With the snap of apparition, silence fell over the flat and the rooms seemed just that little bit darker. The ghost of a smile flickered over Livia’s lips as she concluded that so much of her own happiness must have been connected to those people. The feel of their arms around her was a reassuring thing. She knew that, if she needed them, they would never be far. She had never had to doubt that they loved her, that they would always be behind her. That was what family was all about, wasn’t it? This was her family. And Simon, in this strange, weird, roundabout sort of way, had just been pulled into it. With one hug, that was it. At the very least, Livia knew that the motherly blonde would always find the time for him and, in her way, not often when he wanted it, either.
As much as Simon worried, Livia didn’t find anything amiss with his flat. In her eyes, it seemed unmade, its lacking not in material items but in the sense that it didn’t quite wrap around her as so many other homes did.
Her own, childhood one had been this hidey-hole of trinkets and collectables. Books covered nearly every surface and it was in a perpetual mess that blurred the lines of adulthood and childhood as academic journals mingled with dolls and toy cars.
Her Hogwarts home was the backdrop of her formative years as a teenager. Makeup seemed to be the thing that the girls were most interested in, although Livia always found that parchment could be sourced, inexplicably, next to any mad shade of eyeshadow – the outlandish and homework always discarded together. It had been the place where they’d grown up, morphed from children into semi-respectable adults. That was a room she’d never forget.
Then there had been Theodore’s house, the three-floor townhouse in Knockturn Alley that he was hell-bent on turning into something that he could leave for his children. During her time there it was almost always in a strange mid-way state between being finished and still very much a building site. He’d finished her room first, even if she’d insisted it be done up like a spare. The furnishings did not attest to the idea that it was a spare. It was something he’d made entirely hers, even if she’d not asked for it. To this day, she had a key on to the house, Theodore insisting in his brusque way that wherever she went, whatever she did, she’d always have a home with him.
Following that there was the flat about the Hog’s Head. That somehow mirrored her childhood home. Mess. In this charming, homely fashion. Shoes everywhere, that was the tick for them and they weren’t all hers, mostly, either. Finley’s toys and books and heaven only knew what else were everywhere. The fire was always crackling, a movie was always on the television and good food was never far behind. Peter, like Theodore, would never go wrong by her.
But of course, how could she forget the houses of the Hayes? Hogwarts. Galway. Bridget’s house. They all had that something which she couldn’t explain. As much as Millie rued the interference of the neighbours, Livia understood why they wanted to step inside and get in amongst their lives. It was the way the children seemed to light up every room with smiles that showed they’d seen no true hardship. It was the ease with which the woman of the house had learned to run the mad proceedings and that warmth that seemed to fill every corner when she knew Keiran was there, even if he was in the foulest of moods. There was something about them, there always had been. Something that sucked you in and made you stay. Something that made you want to dive into their world and bob along on their tide. Perhaps it was the constant smell of cooking or the laughter … the latter of which seemed to have been fading of late. But it had been there. It had always been there. And the love. Merlin, it was everything.
And so, while Simon’s little quarters didn’t quite have that yet, Livia felt as though she could see where the light would balloon and where the walls would swell with feeling as he was allowed the time and found himself disposed to the inclination of investing something into the place. Though there was something of Livia that wanted to get paint and rollers and buy a hideous coffee table even though Millie had told them not to, it was improper of her, so she left it at just a thought, and instead she turned, putting her considerations of homes out of her mind. She smiled at Simon, taking a few steps over towards him. Then, she grabbed her own hug, winding her arms tightly around him. It felt good. Not just the embrace, but seeing him outside of those hideous walls of his cell. He was free. Merlin, he was free. And he was safe. Safe to sleep.
“Go on,” she soothed, pulling back, one hand finding his cheek. “I don’t know what I’ll do but, um,” she shrugged her shoulders lightly again, a smile tugging at her lips. “Go and get some sleep. I’ll … I don’t know what I’ll do. Maybe read something …” She still had her backpack with her, after all, which she’d set down once they’d arrived. Work for Keiran was stuffed in one compartment. She had a few magazines in another. Crucially, also, she had sweets. There was plenty for her to be getting on with. “You look so sleepy,” she murmured. “Go on, I won’t keep you. I’ll be about when you wake up.”
by 
