(HP) Missing Spaces (5/5)
Please see the Missing Spaces Chapter List for story details including summary, warnings, etc.
Chapter Four
Missing Spaces
Chapter Five
At half past ten that night, Hestia Apparates back into her living room. Tossing books and food into the basket, she quickly runs out of space and ends up wrapping the entire thing in a shrunken-down table cloth to keep things from falling out. She quickly pens the letter she's been composing in her head half the day, nearly breaking the end of the quill in her hurry, then pokes it through a small gap in the fabric near the knot at top of the basket handle. With a wave of her wand, she sends the entire package away just as the clock's hand rests on the eleven.
Needing a distraction, she sits down to work on Petunia's Christmas present. The charms don't seem to want to work correctly, and she reads the instructions from the book yet again, then tries the incantation one more time. Still nothing. Shadow, watching her curiously from the floor, lets out a questioning meow as if to ask, "Shouldn't something have happened?"
Hestia sighs. "This is harder than it looks, you know," she tells the Kneazle in a slightly irritated tone. Shadow, seeming to sense that her criticism is not exactly appreciated at this moment, wanders away.
Hestia's not sure if it's because she can't seem to concentrate or if she's just not casting the charms correctly, but at the moment either reason is enough to make her feel frustrated. Deciding to fight with the chess set more in the morning, she tucks it back into its box and stows the whole thing away under her bed, carefully tucked out of sight.
As she lies in bed an hour later, trying but failing to fall asleep, she wonders if Paul Ryland has left his flat yet. If he's managed to find a way to transport his mother, already so weak with some Muggle illness. If he'll be able to keep them both hidden until the end of the war and still make sure his mother gets all the medicines she needs. She hopes that he will. She hopes the Death Eaters don't catch him because if they do, it'll probably mean her death, too.
But as she drifts off to sleep, she doesn't worry about the terrified Mr Ryland. Instead, she thinks of the five others whose files she turned over today. The ones she couldn't help, wouldn't help because the risk was too great. She wonders what will happen to them, to their families. .
She thinks of Luna Lovegood, young and practically defenceless, chosen to be tortured or killed because it was less dangerous to warn someone else.
She aches for the girl's father, who will be spending his Christmas alone and desperately worried for a daughter who may or may not live to see the end of the week.
She remembers Luna's smile.
Hestia dreams of her own hands, coated in the blood of dozens of people she knows only by their pictures and the words in their files, and she wakes up crying.
Chapter Four
Missing Spaces
Chapter Five
At half past ten that night, Hestia Apparates back into her living room. Tossing books and food into the basket, she quickly runs out of space and ends up wrapping the entire thing in a shrunken-down table cloth to keep things from falling out. She quickly pens the letter she's been composing in her head half the day, nearly breaking the end of the quill in her hurry, then pokes it through a small gap in the fabric near the knot at top of the basket handle. With a wave of her wand, she sends the entire package away just as the clock's hand rests on the eleven.
Needing a distraction, she sits down to work on Petunia's Christmas present. The charms don't seem to want to work correctly, and she reads the instructions from the book yet again, then tries the incantation one more time. Still nothing. Shadow, watching her curiously from the floor, lets out a questioning meow as if to ask, "Shouldn't something have happened?"
Hestia sighs. "This is harder than it looks, you know," she tells the Kneazle in a slightly irritated tone. Shadow, seeming to sense that her criticism is not exactly appreciated at this moment, wanders away.
Hestia's not sure if it's because she can't seem to concentrate or if she's just not casting the charms correctly, but at the moment either reason is enough to make her feel frustrated. Deciding to fight with the chess set more in the morning, she tucks it back into its box and stows the whole thing away under her bed, carefully tucked out of sight.
As she lies in bed an hour later, trying but failing to fall asleep, she wonders if Paul Ryland has left his flat yet. If he's managed to find a way to transport his mother, already so weak with some Muggle illness. If he'll be able to keep them both hidden until the end of the war and still make sure his mother gets all the medicines she needs. She hopes that he will. She hopes the Death Eaters don't catch him because if they do, it'll probably mean her death, too.
But as she drifts off to sleep, she doesn't worry about the terrified Mr Ryland. Instead, she thinks of the five others whose files she turned over today. The ones she couldn't help, wouldn't help because the risk was too great. She wonders what will happen to them, to their families. .
She thinks of Luna Lovegood, young and practically defenceless, chosen to be tortured or killed because it was less dangerous to warn someone else.
She aches for the girl's father, who will be spending his Christmas alone and desperately worried for a daughter who may or may not live to see the end of the week.
She remembers Luna's smile.
Hestia dreams of her own hands, coated in the blood of dozens of people she knows only by their pictures and the words in their files, and she wakes up crying.