𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐠𝐨 - h.p

1. the exordium

She missed him, how they were back then without the troubles of the world on their shoulders, the old them.

Her eyes were captured by the peonies in the corner that had been planted over the summer a few years ago which had finally started to bloom. The only disadvantage of having them as your favourite flower was that they took a around ten years to do so.

Chloe heard a faint knock on the door as she turned around before it opened and she heard Narcissa's voice.

"Chloe, darling-" she started to say before she realised Chloe was already dressed and making her bed. "Oh, you're already up," she smiled, "I just wanted to make sure you were awake, we're leaving in about three hours."

That means it was around seven o'clock.

" Oh, ok," Chloe nodded, "thanks"

"Are you alright, darling?" Narcissa asked.

"Fine," Chloe replied, "just didn't sleep well"

Narcissa gave her a sympathetic look as she walked around the bed to give her a small hug and a kiss on the forehead.

"Remember, if you ever need anything," she started to remind her. 

"I know, thank you, Cissy," Chloe hugged her again and smiled at her.

"Now to go try to wake up the other child for the fifth time," she joked, sighing as she left the room to go force Draco to wake up again, shutting Chloe's bedroom door behind her.

Just as Chloe had finished making her bed she heard a loud bang against the window. She jumped slightly as she turned around to see an owl's smushed face on the other side of the glass. She laughed as she recognised it to be Daphne's screech owl, Ivy.

Quickly walking up to the window and opening it before the owl fell down two stories to the ground, she grabbed the letter from the owl's beak. Ivy looked at her expectantly.

"Sorry, Ivy" Chloe shrugged, "I don't have anything for you, I don't have an owl"

Ivy huffed and harshly bit her finger. "Ow," Chloe hissed, snatching her finger away from Ivy's mouth, seeing a small bead of blood drip down the side of her finger. "I thought you liked me," she muttered as she started cleaning her finger and put a small bandage on it.

Ivy's expression didn't change.

"Fine, I'll see what I've got," she gave in, now searching her room for something suitable for an owl to eat. Finally finding a small packet of cashews in her bag, she ripped the packet open and gave Ivy a few.

"I don't even know if owls are allowed to-" she couldn't even finish her sentence before Ivy had hooted happily, pecked her finger as a way of saying sorry and flown off into the distance. Chloe shrugged and opened the letter Daphne sent.

Hi Chloe,
It feels like forever since I've spoken to you.

During the summer, we went to Greece. Fancy, I know. It was so so so pretty, but not as pretty as me (and definitely not as pretty as you). I almost got grounded for trying to push Astoria off one of the piers in Preveza. She didn't fall in which was very disappointing. She did stumble quite a bit though, which made her scream. But I actually did get grounded the next day when I tried to push her off the boat. She fell in and then threw her shoes at my head. Long story short, they hit me, it hurt.