isobelmacdougcl-blog

[isobelmacdougcl-blog]

pansy parkinson‌:

@isobelmacdougcl

Winding her way through the shelves, Pansy searched half-heartedly for the book she needed. The sooner she found it, the sooner she actually had to work on her Potions essay. It hardly mattered anyway; she highly doubted Slughorn graded as harshly as Snape.

She was two minutes from giving up and finding Daphne so they could go and harass the first years. Yesterday they’d scared two Hufflepuffs with the help of Peeves so badly one of them started crying. Every year, it seemed to Pansy the first years looked younger and younger. If she was right about this year though, they would have to grow up fast.

Turning down the next row, she stopped short at the sight of Isobel. She didn’t know why she was surprised, if you were going to run into Isobel anywhere it would be the library.

“Hey nerd, I haven’t seen you since the feast. Did you just camp out here?” Pansy asked, sidling up beside the Ravenclaw.

   Isobel didn’t have much patience with the common room when the year first started. It was always overcrowded until the novelty wore off of everyone being together again and things settled. It was as though nostalgia from before the summer made people forget what it was actually like, as though they needed to get reacquainted with Hogwarts. She didn’t have that problem; she knew her places of preference and had chosen to be in one of them as a result. If it was predictable, she could deal with that if she had to, because at least the people she actively didn’t mind being found by generally knew where to look.

   That proved to be the case once again when she was standing in one of the sections containing Advanced Charms. When she heard a voice unexpectedly, she was briefly startled until she registered who it was. Turning her head until she was looking at Pansy, there was a smile on her lips, fingers coming up to tuck an errant piece of hair out of her way. “Something like that. Everyone’s got their camping spots. Don’t knock it.” Abandoning the books, she turned towards the other girl more fully, tipped a quick wink in her direction. “Since we don’t do polite chit-chat, I’m going to take a guess that your summer didn’t improve much. Did you at least get to sneak off somewhere that wasn’t a soiree sometimes?”

[isobelmacdougcl-blog]

draco malfoy‌:

A closed starter for @isobelmacdougcl

 Draco was in a terrible mood when he exited the Transfiguration classroom after staying late because McGonagall asked him to do so.They were only ten days in the school year and he already had detention. Not exactly a new record, but still pretty close. Apparently the homework that he handed in wasn’t up to the level that the Gryffindor head of house was used to from him and she wanted to give him the chance to do better at his essays by letting him come back in the evening. That was a nice way of saying his essays sucked and she knew he was slacking. He wasn’t used to nice from McGonagall, but the way he was looking at the moment (yes, he was aware he lost weight, looked worn-out and had dark circles under his eyes; two of the three could be fixed with a spell but why fix it when it was working in his advantage?) was apparently working out for him. Detention, however, was an utter waste of time and so was doing his school work. He needed to find a way to get McGonagall off his back.

 He walked into the library with the intention of finding some books on Defence Against the Dark Arts (obviously not for the class, Snape wouldn’t give him detention despite of Draco giving him plenty of reasons to do it) when he spotted Isobel sitting in a window seat with a book in her lap. After checking if madam Pince was nearby, which she wasn’t, Draco headed over to his friend. He let his bag fall down onto the ground next to the window seat without much ceremony and sat down in front of her.  “Please tell me I can copy your Transfiguration homework,” he said once Isobel looked up for her book. “I’ll tell McGonagall some stupid lie she’ll see through if she figures it out. She won’t blame you. I’m the devil incarnate in the eyes of a Gryffindor, after all.” He shrugged his shoulders at that. “Sorry, I probably should have started with Hi Isobel, how was your summer? I missed you but I think you got that part.”

   The library, annoyingly true to the Ravenclaw stereotype, had always been one of Isobel’s preferred lurking spots of choice. It wasn’t simply because it held shelf after shelf of information and knowledge waiting to happen that could keep her occupied for hours. No, today, it was because it was quiet and unlike in the common room, there was almost always a comfortable corner available that she could take up that wasn’t already purloined by first and second years saving a seat for a friend. It made reading about Herbology, her least favourite of the NEWTs she’d chosen but designed to work hand in hand with Potions, somewhat less difficult to concentrate upon. And later, once the younger years had left the common room for bed, maybe there’d be chess around the fire and some of the House Elves’ hot chocolate. If nothing else, that part of her day was always peaceful. If Isobel had been a different sort of person, it might even have been enough to make her slowly forget an entire summer filled with warning signs for an evening.

   When she felt someone drop into the seat in front of her, the first instinct was to be annoyed. Except when green eyes lifted from her book, Isobel found someone who she didn’t mind being there. The immediate query about Transfiguration homework was met with surprise and disquiet, because Draco was nothing if not a perfectionist in that respect. It wasn’t the sight of dark circles under his eyes and the way his skin was paler than usual that made her reach into the bag beside her and extract her essay and textbook with marked pages, though. She would have done it anyway, no questions asked, because that was how they were. They’d grown up together, knew each other well enough not to sit on ceremony by now. “Of course,” she answered, passing both to him without hesitation. “Just adjust the wording very slightly and that should be enough that she doesn’t notice.” That McGonagall noticing such a thing wasn’t foremost amongst her immediate concerns didn’t need to be said, probably showed in how she regarded him. “Missed you too. My summer was strange and while I prefer not to make bad assumptions, I’m going to guess that you don’t want to talk about yours either. Want to go do something else instead?” Exhaling a sigh, she closed the Herbology book altogether and dropped it between them, because there hadn’t been much desire to read it in the first place. “Please tell me you’re taking Astronomy this year? I may lose motivation if you’re not.”

[isobelmacdougcl-blog]

justin finch-fletchley‌:

  If Justin had known that it was Isobel MacDougal that he was talking to, he might have thought twice. Justin tried not to judge people (that was hard, sometimes, but he really tried), but despite of that Isobel was someone he wouldn’t actively approach to talk to. She was a pureblood and she hung out with other purebloods who had particular opinions of muggleborns, after all. Caution wasn’t a bad thing for someone who was known to trust too easily and to be naive at times. He knew his flaws and those two had proven to be problematic before, so he tried to keep it in mind - and failed the moment that Isobel smiled at him and replied as kindly as he did, because he immediately thought he must have been wrong.    “Maybe I was just having a bad drawing day,” he offered with a grin. “Those days when every time you draw a line it just doesn’t make sense. They exist for me, but thankfully they haven’t occurred in a long time.” Justin had the theory that just as long as he had something to draw about, he was fine. When he was at home for two weeks for the winter holiday, however, he could run out of things to draw, things that interested him enough, which was why that mood occurred often in Canterbury. “I personally have a theory that Filch has some sort of hobby that he likes to spent a lot of time on, but whenever a student makes a mess or is out past curfew he has to leave it. Maybe he likes jigsaw puzzles a lot. His living quarters could be filled with them for all we know. I’d be frustrated too when I was just finishing a 2000 piece puzzle that I spent two weeks on and had to leave it.”    He couldn’t believe he just told Isobel MacDougal one of his Filch theories. He had more of them, but he also had a very lively imagination. A little too much, at times. And that also could have been an answer to what Isobel asked him next. He moved closer to her until he sat down beside her, still very much away from her personal space, and turned to look at her from there, summoning his sketch block with a wave of his wand and a softly mumbled accio sketch block. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to get the hang of non-verbal spells for a good while. “I think I draw what suits my mood,” he said. “And probably also what I want to look back on. A little like taking pictures in that sense. I drew a lot the past summer as well because we saw so much great locations. It’s nice to capture details. I try to, anyway.” As Justin spoke (and caught his sketch block, which he closed and put on the table in front of him) he eyed the newspaper that Isobel had opened. Apparently she was working on the crossword puzzle. “Are you good at those?” he asked, gesturing in the direction of the newspaper. “Do you do them more often?”

   Those days when every time you draw a line it just doesn’t make sense. Justin definitely didn’t realise the irony in his own words and that was for the better, because they held another meaning besides the one he intended. Hadn’t Isobel just done exactly that by talking to him in the first place? Despite that, he was still talking and the smile he’d drawn from her didn’t seem to feel like fading at all, and neither did the curiosity. “Is that anything like when you read a book and it feels like you need something to translate it?” When Justin proceeded to outline one of Filch’s potential hobbies, however, Isobel couldn’t restrain it the way she’d tried to check her smile. She started laughing outright, the sound lilting. “Now there’s a mental image. Filch surrounded by puzzle pieces, Mrs Norris knocking some of them towards him with her paws, and one of us sneaks out past curfew and disturbs them.” Setting her quill down carefully against the paper, Isobel grinned. “Do you have any more theories in general? If that’s one about Filch, it makes me wonder what your others might be like.” This was exactly the right thing to stop her mind from wandering back home.

   Once Justin sat down, something that surprised her further, Isobel leaned on her hands, dark hair wavy and framing her face. As he talked about why he drew and what he tended to draw, she paid attention, using it as a means of sorts to measure someone she didn’t know well. “Taking photographs is quite personal as well,” she answered. “You’re using drawing to frame memory, almost. That’s interesting.” It was, and it shouldn’t have been, a fact that she was outright opting to ignore in this moment. She wasn’t going to get into it with herself right now. Maybe later. “What sort of details? Do you draw people, or do you prefer objects and landscapes?” It was tempting to take a peek at the sketch block, but his query distracted her, caused her to glance down at the newspaper. “They’re a good distraction without being too taxing. All I need to do is think about words and how they connect, without having to actually use them. It’s like a sequence.” After a moment of studying the page, she looked back up at him and added, “Like this one. The clue is point of view. Synonyms for point of view include opinion and, given that it’s eleven letters long…” she lifted the quill and with a few quick gestures wrote the word into the boxes. “Perspective. They’re never impossible to figure out, it just requires an adjustment of approach sometimes.” After a few seconds’ hesitation, Isobel asked, “So what did you choose for NEWTs in the end? It took me ages to pick.”

[isobelmacdougcl-blog]

justin finch-fletchley‌:

Justin was relieved to be back at Hogwarts. Being at Hogwarts was a whole other kind of world, and a whole other kind of busy, than being in Mexico City was. Both places were crowded, they were places Justin knew well by now and they were places he loved, but that was where the resemblance stopped. It meant that he left his sketch block for drawings at Mexico at home and took a new one with him to Hogwarts in hopes of drawing places and objects better than he had done last time he tried after he was done with his homework. Drawing was a process in Justin’s eyes and he liked to think he got better with every time he tried.

He took six NEWT classes, and to his surprise NEWT classes meant a lot of free time that was no doubt used to study. Since it was only the first week, Justin decided to try a combination of studying and drawing (he knew he’d have no time for it once homework started piling up). He was sat in the Great Hall with his back against the left wall and on the table in front of him both an open book and an open sketch block were laying on a table in front of him. He was toying with his pencil until it went flying and he had to go and get it back. Unfortunately for him it landed right next to where someone was sitting. “I’m sorry,” he started as he passed by, crouching to get the pencil where it was laying underneath the table. “My pencil is there. See, this is why I made the wise decision as a kid that drawing was my hobby, instead of something that requires eye-hand coordination. I think it’s safer for everyone that I never try out for quidditch.” He heard try-outs were in these upcoming weeks and intended to attend them to support his housemates. Getting back up, he dusted the filth off his robes. “I feel like Filch does little cleaning for a caretaker,” he remarked.

   Isobel wasn’t thrilled to be back at Hogwarts, because her mind was still preoccupied with her parents and what was going on with them. She didn’t like leaving a mystery unsolved, and she didn’t like not knowing what she was walking into this year either. With that said, NEWT classes were supposed to be more challenging than the previous year, and that meant she was going to enjoy the last bit of breathing room that they had before the deluge of homework began. Even though staring at a book repeatedly wasn’t necessarily the best way to learn, many of their teachers seemed to disagree, and Isobel was at the point where she knew acceptance of that fact was the only option. What it meant for that particular point in the day was that she was midway through a plateful of food and in the midst of unfolding the morning’s Daily Prophet. Scanning past the news, she flipped until she found what she wanted: the crossword. Pulling a quill from her bag, she hovered over it, noting with gratitude the fact that the damn thing wasn’t wizarding celebrities this week.

   It was when Isobel was pondering answer nine, (point of view, eleven across) that she was distracted by a boy leaning down by the table. And speaking of point of view... 

   She recognised him, of course she did; they’d had classes together. Justin Finch-Fletchley, and despite herself her lips curled upwards. Every rule has exceptions. “I’m no Quidditch player either,” she answered, not quite able to check the smile. “Is it too personal to ask what you were drawing that made you wish to fling your pencil away?” The tone that the words were delivered with wasn’t unfriendly, since it had obviously been an accident, and watching him brush himself down, Isobel couldn’t help being a little amused. “It certainly seems that way, though it’s more likely that the house-elves haven’t spotted it yet. It’ll be gone the minute that they do. No one’s quite sure what Filch does besides be thoroughly unpleasant. That, at least, he seems to do very well.” Studying him, she asked curiously, “How do you decide what to draw?” The most that she could do was draw diagrams in lessons, which hardly counted.

[isobelmacdougcl-blog]

katie bell‌:

The Quidditch pitch would always be a place where Katie would find herself when she wanted to escape everything that was going on during classes for a bit. This year was going to be different when it came to Quidditch. Her usual partners in crime when it came to the sport had left her this year. Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet had graduated last year and it was a big question mark who was going to replace them. There was no question about it that Harry had become the new captain. Even though Katie had been in the team for just as long as him, she couldn’t care less about the title of captain. She just wanted to have fun while practising Quidditch.

So Katie was currently seated on the bench that was placed on the edge of the Quidditch pitch, her broom leaning against the bench as well. She had already made a few rounds around the pitch, the wind blowing in her face making her feel more free than she had felt all summer. It was one of the main reasons why she could not wait to go back to Hogwarts at all. It was much better than sitting at home and not being able to do anything.

Katie was pulled out of her many thoughts by a sudden sound that appeared near her. She jumped up out of reaction, turning into the direction of the sound that she had heard. “Hello? Is someone there?”

   Isobel didn’t play Quidditch, but she’d found on multiple occasions that the pitch wasn’t an unpleasant location for when she wanted time to think. The scattering of students usually there was nothing compared to the more crowded areas of the Great Hall and the Ravenclaw common room. Usually she opted to take her place in the Ravenclaw spectators’ seats and simply watched the world go by, broken up by the flight of birds and wild creatures and the occasional rush of broomsticks. But today, she’d opted to walk off the restlessness, and that meant that she met with unexpected company.

   “Relax, Bell, it’s just me,” she answered, moving to where the other girl could see her. “I needed out of the common room, so I decided here would do. Trying the pitch out before your practices officially start?” Because as much as Isobel didn’t play Quidditch, it didn’t mean she wasn’t capable of enjoying it if there was something worth watching.

[isobelmacdougcl-blog]

Isobel MacDougal. Sixth year Ravenclaw.

Studying and learning aren’t necessarily the same thing.

[isobelmacdougcl-blog]

   Isobel’s parents were usually Type A, but not only in the sense of perfectionism. No, the Type A that applied to them most prevalently was absent. Frequently away on business trips across Europe that they took without her, leaving her to her own devices for most of the summer. It suited her perfectly because when they were around, she was spoilt to make up for it. It was a balance that she could happily handle, because it meant she could get away with almost anything when she wanted to. When the first whispers of the Dark Lord’s return had begun, however, the frequent disappearances had looked like something else: two people that were either up to something, or having doubts. The entire summer hadn’t been sufficient for Isobel to puzzle out which way her parents’ minds were turning.

   She didn’t like her thought processes being defeated by something as illogical and messy as human nature. Even that should have possessed a pattern, some connection that she could use to find her way and judge whether the two people who had brought her up were having second thoughts about how they’d done it. Surely not. Though not Sacred 28, her parents had placed repeated emphasis upon the importance of blood purity throughout her life, fixed it firmly in her head that no one with less than completely magical blood was ever going to best her. It wasn’t about hatred; it was about heritage and logic. No one who was thrown into a world that they didn’t fully understand could cope as well there as those who had been born into it, it was just an accepted fact. They could survive there, but they were at an immediate disadvantage. The friends she’d made growing up had only refined that attitude and sharpened the edges of it, but the prospect of what might happen in the coming year threw all of the carefully arranged pieces of her world as it had been into disarray.

   It meant that summer was a period of trying to take refuge in everything that Isobel did know, something that failed her. Seeing her friends and trying not to wonder how many of their parents were going back and forth over whether to choose a side or remain neutral. Seeing people she cared about struggle with what was being taken from them as a result, freedom slipping through their fingers. Whispers that stopped being curious and became laden with fear and foreboding and building tension that wasn’t going to stop.

   It was the first time that Isobel hadn’t looked forward to the train ride to Hogwarts. The past few years had taught her that what protection lay in its walls was only a false sense of security, because how many students had been regularly placed in jeopardy? She didn’t know what would be waiting when she went in, or what would happen when she came out, and it was the not knowing which meant her eyes strayed back to the platform out of the train window until it was at last out of sight.

[isobelmacdougcl-blog]

RAVENCLAW: “Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying ‘End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH,’ the paint wouldn’t even have time to dry.” –Terry Pratchett (The Thief of Time)

[isobelmacdougcl-blog]

Aesthetic series (15/?)

Ravenclaw, Harry Potter series

Requested by anon

[isobelmacdougcl-blog]

I like long floaty clothes that don’t restrict me, and I live in flat boots.