𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐎 𝐇𝐀𝐓𝐄~ {The Lestrange Daughter #1}

𝐀 𝐃𝐚𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐋𝐢𝐚𝐦 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐭

Liam lifted the spoon up until it was level with his face and used it to check the state of his hair. He turned his head left and then right, not minding that his reflection was upside down, he was quite used to it after all these years. He nodded satisfactorily and lowered his spoon to scoop up a mouthful of cereal. Aside, from the sound of his own chewing echoing in his head, the room was utterly silent.

Liam often ate breakfast alone as his grandfather rarely ate so early and would still be asleep. He said that if he couldn't sleep in then what was the point of being rich and powerful? Naturally, that ideology didn't stretch to Liam. There were adults and then there were children and his grandfather didn't believe that children should be allowed to sleep the day away. Unfortunately, for Liam, that left him with long arduous days of doing next to nothing.

When he had been much younger, he had every toy imaginable to keep himself occupied, but once he started school his grandfather vowed that he was too old and got rid of them all before Liam was back for Christmas. He expected Liam to spend his time studying or as he put it 'learning to fend for himself'. However, Liam was very aware of the fact that they lived in a mansion with servants and wondered what his grandfather could have possibly defined as fending for himself? Liam had never had to lift a finger to do anything. He wouldn't pretend he didn't have an easy life, albeit a dead boring one when summer rolled around. Liam was the only heir to the Highcourt fortune. He was the only one to inherit and so pleasing his grandfather often felt like an obsolete task. For children like Liam, inheritance was everything and literally, nothing was standing in his way of doing so. But however obsolete it might have, Liam usually complied with whatever it was his grandfather wanted of him. He didn't think it was worth the effort of an argument or particularly heady disapproving glares. It was simpler to do as he was told and since he spent the majority of his year at Hogwarts, he was saved from most of that.

Liam probably wouldn't say it aloud, but Liam loved school. He loved being around so many people even if he never interacted with a large portion of them. The mansion was always so empty and silent that the chaos of school life was everything Liam's younger years had lacked. He had friends and fun and endless distractions. And even if he didn't quite excel at many classes, he was learning things so differently compared to the dry tutors he'd had in the past that most everything held some kind of interest for him.

This year might have been the first that he almost wanted to leave. But that was because all those things, the students and classes, reminded him of her. Of Olivia. It hurt to be reminded that she wasn't there anymore and he thought perhaps a break from it all would ease that pain but it did so very little. Now, he missed those reminders that she has lived at all. This mansion, with its marbled floors and fine gardens, held nothing of Olivia. Everything was back at Hogwarts and so he found himself longing for it more than ever.

A lump rose in his throat and he put his spoon down to reach off the goblet near his bowl. He could hear every clink, every click, every tink as he went about his breakfast. The cutlery was loud against the sliver tableware, the goblet was loud against the table itself. During meals at school, he could never hear any of that. That Great Hall would be so filled with chatter and life that you couldn't hear his own movement. But here in the mansion, they echoed around him as if he sat in an empty cavern.

Going back to his cereal, Liam missed the conversation of his friends that would usually be partnered with this hour of the morning. It was only two weeks into summer but they had already sent numerous letters back and forth. Except for Leah. He hadn't heard a single word from her since she left school. It made everything about losing Olivia feel more real than he wanted it too, but he couldn't blame Leah for feeling so strongly. Leah used to write to him so often that he saw her owl more than he saw his own. Sometime it would be a simple 'I was with Val and Draco this morning and Draco tripped on the stairs! Dummy can't even walk!'. Other times it was a veritable essay containing all her collective thoughts on how gross it was that most cheeses were fermented but that she would eat it anyway because cheese was too good to pass up. And sometimes it was a drawing. Usually, something a little silly but thus was Leah's nature. He had his favourite of hers, a drawing of himself dressed like Professor McGonagall hanging on the back of his bedroom door. He knew his grandfather didn't approve of such 'childish' decoration but it had been up there for well over a year. That was the thing about doors. When you open them all the way you can't see what's on the other side. But, that aside, he hadn't heard a thing from her and according to everyone else, neither had they.