#None of my other housemates are nearly this messy

[herawell]

.

[scriibble-fics]

Magic

Excerpt from a new Jily seventh-year one-shot that has ballooned dramatically, to the surprise of no one. There's more to come!

As January slips by, days pass without a kiss at minimum, although they’re few and far between. On the other hand, they don’t waste a single day without some form of verbal interaction—laughter in between classes, or banter at mealtimes, or bickering at prefect meetings that almost always serves as a precursor to snogging. Increasingly, new activities join these pastimes that have somehow become cherished. Lily grows closer to his friends, and James makes quick inroads with hers, although sometimes her mates look a little too flattered by his attention for her liking. He requests her help in Potions, and they spend long hours together in the dungeons accomplishing more than just snogging, although that comes with the territory as well. In turn, he insists on aiding her in Transfiguration after Sirius offers continued help, and the way Sirius winks at her when James turns his back has her convinced that he’s pleased for reasons beyond escaping the extra work of tutoring her. Truly, Sirius surprises her more and more as the days melt by, because he easily detaches himself from James’ side to allow for the quiet, private conversations that begin to happen organically between them in the common room, and he even distracts her friends so it can happen. None of her friends complain about this new arrangement that secures Sirius’ attention, but Marlene seems perhaps the happiest of all.

She and James have talked before these conversations, of course. They’ve been housemates for years, after all, and he’s never shied away from paying her attention that she typically hasn’t wanted. Yet most of that attention has erred on the side of either endless banter or endless bickering, and the quiet, fireside chats that happen with more and more regularity feel worlds apart from either of those things. Sure, they still laugh and they still argue, although the laughs are quieter, and more smiles than harsh words accompany the arguments. He watches her plait her hair or rub her neck while they talk, his eyes soft as they discuss their respective career aspirations, and trade gossip about fellow students, and whisper secrets about their friends, and recount memories of the past and hopes for the future. He tells her about his brilliant potioneer father and brilliant herbologist mother, and she can almost picture them as he talks, his father’s spectacles and messy hair and his mother’s rigid posture and kind face. In turn, he asks probing questions about her own family, until she reveals bit by bit about her jolly, constantly-teasing dad and loving caretaker of a mum. Eventually, she even tells him about Petunia too, although it comes even more difficultly than any mention of her parents.

“I didn’t even know you had a sister,” he says one particularly chilly night as wind whips past the common room windows. She feels her shoulders shift outside of her control, and he catches the subtle change. He always does. “What?”

She’s trying, just like she’d promised Marlene, and it doesn’t come easily. “I’m sure her friends have said that to her about me.”

He takes that in for a moment. “Maybe,” he says eventually. “She’d be stupid not to claim you, though. Besides—” It sounds like he’s carefully counting each word. “Family isn’t about blood. It’s a choice. I mean, look at Sirius.”

He means it metaphorically, not literally, but they both look towards where Sirius lounges nearby, laughing with his friends and hers. It’s late, and particularly late for a weekday, so Sirius’ laughter sounds especially loud in the near-empty common room. Watching him throw his head back in amusement, it’s nearly impossible not to smile with him, and James does.

She doesn’t. If anything, Sirius’ laughter triggers something even sadder inside her, and for reasons she doesn’t fully understand, not at first. “It’s not fair,” she says quietly, words spoken without thought, and it all clicks together abruptly, like a radio station suddenly in tune. Her throat burns, and she clears it as she looks towards the fire. “Sorry. Sorry, I—” Her explanation falters and then dies in her mouth. There are probably words express it all—the sudden clarity in Sirius’ constant gregarious nature that he uses to win people over like his life depends upon it, her own people-pleasing ways, the ease of their bond that she’s never understood before—but trying to find them hurts too much to even contemplate past a couple of painful seconds.

James reaches for her hand, which has clenched into a fist atop her lap. Somehow, the slow stroke of his fingers eases the tension that has turned her knuckles white. Her hand opens, and his thumb caresses each of her knuckles as color returns. “Save your apologies for the next time you piss me off,” he says, and he turns her hand over in her lap.

She watches as he presses their palms together, his fingers dwarfing hers, and her mouth smiles before she catches herself at it. “It seems like I’ve been pissing you off less lately.”

He returns her smile, his fingers lacing through hers in a brief, warm squeeze. “It’s hard to get mad at you when you’re getting me off all the time.” Something shifts in his voice, something that squeezes her insides.

“Same, but don’t take that as a challenge to piss me off.”

He chuckles softly. “You know me too well. Well, I’m glad we finally figured out how to get you to tolerate me.”

His hand remains locked in hers, his thumb once again slowly brushing over her knuckles. She’s not sure which is more difficult to look at: their hands, fitted so neatly together, or his face, which radiates more warmth than even moments before. “Tolerate,” she repeats, skeptical. That hardly sums up the things he does to her body—and to her mind, and, increasingly, to her heart—on a regular basis. “The same goes for you.”

“Evans.” Her name comes out chidingly, and he waits until she looks at him before he goes on. “I don’t just tolerate you. And I’d—” He takes in a deep breath, eyes flickering back and forth between each of hers. “Your sister is stupid,” he says again, but it sounds entirely different somehow. “Anyone would be lucky to claim you. I told you—you’re magic.”

It’s not the first time he’s declared as much to her since the train, but it’s the first time that it sounds like something other than heated talk spoken against her mouth or skin. For the first time, she catches a glimmer of what he means—or a glimmer of what it means to her, at least, since she has no way of knowing if he feels the same. Something stretches between them, a moment that’s brief but heavy and undeniable, and she wants to look away, but she can’t. She’s suspended in time, held entirely in place on the other side of his gaze.

It’s magic, what holds her there, a magic unlike any she’s ever discovered.

“Thank you.” Her voice comes out soft and a little small. She sounds nothing like herself.

He doesn’t call her on it. He moves closer to her, shifting towards the edge of his armchair until their knees touch, and his other hand joins where he’s still holding hers atop her lap. “I’m rather good at palm reading, you know,” he says, and the magic between them snaps as the fireplace crackles, and so abruptly that she jumps a little. Before she can blink, things settle back into familiar patterns, from the lazy smile on his face to the teasing in his tone to her own immediate banter in return.

“Don’t insult my intelligence. You dropped out of Divination fourth year. I haven’t forgotten.”

“Flattered you remember my movements so closely.” He releases her hand so he can pull it into his own lap, and he traces a fingertip along her palm, drama exuding from every pore. “If you’re too scared to know your future—worried who might be in it, maybe—”

“Go on, then.”

The future—as told by James—holds things she expects and things that she doesn’t.

She expects him to predict a long life. She expects him to predict a continued close relationship with her friends. She expects him to predict a prosperous career in brewing, because she’s confided those dreams in him. He tells her all of those things as he tickles her palm with twisting caresses.

Yet she doesn’t expect his long description of her handsome future husband, a man who will allegedly propose many times before she’ll finally accept. She also doesn’t expect his recounting of all the children she’ll have, enough for an entire Quidditch team.

She’s laughing by the end, and he’s laughing with her. “That’s too many kids,” she says. “I’m not doing that to my body, and I can’t imagine that this wonderful husband of mine—”

“He’s handsome too, don’t forget.”

“Right. I can’t imagine that this wonderful, handsome husband of mine will expect it of me.” She wiggles her fingers. “Look again, will you?”

He obliges with all the seriousness of a seer, and his hair falls in front of his face as he bends in concentration. “Maybe not quite that many, but at least two, maybe three. It’s a lonely existence, being an only child. Your husband, he’ll feel pretty strongly about that.”

Thank god he’s looking at her hand. Thank god he’s looking at her hand and not her face, because—

All banter and faux predictions aside, she’s tempted to start practicing for those babies with him right then and there.

Accidentally or on purpose, she’s falling in love with him, and it’s all his fault.

[ferrethyun]

for your consideration using my m/n hcs,,,but different au,,,poly bts × m/n who really needs that cash money to buy art supplies (even though he should buy groceries) to continue commissions to make money but he needs it bad 👀 so he makes a suga(r) bby acc but got stressed out abt it in 15 mins bc ppl started liking his profile so he deleted it but forgot he downloaded an app to mssg these sugar daddies and mommys so he texts "hello" but uninstalls the app (1/2)

(2/2) but gets an email notif saying "you have x new messages on xyz" and he's like "are you there god, its me, its been a while" and re installs the app only to find replies and he yeets his phone across the room and now he's been texting the boys for 5 days straight deep and 😳😔😖🤧 this is so specific and accidently long im sorry tea but im really going thru it rn 😞

hehehehhehehe,,,, i started and idk where i was going with it but i did it uwuwuwuuwuw. also,,,, aren’t we all nonny owo’’’

Pairing: Implied!Sugardaddies!Poly!Bts x M!Sugarbaby!Reader

The nearly depleted art supplies that sat on his messy desk seemed to mock Y/n as he stared at the several junk emails that were of a similar subject line

“OverAllSeeking: xxxx has liked your profile!”

The app he downloaded was deleted a half hour ago but the emails kept popping up as he hadn’t deleted his account. The account was a sugar babying account, Y/n really needed the money as his supplies were dwindling and his commissions were just not covering it this time. His dual coloured eyes glared at the screen before a click sounded through the room, telling him that he had locked his phone. His mind raced and raced as he thought of what he could do, jobs were too mentally stimulating most of the time and none of the galleries that he was comfortable at were hiring.

Y/n let out a groan as he slid his hands under the sunglasses he wore to rub at his eyes. They were so sore. So were his wrists and his head but he had learnt to cope with it. The male got up from where he sat, placing his phone in his pocket and moved over to the two wide windows that spanned across the walls of his room, his long-line hoodie shifting to cover his hands as he walked. Y/n covered the windows with the specially ordered blackout curtains he ordered and was plummeted into darkness. He then shut his door and hit play on his speaker that sat on a table near the door; gentle melodies of pianos and violins filled his ears and soft pastel pinks and blues flooded his vision, a white dashing in and out as a harp came into the music steadily. 

The male simply stood there in the middle of his room and let the colours and sounds float by as his hands drifted over each of his tattoos on his arms. Y/n needed times like this to calm down, not that his condition helped calm him down. His heart raced as the song changed over to a instrumental of a song called ‘Serendipity’, he became flush and felt a lightness in his head he had become accustom to through the several times he had listened to the song. The slamming of a door caused a harsh red to flash across his vision and made Y/n stumble back into the door behind him, making more reds fly across his vision as he hit the door and then fell to the floor. 

A small voice could be heard swearing down the hallway but Y/n couldn’t hear it as the tears began to flood down his face, all of the realities he had come crashing down at once. A small sob ripped from his chest as he curled himself into a ball, the voice that was once small now on the other side of the door behind him “I’m sorry Y/n I didn’t think you were home” The voice plead through the wood, “I’ll wait for you to calm down and we can play Animal crossing yeah? I also got your favourite for dinner...”

Y/n let the back of his head hit the door, utilising the one knock is yes and two is no system they put in place a while ago. He listened to his housemates foot steps disappear down the hall, his tears slowing significantly. The darkness of the room was comforting but the dull buzz of his phone in his pocket lessening the comfort; he pulled his phone out of his pocket only to be greeted with an email notification. 

‘OverAllSeeking: You have 3 new messages from...’ 

The notification trailed off before Y/n could see who had sent him the messages. It was from the app he had deleted a few hours ago. He didn’t really want to re download the app but the curiosity that pulled at his chest dragged his fingers over his phone in rapid succession, the app now reinstalled. Y/n sat back and watched as his fingers navigated through the app to his messages. There at the top sat a profile with a small tick and ‘V’ logo next to their icon.

These logos had his skin crawling, the tick meant they were verified by the app, a process only limited to the richest of rich members to the site; next to it was a bright red ‘V’, this logo meaning that they were classed as vips, part of the top 1% on the app. What was even more interesting about the account was that their icon featured several men, not just one. ‘Possibly several on one account’ Y/n thought to himself.

Before he could stop himself, his fingers were flying across his screen typing a response to the messages he had barely read, choosing to simply ask if they were still there even though the message was only a couple hours old. Once he hit send, he then proceeded to throw his phone in a random direction knowing it’d land on his bed.

Out of pure embarrassment, Y/n quickly stood, pulled the turtle neck he wore under his hoodie over his lower face and sprinted out of his room.

Hours later, Y/n returned to his room with some help from his housemate considering it was pitch black out and his head was still racing. He took off his sunglasses and peeled his clothing from his body, choosing to put on some grey sweatpants that were covered in dried paint before hopping into bed. It threw him off at first when his hip hit something hard before he remembered chucking his phone on to the bed earlier. He rapidly patted around his hip before his hand landed on his phone, quickly pulling it up to his face after lowering the brightness back down.

There on his screen sat a few notifications, some from twitter and instagram; but more importantly, one from the OverAllSeeking app. With quick navigation, Y/n made his way to the app and could feel his face cracking with a blush. There sat a reply from the account from earlier letting him know all about the account they ran and that all seven- Seven- members were interested in him as he looked interesting and cute. 

He couldn’t stop himself from overheating as he typed out a response. And that was it; this is what began the 5 day long non-stop conversation between him and all seven members. He had told them that he was struggling with finding money for his art supplies to do commissions and that’s when Taehyung, who had told Y/n he was an art curator, interrupted the conversation he was having saying that he would send over 1000 there and then to help him with the supplies. Y/n did say that it was fine but apparently Taehyung only wanted his baby to get the highest quality materials.

Y/n couldn’t lie, it felt nice to have someone just drop money to spend on him so suddenly, so if there were seven of them...

Maybe he really was made to be a sugar baby?

[epizkage]

the first chapter of my good omens fic! its a uni au, the main ship is ineffable bureaucracy but there is also background ineffable husbands, hastur/ligur, and maybe future dagon/michael!  i’ll be uploading this to ao3 tomorrow, as well as uploading a page of sketches for each chapter both on here and on my art insta. thank you for reading, im grateful for any feedback at all!!  tagging as #ineffable neighbours on all platforms!! (here, ao3 and instagram!)

“Crowley, what the fuck?” Bee groaned, incredulous, as Crowley handed them another houseplant through the car window. They were sat in the passenger seat, knees near enough at their chest with how far forward the seat had been pushed, their lap and arms already full of plants which they may as well have been juggling in trying to make room for more. 

“I have to bring all of them, Bee, they’ll be lonely if I don’t.” Crowley answered sincerely, handing them another, which Bee shoved rather frustratedly into one of the cupholders by the gear stick. 

"Oh, don't worry about me-" Bee huffed sarcastically, taking the tray of mini cacti that Crowley handed them and sliding it onto the dashboard. "-I'll just be a fucking shelf, shall I? It's not like I wanted to say goodbye to our mothers or anything."

"Language, Bee!" Came their mum's joking voice, though from where Bee couldn't quite tell, their peripheral vision on both sides blocked by leaves and greenery.  

"Yeah, Bee, language." Crowley mimicked petulantly, having the gall to try and hand them one last plant through the window only to be stopped by a string of very colourful curse words. Bee managed, after a lot of growling and swearing and heightening claustrophobia, to transplant the innumerable pots into the vacant driver's seat, swinging the car door open with enough vigour to nearly hit Crowley as they made their escape.

The tiny battered car was stuffed to the brim, back seats folded down to make room for two lots of possessions, Crowley and Bee's lives packed up into boxes and stacked in the world's most audacious game of Tetris, scraping the roof and blocking the back window entirely; sure to make Crowley's already terrible driving even worse. 

"Arsehole." Bee scowled, stepping back from the car to join their parents on the pavement, all watching and doing nothing to help as Crowley attempted to strap a way-too-big suitcase to the roof.

"Don't call your brother an arsehole, dear." Their mama said jovially, nudging them in the side.

"He is a bit of one, though." Replied their mum - the other one - coming up to their other side. Bee smirked at the two of them, and busied themselves with rolling a cigarette. 

"Oi!" Crowley called, turning to throw them all a faux-offended pout, ignoring the suitcase for just long enough for it to start sliding off the roof. At the sight of him frantically trying to stop it from either hitting the ground or smashing one of the car windows, Bee choked on a laugh and dropped the filter they'd been holding between their lips, figuring it was karma for laughing as Mama rushed to Crowley's aid. 

"You could help, you know, dear sibling." Crowley yelled, way too loud for a quiet, late September morning, as he tightened the straps on the makeshift roof rack. The neighbours, inevitably, would talk amongst themselves - middle class businessmen asking "oh, aren't you glad that those bastard kids are finally going back to uni?" over a neat and orderly breakfast, wives responding "I never did understand them anyway, Karen mentioned Satanic witchcraft, but really I think they're just hippies." Maybe they'd even pop round with fake neighbourly intent, presenting the couple with a rehearsed spiel of "my Sophie left for uni again a few weeks ago, you don't appreciate the alone time until they come back!" and a horrid fake laugh when really all they were trying to do was nosey around and determine whether their neighbours were lesbians or just really good friends.

Really good friends, who shared a surname, raised children together, and held a garden party last year to renew their vows.

Bee ignored him and sparked up their cigarette. Both mothers shared a glance and rolled their eyes, and Crowley rounded the car to lean against it. 

"Is that everything?" 

Bee nodded through an exhale of smoke, and suddenly their parents had zoned in on them, Crowley being dragged into their huddle while Bee was made to extinguish their cigarette.

"Oh, we'll miss you, horrible children." Their mum laughed, pulling both Bee and Crowley into a tight hug and kissing them both, Bee on the crown of their head and Crowley on the cheek, before passing them off for Mama to do the same.

"We'll miss you both too." Crowley replied, his smile showing clearly all of the anxiety he was trying to keep hidden.

"Don't worry, kiddo-" Bee slapped him on the back as they spoke, a rare moment of genuine and open kindness flashing between them and making their mothers smile from ear to ear. "-Everyone's nice, you know that."

It was Crowley’s first year while Bee was going into their second, and Crowley was to move in with Bee and their friends that they’d met last year. Crowley had met them all before, too, even considering them friends of his own after spending a lot of time at Bee’s flat, though nothing could help keep the anxiety at bay. 

Truth be told, the poor kid looked like he might cry, and so with a sigh Bee decided to take control.

“Come on, we gotta go, I’ve got all the keys and I don’t want Hastur or Dagon tearing into me for making them wait.” 

Crowley looked understandably dejected, but nodded nonetheless, and with one last long family hug the two bundled into the car.

Bee got in first, bringing all of the plants back into their lap to make room for Crowley, who soon after slid into the driver’s seat, hands balled into fists on his thighs as he took a deep breath.

“It’ll be okay, kid.” Bee tried to be reassuring despite their voice sounding bored and their face being almost entirely blocked by plants, but Crowley smiled at them anyway.

“I know, it’ll just be weird to be so far away.”

Bee nodded with a hum, both of them waving goodbye to their mothers, before they set off for their new house-

-which was fifteen minutes away, in the city. ~

Crowley and Bee had managed to unpack the car and near enough move everything in before the first of their housemates even showed up, perfectly chaotic and exactly at the wrong time, as Crowley battled to fit the giant suitcase through the front door while Bee laid on the sofa and did nothing to help.

Her arrival was made known by three things: the sound of Britney Spears’ ‘Womanizer’ muffled through car windows and getting ominously closer until coming to a head as she pulled up, a crash as the aforementioned car hit the lamp post outside the house, and then a loud, blunt exclamation of “fuck.”

“Ah, Dagon’s here.” 

She ran out of the car, leaving the engine on, door open and music still blasting, and gave Crowley a hard clap on the shoulder as she pushed past him and threw herself into Bee’s lap, only to be promptly deposited onto the floor.

“Aren’t you guys buzzed?” She grinned, red hair messy and falling into her face, partially covered by a black baseball cap that said “women want me, fish fear me” on the front.

“I was until you got here.” Bee fired back playfully, snatching the hat from Dagon’s head and shoving it on their own. It was way too big and the peak fell down over their eyes every time they moved, and they readjusted the size, quite intent on wearing it for the rest of the night, as they got up to help Dagon unpack her car.

Dagon had brought with her far too much of what she didn’t need and far too little of what she did; half of her car being taken up by a giant fish tank (“I’m going back home tomorrow to get them, I hope they don’t miss me too much.”) while the tiny suitcase on her passenger seat apparently held all of her clothes for the year. The music, still Britney Spears, was only turned off once Dagon had unloaded the car completely (as Bee and Crowley had discovered, she had created a playlist of every single Britney Spears song on Spotify), by which point many of the neighbours had already given them some rather distasteful looks from behind their net curtains. 

With the playlist blaring again, now through a speaker upon Dagon’s insistence, the three of them had split up to investigate the house. The outside was irregular and dirty-white, made complete by a wooden door with chipped black paint and a half shiny, half rusted number six nailed to the wall. The inside was no better, old carpets and ragged papering complimenting holes in the plaster and rusty radiator pipes.

None of them had even bothered to look around the place before signing the contracts - an offer of cheap rent and ‘satisfactory’ facilities more than enough to sway them.

Bee had taken to the garden, itching for nicotine, and they extracted a cigarette from behind their ear, scattering loose tobacco through their mess of black hair and making no effort to even acknowledge it, let alone remove it.

The garden was small, narrow and void of greenery completely, except from a pitiful looking tree that looked more like a long twig that had been plunged into a patch of gravel than anything that had ever been remotely alive. The ground was plain concrete, mossy and damp and unappealing in every sense, resembling an alleyway more so than a garden. Bee thought it crunched nicely beneath their thick-soled boots as they walked, and that was enough for them.

They hopped up onto the shoddy brick wall that ran the length of the garden fence, almost barreling straight into the tree-that-once-was, and once they’d found their footing they paused to light their cigarette. 

Crowley would be sure to try and bring the thing back to life, of that they were certain. 

Eyeing the fence, Bee was sure that it would fall down before the year was up, what with the rot and knot-marks and holes between the panels; and they suppressed a laugh at the death-rattle it gave when they kicked it. They spared a glance over into their neighbour’s garden, and then their nosiness overcame them and they draped their arms over the fence entirely, wrinkling their nose a little at how nice next door seemed in comparison. 

It was a wide, open space and the tiles on the ground looked brand new and almost shone under the early afternoon sun. Bee didn’t feel in the least bit bad about dropping cigarette ash all over them. In the middle was a patch of neat green grass, in the far corner a russet-painted shed, and the entire back fence was painted with a sunset-inspired mural.

Inside the house Bee saw a lone girl, busy packing things away into the wall units in the kitchen. Bee found themselves very intrigued, her deep brown skin flawless and shining with a rich gold highlighter that caught the sun every time she moved, and she wore a loose, ruffled white shirt that flowed with her movements and made her look like an angel. 

For someone so seemingly put-together, she’d sure picked a rough neighbourhood to live in.

Bee stopped staring, then, and as they turned to duck down behind the fence to finish their cigarette they met eyes with Crowley, making his way out of the back door to join them.

“Dagon’s setting up her tank," He waved vaguely behind him as he spoke, up on his tiptoes to peer eagerly over the fence. 

"What's next door like?" 

"Nice." Bee replied genuinely with a nod, waiting for Crowley's hum of approval before continuing. "When's your boy moving in?" 

Crowley choked, and Bee snickered when his face flushed almost as red as his hair.

He had started dating a boy named Aziraphale, though Crowley would only ever call him Ezra, Zira, or Angel, over the summer, having met online and hit it off in a fresher's group chat for their university. 

"Weird name." Bee had commented, and then had immediately taken it back upon remembering that their legal name had very nearly been Beelzebub.

The two had met up a few times, and soon become an official item. Bee could still vividly remember the absolute joy on Crowley's face when he'd found out that, arguably through some sort of divine intervention, Zira would be living just next door when term time started.

Who else he was living with, however, Bee and Crowley hadn't the faintest. All Zira had said was that there were four of them, two second years and two first years, and all of them had met through family friends, university societies and extra curricular youth groups. Nerds.

"Uh, h-he-" Crowley cleared his throat, removing his sunglasses as if it'd help him think better, brown eyes so light they almost shone yellow darting this way and that but never meeting Bee's own. "-He should be here tomorrow, or the day after."

Bee smirked at him, quirking an eyebrow. 

"You'll have to introduce us.”

Crowley very quickly brushed it off with an awkward nod.

“What do you think the rest of ‘em will be like?”

Bee finished their cigarette and stubbed out the end on the wall, little ashy embers flying back at them as they flicked the filter in the general direction of the drain by the back door.

‘Get something to put your dock ends in-’ Bee reminded themselves as they followed Crowley back through to the living room. ‘-Asshole. Think of the planet.’

“Insufferable, probably.” Bee shrugged, leaning back against the sofa and crossing one leg over their knee, their foot beginning to twitch and shake out of habit. They decided not to mention the girl they’d seen in the kitchen, knowing full well that Crowley would mislay the information to Dagon, who in turn would mislay it to Hastur, over-exaggerated and not at all true stories of Bee and the mystery girl somehow being an item forming from nothing more than boredom and a need for drama.

“Yeah, probably.” Crowley’s reply was half-hearted, paying no real attention as he instead stared down at his phone.

“Zira likes them, though, so I’m sure they’re nice enough.”

Bee made no effort to reply, but if they had, it would’ve been cut off. First by a crash, followed immediately by the second customary exclamation of “fuck” of the day. 

It was beginning to feel like home already.

[amaranthinerose42]

So Ghosts are real

or at least waves of negative energy. Whether they’re man-made or spirits that can affect us. 

So not everyone wins the lottery when you get set up with housemates. Sometimes they’re strange, annoying and don’t understand boundaries. Sometimes they’re mean. Sometimes they’re quick to judge. Sometimes they turn out to be the kind of person who just exuberates negative vibes, man. I had the luck of all three in my final semester at san francisco state. Mix those all together with someone who is a chicken when it comes to confrontation, me, and you get domestic troubles. To keep people anonymous I’m going to refer to each housemate to their sun sign. We had a Leo and Aries sharing one room, Pisces and Capricorn (me) sharing another and then the Aquarius. 

This strange roommate with a lack of boundaries, the Aquarius, had her own room. Funny enough she never closed her door and had a habit of waltzing into our rooms without permission. I put her down as quirky, annoying, and someone I’d have to tolerate. The others found her behavior as offensive, horrifying, making them (and I quote) ‘Prisoners in our own home’ that it was ‘the most traumatic shit they’ve ever experienced’. It wasn’t a fun experience, and I felt bad for the girl. She did have some mental stuff that hindered her to understand certain social situations and what is polite living with near strangers. She’d change her clothes with her door open, not shower apparently (my room wasn’t close enough to hers but my housemates said the smell was unbearable) Things got real personal real fast with her. She’d talk and talk and constantly jump from one inappropriate topic to the next. 

As a person with my own social anxiety, I still tried to understand her point of view, respond, be generally kind and polite to her. The others were So good at acting polite toward her I was worried I was the one getting impatient and might snap at her. But then one weekend she went home. They went off. From that weekend on, for the next two weeks, they’d treat her like a monster in our house. They’d leave the living room the moment she’d come home from class. 

Anyway, one night one of the girls, the Aries, in the other room invited us all except the Aquarius to go with them to see this opera thing at the baseball field. It was mostly to get out of the house. I accepted because it seemed like a fun thing. I honestly didn't want to get involved in their drama. They just talked shit about her all day. As a gullible person, I was starting to lean toward their side. But now it’s likely a lot of the little things they said she did sounded like made up childish bullying to make her seem more gross. 

Things got bad enough that we had made a list of complaints and sent it to our RA to help us deal with her. There were certain things she straight up did/didn’t do like help pay for toilet paper, take peoples kitchen supplies, take peoples food. So our RA decided it was a good idea to email everyone in the house that “I see things aren’t going too well, we’re going to have a meeting on friday to discuss things”. We thought this was risky, but it being a wednesday we thought whatever, it’ll be taken care of in two days. Then the RA cancelled. Moved it to monday. Saturday was the opera night.  

So, we went to this opera thing and they purposely didn’t invite her. It was a fine night but I could tell I was starting to get sick, we were out in the cold. Then we went back home. Here are the following events from my perspective: 

As we were coming back home into the building I asked the Aries, the one who invited us out if I could have some of her tea, as i was starting to feel unwell. She said sure of course and brought me to her stash. It was nearly midnight when I had my cup. 

I then started to get ready for bed, exhausted. I had to walk over to their side of the apartment to get my toiletries. From where I stood, the Aquarius saw me with her door wide open. She asked me how the night went, had her usual cheery attitude. I responded, kinda downplayed it to make it seem not that interesting. Then I left to go to the restroom. A few minutes later, I was exiting the restroom with my PJ’s on when I see the Aries and the Leo leaving the apartment. 

“What’s going on?” I ask.

The Aries, with a peeved out of patience lilt, “My room just got raided.”

“Raided?”

“Yeah.” She nodded, saying it in a way that indicates with both know what just happened, “We’re going to the housing office.” And they left. 

Being curious, I went to their room and peaked in. The Leo’s side was fine, but the Aries side seemed a little messy. It does seem like her stuff had been looked through, but nothing broken or too crazy. The Aquarius’s door was shut. I went to bed not knowing what else to do. Pisces was asleep. I laid there for like five minutes when Leo called and told me to bring everyone and come down to have an emergency house meeting. I thought I needed to wake up the Aquarius and she wasn’t answering when I knocked on her door so I called her. 

She was crying when she answered, told me she was already down there and apologized. I just say it’s ok, said me and Pisces will be down there in a sec and hang up. God I just remember thinking this was all so stupid and childish. 

So we had this meeting, Aquarius was in a separate room because she was screaming and crying. The other four of us tired, listening to Aries and Leo explain what happened. 

So apparently when they came home, Aries found her stuff moved, rummages through, some of her things thrown into the trashcan, objects misplaced. Aquarius is inconsolable, saying she’s innocent. But the only other person was Pisces and Aquarius would have seen her do it with her door open. Pisces also had no motive. 

After Aries had seen the scene on her side of the room she called her parents and angrily expressed what she believed to be true, that Aquarius had done this. That she felt safe and said something along the lines of “Guess I’m getting murdered tonight” Aquarius, leaving her door open had overheard this, approached Aries and said very defensively “Do you have a problem with me?!”

They talked as if they had a screaming match. I heard none of this. 

Anyway, the Aquarius was effectively getting kicked out and moved to a separate housing until Monday when we could have an actual mediation when she is more calm.  At first the housing people felt bad for her, but as the night progressed, hours later we could tell they seemed to be kind of unnerved by her. 

The next two days we “celebrated”. Drank a little, got food together. Monday happened. I wrote a little message and presented it to the Aquarius. Essentially saying that we didn’t deal with this right, we should’ve just talked to you more, but breaking into someones room and messing with their things is pushing an unforgivable line and now we just feel unsafe. The rest just listed off the things that bothered them. I almost didn’t say what I wrote, she seemed already so distraught. She started crying after I read my note. The others were ready to kill her they were so angry.

And then it was over...? She had to come back a few days later to pack up her things and officially move out. 

[glorifiedscapegoat]

So since things have been a bit difficult this weekend at work, I haven’t been able to get all of my first chapter for my fic finished just yet. It’s in the works, and I am busting my butt on it with my housemate as my editor.

However, I did want to have something to share with everyone who’s been patient with her here, on Ao3, and on the No.6 Discord.

And so, I’ve attached a small snippet of the first chapter for all of you to enjoy while I’m finishing up work on the first chapter.

The whole first chapter is going to be about 10,000 words long, so I hope you’ll all enjoy it when it’s done.

For now, however, here’s a small taste of chapter one. :3

Chapter One Ficlet

The early-evening streets of Kronos weren’t vacant. People stepped in and out of shops, or lingered on their porches. None of them saw the silver wolf slinking through the shadows, visible one moment and then camouflaged the next. The old woman carrying grocery bags into her house didn’t spot the gargoyle napping on the hood of her car.

Shion envied all of them. The Fair Folk might have been beautiful, but there was a cruelty behind it. The Folk were not kind. Shion had seen it first-hand.

Turning away from the creatures, Shion focused on getting to Safu’s house. He tucked away from a tall man who nearly crashed into him. Shion murmured an apology that went ignored.

Sometimes he wished he could tell the Fair Folk to leave him alone. Sometimes he wished there was a way to take the Sight from his eyes and toss it into the ocean.

He knew it was an impossible dream. The Folk might have been able to take his Sight from him, if Shion were to ask—but Shion also knew that the faeries might take his eyes, too.

Ever since he was a child, Shion had been taught of the cruelty of the Fair Folk. Safu’s grandmother had picked up on his gifts at an early age. She’d been kind enough to pull him into her world, filling him with the same knowledge and warnings she’d given her own granddaughter. Never let the Folk know you have the power to see them, she’d instructed. No matter what horrible things you’ve seen them do, remember that they will do worse to you, should they discover your secret.

And so Shion had averted his eyes and pretended to see nothing. He’d forced a smile on his face when a skeletal woman took a bird’s head in her bony fingers and crushed its skull. Living with the Sight was a game of eternal acting—but Shion wasn’t certain how much longer he could keep up the pretense.

He’d just rounded the corner that would take him by the metro, when a low murmur washed through the small cluster of Folk lingering in the streets.

Shion couldn’t help it. He turned his head, pretending to be drawn by an odd scent or the flash of a coin in the dirt. His gaze drifted briefly to the mouth of an alley—and then Shion spotted him stepping out from the darkness.

The one faerie he saw again and again, in various spots around Kronos.

He was devastating. He was only a bit taller than Shion, but he carried himself as if he towered above even the tallest of the fae. His long hair was dark as the midnight sky, but Shion had never seen it down. He usually kept it in a messy ponytail that would have looked good on a regular human. On him, it was striking—but not nearly as much as his eyes.

Silver. Not a human shade, faded green or blue or a hodgepodge of the two, but the color of a thunderstorm. Clouds reflected in a sharpened blade. Shion had never seen eyes like this on any of the fae creatures that lurked around Kronos. He felt like those eyes would cut him if he were to catch their gaze.

If the boy had been human, Shion would have been drawn to him. He might have even tried to talk to him. The boy wasn't Shion's usual type—cold and distant in a way that made him untouchable, someone who reeked of trouble and held the entire world in the palm of his hand.

The boy moved as if he were someone important. In the rare moments when Shion spotted him in the presence of other fae, they had given the boy a wide berth. Even the creatures that looked menacing treated the boy as if he was someone to fear.

That terrified Shion, too. He might have thought the boy was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, but he didn't know if he wanted to know him. If it would be safe to know him.

Whenever Shion saw the boy, he was bombarded with the scent of jasmine flowers and winter wind. He could hear the wind rustling through tree branches. If he closed his eyes, he could picture himself wandering through the woods in the dead of winter. Crisp white snow would fall all around him, and he would walk into the depths and never be seen or heard from again. It was so easy to imagine. A beautiful dream that blurred the line and threatened to become a reality.

Shion walked a little faster, not exactly running. He never ran around the Folk. If he did, they would give chase. The Fair Folk enjoyed a good chase. It pleased them when their prey ran.

A couple blocks down, Shion ducked into one of the small cafés tucked in the corner. He felt safer among the scents of coffee beans and vanilla sweet cream. Every time the streets were overrun with fae, Shion would hide in the café or in the supermarket, intermingling with other humans until the worst of the creatures had passed.

There was a girl sitting in the back of the lobby. She was invisible to all the others, and Shion could tell in an instant that she wasn't human. Her ears formed into little furry points at the tips, and her long hair seemed to be made of ruby filaments. The dim overhead lamps caught in the jagged strands as she turned her head toward him.

Shion stepped away from the girl and ducked into the line. He wasn't much of a coffee drinker, but he figured it would look suspicious if he didn't order something. Suspicious was never good when it came to the Folk. It attracted their attention, and that was exactly what Shion wanted to avoid. He scanned the menu for something he might enjoy.

And then the silver-eyed boy walked into the café—still glamoured, still invisible to all the humans aside from Shion—and headed straight toward the fae girl.

Shion swallowed a lump in his throat. The Folk walked past him on a daily basis, invisible and impossible to hear unless they willed it. The particularly strong ones could weave glamours to hide in plain sight. Shion had never seen a member of the Folk create a human glamour. He didn't ever want to. The idea that any of the people surrounding him could be fae was almost as frightening as what could happen if one of them discovered that Shion could see them without their glamours.

The boy marched to the table. The girl lifted her head, spotted him, and her eyes went wide. She bared her teeth—sharp and serrated, like a Great White shark's—and whispered, "Nezumi."

Her voice was as jagged as her teeth, and the name stumbled over her tongue. Shion's heart caught in his throat. Nezumi. The name flowed through his head like dandelion fluff on the wind, and Shion imagined it would taste strange on his lips. Nezumi.

The boy pulled back the chair opposite her and dropped into it. Shion looked around to see if any of the other human patrons had noticed that the chair had been yanked back by invisible hands.

No one seemed to notice much of anything. Not the couple closest to the window who seemed on the verge on an obvious breakup. Not the barista watching Shion with a disinterested smile, waiting for him to hurry up and order. Not the young mother desperately trying to corral her unruly toddlers. No one noticed the two creatures sitting in their midst.

Shion found himself wondering, not for the first time, what the silver-eyed boy would look like as a human. His hair would darken to a dull black, or perhaps a steely blue that appeared gray in the sunlight. His eyes would be more difficult to hide. Shion couldn’t think of a color that would suit him better than his own sharp silver, but silver was not a normal color. Shion tried to picture him with dark blue or brown irises, but he didn’t like the thought.

“He sent you, didn’t he?” The girl’s gravely little voice pierced through the low hum of conversation in the café. “The King?”

Shion’s stomach hit the floor. The silver-eyed boy served a king. That’s not good. Safu’s grandmother had told him countless stories of faerie courts. Reigning over them all were two large kingdoms: Seelie and Unseelie. Light and Dark. Day and Night. There were so many stories, Shion didn’t know which of them were true—and he didn’t have a means, or a desire, to find out.

Only a court as large as the Seelie or Unseelie would have a king. Shion didn’t want to think what it meant that court fae were wandering through Kronos. He needed to put distance between himself and the two creatures sitting in the café with him.

“He’s pretty pissed at you,” Nezumi replied, and Shion’s heart fluttered. His melodic voice pierced through the air like shattered glass. Shion could easily imagine falling asleep to that voice. Could imagine listening to it for centuries. Dangerous, he thought, forcing his gaze to drift around the café, as if he were looking at the decorations rather than eavesdropping on the nearby conversation.

“It’s not a crime to abandon a court,” the girl replied. Her voice trembled at the edges. “We do it all the time, you know.”

“Your intentions were to leave for the Seelie Court,” Nezumi said. “That’s rather suspicious.”

The little bell above the door jangled as a woman in a black jacket stepped inside. Shion stepped aside and let her take his place in line, pretending to still be mulling over the menu.

“The King doesn’t need to worry,” the girl assured. Shion watched her from the corner of his eye. The edges of her red hair glinted in the dim light. She was smaller than Nezumi—smaller and more colorful. She wore a faded copper dress that looked as if it belonged in the past. “My intentions to leave were—or rather, there’s no harm in letting me go. I’m not a threat, Nezumi. You have my word.”

The Fair Folk were incapable of lying. Shion wasn’t foolish enough to think that meant he was safe. Safu’s grandmother had warned him that faeries could manipulate the truth. Bend it until it snapped on its own.

Even so, Shion thought a faerie’s word might be as good as any promise. He didn’t know what harm it could do to let the girl switch courts—didn’t see how she could be a threat to a faerie king—but from the look that crossed Nezumi’s face, Shion had a sinking feeling that the girl’s word wasn’t enough.

The girl seemed to have the same opinion. “Please.” Her big eyes filled with tears. They were filthy and gray, dripping down her cheeks and leaving tracks of silt in their wake. “Just let me go. You know—you know better than anyone what a monster he is, Nezumi.”

“I do,” Nezumi replied.

The faerie girl’s shoulders relaxed. At one of the tables, the woman with her two toddlers dropped her purse on the ground. The contents spilled out on the ground. A blue compact mirror rolled out and struck the edge of Nezumi’s black boot. “Shit,” the woman muttered to herself. She rose from the table, stomped over, and snatched her compact from the floor. She didn’t notice Nezumi sitting there. Nezumi didn’t look up at her as she walked away.

“I do know what a monster the Unseelie King is,” Nezumi echoed. His silver eyes flickered to the window. Shion followed his gaze outside. He spotted a few faeries in the streets. More than half of them seemed to linger by the café door, never venturing inside. “But they’re watching us.”

The chair screeched across the tile as the faerie girl jumped from the table. She turned—but Nezumi was faster.

Something silver glinted from his side. Shion watched in abstract horror as Nezumi drove his arm forward, his fist connecting between the girl’s exposed shoulder blades.

Blood sprayed from her open mouth. Splattered in an arch across the glass. She tripped over one of the empty tables and crashed to the ground. Her skull bounced against the leg of a nearby chair. The human occupant glanced over at the sensation of his seat being jostled, but, seeing nothing, turned back to chatting with his companion.

Nezumi flicked his wrist. Blood whipped through the air, sliding from the edge of a silver blade. He slid the knife into a small sheath at his side.

Shion didn’t watch. He stared dead ahead. Stared at the wall as Nezumi shoved his chair back, rose to his feet, and stalked out of the café without looking back.

The smell of jasmine went with him. There was nothing but the overpowering stench of copper. The smell of death.

Shion exhaled, his breath shuddering out of him.

“Sir?” The barista tapped her index finger against the counter. She had a smile on her face. “Sir, are you ready to order?”

“No,” Shion said. His voice sounded thousands of miles away. His body had gone cold, all the warmth bleeding out on the floor alongside the faerie girl’s pale blood. “No, I—I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m going to order.”

To Be Continued in Chapter One

Hope you enjoyed that little snippet, guys! I’m excited to share the first chapter with you all when it’s completed. I’ll be posting the first chapter here and linking the Ao3 version here, too.

[sikhyes]

bitchcraft ━ yeri

a/n: i’ve been wanting to write this for so long (esp since i feel really proud of the title lmao) but i hope you guys enjoy!! genre: supernatural!au , witch!au , college!au , fluff pairing: yeri x reader (red velvet) word count: 2,023 summary: they said that every pizza boy that walks in never comes out. that’s why they sent you, a pizza girl. warnings: none

bitchcraft (n.) - a specialty of witchcraft only perfected and practiced by a supreme ‘bitch’

It was particularly rare finding a decently priced house only a few blocks away from campus (not counting the glorified suburban homes that housed the frats and sororities) so you knew that there had to be a catch to the entire ordeal. Whether it be a creepy landlord or inescapably loud parties, you and your friends braced yourself for the worst once all of you had signed the lease.

However, one month in and the only weird thing about the entire block had to be the eerily decorated house across the street. It was the biggest one compared to the rows of the picket-fences, two tall trees bordering the left and right corner of the front yard with three sets of stairs leading up to the mahogany double doors. While the rest of the houses were painted a fresh spring color, the house across was a dark shadow amongst its sisters on the block. With only grey tiles that covered the roof, everything else was accented with darker wood and ledger stone tiles as pillars that held up the porch.

No one really spoke much about it at first. Your next door neighbors situated on the right was a sweet couple, living the longest on the block compared to the rest of the street. When you and the other three people living with you now (Chaeyoung, Taehyung, and Jimin) went to drop off french macarons (instead of the usual rice cakes) out of courtesy, mostly everyone gave silent warnings to not approach the dark house. It wasn’t until Taehyung’s curiosity got the best of him and finally asked the other college students that inhabited the apartment complex a couple houses down yours.

“Is it like a ‘Boo Radley’ situation?” Jimin asked as he handed the delicately wrapped boxes over to the guy named Hoseok.

Namjoon, the taller one, shook his head as Hoseok retreated in their home to set the gift aside. “No, not necessarily. At least, the rumors haven’t reached to murder yet.” At the sight of yours and Chaeyoung’s expression, the boy quickly hurried on to explain. “The most popular one is that anyone that enters that house never comes out.”

Taehyung’s laugh bellowed, carefree as he flicked a few loose strands of his bangs aside. “I call bullshit. This is LA, dude, not some shitty town in the middle of nowhere.”

“It’s your choice to believe it or not,” Hoseok shrugged. “But there’s one piece of evidence that can actually support that rumor.”

“What is it?” You found yourself asking.

“Any pizza boy that comes by that house goes missing.”

“So there’s five of them?”

You didn’t bother rolling your eyes - the world seemed to spin with how often you’ve done it in the past ten minutes - and kept your attention on your notes. With your frame curled up on the left side of the couch and Chaeyoung’s slender legs stretched out on the rest of the piece of furniture, Taehyung occupied the armchair closest to you with his gangly stature sprawled all over it. His head dangled off the edge of the armrest, his hair comically standing on end as though he was electrocuted, as he tossed a baseball only to catch with precision a few seconds later.

“Yes. There’s five,” Chaeyoung answered kindly, her voice never betraying the hidden frustration that was growing beneath her expression. That had to be the tenth time Taehyung had asked to reiterate what Namjoon told them only moments prior. “And before you ask, we don’t know their names. All we know is that they attend our university, appears to be filthy rich, and likes to order pizza.”

“Which is how they lure in their prey,” Jimin cut in as he padded from the bathroom with only a loose towel tied haphazardly around his lean waist. The sight of the shirtless male would’ve made you blush but you’ve lived with him (as well as the other two) too long to feel any surprise at any state of his undress. “They’re like black widows, hot and dangerous.”

You couldn’t bite back the snort that escaped you. “How do you know they’re hot?”

“I just do. It’s a vibe thing.”

At this point, you were sure that your eyes would’ve fallen out with how much you’ve rolled them.

Two months in and still no sign of the mysterious five that lived in the house across the street. Every morning, you stuck to a serious and sharp routine that you followed religiously. Wake up at 6:30 AM, jog a couple laps around the street, return back by 7:00 AM to start on breakfast with Jimin and be ready by your first class (regardless if it was a nine am class or a two pm class). With how often you’re actually out and about, you were positive that you’d have at least bumped into them once.

But you were just as unsuccessful (you were ashamed to admit that you even took an extra lap one morning in hopes of catching a glimpse of any one of them) as the rest of your housemates, despite being placated that you weren’t the only one obsessed with finding more about your secretive neighbors.

“Y/N?” Chaeyoung came bounding into your shared room, her orange hair askew beneath a large tacky trucker’s cap that advertised ‘Pizza Palace’ in a fading red font across the yellowing white fabric. You tore your attention away from the bright screen of your laptop, a little disoriented from writing an essay, and took in your roommate’s appearance in completely. With her cheeks flushed and her chest rising and dropping in unsteady intervals, you immediately jumped off the bed and led her to her own.

“Hey, you alright? What happened?” Your mind instantly jumped to the worst-case scenarios, kickstarting your anxious heart as you waited for Chaeyoung to fill you in.

“I’m fine,” she wheezed, trying her best to catch her breathe as she removed her cap to place on your head. “I need you to do me a favor. Can you fill in the rest of my hours for tonight at the pizza place a few streets away? I got an email from my TA reminding me of my paper that’s due tonight, which I completely forgot about so I-”

“Hold on, slow down, Chae… slow down. Don’t tell me you just ditched your shift! Did you tell your boss at least?”

“I did, but I need you to cover for me.”

You scooted backwards to shoot her the most incredulous look. “Chae, I don’t even work there! How am I supposed to cover your shift?”

“You’re not making any pizza,” she hurriedly answered. “Just deliveries! Please, please, please!”

No matter how long you’ve lived with Chaeyoung, you just didn’t seem to have the kind of immunity against her pitiful expressions you thought you might’ve acquired by now. “Oh, fine. Give me the stupid hat.”

It must’ve been a regular occurrence for random strangers in employee gear to show up at the pizza parlor because Chaeyoung’s supervisor didn’t bat an eye when you arrived behind the counter in her uniform. Your own hair was pulled into a messy knot at the nape of your neck, loose strands of hair framing your face as you pushed up the large cap up to properly keep eye contact.

“Here are the orders, here are the addresses, and here’s the keys to the pizza car. Not a scratch,” she ordered firmly before sending you on your way. Once you found the designated vehicle, you scoffed as you remembered her last piece of instruction.

A scratch would’ve actually been an improvement with how shitty the car’s state was.

The first few addresses were simple enough; the entire area was mostly separate houses rather than confusing apartment complexes, making your temporary job much more easier. The list of orders began to decrease and the monstrous amount of boxes in the backseat disappeared one by one with each stop. Reaching the end of the list, your heart nearly dropped to your chest once you recognized the address.

It was the house across the street.

“When’s the pizza coming?” Yeri’s whining echoed throughout the spacious house as she lounged on one of the chaises in the sitting room, a picture of relaxation as she fiddled with a pistol crossbow. Irene wrinkled her nose at the mess she caused when she passed by. Stray arrows scattered the area around the youngest as grease-stained rags laid upon her mahogany tables where the tools were placed on.

“Soon.” It was Wendy who answered from her position by the window seat at the east side of the house once she noticed the displeased look on the eldest’s features. It’s been a couple months since their last ‘order’ and whenever Irene hasn’t had her appetite filled, she became cranky enough that Seulgi and Joy would retreat to their room until her ‘hangry’ phase subsides. “Be patient. It should be here any moment.”

Although they barely entertained any guests, the five women were dressed in their finest. It was a bland Thursday evening but with the high-end cocktail dresses that adorned their ideal figures, you’d think they’d be off to attend some VVIP, private gala in the city. Irene was dressed in a sequined long sleeve dress with bloody red heels. Yeri kept things simple with a crochet dress and flats while Seulgi chose a lace blouse and leather pants. Joy loved her little black dresses that accentuated her curves. Wendy opted for a vintage velvet blouse and leather skirt.

Despite their oddly fancy attire, it blended well with the artistic pieces carefully placed around their home. Irene had picked up art curating as a new hobby, a way to pass the time as they juggled their unorthodox lives.

Right when Seulgi finally slid down the tall flight of stairs by the banister, the doorbell chimed around their house. “Dinner time,” she hummed as a devilish grin crossed her scarlet lips. She stepped aside and retreated to the living room with Joy at her tail when Yeri bounded up to open the door with a grotesque teddy bear tucked in the crook of her arm. As her hand reached for the doorknob, an adorable expression settled upon her visage as she prepared herself to come face to face with another pizza boy.

The door swung open and her practiced smile was what greeted you… only for it to fall in surprise only seconds later when Yeri realized you weren’t a pizza boy.

“For… Yeri?” You read the post-it note on the top of the box as you stretched your arms out to hand the pizza over. “That’ll be fifteen-��

“Excuse me,” the pretty girl cut you off before she slammed the door in your face.

“Wait… repeat that again. They just took the pizza and paid you…?”

Your swung your legs as you sat on the counter, munching on a leftover pizza as you nodded. The closing crew had asked you to retell the story for the tenth time now but you didn’t really mind repeating it, not when you had a slice of pizza in your hand. Although it was a good half hour since you’ve finished the rest of Chae’s shift, you’ve befriended her coworkers when they realized you made a stop at Hell House (a funny little nickname they dubbed the creepy place). While you sat on the counter, the four others had grabbed chairs to circle around you with their own late dinners in hand.

“Yeah, they seemed a little confused but that’s it,” you answered patiently, nibbling at the crust as the youngest coworker tentatively raised his hand.

“Really?” Mark asked, dropping his hand with a little bashful chuckle. “That’s it?”

You nodded and they all finally dispersed, somewhat content with the first witness story of the odd happenings in hell house. “Really. That’s it.

Yes, that was it… and the slip of paper that held the pretty girl’s number in your pocket.

[crazyunlikeyou]

But think about this

A Slytherin girl with the most innocent look. She is tiny, she has the warmest smile and you just want to pinch her cheeks whenever she’s around. She is a sweetheart and she helps people all around her, even the Gryffindors (sometimes she makes witty/funny comments but she always helps). Most people expected she would be claimed as a Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff, a few told she would be a Gryffindor on her first day. Everybody was shocked when the sorting hat shouted “Slytherin” with barely touching her head. Slytherins wanted to claim there was a mistake but she was too good to be denied by anyone. She was proud to be a Slytherin, too. She had friends from all over the houses but her best friends were her housemates. So she became the little girl every Slytherin protected, the one “who could never hurt anyone”. She always had something to do, a person to help, an activity to join. She loved to read, she could always be found in the library if she wasn’t running around to do something. She had the lightest laugh. She loved people. Nobody understood why she was sorted in the snake house, not even the teachers.

Some people tried to bully her. She would smile and ignore them. She wouldn’t care much, so it never lasted long. Sometimes she would give sarcastic answers which always made a few people around glance in shock. Sometimes she would sincerely tell them to run, because her housemates never let those bullies leave without a scratch after doing/saying bad stuff. She wouldn’t be affected by it though, it never seemed to matter to her. 

She was rarely seen angry but when she was, she would be the coldest person on the face of earth. She wouldn’t hurt anyone, but she would make you feel so guilty that you would be crushed under the pressure. When she was angry, the people around her would apologize even if they had nothing to do with the reason of her anger. Many assumed this was because of her usual kind demeanor. Some people thought maybe that was why she was a Slytherin, but everyone would get angry and these were more like a Ravenclaw’s or Hufflepuff’s reactions instead of a Slytherin’s, so she was still a mystery between the houses. 

She was a third year when her muggle-born best friend/roommate and a Ravenclaw she was closely friends with came to her, sobbing uncontrollably and barely standing. The Ravenclaw had an empty look in her eyes and she was reciting the last chapter of the potions book out loud from memory. The Slytherin was no better, she wasn’t talking but she was having an anxiety attack.

She held them both, not being able to take them anywhere. She started to shout for help as soon as she felt blood on her hands. She let go of the Ravenclaw only when Ravenclaw’s older brother came to help, she wouldn’t let anyone else near. The Ravenclaw was taken to the infirmary immediately after that, since she had a cut on her lower back. Her roommate had no physical damage but she couldn’t stand on her feet.��So she didn’t let go of her roommate. She calmed her down enough to learn what happened. 

Three death eaters apparently wanted a bit of “fun” and decided to play with some young girls that were around. They used a seventh year they knew to find someone. That seventh year was the one to lead those girls to them, knowing very well about the bad intentions. Nobody could understand what they had been through, but it was apparent it was mental abuse. Her roommate was shaking uncontrollably and she wouldn’t stop screaming whenever she closed her eyes. She stayed with her roommie’s side, holding her tight until her friend fell into a dreamless slumber from all the exhaustion. Her roommate was taken to Madam Pomfrey too. As soon as she put her roommate to the bed in the infirmary safely next to the sleeping Ravenclaw, she disappeared. The people who saw her going out of the infirmary said there was a glint of something they didn’t recognize in her eyes, but that it made them move away from her path. She disappeared from the castle that night. 

As well as that seventh year. 

Everyone, from fanatic Gryffindors to older Slytherins were looking for her after she was announced missing by a very upset Dolores Umbridge. They tried to find her from her wand, but it was as if she hasn’t even used it since she left. That seventh year could defend himself if he was out and alone -and he went missing a few hours after her so there was still time before he was also announced missing- but that innocent third year whose friend was abused by death eaters had very little chance of survival in case she faced with a death eater.

With the first lights of the dawn, that seventh year stumbled into the castle. He had no real physical damage, no broken bones, not even a scratch but boy, was he looking bad. Her hair was everywhere, his robe was gone and his clothes were ripped. Moreover, he continued to rip them more and more with every second passing. It was as if he didn’t even recognize what he was doing. His eyes were dull as he silently cried. He kept chanting “I’m sorry.” over and over again, without stopping. People tried to stop him, ask him what happened and why he was in such a mess. They thought it was because of those death eaters again, but he wouldn’t answer.

He walked and ripped and chanted and walked and ripped and chanted... Until he saw a school official. It was McGonagall and she was running towards him to help him. He wouldn’t let her. He stopped and started full-on crying, confessing how he tricked those third years into going with him to the death eaters, how he watched what happened and how he realized it was sadistic to hurt someone like that but how he was too scared to stop them. He apologized again and again. Dolores Umbridge came near them at this point, but she couldn’t understand a word. But McGonagall knew, of courses she knew, there was something -a connection of some sorts- about the missing girl in his story but she couldn’t pinpoint what.  

So she asked about the girl, trying to gain any information about her disappearance after getting him to speak a few different words from “I’m sorry” and “My fault”. She was nearly sure the sweetheart of Slytherin was in the hands of the death eaters until she saw the look on the boy’s face. His face twisted as he heard her name and it wasn’t horror what was on his face, no, it was straight up trauma. He became a blubbering mess again and suddenly he was sobbing and chanting all over again.

Two days later the Daily Prophet and The Quibbler and every newspaper wrote about the two death eaters that were found in front of the Auror’s office. They were highly ranked and probably had the power to walk out of there without any “guilt” but they were right there, confessing their identities. They seemed fine from outside but they were mad. They had literally gone crazy. They were taken away quickly, but nobody understood how or why they were in such bad condition. They were cold blooded murderers and they had more crimes on their plate then one could count, everyone was equally curious and scared of what-or who- made those sadist lose their minds. Even if their ranks could protect them, they didn’t have a clear mind to be the person they were anymore. Hogwarts students were nearly sure that the poor Slytherin girl was murdered by them at this point.

But McGonagall knew it. Of-fucking-course she knew it. She had seen it in that seventh year’s eyes and the two death eaters that mentally abused those girls going mad in front of Auror’s office was just too much to be a coincidence. Nobody would believe her, but she knew now exactly why that third year was a perfect fit for Slytherin.

Five days after her disappearance, she waltzed back into the castle. She had a shadow of a smile on her face but she looked absolutely exhausted. She looked like she hadn’t slept since she left. She looked disheveled. Her robe was dirty and her hair was all over the place but she looked fine. She was more than fine. She looked satisfied. No matter how many times her friends, best friends, asked her what happened, she would just say there was an urgent matter she had to attend to and that she saw a death eater on her way while coming back. She told them that she ran away, that she was safe now, but no one could learn anything more than that. Her parents, the school officials, nearly everyone in the school tried but none of them got a clear answer. How she ran away from death eaters was a complete mystery.

McGonagall asked her to join her on a cup of tea the next day. She was no different from before, it was as if she had never gone missing. Her friends, the Ravenclaw and the Slytherin were better too. They still had to go through controls every other day for now but they were getting better. Madam Pomfrey told them they would be back to normal very soon, but that it would always leave a scar on them. They had to be careful and had to find her if they ever had an anxiety attack again.

She sat across from McGonagall, holding her warm tea closely. She still looked a bit tired, but other than that McGonagall couldn’t spot any differences on her. Her wand was in her right boot as always and her hair was in her signature messy bun. She was asked about her disappearance again and told to the same story she had been telling since she came back. McGonagall asked her to describe the death eater she ran away from but she told her that it was too dark for her to see the details of their face. The professor couldn’t get a real answer from her, nothing that would prove she was the one after those “incidents”. Ignoring the nagging feeling to turn into a cat and follow her, she asked her if she knew about what happened to that seventh year and the two death eaters that abused her friends. There was a glint of something in her eyes for less than a second but it was gone before McGonagall could identify it. She said she heard some things all around the castle when she came back but even without knowing the full story, she was glad that they were caught. “They must’ve made someone really angry,” she said, “it is apparent that they weren’t expecting such attack. Maybe that was why they were defeated.”

Some could say the older woman was glad that those psychopaths were out, but she was still curious about the reality. McGonagall asked her opinion about what could’ve been done to drive two psychopath wizards crazy. She said she doubted it was done by magic. “They are very skilled in magic, I doubt it was their magic that failed them. I think the reason behind their madness was that something, maybe someone, broke them from inside. It must be like the torture they made my friends go through but with less magic and more manipulating. A wand or a body is useless without a functioning mind anyways.”

McGonagall tapped her fingers to her cup. She was dismissed after a few more questions, there were no real connection between her and the incidents but McGonagall could feel it. As she stood up and was about to leave, McGonagall asked her a few last questions. “Say, if you were the one to... to do those things, would you let the third one go? Wouldn’t it be better to take all of them out after all on the things they had done?”

Young girl smirked, something she would rarely do. “Professor, it would be naive of us to believe that the third one was free after what happened to his... friends. I mean, the seventh year had it easiest, probably because he actually realized his mistake—but the death eaters just had it bad. I am pretty sure he is in as bad condition as his friends are, if not worse. It is pretty impossible for two mad death eaters to go to the Auror’s office by themselves, so I think the person who profusely sent them there kept the third one somewhere else. Probably without a wand.”

“You seem so sure?”

“Well, that’s what makes sense after all. I am actually pretty sure the third one has the worst of them all, at least I hope so, because I heard he was the leader.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Well, being mad is a horrible situation, yes. But telling the truth and be taken as a crazy person is worse and we don’t know where he is. At least the other two are definitely around wizards.”

She gave one last warm smile and McGonagall could swear that she saw something sticking out of her left boot for a second as she went out. She was gone quickly afterwards, running late to her History of Magic class.

The third death eater was found in a muggle asylum, wandless and out of his mind after a month. Nobody knew who was behind these incidents.

But

McGonagall

fucking

knew

it.