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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 1 year ago

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By: Alta Ifland

Published: Mar 25, 2024

Most of us have had at least once in a lifetime the experience of paradise when a place seems suddenly transfigured and elevated to an otherworldly realm. I experienced paradise in Iceland’s Reykjavik Airport in September 1991, where the plane that took me as a political refugee from Romania to the United States stopped for a couple of hours for a layover. It was the first time I had left my country of birth, and Reykjavik’s airport was my first contact with the West. I remember entering spaces that made me think of Aladdin’s cave of wonders, where under transparent glass lay mesmerizing diamond necklaces, and gorgeous saleswomen with seducing smiles inviting me to try them on; and I remember the impeccable marble-white restrooms like an alien spaceship with curious buttons I had no idea how to maneuver. Everything was clean, as if under the care of a doting fairy, and everybody smiled quietly as if life was a streak of uninterrupted joy.

I went back to Reykjavik for a literary conference twenty years later, but I could no longer find paradise. The diamond necklaces had no sparkle, Aladdin’s cave turned out to be a banal store, the women were like everywhere else, and the toilets nothing to write home about. The gap between the two experiences paralleled my first encounter with JFK Airport in New York, where—having to wait for my connecting flight to Jacksonville, Florida—I wandered for several hours among a hustle and bustle of people, stores, restaurants, buses and taxis, convinced that I was exploring the city itself. I mean, who in their right mind would imagine that they could find all of the above in an airport? It was only years later when I returned to New York that I realized that all I had seen of the city was, in fact, the airport.

These two primal encounters have left me with a lifelong love of airports, although life post-9/11 has considerably altered the experience. But the impression that our existence is made of two irreconcilable universes remained for a long time until, roughly, the advent of social media, which managed to unite the two into one indistinguishable blur and a chorus of mingled, screaming voices. Having spent my life between different worlds, I’m fascinated by the different frameworks people can place around the same events, according to the point of view given to them by their location in time and space.

As newly-arrived immigrants, my then-husband and I naturally gravitated toward other immigrants from Eastern Europe, and since they often went to church—which was, anyhow, the only socializing venue in Jacksonville (a city immortalized by Henry Miller in The Air-Conditioned Nightmare as a soul-killing locale)—we found ourselves for two years in the strange company of puritan evangelicals. After this edifying experience, my admission to an M.A. program at the University of Florida threw me into an environment that seemed completely opposite to the previous one, as if America were made of two separate worlds with two different types of people. Both types were a shock because they didn’t resemble the Americans I had known from the movies I’d seen—neither the neighbors who asked our Romanian friends to cover the non-existent breasts of their five-year-old daughter at the pool, nor my professors from the English department who joyfully professed their Communist and Marxist convictions to a roomful of sympathetic ears.

I cannot forget one professor who praised Mao’s “cultural revolution”—to this day I have no idea whether he was aware that millions had died as a result of this “revolution,” and that many Chinese in rural areas were so starved that they ate their own children.

It was clear to me that these academics knew nothing about the world I came from, which was, again, shocking, given that I knew a lot more about their world even though the country I grew up in was so isolated from the West that we used to refer to it as “outside.” I was the one who grew up in a prison, yet it was American academics who were the ignorant ones.

Growing up in Communist Romania, I read many American classics (the first book I read at eight years old was Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer) and watched countless American movies. On the other hand, my American counterparts never read any books by Romanians (though I am not arrogant enough to demand that) or by Eastern Europeans generally, and rarely watched any European movies, let alone Eastern European movies. Yet these people who were clearly ignorant about my world were not shy about letting me know that what I experienced was not “real” Communism and that they—who had never set foot in a Communist country—were much better positioned to define Communism. How was that possible?

Let me tell you what nobody teaches Americans about the part of the world I come from.

For years, whenever I drove on one of America’s ten-lane highways, it felt impossible that this world existed in the same historical era as the world of my grandparents. I don’t have any photos of my paternal grandparents because in Communist Romania very few of us owned cameras. But they have remained etched in my mind in a way that makes them immortal, eternally old, as if their dark faces had always been crossed by deep ridges—the kind of faces only Indians (as we called them back then) had in black and white Hollywood movies, their feet always bare and so thick with calluses that when they washed them at night you could see the solidified dirt like mortar between brick-like layers of skin. They never used soap yet they had a drawer full of it, every single piece sent or brought by my father from the city. For them, soap was the equivalent of expensive jewelry, which Grandmother occasionally showed me, opening the drawer with pride: “See? Your father sent them. I keep them all.”

My grandparents lived in a world in which there was no money—I mean, there was no exchange of money, save for the rare occasions when Father gave them a few coins to buy bread. I remember walking with Grandfather unending kilometers through a sea of yellow corn until we reemerged in the world of the living, and Grandfather took out a handkerchief with a complicated knot that he untied to free the coins in exchange for the loaf of bread handed to him by the store clerk at the edge of the cornfield. But this type of exchange happened rarely. Usually, we ate hard polenta, the default everyday meal of Romanian peasants. We ate it either as a substitute for bread, which my grandparents usually couldn’t afford, or else as a meal immersed in a bowl of milk, one bowl for the entire table, inside of which our spoons often met, clanking.

My grandparents lived in the same way their ancestors had for generations in that part of the world: the province of Oltenia in Southern Romania. The only thing that had changed was that they were no longer periodically invaded by the Turks. The stove Grandmother used for cooking was like none other I’d seen except in films about remote indigenous populations—an oval-shaped structure of whitewashed clay set on the ground, with an opening through which one could glimpse the burning twigs, and atop, simmering pots full of aromatic dishes. In front of the stove, wearing her long Gypsy-like dress and stirring the pots, was seated Grandmother on a tiny chair, it too from a different world—about twenty inches high, with only three legs.

My grandparents’ village is where I spent my summers until I finished high school. During the school year, I lived with my parents in a small town in Transylvania in one of the countless intensely ugly Soviet-style flats. The grade school I went to was five minutes away on foot—since first grade, we all went on foot everywhere, unsupervised, and had the apartment key tied on a cord around our neck (apparently, today’s Romanians call us “the generation with the key by the neck”). Needless to say, we came back home on our own, warmed up the food prepared by our mothers, and were responsible for the supervision of our younger siblings until our parents came home from work.

My classmates were mostly children of factory workers and public office clerks; many of these parents had never finished high school and those with university diplomas were rare. Under Communism there was almost no middle class, and for a simple reason: the majority of people who had been part of it (university professors, politicians, economists, sociologists, priests, artists, writers, journalists, etc.) had been imprisoned, tortured and murdered.

Their guilt? They were all “enemies of the people,” the “people” being defined as dirt-poor peasants and what Marx called “the “proletariat.” Neither of my parents had college degrees. My father, whose parents were illiterate, never read a book; my mother, whose father was a chiabur (a farmer who paid for the sin of once owning land by spending a year in prison and having his eldest daughter refused admission to high school), used to read and over the years acquired a small library of Romanian, French, and English classics which I read dozens of times. After I finished reading our library, I began to explore the local libraries. With my best friend, whose parents were construction workers and morbid alcoholics, we took weekly trips to a library where the books were so yellowed and old they fell apart, and returned with a huge travel bag full of books. Without any guidance, we discovered many of the great classics: Sartre, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Cervantes, Gide, Flaubert, Zweig, Twain, Dickens—we read them all, entirely unaware that they were “great writers,” because no one had lectured us on their greatness. In our isolated world, we had a great advantage over children growing up in Western countries: we could discover the world with our own minds and in our own words.

When I say we had an “advantage,” don’t imagine that I'm glorifying the “system” in which we grew up. The world in which we were reading these books had the following characteristics: long lines to buy anything, major food items (sugar, oil, coffee, flour, butter) rationed and hard to find, hygiene products (soap, feminine products, toothpaste) entirely absent, winters without heat spent with our coats on inside our homes, electricity two hours a day, a single TV channel with most of its programs being delirious political propaganda, water cut off for days and sometimes weeks. In order to survive most city dwellers had to use the black market, where you could buy a pair of jeans for the cost of a monthly salary. For reference, my parents’ incomes combined totaled about eighty dollars per month.

In school we studied French. Without anyone’s exhortation and only the help of a dictionary, I soon began to read French classics for my own pleasure: Mérimée, Gide, Zola, Martin du Gard, Dumas, everything I could find. I was the best student in my grade in French, so I decided to major in it. In order to be admitted to college one needed to pass a very difficult exam in one’s specialty, and there were only about twenty positions for French students per university with just a handful of universities in the entire country. The majority of applicants able to pass the exam were either children of university professors or students from preparatory high schools. Given these circumstances, my teachers, neighbors, and parents all insisted that I should study engineering like everybody else and told me I was crazy to even consider French. Yet I persisted and passed the exam with the highest possible grade. While in college, during an internship where I worked as an assistant French teacher in a high school, I attended a class where the lead teacher introduced French food to the students, and after several minutes of hearing descriptions of baguettes, brie, camembert, and the like, one of them fainted. For us, this food was like fiction—not only had we never tasted it, we couldn’t even imagine that we would ever see it outside of a book. We were hungry and cold all the time, yet whenever we’d turn on the TV all we'd hear was that we lived in a “golden era”—the regime’s official language—for which we’d have to thank the Communist Party and its General Secretary, Comrade Nicolae Ceaușescu. All the country’s institutions held regular meetings where everybody, using a language of thought-terminating clichés which we called “wooden language,” had to massage the ego of the “Dear Leader” who made such an era possible. In this language, Ceaușescu was a “skilled helmsman,” a “beloved parent,” and “the exploitation of man by man” had been forever abolished.

During this "golden era” of Communism, when I was barely twenty-one, I got blacklisted as a “person very dangerous for the security of the state” because I had married a dissident. You see, in Communism, the entire family paid for the deeds of any of its members, including those of the dead ones. My husband’s main guilt was that he was the brother of a famous Romanian journalist who worked abroad for one of the Western radio stations that condemned the injustices of Communism. To understand why this was considered a crime, you need to know that the first thing Ceaușescu did every day was read a report on what had been said about him the previous day.

Since his fate was already sealed and he wasn’t even allowed to go to college, my husband and a few friends tried to create a political party that would have been an alternative to the only official one. Needless to say in a country where one in four citizens was an informant, they were quickly apprehended and subjected to harsh interrogations. This happened before my husband and I met; him being too traumatized to talk about it, I found out from his parents how he had been imprisoned and cruelly beaten. After we got married, he signed a petition demanding that the regime stop the demolition of villages and churches, a project Ceaușescu had started because he realized that the traditional rural lifestyle still gave people some independence. Consequently, Ceaușescu put us under 24-hour surveillance, with a car constantly parked in front of our building. We were young and foolish, and so we made fun of the unending series of spies who were struggling to remain inconspicuous every time we went out and they followed us. Sometimes we mocked them overtly, laughing out loud as we hopped on a bus, while they remained outside, but it was a dangerous game: you never knew when an “accident” could happen.

One afternoon, an individual in a black leather jacket got out of the car parked in front of our building while holding an envelope in his hand, entered for a few seconds, then returned with his hand empty. We didn’t keep the letter that my husband had retrieved from our mailbox because it made him so furious he tore it to pieces. The letter warned that “some people” might want to hurt me badly. The police summoned me a few days later to their headquarters for an undisclosed matter, with my husband forced to wait outside. Nothing horrible happened to me that day, save for the fact that I was asked to wait for several hours while my husband remained outside, not knowing when—or if—I was going to come out. When I was finally brought into an office, the officer informed me in a performatively worried tone that “some people” wanted to hurt me, and he wanted to make me aware of this danger.

This is how we lived for about two years until the anti-Communist Revolution from December 1989 swept the dictator and his clique away.

In the first week after the dictator was killed a member of the newly formed Front of the National Salute—the revolutionary organization that replaced the Communist Party and of which my husband was briefly a member—came to our home to uninstall a microphone that the Securitate (the Secret Police) had hidden behind our bed.

It took another quarter of a century until my husband was allowed to see the file the Secret Police had on us. It contained two thousand pages of content produced through the coordinated efforts of dozens of individuals and tens of thousands of dollars spent every month on our surveillance—in a country in which the average income was forty dollars. It also included the names of the “friends" who had informed on us—some of which we’d already guessed, others, a surprise. Our Secret Police file remained open until December 1991, that is, two years after the regime had fallen, and three months after we had left the country for America.

I left the building where my parents lived almost forty years ago, but when I last visited, some of the neighbors I had growing up were still there. Imagine passing by an old man who looks twenty years older than you, and then remembering that you had a crush on him when you were twelve and he was fourteen. The grey Soviet flats have remained unchanged, but in a certain way give you the reassuring feeling that time stands still and there's a continuity between generations—something absent in ever-changing American society.

While the memory of life in the small town of my childhood is ambivalently hazy, when I remember the rural world of my grandparents a wave of nostalgia washes over me. The three-legged wobbling chairs, the haystack above the cow barn where I used to read, even the short-lived doll made of rags that a friend from across the street had taught me how to make, ephemeral as she was, is now bathed in a golden aura of longing for a lost world.

[ Photos of Alta's grandparent's home, taken during a recent visit to Romania. On the left is the cow barn where Alta used to read. ]

I sometimes look at the children of my American friends, with their room full of toys, and I know that their toys don’t make them any happier than my rag doll had made me. And I know that my American female friends, emancipated as they are from the “patriarchy,” aren’t happier than Grandmother. In all traditional societies, labor is organized according to the existence of the two sexes and this has nothing to do with anyone’s “oppression.” Men do some things, women do other things—it's simply a division of labor based on physical differences between the two, and it’s a division that can be observed across cultures and millennia. According to all statistics and their own statements, it’s obvious that many American women are in profound disharmony with themselves and the world in which they live. And this is certainly not because the world in which Grandmother lived was better—although I am wondering more and more whether it was much worse.

The first thing you need to be unhappy is to ask yourself whether you are happy or not—Unlike American women, I am convinced that this is a question Grandmother never asked herself.

Grandmother, just like her mother and her mother’s mother, lived in a way that imitated the lives of previous generations, in an entanglement with “tradition”—the dirty word that American feminists and progressives utter with so much disdain and which they translate as “oppression” and “victimization.” I often try to imagine what Grandmother would have answered had I told her that she was “oppressed” by the patriarchy in particular and society in general. I think she would have had a hard time understanding the concept. You see, it’s hard to feel “oppressed” when you have inner freedom. Aside from this, nobody in the world of my grandparents thought in these terms because in traditional societies it is shameful to be a victim. Only in a world of privilege can victimhood acquire a desirable status. I call this the law of subliminal contradiction, something I discovered by observing how Americans behave. Another example: only in a society of excess can the richest people dress in a way that imitates the homeless. In the society of poverty in which I grew up, it was shameful to wear torn-apart clothes; on the other hand, if you look at the way most well-to-do Americans are dressed today, you’d think they live on the street. Consider high fashion clothing that gives the illusion of poverty and manual labor, like mud-splashes and rips on jeans.

Today I write these lines from France, in my second exile. And many things have changed! My husband is now my ex-husband; he has returned to Romania, and I to Europe. My best friend with whom I used to explore libraries and books, and who grew up in a one-bedroom apartment with two parents, a grandmother, an older sister, and her daughter, and who at ten years old was forced by circumstances to take care of the entire household while her father lay drunk in a ditch and her mother worked on construction sites, is now a doctor and owner of a major medical lab. Unlike my American acquaintances, she never saw herself as a “victim” of anything. When I came to this country as a political refugee over thirty years ago, the thing that most impressed me about Americans was that they were very responsible and resilient. Thirty years later this country has been turned upside-down. But the truth is that the signs and the seeds of this reversal were already present thirty years ago, mostly in one particular space: academia.

The rare Marxists from back then are now the norm (although many traditional Marxists point out that, unlike American academics, Marx was never concerned with “race and gender”). They are the people who call Putin “right-wing,” as if he'd been schooled by the Republican Party rather than the Communist Party, whose Secret Police he represented as an officer of the KGB. The reason Putin is “right-wing” is because he’s a nationalist and anti-LGBT—but if these academics had read any books from my part of the world, they’d know that every single Communist country was ultra-nationalist and homophobic. In Communist Romania you could go to prison for twenty years for being a homosexual. Putin may no longer be a “Communist” because the gifts of the Capital are way too sweet, but his authoritarianism is rooted in Communism nonetheless, and his homophobia has nothing to do with being “right-wing” unless you project a Western value system onto a completely different world in which the categories of Left and Right merge.

After you’ve experienced the clichés of Communist propaganda, you can easily spot the mental structures underlying the impulse to reduce the complexity of the world down to one huge power struggle in which everybody is either an oppressor or a victim. This is why having lived through Communism has become very useful in contemporary America, and it's why the few of us who denounced the insanity of Communism when it could have cost our lives won’t keep our mouths shut now that America is losing its mind. For instance, the concept of “reparations” based on inherited collective guilt is eerily similar to the Communist practice of punishing an entire family for the deeds of any of its members, including the dead. Just like the “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” activists who are being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to lecture you, the Communists created a privileged class called the “nomenklatura”—Party activists who did nothing but spread ideology and propaganda, making sure that the rest of us conformed to the official dogma. One trait of people who create dogmatic ideologies is that they never feel obligated to obey their own dogma—if they did, they would have to cancel their own privilege.

Because history is always written from one point of view, being an American academic often comes with the privilege of (re)writing history. And in an Americentric world, these academics look at everything through the lens of their own history, which they project onto everybody else. When have you ever heard academics from English departments and Women/Gender/Ethnic Studies—who have been teaching generations of students about the evils of European colonization—denounce the colonization of Eastern Europe by the Russians and by the Turks? It’s as if 500 years of history—the history of the Ottoman Empire—never existed. Or as if Russia started its colonial history with the invasion of Ukraine.

According to these academics, being European is equivalent to having a mysterious essence called “whiteness,” and I should repent for my “white privilege” and Europe’s colonial history, as if my “white” ancestors had colonized anyone and not the other way around, or as if they had enslaved “brown” Muslims and not the other way around.

Let me tell you an anecdote about how I was made to pay for my “white privilege.” You may remember the brouhaha after the poem performed by the young, black author, Amanda Gorman, at Biden’s inauguration, was commissioned to be translated into Dutch not by another black woman, but by a white person. This white person happened to be Marieke Lukas Rijneveld, who identifies as “non-binary” and is a few years older than Gorman. After a complaint that the chosen translator was not black, the translator withdrew from the project and the publisher issued a public apology—never mind that it was Gorman herself who had chosen the translator and that it’s quite likely that there aren’t many black translators who translate into Dutch and have Rijneveld’s literary skills. I know this because I had read Rijneveld’s award-winning book translated into English and recommended it on social media. When the scandal broke, many American translators—some of whom I was personally acquainted with through my work as a translator—commented on the affair online, supporting the decision to replace the white translator with a black translator. In response, I dared to share the comment of a French member of PEN, who believed that skin color should have nothing to do with who translates what. I accompanied this comment with my own: “I think that, this being a forum of translators, we should give a voice to different opinions from other languages.” I was subjected to a pile-on of virulent attacks, summoned to delete my “inflammatory” remarks, and it was made clear to me that my opinion could only be the result of my “white privilege” because I was (I'm not kidding you) a “cultural essentialist.” The cherry on top was that I was also called a “transphobe” because I had “misgendered” Rijneveld—the irony being that I was the only one in that group who had actually read and supported the “non-binary” author. I left these discussions after it was clear that I didn’t have the “revolutionary consciousness” to belong.

The fact is that nothing—and certainly not “white privilege” or any kind of “systemic” anything—is stopping anyone in America from learning languages and translating. When I was a graduate student in French at the University of Florida, my black classmate had spent time in France, just like everybody else in our program. I was the only one who had never been to France. Yet if I could learn French while believing that I would never see France because traveling to Western Europe was, for a Romanian of my station, as impossible as going to Mars, then any American—black, blue, or purple—can do it.

Privilege is a funny thing, especially in a society in which being a victim grants the highest social status. I for one prefer to assume the privilege of having experienced both Communism and life as an immigrant—a privilege America’s social justice warriors will never have—because it has taught me that you can be free under the worst dictatorship and a slave to groupthink in the freest of worlds.

#SmashCapitalism

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#Alta Ifland #We The Black Sheep #communism #capitalism #smash capitalism #Marxism #late stage Marxism #Communist Party #religion is a mental illness

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a-araiguma-a · 10 months ago

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Between the serving and Her smile

Chapter 2. From Muggles to Wizards: Between Studies and Dreams

Fandom: Harry Potter Pairing: Oliver Wood x fem!OC, Charlie Weasley x f!OC, <?> Warning: fluff, mutual pining, friends-to-lovers drama, first love, jealous

Summary: He was the captain and keeper of the Gryffindor team, and his quest to win the Quidditch Cup became an obsessive goal. All his thoughts revolved around tactics, training and strategies, but sometimes his own heart reminded him of another, equally important side of life. He believed that love and Quidditch could coexist in his life. He swore to himself that he would do everything possible to preserve these two treasures, even if it required the impossible from him.

Start - Prolog (Episode 1 - Episode 2 - Episode 3 - Episode 4 - Episode 5) - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8

Everyday life at Hogwarts quickly settled into a familiar routine. Each day was filled with lessons, new knowledge, and magical discoveries. Gradually, Margaret began to feel more confident. She became better at understanding magical subjects and spells. She often thought back with gratitude to her lessons with her grandfather, which were now paying off. Thanks to their practice sessions, she found Charms and Potions classes much easier. She quickly mastered many basic spells and even helped her friends with their assignments.

“How do you manage so well?” Emma asked in surprise when Margaret once again effortlessly performed a spell in Professor Flitwick’s class.

“My grandfather helped me prepare,” Margaret replied, slightly embarrassed. “We practiced a lot before I came here.”

“Lucky you,” Sophie said with a smile. “I’m finding this all a bit more difficult.”

Her favorite class turned out to be Transfiguration, where she learned to turn matchsticks into needles, and she couldn’t believe that her own hands could perform such magic. She would hold the needle in her hands, marveling at the magic she could feel at her fingertips.

In Potions, she was particularly amazed by the ingredients, which seemed incredible compared to the ordinary spices and herbs used by Muggles. For example, the first time she used unicorn horn in a potion, she felt a deep reverence for magical creatures. Over time, she learned to handle these ingredients, understanding how they interacted with each other. One of the highlights was when she brewed a Sleeping Draught for the first time, and her partner, after trying it, immediately fell asleep for a few minutes, causing everyone to laugh and feel relieved.

In Charms class, it was an incredible feeling—realizing that words could bring magic to life.

Hogwarts itself was one big mystery for Margaret. Her Muggle fairy tales gradually faded into the background, giving way to real magic. One day, she accidentally stumbled upon a secret passage in one of the castle corridors. The passage led her to an abandoned wing where she found ancient paintings, books, and even some magical objects that, as she later discovered, had belonged to students from a century ago.

In the evenings, Margaret often talked with Charlie Weasley in the common room. He was older than her but always found time to chat about life at Hogwarts and his large family.

“I have six brothers and sisters,” he once said with a laugh one evening. “A big family is pure chaos, but it’s fun. Speaking of brothers, one of them, Percy, is studying with you. He’s a bit of a stickler, but only at first glance. Maybe you’ll become friends? I think you’d like our family.”

“That sounds amazing,” Margaret smiled. “I’ve always wanted a big family.”

Thus, six months passed at Hogwarts. Margaret had grown accustomed to her new rhythm of life, finding joy in each day spent among friends and books. Studying came easily to her, and Hogwarts felt more and more like home. But despite everything, by Christmas, she started to miss home deeply.

Christmas at Hogwarts was a magical time. The castle was decorated with hundreds of garlands, a giant tree towered in the Great Hall, and the air was filled with the scent of pine and gingerbread. But Margaret knew that soon she would be going home to see her family, something she had been dreaming of for weeks.

Mr. and Mrs. Denning, Bennett’s parents, also promised to visit for the holidays. The magical heritage was hidden from them, and Margaret couldn’t wait to finally return home and spend time with those she cared about.

On the last night before her departure, Margaret stood by the window of her room, gazing at the snow-covered slopes and the castle glowing in the moonlight. Her heart was filled with warmth at the thought of returning home, but she knew that Hogwarts would always be a special place for her, a place she would gladly return to after the holidays.

After spending long months at Hogwarts, Margaret finally returned home for Christmas, eagerly anticipating her reunion with her parents. Platform 9¾ was once again bustling with activity as students said their goodbyes to friends and prepared for their journey home. Margaret, having gathered her belongings, hurried to the station, where her mom and dad were already waiting for her. Seeing them, she couldn’t hold back her smile and ran toward them.

“Mom! Dad!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around their necks.

“Margaret, darling, we’ve missed you so much,” Miranda said, hugging her daughter tightly.

“You’ve grown up so much,” Bennett added, looking at her with pride. “How’s school? Is everything going well?”

“Everything is wonderful,” Margaret replied, beaming with happiness. “I have so much to tell you!”

When they returned home, Margaret savored the familiar, comforting atmosphere. The house was decorated for the holiday, and it smelled of pine branches and freshly baked goods. That evening, at the festive table, they were joined by her grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Denning, who had also missed their granddaughter dearly. They believed she was studying at a school for young ladies, only returning home during the winter and summer holidays. They were strict but kind-hearted people.

“Margaret, dear, you’ve grown so much,” her grandfather said with a smile as he hugged her.

“We’re so glad you’re home,” her grandmother added, her eyes sparkling with joy.

During the holiday dinner, decorated with Christmas ornaments and a sparkling tree, Margaret shared her academic achievements.

She also began to open up more to Miranda, telling her how much her grandfather’s lessons had helped her before the school year started and how they had made her assignments easier. Many of the spells and potions were already familiar, making her studies much more manageable. Sometimes, she was even asked to help with homework. She talked about her new friends and funny situations. Perhaps her heart softened toward Miranda, and she began to reciprocate her feelings.

“You’re doing great,” Miranda praised her, proud of her daughter’s achievements. “We knew you would succeed.”

The Christmas holidays passed quickly, and soon it was time to return to Hogwarts. Margaret spent the last few days at home relaxing and enjoying the warmth of her family.

Returning to her studies went smoothly, and she continued to excel. In the Gryffindor common room, Margaret spent more time talking with Charlie Weasley, who shared funny and awkward stories about his younger siblings and his love for magical creatures, especially dragons.

One day, she found Oliver Wood in the common room, reading a book about Quidditch, and he told her about his dream of joining the Quidditch team.

“I really want to try out for Quidditch,” he said, his eyes shining with enthusiasm. “But unfortunately, they only accept second-years. I can’t wait to give it a shot.”

“I’m sure you’ll do great,” Margaret replied with a smile, encouraging him.

Spring passed quickly, and soon it was time for the summer holidays. Margaret said goodbye to Hogwarts with a hint of sadness but comforted herself with the promise of staying in touch with Emma and Sophie through letters. That summer, she resumed her lessons with her grandfather, studying literature and the origins of magic. Now, with her newfound knowledge, she could engage in discussions with him.

“You’ve become a real witch,” her grandfather once said, looking at her with pride as they discussed ancient spells. “I never thought I’d be discussing such complex topics with you so soon.”

“I’m really interested in this,” Margaret replied, feeling her confidence grow with each passing day.

However, her grandmother insisted that Margaret spend more time relaxing.

“Once you return to Hogwarts, you won’t have as much free time,” she reminded her. “Enjoy the summer while you can.”

The family supported this idea, and one day they even went to an amusement park. It was Margaret’s first time in such a place and the first time she had spent so much time with her father. She rode the rides, ate cotton candy, and enjoyed every moment.

Autumn arrived, and Margaret once again found herself on Platform 9¾. She looked around for familiar faces and soon spotted Emma and Sophie, who were waving at her excitedly. They met and hugged, not hiding their joy.

“I missed you so much!” Margaret exclaimed with a smile. “How were your holidays?”

“We missed you too,” Sophie replied. “The holidays were great, but I’m glad to be back—there will be even more adventures this year!”

The second year at Hogwarts began with the usual hustle and bustle: classes, homework, and discussions of upcoming events. One of the most exciting moments of the year was the Quidditch team tryouts. Oliver Wood, with whom Margaret had become friends the previous year, was obsessed with the idea of making the team. Quidditch wasn’t just a game for him; it was a true passion.

Charlie Weasley, the Gryffindor team captain, was also eagerly awaiting the event. The excitement within the team was building, and as captain, he was eager to see who would join their ranks.

On the day of the tryouts, Margaret, Emma, and Sophie decided to head to the stands to watch the trials. Grabbing their scarves and cloaks, they made their way to the stadium, where students were already gathering. The field was bathed in light, the stands gradually filled with spectators, and the air was thick with anticipation.

“I think Oliver is definitely going to make the team,” Emma said as she settled onto a bench, glancing around. “He trained so much over the summer.”

“He’s got a good chance,” Margaret agreed. “I’ve seen him fly. He’s a natural-born Quidditch player.”

As the trials began, the spectators in the stands watched the action on the field closely. The players demonstrated their agility, speed, and broom-handling skills. Oliver, as always, was focused and determined, trying to showcase everything he could do.

“He’s relentless,” Sophie marveled, watching as Oliver skillfully maneuvered on his broom, dodging Bludgers. “He’d be perfect for the team.”

After a while, as the trials quieted down a bit, Sophie suddenly turned to Margaret with a mischievous smile.

“Why don’t you give it a try?” she suggested, her eyes gleaming with sudden inspiration. “You’re a great flyer! I saw you fly last year.”

Margaret thought about it for a moment. The idea of participating in the tryouts had crossed her mind, but she quickly realized it wasn’t for her.

“I love flying,” she replied, smiling slightly. “But chasing after balls is a whole different story. Quidditch requires a special kind of concentration and strategy. I enjoy the freedom of flying, the feeling of being in the air. I don’t think being on the team is for me.”

Sophie pondered this for a moment, then nodded, agreeing with her reasoning.

“You’re right,” she said. “Flying for fun is one thing, but playing Quidditch is something else entirely. But still, it would’ve been interesting to see you on the field.”

Margaret smiled, feeling that she had made the right choice. She knew that Quidditch wasn’t her calling, but it was nice to think that her flying skills had been noticed by her friends. Together, they continued to watch the trials, cheering on their friends.

When the tryouts were over, Oliver, exhausted but satisfied, climbed up to the stands to join Margaret, Emma, and Sophie.

“How’d I do?” he asked, catching his breath and wiping the sweat from his brow.

“You were amazing!” Emma exclaimed, genuinely impressed by his determination.

“Charlie is sure to pick you,” Sophie added with a smile.

Margaret, offering him a reassuring smile, said, “You did everything you could. Now it’s up to the captain.”

Oliver nodded, his eyes gleaming with excitement. He had dreamed of becoming part of the team, and now, finally, he had a chance to make that dream a reality. The results didn’t take long to arrive—Oliver was finally accepted into the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Just as Margaret had predicted, Charlie chose him as the team’s Keeper, and Oliver couldn’t have been happier. Now he could proudly wear the team uniform and participate in the matches he had longed for.

The second year flew by unnoticed. Margaret focused on her studies and continued to excel. Potions classes took place in the cold dungeons of Hogwarts. The stone walls, low ceilings, and flickering candlelight created an atmosphere of mystery. The students sat at long wooden tables, on which cauldrons, flasks, and jars of various ingredients were arranged. Professor Snape, dressed in a black robe, glided between the rows like a shadow, watching every move of the students.

“Today, you will be brewing the Polyjuice Potion,” Snape announced in a cold voice that carried a hint of menace. “If any of you feel the urge to mess up, be warned: the consequences will be most unpleasant.”

Margaret, like the others, held her breath. She knew that Potions required concentration and precision, and under Snape’s watchful gaze, any mistake could be fatal. He was a strict and demanding teacher who tolerated no negligence.

Each lesson began with an explanation of the theory and a description of the ingredients, followed by the practical part. Snape rarely praised the students, but his silent approval was often the highest reward.

“Margaret,” Emma whispered beside her as they began adding mandrake root to their cauldron. “Are you sure we need to do this slowly?”

“Yes,” Margaret nodded, carefully monitoring the process. “If you add it too quickly, the potion might explode.” She had barely finished the sentence when a loud bang shattered the silence of the dungeon, like thunder on a clear day. Margaret and Emma simultaneously jumped back as the explosive wave swept through the room, engulfing them in heat and showering them with tiny drops of potion. Several students screamed, and others quickly backed away from their cauldrons, fearing their mixtures might also spiral out of control.

“Silence!” Snape’s commanding voice cut through the noise in the class. His dark eyes narrowed as he swiftly assessed the situation. He strode toward the source of the explosion, and the students hurriedly made way for him.

Margaret watched the scene, her heart pounding in her chest. Where there had been a whole cauldron just moments ago, now there was a wreck. Snape silently bent over the shattered cauldron, then his cold gaze turned to the culprit. His face remained impassive, but tension hung in the air, as if the entire room was holding its breath, waiting for his reaction.

“Perhaps, Mr. Howard,” he began in a quiet but menacing tone, “you should pay more attention to instructions before attempting to prove you can improvise.”

Eric Howard, shocked and bewildered, could only nod, not daring to protest.

“The rest of you,” Snape continued, slowly surveying the class, “take note of this lesson. Alchemy does not forgive mistakes and carelessness. One wrong move can lead to catastrophic consequences.”

Margaret felt her hands tremble slightly from the tension. She knew how dangerous potion-making could be, but now it felt even more real. Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced at Emma, who stood beside her, equally shaken by what had just happened.

“You were right,” Emma whispered, afraid to attract the professor’s attention. “We need to be even more careful.”

Margaret nodded, trying to regain her composure. They returned to their cauldron, even more cautious and slow in adding the mandrake root. Snape’s eyes remained watchful, scrutinizing every move, but eventually, he returned to his desk, leaving the students to stew in their thoughts.

When the lesson finally ended, Margaret allowed herself to relax. She looked at her potion—the thick mixture in the cauldron was slowly bubbling, its color even and stable.

“You’ve done well,” a low voice suddenly said behind her. Margaret turned and saw Snape standing right next to her table. He nodded slightly, which for him was almost a sign of approval. “Next time, be even more attentive, Miss Denning.”

Margaret felt her heart skip a beat. It wasn’t exactly praise, but it was close. She nodded quietly, feeling both relieved and slightly apprehensive.

As Snape walked away, Emma quietly exhaled, “Well, if that wasn’t praise, I don’t know what is…”

Margaret smiled, feeling the tension gradually fade. This lesson had been a real test for her, but she had passed it, and the moment had bolstered her confidence—if she could endure Snape’s silent approval, she could handle much more.

Professor Snape often assigned complex homework that required not only theoretical knowledge but also the ability to apply it in practice. Essays spanning several feet of parchment on the use of rare ingredients, research on the history of potion-making, and detailed reports on experiments became an integral part of the learning process. These assignments demanded perseverance and attention to detail, and Margaret, like her friends, strove to complete them with the utmost responsibility.

Sometimes, she was asked to help with homework, and she was always happy to share her knowledge with those who needed assistance. Her successes at Hogwarts brought her great satisfaction.

The Hogwarts library was one of Margaret’s favorite places. Time in the library flew by unnoticed. The spacious halls with high ceilings and rows of bookshelves filled with ancient tomes and modern textbooks created an atmosphere of comfort and peace. Here, among thousands of books, one could find answers to any questions and delve into the study of the magical world.

In this library, among ancient tomes and mysterious books, she felt truly at home, as if her soul had found what it had been searching for—a place to explore, learn, and grow stronger, seeing how the knowledge they acquired began to come together into a complete picture.

Margaret smiled, bending over her notebook, where she carefully wrote down her thoughts on what she had read.

“I found something interesting about protective spells,” Sophie said, pulling a thick book from the shelf and sitting down at the table.

“Let’s take a look,” Margaret responded, sitting down next to her and opening her notebook.

Emma, sitting across from them, was rummaging through her notes, trying to figure out the structure of the essay they had been assigned for Potions.

“Snape certainly doesn’t go easy on us,” she sighed as she scanned the text. “But it’s interesting. I had no idea such complex potions existed.”

“He demands a lot,” Margaret agreed, looking up at Emma. “But maybe that’s how we’ll truly learn to understand potions. If Snape can teach us anything, it’s how to be precise and attentive.”

Emma nodded, setting her notes aside. “Yeah, you’re right. Sometimes it feels like he makes the assignments harder just to test us.”

Sophie, still flipping through the pages of the book she had just pulled out, raised her eyebrows.

“Have you seen this?” she asked, drawing her friends’ attention. “It talks about protective spells that were used during the First Wizarding War. Some of them are so complex that they require incredible concentration and willpower.”

Margaret and Emma leaned in closer to get a better look at the page. Before them was an entire chapter dedicated to rare and ancient protective spells, many of which had long been forgotten or replaced by more modern versions. Margaret felt her curiosity growing.

“This could be useful,” Margaret noted, quickly scanning the text. “You never know when knowledge like this might come in handy. Especially in a world where things are constantly happening.”

Sophie nodded, noticing the spark of interest in her friend’s eyes.

“I thought it might be worth delving deeper into this topic. Maybe we can find something truly unique that could be useful in Defense Against the Dark Arts or just expand our horizons.”

“I’m with you,” Margaret replied, already thinking about how this information could be used. “Let’s try to understand these spells and how they work. If we can figure them out, it will be a serious advantage.”

Emma, lifting her head from her notes, looked at her friends with newfound interest.

“You know, maybe this could even help us with our Potions essay. Some protective potions have properties that could be compared to spells. If we can link the two, Snape will definitely be impressed.”

“Good idea,” Margaret agreed, feeling her inspiration grow with every new thought. “Let’s analyze these spells and then try to find parallels with potions. It could be both interesting and useful.”

They once again immersed themselves in their reading, flipping through pages and discussing the complex spells, their applications, and possible consequences.

Classes, homework, time spent in the library, and conversations with friends filled Margaret’s days. But, as Charlie had suggested, she decided to try and find common ground with his younger brother. As she walked through the corridors of Hogwarts, Margaret began to notice Percy Weasley more often, but unlike Charlie, Percy was a very different kind of person. He was diligent, hardworking, and extremely serious about his studies and the school rules. He always had his nose in a book during his free time, his robes were always spotless, and his tie was always knotted precisely according to the rules.

Percy was tall and slender, with bright red hair and glasses perched on his nose, which gave him an even more serious and responsible appearance. He constantly carried a stack of books, always meticulously prepared for classes, and followed the school’s regulations to the letter.

“Percy?” Margaret had said in surprise when Charlie first mentioned his brother. “He’s always so serious. I’m not sure I can find common ground with him.” “Yes, he’s strict with himself and others,” Charlie admitted with a slight smile. “But he has a kind heart. If you can connect with him, he’ll be a good friend. Try talking to him about something you both care about—like studies. He’s a real workaholic.”

At first, it wasn’t easy for Margaret to establish contact with Percy. Her attempts were met with cold indifference. He was focused on his studies and didn’t like to be distracted by conversations that he considered pointless.

“It seems like he doesn’t want to talk at all,” Margaret complained to Emma and Sophie during one of their meetings in the library.

“That’s just how he is,” Emma noted with a shrug. “Percy is always serious and focused on results. It’s hard for him to relax.”

“Maybe he just hasn’t gotten used to you yet,” Sophie suggested.

One evening, after they had finished their tasks in the library, they noticed Percy sitting at a distant table, deeply engrossed in a book on magical history. Margaret gathered her courage and approached him.

“Hi, Percy,” she said quietly, careful not to disturb the library’s silence.

Percy looked up from his book, his eyes narrowing slightly as if trying to recall who was in front of him.

“Hello, Margaret,” he replied with a brief nod. “What can I help you with?”

“I’ve noticed that you’re very serious about your studies,” she began, her voice trembling slightly with nervousness. “I try to be diligent too, and I’m curious about how you manage all your work. Do you have any tips?”

Percy seemed to relax a bit, intrigued by her question. He put his book down and looked at her more attentively.

“Well, I just try to organize my time as efficiently as possible,” he replied. “The key is not to procrastinate and not to let yourself get distracted. I always plan my day in advance and stick to the plan. That helps me stay on top of everything and keep focused.”

Margaret smiled, feeling that the ice had begun to break. They continued talking, discussing different study approaches, memory techniques, and effective ways to prepare for exams. Percy turned out not to be as distant and cold as he initially seemed. His passion for learning was contagious, and soon they found they had a lot in common.

One day after class, when everyone else had already left, Margaret approached Percy, who was meticulously rewriting his notes.

“Hi, Percy,” she began, coming up to his desk. “I was wondering if you’d like to study together for the next Potions class? Snape’s program is tough, and I’ve heard you’re really good with ingredients.”

Percy looked up from his notes and considered her offer. He was known for his love of order and precision, and Margaret knew that this approach might catch his attention.

“It’s important,” she continued. “I try not to miss any details myself. Maybe if we combine our efforts, we can achieve even better results.”

This time, Percy thought more seriously. He clearly appreciated her diligence and eagerness to learn.

“Alright,” he finally agreed. “Let’s meet in the library after dinner. I have some ideas for the essay Snape assigned. We can discuss them together.”

Margaret smiled, feeling that this was a chance to get closer to Percy. They arranged to meet in the evening, and Margaret eagerly anticipated the meeting.

That evening in the library, Margaret and Percy met at one of the back tables, secluded from the rest of the hall. Books, parchment, and ink were spread out in front of them. Percy, as always, was deeply focused on his work, but now he was more willing to share his thoughts.

“I think the key difficulty with the potion lies in getting the proportions of the ingredients just right,” Percy said, carefully reviewing the textbook. “Many mistakes can be avoided by preparing the components in advance and strictly following the recipe. Snape emphasized that in the last lesson.”

“I agree,” Margaret nodded, jotting down his words in her notebook. “And it’s also important to maintain the correct temperature. If it’s not kept at the right level, the potion could lose its properties. I have some ideas, but I’m not sure if I’ve explained them correctly.”

Percy looked at her thoughtfully, then put down his quill and took her notebook, carefully reading what she had written.

“You’ve done well, but this could be refined a bit,” he said. “For example, when discussing the process of adding mandrake root to the potion, it’s crucial to understand the reaction of the ingredients.”

Margaret listened to his explanations with interest. His knowledge and attention to detail were truly impressive. They dove into the discussion, making notes and comparing their ideas. This marked the beginning of their collaboration. Margaret and Percy often met in the library, discussing various topics and helping each other with their studies. Gradually, they began to find common ground. Margaret grew to appreciate his love for order and pursuit of perfection, while Percy valued her ability to simplify complex ideas and get to the heart of any subject.

Their interactions, at first, were somewhat formal, but slowly, a genuine friendship began to develop between them, built on mutual respect and a shared interest in learning.

One day, as they were working on an essay for Professor Rakepick, Percy suddenly said, “You know, Margaret, I’m glad we started talking. I usually prefer working alone, but with you, it feels… easier. You help me see things from a different perspective.”

Margaret smiled, sensing their friendship growing.

“I’m glad too, Percy. You’re really smart and dedicated. I think we can learn a lot from each other.”

Over time, their conversations became more personal. Percy opened up to Margaret about his family, how seriously he took his responsibilities toward them, especially his younger brothers and sister, and how hard he tried to live up to the high expectations he set for himself. He was ambitious and wanted to achieve great things in the magical world, but he also felt a strong sense of responsibility toward his siblings.

“I feel like it’s important to be the best at whatever you do,” Percy confided one day, setting his quill aside. “I want people to be able to rely on me. It’s my duty to do things right and set an example.”

Margaret saw in Percy not just a strict and reserved student, but a person driven by deep internal motivation. He was devoted to his ideals and worked hard to achieve perfection in everything, which required great effort from him.

Margaret felt that their collaboration not only benefited her studies but also gave her the chance to understand Percy better as a person. They discussed not only school assignments but also the broader questions that concerned them, both within and outside of Hogwarts.

“Sometimes I think I’m too hard on myself,” Percy admitted one evening when they were talking about their future plans. “But I just want to make my family proud and be a role model for my brothers and sister.”

“I’m sure you’ll succeed,” Margaret said with a smile. “You’re already a role model for many here at Hogwarts. I believe that discipline and perseverance will lead you to great achievements.”

Percy nodded, feeling grateful for her words. Their friendship gradually strengthened, and Margaret was glad she had found common ground with him. They continued to support each other in their studies, helping each other understand complex topics and sharing their thoughts.

Margaret saw how Percy slowly began to trust her more and even smiled when they solved a problem together.

This friendship became important to both of them. Percy learned to relax a bit and see the world beyond rules and regulations, while Margaret grew to appreciate the discipline and pursuit of excellence that were so important to Percy.

Margaret, Emma, Sophie, and Percy often spent their evenings in the library, discussing lessons and working on homework together. They became a team that could always rely on each other, making their school life even more enriching and enjoyable.

#harry potter #oliver wood #oliver wood imagine #oliver wood x reader #oliver wood x you #x reader #x y/n #charlie weasley x reader #percy weasly x reader

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obraveyouth-m · 2 months ago

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❝ ▲ 𝗡𝗦𝗙𝗧 ✶ 𝙆𝙄𝙉𝙆𝙎 & 𝙎𝙀𝙓𝙐𝘼𝙇𝙄𝙏𝙔.

note: under the read more is just a more indepth list of link's kinks ( plus hard and soft limits ): along with bedroom dynamic talk. while i don't normally read more anything ... the information isn't blog relevant for the vast majority so its lowkey omitted.

link is the kind of man who doesn’t just fall in love — he devotes himself. a southern gentleman through and through. he was raised on soft-spoken traditions , steady values , and the kind of enduring loyalty that makes the stars linger just a little longer over ordon. and built from quiet strength , calloused hands , and a heart carved from old promises. his ❝ yes , ma'am ❞ can hush a storm and his gaze alone promises safety. he is not one for casual affection — no , link’s love is sacred. it’s not something given lightly , but something offered with reverence , taken on like much like his lifelong duty to hyrule. to love him is to be held in a vow made in silence — a vow that never falters , instead it speaks volumes. his devotion is not loud or ostentatious. to be loved by link is to be held in a devotion that neither fades nor fails. it is to be chosen with purpose , with a patience that endures seasons and a passion that ignites them. whether he is offering his partner a soft word over morning coffee or pressing them into the sheets under the hush of dawn , he gives everything — the boy who once prayed to the forest , the transfigured beast who stood between twilight and ruin , the man who looked at his partner and chose them. it shows itself in the small , thoughtful ways that reveal just how closely he’s paying attention:

i. he carries his partner's groceries without needing to be asked. ii. he lays his coat across puddles without hesitation. iii. he notices the way his partner likes their tea iv. the twist of his partner's sock that might bother them that day v. the exact angle his partner's brow furrows when they’re thinking too hard.

when link folds the laundry , splits the firewood , or patches the roof , it’s done with his partner in mind. he watches the door so his partner never has to. he doesn’t do it for recognition — he does it because his partner's comfort is his peace ( their absolute happiness is his joy ): his affection is one that speaks through action — much like everything else he does — but also through the language he keeps just for his partner. link never uses his partner's name — not unless formality demands it. instead , he gives his partner names that mean something deeper : princess/prince when the morning light hits their skin and their voice is still wrapped in sleep , baby when they’re playful and pouting , my love for when he kisses their hands after a long day , hayati ( taken from his mother's tongue ): when his heart is full and he needs to remind them that his life belongs to them , and riɣ-kem ( also taken from his mother's tongue ): a sacred word , for link , that is only whispered in the hush between bodies , when his lips brush their skin in reverence , when the only language left is truth. his partner's real name is reserved for treaties , formal introductions , and moments that require the full weight of his devotion — because in every other breath , his eyes are already saying mine.

link’s love is a steady current — the living embodiment of the quote : ❝ i was not meant for casual , i was meant for soul-crushing devotion. ❞ this belief isn’t just a sentiment — it’s the structure of his entire heart. he doesn’t offer part of himself. once he commits to another, it is all or nothing. his partner is not an addition to his life — they are its very core. his partner's smile is his peace. his partner's pain is his burden to share and every quiet thing he does — from cooking breakfast to upkeeping the master sword — is an act of service rooted in deep , abiding love. his joy lives in his partner's contentment , and he gives graciously , without ever keeping score. but there is a wildness to him too ( something ancient and primal ): the wolf that lives inside him isn’t just a transformation. it is now ( or maybe it had always been ): a part of who he is and it has taught him hunger — not reckless , but reverent. when desire rises , it does not come crashing like a wave. it builds like a raging storm at sea — slow , deep , and impossible to ignore. his dominance in love is calm and never cruel. a steady hand on his partner's lower back. a whispered you’re mine as his lips move along their spine. he reads his partner's body like scripture and touches them like he’s learning a prayer. he knows when to be gentle and when to let the wolf chase — in that balance , he makes his partner feel both desired and safe.

when the nights grow long or the moon pulls too hard at his bones , his passion sharpens. he chases with intent , he pins with purpose. he growls low in his partner's ear not to scare , but to remind them — he sees them. all of them : the softness and the fire ( in those moments , his love becomes something raw , something elemental ): he never takes without asking , never breaks without rebuilding. link listens , he checks in and he worships. every kiss is deliberate , every movement is a promise that his partner is not just wanted , but beloved , absolutely cherished. he fucks like he prays — slow at first , then desperate. as if the world might end again and he needs to make sure his partner knows they were always his favorite part of it. when it’s over — when the storm has passed and only breath remains between them — he doesn’t pull away. he stays. his arms wrapped tight , heartbeat steady. his partner is his tether to this world. the sole reason he chooses love over solitude. the reason the blue eyed beast in him finds rests. he is love — gentle , grounded , primal. ( a provider , a protector ): and a partner in every sense of the word. to be his is to never question one's worth , to never wonder where one stands. in his eyes , love is not just part of life — it is life and link will give it to his partner with a strength that shields and a softness that heals. he is not for the faint-hearted. but for those who can meet him in truth , who can stand still while being utterly seen , he is everything. below is just some preferences and desires of link he likes to enact inside the bedroom , ever so thankful his home is not inside the village of ordon.

— 𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗞𝗦 dominate daddy primal play praise kink ( giving ) anilingus ( giving ) bondage ( giving & receiving ) amaurophilia asphyxiation impact play ( giving ) breeding ( what's pulling out? ) pet play ( being called 'good boy' as a wolf DOES something to him ) trichophilia ( when his partner has super long hair )

— 𝗦𝗢𝗙𝗧 𝗟𝗜𝗠𝗜𝗧𝗦 anilingus ( receiving ) katoptronophilia ( interested for... reasons ) temperature play wax play

— 𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗗 𝗟𝗜𝗠𝗜𝗧𝗦 cuckolding cbt urophilia / watersports whips fisting ( he thinks it'll do more harm than good )

— 𝗕𝗘𝗗𝗥𝗢𝗢𝗠 𝗗𝗬𝗡𝗔𝗠𝗜𝗖𝗦 : overall link can be summed up as a pleasure dom type. his dominance is calm and grounding , a steady hand on the small of your back , a slow drawl at your ear. always watching your eyes , always checking in. but when the beast rises — during intimacy it manifests as a lustful hunger — his gentleness sharpens. following up on that viewpoint , primal play comes natural — chasing , pinning , growling low just so his partner will feel it in their stomach. but link will never take without worship ( lick it before you stick it , if you will ): to restate the above link will never break without rebuilding. always asks , always listens , always gives more than he takes and , again he fucks like he prays : slow at first , then desperate. he loves like the world might end — because , for him , once , it did.

#❝ △ ⋮ 𝗛𝗘𝗔𝗗𝗖𝗔𝗡𝗢𝗡 ✶ secrets steeped in the glowing embers of twilight.#sinday.#voicesunified #xnostos #( tags inu n troy for... wholesome reasons :3c )

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saveregblackordie0726 · 1 year ago

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Sombre et Pur'

Chapter 8

Sixth Year – 1976 – October

The encounter on the Astronomy Tower left me shaken to the core. Descending the spiral staircase, each step felt heavier than the last. The exhilaration from my Quidditch triumph, the joy of shared laughter with friends, seemed like distant memories, swallowed by the oppressive fear that now clung to me like a suffocating cloak.

The Hufflepuff common room, normally a haven of comforting chaos, offered no respite. Worried whispers about escalating attacks and missing students filled the air, a constant hum of unease that mirrored my own inner turmoil. Each forced smile, each attempt at lighthearted conversation, felt like a betrayal of the truth I now carried.

My sister was the first to notice, days later, her perceptive gaze settling on me with quiet concern. "Are you alright, Clem?" she asked gently, her hand reaching for mine across the battered table where we pored over Prefect duty schedules.

I forced a smile, a flimsy shield against the storm raging within me. "Of course," I lied, the words catching in my throat. "Just tired, Lily.”

Lily didn't look convinced, but she let it drop. The unspoken understanding between us, forged through years of shared laughter and whispered confidences, felt strained. There was a darkness growing within me, a secret I couldn't bring myself to voice, even to my dearest friend.

The shame burned deep. I had always prided myself on my bravery, my willingness to stand up for what was right. Yet, faced with Regulus's icy cruelty, I had faltered. Fear had knotted my tongue, twisting my defiance into a sickening sort of cowardice. The knowledge of my own weakness was a bitter pill to swallow. Worse yet was the sick curiosity that came along with it. I wanted to know his reasoning, the motive behind the actions. Was it plain cruelty r was there something more insidious behind it.

In the days that followed, I couldn't escape the feeling of his eyes upon me. During Potions, his gaze would linger on my hands as I struggled to brew a particularly noxious concoction, a silent mockery of my fumbling attempts. In the corridors, I'd catch him lurking in the shadows, his form disappearing as I turned, leaving only a chilling sense of being watched. It was as if he relished my discomfort, my fear becoming a twisted form of entertainment.

The world seemed to tilt further off its axis. My laughter became forced, my smiles strained. Sleep offered no escape, only nightmares filled with splintered broomsticks, forgotten victims, and the echo of Regulus's cruelly amused voice. The weight of my secret threatened to crush me.

Yet, the thought of confiding in anyone, even my closest allies, filled me with a sense of dread that rivaled my fear of Regulus himself to speak his name aloud, to confess the extent of his cruelty, would be to make it undeniably real. It would force my friends to see the darkness that festered within the Hogwarts walls, a darkness they desperately wanted to believe was confined to the world beyond the castle gates.

Worse still was the fear that they wouldn't understand. Would they dismiss my terror as unfounded, a product of my longstanding animosity towards Sirius's brother? Would they see my silence as complicity, my inaction as a betrayal of everything we stood for? The questions circled endlessly, fueling my shame and isolation.

During a particularly grueling Transfiguration lesson, a misplaced spell caused a stack of textbooks to transform into a flock of startled pigeons. The resulting chaos brought a fleeting smile to my face, a momentary respite from the relentless weight pressing down upon me.

But as the flapping subsided, a counter-spell cast as well as Professor McGonagall's sharp gaze sweeping across the room, meeting my own, disapproval written across it my smile faltered. Her hands were empty. Regulus, seated a few rows ahead, had been the one to cast the counter-spell, his effortless flick of the wand restoring order. His eyes met mine, a cold triumph shimmering within their depths. Then, a slow, deliberate smirk curved across his face. It wasn't the gloating expression of a schoolyard bully, but something far more sinister – a silent acknowledgement of the power he held, and the knowledge that I was trapped within his web.

In that moment, I knew. My silence wasn't a shield; it was a chain, binding me tighter to the darkness within him that I desperately wished to escape. The truth, as terrifying as it was, gnawed at me. Confrontation was inevitable, a battle I could no longer avoid. Yet, the path forward was shrouded in uncertainty. With whom could I share this burden? Would my friends even believe the depths of Regulus's transformation? And when the battle lines were drawn, where would my loyalties truly lie?

The answers remained elusive, swirling through my thoughts like the mist that clung to the Hogwarts grounds. One thing, however, became startlingly clear: I could no longer be a passive bystander.

The two weeks leading up to my first Quidditch match were a blur of escalating fear and frantic preparation. My days morphed into a grueling cycle of classes, grueling Quidditch practices, and restless nights plagued by nightmares.

Lessons transformed into agonizing trials of endurance. Equations blurred on the blackboard during Arithmancy, potion ingredients swirled in my cauldron with a mocking life of their own, and my attempts at transforming inanimate objects into animals in Transfiguration were met with more exasperated sighs from McGonagall than usual. Professors, their faces lined with a shared strain that mirrored the pervasive tension in the castle, seemed to pile on increasingly difficult assignments.

Sleep, when it did come, offered no respite. Dreams twisted into fragmented images of Bludgers whizzing towards my head, jeering crowds turning into faceless ghouls, and Regulus's mocking laughter echoing in vast, empty spaces. Even the comfort of my dormitory, the cheerful chatter of my dormmates, felt strained as unspoken anxieties hung in the air.

Yet, through the haze of exhaustion and fear, Quidditch practice became my salvation. The thrill of soaring through the crisp autumn air, the wind whipping past my face, offered a temporary escape from the oppressive weight of everything. The camaraderie of my teammates, Katie's unwavering belief in me, and the simple physical exertion helped to quiet, if not entirely banish, the storm swirling within me.

My nightly patrols with Regulus became an exercise in silent endurance. The fiery defiance that had flared up that night in the Astronomy Tower dimmed under the constant strain of his quiet menace. Our exchanges were limited to the bare necessities, our steps a grim echo in the torch-lit corridors. He no longer issued direct threats, but the possibility hung in the heavy silence between us, unspoken but ever-present.

The night before the match, even the comfort of the Hufflepuff common room felt suffocating. The cheerful chatter of my friends, the crackling warmth of the fire, grated against the nerves stretched taut within me. With mumbled excuses about needing additional studying, I slipped away to the solitude of the Owlery. The soft hooting of the owls and the faint scent of feathers were strangely soothing. Staring out at the starlit sky, the castle a hulking silhouette against the vibrant expanse, I let myself fully feel the weight of what was to come.

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Morning dawned clear and bright, a stark contrast to the turmoil brewing within me. My House was favored to win; our Chasers were renowned for their agility and pinpoint accuracy. The pressure was almost unbearable. My stomach churned in protest as I forced down a light breakfast, Lily's worried glances (from across the Gryffindor table) adding to the knot of anxiety twisting in my gut.

As we made our way to the pitch, I felt the usual rush of both excitement and dread. The roar of the crowd washed over us as we emerged from the passageway beneath the stands. The Quidditch pitch, usually a place of exhilaration, felt foreign and intimidating. The sheer number of eyes focused on our team was almost overwhelming.

The wooden structure of the stands creaked and groaned as spectators continued to pour in, their cheers and whispers a constant, buzzing hum. I tried to pick out friendly faces, searching for the familiar flash of Hufflepuff yellow amidst the sea of green and silver that dominated the Slytherin side.

Katie, ever the reassuring presence, slung an arm around my shoulder. "You'll do great, Evans," she said, confidence radiating from her. "You've got natural talent."

Katie had become a beacon of support during the past few weeks, our constant proximity due to practices, had turned into nights spent up late in the common room or sometimes sleepy mornings inside the seventh-year dormitory. She offered an undiluted view of the world that was refreshing as well as hard to come by in times like the present.

I managed a weak smile, grateful for the vote of confidence but unable to fully believe it. My gaze involuntarily drifted towards the Slytherin team gathered on the opposite side of the field. My heart skipped a beat as I spotted him, his black Quidditch robes making him even paler than usual, a sinister mirror image of my own uniform. He was already mounted on his broom, I could see it’s green twigged tail even from this distance, he was using a Sky Scythe. It made my own Ember Dash seem subsidiary in comparison.

Our eyes met across the expanse of the pitch, and a flicker of something cold and calculating passed through his gaze before he looked away with chilling indifference.

With a deep breath, I followed my teammates onto the pitch. The cool wind whipped at my face as we lifted into the air, the ground falling away beneath us. The crowd erupted in a cacophony of noise, a wave of sound that threatened to overwhelm me. My stomach lurched as I gripped my bat tightly, searching frantically for the first sign of movement.

The roar of the crowd, the thrill of the chase, and the searing pain each time my bat connected with a Bludger chased away the worst of my fears. For precious, fleeting moments, I was lost in the game, the fear and darkness receding to the edge of my awareness. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of yellow against the backdrop of green robes.

The Snitch!

Katie, our Seeker, was diving for it, but Mulciber, that hulking brute, was launching a Bludger directly at her. With a desperate surge of speed, I angled myself between the oncoming threat and Katie.

The impact sent a jolt of pain through my arm, but my aim was true. My Bludger collided squarely with Mulciber's, sending him careening off-course with a grunt. Katie swerved, narrowly avoiding a collision, her eyes widening with a mix of surprise and gratitude. I saw the golden flitting wings clasped in her hands. We had won.

I whooped with triumph, a rush of satisfaction coursing through me.

But the triumph faded fast. Mulciber, unable to correct his trajectory, had crashed into his teammate Urquhart and was tumbling from his broom. A gasp rippled through the crowd. Time seemed to slow as he plummeted towards the unforgiving ground.

The impact was sickening, followed by a scream that pierced the air. My stomach lurched, and I felt the bile rise in my throat. Hufflepuffs and Slytherins alike landed their brooms, a chaotic throng gathering around the crumpled form of Mulciber. Katie hovered awkwardly nearby; her face etched with panic. She wasted no time, applying pressure to staunch the blood seeping through his dark quidditch robes. All the while he hurled disgusting slurs in her direction.

“Filthy blood-traitor, get your fucking hands off me!” He threw her way, his voice trailing off into a pained groan, she paid him no mind as her wide hazel eyes desperately searched the growing crowd for signs of the medi-witch. I forced myself to follow, a wave of nausea washing over me. Mulciber lay in a twisted heap, his leg jutting out at an impossible angle, a glistening pool of blood rapidly seeping into his torn robes. Groans of pain escaped his lips, his face contorted in a mask of agony. The quidditch referee pushed her way through the crowd, her usual sternness replaced by a grim tightness around her mouth.

Amidst the chaos, my eyes were drawn upwards. Regulus Black was standing over his fallen teammate, arms crossed, his face impassive. Yet, when I caught his gaze, our eyes locking across the space between us, I swore I saw something flicker within their icy depths. It wasn't the anticipated anger or concern for a teammate's misfortune, nor the familiar cruelty. It was something far stranger, a chilling glint of… interest.

A shiver ran down my spine. For a heart-stopping moment, I felt like a creature pinned beneath a scientist's gaze – not an adversary to be defeated, but a specimen to be dissected. The sensation was as unsettling as it was unexpectedly thrilling, twisting the fear within me into something far less tangible.

The quijudge was kneeling beside Mulciber, her wand casting a diagnostic glow over his mangled leg. She barked orders, and within minutes, a stretcher materialized. Mulciber was carefully lifted onto it, his screams echoing across the suddenly silent pitch. As Madam Pomfrey bustled forward to usher him towards the castle, the crowd hesitantly began to disperse. The match, it seemed, was well and truly over.

The walk back to the Hufflepuff common room was subdued. My teammates spoke in muted tones, their jubilation over our victory overshadowed by the sudden, shocking turn of events. My own thoughts whirled in a panicked frenzy. Had I been reckless? If I hadn't interfered, Mulciber might have simply knocked Katie off-course. Now, he lay in the infirmary with a horrific injury.

Yet, a traitorous flicker of something like satisfaction refused to be entirely extinguished. He was a bully, known for his brutal tactics on the pitch. And I had defended my teammate… hadn't I? The lines between right and wrong, usually so clear within the comforting structure of Hufflepuff values, were now unsettlingly blurred.

Back in the common room, the usual post-match celebrations felt garish and inappropriate. Even Katie's cautious smile seemed to hold a note of apology. With a mumbled excuse, I retreated to my dormitory, the weight of guilt pressing down on me alongside the lingering disquiet from my encounter with Regulus.

The dorm was mercifully empty. Tossing my Quidditch gear into a corner, I collapsed onto my four-poster bed, the cheerful yellow curtains a stark contrast to the turmoil churning within me. I closed my eyes, willing away the unwanted images of Mulciber's anguished face and Regulus's unsettling gaze.

Time seemed to slither by, each tick of the enchanted clock in the corner a hammer blow against my frayed nerves. The ache in my arm, usually a badge of honor after a hard-fought match, now felt like a constant accusation. Just as sleep finally threatened to offer a reprieve, a soft knock on the wide oval doorway pulled me back into tense wakefulness.

"Want some company?"

Katie's voice was barely above a whisper, a hint of hesitation underlying her offer. I hesitated, the prospect of company both a balm and a potential source of further guilt. Shame mixed with longing won out in the end.

"Yeah," I managed to croak, my voice hoarse. I sat up, pushing the tangled sheets further down the bed.

Katie entered, closing the door softly behind her. She sat down on the edge of my bed, her usual bright energy muted by a shared unease.

"You okay, Evans?" she asked, a crease furrowing her brow.

I shrugged, unable to meet her eyes. "Not really," I admitted finally. "Mulciber... it's my fault. I shouldn't have..."

"Don't," Katie interrupted, her voice surprisingly firm. "You saved me from a Bludger aimed right at my head. If anything, he got what was coming."

The words, meant to be reassuring, only made my stomach clench further. "But... why'd he call you?..." I trailed off, unable to bring myself to repeat the ugly slur Mulciber had spat out as he fell.

Katie sighed, the sound heavy in the quiet room. "Blood traitor," she murmured, the words tinged with a bitterness I'd never heard from her. "Probably overheard someone saying it. Some of the Slytherins like to throw that word around..."

"But you're... I mean, I thought..." This was dangerous territory, prying into something I knew Katie rarely spoke of. We'd shared a dorm for almost six years, but there were lines, unspoken but understood. To my surprise, she didn't take offense. Instead, a flicker of vulnerability crossed her features before she carefully schooled them back into neutrality.

"Thought I was a half-blood?" she finished my question. "Most people do." She hesitated, then met my eyes with newfound resolve. "But no. My dad... he was a squib."

The revelation hit me like a physical blow. Squibs – witches and wizards born into magical families but without powers of their own – were a source of shame and secrecy in much of the wizarding world. I felt a surge of anger, not towards Katie, but at the prejudice that forced her to hide such a fundamental part of herself.

"That's why..." I began, a realization dawning on me. "The murders this summer... the Dale family... he was working for the Ministry, wasn't he? Trying to help squibs?"

Katie nodded, a single tear tracing a path down her cheek. "He was the point of contact for squibs who'd been attacked or threatened. He tried to keep track, investigate... bring it to the Ministry's attention. I guess... guess someone thought shutting him up would stop him."

A wave of nausea washed over me. I'd heard whispers about the McKinnon killings, of course, the way the whole family had been discovered in their home. But it had felt distant, a horrific headline in the Daily Prophet. Now, it was sitting across from me, embodied in the quiet grief of my best friend.

"I'm so sorry, Katie," I said, my voice thick. The words felt woefully inadequate, but they were all I had.

Silence fell between us, heavy and oppressive. We sat like that for a long while, the shared unspoken weight of fear and sadness a more tangible connection than cheers or laughter had ever been. Finally, Katie stood, wiping at her eyes with a determined gesture.

"Well," she said, attempting a weak imitation of her usual cheerfulness, "moping around won't fix Mulciber's leg, or bring my dad back."

I watched her for a moment, a surge of protective anger mingling with the helplessness I felt. It wasn't just Mulciber and the Quidditch pitch anymore; Katie was fighting battles far greater than I'd ever understood.

"Can I stay here?"

The question pulled me from my thoughts, I looked up at her, their face was a mask of uncertainty and vulnerability.

The question hung in the air, a plea for a safe haven amidst the storm. Her usual sunny demeanor was replaced by an uncertainty that tugged at my heartstrings.

"Of course," I blurted out, the words carrying a warmth that surprised even me. Katie stared at me, a flicker of surprise crossing her features before a genuine smile blossomed on her face. It was the first genuine smile I'd seen all day. "Thanks," she said softly, her voice choked with a mix of relief and gratitude. We settled into my bed, the crisp sheets feeling oddly comforting against my skin. Yet, even in this new space, sleep refused to come easily. Katie and I lay side by side, staring at the enchanted ceiling, its twinkling stars a poor imitation of the vast night sky beyond the castle walls.

"My dad, he’s from the Gaunt family," Katie said suddenly, shattering the fragile silence. Her voice was barely a whisper in the darkness.

"The Gaunts?" I echoed, the name stirring a sense of unease. I knew the name, of course. One of the oldest pureblood families, rumored to be riddled with dark magic and questionable practices.

"Yeah," Katie continued, her voice tinged with a strange mix of pride and bitterness. "Turns out, old Salazar Slytherin himself is, like, my great-great-great-something grandfather." A pause. "No wonder Mulciber and his lot hate me."

In the dim light, I could see the faint outline of her wry smile. Despite the heaviness that hung around her, a flicker of defiance sparked in her eyes. Even when faced with the worst kinds of prejudice, the cruelty that lies at the heart of pure blood mania.

Katie was determined to own her heritage, twist it into something that fueled her rather than breaking her.

"Makes you a Slytherin princess," I joked, trying to inject some lightness back into the moment. But the words rang hollow, a stark reminder of Regulus, his icy gaze, and the darkness that seemed to pool around him like a shadow. I pushed the image away, focusing instead on the girl beside me, my friend who faced unimaginable loss and vile prejudice with both quiet sorrow and unyielding strength.

"More like a Slytherin problem," Katie retorted, matching my attempt at humor. "And Slytherin problems," she added after a beat, "seem to be spilling into the Hufflepuff common room these days."

Her knowing gaze swept across my face. She was too intuitive, she caught on to things too quickly. I turned my face from her then with a soft smile, I couldn’t let her see too far in.

We fell silent again, but this time the silence felt different. It was a testament to our friendship, a bridge built over years of shared laughter and whispered secrets. Now it carried the weight of unspoken questions and the creeping sense that the battles we'd face extended far beyond the Quidditch pitch.

The week following the Quidditch match stretched before me like a desolate wasteland. The usual rhythm of classes, homework, and whispered conversations with my friends felt hollow, a flimsy facade masking the turmoil churning within me. I forced myself to focus, to maintain the illusion of normalcy for their sake. But beneath the surface, a darkness festered, fueled by the image of Mulciber's broken leg and Regulus Black's unsettling gaze.

Professor Flitwick's Charms lesson blurred into a haze of wand movements and muttered incantations. My concentration, usually razor-sharp, wavered. The Levitation Charm, once a source of effortless control, felt clumsy in my grasp. A quill stubbornly refused to levitate, dipping instead towards the inkwell with a splattering plop. Professor Flitwick's usual chirp of encouragement held a hint of concern as he righted the errant quill with a flick of his wand.

Peter, sensing my unease, lingered after dinner that night. We retreated to the familiar shores of the Black Lake, the crisp autumn air attempting to bite away at the unease clinging to me like a shroud.

"You alright, Kit?" Peter's voice was gentle, his brown eyes filled with a concern that mirrored my own turmoil.

"Yeah," I mumbled, forcing a smile. We settled under the shade of a willow tree, unpacking our Charms textbooks. As we practiced the Switching Spell, my movements felt jerky and uncoordinated. Peter, bless his patient heart, offered no criticism, but his silence spoke volumes.

Similar scenes played out throughout the week. Remus, ever the perceptive one, gravitated towards me in the library. We hunched over our Herbology texts, a strained silence punctuated only by the scratching of quills. He tried to engage in conversation, asking about upcoming Quidditch practice (which I'd blatantly lied about attending) and the latest gossip from Hufflepuff common room. But my responses were short, clipped, and devoid of my usual enthusiasm.

Lily, ever the optimist, saw a solution in a new hairstyle. "Come on, Clem," she chirped, dragging me towards the prefect's bathroom one afternoon. "We found a new spell that creates the most amazing waves! You have to try it."

For an hour, at least, the worries about broken bones and simmering darkness faded as we experimented with the new charm. Lily's normally fiery red hair shimmered with sleek, bouncy waves, while mine cascaded down my shoulders in a cool, bronze cascade. We giggled and gasped at the transformation, the sound a balm to the tension coiled within me. But even as I admired my reflection, a shadow lurked at the edges of my smile, a reminder of the darkness I couldn't seem to escape. Even Sirius, with his usual boisterous energy, seemed to sense my struggle. He ambushed me one morning, his usual mischievous glint replaced by a furrowed brow.

"C'mon, Kit," he barked, dragging me outside. Marlene and James materialized at his side, their faces etched with a concern that made me want to melt into the cobblestones.

"We're going flying," Sirius declared, shoving a broom into my hand. "Fresh air does wonders for a troubled mind."

The wind whipped through my hair as we soared above the castle grounds, the familiar thrill of flight momentarily pushing the darkness to the back of my mind. We chased each other through the clouds, performing daring dives and playful swoops. Laughter bubbled up from my chest, a genuine sound that surprised even me.

But even laughter has its limits. As the sun began its descent, casting long shadows across the grounds, the darkness crept back in. The image of Mulciber, his face contorted in pain, flashed before my eyes, shattering the fragile illusion of carefree joy.

Landing clumsily back on the Quidditch pitch, I felt a wave of exhaustion wash over me. My friends exchanged worried glances, but before they could voice their concerns, the dismissal bell tolled, sending us all scattering towards our respective common rooms.

The forced merriment of the week culminated in the dread that settled in my stomach as Tuesday approached. Patrols with Regulus Black were a constant, an unwelcome punctuation mark in the week's schedule. Yet, for the first time since our initial encounter, I found myself drawn to that dark inevitability. A twisted part of me craved the confrontation, the unsettling electricity that crackled whenever we were in the same space.

I arrived at the designated classroom right on time, the setting sun casting the room in a dusky orange glow. Regulus was already there, a flicker of surprise crossing his features before his face settled back into its usual mask of cool indifference. He didn't comment on my punctuality, merely raised an eyebrow and gestured towards the door.

We began our patrol in silence. The familiar corridors felt foreign, as if the Hogwarts I knew – the castle of childhood comforts and camaraderie – was a fading memory being replaced by something darker, more sinister. The flickering torchlight played unsettling tricks on the shadows, stretching them into grotesque shapes that seemed to echo the monsters lurking within me.

My thoughts stubbornly drifted back to Mulciber, his cries echoing in the empty corridors. Guilt, a cold and unwelcome companion, settled on my shoulders, mingling with a disturbing flicker of something that felt like triumph. I desperately tried to stifle these conflicting emotions, to focus on the rhythm of our steps, the scuffed stone floor. But the darkness had taken root, and it refused to be ignored.

By the time we reached the twisting staircase leading to the Astronomy Tower, the words tumbled out of me, breaking the oppressive silence.

"How's Mulciber faring?" My voice sounded small, uncertain.

I braced myself for a sneer, a callous reply laced with cruelty. Instead, Regulus let out a surprised laugh, the sound echoing harshly off the stone walls.

"Come off it, Evans," he said, shaking his head. His hand tousled his dark curls, a gesture that seemed at odds with the mocking tone of his voice.

We had reached the tower entrance now. He pushed open the heavy door and gestured for me to precede him. The familiar space, usually a refuge, felt cold and desolate. He leaned against the iron railing overlooking the darkened courtyard, his pale face bathed in the dim moonlight. There was a chill in the air, carrying the scent of damp earth and a hint of brewing storm.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, confusion warring with a spark of anger. Where did he get off questioning my sincerity? Mulciber was a bully, a brute, but the image of his mangled leg brought with it a wave of sickening guilt I couldn't fully suppress.

Regulus laughed again, the sound devoid of any genuine mirth. His sharp gaze pierced through me, pinning me to the spot.

"You can drop the act, Evans. It's only us here." His voice held a strange mix of accusation and amusement, as if he were taunting me with a forbidden truth I didn't want to acknowledge.

"What act?" I retorted; my voice laced with defiance. But even as the words left my lips, a tremor of uncertainty ran through me. He angled closer, his movements predatory, closing the distance between us until my back was pressed against the cold iron railing. A flicker of something I couldn't name flickered in his eyes. Was it triumph?

"The whole defender-of-the-helpless thing," he continued, his voice low and insistent. "It's tedious."

"You're barmy, Black." I tried to retort, forcing a shaky laugh, but my voice betrayed the unease swirling within me. He was too close, too observant. It felt like standing at the edge of a precipice, the tantalizing thrill of the unknown mixed with a sickening dread of falling.

"I just want you to admit it," he pressed, tilting his head as if studying me. There was an odd intensity burning in his gaze, an unsettling mix of calculation and something else, something hot and hungry that made me shiver in the cool night air.

"Admit what?" I demanded, my voice rising. "What the hell are you talking about?"

His smile was cruel, a sharp twist of his lips. He leaned closer still, so close that I could feel his breath, a faint whisper against my cheek. The scent of old parchment and something darker, something that reminded me of forbidden corridors and shadowed corners clung to him.

"Admit that you liked it," he murmured, his voice a near-whisper now. "That you don't give a damn about how Mulciber is faring."

My eyes widened, and a wave of shock washed over me, followed quickly by a surge of outrage. Yet, a traitorous part of me shivered involuntarily, a flicker of something almost like recognition twisting deep within my gut. He was right. At least, he was partially right. The image of Mulciber falling, the satisfaction of having protected my teammate, had become entangled with something far more dangerous. A thrill of power, a flicker of darkness that both terrified and, shamefully, intrigued me.

And Regulus saw it. He saw through my pretenses, my attempts to maintain the image of the ever-loyal, righteous Hufflepuff. With chilling clarity, he saw the shadows that had begun to creep around the edges of my soul, and instead of recoiling, he leaned in closer. The silence that settled between us wasn't the comfortable quietude of friendship, but a charged space crackling with unspoken possibilities.

I hated him in that moment. Hated him for his perceptiveness, for peeling back the carefully constructed layers I'd built around myself. Hated him for exposing the darkness that lurked within, a darkness that mirrored and amplified his own. Yet, I also hated myself – for the traitorous fluttering in my chest, for the way his darkness echoed some hidden, twisted part of my own.

The battle between the person I thought I was and the person I was afraid I might become raged within me. For a moment, I couldn't breathe, couldn't speak. All I could do was stare into those cold, grey eyes, seeing my own secrets reflected back at me in their icy depths.

The air crackled with a tension so thick it felt like I could choke on it. My mind buzzed with a maelstrom of conflicting emotions – disgust, anger, a flicker of something shameful I couldn't decipher. Regulus's words hung in the air, an accusation that resonated in the hollowness blooming in my chest.

My voice, when it finally came, emerged as a shaky whisper, barely audible even in the quiet night. "I..." The word trailed off, lost in the vast ocean of confusion churning within me.

He remained motionless, that chilling smirk still playing on his lips. Each breath tasted like dust, each heartbeat a frantic drum against my ribs. The darkness that had been a vague, unsettling presence now felt suffocating, wrapping itself around me like a shroud.

The silence stretched, broken only by the distant hooting of an owl. I couldn't stay here any longer, not with him, not with the truth he'd ripped bare. Slowly, ever so slowly, I began to back away, my eyes locked on his face. The amusement in his gaze had morphed into something more – a challenge, a dare. It sent a tremor through me, a spark of something defiant flickering to life amongst the ashes of my shattered illusions.

I reached the doorway, the heavy oak frame offering a barrier not just to the outside world but also to the unsettling intimacy of the tower. One last look back confirmed his smirk remained firmly in place, a silent mockery of my disarray.

Turning on my heel, I didn't dare look back. My retreat became a hurried walk, then a full-fledged sprint, as I flooded out of the tower and into the cool night air. The wind whipped at my hair, a welcome reprieve from the stifling atmosphere I'd just escaped.

But the feeling of escape was an illusion. The darkness Regulus had exposed clung to me, a persistent shadow that refused to dissipate. His words echoed in my mind, a venomous snake biting at the edges of my sanity.

#regulus black #regulus deserved better #sirius and regulus #regulus being a little shit #regulus black x oc #regulus x oc #regulus x hufflepuff reader #regulus x you #regulus x reader #the marauders era #original character

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aparticularbandit · 1 year ago

Text

Instigation: Chapter Three

Summary: Steve sends Wanda to seek out an old witch he once knew, and eventually, Wanda brings said old witch back to meet her family.

Wanda Maximoff/Agatha Harkness

Chapter Rating: T. Fic Rating: T.

AO3

previous chapter / next chapter

December 31, 2015.

Five months go by in the blink of an eye.

Wanda’s magic lessons persist, as they must, as she learns greater control, but now, instead of flinching with desire whenever Agnes touches her, she leans into it. Agnes brushes hands along her arms, her hands, her waist to correct her form, and Wanda turns in her grasp to kiss her, just so she can see the smug purr of a smirk twisted along Agnes’s face. Every session ends with something sweeter than tea and honey, something Wanda hadn’t known to search for.

For once, Wanda feels good. Like she’s found somewhere she belongs.

But in those same five months, Wanda’s experiences with the Avengers vary. Steve catches her after her magic lessons, as though he’s afraid of what might be happening there. Sometimes, Wanda still sees Natasha outside Agnes’s apartment complex, and she thinks it would be easier to just invite her inside. Then one of the others would know Agnes, too; then one of them would be on her side. As it is, Steve comes across as an overbearing mother hen more often than not (it’s his earnestness, really, but the longer it goes on, the more suppressing it feels); Rhodey nags in a way that should remind her of Pietro, if it didn’t hurt so much (sometimes, she thinks he doesn’t know the difference between a joke and a jab; sometimes, she thinks he doesn’t realize they’re on the same side); Sam soothes things over with Rhodey and tends to take him to one side to try and correct some of his behavior (which half of the time leaves Rhodey feeling more resentful than helpful); and Vision….

Wanda doesn’t even know where to begin with Vision. He’s a child stuck in an adult’s body, full of the wonder and joy and excitement that she lost the day her parents died, discovering so many new things – sometimes discovering everything all at once – and analyzing and questioning and learning. In another life, she might be attracted to that, to seeing the world through his eyes, to being reminded that it can be good after spending so long in a life where it was bad. Sometimes, she’s grateful she has Agnes; she’s certain that if anything happened with Vision, she would end up sucking the life out of him.

And every single one of them voices their opinion on Wanda’s visits with Agnes, on the ambiguous nature of it, even though those opinions aren’t always voiced to her. Wanda keeps the specifics to herself as much as possible; she doesn’t want their budding relationship to be another point of contention, something else for them to examine or analyze. They already analyze the possible teacher-student relationship of two witches; they already dissect what they might possibly be doing from the very little Wanda has said (and the great amount they can guess she hasn’t said). Something tells her it would be much, much worse if she even so much as implied there was more to their relationship than that.

But fall comes, and with it, colder air, the first sprinklings of snowflakes, and warm puffs of breath that can transfigure a normal everyday activity, a habit without thinking, into creating clouds. Holidays rest around the darkest day of the year to add some joviality to an otherwise depressing time. Tony decides to throw a Christmas party, which Wanda sees as a public relations stunt and refuses to go, choosing to while away the time with Agnes instead.

Then Steve decides to throw a New Years Eve party, just for the Avengers, and asks if Wanda will invite Agnes. She’s your friend, he says, and if she can make it, we would love for her to join us. He means it as gently as possible, but it feels a bit like being asked to bring her girlfriend home to meet her parents, complete with the Please tell her not to bring any fireworks.

(Wanda and Agnes haven’t actually started using the term girlfriend yet. They haven’t had that discussion. Right now, Wanda is fine not knowing what they are, secure in simply knowing that they are. Anything more concrete feels like asking for trouble. So does inviting Agnes over for their party.)

Still, Wanda brings it up with Agnes in a roundabout way – Agnes can always tell when she’s preoccupied with something or other (in party because it comes through in her magic), and when she’s concerned, as she becomes then, she sits her down on the couch with a cup of chamomile tea (not peppermint, because it makes Wanda’s lips tingle in a not so pleasant way) to talk about it. She’s not shocked when Wanda brings it up, only surprised it took them so long to ask, and she accepts the invitation immediately with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

Which is how Wanda finds herself standing alone on the first floor of the Avengers Complex, waiting for Agnes to arrive.

Of course, standing is a bit of a misdirect. While she is most definitely standing, it is much more accurate to say that she is pacing, walking back and forth from one end of the entryway to the other, wringing her hands together and pretending that there aren’t minute scarlet sparks flicking from them every now and again like a static shock. She’s not sure what makes her more nervous – the idea of everyone meeting Agnes or the idea of Agnes meeting them.

For all that maybe she shouldn’t have said anything at all, Wanda’s been much more open with Agnes than she has with the other Avengers; Agnes is aware, to some degree, of her friction with Rhodey, her frustrations with Steve and Natasha. Even if it’s only in small part, she knows about it in a way that Wanda hasn’t been open with them about her feelings for Agnes.

And she hasn’t…she hasn’t had the heart to tell Agnes about that lack of honesty. It would only make it sound as though she doesn’t care about her, and that’s – that’s not true. It’s just complicated.

Agnes would understand that, right?

(Wanda wouldn’t, if Agnes were the one saying it to her.)

So Wanda stands and Wanda paces and Wanda fiddles with her hands and scarlet sparks fly about them because her magic is linked to her emotions and while this is absolutely not the most nervous she has ever been in her life, it may be the most nervous she has been since she’s gotten her powers.

With, of course, the exception of joining the Avengers in the first place, just before Vision awoke for the first time.

Wanda only stills when the door opens with a rushing whoosh. Even then, she’s not completely still; she still twists the rings about her fingers, starting with the thickest ring on the smallest finger and then moving along them. She tugs her lower lip between her teeth until she sees Agnes, and even then, though she tries to relax, part of her remains tense – a part that grows even tenser when the first thing Agnes does on seeing her is throw her arms around her and kiss her.

She hates that she tenses. She hates that she tenses.

Agnes leans back, looks up, and searches her eyes. “Wanda, hon,” she murmurs, “is something wrong?”

It’s only then that Wanda notices how Agnes shivers against her, despite the heavy violet peacoat keeping her warm; it’s only then that Wanda notices the snowflakes scattered about Agnes’s shoulders, melted into the waves of her dark hair such that they seem to sparkle; it’s only then that she really relaxes, enough to kiss Agnes a little more properly. “I’m afraid,” she confesses, gaze dropping. “I shouldn’t…. That’s not your fault.”

“Well, that makes two of us, hon.” Agnes brushes her nose against Wanda’s and then kisses its very tip, smiling fondly when Wanda wrinkles her nose, when she scowls. “I think, as long as we stick together, we should be just fine.” She brushes a hand through Wanda’s hair. “How does that sound, my little Wendybird?”

Wanda offers her the gentlest of smiles, and even though the nervousness creeps up her spine again, she forces it back down. “You know what, Nessie?” she asks, leaning into Agnes’s touch. “I think that sounds very good.”

The living room upstairs should be something to write home about, but it isn’t. For sure, there is a very Stark quality to the whole place, but that’s not a comforting sort of thing. It makes the complex cold and uncertain, all sharp angles and large windows and bright metal, as though they’ve been transported into some sort of futuristic landscape.

Wanda might have lived here for nearly a year at this point, but she still can’t call it home. There’s no warmth here, even in the bedroom she’s tried to decorate more to her liking, and without warmth, it can’t truly be a home. It’s much too sterile for that. (She knows full well this is an additional appeal to Agnes’s apartment. For all that she might find stains here and there, for all that it might not be tidy and Agnes might leave clothes piled up and overflowing her hamper, for all that sometimes she opens the fridge and something’s been left in there for three weeks too long (and she doesn’t understand how this can be possible when she’s there nearly every day, but there’s magic in that, too) – for all that, Agnes’s apartment feels lived in, feels warm, feels like home. Stark’s Avengers Complex just feels like a cleaner more military version of where Wanda’s been contained for the past several years. (She’s never told them that. She will never tell them that.))

Sam lays sprawled out on one of the couches as they make their way upstairs, half hanging on it and half hanging off of it, one arm curled around its back as though that’s the one thing still holding him in place. He glances up as they approach and smiles, although he doesn’t relax. “Is this Agnes?” he asks, loping himself into a much better and more normal sitting position, leaving room on either side of him for them to sit before scooting over to one corner. “Wanda’s Agnes?”

“Yes,” Agnes purrs as she removes her peacoat, and she settles on one the couch opposite him, placing her coat on its arm. “And I take it you’re....” Her brow furrows as though she’s considering, and she taps her chin twice. “You’re Steve, right?”

That draws a chuckle from Sam, and he instantly relaxes much more fully. “Don’t watch much tv, do you?”

Agnes shrugs. She leans back and crosses one leg over the other – her little black skirt pushes a little higher up her thigh, and Wanda pretends to not pay attention – and then answers, “I don’t have a tv, my dear man. Rots the brain and all that.”

Sam’s brows shoot up, and he gives Wanda a look.

“Where is Steve?” Wanda asks, ignoring him. She crosses her arms and glances around. When she’d gone downstairs, Steve was here, sitting in one of the chairs; Vision decided to cook something, and Natasha thought it best that someone keep an eye on him, but Steve…Steve had been here. (Rhodey was off somewhere with Tony, who had chosen not to show up. Probably something about a New Year’s Eve party he was throwing. Or one he needed to attend. Good publicity. The Avengers don’t need someone dedicated to PR when they have Tony, apparently.)

“Sam!” Agnes says with a snap and a bright grin. “You must be Sam.”

“Something about an emergency in the city.” Sam meets Wanda’s eyes. “Not big enough to need all of us, but something one of us should take care of. He’ll be back in a bit.” Then he turns back to Agnes. “Now tell me how this not having a tv thing works out.”

Wanda can’t help it – something in her stomach twinges at Steve’s absence. She glances out the large wall of windows into the darkness on the other side, not focusing on the forest nearby or the stars in the sky, just. thinking. Agnes, she reaches out gently into the other witch’s mind, that wasn’t you, was it? Like with the storm?

Of course not, hon, Agnes responds while easily carrying on her conversation with Sam. Why would I cause a commotion in the city? I want to be here with you. Mentally, she chuckles, which sounds weird given that her expression does not change at all. Or I want you to be here with me.

Wanda nods to herself, but something in her doesn’t settle, and it doesn’t settle for a long time.

Natasha eventually leaves the kitchen with a groan, gently massaging her forehead, which indicates that Vision’s attempts to cook are not going well. She catches Wanda’s eyes before glancing over to Agnes with a gentle smile that, like Sam’s, doesn’t feel real at first. It’s the same sort of fake smile that Wanda herself would like wear if she were meeting any of their partners, if they had partners – the same one she would wear if she were ever to meet Steve’s Peggy – although, technically speaking, none of them know that she and Agnes are involved.

On second thought, Wanda thinks it’s quite likely that Natasha knows. She might not have said anything, and she might be trying her best to be subtle, but Natasha is an international spy. Even without trying, Natasha could probably have picked up that Wanda liked Agnes, and now, being in the room with them, she’ll very easily pick it up, if she hasn’t already.

By this time, Sam’s already relaxed in Agnes’s presence. He may have thought the whole television thing was weird, but then Agnes got into the technicalities of using the threads of magic to read what’s been going on in the world so much clearer than reading a newspaper, and his eyes glazed over. It was easier once Wanda changed the conversation to sit-coms; then Agnes got to talk about The Munsters, her personal favorite, and Sam brought up M*A*S*H, which sure, was an old show, but his family had so many of them saved, and Agnes knew the show – had actually seen it, unlike Wanda, who only knew of it. They may not be talking like old friends, but they’re certainly talking with a familiarity that Wanda still doesn’t have with Sam.

Natasha sits next to Wanda, as though feeling the subtle tones of jealousy that Wanda wouldn’t have even acknowledged she had, and squeezes her shoulder gently. “Your girl?” she asks, leaning in and speaking so soft that the others can’t hear her.

“Yeah.” Wanda blushes the slightest bit. “That obvious?”

“Nah.” Natasha shrugs one shoulder and then settles into the conversation. It takes her a while longer to relax in Agnes’s presence, but she does. Eventually. At least as much as Wanda has ever seen Natasha relax in a group setting. Sometimes, she’s not sure she’s ever really seen Natasha relax; sometimes, she thinks even that is feigned.

For her benefit, of course. Not because Nat is trying to lie to her. But because sometimes, when you’re worried about something, you don’t want that worry to spread. Sometimes, you want to keep your suspicions to yourself. Sometimes, you don’t even know how to relax anymore.

Vision comes in later, with an apron tied about his waist and apologies strung from his lips as though they’ve been sewn there. It’s then that Agnes’s eyes truly light up, and she volunteers to join him, to show him not how to correct any mistakes he’s made, but how to take what he has and make the most of it. Something about waste not, want not but in a much more creative manner. Wanda reaches her hand out as they leave to stop her, but Natasha makes her pause. “Don’t worry,” she says with a gentle nod. “He’s not going to do anything, and if she can get him to listen, then it’ll be a small miracle.”

“Maybe I want a miracle,” Wanda murmurs, unable to look up. She does so only briefly, staring after Agnes as she walks away, mouth suddenly growing dry.

It’s uncomfortable, letting Agnes walk off with Vision with no way of knowing what they’re talking about, no way of being there to diffuse any potentially bad conversations. No, not uncomfortable. Terrifying. But she won’t…she won’t hover around Agnes the way she instinctively wants. She won’t. That’s not a way to let her new family – if they can be called that – get to know the woman she maybe loves.

(Love feels like a leap. They’ve only known each other a few months. But she certainly absolutely likes her a lot. And she wants all of them to like her, too.)

And – for the most part – it seems as though things will go that way. Sam seems to get along with Agnes. Natasha seems to have relaxed around her as much as she can. And Wanda doesn’t hear any unhappy screaming from the kitchen – which is more an indicator that Agnes is getting along with Vision than it is the other way around.

That’s…that’s good.

Then Steve shows up, and everything goes a little sour.

It’s closer to midnight than not when Steve shows up, golden hair covered in snowflakes that refuse to melt at first, that still maintain their integral structure long enough for Wanda to almost make out patterns in them – not because she’s standing that close to Steve, because she’s not and doesn’t want to be, but because she’s searching him, looking for something, trying to figure out what sort of mood he might be in.

In some ways, Steve is the most terrifying of all the Avengers because Wanda has never seen him truly mad. Not even small mad over stupid stuff, like when a can opener won’t open the can (probably because he can tear the top of the can off with his bare hands) or when the television gets all staticky and loses the signal (probably because their television never loses its signal and even when it gets close, Vision shows up and fixes it before anything gets too problematic) or when he tries to hammer something into the wall and slips and hits his finger instead (mostly because the complex is full of Stark technology that doesn’t require hammer and nails and Tony would probably get very mad if they tried to hammer a nail into the wall). He isn’t always happy; more often than not, he’s pensive, and when he talks about it, it’s about the past – a past she doesn’t know, none of them know, not really.

It reminds her of Pietro, of how she feels about him.

Steve’s not mad or happy or pensive when he returns from whatever he was doing in the city, but when he sees Wanda, his eyes light up. “Was she able to—?”

“Nessie’s in the kitchen with Vision. Trying to rein him in.” Wanda can’t help it; her lips curve up when she mentions Agnes, and she starts to fiddle with her rings again. “I’m sure that’s…that’s going well.”

Natasha reaches over and pats her leg. “They’re fine. We’d know if they weren’t.”

“Nessie?” Sam echoes, brows shooting up again. “She’s Nessie now?”

Wanda opens her mouth to say something, then shuts it again, brushing her fingers through her hair. “She’s…I mean…we spend a lot of time together, so Nessie’s just—”

“Did someone say my name?”

Agnes strides into the room arm in arm with Vision, the brightest of grins on her face. She nudges him with her hip when they stop. “This hunk of metal and I—”

“Oh, I wouldn’t call myself a hunk of metal,” Vision says, and if it were possible, Wanda would say he was blushing. His gaze drops, and he runs his hand over his head the way someone else might push their hand through their hair.

“You’re certainly a hunk, hon. All of you in here such beautiful people,” Agnes starts to say, letting her gaze sweep the room, letting it land on Wanda as her grin softens, letting it move on to Steve, where it seems to freeze. “You must be—” Her head tilts, and her expression softens. “Hello, Steve.” Even her voice seems to change, darker and huskier and deeper. It’s odd.

No.

It’s wrong.

Wanda’s gaze moves from Agnes to Steve, who stands there with his jaw working. She doesn’t understand what’s wrong. “Steve—”

“Agatha.” Steve stares directly at Agnes, his eyes darker than Wanda has ever seen them.

That’s the wrong name.

Wanda glances over to Agnes, brow furrowing. “Nessie—”

“It’s good to see you again, Steve.” Agnes’s expression contorts, twists, almost. “It’s been such a long time.”

It’s only then that Wanda realizes that no one else is moving. She stands and looks around – it’s not that they aren’t moving, it’s that they’re frozen. “Nessie, what did you do?”

Agnes turns to her then, finally, and her expression softens. “Conversation for us old folks, love,” she murmurs. Then she reaches over and presses a finger just in the center of Wanda’s forehead. “I’m sorry, dear, but Steve and I need a few moments to catch up.”

“What do you—”

Sudden sleepiness overtakes Wanda. She stumbles, and just like that first time in Agnes’s kitchen, Agnes catches her. It’s less comforting this time. She looks up at Agnes, brow furrowing. “Why...?”

But that’s all she can get out before she can’t keep her eyes open any longer.

#bandit fic #december banditnanza 2023 fic #instigation with wanda and co #mcu #wanda maximoff #scarlet witch #agatha harkness #steve rogers #natasha romanov #sam wilson #vision mcu #mcu vision #harximoff #wandagatha #wagatha #agatha harkness x wanda maximoff #wanda maximoff x agatha harkness

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lpopjr777 · 8 months ago

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IMPACT A LIFE: GOOD MORNING

You are still alive because the Lord’s faithful love never ends. From morning to evening He shows it to you in new ways! Lord, you are so very true and loyal! I say to myself, The Lord is my God and I put all my trust in Him.

“We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.”

2 Corinthians 3:17b-18

Yes, you heard it right, there is no longer anything standing between you and God. That’s why God wants you to become more and more like Him because when you do, nothing in this world will matter more to you than Him. And what a joy it will be for you when you find that you can lose everything and all you have left is God and He’s everything you needed the whole time.

#inspiration #motivation

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adelemadouce · 9 months ago

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Magic of the Opéra

I felt like a hot cat. I was a hot cat! Restless, nervous, agitated to the utmost, I ran from room to room, from window to window, waiting longingly for the moment that late afternoon when I was finally able to leave with Camille for the Tuileries Palace. There, we ladies-in-waiting wanted to make ourselves beautiful for the evening and set off to the opera together with Stéphanie de Beauharnais. Mon Dieu...I was so excited! Not because of my service as Nini's chaperone, or because of an evening at the Opéra...that was nothing unusual. But what made my blood run hot through my veins was the thought of what would follow this evening at the Opéra...being alone with my Emperor! Undisturbed! For days and nights! Just him and me! A sea of kisses, of tenderness, of endless erotic temptations and grandiose climaxes awaited me! I was in a frenzy of anticipated pleasure, floating on a wave of sensual joy, flew with open wings on a cloud of sugary lust in the heaven of love. I was completely....completely beside myself!

I couldn't say for sure, but I suspected that the Emperor was looking forward to our plaisir d'amour, perhaps not as much as I did, but still very much so. As I said, during our last tête-à-tête he seemed like a honeymooner to me! He had spent the previous night with the Empress. Not only out of marital duty, but also to give her a sense of security. He still loved her, he did not want to see her suffer. As long as the divorce matter was not yet real, he did not want to worry Joséphine. She was his wonderful Empress, he could not imagine a better companion in this position! Even now that she was looking after the Pope's well-being, he was infinitely grateful to her. So it was only right that he continued to make her feel like his indispensable wife. But all of that had nothing to do with his longings, his dreams, his wishes... I was responsible for that. Not Joséphine! It was my business to make him happy. My business. And only mine!

It wasn't just physical. Of course, two lovers can't keep their hands off each other, but when this love is secret, then longing and dreaming play a big role. We couldn't hug as often as we wanted, so we had to rely on our imagination to provide the fulfillment we longed for. This brought me into a state of transfigured ecstasy and let me thought about him constantly, simply all the time! I wanted...I had to get to the bottom of the secret that surrounded him! Was love essential to him, or was it just a dream? Napoléon once said: "Love is a foolish thing that two people do to each other!" I found it hard to believe that he really meant that. He wrote me love letters saying: "...I'm burning with desire, Adèle!" and in bed, in my arms, during the height of ecstasy, I had heard him cry: "...I love you so much,...I'm dying!" So what did he feel for me? Was it really love, the feeling he actually detested, or was it just the physical attraction between the two of us, the magnetic fluid that we could not escape. That we did not want to escape! I thought of Duroc's words: "Never ask the Emperor questions!" Would I ever know what kind of feelings he had for me? And if I didn't find out...why not just enjoy what he gave me? I was experiencing the happiest time of my life, so why should I question it? "Trust him," I reassured myself. "...he is the master of your heart and your feelings. He knows that you love him...he won't hurt you! Trust him!"

When it was finally time to leave for the Tuileries, I quickly hugged my children to my heart. Tanguy kissed me and I promised him I would bring him a gift from the Emperor. He nodded beamingly and I stroked his blond curls. The Emperor always asked me about my two boys and I told him everything that interested him about my children. I often felt sad when I thought that they could have been his sons.

But now on this evening, it was anything but sad. We were six young ladies, dressed in satin coats, with tiaras in our hair and long white gloves, who boarded Princess Louis' heated equipage. With the Imperial coat of arms on the carriage door, we drove to the Opéra de Paris. Stéphanie was accompanied by her friends Nelly de Bourjolly and Anett de Mackau. Three daisies! I sat opposite them, next to Églée and in the corner, Émilie. As soon as we sat in the equipage, Églée reached under her seat and pulled open a drawer with a cord. From it she took out a bottle of champaigne! "I knew my Hortense was thinking of us," she said, smiling at the bottle. A small note dangled from a thread. Églée read aloud: "Messieurs...I wish you a pleasant evening!" As the cork popped, the horses pulled on and you could hear the cheerful sound of their hooves on the pavement of the Place de la Concorde. We all took a big sip and giggled. I felt liberated and happy just because I knew I was about to see him. I remembered at that moment that I was exactly the same age as the young girls when I first felt this longing for him. How many years already...

I looked out of the window; it had started to rain. Dozens of carriages and fiacres were rushing over the wet pavement, there was a traffic jam on the Boulevard des Capucines, I saw umbrellas on the trottoir with legs moving under them. A couple were clinging tightly to each other, and at the corner of the rue Napoléon they were both jumping over a large puddle together. It wasn't until we got to the Boulevard des Italiens that we made rapid progress again and shortly afterwards we reached the Opéra. A warm glow of light fell from a wide-open portal through the high columned façade of the Opéra house onto the steps. Cuirassiers lined the stairway, a red linen carpet led up the middle of the steps into the music temple. Torches burned on the balustrade and, despite the rain, numerous Parisians had gathered to admire the sparkling toilets of the court ladies. We were greeted by liveried lackeys who led us into the Opéra under large umbrellas. In the high entrance hall, the guests were received by a huge marble statue, a muse in antique style. Above it shone a gigantic chandelier, and a little further on, directly behind the muse, one could see through wide-open double doors into the parquet of the Opéra hall. Above the heads of the audience I saw the high stage curtain made of dark green velvet, embroidered with a large golden N with a laurel wreath. The imperial family's loges were on the same floor as the Emperor's. A wide marble staircase led up to them, and here too cuirassiers stood guard with drawn swords. It was pleasantly warm in the corridors, and you could hear whispering and the tuning of musical instruments from the Opéra hall. The carpets smelled a bit musty from the rain that had been brought in. But we were happy, a little tipsy from the champaigne and the girls were still giggling behind their white gloves. In the antechamber, which was opened by a loge attendant, we took off our satin coats, adjusted our tiaras and finally, armed with fans and opera glasses, entered the loge of Princess Louis. If the couple had appeared, we would have had to wait for their royalties in the antechamber. But as neither Louis nor Hortense were present, we were allowed to enter the loge immediately. There was no one there yet, the Prince and Princess' armchairs were right by the parapet. We sat on the chairs behind them. Stéphanie sat to my left, Églée directly in my shadow. When we young ladies entered the loge, the whole of Paris was looking up at us. I knew that Duchâtel was somewhere in the parquet, but I didn't try to find him. The Emperor wasn't there yet. He usually came when the performance had already started.

I opened my large fan and looked over the parapet. The Opéra hall looked like a magnificent cave; the festive light from the large chandeliers barely reached the numerous loges. In the dark grottos, the ladies diamonds and the officers' medals glittered like swarms of shooting stars. Fans fluttered like butterflies, there was whispering and quiet laughter. A sweet-smelling warmth rose from the parquet floor, the most precious Parisian perfumes mingled in an invisible mist.

There was an opera by Spontini, but I didn't know which one. Églée was not eager to know either; she threw the small program booklet on the floor without paying any attention to it. "There'll be more champaigne during the break," she said. And turning to Stéphanie: "Then some of the young officers will definitely introduce themselves to you. Handsome adjutants. Then you can choose your groom tonight...isn't that exciting?" The girls giggled. Then Stéphanie looked at me. "...but we're just adolescent...the officers won't come because of us young girls, we don't have enough boobs, but pimples on our chins, the cavaliers don't like that! They'll come because of Adèle, and they'll court her. She's the most beautiful tonight!" Stéphanie had a soft spot for me, it was very sweet of her to say that. "I'm sure the young men will be happy to pay their respects to you girls too," I said quickly. "...I'm married and only your chaperone!" But I had already noticed that numerous opera glasses were looking into our loge. Among them were undoubtedly some of my admirers. I was glad when all the chandeliers were raised, it got darker and the stage curtain opened. When the music started I leaned back and looked longingly at the imperial loge, which was still empty.

A while later I was torn from my dreams. The orchestra began playing the "Chant du départ" in the middle of the overture, and we all stood up because the Emperor appeared. He entered his loge with the Grand Marshal and two aides. He was wearing his dark green uniform, gloves, decorative sword, and his hat under his arm. He handed Duroc the famous bicorne hat, sat down in his gilded armchair and had a program given to him. The overture continued and we sat down on our chairs again. I watched him for a while over my fan; he sat relaxed in his imperial armchair, legs crossed, looking at the stage as his favorite singer, Monsieur Garat, began to sing a blaring aria. My heart was pounding. I watched other ladies looking into the imperial loge through their opera glasses. Was their hearts pounding too? I tried to concentrate on the opera, but I couldn't. When I looked over again, Napoléon was looking straight into our loge. He saw me. I quickly raised my fan to my nose and looked back at the stage. I almost felt like he had caught me!

After what felt like an eternity, I noticed a slight disturbance, something was happening, and when I turned to Églée, I saw the Emperor enter our loge. The balcony was too small to honour him with a court curtsy, but Églée and I immediately stood up and curtsied while standing. The other ladies had not yet noticed the Emperor in the semi-darkness and the din of the music. Napoléon sneaked past Églée and me, he did not look at me, but leaned over Stéphanie's shoulder from behind. The girl suppressed a small scream, but clapped her hands enthusiastically. Her friends' faces also beamed at the Emperor. Églée and I sat down again. The Emperor stood to the left of my chair. Very close to me. And what happened next, I would never have dared to dream - while he was talking to Stéphanie, asking her about her impressions and whether she liked the singing and the music, while he chatted with her as if at afternoon tea, I suddenly felt his right hand on my neck. He began to stroke me! His gloved hand wrapped tightly around my neck and stroked me with tender force. I raised the fan to my nose again so that no one in the other loges could see what he was doing. I lowered my gaze, enjoying his caressing fingers on my neck and almost moaned with pleasure. Cunning with desire, I let my left arm fall, right next to his leg. I then raised my hand slightly, pushed it to the inside of his thigh and began to caress him there in turn. My arm was hidden by the tail of his uniform, no one could see. Only... Églée, who was sitting behind me. Ahhh, that was so good...

The Emperor laughed with Stéphanie, he liked the girl very much. In fact, he had a great weakness for child-women, which is why he was so crazy about me! And in front of the whole of Paris the Emperor now let his favorite child-woman stroke his thigh. It was crazy. And it was heavenly! After a while he took his hand from my neck, turned around and walked past us again. He asked us to remain seated and said to Églée with a smile: "You love the opera too, don't you, Madame Ney! It's really amazing...in a good opera you get to see things you never expect!" I quickly raised my fan to hide my smile. Églée was quite disarmed. "Indeed, Sire...indeed!" she said meekly.

#fanfiction #adèleduchâtel #napoleonicromance

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burlveneer-music · 2 years ago

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Borja Flames - Nuevo Medievo

He has three brains, a thousand lives, past or parallel, and his name is Borja Flames. Spanish, Parisian, Burgundian, cosmonaut, we don’t know anymore. His head is that of a pope, a king, a lion, a faun or a melancholic centaur. He is well dressed, with pot holes and beard : Merovingian. We knew him in June and Jim of which he was the southern face (the northern hemisphere being Marion Cousin), a duo recently transfigured under the name of Catalina Matorral, real electronic pastoral. We saw him reshuffle his cards for the first time in 2016 with Nacer Blanco, the first album under his name, whose tipsy clocks, totems like the Tower of Pisa and bony madrigals evoked Moondog, Robert Wyatt and the Postman Cheval, one inside the other, helter-skelter. After which Rojo Vivo (2018) a blend of pale house and tenebrous preachings made us fear and pleasure and dance. Nuevo Medievo which appears today (Les disques du Festival Permanent / Murailles Music) is even more beautiful, more striking. From the very beginning, sung on tiptoe, the silvery voice with robotic effects on a synthetic bedside rug spiked with cymbals makes us feel bareheaded in a vast cabinet of stars, we are captivated. There are laser beams, oracle lyrics with vocoder. Paul Loiseau, the Morse drummer, makes the kitchen set sound like an orchestra of stoned calculators, then Borja Flames accelerates the record’s pulse with the diction of a fed-up TV news anchor before a jungle background until Marion Cousin and Rachel Langlais make everything capsize, she of saturnian vocalization, she of a strangely regulated synth. Then on, the hits fall here, there, everywhere, real ones, a shower of asteroids. Negro Negro is suave, mysterious, moving, as surprising as a kiss we no longer expect. We would gladly listen to her only but then comes Magnetismo making us giddy with joy. Then Marioneta, dry and airy as a Sign O’The Times period Prince, which one could dance to endlessly, even alone, head tucked under arm. Nuevo Medievo moves this way throughout, stiff and groovy, cerebral but exploding with dreamy tumors. Powerfully entertaining, filled with odd rhythms, computer choirs, keyboards that slide and are slippery. Nuevo Medievo is a bit reminiscent of the synth-wave scene and 80s Iberian post-punk. It also evokes lo-fi versions of Franco Battiato‘s panoramic SF hits from the album No Time No Space (far away worlds, sound research, fat refrains), Arthur Russel disco, or even Porque te vas, yes yes, Sade, Motown B-sides played at the IRCAM one evening of blunt slackness, Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrel in a full-on slow dance under the anachronistic neon lights of a chicha bar or Blade Runner rushes with the Miami Vice original soundtrack. If Nuevo Medievo, like all of music loving cannibal Borja Flames’ records, summons a certain number of other artists, it does so to organize unexpected meetings between them, and to dissect each one in a scientific, erotic, amorous and gastronomic impulse before freeing himself from them and drawing in all the diagonals of authentically unheard features. Throw him a party. Txt : Sing Sing Translation : Cathérine Hershey Music & Lyrics by Borja Flames. Produced and arranged by Borja Flames with the collaboration of Marion Cousin, Paul Loiseau and Rachel Langlais. Recorded in Lucy-sur-Cure, Cinq-Mars La Pile and Saint-Aubin du Cormier. Mix by Manuel Duval at Grange Cavale. Mastering by Harris Newman at Grey Market. Personnel : Rachel Langlais (synths, vocals), Marion Cousin (synths, vocals, percussions), Paul Loiseau (percussions, vocals, synths), Borja Flames (vocals, guitar, synths, percussions, programming, samples).

#Borja Flames #paris #electronic #france #2022

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drawlfoy · 4 years ago

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detention, retention, and draco malfoy being a little shit

masterlist request guidelines

pairing: draco x reader

request: no not really

summary: golden trio friend y/n y/l/n tries to extract information out of draco malfoy after being placed in detention together.

warnings: swearing, panic attack kinda stuff, just the dark war things that would come w having the task that draco does

a/n: ayo so i started this as a fic i was originally planning on writing in a week. i discontinued it bc i didn’t think anyone was that interested, but i’ve written for it on and off. it’s about 16k words right now standing, but i’m reposting this as a 2 part series. here are the first ~12k words....enjoy :) IMPORTANT: if you’re like “hey i started reading this in october why tf are you reposting the first two parts” just keep reading ok lmao i promise there’s more there’s about through part 6 in here hehe. i just wanted new readers to be able to pick up on it without being turned off by the fact that it was part 3. this will b e 2 parts and at least 20k words

word count: 11.6k

taglist: @gruffle1 @missmultifandommess @cleopatera @hahaboop @accio-rogers @geeksareunique @eltanin-malfoy @war-sword @cams-lynn @itsivyberry @ayo-cowbelly @nerd-domland @yesnerdsblog @shizarianathania @evanstanfanatic @strawberriesonsummer @hariosborn @night-ving @straightzoinked @imintoodeeptostop @naiomimoonshard @jejegu @ophelia-enthusiast @alwaysbeanunknownfan @nearly-memories @litty-dumb @callieclearwater @malfoy-wife15 @charlenasaxen @belladaises @fiantomartell

happy reading y’all

For legal purposes, the york pudding she lobbed at Pansy Parkinson’s head on Monday evening was simply meant to be a joke. She didn’t know that her aim was bad enough that it was going to get in Snape’s hair instead--honestly, it wasn’t even supposed to get past the Ravenclaw table, much less veer to the left to make a beeline for the professors--but no matter how much she tried to explain this to McGonagall, her sentence remained the same: detention every Friday. For two months.

Her life was ending for sure.

“I honestly don’t know what you were expecting,” Hermione told her as she gently wiped off the nib of her quill later that night in the common room. “Even if you had hit your mark, that’s still technically assault.”

“Did you even hear what she said to me? She told me that I looked like the type of kid that bit people in primary school,” complained Y/N. “I didn’t even think she knew what primary school was!”

Hermione snorted. “How long ago?”

“Two days. I’ve been waiting until there was something throwable on the dinner table.”

“How very analytic of you.”

“I’m going to hit you.”

“And you wonder why you’ve got detention.” Hermione tsk-ed at her, her face stone serious but her tone light hearted. “Maybe take this as an opportunity to, I don’t know, do your homework for once? So you won’t have to have a breakdown over the next Potion’s essay and beg me to write it for you?”

“I’m going to go to sleep and think terribly mean thoughts about you.”

“Have fun.”

Detention.

Something that Y/N wasn’t completely unfamiliar with--she’d done her time organizing Snape’s cabinets, just like every other Gryffindor--but it was different when it came to McGonagall. An impressive old lady, she thought that McGonagall saw something in her. She was always the first to chuckle at Y/N’s jokes and hesitated to reprimand her stupid behavior. And she never gave Y/N detention.

Until now, she supposed. 6th year was changing a lot of things--even their Potions professor--so McGonagall turning a new stone shouldn’t have been anything shocking.

At least, not as shocking as the first thing Y/N saw as she walked into her house head’s office.

“Malfoy?” she spat.

The platinum blonde didn’t even bother to look up from his desk.

“Miss Y/L/N,” Professor McGonagall chided. “I think we would all prefer if you restrained yourself from getting into any more physical altercations with Slytherins.”

She huffed, plopping down in the chair furthest away from that foul git and reaching for her satchel.

“I’ll be back in two hours,” said the elderly professor. “If I hear anything, and I mean anything, other than the sound of studying, consider your sentence doubled.”

With a swish of her robes, McGonagall was gone, leaving her with Malfoy.

“So what’d you do to get in here, huh? Did the administration finally get a hold of that video of you licking Voldemort’s toes?”

“What the fuck does that mean?!” he snapped, whipping around to glare at her.

“‘s just a joke,” said Y/N. “Like--how everyone says your family houses him and everything--but whatever. I can tell it’s a sore spot.”

His gaze, never withering in intensity, remained trained on her face. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Apparently so. What’re you here for?”

He exhaled sharply. “If I tell you, will you shut up and let me think?”

“No promises, but maybe.”

“Late work. I forgot to turn in the Transfiguration exam last week.”

She made a tutting sound as she lazily shuffled through the crumpled parchment in her satchel. “I expected more from you. Aren’t you gonna ask me how I wound up here?”

“No. I am going to ask you to stop talking now, though.”

“That’s terribly unfortunate,” Hermione said over breakfast the next morning. Ron and Harry were nervously chit chatting at the other side of the table over the Saturday Quidditch game against Hufflepuff--supposedly it was supposed to be quite a high stakes match. Not like Y/N cared much, though.

“Yeah! And the worst part was that he won’t even tease anymore. Like, he just sits there all broody and woe is me. We’re all witnessing our nation’s descent into war--he’s not special!”

“Who are you talking about?” asked Harry.

“Oh, just Malfoy,” said Y/N. “We have detention together with McGonagall. He’s such a nasty little greaseball, don’t you think? I mean, look at him right now, glowering over his cereal.”

“Wait! That’s it!”

“What’s it, Harry?” Hermione asked.

“It’s genius, really,” he said. “Y/N has to spend time with him alone every week, and we know that something is up with him. Malfoy is absolutely a Death Eater and has connections to You-Know-Who, but I just need to find a way to prove it.”

“I vaguely forecast where this is going, and I hate it already.”

“Listen, Y/N. It’s not for that long, and it’s for the health of the wizarding world. If you just get to know him--”

“Ick!”

“If you just get to know him, maybe get him to trust you and find out his secrets...we’d finally have enough to turn him in and throw him out of Hogwarts for good.”

“Is that really necessary, Harry?” Ginny butted in from her seat further down next to Dean. “Malfoy’s probably just exhausted like the rest of you. 6th year is difficult, and we have no solid evidence that he’s a Death Eater. I’m sure being stuck in a room with him for 2 hours is hard enough without pretending to be nice to him.”

“But what if Harry’s right?” said Y/N. “What if he is actually a Death Eater? What if he’s an active danger to the student body?”

“Exactly!” The joy written across Harry’s face at the prospect of someone else finally agreeing was infectious. “So will you?”

“Er…” She dragged her spoon across the top layer of her porridge. “In theory, sure. In actuality, I’m not sure how I could do it. Malfoy doesn’t want anything to do with me, either.”

“Love potion?” offered Ron.

“I don’t care how much of a prat he is, I’m not roofying him.”

“I rarely agree with you, Y/N, but I think you’re right. If you want to do this, you need to get him to trust you for real.”

“Your back-handed compliment skills never disappoint, Hermione. Do you think you could help me out with a plan?”

A slow smile spread across the girl’s face as she nodded. “That’s my strong suit.”

The plan they laid out over the remainder of the day was ambitious but at least do-able. Each week was split into different subtasks, the end goal being a somewhat tentative friendship between the two.

“If you can flirt with him and get him to have a crush on you without scaring him off, you’d be in the best possible position,” Hermione told her as they walked back from the Quidditch pitch among the screaming Gryffindor fans. They’d won--yet again. “Obviously I don’t foresee that being likely, but if you pull it off somehow he’d probably be willing to tell you anything. The fact that you’re a pureblood is going to carry you through this whole ordeal. He’ll at least be accepting of your existence in the wizarding community.”

The bitter edge in Hermione’s tone made Y/N’s blood boil. There was no reason for Malfoy to be as prejudiced as he was--he’d spent his adolescence in Hermione’s academic dust. She was obviously smarter than him.

“You got it, ‘Mione,” she said. Her voice barely carried over the cheers of her peers as they ascended the steps to the common room. “We’ll take this little ferret down. I can’t wait.”

“Don’t get too cocky, now.”

The Gryffindor after-party was crazy...per usual. The charmed self-filling goblets, the blasted playlist of Wizpop pumping through the air, and the buzzing energy of the room was giving Y/N a giant headache. She stood with Hermione and Harry by the edge of the crowd, watching Ron get hoisted up on the shoulders of the chasers.

“No wonder the Slytherins think we’re Neanderthals,” Y/N mused. For once, Hermione didn’t respond. “Hermione? Is everything okay?”

The second she turned away to look at her best friend, gasps and whistles filled the room. She whipped back just in time to see Lavender Brown, a sweet but slightly ditzy girl in their year, pull away from a kiss with Ron.

“Oh shi--Hermione!”

Harry and Y/N shared a glance before darting after the witch--who had impressively already made it to the door.

“Hermione, wait!” Y/N called as they jogged after her, throwing open the common room entrance and finding her sat by the tapestry on the other side of the hall, knees to her chest.

“‘Mione, what’s wrong?” asked Harry.

“Don’t be daft, Harry,�� said Y/N. “You saw exactly what the rest of us did.”

“I don’t understa--”

“Harry.” Her voice was taut. “I know you’re just trying to help, but I think that it might be best if you let us be. Go back and enjoy the party.”

He gave her a tight, grateful smile before darting back through the door. Y/N wasted no more time in walking over to Hermione and throwing her arms around her shoulders.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, hugging her tight. Hermione made no move to detach them, so she continued. “Ron is an idiot. You deserve so much better--your first kiss was Viktor fucking Krum, after all. You’re hot stuff and this place is just unfortunately running dry of men who are impressive enough for you. Once you’re out of here and working in the Ministry, you’re gonna have the time of your life with men actually in your league.”

Hermione managed a sniffly laugh as she wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “It’s just so fucking embarrassing, you know. Like, I have a crush on him because I think he understands me and I smelled him in my Amortentia and I thought he’d like me back, but…” She hiccuped. “Then he goes off and kisses Lavender Brown, of all people. There’s nothing particularly wrong with her or anything, but she’s so different...I’m so bookish, and she’s so girly and everything I’m not…”

Y/N took the opportunity to tuck a lock of Hermione’s hair behind her ear as she listened.

“And it can’t help but make me think--was I ever anything to him but a friend? If the girl he ends up choosing is the opposite of me?”

“Girly, don’t think like that,” murmured Y/N. “He’s a teenage boy. They don’t think of love the way that we do--to them it’s a game of availability, not of choice. At least for Ronald. You intimidate him, and by extension, you’re not available.”

“That shouldn’t matter!”

“You’re right. It shouldn’t.” Y/N drew a long breath. “So you should find someone who always has you as their first choice--someone who isn’t intimidated by your intellect. They’re out there. I promise.”

Hermione managed a shaky smile. “Thanks, Y/N. I mean it. Do you mind if I have some alone time? I don’t think I’m ready to go back to the party but I just want some quiet.”

“Of course. Let me know if you need me,” she said, brushing herself off and making to walk down the hall.

“You’re not going back to the party?”

“Nah. It hurts my head and I want fresh air. If I’m not back here in a half hour, assume that I’ve been kidnapped.”

With that, she started her walk. She wasn’t planning on going on a long stroll--there was a small balcony that she often went to when she needed to clear her head. It was beautiful, especially on a snowy night like this.

But the walk was creepy.

There was only one way in and out--a narrow, damp hallway that had absolutely no light fixtures. If Y/N really wanted to, she could cast a quick lumos, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to see what lived on the walls. The stairs were steep, too, but she managed to bound up all 40 of them in record time.

“Who’s there?”

The sudden voice ripped a scream out of Y/N’s throat as she reached the top, catching a glimpse of the shadowy figure at the edge of the balcony that spoke. She clasped her hand over her mouth and she crept forward to the opening, getting a better look at the person that was in her secret spot.

The clouds shifted in the sky to allow more moonlight to cast a soft glow on Malfoy’s face, hardened with irritation.

“Malfoy?” Y/N asked, rather dumbly.

“What stellar observational skills,” he drawled.

She felt her cheeks grow hot. “What are you doing here? This is part of the Gryffindor tower. Shouldn’t you be...I don’t know...playing hide and seek with the sewer rats in the dungeons?”

“Very funny.” His flat tone exposed the fact that he did not, in fact, find it very funny. “There’s no rule barring me from coming up here.”

“But why? This is my spot!”

“Because I wanted to get out. Now, I was here first, so unless you want your detention extended, I suggest you leave.”

Y/N bit the fiery comebacks on the tip of her tongue as the memories of her plan with Hermione began floating back to her.

Week 1 -- Hold one neutral, civil conversation with Malfoy.

“I’ll be quiet. You won’t even know I’m here,” Y/N decided upon. leaning up against the balcony. The rogue snowflakes that made it past the overhanging roof melted on her cheeks.

“That isn’t a suggestion,” said Malfoy. “I’m demanding you leave.”

“Beautiful night, isn’t it?” Y/N asked, pointedly ignoring his words. “I’ve always loved the snow. It’s so quiet.”

“And it would be even quieter if you left.”

“Aren’t you the conversationalist?” said Y/N.

“If you don’t leave, I will hex you,” Malfoy told her through gritted teeth.

“I just love how the moonlight reflects off of the snow,” continued Y/N. “It’s so...pure.”

“Please leave.”

On her walk back down the dank stairwell, she allowed herself a little smile.

Task 1? Technically done.

The first week went largely as planned. Malfoy was cold and certainly suspicious of her, but he wasn’t completely venomous when Y/N asked where he got his quill from in Potions. It was silver, charmed to shimmer with flecks of forest green. He told her Barnaby’s in France, and that was that. She walked away from his table with all of her limbs attached. Perhaps that was all the progress she was going to make in the next few weeks, but the task at hand certainly made the prospect of her lost Friday afternoons more bearable.

Harry was going completely batty, rambling on about how Malfoy was behind the mysterious cursed objects that had been floating about the castle without explanation.

“And why would Malfoy bring cursed objects to Hogwarts if he has aspirations other than being expelled?” Hermione would ask over their books.

“You don’t understand, Hermione! You girls need to be careful walking around at night--especially you, Y/N. I don’t want you going missing after detention because of that slimeball.”

Y/N always gave him a laugh, berating him for his slight misogynistic commentary and turning back to whatever her task was, but the truth was that she was worried for him. The mental weight of the impending war and the fact that he couldn’t do anything about it was certainly getting too difficult for him to bear. It was heartbreaking to see the vivacious boy she’d grown up with crumble under the responsibilities of something he should never have to worry about in the first place.

Friday came much sooner than expected, and Y/N reluctantly left her friends in the common room to trek to McGonagall’s office. The walk was frigid and the wind bit at her cheeks as she rounded the last outdoor hall.

Why was this castle so dark?

A thump behind her made her jump, and Harry’s words came floating back to her.

Remember all those cursed objects? What if there’s someone just...stalking the school grounds, waiting for someone like me to snatch?

She shivered, throwing herself at the office door and slamming it behind her.

“Miss Y/L/N,” Professor McGonagall greeted, her eyebrows raised in amusement. “Something giving you trouble?”

“No, Professor,” she answered, setting her bag down on the desk next to Malfoy. He sent her a curious look as well. “It’s just cold outside.”

She chuckled. “I need to go speak to Headmaster Dumbledore. I expect that, upon my return, you both are in one piece and alive.”

“I’m not sure if I’m the one who needs to be given that speech,” said Y/N, bored and testing the waters.

“She’s right, Professor,” added Malfoy. “There’s no projectiles here.”

McGonagall exhaled a long, shaky breath before brushing herself off. “Please. Behave yourselves.”

“You got it, boss,” she said as she watched her Professor walk out the door. “So, Malfoy. How was your week?”

“I don’t know what you’re up to, but I’d way prefer if you didn’t speak to me,” he said, refusing to make eye contact.

“I’m not up to anything! We’re in detention together and, I dunno, since I see you sometimes at balls, I thought it’d be nice to be on good terms.”

“Good terms?” He scoffed. “You’re a Gryffindor. I’d rather you be a bloody Hufflepuff.”

“How about neutral terms?”

Even though he wasn’t looking at her, she could catch a glimpse of him rolling his eyes. “If neutral terms mean you being quiet, then, yes. Please.”

“I’ll be plenty quiet. After I hear about your opinion on what happened in Potions today with Brown and Weasley. When Snape yelled at them for holding hands.”

He let out a sharp sigh. “Believe it or not, I actually have better things to do than keep up with whatever stuff your house does.”

“But…?” Y/N pressed. She may not’ve spent her time at Hogwarts as Malfoy’s best friend, but she had grown up with the boy, and she could tell when he was holding back.

He stared blankly at her.

“Come on. I’m literally the only person in my house who’ll openly admit that they’re disgusted by that dynamic. I’m begging you.”

She wasn’t sure if she was imagining it, but she thought she saw a flicker of amusement dance across his face for a moment. “Your house sounds more like a cult than a student group.”

“Oh, says the one from Slytherin,” said Y/N.

“We only act like that because our families are close. What’s your excuse? Hormones and Quidditch culture?”

“Touché.” As much as she wanted to fight back, she bit her tongue. Whatever she was doing was making progress, and quicker progress than she was expecting. Her next task was to make him laugh, and she was emboldened by the fact that she could potentially be able to kill two birds with one stone.

They sat in silence for a little bit, but this time, it was a comfortable silence. Malfoy wasn’t staring at the clock on the wall or rolling his eyes at her every move, so she had time to plot.

On one hand, she could make a fool of herself--drop her inkwell, say something stupid in class, fall down the stairs--but she had a sneaking suspicion that her sorry attempts at slapstick humor wouldn’t land well with Draco anymore. He’d become so serious lately, so solemn. This was the most light hearted she’d seen him, even compared with how he acted with the rest of his Slytherin lackeys.

On the other, she could try to sell out her friends. She could confide in him how “big” Hermione’s teeth were (they weren’t even big) or tell him that Ron smelled of eggs (true, but that was a low blow). Something told her that this would be much more successful, but she wasn’t willing to turn to that so quickly--she was already a week ahead as it was.

“What is it?”

Malfoy’s bored drawl cut through her flurried thoughts. Her cheeks turned pink as she blinked, noticing that she’d been staring at him for far too long. “Nothing. Sorry. I just spaced out.”

“Sure,” he mumbled, giving her another suspicious look before turning back to his work. “Can you maybe space out somewhere other than my face?”

“Where’s your vanity, Malfoy?” she pressed as she leaned back in her chair, hair swinging over the back.

“Shut up,” he snapped. She could tell that whatever connection they’d had in the fleeting moments beforehand was being burnt by the second, but her embarrassment and pride drove her forward.

“Merlin, what’s got you so wound up?” she prompted, noting how deliciously unraveled he looked at this. “Where’s my cool, collected Slytherin?”

He slammed hands on his desk at this, whipping around to glare at her. “What’s your angle, Y/L/N?”

“What?”

“Why are you bothering me?”

“Because I want to.” She beamed.

Malfoy ran his fingers through his hair, mussing up the usual neat manner in which it normally laid on his head. “Compelling. What do you want from me?”

“What do I want…?” She tilted her head at him, narrowing her eyes. “What?”

“You never talk to me,” he explained. “Obviously, I prefer it like that. I can’t help but wonder why suddenly you want to be making small talk. So, what is it you want from me?”

“Malfoy,” she said. “I think you’re a spoiled prick who thinks far too highly of himself and drives me insane. But I also think that you’re funnier than what my friends give you credit for. Granted, you’ve always been annoying, but I don’t want anything from you. I just want to, I dunno, make these next few months less insufferable.” Somehow the lie slipped through her teeth easier than any of her previous bluffs.

He frowned, his mouth opening once before firmly screwing shut into a scowl. “Oh.”

“No offense, Malfoy, but what else can you offer me other than your dazzling personality?” she teased. “You know my family. I don’t need to blackmail you to pay for jewelry I’ve had my eye on or anything.”

He scoffed. “As if I’d say yes.”

“Exactly my point. It’d be fucking weird. Merlin, I’m not trying to butter you up to buy out Borgin & Burkes for me. Do I give off gold-digger vibes? Is that what this is about?”

“Fucking hell.” Malfoy turned to her in disbelief. “Do you ever shut up?”

“Answer my question. Or better yet, pull out your wallet. Wait, did I say that out loud?” She mimed surprise and covered her mouth. “Oh no! What will my mother say now that I’ve squandered my last chance of hitching you? There’s no way I can go home for Christmas break now.”

He rolled his eyes so hard she found herself worried for a moment that they were going to just permanently get stuck in the back of his head. “Hate to break it to you, but you didn’t really have a shot to begin with.”

Ouch.

She huffed and dramatically flopped over the back of her chair, hoping he couldn’t see that she’d flinched. “So you don’t think I’m pretty??”

“Y/L/N,” he snapped, his voice a low warning. “Can I please just work? What is with you today?”

Y/N sent him a sour look before giving her Charms work another look. Malfoy was awfully quiet, and when she snuck any glances at him later on, he was angled to face away from her.

Why did she feel like such shit all of a sudden? She cataloged the past events, trying to pinpoint the exact moment that her stomach dropped. It all made sense when the words “You didn’t really have a shot to begin with” echoed around her head once again. She’d failed Harry. She’d failed Hermione. There was no way that she was going to be able to get him to reveal his secrets now--it’s not like he was confiding in even his closest friends as Harry made apparent when he explained how vague his statements were to his fellow Slytherins on the train. Her only chance would’ve been to somehow get him to fall for her, and that wasn’t going...great. And it had been a pipedream to begin with.

When McGonagall swished back into the classroom to dismiss them, Y/N shot out of there without even looking at Malfoy again. It felt like something was lodged in her throat and she was not going to cry in front of him. No, no. She had to make it to Hermione to tell her what was going on.

“Y/L/N?”

Malfoy’s voice made her pause in her flee as she nearly rounded the corner in front of her, but she refused to look back. It was far enough away that it was possible she didn’t hear him.

“Wait!”

She was up the stairs and speed walking as fast as her legs could carry her to the Gryffindor tower before he even saw which way she went.

“I don’t think you understand,” Y/N wailed by the fire as Hermione rubbed her shoulders and Harry sat awkwardly perched on the couch. “I can’t do this. The only way this was going to work was if he had a crush on me, and I don’t think he ever will. I fucked it up! The one time you guys need me, I fuck it up! I let you down!”

Hermione’s left hand stopped its rubbing to rest firmly on her shoulder. “Please don’t be upset. You didn’t let us down. Plus, you’re only, what...two weeks in? You don’t need him to like you to make it work. Just getting him to trust you will be enough, and you’re good at that.”

“I don’t think so,” continued Y/N. “Harry said that he wasn’t even that open on the train when he overheard him talking to all of his friends. And those are purebloods that he likes! That he’s trusted and known for years and years! I’m a friend of you guys, and he knows it. I think he’d figure it out quick.”

“We should take every chance we can get,” said Harry from his spot a few feet away, his eyes lazy and unfocused on the fire crackling in front of them. “You won’t let us down if you can’t get anything, Y/N, you know that! But if you got anything from him, it’d be incredible. It’s a win-win. I don’t understand why you’re so upset.”

“I’m not upset,” she said, her tone becoming defensive. “I just...don’t want to mess this up. I know how much it’d mean if I succeeded.”

“So just try!” Hermione said. “There’s nothing wrong with it. I’m sorry he was kind of mean to you today, but I don’t think that should bother you too much. He should be more afraid of what you’d say if you didn’t care about being a good person.”

“Fucking right on there,” she said, wiping away the frustrated tears. “If I was honest with him, he’d leave crying. He should be grateful that I’m taking this bet so I actually have to be nice to him.”

“That’s the spirit.” Harry leaned over to smack her back like he did his Quidditch teammates after a winning match.

After they’d parted their ways with Harry, Hermione and Y/N made their way slowly up the stairwell to the girls’ dorms.

“Y/N?” Hermione asked, breaking the silence.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think, er…” She paused. “Do you think you were really upset about failing us today? Or was it something else?”

“What do you mean?” Y/N furrowed her eyebrows. “I don’t see what else it would be.”

“I’m sorry,” responded the bright witch. “Forget I ever asked. It was a stupid thing to wonder about.”

“Weirdo,” she teased as she waved her a goodnight and made her way to her dorm.

The next morning, Y/N busied herself with revising her Charms essay over her breakfast--a cup of tea and a half-buttered piece of toast--while Hermione leaned over her shoulder, nodding or grimacing at the corrections she made.

“Did you work during detention? Like, at all?”

“‘Mione,” moaned Y/N. “It’s too early for this. I don’t want a lecture. I just couldn’t focus.”

Her warm brown eyes narrowed as they bore into Y/N’s face. “Why were you distracted?”

“Oh, I, uh…” She stumbled over her words as Hermione drew closer. “Merlin, Hermione. I told you last night. I just felt like I was letting you all down.”

“Mhm,” was all she got in response before her best friend tilted her head back down to the parchment in front of her.

Y/N sat, completely puzzled. What was Hermione on about? She’d been straightforward with what was hurting her--she didn’t want to mess up the only task the Golden Trio had ever given her--and, even if she hadn’t been, Hermione was smart enough to deduce things for herself. So what was she thinking about?

Her eyes drifted over to the Slytherin table where the usual 6th year pureblood gang loitered about, drinking black coffee and sulking--but Malfoy was not to be seen. She jumped when her eyes met Parkinson, her dark eyes burning into her soul as a deep scowl was written across her face.

“Malfoy, what the fuck do you want?” Ron’s voice pulled her back to reality to see him glaring somewhere behind her.

“I wasn’t here to talk to you,” a familiar voice drawled.

She turned to see Malfoy standing behind her, a sneer written all across his stupidly pretty face.

“Miss me already?” asked Y/N as she raised an eyebrow and cocked her head to the side.

“For fuck’s sake, stop doing that,” he mumbled, reaching into his pocket and throwing a box at her. “You forgot your quill. I took the liberty of properly storing it, because it seems like you lot like to just throw them in your bag. Makes me physically ill to watch.”

“Oh.” Y/N studied the intricate box in her hands before tucking it away in her knapsack. “Thanks? I guess?”

He nodded curtly, contorting his face into one last scowl to send to Ron before turning and leaving,

“So,” Hermione began, cutting her omelet at a much brisker pace, “I think we need to have a little chat. About...all of this.”

“Why?”

“Not right now,” she said, her voice low and her eyes flicking at Ron and Harry sitting across from them. “I don’t think it’d benefit us for them to hear.”

“Ok?” She cautiously took a bite out of her toast and continued staring Hermione down. “You’re scaring me.”

“It’s...I don’t know. I thought I was crazy for thinking this, but it seems like we need to talk about it anyways. For this little mission of yours to work, we need to be totally open and honest with each other.”

“Sure.” Y/N took another bite. “I honestly have no clue what’s got you so on edge, though.”

“Who’s on edge?” Harry asked, leaning over the table and stealing the croissant on Y/N’s plate.

“Hey!” she exclaimed. “Do you not see the entire plate of them over there?”

He laughed, sending her an easy grin and dunking a piece into the hot chocolate in his mug. “Finders keepers. Say, Y/N, are you busy next weekend? Ron and Lavender are going to Madame Puddingfoot’s together, and I know Hermione isn’t going to want to take a weekend off studying to go to Hogsmeade, so I thought that maybe we could go cause some trouble at the Cauldron.”

“If you stop stealing my food we can talk about it,” replied Y/N, the corners of her lips tugging up into a grin.

“Deal.”

Hermione tugged at her arm. “I just realized I need to get something out of my room before we watch the Quidditch game. Will you come with me, Y/N?”

“Sure!” said Y/N. “Gee, I’m rolling in invitations today.”

Once they exited the dining hall, though, it immediately became evident that they were not actually heading up to the dorms. Hermione dragged her into the nearest bathroom before casting a quick silencing charm.

“Myrtle! Are you in here?” Only when she was sure silence was the only response to her question, she seemed satisfied to turn to Y/N and begin talking. “When were you going to tell me that you have a thing for Malfoy?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Y/N felt the heat that had risen to her cheeks from the last quill-encounter re-emerge.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” said Hermione. “Are you seriously going to expect me to believe that you nearly sobbed over some random pureblood git telling you you never had a chance with him because it might slow down your progress with helping us? Actually? I’ve seen you look more ecstatic about hearing that your dear granny passed away.”

“To be fair, she had really good life insurance,” Y/N cut in. “And she was an old hag. Never had a nice thing to say to me.”

“Life insurance or no life insurance...you can’t seriously expect me to believe that you were just upset about not being able to help us as much. That was ridiculous. I don’t buy it. And the way you blushed like crazy when he came over to talk to you--the way you try and pretend like you can flirt...please. Y/N, it’s clear as day. I know you, and I know you have a crush on him.”

“Hermione!” hissed Y/N. “You have no clue what you’re talking about!”

“Yes, I think I do,” she pushed. “And you need to be honest with me if you want to be of any help right now.”

Her bossiness lit a fire of rage in Y/N’s chest, but she sucked in a deep breath, shutting her eyes before releasing it. “Believe me when I say I haven’t ever acknowledged any feelings I may or may not have towards him.”

“Ok.” Her face softened. “I know it might take time, but I honestly do think I’m right. Please just...be careful. This is a really odd situation to get caught up in if you actually have feelings for the other person. You’re trying to manipulate him, for Merlin’s sake.”

“And if I have these feelings for him, I’ve done a pretty damn good job of suppressing them for however long they’ve been here.”

Hermione sighed. “That’s true. I’m just saying that spending this much time with him is probably only going to make things worse. Will you please tell me if anything changes between the two of you?”

“Anything changes?” Y/N’s voice was dripping in disbelief. “You’re joking. Even if I was obsessed with him I don’t think there’s ever a chance of hell in anything ‘changing’ between us. He said it himself.”

“You know what I mean, Y/N,” responded Hermione. “Just promise me, ok?”

“Ok,” said Y/N. “I promise.”

That seemed to satiate Hermione as she nodded approvingly at her friend. “I think it goes without saying that Ron and Harry shouldn’t hear about this.”

“There’s nothing to hear about, but yes.” She shuffled her feet before meeting Hermione’s eyes again. “Er, I’m sorry for this being a weird question, but would you mind coming along with me and Harry to Hogsmeade? I don’t really see him like...that...and I don’t want to read into it too much and reject him if he is doing it just platonically, but just in case. Y’know.”

“Sure,” said Hermione, even though her face took on that curious expression yet again. “Anyways, you actually did forget something--you’re not wearing a single piece of Gryffindor colors for our game today. You should probably run back to your dorm before Harry and Ron notice.”

After they said their goodbyes, Y/N found herself turning over the things Hermione had said to her in her head. Did she like Malfoy? No, no fucking way. But a part of her really did think he was funny. And of course it was natural to feel rejected when anyone insinuates that they’d never consider you as a romantic interest without jest.

Once she’d made it up to her room and grabbed a few scarves, Y/N made to put her red cloak into her satchel. Her fingers ghosted over the box that Malfoy had given her and scoffed once she saw the Malfoy crest engraved into the rich wood.

Narcissistic snot.

Her curiosity got the better of her as she reached over to open up the elaborately decorated box. What met her was not just one quill but two--one of which was most certainly not her own.

She took them both out, tossing the old one in a pile with her other trusty familiar white feather quills and picked up the other one. It looked familiar--identical to the quill that she’d complimented Malfoy on in Potions about a week ago. Butterflies began to flutter like crazy in her stomach as she turned it over in her hand, watching the gray and green glitter together and the magic sparkles cast a gentle light over her bed. She generally avoided dipping into her family’s pockets to get school supplies any more than she had to--it’s not like it made her friends feel good about themselves when they were reminded how rich her family was--but this might be what she could consider to be an exception. She hadn’t even liked his quill all that much when she first saw it in Potions--but it was one of those things that was so noticeable that it made sense to compliment him.

She gave it one last look before tucking it back away into the elaborately decorated box. Perhaps she had spoken too soon when she’d told Hermione all hope was lost.

When Monday morning Potions class with the Slytherins rolled around, Y/N wasted no time. Malfoy was alone--even his Slytherin lackeys seemed to know not to bother him. Just what she needed.

“Malfoy,” she greeted, setting her bag down on his table and looking him dead on. He raised to meet her eyes, his eyebrow raised.

“Can I help you?”

“I just wanted you to know that I also really like your immense fortune,” she said. “And your manor.”

“Well, a lot of people do,” he mumbled as he looked away to dig through something in his bag. If she didn’t know any better, she would’ve thought he was blushing.

“I’m just letting you know,” she continued. “In case you were wanting to give them away. It worked for the quill, so I thought, well, why not?”

He exhaled, a deep and annoyed sound escaping his lips as he rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. “I knew I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You really didn’t have to.”

“I was getting sick of it,” he told her. “I never can stick with one quill for too long, and I thought it’d be a shame to toss it. I thought it’d be better to be charitable--it’s not like your family could get an appointment at Barnaby’s if they tried.”

“Hey!” Y/N said indignantly. “You don’t know that!”

“I’ve heard your parents try to speak French,” he said. “If you’re anything like them, you'll be barred from ever entering the country.”

“Malfoy!”

His lips turned up into a smile, a soft laugh escaping his lips. Y/N suppressed the urge to grin in return. Task 3? Done. “What?”

“I can’t even argue with you,” she said. “It’s tragic.”

She stared at the empty stool next to him, wondering if she should just take the leap and sit with him. Malfoy seemed unbothered by her presence as he opened up his Potions book and set it next to his cauldron. “Do you want a partner?” The words left her lips before she could stop them.

He cast her a curious look before glancing at the empty stool. “It depends. Are you going to be annoying?”

She gasped in faux-offense. “What makes you think I could ever be annoying?”

“On that note, I think you better get back to Potter.” He motioned with his head towards the side of the room where most of her Gryffindor friends were chatting. Harry was staring at her, his fists clenched by his side.

Y/N smirked and sent him a wink.

“On that note,” she said, careful to imitate Malfoy’s drawl and sending him a smug grin, “Maybe I better sit here.”

“Hm.” He awarded her one more uninterested look before rolling up his sleeves and setting out the ingredients for the potion they were brewing--Amortentia.

She tried not to make it too obvious that she was staring at his left arm, but there was nothing on it like Harry had told her. It was just pure, unblemished pale skin that shimmered under the light. Before he could catch her looking, she quickly sat down and started pulling out her own things. After a short pause, she decided to take out the silver quill. She’d left his box back in her room--she wouldn’t be caught dead with something that had the Malfoy crest on it--but she’d wrapped it in a pouch with her own family’s emblem on the front, shimmering in gold and red.

“Why don’t you just buy your own charmed quills?” asked Malfoy after they had chopped all of the gillweed.

“You already know. We’re an abomination to the French. We aren’t allowed entry.”

“That’s not what I mean.” His tone was meant to read as exasperated, but his words still seemed good-natured.

“I...well.” She frowned. She’d never confessed this to anyone, but she supposed that Malfoy wasn’t going to find a way to use it against her. “I don’t like to flaunt my family wealth. I think it makes people, at least in Gryffindor, like me less. I learned that pretty early on.”

He hummed something in response before sliding all the gillweed into the cauldron, turning the clear liquid into a bubbling forest green.

“Why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden?” she asked.

He took his time finishing the note he was jotting down before he answered. “I’m not being nice. It’s just called being civil. You said it yourself, we see each other at balls sometimes.”

“We probably won’t anymore, though,” she mused.

Malfoy’s eyebrows shot up, but his voice remained low and steady. “No. I suppose that we probably won’t. Is your family part of the Order?”

“Hm. Are you a Death Eater?” she asked brazenly. He had no business asking her something like that, and he knew it. Especially not with his family connections.

“What do you think?” he drawled, waving his bared left arm in front of her face.

“Bullshit. That doesn’t mean anything after we learned Glamour spells last year.”

“Guess you’ll just have to trust me, then,” he responded, focusing intently on the bubbling liquid in front of him instead of her face.

“I guess so,” she replied. The weight of her Glamour comment began to sink in--she was right, after all. How had she not thought of it before?

But he was right when he told her she just had to trust him. Could she? Y/N rested her chin in the palm of her propped hand as she watched him work. A piece of disobedient moonbeam blonde hair dangled over his forehead as he diced up the unicorn tail, his eyebrows furrowed in focus.

“Is this why you want to be my partner?” he finally asked after a few moments of silence. “So you can just stare at me while I do all the work?”

“There’s the vain Draco I know,” she said, grinning as she leaned over to punch his shoulder.

He rolled his eyes again, scooting out of arm's reach before flipping back to Amortentia in his book. “You’re insufferable. And it’s Malfoy to you.”

“Fine, fine, Malfoy,” said Y/N. “What do you want me to do, then?”

He shoved his cutting board towards her, the half-diced unicorn tail staring up at her. “Finish dicing this and then stir it in. 9 times clockwise. I did almost all of the work, but it should be finished after that.”

Y/N sent him another glare before doing as he said. The glittering quill kept catching her attention from the corner of her eye, and she couldn’t help but notice that Malfoy was writing with just a plain white quill for the time being. HE really did just give it to me.

After the final ingredients were diced, she began to stir, each rotation around the cauldron turning the potion to a different color. It began as the bubbling green, then a deep sea blue, then a royal purple, a crimson blood red, a glimmering gold--before settling into a pale silver.

“Wow. It’s beautiful,” she breathed. “It’s like...liquid starlight.”

“All thanks to me,” said Malfoy. “You didn’t even have to crush the Mandrake root.”

“You’re such a gentleman, Malfoy.” Her voice dripped in fake sincerity. “So, what do you smell?”

Y/N was expecting him to scowl at her and tell her that it wasn’t any of her business, but he actually leaned over the cauldron and shut his eyes.

“I’ve never been good at explaining what things smell like.”

“Fair.”

Once he leaned back, she took his place, shutting her eyes and breathing in a tendril of the beautiful potion. “Whoa.”

“What’s it for you?”

“I don’t...know,” she admitted. “It’s not something I can describe note by note. It kind of reminds me of something, though.”

“Something with Potter, I presume?” he said, casually twirling his generic white quill around his fingers.

“No,” she answered, surprised at how honest she was being. “It’s…I’m trying to think. Er, it’s very lavish. It reminds me of when I was younger and my parents would drag me to galas and balls and whatnot.”

He stared at her in silence.

“What about you? Does it remind you of anything?”

“Yeah.” Malfoy reached forward to put a lid on the cauldron, effectively shutting out the steam from reaching either of them.

“Ooh, have you figured it out yet?” she teased, crossing her legs and turning to face him head on. “Let me guess. Is it someone like…”

She paused, a wicked smile stretching across her face. “Oh my god, is it Hermione? Or Luna? Or...help me out here!”

“No.” His voice was sour.

“Ah, it’s Parkinson then, isn’t it? Tell her I’m sorry for throwing food at her if you ever have the chance. Make sure to add the part where I’m more sorry that I missed.”

“Y/L/N!”

“It’s okay. I’d be a little let down, too.”

“Can you please just…” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Please just stop. I haven’t figured it out. Okay? Happy now?”

“I’ll leave you alone,” said Y/N. “Under one condition. You give me a hint. I’ve given you everything I know! This isn’t fair.”

“This doesn’t have to be fair,” he hissed.

Y/N kept the easy smile plastered on her face while she waited, her eyebrows raised in anticipation.

“You’re not going to let up until I tell you, are you?”

“You’d be right on that,” she said, sugary sweet.

“Fine. It’s something kind of floral.”

“How descriptive,” she snorted as she slumped back in her stool, thinking hard. Where had she smelled it before? Y/N shut her eyes, leaning her head back and trying to immerse herself into the memory that had surfaced. It smelled like grandeur, like an open ballroom full of guests wearing expensive perfumes. She could feel spinning, spinning like she was with a dance partner. Who was it? She couldn’t quite remember--the last ball she’d been to had been years ago--but after she leaned forward and smelled the Amortentia once more time, she came to a conclusion.

“I had to have danced with him at a gala before,” she announced to Malfoy, who was looking quite unimpressed. “So I know it’s no one from Gryffindor.”

“Interesting,” was all he said before turning to his parchment and jotting something down.

Late that night, while Y/N was settling into bed, a strange idea struck her. Sure that the thought that was nagging her was completely fruitless, she had no trouble with reaching into her desk and pulling out the Malfoy box. She just had to check if she wanted to sleep well.

Here goes.

She closed her eyes, imagining the expensive scent of her Amortentia. Then she opened it, stuck her nose into the fabric, and breathed in.

Well, fuck.

The internal debate going through Y/N the next day at the breakfast table was intense. On one hand, she really, really wanted to just tell Hermione that Malfoy had been in her Amortentia and she was completely fucked, but on the other…

She glanced at the witch next to her as she methodically sliced her toast into perfect, equivalent squares before dunking them in jam. Y/N liking Malfoy was not going to fit into her toast cubes. If she said anything, she would lose her excuse to talk to her about him. And her excuse to try and get close with him.

Perhaps I can figure it out tomorrow.

When tomorrow came, she still hadn’t made progress. Y/N was beginning to think that her so called “revelation” after they brewed Amortentia was truly just complete and utter bullshit. So what that his quill box smelled like it--all rich people kind of smelled the same at some points, and so did their houses. There was a reason why she couldn’t immediately pin the scent to anything--it wasn’t like she even knew what Malfoy smelled like.

But the truth remained that she was still attracted to someone who happened to be a rich Slytherin--so naturally, her mind began to wander. There’s no way it was Zabini--his mother owned a fragrance line, and she would’ve instantly recognized the cologne that she knew Mrs. Zabini made him wear--and there was absolutely no way that it was Crabbe or Goyle, so the only other Slytherin it left was...Nott? But that didn’t make sense either--she’d never spoken to him before in her life, even less than Malfoy. So perhaps it would be better if she didn’t think on it.

The next day of potion brewing came on a stormy Wednesday. Malfoy and Y/N worked silently together to brew a Draught of Dreamless Sleep. She was surprised to see how practiced his movements were--he didn’t even have to reference the book to recite the exact measurements and directions.

“Do you have bad dreams or something?” she asked, mostly as a joke. He didn’t seem to pick up on the light-heartedness and stiffened up.

“No?”

“Gee, you’re talkative today,” Y/N said, trying to ignore how her hand brushed his by accident when she added the scoop of anjelica.

“Excuse me for not entertaining you,” he drawled. “I wasn’t expecting to have such a needy potions partner today.”

“I am not needy!” she gasped, smacking his arm. “I’ve sat in silence for a full hour!”

He rolled his eyes (he was always rolling his eyes) and gave the potion one more final stir before setting the lid on the cauldron. “Think you can do that again? It needs to simmer for that long.”

“Just because you’re so sweet to me,” crooned Y/N before pulling out a heavy book from her satchel. Her Charms exam was tomorrow, and, naturally, she had decided to save all of her revising work until the night before. The textbook stared back at her as she jotted a few notes onto a previously blank sheet of parchment. The quill in her hands was light and glided across the paper like the tears of Merlin, something that she had forgotten quills could do. All of her familiar basic quills were okay, but they were prone to skidding and breaking. This nib hadn’t worn down in the slightest, still at a smooth and defined peak.

Y/N couldn’t believe that, out of all people, the person to give her such a thoughtful gift was Draco Malfoy. She tried to sneak a glance at him then, moving her curtain of hair away from her face. It took all she had in her to not be startled at the fact that he was already looking back, a slightly concerned expression etched into his face.

“Is something wrong?”

He snapped out of it the moment the words left her lips, his face hardening. “No.”

“Forget I ever asked,” she responded, turning away from him for good and focusing on her textbook. No, there was no way he could be what she smelled in her Amortentia. She liked to think that her subconscious wasn’t secretly a masochist.

Friday evening swung around again, much to Y/N’s dismay. She’d had a talk with Hermione later on in the week, confirming that no, she did not smell Malfoy in her Amortentia, and that yes, she was still abiding by the plan that Hermione had so carefully laid out for her. It did bother her a bit that she could be lying to her on both fronts--but at the end of the day, she was going to get the answers that Harry wanted, no matter what.

She just had to get through the scary ass castle first. She’d forgotten how spooky Hogwarts was after her previous sprint to the door, and this time she was positively trembling by the time she turned another dark corner on her way to McGonagall’s office. Yet another cursed item had been found in the girl’s lavatory on the 3rd floor, right by some of the classes that she had taken earlier in the week. The fact that whoever was out there was capable of dark magic and actively wanted to hurt people terrified her, all that Gryffindor bravery be damned.

So when she heard footsteps suddenly right beside her, it was no wonder that she jumped feet in the air.

“Fuck!” she sputtered, turning to see a very familiar blonde in Slytherin robes. He was frozen in place, curiously looking her up and down.

“Am I interrupting something?”

“Malfoy,” Y/N said, resisting the urge to melt into a puddle of relief at the sight. This wasn’t right--wasn’t he a suspected Death Eater? “You scared me.”

He scoffed, digging his hands into his pockets. “You’re supposed to be the brave ones, right?”

“Huh?”

Malfoy motioned to her Gryffindor jumper.

“Oh.” Heat rushed to her cheeks as she realized what he meant. “I dunno. I just get jumpy around the castle at night.”

“No shit.” They’d begun to walk now, side by side. Y/N couldn’t remember ever walking with him before--she’d always been late. “Do you think I forgot the way you screamed when you saw me at the tower?”

“Shut up,” she grumbled, reaching over and giving him a healthy shove.

They walked in silence together. Malfoy moved noticeably slower than he normally did so he wouldn’t leave Y/N’s shorter legs in tow. McGonagall seemed pleasantly surprised to see Malfoy hold the door open for her.

“I’m glad to see you two getting along,” she said, giving Y/N a hesitant nod before grabbing the stack of papers on her desk. “I’ll be back momentarily.”

After she exited the room with a swish of her deep maroon robes, Malfoy turned to her. “Are you scared of the dark or something?”

She turned, ready to send a biting retort his way, before she noticed how gray his pallor looked...and how big the circles under his eyes were. “You look like shit, Malfoy. Is everything okay?”

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t change the subject.”

“Oh. Um…” Y/N pause before deciding that the little tidbit of information she was about to reveal wasn’t that important anyways. “I’m just on edge at night at Hogwarts is all. Especially with all that weird shit going on with all the cursed objects. So I kind of hate walking to and from detention.”

Malfoy let out something that sounded like a strained laugh.

“You didn’t answer my question. Is everything okay?”

“None of your business,” he snipped. “I just had a bad night.”

“Do you have trouble sleeping?” she asked, unable to keep herself from prying.

“Something like that.”

“Have you tried lavender?”

“I’m sorry?” He frowned.

“Lavender. Like the essential oil. It’s nothing magical,” she explained. “I just like to spray it in my bed sometimes before I sleep. Or I’ll use a few drops in a diffuser. I have trouble sleeping too, all the time, actually.” She shut her mouth before she had any chance to ramble further.

“It sounds a bit too floral for my taste.”

“Here.” Y/N dug around in her satchel, searching for the tiny spray bottle she kept with her at all times. “Borrow this and spritz your pillow with it before you sleep, and then tell me it’s too floral. I promise it helps.”

He glared at her. She extended her hand with the white bottle that was covered in purple decor, raising her eyebrows expectantly. “I won’t tell anyone that you have it if that’s what you’re worried about or whatever.”

“Fine,” he snapped, snatching it from her hand and dragging his fingers over her palm for just a second. “Don’t expect me to actually try it, though.”

“Just give it a sniff.”

He huffed, but to her surprise, he actually uncapped the top and held the spray hole up to his nose, inhaling in once.

The effect was immediate. Malfoy’s face completely drained of color, becoming even grayer than he’d been when she first saw him under the light. The briefest expression of surprise fleeted over his face before he wiped it off, replacing it with something unreadable and tossing it back at her. “I’m not using this.”

“Why not?”

“Not quite my taste,” he spat.

Y/N was shocked by the sudden outburst, watching as he continued to glower at his desk. “I don’t understand. It really does help you sleep. I know it seems stupid, but I...really think you should try it. Just once, if anything.”

“Why does it matter so much to you?”

“Because I--” Y/N stopped herself before she let her mouth run without check. “I know what it’s like is all. I feel like shit if I don’t sleep. Plus, I have to spend time with you every Friday. I imagine that you’ll be slightly more tolerable if you sleep more.”

“Hm.” He sent her a particularly venomous glare. “Thanks for your concern. Consider me uninterested, though.”

“You break my heart,” she teased, pulling back her hand and placing the bottle on the corner of her desk. An idea struck her.

“And just what are you smiling about?” Draco said. His lips were turned into a sour frown.

“Nothing, nothing,” she responded, her voice adopting a sing-song quality. All she had to do now was wait.

He exhaled, a deep and exasperated sound. Then he turned back to whatever was in front of him.

McGonagall entered the room a few minutes later, nodding cordially at the comfortable silence the two students were in. What she didn’t know was that Y/N was waiting, just waiting for Malfoy to dig through his satchel and stop paying attention to his quill.

She got her opportunity a few minutes later, when McGonagall called him up to look over his latest Transfiguration homework.

“Mr. Malfoy, I’m happy to see that you’re taking more initiative in getting your assignments done...I have to say that you had me a bit concerned…”

While her professor kept Malfoy occupied, Y/N darted over and grabbed his quill.

Ha.

Malfoy frowned down at his desk when he returned, giving Y/N a suspicious look.

“What is it, Malfoy?” she said, hoping her voice conveyed nothing that might hint that she took something of his.

“Nothing.”

“Hm.”

The rest of detention passed without any more discussion. Y/N was eager to run up to her dorm and set up her plan to be carried out the next morning, but she calmed her bouncing leg and forced herself to keep a straight face when McGonagall dismissed them.

“Got somewhere to be, Y/L/N?” Malfoy’s voice called after her as she sped down the hall towards the Gryffindor tower.

“What’s it to you?” she fired back.

He didn’t respond. Instead, he picked up his pace until he was walking next to her.

“Aren’t the Slytherin dorms the other direction?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Are they?”

She allowed herself to be amused by the way words flowed out of his mouth when he was slightly out of breath. “Why are you walking with me?”

“You said it yourself.” He kept his eyes cast on the cobblestones below them. “You don’t like walking alone at night.”

“Uh...oh.” Against her will, her feet froze and she was glued to the ground. “You’re joking, right?”

If the lighting wasn’t so dim, Y/N would have good reason to believe he was blushing with how intently he was studying his fingernails. “By all means, I can be.”

“No! No, I didn’t mean it like that,” she said, the words tumbling out of her mouth. “Er...I’d like you to. If you want to, that is.”

He shrugged, an elfish expression spreading across his face as he took in how nervous she was. “Well, come to think of it, you didn’t ask me to. I suppose I better get back to the Slytherin dorms anyways. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near the Gryffindor Tower right now.”

“Why?” she squeaked.

“Oh, you know, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most of the cursed things showed up on your side of the castle, yeah?”

She gulped.

“I gotta get going. Don’t want to stand around here too long. This place gives me the creeps.” With that, he turned and began walking away.

“Malfoy?” She hated how timid her voice sounded. “Consider this me asking you to walk with me.”

He slowly faced her, a sly grin plastered all over his face. “Oh? Did I hear that correctly? Do you want me to?”

“I’m only going to say this once,” she said, putting her hands on her hips and trying her best to look intimidating. “Walk with me. Please.”

“I guess I’ll take it.” Malfoy glided down the hallway to her in just a couple steps, sending her yet another smug look.

“You made up that whole ordeal about Gryffindor Tower being targeted, didn’t you?” asked Y/N as they rounded the corner to reach the staircase leading up to the common room.

“You bought it, didn’t you?”

“Who says I didn’t just want you to walk with me?” pushed Y/N. This was as close to flirting as it would ever get for her--but it looked like, somehow, things were falling into place. The heat in her cheeks must’ve been from the excitement of making progress.

Malfoy’s toe caught on the first stair and, if it weren’t for Y/N’s steady grip on his arm, would’ve made him go sprawling across the stone steps.

“Merlin, Malfoy,” she said, immediately dropping her grip from his shoulder. “What’s gotten into you?”

He responded with an unceremonial snort and a withering glare. The rest of the walk was done in silence, and Y/N noted how careful his footwork became around the Gryffindor steps.

“This is me,” she finally said once they reached the tapestry for the Gryffindor dorms. He seemed surprised, and only then did it strike her that he’d probably never seen the entrance himself before. “Thanks for being such a gentleman.”

“I live to serve,” he drawled.

And just like that, he was gone.

Her plan was simple. She had located an extra monogrammed pouch in her cabinet, a rich mahogany color with her family crest in a vivid gold, and placed both his quill and the lavender bottle. She would corner him after breakfast or follow him out of the Great Hall and show him then.

However, it was becoming increasingly obvious that Malfoy was not coming to Saturday morning breakfast. Many people didn’t, but Y/N had never known him to miss it. His normal spot was vacant, and it certainly wasn’t a house-made decision as all of his Slytherin friends were present and accounted for. Y/N couldn’t say for sure, but she could see Parkinson turning her head to the entrance every time the doors thudded open before glancing back to Malfoy’s empty seat when it turned out to be someone else.

Where was that loser?

“Excuse me,” she said to the trio as she stood up and brushed off her skirt. “I think I’m going to go get some fresh air. I have a bitch of a headache.”

Hermione and Harry expressed their sympathies while Ron gave her a characteristic mumble through his mouthful of bread, and she was off with the pouch secured in her cloak pocket.

It was a clear November morning, clearly Mother Nature’s attempt to slowly move the world from the crisp autumn to a cold winter. The sky was clear and the sun’s rays warmed her skin at a slanted angle, casting weak shadows across the courtyard.

If I were Malfoy, where would I go to sulk?

The obvious answer was either the Slytherin common room or his own dorm, but that was without a doubt out of question for her. She wasn’t even sure if she possessed the knowledge to guess which corridor the entrance was in, much less work out the password herself. Beyond that, just getting into the common room and waiting would be...She shivered. It would be a terrible idea while she was clearly wearing a cloak in Gryffindor red and gold trim.

As she continued her aimless wander around the castle, she heard the slightest sound from the girl’s bathroom on the second floor. It wasn’t ever really in use--no one came in there to actually use the loo unless they wanted Myrtle to materialize and tell them her supernatural troubles while they were in the middle of their personal business--but it was often the source of strange happenings.

Like the cursed objects she thought to herself, her nails digging into her palms. But did she care about that right now? Surely cursed objects seemed somewhat...suspicious. Dark magic was difficult to hide, and to a pureblood eye that grew up around magical objects, cursed things shouldn’t be impossible to spot.

And, plus, it was Malfoy she was looking for. None of the students had died from the curses so far, and if she was able to break through and learn something, or at the very least gain his trust, the reward to the Order would be more than worth it.

She stepped in, expecting to see an entirely empty bathroom with perhaps a ghost rattling around at the sink. Instead, a different sight awaited her.

Draco Malfoy was clutching the edge of the cracked sink basin in front of him, rocking himself back and forth and shaking. From her vantage point, she could see that he was dressed in his normal garb--a black ensemble--but his hair was unruly and messy, sticking up in the back like he’d hurriedly tugged something over his head.

A strangled gasp grounded her and halted her curious observations. Malfoy began to make these awful sobbing sounds, like he could barely manage to breathe.

Y/N was frozen in place as she surveyed her options. If she stayed and tried to talk to him, he might react in anger or hurt her. But if she just left him, like this, all alone...She swallowed once before stepping forward.

“Malfoy? Are you okay?” Obviously he’s not, you bint said a voice deep in her brain. She pushed it aside as he swung around, his wand raised and his eyes blazing. “Whoa! I’m not going to...Put your wand down!”

He stared at her, his eyes wide with horror as he continued to shake, so much so that his wand slipped out of his hand and clattered to the floor. Without thinking, Y/N reached into her pocket and flung her wand away, holding her hands up.

“I’m not going to try anything. I promise.”

As she drew closer, she could see the remnants of tears on his wet cheeks and the way that his silver eyes were rimmed with a bloodshot red.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he hissed, his voice weak and cracking.

“Neither should you. This is the girl’s bathroom.”

final a/n: ok so lmk if you guys wants me to continue. i really did not edit the last half fjkdsal;f also kinda made this an au where malfoy tried to assassinate dumbledore. with more than one cursed object but dw it’ll all make sense ill clear that up 😭

#draco malfoy #draco x reader #draco malfoy x reader #draco imagine #draco malfoy imagine #draco x you #draco #draco malfoy x you #draco x y/n #draco malfoy x y/n #draco x oc #draco malfoy x oc

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dracowars · 5 years ago

Note

i read your first request and it’s AMAZING!! i loved it soo much, so i was wondering if you could write smth where y/n is dracos gf - they meet in his dorm room after class, but one day she’s super late and acting really weird, draco doesn’t bother, tries to comfort her, and maybe get a lil steamy, but she doesn’t want to.. he then discovers scaring on her hand, and she tells him that crabble sent her to umbridge for doing smth bad.. you can decide on the plot, those are just some ideas! xx

engraved | draco malfoy

pairing: draco x slytherin!reader

word count: 3,0k

summary: where y/n's visit to the new headmistress leads to a heated argument with draco

a/n: thank you very much for your kind words and for requesting, i really hope that you like it <3

warnings: a little steamy, angst, mentions of blood

universe: harry potter

Trying to hold back the tears, you run down the sparse torch-lit corridors of Hogwarts, your footsteps echoing from the thick stone walls around you creating the only other sound besides your soft sobs. You press your left hand against your chest while you burst into the closest girls' bathroom, which is completely empty at this time, especially since Dolores Umbridge is in charge of the rules here.

It has been less than a month since she crept into school as the new headmistress and everything is already upside down. Students are allowed to walk around at a certain time only, detours between lessons are not acceptable at all, couples are almost no longer allowed to exist and actually, just all kind of fun and joy at Hogwarts has been extingusihed by her rules.

However, worst of all are the punishments for breaking any of Umbridge's thousand rules. Recently she has founded the so-called Inquisitorial Squad, a select group of students who help her to locate every kind of violations happening around the school. They sneak around the hallways on their hourly tours at night and report every so tiny thing to their new boss immediately. Most of these students are, of course, Slytherin's. Your boyfriend Draco was also offered to become a part of this squad, which he gladly accepted and was named its leader. You exactly know how perfect Draco fits into the role of the bad and ruthless leader, but still, you weren't very happy about it. After all, this woman is currently destroying your second home and he is helping her in a certain way.

Being the girlfriend of the Inquisitorial Squad's leader made you think that nothing can harm you, but oh, you were terribly wrong. Usually by this time in the early evening after your last course in Transfiguration you would already be in Draco's prefect dorm room, cuddling on his bed and just talking about your day. Because of the new established rules, you have to sneak into his room, trying to not get caught, but so far it has not been a very big problem. Even if someone of the other Slytherin's catches you, they will be far too scared of Draco to report it. But unfortunately everything took a different turn today.

During your Transfiguration lesson you had to admit that you forgot to do your homework, something that doesn't happen often but the current situation in Hogwarts burdens everyone, even the teachers, and on top of that you also came too late. Not that McGonagall was mad at you or anything, you are one of her best students after all, and a simple warning that it should not happen again was enough punishment in her opinion. Unluckily for you, Vincent Crabbe, one of your boyfriend's goons, is also in your class. And he definetely takes his job as an inquisitor a little too serious.

When you wanted to get out of the classroom, he suddenly got in your way and blocked it, waiting for everyone else to leave. At first you thought he was just trying to be funny again, you have never had a problem with each other in the first place. But apparently Crabbe prefers to receive an award from Umbridge to your friendship and the fact that you are in the same house didn't stop him in deducting twenty house points from his own house because you broke two rules. You never expected him to have a big brain, but that he even dragged you into Umbridge's office afterwards just because you forgot your homework in a class she is not even a part of, was even too stupid for a Vincent Crabbe.

And only then did it get really bad.

A tear has now found its way down your cheek, but you hastily wipe it away and run to the sinks in the girls' bathroom. You quickly turn on the faucet and hold your reddened, throbbing hand under the ice-cold water, your lips escapes a painful gasp. You squeeze your eyes shut at the pain and let the water run down your skin, hoping to soothen your aching flesh. What Umbridge did to you can no longer be considered a punishment, it was more of a torture.

As soon as Crabbe rudely pushed you into her disgusting pink office, he immediately received his desired reward and left you alone with this monster of a woman. This disgusting woman greeted you with a fake cunning smile and asked you to sit on one of the chairs at her table, the cats trapped in the pictures on every inch of the wall meowing in your ear. First you resisted against her request but soon realized that discussions with her are of no use and sat down after all.

With that peculiar high tone of hers, she handed you a black quill and then asked you to write 'I must not be late' onto the parchment until you memorize it. She also told you that you won't need any ink. With an annoyed roll of your eyes you straightend up your position, put the tip of the quill onto the paper and started writing. Not even spelling out the sentence one time, you felt a sharp pain on the back of your hand with every further letter you wrote down. As you took a look at your hand you noticed the exact words you just wrote were engraved on your skin.

Shocked, you glanced at Umbridge, but she just stood their with a smile on her face, shaking her head and shrugging. You figured out that the ink was made from your own blood and also that every word would only hurt more. And that is exactly what it did. She must have let you write that one single sentence down over fifthy times before she was sure you had learned your lesson.

You yourself didn't really care if you did, all you wanted to do was to get out of that hell as soon as possible. And now you are here, standing in absolute pain in front of an already broken mirror in a cold bathroom.

You have to blink a few times while looking up at the ceiling to hold back your tears and then you look at your injured hand again. You pull it out from under the running water for a moment, only to see that you are still able to perfectly read the words. The cold water did not really ease the pain, it almost feels like it has gotten worse. You lightly touch the reddend, blood smeared skin around the actual wound with your fingertip and just at the slightest touch you flinch and pull your hand back.

You don't know how long you stood there and held your hand under the water as suddenly a thought pops up in your mind: Draco. If he finds out about what happened, he will be furious. Also, he is probably already waiting for you for two hours, not that it is unusual for you to be late to your daily meetings with your boyfriend, you always get caught up by some work for school, but you never needed this long before. Is he already looking for you?

Without waisting another thought, you close the tap again, dry your hand very gently and then go out of the girls' bathroom, always careful not to run into the next squad member's arms and get sent back to the devil itself. Fortunately, you manage to find your way to the common room without getting caught, only once imagining that you heard Mrs. Norris. After you have said the password successfully, you enter the, luckily, empty room.

You quickly make your way to Draco's prefect dorm room, pulling the sleeve of your cloak - or as you have just noticed because of the large size, Draco's cloak - over your wounded hand so that it remains hidden. All you want is to be hugged now and comforted by him and not that he gets upset and angry and probably storm to Umbridge's office right away. Softly, you knock on the door and take in a deep breath, before it is opened vigorously.

Immediately you are pulled into the room, the door behind you is closed, even locked, and you get pressed against it with your back. In front of you is none other than your incredibly handsome boyfriend whose eyes seek eye contact with you in an instant. "Where were you?", Draco asks in a calm voice, gently stroking his fingertips over your cheeks to your chin, causing goosebumps to spread all over your body.

"I-I was held in Transfiguration. I had to catch up on some tasks and I forgot the time. I'm sorry, Draco", you lie into his face, really not wanting to tell him anything about what happend. "You made me wait a long time for you today, are you aware of that, darling?", he reminds you with a cheeky grin, his face slowly coming closer to yours. You know exactly what that look, that expression in his suddenly darker eyes means. He moves the hand that is not under your chin over your side and lets it stay on your hip. "But that is no problem, love. We still have enough time.."

With these words he then connects your lips into a hungry kiss, pressing you more against the door to his room. His hand on your hip squeezes you harder and he runs his other hand down to your neck. His firm grip makes you gasp, only earning a deep chuckle from the platinum haired boy.

For this brief moment in which he caught you off guard by slamming his lips onto yours, you had forgotten everything around you, but it did not last long and suddenly all the experiences come back into your head. Not wanting to continue this, you put your hands on his chest, trying to push him away from you but you only manage to break the kiss, which does not please him at all.

"I'm really not in the mood today, Draco", you explain, hoping that he will understand, like he usually does. "You will be, just wait and see", he winks playfully, absolutely not noticing the seriousness in your voice. Before you can say anything you only see the corners of his mouth curl up and next thing you know is he's attacking your neck, sucking and nibbling at that specific spot behind your ear.

Because of the actually pleasing feeling, you put more pressure on Draco's upper arms, which you are now unintentionally holding onto. "D-Draco", you softly whimper as he takes off your green tie and starts unbuttoning your white blouse, his rough kisses slowly wandering to your collarbone. "Please, Draco, stop", you manage to bring out, clearer than previously, but he ignores your request and just continues with what he is doing.

"We both know that you don't want me to stop", Draco whispers in your ear and connects your lips again, this time even rougher, not giving you the opportunity to say anything. It takes you a few seconds until you, in fact, try to relax under his touch and let yourself go, tilting your head to one side so he has even more access to the sensitive skin on your neck, which is already bluish.

But you just can't. You can't force yourself to do this after the horrifying encounter with Umbridge.

With a strong, forceful push you manage to shove Draco away from you ungently, a shocked and kind of annoyed expression plastered upon his face. "I said stop, Draco!", you practically scream at him, his forehead furrowed as the tears well back into your eyes. You want to pass him and go to his bed, but he quickly grabs your wrist and stops you. Immediately you harshly swat your hand away.

"Let me go and just leave me alone! You are always so insensitive!", you yell at him again, the emotions taking over your actions, but this time the tears find their way down your cheeks and only now Draco notices your change of appearance, how puffy your cheeks are and how your eyes are swollen and bloodshot, as if you had already cried before coming to his room.

Crying, you lie down on his bed, facing the wall so that your back is facing him. Draco frowns for a moment when he sees your devastated figure trembling from your heavy sobs. You cover your mouth with your hand to stifle your crying, but that only makes it worse. You can feel the mattress sink down beneath you as Draco lies down beside you, not touching you in the slightest.

A few minutes pass in which noone speaks, only your crying can be heard throughout the silence of the room. Your desperate attempts to calm yourself down and wipe away your recurring tears fails dramatically. Draco, on the other hand, lies next to you motionless, his head propped up on his elbow. If there is one thing in this entire traumatic enough world that he hates the most, it definetely is seeing you, the love of his life, his soulmate, cry. He would love to punch himself for not noticing how bad you are feeling sooner. Feelings of guilt start to plague him and he doesn't know what to do, if you even want to be touched by him anymore, especially in this fragile state.

Nevertheless, Draco finally decides to approach you slowly by stroking your hair gently and carefully to not scare you. He just wants to show you that he is here for you, that he is by your side, even if you may not feel like talking right now. When he notices that you are not resisting his touch, he runs his fingertips over your arm, trying to comfort you somehow without it being too much. And when you don't fight against that either, Draco suddenly wraps his arms around your still shaking body from behind and presses you tightly against him.

"Please don't cry, sweetheart", he softly whispers into your ear, lifting his head so he gets a glimpse of your face from the side. "Please stop..", he almost begs and feels tears pricking in his own eyes now as well. He has seen you cry a few times already, but never this much. It breaks his heart. "I'm here for you, angel."

In his strong and protective arms, tightly secured around your waist, you finally manage to calm down at least a little bit and turn around to face him. You don't dare to look at him with your probably disfigured face from all the crying, but Draco has other plans. He puts a hand on your cheek, guiding your face up to make you look at him. In your shiny, pain-ridden eyes, he is trying to find an answer to your condition, not wanting to pressure you to tell him if you don't want to.

"D-Draco", you stutter out between your sobs. "Shh..", he hushs you softly, his left hand stroking up and down your side in order to comfort you. "Take it easy, okay? Breathe in deeply. Whatever happened, I'm here for you. I protect you. Always."

Knowingly, you nod and wipe away some tears again, Draco helping you with his thumb. When you let your hand drop again, he catches your hand in his gently and wants to intertwine your fingers as his gaze falls on the still reddened wound on the back of your hand. His eyes widen as he sees the wound consisting of words painfully engraved into your skin. His mouth opens in pure shock. "What is that? Who did this to you, Y/N?!"

With a sad gasp you quickly pull your hand away, the expression on his face immediately falling since you are avoiding his touch and don't trust him with this. Only at seeing your scared face Draco notices that his last words became a bit louder and he is quick to pull you into a comforting hug again. "I'm sorry.. I didn't mean to scare you", he apologizes and places a kiss on your hair. "You know that you can tell me everything, Y/N. But if you don't want to, then at least show me your injury again please."

Silently, you escape his grip and lift your hand for him to see. He carefully examines the back of your hand, looking into your eyes here and then to see if his touch hurts. "U-Umbridge", you sob while he is still busy viewing your wound. At your words he raises an eyebrow in surprise.

"I-I was late for class and forgot my homework and then.. and then Crabbe sent me to her office. She.. She did-", you try to explain, but just can't find the right words. Draco caresses your cheek gently, apparently understanding what happened.

"I will kill her", Draco grinds his teeth, obviously fighting himself to hold back the anger that is currently raising inside of him like a burning flame. This woman dared to lay a hand on you and put you in such a state. And Crabbe won't get away with this either. Because of the tremendous anger, Draco is already getting up from the soft mattress, ready to fight.

"Please s-stay with me, Draco", you entreat him, not wanting to loose the warmth of his body next to you that manages to calm you down. At your words, his tense body relaxes and the boiling fire inside of him diminishes, but only slightly. Just because of you he's not already on his way to her office and give her hell.

"I'm so sorry I wasn't there. I'm sorry you had to go through this alone and I'm sorry for my behavior earlier", Draco starts to ramble, feeling guilty for not being able to protect you.

"You couldn't know. I-I really don't want to talk about it anymore.. Can you please just hold me, Draco?", you sob and he does what you asked him to do right away. His arms pull you closer to him and the delicate, fragrant scent that emenates from him calms you down, lowering your cries.

"I will never let you go", Draco whispers quietly, reassuring you that he will defintely never let you get hurt again. Not on his watch even if that means that he has to stick to you every second from now on, then so it will be.

#draco malfoy one shot #draco malfoy imagines #draco malfoy fanfiction #draco malfoy x reader #draco malfoy oneshots #draco malfoy imagine #draco malfoy fic #draco malfoy #draco lucius malfoy #draco x reader #draco imagine #draco oneshot #draco malfoy headcanon #draco malfoy angst #draco malfoy fluff #harry potter imagine #harry potter imagines #hp imagine #harry potter x reader

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drarrily-we-row-along · 4 years ago

Text

Day 16: Tulips

With the possible exception of all of the eighth years getting along and actually becoming friends, regardless of their former rivalries, the first half of Draco's eighth year at Hogwarts was remarkably ordinary. Funny how it took a war to see that they were all just children and all being used as pawns in a bigger game.

There was also, for Draco, the realization that he had a bit of a crush on Potter. He found that he actually really enjoyed the other boy's company; he enjoyed his snarkiness and the way that Draco could see mischief in his eyes. He liked the way Potter listened, liked the way he always seemed to want to casually touch other people. He liked him, plain and simple.

But other than the unlikely truces turned friendships (and in the case of Potter, turned crush) nothing weird happened, no one tried to kill him (or other students), no prophecies were unveiled, there were no dementors, no psychopath teachers, nothing. It was almost enough to make Draco bored.

Almost.

There was nothing strange until one unassuming morning in March, when they were all sitting in the great Hall, eating breakfast, and quizzing each other for the upcoming test in Transfiguration.

Potter interrupted the heated debate that Draco was having with Granger with a blurted, "What the fuck?"

Everyone looked over at him, including Hermione and Draco, to see what had happened.

"There's a tulip in my coffee cup!" the other boy said.

"So there is," Draco replied in amusement.

Everyone chuckled and Potter tried to figure out who had put the bright yellow tulip there but Draco really didn't have time to think about that because he and Hermione were back to arguing about Transfiguration theory.

He probably wouldn't have thought about it again but that evening as they got ready for bed, Draco felt a strange twinge in his magical core, like you got when you were preparing to cast a strong spell.

Before he could really dig into what had happened, Potter's bed curtains flew open, "Alright, you lot," he said, a laugh ruining the stern look he was attempting. "Who put this here?" he asked, holding out a red tulip that he'd apparently found on his pillow.

(Read more below the cut)

Each of them denied having any knowledge of how the tulip could have found its way into Potter's bed, but a bit of unease settled in Draco's stomach. Potter put the second tulip in with the first in the vase on the windowsill and laughed it off.

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, there was a story he'd been told as a child. A story that he couldn't quite grasp but filled him with a bit of apprehension none the less.

Still, this was nothing like the sort of anxiety that Draco had been accustomed to forcing himself to sleep through for the past few years, so he put it from his mind and went to sleep.

And again, he might have been able to forget about it, if it weren't for the fact that the next morning he felt a tug at his magical core and then a few minutes later, Potter appeared with another tulip. White this time and he'd found it in the pocket of his robes. "Seriously, what the hell you guys?" he laughed.

Everyone else laughed too, but Draco frowned, the memory of the story niggling at the back of his mind once more, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

He continued to try to remember throughout the rest of the week and Potter continued to get tulips. They showed up in his book bag, the showed up in place of his quills, they showed up on his plate at meals, they showed up everywhere and anywhere. One even replaced his loofa in the shower.

By the end of the week, Potter was getting a bit irritated and he'd had to enlarge the vase multiple times to fit all of the tulips. Draco wasn't sure why Potter hadn't just thrown them out, but it wasn't his place to say anything, certainly.

On Saturday, when everyone had gone off to Hogsmeade for the morning, Draco fire called his mother.

"Draco, darling," she said, smiling at him, "I'm so pleased to hear from you. How are you?"

He endured the predictable pleasantries before he said, "Listen, mother, the reason I called," he paused there because this was all a bit ridiculous. "Well, it sounds silly really, but there was a story you told me when I was little," he said. "Something about a wizard who had flowers appear out of nowhere? I can't remember it."

"Why?" she asked, her face serious. "Draco, why are you asking me about that story?"

"No reason," he said quickly. "It's just something that came into my head," he lied.

"Who's receiving tulips, Draco?"

"It's nothing!" he repeated. "And I never said there were any tulips."

"If I tell you the story, will you tell me the truth?"

Draco sighed but nodded.

"The story," she began, "was about your great, great, great uncle Silas. Silas was a difficult man, everyone always said so. He was haughty and rude; he was quite clever but not terribly gracious about it."

"Mother," he interrupted, his knees were growing cold and sore from kneeling on the common room floor, "could we just skip to the meat of the story."

"Yes, alright," she sighed. "Long story short, Silas fell in love with a muggleborn. His family obviously refused to let him get married, assuming that the love would fade eventually. There was an arranged marriage in there as well, but that's not really important. What is important, is that the person he fell in love with began to find tulips everywhere. Every time she went to pick up something, it turned into a tulip; at her home, her work, everywhere she went, tulips."

Draco felt something in the pit of his stomach drop. This couldn't be happening.

"He was pining for her, heartbroken that he couldn't be with her," she said. "Now, magic can't create something from nothing, so in each of the tulips was a little bit of Silas' magic."

"Like a horocrux?" he asked in horror.

"No, darling, nothing so sinister as that. But the flowers were slowly draining his magical core and he was growing steadily weaker." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, "So, as the story goes, when he was so weak he could barely summon the strength to stand, he went to her to confess his love. What did it matter if he was going to die? When he told her of his love, she kissed him and his magic was restored. The family was convinced that it was true love and that the love that bound the two of them together was obviously stronger magic than that of blood status."

Draco rubbed a hand over his face, "So, this was a true story?"

"Yes, it's all rather well documented as it would have to be in the case of something like this." She gave him her most commanding look, "Now, I've held up my end of the bargain, so it's your turn. Tell me who's receiving tulips, Draco."

"Harry Potter," he whispered.

Her eyebrows rose, "You have to tell him, Draco."

"I can't!" he said, shaking his head, "You know I can't. He couldn't possibly feel the same way, he couldn't possibly love me, too-"

Something shattered behind him and he yanked his head back to see the boy in question standing there, bouquet of tulips in his hands. The vase had dropped and been smashed, water was soaking into Potter's socks but he didn't seem to notice.

Draco promptly ended the fire call with his mother and wondered if it would be possible to transfer to Beauxbatons to complete the year. It was either that or he should just go off to die.

"How much of that did you hear?" he asked, his voice a hoarse whisper.

"Most of it," Potter confessed with a little wince. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop but then I heard her talking about how everything in that girl's life became tulips and I knew you were talking about me. I didn't realize how the story would end," he hastened to add. "I just thought that she might know something about a curse or spell that had been cast on me."

Draco rubbed his forehead, "Look, could you just forget about the whole thing?"

"Forget about it?" Potter asked, sounding a little hysterical at this point. "Draco, it turned six quills into tulips in the past three days. Six!" he shook his head. "No, I can't forget about it and I certainly can't let you die."

Draco stood up and balled his hands into fists, "Always ready to play the hero aren't you?"

"What?" the other boy asked, obviously taken aback.

"Ready to play the martyr," he sneered. "Well I won't have it. I won't have you tying yourself to me just because you're afraid that I'll die if you don't return the sentiment."

"But I already do return the sentiment," Harry said, sounding bewildered. "Sorry, maybe I should have said so, but I thought that was obvious from the story."

"What?"

"Well, your mum said that it was true love's kiss that restored his magic, true love that made it possible for the flowers to appear in the first place. I just assumed it was obvious that I was in love with you, too."

"You are?" he whispered, hardly daring to believe that this was possible.

"Yeah," Harry replied with a little shrug. "I mean, I thought maybe it would have been good to start with a date or something," he said, scratching the back of his neck. "It's why I'm still here, I wanted to invite you to go to Hogsmeade with me."

"You did?"

Harry nodded again. "But I'm glad to kiss you, for the unselfish reason that it will restore your magic," he said, glancing down at the flowers in his hands before looking back up, "And for the selfish reason that I would really just like to kiss you."

"You would?" he asked.

Harry huffed at him, "Are you going to stop sounding like you doubt every word out of my mouth?"

"Sorry, it's just-" Draco started but then Potter was across the room, dropping the tulips as he cupped Draco's face in his hands and leaned in until they were a mere inch apart.

"Can I kiss you?" he asked softly, his eyes flickering between Draco's.

"Yes," Draco breathed.

Harry gave him a little grin and leaned in to kiss him, his soft, full lips, gently caressing Draco's, and Draco felt like his heart stopped beating for a moment before a surge of magic, and joy, and love came rushing in and filled him to bursting.

He wrapped his arms around Harry's waist and pulled him in closer and Harry hummed, molding his lips to Draco's for a moment before pulling back and resting their foreheads together.

"That was-" Draco started.

"Fantastic," Harry agreed. "Do you feel better? Not going to die on me or anything?"

Draco laughed and pinched his side, "I think we were a long way off from that."

"I don't know," Harry replied, tilting his head to press a kiss to the tip of Draco's nose. "There were an awful lot of tulips."

"Yes," Draco replied, pulling back to look at the tulips strewn about the floor, "And you've dropped them all on the ground. That's quite rude, you know."

Harry huffed at him, "Prat," he said fondly before drawing away to swish his wand and collect all of the tulips and put them back into the repaired vase. "So," Harry said, "I think tulips may be my new favorite flower."

"Mine, too," Draco replied with a smile.

And when they got married, two years later, there were tulips everywhere.

Day 15: Wings | Day 17: Salt

#100 drarry drabbles in 100 days #drarry drabbles #drarry ficlets #boys in love #true love conquers all #drarry #day 16 #thanks so much for the prompt anon #enjoy

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startanewdream · 4 years ago

Text

pareidolia

inspired by @blvnk-art' drawing of a happy quiet moment between Harry and Ginny, here is a short missing moment of them just being together.

‘Oh, look, it’s a bunny’, Ginny says gladly and when Harry turns his gaze from the lake to her, he sees she is staring at the sky, her face alight with glee.

Looking at her always makes him feel like time had stopped and he feels lost in his desire to just take in every aspect of her face — her shining warm brown eyes, freckles splattered over her cheeks, the lips he has kissed so many times now that he’s proud to say he lost count, and the way her flaming red hair frames it all, a few strands flying loosely in the wind.

He caresses her hair before answering, his voice reasonably and teasing. ‘Bunnies don’t fly’.

‘Well, if I charmed one, he could fly’, she answers, sounding just like him. ‘Or if I hold a bunny while I’m in my broom, then he could be flying too’.

‘Fine, bunnies may fly’.

‘I’m glad we accepted that’, she says, and the joy in her face makes him lower his head to kiss her softly in the forehead. She beams at him before looking back at the sky. ‘Oh, poor bunny has turned into a giraffe now’.

‘Giraffes in the sky?’

‘Yeah, look’.

She raises her hand and he follows the direction her finger is pointing too. It’s a beautiful end of the day, summer almost upon them, and like others they are laying lazily around the lake, enjoying the warm weather, the sun still shining above and the sky full of fluffy clouds.

But when he looks at what Ginny is pointing, he sees no giraffe.

‘Hum, I see nothing’.

‘Oh, how come? Look, there is the neck — have you seen a giraffe before?’

‘Yeah, I went to the zoo once’.

‘Oh, I never went to one’.

‘We could go in the summer’, he says, and this causes a flutter feeling on his stomach. He’s making plans with Ginny for the summer. He has never planned ahead in this way, not to something that’s not for a war or a prophecy.

And now he is planning a date with his girlfriend.

‘That would be fun’, she agrees, her voice warm. ‘That one you have to see, it looks like Hagrid!’.

‘Nope’.

‘It’s the largest cloud and look, there is the beard and his hair — remember when he was trying to impress Madame Maxime?’

‘I try not to’, he answers, grinning, and his free hand flies to run on his hair. ‘Should I try to comb mine too? Might impress the ladies?’

‘Oh, no, the ladies love your messy hair’. When he raises his eyebrows, not believing him, Ginny laughs. ‘I mean it! It only loses to your eyes in the Harry Potter scale of attraction’.

‘There is one?’

‘According to Romilda Vane, yeah. If you ever tattoo a dragon, it might surpass your hair though’.

‘No dragon tattoo then’.

‘Speaking of dragon, there!’, she points again to the sky. ‘I think it’s a Hungarian Horntail, it looks like a lizard with horns… Well, that’s the signal, Harry. You'll need a tattoo now’.

‘You know there are no shapes in the clouds, right?’

‘It’s fun to just play along’, she replies, unaffected by his comment. ‘Use my imagination a bit’.

‘Aren’t you just using this as an excuse to avoid studying Transfiguration?’.

Ginny looks back at him, an exaggerated offended expression in her face. ‘I call it inspiration! I can transform things much better if I can imagine them. Try a little!’

‘Try what?’

‘Look at the sky! You really can’t see anything?’

Harry thinks he would rather look at her very real face, but with Ginny challenging him, he turns his eyes to the sky again. The clouds are really beautiful, white highlighted against the blue, but other than fluffy shapes, he can think of anything else.

‘You’ve never done this before?’, she asks, her voice suddenly small, and Harry knows Ginny is staring at him.

He feels suddenly awkward. ‘No, I mean, my… my room had no windows as I was growing up, and the Dursleys didn’t exactly give me time to just stare at the sky and… well, imagination was not something they encouraged’.

‘Oh’, she pauses, raising her head from his lap and for a moment Harry fears she will look at him pitifully. But there is only resolution on her eyes as she grins at him. ‘It’s never too late. Come on, lay your head on the ground’.

She waits until he lays on the grass, feeling a little strange of doing this, before Ginny lays next to him, holding his hand, intertwining their fingers together.

‘Just look at the sky’.

‘Ginny —’

‘No pressure’, she tells him, her voice lightly. ‘Just let your thoughts fly freely. You know, don’t worry about anything’.

Don’t worry?, he thinks. He has been worrying for so long that it feels as if she is asking him not to breath.

But because it’s Ginny and he never refuses her, he tries to focus not on the sky, though he keeps his stare there, but at everything else. The warmth of her fingers, the softness on her skin; the light breeze around them and the sun on his face; the smell of the grass, the sound of the water of the lake hitting the borders.

It’s been a nice Sunday, one of these days were he and Ginny get time to be together, no classes, no detentions. Just the two of them, enjoying having time for each other, kissing and talking and living. And Harry feels… happy. Normal. Someone else.

There are many wonderful things in being with Ginny, but one of his favourites is that when he is with her, he can’t seem to think of anything else he would like to change.

‘There is a Golden Snitch’, he tries, pointing to a giant cloud that’s moderately round-shaped. ‘With wings at the side?’

He isn’t sure if he is doing it right, but Ginny nods excitedly. ‘Now we need to find the other balls — I think that’s the quaffle, right next to that dog, see?’

Harry doesn’t really see much, neither the dog or the quaffle, but he nods too, bringing her hand closer and placing a kiss on her knuckles.

‘Now we need to find the bludgers’, he tells her, and Ginny beams at him before turning to the sky again.

#hinny #missing moments #hinny fanfic #happy hour by the lake #just let Harry be happy #t: fanfiction #Harry just don't see shapes in clouds and that's actually ok

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minty-malfoy · 5 years ago

Text

reading between the lines

• pairing: draco malfoy x fem!reader

• summary: draco takes you on a date that involves lots of hand holding and a cozy bookshop.

• request: Hi! I was wondering if you could write a Draco malfoy imagine where he and the reader are dating, and he takes her for a hogsmeade date at a bookshop, because she is a bookworm, and they pick books for each other and he pays for everything?

• word count: 2.9k

a/n: no thoughts head empty just draco fluff. this is meant to be a breather after all the angsty love triangle fics i wrote for this boy

oh & this would've been out way sooner if I stopped being too much of a perfectionist (which I did like midway) so yeah I'm finally putting it out and just hoping for the best. my writing style had a weird identity crisis when I was working on this, but let's pretend it didn't. enjoy!

"Cold, isn't it?"

You look up at the voice's owner, only to catch a mixture of sympathy and a terribly smug I told you so on his pretty face.

Despite your scoff, you know he's right, and so does he. The chilly autumn air was penetrating through the fabric of your coat, mercilessly tickling the skin underneath; feeling like an in between that's neither as icy and cold as winter, nor as warm and friendly as summer. Regardless, it's something that your boyfriend, whom your fingers are laced with, doesn't seem to like.

"C'mere," he finally grumbles, tugging you closer towards him. "Merlin, (y/n), couldn't have underdressed more than this, could you?" he says bitterly, but his eyes display the complete opposite. You've learned to recognize the glint of affection in his orbs quite easily by now.

"I was in a hurry!" you exclaim with a wide grin that betrays your stern excuse. "And you don't have to be so rude and mean about it."

"Well, pardon me for being against the idea of my girlfriend freezing out in this weather. Now enough of that, give me your hands," he orders, because the only other thing Draco would be against is the idea of arguing with you, especially when it's over such trivial things. This was just his way of deflating the situation.

You eye him curiously as his hands rub into yours, enveloping them completely with his own. Then when he catches you staring, a small smirk finds its way onto his lips. Suddenly he's lifting one of your hands to his face, holding it right under his mouth before placing a few soft breathy kisses there. Even with the fabric of your glove in between, you can still easily feel the warm contact of his lips.

You can't tell whether it's due to the cold air that a blush paints itself on Draco's cheeks, but you decide not to think about it, because now you're looking away to hide a blush of your own.

Both of you continue walking with hands still entwined, letting the air glide around your bodies softly. It's a complete juxtaposition of the ecstatic impatience pulsing through your veins, all contained behind your soft smile that Draco doesn't need to point out or question. He knows you're excited, and he knows the reason perfectly well.

You've been giddy ever since he proposed taking you on a bookshop date. After all, it involved two of the things you loved most: Draco Malfoy, and your undying passion for reading. It was no secret how often Draco found you deeply engrossed in a book, without fail making him feel awestruck and simultaneously envious. Not that he would ever admit he got jealous over an inanimate object, of course, and least of all to you.

Deep down, Draco's more than happy to see the joy in your eyes when you're rereading one of your favorite books, or the cheerfulness in your smile after picking up a new one. He loves you and your hobby all the same.

When you finally make it to the bookshop, you practically have to hold back from stampeding directly into it, pursing your lips into a line to contain your enthusiasm. This, of course, doesn't go without Draco's notice, and you don't mind the chuckle he sends your way. You're far too occupied with the thought of gliding your fingers over the eclectic book collections.

He pulls you inside gently while eyeing your reaction the entire time, and frankly, he can't help but melt at the way your eyes light up in childlike wonder, the way you take in the familiar scent of parchment, and the way you finally turn to him with an uncontainable grin.

"I have a proposal to make," you announce, unaware of the way your grin makes his heart skip a bit.

"Should I be worried?" he smirks.

"We should pick a book for eachother!"

Draco thinks over the idea in his head for a moment or two, finding it hard to deny that it was rather pointless to him. Neither of you are sure what the other would like, and for the most part, his concerns are true. But then again, it's the way your smile brightens up at the idea, coupled up with his curiosity as to what you'd possibly pick for him, that ultimately leads him to accept the suggestion.

You give his hand a light squeeze before finally pulling away and parting to another section of the bookshop. Draco's left to stare at his empty hand with an obvious frown. Maybe he shouldn't have agreed to this, he thinks, as he's missing the contact already. All he wants is to have you nearby, to see the enthusiasm in your face from each book that you pull out. But when his eyes meet yours in the far off corner of the bookshop, he smiles tenderly, and decides to let you be. There's always more time for physical affection later.

Back in your spot in the bookshop, you're already eyeing the countless racks of books in wonder, roaming over every cover and title curiously. For once, you're somewhat thankful to have time and space to yourself from the blonde slytherin. To select a book for him, you would have to be methodical and punctilious. Neither are ever easy when he's around, when it feels like your rational thinking is all turned into mush. Hence, rather than wasting a single second, you immediately focus on the task at hand.

For a brief moment, you wonder if Draco had already deduced the type of book you'd get him, considering how obvious it is by the section you instantly went towards.

Non-fiction, the factual informative reading that might suit his tastes and interests. Something under astronomy seems to make the most sense, although then again, you assume he already knows most there is to know under that natural science. School related studies like potions and transfiguration cross your mind as well, albeit briefly, because you're not sure what good it would be to give someone a book on something they're already quite good at.

You toss your thoughts back and forth as your fingers fumble over multiple books, hoping one of them could strike you with a burst of inspiration. But it isn't until a peculiar idea lights up like a light bulb in your head. You didn't necessarily have to give Draco something he would like, as long as your choice would be meaningful and thoughtful.

That's exactly how you make up your mind and gingerly pull out a certain book with a content smile, keeping it tucked under your arm as you continue to browse the selection for a few books for yourself.

"All done, love?"

You spin around in one swift motion, quickly hiding the book you chose for him behind your back, although it wasn't the easiest thing to do when you had a couple other in your hold.

"What do we have here?" he cheekily tries to catch a peek, but you're already backing away spontaneously.

"It's a surprise!" you squeal, and Draco already has his hands held out innocently, chuckling slightly when he says, "Alright, alright. Now let's go purchase all these books."

You follow him to the cashier where you hand over all the items you've been holding. You reach for your purse in the bag you had with you, rummaging around for it with your fingers. But when you finally pull it out with a triumphant smile, you find that Draco has beat you to it, and he's already paying for all the books you chose.

You give him a look that says that's not fair, but you know it's just one of his many ways of showing his adoration for you.

He picks up the paper bags and begins heading towards the exit, where he's stopped midway by a kiss on the cheek. In other words, your little way of thanking him.

"keep doing that and I'll end up buying you this entire bookshop," he tells you in a half joke, betraying the fact that deep down he's rather serious about the idea. Draco Malfoy had come to a point where spending money was the least of his worries when it came to you.

"Tempting," you hum. "but you know I'd rather do it for free." you get up on your tiptoes again and plant a second kiss on his cheek, as if to prove your point. His hand reaches for the spot with an affectionate look directed your way; not entirely used to receiving the loving words and gestures that you give him.

"There's another bookshop nearby. Fancy giving it a look?" he asks with a wink.

You let out a faux gasp, smacking his shoulder playfully, "If you want more kisses, all you have to do is ask! And besides, I'll make sure to give you lots of them when we get back."

He smiles widely, leaning closer to whisper in your ear, "Well, I'll make sure you stay true to your word on that."

The two of you giggle as you finally walk back out into the outdoors, where the cold air greets you before anything else could. You're trying your best not to shiver, mainly out of knowing it might ignite a second wave of Draco's lecturing. Not that he'd notice, really, he's far too busy staring at that pretty smile of yours and how much he wants to capture it with the matching one on his face.

And he almost would have if you didn't snap him out of his thoughts, reaching for a specific book and pulling it out for him to see. It didn't take much to figure out what you were doing, so he grabbed a book of his own before you both exchanged the two items.

"How did you know what I'd like?" you ask him, gazing at the hardback under your fingers, feeling the texture you've become familiar with against your skin. But when Draco doesn't respond, you take a glance at him with a raised brow.

"Romance?" he blinks in confusion a few times, struggling to hide the surprise at your choice of what was, frankly, not his cup of tea. He's not entirely sure on what to say, so you fill in the silence for him.

"I know it doesn't suit your tastes, but I thought it would be nice to get you something I like instead. Kind of like showing you a part of me that you'll only understand through things like books."

He looks between you and the book, processing the explanation that you gave him. Until finally, his signature smile is back on his face and he says, "I won't promise that I'll like it."

In moments like these, it was easy to read between the lines, when Draco showed his love through actions much more than words. "I won't promise that I'll like it" rather meant "I'm willing to give it a shot only because it means something to you" and it held a larger amount of affection than he let on.

"What?" Draco asks, noticing the stupid lovesick grin decorating your face.

"Oh, nothing. You're adorable."

He raises a challenging brow to match his response, "I think either menacing or charming is far more suitable. Adorable is far off the list." but you still notice the blush on his cheeks. It's not that hard to miss, honestly, with the color of his skin.

"I stand by my statement."

Draco nearly snorts at this, already thinking of an alternative counter argument. One quickly comes to mind, "Try telling that to someone like Weasley. Bet he'd puke before he could even begin proving you wrong."

You roll your eyes, "Well, he's not the one you're snogging or taking on bookshop dates, is he?"

Draco sucks in a sharp breath, stuck between finding it useless to continue the disagreement while also grimacing at the sudden image of him snogging Ron Weasley, likely a potential nightmare fuel to haunt him in his sleep.

"Please never mention that thought ever again," he begs you before switching the conversation to a lighter topic. "Where would you like to head to now, my dear?"

You already have an idea in mind, and you have the feeling Draco would like it just as much.

• • •

And like it he does, although that word is nowhere close to describing the fondness he feels in the moment; having you tucked in between his legs with your back against his chest, the both of you hidden in a spot beside the Black Lake where no one would be around to disrupt.

You melt into him, feeling every intake of air that enters his respiratory, eliciting the soft rise and fall of his chest. You feel every thud of his heartbeat against your skin and every single vibration of his occasional humming.

His free hand is wrapped around your waist to pull you closer into him, where his thumb is absentmindedly rubbing your skin every now and then. It all turned reading into a nearly impossible task, which was a first for someone like you.

"How's the book?" you ask him in hopes of a distraction— which you earn far too easily. Instead of the book in your hands, you're now fixated on the way Draco's lids flutter when he blinks at you, and the way he licks his lips that have gone dry from the crisp air.

"Underwhelming," he begins. "These two idiots are clearly in love, and it would've all been over by the first chapter if either of them made a move."

Draco had thought that this comment was enough to make you attempt reasoning with him; to defend the fiction novel he was reading. What he did not expect, however, was to hear you giggle, bright and clear as day.

He looks at you in confusion, hoping to get handed an explanation.

"You do realize that's exactly how we were back then?" you utter, looking into his grey eyes once again. Both of you take a moment to recall the memory, smiling silently at the image of two clueless lovesick idiots wondering if the other liked them just as much.

"Hm, I suppose if you put it that way." Draco finally affirms. His fingers begin reaching for yours, where both meet in a loving entanglement. "Honestly, (y/n), how was I supposed to know you fancied me when all you did was bloody look away?"

"That's only because I was too nervous to look at you!" you huff out. "I'm beginning to think I should get you more of those romance novels."

You don't hear a reply, but you feel the smile in his lips as he presses soft wet kisses into your skin, followed by the hot breaths that are a contrast to the freezing air. Draco notices this fact from the tiny shivers of your body, and he begins to pull away gently.

"Come now, love, we should head back inside before it gets too cold."

You pout at his offer; enjoying yourself in the current activity far too much, even if you've left the reading part of it unattended. Having Draco's arms around you with your fingers laced together was all that mattered.

Your lover frowns at your reaction, wishing you weren't so stubborn when the cold is biting your skin, but he makes sure to vocalize a second offer; one he knows you wouldn't refuse, "I could read to you in my room if you'd like."

And that's all it takes for you to beam an appreciative grin at him.

"And someone would have to warm up that body of yours. Can't exactly do that out here," he adds, referring to the darkening sky and the decreasing temperature enveloping your bodies. But you seemed to have misread his statement, or perhaps you were purposefully trying to tease him. Either way, a smirk was sitting on your expression that didn't go unnoticed.

"Not in that way, love," he drawls out, letting out a small laugh that vibrates into your skin. "Unless that's what you'd like?"

Your hand immediately comes into contact with his chest in the form of a playful smack, although you can't hide the amused smile on your face. In turn, Draco dramatically gasps out, "I've been wounded!"

For a moment, all that exists is the sound of your laughter coming together like a muddled up choir and the feeling of fingers wrapped together. When the laughter dies down, and you're finally brought back into the present, you pull Draco into a warm hug. You savor the scent of his familiar cologne and the sound of his thudding heart, wishing you could stay that way for the slightest bit longer.

Although it takes a few seconds for him to wrap his own hands around your frame, when he does, it feels nothing short of perfect. His head rests in the junction between your neck and shoulder, where you can feel each of his warm breaths stroke against your skin.

"We should go on these bookdates more often," he suggests, and with the happiest smile you tell him, "I'm not against that idea."

draco taglist — @arossebyanyothername @kawaii-angelanne @thefandomplace @yuosmi @bbeauttyybbx @mywellspringoflife @slytherinsunrise @avatarbeeb @scarlet-says-hi @lunars

#harry potter #draco #draco malfoy #draco malfoy fanfiction #draco malfoy x y/n #draco malfoy x reader #draco fanfiction #reader insert #draco x reader #draco x y/n

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