Capítulo 6: The Weight of Sympathy
The Hunch's, like many magical families, had lived in one house for so long it'd gotten a lot of, shall we say, personality. And, just like quite a few magical homes, it had a name. Hunch Manor was called Lumpkins Patch, for reasons I could only guess at.
The building was oddly rounded on the north side, and a belfry jutted up out of the west wing for some unfathomable reason. The roof tiles were all orange. And not a subdued, dark or burnt orange like sensible people, but bright, pumpkin orange hued. A line of moss-covered stone snail statues – some smaller than my fist, others coming up to my waist – lined the walkways, forming a border between the flagstones of the path leading up to the front door and the garden
Said garden was quite vast, and mainly used for providing homegrown potion ingredients for my mother's work, though a few tulips and marigolds brought up some color during the spring and summer. The garden took up all of the front and back lawn, and memories of weeding it with her flickered through my mind. Those had been good times, some of the few decent ones I had of this place.
Finished with my inspection of my soon-to-be former home, I turned and walk off, following a plain dirt road down through the hills and past some fields towards the sole source of civilization for miles in any direction.
The Hunch family lived in Ottery St. Catchpole, a mixed community with about a dozen families in it, both magical and Muggle in Devon, England.
And yes, it meant that the Burrow was nearby, and the Weasleys and Lovegoods were my neighbors.
Ottery St. Catchpole was a typical mixed rural settlement. Muggle homes and businesses clustered close together in the 'center' of town, while all the magical folk lived a few minutes away in warded, undetectable (to Muggles at least) structures. Unless you lived in an urban center like one of the Alleys in London or a magical enclave in another city, magical houses were at least a ten minutes' walk away from your closest neighbor or town center.
Many of the magical families in the area were Purebloods, and old and childless. The consequences of two magical wars less than half a century apart having done considerable damage to the already thin on the ground magical population. You rarely saw any of the older magicals out and about these days.
Except I saw a pack of red-head children hovering around the general store, and couldn't help but wince.
"Oh, joy," I muttered as one of them – Ron – caught sight of me, and tugged on the sleeve on an older brother to get his attention. Charlie, I think, given that there was a taller and older sibling nearby who was probably William – or Bill, as he preferred to be called.
All seven of the Weasley children turned, alerted by Ron, and seemed to home in on me like a pack of red seeker missiles. Two identical brothers, the prankster duo Fred and George, were the first to reach me. They were nine, two years my junior and the same age as Rudy.
Seeing them coming I merely accepted my fate, opening my arms and closing my eyes.
"ED!" the twins both called out as they tackled me to the ground with their 'hug.'
"Oof!" I choked out, their affection driving the breath from my lungs. A couple seconds later Ron and Ginny joined in, adding themselves to dogpile atop of me.
"Being crushed! Air!" I gasped out.
"Careful now, don't want to suffocate the poor bloke," Bill said, nudging his siblings off of me before offering his hand to help me up.
I took it, and got back to my feet and dusted myself off, before giving them all a thin smile in greeting.
"Hey there, everybody. What, no hug for me, Percy?" I teased the Weasley boy who was my age. He shook his head, already developing his 'stick in the mud' attitude the books and movies had displayed. Still, he did shake my hand when I offered it. And to be honest, as an introvert, Percy's calmer personality meshed better with my own.
"So, what's up with the early morning greeting?" I asked, trying not to sound put off by their enthusiasm.
It's not that I disliked the Weasley's, far from it. The Weasley kids and their dad were great, and I'd grown up with them. Hell, I'd seen two of them as babies and was practically an honorary older brother to Ginny and Ron, who had been very cute as newborns.
But I'd hoped that, perhaps today, I could have had a little bit of time alone before the Red Whirlwinds struck.
"We heard about… your dad. And everything else," Charlie said hesitantly. The others all gained grave expressions at that. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," I said brusquely.
"You sure?" Bill inquired.
"I don't really want to talk about," I claimed, looking at the ground and kicking it, uncomfortable with their stares. Pity and sympathy were evident in their gazes and it hurt. Even if they didn't know the whole truth about what went on back at Lumpkin Patch, they were aware of how I'd been treated.
The 'mature' adult part of me, the one that had been in my late twenties before dying, felt insulted by their compassion. The child part of me, which I technically was at the moment, disliked all the attention. Because attention was bad. It rarely boded well for me back home. But there was also a part of me that was glad to know someone cared.
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