Bitter ━ HP Golden Era (4)

𝖝𝖎𝖎. Ordaining My Skin

         The ghost would reveal the tales of an older time, of the woman the daughter mourned, and of the man who had murdered her – of the man who had escaped. The ghost would wish him well, tell him to be safe no matter what since she could never protect him in her corporal form, and he would smile and nod his head, crossing his fingers behind his back.

         So the days progressed the same, with the same aura following the family, the same plans approaching them, and the same reclusiveness they had adopted when they had returned to their home.

         Leo looked out the window to see the other kids playing outside, the normal ones his age, throwing around a basketball and laughing and some part of him wished that he was normal enough to do the same. Muggle enough. Because even though he had no magic, he was a squib through and through, he still found himself not muggle enough to intertwine with them the same as he felt too muggle to intertwine with the wizarding world.

         He was stuck between a rock and a hard place; the muggle who wasn't accepted into his own people because he grew up in a family of magic which made him different than everyone else. He had seen things they could only imagine, he had been apart of the fairy tales, and he was charred enough from the coals of wizardry to be so simple as to be a muggle, though he desperately wished he was.

         The ghost of his mother danced around his room, still finding his true bedroom entertaining with its intricates and figurines. She was happier here than she had been in 12 Grimmauld Place, but then again they were all happier to be out of there. He knew that Regulus, who was now officially alive in the eyes of the wizarding world and Ministry, had taken up fixing the house and making it livable since he was the only one without another place to go.

         Sirius stayed with them in their guest bedroom, but Leo was sure that he didn't actually stay there now that he had Nadia had started back their relationship. Still, he didn't know how Regulus could stand to live in that place when he had other options, maybe he just wasn't brave enough himself.

         Sirius himself had been pardoned of all crimes, seeing as he had finally gotten his trial and proved that he was not the mass murderer everyone thought him to be. The Daily Prophet ranted about it for weeks after, but they seemed to be quieting now that July was ending.

         Leo ran his hand through his hair, feeling the same curls his father had on his fingertips and he shivered. He hated that man, even more now than he had when he learned that he was the one to kill his mother. Nancy was one thing – he had no memories of her, being only one, and even Nancy herself admitted that she hadn't been the nicest of people when she was alive – but his Aunt Mel was another. Remelda was his savior, Remelda was the one who reconnected him with Nancy, and Remelda had to be the most selfless person he had ever met.

         And now Remelda was dead because his father murdered her. Now he couldn't even properly look Calypso in the eye without feeling this terrible guilt pooling inside him.

         He turned away from the window, picking himself up and walking out the door of his bedroom without a goodbye to Nancy. She had the power to follow him wherever he went as long as he had the ring on him – which he always did, keeping it on a chain around his neck – but she chose to stay inside the house instead of following him out to the muggle world. Leo preferred it that way so he never said anything about it to her.

         Without saying a word to anyone in the house – which was only Maia and Sirius, Nadia at work – he left through the front door and began to walk to the café near the neighborhood. He wore his usual jeans and Hawaiian t-shirt, walking quickly to leave the neighborhood and the people in it behind until he found himself at a table in the café. He had been there many times with Calypso, and some more now with Thea, and it was probably his favorite place in the entire world.