camillabbott-blog

[camillabbott-blog]

DATE : 10 september 1944 LOCATION : the corridors TIME : 9:00 am STATUS : open

Normalcy, how quickly it found them, sweeping away their long-dried tears and dusting fear, remembrance of carnage from their shoulders where it had become burden. Abandoning terror as one did so drop a cloak from one’s back --- with ease, they adopted excitement instead, preoccupied themselves with those insignificant things which had once been marvel to them. First and foremost, in its season, this was Quidditch. Competition nurtured their ignorance, allowed them worriment over simple things: clever pin designs and banners, strategy and freshly marketed broomsticks as opposed to propaganda spilt from their bedside radios.

Fittingly, an Abbott occupied herself just the same, fastening Gryffindor pins to her chest and tying Hufflepuff gold at her neck, allowing talk of the upcoming match to occupy her time --- of the inevitable Gryffindor victory, naturally. Of course she’d never wave a green and silvered banner, wouldn’t mar her robes with a serpent’s sigil; not for so little as some people trusted in her alliances, for all the torment which had been had from the Slytherin house. 

As such, it could surely not have been an Avery or Mulciber pinned at her chest, but radiant Yaxley --- holding fast to her robes as he waved broomstick confidently through the air, a grin sat lop-sided at his lips. The Gryffindor emblem flashed as well when sight of its team captain faded, infamous lion roaring at the crest’s center before the images looped once again.

“Nifty, huh? Thought I’d show my support for the upcoming match and all,” she remarked when she caught someone taking notice of her pin, pulling at the badge so as to better display it, as though it were mark of honor. Perhaps, in her case, it was.

[camillabbott-blog]

🍹

khalilah + camilla

Maybe, if she had contented herself with fanciful things — crystal tumblers, silk ribbons; perhaps in the instance that her character had a more shallow foundation ( more so than already existent ), Kitty would’ve been a fast friend. Yes, if greatness, aspiration for it, still held her by her neck, gripping tightly at the root of her hair as her heart, Kitty would’ve been a fast friend, indeed. Though, that was just it, wasn’t it? Camilla didn’t, she wasn’t consumed by want for glory as a Shafiq. Rather, those desires had been washed from her, as though at her sorting, that night which had stripped her of so much indeed, a priest had dipped her in baptismal fount and rid her of its sin, its burden. 

And it was in Kitty’s possession thereof that Camilla pitied her, even feared her a little.

Daughter of Ahmed, she reminded a soft-hearted Hufflepuff so much of what had been of her once, what might have still been if she had not been subject to an abrupt act of fate, but never will as people so often confused it. She did not regret her alliances, of course, nor her adoption of sympathy, her undertaking of courage and goodness, but it had never been precipitated consciously. Khalilah, though, never bothered herself with such things; a sultan’s daughter is of a level separate from people like Camilla, she does not need for kindness as an Abbott does, or so Camilla is meant to understand at their first meeting.

“Abbott, hm?” 

From any other tongue, it might have been a question, but from a girl such as Kitty, it is a challenge, at best, and an unimpressed observation at worst. In fact, if she had a favorable opinion of anyone at all, though it seemed unlikely, when lost — it was certainly lost forever. Although, Camilla supposed, thinking of those slit eyes and the leisure, the disinterest of a young Shafiq’s speech, she had never even been threatened by the Ravenclaw’s favor. 

“If you’re no good for those snakes, you’re definitely not good enough for me.”

She recalls once being told that words should not have hurt her, that they never could, but Camilla felt their cut as she did a knife. Kitty may have been shallow, and her words may have been so empty behind their sharpness that they should not have mattered, but Camilla had always possessed a delicacy in heart that made her victim to comments such as those. No, she’d thought, if I am no good for them, I am certainly no good at all. 

How strange, that even the simplest of remarks might bring about a storm. That was the butterfly effect, wasn’t it? Tell a girl that her worth is not much, and she will believe it. Especially when it is a message hailed from a silver tongue such as Kitty’s.

[camillabbott-blog]

Drabble Me

Leave an “Amuse Me” in my ask, and I will write a funny drabble about my character trying to cheer yours up.

Leave a “Break Me” in my ask, and I will write an angsty drabble about our characters.

Leave a “Call Me” in my ask, and I will write a drabble about my character asking for yours [be it during the brink of death/in a battlefield/knocking on the front door wounded; feel free to specify].

Leave a “Drink Me” in my ask, and I will write a drabble about my character taking shots with yours.

Leave an “Enamor Me” in my ask, and I will write a fluffy drabble about my character trying to woo yours [be it out of the blue/Valentine's Day; feel free to specify].

Leave a “Fight Me” in my ask, and I will write a drabble about my character fighting with or against yours.

Leave a “Get Me” in my ask, and I will write a drabble about my character saving yours.

Leave a “Haunt Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about my character watching over yours [as a ghost, watching from a distance, or otherwise; feel free to specify].

Leave a “Join Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about my character giving your character an offer [be it a proposal for an alliance, asking them to join them in an activity (you can get dirty if you want); feel free to specify].

Leave a “Kill Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about my character killing yours.

Leave a “Love Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a fluffy drabble about our characters.

Leave a “Mourn Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about my character mourning your character’s death.

Leave a “Nurse Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about my character healing yours.

Leave an “Offer Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about my character giving yours a gift.

Leave a “Paint Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about my character drawing a picture of yours.

Leave a “Quiet Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about my character trying to calm yours down [be it from crying, from lashing out; feel free to specify].

Leave a “Remember Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about my character trying to get yours to remember them [be it from an accident, meeting them after years apart; feel free to specify].

Leave a “Shag Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a dirty drabble about our characters.

Leave a “Tell Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about my character confessing something to yours.

Leave an “Unbind Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about your character freeing mine, or the other way around, or something among those lines.

Leave a “Value Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about my character telling yours how they feel about them.

Leave a “Wed Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about our characterd under the subject of wedlock [be it my character proposing to yours, marrying yours; feel free to specify].

Leave a “Yahoo Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about our characters celebrating something.

Leave a “Zip Me” in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about your character dressing mine or the other way around.

[camillabbott-blog]

DATE : 5 september 1944 LOCATION : east wing courtyard TIME : 7:00 pm STATUS : closed @cygnusblck

Another year, and no wiser had she become, if she had changed at all. Ultimately, was she not still the glassy-eyed girl, with a quake hiding in her fingers and at her heart? Her cowardice had not abated, no --- nor her selfishness, the desire for goodness but the absence of action. A crimson thread knotted around her ankle, and though she held fast to repulsion, she had not shaken herself free of it. Part of her longed for barbed cradles, the vapid decorum she had been once greeted with; outstretched wings nestling her close, the ecstasy that inclusivity in the pureblooded circle brought. 

In love, and in terror, she missed them; as all frightful girls do regard absence of safety dreadfully. Hadn’t Paine spoken of such a phenomenon as that? Man, when in conflict, he would desire safety over liberty, over practice of freedom. Out from under her carefully orchestrated lies of contentedness: the ones she told to herself, the mistruths she held for others ----- a house of cards, there was a sympathy held for such an ideal. 

Strong, they told her, she had to be so strong, in being a traitor, but her timid, anxious heart laughed at them; a hyena’s cackle, a howl. The ironic compliments they held for a spineless girl, all for the resolution of a hat; how misplaced they were, though she tried to live up to them regardless. Ah, but many of them had forgotten her sacrifices, the burden of her alliances. They’d forgotten because it did not concern them, but as in breath, its exercise, she could never forget. Strength had cost her, it had cost her family. 

Ah, but you did wish for nobility, didn’t you? 

She did, she had --- no matter its costs. Yet, she could not help but at times to feel its immense burden all at once, as she had when the Sorting Hat had first kissed the crown of her head, as though it would be kind; as though it would gentle, though it was not. A scion of fate cannot be benevolent, can it? Destiny --- that composition of stars, the backbone of a young girl’s fairytale: it would never favor her. Not even as she sought quiet, grasping weakly for a moment of safety in the space of a modest, often unseen courtyard. No matter that classes would not resume for the morning, or that she desperately hoped for a minute of quiet, she would not have it. 

Camilla would not have it --- would not because it is the night when wolves stalk, it’s when the sun has kissed the sky and gone that all vile creatures slink out from their dark corners, the subterranean from which they all originate. Too, it is out of principle --- no girl so misfortunate may be so benefited by a grant of solace, not when it is in the prerogative of fate to disrupt such favor. Come in a form she’d once loved, as she had them all of her former circle, her heart shriveled at the sight of him. Cygnus Black, all foreboding as devastation should come, in that manner of natural disaster which he strikes as: a cyclone, tsunami and hurricane. Perhaps, if time had changed her any, she would’ve stood her ground, maybe she might have had him leave the way he’d come. But a girl will not stop a storm, will she?

Besides, time had not changed her that much. 

“Cygnus,” as in her interaction with Ariadne hours prior, a familiar name rolls stiffly off her tongue. Sight of him, as it had with her, makes Camilla weak, but certainly not in the same manner. Cygnus Black --- he makes her afraid, never nostalgic. Is he not in worship of Evadne, after all? This, the same wraith who knows no end to cruel onslaught, biting into blood traitors as all apex predators with prey: with intent to harm, to kill. Are they not the same in this?

“Excuse me, won’t you?”

[camillabbott-blog]

❛ ARIADNE.

Date: 9.5.1944. {{ day two of classes }} Location: Astronomy Classroom Written for: @camillabbott          

          As glossy eyes stared down at the mountain of folders, textbooks, and dust, Ariadne began to realize a fatal mistake had been made - and it was only the second day of classes. It was her last year in the castle, her last year being a Ravenclaw student, and the Greengrass girl had bitten off much more than she could chew. In additional to family affairs, time spent with Abraxas and planning their future, as well as a few hobbies on the side - Ariadne found herself completely overwhelmed with coursework. Especially the advanced coursework in subjects like Astronomy.                             Of course, she’d always enjoyed the topic, but had never attempted to learn in a traditional way. The terminology and history, though familiar, still seemed distance and the girl found herself growing frustrated. 

      Eyes lifted in hopes of calming back down - the chaos of the previous days had left her still anxious, itching to get back to normal, to throw herself back into studies and hobbies to take her mind off of the horrors they had all experienced. A letter had arrived that morning from her parents, threatening to rip her out of the school if she was not properly protected. France, or better yet China, would likely be safer, especially in their secluded villas and mansions, but Ariadne dreaded the idea of leaving and missing the last year she would get to spend there. 

        Hogwarts was where her freedom had been discovered. It felt as if she’d only scrapped the surface of what she could achieve, and now suddenly bogged down against with academic requirements. How was it she always found herself falling into the same patterns, repeating her mistakes, and refusing to allow herself to rise from her former glory? 

     “Bother,” The Ravenclaw sighed, standing and beginning to gather her things when she noticed another figure, alone in the room in the far corner. Pausing, Ariadne stood still, eyes locked on her former friend. They woven their fingers together and tilted their heads in, pressing whispers and fairytales into each other ears, bonding over the differences in their opinions from their friends. Purebloods, but not the kind everyone else seemed to be. Ah, how the distance had grown, ripping a piece of Ariadne away. Why was it a silk screen held her away from the world? Never could she seem to experience the closeness with her peers, or anyone. Even Abraxas seemed worlds away, even when they touched, though rare the occasion was. 

          Perhaps it was because she’d survived near death in the castle only days before. Perhaps bravery now coursed stronger through the veins of the Greengrass Ravenclaw. Or perhaps, she was just tired of being estranged from an old friend. “Camilla,” She spoke, calm and collected. Ariadne always talked as if she were narrating a poem, reading of grand adventures and gestures of love. Her accent, more French in nature than Chinese, held the traits of several languages, as she was fluent in many. Yet, somehow, the warmth in her voice is what caused others to stop and listen. She never smiled - maybe that is why everyone trusted her word, hung on the syllables like they would offer wisdom beyond their time.                    “I thought I knew everything there was to know,” A confession of hubris. “Yet I find myself lost in these pages. You’re good at this, you’ve always been such a star.”      A joke? Was Ariadne joking now to win over the affections of the Hufflepuff? It was good none of the serpents were around to witness the fail at humor - she’d never live it down, likely.                                    “Please help me?”

Shivering moonlight, constellations glinting as the tine of a dagger, she had held an adoration of that romantic, shimmering blackness since a child. Captured between her hands, against her breast, had it not been a Black to teach her of this longing, initially? Gaze drawn upward, no matter her quarrel with it, instinct drew her sight to their legacy --- as it fell to Abraxas when she thought of Pushkin, of Saint-Exupéry and Huxley. As her heart to fell to Ariadne in many things, as it did to the lot of them. Her past resided with them, ultimately, something of a awkwardly assembled mosaic --- colored by the pale gold of a Rosier, fair skin kissed by midnight, the backward step of a Greengrass. 

Though, the pieces were jagged; never meeting evenly and cutting at each other, her memory was a feral thing --- bearing teeth, scratching. Nausea rolls at recall of her veneer, their cruelty, her fear ( the latter has not left her yet, nor the first perhaps ). For all precious, crystallized moments she held fast to, there was an unseemly counterpart that reminded her of their grotesque prejudice or --- just as well, perturbing disassociation. 

But it was not I who slandered the muggleborns, their doves cooed.

Nor had it been them who spoke against it, she reminded herself. In that, she refused to be alike them; a cog, a wheel in their infinite cycle of elitism, turning over and over, like clockwork ( how does one stop the succession of malice in a young girl’s heart, a boy’s? they don’t ). Rather, she cultivated a sense of ignorance against them, her traitorous adoration of them --- a sneering beast, nestled tight to her heart and caught in the space between her lungs as contagion often stuck. Was her love of them not a sickness, after all? 

Rather, indeed, she’d developed somewhat of a talent in steeling herself against former friends, lest they carry daggers at their lips and menace at their hearts ( as they did, often ). When she thought of Fiora, the prejudice which she had endured and would continue to at the elm end of a Malfoy’s wand --- a Nott’s aspen, a Black’s blackthorn, it was simple. When she thought of their beastly ferocity against all whom she held dear, it was simple. Even against those gentler hearts, for they had their stakes in the collective malice, monstrosity.

So, when Ariadne Greengrass passed through the Astronomy classroom, as the specter, the ghost which she knew Druella to be, as Lucretia, she did not lift her gaze. Not even at her melodic sigh, a bird’s song. Not at her rising, either, did she seek to meet the Ravenclaw’s eyes. To meet their blackness would murder her resolve, because so much as she vehemently denied it, she’d loved them. Once, surely, and perhaps she still did; an uncertainty she couldn’t gamble against, not even ----- ah, but her voice. Its softness, its familiarity eased over Camilla, as conspiratory whispers and promises which she had not forgotten. 

Hesitantly, she raised her head, as called for when in the instance of such precariousness --- hesitance. The swell of nostalgia, though, could not be eased by caprice, breaking over her as a tidal wave: all in salt tears, agony. “Ariadne,” her voice did not betray her longing, not entirely, but its strain was unmistakeable; taunt as wire, twisting out stiffly. How was she to react; what was she to say? Her delicate fingers latched to her notebook as an anchor, creating crescent, half-moon shapes in its cover at her anxiety, her fear.

Not of Ariadne, but of Camilla’s love for her. 

“Ah, I’m not so good at it --- -- you’ve always been the clever one,” the words proceeded at a clumsy pace, as a newborn fawn making to stand, trailed by a pause as she considered herself. “But of course, you know, if you needed my help --- I’d always, well, I’m willing to lend you a hand. Beery doesn't need me in the greenhouse for a good while, anyway.” 

“Have a seat,” her invitation came more as a question, one might’ve said, as she inelegantly, as Camilla Abbott indelicately fumbled to make room for the other at her desk. But her movements were too eager, too anticipatory; she cursed herself for it, casting her gaze back downward.

[camillabbott-blog]

🍹

    The news of Ariadne’s engagement had spread much faster than the Greengrass girl had anticipated, surprised when she realized the whispers in the halls had suddenly turned to gossip about her. It wasn’t as if anyone was truly surprised by the couple – it had been coming, just sooner than one would have thought.               When asked about it, Ariadne smiled, glancing to the flaxen haired boy with a look of admiration. No words left her lips on the topic, until she found a friend of her ducking her head as they passed.      “Camilla?” Ariadne called out, always seeming to use the Abbott girl’s full name in favor of the nicknames. A week had gone by, and in the halls it felt as if a ghost were passing her by instead of one she used to call a friend. There was the polite smiles on both ends, but anyone could see - it was different now.            Of course, Ariadne figured out the problem without thinking too hard. The purebloods, namely the serpents, had scorned the Hufflepuff beauty badly. It resonated in Ariadne’s memory, tugging at her sympathy. The engagement with Abaraxas had never been something the Ravenclaw had truly wanted, but now she found herself happier than ever could be imagined.                          Couldn’t Camilla understand?         “I miss you.”

[camillabbott-blog]

🍹!!

ask meme 2/? | a headcanon/fanfic for @camillabbott​

Declan figures a Saturday morning trip to the greenhouse is in order. If he doesn’t get out of his dorm, after all, he’ll go mad - Bellavie and Charles have gone to Hogsmeade with Kharmalia for brunch at the new Chinese restaurant (and if Declan wasn’t invited by the demon Head Girl, he isn’t sulking), Leo is out sick, and there are only so many hours of Resistance lesson planning and Knights-scrutinizing he can engage in before his vision starts to swim with Riddle’s face - which, no.

He isn’t surprised to stumble across Camilla there - she reads often in the greenhouse, or waters the plants, or conducts Herbology experiments in advance so as to avoid dueling other frantic students for bookings later in the week (students like Declan). It’s very clever of her - Charles commends her relentlessly. Today, she is in the general flowers section, shear in one hand, basket in another. In the basket lay a dozen brightly colored blossoms - he recognizes a rose, a carnation, and little else - each distinctly different from one another.

“Morning,” Declan offers, and she graces him with a mild, elegant nod of the head. It’s strange, how regality hangs from her frame, even adorned in yellow and black - she is an Abbott, he forgets occasionally; a snake before she was a badger. Declan seats himself on an empty patch of grass and watches her work for a few minutes. There is a peace to her method, a soothing effect that arises from her dependable repetition. After a while, Camilla sets the basket down to join him, and they sit in amicable silence. She studies him, and he studies the grass. He doesn’t know what to expect - perhaps she will inquire after the whereabouts of his Aviators, or how Resistance developments are coming. Sometimes he is asked about the quidditch games, whether he’s dating Bellavie. These have been all the world wants from him as of late, it seems.

“You must be very tired,” Camilla says finally.

 It is the closest thing to an outstretched hand, a set of dark, knowing eyes amidst all the light, and he is so grateful. Declan feels his eyes flutter. “Not too bad,” he mutters, but they are vapor words, and without thinking too hard about it, he settles his shoulder against hers - surprisingly strong, for someone so gentle. All the strong ones are, comes the bittersweet thought. Girls like Camilla, like Bellavie and Vesta - there is an incredible resilience to the way they stand, an enduring light to their weary-worn existences that will forever be unknown to the snakes Declan once dwelled amongst. What is gold, what is blood and power, before their startling humanity? How could tomorrow thrive off of anything but their courage?

When he wakes, he is alone. At his side, where Camilla once sat, sits two things: a note, and a potted Star of Bethlehem. The note reads:

This one is a favorite. They call it a florist’s nightmare, funnily enough. Water daily.

[camillabbott-blog]

🍹 :)))

 antonin + camilla

If any could be so separate to her, would it not be him? Red as slaughter, as dilapidated brick — the stone of mortar. He carried his allure at his tongue, between the razor arc of his hips, and she was so unlike him that she held hers softly at her heart, where it could be forgotten beneath her bones. Where it had been, as in the manner which languages expired, died: slowly, quietly, and evading notice or care until it had vanished altogether, seemingly. Lyubovnik, they learnt to call him, daring the word in its savage tongue ( but they were awkward, fumbling children in his domain, weren’t they? ). Volk, chernoye pyatno, zmeya — as Antonin had been born, as he would teach them to be. But not her, never her.

“You speak so softly, Antonin, nobody would suspect your wickedness,” she remarked, uncharacteristically and scrabbling for purchase of wit, never inborn but diligently practiced ( as with everything about her character besides, perhaps, her goodness ). All she possessed in birth, rather, sung through her veins, low and rough — purity of blood. She clung to the familiar arrogance of it in comfort, out of habit, and though she could adopt blame of this to her former comrades, slit-eyed and deviant, it was her own heart which forgot to relinquish hold of ignorance, pride. Want for goodness had not eradicated her unseemly vices, and as much as she knew this, he had sensed it about her too. He did as a wolf does, hearing and sensing — tasting.

“Nor yours,” a smirk cut viciously across the line of his mouth, hands tied behind his back as his gaze took up occupation of mockery — of a dreadful girl who fancied herself virtuous. Did they not both contradict each other in this way, always, to the ends of the earth as all adversaries of legend, of myth? Cain, Abel. Romulus, Remus. If he be the Devil, then she’d have played God, and in that charade, he would see through her with the acuity he always did. As she did as well in viewing him. Ultimately, was that not their way?

[camillabbott-blog]

Send me a color and I’ll write a drabble with our muses with that color as the theme.

[camillabbott-blog]

❛ DECLAN.

“Camilla,” Declan manages, recognition softening his voice as he makes his way to where she has fallen, and offers her a hand. He has not seen her since his arrival today; and although this is far from how he’d have liked to meet her after their summer apart, he is soothed all the same by the gentle lilt of her voice, the calm generosity she exudes, even in the wake of such disaster. “Yeah, I’m - you took the brunt of the fall, I think, I’m sorry.” He has always admired Camilla Abbott - she is frequently painted in the same light as Declan often is, likened to some degenerate class of blood traitor, but the grace with which she handles such scorn; Declan finds it unimaginably difficult. She’s strong-shouldered.

“I hate to rain on this already soggy parade some more, but my wand’s stuck. Do you have yours?” He offers her something resembling a smile, but it is quick to fade, swallowed whole by exhaustion. “Hogwarts really wants to bloody kill us, doesn’t it?” He rakes a hand through his hair, shakes his head. “What a mess.” And it really, really is. It’s foolish now, to think Declan would separate Hogwarts from war, friendship from loss. Standing above Camilla now, Declan feels the aching blackness of a changing world knot in his stomach - it worsens when abruptly, he notices the odd position she holds herself in. “Hey,” he says, alarmed, and forsakes the outreached hand, kneeling at her side instead. “Your shoulder - is it - ?”

Declan lifts a hand, and it hovers just above where he suspects she has twisted or strained something, cautious not to touch, lest he hurt her even more. 

Was it a virtue --- her ability to manipulate porcelain features into what emotion she saw fit to have? In devastation, she melded courage to her face, but in her chest, that troublesome heart of hers was fervently aflutter as none other by contrast. Beating steadily, harshly against her rib cage, she thought it might come free of her breast, that surely Declan could hear the thud of fear her marrow echoed. They fancied her brave, and perhaps she did herself as well, for rebelling against her upbringing, but more often than not, she felt afraid, cowardly: of turning corners to find a sneer, a hex waiting for her, of words with an edge, of not measuring up to the heroism she was heeded with. 

“Don’t be,” she countered, rejecting his apology with furrowed brows, “---you saved me from being crushed. A little tumble isn’t much, in that regard.” Wasn’t that right? Declan Prewett: so very noble, steadfast and always in rescue of someone or something. Built sedulously from that majesty, that goodness all heroes are born out of, all he’d been missing was a red cape to fasten to his chest. After all, he’d already found his cause, had he not?

“Not a problem, I can have it out in just a moment. My wand’s just here,” a soothing assurance melted over her words, as if to comfort Declan ( doesn’t he need it, as they all do? ), and yet she hadn’t moved from the position she held herself in. To move would be to surrender a wince, a cry perhaps, and she didn’t quite wish to admit her injury. Rather, she paused a moment, suspended in a shameful quiet as she drew her gaze down to the rumble piled at their feet so as to avoid betraying anything that lay in her dark eyes: vulnerability, fear. 

“Oh, it’s nothing, really --- I’m not even sure it’s worth a trip to infirmary. No need to worry, Dec. Instead, let’s focus getting out of this mess, hm?” Raising the corners of her mouth into a soft-edged smile for effect, she shrugged off his worry with a doll’s carefully practiced nonchalance: marbled eyes, a coiled grin, honeyed words. 

[camillabbott-blog]

send me  🍸 for a moodboard of our muses send me  🍷 for an aesthetic of our muses send me  🍹 for a short fanfic/headcanon of our muses send me  ☕️ for a mini playlist of our muses

[camillabbott-blog]

❛ FIORA.

Date: 1 September, 1944

Location: the kitchens beneath Hufflepuff Common Room

Time: Minutes after the explosion

Status: Closed ( @camillabbott )

Her heart was beating about her chest like a frantic bird. The din around her was frightening and overbearing, completely unlike the rumbling chatter of dinner only a handful of minutes before. People are crying, and when she errantly rubs at her cool cheek she finds that she’s been crying, too. She felt a little numb from all the confusion, to such a point that she couldn’t quite bring herself to reach out and comfort her nearest housemate. The fresh memories replay in her mind. One moment, she’s eating dinner, the next… Oh, that sound. Fiora hears its echo recreated in her head, biting the inside of her lip as she remembers the way her heart dropped, but that was nothing compared to when the school was struck. She swallows a whimper, releasing only a small and wavering exhale. Her bones still quake from the power of the impact. She can’t stop thinking about it, all of it. It’s horrifying.

The group of Hufflepuffs reached the kitchens, everyone pouring into its warmth and promise of safety. But, didn’t Hogwarts itself promise such a thing? Safety, Fiora thought, feels like little more than an illusion right now. Still, she entered into her refuge with a sense of relief lifting just a little of the weight from her shoulders. It’s enough to bring her back to herself once again. Concern filled her up, toe to crown; she turned to the person beside her and opened her arms. A younger boy looked up with cheeks wet like hers and rushed into the hug she’s offered. She holds him tight, smoothing his hair, murmuring comforting phrases to him: they’re safe here, everyone is together and safe—it will be okay.

Kharmali tells everyone to sit against the walls, like they did during the drills. Fiora lets go of the boy—she’s almost sure he’s a first year—and he gives her a watery grin as they make their way over to the far wall. As she walks, Fiora scans the crowd for Camilla. She’s a prefect, so Fiora expects her to be herding students or comforting someone in the crowd. She must be so worried.  She herself tried not to worry so much just yet. Camilla was surely fine. Worried, stressed, disturbed as much as anyone else, but fine enough all the same. That was Camilla’s way, to be fine. When Fiora spotted her, she couldn’t deny that her sigh was one of relief. Looking to make sure her new friend was still with her, Fiora waved her hand over her head, calling out Camilla’s name to get her attention.

Odd, that they should have been separate — how rare it was to find Camilla, and not Fiora just beside her, the pair of them delighting in constellations, indulging a confidence exclusive to sisters ( perhaps not in blood, but irrefutably in heart ). An anomaly that they had not been sat neatly beside one another, bathed, swathed in an Abbott’s regality and Brown’s effervescence, a Vane’s effortless vibrance, undoubtedly ( they could seldom be found without a brass-born, jazz age companion either ). That borne in catastrophe may often come in an onslaught of threes, but in them, there may also be a coming of goodness, of delicacy in a golden, triple entente. 

Though, it’s just the same that in the most deviant of circumstances, they are struck apart. Camilla, rather than seek out Fiora — it has become instinctual, ultimately, automatic ( as with those muggle contraptions ) — made rounds of the starry-eyed first years. Settling with them for a few moments, she could be found in silken smile and comfort, listening receptively to their excitable ramblings or fitting empty silences with a remarking of solace. And unsurprisingly, she was discovered discontinuing each interaction with an embrace, like that which she had shared with Fiora and as she had been met with.

None of them expect havoc, chaos when it comes, arriving as all ruinous, devastatingly savage things do — in the dark. A dark which welds terror to her bones, which invites her to cower as one should do before any manner of calamity, which moves her to spinelessness ( as she has been practiced in ), but it is the latter which neglects to reach her. It is not in a hero’s prerogative to be faint-hearted, is it? For all her vices, she did so fancy herself one, cradling a Hufflepuff in her grasp as they fell beneath cover of a quaking table — hearts hammering, screams rising past grim lips, saltwater tears brimming. 

The rest, as result, became a blur of action: ash, dust piling at her mouth, a winding path through ruin that will eventually be met by destination — Fiora. With a trio of Hufflepuffs in tow, she spilt into the kitchens as a shaken mess, her gaze something familiarly far off, dulled and her silhouette weighted by some unseen though easily recognized force of anguish. Until, of course, her dark eyes pulled to a repose in sight of a beloved figure, all at once floating over to Fiora — palm over her wrist and tugging her firmly into Camilla’s chest, with arms shaky yet firm as they fell over the younger girl. “You’re okay,” her voice came at a whisper, barely audible as her relieved breaths rasped between the words — a reminder, a revelation. And when she did, she pulled away for the sole purpose of examining the other for any manner of injury, observing with a mother’s scrutinous gaze. Is Fiora not her little dove, after all? 

“Are you hurt? Did any of the debris hit you?” her tone ascends with worry, a sister’s.

[camillabbott-blog]

❛ DECLAN.

DATE : 1 September 1944 LOCATION : An empty corridor TIME : 21:17 ( 9:17 pm ) STATUS : Open

He moves through the acrid dust, alone, eyes watering and blood singing in his ears, finding he cannot stop reimagining the moment of impact - the screams, the scrape of glass on brick, a sound so thunderous it became a swallowing silence. It is nothing he has ever known, this form of destruction. When the bomb (and he knows the word, the mechanics of it, but oh, what a foreigner he is to her deathly throes) struck, he had felt the heat of impact, a rumbling ghost of debris and fire licking at his turned back as he lunged to cover a first year with his body. His very bones had quivered - and even now, he can still feel them rattle with every step; knees knocking, arms heavy and uncooperative. Having been forced to take a detour to combat the overwhelming crowds, Declan navigates the empty corridor with a hollowness, urgency sunk to the back of his mind.

It shouldn’t have taken him so off guard. He knows what bombs are, knows the evacuation drills, he keeps active tabs on the latest ones to have dropped in muggle cities. He has been preaching it to his Resistance for months, years: we are at war. Wasn’t this precisely what he’d forewarned them of? War. And yet, here he is: numb. Shocked stupid by its potency, the abrupt chaos it brings in its wake, like thunder chasing lightning. 

So consumed in his thoughts, Declan fails to see the figure approaching him until they are less than fifteen, ten feet away. He blinks once, twice, and opens his mouth to call out to them. Are they lost? Have they been hurt?

And suddenly, the world shakes. 

He isn’t sure what happens next - there is a great shudder from above, then a groan, and some guttural, animalistic instinct in Declan drives him to race towards the figure and pull them out of the way, mere moments before the low corridor ceiling collapses, an upheaval of smoke and stone. What little light the sparse corridor torches offer dies, and all falls into blackness, stillness. A delayed reaction, a final cry.

They’re trapped.

With effort, Declan untangles himself from the body on the floor - the both of them had fallen - and struggles to his feet, assessing the situation with quiet alarm. His wand has been wedged firmly between two rocks, he finds after a minute of foraging, unmoving and irretrievable. Declan curses viciously beneath his breath, but otherwise demands calm from himself. This is no time for fear, for uncertainty. Steeling himself, he casts a glance over his shoulder at the shadowed figure, squinting through the dark. “Are you alright?”

Well-versed as she was in its technicalities, in those laws of war which Fiora had taught her — knowledge nurtured from radio broadcasts and the occasional, infrequent glimpse of a muggle newspaper ( made so very insignificant by the thundering crescendo over their heads, the score of a cataclysm ), none of it mattered. None of it mattered as the ceiling indulged an evening sky, ripping itself open to appease a most vicious, unspoken command: let them view an unadulterated chaos, gift them an awareness of terror which they have never known. 

The stories were not meant to teach them, but warn them.

She’d been convinced of that much in those anguished screams following and the aftershock which, too, came as a result, powering a quivering, alien fear in her chest that no amount of tutelage in that muggle devastation could have eased. Powerlessness, vulnerability — deeply founded frights arose at the shattering impact, impressing that infallible perception of impotence, of fragility which former companions had gone to such lengths to instill. Yet, entangled with a forth year beneath an oaken shield, exploiting even the poorest foundation provided by splintered legs, she had been allowed ignorance exclusively in dread — churning within her stomach, stirring through her bones. 

Lacey. Her first thought, her call to action. Among paramount heroes who rise confidently from their perches, though hers was an awkward, shaking ascension, she rose with gaze struck across the Great Hall timidly, worriedly. Is it the last, or the first attack? Feeble heart knocking feverishly against her rib cage, breath caught somewhere beyond her lungs yet not quite reaching her lips — carved out by an illegible line that spoke dually of her bewilderment and horror, she’s reminded of those protective measures they’d practiced in. Yes, the drills.

Then, as if similar rememberance of them had occured, the eerie quiet which had befallen the Great Hall swiftly came under siege as authorities rose from their ranks, as with Camilla, who eased her fourth year upward from the ground with steady grip, determined strength. “Just as we practiced, love,” her voice saturated itself with false confidence, palms run over the girl’s forearms as a comfort. “Find Bhatia. I’ll gather everyone else, and we’ll meet back in the kitchens — most importantly, don’t be too afraid,” furthered ironies spilt forth as she twisted the Hufflepuff about, giving her an urgent push in their Head Girl’s direction before she had all but tumbled from the hall, a fervor in her step. 

Fiora, Lacey — if she had not seen them amongst the crowd, where would they have gone? Would she be able to reach them in time? Panic steeped her bones, her joints, which wobbled unevenly beneath her in stumbling effort as she trampled haphazardly through the corridors, swaying between them in a stupor. And when she stumbled across him, her heart could not help but swell at the sight of a familiar figure, in view of that infamous, golden haloed Prewett. 

“Decla——,” the word scarcely escaped her before they had barreled into marble together, thudding heavily against it as a collapse came upon the ceiling Camilla had, moments prior, been stood beneath. A cry, a following grunt of pain. Spiking up her shoulder, she could feel an acute sharpness as they unknotted awkwardly from each other in the darkness cast over by their poorly made cage. 

Trapped. 

“Fine, I think, I’d just fallen a bit hard there,” she mumbled, lilt of her voice lulled to softness by shock of their unique circumstance, of the entirely of their bleak night thus far. “What of you — are you alright, Declan?” How could he be? How could any of them be?

[camillabbott-blog]

CONGRATULATIONS, ASHLEIGH! YOU’VE BEEN ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF CAMILLA ABBOTT

NOTE FROM N: Camilla’s perfection was written as a veneer, but her complexity lies in the fact that there is no ugliness beneath the surface. She’s a complicated character, but ultimately can be described as a girl who has been given the opportunity to finally follow her heart. Though the applications submitted this round all captured her in different ways, your take, Ashleigh, was the most nuanced and compelling. Your prose is beautiful, but within it was a convincing and equally lovely portrayal of Camilla’s external struggles, her deep insecurities, and her desire to be better than it all. I’ve always had a fondness for Camilla, and I’m so pleased you’ve so vividly brought her to life. [ We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment HERE. Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl within 24 hours with your account. ]

Additionally, the faceclaim change to Paulina Singer has been approved!

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