#transformers nymphae

[shenaniganeryfromtheabyss]

Nymphae

+ a bonus doodle of Starscream yelling at lesbians

[chocfrog-enjoyer]

Name-play and symbolism in Harry Potter

Sirius Black: Dog Black the black dog ( Sirius is a star in the Canis Major // Big Dog //constellation, the star is commonly known as the “Dog Star” ). A dog is a man’s best friend ( unlike Peter, the rat, who ratted his friends out )

Remus Lupin: basically just Wolf Wolf ( Remus - roman hero raised by wolves. In Latin lupus means “wolf”, and lupinus “wolf-like” )

Rubeus Hagrid: In Greek Mythology, Hagrid Rubes is a giant who is banished from Mt. Olympus by Zeus and has to take care of animals. Hagrid is expelled from Hogwarts and becomes the groundskeeper- later on he starts teaching Care of Magical Creatures.

Sybille Trelawney: Said to be a descendant of the legendary Cassandra, in Greek mythology Cassandra was a woman with the ability to foresee future and a curse, that no one believed her prophecies. Here’s my post on why Sybill isn’t a fraud.

Xenophilous Lovegood: Xenophilius's name comes from two Greek words: Xenos "strange" and -Phile "love" -> one who loves the strange

Bellatrix Lestrange: Bellatrix means “female warrior” in Latin. She was one of Voldemorts most fierce and loyal followers.

Nymphadora Tonks: Nymphadora translates as "Gift of the Nymphs.” A "nymph," in Greek mythology, refers to "a member of group of female 'spirits' found in different types of nature.” They had the ability to transform/shapeshift" They are further classified by where they were found. In Latin, “nympha” translates to “bride, mistress. young woman” referencing the fact that Remus married Tonks, who’s 13 years younger than him.

Minerva McGonnagal: In Roman Mythology Minerva was the goddess of wisdom, war, art, schools, justice and commerce.

Dolores Umbridge: The word umbrage means offence or annoyance, and the Spanish name Dolores has its roots in the Latin word "dolor," which translates to "pain" or "sorrow."

Fenrir Greyback: Fenrir is a monstrous wolf in Norse mythology. Fenrir represents the forces of evil and chaos.

Gilderoy Lockhart: The Levels of Processing model, created by Fergus I. M. Craik and Robert S. Lockhart in 1972, describes memory recall of stimuli as a function of the depth of mental processing.

Merope Gaunt: In Greek mythology Merope is one of the seven Pleiades, daughter of Atlas and Pleione. Merope is the faintest of the stars because she was the only of the Pleiades to have married a mortal. One myth says that she hid her face in shame because she had an affair with a mortal man. ( Replace mortal with muggle and we have Merope Gaunt )

Lucius Malfoy: Lucius deriving from Latin words, meaning light/bright/to shine. “Mal foy” means “bad faith” in French. Draco is latin for “serpent/dragon”

Lily Evans ( later Potter ) and Petunia Evans ( later Dursley ): Lilies are often associated with purity, renewal and transience, and Petunias symbolize anger and resentment

Alastor Moody: Alastor, an epithet of the Greek God Zeus, according to Hesychius of Alexandria and the Etymologicum Magnum, which described him as the avenger of evil deeds, specifically familial bloodshed.

Quirinus Quirrell: In Augustan Rome, Quirinus was an epithet of Janus, as Janus Quirinus. Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces.

[aliciavance4228]

Currently trying to find any source possible in order to prove that the relationship between Hera and Tethys has a lot of potential yet it's more unexplored than the ocean:

Homer, Iliad 14. 200 ff (trans. Lattimore) (Greek epic C8th B.C.) : "[Hera addresses Aphrodite :] ‘Since I go now to the ends of the generous earth on a visit to Okeanos (Oceanus), whence the gods have risen, and Tethys our mother who brought me up kindly in their own house, and cared for me and took me from Rheia, at that time when Zeus of the wide brows drove Kronos (Cronus) underneath the earth and the barren water. I shall go to visit these, and resolve their division of discord, since now for a long time they have stayed apart from each other and from the bed of love, since rancour has entered their feelings. Could I win over with persuasion the dear heart within them and bring them back to their bed to be merged in love with each other I shall be forever called honoured by them, and beloved.’"

Diodorus Siculus, Library 1-7:

"But since we have made mention of the Atlantians, we believe that it will not be inappropriate in this place to recount what their myths relate about the genesis of the gods, in view of the fact that it does not differ greatly from the myths of the Greeks. 2 Now the Atlantians, dwelling as they do in the regions on the edge of the ocean and inhabiting a fertile territory, are reputed far to excel their neighbours in reverence towards the gods and the humanity they showed in their dealings with strangers, and the gods, they say, were born among them. And their account, they maintain, is in agreement with that of the most renowned of the Greek poets when he represents Hera as saying: For I go to see the ends of the bountiful earth, Oceanus source of the gods and Tethys divine. Their mother."

Hyginus, Fabulae:

"CALLISTO: Callisto, daughter of Lycaon, is said to have been changed into a bear by the wrath of Juno, because she had lain with Jove. Afterwards Jove put her among the number of the stars as a constellation called Septentrio, which does not move from its place, nor does it set. For Tethys, wife of Ocean, and foster mother of Juno, forbids its setting in the Ocean. This, then, is the greater Septentrio, about whom it is written in Cretan verses: "Thou, too, born of the transformed Lycaonian Nympha, who, stolen from the chill Arcadian height, was forbidden by Tethys ever to dip herself in the Oceanus because once she dared to be concubine to her foster child . . . ' This bear, then is called Helice by the Greeks. She has seven rather dim stars on her head, two on either ear, one on her shoulder, a bright one on her breast, one on her forefoot, a bright one at the tip of her tail; at the back on her thigh, two; at the bottom of her foot, two; on her tail, three — twenty in all."

Hyginus, Astronomica:

"This constellation, as many have stated, does not set, and those who desire some reason for this fact say that Tethys, wife of Ocean, refuses to receive her when the other stars come there to their setting, because Tethys was the nurse of Juno, in whose bed Callisto was a concubine."

Plato, Theaetetus 152e (trans. Fowler) (Greek philosopher C4th B.C.) : "And on this subject [i.e. that all things are derived from flow and motion] all the philosophers . . . may be marshalled in one line--Protagoras and Herakleitos (Heraclitus) and Empedokles (Empedocles)--and the chief poets in the two kinds of poetry, Epikharmos (Epicharmus), in comedy, and in tragedy, Homer, who, in the line ‘Okeanos (Oceanus) the origin of the gods, and Tethys their mother,’ has said that all things are the offspring of flow and motion."

Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica:

"From Ocean then uprose Dawn golden-reined: Like a soft wind upfloated Sleep to heaven, And there met Hera, even then returned To Olympus back from Tethys, unto whom But yester-morn she went. She clasped him round, And kissed him, who had been her marriage-kin Since at her prayer on Ida's erest he had lulled To sleep Cronion, when his anger burned Against the Argives. Straightway Hera passed To Zeus's mansion, and Sleep swiftly flew"

Nonnus, Dionysiaca 23. 280 ff (trans. Rouse) (Greek epic C5th A.D.) : "Tethys! Agemate and bedmate of Okeanos (Oceanus), ancient as the world, nurse of commingled waters, selfborn, loving mother of children."

[princess-of-the-corner]

Had some fun musing on Mari-butterfly names:

Glasswing/Greta Oto, for the Glasswing Butterfly (May play into a 'I show you who you truly are/I am honest' theme)

Andromica, for the Andromica clearwing (Same themes as the Glasswing butterflies)

Gossamer, (Plays into her fashionista side and a spiderweb theme)

Lycaenidae, for the gossamer-winged butterflies

Lotis, for the Lotis Blue, (Mostly for her hair)

Idas, for the Idas blue (Mostly for her hair)

Candalid, for Candalidini

Niphan, for Niphandini

Also neutral one's that could apply to a lot of characters:

Madame Metamorphosis, for the transformation aspect

Heliconius/Heliconian, for the longwing butterflies

Vanessa Cardui, for the Painted Lady Butterfly

Painted Lady, for the Painted Lady Butterfly

Chrysallís, for the pupal stage of butterflies

Nympha, for the pupal stage of butterflies

Aureli, for the pupal stage of butterflies

Sevenia, for the tree nymph butterflies

Riodinidae, for metalmark butterflies

& finally some Chloe one's for if she steals/saves, Nooroo & goes wild:

Zerene, yellow & Black, plus a homage to Taking a Crack at being a Parent by generalluxun.

Cesonia, or the Zerene family of butterflies & the yellow & Black color scheme

Chrysós, for gold, has ties to Chrysallís, the pupal stage of butterflies

Coliadinae, for the sulphurs or yellow butterflies

Colias, for the clouded yellow butterflies

You know I hate that Canon used 'Monarch' because damn it that was the name I use for Butterfly!Chloé and now I gotta either double down and explain every time I use the name or pick a new one(these are good options tho)

[asnarkyandironicusername]

Day 25 of @remadoramicrofics - Ina Dark Dark Wood

Nymphadora supposed, as she trudged towards Remus Lupin’s silhouette, that this was how moths felt as they fluttered about unattended candles. They couldn’t explain their draw to the sun, they could only follow it, no matter how ill-advised. She had spent the past few months being told to forget about her infatuation with the grumpy werewolf, that it was bad for her health, and, with him fleeing at every chance he got, she didn’t have any sound evidence to suggest the contrary.

“Are you done trying to kill yourself?” She asked as she reached him.

“Hm?” he asked as he stared at her.

“Well, you’ve rushed off to the werewolf camp and now you look like you're debating a swim. Just wondering if –”

“Dumbledore needed –”

“I don’t care, Remus,” she ground out, looking away from him.

“So you’ve said.”

He started to turn away, but Tonks caught his wrist. “Tell me you don’t feel the same, Remus, tell me you don’t love me and I won’t –”

“You know I can’t do that, Nymphadora,” he protested.

“Don’t call me –”

“And don’t you see how dangerous that is?”

“I’ve never –” she felt her anger flare and he cut her off again.

“Nymphadora, I need you to understand –”

She felt like there were a thousand bees buzzing in her ears and the anger swelled in her. More than that, was the sadness that flowered at the idea that Remus found his own love to be dangerous. She pressed up onto her toes and caught his robes, pulling him close as she crashed their lips together. Remus tensed, but his hands, maybe of their own accord, held her, one looping around her waist and the other resting on her shoulder.

As they parted, slightly out of breath, Remus stared down at her wide-eyed. “I-I– We can’t –”

“Yes, we can, Remus. There’s a damn war going on and you have the nerve to think you’re the most dangerous thing to me, an auror and an Order member.”

He swallowed thickly and Tonks waited, biting her tongue. “Let’s go for a walk,” he said eventually. Anyone else might have taken it for a rejection, but Tonks knew better. Remus was private, he wouldn’t want to get caught making out on school grounds, not after his unceremonious ousting.

“Alright,” she agreed as she slid her hand into his.

“Afraid of the Forest?” he asked as he led her along.

“Are you?”

He smirked, “No, I’m used to being the scariest thing on this campus.”

“Oh, that can’t be true,” she chided as they followed a path into the dark woods. The branches were so thick that it nearly pitch black.

“Have you ever been here?”

Tonks shook her head. She had never seen much need to venture past the edge, though Charlie had been sent out here with a group for detention once.

Remus nodded. “I had to come a couple of times with James and Sirius for detention.”

“Sirius did always say you were a trouble maker.”

Remus snorted, but didn’t refute the accusation. “It’s also where we spent a lot of transformations.”

“Where do you spend them, now?”

He looked her over for a moment before he sighed. “Recently? At the camp, with the others. Before that, at Grimmauld Place with Sirius.”

“Before that?” she pressed. She wanted him to know she was all in, furry little problem be damned.

“I own a cabin…in wales. It’s seen better days, but it suffices.”

“By yourself?” He nodded, leading her to the left of a y in the path. “I could –”

“No,” he said firmly.

She turned to him, her mouth twisted in a pout. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

He smiled knowingly at her. “You’re not coming to see the cabin and you’re not spending a transformation with me.”

“That’s not what I was going to say,” she told him as she pulled him along the path. “I was going to say I could take us to my place.”

He looked at her. “Nympha– Tonks, I don’t think –”

“Why? I’m not afraid of you and I make enough money that I don’t need any financial support from you, and I’m old enough to date whomever I please, so why won’t you really come?”

He sighed as if the act was particularly painful. “Everyone I’ve ever loved has died, Tonks, and I can’t subject you to the same –”

She scoffed. “Be serious, Remus, none of those deaths have been your fault. You weren’t the spy and Peter had everyone fooled, Bellatrix wasn’t going to let Sirius live, and no one could have known about Dumbledore.” Remus started to protest, but Tonks pressed on, “And one day, no matter how careful I am or you are or how much we try, I’ll die. Everyone does, you know, it’s inevitable. The important thing, the thing that makes death a little less painful, is making sure that you live while you have the chance. Because if you aren’t living, you’re just waiting for death. How long have you been waiting, Remus, and how much longer are you going to?”

He stared at her for a long moment before he crashed his lips to hers. Tonks’s hands immediately found their way into his hair and along the nape of his neck while his hands twisted in her robes and pulled her close. He drew back and she was about to protest when he whispered in her ear, “I love you, Nymphadora Tonks, and I have for a long time.”

“I love you, too, Remus Lupin,” she said into his neck, “Now please come home with me. Like, right now.” She felt, more than saw, him nod and quickly apparated them to her front door.

[aristoteliancomplacency]

Here’s a classic example of the headache you end up with if you say ‘yeah, yeah, Nysiades is just a toponym for Hyades. They’re synonymous’ (This is from Hyginus’ Astronomica. Trans: Mary Grant):

§ 2.21.1 BULL: The Bull was placed among the stars because it carried Europa safely to Crete, as Euripides says. Some say that when Io was transformed into a heifer, Jupiter, to seem to make amends, put an image among the constellations which resembled a bull in its fore parts, but was dim behind. It faces towards the East, and the stars which outline the face are called Hyades. These, Pherecydes the Athenian says, are the nurses of Liber, seven in number, who earlier were nymphae called Dodonidae. Their names are as follows: Ambrosia, Eudora, Pedile, Coronis, Polyxo, Phyto, and Thyone. They are said to have been put to flight by Lycurgus and all except Ambrosia took refuge with Thetis, as Asclepiades says. But according to Pherecydes, they brought Liber to Thebes and delivered him to Ino, and for this reason Jove expressed his thanks to them by putting them among the constellations.

§ 2.21.4 The Pleiades were so named, according to Musaeaus, because fifteen daughters were born to Atlas and Aethra, daughter of Ocean. Five of them are called Hyades, he shows, because their brother was Hyas, a youth dearly beloved by his sisters. When he was killed in a lion hunt, the five we have mentioned, given over to continual lamentation, are said to have perished. Because they grieved exceedingly at his death, they are called Hyades. The remaining ten brooded over the death of their sisters, and brought death on themselves; because so may experienced the same grief, they were called Pleiades. Alexander says they were called Hyades because they were daughters of Hyas and Boeotia, Pleiades, because born of Pleio, daughter of Ocean, and Atlas.’

Here’s another part from Hyginus’ Fabulae:

The nymphs which are called Dodonides (others call them Naides) . . . Their names are Cisseis, Nysa, Erato, Eriphia, Bromis, Polyhymno. On Mount Nysa these obtained a boon from their foster-son, who made petition to Medea. Putting off old age, they were changed to young girls, and later, consecrated among the stars, they are called Hyades. Others report that they were called Arsinoe, Ambrosie, Bromie, Cisseis, and Coronis.

——

There is not a single source from antiquity that tries to say ‘yeah they were the nurses of Dionysos but then later they died because of their brother and then as a reward for having earlier been nurses of Zeus they got turned into stars.’

Not one. In accounts of the Hyades as mourners mount Nysa is never referred to. In accounts where mount Nysa is mentioned the brother Hyas is never referred to.

The fact that there are like, 7 different lists of their names across different sources, none of which are completely identical, and some of which have 0% overlap, many of which contain nymphs that are also said in different sources to belong to different groups of nymphs, is just a further demonstration of why you can’t say ‘same name(s) in some sources, thus always the same figure(s) across all sources’ (and will also be the bane of your life if you ever try and sort out the utter fucking mess that is English Wikipedia pages about Ancient Greek myth).

[angrylizardjacket]

heard your name in every love song {Ben Hardy} 5

5. we can be heroes, just for one day

Summary: Table read time! We get the first glimpse of what the movie’s going to look like, and you get a little closer with Ben in the process.

A/N: 3317 words. GOD CURSED ME WITH AN XMEN HYPERFIXATION AND NOW IT’S YOUR PROBLEM. also watch me have no idea about film table reads and yet still romanticize the fuck out of them.

the mutant brotherhood: @daisy-lu @hervoidparadise @nedmjpeter @ultrunning @d-r-e-a-m-catchme @clementimee @that-fandom-sucks-tho @cjand10 @rest-is-detail @baileymae @rosesvioletshardy @onceuponadetectivedemigod @hazelstyles94 @bitchylittleredhead @bihemian-rhapsody @sweatyexpertgardenpanda @whereeverythingisbetter @dedxbed @xxencagedxx @glittrixvibe @a-girl-with-stress @sunflower-ben @pxroxide-prinxcesss @mrsmazzello @cubedtriangle @haileymorelikestupid @misscharlottelee @nevilles-insinuations @jovialcreatorkidtoad @brianmaysclog @sambuckywarrior @hey-yo-bedussey @bubblyanis @lifesciencesbois @elektraofcrete @diosanaz @bbdoyouloveme @kirstansworld @okilover02 @cardboardbenmazzello @dreashappyworld @juliarose21 @simonedk @greycuby @emmasunshiine @dinotje @qtrogerina @spiketacus @nympha-door-a @local-troubled-writer @emphatic-af @wh0a-thisisheavy @lustgardn @banginashton @pamacs-macs @rogerinahardy1

--

When you get to the table read, interns are passing out the latest version of the script, and there’s place cards at each seat for all the cast and crew. Michael’s been separated from the other three Horsemen, and has a seat with the other main characters, while yourself, Ben, and Alexandra are a few seats away with the secondary X-Men. You’ve got Ben on one side and Alexandra on the other, but you’ve got your nose buried in your script, trying to find any changes, and feeling a little excited realising a new Horsemen scene had been added.

“I’m Y/N Y/L/N,” you announce when they get around to you in introductions, “I’m playing Cassidy Temple; Control.”

“I’m Alexandra Shipp and I am playing Storm; Ororo Monroe,” Alexandra tells the round table, and you nod along with everyone else. You’re trying to memorise everyone’s faces and names, feeling a little giddy to be seeing James McAvoy in person for the first time, as well as Lucas Till, who’d be playing Havok, the character you actually kill during the film. In the draft of the script you’d first received, it had been ambiguous, but the updated one sitting in front of you makes it explicitly clear that Cassidy’s the reason the Xavier Academy explodes, and Havok dies. Killing off a member of the First Class was bound to make your character memorable, as well as hateable.

“We open on darkness,” the director reads, kicking off the table read with a smile.

“Mutants born with extraordinary abilities,” James McAvoy reads, his voice heavy with the weight of his meaning, “and still, they are but children, yet stumbling in the dark, searching for darkness.”

“Sand,” the director interjects, “we travel through the darkness seeing only this sand falling, before it becomes a desert, wind blowing the sand across the dunes.”

“A gift can often be a curse,” James continues his narration, “give someone wings and they may fly too close to the sun.”

Heart in your throat, you listen eagerly to the opening flashback revealing Apocalypse’s origins, before the script comes forward to the 1980s, to Germany, to the cage fight between Angel and Nightcrawler, to your introduction.

You’re scripted to step out of the car with Mystique, dressed in 80s glam with large, dark sunglasses.

“Let’s make this quick,” Jennifer Lawrence growls in her trademark serious alto.

“In a moment, where there was one Cassidy, now there is two.” The director explains, reading the scene descriptors straight from the script. “The second Cassidy is identical, apart from the bright red tattoos on her visible skin.

“Yes, ma’am,” you smirk as you read. The scene continues with Cassidy and Mystique infiltrating the cage match, watching in horror as Angel and Nightcrawler fight in their electrified cage. The script makes note that your character is captivated by the sight of Angel. 

Mystique overloads the generator for the electric cage, and humans start shooting at the two captive mutants; your character’s clone snaps the neck of one -

“Cassidy, no!” It’s an order from Jennifer, one the director points out that you ignore, looking instead to Angel as your character’s original snaps another; Angel watches.

“Go!” You insist, and at the table, you give his shoulder an insistent nudge, listening and speaking as your character and Mystique get into a fight over how they don’t kill humans anymore.

“They were going to kill him!” You snapped, voice harsh, but your character’s friendship with Mystique is clearly over. Instead of joining her as she and Nightcrawler abscond into the night, and the scene cuts as your character screams, incapacitating every human in the building.

You’re the last of the Horsemen to be changed into a Horseman in the script, and you listen with excitement as the story unfolds around you. Even at a table read, everyone was putting their all into the voice work and physicality, giving everyone a real sense of how the story would look. Both Storm and Angel’s transformations have you on the edge of your seat, eyes shining with excitement as you read along, listening to your new friends give life to the script, and Magneto’s, oh, your heart ached for him as Apocalypse brought him to wreak havoc on Auschwitz.

It honestly feels like no time at all before -

“Crash-cut as we descend into the neon and grime of the Las Vegas skyline, along with the synthetic and heavy beat opening of Soft Cell’s Tainted Love,” the director reads, and you feel your heartbeat pick up, “as we descend past rough brick and power lines, we find ourselves in an alley, with a poster in the foreground for an anti-mutant rally dated today - 1983. A hand reaches out from the darkness – a hand with glowing red tattoos - and snatches the poster as we instead focus on the end of the alley where two figures – Cassidy Temple and an Unnamed Human – are silhouetted going at it against the brick –“

“What’s a nice girl like you doing at a rally like this?” The production assistant read, since the bit-part had yet to be cast.

“I could ask you the same thing,” you read, looking up from your script to see the assistant grinning down at his script.

“Any chance to show those mutie freaks we’re not afraid, I’ll take.”

“Cassidy does not like this answer,” the director reads, “and we see a figure behind the unnamed human, a figure covered in glowing tattoos, who’s reaching for the man’s neck – Cassidy and the figure make eye contact over his shoulder.”

“You should be,” you hissed, putting your all into the words as you spoke them, and you hear Ben inhale sharply beside you, “we shall inherit the Earth.”

“What follows is a struggle as Cassidy and the figure – revealed to be her clone – proceed to kill the man. When they’re finished, and the man’s dead on the ground, Cassidy straightens her outfit, and we hear –“ as the director reads, Michael begins to slowly clap, “a slow clap, and it’s revealed that Apocalypse, as well as Storm, Angel, and Magneto, had all witnessed the event.”

“We are the future, we are the ones who shall inherit the Earth,” Michael reads as he stops clapping.

“Magneto,” you breathe reverentially, and when you look to him, you and Michael share a sharp smile.

“The original Cassidy, the one without the tattoos,” the director reads, “takes off down the alleyway at a full sprint,” this garners a laugh from a few of the actors, yourself and the other Horsemen included, “while the clone stays frozen in place. Apocalypse gestures for Angel to go after the original, and he does.”

“They think we owe them our lives for merely existing,” you read, voice surprisingly defiant, “I think it’s the other way around. What –“

“We cut to see she’s posing the same question to Angel, who’s stopped her at the end of another alley,” the director interjects.

“- do you want from me?” You finish.

“Angel’s expression burns into Cassidy’s, they clearly recognize each other from Berlin, but we cut back to –“

“My child,” Oscar Isaac announces with the rich voice he’d adopted at the start of the reading, “you are destined for greater things than this; you deserve to know the true extent of your power.”

“We cut back to Angel offering his hand to the original –“

“We’re taking what we deserve,” beside you, Ben’s voice is low, his gaze flicking to meet yours, offering his hand, and you fight not to smile, “what we’re owed.” You’re pretty sure the way he says it will play in your head on repeat until the day you die, his voice so alluring and insistent –

“Back with the clone, we see her considering the offer, stepping towards Apocalypse.” When the director speaks, your gaze snaps to him, and away from Ben, your heart racing in your chest.

“No more hiding,” Michael read as Magneto, his voice soft and insistent, “no more suffering.”

“Angel, carrying the original Cassidy –“ as the director speaks, you take Ben’s hand, “- descends into the scene beside the clone. Cassidy and the clone stand side by side.”

“Who are you, my child?” Oscar asks.

“The original and the clone of Cassidy look at each other, and the clone disappears in a blast that has everyone but the original and Apocalypse bracing against it.“

“Cassidy Temple.” You answer.

“No.” Michael says, and Ben gives your hand a squeeze. You probably don’t have to still be holding his hand, but to be fair, he’s not letting go either.

“Control.” You tell him, voice cool and level.

“Control,” Oscar muses for a moment, “you want them to fear you –“

“Apocalypse offers both his hands –“

“And they will, they all will.”

“Without touching Cassidy, now Control, Apocalypse bestows his power upon her;” the director reads to the excited table, “it’s clearly painful; Control contorts in a way that shouldn’t be possible, like she should be falling, but an endless waterfall of clones falls from her instead, disappearing in a puff of smoke before they hit the ground. The markings from that we saw on the clone, the blacked-out eyes, scales around the eyes, and glowing red tattoos, they are made permanent on the original. When she screams, we sound waves echo out from her, and we cut through a montage of shots of humans falling to the ground, covering their ears, the anti-mutant pride comes to a grinding halt.” You’re fluttering your fingers gently against the back of Ben’s hand with excitement. 

“You will bring the world to it’s knees,” Oscar says.

“Control finally falls to the ground, the transformation complete; she’s breathing hard. Hands reach out and pick her up, hands covered in red tattoos. Clones; two, three, more, standing behind her, breathing hard and grinning; the start of an army. The original looks around at her clones, and in a moment they disappear. Apocalypse creates a portal, and as they disappear, we pull back to see bodies littering the ground, cars at a stand still in the middle of the road, a picture of devastation.”

You’re elated at how cool you thought your introductory scene was as you move onto the next scene was. As you move on, however, you seem to realise you’re kind of just holding his hand, and that feels... okay, you like the contact, but it feels weird. You let go and take a long drink of water.

There’s several more scenes that you’re in the background of with very few lines, and you’re mostly just content to sit back and enjoy the talented actors around you do what they do best. When the time comes, however, for the explosion scene as you’d been referring to it in your head, you sit forward, despite your lack of lines.

Apocalypse materialises in the Xavier Academy right after Havok destroys Cerebro, and Magneto uses his powers to kidnap Professor X, and Havok retaliates.

“Havok runs to try and catch up with Charles, but is not fast enough, and fires off a plasma beam –“ the director reads, and it’s as if you could cut the tension in the room like a knife.

“Alex, no!” Nicolas Hoult calls as Beast.

“We see one of Control’s clones step in front with arms spread wide to block the blast as Apocalypse teleports the Horsemen and Charles away,” the director reads, “there’s something biblical about the way Control poses, her head back; we see the Clone light up from the inside out, and explode.” He pauses, takes a deep breath, and looks around the room to see the rest of the cast and crew hanging on his every word, “We’re outside, we see Jean, Scott, Jubilee, and Kurt speeding down the road back to the school. Time freezes. Peter Maximoff has arrived.”

You know before the script read has even finished that Quicksilver’s introduction where he saves the school in suspended animation is going to be the best scene of the movie. And hell for the crew to film and edit.

The school explodes, Havok dies, and it’s all your character’s fault. You can’t help but grin in anticipation.

During the final fight, Control is said to stay out of the way, letting her clones fight for her beside Angel in the pyramid with Nightcrawler, brawling and desperate. Angel is tossed to the side in the fight and Control loses it, goes on the warpath, tearing into Nightcrawler before she’s incapacitated by a psychic attack from Jean. After Nightcrawler rescues Charles, the Control Clone helps Angel up, and they go after the escaping X-Men, infiltrating their warplane. Nightcrawler gets the X-Men to safety, and Angel and the clone are left in the crashing plane.

“The Control Clone, realising what this means for Angel,” the director read, looking up from his script to watch you and Ben as you shared a look, expressions both knowing and somber, “reaches out to him, but we cut to the explosion of the warplane. Elsewhere, Control screams, and falls to her knees. She does not get up and continue fighting.” Beneath the table, you reach over and rest your hand on Ben’s knee, and Alexandra takes your other hand.

“Holy shit,” Ben mumbled under his breath, his hand finding yours.

With Control incapacitated and Angel dead, the final confrontation with Apocalypse begins.

When the director announces the end of the film, you let out a breath you hadn’t realised you’d been holding, and clap and whistle along with the rest of the cast and crew. Control’s fate is left undecided, but you don’t care, just thrilled to even be here in the first place, possible plot holes be damned.

Overwhelmed and elated, you’re not quite sure where to go from here. You’re chattering away with Alexandra and Lana over the complimentary tea and coffee, full of adrenaline and excitement, when there comes a clap from the director.

“Okay, so I’ve sent out an email with a schedule for the rest of the day,” he announced to the room as a whole, “a few different cast meetings, then we’re going to be finalising the full production schedule tonight. Lunch is an hour, I want McAvoy and Fassbender back at one; everyone else, check your email.” He instructed with a cheery smile, and with that, you were all free to go.

Craft services is abuzz with chatter, with the cast coming together in little groups to talk about what they’re most excited for; Kodi’s excitedly talking about how he’s looking forward to the cage match when there comes a laugh by your side.

“Of course you’re looking forward to kicking my ass,” Ben grins, and Kodi flushes with the faintest embarrassment, but his eyes are still bright.

“What about you then?” Sophie’s asking, hip cocked and smile amused.

“Filming? I’m looking forward to getting metal wings,” he answers easily, “sitting in rafters, drinking vodka, and having superpowers? It’s a dream, isn’t it?” He snickers, and he’s standing so close you can feel how he’s radiating warmth. “What about you, Y/N?” He asks, snapping you out of where you’d been stuck in your own head, knocking your shoulder with his.

“Probably the fight with Nightcrawler at the end,” you grinned back at him, before turning your smile upon Kodi, “I always enjoy a good bit of fight choreo, and it’ll probably include some flashy special effects,” you pause, shifting your weight from one foot to the other as you tried to stifle a laugh, “and there’s something addictive about acting angsty and heartbroken.” You admit, having discovered your talent for playing heartbroken and desperate after playing Juliet almost three years ago.

“I wonder what the stinger will be,” Tye’s mostly thinking out loud, but you can’t help but frown in confusion, “the after credits scene,” he explained, “like in Avengers; it’s usually to do with whatever the next movie is, so they probably haven’t written it yet.” He paused and shrugged, “I dunno, I’m just interested to see where it goes from here, you know?”

You hadn’t even considered the possibility that you could be in more than one X-Men movie, and now it’s all you can think about, the idea going around in circles in your mind, making you dizzy. Perhaps that’s why they’d left your character’s fate open-ended. You’re part of a franchise now.

You’ve got a meeting with the director and the rest of the Horsemen, as well as Oscar, at three, and then a fifteen minute meeting directly after that’s just for you and Ben, and you can’t help your nervous excitement.

The Horsemen meeting is easy, it’s discussing your initial thoughts on your characters, how you’ll have to get personal trainers, and how the director’s glad to see you’re already all getting along.

“The Horsemen are a unit,” he keeps saying, keeps insisting, and Michael, beside you, reaches out and rests a hand on both yours and Oscar’s shoulders, a movement you copy almost immediately until the six of you – the Horsemen, Oscar, and the director – are all huddled together in solidarity. The director gives you lists of things he recommends you watch, movement exercises, and lets you know what scenes are going to be rehearsed in the coming days.

And then he dismisses everyone.

Everyone but you and Ben.

“So you’re both going to be working with a fight choreographer starting next week,” the director starts, “alongside Kodi,” he deliberates for a moment, and beside you, Ben shift his weight from one foot to the other.

“So I’m sure you’ve heard rumours, and read things about your characters,” the director’s voice has taken on a tone you can’t quite identify, now I know it’s not made explicit in the script, but after seeing you guys today, and talking to Marvel –“ your eyes went wide at that, “- you know, it’s just something I want you guys to keep in mind,” he’s trying to be nonchalant, and you have to fight not to gesture for him to just get to the point, “you’re going to be playing it as a romance going forward.”

After he says this, he lets it hang in the air, and you and Ben share a look, an amused, partially unreadable smile.

“It’s kind of a tragic romance,” Ben says, breaking the silence, and you can’t help but agree.

“It’s important going forward,” the director insists, but won’t explain why. Despite the strangely ominous connotation of what he says, you shrug.

“Sure, we can play romance,” you agreed, and looked to Ben, who was nodding along easily. The director’s lips stretched into a pleased smile.

“Good, awesome, well if you don’t have any questions for me, you’re free to go,” as you turned away, however, he added, “you guys have fantastic chemistry, I’m really looking forward to seeing what you bring to the table.”

The pair of you leave in a strange silence, not quite sure what to say to one another as you’re left to ruminate on the director’s words. The way he’d asked had been so weird and specific, especially give than you were playing secondary villains in an ensemble movie –

“What do you think he meant by all that ‘it’s important’ stuff?” Ben asked, hands in his pockets, grinning at you. It takes a moment for you to come back to reality from where you’d been spacing out, considering the very same topic, but all you can answer with is a shrug and a noise of vague confusion, hoping it’s enough as an answer to amuse him. It is, he snorts a laugh and the reality of the situation settles upon you with startling clarity as you see him smile.

You’ve been hired to fall in love with him.

The only problem is that you’re pretty sure it’s not going to be an act.

[dianasson]

Happy Cerealia!!!

Today is the Roman festival of Ceres. Above are couple photos from the ritual, and while I recover in my cozy bed I will share a story with you. This is from Ovid's Metamorphoses, Melville's translation. (TW: Abduction, Rape)

The Abduction of Proserpine

"The land of Sicily quakes as Typhoeus the Giant buried beneath the island heaves and even Rex Silentum (the king who rules the land of silence) shudders lest the ground in gaping seams should open and the day stream down and terrify the trembling Umpire. Tyrannus had left his dark domains to and fro, drawn in his chariot and sable steeds, inspected the foundations of the isle. His survey done, and no point found to fail, he put his fears aside; when, as he roamed, Erycina from her mountain throne, saw him and clasped her swift-winged son, and said: ‘Cupido, my child, my warrior, my power, take those sure shafts with which you conquer all, and shoot your speedy arrows to the heart of the great god to whom the last lot fell when the three realms were drawn. Your majesty subdues the gods of heaven and sea... Why should Tartara lag behind? Why not there too extend your mother's empire and your own? The third part of the world's at stake, while we in heaven (so long-suffering!) are despised - my power grows less, and less the power of Amor. Do you not see how Pallas and Diana, queen of the chase, have both deserted me? And Ceres' daughter, if we suffer it, will stay a virgin too - her hope's the same. So for the sake of our joint sovereignty, if that can touch your pride, unite in love that goddess and her uncle.’ 

So she spoke. Then Cupido guided by his mother, opened his quiver and of all his thousand arrows selected one, the sharpest and the surest, the arrow most obedient to the bow, and bent the pliant horn against his knee and shot the barbed shaft deep in Dis' heart. Not far from Henna's walls there is a lake, Pergus by name, its waters deep and still; it hears the music of the choiring swans as sweet as on Caystros' gliding stream. Woods crown the waters, ringing every side, their leaves like awnings barring the sun's beams. The boughs give cooling shade, the watered grass is gay with spangled flowers of every hue, and always it is spring. Here Proserpina was playing in a glade and picking flowers, pansies and lilies, with a child's delight, filling her basket and her lap to gather more than the other girls, when, in a trice, Dis saw her, loved her, carried her away - love leapt in such a hurry! Terrified, in tears, the goddess called her mother, called her comrades too, but oftenest her mother; and, as she'd torn the shoulder of her dress, the folds slipped down and out the flowers fell, and she, in innocent simplicity, grieved in her girlish heart for their loss too. Away the chariot sped; her captor urged each horse by name and shook the dark-dyed reins on mane and neck. On through deep lakes he drove, on through Palici's sulphurous pools that boil in reeking chasms, on past Bacchiadae, where settlers once from Corinthus' isthmus built between two harbours their great battlements. 

 A bay confined by narrow points of land lies between Arethusa Pisaea and Cyane. And there lived Cyane, the most renowned of all the Nymphae Sicelidae, who gave her pool its name. Out of her waters' midst she rose waist-high and recognised the goddess. ‘Stop, stop!’ she cried, ‘You cannot take this girl to wife against Queen Ceres' will! She ought to have been wooed, not whirled away. I too, if humble things may be compared with great, was loved; Anapus married me; but I was wooed and won, not, like this girl, frightened and forced.’ She held out her arms outstretched to bar his way. But Saturnius restrained his wrath no longer. Urging on his steeds, his terrible steeds, and brandishing aloft his royal sceptre in his strong right arm, he hurled it to the bottom of the pool. The smitten earth opened a way to Hell and down the deep abyss the chariot plunged. But Cyane, heartbroken at the rape of Proserpine and at her pool's outrage, in silence carried in her heart a wound beyond consoling, and in endless tears she wasted away. Into the pool - her pool and she but now its deity - she spread dissolved.

Ceres Searches for Proserpina

Ceres meanwhile in terror sought her child vainly in every land, o'er every sea. Never Aurora (the Dawn) rising with dewy hair, nor ever Hesperus (the Evening Star) saw her at rest. She lit pine-torches, one in either hand, at Aetna's fires, and through the frosty dark bore them unsleeping. When the friendly day had dimmed the stars, she sought her daughter still from sunrise until sunset hour by hour...

Through what far lands and seas the goddess roved were long to tell; the whole world failed her search. She turned again to Sicania and there, in wanderings that led her everywhere, she too reached Cyane; who would have told all, had she not been changed. She longed to tell but had no mouth, no tongue, nor any means of speaking. Even so she gave a clue, clear beyond doubt, and floating on her pool she showed the well-known sash which Persephone had chanced to drop there in the sacred spring.

How well the goddess knew it! Then at last she seemed to understand her child was stolen, and tore her ruffed hair and beat her breast. Where the girl was she knew not, but reproached the whole wide world - ungrateful, not deserving her gift of grain - and Trinacria in chief where she had found the traces of her loss. So there with angry hands she broke the ploughs that turned the soil and sent to death alike the farmer and his labouring ox, and bade the fields betray their trust, and spoilt the seeds...

Then that fair Nymphe Alpheias rose from her pool and brushed back from he brow her dripping hair, and said : ‘O thou, divine Mother, who through the world hast sought thy child... The land is innocent; against its will it opened for that rape. While beneath the earth I glided in my Stygian stream, I saw, myself with my own eyes, your Proserpina. Her looks were sad, and fear still in her eyes; and yet a queen, and yet of that dark land Empress, and yet with power and majesty the consort of the Tyrannus Infernus (Sovereign lord of Hell).’ The mother heard in horror, thunderstruck it seemed and turned to stone.

The Return of Proserpina

Then as her shock so great gave way to grief as great, she soared borne in her chariot, to the sky's bright realms and stood, with clouded face and hair let loose, indignant before Jove and said: ‘I come to plead for my own flesh and blood, yours too; and if the mother finds no favour, let at least the daughter move her father's heart; love her not less because I gave her birth. Behold the daughter I have sought so long is found, if found is surer loss, or if but to know where she is finding her. Her theft I'll bear if he'll but bring her back; a thief, a kidnapper's no proper husband for child of yours, even if she's mine no more.’

And Juppiter replied: ‘The child is yours and mine, our common care and love, If we allow things proper names, here is no harm, no crime, but love and passion. Such a son-in-law, if you, Ma'am, but consent, will not disgrace us. To be Jove's brother, what a splendid thing! - if that were all! What then, when that's not all, when he yields place to me only because the lots so fell? But if your heart's so set to part them, Proserpina shall reach the sky again on one condition, that in Hell her lips have touched no food; such is the rule forestablished by the three Parcae.’

So Jove replied; but Ceres was resolved to win her daughter back. Not so fate permitted, for the girl had broken her fast and wandering, childlike, through the orchard trees from a low branch had picked a pomegranate and peeled the yellow rind and found the seeds and nibbled seven. The only one who saw was Orphne's son, Ascalaphus, whom she, no the least famous of the Nymphae Avernales, bore once to Acheron in her dusky bower. He saw and told, in spite, and by his tale stole her return away. The Queen of Hell (Regina Erebi) groaned in distress and changed the tale-bearer into a bird. She threw into his face water from Phlegethon, and lo! a beak and feathers and enormous eyes! Reshaped, he wears great tawny wings, his head swells huge... a loathsome bird, ill omen for mankind, a skulking screech-owl, sorrow's harbinger.

That tell-tale tongue of his no doubt deserved the punishment. But the Acheloides, why should it be that they have feathers now and feet of birds, though still a girl's fair face, the sweet-voiced Sirenes? Was it not because, when Proserpine was picking those spring flowers, they were her comrades there, and, when in vain they'd sought for her through all the lands, they prayed for wings to carry them across the waves, so that the seas should know their search, and found the gods gracious, and then suddenly saw golden plumage clothing all their limbs? Yet to reserve that dower of glorious song, their melodies' enchantment, they retained their fair girls' features and their human voice. Then Juppiter, to hold the balance fair between his brother and his sister in her grief, portioned the rolling years in equal parts. Now Proserpine, of two empires alike great deity, spends with her mother half the year's twelve months and with her husband half. Straightway her heart and features are transformed; that face which even Dis must have found unhappy beams with joy, as when the sun, long lost and hidden in the clouds and rain, rides forth in triumph from the clouds again. So Ceres had regained her Proserpine."

[shenaniganeryfromtheabyss]

Bumblebee/Nymphae, my beloved

[timeseugene]

When: 9:00

Where: Dining Hall

Who: @matushkanympha​

IT HADN’T BEEN HIS INTENTION TO inspire the wrath of one Matushka Nympha, or so he has been told she is called, but it was the side effect of his prolonged prodding regardless. 

( “What caused your hip injury, why are you here?” )

A tinge of embarrassment follows him followed by annoyance, of course she wouldn’t answer him directly — she’s a Soviet. Alina is as red as the blood which taints their history, and as cold as winter in Moscow. He’s not interested in thawing her heart, finding it a tedious and unfulfilling task, he only cares for her as much as it pays his rent. New York is expensive after all. 

Eugene finds her sitting at a plain clothed table, white and more expensive than anything the Soviet’s provided him in his apartment. She’s beautiful, he will admit that, but there is an unforgiving look in her face he cannot help but wish would would transform into something warmer. Kinder. Gentle. Still, as he approached her table and leaned down to ask for her permission to be seated, he could not shake off the feeling of wanting to elicit ire from her.

“Is this seat occupied for the night?”

[aidanchaser]

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Everyone Lives AU

Table of Contents beta’d by @ageofzero, @magic713m, @ccboomer, @aubsenroute, and @somebodyswatson

Chapter Fifteen The Unbreakable Vow

The first Quidditch match of the year also marked the beginning of the run up to Christmas. After an intensive rivalry game, the castle always transformed into a festive collection of evergreen trees and baubles. It seemed to Harry that there was more mistletoe hung in the corridors than in previous years. Or perhaps it only appeared that way because each time he walked by, a cluster of girls was there, waiting. Luckily, he knew enough of the castle’s secret passages to avoid these traps.

Ron was traditionally jealous of the attention Harry received, and under other circumstances he might have been annoyed at the number of detours they had to take to navigate the castle. However, this year, Ron found it all highly amusing. Perhaps because Ron had his own source of constant attention from Lavender Brown, he did not have reason to be jealous of Harry.

For Harry’s part, he could do without Lavender Brown being attached to Ron during meal times and in the common room in the evening. He preferred to eat his dinner and finish his homework without the unfortunate sounds that accompanied the manic kissing that took place between the two of them. Their intense passion did, however, mean that it was not so difficult to slip away and spend time with Hermione. She was, unsurprisingly, not speaking to Ron.

Harry, as Ron’s best friend, found it difficult to maintain his two friendships. He had to listen to Ron, on one hand, justify his relationship to Lavender at each turn. “I never promised Hermione anything,” he said as they studied in the common room. “I mean, alright, we were going to Slughorn’s Christmas party, but as friends — she never said… I’m a free agent.”

And Harry, in the interest of keeping Ron as a friend, said nothing.

When Lavender came by for her nightly ritual of entangling herself in Ron’s arms, Harry slipped down to the library, where he would often find Hermione. There, he could listen to Hermione justify her definite lack of jealousy. “He’s at perfect liberty to kiss whomever he likes. I couldn’t care less.”

And in the interest of keeping Hermione as a friend, Harry kept his mouth shut. It seemed that the only friend he could really talk to anymore was Neville.

When Harry had told his parents he did not want to be stuck between Hermione and Ron, he had not expected it to be this bad.

As the Christmas holidays, and thus the full moon, drew near, Harry was glad to have the mirror to talk to Remus. It helped to have someone who actually understood. Neville could only partially commiserate, as he avoided Ron as often as possible these days, but Remus knew what Harry was going through. Harry also learned quite a bit about his parents during their time with Hogwarts, and he was particularly surprised to hear that their fights and make-ups were often very public common room events. He was not surprised to learn that Sirius and Peter had coordinated an entire betting pool based on these fights.

“You didn’t stop them as Prefect? Wasn’t Dad Head Boy? Shouldn’t he have done something?”

Remus laughed. “I’m not sure James knew. And, well, I’ve never been able to tell Sirius that he couldn’t do something. He even had an illegal butterbeer trade going on for a while. For someone who was able to turn such a profit in school, he certainly squanders money quickly.”

Harry leaned back into the pillows of his dormitory bed. Hermione may have hated it, but Harry found that <i>Muffliato</i> allowed him to be much more comfortable when talking to his parents through the mirror, rather than having to hide in the bathroom and hope that the bath water would muffle his conversation.

“Are… are you and Sirius talking again?” Harry asked tentatively.

Remus’s smile vanished and the colour seemed to drain from his face. “Er — no. I’m afraid Sirius and I have nothing new to say to each other. Ah — looks like your mother’s finished the potion. Let me pass you off to James.”

Harry had never seen Remus so eager for such bitter medicine.

Once the awkwardness of being carried from one room to another had settled, and Harry had a view of his father’s forehead, he said, “He didn’t look mad at Sirius, but he said that they still aren’t talking.”

“No, I don’t think Remus is angry anymore,” James agreed, and adjusted the mirror so his face was in the center. “His transformations have actually been better since Sirius got back, if only because it gives your mum an extra hand with the healing charms.”

“She did it all on her own before?”

“Sort of. She asked Nympha — er, Tonks to help with the full moon just before Halloween. I don’t know what went wrong, exactly, but Tonks made it clear to your mum that she was happy to help with potions if necessary, but she wasn’t going to stick around for any more sunrises. She wouldn’t say why, but I imagine she and Remus had a fight.”

“Have Remus’ transformations been bad?”

“September and October were… not very much fun for anyone involved.” James ran a hand through his hair, and though his eyes were distant, he smiled at Harry. “Don’t worry. November was much better; your mother’s got it well in hand. And with Sirius back, he’ll be able to help your mother with healing charms, though I doubt we’ll need many of them. I’m sure you can give her a hand too.”

Harry didn’t know how much help he could be, but he was glad that his father seemed to think he’d be useful. “So we’re spending Christmas at home this year?”

“That’s the plan. It’s hard to know what the Order will need from us, but we’ll certainly be here Christmas Eve for the full moon, and we’ll have a leisurely Christmas Day to recover. Speaking of Christmas, your mum mentioned last night that you’re going to one of Slughorn’s parties. Is that right?”

“Yeah, he asked Hermione to make sure I could be there. I really don’t want to be.”

“Your mum didn’t care much for the Slug Club in her day, either. Slughorn was alright, but most of the club was purebloods, and she never felt welcome with them. I hope things have changed for Hermione’s sake.”

“Hermione says she has a good time. You and Remus weren’t ever invited?”

“Remus was too quiet and not good enough in Potions to attract Slughorn’s attention. Sirius and I did, but we always had better things to do than sit in a stuffy room with a stuffy professor. But you’ll have other friends there, won’t you?”

“I suppose — Ginny’s taking Dean. And I asked Hermione if we could go together as friends, but she’s said she’s got someone already. She said I’d better pick someone quickly, or someone’s going to slip me a love potion.”

“Love potions are a dangerous business. They’re not just silly tricks. Be careful. When I was Head Boy I confiscated quite a few.”

Harry eyed the chocolates on the end of his bed that Romilda Vane had handed to him on his way upstairs that evening. He hadn’t planned to open them, but now he thought it might be worth setting them on fire before he fell asleep tonight.

“I’ll be sure to keep an eye on my pumpkin juice,” he said. “Apparently love potions are a popular Weasley product.”

James frowned. “I wonder if they’re effective? I’ll have to talk to them about it…. It’s not right to take away someone’s self-control like that. Headless Hats and Puking Pastilles are one thing, but love potions….”

Harry recalled Dumbledore’s theory that Voldemort had been conceived under the use of a love potion and agreed with his father’s distaste for them, but he still hadn’t told them about his lessons yet, so he bit the comment back and simply said, “I promise I’ll be careful.”

“Take a friend with you, Harry. One friend at a party can make all the difference between merriment and misery.”

“Sure. I’ll just ask Neville in the morning.”

“Why not?”

Harry did not think that Neville would enjoy being asked, nor that asking Neville would curtail the love potion problem, but he didn’t voice his reasons to his father. Instead, he only rolled his eyes. “Good night, Dad. Tell Mum hello from me. Best not to interrupt her while she’s making Remus’s potion.”

“You just don’t want her to tease you about not having someone for the party.”

“You’re the one teasing me.”

“Only because I love you.”

“I love you too, Dad. And Mum. And Remus. And Sirius if you see him.”

“I’ll pass it along. Sleep well, Harry. Sweet dreams.”

“Thanks. You too.”

As Harry tucked the mirror into his bedside table and ended the spell that muffled his conversation, he knew that he would be able to at least partially comply with his father’s wishes. He would not dream of Voldemort, and hadn’t for the last month. Which was excellent, because he was absolutely terrible at Occlumency.

Though his dreams would not be about Voldemort, they would be vivid enough. Luckily, Ron was no better at Legilimency than Harry was at Occlumency, so he had no way to know just what or who Harry had begun dreaming about. Harry was not sure he would survive to see Slughorn’s Christmas party otherwise.

<center>—————————— ✶✶✶ ——————————</center>  

The day of Slughorn’s Christmas party did not bring Harry any reasons for optimism. They were working on human Transfiguration with Professor McGonagall. Harry had found much of the theory familiar, after a summer of learning healing charms with Sirius. They had not, however, spent any time on changing colour. There wasn’t much use for altering hair colour in healing magic.

So while Hermione had managed to give herself eyebrow variations that rivaled a rainbow, Harry was stuck with one blonde eyebrow, and was struggling to understand why his left was so particularly stubborn. Ron, for his part, accidentally Conjured an enormous handlebar mustache. As funny as it was, Hermione’s laughter was sharper than the class’s general laughter. Ron, to the amusement of Lavender and Parvati, mimicked Hermione’s over-enthusiasm to answer each of McGonagall’s questions. He was careful to only raise his hand and bounce in his seat when McGonagall was not looking, so their professor was unable to sort out why the girls were giggling so enthusiastically. Harry imagined that McGonagall was smart enough to suss out some of what had happened when the bell rang and Hermione ran from the classroom. She had grabbed her pencil case and book, but Harry picked up her parchment, ink, and bag and hurried after her. Ron had all the support he needed in Lavender and Parvati.

Harry used the Marauder's Map, which he now kept with him at all times beside his Invisibility Cloak, and found her in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. It was one most people avoided, and allowed those who needed a good cry an excuse if they were overheard. It was also nice for Harry, who did not feel so terribly uncomfortable walking into a girls’ bathroom as long as it was the one frequented by Moaning Myrtle.

Luna Lovegood was there with Hermione, patting her on the back.

“Oh, hello, Harry,” she said. “Did you know one of your eyebrows is bright yellow?”

Harry had forgotten, and dismissed the reminder as unimportant. “Hi, Luna. Hermione, you left your stuff….”

Hermione turned away from him, and Harry awkwardly turned as well. One night of her crying in front of him had already been too much for her pride. He could allow her this privacy.

Once she’d finished drying her eyes on her pencil case, she took her things from Harry. He’d hardly opened his mouth to tell her he’d go when she hurried past him and out of the bathroom.

“She’s a bit upset,” Luna said unnecessarily. “I thought it was Moaning Myrtle in there, but it turned out to be Hermione. She said something about Ron Weasley….”

“Yeah, they’ve had a row.” Actually, “been having a row,” would have been more accurate, but Harry thought that Hermione would prefer discretion, particularly with Luna Lovegood, who held nothing back.

“He says very funny things sometimes, doesn’t he?”

Harry held the door open for Luna and was briefly grateful that there was no one around to see him coming out of the girls’ bathroom with her.

“But he can be a bit unkind,” Luna continued, demonstrating the exact bluntness that made Harry love her, but wary of confiding secrets in her. “I noticed that last year.”

“I s’pose,” he said, maintaining his neutrality in the war between Ron and Hermione as best as he could. “So, have you had a good term?”

“Oh, it’s been alright.” If Luna was surprised by the change in conversation, Harry could not tell. “A bit lonely without the D.A. Ginny’s been nice, though. She stopped two boys in our Transfiguration class calling me ‘Loony’ the other day —”

In an effort to defeat the tightness in Harry’s chest and the turning of his stomach, he blurted out, “How would you like to come to Slughorn’s party with me tonight?”

“Slughorn’s party? With you?”

Harry wished that Luna did not always sound like she was far away. It was hard to tell if the idea bothered her or not, and if it did, he would love to discern whether it was the party that bothered her or the idea of going to a party with him.

“Yeah — We’re supposed to bring guests, so I thought you might like… I mean… just as friends, you know. But if you don’t want to —”

“Oh, no, I’d love to go with you as friends!” She smiled, wider than she had when she’d first cast her Patronus last spring. “Nobody’s ever asked me to a party before, as a friend! Is that why you dyed your eyebrow, for the party? Should I do mine, too?”

“No. That was a mistake. I’ll get Hermione to put it right for me. So, I’ll meet you in the entrance hall at eight o’clock then.”

A scream of laughter echoed overhead. Harry jumped and looked up to see Peeves, the castle’s poltergeist, hanging from the chandelier. “Potty asked Loony to go to the party!” the poltergeist shrieked. “Potty lurves Loony! Potty lurves Loony!” And he was gone, shrieking his chant across the castle.

“Nice to keep these things private,” said Harry. He was used to rumours spreading quickly at Hogwarts, but this one may have set a new record. When he arrived at the Great Hall for dinner, he thought he had never seen the hall go so quiet, not even when Dumbledore gave the start of term speech. The silence, however, did not last long. It dissolved in a flurry of whispers. Romilda Vane, notably, kept casting dirty looks at both Harry and the Ravenclaw table. Another group of girls, who had eagerly invited Harry to sit with them every meal even though he turned them down each time, now refused to look up from their plates as he passed. Harry thought perhaps he should have asked Luna to Slughorn’s party much sooner.

He noticed Hermione sitting at the end of the Gryffindor table, alone, and started towards her, but he was accosted by Ron, who sat him down and looked at him as seriously as if Harry had decided to quit Quidditch.

“You could’ve taken anyone,” he said. “Anyone! And you chose Loony Lovegood?”

“Don’t call her that, Ron,” a voice behind Harry snapped. He did not need to turn around to know it was Ginny. In fact, he did not want to turn around.

“I’m really glad you’re taking her, Harry,” Ginny continued. “She’s so excited.” And then Ginny was gone, joining Dean farther down the table.

Harry was not as pleased as Ginny, and not particularly pleased that Ginny was pleased. He had sort of hoped that she’d be annoyed. Not that he had invited Luna in order to make Ginny jealous, but he would not have complained if it had been a side effect.

Harry tore his eyes away from Hermione to find Ron staring in the same direction.

“You could say sorry,” he said, taking a page from Luna on being direct.

“What, and get attacked by another flock of canaries?” Ron hastily shoved a bite of stew into his mouth.

“What did you have to imitate her for?”

“She laughed at my mustache!”

“So did I; it was the stupidest thing I’d ever seen.”

This comment went unheard by Ron, who was distracted by Lavender squeezing her way in between Harry and Ron. She did not need all that much room; she mostly sat on Ron’s lap, which Harry thought to be a bold move in full view of the Professors’ table. He weighed the satisfaction of alerting Snape to the unfortunate sounds he now had to eat dinner next to against the betrayal that Ron would feel. It was not a hard decision, in the end. Harry did not have to share a dormitory with Snape.

Parvati slipped into the seat beside Harry and smiled apologetically. He wondered if she was as annoyed by her best friend’s behavior as Harry was by his.

“Hi, Harry,” she said.

“Hi. You alright? I heard from Hermione that you and your sister might be leaving Hogwarts.”

“Oh — I managed to talk them out of it for the time being. The Katie thing really freaked them out.”

Harry imagined his parents were worried too, but it had to be safer here than out there. “Hogwarts is probably safest, despite that.”

“Yes, they admitted that Dumbledore and the Ministry probably have better protection than home might. And anyway, it wasn’t as if the curse got into the castle. Padma and I are banned from Hogsmeade though — at least, our parents have said not to go.”

Harry thought it was only a matter of time before his delivered the same news. Then again, perhaps since his parents knew that Tonks had been there, they trusted that the Order had it well in hand.

“But at least nothing has happened since then,” Parvati said.

“Yeah,” Harry agreed, though he was thinking of the <i>Daily Prophet</i> and all the things that had happened since Katie’s attack, just not at Hogwarts. He didn’t know what else to say to Parvati, but he realised it was possibly the politest conversation they’d had since before the Yule Ball.

Harry searched for some topic of conversation to mask the noises of Lavender and Ron’s public intimacy, and was grateful to be rescued by Hermione.

“Hi Parvati,” she said. “Hi, Harry.” She appeared to be completely recovered, and smiled brightly at the two of them. Perhaps too brightly, considering Parvati had enjoyed Ron’s joke in class, and Ron was currently attached to Lavender like a Flesh-Eating Slug.

“Hi, Hermione,” Parvati smiled. She, too, was a bit overeager in her greeting, perhaps because she had teased Hermione not long ago and wanted it forgotten.

“Are you going to Slughorn’s party tonight?” Hermione asked.

“No invite,” Parvati said. “I’d love to go, though, it sounds like it’s going to be really good…. You’re going, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yes. I’m meeting Cormac at eight, and we’re —”

The Flesh-Eating Slug pulled itself off of Lavender’s face with a slurp and a pop. Hermione ignored it.

“— we’re going up to the party together.”

“Cormac?” Parvati said. “Cormac McLaggen, you mean?”

“That’s right. The one who almost became Gryffindor Keeper.”

“Are you going out with him, then?”

“Oh — yes — didn’t you know?” Hermione giggled, something more akin to Parvati or Lavender and not like her at all.

Parvati stared up at Hermione, eyes wide. “No — Wow, you like your Quidditch players, don’t you? First Krum, then McLaggen — You go through them as fast as Ginny Weasley —”

“I like really good Quidditch players,” Hermione said, before Harry could quite process the comment about Ginny. “Well, see you… Got to go and get ready for the party….”

Lavender seemed to have forgotten all about Ron in the wake of this new gossip, and she quickly leaned over Harry to discuss this new development with Parvati. Ron’s face appeared empty. Either he had not fully resurfaced from Lavender, or he was still processing Hermione’s revenge. Harry, for his part, was divided between wondering who on earth kept repeating something about Ginny Weasley moving through Quidditch players and musing over just how far Hermione would sink for revenge.

Harry arrived in the entrance hall promptly at eight o’clock. He was not wearing the dress robes his great-great grandmother had designed. Instead, he had opted for the simpler red robes he had originally bought in his fourth year. The hem, which had been extended to suit Ron at the Yule Ball, was now just inches too short for Harry, but he had not had any desire to ask Dean for help extending it. When Harry saw Luna waiting, though, he thought they might have made an interesting pair if he had worn the evergreen robes with animated snow drifts.

Luna’s silver robes were glittering with stars, like her earrings. Harry was grateful she had left off the radishes. She reflected the hall’s chandelier as she turned. It was both absurd and dazzling.

More amusing than Luna’s robes, however, were the crowds of girls gathered in the corners and corridors. Some were giggling unkindly at Luna’s appearance. Some were whispering fiercely. All went quiet as Harry met her at the bottom of the steps.

“Hi,” he said. “Shall we get going then?”

“Oh, yes.” She beamed, and Harry could not help but be infected by her excitement, as nervous as the onlookers made him.

“Where is the party?” she asked.

“Slughorn’s office — oh,” he belatedly remembered the manners his mother had drilled into him, “you look nice, by the way.”

“Thank you! You do as well. Ginny’s right; red is a lovely colour on you.”

Harry’s mind seemed to have been struck with a Freezing Charm. As he led Luna up the marble staircase towards Slughorn’s office, he could think of nothing other than Luna’s innocuous statement on a loop, like a broken Muggle record. He was vaguely aware that his silence was rude, but he could think of nothing to say. He thought that if Luna were to ask how he planned to defeat Voldemort right now, he might simply answer, “Ginny thinks I look nice in red.”

When they arrived at Slughorn’s office, the party appeared to already be in full swing. Music and laughter filled the corridor, finally giving Harry something new to think about. He pushed the door open for Luna and together they walked into an office much larger than any teacher’s office Harry had been in before. He wondered if Slughorn had expanded it somehow. It also looked nothing like an office. Green, red, and gold strips of satin draped across the ceiling and down the sides of the room. In the center, a lamp illuminated the office in a dim yellow glow. It did not flicker like candlelight and it took Harry a moment to notice the fairies flitting in and out of it. The music turned out to be a live band, but not any band Harry had heard of. The singer was a woman in an elegant, glittering dress, and the musicians beside her plucked at mandolins.

There were also several clusters of non-students, Harry noted. None of them looked like any Aurors he’d met, so he did not think that they were security. He wondered if it had been troublesome for Slughorn to get his guests access to Hogwarts in these dark times.

Just as Harry caught sight of a house-elf carrying a platter of what looked like miniature chocolate cakes, Slughorn caught him around the shoulder.

“Harry, m’boy! Come in, come in, so many people I’d like you to meet.”

Harry, remembering his father’s advice that one friend could make the difference between an enjoyable time and a miserable time, dragged Luna with him and prayed for the former.

Slughorn led Harry, and Harry in turn led Luna, through the crowd of party guests to two men in dark robes, as different in size and stature as Fabian and Gideon Prewett, standing not far from the singer.

“Harry,” Slughorn announced, “I’d like you to meet Eldred Worple, an old student of mine, author of <i>Blood Brothers: My Life Amongst the Vampires</i> — and of course, his friend Sanguini.”

The short, round man with glasses and bright red cheeks shook Harry’s hand eagerly.

“Harry Potter! I am simply delighted!”

Harry did his best to smile, and eyed the tall, thin man with waxy skin and long, dark hair. It was easy to see why someone had mistaken Regulus Black for a vampire.

“I was just saying,” Worple continued, “where is the biography of Harry Potter for which we have all been waiting?”

Harry tore his eyes from Sanguini and looked for the joke on Worple’s face. He was disappointed to see nothing but earnestness. “Er — were you?”

“Just as modest as Horace described! But, seriously —” the enthusiasm faded a little, and Worple finally stopped shaking Harry’s hand, “I would be delighted to write it myself — people are craving to know more about you, dear boy, craving! If you were prepared to grant me a few interviews, say in four or five-hour sessions, why, we could have the book finished within months. And all with very little effort on your part, I assure you.”

“Er — all that time?” Harry was not sure he could manage to talk about himself for more than fifteen minutes, let alone for four hours.

“Ask Sanguini here if it isn’t quite — oh — where’s he got off to?”

Harry was quite pleased that Worple had to disappear to keep Sanguini from a pair of witches hanging around the musicians. He found that Slughorn, too, had vanished into the party, and he was grateful to spot a pile of thick dark hair slip between two wizards. He pulled Luna along.

“Hermione — Hermione!”

“Harry, there you are, thank goodness! Hi, Luna!”

They paused to grab goblets of mead from a tray, then tucked themselves into an empty corner of the room. Harry took a moment to actually take in Hermione’s appearance and was surprised to see her dress rumpled and her hair out of place — well, compared to the hours she had put into it for the Yule Ball. It appeared that it had once looked tight and smooth as it had at the ball, but now had started to fall apart.

“I’ve just escaped — I mean, I’ve just left Cormac under the mistletoe.”

“Why in Merlin’s name did you bring him?” Harry nearly spilled his mead down the front of his robes as he punctuated his question with a more aggressive gesture than he had intended.

“I thought he’d annoy Ron the most,” Hermione said.

Harry, who disliked McLaggen about half as much as he disliked Draco Malfoy, found this a little rude to McLaggen.

“I debated for a while about Zacharias Smith, but I thought, on the whole —”

“You considered Smith?” Harry had to refrain from retching up his mead. He made the decision that he was no longer tolerating Ron and Hermione’s fight. As soon as the Christmas holiday was over, he was done keeping his mouth shut, and he was going to make sure that they both knew how wrong they were.

“Yes, I did, and I’m starting to wish I’d chosen him. McLaggen makes Grawp look like a gentleman — oh no, here he comes!” and she was gone, disappearing between a pair of witches laughing heartily at something Slughorn had just said.

McLaggen reached Harry and Luna a moment later. “Seen Hermione?” McLaggen asked.

“No, sorry,” Harry said. “Er — have you met Luna Lovegood?”

McLaggen shook Luna’s hand warily. “I didn’t realise you two were… friends.”

“Harry!” Slughorn’s voice boomed. “That’s where you got off to.” His tasseled hat was now sitting askew and his face glowed red, though his glass of mead was full. “I was just telling Severus here what a natural you are at Potions — oh, stop sulking Severus! — Some credit for Harry’s exceptional potion-making must go to you, of course, you taught him for five years!”

Harry felt strangely sympathetic towards Snape, who could not easily break free from Slughorn’s tight arm around his shoulder.

“Funny,” Snape said, “I never had the impression that I managed to teach Potter anything at all.”

Harry thought, given their dismal Occlumency lessons, he could quite agree with the statement that Snape was a terrible teacher.

“Then it’s natural ability!” Slughorn said. “You should have seen what he gave me, first lesson, Draught of Living Death — never had a student produce a finer on a first attempt. I don’t think even you, Severus —”

“Really?”

Harry focused on Slughorn, and refused to make eye contact with Snape. He did not need Snape uncovering the truth of why he had succeeded in Potions so suddenly. He had a feeling that Snape would not approve.

“Remind me what other subjects you’re taking, Harry?” asked Slughorn.

“Defense, Charms, Transfiguration, Herbology —”

“All the subjects required, in short, for an Auror,” said Snape. There was a sneer in his voice, but there was always a sneer in Snape’s voice, so Harry could not be certain whether or not it was personal.

In truth, he and Snape had hardly spoken this year. Nonverbal casting in Defense Against the Dark Arts meant that he never had to open his mouth, and so he did not. Snape, largely, had taken to ignoring Harry, which Harry had no problem with. They’d reached something of an impasse; Harry knew that Snape loved Lily, and Snape knew that Harry had, however foolishly, risked his life to save Snape from Voldemort. There was a debt beneath that loathing, and both were content to pretend that nothing existed between them.

“I don’t think you should be an Auror, Harry,” said Luna. “The Aurors are part of the Rotfang conspiracy, I thought everyone knew that. They’re working to bring down the Ministry of Magic from within using a combination of Dark Magic and gum disease.”

Harry choked on his mead as McLaggen and Slughorn gaped at Luna. Snape remained unperturbed, but perhaps he was familiar with Luna’s absurdities after four years as her professor.

“And who,” Slughorn asked, perhaps having had enough glasses of mead to be genuinely interested, “is at the head of this conspiracy?”

“Rufus Scrimgeour, of course. They’ve nearly won now that he’s become Minister for Magic. Did you know Scrimgeour is a vampire? He’s got very close connections with Regulus Black from the years they spent together in Transylvania.”

This got an eyebrow raise out of Snape. Harry would have loved to watch more of the Enchanting Eccentricities of Luna Lovegood Hour, but something much more interesting grabbed his attention. Argus Filch appeared, dragging in Draco Malfoy by the ear.

“Professor Slughorn,” Filch gasped, “I have discovered this boy lurking in an upstairs corridor. He claims to have been invited to your party and to have been delayed in setting out. Did you issue him with an invitation?”

Malfoy managed to wrench himself from the caretaker’s hold. “Alright, I wasn’t invited! I was trying to gate-crash, happy?”

“No, I am not!” Though Filch looked utterly pleased at the possibility of punishing a student. “You’re in trouble, you are! Didn’t the headmaster say that nighttime prowling’s out, unless you’ve got permission, didn’t he, eh?”

“That’s alright, Argus, that’s alright.” Slughorn did not look upset in the least. “It’s Christmas, and it’s not a crime to want to come to a party. Just this once, we’ll forget any punishment; you may stay, Draco.”

Malfoy did not look pleased to hear this, and Harry wondered just what Malfoy had been up to. Snape, too, looked displeased, which was his default expression, but it was different somehow. Whatever Harry saw on Snape’s face was brief. It vanished as Filch did, though Filch left with far more grumbling. Malfoy’s displeasure, too, had disappeared, and he was smiling and thanking Slughorn for his graciousness.

“It’s nothing, nothing,” Slughorn said. “I did know your grandfather, after all.”

“He always spoke very highly of you, sir,” said Malfoy. “Said you were the best potion-maker he’d ever known.”

Though the displeasure had vanished, and Malfoy was his usual self again, full of flattery for those in power, Harry noticed that Malfoy was, incredibly, paler than usual. Shadows rimmed his eyes, and his features were, strangely, not unlike Sanguini’s, and not unlike Regulus Black’s, when he was fresh from Azkaban. He doubted Malfoy had recently received a vampire bite, and he was fairly certain that Malfoy had not run into any dementors at Hogwarts. He wondered what it was that had changed Malfoy so thoroughly.

“I’d like a word with you, Draco,” said Snape.

“Oh, now, Severus,” Slughorn paused to hiccough, “it’s Christmas. Don’t be too hard —”

“I’m his Head of House, and I shall decide how hard, or otherwise, to be,” said Snape. “Follow me, Draco.”

Harry had a brief moment of trepidation. He did not want to leave Luna with McLaggen, but he decided Luna was quite capable of looking after herself. He was the one who had taught her defensive spells, after all.

“Er — I’ll be right back. Bathroom.”

“Alright,” Luna said. She appeared entirely unbothered as she continued to tell McLaggen exactly how deep the Rotfang conspiracy went.

As soon as Harry had slipped out through the doors of the party, he pulled the Invisibility Cloak over himself and unfolded the Marauder’s Map. He searched the corridor and adjacent classrooms for Draco Malfoy and Severus Snape. He finally found them behind the door at the very end of the corridor. He knew it would be impossible to open the door without disturbing them, so he crouched at the keyhole, careful that the cloak covered his feet.

“... what a risk it was! And utterly foolish. How did you expect it to even get into the castle? Filch may be an idiot, but even he wouldn’t let an unmarked package enter the castle without a thorough inspection. You must understand that you cannot afford mistakes, Draco, because if you are expelled —”

“I didn’t have anything to do with it, alright?”

“I hope you are telling the truth, because it was both clumsy and foolish. Already you are suspected of having a hand in it.”

“Who suspects me? For the last time, I didn’t do it, okay? That Bell girl must’ve had an enemy no one knows about — don’t look at me like that! I know what you’re doing. I’m not stupid — but it won’t work. I can stop you!”

There was a lull in the conversation and Harry wondered what Snape had done, but he got his answer quickly.

“Ah… Your Aunt Bellatrix has been teaching you Occlumency. I see. What thoughts are you trying to conceal from your master, Draco?”

“I’m not trying to conceal anything from him, I just don’t want you butting in!”

Draco had always shown respect towards Snape. Snape was his favourite professor, his Head of House, and Snape had always shown him favour in return. This contempt was entirely new.

“So that is why you have been avoiding me this term? You realise that, had anybody else failed to come to my office when I had told them repeatedly to be there, Draco —”

“So put me in detention! Report me to Dumbledore!”

There was another long pause.

“You know perfectly well that I do not wish to do either of those things. Listen to me, Draco, I am trying to help you. I swore to your mother I would protect you. I made the Unbreakable Vow, Draco —”

“Looks like you’ll have to break it then, because I don’t want your protection. It’s my job. He gave it to me, and I’m doing it. I’ve got a plan and it’s going to work. It’s just taking a bit longer than I thought it would!”

“And what is your plan?”

“It’s none of your business!”

“I have no interest in credit, Draco, I am only trying to assist you —”

“I don’t believe you! I know what you are — I know why he asked me to do this and not you. Filthy Mudblood-lover.”

For a moment, Harry forgot to breathe.

“Do you doubt my loyalty, Draco?”

“Why shouldn’t I?! You betrayed him for Potter’s Mudblood-mother —”

“Keep your voice down!” Snape hissed, for Draco had begun to shout. “The Dark Lord is satisfied that I have proven myself. I was the one who told him the importance of the prophecy. I was the one who gave him the plan that lured Potter to the Ministry, was I not? I have put myself in a position that is as valuable to him as yours, and I have put myself at great risk to do so. You are putting yourself at risk unnecessarily. I am here to assist you Draco. I understand that your father’s capture and imprisonment has upset you, but —”

Harry heard Draco’s footsteps and only just managed to scramble away from the door as Draco flung it open and hurried out of the office, past the party, and down the stairs.

Harry stayed perfectly still, crouched in the centre of the corridor, and watched Snape exit the classroom. He appeared perfectly unperturbed, which Harry thought unfair, considering how fast his own heart was racing.

[aliciavance4228]

Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 177 (trans. Grant) (Roman mythographer C2nd A.D.) : "Jove [Zeus] put her [Kallisto (Callisto)] among the number of stars as a constellation called Septentrio [i.e. Ursa Major], which does not move from its place, nor does it set. For Tethys, wife of Oceanus and foster mother of Juno [Hera], forbids its setting in Oceanus. This, then, is the greater Septentrio, about whom it is written in Cretan verses : ‘Thou, too, born of the transformed Lyacaonian Nympha, who, stolen from the chill Arcadian height, was forbidden by Tethys ever to dip herself in the Oceanus because once she dared to be concubine to her foster child.’"

Pseudo-Hyginus, Astronomica 2. 1 : "Great Bear. . . . This constellation, as many have stated, does not set, and those who desire some reason for this fact say that Tethys, wife of Oceanus, refuses to receive her when the other stars come there to their setting, because Tethys was the nurse of Juno [Hera], in whose bed Callisto was concubine.'"

[likethexan]

One of my favorite titans: Tethys

"Jove [Zeus] put her [Kallisto (Callisto)] among the number of stars as a constellation called Septentrio [i.e. Ursa Major], which does not move from its place, nor does it set. For Tethys, wife of Oceanus and foster mother of Juno [Hera], forbids its setting in Oceanus. This, then, is the greater Septentrio, about whom it is written in Cretan verses : ‘Thou, too, born of the transformed Lyacaonian Nympha, who, stolen from the chill Arcadian height, was forbidden by Tethys ever to dip herself in the Oceanus because once she dared to be concubine to her foster child.’" - Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 177 (trans. Grant) (Roman mythographer C2nd A.D.)

Now we know where Hera got that ‘cross me and you’ll regret it’ attitude XD I really admire how in this Tethys shows a lot of love for her foster daughter (i love the myths that showcase positive foster care, like Chiron/Apollo and Atalanta/She-Bear) that she hid a constellation of one of her husband’s many lovers to defend her honor (or in another version, to end Hera’s sadness)

On one hand, this is unfair for Callisto because it wasn’t even her choice to mate with Zeus, and even as a constellation she is mistreated, but on the other hand i think that Tethys, being a mom she is, didn’t want Hera to look at the sky and be reminded of yet another of Zeus’ lovers (assuming Aquarius is already up the sky) 

In conclusion: Zeus messing up another woman’s life and a mom getting pissed af because her daughter’s reputation/emotions are at stake

[anastpaul]

Saints of the Day – 8 July – Priscilla and Aquila – Continuing his catechesis on the early witnesses of the Christian faith, Pope Benedict XVI dedicated his 7 February 2007 General Audience Address to the Roman couple Priscilla and Aquila, who collaborated with St Paul in Corinth. 

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Taking a new step in this type of portrait gallery of the first witnesses of the Christian faith which we began some weeks ago, today we take into consideration a married couple.

The couple in question are Priscilla and Aquila, who take their place, as we already mentioned briefly last Wednesday, in the sphere of numerous collaborators who gravitated around the Apostle Paul.   Based on the information in our possession, this married couple played a very active role in the post-Paschal origins of the Church.

The names Aquila and Priscilla are Latin but the man and woman who bear them were of Hebrew origin.   At least Aquila, however, geographically came from the diaspora of northern Anatolia, which faces the Black Sea – in today’s Turkey – while Priscilla was probably a Jewish woman from Rome (cf. Acts 18: 2).

However, it was from Rome that they reached Corinth, where Paul met them at the beginning of the 50s.   There he became associated with them, as Luke tells us, practising the same trade of making tents or large draperies for domestic use and he was even welcomed into their home (cf. Acts 18: 3).   The reason they came to Corinth was the decision taken by the Emperor Claudius to expel from Rome, the city’s Jewish residents. Concerning this event the Roman historian Suetonius tells us that the Hebrews were expelled because “they were rioting due to someone named Chrestus” (cf. “The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Claudius”, n. 25).

One sees that he did not know the name well – instead of Christ he wrote “Chrestus” – and he had only a very confused idea of what had happened.   In any case, there were internal discords within the Jewish community about the question if whether Jesus was the Christ.   And for the Emperor, these problems were the reason to simply expel all Jews from Rome.

One can deduce that the couple had already embraced the Christian faith in the 40s and now they had found in Paul, someone who not only shared with them this faith – that Jesus is the Christ – but who was also an Apostle, personally called by the Risen Lord.  Therefore, their first encounter is at Corinth, where they welcomed him into their house and worked together making tents.

In a second moment, they transferred to Ephesus in Asia Minor.   There they had a decisive role in completing the Christian formation of the Alexandrian Jew Apollo, who we spoke about last Wednesday.   Since he only knew the faith superficially, “Priscilla and Aquila… took him and expounded to him the way of God more accurately” (Acts 18: 26).  When Paul wrote the First Letter to the Corinthians from Ephesus, together with his own greeting, he explicitly sent those of “Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their house” (16: 19).   Hence, we come to know the most important role that this couple played in the environment of the primitive Church:  that of welcoming in their own house the group of local Christians when they gathered to listen to the Word of God and to celebrate the Eucharist.   It is exactly this type of gathering that in Greek is called “ekklesìa” – the Latin word is “ecclesia”, the Italian “chiesa” – which means convocation, assembly, gathering.   In the house of Aquila and Priscilla, therefore, the Church gathered, the convocation of Christ, which celebrates here the Sacred Mysteries.

Thus, we can see the very birth of the reality of the Church in the homes of believers. Christians, in fact, from the first part of the third century did not have their own places of worship.   Initially it was the Jewish Synagogue, until the original symbiosis between the Old and New Testaments dissolved and the Church of the Gentiles was forced to give itself its own identity, always profoundly rooted in the Old Testament.   Then, after this “break”, they gathered in the homes of Christians that thus become “Church”.   And finally, in the third century, true and proper buildings for Christian worship were born.   But here, in the first half of the first century and in the second century, the homes of Christians become a true and proper “Church”.   As I said, together they read the Sacred Scripture and celebrate the Eucharist.

That was what used to happen, for example, at Corinth, where Paul mentioned a certain “Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole church” (Rom 16: 23), or at Laodicea, where the community gathered in the home of a certain Nympha (cf. Col 4: 15), or at Colossae, where the meeting took place in the house of a certain Archippus (cf. Phlm 2).

Having returned subsequently to Rome, Aquila and Priscilla continue to carry out this precious function also in the capital of the Empire.   In fact, Paul, writing to the Romans, sends this precise greeting: “Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I but also all the churches of the Gentiles, give thanks;  greet also the church in their house” (Rom 16: 3-5).

What extraordinary praise for these two married persons in these words!   And it is none other than Paul who extends it!   He explicitly recognises in them, two true and important collaborators of his apostolate.

The reference made to having risked their lives for him is probably linked to interventions in his favour during some prison stay, perhaps in the same Ephesus (cf. Acts 19: 23; I Cor 15: 32; II Cor 1: 8-9).   And to Paul’s own gratitude, even that of all the Churches of the Gentiles, is joined.   Although considering the expression perhaps somewhat hyperbolic, it lets one intuit how vast their ray of action was and therefore, their influence for the good of the Gospel.

Later hagiographic tradition has given a very singular importance to Priscilla, even if the problem of identifying her with the martyr Priscilla remains.   In any case, here in Rome we have a Church dedicated to St Prisca on the Aventine Hill, near the Catacombs of Priscilla on Via Salaria.   In this way, the memory of a woman who has certainly been an active person and of great value in the history of Roman Christianity is perpetuated. One thing is sure:  together with the gratitude of the early Church, of which St Paul speaks, we must also add our own, since thanks to the faith and apostolic commitment of the lay faithful, of families, of spouses like Priscilla and Aquila, Christianity has reached our generation.

It could grow not only thanks to the Apostles who announced it.   In order to take root in people’s land and develop actively, the commitment of these families, these spouses, these Christian communities, of these lay faithful was necessary in order to offer the “humus” for the growth of the faith.   As always, it is only in this way that the Church grows.

This couple in particular demonstrates how important the action of Christian spouses is. When they are supported by the faith and by a strong spirituality, their courageous commitment for the Church and in the Church becomes natural.   The daily sharing of their life prolongs and in some way is sublimated, in the assuming of a common responsibility, in favour of the Mystical Body of Christ, even if just a little part of it.   Thus it was in the first generation and thus it will often be.

A further lesson we cannot neglect to draw from their example:  every home can transform itself in a little church.   Not only in the sense that in them must reign the typical Christian love made of altruism and of reciprocal care but still more in the sense that the whole of family life, based on faith, is called to revolve around the singular lordship of Jesus Christ.

Not by chance does Paul compare, in the Letter to the Ephesians, the matrimonial relationship to the spousal communion that happens between Christ and the Church (cf. Eph 5: 25-33).   Even more, we can maintain that the Apostle indirectly models the life of the entire Church on that of the family.   And the Church, in reality, is the family of God.

Therefore, we honour Aquila and Priscilla as models of conjugal life responsibly committed to the service of the entire Christian community.   And we find in them the model of the Church, God’s family for all times.…by Pope Benedict XVI – General Audience Address 7 February 2007

[nowartic]

TRENDING TRANSFORMATION of 2020 | Janine Berdin, Xyriel Manabat, Elha Nympha, Lie Reposposa, Lyca G

TRENDING TRANSFORMATION of 2020 | Janine Berdin, Xyriel Manabat, Elha Nympha, Lie Reposposa, Lyca G

[trendingph]

Vice Ganda feels happy with the transformation of Janine and Elha | It’s Showtime Mas Testing The "It's Showtime" hosts notice PUTs Janine Berdin's and Elha Nympha's improved looks. Stream it on demand and watch the full episode on or download the iWantTFC app via Google Play or the App ... https://trendingph.net/vice-ganda-feels-happy-with-the-transformation-of-janine-and-elha-its-showtime-mas-testing/?feed_id=175314&_unique_id=5f97e0439426a #elha #feels #ganda #happy #janine #mas #philippinenews #philippinesnews #showtime #testing #transformation #trendingph #vice