Vis-à-vis Solo Finished

Participants:
@Meenauh Silmataurea
Althea Silmataurea (Mother)
Aiden Silmataurea (Father)

The 20th of July, 2020
Afternoon
Vis, Croatia

As soon as Meenauh and Xailah were brought back from the summer camp, Meenauh said her goodbyes, Father took care of her trunk and they proceeded to the portkey. They had little time so they went right to vacation without even going home. It was hasty, but well adventures, right? Not that she had few adventures in her life — she studied at Hogwarts, come on. She never lied to her parents, but some not mentioning the truth about events at Hogwarts wouldn't hurt if kept a secret. Homeschooling was always an open topic in their family, so Hogwarts wasn't the last instance of education at all. Her Father was homeschooled as well. But now she had friends at school. And she cared about them.

Mother was against apparating with Meenauh as she still considered it an unpleasant experience. So they walked. Walked through the narrow streets of London towards the portkey place. Wizards were used to keeping their secret places in really weird places. They entered a really small door in one of the streets, which looked like an entrance to some goblin hotel (even Meenauh had to crouch a little). The person guarding the place behind the sort of reception place gave them a half-welcoming smile and pointed at the corridor to the right. Father whispered something to him and almost secretly slipped something blinky into his hand. They turned into the corridor and kept walking for a while. The corridor seemed infinite.

"Four-oh-one, four-oh-two... okay, here we are," Father quietly said and pointed his wand at the door lock. The lock clicked and the door opened with a characteristic creak. The room was empty, no furniture was there, even no coffee table or something. A perfect area for portkey travelling. Father opened his backpack and retrieved a parcel. Inside it was a... straw hat. Wizards kept making the weirdest portkeys, to be honest. He pointed a few times at it with his wand, whispering something (probably making sure it was safe to travel of something — he was always cautious about his surroundings).

"Okay, we can go now," he said and they all grabbed the hat by its brim.

The portkey guided them to the top of the hill with an astonishing view over the new marina below. Croatia was amazing as usual. This time Father got a nice deal with one of his friends and her family had their cottage for a few weeks. The cottage was hidden a bit away from the 'popular' places and for muggles would look like a sheer cliff. With all the thunderous waves harassing the cliff, it was unlikely any muggle would even think of going anywhere around. The benefit — personal lagoon inside a cave and access to the open sea.

Walking was a good and healthy practice, especially with the views around the place. A fifteen minutes walk over the hills and a not-so-dense pine forest. Meenauh was undoubted that her amortentia would have pines among its flavours. Not that... she'd ever brew it... for any... reason. Like in some muggle families there was a rule of not having toys looking like weapons, their family had a rule about any potions that messed with the mind. Father was a skilled alchemist and he made it pretty clear to her that messing with other being's mind was unfair and somewhere in the area of evil.

"So, how's the summer camp in general?" Father asked as they were moving, "Was Quidditch spectacular?" he asked another question with a smirk, knowing her attitude to the mentioned sport.

"The summer camp was nice," she shrugged as she didn't want to mention specific details, "We got closer with Xailah. She's really nice. You'll like her, I promise."

"We already like her, darling," Mother said, "I don't think you'd get well with bad people, sweetie."

She nodded. There were bad people in Hogwarts, but not bad enough to make her afraid. Some people had a worrisome aura around them, some people were just mean. But Meenauh had the strong core, raised in her by her loving parents. It was the best protection.

"Quidditch is a failure, Father, you know that," she smirked back to her parent, "But we won — that was somehow spectacular, I admit. Serena Towers did a very good job out there," she added, though no one actually cared who Serena Towers was and why Meenauh even decided to elaborate on the topic, which was brought up more for fun than serious.

And then they arrived. The cottage was gorgeous. The view was unbelievable. Mother made photos. The next month was going to be amazing. She needed to rest. They all needed to rest.