Emerson Wilmore was an exemplary Ravenclaw student, known for her unwavering dedication to academics and an unyielding moral compass. However, things took a twisted and deviated turn in her life after her boyfriend, Cedric Diggory, was murdered by L...
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The days leading up to Christmas were blurred together in an endless loop of silence and solitude. The house was too quiet, too empty and too lifeless. Emerson wandered through the familiar rooms like a ghost, searching for anything to make time pass faster. She cleaned, even though the house was already spotless. She read, even though her mind drifted away from the words. She brewed tea she barely drank and sat by the frosted window, watching the snowfall in thick, endless waves.
She didn't know why she had expected this holiday to be any different. They never were any different. It's why she never came home for Christmas or Easter before.
Her mother was never home. She left early for work and returned late, barely saying more than a few words in passing. Emerson stopped trying to start conversations entirely and trying to bridge the ever-widening distance between them. It was easier that way. She learned long ago that expectations only led to disappointment.
It was stupid, really, how she convinced herself, even for a second, that coming home for Christmas might have been a good idea. That maybe this year, things would be different with everything going on with Voldemort's return. That maybe her mother would actually be here. But of course, it was just another promise left unfulfilled.
Still, she hated how empty the house felt.
Instead, her mind was occupied with him.
Mattheo somehow managed to invade every single thought she had.
It didn't matter what she did, she couldn't stop thinking about him.
Every day of the holidays, her thoughts drifted to him, to the letters and to everything she felt while reading them. The weight of them hadn't left her since. It followed her through the empty halls of her house, lingered in the silence and curled up beside her at night when she lay awake every night, staring at the ceiling. She thought of his words, the pain woven between the lines, the way his handwriting grew messier with every letter and how he kept writing even when she hadn't responded.
She thought of the Mattheo she left behind at Hogwarts. She couldn't deal with how he looked at her with something raw and unspoken in his eyes when he said goodbye.
Which then made her think of what she would say to him when she saw him again.
Christmas Eve came and went in a quiet, aching kind of loneliness. She stayed curled up in the living room, the glow of the mini-Christmas tree casting golden shadows across the walls. Her mum was working late again, which was unsurprising. She remembered Christmases when she was younger. Her mother barely tried. There was no warmth in this house, laughter or love.
Fortunately, Emerson didn't let the somber mood of her home affect her desire to make her friend's smile. She sent each of them something: Olivia, Enzo, Theo, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred and George.
