𝐶𝑂𝑆𝑀𝑂𝑆 | 𝐂𝐄𝐃𝐑𝐈𝐂 𝐃𝐈𝐆𝐆𝐎𝐑𝐘 [DISCONTINUED]

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐈𝐗

𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐁𝐋𝐄
"𝑆𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑛 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑎 𝑏𝑖𝑡𝑐ℎ 𝑜𝑟 𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑠𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔."
—𝑀𝑜𝑘𝑜𝑘𝑜𝑚𝑎 𝑀𝑜𝑘ℎ𝑜𝑛𝑜𝑎𝑛𝑎
𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 𝟒𝟏𝟑𝟐

⋆⋆⋆✧⋆⋆⋆

𝐋𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐀𝐍𝐀 𝐁𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐃 𝐇𝐄𝐑 head in her arms, the headache that had been plaguing her now becoming more apparent than ever.

She quickly lifted her head to watch as the boy she was tutoring—or at least, attempting to—picked up his colour pencils and threw them to the other side of the room.

"I don't want to colour!"

"Richard, inside voice please!" Liliana sighed as she stood up from the kitchen table and crossed the room, glancing back at the red-faced boy as she crouched down and carefully picked up the pencils that, luckily, hadn't marked the wall.

"No!"

"Oh, dear Merlin," she murmured to herself as she got up.

Usually, all of the children she tutored were well-behaved, kind, respectful, smart, enthusiastic . . . pretty much anything that could be described as the opposite of Richard. And that had been summed up by his parents when they had given Liliana a half-hearted smile and a 'Good luck' before leaving her alone in the house with him.

"I want to go outside and play!"

"Richard, let's make a deal, how about that?" Liliana tried her best not to strangle him as she forced a friendly smile onto her face. "Let's do some work for twenty minutes, and then we can play outside for ten minutes."

"No!" he cried, his blond hair flying as he jumped off the chair and to his feet, making sure to deliver a hard landing that made her wince. "I want to play now!"

Ten, Liliana reminded herself. He was ten. He'll go off to Hogwarts in less than a year, and she'll never have to deal with him again.

"But we can't play right now, we have to draw!" she tried to reason as she sat back down next to him, tentatively placing the pencils next to his parchment paper. "Let's draw a pretty picture, why don't we? Of anything you like: your family, your home, some pretty flowers . . ."

"No!" he howled, his face somehow growing redder as he pushed his chair back. "Outside!"

"Richard!" Liliana put her hands on her hips and tried to give him the sternest look she could. "Bring your chair back and sit down! Don't make me count to three!"

He only stuck his tongue out in response before blowing a (very) wet raspberry.

"One."

"No! I will not, I will not!"

"Two."

"Outside! I want to go outside!"

"Th—"

"Fine!"

Liliana let out a small sigh of relief as Richard conceded and pulled his chair back towards the table, making sure that the scrape of the legs was as loud as possible.

He gave a small huff as he hopped back into the chair, folding his arms across his chest as his lips formed into a pout and he looked down at the blank parchment paper.

"Now, what do you want to draw?" Liliana asked gently, a smile returning to her face.

"Why do I have to draw?" Richard complained loudly. "This isn't like school!"