Never Let Go

There was no reason for me to be out of bed at six in the morning, there was no urgent matter to tend to or bodily function that I had to perform, there was nothing that I had to do, but for some odd reason I was wide awake and try as I did, I couldn’t fall asleep again. It was like my body had turned against me, like it wanted me to suffer by forcing me to be awake at such an ungodly hour.

All I wanted to do was sleep.

That was it. But apparently my body was incapable of granting me that, which was strange when one considers the fact that I had hardly slept the previous day, due to Hermione having woken Ron and I at an even earlier hour. I had thought that I was going to sleep until twelve, perhaps even one. I had thought that my Nan was going to storm the room and poke me in the gut to wake me up, but no. I had woken up on my own and now I needed to find something to do to keep myself from going crazy.

I lay in bed, wracking my mind to find a task that would keep me employed until my grandparents awoke. I could go out for a walk in the countryside. That was something that I had been, wanting to go on, but seeing as how I was a minor, I couldn’t use my wand and therefore, roaming the countryside on my own was immediately cast aside. I then toyed with sneaking in a smoke. Again, I realized that that would not work so I did the only thing I could do, I decided to go down to the kitchen and bake.

I threw the covers off my body, letting them fall onto the mattress as I fumbled in the dark, searching for the shorts and shirt that I had discarded before I had climbed into bed the night before. My Nan always scolded me for sleeping in undergarments, she claimed it wasn’t ladylike, but when I'm sleeping I don’t care about being ladylike, I care about being comfortable and being able to fidget around since I have a bad habit of fidgeting in my sleep. When that’s added to my incoherent mumbling, it’s easy to see why I never went to sleepovers when I was younger. The only exception was of course the sleepovers I had at Ron’s.

The only reason I felt comfortable sleeping there was because Ron thought that my strange sleeping habits were brilliant and there were numerous instances in which I awoke only to find him intently watching me. He claimed that he stared so that he could learn how to do it. I don’t know if that’s true. I didn’t really care enough to pester him about it.

“There you are!” I exclaimed triumphantly when I spotted the clothes.

I grabbed them from their place on the ground and slipped into them. I contemplated putting shoes on, but I decided against them due to that fact that I don’t like wearing shoes unless I absolutely have to. There’s something about shoes that bugs me. I feel that they restrict my feet from enjoying their surroundings. That sounds strange; but I love the feel of different surfaces. I love how carpet feels against my toes, I love how hardwood flooring allows my feet to glide, and I'm absolutely obsessed with how the moist green grass feels against them.

This obsession with being barefoot earned me several scoldings.

Most of them have been delivered by school officials whom thought that I purposely showed up to class without shoes on so that I could be a distraction. The truth was that I simply forgot to put them on when I was getting dressed, but that excuse doesn’t work when you use it as frequently as I did.

The walk to the kitchen was short. Once there I began to rummage for ingredients. I had planned on making scones that could be enjoyed for breakfast, but didn’t find the necessary ingredients so I decided that white macadamia nut cookies would suffice. I pulled out the bowls as quietly as I could which ended up being loud enough to wake up our eldest house elf, Mitzi.

“What is Millie doing awake this early?” asked Mitzi as she walked towards me.

“I wanted to make some cookies.” I answered politely.

“But why?” squeaked Mitzi. “Millie knows that Mitzi loves to make cookies for Millie.”

“I know Mitzi,” I crouched down to be at her eye level. “But I couldn’t sleep so I wanted to make them by myself, you can help me if you want. I'm only halfway done with making them.”

At those words Mitzi’s face lit up. She loved baking and cooking, and she was always chasing after me. It was natural for her to chase after me. She was, after all, the house elf that had been most fond of my father and when he moved out with my mother, she was the house elf that went along with them because according to her, Dominic and Adelaide are to young to know how to keep a proper home.

In all honesty, I don’t think that Mitzi thought them incapable of keeping a clean house. I think that she was just afraid of losing my father. He had been her favorite and after he died, she took it upon herself to look after me. I’ve told her time and time again that she doesn’t have to take care of me, but I think that she feels guilty about the fact that she wasn’t there the night that Voldemort came for us, and in order to atone for that, she feels obligated to watch after me.

“Mitzi will put milk on the stove for Millie’s coffee.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Mitzi wants to,” the elderly elf rushed to the refrigerator where she pulled out a gallon of milk.

How she managed to carry a gallon that was half her size was beyond me. I think it had something to do with house elf magic, that’s the only way that someone so small would be so strong.

“Did Millie enjoy the lunch yesterday?”

“I did. It was nice seeing everyone.”

Mitzi poured the milk into a small kettle. “Mrs. Rose told Mitzi that Millie was with The Weasley’s? Are they still nice to Millie?”

“Very nice and you have to go visit soon. I'm sure Ron would love to see you.”

“Mitzi would be honored to see Ron.” Mitzi climbed atop the kitchen counter so that she could help me make the cookie mix. “Are Fred and George still odd?”

At that, I burst into laughter. “Yes and you may rest assured that they’ll be odd for the rest of their lives.”

“Mitzi is happy that they are still odd. And the rest of The Weasley’s, how are they?”

“They’re great. Ginny is grown up. She’s really pretty and sassy. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley are doing well. Charlie is working with dragons in Romania and Bill is back in England.”

“Mitzi will make them their favorite desert when we go visit.”

“We can make it right now and go later today.”

“Really?” her eyes sparkled with excitement.

“Really, but we’re going to have to ask either Nan or Grandpa to walk us since they’ve remembered that it’s unsafe for me to walk the countryside.”

“Mitzi can protect Millie.”

“But you have no wand,” I pointed out.

“Mitzi does not need a wand to keep Millie safe. Mrs. Rose knows that.”

Mitzi shouldn’t have told me that. She truly shouldn’t have, because as soon as she said that she could keep me safe, my mind jumped to the container that was hidden in an old shoe underneath my bed. I know that using Mitzi to get high was morally questionable, but my hedonistic side momentarily overpowered me, which told me that my morals – for the time being – could go fuck themselves.

Convincing Mitzi to take me out for a walk proved to be a bit challenging but she eventually promised that once we had finished putting the mixes into the oven, she’d take me. That promise inspired me to work faster than I had been. The mixes were completely finished within the next five minutes and when I was done, I sped up the stairs so that I could grab a jacket that I’d hide my container in.

We had gotten about a quarter of a mile away from the house when we ran into an obstacle. On second thought, he wasn’t really an obstacle. An obstacle would have been someone or something dangerous but we just ran into my brooding, emotionally unstable Uncle Luke who was sitting atop a tree stump with a book in one hand and what seemed to be a bottle of wine in the other.

What he was doing there, I wasn’t sure.

I had thought that he’d gone home like everyone else, but judging by his appearance, he had spent the night and hadn’t bothered to change out of his pajamas.

“Emilia,” he took his time pronouncing my name, his raspy voice breaking the morning’s silence. “It’s not safe for you to be outside unprotected.”

“Mitzi’s with me.”

Luke’s eyes went to Mitzi, they softened at her sight, but the tight line that his lips were pressed into didn’t disappear. “Where were you headed?”

“Don’t know. There wasn’t an exact place in mind.” I stuffed both hands into my pockets. My right hand grasped the container tightly. I didn’t want him to find it.

“Wandering aimlessly throughout a war torn countryside isn’t advisable, even when one has a devoted house elf at their side.” A smile flickered across his lips. It quickly vanished; his smiles were always disappeared without a trace. It was as if he feared the expression.

“I know it’s not advisable, but that’s not going to stop me.”

Luke folded the edge of the page he was reading before closing the book. He then stood up, his hold on the wine bottle never loosening. “Mitzi, you can return to the cottage. I’ll escort Emilia.”

“Mitzi will see Luke and Millie when they come home,” chirped Mitzi in her high pitched voice before she left.

An awkward silence ensued.

I stood beside Luke, my hands still buried in my pockets as I tried to figure out what was going on. My uncle wasn’t the sort that spent time with his nieces and nephews. He was a man that loved solitude, he viewed others as nothing more than unwelcomed disturbances and I wanted to know why he was going to escort me. I wanted to know why he was bothering himself with my company.

“What are you truly doing up so early?” he didn’t bother turning to face me.

“I wanted to go out for a walk.”

“Don’t lie to me,” had Luke been another man, his voice would’ve held a hint of anger, his remained perfectly serene.

I remained silent.

“It has something to do with the marijuana in your pocket, doesn’t it?”

“W-what?” the shock that I felt caused me to stutter out the word.

“Bet you thought I didn’t know. I could smell it though.”

“I have it locked up really well. How could you have smelled it? Wait.” I paused before asking, “How do you even know what it smells like?”

“I'm twenty seven years old, Emilia. I may not be a teenager but I know what it smells like.”

“Are you going to tell my Nan?” if Nan knew, she would kill me, I knew she would.

“I’d rather not send my mother into a hysterical fit, but you shouldn’t be smoking.”

“And you shouldn’t be drinking at six in the morning.”

“I'm twenty seven,” Luke said it like the fact that he was twenty seven years old actually meant something.

“That doesn’t mean that you should start drinking this early.”

His eyes flickered to the bottle. He had practically finished devouring its contents.

“When you’re an adult, you can choose to indulge in whatever poison you want to kill yourself with but until then, keep your body clean so give me the pot.” He placed his book under his armpit and stretched his hand out.

“That’s not fair!” I cried.

“Do you want me to tell my mom that you were roaming the countryside so you could smoke? Do you want her to know that you were risking your life to get a hit of marijuana?”

“Do you want me to tell her that you were sitting on a boulder drinking wine?” I retorted. “She hates alcohol. Doesn’t have it in the house because it ruined my dad and if she knows that you’re drinking, she’ll have your head.”

“Alcohol didn’t ruin your father,” for the first time ever, I heard his voice grow enraged. It wasn’t an overwhelming rage, it was a quiet one, but coming from him, it felt as if a volcano had just erupted. “The world did.”

“Nan prefers to blame alcohol.”

I expected him to yell at me for my remarks, but he didn’t.

Instead he tilted his head to the left and stared at me in silence, breaking it only to utter the words, “Stubborn as your father.”

“I’ve been told that before.”

“Because it’s true,” he removed his gaze from me, fixing it on the horizon. “I was only eleven when he died, but I remember how stubborn he was. If Dominic wanted something, he got it. There was nothing that kept him from what he desired, nothing.”

“I'm sure the things he wanted were more important than pot.”

For the first time in years, I heard my uncle laugh. “No, he actually fought over marijuana with our parents. I was only eight when it happened, so I didn’t really understand what was going on but he’d been caught with some and they were giving him a lecture about it’s dangerous but somehow he managed to convince them that it was healthy for him.” his smile slowly vanished. “Dominic could convince anyone of anything. The only person that didn’t buy his bullshit was your mum. Adelaide was the one that won between the two of them. Dominic always did what Adelaide wanted. He lived to make her happy . . .”

I had never heard my uncle talk so much. He was always just there, always silent.

“I can’t believe that it’s going to be fifteen years since she died . . . just a few more weeks until it’s officially fifteen years and ten since your dad joined her but it feels like just yesterday. It feels like just yesterday,” he muttered the last sentence more to himself than me. He lifted the bottle to his lips, placing his mouth on its opening so that the wine could enter his being. He took several gulps before lowering the bottle. “Fifteen years and the wounds are still fresh and worst of all, the war is still raging.”

“But it won’t be for long.” I had no authority to make such a claim. I knew I didn’t. He knew I didn’t. Yet the words still rushed forth from my lips. They had to be said. I didn’t dare believe that this war could be waged any longer.

“This war isn’t ending anytime soon. It’s just beginning.” He hurled the bottle into the distance. “There’s blood to be shed, so much blood and I’ve been drowning in that bloody wine because I keep thinking about whose going to be next.”

“You shouldn’t think about that.”

“I lost seven brothers and sisters in the last war. I can’t help but think about it and whenever I think about it, I turn to that garbage that I just hurled. I turn to my familiar poison so that I’ll forget and I'm almost certain that if Death Eaters ever sow up at my door, I’ll be to drunk to realize what’s going on.”

“Then you should stop drinking. I don’t want to lose you.”

“And why not?” asked Luke. “I'm not likeable.”

“I beg to differ.”

“How can you differ when I'm a somber recluse that has never been openly affectionate or loving?”

“You may not be openly affection but you love me in your own way. That I know. And you love me because this smile of mine makes you remember a time when all your siblings were alive, a time when you were the baby of the family and they showered you with affection. And this face of yours, worn as it may be, has been the only face that has never tried to force me to be anything other than who I am. When I was a mute, you respected that, told everyone else to leave me alone because I’d talk when I’d feel like it. You’ve always been there for me in your own way and I demand that you continue to be there so I want to make a deal with you.”

“A deal?” his right brow rose in curiosity.

“Yes, a deal,” I pulled the container out of my pocket. “If you stop drinking, I’ll stop smoking.”

“That sounds fair enough.”

“That’s not all of it.” I cleared my throat, attempting to muster the courage to speak the next few words. “I want you to help me join the Order.”

“I thought you wanted us to be safe.”

“I-I-I do,” I stutter nervously, “But it makes sense for me to join . . . I know it sounds stupid. Grandpa told me that it was stupid . . .”

“You told my dad about this?” Luke shook his head in disbelief. “He won’t ever condone any of his children joining.”

“Technically, I'm not his child.”

“Emilia, he doesn’t treat you like his other grandkids. He treats you like a daughter. He raised you as a daughter and loves you as one. For you to join the Order, after everyone he’s lost . . . I just don’t think that he’d accept that.”

“Uncle Luke, I didn’t come back to England just to go to school. I came back because I wanted to fight. I wanted to honor my parents sacrifice.”

“If you wanted to honor their sacrifice, you’d stay out of this and keep yourself alive.”

“That isn’t what they would’ve wanted.” I swallowed the lump that was forming in my throat. “My mother didn’t give up her life for me to lead the life of a coward.”

“Emilia . . .”

“She rebelled against her family! People don’t just stand up to The Malfoy’s, that’s not something that people do but she did. She stood up for what she wanted and she married my dad, she had me and they fought for what was right so believe me when I say that my mom would’ve wanted me to do this and I'm almost positive that my dad would’ve felt the same way.”

Luke shook his head fiercely. “You don’t understand.”

“What don’t I understand?”

“I promised your father that I would keep you safe when our parents couldn’t and by letting you join the Order, I’d be condemning you to death.”

“Uncle Luke, if you don’t help me figure out how to join the Order, I’ll find another way and it might not be as safe,” I whispered.

“Why do you have to be so bloody stubborn?”

“Because I'm Dominic Renner’s daughter and I bloody well get what I want.”

What ensued was a stare off.

It wasn’t an epic one, there was no western music to add to the mood, there were no witnesses to comment on the intensity with which we glared at one another, all there was, was the rising sun that drenched our beings, all there was, was the gentle breeze that ruffled both our hairs.

“You can’t even use magic yet. I don’t see how you think you’re going to be an asset when you can’t even bloody use magic!”

“I turn seventeen in late December. I know that the Order isn’t just going to accept me, it takes time to make that sort of thing happen but if I could get this going early then I could be in the Order by the time that I turn seventeen and things will work out.”

“You’re just a child.”

“My parents were my age when they enlisted.”

”And look where that got them!” he cried.

“At least they weren’t afraid to live and to stand up for what they believed in. Now, since you don’t want to make a deal, I'm going to light this fucking blunt and get baked beyond belief.”

“Wait.”

“What?” I growled.

Luke snatched the container from me. “You’re not getting high on my watch and you’re not joining the Order.”