#urc.

There were few that were left at Hogwarts, the greater population finding themselves to be healers or patients, those still returning from the Lestrange Manor to see who else they could find under the collapse, at least, this was all Hestia knew of the matter, all heard from those that only just returned, those that debated a safe house best for them away from the castle, and Hestia waited with them until they left, knowing the kitchens of Hogwarts well enough, that she remembered the tricks the House Elves would share, knowing where to find the food that would have stayed for months at a time, and it was this she shared with the others, as well as blankets ( which she couldn’t conjure very well, having to ask another to cast a transfiguration spell, as the time she tried out the spell, she more found herself creating a pillow with a tail, and times like these, there wasn’t an essay that could aid her in bringing up the grade, only her figuring out the best possible route around the issue at hand ). Being a helping hand among those that found their way to Hogwarts was something of nature, something that these people deserved, a kind thing in a war, it was a reminder that they still needed such things. Beyond this, such actions also doubled as distraction, Hestia waiting by the entrance of Hogwarts as if in waiting, asking those she recognized if they saw her father, her sisters, if they heard from them.

Part of her was waiting for the collapse, for the realization that those who saved her friends, those she knew were so close to death, some already meeting it, enough so that the focus on her parents and sisters only grew, that her father could have been among them at the Ministry.

She has been sitting long enough at the doors of Hogwarts, those that welcomed the newcomers and the only way for the others to leave, if they would arrive, she would see them, long enough for a few to ask her what she was doing there, sitting still, for her, at the least, though her hand tapped against her knee and her fingers tended to run through her hair, though it was already tangled. When one paused beside her, she asked them with a thick voice, "Would you like to sit?" She wasn’t the first to wait by the doorways.

The day could have been beautiful, still should have been, in the mind of Hestia, the clouds as if waiting, as she waited on a park bench outside of St. Mungos, teeth picking at the skin of her lip as her gaze would turn to the road, eyes trailing to the hill as if waiting for Mary to make her way across. A pen held behind her ear and a notebook held in her lap, it was a dirty thing, dusty and coated with random blotches of ink, papers crinkled and dog-earred, notes sticking out from the side, some that fell out and she shoved them back into the pages, others used as a marker. She has been formulating her own plan since Mary told her of her idea to finally discover the results from the days after their return ( coincidentally, the only days Hestia enjoyed to remember from those weeks out of the year ) and if she was to be correct, she had twelve plans in mind ( one included an army of dogs dressed as healers, it was her favorite, she would admit, the rest practical, but greater than what would simply be seen by others and being the woman she was, she was about to go ahead inside and finish the deed herself, waiting not something she was best at ).

Among these plans were others, conversations went through a dialogue in her mind, each where she tells Mary that she'll build gardens after the war if she wishes, roses and hedges high enough into the sky that this is where they could all live. They'll still work, but with daisies in their hair and pockets, and always in these dreams, Mary and Hestia work together, investigation and journalism, words creating something better in the world, speaking of beauty, that the world doesn't deserve smoke. They'll live in greenhouses and no one can be taken again.

There wasn’t much thought that Hestia would come along with Mary, would have no matter the adventure, though there was the question that no one was going to get hurt, only for information, which Hestia was best at obtaining, perhaps holding a policy of heading into the fray anyway and getting the things she needed before being kicked out ( which was also a tip the editor gave her when she was still an intern ). 

It was a habit perhaps, though an unexpected one, as Hestia tended to be found in peculiar situations, even now in the morning, sitting against cabinets on a tile floor by the refrigerator with a pen in hand and napkins held on a book in her lap, a uneaten bit of toast and jelly on the counter and a bit of biscuits she intended to pass out later, made with whatever she could find from the kitchen ( ingredients for pancakes were also placed out on the counter behind her, as if waiting for Ms. Figg’s approval for a group breakfast, as if this will mend something, or at least for her. ). Hestia was writing away at another letter, now written on napkins as she doesn’t want to use all of Ms. Figg’s paper, it’s another to one of her sisters, and the finished letter beside this was to her mother, each saying the same words, each desperate for anything from them, anything at all. She’s written at least two to each thus far, even her sister Eleanora in America, and five to her father and one to his partner at the Ministry. 

( If one was to read these words, they may not have believed Hestia to be writing them if one only knew her in conversational matters, where she couldn't seem to grasp how to articulate her own words, where a pen gave her time, let her write sentences as a poem, paragraphs into prose, enough to be surprising with all the practice Hestia held in her writing, causing perhaps a pause in the development of her speech patterns, but this wasn't the worry these days, as it may should have been. Perhaps, now, it would mostly be a shock to see Hestia this quiet, without working to see if she could enter the field and discover what she can. )

In the end, she’s not finished with the letter when she runs out of ink and still tries to write, and it’s a desperate movement, going over the word several times before the napkin breaks, before she must notice that another joined her in the kitchen.