Decorating The House For October pet

It was October. Warm-colored leaves fell to the ground, carved pumpkins appeared on porches, and muggle shops were full of spooky decorations – just as Ginevra liked it. It was their favorite month of the year. Back in Italy, the Halloween tradition was never as prominent, but here in Oxford, a muggle city at that, everything buzzed with spooky spirit. How muggles could have more fun than wizards, for once in a year, baffled them. And although they had to keep it a secret – to avoid offending their self-esteem and their pure-blood family’s stuck-upness – they undeniably wished to partake in it. Any trip to the market, the bank, or anywhere else brought them a lot of quiet joy.

But the Vespucci-Delacroix residence stood bland: gray and bare. Inside, it was even grayer. The days here went by so slowly, and even though the child found things to do and got up to all sorts of mischief, sometimes the energy just ran out, and then they’d be left alone in this huge, empty house. Admittedly, it was a little lonely. Their parents didn’t decorate for a muggle holiday, but they didn’t decorate for anything. They just sat at their desks, typing away on their typewriters – whatever it was – silently, boringly.

One day, during another one of Ginevra’s aimless wanderings around the house, looking for things to mess up, for spirits to conjure, they stopped dead in their tracks. In the main corridor, by the dark-wood stairs that led up to the second floor, at the very corner of the ceiling, was a huge spider. Big and black. In a big black web. They had never seen a black web. It looked so… spooky. It looked exactly like the fake webs hung on decorated muggle houses.

The child stood there and stared at it with wide, fascinated eyes for a good minute. They’d only seen such a thing in encyclopedias, never in real life. They’d never even been to a zoo! This spider looked so exotic and interesting. They dragged a high bar stool from the kitchen and set it by the wall. They climbed on it and extended their hand toward the spider, offering a friendly proposal. To their absolute joy, the spider crawled into their hand. It was soft, covered in little hairs all over its surface. The child observed it curiously.

That day, they finally had something to occupy themselves with – and honestly, they did all October. If not for the rest of their life. The loneliness that came with the big empty house faded when the big spider filled the emptiness in the child’s soul. The two became best friends. They called him Bones. They spent their days together and were inseparable. Ginevra liked to prank their parents by putting the spider in their mother’s coffee mug or in the folds of their father’s shirt. It was a collaborative effort. And although the two oddities were free-roaming and both liked to have time to themselves, at least once a day they would come together and do something fun or interesting. Bones claimed his spot on Ginevra’s shoulder, and that’s how he liked to travel EVERYWHERE with them.

From that day, the house was never too bland – partially because it was covered in black webs, and partially because their soul was full of care for the creature and it seemed like they’d put on ebony-colored glasses.