Two days later, when Phoebe was sat at the Aphrodite table with her siblings for lunch, a russet coloured owl swooped into the mess hall. It wasn't common to see woodland animals fly purposefully through camp, so everyone's attention was immediately drawn to the bird.

Phoebe was a little puzzled by the letter tied to Copper's leg, she thought he would come straight to camp, but it looked like he had stopped off somewhere.

She allowed the owl to land on her shoulder, holding out a piece of apple for him to take. For once, Copper didn't try to bite her, though his claws were digging into her shoulder a little, it looked like the flight to America had worn him out.

Untying the letter from Copper's leg, Phoebe squinted at the scrawled calligraphy on the front of it - it looked familiar, but she couldn't quite place it.

"So what, you're some kind of bird whisperer now?" Her half-sister, Drew, asked snarkily, looking thoroughly unimpressed by the owl's presence.

"If that's what you want to call it, sure," Phoebe shrugged, holding another piece of apple towards the owl, who greedily took it from her hands.

"PHOEBE IS THE GODDESS OF OWLS, PASS IT ON!" Leo yelled from the Hephaestus table. There was such an uproar of rage from the Athena table that Phoebe was scared Athena herself would come down and smite her.

"Are you gonna open it or not?" Piper asked, looking curiously at the letter in her hands.

"Depends, are you going to read it over my shoulder or not?" Phoebe asked back, eyeing her sister suspiciously.

"Obviously." Piper rolled her eyes and Phoebe nodded in resignation, it was only to be expected really.

Phoebe tore open the top of the letter, ignoring her other sibling's prying eyes and tilting the letter at an angle so only she and Piper could see it.

It didn't take her long to figure out who had written it, in fact it was kind of obvious from the first line.

Hey Phoebe,

Sorry for disappearing like that on the last day. Dad was injured at work and was in pretty bad condition so we were all rushed to the hospital during the night. Don't worry, he's getting better now and mum is really excited about meeting you so you can't back out. Bill and Charlie also came home to see dad and their sticking around for a while so you get the displeasure of meeting them as well, you're welcome!

I'm probably putting you off sorry, but it's still too late for you to change your mind. Not that you'd want to anyway, I bet you're already fed up of boring Americans and miss cute my British charm.

Also, a warning: our house is under construction at the moment so we're staying at our second cousin's place and it's a bit grim, don't be too put off when you see it. I'll clean it up a little so that no dead animals fall on you when you walk through the door (I'm not kidding, this is a genuine risk).

Harry and Hermione are here as well hopefully you'll be able to put up with them for an extra few days without being driven mad. And like 50 other people will probably pass through, our cousin's a bit of a social butterfly clearly.

Don't miss me too much and try not to mope about my absence for too long, three hours a day should be more than enough.

Your favourite ginger - Fred xx

"Okay, I wasn't sure about him at first, but he sounds pretty cool I'll admit," Piper commented afterwards, "Except from the part where he insulted us!

"I mean, he's not wrong - you guys are boring as hell," Phoebe teased.

"Okay, yeah." Piper nodded sarcastically, "Tell that to the dragon we have outside, or the trees that turn into girls and serve us salad."

"They're not boring," Phoebe agreed, "But you are," she finished cheekily.

"You can do an extra 5 laps of the amphitheatre because of that comment," Piper instructed, doing a perfect imitation of coach hedge.

Phoebe laughed, but then she noticed the serious look on her sister's face, "Wait, you are joking right?" She asked, her grin faltering.

Piper shook her head.

"What!?" Phoebe exclaimed in dismay, "I thought you were better than this Pipes." She scowled into her toast.

"You should thank me, I'm trying to get you back in shape after four months of doing nothing."

Phoebe hated the fact that was true, she had done pretty much zero exercise since arriving at Hogwarts, though just walking from Gryffindor tower to the main hall could be considered a full work out. It wasn't the most physically challenging quest anyway.

Ignoring the urge to sulk over her sentence, Phoebe picked up the letter again and took it to cabin 10. She placed the letter on her bedside table, she'd reply to it later, for now she had to catch up on four months of training.

Phoebe rolled her eyes with a groan - she would ache everywhere by the end of the day for sure.

ϟ

The start of the winter holiday had been hectic for Harry, to say the least. After being rushed away in the middle of the night due to his dream, which hadn't actually been a dream, they had been brought to Grimmauld Place, where everything was explained. Harry was left feeling exhausted and depressed, his mind plagued with worries over his vision, which was only worsened when he saw the state Mr Weasley was in.

St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries was exactly what Harry imagined for a magic hospital. There were all sorts of strange people with puzzling injuries wandering around, Harry probably would have found the humour in it had he not been so worried about Mr Weasley.

Seeing Mr Weasley alive and getting better was almost enough to quench the growing dread inside Harry. Except then it had been revealed that Voldemort was most likely possessing him, and all of Harry's negative emotions were intensified once again.

The rest of the days leading up to Christmas Harry spent hiding in his and Ron's designated room and pretending to enjoy himself, while putting up decorations all around the grubby house.

He interacted stiffly with everyone in the house, other than Sirius, who Harry was sure was the only person who could even slightly understand how he felt.

Bill and Charlie were here and while Harry looked up to the two of them and usually enjoyed the small amount of time he spent with them, he simply felt too guilty over Mr Weasley and uncomfortable by the thought that Voldemort could be lurking in his head, to let himself have fun.

Soon Phoebe would be arriving. Normally Harry would be looking forward to this too, but now it just meant there would be one more person for him to struggle to interact with and one more person to disappoint when they realised he was no fun to be around at the moment.

With a sigh, Harry leaned against the wall, which was a risky move considering how weak and on the verge of decaying it was. If he could just make it through this holiday, then he would be able to go back to Hogwarts and distract himself with the DA and school work.

word count: 1232

i like writing angst a little too much