#bc fun fact: we didn’t talk much for about 2 years and then out of the blue asks if we want to hang out months after she had a fight with

[songwritingauslly]

don’t you love it when ur friend forgets about u and ignores ur existence the second she’s near her best friend

[maevstar]

| Introducing myself in my fame dr ᯓᡣ𐭩

ᝰ. My name is Maeve Amelie Solace, but people usually call me by “Mae”.

ᝰ. I’m 26yo and I’m an A-list american actress and singer. (I was born in 1997 but I didn’t turned 27 yet).

ᝰ. I started my way on acting when I was 16 when my older brother was doing a play on high school and begged me to participate. I did, and since then I’ve been in love with acting.

ᝰ. When I graduated from high school i moved out from my hometown — Austin, Texas — to LA and entered to UCLA School of Theater.

ᝰ. My first big project in Hollywood was “The Edge of Seventeen” when I was 19-20yo, before that I just worked with small projects, mostly from my uni.

ᝰ. That project gave me more visibility in the industry and I became more well known.

ᝰ. Some of my films: The Edge of Seventeen, The School for Good and Evil (adaptation of the books), Lady bird, Scream 4 (2018), Little Woman, Causeway, We Live in a Time, Challengers, Me Before You, Glass Onion 2, Duna, Anyone but You, Don’t look up, No hard feelings, Don’t worry darling, The outrun, and etc.

ᝰ. Some of my shows: Supernatural (Claire Novak), Looking for Alasca, YOU, outer banks (season 4).

ᝰ. I’ve been nominated for the Oscar 4 times as the best Actress in a Leading Role, but I’m just gonna win the award in the 4th time (2024). Futhermore, i’ve won a lot of awards and nominations like Emmy’s and Golden Globes. In 2022, I entered the list of The Most Influential People by Time Magazine.

Now, my singer career:

ᝰ. My mom is a country singer — not much known — in Texas, so I’ve grew up loving music, and I’ve been writing songs since I was 15, but these never turned into real songs, until 2019-2020, when I recorded my EP’s.

ᝰ. My first EP is called “Minor” and it has 7 songs. I released it in 2019 just for fun, was some songs that I’ve been writing during the years. In 2020 I released more 2 EPs, called “Bittersweet” and “Good Riddance��, with 7 and 10 songs respectively, again, just for fun.

ᝰ. Now, my new coming up project on music is my first Album, called “The Secret Of Us”, it has 13 songs (+ 7 from deluxe) and all of them will have a music video, cause my objective is making a visual album.

ᝰ. With my new album, I intend to go on my first tour.

Fun facts about me:

ᝰ. I know ballet and gymnastics cause when my sister was 8 years old she wanted to learn but was scared to do it alone, so I used to go to classes with her.

ᝰ. I have 3 siblings, Will, Kayla and Austin. Will is 2 years older than me, Kayla is younger than me 4 years and Austin is 8 years younger than me. (Another fun fact is that Austin is adopted).

ᝰ. My s/o is Drew Starkey, I met him in a party at Maddie Cline’s house (2021). Also, Madelyn is my best friend and I’m very close to the cast of the outer banks too.

ᝰ. I’m in fact brazilian. I was born there but my family moved to the US when I was 8 — my father is brazilian but my mom is from us, she was in a trip when met my dad in brazil and blablabla — so I have dual nationality. (latinas are better lol). But when I was 14, I moved again to Brazil and lived there for almost 2 years with my aunt before I came back to US.

ᝰ. When I was 16, I made a YouTube channel with my brother Will and we used to talk about the most random things ever (btw it was a flop lol, this channel just came up when we became famous). (another fun fact is that he is also a well known actor, but more on theater plays than on screen).

ᝰ. When I was in high school, I was planning on going to med school — mostly because of my dad, he’s a doctor (my obsession with greys anatomy might got me inclined to that too🤭) — but then I fell in love with acting (when I was 16, like i said) and never quit. Besides that, I’m still very interested with things related to science and human body, stuff like that; most of things that I know are bc of my dad tho.

ᝰ. I’m polyglot. I speak Portuguese, English, Italian, Spanish and a bit of French and Latin. I also know ASL.

ᝰ. I still don’t know how to ride bikes without training wheels cause no one ever taught me (😭).

ᝰ. I love the sea, beaches, everything related to that, it’s one of my favorite places in the world.

mood boards; mood boards details;

─────── ୨ৎ ───────

[bugsludge]

My fantasy high jr year thoughts for episode 15

There is no context just what I would have live blogged about

THE WRITTEN TEST??? Crazy I would have died on the spot and the fact that they actually tried is crazy but they did so good for the circumstances 100 hand written words in 5 minutes is insane

Also the shrimp dragon??? I love art department so much it’s so creative and also just such a cool looking model I was dying when’s it came out

Gorgug hitting a nat 20 always makes me happy bc we jsut see more of his artificer barbarian stuff work but the 2 crist back to back Zac always has the best rolls I swear

Zacs stupid little stamp I love him sm

FIGS SPIRIT GUARDIANS WITH THE STURGES WAS SO FUNNY I live Emily so fucking much

The second pass on the math exam is so based I fucking hate math he’s so me

When the worm came out I was stunned holy shit there were so many monsters on field

FIG AGAINST THE WYVERN WAS CRAZY ALMOST 90 points of damage in one turn

Shrimp jump/shrimp party and crab king being turned into literal monsters is so funny

ZAC WITH ANOTHER NAT 20 HIS DICE ARE SO GOOD

THE WORM IS HORRIBLE OH MY GOD

ANOTHER NAT 20 WHAT THE FUCK ZAC

“My kid got a 7… my kid got a 1”Lou and ally talking about their dice in the same tone as the Charlie Brown Halloween quote is so fucking funny

Gavin is the mvp I love him, fantasy high npcs are always so funny

Fig eliminating a full wyvern as well as a bunch of fantasy mosquitoes with little to no effort on her part is insane she’s so cracked

Fabian fighting for his life to just…. Not be held by a monster for a turn is so funny. This shouldn’t be his turn for most rounds as an extremely Dex character lmao

The hangman with 2 nat 20s on an attack on a giant crab is hilarious bc Lou’s rolls have been mid this whole time ahsjdjd

Fig kissing the fucking pentacorn mid battle is the most Emily thing she could choose to do her playstyle is my favorite thing in the entire world

FIGS SPIRIT GAURDIANS COME IN CLUTCH SO MUCH HOLY SHIT

KIPPERLILY THAT FUCKING CUNT HOLY SHIT HELLO??? KILLING BUDDY??? OISIN BEING APART OF IT TOO???? NOOO I WAS ROOTING FOR HIM AND ADINE

the ocher jellies are so cute and so fucking pointless ahsjdjd

Gorgug vs the worm no thoughts just very stressful ahsjdjd

RIZ WITH THE 31 DAMAGE VS THE UMBERHULK WITH 30 HP WAS INSANE LUCK MURPH ROLLS COMING IN CLUTCH WHEN IT MATTERS

butter gummies my beloved

“Come on riz”

The mimic being the strongest monster is so funny bc this was 100% supposed to be a quick kill round 1

Fig carried combat today holy shit even with Emily’s bad rolls she’s taken out half of the enemies that’s insane

GORGUG WIRH ANOTHER FUCKING CRIT WHAT THE FUCK ZACS DICE ARE INSANE TODAY next week he’s gonna be rolling nat ones all day long

“What did you call it….BUTTER. GUMMIES.” I adore ally so much

30 persuasion roll on the butter gummies…. It’s time for love NOW

“You are stupid” as if Gorgug didn’t leave the owl ears and dedicate the whole year to studying for his mcat pls

Gorgugs artificer stuff is so fun I’m so glad Zac took on that class

[its-been-rose]

Honestly, i always love myself a good messed up slasher. Especially when they work in pairs (Scream, anyone?)

But when it gets to the story of Killer Frequency, I always just keep wanting to pull Marie aside and go "Yoooooou! Put that boy through so much trauma! And then JUMPED?!"

And like in your art, I doubt this is just a spur of the moment thing, like she's been training for this! Imagine as a young child waking up and your mother teaches you to whistle, not because it's a fun little skill but bc you're gonna use it to terrorize then murder people with.

You are compared to a father you've never even met and somewhat care but also don't care for because it's an image presented to you via your mother who you love so much you'd do anything for.

You are taught to use a knife, probably. Something just tells me this isn't their first instance of killing someone, especially Marie. I mean do you remember Mrs. Loomis in Scream 2 when Randy is talking shit and she MAIMS him? That's Marie all the way.

There's just... so much to say about Marie. Like what was she even planning to do after this fact?

THISSS!!! ALL OF THIS!!!!

I don’t think this was the intention, but her jumping off Whistling Point at the end seemed to me like it was something she’d planned the entire time, like she’d planned it to be a murder-suicide from the get go. I think in reality it was probably just a very serendipitous coincidence that’s where her running from the cops took her and she took the easy way out due to the convenience. I’m just a sucker for drama and having her basically planning a 20-year long suicide plan is pretty dark.

But either way, she completely threw Henry to the wolves. Obviously she told him to run but what parent wouldn’t be like “don’t go after him he had nothing to do with it it’s me you want”??? Like girl you’re just gonna orphan your son?? Who looked up to you so?

I do not doubt for a single second that she raised Henry for that night and that night alone. Literally nothing else mattered. She absolutely screwed him over and let herself believe she was doing the right thing. If you think about the game for more than five seconds the real tragedy becomes obvious.

I totally agree with you that Henry did it less because he loved his father and wanted revenge for his death but more because he loved his mother who loved his father and wanted to do right by her. Like some of my own relatives passed away before I was born, and I was told stories about them, but I don’t feel a connection to them at all. I feel connected to how my parents felt about them. Like one of my parents lost their brother (my uncle) but i feel worse for them losing their sibling than i do for myself losing an uncle, if that makes sense. I can definitely see Henry thinking something along the lines of “yeah my dad was killed and it sucks and it’s not fair I never got to meet him, but look what his death did to my mom, it destroyed her, and it’s all their fault she’s been miserable for 19 years”

Yeah, Marie taught him, raised him, to be this. It should be a parent’s worst nightmare for their kid to turn into a monster, but she encouraged it. Completely unfair. And yeah I mean we know from Clive’s tapes that Whistling Night wasn’t their first foray into murder. They’d been chasing down stragglers for a while before then, could have been anywhere from months to weeks to days before.

As for what her plan was after the fact… I don’t think she had one, to be perfectly honest. This was all that mattered. I mean like- she even revealed her identity and the identity of her son ON AIR, so it would be way harder to go into hiding anyway. To me that says she didn’t really plan ahead. Just be perpetually on the run?

[roonilwazlibimagines]

If you want to hear the tragic love life of a random person on the internet or want to prevent a girl from giving a boy a second chance he does not deserve please read more :))

So a fun fact about me is that I’ve genuinely only liked 2 boys in my lifetime (as a 22 year old). And the first boy was a mess but earlier this year when I was reflecting about him (and trying to leave him 2023) I decided on two things. 1) I was going to de-centre boys from my life (which was going to be easy bc before him they were so far away from my centre and just meant I had to drop the three boys I was (barely) talking to) and 2) there were many reasons we didn’t work out but a big one was that I was scared to be vulnerable in front of him and so when a guy inevitably came into my life, I would try to be as vulnerable as appropriate with him because that’s the only way I’ll form a new connection!

Then came Josh (that’s not his name but we’re going to go with it) who was one of three of the boys I was talking to. And he refused to be dropped. ‘I’m not talking to anyone at the moment’ he had weirdly told me when I was walking on the treadmill and had politely asked him ‘what about you?’ when he had asked what was going on in my life.

At this stage we had only been talking for six months and I literally can only recall one conversation from those six months which highlights just how uneventful they were.

But now we were talking heaps! And I knew, the voice in the back of my head would not leave me alone, that he was a douchebag (spoiler alert, I was right) but I really liked taking to him, sue me. And, points for him, he was really good at talking and actually took some time to get to know me!

Flash forward about a month ish and he really badly hurts his back :( but we’re very much in the talking stage so whatever is actually going on in his personal life isn’t too big of a concern.

UNTIL!!! We had been talking for 3 months and NOTHING had happened! Besides a very small comment about how he was upset we lived so far away from each other (1hr in peak traffic) (but also let’s remember he was the one who started this, ALREADY knowing this). So I decided May 1st he was out of my life. Boys were not my focus this year and he was taking up space.

So May 1st comes and he’s telling me about his back and then very casually mentions ‘after I sort out my back I’ll date you’. I read it at work and immediately threw my phone in my bag. I was right. He is a douchebag.

But then somehow we began talking more so much that we became best friends on Snapchat (yes, I know it’s a red flag that the 25 year old boy I’m talking to uses Snapchat as his main platform, I already knew he was a red flag but I really liked taking to him okay? We genuinely have so much in common and maybe I started getting my hopes up, especially because if we’re best friends on Snapchat that means even if he is talking to other girls, he’s talking to me more, right?) Yes, I know maybe there’s another girl who he messages on text, or Instagram, or whatever the fuck it is, but our conversations were soooo flirty. Like talking about our first date, going to each others houses, etc etc.

But then it was like one day he woke up and decided he hated me :) he’d leave me on delivered for a full day and then be like ‘sorry what did I say?’ He made a weird comment about how he hoped he’d make me cry. I saw he tagged another girl on an instagram reel (yes, there’s many explanations for this but like that shots public?) and then he started telling me how pretty his physio was?

When I tell you I was HEARTBROKEN :((( I had literally JUST gotten my hopes up and he immediately crushed them. So I left lol. I stopped messaging him, I stopped saving his photos, I’d go a day without replying and then wait another 12 hours to reply again after he’d reply back in seconds.

Then I went to Europe and had a hot girl summer and I even started talking to another boy but then Josh came back and decided he wasn’t done ruining my life.

And then we started again, and he started messaging me heaps and we were sooooo flirty and I foolishly let myself fall for it again. (But we are being kind to me because I really wanted him and I feel like when you don’t fall for lots of guys often it’s hard to stop talking to a guy you genuinely enjoyed talking to you know).

And things were great! I give second chances, I’m not ashamed to admit it, I know life is complicated. But then he brought up his physio again and that was it for me. Why tell me?

And when I called him out on it he said it was because ‘that was all he had going on at the moment’ as if he didn’t message me every hour of every day.

So I stopped messaging him again and whenever he’d tried to initiate something flirty I’d turn it down and my responses were harsh and mean because I knew I didn’t have the strength to actually leave him but I needed him to know this wasn’t okay.

Then, everything blew up :) and he made a comment about how he respects women or something like that and I was like ‘lol okay give me an example’ and he was like ‘you’ll find out when you’re deserving of it’s and I was like ‘what does that even mean?’ And he was like ‘you’ve disappeared’ and I was like ‘and before that?’ And he was like ‘I was always thinking about you’ and I said ‘so was I’

And this was all in like seconds of each other but it was really late at night (yikes, I know) and he wasn’t responding and I was sick of feeling shit about myself so I sent another message and was like ‘I believe you were thinking about me but then you did all of those things I’ve mentioned in this and now I don’t believe you’

And then he responded and was basically like ‘I’m sorry you deserve better, I’m just not in the right headspace and a lot of people are mad at me at the moment, people actually close to me and I should have told you’

And I know he’s depressed because we spoke about it so I was like ‘I understand but I wish you would have told me and if you were thinking of my like that you wouldn’t bring up other girls’ and he was like ‘the worst part is I don’t even remember doing that and I’m sorry bc I know how that feels’ and I was like ‘I genuinely don’t know what to say, I don’t think you can even begin to imagine how I feel right now’

And he just kept apologising and he was like ‘I’m sorry I made you feel like this’ and i said I was going to try to go to sleep and he kept saying sorry so then in the morning I was like ‘why go through this all with me?’ And he was like ‘I was in the right headspace when we first started talking and I’d be dumb not to try with you but then I got injured and now I’m just not in the right space mentally or physically’ and I was like ‘so you wanted to try, but you don’t want to anymore?’

And he was like ‘I can’t, I need to focus on myself’ and I think I was lucky I was with my cousin when I was getting all of these messages otherwise I think I would’ve driven to his house and put him out of his misery myself

And I kept the conversation going on for a little bit bc I just didn’t have the courage to end it with him I was so hurt :((

And we left it at me asking him if he was in the right headspace would this conversation have gone differently? And he said ‘I think so’ so I said ‘okay. Thanks’ and he said and I quote ‘:(‘

And I have been crying non stop and I feel so dumb bc I knew this was going to happen and I let myself get excited when I knew I shouldn’t have and also, it’s so hard for me to like a boy and he’s the first boy I’ve ever found actually attractive but also liked his personality when he wasn’t mean to me

So it’s whatever, I was going to cry about it but I knew I’d get better and really, I know it’s for the better, he lacks direction, I don’t think the word ‘goal’ is in his vocabulary and just has no motivation (which is very much the opposite of me). But it just hurt because I really liked him and sometimes you don’t get to decide that :(

Anyway, but then HE JUST FUCKING MESSAGED ME ON SNAPCHAT???? AND ITS JUST A SELFIE OF HIM DOING A THUMBS UP IN BED????? (I did the thing where you open it in aeroplane mode so he doesn’t know I’ve seen it) and I want opinions on what I should do (in the end I’ll do what I want lol, but I really feel like I need an outsiders opinion)

SO, do I A) say, why did you send that to me? B) leave him on open or C) a secret third option I don’t know about

If you read this I genuinely hope you never feel sad ever again and I love you so much <333333

[unsurewhatusernametoput]

I love having to explain to people exactly how obsessed with SIX I was

like my friends will point out when it’s coming to my city and I’m like “yes honey I’ve known, I’ve known since 8 months ago and I have tickets don’t worry” and then when I mentioned six fanfiction and my friend was like “wait people write fanfiction about it?” “Yes and I’ve read so so many that I had to read wattpads fics FUCKING WATTPAD, if you read the six the musical fics on there you would know….I also know like every ship of the six and probably have read a diff of it” “PEOPLE SHIP THEM?!?!? Aren’t they like cousins?” “Yes but luckily the fandom is small enough no one ships the incest ✌️😜”

then he went on to tell me I was the person that drew Miku binder Tomas Jefferson 😭😭😭

and then when someone sends u a six meme and u have to pretend you’ve seen it for the first time (so that they keep talking abt ur intrest)

one time I was in a little six the musical thingy and the director was asking everyone abt a “little” background about the queens and one person from each group would answer, (I was in the Boylens, but like ofc bc I literally am Anne Boylen and the main character soooo) AND A KID FROM MY GROUP SHOT UP HER HAND AND THE TEACHER CALLED ON HER AND THE SHIT SHE SAID WAS “she uh grew up in France and then married the king and then flirted with 3 guys and then got beheaded” LIKE NO BITCH SHE DID NOT DONT RAISE UR HAND IF UR GUNNA LIE TO US DHFHJFJDIDISKSJSJWHUEUEUE SO THEN I RAISED MY HAND TO HELP HER PUT THERE 😭😭😭✌️😭

ALSO I TAUGHT MY GROUP SO MUCH SHIT ABT HER IN FACT EVERYONE AT THAT PLACE KNEW I WAS THE HISTORY ONE SO THEY WOULD COME UP TO ME AND BE LIKE “hey _____ do u know anything about Anna of Cleves” UMMM HELL YEAH !!!!!!! IT WAS SO FUN 🤭🤭🤭🤭

another time I was doing Karoke and me & my friend wanted to sing SIX and she’s like “so which song” and I’m like “I know the lines to like all of them so we can do any one”

one time my friends said “her forehead is so big it could be Library full of SIX facts” 💪

also I had(ve) no friends that were this intensely or at all obsessed with it so I would literally be fucking texting myself links to videos and stuff

Also like one time I got jumpscared bc out of the corner of my eye I saw Santa Claus and thought it was H*nry VIII

Also I have seen almost every single one of Art E’s (person who made six the kids) tumblr posts + may or may not have also gotten a virus (no fr I’m not sure) from tumblr when scrolling through six posts

whenever I couldn’t sleep or was home alone yes I would perform six and yes I would know most of the lines

the biggest album on my phone is six photos + I have separate albums for every queen and their kids

also I have seen pretty much every incorrect SIX quote and they are pretty much inside jokes with myself

when I would get really anxious I would imagine my life if I was an actor on tour playing Boylen and my friendship which each of the other random actors and also I would imagine my favorite six six (the last song) animatic

there were times where I could hardly do anything without thinking “OMG THIS IS SO JANE SEYMOUR LIKE I,AGINE IF THE QUEENS WERE HERE AND JEHFJDJWKWKWMMA” (to myself in my head I’m not annoying like that….well to anyone but G)

I wanted to make a Anne Boylen cosplay SOOOO BAD despite having no cosplay skills one time I tried to make one for a belle doll I bought at goodwill speicifically for that purpose and also one out of cardboard

I have an album with all of the bootlegs I could find that aren’t just a black screen and can send it to u

and yet although I’ve been obsessed for 2-3 years I have hardly made any art for it and just have like 50 million unfinished sketches and may or may not have unfinished fanfics and so so many mental ideas of animatics (idk how to animate) that I abandoned after a day and I own 4 pieces of merch that I didn’t make myself (7 if u include the stuff I made) ✌️😭 ✌️😖

when I was bored instead of watching a Netiflix show or listening to music like a normal person, oh no, I would rewatch H*nry VIII oversimplified I’ve seen it like 10 times honestly a banger

Also if you know these 3 songs you are SUCH a real one and I love you;

-divorced behead and died 🗣️🔥💯‼️ divorced beheaded survived 🗣️🔥💯‼️ IM H*NRY VIII IVE HAD 6 SORRY WIVES YOU COULD SAY I RUINEDTHEIR LIVES 🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥💯💯💯💯‼️‼️‼️

-H*NRY H*NRY H*NRY HAD SO MANY WIVES THAT HAD TO DIE 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥💯💯‼️‼️‼️‼️ H*NRY H*NRY H*NRY HAD SO MANY ONLY ONE SURVIED ☝️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥💯💯💯‼️‼️‼️

-ITS SO SUPER CRAZY THAT I GOT TO BE QUEEN 🗣️🔥🔥💯‼️‼️‼️ THE ODDS WERE AGAISNT IT IF U KNOW WHAT I MEAN OFC I WAS THE DAUGHTER TO A POWERFUL KING BUT I NEVER THOUGHT I’D END UP WEARING THIS THING 👑👑🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥💯💯💯‼️‼️‼️‼️

Also yes I censor H*nry and not fuck bc it’s funny and I like that it’s like a little with us six fans 💪 as well as Henrat

also I did a history project on Elizabeth I

also at another preppy little thing I did was think which of my friends are each of the queens bc I’m Boylen therefore we all have to be besties

And I could write something probably longer than this post abt my head canons of what I think their personality would be like au’s how I think their friendships are to each other what they would like and dislike, basically a really advanced sim and yes I have made them in the sims but sims 3 won’t let me have more than 8 so Edward had to go also Eddy is an iPad kid bc I deicided like come on Jane would so give him and iPad and be like “oh yes ofc I will pay 20 dollars so u can have new robux 😇”

also I have every single one of the queens and their kids deathdays on my calendar (Mae is not included) as well as their birthdays

also it has been 2 years and I still remeber the time and date I saw six for the first time (cried 6 times 3 when it started 3 when it ended) 💪💪💪

being a SIX fan is having no clue what to say when someone asks how many wars H*nry fought but knowing the amount of miscarriages Lina had

fun fact: Henry killed thousands more ppl than Mary ✌️😜

One time I got in like a 30 minute argument with my friends Snapchat ai about whether or not H*nry deserves decent human respect BITCH JUST BCZ IT WAS A “DIFFRENT TIME” DOESNT KAKE IT OKAY” 😤😤😤

ALSO I HAVE SOOOO MANY UNPOPULAR OPINIONS AND ALSO KATHRYN PARR IS SPELT WITH A K GUYS GET IT RIGHT BC ELIZABETH MADE HER A FRENCH VERSION OF ONE OF HER BOOKS AND PUT HER INITIALS ON IT WHIC WERE KP ‼️‼️‼️

Also fun fact Elizabeth signed everything Elizabeth R because R means Regina which means queen in Latin or something and Elisabeth could speak SOOO MANY diffrent Languages.

[haliaiii]

fav percy jackson character and WHY‼️ also a character u didn’t like/were iffy abt as a child but relate to now

Ok imma be real I never had a proper proper fav? But if I had to choose (this is gonna be really basic I know) I’d say Percy 😭

Not just bc he’s the main character but I really liked him a lot as a kid and even now I still fuck w him. He’s just great and holds a lot of emotional connection cause when I started reading pjo, we were almost the same age and now that I’m rereading pjo, we’re literally both seniors in high school 💀, although when I was a kid I think I also liked Leo a lot too, pretty much any character that had a funny pov

As for a character I relate to now it’s 100 percent jason

So when I was a kid and started getting into the Percy Jackson universe, I didn’t really know where to start (cause it was like my first proper series), but the ppl at school were reading heroes of Olympus so I assumed that was where it started. I knew who Percy bc I read the Greek Gods book prior so I was very confused to open The Lost Hero and there was this guy named Jason instead 😭. I didn’t really like or dislike him, but I was surprised to find out many didn’t like him. I think if there was another series that had focused on Jason like how there was one with Percy then it would’ve made public opinion of him way better tbh, bc I feel like people didn’t like him cause they were comparing him to Percy. Anyway I didn’t really think much of him, he was just kinda ok ig? Like he didn’t really feel like he had that much character to him (at first) and I kinda thought his relationship with piper was boring 😔

But revisiting it today, (and also post what happened in the burning maze), he has a lot of really cool hidden lore that I wished was more talked about 😭. Like his whole life was a straight up tragedy, abandoned by his mother at 2, raised by wolves and then had to join the Roman military and lead at a young age. Then when he thinks he’s finally settling down, Hera fucking wipes his memories and drops him in the middle of the US and he has to spend the next years of his life fighting a war. AND THEN right when he finally settles down again, piper breaks up with him but he still goes on that quest knowing he or piper will die bc of the prophecy but sacrifices himself anyway bc he cares about her and dies at the age of 16. It’s literally so sad, he never got a chance to experience what he wanted to do and spent his entire life accommodating for others. Anyway peak eldest sister energy even if he’s the younger brother 😭

Also another character I warmed up to a lot was Piper!! I originally didn’t like her “not like other girls” personality, but looking back on it I was kinda the same way 💀. Like I feel like she’s a really cool complex character and that gets overlooked, I think her negative feelings towards femininity kinda also stems from the weird brainwashing thing Hera did and her developing her sexuality. I actually started liking her more when she broke up with Jason and started dating her girlfriend, ( on a side note, I lament the fact that we’ll never get to see Jason and Piper develop their friendship cause I really think they were platonic soulmates and never meant to be in a romantic relationship).

I just think they’re both really neat by themselves! There’s so many other characters I could spend paragraphs talking about but we could be here all day 😭

Ty for the ask tho I had sm fun info dumping-

[nine-of-diamonds]

A List of References in Keep Your Enemies Close (Wait, Not That Close)

Since it’s somehow been a year since I posted KYEC (to the warmest reception I’ve ever gotten from a fic!! Seriously y’all are the best—I can’t believe I’m still getting comments a year after publication), I compiled a complete (as far as I can remember, at least) list of all of the references (with a few explanations about my writing choices) within the fic for funsies (and also bc I put Way Too Much effort into melding all of these elements together and wanted a full list of all the things I put together that were not intended to be put together lmao)

Oh, and if it wasn’t obvious… spoilers for the fic lol — if you haven't read it but are interested in what the heck I'm talking about, it's here on ao3!

(I’m just calling every segment separated by a line break a scene even though some of them aren’t reallyyy an actual scene for the sake of clarity)

Scene 1:

One line in and I’ve already name-dropped the Watchers: not much to say about them at this point since it’s pretty much the usual “godly beings that resemble indigo biblically-accurate angels that watch people.” All I really added here was the threads of Fate mention that’ll become relevant later

Scene 3:

Grian-proof vault: this one’s a double reference! The obvious one is from Season 9 (Grian’s ep 10) where Mumbo challenges Grian to get into his vault without breaking blocks and it turns out to be a decoy vault, but the second one is from Season 6 (Grian ep 100), where Grian, Bdubs, and Iskall (as the Dragon Bros) break into Mumbo’s vault to induct him into the cult club by guessing the code to be 1-2-3-4 (the “I didn’t plan for someone to come in and start jamming codes in” and KYEC!Grian’s response, “It was the second thing I tried” are reworded from their follow-up convo about it in the next episode)

KYEC!Grian’s stolen diamonds: okay I’m pretty sure this Season 6 arc started in Grian’s ep 73, where he mentions for the first time that his diamonds have “mysteriously gone missing” — KYEC!Grian’s got the same problem, only most of his diamonds are accidentally stolen and are causing more problems than economic deficits lol → we’ll get to the completion of this arc wayyy later, but this was the very first plot point to fall into place for this fic

Detective Grian: going even farther back into Season 6, we have the Sherlock Grian arc (begins in Grian’s ep 56) — once again, we’ll get back to this one

Fun fact: the moment where KYEC!Grian’s “skin prickled with the distinct sensation that someone was watching, waiting for him to do something” was meant to be foreshadowing that would become obvious at the end bc I originally planned to have KYEC!Grian’s time traveling be onscreen — that scene was meant to show Future Grian traveling to the past to steal his diamonds, but getting the timing slightly off so he was still in the apartment when this convo takes place, and is therefore the mysterious watcher mentioned here; I didn’t end up writing out that scene, though so now it just looks like another surface level Watcher reference

Scene 4:

KYEC!Grian’s powers: the wings don’t require explanation but here’s my rationale for the “perspective-shifting” (which, lemme tell you was cool in theory but SO annoying to figure out what to call/describe) → it’s basically just being able to go into F5 mode (the range limit for him is basically that he can move what I’ll call his mental camera to any point provided that at all times, his body is visible to the mental camera from some angle, i.e. he can’t see into the next room if there are no doors/windows but he can see around corners and objects); this power’s another Watcher parallel but also a contrast to Scar’s in that it’s good for revealing “the truth” while Scar’s power is deceptive in nature

Scene 5:

Hotguy!: fun fact, I actually started writing this fic before I knew about Scar’s Hotguy persona (I was grievously behind on Season 9 when I started this fic in mid 2022) so KYEC!Scar’s original hero name was Goodfellow and he used a staff, not a bow — but obviously, I swapped it to fit the Hotguy we all know and love (and for the sake of keeping track of episode references, I’m naming Scar’s Season 9 ep 5 as the first Hotguy mention in canon, don’t @ me if I’m wrong lol)

KYEC!Scar’s powers: alright, here’s a lil secret, there’s actually smth going on with his bow that never gets brought up in this fic and that I will be keeping secret bc I may or may have smth in the works. I can, however, talk about his illusions! While KYEC!Grian’s power lets him change how he sees things, KYEC!Scar’s lets him change what other people see. The illusions are also a nod at Scar’s terraforming + building skills since he can create intricate landscapes 

Xelqua (as KYEC!Grian’s villain name): other ideas for KYEC!Grian’s villain name included Poultry Man + Watcher but I settled on Xelqua since it’s commonly associated with Watcher!Grian but feels more like a name than just plain Watcher, and then afterwards, I developed the actual Xelqua lore

Xelqua (the lore one): obviously we have the nod at our tried and tested fanon “he was only meant to watch” but the mention of him “engineer[ing] countless games… with gods and men alike” is a blink and you’ll miss it Life series reference (I suppose it could also be a reference any of Grian’s other minigames but the Life series was what I had in mind lol) → also, the whole “Ultimately, the Watchers located Xelqua after he succumbed to his nature and began stirring up trouble again” bit of lore was just me riffing off that fable about the frog and the scorpion, which traumatized me as a kid and therefore lives in my brain rent-free

Scene 6: 

Harmless pranks: rapidfire references, let’s go! “a bit of ‘misplaced copper’” = Mumbo’s copper “lagging” into Grian’s inventory (Grian Season 8 ep 13), “a few disappearing doors” = Grian being a chronic door thief (...pretty much all of Season 7), “a few chests filled with eggs” = Grian + his quest to clog up his messaging system with Mumbo (Grian Season 6 ep 22 + many, many more instances)

Scene 7:

Roofed forest: very, very random but I did write this scene with Scar’s first Third Life episode in the background and was imagining the roofed forest he and Grian decimated as the scene he projects here

Also, I need you to know this fight scene was fully rewritten at least four times ;-;

Scene 9:

Mumbo unlocking Grian’s handcuffs: this wasn’t a reference when I wrote the fic but now it’s a reference to the Mumbo side fic I wrote for this au that writes out this scene

Scene 11:

KYEC!Grian’s comment: “I was broke and in need of a flatmate so he could’ve been an arsonist for all I cared, as long as he didn’t touch my stuff” → can I just cite all of the Life series here

Okay, I SWEAR the line, “You watch, Mumbo, I’ll be so subtle that you’ll forget I’m a supervillain” was based on an actual Grian line (or several) that start the same way but I can’t remember where it’s from

Scene 13:

More stolen diamonds: here’s the unofficial start of the Jangler plot lol — the moment this fic’s foundation really “clicked” for me was when I noticed mysterious diamond thievery appeared in both the time travel arc and the Jangler arc, and I was like “I can work with that”

Jellie: I want you to know the staging of this scene was specifically so I could have a reversal of the “villain stroking a cat while scheming” trope where Scar is a) wanting to do a good deed not a villainous one and b) basically getting a plan fed to him

Scene 14:

Okay pretty much this scene’s basically the transcribed version of a scene from Grian’s Season 6 ep 56 lmao but ig I’ll just talk more about how I thought to include the Jangler plot in the first place; originally, the premise of this fic was adapted from an abandoned non-MCYT fic draft I had floating around in my WIP folder, where the two characters were university dormmates who were unknowingly also vigilante partners + there was a whole Miraculous Ladybug style love square going on (on second thought, I was basically just making MLB with vigilantes lmao). When I got the idea to adapt it to a Desert Duo-centric superhero trying to catch supervillain fic, I wanted to make it platonic since most of the superhero aus I’ve read for the pair are romantic and I wanted to do smth different — the problem was that getting rid of the romance also got rid of a lot of the tension between the characters, so I needed smth to replace it — hence the detective/Jangler dynamic being included to make sure both characters were actively hiding a secret from the other at all times

Scene 16: 

This is probably a little obvious on second read but I did leave a comment to myself on one of my draft docs pointing out that KYEC!Scar decided to continue going out as the Jangler (even though he’d already technically fulfilled the returning diamonds thing he’d invented the persona for) because he overheard Grian talking about how he’d prefer to have more to work on + would get money from it 

Scene 18:

Attempted murder: back on the Season 6 reference train we go! This is from Grian’s ep 12 where he pranks an AFK Jevin by putting him on a flying machine and the game glitches and sends Jevin falling to his death

Scene 20:

The foreshadowing here is very obvious but this scene was a last minute addition I did not plan to include but was compelled to write bc I needed something to lighten the mood a bit since it was getting too serious and also bc I wanted to include the “sweet job” pun. Yes, I know it’s terrible. Yes, I laugh at it every time.

Scene 21 + 22: 

Cookie trail: here’s another “mostly transcribed” scene from Grian’s Season 6 ep 57 — I ran into a little problem logistically since flying isn’t the norm in this world but is in Hermitcraft, so I had to shove in the whole “flying machine to reach the top of the cookie” thing lmao 

KYEC!Stress: she does not make an appearance but I gave her ice powers bc of her ice castle base in Season 6

Scene 24: 

This entire scene is just Desert Duo dancing around each other trying to keep their secret identities secret but KYEC!Scar’s comment, “I always forget what information’s public” is a bit of irony that made me laugh while writing bc it comes straight after he accidentally reveals he knows where the cookie was

Scene 25–28:

Hitman after KYEC!Grian: yep this goes back to Grian’s Season 6 ep 14 where Jevin puts out a hit on Grian after the AFK prank that Iskall tries to carry out 

Grian’s trap: this is obviously just the trap for Iskall that Grian makes to stop him but I would like you to know that I went back to the episode to count the number of pistons used to make sure it lined up lmao

Scene 28 is also basically just a very dramatic version of the chase scene in this episode with some Watcher paranoia for spice

Scene 30–31:

Time machine: time to circle all the way back around to this plot lol — I didn’t think it made sense for KYEC!Grian to build a time machine himself during all of this but he still gets access to one in the end thanks to Mumbo. Grian’s Season 6 ep 79 has him go back in time to stop his diamonds from being stolen, only to realize he’s the one who stole them in the first place, and I thought it was a fitting way to end the fic after all the diamond stealing shenanigans

And hey, that's it! That list totally didn't take me like two hours to write up and find the episodes for! No wonder I had to restructure this fic like seven times when writing it!

Anyway, if you read this far, thanks for indulging my madness :) And to anyone who's engaged with any of my fics, thank you thank you thank you for every hit, kudos, comment, and bookmark!

[sol-consort]

Man FUCK that bitch ass fucking assassin motherfucker I hope he rots. Sorry he pissed me off to no end.

Also yeah FemShep’s VA is considered the better VA of the Shepards which makes sense MaleShep is voiced by Mark Meer who hadn’t done much voice work before, his biggest role being Cyric in Baldur’s Gate II, and FemShep was voiced by Jennifer Hale who had been at it for almost 20 years at the time. It wasn’t just Jennifer Hale either, Anderson being Keith David and Joker being Seth Green who had both been doing it over 20 years. I liked MaleShep’s voice though and never had a problem with it because it’s very main heroy and recognizable like I’d instantly know that it was Shepard if I heard it.

I knew that the series wouldn’t be exactly up with the times because it was 2007-2012 but Jesus I had no idea that FemShep gets harassed so much.

I didn’t get a reconcile scene on the Citadel since I didn’t romance anyone in ME1 I went into the series with Tali on my mind as my definitive romance.

I don’t think Thane praying for you instead himself is unique to his romance? Or at least I remember something similar happening maybe it was his son.

You can’t hit on EDI as MaleShep I’m pretty sure don’t remember that being an option however you can still hit on Joker as MaleShep I remember seeing that option and going “why would I say that?” Also I’m surprised you never mentioned the Joker segment of Mass Effect 2 where you sneak around the ship as Joker that section surprised the shit out of me.

Oh yeah a fun little fact, remember the show Once Upon a Time I’ve mentioned a couple times when talking about fairy tales? The actor who plays Kaiden was in that show and played the show’s version of Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio. I don’t remember what happened to Cricket in the show though. He may have just stopped being relevant so they never brought him up again since the show just fucking loved doing that.

Is the hot assassin guy supposed to be unlikeable? I liked him so far, like ngl, plus he's pretty cool. Evil living weapons of destructions, my beloveds.

And yeah, i really like femshep, but it is pretty cool of them to give maleshep VA a chance for such a big character. Sure, it could've been better, but he probably did the best he could with the skills he had at the time, and it did appeal to some people!

And man I'm just lucky I actually enjoy these things ingames, like I am down to being a whore and flirting with everyone so it doesn't bother me when the npcs forcefully flirt with you bc you picked a woman. What bothers me is that the fact it's only bc you picked a woman, and just because I wanted it doesn't mean other people do and it might make them very uncomfortable. There are several mods to remove the sexual harassments femshep gets, I wish there was one to remove it for EDI tho.

We should all have a choice, is what I'm saying. It feels like femshep was made to appeal to straight guys who might play her as an outsider observer. Same with some lesbian characters, too, ngl- not all of them, but the game has its moments where it makes me realise oh this was put here for a straight dude to gawk at. Meanwhile, maleshep feels the proper self insert badass at times. Really hate that.

That's why I like picking NB options whenever they're present, you're free from expectations and the devs aren't sure what to make of you so they don't try to appeal to a certian demographic and just write your character as a character.

You did Tali romance? Hell yeah she is an amazing character and her relationship with Shepard feels phenomenal. Like a scientist princess and her knight in shining armour, amazing. Plus she is all adorable when she talks about engines and how we get to help her so many times.

Apparently her and Garrus end up together if you don't romance her, but I haven't seen it yet. She always felt close to Shepard, especially in the second game where she is the first friendly face you see.

I haven't met her yet in ME3, still doing side errands. I am very very broke and everything is very very expensive and I miss sugar daddy illusive man pls take me back, the alliance became more stingy than I remember or inflation is hitting hard.

Fuck I hat like 999999 something credits in the first game, why couldn't it tranfer over??

And Thane!! My heart! He even prays for you when he's not romanced??? That's it, he is legit the most precious character and no one else comapres. I would die for Thane, I would kill everyone on the Normady for Thane.

But I know Thane would forgive me If I picked Grunt over him bc my son which just makes Thane the most amazing man ever, DRELL ARE SUPERIOR I TELL YOU.

Also so far Drell worship Hanar (kinda) and Hanar worship protheons (kinda) and Javik likes humans(he is all current protheon population)

So by association! Drell and Humans are conncted, and no, I will not give up my tank of copium. Go buy your own. Idk what overdosing is, I have insomnia I forgot.

And aww we can't hit on EDI :( i would've treated her better than Joker.

Yeah I had the same reaction to the flirting with Joker line but just went for it because what's the worst that can happen? He says no and we laught it off.

Imagine if the worst was him retiring from being your pilot and you get soma rando driving the Normady around who now runs at half the speed and takes twice as much gas plus occasionally breaks down and you have to pay 100k credits for repairs.

Oh also then there is this one thing I am sure is exclusive to femshep.

You can sleep with Javik. The protheon. Yes.

But it's not a full romance :"(

He has four eyes I wonder if he has four-

I heard about once upon a time, the show. But never watched it.

I did however watch a random person talk about it in a video essay because I prefer that over watching shows.

This one.

It was fun, I'm not big on fairytales but I enjoyed hearing about it.

The Joker sneak section in ME2 didn't resonate with me much for some reason. It was nice but I didn't feel the pressure at all and with EDI constantly talking it got annoying and I just wanted it to be over.

His jokes were nice but the moment of trusting EDI didn't hit the same way it should've. It didn't feel endearing or earnest.

The sudden flip in their relationship afterwards was too jarring.

I prefer ME3 EDI and Joker dynamic over ME2. However I hate how EDI is becoming a "born sexy yesterday" character by the game when her core as a character is so profound and genuine. She wants to know her purpose, what it means to be alive and all the other characters mention about her is her body which is bleh.

Even some of her dialogues with Joker is just overplayed sex jokes. It's all of her amazing writing vanishes the moment it's not just her and Shepard in a conversation.

Kaidan's voice actor is great! He even stood out to me in the first game. You notice how much more convicnising and immersive his delivery was over the other characters, almost outshined ME1 femshep even.

It's like the dialogue and the way he delievers it fit perfectly. If I just read it, then I get a completely different impression.

The game doesn't have bad voice actors it just has very bad delivery from some characters. It's when someone keeps a constant tone and doesn't portray any emotions or adds any personalisation into the dialogue. It feels tone deaf a lot when what the character is speaking about is something intimiate, yet it sounds the same as asking about the weather.

Still, it is nostalgic in a way, this was extremely common in older games.

[not-so-secret-account]

RWBY Discussion #2 — Ship Edition

those shower thoughts be hitting

now, i’ve come back here to talk about something i’ve been itching to for a while now, and have just gotten it all into words (bc tbh it’s all just been incoherent babbling inside this head of mine)

alright to whoever has watched RWBY at least to the end of volume 3, y’all will know exactly what i’m talking about.

for those who don’t, spoiler warning for volume 3.

now onto the topic of the day: Arkos.

Okay I cannot even begin how much I love this pairing, but not in the way I want them to end up together (bc frankly, that ship has been thanos snapped out if reali-💥💥💥). But I love this because of how incomplete and tragic this pairing really is when taking a deeper dive into it.

Let’s start with the gal herself, Pyrrha Nikos. Champion, and the pride of Mistral, known for her talent in combat and is basically a celebrity. People look up to her, the “Invincible Girl”, as she’s called. There are many, many people who would probably bend over backwards to be aquatinted with her, and she hates it.

Despite all the attention, all the fame, she is lonely. Even with the people clamoring to become buddy-buddy with her, it’s all for the sake of raising their own status or other advantages with being associated with the champion. Because of this, she has no real friends; Pyrrha is lonely, and stands alone on that pedestal people have put her on for a long time. So, she wants a fresh start, to go somewhere that won’t treat her as some sort of goddess whenever she steps into the public eye.

Cue Pyrrha arriving to the kingdom of Vale, where she goes to enroll at Beacon Academy. A place that, hopefully, won’t have as many people swarming around her (at the very least). Of course, she’s gotten some people trying to get into her good graces out of ulterior motives (sorry Weiss), but it hasn’t been a bad experience so far. And hey, she’s got a team now, and thankfully, with people who haven’t been bombarding her about her status.

And then, there’s Jaune. Jaune Arc — “short, sweet, rolls off the tongue (his words, not mine)”. Not a..particularly known student. In fact, he’s just a nobody in the Academy, and with next to zero knowledge about fighting or combat in general. No prior training, with only the desire to become a hero. So, it’s a wonder that he even made through initiation, much less become a team leader. And one of his teammates is none other than Pyrrha Nikos. Granted, he only survived because everyone else kicked ass and saved his, but okay — the gang’s all here, and so, the school year begins.

Circling back on the first part, Pyrrha has never had any real connections with others outside of family (presumably), so of course she’s had trouble finding friends, and let alone a deeper connection with anyone else. She can’t be genuine with anyone else because of that untouchable status of hers..until she met her team. And specifically, Jaune.

See, Jaune, when finding out of her status, didn’t..really think too much on it. Of course, she’s held to a degree of respect, but it wasn’t like she wasn’t a person, either. Jaune, unlike most people, treated her like an equal, a *friend.* And that was the first thing that had gotten her to form a good bond with him. And with the time that bond formed, vulnerabilities started to show from either side, with each confiding in one another of secrets (though that was mainly on Jaune’s part). And when taking into account that this was the first guy to have shown interest in her and not the status she carried, it wasn’t a surprise that she fell in love with him.

And here’s the fun part: I don’t believe this love to have been reciprocated.

While we have seen Jaune mourn her death more openly than anyone else in the series, it doesn’t mean he really loved her back romantically. Thinking back, Pyrrha had been the one person who’s gone out of her way to help him become a hero, the one thing he strived for. To him, she was a great mentor — an inspiration. And the person who’s pushed him in the right direction back at Beacon. Pyrrha was an amazing friend and person, who gave all her time and effort to train her own team leader, and for a while, Jaune believed all that had gone to waste into someone who didn’t deserve it. He didn’t think he deserved a friend like Pyrrha, and he sure as hell didn’t after her death; Jaune blamed himself for not being able to save Pyrrha in her time of need, compared to when she was present for his. And it wasn’t until the Fall of Beacon when he realized the degree of care she really had for him. And y’know what? He feels guilty. Guilty that he never knew of how deep her care went, and that he took her kindness for granted, because he could only take a fraction of it.

And that’s why I love Arkos. On one hand, it’s an unrequited love, and on the other, the lost of a friend who gave too much, and got little in return.

More RWBY-related rants coming soon to a page near you, stay tuned 👍

[thatrandombatgurl]

Venting after the read below

Tw: depression & negative selftalk & suicidal ideation

To lay the background, I live with my mom in a house that has a separate apartment that is connected to the rest of the house & my dad passed away in October.

I’m not currently paying rent on the apartment, but I pay some of the bills, get the groceries for us(started buying them a month ago), pay for the dog poop to get picked up (I have a dog & she has a dog), do the dishes, cook or pay for most of our meals, drive her everywhere, etc. while working a full time job and doing online schooling full time.

Now I’ve always had a weird relationship with my mom bc she is definitely undiagnosed with something. I have anxiety and major depression. & she definitely gave me body image issues as a kid, by making me do weight watchers when i was a preteen. She’s always swapped her emotions on a dime & she always denies saying mean/bad things.

Anyways to the present. For about a month she has been in the anger stage of grief and I am most commonly the victim. For example, I went to a concert a few weeks ago and she kept guilting me about me going starting that morning even though she had encouraged me to go for about a month leading up to it. this ultimately led to me being upset and worried the whole time & having a panic attack, thus ruining this once in a life time thing, which she then talked down to me about how I need to just learn to have fun. I didn’t tell her the full reason for not enjoying it, just that I had a panic attack.

Currently she is out of town for the weekend and I am at the house with the dogs. The issue at where she is at is the wifi isn’t working so she can’t watch tv and I tried to facetime her to help & it didn’t work. Then my brother went over today to fix it and it didn’t work. While my brother was with her, my sister came over for a bit & we ended up cleaning the spice cabinet & pantry bc there was an insane amount of expired stuff. We found stuff that expired in 2010! We have moved 3 times since then. Anyways, we sent her a picture of how nice it looks and she was pretty angry but I figured that she would have gotten over it by now after we explained that it was all expired & it’s been about 6 hours.

Anyways she just texted me about something that I already tried to help with over the phone on Friday, Saturday, & this morning. Then as I’m calling her, she texts saying not to call her. Then when I text saying that I have looked everywhere and cannot find the info that she needs, she resent the thing she needs in all caps. And I know that it was probably just the fact that she is older and her texts almost always come off passive aggressive, but it just hit me really hard & I’ve been crying the past 30 minutes and am just really upset & want to run away or do something bad to myself. Luckily knowing that she won’t be back until late tomorrow so the dogs wouldn’t get taken care of is stopping me from doing bad stuff to myself, but I’m just so done. It just makes me so upset and feel like a failure. Which I already know that I am, I fucking dropped out of college and moved home and barely have any irl friends my age who haven’t moved and I still haven’t gotten my degree and i’m an anxious idiot and I’m messy and I’m overweight and I just can’t do anything right.

She acts like she is the only one allowed to grieve my father. Yes, they were married for 26 years, but I knew him my whole life & we were really close. I miss him so much…it’s his birthday on Friday and we are supposed to go to one of his favorite lakes and spread some ashes and spend a few days there just the 2 of us and I really don’t wanna go now, with her pulling this shit.

Anyways sorry i just needed to get this out there…

[not-scared-of-microwaves]

i feel like i’m losing everything when i only just got it back.

i’m a dancer. that has been a huge part of my identity since i was seven years old. i lost that after corona virus hit, and last semester, i finally started dancing again.

it was the most amazing feeling. dance has always been an escape for me, a way of setting aside everything that was fucking up my mental health etc. has always been this source of joy even when everything else sucked.

around thanksgiving, my hips started to pop and crack. i’m hyper mobile—this isn’t unusual for me. it also wasn’t unusual when they started to ache constantly. my joints always hurt.

but then it got worse. by the start of this month, i was limping bc of how much it hurt. a week after that, i’m barely walking at all, because now my knees and back were effected. Monday, my hip dislocated. it didn’t particularly hurt, and it went right back in place on its own (i’ve always been able to pull my hips and shoulders out of place at will) but after that, it started happening out of nowhere.

today i nearly fell down the stairs twice, because my hip fell out of place and my knees buckled. i caught myself on the rail, but it fucking terrified me. i could live with not taking the stairs, but now the same thing happens when i’m just walking.

my nurse practitioner referred me to physical therapy, but they can’t see me until january, and she inly talked about the fact that i was in pain, she didn’t take the joint collapse seriously. maybe she thought i was being dramatic.

i’m making another appointment tomorrow. my therapist has suggested i ask about hyper mobile ehlers danlos syndrome. from what i’ve read…it makes sense.

and i’m fucking angry. maybe if we had found it sooner i would be dancing next year. maybe i wouldn’t be losing the one thing that brings me joy in my fucked up head if my doctors had noticed my joints all bend backwards (it was my dance teacher who pointed it out and gave me exercises to improve my strength), or that i’m in constant pain because of it, but they were too busy telling me to eat more because i’m tiny and underweight. they prescribed me meds to improve my perfectly normal appetite rather than telling me it isn’t normal to black out when i stand up (oh yeah my therapist wants me assessed for PoTS too)

actually i’m mad about the weight thing too. people think that because i’m thin (size 2 atm) it’s ok to comment on my weight. it’s happened twice in the past two days. this is why i hate the holidays. i don’t want to hear about how you wished you looked like me—not even doctors want me to look like me. they’ve asked me if i’m anorexic, put me on meds for my appetite, taken me off effective depression meds because i was losing weight, sent me to get my growth hormones tested. it isn’t fucking fun. i am terrified of seeing myself in the mirror because of it. it makes me so incredibly uncomfortable to hear people comment on it, treat it like a good thing, or tell me “it’ll catch up with you when you’re older.” it ignores all of the struggles i’ve experienced because of it, and is frankly not any of their business.

i just. i only just got dance back, and now i’m losing it.

edit: i think it’s actually that it’s actually subluxation not dislocation. idk exactly? but they certainly aren’t where they’re SUPPOSED to be,,,,,,

[sammygender]

every time i read one of the all so common transphobic articles about the worrying rise in girls transitioning or what fucking ever it’s only like two paragraphs before they start going on about how Many girls feel it is easier to come out as trans male than a lesbian. are you absolutely fucking kidding me. being gay is shit but this is not 1993 it TRULY is not that uncommon or that taboo. i am the first to say that it’s not as easy as the whole ‘gen z are so progressive’ movement makes out it is but the same applies to being trans one hundred fucking times more. sure, when i was 13 and i tried to come out to my mom as into girls she shut me down pretty quick, but by the time i was 16 she was ready for that because the truth is by this point gay people have been in the public consciousness for a while. meanwhile my transness destroys her. lesbians are in tv and they’re all over tiktok and sooooo many 12 year old girls identify as some variant of wlw now, in 2023, in an averagely liberal area. and the average liberal parent isn’t going to care Much if their kid is gay but they very easily might send you to conversion therapy if you’re trans. these days in the uk you don’t get isolated from a friend group the same for mentioning your ex of the same gender in most cases, but correcting someone on a pronoun gets you branded as the crazy transgender in a microsecond and then everyone’ll stay away from you. into more personal experiences: if i told my colleagues (of at least some i’m sure are homophobic) i liked girls (which they’d perceive as gay) i’d get treated weird sure but if my work found out i was trans and not just some quirky little tomboy who the kids mix up the gender of i would 100% be fired.

anyway sorry this is turning into a crazy little rant it just makes me so angry bc this bullshit is everywhere. and it cherry picks the rare detransitioner experience like the ex-gay movement of the 2000s used to and then tells the story of hundreds of other trans people through the eyes of a journalist or a medical practitioner who clearly comes into this not believing them and refers to people consistent in their identity as the opposite and expects us to do the same. literally makes me want to cry because it’s people who have never made the effort to know a trans person and they get to make all the decisions they get to write their little fucking articles in the spectator or the independent or the fucking guardian and they get to put it as this very clear issue where young girls are being duped and medicalised and told there is something wrong with them WHICH OBVIOUSLY ANY RATIONAL PERSON WOULD BE AGAINST and they don’t make any effort to try and understand even though people have been DOING this for hundreds of years it’s just never been this Public before and they’re so cruel about it. & what about the hundreds upon hundreds of adult trans people of whom transitioning saved them? & what about the fact that, in your entire article, you cite 2 detransitioners and just talk about how Certain you are that everyone currently transitioning will regret it without any actual other proof? do you realise that ninety percent of people who transition have no other options and have to do shit like cut off their family or work in different fields than they wanted or lose the ability to raise kids or be poor forever affording it or all of the above?? and of course even if they didn’t it’d still be fine but i just want to make the point to these fucking people that we’re not doing this for fun i would actually literally genuinely murder a human being if it let me be cisgender because it would be so easy & i’ve hated myself for being gay before sure but never to this insane point because at least the world recognises, these days, that homophobia isn’t morally GREAT, and we don’t get articles in every fucking newspaper about the cult of homosexuality young teenagers are recruited into. and i know the process of being trans is fucking weird. that’s bc it IS fucking weird. i just hate it so much no one makes one tiny effort to try and understand it’s just whiplash and Concern and I think we should be very careful what we let children do to themselves…. And like to be perfectly fucking honest i think we should be very careful that we don’t let children kill themselves bc transitioning has a crazy high reduction rate in suicides and if any antidepressant had that suicide reduction rate it’d be a fucking miracle. and yes we should treat kids for mental health before they transition but that would require good mental health services, wouldn’t it, which nobody seems to be working on implementing anyway? so is that an issue with trans healthcare or is that an issue with mental healthcare BC i think it is actually the latter. & i’m so angry that hundreds upon hundreds of people have just accepted this as truth.

[bestworstcase]

o7 wrt to:

Interesting, I recall Ruby reacting with hurt and confusion in V3 when Yang was to traumatized to fill her parental role. But what were the other instances if you don't mind my asking? (I do recall her seeming a little upset during those two earl instances where Yang either let Ruby find her own way or suggested not being on the same team. Though it felt light enough in tone that I wasn't sure how deep it went.)

parentheticals are the incidents i have in mind, yeah. like you say, those times don’t feel nearly as heavy as the devastation when yang rejects her in v3, but i think that comes down to a lesser need on ruby’s part: in v1, her problem is that she’s socially anxious and feeling isolated, so she gets a bit clingy with yang (“why would i need other friends when i have you!!”), whereas in v3 she’s just woken up from a coma after witnessing the murder of two friends.

it’s different in scale. and then there’s also the factor that in v1, yang makes the right call for ruby in not indulging that clinginess—it’ll be good for ruby to meet new people and make her own friends separate from yang!—BUT handles it in a very, well, seventeen-year-old way. awkwardly ditching ruby at the entrance vs taking a few minutes to talk through the fear with her and help her figure out some ways to approach new people, which is how a hypothetical Actual Adult Parent would ideally handle the situation.

the ditching incident in particular sticks out to me because ruby reacts to it quite strongly: “WAIT! where are you going?! are we supposed to go to our dorms? where are our dorms? do we have dorms??—” while she’s depicted as literally spinning in place to represent how discombobulated she feels. and then she’s like “i don’t know what i’m doing” and falls over. & by the end of that scene she’s so overwhelmed and upset that she just sinks onto the ground again.

i think yang realized after the fact that what she did was actually pretty mean—hence saving ruby a spot and calling her over as soon as ruby comes into the hall and (awkwardly) checking in, she’s trying to make up for it.

and then in the lockers the following morning, when the same issue bubbles up again, yang gets really nervous and self-conscious because she 1. doesn’t want to hurt ruby’s feelings again, but 2. also doesn’t know how to say “i think being on separate teams would be good for both of us” without it coming across as rejecting ruby. ruby still feels rejected, plays it off as sisterly ribbing, but once they’re in the forest she’s outright on the brink of panic “gotta find yang gotta find yang” and i think the hurt from Being Ditched the day before definitely feeds into that, bc in her mind ‘yang isnt with me’ = ‘i feel lost and scared and mess everything up and strangers yell at me’

after that point it’s better because 1. yang doesn’t ever ditch her like that again and 2. ruby forms friendships with other people so she doesn’t feel the need to cling to yang anymore, and they settle into a more balanced dynamic until the next time ruby rly needs a caretaker at a point when yang isn’t able to step into that role, which is after beacon falls

but i do think those interactions in the first couple episodes are really important for establishing that this dynamic exists; on first pass it’s easy to read as normal sibling stuff but then once more context is revealed looking back it’s like—ah. that’s probably the first time ruby’s turned to yang for parent-like support in an environment where yang didn’t feel so much pressure to be a parent.

and that being like, the second major interaction they have after the scene that establishes how yang loves ruby to bits (so we know the ditching doesn’t happen bc yang sees her as an annoying tagalong, or whatever)? very much lays the groundwork to support what is gradually revealed about their home life.

similar to how the ‘light-hearted’ framing of qrow’s alcoholism—the fun drunk uncle! he’s always drunk! the inner circle’s exasperation is played for laughs! (winter is furious that he’s drunk. mercury says “he smelled like my dad.”)—sets up for when the narrative gets serious and goes no this is a real problem actually, this has always been a problem, even when the characters brushed it off.

So, regarding your Tai post,

https://www.tumblr.com/bestworstcase/748954216598470656/the-perennial-tai-discourse-is-really-interesting?source=share

I had some thoughts: I technically cover it in a separate post

https://www.tumblr.com/tumblingxelian/749060919422861312/really-solid-addition-here-much-like-with-qrows

But I'm unsure if the links will work so here is a slightly edited & expanded version:

Now, the idea that Ruby & Yang had very different childhoods is not an idea I strictly disagree with. But, I also think it is a bit inaccurate to treat it as outlined in your post.

What I mean is that while Yang is definitely more overt in the fact she feels Tai and the other adults failed them and defaults to centering family moments on Ruby. (For instance she frames the Zwei package as something to cheer Ruby up, its not for her & Ruby's the one really excited, Yang's just kind of there about it)

Despite that, Ruby herself doesn't have a simple relationship with Tai, or in fact she just might but that's not a good thing.

See, Ruby does not think about Tai very often, he's largely an afterthought in her letters for one. But more to the point he is not someone Ruby goes to for advice or guidance or even comfort.

Post Beacon, she mostly gets an update from him and is not bothered to see him go. She is OK being a bit more vulnerable around Qrow.

But the person she actually seeks out and seems utterly shocked at not receiving comfort from is Yang. It was also Yang who she questions for what to do next and Yang whom she confided her plans in before leaving.

Again she is shocked when Yang cannot supply these things to her.

Tai is her dad, but its a superficial relationship, he's nice, he can be fun, she does love him. She does not however, seem to perceive him as a reliable or responsible adult from whom she seeks protection or guidance.

The person she always defaulted to for that was Yang until she could no longer fill the role post V3 which likely fed into her issues with showing vulnerability in V9.

I tend to think she might have been more open to it in V5 given the breakdown tears & hug, but then Yang demonstrated she was still very much not all right & Ruby had no clue what to do. So she just sort of locked into her head that Yang needed 'her' protection now, not the other way around.

I would also just straight up note that even Ruby said it was Yang who raised her. Like, that wasn't even subtle, she knows who the parent was in that house and it wasn't Tai or Qrow. I don't think she'd say that if their childhoods were 'so' different that Tai was a functional parent to her but not Yang.

She definitely has a less... frosty relationship with the two grown men who she grew up around, Largely because they project the saintly Summer onto her and the Wretched Raven onto Yang.

Again, let's not forget Qrow's entirely willing to accept Yang brutalized a kid for shits and giggles or is "crazy". Or that Tai outright sees a lot of Raven in Yang, despite most of the traits he described not meshing with Yang's demonstrated or self described persona.

But even with that more positive relationship being projected onto and still raised by a sister two years your senior isn't exactly ideal. Both sisters had a shitty childhood, both were deeply neglected and failed and suffered because of that fact.

all true! but the nature of parentification is that the children experience the neglect in very different ways; the elder child is forced into an adult role, parenting the younger child, who is harmed in more invisible ways because they do have a caretaker—their sibling. anecdotally nearly every account of a childhood i’ve read by an adult who was raised as a child by older siblings has either alluded to or outright described 1. a much better childhood than their caretaking sibling(s) got, 2. because their sibling(s) shielded them from the worst neglect or abuse.

with that in mind and taking into consideration things like the different reactions to the package from tai (this will cheer ruby up vs ooh, something from home!) and yang staying behind at beacon when tai takes ruby to visit the memorial stone, and now these clear differences in how the girls feel about the boba shop (yang: unsure, downplaying the surprise, maybe it’s dumb / ruby: boba!!!) which probably reflect their emotional experience of the outings with dad (yang: fun, happy that ruby is so excited, not that special otherwise / ruby: magical)…

well, let’s put it this way:

yang did not have a real caretaker starting from age five, when she became the de facto main parent to her three-year-old sister with at best sporadic breaks when qrow wasn’t too blackout drunk / tai was having a good day.

ruby had a primary caretaker who struggled but was always there (yang) and a dad who had to work a lot but made time to do special things like the boba trips so that he could spend quality time with his family (tai). plus an uncle she sometimes needed to help her sister deal with.

yang being parentified has the effect of insulating ruby from the severity of tai’s neglect; in a functional single-income household where one parent stays home and the other works to support the family and both parents are adults who chose this dynamic and enjoy their respective roles, the working parent is not bad or neglectful simply because they aren’t around during the day to take care of the kids, and they can foster close, loving relationships with their children by making the most of the time they have at home. the childhood ruby had was a dysfunctional imitation of that dynamic.

and then factoring in the summer-vs-raven projection, when tai was around he focused on bonding time with ruby moreso than yang.

the net result is that the harm to ruby is much more invisible (yang by virtue of being a child herself could not provide ruby with healthy parent-child boundaries or the emotional stability children need from their parents to feel secure and develop good emotional regulation; tai’s favoritism of ruby being intertwined with idealizing of summer fucked ruby’s sense of self really badly; in the first few volumes ruby feels hurt and bewildered every time yang acts like her sister instead of her parent).

ruby sees clearly and states in volume nine that yang raised her; i don’t think she would have been able to articulate that so plainly in volume one, and this is something she’s come to realize after leaving home / living independently. in v1 it’s “yang used to read to me when we were little” and i’d bet that’s how ruby would phrase everything yang did—as discrete habits, not the combined pattern of “yang raised me.”

whereas yang like. the first thing she does at beacon is try to step away from ruby: encouraging her to meet new people then ditching her to catch up with friends, not wanting to partner up with her for initiation… much as yang loves her sister and enthusiastically supports her, it’s also pretty obvious that yang saw beacon as an opportunity to focus on herself for once. which says to me that she’d already grasped that their home life was messed up and that she needed to break those patterns once she left.

[renjunnipeikko]

Turbo Sus Vice Housewardens to Be Avoided at All Cost Rankings (Source: Me)!

1. Jade Leech - This man is so scary for obvious reasons. Other reasons probably aren’t so obvious to other people and I can’t even explain what I mean by this not only because I feel like no matter where I am nor regardless of the fact he’s fictional, he’ll be able to hear me but also because some of the things I just flat out won’t talk about. Like I straight up cannot be brought to say them. Evidence for this? None. Just- bad vibes. Bad vibes all around. Also I just can’t figure out his motives. Like Azul likes money and wants revenge for being bullied. Floyd seems like a genuinely nice guy all things aside and just wants to have fun. But Jade? Wtf does he want? He doesn’t care about money so part of me thinks he just wants entertainment like Floyd but to put up with all that? A business he’s not even in charge of, a flakey brother, a pushy boss. Nah… he’s playing some game for the long run. Highly functioning sociopath and the bogeyman that plagued your fragile mind as a child. No. Hate that.

2. Jamil Viper - Snake. Will spends years pretending to be your friend just to stab you in the back and for what? For someone who’s like the most hyper-competent guy on campus, he actually surprisingly lacks like… all critical thinking skills. And it’s because he’s so blinded by the cards he was dealt in life he can’t look beyond that. Is so convinced Kalim is his arch nemesis he can’t take a second to think about it and realize Kalim is actually his greatest ally in life. And even if he did… he probably just would not care. Lifetime of resentment and all that. He’s book smart, he’s street smart, but he is not emotionally nor logically smart. Just avoid him. He’s good at seeming mature but he’s petty and will Regina George you because you like, got the scholarship he wanted or smthng idk

3. Lilia Vanrouge - Listen. I don’t think Lilia will hurt me. I don’t think he’s planning anything nefarious. He’s nice and friendly. Super helpful. Incredibly loyal to Briar Valley and the royal family. Incredibly loyal and loving towards Malleus. That’s not why he’s scary. He’s scary because he’s hiding in plain site. He ain’t even necessarily trying to hide anything about himself, he just won’t outright dish out personal info. It’s the fact no one at NRC is suspecting he’s anything more than just a student that gives him safety to be a little reckless. I have reason to suspect he holds much more power than he lets on but everyone overlooks it because they’re all looking at Malleus instead. Meanwhile Lilia is standing directly behind him, completely hidden (not just bc he’s so short and Malleus so tall 😋), also a complete powerhouse. But no one.suspects.a.thing. And even though the player is privy to this information, there’s still so much about him still shrouded in mystery. Like, again, I don’t think he’s up to anything. I do believe he really is just trying to protect his kiddos and wants peace between all races. But I feel like there’s something about him, something big, that we don’t know yet. And it’s making me nervous.

4. Rook Hunt - I’m not as weirded out by Rook as I had been initially. Both he and Vil grew on me in chapter 6. I flat out disliked both of them before. But they really showed themselves to be loyal and caring towards each other, Epel, and MC (which was what made them stand out compared to the other housewardens and vice housewardens for me, they’re the first ones to actually establish a seemingly genuine personal connection to the player after Ace, Deuce, and Malleus). But- mans is playing The Most Dangerous Game and that story creeped me out so badly when I first read it at like 11 years old that I still think about it constantly to this day, over a decade later. I tried to justify his stalking by reasoning that he wasn’t actually interested in hunting merfolk/beastmen and rather was interested in hunting actual eels or lions, but his PE uniform vignette really said otherwise. He didn’t seem at all interested in the nature of bats as he did fae. And if it were just animals, I doubt Malleus would have nearly taken his head off with that ball as a warning. Nah, it feels like he straight up was looking to Butcher Baker Lilia and that makes me wanna vomit. Rook. You’re one of the good guys. You’ve got the light powers to prove it. If hunting animals is becoming boring for you- find another hobby. Do not fucking turn this into The Most Dangerous Game! Please!

5. Ortho - I always hated the movie Smart House.

[drawlfoy]

detention, retention, and draco malfoy being a little shit

masterlist request guidelines

pairing: draco x reader

request: no not really

summary: golden trio friend y/n y/l/n tries to extract information out of draco malfoy after being placed in detention together.

warnings: swearing, panic attack kinda stuff, just the dark war things that would come w having the task that draco does

a/n: ayo so i started this as a fic i was originally planning on writing in a week. i discontinued it bc i didn’t think anyone was that interested, but i’ve written for it on and off. it’s about 16k words right now standing, but i’m reposting this as a 2 part series. here are the first ~12k words....enjoy :) IMPORTANT: if you’re like “hey i started reading this in october why tf are you reposting the first two parts” just keep reading ok lmao i promise there’s more there’s about through part 6 in here hehe. i just wanted new readers to be able to pick up on it without being turned off by the fact that it was part 3. this will b e 2 parts and at least 20k words

word count: 11.6k

taglist: @gruffle1 @missmultifandommess @cleopatera @hahaboop @accio-rogers @geeksareunique @eltanin-malfoy @war-sword @cams-lynn @itsivyberry @ayo-cowbelly @nerd-domland @yesnerdsblog @shizarianathania @evanstanfanatic @strawberriesonsummer @hariosborn @night-ving @straightzoinked @imintoodeeptostop @naiomimoonshard @jejegu @ophelia-enthusiast @alwaysbeanunknownfan @nearly-memories @litty-dumb @callieclearwater @malfoy-wife15 @charlenasaxen @belladaises @fiantomartell

happy reading y’all

For legal purposes, the york pudding she lobbed at Pansy Parkinson’s head on Monday evening was simply meant to be a joke. She didn’t know that her aim was bad enough that it was going to get in Snape’s hair instead--honestly, it wasn’t even supposed to get past the Ravenclaw table, much less veer to the left to make a beeline for the professors--but no matter how much she tried to explain this to McGonagall, her sentence remained the same: detention every Friday. For two months.

Her life was ending for sure.

“I honestly don’t know what you were expecting,” Hermione told her as she gently wiped off the nib of her quill later that night in the common room. “Even if you had hit your mark, that’s still technically assault.”

“Did you even hear what she said to me? She told me that I looked like the type of kid that bit people in primary school,” complained Y/N. “I didn’t even think she knew what primary school was!”

Hermione snorted. “How long ago?”

“Two days. I’ve been waiting until there was something throwable on the dinner table.”

“How very analytic of you.”

“I’m going to hit you.”

“And you wonder why you’ve got detention.” Hermione tsk-ed at her, her face stone serious but her tone light hearted. “Maybe take this as an opportunity to, I don’t know, do your homework for once? So you won’t have to have a breakdown over the next Potion’s essay and beg me to write it for you?”

“I’m going to go to sleep and think terribly mean thoughts about you.”

“Have fun.”

~ 

Detention.

Something that Y/N wasn’t completely unfamiliar with--she’d done her time organizing Snape’s cabinets, just like every other Gryffindor--but it was different when it came to McGonagall. An impressive old lady, she thought that McGonagall saw something in her. She was always the first to chuckle at Y/N’s jokes and hesitated to reprimand her stupid behavior. And she never gave Y/N detention.

Until now, she supposed. 6th year was changing a lot of things--even their Potions professor--so McGonagall turning a new stone shouldn’t have been anything shocking.

At least, not as shocking as the first thing Y/N saw as she walked into her house head’s office.

“Malfoy?” she spat.

The platinum blonde didn’t even bother to look up from his desk.

“Miss Y/L/N,” Professor McGonagall chided. “I think we would all prefer if you restrained yourself from getting into any more physical altercations with Slytherins.”

She huffed, plopping down in the chair furthest away from that foul git and reaching for her satchel.

“I’ll be back in two hours,” said the elderly professor. “If I hear anything, and I mean anything, other than the sound of studying, consider your sentence doubled.”

With a swish of her robes, McGonagall was gone, leaving her with Malfoy. 

“So what’d you do to get in here, huh? Did the administration finally get a hold of that video of you licking Voldemort’s toes?”

“What the fuck does that mean?!” he snapped, whipping around to glare at her.

“‘s just a joke,” said Y/N. “Like--how everyone says your family houses him and everything--but whatever. I can tell it’s a sore spot.”

His gaze, never withering in intensity, remained trained on her face. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Apparently so. What’re you here for?”

He exhaled sharply. “If I tell you, will you shut up and let me think?”

“No promises, but maybe.”

“Late work. I forgot to turn in the Transfiguration exam last week.”

She made a tutting sound as she lazily shuffled through the crumpled parchment in her satchel. “I expected more from you. Aren’t you gonna ask me how I wound up here?”

“No. I am going to ask you to stop talking now, though.”

~

“That’s terribly unfortunate,” Hermione said over breakfast the next morning. Ron and Harry were nervously chit chatting at the other side of the table over the Saturday Quidditch game against Hufflepuff--supposedly it was supposed to be quite a high stakes match. Not like Y/N cared much, though.

“Yeah! And the worst part was that he won’t even tease anymore. Like, he just sits there all broody and woe is me. We’re all witnessing our nation’s descent into war--he’s not special!”

“Who are you talking about?” asked Harry.

“Oh, just Malfoy,” said Y/N. “We have detention together with McGonagall. He’s such a nasty little greaseball, don’t you think? I mean, look at him right now, glowering over his cereal.”

“Wait! That’s it!”

“What’s it, Harry?” Hermione asked.

“It’s genius, really,” he said. “Y/N has to spend time with him alone every week, and we know that something is up with him. Malfoy is absolutely a Death Eater and has connections to You-Know-Who, but I just need to find a way to prove it.”

“I vaguely forecast where this is going, and I hate it already.”

“Listen, Y/N. It’s not for that long, and it’s for the health of the wizarding world. If you just get to know him--”

“Ick!”

“If you just get to know him, maybe get him to trust you and find out his secrets...we’d finally have enough to turn him in and throw him out of Hogwarts for good.”

“Is that really necessary, Harry?” Ginny butted in from her seat further down next to Dean. “Malfoy’s probably just exhausted like the rest of you. 6th year is difficult, and we have no solid evidence that he’s a Death Eater. I’m sure being stuck in a room with him for 2 hours is hard enough without pretending to be nice to him.”

“But what if Harry’s right?” said Y/N. “What if he is actually a Death Eater? What if he’s an active danger to the student body?”

“Exactly!” The joy written across Harry’s face at the prospect of someone else finally agreeing was infectious. “So will you?”

“Er…” She dragged her spoon across the top layer of her porridge. “In theory, sure. In actuality, I’m not sure how I could do it. Malfoy doesn’t want anything to do with me, either.”

“Love potion?” offered Ron.

“I don’t care how much of a prat he is, I’m not roofying him.”

“I rarely agree with you, Y/N, but I think you’re right. If you want to do this, you need to get him to trust you for real.”

“Your back-handed compliment skills never disappoint, Hermione. Do you think you could help me out with a plan?”

A slow smile spread across the girl’s face as she nodded. “That’s my strong suit.”

The plan they laid out over the remainder of the day was ambitious but at least do-able. Each week was split into different subtasks, the end goal being a somewhat tentative friendship between the two. 

“If you can flirt with him and get him to have a crush on you without scaring him off, you’d be in the best possible position,” Hermione told her as they walked back from the Quidditch pitch among the screaming Gryffindor fans. They’d won--yet again. “Obviously I don’t foresee that being likely, but if you pull it off somehow he’d probably be willing to tell you anything. The fact that you’re a pureblood is going to carry you through this whole ordeal. He’ll at least be accepting of your existence in the wizarding community.”

The bitter edge in Hermione’s tone made Y/N’s blood boil. There was no reason for Malfoy to be as prejudiced as he was--he’d spent his adolescence in Hermione’s academic dust. She was obviously smarter than him. 

“You got it, ‘Mione,” she said. Her voice barely carried over the cheers of her peers as they ascended the steps to the common room. “We’ll take this little ferret down. I can’t wait.”

“Don’t get too cocky, now.”

The Gryffindor after-party was crazy...per usual. The charmed self-filling goblets, the blasted playlist of Wizpop pumping through the air, and the buzzing energy of the room was giving Y/N a giant headache. She stood with Hermione and Harry by the edge of the crowd, watching Ron get hoisted up on the shoulders of the chasers. 

“No wonder the Slytherins think we’re Neanderthals,” Y/N mused. For once, Hermione didn’t respond. “Hermione? Is everything okay?”

The second she turned away to look at her best friend, gasps and whistles filled the room. She whipped back just in time to see Lavender Brown, a sweet but slightly ditzy girl in their year, pull away from a kiss with Ron.

“Oh shi--Hermione!”

Harry and Y/N shared a glance before darting after the witch--who had impressively already made it to the door. 

“Hermione, wait!” Y/N called as they jogged after her, throwing open the common room entrance and finding her sat by the tapestry on the other side of the hall, knees to her chest.

“‘Mione, what’s wrong?” asked Harry.

“Don’t be daft, Harry,” said Y/N. “You saw exactly what the rest of us did.”

“I don’t understa--”

“Harry.” Her voice was taut. “I know you’re just trying to help, but I think that it might be best if you let us be. Go back and enjoy the party.”

He gave her a tight, grateful smile before darting back through the door. Y/N wasted no more time in walking over to Hermione and throwing her arms around her shoulders.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, hugging her tight. Hermione made no move to detach them, so she continued. “Ron is an idiot. You deserve so much better--your first kiss was Viktor fucking Krum, after all. You’re hot stuff and this place is just unfortunately running dry of men who are impressive enough for you. Once you’re out of here and working in the Ministry, you’re gonna have the time of your life with men actually in your league.”

Hermione managed a sniffly laugh as she wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “It’s just so fucking embarrassing, you know. Like, I have a crush on him because I think he understands me and I smelled him in my Amortentia and I thought he’d like me back, but…” She hiccuped. “Then he goes off and kisses Lavender Brown, of all people. There’s nothing particularly wrong with her or anything, but she’s so different...I’m so bookish, and she’s so girly and everything I’m not…”

Y/N took the opportunity to tuck a lock of Hermione’s hair behind her ear as she listened.

“And it can’t help but make me think--was I ever anything to him but a friend? If the girl he ends up choosing is the opposite of me?”

“Girly, don’t think like that,” murmured Y/N. “He’s a teenage boy. They don’t think of love the way that we do--to them it’s a game of availability, not of choice. At least for Ronald. You intimidate him, and by extension, you’re not available.”

“That shouldn’t matter!”

“You’re right. It shouldn’t.” Y/N drew a long breath. “So you should find someone who always has you as their first choice--someone who isn’t intimidated by your intellect. They’re out there. I promise.”

Hermione managed a shaky smile. “Thanks, Y/N. I mean it. Do you mind if I have some alone time? I don’t think I’m ready to go back to the party but I just want some quiet.”

“Of course. Let me know if you need me,” she said, brushing herself off and making to walk down the hall.

“You’re not going back to the party?”

“Nah. It hurts my head and I want fresh air. If I’m not back here in a half hour, assume that I’ve been kidnapped.”

With that, she started her walk. She wasn’t planning on going on a long stroll--there was a small balcony that she often went to when she needed to clear her head. It was beautiful, especially on a snowy night like this.

But the walk was creepy.

There was only one way in and out--a narrow, damp hallway that had absolutely no light fixtures. If Y/N really wanted to, she could cast a quick lumos, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to see what lived on the walls. The stairs were steep, too, but she managed to bound up all 40 of them in record time. 

“Who’s there?”

The sudden voice ripped a scream out of Y/N’s throat as she reached the top, catching a glimpse of the shadowy figure at the edge of the balcony that spoke. She clasped her hand over her mouth and she crept forward to the opening, getting a better look at the person that was in her secret spot.

The clouds shifted in the sky to allow more moonlight to cast a soft glow on Malfoy’s face, hardened with irritation.

“Malfoy?” Y/N asked, rather dumbly.

“What stellar observational skills,” he drawled. 

She felt her cheeks grow hot. “What are you doing here? This is part of the Gryffindor tower. Shouldn’t you be...I don’t know...playing hide and seek with the sewer rats in the dungeons?”

“Very funny.” His flat tone exposed the fact that he did not, in fact, find it very funny. “There’s no rule barring me from coming up here.”

“But why? This is my spot!”

“Because I wanted to get out. Now, I was here first, so unless you want your detention extended, I suggest you leave.”

Y/N bit the fiery comebacks on the tip of her tongue as the memories of her plan with Hermione began floating back to her. 

Week 1 -- Hold one neutral, civil conversation with Malfoy.

“I’ll be quiet. You won’t even know I’m here,” Y/N decided upon. leaning up against the balcony. The rogue snowflakes that made it past the overhanging roof melted on her cheeks. 

“That isn’t a suggestion,” said Malfoy. “I’m demanding you leave.”

“Beautiful night, isn’t it?” Y/N asked, pointedly ignoring his words. “I’ve always loved the snow. It’s so quiet.”

“And it would be even quieter if you left.”

“Aren’t you the conversationalist?” said Y/N.

“If you don’t leave, I will hex you,” Malfoy told her through gritted teeth. 

“I just love how the moonlight reflects off of the snow,” continued Y/N. “It’s so...pure.”

“Please leave.”

On her walk back down the dank stairwell, she allowed herself a little smile. 

Task 1? Technically done.

~ 

The first week went largely as planned. Malfoy was cold and certainly suspicious of her, but he wasn’t completely venomous when Y/N asked where he got his quill from in Potions. It was silver, charmed to shimmer with flecks of forest green. He told her Barnaby’s in France, and that was that. She walked away from his table with all of her limbs attached. Perhaps that was all the progress she was going to make in the next few weeks, but the task at hand certainly made the prospect of her lost Friday afternoons more bearable. 

Harry was going completely batty, rambling on about how Malfoy was behind the mysterious cursed objects that had been floating about the castle without explanation. 

“And why would Malfoy bring cursed objects to Hogwarts if he has aspirations other than being expelled?” Hermione would ask over their books.

“You don’t understand, Hermione! You girls need to be careful walking around at night--especially you, Y/N. I don’t want you going missing after detention because of that slimeball.”

Y/N always gave him a laugh, berating him for his slight misogynistic commentary and turning back to whatever her task was, but the truth was that she was worried for him. The mental weight of the impending war and the fact that he couldn’t do anything about it was certainly getting too difficult for him to bear. It was heartbreaking to see the vivacious boy she’d grown up with crumble under the responsibilities of something he should never have to worry about in the first place.

Friday came much sooner than expected, and Y/N reluctantly left her friends in the common room to trek to McGonagall’s office. The walk was frigid and the wind bit at her cheeks as she rounded the last outdoor hall.

Why was this castle so dark?

A thump behind her made her jump, and Harry’s words came floating back to her. 

Remember all those cursed objects? What if there’s someone just...stalking the school grounds, waiting for someone like me to snatch?

She shivered, throwing herself at the office door and slamming it behind her.

“Miss Y/L/N,” Professor McGonagall greeted, her eyebrows raised in amusement. “Something giving you trouble?”

“No, Professor,” she answered, setting her bag down on the desk next to Malfoy. He sent her a curious look as well. “It’s just cold outside.”

She chuckled. “I need to go speak to Headmaster Dumbledore. I expect that, upon my return, you both are in one piece and alive.”

“I’m not sure if I’m the one who needs to be given that speech,” said Y/N, bored and testing the waters.

“She’s right, Professor,” added Malfoy. “There’s no projectiles here.”

McGonagall exhaled a long, shaky breath before brushing herself off. “Please. Behave yourselves.”

“You got it, boss,” she said as she watched her Professor walk out the door. “So, Malfoy. How was your week?”

“I don’t know what you’re up to, but I’d way prefer if you didn’t speak to me,” he said, refusing to make eye contact.

“I’m not up to anything! We’re in detention together and, I dunno, since I see you sometimes at balls, I thought it’d be nice to be on good terms.”

“Good terms?” He scoffed. “You’re a Gryffindor. I’d rather you be a bloody Hufflepuff.”

“How about neutral terms?”

Even though he wasn’t looking at her, she could catch a glimpse of him rolling his eyes. “If neutral terms mean you being quiet, then, yes. Please.”

“I’ll be plenty quiet. After I hear about your opinion on what happened in Potions today with Brown and Weasley. When Snape yelled at them for holding hands.”

He let out a sharp sigh. “Believe it or not, I actually have better things to do than keep up with whatever stuff your house does.”

“But…?” Y/N pressed. She may not’ve spent her time at Hogwarts as Malfoy’s best friend, but she had grown up with the boy, and she could tell when he was holding back.

He stared blankly at her.

“Come on. I’m literally the only person in my house who’ll openly admit that they’re disgusted by that dynamic. I’m begging you.”

She wasn’t sure if she was imagining it, but she thought she saw a flicker of amusement dance across his face for a moment. “Your house sounds more like a cult than a student group.”

“Oh, says the one from Slytherin,” said Y/N. 

“We only act like that because our families are close. What’s your excuse? Hormones and Quidditch culture?”

“Touché.” As much as she wanted to fight back, she bit her tongue. Whatever she was doing was making progress, and quicker progress than she was expecting. Her next task was to make him laugh, and she was emboldened by the fact that she could potentially be able to kill two birds with one stone. 

They sat in silence for a little bit, but this time, it was a comfortable silence. Malfoy wasn’t staring at the clock on the wall or rolling his eyes at her every move, so she had time to plot.

On one hand, she could make a fool of herself--drop her inkwell, say something stupid in class, fall down the stairs--but she had a sneaking suspicion that her sorry attempts at slapstick humor wouldn’t land well with Draco anymore. He’d become so serious lately, so solemn. This was the most light hearted she’d seen him, even compared with how he acted with the rest of his Slytherin lackeys. 

On the other, she could try to sell out her friends. She could confide in him how “big” Hermione’s teeth were (they weren’t even big) or tell him that Ron smelled of eggs (true, but that was a low blow). Something told her that this would be much more successful, but she wasn’t willing to turn to that so quickly--she was already a week ahead as it was. 

“What is it?” 

Malfoy’s bored drawl cut through her flurried thoughts. Her cheeks turned pink as she blinked, noticing that she’d been staring at him for far too long. “Nothing. Sorry. I just spaced out.”

“Sure,” he mumbled, giving her another suspicious look before turning back to his work. “Can you maybe space out somewhere other than my face?”

“Where’s your vanity, Malfoy?” she pressed as she leaned back in her chair, hair swinging over the back. 

“Shut up,” he snapped. She could tell that whatever connection they’d had in the fleeting moments beforehand was being burnt by the second, but her embarrassment and pride drove her forward.

“Merlin, what’s got you so wound up?” she prompted, noting how deliciously unraveled he looked at this. “Where’s my cool, collected Slytherin?”

He slammed hands on his desk at this, whipping around to glare at her. “What’s your angle, Y/L/N?”

“What?”

“Why are you bothering me?”

“Because I want to.” She beamed.

Malfoy ran his fingers through his hair, mussing up the usual neat manner in which it normally laid on his head. “Compelling. What do you want from me?”

“What do I want…?” She tilted her head at him, narrowing her eyes. “What?”

“You never talk to me,” he explained. “Obviously, I prefer it like that. I can’t help but wonder why suddenly you want to be making small talk. So, what is it you want from me?”

“Malfoy,” she said. “I think you’re a spoiled prick who thinks far too highly of himself and drives me insane. But I also think that you’re funnier than what my friends give you credit for. Granted, you’ve always been annoying, but I don’t want anything from you. I just want to, I dunno, make these next few months less insufferable.” Somehow the lie slipped through her teeth easier than any of her previous bluffs. 

He frowned, his mouth opening once before firmly screwing shut into a scowl. “Oh.”

“No offense, Malfoy, but what else can you offer me other than your dazzling personality?” she teased. “You know my family. I don’t need to blackmail you to pay for jewelry I’ve had my eye on or anything.”

He scoffed. “As if I’d say yes.”

“Exactly my point. It’d be fucking weird. Merlin, I’m not trying to butter you up to buy out Borgin & Burkes for me. Do I give off gold-digger vibes? Is that what this is about?”

“Fucking hell.” Malfoy turned to her in disbelief. “Do you ever shut up?”

“Answer my question. Or better yet, pull out your wallet. Wait, did I say that out loud?” She mimed surprise and covered her mouth. “Oh no! What will my mother say now that I’ve squandered my last chance of hitching you? There’s no way I can go home for Christmas break now.”

He rolled his eyes so hard she found herself worried for a moment that they were going to just permanently get stuck in the back of his head. “Hate to break it to you, but you didn’t really have a shot to begin with.”

Ouch.

She huffed and dramatically flopped over the back of her chair, hoping he couldn’t see that she’d flinched. “So you don’t think I’m pretty??” 

“Y/L/N,” he snapped, his voice a low warning. “Can I please just work? What is with you today?”

Y/N sent him a sour look before giving her Charms work another look. Malfoy was awfully quiet, and when she snuck any glances at him later on, he was angled to face away from her. 

Why did she feel like such shit all of a sudden? She cataloged the past events, trying to pinpoint the exact moment that her stomach dropped. It all made sense when the words “You didn’t really have a shot to begin with” echoed around her head once again. She’d failed Harry. She’d failed Hermione. There was no way that she was going to be able to get him to reveal his secrets now--it’s not like he was confiding in even his closest friends as Harry made apparent when he explained how vague his statements were to his fellow Slytherins on the train. Her only chance would’ve been to somehow get him to fall for her, and that wasn’t going...great. And it had been a pipedream to begin with.

When McGonagall swished back into the classroom to dismiss them, Y/N shot out of there without even looking at Malfoy again. It felt like something was lodged in her throat and she was not going to cry in front of him. No, no. She had to make it to Hermione to tell her what was going on. 

“Y/L/N?” 

Malfoy’s voice made her pause in her flee as she nearly rounded the corner in front of her, but she refused to look back. It was far enough away that it was possible she didn’t hear him.

“Wait!”

She was up the stairs and speed walking as fast as her legs could carry her to the Gryffindor tower before he even saw which way she went.

~

“I don’t think you understand,” Y/N wailed by the fire as Hermione rubbed her shoulders and Harry sat awkwardly perched on the couch. “I can’t do this. The only way this was going to work was if he had a crush on me, and I don’t think he ever will. I fucked it up! The one time you guys need me, I fuck it up! I let you down!”

Hermione’s left hand stopped its rubbing to rest firmly on her shoulder. “Please don’t be upset. You didn’t let us down. Plus, you’re only, what...two weeks in? You don’t need him to like you to make it work. Just getting him to trust you will be enough, and you’re good at that.”

“I don’t think so,” continued Y/N. “Harry said that he wasn’t even that open on the train when he overheard him talking to all of his friends. And those are purebloods that he likes! That he’s trusted and known for years and years! I’m a friend of you guys, and he knows it. I think he’d figure it out quick.”

“We should take every chance we can get,” said Harry from his spot a few feet away, his eyes lazy and unfocused on the fire crackling in front of them. “You won’t let us down if you can’t get anything, Y/N, you know that! But if you got anything from him, it’d be incredible. It’s a win-win. I don’t understand why you’re so upset.”

“I’m not upset,” she said, her tone becoming defensive. “I just...don’t want to mess this up. I know how much it’d mean if I succeeded.”

“So just try!” Hermione said. “There’s nothing wrong with it. I’m sorry he was kind of mean to you today, but I don’t think that should bother you too much. He should be more afraid of what you’d say if you didn’t care about being a good person.”

“Fucking right on there,” she said, wiping away the frustrated tears. “If I was honest with him, he’d leave crying. He should be grateful that I’m taking this bet so I actually have to be nice to him.”

“That’s the spirit.” Harry leaned over to smack her back like he did his Quidditch teammates after a winning match. 

After they’d parted their ways with Harry, Hermione and Y/N made their way slowly up the stairwell to the girls’ dorms. 

“Y/N?” Hermione asked, breaking the silence. 

“Yeah?”

“Do you think, er…” She paused. “Do you think you were really upset about failing us today? Or was it something else?”

“What do you mean?” Y/N furrowed her eyebrows. “I don’t see what else it would be.”

“I’m sorry,” responded the bright witch. “Forget I ever asked. It was a stupid thing to wonder about.”

“Weirdo,” she teased as she waved her a goodnight and made her way to her dorm.

The next morning, Y/N busied herself with revising her Charms essay over her breakfast--a cup of tea and a half-buttered piece of toast--while Hermione leaned over her shoulder, nodding or grimacing at the corrections she made. 

“Did you work during detention? Like, at all?”

“‘Mione,” moaned Y/N. “It’s too early for this. I don’t want a lecture. I just couldn’t focus.”

Her warm brown eyes narrowed as they bore into Y/N’s face. “Why were you distracted?”

“Oh, I, uh…” She stumbled over her words as Hermione drew closer. “Merlin, Hermione. I told you last night. I just felt like I was letting you all down.”

“Mhm,” was all she got in response before her best friend tilted her head back down to the parchment in front of her. 

Y/N sat, completely puzzled. What was Hermione on about? She’d been straightforward with what was hurting her--she didn’t want to mess up the only task the Golden Trio had ever given her--and, even if she hadn’t been, Hermione was smart enough to deduce things for herself. So what was she thinking about?

Her eyes drifted over to the Slytherin table where the usual 6th year pureblood gang loitered about, drinking black coffee and sulking--but Malfoy was not to be seen. She jumped when her eyes met Parkinson, her dark eyes burning into her soul as a deep scowl was written across her face.

“Malfoy, what the fuck do you want?” Ron’s voice pulled her back to reality to see him glaring somewhere behind her.

“I wasn’t here to talk to you,” a familiar voice drawled. 

She turned to see Malfoy standing behind her, a sneer written all across his stupidly pretty face.

“Miss me already?” asked Y/N as she raised an eyebrow and cocked her head to the side. 

“For fuck’s sake, stop doing that,” he mumbled, reaching into his pocket and throwing a box at her. “You forgot your quill. I took the liberty of properly storing it, because it seems like you lot like to just throw them in your bag. Makes me physically ill to watch.”

“Oh.” Y/N studied the intricate box in her hands before tucking it away in her knapsack. “Thanks? I guess?”

He nodded curtly, contorting his face into one last scowl to send to Ron before turning and leaving,

“So,” Hermione began, cutting her omelet at a much brisker pace, “I think we need to have a little chat. About...all of this.” 

“Why?” 

“Not right now,” she said, her voice low and her eyes flicking at Ron and Harry sitting across from them. “I don’t think it’d benefit us for them to hear.” 

“Ok?” She cautiously took a bite out of her toast and continued staring Hermione down. “You’re scaring me.”

“It’s...I don’t know. I thought I was crazy for thinking this, but it seems like we need to talk about it anyways. For this little mission of yours to work, we need to be totally open and honest with each other.”

“Sure.” Y/N took another bite. “I honestly have no clue what’s got you so on edge, though.”

“Who’s on edge?” Harry asked, leaning over the table and stealing the croissant on Y/N’s plate. 

“Hey!” she exclaimed. “Do you not see the entire plate of them over there?”

He laughed, sending her an easy grin and dunking a piece into the hot chocolate in his mug. “Finders keepers. Say, Y/N, are you busy next weekend? Ron and Lavender are going to Madame Puddingfoot’s together, and I know Hermione isn’t going to want to take a weekend off studying to go to Hogsmeade, so I thought that maybe we could go cause some trouble at the Cauldron.”

“If you stop stealing my food we can talk about it,” replied Y/N, the corners of her lips tugging up into a grin. 

“Deal.”

Hermione tugged at her arm. “I just realized I need to get something out of my room before we watch the Quidditch game. Will you come with me, Y/N?”

“Sure!” said Y/N. “Gee, I’m rolling in invitations today.”

Once they exited the dining hall, though, it immediately became evident that they were not actually heading up to the dorms. Hermione dragged her into the nearest bathroom before casting a quick silencing charm.

“Myrtle! Are you in here?” Only when she was sure silence was the only response to her question, she seemed satisfied to turn to Y/N and begin talking. “When were you going to tell me that you have a thing for Malfoy?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Y/N felt the heat that had risen to her cheeks from the last quill-encounter re-emerge.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” said Hermione. “Are you seriously going to expect me to believe that you nearly sobbed over some random pureblood git telling you you never had a chance with him because it might slow down your progress with helping us? Actually? I’ve seen you look more ecstatic about hearing that your dear granny passed away.”

“To be fair, she had really good life insurance,” Y/N cut in. “And she was an old hag. Never had a nice thing to say to me.”

“Life insurance or no life insurance...you can’t seriously expect me to believe that you were just upset about not being able to help us as much. That was ridiculous. I don’t buy it. And the way you blushed like crazy when he came over to talk to you--the way you try and pretend like you can flirt...please. Y/N, it’s clear as day. I know you, and I know you have a crush on him.”

“Hermione!” hissed Y/N. “You have no clue what you’re talking about!”

“Yes, I think I do,” she pushed. “And you need to be honest with me if you want to be of any help right now.”

Her bossiness lit a fire of rage in Y/N’s chest, but she sucked in a deep breath, shutting her eyes before releasing it. “Believe me when I say I haven’t ever acknowledged any feelings I may or may not have towards him.”

“Ok.” Her face softened. “I know it might take time, but I honestly do think I’m right. Please just...be careful. This is a really odd situation to get caught up in if you actually have feelings for the other person. You’re trying to manipulate him, for Merlin’s sake.”

“And if I have these feelings for him, I’ve done a pretty damn good job of suppressing them for however long they’ve been here.” 

Hermione sighed. “That’s true. I’m just saying that spending this much time with him is probably only going to make things worse. Will you please tell me if anything changes between the two of you?”

“Anything changes?” Y/N’s voice was dripping in disbelief. “You’re joking. Even if I was obsessed with him I don’t think there’s ever a chance of hell in anything ‘changing’ between us. He said it himself.”

“You know what I mean, Y/N,” responded Hermione. “Just promise me, ok?”

“Ok,” said Y/N. “I promise.”

That seemed to satiate Hermione as she nodded approvingly at her friend. “I think it goes without saying that Ron and Harry shouldn’t hear about this.”

“There’s nothing to hear about, but yes.” She shuffled her feet before meeting Hermione’s eyes again. “Er, I’m sorry for this being a weird question, but would you mind coming along with me and Harry to Hogsmeade? I don’t really see him like...that...and I don’t want to read into it too much and reject him if he is doing it just platonically, but just in case. Y’know.”

“Sure,” said Hermione, even though her face took on that curious expression yet again. “Anyways, you actually did forget something--you’re not wearing a single piece of Gryffindor colors for our game today. You should probably run back to your dorm before Harry and Ron notice.”

After they said their goodbyes, Y/N found herself turning over the things Hermione had said to her in her head. Did she like Malfoy? No, no fucking way. But a part of her really did think he was funny. And of course it was natural to feel rejected when anyone insinuates that they’d never consider you as a romantic interest without jest. 

Once she’d made it up to her room and grabbed a few scarves, Y/N made to put her red cloak into her satchel. Her fingers ghosted over the box that Malfoy had given her and scoffed once she saw the Malfoy crest engraved into the rich wood. 

Narcissistic snot.

Her curiosity got the better of her as she reached over to open up the elaborately decorated box. What met her was not just one quill but two--one of which was most certainly not her own. 

She took them both out, tossing the old one in a pile with her other trusty familiar white feather quills and picked up the other one. It looked familiar--identical to the quill that she’d complimented Malfoy on in Potions about a week ago. Butterflies began to flutter like crazy in her stomach as she turned it over in her hand, watching the gray and green glitter together and the magic sparkles cast a gentle light over her bed. She generally avoided dipping into her family’s pockets to get school supplies any more than she had to--it’s not like it made her friends feel good about themselves when they were reminded how rich her family was--but this might be what she could consider to be an exception. She hadn’t even liked his quill all that much when she first saw it in Potions--but it was one of those things that was so noticeable that it made sense to compliment him. 

She gave it one last look before tucking it back away into the elaborately decorated box. Perhaps she had spoken too soon when she’d told Hermione all hope was lost. 

~ 

When Monday morning Potions class with the Slytherins rolled around, Y/N wasted no time. Malfoy was alone--even his Slytherin lackeys seemed to know not to bother him. Just what she needed.

“Malfoy,” she greeted, setting her bag down on his table and looking him dead on. He raised to meet her eyes, his eyebrow raised.

“Can I help you?”

“I just wanted you to know that I also really like your immense fortune,” she said. “And your manor.”

“Well, a lot of people do,” he mumbled as he looked away to dig through something in his bag. If she didn’t know any better, she would’ve thought he was blushing.

“I’m just letting you know,” she continued. “In case you were wanting to give them away. It worked for the quill, so I thought, well, why not?”

He exhaled, a deep and annoyed sound escaping his lips as he rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. “I knew I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You really didn’t have to.”

“I was getting sick of it,” he told her. “I never can stick with one quill for too long, and I thought it’d be a shame to toss it. I thought it’d be better to be charitable--it’s not like your family could get an appointment at Barnaby’s if they tried.”

“Hey!” Y/N said indignantly. “You don’t know that!”

“I’ve heard your parents try to speak French,” he said. “If you’re anything like them, you'll be barred from ever entering the country.”

“Malfoy!” 

His lips turned up into a smile, a soft laugh escaping his lips. Y/N suppressed the urge to grin in return. Task 3? Done. “What?”

“I can’t even argue with you,” she said. “It’s tragic.”

She stared at the empty stool next to him, wondering if she should just take the leap and sit with him. Malfoy seemed unbothered by her presence as he opened up his Potions book and set it next to his cauldron. “Do you want a partner?” The words left her lips before she could stop them.

He cast her a curious look before glancing at the empty stool. “It depends. Are you going to be annoying?”

She gasped in faux-offense. “What makes you think I could ever be annoying?”

“On that note, I think you better get back to Potter.” He motioned with his head towards the side of the room where most of her Gryffindor friends were chatting. Harry was staring at her, his fists clenched by his side.

Y/N smirked and sent him a wink. 

“On that note,” she said, careful to imitate Malfoy’s drawl and sending him a smug grin, “Maybe I better sit here.”

“Hm.” He awarded her one more uninterested look before rolling up his sleeves and setting out the ingredients for the potion they were brewing--Amortentia. 

She tried not to make it too obvious that she was staring at his left arm, but there was nothing on it like Harry had told her. It was just pure, unblemished pale skin that shimmered under the light. Before he could catch her looking, she quickly sat down and started pulling out her own things. After a short pause, she decided to take out the silver quill. She’d left his box back in her room--she wouldn’t be caught dead with something that had the Malfoy crest on it--but she’d wrapped it in a pouch with her own family’s emblem on the front, shimmering in gold and red.

“Why don’t you just buy your own charmed quills?” asked Malfoy after they had chopped all of the gillweed. 

“You already know. We’re an abomination to the French. We aren’t allowed entry.”

“That’s not what I mean.” His tone was meant to read as exasperated, but his words still seemed good-natured.

“I...well.” She frowned. She’d never confessed this to anyone, but she supposed that Malfoy wasn’t going to find a way to use it against her. “I don’t like to flaunt my family wealth. I think it makes people, at least in Gryffindor, like me less. I learned that pretty early on.”

He hummed something in response before sliding all the gillweed into the cauldron, turning the clear liquid into a bubbling forest green. 

“Why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden?” she asked. 

He took his time finishing the note he was jotting down before he answered. “I’m not being nice. It’s just called being civil. You said it yourself, we see each other at balls sometimes.”

“We probably won’t anymore, though,” she mused. 

Malfoy’s eyebrows shot up, but his voice remained low and steady. “No. I suppose that we probably won’t. Is your family part of the Order?”

“Hm. Are you a Death Eater?” she asked brazenly. He had no business asking her something like that, and he knew it. Especially not with his family connections.

“What do you think?” he drawled, waving his bared left arm in front of her face.

“Bullshit. That doesn’t mean anything after we learned Glamour spells last year.”

“Guess you’ll just have to trust me, then,” he responded, focusing intently on the bubbling liquid in front of him instead of her face. 

“I guess so,” she replied. The weight of her Glamour comment began to sink in--she was right, after all. How had she not thought of it before? 

But he was right when he told her she just had to trust him. Could she? Y/N rested her chin in the palm of her propped hand as she watched him work. A piece of disobedient moonbeam blonde hair dangled over his forehead as he diced up the unicorn tail, his eyebrows furrowed in focus.

“Is this why you want to be my partner?” he finally asked after a few moments of silence. “So you can just stare at me while I do all the work?”

“There’s the vain Draco I know,” she said, grinning as she leaned over to punch his shoulder. 

He rolled his eyes again, scooting out of arm's reach before flipping back to Amortentia in his book. “You’re insufferable. And it’s Malfoy to you.”

“Fine, fine, Malfoy,” said Y/N. “What do you want me to do, then?”

He shoved his cutting board towards her, the half-diced unicorn tail staring up at her. “Finish dicing this and then stir it in. 9 times clockwise. I did almost all of the work, but it should be finished after that.”

Y/N sent him another glare before doing as he said. The glittering quill kept catching her attention from the corner of her eye, and she couldn’t help but notice that Malfoy was writing with just a plain white quill for the time being. HE really did just give it to me. 

After the final ingredients were diced, she began to stir, each rotation around the cauldron turning the potion to a different color. It began as the bubbling green, then a deep sea blue, then a royal purple, a crimson blood red, a glimmering gold--before settling into a pale silver.

“Wow. It’s beautiful,” she breathed. “It’s like...liquid starlight.”

“All thanks to me,” said Malfoy. “You didn’t even have to crush the Mandrake root.”

“You’re such a gentleman, Malfoy.” Her voice dripped in fake sincerity. “So, what do you smell?”

Y/N was expecting him to scowl at her and tell her that it wasn’t any of her business, but he actually leaned over the cauldron and shut his eyes. 

“I’ve never been good at explaining what things smell like.” 

“Fair.”

Once he leaned back, she took his place, shutting her eyes and breathing in a tendril of the beautiful potion. “Whoa.”

“What’s it for you?”

“I don’t...know,” she admitted. “It’s not something I can describe note by note. It kind of reminds me of something, though.”

“Something with Potter, I presume?” he said, casually twirling his generic white quill around his fingers.

“No,” she answered, surprised at how honest she was being. “It’s…I’m trying to think. Er, it’s very lavish. It reminds me of when I was younger and my parents would drag me to galas and balls and whatnot.” 

He stared at her in silence.

“What about you? Does it remind you of anything?”

“Yeah.” Malfoy reached forward to put a lid on the cauldron, effectively shutting out the steam from reaching either of them.

“Ooh, have you figured it out yet?” she teased, crossing her legs and turning to face him head on. “Let me guess. Is it someone like…”

She paused, a wicked smile stretching across her face. “Oh my god, is it Hermione? Or Luna? Or...help me out here!”

“No.” His voice was sour. 

“Ah, it’s Parkinson then, isn’t it? Tell her I’m sorry for throwing food at her if you ever have the chance. Make sure to add the part where I’m more sorry that I missed.” 

“Y/L/N!”

“It’s okay. I’d be a little let down, too.”

“Can you please just…” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Please just stop. I haven’t figured it out. Okay? Happy now?”

“I’ll leave you alone,” said Y/N. “Under one condition. You give me a hint. I’ve given you everything I know! This isn’t fair.”

“This doesn’t have to be fair,” he hissed.

Y/N kept the easy smile plastered on her face while she waited, her eyebrows raised in anticipation.

“You’re not going to let up until I tell you, are you?”

“You’d be right on that,” she said, sugary sweet.

“Fine. It’s something kind of floral.” 

“How descriptive,” she snorted as she slumped back in her stool, thinking hard. Where had she smelled it before? Y/N shut her eyes, leaning her head back and trying to immerse herself into the memory that had surfaced. It smelled like grandeur, like an open ballroom full of guests wearing expensive perfumes. She could feel spinning, spinning like she was with a dance partner. Who was it? She couldn’t quite remember--the last ball she’d been to had been years ago--but after she leaned forward and smelled the Amortentia once more time, she came to a conclusion.

“I had to have danced with him at a gala before,” she announced to Malfoy, who was looking quite unimpressed. “So I know it’s no one from Gryffindor.”

“Interesting,” was all he said before turning to his parchment and jotting something down.

Late that night, while Y/N was settling into bed, a strange idea struck her. Sure that the thought that was nagging her was completely fruitless, she had no trouble with reaching into her desk and pulling out the Malfoy box. She just had to check if she wanted to sleep well.

Here goes.

She closed her eyes, imagining the expensive scent of her Amortentia. Then she opened it, stuck her nose into the fabric, and breathed in.

Well, fuck. 

~

The internal debate going through Y/N the next day at the breakfast table was intense. On one hand, she really, really wanted to just tell Hermione that Malfoy had been in her Amortentia and she was completely fucked, but on the other…

She glanced at the witch next to her as she methodically sliced her toast into perfect, equivalent squares before dunking them in jam. Y/N liking Malfoy was not going to fit into her toast cubes. If she said anything, she would lose her excuse to talk to her about him. And her excuse to try and get close with him. 

Perhaps I can figure it out tomorrow. 

When tomorrow came, she still hadn’t made progress. Y/N was beginning to think that her so called “revelation” after they brewed Amortentia was truly just complete and utter bullshit. So what that his quill box smelled like it--all rich people kind of smelled the same at some points, and so did their houses. There was a reason why she couldn’t immediately pin the scent to anything--it wasn’t like she even knew what Malfoy smelled like.

But the truth remained that she was still attracted to someone who happened to be a rich Slytherin--so naturally, her mind began to wander. There’s no way it was Zabini--his mother owned a fragrance line, and she would’ve instantly recognized the cologne that she knew Mrs. Zabini made him wear--and there was absolutely no way that it was Crabbe or Goyle, so the only other Slytherin it left was...Nott? But that didn’t make sense either--she’d never spoken to him before in her life, even less than Malfoy. So perhaps it would be better if she didn’t think on it.

The next day of potion brewing came on a stormy Wednesday. Malfoy and Y/N worked silently together to brew a Draught of Dreamless Sleep. She was surprised to see how practiced his movements were--he didn’t even have to reference the book to recite the exact measurements and directions.

“Do you have bad dreams or something?” she asked, mostly as a joke. He didn’t seem to pick up on the light-heartedness and stiffened up.

“No?”

“Gee, you’re talkative today,” Y/N said, trying to ignore how her hand brushed his by accident when she added the scoop of anjelica. 

“Excuse me for not entertaining you,” he drawled. “I wasn’t expecting to have such a needy potions partner today.”

“I am not needy!” she gasped, smacking his arm. “I’ve sat in silence for a full hour!”

He rolled his eyes (he was always rolling his eyes) and gave the potion one more final stir before setting the lid on the cauldron. “Think you can do that again? It needs to simmer for that long.”

“Just because you’re so sweet to me,” crooned Y/N before pulling out a heavy book from her satchel. Her Charms exam was tomorrow, and, naturally, she had decided to save all of her revising work until the night before. The textbook stared back at her as she jotted a few notes onto a previously blank sheet of parchment. The quill in her hands was light and glided across the paper like the tears of Merlin, something that she had forgotten quills could do. All of her familiar basic quills were okay, but they were prone to skidding and breaking. This nib hadn’t worn down in the slightest, still at a smooth and defined peak.

Y/N couldn’t believe that, out of all people, the person to give her such a thoughtful gift was Draco Malfoy. She tried to sneak a glance at him then, moving her curtain of hair away from her face. It took all she had in her to not be startled at the fact that he was already looking back, a slightly concerned expression etched into his face.

“Is something wrong?” 

He snapped out of it the moment the words left her lips, his face hardening. “No.”

“Forget I ever asked,” she responded, turning away from him for good and focusing on her textbook. No, there was no way he could be what she smelled in her Amortentia. She liked to think that her subconscious wasn’t secretly a masochist.

~

Friday evening swung around again, much to Y/N’s dismay. She’d had a talk with Hermione later on in the week, confirming that no, she did not smell Malfoy in her Amortentia, and that yes, she was still abiding by the plan that Hermione had so carefully laid out for her. It did bother her a bit that she could be lying to her on both fronts--but at the end of the day, she was going to get the answers that Harry wanted, no matter what. 

She just had to get through the scary ass castle first. She’d forgotten how spooky Hogwarts was after her previous sprint to the door, and this time she was positively trembling by the time she turned another dark corner on her way to McGonagall’s office. Yet another cursed item had been found in the girl’s lavatory on the 3rd floor, right by some of the classes that she had taken earlier in the week. The fact that whoever was out there was capable of dark magic and actively wanted to hurt people terrified her, all that Gryffindor bravery be damned. 

So when she heard footsteps suddenly right beside her, it was no wonder that she jumped feet in the air.

“Fuck!” she sputtered, turning to see a very familiar blonde in Slytherin robes. He was frozen in place, curiously looking her up and down.

“Am I interrupting something?”

“Malfoy,” Y/N said, resisting the urge to melt into a puddle of relief at the sight. This wasn’t right--wasn’t he a suspected Death Eater? “You scared me.”

He scoffed, digging his hands into his pockets. “You’re supposed to be the brave ones, right?”

“Huh?”

Malfoy motioned to her Gryffindor jumper. 

“Oh.” Heat rushed to her cheeks as she realized what he meant. “I dunno. I just get jumpy around the castle at night.”

“No shit.” They’d begun to walk now, side by side. Y/N couldn’t remember ever walking with him before--she’d always been late. “Do you think I forgot the way you screamed when you saw me at the tower?”

“Shut up,” she grumbled, reaching over and giving him a healthy shove. 

They walked in silence together. Malfoy moved noticeably slower than he normally did so he wouldn’t leave Y/N’s shorter legs in tow. McGonagall seemed pleasantly surprised to see Malfoy hold the door open for her.

“I’m glad to see you two getting along,” she said, giving Y/N a hesitant nod before grabbing the stack of papers on her desk. “I’ll be back momentarily.”

After she exited the room with a swish of her deep maroon robes, Malfoy turned to her. “Are you scared of the dark or something?”

She turned, ready to send a biting retort his way, before she noticed how gray his pallor looked...and how big the circles under his eyes were. “You look like shit, Malfoy. Is everything okay?”

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t change the subject.”

“Oh. Um…” Y/N pause before deciding that the little tidbit of information she was about to reveal wasn’t that important anyways. “I’m just on edge at night at Hogwarts is all. Especially with all that weird shit going on with all the cursed objects. So I kind of hate walking to and from detention.”

Malfoy let out something that sounded like a strained laugh.

“You didn’t answer my question. Is everything okay?”

“None of your business,” he snipped. “I just had a bad night.”

“Do you have trouble sleeping?” she asked, unable to keep herself from prying.

“Something like that.”

“Have you tried lavender?”

“I’m sorry?” He frowned.

“Lavender. Like the essential oil. It’s nothing magical,” she explained. “I just like to spray it in my bed sometimes before I sleep. Or I’ll use a few drops in a diffuser. I have trouble sleeping too, all the time, actually.” She shut her mouth before she had any chance to ramble further.

“It sounds a bit too floral for my taste.”

“Here.” Y/N dug around in her satchel, searching for the tiny spray bottle she kept with her at all times. “Borrow this and spritz your pillow with it before you sleep, and then tell me it’s too floral. I promise it helps.”

He glared at her. She extended her hand with the white bottle that was covered in purple decor, raising her eyebrows expectantly. “I won’t tell anyone that you have it if that’s what you’re worried about or whatever.”

“Fine,” he snapped, snatching it from her hand and dragging his fingers over her palm for just a second. “Don’t expect me to actually try it, though.”

“Just give it a sniff.” 

He huffed, but to her surprise, he actually uncapped the top and held the spray hole up to his nose, inhaling in once.

The effect was immediate. Malfoy’s face completely drained of color, becoming even grayer than he’d been when she first saw him under the light. The briefest expression of surprise fleeted over his face before he wiped it off, replacing it with something unreadable and tossing it back at her. “I’m not using this.”

“Why not?”

“Not quite my taste,” he spat.

Y/N was shocked by the sudden outburst, watching as he continued to glower at his desk. “I don’t understand. It really does help you sleep. I know it seems stupid, but I...really think you should try it. Just once, if anything.”

“Why does it matter so much to you?”

“Because I--” Y/N stopped herself before she let her mouth run without check. “I know what it’s like is all. I feel like shit if I don’t sleep. Plus, I have to spend time with you every Friday. I imagine that you’ll be slightly more tolerable if you sleep more.”

“Hm.” He sent her a particularly venomous glare. “Thanks for your concern. Consider me uninterested, though.”

“You break my heart,” she teased, pulling back her hand and placing the bottle on the corner of her desk. An idea struck her.

“And just what are you smiling about?” Draco said. His lips were turned into a sour frown. 

“Nothing, nothing,” she responded, her voice adopting a sing-song quality. All she had to do now was wait. 

He exhaled, a deep and exasperated sound. Then he turned back to whatever was in front of him.

McGonagall entered the room a few minutes later, nodding cordially at the comfortable silence the two students were in. What she didn’t know was that Y/N was waiting, just waiting for Malfoy to dig through his satchel and stop paying attention to his quill.

She got her opportunity a few minutes later, when McGonagall called him up to look over his latest Transfiguration homework.

“Mr. Malfoy, I’m happy to see that you’re taking more initiative in getting your assignments done...I have to say that you had me a bit concerned…”

While her professor kept Malfoy occupied, Y/N darted over and grabbed his quill. 

Ha.

Malfoy frowned down at his desk when he returned, giving Y/N a suspicious look.

“What is it, Malfoy?” she said, hoping her voice conveyed nothing that might hint that she took something of his.

“Nothing.”

“Hm.”

The rest of detention passed without any more discussion. Y/N was eager to run up to her dorm and set up her plan to be carried out the next morning, but she calmed her bouncing leg and forced herself to keep a straight face when McGonagall dismissed them.

“Got somewhere to be, Y/L/N?” Malfoy’s voice called after her as she sped down the hall towards the Gryffindor tower. 

“What’s it to you?” she fired back.

He didn’t respond. Instead, he picked up his pace until he was walking next to her.

“Aren’t the Slytherin dorms the other direction?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Are they?” 

She allowed herself to be amused by the way words flowed out of his mouth when he was slightly out of breath. “Why are you walking with me?”

“You said it yourself.” He kept his eyes cast on the cobblestones below them. “You don’t like walking alone at night.”

“Uh...oh.” Against her will, her feet froze and she was glued to the ground. “You’re joking, right?”

If the lighting wasn’t so dim, Y/N would have good reason to believe he was blushing with how intently he was studying his fingernails. “By all means, I can be.”

“No! No, I didn’t mean it like that,” she said, the words tumbling out of her mouth. “Er...I’d like you to. If you want to, that is.”

He shrugged, an elfish expression spreading across his face as he took in how nervous she was. “Well, come to think of it, you didn’t ask me to. I suppose I better get back to the Slytherin dorms anyways. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near the Gryffindor Tower right now.”

“Why?” she squeaked.

“Oh, you know, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most of the cursed things showed up on your side of the castle, yeah?”

She gulped.

“I gotta get going. Don’t want to stand around here too long. This place gives me the creeps.” With that, he turned and began walking away.

“Malfoy?” She hated how timid her voice sounded. “Consider this me asking you to walk with me.”

He slowly faced her, a sly grin plastered all over his face. “Oh? Did I hear that correctly? Do you want me to?”

“I’m only going to say this once,” she said, putting her hands on her hips and trying her best to look intimidating. “Walk with me. Please.”

“I guess I’ll take it.” Malfoy glided down the hallway to her in just a couple steps, sending her yet another smug look.

“You made up that whole ordeal about Gryffindor Tower being targeted, didn’t you?” asked Y/N as they rounded the corner to reach the staircase leading up to the common room.

“You bought it, didn’t you?” 

“Who says I didn’t just want you to walk with me?” pushed Y/N. This was as close to flirting as it would ever get for her--but it looked like, somehow, things were falling into place. The heat in her cheeks must’ve been from the excitement of making progress. 

Malfoy’s toe caught on the first stair and, if it weren’t for Y/N’s steady grip on his arm, would’ve made him go sprawling across the stone steps. 

“Merlin, Malfoy,” she said, immediately dropping her grip from his shoulder. “What’s gotten into you?”

He responded with an unceremonial snort and a withering glare. The rest of the walk was done in silence, and Y/N noted how careful his footwork became around the Gryffindor steps.

“This is me,” she finally said once they reached the tapestry for the Gryffindor dorms. He seemed surprised, and only then did it strike her that he’d probably never seen the entrance himself before. “Thanks for being such a gentleman.”

“I live to serve,” he drawled.

And just like that, he was gone.

~

Her plan was simple. She had located an extra monogrammed pouch in her cabinet, a rich mahogany color with her family crest in a vivid gold, and placed both his quill and the lavender bottle. She would corner him after breakfast or follow him out of the Great Hall and show him then.

However, it was becoming increasingly obvious that Malfoy was not coming to Saturday morning breakfast. Many people didn’t, but Y/N had never known him to miss it. His normal spot was vacant, and it certainly wasn’t a house-made decision as all of his Slytherin friends were present and accounted for. Y/N couldn’t say for sure, but she could see Parkinson turning her head to the entrance every time the doors thudded open before glancing back to Malfoy’s empty seat when it turned out to be someone else.

Where was that loser?

“Excuse me,” she said to the trio as she stood up and brushed off her skirt. “I think I’m going to go get some fresh air. I have a bitch of a headache.”

Hermione and Harry expressed their sympathies while Ron gave her a characteristic mumble through his mouthful of bread, and she was off with the pouch secured in her cloak pocket.

It was a clear November morning, clearly Mother Nature’s attempt to slowly move the world from the crisp autumn to a cold winter. The sky was clear and the sun’s rays warmed her skin at a slanted angle, casting weak shadows across the courtyard.

If I were Malfoy, where would I go to sulk?

The obvious answer was either the Slytherin common room or his own dorm, but that was without a doubt out of question for her. She wasn’t even sure if she possessed the knowledge to guess which corridor the entrance was in, much less work out the password herself. Beyond that, just getting into the common room and waiting would be...She shivered. It would be a terrible idea while she was clearly wearing a cloak in Gryffindor red and gold trim. 

As she continued her aimless wander around the castle, she heard the slightest sound from the girl’s bathroom on the second floor. It wasn’t ever really in use--no one came in there to actually use the loo unless they wanted Myrtle to materialize and tell them her supernatural troubles while they were in the middle of their personal business--but it was often the source of strange happenings. 

Like the cursed objects she thought to herself, her nails digging into her palms. But did she care about that right now? Surely cursed objects seemed somewhat...suspicious. Dark magic was difficult to hide, and to a pureblood eye that grew up around magical objects, cursed things shouldn’t be impossible to spot. 

And, plus, it was Malfoy she was looking for. None of the students had died from the curses so far, and if she was able to break through and learn something, or at the very least gain his trust, the reward to the Order would be more than worth it.

She stepped in, expecting to see an entirely empty bathroom with perhaps a ghost rattling around at the sink. Instead, a different sight awaited her.

Draco Malfoy was clutching the edge of the cracked sink basin in front of him, rocking himself back and forth and shaking. From her vantage point, she could see that he was dressed in his normal garb--a black ensemble--but his hair was unruly and messy, sticking up in the back like he’d hurriedly tugged something over his head.

A strangled gasp grounded her and halted her curious observations. Malfoy began to make these awful sobbing sounds, like he could barely manage to breathe. 

Y/N was frozen in place as she surveyed her options. If she stayed and tried to talk to him, he might react in anger or hurt her. But if she just left him, like this, all alone...She swallowed once before stepping forward.

“Malfoy? Are you okay?” Obviously he’s not, you bint said a voice deep in her brain. She pushed it aside as he swung around, his wand raised and his eyes blazing. “Whoa! I’m not going to...Put your wand down!”

He stared at her, his eyes wide with horror as he continued to shake, so much so that his wand slipped out of his hand and clattered to the floor. Without thinking, Y/N reached into her pocket and flung her wand away, holding her hands up.

“I’m not going to try anything. I promise.”

As she drew closer, she could see the remnants of tears on his wet cheeks and the way that his silver eyes were rimmed with a bloodshot red. 

“You shouldn’t be here,” he hissed, his voice weak and cracking. 

“Neither should you. This is the girl’s bathroom.”

final a/n: ok so lmk if you guys wants me to continue. i really did not edit the last half fjkdsal;f also kinda made this an au where malfoy tried to assassinate dumbledore. with more than one cursed object but dw it’ll all make sense ill clear that up 😭