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eleanorfenyxwrites · 1 year ago

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Outta Time

So @littlesmartart and I discovered that we both love Orville Peck, and I decided it might be nice to write Western Cowboy shit that isn't the Brokeback Mountain AU so here's this 😂 Inspired by Orville Peck's song 'Outta Time' from the album Bronco (Jess came up with the plot, I wrote it, and she's drawn art to go along with it for the visual that's directly inspired by the song [and that was all I had in mind for this before she came up with the plot lol]!)

--//--

It was, perhaps, foolishness on Meng Yao’s part to think that Huaisang was telling him nothing but the unvarnished truth when he’d invited him to head out West with him for a luxury vacation, set to last the entirety of their summer break.

“It’ll be like one of those fancy retreats silly rich people go on!” he’d insisted (as if he isn’t mind-bogglingly ridiculous and wealthier than Meng Yao could ever hope of being [considering he’s only just recently been forced to accept he’ll never see a single iota of his father’s support, emotionally or financially]). “Trust me!”

Mistake number 1 had been saying, “Alright A-Sang, I trust you.”

Mistake number 2 : being a man of his word.

Within a month of receiving Huaisang’s invitation, summer arrives with rolling peals of thunder heralding oppressive humidity and swarms of mosquitos. Meng Yao, a man of his word as stated, dutifully packs most of his belongings into a suitcase that weighs far less than the upper limit of the airline’s luggage weight restriction and navigates the pair of them through the airport with minimal stress, mainly thanks to not allowing Huaisang to be in charge of anything at all.

He chats with Huaisang on and off throughout their flight to keep himself distracted from the fact that he’s leaving behind everything he’s ever known to spend three months in the middle of bumfuck nowhere at his only friend’s brother's ranch, which Huaisang had only told him the full truth about yesterday, after it was already far too late to gracefully back out. Meng Yao’s promised luxury vacation destination is apparently in actuality a cattle ranch that Huaisang’s brother apparently runs mostly to keep himself in shape and avoid the stress of city life that had given him a heart attack at the ripe old age of 27 a few years back. (It is, by far, the weirdest ‘so I have this older brother’ story that Meng Yao has ever heard.)

“So this brother of yours –” Meng Yao finally caves and asks about an hour before final descent.

“Uh-huh?”

“He just…up and left New York. For Montana?”

“Yep,” Huaisang pops the ‘p’ and flicks to the next page in his magazine, unbothered, “After his heart attack he said he wanted to see some mountains and get some actual fresh air if he was just going to die soon anyway, it really dramatic and maudlin, which he never is, I was so proud. Only it turns out it was exactly what he needed to not die, so after a while he decided he would just stay out there for good. He bought the house and the land and some horses to give himself something to do besides stare at the sky all day, and then he was still kind of bored so he bought some cattle.”

Naturally. As one does.

“And now he’s…a cattle rancher. From New York City.”

Huaisang laughs and finally looks up from his magazine to smile at Meng Yao like ‘oh you sweet little thing’ in the way Meng Yao kind of hates, but Huaisang does it to everyone so he can’t really take too much offense.

“Yes, Yaoyao, you’ll understand when you meet him! Da-ge’s never really been a city guy, not like us. It suits him much better to be out here, especially since his best friend moved out here to help him out. Xichen-ge treats it like a meditation retreat but with a lot more mucking out stalls. He says even that part’s therapeutic, but I’m just going to take his word on that one, ‘cause ew.”

“Uh-huh.”

Huaisang leaves him to consider just what the hell he’s gotten himself into for the rest of the flight, and then they’re navigating their way (ridiculously easily) through the rinky-dink airport hardly bigger than a parking garage, the sky beyond the terminal windows blue blue blue where it stretches on forever in every direction.

“Da-ge!”

Meng Yao barely manages to snag Huaisang’s duffel when his friend flings it off his shoulder to go sprinting across the 3-carousel baggage claim, the fastest Meng Yao has ever seen him move. It’s a distinct relief that Meng Yao can use juggling their bags as an excuse to approach at a much more respectable pace; he needs the extra time to truly digest what he’s seeing.

Huaisang, as a former-model-turned-fasion-designer who happily calls himself a fruit at every opportunity, is one of the daintiest men Meng Yao has ever met. He’d even go so far as to call him a dandy, if pressed, and fully supports his friend’s decision to call himself every ‘emasculating’ label under the sun with obvious relish. He can’t deny that at least some of his confusion as to his best friend’s mysterious older brother’s chosen lifestyle stemmed from picturing someone like Huaisang, if perhaps a little taller.

He’s not confused anymore.

The man who catches Huaisang midair and swings him in a circle before setting him back on his feet would never be asked to grace the runways of New York — not because he isn’t beautiful enough to make Meng Yao’s fingers twitch for his camera to capture the way the sun cuts across his weather-tanned face, but because no one has ever heard of a fashion model who was roughly 6’7” and perhaps 300 pounds of solid, clearly functional muscle.

Huaisang’s brother towers over everyone else in the building that Meng Yao can see (and he can see most of them, re: rinky-dink airport in the middle of bumfuck Montana), and when he looks over the heads of the few people between Meng Yao and the exit their eyes lock instantly.

“A-Sang, be nicer to your friend,” Meng Yao can hear from here, a bass rumble that Does Things to his chest. “Go get your bag, don’t make your guest carry your shit or he’ll think I never taught you decent manners. Go on.”

Huaisang flutters back over and takes his bag with an unapologetic grin. Meng Yao finishes taking the ten-odd steps necessary for the brother to stick his hand out with a wry little smirk and say, “Hey, I’m Mingjue.”

“Meng Yao,” he replies and slides his hand into Mingjue’s dry, work-calloused palm.

“Welcome to big sky country, A-Yao,” Mingjue replies with a widening smile, a flash of straight white teeth and a dimple hiding under his mustache, and Meng Yao regrets to say that he’s thoroughly fucked.

–//–

The land unfolds around them as they drive down straight roads at an almost leisurely pace through miles and miles of…nothing.

Not nothing, Meng Yao supposes, but long gone are the corridors of towering skyscrapers, the lingering miasma of so many people living together in tight quarters, everyone building up up up to stack ever-more people into the same few square miles. Meng Yao understands, suddenly, why Mingjue had come here and stayed. He doesn’t think he has it in him to eschew all the conveniences of New York City for the open country, but someone like Mingjue seems like the type to appreciate having the space to…expand. To be bigger than life and have the room to do it in. He certainly feels larger than life at the moment as he details for Huaisang all the comings and goings on the ranch since he’d last visited, as he talks about the horses and his cattle and the monsoon rains they’d apparently only just missed that had finally turned everything summer-green.

Meng Yao sits on the bench seat of Mingjue’s beat up old pickup truck and watches the sparse scattering of fluffy white clouds drift over more sky than he’s ever seen in his life and he gets it.

He hasn’t gotten nearly enough of his fill of marveling (subtly) over the view by the time they pull off the road onto a dirt road that Huaisang tells him is actually Mingjue’s driveway, but he contents himself with the knowledge that they’re here for three months, he’ll have plenty of time to appreciate the view later. They rattle over a few metal grates Mingjue explains are cattle guards to keep the animals from escaping the ranch should they manage to break out of their pastures, and Meng Yao isn’t a child so he doesn’t exclaim about how fucking huge the cattle are some distance away from the road where they’re grazing (but he certainly rethinks his half-baked desire to see them up close anytime soon).

“Home sweet home,” Mingjue announces when they reach the end of the lane after another mile or two and opens his door with a creak. Meng Yao leans forward to look up at the house through his lashes and must not be able to control his expression as much as he’d prefer as Huaisang chuckles at him a little, nudging him in the side with his pointy little elbow.

“Told you it was nice,” he chirps and slides across the seat to get out on the driver’s side. “Da-ge be careful!” he trills, his nervous fretting muffled as he scurries around to the bed of the truck. Meng Yao doesn’t pay attention to their bickering or the scuffle of hard-soled boots on dirt, though his attention is snagged at least a bit by the sound of Mingjue laughing at whatever he’s just done to make Huaisang whine at him.

The house is beautiful, is the thing. Somehow he hadn’t thought that it would be, perhaps owing to how many times he’s listened to Huaisang complain about his brother’s lack of taste for anything even remotely fashionable. He should really stop assuming things about Mingjue, he supposes, considering he’s currently scored 0 for 2, and he hates to lose.

He gets out of the car, finally, to better appreciate white-washed wood paneling just beginning to show hints of weathering, blue shutters clearly freshly painted the same shade of the sky overhead with the front door painted to match. There are rocking chairs on the wraparound porch, clearly well-loved if the flattened, sun-faded cushions on them are anything to judge by, positioned to face west. He has a sudden mental image of Mingjue sitting out here in the evenings to watch the sunset over the mountains looming in the distance and has to shake himself all over once (discreetly) to keep from sticking himself in the chair next to him in this little pastoral fantasy. That’s just making it weird.

“You want the grand tour or you wanna settle in?” Mingjue asks; Meng Yao doesn’t jump to find himself standing next to his host he hadn’t heard approaching, but he does feel suddenly…shy in a way he’s definitely not used to. He tilts his head enough to squint up at Mingjue, the sun too bright in his eyes, and finds to his dismay that he’s still just as handsome as he’d been an hour ago.

“I want you to give him the tour!” Huaisang calls from where he’s petting a horse (an actual horse, but are they supposed to be that tall??) that’s come up to the fence at the other end of the front yard, such as it is, to duck down and nose at Huaisang like an old friend.

“I don’t care what you want, you little brat,” Mingjue calls back. “And don’t you dare give that beast whatever candy you’ve got in your pockets, do you know how long it took to train him out of biting people who didn’t give him any after you left?!”

Meng Yao hides a smile behind his hand and finds himself mostly glad that there’s someone else around now to be the recipient of Huaisang’s incessant whining when he’s really putting on a performance. He clears his throat a little and schools his expression back towards pleasant neutrality when Mingjue looks down at him again, clearly unwilling to entertain his brother’s antics a moment longer than necessary.

“I think I’d like to settle in first,” he allows himself to say, and is perhaps mildly startled when Mingjue doesn’t question it, when he simply nods and lets Meng Yao be that tiny bit selfish.

“Come on in then, your room’s upstairs.”

Meng Yao follows Mingjue inside out of the sun and finds himself surrounded by an eclectic mix of antiques and modern minimalism; framed photos and bric-a-brac piled up in out-of-the-way corners of sleek monochrome shelves hemmed in on every side by enormous, dense furniture of the sort that reminds him of a time at least half a century ago, if not longer. The result is antiquated in a charming way with enough touches of modernity that he doesn’t think Mingjue is necessarily out of touch, just pragmatic about his home. If something old will still do, why replace it? It’s a mentality Meng Yao can appreciate, and he finds himself smiling a little again as he trails behind Mingjue up the stairs and down the short hallway to the room in the back corner.

“Here you go,” Mingjue says and slings both Meng Yao’s and Huaisang’s bags off his shoulder, which is precisely when Meng Yao realizes he’d been carrying their luggage in one hand like it weighs nothing. He notices it, allows himself two seconds to admire it, and promptly tucks that little tidbit away for future consideration. Later.

“I’ll be around, just holler if you need anything. I’m sure A-Sang will be in to bother you once he’s finished saying hi to the herd, I’ll let you enjoy the quiet while you’ve got it.”

“Thanks, Mingjue,” Meng Yao says with a smile, and it might be a moment of wishful thinking, or just his imagination, but he swears he sees Mingjue’s gaze drop to his mouth for a beat too long before the man nods and retreats. Meng Yao has no way to know if the flush on the back of Mingjue’s neck is from the sun or, maybe, something else.

–//–

Huaisang does come inside eventually, and though he has his own unpacking to do Meng Yao isn’t surprised at all when his friend comes to his room first to flop onto his bed and promptly make himself at home to start bugging him.

(He wouldn’t want or expect anything different.)

As Meng Yao hangs up shirts and trousers with far more care than they probably need, Huaisang regales him with stories from other trips to the ranch and a quick run-down of the personalities of the horses Mingjue keeps, both his own and some he boards for others who can’t keep their own animals for whatever reason. Meng Yao makes enough leading, noncommittal noises to keep his friend chattering as he settles in, though the chatter becomes decidedly less pleasant as far as background noise goes when Huaisang starts talking about getting Meng Yao to socialize.

Within moments it’s clear he already has a plan on how to do so, because of course he does, and of course it’s some stranger’s houseparty where Meng Yao will know absolutely no one at all.

“Absolutely not, Huaisang,” he says tartly, but of course Huaisang only takes that as an invitation to persuade him.

“This isn’t like parties back home, A-Yao, I promise!” he wheedles. Meng Yao just goes on unpacking his meager belongings into the antique dresser in the corner of his room that holds a window overlooking the equipment-littered space between the back porch and the horse barn, and he very pointedly does not rise to Huaisang’s bait. He’s still not immune to his best friend’s cajoling and they both know it, but he feels the need to deny him a little longer for the sake of his pride, if nothing else.

“Nothing here is like home, Huaisang, your argument is invalid,” he replies blithely and debates the merit of hanging his undershirts in the too-big closet with the rest of his clothes, rather than folding them up into a too-big drawer where they’ll just look sad on their own.

“Okay point taken, but seriously! You’ll have a nice time, it’ll be chill, I swear. Xichen-ge is coming, and he never goes anywhere things will get out of hand!”

A party tempting enough to interest Huaisang is typically guaranteed to be anything but ‘chill’, he doesn’t point out, but…well. Meng Yao had just said it himself — nothing here so far is like what they’ve come from, maybe Huaisang’s different here too. Maybe a party’s really not such a bad idea. And if it is, Mingjue, having already overheard Huaisang mentioning the party on his way past Meng Yao’s room with a load of clean laundry in his arms, has already made it very clear that he’s happy to either loan them his truck for the night or else drive them himself. Considering Meng Yao has no interest in drinking so much he wouldn’t be able to drive (because he, unlike his best friend, is a very functional city gay who can drive, thank you very much) it’s a guaranteed exit strategy, should he feel the need to escape.

Meng Yao ignores Huaisang’s pleading eyes for a few moments longer simply for the fun of it as he slides his undershirts onto clattering plastic hangers, and only smiles once his back is turned as Huaisang shouts his delight when Meng Yao sighs, “Well…I guess I’ve got nowhere better to go.”

–//–

This time, Huaisang did tell him the unvarnished truth.

It’s clear from the moment they pull up in the warm violet twilight that this party is nothing like the ones they frequent back home. It’s in someone’s actual house, for one, which he supposes isn’t too strange when not being hosted in a city made entirely of apartments and highrises, but the house itself is in the middle of a giant patch of…nothing. It’s just a house on a dirt lot full of pickup trucks in various stages of rusting, with lights strung everywhere possible on the wraparound porch (except that it’s not really a porch so much as it is a prefabricated metal roof over part of the patch of dirt and sparse grass ‘yard’). He’s pretty sure he even sees a barn lit up the same way some few hundred feet behind the house, but he can’t get a good look at it from here and decides to put it out of his mind.

“Let me know if you end up needing the truck,” Mingjue says over the sound of twanging guitar coming from someone’s massive speakers as they hop down (well he steps down out of the truck like he’s just crossing a threshold; Meng Yao and Huaisang are too vertically challenged to get down out of the thing without at least a little hop). “I’m gonna head in to grab a beer, you two want anything?”

“We’re good, da-ge!” Huaisang chirps, already eyeing up a cluster of guys all dressed nearly identically in tight jeans and threadbare flannels with the sleeves cut off and the resulting gaping holes fraying artlessly, with the main differentiating factor between them being if they’re wearing cowboy hats or baseball caps. Meng Yao glances between his options — Huaisang’s all-too-familiar thirsting over extremely lackluster men who don’t deserve him and Mingjue’s retreating figure carving a path through the crowd — and decides to take his chances with the latter, though he hangs back a little to give Mingjue space.

The house, when he steps inside, at least smells pretty much like what he’s used to at parties. Too many competing colognes and perfumes, the sticky sweetness of alcohol, and the haze of cigarette smoke are almost comforting like this, even as he promptly gets lost amongst the sprawling, dimly-lit rooms crowded with strangers nursing beers or chatting (read: feeling) each other up in dim corners. He finds a staircase in the middle of the house and uses it to orient himself as he wanders in several clockwise circles until he’s mapped out the living room, the den, the kitchen where he snags a beer from the 6’5” cowboy (he’s assuming he’s a cowboy based on the hat and the whole ‘house party on a farm in Montana’ thing) standing at the keg, the door to the back ‘porch’ that’s about as porch-like as the one out front, and an overcrowded room that seems to serve no purpose but to be a place to play beer pong.

He’s just circled his way back to the front door near the stairs once again when he finds his path blocked by someone turned away from him; someone broad and tall and wearing pale blue, which just seems like a mistake when any moment could end in spilled beer and flustered mopping up with a crumpled handful of napkins, perhaps even the removal of said shirt to get it in the upstairs bathroom sink to soak out the stain before it sets —

Alright so it’s been a while and a man has needs, especially when surrounded by ridiculously tall beefcakes on every side. Sue him.

Rather than spilling his shitty beer on this guy to see if he can get him to take his shirt off, Meng Yao clears his throat and taps the guy on his waist once, just the lightest touch of two fingers to body-warmed cotton, and the guy turns smoothly, an apology already on his lips.

“Oh, excuse me,” he says, hardly audible over the music jangling from the beer pong room. Meng Yao tilts his head back a bit — and then a bit more — to meet the guy’s gaze and he’s startled to find he’s also Asian. It takes him roughly three seconds to put two-and-two together when the guy smiles at him like he knows him and ducks down to talk a little closer. Meng Yao makes a conscious decision to stay very still to let him do it.

“Might you be Meng Yao?” he asks and Meng Yao can only nod dumbly. “Mingjue sent me to find you, would you like to come sit with us? Da-ge’s great for commandeering the couch at these things.”

Sitting down sounds great, Meng Yao thinks, especially when the crowd shifts enough for him to catch sight of the ratty old sofa in the living room to find Mingjue currently occupying it alone, manspread more than far enough to make it clear that no one else is sitting on that couch unless he invites them (and he doesn’t look like he’s in a particularly inviting mood).

“Are you sure?” Meng Yao asks, wary, but the man (who must be Mingjue’s best friend, Xichen) just smiles at him again and tips his head in that direction, gesturing vaguely with one of his bottles of beer as if for emphasis.

“Of course! Come on, you’ve had a long day of traveling and I wanted to apologize for not being able to meet you at the house this afternoon. Just sit with us for a while, we’ll introduce you around later if you want us to.”

Meng Yao finds it a pretty tough proposition to say no to so he just nods again and gestures with his own beer (in a stereotypical red Solo cup he’d been amused to receive) for Xichen to lead the way. It isn’t so far that Meng Yao worries about losing him in the crowd, really, but he doesn’t let that stop him from hooking an index finger through the center back belt loop on Xichen’s skin-tight jeans, ‘just in case’. Xichen simply smiles at him over his shoulder as they pass through the nearly-black front hallway and into the scarcely-brighter living room, red Christmas lights around the ceiling and the overhead bulb in the kitchen through the other doorway the only lighting for the entire room.

“Hey, there you are,” Mingjue says as they approach, and though he swings one knee closer to straight in front of himself to manspread a little less he leaves his arm slung casually along the top of the back cushions, reaching up with his free hand to snag the beer Xichen had brought for him and taking a swig of it as Xichen joins him.

On the opposite end of the couch.

Meng Yao hides behind a sip of his own flat beer quickly warming to room temperature as he contemplates the small (small) space between them and, between one disappointing sip and the next, decides he’s feeling reckless enough after a long day of new things and the freedom of traveling so many miles from home that he’s just going to go for it, and fuck the consequences.

Xichen slings his arm over the rest of the back of the couch, fingertips brushing lightly against Mingjue’s elbow where they overlap. Meng Yao sits down right in between them, settles in, and pointedly ignores the way the tired old couch springs squeak in protest of their combined weight and how he seems to pull the other two in like a magnet. It’s like gravity, centers of balance shifting and leaning inwards into his orbit, the pair of them bracketing him on either side, parentheses made of denim and muscle and smiling mouths that he pretends not to notice creeping closer as they keep finding excuses to lean in closer over the course of the next few minutes, not at all subtle. They drift in, in, in to talk to him over the music until they’re both practically kissing him on the cheeks just to be heard as they chat about nothing much at all.

Meng Yao finishes his beer and lets Xichen take the empty cup from him to set aside, and when he leans back in even closer than a moment before, Meng Yao offers him a coy little smile of the sort that’s weakened tougher men than Xichen seems to be and drops his newly-freed hand on his knee, mirroring the caress on Mingjue’s knee with his free hand on the other side.

It would be more than accurate to say that Xichen melts like butter — melts so obviously, in fact, that Mingjue laughs at him, hides it in Meng Yao’s shoulder, and seems to need no further excuse to just set up camp there so he can start nuzzling the tip of his nose into the crook of Meng Yao’s neck until he’s shivering pleasantly and feeling very much like the cat that got the cream.

Huaisang was right — this has never happened to him in New York, but he’s perfectly happy that it’s happening to him now.

–//–

Nie Huaisang isn’t the type to say ‘I told you so’ in so many words, mostly because he doesn’t actually say what he’s really thinking in the first place.

But if he were the type, he’d be saying it right now to anyone who would listen as he sips at a beer some jumped-up bull rider pressed into his hand with enough flustered used-to-be-definitely-absolutely-straight-but-now-he’s-confused flirting that Huaisang had given him an extra kiss or three to apologize for giving him a little sexuality crisis.

Maybe it’s weird for him to be so pleased to see his brother and his brother’s live-in-something tag teaming Huaisang’s own best friend, but, well. Meng Yao works way too hard for very little in return, and Huaisang thinks he deserves nice things. He’s certainly not immune to the ample charms of his brother’s farmer/rancher neighbors at least for a hazy summer, and he’d known that Meng Yao wouldn’t be able to resist either no matter how many fuck-off-I’m-totally-independent vibes he gives off when they’re back home.

Naturally if Meng Yao weren’t interested in sex Huaisang would leave him alone about it, but since he’s not he’d known perfectly well that there would be no resisting not one but two handsome men who could throw him over their shoulders as easily as they do bales of hay or sheep that need shearing. So, to that effect — the scene in front of him. Huaisang watches just long enough to see Xichen turn Meng Yao’s face to his with a gentle finger under his chin to coax him in for a kiss where they’re snuggled up all three together on the couch and then makes his escape to find his own fun for the night.

It’s already looking like it’s going to be quite the summer, and Huaisang basks in the pleasure of a plan well-executed with no one the wiser.

#the untamed fanfic #3zun #Modern AU #Orville Peck Cinematic Universe #officially the name of this universe (because there will definitely be more) lol #3zun but make them cattle ranchers because why not #Nie Mingjue #Meng Yao #Lan Xichen #Nie Huaisang

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noonewilleverknowistealkneecaps · 4 months ago

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Hey, I've been following your Soviet Holmes art for a few… months? I don't know. Anyway, just wanted to say that I absolutely love the way you do this. I love this show and your art is like a breath of fresh air about these old show. Thank you for lighting up this part of Tumblr with your art, this adaptation doesn't have that many followers and fans, but I'm absolutely happy we have you ❤️

And i’m afraid i didn’t answer for a few months as well - for that im sorry. but! Oh wow, i didn’t realise I’ve been sharing holmes art for so long, thats cool, and you’re cool for this interest methinks🫵.

Im boutta jump around my room, jolly manner, for many of you are sharing the same braincell with me. I’m 100% yes for bringing something new to old shows: new perspectives, theories, lgbt takes or whatnot (that it lacks tbh, especially soviet media). It so exciting!! i mean!! showing well known narratives and characters from other sides and bringing (hopefully warm) nostalgia to those who love them old movies as much as you do.

Not no mention that soviet Holmes movie is one of THE classics in ussr cinema, it is shown every new year on tv after all. And with all that, i’m furious that it doesn’t appear to have much fanart or fanfics (as a mainstream!!). And with this treatment, imagine all the “coded” russian literature and other shows, man they are so untouched. Looking at russian etc., artists meaningfully for not having a cult of soviet johnlock already bc IT’SRIGHT THERE PEOPLE, BREAK FREE FROM CENSORSHIP AT ONCE, BE FREE, BE PROUD, SHARE, EXPLORE, RECYCLE.

My point is, i really want soviet media and old movies in general to see the light of the sun again, be explored in such tasty, tasty ways. I want to savour them ravishing contexts. Let us fester on our nostalgia. I know, for now i share some pretty straightforward and rather shallow interpretations, for now its just “lol, gay dads, adorable” but theres so much more deeper things in my brain(it is there!! I promise!!!) id like to share sometime soon.

Iuhhhhhhh, sorry, back to the message im answering to! THANK YOU SO MUCH, FOR TEXTING THIS AND TRANSPORTING THESE KIND WORDS TO ME BRAIN, MEANS THE WORLD AND BOOSTS MY INSPIRATION A TON!!!! I actually wanted to have asks for so long, its great to finally communicate with fans of my fav stuff, bc comments dont seem to be in favour on this app.

Anyway, you made me too emotional and you know too much now, let me eat you at once, dear commenter

#insane person rambles a whole lot #sherlock holmes #lgbt ussr #i even drew posters with my lgbt interpretations of various soviet movie characters #if you wanna i can share #art #ussr media #censorship #ramble #soviet sherlock holmes #livanov #solomin #vitaliy solomin #vasiliy livanov

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bagopucks · 1 year ago

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A group of Michigan Brothers and their tall friend

🤝

A group of Michigan Brothers and their tall friend

From one hyper fixation to the next. If you wanna know where I’ve been, it’s with my music.

If there’s one thing I’ve loved all my life, it’s been music. It has been so long since I’ve genuinely invested myself in a band I felt meaningful or enjoyable. Modern music is not my favorite thing. Not that there is anything wrong with it, but I just don’t enjoy the vast majority. This however, I can get behind. Nothing beats modern rock that sounds like it was pulled from the 70’s. I’ve always been envious of older decades that had such beautiful music, and I can’t even express how wonderful and fulfilling life has felt with the one thing I’ve wished for since I was old enough to listen to and comprehend music. I can’t explain it in a way to make anybody understand, but this music, this fashion, this time feels almost.. like a reality in a way. Like it’s actually within my grasp. It’s something I’ve always loved but I never had the privilege of loving in the present time. Now I do, and the love I used to hold for music has returned at such an overwhelming pace that life feels so full again.

Nothing touches my soul deeper than a beautiful voice and meaningful lyrics. Something poetic and fun. I’ve been an artist since as long as I can remember. I feel incomplete if I don’t have good music to listen to, or a muse for drawing and physical art. Music is beautiful in an indescribable way.

Due to the transition period I’ve started, from high school to college, and a lot of change, my OCD and depression has been spiking on and off like a switch. I’ve been pretty busy these past few weeks, seeing as everybody at work simply decided to quit, so my hours are through the roof. I’d like to take a break to focus on my art and my future for a month or so. Possibly until the new season opens. I’m not saying a permanent goodbye, I promise I’ll be back. I just need some time for myself, and I’d love to explore my other interests some more while I have this past summer as a ‘kid’.

Always feel free to check in, submit thoughts, questions, just talk if you want to talk. I’ll still be on tumblr, just not writing. Though I’ve kept my accounts separate, with this break, I’d like to extend the opportunity for anybody to follow @teddydrawshockey (my first account) if they’d like. I’ll probably continue to post art there from time to time. Requests for art, drawings, anything of that nature is always welcome on that account as well.

I want to give a sincere thank you to all of those who have followed and remained consistent through the few months I have done this! It has been so much fun, and I can’t wait to return to writing soon. The support, interaction, and love for my work was what kept me going. This account was initially created so I could get some of my own ideas down on paper. Then interaction came in, and I decided to make something out of it. I thank all 800+ of you who have followed for the ride. And the ones who popped in every once and a while to check out my works and spam my account. I am eternally grateful, and I do hope you all stick around for my return.

I promise this is not the end, I’ll be back

-Ella

#ella’s thoughts #ella’s nonsense #ella’s updates #ella’s asks #ella’s inbox #small hiatus #i’ll be back #quinn hughes #jack hughes #luke hughes #trevor zegras #jake kiszka #josh kiszka #sam kiszka #danny wagner

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theaistired · 11 months ago

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Blog introduction

Hello, my name is Thea (she/they), I’m acespec, arospec, and autistic. I speak German and English and I am trying to learn Italian, Swedish and Arabic (learning three different languages at once is complicated, so trying instead of actual learning). I’m a big fan of the fantasy genre and like to read, write, draw, play the piano, and occasionally play video games. I also love birds and science.

Now, this is my main blog where I post about my writing, my art and also stuff in general. I might also post about some of my own music in the future. You can find a short introduction to my WIPs under the cut.

Hope you enjoy and I'll see you around on tumblr!

Galidean: A fantasy series that was supposed to be a trilogy but has grown into a much longer series. But I guess that is what happens when you look a three different projects and think to yourself "wouldn't it be hilarious if the took place in the same setting". So, the series can be divided into three different "eras" with their own little "main plot", but there is also a plotline running through all of them mostly in the background.

A hundred years after the joined victory over the Dark Sun, the human nations gather together in celebration. Future leaders attend a journey through each other's home, during which it becomes clear that scorching raids have left their marks over all the territories. With no apparent culprit, a prince, an orphan, a lord, and a sorcerer band together to find the power that turns banishment into death. With the help of a friend and a sibling, they start chasing mysteries and legends across the world, unaware that they all take root from the wounds of the world itself.

Old Gods: A fantasy series consisting of 3 – 4 books, while I also wanted it to be horror, that part has gotten somewhat lost while developing it. Oh well.

Cyr was young when the war started, he was young when he joined it and he was not so young anymore when the enemy captured him. After four years of imprisonment, he comes to terms with his inevitable fate. Surrounded by enemies, hated by his allies, stripped of his magic and will, there is no escape for him. While the voices and visions invade both day and night, Cyr prepares for his final day. His only true solace is the new courtesan who has endless stories of hope and rebirth to tell him.

The Human in Us: An urban fantasy series, that really is just two characters and my investment in their relationship in a trench coat. All started by me looking at different supernatural YA stories and going “wonder how I would do that”.

Students, alcohol and an abandoned house should have been the set-up for a fun, maybe spooky anecdote in their future. It should not twist and turn and talk, it should not turn nightmares real, it should not make Josephine’s hallucinations even more vivid and grotesque. Yet it does, and one month later, a burning girl appears to give her an envelope containing an address and a promise of answers.

There Are Voices In the Void: A sci-fi horror story, set in the same setting as a different sci-fi project of mine, but story-wise not connected to it.

While investigating a nebula, the scientists of the crew gather samples of cosmic dust, finding an unknown organism on it. The head biologists determines it to be deceased and proceeds with further testing. The death of two of his colleagues soon afterwards is just the beginning of the nightmare.

Little Remains: A bit of crime fiction/thriller, that happened by me looking at YA mystery series and going “wonder how I would do that”.

Detective Morgan has worked on many gruesome cases in the past, most of them took place in bigger cities with an anonymous population. When a teenage girl is found dead in the fields of a small town nearby, Morgan first assumes an outsider to be the murderer of the unidentified victim. However, with the murder of a local student a few days later, even the tight-knit community quickly realises that one of them is far more familiar with the gruesome case than the rest of them. Unwilling to sit back, the student’s friends start their own investigation, while Morgan begins to struggle with old ghosts.

#blog intro #writing #writeblr #writeblr intro

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northadawn · 9 months ago

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NorthaDawn's Feb 2024 Update

Hello everyone, NorthaDawn here, and it's February here, I hope that your 2024 has been going great so far! Mine has been decent so far, and I wanted to write this important journal to give you some in-depth news into the latest happenings that I've been doing that I feel all of you deserve to know about!

1) PERSONAL HAPPENINGS

I'll get the elephant in the room out of the way first; on the health side of things, I've been doing much better and physically, this is the healthiest I've been in ages. Mentally? Let's just say that I've had to cut off someone really toxic from the community; they've caused a lot of trouble for me and my dear friends for months. I don't want to dive further into what happened to keep my friends safe, but I do want to say this: be there for your friends and stand up for them when they need you around.

Apart from that, I have been changing up things here and there and handling stuff in my university and in my family, but I do have some things cooking up for you guys that I'll share with you here later! But first, I want to go over my announcement from a handful of days back to clarify a few things.

2) THAT SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

You've probably already read my post where I announced my decision to continue making Titanic content in the future instead of retiring, but I think I should also explain why I contemplated retiring (again). To be honest with you, ever since my heart attack ages ago, things have gone poorly for me here; a partnership that wasn't meant to be, my ever-increasing workload in university, losing momentum and motivation for Titanic art in general, and feeling like a stranger here again has been a few reasons as to why I decided to quit once 2023 turns into 2024. However, a new partnership with smolnoodlekitty that soon turned into "Team Heartslash" (which includes people such as Matlock26th, caitlin._.art, Lacoeurdelamer, NWArtOfficial), getting more lovely people to voice act my characters, and the support from the newest batch of talented artists in the community made me rethink my decision to step away from doing Titanic art. That's why I decided to stay on! Unironically, I wouldn't still be here today without your support, so thank you all for continuing to support me even though I barely upload at all these days. I'm trying to work on that, I promise.

Speaking of characters...

3) MY FIRST OC: MASAKO HONDA

I finally made an actual original character that isn't a gijinka of some sort! I got the confidence to finally make a character that isn't limited to being a gijinka, and I'm happy with what I have. You've probably already seen her if you checked out my Twitter, but here she is: Masako Honda!

Masako Honda is a hyperactive, ADHD-ridden Japanese-Filipino girl who moved to the Philippines at the age of 10. Despite being a self-proclaimed nerd who is very geeky and hyperactive to the point where she can't stay still for 5 minutes, she is a very attractive girl who is way out of most guys' league. However, she doesn't have a boyfriend since birth. She took up the Game Development course in her university because of her self-taught ability in Unity and in C#. Just don't call her a Java developer.

That's a brief introduction of her, she'll soon have her place in my gallery, and I hope you'll be excited for that day to come as much as I am! The early reception I got from both my Discord server and my classmates has been insane and I couldn't be more thankful for the response I got for her!

4) SOCIAL MEDIAS (DISCORD SERVER + DA GROUP)

I've been going around and trying to update my social media pages and stuff, and I understand that there's a lot of links to keep up with, so I compiled them all in one page so you can quickly go to my profiles in certain sites! You can check them out right now through my Linktree here: https://linktr.ee/NorthaDawn

Speaking of updates, I've also been doing a little rebrand, which is why I've transitioned away from my old theme to the one I've had right now, I hope you like the new look!

I've also decided to take on a new tagline that I feel would represent not only me, but also all of you guys as a whole well. It's a simple line, yet it's a very motivational one, at least for me, and I hope it'll be motivational for you too. The tagline? "THERE IS STILL A VOYAGE TO EMBARK ON."

As a final reminder, I do have a Discord server up that also serves as a server for smolnoodlekitty and caitlin._.art! You can join through this link here: https://discord.gg/gsxGMPMPNb

5) VOICE ACTRESS ANNOUNCEMENT

Of course, I'd save the best for last. I'll keep it short and sweet...

RMS Olympic (Olyvia McLoughlin) - caitlin._.art

You probably know her as my Titanic's voice for a bit now, but she'll now be primarily voicing the Old Reliable now! She also did the absolutely gorgeous art for this announcement! As for who'll take her spot as Titanic?

RMS Titanic (Emily McLoughlin) - Lacoeurdelamer

She's the nice girl who'll play the Queen of the Ocean! If you've been around my Discord server, you know her as Maxine, and the amount of similarities she has to my Titanic is quite insane, which is why she's the perfect fit!

Masako Honda - moonglower.art + smolnoodlekitty

A 2-for-1! Weren't expecting that, were you? Either way, they're sharing duties to be the voice of the hyperactive college girl!

I hope you'll be looking forward to hearing them bring my characters to life!

FINAL REMARKS

Thanks for your continued support, and I hope that this has been a nice update so you're up to speed with what's going on in my end of things. Please do leave a comment, I'd like to know what you think! Also, go support every artist mentioned in this journal, they deserve it too! Have a wonderful day!

-Northa

THERE IS STILL A VOYAGE TO EMBARK ON

#northa talks #announcement #update

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uraalice · 1 year ago

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It's time for the very rare, not even yearly text post!

I feel like each time I go to make a personal post I include this little note about how it's sooo rare for me to talk, and how I'll try to talk more in the future, then I never do orz. Maybe it'll finally change, but we'll see! I just wanted to thank everyone who has been engaging with my stuff. I'll sometimes get a notification for something really old and it's like a positive jump scare. In the past couple of months I've tried to experiment more with the concept of "making my art weirder", doing more stuff with colors, etc. Returning to danganronpa (especially Miya) has been fun and I didn't think she was someone I'd ever seriously come back to (mostly because of the discourse). However, all the positive responses to my art of her has been a huge motivator!!! If it's not super obvious already, Twisted Wonderland grabbed me by the throat and that's another thing where all the sweet engagement has made me so happy. I actually plan on making a sideblog dedicated to that, but I'll probably still post all my art for it here first. Moving on, I kind of realized I never posted it about here but I've more or less quit Xenoblade for the time being. I've got a few outstanding commissions for it that I may post on here, but after that it'll probably be a while until I want to revisit it again. If you've been following my art for that, thanks so much. To wrap this up, I'm going to try super hard to get at least one or two pieces out for Blacktober but I'm really swamped with all sorts of things atm. I've also decided to record some speedpaints and I've started work on new animatics so those will hopefully be out soon...

I'm not really sure how to end this, but if you read all this, thanks so much! In my last text post I promised I'd try to share wips and doodles more. I forgot to do that, but I'll try really hard to make that a reality going forward!!!

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i-am-beckyu · 2 years ago

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I posted 534 times in 2022

That's 534 more posts than 2021!

108 posts created (20%)

426 posts reblogged (80%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@brick-a-doodle-do

@orchid-harmony

@squishys-soft-stories

@colossal-red

@poprockpanda

I tagged 169 of my posts in 2022

#nmw - 42 posts

#mcyt g/t - 28 posts

#mcyt gt - 21 posts

#g/t - 19 posts

#g/t community - 15 posts

#beckyu answers - 14 posts

#beckyu arts - 13 posts

#gt community - 13 posts

#brick my beloved <3 - 13 posts

#gt inktober - 12 posts

Longest Tag: 132 characters

#i have literally never tired art in this style nor in g/t so i'm actually flippen proud of myself for how well this came out asdfghj

My Top Posts in 2022:

Don’t forget to mention that...

Well I never expected this to be the first finished bit of writing I posted here. I promise I’m still writing that other one I’ve hinted at, I just want it to be perfect!! I actually wrote this back in August and was re-reading it and thought: huh its not bad so edited it a bit and here we are. (this is literally the 2nd fanfic I’ve ever written as well as g/t piece and I haven’t even finished the first so please be kind qwq) This was inspired by an artwork that @dingbatnix created! Original post here I hope you like it ❤️

cw: mcyt g/t, soft, slight panic, mention of death man I hope that’s right

word count: 2375

“A nap in the sun would be nice right about now.” George said as he made his way to the top of a big red toadstool. Winter was fast approaching and the time for napping in the sun would soon be over while the cold months of snow and ice overtake the world. George didn’t mind the thought of snow though. I mean, when you’re 2 inches tall, snow isn’t exactly your friend when even a light powder can have you buried and frozen alive. It was going to be tougher to find food and shelter soon too. Part of him wishes he hadn’t left the colony; that he had stayed with his own kind rather than travel the vast world. But he had lost his parents long ago and had never made any real friends back home, so what real attachment did he have in staying? So George had instead chosen a life of adventure. He’d been wandering the forest and plains for a few years now. Learning about its hidden wonders and knowledge unknown. While he wasn’t exactly born for magic, he had certainly picked up the odd spell or two. He had once befriended a size-shifting fire-born demon named Sapnap, that he had spent the winters with in the past and learnt some basic spells anyone with enough practice could use. Although he had never actually seen his friend's bigger form, he missed Sapnap dearly. He had left to go meet with an old friend of his for a while and George had decided he wanted to continue to explore. But whilst George was curious and loved discovering new things, he tended to stay away from anything larger than a bush. Or if he was being more specific; Humans. When you live in a world that’s 100x bigger than you, sentient beings 100x bigger with it are terrifying. He’d seen the destruction beings of such caliber could cause. If they wanted to, they could tear through trees with massive iron blades, light fires and cause havoc in an instant. But at worst? They’d stamp out life in a heartbeat. And while you think they may only be stories told to young children to keep them within the safety of the colony walls, George had seen it first hand. His parents had hidden him in a small grotto before leading the monsters away. And because of that, he’d never actually encountered a human in person. That was definitely something he could be grateful for. He’d only seen a little of what had happened to his parents before they had passed and he had opted to drown out the sounds of destruction rather than watch it in horror. Who knew it would be the last time he would ever see them. He missed them dearly but was thankful that in all his time traveling, he’d never seen a human and hopefully never would. Hope might have been an understatement….

George placed his little toadstool hat to the side of him as he removed his satchel from over his shoulder. He brushed over it lightly, a small smile gracing his face as he reminisced in fondness. He had fought with Sapnap over how to do smaller stitches rather than big uneven ones that left room for holes, rambling on how his attention to detail was just George being picky similar to his other friend. George then smoothed out his moss cloak to lie on and laid back onto the toadstool, resting on his back using one hand to cushion his head. His other hand fiddling idly with his light blue shirt. He adjusted his white rimmed goggles on his face with delicate care and closed his eyes as the warmth of the evening sun shone upon him. It’s ray’s practically dancing along his skin as it warmed each cell of his very being. It was nice. On rare occasions he would find himself being able to enjoy the sun like this. Too often this world was out to get him and yet somehow he would find the odd times that he could let himself drift away in bliss. Drift away…. Maybe to sleep? Yeah, that sounded nice.

George continued to keep his eyes closed and began to focus on the sounds around him. Despite his loud and rowdy personality, Sapnap had shown him how to enjoy moments like these. He missed him dearly. Perhaps their paths would cross again during the winter? It was unlikely since he could size shift and had said his friend traveled around a lot, but George was happy for him. A small part of George wished he had stayed with him. Sapnap had even offered for George to accompany him and meet his friend, always saying how he thought they would get along so well and how much he knew they would just love George. But the fact that Sapnap was a size shifter implied that his friend was also one and that scared George. He wasn’t ready for that no matter how much Sapnap insisted that they wouldn’t harm him. George shook away those thoughts for now though, because he was going to drift away. Just for a bit…

The sounds of rustling leaves in the breeze began to get fainter as George felt himself lulling off to sleep, the sun continuing to blanket him in its warmth. He was almost asleep when he suddenly felt the surface beneath him move. ‘Probably the wind’ he thought. Then it moved again. ‘Okay maybe there’s a deer nearby. That’s ok.’ And again. George opened his eyes slowly. “So close to a nap” he grumbled. The toadstool shook again. George’s mind quickly came back to reality. He could hear the steady sound of massive footsteps approaching as his world began to shake over and over. “Ok, maybe not a deer.” George said out loud as he slung his satchel back on and his hat. Whatever was coming was big and that was never good. The footsteps continued to come closer and the shaking worsened. The steps were timed and even, something that animals rarely did. Whatever this was wasn’t an animal. “Oh no.” George said as the realization dawned on him. “Please don’t be that. Oh please anything but that.”

George raced to slide off the top of the toadstool. He was practically exposed if he didn’t get off there fast enough! He managed to make it off the top and landed to the ground with a thud as the sound of tree branches parted. The sound of footsteps ceased right in front of where George was hidden beneath the toadstool. Not a single sound followed. Carefully, George peered his head around the side of the Toadstool and let out a small gasp. In front of him mere inches away was a giant boot. Starring up and up at the giant being before him was his worst nightmare. A human. The man wore a bright green hoodie, blonde hair just in view peeking out from behind a white smiley face mask that covered most of his face from view. But the most terrifying thing about this being was the black shiny purple axe he held in his hand. He’d seen weapons like that before. It was an enchanted netherite axe: one of the most dangerous weapons in existence, and it was held by a human.

“Hello? Is someone there?” It said.

George slapped himself in the face as he clasped his hands over his mouth. What a fool he was. He was trapped with the only cover being the toadstool. The next closest cover was too far away to run too without being exposed and even if he ran, the human would probably reach him within seconds. He stayed perfectly still. It felt as if he moved even slightly the toadstool would disappear and he’d be discovered. The human had yet to move. George could only imagine it was scanning the area searching for something. Someone. Him. Carefully he peered out from under the toadstool, trying to get a better idea of what the human was doing. Said human had its back turned to where George was and as predicted was scanning the area looking and listening intently. He watched as the human turned its head slowly as it scanned the area once more. As it began to get closer to looking in his direction, George ducked back out of view. His breathing picked up a little as he did so but he focused on the matter at hand. There’s no way the human saw him right? Right?!? Without warning, the toadstool was suddenly yanked up out of the ground and into the air. George shrieked, eyes wide as his only cover was ripped away leaving him completely exposed and at the mercy of the human. The human and George suddenly fell deathly still, shocked by each other’s presence. Even though the human wore a mask, George could still feel the human's eyes burning a hole through his soul. It had found him. What was he going to do now?

“Wow.” The human whispered in amazement. “Look at you.” Well George didn’t care how amazed the human sounded, his words were enough to snap him out of his frozen state and make a dash for cover. “WAIT! NO! Come back!” The human yelled as he suddenly made a move for him. George ran for the closest bush he could find. He didn’t care where he hid, anything was better than being in the open at the humans mercy. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it far before a large hand gripped itself around his body. He wasn’t held overly tight but it still felt suffocating. It was too warm, too big, too strong! All it would take is one good squeeze and the human could pop George’s head off!

George tried kicking and thrashing in the Humans hand. His arms were pinned to his body so he was limited but anything was better than nothing in hopes of getting the human to let him go. He felt gravity shift as the human lifted him up higher and higher from the ground. Sapnap had tried to take him flying on a bird once and he had not enjoyed it being up so high. Finally, the grasp loosened around George and he found himself sitting cupped in both the humans massive hands. The human still wore the mask but while he couldn’t make out the human's eyes, he now felt as if it was studying him over. Taking in every last detail of his appearance and it was terrifying. “You’re actually real.” The human said as he poked him with a finger. George hugged his legs to his chest and curled in on himself, willing himself to just disappear. “Please let me go.” He whispered out. He could feel tears pricking at the corner of his eyes. He didn’t want to meet the same gruesome fate his parents had. Maybe if he was obedient it would show him mercy? “I’ll do whatever you want, please just let me go!

“Hurt you?? Oh no, is that what you think I’m going to do?” The human said the sound of disbelief coating his voice. “I just can’t believe you’re actually real. I thought all this time he was just making you up.” George dared to open his eyes. The human still had its mask on but somehow he looked calmer, gentler. “But still, he never said just how small you were. You barely even fit in the palm of my hand.”

Now it was George’s turn to be in a state of disbelief. This human was speaking as if it knew George but couldn’t believe he existed. That someone had told him about himself. “What do you mean ‘He’ was making me up? Who on earth are you talking about??” George asked. “Oh Sapnap did. He kept going on about how he met this tiny person called George and that you used to live together.” The human replied. “He always goes on about how much we’d get along and how much I’d like you.”

Sapnap? SAPNAP?!?! This was the friend he was always talking about?!?!?! A human friend. How had Sapnap failed to mention the one most important detail that his friend was a human? Sure he’d said that his friend wouldn’t hurt him but never once had he mentioned or implied that his friend was Human. George began to fume. “I’m going to murder him first chance I get!” George yelled. “He never said you were a human! He always said the same thing to me too about how great you were and that we could be like some dumb Dream Team!” George said steaming.

“Really? I rather like the name Dream Team.” The human said, laughing a bit at the end. “Then again, I’m biased with my name literally being Dream.”

“Wait, your name is Dream???” George said as he stared up at Dream, the apparent human. “Wait he didn’t tell you my name? Oh Sapnap’s an idiot I swear.” George laughed in response. “Oh don’t I know it.” They both laughed for a bit at the dumbness of their friend. “Well it’s nice to meet you then Dream. I’m George, but I’m guessing you already knew that huh?” George said as he began to relax. Dream shifted George into his left hand as he grabbed his mask with the right and lifted his mask. A face dotted with Freckles adorned with a mischievous grin and bright green eyes looked back into his own brown and blue eyes. “Yeah I knew and man I’m gonna mess around with Sapnap for not telling you more about me when we get back.” Dream said as he turned and started to make his way out of the Forest.

And as the two trekked back to where Dream and Sapnap had set up camp, George couldn’t help but be at ease. Even though Dream was a human, he couldn’t help but feel safe in the human's grasp thanks to Sapnap and all those stories he had shared. Even if he’s never told him once that his friend was a human, he knew he could trust Sapnap and that was enough. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I actually finished a story. I never thought this day would come T-T. I really hope everyone enjoyed this it was a lot of fun to write and I’m glad I did get around to finishing it. Thank you @squishys-soft-stories for reading the draft ❤️ Stay tuned for the first fic I’ve been writing tho!!! I’m dying at not just sharing it now but its not far off being done!! I promise its going to be worth the wait! Thanks all again if you read to the end ❤️❤️❤️

60 notes - Posted October 30, 2022

Crimeboys it is.

And would you know it, it be a fluffy Crimeboys prompt with an instinct driven Giant Wilbur and a human Gremlin Tommy.

The prompt starts with Wilbur not letting Tommy go as he woke up with instinct begging for him to take Tommy everywhere he goes.

Tommy tries to bite Wilbur's fingers so he can put him down but Wilbur ain't buggin anytime soon.

Anywhere Wilbur goes, Tommy is right there since Wilbur isn't letting him go.

Like you can have Wilbur be at work and he still brings Tommy with him as an example.

Just make it as fluffy as you can, you can add anything you want.

If you're up to make this prompt then pog, that is if you want to do it.

Also, if you wanna send me a random g/t prompt that u have, go for it.

Quack

This has been in my inbox since I joined Tumblr.

Orchid gorgeous!!!!!!!!! I've rewritten this twice!!!! It took me awhile as I got stuck at one point BUT! I had a new idea today so while its short, I'm very happy with it! I hope I did the prompt justice and you like it!!!

Mine to hold close

cw: mcyt g/t , soft, fluffy, tiny tiny death mention. Words: 607 [One shot]

“Can you put me down you prick?! I’m not gonna freeze I swear!!!” Tommy said with huff as Wilbur scooped him up.

“After the last time it snowed? I don’t think so.” Wilbur responded as he tucked the little human close to his chest.

“But Wiiiiiiilllll!! I’m not even outside this time!” The giant always tended to get extra clingy around this time of year. His instincts in high gear and on Tommy the second he was awake, worried that Tommy wasn’t warm enough. Tommy didn’t blame him though. Not when he literally met Wilbur in the midst of a snow storm. He hadn’t meant to lose the trail and get stranded in Giant territory, but stuff like that always seemed to follow the Great Tommy Danger Kraken Innit! He’s just lucky that the giant had found him in the snow before he became a frozen popsicle. And even luckier that this Giant didn’t eat humans. So yes, Tommy understood that Wilbur was going to be a little extra cautious about him almost dying of Hypothermia again. But he didn’t have to be so damn cuddly and touchy all the f***** time!!

“Wilbur I’m fine! I’m not gonna get cold! The fires going and keeping everything nice and toasty warm, so stop being a d*** and put me down!!” Tommy said as he squirmed in Wilbur’s hold.

“Tommy. You are literally the most chaotic little gremlin I’ve ever seen. If I put you down, I guarantee you’ll be screaming for help in less than five minutes trying not to freeze your a** off!!” In retaliation, Tommy started biting and scratching at Wilbur’s hand. It didn’t hurt of course, but Wilbur found it cute watching the attempt at escape. He loved Tommy like a brother and ever since he found him had sworn to protect him no matter what, his instincts often being a little overbearing at keeping the chaotic child safe. And if that meant holding onto him for hours at a time, then he’d happily oblige. So what if he had to do his work with one less hand? He’d take holding Tommy any day. That and his instincts kept screaming at him to keep the human close.

After a few minutes Tommy eventually resigned himself to his fate and just chilled in Wilbur’s hand. Though he’d never admit it, he secretly loved it when Wilbur would hold him. He felt safe knowing nothing could hurt him when he was with the giant. He didn’t have to worry about anything and could just be content with his pseudo brother. Staying with the giant being the best decision of his life after their first initial meeting.

Tommy stayed in Wilbur’s hand all day. They chatted while Wilbur did his chores, Wilbur singing songs to Tommy, Tommy sharing wacky insane ideas with Wilbur, all the while the giant's instincts to keep the human close not faltering once. As day turned to dusk and dusk turned to night, Tommy eventually curled up in Wilbur’s hand. Snuggling in as he fell asleep, hugging one of Wil’s fingers close. Wilbur had to resist the urge to coo at the small sleeping human in his hand. Tommy was so small, so fragile but you’d never guess he had such a boisterous personality and was as lively as what he is. Slowly and carefully, Wilbur made his way to bed, getting in and tucking the human close to his heart. He sighed contently knowing nothing could hurt his brother, his instincts finally satisfied.

“Good night Tommy.” Wilbur whispered quietly as he drifted off to sleep. The brothers comfortable in each other’s warm embrace.\

WOOOOOOOOOOOOO I MADE ANOTHER FIC!!!!! THAT'S 2/3 POSTED!!!!!

I swear I'm still writing the other fic! I swear! I swear! I swear!!! It's gonna be worth the time its taking! PROMISE

64 notes - Posted November 13, 2022

I finally did it!!!!! I got one of these miniature sets!!!! I know people have done them before but this one’s mine with a few personal touches as I didn’t quite do it ‘By the Book’!! That and my silly brain also won’t allow me to glue any of it down either because it’s like: But what if you meet a tiny person? Then they can’t move anything 😭!!!!! So yeah I’m happy!!!

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72 notes - Posted August 6, 2022

Day 5 and 6 of @aaytaro-gt gt Inktober!!!!!

Yes I missed the day to post 5. but anyways we have Dance and Jar!!

Jar also features one of my fav people @a-tiny-frog-girl love ya Froggie 💚

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75 notes - Posted October 6, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

So I have found another thing to give a shot in amongst everything else I’m doing this month! I’m going to take part in g/t InkTober using @aaytaro-gt prompt list! I want to take the opportunity to practice drawing certain positions and I’ve never really tried to draw gt art before so here’s to hoping I stick to it and make some improvements 😊 might switch between traditional and digital art who know.

Day 1. Acorn

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85 notes - Posted October 1, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #the only thing that matters in this whole review is that I got the funny number #Also the fact that my top tag was nmw shows how little I post lol

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keikigoodbetter · 2 years ago

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....howdy, everyone! Looooong time no see 😅😅

I’m sitting in my room right now, waiting as a friend drives over to spend the last few hours of 2022 with me, and I thought I’d try to put down a few of my thoughts as I reflect on the year. It’s been a while since I checked in for real with y’all and for that I am very sorry. (fwiw I dropped contact with quite a few folks irl too, so it wasn’t just you lol)

2022 repeatedly hit my blindside and hit it HARD. I spent a lot of the year in reaction-mode as surprises both good and bad kept coming at me fast; this year had some of the worst lows of my life, but also some of the best highs. It was overwhelming, to say the least.

At the risk of being too personal, here’s an overview of some of My Notable 2022 Moments:

Start the year about 8 months into a really good headspace, to the point where my psychiatrist agrees that if I’m still A-ok by springtime then I can likely step off my antidepressants!!

Help move my Grandma out of her home and into a memory care facility

Have surgery

May 7: Go dancing with friends I haven’t seen in years, to celebrate being alive and together and that I’ve finally finished my degree

May 10: Find out my parents have filed for divorce and will be selling my childhood home, that our family build by hand, by the end of the summer

May 14: GRADUATE COLLEGE!

May 15: One of my best friends goes in for surgery because her pain-management implant is no longer functional. There are complications and she needs 3 more surgeries before the month is over

Return to martial arts after years away

Help babysit the very sweet toddler-age child of someone I went to gradeschool with. (Have an existential breakdown about how old I suddenly am and how unlikely it is at this point that I’ll get to be a mom)

All summer: help clear out my Grandma’s things from her house, move my dad’s things to his new house, move the rest of our family’s things to my mom’s new house, and do repairs and cleaning at our old house

Have to start reminding myself again to get out of bed and eat and not walk into traffic

A best friend flies in from out-of-state to go with me to a disco night

See the Colorado Avalanche Stanley Cup Championship Parade!

Make a great costume and go to the Renaissance Festival in drag

Officially move out of our house; August and September are time soup

A friend from college that I’ve dearly missed moves back to Colorado

SEE MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE LIVE

My brother gets injured

Our house sells

TWO of my job applications that I was really excited for pan out and I’m asked to interview for both of them. The one I like better calls and offers me the position within 3 days! I’m going to start part-time at the local library in January!!! 😭😆

I spend an amazing afternoon with a friend on a maybe-a-date... 👀

I see many friends and family and have a wonderful holiday season

....Realize I might feel ok again soon

(and, as usual, I also saw a lot of great concerts this year!)

....WHEW. Like I said, it was A Lot All The Time. Sorry to overshare 😅 but I just - idk - I feel like I need to write it down somewhere so there’s a record of all the shit that I experienced in the last 12 months. And I feel like some of you are my legit friends and might care about some of these developments? lol idk 😅 sorry if that’s presumptuous.

Anyways, all this to say that I know I’m not particularly an outlier and that most people have crazy things happen all the time. That’s life! But I hope that if you had a rough year (like me), that things turn around for you soon (also like me?). There is always the promise of something wonderful happening just as much as there is the risk of something terrible; and I think growing up is learning to balance the threat of those two extremes without falling down for too long when a new circumstance hits you.

I grew so much in the last year and for the first time in a long time I’m actually excited about what the future might look like for me! 2023 will be hard and full of new challenges, but I think I’ll be ok. And I think you all will be, too.

💖💖💖

All of my love, forever and ever,

#howdy everybody #I did miss talking to you and I promise to be better next year!!#Also if you ever want to chat pls just let me know I'm ALWAYS lurking even if I'm not posting #Anyways happy New Years and blessings to all of you for the year ahead <3 #My life #2022 #Happy New Year

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undrgrnd-nft · 1 year ago

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COMING SOON: UNDRGRND NATION

Originally posted on UNDRGRND

“…where is the tangibility of broader utopia used to justify the hours spent and money lost?” - Network State Protocol

We were sold a bill of perishable goods with no way of preserving them.

Excitement, hype, unbridled enthusiasm over the potential of a product that was yet to be developed.

Web3 is a lie; it doesn’t exist. It is a concept, some of us still believe in that was distilled down to easily digestible catchphrases for social media:

“You’re not buying an NFT, you’re becoming a part of a community.”

“WAGMI”

“I’m here for the art!”

“GM”

Three years ago I came into the space thinking I met people whose moral convictions matched mine; individuals motivated to restructure social constructs, rectify economic inequities, and overhaul old-world institutions.

After everything that has transpired, I’ve discovered that what was buried behind the virtue signaling were the same motivations behind marketing campaigns that attribute insincere emotions to something as benign as laundry detergent: money.

Hundreds of thousands of us were captivated by the promise of equality, a new economic paradigm, and a generational change of the old-world order.

What we’ve gotten is a repackaged version of the last gasping breaths of a predatory-capitalistic-web2 system that serves the individual over the collective.

Community meant customers.

“We” meant “me”.

Building is hard. It’s literally work. Many think they want to work in web3 until they find out they actually have to work in web3. Many systems aren’t in place to protect the concept of web3 which is why, over the past few years, we’ve seen a barrage of opportunistic, charismatic personalities able to parrot coded terminology and present as virtuous, enter the space to shill soulless projects that provide no value outside of a profit for a select few who figured if they called it a “business” it would just become a business.

Now things have grown quieter. There’s a lot less noise from those people who said the right things but meant the same old things. Projects have died, promises have gone unfulfilled, and platforms have shut down.

So where does that leave the rest of us who believed in something more?

Anyone who knows me knows I’m anti-hype. Everything cannot be the best thing ever, something that will change the face of web3 or unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. The hyperbole eventually becomes hollow exclamations for attention to things with little substance.

I like to save my grand proclamations for when things truly matter. I do not exaggerate. I don’t cry wolf. I choose my words carefully and I analyze situations thoroughly before I reveal anything to anyone. A statement is a promise. So for a while, I’ve kept my mouth shut.

Until now.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be providing details for our next phase: UNDRGRND NATION.

This past year has been emotionally draining, exasperatingly so. That story will be told in a special State of the UNDRGRND Address, later.

For now, I’d like to announce UNDRGRND’s partnership with Lemonade Social, the builders of Network State Protocol.

When I first reached out to their team a few months ago, I simply wanted to network and hear what it was they were working on; I didn’t know what to expect. I set up a meeting with one of their founders, missed the meeting and rescheduled, and eventually met the team that has been developing Network State Protocol.

Instantly, it felt like I found others disenchanted with the execution of what web3 promised. The only difference between me and them, they can build the necessary tools for maintaining an ethical infrastructure. So, I’m going to share a manifesto from a group of builders I believe have the same moral foundations and humanistic convictions that first attracted me to web3.

In short, the Network State Protocol acts as a DAO toolkit allowing communities (Nations) to take the next step in legitimizing their group through proposals, fund transparency, and oversight. But it goes beyond that to allow interoperability between communities, multichain functionality, and soon the ability to launch exclusive tokens from your Nation to interact within this united ecosystem.

I’ve looked at other options to begin to build my vision for what ultimately becomes the UNDRGRND DAO and never felt a true fit. Yes, others feel and think about the bigger picture regarding the potential to reframe the corporate framework which aligns with my worldview. But, what hooked me were two of the first Nations that they partnered with before UNDRGNRD: PopEx Nation, and Vinyl Nation.

Down the road, we’ll delve deeper into the other Nations, (with whom we will partner) but for now, all you need to understand is that the collaborative opportunities with PopEx Nation (live event web3 integration), Vinyl Nation (utilizing NFTs with vinyl records) and UNDRGRND were so profuse that it was hard to consider another path forward.

Using decentralization to build a majority consensus has been a primary pillar of the ethos of web3 but hasn’t been the exciting feature that attracts people. But, while governance may not sound sexy, we’re sure as hell going to try to make it sexy by bringing it to the art, music, and film industries.

If it interests you and excites you, then you’ve found your tribe here, with us.

If it doesn’t, don’t worry, I’ll convince you by launching #UNDRGRNDNATION with the help of Network State Protocol.

For now, you can read more about Network State Protocol here.

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0nlythrowharrybeaux · 2 years ago

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Young American - Part 1^

Y/N get's offered the opportunity of a lifetime, an apprenticeship at English Graffiti, world renowned tattoo artist, Eddie Chan's first American shop. However, an unnerving rivalry brews between her and one of Eddie's old apprentices and best artists, Harry Styles.

WC: 10k+

Fic Casting

Y/N had been waiting ages for an opportunity to get a tattooing gun in her hand and become a tattoo apprentice. Since she was a young teen she knew she wanted to tattoo. This interest and passion had been born from her aunt Julie who was heavily tattooed. And while she was considered the black sheep in her family, she had always been special to Y/N and her favorite aunt. She always told Y/N that one day she wanted to be tattooed by her and hopefully soon that dream would be coming true.

Y/N had gone to a tattoo convention to sell some of her prints and designs to artists or shops and also with the hope to get her foot in the door of the industry as an apprentice. It was hard to network while needing to just be stationed at her table for the three days of the convention, so she hadn't really had much luck yet. It was nearing the end of the final day of the convention and she was just doodling on a notebook when someone approached her table and asked about her art and when she glanced up to see her visitor she almost had a heart attack when she recognized the man before her. That was Eddie Chan, a very prominent tattoo artist, one she actually followed on social media for many years. She swallowed down the starstruck feeling that was practically paralyzing her and chatted with him and answered all of his questions.

Eddie was so kind and on top of that, he really liked her art and even asked to see her portfolio. Y/N pulled it out of her tote bag and handed it over, allowing him to skim through the pages. If his facial expression were anything to go by in that moment, it seemed to be that he liked her work. He then asked her where she was working and she explained that she was currently working part-time as a design consultant for an interior design firm. And then he asked the fateful question, "So are you interested in tattooing?" And she could've sworn her eyes teared up as she nodded in confirmation.

He then explained that he was actually at the convention scouting talent because he was opening up a shop in L.A. with an all-star team. He shared with her that he wanted to have an apprentice there because there would be plenty of great and established artists to learn from. Eddie was Chinese-British and he lived in and had his shop in London, so hearing that he was expanding to L.A. was almost fateful. He got her contact information and promised he would call her soon. And a few days later he did and asked her if she wanted to visit the location of the new shop and to bring her portfolio, which of course she agreed to. The shop was beautiful and nearly finished. She even got to meet another artist he had hired, Aurelia Vega, a legend all on her own. They all started talking about her apprenticeship and what that would look like if she accepted. Y/N learned then that the shop would officially be opening in a month, which gave her plenty of time to ease out of her current job and get to be the shop apprentice full-time. And after a few hours she was heading out of the shop with Eddie at her side.

"Thank you for this opportunity, Eddie." She gushed and he smiled.

"Look, I wouldn't be standing where I am if someone hadn't given me an opportunity. You're an incredible artist and I'm sure you'll fit in well with the team we're going to have here." He assured her.

…. THREE MONTHS LATER …

Y/N had been at English Graffiti for two months now and was doing incredibly well in her apprenticeship at the the shop. She had been shadowing, drawing, and being taught so many techniques and strategies from Eddie himself which was a dream scenario all on it’s own. He continued to be so kind, encouraging, and patient with her, though he assured her that it was no biggie because she was a natural. And the truth was finally having that tattooing gun in her hand did feel so natural. She felt alive as she got a shot at pursing her passion. And not only was being involved in any way great, but the team Eddie had assembled was really great.

There were three full-time artists, Gerardo, Vy, and the guy coming from London, Harry. Aurelia, who went by Auree, also tattooed but would assume the role of shop manager once Harry got in. She was close to Eddie's age and she had hurt her arm in a car accident and couldn't tattoo as long or as frequently as she used to, so the managing aspect of things was right up her alley. They also had an assistant manager/receptionist who was in charge of bookings, deposits, and all of the front of the house stuff, her name was Rosa. Meanwhile Harry arrived, Eddie was helping run everything, essentially doing Auree's job and training Y/N. The new guy, Harry, was relocating from the U.K. and would be joining them the next week. Apparently he'd apprenticed under Eddie as well and was his top artist at his U.K. shop. Y/N was excited to work with and learn from this guy. When she checked out his page she was more than impressed, it seemed there was nothing he couldn't do. He definitely had talent and a myriad of skills and styles down, so she was eager to work with him and learn from him as much as possible.

Eddie had been working intensely and closely with Y/N, taking advantage of the fact that he was around to train her properly. The others had also offered support and some suggestions along the way, but Eddie was doing the most work with her before he headed back to London to manage his main shop. Before he left he wanted to see her work on real clients if possible; she had tattooed many oranges, grapefruits, and silicone mats, she'd even given herself a little tattoo, but she had never tattooed anyone else and regardless of her enthusiasm, she was a bit nervous to get into this next stage.

***********

The week of Eddie's departure Y/N scrambled around to find people who were willing to let her practice on them and in exchange they'd get a free tattoo and thankfully, she was able to find two people who were interested in small to medium sized pieces that she had designed. Needless to say, Eddie was impressed with her affinity for working with the clients. He noticed it right off the bat with the first one; she was gentle but easygoing and was great at making people feel comfortable. Her second and final client had the more complicated design, despite it being the black and gray piece, but she was feeling pretty good about it. And when Eddie came to check out her work he was ecstatic with it.

"That's fucking good." He hummed as he inspected the finished tattoo inked into the client's thigh, also a tricky place to tattoo, "Auree, come look at this." He called out. She came over and inspected the work closely as well.

"Damn. You're a natural, girl!" She said with a grin and Y/N was over the moon.

"Don't forget to take a picture and add it to your portfolio." Eddie reminded, "Mate, do you mind if I snap a pic for our Apprentice highlight on instagram?" He asked the client who of course said he didn't mind. "Good work, Y/N." Eddie said with a big smile after snapping the picture and heading off to let her wrap up the appointment.

Both clients were really happy with the tattoos they got and left her a good tip, which she got to keep for herself. At the end of the day she stayed behind a bit later, as was customary, to tidy up and to take inventory as it was the end of the month. She thought she was alone, but then Aurelia came into their inventory closet.

"Almost done?" She asked.

"Yeah, just about." Y/N responded as she ticked off a few boxes and jotted down on the page that they needed to get paper-towels before the week was out.

"You did really well today." Auree said again and Y/N bit her lip in excitement.

"Really?" She asked and Auree nodded.

"Yeah, especially for today being your first time with clients. It couldn't have gone better." She assured and Y/N chuckled.

"Thank you, Auree. That means so much.”

"Of course, hon! But I will tell you, you tattoo so similarly to Harry, the new artist coming tomorrow?" Y/N nodded as she recalled, "I think that he'd be a good person to shadow and stick to for the remainder of your apprenticeship, both Eddie and I agreed. He apprenticed under Eddie too." She shared.

"Yeah, so I heard!” Y/N hummed.

"Yes, he's very versatile, but he's literally the king of the black and gray in London. He's got an eye for making things pop and come alive even in the muted tones. He's just such a cool and talented guy. You're gonna love him." She said with excitement.

"Oh my god, I can't wait!"

“Yeah, so I would suggest you study up on his work a bit more tonight just so that you can be a bit more familiar with it and we’ll properly introduce you two at some point tomorrow.” She suggested and Y/N nodded, “Well, I'm going to head out, but I'll see you tomorrow!" Auree said and Y/N thanked her before hearing the back door close and lock.

Now she was really excited for this guys to come aboard and learn even more from him. When she got home she spent hours looking through his page and hashtags with his name on them on instagram. She watched YouTube videos and was very excited to meet this famous Harry Styles. He seemed cool and he was so talented, she was impressed by him and couldn't wait to work with him and see him in action. He was definitely someone who she now looked up to.

The following morning Y/N showed up at 8:00am, her usual time, and she was surprised to discover that someone was already in the shop. She could hear some things being moved around as she set her things down in the employee’s lounge. She was thinking that it was probably Eddie, packing up some of his things. She walked into the studio area quietly and was met with a tall, thin man. He had a bright pink beanie on his head and a baggy t-shirt with some loose-fitting jeans and dirty Vans. There were a few plastic boxes and totes on the tattooing chair and counter at his station. She cleared her throat and he turned quickly.

"Good morning, I'm Y/N, the apprentice." She said with a smile. It widened when she saw it was him, Harry Styles! She was about to speak up again, telling him how excited she was to finally meet him when he beat her to it.

"I'm Harry the new artist." He said in a sort of flat tone, "Is there a reason my station wasn't prepped last night?" He asked her and she wanted to frown but kept her composure.

"Ummm, I prep the stations in the morning, not the night before." She explained herself.

"Well, it's morning and the stations still aren't prepped or sterilized I'm assuming, so..." he trailed off and she immediately felt irritated with him. She wanted to tell him that she had sterilized the stations the night before and that she had arrived two and a half hours early precisely to prep all the stations and the shop before opening, but she bit her tongue and took a deep breath before responding.

"I'll get on it right away." She assured and hurried over to the disinfectant cart and grabbed some wipes and the disinfectant spray and got to wiping down and then spraying all of the surfaces - even if she had done it the night before, "Do you want me to clean your station?" She asked him as she came up to his station. She wanted to check with him in case he didn't want her touching his things or maybe he had already done it and was just giving her a hard time.

"Of course, just move the boxes." He instructed before walking off and then she heard the backdoor shut. She scoffed and moved his stuff to the ground, wiped and sprayed the counter and his chair before going back to the cart and grabbing a clean rag and wiping down the first station and so forth. She was on the station before his when he came back in and sighed. "Why did you just put my things on the ground?" He asked her, an irritated tone saturating his expression and voice.

"Ummm, you asked me to wipe down your station." She said.

"Yeah, but not to put my stuff on the ground." He huffed in annoyance and placed the things back on the counter and sighed yet again, "Why's it wet?" He asked her with a furrow in his brow.

"Because I haven't wiped it yet?" She spoke to him like it was obvious now, not really caring to hide her irritation towards him this time.

"I was gone for five minutes and you weren't able to wipe down a counter? Jesus..." he mumbled and she hated the way she felt her throat knotting up and her eyes starting to get glossy.

Y/N was so disappointed with how he was acting towards her when he didn't even know her. Her illusions of them getting along great and him becoming her mentor were gone. More than that, she felt her disappointment morphing into anger because really, from the moment she said hello to him he was already being a dick and she didn't do anything to make him upset.

“Well, you’ve clearly never bothered to read the back of the disinfectant bottles. It needs to sit for a few minutes to do its job properly. If you want to half ass the cleaning of your station you can do it yourself." She snapped and dropped the rag onto his counter and hurried out.

Harry was flabbergasted. The last thing he heard was the heavy back door slam before it was silent all around. Harry felt his insides boiling with anger, who the fuck did this chick think she was talking to him like that? He wanted to follow her and ask her what her problem was, but he decided to just wipe down her mess and finish unpacking his things.

Y/N had stepped outside to take a few deep breaths and fan at her eyes to avoid the tears she felt coming on and once she was calm enough again she decided that she needed to apologize to him. If he said something to Eddie or Aurelia they would surely let her go. With this new panic now festering inside of her she hurried inside and into the studio and Harry spared her a menacing glance before continuing with unpacking his boxes.

"I'm sorry for snapping at you. It was unprofessional." She said and he stayed quiet, "I've been here a few months now and I can assure you that I always do my job and I do it well. It may take some time for me to learn how you like things, but I'm willing to learn. Like I said, Ive been here for a few months and everyone else is really pleased with how I do things, so-" she was interrupted by his scoff.

"You've been here a few months, have you? You’ve just got loads of experience." He said sarcastically, not even bothering to spare her a look, “Look. Just finish prepping and stay out of my way and I won't mention your little strop to Eddie." He said and she bit her lip nervously.

"O-OK, thank you." She stammered and he didn't answer her so she just got to work again.

Y/N got through her tasks around 9am and then went to practice on silicone from the briefs and concepts Eddie would give her as homework. It was interesting that he never gave her designs to copy, just ideas. But he told her it was supposed to help her convey non-physical things through the art, help her find her style for these things, and collaborate better with clients, and it was true. Harry didn't say anything to her again while they were alone. When everyone else started filtering in closer to10am he started to look more cheerful and was greeting everyone as if the very sun shone out of his ass. It was incredible. Right at 10am Eddie came in with a box of donuts and a bright smile adorning his face.

"Morning team!" He greeted excitedly and everyone called out their greeting to him as they continued chatting and catching up, "Brought some donuts, I'll put 'em in the lounge." He announced and people started flocking over.

In just a few minutes the smell of coffee was permeating the air in the lounge and Y/N was waiting in the line for the donuts. She grabbed a plain glazed one and quickly scurried off to the side where one of the other artists, Gerardo, stood. He was friendly with her, so sweet and welcoming from the moment she arrived. He was a newer artist to the field and understood the pressure and anxiety of getting on the same level as these veteran and experienced artists. He was always willing to help or give her tips and listen to her when she had a particularly rough time with something, so she definitely leaned towards him a bit more.

"Hey, G." She smiled and he returned the friendly gesture, bearing his teeth in a bright smile.

"Hey, Y/N! How's your morning going so far?" He asked her as she leaned on the wall beside him. She skipped out on the part of Harry being a total ass to her and just said it was good so far. She was about to ask him how his morning had been going when Eddie called for everyone's attention.

"Yo!" He exclaimed and everyone glanced over to him, "First order of business, I want to formally introduce you guys to Harry, he's the newest addition to the team. We've worked together for nearly ten years?" He asked looking to Harry who nodded with a smile, "Fuck, I'm getting old..." he mumbled and everyone chuckled, "I know Auree has met him before, but to the rest of you he's a new face. But he's a really incredible artist! H can handle anything you put in front of him, I fucking swear it. He's also an ace lad and I'm really excited that he agreed to relocate for this gig. Thanks mate." He said to Harry once again as everyone clapped a bit as Harry mumbled something to Eddie lowly as they hugged briefly.

"Second order of business,” Eddie continued, "as many of you know, Y/N is our apprentice at the shop and she's being doing a bang up job around here for the last several months. I think we’ve all seen how anything you give her she will get it done efficiently and exceptionally.” He said and everyone gave her little whoops of encouragement as she shook her head a bit bashfully, “Y/N, you’ve been a lot of help around here as we get the shop settled and I think I can speak for all of us when I say we're thankful for your help and hard work." He said and everyone gave her a little cheer again as she smiled timidly, "I think you all know by now that Y/N did her first tattoos on clients yesterday…” Eddie reminded and once again, her coworkers cheered her on, “And well, she fucking smashed it. Did really exceptional work! Probably some of the best work I've ever seen from a first time artist!" He said and Gerardo elbowed her playfully as she shook her head as everyone whooped and as she looked around she caught Harry's gaze on hers, he didn't seem amused at all, "She did so fucking good that I received emails from both of her clients outlining what a great experience they had and how excited they were to hopefully get tattooed by her again.” Eddie shared.

"Oh my god, really?" She asked and Eddie nodded with a big smile.

"You did really well, Y/N. And after reading their stellar feedback I've decided that you can assist with walk-ins." Her mouth dropped open in shock.

"No way!" She exclaimed and he chuckled.

"You earned it! We can work out the details in a bit, but you've proved yourself." He said. And everyone clapped for her once more, praising her great work.

"Thank you." She responded meekly and then she bit her lip to suppress the huge smile threatening to split wide across her face.

"Those were the two biggest things I wanted to leave you all with. I will be leaving for London tonight, so tomorrow this is Auree's ship to run." Eddie finished and they all cheered again, encouraging Auree this time, “Honestly, I don't think I've ever felt more confident or at peace leaving something. I trust each and every one of you with this shop. You guys are going to kick ass." He said with confidence.

After a few more excited cheers and hollers everyone headed off to their stations and Y/N was following Eddie back to the office where he worked out the details of how her walk-ins would work. Apparently the walk-ins would be split 70/30 between her and Harry as he had no clientele in the area yet. Harry had first dibs because he was already an established artist, but once he had built up his customer base they would mostly fall on her shoulders. Eddie did outline that if clients specifically asked for her then that walk-in would go to her, but for the most part they should be fielded to Harry. She could understand that, he had moved transatlantically for this job and needed the money and also his tattoos would bring in money. She couldn't charge until her apprenticeship was finished, so anything she'd be doing would be "on the house" and if she got tipped enough she could put some of that towards the materials she used, but not every client tipped enough for that. Either way, this was a win for her and she couldn't wait to tell her aunt and her friends.

…. ONE MONTH LATER ….

Working with Harry proved to be a pain. She initially chalked up his bad attitude to jet lag. But after a few days he was still being a jerk to her, so maybe he was really upset by her snapping at him or was hazing her a bit? So she apologized once again and tried to start fresh with him but he simply brushed her off and his bad attitude towards her persisted. After a couple weeks she just decided to keep her head down and compartmentalize the hurt and frustration. It was a huge bummer that he had some vendetta against her that she didn’t understand, but she was determined to make the most out of this new opportunity she was given, as he was determined to be a dick to her.

So even with Harry practically cursing her existence, Y/N was over the moon being able to work with clients. In her first week on walk-ins she had been able to tattoo four people. And during her second week three, and now, on this third week of her new role it was barely Wednesday and she was already on her fourth tattoo of the week! But this time it was different because the walk-ins coming in so far had been asking for her. Yes, Harry was an incredibly talented artist, but so was she and hers were free? It was kind of a no-brainer. She even had to give a few over to Harry and upon seeing his work the clients didn't always mind paying up. But for some reason, to Harry this had sparked a sort of competitive streak in him and he was upset that she was getting so much attention and clientele as an apprentice. This confused Y/N because out of of everyone, he should've understood because when Eddie took him on as an apprentice he was just 17 years old and shortly after he turned 18 Eddie got him started actually tattooing on clients and the same thing happened to him! Moreover, whether he or she tattooed, it was a win for the shop in her eyes! So she was having a hard time understanding and even trying to rationalize his frustration towards her.

Harry was simply jealous, though he’d rather die than ever have to admit that to anyone. Because why would someone as incredibly talented as him be jealous of an apprentice? When he started out right at 18 people saw his skill and knew he was doing it for free to gain experience and he was tattooing up to ten times a week! A great tattoo artist was a great tattoo artist regardless of time, time just made them get better. And he knew he was one of those special people that just took off. But it irked him so much that Y/N was heading there even faster than he was. He had never seen anything like it, it was impressive - another thing he’d choose death over admitting it aloud. He hadn't really gotten a chance to observe her while she worked, but something she was doing was working really well for her, she was like a siren of tattooing. So yeah, he was jealous that an apprentice was getting even more attention than he, an established and reputable artist was.

It was now Thursday of her third week tattooing walk-ins, but she was currently covering the front because Rosa was out sick. She glanced up from the sketch on her iPad when a client walked through the door.

"Welcome, do you have an appointment for today?" She asked with a friendly smile.

"No, I but I was wondering if Y/N was available for a walk-in?" The man asked and she perked up.

“Oh! I'm Y/N! Nice to meet you…?” She asked extending her hand to the man, waiting for his name.

"Ian." He said shaking her hand.

"Ian, thanks for coming in. If you give me a few minutes to find someone to cover I can take a look at what you're wanting to get done, alright?" He nodded and informed her he would pull up his reference photo with a big smile and she excused herself for a moment to head back to the studio and see who wasn't with a client. To her chagrin the only one sitting on his bum sketching at their station was Harry so she tentatively approached him, but he somehow already knew it was her.

"What is it?” He asked monotonously.

"Ummm, a walk-in just came in and asked for me. Can you cover the front for a bit?” She asked him and he sighed and silently stood up and headed off towards the reception area and Y/N followed behind him silently. The only sound was coming from the little beaded curtain serving as the door between the front of the house and the tattooing studio,"Thanks, Harry." She said to him with a smile when he plopped down on the stool behind the register and she scooted a bit further down the counter with the client to keep the register area clear.

"Alright Ian, m’all yours!” She said charmingly and he chuckled, “What were you looking to get done today?" She asked with an easy smile and he handed over his phone.

"I've been wanting this piece done for a long time. It would be my first tattoo." He said as she looked over the reference image with wide eyes. It was a giant Japanese style dragon that wrapped around someone’s whole leg. "I just like the pose of that dragon, you can do it as a Chinese or Japanese dragon, whatever your preferred style and whatnot. And instead of the cherry blossoms I wanted some clouds like these." He said reaching over the screen and sliding it to another photo, "And I’d want it in black and gray.” He finished sharing his concept with a smile.

"Wow, that's really sick, Ian. You want it to wrap around your leg like that too?" Y/N asked and Ian confirmed with a nod.

Upon hearing that Harry perked up, he was about to cut in and remind her that she wasn't allowed to work on big pieces like that yet.

“God, I really do love this piece but unfortunately as an apprentice I'm just not allowed to work on pieces of this magnitude yet. Especially if they're going to take multiple sessions to complete." She explained and Ian immediately frowned.

"Really? That's B.S. I've seen the tattoos you've done on other people and let me tell you, you don't tattoo like an apprentice!" He said and she giggled.

"Thanks, I appreciate that, but them's the rules." She said with a shrug. "I mean if you're really set on starting this piece as soon as possible Harry here is a phenomenal artist. King of black and gray back in London, or something like that, right Harry?" She asked glancing over to him in question with a friendly smile. He looked to her with a bit of shock but nodded.

"Ummm, yeah, that's it." He confirmed and she smiled at Ian now.

"You'd be in really good hands with him. What do you say?” She asked him, enticing him to consider the alternative.

Quite frankly, Harry was shocked that she had even recommended him. All they'd done the last few weeks were have squabbles, glare at each other, or give each other the silent treatment. He must admit that he was the aggressor in most of these unpleasant exchanges, but if the tables were turned he would do something petty like not recommend someone else to do the tattoo. It was extremely professional of her to set aside her personal feelings for him and really play up his work as a professional. And he got excited for a moment because it had been quite hard to build up clientele so far. In the past few weeks he'd only done one large-ish piece and a project like this would be exactly what he needed to get on the map in L.A.

"Ummm, I'm sure he's amazing. All the artists here are! I was looking at the instagram page before coming in! But I really want to get it done by you." Ian said and her eyebrows arched up, "I kind of have this feeling that you're going to blow up and it would be an honor to have you do my first tattoo and also for me to have one of your first big pieces." He said and she smiled kindly at him and was about to speak when Harry butted in.

"Well that's not possible at this time, mate. Like you heard, she's only an apprentice and she's not allowed to do that yet." Harry responded quite harshly, it made her frown. But he felt his body boiling with jealousy, he could've sworn his head would explode. Y/N was now desperate to soften the unnecessary blow Harry had just delivered to this potential client.

"Oh Ian, I truly appreciate your belief in me to pull something of that magnitude off but Harry is right, that won't be possible today. I really am sorry." She said and he sighed in slight disappointment but smiled none the less.

"Alright, I understand. Well it was worth a try to get in with you." He said and she smiled.

"I could still tattoo you. Do something on a smaller scale for you if you'd like?" She offered and he shook his head.

"Nah, it's alright this one means a lot to me. I'm willing to wait until you're able to tattoo at this scale if you've got like a waiting list or something? I’d like to join it?" He asked and Harry was completely shocked as he heard this. Y/N was too. Her jaw dropped to the ground and she then looked to Harry for some guidance.

"Just take his bleeding contact information, Y/N." He said dryly and she nodded a bit frazzled still, "Jesus..." He mumbled lowly enough that only she could hear as she hurried over to the register and grabbed a sticky note and pen. She wasn't sure why, but his reaction really put a damper on this monumental moment for her. This was huge. He was so unsupportive and rude, it really affected her morale.

"You know, Ian you are the first on my list and I'd be honored to have you be one of my first official tattoos!" She brightened up despite how she felt inside now, "I'm not really sure how long my apprenticeship'll last, but it means a lot that you're willing to wait." She said and he went on and on about how it wasn't an issue and that he was really thrilled for this. She still asked him to email her the inspiration pictures so that she could start practicing the drawing portion and they could start working out some ideas and he was more than willing to do that. After another few minutes and the promise of getting a call when her apprenticeship was over, Ian was leaving with a big smile and a wave goodbye. Once the front door shut she folded up the bright orange sticky note and put it in her back pocket. Harry then stood from the stool and brushed past her silently.

"This morning the bin under my station wasn't emptied out by the way.” He said before he left her.

"Oh, the custodian empties the trash. Must've forgotten, I can leave a note." She said to him and he turned to her with furrowed brows.

"Well if you notice it then just take it out, OK? S'not that hard, is it Y/N?" He asked her.

"Yeah, OK." She responded softly.

"Don't forget that you're still just an apprentice here, Y/N. You think because one loser with some cliche tattoo idea thinks you're the next big thing that you're suddenly too good for everything else that has to get done around here?" He asked her angrily and she turned away from him, he was being ridiculous. She had no idea why he was being such a dick out of nowhere, "Hey, don't ignore me. Look at me when I'm talking to you!" He demanded and she sighed and turned towards him again, "Know your fucking place." He snarled. The air between them grew eerily tense and then he saw a look in her eyes that almost made him apologize to her. Her eyes quickly diverted from his and he watched as her throat bobbed and she bit on the inside of her cheek and she just nodded.

"OK." She nearly whispered before turning back to the register.

Harry bit on his lip as he just took her in for a moment. She was so tense and she suddenly appeared so small and he just shook it off before he could allow himself to feel bad and walked away.

As soon as he was gone Y/N's tears started to fall, she felt so utterly defeated. She had no idea what she had ever done to him to make him be so hostile towards her, but it was reaching a point that she couldn't handle anymore. Before she could even think about it she reached into her back pocket and blindly tossed the sticky note with Ian's information under the counter where the trash can was. She fanned at her eyes for a moment to stop the tears before someone came in, but she wasn't that fortunate.

"Oh my god, Y/N are you alright?" Auree suddenly asked as she came and rubbed at her shoulder and Y/N sniffled and nodded.

"M'sorry. I'm just on my period and have really bad cramps and I'm super emotional." She fibbed and Auree frowned.

"Oh hon, I get that. Look there's just a couple hours left in the day, why don't you head home early, get some rest." She suggested.

"Are you sure?”

"Yeah, of course. Besides, I don't think sobbing apprentice is a good look for us." She joked and Y/N sputtered on her tears as she chuckled and Auree giggled along."We'll see you tomorrow, OK?" She said and Y/N nodded.

"Thanks, Auree.”

"Of course. I'll get someone to cover." She assured her and with that Auree headed back into the studio and Y/N grabbed her tote bag from the coat hook hanging behind the counter and slipped out of the front door.

"Hey Styles, can you cover the front for the rest of the day? I've got a 5pm coming in." Auree asked, grabbing his attention.

"Where's Y/N?" He asked right away.

"She wasn't feeling well so I told her to go home." Auree said and Harry swallowed thickly and just nodded.

He grabbed his sketch pad and pencil before he silently made his way over to reception area. He was settling himself in when his pencil rolled off of the counter and under the reception counter. He groaned in annoyance and got off of the stool and stooped below the counter to look for his pencil and he saw it stopped right against the trash can and beside it was a crumbled, neon orange sticky note, like the one he had seen Y/N fold up and put in her pocket not even ten minutes before. He grabbed his pencil and the paper as well. Harry bit his lip as he started to pull apart the little scrap of paper and just as he suspected, there in her too perfect penmanship was inked the name Ian Greene and his phone number and email right below it. That made a sinking feeling appear in his stomach and for his chest to kind of feel heavy. He had been really mean to her, hadn't he? So much so that he made her feel inadequate enough that she didn't even want to tattoo this guy anymore. For a second he let the remorse take a hold of him, but then he just shook it off and stuffed the note in his own back pocket. She needed to toughen up.

************

Y/N was all cried out. Her aunt even offered to order her favorite take out to cheer her up, but she wasn't up for dinner. She didn't tell her what really happened, she didn't want her to make a big deal out of what Harry had said to her. Being an apprentice at Eddie Chan's shop was a once in a lifetime opportunity. If she let this go she would probably never get another shot like this again. But on the other hand, she was miserable now that Harry had come on board, he treated her like she was beneath him, like she was the enemy. In his eyes she couldn't do anything right, he always found something to harp on her about, something to criticize, something to piss her off. She was just disappointed by his behavior and the longer she dwelled on their interaction that afternoon, the more she thought about quitting.

She considered complaining about it to Auree, but the shop needed a full time artist more than an apprentice, so the logical step would be for her to part ways with English Graffiti. And as she laid in bed, staring at her ceiling she decided that she would give this option some very serious thought. She was just about to turn her Netflix on when her phone started ringing and she saw it was Gerardo FaceTiming her. She cleared her throat and sniffled before she picked up.

"Hey!" He said cheerfully, it looked like he was outside the shop, "Have you been crying?" He asked her with concern.

"I'm fine, G. What's up?”

"Nothing. I just overheard Auree say you weren't feeling too good so I wanted to check in on you." He said.

"Oh, that's sweet of you. But really I am feeling better now." She said as he settled himself into his car.

"Alright, Just being a good friend." He said and she smiled.

"Well, I appreciate it." She responded.

"Look, I know that starting out can be difficult. We can talk about it, if you want, whatever is going on." He offered and she really just wanted to get it off of her chest to someone who understood. And maybe G would just let her vent and not tell anyone anything.

"I do want to talk about it. I think you'd understand." She said.

"Well, I was about to just pick up some dinner, but if you want to meet me somewhere we can eat, have a few drinks?" He offered.

"I would but I'm too lazy to drive." She whined and he chuckled.

"I'll come get you." He offered and she sighed, "It'll be fun…” He sung and she smiled.

"Fine. I'll send you my address, OK?”

"Sounds good." He said before they hung up.

She Didn't bother with doing herself up too much. She just put on some mascara and her glasses before throwing on some shorts and a t-shirt on. After about 15 minutes she was getting a text from him that he was outside. She called out to her aunt that she would be home late and hurried out to his car.

"Hey!" He greeted happily as she settled into the front seat.

"Hi." She smiled.

"So what's good around here?" He asked her and soon they chose a place and he took off. They talked about the rest of the work day as they waited to be seated and soon enough they were scooting onto some high-chairs of a local gastropub and he was watching her look over the drinks menu, "So are you going to tell me what's actually wrong?" He asked and she sighed.

"I need a drink for that." She said and he chuckled.

"Fine." He mumbled. Soon enough they had both ordered their drinks and he asked her again what was wrong and she sighed. He saw that suddenly her smiley demeanor was gone and she looked conflicted and sad.

"G, I'm ummm- I'm thinking of quitting the apprenticeship." She said and once again her lip was quivering because even the idea of quitting was so painful. She had worked her ass off for this, the amount of rejection she had faced from even small-time artists for then to be acknowledged and taught by someone as renowned as Eddie? It was truly heartbreaking.

"Oh my god, why?! You can't quit!" He immediately protested and she sniffled.

"I know how insane I would have to be to give up on this opportunity, but I just can't do it anymore, G." She said and he frowned and reached for her hand and she took it and squeezed, she didn't want to cry in front of all of these people.

"Can't take what?" He asked her gently.

"Promise you won't say anything? Because I don't want to make trouble and I don't want to appear ungrateful or like I'm being a baby to anyone." She said and he nodded, "I can't work with Harry anymore. He is the biggest asshole I have ever met. I have never felt so undermined and demoralized in my life. He treats me like absolute shit! And the worst part is that I really was looking forward to learning from him. Auree and Eddie were both excited to have me meet him and get to shadow him, but literally from the first day I met him he was a dick to me and..." and so she went off and told him about all of the petty remarks and micro-aggressions and finally what had led her to leave early that day, "-and he literally looked at me and told me to know my place." She sniffled as she dabbed under her eyes with her napkin as the tears inevitably fell.

"No fucking way..." G sighed with a frown and she nodded.

"That was the last straw. Like I feel so discouraged and I don't even want to tattoo in front of him ever again. Like I don't want to see his stupid face or hear his fucking voice!" She vented her frustration.

"I just don't get it... after you tried to get him an appointment for such a big and complex piece he goes and talks you down? Plus being rude to the client? What a dick." G huffed and Y/N nodded.

"I know... like I know that having him there is important and far more logical than having me there, but like Eddie believed in me and brought me on! That has to count for something, no? Like out of everyone there he should understand what it's like because he also apprenticed under Eddie! I just don't understand his beef with me.”

"Maybe he's just jealous that an apprentice is getting more clientele than he is.”

"Well that's not my fault either..." she said and G sighed, "But anyway, please don't tell Auree or anyone else and don't be weird with Harry, I don't want to make him more angry. I just need to figure out if I can manage this or not.”

"Yeah, of course. But you know that I'm always here for you and really, if you get to the point where you want to leave please tell me. I have homies who are also really successful and well known in this industry and I would more than gladly put a good word in for you. You've got real talent, Y/N. I would hate to see you give up on it." He said and she nodded with a small smile.

***********

The next morning Y/N showed up a bit earlier to set up since Rosa was still out and she also needed to handle the front of the house. She was just about done prepping the stations when Harry came in. He had his headphones on and he spared her a look and despite the rage she felt as their eyes met she just offered him a half-smile before she finished setting up the final station. He liked to come early, so she now got his station done first so that he wouldn't have a reason to talk to her. She then walked past him to get to the drawing station and she noticed that his trash can was hidden between his counter and a big snake plant that served as the border between the drawing/stenciling stations and the tattooing station. Once again, his trash was not emptied out. It probably bugged him at his feet and so he'd move it, but the custodian couldn't see it there, she barely saw it.

Despite her irritation with Harry she was going to do her job and try her best not to piss him off any further. He couldn't hate her forever, especially when she was being cooperative with him. So she made her way over and crouched down and he glanced over to see her reaching for his trash can and picking it up. He watched her face and saw there wasn't a fussy look on it nor did she glare in his direction as she stood with the bin in hand and headed towards the back exit of the shop where the dumpster was.

Harry just sighed and gnawed on his bottom lip as he continued sketching out some designs for a consultation he had to do later in the morning. Shortly after she returned with a new liner in the bin and she set it down exactly where he had left it before.

Harry continued feeling bad and it was growing worse. She hadn't ever really done anything to him. She hadn't ever been rude with him (unless he started it) or treated him poorly. He always gave her grief about how she'd prep his station even after she had learned how he liked things and did them that way, and now this. Going as far as doing something that was not her responsibility without so much as as complaint?

Surely, that hadn't been him when he apprenticed. He whined to just about anyone who would listen about how annoying the prepping and cleaning bits were, because for his first year with Eddie that's all he did. He knew from experience that it was tedious and grueling work at times, so that fact that he had not once heard her complain about it made him respect her just a little bit more. Around 9am more people started coming in and he took off his headphones, he had worn them thinking that Y/N would try to confront him about what he had said to her the day prior, but she didn't seem all that combative today. The vibe he was getting from her was weird, to be quite honest. He strolled into the kitchen and found G making some coffee.

"Morning, G. How's it going?" Harry asked with a smile and G just glanced over at him quickly.

"M'fine thanks." He said plainly. This was odd because usually G was the very friendly energetic one and he always sparked up conversations with everyone.

"Did you do anything fun after work?" Harry asked just to try and keep the conversation going and at this G turned towards him.

"Yeah actually, grabbed some dinner with Y/N." He said and Harry nodded and rolled his lips together before answering.

"That's cool. At least she's feeling better." Harry said and G just hummed before walking out of the lounge. Harry sighed as he went to make his own coffee. He just knew Y/N had said something to him about what had happened the day before and now G was upset with him. Fucking, Y/N.

************

"Y/N, I'm sorry but I was a dick to Harry." G said softly as he came through the beaded curtain and to the waiting area and Y/N sighed as she leaned on the counter.

“G..."

"I'm sorry. I got one look at his face and I got angry." He explained, "Told him we went to dinner." He disclosed.

"Ughhh, fuck. It's fine, don't worry about it." She said and he apologized again, but then left her the coffee he had made for himself as a peace offering.

G actually had a really big appointment today and so she wouldn't be seeing him for most of the day and Vy was almost back to back all day. Aurelia was out supply shopping and Harry had a consultation scheduled for 11:30. She checked in G and Vy's appointments and they got started on their stuff and at around 11:35am Harry wandered out to front.

"Your client hasn't shown yet." She informed him, already knowing what he was coming for.

"Have they called or emailed?" He asked her.

"Nope, sorry." She said and he sighed.

"Fuck me..." he mumbled about to head back.

"Harry, you can have all the walk-ins, I don't feel like tattooing today." She said and he turned back to look at her, she wasn't even looking at him, she just continued doodling on her iPad.

"Why not?" He asked coming back closer.

"I just don't." She said.

"Well yesterday you were practically shitting yourself over that guy's tattoo and you'll never be able to tattoo him unless you get the practice." He said, baiting her and she smiled softly, still focused on her sketch.

"Oh I don't know if I'd want to tattoo that loser, as you so kindly put it, anyway." She said and he rolled his eyes and reached into his back pocket for the sticky note with the guy's contact info, he had every intention of just slipping it in somewhere discretely for her to find.

"Is that why you threw this away yesterday?" He asked slamming down the creased up paper over her iPad. She frowned and was about to respond when the phone rang and she reached for it.

"English Graffiti, this is Y/N how can I help you?" She spoke into the receiver their eyes still locked on each others in anger, "Oh hi, Jennifer." She said and Harry's eyes widened a bit, that was his 11:30, "Oh, well the consultation is just that, you don't have to decide today or even put a deposit down unless you-" the woman cut her off and she stayed quiet, "Are you sure? Ummm, OK. I'll be sure to let him know. Yeah, have a good one, bye." She said and hung up the phone, "She changed her mind about the tattoo." Y/N said and she saw his jaw clench, "Maybe you should keep this and try to convince Ian to let you tattoo him, seems like you could use the clients." She said smugly and she could see him trembling with anger.

"Fuck you." He gritted out as he left the sticky note before he stormed off towards the studio.

"If you're not going to call him should I just send you the walk-ins?" She called after him and he didn't respond and she smirked to herself in satisfaction. After about 15 minutes of feeling on the summit of success that feeling soon faded and made her feel bad.

He was the only person who knew about Ian, despite being a dick about it at the moment he saw the note in the trash or wherever it fell and didn't just leave it there. He intended to give it to her and that was at least a little bit nice of him. And as she thought about him she considered that maybe he was being such a prick because he was under severe amounts of stress and pressure. He had moved from another country for this job and had only been doing walk-ins here and there. For an artists of his caliber it was probably really discouraging and frustrating.

When she had searched him up she saw that he was typically booked up months in advance and now he couldn't even land a single client. Maybe G was right and he was jealous of her to some extent? She sighed as she realized that revenge was not as sweet as people made it out to be. No one was due to be coming in until 2pm for Vy. So she stood from the stool at the register and went to lock the front door and left a sticky note reading "BACK IN 10!" That was visible if someone tried to look in. She then headed back and saw that Harry wasn't at his station and she walked back towards the lounge and the bathroom and they were both empty. So she then pushed her way out of the back exit and looked around and saw him sitting against the building wall and when he saw it was her he shot her a dirty look.

"Can you fuck off?" He asked her angrily and she sighed as she approached him.

“No."

"Please, Jesus... just leave me alone, Y/N. I'm not in the mood." He grumped.

"I just wanted to apologize to you for what I said. That was really low and uncalled for." She said as she looked in his eyes. Harry felt that it wasn't uncalled for, he had been such an ass to her that she didn't even want to tattoo, he deserved it. "I can't begin to imagine how frustrating it must be for you to go from being booked out months in advance to just... struggling to figure things out here. Seriously, I don't feel like tattooing, you can have all the walk-ins. At least that way you make money and the shop makes money too." She said and he scoffed.

"I don't need you to feel sorry for me." He said and she shook her head.

"It's not that, I'm just saying that I understand that this is probably frustrating for you because this is literally your livelihood and I'm still doing this for free. So if you get the walk-ins it's a win for you and a win for the shop, that's all." She explained and he stayed quiet, "So do you want to take the walk-ins or what?" She asked him and he just looked at her.

"Why don't you want to tattoo?" He questioned and she sighed.

"I already told you, I don't feel like it, Harry." She responded.

"Is it because of me?" He asked and her eyes didn't waiver from his as she responded.

"It's cute that you think you affect me that much." She said flatly before walking back towards the back door, "I'm giving you the walk-ins, OK?" She called out before heading inside again and he let out a dry laugh. He was the apprentice’s charity case. Nice.

Y/N was a nice person and for some reason he had really honed in on her and made her miserable and despite that she still came out and apologized to him for finally snapping and saying something just as hurtful to him as he had said and done to her since he arrived. The entire time she kept her head down, stuck it out, and finally it seemed that he was wearing her down. She was right, he was frustrated and stressed and discouraged. He was literally starting to wonder if he had made a mistake in leaving London for L.A., even starting up things had never been this hard for him and it was... scary. He sat out there for a good half an hour before Vy popped out and let him know that a walk-in had come in and so he took a few deep breaths before heading inside and getting to work.

That day he ended up seeing about 8 people, all tattoos were small and simple things. However, the shop minimum was $120, with Eddie's name tied to this shop they were on the higher-end of tattoo shops and charged a big pricey with good reason. His was actually the last tattoo of the night, a matching friends tattoo for two young women, he could hear them gushing about it and asking Y/N to take photos for them up front as he cleaned up his station, soon he heard the front door open and close before the loud latch of the lock. After a few moments Y/N was coming to the back with her tote.

"Here Harry, the girls left these for you." She said and Harry turned around and she placed $40 in his hand and a post-it note with one of the girls' number and he rolled his eyes with a chuckle and put the $40 in his pocket and crumbled the sticky note before tossing it in the trash and she laughed softly, "Told her you wouldn't go for it…"

"And how would you know that?" He asked.

"Because you're too much of a professional." She said and he hummed.

She then went over to the disinfectant cart and grabbed the wipes and spray and went over the chairs and counters. Harry moved his things to the light-up desk where he was working on a stencil without her having to ask. As the disinfectant cooked on the surfaces for a bit she grabbed the broom and started sweeping. He could imagine that she was exhausted, first to arrive and last to leave, but once again, he noticed that she didn't show her exhaustion, or whine or complain about anything or even mention that she was tired as she picked up whatever little garbage she swept up and then proceeded to wipe down the counters and chairs. She finished before him and after putting things away she grabbed her bag.

"Good night!" She called out to him and wasn't phased when she didn't get a response. But she was surprised to hear him rush up behind her as everything went dark and he hurried ahead of her to open up the back door for her and they both stepped out into the parking lot. She locked up with her keys, feeling a bit odd about him lingering beside her. When she looked up to him he was looking at her a bit expectantly.

"Why don't you want to tattoo?" He asked her again and she sighed and started heading to her car, "Hey, you're really fucking good, you know that right?" He asked and she kept walking as she unlocked her car, "Hey, Y/N-" He said grabbing her arm and she spun around with a perplexed look on her face.

"What Harry?" She asked through a sigh.

"I know I've been...hard on you, but-" he said and she guffawed.

"Hard on me?" She scoffed incredulously, "Try a fucking nightmare, a jerk, a prick, a complete douche, a complete asshole, a-“

"OK Jesus, I get it!" He interrupted loudly.

"No, I don't think you do. I never did anything to you and from the moment you met me you started acting this way and why? I don't know and quite frankly I don't care to hear your excuses for it, Harry." She said and he frowned, "Why don't I want to tattoo? I'll tell you why." She said, "I'm so mentally drained from trying to deal with you and whatever vendetta you have against me every fucking day that I can't even think creatively anymore!" She admitted as her eyes started welling up, "And I get this whole "haze the new person" thing that people do and shit and I could deal with something like that but when Auree told me you'd be joining the team I looked you up and I was so excited to work with you! I was looking forward to shadowing you and learning from someone as talented as you. Someone who had gotten to where they are via the same trajectory I was on and man, what a fucking disappointment you turned out to be." She said sadly and his heart sunk and a large and uncomfortable lump formed in his throat.

”I have never felt so humiliated and belittled by another person in my entire life." she sniffled, "And it sucks because this is my dream. I have worked and struggled for years to even land an apprenticeship and you know what? I am so miserable here and I hate it." She said sadly and there was silence for a moment as she sighed, "I'm thinking about quitting." She admitted in a solemn tone as their eyes met, "And yes, Harry. It's all because of you." Her voice cracked and she kept walking. He swallowed down the lump in his throat and went up to her as she got into her car.

“Y/N-"

"Please leave me alone." She said as she shut the door and turned on her car. He knocked on her window a few times.

"Hey, c'mon, I really thought we were getting somewhere today!" He said and she rolled her window down.

"You really thought that just because I can put myself in your shoes and be nice to you?" she asked him like he was an idiot, "You're fucking delusional, Harry. I'm simply being professional despite how I feel about you. Even if I'm barley being paid to be here and don't have years of experience, this is where I'm working and I'm through playing this stupid fucking game with you. I don't want anything to do with you-“

"Y/N, you're too good to quit tattooing." He interrupted her.

"I fucking know that, you asshole! I'm not thinking of quitting because you make me insecure about my abilities! Who the fuck do you think you are? I'm thinking of quitting because I deserve better than this." She said and Harry was frozen, "I'll see you tomorrow." She said and rolled up her window before driving off.

Now Harry felt even more like shit about himself and during this entire conversation he couldn't even find it in himself to apologize to her. She was right, all he would do was make another excuse and avoiding getting to the root of the issue. It made him feel like shit that she, for a brief time, looked up to him and had the intent of learning from him. She was so talented and had an envious work ethic. He somehow needed to make this right.

----- Tag List-----

I hope you guys are interested in reading this new series!

@sunshinemoonsposts @anotherdudetteinthisworld @matildasatellite @sad-avocado @sunflovverharry @cherrysulewski @daphnesutton @gurugirl @angelqueen99

#writing #harry styles #harry styles fan fic #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles angst #0nlythrowharrybeaux #young american series

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free-pool-trash · 3 years ago

Text

x of swords - george weasley

part one of three

Summary: Growing up as Harry’s neighbor, you always believed that you were completely regular. In an attempt to feel closer to Harry (your best friend) you begin to dabble in the art of divination and, in the process, you uncover magic that you didn’t know you had. (i hate doing summaries this does not sum it up but you get the jist)

Relationships: George Weasley x Reader, platonic!Harry Potter x Reader, platonic!OC x Reader, platonic!Sirius Black x Reader, platonic!Remus Lupin x Reader, platonic!Fred Weasley x Reader, platonic!Nymphadora Tonks x Reader, platonic!Molly Weasley x Reader, platonic!Hermoine Granger x Reader, Sirius Black x Remus Lupin

Warnings: Swearing, anxiety, fluff, angst, mentions of torture, mentions of death (let me know if I missed anything!)

Word count: 22.9k

so here it is 😏 i was going to wait until i was completely finished with this to post it but i didn’t wanna rush it and oh my god it’s already so long 😫 I’m moving to Edinburgh in 2 weeks so i won’t be able to write as i have so much to pack so i hope this keeps some of you happy for a while <3 obviously i put a lot of effort into this and spent a lot of time on it so i really hope yall like it and i will personally kiss everyone who comments. likes or reblogs <3

mastelist

Life on Privet Drive was definitely something- something being incredibly boring. Nothing even remotely exciting happened on the street and the company was, to put it simply, miserable.

You’d lived in 5 Privet Drive since birth which, unfortunately for you, meant that your family are extremely close with the Dursleys who live next door. The Dursleys are a family of bigoted, pig-headed bullies. Made up of Petunia, Vernon, Dudley and, in your opinion the only tolerable one, Harry.

From the age of five, Harry had been your only friend on the street and vice versa. Initially, the both of you had bonded over your dislike of Dudley but as the years rolled on Harry and yourself had become virtually inseparable.

It was certainly strange- how close your parents were with Petunia and Vernon. Your mother and father are actually quite lovely, they are the complete opposite of the Dursleys, they’re open minded, kind and extremely friendly. But, you supposed, their friendliness didn’t discriminate from person to person, even if said person forced their orphaned nephew to sleep in the cupboard underneath the stairs.

There was no denying that Harry had been miserable with the Dursleys, who were unfortunately his only remaining family and you supposed you should’ve been happy when your best friend finally got away from them after his 11th birthday.

You’d missed him for the entire school year and you only got a chance to ask where he’d actually gone off to when he’d arrived home for the summer. (You didn’t believe the story Vernon had spun about Harry attending a boarding school for juvenile trouble makers).

“It’s incredible, (Y/n), honestly! I wish you could be there too.” He’d told you when you finally saw him again, after he’d finished his first year in his mysterious boarding school.

“That’s great, Haz, but where exactly is it?” You wondered and Harry only gave you his signature grin.

“Scotland.”

With a heavy sigh you let the subject go, he was clearly happy wherever he was going to school so it didn’t matter where or what it was. As long as he was happy.

By the time his 12th birthday rolled around you’d found the perfect gift for him. You’d made your parents buy you a polaroid camera for him to take away to school, he’d told you so many amazing stories about his school, you wanted to see some of it for yourself so you figured a camera would be the best course of action.

The morning of his birthday, Harry was woken up by the sound of pebbles tapping against his barred up window. The boy looked out to see you waving at him, an excited smile on your face and a neatly wrapped present in your other hand. Harry couldn’t stop the smile that formed on his face as you beckoned him down with your hand. It was barely dawn but you knew better than to give a present for Harry to either his aunt or uncle because they’d only give it to Dudley, so it was best to get it to him before the rest of his supposed family woke up.

Hogwarts was amazing and Harry was over the moon to have discovered he was a wizard and make so many new friends, but he had missed you- his only friend in the muggle world. Your birthday was only a few weeks after his and he hoped that maybe you’d get a hogwarts letter of your own, obviously that hadn’t happened. Nonetheless he was happy to see you in the summer, he couldn’t shake the thought that Ron and Hermione would have loved to meet you though.

Slowly and quietly, Harry snook down the stairs and out the front door to meet you.

“Happy birthday, Haz!” You whisper-shouted excitedly, pulling the green-eyed boy into your house so he wouldn’t get caught outside when he wasn’t even allowed out of his bedroom.

Harry rolled his eyes at the nickname, “I hope you know that you’re still the only person who calls me that.”

“Good,” you said happily, closing the front door behind you. “Anyway, I got you something that you can bring away to school with you!” He rose an eyebrow at you as you pushed the carefully wrapped box into his hands, “Open it,” you instructed. And so he did.

It was very possibly the most expensive gift he’d ever gotten, you (or your parents) usually got Harry presents that couldn’t be stolen by Dudley. For example, your mother had taken to buying Harry his own clothes, seeing as your best friend was a lot taller and thinner than his horrid cousin.

You, on the other hand, would usually make him gifts with sentimental value, something Dudley had absolutely zero interest in. The camera though, you knew would be safe as Harry would be leaving for school again soon enough.

Harry stared dumbfounded at the cardboard box that held the rather large polaroid camera, judging by the image on the box it was a good quality thing, probably expensive. “This is… really nice, (Y/n).”

A bright smile found your lips as you rushed into an animated explanation about why you’d picked a camera as his birthday present this year.

“So you can take lots of pictures of you and your new friends in your new fancy private school and when you come back here you can show them to me!” Harry chuckled and nodded his head, hoping he’d be able to find time to take pictures like you wanted.

“I’ll take pictures of everything. Promise.” He told you, holding out his pinky with a cheeky grin. You linked your pinky with his and nodded gratefully.

“We should christen it,” Harry announced, tearing into the box and he quickly set the camera up before he pointed it at you expectantly. “Well, come on then. I’ve told my school friends all about you, they’re going to want to see what you look like too. So, smile-“ with a disbelieving laugh, you crossed your legs underneath yourself from where you were sitting on the floor across from Harry, and tucked your hair behind your ears before you looked directly at the lense of the camera and gave it the brightest smile you could muster. The camera flashed and the picture slowly revealed itself, it seemed to be good enough to satisfy Harry’s twelve year old self.

He’d shown the polaroid to Hermione first, the bushy haired girl had smiled softly as she held the polaroid gently, “She seems lovely, Harry.”

Harry had nodded his head in agreement, you were lovely. He just hoped Dudley wasn’t terrorising you too much while he was away. His cousin always had somewhat of a crush on you, which Harry knew was ridiculous considering you all but loathed Dudley.

True to his word, Harry had taken plenty of pictures, many were of (non-magic) areas of the Hogwarts campus, many were of his friends; Ron, Hermione, Fred and George Weasley (who had an absolute field day with the muggle contraption), one or two of Hagrid and he even managed to capture a nice one of the owlery. Although you were one of his best friends, sometimes thinking about you while he was in Hogwarts brought his mood down. It reminded him of how much he wished you could’ve shared in his adventures and not to mention how much he missed you, you could hardly send him an owl, what with being a muggle and all, so he only got to spend time with you during the summer months.

Things had changed during his third year, though. When he received a rather shocking, albeit very welcome, letter.

Dear Harry,

I’d like to start by saying: hi, how are you? How’s school? Good? Great. Now that that’s out of the way… when you come home I’m going to KILL you!!! I cannot believe you didn’t tell me you are a wizard! Well, I understand why you didn’t but anyway.

You’re probably wondering how I found all of this out. Long story short, I saw Vernon’s sister floating around your sitting room and then I saw you running out swinging a wand around. I put two and two together. You would not believe how long it took me to figure out how to get in contact with you. I practically had to beg Dudley to tell me how to get this package to you, he eventually told me how in exchange for a kiss on the cheek. It was as horrifying as it sounds, the things I do for you, Haz, honestly. Don’t worry though, you can make it up to me over the summer.

I bought an owl by the way. I’m guessing she found you okay? Look after her for a little while before sending her back will you? She’s just a baby so she can’t do too much long distance travel just yet.The lady I got her from is a witch, she was very kind and knew exactly what I was looking to use an owl for. Her name is Astra (the owl’s not the lady’s)! Isn’t she lovely?

Moving on from that, I felt bad forcing you to send me pictures and getting nothing in return so I have decided to very kindly grace you with my exhilaratingly normal life. You will also find I sent you some of those sweets you like.

Tell Ron and Hermione that I said hi! Oh and Fred and George too! Get into lots of trouble for me ;) I suppose I better stop rambling now, sorry about that I’m just excited (and i might be missing you… just a tiny bit!)

Write back to me soon, if you can! Tell Astra I’m proud of her for making her first delivery! (give her plenty of treats for me yeah?)

I’ll let you get back to your wizardy stuff now, Haz.

Lots of love,

(Y/n) xoxo

P.s. your magical secret is safe with me. promise.

Harry looked up from your letter with a dazed smile, your new little owl was looking at him expectantly, no doubt awaiting her treat, “Good job, Astra. Your owner says she’s very proud of you,” he informed her, handing her a piece of bacon from his breakfast plate and laughed when she hooted happily.

Astra is a gorgeous little tawny, she has brown and white feathers that were fluffy to the touch. Harry could already tell she was well suited to you though, she was friendly as anything with the most curious eyes he’d ever seen.

“Whose it from?” Ron grunted from beside him, munching happily on his huge breakfast.

Harry let out a short laugh, digging into the envelope to pull out the photos and sweets you’d sent, “(Y/n).”

“I thought she didn’t know about you?” Hermione asked from beside Ron, Harry only shrugged.

“She figured it out. She’s quite clever, I think you’d like her Hermione. She says hi by the way.” He answered somewhat distantly, distracted by the pictures you’d sent, all of which had writing on the backs. He paused on one photo, he guessed one of your parents had taken it, you were stood in the woods, surrounded by trees with a huge smile on your face, your eyes were closed and your nose was scrunched up as a very tiny Astra seemed to be nibbling at your ear affectionately.

“I’m sure we’d get along, I admire her determination, really. And she even bought an owl?” The girl questioned, reaching over and petting Astra gently.

Harry’s smile was gentle as Astra hopped onto his shoulder, “Yeah, suppose she did.”

“Alright! I’m gonna say it!” George Weasley exclaimed, plucking the photo of you from Harry’s grasp, he held it between himself and Fred, the older twin had somehow swiped the letter you’d written. “Harry’s girlfriend back home is quite cute, don’t you think, Freddie?” Fred nodded resolutely, pushing the letter into George’s face as he pointed towards a specific line.

“I have to agree and look, Georgie, she told Harry to tell us that she says hi! Ugh, such a darling,” Fred fake swooned and Harry felt his face heat up while George made kissy faces.

“She’s not my girlfriend.” Yeah, you had opened Harry up to a whole new world of teasing yet somehow he didn’t mind.

“Oi, do you think she’d like some of our Weasley products?” George asked genuinely, wiggling his eyebrows. Harry shuddered at the thought of you getting a hold of anything that Fred and George had created, because yes, you would like some magical pranking products. You had quite a talent for mischief, only in Harry’s worst nightmares would the Weasley twins ever get their hands on you.

Harry shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly, “Dunno.”

“She single?” Fred asked jokingly and Harry scrunched his face up. He supposed you were single, though, he’d never really pictured you with anyone. He felt quite protective over you, but he supposed he'd like to see you happy with someone he approved of- or alternatively; anyone but Dudley.

“Think so,” Harry told him with another shrug before a cheeky grin spread across his lips, as he focused his attention on the twins who were nudging each other in mock victory, “Why? Should I write home and tell her the esteemed Weasley twins have a crush on her?”

George was the first the speak, he nodded, completely serious and Harry found himself worrying that perhaps one of the Weasley twins would get his hands on you.

“Yes. Absolutely,” Fred snorted and said no more, allowing his younger twin to continue the girl based antics seeing as Fred’s actual crush, Angelina, had started to glare. “In fact, give her my name. Tell her to write to me next time, eh?”

Harry’s eyes widened, oh Merlin, George was serious.

“Oh sod off, would you? The poor girl is a muggle, she’d throw herself off the astronomy tower if she got stuck with either of you prats.” Ron said through a laugh, none of them could deny it was quite funny, even Hermione had to bite back a smile at the chaos your simple letter had caused.

Around two weeks had passed until Astra returned to you, two letters attached to her leg this time.

You greeted her with a warm smile as she landed on the inside of you window, “Welcome home, pretty lady! Did you have a nice trip?” You cooed, patting her feathers and giggling when she nuzzled her head against your fingers. Having a magical owl as a pet was weird, but still, you seemed to be managing her okay.

Astra hooted happily, as if informing you that she did, in fact, have a nice trip. “That’s good! Let me take these letters off and you can have a well deserved rest, I’ve made a nice nest up for you,” you rambled softly as you untied the string that was holding the letters to her leg.

Astra hooted, hopping onto your arm and allowing you to place her on the plush pile of pillows and blankets which she immediately made herself comfortable upon, once again hooting in content when you placed a handful of treats in front of her.

You assumed that both letters were from Harry until you noticed the messy handwriting that covered one of the envelopes, handwriting that definitely didn’t belong to Harry. Besides, never, even in the furthest reaches of your imagination, would your best friend ever refer to you as; “Harry’s Pretty Neighbour”. You set that one to the side for the time being and focused on the letter you knew to actually be from Harry.

Dear (Y/n),

Hi. Sorry I didn’t tell you I was a wizard. If it makes you feel better I was actually planning on telling you this summer, but thank you for saving me from that conversation. I miss you too (only a tad). I hope you’re having a good school year so far, it’s been pretty chaotic here but I promise I’ll tell you every single tiny detail when we see each other at the end of May!

Did Astra get home okay? She’s a really lovely owl, she took quite a liking to George who (terrifyingly) has taken quite a liking to you. He’s been badgering me all week for “permission” to write to you, in his words, “just to say hello.” I think you’d actually get along but he and the rest of his family are very magic oriented, I’d be surprised if he didn’t scare you away… the pair of you together would be my worst nightmare. Don’t even get me started on how I’d feel if Fred was in the mix too. I’m tired just thinking about it.

Thank you for the sweets they were lovely, I put a chocolate frog in the envelope for you, it’s a really popular sweet in the wizarding world- don’t freak out when it hops, it’s just a charm the frog isn’t really alive.

I enjoyed the pictures too, I put a few in this letter for you too, the polaroid is running out of film but it should be enough to keep me going until the end of term.

Write to me again soon, I like hearing from you.

Take care,

Harry.

P.S. I’m really sorry you had to kiss Dudley, I’ll do something to make it up to you. Promise.

P.P.S. If George OR Fred manage to write to you PLEASE don’t eat anything they give you.

With a laugh you set the letter down beside you. Curiously, you reached a hand into the ivory envelope and pulled out the peculiarly shaped chocolate box as well as the polaroids. You viewed the photos with a fond smile, Harry always looked so happy, even with whatever chaos was happening around him. Wizard school definitely made your best friend the happiest he’d ever been.

Opening the next letter, which you now guessed judging by Harry’s letter, came from George Weasley, Harry’s friend Ron’s older brother. That was all you knew about him. You let out a gasp once you opened the seal, a small show of tiny fireworks shot out, exploding in balls of reds and oranges across your bedroom before they disappeared as if they’d never been there in the first place.

Slightly frazzled, yet amazed, you cautiously plucked the letter from the envelope and began reading.

Hello, Harry’s Pretty Neighbour.

I hope you enjoyed the show, hopefully it didn’t startle you too much… I’m not exactly sure what muggles are used to… if it did scare you I’m sorry.

Anyway, just wanted to say hi. Promised Harry I wouldn’t spook you, he’s quite protective of you, you know. It’s very sweet.

I don’t blame him, though. If I had a friend as pretty as you I’d be protective too ;)

Don’t break my heart, write back?

Yours truly,

George Weasley x

And that had been the start of it. Two years had passed since you’d discovered the wizarding world and it seemed as though things had simultaneously gotten worse and better. As it turns out, your lifelong best friend was some sort of prophetic hero in the wizard community and on top of that it seemed that there was a war brewing that he would be expected to lead.

Of course, you were completely useless as you don’t possess the ability to perform magic which also means you're at risk of being hate crimed by some classist, wizard, blood supremacists? You weren’t sure. But Harry was worried.

You’d been writing back and forth to a few of Harry’s Hogwarts friends (your friends now too) for a long while now, you’d even gotten a chance to finally meet them when you’d gone with the Dursleys to collect Harry from King’s Cross Station.

You got along best with Hermione seeing as she was raised similarly to yourself and Harry. However, of all of Harry’s school mates, you liked George the most. Everyone could have predicted it really, you’d been writing to each other constantly and the second you’d clapped eyes on each other in the flesh he’d broken out in a run to crush you in a hug. Harry had groaned at the sight of the pair of you, smiling widely at each other, seeming to slot together perfectly. He had to laugh about it now though, if things went well with Ginny he supposed you’d probably end up being his sister-in-law, assuming his predictions of George falling completely in love with you were correct (they were, he knew).

All air of laughter or wizard/muggle romances was gone at the moment however. You and Harry sat alongside each other, your hand holding his loosely between the swings you were sat on, he’d be going into his 5th year at Hogwarts soon, he’d yet to recover from the last. He’d made a friend only for that friend to be killed right in front of him. He’d almost been murdered himself for God’s sake.

“If you don’t feel safe, Haz… maybe, I don’t know? Don’t go back?” You suggested weakly, knowing he’d never do such a thing. As you expected, Harry shook his head and looked at you solemnly.

“Can’t. Not now that he’s back.” With a sigh you squeezed his hand.

“They should be paying you for this, you know,” Harry chuckled then, squeezing your hand in return.

“I’m doing this for you too. To keep you safe.” He admitted and you sighed miserably.

“I wish I could be of more help.” Harry scoffed, his green eyes shining with pure disbelief as he stared at you.

“More help? (Y/n) you must be joking…” he trailed off as you shook your head, you weren’t joking, you hated that you couldn’t help Harry through this, for once you knew there was nothing you could do to improve the situation in any way that would make an impact, “Oi. Look at me,” Harry demanded, no trace of the usual awkward sarcasm to be heard when he spoke.

You let your eyes meet his again and watched how they seemed to soften when he took in how utterly defenceless you looked, “If it hadn’t been for you, the first ten years of my life would’ve been an even worse hell than they already were. You were the only good thing and you’re still the only good thing about being back in this place.”

He watched sadly as your eyes fell to the floor again, “Besides, the sooner we get this mess with Voldemort sorted out, the sooner you and George Weasley can navigate the whole muggle/wizard romance thing.”

At his statement you barked out a laugh and Harry let himself smile too, “Shut up, Potter. S’not like that.”

Harry laughed then too, “Oh it is so like that, (N/n).”

“It so isn’t.” You grumbled, but your little smile confirmed to Harry that it absolutely was like that.

“Okay. Fine, please then do tell, what is going on between you and the infamous George Weasley?” Harry challenged, revelling in the way your cheeks burned with embarrassment. He let out a low chuckle when you shrugged shyly and kicked the stones beneath your feet.

“I don’t know… We write to each other a lot, and I think he’s really interesting and funny and sweet and of course I think he’s fit. But, I don’t know,” you bit your lip as Harry listened to you, he found it quite endearing. “I just don’t see how it would work. I like him, yeah, but…” Harry scoffed again as you trailed off. He hated seeing you feeling so insecure, Harry was clueless about a lot of things, but he knew exactly how much his best friend was worth- more than all the gold in Gringott’s.

“Ok as your best mate, and as someone who is very close with the Weasley family, I’m telling you that he’s mad about you. All he ever does is ask me about you, Fred is completely sick of him. He’s even told Molly about you, which is truly a commitment believe me,” Harry started, growing more content with the more bashful you became, “And didn’t he write to you just before the Yule Ball to tell you that he was going with Katie Bell as a friend but he wanted to tell you just incase you heard it from someone else and he didn’t want you to get the wrong idea?” Finally, you were back to fighting a smile.

“Yeah he did.”

“Well there you go. But seriously he hasn’t dated or even so much as looked at anyone else since he met you. Which I’ll be honest is super annoying for me but you deserve someone who thinks you hung the stars in the sky.”

A mock gasp left your lips and you released his hand to place it over your chest in faux hurt, “You mean to tell me you don’t think I hung the stars in the sky? I’m hurt, Harry. I think I’ll have to rat you out to Mrs. Weasley.”

Harry laughed but the lighthearted atmosphere didn’t last long before Dudley had shown up with his little gang of bullies, all of whom made fun of Harry’s nightmares.

It was then things had taken a turn for the worst, the sky turned black and storm clouds completely blocked out the previously scorching sun. You looked to Harry for answers but he seemed to be seeing something that you couldn’t, all you knew was that it had become unbearably cold, a feeling of misery making a home in your bones as Harry rushed to pull you to your feet.

“Run! Come on!” He shouted, clutching your hand tightly in his and sprinting through the neighbourhood until you, Harry and Dudley found yourselves struggling to catch a breath in a graffiti covered tunnel.

A terrified yelp left your throat as what you’d been running from revealed itself to you.

Several floating, cloaked shadowy figures swooped into the tunnel on both sides, their hands decaying and boney, their presence leaving you with the feeling that you’d never know positively ever again.

Harry had effectively used his body to cage you against the wall of the tunnel, his back pressed firmly against your chest, your own back pressed to the cold concrete wall, his wand was at the ready as the creatures approached rapidly.

“Don’t look at them.” Harry instructed, protecting you first as you watched in horror as one of the creatures seemed to be ripping Dudley’s essence straight out of his body.

It only took Harry a few painfully long seconds to take care of the creature in front of the pair of you, you’d wished you’d taken his advice and buried your head in his shoulder so you wouldn’t see the monstrous creatures before you, yet, you couldn’t seem to tear your eyes away from Dudley.

The rest happened in a blur, Harry had yet to let go of your hand as it (and your entire body) shook violently. Demontors broke even the strongest of wizards, Harry knew that as a muggle who’d never seen a magical creature, other than an owl, you’d react negatively.

“If it makes you feel any better, I used to faint every time I saw a dementor.” You nodded numbly, giving Dudley a side glance of concern while he mumbled incoherently to himself.

“Is he alright?” You questioned meekly, voice shaking. You were still freezing and the all too familiar feeling of uselessness didn’t do anything to help you regain your inner warmth.

Harry nodded, “He will be.”

“The ministry will be after my head for using magic outside of school,” he told you after a few minutes, squeezing your hand lightly for the umpteenth time, “So I’m gonna have to go away for a while. Probably tonight. Eat some chocolate, it should stop the shaking.” He told you, you hadn’t even noticed you’d reached Privet Drive.

“And they won’t-“ your breath got caught in your throat and your eyes filled with fear, “The dementors. They won’t come back, will they?”

Harry shook his head, “No. But come on, we should get you inside before the ministry shows up and tries to obliviate you.” His final words came out as more of a mumble than an actual sentence as he passed a bumbling Dudley over to Petunia and Vernon before steering you down your own driveway.

“You better not have broken her too, boy!” You vaguely registered Vernon’s voice shouting in your and Harry’s direction.

Your parents were away on holiday at the moment, in Spain. They’d wanted you to come but you hadn’t wanted to miss Harry’s visit, so when you shakily managed to open the door the house was completely dark, you weren’t sure at what point night had fallen.

Harry closed the door behind himself and made his way into your kitchen, the boy rifled through your sweet press before his hand finally settled on what he was looking for. A triumphant sort of yell left his lips as he pulled a bar of chocolate out of the cupboard.

While Harry tossed the bar onto the counter and busied himself with boiling the kettle, you stood in the hallway still, completely rigid.

“Come on, (Y/n). Sit down.” He urged gently, not turning around. Wordlessly, you fully entered the kitchen and slid into a chair facing Harry.

“Don’t you have better things to be doing than making me tea?” You wondered, setting your hands on the table and fidgeting with your icy fingers. Obviously, you appreciated Harry’s fussing but with the way he was talking about the ministry earlier you were sure he had more important things to worry about.

Harry only faced you once he was finished making your tea. He carried the hot cup and the previously discarded bar of chocolate over to you, he placed them both on the table before giving you a hard look, “I’m looking after you first. I’ll deal with everything else later.”

“I used to be the one who took care of you.” You said through a sigh, taking a sip of the hot tea and slumping against your seat as you began to heat up on the inside again.

Harry let out a low chuckle, “Oh how the tables have turned.”

“I liked it better the other way.” You complained, munching on a square of chocolate.

“Trust me, so did I,” Harry groaned, standing up and placing a comforting hand on your shoulder, “Don’t worry though, (N/n). Have a sneaking feeling that you’ll be looking after me again soon enough.”

You patted the hand he had clamped on your shoulder in appreciation, “Thank you, though, for looking after me.”

“Course. I better go. I don’t want you getting roped into anything else tonight,” he said with a sad smile and you nodded in understanding, “We probably won’t see each other for a while but I’ll write. Is Astra back from Cecilia's yet?” Celillia is the witch you’d gotten Astra from in the first place, the pair of you had kept in touch and she’d recently offered to try and teach you some basic divination skills, she claimed that, “Being a wizard isn’t exactly a requirement” and you desperately needed something, anything, to make you feel more connected to your friends in the wizarding world. You supposed you’d need to plan a trip to her cottage soon, after tonight you definitely needed some of her wisdom.

“No, not yet. She flew straight there from the burrow so I suppose she’s probably resting,” you informed him distantly, still clutching his hand, “You’ll be careful, won’t you?”

Harry squeezed your shoulder and let out a deep breath, “I’ll try my best. Promise,” with that he lifted his hand from your shoulder and extended his pinky to you, you gladly linked it with your own. Harry noted, very gratefully, that the warmth had now returned to your hands and you’d stopped shaking so violently.

“Send me a letter once Astra gets back, alright? I’ll keep you updated on what’s going on over on my side.” You agreed before walking Harry to the door, hugging him tightly and watching as he approached the Dursley’s front door.

As predicted, Harry, George, Hermione and Cecillia had let you know that the wizarding world was crumbling fast. Admittedly you were worried about your wizard friends, but Cecillia had done a great job of keeping you distracted by keeping you buried under heaps of divination books, tarot cards and crystal guidebooks. As it turns out, though, you had quite the talent for making accurate detailed predictions.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were descended from a powerful seer,” she’d written to you in awe after you’d managed to predict exactly how a date of hers would go without missing a single detail.

Reading tarot cards quickly became one of your favourite hobbies to indulge in when you weren’t in school. You’d made the mistake of telling George about it in a recent letter, Harry already knew and he also knew that there was no point telling you that he didn’t have a heap of faith in divination. George however was having a field day with the new information.

The older boy teased you at every chance he got, but it was all in good fun as in every letter he sent, you’d find a page that he’d ripped out of his own divination book, the pages would be crinkled and have messy notes scribbled along the margins, with explanations over words that he knew you wouldn’t understand as a muggle. They were actually really helpful. Aside from all the teasing he found it quite endearing that you were trying to get familiar with some form of magic. Even if it was a form of magic wizards tended to ridicule.

He’d been quite worried about you, Harry told him about the dementors and how you’d been quite shaken up after your encounter with them. He’d written to you on a weekly basis, constantly checking in on you, making absolutely sure that no more dementors paid you a visit. He and Harry both kept you up to date with the constant and seemingly never ending rules being imposed upon them by their new headmaster, or headmistress; Delores Umbridge. George also disclosed to you all about his and Fred’s plan to leave Hogwarts and pursue their lifelong dream of opening a joke shop. You had nothing but faith in the twins, really. Your complete faith in them hadn’t stopped you from sending George a handful of crystals that you believed would help his and his shop’s success. He’d teased you relentlessly in each letter since he’d received your package containing citrine, tiger’s eye, amazonite, aventurine and smokey quartz. What he hadn’t mentioned since receiving your little gifts, is that he’d been carrying the five crystals around in their little orange mesh drawstring bag in his pocket everywhere he went. He had to give credit where credit is due and, to be fair to you and your holistic ways, he hadn’t run into any serious obstacles since he started carrying the gems around.

November through June had brought forth a plethora of unfortunate events. You were practically swimming in school work which left you with no time to write to Harry, or even practice tarot. As well as that, you’d been having nightmares, although Cecillia had warned that these dreams could hold some sort of prophesies within them, you highly doubted that though, you weren’t a wizard, only a muggle. Whether prophetic or not, the nightmares plagued you, keeping you up at night or waking you at all hours of the morning.

On one particular morning, you’d awoken with a gasp. Sweat coated your face, soaked your pillow cases and caused your legs to stick to your blankets in a way not even the June heat could've caused. Your heart pounded against your ribcage, tears welled in your eyes, and your body shook as violently as it had the night you’d come face to face with the dementors of Azkaban. The unadulterated fear coursing through your bloodstream suggested that perhaps this bad dream had been something more than simply that.

As fast as you could manage in your panicked state, you dragged your body out of bed and stumbled towards your light switch, flicking it on before haphazardly ripping a sheet out of the refill pad on your desk, grabbing a pen and beginning to scribble down the dream that you could only describe as a warning.

Your laboured breaths stirred Astra from her slumber, the tawny hooted tiredly, hopping out of her cage and fluttering over to your shoulder, settling there as you wrote.

Harry,

I hope this letter reaches you in time. I might sound completely mad but something terrible may be about to happen. I’ve been having these horrific dreams over the last few months, I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry but Cecillia suspects they’re premonitions and I’m terrified she may be right. I’ve just woken up, it’s around 2am and if I’m lucky, Astra should get this letter to you before 6am…

Onto the dream, you were there and you were asleep, I was standing by your bed, it was a four-poster sort of thing, the room was decorated in mostly red and gold. You woke up panicked, you looked completely overwhelmed and you began shouting about your Godfather Sirius, about how he was in trouble… From then on I watched the day play out. You, Hermoine, Ron, Ginny, a boy with brown hair I’ve never met, I think you called him Neville in my dream, and a blonde girl- Luna I think you called her, you all went to the ministry to rescue Sirius and find some kind of prophecy. Harry you have to listen to me, you mustn’t go, it’s a trick, Voldemort planted it in your head and if you go you’ll only put Sirius in harm’s way. But, knowing you, you’re gonna go anyway… so here’s my advice: keep your eyes open for the witch Bellatrix. Keep Sirius away from the veil and please please please, be careful.

I’m heading to Cecillia’s cottage for the day and maybe even the next couple of days, send Astra there when you find time to write back.

I hope I’m wrong but if I’m not; good luck, Harry. I love you and if you don’t look after yourself the dark lord will be the least of your worries.

Lots of love,

Y/n.

Folding up the letter and placing it in a stray envelope, you addressed it and gently tied it to your loyal owl’s leg. “I’m gonna need you to go as fast as you can to get this to Harry, okay Astra?” She hooted with what you guessed to be determination before she set off, out into the night. Thankfully for you, now that your owl was occupied, you knew Cecillia owned a telephone so you’d have no problems contacting her. While writing to Harry, you’d left out a few details about the dream. You conveniently forget to mention that you’d watched his only remaining family member killed at the hand’s of Bellatrix, it had looked so terrifyingly real that your mind couldn’t have possibly conjured it up all by itself. You also failed to mention hearing Harry’s agonising scream as Sirius fell, the noise was nearly deafening. Seeing Sirius, a man you’d only seen in pictures, die and watching your best friend mourn for him was, well, traumatising. There was no way you’d get a wink of sleep for the remainder of the night, so, you quietly tiptoed downstairs and made a call.

The line rang three times before Cecillia’s voice sounded, chirpy as ever despite the late hour, “Hello?”

“Sorry to call so late,” was all you managed, your voice although shaky was immediately identified by the much older witch.

You could nearly see the soft smile on her youthful face as she spoke, “Ah, Y/n my darling, no worries at all! How is my favourite student doing at half two in the morning?”

“Not well, I’ve had another vision. I think you might’ve been right about the dreams being prophetic,” you told her, willing your voice not to crack as the image of your bad dreams crept into your mind once again.

Cecillia let out a gentle hum, “Shall I apparate over? You don’t sound in the highest of spirits, darling.”

“Yes please,” you answered simply and within seconds Cecillia was standing before you, a worried furrow in her brow and her ashy brown hair disheveled from apparating to you in such a hurry. How could she not? You were, after all, her protégé.

“Oh, darling. You look terribly shaken up, come, come, let’s get you some water,” she fretted, guiding you to your kitchen, magically flicking on the light with her wand and filling up a glass of water, with a few flicks of her wrist the glass had floated over to your usual seat at the table, meanwhile Cecillia had stirred you into the wooden chair adjacent the glass.

Wordlessly, the witch peeled your damp hair away from your face and secured it back with a crocodile clip shaped like a huge golden bumble bee, it’s wings adorned with glittering gems. The bee sat comfortably in your hair as Cecillia finally sat down beside you, she made herself comfortable on the kitchen chair, crossing one leg over the other, resting her elbow on the table and using it to prop her cheek up. Her wide green eyes stared at you sympathetically, watching intently as you sipped your water.

“I’m assuming your loyal familiar is sleeping soundly?” She wondered, referring to Astra. You shook your head, simultaneously swallowing a gulp of water before responding verbally.

“I sent her with a letter to Harry, it was more of a warning really,” Cecillia nodded her head, signalling you to go on, “I dreamt of Harry and his friends going to the Ministry of Magic to rescue Sirius Black, but it was a trap. When they got there they were ambushed by dark wizards and Sirius well he…” you trailed off, eyes growing distant and unfocused when the sight of the man being murdered reentered your mind’s eye. A gentle hand on your shoulder pulled you back to the present.

“This one was far worse than the others then?”

You nodded, “It didn’t feel like a dream, cecillia. It was like I was actually standing there but I couldn’t do anything to help though… as per usual,” you muttered bitterly, receiving a harsh squeeze to your shoulder in response.

Cecillia fixed you with a maternal glare, “None of that! You potentially saved a life tonight. And, as I effortlessly predicted since the moment I met you, you’ve got the magical gift of sight,” her hard look melted into something more forgiving as she spoke, “You’re much more than just a muggle. You may have been an extremely late bloomer, but, you’re a witch and a seer at that. A peculiar case indeed, although in the wizarding world stranger things have happened,” the old witch told you proudly, eyes shining with glee as your own filled with confusion.

“How do we know the dream will even come true?” You questioned.

Cecillia simply shrugged and offered you a cheeky grin, “I trust your feelings, darling.”

True to your initial feeling, you hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep, you knew you wouldn’t be able to rest until you found out whether or not your dream had come to fruition. Cecillia remained by your side throughout the night, eventually the sun had risen and your parents descended down the stairs, neither of them were surprised to see Cecillia sitting at the kitchen table. They saw her as an odd woman, very kind and perfectly lovely, but odd. You’d told them that she owned an animal sanctuary and that you’d been volunteering with her, it wasn’t too far fetched really, she had given you an owl after all, not to mention the amount of cats that hung around her cottage.

She explained to your parents that she needed your help at ‘the sanctuary’ for the next few days and that she’d drop you home once the work was finished. It hadn’t been a problem, so you traveled to Cecillia’s cottage after getting dressed and packing an overnight bag (full to the brim with tarot decks and only some clothes).

It was nearly 8 in the evening when Cecillia sauntered into her living room, where you were sitting, sporting a knowing grin, she held a piece of parchment in one hand and an unopened envelope in the other.

Jovially, she plopped herself down beside you, obviously doing her very best to contain a huge grin from forming on her face. Wordlessly, she placed the envelope on your lap with a mere, “For you.”

On the envelope you could tell by the handwriting that it had come from Harry. This was definitely a make or break moment for you. The contents of this letter would either confirm that you did in fact have magic, or, they would be responsible for causing you to experience a seismic amount of embarrassment. Swallowing the lump in your throat you tore the envelope open, freeing the letter and daring to read what was inside.

Dear Y/n,

Your dream was right. And that advice you gave about keeping an eye on Sirius? It saved his life. I suppose I’m mostly writing to say thank you. I’ve got some updates for you too: firstly, it’s finally been confirmed that Voldemort is back so my name is cleared. Secondly, it turns out that Remus and Cecillia are old friends, she contacted him earlier today about your vision and he and Sirius haven’t shut up about how impressive it is. I have a feeling you might be hearing from them soon, The Order now more than ever is in need of a secret weapon and genuine seers are hard to come by. I hate to involve you in this, it’ll probably be dangerous and you know I don’t want to see you hurt, or worse. But having said that, I’m glad we’re in this together now.

Astra got here in good time, by the way, she landed on my window just after I woke up from my vision of Sirius, it was actually quite freaky. I’m taking good care of her so don’t worry, she should be back to you at some point tomorrow.

Hermoine and Ron say hi too. I’m sure you’ll be hearing from George soon, seeing as he and Fred are in the Order… On that note I better get going.

Thank you again for the warning.

See you soon,

Love, Harry.

A bemused smile spread across your lips as you scanned the page, thankful to have finally made a significant difference in Harry’s life. Cecillia was grinning like a cheshire cat beside you, pride shimmering in her emerald eyes. She bumped her arm against yours playfully when you let the letter fall to your lap, “An old friend of mine will be stopping by in a short while. It seems he’d like to get you trained up in some defence against the dark arts.” She told you, still grinning.

“Defence against the dark arts?” You wondered out loud, you were sure you’d heard Harry mention those words to you before, however, the memories were fuzzy.

“Magic to keep you safe from darker magic, the likes of which the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters rely,” she explained darkly. Just then, a loud bang erupted from her open stone fireplace, a bubble of green dissipated as two men stepped less than gracefully onto Cecillia’s faux-fur rug. You recognised them both from your vision. They were Sirius Black and, if you were to take an educated guess, Remus Lupin.

Cecillia wasted no time before she was giddily jumping from her seat to greet the pair who had just appeared in her sitting room.

“Remus! Oh, how wonderful to see you!” She all but squealed, pulling the tall man into a hug and ruffling his already messy hair.

He reciprocated the hug with a gentle chuckle, “It’s nice to see you again, Cece. It’s been far too long,” he pulled away and the pair of them shared a fond smile before simultaneously looking to Sirius. “I trust you remember Sirius?” Lupin asked, almost rhetorically.

Sirius let out a booming laugh at that, “She could never forget me, now could you, Cece?” Cecillia rolled her eyes, and with a look of endearment nearly tackled Sirius into an embrace.

Seeing the woman who was essentially your magical mentor so overjoyed was lovely, Cecillia was jolly at the best of times but you’d never seen her quite like this. Her happiness added to your sense of helpfulness, Sirius Black was obviously important to more than just Harry, if the smile on the free-spirited witches face was anything to go by. Although you were ecstatic for the three witches and wizards before you, you couldn’t help but feel like you were imposing on an intimate reunion.

Awkwardly you cleared your throat, successfully bringing the trio’s attention onto you as you stood by the sofa, smiling unsurely. If it was even possible, all three of their smiles broadened when their gazes landed on you.

“Am I right in assuming that this is my guardian angel?” Sirius asked, separating from Cecillia.

Cecillia nodded, filled with pride, “And isn’t she just the loveliest guardian angel you’ve ever seen?” She gushed, half seriously.

You offered Sirius a bashful smile, along with a nod of greeting, “I’m glad to see you’re alright,” you told him.

His grin stayed fixed in place but he raised a single eyebrow in confusion, “Glad? And yet you’ve never met me before now…” his tone was laced with inquisition, as if he wanted to figure out what ulterior motive you could possibly have for caring about a stranger you’d only ever seen in a dream.

It didn’t take a seer or a psychic to see what Sirius was after, so you simply answered him truthfully, “No, we’ve never met, but you’re still a person, I watched that woman kill you, it was horrible, nobody deserves that. As well as that; I know how much you mean to Harry and what sort of best friend would I be if I didn’t try to help him keep his last family member safe?” Sirius nodded approvingly at your reply, looking between Remus and Cecillia.

“She remind you of anyone?” The black haired man asked in a low chuckle, Remus snickered and Cecillia bit back a grin.

The witch made her way back to your side and wrapped an arm around your shoulder, jostling you ever so slightly when she noticed your vaguely worried expression, “Don’t worry, darling, you just remind us of one of our most treasured school friends, I promise I will tell you all about it later. But for now, I believe Sirius was about to thank you for saving his life?” She prompted, waiting expectantly.

Sirius cleared his throat and straightened his posture before outstretching his arm, offering you his hand which you took firmly in your own. His voice was steady, strong and genuine when he spoke, “I am truly thankful for what you did for not only me but Harry today. I’m extremely proud of my godson for aligning himself with such a strong, powerful and wonderfully loyal young lady.”

“How sweet,” Cecillia cooed, before guiding you to the kitchen, “Come now, boys, kettles on- we have a lot to discuss!” She called over her shoulder.

There certainly had been a lot to discuss. The Order of the Phoenix thought having a seer at their disposal would be extremely beneficial in the upcoming war, the issue was; you are not yet of age and some members of the group didn’t wish to involve a child in their battle. Sirius, Remus and Cecillia made it abundantly clear that if you desired to join the Order, you were more than welcome but you would be welcomed under certain conditions. Those conditions being that your membership be kept under wraps and not disclosed to any muggles, meaning your parents.

“To keep them safe and to give you an escape route if things get too messy, even with the level of magic you’ll have gained by the time the war is in full swing, as a muggle born you’ll most likely need to flee quickly,” Remus explained, though it didn’t make much sense.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to run if my parents knew what we were running from? They’re open minded people, I’m sure they’d understand,” you attempted to reason, the trio but exchanged yet another loaded look with each other.

Cecillia placed a gentle hand on your shoulder, “We have a contingency plan in place, darling. Nothing you need to worry about for right now,” she reassured, easing your nerves a tad. “You trust me don’t you?” She followed up, her tone slightly stonier, more serious. You nodded your head certainly in response, there was no doubt about it; you trusted the witch with your life. “Then,” she began again, a somewhat chastising look on her face, “Trust that I will not allow a single hair on your head to be harmed.” This rule also extended to wizards not in the Order, which meant that when in the magical world, you were to air on the side of extreme caution.

Relating to that, another condition was that, at all times in the magical world, you were to be accompanied by an of age member of the Order. According to Sirius, who your were growing to like more by the second, he was going to arrange for a member of the Order to bring you to Diagon Alley in the morning to get you a wand. The prospect of having a wand of your own was terribly exciting, once again though, you found yourself wondering if you had it in you to properly wield one, or wield one at all for that matter. You were too exhausted to fret for too long, so the thoughts about magic levels and your own capabilities were only fleeting. Once all of the serious chat dissipated into friendly chatter, you managed to slip away from the table at which you were all sat. Making your way back to the sitting room, you tucked yourself into the corner seat of Cecillia’s old and very comfortable sofa, pulled your knees against your chest, wrapped your arms around them and rested your cheek against your knee. Slowly and deeply, you began to breathe in and out, fiddling with the amazonite bracelet that adorned your wrist in order to quell your ever growing anxiety. For a few sweet minutes you indulged in the calm silence, meditating peacefully in your comfy seat until a soft knock sounded from the doorway. When your eyes fluttered open they were met with the image of Sirius Black, leaning casually against the frame of the door, a hand plunged deep into his trouser pocket and another flipping a stray tarot card between his fingers. His eyes were focused on yours as he spoke, “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

You shook your head and patted the seat beside you, “‘Course not, come sit.”

The man chuckled but obliged, settling in the spot beside you and offering you the card he’d previously been fiddling with.

“The ten of swords,” you identified easily, “I assume you’ve been feeling quite overwhelmed if this card found its way to you.”

Sirius hummed, “CeCe tells me that you’ve a penchant for card reading. I was rubbish at divination back at Hogwarts, only took it because I thought it’d be easy but I could never get my head around it,” he reminisced, an airy laugh slipping from his lips.

“If you don’t mind me asking, who were you all talking about earlier when you asked if I reminded Cecilia and Remus of anyone?” He let out a deep sigh before fixing you with a soft smile.

“An old school friend of ours, she was more than a friend to me, but that’s a story for another time,” he started, staring out into the empty space before him a melancholy grin on his lips, “She was fiercely loyal to her friends, if she wanted to help there was absolutely nothing that would stop her from doing so. I know I don’t know you very well, but from what I heard today and the way in which you’ve been described to me by Harry; I can see her in you,” he finished, bumping his shoulder with yours and forcing a happy smile onto your lips which mirrored Sirius’.

“What’s her name?” You asked.

“Her name was Marlene,” Sirius answered.

Your heart dropped with his use of past tense, “Was?”

Sirius bowed his head slightly and began to twist the rings that adorned his slender fingers, “She was killed during the first war,” he told you, making eye contact once again, a grave expression on his face as he continued, “I saw your apprehension earlier when we brought up the topic of secrecy, but you must understand that during the first war we lost so many who were dear to us, keeping you in our back pocket will ensure that you aren’t harmed in the face of this war, if any dark wizards hear so much of a whisper of a muggleborn seer they will stop at nothing to eliminate you,” he paused for a brief second, never breaking eye contact, the gravity of the situation heavy on your chest your fingers absentmindedly found your amazonite bracelet once again. Your movements were halted when Sirius placed his large hand over yours, squeezing it warmly while staring at you determinedly, “You saved my life today, Y/n. So believe me when I tell you that I will stop at nothing to keep you safe,” he promised and you squeezed his hand in return.

“I know,” he smiled as he watched your eyes return to the ten of swords and your grin broadened with the sort of mischief he’d only ever seen in four people; James Potter, Marlene McKinnon and Fred and George Weasley. “I have a prediction for you.”

Sirius entertained you fondly, a mischievous air that reminded him of when he was your age surrounding the pair of you, “By all means, do tell.”

“I predict,” you paused for emphasis, “that we are going to be very good friends.”

Sirius let out a booming laugh of which the volume he couldn’t control, “That is a prediction I truly hope will come to fruition.”

“Oh no, this is a duo that spells trouble,” Cecillia giggled to Remus as they entered the sitting room.

Remus looked between you and Sirius with a grin, “With a mentor like you, Cece, I’m not surprised Y/n has a taste for mischief,” the ruffled wizard teased, receiving a gentle elbow to the ribs from your mentor.

“Oi, if you’re going to blame my beloved girl’s mischief on anyone you better blame it on a certain Weasley twin,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows and causing the boys to smile giddily like teenagers.

Sirius bumped your shoulder again, this time with a faux-scandalised smile, “A Weasley twin, eh? Come on then, which one?” You blushed heavily and cleared your throat in an attempt to alleviate the embarrassment filling your being.

“He’s just a friend!”

“Mhm. A friend that sends her annotated pages from his divination text book,” Cecillia sang and Sirius snickered.

“Whichever one it is must be quite taken with you if you made him actually crack open a textbook.”

“Annotations are quite intimate,” Remus half teased although you could see he believed what he’d just said, “I bet it’s George,” he directed the bet at Sirius who carefully observed the way you bit your lip and bashfully looked towards the wooden floor.

“I think you’re right, moony. Now!” He stood suddenly and pointed a finger at Remus expectantly, “We best get going and arrange Y/n’s accomplice for tomorrow’s field trip,” he wiggled his eyebrows before turning his head to face you again, he shot you a wink and you couldn’t stop the airy laugh that left your mouth at his lighthearted antics.

Remus gave Cecillia a one armed hug, “we’ll be seeing you both tomorrow then, it was lovely to meet you, Y/n, perhaps next time Sirius will allow me to get a word in,” he chuckled and Sirius responded by throwing his arm around your shoulder.

“I better get off, this husband of mine is growing jealous,” he told you in a teasingly hushed whisper.

Your eyes widened and you looked between the two men, “You two are married?”

A love struck smile took over both of their faces which immediately gave you your answer. “We’re engaged,” Sirius clarified before pulling you into a proper hug, “Get a good night's sleep, we’ll be sending an order member to collect you early tomorrow morning so you can be in and out of Olivander’s before a crowd can build,” he told you while giving you an affectionate squeeze, you could’ve laughed when you realised that it felt like you’d known Sirius forever but you also could’ve cried when you relived the image of him losing his life and realised that just because it was over and prevented didn't mean it hadn’t still transpired in your mind’s eye, you didn’t let that show on your face though.

“I’ll make sure I’m well rested,” you promised.

With that, Sirius bid Cecillia goodbye, and he and Remus left the way they’d came.

The rest of the night had been spent with Cecillia telling you story after story about her school days and the trouble she’d caused with Sirius, Remus, James and Lily Potter, Harry’s parents, and another boy who she only referred to as “the rat”. Though the tone of the stories were completely lighthearted, they weighed on your chest with a sense of such tragedy. A huge majority of their friends were killed young because of the war, a war that was now waging once again. It led you to wonder who’d be lost to this one, if perhaps you’d be on the list of names that Harry or Cecillia or George would speak about fondly with a dense undertone of sorrow in the years after the second war had long since been won. It was a risk you were willing to take though, the notion of fighting for a deserving cause filled you with a sense of purpose, a purpose you’d been searching for for years. More than that, you felt important. You were needed. An asset. You would actually be of some help.

True to your word, you’d been getting a good night’s rest. The bed in Cecillia’s spare room was the comfiest thing you’d ever come across, though, as you began to stir from your deep slumber you couldn’t recall the empty side of the double bed being quite so dipped.

Slowly and begrudgingly, you cracked your eyes open to see Cecillia smiling tiredly at you in the light of dawn, “Morning, darling. Sorry about the early start, I’ve made you some tea,” she greeted quietly so as to not disturb the peace of the early morning. She held two ceramic mugs, one in each hand and passed you the steaming cup that was hand painted green, keeping the brown one for herself. Tiredly, you patted the spot beside you and pulled the quilt to the side, inviting the witch into the warm bed. She happily slid in, pulling the quilt over her and chuckling quietly when you dropped your head onto her robed shoulder and began to sip the tea she’d made. Cecillia rested her head against yours and sipped on her own tea.

“Are you excited for today?” She asked and you hummed.

“I’m having mixed emotions,” you stated, “I’m excited to see everything, but I’m sort of nervous that I won’t have enough magic to even get a wand,” Comfort spread through your chest when Cecillia pressed her lips to the crown of your head.

“The wonderful thing about wands, lovely, is that the wand picks the wizard,” she began, “so whatever wand you end up with will accentuate the level of magic inside you. Its power will grow as yours does and you’ll soon come to realise that you couldn’t imagine wielding anything else,” her voice was wistful and her eyes shined with wonder as she recalled how it felt to bond to a wand.

“What do you think mine will be like?” You wondered, excitement awakening in you thanks to Cecillia’s encouraging words.

The witch took an exaggerated slurp of her tea before answering, “Something curious,” was all she said.

“Insightful,” you murmured and she shrugged unapologetically, her chaotic energy exuding now that she’d started to wake up fully. “What time is it anyway?”

“Half six, your chaperone should be arriving at seven and Olivander’s opens at eight,” she told you before shimmying out of bed, you whined in the absence of your head rest. “You better get dressed. Wear something nice, rumour has it that your tag along is quite the eligible bachelor,” she wiggled her eyebrows and all but floated out of the spare room. It was practically your room by now though, over the years since you’d gotten Astra and met Cecillia you’d stayed in the room on countless occasions. Cecillia embodied something that was something between a second mother, a spiritual mentor, a teasing older sister and a slightly kooky aunt.

“Oh? So do you reckon I should brush my hair then?” You jokingly called out after her only to receive a harsh scoff.

“Absolutely not! Don’t be desperate!” You barked out a laugh at her response, shaking your head and getting ready for the day ahead.

You were just about finished getting ready when a familiar bang sounded from the sitting room. Taking a deep breath, you gave yourself one last look over in the mirror, happy with the outfit you’d chosen, you made your way towards the sitting room to come face to face with your surprise chaperone for the day.

When you shuffled into the sitting room, a smile immediately stretched across your lips upon seeing who had been appointed to stick by your side for the day, “George!” His name left your mouth in a squeal that would’ve been embarrassing had you not been so excited to see him. It’d been upwards of a year since the last time you’d seen George in the flesh and although you’d seen each other in photos and written to each other at a rate that was almost excessive, the prospect of spending time together in person was, for lack of a better word; magical.

George drew his attention away from the framed pictures that lined Cecillia’s fireplace to see you standing in the doorway, looking as bright as the newly risen sun and sporting a smile that he couldn’t quite put into words how it made him feel. It only took a second before his own cheek splitting smile grew on his face, and with it left his hopes of impressing you with his cool and collected attitude. You hadn’t given him too much time to dwell on his ruined cool guy facade as you all but threw yourself into his arms. The red head let out an endearing laugh, catching you in his toned arms, wrapping them tightly around your torso. A scarlet blush rising on his ears when he felt your smile against his neck. “Hello to you too,” he chuckled against your ear and you pulled back enough to look at him, your arms still secure around his shoulders.

“Sorry,” you started, the smile that still adorned your lips telling him that you weren’t all that sorry at all, “Hi,” you greeted, bashfully pulling your arms away from him.

The sitting room was quiet for a moment as the pair of you only stared at each other, would it be too much to tell him that you’ve missed him? You didn’t want to come on too strong after such a long time apart, you’d already tackled him into a hug within the first five seconds, but with that came your next internal question of; did you really want to keep this boy on his toes?

George, having already discarded his notion of acting nonchalant with you, bet you to the punch. He rubbed the back of his neck and flicked his gaze to the floor before bringing it back to you, “I’ve missed you.”

A giggle left your lips before you could think about choking it down, you nodded your head, bouncing slightly on the balls of your feet, “Yeah, I’ve missed you too. Sorry I haven’t written, Astra is still with Harry.”

George gave you a grin, “No worries, darling. Heard you’ve been a very busy little psychic lately.”

Darling, you mused internally, the nickname echoing through your head and causing your heart to somersault in a way you’d never really felt before.

“Oh how sweet,” Cecillia sang from the doorway, a wicked grin on her face as she took in the two hopeless blushing messes, staring doe-eyed at each other in the middle of her living room. “I hate to break up the reunion, my dears, but the pair of you really should get going,” she instructed, strutting up to you and holding a cloth pouch in your direction, “Sirius left you some spending money, it’s different than the money you usually use but I’m sure George will have no problem helping you out,” Cecillia shot the boy a wink and he nodded, once again growing bashful.

“Now,” she grew serious, directing her words at George and making him slightly intimidated with her strong eye contact, “You are to be extremely careful. You are not to mention that Y/n is a seer and you are not to draw any attention to the fact that she is a muggleborn, if Mr. Olivander asks, she’s a half-blood who's been living in the states and that’s why she doesn’t have a wand,” you wore a confused expression, George nodded in complete understanding, “Did Sirius give you the list?”

George nodded once again, pulling a folded piece of parchment out of the back pocket of his slightly baggy denim jeans, “May I take a look?” Cecillia asked, already snatching the parchment from George’s long fingers and unfolding the sheet and reading it aloud, “Alright! A wand… seriously? He used a whole page of parchment just to write one thing?” She grumbled, stomping over to the nearest side table, leaning down and began to scribble on the parchment. You looked to George as she wrote, “Why do you have to say I’m from the States?” You asked quietly and George leaned down slightly to be closer to your ear.

“Witches and wizards in America don’t get wands until they’re of age, we get them here when we’re eleven,” just as he was finished offering his explanation, Cecillia walked back over, a hard look on her face that you weren’t used to seeing, though it seemed that the look was reserved for George.

Silently she handed him the parchment before looking to you, hard look dissolving back into her usual playful expression, “Have fun, lovely.” She then turned to George again, apparently having had enough of trying to intimidate the poor boy, she shot him a smile, “You’ll be taking the floo to Diagon Alley, my fireplace is big enough to take the both of you at once,” she handed George a pouch of what looked like green powder, “George knows what to do, now, not to sound like a broken record but do stay safe and have fun,” she finished, ushering the pair of you into her fireplace. You couldn’t lie, it was quite strange, you supposed you should get used to things coming across as strange, you were about to be exposed to the magical wizarding world for the first time after all. In the fireplace, you stood shoulder to shoulder with George, noticing the nervous look on your face, he slid his hand into yours gently. When you looked at him, he kept his face focused on his feet, “Ready, Y/n?” Taking a deep breath you nodded shakily.

“Ready, George.”

At your words, George slammed the green powder onto the ground and shouted, “Diagon Alley!”

You were sure you were going to be sick. Whatever the powder was, it had you spinning at a pace you didn’t know was possible, you had screwed your eyes shut and you were almost certain that you could feel yourself physically moving. It was only when George tugged on your hand that you opened your eyes to see that your surroundings had actually changed. “It’s horrible the first time, but you get used to it,” George said, pulling you by your still intertwined hands onto the cobbled street. The dizziness died down after only a few seconds out in the fresh air, the added sensation of George’s thumb rubbing soothing circles against your hand seemed to do the trick in settling you completely as you took in the street ahead of you. It was dazzling, really. A long cobbled street, lined with shops that looked like they were plucked straight out of a fairytale. As planned, the streets were fairly empty in the early morning as George led you down the path towards the shop where you’d hopefully get your wand. The name “Olivanders” was written above both windows of the dark shop, the words “makers of fine wands since 382 B.C.” were to be seen just above the door. Excitement had completely overridden your nerves and you practically skipped towards the door, George followed casually behind you, his hands tucked into his pockets and a fond smile on his lips.

“I suppose you’re excited then?” He asked teasingly and you didn’t bother trying to hide your obvious childlike wonder as you waited for him to catch up with you.

“It probably seems silly to you, but this morning Cecillia told me all about when she got her wand and it sounded so wonderful,” you told him, smiling when he bumped his shoulder against yours.

“I don’t think it’s silly, I still get giddy thinking about the time Fred and I got wands of our own,” he pushed the door open and motioned for you to step inside, slowly you walked into the empty shop. It was dark and somewhat dingy but there was something very mystically inclining about it, you could feel the energy and it was utterly exhilarating.

“Wow,” you breathed out, spinning where you stood, gazing at the boxes upon boxes that lined the shelves.

Only a minute passed before an old man stumbled to the front of the shop, smiling at the pair of you from behind the counter, “Ah, Mr. Weasley, it’s good to see you, it’s been some time. What can I do for you this morning? I see you’ve brought a friend,” the older wizard greeted and you smiled in response.

“I’m looking for a wand. I’ve been living in the states for the past few years but I just moved home,” you lied easily, George couldn’t help but smirk, what he’d give to have had you around for some of his and Fred’s pranks at Hogwarts.

The old man nodded in understanding, his eyes scanned you, his eyes were scrutinising and you fought the urge to squirm under his gaze, “Interesting. One moment please,” he said, murmuring to himself as he searched the isles for what he was looking for. A small “aha” sounded from within the isles, he was back in front of you within seconds, an open rectangular box in his hand. It was absolutely gorgeous, it resembled a raw tree branch, wood spiralling up its expanse until it stopped at the top, cutting off in a jagged, dull edge. He must’ve noticed how your jaw dropped, how could he not? He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off you since you’d wandered into his shop. He was an old wizard, but he wasn’t naive, he was well aware you weren’t returning from America, he could sense an energy in you that he hadn’t come in contact with in a long time. “Curious, isn’t it?” He prompted you, causing you to let out an airy laugh. Cecillia was going to tease you big time when you got back to her cabin.

“It’s lovely, what is it?” He offered you the box expectantly and you hesitantly picked up the wand with as much care as you possibly could. It was cool against your skin and was heavier than you’d imagined it would be.

“Thirteen inch, oak; cut from the base of a tree, which at the time, was almost six hundred years old,” he explained, watching happily as you ran your fingers along the wands several ridges,”With a phoenix feather core, quite a rare piece indeed. Unfortunately, this particular wand has been extremely difficult to match to a witch. But something tells me that you might be just the witch for the job,” he held your gaze and you once again got the feeling that he knew something he shouldn’t, “Go on, then. Give it a wave,” he prompted and you looked to George for further encouragement. George laughed at your lost expression, pulling his own wand out and pointing it towards the now empty box on the counter, “Like this, love,” he demonstrated, moving his wrist in a semi-circle motion, making the box levitate off the counter.

Another pet name. You ignored the butterflies in your stomach in favour of clearing your throat, squaring your shoulders and pointing your wand at the same box George had just made float, which was now settled back against the counter. Imitating the boy beside you, you moved your wrist in a swift semi-circle. Suddenly, a golden light poured from the tip of the wand and warm air surrounded you, gently blowing your hair back and forcing a laugh of disbelief to leave your lips. George stood wide eyed beside you, his lips parted slightly. He was amazed really, he went through five wands before he found the one that fit him, yet you’d found yours on the first try, and he had to admit; you looked glorious doing it.

After paying for your wand, you exited the shop, looking around George’s side at the list he was holding. From what you could make out, Cecillia had added a number of items to the originally very short list; 1) a wand, 2) a pendulum (crystal of the ladies choice), 3) crystals: labradorite, lapis lazuli & azurite, 4) mugwort, 5) new tarot deck (again, whatever she wants Sirius can afford it ;)).

“Suppose our next stop is the divination shop,” George said, mostly to himself but gave you a mischievous smile, “If we hurry up and get our shopping done fast we could probably get a butterbeer in before we rejoin the rest of the Order,” he sang, grazing his hand against yours as you walked side by side.

“Beer? You seriously want to drink beer at half eight in the morning?” You asked him, your eyebrow raised and he replied with an exaggerated roll of his eyes and draped his arm around your shoulder, pulling you close against his side and once again leaning his head down so his lips were level with your eye.

“No, you git,” he began with a laugh, “It’s not really beer, it’s pretty sweet; most wizards love it.”

You hummed in acknowledgment, “Sounds nice,” you told him absently, preoccupied with all the intriguing shops that surrounded you. George’s arm remained wrapped around your shoulder as you strolled further into Diagon Alley, seemingly uninterested in his offer for a butterbeer. The pair of you got what you needed from the shop and, since it hadn’t taken long, you decided to take George up on his drinks offer. You noticed that he seemed a little bit crestfallen since your noncommittal answer earlier.

“Hey,” you said, bumping your arm against his.

“Hello,” he replied, returning the gesture.

“So… d’you wanna go get one of those beer things that you were talking about earlier?” You asked nervously, your lip between your teeth. For all you knew, asking someone to grab a butterbeer in the wizarding world was the muggle equivalent to proposing.

George flashed you a grin that was almost childlike, it was mesmerising, so sweet and pure and you almost wished you’d brought your camera to take a picture of it. “I thought you’d never ask.”

With a giggle you let him grab your hand and lead you excitedly towards a building that had “The Leaky Cauldron” written above the door. When you got inside, George led you to a small round table with two chairs and you both sat down opposite each other. As casually as you could, you rested your elbow against the table and let your cheek rest against your fist, for a solid few minutes, while George ordered, you curiously looked around the pub until your gaze finally rested on George who was already looking at you with a soft smile, “Having fun?” He asked, genuinely curious.

You nodded your head, “Mhm, are you? I’m sure getting up at the crack of dawn to take me shopping isn’t something someone like you would usually like to do for fun,” you said, becoming slightly self conscious when you realised that he probably wasn’t enjoying the morning as much as you were. This was all normal for him, you’d nearly forgotten.

George gave you a perplexed look, “Course I’m having fun, love. But, what do you mean someone like me?”

You shrugged, once again pushing down the butterflies that arose in your stomach from the pet name, “I dunno, you’re just- you’re mischievous and fun and… I don’t know, shopping for stuff with me doesn’t seem like it’s something you’d want to do. I just hope Sirius didn’t force you into it,” you admitted shyly, smiling gratefully at the waiter when he placed the mugs of golden liquid on the table.

George chewed on his bottom lip for a second before he shook his head, “He didn’t force me. I sort of, well, I sort of forced him to let me take you. He wanted Professor Lupin to do it but I…” he let out an exaggerated sigh before giving you a smile, “I wanted to spend time with you,” he confessed sweetly, watching happily as a smile formed on your lips and you tried to hide it in the rim of your butterbeer. He laughed when your face lit up once the liquid hit your lips, “Like it?”

“This stuff is amazing,” you almost shouted, taking another large sip from the drink, “No wonder you all love it so much.”

George snickered, “Just in case it wasn’t clear; I’m having a lot of fun with you,” he said all too casually, taking a sip of his drink.

“Where to now?” You wondered, after you’d finished your drinks and set off back towards the floo network.

George shot you a cheeky look and wiggled his eyebrows, “I’m taking you back to headquarters.”

“Sounds ominous,” you commented, following him into the fireplace, nervously.

“D’you want a tip?” George asked out of the blue and you looked up at him expectantly, nodding. “The dizziness isn’t as bad if you keep your eyes open,” he whispered, taking your hand once again and throwing down the same green powder from earlier and shouting a new location that you hadn’t heard before. You cringed as the world began to spin, listening to George’s advice hadn’t helped much as the transportation was just as awful as it had been the first time. Unbeknownst to you, you were squeezing George’s hand like your life depended on it, George’s thumb had resumed brushing circles around your hand in response, the harsh squeezing didn’t bother him at all, not when it was you doing the squeezing. Just like earlier, George led you out of the fireplace and into the unfamiliar sitting room. Though the room was completely unfamiliar it was full of faces you immediately recognised, one face in particular standing out above all the rest.

In a second you’d dropped not only George’s hand, but all of your shopping bags to the floor carelessly and hurled yourself towards the boy who had already begun rushing towards you the second he caught sight of you appearing in the fireplace. Your bodies collided with so much force that you nearly sent each other tumbling to the ground, laughter sounded from both of you as you swayed the other, almost roughly, the way you always did when reuniting after an extended period of time.

“Glad to see you in one piece, Harry,” you told him with a cheeky smile on your lips, opting not to call him Haz in front of all of his wizard friends lest they tease him, not to mention you’d become quite possessive of the nickname, you wouldn’t be too pleased if anyone else started adopting it. Not that you’d ever admit that out loud.

“Yeah, you too,” his smile was as wide as could be when he shook his head, “I can’t believe you’re actually here.”

“Do you want me to pinch you?” You teased, jokingly taking his cheek between your thumb and your pointer, giving the skin between them a gentle squeeze. Harry swatted your hand away with a low chuckle and unraveled his arms from around you.

“Alright, you two, if you’re ready we have some matters we need to discuss with our newest member,” Sirius’ voice sounded from behind you, a knowing look on his face as he watched Harry sneakily pinch your arm in retaliation. He had to fight the urge he felt to reminisce on his old school days; when he’d purposely annoy James, Remus or Peter and receive the exact same mockingly vengeful look that you’d just given Harry.

“I’ll bring your things to the kitchen,” George announced, reminding you of his presence before he walked rather quickly out of the room, bags clutched in his hands.

Harry snorted out a laugh when Sirius followed George out of the room, leaving the both of you alone. Harry wiggled his eyebrows and did his best to make his voice take on a sultry tone, “he’s bringing your things to the kitchen.”

“Shut your mouth, Potter,” you replied, pinching his cheek for the second time and tossing your arm around his shoulder, him doing the same as he led you to what you assumed was the kitchen.

“Do I have your permission to open my mouth to tell you something,” Harry asked lightly, stopping so you were both standing outside a closed wooden door.

“I’ll allow it,” you answered, smiling softly at your best friend.

Harry grinned, “I missed you.”

“I missed you too, Haz,” the boy groaned at the name but made no further comment, he pushed the wooden door open and walked inside.

The room held a long table where many adults were sat, chatting in hushed whispers when you entered the room, some of whom you recognised and some you didn’t. Mrs. Weasley was fluttering about the table, filling people’s tea cups before she spotted you. The woman, who you’d only ever met briefly at King’s Cross station one year, rushed over to you and greeted you warmly, “Hello, dear! Come, come sit down!” She ushered you to a vacant chair beside George and across from Fred, Harry took the seat on your other side. “I trust you got everything you needed from Diagon Alley? I hope that son of mine didn’t cause any trouble for you,” you gave her a friendly smile and shook your head.

“Yes, we were able to find what we needed and George was very helpful,” Mrs. Weasley, seemingly satisfied with your answer, offered a gentle smile to you and George. She then pushed a cup of tea towards you before sitting down herself.

Beneath the table George bumped his knee lightly against yours, but didn’t break from his conversation with his twin as he left his knee pressed against yours. You didn’t draw attention to it either, simply letting your knee relax against his as the witches and wizards at the long table grew quiet in favour of staring at you wordlessly.

“I’m sure you’ve all heard the news of the seer we’ve acquired,” Sirius’ commanding voice broke the silence as he stood up from his chair, and placed his palms against the table, “I’ve brought her here today so that we may discuss proceedings to ensure her safety.”

“Yes,” a toneless drawl, drawn out nasally from the end of the table drew your attention to a black haired man at the opposite end of the table, “and what of Mr. Potter’s presence?” He asked, almost menacingly. Right off the bat, you didn’t like the greasy haired man. He was rigid and his face sported a permanent snarl and from across the table you could already tell; he wasn’t on your side.

“She’s my best friend, I’m here to make sure she’s not going to be put in any unnecessary danger,” Harry told the man shortly, in a tone that he’d more than likely perfected after having spoken to the man previously.

“As touching as that may be,” the older man snarled, “you are not a member of the Order.”

“Oh, enough, Serverus,” Sirius scoffed, pulling his hand down his face in exasperation before he let his eyes settle on Harry, “Perhaps you should wait upstairs for now. We’ll let you know of any significant updates.”

“I’ll tell you everything later, promise,” you whispered quietly, linking his pinky with yours beneath the table before he stropily took his leave.

“As I was saying,” Sirius spared Severus a glare and continued, “As we know, Yn is an unregistered wizard with an unregistered wand, meaning she won’t be on the radar of The Ministry of Magic. On the downside of this, seeing as her power manifested late, she is also untrained.”

All gazes fell to you once more, only Remus’ eyes were staring softly, crinkled at the edges from the smile on his lips, “I’ll be tutoring her in Defence Against the Dark Arts over the summer. She’ll catch up quickly, no doubt,” you smiled gratefully at him from your spot, relaxing a bit knowing that you’d actually be learning how to defend yourself the wizard way.

“I suppose I will be tasked with teaching the art of Occlumency? A seer with an easily accessible mind is hardly an asset,” Severus drawled. You didn’t have a clue what occlumency was, in all honesty, but you kept your mouth shut in favour of asking Remus when the meeting was over.

The meeting soon drew to a close, the older Order members slinking to one end of the table to arrange the schedule for your glorified summer school while you, Fred and George snuck away to find Harry. You found him sitting against the headboard of a bed in one of the upstairs bedrooms, “How’d it go?”

“Take a guess, mate, Snape had a right sour look on his face the whole time,” Fred answered, sitting on the bed across from Harry’s. George sat beside him and you made your way to sit with Harry.

“Ah, so that was the infamous professor Snape?” All three boys nodded, looks of exhaustion on their faces, “I don’t trust him. Something is very off about him,” you spoke thoughtfully and the boys nodded in agreement once again.

“I don’t like the idea of you being alone with him,” George said, his brows furrowed.

Fred snorted and clapped his twin roughly on the shoulder, “Getting a bit jealous are you, Georgie?” Harry laughed along with Fred while you blushed lightly and George felt heat rising up the nape of his neck.

“Sod off,” he muttered, but made no attempt to deny that he was slightly jealous of all the alone time his old evil potions professor would be getting with the girl he was harbouring feelings for.

The afternoon quickly turned into the evening and before long you were gathering your things and preparing to return to Cecillia’s. Harry would be heading back to the Dursley’s later that night, much to his dismay. You told him you’d be back on Privet Drive at some point the next morning since Cecillia would be dropping you home, as she promised your parents, so he wouldn’t have to suffer alone for too long.

That summer came and went in a bit of a blur. Two days in each week were spent learning how to protect yourself against the dark arts with Remus. He’s an amazing teacher, that couldn’t be disputed. In the space of only two months he had you duelling like you’d been doing it since the day you were born. Of course, you were thrilled to be bonding with your wand and developing (according to Remus) a very impressive skill for Defence Against the Dark Arts. But, on top of that, the shared conversations and exchanging of stories over hefty mugs of hot chocolate with the werewolf had been a huge highlight of your summer, and had caused the two of you to grow exponentially closer.

September was nearing and with it came a stiff breeze that prompted the hair on your arms to stand alert as you waited by the bus stop, the one just down the road from your house. Today was to be an important lesson with Remus, he hadn’t told you what the lesson would entail, but he had said that it was a charm that was “of the utmost importance”.

Although June, July and August were technically your summer holidays, you’d barely had a second to rest. You were, at this point, running on fumes and sheer will power. Extensively using magic was bound to wear you out, however, getting a good night’s rest after a gruelling training session had become something of a luxury for you. Visions of the future and retellings of past torments plagued your dreams and allowed you no time to rest. One vision in particular had been reoccurring, it arrived every night for the past two weeks, taunting you. The autumn chill that dripped down your spine reminded you of the premonition, having your hairs standing due to fright, rather than cold. It was always the same, no details ever shifted or warped and, unfortunately, the experience never grew any less harrowing. The warning that the vision brought about weighed on you heavily and followed you around like a stray cat. Images of a cold, desolate, blue-hued cellar lived behind your eyes, the phantom feeling of freezing metal shackles weighed on your wrists painfully and the undiluted terror combined with the indescribable agony brought about by the unfamiliar wand shoved against your throat had you forcing yourself to stay awake until you physically couldn’t anymore, each and every night. Nobody knew about the vision, you didn’t want to worry them, though, you knew that your distress was beginning to become visible; dark bags were prominent beneath your eyes, Harry had watched you fall asleep in the middle of the day, often on his shoulder, almost everyday that week and Remus could tell by the sluggish movements of your wand that your mind was elsewhere.

A few minutes passed before your bus arrived, the journey to Grimmauld Place was quite long but you couldn’t seem to warm up to floo travel, so going on a regular bus was the better option. When the red double decker pulled up, you greeted the driver with a smile and paid for your ticket. You made your way up to the second story and sat right at the front. The bus, as it normally tended to be, was empty. Resting your head against the window, you let your eyes slip shut, the noises of tree branches brushing against the speeding windows lulling you into a, hopefully, peaceful sleep.

Thankfully when you woke up, no visions lingered. You woke up just in time too as the bus was rounding up to your stop. As usual, Remus waited for you at the bus stop, his hands shoved deep in his tattered jacket pockets and a gentle smile on his lips.

Still groggy from your nap, when you exited the bus you greeted Remus with a tired wave.

“Dare I say you haven’t been sleeping well, dear?” He said gently, walking alongside you towards the house.

You thought about it for a second, perhaps telling someone wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world. “I’ve just, well, I’ve been having this nightmare,” you started, growing nervous just thinking about it.

“Nightmare or vision?” He pressed as you walked into the house.

Guilt creeped into your chest upon seeing the clear worry on his face, “I think it’s a vision.”

Remus nodded quietly, placing his hand on the small of your back and pushing you in the direction of the living room. He gave you a warm smile, when you sat down on the sofa. He grabbed a blanket that hung over the back of the sofa and draped it over your lap. “I’ll make us some hot chocolate and we can discuss this,” he suggested.

“I thought you had an important lesson for today?” He only shook his head, smiling lightly.

He made his way to the door wordlessly and returned within two minutes with two big, steaming mugs in his hands. Remus handed you a mug and sat down beside you on the sofa, accepting your invitation to pull the blanket over his lap too.

“Now tell me; what has been going on in that wonderful mind of yours?”

You took in a deep breath, staring into the hot chocolate and avoiding his understanding gaze, “It happened for the first time around two weeks ago. I thought that it was just a dream, it didn’t feel like a dream but I thought that if I kept telling myself it was I would start to believe it,” you started, taking a sip of your drink before going back to staring at it, “But it kept coming back. Every night for the last two weeks. I haven’t been able to sleep, I’ve been too scared to,” your voice was small as you made the confession. You hated that the feeling of helplessness was beginning to wash over you yet again.

“What happens in this vision?” At his question, you placed your cup on the floor and turned to face him fully, turning on the sofa and pulling your knees up to your chest.

“It’s always the same. I wake up and the first thing I know is that I’m absolutely freezing. I’m in this cellar-like thing. I’m chained up by my wrists and my feet are barely touching the ground… I can’t see anyone but I can feel-“ your breath hitched and you rushed the swipe the tears that were falling away from your cheeks, “I can feel a wand against my throat, it’s pressing hard. There’s a whisper, it’s quiet and ghostly and I can barely make it out but I hear them say; crucio.”

Remus’ eyes widened in horror.

“Then I feel nothing but agonising pain and then I wake up,” Remus’ eyebrows furrowed.

“You’ve had this same vision every night?” You nodded.

“I know I should have said something but I didn’t want anyone to worry,” it was then that Remus grabbed your hands and looked at you with a sense of urgency you didn’t know he could possess.

“I need you to listen to me very carefully,” his eyes were wild and his hands shook lightly as they held yours, “You-Know-Who is back. There are already reports of certain Wizards going missing and none of us have any doubt that it’s his doing. And although I- we- care for you a great deal, it would serve us all well to remember that you’re a detrimental piece in this war. If he catches wind of you, he’ll stop at nothing to take you from us,” your heart was now running at the speed of a hummingbird. “We have a plan in place to keep you safe, I fear we may have to implement it sooner than planned.”

Before you knew it, you were surrounded by the entire Order of the Phoenix, all of whom looked grave. Cecillia sat to your right while Nymphadora Tonks occupied the seat to your left. You had the pink haired auror to thank for your duelling capabilities, as well as Remus of course. Her presence was comforting, she made it a point to shoot you a wink every time she caught your eyes looking more fearful than usual.

“Our original plan will need to be tweaked, I ran into Narcissa Malfoy in Diagon Alley and she very plainly insinuated that I was a person of interest in the death eating community,” Cecillia informed the table, a, for lack of a better word, bitchy tone laced in her voice. She’d told you many of her Hogwarts stories, you could recall her telling you that she and the woman she’d mentioned, Narcissa, had once been good friends until around their fourth year. She hadn’t told you what exactly had happened, only that it had been messy.

“What was the original plan?” You asked, growing frustrated with the Order’s lack of communication skills.

Thankfully, being one of the younger members of the group, Tonks understood your frustrations and spoke up on behalf of the group, regardless of whether they were ready for you to know or not; she understood that it was your life they were coordinating.

“We talked about relocating you to CeCe’s. We also, and far more pressingly, planned on erasing all traces of you from both the muggle and wizard world. Which would mean using a memory charm on your family and friends in the muggle world,” Tonks explained, eyes locked on yours while everyone else in the room glared daggers at the purple haired girl.

“Yes. Though we also planned on telling you this information with a far more delicate approach,” Snapped Molly Weasley from the end of the table, causing Fred, who sat to her left, to roll his eyes.

“She’s been riddled with visions of being ruthlessly tortured with an unforgivable curse for the past two weeks. I think the time for delicacy is long passed,” the older of the two twins practically scoffed. George nodded in agreement.

“Besides,” he set his gaze on you, eyes genuine and unwavering as he spoke, “she’s strong enough to handle the truth. It’s time you all stopped acting like she isn’t.”

The table fell silent. His words hung in the air as many of the adults hung their heads.

“By memory charm I’m assuming you mean obliviate?” You broke the silence, if you could you hoped to start an open conversation with the experienced witches and wizards that surrounded you.

“Yes. They’re completely reversible and once the war is over I’ll restore all of the memories.” Cecillia said.

“We know it’s a huge ask, dear, but it’s our best chance at keeping you out of that wretched creature’s hands,” Molly attempted to soothe both you and herself when she pictured what it would like to be in your shoes, how she’d feel if she had no other choice but to be forgotten by the thing she valued the most; her family. Molly Weasley had never been very good at hiding her maternal instincts, over the summer that fact had become glaringly obvious to you. You and Harry had laughed about how the children of Privet Drive had a special place in her heart.

“I understand,” you told her sadly, chewing on the inside of your lip, “I’m guessing by the atmosphere in the room that I won’t be home to say goodbye before you wipe their memories,” you shifted yours eyes from person to person, stopping when Cecillia took your hand firmly in hers.

Her lips were downturned and her eyes filled with guilt, she shook her head mournfully, “I’m afraid we can’t risk it, my darling. Even being here places you in danger at the moment.”

“Where will she go then? If CeCe’s place isn’t an option we’ll have to find a safe house,” Sirius sounded and, simultaneously, both Fred and George stood up, shoulder to shoulder with very professional expressions on their faces.

“We may be able to help with that, actually. George, if you would,” Fred started, nodding to his twin who straightened his shoulders and puffed his chest out over so slightly.

“Thank you, Fred. As you know, we have a property for Weasley Wizard Wheezes secured and we’ll be living in the flat above where the shop will be,” everyone at the table, including yourself, stared at the twins in confusion, not quite sure where they were going with their little pitch until Fred took over again.

“And that flat has three bedrooms,” he said, a smirk growing on his thin lips.

George spoke again, “Which means there’s one for me and one for Fred.”

“Which means there’s one spare,” Fred grinned wickedly.

Tonks let out an impressed laugh once the penny finally dropped, “We apparate her in and nobody would ever know a thing. Nobody other than those of us in the room know that Y/n is a friend of the Weasley’s, plus us visiting the joke shop wouldn’t raise any suspicion. I have to give it to them, it’s a great idea,”

“And one of the two of us will always be within shouting distance if anything happens,” George added, somewhat pleadingly.

Sirius looked across the table at you, “Y/n, it’s up to you. Whatever you decide will be final, we won’t interfere,” he promised sincerely. It was an easy decision, but still, it weighed heavily on your chest. In all honesty, you weren’t worried about your location, staying with the twins would surely be a light and fun time amidst all the doom and gloom. Your worry was that you would, once again, be handing over your control. Sirius dressed it up as though it was your choice, but you knew that this was probably their best option and in reality you really had no other choice than to move in with Fred and George.

“Sounds good to me,” you whispered halfheartedly, eyes dropping to stare at your lap as your teeth pulled anxiously at the skin of your lips.

“So it’s settled then,” Remus said, “Y/n will go with Fred and George tonight.”

Abruptly, you pushed your chair away from the table and stood up. Sparing nobody a glance, you left the room as quickly as you possibly could, before the lump in your throat could choke you or the tears that pooled in your eyes spilled like water through a broken dam. George made a move to rise from his seat only for Remus to stop him by placing his hand on the boy’s shoulder, “Give her a moment.”

You found yourself locked in the second story bathroom, sitting in the bath. Your legs hung out over the side of the tub while your head was tilted back against the black tiled wall. As hard as you tried to prevent them, tears were streaming down the expense of your cheeks, neck and beneath the neckline of your shirt. The minutes ticked by yet your chest continued to rise and fall rapidly due to the sobs that shook it, your breath uneven. Visions of brutal torture were bad enough when you were in your own home, in your own warm bed, with your parents just a room away and ready to make you a hot cup of tea after you woke up screaming. Now, the visions would without a doubt continue to plague you, unlike before though, you wouldn’t be waking up in a familiar setting, nor would you fall asleep in the comfort of your own mattress, when you woke up screaming so loud that your throat grew raw, your comfort would rely on two seventeen year old boys who seldom took things seriously. It’s not that you didn’t trust them, no, you trusted them with your life- you are trusting them with your life, it’s just that there was already a lot going on in your mind at the moment, moving in with your crush and his identical twin brother isn’t exactly your idea of a nerve killer.

A knock against the bathroom door pulled you from your thoughts. You rushed to wipe your tears with your sleeves, sniffling, “Come in,” you choked out. Cursing your voice for breaking when you spoke.

Remus’ head poked through the door, his body following soon after. Even in an atmosphere as dense as this one, a sense of gentle calm always followed Remus wherever he went. Clumsily, the werewolf slid into the bath beside you with a low “oof” sound, mimicking your position with his much longer legs dangling closer to the wooden floor than your own.

“CeCe has gone to collect your things for you and get Harry, then, I believe, perform the spell,” he eyed you cautiously, hyper aware of your glassy eyes and puffy face. When your eyes widened and you whipped your face towards him, his stomach twisted into knots, he hated seeing you like this. He could sympathise with your feelings. When James and Lily were killed, and Sirius went to Azkaban and even when Peter was presumed dead, Remus had been left with a vicious frustration fuelled by his belief that he was utterly powerless in his own life. He could see in your eyes that that same notion was starting to creep up on you too.

“Already?” You gasped out, pulse rising again, a slight panic setting in. “It won’t hurt them will it? The spell?” You fretted, looking pleadingly to the man beside you.

He shook his head, tenderly taking your hand and placing it against his clothed chest, his beating heart present against the palm of your shaking hand. “I promise you that they won’t feel a thing. They will go on living an exciting life, travelling, seeing the world safely while you’re away. When this is all over we’ll place their memories of you back in their minds and it will be as though you were never gone.” Your teeth found the inside of your cheek again, gnawing relentlessly at the skin as you failed miserably to hold back a fresh set of tears. Remus squeezed the hand he held against his chest. “Let it out, Y/n. It’s okay, I won’t tell anyone,” he whispered, heart sinking lower when your bottom lip quivered and you let a rasped sob leave your body. With a deep sigh, Remus used the hand he was already holding as leverage to pull you into him, wasting no time he enveloped you in his arms, holding you securely as you cried against his chest. Admittedly, it felt good to let it out, Remus’ hand rubbed soothing circles against your heaving back and eventually, you didn’t know how long it had been, you calmed down, your tear ducts all dried out.

Remus held you in his arms for a while longer, even though you’d stopped crying, he could feel your body as it continued to shake. “I can’t promise you it will all be okay, but I can assure you that myself and Sirius, and everyone else for that matter, will be there for you at the drop of a hat; whatever you need,” he spoke against your hair.

“Whatever I need?” You echoed, the pit in your stomach ever growing.

“Of course,” he confirmed.

Remus startled slightly when you suddenly tore yourself away from him. As best you could in your awkward position, you turned to face him and grabbed his hands with as much urgency as he had done with yours. “I need you to do something for me,” Remus furrowed his brows in confusion, but nodded his head anyway.

“If anything happens to me… Don’t make them remember,” you instructed, maybe the request would’ve seemed radical if you had said it to anyone else, but you knew that Remus had experienced losses like no one else you knew, perhaps Harry came close but even his shortcomings couldn’t compare to Remus’. “It’d only cause them pain. If I die and they’re happily living none the wiser, leave them be, please,” the man let out a heavy sigh and took a moment to take you in. Your eyes were hard yet pleading, they left him no room to negotiate and he understood perfectly where you were coming from.

“Alright,” he agreed before raising his eyebrow and readjusting himself to get a better look at you, “However you should know; no matter what may come of this war, none of us will forget about you. In such a short time you’ve given us so much… you gave Harry his first friendship, a friendship that he cherishes more than anything in the world, I might add. You saved Sirius from death, my fiancé and Harry’s godfather. Mentoring you has given Cecillia a new lease of life and Molly Weasley one more child to knit jumpers for at Christmas,” he took a brief pause then went on, “For the sake of saving time I won’t even begin to tell you what you mean to the twins. My point is;” there was a melancholic type of smile on his face when he paused again, as if he was imagining what it would be like to remember you fondly if you did in fact die for the cause, “What you’re asking is incredibly selfless. And while your mother and father may not remember how wonderful you are, we all will.” Remus chuckled lowly when you shuffled your way back into his arms, squeezing his middle tightly. He slung his arm around your shoulders and delicately pressed his lips to the top of your head. You held so much love in your heart for the man who was currently cradling you in his arms. You debated telling him, you weren’t sure if it was entirely appropriate but after the speech he’d just given you couldn’t have cared less, “Remus?”

“Hm?”

“I love you,” you murmured, looking up at him innocently.

He offered you a toothy smile and breathed out a soft laugh, “I love you too.” With a content nod, you rested your head back against his chest, enjoying his soothing heartbeats against your ear. A melodic hum rumbled against your cheek, a quiet giggle left your mouth when you recognised the melody to the song he was humming. The tune of “Rhiannon” by Fleetwood Mac floated through the bathroom bringing a genuine smile to your lips. The werewolf’s humming was interrupted by another knock against the bathroom door, whoever was knocking didn’t wait for a response before entering the room. Sirius stepped in and quietly shut the door behind him. He didn’t question you and Remus' position in the bath but simply slid into the tub on the other side of you, sandwiching you between himself and Remus. The black haired man let out a heavy sigh and leaned his head back against the tiles.

“The mother hens downstairs are worrying up a storm,” he said in exasperation, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Tonks so riled up about someone’s safety. I tasked Molly with making you some hot chocolate to keep her occupied”

“Maybe I should go back down…” you muttered halfheartedly, begrudgingly peeling yourself away from Remus’ warm body.

Sirius gave you an apologetic look, “I held them off for as long as I could.”

“Thanks,” you whispered, bumping your shoulder to his, making him chuckle. After pulling yourself out of the bath, rather clumsily, you took a second to check yourself over in the mirror.

“You’re glowing, darling,” Sirius all but sang from behind you and you couldn’t stop the slight snort that escaped you.

“That’s one way to put it.”

“If you don’t believe me go on downstairs and ask George what he thinks,” Sirius teased, wiggling his eyebrows and receiving a light shove from his fiancé who couldn’t hide his grin.

“Leave her alone, love,” he chastised weakly, “You look perfectly fine, Y/n. Go downstairs and get something to drink, you need to rehydrate.” A bittersweet smile broke out on your lips, his fatherly tone simultaneously soothed you and left you yearning for what you were in the process of losing. Trying not to dwell on the sad fact, you left the bathroom and slowly descended the stairs.

As you assumed, the second you stepped back into the kitchen, Molly began to fret over you as if her life depended on it. Sipping on the hot chocolate she’d given you, you were reminded of how desperately tired you were. All the crying hadn’t helped ease the heaviness in your eyes either. Every bone in your body felt heavy for that matter, you were struggling to even hold your head up.

“You can lean against my shoulder if you’d like,” George’s voice broke you from your hazed state, you’d completely forgotten he was sitting beside you despite his leg that was pressed against yours beneath the table. You gave him a sleepy but grateful smile, as subtly as you could you scooched closer to the ginger and slotted yourself against his side, letting your head fall onto his shoulder. “Will you keep me awake until Harry and Cecillia get here?” You requested in a slurred murmur, your eyes fluttering between open and shut.

“Of course,” was all he said, he looked down at you adoringly, smiling like an idiot when you nuzzled into his shoulder, your nose rubbing against his neck. Try as he might, George couldn’t pull his eyes away from your drowsy face. “What do you propose we do?”

You shrugged your shoulders lightly, “Just talk.”

“How would you like your new room decorated?” He asked quietly, his head tilted down while he spoke to you, so you could hear him and so he wouldn’t ruin the lulled bubble you’d managed to obtain between you by talking too loudly. A sweet smile grew on your face, a smile that all but knocked all the breath out of George’s lungs when you angled your head to make eye contact.

“Can I have a double bed?” George snorted at your question and shook his head no.

“Nothing smaller than a king. What else?”

You pretended to ponder for a moment, “Can we paint it?” The ginger nodded, taking his bottom lip between his teeth.

“If you want to,” he started, almost sounding nervous, “We could paint it together?” Even in your sleep deprived state you hadn’t missed the vulnerability in his voice, it was the same vulnerability that you’d noticed when he’d asked you to go get a butterbeer with him a couple of months ago.

“I’d love that,” you told him, your answer causing his lips to twist into a pleased smile, “How do you feel about the colour green?”

Immediately, his smile dropped and he let out a disgusted scoff, “Green is a Slytherin colour.”

“You keep forgetting that I don’t get the whole house sorty thing,” you reminded him, not happy with his reasoning for hating your favourite colour. “Besides, I love green, it’s my favourite colour.” You told him truthfully. Not content with his disgruntled facial expression you began to defend your preference, “A lot of beautiful things are green; you’ve got grass, trees, emeralds- did you know that emeralds are really useful for enhancing psychic abilities? It also evokes clarity of thought,” you rambled, willing yourself to be quiet when you registered George’s fond expression.

The look of endearment aimed at you brought butterflies to life in your stomach, effectively waking you up somewhat.

“Do you have any emerald?” He asked, you assumed he was only feigning interest, you didn’t know that he could’ve listened to you go on and on about anything and everything for the rest of his life.

“No, not yet. I should probably get some though.” You said through a yawn. Your breath against his neck made him giggle, it was pure and unsuspecting but you took note of it. Everything about George Weasley felt like sunshine to you, his laugh filled your chest with warmth whenever you heard it, his eyes found yours like a lighthouse, guiding your lost mind back to the present each time your gazes connected. His voice, like his laugh, warmed you up when you were cold, giving you a reason to stay awake when you’d rather just slip away. In conjunction with the sun, even if you couldn’t physically see him, you never doubted that he was always there. As well as all of that, like your favourite tarot card; The Sun, he signified good things, hope that hard times will end with you on top, contentment and happiness. While your thoughts consisted of George’s similarities to the sun, his were consumed with the, in his mind, overwhelmingly cheesily romantic notion that you were the moon and the stars, he would’ve cringed if he didn’t wholeheartedly believe it. Everything that made the night sky magnificent was reflected in you. Like the stars, you were mysterious and captivating. Nothing seemed to compare to your glow or beauty, if you were to ask him what he preferred; you or the night sky on a clear night, he’d happily ignore a blank, starless sky in favour of simply staring at you as you went on tangent after tangent about crystals or tarot cards.

The pair of you were pulled from your musings when Harry rushed through the kitchen door looking unmistakably heartbroken, ever the empath when it came to his best friend, Harry’s heart sank the moment he laid eyes on your form, limp against George’s side. The second you saw him you all but ripped yourself from George’s side and the older redhead felt a surge of irrational jealousy begin to build in his chest at how fast you left his hold in favour of the chosen one. He knew it was ridiculous, he’d heard the way each of you respectively talked about each other, at this point you were practically siblings. But he supposed it was rational to be jealous when you liked someone the way he liked you.

Quickly, you crossed the room to Harry who had his arms already outstretched. He knew you were emotionally exhausted when you didn’t bear hug him. You meekly slid your arms beneath his open zip-up hoodie, tucked your head beneath his chin and didn’t say a word. “I shouldn’t bother asking if you’re okay then,” Harry muttered to himself, leaning his cheek against the top of your head and wrapping his lanky arms around your frame.

“Did Cecillia remember to bring Astra?” You asked, it was all you wanted to know about the night’s events.

“She’s in her cage in the living room, darling,” Cecilia said, walking into the room looking guilty.

“C’mon, let’s go have a chat,” Harry suggested, leading you out of the kitchen and upstairs to his unofficial room. Once inside the room you sat down on the edge of the bed, the blue duvet softly creasing beneath you. Harry plopped himself down beside you and offered you a gesture that was always saved for when either of you felt the other was on the edge of something dangerous. Your hands rested against your lap and he deftly slid his pinky over yours, intertwining your two littlest fingers. It was such a familiar experience; he’d done it when your grandparents died, when you’d cried over failed exams that you worked hard for, and in turn, you did it for him when he’d felt as though he had no place in the world, when he’d open up about his parents and when Cedric died and the ministry dragged his name through the mud you’d find your pinky tangled with his almost every night after he’d sneak over to your place after another nightmare or panic attack. “Do you want to talk about it?”

You shook your head, “Not tonight. I don’t want to cry anymore,” you croaked out, looking straight ahead of you at the grey painted wall.

“I understand,” he said, sighing and dropping his head onto your shoulder, “Let’s talk about something else then.”

“Like what, Haz?”

Harry snorted out a chuckle, “Like the way George looked like he wanted to hex me when you left him to come to me,” he teased, a smug lilt to his voice.

“He wasn’t teasing me, perhaps I’ll go back to him,” you grumbled, ignoring Harry’s childish giggles.

“Yeah you’d like that wouldn’t you?” You smacked his arm lightly with your free hand, doing a bad job of containing giggles of your own. “Don’t worry, since he’s going to be your new roommate there will be plenty of time for “oh George I’m so sleepy, please hold me until I fall asleep”,” you let out a cackle at Harry’s terrible impression of your voice, laying your cheek against his wild hair.

“That is so not what was going on, Haz,” you defended with a tiny smile.

Harry let out an airy, disbelieving chuckle, “Then what was going on?”

“He just said I could lean on him until you and Cecillia arrived and we just started chatting about how I wanna decorate my room,” you explained truthfully and Harry nodded.

“Riveting,” he mumbled sarcastically. Despite his snarky comment, the boy removed his head from your shoulder and pulled you against his chest. “Jokes aside, I’m glad you’re staying with him, I know he’ll look after you for me,” you rolled your eyes at the sentiment.

“I don’t need to be looked after,” you reminded him, looking up at him with a chastising smile.

He rolled his eyes right back at you, jostling you slightly in his arms, “No. But you like to be.”

You threw your head back in laughter, “Yeah, I suppose I do.” You did. You quite like both doting on people and being doted on, you’d grown up in an affectionate family so it was no wonder really.

“It’s getting late. We should get you settled into your new home,” Harry announced, pulling himself and you up from the bed, “I wasn’t going to say anything but you look terrible. You need sleep.”

“Thank you, Harry. Just what every girl wants to hear before moving in with her crush,” you joked, gently hitting your hip against his.

The kitchen was quiet when you returned, it seemed everyone had grown tired from the dramatic events of the evening.

“Ready to go then?” Fred asked, his coat already on and a handful of your bags in his hands.

“As I’ll ever be I suppose.”

After saying goodbye to everyone you, Fred and George traveled to their apartment by floo, to your dismay. The apartment was bare as they’d only just moved in but you could see it had lots of potential for becoming a cozy home for the twins.

As your first night in your new residence began, your aching eyes and tired mind didn’t leave you with any time to dwell on current events, the second your head made contact with the pillow you were out like a light. A dreamless slumber welcomed you for a while until your peace was broken by the all too familiar nightmare.

The first thing you recognised was the burn coming from your wrists. Shackles adorned them and effectively held your hands high above your head, stretching them uncomfortably. Goosebumps painted the expanse of your arms and legs, due to the freezing temperature in the nondescript cellar. A feeling of hopelessness planted firmly in your chest, the feeling only hightening when the familiar echo of footsteps, heavy and loud, drifted from the corridor outside of your field of vision. You knew who was approaching, you’ve lived this before, and so, you held your lip between your teeth and squeezed your eyes shut. The face of the dark wizard who always brought about your intense suffering was, for the most part, completely fuzzy, unrecognisable, featureless and bone-chillingly terrifying. You’d learned over the last two weeks of having this vision that it was less harrowing if you closed your eyes.

“I’ll ask you once more,” The voice was distorted, like it was being heard through a weedy radio, ominously unplaceable, “Where is he?”

You held no control over your voice, as was the norm during visions, as you felt and heard yourself reply, “I’ll tell you once more; I’d sooner die then sell him to you.” You felt your teeth gritting and your jaw clenching while you spoke. Jaw only tightening when the pointed tip of the wizard’s wand stabbed unforgivingly against the column of your neck.

“And die you will, my dear. But not yet-“ your eyes sealed themselves shut and you did your best to shake yourself out of the vision before what you knew was coming took place, as usual, your attempts were fruitless, “-Crucio.” Just like that your body was consumed by pain, the likes of which you’d never imagined possible, until you couldn’t even register yourself screaming anymore.

You bolted upright, clutching at the sheets of your new bed. Laboured breaths left your mouth and you aimlessly gripped at your neck, where the wand had been pressed, and let the tears spill freely. Momentarily disoriented, you’d forgotten where you were. Deep, heavy bursts of air left your mouth as you hastily scurried out of bed and towards the door. Somewhat aimlessly, you gravitated to the door across the hall. A yellow hue seeped from under the frame into the otherwise dark hallway. Light flooded the hall once you managed to fumble the handle down and pull the door ajar, a discombobulated ginger greeting you with half lidded eyes, obviously having been dozing off before you disturbed his peace.

“Sorry,” you rasped once your peace of mind returned to you and you realised where you were. Despite knowing that you shouldn’t have been standing numbly in his doorway, your feet seemed to be rooted in place, you couldn’t have walked away if you wanted to.

“S’alright,” George called out to you softly, sitting up in his bed, his back against the headboard. “You can come in, you know.”

Shutting the door behind you, you nervously shuffled into the room, stopping when you reached the side of his bed. George’s eyes roamed your face and he took notice of your still somewhat panicked expression, he drew his covers to the side and patted the empty space by his side. Something that always intrigued you was people’s preferred side of the bed, some people gravitated towards the left while others were more biased towards the right, but George Weasley? He slept right in the middle. The twin slept with a huge number of pillows, to the point where it was almost laughable, many of which you could only guess he’d smuggled from the Burrow.

Far too wound up to save face, you slid into his bed and didn’t shy away when he guided you into his side and tucked you tenderly beneath his lean arm. His embrace offered a greatly appreciated warmth as the chill of the dank dungeon always lingered long after the vision itself was over.

“What’re you doing up so late?” You asked, your voice gravelly. As you spoke, George effortlessly shuffled your body and his down so that your backs were resting on the mattress and not the headboard. Your head found it’s home against George’s shoulder and your hair was being tentatively twirled between his fingers.

“It’s our first night actually sleeping here. I couldn’t get to sleep,” he explained, his voice low and laced with fatigue. “I’m not really used to having my own room. It’s strange not hearing Freddie snoring or breathing.”

“I get that,” you whispered, “it’s quite comforting knowing for certain that someone is there with you.”

George nodded then. His eyes were glued to your face and he hadn’t even registered his own thought process before his lips were pressing delicately against your forehead. Today had appeared to be the day for laying all your cards out on the table, yourself and George hadn’t danced around your feelings for each other half as much as you usually did when you’d be in each other’s presence. Neither of you had the energy anymore, besides, if today’s events proved anything it was that; things were getting seriously messy as the war built momentum and it was clear that time was something that could very well be running out.

“Yeah,” he regarded you carefully, a little grin growing on his lips, “It is.”

A comfortable silence overtook the room. George’s twirling of your hair never ceased, every now and then his fingers would ghost over your shoulder and you’d catch yourself smiling against the cotton of his shirt as your eyes grew tired enough that they were close to falling shut.

Just as you were working up the motivation to lift yourself up and trudge back to your own bed, George spoke, “You can sleep here if you want, with me,” there was that innocent vulnerability again. There was never an ulterior motive when it came to him, he did things purely for the sake of making others happy, if he felt he could make a difference he simply needed to. Especially when it came to you, he realised.

“You don’t mind?” You asked, daring to peek up at him.

“Course not. I could use some company anyway.” He reassured you, his lips returning to your forehead, only this time the action held far more intention. “You don’t snore do you, love?”

You snorted out a giggle, looking up at the ginger cheekily, mischief dripping from your little grin that forced George’s heart to stutter rather violently and he hoped you hadn’t noticed. “No. But I drool.”

George’s face contorted, his nose scrunching up adorably in disgust, “Do you really?”

“Suppose you’ll have to find out, won’t you?” You teased and he sighed deeply, his disgruntled expression melting into a soft, adoring smile.

“I should’ve expected this, I knew you couldn’t have been completely perfect,” he said, mockingly sorrowful.

You scoffed, pushing his chest lightly, “You’re doing a lot of sweet talking tonight, Mr. Weasley,” you told him and he shrugged innocently.

“Just wanted to see you smiling again, darling.”

“Yeah, well, you’re doing a good job,” you assured him, the bashful yet tired smile that stretched your lips as you gazed up at him proved that you meant what you’d just said. “I like it by the way, the sweet talking.”

At your words, a huge, shit eating smirk grew on the boy’s freckled face. He managed to rearrange your bodies so that you were still tucked under his arm but you were now facing each other at eye level. “I knew it,” he proclaimed cockily.

You raised a challenging eyebrow, biting back a smirk, “Oh did you?”

George nodded pridefully, “‘Course I did. You see, I’m a little bit psychic,” his words forced a booming laugh from your lips, your cheeks hurting from the smile he’d orchestrated.

You shook your head, smile never dulling as you let out a chastising whisper, “oh sod off.”

“I love your smile,” he said suddenly, his eyes widened in horror when he realised he’d uttered the words out loud. The world could’ve stopped in that moment and you wouldn’t have noticed, all you could take in was George’s face, his eyes searching yours for something.

Carefully, you slid from hand from his chest to his red, blushing face. You cupped his cheek gently, moving your thumb against his cheek bone, almost swooning where you lay when he nuzzled against your touch. Working up some Gryffindor courage, George mimicked your movement, removing his arm from around your shoulder and bringing his palm to rest against the curve of your jaw.

As you stared at each other, you weighed up the pros and cons of telling him that you were completely head over heels for him. Your decision, apparently taking far too long, was made for you when George tugged you impossibly closer to him.

“I wasn’t going to tell you… you’ve had so much going on I didn’t want to overwhelm you,” he said, brown eyes boring into your soul.

“Tell me what?”

He took a deep breath, preparing himself for every possible outcome that may spring once the words on the tip of his tongue are spoken aloud, “That I love you.”

#george weasley x reader #harry potter x reader #sirius black x reader #remus lupin x reader #marauders x reader #fred weasly x reader

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