#sometimes vivid ideas

[korrinhorizon]

WAIT I JUST HAD AN IDEA, an au of Sing, in which the characters, replace some characters from Steven Universe, like Steven is Buster Moon, and Eddie is Connie, Ash is amethyst, and etc!

[variousqueerthings]

I will stumble around the wider interwebs to copy a quote from a mash episode rather than go the extra step and skim through the episode in question and type it out, only to find myself wandered into horrifying strange lands where commenters will freely say that sometimes you hear the bullet is only so-so and that all the hawkeye episodes are the worst ones, about a series in which the only character to appear in every episode... is hawkeye

[denizenhardwick]

i love my job so much that i haven't even been thinking about how much i want to be thinking about the dream i had last night

[dallonwrites]

reblogs off bc i dont want to start Conversations based on other peoples posts but re the whole "who is in control you or the character" question, i find it SO interesting because it's by letting myself discovery write that I (for me personally disclaimer) found the perfect balance between intuition and intention. which to preface "intution" is the easiest way to describe how the inside of my writers brain feels bc often i just get vivid characters/stories/images/scenes with little control at first and i have to figure out what they mean. anyway discovery writing is what works for my brain to make intentional decisions because i need to be amidst a draft to get the Story Cogs working, whenever i try to outline before a draft it's always been just throwing things at a wall bc it feels too far away, but because im also using the discovery element to do that it's like. that's where i think the whole i feel like my characters reveal themselves to me comes from. because im always discovering small bits about them even if i've written them for years just but because discovery writing is also what prompts me to be intentional about writing as i write something it's like both are happening at the same time. so the whole "who's in control" it's like...i don't think control is the right word for me at all because its not Me or the Character it's me trying to understand the character to understand + then write my intentions. like neither me or the character are in the drivers seat because there's no car we are in the middle of the story forest and at first i won't know what it means at all except that it is a Story. and my character will start going one way and sometimes i'll follow and pay attention to where they're taking me to figure out if this is the right path/where to go next. and sometimes i'll figure out how to read the compass first and realise i need to drag their ass in another direction

[withheartsaligned]

remember me, love when i'm reborn as the shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn

[soft-spooks]

ok so i ran out of art energy so this is just. really awful sketch time but ohhhhmy god

[kamitv]

▷ Premature

Sypnosis . How they react to getting caught jerking off/How they jerk off when you’re not around. / Pairings . (Separate) Toji Fushiguro x f!reader, Geto Suguru x f!reader, Gojo Satoru x f!reader, & Nanami Kento x f!reader / Content . afab!reader, masturbation, pervertedness, praise, needy men, filth, dirty talk, non-curse au, degrading, established relationships etc. / wc . 5.5k

A/N: not proofread in the slightest— I apologize in advance for the errors. This is a mix of two requests; one from my lovely 👍anon; If it's not too much trouble, would you take a request for how JJK men jack it to reader? To a picture, their thoughts, or maybe reader asks them perhaps? & jjk men getting caught jerking off [MDNI]

★ Toji Fushiguro

He’s the kinda guy that you could never be on the phone with past midnight. Why? Cause’ suddenly his voice is getting deeper, his comments are growing more suggestive, and he’s got a hand wrapped around his cock as he gets off to the sound of your voice.

What the hell are you even talking about? He’s got no idea, all he knows is that your soft tone, laced with such a faint sleepiness to it, has his cock aching within his hand.

You wouldn’t even notice he’s jerking off for a while either, not until he groans out your name.

The sound makes your entire body freeze and all you can do is stare at your phone, tipping your head to the side curiously before you tap on your phone to bring the ongoing phone call to the forefront of your screen.

You’d get quiet and he’d get louder, grunting out an all too deep, “Fuck,” That has you smiling to yourself a little. Especially when you hear him grunting as if he were trying to keep his sounds in.

But, your moment of confidence only lasts until the deep baritone of his voice snaps you out of it, “Keep fuckin’ talkin’, doll,” Toji orders and god does he sound sexy like this.

There’s the faintest hint of need in his voice that has you biting your lower lip to hold back the toothy smile trying to present itself on your face. Gulping, “Toji…” You murmur, and your ears don’t miss how he sighs heavily.

On his end, he’s got his legs sprawled out and his head tosses back at the sound of you calling his name, “What?” He’d huff, almost as if what he’s doing hasn’t become rather obvious to you.

Your voice is suddenly closer to the phone and it makes Toji grunt, “You okay over there? Y’sound… busy,” You utter teasingly.

“Mmmh… mhm, m’fine, jus’-, hahh, keep… keep talkin’,” His long pauses and heavy exhales were making you squirm on your end. You could only imagine how he looked right now— big hand wrapped around his cock as he gave himself quick tugs to the sound of your voice.

You start to shift around in your bed and almost forget to respond as you listen closely. Turning your volume up, you could hear almost everything. His sounds became vivid, a messy noise of spit heard as Toji wets his cock up in ways he’s known you to, his hand jerking his dick in quicker pulls due to the slickness of his saliva and precum mixing together.

“Hahhh, fuck,” Toji pants and starts slowing his hand down just so he can speak properly, “Why’d y’stop talkin’? Hm?”

“I uh… I thought I heard something, sorry,” You hum as you fake cluelessness. “Anywho, what was I saying again? Do you remember?”

Ah, you’d decided to test him thinking he wasn’t paying attention at all to what you were discussing earlier. Jokes on you, Toji knows how to multitask (sometimes), “Uh, you were tellin’ me about your day or somethin’,” He hums casually.

“Riight,” You chuckle. An idea pops into your mind and you decide to use his lack of full attention to what you were previously discussing to your advantage, “Well, me and my friends went to this new sweet spot today.”

“Yeah? ‘Nd what else, doll?” Toji sounded so clearly occupied but he was trying his best to just get you to keep talking. Every word that left your lips went straight to his cock.

You grin, “Well, it was pretty hot today so I got lucky they had popsicles! The one I got was suuper big, could’ hardly fit it in my mouth,” You explain.

Was this story true? Not exactly, but when else do you get the opportunity to tease your boyfriend like this?

Toji’s eyes flicker as he processes what the hell you just said to him, his cock twitching at the thought of your lips parting to take something large into your mouth— you knew what the hell you were doing to him and he was starting to pick up on it.

Swallowing thickly, Toji hums, “Oh yeah? Reminds me of a couple of other things that can’t really fit in your mouth…”

“Hm? Like what, Toji?” You murmur innocently.

Your voice had softened by a lot and it drove him crazy. Such a clear false innocence laced into your question had the man picturing your expression. The way you’re probably sitting there with your eyes all wide and curious, batting those pretty lashes of yours like you don’t know what the hell you’re asking him.

Scoffing, “Don’t play dumb, y’know what the hell m’talkin’ about.” Toji drawls out, voice a bit rougher with you.

You ignore his little attitude and let out a giggle, “Do I?”

“Yeah, y’do,” Your boyfriend huffs. His breathing is noticeably heavier and little did you know, he had his head resting back and his eyes on the ceiling as he fisted his cock rapidly, slick sounds masked by his voice every time he spoke.

As if to make his state worse, your voice dips into something more sultry, “I’m really not sure Toji… What else is too big to fit in my mouth? Hm?” You hum.

“Fuck-,” Toji lets out a slight gasp, his breath stuttering for a moment before he grunts, “My cock, baby. Y’know this.”

The way he gave up on getting you to say it first has you smiling, “Mmmh, I dunno Toji,” God you were saying his name too much and it was making his balls ache, “I had your cock down my throat perfectly fine the other day if I recall correctly.”

“Filthy fuckin’ girl,” Toji abruptly rasps out, making you gulp as you felt a throb in your core, “Where’d y’learn to talk like that, huh?”

You snicker, “From my boyfriend who enjoys jerking off to the sound of my voice.”

And just like that, Toji can feel his orgasm approaching— damn you and your slick remarks, you only ever acted like this over the phone. You knew better in person but, he didn’t mind right now.

“Hahh, fuck you,” Toji fires back.

“You want to right now, don’t you?” You were getting confident all of a sudden and he groans before shutting his mouth just to listen to you speak. “Wanna feel my tongue on your cock, huh?”

His hand squeezes onto his cock and a strangled grunt leaves the back of his throat, “Shit-,” Toji’s haw drops a little, “Don’t stop talkin’, m’close.”

“Yeah? Gonna cum thinkin’ about fuckin’ my throat, right?” You murmur.

And he definitely was, it’s all he could think about right now. Especially with how bold you were being, how could he not picture you on your knees and taking his cock down your throat as he face fucks you just to teach you a lesson about talking to him like this?

Then you just kept going, “…Or jus’ from me talking? Y’like my voice that much, Toji?” You ask.

He’s on his end just nodding as his brows furrow— when the hell was he this damn needy for you? “Yes, fuck… fuckin’ hell, yes, I fuckin’ love your voice baby,” Toji tells you.

God you wish you could see him right now. You just know he’s sweating, cockhead angry and leaking at your every word, big thighs parted yet jittery as he gets closer and closer.

“C’mon then big guy, cum f’me so you can come over,” Suddenly your tone is aroused and Toji’s squeezing his eyes shut in frustration.

“S’late, doll,” He argues.

You tut, “Yeah well listenin’ to you jerk off turned me on so now you’ve gotta come over ‘nd deal with it.”

Some nerve you had. As if you wouldn’t be the one all teary eyed and pouty after a few kisses from him…

Yet, Toji’s not thinking about that right now, mindlessly agreeing just because he needs you right now and his hand is starting not to cut it anymore, “Hahhh, alright-, shit. Whatever the fuck you want, doll. I’ll be over in ten.”

You snicker, “Make it five.”

He swears you’ll be the death of him.

Scoffing, “Needy ass girl… agh… can’t wait ten minutes?”

“You couldn’t wait til’ I got off the phone to jerk off?” You argue.

He’s smirking despite the slight irritation that creeps up on him due to how bratty you were being, “…Shut up.”

You smile, “Come shut me up.”

“Oh I’m about to.”

★ Geto Suguru

Moaning your name as if that’ll cause your hand to be wrapped around his cock instead of your panties— Suguru uses your clothes to get off when you’re not around.

He doesn’t bother to call you or text you. It’s usually late when he gets like this so he just uses the lace panties you “accidentally” left over at his place.

Sometimes he’s got the fabric wrapped around his cock as he jerks off and other times he’s got it pressed up to his nose, inhaling what little of your scent he could get as his hips fuck into the O-shape he’s created with his hand. If he inhales strong enough, he swears he can still smell your pussy and that alone makes his eyes roll to the back of his head.

“Fuuuck,” Geto moans unashamed into the air. What’s he gotta hold his voice back for? Even if you were to ever catch him like this, he knows you’re just as much of a perv as he is.

His hand has a strong grip on his base as he gets himself off with your panties. Just thinking about how the fabric clung to your cunt for hours on end has his cock dripping pre onto the floor.

“Fuckin’ miss you, agh,” Suguru would groan thoughtlessly into the air, recalling the last time he had your pussy on his tongue, how sweet how tasted, how addicting you are.

Within said imagination, he doesn’t even realize he’s moving your panties to his mouth, his tongue seeping out and pressing into the fabric as if that’ll give him a taste of you again. Is it the same as sucking on your cunt til’ your legs are shaking? No, of course not. Does it make Geto’s hand milk the fuck out of his cock? Well, yes.

Light and faint whines slip past his lips, “Ha-ahh… taste so fuckin’ good, baby,” Geto groans like you’re right there with him.

Shit, he wants you on his tongue again. He can never get enough of it— the way your pussy sloshes all over his mouth every time he eats you out, how you whine his name and beg him for a break, or even the way you get greedy as your orgasm nears and you start bucking your hips against him.

Either way, it’s all he can think about right now. And it doesn’t get any better when his eyes open and looks down at himself, your panties clung tightly in between his teeth as he envisions you below him with a mouth wide and ready for him.

Oh the way you always take his cock down your throat never fails to make his eyes cross. You’d suck on him like your life depended on it, moaning against his shaft whenever he started thrusting into your mouth or whining when he forces your head down some more.

And he’s so close as he thinks about it more— picturing your wet lips parted around his flushed tip, drool slipping out the corner of your mouth, and your tongue slipping against him languidly-

“Suguru?” The sound of your voice makes him moan in surprise before he’s turning his head to look at you.

Even caught in the act, he only gets turned on even more. His brows tense and he pants heavily as his eyes meet yours, quickly noticing the way your gaze dropped down to his achingly hard cock.

You were supposed to be asleep out on his living room couch where he’d left you moments ago but yet, here you were— standing with your eyes all wide and curious, taking careful steps toward the man as you cross your arms, and giving him this look that drives him crazy.

You gulp loudly as you look up to your boyfriend’s face, “Are those my panties in your mouth?”

“M-Mmhm,” Geto hums with an impatient nod of his head.

Your lashes bat at the man before you find yourself standing right in front of him, placing but a single hand on his chest before taking the other and removing the lace from the man’s mouth.

“That’s filthy Sugu,” You whisper carefully.

The way his lips part and how his eyes lower on you, a groan slipping from him due to how close your body was and the way you’d touched him so softly. “Uhuh, I know, baby,” His voice has the faintest shake to it as he mumbles out an answer.

Smiling slightly, you keep your eyes directly up on his despite his hand not stopping on his cock for even a second, “You could’ve woken me up if you needed me, Suguru.” You utter.

He cracks a lazy grin for a moment, “I jus’ needed your panties.”

You frown and your brows tense a bit, “…Pervert.” You whisper, watching how his body twitches in reaction before he’s leaning his face down and closer to yours.

“Mhm,” Geto hums, “Yeahhh, tha’s me, princess. Keep tellin’ me how fuckin’ nasty I am.” Your boyfriend purrs, earning a wide eyed look from you as you gaze up at him in surprise.

You comply, trailing a single finger down along his chest as you tip your head to the side and speak, “You’re filthy Sugu, gettin’ off with my panties… Bet you wanted to get caught like this too.”

“Maybe,” Geto tells you with that awfully cocky grin on his face, “But you’re not any better. I caught you fingerin’ yourself to my voice last week.”

You gulp, “T-That was…”

He’s leaning down past your face and you flinch as his lips make sudden contact with your neck, “Different, huh?” He rasps out, hot breath tickling the side of your neck.

Tense, your hand stops moving along his body and you angle yourself to look down at how aggressively he’s fisting his cock right now, “Yeah…” You murmur, completely distracted by the sight below you.

His hand got faster on his cock, quicker tugs made the longer you stared down at him and cum leaking from his tip as he grunted against your neck.

“Sure it was,” Geto whispers, but his voice is a lot lighter than you expected it to be. “Now are you gonna just stand here and watch me jerk off or are y’gonna get on your knees ‘nd take care of me?” He asks, lifting his face a little to kiss the space below your ear.

You unconsciously lick your lips the longer you stare down at his cock, watching him drip onto the floor and make the slightest mess before you chuckle, “That’s no way to ask, Sugu.”

He scoffs against you but you don’t miss the quietest whine leaving his throat before he speaks, “Funny cause I wasn’t fuckin’ askin’.”

“Oh?” You snicker at your boyfriend before turning your head to meet his gaze, “You’re mean when you get caught in the act…”

He stares you down and resists every neuron in his body that’s telling him to press his lips into yours, “Am I?”

“Mhm, as if you’re not embarrassed,” You tease. God you were driving him crazy— looking at him so longingly, your lips nearly on his, your body warm with how close you were to him and your hand low and near his cock.

Fuck, one more touch from you and he’d be cumming in seconds. “I’m not.” Geto replies to you.

You pull your lower lip into your mouth for a second and his gaze drops, “You sure? Y’know how long I was watchin’ you before I said something?”

“Fuck, how long baby?” He practically mumbles. He needed your touch so badly, you were too close to not be all over him right now and his restraint was waning by the second.

“A few minutes, saw you puttin’ my panties to your nose ‘nd everything,” As you speak, your hands are lifting and his eyes are widening.

Your arms wrap around his neck and he’s forced to stop his hand on his cock before he blows his load too soon, “Yeah?” He breathes.

You nod and inch closer, “Mhm.”

“Bet that got you all hot ‘nd bothered, huh?” Geto whispers, cocking his head to the side before placing a hand to your waist and holding you tenderly, “That’s why you said somethin’ right? Cause y’like watchin’ me like this?”

Your eyes were on his lips now and you’d half-heard everything he just said, shrugging out a little, “Maybe…” In response before your lips are finally on his.

Geto can’t even control the groan that pours out of him while his lips move over yours, tongue slotting into your mouth and hand squeezing onto your waist as if to tell you not to move.

The kiss doesn’t even last that long before he’s letting out a whine as his cockhead brushes against your body, “Fuck-, enough of this teasin’, I need you princess.”

★ Gojo Satoru

You were going to take it upon yourself to ask your husband how he jerks off when you’re not around but instead of answering your text with an explanation like a normal person— he sends you a video.

Unfiltered, less than a second after clicking on the video, you’re met with his glistening cock on your screen. Slicked with spit and precum trailing along his veins, a pretty pink tip twitching for some attention, and a bright flash from his cellphone giving you the perfect view of his lower half.

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t squeeze your legs together as soon as you started the video. Then there’s his voice that you hear about five seconds in.

“Wanted to see how I jerk off, huh? Dirty girl,” Oh his tone was low with you, the sound filling your ears as you bat your lashes and gulped. Thank god for your headphones, despite being home alone, because you could hear every little sound. “You’re lucky I was already in the middle of it when you texted, y’know.”

Although he can’t hear you, you scoff, “Slut.”

“Got’ this hard thinkin’ about you,” Gojo whispers suddenly, his slender fingers wrapping around his cock carefully, “I miss you, pretty girl,” His words and the way he’s slowly touching himself for you has your body hot and it’s only been a few seconds.

Pulling your bottom lip in between your teeth, your eyes narrow on his hand— how tenderly it slides up and up until he reaches his tip, the way his thumb runs in between the slit of his cockhead and he lets out a hiss.

Then his hand lowers and the sound that follows is so wet, “Fuuck, I wish it was you touchin’ me right now. You always make me feel s’good,” Gojo pants unintentionally, “Miss your lips on me too. How long’s it been? A week? Fuckin’ hate leavin’ you for work…”

You chuckle lightly at his moment of rambling but the way his hand picks up in speed ever so slightly has your smile fading and your focus returning. Sometimes you wonder how he even fits inside you— his cock is so long and from his base to his tip, he looks like he’d split you open (he does).

Your thighs are squeezing together again and you’re starting to miss him the more you watch, the vivid and deep sound of Gojo humming your name causing a chill to slip down your spine.

And you swear you were about to get to the best part of the video he’s sent because his hand was moving at a quickened pace but you’re interrupted by an incoming video call from the man in question.

You practically jump out of your skin due to your ringtone before you scramble to answer it.

Batting your eyelashes as the call connects, you swallow hard, “H-Hello-“

“Knowin’ you’re watchin’ that video isn’t enough f’me,” Gojo huffs out— now he’s got the camera propped up for you and you can see most of his body.

His shirt is long gone, same with his sweats, his legs are spread far and wide, hard and throbbing cock standing straight up as his hand tugs at it in needy little pulls. Gojo’s got his head tossed back and you have the clearest view of his sweaty Adam’s apple, a slip of sweat sliding down along his chest.

He’s panting like crazy and his hand is fucking his cock much more aggressively than he was in that video you’d been watching, “Show me somethin’ baby, I fuckin’ need you,” Gojo huffs impatiently as he shifts his head back into place to meet your gaze on his screen.

You gulp, “S-Satoru, I-“

“Please?” He whines so suddenly and it has your pussy throbbing, especially with how he lifts his hips into his hand because of simply looking at your face, “Wanna see somethin’ pretty, show me your pussy, please?”

It's almost embarrassing how fast you move for your needy husband, going to prop your own phone up similar to how he’s done his and then discarding your clothes in a heartbeat.

“Spread yourself apart f’me, baby,” Gojo groans out his instructions and you’re following his every word— parting your legs wider and moving two finds to your cunt to spread your pussy apart for him.

“Mmh, like this, ‘Toru?” You utter with a slightly shaky hand and an embarrassed expression.

You see the way Gojo’s jaw sinks a little and how his brows furrow as he fists his cock faster, almost eagerly, “Juus’ like that, sweetheart-, fuck. I miss bein’ inside you,” Gojo says before tilting his head to really study your cunt, “Look how wet y’re f’me ‘nd I’m not even there, shit.”

You’ve got your pointer and ring finger holding your cunt open and you shift your middle finger to give yourself the slightest bit of relief, “It’s cause of your video..”

“Yeah?” Gojo smiles, “Y’liked watchin’ me jerk off?”

His hand slows, palm steadily traveling down along his shaft as a whine leaves him. Your pretty pussy on full display for him and making his balls twitch. He wanted to be fucking you full of him so badly.

“Uhuh,” Your softer tone hits his ears and Gojo grunts.

“Shiiit,” He breathes out before biting his bottom lip. He’d started to drool without even realizing it and his cock was dripping in cum already, “Look at that pussy leak f’me-, holy fuck.” Your husband moans, “My voice get you like this too?”

You’ve started to tease yourself with merely one finger and you can’t move your eyes away from his needy cock, “M-Mhm…” You hum.

“Aww, baby…” Gojo coos. Then you were slipping two fingers into yourself and trying your best to get off along with him, “Look at your fingers tryin’ t’please you like how I do,” He cracks a smile, “Doesn’t feel the same, does it?”

Shaking your head, “N-No, ‘Toru. I need you.”

“Hahh, need you too baby,” Gojo moans, hand picking back up. The faintest plp plp plp followed his movements as bits of cum dripped from his cockhead and onto the floor, “Look at how fuckin’ hard I am cause of you.” He huffs just before glancing down to himself.

Ah, he was making a mess but he was a bit too dazed with arousal to pay any mind to it right now.

You bite your lip and hum before tipping your head back and shutting your eyes, “Mmmh…”

“M’gonna get home and fuck you til’ we both pass out, I swear.” Gojo huffs. His voice is airy and his hand is getting a bit messy now.

Your lips part and you exhale heavily, “Can’t wait.”

“Yeah? Y’can’t wait huh?” Your husband grunts, practically fucking his cock up into his hand at this point, “Maybe I’ll get ya' pregnant so I have an excuse not t’leave you like this.”

Your legs start to close a little and you moan, “Satoru, m-mgh…”

“Fuck, m’gonna cum,” He groans pornographically into the air, “Wish I was cummin’ inside you, fuckin’ you nice ‘nd full, watchin’ you make a mess on me-, hahh… agh…” His lips quiver a bit as he gets close and he’s panting so hard that the camera is starting to fog up a little.

“T-Toru,” You whine for him— missing him oh so desperately now that you’re nearing your own orgasm.

“Yeah, mhm, m’here baby,” Gojo chants, breath heavy and hand jolting up and down his cock fervently, “C’mon, cum with me. You can do it f’me pretty girl.”

You’re nodding, he’s nodding— both of you are getting there together and whining each other’s names. Gojo’s veins are popping up on his hand with how tightly his gripping onto his cock and his mouth hangs open, eyelids heavy and vision blurring while he moans your name.

“Miss you so fuckin’ much,” Gojo groans finally before he glances to his phone to see you releasing all over your fingers— the sight leads him to cum right then and there with his kegs trembling slightly.

Fuck, he needed to get home soon.

★ Nanami Kento

You were surprised to walk in on your boss jerking off.

“Oh fuck,” Echoed into the air, his voice thick with lust as he hadn’t even noticed you’d entered his office yet.

With the way his desk was, you could see everything. His muscular thighs parted like a damn slut, cock barely tugged out of his slacks, big veiny hand working to bring himself to an orgasm.

Truth be told, it’s your fault he’s like this— his cute lil’ assistant, walking around in those tight ass skirts he’s asked you not to wear thousands of times over again. And yet you do it anyway. Maybe because you know where it gets you with your boss or maybe because you wanted a situation exactly like this.

Sure, he’s your boss but he’s also the same man that fucks you til’ you can’t walk straight whenever you request him to do so.

But this? Well, you’ve never been so aroused by walking in on a man pleasing himself before. It had to be his deep groans of your name or even the size of his cock and how it exceeded the size of his hand, how you could picture your own hands around it and how you know your hands would be so pale in comparison.

Nanami’s got his eyes shut and he’s huffing and puffing through his nose, chest rising and falling rapidly the more he stokes his cock. All he can think about is you and the way you bent over in front of him less than thirty minutes ago.

He had half a mind to call you into his office and tell you to bend over his desk the same way— thinking of fucking your tight cunt til’ you’re making too much noise and he has to shove two thick fingers in your mouth to shut you up.

“Fuuck,” It’s rare you even hear him curse so to hear his mouth so vulgar now has you swallowing hard before you lock his office door with a slight click following.

His eyes bat open and he doesn’t bother stopping because he already knew it was you who’d walked in, you’re the only one who does so without knocking.

“Sir?” You utter gently, making his face twist up in arousal.

“Here, now.” Is all he can grunt out to you.

You’re moving toward him obediently with your panties soaking the closer you get. “Mr.-“

“Kento,“ He utters, “Please, fuck-, just… hahh, say my name, sweetheart.”

“Kento,” You correct in a sultry tone, “I didn’t know you were… occupied in here. What if someone else walked in-“

Nanami rolls his eyes at you and then lets off a scoff, “No one but you would,” He huffs, “Now get on my desk.”

You freeze as you find yourself standing right beside his desk, “What?”

“Don’t make me repeat myself-, just…” He trails off a little once his eyes meet yours and you watch his lashes flutter while his brows pinch together, “Oh fuck, I need… hah, fuuck.”

You chew on your bottom lip before smirking and stepping past his desk, closer to him, “Need what, Ken? Get it out…” You whisper.

“Damn vixen,” Nanami groans as he tosses his head back.

Glancing down at his cock, you watch as his tip grows a bit white— cum peeping out from his fat cockhead and making you swallow thickly.

You then look back up to his face and start leaning down, placing your hands on the armrests of his chair to keep yourself up before uttering, “Do you want me to touch you?”

His response is instant, “God, yes.”

“How?” You murmur with a smirk, shifting your legs so that they straddle one of his, “How do you want me to touch you?”

Nanami opens his eyes and yet again and he grunts at how ridiculously close you are to him, “Anywhere.”

You tease, “Anywhere?”

“Yes, hurry up,” Nanami pleads. His voice nearly went desperate for you and you swore you heard something needy underlining in his tone.

Playing off of that, “Needy are we?” You comment before seating yourself on his thigh.

“Yes,” He gulps and begins to stammer while your arms wrap around his neck, “J-Just-“

Oh he can’t even finish his request before your lips are pressing into his neck and he’s groaning loudly. Cock aching for you whilst your lips move along his tensed skin. Each kiss from you earned groan after groan from him, the sound vibrating against his throat and his hand squeezing his cock tighter.

“Fuck,” Nanami curses yet again as you kiss below his sharp jawline.

“You’re one naughty man, y’know. Did you want me to catch you like this?” You murmur against his warm skin, feeling the way he tenses up to your voice.

Nodding and humming a carefully little, “Mhm,” In response, Nanami’s completely at your mercy now, silently begging for you to continue down the path you’re on.

You smile and glance down to his hand still working his cock, cunt clenching around nothing the longer you stare, “Ken…”

“Y-Yes?” He stutters a bit and mentally curses himself for it— he knows you’ll tease him more about it later.

Planting another kiss beneath his jaw, you chuckle, “You’re drippin’ onto the floor,” You utter so seductively that he just groans and throws his head back again. “Makin’ suuch a big mess all because of… what? Hm?”

“You,” He huffs, “You and that… that fucking skirt,” Nanami says through gritted teeth.

“Well,” You whisper with a slight smile still on your face, “If you have a problem with it you can always take it off of me.”

His free hand is gripping onto your waist faster than you have time to react and you let out a slight noise in surprise. Nanami’s lifting his head and angling himself to your neck, lips latching onto you as he lets out a groan like a man starved.

“Yeah?” He hushes out.

Then he’s pushing you back slightly and releasing his cock, both of you soon shoved to your feet with how quick and swift his movements are. He has you stumbling backwards until you bump into his desk and then there’s a hand grabbing at the side of your neck, tugging you into a deep kiss.

It’s hot and heavy, even as he pulls away from you and pants, lifting a thumb to drag your lower lip down, “Lay back and spread your legs for me then,” Nanami murmurs in that deep tone of his.

You gulp, “Sir, I-“

He cuts you off by slipping his thumb into your mouth, “You said I could get that skirt off of you. Don’t go back on your word and do as I said.”

Gazing at him for a singular moment longer, you lift yourself onto his desk and start parting your legs for the man. His thumb leaves your mouth and his finger is slightly wet as he places his palms to your thighs, slipping his grasp up to your hips and beneath that skirt of yours.

The fabric starts bundling up at you hips and you let out a sigh as you lean your upper half back.

Then, Nanami moves to tug at his tie and sends you a look of warning, “And don’t be too loud like last time… You don’t want others to hear how much of a slut you are behind closed doors, right?”

You release a scoff, “Says the man who was jerking off in his office.”

He freezes before smiling slightly, “Touché.”

[chocmoon-latte]

All of these OC ideas are GOLD. Think you can come up with some stories and or voicelines for them? Especially the fic writer and super mutant comedian, if possible.

You're in luck, because I had actually already started writing down some descriptions for them. They were extremely brief initially, but since you asked, I decided to extend on them and add some quotes, just to get a better feel of the characters.

Ryder Warren - Eccentric raider

Ryder always knew he was destined for great, whatever the definition of it may be. A happy-go-lucky and seemingly sweet guy, it's hard to imagine that he was ever a raider. He initially joined up a local group after coming across a poorly written flyer headlining "raiders wanted" and mistook the word "raider" as a misspelling of his own name. Ryder saw this as a sign of his destiny, thus furthering his own perceived greatness, and he joined immediately.

Ryder is agile, great with close combat weapons, and a skilled technician. There's just one little quirk of his that sets him apart from the rest though - he talks to animals. Not in the "aww, aren't you cute" kinda way either. No. He full on converses with them. You see, Ryder has a very special ability - or so he claims to. He believes he's like an animal psychic of the sorts and that he can translate even the smallest noise from a creature into intelligible language.

Although humorous at first, the schtick got old quickly with the raider gang, who have recently decided to send him out on a "great and epic quest" alone through the wastes.

Quotes:

"People think I take too many chems, but I ain't even seen a chem before! Do you have ANY IDEA what Mr. Mittens would say if such a thing were true?!"

"Hold up! I'm getting an incoming message from this deathclaw. He's saying… oh my god! Why would you say that? That's HORRIBLE!"

"Did you know if a dog jumps up and down three times, spins around and then barks, it's a sign of distress. What do you mean I made that up? That's completely factual!"

"Yeah, I'm on a quest of epic proportions. That's what you get when you're a super cool guy like me."

Ghastly - Edgy ghoul

Ghastly is younger than most ghouls but has still progressed past the average human lifespan. He mostly keeps to himself but can often be found purposefully throwing himself into extreme and dangerous situations in an attempt to get his kicks. More often than not, he's unsatisfied with life. Not because he hates it, but because he's "already seen it all", and according to him "a ghoul gets bored at some point".

So what's a ghoul to do? Ghastly's current interests are set on doing the wildest, most thrilling thing a ghoul can do - go feral. Regardless of what those around him say. In his mind, it's the next step towards killing dullness and the occasional seasonal depression. However, some people have speculated that he's just wanting an excuse to be violent without fully taking the blame for his actions.

Quotes:

"Ryder tried to set me up on a date with a mole rat once. Took me about 45 minutes before I could explain to him why that was a bad idea."

"There's a certain kinda joy you get outta drinking a rat poison, snake venom cocktail that a human just wouldn't understand."

"Every few years, I like to switch up my moral code to keep things interesting. Spice things up, if you will."

"If god's real, then why'd he remove all my sick tattoos in the ghoulfication process?"

Mr. Shady - Suspicious robot

Mr. Shady is a unique Mr. Handy unit that was designed with the task of espionage in mind. His personality is a combination of hundreds of hours of being trained on spy movies, as well as his modified core programming. He spends a lot of his time quite literally hiding amongst the shadows and handing out weird notes to people in secret.

Mr. Shady has a bad habit of giving out veiled threats towards people, regardless of if they're good, bad, young or old. Even if you're on his side and he's on yours, expect regular disturbing messages from him.

Quotes:

"The names Mr. Shady, but my friends call me Shades. Too bad they all died under mysterious circumstances…"

"If you ever feel lonely, just know I'm always watching… with all three eyes."

"No matter how far away you are, I'm always thinking about you and all the unfortunate things that could potentially happen to you in a less than hundred-meter radius while your back is turned."

Humor Bone - Super mutant stand-up comedian

There's two things Humor Bone loves more than anything else in the world - funny jokes and humans dying. So he combined the two in his life long pursuit of happiness, laughter and death. If there is a stage, he is on it every chance he gets.

Humor Bone believes it's his overwhelming charisma and sense of humor that makes him so likable and compels whatever bar or restaurant that is open to let him perform. Reality is though, people are just too afraid of him to say no. Especially when the punchline of the jokes are always about some guy brutally dying. Everyone's too scared to tell him to get off the stage or move him from the premises, so people around him are always stuck listening in horror at whatever kind of joke he comes up with next.

Quotes:

"Why the long face? Just think about humans exploding in the sun! That always makes Humor Bone feel better!"

"Why did the human cross the road..? HE DIDN'T! HE WAS SMASHED BY CAR!!! HAHAHAHA!"

"Humor Bone needs new material, but killing would be bad publicity stunt. Unless…"

Addie Jaxon - Anxious author

Born and raised in NCR territory, Addie left to pursue her lifelong dream of being an author, though she refuses to ever show anyone what she writes unless it's selling material. Rumour has it she went AWOL after a couple of her close friends in the republic came across one of the stories she wrote about a forbidden love between a human and a ghoul and it's haunted her ever since, so much so that she's cut ties from everyone altogether.

She goes by the pen name "AJ" and sells personalized poems and short stories to people on her travels, each of which are beautifully written, but her real passions lie within the sappy love stories she hides in her book underneath her pillow every night.

Quotes:

"Does no one care about art anymore? Or the little things in life? Because I do! Like... a lot."

"Hey, don't touch my books! They're full of REALLY boring stuff. Like uh… science and math homework and… Oh. Right. I'm an adult and I never went to school."

"I wish MY life was like a forbidden, tragic love story! Ok, that's a lie. But hey, in theory I do."

"I really need to put myself out there if I wanna make a living out of what I do, but I'm worried about how many people would be able to trace me back to... that time."

The Codney Brothers - Creepy cowboy duo

Rodney and Todd Codney are identical twin brothers who insist on being together at all times and often speak in riddles, sometimes finishing each other's sentences. A lot of what they say is nonsensical and often has little to no relation to the conversation at hand. What's worse that is their constant unnatural smiles on their faces. What do they know? Do they have something sinister planned? A dark past? Or are they just like that for shits and giggles?

Quotes:

"We're Rod and Todd. The Codney brothers. Just like the cod fish. And a knee. What a peculiar sight."

"What has hands but can't clap?"

"A cowboy rode into town on Friday. Two days later he left on Friday. How odd indeed."

EDIT: Forgot to add in the last pair! I'm so tired today.

[i-am-just-a-skeleton]

y'all ever get just completely deranged thoughts like "there is a snake crawling in and out of the skin and flesh on your neck through holes that magically open and close as it passes" and you're like "what the FUCK are you talking about brain" but for at least a couple seconds you can feel it like it's really happening even though you know it's not

[manyothermusingsofmine]

beginning to genuinely believe I might have aphantasia because if you tell me to imagine an apple there's nothing. Nothing visual just the general ~vibe~ of an apple

But that does not explain the outrageously visual and detailed dreams I have like is that what some of you see when youre told to imagine an apple?

[homunculus-argument]

Melatonin sleep went well, but I had a dream there was some online text-based horror game where you clicked different options you had on the screen, as one does. The game consisted of mildly glowing white text on a black background, and the horror of the game was a ghoul that can't be stopped, but it can only see in the dark. So if you can locate yourself into a place that's illuminated, it either won't see that you're there, or will stumble blindly to get you if it knows that you're there.

And despite of the rest of the game being 100% text-based, sometimes the ghoul would appear on the background - with no warning or any other alert that it's there. You just have to constantly be on guard, always wary and on the lookout for it. If it touches your cursor, you die and lose the game. The game doesn't tell you that, you have to die to it a few times to figure out your mouse can dodge it. But the only way to hide from it is to put your cursor over the text - the text is white and glowy while the background is black darkness, your cursor is safe from the ghoul there because the ghoul can no longer see it.

I have no idea how computers work or if a game mechanic like this could be executed in the real world at all, but that game concept was something that came to me in a dream and was still so vivid when I woke up that I needed to illustrate it.

[headspace-hotel]

Symbiosis isn't just mutualism. Parasitism is symbiosis. It's uncomfortable to confront parasitic relationships if you want to see your human ideas of good and bad reflected in Nature.

But gazing into something huge and utterly Other, being uncomfortable means you're engaging your mind with it. "Uncomfortable" is actually a whole spectrum of emotions that become a vivid and satisfying rainbow.

There was a post a while back with some artwork of Dendrogaster, a crustacean that parasitizes starfish, and its body is like this branching fractal of fleshy lobes made to fit inside the body of the starfish mirroring its structure, and I was absolutely horrified to look at this, and this horror was the same emotion as a strangely visceral wave of sympathy for this parasite.

Creative works about parasites often invoke the horror of bodily invasion, which is visceral and strong for me, but this artwork inverted that horror, instead showing the horror of being made so perfectly for fitting within someone else that you lose everything you are and become unrecognizable.

I also think of the post about the cowbird chick. It's awful that the bird pushes its siblings out of the nest as it grows, and the mama feeds it because she instinctively must feed her chick, but the cowbird is just a baby. Was it wrong for him to hatch, to be alive, to be hungry, to be a baby and to need love?

Symbiosis is intensely beautiful, and sometimes it's beautiful because it's grotesque and terrible. Of course, the symbiosis between two organisms isn't an allegory for a relationship, it just is a relationship, but looking at the way organisms become entwined feels like you're seeing things that, if words described them, would also be human experiences.

Being invaded by a parasite is a horror of powerlessness and loss of autonomy, but being a parasite is also defined by powerlessness. In many cases, the parasite will die without the host, but the host can live without the parasite. I wonder why it is expected to sympathize with one and not the other.

Your immune system fights against internal parasites like a tapeworm...Imagine being a tapeworm. The body of your host is your universe. Do you find your world to be kind? Benevolent? Does your god love you?

Sometimes people call disabled people "parasites." When I think about my future sometimes I'm uncertain and afraid.

But when a rare non-photosynthetic orchid blooms in the forest, this is not the forest's weakness and failure, but its crowning glory.

[sunnami]

❝watch me, don't touch me, love me, don't hurt me.❞

[title is from ive's accendio. gif not mine.] summary. you are the fop of the wizarding society, known for your shallowness and careless display of wealth, but as hogwarts faces another threat, the marauders and lily, find themselves drawn to you and the secrets hidden under your facade. (harry just wants to know what is going on.)

pairing/s. marauders x reader. (james potter/lily evans/remus lupin/sirius black/reader.)

wc. 24.1k.

tags. enemies to lovers, angst, hurt but the comfort is later, fluff(ish), i try slow burn for the first time (it hurts.), this is highly self-indulgent idgaf, set during goblet of fire but i decide what goes, voldemort isn't the only character who can revive from the dead, BITCH. OH, LMAO I FORGOT, THIS IS FOR THE DILF AND MILF LOVERS SDKJFHSF they're married, but remus and sirius keep their name for legal and plot reasons. adult marauders and adult reader! and i was careful this time to not use any specific pronouns or gendered terms so everyone can enjoy the pain!! every1 is hurting 2nite. proofread kind of, so we die like. . . harry potter?

cws. here we go... canon-typical violence, vivid description of injuries, pain, and blood, emotional abuse, trauma, self-destructive tendencies, minor character death (non-canon), pureblood society practices, voldemort is his own warning, brief mention of war, brief scene with abducted children, panic attacks, depictions of mental illness, suic!dal thoughts, bellatrix lestrange is also her own warning, morally-grey reader.

a/n: this is inspired by my most favorite finnick odair fic EVER! obviously, i won't ever reach that level of greatness, but i've had this idea in my head ever since i read that story. sometimes, i just want to cry at night to feel something, LMFAO. halfway through writing this story, i got insecure, so thank you to this eye-opening comment on reddit that i found that will forever change how i look at reader inserts: “for me, a reader should be faceless, but not soulless.”

to my dearest friends and readers, i hope you enjoy this world that i've written for you ueueue. (the next and final part is fluffier, i promise.) will upload to ao3 soon!

act i. dear god, please save the little man.

“RITA, DARLING, do get your wretched little quill for this one. I heard from a wee birdie that Vittoria Zabini was spotted in Rome, and not just wearing last season’s designer collection, but on her honeymoon, of all things! Can you believe it, dearest? If I remember correctly, this must be husband number five now.”

Like a wingless canary in a gilded cage, you are forced once again to sing for red-lipped witches and their grating laughter, and for wizards with their fat bellies, graying hair, and leering eyes. How kind of Narcissa Malfoy to host these decrepit creatures in her manor garden—and thrust the role of main attraction onto you. There you are, lonesome badger, dressed in the finest tulle for everyone to ogle at. A ballerina in a music box, turning, and turning, and turning.

(When will your cursed lullaby finally end?)

Isadora Bulstrode cackles. “Gold-digging wench must be at it again.”

As predicted, Rita Skeeter greedily whips out her Quick-Quotes Quill. The bloodthirsty journalist preys hungrily at your every word—and you’re more than willing to satiate the irritable, little pest. “Riveting.” She pushes her glasses upwards with a quirk of her lips. “We may have tomorrow’s front page in our hands.” 

Lavinia Nott brings the teacup to her mouth, her gaze slicing towards you. “Do tell us more. Where ever do you get your information from?”

You hide a coy smile behind the fine porcelain. “Why, Lavinia dearest, if I reveal my secret now, I might have to kill you!” The drove of ladies giggle amongst themselves as Lavinia sips her tea impassively. You play these people like a fiddle, and they’re none the wiser. But even vile women have to play their parts in the cruel world forged by mad men. Yours happens to be the most ill-fated of them all. 

“A shame you decided not to pursue the same path as your mother, but that is alright—not every one is fit to work.” The Selwyn matron raises her brow, offering you a tight-lipped smirk.

“Oh, Elinor, my love, I’m surprised you’d even suggest such a horrible thing!” Your grin grows wicked and wider. You know perfectly what the wizarding society thinks of you: the orphaned heir, the shallow socialite who only cares for gallivanting about in pureblooded extravaganzas. A status you’ve so carefully fashioned; utterly beloved and adored by these people, flowers falling at your feet with so much as a whisper from your lips. 

Your gaze drifts to a familiar crowd of people to the side. It’s the pack of lions and The-Boy-Who-Lived. There they are, the marauding bunch and their displays of loyalty and whatnot; hideously coordinated outfits, but capturing the world’s attention constantly and effortlessly. 

How repulsive.

In spite of that, you are intrigued. They are the section that plays out of tune in the orchestra you have been conducting for years.

And so you bid your goodbyes to the witches; they fawn and beg for you to stay for an hour more. You pout your lips and say with faux sympathy, hand flying to your chest.  “Oh, don’t worry, my dears! I’ll be back soon enough after greeting some of the other guests. You lovely ladies might tire of me if I stay for too long.”

Melina Traverse brushes you off. “We could never! You know you’re like family to us, pet!”

With a delighted gasp, you say, “Don’t tell Narcissa, but you’ve always been my favorite Slytherin.” The venom flows endlessly from your lips. You owe your life to only a handful of people. Narcissa Malfoy, who raised you when your mother no longer could, is one of them. Finally, you’re able to sneak away from their freshly manicured talons as they tittle-tattle amongst themselves.

Once your back is turned to the rest of them, you roll your eyes until your head begins hurting. 

What a bunch of insufferable fools. 

Still, the show curtains are wide open and the sun is yet to set. You have another audience that is awaiting your next number. 

“Oh, my, my, my! Is it truly the Chosen One in our midst?” You approach the horrid family of Gryffindors—nearly doubling over in laughter at the speed with which their faces fall at the sight of you. How refreshing, you think to yourself. It’s been so long since you’ve seen people who wore their hearts on their sleeves. “Cissa and I didn’t think you’d even respond to our invitation—but this is just brilliant! Lily, darling! How long has it been? That dress looks utterly divine! Is that Charmeuse silk? The purple simply brings out the color in your eyes! And your skin, my love! Just glowing! Tell me—have you been trying those snail facials? I hear they’re all the rage nowadays.”

Sirius grimaces, cheeks turning ashen. “Bloody hell, I’m going to need a drink for this. A strong one, too.” 

“You’re at a garden party, Sirius darling,” you remind in jest, flamboyantly motioning to the grazing table. “The elves are serving Darjeeling, jasmine, chamomile, berry blends, spiced orange, silver needle, and my personal favorite, chocolate mint!” There are strings of lights wrapped around the tree branches; floating lanterns and the hydrangeas creeping on the stone walls. You put a hand over your heart, smiling knavishly. “From the Malfoy family, to yours, we sincerely hope you enjoy your brunch.” 

Lily deeply inhales as she intertwines her fingers with James’s, a polite smile on her face—an odd pang in your heart at the show of solidarity. (She questions how sincere can a Malfoy really be.) “Y-Yes, well, it’s so good to see you, too. We’re grateful for the invitation, especially since it’s for a rather honorable cause.” 

Ah, pure-hearted creatures really do get on your nerves. Lion hearts; words dripping in honey, limitless bravado. You’ve changed your mind, you’re sick of it all. A flash of vindictive glee crosses your face as you abruptly grab her hand, wrenching it away from her husband’s. “We just knew you’d see it that way! You probably see yourself in those Muggle children, eh?”

Lily recoils, as if struck by hot iron, shoulders tensing; slowly, she peels away her hand from yours, long lashes blinking away her shock.  “You and Narcissa must be raising a lot of money, then.” She eyes the marble fountain adorned in white roses, the harmonizing gnomes nearby, self-playing harps, and the scrutinizing stares from afar. “I never knew you cared so much about Muggle children.”

“Well, I suppose it must be done for all the pudgy-cheeked brats in the world,” You callously wave away her words with a sigh. Unbeknownst to most, all the charity proceeds come from your own Gringotts account. That is the one real thing left in your miserable life.  “As staff at Hogwarts, the children must come first, wouldn’t you agree, Lily flower?”

“Quite,” replies Lily, lips firmly pursed.

James enters the fray, hand snaking around Lily’s waist; jaw taut, seeming to regret ever entering the snake den. “Have you met our son, Harry, already?” He turns to the fourteen-year-old at his left side, gently patting Harry’s back with a crooked smile. “Haz, this is an old classmate of ours.” James gestures to you, and you offer the Potter spawn an amused smile as he blinks owlishly at you. The poor thing has gone frigid from the wintry cold, despite the summer sun overhead and blooming coneflowers; and you wonder if he must have run into Draco and Lucius before coming to the garden.

So this is the child the Dark Lord failed to kill, you muse. You only wish that you could have seen that monster fall to the ground lifelessly, defeated by an infant and his courageous parents. How fitting for men like Lucius Malfoy to follow in his footsteps; the blind leading the blind. Your grin stretches from ear to ear as you take his hand in yours. Clearly, he’s never held a girl’s hand before, as he limply shakes your hand, awkwardly spluttering his greetings. “What an honor it is to finally meet the savior of the wizarding world.” 

“Why, you look just like James when he was younger, always strutting around the corridors.” Your eyes drift to the lightning scar on his forehead, a testament to his and Lily’s survival against the killing curse. “And such clear-cut emerald eyes; truly your mother’s son. Tell me, Harry dearest, you must be quite the heartbreaker at Hogwarts.”

His doe-eyes harden, and your brow quirks in curiosity. (So the littlest lion can growl, after all.) “Oh. . . not really.” His hand hangs back at his side, fists coiling. The robins chirp merrily as they fly by, his parents carefully watching the scene unfold; water endlessly splashing in the fountain. Harry’s voice deepens as he continues, “I couldn’t be. My friends and I barely have time for anything else. There always seems to be something going on at the castle, apparently.”  

“How interesting—Elsie!” You bark at the quivering house elf as Harry stumbles on his words. “Get Mister Potter and his company a plate of macarons—serve them our finest tea, as well.” 

Harry winces as the elf apparates at once. “There’s r-really no need for—”

Your gaze, sharp as a knife, slices to him, as the corners of your painted lips bend contemptuously. “Have you heard the news, dearheart?”

Harry looks to his father before shrugging. “I don’t think so.”

“If Mister Lupin here has so graciously informed you,” you begin tantalizingly, eyes cutting to the rugged werewolf at Lily’s side; his back stiffening at the mention of his name, “Otherwise, keep this between you and me, Harry darling. Hogwarts will be hosting a rather important event this year—and I do love a good party—so you must have noticed the rise in appearances from the Ministry.” You gesture to the top Aurors at the DMLE towering over Harry, Sirius and James. “More than that,” you continue with a sly cant to your voice. “There will be a few new additions to Hogwarts’ staff. Among them, of course—is yours truly!”

“And to do what, exactly?” Sirius blurts out incredulously.

“Be a teacher, of course!” you feign ignorance, bashfully furrowing your brows. “Why else?”

“Brilliant!” Sirius chuckles scornfully. “So, the children will be learning about French designers and frilly dresses then, I presume?

“Is that truly all you think of me?” you ask, gasping melodramatically as you circle the rim of your empty teacup. 

“You want to know what I think? Or what everyone thought behind your back at Hogwarts?” Sirius scoffs with a cock of his head. “You’ve always been the belle of the ball, no bloody doubt about that. But I’ve always wondered if there was anything more to your head than just air.” 

He runs a hand through his dark curls, lips twisting into a sneer. “But I reckon nothing has changed since then. You’re just the same insufferable, vapid wench as you’ve always been.”

“Sirius. . .” Remus quietly calls. “That’s enough.” 

Your expression falters—but your mask cannot afford even a moment of rest. A jarring note in the lullaby plays as the ceramic ballerina stops turning. You let the minutes pass by fleetingly; it seems the self-playing chordophones have changed their tune, as well. You watch as the canary diamonds in your bracelet glint against the sunlight. (You are growing tired of the blinding show lights, unrelenting crowd, and never-ending play. Where is the reprieve, you wonder, for the tormented primadonna and her aching soul?)

The strings are now dipped in blood as your tears polish the stage. Your joints have twisted, bent, and danced. You wonder, how long must it be until you are rid of the starring role?

You muster a coy smile, fluttering your lashes at the heir of the most noble and ancient House. “Such crude language, Mister Black,” you say, albeit your voice has gone mellow; nails drumming against the table surface as the guests mingle with one another. The unbearably dull conversations buzz in your ear. You notice Draco and Astoria Greengrass heading for the glasshouse. You consider stealing her lace parasol and whacking Sirius with it, and the thought fills you with immense joy. 

Unfortunately, they are your guests, and you are nothing if not the most polite host. “Perhaps, I am not the only one who hasn’t grown out of their immature habits,” you say, eyeing his shoulder-length hair, spiky ear piercings, and leather jacket. That damned leather jacket of his. It irks you that he and his kind can show insolence freely without bearing any repercussions. (But you’d die before you ever feel envy for a man like Sirius Black.) The sun fades behind the clouds, and your mask slips perfectly into place once more.

“What is it that happened again? Between you and Severus Snape in sixth-year?” You tap your chin pensively, taking cruel satisfaction in the stutter in Sirius’s breath and Remus’s parted lips, ever stupefied. You gaze fiendishly at Remus. “Oh, silly me, I’ve gone off topic. Well, anyhow, I just wanted to say, I believe the students are in rather good hands this year. I just hope Dumbledore doesn’t accidentally let an infected beast roam the halls of Hogwarts.” 

Your eyes flash impishly. “Wouldn’t you agree, Mister Lupin?”

Lily curls her lip viciously. “Just what exactly—?”

“Elsie has returned, master.” The house elf bows her head just as the antique bistro table is circled with macarons, cucumber sandwiches, miniature cocktail buns, and slices of pound cake. Lily retracts her hand, grinding her jaw as she swallows the words in her throat.

“You may go, Elsie, thank you.” With a guileful smirk, you levitate the teapot towards James and Harry, dutifully filling their cups; steam soon arising from the Chinese porcelain. You nod at the group. “It’s jasmine pearl,” you explain haughtily. “Carefully handcrafted tea from harvested leaves and flowers. Such exquisiteness that you won’t be able to find anywhere else.”

“Do enjoy your tea; Cissa and I made sure to spare no expense for our guests.” The teapot carefully lands back on the table. The sinfonietta ends, and so does your time with this particular audience. What misfortune, that you won’t receive your flowers for today’s performance. You pivot on your heels, flinging them a lukewarm goodbye. “Do excuse me, for I must tend to the new arrivals. I believe I see Missus Parkinson over there by the koi pond. Cissa might have my head if I neglect my responsibilities.”

You turn your head, tossing a wink at Lily. “Today, after all, is for the children.”

Alas, it is not Persephone Parkinson you head towards. 

You briefly exchange tepid pleasantries with Lavinia Greengrass before walking past the koi pond to the edges of the garden, far beyond prying eyes and ears. There, like a brooding Dementor drifting through a frozen lake, waits your true target. Sadly, it is only a dour-faced professor, a long time confrère of yours, to be precise. There are only a handful of people to whom you are indebted. Severus Tobias Snape is one of those few. 

With a flick of your wand, you covertly cast the silencing charm upon the elusive spot Severus had chosen. There is no need for these edacious vultures to prey on your conversation. They are better off with their tête-à-têtes and syrupy pikelets. You drown out the chamber orchestra’s symphony, the clinking of champagne glasses, the rustling leaves and ringing wind chimes. “Severus darling,” you say liltingly, feet shuffling to his side as you playfully ghost your palm against his nape. He barely spares you a glance as a breeze courses through the rippling lake water. “You’re missing out on the festivities, you know.”

“Have you finally finished tormenting Narcissa’s visitors?” he drawls, at long last acknowledging your presence and sharply raising a brow at your saccharine-sweet smile.

“Why, I’d never dare to do such a thing,” you reply with a theatrical sway of your head. “I simply conversed with the ladies and had a delightful run-in with your old flame, Lily. Do you remember her, my sweet? Ghastly red hair, pale skin, and, oh, those green eyes. It must be infuriating to look like that,” you rattle away to the only entity willing to listen to you in his company: the wind.

“Spare me,” he drones, lips curved impatiently.

You moue. “Ever the bore, you are, Severus. Shall I fetch you a platter of brandy snaps?”

“Shall I sit around while I wait?” Snape’s lips contort into a sour grimace, eyes rolling to the back of his head. “The Dark Lord himself might even find time to rise from his grave.”

“Severus dear, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to tell me something.” You eye him slyly, mouth tipping into a smirk as a dragonfly hovers by the waterline, avidly stalked by the dwarf frog on a lily pad. “So,” you pry, “did you have something important to tell me? I promised Mister Goyle I’d have a drink with him.”

The frog splashes into the lake, and the dragonfly flutters away without a care. Severus clandestinely slips a piece of paper into your palm as he swivels around, dark cloak billowing. “Ensure that nothing traces back to you,” he snarls. “Clearly I do know better, Severus.” You toy with the paper between your fingers, a sense of exhilaration running up your spine. “Not to worry,” you say with a clipped smile, a serpentine glare in your eyes, “I always do as I am told.”

(Severus, not for the first time in his life, wonders if the Sorting Hat made a mistake when it sorted you into Hufflepuff.) 

act ii. tonight, let’s start the masquerade.

THE NIGHT GROWS weary, and so do the alleys of Knockturn; neglected as your hooded figure navigates through the brick road, only the caged owls and flickering stars to notice your presence. You fainly traipse amongst the shadows, a moment of surrender from the spotlight and malignant eyes; a brief interlude in the performance. Past the hanging doll heads in the windows of Borgin & Burkes, you find a lonely shop. Inside the locket of your ring, lies a slip of paper that had been given to you earlier this afternoon. Well, Severus, you think to yourself, idly twisting the ring on your finger, let’s see where you sent me to this time.

And so, the stage actor calls for a costume change. “Alohomora.”

With one last glance at the dimly-lit passage, you enter the boutique. The brass shop bell accompanies your entrance, but no owner appears to greet you—and if there was, well, you have quite a unique way of saying hello. Your fingers feather across the dusty bookshelves, eyes raking through the broken staircase, the faint scent of ginger, rosemary, and mugwort pervades the room; a shattered crystal ball sits in the center of the shop desk, ripped paintings on the wall. A grimace pulls at your lips as you come across a familiar ivory mask. A Death Eater mask—it’s warm to touch; recently worn, perchance. You bury the strong urge to set it on fire. 

There’s a shift in the air, a creak in the floorboards—in an instant, you whip your wand out from its leather holster. 

“Reveal yourself,” you whisper curtly.

To the naked eye, there is only one intruder in the dingy parlor. To you, however, there is an obscure silhouette of a stranger covered by a glimmering veil. You hold onto your wand resolutely. If it was an enemy, you’d be blown into the walls by now. “This isn’t an ensemble stage, you know,” you chuff impatiently, “I’m not fond of sharing the spotlight with lineless extras.” 

The disillusionment charm slowly unveils, and you wait unblinking, until you see a familiar face standing before you. Mid-length curly hair that falls over gray, dagger-like eyes, the irksome scent of tobacco, and a frightening similarity to his elder brother. 

There are exactly five people you’d risk your life for, and right now, you’re digging the tip of your wand into their neck.

“Mister Regulus Black,” you greet with a playful edge to your voice, eyes narrowing. “Severus didn’t mention we’d be running into each other tonight.” 

“That’s because I didn’t tell Sev I’d be here,” says Regulus, dimples poking out as he swats your wand away from his throat. “I might go mad if I have to stay inside for another bloody week, there’s only so many times I can re-read Good Omens—and by the way, did anyone ever tell you how dramatic you are? Lineless extras, really?” 

You hide a fond smile with a roll of your eyes, whirling around to browse the glass cabinets and leather journals on the table, returning to the task at hand. “And so you thought going outside and risking someone seeing you in the open was a good idea? Reggie darling, I often think about the possibility of Walburga dropping you on the head as an infant.” 

Regulus shoves his hands inside his trouser pockets as he hovers over your shoulders like a lost, overgrown duckling. “Wasn’t it Cissa’s soirée today? Did you jinx the statues like I told you to?” 

“Who do you think I am?” you say haughtily, pausing in your search to half-heartedly glare at him. And after a moment’s pause, you jerk your shoulder and coyly respond with a side-smirk, “Of course I did. The young Mister Flint nearly screamed his head off.” You hum reminiscently, “truthfully, it’s been quite a while since I heard Draco laugh like that these days. For breakfast, I hear about the Granger girl, and then for lunch, I hear about the Weasley children, and for dinner, it’s an hour-long spiel on the famed Harry Potter.” 

Regulus chortles in amusement as he hops onto the shop counter, kicking back his chunky boots. “And, then? Did you see my brother?” 

“Oh, darling, I did more than that,” you mutter offhandedly, leafing through the paraphernalias and foul-smelling potion flasks. 

“How was he? Is he doing well? Merlin, I think it’s been so long since I saw his face.” There’s a lapse of silence between you and Regulus. A lizard scurries across the room, chasing after a line of ants. The younger wizard taints the quietude with a long, frustrated sigh. “Sorry, I just. . .” He slumps his shoulders in resignation. “I wouldn’t have to ask so many questions if. . . if I could just. . .”

“I don’t understand why I have to hide from my own family.” With a jagged whisper, he says, “I feel like I’m losing my mind. Like I can’t believe that I’m really here, I don’t even know if I exist sometimes.” 

You grimace as you turn to look at him, hand flinching as if wanting to reach out to him. Instead, you avert your gaze and continue scouring the room. “It’s for—”

“My own good, I know,” Regulus blows a strand of hair away from his forehead. He jumps off the counter with a hardened stare. You glance at his back as he bends to pick at the marks on the floor. At times like this, you remember how small and young Regulus had been when you found him moribund from lake inferis. What a cruel price to pay in exchange for his survival, you think. 

For Regulus Black has to remain dead to the wizarding world, stuck in an interminable masquerade, waiting until the hour is up for his performance. 

All the world’s a stage, and for the best of the actors and actresses, it seems the production never ends. 

“How long do you think it’s going to stay like this? For you, me, Sev? For Cissa?” As he stands on his toes to inspect the top of a dusty cupboard, Regulus veers his head to peek at your expression, frowning when he finds none. (You’ve no answers for him, after all; the entirety of your life was spent wondering that exact same question. All you know is that the show must go on until the audience tires of the starving artist.) “Never mind, let’s just focus on finding whatever you were trying to find here.” He walks past his reflection in the vintage carved mirror. “What are we looking for, anyway?” 

You wish to offer solace to a cherished friend, but duties are meant to be fulfilled. For now, to do what is right must come first. Your fingers slither up the side of a bookcase, a wooden ladder resting against the shelves. The mahogany is freshly varnished, the stench of glue is prominent, and deep scratches indent the floor. It’s an empty treasure cove, barely anything displayed on the racks. You grit your teeth as you realize it’s been well-maintained compared to the obsolete state of the room. “Here,” you rasp, abruptly snapping your head to look back at him.

He furrows his brow. “What?” 

You beckon him to the corner of the room from where you stand, wooden planks creaking as you push at the bookcase. “Help me with this, Regulus. There could be something behind it.” You clench your jaw as you lean your weight onto the cabinet frame.

“Why don’t we just, I don’t know,” Regulus cocks his head as he waves his wand in the air. “Use magic?” he offers discreetly, as though divulging a century-old secret. “I suggest Bombarda for maximum efficiency.” 

You stare at him vacantly. “Regulus dearheart, I hold a stupendous amount of tolerance for you, but there is absolutely no way we are drawing attention to ourselves via explosion spells in the dead of the night.” 

He grins boyishly before ushering you away. “Alright, alright, I was only taking the mickey out of you.” Soon after, Regulus deftly mutters a levitation charm, his wand steadfast as the bookcase slowly detaches from the floor. You take a couple of steps backward, lips pursed as you observe Regulus concentrate on his work. 

You note to yourself to have a conversation about Regulus’s restlessness with Severus. It could pose a liability and pull the curtains on the entire pasquinade. “Careful,” you keep a tight watch on Regulus’s pinched brows, his hovering wand, and the steadily moving bookshelf. 

“Like taking jelly slugs from a first-year,” he says flippantly, beaming at you as his dark curls sweep over his eyes. 

You give him an exasperated scowl before side-stepping his quip as you descry a faint outline of a door in the plastered wall. You feel a rumble in the ground, muffled noises behind the shrouded entrance.  “Ready your wand, Regulus,” you say grimly, hand reaching for the doorknob, looking back in time to catch his smirk fade into a distant expression, “I believe what awaits won’t be as simple as that.” 

A grave tenor disquiets the room, your free hand already grasping for your wand. Regulus stands at your side, nodding as you take a sharp breath. He offers his back to you, in spite of the looming danger. (A sadistic part of you finds comfort in his presence tonight, but neither of you can truly share the burdens of your harrowing façades. Tomorrow, you play the lone star once more; and he, the dead brother and son. But today, you must simply share the stage.) 

You twist the knob until a click pierces the heavy silence.

You wait with a bated breath, expecting creatures and spells to come hurling in your direction. The room ahead is enshrouded with darkness. You share a terse nod with Regulus as a ball of light appears at the tip of your wands. Regulus moves to take a step forward, but you block him with your arm. “I’ll go first,” you say breathily, curtly glancing at the Death Eater Mask. “It could be cursed the moment we step inside.” Regulus presses his lips into a white line, clearly unhappy with your decision, but relents nonetheless. 

Rough, travertine flooring begins where the woodwork ends; a gust of wind howls into the dark chamber. Wordlessly, you call for your patronus to investigate inside; thin, silvery wisps floating in the air, its light hauntingly beautiful against the unilluminated dungeon. You hear heavy chains dragging across the ground and the harmony of timid footfalls. A drop of water falls onto the cracked stone. Regulus grinds down on his jaw as he readies his wand. 

After an eternity of waiting, you snap your wand to set the torches alight. 

A pronounced chill runs up your spine; a stutter in your breath. You nearly stagger at the sight unveiled before you. If you had been a weaker wizard, you’d have dropped your wand already. “This. . .” you say hoarsely, eyes wide, blood simmering in your veins. 

Children.

Little ones as young as ten-years-old, barely coming up to your stomach, staring up at you with bloodshot eyes. Their skinny arms are covered in grime and wear pathetic rags for clothes. Moss grows in every corner of the room. Emaciated mattresses on metal beds. “Bloody hell,” Regulus growls, chest heaving. “What the fuck?” 

“It’s a prison,” you whisper, horrified. There must be more than twelve children standing before you. Bile rises to your throat. You worry about your wand breaking in half, but the overwhelming sense of dread traps you in position. 

“Are. . . are you with the bad men?” A brave, young girl with owlish eyes protectively steps forward in front of her companions. “No,” you answer gently, bending down on one knee to meet her eyes. You were neither good, or bad, but there is no magic on earth that would make you harm these children. 

Regulus calls your name. “They’re Muggles,” he hisses angrily. “I don’t sense any magic from any of them.” He exhales in frustration. “What the hell are they doing with Muggle children?” 

You grind down on your teeth, nearly dizzy with anger. You forgo a response to Regulus in favor of clasping your cloak around the trembling child. Soon after, you blanket the room in a warming charm. “Tend to their wounds,” you say sharply. “I’ll see what I can do about the chains.” And you will do something about those shackles, if it’s the last thing you do. “We’re going to get you out of here, I promise,” you tell the girl, stolid as you pat her head.

Except, the brass bell rings once more and everyone stiffens in alert. The children begin whimpering amongst themselves. Slow, deliberate footsteps reverberate from the shop into the icy-cold room. The hairs on the back of your neck rise.

“Move out of the way!” you yell, veins straining against your neck, just as you’re blown into the stone walls. 

Regulus screams out your name, but you barely hear anything over the ringing in your ears; through blurring vision, you see the children and Regulus unharmed. Relief floods through you as you sluggishly rise from the floor. There’s a large crater in the wall from the impact; luckily, the tethers to the chains were demolished, as well. “Get them to the safehouse,” you order, blood trickling from your lips. You hardly feel your arms and legs; there’s an ache in the back of your head, your spine feels as though it’s been snapped in half. You’re definitely going to feel this tomorrow. Regulus hesitates to leave, hands laid on the shoulders of the children as he glowers at the newcomer. “Now!” you bellow gutturally. 

A muscle ticks in Regulus’s jaw, but as he finally apparates with as many children as he can, you finally stop holding your breath. “It’s okay,” you reassure the wee boys clinging onto each other for comfort, limping to their side. “I’m rather strong, you know. Stronger than any of the bad men.”

In every duel, you allow yourself to be hit only once—driven by your inhuman desire to feel something other than the  emptiness of your unbroken charade. 

(And for years, you have waited for anyone to say these two specific words: Avada Kedavra.) 

“Go,” you instruct gently, brushing away the tendrils of hair from the little boy’s forehead. “Hide and wait until my companion comes for you.”

“And as for the ill-mannered invader,” you crane your head towards the entrance of the chamber, eyes raking over the tall figure’s bloodthirsty stance and flittering cloak. There’s a lack of silver mask, but you know well the stench of foreboding decay and malignity. At the speed of light, you aim your wand, “Confringo!”

You watch with a spiteful grin as the stranger is blasted across the room. The walls and ceilings threaten to crumble, and you can only hope that Severus won’t be too cross with you in the morning. You point your wand at the uninvited guest’s heart. Nothing will trace back to you, that much you are certain of.

After all, no one would suspect a vapid, insufferable boulevardier to be the greatest spy of the wizarding world.

A firebird caws in the distance.

And, scene.

act iii. where’s your soul? where’s your dream? do you think you’re alive?

“APPEARANCES ARE OF utmost importance.” You stand in the front of the Great Hall, sun rays streaming through the large, stained windows, wooden tables pushed to the walls; accoutered in a black velvet capelet with gold trimmings and vintage dragonhide boots.  The sleeves of your blouse are lined with handwoven, gothic lace; trousers made of the finest yellow satin. It is a testament to your House—the cete of badgers. (You seize everyone’s attention—whether the two Aurors in the corner like it or not.)

After a descanting introduction, you are given center stage before the students of Gryffindor and Slytherin. With a swing in your step and a wrest in your voice, you continue, “That is why the Headmaster, Dumbledore himself, invited me to personally facilitate this year’s Tri-Wizard Tournament. As hosts of the event, excellence is expected of us. Professor McGonagall has graciously allowed me to take charge of your lessons, particularly in the art of dancing.” Your eyes gleam as you offer the young fourth-years a graceful reverence. “And our first lesson begins straight away.”

The crowd of students transfigure into a sea of curious eyes and flabbergasted whispers. You derisively watch the chaos unfold with an amused grin. Yet, you’re not the least bit worried. You’ve charmed even a flock of Dementors before, the creatures having been drawn to your voice, ostentatious stature, and the dark depths of your soul; like a bee to a field of flowers. A class full of awkward teenagers should be more than easy for you. 

“Now, now, children,” you clap your hands as you make your way to the heart of the room, leaving a trail of softening murmurs. “The Yule Ball is a revered tradition, an exhibit of togetherness that has lasted for hundreds years.” You lift your nose up in the air as the girls look at one another, barely able to hide their giddy smiles and discreet glances across the hall. “As such, it is my venerable duty to oversee your etiquette in and out of the ballroom.”

(Sirius rolls his eyes from where he sits besides James.)

“Mister Filch, if you please.” With a flutter of your lashes and a poised smile, you beckon for the school caretaker who flounders to the gramophone. You wink at the young miss Pansy Parkinson who stares up at you in awe. Soon thereafter, you hear the soft melody of Léo Delibes’s Valse. Coppélia, you simper to yourself—a story close to your heart. (You’ve always found a winsome irony in a marionette like you dancing to the enamel-eyed girl’s song.)

“A dance, while enjoyable by one’s lonesome, is best savored with a partner,” you begin vivaciously, eyeing the gentlemen in particular. “Your date for the night must be aware that you’ve chosen them out of your own volition and undue necessity.” Your stare drifts to the coterie of young Gryffindors, tittering mischievously. “Shall we have a demonstration from the House of courage and splendor?”

“No one?” You raise a brow curiously when you’re met with silence and averted gazes. You then utter the scariest phrase a professor could say to their students: “I’ll choose the lucky student myself.” 

You survey the pack of lion cubs, drifting through the tuffs of flashing red hair; gangly boys raucously kicking and pushing at each other to volunteer for your teach-in on ballroom dancing. You flash the students a vexatious grin. “Mister Harry Potter?” you call out to the ashen-faced boy with your hand outstretched. “Why don’t we let the Chosen One set an example to his peers?” 

Hollers and cheers break out across the hall; not withholding the mirthful giggles of the doves on the other side of the room, wonderstruck by his green eyes and lightning scar. You motion for Harry to join you on the pseudo dance floor. The Weasley twins take delight in clapping and wisecracking into his ears until Harry reluctantly rises to his feet, a blooming shade of red on his neck and cheeks. 

“As you approach your partner with the grace of a majestic stag,” you acclaim to the class whilst Harry approaches you with a wry grin and hands shoved inside his robe pockets, “And not a newborn foal.” You place your hand in his, “You may now invite your lady to dance.”

“Or your beau,” you add spiritedly, eyes gleaming as Harry chokes on his saliva.

You pat his back as the music comes to a sweet-sounding crescendo. “Dancing is about connection,” you turn to the students with a stern gaze. “If your posture crumbles, there goes your confidence, as well. At all times, you must maintain eye contact,” you say sharply as you tilt Harry’s chin and correct the arch of his arms. “Remember, it’s not ballroom if there’s no trust. Lean onto one another, and then. . .” You lay your palm onto his shoulder. “The feet should follow the music.”

Unfortunately, Harry runs on two left feet and both persistently evade the music. On the umpteenth time he stumbles on your shoes, he’s appraised by snickers and low whistles from either side of the  hall. The Weasley twins in particular seem thrilled by Harry’s flailing arms and bewildered expression. Along with the two Aurors who’ve skipped their aurorly duties to patrol the castle in favor of heckling their ward. “You’re doing it wrong, James!” shouts Sirius through cupped hands, shoulders shaking in laughter. 

“Why don’t you try it, Padfoot?” Harry retorts back to him; thick hair flopping over his eyes as he grates his teeth. You’re given no warning as Harry extracts himself from your grip and stalks over to where Sirius and James sit comfortably. 

You blink, dumbfounded. “Harry dearest, I don’t believe that is necessary—!”

“Go on then,” says Harry, jerking his head. “Show us all how to do it.” 

To the side, Ron guffaws into his fist, brought nearly to tears. (Earlier he was apprehensive about the class. “We’ve got a whole new professor just for twirling around and all that girlish stuff?” he had asked in disbelief before entering the Great Hall.

“Shut your mouth, Weasley,” growls Draco Malfoy as he shoves past Harry and Hermione to head inside the hall.)

Sirius grins roguishly, having the gall to bat his eyes in confusion. “Who? Me?” He chuckles before forcibly slapping James’s back with the flat of his palm. “No, no. The honor should go to the debonair of his time.” Trenchant eyes flicker with mischief. “Have at it, James. How will the children ever learn without a proper demonstration?” 

“Go on, Sir Prongs!” exclaims one of the red-headed twins. “Show us how it’s done!” 

Alarmingly, the bespectacled man resigns to his fate, a deafening ovation as he shrugs his robes off, generously revealing his broad shoulders in a tight, black turtleneck; a leather wand holster across his chest; long legs framed by pleated trousers. You bite down on your tongue as James draws closer to you, a hint of a smirk on his lips. With an unerring arch of his back, he holds out his hand for you to take, “May I have this dance?” 

Your breath stutters—if only for a moment. One cannot deny that James Potter is deviously more appealing to the eye than the dance partners you’ve had during Narcissa’s galas. Perfectly-carved cheekbones and golden hoops dangling from his ears; bright, hazel eyes girdled by rectangular glasses. “Well,” you say, pursing your lips as you slip your palm into his. “If you must.” 

In contrast to his son, James needs little-to-no guidance from you. You’d have assumed that much, considering that both James and Sirius grew up in pure-blood customs. The warmth of his hand on your back is scalding. He spins you along to the song’s aria; the two of you gliding effortlessly through the soapstone floors. Any more closer to him and you’d be able to hear his heartbeat. “There will be lifts, turns, and dips during a waltz,” you inform the class as you demonstrate a twirl vine. “You will rise and you will fall together with your partner. Understand?” 

James chuckles at the wistful sighs and horrified groans that erupt through the Great Hall. “You’re good with the children, you know,” he remarks cheekily as he gently lowers you to the ground, hand steadfast on your waist. You hear his unsaid words clearly: Sirius thought you’d be downright rubbish at it. 

“Well, Mister Potter,” you say breathlessly, clasping your arms around his neck once more. “To some of the students here, frilly dresses and French designers are their entire world.” Your chin all but perched atop James’s shoulders; the scent of his famed Sleekeazy potion and vetiver—dew on fresh grass on a warm sunny day—fills your senses. You cast a sniffy glare in Sirius’s way, to which he responds with a raised brow. 

“Bit shallow, isn’t it?” he murmurs, chest rumbling and his breath hot on your ear. 

You scoff. “One could argue the same for a young Seeker who’s been given their first ever broom.” 

James Potter has the nerve to smile at you. And as you move to extricate yourself from his hold, James mindlessly lets his hand fall from your waist to your hip—incidentally, where you’ve been nursing a heavy fracture. Sore bruises from chasing vampires the night prior as you were out hunting allies of the Dark Lord from the first wizarding war. Although you had drowned yourself in pain relief elixirs, it seems you’re more sensitive and hurt than you thought. 

Even statues of white gold chip and fade over time—you’re reminded of this fact quite painfully. You roughly push James away from you, hissing in pain as you cradle the left side of your hip. Memories of crimson-stained teeth and rotten, pale skin flash before your eyes. You remember the stench of blood, and the feel of their nails slashing into your thighs. But most of all, you remember their ear-piercing shrieks just before you drive the stake into their chests, one by one, until you have left a graveyard of vampires in the outskirts of an abandoned mansion. 

James furrows his brow immediately as you cave in on yourself. (Even Sirius surges to his feet.) “What’s wrong?”

Occlude! Occlude—you must occlude immediately! 

With a sharp inhale, you close off your emotions for anyone else to see. “It is nothing of your concern, Mister Potter,” you respond blankly, as though your soul is locked far away. “I do believe we’re done here.” You step further away from him. Your attention shifts to the students as you fold your hands behind your back, lips curling into a virulent smile. The weight of your mask is comforting; you’ve forgotten how to breathe without it. “Now, let’s have the students pair up and practice what they’ve learned so far. I’ll have no patience for dilly-dallying and nescience on my watch. You’ll dance until I tell you to stop. You’ll practice until the soles of your feet are sore and raw.”

That, after all, is how you learned.

The class goes by accordingly; you maintain a distance from Sirius and James, turning a blind eye to their burdensome sympathy. (Gryffindors and their bleeding hearts—it always unnerves you how easily the avowed Marauders get deep under your skin.) You nip at the students’ heels, righting their poor footwork; looping the music until you are certain they’d hear it in their nightmares. To your surprise, the round-cheeked Neville Longbottom takes all your instructions in stride. From the moment that you allow Filch to lift the tonearm, the students practically fall to the floor, heaving; some forsaking their long robes and tying their hair in flimsy ponytails. 

As the students retreat from the Great Hall, you slink away into the crowd of Slytherins, desperate to avoid a particular duo of Aurors—no doubt ready to probe you with questions. A numbing panic claws at your chest; black spots swallowing your vision. Emotions—how putrid. The students’ discordant chatter overwhelms your hearing, more than the ringing in your ears. The unyielding, outré stone walls feel like they’re closing in on you. Still, you keep your head above the water, enduring every staggered breath. You must. 

What’s wrong? 

The question echoes in your head. 

Ha! 

You scream inwardly, if they only knew! 

While you had been expecting either James or Sirius to ambush you, you do not expect to see Draco Malfoy shouting your name as you flee down an empty corridor. 

The miniature Lucius Malfoy stands before you, grimacing as he clenches his fists tightly. “Are. . .” Draco’s expression contorts morosely. “Are you alright? Theo and I were worried that the blood traitor upset you.” he spits his concern as if it were acid. Little snakes and their keen eyes. 

“Mind your language, Draco,” you reply cuttingly, eyes flashing as you lift your chin. And for his question, one that you’ve been asked numerous times over the years, you have only ever had one answer. Despite the scars on your back, the tremors in your hands, the aching of your heart, and the endless bruises on your limbs, you tell him: “And do not ask what is not needed to be.” 

“You’re hurt, aren’t you?” he presses further, mouth pinched. “Don’t treat me like a dim-witted child because I’m not!” 

A hand lays on his shoulder, and to your chagrin, Severus makes his appearance, lips downturned and his gaze filled with subdued apathy. Your day is about to get worse. “Perhaps, it is best if you leave this discussion to the adults, Draco.” Snape drones, leaving no room for debate. He tightens his grip on the younger wizard. “I will not be inconvenienced to explain to Minerva as to why you were dawdling in the corridors.” 

In true Malfoy fashion, Draco sneers in disdain. He rips himself out of Snape’s grasp with a scoff. As he storms past you, you sigh and pat his side. 

When Draco disappears into the corner, you release a deep breath as you prepare for the onslaught to come. “Just get it over with, Severus,” you pinch the bridge of your nose, the pounding in your head growing more unbearable by the second. 

You see his nostrils flare as Severus turns to glare at you. “I wonder,” he says through gritted teeth. “If you are actually capable of following direct orders—of using that near-empty brain of yours!” His upper lip curls back into a snarl, as he scours the empty hallway for any prowling ears. “Your stunt made it to the Daily Prophet. You were asked to proceed tactfully, were you not?” 

You lean against the wall, rubbing at the temples of your head. “And I’ve done my part. Every last one of them—dead by my hands. A problem you failed to deal with for the last two months. That I settled last night. Remind me why you’re still chittering into my ear, Severus darling?”

“Do not play coy with me,” he replies brusquely. “I’ve heard the students tattling about it as though it were the most interesting event in their pathetic, insolent lives. The Embris Mansion burnt down to the ground. There are talks of a vigilante, a good-for-nothing do-gooder. You got sloppy!”

“And if I did—so what?” You retaliate, chest heaving as you step into his face. Truthfully, this isn’t the first time you’ve had this conversation with him. Over the years you have left some sort of mark on your work. Not a phoenix, but a firecrest. Wings outstretched in flames. All eyes are on the ungovernable hero, the Firebird—and never on you, the foppy socialite. “Would it be so perverse to want even a slither of recognition, Severus?” 

“Do not forget your duty,” he taunts venomously, the cords in his neck going rigid. “To the greater good you so earnestly fight for. Your duty to your mother.” 

“Do not talk about her!” you all but shout, magic sizzling in the air around you. 

“Then see to it that there are no more mistakes going forward!” Severus juts his chin, baring his teeth in contempt. 

After a few long moments, he continues with a resigned exhale, dragging his palm down his face—as though you are the perplexing one. “This. . . Moody has developed a habit of emptying my cupboards.” 

“And why, pray tell,” you retort gruffly, “should I care for this oh-so special cupboard of yours?” 

“It contains ingredients for Polyjuice potions!” he proclaims angrily. “Get to the bottom of this. I’ll not have a blithering fool like Pettigrew get to the students again. Do what you must, I have no interest in understanding the workings of your mind—as long as you do not draw unnecessary attention to yourself.” 

The sound of footfalls break you apart as Severus nimbly lifts the Notice-Me-Not charm he had cast earlier. Within seconds, you find Remus Lupin rounding the corner. He’s dressed in his usual baggy, gray jumper; jaw clean-shaved, and pinkish scars against his skin. A well-loved quilted coat over his shoulders—handmade by Lily, you presume. You notice the mismatched otter socks peeking from his loafers. Remus saunters down the hallway with tired eyes and a feeble smile as he stops right in front of you and Severus. He has a rather tall frame, slender even, despite his hunched shoulders. 

“Snape,” Remus nods to him, gaze flickering back and forth as he attempts to discern what had transpired—well, you’re certainly in no rush to tattle and cry into his arms. 

“Professor,” he says to you, an ever curious smile on his face. “You’re looking quite peaky. Is something the matter?”

“I am most certainly sound and fine, Mister Lupin,” you respond, irritated, as you wobble on your feet. You are at your wit’s end—how bothersome of it all. “Should you not be on your way to your next class, Professor?” you bite tiredly. 

Remus shrugs, hazel-eyes crinkling in amusement. “Mad-Eye is taking over my next class. I thought it would be good for the students to learn from a veteran Auror. I’m sure he has much more experience to offer than me.” 

You scowl, his humility smothering you painfully. “Well, I’ve no interest in dragging my feet around. If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I have a prior engagement with my cat and I’m afraid I’ve left her alone for too long.” 

And as fate would have it, when you make haste for your quarters, you falter in your steps; lurching as your vision goes blurry. Your breath snags in your throat as Remus catches you by the waist. “Perhaps, we should get you to Lily,” offers Remus as he sets you upright, brows pinched worriedly, ignoring Snape’s eye roll in the background. 

“I said I was fine!” You blurt out, cradling the front of your head as you sway backwards; now seeing two Lupins and two Snapes. “Merlin, are all Gryffindors this bloody meddlesome? Must I repeat myself? I am fine—!” 

Turns out, you are not fine. 

The last thing you see before losing consciousness is a pair of brown eyes with flecks of gold, more beautiful than any full moon you’ve ever seen. 

 —

You wake up to a dry, sore throat; the bitter scent of infirmary disinfectant—a Muggle’s touch, no doubt—and concoctions of various healing potions. Your head is still pounding, but somewhat bearable. The room is small, privy to only teachers, you conclude—although, it is the very first time you have ended up in the infirmary. Remus Lupin would feel your wrath, you’d make sure of it. Your back stings as though it were doused in Dittany recently. As you nearly break the flower vase in an attempt to reach for the empty glass, the door creaks open—and in comes Lily Potter with her husbands.

“Am I in hell?” you eye them bitterly. 

“No,” says the youngest matron, dressed in her own version of the nurse’s uniform. Red vest over her white blouse, and a long, plaid skirt with pockets. Soft red hair tied back with a pink ribbon. Albeit, her expression is anything but sweet and delicate. “But you’re in my office, which means you are now under my care—therefore I’d like you to explain why you have vampire toxins in your blood.” 

“And I would like to return to my quarters now, please,” you respond haughtily, referring to the private bedroom professors were offered in the castle. “I’ve nothing to explain to someone who administers the diagnostic charm on my person without explicit permission to do so!” you exclaim, releasing a shuddery breath as your head throbs agonizingly. 

“You will listen to me—seven hours ago you were this close to paralysis!” Lily shouts right back, eyes glaring defiantly—she may have adhered to you in Malfoy’s territory, but no power holds more authority than an acclaimed healer over a patient. “If you had been a Muggle, you’d be dead ten times over.”

“Well, now that we’ve established that I’m alive and well, I suppose we have no more pleasantries to exchange, Lily darling.” You tear the flimsy blanket from your legs, grimacing at the bandages covering your skin. 

“Not before you tell us where those bruises came from,” Sirius demands, voice low and knife-like eyes on you. 

“Must have been the Nargles,” you reply sarcastically. No one would care for a bonny doll ripping apart at the seams and gathering dust on a child’s shelf. “They’re quite frisky this time of the year, didn’t you know? My good friend Xenophilius wrote about those creatures a long time ago. Good read, I’d say.” 

“Are you capable of taking anything seriously?” cuts Sirius with a snarl, tendrils of hair curling around his face; hints of tattoos peeking out from his leather jacket. Vermillion satin shirt clashing against his pale skin. The lingering smell of lit cigars only reminds you of Regulus, and so you tear your gaze away from Sirius. 

“Sirius, let’s not scare her off now, love,” Remus admonishes, softly resting his palm at the back of Sirius’s neck, before he stares at you with honey-dripping eyes. You have a desperate need to run away. They’re an uncharted danger that you aren’t familiar with navigating—and you figure young Harry wouldn’t appreciate you treating his parents like a rabid vampire. “We just want to know what happened, you looked worse for wear when we brought you to Lily and Madam Pomfrey,” Remus placates, treating you like a crow with its wing snapped in half. 

You sneer. “If I am not dead, then these wounds hardly matter to me.” 

Lily gasps, a sound so soft only the wind could have possibly heard it. “How could you say that?” she asks, hand flying to her lips. “Of course it matters, you had lost so much blood while we tried to get the toxins flushed from your system.” She stares at the puncture mark on your arm, before peering over at Sirius. “We nearly couldn’t find a match to your blood type. Sirius. . . Well, he’s a universal donor and he didn’t even hesitate in giving you his—”

“Giving me what?” you echo lowly. “What did Sirius give me, Lily?”

“Blood,” Lily says firmly. “He gave you his blood so you could live.”

“How dare you?” you seethe, chest rapidly rising; digging your nails firmly into your palms as you stare furiously at Lily. “You had no right!” You scream until your throat is sore; your magic overflowing until it shatters the nearby vase of butterfly weeds. 

Rage tunnels your vision; heart hammering against your ribcage as you move to carelessly rip at the bandages over your wounds. “You had no right! You had no fucking right! I would have never done the same for you! Get out! Get out!” 

“Get out!” You hurl the glass at the wall across from you, narrowly avoiding Sirius’s head; anguish tears itself from your voice and you barely notice James flinch from the intensely flickering lights. 

“You think I’d be grateful?” you scoff, a burning heat spreading across your chest. “You think I’d be indebted to any of you after this? Is that what you wanted? What a fucking joke!” You laugh irately as you gasp for air. “I’d rather die!” 

When you run out of items to throw at them—pillows, shards of glass, and crumpled flower stems—you sit on the bed, shoulders violently shaking as you cough yourself sick. 

“I. . .” Lily begins, swallowing the lump wedged in her throat. “I understand. . . But I am the castle’s nurse, as long as you are under Hogwarts’ protection, I am keeping you alive no matter what.” 

“I don’t bloody care,” you snide.

Her eyes flash to James. “We’ll leave you to rest, then.” 

You stay silent, vacantly staring at the reddened welts on your hands. It’s not until you feel James’s arms around you and his chin hovering above your head that you realize you’ve stopped shivering. “I’m sorry,” is all that James whispers into your ear as he lays you to sleep with an inaudible charm. The chill of his magic is the last thing you feel before your eyes flutter to a close. 

—

You wake up in the infirmary once more. This time, you lay stiff on the mattress, absentmindedly gazing at the plain ceiling; your chest falling and rising ever-so slowly. The stink of a Calming Draught is painstakingly familiar. A low humming sound tells you that you aren’t alone—but you barely flinch from their presence, too tired to do anything but close your eyes. “Some boys kiss me, some boys hug me. . . . something. . . they’re okay,” murmurs one Sirius Black, tapping on his thigh as he rests his back on the rustic chair. 

If Sirius wants an encore, he’d have to drag the fight out of you. You’re utterly drained from your emotional palaver earlier. “Didn’t know you were into Muggle songs, Black,” you chortle bemusedly.  

Sirius halts in his singing as a forceful silence falls over the room—you distinctly hear the moment Sirius’s hand drops to his thigh, most likely taken aback by the sound of your hoarse voice. You feel the weight of his eyes on your bandaged arms and legs. A few seconds pass before he responds, his words but a faint breath. “After today, I believe that there is much to be uncovered for the both of us.” 

You don’t bother replying—you’d have Obliviated them instantly if it wasn’t illegal to use on Aurors. 

“We know it was you,” says Sirius out of the blue—your blood turns icy-cold on command, wondering if he’s figured out about the wizard behind the Firebird. “On the first day of term, someone had left a basket of freshly-brewed Wolfsbane potions enough to last him for the entire year,” he explains further, leaning his elbows on his knees as he stares at you unwaveringly. “I almost didn’t believe it, but a Marauder has his ways.” 

(His son with an invisibility cloak and a handy, enchanted parchment.) 

“Thank you,” he says, guttural with emotions. “It means more to Remus than you think.”

“Your gratitude is misplaced, unfortunately,” you rasp, coiling your fists tightly, stubbornly intent on avoiding his eyes—not wanting to get caught in the storm within. You exhale with a ragged sigh. Severus was right, you had been sloppy. And this is what carelessness leads to. “Don’t delude yourself, Mister Black, I couldn’t care less what happens to you or your family.”

Sirius chuckles, like he’d expected such a response from you. “Well, do what you’d like with my gratitude, I don’t care, just know that you have it,” he says, rising from his seat. “It’s past midnight, by the way. Lily’s left you some dinner in case you woke up hungry.” 

Your eyes drift to the nightstand. There’s a steaming bowl of spinach rice with mushrooms, and a plate of honey cinnamon bars. But your gaze lingers on the bouquet of snapdragons and orchids placed in a ceramic vase. 

“She believes home-cooked meals help the patients heal faster,” Sirius tells you, carefully observing your reaction—but there’s none to be found. He purses his lips into a thin, white line.

As he makes his way to leave, Sirius pauses, hand resting on the doorframe. “You know,” he begins quietly. “The thing about magic—it can fool the best of us into thinking we’re indestructible. But, you’re not as inhumane as you’d like us to think.” Sirius veers his head to look back at you. “Take that mask of yours off sometimes, yeah? You’d see the rest of the world clearly if you did.” 

That is all you hear from him before the door clicks shut, and you’re left alone with your thoughts.

How arrogant.

How very Gryffindor of him. 

You push the flower vase closer to the edge of the bedside table, indignantly eyeing the watercolor art. The room reeks of Lily’s kindness. Lions and their constant need to see the goodness in everyone. Take off your mask? You’d give your entire Gringotts account to wear the kind of rose-colored lenses they have—they’re more pestilent than you realized. No matter, it’s high-time you reintroduced yourself to the Marauders, anyway. 

If you take off your mask, they would find nothing but a barren soul.

—

It seems your newfound parasites have forgotten who you truly are—but you have no qualms in reminding them why exactly you’re called the pureblood society’s darling. 

For the week or so, the Daily Prophet features you out in luxurious restaurants, a new partner each night hanging off your arm. International Quidditch players, foreign models, esteemed opera singers, and even Muggle celebrities. Men and women are captured in moving photographs, avidly fawning over you. 

You’ve missed three classes in favor of shopping in France; Flooing back to Hogwarts, stinking of bordeaux and rosa centifolia. Painite gems nestled around your neck, glittery sapphires lining your wrists. On more than one occasion, you’ve seen McGonagall lift her chin in distaste at your behavior. 

“Well, that’s certainly a speedy recovery,” says Lily one afternoon as the owls take the Great Hall by storm. Rita Skeeter’s new article about you is plastered on the front page, apparently you’ve gotten into a catfight with an Italian seamstress. She risks a glimpse of you from the other side of the long table, laughing away with Professor Sinistra. The sound is scraping against her ears, yet Lily can’t help but feel disappointed.

Your desk is littered with mails from admirers, invitations to galas and fundraisers. The students can’t help but notice this fact as they’re brought to the dance floor each morning. (Each day, you rewind Coppélia’s song—her wishes, and her pain—but you plan to ignore the ballad until blood trickles from your ears.)

“Mumma’s just about ready to send her a Howler,” you hear Ginevra Weasley saying in passing after class. The young red-haired girl nearly bumps into Hermione’s shoulder as Ginny dips her head low, prattling excitedly, “Called the Professor a tart, even.”

Hermione stops walking, scrunching her nose. “Really?”

“Yes, yes,” Ginny nods. “But enough about all that—have you seen the news this morning?” 

Hermione looks up, lips wrinkled in thought. “The one about the Professor being seen in Muggle London? I thought that was rather stale for a headline.”

“Not that one,” Ginny says exasperatedly, rolling her eyes. “The article about the Firebird. Remember what happened during the World Cup? When You-Know-Who’s followers came and raided the entire campsite?”

“That would be pretty hard to forget, Gin,” Hermione replies softly. 

“Well, the Firebird’s gone and hunted a few of them,” Ginny tells her, eyes brimming with awe. “Found their hideout and left them half-dead for the Ministry to find. No Malfoy, though, which is a bloody shame.”

At your desk, you sip your jasmine pearl tea with a knowing smirk.

On the first of October, your previous Head of House invites you to the greenhouse for an overdue get-together. Naturally, you greet Pomona Sprout with gift baskets overflowing with glacé treats, packets of tea, scented candles, and dried berries. She huffs in fond exasperation before instructing you to grab a pair of cotton earmuffs and gardening gloves. And, well, you don’t mind playing the part of a slap happy third-year under her gentle care. It’s a role you enjoy more so than others. 

“You’ve been worrying me these days, dear,” Professor Sprout tells you earnestly as she wrestles with the Flitterblooms. Hoo-hoo chicks flutter around in their cage while the uprooted baby Mandragoras screech nearby. You feel the weight of her gaze, much like a knitted blanket draped over your shoulders on a cold, autumn noon. “The other staff have been expressing their. . . concern,  as well.” 

You busy yourself with planting the Wiggentree in its pot, allowing only a moment to raise your walls of Occlumency. You know that she couldn’t possibly be a threat, but you would not allow someone else to expose you bare for others to see. (You loathe the thought of Sirius’s blood flowing through your veins.)

You know that concern is shallow at best, forged from fear of the students being influenced by your frivolous escapades. 

At your silence, Sprout continues on, “We always tell the children that their Houses will be like their second family during their time at Hogwarts.” You hear her draw in a long breath, gingerly placing the flitter tentacles on the ground. “I hope you understand that the same is true for the professors. We take care of each other, substitute teacher or not.” Pomona’s hand is leaden on your shoulder. “After all, you were our student before anything else. The Sorting Hat gave you to me, and what a darling blessing you have been, even until today. When I look at you now, I see the same young first-year student who was afraid of everything and afraid to come out of their shell—but do not forget, I will always be on my children’s side no matter what.”

How poignant that the first person who truly welcomed you to Hogwarts, is one of the only people who can see through you despite your protective barriers.

And so, the puppet show begins—like a lifeless ragdoll, you peel the deer-leather gloves off your hands, blinking away any hints of emotion. You stand tall before Pomona, dusting flecks of soil off your dovetail skirt. “No one has been on my side. Not then, not now,” you say as you snobbishly arrange the brim of your sunhat. “But do not be mistaken, Pomona. I have been fine on my own and a change still remains to be seen.” 

In another life, you would have happily embraced her comfort and affection—but the fate of a lonely starlet is cruel. You’ve made your bed of thorns and wilted roses, and there you shall lay when there is no one left but yourself. 

“Today was lovely, Pomona, thank you.” It is one truth you’ve permitted yourself to offer—a shred of humanity in exchange for her kindness. The dirt beneath your nail beds is real; so is the ache in your back and the sweat dripping from the side of your head to your chin. But you cannot feel any more than that—you forbid yourself. The Mandrakes fall silent, and you bid your goodbyes to the professor.

The sunlight on your skin is real as you step outside, and so is the sound of clamoring students heading for the greenhouse. Sixth-year students from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw hurry down the hill. Their unrestrained laughter and carefree smiles are real. And so is the unwashed blood on your hands; the killing curses that have fallen so easily from your lips, and the ghosts that haunt you as the moon arises. Perhaps, you could withstand it all if it means the children would live through a real future without the sins of people like you. 

(But why is it that every time you distance yourself. . . there always seems to be someone calling out to you?) 

Cedric Diggory, your godson, yells for you with a grin that stretches from ear-to-ear. You watch as his yellow scarf swings with each hasty step he takes. Cedric crosses the gap between you in under a minute, strands of wavy, brown hair sweeping over his glimmering eyes. It’s an unsolved mystery as to how you and him were sorted in the same House. 

“Your shirt is wrinkled, Cedric,” you tut, straightening his tie. “Do you go riding Hippogriffs in your spare time?” 

Cedric chuckles wholeheartedly. “Father told me to tell you that you’ve been invited this weekend for a dinner at Hogsmeade,” he says, cocking his head as a cheeky simper erupts across his face. “That is, if you aren’t busy.” 

You raise a brow—sly little badger, he was. Harrumphing uppishly, you swivel to turn your back to him and say, “Tell your father that I’m choosing the venue, lest he chooses some primitive pub in the village.” You draw out the distance between you and Cedric, tossing your parting words into the chilly breeze, “Tell him I’m paying for everything, too.” 

His hearty laughter cuts through the hillside as you make your way back to the castle. Thinking you have the last word, you don’t expect him to yell once more: 

“I’m going to enter the tournament this year!” 

You’re certainly taken by surprise, but you don’t slow your pace. An imperious smirk tugs at your lips—well, at least you know where you’re placing your bets. 

A day before the esteemed guests are set to arrive, you run into Sirius and James—much to your annoyance. It’s just your luck that the evening prior you were hunting down a known member of Greyback’s pack. You played a little cat-and-wolf deep in the depths of a forest, hungrily isolating him from the rest of its family. Though this lycan was unturned, you walk away with claw marks on your back. Still, you hope that Greyback licks his wounds and feels the burden of this particular loss. However, you feel that dealing with James and Sirius will be much more difficult than bringing a werewolf to its knees.

After all, this is the first time you come face-to-face with them, nearly a month after your incident in the infirmary. 

“Auror Black, Auror Potter,” you say liltingly, the rhinestone tassel clinking in your hair as you swirl to face them with a devious leer. “What can I do for you today?” 

Sirius scoffs in disbelief. “So it’s like that, then? Like nothing ever happened?” 

“Partying around, missing your bloody classes, parading all over the castle like you’re better than everyone else. We thought you changed. You know, I actually thought there could be something real to you under all that,” he punctuates his words with a harsh laugh, sneering at your blinding jewelry. “Guess we were the fools, eh?” 

James stares at Sirius, a grim expression flashing across his face, before he shakes his head. “It just doesn’t make sense. What we saw at the infirmary—that’s not something anyone forgets.” He gazes at you with grief in his eyes. “It’s like you’re two different people.” 

“It’s disappointing, really,” Sirius bites, his lips curling into a snarl.

They’ve made it all too easy for you. 

“What are you so frustrated for, darlings?” you say in faux sympathy, stalking towards them as you tap at your chin; a sickly-sweet pout on your lips. “What were you hoping for? For all of us to become friends? We’re not children anymore, my loves!” you exclaim histrionically. “Did you actually fall for my little trick at the infirmary? The care parcel I left your husband? Didn’t you know my mother drafted the anti-werewolf bill?”

Sirius staggers.

“The real me?” you giggle incredulously. “What you see is what you get, dearest—don’t go searching for what doesn’t exist. It’s not my fault you fall so easily for a pretty face.” You tilt your head, fluttering your eyes as you drag your nail up James’s chin. “Not every damsel is in distress, you know.”

Your eyes slice towards Sirius with a coy smile. “Maybe if you had followed your head more often than your naive, little lion hearts—you wouldn’t have driven Regulus to his death.” 

James recoils away from your touch just as Sirius flinches, eyes flashing with anger—Sirius digs his nails into his palms, chest heaving as he stares at you in disgust. You expect another stab in the chest from him, and so you lift your head up high, daring him to say another word. (You hope they stopped trying after this—that they would leave you alone to rot in your stage of lies and dutiful sacrifice.) But you don’t plan for James to step forward, shielding Sirius away from your gaze.

“You are, without a doubt, the ugliest creature I’ve ever seen,” says James, words dripping in sincere revulsion. “Can’t believe I thought anything less than that.” 

You smile widely, despite the tightening sensation in your chest. “Are we done here now, gentlemen?”

They would learn—this is who you are beneath your masks and pretenses. 

The thirtieth of October brings about a cold you’ve never felt before. As you await the arrival of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students, the outside corridors are teeming with students, eyes hungry with anticipation. You lean against the wall, exhausted physically and mentally, hugging your worn-out shawl closer to your shoulders. 

The skies are exceptionally gray today—you’ve had to drag yourself out of bed earlier this morning, limbs heavy as lead. The teacup in your grasp is scalding to the touch—you find that nothing hurts more than the ache in your heart. The children are particularly rowdy at the moment—each time you close your eyes, you see the hatred in James and Sirius’s eyes. 

Has loneliness ever felt so suffocating before? 

When winged horses make their way from the heavens, the clamoring grows louder—yet all you hear are their words. 

‘You are, without a doubt, the ugliest creature I’ve ever seen.’

‘I actually thought there could be something real to you under all that.’

You would not weep—not for yourself, and not certainly for them. 

Sometimes, you wondered if you were hurting too much to even be considered alive. Did your marked flesh even count as skin anymore? Worthy to be cherished with gentle touches and tender lips? How much more did you have to do until the guillotine finally fell? 

When does duty end? And when does life begin? 

Madame Maxine and her drove of Veelas descend from their carriage; awestruck gasps and intrigued murmurs echoing along the corridor. When the Beauxbatons Headmaster comes to stand before you, you instinctively sink into the role of a diplomatic host—that is, after all, why Dumbledore hired you. With a nod of your head and a pleasing smile, you greet the first of your guests to arrive. 

“What a relief that you made it safely to Hogwarts, Madame Maxime,” you tell her in a saccharine-sweet tone. “If you please, Mister Filch here will guide you to the dormitories where you’ll be staying while Hagrid will take care of your horses.” 

You want to go to sleep already. 

Finally, as a large ship emerges from the Great Lake—a sense of relief floods through you. Only one more person to greet and you’ll finally be able to return to your quarters, welcoming feast be damned—you’ve done your part for today. Igor Karkaroff and his students make their presence known; imposing statures and foreboding glares. The castle nearly crumbles from Viktor Krum’s entrance, Hogwarts’ Quidditch players eager to catch a glimpse of the prodigal Seeker—well, you could care less about such a barbaric sport. 

Karkaroff presents you a slimy leer as he presses a kiss to the back of your palm—the dig of his long nails into your skin is a pleasant feeling, to your surprise. “Dumbledore did not inform me we would be greeted by such beauty. We would have arrived earlier, otherwise.” 

You miss your cat. 

(Sirius’s eyes roll all the way to the back of his head when you giggle and melt in Karkaroff’s wretched compliments.) 

You want to die.

—

Chaos erupts the next day. The Goblet of Fire has chosen a fourth champion—Harry Potter himself. No one is more enraged than his mother, Lily. The Aurors on duty, James and Sirius, struggle to contain the students’ horror and verbal lashings. Some have taken to accusing James himself of putting Harry’s name in the goblet in the name of family prestige—predictably, it’s Draco and Pansy who lead that revolt. But you don’t expect for Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan to be swayed by the baseless gossip. So there’s a crack in the pride’s loyalty to one another, you surmise to yourself. 

Like a Niffler drawn to shiny objects, you follow the Headmasters and professors into a room, away from all the ruckus. 

“Did you put your name into the Goblet of Fire, Harry?” the wise Professor Dumbledore asks calmly.

The atmosphere is beyond wintry—you note the biting criticisms in their eyes, particular between Fleur and Madame Maxime. Lily hides Harry from their scrutiny, proud and unyielding despite being shorter than the Beauxbaton champion. Across the room, you find Severus and Remus engaged in a muted, albeit wound up argument. 

Everyone looks to the morose Bartemius Crouch Sr., awaiting his decision with a bated breath. You sympathize with the man—for a fleeting moment—for if looks could kill, Sirius’s tempestuous glare would have dragged him six feet under. 

“We must follow the rules, and the rules state clearly that those people whose names come out of the Goblet of Fire are bound to compete in the tournament.”

Your blood runs cold.

Ludo Bagman appears to be pleased with his colleague’s decision—you see no reason why he shouldn’t be, he’s only ever put his odds in the thrill of the game. “Well, Barty knows the rule book back to front!” 

Dimwitted fool.

You scoff. “In a room full of Headmasters and Ministry leaders, surely one of you can find a way to unbind young Potter’s name from the tournament.”

“Err. . .” Ludo’s gaze flickers from Dumbledore to Crouch Sr. Madame Maxime and Karkaroff nod emphatically in agreement, forcing him into a corner with a ragged chuckle. “There’s nothing to be done, the Goblet of Fire has gone out.”

“Do you or do you not have a wand, Mister Bagman?” you reply, piqued; crossing your arms over your chest. “If the rules were written by a wizard, surely it can be unwritten by a wizard. Teaching an Unforgivable to a first-year would be more difficult than that.” “It is not as simple as that, Professor!” Bagman cries. “But you are welcome to try a hand at it.”

“So we just let a child run to his death, then?” you seethe, nostrils flaring. “I never knew the Ministry was teeming with incompetent men. Shall I steal your job from under your nose, Ludo dear?”

(Harry’s brows pinch in confusion. He does not expect for you to care so much.)

“He’s got to compete. They’ve all got to compete. Binding magical contract, like Dumbledore said. Convenient, eh?” says Alastor Moody as he limps across the room, flask in his hand. You fall silent, an unnerving chill slithering down your spine. Something about this man did not sit right with you. You pull the sleeves of your blouse further down your arms. 

“Maybe someone’s hoping Potter is going to die for it,” Moody growls in response to Fleur. “Over my dead body!” James snarls, veins rigid against the column of his throat, eyes simmering in anger. 

“Yes, yes, Potter, we all know you’d die for your son,” Moody remarks offhandedly, taking a large gulp of the liquor in his flask. 

“It seems to me, however, that we have no choice but to accept it,” Dumbledore counters in an attempt to placate the tense atmosphere. Lily’s sharp sob engulfs the outraged clamors of the two other Headmasters. “Both Cedric and Harry have been chosen to compete in the Tournament. This, therefore, they will do. . . .”

The glass sculpture of a long-haired mermaid shatters into fragmented pieces as you bump into the table; just about ready to flee before you do anything rash like point your wand at Crouch Sr. himself. Before you exit the room, you catch sight of Cedric’s eyes—worry and uncertainty pooling within his gaze. You slam the door hard enough until the wood splinters. 

Harry Potter is imprisoned by his fate as the Chosen One—and it seems time has imprisoned everyone at Hogwarts, yourself included. 

The first task for the tournament arrives defiantly, without care for Harry and his loved ones. You have only been to the Quidditch field twice—today happens to be the second time. Everyone is bundled in their wooliest sweaters and warmest jackets; although, Hermione did have her portable bluebell flames. You stare at it with envy. 

“Oi! Professor, over here!” One freckled Weasley twin—Fred, you guess—beckons for you to sit by their swarm of red and gold. He pushes Ron away to make room for you beside Minerva. 

“Thank you, Mister Weasley,” you say quietly, sniffles falling from your frost-bitten nose. 

It’s quite odd—you’d have expected to be sitting with Professor Sprout and Amos, amongst your sett of badgers. But it’s not half-bad. You don’t erupt in flames when Minerva holds onto you, shrieking, as Fleur narrowly avoids her dragon, awoken from its trance. You don’t particularly mind either, when the Weasley twins bump their chests and holler into Ginerva’s ear when it’s time for Viktor Krum to face the Chinese Fireball.

“We got a traitor here!” George snickers when you flinch and yelp for Cedric as he fights shy of the Short Snout’s fire, and cheering breathlessly when he eventually captures the golden egg. You glare at George mirthfully, wondering where your fight and heat has gone. 

“Please excuse me for a moment,” you say, rising to your feet as the judges mull over their scores for Cedric. “Minerva,” you nod to her, and she offers you a hint of a wrinkly smile. (McGonagall thinks that if anyone can talk back in the face of a Ministry chairman in defense of her students, then perhaps she’s misjudged a professor or two.) 

Your cheeks grow numb from the cold as you cross the swarm of Beauxbatons students, past the flock of Ravenclaws. Harry’s match is underscored by the deafening cheers; the stands  rumbling from the yells for his name. You’re nearing the territory of yellow banners and black insignias, trumpets blowing into your ears, when the clamor and hurrahs turn into terrified gasps; students rushing back from the edge. You don’t understand the fuss until you look back at the arena. 

Harry’s dragon has broken free from its chains. 

You join Professor Sprout and Severus in herding the students away from danger—spotting James and Sirius across the arena, hastily reinforcing the protective barriers around the stands, uttermost precision in their wandwork. While Harry dances a life-threatening waltz, you hurriedly clear out the space closest to the banisters. Your breath hitches as the Hungarian Horntail wreaks havoc below, inducing quakes and showers of fire. 

But more frightening than any dragon, you hear the bloodcurdling scream of a student.

“Daphne!” 

The Greengrass heiress, Astoria, cries vehemently as Draco holds her back from rushing to the front of the stands. 

You scour the area frantically—there, only a few feet away from you, lies a fear-stricken Daphne Greengrass, staring right into the eyes of the Horntail. Its teeth bare, growls like thunderstorms, and the rising scent of embers and ashes. 

“Daphne, get away from there!” 

You hardly hesitate—you run to her, desperation pushing at your legs, terror holding your heart captive. As the dragon screeches in preparation to breathe fire, the nearest Aurors miles away—each gasp for air is torn from your throat. In a blink of an eye, you grab Daphne into your arms and shield her from the Horntail. The crowd bellows in fright—you close your eyes, preparing for even the most excruciating of pain. 

But there is nothing. 

Just you, Daphne, the Hungarian—and Remus who’s pointed his wand at the onslaught of flames, redirecting it up into the sky as Harry grabs the Horntail’s attention, now zipping freely on his broom. 

Remus looks back at the both of you in relief, drawing his wand back in his pocket. “Are you alright?” he asks you first, a weary tenderness in his eyes. 

You tear your gaze away from him, checking on Daphne instead; cupping her pale cheeks and wiping the tears from her eyes. “Are you alright, Daphne? What do you feel? Come, darling, let’s get you to Madam Pomfrey—can you stand? Here, put your arm around my shoulder.” 

“T–Thank you, Professor,” stammers Daphne as Astoria rushes to her, the pair of sisters blubbering and crying. The blonde-haired girl nods to you and Remus, “Both of you. I–I don’t know how I’ll repay such kindness.” 

“Don’t worry, Daphne,” says Remus, smiling as he offers her a lemon-flavored treat. 

He steps back to make way for Lily to fuss over Daphne, his eyes straying to you, oozing with sincerity as he rubs his handkerchief to your cheek. He grins at you and your heart skips a beat. “My kindness is freely given.”

Has kindness ever felt so real before?

act iv. you wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me. 

“THE CHILDREN ARE terrified, Missus Fawley. Just last week, we had another incident. All the windows in the kitchen—shattered! The little ones couldn’t sleep for days.” 

You hear the orphanage matron’s voice behind the bedroom door. You’re allowed but a moment of playing with your ragged, plush animals, before the matron comes barging inside. (How rude, you think to yourself. Hasn’t she ever heard of knocking before?) Although, unlike all the other times, she has a lady right on her tail. This woman is much taller than Sister Thompson, certainly more beautiful-looking, too. Not that you have anything against Sister Thompson’s wrinkly face and foul smile. 

No, this woman walks with her head held up high, dressed in a burgundy leather coat that clearly costs more than the thin rag you call a shirt. This must be Mrs. Fawley, then. Her black heels click against the rusty, wooden floor; you watch impassively as she bends down to your eye level. She takes you by surprise when she grabs ahold of your chin, slowly turning your head from side to side. 

“So this is the child,” Mrs. Fawley muses, red lips quirked. Haunting blue eyes stare back at you; hair dark as ebony falling to her waist. “You may leave, Sister Thompson. I would like to get to know my future ward.”

The matron widens her eyes. “Missus Fawley, I strongly advise against—!”

“You misunderstand me, Sister Thompson,” says Fawley, a sharp edge to her voice. “That was not a request.”

A strange sense of victory fills you when Sister Thompson bows her head in response, tossing you just one sour glare before exiting the room. The rickety door clicks shut and Mrs. Fawley returns her attention to you with a low hum, eyes raking over your form once more. You wonder what she’s thinking about; wondering if it’s the vast difference between her neatly-pressed clothing and your rumpled dress shirt. Many have visited the orphanage before, but none have spared you a second glance, not with Sister Thompson scaring them all away. (You suppose there is no appeal in adopting a child with temperamental issues who can make other girls’ noses bleed.)

“Show me,” Fawley commands, breaking the quietude; her voice stern, yet hypnotic. Much like the first notes of a pied piper’s song. For a few moments, you don’t understand what she’s asking for, until realization dawns upon you. You drop the plush toy’s limbs—seconds later, the teddy bear waves its hand as though it’s gained a soul. If this had been a wooden doll with a long nose, it would be saying: ‘I’m a real boy!’

Fawley chuckles, leaning back with a pleased look. Your head falls to the side in confusion—when you had shown this little trick to Daisy Anne and Annaliese, they’d begun to throw stones at you, screaming and saying that you were a witch. You don’t try to play with the other children anymore after that. Rather than being afraid, Missus Fawley seems to be happy with you. “My name is Agatha Fawley, special adviser to the Wizengamot, daughter of the Sacred Twenty-Eight,” she tells you, and you don’t have a lick of comprehension. “What do you know about witches and wizards, darling?” “I don’t know, maybe. . .” You scrunch your nose, making the stuffed elephant twirl the bear with just a glance—Fawley tilts your chin upwards, demanding your utmost attention. “That they aren’t real? Or if they are, they should be burnt at the stake?”

Agatha Fawley hisses, a low sound that sends shivers down your spine. You wonder if you’ve angered her. The toys fall back to the floor lifelessly. “Damned Muggles—! Is that what they teach these days?” She shakes her head. “No, never mind. What matters is what happens from now on.” “Are you going to adopt me?” you dare to ask, gaze falling to the floor, heart hammering against its confinements.

“I will,” she affirms and your eyes grow wide, breath stuttering in your throat. “But if we are to become family—there is one thing you must do for me.”

“Anything!” You all but scream in her ear, a plea for her to take you away from the orphanage; far, far away from hurtful words and a room that echoes your loneliness back to you. 

“Never lower your eyes.” She smiles, teeth bared into a snarl, reminiscent of a prowling fox. “You are magic, my darling. And I will be your mother. No one on this earth can make you kneel in surrender.”

You believe her.

You believe her with all your heart.

But, you would learn that even monsters can call themselves ‘mother’ and embrace you with open arms. 

The Fawley Manor is large—larger than the orphanage, and that was a place you couldn’t fully explore due to its largeness. There must be a thousand rooms, as far as the eyes can see. It’s like a princess castle coming to life—akin to the ones you’ve read about in storybooks. Missus Fawley’s home nearly touches the sky. There are tall trees, wide grassfields, and glimmering lakes. You gasp and cover your eyes with your hands as the chauffeur drives past the marble sculpture of naked ladies. (“Think of them as Goddesses bare to the mortal eye, dearest,” says Fawley when you yelp and sink into the leather seats.) Then, the family butler, maids, and chef come to greet you, all smiling at the new addition to the manor. 

You meet Elsie, the house elf—your first real encounter with magic. Well, besides Missus Fawley turning paper into crystalline butterflies in the car. Elsie is a tiny, wrinkly creature who wears five different-colored knitted hats atop her head. She can’t seem to stop shuddering while speaking, too, as if drenched in cold, invisible water. But you look into her big eyes and you decide to be her friend forever. 

“Get settled into your room, and then we’ll have you acquainted with the rest of the staff,” Fawley says after she ushers you into a room—a bedroom just for you, where you won’t have to listen to anyone else’s snoring or fight to the death for a blanket on a cold winter storm. The bed is bouncy and soft, not unlike the cardboard they’d given you at the orphanage. Your shelves are stocked with toys and books. 

Then, you remember that in exchange for all this, you must do your best in school. That is one thing you aren’t looking forward to. 

But, how bad could a school be if it’s filled with magic? 

You happily imagine smelly trolls, dashing unicorns, talking ghosts, and floating crayons. 

For your first week in the manor, you enjoy glazed desserts, fluffy pillows, and silken clothing—and on your second week, you are reminded of your duty to the family you’ve been brought into. Something bigger than studying in a faraway magic castle. Missus Fawley introduces you to her long line of ancestors. You stumble on your footing as the portraits shuffle around and gaze upon you with curiosity, some with a more heated glare than others. They call you a funny term as you walk past. Mudblood. But, Fawley tells you not to worry. You are now her child before anything else. 

The family crest is chiseled with gold; you squint your eyes to make sense of the inscription: Virtus in Arduis.

“Virtue in hardships,” Agatha explains in her dulcet tone. As you featherly trace the emblem with your fingers, Fawley leans down to your height, clearing her throat; her expression impossible for you to read. “I brought you to this family because I saw potential in you. I sensed great magic from your person. But we all have our duties. Magic gives, and magic will take.”

“The wizarding world is in grave danger,” she tells you firmly, gripping the curve of your jaw with an intensity that frightens you. “Will you help me fight for the greater good?”

You blink.

You just got here and now you have to fight for a world that you never even knew that existed?

“Greater good?” you echo in disbelief. “F-Fight? Fight who? I’ve never even fought in my life! Making Daisy Anne’s nose bleed w-was just an accident!” 

“I will be with you every step of the way,” she vows fiercely, the tips of her nails digging into your cheeks. “Tell me, do you understand? You will do what is right without any recognition at all. Think of it as a performance, my love. And I’m preparing you for your role in this world starting now.” 

The ingénue in this act you have to play involves studying endlessly, practicing your wand work until Fawley is satisfied, and familiarizing yourself with every shelf in the library from dawn until dusk. You don’t understand why you must memorize every charm and every incantation—but Missus Fawley reminds you that you are bound to her and your responsibilities. You don’t want to go back to the orphanage, cold and alone—so, you acquaint yourself with parchments and quills, swallowing the discomfort when the nib harshly rubs your skin raw. 

On your tenth birthday, Missus Fawley gifts you with a closet overflowing with chiffon, taffeta, and organza. Lace parasols, pretty shoes, and wide-brimmed sun hats. The chef surprises you with a three-layered cake, the constellation icing charmed to flicker like real stars in the night. It’s the best birthday you’ve ever had. For the first time, you feel like your life is actually celebrated. 

The next day, your adoptive mother says with utmost exigency, “This time next year, you shall be off to Hogwarts, but that means your debut in society is drawing near. The wizarding world will officially acknowledge you as my child.”

“When that happens, vultures will flock to you as though you were a corpse.” Her eyes flash dangerously. “And you will become one, unless you learn how to fend for yourself. The most ruthless of us all can be adorned in pearls and dressed in ball gowns. Appearance is everything in this world—do not let them see that you are afraid.” 

And so, you don’t tell her that she’s petrified you to the bone.

“As the sole heir to my fortune and properties, you must understand how to navigate, not only the wizarding world, but this treacherous domain, as well.” Missus Fawley straightens your back, harshly tapping you once more to spread your legs at a more acceptable distance. “To be envied by all—the perfect host must always be ready to receive their guests with attention and politeness.”

When you wince, or move to massage your sore muscles, she barks at you, “You must always be composed, even in near-death. If you crumble—if you let even a single person know what you’re truly feeling, all this will be for naught.”

The burden of her words is heavier than the textbooks she shoves in your hold. 

“Control them before they can control you,” Fawley explains as the seamstress measures your waist and arms. “Exert your influence in a conversation. Not only in words, but your stature. Present yourself accordingly. Jewelry and clothing can be your armor when you cannot draw your wand.”

You grumble under your breath when the seamstress accidentally pokes you with a needle for the nth time. 

“Smile when flattered, giggle when offered a dance, and curtsy when greeted.” Fawley glares daggers at you when you hiss in pain. “But most of all, do not let any of those cretins know that you are fully aware of the power you wield over them. Anyone can be a puppeteer if they want to be. You’ll just be the greatest of them all.”

(But even a master of puppets has someone pulling their strings from behind the curtains.)

Elsie stays up with you each night, carefully pouring ice-cold water over your head, and playing with the floating bubbles to distract you from the ache in your legs and arms. “Elsie will give Master her hat!” the young elf says one evening, pulling the topmost beanie from her head and laying it on yours. She tells you a bedtime story before tucking you beneath the covers of your queen-sized bed. You fall asleep to the sound of grasshoppers chirping and portraits murmuring to one another. 

Then, you get your first taste of a pureblood skirmish. Missus Fawley had taken you to Diagon Alley, months away from the first of September—a letter in your hand with all the materials a first-year would need for their classes. Safe to say, you’re more than excited. (“Oh, mother, look!” you exclaim, pointing to the various shops—and also remembering the rule of calling Agatha mother out in public. “A sweet shop! Fortescue’s ice cream parlor! Mother, can we go there? Please, please, please!”) Fawley smiles at your wide-eyed wonder, your hand in hers—today is a special one, she decides. You’re allowed a bit of fun. Especially since you’ve shown unfathomable progress in your studies. 

You get your very first wand at Ollivanders—and now this world of grumpy goblins and jumping chocolate frogs becomes even more real. You hardly let go of your wand, a tingle of exhilaration running through you each time you brush your fingers against the finely-carved wood. Even Missus Fawley is pleased with the wand that chooses you. Later, you’ll be given three hours to practice your charms again, but you find that you don’t mind—not when you’ve learned that you can now read books under the covers when Elsie turns the lights off.

As you exit the shop, breathless and flushed with a hunger to explore more of this world you’ve been given access to, you and Fawley run into one of her friends. This must be one of the scary people she’s warned you about. Sharp cheekbones, unfriendly gray eyes, and a stern demeanor. You immediately suck in a breath and school your face just as Agatha has taught you. 

“Walburga!” Fawley greets with a lovely smile, but you notice that it doesn’t reach her eyes, not like when she smiles at you for growing another inch taller. She brings her hand onto your shoulder. “What a pleasant surprise, my dear.” She peers at the two young boys hiding behind her, much like you were doing now. “Oh, my! Is it that time already? I’d forgotten young Sirius was set to go to Hogwarts this year. You must be overjoyed.” 

Walburga is a tall lady, taller than Agatha, even. She hums, lips quirked, chin held up high. “Fawley,” Walburga responds, rather displeased. “Talking my ear off, as usual.” Her trenchant eyes land on you and her smile curves into a sneer. “And who might this little one be?” 

You risk a glance at Missus Fawley before offering the other woman a sweet, half-curtsy. “Madam Black, how do you do?” you smile at her, gaily revealing your name and the gap in your front teeth—the two boys snicker and your eyes instantly narrow into a glare. 

Walburga stares you down harshly. “How adorable.” Her eyes slice to the two boys behind her. “Sirius, Regulus, introduce yourselves.” 

Missus Fawley laughs, a grating sound—much like warning bells—as her eyes flash dangerously at her, hand tightening on your collarbone. “What a relief to know that Sirius will at least have one friend already before they arrive at the castle.” 

“But—oh, dear, look at the time.” Agatha quickly casts the Tempus charm before looking at you aghast, eyes wide as saucers, mouth parted dramatically. “I promised the Daily Prophet a photoshoot today! It is my thirty-first birthday soon, after all. I’d give you tips on how to capture this look, but, Walburga, it seems you’re embodying the housewife fashion perfectly.”

“Ta-ta!” She plants two, airy kisses on Walburga’s cheeks before waving the three goodbye. 

“That,” Fawley whispers into your ear as she snuggles the side of your face. “—is exactly how to do it.”  

You collapse in your bed that night, wondering just what you’ve gotten yourself into and what kind of world you’re about to live in.

How confusing.

All this time, you thought that Missus Fawley had been preparing you for an intense entrance exam. Why else would she make you study twenty-five hours a day and eight days a week? But as it turns out, all you had to do was sit on a chair and have Professor McGonagall put a talking hat on your head.

“Hufflepuff!” the Sorting Hat proclaims, and the table of yellow and black welcomes you with open arms. You sit next to a boy named Amos Diggory. Later in the night, you’ll share a dormitory with a kind girl named Amelia Bones. 

(Hogwarts is the best!) 

The holidays arrive in the blink of an eye and you find yourself standing at the steps of the manor once more. Agatha Fawley waits for you by the door, engulfing you instantly in a hug that shields you from the falling snowflakes and biting winds. Hot cocoa with marshmallows and gingerbread cookies await you in the grand dining room; you even get a crotchety greeting from Isolde Fawley the Third’s portrait. Elsie crumples to the floor and sobs at your arrival. 

“So you were sorted there,” Fawley mutters to herself, a worried expression contorting her face. The fireplace crackles as a winter storm rages outside the manor. You lay on her lap as she absentmindedly pats your head. Stories of your first few months at Hogwarts fall from your lips without pause. “This would go smoother if you had been sorted in Slytherin, however; but no matter—it’s not what I expected, but we can make do. The Diggorys and Bones’ are purebloods, so maybe not all hope is lost. But you need to get more acquainted with the Greengrasses and the Malfoys, Druella Black’s daughters as well.”

You hide your frown against her legs. You really liked Amos and Susan, Bellatrix was just downright mean to everyone, even calling this one girl, Lily, a Mudblood, too. But if mother wanted you to try, you might, but only once. If Bellatrix didn’t want to be your friend, then there’s no helping that unhinged witch. (At least the Prewett twins’ pranks were funny. Bellatrix once snuck inside the Ravenclaw tower to leave a dead pig’s head in the girls’ dormitory just because.)

On the twenty-fifth of December, Agatha Fawley throws a gala just for you—masqued as a fundraiser for Muggle children in need. (None of the families cared about them, you would realize later on.) The ground nearly rumbles from the number of guests she’s invited. From your bedroom window, you spot a few familiar faces. Sirius Black, who stands out from the crowd like a pale bean sprout; his cousin, Bellatrix, who’s already taken to yelling at the staff; Lucius Malfoy, the Flints, and the Parkinsons. Your head goes dizzy. 

As long as you don’t trip during your entrance, everything should be fine, right? Right?

(You one-hundred percent trip in front of everyone as you descend the stairs. The sound of James Potter and Sirius Black’s laughter haunts you.)

But other than that, the Yule event goes by smoothly. You don’t fall flat on your face when greeting Cygnus Black and Druella Black née Rosier, and mother is thoroughly satisfied when you smile in the face of Walburga Black and Abraxas Malfoy. You stay in the corner after welcoming your guests, sitting in your chair like an abstract painting forbidden to touch; whilst the Prewett twins and James teased Elsie until she cried from anxiety. Sirius also goes out of his way to congratulate you for growing all your teeth in. 

You don’t understand why Mother is so scared of these people.

But you’ll understand virtue in hardships soon enough when you receive your first tutoring in ballroom dancing. Instead of sapphire earrings or a trip to France, Missus Fawley has a different gift in mind for your fifteenth birthday. She surprises you with a tutor—you’re bewildered at first, arguing that you’ve consistently been at the top of your class. (“Madam Hawthorne is not here for your academics, my darling,” Fawley explains with her red-lips stretched in a foreboding smile. “Dance is a beneficial skill for any host to have. You’ll practice until your footwork is perfect. You will dance until I say you can stop. And when your feet are aching and bleeding, you will keep dancing.”) 

Each night for your summer holiday, you go to bed, sobbing into your pillows, body trembling from Madam Hawthorne’s cane. 

Everything changes on the eve of your sixteenth birthday.

Like all the years before, Missus Fawley invites the entirety of the pureblood society to the manor. 

You stay with Narcissa and Andromeda, gently placating their concerns when they ask about your unnatural quietness—truthfully, you could no longer breathe in the flounced dress you’ve been forced to wear; the sides of your feet raw from constantly practicing with Madam Hawthorne, head aching from the lights and obnoxious perfumes; stomach gurgling. Bags under your eyes from revising endlessly for your N.E.W.T.S. 

Eyes drooping and neck craning from exhaustion, you don’t at all expect for James Potter to emerge from the crowd; wavy, brown hair sweeping over his glasses, wine-colored suit melting into his dark skin. He holds out his hand to you with a boyish grin. “May I have this dance?” 

You blink, frozen solid for a few moments until Narcissa softly nudges your side. “Y-Yes, if you must,” you splutter, placing your palm in his. 

He leads you to the dance floor as the orchestra plays a song perfect for a waltz along a flower field; your eyes glued to his back. The chandelier hangs overhead as James settles your arms around his neck in one swift motion. You almost step on his feet, spluttering your gratitude when he steadies you by the waist, the heat of his hands permeating your layers of clothing. 

“Isn’t it odd that the birthday celebrant wasn’t dancing all this time?” he says, pulling you in for a twirl. 

“I assume the others were all too afraid to deal with my mother,” you reply timidly. “She’s quite overprotective, you see.” 

“Who? That tall lady over there by Missus Black who’s currently glaring at me?” James chuckles into your ear as you step closer to hear his heartbeat. “She couldn’t possibly terrify me.”

“Lily says thank you, by the way.” 

“Oh? For what?”

“Letting her copy off your Defense Against the Dark Arts essay—she’s downright shite at the subject. Don’t tell her I said that, though.”

You laugh along with him, and you find that you could rest in his arms forever.

But, as your dance with him comes to an end, so does your wistful reverie. 

When most of the guests have left the scene, and when the lights have dimmed, Mother presents to you her real gift—your debut in the wizarding society. She leads you to a room, one where you’ve never ventured before. It’s deep past the cellars, where cobwebs and dust bunnies grow. (Before you enter, Narcissa grips your hand firmly, a look of dread and urgency in her eyes. “Be brave,” is all that she says, encasing you in her arms.) 

In this dark room, you see Abraxas and his wife, Walburga, Cygnus, the Notts, the Goyles, and more people you recognize, all dressed in their finest black cloaks—as though it were a funeral instead of a birthday. In the center of it all, is your mother, Agatha, with a man kneeling in front of her. 

“What is this?” you ask in alarm, frantically searching for answers. The man struggles against his rope, binds, screams and pleas muffled by the cloth shoved in his mouth. The sight of his bruises makes you all but retch. “Mother, what is going on?” 

Walburga is the first to step forward, her lips painted blood-red against her ashen skin, curving into an edacious smile. She cradles the back of your head to her chest. “My lovely dear, it has been the utmost privilege watching you grow. Your mother is certainly proud of you, we all are. Tonight, just as our sons and daughters before you, we offer you our blessing on this very special day.” 

“You know of the Unforgivables, right, my child?” Her voice is a sweet, ruthless cadence in your ear; her touch, like worms crawling on your skin as she places your wand in your hand. You bite down on your tongue, swallowing each breath as the walls threaten to cave in on you. Your fingers forcibly shake in terror and you worry that you might snap your wand in half if you aren’t careful. “The Cruciatus, the Imperius, and—?”

“The killing curse,” you breathe out, ever-so stiff in her hold. You watch as Abraxas kicks the man to the ground; you dig your nails deep into your palm to keep from flinching. 

“That’s right, little one,” says Walburga, tracing your jaw with a morbid sense of satisfaction. She holds your chin in place as Abraxas tears the cloth from the man’s mouth. It’s worse now. You hear his desperate begging and his guttural cries for help. “Muggles,” she spits the word out like venom. “Look at them. They’re filthy. Infecting our blood with theirs.”

“Kill him,” Walburga says, a delicate whisper, as though she had asked for a cup of tea. “Kill him and you’ll have proved your worth to us.” 

“No! No, please!” The man struggles against Abraxas’s arms. “Please! I have a family! A c-child!”

You stagger backwards, nearly losing your grip on your wand. You look to your mother for help. “I—!”

“Kill him, pet!” Bellatrix cackles from across the room, teeth bared viciously, eagerly beckoning for you to come forward. “Make sure you mean it! Otherwise it won’t hurt!”

“You know the words,” says Walburga, lifting your pliable arm—a puppeteer controlling its ragdoll. “Say it.”

The man before you is real. He’s a real person with a real family anxiously waiting for him to come home. His children worried sick for their father. How can they just stand there and expect you to kill him? “Mother, please—I can’t. I w-wont.” Your breathing grows labored, hot tears pricking your eyes; the man screams and yells, and the sound echoes ceaselessly in your ears. “I don’t. . .  I don’t understand.”

Agatha Fawley closes her eyes, and you understand perfectly. 

Each sob wrecks your body and the tears endlessly flow from your ears, you hiccup and shiver; blood pooling from the bite in your tongue. “I can’t do this—please!”

“You will.”

You close your eyes just as a flash of unforgiving green shoots from your wand. “Avada Kedavra!”

The man falls limp to the floor, and so does your wand. Walburga coos and drowns you in a sea of shallow praises, the men offer their congratulations, but all you hear is the sound of a lifeless body dropping to the ground. 

A man who you just killed by your wand, in your home. 

That night, the four walls of your bedroom bear witness to your anguish—you cry until you throw up on the floor, body lurching and quivering on the freezing red oak. 

“Do you get it now?” says Agatha as she enters your room, the faintest of sunlight streaming through the windows. She bends down and cups your face in her palms. “This is your world from now on.” 

You rip her hands away from you, gritting your teeth. “I don’t want to live in your world—not anymore! I don’t care about all this! Magic, wealth, and all these things mean nothing if I have to kill innocent people! You’re a monster!” 

“Good.” Fawley’s voice is cold as she stands up, lifting her chin as her eyes glaze impassively. “That means you’re ready for your next lesson.”

“Didn’t you hear me? I said I was done!” you retort, sore from crying.

“Don’t you see?” says Fawley, pausing underneath the door frame, gaze ruthlessly slicing towards you. “We will destroy them from the inside out. Walburga, Abraxas, Tom Riddle. All of them, one by one. That is our true duty.” 

As she turns to leave, she adds coldly, “Ready yourself. I’ll be teaching you Occlumency during your summer break.” Then she slams the door shut, leaving you all alone in your room. 

When you return to school after the winter holidays, you’re forced to pretend that you hadn’t taken the life of an innocent Muggle. 

‘Do not let them see you are afraid.’ 

“Unfortunately, flaming red hair and hand-me-down robes will not complement my dress—it’s crimson taffeta, you see, handcrafted only by the finest tailors in Italy,” you say dismissively to the ragtag of Gryffindors before you, Vittoria Zabini and Isadora Bulstrode giggling at your side. The Prewett boy visibly wilts and you almost give in—almost. But everyone must play their part in this world. You know that if you show a sliver of weakness, Vittoria and Isadora will be happy enough to report to their mothers—vying for the pedestal you’ve been put on by their parents. 

For the final blow, you scrunch your nose in disgust, slamming your Divination textbook close. “Can you even afford anywhere in Hogsmeade for a date, Prewett?”

(Walburga would Avada you herself if she caught you in such a place with such a wizard. You’re more terrified of what she might ask you to do to Gideon—someone she deems as a blood traitor. You refuse to utter another Unforgivable. You just won’t.) 

“Oh, you cruel wench!” Marlene McKinnon steps forward and before anyone could take another breath, she slaps you in the face. And, finally, you feel something other than the guilt of taking someone’s life.

Your cheek stings from the impact, your ears ringing with the sound of your friends asking if you’re alright and Dorcas Meadowes roaring about how you deserved it—well, you’re not about to disagree. You move your jaw about, cradling the side of your face as you sigh impassively—oh, it’s nothing compared to the etiquette lessons of Agatha Fawley. “My mother will certainly hear about this, McKinnon.”

“You and your mother can kiss my arse!” she shrieks, eyes ablaze.

“Gideon didn’t deserve that, and you know it,” Lily argues fervidly, eyes sickle-shaped as she looks back at the Prewett twin’s dejected expression. “How could you even say that?” 

“How could I not, Lily darling?” you reply off-handedly with a roll of your eyes.

Lily flinches. In her gaze, all you see looking back at you is the Muggle father who had cried out relentlessly for one last glimpse of his children. She stares at the badger emblem on your cloak with disdain, and you with a great deal of pity. “You are, without a doubt, the ugliest creature I’ve ever seen.” 

She has the softest voice you’ve ever heard, but it hurts you all the same. 

You’ve scrubbed your skin raw in the bath, hoping that you’d wash the feel of your sins off your hands—it’s all for naught. Agatha might be a monster in your eyes, but you’re the fool that played right into her act.

You get to your feet, meeting her eye-to-eye. In a low whisper, lips close to her ear, you say, “There are far worse creatures out there, Evans. You’re lucky you’ve been born only a Muggleborn.”

Fortunate that she won’t ever have to play the role that you’ve been forced to. You feel an overwhelming envy towards her—effortless beauty, pure and untainted hands, a kind heart that draws in every one and every person. Compared to her, you must be a dirtied, black swan in a lake that’s only meant for white swans like Lily Evans. 

And she will have more charming princes and truehearted fairies on her side than you could ever hope to gain. 

“Say another word and I will tear your hair from that pretty head of yours,” Marlene snarls, pushing Lily behind her.

Oh, how easy they make it for you. 

You smile in delight. “So you think I’m pretty?”

Marlene lunges.

(You are so tired of it all.)

Every night of your summer holiday, you spend it writhing on the floor, Agatha’s lessons on Occlumency taking its toll. She grows harsher, stricter, and more apathetic than the sun beating down on the manor windows. (“Again!” Fawley demands as you collapse to the ground, drenched in sweat and your head numb from her probing. “Do you think the Dark Lord will be lenient with you? Get up! We’re going again! If you want this to end, you will endure this without error!”) 

While your peers are out swimming in lakes and racing around in Quidditch brooms, you’re stuck within the confinements of your home. But you are not that naive, you’ve seen the headlines of the Daily Prophet. A coalition known as Death Eaters have begun making their mark on the wizarding society. There are rumors of a great, sinister power rising. People go missing everyday, and you worry that this might be the world that your mother has been preparing you for all this time. 

But why you? Why must you carry this burden all alone? Who will pick up the pieces of your battered soul when the weight of your burden crushes you entirely? 

There are times when you wish you never left the orphanage at all. 

A week into your summer break, you find out that your mother is dying. Violent coughing, dizzy spells, jaundiced skin, her eyes bloodshot, and the healer frequenting her bedroom quarters. You’re not allowed inside, of course, but you can hear her feeble voice and the doctor’s stern orders.��

You also learn that she’s absolutely insane—but that is a fact you’ve come to terms with years ago. One night, during dinner, you’d let it slip that you have your suspicions of a classmate being inflicted with a lycan’s curse. Agatha Fawley reacts just about as one would expect her to. 

“A werewolf? In Hogwarts?” Fawley staggers to her office, the tower of neatly-piled documents and research reports from the Ministry now fluttering to the floor. “No, no, no. . .” she utters to herself, panic seeping within her skin. It’s the most frazzled you have ever seen the great Agatha Fawley. You stare at her unraveling from the threshold of the room, unsure of what to do. “Dumbledore has gone mad! That old loon! What was he thinking? Sheltering a beast within the castle!” 

“Don’t worry, my dear,” says Agatha as she reaches for you, a ghastly smile on her face and a near-empty look in her eyes. Your brows pinch together in confusion—you hadn’t been worried about that student at all. “I’ll have that monster out of the castle in no time. The Ministry will have no choice but to listen to me.” 

“That’s it,” she mutters, haphazardly grabbing for her feather quill and blank parchment. “Perhaps a law to forbid werewolves from ever integrating into society. School, house properties—can you imagine if they manage to infiltrate the Ministry? Everything I’ve worked so hard for!” 

“Mother?” you call out hesitantly, crossing the distance, hand outstretched as Fawley slips on her footing, a muttered profanity under her breath. The woman before you is unrecognizable, a sallow casing of a moribund soul. “Mother, please, Remus is no threat to the castle,” you plead, ripping her hand away from the quill. “You can’t do this!” 

“Do not tell me what I can or cannot do!” Agatha seethes through her teeth, chest heaving as she glowers at you. “Everything I have done, I have done for you! Yet, you still continue to fight me? I should have left you in that orphanage to rot while I had the chance!” 

“Well then, why didn’t you?” you scream, pushing her away as the words force themselves out of your throat. “Maybe that Muggle father would have still been alive if you did! Maybe I wouldn’t have to suffer so much! To hell with you and your duty!” 

Fawley laughs to herself, a weak and feeble sound. At first, you think it’s in response to you, but then you watch her drag her palm down her face, unblinking when her fingers appear to be drenched in blood. You take a step forward and there’s crimson trickling down her nose, a pallid contrast against her skin. “Ha,” she chuckles once more, keeling over to the ground as she stares up at the ceiling, blood on her flesh. “Merlin, what have I done? I–I’ve gone too far—even the Gods cannot save me.”

The despair in her voice is confounding. “Come here, my love,” she croaks from the floor, reaching out to you with bloodstained hands. Reluctantly, you sink to her side, gnawing on your lower lip as she cups your face in her palms—how many times have you been in this position before? “I’m sorry,” she sobs, shoulders trembling. “Oh, my darling, I am so sorry. I’m afraid I’ve doomed the both of us.” She traces the frame of your jaw and cheekbones. “My child, my beautiful child. What have I done? Will you forgive me?” 

You realize that this must be the consequence of living in a constant lie. To be an imitation of a human person, with no room for grief, rage, fear, hope or even a semblance of love. You stay silent, drowning in the arms of your adoptive mother. “I am to die soon,” says Agatha with utmost finality, eyes boring into yours. “But you are better than me. Braver. Far stronger than I have ever been. I know this must be the heaviest burden a child can carry, but you must understand that the fate of this world is at stake. I am so sorry, my love, but I must leave this duty to you.” 

She lets her head hang limply. “I-I am tired, as well. I’ve pushed away everyone and anyone for this. To do what is right, to endure what is hard—that is what I’ve lived by all these years.”

“And so must you.” Agatha has been mourning all this time, but not for her life. 

You hate her. 

You hate her with all your heart. 

But even monsters need a heart to breathe. 

A month passes by in a blur, and you are now set to meet the ill-famed Tom Riddle. You know that he was a student of Professor Dumbledore; that Narcissa is extremely terrified of him, and that Lucius Malfoy idolizes him to a fault. (“This is the moment I have been preparing you for all these years,” your mother tells you, shields of Occlumency glimmering in her deep blue eyes. “Do not let him in no matter what.”) Soon thereafter, Missus Fawley apparates the both of you to the Malfoy manor. 

The dining room is bleak, befitting of a Malfoy; curtains drawn, fireplace idly crackling, and hushed murmurs upon your arrival. All eyes are on you, and you’re lucky to have dressed in your Sunday best. At the head of the table, you see Tom Riddle, with Abraxas and Cyprian Nott sitting on each side. You hear something large slithering across the polished floors—your breath hitches at the sight of a monstrous serpent curling around Tom Riddle’s chair. The glass chandelier chimes overhead and you wish it would fall from where he sits on his shrewd throne. 

(You find Regulus Black sitting beside Narcissa, cheeks flushed, body quivering as his skin pales to a deathly color; holding onto his left arm for dear life. And, your heart just physically breaks. You don’t understand why this is the world you must live in.) 

“Come here, my dear,” Tom Riddle hisses, urging you forward with a serpentine leer in his eyes. You feel like a circus lion forced to perform its tricks. 

Tom Riddle is handsome—you notice begrudgingly. A menacing kind of beauty that entices the weak and preys on the vulnerable. (You would not be one of his victims, you vow, raising your own walls against him.) His gaze drills into your own—instantly, you feel his magic snaking around in your head, searching for hidden truths. The sensation is staggering, dizzying, and you’re nearly brought to your knees. You clench your jaw at his Legilimency—obstinate bastard. 

“This one is lasting longer than your son, Abraxas.” Riddle chuckles, his finger tracing the curve of your jaw, as Abraxas forces a smile. Finally, after what feels like an eternity, he leaves your mind. You release the breath you’ve been holding for the last thirty seconds. He finds none of your secrets, and you suppress a vindictive grin. Riddle glances at your mother. “How fascinating.” 

You wonder if his intrigue will keep you alive for another day or bring you closer to your death. 

“My Lord,” you greet windedly as you press a kiss to the cold signet of his ring. “What an honor to stand before you today. Although, I could have done with a more polite greeting from you.” 

Bellatrix snarls at you in warning. “Do not speak to the Dark Lord that way, you insolent brat!” 

“Enough, Bella,” Tom rasps, flicking her concern away, barely so much as sparing her a glance. “I’ve no need for a little girl to come to my defense.” She visibly wilts at his dismissive words and you almost feel pity for her—almost. Then, you remember this is the man who treats the Cruciatus curse like a treat to give away freely to children—now, you pity Bellatrix fully. The curly-haired girl twitches at the sight of him toying with his wand, Nagini’s forked tongue flicking in anticipation. 

“Tell me, my dear,” says Riddle, trailing his gaze down to your arm. “Has your mother arranged a marriage for you yet? Much like our dear Cissa here.”

You grow frigid in his hold. “Not at all, my Lord. Mother thought it best if I focused on my studies before anything else.” 

Tom hums in thought, eventually releasing you from his clutches. “I see. . . Then, have you considered other ways of pledging your allegiance to our cause?” 

Instinctively, you hide your left arm from his sight. “My Lord,” you begin, wondering how much longer you can address him as such without throwing up in his lap. “The only reason there isn’t much backlash to your. . . merciful endeavors is because Mother and I have ensured that the Daily Prophet’s eyes are elsewhere. The Ministry is blindsided, and no one expects a mondaine darling to be under your influence,” you say, desperation pouring from each word. 

You don’t want to carry his Mark. Not ever. You can endure it—you can endure it all so long as you aren’t eternally condemned to his name. 

“Take that away, and you’ll face significant repercussions,” you threaten boldly. “I promise you that. They look away because of me.” 

For every village and family terrorized, you had shifted the public’s attention to your facetious behavior. Throwing galas left and right, appearing out in public with various partners—you had done it all to bury the looming war. Rita Skeeter is at your beck and call. For every attack, your face is plastered on the front page. For every cry for help, the Ministry is busy dealing with trivial matters that your mother has proposed—such as anti-werewolf bills. 

And Voldemort would never notice that you’ve been thieving covert information from right under his nose and delivering it anonymously to a rising organization known as the Order of the Phoenix. 

(You’re also not pleased that they share similarities to your non de plume, the Firebird, but you suppose that is the least of your worries.) 

If Molly Weasley comes across a sealed letter on the steps of Grimmauld Place, with complete details and addresses of Death Eater hiding places, it is no one’s business but the Order’s—and yours. 

For every life taken, you remember that Muggle father in your mother’s cellar. It may not be today, it may not be tomorrow—but you’ll dismantle the pureblood society yourself. All of them, one by one. 

Tom Riddle smiles, and you realize that no one threatens him and gets away with it unscathed. 

A day before you’re set to return to Hogwarts for your seventh-year, the Malfoy Manor is pervaded by your gut-wrenching screams. 

There you are, little Firebird with your wings clipped, writhing on the floor of Lucius Malfoy’s guest room—the Cruciatus curse surging through your veins like molten lava threatening to burn you from the inside out. You hear Narcissa and Missus Fawley’s voices blend into a cacophony of panic. They’re shouting for various things: warm towels, bandages, essence of Dittany, and water. Regulus’s hold on you is tight, near-suffocating, even. 

But you don’t feel anything other than the mutilated flesh of your arm. 

You scream, cry, and scream again—you feel his magic over and over again. Branding you. The ink blends into your skin—but it’s not your skin anymore. A part of you now will always belong to him. 

Bile rises to your throat. 

Tears fall from your eyes. 

(How cold is the floor? You don’t even care anymore.)

And, the worst part is that no one can see it. Riddle charmed it perfectly to coalesce against your skin tone. But you see it. You see the skull and the stupid, wriggling snake. You see Tom Riddle’s monstrous glee as he drives his wand into your arm—Abraxas and Lucius holding you down as you thrash and flail. Your only reprieve was your mother was there, cradling your head to her chest, blocking out their malignant laughter. (You can’t believe you never noticed, but your mother had been branded, too.) 

“I’ll. . . kill him,” you say to yourself, blood and saliva trickling from your lips. If it is the last thing you’ll ever do, you will have Voldemort’s head on a silver platter. 

“Don’t be foolish,” Narcissa scolds, tipping your mouth upwards to swallow the drops of Dittany. “None of us have the power to do that. We just have to make do with the life that we’re given.” 

“I promise. . .  you,” you gurgle through the searing pain, gasping for air, clawing at her arms. “I’ll destroy them all.” 

You pass out in her arms. 

When you awake, you’re on a train to Hogwarts, left arm bandaged and hidden under the sleeve of your school robes. 

You don’t bother attending your classes—seeing no more purpose in Transfiguration and Herbology when you’re just a pawn in someone’s, everyone’s plans, apparently. The professors express their concern when you no longer turn in your homework or assigned projects. Once again, you barely see the need to. Your meals during breakfast, lunch, and dinner go untouched. You stay away from Narcissa, Vittoria, Isadora, Lucius, and Regulus. Your only friends, Amos and Amelia, stay away from you, too, having seen news of your promiscuity in the Daily Prophet. You scoff internally—you’ve never even had your first kiss yet. But even that seems like a distant dream. 

You are tired. 

How much longer do you have to play this part? How much more of yourself do you have to give? 

You’re only seventeen—how can you even hope to defeat Voldemort like this? 

The castle walls have dulled, and you drift through the corridors like a wearisome ghost. The once colorful world that you have been brought into now pales in the face of curses, spilt blood, and the Mark on your arm. You wonder what would happen—if you just run away now. 

Why should you be the one to bear the burdens of this duty thrust upon you? Why do people like James Potter and Sirius Black find loyalty and a real family within Hogwarts, and there is no one willing to fight for you? 

Perhaps, you have no one else to blame but yourself. 

Rita Skeeter publishes her article on the growing rift between you and Vittoria Zabini—claiming that you had stolen her beau from her.

You toss the newspaper into the fire. 

Some nights, you don’t bother returning to the Hufflepuff dormitories anymore. You know what they think. You know what they say behind your back. 

For the third time this week, you find yourself at the top of the Astronomy Tower, legs dangling from the edge of the window, eyes blankly staring at the horizon—if you run towards there, you wonder how long it will take before they find you. The cold nips at your cheeks, but you barely feel anything other than a gnawing emptiness.

Your gaze falls to the ground below, thirty, fifty meters from where you sit. 

Maybe. . . 

If you move a few inches forward. . . 

If you just fly. 

You’d be free. 

“Oh, I didn’t know this window was occupied.” You loosely turn your head to find Remus Lupin standing before you with a crooked grin, hands shoved in his pockets as he awkwardly shuffles one foot over the other. He raises his arms up in surrender. “I guess I’ll. . . find somewhere else to brood.” 

I don’t care. 

Go away. 

I want to die.

If I disappear, would you care? Would anyone? 

You rest your head back on the windowsill, hugging your legs to your chest. 

Starlings chirp and fly past you—how liberating it must be, to soar in the skies. But all you can do is watch enviously. Powerless, little songbird with no more lullabies to sing and no more wings to fly with. 

You let your weight shift over the window. 

Maybe if you fall, you could see what it’s like to fly. 

“H-Hey! Don’t—!” Remus quickly snatches your hand and pulls you into his embrace—the both of you tumbling to the floor. You feel his chest heaving, arms trembling around you, and the sound of his rapid heartbeat. His eyes are wide as he looks over your face for any injuries. “Why would you do that? Are you mad?”

You sigh. 

Maybe tomorrow, then. 

“Oi!” Remus pokes your shoulder. “Don’t just ignore me! You scared the piss out of me, you know? Bloody hell.” His shoulders slump in relief, and he takes another peek at you—just to make sure you’re still in front of him. “A-Are you okay?” he asks softly, afraid to spook you further away. “Do you want to talk about it or anything?” 

You shrug. “Nothing to talk about.”

His gaze flickers from you to the window ledge. “I think that’s a big something to talk about, honestly. B-But I get it. Really. No judgment.” 

An unwilling chortle escapes past your lips. Remus Lupin and his marauding bunch of lions would never understand the burden you have to carry each day for the rest of your life.

Remus scratches the back of his head with a wolfish grin. “Hey. . . listen. We don’t know each other all that well—so this is going to sound terribly weird. But would you like a hug?”

He opens his arms wide enough for you to fit—and you stare at him in horror. “C’mon, then. It really seems like you need it. And honestly, I kind of need it, too, especially after a scare like that.” 

You stay silent. 

He shakes his hands, beckoning you forward, golden hair flopping over his eyes. “I don’t bite. Promise. One hug and we’ll go on pretending like we don’t know each other tomorrow. Marauder’s honor.”

“I haven’t done anything to deserve your kindness,” you say with a prominent sneer—certainly not kindness from him. It must be another prank of theirs. You wait for Peter Pettigrew and Sirius to jump out and spray you with garlic juice. 

Remus smiles. “I think you’ll find that my kindness is freely given.” 

You nibble on your bruised lip. 

Could you really? 

Maybe just this once. 

You’re only human, magic as you are. 

You take one step forward. 

Then another. 

Another.

Until you fall right into his arms, and you inhale the scent of honey, milk raspberry chocolate, and cedarwood. The warmth of his arms around you is real. His voice is real. He whispers cruel words into your ear, “You’re alright, love. Let it out. I’m here.” You burrow your head deep in the crook of his neck. The sound of his heartbeat is real. He tightens his hold around you, and the ground underneath feels real. For a few moments, you don’t feel like you’re floating away into oblivion. 

Maybe you’d stay alive—for a few more days. 

To do what is right. 

To endure. 

Perhaps, tomorrow will be easier—if such kindness is real, maybe you’re allowed to seek it for yourself every now and then. 

But your nightmare doesn’t end when you’re awake—it takes you by the throat when you find yourself summoned to the Malfoy Manor on Hallow’s Eve. 

You’re not the only one caught by surprise. One by one, Tom Riddle’s followers apparate into the dining room, stumbling inside with a bewildered expression. Their Dark Lord has called for them in the dead of night—it must be for something important. You stiffen, sinking into Lucius’s shadow. You search for your mother but she doesn’t appear to be anywhere in the room. Someone brushes their hands against yours—Narcissa. She stands by your side, face impassive, her pupils frantically trying to make sense of the situation. 

Then, Tom Riddle finally apparates into the room, startling you for a fraction of a second. Not far behind is Abraxas, Cyprian, the Lestranges, Bellatrix, and finally—

Your mother. 

Fawley looks worse for wear, her skin sinking into her bones, clothes tattered, and her face littered with bruises. Bellatrix drags her across the floor, hair wrapped around her hands. 

You move to stop Bellatrix, anger blinding your vision—Narcissa tightens her grip on your wrist, subtly shaking her head. You rip your hand away from her. 

“We have found a traitor in our midst!” Bellatrix cackles, throwing your mother to the ground—your fists clench, swallowing each lump in your throat with rage blinding your vision. “I caught the bitch helping the McKinnons escape!” 

“No,” you whisper, dread knocking you backwards—it just isn’t possible. The two of you had always been careful. Bellatrix hits her again, and you have to restrain yourself from marching forward and cursing her from where she stands. 

One moment of weakness, that is all Tom Riddle needs. He finds you in the crowd with ease. The crowd of Death Eaters part like the red sea, and you steel yourself with Occlumency before you are sharply pulled forward, the mark on your left arm blistering as though a hundred needles are driving into your skin repeatedly.

“If the mother is a blood traitor, the child is sure to follow!” Bellatrix hisses, spit flying into the floor, her eyes gleaming with maniacal glee.

Voldemort cruelly holds your jaw in his hand, nails digging into your flesh, threatening to break through your bones. “Is this true?” he asks, drawing blood from your skin. “Tell me!” 

“No!” you cry out, kicking and punching to get away from his hold. “It’s not—let me go! That is my mother! You’re hurting her! She’s sick!”

“That,” Riddle’s eyes flash with hostility, breath hot on your skin, “is a betrayer to our cause.” 

“She’s not!” you scream.

“How did she find out, then?” Voldemort flings you to the ground—immediately, you rush to your mother, gathering her in your arms. Tom Riddle cocks his head and you’re blasted into the walls—you feel his Legilimency trying to force its way in, exploiting your pain and shock. But you won’t let him in. He’ll have to pry your memories from your cold, dead body.

The pain is searing—you’re being torn apart from limb to limb. Your mark is burning, head throbbing from a concussion, and still fighting against Riddle’s magic. Through your blurry haze, you see Lucius holding Narcissa back from running to you. “We’re not traitors!” you cry out desperately, crawling pathetically to your mother’s listless body. “I swear!”

Voldemort sneers just before he points his wand at your mother. “Crucio!”

“No! No! Stop it! Please! Please, stop it!” you beg on the ground as your mother helplessly writhes on the floor, the Cruciatus curse reducing the once austere Agatha Fawley to a whimpering mess. “You’re killing her!”

Tom snarls, “Good.”

Bellatrix digs her claws into your neck, her laughter resounding throughout the manor—you swallow the sobs down your throat as she drives her wand into your flesh. “Your mummy over there is done for. But you—our precious jewel, you can still prove your loyalty to our Dark Lord.” 

She puts your wand and closes your fist over the wood—your eyes grow wide as you thrash in her hold, screaming as she forces you to look at Fawley. “Kill her. And you may live.” 

“Just say it,” Bellatrix whispers in your ear. “Two little words. You’ve already done this before, pet—the second time should be easy enough!”

“No!” you knock your head back into her nose, slipping away as her hold loosens and she screams profanities at you—but to your misfortune, Voldemort captures you, like a defenseless bunny running into a starving snake. 

“Mum, wake up, please!” 

You cry out helplessly, sobbing as Voldemort forces you to watch the life gradually fade away from her blue eyes. Her magic envelops you—and you remember warm holidays spent by the fire, Muggle storybooks before bed, surprising you with breakfast in bed for your birthdays. It’s a warm feeling, a stark contrast to Tom Riddle’s invasive magic. Her voice echoes in your head one last time.

“Thank you for showing me what love feels like, if not for a moment. I am sorry I could not show it as a proper mother would.”

“Kill her!” Voldemort rages into your ear. 

You watch as Fawley’s eyes drift to a close, an act of resignation. “It’s okay, my darling,” she whispers tiredly. “I. . . can rest now.”

For the second time in your life, you point your wand at someone’s heart—this time, it’s your mother’s. 

“What are you waiting for?” Bellatrix asks, twitching menacingly. “Kill her! Before I do it myself!” 

There’s a faint smile on her face. 

“I’m. . . sorry.”

Those are Agatha Fawley’s last words before you take away her life.

The incantation falls so delicately from your lips, an act of mercy for the woman you once called your mother and your greatest tormentor. 

But your eyes are on one person and one person only.

Tom Riddle. 

“Avada Kedavra!”

He will know your pain.

Not today, not tomorrow.

But you’ll destroy them all, one by one.

a/n: THERE IS KISSING IN THE NEXT SCENE I PROMISE.... AND TRUST MY LILY LOVERS WE WILL GET OUR REDEMPTION ARC SKDJHFGKJH and sirius lovers too,, but yall are well-fed every day so.. next part has the yule ball, likee,, there's no way THAT becomes angsty.. if you saw a plot-hole, no you didn't just CRY and enjoy sdhgsdf... come tell me what you thought!! (if you have any constructive criticisms, just come to my dms BUT PLS BE VERY GENTLE.... oh and don't hesitate to tell me if i accidentally wrote anything super specific like height, skin color, etc.!!) i promise to better in the final part!!!! (there's only two parts to this fic.) I LOVE YEW I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS STORY AAAAAAAAAAAA

[mariacallous]

Goldie Finkelstein was just 13 when she was sent to Wiener Graben, a work camp that later became a concentration camp. The youngster lost her entire family in the war, and among the things she never learned from them was how to cook. She had no family recipes and, according to her son, when she married Sol Finkelstein, also a Holocaust survivor, she didn’t know how to boil water or cook an egg.

Eventually, other survivors taught Goldie the necessary skills, and she was a quick learner. She soon became known for the copious amounts of baked goods she would provide for any occasion. Her recipes, some of which are included in the “Honey Cake and Latkes: Recipes from the Old World by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Survivors” cookbook, include cake mixes and other ingredients that wouldn’t have been used in pre-Holocaust Eastern Europe. Her whiskey cake, for example, calls for both yellow cake mix and vanilla pudding mix.

Goldie’s experience illustrates the ways in which recipes, including those we think of as quintessentially Ashkenazi Jewish, have changed over the years. Survivors lost the ancestors who passed along oral recipes. Families’ personal artifacts, such as handwritten recipes, were abandoned when Jews were forced to flee. 

Most significantly, perhaps, after the war, survivors had access to different ingredients in their new homes. Sometimes that was due to seasonality, such as was the case for those who moved from Eastern Europe to Israel and had access to more fruits and vegetables year-round, including dates and pomegranates. Other times, it reflected changing tastes or newfound wealth  — liver soup, pates with liver and offal were classic Eastern European dishes in the early 1900s, when there was an intention to use every part of the animal, but became increasingly uncommon. In other cases, like Goldie’s, packaged goods replaced homemade. Another survivor whose recipes appear in “Honey Cake and Latkes,”Lea Roth, detailed making noodles for Passover from the starch leftover at the bottom of a bowl after grating potatoes before the war. After the war, most people added “noodles” to the grocery list.

“Some of these recipes changed because of New World versus Old World,” explains Jeffrey Yoskowitz, author of “The Gefilte Manifesto: New Recipes for Old World Jewish Foods.” Yoskowitz and his co-author Liz Alpern work not to replicate pre-war Ashkenazi Jewish recipes, but to reclaim and modernize them. To do that, they’ve had to examine the ways in which recipes have changed.

In the Old World, for instance, almost every recipe called for breadcrumbs. At Passover, the leftover crumbs from the matzah were used to make matzah balls, leaving nothing to waste. But when immigrants in the U.S. could use Manischewitz pre-made matzah meal, then recipes started calling for it to make matzah balls.Today’s recipes for kugels with cream cheese, cottage cheese and sour cream would not have been made in the Old World, where dairy products were expensive. Again, ubiquitous cows in the New World made that “celebration of dairy” possible, Yoskowitz says.

At first, recipes may not seem like the most essential thing to recover from Holocaust survivors, but they paint a picture of what life was like before the war. It is essential to see the Jewish experience as one that is not solely as victims, and learning what people ate and cooked is part of that.

“Bringing back recipes can help bring people back to life,” says Edna Friedberg, a historian and senior curator with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. “In particular, it was women who were in the kitchen in this period, and so this is a way to make the lives of women very vivid and real for people.”

The idea is not to romanticize Eastern Europe, says Maria Zalewska, executive director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Foundation, which published “Honey Cake and Latkes,” but to see the memories connected to togetherness, like picking fruit toward the end of the summer and using that fruit in a recipe, such as cold cherry soup with egg-white dumplings. 

In addition, examining recipes gives us a sense of what role cooking and food played in trauma processing, Zalewska says. “Remembering the foods and the food traditions of their lives before imprisonment were some of the ways that survivors coped with starvation,” Zalewska adds. These are things that survivors say they are not often asked about, but when asked they report remembering dreaming about food during incarceration. 

“We have quite a number of testimonies, where survivors talk about being in situations of starvation, and food deprivation and ghettos and camps and in hiding, and that dreaming about and remembering food from before gave them emotional sustenance,” explains Friedberg.

Exploring such memories have been meaningful for those survivors who were young when they lost their families.

New Orleans’ Chef Alon Shaya has been working for several years to recreate recipes from a book belonging to the family of Steven Fenves, a survivor and a volunteer for the museum. The book was rescued by the family cook, Maris, when the family was forced to flee their home on the Yugoslavia-Hungary border in 1944. The recipes are largely written without measurements, times or temperatures, and many of the ingredients are different from those used today. (Like the Fenves family, Goldie’s son, Joseph Finkelstein, says his mother wasn’t big on using measurements as we think of them in recipes today. She knew the quantity of an ingredient, for example, if it would fit in her palm.) Unlike Yoskowitz, who is looking to update recipes, Shaya has been working to replicate them as closely as possible  — and has come across a few surprises.

Many of the desserts use a lot of walnuts, for example, which, of course, are also used in contemporary baking. But Shaya is using what he says are “copious amounts of walnuts” in various ways, such as grilled walnuts and toasted walnuts. The Fenves family walnut cream cake, which includes both walnuts ground in the batter and in a cream in-between the cake layers, has featured on the menu at one of Shaya’s restaurants, Safta, in Denver.

For all the recreation, and Shaya’s goal to bring the tastes of his youth back to Fenves, he says “it is impossible that a recipe in New Orleans would be the same as one in Bulgaria. The seasons are different, what animals are butchered are different, and the spices taste different.”

Indeed, place matters, Yoskowitz says. Ashkenazi food has a reputation of being terrible, he says. Take mushroom soup, for example. “There is no good mushroom soup in a deli. It is made with mushrooms that don’t have much flavor. But if you have it somewhere made with mushrooms grown in the forest, then that is going to be good soup.”

Many Holocaust survivors settled in new lands with new ingredients, and little memory of how things were made before the war. They knew they used to eat mushroom soup but didn’t specifically remember the forest-grown and harvested fungi. So, dishes morphed depending on what survivors had in their new home. In Eastern Europe, veal was plentiful, but in the U.S. and Israel, schnitzel began being made with chicken instead (a process Yoskowitz calls the “chickentization” of cuisine). And the beloved Jewish pastrami on rye? The pastrami would have traditionally been made with kosher goose or lamb. It wasn’t until Jews came to the U.S. that beef was easily accessible. 

The same is true of what is likely the most iconic Jewish American dish. “Bagel and lox are what we think of as the most Jewish food. But the only thing that came over was the cured and smoked fish,” Yoskowitz says. “Cream cheese was a New York state invention. Capers were Italians. It was a completely new creation, and it became a taste associated with Jewish people.”

One of the most poignant recipes in the “Honey Cake and Latkes” book is a chocolate sandwich, a basic concoction of black bread, butter and shaved dark chocolate. Survivor Eugene Ginter remembers his mother making it for him in Germany after the war, to fatten him up after years of starvation.

Adds Shaya: “We have to continue to adapt, and I think that that is part of the beauty of it.”

[justporo]

So you'll see tomorrow

A/N: Seeing a beautiful piece of artwork by @velnna and listening to Half life by Livingston I got a very angsty idea for a drabble (so be warned, it's sad). This idea came to me first a while back listening to Just a Man (you know from *that* BG3 edit). @velnna as always thanks for letting me play with your son - and sorry I hurt him... Also thank you to Dad on Maf's discord server for the inspo for the final line.

Warnings: implied character death (but this is just an alternate timeline ok??), self sacrifice

~~~

So this was it.

This is how they would all die.

There was no way they would defeat the Netherbrain. All their endeavours that led them here, all for naught. Unless…

Staeve saw it in his eyes first. How their expression changed from swimming and hopeless to hardened and determined. Astarion’s brows drew together - the crease they created between them as sharp as his daggers he lifted up once more.

“Staeve.”

He had never heard his voice like this. The tone as sharp as a knife and hard as rock.

It scared him.

“I’m going to create an opening for you. Be ready.”

Fear dug its claws into Staeve’s throat, choking him, as he began to realise what was about to happen.

“No,” the half-drow whispered, weakly grabbing for his lover’s wrists with all of his remaining strength.

“Astarion, no! You can’t do this!”

Panic gave Staeve new power. Helped him to forcefully turn Astarion around to him. Helped him make his love stare into his eyes as he screamed at him again. And again.

He shook him, even making the daggers drop from his pale, blood-speckled fingers.

Staeve kept screaming, feeling his voice become hoarse, hot streams of tears washing away the grime and gore as they made their way down his face.

But as he kept throwing everything at Astarion he noticed ruby eyes remaining hard and unfaltering. The decision had been made.

The last of his strength went with his last drop of hope as Staeve’s hands fell weakly from Astarion’s. His legs gave up, knees hit the ground hard.

And only then did Astarion shift, taking a final step back before making the run-up.

He dropped down in front of Staeve who could only stare up at him anymore.

“Let me do this one thing right, Staeve,” he whispered solemnly, cupping his love’s face. “Just this once let me make things right.”

Staeve’s vision was blurred, his head swimming. But he still clearly saw the warmth in Astarion’s eyes as he leaned his forehead to Staeve’s.

Astarion’s hand wandered to the nape of his neck as he pressed his eyes closed. “Promise me, you’ll live for me, Staeve. To the fullest.” When the vampire opened his eyes again, Staeve was sure there were tears in Astarion’s eyes as well.

There was nothing in Staeve to do or say. He wasn’t in control of anything anymore it felt like. Not even his own body as he solely kept listening to Astarion’s final words.

“And promise me,” the vampire continued, voice breaking, “sometimes - when you sit in the sun - you’ll think of me, Staeve. Promise me.”

Astarion only waited only long enough for Staeve to weakly nod, seemingly the only thing he was still capable of.

Then he crushed his mouth to his lover’s, the motion so forceful their teeth crashed together.

Desperation had them kiss so hard it hurt, that it felt like perishing already. Astarion’s hand on Staeve’s neck pressed down so hard it felt like bones might crush. A single last breath was passed between them as their lips moved against each other as they tried to make this the most vivid moment they had ever experienced.

One so he could never possibly forget this final kiss - how it had felt.

The other so he would go to his end, with the taste of his lover on his lips.

When a small eternity ended and Astarion broke away he grabbed Staeve’s face a final time.

“I know in another life, I would have loved you forever,” Astarion uttered with a smile.

Then he let go, Staeve almost toppling over, suddenly void of anything still lifting him up.

Astarion grabbed his daggers, turned around with a last glance and a smirk - and then he leapt.

[thewriteadviceforwriters]

The Telling Truth: When 'Show, Don't Tell' Doesn't Apply (You Don't Always Have To Show, Don't Tell.)

Hey there, fellow writers and beloved members of the writeblr community! 📝✨

Today, I want to talk about something that's been on my mind lately, and I have a feeling it might resonate with many of you too. It's about that age-old writing advice we've all heard a million times: "Show, don't tell." Now, don't get me wrong – it's great advice, and it has its place in our writing toolbox. But here's the thing: it's not the be-all and end-all of good writing. In fact, I'd argue that sometimes, it's perfectly okay – even necessary – to tell rather than show.

First things first, let's address the elephant in the room. The "show, don't tell" rule has been drilled into our heads since we first picked up a pen (or opened a Word document) with the intention of writing creatively. It's been repeated in writing workshops, creative writing classes, and countless craft books. And for good reason! Showing can create vivid, immersive experiences for readers, allowing them to feel like they're right there in the story.

But here's where things get a bit tricky: like any rule in writing (or in life, for that matter), it's not absolute. There are times when telling is not just acceptable, but actually preferable. And that's what you all will explore today in this hopefully understandable blog post.

Let's start by breaking down why "show, don't tell" is so popular. When we show instead of tell, we're engaging the reader's senses and emotions. We're painting a picture with words, allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions based on the details we provide. It's a powerful technique that can make our writing more engaging and memorable.

For example, instead of saying "Sarah was angry," we might write, "Sarah's fists clenched at her sides, her jaw tight as she glared at the broken vase." This gives the reader a clearer image and allows them to infer Sarah's emotional state.

But here's the thing: sometimes, we don't need or want that level of detail. Sometimes, efficiency in storytelling is more important than painting an elaborate picture. And that's where telling comes in handy.

Imagine if every single emotion, action, or piece of information in your story was shown rather than told. Your novel would probably be thousands of pages long, and your readers might get lost in the sea of details, losing sight of the main plot or character arcs.

So, when might telling be more appropriate? Let's explore some scenarios:

Summarizing less important events: If you're writing a story that spans a long period, you don't need to show every single day or event. Telling can help you summarize periods of time or less crucial events quickly, allowing you to focus on the more important parts of your story.

For instance: "The next few weeks passed in a blur of exams and late-night study sessions." This sentence tells us what happened without going into unnecessary detail about each day.

Providing necessary background information: Sometimes, you need to give your readers some context or backstory. While you can certainly weave this information into scenes, there are times when a straightforward telling of facts is more efficient.

Example: "The war had been raging for three years before Sarah's village was attacked." This quickly gives us important context without needing to show the entire history of the war.

Establishing pace and rhythm: Alternating between showing and telling can help you control the pace of your story. Showing tends to slow things down, allowing readers to immerse themselves in a moment. Telling can speed things up, moving the story along more quickly when needed.

Clarifying complex ideas or emotions: Some concepts or feelings are abstract or complex enough that showing alone might not suffice. In these cases, a bit of telling can help ensure your readers understand what's happening.

For example: "The quantum entanglement theory had always fascinated John, but explaining it to others often left him feeling frustrated and misunderstood." Here, we're telling the reader about John's relationship with this complex scientific concept, which might be difficult to show effectively.

Maintaining your narrative voice: Sometimes, telling is simply more in line with your narrative voice or the tone of your story. This is especially true if you're writing in a more direct or conversational style.

Now, I can almost hear some of you saying, "But wait! I've always been told that showing is always better!" And I completely get it. I'm a writer myself and prioritize "Show, Don't tell." in my writing all the time. We've been conditioned to believe that showing is superior in all cases. But we can take a moment to challenge that notion.

Think about some of your favorite books. Chances are, they use a mix of showing and telling. Even the most critically acclaimed authors don't adhere strictly to "show, don't tell" all the time. They understand that good writing is about balance and knowing when to use each technique effectively.

Take, for instance, the opening line of George Orwell's "1984": "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." This is a perfect blend of showing and telling. Orwell shows us it's a bright, cold day (we can imagine the crisp air and clear sky), but he tells us about the clocks striking thirteen. This immediate telling gives us crucial information about the world we're entering – it's not quite like our own.

Or consider this passage from Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice": "Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three-and-twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character." Here, Austen is clearly telling us about Mr. Bennet's character rather than showing it through his actions. And yet, it works beautifully, giving us a quick, clear insight into both Mr. Bennet and his wife.

The key is to use both techniques strategically. So, how can you decide when to show and when to tell? Here are some tips:

Consider the importance of the information: Is this a crucial moment in your story, a pivotal emotion, or a key piece of character development? If so, it might be worth showing. If it's more of a transitional moment or background information, telling might be more appropriate.

Think about pacing: If you want to slow down and really immerse your reader in a moment, show it. If you need to move things along more quickly, tell it.

Evaluate the complexity: If you're dealing with a complex emotion or concept, consider whether showing alone will be enough to convey it clearly. Sometimes, a combination of showing and telling works best for complex ideas.

Consider your word count: If you're working with strict word count limitations (like in short stories or flash fiction), telling can help you convey necessary information more concisely.

Trust your instincts (Important): As you write more, you'll develop a feel for when showing or telling works better. Trust your gut, and don't be afraid to experiment.

Now, let's talk about how to tell effectively when you do choose to use it. Because here's the thing: telling doesn't have to be boring or flat. It can be just as engaging and stylish as showing when done well. Here are some tips for effective telling:

Use strong, specific language: Instead of using vague or generic words, opt for more specific, evocative language. For example, instead of "She was sad," you might write, "A profound melancholy settled over her."

Incorporate sensory details: Even when telling, you can include sensory information to make it more vivid. "The room was cold" becomes more engaging as "A bone-chilling cold permeated the room."

Use metaphors and similes: These can help make your telling more colorful and memorable. "His anger was like a volcano ready to erupt" paints a vivid picture without showing the anger in action.

Keep it concise: One of the advantages of telling is its efficiency. Don't negate that by being overly wordy. Get to the point, but do it with style.

Vary your sentence structure: Mix short, punchy sentences with longer, more flowing ones to create rhythm and maintain interest.

Remember, the goal is to create a seamless narrative that engages your reader. Sometimes that means showing, sometimes it means telling, and often it means a artful blend of both.

It's also worth noting that different genres and styles of writing may lean more heavily on one technique or the other. Literary fiction often employs more showing, delving deep into characters' psyches and painting elaborate scenes. Genre fiction, on the other hand, might use more telling to keep the plot moving at a brisker pace. Neither approach is inherently better – it all depends on what works best for your story and your style.

Now, I want to address something that I think many of us struggle with: the guilt or anxiety we might feel when we catch ourselves telling instead of showing. It's easy to fall into the trap of second-guessing every sentence, wondering if we should be showing more. But here's the truth: that kind of constant self-doubt can be paralyzing and ultimately detrimental to your writing process.

So, I want you to understand and think: It's okay to tell sometimes. You're not a bad writer for using telling in your work. In fact, knowing when and how to use telling effectively is a sign of a skilled writer.

Here's some practical ways to incorporate this mindset into your writing process:

First Draft Freedom: When you're writing your first draft, give yourself permission to write however it comes out. If that means more telling than showing, that's absolutely fine. The important thing is to get the story down. You can always revise and add more "showing" elements later if needed.

Revision with Purpose: When you're revising, don't automatically change every instance of telling to showing. Instead, ask yourself: Does this serve the story better as telling or showing? Consider the pacing, the importance of the information, and how it fits into the overall narrative.

Beta Readers and Feedback: When you're getting feedback on your work, pay attention to how readers respond to different sections. If they're engaged and understanding the story, then your balance of showing and telling is probably working well, regardless of which technique you're using more.

Study Your Favorite Authors: Take some time to analyze how your favorite writers use showing and telling. You might be surprised to find more instances of effective telling than you expected.

Practice Both Techniques (Important): Set aside some time to practice both showing and telling. Write the same scene twice, once focusing on showing and once on telling. This can help you develop a feel for when each technique is most effective.

Now, let's address another important point: the evolution of writing styles and reader preferences. The "show, don't tell" rule gained popularity in the early 20th century with the rise of modernist literature. But writing styles and reader tastes have continued to evolve since then.

In our current fast-paced world, where people are often reading on devices and in shorter bursts, there's sometimes a preference for more direct, efficient storytelling. This doesn't mean that showing is out of style, but it does mean that there's often room for more telling than strict adherence to "show, don't tell" would allow.

Moreover, diverse voices in literature are challenging traditional Western writing norms, including the emphasis on showing over telling. Some cultures have strong storytelling traditions that lean more heavily on telling, and as the literary world becomes more inclusive, we're seeing a beautiful variety of styles that blend showing and telling in new and exciting ways.

This brings me to an important point: your voice matters. Your unique way of telling stories is valuable. Don't let rigid adherence to any writing rule, including "show, don't tell," stifle your natural voice or the story you want to tell.

Remember, rules in writing are more like guidelines. They're tools to help us improve our craft, not unbreakable laws. The most important rule is to engage your reader and tell your story effectively. If that means more telling than the conventional wisdom suggests, then so be it.

As I wrap up this discussion, I want to leave you with a challenge: In your next writing session, consciously use both showing and telling. Pay attention to how each technique feels, how it serves your story, and how it affects the rhythm of your writing. You might discover new ways to blend these techniques that work perfectly for your unique style.

Writing is an art, not a science. There's no perfect formula, no one-size-fits-all approach. It's about finding what works for you, your story, and your readers. So embrace both showing and telling. Use them as the powerful tools they are, and don't be afraid to break the "rules" when your instincts tell you to.

Remember, every great writer started where you are now, learning the rules and then figuring out when and how to break them effectively. You're part of a long, proud tradition of storytellers, each finding their own path through the winding forest of words.

Keep writing, keep growing, and keep believing in yourself. You've got this!

Happy writing! 💖✍️ - Rin T.

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