Drabble A Day #21

[ficsbydeenas]

Visiting Julia
VII

A knock at the door startled her. She thought for sure they would Apparate in and as she threw the towel over her shoulder, she heard Thomas answer the door and greet her parents.

"Harry, Ginny!"

She knew her mother was tutting at him in much the same way her grandmother did. Dad was always such a skinny bloke in his younger days, or so Nana Molly told her. That wasn't the Harry Potter she remembered.

The Harry Potter she knew played princess with her in the back garden underneath a castle he'd constructed with a light blanket. The Harry Potter she knew dropped everything and took her to Ollivander's to purchase her first wand: alder, 10 3/4 inches with a unicorn hair. The Harry Potter she knew cradled her in his arms and read her Muggle stories before she went to bed. The Harry Potter she knew held her while she cried after her first crush trampled on her heart.

Merlin, she missed that. Not so much the playing with him, but being close to him, talking to him, laughing with him over something that her uncles invented.  She missed butting heads with him as their tempers were equal in nearly every way. Julia smiled to herself and took a deep breath.

She heard her mother 'ooh and ahh' over the flowers she'd planted outside the windows. Both mother and daughter fancied pansies in any array of colour, which were the flowers Julia had chosen. Julia will always plant pansies...it was something her mum taught her.

Ginny Potter was not the best cook in the world. That title fell to Nana, but Mum tried and had a few specialties that she never failed to make whenever her children were home. Ginny Potter wasn't that great of a knitter. She never attempted to make a sweater or a waistcoat.It didn't interest her in the least. Ginny Potter was not a homebody. She worked when many of her relatives and friends chose to stay home and take care of the children.

Despite all the things her mother was not, Julia knew that her mother loved her. She never failed to kiss the top of her head every night at bedtime. She never missed a Quidditch match. She never forgot to send Julia or her brothers and sisters birthday cakes and homemade cards with her terrible poetry. She never told her daughter that there was something she couldn't do. She never had to raise her voice at her children because they all knew that when Mum got silent, all Hell was about to break loose.

Julia wiped away a tear from her eyes and made her way to the living room.

"Mum. Dad...I've missed you both."