The train whistles noisily as I make my way down to the station.
Everyone around me speeds up, eager to get down there before the Hogwarts Express departs. I, however, keep to my snail's pace, every now and then glancing back up at the castle. I still haven't seen Harry and I am beginning to worry.
Someone else who I haven't seen since leaving the Room of Requirement that morning is Draco. He did not appear at breakfast, and I haven't seen him amongst the gathered for the train. I wonder if he's been sent home another way - perhaps his mother needed him immediately.
I cast my mind back to our earlier argument and my stomach churns in fury. The amount of hate I have for him is indescribable. He literally is unable to see why I might be a little upset by his father's repeated attempts at destroying my life.
But the sex... well, I don't really have anything to compare it to, but it's everything I need in that moment. And I can't imagine ever doing any of that with anyone except Draco.
Which is a troubling thought.
I wonder what goes through his mind when he fucks me. The hatred in his eyes look genuine and I get the feeling he really enjoys inflicting pain on me, gets off on it, even. But then he went and held me in his arms, and tenderly brushed his lips against my jaw which was still suffering the impact of his iron grip.
I had liked it. It soothed the heavy feeling in my heart that had made itself at home ever since the night of the graveyard.
"Cece- wait!"
I whirl around at the familiar voice, and my heart leaps as I see Harry running down the footpath towards me.
"Harry, where've you been?" I ask at once, relieved that I wasn't going to start the summer without saying goodbye. "I thought I would have seen you last night when I got back from the Ministry. Harry, I'm so sorry, but Sirius is-"
"I know," he cuts me off, his eyes flickering sadly, "I've been trying to find him, hoping that maybe he'll come and haunt Hogwarts with me, but he's nowhere."
"Oh, Harry, I'm sorry," I say gently. "Perhaps he had no unfinished business left and went on?"
"Yeah, I suppose," he mutters morosely, looking hellishly sorry for himself.
"Last night," I rush out, keen to give him something to cling to. "Dumbledore... he told me that I'm the chosen one... that I've got to be the one to kill Voldemort. This could be the thing I need to do to get you reunited with your parents."
"Yeah... I sort of thought that would be the case," Harry says, pushing his glasses up his nose. "But you're not alone, Cece. I'm going to help you every step of the way, in any way I can. And you have Dumbledore too, don't forget. I know he comes across as a bit crazy, but listen to him, Cece. He's the smartest man in the world and will always guide you in the right direction."
Shouts up ahead draw our attention. I squint. It's Ron and Hermione. They are waiting for me and waving.
"Are you coming?" I ask Harry, beckoning down towards the station.
He hesitates and wrinkles his nose. "Nah, I think I might stay on at the castle for the summer. I like it here. It's peaceful. And it has Dumbledore."
"Okay, as long as you're sure?" I ask, feeling worried about him getting lonely. "You can come and visit me anytime, all right? Just don't randomly appear in my bedroom or anything."
"Thanks, Cece," he smiles his fourteen year old smile, "but I should be good. Looking forward to the peace to be honest."
I playfully stick my tongue out at him and he throws his head back and chortles, his green eyes twinkling warmly.
We say our goodbyes and I run down the rest of the path to meet Ron and Hermione. Together, the three of us find a compartment to sit in as I explain to them all what Dumbledore has told me.
"We're with you, don't forget," Hermione beams broadly at me. "Aren't we, Ronald?"
He glances up from his lonely game of Wizards chess, looking disinterested. "What? Yeah... sure. I'll have a Chocolate Frog."
It seems I wasn't the only one missing Harry.
*****
"Professor Dumbledore just called and said he's going to be popping round in twenty minutes to take you out on a mysterious trip!" Mum says, poking her head around my bedroom door. "Isn't that exciting?!"
"What?" I splutter. I glance at the clock. It is nine o'clock at night and I am already in my pyjamas, tucked up in bed and wearing a clay face mask. "You told him no, right?"
Mum laughs as though I have just said something funny. "Oh, don't be silly, pet! You don't say no to Albus Dumbledore!"
My mouth drops open in horror, cracking the clay. "But he's ruining my carefully prepared nighttime routine!"
"That's nice dear," my mother smiles as she begins to back out of the doorway, "I'll see you downstairs in a jiffy, then."
Amazon squawks loudly in her cage. I glance over to her and we exchange looks of exasperation.
"Fucking Dumbledore," I mutter. The Ruiner of Beautiful Skin.
Forty five minutes later, I stomp downstairs having finally chosen an outfit that screams 'hands off, old man'. I can hear Mum and Dad laughing loudly in the sitting room. I strain my ears and can just make out Dumbledore's calm, steady voice.
"... and then I said, Poppy, you really are a naughty gi- ah- Cecilia! So glad you could finally join us! Please, do sit."
Taken aback from being offered a seat by my headmaster in my own home, I stare warily at my options. Mum and Dad have taken the two arm chairs, leaving Dumbledore alone on the ghastly floral sofa.
Damn it! If it isn't bad enough that my parents are happily allowing a crusty old man to kidnap me in the middle of the night, I have to cosy up to him on the fucking sofa too?!
I sit as far as I can away from him, praying I won't catch old people's disease. I recoil in horror as I catch sight of his blackened wrinkled hand that looks deader the mouse on the floor of Amazon's cage. Ew, gross! Honestly, has he never heard of hand cream before? When will people learn that self care is so important?
I pull anxiously at the collar of my polo neck thinking guiltily of what it was hiding.
"Drink?" Dumbledore offers, lifting his good hand to wave his wand. Without me answering, he magics a bottle of port and pours me a glass.
"No thanks," I say, shaking my head. "I'm not old enough to drink alcohol."
As if that's ever stopped me before. I just don't want to drink with old people. Sirius had been the only exception.
"Ah- my apologies."
I am pleased to see that Dumbledore looks wrong footed. Good. That'll teach him to ruin a perfectly good clay mask.
He quickly magics the drink away, and sits up, clearing his throat. Here goes, I sigh inwardly. The Reason For His Visit.
"Firstly," he says, beaming down at me through those half-moon glasses which makes him look like a pedophile. "Sirius has left you his house in his will."
I sit up. Now this is a development, indeed. "He did?" I gasp. "But... I barely really knew him."
"Sadly that was the case with most people in Sirius's life." Dumbledore says solemnly. "But I've checked it over and it definitely states that he wants 'the charming Hufflepuff who lights up every room she walks into' to have it."
Damn, why did he have to die? He would have made an excellent sugar daddy.
"Must be worth quite a bit," my dad says eagerly, his eyes lighting with interest as he leans forward in his arm chair, "how soon can we put it on the market?"
I look up at him sharply. "Funny thing, Dad," I say firmly, "but I thought it was my name on the deeds, not yours."
"Yes, pet, but that swimming pool you made me install cost a fair fortune and the bank have been threatening-"
"Shhh, dear," my mother interrupts him, "I'm sure Professor Dumbledore doesn't want to hear about our money woes."
Money woes? This is news to me. I thought Mum and Dad were doing alright. Damn, just another thing I have to add to my list of crapness.
"I'm afraid the conditions of the ownership states that it cannot be sold or rented out," Dumbledore says gravely, "Twelve Grimmauld Place will remain in Cecilia's name until she dies."
"Darn it," my father grumbles, sitting back heavily in his chair.
"At least your daughter will never be homeless," Dumbledore says with a smile. "Look at it that way, Amos."
My father, however, doesn't look utterly convinced. I myself am already making mental interior plans. Are disco balls still in?
"Anyway," Dumbledore says loudly, "it's about time we get going, Cecilia. I had hoped we would have left by now, but it is what it is. No point dwelling on lost time."
For fuck's sake. I was hoping this was it.
Mum and Dad cheerily wave me off to my death. I resist the urge to middle finger them. Instead, with a fixed smile on my face, I link arms with Dumbledore and try not to breathe in.
He takes me to see another old man and tells me to use my feminine charms to persuade him to take up a teaching job.
"And my parents agreed to this?" I ask, staring up at him in disbelief, my mouth hanging open.
"Well," he chortles, "strictly speaking, they don't even know. Now go on in, my child, and don't be alarmed by the blood."
Careful not to get my new Jimmy Choo's ruined, I gingerly step inside the abandoned looking house, grimacing at the blood spattered walls. What kind of fucking field trip is this?
Dumbledore introduces me to an armchair which happens to be a fat old man called Horace Slughorn. He then excuses himself to go for a shit, taking with him a magazine on knitting patterns.
I study this Slughorn guy with curiosity. Surely he can't be worse than Umbridge?
"Just take the post," I drawl, glancing lazily over his many photos, "you'll only last a year anyway. Our last teacher was taken off into the forest by a herd of angry centaurs. But at least she didn't die like the first one, or become permanently addled in the brain like the second."
Slughorn laughs as though he thinks I'm telling a joke. What is it with adults always doing that?
Anyway, I must have done something right because he agrees to do it.
Dumbledore thanks me and takes me back home. Only my bastard parents have already gone to bed and locked up the house. I don't have a key so can't let myself in, and, as most places, anti-Apparation is installed.
"Ah-" Dumbledore says awkwardly when my parents fail to respond to the doorbell. "Well, this is unexpected. However, Molly Weasley owes me quite a few favours after getting me to look after her kids over Christmas while she swans off to Romania and other such holidays that she supposedly can't afford. So, I think maybe this once, she can spare a bed for you."
And that's how I end up spending the rest of the summer at the Burrow.
*****