Sealing Wax

She's off in her room again with another letter. I hadn't thought much of the conversation she and her mother were having, simply because it happened so often these days. I did, however, put my paper down for a moment when she told Hermione to go and read a book. I got out of my chair when the stunned silence fell on the house and poked my head out of the study to watch her take the letter from the owl and head to her room.

"This isn't good," Kerry said as she saw my head.

"What isn't?" I asked, playing dumb as I headed back to my chair.

"You know very well what," she hissed at me as she ripped the paper from my hands. "Those damned letters . . . ." she started to pace and I sighed, sitting back and getting comfortable. This was going to take a while. "All she does is wait for them. Like she'll die if she doesn't get it right away."

"Maybe she will," I quipped and immediately regretted it when I saw the look on her face. She glared at me and I could see her trying to format a reply before she simply threw her hands in the air and stalked out of the room.

***

"Whaz wrong?" I asked as I rolled over later that night, feeling Kerry slip back into bed.

"Nothing," she said quietly. I could tell something what wrong; she was still, staying on her side of the bed.

"You didn't go snooping around, did you?" I asked. She stayed quiet and I had my answer. "It's none of our business," I told her softly. "She'll tell us when she's ready."

"What if she never tells us? What if she always keeps us in the dark about what goes on in her world?"

"She's 16," I started.

"I mean Her World," she said again. I had no reply for that. When Hermione had started school, her letters home were filled with all her adventures and what she was learning and all about her teachers. But then she began to make her letters vague about what was going on, even by the end of her first year. I could tell she was leaving things out, keeping us in the dark. Truth be told, it never worried me as much as it did Kerry. I always assumed that there were just some things us muggles weren't privy to in the wizarding world. They do go to such extremes to keep themselves hidden from us, after all.

"She'll tell us what she can," I said as I rolled over and gathered her into my arms. There was nothing else that I really could say.

"He signs his letters to her Love Harry," she commented.

"She is his best friend," I reasoned. "And for the last 6 years. I reckon she's earned a Love from him."

"I don't think it's that kind of love," she said softly. I frowned through a yawn as this hit me. They were only 16, far to young to be talking about love that seriously.

***

"You did it again," I said a few weeks later as she slipped back into bed.

"I wish I hadn't," she said as she immediately scooted right next to me and pulled my arm around her. "Something's going on in Her World, something dangerous."

"To her?" I asked, feeling my heart jump into my throat.

"To her, to them . . . to us," she said quietly. "Moody, Lupin and someone named Tonks are supposed to come by the house at some point. They may want us to move somewhere safer." A silence fell over us as she voiced this tid bit out loud.

"Two of them, Moody and Lupin, they were professors at Hogwarts, right?" I asked after a moment.

"Yes." I nodded as I thought about this. If professors were coming to check up on us, it must be serious.

"I think it's his fault she's in danger."

"Who's?"

"Harry's."

"He's just a boy," I said with a little trouble. Leave it to a mother to think that a boy is putting her daughter in danger.

"He called himself the saviour of the world," she said seriously.

"Inside joke," I said confidently.

"I found a letter she wrote, but hadn't sent yet. She signed it I miss you so much it hurts, all my love, Hermione. They're only 16 Richard, surely they don't know what love is." I patted her shoulder a little and we lay in silence for a long time. I had no reply. Love was a tricky thing, but so were letters for that matter. So plain and unassuming, but as soon as you seal them up, it's like sealing your fate and it only becomes more permanent when you seal it with a stamp.

Their lives at Hogwarts seemed to be a sealed letter that we couldn't get into and this; this was the sealing wax on the envelope.

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