The Half-Blood Princess

Memories

For once, Harley listened to McGonagall's advice and as soon as her speech ended, she Apparated back to Spinner's End. The house was as dark and dusty as always, but it was filled with a new kind of silence; a bigger, colder emptiness. She hated it.

The things that McGonagall has sent were on the desk in the library, cluttering it. Harley started a fire in the grate and did a quick Scourgify on the room to get rid of the extra dust before she stepped up to the desk and sat down in her father's chair. It faced the fireplace, and Harley looked at the photos on the mantelpiece, at the one she had framed herself recently, the one of her mother and father when they were eleven that she had found in the copy of Carrie Lily had given Severus.

The house was warm now, but it was still too silent with only the crackling fireplace for company. Harley pointed her wand at the old record player and sent a record into it. David Bowie, the same one her father had been listening to when Lily had come over in tears. That was better, and Harley then began to sift through her father's things, feeling a bit like a naughty teenager who had been caught snooping.

There were his notes and potion recipes, things that she immediately put aside for later use. Her father was a genius, and she might be able to use his work in the future. He did not have much else, not being a man of a materialistic nature. He owned more books than anything. It was only when she came across black, leather bound journals did she pause.

Her father's private thoughts. Did she really want to read them? To invade his privacy like that? She decided that she couldn't, not right then, and put them aside. She'd rather sort through the potion notes. It was busywork, and she preferred it to anything that might clutter up her already tumultuous emotions.

She fell asleep at the desk, and this night she did not dream.

****

Two days later, Harley was contacting contractors in the Wizarding World to help set her shop, which had only been damaged a little in the war, to rights so she could return to work. While she was making notes on things she needed, an owl knocked its beak at the front door. In this Muggle town, it startled her.

There was a small package from Molly Weasley that she took with her into the library and opened. Inside were over two dozen photographs and a note. She wondered how Molly knew where she was, and her money was on McGonagall.

Harley, while I am sure you want to be alone to grieve in your own way, I found these while going through some film that had not yet been developed. A few others Professor McGonagall sent us from Hogwarts. I thought you might like them. If you ever need anything, even just a hug, you know where I am.

All my love, Molly

PS--Arthur, Bill, Fleur, Charlie, Percy, George, Ron, and Ginny say hi!

Harley smiled and then took out the photos. They were all of her and Fred. The top one had been taken by accident, probably by Ginny's clumsy hand. It was sideways, and showed her talking to Fred at King's Cross, as he was showing her how to get to Platform 9 ¾. There was another from that day, this one deliberate, taken as she, Fred, George, and Lee were waving out the window of the Hogwarts Express.

A few were from the trip they'd taken to Surrey the summer before fifth year. She hadn't even recalled anyone having a camera on them. In the car, talking outside of the fast food place right before he'd kissed her, and one in the restaurant they'd gone to to discuss what they'd found. Fred had his arm warmly around her shoulders.

At Hogwarts, sitting together in the Great Hall, oblivious that anyone else was around. In the common room, she reading Lily's journals as she leaned against his shoulder. Watching the twins practice Quidditch in the common room while Percy yelled at them to get off their brooms. They must have all been taken by Colin, the poor kid.