Duplicitous | T.N.

II • Nail chewing is a bad habit

The occupants of 12 Grimmauld place had gone deadly silent. Everyone sat on the lounges that were placed in the discoloured, yet grand, living room. The couches were tarnished and frayed but that didn't prevent the majority of the house from anxiously sitting there.

Feet tapped against the rickety floorboards, legs bounced, and nails were chewed. The people who chose to stand paced the room. No words were spoken, but the room was engulfed in noise.

The sound of the ticking clock became oddly noticeable to Aurora. She sat at the very edge of her seat, next to her was Ginny in a similar position.

Mere seconds felt like minutes, minutes felt like hours and so on. Aurora had begun to fiddle with the ends of her tight-fitting, long-sleeved t-shirt. Everyone was too nervous to speak up.

Harry's trial had been taking place at that very moment. The entirety of the room felt the best was to come. Although Aurora had been raised to think and share only positive thoughts she couldn't help but dwell on the chance of Harry's expulsion. She prayed that wasn't the case, he was defending himself for Merlin's sake.

It would be absurd to expel him, he had produced the Patronus charm in defence of a dementor. Though she could understand the ministry's view on the situation. It was rather odd and unlikely for a dementor to be wandering in a place so random, like Privet drive.

She figured although Dumbledore had been expressing peculiar behaviour towards Harry from what she observed, she figured he would never just sit by and allow Harry to be expelled. He loved Harry, that much was obvious.

Besides her, she watched as Mrs Weasley whacked Ginny lightly across the back of her head and scolded the young witch for chewing her nails. Aurora was amused and became sentimental by the small interaction, it was motherly.

Auroras lowered her gaze as she began to overthink her family issues. Her brothers had already graduated from Hogwarts. In her second year, her older brother Sebastian had grown up and moved out, and Malachi, otherwise known as Kai, had graduated and moved out last year. She, the youngest, was now the only one left.

She held slight feelings of resentment towards her brothers for leaving her, but what could she expect, they had grown up, moved on, and one day so would she.

The house felt lonely, the absence of her brothers and now her mother was too loud. Her picture-perfect family was punctured right in the heart. Her mother was dead and her brothers were absent.

The last she saw them was at the funeral. Sebastian comforted her the entire day, yet Kai was quiet and distant and barely spoke a word, she assumed that was his way of grieving. Since that day she has reached out to him through about fifty letters. He hasn't responded once.

Her father, Joseph, had always been a kind nurturing man, but the loss of his wife had made the happiness that swelled in him dim. He would always love and cherish his children. Recently he had been fighting harder than the rest of them. Fighting to keep a smile on his face and his children's faces and fighting for the money to put food on his and his daughters' table.

Their family was far from poor, but not quite rich. They were a wealthy family, above average. But since her mother had died, she obviously stopped providing the family with money, and Joseph had been putting ninety per cent of what he was making into the family's savings, just to be safe. So at the moment, they hadn't been profiting much money, they had it, and the capability to use it, but her father insisted saving it would be best, and that they didn't need any new, special, pricey things.

She began to bite the insides of her cheeks, her fingers laced together and she fiddled with her rings. In one movement she let out a massive sigh and flopped back into the couch.