two pretty hate machine

✨

       WHEN HARRY, IN ALL OF HIS BOY WONDER GLORY, appears at Grimmauld Place, Mia is standing at the bottom of the staircase, arms crossed and her bottom lip jutted out. The rest of the children are upstairs, trying their best to keep hidden. Apparently Mrs Weasley doesn't want them listening in, with all of the Order stuff. In a shocking twist of fate, as it seems when the Gryffindors realised, Mia doesn't want to know what's going on. Emilia said Mia could sit in the meetings, if she wanted, but before Mia could even answer, Sirius said that he didn't want her getting involved in any of this. Which makes sense, considering his involvement in this got him sent to Azkaban, but also? Why doesn't he want her helping out?

       Everyone else is standing around upstairs, thinking Harry's arriving in the morning instead. Mia's on the staircase. She's actually got to walk to her work in a half-hour — she isn't working today, but, this is the day they give out people's wages, and since she's paid in cash, she's got to walk there to pick them up. It makes zero sense but sometimes muggles don't.

       The important thing is: Mia's getting paid. Mia cannot wait to have all of that money. It's going to be amazing. She could buy some eyeshadow, one that's a bronze glitter, or maybe she can some new shoes... Oh, no, she'll go to those shops on Oxford Street and buy tons of earrings. Mia loves earrings. She has four piercings: two in each lobe, and then two in her left ear's cartilage. She loves earrings with little diamonds, she thinks it's pretty when they glitter...

       Anyway.

       Harry turns up with the Order behind him. Mrs Weasley pulls him into a hug, and it sounds stupid of Mia, but it makes her feel even more excluded. She doesn't know the Weasleys, yeah, but it really highlights how out of place Mia is, when everyone is hugged by this woman — Briar Crouch makes sure, but even the Malfoy got a nice little hug, too — and then there's Mia, grumpily standing on her own, finding comfort in her grandmother's equally pissed off portrait.

       "And keep your voice down in the hall," says Mrs Weasley, to Harry. She looks worried. Mia thinks this is funny. Mia's the only one that can actually stop her grandmother's portrait from screaming at people. She likes to think of it as her superhero. Like, it makes sense that her dad makes the portrait even angrier, but even her mum, who had met Walburga a couple of times thanks to obligatory take-Mia-to-see-her-only-living-grandparent trips, can't help her out. And, like, Emilia Salvatore, nee Black, has not offended anyone... Ever.

       "Why?" says Harry.

       Is it bad Mia's glad her dad hasn't ran out to hug him?

       "I don't want to wake anything up," says Mrs Weasley.

       "What d'you—?" says Harry, but he's cut off.

       "I'll explain later, but I'm supposed to be at the meeting," says Mrs Weasley. She catches Mia sulking on the bottom step, like a seven-year-old that destroyed someone else's toy. "Mia, dear, could you show Harry where he's staying?"

       Mia pulls the most sickly-sweet smile imaginable. Mrs Weasley buys the sweet as sugar act, along with Mia's wonderfully named Adult Voice, a mix of incredible politeness and the upbeat customer service voice she subconsciously dons whenever she's working at the café.

       "Absolutely," says Mia.

       Mrs Weasley thanks her, and Mia keeps on smiling, until the door closes, and Mia frowns, turning to Harry. "You're on the second floor," she tells him. The Adult Voice dies instantly. He picks up his trunk. Should be fine. He plays Quidditch, doesn't he? "At least I presume you're sharing with your friend, and not having a room to yourself."

       She starts to walk up the stairs.

       "What do—?"

       "Didn't you hear Mrs Weasley?" says Mia. "You're not supposed to talk here? You'll wake up the portrait."

       Mia feels fantastic.

       Mia doesn't know if she likes Harry or not. Part of her wonders if the dislike she does have for him, stems from the fact that she doesn't like how much her dad loves him. It's ugly to say, but she's jealous. Everyone's jealous of something, it's just that Mia's fully accepting of the fact that she's jealous of him. Because she is. Sirius is her dad, not his. He should've found her, when he broke into Hogwarts. What makes Harry so fucking special that her dad's chosen him over her?

       Merlin, thinking about this makes Mia even more excited for the date she's got tomorrow afternoon. Her mum's worried about Mia staying out late in London, so instead she's going out for lunch, to a nice chain restaurant that sells pizza or something... The idea of spending two hours talking about someone else, maybe kissing someone attractive, makes her feel so much better.

       Harry gets to the landing. Mia motions to the bedroom that he's sharing with Ron, looking unimpressed.

       "It's that one," she says.

       "Thanks," he says. "Erm... I'm sorry about Cedric."

       Mia goes quiet. She grits her teeth together.

       "I bet you are," says Mia.

       She walks upstairs. Her room's on the floor above, so it's only an extra flight, which is nice, considering she's this close to bursting into tears. She misses Cedric... Some days she's fine, other days she just thinks, I want him back, just for a minute. Today had been fine. Now she misses him again.

       Fred, George, and Ginny are sitting on the top step, or, at least, they're all sitting around it. Ginny's legs are dangling through the banister's next to it, and Fred's sitting next to his little sister, leaning over the banister. George is sitting straight across the top step, though, like the little shit he is. Mia is going to kill him. The light behind him is already getting brighter.

       "Can you move?" she says.

       "No," says George, and he grins.

       Fred's snickering. Mia's going to kill them.

       "This is my house?" she says.

       George glances at Fred. "Isn't it the Order's house now, Fred?"

       "Think it is, George," says Fred, smirking.

       Mia narrows her eyes at him. "Your girlfriend's downstairs, by the way."

       With that, Fred disappears.

       Ginny stands up. "I'm gonna see Hermione..."

       Mia smiles nicely at her as she walks past her on the stairs. She turns back to George, the smile turning into a grimace. "Move."

       "No."

       "Why not?"

       "It's fun winding you up." 

       "Oh, is it?"

       "Definitely."

       "You are literally an adult now?"

       Mia narrows her eyes at him. She holds onto the top of the staircase's railing, to try and balance herself, and she climbs over his legs. Mia kicks his knee by accident — and she knows it sounds like she's lying, but she really didn't mean it.

       "And how old are you?"

       Fred returns, having Apparated. He looks annoyed. "Well, that wasn't very funny," he says. Mia thinks Briar's told him to lay off, or something, because he's a lot tamer than George has been.

       Mia turns back to George. "How arrogant are you, thinking I'd purposely kick you?" she says. Her hand's on her bedroom door. Thank Merlin. "Get over yourself, Weasley."

       "Bloody hell!" says George, turning around. "You get over yourself!"

       Mia slams the door behind her, and locks it.

       She goes straight to her record player. She's got Nine Inch Nails on vinyl, so she puts that on. Pretty Hate Machine, the album's called. Mia relates.

       The first song is Head Like a Hole. She turns the volume up, loud, and she lies down on her bed. She knows that Fred and George have invented ears that help them eavesdrop into the Order meetings — the idea sounds decent, whatever, but, the important thing is that they don't work if there's loud noises around, because the ears can't hear anything past it.

       "You're interfering with reception," that's what they told her... And then, they realised that they had given her the perfect way to piss them off, and before they could backtrack, Mia had grinned, shut the door, and turned up her record player, which at the time had been playing Nirvana. Territorial Pissings. Her favourite.

       Maybe Mia is a pretty hate machine, but she's pissing off the right people, so, sue her.

✨

       HERE'S THE DEAL — MIA CANNOT stand Fred and George. She used to think differently, but that was before both of them had a massive go at Cedric, almost two years ago now, when Hufflepuff won the Quidditch match against Gryffindor, because Harry was attacked by a dementor, and before Cedric realised, he had caught the Snitch. He offered a rematch, which Mia thought was the right thing to do, but they weren't allowed — long story short, Fred and George became massive pricks towards her best friend, and because of that, Mia didn't like them. She could see how, actually, they were sort of fucking annoying, and so up themselves sometimes, and therefore, Mia started sticking up for Cedric, which led to a mutual dislike.

       Mia doesn't want to talk about before that. She doesn't really need to. The important thing to note is that Mia doesn't like Fred and George, and Fred and George don't like Mia. There. That's all of the context necessary, anything before that Quidditch match is unimportant. Cedric stopped mentioning the before, Mia stopped mentioning the before, the before is worthless.

       But then Cedric died, and something... happened.

       Mia sits with her head in her hands, on a stone step near the hospital wing. She had been there, actually, a few minutes ago, along with her dad. But she left when she saw, like, four gingers and Harry; she left her dad in there, walking out without a word. He didn't know what to do, how to comfort her, he didn't even call after her when she left.

       But he wouldn't know what to do, would he? He wasn't around when she was little. He didn't even try and find her when he escaped from Azkaban.

       She desperately hopes that her mum will show up soon. She didn't know, at this point, that her mum had been forced into helping the Death Eaters.

       Merlin. Mia hates all of this. Still fucking does. Mia hates the fact that her dad is too busy filling the fucking Gryffindors in on what's happened to find his actual child. Mia hates the fact that she was sobbing and the whole Weasley family intruded. Mia hates the fact that she can't find her mum. But, most importantly, Mia hates the fact that her best friend is dead. And she could've stopped it... She could've.

       So Mia cries into her hands. The hallway's gotten dark now, and the candles near her know better than lighting the hallway up for people to see her there, on her own. Although she doubts anyone will walk past, since Dumbledore called for all students to be sent to their dorm rooms, and to stay there until morning... So it's just Mia, on her own, but she supposes she's got to get used to this. It's not like Cedric's going to come back. She has no one. Still fucking doesn't.

       Mia doesn't know where her mum is, but she knows that something fishy has been going on for the past year — ever since her dad actually showed up (a whole year after he first escaped, bear in mind) and her mum took him to the side, something has been going on. Mia, from her above-average eavesdropping skills, thinks it's got something to do with the fact that her mum was supposed to be a Death Eater, but still. She wants her mum. She wants her mum to hold her, to comfort her, to tell her that everything's going to be OK. Her mum lost all of her friends, all at once; she knows what Mia's going through. Her dad's too worried about Harry to think like that.

       She doesn't hear the footsteps coming towards her in the hallway, but she does hear someone clear their throat awkwardly.

       And the person speaks.

       "Oh," says George Weasley. "It's you."

       The candles around Mia burn brighter.

       She feels as if her blood's about to boil, as she turns around to him, standing up, glaring. She isn't having this. Not today. Not when she was told this morning her best friend, her first love, was going to die, and she didn't manage to fucking stop it.

       "Are you happy now?" she snaps at him. "He's dead, you don't have to worry about some stupid fucking Quidditch match being lost, God forbid, to Hufflepuff!"

       George's eyes widen, taken off-guard.

       Quietly, he says, "I'm not..."

       But Mia ignores him, as she runs her fingers through her hair, feeling hot tears gather in her eyes again. Don't fucking cry in front of him, she thinks, for fuck's sakes...!

       "I should've stopped it," she mutters. "I should've stopped it..."

       "By what, fighting off You-Know-Who?" says George.

       She doesn't know if that's supposed to be another version of "He was killed by You-Know-Who, he couldn't have survived," but it doesn't sit well with her. Who thinks like that, when they're the one grieving? Everyone wishes they could've stopped it... And she could've. She was told what was going to happen. She should've stopped it.

       "Piss off," she says to George. She grits her teeth together, to stop herself from crying, but she looks at him, feeling even angrier. "What if it was your brother?"

       George brows knit together, his eyes narrowing slightly, confused. He pauses for a minute, as if properly taken aback by her question. She supposes twins never even think of being apart. "What?"

       "What if it was Fred, out there?" says Mia, narrowing her glassy eyes. She wants to be left alone, but for fuck's sakes, she's sick and fucking tired of this. She doesn't like the Weasley twins because they were dicks to her best friend, and now her best friend's gone and all that's left is them. She's angry. "What if Fred got killed? Or Briar? Or Lee?"

       George doesn't reply.

       "That's what I thought," says Mia. "You can say your shit about how he stood no chance, but if you were me, you would be thinking the same thing, Weasley."

       George looks away for a minute, but then he turns to her, as she starts to walk away, down the steps.

       "Hang on."

       She turns around. "What?"

       "You can tell us apart?" he says.

       Fuck.

       She feels like she's in fourth year all over again, shit.

       This part, though, is completely unimportant, like she's said. Cedric stopped mentioning the before, Mia stopped mentioning the before, everyone stopped mentioning the before.

       Mia turns back around. "Lucky guess."

       "Wait," he says.

       Mia wants to kill him. Still fucking does.

       She turns back around, and she crosses her arms. Tears are still gathering in her eyes, and her jaw hurts, she's been gritting her teeth so hard. She wants him to leave her alone... She wants to be left alone. Her best friend is dead. Can't she have some space?

       George frowns. "I don't like you, but I'm sorry for what happened..." he says, slowly, as if thinking the wrong word will get him killed... It might, considering that time Mia got so angry Zacharias Smith's hair caught on fire... George's hair is already fucking orange, they wouldn't even notice the flames until his brain was melted. "I don't know what I'd do if one of my friends died..."

       Mia can't even reply; tears fall down her face and she doesn't just burst into tears, she fully bursts into sobs. Both of her cheeks are completely wet, as she furiously tries to wipe her tears away, but there's no use. An entire waterfall of tears runs down her cheeks, falling off onto the floor.

       And she doesn't know how the next part happens — but one second, Mia wants to throttle George fucking Weasley, and the next, her face is buried into his chest as she cries... And he doesn't hug her. Not like Cedric used to. But he puts his arms around her, awkwardly, like he has to. It feels as if... he's holding her? Like he's holding something made of china. Mia thinks, what the fuck.

       After a while she steps away from him, and wipes her cheeks with the back of her jumper. She looks up at George, narrowing her eyes.

       "Don't you dare tell anyone..."

       "Like I'd want to...?"

       He hasn't, which is good — she supposes he won't, though, because it's embarrassing on both of their parts.

✨

       WHEN IT GETS TO DINNERTIME, MIA walks down the stairs. She tends to ignore the concerns about waking up the portrait. Her grandma likes her, it's these other people she's pissed off with... Which Mia understands. She doesn't agree with the main reason, why Grandma Walburga doesn't like the majority of the people here, but, OK, maybe Mia's desperate for someone that agrees with her. Desperate times call for desperate measures... You get stuck with four ginger idiots that don't even let her walk up the stairs.

       She sits down at the kitchen table. Apparently the dining room still needs to get cleaned up. Mia's had a nose around everywhere, and she's taken the Black family heirlooms that were lying around. Or, at least, the ones that spark her intrigue. These include two very important things: a music box with a china version of the owner's Patronus, that twirls around (Mia doesn't have one, yet, so for now a small star hovers when you open it, glittering as it spins) and then some earrings.

       The place is still a tip, though. Cobwebs fill the corners of the dining room, and last night Mia could've sworn she saw a spider and its family walk through the ground-floor hallway. Kreacher, the house-elf, doesn't clean anymore, apparently, just sulks around... Just like Mia, just like her dad, just like anyone remotely part of the ancient and most noble house of Black. Everything's dark, everything's gloomy, that's the reality of such a noble family.

       The darkness, though, makes it easier for Mia to notice when she's making the lights change. Her mum can control it, nowadays, save for the times the lights brighten whenever Mia or Sirius walk into a room, but Mia can't. And you can tell when her emotions change. The second she feels a little bit annoyed, that's it, the lights are so warm they're practically orange, as if they're about to combust into flames. Last night she was getting a glass of water from the kitchen, and as she left the kitchen, Mrs Weasley accidentally stirred Grandma Walburga's portrait. Mia jumped, and, like that, all of the lights downstairs went out.

       Mia sits on the corner of the table, her dad on the end of it, and her mum sitting next to her. Last year her mum had been forced to help the Death Eaters, but her mum had made sure she'd be able to get out of it afterwards; apparently she had done an Unbreakable Vow with one of the Death Eaters helping out, and she made sure it was worded so that, once You-Know-Who is back Emilia would no longer help them... Mia doesn't know exactly, all she knows is that Emilia's off the hook for... forever, now. And that's a good thing. Her mum was all shaky hands and fluttering flames last year. Mia didn't like it.

       Harry sits across from Mia. 'Course.

       "Had a good summer so far?" her dad asks his god-son.

       "No, it's been lousy," says Harry.

       Mia sighs. "At least you haven't been in this dump."

       Harry looks like he disagrees, because, oh, yeah, his friends are here, as are the adults that like him. This kid's world is here. Mia, however? Not so much.

       Emilia sits down next to Mia, having placed a bowl of roast vegetables on the table. "Did you get your wages, then, Mia?" she says.

       "Yeah," says Mia. She scoops up a spoonful of roasted sweet potatoes. Amazing. The sweeter the food, the better. Mia's shocked her teeth haven't been fucked up, yet. "Are you having a day off work anytime soon? I wanna go to Diagon Alley."

       "I might be able to, in the next couple weeks," says Emilia.

       Sirius glances at Harry, and explains to him that Emilia's one of the Healers at St Mungos. Mia grimaces. It annoys her, the first thing she's said to her mum all day, and her dad's managing to turn into something for Harry to learn about. Like, look! Harry, this is my wife! Yeah, whatever, Mia had been saying something, but did you hear that? My wife has a job as a Healer! Wow! ... Mia, what were you saying?

       "Personally, I'd have welcomed a dementor attack," says Sirius. "A deadly struggle for my soul would have broken the monotony nicely. You think you've had it bad, at least you've been able to get out and about, stretch your legs, get into a few fights... I've been stuck inside for a month."

       Mia frowns. Her dad didn't say a thing to her, about him hating it here... She was aware, sure, that he didn't like it, she knows that his mum had been a massive bitch, but he's never gone into detail before, talking about it with her...

       Right.

       "How come?" says Harry.

       "Because my dad's still wanted by the Ministry?" says Mia, raising an eyebrow at Harry. He frowns back at her. Try me, Potter. "And, what, Peter will have told them that my dad turns into a dog... I thought you were there for all of that."

       Across the kitchen, Fred and George give her a look, obviously entertained by Mia's not-so-passive aggressiveness. Mia wants to kill them. Briar Crouch smiles sympathetically at her, as the twins stand up from either side of her, to go and help their mum bring the rest of the food to the table.

       Sirius explains to some guy called Mundungus that, yes, the silver plates were, in fact, silver, and some fancy sort as well. Mia doesn't even know how many heirlooms she's gonna inherit one day. She thinks the weird man's asking because he wants to take them, which really, is fine by her. As long as she's got the jewellery, she's good.

       Fred and George, by the looks of it, have bewitched the stew, the butterbeer, and the breadboard to float towards the table. Mia rolls her eyes. She hears her dad confessing his hardships to Harry, and she can already feel her blood simmering, wanting to boil. She looks away, and she catches George's eye, who looks too fucking smug from how he and his brother have used literally the first spell you learn in Charms — and then the stew, the butterbeer, and the breadboard stop floating.

       Guess Mia got pissed off.

       "FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!" screams Mrs Weasley. Now Mia feels smug. "THERE WAS NO NEED — I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS —"

       Mia looks at George, and pulls a face, mouthing, "Oops?"

       He gapes at her.

       "JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE ALLOWED TO USE MAGIC NOW YOU DON'T HAVE TO WHIP YOUR WANDS OUT FOR EVERY TINY LITTLE THING!"

       "We were just trying to save a bit of time!" says Fred, scrambling towards the bread knife, that had landed next to her dad's hand. Mia didn't know the knife went there...? Whoops. "Sorry, Sirius, mate — didn't mean to—"

       Mrs Weasley still looks pissed off at them, as they clean up. She tells them off about how they should be responsible now, and every so often, George looks back over at Mia, because he absolutely knows she did it, and looks like he wants to kill her. Mia puckers her lips at him, which seems to piss him off even more. Brilliant.

       At the end of dinner, Emilia ends up leaving early, since she has an early start at the hospital tomorrow. She kisses the top of Mia's head, and then she lightly kisses Sirius, before leaving the kitchen. Mia wishes her mum was still here. She feels vulnerable without her — at least if her mum's here, her mum will stick up for her, she knows how Mia is feeling and she'll argue for her.

       Mia slouches back in her seat. She talks to her dad about her co-workers, quietly bringing up how her boss is nice, sure, but a little bit of a pushover, and has the worst highlights known to man. Across the table from her, Holly Malfoy's already gotten up and left; Harry watched her leave, from the second her chair scraped across the floor to when the door closed behind her, which Mia finds a little... Well, desperate.

       Briar Crouch has swapped seats, and is now sitting next to her dad, Remus Lupin. Fred and George are talking to each other. Every so often George looks over at her, so she figures he's telling his other half that Mia was behind their spell going haywire earlier on... She can't help it, they pissed her off. It just happens.

       "Nearly time for bed, I think," says Mrs Weasley, aimed at her kids, and also Harry and Hermione.

       "Not just yet, Molly," says Sirius. He turns to Harry, and Mia sits forwards, propping her head up with her hand, elbow on the table. Her bottom lip's jutted out, in the moody pout she sports a lot these days. She looks across at her dad, and she already knows, she's going to get pissed off, somehow, for this. "You know, I'm surprised at you. I thought the first thing you'd do when you got here would be to start asking questions about Voldemort."

       Mia frowns. Way to read a room, Dad.

       "I did!" says Harry. Jesus fucking Christ. "I asked Ron and Hermione but they said we're not allowed in the Order, so—"

       "And they're quite right," says Mrs Weasley. "You're too young."

       Mrs Weasley looks pissed off. Mia rather likes Mrs Weasley. She seems to get annoyed at the right times, so that it appeases the annoyance Mia's feeling. Like earlier, when Fred and George got into trouble. Mia thought that was fun... And, like, Mrs Weasley must be made out of gold to look after that many gingers, so. Pretty fucking metal, if you ask Mia.

       "Since when did someone have to be in the Order of the Phoenix to ask questions?" her dad says, about Harry. Mia can already feel her blood boiling. Her dad wouldn't let her into the Order meetings? "Harry's been trapped in that muggle house for a month, he's got the right to know what's been happen—"

       "Hang on!" says George, literally standing up.

       "How come Harry gets his questions answered?" says Fred.

       "We've been trying to get stuff out of you for a month and you haven't told us a single stinking thing!" says George.

       "'You're too young, you're not in the Order,'" says Fred, imitating Mrs Weasley's voice. "Harry's not even of age!"

       "It's not my fault you haven't been told what the Order's doing," says Sirius. Mia stares at her dad, and it's as if she's daring him. Fucking go on, say what you're gonna say. She doesn't need to be a Seer to know what her dad's going to come out with. She can practically see it across his face, the confidence behind his reasoning, despite the fact that he wouldn't let her sit in the meetings. Mia's eyes narrow. The lights burn orange.

       Sirius continues, "That's your parents' decision. Harry, on the other hand—"

       And this is when Mia's chair scrapes across the kitchen floor, about to stand up and walk out.

       "You have got to be kidding me," says Mia, her voice shaking with her anger. The lights around the room aren't just a warmer colour, but they flicker every couple of seconds, the amount of anger boiling inside of her making the lights quiver. As they should. She's going to kill someone. "So I can't, but he can?"

       Mrs Weasley looks even more annoyed by this. But she isn't pissed off with Mia, oh no, in a strange turn of events Mia's Adult Voice has meant that Mrs Weasley is on her side? This is mad. This must be what being ginger feels like.

       "For heaven's sakes!" says Mrs Weasley. "He's not James, Sirius!"

       Oof. Low-blow, Mrs W. Fucking metal.

       "I'm perfectly clear who he is, thanks, Molly," says Sirius. Emilia returns to the kitchen, now in black satin pyjamas, hair tied into a bun. Her brows are knitted together and her arms are crossed, and Mia wonders if she had made all of the lights freak out a couple minutes, so her mum came to investigate. Sometimes Mia does that... Either that, or her mum has a supernatural ability to sense when things are wrong. She might do, actually. Mia wouldn't be surprised.

       "I'm not sure you are!" says Mrs. Weasley. Mia's gaze keeps on flicking across the table, from Mrs Weasley at one end to Sirius next to her. "Sometimes, the way you talk about him, it's as though you think you've got your best friend back!"

       "What's wrong with that?" says Harry.

       "What's wrong, Harry, is that you are not your father, however much you might look like him!" said Mrs. Weasley, and she's glaring at Sirius. Mia's biting on the inside of her cheek, to stop herself from smirking. "You are still at school and adults responsible for you should not forget it!"

       "Meaning I'm an irresponsible godfather?" her dad asks — no, demands. His voice is rising like his irritation is, and he keeps on looking over at Emilia in hopes she'll interfere at some point.

       "Meaning you've been known to act rashly, Sirius — and I can't hide the fact that it's wrong how you are treating poor Mia differently to Harry!" says Mrs Weasley. Mia feels a lot of eyes fall onto her, with her chair still scraped a couple feet away from the table, from when she was going to storm out, but never did. "You look at Harry likes he's James and you don't understand how that makes your daughter feel! The poor girl has been through a lot— and you two!"

       Mrs Weasley looks at the twins. Oh, shit?

       "You two expect to be treated like adults and yet you're terrible to Mia!"

       Mia grimaces. "To be fair, Mrs Weasley..."

       Fred and George look over at her, surprised. She looks away. She doesn't like them, but it's unfair. She doesn't like unfairness.

       "I don't want Mia getting involved in any of this," says Sirius.

       Mrs Weasley frowns. "But you're okay with Harry getting involved?" she questions him, and then she turns to Mr Weasley, who until this point has stayed very quiet.

       Emilia steps forwards. "Maybe we should wait until tomorrow morning, to talk about this properly," she says softly, sounding tired. She smiles weakly at Mrs Weasley, and then at Mia, and then at Harry. Sirius looks annoyed. Well, there's a reason. "Harry, you've had a long day. It's too late now, anyway, to get into any detail... Sirius?"

       Sirius looks even more annoyed. "I suppose."

       Harry opens his mouth to protest, but Mrs Weasley looks at the children she's responsible for, Harry included, and says, "I want you in bed, now. Fred and George, come with me and your father."

       Briar Crouch and Remus leave quickly after that, quietly saying goodbye. The Weasleys leave the kitchen, along with Harry and Hermione, and like that, the only three left in the room are the ones the house belongs to. Sirius, Emilia, and Mia.

       Emilia sits down where Harry had been sitting. "I think we need to talk, the three of us," she says. Sirius is frowning at her, and Mia has her arms crossed, but Emilia's looking back at both of them, a stern grimace across her face.

       "Look, Mia, I don't want you getting hurt," says Sirius.

       Mia narrows her eyes at him. She can already feel her mum's disappointment, at the fact that they're already arguing.

       "But Harry can sit in on the meetings?" she says. "The boy wonder can sit in, sure, but not your daughter?"

       "Mia," says Emilia, at the use of boy wonder.

       "Well, what? Dad acts like he is," says Mia, and she stands up, shaking her head. The lights becoming brighter and dimmer, brighter and dimmer, the best way of them acting upon Mia's emotions, unsure whether they want to be angry or miserable. "I'm sorry, Mum, but I really don't want to deal with this."

       Sirius says, "Harry saw Voldemort return, Mia—"

       Mia spins back around. "I didn't have a dad my entire life, because You-Know-Who was destroyed!" says Mia. The lights begin to shake forcefully, just as angry as she is "You left the house that day, didn't you, to go after Peter? You escaped and you never once tried to find me — and I get that you think you were looking out for me, but how do you think it was for me, when the whole school was ecstatic over the fact that Harry Potter was being hunted by the murderer, Sirius Black, and you didn't even bother to find me? You—You dealt with Peter and Remus in the Shrieking Shack that night and they were there, and you never once went to check up on me, when I was right next to it? How would you see that, Dad?"

       Sirius looks at a loss for words.

       She slams the door behind her, and she knows that the lights all broke, because of the flurry of people muttering lighting charms, as she storms up the stairs. Angry tears are rolling down her cheeks, so hot they sting her eyes, so by the time she gets to the room on the third floor her eyes are red, completely.

       Her best friend was murdered, not even two months ago. Her dad was gone her entire life, because he left their house that morning, deciding he'd rather avenge his best friend's death than stay with his own family. Hell, her entire family has been dead for longer than she's been alive, because You-Know-Who's taken them, one way or another. Her mother's guardian, Mia's great-uncle, was killed because he tried to force her mum into being a Death Eater. Her aunts and uncle were killed because her great-uncle found them worthless to the cause. Her uncle on her dad's side, too, died because he was a Death Eater. Even her mum's best friends are dead, because they were all murdered. Don't fucking say Mia doesn't know what it's like, to be touched by the effects of the Death Eaters, because she can't look at one aspect of her life without being reminded.

       She has a shower, not so much to clear her head, but so that the running water will cover her furiousness. Mia is so angry, all of the time. She absolutely hates it. She didn't use to be angry, every waking second... She used to be happy. She used to be positive about most things... But that was before her best friend died when she could've stopped it, before she thought that, hey, it's actually kind of really wrong that her dad isn't including her in anything... Before all of this.

       Mia doesn't know if she's making the water even hotter, or if the temperature feels more scolding because she's so pissed off, but either way, when she changes into her pyjamas, her skin hot when she touches it. Charming.

       She goes to sleep quickly after that and, the next day, she leaves early to go to work, and when she gets back at four in the afternoon, she goes straight upstairs, to her bedroom. When she walks past Fred and George, sitting across the landing again, George unhappily moves to the side to let her past. Mia looks at him oddly.

       At dinner the adults finally cave — they're all told about the Order, about various things about Voldemort and such. They mention what happened to her mum, briefly, and Mrs Weasley glares at Fred and George as Sirius explains to everyone else. How Dumbledore is being discredited by the Ministry, how You-Know-Who has a spooky weapon — everything's cut short after that one. But Mia knows more than she had done. She's pleased.

       So she goes upstairs, but she lets Fred and George go first to the third floor. She's been suspicious of them enough, all of today, she isn't going to walk, her back turned to them. Mia ends up walking behind all of the children, and before she starts the ascent, Briar Crouch walks over to her, a soft smile across her face.

       "Uh, hi," says Briar. "I was wondering... I'm having a birthday party next Saturday, if you'd like to come. There'll be others from school, and also Beauxbatons... If you're interested. If you don't want to, that's fine..."

       "I'll, um, think about it," says Mia, awkwardly. "Thanks, though."

       Briar's smiling still. "It's all right."

       And then she walks away, in all her golden glory, with her dad, and Mia starts to walk up the stairs, to her bedroom.

       She changes into her pyjamas, brushes her teeth, the usual, and when she steps out of her bathroom, Fred and George are standing there.

       "Black," says Fred. 

       "What are you doing in my room?" says Mia.

       George grumbles. "Mum says we've got to be nice to you."

       "Why?" says Mia, raising an eyebrow.

       "Because if we are," says Fred, giving her a look. "She says she'll think about supporting Wheezes."

       Sounds like she does support their business, she just wants them to do something first.

       "So," says George, looking grumpy. "We're going downstairs, to talk to Ron and Harry, if you're in."

       Mia narrows her eyes, crossing her arms. "Why do I have to go?"

       "Because," says George. "If we have to suffer, so do you."

       "How would I get downstairs, anyway?" says Mia. "I can't Apparate."

       George frowns. "No, you fool, but Side-Apparition exists."

       Mia's going to kill him.

       Fred frowns at his twin. "I'll go ahead."

       "What?" says George.

       Fred raises his hands in defence. "Briar might get the wrong idea if I'm holding hands with another girl," he says. Even Mia knows that's a complete lie. "Georgie, I don't wanna risk my future wife hating me. And she might, so..."

       He Apparates before George can say anything back to him, which leaves Mia and George, frowning at each other.

       She extends her hand.

       "Don't get the wrong idea, Weasley," says Mia with a grimace.

       "Wouldn't bloody dream of it," says George, and with that, he takes hold of her hand, neither of them thrilled about that, and George and Mia Apparate, to the room downstairs.

       Fucking kill her.

the irony of the ginger jokes is that i, the person writing them all, am in fact ginger

also i missed writing a slowburn :-( this was v fun for me i hope u enjoyed let me know what you thought!