𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 |𝐃.𝐌

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄 | 𝐮 𝐧 𝐞 𝐱 𝐩 𝐞 𝐜 𝐭 𝐞 𝐝 𝐯 𝐢 𝐬 𝐢 𝐭 𝐨 𝐫 𝐬

"𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐈'𝐦 𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡, 𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐭 𝐦𝐲 𝐝𝐨𝐨𝐫, 𝐈'𝐝 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐮𝐩 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐬𝐚𝐲 '𝐇𝐞𝐲'"
-'Enchanted' by Taylor Swift

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HEMERA

"Where should I place this one?" I huff and blow a strand of stray hair away from my face, both my hands utterly useless as I'm trying not to drop the heaviest pot I own. The overgrown chrysanthemum would never forgive me if I broke its pretty white home. Perhaps, I should consider not including the decision to hoist it up in my arms thinking I could take it, in the book of 'clever things I've done that make me question the mental expansion of my intelligence.'

Pansy shrugs as she spins around in my desk chair, blowing her red, freshly painted nails dry, her freckled cheeks puffing out like she's trying to blow up a balloon. "Don't you think that's enough plants for a single room?"

She doesn't meet my eyes, but as I place the edge of the pot on the windowsill and balance it with my hip, I allow myself to suck in a breath and trail my gaze across our dorm room.

There once was a round carpet laid out in the center of the room, thick and soft enough that it muffled even the footsteps of Pansy's party stiletto heels— now, in its place are countless wrappers and protective bags that I'm too lazy to carry to the trash can, where they actually belong. And as if that isn't enough indication of displayed labor that my poor self wants to avoid, there are around a dozen plants left to be unwrapped and stored, all scattered across the dorm.

While Theo and Blaise have been lying on my bed— the former having almost shoved his face in a bag of chips he managed to empty in the span of five minutes, while the latter is too busy listening to music from the MP3 player he's been carrying around all the damn time— I've spent the last two hours decorating every plain surface and placing the plants my mother sent me today, anywhere I can. From lilies to tiny cacti, the flowers vary enough to rival most of the world-spread flora.

Pansy will get used to it like she does every year. I don't know if there's a specific name for my condition that makes it sound scientific and worthy of being written in one of those leatherbound notebooks academically smart people carry, but I'm wholly unable to sleep in a room that lacks the presence of flowers.

Theo speaks up around a mouthful of chip crumbs, his lips salt-flecked as he licks them clean. He readjusts my pillow on his back, pushing himself further against the headboard and stretching his legs. "You weren't joking when you said you could turn any dorm into a jungle."

"Don't feed her ego," Draco warns, lazily flipping through a random textbook he snatched from my shelves. I don't bother telling him to drop it, though part of me hopes there's nothing but boring class notes in it. "She takes pride in that."

"Listen, babe, I'm all here if you decide to buy a greenhouse and shove whatever this is" Pansy flicks the petals of a red bloom with two fingers.

"It's an amaryllis." I correct her like she poked me in the eye and I had to react, slowly lowering my prized chrysanthemum to the floor after kicking some of the wrappers out of the way to free up some space.

"Yes, an amaroullis. As I was saying, I will support you if you choose to do that, but please don't tell your mother to send in any more plants. I'm sure all this fresh oxygen will be the death of my lungs."

"Wait till you see her room back in Salisbury." That's yet again one of Draco's attempts to declare my obsession and make sure that everyone in earshot knows of it. At least, seeing how Blaise keeps moving his head to the beat of the song he's listening to, there's a spark of hope that someone will still look at me the same after tonight. "The only thing she needs is some water and she'll have officially recreated the banks of the Amazon River."