Hogwarts Legacy: A Continuation of Time

Chapter Five : Nosebleed

Kitty lay in her bed after Maria, Asmodeus and Caoimhe left to return to London, replaying the information that had been drip-fed to her that day.

Asmodeus had been caught muttering spells under his breath before he left, his wand sweeping the front entrance to the house.

"What're you doing?" Kitty asked him, as Maria and Caoimhe vanished through the Floo.

"Nothing for you to be concerned about, little one." He murmured finishing off his spell with a flourish of his wand.

"Well, I should think it is my concern considering it's my house." Kitty retorted, folding her arms across her chest.

"Yeah, we'll it was my house first." Said Asmodeus turning to her with a satisfied grin. He pecked her on the forehead and without another word stepped into the green flame, following his wife and niece.

Kitty narrowed her eyes after him then looked up to the two oil paintings that hung above the mantle. Her mother was yawning, closing her book to rub her eyes before making notes in a small journal. Ominis, however, was looking at the doorway where his older brother had been casting spells.

"Do a quick Revelio on the door." Said the painting, waggling his long pale finger toward the entrance. "I want to check something."

Kitty turned back to the door and cast a wordless Revelio. Nothing. She turned back to the painting of her brother, who, defeated slumped back into his chair with a sigh.

Kitty had dropped into her bed still fully clothed listening to the ear-splitting silence of her home now it was empty. Ruby had gone home but had promised to return in the morning, Kitty begged her not to speak to her mother about the Sebastian debacle, and Ruby had sworn she wouldn't. Belladonna needed no encouragement to start an argument with a man and Kitty wasn't willing to give her any.

She lay there in her summer dress until the room turned pink, then purple, then an inky blue as the clock struck ten o'clock. Her mind raced and she could feel a headache coming on as her stomach churned. She had that tight feeling in her chest that something bad was just around the corner.

Poppy was angry with Kitty, and it filled her with an anxiety that she couldn't quite put her finger on. Poppy had always been good-natured, calm, level headed. And above all, she was loyal, to the core. So why was she rejecting Kitty?

Kitty thought back to what Poppy had said about needing space. Kitty tried to remember needing space after Ominis had died but all she remembered was clinging onto Sebastian for dear life, as though letting him out of her sight would seal him to the same fate as her brother. She had felt angry too, for a while. She pushed every Gaunt away for months, in fear they would remind her too much of her brother. She hadn't allowed the oil painting of him that had appeared at her door one night by an anonymous donor to be hung on the wall for weeks because she dared not see him again. As though any reminder of him would split her soul in two all over again.

Then after a while, after the denial and the anger and the pain, there was a numbness, a dull acceptance that life was now without her brother. And yet Caoimhe still laughed, the birds still sang and Sebastian still kissed her. Life was relentless regardless of Ominis.

Poppy didn't have the kisses of her love to keep her sustained because it was he who had vanished. Maybe she'd been isolated so long that she'd been drowned in anger, after the denial and pain...

The clock chimed again and Kitty realised another full hour had passed the sky outside was now almost black, and Sebastian still hadn't returned. She wished desperately that she could sleep now, but she refused to drink anymore of that strange tea her brother had given her.