#// deadass if you see a mistake - fuck it i can't look at this anymore

[katiethxrne]

liturgy i 

i refuse to kneel or pray  i won’t remember you that way.

          Every first Sunday of the month, Mr. Campbell goes about his morning – first eggs and toast with water. Next, the dogs, let outside and fed. Then the pants, and shirt, the button up and the thick work coat lined with fleece, the wool mittens with leather palms for winter, the leather ones for summer, boots for all weather, two pairs of socks, extra in the coat. Then the pail, sponge, scraper and bristle brush that was just outside the door kept and beside a flowerpot with the fake housekey above the loose stone with the real housekey. As with most mornings, Bristol Southern Cemetery was layered up with fog inches deep, thick cold in the air clotting up Mr. Campbell’s throat and stinging even through his clothes and thick beard. Somedays so cold that Mr. Campbell entertained the idea of returning to bed, to his fireplace, to his wolfhounds, threatening to not pass the threshold of his groundskeeper cottage.

           But one Misses Katherine wired him 300 pounds to keep Mr. and Mrs. Thorne’s headstone cleaned, flowers patted, grass trimmed, and stone buffed. So, he had his routine, once a month to tend to these 2 stones lain up in the ground nearly two decades ago.

           However, unlike every other first Sunday of the month there was a latter taped up to his front door. There was a new plaque beside Mr. and Mrs. Thorne, a Cmdr. Lydia Ashworth who Misses Katherine had placed just beside Mrs. Thorne. It was a handsome plaque the letter had provided, black stone with real silver lettering, stamped with snakes and lions and oddly ice cream cones. The letter detailed that Mr. Campbell would be asked to clean this stone as well, equally cared for by his employer with an additional 150 pound to the sum totaling 450 pound for the once a month job.

           “Tha girl suffers from a type of curse I am sure,” Mr. Campbell mused before folding the letter up thrice and sticking it into his right pocket. He knelt to add another sponge to the pail, before locking the cabin behind him.

liturgy ii 

thick skull never did (nothing for me)  same lesson again (come, give it to me)

           There wasn’t any lint on her coat, nor the edge of her dress, nor tights, her heels were strapped snug enough to race down an alleyway. Lydia always said to never have an off foot, just two steady ones, but Katie still cocked her hip to the left, and did so in the mirror tilting her jaw this way and that - hair loose and didn’t need anymore attention then it already had, skin breaking out but a few mumbled charms cleared her up, wand holstered on her hip, and thin black gloves hid her scars and blackhole hands.

           There wasn’t anything else for Katie to do but exit the office, the Auror funeral hall was in the furthest corner of the department, neutral ground, the corridor walls lined with names or initials of the dead. Katie had been to several Auror funerals, though rare in Crimes & Forensics. She’d been told the funeral wouldn’t begin without her, per tradition as the Speaker for the Dead.

           But she had to leave her office sometime, already the shuffle of feet through the hallways had gone quiet, only the most essential Aurors left in the Division. Katie was the last one left, bumbling around in her office as if she could walk out this door and find Lydia leaned up against the wall grinning and chewing on that terrible red-hot gum she imported from America.

           Lydia wouldn’t be there. The Commander’s office was empty of her presence, and Katie was once again so terribly alone. Silently falling beneath the waves, not even fighting for air.

           Katie couldn’t, however, allow herself to fail Lydia’s last wishes, not go to the funeral. She couldn’t stand the idea of LaPlante or Seren or godforbid Max coming down her to frogmarch her up the podium to fulfill her duties. So she exited and closed the door behind her, and as the door shut her spine locked up, and she began the walk.

           Her heels made a clack on the stone that the woman refused to flinch from, though each solitary sound reminded her that she was making this walk alone. She’d always been accompanied to funerals with another person, someone by her side, someone to pat her shoulder, wipe her tears, scrape lint off her dress. She rubbed her hands down the front again, but it was as smooth and clean as it had been before this death march.

           The doors were manned, two faceless Aurors, eyes and mouths covered with a gold mask, the crossed wands and sword stamped into the metal of the cheeks.

Paul and Ramon, judging by their size and the scars on their exposed flesh. Neither from Crime and Forensics. But she knew them, General Operations, the average sod who walked their routes through the wizarding villages and didn’t do anything but take orders. She’d worked with them each, and their magic was distinctive for being so bland it made any good Forensics Auror groan at the sheer boringness they exuded.

Honor and Sacrifice. Those were their names today, the only ones who were allowed their wands within the Hall. Too many Auror funerals in the past had turned into bloody coups for power within the Department, and too many Auror funerals turned into suicide pacts kept over the coffins of their superiors or lovers.

           She surrendered her wand, Honor-Paul took it and rubbed an oil on the front, it glowed pink then magenta. No Polyjuice, no Transfiguration.

           She handed her left hand, the wand hand to Ramon, who tugged the glove to her wrist and rubbed a similar oil, which also glowed pink then magenta. No Polyjuice, no Transfiguration.

           Her wand disappeared, and Katie bit her tongue at the sheer flash of horror she felt to see it zap out of existence. But this had happened before and would happen again.

           Then both nodded, and Katie entered the hall built to hold the entire department, both a last-stand stronghold and a last send off. It was created to withstand a siege of 99 days, with water tankards built into the walls, wood grown around ward-woven steel, refrigeration units held beneath the podium and raised dais, which pulled from caches of food storages held around the country and refilled at random. No, the Aurors were never going to get caught off-guard on their home turf again. It had been Tonk’s idea supposedly, but with input from Professor Longbottom due to his experiences during the Sieges at Hogwarts during the War.

           For today the walls were lined with white banners edged in Slytherin green, they hung limp. The left was civilian and family, the right Auror and Ministry. The podium was occupied by the Minister for Magic, debonair in his silk black suit and carefully slicked hair. Katie strode forward, the last to enter the hall while Honor-Paul and Sacrifice-Ramon shut the doors behind them, they would stand outside until they were opened again at the end. They’d die at that post if need be, rather than interrupt the funeral for anything less than a revolution or assassination.  

           Katie stopped short of the final row. Seren just one over and the first seat at the very edge left empty.

           Her seat.

           Her name wasn’t on it, but then again, her name hadn’t been on the seat at her parent’s funeral. They’d just waited like this, quiet and solemn for the child to hobble into her chair. Waited for her to bury the bodies into the ground. Waited for Katie to start screaming or hollering or sobbing. Waited for the six-year-old to break.

           They waited now, for Katie to sit, to holler, to cry, to show any emotion. But instead, she nodded at Seren and sat ramrod. From the corner of her eye, she could see Max behind her, just the row and three diagonal, close enough as the recent Commander, she wasn’t going to jump any lines since Ashworth’s Majors and the Riptide Squad still lived, but she was there and close and breathing.

           Katie didn’t mean to time her breaths to Max’s, but she did, as she waited in silence for the Minister to begin his speech. Filled with a biography, filled with sorrow, filled with hopes, filled with tales of honor and duty and sacrifice and glory and love and a time spent on this Earth for the Aurors, for the Ministry, for the People. All the good, glorious things that a Minister could never really understand. Things Katie sometimes believed she didn’t understand either.

           But as a low soft tap began. She understood this.

           The rumble began, a gentle stomp of heel that took up arms through each pew as the Minister sweated through the speech. Each word that came out was responded to with a stomp as it grew deeper through the pews, sweeping like a west wind. The civilians shifted nervously, the few that included Ashworth’s sister and nephews. Katie could see Matthew, a 5th year Hufflepuff watching the performance with a sharpness in his eye. It was glee – he’d grown on stories of the Aurors, he was promised to Crime & Forensics, he was promised to Katie when the time came. The Captain knew that Matthew mourned his aunt, but his hero had fallen in battle, her casket imprinted with medals, her Department willing to follow her to grave if need be. It was all the things he’d been told Lydia wanted. It was all the things Katie had believed she wanted.

           To die by the sword, to die in a blaze, to become the hero of stories, the name they pointed to at the wall as being worth something.

           She wanted ice-cream, and a callosed palm guiding her knife cuts, and a slap to the back of her head when she winked at Max after kissing her stupid in the dueling hall.

           Katie felt each stomp jarring up her spine, it threatened to pop her from the pew with the strength of the vibration. But she stayed seated as the stomping turned to a din as the Minister stepped down. The coffin, empty and sitting there. Empty and not yet lowered. Empty and not yet given to the family. Empty, and not yet paid respect.

           The stomping went on.

           Seren turned, eyes boring holes into her skull.

           Katie couldn’t stand, her feet were cemented to the ground while LaPlante leaned forward. The crowd had both feet striking the ground now, the entire hall quiet except for the frantic stamping like a heartbeat growing its own life. The white banners shaking, and Katie throat closing closing closing.

           “How long are you going to be weak?”

           Barry had asked her, that first time he struck her, body still mangled, arm still in cast, her body still freezing cold. From that first stike on Katie always knew it was safest to run hot.

           “You aren’t worth his life.”

           Katie looked at Max, out of the corner of her eye, right foot slamming the ground in the steady procession, but the woman didn’t look at her. Like all of them, her eyes were on the coffin.

           “You aren’t worth the shit of a beetle.”

           Lydia hadn’t ever said that, had always steered Katie on the right back, the just path, helped her mind her steps. When she stumbled and skidded her knee Lydia jerked her back up and frogmarched to the right time. Lydia always kept Katie as straight as she could. Believed in Katie more than Katie ever thought anyone could.

           “You’re a wasted girl – all that talent, all that rage, all that brilliance fucking wasted.”

           The Auror Captain stood, and the stamping stopped. The Auror Captain stepped out of the pew, and walked to the front dais, and like her Sorting, she ascended the steps alone and stood before the crowd, the officers, the captains, the majors, the commanders – in front of everyone who ever cared around Ashworth. They sat beholding the person Ashworth held above them all, and Katie peered down the broken ridge of her nose and gripped the podium with her hands, the wood creaking up her hands.

           “Who comes to honor to the dead?” She called into the crowd, the echo of their stamping still ringing in her skull. For a second the hall sat silent before a pimply boy stood, a recent trainee, hands still soft and unbloodied.

           “I, Tyrone Gates, come to honor the dead.” He called back, striding down the middle aisle and stood before the coffin, then like he was taught first day of Auror courses, pounded his chest three times, hard enough to bruise, hard enough to bring tears, hard enough that when he showed his trainer later, they’d stand prideful over the pain he’d given himself and slap his back. Pain that they all felt when one of their own died, pain they’d inflict to honor one of their own, pain they’d know when they fell.

           Katie nodded to the pimply fresh boy and called again.

           Then again, until each pew had come forth. The rhythmic tones, the beating of the breasts, each a hammer strike into the growing migraine in Katie’s skull. It was all such a fucking waste. Each second, she stood her dolling out her duties, a fucking waste of time. This whole production the antithesis of Lydia who pursued Justice like a bloodhound – relentless in her scope of lawful revenge. Katie was sinking into herself, staring into the bloodless crowd of faces she’d known her whole adult life, and yet not even one inspired anything but the same mindless thump of a heartbeat in her brain.

           “Who comes to give honor to the dead?” Katie’s voice was hoarse, each call ripping from deep in her chest.

           “I, Max Squint, come to honor the dead.” She exited the pew, head straight, back like iron, hand already fist, a vision of grace and power. The suit fit her well and cut neat lines across her shoulders and arms. The pin of a Commander on her lapel, it shined as if freshly polished and likely was. She stood before the coffin, and pounded her chest, hard and strong, their eyes met, and Katie felt a rush of pain lance through her side, cracking through her ribs and digging into her spine to gnaw on her vertebrae. It threatened to double her over.

           But she’d memorized everything in the Will of the Dead that had been passed into her hands, and she spoke. “Max Squint – ” the Aurors looked to her in union, as if she were a pastor, or a priest, in a way she was, the Speaker of the Dead.

The highest honor one could receive at an Auror funeral, the one who was expected to receive the mourning of the living and pass along these wishes to the dead. Bequethed to her by the Will of the Dead, outlined with that which Lydia wanted to say to her loved ones or even nothing at all. The Will of the Dead filled out and seen by no one until an Auror died and the Speaker’s name burned on the top of the parchment. The one who spoke to them in place of the dead, giving their Last Words, Last Wishes, Last Thoughts. The one who knew them best, who was their right hand, a ventricle of their heart, a shard of their skull, a whisp of their patronus. An honor, a damnation. “You have been given trust.”

           Katie didn’t nod, she didn’t speak, she watched as Max stood then turned back to sit.

           The Majors came next, each with their own words left within the Will of Death, the funeral directive they all filled out thrice a year. Katie would have to change her Speaker of the Dead after today. Then the remnants of Ripcurl, each left with deceptive single words – Goon. Insouciance. Pumpkin. Thimble. Goat – none that made sense to the crowd but left Lydia’s comrades in various shades of withheld tears. Their mouths and faces twisted into vestiges of humanity as they took their seats and sobbed openly into their hands. Only after they gave honor could any Auror show their scars, that selfish pit they had to disguise until the end. In the past Aurors had fainted from their deluge of emotions, their magic rippling from their hands while their wails had to be smothered.

           Seren did none of these things, she came forward already sobbing – hard. Katie called her forth, but the woman didn’t move from her seat, nails digging into her knees. From directly behind her Cadmus shifted uncomfortably.

           Katie called it again, and eyes were on Seren, on this apparent show of weakness… or more likely disrespect for Lydia.

           “Who,” Katie called, one last time, a shine of her temper coming through, her teeth gnashing on the consonant, “comes to honor the fucking dead.”

           Seren’s head snapped up and if Katie was younger, or weaker, or frankly felt anything she might’ve pissed herself at the sheer hatred in Seren’s bloodshot eyes.

           “I, Seren Reese, comes to give honor to the dead.”

           Seren slammed her chest, hard enough Katie though she was reaching for her own heart, about to gouge herself before the entire congress and hold it aloft and laugh. But she didn’t, and she stood and waited a beat, but Katie said nothing. Why should she give her anything? Her Mother had been Seren’s sworn enemy. Seren had spat on Lydia at every fucking turn, at every meeting, at every occasion. Seren didn’t deserve the words that Lydia would leave her, the closure she might get from this façade of grief. Seren waited another moment longer, her face twisted into something terrible and overwhelmingly sad and childish – like a girl who’d lost a playground game or been denied another moment to pet the puppy. Then she turned to leave, but as she did so her heel weakened, her knees shook, shoulders falling.

           Katie was the Speaker, she shouldn’t…

           “Seren Reese,” it came out softer than before, Katie sucked on her tongue as she watched Seren swing back around, a shine of hope in those clear blue eyes, likely the only humanity Katie had ever seen in her eyes, “Wait, and visit.”

           Then Seren nodded, and sat, and let out a howl so long and loud that those around her let out their own sobbing shrieks in response. There were no tears, only terrible shrieks, almost like laughter, almost like happiness, but certainly it was a type of grief Katie had never witnessed before let alone from a woman like Seren. But the crowd feed from the sudden emotion pouring from Seren’s mouth, and the pounding of feet grew as their voices rose into the rafters, the civilians swept into the feeling began their own sobs and shaking, holding, and clinging to each other while the storm raged beside them, rocking the hall and banners while the Auror Captain stood above them all.

           Then Katie turned away and approached the coffin, carried forth on the wings of their sorrows, caught in the tides of tears and touched the empty wooden thing. The terrible empty thing, so easily set aflame, so cold, so easily destroyed. This terrible empty casket that Katie felt tiny beside.

           “We came and gave honor to the dead. Go in glory, Lydia S. Ashworth. Go in honor, Lydia S. Ashworth. Go in peace, Lydia S. Ashworth.” Katie said, soft and gentle.

           Katie pulled her hand back, and with a hissed incantation plunged her fist into the wood and set it aflames.

           Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, leave no body behind for your enemies to steal your secrets. Even if you were safe in the holiest of places for the Aurors, even if your body was already spread among the winds, it was tradition.

           Katie burned her glove off, the blackhole expanding to ring around her thumb like a band of iron as the casket caught flame and began to burn. The doors at the end of the hall slammed open as Honor and Sacrifice held it open.

The doors behind them creaked open, and into the hall they all spilled, a mass of roiling grief. Most running for the dueling halls, many more for the solace of the battlefield, several to fuck their grief in empty offices and storage units. But Katie didn’t follow them out. She stood, at the burning casket until the room was nearly empty and turned only to find Max at the back of hall one foot out the other in, and Seren behind her a hand hovering.

Goddamn her how did she look so suddenly put together and clean.

           “You did well, Thorne.” The hand landed in her hair, long nails curling against her scalp, before falling to her side. “She was a good woman, foolish and terrible. She couldn’t help but fight with me, couldn’t help but run into a fight. Couldn’t help handing out her precious second chances. But she was good, and she was mine.” Katie wondered if she even should hear this. Katie wondered if Seren’s scream was an act. Katie wondered if Max was still waiting for her. “I was hers; I suppose that’s the problem with a rivalry that lasts decade. We didn’t know how to stop putting hooks into each other—”

           “And now you’re too poked full of holes to fill.” Katie interrupted, “You don’t know how to be anything but acidic – right?”

           “Don’t psychoanalyze me Thorne,” Seren snapped, “here I am bearing my girlish heart, yet you snipe at me.”

           “You must think me a fool if you think I’ll falling for this act of yours. You never loved her let alone have some soft girlish heart,” Katie snarled, “not once in your entire life did you love her. Not like how I loved her.”

           “Like a mother, we all know. Everyone knows. Lydia’s girl. Lydia’s precious little girl.” Seren laughed. “Lydia’s stupid vicious daughter, now set loose in this world without a friend left.” She nodded to the door where Max had fled, and Katie felt the lost second fleeing from her as sand. Seren clapped a hand onto her shoulder, nails digging into the skin there. “Me and Lydia knew how to raise our girls right. I should hope Athena does half as good when my time comes.”

           “Quickly I hope.”

           Seren smiled, “Merlin, you’re her spitting image.” The Commander’s nails raked over her cheeks. “You’re going to become just like us if you live long enough,” it felt like a promise, it felt like fate, “I wonder what sort of monsters you’ll raise to replace you. I wonder if Max is your Lydia. I wonder about a lot of things, worry too I suppose. I worry about my girl. I’m sure Lydia was worried for you in those last moment, I would have if I left my girl so unprepared.” Seren leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead, and her red painted lips smudged across Katie’s pale skin, “How about this for your Last Words – You can trust yourself kid. Take it from me, I was her Speaker longer than you’ve been alive.”

           Then like a flash of lightning, fleeting and shocking, Seren left Katie standing at the dais, and in her hand was her wand. Returned to her by the magic of the doors opening and pointed at Seren’s retreating figure. It’d be easy, it’d be a coup, it’d save them all the pain and misery and horror and Katie would be buried right here in this fucking burned out empty casket. They spread her traitorous ashes to coil around whatever dust bunnies and shrapnel they’d exhumed from that fucking house and Katie could finally get released into the arms of her parents. It would take a single shot wouldn’t it – to end it all now, to bring the world crashing around her ears.

           What was the point of all this?

           What was the point of any of this?

           What was the point of a twice-made orphan?

           What was the point of Katie being here without Lydia?

           Katie sat on the stairs of the dais, wand dangling from her fingertips. From the hallway a figure strode forward, he came down the center aisle and marched up the stairs to find Katie’s arm. She looked at the hand that pulled her up and to her feet.

           “Get up Thorne,” Roland ground out, his face made of steel, face free of sweat or grief, he wasn’t wearing Auror blacks, the pink of his shirt hurting Katie’s eyes who’d been staring at a sea of black for the last two hours, “pull your goddamn self together, it’s just an Auror funeral. There is work to be done.”

           “Sidewinder—”

           He grabbed her cheeks with a single hand, squeezing them together, so hard his nails left half moon imprints into her cheeks, teeth grinding together.

           “Stand up straight when you leave, that’s the only way they’ll remember you. Don’t cry. Don’t speak. Walk quiet. Walk slow.” Roland released her, dusted the lint off the front of her dress and didn’t offer his arm, simply walked just ahead of her, nodding to Honor-Paul and Sacrifice-Ramon. The doors shut behind them and Katie walked.

litury iii – 

i’ve been running against the wind  and i can hear the angels calling  the madness has been pulling me

             Max ordered her out of the house three days past Lydia’s funeral, with those steady eyes and blunt mouth.

           There was some non-combantant Aurors with a face so pretty it made Katie’s head hurt lurking around her people, around Lydia’s department.

           Evangeline had called her cell phone. There were several letters unopened on her kitchen table Hogwarts friends. There was a concerned message in her work inbox she’d immediately ignored upon seeing the handwriting. There was a photo of her exiting the Funeral Hall splashed on the front page paper:

CMDR. ASHWORTH’S PROTÉGÉ COMPLETES SECRATIVE AUROR FUNERAL HONORABLY

CMDR. SQUINT ANSWERS BLISTERING QUESTIONS ABOUT DEATH OF BELOVED CMDR. ASHWORTH

CAPT. THORNE ON THE CASE! NEW DETAILS FROM CLOSE SOURCES SAYING THE CAPT. HAS NOT TAKEN A SINGLE DAY OF BEREVEMENT.

           All staring at her, morning, noon, and night. Lydia’s profile. Katie’s profile. Max’s profile. A rotating triad splattered through the pages intertwined with images of Seren.

CMDR. REESE’S MOURNING RISE TO DEPARTMENT HEAD.

EXTRA! CMDR. REESE AND CMDR. ASHWORTH’S ENEMITY…AND ILLICIT? AFFAIR?

           Katie burned that, watched the Daily Prophet single the edge of her loose white shirt, the cursemark growing daily as Katie expended more magic to continue to comb the forensic scene. Her squad back home running after Killer leaders. Her Majors back on their jobs. Her Max in the office dealing with attacks from all sides that Katie was still split on whether or not she deserved.

           All of Katie’s attention was here, on the ground, kicking at literal rocks and shuffling through invisible strands of magic. She reached into her jacket pulling from it a flask that was filled with Wide-Eye potion and took a long glug from it, feeling it fill her brain, as if she’d washed her eyes out with peppermint. Momentarily Katie was sure she could see the spells in the air –

           Eyebright, Katie thrust her hand into her coat pocket and opened a pack and began to shuffle through. She had to have at least a gram of it… she hadn’t ever used it in the last year of fieldwork. It was too expensive for the Department to allot in their yearly supplies, too expensive for even most security firms to get a hold of, nearly impossible to find on the street. The ground up bones of a Dhampir, the dried blood of a Changeling, and lastly the most damning ingredient the brain matter of a Hippocampus calf only 30 days old and slaughtered.

The going rate for a gram of Eyebright was 10,000 galleons.

           The perks of being a Crime and Forensics Investigator included the raids. Katie was no Roland Sidewinder with his shiny Silver Raider badge, but she had her sleight-of-hand and when a gram of Eyebright popped up in the field two years ago any Auror in her Department would have snatched it up. No question they’d all lifted one or two of the rarer ingredients from their crime scenes once it’d been cleared as not being part of the gruesome murder before her. Katie knew for a fact that LaPlante sported Werewolf Fang blades that she kept straped to her wrists, Jansen had managed to pillage a dozen half-born giants one year (which had lead to internal review but still he managed to keep them), what was a gram of Eyebright?

           With a triumphant smirk Katie pulled the clothe-of-gold from her pack, and set the pouch onto a table, carefully undoing the string and letting it come open.

           The powder was iridescent, it shimmered over the clothe-of-gold, lighter than air it began to hover above the fabric and Katie hovered her fingers over it.

           Eyebright did what nothing else could it made faded magic visible, it make the unseeable noticeable and it caused a type of blinding pain that only someone who desperately wanted it could use. Lydia admitted to using Eyebright during the War in her most desperate time, the ability to see spelled traps, shaded alchemy, the cause of potions, view the true shape of transfiguration – Wix were not supposed to do that. The strain of it had landed it’s prolific users in St. Mungos, and it’s stupider ones being driven made to see the thousands of layers of magic within the community.

           Katie pressed her three fingers into the powder smearing it until it stuck to the grooves of her fingerprints, stuck against her sweat and closed her eyebrows.

           Ashworth would have never allowed a Hunt to go unfinished.

           She smeared the powder over her eyelids, the left, then the right, and waited with baited breath for the world to snap into place. But she greeted only darkness, and for a split second Katie feared opening her eyes.

           Lydia would have told her to fight the fear, was she a Gryffindor or not?

           When the Captain’s eyes opened the entire house was blinding – the scars of magic left bright traces in the floor, blood magic hanging like stains, Katie stared as she found traces of spells that had never been recorded used that night. Then carefully began to step around a crime scene so carefully plotted that Katie could recite it back to her trainers like a trail.

           But instead, she was greeted with Magic she didn’t know existed, at least not in practice.

           “Voodoo huh…” Katie leaned down to examine a working table that had been thrown to the ground, finding strange magic she didn’t recognize, the use of blood wards and something most called ‘deity’ magic. A type of magic that worked in dedication to a greater magical being. Salazar had practiced this so-called deity magic to Basilisks it was rumored. The earliest of dragon-tamers had started as worshippers. From every corner of the world Wix had used their magic as power and prayer, though prayer and devotional causes of Magic had fallen aside. Though, Penny recalled, the Hawkins wolves and other Clans referred to the Moon as a God of some kind. It wasn’t often studied, but Katie had seen the laboratories of wizards attempting to call on the Beyond for necromancy, seeking out what muggles would call demons or monsters who existed in the Underworld.

           It was all a bit too existential for Katie, even when she studied necromancy and practiced it quietly to herself.

           “Now what have you fuckers been up too…” Katie knelt beside the fallen alter and followed the traces of magic, the thicker strands of obviously a powerful Witch… some of those traces exited the property and didn’t double back. In each strand an essence of magic fluttered, whether it was a particular scent or gloss to the thread.

           This thread was knotted and gold, it wrapped and snaked through the doors like a great serpent, a cobra striking out and where the magic left the cord it splintered and crackled around like lightning.

           Katie’s skin was buzzing, with the interest of a scientist Katie proded the meat of her inner arm and found it bleeding under the lightest of pressure. The skin around her face was growing tight, it felt as if it were melting and when Katie reached to touch her cheekbone she found muscle and bone waiting, skin acting like wax and the Gryffindor let out a hazy sort of giggle.

           Too much Eyebright then.

           Nothing to do for it now, not when this magic was sprouting like a seed before her, flowering, each layer like the ring of a cut tree. Katie’s head was pounded, the beat of war drums in her head as she followed each strand, her body swaying and sweating blood and viscus. Eyebright always went for the face and arms first, then the back, the stomach, thighs, calves and feet for last. It ate you up, using your body and energy and magic to allow you to do the impossible, acted in sacrifice to the magic you called upon.

           Katie could pay Lydia her body a thousand times and still do it again with an apolgy for not being better.

           The Gryffindor found the room, where the girl and boy had witnessed Lydia’s death. Where Athena had watched Ashworth fade into a nothingness that no-one knew the true outcome of. The cord was splintered like roots, sinking into the place where they’d staked the form of Lydia’s both, all rigid muscle and a tight spine.

           The coffin contained a half-gram of the body, Athena had managed to retrieve a gram and turn it over. The only thing Katie would ever thank her for, even as she promised quietly to bright hell around her ears. The other half-gram was tucked into a vial, and it had hung from Katie’s beltloop for the last week and a half, taken from the mortuary she’d slipped into and been allowed privacy. The last link to her Commander, the last aspect of her body.

           The last aspect of magic that could tell them how it happened.

           Katie knelt, knees creaking and opened the vial.

           It pulsed with the same knotted magic; it was intertwined so deeply in the purple of what Katie knew to be Lydia that it seemed like it was consuming it. Swallowing the essence whole, stealing and storing its power – her power, her magic, her lifeforce.

           Katie reached for the clothe-of-gold and took off the last of the Eyebright, clenching the packet her hand as the pain wreaked havoc through her body.

           But the golden knotted magic remained in her Mind’s Eye, as if seared, as it burn. Katie flicked her tongue out into the air as a serpent might, tasting it, the muddy clean that belonged to soaked mud and storm air. In that fleeting second as the Eyebright finally faded, Katie knew she’d always have the taste of Lydia’s murderer in her mouth.

           The door behind her creaked open, and Katie, a bloodied mess of a woman, half the skin of her face slouching off, eyes shot through with broken blood vessels, blood flowing freely from her nose, ears and the corner of her mouth turned. Her entire left arm, from the tips of her finger to her elbow covered in black, searing deeply into her skin, smoking and consuming her inch by inch.

           “Now, what the fuck do you think you’re doing here?”

 liturgy iv 

mom, i want you to know  i’m letting everything you taught me  guide me home

                       “What’s your favorite flavor of ice-cream?”

           Katie looked up from her potions text, brows squished together as she peered up at the woman in all black, sheer as a blade, and arms folded across a chest decorated with so many medals Katie was sure one was for being up her own ass.

           “Prefer chocolate, with cherries and a layer of fudge.”

           “Well that’s far too complicated, how about just a scoop.”

           “Well I said that I prefer chocolate, with cherries and a layer of fudge if you’re paying and offering.”

           The woman dropped to her haunches before Katie who, for the first time, stared down into the eyes of an obviously powerful adult. Some part of her stomach twisted and her brain short circuited as the woman looked her over, as if she were buying a prize pureblood puppy from the pound. As if she liked what she saw. Cassidy was the only one who really looked at her like that.

           “You’re a wasted girl – all that talent, all that rage, all that brilliance fucking wasted.” The woman hissed shaking her head with a type of vehemence Katie was used to being directed her, from the front of a classroom, from the corridors of Hogwarts, the center of the room while she cowered in a corner waiting for the next blow.

           “Mine to waste,” Katie quipped back, hands fisted over her potions book, her lips turning into a cruel smile. “all this fucking brilliance can kick your goddamn ass,” a total lie but Katie wasn’t going to running off with some stranger for ice-cream, nor for thinly veiled insults.

           The woman blinked, then let out the softest giggle Katie couldn’t imagine from a battle-hardened Auror (for surely that’s all she could be) who stood up.

           “Commander Lydia Ashworth for the Division of Crime and Forensics, and I’d like you to come work for me, Kathrine Thorne.” The Gryffindor blinked. “Now come along kid, I got the Headmistress to clear your afternoon classes so we can chat about your future with the DMLE and with me.” Lydia hoisted up Katie’s schoolbag, storing away the notes in a neat pile, grabbing up her folded leather jacket and looped it all over her shoulder and held out a hand. “Come with me.”

           Katie reached out, linking their hands together, and a ring on Lydia’s chest bloomed brilliant blue and the pair popped out of existence, Katie’s eagle feathered quill falling in the wake of their magic, crushed grass from their shoes, and a single head ducking behind a pillar before snaking into their pocket pulling out a notepad.

           “Thorne – recruited.”

           Seren exited the building, stalking to where Athena waited, practice a charming smile in a bit of polished window.

           “Let’s go, Lydia got her first.”

[chrissmissus]

✨Euphoria thought✨

In honor of Euphoria Sunday, I will be giving you guys and gals and non-binary my thought on the show so far. So let’s get into this cause it’s a hot mess.

McKay

I don’t think he needed to be in the show I feel like he’s a token character

He’s in college and everyone else is in high school… think about that

Even though he doesn’t fit in the show I feel extremely bad for him, he was sexually assaulted in front of his girlfriend and then that said girlfriend who he truly loved say ‘we can’t be together because I don’t think I’m a good person’ ( i’m obviously paraphrasing) and this is probably why he’s not with the gang that much anymore because he’s heartbroken

Kat

I’m not liking the turn her character is taking this season (and I’ve heard Barbie the woman who plays her doesn’t either)

It’s the typical fat girl doesn’t love herself story but last season damn was she powerful

Rue

Girl I’m really staring to not like you after that shit she said to Ali… fuck her

The way she manipulated her sister bothered me to my core. I understand she a drug addict but the things she did in that episode ( I forgot which one) bother me i will never look at Rue the same

I loved her story in Season 1 but I’m not here for the love triangle drop Jules and Elliot

Jules

I. HATE .HER

You can not change my mind she is horrible

She just left Rue there at the station and had the audacity to be disappointed in Rue when she began doing drugs again

If you wanted Elliot’s dick so bad you could’ve led with that girl…we all do

I loved Jules at the beginning of season one but now I don’t like her at all

Elliot

I don’t know how I feel about you cuz that shit you pull last episode should’ve got his ass beat

Actin like he didn’t play a part in Rue not being sober and feeding into her stop idea of getting ‘free drugs’

I would love to get his story line so maybe I would be a little more sympathetic to him cuz he seems nice ok? 

Ashtray

CALM THE FUCK DOWN‼️

Like I understand you are rude or die for your older sibling but fuck you couldn’t even give the man a minute to speak

I loved ever minute of it

Also this is a child stop smiling over him you grown ass women it’s fucking weird

I think Cal Jacob yo real daddy due to the family picture but I ain’t got no real proof so… a bitch is left to assume like everyone else

Fez

Mac Miller that you???

I love Fez and Rue’s relationship it’s so pure and loving I want this shot right here

He deserves Lexi and she deserves him there period fight me if not agreed

This man is SO fine i don’t even want kids but if this man were to look at me and say I wanna make you my baby mama I would turn into Mother Teresa

Gia

From experience I understand where this anger toward her sister is coming from

And she started to smoke weed I 100% related to that scene so for the show in general I relate to her the most so fair

Rue’s mom

How does your drug addict daughter come home with a suitcase and you completely dismiss that shit?

I think she needs to beat Rue instead of yelling at her

Ali

I love him with all my heart, I can't even put it into words

And I hate what Rue said to him and I was crying on the inside for him

Faye

She's growing on me

I still think she’s crazy though but I fuck with her

I didn't like her at first IDK maybe I'll go back to not liking her after this new episode is dropped seeing as she nor Fez nor Ashtray got that much scene time

Cal

I have no words for Cal Jacobs

I hope he finds Derek and I hope he loses him again just because of all the shit that he’s done

How are you gonna call Nate your biggest mistake when you made him the way that he is???? 

I’m happy that he come out though and his speech is icon but other than that I still don’t like him

Nate

Deadass Jacob Elordi is fine as hell but as Nate Jacobs I can’t even…

I have to tell myself that this IS NOT the same boy from the kissing booth

Nate sucks and the way he’s playing with Cassie even though he was dogging her the fuck out in season one now you love her??

He doesn’t deserve Cassie and he sure as hell doesn’t deserve Maddy

He needs to except his sexuality before he does anything

I also strongly believe he’s in love with jewels

Maddy

This bitch is a goddess on earth deadass

I don’t like how she lied about that rape though that was an OK and I’m not gonna forget about it

But other than that she deserves the world and I love how she babysits that child

Here comes my theory in Cal Jacobs arc I think it was to show what’s going to happen to meet if he doesn’t change and remember at the beginning of season one when Maddie said I would look so cute pregnant either she finna trap him or she’s pregnant because I don’t think they make Cassie pregnant twice in two different seasons

And you saw how in last episode when Maddie and Nate hugged in the backyard of the kid’s house she was babysitting how they looked kinda like a happy family like a happy husband and wife…

Marsha

I would've fucked Marsha when she was younger period

Also, she looked a lot like Ms. Lexi….. i ain’t sayin nothin

I wouldn't lie when I saw the way she was looking at Derrick I thought she was finna cheat

I don't think she trapped Cal, I mean you see him right? I think Cal stayed because he felt it was right he didn't have to though he could've run away with Derrick if he really wanted to

BB

She needs more screen time end of the convo

Cassie

I don’t know when I started liking her but I know exactly when I stopped

Best bet is we’re never gonna like Cassie this entire season because she is so consumed by the idea of having a relationship that she’s going to be obsessing over Nate

Miss Ma’am is weak in the knees girl stand up

I will not be like in Cassie this entire season and I cannot wait for shit to hit the fan for her she’s a fucking embarrassment sorry

And that I’m crazy your shit she try to pull I think she’s trying to show Nate that she can be better than Maddie and Maddie‘s fucking crazy

Cassie is trying to hard Imma need her to stop

Lexi

I love her more now than I did before

I think she finna expose everyone in this play and when I say everyone I mean Nate and Cassie