Atropos → george weasley

xlii. a funerary birthday

In her periphery, Ottilie saw that Simon had taken his father by the shoulders to restrain him.  "No, I am so sorry. He's just exhausted, and he woke up a bit foggy a moment ago."

"Okay," said the nurse in a slow, unsure way. She was probably wondering who the supposed killer demon was supposed to be.

Then, the nurse's eyes landed on Eleanor van der Hoeven's unmoving form. In silence, she approached the woman's bed and pressed a stethoscope to her chest.

"Right," said the nurse uneasily, her brows knitting. She looked at the watch face on the inside of her wrist. "Time of death, five twenty-two p.m."

It was about an hour and a half after Trelawney's prediction. Ottilie thought she ought to let her know—that woman really needed this win.

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Henry wouldn't stop looking at Ottilie murderously, so she was sent off home shortly after.

About halfway back, Ottilie realized she would be here for another six days, stuck in the same house as a man who apparently thought she was evil.

Back at the house, she locked herself in the guest room. It was impersonally decorated with generic-looking watercolors of the beach. The bed was extremely springy. But, it did feel nice to lay back with a book and try her best to purge that horrific scene from her memory.

Her family returned hours later. It took approximately another hour before anyone knocked on Ottilie's door.

She opened it, surprised to see not only her mother but also Willa.

"I really hope you won't get in trouble for this, but we had to tell your aunt about your being a witch. Your grandfather essentially told her everything himself while we were in the hospital."

"The orderly asked Simon and me how long our father had been suffering from dementia," said Willa with a feeble smile.

Ottilie tried to smile back and waved for Willa to follow her into the room. She went over to shuffle through her bag of textbooks, picking out the ones from her favorite classes to let Willa look through.

"I don't know if my mum told you, but I can't do magic out of school, so I don't have any real way to prove it to you. I proved it to your parents with a book of magical photos—they move on their own when you develop them in a special solution."

There was a canny shine in Willa's smile. "I don't need you to prove it to me, Lottie." She accepted the armful of books Ottilie handed her and sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor.

As she flipped through her textbooks, she asked Ottilie all sorts of questions about her classes, her teachers, what Hogwarts was like, what her friends were like. They could have sat there for hours, Ottilie reckoned, but eventually everyone was summoned back out to the kitchen for a dinner of Chinese takeaway.

Henry went to bed without eating, which was for the better because Ottilie didn't want to be in the same room with him anyway.

No one said much to each other. Simon and Willa had some color back in their faces. It was now Adelaide who looked terrible. If Ottilie were to guess, she was distressed about what their grandfather said about Ottilie.

The family decided it was best to have Ottilie stay out of the house as much as possible for the week. So, after dinner, she went with Willa in her Vauxhall Astra to the small, cheap hotel she was staying at until after the funeral.

Both of them exhausted, they got ready for bed in silence and went right to sleep.

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