LUNAR (A Harry Potter Universe Fanfiction)

Eleven. Secrets.

By October, Sean and Evelyn had fallen into a pretty predictable routine. Sean got home by seven at the earliest. Evelyn had already been there waiting for him for hours. They ate dinner. Evelyn asked him all kinds of questions about work and tried to get him to do things, but Sean said he was too tired and went to bed. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

"Hi," said Evelyn, poking her head out of the bedroom when he arrived that day. She was all sweaty and was wearing a tight pair of purple leggings and a pullover athletic jacket.

"Hi," said Sean. "Where've you been?" He dropped his bag down on the floor by the bed and shrugged off his robes.

"Maragaret and I decided to start running after work a couple days a week," said Evelyn.

"Who's Margaret?"

Evelyn paused. He could feel her searching his face for something.

"My coworker," she said. "Or boss, technically. I talk about her like every day. She's pretty much the only person I see."

"Right," said Sean. "Sorry. I'm just tired."

"Yeah," said Evelyn. "I know."

Sean didn't say anything else. He knew she expected him to, but he wasn't in the mood to talk.

"Well, I'm going to jump in the shower," she said. "I didn't eat yet. I was going to warm up some leftovers when I get out if you wanted some, too."

"Sure," he said. He opened one of his drawers and pulled out a t-shirt.

"Okay," said Evelyn. She took one step back towards the bathroom, hesitated, and then turned and shut the door behind her. He heard the water switch on.

Sean changed out of his work clothes and went to lay on the couch. He was exhausted. He always was after work, and Evelyn never seemed to catch on to the fact that he just didn't really want to do anything. He didn't want to be peppered with questions about his day, but Evelyn chattered constantly in the evenings. It was different now that they didn't have homework and couldn't sit side by side working on their own thing. Sean could have worked at home, but Evelyn never had anything left to do.

She came out of the bedroom a quarter of an hour later smelling like coconut with her wet hair swirled into a bun and held in place with a big clip. She was wearing purple pajama shorts and a t-shirt she had borrowed from Sean years ago and adopted as her own.

"There's still chicken in here. Does that sound okay?" she asked, opening the fridge. "I could heat up some green beans or something to go with it."

"Yeah, that's fine," said Sean. He shut his eyes for a minute and sat up, crossing his ankles on the table. He watched her bustle around in the kitchen. He knew he should help, at least set the table or something, but he just didn't have it in him. He felt so blank after work. Totally and completely drained.

They sat next to each other at the table. Evelyn always sat next to him, because it had always been their seating arrangement in the Great Hall. Sean and Evelyn on one side of the bench, Caiti and Marlowe across from them. She said that sitting across from him felt too formal.

"So how was work today?" she asked, cutting her chicken into pieces. Sean stabbed a few green beans onto his fork.

"Fine," he said. "Long."

"What'd you do?"

He shrugged. "Meetings and stuff."

Evelyn glanced at him, waiting for him to elaborate, but Sean didn't want to so he took another bite of food and kept his eyes on his plate.