Willow pushed open the back door, her boots still dusty from the road. She stepped into the warm kitchen where her brothers and sisters were gathered around the table. She walked straight up behind Harry and tapped his shoulder with one finger. He didn't turn around. So she tapped him again, harder this time.
Harry spun around so fast his chair legs scraped against the floor, and his eyes went wide. 'Willow!' he shouted, and all three of her siblings whirled around too. One dropped a bread roll, which bounced once on the tiles before rolling under the table.
Willow opened her mouth to speak, but before any words came out, Harry pulled her into the biggest hug she'd ever felt. The other siblings crowded in too, and suddenly Willow was surrounded by familiar voices, the smell of buttered toast, and the creak of the old kitchen floor as everyone shifted closer.
Willow rested her chin on Harry's shoulder for just a moment, listening to the kitchen clock tick and the quiet hum of the fridge, while her brothers and sisters kept talking over each other in happy excitement. She didn't say anything at all, but she squeezed Harry back just as hard.
The three of them stayed locked in that kitchen hug for a long time, neither of them noticing how the bread roll had come to a stop beneath the table. Willow could feel the steady rhythm of Harry's breathing, hear the soft murmur of her siblings' voices weaving together, and smell the buttered toast growing cold on the plate.
Willow finally pulled back just enough to look at each of their faces — her brother with his glasses pushed up on his forehead, her sister with flour still on her cheek from helping bake, and the other brother grinning so hard his dimples showed. 'I missed you all,' she said, and her voice came out quieter than she meant it to.
Her siblings didn't answer right away. They just kept looking at her, at her dusty boots and her worn uniform and the road still written in the lines around her eyes. The younger sister reached out and took Willow's hand, lacing their fingers together, and the older brother nodded once, slowly, like he was making a promise to himself.
Willow stayed right there in the middle of the kitchen, still in her uniform, surrounded by the people she'd missed the most. The bread roll finally stopped rolling under the table, and nobody went to pick it up — they had better things to do now. The kitchen clock ticked on, steady and sure, keeping time for a family that was finally whole again.