3jane

The house is warded.  There are layers of magicks covering it, and all the power of two old wizarding families is soaked into the stones.  She and Arthur made blood patterns round the walls of the Burrow, earlier this year.  Marked their names and ancestries in careful runes.  She hopes it’s enough.  They haven’t come for any of the pure-blood families yet.

penknife

At lunchtime, Arthur goes outside to eat his sandwiches in the park. It's still chilly, but he can watch the Muggles going by and toss crusts to the pigeons. It never ceases to amaze him the way a whole other world goes on that they never touch. He picks up coins and chips wrappers in the park and brings them back to his desk, turning them over like messages in bottles.

Some part of him thinks they deserve to know what's happened, what's happening. A woman goes by holding a boy and a girl by the hand; the boy looks to be three or four, the girl maybe six. The girl is skipping. Arthur wants to stop the woman and say "please believe me, I'm doing the best I can." He wants to kneel down and put his hands on the boy's shoulders and promise him that he will get to grow up.

crack_van

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