Nona Pepper was not eight years old, and she was not crying over the unreturned valentine she'd sent to Charlie Spinnet ("Roses are red, wolfsbane is blue, my hypothesis for true love is incomplete without you," which Nona several years later seriously doubted Octavius had even given to his friend).
And yet, here she was, in Hogsmeade on Valentine's Day, accompanied by a brother with clearly nothing (and no one) better to do.
She credited Octavius with enough reason and sanity to not have come up with this asinine plan himself—she recognised the work of her other, older siblings from a mile away. In fact, it was Pri who had first suggested they make a day of it, on a day which just happened to, look at that!, coincide with Valentine's Day—and wouldn't it be fun to catch up and sample all the sweets Hogsmeade was sure to be offering?
Except Pri hated sweets, and had shortly cancelled the forced sounding invitation, causing Octavius to swoop in. It was clear the rest of the siblings had given him a script he was to work off of, to discern why their youngest sister was so stand-offish and brusque with her beloved family, but it was Octavius after all, and he was rather hopeless with the whole thing.
He had been easy enough to ditch in Honeydukes, as he sampled edible instruments, and she made an excuse to use the loo. Swiping a handful of sweets from an unsuspecting couple, a choice she swiftly regretted as she angrily stuffed the lot in her mouth, Nona ambled glumly down the path, working a distasteful mix of nougat, gum, chocolate, honey, and pepper with her tongue.
She stared at the ground, wondering why, after so many years, she was suddenly unable to shake the funk which she had fallen into, staring both wistfully and disgustedly at the lovelorn couples surrounding her. Nona's gaze fell on a few young children horsing about in the snow, and felt her throat tighten.
When she heard a voice, a voice that was all too familiar to her, and a voice she had rather hoped, needed to not hear again, she stopped. She gazed at him, into mournful eyes shrouded by the both the overcast clouds and the smoky haze of a cigarette. She remembered the last time they'd spoken.
She turned on her heel and walked away.
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