-UndoubtedlyYours-

-Chapter♛♚FortyThree-

✧FRIENDLY LUNCH AND NEWT SCORES✧

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Ignoring the gift from Walburga, she had walked off and away from her current sketch. It had come to her after the whole desk ordeal, and perhaps she needed to get the feel out on the canvas—But Alphard would surely adore it.

Yet in looking at the clock she realized that the elves were going to be nearly done with lunch, so she took the spare minutes before then to get cleaned up from the tested paint she was experimenting with.

Upon knocking on the door, she caught the laughter behind it. "See, Orion! It's not that hard to knock!" Alphard shouted and flicked his wand to allow his wife. "And you, little goddess, don't have to...Backwards, the both of you." He said with a shake of his head, and Rhea had only giggled.

"Lunch is ready...Are you both at a decent place to take a break?" She questioned, and Orion rose a brow—it was more or less a Ravenclaw's way of saying will progress or a thought be lost and Alphard had come forward to greet her with a kiss.

"We'll continue this tomor—"

"Nonsense! I already asked the elves to prepare for a guest." Orion could see there was no room to argue and he grinned towards Rhea in a sense of thanks, even if his nearly verbal offer could've ended in ruin.

But after all that Rhea had been exposed to, that was at the bottom of the list. Instead, she sat nearly silent at the table, trying to disperse the tug in her heart over the potion.

She enjoyed the company and Alphard certainly did enjoy catching up with what was missing. "...You're friends with the young Ms.Rookwood, yes?" Rhea's eyes had risen from her plate and nodded, rather taken back that Orion would bring up Evelyn.

"It seems that Theodore Nott is going to propose in the near future, it's one of the two weddings rumored to happen sometime soon—Though I explained to Alphard that the crowd is still not over the two of yours union. Perhaps once the summer actually comes to pass things will get back to normal." Rhea blinked, having wondered why her friends haven't told her yet.

Alphard could see that she was crestfallen over the idea of not being told straight from the source, but even the comfort of his hand interlocked with hers did little to settle her worries.

"I'm sure it's nothing to be worried about darling, after this you could owl—"
"I have been, and I've not a word from her." She said with tears starting to burn her eyes, Orion frowned at the treatment being displayed and it didn't take a genius to know that Alphard fidgeted at the sight of his wife being upset.

"Curiously enough, I don't think you've spoken to Ms.Rookwood in quite some time, Rhea...have you?" Orion offered and Rhea shook her head. "No, her parents have pushed the idea of marriage since NEWTS had finished. It's not without some effort to—" Her newly made brother received a glare from Alphard but Orion had offered a small hand up in a sense of a white flag.

"Rhea, I mean this is the purest way of it all—If that is how you were treated before you were married. Wouldn't it look suspicious if they suddenly returned back to be friendly?" Rhea's lips had parted as she hadn't thought of that, but the spiral from before and her determination of being the perfect wife had already been labeled as naive.

"It's only Evelyn, the rest of my friends are acting the same as normal." She didn't voice outright that Evelyn had seemed a bit jealous and mentioned that 'she hadn't known Black was looking for a wife,' and the pain erupted.