#five: unimportant don't you want to save the world

[cosmichighpriestess]

My spiritual journey.

The truth is, when you make the decision to go within yourself and choose Source it will take you the furthest you can ever go or even fathom going by taking the path less traveled. It is truly a magical, unreal joyride experience and not for the faint of heart especially in the beginning. Because your higher self will essentially say, "Oh, you think you're ready to exit the matrix and experience your true soul? Are you ready to be the conscious creator of your reality, transform your life and others lives and own your darkness and light? Are you going to let them silence you and manipulate, gaslight, downplay you, control you? Are you going to keep diminishing your own light, ignoring your unhealed wounds and run away from yourself? Are you going to choose serving your ego over your own heart for temporary satisfaction? Are you going to keep ignoring your ego deaths and ignoring your heart? Are you going to be the victimized or the victor? Are you going to thrive and survive the honest way or are you going to lie, use, cheat, and steal to gain from others?

Are you going to spend your time on gossip, slander, false illusions, and unimportant surface level bullshit or are you going to focus on helping the world and becoming the best version of yourself? Are you going to rush through this initiation process? Or are you going to realize that it's not a race and there's no one you're competing against except yourself. Are you going to light up this world or are you going to add more darkness to it? Are you going to embrace the ups and downs and learn lessons from them? Are you going to trust God or are you going to keep trusting in your non preferred realities? Are you going to be part of a religious cult or are you going to be a creator and find God within you? Do you understand the power you carry and will you not abuse it? Let's see if you can handle this." And boom as soon as you make that decision to surrender to God and this divine path. You're faced with a challenge, a problem that tests your strength, integrity, resilience, faith, sanity and makes you question if God/Source is against you or hurting you because you chose this path of going against what everyone else is doing and following.

Are you going to curse God, others and yourself or are you going to see from the higher perspective that you put this problem in front of yourself to grow from? I've been on this path for a very long time alone. I signed up for this but there were plenty of times where I wanted to give up and go back home to God, not realizing at the time I could come back home any time I wanted by coming back to myself and learning how to astral travel. Do I have to share all my wisdom and save others? No. In my opinion I don't. There's millions of people who are asleep in the matrix who are raising the vibration and frequency of their planet just by existing and doing their own thing completely unaware they are asleep. I don't need to wake them up. People have their own inner knowing, their own higher selves, and their own spirit guides to help them, that's why you don't need to force anyone into doing anything and giving them your formula. They need to find what works best for them. But from a higher perspective their spirit guides sent me to them and it would be a crime to not to share what has worked for me and my wisdom because it's not about me, it's about others and helping others who are searching for that guidance. It's not about me, it's about balancing the vibrations of the planet so that we do not destroy ourselves. I am here to bring Heaven down on Earth and help others live happily ever after right now.

So about my spiritual journey, from a third person perspective as advised by my guides to tell this story, from a very young age, little Rose was placed in Catholic School when she was five years old. By the time she turned ten she was already traumatized by the Catholic church and done with everyone's brainwashing, abuse, sexual abuse from Catholic priests and abusive older nuns who still used rulers as punishment for getting out of line. She had never experienced so many people who claimed to be good Catholics who were nothing but evil or dark. But there was a few pros that she learned from Catholic school. She mostly had excellent teachers who she really admired and little Rose knew how to operate a computer, type, she remembered the definitions to large words, she could dance, sing in front of others on stage and write in cursive and she met the most wonderful music teacher who taught her how to play piano and sing. She had friends, she made friends easily, she had best friends and she had sleepovers and all the normal things kids do together but her friends always treated her a little bit different than everyone else after a period of time went by they all turned on her. By the time she turned eleven she begged her parents to put her into the public school system and she became the most popular girl in class, at least in her delusions as she was treated... At first. It was the first time in her life she felt accepted and wanted. But something was off, she couldn't get into this new school system, it felt too forced, it felt like she was going against herself just to keep up and get good grades.

She was naturally gifted at many things but not math and other subjects that felt forced. She had the ability to see the future, to see spirits and this scared her to death. Spirits would haunt her and talk to her when she was alone. She didn't want to be at school all the time either. Too much energy that didn't belong to her. She had no idea she was psychic and she was feeling everyone's energy making her sick very often having to leave school. Her father treated her like the scapegoat so she mostly tried to isolate herself from him. She was pressured to be perfect at everything like her older brother was. But she didn't know she was neurodivergent and that these outdated school systems were not built for her to thrive in. So she started skipping class in fifth grade. She just wanted a break from the noise in her head. This went on until senior year of high school, she rebelled because her life felt so controlled, so fake, so limited, so pointless and so boring. She was smart enough to pass all her classes and graduate from school but she never felt like she was good enough for anyone because she was expected to be perfect. And everyone ended up rejecting her and bullying her except for the pure hearted ones she knew but wasn't close with. Even though her boyfriend's abused her and cheated on her half the time and her friends kept betraying her and stealing from her, she still remained optimistic after she dealt with the pain and she was still hopeful about her future and let things roll off her shoulder even if she shed a few tears making her appear unstable. She felt very secure in herself more than other people realized. She ran away from home at eighteen years old from abuse at home.

People were always perceiving her and her situations incorrectly. She felt like she always had to prove her worth. Taking her kindness as something else, her availability as an excuse to waste her time, taking her boundaries as something else, taking her silence as something else. It was neverending misunderstandings and people taking her kindness for weakness, naivety and even flirting when she was just being kind because that's what she tried to be. She was a very loyal friend and girlfriend. But she couldn't go anywhere or do anything without being gossiped about or bullied. She had great style and she was naturally pretty. People threw their entire bodies at her just to steal a kiss without her consent because they mistook her friendship and kindness for flirting. People were not used to someone viewing them so deeply, seeing them for who they are inside and talking to them like they were very important and special. Basic human decency. But always mistaken for romantic interest. When they couldn't have her, they had to destroy her and curse her. Her best friend of four years that she lived with gave her a cursed necklace from her mother that was also a witch. Her mother didn't like Rose because she thought Rose was a bad influence on her daughter but it was actually the other way around. She was always lifting everyone up around her and making them feel good about themselves and their careers. But no one was doing the same for her. After she received the cursed necklace, almost identical to the necklace in Rosemary's baby, her life became very chaotic and demonic activity started. She became so depressed, so suicidal so full of hopelessness she even started having hellish nightmares every night.

They were so bad, so vivid, so terrifying they traumatized her, every morning she woke up in sweats, screams and tears. She even went to see doctors to get these nightmares to end. But nothing worked. She even tried to take her own life but failed. Her grandmother, now passed on, unknowingly saved her life with a phone call while she walked into the middle of the forest to lay down and die with the pills inside of her stomach. While in the hospital the same people that couldn't have her, control her, put her down and always misunderstood her tried to destroy her while she was already down in the hospital. But she was wiser and stronger. She looked around her and could see she was completely sane but something wanted her dead. She put the puzzle pieces together about her best friend giving her the cursed necklace and her boyfriend cheating on her with multiple women at the time, and banging her head into the couch, triggering more negative thoughts. Something was up. Why was everyone trying to kill her and destroy her around her? Why were her boyfriends all abusive and cheaters? She studied human psychology and learned everything she could about people and why they did these things to her. It all made sense. She was being targeted. But why? She saved herself by her own knowledge of psychology and realized these people around her weren't loyal and they didn't deserve her. And they also failed to take her down.

Rather than celebrating her failed attempt to take her own life, they tried everything to control her even more and conform to society even more. Rather than celebrating her uniqueness they guilt tripped her everyday into conforming and taking medication to numb herself. She became so numb, so dead inside so unlike herself and she dimmed herself down to please everyone around her. She was also in school at the time and knew she didn't belong there. People even told her that she didn't belong there because she had a beautiful singing voice and she should be focusing on music, not beauty school. But everyone else guilt-tripped her into becoming something she didn't want to be to be more like them. They always had weed for her and medication. She smoked herself to sleep every night and woke up smoking and all day in-between and her crowd usually encouraged it along with drinking. She went and partied every other night till 4 am. She met another man who was possessed by demons, he tried to kill her with his gun in the end. She blamed herself because she saw the red flags. He stalked her for years. She also had many paranormal experiences in between and abduction experiences that she could remember. That was her second contact with E.T.s that she could remember. The first being in childhood. But she was too afraid of them to talk about it. After she got away from the abusive relationship, she tried to heal herself but she lost most of her friends because she moved to a different town and most of them were his friends, not hers.

Fast forward, a man who had been stalking her for years, who she met previously in the abusive relationship finally got her attention and charmed his way into her life. She dreamed of being with him. She went to Italy to be with him. He was a real spy for the Russian intelligence, who was also stalking her and he was also a professional hitman, knife fighter and bodyguard as well as a history teacher, and famous singer. Those things fascinated her and she just wanted to be loved at that time. She dated very dangerous men who tried to kill her in the end. That was the story of her life. It seemed so unfair. She went into hiding and isolation because he kept threatening her after he did some horrendous things to her and she tried leaving him, like selling naked photos of her and forcing her to be with his best friend to test his loyalty to him. But he wouldn't let her go. Using her wits she outsmarted him and lost him by pretending to be someone else. He fell in love with her but if she pretended to be someone else he would lose interest. She successfully made him uninterested at the time, but he figured out that it was a facade later on and stalked her more for years to come. She gray rocked him. He knew her location and frequently showed up unannounced, so she didn't want to provoke him. But she did lose him for a while and got him off her back.

She was agnostic at the time but she knew something more existed because she had witnessed miracles before and she had seen spirits since childhood. In isolation, she went celibate and stopped talking to everyone. The nightmares continued. Horror show after horror show. She wanted to know what the meaning of it all was, if everything seemed so unfair, so pointless if everyone ended up betraying her, trying to kill her, if no one liked her for herself without mishandling her. What was the point? Why did she even exist? What was her purpose on Earth ?Just to suffer and be treated like garbage by everyone she ever knew? Not knowing that asking these questions she would be given an answer by the Universe. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. The Universe began sending synchronicities to her even though the signs were always there. She just wasn't noticing them. She came across a very enlightened being, Audrey who was older than her and wiser. She shared many of her downloads with her and unlocked some answers that she needed. They were exactly what she needed to hear. She also met with a metaphysical doctor, who had worked and studied with the Dalai Lama and she taught her how to meditate and do breath work in order to heal herself and her body. It was the first time that she ever discovered there was a whole other world within her. She started meditating more and more and receiving her own downloads and her own wisdom that she could use to heal herself from all of the betrayal and her broken heart, trauma and nightmares. One night after being fed up with the nightmares, she said, " If there is a God, please take away these nightmares from me. I can't handle them anymore. They are destroying my life. Please forgive me for ignoring you before, but I want to believe in you." She said the, Our father that she remembered from Catholic school. And the nightmares stopped. She couldn't believe it.

She was so thankful because nothing else worked, but prayer did. She felt protected for the first time in her life, not knowing she was always watched over from the very beginning. How else would she survive all of those attacks? She was starting to find her own light and she was finally starting to remember who she was before everyone told her who she was. The more she faced her own darkness, the more her light grew stronger everyday. She didn't have to search for any of these teachers and the doctor outside of herself, the Universe sent them to her without her having to lift a finger or pay a cent. The enlightened, light worker, Audrey taught her that manifestation was possible because her life was like a fairy's dream world, she saw life through rose colored glasses, she saw all the technicolors of the rainbow and it reflected her outer reality. Audrey created it all transforming into a completely different person than her previous life much like Rose. So being inspired, Rose began manifesting a new life for herself in isolation because she saw it was possible for others so why wouldn't it be possible for her? She had already discovered, The Secret and many other manifestation success stories but the last time she tried manifesting, they were not her preference and they turned bad, like manifesting a trip and a relationship but she was sick the entire time, and the relationship was unhealthy and dangerous to her well being.

At first she blamed the Universe and then she realized she was trying to change her outer world without changing her inner world first and that was the reason her manifestations turned sour. Our external realities can only ever match our internal state. Her internal state was not her preference. She eventually started a family and became pregnant and she lived with a new man who she knew already for a year but had several red flags but she ignored her intuition. Of course he turned out to be just like the others. But this time she blamed herself. She had no one else to blame except for herself because she knew that her self-worth was so low to think that was what she deserved. But in her defense he did pretend to be a nice guy in the beginning, future faked her, controlled her, manipulated her everyday and trapped her with a baby. First, she had a very painful miscarriage and then she was pregnant with her second baby, Meadow. He was so abusive. He even yelled at her for having a miscarriage. Even though it wasn't her fault. He threw a party where everyone was smoking cigarettes around her and she had a miscarriage that night knowing she was pregnant, they blew smoke in her face. While she was in pain he was laughing at her and then yelling at her for bleeding. She couldn't believe that she chose this person to be her partner. But she was a non-conformist and she truly believed in magic and in manifestation. So she knew that she could manifest a beautiful life for herself and her daughter. So as soon as she became pregnant again, she began manifesting a new life for her daughter. Because she never wanted her daughter to experience the life that she did. She deserved more and only the best. The Universe began testing her and testing her faith and testing her faith and testing her faith. She was passing all the "tests" not knowing that she was sending the challenges to herself. Her star family, the E.T.s made their connection with her first in the astral realm and then began getting her attention in physical reality more.

Because she was open to receiving and meditating, she was downloading a lot of information and sharing it online. She was processing a lot of information and learning a lot about herself and the Universe. Once her daughter was born, she dedicated her entire life to her because her daughter's father was just there to pay the bills, yell and not be of any emotional support. Her only emotional support was herself, God and her star family. They held her up, and kept sending downloads of information and even when she went through postpartum depression she fought her way out of it and by then she had already quit smoking weed before she was pregnant for obvious reasons. She asked God to give her strength to quit. A year went by. The abuse continued to get worse. And he was always in a silent competition with her, putting her down as a parent. Judging her for having empathy for her daughter because he had none. She finally found the strength to leave him. He knew that she was unhappy. So he let her go. She finally began to find herself and feel happiness again with her daughter and co-parenting with him. Eventually months passed and she was in a new relationship with a genuinely kind man in Australia. But of course she's self-sabotaged because he was too good to be true and met another man, a multi-millionaire, famous trader Lamborghini collector, who manipulated her, who was her twin flame who cheated on her and got multiple girls pregnant and she decided she was never going to date again. She laughed the entire time. Because at this point it was so predictable what someone was going to do to her. It was like a sick joke. But of course she picked herself up again and everything seemed better for a while.

Until it was only a matter of time before things would turn dark again. Her happiness would never last for long. But this time she had God on her side and she had her spiritual team. This time she was stronger and wiser If anyone was going to attack and betray her again. Her family treated her like a burden because where else would she go, if no men she ever knew were safe and she was autistic and at the hands of her caretakers. The enemy wanted her dead for good. And they did everything they could to get a reaction out of her. But she was wise on manipulation tactics by now. They started a smear campaign against her and turned her whole family and everyone she knew against her. Her father tried to physically attack her next to her daughter but she was prepared because she had a feeling he was going to attack her that day and she was carrying pepper spray. She told everyone that if anything happened to her it was her father that did it. Her mother somehow saw the post even though they weren't friends and passed out wherever she was at and went to the hospital. Her father, furious of being exposed went for the double attack on his own daughter and this time he brought her aunt and uncle who were jealous of her entire life and always put her down and talked badly about her. Even though she always went out of her way to help her family when they needed her. The jealousy and the hatred was more powerful to them. They had no problem believing her father's lies about her.

All because they felt justified in attacking her and forcing their way into her home but she already had the police on the line and she ran to the neighbor's house for safety where they also blamed her for the situation she was in. God saw everything. God was furious. Everyone felt justified in kicking her while she was already down. Everyone was jealous of her for some reason. Because how dare she exist. As if she hadn't already been through enough. But they always misunderstood her and never tried to get to know her or anything of her past. They never believed her stories and always took side with her abusers. There was only one family number left that truly cared about her. She stayed with her daughter's father, because she had nowhere else to go. By then they were already on good terms and getting along. He still had feelings for her. But really he wanted to destroy her life and make her pay for leaving him the first time. His demons came out very often. He was angry all the time always yelling at his daughter and her. Fast forward until now, he tried to destroy her and started a smear campaign against her. All his friends and family turned against her. Of course she was the villain again.

All because she called people out on their abuse when she couldn't take it anymore. She stayed silent long enough. God exposed his smear campaign in his phone while she was walking by one day. Apparently she was just a body to sleep with, a good lay, a maid, a cook and a babysitter to her own daughter, with no friends according to his perception of her. My title was not a mother but a babysitter? A maid? That's how low he thought of her. His girlfriend laughed at me and never even met me once. His best friend thought I was the worst person in the world. Never even knowing me or meeting me. He was so disrespectful and she gave him a beautiful daughter and her body and all her love. She was so kind. So patient. So nurturing to people who couldn't receive her love. Because it was true authentic, unconditional love and not the fake stuff they are used to. She wasn't a people pleaser anymore and they didn't like it. But they could not help themselves from talking badly about her to all of their friends and family because they felt justified and they felt triggered by her presence. He was jealous of her beauty and her light. He was ugly on the inside and it reflected outwardly. He yelled at her everyday even though she already had PTSD. He loved kicking her while she was already down.

She was unintentionally triggering everyone around her and aggravating the demons within everyone around her, not knowing that she was the light in the dark everywhere she went. God was the only one who got me through everything. My spirit team and God, without them I would be dead. I didn't realize this story was going to be so long, but of course I had to skip through some parts. I manifested a beautiful life for myself and my daughter and nothing and no one can take it away from me now. And you could judge me and say," well you could have avoided all of that if you would have just conformed to society and follow the pack and be like us." But then I wouldn't be who I am today and I wouldn't become a leader and I would be going against myself and my passions. I will never explain my decisions to anyone anymore. If someone is hating on you or your decisions, they are projecting their own fears onto you that do not belong to you in the first place, and if they are bullying you, they are already beneath you because there's something about you they wish they had. When they go low you go higher. If they give you their negative energy, eat it and then spit it out. Use it for your own fuel. My decisions in the past didn't make sense because God had a higher plan and it will never look normal from the outside lens. I had to move in silence my entire life, I could never share good news with anyone without them being jealous or hateful or trying to destroy it in any way they could. I had blind faith when I found God. You will look insane for having blind faith. But I am living proof that you can survive anything with God. They threw me to the wolves and I came out leading the pack. Nothing can destroy me. Nothing can destroy you with God. God said, be anxious for nothing.

I made things harder for myself by staying anxious at times. I went through hell so that other people don't have to go through it. The same rules don't apply to me. It was very unfair what I went through but it will also look very unfair what I am going to receive in the future. God has my back. God will do it for me. You don't have to suffer so much to choose this path. I do not believe that suffering is a virtue and that is why I teach ways to handle what I went through in a nonjudgmental way that empowers people, helps them change their reality by going within first and reprogramming yourself first. To help you see that it doesn't have to be hard because knowledge is power. I have been targeted for a very long time because I am a threat to the system. They have targeted every aspect of my life in hopes that I conform to society's failing systems so that I do not become a threat. But God always wins, the light always wins no matter what. They cannot touch you when you have God on your side.

No matter how horrible of a situation you may be in or it may feel like, remember that it always serves you. You can always use the negative and positives for your benefit to learn from in some way. You do this mainly by staying neutral to meaningless situations because life is meaningless until you define it with your definitions. Use the negative to your benefit. That is one of the greatest gifts we've ever been given. Once you accept a situation or how you are feeling, then you drop all resistance, and with that you can receive help from your spiritual helpers. Remember that the help is always coming to you at every single moment, but not everyone is willing to receive that help because they have resistance because they have not accepted everything as it is.

Everything and everyone is perfect as they are, they are all playing their roles perfectly. No matter how dark they can get. The help is always on its way to you at all times. There's nothing to fear ever. Because fear is an illusion. There are no scratches on me. I'm very abundant. I'm very optimistic and happy, I'm very resilient and very mentally strong. I turned my wounds into power. When you choose to relate to all things in a loving way, nothing can really trigger you. I had unconditional love and compassion for everyone that hurt me. I saw right through them so that I could understand them. If you ever wantssomeone to calm down when they're angry, all you have to do is just see them. See them clearly and let them know that you see them and you see how much pain they are in to treat innocent people that way.

My wounds were a gift. I transmuted all of that energy for my own benefit to serve the world. You will always learn more from pain than you ever will from having a perfect life. You will always learn more from a person hurting you than a person who is always kind to you. But I do not want anyone else to go through what I did. You can maneuver through any situation with the right tools. And I offer those tools everyday. I am more than optimistic, I'm a powerful creator. I'm an alchemist. I am a sacred rebel. I'm an artist. I'm multifaceted. I'm connected. I'm psychic. I'm telepathic. I'm a time traveler. I'm immortal. I'm a teacher. I'm a channeler. I am a transformer and shapeshifter and transmuter. I am a high priestess now. This is the life of a chosen one and generational curse breaker.

Tell me it wasn't worth it to become what I am now. I completely transformed my inner world so now I only have things to look forward to. My fears are far behind me. If you think that good things will happen to you, they will, the opposite is also true. It is all within your own belief system. Always remember that you will always find relief no matter what situation you are going through. I discovered so many hidden parts of myself and so many past lives explaining why I went through these things. Everyone in my life apologized to me and made a 180 in how they treat me now. They respect me finally and that was shocking to witness because one day I woke up and everything shifted. Everyone was mortified in the way they treated me. They mostly just wanted their karma to end. But I forgive everyone and I forgive myself. My spiritual Awakening was the catalyst to all of my fulfillment, all of my self-empowerment and all of my abundance. I am so much more emotionally mature now and so much more grounded and I have so much more self-love and respect for myself than I ever could have if I just had a perfect life with no struggles. But for now I need to take a long break and I need a long vacation. It's a beautiful day, it's a beautiful life. I love you so much. Thank you so much for reading. 🙏

[isamijoo]

Can You See Me

Written for @amortentiaboys (again! lol). Betaed by @fw00shy! Also many thanks to @orange-peony & @vukovich.

Features Unspeakable!Draco in a Soulmate AU.

WC: ~2.6k.

Rating: Teen and Up

A/N: The fic takes place in another realm where they are 'souls' while their physical bodies remain in the 'real world'. Some lines are inspired by Doctor Who.

READ ON AO3

~~~

If Auror Harry Potter had to describe his relationship with Unspeakable Draco Malfoy, seven years after the war, he would use the phrase "in limbo": neither here nor there. Frustratingly stuck somewhere between nothing and everything. Friends? Yes, but not really. Boyfriends? Maybe, but not quite. Perplexing? Absolutely.

Hermione, an Unspeakable herself, had a theory that the problem lied in their inability to communicate effectively. Harry was notoriously bad with words while Draco became quiet and subdued after the trials and induction into the Department of Mysteries.

Except when Draco was drunk.

The first time Harry and Draco kissed, they had just solved their first case together. Harry dragged Draco to a pub, and after several rounds of drinks in a booth, the alcohol loosened Draco's tongue and reduced his inhibitions. Before they knew it, they were making out right in the booth, unhidden, out in the open for anyone to see.

One week later, Harry chanced upon Draco at the Auror Office when the blond came to submit a report. Harry caught his eye and shortly afterwards, found himself slammed against the wall in a broom cupboard by a charming Unspeakable, who was crafty with a Silencing Charm.

They fell into a pattern. They kissed, bit, and groped each other. Although inappropriate, Harry loved these private moments with Draco. He often glimpsed Draco smiling dreamily between their kisses, grey eyes gazing at him with an adoration that never failed to make Harry's heart beat faster.

They never brought each other home. They never went on dates. They never addressed what they did, but not due to any lack of effort from Harry. Whenever he tried to talk about it, Draco would stare at him in trepidation and despair, as though Harry was going to curse him or strike him with a sword. Then he would use whatever Unspeakable skills he had to escape and disappear.

Did Harry find Draco infuriating as hell? Yes, very much so.

Did he also love the git to death? Utterly and completely.

So when Hermione barged into the Auror Office and hurried to his desk as though chased by lightning, screaming "Malfoy is in trouble!", what would you expect Harry to do?

~~~

Harry landed on two feet in a shallow puddle of mud.

He quickly surveyed his surroundings. He was standing in a clearing in the middle of a vast field of yellow wheat. Earthy brown mountains lined the horizon, and a strong breeze chilled him down to his bones, despite his thick Auror uniform and robes. As he looked down to inspect his boots, he realised that his glasses had vanished, but his vision was perfectly clear.

Harry brought his hands to his face, just to make sure. A finger graced his forehead and — his breath hitched — touched the smooth skin over the spot where his lightning bolt scar should have been.

The scars at the back of his left hand were gone too.

He hastily patted his chest, stomach, arms, and thighs. Aside from his eyesight and scars, his physique was unchanged. He still wore the same uniform he had on at St Mungo’s before he blacked out.

As he got his bearing, he felt the air chill and the wind blow stronger. He heard footsteps approaching and immediately grabbed his wand by his hip.

About five metres from where Harry stood, a tall wall of wheat parted and out walked Draco Malfoy, decked in his elegant navy blue Unspeakable uniform. His skin was pale and there were dark circles below his eyes, but he appeared unharmed. His usually immaculate blonde hair was slightly tousled, thanks to the breeze.

“Potter?” Draco yelled, a hand shielding his squinted eyes from the harsh wind. His dark robes billowed out around his knees “What are you doing here?”

With a grunt, Harry tucked away his wand and trudged across the muddy soil until he reached more solid ground, taking note that Draco was also moving in his direction. “Saving your arse, obviously. What the fuck were you thinking? Sending your soul to another dimension?” Harry shrieked. “Where the hell are we, anyway?”

“A place where souls transit between life and death,” Draco replied, not having to shout now that they were within arm's length. “Some people call this place Bardo.”

Anger burned in the pit of Harry’s stomach, yearning to burst. Didn’t Draco have any idea how worried he made Harry?

But his desire to scold vanished when Draco asked, “Why did the Department of Mysteries send you, an Auror? Why not another Unspeakable?”

Harry breathed heavily. The wind was picking up and he figured they should get moving, but he couldn’t move, not when Draco was gazing at him curiously. “They couldn’t locate your soul. They needed me to find you.”

Pale eyebrows rose quizzically. “Why you?”

Harry gazed into his cool grey eyes. “You know why,” he muttered. “Apparently I’m your soulmate.”

Draco’s jaw went slack; no words came out as he stared unblinkingly at Harry’s face.

“Were you planning on telling me at some point?” Harry asked softly.

“Do you have a way to get us back?” Draco enquired instead.

Harry reached inside his shirt and pulled out a silver medallion that fit nicely in his palm. At the centre of the medallion rested a small piece of jade stone, which now glowed red. Hermione had told him to wait until the stone turned green before attempting any more dimension-hopping.

With a small squeak of excitement and relief, Draco grabbed the medallion with both hands. It was still connected to a chain around Harry’s neck, so Draco stood close to the Auror as he ran his fingers over the jade stone.

“A Dimension Transporter, perfected by Granger herself. This is powered by your magic,” Draco said almost reverently. “I can feel it.”

Unable to help himself, Harry took the other wizard’s hand and held it to his chest. “I'm glad you're alright. Don't scare me like this.”

“I’m not here by choice, Potter,” Draco clarified, rolling his eyes as he slowly pulled his hand out of Harry’s grasp. “I suppose now that you’re involved, I can explain how I got here, while we wait for the Transporter to recharge.”

Suddenly a strong gust of wind blasted around them. Draco grabbed Harry’s wrist and pulled him towards the direction he came from. Harry followed Draco into the wheat field, but as soon as he stepped between the tall stalks, his surroundings changed. Gone were the yellow scenery, replaced by a vast landscape of a snowy mountain valley.

Draco appeared unperturbed by the sudden change in climate. The wind was still strong here, though, so Harry obediently followed Draco as the latter trekked up a small hill.

At the top of the hill was a small hut, in which they took shelter from the harsh elements. Inside, Draco had arranged several flat stones to masquerade as a stool and a table. On the table sat an emerald green sphere the size of a Remembrall. A small key-shaped trinket suspended inside the misty orb. Numerous narrow cracks ran around the surface of the sphere.

Harry had seen the sphere before, minus the cracks. He was the one who found the sphere a few months ago during a raid. The sphere was unimportant to the case at hand, but Harry had a suspicious feeling about it, and after blasting it with every curse-detection spell he knew, he wanted to destroy it. But Robards stopped him and sent it to the Mysterious Artifacts Division, more colloquially known as MAD.

The idea of the sphere falling into Draco’s hands and potentially harming him made Harry angry again.

“Why do you have that?” Harry’s voice trembled with barely disguised fury as he kept his eyes on the orb.

With a sigh, Draco went to a corner of the hut and kicked a large rock the size of Quaffle to Harry’s feet. “Do you have a wand?”

Nodding, Harry transfigured the rock into a proper stool, complete with a cushion. He then did the same to Draco’s stone-stool. Draco muttered his gratitude as they both settled down around the table, the sphere glowing ominously.

“The people at MAD sent this to my department last month,” Draco explained. “My senior colleagues knew right away that this sphere was previously used by Dark Wizards in the seventh century to extract a person’s soul from their body, basically leaving behind an empty shell.”

Any talk about souls — extracting, separating, severing — always reminded Harry of Horcruxes. Even when Hermione was explaining to him the plan to save Draco by sending Harry’s soul after him, Harry had been uneasy. Their real bodies — both his and Draco’s — were lying in a ward in St Mungo’s, lifeless and dependent on magic to keep them alive. “Sounds like something you should stay away from.”

Draco’s eyes flickered over Harry’s face for a second before he dropped his gaze. “It’s my job to figure out how it works. I managed to dismantle it. See these cracks?” He pointed at the lines over the sphere, careful not to touch it. “I was able to decode the spell inside it, layer by layer, until I reached the key inside. When I touched it with my magic, I blacked out and woke up here.”

“And that thing followed you here?” Harry raised an unbelieving eyebrow, but it explained why nobody mentioned finding any cursed objects around Draco’s unconscious body.

“I suppose,” Draco replied, uncertain. “Maybe it’s pissed at me for taking it apart, and wants to make sure no one in the physical world can use it to rescue me.”

Harry leaped to his feet and pointed his wand at the sphere. “Reducto! Evanesco!”

The sphere exploded into a hundred pieces before vanishing into thin air.

“There," Harry said contently, dropping back onto the stool. "I should have done that as soon as I found it.”

“Good job, Potter,” Draco said sarcastically, grimacing. “Please remember next time you destroy my projects, that I’m the one who has to write the paperwork.”

“It could have killed you!” Harry protested.

Draco shrugged flippantly and rested his elbows on the now-empty table, purposely avoiding looking at Harry.

A few minutes passed where no one spoke. The wind outside grew more violent, transforming into a full-on blizzard.

Harry glanced at the red glow of the medallion around his neck and pulled his stool closer to the other man. "Draco, we need to talk."

Draco's nimble fingers tapped the surface of the stone absentmindedly. "If you say so. It's not like I can go anywhere."

Now being given the chance to address their relationship, Harry didn't know where to start. So he started with the most recent development. "Did you know we're soulmates?"

"Yes. I'm a member of the Soul Squad. We study anything related to the human soul. The Soulmate Detection spell is a simple spell, created by the Unspeakables themselves.” Draco paused before adding. “Of course, I've tried it on myself."

"When did you find out?" was the next question, loaded.

Draco studied Harry's face silently for a few seconds before answering, "After our kiss at the pub." He tucked strands of blond hair behind his ears and cleared his throat. "I was just curious. There is no benefit in knowing your soulmate, after all. It's old magic; interesting to study, but practically, it isn't useful."

"Now, hang on." Harry's own throat constricted. "Not useful? Your colleagues spent 48 hours going round in circles, no idea how to find you, until one of them suggested the soulmate route. They taught me a spell to make me aware of the soulmate connection, and then I could locate you easily." He gestured at the medallion around his neck, pointedly ignoring the green glow of the jade. "I only needed one jump."

Draco gazed forlornly at the device resting against Harry's chest. "Well, it's not typical to find oneself in a limbo world and needing to be rescued, is it?”

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"What would that change, Potter?" Draco snapped as his hands started gesturing wildly. "I know how your childhood and teenage years were influenced by a madman's response to a prophecy that was out of your control. Isn't this similar? An ancient, poorly understood magical force dictates who is compatible with your magic and soul. It's not even comprehensive! It doesn't take into account your emotions, your minds, or your physical compatibility. Why do you think the Department of Mysteries never shared this knowledge with the public? It's useless and even harmful in some instances. It gives false hope and robs people of their agency. Not all soulmates end up getting along. They can even be enemies."

Harry tasted bitterness in his mouth. "We're not enemies."

Draco rubbed his forehead exasperatedly. "Then what are we?"

"That's exactly what we should talk about."

Draco's lips twisted in displeasure as he glared at the table, arms firmly crossed over his chest. "I know what you want, but it's not going to work. You'll get sick of me very quickly. You hate when people keep secrets from you. My whole career is a secret."

"Sure, you can't talk about your job. But you're more than that."

"If I'm not an Unspeakable, what am I?" Draco demanded, the unspoken implication hung in the air.

"Draco, you're not defined by your job. You're brilliant and intelligent. I like you for you." There, Harry had said it. He could not backtrack now. “Hermione and Ron can make it work. They even have a baby together.”

"Weasley and Granger survived a war together."

"Didn't we survive a war too?" Harry quipped, earning a frustrated growl from the other wizard. "Draco, please look at me."

After an excruciating wait, Draco turned on his stool until his body faced Harry, though his arms remained crossed. He lifted his chin and locked eyes with Harry, flinching when the Auror tenderly touched his jaw but neither broke eye contact.

"You can't see me, can you?" Harry murmured bleakly. "No, you refuse to. You always work hard for people to acknowledge your work and that's fine but I'm also right here. I'm right in front of you and I'm in love with you. But you don't want to see that. You don't see me. Have you any idea what that's like?"

Draco’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. "I see you, but... Potter, if I do this with you but we don't work out," he whispered, "I won't be able to handle it. I'm not… strong enough."

Harry felt an invisible weight lift off his shoulders while another, newer and more hopeful, sensation settled in his stomach. "Then let's make sure we make this work," he said resolutely. "It takes effort from both of us. We have to try."

Draco closed his eyes, another protest ready on the tip of his tongue, but he pressed his lips shut together, visibly holding himself back. He was already making an effort.

When he opened his eyes again, he reached out and cupped Harry's cheeks. Draco turned Harry's head from side to side, studying the latter's face. "You're pretty handsome without those ugly glasses."

Harry chuckled. Draco smiled before they both leaned forward and their mouths met in a chaste kiss.

"Thank you," Draco said after they separated, "for coming for me."

After a few more kisses, Harry decided he had held Draco hostage long enough. Harry lengthened the chain around his neck so that it could loop around Draco's neck as well as his own. With Draco's help, he rotated the jade stone a few times before pressing it firmly.

~~~

If Harry had to describe his relationship with Draco Malfoy, five years after they exited the realm of limbo, he would fiddle with the silver wedding band on his left ring finger and grin happily, no words necessary.

~fin~

LINK TO AO3

[ragsweas]

Okay fellas, here's the deal....I have seen enough Bucky supports post-endgame and I love Bucky Barnes with all my heart and I love Stucky too....but calling on Steve Rogers because he lived a life he never thought he could is just...enough.

Think about the timeline for a while for this guy. He woke up in 2012, a few weeks after Bucky was gone and he was supposed to adapt. He tried, he fought but for him, everything in the 40s happened like a month ago. Steve Rogers was not given the time to recover, he was not given any time to grieve and he accepted it, tried to move forward.

Fast forward say two years (though the MCU timeline is still sketchy). He has perhaps started moving forward. Steve has made friends with Natasha and he has a team of his own. This guy in his 20s has something similar to his life in the 1940s. He finds Sam and yeah, he gets another friend and BAM! HYDRA is still spreading! Bucky is alive! Can you imagine the level of grief he went through? Remember that scene from TWS after Bucky's mask fell down? Steve was heartbroken. He couldn't believe he had failed, that he had given up his life for nothing. Three years after he gave up his life to wipe out HYDRA, it's still there. And that too in the organisation made by his love and his friends/pseudo family.

Like one year later, one of his other friends creates a murder bot (no I am not hating on Tony Stark, that man is amazing and yes I know Ultron was a product of his PTSD) and Steve Rogers has to asses his ideas again. Yes, he lied to Tony about his parents but remember Civil War the final scene?

"I didn't know it was him."

I mean, seriously, Steve cared about Tony. When given a choice, yes he chose Bucky but do you think if he knew that Winter Soldier had killed Howard and Maria Stark, one of whom just happened to be Steve's old friend too, he wouldn't have told Tony? He messed up, yes. Dang did he mess up bad. His letter of apology was shitty at best.

Bucky Barnes went under and Steve took off with Natasha and Sam. Let's look at this guy now, will you? He has a link to his past and he is trying to desperately hold on to it. But at the same time, he has Natasha and Sam. And you know what? Peggy is dead. He is grieving her but he is happy that somehwere, Bucky is there for him.

Cut to Infinity war. He sees Bucky, he is happy, he loses Bucky, again! And he is heartbroken.

But he has five years to mourn. Five years to mourn Bucky and Sam and to some extent, Peggy. He had started a support group. He is the one who tells Natasha that he saw dolphins. But he is also the one who is willing to bring everyone back.

Yet, you see him in Endgame and you realize- he isn't as driven as he was in Winter Soldier because to a great extent, Steve Rogers has moved on. He has properly mourned Bucky and Sam and Peggy. For him, Natasha is his present family. He wants to bring everyone back, he wants them to have a life they deserved.

Then Voromir happens. The final battle. Steve loses two of his friends, both like his family because let's accept it, Steve cared for Tony even if he messed up his relationship with him. The smile on Steve's face when Tony came to the compound and the tears in his eyes when he saw him in the battlefield is answer enough. He wasn't standing watching Tony's recorded message because he liked to- but because everyone knew he was as much a part of his family.

But what about Bucky? He had PTSD, he is a victim, he needs his best friend.

Guess what? Steve needs a friend as well and he has lost them. He trusts Sam, with his shield. He knows Bucky will be okay. It will hurt him, no matter what he says, and it's not completely right.

But after fighting for all his life, since his childhood when people like him would be considered unimportant and people actually thought they should be killed, in World War 2, in 2012 with aliens and his old enemy and his own made up family, after fighting continuously for all his life, Steve Rogers is tired. This man is not even forty and he has seen immense pain and destruction.

Yes, Bucky was hurt. Yes, he was disappointed and heart broken. But Bucky knew. Steve did not leave without telling his once best friend. And Bucky knew Steve was tired. He still had a story left, a world to live in, but Steve Rogers was tired. Is it fair? No, but then life isn't fair. Was it wrong? Probably, Bucky deserved better.

But so did Steve. He saw Peggy after so long and realized that he wanted that life. For once in his life, Steve Rogers did something selfish.

He was done fighting HYDRA, he was done saving the world. He did not give up his responsibility, he passed it on to someone who knew how to do his job.

I really don't think Steve wanted to be with Peggy as much as he wanted to live peacefully. How do you know he ended up marrying Peggy? We saw them dance, we saw them kiss. But did we see them marry?

Did he go in an alternate timeline where he saved everyone and then came back? Or did he live in the existing timeline? We don't know, but what we do know is that he lived peacefully. We know he got married, but to this Peggy? Some other Peggy?

Stop hating on Steve Rogers because that guy had lived through enough. Let him rest. He has lost and lost and lost and lost. He has finally decided to gain something - peace. Let him have it

[elbowhickey]

What do Tupac, NWA, Green Day, The Beastie Boys, and Boston all have in common? 

It’s almost 2019 and only 4 of them are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I have sat on this for a long time (no pun intended but I’ll take it), but reading the recently released list of the 2019 inductees https://www.rockhall.com/rock-roll-hall-fame-announces-nominees-2019-induction, I am officially past my limit. 

What. The. Hell. 

The reasoning behind this is that Boston has such a small body of work, a total of just six studio albums, and that’s somehow the leading factor. ‘They just didn’t make much music’. I graduated with a degree in Strategic Communications, basically a PR degree, but I started in Pre-Law. So, let me go old-school and formulate an argument, because I cannot understand this to save my life. 

Boston has sold a measly 76 Million albums worldwide, 31 Million in the US. That means they have more albums sold than Journey, The Police, and Aretha Franklin - all current members, btw. But, I digress.  

Let’s say that we’re keeping Boston out of the voting because of their short body of work. I will leave FIVE of their six albums out of this. That’s right, let’s look just at their 1976 release, “Boston” for just a second. That ONE album is number 15 - no, you did not misread that - NUMBER FUCKING FIFTEEN on the all-time album sales list, as in all of forever and everyone that has ever made music in the history of humankind. That album had just eight songs, so if we take just half of that one album - More Than a Feeling, Peace of Mind, Foreplay/Long Time, and Rock and Roll Band - you will find three songs that made it into the ever-coveted the Top 40. The album stayed on the charts for 132 weeks. If you suck at math, that’s 2-1/2 YEARS. Am just curious, who was the first band ever to debut at Madison Square Garden? Oh, yeah. It was Boston, because of that ONE album. Because of that one album in a total of six which is too small a body of work. 

So yeah, let’s rule them out because their body of work is so small. I mean, is just one album, right? 

Except a Top-5 hit in Don’t Look Back, several Top-50 hits over the next few years, a throw-away album a decade later which produced a meaningless #1 hit (Amanda), a mediocre-at-best Top-10 hit which everyone who makes music apparently manages to do (We’re Ready), and a squeaker into the Top-30 that we’re not even remotely going to talk about. Because those were different albums. I said one. 

So, there’s that, but can we focus for one moment on what we’re actually talking about here? We’re not talking about the most album sales of all time, because let’s face it, as of 2018 ‘The Bodyguard’ soundtrack is #6, which still falls short of Shania freakin’ Twain. But what is it that we ARE talking about? Oh, yeah, it’s ROCK AND ROLL, and the supposed “Hall of Fame” institution that surrounds that phenonmenon. 

I will throw punches with you blow for blow if you can even attempt to tell me that Boston did not shape Rock ‘n Roll in the 70s and 80s, or that their influence is less important than NWA or Green Day. As a guitarist, I can take someone who has never even touched a guitar and teach them damn near every Green Day song in less than a week. And get the fuck out with any argument you can possibly give how NWA (samples? loop editing? ACTUAL SONG WRITING? anyone?) shaped Rock ‘n Roll more than Boston. I will end you. Listen to any classic rock station in any even remotely major US city for a few hours, and tell me that at least three Boston songs are not still played in heavy rotation on a frequency that rivals any classic rock band not already in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, or any other classic rock band at all. It won’t happen, I openly challenge any bean counter. 

I adore Tupac, I grew up on NWA, and I played the Dookie album so many times over - I will never argue that all their contributions were unimportant to music history (to MUSIC HISTORY), but I will feed you knuckles and not feel the least bit guilty about it if you can honestly tell me they meant more to rock history as a whole than Boston has.

But if you want the #1 reason I am posting this rant? It’s this man right here. It’s Tom Scholz. Yes, he’s aloof as balls. Yes, he downplays his playing ability and his contribution more than anyone over the last several decades. Yes, he’s so humble as to never discredit anyone who has ever done anything at all or recorded anything on their Tascam 4-track in their mom’s basement. He’s a total goofball. He’s flakier than Kellogg’s. He’s your stereotypical rocker toolbox. 

But... he’s a genius. And I don't mean his engineering degree from MIT. He is a tone-chasing perfectionist. He was never satisfied with “ well enough”. I read an interview years ago where he was recording on tape and wanted to add something extra so on a whim he reached over and pushed on the spindle of the tape as it was recording and produced a tone bend that is not possible to play as it recorded. It was just a thing to him, but became something that virtuoso musicians have chased for decades and are still unable to reproduce on an instrument. Tom Sholz was never ok with ok. And THAT is what makes Boston incredible. Tom Sholz is a tone guru who was never satisfied with “what will sell albums”, which may have to do with why there was only six. You know, his all-time  record-setting one and the other five that weren’t just wet sneezes in a bandana but are somehow overly ignored. His music is precise, and exact, and technical, but that somehow falls within a “limited body of work”, despite the one and only one body of work as I’ve instanced here in an attempt to incite a riot being record-setting as fuck and blowing away almost all of history as recorded by mankind.

There are plenty of snubs when it comes to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but none are as heinous as leaving Boston out. Again. Still. What the crap, world. I openly hate all of you. This so wrong that the word wrong doesn’t even remotely begin to cover how wrong it is. Boston belongs in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.