#and also rons personality in general i feel like started to really take shape in ep 2

[variksel]

ep 2 of my 6th s1 dndads relisten: im gonna say somethin controversial but. i think they really got their groove and energy in episode 2 (the gartok debacle)

[hamliet]

What Does It Mean to Save?

I keep seeing it said that Deku, Ochaco, and Shouto will “save” Shigaraki, Himiko, and Dabi, but that there will be no redemption and/or no survival for them. I’m truly not trying to vague these posts and everyone is entitled to their opinion, but literary criticism is fundamentally responsive so I’m writing this anyways.

I personally think that’s not BNHA’s definition of saving nor of redemption. So here, have a deep dive into literary tropes related to redemption, genre, and character arcs as they pertain to BNHA and the question of: what does it mean to save Shigaraki, Touya, and Himiko?

Before we begin, let me say that while we might be personally uncomfortable with redemption (there’s a redemption arc in BNHA I am personally quite uncomfortable with), that doesn’t inherently mean the narrative won’t go there. The key principle I’m operating on here is BNHA’s message that heroes save people. It’s held up as the highest ideal. 

So let’s talk redemption in BNHA-verse. With this guy, whose redemption arc I dislike in principle but accept as part of the story so don’t come for me stans and/or antis. I’m analyzing because it shows us what redemption means in BNHA-verse, whether or not that is satisfying to you personally as it fits/does not fit with your own morality/philosophy.

If Endeavor can be redeemed and live, and he’s Bakugou’s negative foil, I highly doubt Shigaraki and Deku as well as Touya and Shouto and Ochaco and Himiko will be any different. Why? Because Enji is an adult character. The others--well, Himiko’s age we don’t know, but we do know that Shigaraki and Dabi are technically adults. But does the story consider them adults?

(It doesn’t.)

Child-coded characters are generally more likely to survive a redemption, which I’ll explain more later. First I have to define what I mean by child-coding, because I DO NOT mean this in the way it’s often (mis)used in fandom wank. Child-coding is a real thing, but it is not done to infantilize and it has nothing to do with shipping.

Child coding frames the character as a child for a few narrative purposes to convey a story’s theme or purpose. For example, if it’s a coming of age story coding a character as a child even if they legally are not emphasizes their journey to an understanding of self-actualization, or a true understanding of self with self-awareness and an understanding of self-value. An example of an adult coded as a child is The Kite Runner, wherein Amir is a legal adult for half the story, even married for fifteen years so we’re talking 30s-40s, but he does not truly become an adult until he returns to his homeland and takes responsibility for a childhood sin. In Attack on Titan, the main characters are now nineteen, but are still struggling to take responsibility as adults and have only started doing so now that their mentors/parental figures have started dying.

Along those lines, in any kind of story, you can code a character as a child of someone, regardless of biological relationship, to convey the type of relationship they have (usually a mentor one). For an example of this, see Bungo Stray Dogs’ Dazai and Akutagawa. Despite their two year age difference, Dazai recruited him to the mafia, abandoned him, and Akutagawa desperately seeks his approval. Usually in these stories a character will “overcome” their parental figure. This can be done through overcoming their need for the parental figure’s approval in stories where the parental figure is kindly (such as in Harry Potter, when in the final book Harry, Ron, and Hermione leave the Weasleys to find the Horcruxes despite Mrs. Weasley’s please) or through like, killing/stopping/leaving the parental figure when they are abusive (see fairy tales like Rapunzel and Cinderella). The parental link to self-actualization is because it is childlike (and a part of actual psychology that is reflected in literature) to see yourself as a part of your parent; self-actualized person would see yourself as a distinct person from your parent, but also acknowledge the ways in which they’ve shaped you.

So, how do you code a character as a child? BNHA isn’t subtle about it, because Horikoshi seldom is subtle about anything. The villain trio are all coded as children.

Shigaraki Tomura:

Who cannot achieve self-actualization so long as AFO has access to his body, as he’s literally trying to possess him. He’s trying, but it’s not gonna work because Shigaraki can’t keep AFO and become an adult at the same time. It’s a choice the narrative is setting up: your dream of destroying, or your freedom? (To get the latter, he’ll probably have to destroy AFO).

Todoroki Touya, who is repeatedly emphasized as a small child when compared to his siblings, and yes, I know he’s now tall. Specifically he’s spotlighted as the child of Endeavor:

And he’s the least self-actualized one in a lot of ways, contradicting himself constantly. I’m not Endeavor, DUH! But these are Endeavor’s flames! He’s gonna have to choose one or the other, because the tragic irony is that the more he takes out his rage on those around him, the more like Endeavor he becomes.

And Toga Himiko (who might well literally be a legal child), who is actually the most self-actualized one thus far, because she rejects Curious’s child insistence (Curious holds her in a Pieta pose, based on Michelangelo’s statue wherein Mary holds a deceased Christ):

She’s still got, like, a way to go though:

Because Himiko also wants to be like the people she loves to the point where she loses her own identity in them, which is er, not self-actualization. So she’ll have to choose whether or not she really wants to be like the people she loves or whether she wants to live her own way, which she herself tells us how that would end (death):

Deku said it himself: it’s good to focus on what someone is doing now. And look, I have issues with this statement and how it’s framed. I’ve talked about it at length and it was doomed to fail because Shouto himself told us long ago that it was annoying to hear a righteous speech by a stranger when you hadn’t gone through the same, plus Endeavor kinda failed by choosing being a hero over a dad here. But, the principle is that if the past doesn’t preclude Endeavor from seeking a better self, why would it preclude three characters coded as children, one of whom is literally somewhat the product of Endeavor’s sins? BNHA doesn’t think the past keeps someone from a better future. 

So what about Dabi’s counterpoint, which is indeed valid? Well, redemption doesn’t mean the past forgets, either. It’s complicated and nuanced, and we can debate how well Horikoshi strikes this nuance (it’s got its flaws), and admittedly I don’t know how this will go down in the future. But it is asking Endeavor: how do you redeem yourself to the people you’ve hurt? And we have Endeavor asking this question to Touya’s shrine. I mean, the foreshadowing is obvious. Endeavor has to redeem himself by trying to save Touya. However, it will still probably come down to Shouto to save Touya.

For our three villains, it’s a little harder to predict... well, sort of. For Shigaraki it’s extremely obvious: he has to help take down AFO. Dabi probably has to do something to help his family (siblings probably), but it’s vague. Toga needs help and not condemnation, but presumably she’ll help Ochaco with something.

So, is this redemption? I’d define it as redemption in the eyes of the narrative. To address what makes a redemption is another essay unto itself, but if we bring in the oft-compared Star Wars example: did Darth Vader get a redemption? Did Ben Solo? Everyone says yes to both. However, only Luke witnesses Vader’s redemption, and only Rey Ben Solo’s. So the rest of the galaxy? Doesn’t think so. When I say they’ll be redeemed, I’m defining it as their role in the eyes of the narrative, not whether or not society will accept them or even whether their victims will forgive them (of note, in canonical novels, Leia never forgave Darth Vader despite learning he was her father and obviously knowing Luke’s account of his redemption was true).

So, redemption in a narrative doesn’t mean all of society has to forgive and accept them. Dabi has still like, murdered 30 people--many of whom were thugs, but he himself acknowledges they didn’t deserve to die. Additionally, he himself also acknowledges that the families left behind--their feelings matter:

But why does that mean they have to die? Why even does it mean they have to languish in prison forever? (If there’s even a safe prison at the end of BNHA which I kinda have doubts about.) Heroes have also killed: see Hawks as Exhibit A. In fact, some people want revenge on the heroes precisely because they arrested or killed their loved ones (jail isn’t held up as a rehabilitative place in BNHA’s world. In most countries it isn’t in real life, either, but again that’s for another essay). So why don’t the League’s feelings on Twice’s death matter just as much as the feelings of unnamed and unseen (and thereby less important narratively) characters?

Additionally, regarding death... the villains routinely get called on their death wishes. Himiko’s determination to decide how/when she dies is called out because this is right  before Twice overcomes his trauma to save her, and the next arc they appear in is when Twice dies trying to save her again. Dabi’s suicide wish keeps him from getting close to others, and it keeps getting thwarted. Shigaraki’s obsession with destruction and death is clearly not a good thing, and his rejection of his family’s desire for them to join him in death this past arc is growth.

In other words: what Dabi said and what Snatch said about families and how they feel matter for the villains too. The villains are their own weird found family (Dabi as the deadbeat prodigal brother of both his families). Their deaths--Magne’s and Twice’s thus far, and I’m not ruling out further deaths in the future--affect the others. People’s feelings on losing loved ones matter. The villains are people, as Himiko said herself this arc:

Their feelings about each other matter:

How would Touya dying affect the Todorokis? At least they saved him spiritually, I guess, but that’s absolutely lame narratively, and if you have Enji eventually do a sacrifice to save Dabi (pretty likely, even if I personally think Enji will survive said sacrifice) then what’s the point of Dabi dying? How would Himiko dying affect society? As a martyr like Curious wanted her to be, even a redeemed one? A tragic warning story? What even is the point of Ochaco saving her if that’s the case? If Shigaraki dies, well, who would mourn besides Deku? How would Shigaraki dying affect the surviving members of the league? He just couldn’t be saved physically? 

It’s not impossible some of this happens, but it doesn’t seem like great writing, especially with panels like, oh, these that show us BNHA’s perspective on death:

Sacrificing something is a type of death that occurs in stories; this should happen in a redemption arc, which is why I’ve been saying Enji needs to sacrifice his hero reputation to help save Touya and even then it’ll still be Shouto imo who does the saving. But physical death?

If you want further analysis of the latter two panels and how they relate to the ending, see here.

We already have another villain who will definitely die redemptively (Kurogiri--an adult coded character--because he’s already, like, dead), and Spinner and Mr. Compress aren’t coded as kids so I hold them with anxiety towards the end. But again, this isn’t me being ageist or saying this is the way things ought to be in fiction or real life: it’s me looking at writing tropes and saying that child-coded characters tend to survive their redemptions. See: Zuko. Why? Because the death of children or child-coded characters is a tragedy. When a child-coded character dies redemptively it doesn’t feel like a happy ending and if framed as such, it’s often criticized for bad writing (see: Ben Solo). Curious even called this out in her fight with Himiko. I would hope Horikoshi doesn’t end the story being like yeah Curious was right that’s the best use of Himiko’s/Dabi’s/Shigaraki’s arcs:

Additionally, as for the believability of a character getting a new chance after so much destruction and murder... well, it’s kinda a thing in shonen and even in seinen? For better or for worse, it’s a thing. We have Vegeta in Dragon Ball Z and Kaneki Ken in Tokyo Ghoul (Kaneki, by the way, is absolutely an inspiration for Shigaraki). We can debate how well-written these redemptions are (I personally have been quite critical of Kaneki’s despite wanting it to happen narratively), but it can be done. BNHA’s Japan especially isn’t as harsh a world as Tokyo Ghoul’s Japan, so it would make even more sense for something like Kaneki’s ending.

The reality is that the cycle of revenge via hurting people and then leaving hurting families and loved ones has to stop somewhere. Someone has to be the bigger person and step up and be like “naw.” That’s heroic. That’s brave. That’s sacrificial itself. Justice itself doesn’t really exist in its purest form without mercy.

There’s another genre-reason I don’t see death or jail as likely (I could see, like, maybe a mental health ward like Rei’s? But it’s too soon to speculate).

If saving is considered a good thing for the story, if it’s truly the highest ideal, then saving someone should be rewarded by the narrative. The characters who save should have a positive result to show us this a good thing.

This is why it doesn’t work for the heroes’ end journey to be accepting that some people cannot be saved. The notion of just accepting that you cannot do something, you cannot save everyone, you cannot, cannot, cannot, is called out as a flaw of society. Determination, on the other hand, is rewarded.

We see it with Deku as well as with Mirio.

So, what if they save them and the redeemed characters then go on to sacrifice themselves in their redemption and die (come to the same end)? If saving changes absolutely nothing for the saved person, if it’s too late for the saved from themselves to change and/or do anything that matters besides die, then the narrative theme of saving as important is left unemphasized at best and undermined at worst. Simple intrinsic knowledge that the kids “did the right thing” doesn’t cut it for a story with so much focus on physical saving when the kids are already doing the right thing; moral struggles about whether to choose to be good aren’t really Deku, Ochaco, or Shouto’s arcs. It works for Aizawa’s arc with Kurogiri, but not for the kiddos. If BNHA was more of a philosophical/spiritual text, that would indeed make sense, but it is not. Genre-wise, BNHA is a fantastical superhero optimistic story, not a gritty real-world set drama.

[animealways]

meeting

prev

hermione x fem!reader

hermione was sitting at the gryffindor table listening to dumbledore speech. she was kinda worried to meeting the new student a couple days professor mcgonagal ask wether she could tutor you so to make sure you would not fall behind in class(we all know she a teacher pet). when the speech was over the giant doors opened you wore your normale clothes something that didn't surprise hermione since its saterday and there was no way a 3th year could properly fit in a uniform made for a 1st year.

what she wasn't expecting however was that you were basicly drowned in black with black boots and a choker. she couldn't help but stare at you walking in as if you already owned the place and its was hard to tell what you were thinking wich made you look intimidating to a degree. ''bloody hell'' hermione snapped out of her thought by ron's voice ''she looks darker then the night it self'' ''thats certainly not what i expected her to be...'' hermione wasn't sure what to do now with you being close friends with malfoy and your appearance she is pretty much expecting you to be a jerk but she couldn't stay away from you now she had agreed to be your tutor.

''you should be carefull around her'' harry spoke up of course he was worried about hermione the last thing he wanted was that hermione would get hurt by you. they watched as you got sorted after 4 minutes you started looking around at the students and made eye contact with her but continued to scan over the rest of the students.

thats when she saw you smile and nod towords the slytherin table. it was malfoy you were looking at. ''oh isn't this just great'' ron whispered ''looks like she wants to be in slytherin'' harry said with a worried tone. ''of course she friends with malfoy there isn't a witch or wizard that wasn't evil that wasn't in slytherin after all'' hermione stayed quite and then heard the sorting hat shout ''slytherin!''. she kept staring when you ran to malfoy and sat next to him and it looked like you were right at home there. ''you sure don't want us to help?'' hermione turned to harry ''no i will handle this myself beside if she really that bad i will get you guys'' ''well good luck with the new snake then''.

after being done eating mcganogall got hermione and got to you walking out of the great hall with malfoy and his minions. you got pulled aside and said you would meet draco up at the common room he glared at hermione but nodded and left. ''miss y/l/n i would like to introduce you to your tutor. she is going to help you with classes so you don't fall behind.'' when mcganogall was speaking to you, you could feel the girl staring at you.

she was trying to take in the person infront of her and not only your odd sense of clothes but your odd feathers to you had y/h/c y/h/l hair but the tips of your hair is bright white, the shape of your eyes there was something odd about it was nothing unsettling but its was noticeable. ''hermione granger? gryffindors golden girl, the brightest age of her age and top student is my tutor?'' you said while raising a eyebrow. hermione eyes widened in surprise. not only because you recognise her but you had fangs and generally bigger and scharper teeth again nothing unsettling but definitely noticeable. she couldn't deny she found you attractive to a degree.

"yes i assume there isn't a probleem'' ''no just surprised a gryffindor is gonna tutor a slytherin considering the tension between the houses'' ''well i thought since you aren't from here that wouldn't be a probleem. i will leave the rest to you miss granger'' and with that the teacher left. you gave a hand to hermione ''nice meeting you. can i call you hermione?'' you deciced you would be nice to her since draco opions are really biased and he knew that and wasn't happy with that but also knows you were not gonna stop so he let you be. ''uhh sure so what would you like to know about first?''

hermione was somewhat cautious and you knew she would. how could you not know after all the letters from draco talking down on her and her friends? ''well draco wrote alot to me about hogwarts and you guys and i been wondering...'' hermione was now getting ready for a insult and thought you would make fun of her ''how the fuck does a troll get into a school?'' oh right that... ''ah well a teacher let it in'' ''im sorry but what?'' ''yeah turns out professor quirrell worked for you-know-who and had him living on the back of his head'' you were staring at her with a blank face for a couple seconds ''noted do not trust ANY of the teachers here cause they might evil with another living being on the back of their head that might happen to be the dark lord himself'' you said in playfull/joking manner causing hermione to giggle.

you smiled at her kinda proud you made her laugh. draco always said how she never smiled and how serious she always is. so you're pretty proud that you could make her laugh with 1 simple sentence. she probably never smile when draco is near but right now you didn't care. ''well i can promise you not ALL teachers are that bad'' ''are you telling there were more then 1?'' you said teasingly causing her to roll her eyes at you but still had a smile on her face. you joking around causing her to laugh alot and thats kinda how the entire conversation went and you couldn't help but think how cute she is. at some point you both went to you dorms and agreed to study together tomorrow.

next

[hillnerd-art]

how to draw faces

So awesome human being @smallpumpkinboi​ posted an wonderful WIP sketch earlier and said ‘Can someone please explain to my why, everytime, without fail, my eyes are always too high??’ I offered to give my two cents, and asked if it was ok for me to make it a public post- they said yes :) This ended up going long- but hopefully it’ll be handy for people. :D 

BEFORE YOU DRAW- some tips to keep in mind:

1) do some warm ups! (sketches and drawing exercises)  yup! artists need warm-ups just like athletes! :D)

2) Get the structure drawn first!  don’t get into details, shading, or color until you have the structure DRAWN (Aka, the major features are all placed, the pose is in place etc)

So let’s look at some heads, y’all! :D

what’s with that ball so many people draw before they do a portrait? You know the one:

In and of itself it’s confusing. It’s like,  Faces aren’t shaped like this. Where am I supposed to put the eyes? The mouth? The nose??  HERE ARE SOME HEADS I VERY QUICKLY DREW USING THE ‘CIRCLE METHOD’

Wait a moment! Do you see what’s going on? Do you see how I messed up? OH NOOOO - I wasn’t using the circle method consistently! Look at those proportions!!! Look at the placements! There’s all using different ratios!

Look at how the noses were placed in different ways

Omg! And the eyes too. 

Oh my gosh! What do I do to fix this? How can I do it the same every time? Which is the RIGHT way to draw a face?

Want to know how to draw using the PERFECT ratio?

Here’s THE secret:

THERE IS NO ‘PERFECT RATIO’

Depending on the face shape, depending on the style of drawing, age of the character being drawn etc. you might change up the placement of eyes, noses, mouths etc. But the one thing you need to know is:

Faces and heads are all different.

Some people have tiny little squished faces, some people have LONG faces. They’re all different.

‘AHHHHH!’ HILL- YOU ARE MAKING THIS MORE CONFUSING FOR ME!!!’

I know! I’m sorry! But wait wait wait. I’m getting to stuff that’ll help. I swear!

Even though there’s ‘not a perfect ratio’ there are ratios that play into certain styles better.

Cartoons, especially, can be all over the place on how they do ratios. Like, look at Prince of Egypt and how they place the eyes SUPER high on heads- vs, like, Disney- who likes to place eyes for heads super low (they love to give women the proportions of doe-eyed children.)

            __________________________________

A ratio I generally like is what I use for REALISM/REALISTICALLY PROPORTIONED PEOPLE

Here I’ll be going into a general breakdown of the proportions for an ADULT head.  

Remember- every face is different!!! There is ENDLESS variety to faces. The variety can and does affect every feature- from eyelids, to noses, to brows, to foreheads etc.

These varietes vary person to person, and also there are varieties and commonalities you see more often in certain populations- be it race, sex, or ethnicity. 

I am not giving examples of ALL these varieties here today as this is just a general guide to proportion. However if anyone wants me to go more in depth on this topic I’m happy to. :D Let me know in the comments.

________________________________

THE PROPORTIONS OF A  HEAD

                  __________________________________

NOSE

            ________________________________

EYES AND EYEBROWS

               ________________________________

JAW, CHIN and MOUTH

             ________________________________

EARS

            ________________________________

WE TEND TO THINK ABOUT DRAWINGS IN A 2-D WAY

Which makes sense. It’s a 2-D drawing!

BUT HEADS ARE 3-D

Heads are a three-dimensional object. When it’s a straight on portrait like above you can get away with not thinking about it as much. A bit of shading here and there- and bam! You drew a face! :D 

 But what about when that dang head has the AUDACITY to TURN?

All of a sudden it’s a whole lot harder to draw.

            ________________________________

3/4 VIEW OF HEAD

ahhhhhhhhh the proportions feel different now!!!! 

DON’T BE SCARED. They aren’t different, they have just TURNED. 

Ron here has slightly different proportions to Hermione up Above. 

He has a longer face, longer nose, a bigger more defined jaw, slightly lower brows, thinner lips  etc.(

I made the ‘circles’ the same size- but in reality- his head is bigger than hers. REMEMBER!!! People have different size heads!)

But even with all that, a ton of his proportions are the same as hers.

When you turn a head, the main things people forget to take into account are:

And some are getting FORESHORTENED- aka- they look all SQUISHED AND SMALL.

a lot of the time with my ‘cartoony lines’ this little sliver disappears altogether.

Even though there’s suddenly foreshortening happening to the features of the face

YOU CAN SUDDENLY SEE SOME THINGS BETTER

BROW BONE

EYELIDS, BROW BONES AND BROWS ARE VERY VERY VARIABLE FOR PEOPLE- LOOK CLOSELY AT IMAGES OF DIFFERENT PEOPLE OF VARYING RACES, GENDERS, SEXES ETC.

Again, this is just a general guide.

So now we’re going to look at  @smallpumpkinboi​ ‘s awesome WIP piece

(gonna refer to them as SPB when talking about them later :) )

LET’S PRAISE THIS DRAWING, BECAUSE IT HAS A TON TO PRAISE

As you can see, they have been VERY SUCCESSFULLY using the ‘circle method.’

They have some wonderful proportion going on! Look at those brows, eyes, nose and jaw! They are very well placed.

Also, look at some of this early shading they started? It’s very effective and really gets across MASS well. :D 

Also, the expression? It’s really well done. Like, super arresting!

You should be very proud of this Work in Progress, SPB!!! 

Earlier SPB said “Can someone please explain to my why, everytime, without fail, my eyes are always too high??’”

Your eyes are NOT necessarily ‘too high.’ 

I think what’s happening here is you are applying ‘straight on 2-d proportions’ to a turned head, but aren’t entirely familiar with how to do this. This is making you struggle a bit with certain features when they are at an angle.

Source images are very helpful, but also remember that source images can be at weirder angles than just a head turning left to right.

The image you were working from was actually INCREDIBLY challenging, as not only is it 3/4 view, but the model’s head is slightly turned UP.

look at all that angle happening! super hard to draw :P

So the artist has a choice here: 1) change the drawing so it matches the pose

2) use the source image as inspiration for color/shading/expression- but find a simpler pose to work from that more matches the angle drawn.

Either choices is a valid one! :D But it’s probably easier to do #2

So here are some things you could edit

And define the brow bone, so that it hits the corner of the eye. That’ll fix your ‘eyes too high’ problem really quickly! :D 

For a drawing of a face, the eyes are correctly placed as far as height goes!- but they are very different from the proportions of the model.

For future drawing keep in mind proportions- like eye distance, mouth size, and think about defining jaw/ear shapes. Getting structures  (like eyes, ears, mouth and nose) firmly in place before you start shading/putting in details will help a lot! :D

HOPE Y’ALL FOUND THIS HELPFUL

If ya’ll would like other tutorials, or want help with your drawings, let me know! :D 

My hands aren’t all the way well, but I’m the road to recovery and love helping people- so while I can’t draw-draw much right now, I can do this! 

[elliemarchetti]

Could you do a jealous fremione onehsot pls?

I hope you like it and if you want a sequel or any other story, please just drop an ask because I’m soooo happy I’m slowly able to go back to writing.

Words: 1833

As the most varied kind of rumours about the Yule Ball were spreading everywhere, the last week before Christmas break became increasingly turbulent: some professors gave up teaching them much when their minds were so evidently elsewhere, but others, like Binns, McGonagall and Moody weren’t as generous. Professor Snape seemed to have made his personal mission to contain the enthusiasm, and from what Fred understood of Ron’s complaints, he had even scheduled them a poison antidote assignment for the last day of class. If in other circumstances it wouldn’t have bothered the most charismatic of the Weasley twins, at that specific moment it was a huge problem se he intended to invite Hermione Granger, who now spent all her free time divided between the library and the Common Room, her head perpetually sunk between books and notes. He had subconsciously begun to think of her as something other than his brother’s friend about a year ago but only came to terms with it at the end of the previous school year. During the summer, he had found every way to catch her attention, but on balance, it was only stolen time, spent at a safe distance as she certainly didn’t seem bothered by his presence, but neither was actively looking for it. The Yule Ball was his opportunity for a more direct but still cautious step, if only Hermione, in her rare breaks, wasn’t always surrounded by friends: she never went anywhere alone, not even to the bathroom, so his only chance was to ask her to speak alone after the end of the Potions test. When she turned to look at him with her big, hazel eyes, Fred could’ve sworn his stomach jumped, like when you miss a step down the stairs, but he regained enough composure to ask if she had a few seconds to spare.

“It’s a private matter,” he added, glaring at his brother as he realized he was going to try to get involved, as usual. Ron had a good heart, it was undeniable, and unlike him and George, he didn’t do anything maliciously, but he could sometimes be a real meddler, and now he had no time to handle it tactfully.

“Sure,” she replied quietly, just a hint of bewilderment in her voice.

“See you at dinner,” Ron muttered, before sneaking off as if he had interrupted something. Whether he wanted to invite her or simply had no desire to be alone, as Harry had bolted out of the classroom so quickly he hadn’t even noticed him, Fred truly couldn’t care.

"Did something happen? If it has to do..." she began, but he interrupted her abruptly, asking the fateful question, words coming out of his mouth without the usual funny streak that distinguished him. He could feel his ears and cheeks warm, and he suspected his skin had become a chromatic whole with his red hair.

After a moment of embarrassed silence, she too started to blush.

“I’m so sorry,” she began, and somehow her tone was sincere. “But I’m already going with someone else.”

“Oh, okay,” he replied, hoping his disappointment wouldn’t be noticed too much, especially by Professor Snape, who was just walking out of the classroom; he was a mean man, and he certainly wouldn't miss such a glorious opportunity to make fun of a Gryffindor.

“I’m really sorry,” she repeated, when the Professor was no longer within earshot, but before it could become really awkward, Ginny, who looked far too happy for her standards, almost run to meet her friend, calling her from the end of the hall. Too heartbroken to notice, Fred didn’t even raised his head when the girl he’d just been turned down by looked over his sister’s shoulder, the sad expression of someone who wishes they could go back in time. Too curious to resist temptation, that same evening he joined the pleading chorus of Harry and Ron, who desperately wanted to know who their friend's mysterious escort was.

“It’s not my place to tell you,” Ginny replied peremptorily, ending the discussion for good before disappearing into the girls dormitory. The only ones who knew of his intention to invite Hermione were George and Angelina, so he let the latter take care of finding him a lady. Katie Bell seemed more than thrilled to accept his invitation and George tried to distract him with the booming Canary Cream sales. Their housemates constant hype and the spasmodic need to get out of his head the thought of Hermione’s secret date led him to focus more on another product, and even as the snow fell thick on the castle and park, making the Beauxbatons carriage look like a big cold pumpkin glazed with frost, he secluded himself in his bedroom with his twin, going out for longer than a meal only when the most awaited moment of the year came. Katie Bell wore a bright turquoise dress, while Angelina had chosen a decidedly more sober outfit. As always, he and George were in identical clothes, and the four of them went down to the Entrance Hall crammed with students just a little early. The students who had to meet with partners from different Houses made their way through the crowd, looking for each other, and since there was no sign of Hermione, Fred started to mentally go over the names of the Gryffindors not yet present, distracted only when the oak front door opened and everyone turned to look at the Drumstrang’s students entrance. Victor Krum was leading, accompanied by the girl Fred so desperately wanted to have beside him. Hermione had done something to her hair, now straight and flowing, tied in an elegant knot behind her head, and she was wearing a soft periwinkle blue dress that gave the impression she even had a different bearing, but probably it was just the absence of the twenty or so books she usually had hanging on her back. She was smiling, albeit rather nervously, and soon she began talking to Harry and Parvati. She had attracted everyone’s attention, more than Fleur Delacour, and it didn’t escape him how many guys let slip a few lewd glances as the pair of champions advanced towards a large round table where the judges had already taken their seats. By the end of the little parade, his blood was boiling, making him unable to enjoy the walls of the Great Hall covered in glistening silver frost and the hundreds of ivy and mistletoe wreaths crisscrossing across the black starry ceiling. When he took place for dinner at a table set with gold plates in which food would appear on command, the only thing running in his mind was the amount of possibilities the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe on Christmas Eve also existed in Bulgaria. For the whole dinner they chatted so closely that Fred was sure they were going to kiss right there, making him throw up the pork chops he was picking listlessly, completely oblivious to the fact that the worst was yet to come. When all the food was consumed, Dumbledore got up and asked the students to imitate him: with a stroke of his wand the tables shot away and arranged themselves along the walls, leaving a clear floor, where an elevated platform equipped with a complete battery, several guitars and bagpipes, a lute and a cello appeared. Not even the Weird Sisters’ entry managed to change his mood as he knew that soon they would start with one of their most slow song, the perfect excuse for Krum to hold Hermione tightly in his muscular arms. Just as he had feared, the two separated only after several rounds of dancing and Lee, who hadn’t lost sight of his friend for the whole time, surprised him by saying he could still invite her to dance, even if he wasn’t her escort.

“Look at Parvati,” he nearly yelled to be heard above the noise, gesturing across the room. Their housemate was spinning with a tall Beauxbatons guy wearing a perfect light blue suit, someone who definitely wasn’t Harry Potter. Even her sister wasn’t dancing with Ron and as sorry as he was that his brother had lost his partner, it seemed to give him some kind of courage, something he usually never lacked. When he finally found her at the drink stands, Hermione was looking for her escort, so shaken that she seemed to force herself to avoid his gaze.

“What happened?” he asked, jealously suddenly forgotten, replaced by the familiar need to protect her. It was something he had felt since the first time they met, and even if he had mistaken it for a different feeling maybe for too long, the truth had definitely revealed itself at the Quidditch World Cup, when he thought he was going mad not seeing her arrive at the meeting point. They were deep feelings, still too fresh to forget them because she accepted someone else’s invite to a stupid ball.

"Don't worry," she reassured him once she took a long sip of Butterbeer, "I’m being emotional over a silly fight with your brother. I just wanted everything to be perfect tonight, you know?"

All too well, he wanted to answer, but as it was evident that she wanted to let off steam, he let her talk freely. Almost without realizing it, they found themselves in the rose garden, where the dancing lights of the fairies flickered and sparkled, illuminating bushes artfully positioned to create winding ornamental paths, a temporary home for large stone statues and fountains. They ended up talking about other things too, like how Fleur Delacour had seemed unable to stop comparing Beauxbatons to Hogwarts for the whole dinner.

"I have to admit the champions table hadn’t the best company,” she let out with a sigh, but before she could continue, one of her diners turned the corner, with Severus Snape by his side. The Potions professor was blowing rose bushes away with the hostile frown he’d been wearing since the Yule Ball was announced, hissing reproaches and punishments at the dark shapes emerging from their hiding places.

“And what are you two doing?” he asked Fred and Hermione inquisitively. His companion looked rather annoyed to see them there, and rolled his goatee a couple of times around his index finger waiting for their response.

“We were looking for Viktor,” replied Hermione, who had gotten pretty good at lying to professors over her time spent with Harry. Fred felt his stomach tighten again. He had almost forgotten, so great was the joy of being there chatting with her, that inside the castle’s wall there still was a party, and partners to whom they owed dancing and entertainment. Again, that was just another stolen moment, a memory he would keep forever and which she would gloss over describing the evening to her friends.

“Then I advise you to go back inside,” replied Karkaroff. “There is no Durmstrang student in the garden.”

[littlemisssquiggles]

Pinehead Headcanons: Oscar's Dreamscape: The Garden of Two Lovers

@miki-13 asked "Okay I know we didn't get a lot of Oscar backstory, but I really do think that after the V8 finale, there's a new avenue to explore with Oscar. Why? Because as far as he knows, his friends, partner and love interest are dead. The people he's grown to care for over the course of V5-8 are suddenly gone. There's no way that's not gonna hurt him, even if Ozpin assures him that they're not dead. Because either way, he's been forcibly separated from them.

Heck, this could actually open up an avenue for him to talk about his own family life and why he lives with his aunt. Not to mention one of his allusions is to The Little Prince and he just arrived in a desert after leaving his Rose behind, and the whole story deals with death in general.

Actually, maybe that's how Oscar gets his semblance/ branches out with his magic! He wants to find the people he loves so badly and refuses to give up on them, that he finds a way to get the void/ communicate with them and possibly find a way to lay the groundwork for bringing them back!

Squiggles Answers:

Hey there Miki-chan. Pardon the late reply but I wanted to reserve my response to this as a new Pinehead headcanon post considering that, ironically, you and I share the same thoughts and theories about Oscar reaching out.

The idea I had is that Oscar would be able to connect to Ruby in the Other World in his dreams. Once again, I return to my old Oscar’s Dreamscape Pinehead headcanon from donkey years ago. Essentially, through his unyielding love for his rose and his deep desires to reunite with her again in some shape or form, Oscar unintentionally creates the Dreamscape.

And what the Dreamscape is is that it is this magical place that transcends reality and only exists through the shared bond between Oscar and Ruby. Picture a shallow stagnant sea that mirrors an endless sunset sky. A perfect blend of the warm embrace of the sun and the tranquil beauty of the moon that paves the path towards a small garden that sits in the middle of this mysterious magical place.

And it is in this garden where Oscar meets Ruby in his dreams and vice versa.

Remember how it was said that the Little Prince fairy-tale ended ambiguously with the reader never knowing the truth of the prince’s fate after he was poisoned by the snake and “went to sleep”.

Some iteration believed the prince to have died and gone back to his home planet in spirit to be with his rose while another interpretation described the Prince returning home only to discover that his rose had died in his absence without him present to take care of her.

Either way, the allusion is that the prince does indeed reunite with his rose but in a manner that is still tragic when you look at it. Going off of that, this is why I love the concept of Oscar connecting to Ruby in sleep with the two meeting and communicating with each other in their dreams through unknown power originated from Oscar. Only it’s NOT exactly a semblance. Nor is it exactly magic either.

One of my favourite quotes from the Lost Fable episode back in V6 is when Jinn described a power much greater than magic that caused Salem and Ozma to recognize one another in their new lives.

“…Call it magic or call it something stronger, but in that moment, the two knew exactly who stood before them…”

In the Lost Fable, Jinn made it seem as if loveis an element more powerful than even the likes of magic; as cheesy as that might sound. So if love is able to transcend life and death to cause two kindred souls to recognize each other in another life in another time time, what’s stopping it from transcending worlds to bring together another pair of kindred souls?

So as corny as this is going to sound, the hopeless romantic in me cannot help but swoon over the thought of love being what creates the Dreamscape and/or brings Ruby and Oscar together in such a place that only they can traverse.

It is a power that was born from Ruby and Oscar’s shared love for one another and desire to reunite with each other and thus it’s a power that only they share together. The Rosegarden in the Dreamscape is theirs.

In the beginning, on the first night the two reunite in their dreams, the Dreamscape was believed to be solely of Oscar’s doing but in reality, it was a special new world that belonged to both the little prince and his true rose alone.

Okay, hear me out with this one. The reason why I’m thinking the Dreamscape was believed to be Oscar’s power alone in the beginning was because when it all started, the Dreamscape mainly reacted to Oscar. On his end, let’s say…Oscar wished so desperately to see Ruby again that unbeknownst to him; the Dreamscape was forged just so Oscar could accomplish his heart’s wish---to see his rose.

Thus, Oscar is able to see Ruby in their dreams and she in turn is able to see and talk to him between worlds but only in sleep. However, that is extent of the Dreamscape through Oscar’s influence. The two can communicate but they can’t physically touch or feel one another.

Because I have this idea of Ruby and Oscar growing closer to each other than they’ve ever been before since they’re able to meet in Dreamscape. However it’s also this painful thing where despite being together in their dreams, they’re still not together when they are constantly reminded that they can’t touch each other.

Like imagine a moment where the two rosebuds are bonding in the Dreamscape, trying to come up with way to reunite together, swapping backstories and secrets about themselves with each other that they’ve never told anyone else only for one of them---mainly Oscar--- to get lost in the euphoria of the moment and attempt to reach out and touch the other person only to be painfully reminded, that they’re not truly there. They’re still separated despite how close the Dreamscape has brought them.

The only time when the Dreamscape is actually able is to make Ruby and Oscar interact physically is when that becomes Ruby’s wish.

Okay, hear me out again.

I have this scenario in my head where Oscar suffers a mental breakdown as a result of being poisoned during an encounter with Tyrian Callows. Remember how Tyrian’s venom caused Qrow to suffer and hallucinate back in V4?

Well picture something similar with Oscar where he falls into a sort of light coma as a result of being poisoned. Let’s say…as a result of the venom, Oscar is transported to the Dreamscape where ALL of his inner demons---the true feeling and fears he’s been suppressing for a long time---suddenly manifest inside this world to torment him and berate him.

And let’s say…on the other end, in the Other World, Ruby becomes worried for Oscar’s well-being when he doesn’t make contact with her in the Dreamscape for some time. And let’s say…due to her connection with Oscar, which became stronger as a result of them bonding in the dream world, Ruby is able to sense when something is wrong with Oscar due to her having a weird feeling in her chest. Almost as if her heart was beckoning her somewhere else. To take her to the person she wanted to see who needed her help. Or something like that.

In a nutshell, Ruby is able to enter the Dreamscape on her own through her connection with Oscar. At first, Ruby mostly relied on Oscar to bring her to the Dreamscape but when Oscar was in trouble, Ruby used their link to take her there as an alternative means.

To make a long theory short, Ruby arrives in the Dreamscape to find the once magical dream world in dark chaos ---basically imagine being on the outside of a tornado.

The Dreamscape had turned into a rampant storm to reflect Oscar’s darkest inner emotions which were spiralling out of control before Ruby’s very eyes.

Remember how in Steven Universe, in the episode that debuted the “Here Comes A Thought” song, remember how Steven’s true feelings about Jasper, Bismuth and his mother started to manifest before him and Connie while they were fused as Stevonnie during training?

Picture a moment like that with Oscar in the Dreamscape where Oscar’s fears take form---at first taking on the appearance of Oscar’s old self dressed in his old farm boy attire belittling Oscar for leaving home to be among people who he didn’t fully believe trusted or even actually cared him---unearthing Oscar’s thoughts and repressed emotions from the events of V6.

Then the Dreamscape manifests Ironwood to belittle Oscar for his repressed emotions from the events of V7. Then it transforms into Salem to taunt and humiliate Oscar over his repressed trauma as a result of being her prisoner during the events of V8 and being tortured.

You get what I’m saying, right? Whatever Oscar has been repressing for so long, the Dreamscape manifests it as a being of spite to through it all back in Oscar’s face when he was most vulnerable. Finally, as Ruby enters the fray, the Dreamscape takes on a new form.

Here’s another concept to toss onto the Fake Rose table. Imagine if…the Fake Rose isn’t another silver eyed warrior or rose-themed person who takes an interest in Oscar.

What if…the Fake Rose is actually a replica of Ruby manifested by the Dreamscape to reveal Oscar’s true feelings and fears in respect to Ruby?

Assuming that you’re an ole-school Potterhead like yours truly Miki-chan, remember the last book/movie?

Remember that one scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows involving the locket? Remember how the locket made an apparition of Harry and Hermione appear before Ron to voice his jealousy and inferiority when compared to Harry especially in the eyes of Hermione who he believed loved Harry over him.

Picture something like that with a Fake Ruby Rose---Mocking Oscar over his “childish” love for his rose, as if he actually stood a chance of being with her given the Merge and any other insecurities that Oscar secretly harboured that he’d supressed for so long.

Picture that. Imagine…something like that happening so that it could ultimately lead into Ruby denouncing ever fear of Oscar’s voiced by her fake copy as this rose---the one true rose did her best to comfort her prince.

It’s a moment where Ruby words unfortunately don’t reach Oscar. Thus, Ruby tries to one way she’s always reached out to him. Through a gentle comforting touch. In that moment, Ruby wishes for Oscar to feelher there beside him.

To feel her arms wrapped around him and the warmth of the hug she dared to give him since she wanted more than anything to be able to comfort him through the storm. And for a second time, through the power of love (mixed in with just a smidge of their share magic inherited from the God of Light possibly), the Dreamscape grants Ruby’s wish and Oscar is able to feel her for the first time since they met in the dream world. To feel her arms around him as she embraced him tightly with all the love and care for him she could channel in that moment.

And just like that, all becomes calm as the storm disappeared; softening to a gentle breeze against a beautifully sunlit sky; revealing two hearts embraced; once seperated but now together at long last in the world of their own created from their shared love.

Basically picture the Dreamscape as this magical world brought to life by the love and heart’s desires of two star-crossed lovers separated by fate and lost to two realities. Thus the Dreamscape mirrors the feelings and grants the desires of these two lovers since they are the rulersof said world as its creators. Thus it is a world that is only attainable by them. A world of their own. A world of dreams to grant the wishes of two lost souls in love.

I’d love to go more in depth into this revised Dreamscapeidea of mine for the Rosegarden pair. However for the time being, this is concept that I have in mind and is all that I have to share for now. What do you think?

~ LittleMissSquiggles (2021)

[ardentmuse]

Four Times Fred Weasley Proposed to You... And the One Time He Meant It (Fred Weasley x Reader)

Harry Potter - Fred Weasley x fem!Reader

Summary: The title says it all. Just read it ;)

Wordcount: 4.7k (I’m trash)

Warnings: fluff, sex, cursing - basically my holy trinity, and AU where Fred lives (which is the only universe I live in) 

Masterlist

A/N: Toddle started daycare yesterday and I learned that I churn out about 1k worlds per hour if I don’t have a kid crawling on me. Today is also my wedding anniversary for fluff felt right. A request from anon! 

I.

The candles floating high under the vaulted ceiling are the only things that don’t shake with the uproar of cheers, especially from the seventh years, that accompany Dumbledore’s announcement of return of the Triwizard Tournament. Fred bumps elbows with his twin, whom he simply knows is already conspiring to rig this thing in their favor. Fame, glory, prize money – everything they need to set themselves up for success is being presented on a golden platter – or rather in a wooden goblet. But they don’t have the opportunity to conspire before the room falls hush at the gentle lowering of Dumbledore’s willowy arms.

“Please join me in welcoming the students of Beauxbaton Academy of Magic and their headmistress Madame Maxine,” Dumbledore’s voice bellows, but to Fred it is but a whisper. The doors to the Great Hall have already opened and towards the front of the group of impressively dressed students, their jackets pristinely fitted and their skirts flared in a way that hints so nicely at the shapely things that certainly reside beneath them. Fred’s baser brain, the part that, as a sixteen year old, gives power and life to many of his higher-level functions, completely takes over. His eyes roam the group, landing on a stunning creature, third from the left whose straightened back, bright smile, and flushed face from the chill of the castle night are enough to make his mouth grow dry and his palms sweat with anticipation. 

But then you begin your dance – if it could even be called a dance. You skip forward like an elegant ballerina, your neck tall and your chest out the way a swan might look upon the lesser creatures within its pond, elegant but superior. And Fred minds not one bit being the scum that lines your lakeside domain. With light steps you descend upon the Great Hall, down the path on which he sits. And as you grow closer, you open your hands, releasing blue mist and butterflies upon the crowd, like a siren singing a song to lure in the ships at sea. 

A few more pranced steps and you are standing right beside him. He watches with baited breath as your skirts flow and twist. You lean forward with special flourish, flicking your wrists and humming in unison with your cohort. Your fingers lightly brush against Fred’s cheek as he ebbs closer in rapture. 

“Marry me,” he whispers, which draws your eyes away from the front of the hall to meet the man sitting right beside you. A simple turn of his head has his lips gently brushing against your fingertips and the piercing of his cinnamon eyes catches your breath in your chest. You miss your next step, so beguiled by this handsome man before you, broad and freckled and just the teeniest bit unobtainable in the way that confidence seems to radiate off him. 

You bite your lips as you quickly make your leave, returning to the perfectly choreographed dance that seems to have enchanted more than just the eldest Weasley twin. 

George’s elbow lands squarely in the soft space below Fred’s ribs. 

“Oi, Freddie, what the hell was that?” George asks as the room rises in applause for their new guests.

George searches Fred’s face for answers. Across from him, both Angelina and Hermione seem to be brooding in equal measure. Ron is busy picking his jaw off the floor. But for Fred, all he could do is search the room for the figure whose shape is now buried deep in his mind and whose soft fingertips he can still feel upon his lips. 

He finds you taking your seat at the Ravenclaw table beside Roger Davies, who is all too eager to move his cloak and offer you water. Something primal rises in Fred, hot bile in his gut at the sight of Davies’ hand brushing against your wrist as you turn to speak with him. But as if feeling Fred’s presence, you flick up your gaze to lock with his and almost immediate you look away. But Fred is satisfied if the way you are biting your lip and hiding so delicately behind your hat is any indication that you might be feeling the exact same electric charge between you that he is.

“I don’t know, George. I really don’t know.” 

II.

The spring sun warms the courtyard as the visiting students say their goodbyes to Hogwarts and the witches and wizards that call it home. Fred and George sit on the stone wall of the archway, overlooking the chaos of tearful hugs and exchanged promises to write, respectful handshakes and gossipy giggles. 

“So much emotion for something so simple as a goodbye,” George says as he pulls at the leaves of the bush just starting to bud beside him, “Does everyone forget we have magic? Owls, portkeys, floo networks, and the works? It’s not goodbye forever, you know?” 

Fred’s eyes scan the courtyard until he finds the top of your head standing in a circle of Beauxbaton students who are wishing farewell to their Hufflepuff friends, offering elongated hugs and whispered words of comfort to those mourning the loss of Diggory. 

You pull away from a puffy-eyed girl, handing her a notecard, which Fred assumes has your address on it, and turn your eyes up on catch him staring at you. You blush – at least he thinks you do at this distance – and turn your attention back to the young Gryffindor who has just tapped you on the shoulder. Fred closes his eyes. 

“Well, George, sometimes even a goodbye for now can be more than you’re willing to accept.” 

George looks to see Fred’s eyes still closed, his head lulled to the side in a look that can only be described as painful longing. 

“Speaking in general or personal there, dear brother? A certain French girl I caught you snogging have anything to do with—“ 

“George,” you say, interrupting their hushed conversation. George smiles almost too wickedly at your appearance. “And Fred,” you say, turning your eyes to the boy who has consumed so many of your thoughts these past few months. 

At hearing your voice, Fred’s head pops up from its angst-filled recline against the stone castle wall. The wide saucers take you in like a man dying of thirst. 

You clear your throat and move your head to take in both twins. “I just want to say that I will miss you and your laughter. You have both made my time here at Hogwarts a pleasant one.” Your smile seems forced, but Fred cannot tell why. 

“And it has been a pleasure getting to know you as well, my dearest mademoiselle,” George says in his best accent, swallowing the first “e” the way you taught him to do so precisely. “Quite the pleasure for one of us, I might say.” 

Fred turns near crimson at his brother’s coaxing and your own eyes find rest starring down at your lap. 

“Well, yes,” you stammer, knowing full well this was George’s intention but not being skilled enough to overcome its impact, “For me, too.” 

You feel a hand come under your chin, and your eyes come up to meet the very bright, but very pleased face of Fred Weasley. 

“You are a pleasure,” he says for just your ears, his thumb running across your chin as your face grows hot at his attentions. 

“You know, I’m not sure I want to go home,” you admit, looking up at the cute boy before you from under your lashes. His Adam’s Apple bobs at your minor seduction. “I have quite come to like your country.” 

“I could marry you,” he says as his hand finds the curve of your neck, “Then they couldn’t take you away. I hear Ministry visas are quite a valuable commodity these days.” 

You laugh, deep and hearty, the kind of laugh you have come to know so often as your friendship has blossomed with the twins. 

You hand a card to Fred, not a tiny index card like the kind he watch you hand your other friends, but a proper greeting card, with a beautiful calligraphed, “My Fred,” on the envelope. 

“Maybe you can write me sometime, if you want? I’d love to know how the business comes along.” 

Fred’s fingers trace the curves and bends of the ‘my’ so thoughtfully placed before his name. 

When Fred says nothing, his eyes so drawn to the paper, George pipes up with an, “Of course, love. We’ll be sure to.”

“Okay,” you whisper, but Fred’s attention is still elsewhere. With a swallow, you say, “Bye, then,” and with a tiny wave, returned by George alone, you turn on your heels and head for your carriage. 

George stares down at his brother, whose fingers have already gone to rip at the letter, to see its contents and pray that its words align with the flutter he feels in his chest right now. 

Opening the envelope releases a frill of blue dust and butterflies, scented like your shampoo, which he is ashamed to say he knows now. An index card with an address, just like the ones you gave the others sits inside, along with a note, long and eloquent about how you’ve enjoyed the time you’ve shared together, the laughter and the kisses, too, but it is the last two lines that gets him right in his throat, his heart beating faster than he can ever remember it doing before. 

“You are the sweetest man I’ve ever known, Fred Weasley, and I pray one day when I know love, it will be with someone who makes me smile, makes me think, and makes me feel as beautiful as you have in these few short months. Who knows, maybe that someone will even be you.”  

Finally, Fred hears George screaming his name, the tone of which makes it clear to him this was not the first yell. 

“What!” Fred finally screams back, his hands gripping tightly on the parchment he holds.

“You didn’t even say bye to her, mate.”

Fred whips around to see a line of soft blue suits taking the stairs into their Abraxan-drawn carriages, the boys of the school offering softly cupped hands to the girls as they ascend. Fred jumps the stone wall into the courtyard, not caring for the height of the fall and sprints through the crowds, pushing a few first year students in the process until his hand grabs yours just as you take your first steps away from Hogwarts. 

You spin around at the tug. When Fred sees your face, slightly obscured by your hat, his chest hurts at the sight of the tear lines that clearly flow down your cheeks. 

He pulls you to him quickly, catching you in his arms as you partially tumble down the stairs towards him. He kisses you before you can even recover, to the hoots and hollers of some of the younger students, which earns them the scolding of a surprisingly softhearted McGonagall. 

Fred’s lips are all pressure, as though movement might take you further away from him. He is locked in the moment, securing you to him and into his memory for as long as he may have you.

When he finally pulls away, he runs his hands along the sides of your face and your forehead, like memorizing every shape and detail.

“Goodbye, my Fred,” you say to him, you eyes still saddened, still hurt but the parting, but all the more healed for the confirmation that this is hurting Fred too.

“Goodbye for now, my princess.” 

And so you walk away, your hands lingering together as Fred does his best to help you up the stairs and into your carriage, his precious swan princess preparing for her journey home. 

A few minutes later, Fred returns to his brother, who still sits on the stone but is now holding the envelope and letter that Fred discarded in his pursuit of you. George offers a slow clap of appreciation at Fred’s grand gesture.

“Georgie, how much money do you think we have for the summer? Enough to restock and still have extra?” 

“Why are you asking?” George hands the precious parchment over to Fred for safe keeping.

Fred just stares down into his hands, at your words and your script and the remains of your magic and your scent. 

“I think I have to go to France.” 

III.

“You keep cooking like this and I’ll have to make a kept woman out of you, you know,” Fred teases as he grabs yet another of the Christmas cookies you have just pulled from the cooling racks. You swat his hand away but not quickly enough to stop him from adding another handful to the collection already lining his plate and pockets. “Trying to impress my mother with baked goods is a very good idea but completely unnecessary. She’s going to love you. She already loves you for how happy you make me.” 

“Are you sure?” you ask as you continue to turn over the cookies, packing the ones with the best looking bottoms into festive tin to take with you to Ottery St. Catchpole.

Fred’s hand grabs as your wrist as you nervously rearrange the cookies ones more, “I’m absolutely certain.” 

A few moments pass as Fred hums happily, crunching down one cookie after another before you speak up once more. “A kept woman, ye? I hope I might be more to you someday than just someone to fulfill your desires.” 

Fred’s mouth curls into a Cheshire grin as drops his plate once more against the countertop. “And what’s so wrong with fulfilling my desires? Hmmm?” 

You can’t help but smile too as you toss your oven mitts aside. 

“Nothing,” you hum absentmindedly, leaning into Fred’s game. “Other than that I have desires of my own.” 

Fred creeps around the counter, taking in your form as the aprons strings hug tightly at your waist. In one deft motion, Fred has you pinned so fiercely against the counter you worry he might actually take a bit of you instead of the desserts you have spent all morning making. 

“Well,” he whispers into the soft of your ears, sending shivers down your spin, “Make me a kept man and we can live a life filled with unending pleasures.” And with the purr of the last word, he dives down to taste the salted hollow of your neck. 

“Two kept people is just a marriage,” you manage to get out before the sweet suction upon you pulse makes you lose your breath and, with it, your composure. 

“Then married we shall be.” His lips tickle against your collarbone before making the ascent back up your neck towards your chin. “Married, happy, fat off cookies,” he says between kisses. “And drunk off desire,” he whispers, leaving a final, long, bruising kiss upon your lips. 

You are pulled from your daze by the call of George’s voice in the shop below the apartment, telling you his mother would be quite disappointed if you found yourself running late for Christmas dinner because you were too busy making her grandbabies. 

As he pulls away, Fred runs a fingertip, slow, across your bottom lip, feeling the swell his kisses put there. 

“I’m keeping you,” he says to your lips before meeting your eyes. For a moment, his look is deep with longing, but quickly he smiles and the mask of play returns to his bright features as he snatches the packaged cookies off the counter and pulls you out of the room to meet up with his twin. 

IV.

“That’s it, love,” Fred breathes into your hair as you tighten the grip of your thighs around his hips. The sweat from his brow rolls down your neck sending shivers across your already prickled skin. Fred’s arms grip at your hips, desperate and needy. You can’t help but admire the taut muscles of his shoulders, round and firm in exertion. Even now, long after all the quidditch training and regular exercise, the lines of him are still subtle perfection. 

A bite at your ear pulls your eyes away. And the rocking of his firm length deep inside you pulls your mind away, too. 

On instinct, you roll your hips to meet his needy thrusts, finding a rhythm so right that you each let out a satisfied groan. You grip tight into the shoulders you love so much, digging your chin into his neck as you work yourself against him, pulling your pleasure from him as much as he is from you.

“Merlin,” Fred breathes as he seizes your chin so he may look in your eyes. He pins your hips once more with his rough hand, pounding into you long and slow.  “You’re perfect,” he says before kissing you deeply, the action pressing your entire personage further into the mattress, all parts of him consuming you wholly.

As his hand moves from your hipbone to brush against your sex, you feel the tightening that Fred so easily can pull from you, the sweet anticipation of a cascade of relief that marks your lovemaking as something necessary. His fingers deftly work you in time with his hips and soon you are falling off that cliff with only his strong arms to catch you. 

Fred groans at the feel of your orgasm, finding his own in the sweet music your body plays for him. And as he releases himself in your depths, your body quakes once more with the pleasurable feel of it. 

Exhausted and spent, Fred lays himself upon you, chest to chest, the weight of him a welcome reminder of the real world to which your brain has just returned. 

“I can’t wait to make you my wife,” Fred says into the darkness of your bedroom.

You laugh – or at least as much as you can with his weight bearing down upon your chest. You take in his nose now resting against your shoulder, the soft freckles decorating the bridge, the pink of the creases now coated in a pleasant sheen of sweat. He pops up his eyes to meet yours in unspoken question.

“The feeling’s mutual,” you smile. You run your hands through his hair, hoping to ease the worry you feel from him. 

Fred rolls off of you to lie on his side, mischief dancing in his eyes. 

“You also can’t wait to make me your wife?”

You turn to see Fred lounging casually upon the mattress, his nudity fully on display as he shows off his body for you with a flourish. 

“Can you not resist these womanly curves?” He almost can’t keep the smile off his face. 

You lunge towards him, but he’s quicker. He hops off the bed and runs down the hallway before you can even extract yourself from the covers. The last thing you see is that cute, firm butt of his round the corner towards the kitchen. 

“Shall your wife bring you tea?” He calls in a mocking high-pitched voice from the depths of your home. You toss a pillow at the door, and as it plops, Fred laughs. 

And just as you feel the glow of your orgasm begin to subside, Fred walks through the door with two steaming cups. He sets them down on the bedside table before kneeling before you. Only then do you notice the silliness is gone from his face, replaced with the hint of nerves and raw emotion you saw only a hint of in your afterglow.

“I’m not joking, you know,” he says as he grabs at your knuckles, “I’d like to marry you someday, make this beautiful, precious thing we have permanent, assuming you want that too.” 

And with a look into those beautiful brown orbs of his, you nod. 

V.

You cling tightly to Fred’s back as his broom zooms between the snowy peaks of the Pyrenees. The castle in which you spent your formative years seems but a speck off in the distance as you direct Fred along a saddle of the range and towards the cliff face just beyond.

“There,” you point towards the gap in the trees on the north face. The rush of the wind as Fred speeds downward makes it hard to hear the beautiful crash of water you associate so much with this place. But as the trees thin, you see it – the gorgeous waterfall and crisp blue-green pools that catch its spray. 

Fred slows down his flying, weaving expertly through the forest until you come to rest upon the boulders that face the torrent of water. 

“This is it. This is where us Beauxbaton girls came for peaceful retreats. Made quite a few friends among the wood nymphs, too.” 

Fred turns to you, confused. “You find this relaxing?” He screams over the loud crash of water. 


“Trust me?” You ask as you take his hand and lead him down the winding paths deeper into the forest. He grips your fingers tightly as his boots dig into the mud you seem to navigate with an elegance that reminds him so much of how you floated into the Great Hall of Hogwarts all those years ago. 

When you finally let go of his hand, you are in a clearing covered in a canopy of trees. Steam fills the space as three pools, one flowing into the next, radiate heat outward. The water is an inviting shade of aquamarine and the stones underneath seem to glisten silver, the cleavage of them lined with some rare elements that Fred can only assume are as precious as the creature standing beside him. Your face glows with memory, like a child on Christmas filled with the possibilities of unopened boxes and mysterious smells from the oven. 

“I told you it’s beautiful,” you say, turning to the man you love, the man you are so excited to show the parts of your life he had been absent from so that he can become one with all of you. What you see when you find him again makes it clear he wants the same thing.

Fred is bent on one knee, his soft woolen jacket open revealing a pocket you hadn’t seen, and in his hands sits a beautiful ring box holding a delicate band and a single, shining diamond, even brighter for the way the blues of your hot springs cast off of it. 

“You did,” he says, his voice deeper than you are used to, like a lump somehow is already forming in his throat. But that isn’t too hard to believe, as tears are prickling at your eyes, ready to roll over before he has even spoken. The sight of this man, his handsome chiseled face and his soft, kind eyes looking so weak, so wrought with emotion, and all for you, is enough to send you into hysterics. He is perfect – your silly, brave, industrious, kind, honest, perfect Fred. And here he is, telling you without words that you are perfect, too. 

“Do you remember my first words to you?” He asks with a lift of the left corner of his lips.

“Marry me,” you whisper with a hiccup, now full-blown crying at the memory of how his lips somehow felt so right against your fingers, even though you didn’t even know his name.

“Marry me,” he breathes more to himself than you, chuckling at his own teenage silliness. He shakes his head and looks at the ground. But upon catching the glow of the ring, his eyes return to your face. “I’d like an answer now,” he says. His hand somehow instinctively finds your fingertips, the source of all the kinetic energy between you, the spark that opened the doors to a lifetime of happiness. 

You try your best to find your breath between your tears. “Yes,” you say, though you are unsure if you actually made any sound given the heaving of your chest. “Yes.” 

Fred hops into the air, his lips finding yours and his arms engulfing your body in his embrace. He showers you with kisses, your tears mingling together, no different from the moisture of the steam coating your skin.

“I love you so much,” you manage to say as you smile against his mouth.

“I love you—fuck,” Fred pulls himself from you and drops to the ground. The ring box is discarded several feet from you, dropped quickly in Fred’s desire to shower you in affection. The ring still sits inside, pretty and intact but dusted with dirt. Fred frantically wipes the ring against his coat before grabbing at your hand.

“May I?” He asks. You nod enthusiastically, enjoying the feel of the cold metal running over your knuckles, chilling your heated skin.

As Fred stares in awe at the new jewel that gilds your hand, you slowly back away from him. With a careful flick of the buttons, you drop your coat to the ground. Fred’s gaze moves to your neck where your hands now continue their slow turn and flick, opening the buttons of your blouse in the most enticing strip tease he could imagine. 

“What are you doing, woman?” He whispers, though he takes no steps to approach your still retreating form, now just inches from the edge of the water. 

“What do you think I was planning for us to do here?” You ask him. Your hands slide down the curves of your now-exposed sides, bunching the fabric of your hips. “It’s a hot spring.” You wiggle your hips just a little as you push the fabric over your rump and down your thighs. “What do you think we Beauxbaton girls did here? Painted our nails and doodled in our notebooks?” As you lift your ankles, leaving yourself completely bare – bare expect for the gorgeous ring your fiancé just placed upon your hand – you stride with slow, confident steps towards him, a swan returned to her pond, a siren seducing her sailor. 

“Do not make me picture you and a handful of beautiful French girls bathing here naked together. My heart can’t take it.” 

You now find yourself inches away from your fiancé, his eyes trying their hardest to stay trained on your face but failing miserably with each breath that lifts your chest just a little closer to his face. 

“Your heart can take plenty of things,” you moan into his ear, your entire body just an inch from touching his. “It’s taken me, hasn’t it?” 

And just as his hands comes to ghost the curve of your lower back, you flee him, jumping into the largest of the pools with a satisfying splash. 

As you come up and turn to him with your hair slicked back out of your face, Fred is already half naked, his clothing thrown haphazardly across the clearing and his belt buckle proving much more difficult than he ever imagined it would. 

“Damn it, Princess,” he says with a huff and he yanks at his jeans, “You have no idea what’s in store for you.” He flicks his eyes to you as he pulls his t-shirt over his head, revealing the beautiful expanse of strong stomach and chest that somehow never fail to take your breath away. His eyes glint with a hint of evil and a heap of lust and you are almost ashamed at how quickly your body responds to it, his gaze heating your whole self even more than the springs already have. 

“I think I know,” you say as Fred lowers himself into the waters. 

He paddles over to you and wraps your nude form in his arms. His lips find your hands and delicately play with them, his fingers running over the smooth metal as his lips move up to your wrist. You drop your head back against the smooth rocks and allow this man you love, this man who has enchanted you for the first connection, to love your body in turn. 

All tags: @fangirlandnerd, @aerdnandreaa, @thisisbullshytt,  @cancerousjojian, @whovianayesha, @themarauderstheoutsidersandpeggy, @luna-xxxxx, @sleepylunarwolf, @starryrevelations, @potter-thinking, @all-by-myself98, @bananafosters-and-books, @cutie-bug

Harry Potter tags: @tessimagines, @0-lost-in-stereo-0, @whysoseriouspadfoot, @eldritchscreech,

[hpdrizzle]

Below is the list of all the fic for 2020 drizzle fest! Thanks for all your support - reveals will be posted on 10th October, Saturday. 

FEMSLASH Title: Time After Time Pairing: Ginny/Luna Summary: A few weeks after the Battle of Hogwarts, Luna buys an ice cream truck. Title: sugarcane in the easy morning Pairing: Ginny/Pansy Summary: “I mean, it’s not like there’s anything special about Ross,” Pansy continues. “Why do the most beautiful and powerful women go for the most painfully average men?” Title: Under Adverse Conditions Pairing: Ginny/Pansy Summary: With most of the castle away at Hogsmeade, Ginny and Pansy use the time to fly together. Title: Asbhury Manor Pairing: Millicent/Hermione Summary: Millicent farms the land on her manor. She enjoys the work and the weather, but she is lonely. Enter Hermione Granger.

There are many more awesome fics under the cut! 

GEN / MULTIPLE PAIRINGS Title: You Don’t Know [how you betrayed me] Pairing: Voldemort. Tom Riddle Sr. [GEN] Summary: Tom Marvolo Riddle meets his father on a cold and wintry night. He never meant for things to unfold the way that they do but there had been something inside him that wanted to investigate where he came from. Title: Thunder & Lightning Pairing: Hermione Granger/Fabian Prewett/Gideon Prewett Summary: A thunderstorm and a little bit of magic bring Hermione a pair of unexpected guests. Title: Getting some Vitamin D Characters/Pairings: Hermione/Adrian/Marcus Summary: Hermione takes advantage of the warm, Caribbean sun.

SLASH Title: Storms of Stars and Scars Pairing: Remus/Sirius Summary: Seven storms over seven years of Hogwarts tell the story of how Remus and Sirius fell in love. Title: Come In From The Cold Characters/Pairings: Remus/Sirius Summary: The first Hogsmeade weekend of the Marauders’ sixth year. Alternatively: In which Sirius frets and works to keep Remus warm, James argues it’s not that cold, Remus wishes the cold brought something more, and Peter just wishes everyone would get their heads out of their asses. Title: Hourglass Characters/Pairings: Remus/Sirius Summary: Sirius encounters a boy who got mugged. He offers to give him a ride home. Title: time, curious time Pairing: Remus/Sirius Summary: “Do you still remember how it started?” he asks. “How could I forget?” you ask back. Title: Riverbank Pairing: Remus/Sirius Summary: While looking for an escape from his broken family, Sirius finds the riverbank. And a boy with pink hair. Title: A Summertime Thunderstorm Pairing: Remus/Sirius Summary: Summers in Wales were ideal. Sunny, windy, warm without being sweltering… and the perfect time for Remus and Sirius to explore the feelings they’ve been dancing around for the better part of a year. Title: Freedom They Can Reach Pairing: Remus/Sirius Summary: Under rising thunderclouds in late July 1980, Remus and Sirius take a different road towards home or freedom. Title: That Summer was Good to Us Pairing: Remus/Sirius Summary: Summers in Wales were ideal. Sunny, windy, warm without being sweltering… and the perfect time for Remus and Sirius to explore the feelings they’ve been dancing around for the better part of a year. Title: Eye of the Storm Pairing: Draco/Harry Summary: A storm rages blindly around a cabin with no doors. Without magic, Draco and Harry are trapped inside. Title: The cold never bothers me anyway Pairing: Draco/Harry Summary: It takes Harry one pointless mission to the Arctic, three falls into the snow, a few lines from Let It Go, and thousands of floating ice crystals to realize just how beautiful Draco Malfoy is. Title: Brighter Than The Sun Characters/Pairings: Draco/Harry Summary: Draco was promised a relaxing day at the beach. This was certainly not it! Title: Winter has called you [and me] Characters/Pairings: Draco/Harry Summary: Draco decided to visit his aunt in the countryside to be a little bit away from the city. While going back, he didn’t notice a snow storm was coming, trapping him in the snow a few cities away from his aunt’s house. He didn’t expect a handsome man to save him. He also didn’t expect Harry to be his soulmate. Title: A Fault In The Weather Characters/Pairings: Draco/Harry Summary: Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes have brought out a new item: a Portable Swamp. As one of their most trusted amateur prototype testers, Harry is ecstatic to get this latest object. The only problem is that it…doesn’t seem to work. It’s generating storm clouds that sweep through the Hogwarts corridors, and showering the students with rain, hail, and snow. The storms are getting stronger, but Charms Professor Malfoy and DADA Professor Potter are on the case. Title: Key to my heart Pairing: Draco/Harry Summary: Harry Potter gets locked out in the rain. He goes to his neighbour Draco Malfoy for help. Title: (You’ve Gotta) Taste The Rain Pairing: Draco/Harry Summary: Harry can’t take the rat race anymore and quits Auror training just before graduation. He hopes a move to the country will bring him what he’s looking for. He doesn’t factor in a wandering neighbour who turns out to be very familiar. As the rain continues to pour, things get heated. Title: The Locus of the Fracas Pairing: Draco/Harry Summary: Harry is assigned community payback, and it’s all Malfoy’s fault. Title: Only Happy When It Rains Pairing: Draco/Harry Summary: Weather-Be’s, the up-and coming business of Draco Malfoy, guarantees* perfect weather for your event! If you need warm sunshine, Weather-Be’s will provide it. If you want atmospheric fog, we can make that happen. We have a 100%** success rate at giving you the weather you want. | *guarantee invalid if Harry Potter is in attendance | **success rate drops to 97% when Harry Potter’s attendance at events is counted. Title: Golden Daffodils’ Sea Pairing: Draco/Harry Summary: Harry returned to Grimmauld and curled alone in Sirius’ bed, the night weighted on him and he choked with fear. A crack inside him had the shape and sound of their portkey disappearing. He didn’t sleep that night, Fred’s funeral fresh in his mind too. The guilt at his lack of tears or emotions the previous day overwhelmed him and kept his eyes opened so he could feel how undeserving of the Weasley’s love he was. The months after the Battle of Hogwarts are sunny and beautiful, even though it feels like the sky should be falling around Harry. He tries to get through grief while fixing Hogwarts, capture some Death Eaters, return to his last year of school and befriend one Draco Malfoy. However, he’ll have to realize grief is not the only thing he has to fight now that he came back from death. Title: Let him be kind Pairing: Draco/Harry Summary: A ghost is haunting the halls of Malfoy Manor, wailing at all hours of the day. Unfortunately for Draco, the only person to happily offer their ghost-be-gone services was none other than Harry Potter. Title: Forever In My Mind (Be My Golden Sunshine) Pairing: Draco/Harry Summary: Harry Potter flees London and a broken engagement. He finds solace in the vineyards of Châteaux Malfoy and finds a love that he could never have expected. Title: No Rules in a Breakable Heaven Pairing: Draco/Harry Summary: When a magical rainstorm reveals everyone’s deepest desires, Harry learns far more about his friends and colleagues than he ever wanted to know. Worst of all, he suddenly has to face his own deepest desire. Title: What the body wants is coolness Pairing: Draco/Harry Summary: Draco and Harry have been seeing each other for months, and Harry decides the best way to tell their friends is to bring Draco to a group beach outing. Draco’s given up enumerating all the ways this plan could go wrong. Title: Comfort In The Storm Pairing: Harry & Ron Summary: “Storms are even scarier outside of the cupboard. Title: I will answer thy prayers (if thou wouldst drink of my life) Pairing: Voldemort/Harry Summary: Instead of duelling Harry in the graveyard, Voldemort kisses him instead. Title: The summer of 1899 Pairing: Albus/Gellert Summary: The cicadas are humming on that humid summer day when Albus meets Gellert for the first time. What follows is an intense, passionate affair that lasts for one perfect summer. Title: Kick In Characters/Pairings: Severus/Sirius Summary: Severus loves his husband, he really does. Even if his obsessions with nudity and rain drive him crazy sometimes. Title: Unexpected Companion Characters/Pairings: Harry/Theo Summary: While picking up a birthday cake for Hermione in Knockturn Alley, an unexpected rainstorm causes Harry to take shelter where he finds himself bumping into someone he hasn’t seen in quite a while. Title: A Loss of Control Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Hugo Weasley Summary: Bored at yet another Ministry charity event, Hugo goes for a wander and finds himself with someone he never expected to. Title: heartbreak was never so loud Pairing: Marcus/Oliver Summary: Oliver starts out wanting to help Flint fit into the team. Somewhere along the way, he loses his heart to the large, surly Beater. Title: Searching For Comfort Pairing: Snape/Harry Summary: Severus was mostly there for the air-conditioning. He didn’t know it would change his life! Title: What the rainbow never tells me Pairing: James Sirius/Teddy Lupin Summary: When James is challenged with an impossible task—to find the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow—no one expects him to succeed. But what they don’t know is that James has a pretty good in with England’s premier Weather Wizard, Teddy Lupin. Title: His Reward Pairing: Snape/Draco Summary: All Draco wants for Christmas is protection. And snow. Title: Too Good To Be True Pairing: James/Regulus Summary: He couldn’t help but peruse James’ body as he answered his question. It was slowly distracting Regulus, but he couldn’t think about that now. HET Title: Funny Weather You’re Having Pairing: Zach/Luna Summary: Zach notices a strange weather pattern around Luna’s house, and decides to investigate. Title: Windy and Windy Roads Pairing: Ron/Hermione Summary: After a shopping trip in Flourish and Blotts, the wind decides to kidnap Ron’s hat. If only the wind knew what that hat meant to the Granger-Weasleys. If it did, the wind would likely have left it well enough alone. Title: Sitting in the Rain Pairing: Luna/Rolf Summary: Luna is sitting in her garden out in the rain and Harry decides to go out and join her. Title: Storming Love Characters/Pairings: Harry/Daphne Summary: Harry never expected to wake up to a rainstorm in his bedroom without a hole in the roof. Can an owl to Theo break the storm that seems to be following him? Title: Brighter Than The Sun Characters/Pairings: Pansy/Ron Summary: Ron Weasley has found the love of his life. All he needs to do is get the asking right and he’s sure Pansy Parkinson will agree to tie their lives together… if only the weather would cooperate. Title: Weathering The Storm Pairing: Ginny/Blaise Summary: Ginny’s invitation to her first quidditch match as a Harpie has Blaise a bit nervous. The storm brewing in the sky is almost as strong as the storm brewing in his heart. Can they both survive the match and its aftermath? Title: I want to feel the thunder (I want to scream) Pairing: George/Luna Summary: Sometimes things don’t need to be said, but they’re nice to hear anyway (especially when it stops your boyfriend from turning into a frog every time it rains). Title: How It Falls Pairing: Ron/Pansy Summary: Pansy Parkinson wants to live life her own way, but her mother has other ideas—specifically, she wants her to marry a certain type of wizard. Title: Corazón De Mi Alma Pairing: Harry/Hermione Summary: Harry and Hermione travel to Mexico for the repatriation of a cursed Mayan artifact. Title: Pathetic Fallacy Pairing: Hermione/Draco Summary: ‘I have an idea,’ he said quietly, ‘but I don’t think you’re going to like it.’ Title: Suddenly this rain, This defeat Characters/Pairings: Hermione/Draco Summary: A weeks long storm of mysterious origins brings more than just a headache for Hermione Granger. It also brings Draco Malfoy back into her life and her heart in a way she never expected. Title: Anchors In A Storm Pairing: Hermione/Draco Summary: Draco’s current mistake—well, it wasn’t simply one, but three—was a chain of seemingly unconnected events that, when spliced together just so, made one hell of a shit storm. Title: Queen of my heart (long may she rain) Pairing: Hermione/Draco Summary: Draco likes Granger./Granger likes books./This could be useful. Title: Make it Rain Pairing: Hermione/Draco Summary: It is raining the first time Draco Malfoy kisses Hermione Granger. Or more accurately, the first time she kisses him. Title: though she be but little Pairing: Hermione/Draco Summary: He wasn’t Shakespeare, painting pictures with his quill tip; just a boy with a festering mark on his arm and a storm in his head. Title: Shifting Sands Pairing: Hermione/Draco Summary: Hermione notices a discrepancy during an audit. Draco tries to convince her that nothing is amiss. Lightning strikes at least once. Title: Flaming Tears Pairing: Hermione/Draco Summary: He set fire to the rain and watched it pour as it touched her face.

[cullen-collective]

hi, do you mind if i ask, whats negatively impacted you about twilight? if you feel like talking about it! im quite new to understanding the problems with it in terms of racism

Oh I'm all about this.

First things first: I am white! So I am not the person to respond to how the racism affected me.

What I can respond to is interpersonal relationships.

I started reading Twilight in middle school. My brain was developing and my social skills were at least making the attempt. I didn't really have many friends, just people I floated around, trying to stay out of it. So when I read about Bella Swan, I identified with her for that.

I got lucky. Eventually those people really did become my friends and that was so much better than pretending they were and thinking myself another in a huge pool of Bellas at my school.

But I digress. It was at this point that I became convinced that if I could just get someone to love me, really, really love me, like Edward loved Bella, I'd be okay. First, that's an unhealthy way to view relationships. Second, that relationship in itself is unhealthy and traumatic outside of that fantasy world.

So I went looking. The first guy I found in high school, an emo kid with anger issues, acted toward me just like Edward. He even said he wanted to be Edward Cullen. He was possessive, manipulative. And I loved it. Thought that bullshit was the height of romance. When he broke up with me and I laughed, (I mean he sent me a note saying he was in love with a vampire, COME ON, I wish I'd kept it) he threatened to run me over. To decapitate me. Told the entire school we'd had sex. Tried to ruin my life and made me want to die. And I thought it was my fault. Because Bella had managed to keep Edward's attention and I'd lost his to my own personal Lauren Mallory (but that's another story and also smeyer sucks for writing Lauren like that).

The second guy was sweet. He treated me like a princess. We only went out for a week! But he was kind and generous and he wanted to make me happy so much. This, I figured, was the real prince charming I was looking for. He was Edward, he was Prince Eric, he was Peeta Mellark, he was Ron Weasley. I ended things for personal reasons, and he completely transformed. He was hateful, and spiteful, and angry. He was so, so angry. I almost failed junior English rather than work with him and his nasty comments and glaring.

The third guy was... God, so condescending. And I thought he was teaching me things. He was the Devil's Advocate, he was the internet troll from hell, he was that guy that everyone loved to hate. And I just thought, well, he's the real Edward. The real Darcy. The real Spike. People love to hate those guys because they're so superior. He was older, he was smarter, he knew things. I loved him. At least, I thought I did. We texted every single day and I just knew that I was special to him, but he could never have loved me. He could never love anyone, and to this day I think that's true. When I found out he wanted my friend to leave me there at his house so he could try to hook up with me I finally snapped out of it.

Fiction can shape our desires. For the longest time in my life, I wanted someone to love me like Edward loves Bella. But that kind of love is only good in the extremely specific context of the novel. Wifey @bellasredchevy said it best when she said that in real life red flags are just that and nothing more.

This has been my experience, but I know that it is so much worse for poc and domestic abuse survivors. What I went through is minuscule compared to the damage of Stephenie's racism and misogyny. I can only imagine the damage her takes on pedophilia and grooming would do, and I hope to God that we never have to find out.

Fiction is never just fiction. It exists in and affects reality more than any author can ever predict, which is why subject matter and how to handle sensitive topics is so important.

[cauliflowercounty]

Weasley vs Weasley Pt. I (Draco Malfoy x fem!Reader) [Tumblr Remaster]

Blood Status:  Half-Blood or Pureblood 

House: Gryffindor

Word Count: 2.6k

A/N:  Weasley vs. Weasley was a series of imagines I originally posted on my Wattpad.  It’s one of my favorite series of imagines I’ve made, but I wrote it years ago; I wanted to make an updated version with a few new twists and in second person instead of third.  I’ll be releasing it in multiple parts :)  Enjoy!

You are the Molly and Arthur Weasley’s adopted daughter and in the same year as Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

Not proofread, it’s 1:30am when I’m writing this!  Woohoo! Enjoy!

----

The compartment sways gently side to side as the Hogwarts Express barrels down the Scottish countryside train rack.  You sit silently in the train car scrunched in between Harry and the wall. Ron and Hermione sit across from you.  Hermione, of course, has her nose in a book while Ron sits awkwardly, thinking of how to make conversation since the initial excitement of getting on the train has worn off.  As you feel the train turn the corner, the twins knock gently on the glass of the door and slide it open, giving everyone a wave while shoving themselves in between Hermione and Ron.  Ron lets out an audible grumble as Fred pushes his brother into the window.

“Hello, everyone,” Fred and George say in unison.  

“Lee’s off trying to persuade some second years to be our test subjects for some prototype sweets,” Fred says, smirking.

“Yeah, our initial line was brilliant, but we’re expanding our offerings. It’s what the student body deserves,” George adds on.

“We’re also thinking of firecrackers,” Fred continues.  “We’ll charm them to make shapes.  Maybe a Chinese Fireball?  What do you say, y/n?”

“That sounds brilliant, Freddie.  You should write it down before you forget,” you smile, knowing their products have been a much-anticipated aspect of their lives lately.  “You wouldn’t want to deprive the public of some much-needed mayhem causing items.”

“While we love mayhem, we’re also thinking of selling some seriously useful items.  We’re thinking of importing some items from Peru that will help with being sneaky.  Maybe also some muggle magic that people can use casually.  We also want to be practical.  Not everything will explode,” George smiles, thinking of how all their products and dreams will be soon realized.  

“But wouldn’t that be brilliant if everything did explode?” Fred laughs. “Also love potions will be sold at our shops.”

“Did I hear someone say love potions?” Ginny says, poking her head in through the door.  “Is that one of the products you two are cooking up?”

“Well, dear sister, we’re not brewing them.  We’ll buy them from someone who’s gotten into N.E.W.T. level potions unlike us two,” Fred chuckles.  “We don’t want to be liable for disastrous love potions because I’m sure they’ll be popular.”

“Our sisters won’t need them, though.  It’s for the more desperate general public.  They’ll have no problem finding a special someone,” George says encouragingly, shooting his two younger sisters a smile. With his words, your chest tenses, the someone you’d like to have as your special someone coming to mind. Fred and George notice your reaction immediately. They look over to you and notices how you’re clutching the hem of your jacket roughly.

“What’s with that reaction, y/n?” Ron asks, picking up on what the twins are noticing.  Internally, your nerves jump. Hopefully they can’t tell who you’re thinking of.  

“Nothing, Ronald,” you say almost too quickly. “I was just thinking of a dream I had about school the other night.  I failed all my O.W.L.s.  I’m just suffering from residual anxiety.”

“I find that hard to believe, y/n,” Fred smiles.  “You don’t have stress dreams like that and you suddenly got tense when we started talking about love and special someones.”

“Do you have someone you’re hiding?” George asks, leaning in to look you in the eye with Fred.  They bore into your eyes, inquisitive and intense.  

“... or got anyone you fancy?” they say in synchronicity. “Come on… Tell us.” 

Hermione and Harry look up from what they were doing, now completely invested in the new development.

“N-no…,” you trail off.  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.  You’d think badly of me.”

“We could never,” Ron butts in.  They all lean closer to you, putting on the peer pressure. Fred and George suddenly tackle you, starting to clobber and tickle you.  Hedwig and Pigwidgeon both hoot in protest at the sudden disturbance to their mostly peaceful journey.  You struggle against the twins’ grips.

“Fred!  George!  Come on!” you shout protest, half laughing.  You try to dash between them, but they’re too fast and lock you between them in a tight full-body hold.  You squirm in their grasp but to no avail.  “Fred.  George.  Let go.  Please?”

“Not until you tell us,” they say in a sing-songy voice. You sigh.  This is what you get when you have so many siblings: inescapable, coercive hugs.  

“You’ll regret asking once I tell you,” you say.  They shake their heads.

“Not a chance,” they say back.

“It’s…,” you start, hesitating.  This’ll ruin you. You open your mouth and whisper, “it’s… Malfoy...”

“DID YOU JUST SAY ‘MALFOY?’” everyone in the compartment gasps in unison as the twins drop you. 

“I told you you’d regret it,” you grumble to everyone. “Happy?”

“Not really,” Fred responds cheekily.

“Why?” Ron asks, feeling bewildered and utterly betrayed. 

“I-I don’t know… I just know he it’s what he seems. I saw him one time a while ago… His owl was hurt and he was bandaging its foot. He seemed to care for it so much. There have been a lot of little things,” you explain, realizing it’s sort of hopeless as everyone stares at you, disgusted.

“Little things count for nothing,” Ron scoffs, roiling usinehes and propping his head up on a clenched fist

“It just grew. I don’t have a good reason. I’m sure it’ll fade,” you defend, “but I think that in the end, Malfoy may not be as bad as everyone makes him out to be. I’m sure we’d all have turned out like Malfoy if we had Lucius as a father.”

“But everything he stands for is so vile,” Harry says, infuriated. “I can’t believe it…”

“And what about all the stuff he’s done to Hermione?” Ron adds on.

“Come on. Now you’re ridiculing me. You walked into this one,” you quip back. “I didn’t want to say anything, but you absolutely had to know.”

“Dad’s head is going to blow off,” Fred comments, taking a seat once again.

“Percy’s also going to be furious… You know how protective he is over y/n...,” George adds, everyone nodding in agreement. Ginny, flustered, turns around and leaves the compartment in a huff. 

“Is it okay if we don’t talk about this again?” you ask shyly. “I’m sure it’ll pass. This Malfoy thing is temporary. It’s stupid.”

Hermione and Harry nod in agreement, but Fred and George notice a look in your eye as you gaze out the window. They know you. They know that you lied just now. It’s not temporary.

~

As soon as it came, autumn went and turned into soft blankets of snow. You smile as you look out of your dorm room in Gryffindor tower, the icicles hanging down in front of the panes of glass. It’s been months since the awkward mishap in the Hogwarts Express. Nobody’s said a word since and things have been normal for the most part, but Ginny hasn’t looked at you the same and you’ve noticed the twins whispering to each other in low voices and suddenly stopping once they notice you. Each time, you’ve shrugged it off, assuming it’s about a prank, but a prank never came. 

Today, you head out of Gryffindor tower with plans to go get a book from the library to read at breakfast and then go to Hogsmeade for a butterbeer. After getting dressed, you slip through the portrait hole and head towards the library. As you round the corner on your way, you crash into someone else.

“Oh!” you exclaim. “Sorry. I didn’t- I wasn’t looking where I was going…”

Looking up, you realize you just walked staring into Draco Malfoy, and your throat goes dry with nervousness and embarrassment. 

“Uhh… Sorry, Malfoy,” you say lowly, attempting to duck to the side of him and forget that even happened. You weren’t in the mood for a nasty one on one confrontation with Draco Malfoy today.

“Wait!” you hear him say from behind you. You turn around to look at him as he walks closer.

“What are you doing? Are you going to insult me for being a clumsy lowlife?” you ask, your heart sinking. He’d never say anything nice, not in a million years no matter how much you wanted him to. “That’s what my siblings and I are used to.  I wouldn’t be surprised. After all, poor people like us don’t have manners. We weren’t raised right.”

“Is that really what you think of me?” Draco asks a bit too softly, his steely grey eyes looking right into yours. You back up a step, not expecting him to look at you directly and not be shouting in your face. This is new and unexpected, but it’s what you’ve wanted for a long time.

“Well… I’ve come to anticipate it,” you reply honestly. 

“That’s too bad,” Draco replies. “I’ve got a lot to learn I guess…”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I’ll tell you if you come to Hogsmeade with me,” Draco smiles. “Will you come with me?”

“Now?” you ask. “I’ven’t had breakfast yet.”

“We can get it there,” he shrugs. 

“Why do you want to take me to Hogsmeade?  You’re Draco Malfoy. I’m y/n Weasley.”

“All your questions will be answered there, y/n. I just want to talk to you. Do you trust me?”

Hesitantly, you nod. He holds out his arm and you take it. He leads you down to the courtyard and towards the carriages to Hogsmeade. None of them have left yet, and you both climb into the first one and then you’re off.

You both hop off in the village and go striaight to the Three Broomsticks. Draco holds the door for you and lets you sit down in the booth and get comfortable first. Madam Rosmerta comes and takes your order: two butterbeers and some food for breakfast. He smiles at you from across the table as you take a sip of the mug of butterbeer, thanking him quietly for paying. He clears his throat.

“So…” he smiles.

“So…” you say back. “Will you answer my questions?”

“Of course,” Draco replies. “I got a small note in my bag the other day. I don’t know who it’s from. It just appeared all of a sudden. It just said ‘Tell y/n the truth. Go for it, Malfoy.’ That’s all. You’re probably wondering why that brings us here. Truth is… I’ve liked you for a while now, y/n.  I just needed some encouragement to say something.  I’ve been so caught up with what my father wants for me for the past few years that I forgot to think about what I want to do with my life. I’ve fancied you for a while. I reckon it wasn’t obvious because of how I’ve treated you. I was just so, so obsessed with being like my father and I was confused. I needed to sort out my priorities. I’ve done some thinking lately and it’s time to make a change. That’s why I said ‘I have a lot to learn’ because I do. I just wanted to tell you the truth. I’m done being so unpleasant toward you and your family.”

Your mouth hangs completely wide open. You didn’t expect this. This might even be a dream. Draco Malfoy saying he was confused? And he’s making a change? No. You always thought that Draco would be cold and indifferent towards you for the rest of your years at Hogwarts, you’d graduate and then forget about him, settling for another person, but no. He just confessed to fancying you. 

“Y/n? Please say something? I’m going out on a limb here. I’ve never been this vulnerable in my life… I know it’ll take a long time to unlearn my bad habits, and I know that not all people are willing to be that patient with someone, but I’ve known you for years. We’ve been in the same classes. You’re kind and considerate and easygoing with people. You’re compassionate and when you laugh you make me want to smile. I understand if history is against me and it’s alright if you reject me here and now, but… I just wanted to say ‘I’m sorry. Will you give me a chance?’” he pleads, reaching over the table his hand hovering over yours, scared to grab your hand and have you pull away. Still flabbergasted, you look off to the side and see nobody’s come into the Three Broomsticks yet.

“Wow… Draco… I don’t know what to say… This is so sudden,” you gasp. “I’m completely taken aback. I had no idea that you liked me… Nothing you’ve done in the past would have hinted at it. Nothing.”

“You’re right, y/n,” Draco sighs, ready to admit defeat, thinking this is hopeless.

“Are you serious about this? Your confession?” you ask. “ Tell me the truth.”

“Absolutely.” His reply is sound. His eyes look into yours warmly. With remorse. You begin to smile softly at him. 

“Okay, Malfoy. I’ll give you a chance,” you decide with a nod.  With your words, Draco explodes with glee, slapping the table with excitement.

“Thank you, y/n!” he blurts out. “You will not regret this.”

“I sure hope I don’t,” you smile. “Now, how about we finish eating and walk around a bit?”

Draco grins like a kid who’s just sneaked five handfuls of cookies from the cupboard and nods, taking a sip from his drink. As you two sit across from each other, you share pleasant conversation, laughing about family and school. You laugh about how you’re both almost complete opposites. He’s a Slytherin; you’re a Gryffindor. You have seven siblings; he has none. You’re adopted; he’s not. You laugh and joke. You share stories from your past and your heart warms, enjoying having someone new to talk to who makes you feel unlike you ever had before.  You can’t remember a day that you smiled this much.

After you’re done in the Three Broomsticks, you both walk around the village, going into Honeydukes and Zonko’s. The day comes to a close and you both agree to do it again sometime. As you both go your separate ways you both fail to notice Fred, George, and Ginny spying on you from around the corner.

“That’s what I call a success,” Fred smirks to his siblings. Ginny scowls in your direction as you disappear down the hallway towards Gryffindor tower. 

“I’m glad the note worked. The three months of spying on Malfoy to see if he fancied her was exhausting. We had to use Omnioculars to see him writing in his paper his initials and y/n’s with a heart in his notebook from above,” George sighs, exhausted. He looks over to his sister, whose grumbling to herself under her breath.  “What’s gotten into you, Gin?”

“Why’d you two go to all this trouble for someone so toxic?” Ginny asks.  “This will only end in disaster.  Y/n and Draco Malfoy together can only end in a dumpster fire. He’s not a good influence.”

“You sound like Mum, Ginny,” Fred retorts.  “Y/n seemed to be satisfied with today and that’s enough. I haven’t seen her smile so much in a long time. Last time she smiled like that was when Georgie and my products first arrived.”

“Why are you going to so much trouble for her?” Ginny asks glumly.  “She was perfectly happy before.”

“Well… Georgie and I talked about it.  Y/n’s always felt a little bit alone and in the middle of things.  Even though we love y/n and she loves us, she’s self-conscious about being adopted sometimes. When we’re all together, she can be quiet sometimes.  She gets lonely and doesn’t feel like she belongs even though she completely does.  She’s a Weasley, after all, but she feels like the other Weasley.  We’ve noticed her feeling like that lately and we wanted to make her happy.  Someone she can maybe identify with on a personal level other than us,” Fred explains, careful of his wording.

“What’s there do identify with when it comes to Malfoy?”  Ginny grumbles, refusing to believe that y/n could possbly relate to someone as vile and cruel as Draco Malfoy

“Maybe not identify with.  Maybe just to have around.  Having that other person that you enjoy the company of,”  George adds.  

“Why did it have to be Malfoy?”

“Relationships can stem from the most unlikely of places,” George reasons.

“This is trouble, you two.  Y/n doesn’t need him. She has her family.  How can she feel lonely in our family when there’s so many of us.  You’re meddling with y/n’s emotions because you don’t think ahead.  This needs to be fixed,” Ginny decided, turning on her heels while trying to compile her course of action.  The twins look at each other with a worried expression.  What is Ginny thinking of doing?

----

Read Part II!

[recurring-polynya]

Loved reading your comments on that Izuru post, especially about how people write teasing. You gave some great examples of things to definitely avoid; do you have any tips or general thoughts on writing good teasing?

I have never wanted to talk about anything more in my life.

Teasing is a form of dysfunctional communication that reveals a lot about all the parties involved. It can be layered and complicated, and it can both establish a lot about the relationships of your characters, and provide jumping off points for both bonding and miscommunication.

The most important things to think about when writing teasing are:

What is the teasing character trying to evoke? (this may be conscious or subconscious)

What are the sore points/not sore points of the character being teased?

What am I, the writer, trying to accomplish here?

Let’s start with a very easy example:

Draco Malfoy wants to make Harry Potter mad, so he teases him about his dead mom. J. K. Rowling’s goal as a writer is to convince you that Draco is a dick. It’s super-effective.

It’s a low-blow. It’s deeply mean. There’s no subtlety. This is just bullying. We have all experienced this, we know it when we see it. I don’t think this is the kind of teasing you were asking about, but it’s important to establish this as a baseline, because this is what teasing can turn into, if done wrong.

We can tweak this a little to a very different effect:

Draco wants to make Hermione upset, so he calls her a mudblood. 

Harry doesn’t know what this word means, is confused.

Herminione knows this is an insult, but most plays it off. It’s not culturally significant to her and also, she DNGAF about Draco.

Ron goes spare. This is a huge insult to him, he loves his friends, and he has no chill.

Draco is still a dick, but he’s also kind dumb and focuses on insults that would be insulting to him because he doesn’t know his enemy very well and also is not good at thinking outside of his own head.

Now we have fit in exposition and a ton of character-building. Neat!

Let’s move on to friendly teasing. Here are some positive roles teasing can play:

Replacing uncomfortable tension in a group. Often you may have one character in the group who is an outsider for some reason. Perhaps they were a former antagonist, or someone who has some fundamental difference between the characters. Teasing, particularly over something incredibly low stakes and stupid, gives a reason for the outside character to be mildly irritated with the others, which makes it easier for them to relax the actual tension they feel by being in a group where they don’t belong. Think Aang shouting “Flameo, Hotman!” at Zuko or everyone making fun of Uryuu’s cape.

Finding comfort in being marginalized. This is closely related to self-deprecating humor, and a character shouldn’t say something about someone else if they wouldn’t say about themself. Also, characters are going to have different comfort levels with this. I will make jokes about how bisexually I dress and the way that I sit, but I don’t go around shouting “Oh my God, that’s super gay!” although I certainly have gay friends that do. This is a way you can establish how comfortable a character is in that identity, but it can be fraught, and if you don’t have some personal experience with the identity you’re writing about, I would avoid going too hard. In Bleach, I will often have characters from Rukongai bond a little more easily, and make fun of some of the more formal aspects of life in the Seireitei when there are no nobles around. Further, Rukia and Renji super low-class, even among the Rukongai crowd (only Zaraki and Yachiru are lower, and I have never once read a fanfic of Kenpachi and Renji bonding over this, and I’m mad about it), and so when I have them calling each other trashbags and lowlifes, it’s a case of “I can make fun of you because we come from the same mudpit, but I will cut anyone else who says this about you.”

Allowing characters to present in a way that they choose.  We sometimes invent roles for ourselves that we want others to see. I do this a lot with Renji-- when he comes to the big city, he’s a big, rough, scary dude. I am 100% sure he broke peoples’ limbs in Inuzuri. But he wants to be liked and he wants to be approachable, especially now that he’s a vice-captain, so he puts on kind of a big dumb oaf routine, and all his friends support him in this by making jokes about skipping leg day and calling him a dope and a goob. These are not hurtful insults, because this is how he chooses to present himself.

Leveling group dynamics.  Related to the previous item, a lot of times, friend groups require people to fulfill different roles in order to keep everything running smoothly. Take for example, the Renji - Momo - Izuru - Shuuhei friendship. They come from a lot of different backgrounds, they’ve each had a lot of different personal challenges, and the friendship has lasted a loooooong time. Izuru has a lot more money and class than the rest of them. Shuuhei is the oldest. I bet Momo got extremely full of herself when she became Aizen’s vice-captain. Renji lagged the rest of them in becoming vice-captain, but then, he came out of the Aizen debacle in better shape than everyone else. We can’t all confront all these complex interpersonal dynamics all the time, sometimes you just wanna hang out at the bar and drag each other a little, and it’s comfortable and relaxing to just fall back on personas. Everyone teases Renji for being dumb and strong, Shuuhei for being hot and dramatic, Izuru for being pasty and poetic, Momo for being organized and congenitally unable to break a rule. A great place to insert drama is when you have a character who has outgrown these dynamics, who is sick of playing a role within a friend group-- old jokes that used to gloss over uncomfortable matters are suddenly causing the discomfort.

Play. A lot of teasing is honestly just for fun. Scoring points on your friends. In this case, the teasing can be as harsh or soft as you like, although the harsher you go, the more you risk actually hurting someone’s feelings (again, story hook!) I love this as an example:

Ichigo tries to tease Orihime over old bread of all things. Orihime is fireproof, she knows Ichigo loves her old bread and also is incapable of delivering a sick burn, but then Ishida and Chad just pile on, suck it, Ichigo, we all know who runs this group of nakama.

As a writer, this is your chance to show off your humor chops! The purposes of these scenes is not just to show your friendships, but to have fun and be funny! Having characters just call each other names is not really funny. In this example, Ichigo is trying to be cool, and his crew, none of whom are remotely cool, all hit the OBJECTION button hard at the same time and it’s hilarious.

Giving friendships age.  People you have been friends with for ages know things about you. Have characters bring up embarrassing stories. Tease each other about the way they used to be, but no longer are. This is also a powerful way to distinguish between an old friendship that is still going strong, and one that has gone stale, but persists, perhaps for nostalgia reasons, where the teasing rankles. Maybe your story wants to resurrect this friendship, or maybe you want to show a character moving on. This is also a way to add exposition: Say Character A, who is usually very casual, dresses up for a fancy event. You can have Character B rib them about how they have never seen them looking so good. Then you can have Character A react in a number of ways: self-conscious or defensive, perhaps, or they could be flirty and brag about how nice they clean up, it’s up to you!

Giving friendships depth.  Best friends can say things that other friends and casual acquaintances can’t, in part because they have a keen understanding of how to hurt each other (and how not to). A key in portraying different levels of friendships is boundaries, and a great dramatic tool is bumping up against those boundaries. In general, I have Renji let Rukia tease him about nearly everything, but occasionally, she’ll bring up what a glory-hound he was in their school days, and he freezes up every time. She can’t really figure this out, because he’s usually game for letting her pick on his dumbass teen boy behavior and she can’t figure out how this is any different. The thing is, he’s never told her that the reason he was busting his ass was to impress her and to be able to get a good job and provide for her, and it blew up in his face, and he can’t very well admit that now, without having to admit a lot of other stuff, too. ::holds fist in the air:: This is the good stuff.

A corollary, tired jokes.  Rukia is 4’9” tall and she must be sick to death of hearing about it. It’s so obvious and so lame. It sucks being short, it’s a huge inconvenience on a daily basis, especially when your job involves trying to be tough and intimidating. It’s not like she chose this for herself. This is the lowest possible hanging fruit of teasing. But that doesn’t mean we need to ignore it completely. I have characters like Ikkaku, who doesn’t know her all that well, and is also an ass, throw it at her a lot, and mostly she either sighs and rolls her eyes, or she insults him back. Now, if Renji never mentioned it, it would feel like he was tiptoeing around it, which Rukia would be offended by. She’s not humorless, just tired. So, instead, I will only have him make short jokes if a) they are actually funny, or b) it’s a situation where the joke is really obvious and they’ll usually follow up with something like “I had to.” The idea is that, as best friend and chief trash talker, he’s contractually obligated to make the joke, but he finds it almost as tired as she does. Also, I turn it around a lot by having her make fun of him for being tall, as though being 6’2” is some sort of embarrassment and that he did it on purpose, and he just takes it.

This is real. My husband and I were in a very similar professional field, and he makes more than me, even though I have more education and work harder, and he lets me make fun of what a useless white dude he is, but if he sees it coming, he will definitely make a “you can’t do math because you’re a woman” joke, which he obviously doesn’t think is true. Only he is allowed to do this. It is very cathartic. We also make jokes about how he will never truly be successful because he is short.

I don’t write Ichigo as much, but I approach this a little differently with him, a) because he hasn’t been friends with Rukia for as long, or on such a day-to-day basis that he knows how much this irritates her, and b) he’s a teen. Instead, I try to have him actually put some effort into his jokes, like calling her Shorty McCaptainface. “Shortstack” and fun-sized/travel-sized/adventure-sized (for your convenience) are much more gentler and playful. 

Please, please, I beg you, do not use “midget.” It’s not a nice word and it’s so, so tired.

All of this goes generally for other types of characters with the kind of physical characteristics that tactless people feel free to comment (being fat, wearing glasses, having prominent teeth, etc), or experience structural discrimination. Just think about how you would like your best friend to handle it.

Arright, it’s time to hit the elephant in the room: Teasing that leads into romance.  This was such a huge trope when I was a kid, I grew up steeped in this idea of “a boy teases you because he likes you,” and I’m honestly glad we’re starting to move past this as a culture. You can still have a fun and teasing relationship without being mean, which I will get to, but let’s start with the OG couple of teasing because they like each other: Ranma and Akane. Now, as it happens, I have been re-watching Ranma ½ with my husband, who had never seen it, and on one hand, this show is a pioneer, it is amazing in terms of comedic beats, but on the other hand, it’s aged quite a bit and smacks of “I hate my wife” Boomer humor with a heavy helping of “no homo!” slathered on top. So, here’s how it works:

Ranma and Akane have been forced into an engagement by their fathers. Despite the fact that they have pretty similar and compatible personalities, they get off on the wrong foot, compounded by the fact that they are each deeply insecure about their gender presentations. They are each also profoundly stubborn. So, what happens, every single episode, is that one or the other will do something kind or heroic for the other, and the other’s heart will go “oh SHIT I like them but to reveal so would be to present vulnerability” so they insult each other instead. The insults that Ranma and Akane fling at each other are deeply hurtful and they are super-effective. Now, the one who has taken the risk of going out on a limb for the other has now been lambasted for their efforts, and responds with more insults. This is the fundamental tension of the show: they like each other and are terrified to admit it, so they force the other apart.

Now, as the show progresses, my memory is (and forgive me if I get this wrong, we’re still pretty close to the beginning, and as far as the long game goes, I am sure my memory is contaminated by too much fanfic), far, far down the road, when they eventually come to understand each other better, when Ranma tells Akane she’s an uncute, tomboy, she’s able to parse that as “I like you so much and I want to say so, but seriously, you know how ridiculous my upbringing was,” and when she responds with “You pervert!”, Ranma knows she is really saying “I know that, and also, you do not need to feel self-conscious about your girl form, I’m kinda into that.”

This is essentially a slow burn tactic. You need a tremendous amount of time to build out this kind of relationship. A lot of people try to skip straight from “characters insult each other!” to “characters are in love, they just couldn’t admit it!” and it does not work, especially if you reader is a person who has ever been in a shitty relationship. I would not want to be with someone who called me hurtful names. The fact that they were trying to cover up the fact that they did it because they liked me is not romantic. It says to me, “this person does not treat the people they love well.” Writers, we can do better.

Teasing creates tension, as I said, and it is often that case that we use it to trade a feeling we can’t handle for one that we can. For Ranma and Akane, they are trading attraction for combativeness. They can’t admit they like each other because they are deeply stubborn and also because they are very, very immature.

Conversely, characters may tease to deflect their feelings because of outside forces that they have no control of. 

Rukia is fundamentally uncomfortable expressing her feelings. She had no parents. She has no experience with unconditional love, which is pretty essential for healthy childhood development. I’ve talked before about my Rukongai headcanon that it was taboo to openly express affection, because it is a brutal and dangerous town and to love is to show weakness. In this case, teasing can play a fundamental role. As children, if she started to express something that strays too close to an earnest emotion or attachment, Renji might respond with “Aaah, shut up, you sap.”

This is not mean-spirited. Renji is acknowledging that he hears her, he recognizes her feeling and prevents her from breaking the taboo. The teasing helps Rukia to save face. This creates a blind spot in their friendship, however. They know each other extremely well, they have a thorough read on each other’s moods and motivations and body language, but because they’ve never, ever been able to talk frankly about their emotions, they are both stuck in this place where they can’t tell if they like each other romantically and they don’t know how to bridge that gap. They don’t need to be mean to each other, but they are unable to progress because they keep blowing off the difficult conversations they ought to be having.

Keep in mind, I am keeping the teasing at low to medium stakes. It’s also difficult, because they’ve been apart for so long, that there are some topics that aren’t safe anymore, and sometimes they don’t realize that until after they’ve accidentally hurt each other’s feelings, again, an opportunity for some mild plot drama that’s based on misunderstanding, rather than these people are assholes.

Rukia’s relationship with Ichigo is very similar. Ichigo is also terrible at expressing feelings, partly because of his mom’s death, his dad is his dad, and he is a teen. I have read a lot of arguments that he’s neurodiverse, and frankly, I’m for that, too. I tend to characterize their friendship as very intense. They haven’t known each other very long, but they just have a lot of feelings, OKAY?! They have saved each other’s lives in very dramatic ways, they feel that they owe the other in ways they can never repay, and they just friggin’ like the heck out of each other, but their lives are also fundamentally incompatible, starting with the fact that Rukia is dead and Ichigo is alive. 

So, when I am writing them bantering, one of my go-tos is to have them make fun of each other’s chosen planes of existence. “Why do you keep juice in boxes?” Rukia demands, as if it’s somehow Ichigo’s fault. “You can’t even ride a bike, you idiot,” Ichigo might rib her, as if she even knows what a bike is. What they are really doing here, is pushing against the fact that they have chosen to live separate existences and they’re honestly a little upset about that. “It’s dumb that we can’t hang out all the time,” is what they are saying. “I understand your decision, but I’m still gonna make fun of you.” This is incredibly low-stakes dragging, and also it’s a good place to be funny. I’m sure you have had someone make fun of your school or your job or your town in a way that you feel the need to defend it, and then you’re like “why am I defending this, it really is dumb, actually?” 

One last thing, which is to think a lot about the word choices you use in your teasing, and try to organize them by intensity. My go-tos are “dummy” and “dumbass” because they get the point across, but they aren’t particularly mean and they are very generic. I also like slightly silly ones like “dunderhead” or “lunk” or “goob” or “doofus.” Paired insults are fun-- have one character greet another as “What’s up, nerd?” and have the first respond with “How’s it hanging, jock?”  “Stupid” is slightly meaner, but I will often use it if one character is being self-deprecating, I will have the other respond “don’t be stupid,” or something like that, where it’s reassurance disguised as trash-talk. You can temper harder insults with tone: e.g., “You moron,” Rukia said affectionately. 

Some people call their friends “bitch” humorously, and that’s a kind of friendship you can certainly choose to portray, but think hard about if that fits your characters and your writing style first. I try to avoid gendered insults; sometimes I’ll have villians use them, but even so, do we need to? Maybe not. Don’t use hurtful words unless your teaser actually intends to hurt (whether or not it’s effective).

And remember, you don’t even need to use insults to tease (or to hurt, for that matter)! Think about how your character would react to be called “fancy.” Or “cute.” Or “rustic.” Tease them about the apron they wear for cooking, or the fact that they don’t know how to use a cell phone, or their terribly out-of-style footwear. Also, it can be just as fun to have your character respond to teasing by leaning into it, or laughing back, or riffing, they don’t have to just get pissed off. 

This post is so long. I am so sorry. Go write some teasing. Have fun. I can’t wait to read it.

[find-y0ur-j0y]

If I Could Turn Back Time, Baby I’d Save You

Hermione hadn't meant to trip. Honestly! The new robes which Ron had thoughtfully (and obliviously) sent her were a little long, but she had promised to wear them on her first day at the Department of Mysteries. Unfortunately the combination of long robes and a tall stack of books led to the unexpected outcome of Hermione Jean Granger ‘Brightest Witch of Her Year’ taking an unexpected and definitely unwelcome tumble headfirst into the Veil of Death. As she fell she heard someone call out in fear and a hand grab onto her before everything went black.

----------

Hermione cracked her eyes open with a deep groan in pain. Her brain felt like there was a goblin drilling into it. If this was the afterlife she wanted no part of it. Shutting her eyes tightly, Hermione hoped that in blocking out the blinding light she would be able to quell her headache.

Her peace was shattered by a sudden loud rapping noise and loud voice calling “Hermione love, are you awake yet?”

Wait a minute! She knew that voice! “Mom?!?” she croaked out sitting up anxiously.

“Are you feeling ok Mia Bo Bia?” asked her mother’s voice from the other side of a familiar door.

“Yeah, I’ll be down in a few minutes” muttered Hermione as her mind raced trying to figure out how she had ended up in this situation. Last she had checked her mother was still alive, she didn’t remember she had a daughter, but she was alive. Also if she was going to pick a perfectly happy place to be her home for all eternity, her childhood bedroom wouldn’t even make the top fifty list.

Rising from her long forgotten bed, Hermione found herself frowning when she realized she was noticeably shorter than she had been before she tripped through the veil. Was she in Hell? Being forced to spend all of eternity going through puberty a second time seemed like a bit of an extreme punishment, Hermione reflected. She had played an instrumental role in defeating a murderous madman after all, shouldn't she have achieved eternal rest for her deeds? She was going to be pissed if her eternal damnation was a result of having practiced magic in her life.

Knowing that the only way she would get the answers she needed was by going downstairs and facing the ghosts of her parents, Hermione pulled herself together and headed to the kitchen.

---

“There you are Mia” greeted her dad with a brilliant smile which felt like a sucker punch to the chest for Hermione. It had been so long since she had spoken to her parents, and even longer since she had had that particular smile aimed her way. She would never regret protecting her parents from Death Eaters, but if she had a chance to do it over she would have found another way.

Overcome with emotion, Hermione rushed forward and threw her arms around her father no longer caring if this was heaven or hell. She had her family back, and in her mind, that was worth any price, including eternal damnation.

“Hermione, what's wrong?” asked her father, squeezing her back just as tightly.

“It’s nothing,” sniffed Hermione, holding back her happy tears “I’m just really happy to see you”.

“Obviously” laughed her mom. “You feeling a little nervous about going to school tomorrow Mia?”

“That’s tomorrow?” asked Hermione confused.

“Don’t tell me you suddenly forgot?” teased her father, “I swear your first year at Hogwarts has been all you will talk about ever since that nice woman came by to explain about the school”.

“Right… Hogwarts… McGonagall…” muttered Hermione. What on earth was going on?

“Well eat up dear! You have a busy day of packing ahead of you” smirked her mom sliding a couple of pancakes onto her plate.

Hermione ate her pancakes robotically, as she tried to process everything that she had just learned. The fact that she could touch her parents and eat her breakfast suggested that she wasn't trapped in some kind of weird coma dream. The lack of torture or blissful surroundings seemed to rule out her theory on the afterlife… which left magic.

Look, Hermione adored magic, really she did! But most of the time magic seemed to cause more trouble than it was worth. Her school years had been rather formative in showing her the dangers of relying on it. That was part of the reason why she had chosen to live primarily as a muggle after graduation, well that and the rapidly crumbling governmental system. She watched as men and women who had always relied on magic to solve their problems were left floundering when faced with problems created by their own hubris.

Even with Voldemort gone the policies and governmental leaders he had put in place remained. With the war “over'' Hermione was filled with idealistic zeal to reform the political system, but as time dragged on she began to lose hope. She was dismissed for her blood status, age and gender.

The hits just kept coming for Hermione though. As if enough life hadn’t been lost during the actual war, Harry had been killed in an “accident gone wrong” in the spell creation unit of the D.O.M., which was an obvious cover up if Hermione had ever heard one. If she was being honest, Hermione didn’t think that she or Ron ever got over the death of their brother in all but blood.

There were only so many times one could be told, had the door slammed in their face or told to get coffee before they sought out other avenues. Some like Neville Longbottom, Lavender Brown, Hannah Abbot, Gianna Jones and Blaise Zabini continued to fight the unfair laws with varying levels of success. Hermione applauded them for their strength, but she was far too tired to keep fighting what she deemed a pointless battle, if only they had been able to start bringing about change before Voldemort and Umbridge had gotten their hands on the ministry. Between the blatant racism, sexism and the shocking death of her best friend Hermione just needed a break and a change of scenery.

After leaving her job in the minister’s office, she loved Kingsley but the ex-auror made a miserable minister, she traveled for a year with a group of curse breakers. She chalked it up to the Gryffindor in her blood, but she missed the level of adventure that had been constantly present since she was eleven. Using Bill’s Gringotts contacts she had found a traveling group who welcomed her with open arms. The group travelled all over the world exploring new areas and solving mysterious curses. She swore that she had never felt more alive than during that year, but word came from England that Ron and Lavender were expecting their first child and her found-family needed her support. So Hermione said goodbye to her friends and took a job in the Department of Mysteries with Luna… which led her up to a couple hours ago when she ungracefully fell face first through the Veil of Death.

Clearing her dishes Hermione headed upstairs to her room to pack for her first year at Hogwarts at the urging of her parents. Stumbling into her childhood bedroom, she closed the door and rested heavily against it with one thought echoing loudly through her mind: What on earth had she gotten herself into now?

----------

Hermione liked to believe that she was a rather practical person, she liked clear goals, lists and schedules. She functioned best when she had a set objective and a clear view of the facts. With this in mind, after her minor existential crisis and the resulting meltdown, she set to work clearing off her desk and pulled out an empty notepad and began detailing what she did know, the list was depressingly short.

What I know: - I tripped through the Veil of Death - I woke up in my childhood bedroom the day before I originally left for Hogwarts. - Am I dead? In a coma? Time Travel?

This level of Time Travel shouldn't be possible, even with magic. Time turners in general were designed to only go back a couple days, not a decade! But when you have ruled out all of the possible explanations, the only solution which remains, however impossible, is the truth. Deciding that she needed more data before ruling the situation as ‘Time Travel’ Hermione closed her notebook and set off in search of answers.

----

After following her parents around all day and asking them obscure questions that only they would know, she was reluctantly finding more and more evidence of possible Time Travel. The day itself had unfolded similarly to how she remembered it occurring the first time with the only changes being those that she made herself. As she fell into bed that night staring up at the glowing star stickers she had stuck in various constellation shapes on her ceiling years ago, she had to finally admit that she had likely time traveled. This consensus only brought about a scarier question: what the fuck was she supposed to do now?!?

[lady-griffin]

Do you have any thoughts about Raven and Young Justice? I desperately want Ravento be in Young Justice Phantoms, I also desperately want Tara to do the voice, I can’t imagine anyone but her as Raven

I’m also dying for Raven to be in YJ.

And I have many thoughts about her in YJ, I mean my headcanon list is just a small slice of all my thoughts about Raven and Young Justice (X)

While, I would love if she became a main / important character - maybe even with a whole episode to introduce to her – I’m just brimming with story ideas of how they could do it. One introduction-episode idea I had, legitimately made me tear up and cry and I think it would really hit home the tragedy of Raven.

Of course, there’s a very good chance Raven won’t be a major character. But even if she’s just a minor character or maybe only has a one-episode appearance, I think it’ll just be nice to see her. I know YJ is packed with so many characters and many people don’t want there to be anymore additions – but...

Raven is my girl! We gotta have her!

--

I have mixed feelings about Tara Strong reprising her role for Raven in YJ.

On the one hand, there is a reason why Tara is basically in everything -- She’s a fantastic voice actress.

Sometimes, it can be easy to forget, or at least I do at times, but she really is such a top tier quality actress.

For that reason alone, I would love for her to play Raven – simply because in general she does such a great job on selling you the characters she plays. She doesn’t do a funny voice; she actually acts. 

Also, Tara Strong’s Raven was my first introduction to the character of Raven, a character who has become so near and dear to my heart. 

Tara’s voice acting in Teen Titans elevated Raven to the status she has now – obviously there were other factors at play, but Tara’s voice gave Raven life. In addition, the two are intrinsically linked and associated with one another – for now and ever.

And for many, Tara will always be THE voice of Raven, not unlike yourself. So, I can definitely see why for so many, Tara is the only way to go about doing Raven.

But I definitely think another actress could do Raven justice and be amazing at voicing her.

Unfortunately, the one-time another actress took on the role of Raven in a major work, it wasn’t as good as Tara Strong’s portrayal.

In the DCAU, Taissa Farmiga plays Raven and this is my own personal opinion, but…

I thought it was just a poor “copy” of Tara’s Raven and it never felt all that genuine.

To be fair, I don’t think Taissa has done a lot of voice acting or really any at all. Plus, if she was getting specific acting directions, I can’t fault her for doing her job, but the voice just wasn’t there for me.

It came across as though Taissa was more focused on sounding deadpan and having a sarcastic tone, rather than acting. Therefore, her voice came across as less genuine. Also, some of Raven’s dialogue was simply just not great, so that probably didn’t help out Taissa in terms of doing Raven justice.

The voice was also inconsistent – sometimes Raven had a lot of inflection when she was just saying a normal sentence. Other times she was so deadpan and sarcastic, that it felt extremely callous and cruel – considering what she was actually talking about. 

And I recently watched an interview that was just so applicable to Taissa doing Raven. 

The voice actress, Nika Futterman talked about how she goes about playing characters that are iconic and have been done so many times before (by many different actresses). 

She said she doesn’t listen to what other people have done, because then their voice (or that version of the character) can get stuck in her head and she may end up doing an imitation of that voice, rather than actually voicing the character herself (X).

And I think that’s what happened with Taissa. She probably watched some clips of Raven from Teen Titans for the role or maybe she watched the show as a fan (I don’t know) and thought –

That’s what Raven sounds like.

When I think she should’ve asked herself – what does this character sound like?

To be clear, I don’t believe Taissa wasn’t trying to imitate Tara, but for me it certainly came across as though Tara’s Raven got stuck in Taissa’s head and it shaped how she went about voicing Raven.

Again to be fair to Taissa, maybe the DCAU wanted Raven to sound like Raven from Teen Titans. Maybe that’s how Taissa was directed act, but if that’s case, why even bring in another actress at all? Why not just cast Tara?

Also, I will say that by the third movie, I thought Taissa had improved. Still not great, in my opinion, but I could hear an improvement. 

-

In general, the problem with acting as a monotone or “emotionless” character, is that you still have to sell the emotion to the audience. Because usually, especially if it’s a main character, the character is far from emotionless – they just have difficulty expressing themselves and their emotions.

Portraying a monotone character is a lot harder than people think, because as a character, there absolutely needs to be an emotional connection with the audience. The actor needs to be able to not only convey a deadpan or monotone voice, but also be able to connect to the audience with emotion. That’s not an easy thing to do. 

Sidenote: Voice recreation is an important aspect of voice acting and it’s a legitimate element to the craft. Sometimes an actor dies or they simple can’t reprise the role, so you need someone who can do the voice that’s already been set for the character – so there’s continuity for your audience. 

I wasn’t trying to downplay that aspect of voice acting, but that’s not what happened with the DCAU, in regard to Taissa’s Raven.

Adriene Mischler also voiced Raven, in DC Online – and from the few clips I’ve heard – she did a pretty decent job. It sounds like her own take on Raven and while it’s not something to write home about, the voice still worked for what it was. 

--

Back to the main point, I certainly wouldn’t complain if Tara reprised her role as Raven in YJ; but I would honestly love to see another actress take on the role and make Raven her own.

As much as I love Raven from TT, I just want to see a different version of Raven.

Also, considering that Tara is voicing Terra/Tara Markov, I think it might be better if another actress did Raven. 

One minor problem, I had with Season 3 was that Khary Payton played the majority of the black men we saw.

To be clear --- Khary Payton is a fantastic voice actor. I mean the difference between Cyborg from Teen Titans and Aqualad from YJ – is just... astounding! He’s really skilled and deserves major recognition - I am in no way trying to insult his quality as an actor. 

But the problem with the fact that he voiced so many characters that had a lot of dialogue in season 3- Kaldur/Aquaman, Jefferson/Black Lighting, Silas Stone, Brick, Black Manta – is that they all started to blur together. 

Particularly Kaldur, Silas, and Jefferson. So, I would prefer if that was avoided in the future.

And I think YJ could do what they did for Cyborg in YJ for Raven, if she does ever make it to the show.

YJ had a nice nod to Khary Payton being the OG Cyborg.

There was a character – Ron Evers (pictured above)– who really had a similar build to Cyborg from Teen Titans and he was voiced by Khary Payton and he said Cyborg’s iconic phrase – Booyah!

Maybe I’m looking too deeply into that, but it felt like a nice recognition of the original voice actor who not only introduced so many to the character of Cyborg, and similar to Raven, who many see as being THE Cyborg. 

At the same time though, the show still introduced us to a new version of the character and a new actor for the part.

If something like that happened with Raven, that could not only be fun but I think it would show appreciation and respect for Tara Strong’s work as Raven. 

Now, if Tara Strong did voice Raven. I would prefer it if she did a different take on Raven, not just reprise her role from Teen Titans - and hearing her talk about her acting, I don’t see why she wouldn’t (X).

Similar to how Greg Cipes who voiced Beast Boy in Teen Titans, once more took the role of BB in Season 3 of YJ. While he’s not putting on a different voice, there is a clear difference between the two Beast Boys and their voices.

There is definitely a familiar feeling to Gar in season 3, but I never thought – oh, that’s just BB from TT. You know?

--

Basically, to answer your question (sorry for the rant you didn’t ask for). 

I have many thoughts on Raven in regards to YJ. And I would love for her to make an appearance in YJ – whether it be big or small.

While I don’t have any qualms with Tara reprising the role once more and I certainly wouldn’t complain; I would prefer it if a different actress got to voice Raven. I would like the YJ version Raven to be different than TT’s version of Raven.

Thanks for the question Anon!!!!

[adenei]

The Mixtape Mishap - Chapter 6

New Year’s Festivities

The girls made their way down the stairs, with Hermione trailing a bit behind. She hoped that if Ginny and Fleur made the grand entrance first, she could slip into the room unnoticed because everyone’s focus would be on them. As Fleur and Ginny entered the room, she heard all the boys stop the mild chatter she had just heard. They were no doubt gaping at how beautiful Fleur looked with her silky long blonde hair against a modest shimmery deep blue dress. 

“Uh, Ginny, if we’d known that’s the dress you’d picked out with Fleur, we most certainly would not have gotten that,” Bill said tersely.

“Yeah, it’s a good thing Mum didn’t let you invite Dean,” she heard Fred agree. Hermione wished she could see the look on Harry’s face right now.

“Well, I think you look spectacular,” Hermione heard what sounded like Tonks’ voice. 

Oh good! Tonks is here, another person to talk to while I avoid Ron. Hermione was taking a few more deep breaths before finally making her way in when she saw Harry turn quickly around the corner and almost run into her.

“There you are!” he whispered. “Ginny just sent me after you. Why are you waiting here?”

“I- I don’t know. I thought those two could distract the attention and I could just slip in, but apparently not,” she hissed back at him. Hermione noticed Harry was wearing a light green button down shirt that brought out his eyes, with a black paisley tie and grey trousers. 

“Well, the longer you wait, the more obvious your solitary entrance is going to be,” Harry commented as Hermione self consciously tugged at her short skirt of the dress once more.

“Who’s out there anyways,” she couldn’t help but keep stalling.

Harry gave her a look, but indulged her question anyway. “Everyone. Oh, Tonks is here, too. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley went upstairs for the night. I guess they trust Bill to keep an eye on things.”

“I see.”

“C’mon Hermione, just go. It won’t be a big deal if you don’t make it one,” Harry pushed.

It really shouldn’t be a big deal, but something kept Hermione rooted to the spot. Obviously, Harry hadn’t gotten the job done because Ginny rounded the corner next.

“Hermione, why are you still here?” she said half quietly. “Come on! You have to see what Fred and George have done! It’s amazing!”

“It is pretty impressive,” Harry agreed. He turned to Ginny and whispered, although loud enough for Hermione to hear, “I think she’s scared, if you ask me,” as he smirked in her direction.

Hermione instantly became annoyed at his criticism. I am absolutely not scared, she thought to herself, ignoring the fact that she still hadn’t moved in what had probably been a good five minutes.

“Scared?” she heard Ginny say. “Aren’t you a Gryffindor? Maybe the sorting hat should have put you in Ravenclaw if you can’t walk into a party,” Ginny rolled her eyes playfully. Hermione knew she was goading her on, but still didn’t like it. 

“Oh, honestly!” Hermione said annoyedly as she clambered down the remaining stairs and walked into the room. She turned back to them and said, “Are you happy now?”

Harry laughed as Ginny said, “Quite. It’s about time you joined the fun!” as she gestured into the completely transformed sitting room.

The twins had completely outdone themselves on the decorations. There was an entire wall of silver and gold holographic balloons in all shapes and sizes; the center housed four rose gold balloons that said ‘NYE 1997.’ There were also more silver and gold balloons hovering all throughout the ceiling for more decoration. Hermione noticed the furniture had been moved around and even transfigured to take on more of an ‘elegant party’ vibe, and two tables were set up. One table had various snacks and finger foods that Mrs. Weasley must have prepared for them, and the other table had champagne bottles and flutes on one side for a midnight toast, no doubt, and several black and silver cylindrical objects that Hermione wasn’t sure of. Aside from the glowing ambiance the balloons on the ceiling seemed to give off, nothing looked particularly out of the ordinary yet, though she was sure Fred and George must have some tricks up their sleeves if they were testing out a new line of products tonight. Hopefully it’s not in party games, Hermione thought.

A cat call whistle broke Hermione out of her admiration of the decor as she heard George say, “Damn, Fleur, I think you may have some competition on the most attractive female, here this evening. No offense, Tonks!”

Tonks laughed as she said, “None taken,” though it was hard to hear over Ginny who shouted, “Hey!”

“Sisters don’t count, and you should not be dressed like that,” Fred said teasingly, even though he was probably serious.

The twins didn’t notice Bill’s glare at their remark about Fleur, but she took it in stride as she commented, “I ‘ave no issue not being ze most attractive one ‘ere for once. “Hermione does not know of her own beauty.”

Hermione blushed profusely at Fleur’s words, and noticed Bill whisper something into Fleur’s ear as she melted into him. Hermione stood there awkwardly trying to avoid everyone’s gaze by looking around the room. That was a mistake, though because she froze when her eyes accidentally landed directly on Ron, who was staring directly at her, eyes slightly wide and mouth open. Hermione had to force herself to not physically gasp at the sight of him, looking more attractive than she thought was even possible. He was dressed in a light grey shirt, a tie that matched her dress perfectly in color, and black trousers. 

She forced herself to look away from him and direct the conversation away from herself. “So, while this does look spectacular, I can’t say it’s anything magical or out of the ordinary from muggle decorations in general. Except for that balloon wall. I’ve never quite seen some of those shapes, let alone numbers,” Hermione commented.

Thankfully, Fred took the bait of her remarks, and didn’t address the obvious looks Ron and Hermione had just given each. “Ah, but Hermione, don’t you know by now that George and I always have tricks up our sleeves? I’m disappointed that you don’t believe in us!”

“Yes, all of our products will speak for themselves in due time. Though, now that you mention it, we should tell you if you’d like to spike the cupcakes over there, one of our newest inventions are ‘shot shots’. All you have to do is pick a flavor, and inject it into the cupcake!” George demonstrated his description while everyone looked on in curiosity.

“Happy now that we’ve revealed something? Now, what say we begin the festivities with some muggle music?” Fred flicked his wand and ‘Shake it Off’ began playing through the wireless.

“What? How?” Hermione was speechless. How were they able to play that music?

George laughed as he said, “A little help from Lee. He figured out how to hack the muggle wireless system and was able to pick out all the upbeat songs and put it through a wireless channel.”

“Brilliant!” Ginny said as she tugged on Hermione’s arm. “There’s so much room to dance!” Ginny didn’t hesitate to start dancing as Tonks and Fleur joined them and the boys began distracting themselves with food. Despite giving into the music and dancing with the other girls, Hermione couldn’t help but feel like she was being watched. 

A few songs in, Ginny pulled Hermione close and said, “You know he’s been watching you this whole time, right?”

Hermione, who’d deliberately kept her back to the boys, nodded and said, “Yeah, I had a feeling,” as a small smile crept on her lips.

“You know Harry hasn’t taken his eyes off you either, right?” Tonks nudged Ginny, whose face immediately flushed red. Hermione gave her a knowing look.

The girls took a break to eat some of the food that was laid out. The sweets were exceptionally good when the ‘shot shots’ were added, Hermione noted. After they’d refueled and rested for a few songs, the girls went back to dancing some more. This pattern continued for the next couple hours, where they’d take breaks and eat snacks or drink Butterbeer when they didn’t like a particular song. Then, someone would undoubtedly drag the rest of them back to the clearing in the middle of the room when another good beat came on. Fred, George and Bill even joined in a couple times, and they all laughed at Fred and George’s ridiculous dance moves. Hermione continued to enjoy the distraction, as she still wasn’t sure what she’d say to Ron when the time came, so delaying the inevitable was the next best option. 

The latest song that was playing ended, and ‘Bad Blood’ began playing on the radio as Ginny squealed. “Ooh, I love this one!” The girls had moved slightly in their circle, and Hermione was now able to see Ron sitting with Harry. She noticed him straighten a bit and wondered if he heard the words and associated them with the title of the mixed CD she’d made. She hadn’t included the song in there, and couldn’t remember why. Probably for the better. After it ended, Hermione excused herself to use the loo.

Harry nudged Ron. “Now’s your chance.”

“What are you on about?” Ron asked.

“Go up there and wait for her to come out of the bathroom and finally talk to her. Unless you’d rather approach her down here where everyone can hear you.” Harry wondered if he had to spell out every tiny detail. 

“And if she ignores me?” 

“I swear if I have to watch you two eye each other and dance around whatever the hell is going on, I’m going to hurl,” Ginny appeared out of nowhere with her witty mark.

“Oi! No one asked you,” Ron retorted. 

“I didn’t need to be asked. I’m stealing Harry so now you have no excuse. Now go, or I’ll tell the twins you’ll volunteer for free to be their test subject on any and all new products for the next five years,” Ginny said as she held out her hand to Harry, evidently forcing him onto their makeshift dance floor.

Ron sniggered at the thought of Harry getting roped into dancing as he trudged up the stairs. He knew enough not to test Ginny’s bluffing, even though he still wasn’t sure what he was going to say to her. He’d been at a loss for words ever since she emerged from the stairway. That dress was enough to do him in right then and there. He leaned against the opposite wall waiting for her to emerge. He fiddled with the paper in his pocket, hoping it’d be enough to win her over this time. 

He heard the bathroom door open and he looked up to see a startled Hermione staring back at him. “Could we talk?” he asked her before he wimped out.

“Oh! Er, I- I don’t know,” Hermione said as her cheeks flushed red. She pretended to listen downstairs, “I really like the song playing right now…” she lied. 

“Just hear me out, yeah?” he pleaded with her, blocking her way downstairs for a brief moment. “I’m sorry I didn’t take you seriously that day in Herbology when you talked about Slughorn’s party. And I’m sorry I let my jealousy get the best of me. I fucked up, alright?” He dug the paper out of his pocket. “Just- promise me you’ll go read this, and if- if you want to talk or anything after, I’ll be in my room for the next fifteen minutes. If I don’t see you, I’ll just assume it’s a pass and I’ll see you downstairs later.” She took the paper from him and stared at it as Ron turned to continue up the stairs to room. He turned back briefly to say, “By the way, you look amazing tonight,” as his ears turned the deepest shade of red. He turned and continued on his way.

Hermione stood there for a moment before slipping into Ginny’s room to see what it said. 

XO

Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down Swingin’

Am I more than you bargained for yet?

I’ve been dying to tell you anything you want to hear

Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner

I keep my jealousy close

‘Cause it’s all mine

And if you say this makes you happy

Then I’m not the only one lying

I’ve got a Dark Alley and a Bad Idea that Says You Should Shut Your Mouth

I’m hopelessly hopeful

You’re just hopeless enough

Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year

So give in or just give up

Are we growing up or just going down

I Slept with Someone in Fall Out Boy and All I got Was this Stupid Song Written About Me

I found the cure to growing older

And you’re the only place that feels like home

A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More “Touch Me” **

I confess, I messed up

Dropping I’m sorries like you’re still around

And I know you dressed up

“Hey kid, you’ll never live this down”

And you’re just the girl all the boys want to dance with 

And I’m just the boy who’s had too many chances

I'm sleeping on your folks' porch again, dreaming

She said, she said, she said, "Why don't you just drop dead?"

I don't blame you for being you

But you can't blame me for hating it

So, say, what are you waiting for, kiss her, kiss her

I set my clocks early 'cause I know I'm always late

Write me off, give up on me

'Cause darling, what did you expect?

I'm just off, a lost cause

A long shot, don't even take this bet

You can make all the moves, you can aim all the spotlights

Get all the sighs and the moans just right

I'm sleeping on your folks' porch again, dreaming

She said, she said, she said, "Why don't you just drop dead?"

**Listen to this one on Ginny’s walkie thing. It’s the Fall Out Boy Album. #11

Please give me a chance to make this right..

Hermione couldn’t believe it. Ron must have taken the time to turn the tables and do the same thing for her. She was trying to figure out when he would have even gotten Ginny’s walkman to do this. I must have been in the shower. How sneaky of her! She thought as she pulled her own walkman out of her bag. Hermione picked it up to listen to the song Ron had requested of her, even though all the lyrics were already written on the paper.

She paused. Come to think of it, they listened to all the albums she had brought, plus both of Ginny’s. Maybe he used Harry’s mix? Of course he’d include where to find it, given the cheat sheet she’d written for Harry. You know, in case he needed Ginny’s for reference. Hermione carefully picked up the headphones and placed them over her ears, turning on the device. She skipped to #11 and read along with the lyrics while she listened to the song. When it had concluded, Hermione immediately turned off the walkman and placed the headphones over it. The song resonated with her in a way she knew wouldn’t have if she’d just simply read what was on the page. She knew exactly what she needed to do next.

***

Ron made his way up the stairs and entered his room. He was sure Fred and George would probably kill him if he got his clothes overly wrinkled, but he didn’t really care. He wasn’t expecting to just leave her with the paper, but when all was said and done, he figured that she deserved the same privacy he had with hers.

Something Harry had said gave him the idea. I know she’s bloody brilliant, but try and meet her on her level. So that’s exactly what Ron did with Harry’s CD and Ginny’s borrowed player. Harry had gone down to borrow it anyways, but didn’t question when Ron asked to use it for a while. It helped pass his time as he worked through the songs, hoping to find some that had some lyrics that fit what he wanted to say. 

It really was genius to use someone else’s words to express their own. And what was even better, was that Harry had a whole song on his that applied to how he felt about her and their whole situation, even if the title was a bit questionable. Ron sat on his bed, leaning forward so his arms rested on his legs as he stared at the clock. Ten minutes for fate to decide. 

What was I thinking? Giving her a deadline. Will she really know what I meant by asking her to give me a chance? And what if she does show up? Of course I didn’t think that far ahead. But that’d mean he’d be optimistic when he wasn’t sure if he actually felt that way. Time was dragging, yet flying, at the same time. At some point he realized there were five minutes left.

With three minutes left, Ron was ready to give up. He stood and walked towards the door, stepping out of the room and shutting the door behind him. When he looked up he was surprised to see an out of breath Hermione.

“Where were you going? Ginny’s clock said I still had three minutes.” Hermione bit her bottom lip, “At least I don’t think I’m late..” 

“Wha- No, I just didn’t think - You actually came!” Ron stammered.

“Of course I came! Unless, that’s not what you wanted?” Hermione hesitated.

“No! I mean- oh sod it!” Ron said as he reached out, grabbing Hermione by the waist and pulling her into him as his lips crashed down on hers. 

Hermione was stunned at first, with one hand resting on the arm Ron used to pull her close, and the other resting against his chest. After she’d recovered from the initial shock, realizing that Ron was indeed kissing her, she eagerly returned the kiss. Hermione’s hands traveled up and wrapped around his neck of their own accord as Ron broke the kiss, for what Hermione hoped would be a brief moment.

“Is- is this okay?” he asked her breathily.

“More than,” Hermione said through a wide smile.

Ron returned her smile with his own signature lopsided grin as she leaned in for more. After Ron was convinced he’d given Hermione her own proper first snog, he broke away. “As brilliant as this is, we should probably head back down before Harry or Ginny come to check up on us.”

Hermione pouted. “I suppose you're right. What should we tell them?”

“Hmm, not sure. What do you think?” Ron knew she already had a plan forming.

“I think we should mess with them,” Hermione said with a devious smile.

“Oh? What did you have in mind?” Ron raised his eyebrow as Hermione quietly whispered her plan to him.

Oh, this is going to be good, he thought.

[writtenbyhappynerds]

Unit 3: Face Claims, Please Stop Using Emily Rudd

     Ok. So now lets look at face claims. Face claims are a broader topic to character creation and OCs as a whole. I like face claims. They’re great, because they allow you the writer to get in your head what the main character looks like and how they fit in with the cast and the world. I have nothing against face claims, I use them myself because I like to visualize what I’m working with. However, as we’ve seen in Unit 2, it’s on the writer to convey what the character looks like. As we’ve seen in Unit 1, the character should be cohesive with the rules of the universe. Face claims and characterization can apply the first two units very easily. 

     Reference images are for your eyes only, so that you can see what the character looks like. When describing a character, pull details from your reference image to explain what they look like. You do not have to be overly specific. Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way is a prime example of being overly specific, given the first paragraph of her fanfiction My Immortal is: 

     “Hi my name is Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way and I have long ebony black hair (that’s how I got my name) with purple streaks and red tips that reaches my mid-back and icy blue eyes like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like Amy Lee (AN: if u don’t know who she is get da hell out of here!). I’m not related to Gerard Way but I wish I was because he’s a major fucking hottie. I’m a vampire but my teeth are straight and white. I have pale white skin. I’m also a witch, and I go to a magic school called Hogwarts in England where I’m in the seventh year (I’m seventeen). I’m a goth (in case you couldn’t tell) and I wear mostly black. I love Hot Topic and I buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a black corset with matching lace around it and a black leather miniskirt, pink fishnets and black combat boots. I was wearing black lipstick, white foundation, black eyeliner and red eyeshadow.”

     Never do this. I will find you and we will have a very nice conversation about how to improve your writing. Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way breaks the three big rules of characterization and character description: She drops the face claim directly in the narrative (Amy Lee, lead singer of Evanescence), she describes every characterizing feature about her (vampire teeth, ebony black hair), and she describes her complete outfit. To give a better standard of describing characters, we are going to fix Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way. 

     Young Adult novels very often stick to height, hair color, eye color, and body shape. This is something you as an author should think about, but sticking just to this blueprint can be pretty generic. When you look at other people, those aren’t the only things you notice, right? Those aren’t even things you necessarily need! A big example of going against the grain of the standard is found in The Great Gatsby. Despite having loads of color imagery, we never learn what Daisy’s hair color or eye color is. But somehow, we don’t need them because we are supplemented with, “Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it. Bright eyes and a bright, passionate mouth.” Fitzgerald focuses on how his characters carry themselves and their facial expressions. These give descriptions of their personalities. When he does describe hair color or eye color, he does it in a way that fits with the style and vibe of his writing, and you as a writer can do the same. 

     In my own personal opinion, eye color does not need to be described immediately. You can save small descriptions of your characters and sprinkle them in throughout the story, rather than dumping an appearance in one paragraph. In one instance you can describe what a character’s wearing, and in another later on, describe their hair as they pull it away from their face. Describe it as it changes from the normal. Jeremy Scott’s The Ables is a great example of character description and characterization. The main character is blind, which means that the cast gets by on contrasting personalities. We don’t know the ethnicity of many of the characters until we’re halfway through the book, and the main character only learns his basic appearance because it’s been described to him by his parents. Things like eye color and hair color and how tall someone is don’t matter as a whole. What matters is how it can be applied and further the story and the personality of the character. A character having curly brown hair? Don’t necessarily need that. A character who takes the time to curl her brown hair every morning? That tells me something about that character. Small moments, and giving descriptors through details can really help you avoid the paragraph dump. 

     Character Bios are the bane of my existence. Do not put character bios in the beginning of your fanfiction. All you’re doing is giving me a paragraph I’m not going to read. Character bios are lazy writing. It’s low-hanging fruit to mention them as something to not do. There are so many ways to incorporate detail into a story. By putting in a character bio, you tell the reader that you either: don’t know how to incorporate these facts, are too lazy to incorporate these facts, or don’t care enough about what you’re writing to incorporate this information that we must know immediately about your character. In addition, we don’t need to know your character’s favorite color and the music they like on page one, so why do that to yourself? Not caring about your work can ruin a fanfiction. If you don’t care about what you’re putting out there, how can you expect your audience to care enough to read it. 

     Another important aspect of characterization is show-don’t-tell. Which we’ve all heard, but I’ve rarely seen it used. When used effectively you can draw the reader in, and allow them to use context clues to draw their own conclusions. A good rule of thumb, and the Show Don’t Tell 101 is that you show emotions, and tell feelings. You don’t need to tell me how the floor swayed under someone’s feet and they felt as if they were underwater. You can just say they felt tired that morning. However you can show emotion, and show the full range of anger and pain when someone’s upset to convey properly how that character is feeling. This is something that requires a light touch. It ties in with context clues and foreshadowing. I shouldn’t know from the third line of dialogue of a Shane Dawson fanfiction that the OC has an eating disorder. I shouldn’t know when exactly two characters are going to end up together, or when two characters are going to split apart. It should come as a surprise. An example I can give is a story I have of two spies who fall in love. From the first chapter, it’s obvious to the reader how this world is a game to them, and how they click and exist on that same wavelength. Chemistry can be obvious. Banter can be a fun way to express chemistry. What wasn’t obvious in this story, was that one of the spies would be killed by his own organization. What wasn’t obvious was how this would shape the other spy, who became the main villain of later works. If you make the narrative obvious I want you to then surprise the reader. Because you yourself will get bored. That’s why you see a lot of fanfics get dropped after three chapters- the writer has it all planned out how something will happen, and this plan becomes boring, but they don’t try to change the plot to make it more exciting. Throw in a wrench. Shoot someone. Spice it up my dudes. 

     We titled this chapter Please Stop Using Emily Rudd because one, we see Emily Rudd, as well as other girls who will be in an imgur album at the end of this chapter, way too often as the main OCs in fanfiction, and two, they represent a saturation and an insecurity in the market of main characters. We as writers don’t need to rely on these girls, and we actually keyhole and limit ourselves when we stick to stereotypical goth/emo girls (ex: Eugenia Cooney, Aly Antorcha, and Taylor Momsen face claims), or pale girl with dark hair and green eyes (Emily Rudd) same thing different descriptor for Nina Dobrev, or that red haired girl with green eyes who I couldn’t find a name for but she’s in almost every Harry Potter and/or Weasley sibling fanfic so you know who I’m talking about. 

     These girls should not be the standard of OCs. On top of that, not every OC has to be “strikingly beautiful” some of these OCs are like, 11-12 at the start of the fanfic. It’s ok to not describe how pretty they are. On top of that, not all of the world looks “strikingly beautiful” and that shouldn’t be a character descriptor. When one fanfiction I read had the love interest describe the OC as, “nothing to look at,” they contrasted everything else I’d read before because they made the beauty in that character not about what she looked like but her actions and who she was as a person. She became more beautiful as the fanfiction went on because of her personality, and by the end of it, it made sense that the love interest fell in love with her because he loved her as a person, not as an object. That’s what it boils down to. These girls don’t have to be pretty thin models and celebrities to be good face claims. Spending less time on the appearance, and more time on the personality makes for a character more beautiful and more believable than if you used some model. Don’t feed the manic pixie dream girl trend. 

     Moving on. Your character should not fill a hole or replace a member of the cast. They should bring a new perspective and add, not take conflict from the original work. For example, if you are writing Harry Potter fanfic, the character should not be composed of all the attitude Harry and Ron didn’t get in the movies. If you write Sherlock fanfiction, the character should not be the voice of reason to apologize for Sherlock’s antics while still doing the same things as him. In my own Psycho-Pass fanfiction, my character should not be a manifestation of Shogo Makishima’s soul. All these things do are fill holes in the story without adding to the narrative. If they were removed the story wouldn’t know they’re gone. If you can add conflict or alternative plots to the narrative, making the characters and the cast go through something they didn’t go through otherwise, you make the OC matter more. There used to be a beautiful Harry Potter fanfic that got deleted, where the OC went on full fledged adventures without the cast. She did her own thing, hanging out in the Harry Potter universe. This fanfic worked because the OC was the star of her own narrative. She wasn’t hanging on to Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Draco. They did their thing, and she did hers. It made for a great fanfic that I’m very sad to have seen the end of. Try and give your character something to do that doesn’t involve the cast. Think of it like fanfiction’s version of the Bechdel Test: Can your OC go through a chapter of fanfiction without relying on the cast. 

     Let’s revisit our darling, dearest, dead, Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Ravenway. Using what we’ve discussed in the previous paragraphs, I am going to attempt to fix the introduction given by our dear Enoby in Chapter One of My Immortal. Pray for me. 

     By Year 7 at Hogwarts, I had given up on the uniform. I’ve been at this school for too long to keep wearing the same damn thing, and as soon as I’m done I can bow out of button-ups and itchy sweaters. Professor McGonagall had a fit when I walked in last year with purple and red streaks in my hair. I smile as I imagine her face when she sees my miniskirt and corset. I sloughed in front of my mirror, carefully winging out my eyeliner and dabbling my lids with red eyeshadow. I popped on a black lip, blew myself a kiss, and felt stupid for doing so. 

     McGonagall didn’t even let me make the Great Hall. She marched me back, and forced me to change into the school uniform. I added pink fishnets and combat boots, and rolled my skirt up before heading back down to the Great Hall. My classmates gave me a wide berth. As I walked past a cluster of Slytherins I could hear them whisper. 

     “Fangy bitch.”

     “Say that again?” I said setting my sights on them. “Do you really want to insult me now? I haven’t even had breakfast yet, though I could make an exception.” They scurried off. I flipped them the bird as they went, and carried on downstairs. Remus Lupin was the best thing to ever happen to this school. Yeah, he was a werewolf, but I felt a little less alone. At least there was more than one monster running around here. 

     Next week we will be discussing names. Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way will make a return, as well as some other names that are uncomfortable and cringy to read. This is your warning now, that in 2 weeks we will have our first exam for Fanfiction 101. I did say in the introduction that there would be an exam, and it’s on its way. We will give you more information next week when we see you to discuss Nameberry.com. 

     Supplemental Instruction: The aforementioned imgur album of overused face claims and OCs. Think of this like a newly minted banned book list. 

https://imgur.com/gallery/SpIGZhF

[trulymadlysydney]

Somewhere In Time: Four

“Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I'm gazing at a distant star. It's dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago. Maybe the star doesn't even exist any more. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything.” 

― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

Previous Chapters HERE

tw: Death, Loss of Parent

***Please Do Not Repost Without Permission***

12:02pm, October 5th, 1989

“Uhh, earth to Roni.”

A shrill voice followed by a few obnoxiously bubbly giggles brings fifteen year old Roni out of her own mind, and she looks up with a hot face. She uses a finger to push her thick-rimmed glasses up her nose, but she knows the voice before she even sees who it belongs to.

Lainey Prescott, one grade above Roni and just about the bane Roni’s existence.

She stands no taller than Roni, her two best friends Olivia and Janet standing on either side of her like her little minions. With their matching pink fingernails and Pom Pom hair accessories, they look like little clones. Roni has to fight the urge to roll her eyes.

This happens nearly every day during free period. They come up to bother her, get their little digs in wherever they can, and then continue walking their laps around the track because they’re “working on their figures.”  Roni has tried everything to put an end to it, even going so far as to sit in the dirt under the bleachers, but they’ve always ended up finding her. So now Roni sits out in the open, expecting it almost every day and thanking her lucky stars when it doesn’t happen.

“Hi, Lainey,” she mutters.

“Hey, super cute high-waters today, Ron!” Olivia and Janet snicker behind Lainey, who looks incredibly pleased with herself.  “Whatcha reading?”

Roni sticks her finger between the pages of her book to mark her place and averts her gaze, ears growing hot. “Nothing.”

Olivia speaks up. “I bet it’s another one of those sci-fi books. We all know she gets off on weird shit like that.”

Olivia’s words feel like a blow to the chest, but Roni keeps her composure and swallows around a lump in her throat. Lainey doesn’t seem to notice when she nudges Roni’s sneaker with her sandal. “No seriously, what is it? Looks cool.”

Roni looks up sheepishly. “Do you really care?”

“Totally, babe.”

Roni lets out a sigh, somehow taking the bait.  “It’s called Timescape,” she explains.  “It’s set in two different time periods: the sixties, and the nineties.”

“Wow,” Lainey says,  “The future.  So cool.”

Roni licks her lips in hesitation before continuing.  “Anyway so, everything in the nineties goes wrong, and this scientist guy is  trying to contact the past so that he can prevent whats happening and essentially stop it in its tracks.”

Roni hears Janet mutter an “oh my GOD, so like time traveling? ” to a ridiculously giggly Olivia, but Lainey doesn’t acknowledge them. She instead raises her eyebrows. “Wow, tell me more, Ron.”

Now Roni knows for a fact that the girls are making fun of her, and she’s about to say something when Lainey adds, “I mean, it must be super interesting. You’ve been sitting over here reading out loud to yourself. Did you know you did that?”  She laughs over her shoulder with the other girls before continuing. “It’s adorbs.  I’m sure any guy would find that super cute.”

“Lainey—“

Lainey cuts Roni off, as if this thought has just occurred to her. “Hey, speaking of, you don’t have a boyfriend yet, right?”

Roni sighs. “I don’t.”

You know I don’t, asshole.

Lainey giggles. “Awww, it’s okay, I figured as much. But listen, my parents are out of town this weekend and I’m throwing a party. It’s gonna be a boy-girl party, and you’re invited. I’m sure we could find you a guy there.”

“Yeah,” Janet adds, “and it’s BYOB. Bring your own Book.” Her stupid joke coaxes a cackle our of Olivia, and Roni rolls her eyes.

It wasn’t even that clever.

“Yeah, you can show us all your super cool time traveling tricks.” Olivia snickers. “Or at least spew out more time traveling facts. That’ll be a hit.”

Lainey smirks. “Totally. You should come.”

What Roni wants to do is tell them to fuck off. She wants to tackle them to the ground, rip the pom poms out of their hair and shove them down their throats until they’re all blue in the face. But she can’t do that, because there’s more of them than there is of her, and frankly they scare her.

So she clears her throat.  “Guys, I don’t think—“

“Oh come on,” Janet groans. “What, do you have to ask your mommy for permission?”

Roni’s heart stops the moment the words leave her mouth, and even Lainey and Olivia shoot Janet an incredulous look, as if even they can’t believe she’s just said that.

Janet looks back at them, completely oblivious. “What?! You know she probably does.”

“Janet,” Olivia says quietly, “you know her mom died.”

Roni doesn’t know why people do that; say “died” around her like it’s a filthy word.   She’s noticed that everyone does it, including her own grandmother, and it makes her feel sick to her stomach every time.

Janet’s mouth forms a wide O shape as the realization dawns on her. “Oooooohhhh. Shit. My bad. But she doesn’t care.” She turns back to Roni. “You don’t care, right? Like, you know we’re just joking around.”

Roni feels her eyes welling with tears and she wills them to stop, please stop— at least until the girls walk away.

“Please leave me alone,” is all she manages to say.

Lainey’s perfect smile returns to her face, only far more nervous than before, and Roni can tell she’s trying to do damage control. “So anyway.”  She glares at Janet before smiling sweetly. “The offer still stands. You better be there, girl.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Roni mumbles at the ground, vision now completely blurred with tears.

“Sweet! Catch ya on the flip side.”  Lainey waves her perfectly manicured fingers in Roni’s direction before she and her minions turn on their heels— each executing a perfect hair flip as they proceed on their way.

When she’s sure they’re out of ear shot, Roni lets out a quiet sob, reaching up to rub at her runny nose with the back of her sleeve. How girls can be so cruel, she’ll never know. But these three in particular have tormented her since elementary school, and it’s exhausting.

She doesn’t know why they do it. Why they can’t just leave her alone.  She’d never spoken a word  to any of them before it began, always minded her own business, and still they were relentless. Even after her mother passed, they kept it going. In fact, it almost seemed to get worse.

But Roni is not about to let them see her cry. Not today.  So she stands, flings her backpack over her shoulder, and walks off.

She doesn’t have a destination in mind, all she knows is that she needs to get far enough away from them as possible— even if that means hiding out in the girl’s bathroom until the end of free period (Which she’s also tried doing before. It didn’t work. They always found her).

She makes her way back into the building, heading straight for her locker.  The halls are surprisingly quiet, which doesn’t surprise Roni.  It’s a gorgeous day out.  That was the whole reason she was even outside in the first place. But then Lainey and her friends had to go ruin it, and now Roni isn’t even sure what else to do except grab some things from her locker and wander aimlessly for the next thirty minutes.

Roni rounds the corner and nearly bumps into someone exiting the boy’s bathroom. She’s about to say something snarky when she realizes who it is.

Staring back at her with an apologetic smile lighting up his entire face, is Oliver Ward.

Oliver is one of her friends, she guesses.  A grade older than her, he’s not exactly considered popular but he has more friends in general than Roni does.  She doesn’t talk to him as much as she should, despite the fact that he’s always treated her with more kindness than most people at this school.  He softens once he recognizes the person he’d nearly taken out.

“Roni! Hey!”

Roni reaches up to wipe at her nose and half-heartedly reciprocates his smile.  “Hey.”  It comes out rather unenthusiastically, and she diverts her gaze from his. She doesn’t mean to come across as so pathetic, and she definitely doesn’t want him to know that anything is wrong.  But the way his face falls when he hears her response lets her know that he is most definitely on to her.

“Have you been crying?”  His question is right to the point, and it makes Roni want to start crying all over again.

“No,” she lies.

“You have,” he says, his voice softening.  “What happened?”

Roni knows there’s no use lying to him, so she shrugs.  “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

Oliver scowls.  He knows what that means.  “Did Lainey do something shitty again?”

Finally,  Roni looks up and gives Oliver a weak nod.  “I don’t know why she won’t just leave me alone,” she admits.  “I leave her alone.”

“Oh, Ron,” Oliver coos.  “Fuck her. Why don’t you tell someone?”

Roni shrugs again.  “That would do more bad than good, Ollie, you know that.”

Oliver tries his hardest not to smile at the nickname she’s given him.   Nobody’s called him Ollie since the first grade, and he doesn’t have the heart to tell her that he’s always hated it.  Because for some reason, when she says it, he doesn’t hate it at all.

“I dunno,” Oliver says.  “It might finally put an end to her shit.”  He nods his head towards her.  “Where were you headed?”

Roni sniffs pathetically.  “Anywhere.  Just trying to kill time I guess.”

Oliver smiles.  “You can come with me!  I was just gonna finish up some homework in the library, so I don’t know how interesting it’s gonna be.  But at least you’ll have some company!”

Roni eyes Oliver, weighing her options.  On the one hand, she doesn’t want to tag along; be his little sidekick while he finishes up his work.  The last thing she wants is for him to feel the need to entertain her.  But on the other hand, she figures it’s better than moping around without any direction feeling sorry for herself. And besides, the way Oliver grins at her so full of hope and light, makes it hard to resist.

So Roni giggles and nods.  “Okay.”

“Cool.”  Oliver beams, nodding over his shoulder to signal Roni to follow him.  As they begin walking, he launches right into casual conversation.  “So, what’cha reading?”

Oliver is the kind of person who can hold a conversation with just about anyone and make it feel completely natural.  Roni hasn’t talked to him too many times, but each time she does, she thanks her lucky stars that he’s so good at keeping conversation going because otherwise she knows they would be screwed.

However, her ego is still a bit bruised from Lainey’s words, and she’s not too keen on sharing any more information about this book with anyone else.  “It’s nothing.”

“What?  It looks really cool.  What’s it called?”

Roni can feel her cheeks growing hot, and she refuses to look at Oliver when she answers him.  “Timescape.”

“Ooooh!  That sounds cool.  Is it about time?”  Not a hint of sarcasm is attached to his words, and although Roni can’t see his face she knows he’s genuinely interested.  The thought lifts her spirits just the tiniest bit.

“Kinda,” Roni says.  “It’s like, time travel stuff.  Someone in the future is trying to go back and warn people in the past about like, these catastrophic events happening in the world.  It’s actually really cool.”

Oliver whistles.  “No kidding! That sounds rad.”  They round the corner and open the large doors into the school library.  Oliver lowers his voice as they make their way to a small round table with empty seats.  “Think I could borrow it when you’re done?”

Roni nearly stops walking.  “Are you serious?”

“Yeah!”  Oliver smiles at her, slinging his backpack off of his shoulders and onto the table.  “Hell yeah.  I’d love to read it.”

Roni realizes she’s been smiling because her cheeks ache, and she tucks her bottom lip between her teeth to hide it.  She clears her throat.  “I mean yeah, if you want to.”

“Sweet!” Oliver starts unloading the contents of his backpack before pausing and looking back at Roni.  “I mean like, no rush or anything.  Finish it on your own terms.  Don’t like, freak out trying to get it to me.”  Roni notices the slight red tint to the tips of Oliver’s ears, and for some reason it’s beyond endearing.  She giggles, taking her seat beside Oliver.  

“Don’t worry, I’m a fast reader anyway.”

Oliver smiles, seemingly relieved.  “Well that’s good.”

There’s a silence that doesn’t necessarily feel awkward, but it’s charged, and now it’s Olilver’s turn to clear his throat.  He turns his attention to the textbook in front of him, opening it up and flipping through to find a specific page.  He effectively changes the subject, but it feels more like a bookmark has been placed on the tension that Roni just experienced.  She doesn’t necessarily hate it, she’s just never felt it before.  Not with Oliver Ward.

“So anyway,” he says,  “Are you any good at chemistry?  I’ve been stuck on this one problem for ages.”  

-----

8:19am, January 2nd, 1925

Roni wakes earlier today, refreshed and optimistic after spending a good bit of the previous night dancing and laughing with Harry.  She feels much more at peace and surprisingly less disappointed to wake up in 1925 than she was yesterday. In fact, she’s optimistic at the prospect of what today might hold, and she’s feeling thankful that she’s here with Harry instead of with any other guy. She does however, feel a pang of guilt at the fact that she’s made Harry spend yet another night on his couch.  She decides she’s going to work something out with him; maybe they switch off the bed every other night she’s here-- for however long that may be.

With a long stretch that cracks her entire body,  she rolls out of bed-- careful not to move too quickly since she’s already seeing stars.  She adjusts Harry’s boxers around her waist, combing her hand through her hair and preparing herself to find Harry cooking breakfast again. Maybe she can even help him. She smiles to herself at the thought.

Roni tries not to think about last night. How good it felt being so close to Harry, and how wonderful he had smelled.  She refuses to acknowledge the tension that had singed the air, the way he’d watched her and clung to her every move, and the way he’d laughed not at her, but with her.  The night had been Roni’s first taste of normalcy in the past few days, and she’s beyond grateful to Harry for making that a possibility-- tension or not.

The closer to the door she gets, however, she notices she doesn’t smell or hear anything. In fact, it sounds almost completely silent in the other room. Harry hadn’t mentioned having to work today.

That’s odd.

She pushes the door open as quietly as possible , deciding that Harry must still be asleep. She doesn’t want to bother him and she figures she can sneak a shower in before he wakes up— effectively minimizing any awkward encounters that involve her in a towel.

And then she sees it.

Roni stops dead in her tracks at the sight before her. There’s Harry, splayed out and sitting so ungracefully-- legs spread wide and toes curling into the carpet beneath the pooling fabric of his trousers, and a hand wrapped tightly around his cock.

His bottom lip is tucked between his teeth, eyes closed in concentration as his hand pumps up and down, slower towards the bottom of his shaft and more rapid jerks of his wrist the higher up he gets.  When Roni hears him muttering a curse word under his breath, her blood runs cold.

She can’t help herself. It feels like a train wreck or some other disaster that she can’t help but watch.  He’s so much longer than she would have guessed. Not that she’d given it any thought in the past few days, because truth be told she really hadn’t.  If she’d had to guess, she probably would’ve at least been a bit generous with her assumptions, sure, but never this generous. He’s so well endowed she can’t tell if she wants to drool over it or just shake his hand and congratulate him.

The whole vision is just so… beautiful in an odd way, and Roni’s mouth waters when she spares a thought for what he must taste like.

Get it together, Roni. Fuck.

She turns to head back into the bedroom to leave him to it, but her ears perk when she hears him mutter another curse word and a few other filthy things that he would probably say if he were fucking up into someone.

No fucking way.

She’s not doing this right now. There’s no way she’s going to indulge in any of this, and she knows she really needs to close the door and get back in bed. Never mind the fact that she’d had the same idea as Harry last night once she’d gotten in bed, and had to physically stop herself from doing anything to ease the dull ache and wetness between her legs.  She’d settled on squeezing her thighs together every now and then to see if that would relieve any pressure (it didn’t) and had simply gone to bed telling herself she was absolutely batshit crazy.

She wasn’t going to get herself off in this boy’s bed, and she certainly wasn’t going to entertain any crazy fever dream fantasies about him either.

But now here he is, doing the exact same thing that she’d been so tempted to do, whimpering out what sounds like maybe the filthiest dirty talk she’s ever heard, and she feels like she’s going to pass out.

Harry’s head falls back against the couch, and his eyes flutter closed as an almost inaudible sigh passes his wet lips.  “Fuck, you’re so tight,” he mumbles.  “Soaked for me, aren’t you?”

Does this happen often?  Who is he thinking of?  Who, in his mind, is fucking him so good that he’s practically crying alone on his couch?  Roni feels a brief pang of jealousy followed by guilt and a mental slap to the face to remind herself to get it the fuck together.

Roni allows herself a few more moments to watch him tease himself, watching his swollen cock drip with his pre-cum, and she can’t help but to lick her lips when she sees the way his lips curl around his teeth. With eyebrows furrowed, Harry slaps a hand across his mouth to mute his pitiful whimpers.  He’s close, and Roni decides that now is as good a time as any to go back into the bedroom and grant him his privacy.

Silently closing the door behind her, Roni lets out all of her air in one long exhale and stares at the wall opposite her.  Try as she might (or might not), she can’t get the image out of her brain.  How is she supposed to face him later? Is this even something she should bring up? How would she even start that conversation? And what kind of response would that warrant from him? Surely he’d think she was snooping, and probably be mad at her for invading his privacy.

Roni presses the heels of her palms to her eyes, willing the image of him getting himself off to completely exit her brain.  She takes a few minutes to breathe, pacing around the room to get this strangely nervous energy out of her system, before sitting down on the bed with another long sigh.  She knows she’s got no choice but to wait it out now, and for some reason it makes her anxiety a million times worse than it was before.

It’s a few minutes later when Roni hears the bathroom door close, and finally she feels brave enough to make her way back into the living room of the apartment.  She moves slowly, still, as if afraid to make too much noise, and bites at her lip as she makes her way into the quiet room.

No one would ever guess that the events of a few minutes ago had even occurred.  The couch looks completely untouched, the little blanket Harry’s been using at night folded up and slung neaty across the arm.  The air does feel unmistakably hotter in here (or maybe that’s just Roni), but otherwise everything is perfectly still and normal.

She makes her way unsurely into the kitchen.  Should she make herself at home and start cooking?  It would be a nice gesture on her part, and a somewhat wordless apology for the slight invasion of privacy.  Even if she wasn’t outright apologizing, it would definitely clear her conscience.

Roni reaches up to open one of the cabinets to see if there’s anything available to make for breakfast.  It blows her mind that Harry doesn’t have a simple pantry in his apartment, although she’s not even sure a pantry would fit given the size of the place.

She frowns when she’s met with stacks of plates behind the cabinet door.  Where the hell does Harry keep his food anyway?

The refrigerator in the corner of the kitchen is no bigger than a box, and when she opens it she’s met with even less food than she’d been expecting.  Does Harry even eat?

“Oh! Morning!”

Roni turns with a start when she hears Harry’s pleasant greeting, his tone now a stark contrast to the desperate whimper it was just minutes ago.  Roni’s entire body shivers at the memory.

“Hey!” she greets as normally as possible. “Morning.”

Harry walks over to pour himself a glass of water.  “Sleep alright?”

“M-hm!”  Does he know that she knows?

“That’s good.”  Harry smiles, completely innocent.  “You’re up earlier this morning.  Did I wake you?”

“What?”  It takes Roni a moment to realize he’s not referring to that, and she laughs nervously.  “Oh, no, you’re good.  Just like, my natural clock I guess.”

“You’re getting more used to being here.”  Harry grins.  “Wonderful.”

Roni smiles at him a tick too long, and she turns her attention to the cupboards.  “Anyway,” she says,  “Can I help with breakfast?”

“You don’t have to do that!”

“I want to!”

“You’re a guest.”

Roni shrugs.  “Not really.  Not anymore.  I told you I’ve gotta earn my keep around here.”

Harry chuckles, shaking his head at her.  “Alright.”  He blows his messy morning hair off of his face and glances around the kitchen, pondering what to even suggest. “Well, I haven’t got much.”

“Eggs are fine again!” Roni suggests, before a thought pops into her mind.  “Actually, got anything to make pancakes?”

Harry beams.  “I think I do.”

“Perfect! Pancakes are my specialty.”

Roni and Harry set to work then, falling comfortably into step side by side as they weave their way around the kitchen.  They launch immediately into conversation as they work, and it all feels so disgustingly domestic and comfortable that Roni almost forgets there’s anything abnormal about her situation. (She also temporarily forgets what she just saw on the couch minutes ago, although every time she catches a glimpse of his hand she is so painfully reminded.)  They discuss buying Roni new clothes, since she is going to be here for the foreseeable future, and Roni asks several questions about what to expect when entering the roaring 20s.  Harry answers her, “lots of lions” and when she doesn’t understand right away, he giggles through his explanation of,  “‘Roaring.’ Get it? Sorry.”

It’s when they’re sitting at the table side by side, shoveling pancakes into their mouths, that Roni shifts topics.

“Your eye looks better!”

Harry chuckles.  “It does, doesn’t it? Just got a look at it in the mirror.  The swelling  has gone down significantly.”

“Thank goodness,” Roni nods.  “We have to be looking our best tonight, after all. We’re still on for dancing?”

Harry smiles around his glass of milk as he sips, and there’s a brief moment where he forgets to wipe his milk mustache off in which Roni completely melts.  “‘Course we are,” he says with a nod.

“What kinds of places are we going?  Like are we just gonna go bar hopping?  Or like… what’s the plan?  What should I prepare for?  Should I wear comfy shoes?”

Harry makes a face, not answering her right away. He opens his mouth, then closes it again.  He takes another sip of milk, and now Roni is wondering if she’s said something wrong, because his entire demeanor shifts.  “What?  Is that not how it works here?”

Harry won’t even look at her, but the smile on his face hardly falters-- if anything it just looks a bit more regretful.  “No,” he says.  “It’s not that.”

Roni frowns.  “Well, we don’t have to go if you don’t want to! We can just--”

“It isn’t that either.”  Harry finally looks at Roni with embarrassment.  He hesitates to speak, until she presses him with a look.  He sighs.  “Veronica, I have to tell you something.”

Roni hates those words.  Any time someone has said something to her along those lines, it is almost always followed by bad news.  She leans closer to him.  “What’s wrong?”

“I… don’t have enough money… to take you to several places. I can only afford one, and it’s only because I know the guy who owns it.”

Roni still doesn’t understand, so she shakes her head and places her hand on Harry’s arm reassuringly.  “Harry, that’s not a big deal, I don’t mind if--”

“No, listen.  Please.  I have to tell you this because it’s gone on for too long, and I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to hide it from you.”  

Roni swallows, preparing herself for the worst.  Harry’s got a wife and child living somewhere else that he has to support, and they don’t know about this apartment.  Harry is sick and dying and only has enough money to pay his medical bills for the next couple of months until he shrivels away.  Harry has--

“I don’t have a job.”

Oh.

Roni blinks back at him, trying to find the proper words to go about responding to him.  She isn’t mad by any means, but he’s looking at her like she should be.  His cheeks burn red, and his skin under Roni’s hand feels hot to the touch.  He licks his lips, raising his eyebrows expectantly at her, and she realizes she’s just been sitting here with her mouth open.  She shakes her head, and speaks with as much gentleness as she can conjure up.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know.  I really don’t.  I don’t think I anticipated you being here as long as you are-- which, I’m so happy that you are, by the way-- so I didn’t think it would come up.  And now I want to take you out and buy you clothes, and I still very much intend to do that, because I do have money left over for that.  But I just can’t do it to the extent that I would like to.  And it’s awful, because I really would love to show you around, take you to several dance places, etcetera etcetera, but…. I can’t.”

The amount of sadness in Harry’s eyes makes Roni’s heart feel heavy, and she gives his arm a squeeze.  “Harry,” she sighs.  

“Are you disappointed?”

“Of course I’m not disappointed.  If anything, I’m disappointed in myself.  I’ve been so selfish this entire time--”

“Don’t do that.”

“--But if I’d known, I could’ve helped!”

Harry chuckles, and it’s the first time in a few minutes that he seems like himself again. “How on earth could you have helped?”

“I don’t know,” Roni shrugs, “but we would’ve found a way.  You’re doing so much to help me, I can’t just sit here and let that happen without returning the favor!”

“There’s no favor to return,” Harry says with a smile.  “It’s my pleasure.”

Roni sits back in her chair, already brainstorming and completely ignoring his words.  “Lets see,” she says, drumming her fingers along the table top.   “I don’t need clothes--”

“Yes you do.”  Harry snorts.  “You’re practically swimming in mine.”

“Yeah but--”

Harry holds up his hand to stop her.  “I’ve got that part covered, Veronica.  I promise you.”

Roni rolls her eyes.  “Fine.  One outfit--”

“Two.”  Harry cuts her off again, his cheeky smile fully returning to his face.  “At the very least.  You need one for tonight and another for anything else.”

“But--”

“I’ve already got it all sorted.  You’re not going to persuade me otherwise.”  

“So you’re just gonna blow the last of your money… on me?”

“Not the last of it!” Harry shrugs, then laughs when Roni scoffs.  “Love,  I didn’t tell you this to worry you.  I’ll find another job sooner or later.  I just told you so that you wouldn’t be let down when I turn out to be a rather disappointing date.”

“You’re not disappointing.”  Roni frowns.  “We’re gonna get you a job, alright?”

“I believe you!” Harry says, popping another piece of pancake into his mouth.

“Starting today.”

“Today?!”  Harry speaks through a mouthful and swallows a bit harder than he’d intended.  “No, love, today is about finding you clothes--”

“And finding you a job.”  Roni grins brilliantly at him.   “We’re doing both at the same time.”  When Harry narrows his eyes at her, she only giggles and echoes his own words back at him.  “You’re not going to persuade me otherwise.”

Harry rolls his eyes, but his dimpled smile has returned full force.  He shakes his head and takes another bite.  “You’re something else, aren’t you?”

“Yep,” Roni pops the ‘p’ at the end of the world before taking a sip of her milk.  “So hurry up and finish breakfast.  We’ve got a busy day ahead of us.”

----

It’s three hours later when Roni and Harry find themselves downtown, after an hour of cleaning up their messes in the kitchen and Harry awkwardly explaining to Roni how the shower worked.  They’d wasted no time in buying Roni the appropriate outfits,  and she’d changed in the restroom at a high end cafe.  (The looks she’d received were actually quite hysterical-- dressed in Harry’s clothes and entering the women’s restroom only to emerge wearing a brown dress, stockings, and brand new shoes.)

Roni’s first time stepping out of Harry’s apartment and into the daylight had been surreal.  She’d felt dizzy several times, especially when comparing the shops and restaurants along the streets now to the ones of her own time.  It wasn’t that she didn’t know her way around; she knew this city like the back of her hand.  But seeing everything-- and everyone-- so different is a feeling unlike anything she’d ever experienced in her life.

But now here she is, dressed the part and feeling a hundred times more confident and present than before.  She and Harry had visited numerous businesses for him to apply to, and each one had given them roughly the same answer.  Promises to call seemed to only crush Harry’s spirit, which Roni understood.  But she’d remained as positive and enthusiastic about the entire process as she could, and now here she is-- encouraging him to just pop into one more store with her.  

“What if they’re the ones that are gonna offer you a job, you know?”

“Or they’ll just promise to call me,” Harry says with a shrug.  “You know how those things work.  They promise to call and they never do.”

Roni is about to launch into an entire spiel about how Harry is only going to attract what he puts out there and he shouldn’t be going into this with a negative attitude, when something catches her eye.

“Oh my god.”  

She stops dead in her tracks, and it takes Harry a moment to notice she isn’t behind him.  He turns to see Roni staring in disbelief at one of the little shops along the strip.  He follows her gaze to understand what she’s so struck by, but it only confuses him more.  “What, the tobacco place?”

“No, the book store.”  Roni feels like crying and she doesn’t even know why.  It’s not a particularly emotional moment by any means, but it’s strange and surreal and the only thing her body can think to do with all of the unusual feelings she’s feeling is to expel them through tears.  

She doesn’t end up crying, not really, but she does have to blink the mist out of her eyes to make sure she isn’t seeing anything.

The sign above the book shop is the same one she’d gotten so used to seeing nearly every day of her life in the 90s, but now it’s got a fresh coat of paint and it’s bright and shiny rather than weathered with time.  It reads, loud and proud in white paint: The Little Read Book, and Roni laughs in disbelief.

If Roni remembers correctly, the shop was opened in 1920-- which technically is five years ago-- by Eileen’s grandmother, and Roni realizes that that means Eileen isn’t born yet, and won’t be for another ten years.

“Harry,” Roni says quietly to a patient Harry who’s been waiting for her to say something,  “I work there.”

“What?”  Harry scoffs, glancing from the shop to Roni’s awe-stricken face.  “What on earth do you-- oh.”  It finally dawns on Harry, only now he isn’t sure at all what the proper way to respond to this situation would be.  He clears his throat.  “You don’t say?  Well, that’s interesting.”

Without thinking, Roni grabs Harry’s hand and yanks him with her as she makes her way to the shop.  “We have to go in,” she says, completely unaware of the way Harry is blushing at her small hand in his.

A familiar bell rings the moment Roni opens the door, and out of habit she wants to call out a greeting to Eileen. The shop smells exactly the same, and it’s organized almost identically to the way it looks in the 90s. The difference is on the walls- there are significantly less photographs covering them, and the ones that are tacked to the green wallpaper are fresh and not yellowed with age.

A few customers walk among the shelves, talking quietly to themselves, and faint jazz music plays from the radio behind the front desk.  The radio is still there in Roni’s time, but it has long since stopped working, and seeing it in all its glory is something so surreal that Roni gets dizzy all over again.

“May I help you?”

Roni turns her attention to a girl much younger than her rounding the corner carrying an armful of books.  Roni’s knee-jerk reaction is to go help the girl but she refrains-- reminding herself that she does not, in fact, work here at the moment.

The girl plops the pile onto the desk and Roni gets a glimpse of her nametag.  It reads “Daisy” in a plain blue font, and Roni wracks her brain trying to remember if she’s ever heard this name before and if this person holds any significance in Eileen’s life.

It’s Harry who speaks first.  “Hi, I was wondering if you had any available positions open?”

The question takes both Daisy and Roni by surprise, and Roni can’t stop her jaw from falling practically on the floor.  Of course it makes sense for him to work here, and she wishes she’d come up with the idea herself. She’d been so shocked to see this place in the context it’s in now, that she’d forgotten all about the task at hand.  A pang of guilt strikes her belly for a brief moment.

Daisy blinks back surprise, a pleasant smile growing on her face.  “Really?”

“Yes ma’am.”  Harry beams,  “I’m looking to start as soon as possible.”

Daisy eyes Harry for a moment, stopping briefly on his still faint-purple eye, before leaning against the counter and grinning.  “What’s your name?”

“Harry,” he replies, holding out his hand.  “Styles.”

Daisy shakes his hand with a smile before turning expectantly to Roni, and now Roni suddenly feels put on the spot.

“Uh,” she stammers, reaching to shake Daisy’s hand.  “I’m Roni.”

Daisy makes a face, cocking her head to one side.  “As in Ronald?”

Harry snorts, and Roni sighs.  “No, Veronica.  Sorry, I should’ve been more clear.”

“No!” Daisy says, “It’s just a unique name.  I’ve never heard anything like that before.  I like it.  Are you interested in a position as well?”  Her bright beautiful smile returns back to her face, and it’s the first time that Roni’s really looked closely. She can clearly see the almost chilling resemblance to Eileen now, and it makes her feel woozy.

It takes everything in Roni not to explain the situation, but how would she even start?  

Actually, I do work here, but not right now-- seventy-four years into the future, and I can give you my official employee reference for you to hire Harry!

Roni sees Harry smirking at her as if he’s thinking the same thing she is, and she giggles nervously.  “No.  Thank you though.”

“Alright, but if you change your mind, I’m always hiring!”  Daisy makes her way behind the counter to organize the books as she speaks.  “My name is Daisy Hartford. I actually recently took over the business with my husband Lawrence.  My mother opened the shop five years ago, but she gave the business to us when we got married last summer.”

Roni tunes Daisy out as she comes to the realization that Daisy is Eileen’s mother.  It feels so strange to see this young girl, likely no older than nineteen, running a business that Roni knows by heart, and speaking of her mother and her husband so candidly.  She doesn’t know that she’s going to have four children, and that one of them is going to be Eileen.  She doesn’t know that Eileen is going to take over the shop one day.  Hell, she probably doesn’t even know that the shop is going to make it another seventy-four plus years.  She doesn’t know any of this-- but Roni does.

Daisy continues rambling, bringing Roni out of her thoughts.  “I love it, but I could use all the help I can get.  Especially once we start having little ones running around, do you know what I mean?  I’m sure the two of you understand.”

Harry’s smirk only deepens while Roni feels her face is on fire. Her voice is so quiet that even she has a hard time hearing herself. “Oh, we’re not--”

“Well” Daisy unintentionally cuts Roni off, smiling sweetly.  “I’m sure I don’t need to bore you with my story.”  She turns to Harry with a pointed look.  “Mr. Styles.  Have you any experience working with books?”

Roni can almost hear the panic bells going off in Harry’s head, but his exterior remains cool and collected.  “I do not,” he says,  “But I am a fast learner.”

“Excellent.”  Daisy flips nonchalantly through a book before setting it aside.  “And your current employer is whom?”

Harry swallows, his ego clearly slightly bruised.  He fidgets with his fingers when he talks, drawing Roni’s attention to the fact that even she’s fidgeting with her ring out of pure nervousness.  “I don’t have one, ma’am.  But my previous employer was Milton and Sons.  I made shoes.”

“Oh, how funny!  I’ve got a pair of Miltons on right now!”  Daisy kicks out her leg a bit to show off her shoes, and it makes both Roni and Harry giggle.

“Those are quite nice,” Harry says.  “I’ll bet I made them.”

“I’ll bet you did!”  Daisy beams, before realizing that this is still a job interview-- albeit a very lax one. She clears her throat and settles herself down.  “Alright, alright.  Next question.  Why The Little Read Book?”

It’s another one of those moments where Roni wants to jump in, and Harry can see her internal struggle.  “Well,” he says slowly,  “A dear friend of mine recommended this place.”

“Did he?  What’s his name?”

Harry’s lips twitch.  “Ronald.”

Roni nearly chokes, but Harry remains completely serious as Daisy thinks long and hard.  “Ronald…. Mr. Whitley?  He comes in here quite often.”

“Maybe,” Harry says with a shrug. “I’ve never caught his last name before.  But in any case, Ronald has been coming here for years now.  He speaks very highly of this place.  Says it feels like home to him.  And I can see why.  You’ve got a remarkable business here, Mrs. Hartford.”

Daisy beams.  “Thank you! That’s lovely to hear.”  

After a few more questions that almost all lead into a conversation of some sort, Roni, Daisy, and Harry feel like three chums just hanging out and having a chat.  Which was something Eileen had constantly told Roni about Daisy.

“My mother could befriend a rock if you gave her enough time,” Eileen would say.  “She would hold conversation with just about anyone.  Everybody loved her, and with good reason.”

Now that she’s meeting her, Roni would have to agree.

“Well, Mr. Styles,” Daisy says through a sigh.  “I suppose I’ve just got one question left for you, and it’s the most important one.”

Harry nods.  “Shoot.”

“When can you start?”

Roni can tell that Harry wants to leap up in the air and celebrate.  She knows how much this means to him and, frankly, she’s feeling the exact same way.  She beams at Harry, expectantly awaiting his answer.  While he remains as calm as possible, there is no denying the dimple on his cheek showing just how happy he is.

“Tomorrow?” Harry raises his eyebrows questioningly.

“We’re closed tomorrow.”  Roni and Daisy say this at the same time, and when Daisy shoots Roni a look of confusion, Roni fumbles over an explanation.  Truth be told, it was merely force of habit.  But that isn’t something she has time to explain to Daisy, so she shrugs.

“Sorry, I’ve just-- tried to come in here a few times on Saturdays and Sundays and always realized you were closed.  Made that mistake too many times.  Ha. Sorry.”

This is a tradition no longer kept in 1999, but Roni remembers the days when both Saturdays and Sundays were off days.  In 1998 Eileen had decided to open up Saturdays for business, keeping Sundays blocked off because “I’m a God-fearing woman, Veronica.”   But still, it is Roni’s knee-jerk reaction to respond the way that she just has, and she’s thankful that Daisy bought her explanation.

“Right,” Daisy giggles.  “Well, in any case, Mr. Styles, are you free to start Monday around eleven?”

Harry nods.  “Monday around eleven sounds great.”

“Wonderful!  I can’t wait to work with you.”  She turns to Roni.  “And I’m sure I’ll be seeing much more of you in here, Mrs. Styles.”

Roni opens her mouth to say something but is cut off immediately by Harry taking her hand and tugging her towards the door.  “Right, lovely to meet you, Mrs. Hartford.  I’ll see you Monday at eleven, and not a minute later!”

The door closes behind them and they’re back outside, squinting at one another in the sunlight.  Harry’s smiling like an excited little boy, and after a moment of watching him, Roni presses him with a nudge.  “Well?”

“Veronica,” Harry says softly, “We fucking did it.”

It’s the first time Roni’s heard Harry (knowingly) curse in front of her, and it makes her giggle at his unfiltered excitement.  She takes both of Harry’s hands in hers and squeezes, beaming up at him before just giving in and wrapping her arms around his torso.  She gives him a tight squeeze and leans affectionately into him.

“Hell yeah,” she says,  “We fucking did.”

----

“Harryyy,” Roni whines from the bathroom.

“Yes, love?”

Roni sighs loudly, and the noise makes Harry chuckle to himself from his spot on the couch.  “You can’t laugh, okay?”

“Why would I laugh?”

“Because.”  Roni opens the door a crack, barely peeking her head out to look at Harry.  “I need help.”

It’s a few hours later and Harry and Roni have found themselves back at Harry’s place to freshen up for the evening.  Roni had insisted she’d be fine changing in another public restroom, but Harry had refused-- saying that he needed to get changed into something “spiffier.”

The outfit Harry had bought for Roni seemed nice enough, but now that she’s actually trying to do up the buttons in the back while keeping the sash tied correctly, she’s realizing just how complicated the entire outfit is. It doesn’t help that the only bra she has is the one she’d been wearing the night she arrived, which is very modern in comparison to the rest of the dress.   Try as she might, there is no way she could manage getting the buttons all done up herself.  So she’d swallowed her pride, and now here she is-- pitifully asking Harry for help.

Harry looks lovely, of course, and it’s the nicest Roni has seen him dress the entire time she’s been here.  He’s in a gray suit buttoned up the front, and a nice pair of leather shoes that, admittedly could use a bit of a shine but are altogether so handsome and so Harry.  He completes the entire ensemble with a little gray cap on his head-- because of course he does-- and Roni suddenly feels self conscious when he looks at her.

He smiles knowingly, rising to his feet and heading towards the bathroom door.  “Too advanced for you then?”

Roni pouts, stepping out of the bathroom in the half buttoned, half tied mess of a dress.  “I just can’t get the buttons done,” she huffs.  “And the belt won’t stay tied!”

Harry snorts, picking up the ribbon that droops around Roni’s waist.  “It doesn’t go there.”

Roni rolls her eyes.  “Well that would’ve been nice to know ten minutes ago.”

“Alright, alright,”  Harry says through another laugh.  “Turn around.”

Roni complies without thinking, and Harry’s breath catches in his throat the moment she does.  

It’s the first time he’s seen a woman’s bare back in, god, he doesn’t even know how long.  She’s gotten the buttons done up herself all the way to the spot just before her back dips into her bottom, and Harry subconsciously licks his lips at the involuntary thought of what lies beneath the southernmost button.  The lace of her brassiere clings delicately to her back, and although Harry has seen a decent amount of brassieres in his lifetime, he’s never quite seen one this intricate.  He would give anything to unlatch it and place his lips to the spot on her skin where it rested, but he knows he can’t.  He knows he’s got a job to do here, and she’s waiting.

Harry doesn’t realize he’s been staring for so long until Roni speaks. “What, did I mess it up?”

“Yes” Harry says, praying that Roni doesn’t notice the audible crack in his voice.  “But it’s okay.  Nothing I can’t fix.”

With shaky hands Harry works to fasten the buttons up her back.  Roni sighs, seemingly unaware of the way Harry trembles behind her.  For some reason the fact that this is completely normal to Roni, in a time where it’s scandalous for any unwed woman to present herself to a man this way, is making this all the more sexy to him.  He licks his lips, focusing on getting this done as quickly as possible so as not to make it weird, while also savoring the moment as much as he can.  

He can feel the heat from her skin, and he can smell his shampoo in her hair, and he closes his eyes to allow the scent to fill his nose.  Should he say something?  Is he being weird by not saying anything?  Can she feel how absolutely tense he is as he tries to focus on not touching her for too long?  He’s completely short-circuited, and he gulps trying to come up with something to talk about.

When Harry’s finger accidentally grazes a spot on Roni’s back, she jolts, starling Harry.

“Sorry, sorry!” Harry blurts.  “Did I hurt you?”

“No, no, it’s just-- your hands are cold.”

“Oh.” Idiot.  “Sorry.”

“No,” Roni says again.  “It felt… good.”

“Oh.”  

Can he say anything other than oh?

Harry watches as goosebumps prickle Roni’s skin, and he moves slower now, taking special care to brush his fingers against her back occasionally.  If she said it felt good, it’s all he can do to keep her feeling that way.   She swallows and audibly exhales,  and the goosebumps never fade or shrink.  

Harry doesn’t know why it happens this way with her.  Everything is always so friendly and normal, and then the most casual and mundane thing sets him off.  He knows she feels it too, because even over her shoulder he can see her eyes nervously darting around with every controlled breath she takes.   She, too, looks like she wants to say something and can’t find the words, but Harry doesn’t mind.  The higher he gets with her buttons, the slower he goes.

With a shaky hand, Harry reaches up to gather Roni’s hair in his hand and gently brushes it over her shoulder and out of his way.  She shivers when he does this, and it makes him smile to himself.  If ever he should be lucky enough to be this close to Roni again, he needs to remember that she likes to have her hair played with.

When he finally reaches the top button, he takes his time fastening it.  He doesn’t realize that he and Roni are both holding their breaths until both of them let it out in a sigh.  He closes his eyes briefly, willing time to stop just for moment so that he can savor this longer, but he has no time to linger on the thought before Roni is spinning around to face him.

“Does it look okay?  Like seriously, do I like… fit with the times?”

She looks genuinely worried, and her eyes scan his for any sign of humor in his response.  

How can Harry tell her that she looks like a dream?  She looks like everything he’s ever wanted and so, so much more.  Of course he’d gone a tad over his planned budget in buying her this outfit, but seeing her here, wearing it and looking like that makes it all worth it.  Were dresses like this supposed to fit this way?  He’s never seen a dress look so good on anybody before, and he doesn’t know how on earth to tell her that without frightening her off.

So he keeps his composure as much as he can, smiling mischievously down at her.  “Not yet.”

He reaches for the tie that Roni had mislabeled a belt and, feeling bolder now, unties it from around her hips.  She squirms a bit in his grasp but she isn’t smiling, not yet, and Harry realizes that fitting in is something incredibly important to her.

“Right, hold still.”  Harry loops the tie around the back of Roni’s neck, brushing her hair up over it and smiling when he notices the goosebumps on her skin once again.  He watches her face closely as he ties the tie in a loose knot in the middle of her chest.  She won’t look at him anymore, but there’s a hint of a smile gracing her pretty lips, so he knows he’s got her where he wants her.   He secures the knot and takes the two loose ends of the tie in his hands, yanking her gently closer to him.

Roni stumbles and gasps softy, before glaring up at him.  “Hey, careful! I could’ve--”

She trails off when she sees the way he’s smiling at her, and she softens immediately.  Her eyes hold an almost indiscernible worry, and if Harry had blinked he would’ve missed the way they darted down to his lips for just a split second.

Harry smirks.  “Now you look perfect.”

Roni giggles nervously, a red tint glowing from her cheeks as she averts her gaze.  She seems to come back to her senses slowly, and Harry is pleased with the effect he has on her.

“Thanks,” she says softly, stepping back and out of the circle of his arms,  “For… helping me.  I don’t mean to be so helpless it’s just…. You know.”

Harry nods.  “I do know,” he says with a reassuring smile.”  He places a hand on his belly.  “I also know that my stomach has been growling for the last hour, and I’m itching to show you off on that dance floor.”  He offers her his arm, grinning smugly down at her.  “So.  Shall we?”

---

The New York air is much colder now, and Roni leans closer to Harry for warmth as they walk.  She’s significantly less afraid now that she looks the part, even going so far as to give passersby a few polite head nods and a quick “good evening!”

Harry grins down at her, squeezing her arm with his own.  “You’re a proper lady now, aren’t you?”

Roni takes on her best posh accent, making Harry snort when she talks.  “Well I look the part, darling, but now I’ve got to act it, haven’t I?”

Through residual giggles, Harry shakes his head.  “You had me up until the accent.”

“What a shame,” Roni says, making her accent even thicker and giggling to herself.  “I’ll have to work on that.”

A clocktower in the distance chimes six o’clock as Harry and Roni finally approach their destination.   It’s busier than Roni had anticipated, but then again it is Friday night. This seems like the place to be, and if this is the only place Harry can take her tonight, he definitely picked a good one.

Harry talks briefly with the host at the front desk, who he’d mentioned to Roni that he was friends with, but Roni doesn’t even pay attention to anything being said.  She instead takes this time to really study the place.  Several round tables surround the large dance floor.  If Roni remembers correctly, this building is a roller rink in her time, and it’s so strange to see it as something so drastically different now.  

It’s also strange to see how many people are smoking indoors here, and Roni coughs when a woman walks by and wafts cigarette smoke into her face.

They’re seated shortly at a smaller table in the corner, and when the host returns back to his post, Harry beams at Roni.  “So? What do you think?”

“It’s cute!” Roni says. “It’s weird because I’ve been here but you know, like… in the 90s.”

“Yeah?  Is it pretty much the same?”

“Not at all,” Roni laughs.  “I mean the big dance area kind of looks the same I guess.  But it’s a huge roller rink.”

“A what?” Harry scrunches up his face, but doesn’t even give Roni a chance to answer him. “Oh, like for roller skates?”

“Yeah!”

Harry looks out at the dance floor thoughtfully. “Gee. So that area is just filled with people roller skating, huh?  That’s odd to think about.”

The waiter approaches, quickly shifting both Harry and Roni’s attention.  He informs them that his name is Stanley, goes over a few of the food specials for the evening, and then asks them what they’d like to drink.  Harry orders a lemonade, and then both he and Stanley turn to Roni expectantly.

“Yeah, uh, I’ll take a rum and coke, please.”

If a record-scratch silence was such a thing in these times, it would have happened at that exact moment.  Stanley, the people at the next table over, and even Harry all stare at her as if her order is the most scandalous thing they’ve ever heard.  Roni stares back blankly, trying to gather what on earth the problem could be, before finally looking to Harry for help.

Harry catches on quickly, laughing dryly and leaning across the table to place a hand on Roni’s.  “She’s joking, of course,” he says.  “She’ll just have a coca-cola.  Please.  Thank you so much.”

Stanley lingers a moment, as if processing what just happened, before turning slowly on his heels and making his way to the kitchen.

When Harry is sure the waiter is out of earshot, he leans across the table with a serious look.  “Don’t do that,” he hisses quietly.

“Do what?!” Roni asks incredulously.  “Order a drink?  What, are women not allowed to drink here?”

Harry chuckles.  “Actually no one is.”

“What the fuck?” Roni says, biting her tongue the moment it escapes her lips because she knows she shouldn’t be cursing like that in public.  Not here at least. She glances around to make sure no one heard her, then lowers her voice.  “Why not?”

Harry grins smugly.  “You mean to tell me the prohibition isn’t something significant in the future?  Like it just… ends?”

Roni rolls her eyes.  “Oh god,” she says.  “The prohibition.  Forgot about that.”

“Ah.”  Harry nods.  “So you’ve heard of it.”

Roni pouts.  “Yeah, and it sucks.”

“You’re telling me,” Harry says through a laugh.

“I guess just a coke is fine though,”  Roni admits.  “Probably don’t need anything making me more disoriented me more than I already am.”

“That’s the spirit.”

Roni sighs, glancing around the restaurant again in another attempt to take it all in.  When she catches the eye of an older lady a few tables over, she notices the woman is frowning at her, and she shifts in her seat. “Are people staring?  They’re definitely staring.  Did you button me up wrong?”

“I didn’t,” Harry says. “Maybe they’re staring because of how beautiful you look.”

Roni’s cheeks grow hot and she rolls her eyes, but she can’t suppress the smile on her face. “Harry--”

“I’m serious!” he says.  “That dress is divine.  I must say, whoever picked it for you has excellent taste.”

“Hey, I picked it out, too.” Roni sticks her tongue out at Harry.

“Maybe so,” Harry says with a shrug,  “But of the two of us, I’m the one with the fashion sense here.”

Roni opens her mouth to protest, but Harry only rises to his feet and holds his hand out for her. “Anyway,” he says, “care to dance?”

At first Roni feels awkward on the crowded dance floor.  Everyone around her seems so experienced, and there she is stumbling around like she’s never even heard music before in her life.  She accidentally bumps into several people, and Harry always calmly apologizes for her before jumping right into the impromptu dance lesson he’s giving her.  Of course she feels bad, but he’s so encouraging (and went through all the trouble to get them here), so she puts on a brave face and soldiers through it.

By about four songs in, however, Roni’s insecurities wash further and further away with every smile or word of praise Harry gives her, and suddenly it feels like they’re the only two in the entire building.

The familiar opening chords of The Charleston begin booming from the orchestra, and Harry and Roni immediately exchange open-mouthed grins.  “You know this one!” Harry yells over the music, already beginning to tap his feet.

“No I don’t!” Roni giggles, already being swept off her feet by Harry.

Once again they’re laughing like children, stumbling over one another while Harry shouts incoherent commands at her.  

“Remember? Left, kick, left--- Veronica, focus!”

“I can’t! Not with everyone around!”

Roni finally allows her giggles to get the best of her, letting go of Harry and hunching over to clutch her belly.  Harry watches her, an endeared smile on his lips, before reaching to take her hand again. “Veronica--”

“Wait!” Roni stands up straight. “Wait, it’s my turn. Let me show you how it’s done. Ever heard of this one?”

She starts half-jumping, half- running in place and Harry lets out a loud cackle. “What on earth are you doing?”

“It’s called the running man!” Roni calls back.  “All the rage where I come from!”

Harry’s face grows redder by the second from laughing so hard, and he lets out a hacking cough. “Oh my god, you look ridiculous!”

“Yeah? Like that one? How about this one?”  Roni places her hands on either side of her face, framing her head and moving her hands from her cheeks to her chin and top of her head. . “This one is called Vogue-ing.”

Harry wipes at his eyes, clutching his stomach. “Veronica,” he says through a wet laugh, “Please, no more.”

“And here’s a classic!”  Roni goes completely stiff, bending her arms at the elbows and moving robotically. “They call this one the robot!”

“God,” Harry shakes his head, face now beet read from laughing. “You’re so bloody weird.”

“You aren’t gonna try it with me?” Roni asks.  “I try your weird dances with you!”

Harry rolls his eyes, but he knows she’s got a point. “It’s not the same.”

“It doesn’t matter!” Roni calls back. “C’mon, just try the robot one time.”

Harry glances nervously around before deciding to just completely throw caution to the wind and join her.  He goes stiff as well, mimicking her movements in the most forced and uncomfortable looking way.

Now it’s her turn to laugh, and she lets out the most adorable cackle Harry thinks he’s ever heard. “Ha! You’ve got it!”

“Do I look absolutely mental?” Harry asks through a grin.

“Absolutely, babe,” Roni says with a nod.

“Good!” Harry starts moving faster, knowing damn well he isn’t doing this dance correctly at all, until Roni can’t even dance anymore. She’s nearly on the ground with how hard she’s laughing, and both she and Harry completely ignore the dirty looks from everyone around them who’s actually taking their dancing seriously.

Harry is completely out of breath by the end of the song, and he genuinely feels he’s going to be sore tomorrow.  

But if it meant seeing Roni this happy and full of laughter, he’d take her out dancing every single night.

---

“So what was it like?”

Roni turns to Harry.  “What?”

Roni and Harry are walking home side by side, and Roni is carrying her shoes-- even though Harry had informed her several times how filthy the ground was. When they’d finally decided to stop dancing and sit down for dinner, they’d launched immediately into conversation, covering just about any topic under the sun. Harry marvels at how easy it is to talk to Roni, and he reckons he could sit and listen to her talk about absolutely nothing for days on end.

“The moment you traveled back.  I know you said it was a lucid dream of sorts, but what was it really like?  Was it like you were flying?”

“No, not really,” Roni says, and she takes a moment to think of how to explain this to him.  “It was just like walking.  But I couldn’t walk fast enough.  I wasn’t being threatened or anything.  I just knew I had somewhere to go and I didn’t think I’d get there in time.”

“Where were you trying to go?  You’d mentioned something about the 1980s… is that correct?  Something about your mum?”

Roni smiles sadly at him.  “You remember me saying that?”

“‘Course I do.”  Harry notices the sadness of Roni’s features, and he lowers his voice.  “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s okay,” Roni says wistfully.  “I wanted to go to 1985. That was the year I lost my mom.  In a car accident.”

“Oh, Veronica,” Harry coos. “I’m so sorry.”

“Cars were… well, are a lot different where I come from.  People drive like assholes.  Pardon the language.”  Harry smirks to himself.  Since when does Roni feel the need to apologize for her language?  He doesn’t have time to tease her, however, and he figures now is not the time.  So he lets her continue.

“So mom was driving to work one morning.  And this guy fell asleep at the wheel.  A trucker.  He’d been driving all night.”  Roni seems lost in her own thoughts, and Harry hangs on her every word.  “And it sucks because… it was just like any other day, you know?  We just said a normal goodbye.  She was planning on ordering pizza that night when she got home.   I asked her to take me to the pool, and she couldn’t.  She was working overtime so that she could pay for this stupid class trip for me.”  Roni shakes her head bitterly, and Harry wants to say something, but he decides to let her sort through her own thoughts.

“I just thought that… maybe if I could go back to that day I could stop her, do you know what I mean?  I thought I could maybe warn her not to leave.  She would’ve listened to me.”  Roni chuckles softly to herself.  “I was always good at persuading her.”

They round the corner, beginning their ascent up the steps to Harry’s apartment.  He finally speaks as he fumbles with his keys.  “You know you can’t give up, right?  You’ve proven that time travel is real, now it’s just a matter of perfecting the specifics.”

Roni shrugs as Harry pushes his creaky front door open for her to walk through.  “I suppose,” she says, “I just don’t know if I want to risk going to another unfamiliar time period.  I’m not sure anyone else would be as kind as you.”

Her words tug at Harry’s heart strings as he locks the door behind him.  “Can I say something?”

Roni kicks off her shoes.  “Of course.”

“I’m really glad you showed up here.”  When Roni shoots Harry a look that says “don’t be cheesy,”  he giggles.  “I mean it! You’re somebody that I feel very, very lucky to have met.  You’re an incredible person.”

“Oh stop it.”  Roni and Harry make their way through the living room, while Harry begins unbuttoning his jacket and Roni fumbles to untie the neck-tie that has been itching her skin all night.

“I’m serious,” Harry says.  “You’re intelligent.  And witty.”

Roni smirks at him.  “Alright fine, keep going.”

“And funny,”  Harry adds with a pointed look.  “Gosh, Veronica, no one makes me laugh as hard as you do, you know that?”

“The feeling is mutual, dude.”  Roni frowns down at the knot that she still hasn’t been able to get untied, and Harry keeps talking.

“You keep me on my toes, but in the best way.”  Harry wiggles out of his jacket, placing it neatly over the back of a chair. “I never know what to expect from you.”

“Good,” Roni says, distracted and still scowling at the stubborn knot.  “I want to keep it that way.”

“You’re unlike any woman-- no, any person in general, I have ever met in my life.  And I’ve met a lot of people, you know.  You’re someone special.  I feel like you were meant to come into my life, even if you came from the future.  And--”  Harry trails off when he notices her struggling. “Do you need help with that?”

Roni frowns up at him, finally giving up.  “How tight did you tie this thing?!”

Harry laughs, making his way over to her.  “Alright, c’mere.  Let me see.”

It feels good to be this close to Roni again, and although they’d spent the last roughly three and a half hours dancing closely, this feels so much better.  Harry feels the same nervous energy he’d felt while tying this thing, but somehow he’s more confident about it now, and he doesn’t shy away from standing so close to her.

“You can keep going on about how great I am if you want,” Roni teases.

“Oh can I?” Harry asks.  “Thank you for your blessing, madam.”

“Anytime!”

Harry smiles, working at the knot gently and really searching to find the right words in his mind.  “Suppose everything I’ve been saying is rather sappy, innit?”

“I don’t mind.”

Harry’s heart pounds at her words, although he isn’t exactly nervous.  “Well, may I say something else sappy?”

“We’ve made it this far, haven’t we?”

“Fair.”  Harry smiles.  Admittedly, he’s got the knot figured out and could easily side the tie off with no problem. But he likes having something for his fingers to fidget with, and he definitely  likes having his fingers so near her body.  “On top of everything else I’ve said, you are… undoubtedly… the most beautiful girl I have ever seen.”

Roni’s mouth falls open so subtly that Harry would have missed it if it wasn’t for the almost inaudible gasp that accompanied the movement.  He doesn’t look at her eyes, he instead focuses on the knot-- which he is now halfway done with.

“Harry.”

“Pardon me if I’m being too forward, Veronica.  I just think it’s high time that I let you know that.  You deserve to be told that every day.”

Harry shakes the knot a bit, effectively loosening it so that it practically slides off.  But he doesn’t let go of the fabric, holding it loosely on either side of her neck.  He swallows and she lets out a shaky breath, eyes darting frantically along his face as if she can’t decide on a place for them to land.  The mood in the room has shifted entirely just from his one confession, because they both know that his words hold so much more depth to them.  He isn’t just complimenting her to fill the silence.  He means it, and he means so much more by it.

“Can I say something as well?”  Roni says quietly, and Harry only nods.  “You’re… the most wonderful person I’ve ever known, Harry.  And I wish… I wish I’d met you sooner.”

“I consider myself incredibly lucky to have met you,” Harry says.  “And I... I don’t know how long you’re going to be here with me for.  But I already wish I had longer with you.  And I wish you were mine.”

Roni licks her lips as their eyes finally meet.  They both wear looks of confusion, a bit of fear, and so much yearning that it would make Roni sick on any other day.  But now she’s here, and she’s feeling something she’s honestly never felt in her life.  She smiles, reaching up slowly to cup his cheek and run her thumb over the spot where his dimple lives.

“I wish that, too,” she says breathlessly.

Finally. Finally it’s the moment they’ve both been waiting for for so long.  Harry tugs lightly on the tie, pulling Roni in so close that their faces are practically touching.  It would be so easy for them to just do it, just tilt their heads the slightest bit and kiss already.  Roni feels jittery and shaky, and Harry reaches up to take the wrist of the hand that cups his face.

They’re so close that Roni can feel the warmth radiating off of his skin, and she swallows down all of the words that she’s dying to say.  She licks her lips, only briefly giving in to the “what if’s” swimming around in her brain, and she removes her eyes from his swollen pink lips.  She scans the dip of his cupid’s bow, the little mole on the corner of his chin, the point of his nose, and finally his green eyes that match the intensity on his face.  Memories of the image she’d woken up to this morning float back into her mind,-- images of him, naked and swollen and whining-- and this time she lets them linger for a moment.  Enjoying the way the sight had made her feel.  Enjoying the way that that same hand feels now against her wrist.

“Harry,” Roni whispers.

Harry bumps his nose to hers, lips so close that she can practically taste them.  “Yes, love?”

Roni wants to stop herself from saying what she’s about to say.  More than anything she wants to give in to this boy who’s standing so close to her, she wants to fasten their lips together and taste him.  She wants to kiss his neck, and she wants him to kiss hers.  She wants to touch him, lick him, bury him inside of her until they pass out from exhaustion.  And she wants to wake up tomorrow and do it all over again.

But instead, she says something she almost instantly regrets.

“I can’t.”