arjunptil

[arjunptil]

[ @dorothymin​ asked ‘can’t sleep?’ ]

Arjun and Dorothy had been spending much more time together than they had been before the rally, which Arjun was grateful for but honestly confused about. He wasn’t quite sure, frankly, why anyone would want to spend any extended amount of time with him, let along Dorothy. Still, he was grateful for the company, even this late at night as they walked through the streets of Muggle London, enjoying a bit of a return to things they had known as children. 

“Yeah, I guess that about sums it up,” he said, pursing his lips lightly in thought before pushing his hands in his pockets. “I mean—” He paused, tilting his head to the side. “I don’t know. How it feels right now? It reminds me of the last war.” Many of them were veterans of the last war and understood the kind of storm clouds that were brewing on the horizon. To those who didn’t, Arjun wasn’t sure if he could explain it. 

[arjunptil]

Send me “Can’t sleep?” to have a tired conversation with my muse in the middle of the night.

[arjunptil]

[ @olive--hornby​ !! ]

Arjun knocked on Olive’s door with the greasiest food he could get his hands on, more than happy to forget everything that had been going on lately. After the rally with the mysterious man who had taken their magic, even if only temporarily, Arjun had been testing his magic at intervals, trying to figure out if there were lasting effects. So far, it seemed like everything was back to normal, but he could feel the tides turning. War was hanging over him like clouds over the bay. 

So, he decided to ignore it in favor of spending time with one of the few people he could actually stand to be around. When she opened the door he held up the bag of food. “Feel like eating our weight in food? Because that’s about how much is in here, it’s fucking heavy.” 

[arjunptil]

ophelialovcgood​:

“you’re a saint, darling,” ophelia laughed, unable to contain her smile as he appeared from behind the door. arjun had always been kind to her, understanding that just because she was a little reticent didn’t mean she was undeserving of love and friendship. stepping through the threshold, she pressed a quick kiss to his shoulder, all that she could reach due to their significant difference in height and blue eyes lit up as she glanced around his home, always thinking it was far more put-together than her own, rather drab flat. 

“i fell asleep on the couch, wasted half the day away and the idea of desiccated biscuits for dinner was a horrid thought so thank you again for being my savior,” she continued, shrugging off her periwinkle cardigan now that she was out of the cold, fiddling with a loose thread at the sleeve, “and i suppose since the rally it’s quite difficult to be at ease there all by myself.” she’d hardly admit such a thing to anyone else but he had fought and suffered for the cause as she had and while some were in the dark about what might be coming, ophelia could still feel the rumblings of battle shaking the ground beneath her feet. 

///

“Desiccated biscuits? My dear, you need to get better about stocking that pantry of yours. It’s there for a reason, you know,” he teased lightly, though he quickly went to whip something up in the kitchen. The one thing he knew for sure that he inherited from his mother was a gift and love for cooking, especially Indian recipes, and he immediately thought of the perfect comfort food after what seemed like a tough day for her. For both of them, really—Arjun hadn’t been sleeping well since the rally, and he had spent the day lost in his anxieties over what had happened not so long ago. 

He sighed, nodding as he turned on the stove with a flick of his wand and set some oil to heat in a large, cast iron pan. Ophelia and Arjun were the same in that they were hesitant to share their feelings, especially when they were admitting that they were having problems, and Arjun was certain that it wasn’t easy for her to tell him that. He wanted to return the gesture, but found himself with the words getting stuck in his throat. “Me too,” he managed, shaking his head. “I don’t think people realize just how bad it’s going to get.” 

[arjunptil]

dorothymin​:

There was something metallic in the air. It felt like a never-ending ringing, made the ground feel as solid as clouds, made Dorothy look over her shoulder every few steps. She’d avoided the first war because she was a coward. She wasn’t sure what she would do if another one were to break out. The thought terrified her - it cut to her core, like a cold wind or a steel knife. How were they to engage in a war without magic? How could they fight against an enemy that had already bested them once, simply by locking them up like cattle and draining them dry? Dorothy glanced up at Arjun. He’d fought in the first war. They didn’t speak of it much, but Dorothy knew the names of most of the survivors, having kept careful track of them from the yellow-belly of her apartment. Teach me to be brave, she thought, studying the angle of his jaw. Her gaze moved away from him to the streets ahead. “Me too.” It was all she could say in response. Her words were failing her - a strange thing for a writer to lose, but no stranger than a witch losing her magic. The world was on its side.

In the pause between them stopping at his door and him speaking, she spun a thousand stories for what lay behind the door. Dorothy didn’t consider herself a jealous person. Sometimes, she felt like her interior was salted earth, or a tangle of bramble thorns and sharp edges, a place where nothing could take root, not even jealousy. But, still, some small insecurity in the back of her mind painted a beautiful person waiting behind the door, some concerned and lovely elegance here to provide comfort that Dorothy couldn’t. She pushed the thought away, quickly, barely giving it the short life of a few seconds. Ridiculous. It hardly mattered and she knew it wasn’t true. Instead, he spoke of decorating. Her brow furrowed, and for the first time in hours, a smile began to tug at her lips. It felt partially hysteric. She tried to picture what could be behind the door, thinking of her own apartment, an eclectic mix of dying plants and comfortable rugs and too many mugs. “I’m sure it’s not that bad,” she said, stepping in after him. As she glanced around, she realized, he was right.

It looked like an advertisement for expensive suits. There was nothing here to indicate that anyone lived here, let alone Arjun. She stepped further into the house, turning in a slow circle, taking it all in. The laughter started in her stomach. It bubbled up through her throat, and she let out a single giggle before her hand slapped over her mouth. She couldn’t help it. She was exhausted, terrified, reeling – on a better day, she would have made a smart remark and let it go. But the absurdity of the day caught up with her, and she laughed, quaking in the center of his living room.

“Sorry, sorry,” she breathed, trying to get herself under control. “It’s not that bad, Arjun, I promise, it’s just. Not what I was expecting.” She looked at him, warmth flooding her chest, and she smiled, shaking her head. Another quiet laugh, and then the fit was done. “You should have had your manager call me,” she said, grasping at normalcy, aiming for the teasing tone their previous conversations carried. She moved, running her fingers delicately over the leather of the couch, her bed for the evening. Another smile appeared on her mouth, this one tender, almost affectionate, thinking of how he must have looked juxtaposed against the backdrop of decorating done by someone who didn’t know him.

Not that she knew him. She caught herself, risked a glance in his direction, trying to gauge his reaction to her. Dorothy didn’t look long. Just enough to catch a glimpse of his face, and then she was staring back at the leather underneath her hand. She wasn’t sure when this had started. This hot coiling in the space between her lungs and her stomach that flared when she saw him, this shyness, rendering her incapable of maintaining a level of cool. It’s adrenaline bonding, she thought, plucking a term from her memories, poring over books to figure out what made Quidditch teams work so well. It’ll wear off. A lie, but a comforting one. She wrapped her arms around herself, fingers clutching at the fabric of her shirt, and moved towards him.

“Where’s your kitchen? I’ll make us some tea.” She wanted to reach out again, just to place her hand on his arm, feel the fabric of his shirt, the warmth of his being, reassure herself again and again that he was okay. Her fingers reached out, but she kept her hands on her own arms. Boundaries.

The feeling that day was much like the feeling the day that Arjun joined the fight the last time. Terrible things had happened, and as a result, they needed to fight to preserve what little balance they had. Arjun had only ever known war, between his childhood with his IRA parents to the war culminating in Dumbledore vanquishing Grindelwald, Arjun felt most comfortable in a fight. The peace that had followed the last war had left him feeling uneasy, as if he was waiting on the precipice of something. Now, it felt like they truly teetered on the edge, ready to fall over and off the cliff into another all-out war at any moment. The war this time, however, wasn't going to be amongst themselves, but against a darker, deeper threat lurking somewhere out there, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike again. Arjun couldn't help but feel a sort of panic grip at his chest at the thought. He was more than willing to fight for what was right, but he needed to know who he was fighting—otherwise, it was pointless. Otherwise, all he had to hold onto was the hope that he was doing the right thing and the fear that he wasn't.

That restlessness translated into the way he talked about his flat, the anxious way he prised the door open and prefaced the interior. If he was going to try and create an interior that reflected him, he didn't know what it would look like. Would it look like the carpet-covered furniture of his home in Belfast? The minimalist cottage his mother lived in up in Scotland? He felt like he was just a raging sea, turbulent at all times and never able to stay still. Having a home was about staying still, putting down roots, but he felt like a sapling caught in a hurricane—trying desperately to plant itself in the ground but torn from the earth at every given moment. Arjun didn't know how he was supposed to translate that into coffee tables and armchairs, so he didn't. He didn't think he was meant to have a home, anyway. Not a real one, at least. He was meant to be on the move, meant to be constantly changing and evolving into something new. Though, perhaps that was just what he told himself, for fear that if he put down those roots, they would be torn up before they got a chance to grow.

At her laughter—near hysterical—Arjun couldn't help but start laughing himself. Maybe it was sheer relief, maybe it was incredulity at his dumb luck to get out of yet another life-threatening situation almost unscathed, but he started to double over. "No, no, trust me," he said, shaking his head. "I know exactly how bad it is." Arjun's apartment looked like what every teenage boy thought they wanted their adult home to look like, but Arjun knew better. Arjun knew that the coldness of his home represented the way that he distanced himself, and he wasn't going to try and unpack that too much. Now was not the time, today was not the day. Instead, he just tilted his head back and laughed some more, for the first time that day feeling some of the anxiety ebb away. He always felt lighter around Dorothy. She had a way of making him feel like maybe he deserved to put down roots.

He turned to look at her, nodding once. “It’s through there,” he said, gesturing to the hallway behind her. "Do you want, er—" He paused, looking over her disheveled clothes. "Listen, I think Charlotte left some of her things here the last time she was here. I bet her clothes would fit you?" He pursed his lips lightly and tried to come up with the best way to put it. "You just, uh—look a little uncomfortable. And if you're going to stay here a while, I don't want you to be." Arjun felt awkward bringing this up, maybe because mentioning Charlotte could give Dorothy the wrong impression, maybe because he was worried about making some sort of bad impression. Regardless, he gestured vaguely towards his room upstairs. "I could go grab them for you. If you want." He tilted his head to the side inquisitively.

Selfishly, Arjun wanted Dorothy to get comfortable so that she would stay longer. She was the only person he thought could make him feel any better after the events of that day, and the only person who knew about the horror of what it was like going under that stage and realizing that they were well and truly trapped. It had made the events of the rally that much more real and that much more dangerous. The man on the stage had thought of everything and trapped them like rats on a sinking ship. Arjun wasn't sure anyone would get the real gravity of that fact except for Dorothy.

[arjunptil]

ophelialovcgood​:

closed for: @arjunptil​

it was late when ophelia awoke, draped over the arm of her sofa with discarded books poking between the notches of her spine. she felt disoriented the way most people did after falling asleep and waking up in the wrong hours of the day. one could only comb through a muggle book on the french revolution for so long before the tedium took over resulting in an unplanned six hour nap. a colleague had asked her to pull relevant passages for a paper they were cowriting but upon discovering the remarkable speed at which ophelia read and digested information, the colleague had left her to do the majority of the research on her own, something she resented but was unable to say no to. 

joints popped and cracked as she uncurled her body from its position, shuffling towards her tiny kitchen in search of sustenance. a quick once over only yielded tea, stale biscuits and a can of soup. suddenly ravenous and increasingly grumpy, ophelia hardly hesitated before disapparating from her cluttered home only to reappear at the doorstep of arjun patil. he was the only person she was certain would never turn her away but even as she knocked (twice and low on the door so he’d know it was her) ophelia felt the familiar grip of doubt squeeze at her chest, never fully secure in her personal relationships.  

///

arjun had been finally trying to make his home a little less like the awful-looking bachelor pad that his manager had set up for him and more like it was actually his own. the first thing he did was get rid of all the awful, dark woods, replacing them with warmer toned furniture to go along with the warm toned lights he had suspended everywhere. He was in the midst of putting together a cabinet—thank god for magic, for he’d never be able to do it otherwise—when he heard the knock at the door of his duplex and he looked at the door with a furrowed brow. His first instinct was to be prepared for a fight, but he pushed down that knee-jerk reaction and moved towards the door. Everything was fine. The rally had happened days ago, and he was fine. He had to keep telling himself that. 

When he opened the door to find Ophelia, he blinked at her once before a huff of laughter left his lips, mostly relieved. “You don’t have any food at your flat, do you?” he asked before moving aside to let her in. “Don’t worry. You’ve come to the land of plenty.” 

[arjunptil]

ewanprwtt​:

-

“I don’t mind,” Ewan shrugged his shoulders as he sat across Arjun on the couch, “And they certainly don’t either. Fabian and Gideon have been bragging at the park that a famous Quidditch player visits them from time to time. I believe Molly started referring to as her uncle now.” Ewan didn’t think he and Arjun would get here after the broke up, but obviously the war had changed everything. Now they found comfort in one another as friends.

“I can put them outside if you wanted to talk about– the other day.” Ewan and Donny didn’t tell the children about the rally, they didn’t want to scare them with a new darkness lurking out in the world. After everything the three kids had been through with the Global War winding down, Ewan didn’t want them to think they’d lose another set of parents. 

///

“Really? I’ll make sure to sign my old beater’s bat for them,” he replied leaning back in his seat and feeling just a little more relaxed. Arjun loved the kids—he spent so much time taking care of neighborhood kids when he was younger, he had learned to deal with them early and young, and as a result, grew up with a fondness for children that couldn’t be replaced. 

He let out a deep breath. “Maybe you should,” he replied. “I don’t want to scare them.” Arjun was sure that his story of the stage and what had lay underneath would be terrifying, and the last thing he wanted was to make the kids afraid to step outside, lest someone steal their burgeoning magic away. 

[arjunptil]

dorothymin​:

When he flinched, she was prepared to recoil, spew apologies like a geyser, beg forgiveness for craving proximity. Then he softened. He did that, sometimes, with her. She could never tell if it was a trick of the light, or a trick of something else, something warm with sharp edges, something like hope. Sometimes, he would look at her, and she would see him. Him, the real him, not his titles or his position or his scandals or his past. She’d see Arjun. It felt like a gift. She savored it each time, tucking it away deep beneath her heart, to pull out on rainy days and ruminate about possibilities. It never lasted long, of course, Dorothy wasn’t one to sit and dream. Tenderness felt like something that belonged to others. The gentle way Effie’s face would light up at the thought of Fleamont. The secret language Adonis and Ewan seemed to share, communicated only through glances and smiles. That sort of tenderness. It always felt a thousand miles away. But occasionally, Arjun would smile at her like he was letting her in on a secret, and she would see tenderness move in the periphery.

His hand came up to cover hers, and she exhaled, slowly, a release of tension. She turned her hand, enough to wrap her fingers around his thumb. He was trembling. She held onto him tighter, a squeeze that seemed both useless and necessary. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. She stumbled over her words, practically begging him to let her follow him, to keep him in her line of sight, feeling selfish and foolish and desperate, as if she was eighteen and begging for her mother’s understanding and not thirty-two, a fully functional adult. Well. Not fully functioning. Not at the moment. His yes felt like a lifeboat. She nodded, forehead pressed still to his shoulder, and she turned her head so her cheek was pressed there instead. She stared out at the street for a moment. People were stumbling around, some crying, some screaming, some clinging to others. We will never be the same. The thought felt like cold water against her bare skin. They were all irreversibly changed. Even if their magic had come back, the knowledge that it could be taken away would never leave them. She would never forget the feeling of it draining out of her for as long as she lived.

Dorothy stood with him, planting her feet to balance out the sway of his body. He spoke of the couch, refuting her offer, and she shook her head. “It’s your house,” she rebutted, “you’ll sleep in your bed.” He let go of her hand and her stomach curled. It’s nothing, she thought. Tenderness faded away from the edge of her gaze. It’s always been nothing. She had to be careful, especially now. The last thing she wanted was to push him away any further than he already was. She could keep her blossoming feelings under the dirt for as long as it took for them to die. She nodded. She did, actually, though she’d never been one of the reporters who would swarm his place. It felt to her like an invasion of his privacy. He trusted her. She wouldn’t give that away for anything – and certainly not for something as cheap as a statement first thing in the morning.

As they walked, she stuck close to him. She wasn’t brave enough to take his hand again, though she thought about the comfort of it. Dorothy was content to walk alongside him. She was silent, and then, words bubbled out of her, unstoppable. “Thank you,” she said, her voice hoarse and quiet. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been there.” With me. “I…thank you.”

Arjun's father had been a cruel man. Kindness had not been a part of his vocabulary, tenderness the furthest thing from Arjun's childhood as was possible. He had never learned how to be kind, not properly, having taken more after his father than he ever did after his mother. Still, there were parts of him that were from her as well, parts of him that were the nights she spent caressing his bruises and telling him it was going to be okay, the early mornings where she would show him the IRA member she had patched up the night before and prove that he was going to be okay. She was proof that they were all going to be okay—if she could make it out of Belfast, Arjun could make it out of anything.

That kindness was what had made him into the man he was that day, not his father, as much as Arjun believed it might have been. His mother was the one who taught him to care about others, who taught him that fighting was right if he was fighting for the right cause. Those were the parts of himself that Arjun was going to carry forward, now more than ever. People could take away his magic, but they couldn't take away the lion's heart.

Still, the fear that someone could come for his magic at any time was paralyzing. He was never going to be able to look at himself the same after this. None of them were. He was glad, at least, that he hadn't been alone in the fray. Who knows what might have happened then—who knows if Arjun would have gotten into a fight he couldn't get out of, if he would have even made it out of there. People had died that day. That was still sinking in for him. People had died and he could have been one of them. Dorothy could have been.

That thought was enough to make him want to keep holding onto her hand, but he knew better than to do that, knew that they needed to have boundaries between them if they were going to keep doing this—whatever it was. Arjun felt like they could be friends, maybe even best friends, but it always seemed like they were teetering on the edge of something more. They were always right at the precipice of saying something that they wouldn't be able to take back.

And Arjun never said anything he couldn't take back.

At her grateful demeanor, Arjun's brow furrowed slightly for a moment. As if he would have left her there. Instead of saying that, however, he just inclined his head. "It's really no problem. Besides, I get kind of lonely in my flat, anyway. I'd have hated being there all on my own." When they arrived at his apartment, he looked a little sheepish. "A fair warning," he said. "I'm not really a fan of the interior decorating. My manager had someone do it for me, and frankly—" He turned the key in the latch and pushed open the door to his little duplex. "It's awful."

The apartment was a mix of leather and metal that looked exactly how you would picture a midcentury bachelor pad to look. The silver of the metal frameworks and the dark woods and tones of the fabrics made it seem like Arjun would only ever keep the lighting at a low ambiance, instead of the bright yellow lights that he had put in because the dim bulbs had gotten too annoying. He didn't really know how else to decorate his apartment, however, so he had just given his manager free rein as if that was any way to set up a living space. As if that was any way to set up a home.

[arjunptil]

dorothymin​:

The sides of her fists were raw. She couldn’t stop from rubbing them, trying to soothe the stinging flesh with gentle touches of her fingertips, finding it only made it worse. When they had discovered the door - locked - she couldn’t help herself. Dorothy had pounded against the door, nearly losing herself to the panic and despair that she’d barely staved off. She could have gone for hours. Probably would have, if Arjun hadn’t been there, if their magic hadn’t come back. Dorothy could hardly believe what had happened. She felt violated, unsteady, weakened. When the first war had broken out, Dorothy had stuck her head in the sand. She’d become a coward, allowed herself to prioritize her safety over what she knew was right, couldn’t find it in herself to fight in a war over her humanity. She felt as if now, she was being punished. She had made it through the war without a scar. Now, she’d been stripped of her magic, thrust into the front lines of whatever was crashing over the wix population like an unforeseen tsunami. It had been made personal for her. It had only proven to her how weak she was. She’d practically crawled out from under the stage, the sides of her hands bloody from concrete, her eyes wild and mistrusting. Someone had guided her towards an Auror, and when she’d had the wherewithal to glance around, Arjun was no longer in sight. 

Now, she’d finished giving her statement, a trembling mess of incoherence and fear. She had spent the entire time shaking. Dorothy hated this feeling, this quivering anxiety. It felt as if she had overestimated the number of stairs and her foot was plunging through air – though it was continuous. She’d never touch solid ground again. Dorothy pushed her way out of the arena, gulping in the fresh air as if she’d been drowning. In a way, she had been. Drowning in her own fear, a scared little mouse where there should have been a ferocious lion. Even now, she shook, the thought of apparating to her empty, dark apartment filling her with a heavy dread.

There he is.

Dorothy turned towards Arjun like a flower towards the sun. She couldn’t have explained how she knew where he was. He appeared, amidst a sea of strangers, like the unmistakable skyline of home. Before she could hesitate, she was moving towards him. “Arjun,” she started. Her throat was hoarse; her voice didn’t travel far. “Arjun!” Her voice broke. She didn’t care. Dorothy dropped down next to him, a hand on his shoulder. The sounds of chatter died down. She placed her forehead against his shoulder, gripping his arm with both hands, silent. She wanted to cry. She wanted to melt. She wanted to throw her arms around him, a firm reminder that they were both alive, they had both survived, they’d both made it to the other side. The costs would be calculated soon. Right now, she just wanted to breathe. She needed to breathe. So did he. Merlin knew he deserved it. He had been so quick, so swift, so ready to help her. Brilliant man. He’d pushed her through the crowd, he’d found the trapdoor in the stage. He’d followed her into the darkness. She’d failed him. He’d trusted her and she’d led him to a dead end. He would have every right to want nothing to do with her at the moment. She clung to him anyway, nauseous and frightened and guilty.

“Can I…” she trailed off, unable to find the words she needed. “Your couch. Can I…I can’t…” she inhaled slowly, trying to compose herself, her voice muffled against the cloth of his jacket. “I can’t be alone.” She felt nearly as afraid as she had inside – as if her whole world was dangling over the precipice of a dark unknown. From the looks of it, he wasn’t faring much better than her, and something flared within her. She wanted to make sure he was okay as much as she didn’t want to face the darkness of the night alone. She wanted to know he was close by, and alright, and okay. “I’ll sleep on the couch, I just…please.”

He didn’t see her come over, so he flinched just a little when she touched him, but upon seeing who it was, he instantly relaxed. Dorothy had that effect on him, it seemed, always feeling more relaxed and more himself when he was with her than at any other time. It was nice. It helped him feel like maybe he wasn’t so broken, maybe he wasn’t so alone. He wondered if she had this effect on everyone, if he was just imagining anything between them. It seemed like the kind of thing he would do, get too attached and build something up in his head only to find that it all came crumbling down. He resolved himself to keep his feelings in check.

Besides, he didn’t believe in such things as “true love” or that bullshit. You cared about people or you didn’t, and love was just a lie they were told by greeting card companies to sell more pages. Arjun wasn’t going to pretend that he was worth any sort of deep affection that could be considered love, even after the events of the day, even after all the good he had done. He didn’t know how else to be, didn’t know how to be a good man, so he didn’t try. He got into fights and he slept around because that was expected of him; he killed people because that was expected of him. Using his fists had always been easier than using his heart.

Arjun brought a hand up to clasp onto Dorothy’s, trying to anchor the two of them there, even though they were both still shaking. Arjun didn’t think that he would ever stop. This was how he felt after the first mission he’d gone on during the first war, nauseous and unable to even think without second-guessing everything. Usually, he was a strong guy, putting up a tough facade and making most things into a joke. That was the way that he had dealt with his life ever since those days in Belfast pulling bullets out with his bare fingertips to shooting his own father. Everything had a sense of gallows humor to it, an absurdity that he always played on because the alternative was facing the cold hard truth of everything he had done. The only time he did that was at times like these—when everything about himself was called into question.

"Yes," he said immediately, perhaps selfishly. He wanted her there. He wanted her to be near him, wanted to leech some more of her warmth and use it to chase the chill from his heart. She was everything that Arjun wanted to be, and everything he knew he would never be. That was just the way things were, and Arjun could never get it through his stupid thick skull that maybe he could change. Or, even more revolutionary: maybe he didn't have to change. Maybe he was good as he was and he just couldn't see it. Arjun, in that moment, only saw the bad, only felt the bad. He didn't have the room to feel anything else.

He stood up unsteadily, almost falling backwards before he stopped himself and regained his sense of equilibrium. "You won't be sleeping on the couch," he added. "That thing is shit. I'll be sleeping on it," he said, still not letting go of her hand. He realized quickly what he had been doing and immediately dropped her fingers, looking somewhat sheepish for a second before he gestured down the street. "I don't live far from here," he added. "But you already knew that." There were always swarms of reporters outside of his apartment.

Thankful for the company, Arjun felt a lot less sick just by knowing that he wasn't going to have to go home to his cold, empty apartment. He felt even better knowing that Dorothy was going to be there with him.

[arjunptil]

[ @ewanprwtt reacted for a starter! ]

Arjun didn’t know what to do in the days following the rally, so he ended up spending a lot of time with Ewan. Watching the kids was a good way for Arjun to forget that anything had ever happened and that was exactly what he wanted. The image of Dorothy pounding her fists against the door, the cries for help echoing around the arena...they haunted him in a way that he hadn’t felt before. He needed to talk to someone who remembered the last war, who remembered how bad it was and how much Arjun had given up to give himself over to the cause. Ewan knew how much pain Arjun felt over what he had done, how much he had suffered and lost. Ewan knew how much like a battle that rally had been. 

“I’m sorry I’m here again,” Arjun said sheepishly. “I just don’t know where else to go.” He didn’t have a lot of friends. He hated being a burden. 

[arjunptil]

[ @dorothymin !!! ]

Arjun hadn't been able to stop shaking since leaving the arena. In fact, he hadn't even been able to leave Diagon Alley, instead sitting on a curb with his knees pulled to his chest and his head between them as he tried to take deep, even breaths. However, it didn't really work—instead, he ended up with shallow half-breaths as his body tried to keep hyperventilating and he actively worked against it. His chest hurt. His head was spinning. His magic was back now, but he still felt sweaty and nauseous, like he might get sick at any moment. Arjun's forehead beaded with sweat.

While he was a good man in a crisis, once the crisis was over, that was when everything would come crashing down. He'd remember all the things he had so desperately wanted to forget, and it was enough to knock him on his ass for days. The arena had reminded him too much of the French Ministry, of Gringott's, of all the things that he had done during the last war that he wasn't proud of. War brought out either the best or the worst in people. For Arjun, war brought out both sides, the part of him that was a heroic and brave Gryffindor...and the part that the Sorting Hat had sworn was made for Slytherin.

During the last war, he had worked primarily as an assassin. He was one of the few people willing to get his hands that dirty, and it showed in the way he approached these clusterfucks. He was always looking for a quiet way out, a calm, rational, and quick way to get at whatever he was getting at. When he went on assassination missions, he was often alone, dropped into a strange and dangerous place and expected to fight his way out.

The arena reminded him too much of that, of having to fight his way out of any situation or die trying. The absolute chaos was exactly like when he had to assassinate one of Grindelwald's close confidants, protected at a large gala that Arjun had infiltrated. When he had said those fateful words, avada kedavra, that was when the chaos happened. He hadn't meant for things to get so out of hand. People got trampled. More people died than he had ever intended, and that blood was on his hands.

He was a bad person. Arjun never, ever forgot that.

But that day, he didn't feel like a bad person. Being around Dorothy, helping her, it made him feel like he could be good. He didn't have to just be the gun that Dumbledore pointed where he saw fit—he could be something more. He could be someone. Arjun had never taken into account the fact that he could be someone outside of his war-like tendencies. Being around Dorothy made him feel like there was something more to him than just the scandalous quidditch player, than the Order member who got his hands dirty.

So, when he looked up and he saw her, the first thing he wanted was to call her name. Bring her close. He wanted to stand in her light because that made him glow too, right? She cancelled out his darkness. But Arjun couldn't find his voice, and when he tried, he found himself starting to hyperventilate again and he had to duck his head between his knees. It was all too much. His head was spinning. He felt unmoored, like a ship without its anchor, and he didn't know how to stop himself from floating out to open water with no way back.

He didn't get like this often. Arjun was kicking himself for it now, feeling like he was weak for needing to sit down and learn how to breathe again.

[arjunptil]

dorothymin​:

Dorothy nodded, pulling close to Arjun as the two of them pressed into the crowd. She wanted to look around, try to find any of the familiar faces she had seen earlier in the morning, but it took all of her energy and focus to keep up with Arjun. Every so often, she’d grip his hand tighter, mostly to reassure herself that they were still connected. Losing her magic made her feel, above all, nauseous. She felt violated, untethered – the heat of Arjun’s hand pressed against her own kept her from floating out of her body entirely. All around them, panicked screams erupted. They pressed through the thickness of the crowd, and just as Dorothy was on the brink of panic, they emerged into a small clearing. The stage. She reached a hand up, scrambling onto the stage. “Thank you,” she said, taking a moment to asses Arjun. “You weren’t hurt, were you?” If anyone had tried to bump into them, he’d successfully managed to beat them away, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have gotten into a scrape or two.

She stood, taking a moment to stare out over the crowd. Her stomach churned. There were a few bodies strewn on the ground, unlucky souls who had gotten caught in the stampede. She thought of the blonde woman she’d met on the train platform – the healer who had predicted the hospitals would be busy the day after the rally. Dorothy hoped the woman was okay. Focus, she thought to herself, turning back to the stage. “He couldn’t have gone far,” she said, moving close to Arjun so she could be heard above the chaos. “He would have had to have a failsafe, some sort of trap door or something to get out.” Unless he hadn’t truly left at all. The thought chilled her. What was worse - that he had drained them all and left them to die? or that he had drained them and disappeared, waiting for an opportune moment to strike again? “If we find his way out, maybe we can open the doors from the outside.”

///

Arjun could feel the way her hand changed its grip on his every now and then, but he couldn’t pay attention to that in the moment. As someone tried to grab him, he shook them off, never letting go of Dorothy’s hand as he rammed his elbow into their face. He didn’t know who it was and he didn’t care—all that mattered was getting the two of them to higher ground, figuring out what the hell they were supposed to do next. He pressed his lips into a hard line and surged forward into the crowd, getting buffeted this way and that—at one point catching an elbow to his jaw, leaving a spectacular bruise—but not letting that deter him from his goal. In other situations, maybe he would have stood and fought, maybe stopped and figured out what the hell they were supposed to do next, but frankly, Arjun didn’t have the time or the patience for any of that when he had someone he had to look after hanging onto him. Arjun was fully aware that Dorothy could take care of herself, but his personality was such that as soon as someone close to him seemed like they needed help, he’d move heaven and earth to make sure that whatever they needed got done. And at that moment, Dorothy needed to get to the stage. 

When Dorothy spoke, he got down on his hands and knees and started rapping his knuckles against the stage, looking for anything hollow. He went in a pattern, lines across the grain of the wood, looking for anything irregular. “Make sure no one tramples me,” he said quickly, looking up at Dorothy for a moment as he continued to inspect the stage. He stopped when he heard something that sounded different, running his fingers along the grain of the wood until he found the edge of a door. He pulled up, flipping it open to reveal a space under the stage. He dropped down into it before reaching a hand up to help Dorothy down into the cool, dark space under the stage. “Fuck, we can’t even light this place up with magic,” he said, looking around and feeling around in his pockets until he found his lighter and could flick it on. “Fuck. I can’t see fucking anything.”

[arjunptil]

dorothymin​:

☼

Dorothy managed a smile at his quip, twisting her pen between her fingers. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him shifting nervously in his seat. Without thinking, she reached out, putting her hand on his knee. “Hey,” she said, her voice soft but her tone firm, “we’re gonna be okay.” She looked up at him, searching for his eyes, waiting patiently for him to meet her gaze. It was strange, but as anxious as she was, being seated next to Arjun made her feel – if not better, at least calmer, his presence a breath of fresh air. She gently smiled, but before she could say anything else, the man appeared on stage. Quickly, she grabbed her pen, trying to scribble down everything he was saying as he said it. Suddenly – it hit her. She imagined this was what it must have felt like to be kissed by a Dementor. It was awful. Dorothy felt like she was going to be sick.

As quickly as he appeared, the man on stage vanished, seemingly made of smoke. She was trying to swallow the panic that was threatening to overtake her. Where did he go? She looked over when Arjun spoke. Her face must have been as pale as a ghost. “It can’t be possible,” she muttered, reaching for her wand. “Lumos,” she whispered, pleaded, prayed – but her wand remained unlit. She felt as if she was holding something strange. What had once been an extension of her was nothing more than elegantly carved wood. She could feel tears starting to burn in her eyes, her lower lip threatening to tremble, and she inhaled sharply. “Arjun,” she started, throwing her wand, her notebook, her pen-turned-quill into her bag. “We need to get to that stage.” Foolish, maybe. Reckless, absolutely. But if Dorothy didn’t focus on the story unfolding, she was going to have a full meltdown. Her magic was gone. It was unthinkable – and yet, she felt hollow, heavy, more tethered to the earth than she’d ever been before. “Stay close to me,” she said, hand reaching out for his arm. She needed to remind herself that he was still here, still solid, still alive. “Please,” she added, allowing herself one moment of vulnerability.

///

When he felt her hand on his leg, he let out a breath that he hadn’t realized he had been holding. He looked at her hand then up at her, realized what he had been doing, and let out a small huff of laughter. He stood up when the man started speaking, immediately looking for a way to get out of there, though he knew it would probably be useless. The mysterious figure had gathered them for a reason, and Arjun doubted that he would be inclined to let them leave any time soon. When the magic finally drained out of him, he was left standing, somewhat shakily, but still okay. He took out his wand and clutched it in his hand even though it was useless as he held onto her hand tightly, making sure she was safe as well as using her grip as a way to ground himself in the moment. Now was not the time to lose his head. 

“Stay behind me,” he said, pushing forward into the crowd with a hand still tucked between her fingers. He put up an arm in front of him, using his forearm like something of a battering ram as he shoved their way through the crowd. All the while he made sure that Dorothy stayed close to him, lest they get separated in the crowd and run into even more trouble. The last thing they needed was to be alone in a clusterfuck like this. Finally making it to the stage, Arjun pulled himself up before reaching a hand down to Dorothy to help her up as well. 

[arjunptil]

chlotte​:

she  had  to  see  it  for  herself  .  rumours  circulated,  met  her,  and  she,  despite  her  better  instincts,  couldn’t  keep  her  curiosity  at  bay  .          “          maybe  .  or  maybe  i’ve  just  never  been  good  at  listened  to  you  .          ”          she  muses,  pushing  him  off  in  a  playful  manner  .  though,  she  is  glad  to  have  run  into  him  .  as  excited  as  she  is  by  all  of  the  positive  rumours,  the  uncertainty  around  the  event  also  made  her  pause  .  but  in  the  end,  it  had  been  the  thought  of  a  peaceful  outcome  for  her  daughter  that  brings  her  here  .  but  that  doesn’t  end  the  concern,  so  it  is  nice  to  see  family  .          “          any  idea  if  this  legitimate  ?         ”          she  asks,  her  eyes  also  scanning  the  mass  of  people  .  whatever  this  thing  is,  it’s  certainly  brought  a  crowd  .

///

“that hurts me wee heart, tiny,” he replied, shaking his head as she pushed him away. they’d always had this playful sibling relationship, something that arjun had been grateful for at hogwarts—mainly because when she came to school, he was able to take her under his wing and make sure that she was going to be okay. he pursed his lips, looking around. “i have no idea,” he replied. as he was about to speak again, the man appeared on stage and arjun’s jaw dropped. he turned to charlotte then back to the stage before pulling her close to him. “stay right by me, okay? don’t go anywhere.” 

[arjunptil]

dorothymin​:

☼

Dorothy hated feeling small or scared. Chalk it up to bravado, being a Gryffindor, a woman trying to work her way through the boys’ club of the Prophet – when she felt on-edge, all of her reactions tended towards the negative. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this way this intensely. Her guard was up. It made her tense and pessimistic and jumpy. A flash of annoyance at herself - for being scared, for getting startled - burned hot and quick in her chest, but it couldn’t last long in the presence of Arjun’s smile. Not everyone at the event was out to get her. Not him. She smiled easily, rolling her eyes at his teasing, already starting to relax. “If you wouldn’t mind, I think it’d made me feel much better,” she replied, grateful for the opportunity to crack a joke before everything started. She followed his gaze to the stage, hoping to catch a glimpse of anyone associated with the event. “Let’s just hope it’s all been misplaced anxiety,” she said, doubting it even as she said it.

“Mm, just that the Beater of the Holyhead Harpies is incredibly stealthy when he wants to be,” Dorothy answered, staring down at her blank notebook before looking over at him, a playful smile curling the ends of her mouth. “No one’s come out yet. I got here early hoping to catch an organizer, but they’d gotten everything set up before the sun had risen, I suppose.” She picked up her pen, mostly out of habit, just wanting something to fiddle with. “Did you give your manager a warning you were coming, or is this an asking for forgiveness type of situation?”

///

“What can I say? I’m a man of many different talents.” Arjun was feeling restless and he crossed his legs once one way and then flipped to the other direction. It was mainly because of this event and the uncertainty around everything, but more than that, it was the feeling that something was shifting between them. He didn’t want to think about the way his feelings slid towards the caring and protective side, the way that he didn’t feel like this about just anyone. He almost hadn’t shown up that day, but he knew that Dorothy was going to be there, and he knew that he couldn’t, in good conscience, stay home knowing that she was sticking her neck out. Arjun was the kind of person to run headfirst into situations, and as afraid as he had been that morning, he wasn’t about to sit it out. 

Once the man on the stage had finished his spiel, however, he almost wished that he had. He felt somewhat nauseous without his magic, but he was still upright, and he looked at Dorothy with a furrowed brow. “Wait—did he just do what I think he did?” Arjun asked, looking down at his hands and turning them over in disbelief, as if he would be able to see the traces of magic lingering under his skin. 

[arjunptil]

[ @chlotte​ reacted for a starter! ]

Arjun frowned to himself as he scanned the crowd, looking for at least one familiar face. Already he had been mobbed for autographs twice, and he was getting tired of talking to people he didn’t know. He wanted to just be able to swear and be an asshole—himself—without having to explain it to the press the next day. So, as soon as he saw Charlotte, he let out a sigh of relief. Finally, someone he didn’t want to throttle. “Charlotte!” he called out to her, jogging a little to catch up and thankfully avoiding some of the more eager fans he hadn’t wanted to interact with (mostly because he found them scary). “I thought I told you to stay away from here, Tiny,” he said, reaching an arm out to sling across her shoulders as he scanned the arena for a seat. “You’ve never been good at doing as you’re told, though.” 

[arjunptil]

dorothymin​:

Dorothy had set her alarm as early as she could bear Monday morning. She’d already taken the day off work – no Quidditch news is going to come in, Weston, you know as well as I – and had packed her bag the night before. The last thing she wanted was to be bogged down by unnecessaries. A notebook, a quill, her wand, a bag of floo powder, a granola bar, her press badge. When she dressed, she did so without any of her usual prints or patterns, opting instead for a sleek, all-black look. She didn’t want to draw any attention to herself. No more than necessary, at least.

She’d arrived at Diagon Alley about an hour before the event was set to start. She wasn’t the only one with the idea - there had been a few people milling about. Dorothy had tried to commit each face to memory, wondering if this witch or that wizard was the one responsible for organizing the event. The line had moved slowly, but eventually, Dorothy had been allowed inside. She’d placed her jacket and bag on the seat next to her, hoping to reserve it for a friendly face. She slid her wand out of her bag, resting it in her lap. She covered it with her notebook and her transfigured quill-turned-ballpoint. She took in a deep breath, trying to sooth her frayed nerves – but whatever peace she’d managed to create for herself quickly dissipated when a shadow loomed over her. She jumped, slightly, glancing up.

“Sorry. You startled me.”

///

Arjun had been full of an anxious energy that entire morning. He was used to it—it was the same feeling that overcame him every time he had a big game or the roster for the team came out every year. It was the kind of feeling that made him curl his hands into fists, that made him feel like everyone was out to get him and his only option would be to fight his way out. He reminded himself to keep taking deep breaths, that not everyone would be out to get him, and that in fact, he was a pretty popular quidditch player and there would be people invested in keeping him safe. Moreover, he knew he could keep himself safe, so why did he feel such a deep sense of dread in the pit of his stomach? 

When he saw Dorothy, he remembered his answer. He felt like he was always going to worry about her.

He walked up next to her and grinned at the way she reacted. “I can go back, stomp my way over here,” he said. “If that makes it easier for you,” he added teasingly. Arjun dropped into the seat next to her, looking over at the stage with his head cocked to one side. “I guess a week’s worth of anxiety has led us here, eh?” he asked, raising an eyebrow before he looked back at Dorothy straight-on. “Get anything good for an article yet?”