Her bed felt strange, bigger than it should have been. The lines of another had long since disappeared. Laney didn’t have his senses, not his sense of smell. She couldn’t smell him, but there were still moments that made her stare at the other half of her bed with mistrust, as if it might betray her, as if it might no longer be hers. There were times when she woke up and thought she was in his bed. She was somewhere else. She turned her back to it, letting out a rough breath as she trapped burnt honey layers of hair between a vexed face and a resilient pillow.

An arm came up, combing over her other cheek, the one that faced the ceiling, almost unwittingly forcing Laney awake, taunting her as if it weren’t her own arm. She sat up again and kicked legs from the mattress toward the floor, reaching for the bottle of water on the nightstand as she stood. She stretched, bare lanky legs and midriff in a loose sweater and knickers. Even in the winter, she hated to wear too much much to bed.

Laney stealed out to the living room, slipping into the hammock as dawn offered the faintest glow before settling into a grayish morning. She took another swig of water and stared at the transparent doors of the balcony. Even on rainy days, cold, foggy London days, the glow could be felt, if not seen; often she slept through it. Often it lasted a half minute, a play of shadows on the floor as the sun replaced that other tricky orb in the sky.

She had not slept well. She had gone to bed only a few hours ago, sober, sore from a practice that had lasted far past sundown, past when the others had left the stadium for the night. She had a game tomorrow, and the pitch had seemed easier than a bar. If she was heeding the typical advice of coaches on the surface, the practices were in excess and were being balanced by her lack of sleep. The specialized seeker coach had warned not to over exert herself. Laney had one purpose, and it could make or break a game.

When she wasn’t pushing her body to the limits, exhausting herself in the hopes of sweeping victory and solid sleep, she was finding other distractions. Sweet drinks— or bitter ones— new ink, special trips to the apothecary.

She pushed her foot away from the floorboards lightly, sending the suspended hammock into a lazy swing. Eyes swept from the window to the kitchen, the coffee maker there. Cigarettes on the counter. She took another sip of water and looked away, her body nevertheless seeming to pull, fruitlessly, toward creature comforts.

There were little reminders of Frank around Laney's flat: a spare shaving kit she had sprung on him, with a laugh, now sitting in a less trafficked corner of her medicine cabinet, beside a toothbrush that wasn’t hers. A book whose leather cover she couldn’t get past.

That was something she missed, all of the books, a smell she could remember, distinctly. It made her annoyed, to look at the one in her room, and the next moment she needed to look.

If she had left things at his place, they had not been things she cared about. Or she would pretend, for now, that that was the case. Nothing he needed to return.

The hammock was moving at a snail’s pace now, the end of a ripple. Laney sat up, set her feet down again, traipsed this time to the open kitchen. She set aside and water and flicked her wand at the coffee machine before opening the fridge. She didn’t hate to cook, but she was hardly a chef. Even if she had her own place, she spent enough time traveling, or eating in restaurants, or ordering in— or letting Frank cook— to need inspiration for an omelette. Frank had been better at cooking, and Laney had often found herself helping in the kitchen, claiming the simplest tasks for her own before while leaving the brunt of the work to him. Or simply watching him, distracting him.

She had eggs. She could make an omelette if she wanted to. As she set the stove to heating and began to prepare ingredients, the coffee finished making itself— something Laney could make, seamlessly. She took a deep sip before adding sugar to sweeten it up, and a splash of milk. A wave of her wand, and the radio came on, contributing to the sizzle of the skillet as Laney added bacon. The Seeker rolled her eyes and smiled in turns at the quidditch stats, recaps of what she had already heard, and predictions about the weekend’s games.

It was a world she knew well, the sound that poured from the radio. But it was more than that; the noise brought comfort. She jabbed her wand toward the balcony doors, which promptly opened, adding rain to the chorus. It seemed to grow heavier by the second.