"Hah, Lys, good morning! I practiced spells seriously last night!" Friedm yawned whilst looking at Lys expectantly.
"I know. I'll check on Sunday morning. Right now it's breakfast time."
Lys tried to press down that tuft of hair, but when she let go, it sprang back up again.
"Wash your hair after eating. That sticking-up hair looks dreadful." Lys said with slight distaste.
Friedm chewed his fried egg whilst touching the back of his head. "Right you are, Lys."
The siblings' hair was completely opposite. Lys had inherited their mother's rust-red hair and their father's slight curl, whilst Friedm had inherited their father's black hair and their mother's straight locks.
Even their appearances were rather different. Lys, having lost some weight, had sharper features again. Her narrow eyes paired with perpetually straight-lined lips gave her an unapproachable air. From a distance, combined with her build, Lys projected more distance and intimidation.
Friedm, on the other hand, had soft facial lines and big, round eyes that sparkled when he saw fluffy animals and Lys. He loved to smile, and most importantly, he was quite short... His well-behaved appearance made him seem terribly approachable.
Lys poured a glass of milk and placed it before Friedm, then continued reading her newspaper.
By the time Senna and Noah emerged from the bedroom and potion laboratory respectively, Lys was already drying Friedm's hair.
"Are you certain you want to attend Durmstrang?" Lys used magic to control the towel, absorbing water droplets from Friedm's hair bit by bit.
"Hogwarts' curriculum would be more relaxed, and Quidditch matches would be more frequent. Though I've hardly ever watched them, the Quidditch players there are indeed more popular. And there are your fluffy creatures—I've got a good relationship with the groundskeeper there..."
At this point, Lys's voice carried a hint of nostalgia. "I could ask him to help look after your pets."
Lys knew perfectly well that her brother was actually better suited to Hogwarts' relaxed atmosphere than Durmstrang's hierarchical, status-obsessed environment.
Sometimes Lys even reckoned her brother would become a Hufflepuff—loved animals, friendly to everyone, quite the chatterbox...
What she found problematic was the influence those important figures imposed on the school, not the school itself.
"Lys..."
"You're grown up now. You can easily pronounce the 'L' sound. Call me Lys from now on."
"Right! Lys! I want to go to Durmstrang. Even if there aren't frequent Quidditch matches there, even if I can't bring pets or pop home whenever I fancy, I reckon their attitude toward magic is more genuine. And you're there too!"
The towel on Friedm's head paused for a moment. Lys seemingly casually served Noah his warmed meat cutlet before continuing to dry Friedm's hair.
Her brother was already considering which place had a more genuine attitude toward magic... Lys's expression grew somewhat wistful. What had she been thinking about at his age?
Oh right, she'd been worried that if she took Cocoa away to school, Dad might starve to death...
Shaking her head and carefully straightening Friedm's collar, Lys confirmed: "Then I'll write a reply to Hogwarts' headmaster this afternoon. If you have any second thoughts, tell me straightaway."
Friedm nodded earnestly and dashed over to Senna to help craft his wand.
His wand had cost Lys considerable effort. The materials she'd been collecting from every corner recently were all for this little blighter.
Whether it was Lys'shawthorn and blackthorn, their parents' cedar and cypress, or the wands from various shops—he could use them all.
When Friedm was small, Lys had tried to find him a suitable wand, but he seemed to get along reasonably well with any wand, yet she couldn't find one that truly chose him and suited him perfectly, even after specifically visiting Gregorovitch's wand shop.
Friedm currently used a cedar and dragon heartstring wand Senna had crafted previously. The results were mediocre at best, so Lys was rather anxious. She wanted to solve her brother's wand problem before he started school.
And now there was only about a month left.
Turning round, Lys saw Noah's hesitant expression and asked, "Something the matter, Dad?"
"I... I don't want to go out shopping." Noah looked rather dejected. Since that incident, this household had transformed from Senna, Noah, and Lys all having decision-making authority to Lys's sole dictatorship.
Noah probably felt this wasn't quite right to say and quickly added, "This quarter's profits are rather high. Perhaps the accounts need more careful attention..." Under Lys's steady gaze, Noah quickly fell silent.
"Dad, don't try to compensate for my sacrifices with your guilt and avoidance. You can't spend your entire life living only in this house and forest. That would be a complete mockery of the meaning behind my trading you back."
Lys mentioned that matter without the slightest emotional fluctuation, as if the soul she'd split away and her left hand that had lost most sensation were materials she could casually produce.
"Let's take Friedm to ride broomsticks by the lake together on Sunday. He's rather looking forward to it." Lys made a concession. After speaking, she cleared the dining table, left the kitchen to Cocoa, and headed out to search for suitable wand core materials.
Only Noah remained, sitting dejectedly at the dining table, muttering something unintelligible under his breath.
He simply didn't want to add more trouble to this household. His werewolf identity and behaviour had already caused tremendous burden for this family.
Even though he longed to see the outside world, in that outside world he simply couldn't make others treat him fairly.
Meanwhile, Lys, who'd already reached the shop, was also pondering a question: How could she make others think of her first when they encountered her family members?
Besides deliberate harm, what was a way to avoid harassment from those idiots whose brains were stuffed with fear and prejudice? A way to make them see her threat before they opened their mouths or lifted a finger?
She used magic to manipulate a narwhal tooth whilst wandering about the shop. When she entered the warehouse, Lys spotted the Karkaroff family's goods piled in a corner, all boxes uniformly marked with a goat skull in the upper right corner.
Under her raised eyebrow, a glimmer of interest flickered in Lys's grey eyes.
Lys sat behind the counter and picked up a quill, but the lines under her hand came out crooked and utterly shapeless. Only then did she hazily remember that she hadn't drawn anything for years.
She doodled randomly on parchment. Soon she'd accumulated a small stack of papers covered with complex, dense patterns of potion bottles, wolves, flies, and some indistinguishable flower design, which Lys promptly vanished.
The characteristics weren't distinctive enough. Lys held the quill in her right hand, propping it under her chin as she surveyed the materials in the shop, lost in thought.
This reverie reminded her again of Friedm's wand materials. Lys felt about her left arm for that short willow wand. She hadn't used this particular wand of hers for ages.
Having reached no conclusions, Lys thought half-jokingly: When I get back, I'll craft a wand from those Pygmy Puff hairs and have the little devil try it.
After all, she and Mum had tried all the mainstream and rather obscure materials available, and not one had resonated with him.
Lys grumbled that he was truly a finicky little wizard, then gathered several materials and headed home.
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