Heliophilia; d.m

VI

VIOLET

I stood in the middle of the platform, looking for a familiar face in the thinning crowd of people passing me.
The cold air burned my face, and I had to walk back and forth, leaving my bootprints on the thin layer of snow, to keep from freezing at all.

"Where are you, where are you," I whispered, puffing steam out of my mouth, my hands clenched in my pockets.

It was a real torture for me to spend time outside in such cold weather, as winter was my least favorite time of the year, I hated it, I hated everything related to winter, and my biggest dream was to live somewhere where it would be warm all year round.

And Mariel, as well as my dad, knew it, but they were still late.

"Violet, there you are!" After a few minutes, a familiar voice finally reached my ears, causing me to let out a sigh of relief, and as soon as I turned around, my eyebrows rose in surprise.

Mariel was walking, almost flying, taking long strides with her long legs, as usual dressed in bright clothes and what caught my attention was her hair. Her green hair.

"Mariel? Where's father?" I asked after she gave me a big hug. The fur on her sheepskin coat smelled like her favorite lavender perfume as a took a deep breath, and It felt like home, I'd missed so much.

"He has some business and asked me to meet you without him." She put her arm around my elbow and led me forward.

I didn't say anything since I didn't care who met me, because all I wanted was just to get home as soon as possible, and finally get warm.

"What's this?" I touched a lock of her leaf-green hair and immediately put my hand back in my pocket.

Mariel beamed, twisting her head from side to side to show me her hair from all sides.

"It's a wig. I just wanted to experiment with colors. Do you like it?"

"Yeah. Quite extraordinary." I mumbled, snuggling closer to her, and thinking that it was strange — I'd never seen her in wigs before.

Mariel was my father's twin, but they were so different, and I liked that she was so bright and bold, despite her age.

My father was a calm and collected man, he was more responsible than his sister, even though he was younger.

Ever since my mother'd died and I had to spend every day with my father and Mariel, I'd been caught between two fires. Mariel always tried to involve me in some adventures, like traveling all over Russia by train or breaking into a secret repository of rare and dangerous artifacts using a polyjuice potion — she had always craved adventure and a busy life.

And my father, just like my mother when she was alive, was too overprotective, and sometimes wouldn't even let me go outside of our house territory.

"So, how do you like Hogwarts? How was the ball? Who was your date?" Mariel asked, blinking her long blond lashes frequently, when we came home.

I didn't even have time to take a sip of tea before she started asking me questions. Her curiosity was the most striking feature of her character.

"I liked it there. At Hogwarts," I said after a moment, wrapping my icy fingers around the hot glass of the mug, watching the light steam rise on it, almost immediately disappearing into the air.

"And the ball was pretty good. I danced with Fred Weasley. He was my date," I noticed her face change at the mention of Fred. She raised her eyebrows slightly, seeming surprised, "Don't make that face, he's nice and funny, I enjoyed spending time with him."