procrustians-blog

[procrustians-blog]

WHO: @dvntcs: mclaggen, dante. WHERE: amongst a grove in the forbidden forest; not far from the frontier. WHEN: september 6th, 2023; 2:45am.

Old grounds, the Forbidden Forest sleeps wordlessly still, and yet there is a chilling flavour of something— the slight of sound, the way in which the moonlight falls, shadows movable and waylaying behind the foliage. Calliope has been machinating herself in preparation for some time— she was at an advantage, after all, having persisted familiar to the more integral steps in mapping out the exercise— and, even still, she loiters amongst the thick of pine, thorns and bramble rose in premonitory timidity. Unease washes over her as if overhead dew showers, her accomplice surely with his heart in his mouth as much as she had her own. All the same, passion and limitation are each steered by their inquisitive curiosity; one side of the coin itching to explore each scissure of the ground, the other entirely methodical in each step, each action, every singular fraction of the commuted way.

Naturally, her confederate and their consequent target were yielded to pure, nonsensical chance. And yet, she (and, she hastily supposed, the remnants of her illustrious group, where they consigned themselves to focus) had spared no exploit nor crusade into exploring each facet, each probability, each contract, each arrhythmic resolution. She coaxes her eyes to skin through the darkness as she looks on her partner, and it is palpable to the both of them that either one of them could have been issued far worse. It’s an intractable task to determine as to whether he’s already drunk, or if, rather, he is simply intoxicated by the purported hazard of the path before them; either way, the two are like-minded creatures who grow more and more curious as the night begins to unravel, one struggling to swallow the brush-fire within, the other anticipating total calumny. Calliope yawns a breath of laughter to herself as she notes the fervour rippling beneath Dante’s skin, posturing an airy “Lumos,” through pursed lips. Her initiative tells her such a deed is insidious, surrounded by strangers with a streak for unpredictability, though her logic pushes through superstition and works to trust the paroxysm of technicolour. She catches Dante’s eye, sporting a smile shared— a discernible simper which suggests to the other, perhaps, of their drowning sureness in the quest to come.

Calliope’s clasp fastens about her wand, the shifting wisps of light a vagabond with its own air, a centred expression growing on her features. “Vampires,” she recites, adopting a pause. “Have you even seen one? In the flesh, I mean— no games.” She posits; perhaps to ward off his impetuosity, his penchant for the escapade above all. The task, after all, required a little level-headedness warped within, somewhere. “I’ve only seen them in books. There’s only so far knowledge can take you, I suppose,” she declares, pressing a smile to the forefront of her surface. Her hand stretches to her back pocket, revealing a torn page of parchment, her eyes watching her fingers pick and unfurl its toothed edges. “So,” she shifts, her eyes unwavering from the page, “We decided— the bramble rose, the sort of... sapphire talisman, and... the vial of blood, hm?” Her eyes unfold upwards to meet his own. “To think they’re so privy to keeping items that might do them harm; practically wrapped around their wrists.”

[procrustians-blog]

WHO: open. WHERE: at the edge of the forbidden forest. WHEN: september 6th, 2023; at the party’s commencement, between midnight and 2am.

In each splinter cabal, you would be told, there is always the brain⏤ one constant participant, a single adherent possessing all mousseux concepts, thoughts and notions. In the Bones Club, they are many: wits of an isolated mind, halcyon and aurelian chains which caper and cut loose beneath the kissing moonlight, fastening the wandering thoughts along the way. Each mind grasps the other as if they were the disjointed, serrated edges of a worn jigsaw puzzle; from all corners of the earth (the fifth of them situating them, gravitated at their centre), their minds cavort through weaved storms and torrential waves of notional thought, as innovational as the wisp of winter cast from the tips of wands. They meet in the middle.

She has always been the quiescent one: this is a fact which has not gone unnoticed. Bold, colourful personalities, the ocean-blue of her eyes looks on as they frolic about with vicious coal beneath their skins, simpering and grinning, thirsty for challenges amongst the distant whisper of precursory danger; all the while she is stood, wand in hand, overcome with slumbering quietude and a watchful silence. A legion of friends about her⏤ for, as a group they had craftily selected those which duly deserved to be singularly amongst them⏤ and she is immovable, absent amongst the anarchic chaos. The ghost of a smile flashes across her features as she watches the scenes unfold before her; from the sweet-tasting flush of alcohol falling to the backs of throats, the impetuous grin of the devil slowly dissolving onto each party-goer’s countenance as they fall further and further into carouse mentality. Indulgences, indulgences⏤ these parties were more focal on reins luxuriated and sobriety yielded than anything else; a feat the wandering abstraction of her father’s mind (and, certainly, his penchant for This Side of Paradise, amongst Fitzgerald’s alternate tales of drunken woe) might have envied in the fullest emerald green.

She has scarcely allowed the celestial bodies to disperse from her wand (gyrating in a swirl of mauve, peaches and pearl, a charm of her own concoction) before a voice cuts through the air, removing her from her streaming thread of thought. “Sorry,” Calliope breathes through slight of laughter, a breath of air which proposed her own self-judgement. “I’m⏤ ah, a little out of it, I see.” She has not touched the champagne which her peers so willingly lapped up⏤ not yet (inevitably, she would, given as her drink of choice), rather absorbing the dalliances of those around her. She seats herself, inaudibly, onto a nearby log, worn by the years of their parties, their frivoling, their debauchery: all drawn back to the formidable forefront of the Forest. She brushes down the oaken seat beside her, the spryness of her hand motioning to be joined. “Are you sitting? Or, rather, off out into the abyssal beyond?”

[procrustians-blog]

pride (fuck me Up)

historical sins, pride.

The night began to draw its curtains to a close, as it, inevitably, possessed a habit of doing, the coruscant moon yielding his lambency to the early lady of opening dawn. And yet, further paths begin to stretch out before them, their inebriated eyes watching for their wandering confidants; individuals, infallibly, they had lost to the night’s jet canvas and stupor. It has been some time, Calliope ruminates tacitly (with her arm laced through the opening of James’ own), since she’d laid nebulous eyes on Dante (likely, he was evoking havoc elsewhere, without rhyme or reason) or on the wraith-like Ianthe and rapid oxidation of Laurel (they had seemed to disappear near inaudibly, a habit they duly possessed in their doubles). Nonetheless, drunk on hebetude and inertia, their swooning feet attempt⏤ to the best of their stumbling abilities⏤ to carry them through the hallowed boulevard of Hogwarts’ halls.

Their heads are hung below the sleeping painting of the Fat Lady, a woman histrionic by her regular nature, though her disgruntled, sleep-dust laced eyes stimulate a further pictorial theatricalism. Amongst her gripes and lamentations, James languidly utters something which Calliope thinks is ‘Caput Draconis’, translating loosely to ‘dragon’s head’, through his own garrulous drunkenness (frankly, she is taken back from a stiffened astonishment that the pane might coax itself open to his words).

There are few similarities shared between their common rooms; respectively, Gryffindor Tower is home to warmth and congeniality, to friendship and comraderie, while the Slytherin Dungeons are more accustomed to opulent stylings of emerald plush, of crystalline chandeliers, low-lit rooms and the bronze ornate of candleholders. Certainly, the dichotomy rests on their cerise thread of a tether. She takes in, in this order: the perpetually burning fire place, the teeming cardinal red of their chivalrous sofas, and the blur of James’ frame passing her by, pulling her chaotically onto velvet cushions of ritzy crimson. The stark of her blonde hairs contrast against the passion of the rug, consumed in laughter.

This is not the first time she has been whisked away into the den of the lions. In fact, she has been here repeatedly that she has become acclimatised to caprioling for cover behind the carmine of the common room’s sofas should another Gryffindor attempt to enter, their laughter forced through the remnants of lingering champagne and firewhiskey. More often than not, she has resolved to forcing the palms of her hands over James’ mouth⏤ a loud, boisterous one, that one!⏤ followed by, ‘do shut up, James! You’ll get us both in trouble,’ and swiftly accompanied by her cordial giggles and his own unrestrained coughs of laughter.

For the most part, they discuss the everything which exists behind nothing; of cavorting through the Forbidden Forest at night (she’d categorically implored him not to⏤ though with an impetuous grin and a hand extended outwards, promises of, ‘say, did you ever hear of a tale in which the knight fails to save his damsel?’ all too tempting), slipping various magical spirits into Harry’s homegrown drinks back at The Burrow as they watched him descend lower and further into madness, the tenacious will of Molly Weasley as she forced Calliope into various hand-crafted items with her initials branded plainly (they had spent quite some time discussing that one, the nostalgic vision of an ever-pleasing, courteous Calliope against the stoic protestations of a petulant James conjuring much amusement from the two). Inevitably, the night⏤ or rather, early morning⏤ adopts a sombre tone, as if it was required of it; as if the night would have therefore invalidated itself should it have not. Gazing up into the charmed stars of the Gryffindor sky, they discuss the temporality of the celestial bodies; life and death, the moments in-between, so sempiternal in their bond to the eschewed earth. Words they spat out at each other, over and over again.

His words cut through a, what she would call, rather pressing discussion on the distortion of history, spanning through both fiction and time. “Admit it, you love it here⏤ does you good to get your head out of that boorish fucking cess-pit of dullards,” he posits, hypnotism gracing a grin. 

“I think you’ll find I rather like it there, actually. I’m quite at home with their onyx chess pieces and that brilliant chandelier hanging over my head,” she quips back, “Shame, really, that you won’t ever get to set your aching eyes on the thing⏤ they’re half starved, I’m sure.”

She thinks he simply allows her to tease him, at times, a complacent simper yielding to her expression. She is well aware that James wields no desire to set foot in the Slytherin common room; quite, their friendship had barely managed to dissuade him from the sour taste in his mouth should the house even be purported (a disposition, undeniably, courtesy of his Uncle Ron). Perhaps she had had little to do with the plausible fact; rather, he had been coerced to adapt in a close-knit circle, surrounded by Slytherins⏤ the lion yields to the venomous fang of the snake.

She barely grasps what he posits next, her head rested lissomely upon his chest and the blonde of her tresses lapped around her ears, though she thinks it is reminiscent of: ‘nah, you just can’t possibly bear the thought of being apart from me⏤ why, the thought is positively vile!’.

She simply lays silently for a moment, leaning into him, watching the stars above pass them by. Calliope possesses no great love for the Gryffindor house resting in the crux of her heart; so many of them were so affected by hubris and impetuosity⏤ a thought James had contested vehemently and often, suggesting rather that the trait belonged far more affirmably to the serpents of her own house. For a moment, she thinks on bringing up that aged-old argument up again, which, in turn, conjures up a smile of her own. Instead, she pushes herself up by her elbows, rotating herself so that her eyes might meet those of his lazy own. 

“I can’t stand this place⏤ you’re well aware of that,” she breathes, her eyes scouring the room, “The thought of it during the day, a room so filled with frenzy and so much… testosterone,” she expresses, a breath of humour escaping her lips, “All that unrest, all that commotion; God, I’d much rather sit amongst the badgers and discuss my feelings, I think.” She meets his eye for a split second, resorting to looking about the room as she finishes her thought. “It’s okay at night, though. When it’s quiet; when no-one else is around.”

He smiles at that. She thinks he understands what she means.

[procrustians-blog]

sloth !!

historical sins, sloth.

Seekers are synchronously the most significant and the least pertinent players of the team. The weight of lacquer gold (and, consequentially, the watching world⏤ for, what else stretched to the four corners, than the eyes of the watchful serpent?⏤ burning bright with kelly wildfire) rested on willowy shoulders, yet much else beyond your responsibility was, in turn, beyond your grasp. If you succeeded, the game was won; if you did not, you were forced to watch nonchalantly as the rounds played out. Either to your benefit, or your detriment.

I could never have been captain, Calliope thinks to herself, adjusting the green of her sleeves, the midnight black of the robe (which, she had found, served more of a hindrance than benefit, the wispy cloth whipping in a silver wind). The captain was required to, in order of importance: live, breathe and bleed the game; and she was certain, any laceration in Dante’s skin would serve to prove that fact⏤ rufescent, without doubt, a scintillation of cardinal red in the sunlight, but deeper below, straight to the vein, he bleeds green. 

Passion is felt in waves, and as she watches the woeful expression which yields to his features, she notes their difference. Playing quidditch since her third year, she has grown to love the tournaments. Dante has grown to bleed them. A loss is a loss: oftentimes a lesson, one which knocks the imperiousness of the cavalier down a few pegs. To a captain it is grievous, and he must rebuild.

Calliope catches Dante’s eye and smiles. A light flickers behind his eyes of messianic fire and ungovernable passion; he sees the bright, above all things. Her touch is gentle, as it has always been⏤ they are polars apart, at times, though their similarities surrender as blatant as the flagrant sun. She presses her hand into Dante’s shoulder and says, as if rehearsed, “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail⏤ was it Confucius who said that?” She smiles, incautiously, as if she didn’t know. “I think it was Confucius. Well, I think he’d be disappointed should we not drink to our losses,” an old tradition, she supposes, in their short-fallings, “And I, for one, wouldn’t want to let the weathered man down.” She coaxes a smile from him at that, the iridescence returning to his eyes.

In their fabled years at Hogwarts they’ve learned to pool their bottles; collected, expertly and furtively stolen into the castle’s walls, or deceptively purchased on their trips to Hogsmeade⏤ either way, the whiskey flowed along with Dante’s wit. Making their way back to the dorms (avoiding the glowering eyes of victorious Ravenclaws⏤ Merlin, the condescension was boundless⏤ and glowering, disappointed iris of emerald), they toast to commiseration. 

“To ballsed-up blunders?” He catches her glare with shameless, audacious eyes, a bottle of firewhiskey to hand. She smiles, absently, pressing popped champagne to his bottle with a reverberating clink: “The greatest teacher on the four corners of the earth.”

They lie around languorously, selfishly alone, refusing to be knocked from their rose clouds. They attempt to swallow their laughter, to stifle their childish giggling, while Dante recites his tales of quirk; the guileless Hufflepuff sixth year incessantly on his trail, so easily taken in by his belligerent charm, and the rest of his coiled stories in between⏤ far more outlandish than her own. They barely notice the scorning face of the passing Slytherin prefect, expressing foreboding over their misdemeanor: the ‘I won’t have you knocking off points from our final score; it’s close cut, you know’ passing loosely over their heads and their puerile, drunken giggles.

They rest their heads on the green plush of their common room, eyes lingering upwards into the charmed stars of the dungeon’s ceiling, and for a moment? They are silently still. A drunken loss of inhibition, her lips are loose: “When I fail, it’s out of my hands. It’s a weird feeling⏤ isn’t it? Sitting by idly, watching it pass by,” she laments, “Sometimes we win, and then… sometimes, we lose. If I don’t do what’s expected of me, there’s nothing else I can do.” 

He raises a brow at her thought, almost finds the musing funny⏤ though not boorishly so, his scoff merely congenial⏤ before he retorts something along the lines of ‘depressing thought that’ (she’s mind-blowingly, roaringly drunk). The words that latch in her mind, though: we’re a team.

She smiles at that, she says nothing; simply stares upwards. The curls of their hair touch amongst the plush of the carpet, breathing inebriated zephyr out into the air. Lazily, they watch the stars caper across the night sky (which, infallibly, were simple conjurings from her wand, laced over the ornate) as the night passes them by, drunkenly⏤ and later on, growingly temperate towards inhibition⏤ as a lethargic, tethered team.

[procrustians-blog]

potter, james.

At the center of his core, where swirls of flame and jets of lightning catastrophically collide, does she, a chip of his own soul, perhaps rest. Calliope, a greater muse to none but he, and so must he internally bow to the simple sight of her before him once again. Sleep tinges on the edges of his mind, blurring some things but heightening others, and the unwelcome burst (nostalgia? is that you?) against the corral of his ribcage is incessantly lingering, in bad taste moreover. Yet, in the face of her, must he submit to it willingly, for his focus is lost (or rather: magnified onto a subject, a study, of greater proportions than meager reminiscence of a past undeserving of so).

A scoff, ruptured from deep within his chest, spills from his lips, and he affects a wounded expression, the slight smile catching at his mouth betraying the act. “Lost? Such slanderous suggestions kill, I’ll have you know.” He heaves a dramatic sigh, more so birthed of theatrical dedication and steamed in scarlet than anything true to soul, and shakes his head, thickening the act to outrageous scales. “And to think we have another whole year to go⏤how shall I cope in the face of such abuse? And you make it sound so sweet.” At last, it’s abandoned, and he reverts to the bursting soul that he is, none too different from his plays of spirit.

It’s natural, another unquestionable fragment of the wild life spinning among them, that he leans in to her touch, her embrace, her fingers oh-so knowledgable in their quest⏤he allows it, yes (of course), but the question is: can he live without it?

A true smile is born upon the planes of his face, transforming every fraction into a certain brightness that steals. “I’ve learned not to compare⏤it makes me want to weep, and tear tracks aren’t my best look, I’m told.” His head touches upon the crown of her own, and the position is so steeped in familiarity that it transforms into something else entirely; a comfort, when he was in turmoil so near before. “Let’s hope we haven’t ruined you forever, now. My nan, however, will be pleased⏤I always did have a suspicion she was a sadist at heart; all that red hair can’t be good for one’s sanity, you know, however dear to me she may be.”

Thespian by treaty; by nation, anthemic by all nature. She has grown customary to his lyricism, a true likeness to a rehearsed speech before the mirror, the same eyes he recognises⏤ he swears, he recognises⏤ blinking back at him, charcoaled flames of inhibition, threatening to swallow him whole. Nonetheless, his words interstice a chiffon, wispy smile at her corral, her eyes detailed down to the ground. His melodrama warrants responses few and far in-between but for a dripping scintillation in her eyes, a breath (lighter than the film of a feather) engulfed by laughter, escaping her lips; yet it is something he runs away with, as if his soul zipped through the sky, hers trailing right at the rear of its tail.

“A year isn’t long enough⏤ simply, I wish I could stay here forever,” And she could not deny it. No matter the ice that formed cerulean in her. To root feet into the real earth, returning so infallibly the arms of her convivial father; to have tasted Avalon, to have journeyed each corner of the earth while simultaneously exposed to the encompassed four walls of Hogwarts, she could not regress; she could not look back (but, perhaps, she is bound to: she must). “Look at you, though. Like hot coals beneath your feet⏤ you just can’t stand still, can you?” She stifles a laugh, pushing it from her lips erstwhile grounded, hanging at the rear of her throat. “So jittery,” she notes. So convergent, yet so un-alike in so many ways; two jarred pieces of glass, like glacial flames, blowing winds of fire.

“Now, now, James⏤ tears on your first day?” Calliope coaxes herself up onto a nearby crag in the wall, her legs suspended above the floor. A pretty sight, the acrimony behind her eyes laced with regard. “You’ll set a bit of a precedent, you know. Is that how seventh year’s doomed to go?” A smile confesses to her face as he continues on, fantasies and memiors of years prior flooding through. Molly Weasley was an endearing woman; an amalgamation of eccentricies and odd quirks, affable and urbane through her luminous colour. Certainly, she could see fragments of James, formed inside her. Calliope had found her an unequivocal collection of abberations on their first meeting, now five cadaverous years ago⏤ now, though, her whimsicality warms her, an allegiant, deferential woman, as good as her word. Cohesion, unswervingly, they shared.

“I do think she’d be quite proud of me, don’t you think? Surely, though, she can’t have meant to wound me⏤ only to wrap me in her homespun Weasley pullovers and never let me go, I should think.” Which, by all degrees, was no metaphor; Calliope’s musical smiles and overwhelming desire to please stifling her evident discomfort, James’ protestions of ‘Nan, please, she doesn’t need a bloody jumper, Merlin’s saggy left⏤’ (she’d cut him off at that, impetuous child) waved about her as Molly embarked on her coddling, her micro-managing. Calliope pulls herself from her ledge, leading the way (for once), beckoning to behind her, “Shall we raise a goblet of orange juice in her honour, hm?”

[procrustians-blog]

send me a biblical or a historical sin for a drabble or a starter themed around that topic.

LUST  –  intense longing, sexual or otherwise, that subverts propriety.

GLUTTONY  –  the overindulgence and overconsumption of anything to the point of waste.

GREED  –  an artificial, rapacious desire and pursuit of material possessions.

SLOTH  –  cessation of motion and an indifference to work.

WRATH  –  uncontrolled feelings of anger, rage, and even hatred towards oneself or others.

ENVY  –  a sad or resentful covetousness towards the traits or possessions of someone else.

PRIDE  –  putting of one’s own desires, urges, wants, and whims before the welfare of people.

ACEDIA  –  neglect to take care of something that one should do.

VANITY  –  the excessive belief in one’s own abilities or attractiveness to others.

[procrustians-blog]

potter, james.

WHO: open. WHERE: random hallway on the way to the great hall. WHEN: sometime during breakfast hours.

Nostalgia is unwelcome, a quiet beat that soon unravels into a pounding ache, swimming through his veins and against his marrow, but it’s difficult to go without it as he embarks on his final year within the company of the castle and all its quirks, despite wanting to tame the burn and welcome cool relief. His mum practically latches onto his frame as tightly as a niffler to its gold, and doesn’t that just invite a question? You’d think this year of all she’d find it in her to give him some more breathing room in those final moments before he’s off, or at least go focus on Lily or something, but practically to the edge of the train was he followed. He loves her, he does, it’s just ⏤ why can’t it be unceremonious, for once, deflating at least a smidgen of pressure from what this year ultimately means for his future? Fucking Christ and Godric both.

The bone-creeping nostalgia is still a mighty force the morning next, drumming though him as he wakes up to the roof of his crimson four-poster, thinking this is the last first day of classes I’ll ever have, and how annoyingly depressing is that line of thought? He continues on with shit like that and he’ll be submitting himself to Madam Abbott’s care within the end of the (last-first, a voice chimes) week.

He goes through the motions, dressing from the trunk that, as for the past seven years, greeted him at the foot of his bed as he returned from dinner last night, and then fighting to be the first in the bathroom (a surprise, that one, considering he usually sleeps in as long as possible, but the others were just too slow this time, much to his gloating), and finally making his way to the Great Hall, breakfast and ceaseless morning chatting awaiting.

Yet, as his feet slap the stone of the ancient floor beneath him, a familiar silhouette catches his eye, and it’s all too easy to jog over and splat a grin onto the muscles of his face. “Mornin’, stranger.”

Trenchant thoughts would threaten to consume her if she permitted them to. Rather, she pushes them to the furthest vein of her mind, as is her habit; her custom. It is a comfort, she thinks, to be surrounded by the four prodigious walls of Hogwarts once again⏤ enclosed by an increasing familiarity, enveloped in the vicariously known. The future takes a form of an ominous cloud; it changes, amalgamating into new spheres, new shapes, the further she stares into the mist. In her introspection, she cannot help but infallibly keep her eyes on the yearning knees of first years, simultaneously taken with nostalgia and resentfulness; of their young hearts, guileless eyes and unrestricted psyches, running away with both them and their dreams.

Her abstractions are torn, for a split moment, by the report of a familiar voice. She could not take the silhouette as he appeared before her, plain and real, as any sort of verifiable fact. James Sirius Potter, awake at (through manifestation of professed protestations, sleep dust forming at the corners of his eyes) what he might have called a properly ungodly hour; so startling a thing that she supposed her eyes worked to deceive her, or else their final year postulated a series of promises it surely could not keep, beginning⏤ first and foremost⏤ with such a bewildering sight.

Albeit, his face brings her a sort of tender felicity. “Are you lost, stranger?” She postulates. A breath of zephyr escapes her lips, light and airy, slight amusement conjured at his effrontery (of which, for the most part⏤ with others more so, perhaps⏤ she was scarcely accustomed). A heart that tried its best to bleed in contrary of its wilted way, she sought him out before all else; wildfire, always eschewing convention, yet a solace to her beating heart, an anchor to provide succor on a bed of roses, the lingering wisps of the Uffizi not trailing far behind them. 

She pulls her arms around him, takes in the lenity of his embrace, forcing fingers through tousled locks; labyrinthine. “I was deliberating breakfast... having been served at the Burrow, though⏤ all else must surely pale by comparison,” she breathes, a quiet smile accompanying the welkin.

[procrustians-blog]

argyris, leander.

Who; open Where; great hall When; late breakfast time

Leander picked at the remnants of his breakfast — all that was left on the plate was a torn up pancake and a few bites of sausage — pushing them around with his fork as he pored over his class schedule. It was getting a bit late for the meal, as evidenced by the tables not being quite as packed as they had been an hour previous and the mingling of the houses as friends from different houses decided to move and sit together regardless of affiliation.

Charms is first, Leander thought, a smile spreading across his face at seeing that on his schedule. Charms was his favourite subject, and having the NEWT-level class certainly helped with when the Fiddling Flitwicks met up and tinkered with the spells.

“Hey,” Leander said, stabbing a piece of his cold pancakes but not looking up from his schedule, “What do you have first? Anything interesting?” He popped the sweet piece of food into his mouth. “Think we have anything together?”

She has grown habituated, accustomed to the passing nostalgia which filled Hogwarts’ halls. The air laced with an unwanted anxiety, characterised pressingly by the misgiving apprehension of a new year, she keeps at her pedestal silently; not because she enjoyed the hubbub of the school’s animated halls, but because she was reduced to custom— to habit, above all things.

There is a quietness in her heart, guarded impatiently by crenate, toothed edges, swallowed by design. She quite enjoys, beyond the frosty surface that she commands, the temporality of the excitement between classes; the fervent, fleeting hearts of passion with their pristine parchment and quills, eventually weighted by deadlines, pressure, and sighs accompanied by:��ah, I should have started this earlier. Charms, in particular, is a fancy of hers: a fact she holds close to her chest and barely acknowledges at all. She smiles quietly at Leander’s sprightly buoyancy, his penchant for the phantasmagorical, spellbound by the world of hexes and incantation.

“Mm,” she breathes, the cerulean of her eyes cast up towards the conjured morning sky above their heads, “I would say you’re in for a sanely good chance.” Years prior had dictated their similarity, their innovation converging as it was poles apart, classes shared in a number of occurrences. “You just can’t wipe that smile off that face, can you, hm?” Her manner is light and airy; well-disposed and friendly through familiarity, though at times appeared cold to the on-looker, so coddled by rank. Nonetheless, she supposed Leander could note the tenuity of her voice. “Now, I couldn’t tell you why I’m still taking the cursed thing.”

[procrustians-blog]

Core Subjects: Charms, Potions, Astronomy.

Electives: Fantastical Philosophy, Latin, Alchemy, Study of Ancient Runes.

Extra Curriculars: The Bones Club, Slytherin Seeker.

Mondays

09.00 — 10.30: Charms.

11.30 — 13.00: Fantastical Philosophy.

Tuesdays

09.00 — 10.30: Latin.

11.30 — 13.00: Alchemy.

14.45 — 16.15: Study of Ancient Runes.

21.15 — 22.00: Astronomy.

Wednesdays

11.30 — 13.00: Fantastical Philosophy.

16.00 — 17.00: Charms Study Group.

18.15 — 19.00: Potions.

Thursdays

11.30 — 13.00: Alchemy.

16.00 — 18.00: Quidditch Practice.

18.15 — 19.45: Charms.

Fridays

11.30 — 13.00: Study of Ancient Runes.

14.45 — 16.15: Latin.

18.15 — 19.45: Potions.

21.15 — 22.00: Astronomy.

Saturdays

14.00 — 17.00: Quidditch Practice.

17.00 — 18.00: The Bones Club Meeting.

Sundays

13.00 — 16.00: Revision in the Library.

17.00 — 19.00: Quidditch Strategy and Dinner.

[procrustians-blog]

Être une femme

[procrustians-blog]

And now it’s in you, secrecy. Ancient and vicious, luscious as dark velvet. It blooms in you a poppy made of ink.

Margaret Atwood, from Secrecy (via sheholdsyoucaptivated)

[procrustians-blog]

mood: when chopin tied a packet of his own letters with a ribbon and inscribed them as “moja bieda” (my misery)

[procrustians-blog]

Nastassia Lindes (Staz)