belltasya-blog

[belltasya-blog]

You walk in a room to find that the only way to escape is by writing a name of a real person on a piece of paper. This will kill that person.

[belltasya-blog]

ariel:

“Look, there’s only so much time in a day and if you’re going to stand there waffling for ten minutes can you go do it over there then come back when you’re actually ready to talk to me?” Ariel said as shifted her Arithmancy textbook over the notes she had about the layout of the train for that night. To the casual observer it just looked like school work, but she couldn’t be too careful about it. 

      Half of the pair studying nearby had been noticeably more disruptive since Tasya had walked in, not too long ago. The volume of their ongoing rambles and fiddling about were all but impossible to ignore, even if she had been devoted to minding her own business. Her proclivity for eavesdropping had nothing to do with it. Perhaps it was the subject being dealt with that was to blame for piquing her interest a little more than usual. Arithmancy work had been consuming many of her recent late nights, thanks to an irresistible side project — but if she was forced to hear more about it during the day as well she suspected she’d soon be illustrating charts in her sleep. Looking up from where she on her own a sat a table over, she took advantage of the lapse in talkative nonsense. “It’s been fifteen minutes, actually,” she interjected, a ‘who’s counting?’ shrug rolling off her shoulders. “I have a feeling if you give ‘em a break they might take advantage of it and never return to this room. Sounds like a win-win for us all.”

[belltasya-blog]

greta:

“Hey, are you okay? Because you seem like you’re not okay, and if you need to talk I’m here.” Greta paused, her face crinkling up in concern. “Also, I have chocolate and if you don’t want to talk and just want company, that’s fine too.”

    Why ask a question if you’re going to answer it yourself? Lower lip bitten down upon as she swallowed the sharply edged sentiment, the bridge of her nose wrinkled. Not worth it. The blonde’s assumption wasn’t incorrect, Tasya’s mood had been steadily souring over the past hour, but she wasn’t about to admit to it. “Have you no tact? It’s quite offensive to assume something is wrong based on how someone looks. This is just my resting witch face, G.” Noting the offering of something sweet with a modicum of more interest, her expression softened as she glanced over, “Whether or not you can stay depends on what type of chocolate it is you have.”

[belltasya-blog]

gilderoy:

Wrinkles? Merlin forbid. He was not ever allowed to do anything quite as horrible as wrinkle. The thought alone made him want to look up beauty spells to keep the skin smooth. “I would never wrinkle.” He said, horrified and offended all at once. “You know my name’s not Gregory, a brain as sharp as yours surely knows everyone important in the castle.”

      “That’s the spirit,” she remarked with an affirmative nod, fully intending to resist any further temptation to tease and conclude there — for the day, at least. Alas, before she could help herself, at a far quieter volume, a secondary offhanded murmur sneaks past her lips, “I hear the power of positive thought works wonders on preventing grey hairs too.”

     His absence must have weakened whatever illusion of immunity she’d once believed herself a master of, for even that slightest trace of flattery forced her to purse her lips in order to repress an easily entertained smile. “Interesting. I do believe my memory of you may be coming back now…” musing aloud, she inwardly reevaluated the role of needlessly resistant pushover she’d stubbornly chosen to thus far maintain. “Times have changed since you were around last. There’s hardly an amount worthy of note to warrant the use of such a plural. I can only think of three important names worth writing home about.”

[belltasya-blog]

alice:

Alice’s head was still spinning, her mind going over her conversation with Evan again and again. She was shocked when she learned that her fianceé lied to her about his family and she didn’t know what to do with this information. It was something she never even anticipated - how could she, really - and she didn’t know how she felt about it or how she even should feel about it. It maddened her, angered her, made her feel betrayed, but the one thing she wasn’t sure about is whether there were other things he lied to her about.

If she could still trust him.

She needed to talk to somebody about this. Not just somebody, Tasya. With most of her problem, Alice usually went to her two best friends, Frank and Kings. But this was about Evan and he was the one topic she couldn’t discuss with them. She still remembered that fight she had with Kings about him and that two weeks she didn’t speak to him and she didn’t want that to ever happen again. And she needed somebody who understood her, who didn’t question her entire relationship, and that was Tasya. She was the only person who didn’t think she was completely crazy from the very first moment.

She found the girl in the Hufflepuff common room, and she went to her immediately, crouching down by the couch because she didn’t want other people to hear what they talked about. “Hey! Tasya, can we talk? Somewhere with little fewer people around, maybe?”

@belltasya

       Caught under a particularly relentless languorous haze, Tasya had gone through the bare minimum of the motions needed to manage the bulk of her planned-out portion of the day before opting to park herself in the Hufflepuff common room. If there was one complaint she would never be caught making toward her own house, it was that their commons were uncomfortable. Many a day had passed by entirely wasted sprawled out there thanks to the idyllic atmosphere it fostered. Once again, she’d fully intended on making the most of the cosy nook for as long as she was able to get away with avoiding her seemingly everlasting to-do list. Laxly reclined on the nearest vacant piece of furniture, Tasya was deeply immersed in the advanced art of looking busy while doing nothing ( an infamous course of action that any self-respecting senior who claimed not to have taken up every now and then could only be considered one thing --- a blatant liar ). In an attempt to shield herself from having any amount of zero progression potentially interrupted, she had her dog-eared copy of Two Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi strategically held in her hands, more or less held at eye level in order to give onlookers the vague impression that she was reading it. She’d memorized the information within it long ago, making it the perfect zone-out material. Practically ingrained into her psyche, any question about the book’s contents could be easily rewarded with a near-instant answer, no matter how far her thoughts strayed or how close to a state of comatose the rest of her appeared. It was the perfect cover up. No one could claim she wasn’t busy studying if she had every answer at the ready.

      ‘Can we talk?’ was a stark deviation from that supposedly foolproof equation. It certainly wasn’t one of the prescreened questions she had a generic answer prepared for, but she knew that voice. And what it meant anchored her back to reality in an entirely different way. Forcibly extracted from whatever isolation chamber she’d self-indulgently woven, Tasya promptly tabled her literature prop to look up at the recognizable face of her visitor. Equal parts understanding and determined to learn more, her lips pressed into a line to suspend any untimely questions as she settled, instead, for nodding her head in agreement. It took a very special kind of offered opportunity to be prioritized a tier above prolonging the rare lapse of peace that she’d sunken into. This would always be one of them. The pleasantly familiar sight of the younger Hufflepuff just as swiftly encouraged a nervous knot to form at the center Tasya’s stomach, naturally made tense with anticipation toward what may or may not come to pass. A visit from Alice was seldom one struck at the whim of a fanciful random desire. There was almost always a reason. That reason, more often than not, comprised of two syllables and began with an ‘E’.

      Whether or not the brunette remembered to murmur an acknowledging ‘Of course,’ aloud before she stood up hardly mattered. It went without saying that she was available to discuss whatever it was, implied in her actions far more prevalently than her voice could ever communicate. Alice either had a knack for impeccable timing or Tasya led an extraordinarily uneventful life, for she’d so far never needed to decline any of the girl’s subtle requests to speak. On one hand, she quite enjoyed the responsibility and open dialogue that stemmed from being there for Alice, most anytime; anywhere. On the other, sightings of the girl also brought about an acute degree of apprehension. It was only when something significant arose that their talks were made necessary in the first place. Granted, there were two sides to every coin. Who was to says positive news wasn’t what Alice had arrived to share? Of course, at this point, Tasya knew better than to take such a naive stance. Previous experience indicated loud and clear that the coin in question happened to favor landing at odd angles rather than even ones. What had happened this time? First things first --- they needed to be alone.       Her gaze swept over the other students gathered in different areas of the room, searching for a viable option. It wasn’t too rowdy a scene, but neither was it all that private. Still too compromising. She settled on what seemed the most attainable and dependable emergency route for privacy, assuming Alice would follow suit as she moved across the room to approach one of the doors leading to the girls’ dormitories. Knocking knuckles against wood grain, only after she received a solid couple seconds of silence did she take the handle into her hands and lean around the door to ensure the room on the other side was clear and usable. She ventured inside, keeping the door held open; an implicit invitation for Alice to join her. Leaning back against the edge of the doorframe, she glanced around the empty dormitory once again, gauging the environment as decent as any to broach that which needed to be brought up. “You alright?” Though posed as a deceivingly plain and simple question, the unspoken inquiry tucked beneath was unmistakably direct. One that matched the steady address of her dark eyes, recalling the manner in which she’d silently appraised Alice several occasions before. It was to wordlessly will, to urge, with trustworthy patience and careful discretion: Go on. Out with it.

[belltasya-blog]

bridgette:

She’d thought she was alone in the greenhouse, though that didn’t mean she would tamper down her enthusiasm. Swirling around at the sound of footsteps, there was no ignoring the grin on Bridgette’s face as she held up a small flower. “The Moly are blooming!” 

      Years faced with the same several glass walls worth of greenhouse ought to have counted for something. The ancient building should have been diminished of the inexplicable appeal that had drawn to her in immediately on day one, year one. When, at first sight, she’d been rendered unreasonably enamoured by Herbology’s whimsical classroom location, despite the cramped inner quarters and unattractive coating of grime and condensation that stubbornly clung to the bottom row of windows no matter the season. Not to mention the borderline overpowering whiffs of dragon dung fertilizer one couldn’t help but stumble into the cross draft of sooner or later, or --- perhaps least tolerable of all --- the dozen mandrakes repotted so sloppily by tiny twelve-year-old hands that even walking past too hastily would trigger a domino effect of muffled disembodied screams. If one was lucky, the shrill chorus would settle back down in under an hour. Defying all logic, each bizarre and vivid detail remained Tasya’s highest source of comfort. Stranger still, it was the most ordinary developments that happened there which managed to evoke the most disproportionate sense of wonder, in turn renewing her sense of belief in the most perplexing magic of all: the resilient onward and upward growth of what was left untended. Each new day she dropped by there was sure to be at least one new species sprouting, budding, climbing, or spontaneously combusting. The latter, a far more recent and unfortunate far too common side effect that one of her particularly fussy experimentations had begun exhibiting when left unattended for too long. Growing pain tantrums happened to everyone ( and everything ), apparently.      In the middle of wiping her soiled hands off on the dark front of her apron after cleaning up what was leftover in the wake of one of her immature fanged geranium’s bi-weekly obnoxious outbursts, she was effectively drawn into the neighbouring area by the other girl’s voice. She couldn’t help but distractedly drift closer, gazing admiringly at the delicate flower held in her grasp. “Beautiful,” she murmured, mentally trying to recall if they had been in bloom the last time she’d walked past. Awfully neglectful of her surroundings when focused on a separate task, it was highly likely. “Do you know if they just popped up today, or...?”

[belltasya-blog]

       Did your granny say, "Listen to your heart"?               "Be who you are on the inside"?        I need three words to tear her argument apart:                Your granny lied        I'd rather be shiny               Like a treasure from a sunken pirate wreck

                                           Gilderoy & Tasya

                                               [ @belltasya​ ; @gilded-gilderoy ]

[belltasya-blog]

octavius:

Octavius didn’t think he had a reason not to believe Tasya said. At this point she could have told him the stars in the sky were really where diamonds came from. Of course he would never try to grasp them anyway, due to his unwarranted case of Acrophobia. He even tried to stay away from any tasks that he needed to ride a broom to do. Quidditch? Hard pass. He watches her closely and has this youthful smile across his lips. The uncanny boy remembered her from choir often thinking she had a pretty voice. Too bad she couldn’t sing underwater for his people. Then again no one can know about them or him. Her petite form hadn’t escaped him, and even now he feels almost bad. Every now and then there’s a random thought that whispers to him to bow down to be on the same level of the shorter girls in school. He made the mistake of doing that the first two years at Hogwarts, and now felt phantom joint pains in his lower back from it. But if there was a need he would still do it. Oct’s head tilts as she seems to look around with newfound recognition. She must be really hungry if she had no idea where she was? At least that’s what he thought. Since feigning was an automatic charm on him. ”Yes.. we are in hall.” He reiterates their location with a kind smile and slow now of his head. Octavious lets out a breath of appeasement that his pet was safe from being consumed. Turning his frame to the side, he gestures for her to get ahead of him. ”Oscar and I are very happy you will not eat him. Let’s go grab bite to eat at the Great Hall. Have you been practice your ahhh singing?” He tries to keep the small talk up with a jolly grin. Unbeknownst to him that she could easily feed him more incorrect information or that she might plan on doing it.

       Tasya’s returning smile was a warm and appreciative one, his nod mirrored with a final understanding one of her own. She decided it best to agreeably hold her silence a moment rather than risk an additional misstep --- or misspeak --- just yet. It was ironic, really, that she bothered to put the most effort into resembling the traits of good listener and an amicable receiver of correction even though, here, it mattered least of all how adept she appeared. When something would always end up lost in translation in his towering presence, striving for above average was a waste of energy. Relevant or not, she made a gracious attempt to self-monitor what she still could.       She valued the easygoing lightness his good natured acceptance brought about, positively affecting whatever low pressured imprint that the overcast weather outside had equipped her with. Perhaps contentment was contagious. Quietly, in the back of her mind, the familiar urge to craftily tamper with what was perfectly fine left as it was made itself known. With no motivating rhyme or reason in particular, but the persistent need to always be doing something to either benefit or hinder whoever she found herself alongside, it was an impulse as nonsensical as it was insatiable. “I can only hope no one comes along with the intent to eat him,” she declared, pausing a beat to reconsider the whether his earlier statement had been a harmless Octavius-ism or an actual preventative measure put in place after someone truly had expressed an interest in doing so. Stranger things had happened on the Hogwarts grounds before. “Have you met anyone here who’s tried to?”

       At his indication, she turned to start on the familiar route toward the Great Hall. Unsurprisingly it appeared the majority of the newly recessed students, those not intent on keeping stationary immersed in conversation and other general dawdling tactics, were headed in the same direction. When the topic veered into the territory of their mutual musical interest, it was easy to provide a straight forth answer without a second thought. “Not as much as I’d like,” she admitted, a half-hearted shrug rolling off one shoulder to downplay the rare bout of candor. She was fully invested in that particular extra-curricular, when in progress. It was one of the rare occasions she showed up somewhere uncharacteristically prepared to co-operate and apply her full attention to a good, wholesome, harmonious cause. Outside the confines of their group? --- ah, that was another story entirely. “I’ve had plenty of time to use my voice in talking and reviewing notes, I suppose, but... not so much actually singing. Have you been able to practice much? Does Oscar get the lucky privilege to watch and critique you at all?”

[belltasya-blog]

me: not today, satan 

satan: you’ve been canceling our plans for weeks now. if it’s something i said, please just tell me

[belltasya-blog]

gilderoy:

Gilderoy let out a small wounded noise, clutching at his chest in offense. Surely no one in the castle could not know his name, that simply didn’t seem possible. He was Gilderoy Lockhart after all. “Darling, that is positively hurtful. Hurtful, Tasya.”

       “Oh, dearest,” she began, the term of endearment honeyed and consoling, though only one of the two inflections happened to be genuine, “be careful what you allow yourself to feel. Hurt people tend to frown an awful lot. You don’t want to end up with a wrinkle or two right where it counts, do you?” Reaching over, for emphasis, she gingerly tapped the tip of a finger between his eyebrows. “Though a little imperfection might help us mere mortals relate to you a little better. Sorry. Gregory, is it?”

[belltasya-blog]

macey:

Well.  So the average face had a bit of excitement.  Macey raised an eyebrow as the girl prattled off ideas ranging from petty to potentially life-threatening.  Perhaps Macey had underestimated the girl.  "Perhaps I underestimated you.  Typically I like to toe the line between a few days and a week’s worth of detention, but I like where you’re going with this.“  She leaned forward, a conspiratorial grin now on her face.  

"You know, the snow sculptures might be fun for a bit but I’ll be left bored after the third or fourth one , you know?  I need something that will keep my interest.”  She winked at the girl, a small laugh floating out as she contemplated the other two suggestions.  "I’ve never liked Flichy-Floo, but fireworks almost seem too easy.“  She brought a finger to her cheek, tapping it lightly as she thought.  "I’m not a fan of the unbreakable vow, though.  We’ve had enough naive little kids dying this year.  Too many more and they’ll send us home and I cannot have that.”  More time than necessary with her sisters in their family home was never a good idea.  "You don’t suppose we could wrangle Peeves in on this one, could we?“  

        Tasya’s fingertips absentmindedly drummed against book cover as she received each piece of feedback, thinking over the appropriate adjustments that would be required for any or all of the proposed ideas to better adhere to the other’s taste. Despite the time of year, she’d largely neglected to spare much thought to what might be awaiting her at home --- in general, let alone if she misstepped and turned up at the doorstep early. “Yeah, that’s fair,” she nodded in understanding, her desire for the distraction of ill-advised productivity easily outweighing every alternative.         “So... something that can’t be repeated the same way twice, but not too easy, and without a body count, yeah? I’m almost certain Peeves wouldn’t be able to resist taking up a chance to become an accomplice, but I doubt he’d be into it without a return of some kind. If we don’t make it worth his time, he’ll just zip around telling everyone what’s up before we can accomplish anything. How good are you at out-tricking a trickster?”

[belltasya-blog]

—  mistletoast ❧

// @greernotdear​

         Anastasia’s plans did not backfire. They adapted.

         Installing sprigs of mistletoe around the castle may have been a juvenile source of entertainment, but it was a yule tradition she still found enjoyment re-cultivating once a year. Most of the appeal lay in how socially acceptable the ripple effects of trouble that the infamous plant created happened to be. Asides from April 1st and the lead up to Halloween, December was the only time of year overt tomfoolery was given a free pass. Landing under a mistletoe enriched archway was a far more annoying than scandalous predicament to end up in, anyway. Not like the crime scene of a missing murdered girl. If anything, Tasya’s mistletoe deployment was anonymously providing a lighthearted relief service from the drama --- free of charge. Already well into her seventh year, she couldn’t afford to squander the misbehavior immunity temporarily granted by professors willing to look the other way because teenagers would be teenagers.

         So, naturally, any unsupervised opportunity would be taken advantage of to the fullest extent.

         A successful week of frozen feet and unlocking kisses flown by before things turned noticeably awry. Students had been roaming the castle boasting complexions several shades paler or pinker, drained with dread or alight with embarrassment; some features adorned with frowns, others delighted grins. The various reactions were consistently fulfilling to sit back and track the differences of day-by-day, making it all the more obvious when the amount of entrapped figures occupying the halls eventually took a disheartening dip. Upon closer inspection, she’d found several of the mistletoe loaded spots had suspiciously gone missing. Or rather forcefully removed, she guessed, judging by the gauges and scorch marks left behind. Bloody fun suckers. She suspected some law-abiding bookworm was to blame, or some snake who couldn’t handle playing well with others. But it wasn’t up to them to have the final say, was it?

         She’d initially almost limited her own potential, determining the best solution would merely be to look up a stronger magical adhesive that could bind mistletoe to a surface more sustainably. Suffice it to say, what was meant to be a brief library visit led to getting sidetracked by an unattended booklet of hexes far too conveniently abandoned, open, on a table for Tasya to discover. Thereby her indecisive temperament latched onto a new objective. Maybe she ought to thank the unidentified mistletoe wrecking perpetrator. Maybe the mistletoe game had grown stale and deserved to be stopped. Those who had most recently ended up stuck beneath the evergreen lip locking device had begun doing so more and more passively as the days ticked on, seemingly without any discernment, eager to get it over with as if no obstacle had stalled them in the first place. As far as Tasya was concerned, their willingness made them morons. Harmonious acceptance and obedience defeated the entire purpose of the whole fucking thing.         Surely there had to be other ( better ) ways to make mischievous use of that symbolic pest piece of decor. It was her final possible year to make a lasting impression via shenanigans, even if only she knew she was the one responsible. Straying from tradition for the sake of leaving a memorable impression suited her just fine. Ultimately the original benefit would still be served, either way --- the provision of a meaningless temporary distraction from whatever inevitable battle hung on the horizon. Certainly, she would be still be spitefully replacing the mistletoe-ridden spots around the school. There would just happen to be a very different effective influence attached to version 2.0.

         In pursuit of what that invented supplement might be, Tasya begrudgingly sentenced herself to an impromptu study session. Taking advantage of the Hufflepuff’s middle of the day empty common room, she sat on the floor with her back comfortably leaned against the side of a couch. Arranged in a neat pile beside her was a small collection of harvested mistletoe, concealed from view by the oversized herbal encyclopedia that lay across her lap from which she was selectively absorbing information from the ‘M’ section. She read up on the plant’s historical ties, why it was first considered bad luck to decline someone underneath, how after each encounter a berry was to be plucked from the mistletoe --- the kissing only permitted to stop after all the berries had been removed, and when to ceremonially burn the leftovers to ensure that those who kissed under it would marry. Inspiration ebbed and flowed within Tasya’s head after each superstitious story reviewed. So we superglue all the berries to the branch and make then suffer indefinitely, yeah? No. Enough kissing. Too predictable. Marriage? Another crystal clear negative. Shit, half the school’s already on the brink of betrothal as it is.

         She read on about its toxicity ( knowingly dismissing the adjacent warning printed in bold: use only under the supervision of a competent herbalist. Was Tasya competent? To be determined. She determined yes ) and benefits. Recorded as being a remedy for headaches and irritability --- in other words: Slytherin conversion therapy --- as well as a treatment for hysteria and anxiety --- in other words: perfect for final exam tension relief. Alas, Tasya didn’t desire to be helpful. Intervening with the status quo whilst eschewing her own boredom was the goal, always. Her eyelids weighed down with disinterest as the text began denoting latin origins and scientific compounds, until, several skimmed paragraphs later, she reached another section on lore. Any enemies who step under mistletoe together are required to declare a truce until the next day. Boring. So what was the opposite of kissing and peacekeeping? The long awaited answer to that burning ever-present ‘what next’ question finally stepped out of the shadowy outskirts of her mind. Injury.           Tasya stopped to lift up a segment of the mistletoe she’d stockpiled. Running a curious fingertip along a smooth oval of green, for the moment, she was entirely set on making the newest concept at the forefront of her mind a reality. Before she even gave a healthy pause to consider the possible implications of it faring poorly, she was acting on it. Wand in hand, a string of muttered words pass beneath her breath until the end glowed a coolant blue; flickering and fire-like. Slowly, she traced it around the diameter of every individual leaf of the mistletoe in her grasp. A thin tendril of smoke rose into the air in the aftermath of each trace concluded, as if the fresh plant material had been singed. The air around her swirled with a scent similar to burnt sugar, albeit tempered by an undertone dizzyingly pungent, like bleach or alcohol. After repeating an outline of each leaf three painstaking times, she released her wand to flex and unflex her cramping hand as she inspected the successful result. Replacing the smooth innocuous edges present just moments before, the leaves in front of her had been equipped with a razored sharpness akin to the finely serrated edge of a knife. A pleasant and unexpected surprise --- it had worked exactly as she’d intended it to.          Waving a hand to dispel some of the lingering noxious fumes away from her, Tasya admired the sharpened object in her possession. Her fingers tingled mildly where they came into contact with the altered plant material, reminding her to be careful to avoid catching her skin on the newly bewitched corners. It was doubtful anyone would even notice the uselessly menacing detail she’d updated it with, suspended several feet in the air. If this bladed addition wouldn’t be used for inducing kissing, what other enchantment could she trick it with? 

         Releasing a frustrated sigh, Tasya cast the plant in question out to levitate a few inches above the floor as she mentally perused the many jobs her franken-mistletoe could be tasked with. How much harm could sharp leaves do, anyway? Students were already avoiding the halls where the romanticized gimmick could be spotted from a distance. If they failed to get adequately close, what good was another conditional feet imprisonment charm? Unless she got the plant to sense their retreating motions and cover the ground for her…          Wand suddenly outstretched and pointed directly at a cluster of white berries, she instinctively whispered: “Expulso.” As soon as the command left her lips, a sound reminiscent of a roll of bubble wrap being popped emitted into the room as not just one but all berries burst apart in quick succession. Leaning in closer with rapt attention, the fuse of Tasya’s impulsive half-baked ideas naturally progressed too ambitiously ahead. It was with an unbridled swell of energy that she proceeded to pluck the deflated mistletoe out of the air with her free hand. Held at a cautious arm’s length, she experimentally pressed her wand against a modified leaf. “Confringo.”          A promising high pitched hiss and hum resonated in response, the leaves seeming to quiver in her hold, but within seconds the prolonged fizzling appeared to have reached its anticlimactic crescendo. Producing nothing worthy of note but a fleeting spark of red at the tip of her wand, the mistletoe resumed its previous inactive silence; sharpened leaves glinting innocently in the light. Shiny with potential, devoid of follow through. She sighed with disappointment, barely allowing a second to pass to reconfigure her approach before she dared to strike with a second attempt. Instant gratification and magic had always tended to be interchangeable terms when it came to her expectations being met. Cause and effect were nearly one in the same --- the anticipated wait time in between? None. Accordingly, hadn’t even considered it a possibility that her first use of the spell could possibly reap delayed results. Even to call what happened an exception to the rule would be putting it mildly. Thank Merlin she was alone... right?          “Conf--- fuck!” Curse crossing over curse, Tasya quickly dove for cover as the mistletoe abruptly exploded in her grasp. Several weaponized leaves ferociously flung themselves around the room like shrapnel, dispersed in every direction. Ricocheting off stonewall and terracotta pot alike; embedding into nearby wooden table legs; digging into couch cushions; lodging unflatteringly into the Helga Hufflepuff tapestry hung above the mantlepiece. Oops. She’d unfortunately failed to avoid the crossfire completely --- multiple crimson scratches left across the exposed skin of her cheeks --- though she neglected to register any degree of injury obtained, unable to feel much asides from the searing sensation afflicting her hands as if she’d held them over an open flame.          Devil’s Fuge, indeed.

        Easing herself slowly back into an upright position, she noticed a blackened outline was etched into the floor that hadn’t been there previously. The bulk of the mistletoe she’d been poking and prodding at had all but disintegrated. Peering around the room for other evident signs of tarnish, she hastened to wipe her ash sprinkled hands on the hem of her robes before officially considering what to do about the messy circumstance she was the lone figure in the very incriminating center of. Reluctantly --- harbouring a mixture of pride and chagrin toward the hazardous state of the room --- she moved to raise her wand in order to reverse the damage. That had been the plan, at least, until she realized both of her hands were empty. Hadn’t she just been holding it? Well. That probably wasn’t a good sign. 

[belltasya-blog]

                        “You have two settings:                         no decision and bad decision.                         I wouldn’t let you run a bath                         without having the coast guard                         and fire department standing by.”

                                    Tasya & Peter

                                                [ @belltasya​ ; @wxrmtxl ]

[belltasya-blog]

gilderoy:

“Come now, darling, it’s perfectly okay to admit how much you missed me.”

       No one could make an entrance quite like Gilderoy Lockhart. It was a rather unlucky burden for every other occupant in the room to bear, destined to end up looking dull compared to the gold he unapologetically glimmered with. Still, Tasya made her assessment of him a deliberately tenuous one. Granting him only a fraction of her attention with a lingering sidelong glance, head tilted in mock-study, "Sorry, remind me --- what’s your name, again? It’s been so long...”

[belltasya-blog]

alecto:

@belltasya

Alecto’s peace increased just so she could be in step with the other- it was weird, how she started doing this the past few days when last year she wouldn’t turn her head if someone walked by, unless they talked with her she’d ignore her surroundings, but she felt like she’d spent enough time with herself today and she needed a little conversation.

‘ Going to the choir?’ she asked, without a greeting- without making her presence known much, she was just there to speak. 

        Tasya had started to prepare in advance for things. It was unpleasant, to put it mildly. She wasn’t wired to enjoy making organized plans or having rational forethought. Being effortlessly early to appointments was an attribute she surmised a more advanced incarnation of her down the line would probably end up destined to have, just to spitefully make amends for their disappointing ancestor. She was also probably into scrapbooking and baking and relished sending out individualized handwritten Thank You notes. Someone multilingual and wealthy and able to keep as many kids alive as she did plants. A person present-Tasya would be tempted to target and try badly influencing. In this lifetime, however, that perfect attendance version of herself was one she spared the least amount of thought to constructing. But reality had a bite — and a hard one, at that. She couldn’t expect to bat her eyelashes and get her way with every one of her superiors. Namely the professors with poor eye sight who probably consumed pellets of steel for breakfast; the same material their nerves seemed made of. The amount of classes Tasya sporadically elected to skip was fast approaching too regular a rhythm. Multiple piles of assignments she’d missed receiving all the instructions on, or conveniently lost altogether, threatened to topple over and bury her. On the bright side, at least then she wouldn’t have to fulfil any of them.

       Breaking bad habits wasn’t nearly as fun as creating them, though apparently a necessary means of damage control. Tentatively made was the decision to start making small improvements in an attempt to detour around destination: imminent failure. Being on time or late for choir wasn’t a dire cause to fight for, so it would be her first guinea pig. If she could get there before half the class had assembled, she’d count it as a win and treat herself to sloughing off the rest of the day. That’s how rewards worked, right? Unaccompanied with nothing but her questionable thoughts as she indulged in taking the long way there in order avoid being covered in a layer of ice from the open courtyard, the illusion of being alone was fleeting. From behind her, she overheard the other’s approaching footsteps and naturally slowed her own a little bit. “That I am,” she answered before she’d turned to look, her perfunctory smile giving way to a more sincere one when she recognized who the voice belonged to. “You too? Or are you just killing time ‘til you have something better to do?”

[belltasya-blog]

[belltasya-blog]

evan:

@belltasya

Evan is not to be reckoned with. Passing through the hallways he catches the judgmental eye of a younger Gryffindor. Oh this little bird asshole. He would show him. He didn’t make a movement then, but waited until the classrooms were empty. He waited inside the closed classroom of Defense against the Dark Arts, ironically. Bright blue hues watch predatory each student that passes by, until his hues land on the one he needs. No time is wasted as he propels himself outside of the empty classroom. Grabbing the fourth year by the arm and harshly tossing him into the classroom. He grinned but the laughter hadn’t returned to full volume. The boy was trying to act tough, slinging accusations at him. All the ‘good plebs’ were the same. You attacked Mary. You hurt Alice. You killed Julia.. Funny enough two of those he didn’t do,or hadn’t confessed to. Mary was just a prank he concludes, and the boy tries to take a swing at him. Evan’s eyes travel from head to toe. Weren’t Gryffindors supposed to be smarter than that? Evan lifts his fist upwards and connects with the younger Gryf. He tosses the boy into one of the desks and giggles with a small amount of glee. The other boy stands up with blood dripping from his nose, as Mulciber descends upon him. Pinning him to the ground and pummeling his face over and over again Sliding the desks away from him to get them out of his way of his current victim. It’ll be alright later he will stage it to make the fight look more fair for Pomfrey. That’s when he hears the door to the classroom open. The boy below him grunting and sobbing. He stands up to acknowledge who walked in, and starts to walk to the entrance of the classroom.

      It’s not the first time that week Tasya has had the… misfortune? Privilege? Opportunity? Admittedly, it was still highly arguable what her solidified stance happened to be re: continuously finding herself in situations that saw her invading another’s privacy. Scenes witnessed hitherto that fell under the umbrella of inadvertent sleuthing ranged from mildly inconvenient to spectacularly incriminating. Sometimes there were power dynamics to get off on in having the upper hand, other times it was just plain annoying that no one seemed capable of locking a door --- or, at the very least, lodging a chair under a door knob the witless old-fashioned way.

      Oh, the things she’d seen but neglected to do much of anything about; not motivated to care enough or desiring to be deemed with too shrewd a reputation. More or less silently filed away somewhere between insignificant and blackmail material. The role of a prefect might have suited her well if she didn’t lack all other relevant abilities required to responsibly manage such a position. Regardless, finding herself caught up in a situation where she shouldn’t have been had recently become a running theme. Her entitlement to warrant randomly showing up was usually borne from an authentic reason --- a forgotten book, quill, or package of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. The good intentions began and ended there.

      It was on a quest to locate at least one of the routinely misplaced aforementioned items that she once again incorrectly assumed the classroom she intended to search would be an emptied one, discovering a crucial few seconds too late that it was already occupied. At first only getting a glimpse of two figures, one blurred with movement, she sharply inhaled a well-rehearsed gasp of surprise. Prepared to feign whatever innocent or defensive stance she might need, a multitude of adaptable excuses at the tip of her tongue dependant on how hostile a reception her interruption was rewarded with, any potential act she would have ordinarily entertained catches in her throat the moment she registers the finer details of what she’s seeing. Instantly, she relaxes.

      Unlike the other occasions, she knows exactly how she feels about this one. For she recognizes who it is she’s intercepted. Though she couldn’t say she knew him, Tasya certainly possessed more than a vague awareness of what he was capable of from eavesdropping on dramatically whispered retellings of his systematically discharged temper. Her curiosity had developed into an invested interest overtime, eagerly awaiting to hear about the next rumor that would float by. His reputation preceded him in the most fascinating way. For starters, no one else was as consistently pegged to the superlative most likely to go on a murderous rampage than him. She’d also been able to observe his effect from afar in the spike of fear mudbloods irradiated on certain days more than others; a direct correlation with the occurrence of a new terrorizing event. Along the way, Tasya had decided she found it more unfortunate she didn’t know him than the opposite. Nonsensical as it may have sounded --- hence why she never expressed such considerations aloud --- she felt closer to sympathetic than disgusted by what Evan supposedly got up to, no doubt putting her in the minority of the limited range of positive reactions he inspired. She wasn’t so much interested in why he did what he did, but how. The gruesome details were the most enthralling. She predicted she would never be able to commit any act of brutality beyond a fantasized level, lest ruining the tame cover she’d worked so hard to build around herself, but it was still valuable to learn from those unapologetically harnessing their craft. Just in case.

      So the crumpled heap on the floor emitting whimpers is probably justified, she thinks as she lingers just inside the doorway. Some imbecile Evan had taken care of the only trustworthy way you could get a message unforgettably across. Violence. Those cruising for a bruising could only expect to one day have what was deserved take them by the collar and savagely slam them against something. Apparently she’d just missed out the action that had been in progress. That should have been a good thing. Most would have been thankful. Ducked their heads, averted their eyes, rushed out of there. Tasya failed to be like most. Her brown eyes had fixated on the more damaged ( on the outside, at least ) of the duo, drawn in and agleam with undisguised intrigue. Perhaps even a glint of praise. Utterly compelled to look, yet doing nothing whatsoever about it. Like the hypnotic urge to stare at a car crash or a building engulfed in flames. A landscape of beautiful destruction. At the back of her mind, she reminds herself that the solo assailant to blame is on the move; retreating in her peripheral vision. Quick to adjust her priorities, Tasya turns toward him and abruptly takes a step forward. “Wait,” she requests aloud, without thinking, one hand twitching where it hangs at her side before she stopped herself from being so bold as to reach out and make physical contact. Still, there’s an urgency that ripples through her like an ignited line of gasoline.

      When would such an ideal opportunity such as this ever present itself again? Longevity wasn’t a quality that immediately jumped to mind at the thought of Evan Mulciber. But, just as surely, it could be reasonably deduced that whoever tried to get a sore loser’s vengeance and rid the earth of him would sooner die trying. Either way, the time to interact with him in any capacity was probably limited. Now was a good a time as ever to try. “So,” she briefly glanced back across the room to size up the bloodied student on the floor, this time not to appreciate severity of the injuries he’d recently acquired, but to identify the colorful patch to be found sewn onto the breast pocket of his robe, “--- is Gryffindor the flavor of the day, then?” Asked simply, her concern inappropriately placed and angled askew, as per usual, delivered in a tone as casual as one might use checking in about the weather. “Or is a messy lack of subtlety the tactic of the month?”