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CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE: two ghosts — harry styles
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( 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 , 𝟏𝟔 )
There are many things that could happen in one's life that would completely derail them from the path that had seemingly been mapped out by the billions of stars hanging above in the millennia before them; the stars that had meticulously planned for all that could and would possibly go wrong and right, to bring them beauty, and pain, and happiness, and despair. There were many things that could go wrong.
Meredith Darling never thought it would be kissing Draco Malfoy as the world crashed around them in a burning, all consuming blaze.
(Well, if you were to get technical, he kissed her but as you could tell by now, technicalities meant little to Meredith.)
And she thought of that, as she rested her chin upon her tired hands, eyes that had seen too much war for a sixteen year old girl.
She gazed out at the green field below; a field that once promised her freedom as she danced between the tickling tendrils and bathed in the warmth of the blue expansive sky that once promised a wonderful summer but now was instead blackened by the mark of Voldemort. Darkness seemed like a common motif these days.
The house that once felt like a respite from the chaos outside, that once gave her the freedom to live without the war bearing upon them now felt like a gilded cage. With walls built so high and the slight shimmer of the protective bubble surrounding the Darling estate, Meredith was suffocating. The very moment that she was shipped home, exams cancelled and mood sombre, her father had flung himself into taking every imaginable precaution to protect them from the war outside; enchantments reinforced everyday, the sentries of dull stone and brass stalking the walls, muggles that once enjoyed the splendours of the leafy grove beside their house gone.
He disappeared every morning at seven on the dot via the personal Portkey that had been delivered to their house the morning she had arrived back home as well. Meredith sometimes watched him as he made his way across the grassy field from the house; It was a methodological process, happening like clockwork every morning, rinse and repeat. He would wear the same long overcoat even though they were stepping into summer. He would leave ten minutes before he was whirled out of their little protective bubble, the sun breaking over his dark figure in the distance and he would return when the stars had sprawled over the dark blanket. He was always tired, and sullen, and there seemed to be something weighing on his mind.
