#why yes ana's earrings are sailor-moon-inspired crescent moons in both scenes

[carewyncromwell]

Why hello, everyone -- allow me to tell you a rather odd love story, set in the timeline of HP: Magic Awakened.

From stage left, we have Anastasia “Ana” Read, an independent, dreamy Gryffindor who contrary to the stereotype thinks a lot more than talks and believes the pen is just as mighty as the sword.

From stage right, we have Charlie Copper, a sociable, outdoorsy Ravenclaw who loves dragons as much as his namesake Charlie Weasley and will do any number of stupid things in the name of “science!” @drinkyoursoupbitch

When Charlie first encountered Anastasia, he was struck by her strong moral compass, given her tendency to challenge bullies and blood purists to Wizard Duels and then completely kick their asses fair and square, as well as her clear intellect, apparent in how every single essay she’s ever turned in since first year received an O. So he got it in his head -- “this girl and I? We should be friends!” Unfortunately Anastasia was NOT on the same page. She’d heard plenty about Charlie’s older siblings (who were in Gryffindor) and how much trouble they got into, and she could not understand why anyone would do things like checking out every single book in the library before she could just to try to get a complete stranger to be their friend. On top of that, she couldn’t help but resent Charlie a bit for doing so well in Care of Magical Creatures, a class she always struggled with.

After a lot of persistence, though, as well as seeing how good of a friend he was to Chip Winger @department-shoe-stud and others, Ana finally, finally gave Charlie a chance in sixth year and agreed to hang out with him. By the time they were seventh years, the two both considered each other friends, and once they graduated Hogwarts, Ana exchanged diligent correspondence with Charlie, her letter count to him only being beaten out by that to her best friend, Robin Isherwood @cursebreakerfarrier.

Now by the time this odd pair officially became friends, just about everyone in Charlie and Ana’s circles -- Robin, Chip, Mitch C. Hodge @department-shoe-stud, Jordi Prewett @cursebreakerelmswood, H.G. Gray @ljthebard1, Scotty Rosier @drinkyoursoupbitch, and Noa March @that-ravenpuff-witch -- could tell that Ana had developed romantic feelings for Charlie. Those suspicions were more than confirmed when Ana wrote her first book -- the first in a series featuring an eccentric, handsome, dark-haired traveling adventurer and dragonologist named Ardon Ronne. Everyone pretty quickly guessed the character was based off of Charlie Copper, who post-Hogwarts had started working at the Romanian Dragon Preserve alongside his namesake Charlie Weasley. When Chip Winger brought the book up to Charlie (with a little *wink wink nudge nudge*), however, Charlie was blissfully oblivious and brushed it off completely, saying it was kind of weird, but hey, “that’s Ana for you.” Turns out -- yeah! -- he really had been working so hard just to earn Ana’s friendship. He had not had a crush on her, like so many suspected. Needless to say, just about everyone wanted to throw hands at this revelation. This IDIOT!

It was only as the years went by that romantic late-bloomer Charlie started to notice girls. When he wrote about a rather pretty girl at the Preserve in his letters home to Ana, he was taken aback by how much Ana interrogated him about the girl in question, as if she was testing the girl vicariously through Charlie. “Is she honest?” her letters demanded. “Is she brave? What do you have in common? Does she treat you with respect?” What Charlie couldn’t have realized was that this was Ana fighting with herself. She felt frustrated and jealous beyond reason that Charlie had ignored all of her sincere efforts to love and support him and be someone he could potentially see in a romantic light -- but at the same time, she had always suffered from low self esteem about her appearance and knew that if this girl could make Charlie happy, she had no right to get in the way. Once she’d gotten every answer she wanted from Charlie and concluded that the girl would be a good match for him, she stopped writing. The young woman who used to send five letters every week abruptly went silent, leaving Charlie incredibly confused.

Fortunately, two months later, Ana’s stepbrothers, Jasper and Preston -- well aware of how unhappy their stepsister was -- decided to surprise her by inviting her “friend” Charlie Copper to the Pinkstone family’s annual Christmas party. As it is every year, the event hosted a select handful of both Muggle and wizard friends of the Pinkstones (the male members of whom all worked in a Muggle theater in their hometown of Stratford-Upon-Avon), with the dress code being formal dress robes (for wizards) and pre-WWI-inspired fashion (for Muggles). This made the Christmas party a rather colorful and theatrical sight, with everyone wearing top hats, tails, petticoats, corsets, vests, ties, and their finest robes, and everyone walzing to music ranging from traditional classical pieces to orchestral arrangements of Christmas songs to symphonic metal.

However Charlie had expected to greet Anastasia after two months of silence, though, it didn’t happen -- for when Ana descended the main staircase into the party already in progress, dressed in a low-cut white dress and matching white top hat, the newly girl-aware Charlie felt himself freeze up. She was beautiful. Charlie stowed away out of sight, trying to pull himself together, but he could see he wasn’t the only one who thought so. A lot of men danced with Ana. A lot of them were looking at her. It was only when one in particular got a bit too aggressive with his flirting that Charlie -- barely thinking at all -- intervened, coming up right behind Ana and advising the wizard to back off before Ana was tempted to say “no” in a way that didn’t involve words. Anastasia, previously unaware that Charlie had been there, was almost as red in the face as he was when she whirled around, startled, to look at him.

For the first time they looked at each other -- and felt the exact same way about each other.

Will they act on it, though...? Only time will tell. :3