Reflections - Mattheo Riddle

Owlery

My first scheduled post. Its been sitting here for a week and I've been dying to post it earlier but I held off so here it is :) enjoy ml

Kirra was the first to awake in the Slytherin dormitory next morning. She lay for a moment watching dust swirl in the chink of sunlight falling through the gap in Mattheo's four-poster's hangings and savoured the thought that it was Saturday. The first week of term seemed to have dragged on forever, like one gigantic History of Magic lesson.

Judging by the sleepy silence and the freshly minted look of that beam of sunlight, it was just after daybreak. She looked over at Mattheo who's lips were parted slightly as he snored softly, his head buried into the pillow and his arm thrown over her stomach. She smiled softly, placing a gentle kiss on his tanned and freckled cheek. 

She bit her lip softly to repress her giggle as his face scrunched up slightly at the touch, though he didn't wake up. Kirra carefully lifted his arm off her, pulled open the curtains around the bed, got up, and went to the bathroom, starting to dress. The only sound apart from the distant twittering of birds was the slow, deep breathing of the boys and loud snores coming from Theodore Nott. 

She looked over at Jaspers bed just to check on Whiskers. Kirra grinned widely as she saw the cat passed out, laying across Jasper eyes and forhead, his ear twitching occasionally as he purred. 

She opened her schoolbag carefully, pulled out parchment and quill, and headed out of the dormitory for the common room. Making straight for her favorite squashy expensive armchair beside the now extinct fire, Kirra settled her down comfortably and unrolled her parchment while looking around the room. The detritus of crumpled-up bits of parchment, old Gobstones, empty ingredient jars, and candy wrappers that usually covered the common room at the end of each day was gone, and nobody else was down yet. 

Kirra uncorked her ink bottle, dipped her quill into it, and then held it suspended an inch above the smooth yellowish surface of her parchment, thinking hard. . . . But after a minute or so she found herself staring into the empty grate, at a complete loss for what to say.

How was she supposed to tell Sirius everything that had happened over the past week and pose all the questions she was burning to ask without giving potential letter-thieves a lot of information she did not want them to have?

She sat quite motionless for a while, gazing into the fireplace, then, finally coming to a decision, She dipped her quill into the ink bottle once more and set it resolutely upon the parchment.

Dear Snuffles,
Hope you're okay, the first week back here's been PRETTY SHITTY, I'm really glad it's the weekend.

We've got a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher... guess who, that snob Umbridge that went to school with us! She's even worse than she used to be honestly. I'm writing because I got a 'real bad headache' when she grabbed my arm.

We're all missing our biggest friend, we hope he'll be back soon. The boys are well, Jasper misses you. Please write back quickly.

Love Stripes. 

Kirra reread this letter several times, trying to see it from the point of view of an outsider. She could not see how they would know what she was talking about — or who she was talking to — just from reading the letter. 

She did hope Sirius would pick up the hint about Hagrid and tell them when he might be back: Kirra did not want to ask directly in case it drew too much attention to what Hagrid might be up to while he was not at Hogwarts.

Considering it was a very short letter it had taken a long time to write; sunlight had crept halfway across the room while he had been working on it, and she could now hear distant sounds of movement from the dormitories above. Sealing the parchment carefully she walked through the entrance and headed off for the Owlery.