Sunlight filters in through a grimy window, dappling the floor of a room in utter disarray. Boxes dot the floor, half-filled and catawampus, sharpied labels rendered illegible by the fog of memory. It feels like there can’t possibly be anything left to rip off these walls, but there’s still so much to pack.
From the bed, stripped of its sheets and cluttered with unsorted clothes, the young man runs a hand through his hair, fingers catching on that mess of blond curls. Everything here in this bedroom turns his stomach, kicking up emotions he’s too young to manage and too scared to face. His wand on the dresser, his Walkman on the floor, the no-maj coins in a mason jar — all reminders of things they’d done, places they’d gone, and where they were going now.
Footsteps on the landing outside catch the young man’s attention. He sits up straight and swipes an arm across his face before the door can creak open.
“Hey Bryce, sweetie.” Bryce Qualls doesn’t look up quite yet, his throat aching at the prospect of looking his mother in the eye right now. “Bruno said he can take a load up right now if you’ve got any boxes ready.”
“Oh, um, hang on a second.” Bryce grabs a pile of clothes off the bed, unfolded and probably dirty, and tosses them in the nearest box. “If you wanna take this one, I’ve got like three or four more I can bring down in a minute.”
Marilynn Qualls, a soft, sweet, blonde woman, pushes the door open the rest of the way and enters. There’s a wand in the pocket of her apron, but she doesn’t use it. Instead, she drops to her knees without a word, picks up the tape gun and stretches it across the cardboard lid.
“Mom, don’t worry about it, I can just—” Marilynn puts a hand up, not forceful in any way, and Bryce’s words stop in their tracks. His mother might technically be a muggle, but she always seemed to work her own form of magic with her boys.
“Just a little more effort and I think this works just fine,” she answers over the groan of the tape gun. “It’s kind of nice to do things with your own hands sometimes, you know? And depending on how long we stay in this new place, you might have to get used to it.”
Bryce nods, and he looks away from his mother again. “How far away is it again?”
“Not that far, rea—” The rest of Marilynn’s words are drowned out by the sound of a car horn, blaring through Bryce’s bedroom window. Bryce jumps and reaches for the curtain, and everything stops what it’s doing — including, thankfully, the car horn.
MEMORY: Moving Out But Not On
[CRITERIA: Defeat NPC]
[METAPLOT]
Sunlight filters in through a grimy window, dappling the floor of a room in utter disarray. Boxes dot the floor, half-filled and catawampus, sharpied labels rendered illegible by the fog of memory. It feels like there can’t possibly be anything left to rip off these walls, but there’s still so much to pack.
From the bed, stripped of its sheets and cluttered with unsorted clothes, the young man runs a hand through his hair, fingers catching on that mess of blond curls. Everything here in this bedroom turns his stomach, kicking up emotions he’s too young to manage and too scared to face. His wand on the dresser, his Walkman on the floor, the no-maj coins in a mason jar — all reminders of things they’d done, places they’d gone, and where they were going now.
Footsteps on the landing outside catch the young man’s attention. He sits up straight and swipes an arm across his face before the door can creak open.
“Hey Bryce, sweetie.” Bryce Qualls doesn’t look up quite yet, his throat aching at the prospect of looking his mother in the eye right now. “Bruno said he can take a load up right now if you’ve got any boxes ready.”
“Oh, um, hang on a second.” Bryce grabs a pile of clothes off the bed, unfolded and probably dirty, and tosses them in the nearest box. “If you wanna take this one, I’ve got like three or four more I can bring down in a minute.”
Marilynn Qualls, a soft, sweet, blonde woman, pushes the door open the rest of the way and enters. There’s a wand in the pocket of her apron, but she doesn’t use it. Instead, she drops to her knees without a word, picks up the tape gun and stretches it across the cardboard lid.
“Mom, don’t worry about it, I can just—” Marilynn puts a hand up, not forceful in any way, and Bryce’s words stop in their tracks. His mother might technically be a muggle, but she always seemed to work her own form of magic with her boys.
“Just a little more effort and I think this works just fine,” she answers over the groan of the tape gun. “It’s kind of nice to do things with your own hands sometimes, you know? And depending on how long we stay in this new place, you might have to get used to it.”
Bryce nods, and he looks away from his mother again. “How far away is it again?”
“Not that far, rea—” The rest of Marilynn’s words are drowned out by the sound of a car horn, blaring through Bryce’s bedroom window. Bryce jumps and reaches for the curtain, and everything stops what it’s doing — including, thankfully, the car horn.