and Harry couldn't lay in the flower bed, instead condemned to staying in the house and, as always, making no noise and pretending they didn't exist. When she glanced at Dudley to see if he was still watching the telly and would make a fuss if she dusted the TV stand, he was already looking at her, and it seemed to take him a long time to realise she'd caught him at it. He was horrid at playing it off, too, just quickly darting his eyes right past her and pretending he'd been staring at the wall the whole time. It was very clear that was not where he'd been looking.
It was strange, though, the way he was watching her. She'd seen it enough times to be able to analyse it now. It wasn't predatory or evil like she would imagine it to be – it seemed thoughtful and hesitant, which were things she didn't know her cousin was capable of feeling, much less portraying, for extended periods of time.
