#museum of muggle curiousities

[locations-hq]

The Museum of Muggle Curiosities is a museum in Carkitt Market, in the wizarding quarter of London. Items on display included several muggle electronics, such as microwaves, old televisions, a hoover, rubber ducks and lava lamps. The museam is enchanted so seems endless, with long winding corridors that take you to various rooms, which include a televison room, a muggle disco, a roller rink and a laundrette.

EXPLORE THE LOCATION FURTHER...

[celestial--sapphic]

5th January, 1892

"I think that would be cheating, Pops. If I am honest.” Evelyn has to admit, giving a sideways look to her girlfriend who is half-stooping next to her in front of Professor Ronen's elaborate collection of butterflies. 

The Hufflepuff's gaze is focused specifically on one of the winged insects in the tallest glass chamber which sports a mix of vivid colours; rusted red hues on the main part of its delicate, paperthin wings, with black, soft daffodil yellow and an iridescent blue tingeing the edges with spots like blurred ink on wet parchment. Evelyn was never quite sure if the butterflies in question were still alive and enchanted to live inside the glass chambers indefinitely or if they are taxidermy charmed to flutter their wings at regular intervals through some exceptional reanimation spell. The Slytherin is equally never sure which version she prefers. 

"Cheating?" Poppy asks curiously, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear and tilting her head up slightly to look up at Evelyn from underneath those thick, long lashes that Evelyn never fails to find impossibly attractive. 

"Yes, well doesn't the book expect you to find them out and about in the real world?" Evelyn replies, gesturing absently in the direction of the butterflies and beyond.  

The book, in question, is a one of a set of three spotter guides she bought from Tomes and Scrolls for Poppy as a Christmas present; The Observer’s Guide to British Butterflies, The Observer’s Guide to British Flowers and Observer’s Guide to British Birds. The Hufflepuff absolutely loved them (nearly knocking Evelyn’s glass of mulled cider out of her hand when she pulled her into a hug after unwrapping them) and immediately got to work excitedly filling them in. It was less than three weeks since Christmas and she had already cheerfully ticked off a number of native Scottish birds and hardy flora that can survive the weather, like snowdrops and hellebores. However, given the unforgiving, biting winter weather in the Highlands Poppy had made limited (see: non-existent) progress on the butterflies edition, to her disappointment.   

Poppy hums. “I suppose you are right, it wouldn’t be completely honest. Truly, I would prefer to see the peacock butterfly in real life anyway. They must look so beautiful when they fly freely, imagine the colours…” She trails off, her gaze drifting back to the glass chambers and the regular beating of coloured wings. 

“I would hazard there are a fair few people who get frustrated with the rare ones and just end up going to the Natural History Museum to tick them off,” Evelyn muses, stepping closer into Poppy’s bubble of space, to look closer herself at the butterfly which had Poppy so enraptured. 

"The what?" 

“Natural History Museum.” Evelyn repeats, assuming Poppy hadn’t heard her. 

“The what, sorry?” Poppy asks again.  

“The Natural History Museum, in Kensington, in London?” 

Poppy turns her attention back to the taller girl and gives Evelyn a completely blank look and a small shake of her head.

“Is that… muggle?” The Hufflepuff asks curiously. Poppy having grown up completely in the wizarding world and Evelyn in the muggle world they had found plenty of things in the course of their relationship that one or the other didn’t know about. Poppy telling Evelyn she had never used the London Underground being one example that always springs to mind.    

“You've... you've never been to the Natural History Museum?" Evelyn couldn’t believe it. How had Poppy Sweeting not been to the Natural History Museum? Regardless if it was a muggle institution, she would have bet a Galleon the Hufflepuff's gran would have taken the her at some point, given their joint love of the natural world, magical and otherwise. 

Evelyn knew, at that moment, exactly what they were doing for Poppy’s 17th birthday next month.

[witchkingslayer]

twice as many stars

a wolfstar one shot tags; light smut, poetry inspired a/n; this is 100% inspired by the poem 'the two-headed calf'. i hope you enjoy <3

The Two-Headed Calf

Tomorrow when the farm boys find this

freak of nature, they will wrap his body

in newspaper and carry him to the museum.

But tonight he is alive and in the north

field with his mother. It is a perfect

summer evening: the moon rising over

the orchard, the wind in the grass. And

as he stares into the sky, there are

twice as many stars as usual.

Laura Gilpin, 1977

Remus reads the muggle poem over again, the weathered paperback book dog-eared and well-loved, moulded to fit the shape of his palm. He’s careful not to flick cigarette ash between the spine, not to let the burning cherry kiss its pages. Beneath the inky sky, the moon new and blurred, he thinks of his friends, the boys who morphed themselves into beasts so the monster, the freak of nature within him, will never have to do it alone. His once sorrowful cries, bellowing some retched sound towards the milky moon now has a chorus. 'You never have to be alone again, Moony,' Sirius had promised him. 

Remus is nineteen, and the world believes he ought to be bound, ought to be put down and wrapped in newspaper, but not gently, not to be gawked at but to be lowered into dirt and forgotten. No wildflowers would grow over his crude grave. But Sirius has reminded him, his warm lips like gossamer against the column of his throat, 'You’re a star, too. We’re right beside the moon, right where we belong.'

To Remus, the dark meant solitude, no other light allowed except that glowing celestial body that has become his master. Now, it’s a time to roam, to nip and lap at the black dog’s heels, to let their hands roam beneath the soft sheets in their dorm, to let stars explode between them; not so unlike their namesakes, scattered on their skin in the language of lovers. Sirius drags his tongue over the planes of his bones, not caring that they protrude and are marked with silver and pink scars. 

Remus was meant to keep his head down; meant for the cold, hard ground. Crouched as the wolf, downtrodden as a boy. Sirius props him lovingly onto a pedestal, threatening to drag the night sky a little closer to the crown of his head, if he has to. “Men can be monsters, too, you know,” Sirius points out, his tone protective, his fingers kneading Remus’ tired joints with reverence. The Black heir, meant for a life of riches and secrets, of violence and opulence, of prejudice and hate, has chosen courage and only the most wild and rash ideas, coming to fruition before the moon can usher in the morning sun. Sirius has chosen to put out his hand as a sanguine offering. ‘See?’ he cajoles before the wolf, the skinny, precocious boy, letting him sniff his knuckles. ‘You’d never hurt me.’ And Remus tries and chooses to trust, to allow himself to be touched and adored, letting the clever Sirius Black show him that he never needed to be tamed, only loved. No one so young, so broken by others, deserves a cage, and Sirius picked the locks of Remus’ himself, deft, tricky digits prying it apart. 

It’s spring, and a war spreads like something sick among them, but for now, Sirius sits at Remus’ side. The Great Lake is as still as a mirror, and of course Sirius is tossing pebbles, if only to see the glassy surface of it ripple. Sirius is gentle and soft with nothing but Remus, not unkindly, but curiously; it’s what Remus loves so much about the black haired boy. Without the moon to upstage them, the stars beam from their places. They are alone, the two boys, their companions tucked away in their beds. They’ve casted the same charms around them, their love private and clandestine, for now, the stars their only audience. Remus has made himself too careful, too guarded, but Sirius deserves to feel coveted, so he throws his caution to the wind and fumbles buttons, tugs at sleeves, revels in the click of buckles unfastening. He lets his gnarled hand reach between their bodies, between Sirius’ legs, and grips him enough so that maybe Sirius will see stars behind his closed eyes. Remus presses his hips into his, their lips like a lock and key, desperate and firm and so soft, Sirius can’t help the deep whimpers that claw from his throat. Sirius’ fingers card through Remus’ ashen hair, drawing him in closer. Sirius digs his fingernails into Remus’ back, anchoring onto him as he chases his release, not unlike two dogs shaking the grass in pursuit of prey. Remus kisses him through his panting, his trembling breath, pulling him back down from the sky. He will find his climax later, in bed, among the softness Sirius deserves.

They are alone, for now, where no one will find them. It may be dark but they have one another. Together, they see twice as many stars as usual.

[toomanyfandoms02]

Walkman -- Fred Weasley

Wow another one huh? Yea :)

Summary - Fred is suddenly interested in muggle studies so the reader teaches him some

Word Count - 1.9k

It wasn't often that other students at Hogwarts cared much about Muggle items. So when Fred had recently taken in interest in muggle studies, he had came to y/n about it.

"Its not that I know nothing, I know plenty from what my father goes on about. But I don't know, I want to learn more." She and Fred had been friends for a little over a year and he hadn't previously expressed any liking to the subject. So why now? Why not just sign up for Muggle Studies?

She didn't care enough to express it aloud.

See, Y/n had grown up as a muggle. Her mum had been a witch but both her and her father feared she wouldn't be a witch because she didn't show the normal signs at a young age. So they sent her to muggle school until she officially got her letter. No one could explain the relief and joy on her mum's face when she saw the letter in their box.

"When do you have time to learn?" She asked with a tilt of her head.

"Any time really. We could practically start now!" He replied excitedly. She shook her head with a smile.

"You're lucky it's a Saturday you git, I'll floo home and grab some stuff to teach you about." And with that she turned and walked away from the boy. For the first time in a while he was genuinly excited to learn something, maybe because his teacher would be someone he fancied. He thought maybe he hadn't felt like this since he discovered he could scare the trousers off his mum by hiding behind doors and jumping out at 6 years old.

And so he waited for her to get back.

While Fred waited at the castle, Y/n appeared suddenly in her homes fireplace. This earned quite the screech from her little brother who was sat on the couch.

And yes, was, he promptly fell off the couch once she appeared.

"Sorry Alastair, just came to grab a few things. Is dad home?" He nodded, pointing behind him to the kitchen where the smell of pancakes wafted through the house.

Not only was Y/n's dad a muggle, he was also American. He had moved from America when he was 17, wanting to escape his horrendous family and have a big change. He met Y/n's mother when he was visiting a museum in Scottland. She had been on a field trip for muggle studies.

"Dad?" He jumped slightly, nearly dropping the spatula he held in his hand.

"Christ Y/n, what are you doing here." He laughed, pulling her into a side hug.

"One of my friends wants to learn more about muggles and asked if I would teach him. Have any recommendations on what I should tell him about?" His eyes narrowed at his daughter.

"Is this that boy I heard you talking to mom about? The tall ginger boy?" Her cheeks flushed at the comment, partially because he had been eavesdropping on her and her mother and partially because he was correct. After a few seconds of silence, she spoke up again.

"Can you just give me ideas please?" He decided not to tease her further and began brewing up ideas for her.

"Alright, I have a few things I think he may like to hear about, literally." This peaked the girls curiosity as she followed him to her parents shared bedroom.

Y/n's dad ruffled through his side table and brought out a Walkman.

"Do you think he's ever used one of these?" He handed it to her nonchalantly.

"Definitely not." She laughed, grabbing it from his hands.

"You could probably just grab a few random things from your room and he wouldn't know what they were. It stunned me how much stuff your mother was unaware of." He shrugged. "You can borrow it for a while. And take this tape, I made it for your mom so she could hear top hits from America."

"Perfect! Thanks Dad." And she was then off to her room in search for more things to show Fred.

It didn't take her long to gather a few things and bring them to her dad to ask what he thought. She spread a pile of things out in front of him and asked him to weed out the things he thought Fred wouldn't understand.

They were left with a slap bracelet, a tamagotchi, the Walkman, and for fun, crayola step markers and stick on earrings from when Y/n was a kid. She thanked her dad with a hug and asked him to say hi to Mom for her and vanished through the floo again with a loud goodbye to her brother.

Once she arrived back, she skipped down the stairs to find Fred in the common room in front of the fireplace. His tie was loosened quite a bit and a few of his top buttons undone on his shirt. She bit the inside of her cheek like she didn often when he made her flustered.

Clearly he didn't have to do much.

"Would you like to come up to my dorm so I can show you some stuff?" She asked through the silence. His head whipped around with a sinister smile.

"Godric that's quite forward of you." He winked. She could feel the inevitable heat rushing to her cheeks at the comment.

"You know that's not what I meant you arse, do you wanna learn or not?" She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the wall behind her.

"Alright let's go." He stood with a laugh, squeezing her shoulder while going to trot up the stairs. She pushed ahead of him and got to her room door. Fred looked at her curiously as she leaned down close to her door handle and whispered into it. The door creaked open as she stood straight.

"What was that?" He asked, plopping on her bed.

"Mione and I charmed the door so that it needs a password. Don't want anyone walking in on is changing and stuff. The only ones who know it is us and Luna." She explained as she shuffled through the bag she brought back from her house.

"Can I know it?" His eyebrow quirked slightly, leaning back on his arms with a wicked smile.

"No you cannot, it's kind of an inside joke. Now scoot so I can show you stuff." He was shoved back slightly so he was sitting closer to the headboard of her bed and she sat opposite. She spread the things out on the bed as he looked at them with a scrunched face. He first picked up the stick ons.

"What are these?" He held them like it was a dirty nappy. She giggled and snatched them from his hands. Her fingers grabbed two of them and she used her other hand to grab his chin and bring his face closer. He stared into her eyes with intensity. She probably thought he was so confident, but it was really a front for how nervous she made him. Y/n quickly turned his head to the side and put the stick-on on his ear, repeating it on the other side.

"Now look in the mirror." He hopped from the bed and turned his head in the reflection with a giddy smile.

"I actually kind of like it." Y/n stuck some to her ears and stood in the mirror with him.

"Now match!" She said enthusiastically. He looked down at her with a sweet smile and adoring eyes.

*This girl was certainly something to him.*

"Alright more. This one is pretty self explanatory. It's called a slap bracelet. Put your wrist out." He did so with a suspicious look. She raised it and hit it to his wrist as it wrapped around it. She had never seen someone look so amazed. He took it off, straightened it, and did it again.

"That's phenomenal!"

"They make ruler versions of them too so you can carry around a ruler as a bracelet. I used them in primary."

It took her an exponentially long time to explain the tamagotchi to Fred. He was beyond confused about it. But they ended up taking care of what he called 'their baby' for a good 25 minutes.

*Their baby*

This of course wasnt something Y/n would really think about until weeks later. Daft woman.

They had really stamped up each others arms with the stamp markers as well. Along with a little heart Y/n had stamped sneakily on Fred's cheek.

She of course saved the best for last, the Walkman. She slipped the tape into it and handed it to him, teaching hin the buttons.

"This is a Walkman, for music. My dad said he has top his of the decade on it for my mom." She set the headphones on his head and pressed play. She could very mildly hear 'Wannabee' by the Spice girls leaking through the headset. She very slightly slid one side of the headset off of his ear so he could hear her, brushing his cheek on accident. Not that she noticed.

But he did.

"If you hold down this button it skips the song onto the next one." He held it done and 'I Want it that Way' by Backstreet Boys was playing. He really got into this song. He hooked the player onto his packet and got up and started dancing all dramatic. She sat up against her headboard just watching him enjoy herself.

Now, Y/n tended to say her thoughts aloud when she was extremely zoned in or out. It's not something that was intentional, it was actually something she hated. Most the time it got her into trouble. Most the time after it happend all she could think was simply.

*Well Shit*

"I'm so in love with you." It slipped effortlessly, ber eyes widening as soon as tr he words were said. She thought maybe she could have gotten lucky and the music would still be blaring in his ears. But since when was the girl lucky?

Fred slowly pulled the headphones from his head and scrunched his eyebrows.

"You are?" She couldn't read the exact emotion on his face, making her afraid to answer. So she just nodded. He sat by her slowly, not facing her, just sitting next to her. They both stared straight forward.

All you could hear in the room was the very subtle music leaking from the headphones at the end of the bed.

Fred felt like such a wimp. She literally just confessed her love to him. One he shared for her, and he couldn't even say anything. Maybe he was just stunned.

Suddenly she reached for his hand and intertwined their fingers, turning to look at him. He smiled and grabbed the side of her jaw so gently.

"I'm so in love with you too." She smiled with a small giggle and leaned in to kiss him, pulling away faster than Fred would have liked.

"WeasleBottom." She said suddenly, catching him completely off guard.

"What?"

"That's the password. It's a mixture of the last names of our crushes. Pretty cheesy huh?" He shook his head with a laugh.

"I think it's pretty flattering." He pulled her in for another kiss. "You getting why I wanted to learn about muggle stuff now?"

"For me?" She smiled with her hand over her heart.

"Of course for you."

*Anything for her.*

[hops-hunny]

Distance Makes the Heart Grow

CHAPTER 6.5

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Mafia Boss!Neville Longbottom x Reader

Pronouns: She/Her

Word Count: 1.5k

Summary: (Y/n) lives a normal life. But that’s the issue, it’s normal, it’s plain, and it’s growing boring. Everyday she wishes for something, anything to spice up her life. But, when her old school friend (and crush) shows up at her bakery with a new look (and what looks like a new life), what will it bring for her? Will their puppy love grow? Will his big secret lead to the end of them or will it spark a new beginning?

Warnings: mention of guns

A/N: This takes place during (Y/n) and Twyla’s shopping trip during chapter 6!

Annoyed. That was what bore a semblance of how Neville was currently feeling. He knew that this was the sole and only important reason they had come to Italy but that didn’t stop the tugging in his heart when he and (Y/n) had to part ways. Pulling out a lighter, he sparked his blunt as he continued to walk before he sat at the end of the table, clearing his throat.

“Let’s get this shit over with,” he took a long drag before setting it down in the ashtray in front of him, clasping his hands together.”I’ve already devised a plan, it’s just a matter of it will all work out in person not just in theory.”

“What’s the plan boss? Obviously it’s a great one if me and Georgie are needed.” Fred perked up, snickering alongside his brother. Neville rolled his eyes, looking back down at the page in front of him.

“Right. You, Seamus, and George are all going undercover. Harrison has already taken the liberty of getting the museum guard uniforms. Fred and George, you’ll be stationed near the exhibit entrance and exit while Seamus will be stationed near the back of the museum in order to sneak some of our men in.” the three men nodded, grabbing the uniforms they were handed. “Draco you’ll keep look out around the museum for anyone that may give us away and Blaise will snipe from afar if you need him to.” Draco and Blaise nodded before fist bumping, excited to be working partnered together on a mission once more.

“What bout me boss?” Ron asked, nervous that nothing had been assigned to him yet. Neville chuckled at his obvious nerves giving him a reassuring pat on the back.

“Can’t do much without my right hand man can I? You’ll be alongside me ready to aim and fire when ready. Harry will be disengaging the security cameras and other mechanisms which is why it’s important for Draco to keep an eye out while he’s doing this. And as per usual, Harrison’s already set some cameras of his own up and will be staying here in the camera to make sure we all stay in line and run smoothly.” he sighed, hands on the table as he stood leaning forward with a serious expression. “This mission is going to be one of the most dangerous ones we’ve done in a while. One wrong move and it’s all going to shit. If everything goes right we’ll only end up with a few dead bodies and a lot of priceless things. Any questions?” Everyone shook their heads. 

Although the room had fallen silent it was clear from everyone’s face that they were filled with all the determination and confidence that was needed to pull something this elaborate off. All the skill and mastery required was right there and if anything had been clear before it was that they weren’t going down without a fight. Neville looked at Harrison, watching as he computed the logistics of it all in his head.

“This is some of your best work to date, boss. Now that the plan is done, all that’s left to do is a quick scan of the building so we can all get familiarized. We can all split up in different groups in order to cover the most area.” he snapped his fingers, causing one of the croney’s to bring him a small box. Opening it up, they all stared at the seemingly empty box curiously. “In order for communication to go as smoothly as possible, I recommend you all use these earpieces. We should start with them today in order to get used to them.” the boys each grabbed one of the small things putting them in their ear as they turned them on, all testing them out in their own stupid ways.

“Man, this is awesome!”

“Seamus turn your fucking ear piece off we aren’t there yet!”

----------------------------------------

Deciding the easiest way to enter was to do it the right way, they all paid for their tickets before branching off. Despite them all having assigned partners, the way they had branched off was not who they were assigned to at all. So as he walked through the museum, deep in thought, Blaise accompanied him.

“So boss, after that scenario earlier I’m assuming you fucked her already right? She’s quite fit isn-”

“I’m not above finding you and pulling out this gun Finnegan.” he responded, keeping his ear piece unmuted as Blaise chuckled beside him, shaking their head.

“Please, you really think the boss fucked her? He adores that girl. Surprised he hasn’t asked her out yet. You nervous, boss?” Blaise teased, tensing as he noticed the man had stopped walking. “Boss?”

Neville bit the inside of his cheek before looking up at his friend. Muting his ear piece once more he sighed catching up with him. “It’s just...I’ve never actually tried this whole love thing before. I wanna give her the best and not fuck it up but I’m….lost.” continuing their course, Blaise made note of where the vents where considering that was the most ideal place for them to be when it was all taking place. If he was to be there he’d have range of shooting without having to worry about being seen. “If you cared for someone so..deeply, how would you tell them?”

“You know, you came to the right person.” Blaise responded, a genuine but smug smile on his face. This was once again proving that he had the most luck when it came to romantic endeavors. Sure they never lasted long but they loved each of his partners in his own way. “Why not do something cliche for her? Considering she’s hadn’t even had her first kiss before you she’s most certainly probably not had her first date. Maybe buy her some flowers, take her to the best restaurant money can buy, get her a nice dinner and when the dessert comes out? That’s when you ask her out. Then to celebrate, take her on a Gondola in Venice.” Neville looked at him shocked. Why hadn’t he thought of any of those things? He was sure she’d love it. He could still recall those muggle romance novels she’d read, rambling about the happy endings she so badly wanted.

“Thanks mate. But how should I-”

“Tell her? Well that part is simple. Tell her how she makes you feel and once you’ve done that, the hard part is over.” he chuckled at the man’s flushed cheeks at the thought of his soon to be lover before turning the corner. “Come on boss, let’s check out that exhibit.”

--------------------------------------

“Hey Seamus, race ya to that room of paintings over there!” George said, laughing as he took off. Seamus gasp, beginning to run after him.

“Wait! No fair you didn’t- hey doesn’t she look familiar?” he asked, nudging his head to a tuft of (h/c) hair. George looked at the woman before nodding, eyeing her curiously. It was though she was familiar and yet completely unfamiliar in other ways. Walking over to her he placed a hand on her shoulder. “(Y/n)? I thought you had gone off with- oh.” he trailed off as the woman turned around, revealing a woman who bared somewhat of a semblance to the woman he thought her to be, but not an exact one. Rolling his eyes, he felt the vein in his forehead twitch as a wide tooth smile formed from behind the woman’s red lips. “Hey Gisele.”

“Seamus darling! Long time no see, yes?” she shrilled out, holding out her hand to him. He did the polite thing to do, bowing as he placed a kiss on the top of her. “You know, being the top model here in Europe takes up so much of my time! I’m here for a photoshoot but what brings you here? You’re an awfully long way from home. I’m assuming that boss of yours is here too?” the woman’s French accent echoed in her lilted voice, peaking over his shoulder for the man she had mentioned. At just that second he passed behind her leading her to try and step around Seamus, which he shut down immediately. Gripping her shoulders harshly, he flashed a few fake smiles to passing people before turning an intense look to the woman.

“Listen Gisele, Neville doesn’t want anything to do with you. I think he made that quite fucking clear a year ago when he kicked you to the curb. You were never meant to be more than a fling and you know it. He’s a lot happier now and if you so much as attempt to speak to him,” he chuckled darkly, flashing his gun at her which caused the woman to gasp. “I’m not above taking matters into my own hands. Some of the others may have a no woman or children rule but I don’t. Consider this a fat fucking warning.” and with that he walked off, leaving the woman to consider his words.

She looked at him over her shoulder huffing before walking off angrily.

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TAGSLIST: @vayeya11 @pink-hufflepuff @clancyscookies @elemental-of-magic @beewitchedlou @simpforremuslupin @mottergirl99 @princesslaiahg @nevillelongbottomsgirlfriend @redpanda-poetry @vibingaesthetically​

[missmary]

Where: Some wizarding museum where something exciting just got discovered I guess Who: Mary && @ashton-richardson​

She hadn’t meant to listen in on the tail end of the interview happening because really she was trying to finish off her work and the fact that there was someone from the WWN at the museum she was at shouldn’t be enough to distract her but as he closed off the interview with a typical spiel that included who he was, the name caught her attention.

“Richardson,” she repeated, more to herself than anything, although she found herself looking at him curiously when she commented, a little louder, “My grandma was a Richardson.” Then her cheeks flooded with colour when she remembered how her grandma had been treated by her family. Pushed away because of her marriage to a muggleborn, rejected completely when she gave birth to a squib. Named the pariah of the family and used as an example of why their blood purity crap made sense. “I mean… I’m sure it’s a common surname,” she said in a nervous voice, hoping he would dismiss the comment and not question if they were related. It was a common surname in the Muggle world, just she didn’t think it was so common in the Wizarding World.

[littlerose13writes]

The Statue of Secretsy by littlerose13

Tiny ficlet I wrote ages ago, enjoy! Read it on AO3 here

Scorpius held Mummy’s hand in a relaxed and loose grip as he peered curiously at the display. This was his favourite exhibition room because there was a crocodile skeleton and lots and lots of old bones which were lit up all prettily in glass cases. 

“Now, children, these bones here were found buried deep underground and we now know they were once part of a dinosaur skeleton, millions of years ago.” Somebody who worked for the museum spoke loudly.

Mummy shared a knowing look with Scorpius and pressed a finger to her lips. They both knew those weren’t really dinosaur bones at all like the muggles thought. 

When he looked up at the man speaking, it wasn’t his words which mystified Scorpius but the audience he was speaking to. A gathering of around twenty other children, all his age and all wearing the same blue jumpers. Scorpius hardly ever got to see other children like him, and these children were even more interesting because they were muggles. He’d always wanted to be friends with a muggle. 

To Scorpius’ surprise, the group of children dispersed and started looking around at the dinosaur bones too. Scorpius tentatively let go of Mummy’s hand and she nodded kindly, giving him permission to seek out his favourite ever piece in the whole room. He found it with ease, after all, it was his favourite.

There was another little boy looking at Scorpius’ favourite bone curiously. Scorpius stayed a few steps away. He didn’t know if he was allowed to look at his favourite bone at the same time as another little boy or if he had to wait until the other boy was finished. The other boy didn’t take his eyes off the bone, but he reached into his pocket and withdrew something small and green. As he held up the small something and compared it to the bone, Scorpius gasped because he’d seen what it was. 

The little boy jumped and his eyes fell on Scorpius straight away, his hand flying back to his pocket with the small, green something. He looked a bit guilty, like he’d been caught eating a biscuit from Daddy’s Special Biscuit Tin, but Scorpius couldn’t worry about that right now. 

“How did you know what it was?” he asked eagerly, approaching the boy, who looked slightly wary. “That bone there, you know it’s from a dragon’s wing. But how?” 

“I don’t know what I know. I saw it and it looked nice and then I putted my dwagon by it because I fought they looked the same. I don’t know all the fings about it, you should ask that man.” He pointed nervously over his shoulder at the man who worked for the museum.

“You have a dragon?” Scorpius asked incredulously. 

The boy nodded shyly and reached his hand into his pocket again. He withdrew a stuffed, toy dragon; it looked like a Common Welsh Green to Scorpius. 

“It’s a Common Welsh Gween,” the boy explained and Scorpius goggled at him. He didn’t know that muggles knew all about dragons!

“How did you know that?” Scorpius asked before he could stop himself. 

“‘cause my Uncle Charlie is actually a dragons expert and he knows all about dragons and he buyed Gwyffindor for my birthday when I was little.” The boy held his toy dragon out to show Scorpius but he could only focus on one word the little boy had said. 

“Gryffindor?” 

“Yep, Gwyffindor. It’s this thing what you might not know about if your mummy and daddy didn’t go to Hog-“ 

The boy stopped speaking, his eyes wide, and he suddenly looked so worried, like he was going to cry. 

“I’m not allowed to talk about that at school. Mummy said I’m all old enough now to be responbible, because I’m nearly five and I go to school now.” He puffed out his chest. 

“I’m already five.” 

“How comes you don’t go to school too then?” The boy put the dragon back in his pocket and looked at Scorpius again carefully. Scorpius thought he was checking to see if he was wearing a school uniform, but everyone knew you didn’t wear a uniform until you got to Hogwarts, unless you were a muggle.  

“I don’t start school ‘til I’m eleven. But then I go away on a train and do my school lessons in a castle and learn about ma-“ He’d got too excited and was almost doing the one thing mummy always said he wasn’t allowed to do. “Sorry, I can’t say anymore because of the Statue of Secretsy.” 

“I got a Statue of Secretsy too. You won’t tell nobody will you?” 

Scorpius shook his head. “I’m so good at keeping secrets.” 

“Me too. Mummy says good wizards keep their special secrets.” 

Scorpius’ eyes widened. This little boy had a secret like him, and he said Gryffindor, and he just said wizard.

“I’m a wizard!” Scorpius blurted out before he could stop himself. 

The boy narrowed his eyes slightly. “Sorry, but I don’t fink you are really. But you can pretend to be a wizard! My daddy says a spell what goes like accio and stuff flies to him. You can say that one if you want.” 

Scorpius clasped his hands together and span his fingers round and round in agitation. This boy needed to understand that Scorpius really was a wizard, and his daddy used accio at home too! 

“It won’t work if I just say it. You’ve got to have a wand for accio to work.” 

“One time, my big bruvva, James took Daddy’s wand when he was asleep and he waved it and my little sister, Lily had a pineapple on her head and Mummy was so cross and James tried to say it was me but it wasn’t me because I’m always good and I would never take Daddy’s wand ever.” 

Scorpius tried to imagine taking his daddy’s wand when he was asleep to play with it. He knew that would be very, very bad and not something a good, kind boy should do. 

“Me too!” 

“My daddy’s wand has a foenix feaver inside of it. That’s this bird what goes on fire and never, ever dies.” 

“I know what a phoenix is! But I’ve never seen one before.” 

“Me too,” the boy said glumly. 

“So, if your daddy has a wand too, does that mean you’re not a muggle?” 

The boy looked shocked. “Oh no! I said the secret by accident. I bet I’m going to get in trouble.”

“No, I said the secret because I told you I’m a wizard first.” Scorpius’ eyebrows shot up his forehead. “Does that mean I’m going to get in trouble?” 

The little boy tapped his chin like he was thinking if Scorpius was going to get in trouble or not. 

“But if you said the secret, and I said the secret, and we both already knowed the secret, can’t we share the secret?” 

“I think I’m allowed to tell another wizard that I’m a wizard. I’ve never met another wizard who was five too.” 

“I’m nearly five,” the boy reminded him. “But I am a real wizard, pwomise. I just don’t got my wand yet ‘cause you don’t get a wand ‘til you go to Hogwarts.” 

“I know all about Hogwarts and a wand! I’m a real wizard too, honestly.” 

They smiled at each other, and Scorpius wondered if this meant they were friends now. Mummy always said that having a friend meant having someone special you could tell anything about yourself to. He’d never had a friend before. 

“Ladybird class, time to line up!” 

The little boy jumped in surprise at an adult’s voice. “I gotta go to line up. I’m the line leader this week.”

Scorpius didn’t know what a line leader was, or where ‘line up’ even was, but the boy looked very happy to be going there so it was obviously somewhere good. Scorpius wondered if he was the line leader on any weeks. 

“Okay, have fun at line up. Bye.” Scorpius waved as the boy waved back and went to stand with the other children in blue jumpers. They stood all neatly, one behind the other, and the boy who was really a wizard stood at the very front and held his teacher’s hand. 

“Did you like the dinosaur bones, children?” the museum man asked and they all chorused yes in response, except for the little boy. He caught Scorpius’ eye and mouthed dragons with a shake of his head. Scorpius smiled and waved again.

“Were you making friends, Scorpy?” Mummy came up behind him and Scorpius realised that he hadn’t even known where she was for this whole time. He suddenly felt bad that he hadn’t missed her. 

“Mummy,” he whispered, “I made friends with that boy and he’s a wizard.” 

Mummy’s eyes widened and she carefully peered over at the children in blue jumpers, who were starting to walk away. 

“Is he really, darling?” Mummy sounded like she thought Scorpius was making up a story, like he often did when they were tidying the playroom together. 

“Really.” Scorpius held her hand again and looked up into her eyes. “Mummy, when is it my week to be line leader?” 

[almostarchaeology]

Hogwarts Needs Archaeologists, Part 2: Excavating Magic

By Adrián Maldonado

In the last blog post, I realized that despite being suffused with ancient artefacts, the wizarding world of Harry Potter didn’t seem to have any archaeologists. Instead, wizards and witches live in a weirdly eternal present with little sense of how things have come to be as they are, and this ultimately caused them no end of trouble. So much of the story hinges on prominent characters not knowing about artefacts and landscapes of medieval origin that it seemed clear that the establishment of a Wizarding Museum or department of Magical Material Culture Studies at Hogwarts may have genuinely saved them from war.

Harry Potter Studio Tour: closest we’ll get to a wizarding museum (source)

Even though wizards can’t be arsed learning about their own past, it behooves us muggle archaeologists to interrogate this invisible but fundamental aspect of our shared human past. As the books make clear, muggles and wizards are all just human. The separation between the two has its roots in the same intellectual fallacy of early modern thought which gave muggles the concept of race – that human ability could be measured in purity of ‘blood’. Beyond a focus on antiquities, attention to the archaeological context of the wizarding world is essential to the project of interrogating the human condition, and will produce new insights on the muggle past and present. To learn more, we will have to conduct some fieldwork of our own.

When is magic?

Before we start planning the Godric’s Hollow Big Dig, we need to know how archaeology might work in the wizarding world. Looking back at these stories with nerd-tinted spectacles, it seems to me that magic changes over time, and the ways it is deployed may tell us something about the human journey, magically-abled or otherwise.

No - obviously no we don’t

We know there are one or two people who care about history and magical theory, because in Philosopher’s Stone we get a list of textbooks assigned to first-years at Hogwarts which includes A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot and Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling. However, we get precious few glimpses into these texts as Harry does not seem to read. We also know these are used in some of the most boring and tedious courses taught at Hogwarts, ensuring few wizards would want to go on to study them further. Occupy the curriculum!

As we explored in the previous post, it seems that history in the wizarding world seems to begin only around a thousand years ago, when Hogwarts was founded. Much of what passes for history is the merely the genealogy of famous houses. It is curiously similar to Europe in the early nineteenth century, when there was an awareness of classical antiquity, but no such concept as prehistory. Perhaps it is a world that somehow has not yet discovered archaeology?

Archaeology > time travel (source)

Perhaps, one might argue, there is no need for wizarding archaeologists because wizards have time-turners which allow time travel. However, it so happens that time travel beyond a few hours in the past is extremely dangerous and heavily regulated, and in any case all of the remaining time-turners in the Department of Mysteries were destroyed in the Second Wizarding War.

That notwithstanding, one might also argue that wizards don’t need archaeology because anyone could stand in a field and cast spells like Accio coin hoard, or Revelio Roman villa and be done with it. But as with metal detecting, simply ripping an object out the ground does not help you understand why it got there, and if done poorly it may even impede the possibility of reconstructing its context later. Similarly, chasing the walls of a Roman villa would destroy the evidence of just how it was reduced to its foundations and what happened in this spot for the next two millennia. This would not be archaeology, but antiquarianism. And we don’t even seem to have that.

That said, it would be great to magically de-turf, sieve and cart away spoil. We could sure use the help backfilling, too.

But what about excavating magical sites? Can magic be excavated? Do we even know when magic began? Could archaeologists help find out?

Awareness of enchantments

Dunno Harry - it’s either paleolithic or a horcrux (source)

A lot of our knowledge of how magic works in the Potterverse comes from the fleeting glimpses we get of masters like Dumbledore at work. In the iconic 26th chapter of Half-Blood Prince, The Cave, we watch the headmaster undertake some hardcore field survey.

“Magic always leaves traces”, he explains as he detects the curses and spells that Tom Riddle placed to secure the hiding place of one of his horcruxes.

Harry could not tell whether the shivers he was experiencing were due to his spine-deep coldness or to the same awareness of enchantments. Dumbledore approached the wall of the cave and caressed it with his blackened fingertips, murmuring words in a strange tongue that Harry did not understand. Twice Dumbledore walked right around the cave, touching as much of the rough rock as he could, occasionally pausing, running his fingers backwards and forwards over a particular spot…

Dark magic, at least, seems to be detectable, at least to those, like Dumbledore and Harry, lucky enough to have been born in Godric’s Hollow, where all of British wizarding history starts and ends. Throughout the books, we hear occasional stories of places or objects having ‘old magic’, which also gives off some sort of distinctive trace. Indeed, there seems to be nothing worse than old Dark magic, which leaves more than just a trace. This is most aptly described in the Pottermore essay on Azkaban, which was only discovered after its occupier, the dark sorcerer Ekrizdis, died and its concealment charms faded away. “Experts who had studied buildings built with and around Dark magic contended that Azkaban might wreak its own revenge upon anybody attempting to destroy it.” Wait, there are experts in magical architectural history but not archaeology? That figures, actually – in its origins, medieval archaeology was itself mainly about unearthing the ground plans of castles and cathedrals.

As many of our archaeological textbooks tell us, excavation is managed destruction. So would it ever be possible to excavate a site of old Dark magic, or would this count as an attempt to ‘destroy’ it? And how would one know until one tried to dig there? Speaking as a former archaeology health and safety officer, I can’t help but think of the threat old Dark magic might pose to any novice archaeowizard who works on such sites. Real-world archaeologists need to make sure they are up to date on all their vaccinations, but I’m not sure what can be done to prevent accidental cursing by taking a mattock to the wrong enchanted soil layer.

Revelio stratigraphy

Dumbledore’s methodology and Harry’s ‘awareness of enchantments’ lead me to believe that such threats can be averted, or at least mitigated, by undertaking preventative magophysical survey. The question is whether the traces of spells that Dumbledore and Harry can sense have a physical signature that can be isolated and detected mechanically – or perhaps, by wand. Wandmaker Ollivander’s notes on wand woods shows that some woods may be more receptive to the natural world than others; for instance, “Hazel wands also have the unique ability to detect water underground, and will emit silvery, tear-shaped puffs of smoke if passing over concealed springs and wells.” In this instance at least, it seems that wands can have involuntary, mechanical responses to certain external stimuli. Other woods and wand cores are also said to have the ability to learn and detect magical character. In short, this is an area that needs a lot more research, but would still be restricted to the wizarding population, which, as we have already seen, could barely give a toss about their own heritage.

People and things in the Potterverse

Old magic can be the most powerful (source)

Speaking of wands, these ‘objects’ open up some pretty fundamental questions about the nature of things and people in the Potterverse. This was all explored in some depth in my scriptural commentary of choice, Binge Mode Harry Potter episode 55, wherein Jason Concepcion devoted a Restricted Section to wands. From the beginning of the series, we are told that wands are semi-animate objects with agency of their own. Wands famously ‘choose’ their owners, but it does not end there; in his notes on wand woods, Ollivander observes that hazel wands die with their owners, and that 

Hornbeam wands likewise absorb their owner’s code of honour, whatever that might be, and will refuse to perform acts – whether for good or ill – that do not tally with their master’s principles. A particularly fine-tuned and sentient wand.” [Emphasis mine] 

Most interestingly, wands seem to become a part of their owner’s essence; as wandmaker Ollivander explains, “each wand is the composite of its wood, its core and the experience and nature of its owner”. What he is describing here is a rudimentary sort of assemblage theory.

Assembling the wizard (source)

It seems wands are only ‘objects’ until they choose an owner, at which point they become part-person. And as we saw in a previous post, wands and pensieves are often buried with their owners, as if they are indivisibly entwined with the wizard, even after death. In a similar but more sinister way, Voldemort is able to ensoul objects, and these Horcruxes take on shades of his person which enact his will on anyone who encounters them. The wizarding world is full of objects that are part-people, or is it people that are part object?

This should come as no surprise to anthropologists. For decades theorists have explored all the different ways in which we are entangled with the people, things, environments and social structures in which we are embedded. We look to other continents and distant pasts to seek parallels when they are all around us. For instance, ancient Egyptians had a complicated idea of what constituted the person, from the physical body to several aspects of what we patronisingly call ‘the soul’, mainly because we cannot translate its complexity into any other Judeo-Christian terminology. These include the name, the heart and the shadow, and it is striking how many of these aspects of the person could be made to reside into what we would call inanimate objects.

The Enlightenment notion of the individual with unlimited agency, existing only within the bounds of their own bodies and minds, is very much out of fashion, as I have accidentally already explored in previous posts on this blog. We have trouble dissociating people from their belongings after they die, as if they remain uncannily inhabited. We send our names to space by the thousands, because it matters that this aspect of our selves is preserved in some way. Wizards are merely cyborgs, but then, aren’t we all?

Excavating the self

His teaching style was unorthodox to say the least (Warner Bros. Pictures)

The problem here is that the Harry Potter cycle is, on the face of it, distinctly repulsed by the idea of a soul being split up and distributed among objects and people. But this critique always kind of rang false for me. Voldemort is guilty of lots of things (murder, bigotry, aversion to rhinoplasty), but not the inhabitation of objects. The story is full of ways in which people are permeable beyond horcruxes; wands, pensieves, names, portraits, ghosts, Tom Riddle’s diary and the Sorting Hat, which contains the ‘intelligence’ of the Hogwarts founders, all ‘store’ an essence of the person. As we saw in the previous post, the Hogwarts founders are represented by objects which act as relics. At one point, Hermione even becomes multiple selves in her third year with a time-turner. More mystical happenings involve the permeation of one’s self into another: Lily Potter’s love shields Harry; Snape’s Patronus becomes Lily’s doe; Harry’s Patronus is his father’s. Through the wands, the self is extended. In the pensieve, memory becomes material, reminding us that thoughts, emotions and perhaps even magic, are of the body. “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?”

Without digging a single trench or featuring a single archaeologist, Rowling’s universe predicted a lot that would become fashionable in archaeological theory in the 21st century. Perhaps the most important lesson imparted by the books is that the difference between muggles and wizards is simply awareness. It is not only muggles who are unaware of the magic world under our feet (and apparently latent in our blood). Wizards are also unaware of where and when their powers reside. And if wizards could be convinced to take a material turn, what might muggles achieve by exploring their own entanglement with the wizarding world? Might we excavate an awareness of the enchantment within us all?

***

Back to Part 1: Fantastic Antiquities and Where to Find Them

Follow us on @AlmostArch

[aidanchaser]

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Everyone Lives AU

Table of Contents beta’d by @ageofzero​

Chapter Five The Whomping Willow

James did not scold the same way Molly Weasley did. He did not get red-faced and shout until he was hoarse. His voice was calm, steady, and Harry thought that made it worse, because it always made him feel guilty. Which is why he was very glad his father was not scolding him tonight.

“How could you?” he said, in a low, disappointed voice. “You knew it was a bad day for Remus, you were supposed to be the responsible adult, there were children and Muggles there — How could you?”

“That’s why,” Sirius protested. “Someone needed to hit Malfoy for being a prejudiced git.”

“That is not your job, Padfoot!” James raised his voice just enough to carry into the kitchen but not quite shouting.

“I’m fine, James,” Remus said from the couch. “And so is Harry.”

Harry looked up from his copy of Magical Me. He was still trying to decide if he would side with Sirius or his dad about Gilderoy Lockhart. “It was great, Dad. Sirius and Mr. Weasley were totally in the right. Someone had to punch Malfoy.”

“Yes, I know Malfoy needs to be punched in the face, but it shouldn’t have been Sirius and it should have been in Diagon Alley. There’s no need to go brawling in bookstores over Malfoy’s bad behavior.”

Sirius waved a hand dismissively. “You’re over-exaggerating.”

“He really isn’t,” Remus said quietly.

Before James and Sirius could start arguing again, Lily came out of the kitchen with a steaming cup in her hand. She handed it to Remus. “It’s best when it’s freshest.”

Remus wrinkled his nose as he took the cup from her. “Best, maybe, but there’s really no way to make it taste good.” He knocked the drink back like a dram of cold medicine, except it was a full glass instead of only a small dosage.

Harry thought Uncle Remus looked even more sick as he handed the glass back to Lily, but Harry understood that the benefits of the potion would be more obvious tomorrow night. One time, he asked if he could try a sip of it, just to see what it was like, but his parents had said no. Lily explained there was aconite in it, which was highly toxic, and they couldn’t be sure how safe it was for anyone else to drink.

“Stay here tonight,” James said.

“I really shouldn’t,” said Remus.

“We insist.” And Lily didn’t give Remus room to argue. She took the glass back into the kitchen.

“Can Sirius stay too?” Harry asked. He wanted to go through the old book with Sirius. He thought the present would be more exciting if he could share it with Sirius.

James, however, did not seem thrilled about the idea of Sirius spending the night.

“I think,” Remus said slowly, “Sirius might be in the doghouse.”

When Lily came back into the living room, Sirius was on the floor laughing, and James had taken a seat on the couch, shaking from restrained laughter. She clearly didn’t know what had ended the fighting, but she seemed glad they were in better spirits.

That night, Lily made up a spare room for Remus, and James prepared a room for Sirius.

The next night, James and Sirius went to stay with Remus, leaving Lily and Harry home alone.

She helped him through his school work and frowned at the list of textbooks for Defense Against the Dark Arts.

“Sirius said Dad likes him,” Harry said.

“Your father likes excitement and Lockhart writes adventure stories, but they’re hardly textbooks for Defense Against the Dark Arts. If I’d realized he was your new Defense teacher, I’d have had a few more words for Dumbledore the other day!”

“What did you and Dumbledore talk about?” Harry asked. “Was it about Dobby? Because I’m sure that was just Draco Malfoy playing a stupid prank on me.”

Lily leaned over the table to brush Harry’s bangs out of his face. “Dumbledore and your father and I all agree that Hogwarts is the best place for you right now, and he assured us they would take extra precautions. Though I’m not sure I should send you off to learn from Lockhart, when I can teach you far better at home.”

“Why don’t you teach at Hogwarts?” Harry suggested. “At least you’d be better than Professor Quirrell. And you and Dad are both Order of Merlin. That makes you qualified, right?”

She laughed lightly. “I’m not sure I have the patience to teach a classroom full of rowdy students.”

“You’ve got patience with me and Dad.”

“Yes, but I love you and your dad. It makes a difference.” She smiled and kissed Harry’s forehead. “Remus would make a far better teacher than I would.”

“Why doesn’t he?” Harry was quite glad to be off the subject of his homework. “Uncle Remus would be a really good teacher.”

Lily tapped her fingers on the table thoughtfully. “He thinks his condition makes it impossible for him to teach, and that it would be unwise for him to go to Hogwarts.”

“He just gets a little sick,” Harry shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. It’s not like he can help it.”

“I agree.” Lily smiled a sad sort of smile, and Harry wondered what she was thinking. He knew that the sort of people who didn’t approve of his mother were also the sort of people who didn’t approve of Uncle Remus. People like Draco and his father. People like Sirius’s family.

Harry had heard a few stories about Remus’s transformations from his father and from Sirius. He knew that was where the dog jokes came from, and why James laughed every time Lily called him, “dear.” He wondered how much worse it had been without the potion. Harry tried to imagine what it would be like, at his age, to be that sick every month, with no potion to help. Harry had read enough horror stories about vicious werewolves, and enough articles in the back of the Daily Prophet to get an idea of how terrifying it must have been.

He picked up one of his textbooks, Wandering with Werewolves, and opened it curiously. It fell open of its own accord to an illustration of Gilderoy Lockhart facing about six or seven fully-transformed werewolves. The werewolves were particularly nasty looking, with fangs bared and drool dripping from blood-stained teeth that still held bits of what was either flesh or fabric. Gilderoy Lockhart stood between them and the viewer, but he was looking back over his shoulder and winking with his wand flourished. Harry thought it was not only a poor representation of werewolves, but a poor way to face any attacking monster.

He closed the book and looked at Lily. “Why don’t all werewolves do what Uncle Remus does?”

Lily picked up Marauding with Monsters and frowned at the cover. “The Wolfsbane potion is both very expensive and very difficult to brew. And it needs to be taken every day for the week leading up to the transformation. If Remus didn’t have your father to pay for it and me to brew it every month, it’s unlikely he could afford it.”

“Did you have to brew it when he was at school too?”

“No, the potion is a rather recent invention. I wasn’t close to Remus then, but I believe his transformations when he was in school were very hard for him.”

“But then Dad and Sirius helped, right?” Harry knew a little bit about James and Sirius being Animagi. James didn’t transform often — he once mentioned it was illegal — but he and Sirius frequently made jokes about their forms. Like the doghouse joke from yesterday. And Sirius had been happy to let Harry ride around on his large, Irish Wolfhound form when Harry had been small enough, or even been a very large, warm, soft pillow when Harry needed help falling asleep.

“What your father and Sirius did was very dangerous. They could have killed themselves, and if anyone found out, they might’ve gone to prison.”

“But it was for a good cause,” Harry said. “Helping Uncle Remus “

Lily sighed. “You and your father are too much alike sometimes.”

“I only had one detention last year,” Harry protested.

“I just mean that you’ll both do anything to protect people you care about. Well, I suppose I can’t fault him for that. I’d do it, too.” But she seemed sad when she said it. She tossed Marauding with Monsters back into Harry’s pile of school books. “Let’s do something productive. Like Potions homework.”

Harry groaned loudly and dramatically dropped his head to the table. “I hate Potions.”

“If you get top marks this year, I’ll show you how to make the Wolfsbane potion.”

This perked Harry right up. He went through his Potions homework with a renewed interest, though he was sure when he got to school and had to face Snape, it wouldn’t help.

—————————— ✶✶✶——————————

Summer ended far too quickly.

As much as Harry wanted to go back to Hogwarts and see his friends, he would miss home, and motorcycle rides with Sirius, and Quidditch with his dad, and cooking with his mother. He was excited about his new book though.

“Book” wasn’t exactly the best word for it. It had pages that looked like they were part of a journal. Other pages looked like they’d been ripped out of spellbooks and sewn into the new book. Some pages were not sewn in very well, and would fall out if not carefully tucked when the book was closed. Between some pages were letters with names on them that Harry was familiar with, like Malfoy, Black, and Prewett. Then there were names Harry was not familiar with, like Lestrange and Rosier. And the dates on them went as far back as the seventeenth century.

Harry had gone through the book with Sirius, which was good, because Sirius weeded out some of the nastier letters that had been tucked away between the leather bindings. Harry thought the older ones really belonged in a museum, but Sirius said, as he burned them with a small incendiary charm, “There’s no sense in preserving pureblood drivel.”

Sirius also managed to mark the particularly dark spells, and warn Harry about a few that were too risky for a second yearn to try. Harry was proud that Sirius trusted him with the knowledge of those spells, and that pride was enough of a deterrent from using them. For now, at least.

That, and his mother still promised to teach him the Wolfsbane Potion if he did well in Potions, and his father had promised him a Nimbus 2001 if Harry didn’t get any detentions this year.

“Even for a good cause, like smuggling a dragon out of school?” Harry had asked, and James had hesitated, but eventually nodded. “Even for a good cause.”

Harry was determined to stay out of trouble.

The problem was, trouble came looking for Harry.

It started when he tried to get on the Hogwarts Express. James, Lily, Harry, Sirius, and Remus all made good time to the station. It was only ten-thirty. But when Harry pushed his cart against the barrier between platforms nine and ten, instead of passing through to platform nine-and-three-quarters, his cart crashed to the ground.

There was a huge delay, with wizards struggling to fix whatever had gone wrong, and by ten-forty-five, the barrier was repaired and a dozen students and parents rushed to get to the train.

Harry took a seat in the back again, and Ron and Hermione joined him shortly. They exchanged stories about the end of their summer.

“I wish you guys could’ve come visit,” Harry said. “Maybe for Christmas. We can play Quidditch and explore the woods.”

Hermione was not very impressed.

“My parents have a big library, too,” Harry said, and Hermione at least seemed interested in that.

Harry told them about his gift from Sirius, and showed Hermione and Ron some of the spells and letters.

“You’re not going to try some of these,” Hermione said.

“I might,” Harry grinned. “Sirius told me there were some safe ones. I should probably check with Uncle Remus first, though.”

Ron looked over a page that had fallen out on the floor. It looked like notes for a dark spell. “Sirius Black is cool, but Uncle Fabian and Uncle Gideon say the Black family was pretty messed up. I don’t know, Harry, you might want to — Ow, Scabbers —” He shoved his weasel back into his bag.

When the train arrived at the platform, instead of being escorted to the boats like their freshman year, they were led to horseless carriages that pulled themselves up towards the castle.

“I wonder what makes them go,” Hermione asked as the car lurched forward.

“Magic, isn’t it?” Ron asked impishly.

Hermione sniffed and turned her nose up. Harry was quite busy poring over a letter from Regulus Black to a woman named Narcissa Black. The tone of the letter was very intimate, and he was trying to figure out who they were. Based on the dates, they must’ve been in school around the same time as Sirius. But Sirius never talked much about his family, and this book made Harry all the more curious. He didn’t even notice Scabbers had slipped out of Ron’s pocket and was sniffing the pages.

Then, suddenly, Scabbers took the corner of one of the pages in his mouth and leapt out of the carriage.

“Hey!” Harry jumped after Scabbers. The papers in the leatherbound notebook went flying. Hermione tried to grab them as Harry tumbled out of the moving carriage and ran after Scabbers.

“Ron, call your weasel!”

“He never listens to me,” Ron said.

But Harry barely heard him. He was too busy running after Scabbers. He’d never known Ron’s weasel to nibble on parchment before. He wondered what had gotten into the old thing.

Harry felt like he had chased it halfway across the grounds before he managed to pounce on it. He wrapped his hands around Scabbers middle, but before he could even stand he heard something creak and groan. He barely managed to roll aside before a large tree branch smashed down to the ground. Harry got up and ducked as the large, gnarled tree swiped at him.

He was still clutching Scabbers tightly as he jumped out of the tree’s reach. The weasel squeaked in his hands and squirmed. Harry held Scabbers in one hand and reached down to pick up the letter Scabbers had dropped. He kept his eyes on the tree. It seemed still. He stepped forward and one of the branches slammed down. He barely managed to jump out of the way.

A little shaken, Harry managed to walk back to the path. Fred and George were in the carriage passing by with Lee Jordan.

“Harry! What happened to you?” Fred laughed.

George reached a hand down and helped him in. “This is the last carriage, mate. Don’t want to miss the feast.”

“It’s Ginny’s sorting,” Fred grinned and winked at George.

“Watcha got there?” Lee asked and pointed at Scabbers.

“Ron’s weasel,” Harry sighed. “He ran off with my letter. Don’t know what’s got into him. I nearly got smashed by a tree.”

“The Whomping Willow!” Fred said.

“No way,” said George. “That’s incredible.”

“It didn’t hit you or anything?” Lee asked. “I got a black eye my first year, trying to touch the trunk.”

“Madam Pomfrey threw a right fit about that,” Fred laughed.

“There’s supposed to be a secret passage beneath it,” George said, “but we’ve never been able to get to it. That Whomping Willow guards her secrets well.”

Harry laughed the whole way up to the castle. He loved hanging out with Fred and George and Lee. It was never a dull moment. They told Lee about stealing the flying car, asked Harry if he had any new tricks for Quidditch, and plotted an entirely new set of strategies for facing the Whomping Willow.

Once inside the Great Hall, Harry found Ron and Hermione again. He handed Scabbers to Ron, and Hermione handed him his journal. She’d put the scattered pages back in and re-bound it. Harry slipped the letter back inside, but left the corner tucked so he could read it later.

No one was surprised when Ginny was sorted into Gryffindor. Fred and George cheered the loudest, of course, but Ron and Harry were right behind them.

In the common room, Harry told Hermione and Ron about the Whomping Willow. Hermione tapped her fingers on one of the books in her lap.

“That’s odd,” she said, “that they would have such a dangerous tree on school grounds.”

“The last time we found something like that was Fluffy,” Ron said, and his face was a little green.

“I wonder what it’s protecting.” Harry looked thoughtfully out the window.

“No,” Hermione said very quickly. “No, you’re not going to go down there to find what it’s protecting, and you will not take the cloak down there just to see if it will still sense you.”

Harry laughed, because that was exactly what he’d been wondering. “Yeah, I don’t want a detention again.” He was still dreaming about that Nimbus 2001. “So no sneaking out. But maybe if we go on Saturday, just to see what would happen.”

“You’ve got Quidditch practice on Saturday, mate,” Ron said, and Harry sighed.

They went to bed late that night, when the excitement of Hogwarts and being amongst friends was finally beginning to wear off. Harry drew the curtains around his bed and whispered, “Lumos.”

His wand lit up and he pulled out the letter Scabbers had snatched from the book.

October 31, 1979

Dear Barty,

Don’t. I mean it. I grew up with Bellatrix and she’s only gotten worse since she left home. She’s volatile and unpredictable, and the reason she’s the Dark Lord’s right hand has nothing to do with her blood and everything to do with how easily she spills it. She’s not the sort of person you want to follow closely, if only because she might turn around and bite you for her own gain. There are better ways to advance than following her heels.

I hope you and your family enjoyed a pleasant Halloween. It’s strange to be home again instead of at Hogwarts together. Our Halloween here was rather quiet. Father’s health is failing, and Mother was in an especially sour mood. But fall is always hard for her. I know you don’t like when I talk about my brother, but sometimes I think she’d rather I was the one who ran away. Sirius and Mother may not have got on well, but they were so much more alike than her and I are. She would’ve preferred him as the family heir than me.

But hopefully that will change. The Dark Lord has requested the use of our House Elf for a task he said was very important. I’m expecting Kreacher to return shortly with news about this task and hopefully information that will allow me a little more political power. I know you’re more interested in hexes, but I’m interested in change. It’s the system that needs fixing and hexing Mudbloods isn’t the answer. I don’t know how many ways I can explain that to you.

I imagine you’ll be at your father’s next campaign, and I know Mother will attend as well. Father may not be well enough, so I’ll likely have to go in his place. I know you hate them, but go. We can talk more in person than over a few sheets of parchment.

Sincerely, Regulus Black

[seraphinnas-blog]

⟡⌜⇴ ABIGAIL SPENCER ⌠ 36 & she/her ⌡: have you seen SERAPHINA SELWYN ? SHE is an ESTATE MANAGER & WIZARD ART TEACHER who’s apparently also A DEATH EATER. When you see her walking around, be careful, because while she can be DUTIFUL and ARDENT, I heard she can also be pretty SADISTIC and DOGMATIC. ( cami & 18 & she/her & gmt )

↠ boi, get ready for a far too long wild ride as i try to do my best to attempt to write an evil character

THE SELWYNS:

↠ inter lutum duro mundus. i will stay clean in the mud. this sentence will greet you in every gate into a property of the old and noble selwyn family, and you can find it in the marble stones around the houses, in the ancient wooden framing of portraits, in the archives, filled with letters to loved ones with the gentle reminder that the selwyns will rise above any perils. it’s a message of comfort that even seraphina sometimes writes in such tempestuous times to her relatives. 

↠ the selwyns are the symbol of old money. and i do mean old. their records, with some alterations to the spelling of the family name, go back centuries, but some books claim them to be amongst those taught personally by hogwarts’ founders. the selwyns are very meticulous about history, especially THEIR history, what they can hide in it, what they can boast about, and how to keep careful records of everything. their archives are precious for wizard historians, and can often be found as references in books.

↠ the selwyns are also, or even, above all, symbols of tradition. while they’ve always kept building newer better houses, they’ve protected their oldest estates, and use some of them as museums of wizard history, just like we’d visit old castles and palaces. they turn good profit from all their estates, in which many find work, especially but not limited to house elves, and all sorts of countryside things you can imagine create money? they do it. farming, honey, wood, cattle, wine, cheese, horse and the raising of other more magical animals. the selwyns have quite the empire in the united kingdom and even some spots abroad.

↠ one specific tradition that has kept the family very relevant has always been the annual hunting celebration. started in the 1740s, it has evolved and changed but kept some traditional aspects: only purebloods are invited; it happens at the selwyn country house in north yorkshire (the first major estate of the family to survive till today); it’s a must-go october event, pouring rain or not, with large feasts set outside and inside; children run around with pretend wands and sticks, playing hunter; those old enough ( read: about seven or so and allowed by the parents ) leave into the woods with bloodhounds and return with all sorts of death. deer; gnomes; bore; doxys; nifflers; ducks; red caps; even misbehaved house elves; killed, skinned, and (most of them anyway) cooked in the same event.

↠ the selwyns are just so deeply embedded in wizard traditions and wizard history, even with very very very few of them ever having ministry related jobs. in fact, seraphina can only trace a few more distant cousins working at the ministry in the last 50 years, and there’s only ever been one selwyn minister in all british history. that is because their estates, their museums, the art pieces they collect in them and all the products of their country side holdings already provide all the power and money they could need. their parties, be it for hunting or not, are monumental events. everything they hold is a powerful part of the tourism industry in magical britain and everything they produce fills half the pantries of purebloods in the nation. the selwyns are simply a fundamental part of wizarding britain.

CHILDHOOD

↠ it was this simple: alma and octavio selwyn couldn’t have any biological children. after years of trying, it became obvious that there was some sort of problem. for a few generations, the once rather fruitful selwyns were having smaller and smaller batches of children, and many less important branches of the family were dying out - alma always blamed it on the classical pureblood inbreeding from both families.

↠ this is the part where i make shit up about wizard society and we run with it. adoption is very real in pureblood society, some cases fully hidden, others an open thing, but no one really properly talks about it. especially not when it comes to such an important and well respected family. it wouldn’t be the first time the selwyns or other wizards would have adopted a baby. it’s just tabu because in most cases, it’s not possible to fully confirm if the child is, in fact, a pureblood. the selwyns were assured by the orphanage for magical children in vancouver that the little girl, less than three years old, was a pureblood. their meticulous research lead to the same vague conclusion, but it was pointless, really. after all, the couple was in love with her big brown eyes from the moment they saw her in a photograph. “i just knew you were my daughter,” explained her mother once, in the rare occasion that the whole ordeal was mentioned. one change of name ( hannah, she’s been told, but it’s forbidden now ) and all of a sudden she was the long awaited HEIR to the fast aging couple. they were head over heels with the little girl and soon, despite the hints of controversy, so was most of pureblood society.

↠ there are questions in her mind that she’s yet to have the courage to ask. especially those concerning the legitimacy of her blood status. she’s the heiress of the selwyn throne, there is no space for doubts and self reflection in that. seraphina was always told to not show weakness, for others could taste it in the air and come in with wands raised. what could be weaker than doubting yourself?

↠  despite the occasional transgressions ( she remembers the way her mother slapped a cousin who dared to question her princess’ very pure blood, how the relatives from zurich were not allowed to visit anymore ) seraphina grew up rather sheltered and happy. in a family that highly values education and tradition, she was tutored by many, including some of her father’s old tutors, learning many languages, types of art, magical theory and, above all, the legacy of the selwyns and how to manage it in the future. she also learned all the fine skills of a high ranking lady, being sent for short periods of time to those small wizard finishing schools abroad - that all changed when her hogwarts letter came.

↠  suddenly, she wasn’t sharing her environment with other rich, powerful and mostly pure blooded little heirs. but she would stay clean in the mud. sorted into ravenclaw, it was an easy fit ( curious, competitive, a hub of knowledge, in everything for herself no matter how many backs she must stab ) but even her generation was too liberal. too many mudbloods complaining about being beaten by other students. too many blood traitors around her. seraphina was never the overly violent type ( despite having throw some jinxes at some people occasionally, and some other minor actions ), but her real accomplishments were the ↠  she started many groups and clubs while at hogwarts, in defense of a return to tradition, to the good old society in which muggle borns were ostracised, werewolves done away with eugenics, all the things that even in her time could be considered somewhat radical. and she got some following. the headmaster kept shutting them down, calling the groups hateful, and she’d calmly reply that they were simply trying to spread out some important philosophies. that didn’t stop complaints from flooding in, especially from concerned parents.

↠ seraphina, or sera for the close ones, didn’t need high grades. she had been groomed to run the many family businesses, starting with small sections when she was still at hogwarts and in the future to inherit it all, but she CRAVED learning, especially the sort of learning that could feed her views. she was very interested in history of magic and magical theory, and after some time caring for the family business, she returned to hogwarts. not quite full term ( damn binns taking up the position of teacher of history of magic ) but as the professor for one extracurricular - art. or rather, wizard art.

THE GREAT WIZARD WAR

↠ in the same year seraphina graduated from hogwarts, she was approached by voldemort. her views were so interesting and strong, and her family lineage so powerful that voldemort took it upon branding her with the dark mark and keeping her in his close circle almost immediately. her techniques are curiously vicious, and she truly approaches missions like fox hunting, loves letting some targets lose in forests and running after them. brings in dogs and other animals to scare them off. is very methodical and very cruel without a care - after all, they are an infestation. they are stealing places that belong to the truly worthy of magic, the purebloods such as her. they are ruining what’s meant to be a sacred and secret gift and destroying the great society wizards once were. how can she not be cruel to such sub-human kinds?

↠ that’s why she does what she does. she believes, with her whole heart, that she’s restoring the world by ridding it of all those impurities. and she’s so hellbent in her beliefs, so dogmatic.

↠ the selwyns have been associated with dark wizards before, but rarely ones this important, as they always feared they’d try to overrule them, overthrow the mighty family. their houses, however, were always safe harbours for dark wizards and those running from aurors - it is rumoured that grindelwald hid with the selwyns for quite some time as he organised his army. but seraphina always wanted to do something more, to leave her particular mark in the long family trees, especially given the little voice in her head that told her she did not belong there.

↠ not being a selwyn makes her want to be the most remarkable selwyn that has ever been.

↠ while she definitely had her hands full with high society living, being one of the managers of her family empire. and a devoted death eater, seraphina craved more. as such, at the age of 22, she earned the position of wizard art professor.

↠ she’s been teaching ever since ( despite the suspicions everyone, including staff, has about her off duty activities ), taking some time off and returning again, never fully committed as her responsibilities to the selwyn name are far more relevant. her knowledge of wizard art history, given how many pieces her family owns, secured the position for her, and she does genuinely enjoy having something to call her own, not just a family thing. it’s HER classroom. she also investigates the blood status of each of her students and after strings of terrible marks and rudeness to muggleborns, tells them she believes they’d find a better fit at the muggle art classes. her agenda is VERY much pushed in the classroom.

↠ while she does have a passion and skill with art, let’s be real. she mostly just teaches wizard art history and interpretation. field trips to one of the selwyn owned museums? every term. field trips to unseen works of art stored in off-public sites at a selwyn property? every term.

↠ her love for history is a bit twisted because while she does adore archives and all that stuff, she mostly just picks and chooses what goes along with her rhetoric. history revisionist? very much. go buy ‘the witch hunt for grindelwald’, ‘squibs and the charges of witchcraft against their own families - the horror of the spanish inquisition (1560-1710)’ and ‘tales from the resistance: interviews to death eaters active in the 1970s’. more books to come, definitely. all just as controversial.

↠ her second biggest passion, after history, is hunting. she was brought on the annual hunts ever since she was just a little kid and she grew a love for the rush of searching for something she wanted and getting it, even with blood on her gloves.

↠ the war has been dragging on, with some low points for the death eaters but more, especially lately, for their enemies. she’s been an unshakable supporter of the cause ever since the second she joined, having spilled much blood for it, her own and others’. does part of her wish it could finally end? ye. she wants to get on with her life properly without having to rush to missions all the time. but it can’t end until their goals are fulfilled and merlin, they’re still so far from it. so, dutiful as she is, seraphina doesn’t whisper a word, but she’s tired. they all are. if only she could lower her guard once more, just for one day, for one peaceful moment in which the world is right and all she and her partners have suffered and even died for can be real.

↠ she just wants some goddamned peace and quiet but also, she’d miss human hunting. because remember, awful person.

↠ has killed muggles who have somehow wandered into or near selwyn grounds despite all the spells around it. has thrown them to the dogs.

↠ currently mostly lives in one of the smallest estates, a country house in wales, just because it was always her favourite. her parents, both still alive, live in other estates, always moving around, and the three ( along with a few cousins, especially in the abroad businesses ) work together a lot but it’s very obvious that sera is very much in charge of most things. her parents are old, tired, and more than ready to let their very well prepared jewel do as she pleases.

↠ can often be found reading or writing. especially letters. sends the LONGEST letters with a meticulous elegant handwriting. the selwyn family seal is always in them as is the family motto.

↠ still tries to start shit with hate groups !! still founds them, supports them, is very open about her beliefs and about her support of the death eaters ( even if she never tells anyone she’s one ). sends letters to the ministry to ask for social measures considered by many archaic and purist. writes op-eds. also, buy her books !! they’re full of ideology, history revisionism and currently on sale in your local bookstore.

↠ that’s the thing, you can’t quiet seraphina. her name means fiery and for good reason - she’s calm and collected and beyond well educated, but if she explodes, her rage is a wildfire. and when she feels something, she feels is so damn much. and can’t really cope with most of those feelings so she just hides away where there’s some pretty art or where she can hold an animal’s corpse.

↠ what is emotional stability? what is healthy coping? what is feeling anything but the very extreme?

↠ always wears robes. expensive, custom made, gold thread and that sort of shit in it, but always wizard robes, even if they’re just over a beautiful outfit. looks very traditional and very regal at all times.

↠ also wears gloves very often. good for not staining her hands, and also because has a bit of a thing with germes.

↠ the mental image of her grinning has me so confused because she is DEEPLY passionate about things and people and life, but she can as easily be grinning while looking at a 16th century painting, at a lover, or at the tortured pleading nearly-dead body of a muggle.

↠ she’s a terrible person. fight her.

character parallells: ramsay bolton ( game of thrones ), serena waterford ( handmaid’s tale ), the argents ( teen wolf ), katherine pierce ( the vampire diaries ), jessica huang ( fresh off the boat ), lucy preston ( timeless ), jessica pearson ( suits), arya stark ( game of thrones ), veronica lodge ( riverdale ), cristina yang ( grey’s anatomy ), idk pals i’m bad at this bit

pinterest board ; timeline ; stats

[seraselwyn-blog]

SERAPHINA SELWYN is A DEATH EATER in the war, even though HER official job is as A WIZARD ART TEACHER AND BUSINESS OWNER. the THIRTY-TWO year old PUREBLOOD is known to be DUTIFUL and ARDENT but also SADISTIC and DOGMATIC. some might label them as THE HUNTRESS. fc: abigail spencer 

THE SELWYNS:

inter lutum duro mundus. i will stay clean in the mud. this sentence shall greet you in every gate into a property of the old and noble selwyn family, and you can find it in stone work by the houses, in the ancient wooden framing of portraits, in the archives, filled with letters to loved ones with the gentle reminder that the selwyns will rise above any perils. it’s a message of comfort that even seraphina sometimes writes in such tempestuous times to her relatives.

the selwyns are the symbol of old money. and i do mean old. their records, with some alterations to the spelling of the family name, go back centuries, but some books claim them to be amongst those taught personally by hogwarts’ founders. the selwyns are very meticulous about history, especially THEIR history, what they can hide in it, what they can boast about, and how to keep careful records of everything. their archives are precious for wizard historians, and can often be found as references in books.

the selwyns are also, or even, above all, symbols of tradition. while they’ve always kept building newer better houses, they’ve protected their oldest estates, and use some of them as museums of wizard history, just like we’d visit old castles and palaces. they turn good profit from all their estates, in which many people work, especially but not limited to house elves, and all sorts of countryside things you can imagine create money. farming, honey, wood, cattle, wine, cheese, horse raising and the raising of other more magical animals. the selwyns have quite the empire in the united kingdom and even some spots abroad.

one specific tradition that has kept the family very relevant has always been the annual hunting celebration. started in the 1680s, it has evolved but rather stagnated in the last century or so - only purebloods are invited; it happens at, since the 19th century, at the selwyn country house in north yorkshire; it’s a must-go october event, pouring rain or not, with large feasts set outside and inside; children run around with pretend wands and sticks, playing hunter; those old enough ( read: about seven or so and allowed by the parents ) leave into the woods with bloodhounds and return with all sorts of death. deer, bore, magical animals, killed, skinned, and cooked in the same event. women tend to be divided, some families keeping them at the houses, gossiping away, others letting their powerful heiresses and matriarchs hold out their wands for tradition. there’s always one selwyn woman left behind to keep order.

the selwyns are just so deeply embedded in wizard traditions and wizard history, even with very very very few of them ever having ministry related jobs. in fact, seraphina can only trace a few more distant cousins working at the ministry in the last 50 years, and there’s only ever been a selwyn minister. that is because their estates, their museums, the art pieces they collect in them and all the products of their country side holdings already provide all the power and money they could need.

CHILDHOOD:

it was this simple: alma and octavio selwyn couldn’t have any biological children. after years of trying, it became obvious that there was some sort of problem. for a few generations, the before rather fruitful selwyns were having smaller and smaller batches of children, and many less important branches of the family were dying out - alma always blamed it on the classical pureblood inbreeding from both families.

this is the part when i make shit up about wizard society and we run with it. adoption is very real in pureblood society, some cases fully hidden, others an open thing, but no one really talks about it. especially not when it comes to such an important and well respected family. it wouldn’t be the first time the selwyns or other wizards would have adopted a baby. it’s just tabu because in most cases, it’s not possible to fully confirm if the child is, in fact, a pureblood. the selwyns were assured by the orphanage for wizard children in toronto that the little girl, less than three years old, was a pureblood. their meticulous research lead to the same vague conclusion. one change of name ( robin, she’s been told, but it’s forbidden now ) and all of a sudden she was the long awaited heir to the fast aging couple. they were head over heels with the little girl and soon, despite the hints of controversy, so was most of pureblood society.

there are questions in her mind that she’s yet to have the courage to ask. especially those concerning the legitimacy of her blood status. she’s the heiress of the selwyn throne, there is no space for doubts and self reflection in that.

despite the occasional transgressions ( she remembers the way her mother slapped a cousin who dared to question her princess’ very pure blood, how never again did the cousins from switzerland visit again ) seraphina grew up rather sheltered and happy. in a family that highly values education and tradition, she was tutored by many, including some of her father’s old tutors, learning many languages, types of art, magical theory and, above all, the legacy of the selwyns and how to manage it in the future. she also learned all the fine skills of a high ranking lady, being sent for short periods of time to wizard finishing schools abroad - that all changed when her hogwarts letter came.

suddenly she wasn’t sharing her environment with other rich, powerful and mostly pure blooded little heirs. but she would stay clean in the mud. sorted into ravenclaw, it was an easy fit ( curious, competitive, a hub of knowledge, in everything for herself no matter how many backs she must stab ) but even her generation was too liberal. too many mudbloods complaining about being beaten by other students. too many blood traitors around her. seraphina was never the overly violent type ( despite having throw some jinxes at some people occasionally, and even slapped a muggleborn girl who’d dared insult her ), but her real accomplishments were the many groups she started while at hogwarts in defense of a return to tradition, to the good old society in which muggle borns were ostracised, werewolves done away with eugenics, all the things that even in her time could be considered somewhat radical. and she got some following. dumbledore kept shutting them down, calling the groups hateful, and she’d calmly reply that they were simply trying to spread out some important philosophies.

seraphina, or sera for the close ones, didn’t need high grades. she had been groomed to run the many family businesses, starting with small sections when she was still at hogwarts and in the future to inherit it all, but she CRAVED learning, especially the sort of learning that could feed her views. she was very interested in history of magic and magical theory, and after some time caring for the family business, she returned to hogwarts. not quite full term ( damn binns taking up the position of teacher of history of magic ) but as the professor for one extracurricular - art. or rather, wizard art.

PRESENT:

she’s been teaching for a handful of years now, taking some off and returning again, never fully committed as her responsibilities to the selwyn name are far more relevant. her knowledge of wizard art history given how many pieces her family owns secured the position for her, and she does genuinely enjoy having something to call her own, not just a family thing. it’s HER classroom. she also investigates the blood status of each of her students and after strings of terrible marks and rudeness to muggleborns, tells them she believes they’d find a better fit at the muggle art classes. her agenda is VERY much pushed in the classroom.

her love for history is a bit twisted because while she does adore archives and all that stuff, she mostly just picks and chooses what goes along with her rhetoric. history revisionist? very much. will probably write a few books on it soon. is writing one right now. and will DEFINITELY write one about the first wizarding war, a very controversial one.

her second biggest passion, after history, is hunting. she was brought on the annual hunts ever since she was just a little kid and she grew a love for the rush of searching for something she wanted and getting it, even with blood on her gloves. i guess this, mixed with her very strong views on tradition ( in which muggles do not belong in society ), really made her an easy catch for voldemort.

the selwyns have been associated with dark wizards before, but rarely ones this important, as they always feared they’d try to overrule them, overthrow the mighty family. their houses, however, were always safe harbours for dark wizards and those running from aurors - it is rumoured that grindelwald hid with the selwyns for quite some time as he organised his army. but seraphina always wanted to do something more, to leave her particular mark in the long family trees, especially given the little voice in her head that told her she did not belong there.

not being a selwyn makes her want to be the most remarkable selwyn that has ever been.

she was twenty five when she joined the cause officially, her views so interesting and strong that voldemort took it upon branding her with the dark mark and keeping her in his close circle almost immediately. her techniques are curiously vicious, and she truly approaches missions like fox hunting, loves letting some targets lose in forests and running after them. brings in dogs and other animals to scare them off. is very methodical and very cruel without a care - after all, they are an infestation. they are stealing places that belong to the truly worthy of magic, the purebloods such as her. they are ruining what’s meant to be a sacred and secret gift and destroying the great society wizards once were. how can she not be cruel to such sub-human kinds?

that’s why she does what she does. she believes, with her whole heart, that she’s restoring the world by ridding it of all those impurities. and she’s so hellbent in her beliefs, so dogmatic.

has killed muggles who have somehow wandered into or near selwyn grounds despite all the spells around it. has thrown them to the dogs.

currently mostly lives in one of the smallest estates, a country house in wales, just because it was always her favourite. her parents, both still alive, live in other estates, always moving around, and the three ( along with a few cousins, especially in the abroad businesses ) work together a lot but it’s very obvious that sera is very much in charge of most things. her parents are old, tired, and more than ready to let their very well prepared jewel do as she pleases.

can often be found reading or writing. especially letters. sends the LONGEST letters with a meticulous elegant handwriting. the selwyn family seal is always in them.

still tries to start shit with hate groups !! still founds them, supports them, is very open about her beliefs and about her support of the death eaters ( even if she never tells anyone she’s one ). sends letters to the ministry to ask for social measures considered by many archaic and purist. writes op-eds.

that’s the thing, you can’t quiet seraphina. her name means fiery and for good reason - she’s calm and collected and beyond well educated, but if she explodes, her rage is a wildfire. and when she feels something, she feels is so damn much. and can’t really cope with most of those feelings so she just hides away where there’s some pretty art or where she can hold an animal’s corpse.

always wears robes. expensive, custom made, gold thread and that sort of shit in it, but always wizard robes. looks very traditional and very regal at all times.

also wears gloves very often. good for not staining her hands, and also because has a bit of a thing with germs.

the mental image of her grinning has me so confused because she is DEEPLY passionate about things and people and life, but she can as easily be grinning while looking at a 16th century painting, at a lover, or at the tortured pleading nearly-dead body of a muggle

character parallells: ramsay bolton ( game of thrones ), serena waterford ( handmaid’s tale ), the argents ( teen wolf ), tba

[delicrieux]

NEWT SCAMANDER IN THE 21ST CENTURY:

Gasp! The famous magizoologist had stumbled upon a time vortex that took him to the distant (well, perhaps not that distant) future! When you were on your way home from work he had fallen into your path - his suitcase had accidentally hit you on the forehead and you swear saw stars. Now what? You have a fumbling, quick witted blusher of a wizard from the 1920s and you certainly are no flapper...

requested by anon <3

Newt is awed, yet frightened at the advance of technology

“That” he points at the small object in your hand, “-is a telephone?” he shakes his head. This is too much for him. Back home he had a telephone, he knows what a telephone is and how to use one and whatever contraption you hold onto so tightly is certainly NOT a telephone. Where are the buttons? The cord? The lavish design? And most of all, what in Merlin’s beard is that red plastic (or is it gum-like?) thing around it?!

“Yes, it’s a mobile. We don’t really have phones like...you have? had?” You pause, sensing he is more curious than unnerved now. Pressing the home button the screen lights up and you can practically see the golden sparkles of admiration in Newt’s green eyes as he leans in, just a bit, to get a better look at your phone, “Oh, and this...” You glide your fingers over the rubbery surface, “is my case. It’s like to protect the phone if it falls...And it looks cute.”

Newt randomly pointing at airplanes in the sky and curiously questioning, “What’s that?”

Your tired replies after about five minutes of explaining the same thing, “Airplanes. Big metal objects with engines. A form of travel. Like a broom...But quicker. Not sure if safer, though.”

“It looks like a big metal goose.”

Showing Newt all the new candy and snacks and having a binge fest with him, later having to explain what a ‘binge fest’ is.

Introducing him to Netflix. He doesn’t quite understand why you would choose television over books, but he seems to enjoy it just as much, if not more, than you once you put on some documentary. He just doesn't want to admit it.

Showing him all the new forms of music. He is obviously displeased by the lack of jazz in your playlist and when first hearing a song with the bass boosted he visibly jerked.

“(Name), what’s an app and how do I use it?”

“(Name), what’s a meme?”

“(Name), what’s a (insert random millennial question here)?”

You are a bit annoyed most of the time, since he when he sees something he points, clicks his tongue and with a  bright grin runs to it, no matter if there’s heavy traffic or not and you have to follow after him and stop him from getting out of trouble. You don’t have the heart in you to scold him, though. He looks too cute.

He is very eager, yet a bit frightened, to go to museums and art galleries, almost as if he’s afraid to know what he missed.

He loves amusement parks. The only redeeming quality of the 21st century is amusement parks. His words, not yours.

Taking him to zoo’s. 

“Beautiful creatures...” His words come out in a gentle whisper as he watches lions stroll in their big cages. The sun beams down harshly and sweat breaks out your pores. Sitting on a bench next to him you admire the gracefulness in which the lions pace in, yet frown at how shabby their fur looks, how glazed their eyes are and how mindlessly they seem to wander. Newt clears his throat and you glance at him - it is obvious he has the same thoughts as you, “Your world, (Name), is very beautiful...” A shy smile graces his lips and he glances at you, “But it’s without spark. It’s missing. On people it’s less evident, but on animals...” He trails off, “They seem so unhappy. It breaks my heart.”

Him telling you how it was in his time, how people dressed and acted.

“Muggles and their contraptions...Fascinating.”

Newt is delighted by the range of tea to choose from.

And how quick it is to make it.

He likes to spend his time in this small coffee shop near your apartment building. You have shown him many, but this was the very first one and so it has a special place in his heart. While he doesn’t completely understand everything yet, especially what is a ‘Frosted Flake Cappuccino with extra Syrup and whipped cream and sprinkles’, he enjoys the atmosphere and always reads a good book so he could catch up on today’s way of thinking.

A part of you thinks he goes there because it reminds him of his time period.

Him being saddened when hearing about today's political climate.

“So things haven’t change that much after all...We’re still at war. Dare I say, today, with ourselves.”

[skywailer]

✉️ fun facts: I love dogs!! my favorite color is mustard yellow. I love cold weather despite living in a tropical climate. I love podcasts a whole lot!! (lmk if you want recs lol) I wish I had more time to read and watch movies. I tend to have a small but close knit group of friends and I really like true crime/creepy stuff! :)

I feel you, deeply, on the cold weather front.  Here you go!  Sorry for the wait.  Home things happening, and stuff.  Things.  This came out a bit long so I had to put it under a read more!

Wanna know what your first year at Hogwarts looks like through caffeinated eyes?

how you got your Hogwarts acceptance letter: you were seated in the middle of a particularly colorful exhibit at the local art museum, having lingered while your parents were off touring the rest of the place (they were actually on the floor above yours, freaking out because where did you go off to now?).  You were thinking idly at the moment about how you’d decorate your dorm, if you were even allowed to do that, when a disturbance tore your eyes away from the painting you were admiring.  Since this was a muggle institution, it was just a tad off to spot an owl bee-lining towards you; after all, you’d expected the letter to arrive at your house, or already waiting on your doorstep, maybe even your desk.  This specific owl, though, was a bit insistent about hand-to-hand delivery.  It landed - well, crashed - on the bench beside you, letter clutched within its mouth.  With a sound that sounded a lot like complaining, it dropped the envelope onto your lap and immediately started flapping its wings to leave.   It batted you in the face a few times in its attempt to fly off, and definitely caused a scene at the entrance of the museum that may or may not have involved fecal matter.  Your parents found you easily after that.

head canons about your trip on the Hogwarts Express: you were extremely upset that you could not get a dog as your familiar, not even a small little thing like a pug or a shih-tzu, and were still grumbling and positively scowling, even as you boarded the train.  You were going to make it your mission to petition the school, once you were there, to allow them.  If cats could come, it just didn’t make sense; though, petition or no petition, no one could kick you out if you had, hypothetically, hidden a small shih-tzu in a secret compartment of your suitcase, now could they?  (You’d done your research beforehand, read the rules of the school, and found that nowhere was it mentioned that you could be suspended for doing anything of the sort- no one actually thought to think that scheme up, and after you heard about the three-headed dog from two years ago?  You would win any debate, honestly).  After waltzing into a cabin and situating yourself, and carefully placing your suitcase between your legs (and raising your eyebrows at anyone who glanced at it curiously when it… barked), you settled in for a soothing ride to school.  Even had a book you’d been planning to read for a very, very long time and finally had quite a good amount of time to actually read- and a soothing rain as backdrop to your suspense novel.  But you honestly should have known better, after all you’d heard said about Hogwarts and the strange things that go on at this school.  It didn’t take long for the first Strange Thing to happen, when the train came to a jolting stop and the lights died out.  One student in your cabin screeched out, the other two were much more subtle about their freaking out, but you.  Oh, you were psyched.  You knew odd things would happen, but on the train?  While you were on it?  You practically forgot the title of the book you had in your hands, and stared expectantly out the window for some clue to the spookiness going down.  Joke was on you, though, because the spookiness was in the train.  When the cabin shook and a shadow approached the door, clawed and ghastly and positively glorious, you were torn between being extremely worried for your well-being and wanting desperately to open the door and solve the mystery.  In the end, you waited until the shadow crept onward before you darted for the door and swung it open (despite the hissed protests from those in your cabin) and spotted the cloaked figure just as it entered another cabin.  You were immediately relieved it hadn’t actually come for you, or your cabin-mates.  A dementor was an interesting sight to see, but also a bit… petrifying.  At least you managed to get out without a single person ratting out your dog.

what happened when you went head-to-head hat with the sorting hat: your family being a mix of all types of houses, you were one of the calmer students going up to the stool.  You didn’t feel the pressure of fitting in, as you knew that wherever you went- you would find a niche of friends.  Though, you had your guess about where you’d get sorted.  It was between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, and a little part of you wished you could take turns in all the houses- really.  You sat down, hands gripping tight to the edges of the seat, because even though you didn’t have any expectations you cared to live up to- you still wanted to make sure it was a good fit.   When the hat was plopped upon your head, it thought it through a little bit- sorting through your catalog of art, books, and innermost thoughts.  “Ravenclaw!” It called out, and though yellow was and still is your favorite color- blue suited you nicely.

who’s your squad:  A lot of your friends are pooled from the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw houses, but one of your best mates is Luna Lovegood (she helped paint the ceiling above your bed that first night at Hogwarts and always brings treats for your dog).  You are the kind of person that manages to pull people together and have created a strongly woven bond between you, Luna, Lee, Ernie, Hannah, and Anthony. 

general first-year shenanigans you were up to while Harry was being Harry:

the second you opened your suitcase two things happened: 1- all your books tumbled onto the floor and it was a Little Embarrassing but the rest of the girls who shared your dorm just smiled and helped you pick them all up. 2 - your dog escaped.

you realized immediately why it is that dogs just cannot be allowed on Hogwarts grounds, because they have no sense of “no” and bark at every owl that passes the window, and end up chasing ghosts down the hall and getting lost.

that first night was spent running after your dog with Luna carrying bait in her hand, praying to Merlin that the portraits wouldn’t rat you out.  Especially with how your dog nearly peed on one of them.

the rest of the night, once your dog was dead asleep on your bed, was spent painting that mural with Luna and sorting through all the books you’d brought to read in your ‘spare time’.

you never actually got to read any of those books.  But your roommates did.  They recommend them, 10/10. 

Instead of reading books in your free time, you were Obsessed with finding out the details of Sirius Black’s escape from Azkaban and enjoyed playing detective on the case, reading up on old news articles on the Potter incident and Black’s family record.  Every development was like a new chapter in a suspense novel.

and werewolves???  The rumor of a werewolf in the woods had you psyched when a full moon rolled in.

you were actually really bothered by the lack of yellow in your ensemble and ended up working with Luna to stitch up some accents onto your House scarf and tie.  You even added yellow to the underside of your robes for a color splash.

during the winter, you enjoyed taking your dog out for a walk in the snow, and having an excuse to bundle up in gold and blue sweaters and beanies.

your petition was eventually approved by the school to allow dogs, but only if they were potty trained and, ahem, stopped growling at the portraits.

[dracoandluna]

Prompt: Luna deals with the side effects of her first ever crush

“And then I-Luna? Are you listening to me?” Ginny asked, shaking her blonde friend’s shoulder. “Is everything alright? You seem out of it.”

“Well,” Ginny amended sheepishly. “More so than usual.”

Luna sighed and looked at her friend apologetically. “Forgive me Ginny…my mind has been somewhere else lately, and I don’t know how to change that.”

Ginny looked skeptical. “You’re telling me you, Luna Lovegood…. are having issues staying tuned in with reality?”

Luna couldn’t help but smile at that. “I recognize that the common perception of me is one where I’m off in a world that doesn’t exist, though I don’t understand why, the world we’re in is more than lovely.”

“Then why the sudden and frequent trips to lala land?” Ginny asked curiously, beginning to grow worried. The war had taken a toll on everyone involved, and Luna had certainly endured more than most of their peers-perhaps the toll was finally catching up?

Luna looked away, twirling a long lock of blonde hair around a small finger. Outwardly, her appearance did not look disrupted; she still wore her butterbeer cork necklace and was currently donning coconut earrings (protected you from the flu), and her bangs were somehow (magically?) pin backed by a shell.

“I think,” Luna slowly admitted. “That I have developed…a crush?”

“A CRUSH?” Ginny exclaimed loudly, causing half of the courtyard’s inhabitants to look over in annoyance and interest. “ON WHO? MERLIN LUNA, THIS IS SO EXCITING WHAT’S HIS NAME I-“

“Ginny,” Luna interjected with an amused smile. “If you continue talking so loudly, it won’t be a crush more so than it will be public information.”

“Sorry, sorry!” Ginny apologized, cheeks turning the infamous Weasley red. “But seriously, who’s the lucky guy?”

Luna sighed again, but it was a happy sigh, and her lips turned upwards in a dreamier than usual smile.

“Draco,” she whispered, closing her eyes to relish that hot, sweet taste that always came in her mouth when she spoke his name.

“Are you insane?” Ginny hissed furiously. “I’m serious Luna, he and his family bloody imprisoned you!”

“He-“ Luna began, but was quickly silenced as Ginny continued to rant in rage.

“Is this Stockholm Syndrome or something? Oh god, did he force himself on you? If he did I swear I’ll-“ Ginny was unable to continue her sentence, because her mouth had been, quite literally, zipped shut by Luna and her wand.

“Draco is the reason why I’m still alive,” she said quietly, her eyes staring off into the distance, looking at something that was not there. “And besides you, he is my closest friend.”

Ginny had stopped trying to pry her mouth open and now just stared at Luna with eyes wider than Luna’s.

“You don’t have to like him,” Luna told her. Giggling, she went on, “I think I do that enough for the both of us.”

*

“Lovegood,” Draco greeted as he approached her from the behind. Luna tried and failed to calm the instant fluttering of her heart and the swooping of her stomach.

“Did you do the Charms essay? I’m telling you, Flitwick is going off the deep end if he seriously thinks someone can possibly do so much in such short time,” Draco complained to her grumpily, roughly pushing back his platinum hair, tousling his perfectly styled hair. Luna liked it like that.

“I’ve started it, but I still have some ways to go before it’s complete,” Luna told him, noting that her voice came out higher when she spoke to him than anyone else.

Gesturing with his head, Draco put one hand in his pocket and asked, “Wanna go work on it by the lake? The weather doesn’t suck complete ass today.”

“I would love to,” Luna answered honestly.

It turned out Draco’s prediction was only half right, the weather wasn’t just alright, it was gorgeous out. After about fifteen minutes of trying (and failing) to concentrate on her essay, Luna finally moved her materials to the side, and sank into the lush green grass they were seated upon, Black Lake a sparkling blue body of beauty stretched out in front of them, and ethereal bird song filling in the gaps of their silence.

Truthfully, it wasn’t just the clear blue skies and sweet breeze that was distracting Luna, she just couldn’t stop glancing at Draco’s perfect profile from her periphery. And with the few rays of sunlight that were being filtered onto his skin from in between the tree leaves, he looked more like an oil painting than he did an actual person.

“Thought you came out here to work Lovegood, not nap,” Draco teased, glancing down at her from his spot besides her.

“Yes, that was the plan,” Luna said. “But I’ve never been one for sticking to plans. I much prefer spontaneity.”

“Hm,” Draco replied, also putting his supplies to his opposite side, before rearranging himself so that he was lying down parallel to Luna, his elbow propped so that his hand could support his head. At his new proximity, the spicy scent of his cologne was more prominent, and suddenly it was harder to form coherent thoughts. “So, that’s why it’s so impossible to figure you out."

“Have you been trying to figure me out, Draco?” Luna asked breathlessly, wondering if his pink lips were as soft as they looked.

Another breeze blew in just then, stronger than the ones earlier, lifting Luna’s hair from her shoulder and depositing it on her neck. Draco picked up the hand that wasn’t holding up his head and moved the hair back to its original spot, fingers brushing against the column of her throat. Luna momentarily lost the ability to swallow.

“I have, Luna,” was all he said.

Later, that night in the Ravenclaw tower, Luna burrowed her face in her pillow to hide her squeals of delight as she recalled how beautiful her name sounded when it tumbled past his white teeth.

*

She couldn’t very well tell Professor McGonagall that the reason why she had been paying attention more to the sky outside than the lesson was because the sky had been the exact same shade of Draco’s eyes, so Luna humbly accepted the detention she was given.

Actually, Luna didn’t particularly mind the manual labor associated with detention today, as it allowed her mind to drift of thoughts that all starred Draco while her hands mechanically worked away. In fact, her efficiency was so outstanding that when McGonagall returned an hour later to dismiss her, she had been shocked by how many files Luna had assorted.

“Miss. Lovegood,” Professor McGonagall called for her as she was walking out. She was smiling. “Don’t let him distract you when you’re in class, do you understand?”

Luna was thrilled that she had finally become engaged in a human activity that allowed connections to be made without any discussion.

“I’ll try, Professor.”

*

It was peculiar, Luna found, that under normal circumstances, she was highly observant-but whenever she was with Draco, it seemed as if the entire world simply blended into the background, serving as Draco’s backdrop. He was, after all, as handsome as the sculptures that lined the muggle museums.

Luna often wondered if his skin was cool like marble too. But if his body was marble, then his heart was golden: soft and shining.

When she told Ginny this (“I’m sorry for acting like a total jerk.” “Apology accepted, I missed you.”), she snorted.

“More like lead,” she said. “Dark and heavy.”

Luna’s smile slipped away at that.

*

It took Luna a while to recognize the correct flower, which she realized to her great shock, was because colors were more vibrant to her these days.  Luckily, patient and kind Neville was there to help her, and soon she had sorted all the materials needed for her gift.

She finally finds him out in the quidditch field, sitting alone in the bleachers, gazing into the openness as the openness stared back.

“Hello, Draco,” she greeted cheerily, but still a few feet away from him; she wasn’t sure if he wanted company at the moment.

“Luna,” he said, and her stomach somersaulted at the sight of her name on his tongue. “What are you up to today?”

“I made you something,” she said, skipping up to where he was seated, sitting herself down on the bleacher below him, so that when she turned her head was leveled with his knees.

“Oh?” he asked, resting his forearms on his knees and leaning forward, so that his face was much closer to hers. “Well, don’t keep a man in suspense.”

Luna nodded in excitement, and pulled from her bag a charm bracelet. It was adorned with a pink plastic wrapper, a single feather, a strand of dragon leather, and the petal of a yellow peony.

At Draco’s bewildered look, Luna set to explaining why she had chosen what to decorate the bracelet with.

“These are all things you brought to me in the cellar,” she said. “The dragon leather is supposed to represent when you let me wear your boots all night because it was a particularly cold that day, the feather is to remind us of all the notes we wrote when we couldn’t talk out loud, the wrapper is from all the sweets you would sneak to me, and the petal- “

“Is from the flower I gave you,” Draco finished, looking hard at his hands. “It was the middle of December, and I remember looking at it and thinking: it shouldn’t be here. That’s why I gave it to you.”

Luna reached up and put a hand on his knee, making him look up, “It made me very happy, all these things you did, which is why I’m giving them to you, to remind you that you’re a rather kind boy.”

“And why,” Draco scoffed. “Do you think I need this?”

Here Luna’s smile faltered, and she wondered if she had finally crossed that invisible line that hung between them, present since they had first met, though it was now considerably thinner.

“Forgive me,” Draco mumbled, running a hand to once more tousle his perfect hair. “That came out harsher than I intended.”

“I’m not a nice person Lovegood,” Luna’s heart sank at his return of using her surname. “And I’m sorry I’ve lead you into believing that. Go back to the Nargles, they won’t hurt you.”

With that he got up and left, his hands deep in his pockets, black robe bellowing behind him, waving, as if it was saying goodbye.

Luna clutched the bracelet to her heart.

*

If infatuation was seeing the world in colors that don’t exist, water tasting sweet, and the wind tickling with hope, then heartbreak was a barren field, tasteless food, and every room containing a suffocating atmosphere.

She was at the library, staring at a bookshelf, trying to remember what she had been looking for originally.

“You were right and I was wrong,” Ginny grumbled without preamble, leaning against the bookshelf and crossing her arms.

“Pardon?” Luna asked, trying to figure out what her red-haired friend was talking about.

“What do you think? Malfoy really isn’t as big as prick as I made him out to be, so I guess once more you’ve proven you can literally see things that no one else can,” Ginny said, blowing a huff of hair to move some hair that had fallen into her eyes out of the way.

“What do you mean?” Luna asked, her traitorous heart already swelling at the mere mention of him.

“Just saw him hex a couple of sixth years who were talking rather rudely of you, thought it was kind of sweet actually, and hey! Where are you going?” Ginny called out loudly, earning a harsh quiet! from Madame Pince.

But Luna didn’t hear any of that, not when she had already wasted so much time in being foolish.

She caught him on his way back to the dungeons, and when she called out for him, he paused underneath an arched window, drowning in the moonlight. Luna wished she was the moon whose rays were touching him.

“What is it, Lovegood?” Draco asked exasperatedly.

“You,” Luna said simply.

“Me,” Draco repeated, eyes narrowing.

“Yes, you,” Luna said with a smile. “I’m in love with you.”

Draco’s mouth fell open, and his gray eyes looked nearly black with how largely his pupils had dilated.

“You…I mean, you’re not…” Draco spluttered, looking completely out of his element. “Are you even listening to yourself?!”

“I’ve actually been ignoring my thoughts for too long,” Luna said. “Even though I made a comprehensive list of what exactly they were, I kept chalking it off to a wrackspurt infestation, though I took every precaution to protect me from that. I briefly considered the idea that I may have been bite by a shrinking hisniller but the evidence just wasn’t conclusive.”

Though his eyes were still panicked, a small smile graced his lips.

“You’re completely barmy, you know that?” he said, but not unkindly. “Can’t you see how bad of an idea being with me is Luna? I have only my past, not a future.”

“You may certainly live in an endless loop of what has already happened, Draco,” Luna said, fingering her rejected bracelet. “Or you can move forward, and try again, testing the wonderful thing that is infinity.”

“Even if I ‘try’ again,” Draco argued, “There’s no guarantee you’ll be happy! That I’ll be happy!”

“I suppose you’re a risk I’m all too willing to take then,” Luna replied. “I don’t know about you, but I’d rather carry a burn you’ve given me than live the rest of my life shivering.”

“Fire is dangerous,” Draco whispered, but he began to slowly walk towards her.

“And beautiful and warm. Without it we would cease to be, just ask the plants,” Luna said shakily, as he drew closer.

“Then, may my fires sear your lips?” Draco asked, lifting his hands to take her face gently in them.

“Only if you kiss them better,” was her only reply.

While his lips captured her own over and over again, Draco deftly removed the bracelet from her slim wrist and slipped it on his own.