Burnt toast and back swirl around the young blonde witch's nose as she perches upon one of the wooden stools along the kitchen table. A deep, maroon blanket wrapped around her aching shoulders as a mug of hot cocoa sits squarely between the palms of her hands.

A full moon had graced with a tough night, though Winnie supposed she should be grateful for the lack of scratches bearing her skin. She had only awoken with a purple bruise forming on her left calf, which had pulsed with each step she had taken. Winnie remembers most of the night as cracking bones, whimpering and fighting with her wolf. It seems her mind is an array of worries, which really, can anyone be surprised?

Sirius was perhaps, the only one in their home of Grimmauld Place that seemed happy that morning. Currently. He was humming over a stove with a bright, maroon St.Nicholas hat over his head. Seeing the man who essentially adopted her humming muggle Christmas songs in a bright violet robe with fuzzy Rudolph socks on his feet was amusing.

The blonde couldn't even be sure where he got the socks from, but she sat, bones aching and sleep clinging desperately onto her bones with a hazy smile across her face as she watched Sirius.

"Is he always like this?" Winnie quetsioned softly, speaking to Remus, who sat beside her, his cup of cocoa in his hand. The sight made the blonde almost resentful of her former self; having spent the last Yule break here, she had forced herself to stay shut down in her room for those rare moments she felt like speaking to people.

"Oh always," Remus grinned, leisurely taking a sip from his mug before speaking again. "Back during Hogwarts, he would wake all of us super early, the sun wouldn't even be up, and he'd be jumping around screaming about presents and silly little Christmas songs." Winnie snorted, lips pushing into a grin as she looked over at the disowned male who radiated enthusiasm. She couldn't help but think it made perfect sense.

"Yeah, and you guys loved it," Sirius grinned, placing two plates in front of the werewolves. Blackened buttered toast, scrambled eggs and crispy pieces of meat that Winnie amused was bacon sat in front of them. The blonde crinkled her nose but smiled warmly up at Sirius as he beamed proudly.

He may not be the best cook, but at least he tried.

"No, you sang horribly off tune. It was disastrous," Remus spoke, taking a bite of the black toast, seemingly used to the bitter taste of Sirius' cooking. Winnie, on the other hand, held tighter onto her hot cocoa.

"Oh, you're just taking the piss. I sing beautifully," Sirius argued, smiling the entire time as he nodded towards Winnie. "Right, Poppins?"

"Oh yeah, simply the best Sirius," Winnie agreed, ignoring Remus' roll of eyes as she slowly stood from the stool. Placing her mug on the counter, she kissed Remus softly on the cheek before walking towards Sirius and repeating the action. "I'm afraid to sleep is calling me. Wake me before the Weasleys, please," she finished, wrapping her blanket tighter around her.

The blonde's sock feet padded up the long staircase, hand collapsed around the cotton fabric of her blanket as she made her way to her room. Winnie did need to sleep, which was something she did plan on doing. However, it had been nearly a week since she last spoke to Cordelia. Years after being raised in a home with slithering snakes, she had come to the ways of their life. Including Gala's, many of them attended, and just like she had missed Malfoy's annual Yule Gala, she knows Cordelia was there last night.

Slipping inside her room, the female sank onto the mattress of her unmade bed. Books were scattered over the left side as she slept on the right side. The blanket stayed strapped around her shoulders as she reached inside her bedside table, grasping a blue compact. Winnie had no idea if Cordelia would answer, making her heart sing in nostalgia from the year before, when their relationship had been momentarily shattered.

Squeezing her fingers around the compact, the female chewed on the inside of her bottom lip, hazel eyes switching over towards the framed picture of her and Harry. She hadn't truly realized how much she missed the raven-haired boy until now.

Winnie missed a lot of people, but lately when the world went to shite, and she felt like crawling deep under the ground and never returning, Harry Potter was always there to keep her grounded. The last few weeks of summer break had signified their friendship beyond what it once was in their fifth year; she had come to rely on him, and he on her. The brunette had heard many moments of weakness where he missed her cousin. Truthfully, she wasn't sure the pair was sure if the other felt anything for each other, but Winnie understood the pain in Harry's eyes when he spoke about Cordelia. It was profound, digging a hole in his heart and calling to him every second of every day.

She felt the same towards Theo.

Theo, who she feared the worse for every second. She had been awakened by nightmares every night, repeatedly she would see his death or his tortured body until she awoke sobbing and aching with a pain she could never push down. It was moments like that she wished she had Harry with her, he wasn't Theo, but she never did have nightmares with the boy sleeping beside her.

Winnie sighed, tearing her eyes away from the frame and towards the compact in her hands. Everything has been so strange for Cordelia lately, and Winnie would dearly love to blame Malfoy for it, but she wasn't even sure if she could do that anymore.

There was a pain in her head that throbbed painfully through her left temple anytime she thought too hard on it. It progressed the more she wondered and made her teeth chatter so roughly tears would spring to her eyes.

Her head started to pound at the mere thought, making her eyes shut as she shuddered, clenching the compact tighter before breathing heavily through her nose. Huffing roughly, she flipped open the compact, desperate to get her mind on anything other than the tremble in her brain. The compact heated under her skin as her scarred face stared back at her, round cheeks and violet bags stuck out against the hazel of her eyes. Her lips were chapped slightly from the lack of sleep, hair a tangled, unbrushed mess falling around her shoulders.

The mirror tingled, switching from her exhaustion to another. Choppy, red hair flashed in the circle mirror. Accompanied by a sharpened face, high cheekbones and a slightly upturned nose. Cerulean blue eyes stared dully back at her. Cordelia sat in a dimly lit room surrounded by grey walls, orange light flickering over her face as Winnie placed a smile on her face slowly.

"Lia, hi," Winnie spoke softly, letting one side of the blanket fall off her shoulder, shifting back against her pillows and headboard. "How are you?"

"I'm okay, tired," Cordelia's voice was faint, quiet as she ran a hand through her short locks."Miss you, are you doing okay?"

"As good as I can be," Winnie admitted, wondering when exactly they turned so solemn and quiet with each other. Perhaps it wasn't even them, just the situations life granted them over time, making them seem so far away from the girls they once were.

"You seem tired," Cordelia observed, making Winnie snort as a small grin twisted across her features.

"Rich coming from you," Winnie joked, watching as Cordelia rolled her eyes. The duo fell silent again, the muffled sounds of Remus and Sirius filtered around her heightened ears. The brunette tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as she cleared her throat, "uhm, how was the Gala last night?"

Cordelia's jaw tensed, flashing from beyond the compact. Winnie's lips pulled into a frown as the blue-eyed female glanced at something beyond the screen, "hey, listen, I gotta go. I'll talk to you at school, okay? Love you." Winnie opened her mouth to speak, disappointment twirling in her stomach as her reflection appeared back towards her. Emptiness twisted inside her as she looked at her face, a frown on her lips.

There is evidence of change in the air, brought forward with a passing day of the new school year, but never so much as now. There was no denying that change was in the air, and Winnie couldn't help but feel like Cordelia and she had been here before.

Only this time, Winnie wasn't the one keeping secrets.

༺♥༻

The Burrow danced with laughter that Christmas night with the twin's deviously pranks and Ginny's blubbing laughter at her brothers. The adults sat around the kitchen table, firewhiskey in hands and Padfoot barking and occasionally chasing his tail. Lavender Brown ( who was visiting for three nights ) sat with Ron, the two playing wizarding chess while the redhead quietly showed her how to play. To Winnie's amusement, the dark-skinned girl knew exactly how to play, she just liked to pretend so she could beat her boyfriend.

In Winnie's corner, she sat huddled on a patchy, brown couch, a long sleeve velvet crimson dress pressing over her body as she wore black tights underneath to catch a cold. Her wizarding cloak was discarded over one of the kitchen chairs as her skin nipped with a fever from the night before. Her hair sat in long, brunette straight strands as she sat sideways facing Harry, their knees bumping as they whispered in ushered tones.

"She just hung up?" Harry questioned, bushy eyebrows knitted against his features as Winnie nodded, her head resting on her closed fist. Originally, Winnie wasn't gonna tell Harry about her strange talk with Cordelia she was rather set on avoiding the whole Cordelia subject altogether,

But the instant she sat alone with the boy, she spilled the entire conversation, if you can even call it that.

'We spoke for all of two seconds. It was bizarre, really," the brunette continued as Harry frowned, his glasses sliding down his nose, to which Winnie gently shoved them back up. The male was so used to the action that he didn't even react. His tanned face grew stoic as he stared at a place beyond her shoulder, jaw tensing and unlocking, as Winnie watched quietly. It was perhaps, a dangerous play to tell him, but Winnie needed someone to share her fears with, and she found Harry was always there to listen when it came to Cordelia.

"This reminds me of what Snape and Malfoy were talking about," Harry mumbled quietly. Winnie, who was not expecting that immediately, sat up straighter. Her eyes glanced around the room. Ron and Lavender were still locked in their game, the adults laughing and oblivious to their children.

"What? You mean like," Winnie glanced back at Harry, lowering her voice. 'The Unbreakable Vow?" She questioned, watching as Harry pulled his lips into a line before frowning. 'Don't be ridiculous! What does Cordelia have to do with any of that?"

"Well, she is living with the Malfoys and-"

"That doesn't mean she's involved in some life-threatening promise!" Winnie argued, voice lowered as she glanced at Remus, spotting his eyes dart over towards them for a second.

Curse his heightened hearing!

"But she's been acting strange, and spending a lot of time with Malfoy. You can't tell me she doesn't know?" Harry countered. Winnie looked back towards him, only ever sending Remus a smile, hoping he would not question her later about this conversation. "Look, I know she's your cousin-"

"Yeah, and she's your, whatever the bloody hell you guys are-"

"Were doing,' Harry corrected quickly, causing Winnie to snap her mouth shut as she frowned. "Whatever we were, it's in the past, she's made that clear." Winnie's heart squeezed painfully she sighed, glancing down at their knees.

'I'm sorry, I shouldn't have mentioned it," she apologized, giving her friend a soft smile, watching the raven-haired male shrug. Winnie opened her mouth to say a poorly timed joke when suddenly her entire body erupted with goosebumps. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, shivers coiling down her spine as the wolf in her head started to growl. Making her entire ears buzz with concern, hazel eyes meeting the deep brown ones of Remus Lupin.

Before the two werewolves even had time to warn their loved ones, glass shattered directly behind Ginny and the twins. Screams erupted in the air as they fell to the ground, covering their heads from shards of glass.

The next few seconds seem to slow entirely for Winnie Buldstrode.

Her hand fell to her wand in seconds, slipping it out from her scarred thigh where the holster rested. When her socked feet hit the floor, she watched in shock as a cloud of black mist flew through the open window, only to instantly barrel through the walls of the Burrow. Horrified laughter filled the air, creating a gaping hole in the interior. The sound was so rich and deranged that it had caused Winnie to flinch; the blonde didn't recognize the laughter, but apparently, Harry Potter did. He was standing beside her for one moment, and the next, he was running out the door.

Winnie didn't even hesitate before she ran after him, screaming his name as her socked feet hit the bitter cold grass. She was aware of her name being screamed, but she kept running even when orange flames roared to life in a circle around the Burrow. The heat almost licked her skin and clothes as she jumped over the fire and after the raven-haired boy that disappeared from the wheat field.

"I killed Sirius Black, I killed Sirius Black."

The vile voice filled the air, and while Winnie would've found it ironic since the female didn't know that Sirius was in disguise as a dog right now, it brought chills to her spine as she continued to run blindly through the field. The long beads of yellowed grass were taller than her height, her eyes wide and alert as she made her way through the trails designed by the Weasleys. Fingers clenched painfully around her wand as she breathed in heavily, raising it in defence everytime the grass rustled around her.

"Harry!" Winnie screamed, coming to a halt as a stick cracked behind her. There was a whimper in her head as fear took home in her body, twisting through her aching bones and choking her dry. She had felt this fear before, when she was alone in the darkened woods and when she almost lost her life to a crazed man.

But there is no way her monster could be here; it's just Death Eaters, striking an attack on people Harry loves, nothing more. Her eyes squeeze shut, sucking in a deep breath, and she tries to reassure herself its nothing. Winnie swirls around then, only to trip and stumble backwards as her throat bobs painfully.

He has haunted her nightmares almost every week, and yet somehow, he is even more terrifying than she remembered.

His hair was pulled back into a low-hanging ponytail, and a rotting smell wavered off of him, making her gag as she continued to stumble backwards. His stature was still looming over her, wide and menacing, with his lips pulled into a bloody smile at the sight of her. Her heart was racing, and tears pooled in her eyes. Winnie had imagined many moments where she could face him again. All of which consisted of her ripping his heart from his body, not a single ounce of fear in her body.

But that was fictional, and in reality, she was terrified.

"Oh, sweetheart," his voice growled, practically purring as Winnie's cheeks grew wet with her tears. Her hand shook as her entire mouth ran dry, feeling like her entire tongue was far too heavy for her mouth. "I'm so happy to see you again, it seems we didn't get to finish last time." Greyback took a lunge forward as her voice finally found its way out. A scream pierced the air around her as she turned to run just like that night many months ago.

Only this time, she wasn't alone.

Her body was quickly pushed behind another, where the smell of chocolate and coffee covered the stench of rotting flesh. Winnie's body trembled as she clung to Remus' sweater, uncontrollable sobs raking through her body as she tried to suck in gaps of air. Winnie hears everything in muffled whispers, her eyes squeezing shut as she mumbles the word "no" repeatedly.

Winnie isn't sure how they got away, but one moment she is cowering behind Remus, and the next, he is hugging her tightly and shushing her as the Burrow burns to the ground. Even as she is wrapped in the arms of the person she has come to trust like family, there is a coldness in her bones that she can not shake, and Greyback's face is burned into her mind.

Winnie Bulstrode is so tired of being scared, and she wonders if she'll ever not be.