Never Let Go

“What the fuck?!” were the words that left my lips the moment that I caught the gaze of the bushy haired stranger.

In retrospect, I shouldn’t have cursed. I should’ve politely asked what was going on or mumbled something incoherently like any other person would’ve done had they been in my place but I didn’t do any of that. No. I had to curse. I had to make my anger known to everyone present because I'm not a morning person. I absolutely despise mornings. I hate having to get out of bed before ten or eleven in the morning.

That’s just the type of person I am and my hatred of mornings has led me to be a bit of a bitch before I get my morning coffee in me, but I justify my bitchiness by telling myself that if I'm going to be nice throughout the entire day, then I deserve to have a few minutes of bitchiness in the morning, it makes sense to me but judging by the look on the bushy haired strangers face, it made no sense whatsoever to her.

“When people are covered with blankets, that, means that they’re fucking sleeping and you shouldn’t disturb them,” again, I should’ve kept my mouth shut but I'm not very skilled at thinking before speaking.

“Quit talking,” mumbled Ron, he rolled onto his side, his hand draping across my lap as he snuggled his face into the pillow.

The fact that Ron fell back to sleep so quickly led me to believe that I could do the same, that the stranger that was at the foot of the bed could be ignored. That thought in mind I fell back onto the bed, my body landing against the mattress with a soft thud as my hair spread out across the pillow. It was still early, the sun hadn’t completely risen and I planned on sleeping a little while longer.

I nestled against the pillow, my head tilting to the right as I pulled up the blanket to cover my torso with. I had nearly succeeded in falling asleep when the blankets were torn off for the second time. Instinctively, I parted my lips to let out a slew of profanity but was cut off when Ron spoke.

“Merlin’s beard, what’s the bloody problem? Can’t you see we’re sleeping!” he yelled angrily.

At that moment I remembered that Ron was worse than I when it came to mornings. On one occasion, when we were ten, he had actually wounded Fred when he threw a book at his head for having woken us up at seven, it was an ungodly hour to be awoken at and Fred learned that waking Ron before ten a.m. was an incredibly dangerous endeavor.

“Ronald Weasley,” was all she said, but the dark tone in which she said it sent chills shooting through both our beings.

It was obvious to me that something was wrong.

No person would utter another’s name with such hostility if something wasn’t wrong and as I sat up, I couldn’t help but wonder what exactly was wrong. I turned to look at the bushy haired teen, she was still glaring at me as if I were nothing more than some shit covered cockroach that had just crawled out from the sewer.

There was something unsettling about her gaze. It made me feel like I had been doing something morally reprehensible. As I sat beside Ron, I began to realize that maybe, just maybe, this stranger was dating Ron, that she was her boyfriend and that she thought that he had cheated on her with me.

Absurd as that thought was, it made sense. Why else would she be so angry to find Ron in bed with a stranger? That was the only possible explanation and as soon I processed it, my cheeks flooded with color and I began wishing that I had the power to vanish from sight or that I could apparate elsewhere, but neither was possible. I just had to sit there in my faded Jimi Hendrix shirt and dark grey sweatpants.

“Hermione,” exclaimed Ron, his eyes widening when they landed on the bushy haired youth.

If I had had any doubts that the stranger was Ron’s girlfriend, they vanished the moment that I saw his panic stricken face. That reaction was reserved for lovers that had been caught in compromising situations and, wanting to fix the situation, I found myself forced to speak again.

“Nothing happened,” I reassured.

“What are you talking about?” she hissed.

“Nothing happened with Ron, I just crawled in beside him because I have this thing about thunder so don’t be mad at him. He didn’t do anything.”

“Why would I care if he did anything?” she snapped.

“Aren’t you his girlfriend?” I asked, my brow furrowing in confusion.

“No!” she cried, her cheeks flushing with color.

“Well, this is awkward.” I scratched my hair as I stood up. “Um, I think I'm going to go change.”

“Emi, wait,” Ron left his place on the bed. “You haven’t met Hermione. Well, you have met her, but you haven’t really met her, you just got screamed at by her . . . anyway, Emi this is Hermione, Hermione this is Emilia.”

“Who is she, exactly?” asked Hermione, it was clear that I would not be a favorite with her.

“An old friend,” I told her.

“If you’re such an old friend then why haven’t I ever seen you before?” Hermione’s eyes scanned my face.

I didn’t care for her attitude. It was obvious that she thought me beneath her, obvious that she didn’t think that I was worthy of being friends with, but I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of letting her think that she was better than me. I may not have been elegant or graceful in my earlier behavior towards her, but I was determined to be above her petty attitude.

“I was in America,” I replied.

“America? What were you doing there?” her eyes flickered with interest.

“My grandfather was the Ministry Ambassador to America so I . . .”

“So you moved to America to live with your grandfather. Where were your parents?” she asked, great emphasis was put on the word parents.

Some people feel bad when deceased loved ones are brought up in conversation. Sometimes I feel bad but this wasn’t one of those moments. This was a moment in which I was actually really fucking happy that they had been mentioned because it meant that she was going to feel like a jackass for having brought them up and she deserved that for the way that she’d been talking to me.

“Emi, you don’t have to answer that,” whispered Ron.

“It’s alright Ron,” I turned to Hermione. “If you must know, my parents are dead. My mom’s been dead about fifteen years and my dad, ten years.”

Just as I had expected, the color drained from her face. Her eyes widened in horror, her mouth fell open and she gaped at me, much like a fish that had been yanked out of the water by a starving grizzly would gape at its predator.

“I-I'm so sorry. I didn’t know,” stuttered Hermione.

“That’s alright,” I smiled softly. “At least now you know why you never saw me. Hey Ron, is it alright if I use the bathroom to get changed?”

“You don’t want to go back to sleep?” he asked.

“No, I think I should head back to the cottage.”

Ron’s brow furrowed, “So soon?”

“Yeah, I remember my Nana telling me that some family was going to come over to visit, you’re welcome to come though,” I paused before adding, “You both are”

I grabbed my backpack up off the ground and walked out of the bedroom so that I could get to the bathroom. During my journey, I ended up stumbling into a few things but I eventually made it to my destination and changed into the clothes that I had stashed into the backpack. A bit of make up was applied and as soon as I ran a hand through my unruly curls, I deemed myself ready to leave.

Upon exiting the bathroom, I ran into the twins that were snickering amongst each other. The reasonable side of me urged me to ignore them, but the less reasonable side demanded that I go see what they were snickering about. I, of course, listened to the less reasonable side, that was – after all – the side that gave me the most fun.

“What has you two snickering?” I asked.

“Oh, you already know,” was their only response.

“If I knew I wouldn’t be asking, would I?” I smiled cheekily.

“We’re laughing about what happened this morning when Hermione woke you and Ron up. Apparently you two were spooning on the bed and she nearly had a heart attack, though my personal favorite part of the story is when you cursed her out,” George suppressed his laughter.

“My favorite was when you told her that your parents, may they rest in peace, were dead.” Fred smirked. “I would’ve paid ten galleons to have seen the look on her bloody face.”

“So would I!” exclaimed George.

“How do you guys know all of this?”

“Oh, Hermione stormed out a bit after you went to go change and then we asked Ron what happened, he told us and now he’s downstairs with Hermione and Harry. Have you met Harry?” George cocked his brow.

“I haven’t.”

“Well then let’s go downstairs; I believe that our mum’s serving breakfast right now. Apparently she remembered that Harry and Hermione were going to spend the week here,” Fred linked arms with me. “All of us forget because we were so excited to see our little Millie.”

When we reached the living room, my eyes landed on a messy haired young man whom wore round framed glasses. There was something strangely familiar about him, I felt as if I had seen him before but I cast that thought aside. He was a stranger, one of Ron’s friends from school and the odds that I had ever crossed paths with him were very unlikely.

“Harry it’s time for you to meet our lovely little Millie,” exclaimed Fred overdramatically. “Come on, you have to stand up for this, this is going to be a proper introduction.”

“Honestly Harry, gentleman are supposed to rise when they become acquainted with a lady,” George faked a very posh accent. “Alright, you’re standing now,” he cleared his throat. “Harry, I would like you to meet Emilia and Emilia this is Harry.”

“Its nice meeting you,” spoke Harry as he extended his hand to shake mine.

“Nice to meet you as well,” I shot him a friendly smile; I could feel that I would get along with him better than I would with Hermione. “Ron, I think I'm going to get going now.”

“Won’t you at least stay for breakfast?” asked Ron.

“I would but I'm sure my Nana needs help, the elves haven’t moved back from America yet so she needs me.”

“Your family owns house elves?” Hermione’s nose wrinkled in disgust.

“We don’t own elves, we have elves work for us,” I clarified.

“Is that how you justify slavery?” she pressed.

“No, but it is how I differentiate the fact that we don’t own house elves, but that we pay them hourly wages and that we give them days off and the fact that today is their day off is the reason why they’re still at the old house in America and not in the cottage that’s a mile away from here,” I had tried my best to remain composed but I couldn’t be mellow when someone had basically accused me of being a slave owner. That wasn’t acceptable.

For the second time that day she apologized. I accepted, not because I wanted to, but because I was the sort of person that was incapable of holding a grudge against someone else. Whenever I was angry at someone, I always felt that my heart was being weighed down and I wasn’t in the mood to be miserable because I was busy hating someone, I’d much rather smile.

Ron convinced me to stay for breakfast. As soon as it ended, he and his friends walked me home. I had told him that I would be fine, that there was no point in them going out of their way to walk me home but Ron demanded that he take me and they did.