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— TOKYO STORY ‘東京物語’ (1953)

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SETSUKO HARA as Noriko in Yasujirō Ozu’s NORIKO TRILOGY:

LATE SPRING / 晩春 (1949) EARLY SUMMER / 麥秋 (1951) TOKYO STORY / 東京物語 (1953) 

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BEFORE SUNRISE (1995) Julie Delpy & Ethan Hawke | dir. Richard Linklater

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Hiroshima Mon Amour, dir. by Alain Resnais (1959)

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"It is a restless moment. She has kept her head lowered, to give him a chance to come closer. But he could not, for lack of courage. She turns and walks away."

In the Mood for Love 花樣年華 2000, dir. Wong Kar-Wai

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I love your writing!!! I’ve reread lumps about 10 times in this year alone just eagerly waiting for updates on alohamora! I know the work hasn’t been updated in almost 10 months but is there any hope for the future of it or is it fully abandoned?

Your work is so great and I love how you’re bringing the two worlds together in them and I just love them and am constantly waiting for more!! <3

Hi! First of all, thank you for the compliments and I’m glad that you liked both of those works. None of my writing is fully abandoned—a lot of my life has changed in the past year and I’ve been focusing on trying to get applications for good film schools/colleges done. My main plan is to focus on writing again after decision letters for those colleges come out, which will be around February/March. I’ll be honest and say I haven’t picked up Alohomora since I last updated, so it might take me a while to readjust. Sometimes I do want to write Carmuel again for some one-shots, but I always decide against it (thinking I have bigger fish to fry for the time being). But yeah, once I don’t have to worry about all of that, I’ll get back into writing! I had some exciting stuff planned for the fic!

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missing ur stories xoxo

Hi! I’m still around, I’ve just been not given much leisure to write anything that’s not school related (also this part of the fic is particularly heavy to write just in terms of tone), but now I actually have more time to catch up. Main goal is to get ch.4 out by Thanksgiving, which should be doable.

Also thank you x

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is omar younger than nadia?? is omar older or younger than samu??

In Bombarda? IIRC, I made Omar in the year above both Samuel and Nadia (same year), so that’s why he’s not present in all of Alohomora and half of Lumos

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hi! regarding the last ask about storylines, may u pls explain it

Of course! Note that I’m recounting this from Samuel’s eyes, and also as if you're decently familiar with the Harry Potter universe. We start in fifth year. The setting and situations are a little bit Marauders-era-esque, what with the talks of war and all (but this takes place in present-day, not that that will make a big difference in any of the storylines, but yeah). The First Wizarding War was a time full of prejudice against muggleborns and keeping purebloods pure, rise of Voldemort, etc. But in fifth year, it's not really the most pressing issue yet.

Gryffindor: Samuel, Christian (he was actually put in Hufflepuff but I ended up forgetting while writing the story and made him a Gryffindor), Rebe, Guzman, Marina, and Ander.

Ravenclaw: Nadia

Hufflepuff: Valerio, Omar (he's a year older than them, so he does not appear in seventh-year)

Slytherin: Carla, Lu, Polo, and Cayetana.

Prior to the story, Marina used to be best friends with Carla and her friend group of Lu, Polo, Guzman, and Ander (and now Cayetana, apparently). However, Marina drifted away from them because of their tendency to not really care about all of the issues occurring around them (they're all purebloods, so they're pretty much safe from the war), and that is a little hurtful because at the same time (around third year, I would say), she is becoming close friends with Samuel, a muggleborn, and his friend group of Rebe (half-blood), Christian (muggleborn), Nadia (also muggleborn), Omar (self-explanatory), and Valerio (pureblood), who was never really into his parents' bloodpurist views and showed that, leading to lots of verbal and emotional abuse, to the point where Valerio runs away, moves in with Rebe, gets disowned by his parents (yes, he's Lu's brother here), and now he's living his best life. On the other hand, Lu is still stuck with her controlling family—in fact, many pureblood families of this time are the same way, but mostly the Sacred Twenty-Eight: 28 pureblood families, mainly dedicated to Voldemort or sharing at least some of his views, but they are seen as the most elite group of the wizarding world (they're not like a group as in they meet up and stuff, but they're very well-known families). Unfortunately, Lu, Carla, and Polo's families are all part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, which really sucks for them (not yet, however, because at the moment, it's a complete honor to be so respected by default), especially as threats of the war near closer as the story progresses. Their friend group doesn't really interact with Marina's friend group, but Rebe and Samuel feel pretty strongly about them, in a...not-great way. They're both on the Quidditch team with Guzman, and while he's not snobbish or anything, there is a bit of tension there, especially because of Samuel's obvious fancy for his sister.

Also, Marina is a werewolf, which is extremely taboo—probably almost as taboo as a muggleborn marrying and "tainting" a pureblood. It's hard to keep it a secret when you're disappearing every full moon, so Samuel and his friends eventually figure it out, and Christian, Samuel, and Nadia become Animagi (Christian a dog, Samuel a stag, and Nadia a cat) to keep her from hurting herself or others during her transformations.

Now, onto the actual story part, beginning in fifth year: Marina and Samuel have liked each other for a good bit, and there friends are tired of this "will they, won't they?" tango the two are entertaining. Eventually, Samuel works up the courage to ask Marina to Hogsmeade, they start dating, etc. Love is in the air—Samuel and Marina; Guzman and Nadia; Ander and Omar; Carla and Polo, who have been dating since second year. Although, now Christian has taken a liking towards Carla, which is pretty dangerous, considering Carla Rosón Caleruega is the Slytherin queen—a name given to her by her third year, notorious for her careless and cold demeanor, and a tendency to make most guys fall to her feet. She's also not one to be messed with, which Samuel learns at Guzman's Christmas party that Marina invites him to, after witnessing her scare off new Slytherin classmate Phillipe, also one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, and the Minister of Magic's son, which means he believes he has a right to anything he wants, and Carla quickly bumps his head down a notch after rejecting his pushy advances (and kicking him out of the entire party).

But Samuel doesn't care too much about who Christian is getting himself into; he's now distracted by Marina, who's been pulling away after their first time. Marina's been spiraling into a steady depression, which is a bit (a lot) worrying, but she does not talk to him, nor does she explain. After the fifth years take their OWLs, they go down to the Great Lake. In a spectacle orchestrated by Phillipe and his goons, Marina is exposed as a werewolf, things happen, students are uncomfortable, and now Marina must be transferred to another wizarding school—Durmstrang. How did Phillipe know? Simple. Polo let it slip. Polo made a mistake.

(Polo claims all of that, but [at the time, at least], it was done very intentionally to harm Marina)

So Guzman is understandably very angry and wants nothing to do with Polo. His friends follow suit—all except Carla, for some reason, (and Lu is a little stuck in the middle), but she does break up with Polo, which Samuel learns vicariously through Christian, even though Samuel really couldn't care less. Guzman's friend group slowly merges with Samuel's over the last few weeks of school, with the exception of Polo, Carla, and Cayetana. A bit of an odd trio, but why not?

Before Marina leaves, she gives Samuel an invisibility cloak, and asks him to not change. Samuel acquiesces, and one thing is clear—the war is now a little bit worse.

In sixth year, Samuel is named Quidditch captain. He regularly exchanges letters with Marina, and she's doing well, vowing to come back for Christmas holidays.

Also over the summer, Polo enters a relationship with Cayetana. Weird.

Also over the summer, Lu is disowned by her parents because of her resistance to their very blood purist views, and she simply won't take that. This puts a strain on the friendship of Carla and Lu. She moves in with Guzman and is supposedly now fully part of their group, even though she still sits and talks with Carla, but that's her best friend, and Lu is actively waiting for Carla to follow suit. She doesn't. Hmmm.

What Carla does do, however, is begin to date Christian, which is a little bit of a shock. Pureblood (and a pureblood of Carla's caliber, for that matter) and a muggleborn. Completely impossible, no matter how charming Christian may be. Samuel is a little suspicious, but he is also again worried about creating a map to track everyone in Hogwarts (the Marauders Map, basically, but it's just referred to as the map here), and Marina, who has seemingly gone MIA again. The reason why is learned in the Great Hall, from a letter.

Marina is dead.

More than that, but Marina was murdered.

Obviously, this causes an outrage, and Guzman is angry, angry, angry. He punches Phillipe, who pretty much admits that he was the reason why anyone at Durmstrang (which is actually more accepting of Voldemort than Hogwarts, though none of them could know that) even found out that Marina was a werewolf.

A few days later, Samuel has to play the Quidditch match against Slytherin, who wants to resort to cheap tactics after losing the Quidditch Cup to Gryffindor the previous year. Samuel finds his broomstick in a few pieces, and it's not a big deal until he realizes that one of the pieces is missing, which means that he cannot simply repair it, which means that he may lose one of the last things he had of Marina—the broomstick that she had gifted to him. He knows Phillipe did it, but the Slytherin denies any of this, and Samuel, still angry, loses the Quidditch match. Afterwards, he sits up in the Astronomy Tower, and he hears footsteps behind him. Surprisingly, it's Carla, but Samuel really isn't in the mood. What could she possibly want?

Nothing could hide his shock when Carla tosses him the last piece of his broomstick. She'd gone through Phillipe's trunk and found it.

Carla leaves before he can say much else.

Speaking of Carla, she and Christian break up after Christmas holidays. For Christian, it is a little bit of a touchy subject, but he acts nonchalant about it. Yeah, it was mainly physical. Yeah, Carla treats her boyfriends the same way she treats everyone else. Yeah, Christian feels a little bit like a fool for believing otherwise. These are all absolute truths, driven by the fact that there's a reason she is named the Slytherin queen.

And because of that, there was no reason to continue any of it, especially after her parents find out, and they're very not happy.

Things don't look up for Christian, either. At the Hogsmeade trip later, he is one of the muggleborns attacked, and Merlin is it severe.

It's another blow to Samuel and his friends, another move by the Death Eaters—this is a war, and this is Voldemort.

And one more thing? Carla's father initiated the attack, and he maybe kinda definitely targeted Christian.

Christian survives the attack (but some don't) and he is sent to a hospital, far, far, away.

Now Samuel is angry, and Samuel feels a bit more helpless, a bit more guarded. Wonder how that translates over to his thoughts on Carla, who sees him transform into a stag one night in the Forbidden Forest, which is horrible because: 1. He is not registered as an Animagus and could get sent to Azkaban for such. 2. Carla is a bloody Slytherin, and sensitive information like that is not good for a person to hold, so alongside angry, helpless, and guarded, Samuel is panicking.

But that's fine, actually, because after Samuel duels Carla in a Defense Against the Dark Arts class (Samuel loses, but Merlin, is Carla a fierce dueler. Probably why he was the only one to volunteer against her), he mentions the whole thing to him, but she sounds a bit sincere when she says she doesn't care, and she's not going to expose him. Samuel is now angry, helpless, guarded, and relieved.

But none of that is great, because Samuel's anger and guardedness does not help him out at all. When he is stuck in a broom cupboard with Carla at night, one comment leads to another, and pretty soon, they're arguing, and Samuel sees it as a projection of all of his problems with the war, because who else than the person who was watching all of the disasters unfold, all of the prejudices against muggleborns? It's not fair at all, so Samuel lets that be known. Now he is worried about being exposed again, but he can't find himself to care anymore. Let him go to Azkaban for saying the truth about her. About all purebloods.

But she doesn't expose him. She doesn't do anything, really, besides sitting with Polo and Lu in the Great Hall and watching him very closely as they near the end of school.

That is the end of Chapter 4, and a complete recap of anything needed to know to read Alohomora (I think).

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when user carlasamu said u removed something in the comments. what was she pertaining to? i’m trying to backread lumos rn cos i wanna catch up :)

hahahah this is a sore subject for her ummm so basically when I began to write Alohomora, I just wanted it to be an extension of everything that happened in Lumos. But when I got to some parts, I realized that certain plotlines made more sense than others, so I would change little bits of Lumos to match what I was writing in Alohomora. Eventually it got to the point where the changes that I was making were growing larger and larger, and I decided to just leave Lumos alone until all of Alohomora was posted and just preface that there are some things in Alohomora that don't align with Lumos. Before I decided to leave Lumos alone, I ended up removing a part that she really enjoyed that is when Samuel comes back from Quidditch practice to find Carla in the Gryffindor common room, and she looks at him as he walks up the staircase to the Boys' Dormitory. Mckayla got on my ASSSSS for it, probably moments away from plotting my downfall tbh especially when I admitted that I didn't like it too much in the first place lmaoooo (@esterexpsito pls confirm). I don't really like Lumos as a whole actually, and I'll be the first one to admit that. So I didn't remove anything MAJOR yet I would say, but also honestly like half of Samuel's POV of Seventh Year will not make sense in Alohomora (which is the story that I want to be Bombarda canon-verse in everyone's minds).

That being said, if you want to read Lumos for your enjoyment, I won't stop you (but I might rant a bit about why I hate it with a deep passion), but if you're looking to read it to catch up on the Bombarda-verse, I would only consider the first four chapters canon (and yes, they're def a bit boring, so if you just want me to explain the storylines here, I will, gladly) just to avoid any confusion going into Alohomora. Honestly, I was really tempted to just delete the last four chapters of Lumos but Mckayla would definitely hunt me down. This was probably a much longer response than you were expecting, but I actually really enjoy talking about Alohomora and I'm also procrastinating some writing assignment for school mwahahaha

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not as bad as writer's block, but still pretty bad: when you have an idea you're excited to get out of your head but you can only write it really really really slowly

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Extremely displeased to announce I just opened my writing doc to find the fic has not yet written itself. Will check back in tomorrow to see if it’s made any progress

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Oh hey

new carmuel fic dropped you all better go and read that

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this is definitely my “???” era

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and suddenly we have 3 hp aus for carla and samuel in ao3 😂 thanks for making an hp story! i hope more writers will explore 🫶🏻🫶🏻

Hello and thank you! I’m actually really excited to see these takes on the hp au but I need to set time aside to read them. WAYYY long ago I planned a different one where Samuel and Carla were opposing Quidditch captains (and you can probably predict where that planned to go) but I never got far in outlining and I also started writing Carla as someone who only tolerates Quidditch for Samuel and now I can’t write it as anything else. But get ready for a new one soon (not new but kinda new? It feels new but it’s not)

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Making some edits to Lumos because . . . it's complicated but basically some of Lu/the others and Carla's arc has changed because it just makes more sense this way now that I've actually fleshed out Carla's part of the story

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WHEN HARRY MET SALLY (1989) dir. Rob Reiner

I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.