Closed Wanted: Cuddles

[Hinata Edogawa]

Hinata was in class and was never in the Student Lounge for this day.

 

[Eurydice Nightray]

Eurydice missed home. She was so tired and she had gone back to her room for a nap but she didn’t feel comfortable enough to fall asleep. She tossed and turned but nothing worked and now she just felt miserable. She tried the Common Room too, but even the fire and the couches felt too stifling. It was too warm and too cold and she hated it. It’s been hard couple of weeks between Heta Omega, her ruined tarot cards, and the awful Potions class she had. It just felt like she couldn’t catch a break. Now she just wanted to go home and curl up against her dad or her mum but she was too far from home and this was just awful. Giving up on the Hufflepuff Common Room, she made her way to the Student Lounge since that was her last chance for a place to nap in. It was then that she saw one of her older brothers. “Elio-nii,” she whined rather pitifully as she approached him.​

 

[Elio Boneheart]

The semester was certainly running by faster than he would have liked and if it wasn’t for the fact he was now in his NEWTs year he might even have tried to sleep through most of the experience. He thought he was just tired all the time, maybe a little burned out, but he supposed that happened from time to time when people just didn’t know how to relax and he was definitely one of those. He lounged on one of the couches in the student lounge, flipping through one of his textbooks casually and occasionally glancing out a window to check the passing time to know when he needed to meet up with Mikael, they had different schedules this year now with Kael’s added patrols, so it was a little harder to see where things might be heading for timings. The quiet hum of students coming and going wasn’t too distracting—he’d always liked the vibe here. His ears perked up at the familiar sound of Mikael’s sisters voice, though the whine in her tone immediately caught his attention.

Looking up, he spotted Eury approaching and his brow furrowed slightly with concern. “Hey Princess,” he said gently, putting the book aside as he sat up a little straighter. “What’s wrong?” Her pitiful expression tugged at his heart and he opened his arms in an unspoken invitation for her to come closer. He’d known Eury for years even before he’d started dating Mikael, so this wasn’t exactly a new thing. “C’mere,” he said softly. “You look like you’re about to collapse, long day?” He hated seeing her upset, and it would be just his luck that Mikael would walk in now and assume he had done something to upset her.​

 

[Eurydice Nightray]

This was just awful. Eurydice hadn't even felt this miserable last year, and it had been her first away from home and her parents and family. Sure Jai-nii and Tizi-nii hadn't lived at home for years now and Kael-nii had been going to Hogwarts for years, but she had been home and her oldest brothers could visit when she wrote and she could go to her parents when things were just not great. But she didn't have that here. Her room had people she barely knew with only one she could barely call a friend. Her stuff was getting destroyed. Classes felt awful. And sometimes it felt like she was scared to walk around the castle. Sure some of her cousins and aunts and uncles could be mean at home, but she'd never felt scared to walk alone. Here... sometimes it felt like too much and she just didn't feel right at all.

Eurydice almost teared up as Elio-nii called her Princess and opened his arms to her. She scurried over to him and immediately crawled in to snuggle against him with his arms around her. She almost wanted to tell him how awful this school was. How she thinks she's scared of seeing snakes now. And how her favorite set of tarot cards were now ruined. That she hated the professors. And especially what's been going on with the Slytherin girls from tug-of-war. She could almost tell him. But she didn't want to face how disappointed he would be with her. And then Kael-nii would have to know. And Eury definitely didn't want Kael-nii to be disappointed with her and think she was weak. "I miss Daddy," she whimpered. "I want a blanket," she felt cold and warm and clammy and it was awful and she just wanted to be at home in her bed but cuddling with Elio-nii was close enough.​

 

[Elio Boneheart]

Elio tightened his arms around Eury the moment she snuggled against him, resting his chin lightly on top of her head. He could feel how tense she was and hit made his chest hurt. She wasn’t just upset—she was really struggling. He rubbed soothing circles on her back, hoping it might help a little, but he knew he wasn’t who she really wanted, so it wasn’t going to help as much as he would like. “Hey, it’s okay, I’ve got you,” he didn’t know what was going on, but he didn’t like it. This wasn’t like the Eury he knew from before this school, and honestly it was only adding fuel to the fire inside of him about how messed up the professors in this school were that she was feeling like this. Ultimately they were here to teach and to help students when they needed it, Eury clearly needed it and this was clear evidence of that.

Hearing that she missed her parents made him sad and wasn’t really something he’d had to deal with at her age. He’d been homeschooled, so Bryce and his mum had always been around, and though he’d started missing them last year, he was grown up enough that it hardly mattered. “You’re not alone, I’m here and so is Kael, and you have Rose and Eli and Hina, and Jonah and Yuri, they’re all here to support you too, Conan is also here, but I understand your hesitation with him,” he knew it wasn’t the same, but he didn’t know what else to suggest, because he truly didn’t know. “Has something happened? Are you okay?”

When she asked about a blanket, he pulled his wand out of his pocket to summon one, placing it over her when it arrived. “Warm enough?”​

 

[Eurydice Nightray]

It was nice. To be snuggled like this. And she didn't care at the moment that she was twelve and encased in the arms of a Seventh Year. They probably looked like a weird pair, but this was the comfiest she's been all day. This was probably the comfiest she's been since the semester started. Elio-nii's comforting words only helped further. She nodded against him as she snuggled underneath the blanket, she still felt hot and cold, but being with Elio-nii helped a lot. "I know," she mumbled against him. She knew that she wasn't alone. And that Kael-nii and him and all her cousins. She knew that. She was confused though when he mentioned having hesitations with her uncle. "I'm... I don't have... Uncle Conan's okay," she insisted. Eurydice was quite sure she didn't have a problem with her uncle. She had... hesitations... with Benjamin, but she didn't think Uncle Conan deserved the same. Although she hadn't come to him either with anything that happened, afraid that he won't believe her too. She probably should have asked him to fix her cards rather than going to Terror-san. Maybe then they would feel right again. She shook her head, burying it against Elio-nii's chest when he asked her if something happened. It's just been a difficult few weeks between the altercation with the older girls and realizing that she just can't with snakes anymore. She couldn't explain the latter to him though without admitting that she couldn't handle herself against the other girls. Why did things have to be so hard? "I'm okay," even if she didn't feel like it.​

 

[Elio Boneheart]

There was something wrong with Eury, he could tell, but he didn’t know exactly what it was. Perhaps she was just missing home, but something told him that wasn’t really it. There was more to it, but he didn’t know if it was really his place to say anything. Either way he would be telling Mikael, if he found out that Elio had doubts and hadn’t said anything he wouldn’t have been pleased and he didn’t need another reason for them to fight. He didn’t like fighting with Mikael, it took way more energy than he could utilise and then Mikael went ahead assuming they were broken up when they weren’t and then Elio had to go out of his way to remind his boyfriend that they were not broken up. It was stressful for sure. “You tell me if anything changes, okay?” he asked, though he knew she probably wouldn’t. The fact he was graduating this year would probably meant she felt like he couldn’t help, and if she was here and not with her brother, it meant she didn’t want to talk to Mikael about whatever it was, which likely meant she felt like her brother was going to overreact and she didn’t want him to question her. Knowing that, Elio decided he shouldn’t push her. He would rather her just be here calmly with him, rather than going wherever she was going that upset her. And if she was here, he could keep any eye on her.​

 

[Eurydice Nightray]

When Eurydice had gone to the Student Lounge, it was with the full intention of taking a nap and hoping that she would feel better once she woke up. Finding Elio-nii was just a bonus. A really good bonus. Because that meant that someone could cuddle with her while she napped. Any other day, she would probably feel bad that she was disturbing his study time since 7th Year was such a busy time. They had NEWTs, and they were going to graduate soon, and she knew that Elio-nii liked having good grades. She felt miserable enough today though to forget all about that, which is why she'd just sort of unintentionally ignored that the older Gryffindor might need to study instead of coddling her. So she just nodded sleepily against him before falling into a light doze that would turn into the comfiest sleep she'd had in days.​

 

[Mikael Nightray]

Elio was late. It was not that they really had a specific time to meet these days, but he and Elio had agreed to spend the day outside after Mikael's class. He'd expected to find Elio outside of his Charms class but had been quickly disabused of the notion. He tried to wrack his brain to see if they'd discussed where they were going to meet but came up empty. He sighed, figuring he would now have to look for his missing boyfriend. There were really only a few places he could think to look, the problem was they were scattered around the castle. He decided to start at the Ground Floor and make his way up. His first stop had been the Entrance Hall, the Courtyard, and then the Great Hall. When none of the three yielded results, he figured either the Library or the Student Lounge were his best bet. Considering the Student Lounge was much smaller than the Library, he decided to head there first.

Mikael relaxed immediately when he found his boyfriend situated in the Lounge, though he couldn't help but frown at the figure lying nearly on top of him. It only took a few more steps for him to recognize that it was none other than his sister, snugly wrapped in a blanket and looking the most tired and comfortable he had seen her this semester. She was clearly sound asleep, which was why his boyfriend had not managed to meet him. He approached the pair, running his fingers through Elio's hair before leaning down to plant a kiss on his forehead. "What's wrong with her?" he said softly, as he had no intention of waking her if he didn't have to. However, he did brush her hair off her face with the back of his finger, placing it against her forehead to check her temperature, which made him frown.​

 

[Elio Boneheart]

“I don’t think she’s been sleeping well,” Elio whispered to Kael, the book he’d been reading over Eury’s head quickly discarded onto the table behind his head. “She was crying before, but she fell asleep a bit ago now, and I didn’t want to wake her, sorry I missed you, I was worried writing you a note or summoning a houseelf might have woken her,” he said, looking over at his boyfriend with a sigh. “Is she hot? Maybe we should take her to the hospital wing?”​