Love, Aurélie | REGULUS BLACK

Chapter Twenty-Three

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[CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE]
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STUDYING WAS NOT HOW ODETTE wanted to spend her afternoon, yet that was what she found herself doing. Mei and Xia sat in her company, mostly to make sure Odette was working. Though they barely noticed when Odette decided to take small five minute breaks every other minute to doodle on the corner of her parchment.

"Just one month left," said Mei, "We're almost done."

"I'd rather stay here," said Xia, "It just gets worse out there and then with the ord—"

Mei slapped Xia's arm before she said, "The what?"

"The ordeal with um — the flowers! Yeah, the flowers," said Xia as she rubbed her arm. She looked up once to glare at Mei but quickly averted her gaze back to the table.

Odette looked up from little doodle of a bird to look at them for a moment. She hoped they realized that she wasn't that stupid. She knew they were hiding things, she just didn't care enough to find out what exactly. The only thing on her mind most of the time was her goal: find her family.

"Odette, you don't mind coming home with us, right?" said Mei, "There are some things we didn't have enough time to do."

"Like what exactly?" said Odette.

"Like get checked by a healer," said Xia, "We couldn't take you to St. Mungos because it would be a bit risky, but it is something that we should do at least. It could help with finding out what is the reason for your missing memories."

"I mean sure, there's nothing here for me if I stay anyway," said Odette. That wasn't a lie. Most of the people she knew were going home, including Regulus.

Mei looked over her shoulder, "Are you almost done?"

Odette blocked her work from Mei and nodded, "Yup! Almost done."

Mei stared at her before shrugging it off, "So, what time are you leaving?"

"I think in about an hour," said Odette as she checked her watch, "Actually, in about fifteen minutes."

"Better hurry up and finish studying then," said Xia, "Well, I'm off, bye."

"Don't get in trouble," said Mei.

"Oh please! Trouble is a foreign word to me," said Xia before she left the common room.

Odette had started to pack everything up by the time Mei turned back to her.

"Wait, three minutes have barely passed. Why are you packing up?"

"Because all those stairs will take me about ten minutes to get through," said Odette, "How have you survived?"

"The first year was rough," said Mei, "I found it was just easier to slide down the rails, but don't actually do that. I learned the hard way that it's very dangerous."

"Yeah," said Odette, "This castle shows no mercy with all the tricky stairs."

Mei took Odette's bag to leave it upstairs and Odette was on her way. Odette hurried down the stairs and despite complaining earlier, she was in a good mood. A good enough mood that even the stairs wouldn't be able to annoy her. In fact, she walked down the stairs with a slight bounce with each of her steps.