[2] after darkness → tom riddle

Chapter Twenty-Six: A God-Awful Beard

Adonis had had enough, to say the least. He had been in his office all week, he only left when his colleagues finally persuaded him to have a shower. Luckily, the auror department had their own shower facilities so Adonis did not have to return home to face his wife and daughter whilst he stank of sweat and cigarettes.

Adonis' wife, Lottie, turned up at work sometime after he entered the shower. She had brought with her several clean outfits that would last Adonis potentially another two weeks at work along with some food, including the little sugar cookies she often made to cheer him up.

Lottie and Adonis were the definition of a perfect couple, to say the least. They were perfect for one another, each others' yin-yang. They complete each other and that's what made them so special as a couple. They're daughter, Cassiopeia (or Cassie for short), was both equal parts Adonis and Lottie. In their entire 15-year relationship, they had only properly argued once. And that was three months ago, over Ophelia's disappearance.

Adonis was so caught up on his sister's disappearance, he quickly became short-tempered and aggressive. Which caused Lottie to fear for the safety of Cassie. It wasn't Adonis' intent to scare his daughter, which Lottie understood, but he hadn't realised how badly affected he was by Ophelia and her disappearance that he hadn't realised he was yelling at his daughter, scaring the 10-year-old to bits. That's when Adonis decided it would be best for him to stay at Ophelia's and Emory's house, just until he figured out where Ophelia had left.

It was all part of his genius plan actually - staying at the Oliphant's house - he thought that because Ophelia and the others found out that Emory was going back to teaching at Hogwarts that she would return and stay in the house without anyone realising. But, when Adonis came up with this plan (and added the part in Ophelia potentially returning back to her house) he was still in mourning from the death of his mother and the initial shock of his sister disappearing. And so, because he knew Ophelia would never do something so obvious and wasn't to return to her house, he decided to crash at his office in work instead, it saved him the journey that he would have to make to-and-from work and Ophelia's place.

Lottie understood why Adonis was behaving this way. He wasn't eating, he wasn't showering, he wasn't sleeping, and he hadn't shaved his beard in two months - that was the most crucial part in realising Adonis had depression. He had given up on his facial hair and because of that, Lottie knew he had given up hope on finding his sister because if he did still have hope, he knew that when he eventually found her she would tell him to shave.

Lottie walked into the shower room and easily found Adonis' shower as he was the only occupant of the entire row. She neatly placed the clothing on the bench next to the dirty clothing that Adonis had aimlessly chucked onto the bench. Picking up the dirty clothes she pulled out a bag from her jean pocket and placed them inside, reminding herself to wash them when she went home.

When Adonis came out of the shower, he had a towel wrapped around his waist and saw his wife sitting on the counter in front of him, giving him a warm-sympathetic smile. He returned the smile - well Lottie thinks he did, she couldn't quite tell through the thickness of his beard.

Lottie sighed and her husband looked over to her. He knew what the sigh meant, but instead of asking he waited for Lottie to speak, watching her closely.

"Ad, I really can't stand seeing you like this, I think you need to see someone about your mental state," Lottie confessed, "you're not well. Ophelia is eating you up inside, maybe if you saw someone you'll be able to get closure."

"Closure from what?" Adonis asked in a raised voice.

Closure. The word that had been spread around like wildfire in the past two months. After a month, everyone slowly began to give up on Ophelia returning. Whilst most accepted Ophelia's fate, others' like Adonis and Emory were still hung up on Ophelia, holding onto a tiny bit of hope that she would come back.