For Dorrito’s Every Flavour Mood Beans.

*****

Bored

She took a deep breath, calculating a polite escape. She didn’t know what was different. Mum smiled and bustled like always, scolding the twins for sneaking extra pudding. Her brothers reverted to their most childish selves, shouting and shoving and cracking the same old jokes. Dad told fantastic stories, his soft voice lost in the din. But this year she found herself seated on the edge, outside the blur, her mind wandering to school and Dean and newfound applications for extendable ears. When the time came, she excused herself silently, slipping ghost-like up the stairs, back to her own world.

For Dorrito’s Every Flavour Mood Beans.

*****

Blah

Remus has stopped wishing for the sun. He isn’t sure precisely when he gave up hope of some distant, bright future and settled himself so easily into overcast. He supposes that to recognize light, one must be able to recall dark.

His fingers work without him, leafing through parchment, sorting and binding the short scrolls that once represented flesh and blood, transformed now to meaningless text. Even the wolf can no longer find a scent. Dear Remus, he reads, noting date and time. He files them away, thinking absently of lunch, betrayed by the healing powers of his own mind.