The Chaser's Heart

Year 5: The Beach

'It's so hot today,' Mum grimaced and fanned at her face with a handkerchief. 'All of the karamellpudding and skolebolle will melt.'

'It's a good thing we know magic,' I smirked at her.

It was hot, but it was a brilliant day for the beach. Simultaneously one of my favourite and least favourite things about the summer holidays was being able to run on the beach early in the morning before all the tourists and holidaymakers arrived. I loved the water and that I didn't have to wear trainers at the beach, but the sand was bloody hard to run in.

I hadn't been that morning though. On Fridays and Saturdays, Mum and I set up our stall near the beach to sell Mum's Norwegian treats. It was something we'd done for as long as I could remember. They were popular among the locals in the winter months, but it was a much more profitable enterprise in the summer. We'd probably only be out here for a couple of hours after the first ferry got in before everything was gone.

'How far have you been running?' Mum asked.

I knew she didn't particularly care about my training regime, especially since she'd received the letter from Professor Flitwick with the details of my Quidditch accident in February.

'Three laps back and forth along the beach,' I replied.

I also wasn't allowed speaking English in the summer unless other people were around who couldn't also speak Norwegian. Which was rare, we kept to ourselves while I was home. Mum didn't want me to forget how to speak our native language.

'That's more than last summer,' she commented.

'That is the general idea,' I laughed.

We were distracted from our conversation temporarily when a family stopped at the booth to buy some of the skolebolle that Mum had been so worried about. They paid in muggle notes, which Mum was more familiar with than I was. Though, there was a discreet sign on the table with a picture of a Galleon on it, letting people who understood know that we accepted wizarding currency as well.

'You work so hard,' she sighed at me after they'd left.

'I like it,' I replied. 'Really, I do. It helps me take my mind off things.'

'What things?' She laughed. 'You are only fifteen, soon you will be an adult and then you will have things you'll need to take your mind off!'

'I'm almost sixteen,' I grumbled.

Sometimes it bothered me how unnerved my mum seemed about Jacob's and my father's disappearances. I was all she knew for sure she had left. Maybe she had just decided to cut her losses and spend time with me, the only one left, instead of going looking for the others.

Or maybe she was just really good at hiding it.

I, on the other hand, was not.

Professor Dumbledore's warning from the end of last term had never been far from my mind since the summer began and I had significantly less to distract me at home than I did I school. I realized I'd been so focussed on finding Jacob and carrying on with the quest that he started, the one that he'd become so obsessed with, that I hadn't really stopped to consider it might not be my purpose like it had been Jacob's.

But if it wasn't, what was? What was I meant to do with myself? I still wasn't entirely sure if I ought to continue looking for the Vaults. In all honesty, if I hadn't heard Jacob's voice telling me he was trapped in the next Vault, I would probably let it all go, leave it with the professionals to try to sort.