Chapter Text
"I want pickled onion!" Becky Thomas opened her battered Barbie-themed lunchbox in the space where her breakfast plate had been. Her brother Dean rolled his eyes, even as their mother shook her head.
"You got to pick first yesterday," Jocelyn Thomas told her middle daughter, "so Mary gets first dibs today, and you know there's only one pickled onion left from the multipack. So if she wants it-"
"Course I do," said Mary, gesturing at her own lunchbox with her chin, both hands being occupied with the washing-up. The original decoration (of butterflies) had long since been scraped off, and it was instead covered with stickers, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera superimposed over the Spice Girls and All Saints.
"Then that's that. Becky, do you want roast beef or-" she broke off abruptly. There was a tapping noise at the window, and it was an owl with a letter in its beak.
"Dean!" she called. Her son looked up from the kitchen counter, and set aside the sandwiches he was assembing to open the window. His hands shook slightly. "Dean, it's not - they're not -"
The older girls had gone quiet, too. Only the toddler was oblivious.
"Birdie! Pretty birdie!" she shrieked. Dean fed the bird a sliver of ham as if on autopilot, and took the letter. It immediately swooped back out of the window, avoiding Lucy's grabby jam-covered hands.
"It's for me, not Mary," he said. "Her birthday isn't until June, anyway, and I'd be surprised if she got a letter. There've never been any signs."
"Birdie!"
"And you're sure things are different now? The Ministry haven't - they've not - we didn't think they had this address-"
"Seamus would have phoned if anything had happened, mum. Kingsley Shacklebolt's still Minister, and he was a member of the Order, you know, Dumbledore's group. It's probably something boring. The third anniversary of the battle's coming up, maybe there's some kind of event. I'm sure there's nothing to worry about," he said, sounding more as if he was trying to convince himself rather than her.
"Dean, bring the birdie back!"
Jocelyn Thomas shushed her youngest absently, and watched her oldest child's face fall as he opened the envelope and read.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Do we have to move flats again?" asked Mary. "Will you have to go on the run?" Becky burst into tears, and Lucy joined her, though it was unclear whether it was from the contagion of the general mood or the absence of the owl.
"No, no," said Dean, as if from a distance. "Nothing like that. All the bad guys were defeated, and they're all dead or in prison, and they can't take over the secret government again." He shook his head and made eye contact with each of his sisters in turn. "I promise. I won't have to go on the run again. It's all over."
"So what was that letter?" Jocelyn asked, not in a mood to be fobbed off. "You can't tell me it wasn't something bad."
"I don't know, exactly," he said. "Some sort of legal stuff involving Seamus' family. It doesn't look great, but I don't really understand it. I'm going to ring him now, and we'll get it sorted out. It's probably nothing."
Dean rushed out of the room, letter in hand, leaving his mother to finish the lunchboxes. Two for primary school, one for art school, one two-person box to take to the Sure Start centre, and a plate for the fridge for when her husband's night shift finished. Cheese and pickle sandwiches, ham and mustard sandwiches, Monster Munch, satsumas, Blue Ribands, flasks of sorrel. Sliced tomatoes instead of mustard for Mary, chilli sauce instead of pickle for Becky. Dean was such a good, helpful son. She'd already nearly lost him once. She didn't know if she could do it a second time.