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makerkenzie · 4 years ago

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Golden Crowns and Golden Shrouds

As you know, I’ve been working on a critique of the Martells’ plan to punish the Lannisters and restore the Targaryens, so as I was reading the Dorne chapters in AFFC, I came back to Myrcella.

Book version, she has a misadventure with Arianne which gets her maimed and nearly killed. She loses an ear and gets a fat chunk sliced off her face. She’s still alive! But someone who was supposed on be on their side tried to kill her. It was a split-second’s unexpected movement by her horse that made the difference between her ear and her life.

Because she’s survived a near-miss and lost a body part, I started thinking: if not for Maggy’s prophecy, I might think book-version Myrcella won’t die young after all.

It’s 2020 and life is short, so I’m gonna show you my new crackpot theory!

Let’s take another look at Maggy’s prophecy:

“Three questions may you ask,” the crone said, once she’d had her drink. “You will not like my answers. Ask, or begone with you.”

Go, the dreaming queen thought, hold your tongue, and flee. But the girl did not have sense enough to be afraid. “When will I wed the prince?” she asked.

“Never. You will wed the king.”

Beneath her golden curls, the girl’s face wrinkled up in puzzlement. For years after, she took those words to mean that she would not marry Rhaegar until after his father Aerys had died. “I will be queen, though?” asked the younger her.

“Aye.” Malice gleamed in Maggy’s yellow eyes. “Queen you shall be … until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear.”

Anger flashed across the child’s face. “If she tries I will have my brother kill her.” Even then she would not stop, willful child as she was. She still had one more question due her, one more glimpse into her life to come. “Will the king and I have children?” she asked.

“Oh, aye. Six-and-ten for him, and three for you.”

That made no sense to Cersei. Her thumb was throbbing where she’d cut it, and her blood was dripping on the carpet. How could that be? she wanted to ask, but she was done with her questions.

The old woman was not done with her, however. “Gold shall be their crowns and gold their shrouds,” she said. “And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you.”

“What is a valonqar? Some monster?” The golden girl did not like that foretelling. “You’re a liar and a warty frog and a smelly old savage, and I don’t believe a word of what you say. Come away, Melara. She is not worth hearing.”

“I get three questions too,” her friend insisted. And when Cersei tugged upon her arm, she wriggled free and turned back to the crone. “Will I marry Jaime?” she blurted out.

You stupid girl, the queen thought, angry even now. Jaime does not even know you are alive. Back then her brother lived only for swords and dogs and horses … and for her, his twin.

“Not Jaime, nor any other man,” said Maggy. “Worms will have your maidenhead. Your death is here tonight, little one. Can you smell her breath? She is very close.”

“The only breath we smell is yours,” said Cersei. There was a jar of some thick potion by her elbow, sitting on a table. She snatched it up and threw it into the old woman’s eyes. In life the crone had screamed at them in some queer foreign tongue, and cursed them as they fled her tent. But in the dream her face dissolved, melting away into ribbons of grey mist until all that remained were two squinting yellow eyes, the eyes of death.

Maggy tells Cersei too little and too much. She doesn’t exactly lie but her answers are deliberately deceptive. She knows Cersei will think she means something else and doesn’t bother to elaborate.

There’s some debate about some parts of the prophecy. Which is fine! If you’ve been following my blog for more than a few months, you probably know I seem to be in the minority in those debates. So I feel like: well, in for a star, in for a dragon! Hold my shade-of-the-evening and have a seat, babe.

Let’s go through the prophecy line by line.

“When will I wed the prince?” she asked.

“Never. You will wed the king.”

Cersei assumes that means she’ll wed Rhaegar after he becomes king. Turns out she weds King Robert after he’s killed Rhaegar.

“I will be queen, though?” asked the younger her.

“Aye.” Malice gleamed in Maggy’s yellow eyes. “Queen you shall be … until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear.”

Cersei thinks this means another queen, and at this stage in the story she thinks that younger queen in Margaery. But see: Maggy never actually says queen. She just says there comes another. Just...another person. For all we know the YMB could be Jon. Seriously, though! The YMB doesn’t need to be a literal queen. For a long time I liked the idea of the YMB being multiple women. Right now I’m leaning towards Brienne as the sole YMB. Because that means Cersei is also deceiving herself about the meaning of “more beautiful,” and Brienne is ironically called the Beauty. But also because of this:

Anger flashed across the child’s face. “If she tries I will have my brother kill her.”

Wouldn’t it be the most delicious irony if that doesn’t work out because the YMB has already taken Jaime away from her? We don’t really know what form “cast you down and take all you hold dear” will take, and there’s plenty of room there for interpretation. Taking Jaime’s attention from her is definitely something in that area.

“Will the king and I have children?” she asked.

“Oh, aye. Six-and-ten for him, and three for you.”

If Maggy were answering honestly, she would say you’ll have children, sure, but they won’t be conceived with the king. Instead she just lets the little girl sit there with her confusion.

“Gold shall be their crowns and gold their shrouds,” she said. “And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you.”

Every word in the sentences above is controversial. I’m gonna make it worse.

We’ve long assumed “gold shall be their crowns and gold their shrouds” means Cersei’s children will all be crowned monarchs, and they’ll all die young. Cersei seems to think it means that.

But what if...she actually doesn’t mean that? What if this is Maggy’s way of telling Cersei her children will not be the king’s children? What if “crowns” does not refer to literal crowns, but to her children’s blond hair?

And gold, their shrouds: okay, so, when each child dies, they’ll be wrapped in a golden shroud.

Does the prophecy say anything about when the children die?

“When your tears have drowned you” ----> This could mean a lot of things. Does it mean Cersei’s lost all three of her children? She thinks so.

However: Myrcella has her cousin Rosamund Lannister of Lannisport with her as a handmaid and occasional stunt double. They go into a lot of detail about how much Rosamund looks like her and how they’ve used her to conceal Myrcella’s whereabouts.

Up close, Cersei would never mistake Rosamund for Myrcella. At a distance...someone might mistake her corpse for Myrcella’s and report it to the queen.

I don’t want Rosamund to die. And maybe she’ll be fine! But I also suspect we haven’t yet seen how much Rosamund does for Myrcella. Just saying: a little girl of similar age and size and similar coloring is available. If Cersei thinks her children have all died, she may be mistaken.

As I was quoting: “When your tears have drowned you, the valonqar will wrap his hands around your pale white throat and choke the life from you.”

This is one of those debates I mentioned earlier. Cersei asked Maggy what valonqar means and Maggy ignored the question. Septa Saranella told her it’s High Valyrian for “little brother” so Cersei thinks it’s Tyrion.

Most people think it’s Jaime because he’s technically younger than Cersei. I’ve looked up the High Valyrian vocab, and it does mean younger brother, or a younger male cousin via the father’s father, but I don’t think Maggy’s using it to mean Cersei’s literal brother.

If Maggy were actually saying that Cersei’s brother would wrap his hands around her throat (and there’s another snag: Jaime doesn’t have plural hands to wrap around anything), then she would induce the same confusion in Cersei by saying to her, “your little brother will wrap his hands around your pale white throat and choke the life from you.” She’d be thinking Jaime, who’s only younger by minutes, and of course Cersei would think she meant Tyrion.

But Maggy doesn’t say that, does she? Maggy, who speaks the Common Tongue well enough to turn phrases like “cast you down and take all you hold dear,” suddenly needs to use Valyrian to mention a younger brother? Really? Some of my restaurant co-workers called me mami and that doesn’t mean I’m their mother.

What’s more likely: that Maggy suddenly forgot how to say “younger brother” in the Common Tongue, or that she’s using the Valyrian because she means something that doesn’t translate? And Cersei hasn’t stopped to consider that because Cersei doesn’t speak other languages?

I think it it means something else. Maggy lets her think it means little brother, and like everything else Maggy tells her, it’s not that simple.

ANYWAY I WAS TALKING ABOUT MYRCELLA.

Golden crowns and golden shrouds, she says. Joffrey’s worn a golden crown and Tommen’s now wearing a golden crown. Someone’s already tried to put a crown on Myrcella and it didn’t work out. Golden crown can also be a flowery way to describe a head of pretty blond curls. Given Cersei’s marriage to a king from a consistently black-haired family, her children having blond hair is more newsworthy than their wearing literal crowns made of literal gold.

Gold their crowns and gold, their shrouds. When Maggy brings up shrouds, that probably pertains to their deaths. “Shroud” can refer to whatever the corpse is wearing at the funeral. Lord Tywin’s gold armor, for example. It could be a gown made of cloth-of-gold? Anyway! The image of Cersei’s children shrouded in gold suggests that when they die, they will be entombed as Lannisters, not as Baratheons. Doesn’t say anything about the circumstances or timing of their deaths.

Book-version, Myrcella has survived a near-death experience with a disfigured face. Someone tried to crown her; didn’t work. Someone tried to kill her; she lost an ear. For Myrcella to come that close to dying, and lose an ear in the process, only to die in some other mishap while she’s still a kid? Feels sloppy.

Uncle Tyrion survived a near-death experience and lost his nose. Uncle-Dad Jaime lost his sword hand and found a way to keep going. Lady Brienne nearly died in the fight with Biter and got a big hole chewed in her face. Now Myrcella’s survived a murder attempt while losing an ear and part of her cheek. Seems like she’ll be in good company with House Lannister. The golden shroud can come later; much later. Decades later.

#asoiaf meta #myrcella baratheon #maggy's prophecy #crackpot and tinfoil #asoiaf theory #house lannister #cersei lannister

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woosansang · 4 years ago

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run away together (spend some time forever)

Chapter 13: It just sort of came out

Summary: December 1994. Richie and Eddie make some long-time-coming confessions.

READ THE WHOLE CHAPTER ON AO3!

Previous Chapter (Chapter 12 on Tumblr)

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In the midst of work and class and rehearsals, Richie almost forgot how much he missed the Losers. He’d been in the bedroom, getting ready for class, throwing his books into his backpack and shrugging on his orange sweater that Eddie gave him one Christmas that he sometimes whipped out when it was cold but the sun was still shining through. That was when his eyes landed on the photos on the wall above their beds, his heart clenching with sadness when he realised he hadn’t seen or spoken to his friends in nearly six months.

He’d made new friends, of course – Richie prided himself on the fact that he could talk to anyone and never felt shy going up to strangers – but that didn’t make the loss of his childhood friends any less painful. He and Alex had made half-baked plans to get lunch or something today after class, maybe to meet up with their other friends, he wasn’t quite sure, but there was still space in his heart that his idiot friends from Derry would always hold, and that space was heartbreakingly empty now.

Richie had met Alex Beard in the first week of college in his theatre studies class. Something he noticed immediately about Alex was the way her strange humour landed awkwardly on the table when she tried to make a joke. People didn’t get her humour. That was something Richie certainly understood, so he tried talking to her and he laughed at her lame jokes and found out what music she liked (musicals, surprise surprise) and poked and prodded until she began to open up and initiate conversations with him. Something he shared with Alex was the need to throw in a self-deprecating joke every now and then, just to let everyone know that, as much as he talked himself up, all comedians hated themselves on the inside. Alex laughed when he explained that and Richie took great pride in watching her throw her head back, green eyes shining with joy.

Then Alex mentioned an ex-girlfriend and Richie’s lungs nearly flew out of his body through his throat. He tried to coax information out of her, like how she knew she liked girls, who she’d come out to, if her parents or friends knew, and Richie was slightly disappointed to learn that she’d had a relatively easy experience. She’d grown up with an accepting family, two sisters with whom she always bickered but loved her just as hard, and her parents came around rather quickly when she told them she was dating a girl in high school. Richie wondered how his parents would have reacted if he told them he was in love with his male best friend. Wentworth might have killed him, but he had no idea what Maggie might have done. Richie really shouldn’t have been thinking about the people he left in Derry so often or he was going to drive himself insane.

Then he’d met Lily Denning, who described herself as a butch, top lesbian when she shook Richie’s hand for the first time in their intro to theatre production lecture and he nearly choked on his mocha. What a way to make an entrance; Richie almost started taking notes. He sort of wanted to ask her how the fuck a lesbian could be a top, but decided to file that information away for another day, maybe when they knew each other a little better. Lily was loud. She talked through that entire lecture about how she wanted to cut her hair off and truly live up to her self-proclaimed title, even though her hair was already pretty short, possibly even shorter than Richie’s, pulled up into a frizzy, dirty blonde ponytail. Continuing his endeavour to understand how other queer people existed so freely, Richie prompted Lily to talk about her family and hometown over lunch one day and holy fuck, the girl nearly talked his ear off. She really was giving him a run for his money.

Richie wondered how he managed to surround himself with so many gay people once Anton started hanging out with him between classes, as well. The four of them made a cute little gay group of friends, but Richie sometimes felt like he was lying to them when his eyes strayed from their table to watch a group of girls walk past or how his heart plummeted whenever Alex talked about her sister named Emily. Like today, when he and Alex were standing in line at Chick-Fil-A to pick up some food for Lily and Anton, who they were in fact meeting later, and Richie was preoccupied staring at the cute cashier, Martia, who he sometimes flirted with when he was here alone or with Eddie, but now couldn’t find it in himself to say anything because Alex knew about him and Anton and he didn’t want anyone knowing the truth, too scared to find out how they’d react. Somehow, he was in a predicament that was exactly the same, yet vastly different, from what he had to deal with in Derry.

They placed their takeaway orders and stood to the side of the counter, Richie making sure to face away from Martia in case she tried to talk to him. Alex had been going on and on about her friends from high school not all being able to make it home for Christmas break.

“Even Courtney is coming and she’s bringing one of her roommates with her because they’re sleeping together and they live in fucking Idaho, yet my ex, who we all still love and want to see, won’t haul his ass across one fucking border to get to Michigan! Not even for one—”

“Your ex?”

“Yeah, Ethan. He’s saying some bullshit about his new girlfriend who—”

“You like boys, too?”

Alex stopped and turned to Richie, brows creased on her forehead. “Yeah? Haven’t I mentioned that before?”

Richie’s bottom lip quivered. “No. I’d remember. Y-You…” His eyes widened, lips parting to suck in a deep breath. “I’ve never met someone like me before,” he whispered.

“Oh, you’re bi, too?” Richie just nodded, and Alex seemed to understand that this was difficult for him, because she stepped forward and reached out to wrap an arm around his middle, pulling him into her side. “Welcome to the club, Tozier. And welcome to New York, where we can date whoever the fuck we want and no one really cares.”

Richie huffed out a laugh, mouth pulling into a smile. “Man, you’d be a catch. Wish I’d known this before I hooked you up with Lils. We could’ve been a power couple.”

Alex wrinkled her nose. “You’re not my type, Rich.”

“‘Scuse you. Funny guys are everyone’s type. I’ve had people falling at my feet for years, practically begging to get a piece of this.”

“Well, I’m begging you to stop now,” Alex laughed. “Hey, that cute register girl has been staring at you for ages.”

“Oh, yeah. I come here all the time and woo her with my charm and stellar personality. She’s probably wondering why I’m ignoring her today.”

Alex snorted. “Dark hair and tanned skin. You have a type, Tozier. She looks just like Anton.”

And Eddie, his mind so helpfully supplied. Coming out was one thing, one hurdle hard enough to get over; he didn’t need to think about coming clean about Eddie as well. Thinking about how Stan knew and tried to get him to tell Eddie was enough to make Richie keep his mouth shut on the subject a little longer.

And thinking about Stan led to thinking about Beverly and all the rest of them that he missed so much. Richie fell quiet again and he hated how unlike himself he’d been feeling recently. He knew the move would be difficult, knew leaving The Losers behind was going to be heartbreaking, definitely knew why Eddie had been keen to distance himself from them all those months ago because now Richie’s chest ached. Even just to talk to one of them would be a blessing at this point. Alex and Lily and Anton were wonderful friends and Richie loved spending time with them, making them laugh, practising dialogue together and going out for lunch and all those things friends were supposed to do, but he missed doing them with Bill, Stan and Eddie, or with the whole group, all seven of them squashed into a booth at a diner or sprawled across Ben’s carpet with his head on Eddie’s lap while Mike read to them because god damn, he had one of those voices that Richie could fall asleep listening to.

It was one night when Eddie got home from work to a plate of overcooked vegetables and burnt chicken schnitzels that Richie decided to bring up this thing he’d been pondering over for weeks.

...

Keep reading on AO3!

#reddie #richie x eddie #it #it 2017 #it fanfiction #reddie fanfiction #reddie fanfic #runaways fic #oooof i just hit 3000 views thanks fam xxxx

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onbearfeet · 5 months ago

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5 please!

"How did you figure out your OC's identity?"

Well, Maggie was easy; she more or less punched me in the face with her bisexuality, like she does almost everything else, while I was writing her initial profile in my notes. After that, the only question was whether/how to bring it up, since the first book really didn't have room for a romance and Maggie tends to keep her personal info to herself by default. So there was a possibility that Maggie's orientation wouldn't be mentioned at all, simply because she had no reason to bring it up or even think about it in narration. I didn't want to leave it for later, though, for fear it would seem like a retcon.

Hilariously, Gabe solved that problem for me.

Gabe was more difficult to figure out. I knew from the start that I wanted to connect him deeply to queer history in general and Black queer history in particular. His role in the story requires a lot of historical context; he's sort of a window into the past of the world we inhabit. As a kid, I always liked it when older heroes or legacy heroes showed up in comics--your Justice Society or Invaders teams, for example--because it made the world feel more lived in, like there was an ordinary kind of history to it. Sure, we know Captain America punched Hitler, but I always liked that we might also see a character dig through a box of their grandfather's junk and find a 1930s gas gun next to some snapshots of unfortunate hairstyles. I liked that ordinary-ness, so I knew Gabe would be connected in a very ordinary, human way to some older characters--one in particular, actually. He's the guy who digs through the boxes.

However, since the series is predicated on the idea that marginalized heroes have always existed, I knew the history Gabe connected to had to include that marginalization. I had already decided that Gabe's superhero forbear would have been (in his secret identity) an investigative reporter from the 1930s or 40s who ended up being murdered for his journalism rather than his masked activities, so I decided to place that journalist within the history of excellent but overlooked Black journalists of the period.

And THEN I watched a documentary about Bayard Rustin, and somehow that long-ago journalist became a gay man in my head, and I started researching Black queer history in New York. (There are these amazing journals in a university archive--long story.)

Now, Gabe was closely connected to this dead journalist in a way I can't describe due to spoilers, and I knew Gabe himself would be some variety of queer, but he didn't feel gay in my head, if that makes sense? I tried a few identities on him, noodling around in drafts and exercises, but it wasn't until I sat down to write a scene in an early chapter that he made himself known. If Maggie punched me in the face, Gabe murmured in my ear.

Quick note about how I write scenes: my usual method is, for lack of a better description, to hit play on a movie in my head, play a few seconds, and then pause to write down what I've seen. I don't have very much control over what happens in the movie--at least, not consciously--so sometimes I write something and I'm just as surprised as you are. This is one of those times.

This scene required Maggie and Gabe to climb a whole bunch of stairs, and Maggie had to go first for reasons. Having known Gabe for all of ten minutes and being someone who doesn't trust easily, she told him she'd stab him if she caught him staring at her ass, groping her, etc.

And Gabe, cinnamon roll that he is, asked why anyone would do that.

And that's how I knew Gabe was ace--because I'm acespec, and that's the kind of question I asked a lot at his age. So I let him explain himself on the page. Gabe has a certain wholesomeness about him that's oddly disarming, even to me (and makes the twist in his story later on a lot of fun), and that's how Maggie ended up explaining her bisexuality to him in the kind of "Oh, thank God, another queer" interaction I think most of us have had at some point.

And so, much as Maggie booting a Nazi in the head in Chapter 1 established the politics of this book up front, there's a conversation somewhere around Chapter 3 that clears up who's what and why and how. I am not usually this organized.

There's also a third lead character who is ALSO queer, but I'm leaving their story a mystery for now. Gender-wise, they're probably nonbinary, but if you asked them their sexual orientation, they'd probably just give you a Look. That blank on my notes is currently just "???????". Maybe they'll figure it out when they're not actively having an existential crisis. As to how I figured it out ... I tried on a few gender identities, and they just sort of sat there in my head, staring at me, until I backed off and they picked up they/them pronouns without further explanation.

I understand that some writers actually plan out things like their characters' LGBTQIA identities in advance. That sounds wonderfully relaxing. I'll have to try it someday.

#untitled superhero project #pride month #pride oc #ask game

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sapphicscholar · 7 years ago

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Could you write a fic where all of the Superfriends (starting with Alex) get turned into the animals of their Hogwarts Houses? (For instance, Alex would be turned into a snake.) probably due to an alien virus or something, or alien tech, or any other reason you can think of.

Re: the prompt with the Superfriends turning into their House animals: that could be done via magic too, and maybe would make more sense to do it that way since why would a random alien know about Harry Potter, right? Maybe Mxy decides to play more pranks. (I think fifth dimensional imps are magic. Probably) I dunno.

Just posted on AO3

A/N: So, since I had requests for more Hogwarts AU, I went ahead and aged them up to make them HP AU adults for this one to make sense – apologies that not all the superfriends are here, but I went with the crew most likely to be found at the downtown base of the DEO minus J’onn (you’ll see why soon enough). Hopefully this works for ya!

Also…holy crap, I’ve never felt more high without being high nor been more grateful for having immersed myself in the world of Animal Studies and read (and reread) Donna Haraway or Thomas Nagel’s “What Is it Like to Be a Bat?” Also…learned SO MANY animal facts.

Chapter Text:

“Wake up,” Maggie hissed, nudging Alex with her elbow.

“Huh?” Startled, Alex jerked awake, her quill streaking a dark scratch across her notebook.

Rolling her eyes, Maggie waved her wand and wordlessly erased the extra ink so that Alex would be able to read her notes, not that they said much she didn’t already know.

“Your fault I’m this tired,” Alex murmured back, pulling a smirk and a low chuckle from Maggie.

“Didn’t hear you complaining last night…”

“Danvers! Sawyer! Is there something more important right now than your first day of work?”

“No, Director J’onzz,” Alex replied, looking appropriately bashful even if she knew he only said something to avoid the appearance of favoritism. She caught Kara’s expression as she spun around to stick her tongue out at her. It suddenly felt like the few years they’d spent together in muggle school before beginning at Hogwarts, back when her mom had managed to convince the school that Kara would be more comfortable being in classes with her big sister whenever possible.

“As I was saying,” J’onn continued, “today marks your first day as a member of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement’s Auror Office. You have all proven yourselves worthy through years of study and testing, but I warn you against thinking that might be enough on its own. None of you will be allowed into the field until you have completed your first year of intensive training. From here on out, you should think of your task force like your family. You will eat together, train together, and, when the time comes, go out into the field together.”

“Like Hogwarts houses!” Kara chimed in.

“Yes, Ms. Danvers,” J’onn admitted, dipping his head and trying not to let his smile at her chipper demeanor show.

“Or like the muggle military…” Alex trailed off, not wanting to be outdone.

“Yes, Ms. Danvers…the elder. Given the rigorous nature of this training, that is, perhaps, the more apt comparison.” Alex arched an eyebrow at Kara in challenge when J’onn turned to pace in front of the room. “Now your task force captains will take you for the rest of the day for some team bonding and an overview of your next few weeks of training. I ask that you give them your full attention and respect.”

The new recruits nodded and quickly moved to gather their belongings before finding their teams. Alex and Maggie sauntered over to where James, Kara, and Winn had already gathered, then followed them down the hallway to their assigned meeting room.

“I’m so glad we’re all together!” Kara squealed, nearly bouncing in excitement as she carefully stacked her belongings on one corner of the small conference table.

“More like glad that J’onn likes us enough to let us all be on the same team,” Alex corrected her, sinking down into a seat and pulling at Maggie’s hand to try to get her to join her.

“It’s a shame Vasquez couldn’t come with us,” Winn sighed. Sure, Vasquez liked pulling pranks on him every now and then, but they had gotten close over the years at Hogwarts, and he would miss seeing her every day.

“I’m sure she’ll find some way to amuse herself with Lucy out at the East Coast branch…” Maggie trailed off, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively as she leaned into Alex’s side. James rubbed at the back of his neck, trying to find the right expression that showed how supportive he was of his ex-girlfriend’s newest relationship without looking overly enthusiastic either.

“Recruits!” came a booming voice, and Alex felt her posture straighten as she looked for the source of the sound. “I am Auror Potter—no, no relation, and you would do well not to ask. I’ll be your task force captain for the next year. I expect you to show up to work on time each morning and be ready to give me 110 %. I don’t promise this will be fun, but if you follow my lead, at the end of it, I promise you’ll be ready to go out into the field alongside the very best we have to offer.” He surveyed the group of them, trying to place the faces to the bios he’d received from the Department.

“Winn Schott!” he called out, smiling to himself when the smaller boy stumbled forward, quickly righting himself as he saluted.

“No salutes necessary, Schott.”

“Oh, uh, right.”

“We’ll go around and do brief introductions – I want to know what you all bring to this team. You can start.”

“Yes, sir!” With a deep breath, Winn began, “I, uh, I spent the last year doing some tech work with the Muggle Relations Division. We—er, muggles, I mean—they have certain kinds of technology, like, they have portable phones instead of two-way mirrors or floo powder calls. Anyway, some of them had found ways of using technology to detect our presence—finding signs of life in places we had hidden from their view, the like. I worked on creating measures to combat detection” Alex looked beyond intrigued, though Maggie just bit back a laugh at how amazed everyone seemed by muggle technology. She’d grown up around it and, if truth be told, still thought some of it was vastly preferable; she’d take a text over the dizziness of spinning her head into a friend’s fireplace any day, though of course, with so few muggle friends left, she rarely had a choice in the matter.

“Given the nature of your position on our team, you’ll be spending part of your training with our codebreakers and the rest of your time with your team,” Potter explained to Winn, who nodded and sat back in his seat when it was clear that his part was done.

“Danvers?”

Alex looked up, while Kara jumped to her feet, smiling broadly.

“Ah, right…the sisters.” Kara and Alex glanced at each other, wondering how much J’onn might have mentioned to their captain, who looked very much like he was trying not to smile. “We’ll start with Alexandra.”

“It’s Alex, sir.”

“Noted.”

“Well, I took some time off after graduating from Hogwarts before beginning the Auror Training Program to travel. I went and worked studying magical creatures—their physiology, magical properties, uses in healing. But I’m back now and excited about my work here.”

“Suck up,” Maggie whispered, stifling a laugh at the annoyed expression that flashed across Alex’s features.

“It says here you specialized in dragons?”

“Mhm,” Alex confirmed with a nod.

“Interesting…could come in handy.” Alex grinned. “Now Kara, you’re fresh out of Hogwarts, right?”

“I am, but I am more than ready!”

Potter couldn’t help a small smile at her enthusiasm. “You wouldn’t be here if we didn’t think you were qualified. Next up: James Olsen.”

James raised his hand a bit in acknowledgement. “I know I’m a bit…older than most of the new aurors, but I just…I liked my career at the Daily Prophet, but I couldn’t help but feel like there were ways I could be better at serving the community, doing more good than what I could do behind a desk or a camera.”

“I didn’t start out as an auror myself,” Potter admitted with a small shrug of his shoulders. “No right or wrong way to get here. Well…I wouldn’t recommend floo powder, actually. The department’s fireplaces are rather small—personally I almost always end up banging my head on the way out.” He turned to Maggie, the last on his list. “And last but not least: Magdalena Sawyer.”

“Maggie,” she clarified. “Yeah, I spent the past couple of years traveling with Alex, though I was working as an apprentice to a wandmaker.”

“Ah, which one?”

“Violetta Beauvais’ granddaughter.”

“Interesting choice. Not Ollivander?”

Shaking her head, Maggie cleared her throat, figuring there was always going to be the moment of outing at any new job. “No, I, uh, I wanted to support a woman working in a male-dominated industry. Plus, she’s a queer woman and all—felt like we would work well together.”

Alex managed to cover her small snort of laughter with a cough. “Felt like you would work well under her is more like it,” Alex whispered when Potter turned his attention to the board in the front of the room.

“Didn’t hear you complaining that New Year’s Eve we all spent together,” Maggie taunted, stopping only when she caught sight of Kara’s scandalized look. Turning her attention back to the front of the room, Maggie heard their captain saying something about team-building exercises. She tried not to groan at the idea as he motioned for them all to follow him down to one of the training rooms.

“And this is the one,” he finally announced. “Now hand me your wands.”

Slowly but surely they handed them over, though Alex eyed him suspiciously, wondering if this were some kind of test. It seemed like they should know better than to leave themselves defenseless, though she eventually relented.

“Head into the room.” James led the way, looking around to try to figure out what their first exercise might be. The room was fairly plain: one table, one small window, and a few chairs. “Your task will be to escape.” Winn furrowed his eyebrows, looking between the captain and the unlocked very much open door. “Ah, we’ll be locking you in here. The key will be directly outside of the door.” They looked between themselves, shrugging. It didn’t seem a particularly difficult challenge. “Once you escape, you will need to retrieve a set of three small sensors.”

“How will we know where to look for them?” Kara asked.

“You’ll know,” he answered, dismissing further questions with a wave of his hand. “You’ll have half an hour.”

Even with the two tasks, it still seemed rather doable. Their confident expressions soon gave way as a team of aurors—all slightly older—approached, a few of them not bothering to hide their smirks. After all, it wasn’t every day they got to haze the newbies. In unison they raised their wands then brought them swishing down. With five flashes of light and a few cut-off cries of surprise, they stepped back, locking the door behind them with a loud laugh. Left behind in the room were five sets of robes and five animals—two confused badgers, one coiled snake, one squawking eagle, and one massive lion.

Alex found herself enveloped in darkness, and she fought to see in front of her. Her senses were suddenly overwhelmed with the sound and feel of low vibrations, and she surged forward, feeling as her whole body slithered, moving forward in one lithe, curling movement. Eventually she felt her head emerge from the cloth. Acting on instinct, Alex let her tongue dart out from her mouth, though she had to admit, nothing quite felt like a mouth or tongue in the sense that she knew. But as she did, she was overwhelmed with the scents of animals that she was fairly certain she wouldn’t have recognized by smell before this moment. She spun around and was struck by the startling outlines of the animals she smelled—two smallish badgers, both of whom somehow smelled familiar; a bird that she watched flutter about; and a lion that seemed to be pacing the room. Hit with a desperate need for warmth, she slithered toward the ray of sunlight illuminating one small square of the room. She would think once she was warm.

Maggie and Kara clawed at their robes, and once Maggie was free, she took off toward the scent of another badger and came to stand beside her. Kara tried to look forward but found she could barely see at all. She suspected this would make the task significantly harder, though she found that she could smell everything. Maggie sniffed the air, finding the scent of something that seemed intensely familiar. She waddled across the room, noting the clicking of long nails. That was quite the change from the usual, she laughed to herself. As she got closer to the smell, she could feel her fur raising, but she tamped down on the instinct to treat as prey and possible dinner what smelled and looked, in its vague outline, like a snake, trying to remind herself that what she knew from before needed to outweigh any animal urges. As a large beast lumbered toward her and the snake that for some reason she felt compelled to protect, Maggie’s lips curled back and she pushed her claws forward, her hips and hindquarters raising slightly as she let out a loud hiss.

James reared back at the small but somehow intimidating creature in front of him, crouching and letting off a fairly repugnant odor. He thought perhaps he was the only one from the group left as he pawed at the ground, letting out a small growl of annoyance that had another one of the creatures raising its nose in the air and turning in his direction. He wondered if his new form would be able to simply knock the door forward. With as much of a running start as he could manage in the small room, he lunged forward, finding himself flung backwards with what he could only assume was magical force. So the door was out.

Winn fluttered nervously above the others, looking down at the sight below him. He swooped in high circles above the room, eventually coming to roost on the narrow windowsill after one mistaken attempt at crashing through the glass pane. As he looked through it, he was astounded at just how far he could see, looking out over the treetops and well into the surrounding neighborhood. He wondered if they’d ever make it out of the room and watched as the lion was sent sprawling back across the stone floor.

Despite her instincts screaming at her to flee, Alex found herself slithering under the badger that had come over to her, basking in the warmth of the thick fur. Maggie lowered her already short body down.

Across the room, Kara dug desperately at the floor, finding even her thick, long claws futile against the weathered stones.

Noting the attempts of many of those around him to help, James reasoned they might actually be his team. In an attempt to get their attention, he let out a loud roar, unaware of the crowd of aurors that had gathered outside the enchanted door who flung themselves back at the sound.

Alex popped her head up at the sound, having felt it vibrate and rumble across the ground. She hissed back, as did the two badgers, and the eagle let out a squawk. Oh. Oh! As she watched the other badger dig and the lion lunge at the walls and the eagle fly into the window for a second time, she realized that perhaps this was her team. She hadn’t been transported into some other dimension. She darted her tongue out, flicking it against the side of the face of the badger who she’d been cuddling, and somehow, she wasn’t sure how, she just knew it was Maggie. And oh! Badgers. Two of them. That smelled like home. Because they were home. Because they were Maggie and Kara. Because they were Hufflepuffs. And she was a snake because she was a Slytherin. Which made the charging lion James and the now perched eagle Winn. And oh dear god they were never getting out of here.

But James’ roar seemed to help everyone gradually realize that they were still a team. A team without language or opposable thumbs, but a team goddammit. Having seen James repelled from the door and having watched Kara’s vain attempts at digging through the floor, Alex slithered around the perimeter, finding herself slamming face first into the walls a few more times than she would have liked. Eventually, though, she made it back, disappointed in the lack of any cracks she could exploit.

Realizing his squawks weren’t attracting much attention compared to the roar, Winn tapped loudly against the glass pane of the window. His beak wasn’t going to crack it, but at least he hadn’t been magically forced backward, which must mean something. Eventually he flapped down, settling on James’ back and finally catching his attention. He flew back and forth between James and the window until he finally caught the motion and seemed to understand.

James sat back on his haunches, regarding the window. It was small—much too small for him to fit through. He suspected if he lunged forward, he’d catch the stone wall before he ever had the opportunity to smash through the glass. But then he felt a cold thing twisting around his paw, and as he raised his arm to shake it off, he felt it coil tightly around him before two small fangs sunk into him, and he let out a loud mewl of pain.

Alex would have rolled her eyes if she could have. She barely even bit him, but at least she had his attention. Once he settled down and Alex uncurled herself from his front paw, he finally seemed to catch her meaning and backed up as far as he could in the small room, lunging forward paw first at the window as soon as Winn had flown away from it. The first time it wavered but didn’t crack. The second time he heard the sound of the glass splintering, though it didn’t give way. And finally it crashed through. He bounded back with a yelp of pain, sitting back and licking at his paw, attempting to knock the small shards of glass out.

Meanwhile, Winn flew out through the broken window, allowing himself just a few moments of freedom as he swooped and soared over the trees before flying back to the building and darting in through the front door. He ducked and swerved out of the way of the other Ministry employees, watching with glee as they squealed in surprise and dove out of his path. Eventually he made it into an elevator, perching patiently on the railing as the wizards and witches who were unlucky enough to be with him regarded him warily. When they made it up to his floor he flew down the hallway, catching sight of the glinting key and hooking it with his claws before soaring back out the way he came and finally returning with the key. He managed to push it into the small lock, though he found himself unable to turn it.

Alex hissed until Winn finally landed near her, and she slithered up his body, winding himself around his neck and pushing at his beak until he finally lifted her up. Once more, she wrapped herself around the key, twisting until it turned with her, finally hearing the satisfying click as the door popped open. James rushed forward, nosing the door all the way open, and a snuffling Kara and Maggie followed close behind, running into a few walls as they went. Maggie wondered if this was how Alex felt without her glasses. Once they were out of the room, which, Maggie reasoned, must have been somehow enchanted, Maggie and Kara found their ears assaulted with a loud beeping. The sensors, Kara thought. Potter had told her they would know how to find them. Of course, being able to hear them didn’t make the lack of proper vision any less of an issue.

Between Winn and James, however, they had enough vision and size for the group of them, and they followed their impromptu pack leaders through the halls of the Ministry, delighting in hissing, nipping, and growling at the more senior aurors as they passed. Eventually Winn led them outside, and Maggie and Kara got straight to work, running as fast as their short legs could take them to the sound of the beeping that seemed to be coming from the heart of the grounds that surrounded the building. Suddenly feeling useful, Kara dove nose and claws first into a patch of dirt, burrowing until she latched onto the beeping sensor. A few yards away, Maggie did the same, feeling grateful she’d been able to do something other than help to keep Alex warm during their team mission.

With two of the three sensors gathered, the team followed the noise—whether felt as vibrations or heard as a grating sound—over to one of the gnarled old trees. James pawed at it, but found nothing. Kara and Maggie dug around the perimeter of it, only to find that the deeper into the ground they got, the further away they were from the sound. Eventually they turned to Alex, who slithered her way up the tree, attempting to focus on the feeling of the vibrating sounds, tracing them to a small crack in the trunk that she managed to wedge herself into, finally getting to what she was fairly certain was a sensor—not that it gave off any kind of heat for her infrared vision to catch it. After multiple attempts to angle herself properly to nose it out of the tree, Alex gritted her teeth (in theory, she couldn’t do much with a pair of fangs) and opened her jaw wide, fitting the whole thing into her mouth and praying it wouldn’t kill her when she turned back into a human.

With the three sensors in (figural) hands, they made their way back to the building, feeling every bit the part of the heroic team even if they didn’t look it.

“Two whole minutes to spare. Very impressive,” Potter greeted them at the entrance, watching as two clawed paws deposited sensors at his feet, and a snake unhinged its jaw, managing to get the sensor back out of its mouth. “Now back to the room with you!”

They all followed dutifully, finding the group of slightly older aurors waiting for them, wands at the ready. Once they had been shepherded back into their initial locked room, they were hit with transfiguration spells once more before the door locked—for their privacy, they soon realized, as they stumbled forward human once more but clothed no longer. Alex and Winn quickly threw on their robes, as did Maggie and Kara, whose attire littered with small, badger teeth-sized holes chewed across them but was at least passable. James, however, stood in the corner, clutching Winn in front of him like a shield. His robes lay in tatters; they hadn’t quite withstood the challenge of accommodating a lion, though he didn’t think Madame Malkin would accept that as an excuse for a return.

When Potter returned and tossed back their wands, Kara was kind enough to magic James’ robes back together before turning her attention to the small holes in her own, while Maggie patched up the damage she had wrought on hers.

“So…you passed day one.” Potter looked between them, gauging their reactions. “How does it feel?”

There were a few long moments of silence before Winn finally spoke up, his voice cracking slightly as he asked, “That’s day one?”

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