The Bug Collector | marauders

Summer of 74'

June 30th 1974

These days time flew by so fast.

So fast.

Muffled giggles echoed through the Slytherin girl's dorms. The girl's fourth roommate was already in bed for the night and Rose herself was lying down fiddling with her wandlight out of boredom and anticipation for the journey home in the morning. The giggles were coming from inside the closed curtains of Stephone's bed where her and Ode had been for the last half hour,  joking and telling stories from the school year. Rose simply didn't feel up to joining them, plus three could be a crowd on their rather small beds.

Instead she watched the candlelight dancing around her little corner of their dorms thinking of Regulus doing the same across the common room in the boys dorms.

She felt a little jealous of Stephone and Ode, her and Ode still made time for one another, studying nearly everyday under a tree near the lake, but Rose could feel her friend growing closer to their roommate and despite knowing she was doing the same thing it felt...well it was an odd type of feeling. The kind you know you shouldn't feel but do anyway.

Her mind wandered back to Regulus as she sat her wand down and pulled her blankets close. She had not lost a friend in him, she had just lost time. She thought back to New Years Eve, talking with him until they both drifted off to sleep, comfortable enjoy to stay there together. Safe.

That may never happen again. They hadn't talked since then, they hadn't even looked at one another.

As Rose closed her eyes and tried to picture him from that night she found herself wishing she had Stephone's camera once more. To have captured the moment she wrapped her pinkie around his would have also captured a moment he might have felt at home.

Something he could not continue to feel.

Once everything was taken care of at school and it was time to board the Hogwarts Express Rose had already made the choice to sit by herself on the way home. Craving the alone time before joining her family again for the first time since the start of the school year. She was excited to go back to her own room and hoped being away for so long this time around would in turn make summer more enjoyable.

She gazed out the window, watching fields of green zoom by as she lost herself to daydreams, brought out a journal to edit some botanical illustrations of magical plants she had been working on, and reread the poem Ode had written for her nearly a near ago.

Much had already changed, and would continue to change, but in her last moments of solitude before the train stopped at Platform 9 3/4 Rose had accepted those changes.
  ——

Days later Rose was sitting on her bed reading Poems and Fragments by Sappho when the first owl came.

Sappho was and Ancient Greek poet from the island of Lesbos. She often wrote of the woes of love and Rose found it fascinating.

Then the owl perched on her bedpost so she closed her book and grabbed the letter.

"Thank you, miss." She said to the owl as she opened a letter from Ode.

It contained a Polaroid picture of the girl and her sister, making silly faces with green hair and green hands. Smiles big and bright.

"Thinking of you!" Was written at the bottom with a heart next to it in green ink.

Rose smiled and placed the photo in her book for safe keeping. The letter attached was a lengthy explanation of how the girl's first week of summer had gone and upon finishing it Rose brought out some parchment to send back an equally detailed account of the days.