#caisey

A crash was heard from the kitchen, followed by an exclamation of ‘shit!’ that had Penny jumping up in concern.

“Oh -- are you okay?” Gemma shook her head at Penny’s reaction, mumbling just leave them to it and stopping Penny from getting up.

“I’m good -- shit -- ‘s all good.” A quick reparo fixed the dish, but not the pasta that was in it. Caisey returned to the doorway of their small living room, leaning against the frame. “Well, there goes dinner. Sorry. I can run out and grab something instead, I’m kind of a shit cook anyways.”

“Don’t worry about it, Penny’s parents made us eat before we left. We can go out later.” Penny nodded her affirmation, straightening out the skirt of her dress awkwardly.

“So, Penny. You’re not into Quidditch like Gemma, right? What do you do?” Caisey pushed off the door frame and dropped into a chair, glass of wine in hand.

“Well, um, I’m going to be a historian after I graduate, working for the Ministry…?” Penny gave a small smile -- this was a little uncomfortable for her, but if there was anything she was always comfortable talking about, it was history.

Or she was, until Caisey let out a sharp laugh at her words. Penny turned bright red and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear uncomfortably.

“Oh, sorry -- I mean, history is cool, that was my favorite subject in school. Look where it got me.” They gestured to the torn up chair they were in. “Not much work for people looking in the past.” A pointed look from Gemma had Caisey clearing their throat. “I’m, uh, sure you’ll be fine, though, you seem really smart.”

“She is,” Gemma said. The room was painfully quiet for a long, painful moment, and Caisey took advantage of it to take a long drink of wine. “So, dinner?”

“Thought you weren’t hungry,” Caisey said, setting down their glass.

“I lied, I’m starved. What’s around here?”

“There’s this sushi place not far from here, it’s pretty good and the couple that owns it has no family so they’re always open. We could go there.”

Penny and Gemma looked at each other in confirmation and nodded.

“You two are adorable,” Caisey said, raising their eyebrows at the couple. “You always like this? I bet your parents love her, don’t they. Did you tell them what a neat freak she is? Lives here for two months and rearranged all the cupboards, I still can’t find shit.”

“Don’t listen to them, I just moved out all the stuff they never throw out,” Gemma rolled her eyes, fishing in her pockets to see if she had everything. “Ready to go?”

They ended up bringing the food back to Caisey’s apartment -- eating at a nearly abandoned sushi place the day after Christmas seemed a little too sad, even for their ragtag “family” dinner. They ate quietly, Caisey half listening to Penny and Gemma talking and half listening to whatever talk show was on the radio -- Which Witch, some kind of “reunion show,” which they didn’t understand, considering that it was only a one person show, and not a very interesting one at that.

“Uh, thanks for coming by, you guys. Gave me an excuse to not work today -- bars are depressing as hell on Christmas, it’s either happy young couples or lonely old guys, and when alcohol is involved, neither are very fun. Oh --” they downed their wine and set the glass down, laughing. “Last Christmas some guy kept trying to hit on me -- stayed at the bar until the minute we closed, the hung around outside, smoking, like smoking for an hour is normal?” They paused to roll their eyes. “Liyana ended up threatening the guy, wand out and everything. Being a teacher definitely didn’t calm her down.”

“No, it really didn’t.” Gemma finished her own glass and leaned back into her chair with a sigh.

“She would’ve been so happy for you to be here. Both of you, I guess -- you’re one of her favorites too, right?” She raised an eyebrow at Penny. “Were, I guess.”

“Um, yes, well -- I wasn’t nearly as close with her as you two were, but she did some extra tutoring and, she is -- was, sorry, very inspirational. I’m sure it’s hard without her.” Penny shifted a little uncomfortably -- she never really was close to Professor Barrows, but Penny was in the Alliance, and Barrows had meant a lot to Gemma.

“She should be here. If she weren’t such an idiot with a hero complex, maybe she would be.”

Penny’s jaw dropped at that and she automatically looked at Gemma, who was glaring at Caisey. Caisey stared steadily back.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about --”

“I sure don’t, do I? I didn’t even know she was dead until you told me. Of course I didn’t.” They stood quickly from their chair and crossed the room, the wood floors creaking under their feet. The picked up a stack of envelopes from a box -- at least three dozen, all opened, with their contents stuffed back inside carelessly. “People still write me, you know, ‘what happened to Liyana? Do you have any news?’ I have a collection of her obituary, now, people keep sending me it, asking when she’s coming back from ‘being in hiding’. Do you know how much it sucks explaining to grown ass adults that not even the great Liyana fucking Barrows can come back from the dead?”

Gemma and Caisey stared at each other, both waiting for the other to say something, before Caisey finally dropped the stack back into the box.

“Maybe we should go.”

Caisey glanced at the framed picture near them -- them with Liyana, the fifteenth of June, after Caisey’s final year at Hogwarts. They’d gotten in a terrible fight that day, ending with Caisey staying with a friend for the three weeks Liyana had off before going off to Spain, or Italy, or wherever she was working now.

“Your parents would be so proud of you, Caisey, I know they would.” 

“They’re not here because of you.”

“Why would you say that?” 

“You told them they needed to fight, you got them involved in the first place, and they died because of it --”