For as long as Remus can remember he's had a hard life. Constant monthly mutilations of his skin, a absent father, and the trepidation of his blush inducing crush on Anastasia Fox. Anastasia Fox, who flirts with everyone, has matching fainter scars...
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CHAPTER 22 (part four) "My Special Girl"
Hope took Anastasia in her arms, leading her out of the study, into the bathroom tiled in blue and white checkers, opening that damned linen closet that stood tall and thin just below the high window.
Taking a small white washcloth out and turning the sink's left handle, waiting for the water to warm before wetting it.
Ana let out a barely heard 'oh' almost laughing at her mistake.
Guiding the sad fox down the hall, past the family room, through the kitchen -that still had a mess of jasmine on the island- and out the white-rimmed glass back door.
Hope sat Ana on the left of the old wooden bench that rested on the house's bricks.
Hope sat on the right side, wrapping her arms around Ana's shoulder to lay the girl's head to her lap, whipping her flushed face with the warm cloth.
The roof of the cottage just barely shielding them from the drizzles.
Ana took in the Welsh cosmos. The green mountains standing like silent sentinels, cloaked with low clouds, and sheltered the ever curving valleys that held patches of wildflowers and hidden streams.
This view was her childhood.
Exhaustion had hit her. Not just of the emotions of the boggart, or walking five miles in the rain, or two days of travel, but months of shallow breaths, a summer of solitary running.
"I want my dad," Ana sobbed, her voice broken and high, sounding like a child, her ribs quivering and legs pulling off the ground, to curl into herself like a baby.
I want my dad. She had to repeat it even after every single one of Hope's loving 'I knows', once for exhaustion, again for realization, another for grief, lastly for a verity that she was still a little girl.
A little girl who has tired and just wanted her father.
Ana sobs fell quiet again after minutes, her hands using the corner of the now cold washcloth to trace her lips, a comfort. "M'sorry."
"No, no, none of that. I'm sorry. First day I get to see my favorite girl in six years and I've got you crying."
"It's not your fault. I still forget my lefts and rights." Ana joked.
Hope laughed, sighing, her aged fingers brushing through Anastasia's hair, getting all the knots and fly aways out. "Ahh my special girl."
—
Remus felt like he was in trouble.
After Hope and Anastasia had left in patient steps, his father tugged his head to the door out of the study as if to say 'come on get off the floor.'
