APRIL 11, 1976

KATHLEEN AWOKE TO A SHARP CRACK. 

"Miss Kitty, Mistress is calling yous for the morning meal," said Bessie the elf, through Kathleen's bleary, blurred vision. She nodded, squinting her eyes.

"Thank you, Bessie," she grunted, hearing Bessie snap her fingers and Apparate away. She stretched and sat up in her four-poster bed. Bessie's spell had flung open her curtains, and through her view, Kathleen could see the cloudy skies outside. She walked out from her bed in her robe, toes curling around her furry rug. 

Opening one window to stick her face out, her senses were immediately assaulted by the wave of sea salt that caressed her cheeks. Prewett Keep (or as the Muggles knew it, Holyhead Breakwater Lighthouse) was situated on the tip of the town of Caergybi, and on all sides was surrounded by deep, dark blue water, perfect for cliff diving during the calm seasons. Kathleen made mental plans to take a dip on the morrow.

She got dressed, and came downstairs to her family gathered at the table. 

"Good morning," she yawned, taking a seat next to Gideon as another elf handed her a plate of eggs and ham. 

"Don't you look delightful," Gideon snickered at her messy hair, which never remained straight and frizzed every night. 

"Enough," Thad never took his eyes off the Daily Prophet as he took a sip of juice. "It's Kitty's first morning back home."

"And aren't we better for it?" Mam's footsteps came up behind Kathleen's chair, and Kathleen smiled as she felt a kiss on the back of her head. "Welcome home, dear."

"Yes, we've missed you dearly," chirped her painted grandmother Ariane, waving with plump hands from the portrait of her in front of her prized canvas and easel. Kathleen grinned and thanked her in response.

Conversation filled the room, and as Kathleen ate, she realized how much she'd missed meals where she didn't simply sit in silence, busying herself with a book or the hem of her sleeve. Even when good old Taurus Prewett, who died in 1299 at the age of ten and had terrorized the  portraits with his childish temper since, decided to make fun of Kathleen's accent ("Are you sure you're a Prewett? You sound much too English!"), Kathleen laughed through it all. 

"Mail, mail, mail!" Fabian strolled in, arms stuffed with letters. "Ooh, and...a parcel for Kitty?"

Kathleen rolled her eyes. "It's not from anyone special, idiot. It's chocolate from Aunt Lucy and Uncle Ig."

She snatched it away, ripping it open back at her seat. To her puzzlement, it wasn't Parisian caramel drops. And it was to Gideon's, as well, since he let out a howl of disappointment when he didn't see candies to steal. Kathleen grew a little self-conscious as she slowly retracted the item from the wrapping paper, careful to do it under the table. She poked her head under, and for a moment she didn't know what it was, until she held it in her lap and the morning sun caught its shape.

It was a hairbrush. Smooth, large, and with a back and handle looking quite expensive and inlaid with gold and moonstone. But what caught her were the bristles. The Care of Magical Creatures curriculum for fifth years was jam-packed, but their longest project was to study them, and that was how Kathleen knew: it was a unicorn-hair brush.

What the fuck? Who would send her that? Something so expensive, and so, so rare? But then she immediately knew who had the means (and the history), and the realization sent a kick to her innards. Gulping, she shoved the brush in her robe pocket, remembering that it was a holiday, and she had no time to think about Black.

After she ate, she went back up to her room, fixed her hair with multiple sprays of Straightening Potion (thank you, Gideon), then put on the white ceremonial robe an elf laid out on her bed. The robe was a typical one, made of light linen, but around the collar and shoulders were multicolored flowers, embroidered without magic by her mother, who made them for all of their family. Kathleen traced the threads as she stood in front of her mirror admiringly, before going back downstairs.

"Ah, good, Kitty's here. Let's go," Thad said, adjusting his own white robe with one hand while wrapping his other around Mam's waist. Fabian and Gideon were snickering about who's robe had more flowers, (Fabian insisted it was his), and before she knew it, they'd arrived by side-along Apparition to Mynydd Twr, the highest point on the island. It was a Muggle attraction, but to the Kathleen's family, Cytiau Tŷ Mawr, a cluster near the foot of the mountain, would always be known as the resting place of all the Prewetts that came before them. 

After shaking off the nausea that came with Apparition, Kathleen stood up properly, admiring the rolling flat hills in the distance, all colors of white, yellow, pink and blue with wildflowers, meticulously maintained by Prewett house elves for centuries. In fact, Kathleen's boots were currently dug between rows of little daisies. There wasn't a blank spot of grass anywhere: flowers and the smell of their sweet nectar dotted all where the eye could see.

"-Sorry we're late!" Kathleen turned, long red hair whipping around her shoulders, as she watched three figure hustle up the side of the hill. 

"Oh, Marguerite!" Mam exclaimed, running to give Molly a hug. Molly returned it with a smile, before getting the air choked out of her with a double-hug from Fabian and Gideon. Meanwhile, Thad knelt down to greet the two children, with identical mops of red hair and freckles. 

"Hi, Mols," Kathleen said as she threw her arms over Molly's neck. 

"Hi, Kit," Molly laughed in her ear, and the vibrations truly put Kathleen at ease, filling her with the peace of being in the presence of family. "It's wonderful seeing you so well."

"-Alright, then, let's split up into pairs? Four crowns each?" Mam asked, hands on her hips as she looked around. The Prewetts let out a chorus of agreements as the group splintered off. 

"-I can take the kids, Molly," Kathleen said, noticing how her sister itched to catch up with Mam and Thad.

Molly shot her a grateful look. "Thank you. Go on, boys," she said, giving her children, who were clutching fistfuls of her robes, a gentle push towards Kathleen's direction. 

"Hi, Auntie Kitty," Bill said, smiling with a missing tooth up at Kathleen.

"Hi, darling. Come on, let's go. We need four each," Kathleen said, placing one hand behind each back as she guided Bill and Charlie towards a patch of rosebushes. 

"Why are we picking flowers?" Charlie asked, his s's coming out with a lisp. He sucked his thumb as Kathleen squatted and picked flowers for him, placing them into his and Bill's combined basket. 

"Because we put them on the gravestones!" Bill said, sticking out his little chin, and Kathleen laughed at the adorableness. She realized that it was Charlie's first Sul y Blodau, or Flowering Sunday, that he picked flowers in. Bill was there two years ago, so he probably remembered. 

"Indeed," Kathleen replied, trimming off the thorns of the rose she held with a fruitknife. "It's tradition that we make flower crowns and lay them on the graves, so the dead are celebrated."

She held up the finished rose with blunted thorns. "Here, smell it. It's nice."

The boys smelled the rose, and giggled when Kathleen sneezed as she smelled it herself. She placed it, and two more, in their baskets, before moving onto the squatty patches of elderflowers nearby. 

"How is Hogwarts, Auntie?" Bill asked as he grabbed a handful of baby's breath. "What kinds of spells are you doing?"

"Hmm, let's see," Kathleen thumbed her chin as she tried to pry the elderflowers from Charlie's mouth. "In Charms, I'm learning a bunch of things, like the Confundus Charm, which makes someone confused, and the Silencing Charm. Jinxes in Defense Against the Dark Arts—I don't think your mother would let me tell you what they are. We're learning Vanishing Spells in Transfiguration, too. And we had to learn another spell, too, for Care of Magical Creatures, to put Flobberworms to sleep."

"Flobberworms? What are Flobberworms?" Charlie asked, holding one hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun. 

"They..." Kathleen made a disgusted face as she recalled trying to avoid the squirting mucus of the flobberworms. She redirected the boys to a new patch of tulips, instructing Bill to pick the best ones, before turning back to Charlie. "They're about the size of a small book, they eat cabbages and other leafy vegetables through their two mouths, and they, well, look like worms, I guess. But you have to wear gloves when you handle them, because they spit mucus, and they make this horrible sound when they do it."

Kathleen shuddered, and aggressively cut off the end of a pink blossom.

"What sound?" Charlie asked, tugging on her sleeve.

"Mm, I don't think your mother would want you to know..."

"No, please, Auntie Kitty!" Charlie begged, and Bill started asking with equal fervor. 

"Alright, fine," Kathleen rolled her eyes, kneeling down to Charlie's level, murmuring into his ear. "They've got two mouths, you see, and right when they're about to spit mucus they rear back, and go like this!"

She blew a loud raspberry right into his ear, ruffling his curly red hair. 

"Ew!" Charlie screwed up his face, while Bill started to laugh.

The three of them made their way across several shrubs, trees, and grasses in the allotted hour, trying not to trip over their robes. Molly did a good job at making her childrens' robes, Kathleen noticed, and she'd embroidered quite a lot of British roses. When they were done picking flowers, Kathleen had the boys watch her make her circlet first, with a long, thick strand of twine as the base. Bill picked it up rather quickly, and he let Charlie watch him and thread the occasional flower into their crown.

Obviously, having to handle two children, Kathleen was the last one to arrive at the rows of gravestones. Leaving the children with Molly, she gathered behind her parents. 

"O Dôn, we rejoice in your gifts of life, earth, and soul as you have renewed our name Prewett. Mother, hear us," Mam and Thad recited together.

"Mother, hear us," the rest of the family chorused.

"On this Sul y Blodau, we honor the spirits of the past, raised on the hills of Caergybi and within the walls of Prewett Keep. Gone, but not lost, but not forgotten. We pray for their health as you nurse them in Annwn, and we honor their sacrifices for this family."

"We honor them,"

The silent breeze rustled past. Ahead there were no more flowers, but around the curvature of Mynydd Twr, straight standing stones marked the graves of Prewetts past, arranged in a spiral. They stood at the very first circlet of graves, including the sisters Blodeuwedd Prou Et and Cigfa  Prou Et, who built Prewett Keep. Subsequently, after the sisters died, their sons began a 800-year-long succession war over Prewett Keep and the lands of Caergybi. That conflict was why the sons were buried somewhere else lost to time: Prewetts had to earn their place on Mynydd Twr.

"We rejoice in your protection, Earth Mother, as you have cultivated the land that cradles us. Our daughter Molly has brought her two children here today. We rejoice, knowing that William and Charles will forever be entwined with your love and your gifts."

"We rejoice," her family recited, and Kathleen gave a small smile at Charlie, who was sucking on his thumb as he looked curiously around them. 

"Mother, we pray for the souls of those suffering, of those blind, trapped, and vulnerable. We pray for the healers, the beggars, and the Muggles. We live in dark times, and we pray that they shall be touched by your presence and stripped from the shadows of grief. Care for us, O Dôn," her parents finished, and slowly, with each person holding the flower crowns they made, the Prewetts walked back down the hill.

Kathleen watched as the numbers of deathdays grew closer and closer to the present, and Prou Et became Prouett which became Prewett. Thad, leading the pack, already found Grandfather Phineas' grave, and had began to crouch in front of it. Molly led Bill and Charlie towards the headstones of their great-uncles, while Fabian and Gideon decided to turn a hundred-and-eighty degrees and go put flowers back at the graves of their very earliest ancestors. 

Meanwhile, Kathleen hummed a nursery tune as she walked to the grave of her grandmother Ariane, who was animated in Prewett Keep, but never alive. Ariane Céline D'Amboise, the grave read. 1902-1944 (m. Phineas Osian Prewett). Kathleen knelt, picking out her first flower crown, and gently setting it at the base of the grave, where rough, hand-cut marble sank into the teeth of the earth. She sent a quick prayer for peace, wrapping both arms around the headstone as if she was hugging her grandmother's shoulders instead.

Her paternal grandparents' marriage had always been rocky. Grandmother was from France, and their marriage was arranged. Some of the more musically-inclined vocalists that were painted in Prewett Keep described their initial arguing matches being akin to opera screams. But they were in love by the end, and Grandmother was tragically killed in one of Grindelwald's final attacks. 

After lying three more flower crowns on a great-grandfather and two great-great aunts' graves, Kathleen returned back to where her family was gathered at the Apparition point. She could see the Irish Sea from one side, the heights of Mynydd Twr on the other, and the neverending flower fields on the last. She breathed in as she placed her hand against Fabian's shoulder, trying to keep the thoughts of nausea and Apparating away.

Kathleen took one last look at the graves, inhaling the sweet scent of wildflowers. She imagined herself as part of that chain, forever cascading down the mountain. In a few centuries, would new Prewetts have to walk down the cliffside and along the beach for Sul y Blodau? Would there even be new Prewetts? Kathleen's gaze never tore from the stones as the force of magic pulled her body up and away; the spiral seemed neverending from here.