lilenglishqueer

[lilenglishqueer]

reminder that you are enough

are always enough, that no one is judging you and if they are then fuck them. you are perfect and beautiful and amazing and someone, somewhere loves you, and there is only one of you, and you will come out at the end of the day and you will be shining brighter than a thousand stars.

anyway love yall :)

[lilenglishqueer]

Narcissa Black, who wasn't even 17 when Andromeda ran away and left her behind (but she offered, she offered, she offered, "come with me" whispered at 2am in the Astronomy Tower, and a "no" whispered back, biting, because this is ridiculous, you don't even have a plan, and in that moment Narcissa knows she will regret this for the rest of her life, because this is the moment she loses her sister, and Merlin how she hates her, and loves her at the same time, loves her enough to stay in a gilded cage and know that her sister is safe, even though this is not supposed to be her job, and Andromeda knows it, but when is anything how it's supposed to be, in this card house of magic and insanity, waiting to topple to the ground).

Narcissa Black watching as her oldest sister slips into madness, knowing she is powerless to stop it, blaming herself, blaming Bella, blaming Tom Marvolo Riddle, for tearing her family apart, even though this is a war decades in the making, and this was always going to happen, because Narcissa is a Black, whatever the ring on her finger says, and she was never going to get a happy ending, it was never going to happen, because her future was written in stone the moment she was born, and when Narcissa was thrown to the ocean, no one gave her a boat.

Narcissa Black watching as her 16-year-old son is branded like cattle, remembering her cousin at just barely 18 and her husband (who she doesn't love, not really, but cares for all the same, because two decades stuck with someone in a gilded cage will do that to you) at 20, with the same mix of fear and pride in their eyes, and Narcissa is terrified, terrified terrified terrified, because time is a circle, not a line, and all of this is a loop, with different names and faces and lives on the line, and she is powerless (but it's not like this is new, is it, because Narcissa is a pawn, they are all pawns and pieces on chessboard of men with egos higher than their stacks of secrets, who will think they are winning until the day they die).

Narcissa Black, who fits so perfectly into the roles given to her because she was there when Andromeda was blasted off the tree, and Narcissa values her family, values it so much because she has nothing but her sisters, and even that has been taken from her, by madmen and gods and fools masquerading as kings. Because Narcissa is named for a flower, and she is the only thing alive in this house of mirrors and stars waiting to burst, but Narcissa will wither, even as her family explodes, burns themselves out and waits to form again.

[lilenglishqueer]

i am crying too much for this short of a post I was not planning on sobbing today but here we are

I will never get over the thought of Narcissa Malfoy standing on the platform as she sends he grandson off to school after a Christmas holiday with her one year, and as he bounds onto the train with Albus in tow, Alice Longbottom ll just appears out of thin air and Narcissa has to physically remove herself from the platform before she starts crying because merlin does she look just like her grandmother.

[lilenglishqueer]

no I'm not crying whatever do you mean (yes I'm crying helpppppp)

Narcissa, specifically the Marauder’s fandom take on her, makes me want to sob and I need her to be appreciated more. Just, imagine you are the third daughter of parents that only wanted sons. A flower in a sky full of stars. A flower, an object only meant to be looked upon and be pretty. You know your parents never loved you, will never love you, you who is not the long awaited son they asked for. But even still, you can’t help pushing yourself to fulfill the mold they expect from you, beautiful and perfect. But even still you receive love from your family, just in the form of your older sisters. Your eldest who tries so fiercely to protect you and your sister but is clearly starting to slip into insanity. The middle starting to slip away, finding comfort in a man who’s kind you were poisoned to hate. Still, you love them. No matter what you love them, you have so little else. The only other one you have is your baby cousin, made in the same mold as you, who you try so desperately to protect.

At Hogwarts you are expected to be a good mark on your family, prefect, ace student and quidditch player. Willing to drop it all as soon as graduation to be a wife and mother. You only let yourself break the rules once, for her, the one decision you made that goes against your family wishes, the girl whose kisses taste like powdered sugar, whose natural kindness and beauty shines like a candle in your otherwise dark life. For years you let yourself indulge it. For years you pretend. But you know it must end.

The end comes quicker than thought. Your middle sister comes to you, she’s going to elope with her own secret love, she’s going to escape the family and the rot it contains. She asks if you want to come with. You want so badly to say yes. But you have been the perfect daughter for so long, being anything else scares you. So you say no. So you close the door. So you marry the fiancée that sister left behind. So you accept it when your lover breaks up with you, unwilling to be just a mistress. So you tell yourself you’re better without her, all the while knowing you will never find love like her again. Never stop loving her. You say as much when your cousin asks you if it ever gets better, heartbroken over his own Gryffindor. But still you made your choices and well, your fiancée is…fine, as pure-blood men go. He loves you but you don’t love him, can’t ever love him but you’re ok playing your part, even if it’s never him you picture when you play it, not even on your wedding night.

Before you know it, war is at your doorstep. Your eldest, no, only sister and your husband both pledge allegiance to the Dark Lord. So does your youngest, no, only cousin. Your cousin, so young, so naive. He dies, you never find the body, he was only eighteen and you couldn’t do anything to protect him. And the only person you ever loved? Well when you first realized she was going to be fighting on the opposing side you figured she’d be ok. Her and her new husband were powerful, well respected aurors, true Gryffindors, if anybody was going to be ok it was them. You were wrong, oh so wrong. Death would have been kinder with the fate they suffered. A fate brought on by your sister. The only one you ever loved as much as the love of your life. A love now only matched by hate.

You watch as your sister is dragged off in shackles, trying to hide any expression behind an icy mask. You watch as your lover looks back at you with distant lifeless eyes, eyes that don’t recognize you. You visit as often as you can but it’s hard to get away from your duty as mother and wife, even harder to see your lover permanently near death like this. You don’t mean to, but you stop visiting as often.

You only have one thing left to hold on to now, your son. Your darling boy. As a second war fast approaches you fear for him. You saw what happened to your cousin, you fear history is doomed to repeat itself. You do everything you can, extract whatever vows are needed, you do not believe you can survive if he too is taken from you. Then the pivotal moment comes. You have no idea if your son is alive or dead, but the chosen one is lying on the ground and he tells you he’s alive. In that moment you make a choice, you lie, you lie to the most powerful man alive, you lie to a mind reader, you lie to save your son, and you never admit it to yourself but you lie to avenge your lover he stole the sanity of, your cousin he stole the life from, and your sister he stole the soul of.

When the war is over, your action lets your family escape consequences. For the first time since the war began, you find the courage to come and visit your old lover. You apologize for not visiting more, and tell her about your sons, how her son had finished what she started, how your son had done what you never could. It takes several years longer until you make a visit to a different ghost of your past, knock cautiously on the door, a door opened by your sister, a woman you haven’t seen in almost thirty years. Things are awkward at first, of course they are, she is resistant, she’s lost so much to this war and she is slow to trust again, but eventually you two are having a heart to heart over tea, apologizing to each other about old wrongs. It’s not much, but it’s a start. As for your boy, he finds comfort in, of all people, the chosen one, the boy your whole family was supposed to hate, the boy who you helped save the life of. You are glad he is happy, you saw how miserable he was during the war. But a small part of you can’t help but feel envious, that this is a happiness that you could’ve experienced, that your cousin could’ve experienced, if you had made different choices, better choices, found your voice earlier, instead of being left with just an empty shell. Still, you made those choices, had made your bed, and now you must lie in it. But, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, if you get to see your son smile, if you get to hold your grandchildren, if you get to see your sister for monthly tea, if you get to hold your old lover’s hand once in awhile and pretend for just a minute that everything turned out ok between you two.

That’s something your parents didn’t know when they named you after a daffodil, that even after a harsh cold winter, they can make a comeback.

[lilenglishqueer]

[lilenglishqueer]

Life in Plastic

pairing: minerva mcgonagall x tom marvolo riddle setting: reality cooking contest AU word count: 1053 words written for: rarepairsnet challenge: project spatula notes: i just love tomerva ok 

Tom Riddle is not a religious man.

Sure, he’d spent much of first grade fervently praying that the idiots in his dorm would just leave him the fuck alone before realising that terrifying them into submission would solve all his problems. In general, though, Tom Riddle is a fervent believer in the church of Thine Ownself.

He finds himself incapable of being kind to his ridiculously stupid neighbours. He scoffs at creationism. He never passes up an opportunity to use the Lord’s name in vain.

Yet, he finds himself able and willing to walk into a church to beg a priest to intercede on his behalf to rid his life of Minerva McGonagall. Unfortunately, he gets the feeling that the priest would probably sympathise with Saint Minerva herself, so he doesn’t bother.

He does, however, spend too much time trying to submit task proposals without her knowledge for this bitching new reality cooking show that his network has lined up.

Keep reading

[lilenglishqueer]

if it never ends was it ever there? if you don't let go of it, don't say goodbye, do you carry it forever or can you throw it away like it didn't matter? (oh, but it did, it did, it did, it mattered, we mattered, we were here and we lived and you cannot erase us)