The ennui surrounding her was terrible. Nora sighed. Why had she decided to go with her fathers on vacation? She could've gone to a friend's house, or stayed with her Grandma Molly and Grandpa Arthur, or her Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione, or one of her other uncles (maybe not her Uncles Fred and George, Severus didn't seem to like them very much).
No, she had decided to go on vacation with Harry and Severus. It was dull. It was tedious. Dismal. Dreary. Jejune. Uninspiring. Monotonous. Soporific. Well, at least she knew tons of synonyms for bored. Came from living with her fathers.
They weren't bored, oh no. They found history and magic and the two combined particularly interesting. The two wizards would move from exhibit to exhibit in a museum, quiet murmurs barely reaching Nora's ears. Sometimes one of them would talk for very long, and Nora knew then that he was explaining something to the other, who would listen with genuine interest.
Why?
What here could possibly be that interesting?
Here being (yet another) museum. Magic in the Anglo-Saxons' time. Who cared?
"Nora, come here," Harry said softly. "This is really quite interesting."
She dragged her feet over to Harry and Severus.
"Yes, Daddy Harry?"
"Look at these. They're curse stones that Muggles threw into the river. They thought the river gods would do as asked if they wrote out the curse right. Sometimes, Anglo-Saxon wizards found the stones and cursed whoever they were asked to, so that the myth of river gods would survive."
This wasn't interesting at all.
"Do you know why they did that, Nora?" Severus asked.
"No," Nora answered sullenly.
"So that their own existence wouldn't be suspected. If they believed in river gods, then they wouldn't necessarily think of wizards and witches. The Anglo-Saxon Muggles were very superstitious, but they didn't like to think of ordinary humans doing magic. Even the Druids – Muggle priests for the Anglo-Saxons – had to be careful."
"Stonehenge was set up by the wizards, too. Muggles have lots of fun trying to figure out how they did it and why."
"Do you know why and how?" Severus asked.
"No."
"The how's pretty simple," Harry began. "There's old Earth magic. The Anglo-Saxons were masters of it, which is how they got the big stones to move. Even for wizards today, moving rocks that huge with pure magic is no easy feat and would probably require quite a few average-power wizards. The why's a little harder. We're not quite sure either. It's probably an astrological calendar, sorta Divination on grand scale. We're gonna go see it now."
Wonderful. Old stones. Who cared?
Besides her dorky fathers, that is.
The stones were old and rather dull, Nora reflected as she stared at them. Her fathers were making sounds of appreciation and explaining things to each other.
She groaned.
Damn. Severus and Harry were by her side within seconds.
"Nora, what do you feel?" Severus asked worriedly.
"Ennui," she answered without thinking. Oops.
Ennui – noun. A feeling of weariness and dissatisfaction arising from lack of interest; boredom. Word of the Day, February 15, 2008)