CHAPTER THREE
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i. good morning !

— THE WORLD WOKE IN A BRILLIANT ARAY OF GOLD TINTED RAINBOWS. The sky was alight with lovely, iridescent colours, and Wendy felt the warmth of the morning wash over her as it flooded through the window and covered her sheets in a hazy glow.

The sleepiness faded away from her in mere moments when her steely blue eyes opened to reflect the beauty of the sun, rising higher into the painted sky.

She always loved mornings like these. The content feeling she got- from the dinner the night before, always incredible and mouthwatering- from the sun, warming her bedding and her skin with its light- and from the feeling of being back in a place of overwhelming mystic properties.

A place she could pretend as if she belonged.

Though as she sat up to glance around at her yellow themed dorm, she realized most of the girls she shared the room with had already left without waking her.

She'd never been close with any of them, so this was understandable, but she did so wish they had the decent grace to wake her up before breakfast.

She decided not to dwell on it, and instead sluggishly pull herself out of bed and into what would surly become a normal morning routine for the coming school year.

By the time she'd gotten into her robes and fished both her shoes out from under her bed, Wendy's hair had become a knotted mess- which she corrected by putting the dark strands up in a twisted bun, sticking her wand through to hold it in place.

For a moment Wendy looked at her reflection in the mirror of the wooden vanity next to her bed. She observed the way the sun fell over her skin, and absorbed into the material of her robes- giving her that warm and content feeling. She watched her stormy-ocean eyes with curiosity, as if trying to see deeper into her own soul.

The low mumble of chatter downstairs brought her out of her daydream, and she realized there was a growing hunger in her stomach that could only be fixed by pancakes and Hogwart's infamous syrup.

With this in her mind, she quickly grabbed the shoes she had set out next to the door and tugged one on as she exited the dorm, the other as she stumbled down the steps.

While her focus was on her shoes, she wasn't quite so aware of her surroundings as she should of been. For as she finally managed to pull her other shoe on, she also tripped over the final step and fell right into a bunch of hard fabric- that nearly fell over with the force of her impact.

When the fabric made a noise of surprise, Wendy had realized what she'd done.

"Oh merlin- I'm so sorry- so sorry! I didn't see you there!" She rushed out, reaching a hand out to grab the person's arm and stabilize them both.

"No worries, Dee, I was waiting for your slow arse, anyway." Dorian Farrington teased as he waved off her off, placing his hand over the one of hers that rested on his arm.

"Sorry you had to wait so long." Wendy smiled nervously, "I woke up a bit late."

Dorian shook his head with a small smile, "Relax, love, I've only been standing here for a few minutes."

That was, in fact, a lie on the more erumpent sized scale. Dorian had woken up early and wanted to be sure Wendy had settled in alright before he had the possibility to lose her at breakfast, so he went downstairs and waited for the better part of two and a half hours for her to awaken and join him.

Not that he would ever tell her that.

"Well, you're here now." Dorian smiled, motioning for her to adjust her grip on his arm so they could walk comfortably side by side with Wendy's hand resting comfortably on his bicep, and his brushing protectively over her fingers when people gave her weird looks for the bright, gaudy necklace she wore.

Dorian glanced at the ugly piece of jewellery- if it could even be considered that- as they left the Hufflepuff common room.

"Is that a new necklace?" He asked kindly.

Wendy glanced down at it, bringing her free hand up to press against what looked like a bottle cork on a rainbow beaded string.

"Yes! Xenophilius Lovegood gave it to me, apparently it's a funny little protection charm." She grinned. "I'd spoken with him in Flourish and Blotts this summer about how I'm always losing things, and he suggested I try it."

Dorian glared at a Gryffindor that was giving Wendy an odd look, while simultaneously offering his admiration for the necklace, "It looks lovely."

"Perhaps I can ask Xenophilius to make you one too!" Wendy looked up at him.

"I'd love that." Dorian chuckled, continuing to guide her through the corridors until they found themselves in the great hall.

"Oh, you wouldn't mind if I said a quick hello to James and the others, would you?" Wendy spotted a mop of messy dark hair and loud laughter in the crowd of red as gold trimmed robes.

Dorian shook his head, allowing her hand to be free from beneath his own, "Pancakes this morning?" He asked.

"Of course." Wendy smiled a thankful smile, grateful for what he was implying. "You remember how I like them?"

As he began to walk towards their table he turned to offer her a look of mild offence, "Who do you think I am?" He joked.

He was too far away for Wendy to utter a 'thank you', so she decided to instead make her way over to James Potter, a beacon of messiness and charm in the midst of the breakfast bustle.

As she came up behind him sitting on the bench, she noticed Peter was the only one of the group of four that was sitting on the other side, with two plates of food in front of him.

The boy looked up and recognized what she was doing, so he shared a mischievous smile and smoothly returned to practically inhaling his eggs.

Then Wendy leapt at James, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and squeezing gently into a warm hug. Once he had gotten over the initial shock and realized who it was, he began to laugh and twist in his seat to return the embrace.

"Good morning, Jamsie."

"'Morning, Darling." James greeted, muffled slightly both from Wendy's robes, and the near entire slice of toast in his mouth.

"James, don't talk with your mouth full." Wendy scolded playfully.

James swallowed and pulled away from Wendy to see her properly, "Yes, mother." He teased.

"Where's my morning hug?" Another voice asked, and quickly Wendy realized it was Sirius Black.

Wendy chuckled slightly, pulling away from James and walking behind Remus to reach the boy. He held out his arms like a child reaching for a toy, and hummed contently when she finally did hug him- not even bothered when she ruffled his hair a bit.

"You're forgetting someone." James reminded, offering a suggestive raise of his eyebrows when Remus looked his way.

Wendy laughed, "You're all children." She stated, though she hugged Remus despite the comment- and he was blessed with a moment of his senses being completely encapsulated by her presence.

As soon as it was there, it was gone again, leaving Remus' sensitive nose with the faint smell Wendy's citrus shampoo lingering along and fuzzing up his brain.

"I would offer you a hug, dear Peter, but you're a little far away." She stated, a sorry smile resting on her features.

"Maybe later." Peter waved off, not bothered too much by it.

Wendy nodded and turned her attention to address all four of them, "I just wanted to say some good mornings before we were all split into our classes." She pulled a bit on her robe as she said this, just needing something to do with her hands.

A small series of 'good morning's were happily tossed around the table for her.

"I hope to have some classes with you all this year." Wendy said, getting sounds of agreement and even James stating he wanted to be in transfiguration together, so they could partner up.

Wendy wasn't sure why transfiguration in particular was his choice, considering she'd never been very good in that area, but she appreciated that he wanted to partner with her in anything at all- knowing her track record of clumsy incidents.

Unbeknown to Wendy as she said her goodbyes and scolded James for talking with his mouth full again, Remus was praying to Merlin that he'd have at least one class with the kind Hufflepuff that year. Maybe if he spent more time with her, he'd be less of a coward about talking to her.

"Okay- James-" Wendy was laughing and trying to get a sentence out as James held his mouth open for her to see the chewed-up yuck after she made another comment on talking with his mouth full.

"James- alright, I'm walking away, you're disgusting." Wendy patted Remus's shoulder as she began to walk away.

James swallowed what was in his mouth again before answering, "You love me!"

Wendy held up her thumb and index finger close together, indicating that that love she had for him was smaller than the disgust she had for him talking with his mouth full.

Wendy returned to her own table, waving at the familiar face of Regulus Black as he walked on past her- only offering a small almost unnoticeable smile in return.

"I don't see why you bother with him." Dorian stated as Wendy sat next to him.

"Who? Regulus?" She asked, graciously accepting the pitcher of syrup that Dorian offered to her.

"Yeah, he's like- prime death eater real estate." Dorian shrugged, watching Wendy pour the syrup over her stack of pancakes and sliced banana.

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, his family is a good reason."

"And what about Sirius? He comes from the same family, does he not?" Dorian looked surprised as Wendy didn't even glance up from her food.

"He's different."

"How?" Wendy asked innocently.

Dorian thought about it for a moment, before picking up his glass of orange juice and gesturing for Wendy to grab her own. Carefully, they clinked the glasses together as Dorian finally muttered, 'touché', and downed a few gulps of his drink.

author's note

Hey yall it's Luna, I low key felt like garbage today so cue me updating both my comfort character fics at 3 and 4 in the morning ✨

Sorry if this chapter sucks, I'm kind of out of it because it's 4:30 am so i had no idea what I was writing half the time but it made me feel better so I hope that even if it doesn't make a lot of sense, it makes you feel better too (:

Thank you for reading and supporting, I love you 🙃♥️