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bitsandbobsofwriting · 3 years

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Something in the woods is stealing peoples’ Souls;

Merlin learns the hard way that he's a little more... fragmented, than normal people when he tries to solve the issue himself.

Part 2 (final part)

All of the Physicians in the town are being overrun.

Bodies keep showing up, still breathing, still perfectly functional, all seemingly unharmed... but they won’t wake up.

None of them will even twitch, as if, whilst the physical bodies were in perfect condition, there was something lacking somewhere, stopping any sort of higher brain function.

The King, his Knights, and even the Court Physician and his (newly titled) Co-Worker (as opposed to Apprentice), were baffled.

Medically, they had nothing to go on, all they could do was keep the bodies alive as best they could, and hope that some sort of solution could come about after some good old fashioned detective work.

Thankfully, it only took five days, and twelve comatose patients, for The King’s best Knights to realise that all of the... victims(?) had been found in a specific area of the woods just outside the city limits.

With such a distinct, and unexplainable issue, it was assumed (rightfully) that magic was involved somehow; whether it be some sort of creature, or yet another evil sorcerer hell-bent on revenge.

Which of course led to Merlin, one of the Court Physicians, and also (Secretly)TheMostPowerfulWarlockEver™, putting on his warmest clothes and sneaking out in the dead of night under the worried gaze of Gaius.

He did not come back.

Not that anyone but Gaius knew.

Early the next morning, King Arthur gathered his best Knights, Sirs Leon, Lancelot, Gwaine, Percival, and Elyan, to go and hunt down whatever it was that was rendering his people permanently unconscious.

Gaius and Merlin had explained the previous day, when these plans were conceived, that Merlin would have to stay behind; Camelot’s Physicians were so overwhelmed with not only normal patients, but now twelve comatose bodies as well; they needed every pair of hands they could get. For once, Arthur was happy to leave his manservant behind.

The man cared greatly for his people, and whilst he would love nothing more than to have Merlin at his side all day, every day, he knew that he was safer, and more needed, in the city.

It was meant to just be in case Merlin got injured and had to hide it, but Gaius did well to hide his worry when he waved them off, and didn’t mention that Merlin wasn’t even in the city, that they could be finding Merlin’s comatose body next.

It took the Gang barely half a day to get there, and they had supplies to last them a few days in the woods, if that’s what it came to, but they were all still tense.

They hadn't seen anything like this before. They had no idea what they were up against; there were no physical injuries to assess, no eye-witness accounts, nothing found in their blood or on their person. Just unconscious bodies that showed no sign of waking.

Thankfully, they found no more bodies as they methodically searched the forest, but they also found no sign of what was wrong.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary: nothing attacked them, there was no blood, no destroyed areas, not even a scrap of evidence that something had even happened.

They finally stopped to make camp at sundown, dejected. Their mood definitely worsening with Elyan’s terrible cooking.

Gwaine was, of course, the most talkative:

“I know he’s needed or whatever, but are we sure we can’t go back and get Merlin? I’ve eaten a lot of gross shit over the years, but I’m not sure if I can take this for four more days.”

Elyan grumbles in embarrassment as the others snort, amused, and he throws a twig at Gwaine. It snaps in two across the knight’s face with a satisfying crack.

Arthur ignores the childish behaviour (something he can’t believe he has to do in the first place), shaking his head as he replies:

“No. The health of the people comes before your stomach. If Gaius says he’s needed in the city, then he stays in the city. Though I was surprised that he wasn’t there to wave us off.”

Gwaine smirks knowingly, and Percival puts a warning hand on his shoulder, but it does nothing to deter the knight as he waggles his eyebrows at The King.

Arthur flushes slightly, but he covers it quickly, not having time to retort before Gwaine opens his mouth again:

“Missing him, are you? Perhaps next time you should request that he stand on the battlements in a dress, and wave a handkerchief at us as we heroically ride out?”

Arthur throws a much larger twig (it’s more of a branch, really) in Gwaine’s direction, and this one knocks him off his seat, but before anyone can even snigger at him, Arthur loudly announces the watches and tells everyone to get some sleep.

The next day went much the same.

That is, until late-afternoon.

The Knights were continuing their methodical search of the woods, once again finding themselves somehow tense and bored, when they came across a clearing that had clearly seen a gruesome battle.

Trees were uprooted, the ground was covered in deep holes and scorches, and there were even the occasional splashes of blood.

Which honestly raised more questions that it answered.

After thorough searching, they were hopeful. It looked like it had been some sort of fight between a sorcerer, and something... not human, some sort of creature. BUT, going by the tracks, the sorcerer had survived, and wandered off.

Was the sorcerer injured, or was the creature injured? If the sorcerer had walked off, injured or otherwise, where was the creature? Surely they should find the body of one or the other?

Another question that no one really wanted to ask: was this even related to the bodies?? Or had the Knights just stumbled onto something completely unrelated that they would inevitably get dragged into dealing with anyway?

Either way, they couldn’t ignore it, and with new-found motivation, they followed the tracks deeper into the woods, instead of setting up camp, like they had intended.

Whoever it was seemed to be wandering aimlessly. The blood trail slowly came to a stop, and it seemed that every step was stronger; as if whoever it were was gaining more energy from walking, as opposed to becoming more tired.

Still, whoever they found at the end of the tracks would be able to provide some sort of answer.

Eventually, after around two hours of diligently following the footsteps through the woods, Arthur signalled everyone to stop.

He wordlessly dismounts his horse, and gestures everyone to quietly do the same, before silently pointing ahead.

The knights look carefully to where he gestures, to see a man stood in the centre of a clearing, facing away from them.

They, still silent, draw their swords and sneak closer, but the man doesn’t move, doesn’t even twitch, and if it weren’t for the fact that he was stood upright, they would think him dead.

Arthur steps into the clearing, about twenty feet from the man, and furrows his brow. That looks like.... no... it can’t be, can it? He shakes the thoughts from his head, convinced that he’s just imagining things, but before he can make his presence known, the man turns around, as if he sensed them stood there.

All of them gasp and take a step back, immediately recognising Merlin.

But he’s... different.

He stands scarily still, unusual for a man who was constantly fidgeting or on the move.

His face is blank, and if he hadn’t been staring straight at them they would think he hadn’t noticed them at all, and whilst he stood as if uninjured, his tunic is ripped and blood-soaked.

But what draws everyone’s attention, was the bright golden glow of his eyes, highlighted especially by the quickly descending darkness of the evening.

Arthur brings his sword up slowly, taking a cautious step forward as he calls Merlin’s name.

Merlin simply tilts his head slightly, otherwise staying still, before stutteringly beginning to speak:

“Mer... lin... Merlin....... Merlin is... Merlin is...... Merlin is gone.”

It’s clear that something is deeply wrong with the manservant, but the way he spoke, as if he knew how but had never actually done it before, like he was still figuring it out, creeped the hell out of everyone.

His words as well, “Merlin is gone” do nothing but fill them with dread.

Lancelot steps forward quickly, moving to stand in front of Arthur, sword unsheathed but pointing at the ground. He was unsurprisingly less fearful of the golden irises, and recovered the quickest:

“What do you mean, “Merlin is gone”, gone where? Who are you?”

Merlin... or... not!Merlin, tilts his head further:

“Merlin is... gone. I... I... I want him... back.”

Lancelot gulps but before he can reply, Arthur breaks out of his stupor, and growls:

“What have you done with him?! Whatever you are, give him back!”

Merlin moves his gaze from Lancelot to Arthur, and takes a step forward, before bowing his head slightly, as if out of respect:

“You are... The Once and Future King... I want him back... you... you... you need him... back.”

The rest of the knights are fully freaked out now, but they hide it well, and gather slowly around Arthur. Lancelot scowls at them, holding a placating hand out. He really doesn’t want any of them to get jumpy and skewer Merlin. He takes another step towards the golden-eyed man:

“We all want Merlin back. The bodies, the same thing happened to you? Happened to Merlin?”

Not!Merlin nods slowly once again, looking back to Lancelot:

“It... took him... from me. I... I... I want him back.”

Lancelot returns his nod, letting out a deep breath:

“And who are you? What are you doing in Merlin’s body?”

Not!Merlin frowns slightly, as if confused, the first actual expression he’s pulled this whole time. It takes him a few moments to respond, and Lancelot is getting desperate; he can feel the knights behind him getting more and more jumpy, especially Arthur:

“I am... I... I have always been here... I am... I am... I am me. I am Merlin’s... and he is... mine... I want him... back. He is... mine.”

Lancelot tenses slightly. He has a feeling he knows what’s going on. Merlin talks about his magic sometimes, talks about it as if it’s... sentient. Described the way it’s always desperate to reach out to Arthur and the Knights and Gaius and Gwen, how it sometimes does things without his permission.

Lancelot gulps. This is bad. Merlin’s magic is walking around in his body without him there to control it. They were going to struggle to explain this away, as much as Merlin claimed Arthur was an idiot, it wasn’t completely true. Lancelot bit his lip, glancing back at the others as he re-sheaths his sword.

He knows there’s no way to get them to relax... unless... this might backfire terribly, but it also might be the only way to get them to calm down a little.

Lancelot frowns thoughtfully, and just before Arthur works up the nerve to say something else, he turns back to Not!Merlin:

“Do you mean us any harm?”

Not!Merlin once again tilts his head and frowns as if in confusion:

“No... Merlin is... Merlin is fond of... you. I.. I was made for... for The Once and Future King. I am... unable to hurt him.”

Lancelot nods, before saying slowly:

“Do you have any reason to lie to us?

The golden-eyed man shakes his head slowly, the glow seeming brighter as he replies:

“Why would I... I... lie? I could kill... you without a... second... second thought. I want Merlin... back.”

The knight nods one final time, looking back to the others to gauge their reactions. Their swords are still unsheathed, but lowered, their faces tense and concerned, but not angry. Lancelot supposes that’s the best he’s going to get at this point.

He lets out a rough sigh, running a hand through his hair as he looks back at the Warlock:

“You’re not Merlin. What do we call you, until we can get him back?”

Not!Merlin lets his gaze wonder to the knights, before finally landing on Arthur. His speech had been getting better with use, but he speaks slowly and keeps his stare on The King, as if curious to his reaction:

“I am... I am... I am part of him. I don’t... have a name. Call me... me... Emrys.”

Lancelot grits his teeth, and his eyes whip to Arthur, to see if he recognises the name.

With The King’s gasp, and widening eyes, Lancelot knows that he does recognise the name.

“You... you’re Emrys?? I thought Emrys was some all-powerful sorcerer, what are you doing in Merlin?”

Arthur is too distracted to notice Lancelot’s panic, but Leon, ever the observant one, is not, and frowns at the sudden fear on his fellow knight’s face.

Mer-... Emrys had already admitted that he wouldn’t lie, if Arthur keeps asking questions, he’ll figure it out. But before Lancelot can think of a solution, Emrys replies:

“Emrys is... is... our other... name. But I am not... Merlin. Not on my own. I want... want him back.”

Arthur looks taken aback, but before he can ask another question, Gwaine steps forward, giving Lancelot an unreadable look before:

“Right, well that’s all fine and dandy, but we need to set camp up and figure out what we’re going to do about... this.”

He gestures vaguely to Merlin’s body after sheathing his sword.

Arthur looks about ready to argue, but with another pointed look from Gwaine, Lancelot jumps into action:

“Gwaine’s right, we need to gather the horses and set up for the night. Here is probably alright, then we can come up with a plan to get Merlin back, and presumably, all of those other people.-”

He turns to Arthur, a sufficiently subservient expression on his face:

“-If you think that’s best, Sire?”

Gwaine rolls his eyes and scoffs at that, heading back to gather the horses from where they’d been left without further prompting. Arthur’s argumentative expression drops after a moment, and with one more mistrustful glance to Emrys, he nods, instructing the others to gather wood and get started on dinner.

Lancelot lets out a breath, but flushes slightly and tenses his jaw when he sees Leon giving him an inscrutable look. He turns away after a moment, under the pretence of helping Gwaine.

The moment Lancelot reaches Gwaine, a few metres into the treeline, the other knight quickly turns around and grabs his shoulders. He glances desperately back towards the clearing, and when he establishes that they’re the only two within earshot, roughly whispers:

“Please tell me you figured it out?? Because I’m not sure how the hell I’m going to keep Arthur from finding out on my own.”

Lancelot’s eyes widen, but his shock keeps him silent for only a few moments before Gwaine shakes his shoulders. He blinks away his surprise, whispering his response:

“You know?? Does Merlin know that you know?”

Gwaine shakes his head, finally letting go of Lance’s shoulders:

“No. I worked it out like twenty seconds ago, I’m sort of hoping that Arthur isn’t as quick as me. How long have you known?”

The other knight nods his head understandingly:

“About as long as I’ve known him, but I’ll explain later. This whole thing is... terrible. I don’t think our odds are good. Mer- Emrys won’t lie, and we won’t be able to stop Arthur from asking questions. He’s probably asking them now. We need to get the horses and get back.”

Gwaine nods roughly, and without another word, the two of them gather the reins of their six horses, and quickly make their way back to the clearing.

They had only been gone a few minutes, and in that time, firewood had been gathered and arranged. Elyan pulls a flint out of his pocket, and Lancelot widens his eyes as he sees Emrys tilt his head (still stood in the same place), moments before waving his hand casually.

The wood bursts into a roaring flame, and Emrys suddenly has four swords on him. Lancelot and Gwaine rush forward, standing in between Emrys and the other knights, holding their hands out as if in surrender. Gwaine speaks first:

“Hey! You might be freaked out by all of this, but that’s still Merlin’s body, and he needs it, so lets not poke holes in him, alright??”

Everyone bar Arthur lowers their swords, but before Gwaine can growl something out, Lancelot turns back to Emrys:

“Look, they’re all a little... unnerved, by magic, so maybe stop using it for now, yeah?”

Emrys tilts his head and furrows his brows again, and everyone stares at him in shock as he replies, not quite knowing what to make of his response:

“But I am magic. I am magic... incarnate. If I stop... I... I cease to exist. And Merlin... Merlin needs me. He needs me like... like... like humans need to breath. I can not just... stop. He would... would... we would die.”

Lancelot tightly shuts his eyes. There is officially NO way to explain this one away. Gods, Merlin is going to be so scared when he finds out.

After a few moments of shocked silence, Arthur finally squeaks out a:

“What??”

Gwaine quickly responds, before Emrys can reveal anymore:

“No. It's cruel to take Merlin’s secrets from him when he isn’t even here. We find Merlin, then you can ask your questions.-”

Arthur looks angry, like he wants to argue, but Gwaine takes a threatening step towards him, resting his hand on his sword at his hip as Lancelot and the other knights look on the scene with panic in their eyes. Gwaine growls out:

“-I said no, Princess. Everyone here knows I’m more loyal to Merlin than you, and that doesn’t stop just because he’s not here and you’re about to throw a temper tantrum.”

Arthur huffs, but lowers his sword as Gwaine glares at him, and Lancelot lets out a breath. The other knights follows The King’s lead, sheathing their swords and settling tensely around the fire.

Lancelot goes back to the horses, tying them down and removing saddlebags, with Leon’s help (and constant stare, which was an odd mix of concern and suspicion).

Gwaine points Emrys to a spot on the floor, and tells him to sit. The knight settles next to him protectively, his sword across his lap as he glares at Arthur on the other side of the fire.

The evening passes awkwardly, food being cooked and eaten in silence, no one quite sure what to say.

Arthur spends the whole time with a pinched look of frustration on his face, but the knights look to him as he takes a deep breath, his expression morphing into an odd mix of concern and accusation in the blink of an eye:

“How do we even know that the... Merlin, part of... part of you is alive? What happened to hi- to you? How do we get him back?”

Lancelot wants to be annoyed at his tone, but he poses valid questions. They still had no idea what actually happened or why or how they fixed it.

Emrys tilts his head, aiming his golden stare at Arthur:

“It is one of... of the Manducan, or The Eating Ones. They... are very rare, they steal... steal souls. Bodies can survive a short while.... a short while without them. Hence your... comatose patients. I am... we are, a little more... fragmented... than most. I contain too... too much power, so The Manducan took... only the human... human part.”

Everyone looks extremely worried at that, but Arthur’s face turns desperate as he rushes out:

“What do you mean, human?? What are you??”

They all stare at the raven-haired man as he speaks, his eyes focused on the King:

“We do not... know. Some call us a Lord, or a King. Others call us... call us... a God. In moments... of power, we... we hear prayers. It can be... disconcerting.”

The camp is silent for a while after that, everyone processing what had been said. Merlin heard people praying to him... not even Lancelot knew that, Merlin had never told him.

After around half a candle-mark, Leon breaks the silence to ask the questions that had been pushed to that back of their minds:

“How do we kill this creature, and what happens if we do? Can we get the souls back, undamaged?”

Emrys turns his golden gaze to the curly-haired knight as he replies:

“It is already... weakened. The Forever King needs to... strike... strike it with Excalibur. They hibernate for.... for centuries... and only return to this plane of existence to... collect food. If you... if you... if you kill it before it leaves, the souls will... will return...naturally.”

The knights all let out breaths of relief, but Arthur looks at his sword oddly, before muttering:

“What’s so special about my sword? And why do you keep calling me strange titles?”

Lancelot gulps, and Emrys tilts his head:

“You know of Emrys, but not of the... the prophecies?”

Arthur nods his head slowly, but Lancelot interrupts before Emrys can start the complicated process of explaining his and Arthur’s destinies:

“Perhaps that’s a... story, for when we have Merlin back in one piece. How do we track the creature?”

Arthur gives him a glare, before lowly saying:

“Do not think I do not notice you avoiding the subject, Sir Lancelot. You know of these prophecies?”

Lancelot grits his teeth, but gives a slow nod:

“Bits and pieces. Merlin isn’t fond of talking about it.-”

He raises a challenging eyebrow, still staring Arthur in the face, and everyone is take aback. Lancelot was never anything but respectful and polite to his King; this defiant look shocked them all:

“-You see, he’s spent his entire life in Camelot absolutely terrified that someone will overhear him, and have him burnt.”

Arthur took in a deep breath, hiding his guilt behind a blank façade, but before anyone can say anything, their gazes are drawn back to Emrys, who looks almost... mournful?

He nods his head slightly, and the sad look on his... on Merlin’s face, looks so out of place for someone so normally upbeat:

“He is... we, are constantly frightened. It is exhausting. I try to... to reassure us but... Merlin is... is... is always so scared, despite our power. We used to... to love flames, fire. Now it is... terrifying to us.”

Lancelot had kept his gaze on Arthur, and when The King looks back at him, his despair badly hidden, the knight simply shrugs one shoulder and nods slightly.

Arthur lets out a breath, and looks to his lap, whispering so quietly that the group barely hears him:

“He’s scared of... of me.”

Gwaine growls out an “Of course he is, you’re a Pen-.”, but he’s interrupted by Emrys:

“No. He would allow you to... to kill us. But we couldn’t bear to... to lose you.-”

He finishes his statement quietly, and Arthur looks up at him, tears in his eyes:

“-We don’t want to be sent away. Camelot is... is... is frightening. But it is also our... home.”

“I would never send you away. When we get Merlin back, you... you tell him that. Tell him he’s safe with me, with us, and always will be.”

Emrys tilts his head yet again:

“And my people? Will we be an... exception? Will you make us watch you... continue to persecute our people, whom we... we... we should be protecting? Merlin does... does not want to make a... hypocrite out of you.”

The knights look at him expectantly, and he blanches slightly as he looks away. The King gulps, before taking a deep breath and looking back, straightening his spine and looking confident:

“The laws will change. Crimes committed with magic will be judged the same as crimes committed without; it’s about time I faced the cruelties of my father.”

The corner of Emrys’ mouth tilts up briefly as he nods, but says nothing. Gwaine smirks, Leon and Lancelot give The King proud smiles, and Percival and Elyan look taken aback, before they relax into fond smiles of their own.

The evening had passed quickly, and with all of them exhausted, it’s decided that any further discussion on how to track this... Manducan, would happen in the morning.

All of the knights fall asleep quickly, finding the protective golden glow of Emrys’ unsleeping eyes both comforting and unsettling.

They all woke the next morning oddly refreshed, but the relaxed atmosphere didn’t last long when, one by one, the knights noticed Emrys sat unnervingly still, in the exact same spot as last night.

Only the occasional blink and shallow breathing proved that he was in fact alive, and not some sort of incredibly life-like statue.

Food was eaten, and camp broken quickly; the golden eyed not-quite-a-servant staying in his spot the whole time.

Despite Emrys saying that the souls would be fine as long as they got there in time, they were still full of nervous energy, and wanted to get this over and done with as soon as possible. Not least of all because they had a lot, and I mean a LOT, of questions for Merlin... or... all of Merlin.

Emrys was pointed to Lancelot’s horse, and once he mounted in front of the knight, everyone looked at him expectantly. He simply tilted his head, and Arthur huffed:

“Well? How do we find this... creature? Can’t you-”

He waves his hand vaguely, and Leon is the only knight able to hide his snort at The King’s impression of magic.

Emrys nods in understanding, and extends his hand in front of him. A thin stream of light, like a glowing string floating in the air, extends from his palm, snaking through the trees.

He nods, this time in the direction of the light, and the knights urge their horses to begin a quick paced journey.

Conversation is sparse, but eventually the question on all of their minds is asked by Percival:

“If you could do that the whole time, track the Manducan I mean, why didn’t you?”

Emrys doesn’t look towards him, but the horses noticeably slow as everyone bunches together, curious about his answer:

“They are of a different... different plane. Magic can harm them but... but... but not kill. I was waiting for The Once and Future King to bring... bring Excalibur.”

Percival nods in understanding, but Leon frowns:

“Well... what about us? Will we not be able to harm it with our swords?”

Everyone copies his frown at that. They’re valid questions, and Arthur is silently grateful that Leon had the tactical mind to think of them:

“No. It will be safer for... for... for you to... wait. I can distract and injure it further until... The Once and Future King can... kill it.”

The knights looks worried at that, but Elyan is the first one to pipe up:

“We’re meant to just stand back and watch? Can’t we set a trap, or help distract it?”

Emrys shakes his head:

“It can not be trapped. Being too close would... would have adverse effects on... on... on your souls.”

Arthur looks back from his position at the head of the group with a frown on his face:

“Well what about my soul? I’m presumably going to have to get close to it in order to stab it?”

Emrys fixes his golden stare on The King, and tilts his head slightly in confusion:

“Your soul was forged through magic, it is marginally... immune. It will take a little... longer for... for... for your soul to react badly.”

Arthur nods, looking back to the front, muttering something about “having a time limit before my soul implodes or whatever. Great.”

Once the knights finish snickering at Arthur, Gwaine asks:

“Wait wait, if Excalibur is the only thing able to kill it, what are you doing out here?”

Emrys tilts his head, looking back to the knights:

“We were... unaware of that at the... the time. We only figured out what... it was, when we fought it.”

Everyone nods, all of them wondering just how many times Merlin had snuck out to take care of something, with none of them knowing about it. The list of questions they had for when Merlin was back in one piece was getting longer and longer, and no part of this conversation was helping the anxiety swirling in Lancelot’s stomach.

After another hour or so of silence, Elyan pipes up:

“I’m surprised no one has asked yet but... what does this thing look like? I know we’re following a trail or whatever, but what are we actually going to find at the end of it?”

“They shift sizes, though they always take... the form of a thick-”

Emrys is interrupted by Arthur pulling his horse to a sudden stop, and pointing through the trees ahead of his, harshly whispering:

“Black shadow??”

Everyone stops behind him and their gazes dart quickly to where Arthur gestures. Through the trees they see a large mass of deep black smoke.

The black tendrils seem to writhe in the air, and the knights can see vague impressions of limbs tipped with impossibly sharp claws darting out occasionally before retreating back into the fog.

The creature looks like evil in semi-corporeal form, and the usually strong-willed warriors take in stuttering breaths at the overwhelming instincts of “Unnatural, run run RUN!” screaming at them with every passing second.

The shadow doesn’t seem to have any front or back; being in a constantly shifting state, sometimes seeming to freeze, sometimes darting through the trees in a blur.

The knights have lost all colour in their faces, and their breath comes shallowly and quickly. Arthur gulps, tightening his grip on his sword as he whispers:

“Horse, or on foot?”

The sound of Emrys’ feet softly thudding on the undergrowth gives The King his answer, and he dismounts his horse slowly, trying to stop the shaking in his hands and legs.

He takes a deep breath as Emrys moves to stand behind him. His voice is shaking and desperate, as if he were a child reaching for help after a nightmare:

“How do I... what do I do, Merlin?”

Emrys tilts his head, but doesn’t say anything of the The King’s mistake:

“You need only get close enough to... deeply slice it. It is fragile in this... this realm. Cover your eyes when you... you do so, the light will be blinding. Do not let it... touch you. I am reluctant to admit that, after what it did to... to... to our soul, I do not know what it will... do to yours.”

Arthur takes another deep breath, and clears his throat slightly as he gives a firm nod. Time to be brave now, for his people, for Merlin.

The King can hear his knights dismount behind him and tie up the horses, ready to jump in and help at a moment’s notice, in spite of... whatever will happen to their souls. None of them are really sure they want to know, so none of them ask for details, and Arthur is unendingly grateful for their silent loyalty and bravery.

Emrys walks forward, past Arthur, and towards the creature. The King gulps before silently slipping off to the side; he doesn’t know how the creature sees (not having a head, or even eyes, as far as he can tell), but Emrys said he would distract it so... splitting up makes the most sense?

The knights can tell the exact moment the creature notices Emrys walking towards it.

The tendrils of shadow seem to writhe even more frantically, and the fog bulges and retreats again, somehow giving the impression of anger, fear.

Emrys plants his feet strongly and raises a hand, summoning vines and roots from the ground with nought but a gesture; Arthur only gives himself a second to be distracted by the sight of Merlin so effortlessly doing magic before focussing back on the creature.

Everyone bar Emrys winces, and covers their ears as the beast lets out an ear piercing screech, moving judderingly towards the Warlock. The trees shake with the noise, and a few of Emrys’ magical attacks disintegrate into the air. He summons more, and snarls in concentration as the beast whips towards him.

Emrys rushes forward to meet the beast, and they clash in a burst of golden light and black shadow, each trying to take over the other. The shadows try to sneak around the Warlock, reaching towards the knights behind him, but they’re quickly halted in their tracks as cracks open in the ground, swallowing the fog before it can do any damage.

The golden light emanating from Emrys pulses brightly, and the creature is pushed back, the edges of its smoke disintegrating slowly into the air. It lets out another high pitched screech, and Arthur takes that as his cue; rushing silently forward, on the opposite side of the creature to Emrys, and swiping down precisely with Excalibur.

The knights see his attack coming, and step even further back, heeding Emrys’ warning and covering their eyes, Arthur doing so with his free hand as he brings the sword down.

Excalibur cuts through the shadow with no resistance; the screech getting impossibly louder as the blade leaves a blindingly golden trail in it’s wake.

Emrys simply stands back to watch, but the pitch of the beast’s screech forces the knights to the floor, eyes tightly shut, and hands clamped over their ears.

Suddenly, the noise stops, and the shadows of the creature seem to disintegrate into nothing as the golden light of the wound takes over. The light recedes in on itself, before exploding outwards and fragmenting into pieces. The bulk of the fragments fly in the direction of Camelot, golden blurs through the trees, but one, the smallest and dullest (due to being only part of a soul, they assume) flies with speed straight towards Emrys.

The knights and their King finally look up, feeling oddly exhausted, to see Emrys take a staggered step back and grimace in pain as the light forces it’s way down his throat.

He falls to the floor, and the knights rush towards him as his muscles spasm and he begins to scream. His eyes are shut tightly and Lancelot quickly lunges forward to grab his wrists as his hands go to yank at his hair.

Everyone gathers around him, Lancelot yelling for them to hold him so he doesn’t hurt himself. They can only hope that Merlin is an exception, and this isn’t happening to the other victims back in Camelot. Lancelot keeps a hold of his wrists, and Arthur discards Excalibur in favour of holding down Merlin’s shoulders, whilst Elyan, Leon, and Gwaine hold down his hips and legs, and Percival wordlessly stands guard.

Merlin’s screaming dies down, and he stops thrashing so much (but stays tense), but the knights don’t let go just yet. He opens his bleary eyes, and whispers, so faintly they barely hear it:

“... Lance?”

The knight lets go of Merlin’s now limp wrists gently, and strokes a hand through the man’s raven hair:

“Yeah, I’m here Merlin. All back in once piece?

Merlin closes his eyes again, and goes fully slack as the others let go of him fully, nodding slowly as he gulps before groaning:

“Yeah, that fucking... hurt.”

Lancelot huffs out a gentle laugh, but before he can reply, Merlin gasps and quickly sits up. When his wide, panicked eyes land on the rest of the knights huddled around him, his breath deepens and he scrambles back frantically, only to run into Arthur, who grabs his shoulders.

Merlin whips his head around and rips himself from The King’s grip, stumbling to his feet and rushing back, away from the knights and into a tree.

His ears are deaf to everyone’s gentle reassurances that he was safe, and his eyes are blind to the hands held up in soft surrender. He sinks to the floor as his breathing gets even more frenzied and tears gather in his eyes, but before he can process that he was safe, the mix of memories triggers a blinding pain behind his eyes.

He gives a pained yelp and shuts his eyes tightly, bringing his hands to grip the sides of his head as he curls up on the floor. Merlin begins to groan again, and Lancelot desperately gestures for everyone to stay back as he kneels by Merlin’s side, pulling his hands away from his head again:

“You’re safe Merlin, no one’s going to hurt you, do you remember? We said that to the bit of you that was left.-”

Merlin doesn’t seem to hear him, but squeezes Lancelot’s hands painfully tight as he continues to groan, arching his spine:

“-Ok, ok, what’s wrong Merlin? Your head? We can’t help you if we don’t know what’s wrong. Is it your... your soul?”

Merlin shakes his head slightly, groaning dying down, but still struggling to draw breath, still gripping Lance’s hands:

“Your magic?”

Another shake of the head has Lancelot beginning to panic a little; none of them have dealt with anything like this before, and he doesn’t know what’s wrong with his friend. He continues to try and comfort Merlin as he struggles to think of what else it could be, when Merlin begins forcing himself to take deep breaths, and stuttering out:

“Mem... memories.”

Lancelot takes a fortifying breath, and the others crowd a little closer, panicking for their friend:

“Memories? Ok, which ones? Memories from the bit of you that was wandering around, or memories from the bit of you that was in the creature?”

Thankfully, Merlin’s pain seems to be dying down slightly. His breath comes easier, but his eyes stay tightly shut and his muscles still spasm periodically as he grinds out:

“Both. Two sets of memories from... from the same time. Hurts. My. Brain.”

Lancelot huffs out another gentle laugh, rubbing his thumbs softly over the back of Merlin’s hands, and the others relax at the sight of Merlin’s pain lessening. Gwaine kneels down next to Lancelot, and quietly announces himself before beginning to run a gentle hand through Merlin’s hair.

This goes on for a few more minutes; the servant’s pain dwindling and his breathing evening out as his mind sorts the two sets of clashing memories and stitches the two pieces of his soul back together, Lancelot and Gwaine not stopping their soft ministrations for even a moment.

He finally relaxes fully, opening his eyes but not moving from his position on the floor as he gazes tiredly up at Arthur’s worried face, over Lancelot’s shoulder. His words comes out timidly, and Arthur has to stop himself flinching at the hint of fear in his voice:

“Did you mean it? Am I... safe?”

Arthur forces a soft smile on his face, hiding his worry, and gives Merlin a firm nod:

“I promise Merlin, you’re safe. None of us will hurt you.-”

Merlin smiles back at him, before nodding, and closing his eyes, drained from the ordeals of the last few days:

“-though you need to make sure your head is on straight at your earliest convenience, I’ll need your help to write that repeal.”

Arthur says it with a weak, teary grin, and Merlin chuckles slightly, nodding softly once more before drifting into a deep sleep, exhausted.

Lancelot mutters that he’s asleep, and the smile drops from Arthur’s face, his brow furrowing in worry as he crouches between his two knights, putting a hand to Merlin’s forehead:

“Will he be alright?”

Lancelot shrugs, biting his lip, and sporting a similar expression to The King as he replies:

“I’ve no clue. His soul was split in two, his magic was pushed to the limit in that fight, and his body didn’t rest at all or eat much for at least a day; he’s probably just exhausted, but we should get him back to Gaius.”

Elyan, Leon, and Percival move back to gather the horses without prompting, and within minutes the gang is racing back towards the city, Merlin’s unconscious form being held protectively in front of Arthur (his excuse being that Lancelot’s horse had already held the extra weight for half a day, and he’s The King, so he can do what he wants).

Thankfully, the creature had been between their camp and the city, so it only takes them around a day to get back. They took few breaks, and ate whilst they rode to save time. Despite not waking up the entire journey, Merlin’s breathing stayed alright, and he occasionally mumbled nonsense to himself, so the knights weren’t panicking too much.

They didn’t stop when night fell, and so finally pulled into the castle courtyard at around midnight. A guard was immediately sent to wake Gaius, and Percival wordlessly took Merlin from Arthur’s horse, only after The King had given him a short nod of approvable.

They got to the Physician’s chambers to see Gaius wide awake and bustling around the room, clearing a cot and gathering various potions and ingredients.

Percival gently set the manservant on the cot, and Gaius firmly demands that they all leave the room to give him space to work, choosing to ignore the fact that he had told them that Merlin was in the city, and that they definitely shouldn’t have come back with his exhausted, unconscious body.

Arthur notes that Gaius doesn’t react at all when Lancelot stays behind, but has to temper his frustration (and jealousy) when the Physician shoots the knight a concerned look when Arthur himself also refuses to leave.

Lancelot sighs, but gives Gaius a reassuring smile:

“It’s fine, Gaius, they all know about Merlin’s magic, he’s safe. We said we’d explain when we got Merlin back in one piece.”

Gaius sends The King a curious look, hiding his concern well before he seems to catch up on what Lancelot said:

“Back in one piece?”

Arthur moves closer as Lancelot nods and begins to speak, content to let the knight explain as long as he got to stand near Merlin:

“He said it was Manducan?-”

Gaius widens his eyes in surprise, but nods, continuing to mix together various herbs as he listens:

“-Apparently, Merlin’s power was too much for it to handle, so it took the non-magical part of his soul. We found Merlin’s body being controlled by his magic. It was... odd. He was still Merlin, you could hear it in the way he spoke, or the words he chose, but it wasn’t... all of him. Just the magic part. He wouldn’t lie to us, and was desperate to get the “Merlin” part of his soul back. Unless we spoke to him he just... sat there, blankly.”

Gaius hums thoughtfully, and he and Lancelot politely pretend not to notice Arthur reaching out to gently grab Merlin’s hand.

Finally, the physician finishes mixing his potion, and gently pours it into Merlin’s mouth, holding his nose shut and massaging his throat so it goes down properly. He sits back on his chair, glancing at Arthur quickly, before looking back to Lancelot:

“The other victims began to wake just under a day ago, so I’m assuming that the creature was... dealt with?-”

At Lancelot’s nod, he continues:

“-Did Merlin wake at all when his soul came together?”

Lancelot nods again, speaking quietly, feeling oddly like he doesn’t want to disturb Arthur softly rubbing his thumb over Merlin’s hand:

“Hmm. Briefly. He screamed for a while, whilst his soul... I don’t know, stitched itself back together? Then he panicked, because he knew his magic had been outed, then he was in pain again. He said having two sets of memories from the same time hurt. Then he was just exhausted, he passed out a few moments after the pain stopped.”

Gaius nods, and Arthur finally looks up, knowing that the explanation was over, and a conversation was about to happen. The Physician speaks:

“Humans are not made for that, it would have been painful for his mind to try to comprehend and organise two separate sets of simultaneous memories.”

Arthur speaks, his voice quiet, but obviously worried:

“Will he be alright? How long until he wakes?”

Gaius looks to him once more, giving The King an assessing gaze. When he spies no anger or deception in Arthur’s face, he relaxes his shoulders slightly, and sighs:

“He will be alright, he just needs rest. Both his body and his soul have been through a great deal, it will take a few days to a week for him to fully recover physically, though I can’t speak for his mental state.”

Arthur looks panicked, and Lancelot worries his lip between his teeth as Arthur asks:

“His mental state??”

Gaius finds himself sighing yet again as he asks:

“How lucid was he, between the bouts of pain?”

Lancelot rushes to answer:

“Very. He understood what I was saying, I think, he asked a question and understood our answer. He just seemed tired.”

Gaius gives the two men an exhausted smile, before softly saying:

“Then I imagine he will be fine. Go and get some rest, I will send for you if anything changes, though it’s unlikely that he’ll wake up at any point in the next two days or so.”

Lancelot nods, and moves towards the door, but Arthur stays put. Gaius raises an eyebrow, but moves forward and puts a comforting hand on his shoulder:

“He will be fine, Sire. And... everything he has done, every lie he has told, has been to keep you safe. He couldn’t bare to lose you.”

Arthur nods absentmindedly, before looking up to the Physician, and whispering:

“I couldn’t bare to lose him either. You... you promise he’ll be alright?”

Gaius nods and smiles, noting with relief the tearful desperation on The King’s face:

“I promise.”

Lancelot smiles fondly from his place stood at the door, but wipes it from his face as Arthur turns towards him. The two men leave out of the room, Gaius’ assessing eyes following them all the way.

The door shuts behind them softly, and Gaius lets out a breath he hadn’t even realised he had been holding, before running a hand gently through Merlin’s hair, and moving to settle in his own cot.

Of all the ways Arthur could find out about Merlin’s magic, out of Merlin’s control, Gaius never saw this coming, and though the pain Merlin felt was regretful, The Physician is grateful, that it went so well.

End of Part 1!!

Part two is already almost finished. It’s much shorter than this, and will be out at some point in the next few days!! Sorry this took so long lads, I’ve been really busy atm.

EDIT: I’ve actually just finished writing part 2!! It’s queued to be published at 12:30PM GMT tomorrow (09/05/21)

EDIT 2.0: PART 2 IS UP!!

Also I couldn’t find any mythical creatures that fit what I wanted, so I straight up just made one up ✌️

Head over to This List to let me know what you want me to work on next! :)

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mimiswitchywrites · 3 years

Text

Of Destiny and Drink

For @albionparty Yellow team prompt 1: "Destinies are troublesome things"

Thank you to @zaharya and @gwenspendragons for proof reading 💛💛

Words: 1044

Trigger Warnings: Drinking?

Read on A03

-----

For once, Merlin thought, he was actually in a tavern. It was odd and he didn’t really understand Gwaine’s adoration for them, but he supposed he liked the ale, and he supposed he liked the chatter, and, maybe, he also supposed he liked how close Arthur was sitting to him, legs pressed together, and King’s face flushed.

Arthur’s speech was getting slurred, and Merlin’s eyes were going fuzzy, not sure what to focus on, but they were enjoying themselves. The party had broken off into little groups: Elyan and Percival, Gwaine and Lancelot, Leon keeping a watchful eye on everyone, Merlin and Arthur huddled together like old wives or young spouses.

“... Merlin?” Arthur was talking to him - when that started, Merlin was unsure. He looked up, eyes shakily meeting Arthur’s. He loved the blue skies that ran through that man’s body, the way his golden hair sat upon his head like the sun mounting the world. He was quite beautiful.

“Thank you,” Arthur replied. He wore Camelot red upon his cheeks.

Merlin’s eyes grew like the saucers he left for the castle’s cats. He stared at the table, refusing to look back up to Arthur.

The cushion sagged slightly as the King (his King) shuffled closer. A weight, very tentatively, rested on his shoulder. Arthur sighed, breath tickling Merlin’s neck.

He took a deep breath of his own, “Are you alright, Arthur?” He stuck a shaky hand out, gripping his tankard and bringing it to his lips.

Arthur sighed again. His hand fell to Merlin’s thigh, the other snaking round the boy’s shoulder as he sank further into him. Arthur’s eyes sagged and Merlin found himself struggling under the weight of his body. Not that he minded, though. In fact, if it weren’t for Arthur’s obvious upset, he might find himself quite enjoying being pinned under the blonde’s body, in public or not.

At the third sigh, Merlin snapped. He didn’t mean to but if Arthur was going to make such a deal of being distressed, he could at least explain why that was.

“What?” he exclaimed, head spinning to meet Arthur’s. Their foreheads nearly bashed, the knights training all that prevented the clash. Merlin was almost in awe of the reflexes the man still possessed when intoxicated.

Arthur’s eyes widened slowly, unfocused in his drunk haze. He began to sigh again but quickly stopped at the look in Merlin’s eye.

He sank back into the bench, readjusting slightly at the wood digging into his neck.

“I’m tired. Of being king. And ruling a kingdom. And all the people that seem to think I’m perfect with zero explanation for why. And of my council. They are quite rude, don’t you think?” He turned to Merlin at that, hoping the servant would have some sort of solution that involved making the council disappear.

Merlin’s eyes were drawn to Arthur’s mouth, to the way it stopped rambling and instead sat open, lips red and chapped from anxious biting. He sensed Arthurs own eyes on him and, blush creeping onto his face, he turned, back pressed straight against the bench and tankard placed haphazardly back on the table. He bent his neck, staring up at the timber planks across the ceiling and the gaps in it allowing him to peer up at the stars above. He felt the weight in his chest – the one that had been there since he had arrived in Camelot and maybe even some time before then – grow heavier. He knew exactly what Arthur meant. He felt that way every day.

But what could he tell Arthur?

He couldn’t exactly say he related; he could practically hear the laugh Arthur would bark before slapping him up his head. But he also didn’t want to leave Arthur in this state, feeling alone and like he was the only one that felt that way.

Merlin’s tingly right hand made its way over to Arthur’s. His fingers wrapped around the King’s soft ones, rings cold against his skin.

“Destinies are troublesome things. And you have been burdened with one far heavier than most.” He squeezed Arthur’s hand gently, shuffling so their arms and legs were resting together. He was glad the table covered their hands from view: as much as he wished to be with Arthur, he knew Arthur wasn’t ready for others to see that.

They sat that way for some time, silence hanging between them, flesh against flesh.

As the candles burnt low, and Merlin began nodding off, Arthur spoke, “Why do you think I have a big destiny? Why does everyone seem to be sure of that and yet no one can tell me what it is?” Frustration grew in his voice, rant ending in that high pitch whine he often did.

Merlin repressed a snort.

He bumped their shoulders. “Because I believe in you. And I know many others want to - they need to - to survive. They say you are the Once and Future King but really, you are just a good man with an even better heart.” He lifted his free hand, placing it over Arthur’s chest. His eyes made their way up the strong jaw line, over rose-tinted cheeks, and up to blue ones. “I know you will do the unimaginable for Camelot and not because of some bullshit destiny, but because you will want to. And I will be here for you, every step of the way. I am yours till the day I die.”

Their eyes were locked, fingers still intertwined and bodies pressed as tight to each other as possible. Merlin’s heart swelled in his chest, Arthur’s beating faster than it ever had.

And then Gwaine dropped his tankard and there was ale all over the floor and Merlin’s socks were getting wet through holey boots and Arthur was shoving his shoulder, laugh stilted as he attempted to joke, “When did you get so wise?” and then they were on their way back up to the Castle, the group swaying in the wind. They sang songs of Maidens and Bears. Hands brushed against each other. Chambers were filled with more occupants than normal.

And Merlin’s voice played on loop in the King’s head for years after that night.

Destinies really were troublesome things.

#albionparty21 #Merlin #merlin fic #merthur #merthur fluff #fluff and angst #merlin x arthur #once and future king

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aidanchaser · 3 years

Text

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Everyone Lives AU

Table of Contents beta’d by @ageofzero @magic713m @ccboomer @aubsenroute @somebodyswatson

Chapter Seven The Will of Albus Dumbledore

Harry promised his parents that he would be fine. He was seventeen, after all, and if the Minister for Magic needed to speak with him, then he did not need his parents with him. He wanted their support, certainly, and wouldn’t mind reliving that Christmas when he and his parents had teamed up against the Minister, but he wanted to — needed to — do this on his own.

And anyway, he wasn’t entirely alone. His friends were crammed onto the sofa in the Weasley’s sitting room with him. Harry glanced at Ron, who was trying and failing to stabilise the stack of blankets that had occupied his seat, since the sofa had been George’s temporary bed for the last week. Hermione stared directly at Scrimgeour, as fiercely as Lily might have, and Neville struggled to extricate a pillow that had been wedged between his back and the sofa’s. It was not successful and he gave up, deciding instead to stare curiously at the Minister’s shoes.

Rufus Scrimgeour sank into the armchair that Mr Weasley usually sat in. He leaned heavily on his cane, and his face was gaunt and tired, far more worn than it had been at Christmas. The past six months had not been kind to the Minister for Magic.

“I have some questions for the four of you, and I think it will be best if we do it individually,” Scrimgeour said. “If the rest of you would wait upstairs, I’ll begin with Mr. Weasley.”

“We aren’t going anywhere,” Harry said quickly. Not only would he not leave his friends, they were wedged rather tightly into the sofa. He did not want to wriggle his way out of it.

“You may speak to us together,” Hermione said, “or not at all.”

Scrimgeour surveyed the four of them. He was a man who chose his battles carefully. Peace, however, won out for the moment, and Scrimgeour shrugged.

“Very well, then,” he said and reached into his coat. “As I said, I am here to read Albus Dumbledore’s will.”

Neville frowned and looked up from the Minister’s shoes. “Dumbledore died over a month ago. Why did you wait so long?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Hermione said in a voice much cooler than she usually used when explaining things to Neville. “They wanted to examine whatever he’s left us.”

“Wait,” Neville frowned, “you mean Dumbledore’s left us things? But —”

“You had no right to do that,” Harry interrupted and glared at Scrimgeour. “Whatever he’s left us —”

“I had every right,” said Scrimgeour, and removed a large mokeskin pouch from his robes. “The Decree for Justifiable Confiscation gives the Ministry the power to confiscate the contents of a will —”

“That law,” Hermione said, “was created to stop wizards passing on Dark artifacts, and the Ministry is supposed to have powerful evidence that the deceased’s possessions are illegal before seizing them! Are you telling me that you thought Dumbledore was trying to pass us something cursed?”

Scrimgeour answered Hermione’s question with another question. “Are you planning to follow a career in Magical Law, Miss Granger?”

Hermione snorted. “No, I’m hoping to do some good in the world.”

Ron did his best to disguise his sudden laughter in a cough. When he had control again, he asked, “Well, Minister, have you decided to let us have our things now?”

Though Scrimgeour himself seemed to have grown thin and weary, his sharp gaze had not dulled. His lion-like eyes turned on Ron, but not to answer Ron’s question. “Would you say you were close to Dumbledore, Ronald?”

Ron blinked. “Me? Not — not really. It was always Harry who…”

Too late, he realised Hermione and Harry were glaring daggers at him. Scrimgeour pounced.

“If you were not very close to Dumbledore, how do you account for the fact that he remembered you in his will? He made exceptionally few personal bequests. The vast majority of his possessions — his private library, his magical instruments, and other personal effects — were left to Hogwarts. Why do you think you were singled out?”

“I dunno.” Ron scratched behind his ear, and his elbow knocked into Harry’s shoulder. “I… when I say we weren’t close… I mean, I think he liked me…”

“You’re being modest, Ron,” Hermione said. “Dumbledore was very fond of you.”

“Er —”

Scrimgeour was no longer listening, however, as he opened the drawstring pouch and withdrew a scroll. He cleared his throat and read, “‘The Last Will and Testament of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore’... Yes, here we are… ‘To Ronald Bilius Weasley, I leave my Deluminator, in the hope that he will remember me when he uses it.’”

Scrimgeour reached into the drawstring pouch once more and pulled out a small silver cylinder that fit in the palm of his hand.

Harry was not sure he had ever seen anything like the device as Scrimgeour passed it to Ron. Ron turned it over in his hands and stared at it. He risked a glance at Harry, but Harry did not have any answers for Ron.

“It’s a very valuable object,” Scrimgeour said, his critical gaze focused entirely on Ron’s reaction. “It may even be unique. It has the ability to remove and restore light. Certainly it is of Dumbledore’s own design. Why would he have left you an item so rare?”

When Ron shook his head in disbelief, Scrimgeour pressed on.

“Dumbledore must have taught thousands of students, yet the only ones that he remembered in his will are you four. Why should —”

“Just us four?” Harry asked. “No one else?”

Scrimgeour raised an eyebrow and looked at Harry. “Only you four. Is there someone else you think he should have remembered?”

Hastily, Harry shook his head. “No — no one comes to mind. I just thought… er — perhaps he would have left my parents something.”

But Harry was not thinking of his parents; he was thinking of Cedric. Dumbledore had known that Harry had shared the prophecy and the quest with Cedric Diggory, just as he had shared it with Ron, Hermione, and Neville. Why had Dumbledore decided to leave Cedric out?

Scrimgeour returned to the will and read, “‘To Miss Hermione Jean Granger, I leave my copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, in the hope that she will find it entertaining and instructive.’”

From the pouch, Scrimgeour withdrew a small book with a worn cover and dog-eared pages. Hermione ran her fingers over the faded cloth stretched across the front. It was fraying in the corner and under her thumb. Two tears fell onto the book and she hastily wiped them away.

“Why do you think Dumbledore left you that book, Miss Granger?” Scrimgeour asked.

Hermione dried her eyes with the sleeve of her jumper. “He… he knew I liked books.”

“But why that particular book?”

Harry had the same question. Hermione loved to read, but a book of children’s fairytales hardly seemed the sort of thing she would be interested in, and Dumbledore must have known that.

“I don’t know. He must have thought I would enjoy them.”

“Did you ever discuss codes, or any means of passing secret messages with Dumbledore?”

“No,” she sniffed. “And if the Ministry hasn’t found any hidden codes in this book, then I doubt that I will.”

Neville patted Hermione’s arm, then froze as Scrimgeour read his name.

“‘To Neville Franciscus Longbottom, I leave a phoenix tail feather, as a reminder of his exceptional loyalty to his friends, and that we will always grow from our failures.’” Scrimgeour retrieved a red and gold feather from the pouch that shimmered, even in the dim light of the sitting room.

Neville stared at it in awe, frozen until Hermione gently nudged him, and he reached for it.

“It’s warm,” he said in surprise.

“It’s an incredibly valuable gift,” Scrimgeour said. “It has many uses, most commonly in wand cores.” He looked at Harry as he said this.

Harry did his best to keep his face neutral, and his emotions calm as he had been taught in his Occlumency lessons, but his mind buzzed with this information.

It was most likely a feather from Fawkes, whose feathers had also been given to make Harry and Voldemort’s wands. To give this feather to Neville, who had so nearly been marked the way Harry had been…

“Are you fond of phoenixes, Mr Longbottom?” Scrimgeour asked, but he kept his gaze on Harry.

“Er, no — I mean, not exactly.” Neville continued staring at the feather, entranced. “I fail a lot though.”

Scrimgeour examined Neville, but decided there was nothing more to be gained there. He reached into the pouch almost eagerly this time, as he read the next line.

“‘To Harry James Potter, I leave the Snitch he caught in his first Quidditch match at Hogwarts, as a reminder of the rewards of perseverance and skill.’”

He pulled out a velvet cloth and carefully unwrapped it to reveal a golden Snitch, silver wings fluttering in his grasp.

Harry stared at it, not entirely comprehending. He had hoped it would be something that could destroy a Horcrux, or perhaps even a Horcrux, though he did not think something like that would have been able to slip past the Ministry.

“Why did Dumbledore leave you this Snitch?” Scrimgeour asked.

Harry shrugged. “For the reasons you just read out, I suppose. To remind me what you can get if you persevere and whatever it was.”

“You think this is a mere symbolic keepsake, then?”

Harry looked Scrimgeour in the eyes. “What else could it be?”

“I’m the one asking the questions,” Scrimgeour snapped. “I noticed that your birthday cake is in the shape of a Snitch.”

Harry looked down at his jumper, where Mrs Weasley had knitted in a Snitch. “Yeah, bit weird, isn’t it? Dunno why people keep giving me Snitch-related things. My Dad’s even called me Snitch since I was about four. Can’t imagine why.”

“Perhaps it’s all been a secret encoded message from Dumbledore,” Hermione scoffed. “If we cut open your cake, we’ll find secret instructions inside.”

“I don’t believe there is anything hidden in your cake,” Scrimgeour said, “but a Snitch would be a very good hiding place for a small object.”

Harry understood, and it was why he had not reached for the Snitch yet. Snitches had flesh memories, and it would remember and react to Harry’s hand. Perhaps Dumbledore had charmed it to react in a particular way, perhaps there was a clue inside…

“Take it,” Scrimgeour said.

Harry swallowed, wishing he had a way to take the Snitch with the sleeve of his jumper, or some way to disguise it to Scrimgeour, but he came up with nothing. He reached for the Snitch, and as his fingers brushed the golden ball, the silver wings stilled and the Snitch fell limp in his hand.

Harry watched Scrimgeour’s eager expression fade into disappointment.

“That was dramatic,” Harry said.

Ron, Hermione, and Neville laughed. Scrimgeour scowled.

“That’s all then, is it?” Hermione asked, and tried to unstick herself from her very tight position between Harry and Neville.

“Not quite,” Scrimgeour said. “Dumbledore left you a second bequest, Potter.”

Harry’s hand tightened around the Snitch and his heart raced. “What is it?”

“The Sword of Godric Gryffindor.”

“Do you have it?” he asked, and tried not to sound eager.

“The Sword is not Dumbledore’s to give away,” Scrimgeour said. “The Sword of Godric Gryffindor is an important historical artefact, and as such, belongs to the Wizarding World as a whole, and, in any case, the Sword is currently missing. It has not been recovered since the Death Eaters’ attack on Hogwarts. Now why do you think, Mr. Potter, that Dumbledore would leave you the Sword of Godric Gryffindor?”

Harry knew exactly why Dumbledore had left it to him. He wished the Ministry had at least brought him the Sorting Hat. Maybe he could try to summon the Sword as he had in the Chamber of Secrets and destroy the diadem with it.

“I dunno,” Harry said, “maybe he thought it would look nice on my wall.”

“This is not a joke, Potter!”

“No, it isn’t.” Harry very carefully kept his voice cool, and refused to meet Scrimgeour’s temper. “It wasn’t a joke when I told the world that Voldemort came back. It wasn’t a joke when my parents came to the Ministry and told them how Umbridge was torturing her students. It wasn’t a joke when I told you that Yaxley was there the night that Dumbledore died, helping the Death Eaters, but it didn’t seem to damage his position in the Ministry, did it? And it wasn’t a joke when your Hit Wizards wanted to look into the disappearance of Hogwarts’ Muggle Studies professor but were shut down. People are dying because the Ministry is busy stripping down Deluminators and children’s books, rather than investigating the real problems and helping people. If you want to know why Voldemort’s back and how to stop him, start with your own office.”

Scrimgeour’s upper lip curled into a very thin snarl. “You go too far!” he shouted, and drew his wand. Harry stood too, and his chest met the end of Scrimgeour’s wand, where it singed a hole right into Mrs Weasley’s lovingly crafted Snitch.

“Oi!” Ron said, and he and Neville stood, fumbling for their wands, but Harry held his hands out.

“Don’t — do you want to give him an excuse to arrest us?”

Scrimgeour huffed something between a growl and a laugh. “Remembered you’re not at school, have you? Remembered that I am not Dumbledore who forgave your insolence and insubordination? You may wear that scar like a crown, Potter, but it is not up to a seventeen-year-old boy to tell me how to do my job! It’s time you learned some respect!”

“It’s time you earned it.” Harry had hardly finished his sentence when the door to the sitting room opened suddenly, and several people fought to get through the door, starting with Remus, wand drawn. Sirius, Lily, James, Tonks, Mr and Mrs Weasley, and Mr and Mrs Longbottom were all right behind him.

“We heard shouts,” Mrs Longbottom said, glancing between Neville and the Minister.

“Raised voices,” Mr Weasley echoed.

“Are you alright, Harry?” Remus asked, though his eyes were on Scrimgeour, not Harry.

“It — it was nothing,” Scrimgeour said, and stepped away from Harry. He looked at the hole he had made in Harry’s jumper and swallowed down his temper. With his anger gone, he simply looked weary, and Harry almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

“You seem to think,” Scrimgeour said slowly, “that the Ministry does not desire what you — what Dumbledore — desired. We ought to be working together.”

“I think I’ve been pretty clear about what I desire and what the Ministry desires,” said Harry. His hand clutched the Snitch hard enough that it dug into his hand, and the scars on the back of his hand stretched.

Scrimgeour took a long, measured look at Harry, then surveyed the cluster of grown ups who crowded the doorway.

Finally, he said, “Nymphadora Tonks — er, Lupin, is it?”

“Just Tonks is fine,” she said, voice unusually faint.

“A word, before I go.”

It was not a request. Tonks bit down on her lip and jerked her head in agreement. As Scrimgeour pushed past the Longbottoms and the Weasleys, Remus moved to follow, but Tonks shook her head and went alone with Scrimgeour.

Suddenly, Harry was swarmed by his parents. Lily and James searched him for injuries; they asked what had happened and if he was hurt, talking over each other and all at once. Sirius was no better, examining the hole that had been burned into his jumper and asking questions without waiting for the answers.

Harry was just fine, though. Scrimgeour’s temper had not hurt him; it had only ruined a perfectly good jumper.

There was not much Harry and his friends could do to keep their gifts from Dumbledore a secret, so they each shared what they had been given. None of them, however, mentioned the sword.

Mrs Longbottom ran her finger along the edge of the phoenix feather, much like Neville had done when he had received it.

“It is beautiful,” Mr Longbottom murmured. “And a powerful magical conduit, if nothing else.”

Remus thumbed through Hermione’s book, but he kept looking up from the pages to the door Tonks had disappeared through. “It’s an unusual choice,” he finally said, and returned it to her. “I didn’t know Dumbledore had an interest in children’s stories.”

“It’s certainly a practical gift,” Mrs Weasley said of the Deluminator.

“He probably really wanted you to remember him,” Mr Weasley offered, “giving you such a unique and personal item.”

Ron did not look particularly thrilled about this, and eyed the feather Neville’s parents were still examining.

Lily turned the Snitch over in her hands, squinting to find some sort of catch or mechanism to open it. It fluttered in her hand, and stilled when Harry took it from her.

“You said it was from your first game?” Sirius asked.

Harry nodded. “That’s what Dumbledore said.”

James raised an eyebrow. “And? Did you try it?”

“Er —” Harry had not wanted to open the Snitch in front of Scrimgeour, certainly, and he was equally afraid to open it in front of his parents. But he supposed there was no way of hiding it. His father, of course, would remember exactly how Harry had caught his first Snitch.

“What do you mean?” Lily asked, glancing between James and Harry.

“My very first Quidditch match,” Harry said, “I didn’t catch the Snitch with my hands.”

Lily blinked. “You mean that this is the Snitch that you nearly swallowed?”

Everyone in the room paused their conversation and turned to watch. Harry hesitated, and finally decided that the Snitch was not going to suddenly reveal the Horcrux quest in one fell swoop — hopefully. He lifted the Snitch and pressed it to his lips.

But the Snitch did not open. Harry was both relieved and frustrated. What had Dumbledore wanted him to gain from this Snitch?

“Hold on — Harry,” Sirius gestured to the Snitch. “There’s writing on it.”

Harry squinted and turned the small object over in his hands. Sirius was right. There, engraved in the Snitch, in Dumbledore’s own handwriting, he read, “‘I open at the close.’”

“What does that mean?” Lily frowned.

Harry looked to Hermione for help, but she shrugged her shoulders.

Dumbledore had left each of them not with help or answers, but with a new puzzle, as if the quest they had been given was not enough. Harry resisted the urge to toss the Snitch out the window. He was so tired of more riddles and no answers. The Snitch would have served him better as a reminder of perseverance and whatever else Scrimgeour had said.

“I think they’re all quite special,” Mrs Weasley finally said. “It was kind of Dumbledore to leave each of you something.” She returned the Deluminator to Ron and took Harry’s singed jumper. She folded it up in her arms. “Harry, I can mend this for you after the wedding. Why don’t we head back into the garden for —”

She stopped as Tonks returned to the sitting room, and Harry was startled to see that her pink hair had returned to brown, like her mother’s. Her eyes had shifted to grey, too, instead of the hazel they had been when she arrived.

“What’s happened?” Remus asked.

Tonks smiled thinly. “I’ve been sacked. It’s fine — really, it’s about what I expected.”

“Hippogriff shit,” Sirius snarled. “They can’t —”

“They can,” Mrs Longbottom said quietly. “Though I wouldn’t expect Scrimgeour to do something like that. Some others in the office, perhaps, but not Scrimgeour.”

“He didn’t seem very happy to do it.” Tonks shrugged. “Though I guess that doesn’t make it better.”

“I’m sorry,” Lily apologised. “I shouldn’t have asked you and Remus to stay.”

“I’m sure it would have happened eventually. Or something would have happened.” Tonks fidgeted with the wand at her side. “Er — should we get back to the party?”

But no one seemed in the mood for much celebration. Dinner was quiet, and dessert a muted affair. The Longbottoms did not stay long, and the Delacours retired early.

Harry had hoped that he, Ron, Hermione, and Neville would all get a chance to discuss their gifts, but as the Longbottoms disappeared through the Weasley’s gate, and Mrs Weasley asked Ron to help her clean up, it seemed that the chance was less and less likely.

“Forgive us for not helping, Molly,” James said as he gathered up an armful of dishes, “but we would like to give Harry his gift before Remus and Tonks leave.”

“Oh, of course,” she said, and took the dishes from him.

Harry followed James and Lily upstairs to the room they were borrowing from Fred and George during their stay. It was still packed with a few boxes of unfinished Weasley Wizard Wheezes. Between that, the bed, and James and Lily’s trunks it was a tight squeeze for the three of them, plus Remus, Tonks, Sirius, and Picksie.

Once upon a time, Harry had wished that his family was as big as Ron’s, and had not cared for how empty his house had felt compared to the Burrow, bursting with life. Sirius and James so often described their family as “pack,” which was perhaps the only allusion to werewolves that did not make Remus tense. Their pack had grown a good deal these last few years, and even though they had lost Mellie, Harry was overwhelmed both by their support and the interrogation that he knew would follow.

On Harry’s eleventh birthday, his family had taken him into the sitting room and had told him the story of how Voldemort had tried to kill him when he was just a baby. Hagrid had been there, because it was Hagrid who had found Harry, James, and Lily in the wreckage of Voldemort’s attack. Tonight, it was pack only, and it was Harry’s turn to tell them that he had to kill Voldemort.

Sirius sat on the bed, legs folded up underneath him, and Harry took a tentative seat on one of the boxes. It did not explode underneath him, which was a good sign. Picksie sat beside him, and Tonks and Remus stayed standing by the door as James dug through his trunk.

“You have a wand, dear,” Lily reminded him as she took a seat on her trunk.

James grunted and dug his wand out of his robes. He Summoned a small black gift box, no bigger than his palm, from his trunk. He handed the box and his wand to Lily, and she very carefully wove a golden ribbon around the box.

“I know we normally do more than one gift,” Lily said, “but we had to pack light, so we grabbed the most important one.”

She handed the box to Harry as James sat down, and Remus handed him the slender box he had nearly given to Harry before dinner.

Harry started with the gift from his parents. He had been expecting a pocketwatch from his parents, and was prepared for something rather expensive, perhaps something gold plated like Ron’s, or something charmed to mimic the phases of the moon like his father’s.

Instead, the silver pocketwatch nestled in the tissue was scratched and dented. The front of the watch was intricately decorated in bay leaves and flowers inlaid in gold. He lifted it out of the box and turned it over. “Harry Potter” was engraved on the back above a relief of intertwined olive branches, though the “r” at the end of “Potter” was nearly worn away. When he opened it, he found a plain watch face inside. Roman numerals decorated the edges, and a smaller circle to mark the seconds was nestled at the bottom of the watch. The second hand did not tick at all, though Harry could hear the sound of the gears working inside the watch. The initials “H. H. P.” were engraved on the inside of the cover, which Harry thought odd. It was almost his initials, but not quite.

“Thank you,” he said, and hoped it sounded sincere. He was grateful, just not sure why it was so different from what he had expected.

“It was your great-grandfather’s,” Lily said. “We thought, well, what better pocketwatch than the one that belonged to your namesake.”

“More than that,” James added, “we named you after him for a reason — and not just because your grandfather’s name was Fleamont.”

Harry shuddered to think that he could have been “Fleamont James Potter” and decided he was much more grateful to have Henry Potter’s watch.

“Your great-grandfather,” James continued, “lived during a time not so different from ours, when Grindelwald rose to power. He had already lost standing in the Ministry, for trying to convince wizards to fight in the Great Muggle war that marked the first half of the century. And when war broke out in the 1930s, amongst both Muggles and wizards, he fought to protect those in danger.”

“We had a lot of plans for your seventeenth birthday,” Lily said, “and one of them was to give you the Invisibility Cloak.” She paused to glance sideways at James. “We were supposed to tell you how your great-grandfather used the Cloak to smuggle people out of Poland, people who were threatened by those in power — both the Muggle-born witches and wizards that Grindelwald hated, and the Jewish and Romani people who were threatened by the Muggle government. The Cloak became a powerful tool, used to help people who were in danger, to save lives. It isn’t just for getting into and out of trouble at school.”

“A wand can be used for both fun and duels,” Sirius said.

“Besides,” James said, “Harry’s been very responsible with the Cloak.”

“You didn’t have to pull him out of an Acromantula nest in the Forbidden Forest,” Lily snapped.

“Fair enough,” James agreed, but with a small smile, like he, too, had used the Cloak to find Acromantula in the Forbidden Forest, or perhaps something worse. “Anyway, Harry, to finish up the story, after almost ten years of smuggling people out of Poland, Grandpa Harry got the personal attention of Grindelwald. His friends forced him to hide away for a while and managed to get him into India with his wife’s family. But even then, he couldn’t stay out of the fight. Your great-grandparents continued working to provide relief during a famine as best as they could.”

“Didn’t he marry someone called Dolly?” Harry asked, trying to recall the family tree in the book his parents had given him for his birthday last year.

“Mistress Dolly is the English name she is using when she is in England with Mister Henry,” Picksie said, “but her given name is Mistress Dipali. She is a very kind woman, helping raise Picksie when she was born to Mama…”

“You can imagine why Great-Aunt Dorea was so fond of her and Henry,” Sirius said with a wry smile.

“It’s all in that book we gave you last year,” James said, “her story and Grandpa Harry’s, but we wanted to share his story with you on your birthday because it meant a lot to us when we learned you were coming along. Dumbledore didn’t tell us the prophecy until after Voldemort tried to kill you, but while we were in hiding, we talked a lot about my grandfather who had been hunted by Grindelwald, who had tried to help even at risk to his own life —”

“You talked a lot about him,” Lily interrupted, “and I did a lot of listening.”

James grimaced.

“But,” Lily added, “I was the one who suggested we name you after him.”

“Her exact words,” James said, “were ‘If we name our child Harry will you stop bringing him up every fifteen minutes.’ And I told her I might.”

“We had also planned,” Lily said, “to tell you the prophecy today. And we thought that your great-grandfather’s story would help put it into a bit of perspective. It’s not the prophecy that makes you destined to fight Voldemort, Harry. It’s the family you come from. It’s who you are, even beyond what your father and I — and Remus and Sirius — have taught you. We have never wanted you to feel like a weapon, like someone’s tool to be used against Voldemort. You’re our son, before anything else.”

“We never wanted —” James stopped, then started over. “We never thought that keeping the prophecy from you would turn against us the way it did. And we are sorry. When Voldemort came back, we should have told you what that meant, and why it worried us so much. And we did want to, but Dumbledore asked us to wait, and we trusted him.” He fiddled with the strap of his wristwatch. “I know Dumbledore’s done a lot for us — protected us, and protected Remus — but if we had taken a moment to trust our own judgement, to trust ourselves as your parents, then maybe we would have made the right choice.”

Harry looked down at the pocketwatch in his hand, unsure what to say. He knew what his parents were getting at, but really, the only thing he could think about was how differently this day might have gone if Voldemort had never returned in the first place. His family would have been at home. Maybe Dumbledore would have been there. Maybe James would have pretended to gift the Cloak to Harry and they would have laughed about it. Maybe the prophecy would not have felt like a curse.

It should never have been this somber event, in a small bedroom of the Burrow, with the crushing weight of a secret quest on his shoulders.

“Harry,” James said slowly, “we know that you don’t want our help, but —”

“Of course I want your help,” Harry said, and struggled to keep his voice from breaking. “I do, but I — I can’t tell you.”

Lily’s uninjured hand tightened around the hem of her skirt. “But you’ll tell Ron and Hermione? And Neville and Cedric?” He could hear how angry she was, though she tried so hard to restrain it.

Harry looked at each of them — his mother, his father, Sirius, Picksie, Remus and Tonks — and he knew that he could not give them what they wanted.

“I know you want to help,” Harry said, “but you can’t help me with this. I can’t —” He swallowed. “I have to face him. And if I let you help — if you come with me on this quest — you won’t let me fight.”

Lily opened her mouth to argue, but Harry kept talking.

“It’s not about being an adult, Mum, or you treating me like a child. It’s not. It’s that Dad lost his eye in the Department of Mysteries because he stopped to make sure I was alright. It’s that Dad nearly died on our trip to the Burrow because he came back to help me. It’s that Yaxley nearly killed you because of me, and that you dueled Voldemort in the graveyard, even when I was safely back at Hogwarts. It’s that Remus forgot to take his potion one night to try to protect me from Barty Crouch, Jr. It’s that Sirius nearly had his soul sucked out by dementors because he was trying to protect me from them. It’s that if it has to come down to me and Voldemort, I can’t have you there, too, because I know you’ll try to fight. And you can’t. You can’t help me with this.”

He knew it would not make them feel better, but he did not know what else to say. James leaned his elbows against his knees and ran both his hands through his hair. He looked so tired, more tired than Harry had ever seen him. Lily’s face and neck were blooming with red splotches, but she kept her lips pressed tightly together.

Sirius’ voice was dangerously close to a snarl as he said, “You’re not being fair, Harry. We’re your family, and family sticks together. I said prophecy be damned the other day and I meant it. No one gets to decide you have to face Voldemort alone, not even you.”

“I never said it was fair.” Harry looked down at the unopened box in his lap. Sirius, Remus, Tonks, and Regulus had all worked to get him something, even though Tonks was the only one of them with any income at all — and she had just lost that tonight because she had joined his family. Fair wasn’t a word they could afford to live by, not now.

“What can you tell us, Harry?” Tonks asked. “I’m a trained Auror and officially a free agent as of tonight. There has to be a way we can help, even if it isn’t dueling Voldemort in your place.”

Harry shook his head. “All I can say is that Dumbledore trusted me with a job. Regulus knows what it is. He’s the one who started this task, years ago, before you even went into hiding. It’s why he faked his death, to cover up his betrayal. He’s already helped me with part of it, and I helped him finish up something he started. Dumbledore didn’t leave me to do this fight alone. He knew I would need help, and he trusted Hermione, Ron, and Neville.”

“But not us,” Remus said, “and that terrifies us, Harry. You understand that, don’t you?”

Harry did understand. He had spent most of his fifteenth year worrying over the secret missions his parents went on. He knew exactly what he was asking of his family, and he knew it was impossible to make them agree. But he didn’t have to make them agree, he had to give them just enough peace of mind to let him go.

“I think,” Harry began slowly, “that Dumbledore has always tried to do what’s best for us. Even though I was upset about the prophecy, I understand why Dumbledore wanted it to stay a secret, and why you were so worried about it. I think the best thing to do right now is to trust Dumbledore.”

“I think you’re making a mistake,” Lily said.

James reached over and took her hand, slowly loosening her tight fist until their fingers were intertwined. “You’re seventeen now, Harry, so we won’t try to stop you. But we will do everything we can to stay by your side.”

It was the best Harry could hope for, the most he could ask of them.

“It’s a bit underwhelming now,” Remus said, “but you should open your other gift.”

Carefully, Harry pulled the lid off of the white box Remus had given to him. Inside was a slender velvet case, and when he opened it, he found an intricate watch chain. There were three chains, in fact, strung together and connected to a crest decorated with a lion. They were surprisingly heavy, and Harry guessed they were solid gold.

He looked up at Sirius, Remus, and Tonks, bewildered. “Are you… sure?”

“We knew what your parents were giving you,” Remus said, “and we thought we would give you something new to go with the old.”

“But… it’s…”

James cleared his throat and Harry belatedly remembered his manners.

“Thank you.” He very carefully attached the decorative chain to the pocket watch. “It’s perfect.”

“Happy birthday, Harry,” Tonks said. “I’m glad we were here to celebrate with you.”

She gave him another hug and kissed his cheek, and Harry could not find the words to thank her.

They said goodbye to Remus and Tonks. Tonks, though she had been downcast since her conversation with Scrimgeour, smiled and said she was happy to attend the wedding tomorrow now that she did not have to go into the office. Remus, however, did not smile, and Harry did not like the look in his eyes. It reminded him of the way Remus had looked in St Mungo’s last summer — cold, closed off, and ready to run.

After he and Sirius had seen Remus and Tonks out, Harry started upstairs to Ron’s room, but Sirius grabbed his arm.

“Harry,” he said, voice unusually sharp, “James may be willing to let you run off on some dangerous mission just because you’re an adult, but I’m not going to let you do this alone. I don’t care what they’ve decided. You’ll be hard-pressed to get rid of me.”

Harry had not considered that Sirius, with his unwavering loyalty and fear of repeating his mistakes from the first war, would be the hardest to convince to accept Dumbledore’s secret quest. He searched desperately for something to ease Sirius’ fear.

“What about with Umbridge? You were willing to let me make my own decision about that.”

Sirius’ frown turned into a vicious scowl. “That was different. We knew where you were — you could come home at any time. You had an out. If you go, Harry, there may not be a way to turn back.”

Harry thought of the Horcrux tucked under the pillow on the camp bed. He was already beyond the point of turning back. Maybe if he had refused to destroy the locket, had insisted Dumbledore or Regulus destroy it, maybe that had been his last chance to turn down this quest.

Or would it have been retrieving Slughorn’s memory? Or the moment he had decided to face Voldemort in the graveyard? Or the moment he had decided to get to the Philosopher’s Stone before Voldemort?

There had never been a turning back point. His path had always been headed this way, since his great-grandfather had decided to fight evil, since his parents had joined the Order, since a prophecy had been set — it was all far larger than Harry, and though he knew he had a choice, he didn’t really, not if he wanted to stay true to who he was.

Just as Sirius, too, did not have any choice.

“I’m sorry,” Harry said, for there was nothing else to say.

He pulled away from Sirius and climbed the stairs to Ron’s bedroom. His feet were heavy as he did, and he thought that if he wasn’t careful his entire chest would pull him down to the ground as if he had been struck by a Solum jinx.

A strange sound from his parents’ room made him pause on the landing. His heart thumped loudly in his chest as he recognised the uncommon sound of his mother crying. She was always the one who was quick to anger, ready with a Blasting Curse, and Harry’s heart crawled up into his throat as he heard her unfiltered grief.

He could not hear what his father said, but he recognised the tone of comfort, the attempts to soothe her heartache.

“Oh — stop,” she snapped at him, and choked on a sob. “I can’t change Harry’s mind, I can’t bring Dumbledore back, I can’t repair my wand —”

“You aren’t helpless.” James’ voice was raised ever so slightly, only just audible over her sobs. “We will be there for Harry, as much as we can be, and you know this. We just have to trust that Dumbledore knew what he was doing.”

“He’s our son, James, we can’t —”

“We won’t.”

Harry hurried upstairs, stepping lightly to avoid the creaks. Unfortunately he did not know the steps at the Burrow as well as he knew the steps in Styncon Garden, and there were quite a few squeaks in his wake.

When he opened the door to Ron’s room and was surprised to find it empty. He frowned, wondering where Ron could have gotten to. Then he heard, “Finally — I was starting to think your parents had Apparated away with you.”

Harry turned toward the balcony to see Ginny leaning against its frame.

“Have you been waiting long?”

“Only since Ron and I finished the washing up.”

“Where is he?”

“He said he was going to check on the chickens. Kind of him, really.”

Though his chest still ached, he gave Ginny a weak smile and joined her on the balcony.

“Everything alright?” she asked.

Harry looked up at the clear sky and the constellations that decorated it. He thought of his failed Astronomy O.W.L. and the centaurs’ warnings about Mars. Seven years ago they had warned him that war was coming — no, warned wasn’t the right word. They’d simply observed it.

Harry did not want to be an observer, and he could not blame his parents for refusing to stand by, either.

“Should I tell my parents what I’m going to do?” he asked Ginny. It was not the answer to her question, but it was the closest he could get.

Ginny did not answer right away. She leaned against him, despite the warm night. Harry obligingly put his arm around her shoulder, but unlike during the early mornings they had spent together, Harry’s mind did not still. It continued to turn over everything his parents had said, the sad smile on Tonks’ face, the terror in Remus’ voice, and the fury in Sirius.

“Is Dumbledore the only reason you’re keeping it a secret?” she asked.

“No,” Harry said. “I know that they won’t let me face Voldemort — and I won’t watch them die trying to protect me from something I can’t avoid. I have to be the one to face him.”

“It sounds like you’ve made up your mind, then.”

Harry let out a slow breath but the pain in his chest did not relax.

“Hey,” she said, and elbowed him gently, “don’t you want to know what I got you for your birthday?”

He pulled his eyes from the stars and turned to look at her. “What? No — you didn’t have to get me anything, I —”

“Took me a while to come up with it. I thought I couldn’t get you anything big, since you’ll probably be traveling. I wanted it to be useful, but I figured Hermione had all that covered. Still, I thought I ought to get you something to remember me by.”

“Ginny, you don’t —”

She cut him off with a kiss.

They’d had quite a few kisses on the balcony this summer — perhaps more than Ron might like to know about — but none quite like this one. She tangled her hand in his hair and his hand slid to the small of her back, almost instinctively, pulling her closer. It was deeper, longer than their kisses from before…

Until there was a loud bang in Ron’s room.

Harry remembered Mrs Weasley’s bold entry the other day and practically leapt off of the balcony in an attempt to get away from Ginny. He knocked over Ginny’s broom, and his elbow collided with the bannister. A jolt of pain coursed through his arm to his fingertips. He winced and tried to rub the sensation away. It did not help.

“Thanks for the warning, Ron,” Ginny snapped.

Ron sank down on his bed and looked at the two of them, eyes full of something Harry couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t judgement, but it was definitely uncomfortable.

“I spent half an hour with the chickens! What more did you want from me?”

“The whole damn night,” Ginny muttered, but only for Harry’s ears, which burned suddenly.

“Er — Good night, Ginny,” Harry said, hating how formal his voice sounded all of a sudden.

She quirked an eyebrow, then kissed his cheek. “Night, Harry. Sweet dreams. And happy birthday.”

#harry potter #harry potter fic #everyone lives au #harry potter everyone lives #hp everyone lives #dh #hp fic

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uthseikoashx-inflamedme · 4 years

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Personal favourite HP (&FB) fanfictions (but unfortunately it’s mostly GGAD)

posted: 08-10-2020 edited: 08-24-2020

(really sorry for the mistakes! fanfics are better i swear)

I read several HP and FB fanfics during the last few months, and in order to sum up my favourite ones, here is this post. It’s entirely and obviously personal, and to be honest, it’s more something which is more supposed to help me than recommanding something to you

But I truly think those fanfictions are great, so if you didn’t already read them, you may enjoy them!

I might update it every now and then, by the way!

(most of them are already quite well-known though, sorry)

Put Your Guns Away, it’s Tea Time (52k) and Put Your Curse in Reverse (276k) (from the It’s Tea Time serie), written by ellizablue :

A very lovely, funny and well-written story which follows Albus Severus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy, Harry and Ginny Potter, the rest of the Potter-Weasley family and all of the surrounding people after the events of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

It’s technically canon-compliant - the author created an amazing story based on HPCC - and did it so well! I admit I was a bit disappointed about HPCC when it had been published, but It’s Tea Time “fixed” all of the things I was confused about.

Albus’ and Scorpius’ relationship is adorable, both of them are interesting characters. Harry and Ginny are amiable and attentive parents, they protect people they love. James Sirius and Lily Luna are also great - and to be honest, all of the characters are refreshing, complex, ect. I could talk about it throughout countless of pages. So many themes are brilliantly treated. I still didn’t read the third opus of the series!

(if I should recommand one only series of HP fanfictions, I would recommand this one)

Several fanfictions written by meanwhiletimely :

Illumine (10k) :

In Prague in 1914, Albus Dumbledore goes to a Gellert Grindelwald’s brillant speech. The political discussion between Albus and Henry Potter, how Gellert is able to enthrall a breathless crowed, Gellert’s and Albus’ very special and intense relationship, the wonderful Christian imagery and parallels, the description of the surrounding world and the ambiance, Gellert’s speech... It is quite marvellous, well-written and perfectly bitter-sweet - more bitter than sweet though. Eventual smut, very good, but imo, it cannot be considered as the very heart of the text, even though the sexual tension is omnipresent. I can't help but read it oftenly, and everytime I'm amazed - it might be my favourite GGAD fanfiction in fact. Brilliant.

Extreme Incantations (10k) :

In order to find clues about the Elder Wand story, Albus and Gellert try a “decadent, degenerate, deranged” ritual. A lot of smut, but again, their relationship and their psychology are absolutely central. I loved how they are portrayed, loved to discover Gellert’s thoughts and point of view. Again, it’s brilliantly bitter-sweet - even quite heartbreaking. Like Illumine, I have so much more to say, but I’ll stop here and just say: if you are interested by Summer of 1899 fanfictions, you could be delighted to discover it.

The Seer in the Tower (2k5) and Collateral (3k) are as great as Illumine and Extreme Incantations. In the first one, Tom Riddle meets Gellert Grindelwald after 1945 ; in the second one, Gellert and Ariana talk thanks the Resurection Stone. Light Bringer (10k), which sums up the Summer of 1899, is also amazing - incredibly painful, hopeless and horrendous, and Gellert Grindelwald is definitely not a good person - but still amazing.

Thirty-Five Owls (11k) by Letterblade :

After 1945, Albus and Gellert sent letters to each other - and I will add nothing more about the plot. A quite famous fanfiction - published in 2008 - and rightfully recognised as a brillant one. Beautifully written, the tag "Everything Hurts" is accurate, constantly breathtaking. I loved more than everything else the end - overwhelming, and yet so simple. Even canon-compliant, what more could we ask? In a nutshell, an unmissable work.

White (2k) (M) by Vandrerska :

“The story Gellert Grindelwald would tell if somebody took the trouble to ask.”, or a magnificiently well-written 1st person POV fic with Gellert talking about Albus and 1899. Here is the same vibe we already have in Thirty-Five Owls, but with the benefit of a heart-to-heart conversation between Gellert and the reader directly. Needless to say that both of the hearts involved in the conversation are broken. I love how it is written (but it is no surprise, well-crafted angsty texts like this one own my heart).

nobody else but me (5k) by Roflskate :

After meeting Percival Graves and starting a correspondence with the very head of MACUSA's Department of Law Enforcement in 1926, Albus Dumbledore thinks he's finally ready to move on from Gellert Grindelwald. Well, if you saw Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, you know he's not.

I'm fond of the plot: the way we, as readers, already know how that story is doomed to end, is the very heart of the text - and speaking of the end, I loved it - just like Thirty-Five Owls, simple and heartrending. Again, bitterness is back. Beware of the manipulation and the very questionable consent, it's literally the plot.

(btw, this work inspired this post: GG as Hogwarts teacher/librarian before FBaWtFT: where are the fanfics? (if someone wants to write it please i will be pretty happy))

(In every bloody fanfiction I recommend Albus is suffering, sorry about that) (and it's not going to end with the next fanfic) (suffering is inherent to the character though so)

The Trial of Albus Dumbledore (51k) by Aurora_xx :

In this post-FBCoG AU, Albus Dumbledore is questioned about his relations with Gellert Grindelwald. But before his trial, he unknowingly took Veritaserum. To be honest, I felt it first as a “satisfying” AU: people we don’t like became a bit ridiculous, people we like get through (well, mostly).

Nonetheless, it’s more than that: the trial scene is incredibly tense, the consequences are terrible, and we want to see what's going to happen next. Moreover, the character development is suprisingly remarkably well-done - Vinda Rosier has an amazing backstory, for example; Newt and Newt’s friends are also very likeable, complex, etc. We love to hate Travers, Grindelwald is a character we eventually support (for specific reasons, mostly because he’s powerful, self-confident, rather hilarious and badass, but also a bit more human than we could think). And all we want to do is taking care of Albus.

It’s definitely a really pleasant fanfiction - but not an “easy” one, there are a lot of hard themes and very tense scenes, etc. This story is still considered as a WIP, though the five first chapters are already enough.

Three fics of mautadite :

A Metaphor for Change (1k) (M) : I will just rewrite the summary here, so: "Five things Albus could not bring himself to say to Gellert. (One of them is a lie.)”. I really liked it, it is angsty - but the sweetest way, the very sad way.

To Be Great (0.3k) (G) : What Albus and the Sorting Hat said when Albus put the Hat on his head for the first time. Really a relevant and sharp character study. Again, I felt a hint of a sweet kind of angst. I wonder if I am the only one, you tell me.

Love Letters (6k) (E) : Scenes of Gellert’s and Albus’ life from 1995 to 1899 - often conversations, so say hello to well-crafted relationships between mc and other characters. Here comes the angst again (I think the author writes Albus and Gellert that way - or maybe, the characters are meant to be suffused by angsty undertones). The fact that we go back in time hurts a lot, because every smile they have are perverted by our knowledge of what happens next - the happiness won’t last, and really, it hurts. Canon compliant.

GGAD works of verivala (bloodtroth on tumblr)

Many short one-shots, from fluff to angst - sometimes droll, sometimes soft, often painful, quite always (a bit or a lot) bitter-sweet. You might at least find few of them interesting.

Grindeldore one-shots (22 works)

Grindeldore requests (5 works)

Grindeldore prompt fills (38 works)

L’Indiscible (190k) by Neaniver279

This one is a French one! Deux ans après la fin de la guerre, Percy Weasley - profondément meurtri par la mort de Fred, de laquelle il s’estime responsable - est renvoyé par une mystérieuse potion au 25 décembre 1975. Plusieurs élèves de Poudlard attirent son attention et son affection, voire un en particulier, Sirius Black.

Un pairing très inhabituel qui fonctionne bien ; un Percy Weasley passionnant - faillible, perdu dans ses doutes et sa culpabilité, mais avec une répartie, une malice et une sensibilité hors du commun ; des Maraudeurs et des jumeaux Weasley attachants, avec une personnalité définie et nuancée ; une idée originale géniale, car si le voyage dans le temps ouvre des portes à une nouvelle palette de réflexions et d’expériences pour Percy, il permet aussi d’intégrer un mystère et de la tension autour de la potion, l’Indiscible.

Pas d’underage, mais une relation prof-élève tout de même - tout du moins, pendant un segment de l’histoire. Intéressante, touchante, très drôle, amère, complexe et pathétique. WIP.

Thanks for reading, I hope it had helped!

Thanks to all of the authors also! You are brave, tenacious and doing an amazing work. Thanks a lot! :)

(And of course, beware of the tags, if you are triggered by specific content - homophobia, blood, hospital, violence, explicit sex scenes, manipulation, death, etc)

08-24-2020 edit: Thirty-Five Owls, nobody else but me and verivala’s works added. 02-18-2021 edit: White and mautadite’s works added.

(08-24-2020: i’m also currently interested by Kierkegarden’s works, an already quite inevitable GGAD author, I might add some of them later)

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panharmonium · 4 years

Text

@MERLINOBSESSIONIST I’M -

YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND HOW FILLED WITH LOVE THIS MADE ME FEEL

(^me @ you!!!!! but also merlin @ will lbr can you IMAGINE)

i know you know i don’t really read much fic but in terms of just tag browsing, almost everything i’ve ever seen about reincarnation is either about just arthur or just the camelot crew and i will tell you right now, the ONLY acceptable explanation for this is that will hasn’t shown up yet, like - it is patently not fair for merlin’s ultimate ‘happy ending’ to do nothing but affirm the message that camelot was the only thing about his life that mattered.

so perhaps, instead: reincarnation runs in reverse, so that merlin finds the first person he lost last. long after he stopped expecting to meet anyone else, long after he figured this new world’s roster was complete - even merlin assumed it was just camelot that was part of this grand story; destiny never seemed to care about any other part of him before.

so he doesn’t even think about it. it doesn’t even cross his mind as a possibility.

until, of course, it does.

[in other words: i took your ask and wrote you a story.]

i really don’t care for this destiny shit.

merlin hasn’t done accidental magic for a millennium and a half (and it’s a good thing, too, considering his capabilities) but in that space between one thunderous heartbeat and the next, the pavement under his feet splits into a spiderweb network of cracks, and along each crack blooms a tangled vein of grass, shockingly green and decidedly un-urban and definitely not the result of any conceivable natural processes.

will is unimpressed. “you haven’t changed one ruddy bit,” he says. “you numpty. it’s broad daylight.”

merlin wants to say that will hasn’t changed one ruddy bit either, because no one else on earth can manage to show up fifteen centuries after their supposedly permanent death and still make merlin want to strangle them within seconds, but it comes out like “mmmf ffmm mfmf” because merlin is sort of strangling will after all, in a hug, and his face is mashed into will’s clothes, and he can’t enunciate properly with a mouthful of t-shirt.

(he also can’t enunciate properly when he’s crying, but that’s nobody’s damn business.)

merlin is insufferable for weeks.

that’s will’s opinion on the subject, anyhow. merlin maintains that this is an exaggeration, in response to which will retorts, “yesterday when i woke up i cracked my skull on your nose ‘cos you were hanging over me while i was having a nap, merlin, you’ve gone completely round the bed - ”

later on, maybe, merlin will admit that perhaps will has a point, and maybe merlin was being just a little bit overbearing.

but in the moment, all merlin can think about is zippers.

zippers are a clever little invention.

of all the innovations merlin has seen emerge over the last 1500 years, he has always been oddly charmed by the zipper, which up until now he believed to be a perfectly designed machine. currently, though, he’s revised his opinion - zippers for fastening two bits of clothing together are handy, make no mistake, but merlin, who has resolved to never again let will out of his sight, thinks zipping two people together would be a handier function by half, and wonders if zipper manufacturers are open to suggestions.

it’s just that not letting will out of his sight means not letting will do...well, almost anything, really, and it would be much easier to accomplish this if merlin could keep will where he wanted him while also having both hands free. but merlin is willing to make sacrifices in the name of precautions, and he resolves to master the art of shadowing will’s every move even without the aid of specialized fastening apparatuses, for all that a zipper would have been more convenient.

for some unfathomable reason, will seems to find this annoying. but merlin tries to make himself feel better about his friend’s marked ingratitude by convincing himself that will’s reluctance to follow perfectly reasonable, safety-related rules is just a consequence of his natural anti-authoritarian streak, and not, in fact, a reaction to the fact that merlin has gone completely round the twist.

merlin is not being unreasonable. he’s not.

it’s a dangerous world out there. you can’t be too careful.

“what are you doing?” asks merlin, alarmed.

will looks blankly at merlin over the hood of the car. “getting in?”

“oh, no. you can’t sit there.”

“can’t i? i’m driving.”

“no.”

“no, i’m not driving?”

“no.”

“you’re driving, then.”

“no.”

“i don’t understand. who’s driving?”

“...no.”

“...how are we supposed to do your groceries?”

“look, i just think, you know, let’s just...skip it.”

“merlin,” will says, with forced calm, “you have no toilet paper.”

“what are you doing?”

“...eating.”

“you’ve not had that before.”

“so?”

merlin hesitates. “do you know, allergies are hundreds of times more common now than they were when we - ”

“merlin...”

“i’m only saying that if you haven’t tried it before - ”

“merlin - ”

“maybe i should just - ”

“merlin, if you try to take this plate away from me i am dumping the sticky bit all over your trousers.”

“what are you doing?”

“nothing, merlin.”

“you got up.”

“so?”

“where are you going?”

“...the loo, merlin.”

will tries his best to be patient with merlin, but unfortunately patience has never been one of his strong suits, so merlin’s fingers do end up getting slammed in a number of bathroom doors before merlin manages to finally (grudgingly) admit that will has, in point of fact, always been rather more self-sufficient than merlin himself, and that will has also, in general, been quite good about not getting himself killed in stupid accidents, when left to his own devices.

“so,” merlin concedes, “as long as no one’s actively trying to murder you - ”

“can’t promise anything,” says will, around a mouthful of toast. “something about me puts people’s backs right up, merlin; i know a couple of blokes who’d be well pleased if i did drop dead of a freak nectarine allergy - ”

“ - then i suppose,” merlin continues, gritting his teeth, “you’ll probably be fine.”

merlin is proud of himself for deciding to be such a grown-up, and he thinks his insufferable period ends there.

the rest of his friends quietly disagree, even if they never say so to merlin’s face, because for them, merlin’s insufferable period has just begun. merlin, who has spent the last 1500 years diligently serving someone else’s interests, has now suddenly reacquired the one thing in his life that was ever just his, and the fact of the matter is that will’s reappearance, unexpected as it is, turns merlin temporarily feral.

even after merlin decides to stop (literally) breathing down will’s neck at every turn, he still goes virtually everywhere at will’s elbow (if they go out at all), and he comes home in exactly the same position, and he sleeps on the living room floor because that’s where he and will are lying when they talk themselves out in the middle of the night, and he gleefully declines invitations to do things with other people because he is already doing exactly what he wants to do, and he will continue to do so for exactly as long as he wants to do it, and now it is everybody else’s turn to wait.

people who haven’t seen him for a long time start asking him if he wants to come round, and he doesn’t even bother with ‘oh, i’m a bit busy atm;’ he just replies <no> and then "loses” his phone behind the couch.

(gwen is the only one who ever gets a clarifying text after one of these episodes, the content of which reads i didn’t mean that in a nasty way. she sends back a little purple flower in response, because of course she knows perfectly well he didn’t - she laughed, to be honest, when she got the original message.)

(she thinks it’s nice to hear merlin using the word no as a complete sentence, actually.)

(she knew him the longest, after everything went to hell. by now, they understand each other.)

most of merlin’s other friends don’t bother him too much after their first failed attempts at connecting, because they can take a hint, and they have their own lives to live, and they assume they’ll just see merlin when he wants to see them.

a few of them, however, are accustomed to getting everything they want, very quickly, almost all of the time, and said people (person) spent a formative chunk of their lives relying on merlin to (literally) drag them out of bed every morning, so these people (person) turn out to be a bit more persistent.

merlin’s email inbox pings him multiple times a day, asking increasingly curious and impatient variations on “where are u,” until merlin activates the out-of-office reply feature and sets the bounce-back message to “at the tavern.” merlin’s mobile keeps ringing, until he magicks it to redirect all incoming calls to an in-home laundry service. the landline starts ringing then as well, at which point will picks up the phone and says, his face utterly serious, “we’re not home,” while merlin cackles (unsubtly, audibly) in the background.

much later, when merlin has finally relaxed a bit and rejoined society, arthur will grumble about this, because he still gets Like That sometimes and doesn’t appreciate being Mocked, thank you very much (especially not by “that fellow”), but will isn’t the least bit concerned.

“i wasn’t taking the piss, mate,” will says, quite obviously doing just that. “i thought you might fall for it, is all.”

arthur, huffy: “why in god’s name would you think i would believe such an obvious lie?”

will:

what eventually gets merlin and will out of their self-imposed quarantine is not, in fact, arthur’s exhaustive collection of attempts to hassle merlin by phone, email, and carrier pigeon, but rather a simple text from gwaine, which, in true gwaine fashion, asks no questions and makes no demands, but contains instead a single blurry photo of what might be elyan and percival looking disappointed and droopy in front of some kind of beach, though the sky behind them seems very grey and the camera lens appears to be smeared with raindrops.

>>freak thunderstorms on beach day/weatherman said no chance??? >>NOT ON, you funky little wizard

merlin laughs and lays his phone aside, not feeling any particular need to explain for the thousandth time that he does not, in fact, control the weather (well - all right, not usually, anyhow; there was that one time, yes, fine, but on the whole, natural forces were not to be trifled with), and then, as quickly as he puts the text out of his mind, he snaps up the phone again, struck by a thrill of realization. “gwaine,” he breathes gleefully, consumed suddenly with anticipation.

“wossat?” will asks from the other side of the table, barefoot and pyjama-clad.

“we’re going out,” merlin says, popping up from his chair and pushing will out of his seat. “put your shoes on.”

will allows merlin to hustle him out of the kitchen, but grumbles, “can i put my clothes on, too, or are we trying to be somewhere yesterday?”

“you can put your clothes on,” merlin says, shoving will into the living room. “i want you to meet somebody.”

will puts on the brakes immediately, stopping them both in the doorway to the hall. “who?”

“a friend of mine.”

“what friend?”

merlin pauses. will’s expression is suddenly wary, and merlin knows him well enough to tread carefully. will doesn’t know any of merlin’s other people, and he claims he doesn’t care to, ostensibly because he’s got enough friends already, but merlin knows what the real issue is, and it’s that the picture-plastered refrigerator door in merlin’s kitchen is a disquieting, uneasy mystery to will, a puzzle he on some deep level doesn’t believe he fits into.

merlin can’t blame him for feeling that way. it’s not like merlin did much to disabuse him of that notion, after all, in their old life.

“just a friend,” merlin decides, keeping it simple. “gwaine. you’ll like him.”

“i don’t know him,” will counters.

merlin spins will around by the shoulders and points him in the direction of the bedroom. “trust me. you want to.”

don’t leave, merlin texts gwaine, afterwards, while will is getting dressed. stay at the beach.

merlin’s phone buzzes a moment later. it’s tipping down out here.

merlin leans against the warm, rain-spattered glass of the window and checks the sky, which is grey still, but brightening, and then looks at will, who has emerged from the bedroom, shoes in hand.

don’t bother about the weather, merlin types.

why? gwaine’s reply is almost instantaneous, but merlin ignores it for a minute, watching as will crouches in the foyer and does up his laces.

merlin spent half his life at home watching will’s hands fly over more complicated knots than the bow in a pair of trainers - double-half hitches for calving ropes, halter loops for wayward goats, ring knots draped over gateposts and snap-releases for pulling legs up and out of kicking range. will was always good at that sort of thing, at anything handsy - it was how he talked, when he finally ran out of things to say with his mouth. his fingers were always moving, tying string or tilling soil or turning trees into harrows and haycarts and hundreds of yards of rough-hewn fencing. he always had sawdust in the hem of his trousers and splinters in his hands, and - for far too long a period of their lives - a little frowny crease in his brow.

why? gwaine’s inquiry is still glowing up at merlin, awaiting a response.

merlin watches will double-knot his second shoe in one brisk motion. will is tidier now, and his hands are less scarred, but his fingers move as surely as they ever did. and even if his forehead sometimes still sports that same little uncertain crinkle, merlin has caught will in a silly grin once or twice, too.

merlin ducks his head and taps out his answer:

i think things are looking up.

“you were talking to lancelot?”

it gives merlin an indescribably warm and pleasant squirm in his stomach to see will and lancelot chatting together in gwen’s back garden. lancelot is hardly ever in town these days, and merlin has dragged will out to this to-do specifically because if there’s one event lancelot will show up to this year, it’s gwen’s birthday. but will hasn’t fallen into the rhythm of these things yet, and he’s always in danger of slinking off to the sidelines, to less well-tended patches of plants illuminated only by the twinkle lights wound into gwen’s fencing. he is startlingly uncertain now, in a way that would have shocked merlin in another life, though these days merlin just takes it in stride, joining will on whatever patch of grass he’s chosen for himself, where they eat from a shared paper plate, and eventually the rest of the party comes to them, because people follow merlin like a beacon wherever he goes, even into dark corners.

will nods. “yeah.”

eloquent, as usual. merlin prods him in the arm. “what do you think of him, then?”

will makes a face. “i’ve only just met the man.”

“i’ve never known that to stop you having an opinion.”

will sighs. “he seems fine, merlin.”

on the other side of the garden, elyan is building up the firepit, breaking up sticks for kindling. arthur is watching lancelot, who is watching gwen, who is radiant and beaming in a bright yellow sundress, but she, too, is watching both of her observers, whenever they aren’t watching her.

none of them look troubled, exactly. just thoughtful.

“he seemed to know who i was,” will says suddenly.

merlin is surprised to hear will offer anything further on the subject. “well, i suppose he does, a bit. he’s my friend, you know. he’s heard of you.”

“the rest of your friends hadn’t heard of me.”

the rest of merlin’s friends are, at that moment, pestering leon to give elyan back a confiscated can of lighter fluid nicked from the grill, swearing on their oaths that the (former) blacksmith isn’t planning on doing any forge-appropriate stunts. “lancelot’s different,” merlin says after a minute. “it was different with him.”

“how different?”

gwaine pops the can out of leon’s hands with a pair of tongs and tosses it to arthur, who tosses it to lancelot, who looks surprised at being included.

“well...” merlin says, and pauses for a moment before continuing. “he knew me. not like the rest of that lot, i mean.” he glances at will. “like you.”

will raises his eyebrows and looks at lancelot again, as if re-evaluating him.

“i couldn’t tell them about you,” merlin says, after a longer pause. “they wouldn’t have understood.”

will watches lancelot lob the can of lighter fluid to percival, who slings it back to elyan, who freezes mid-pour when gwen hollers his name in That Voice. “well, that’s all right, then,” will murmurs, almost to himself. then he turns back to merlin, lifting one curious eyebrow. “how in the hell did that happen, then?”

“it was sort of an accident.”

“i thought you said gaius was an accident.”

“well - yeah. also that.”

a disbelieving laugh bursts out of will’s mouth, startling them both. it’s loud and bell-bright and it turns gwen’s head from where she stands over the picnic table, setting out a plate of desserts. she catches merlin’s eye and smiles.

“right, then,” will says, recovering himself, but smiling still. “i’ll have to give this lancelot bloke another go, then.”

“please,” merlin says. “you should. he’s worth it.”

will nods to himself, considering lancelot for a moment. “a whole two of us, is it?”

merlin nods.

“we’ve got nearly enough people to start ourselves a little Society now.”

“a small one.”

“very small,” will agrees. “...not that - well, i mean...” he looks suddenly uncomfortable, like he’s said too much. “i mean, not that i’m saying...well, cat’s out of the bag now, isn’t it, so obviously it doesn’t matter - ”

merlin is already shaking his head. “no,” he says, stopping will mid-sentence.

will’s gaze flickers uncertainly between merlin and the group clustered around the firepit. “no? i thought you said - ”

“no,” merlin repeats, his voice quiet but uncompromising, “it matters. don’t ever think that, will. you have no idea.”

will turns slightly pink and diverts his attention to making an intense inspection of the grass under his feet; merlin decides to leave the subject there, for now, and let will have this moment to be flustered. someday, maybe, it will take more than the barest scrap of appreciation to turn will sixteen shades of red, but will was always like this at home, too, quick to close himself down, easy for merlin to embarrass, taken off guard by unfiltered affection and squirming at too much sincerity, unable to conceive of himself as something anyone would need or want in any way that wasn’t “an extra pair of hands in the field.”

merlin did not do much to correct that impression, back then, he knows. but he’s been given a gift, now, a chance to amend his first and ugliest mistake, and he is going to be deliberate about this unexpected chance at atonement. he is going to be better. braver. he will be less selfish, he promises himself, more patient. gaius always says that allowing sufficient time for regrowth is the only surefire way to set a broken bone, and merlin doesn’t care if it takes him another 1500 years - he owes will too much to offer him anything less.

will returns his attention to the group on the patio, determinedly looking anywhere but merlin’s face. “that looks like a torch in a hayloft,” he mutters, watching arthur, gwen, and lancelot’s unfolding dramedy of longing looks. “long story there, i take it?”

merlin has to smile. “i’ll tell you all about it, i promise. you might want to clear your schedule for a week or two, though.”

will shrugs. “i’m not going anywhere,” he says. but then he looks sideways at merlin, teetering on the edge of an unasked question.

merlin does not make him wait. not this time, not ever again.

“neither am i,” merlin says, and settles in to watch elyan set something on fire.

there are, of course, less pleasant moments.

time has not mellowed will’s sharp edges in the slightest, and those associated with his tongue least of all. now that he is up to speed, he’s formulated all manner of angry opinions to offer about the reeking cow pie merlin stepped into when he went to camelot, and every week seems to present him with something new to stew over, leading to episodes of simmering surliness that boil over every so often into bitter arguments.

will rarely makes these blunt and unflattering observations in the presence of merlin’s other friends, but merlin is all too aware that this is not because will is even remotely afraid to speak his mind, but rather because he is profoundly disinterested in what merlin’s camelot compatriots might have to say. will does care what merlin has to say, even if he thinks 90% of it is “cow shyte, merlin, don’t try to feed me that rubbish,” but even merlin can’t escape will’s ire using explanations or placations or rationalizations of the Ultimate Good; will simply doesn’t care about the Powers That Be, and he tells merlin so, every time merlin tries to defend them or justify the part he himself played in their story.

[^actual footage of will and merlin in the twenty-first century]

someday in the future, will and merlin are going to realize that they don’t actually want to accidentally (on purpose?) murder each other out of sheer frustration, so they decide they are only allowed to argue about this topic twice a year.

for now, though, will can’t seem to shut up, and merlin can’t let will’s comments pass, and they lock horns every other week on things neither of them have any ability to change.

it’s tiresome, a little bit, and they sometimes have rip-roaring rows which are Horribly Worrisome to other people (‘oh dear, it’s really over for them this time, isn’t it’), but neither will nor merlin fret over it like the rest of their circle does. they’ve known each other since before they could talk, and fighting with one another is a time-honored tradition, not something to be frightened of. besides, these are not trifling, unnecessary tiffs they are having - these are necessary evils, lanced abscesses, scoured wounds. these are bloodlettings, draining both their weary, aching bodies of accumulated poisons.

merlin knows this has to happen. he appreciates seeing will this way, up on his toes and full of fire, snappy and uncompromising, ready to shred illusions and evasions and excuses as if they were so many sheets of 1500 year-old parchment. will in a fight is like a fish in the water, or a bird in the air, balletic and agile, strikingly at home, a creature in its absolute element, and merlin loves watching him, for all that it means he sometimes get bitten for getting too close.

it’s not the end of the world. they have both known how to fight with each other for a long time. and merlin - for whom a row with anybody else has always been tedious, uncomfortable, a bothersome disruption - does not mind rowing with will. rowing with will is like getting his exercise. it’s natural and familiar, and everything is where it’s supposed to be, in those tinderbox moments, even when Where It’s Supposed To Be is the two of them having an absolute cow at each other in the kitchen while the rest of their friends sit in the living room trading wide-eyed stares and trying to silently debate whether or not they should risk edging sideways out the back door.

merlin tells himself again and again that there’s no need to worry. the other thing he’s learned from gaius is that a poorly healed fracture sometimes needs to be snapped again in order to set up properly.

merlin wants his relationship with will to set up properly. he’s willing to break a few bones to make it happen.

it takes a year for the cast to finally fall off.

it’s summer again by the time they come around to the marrow of the matter, to the tension undergirding all of their arguments, to the knot of grass stuck stubborn and tenacious at the heart of the concrete.

“why did you do it?”

will doesn’t answer merlin’s question right away. they’ve just finished (or maybe are about to finish, merlin hopes, feeling strangely anticipatory, as is something tentative and promising is hanging just out of sight) a spectacular squabble, and the kitchen in which they sit seems to be sagging, unsupported in the yellow, windowless gloom, the painted cabinetry as tired as they are.

“i left you,” merlin continues, and even though the shameful taste of the truth burns on the way down, he swallows it willingly. be better, he tells himself. braver. “i was afraid to tell you i was going. i was afraid to get in touch with you after i’d left. i never said goodbye. i didn’t ask my mother to relay a message.”

will says nothing.

“i let people line up to die for something i could have done myself. i protected myself at everyone else’s expense. i hid my secret behind our neighbors. i got you killed.” merlin takes a deep breath. “i never said i was sorry.”

will taps his fingers on the table, his eyes focused somewhere off to merlin’s left. he looks more thoughtful than angry. “are you?”

the idea that will even needs to ask this question makes merlin want to cry. merlin could talk for 1500 years and still never manage to explain how sorry he is. he’s never breathed a word of it to anyone, but there was a part of him that was relieved to bargain his life away to nimueh, all those years ago. he’d earned that punishment, he knew. it was a just price.

“yes,” merlin replies. “i was wretched to you, and you saved my life. i left you and you lied for me. you - ” merlin’s throat threatens to snap closed; he tells himself to finish. be better. be braver. “i would never have asked you for that, will. never. i didn’t deserve it.”

will doesn’t say anything. he is still not looking quite at merlin, but at the refrigerator behind merlin’s chair, which hums into the silence, blissfully unaware of the conversation taking place directly in front of it. there’s a photo of will and merlin on the door now, added last month, and merlin still feels slightly strange, when he pulls out a jug of milk in the morning and sees will’s smiling face hanging there.

merlin has never had a picture of will before. he has never seen will’s face outside the confines of his own memories.

“well?” merlin prods. “am i wrong?”

“no,” will replies, “you’re right.”

“then why did you do it?”

will sits up straighter, fixing merlin with a penetratingly direct, unflinching stare, the same startlingly candid look that merlin spent years searching for in other people’s faces, all those ages ago. fifteen centuries of grieving later, and there it finally is - and one thing, it turns out, is exactly the same: will never did have any patience for foolish questions.

“you know why,” is all will says.

merlin’s throat snaps shut for good. he lets it, this time, and closes his eyes, taking a deep, wobbly breath, in through his nose, out through his mouth. behind him, the refrigerator hums, and the tap drips onto a stack of dirty dishes lying forgotten in the sink, and somewhere, out in the heart of the city, the summer breeze ruffles a section of pavement overgrown with year-old grass.

in about three seconds, merlin is going to have a big, ugly cry in his kitchen. it’s going to be mortifying and unsightly and sort of inconvenient, since he is supposed to be doing the washing-up, and it’s going to be even more inconvenient because will is right there, and will might not have a freak allergy to nectarines but he does have at least a little bit of an allergy to tears; his own, mostly, though merlin can’t imagine he’s going to love merlin’s very much, either, even if merlin only ever tried to test that theory once and didn’t exactly have a chance to collect any data after the fact.

but before that inexorable wave rolls in and washes over them both, merlin takes three bracing seconds to remind himself of what he already knows: that will is going to accept merlin’s bawling, this time, or at least take it in stride, and he might even pull over a chair, and tuck up his feet, and have a silent sit with merlin for the duration, because will heard that calloused bone break, too, and felt the sharp, misaligned pieces snap finally, blessedly back into place, and he certainly knew exactly what he was doing when he answered merlin’s question.

you know why is as close to i love you as someone with will’s fraught history is ever going to get.

and close enough is, for them - for now - close enough.

#the once and future slowburn #fic #no kings no masters #@MERLINOBSESSIONIST I WOULD LIKE TO FORMALLY APOLOGIZE FOR TAKING SO LONG TO ANSWER THIS ASK #i really clicked into your message intending to write one flailing paragraph in response #and then...#i don't know #i wrote for six days #it turned into a real fic and i’m sorry it took me so long to respond to your message but i hope this adds something to your day #this ask really made my night and has now given me almost an entire week of enjoyment #so thank you #for the inspiration #and for being my merlin buddy #words can't express my appreciation #but i hope this story conveys at least a little of my gratitude #<333 #verse: everything that dies #[the rough draft version!]

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storyunrelated · 3 years

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NaNo 2020 - Conclusions

So I didn’t finish this year. Whatever. Any time I have quote-unquote ‘finished’ it’s been a steaming pile of shit anyway, so did I really lose anything? Did I? Really?

No, the answer is no.

But did I learn anything?

No, the answer is no. Again.

What ideas bloomed this month though? Ideas that might charitably described as having sprung from NaNo in some way, shape or form?

Everywhere Be Dragons

The original idea that I abandoned. Schlock, standard sci-fi. Lasers and shit. A retired man and his electronic friend who is presently in the robotic body of a bird go off to try and find out who injured his nephew. Turns out its some guy from some podunk evil space empire with a sword that can some summon chrome space dragons that can fly through space or some shit. Whatever. Garbage garbage garbage

Here’s a bit. The first lines, in fact:

Alarmingly naked, David Bellamy strode up to the largest of his windows and flung back the curtains to let what he hoped was the glorious sunshine of another sedate, mellow day flow in and bathe his more personal regions.

Being a man of leisure now he had the time available to do this sort of thing.

Awful.

Anyway, next.

And now for something completely different

Some admin schlub who works for a nebulous evil organisation ala SPECTRE is tasked with sourcing twenty-five red, plastic wallets by next week. It should be easy. It is not easy.

This was a very threadbare idea based on something I actually had to do, leading rather naturally to the thought “Wouldn’t this mind-numbing task be funnier if it was happening in an evil organisation?”. High-concept stuff.

Here’s a bit:

“Why am I doing this? This isn’t anything to do with me?”

“It’s nothing to do with me, either, but they passed it to me and I’m passing it to you. I’m higher up than you so now it has something to do with you. It is, in fact, now your problem.”

“What happened to Bill anyway?”

“Dead.”

“Dead?”

“Yeah, him and a bunch of others. Whole chunk of procurement, in fact. Super agents, last month.”

“What had procurement ever done to them?”

“I don’t think they were aiming for there specifically, they just got in the way. Think they were trying to hit the weather control department - they’re underneath them.”

“Oh yeah, yeah. Poor bastards.”

“Yes, well, now you’re here to carry on their fine work. Next week. Red. Sort it out.”

“But-”

“You’re a resourceful man, I’m sure you can manage.”

That’s literally all I did before I got bored.

Next!

Bad Wizards

I was reading about The Sword of Truth and I was reading about how Confessors worked in The Sword of Truth and it was this super-weird combination of an absolutely terrifying sounding power being the implications of which were ignored in a super-weird way.

Basically a whole class of women can ENSLAVED ANYONE THEY TOUCH FOREVER and this ability isn’t something they use it’s something they have to concentrate NOT TO USE and the purpose of this class of women is to...

...basically go around and brainwash/murder anyone they deem isn’t being honest and good. Oh, and they decide who’s honest and good. And there’s no question that they’re honest and good.

Oh and there’s no men with this power. Why? Because any male infants born with this power are murdered by their brainwashed loveslaves ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS.

Very odd. Very very odd. But easy fodder for villains, so I just thought “What about people being charged with coming up with ways of trying to fix this or go against it?”.

Then I did a bit where two guys are visiting a dead guy in a dead city. I don’t know why.

Much to his displeasure Percival was once again accompanying First to the city of Erhart, home to the court of Baldric the Everliving. Percival did not like the court of Baldric the Everliving. He didn’t much like Erhart, either.

He did not like the silence, the utter and complete silence. He did not like that, despite all of the citizens having died, there were no bodies anywhere, nor even a hint of violence or struggle to mark their passing.

(Not that heaps of corpses would have made him feel better, obviously, but knowing that they had died it was eerie not seeing so much as an upset teacup to indicate that this might have been the case. It just didn’t seem fair to them, somehow. Like they’d passed on without a fuss, without so much as a whimper.)

He did not like the way the empty windows seemed to stare at him. He did not like the way the streets were so dusty. A dirty street he might have been able to understand, but to have such a layer of dust, lying as thick as snow, untouched by the elements, undisturbed by any living footfall other than their own periodic visits - it just made him uncomfortable.

Everything about Erhart made him uncomfortable, frankly, from the mere thought of it, up through the physical reality of it all the way to the ruler of it, who he was going to have to go and talk to. Again. Nothing about this day was good for Percival.

BORING! NEXT!

Worse wizards

Uh, another idea, less related to anything else I was reading - I think? - but more, uh, what if there was a horrific ruling class of magical people who were for all intents and purposes utterly untouchable.

Can kill you soon as look as you, mess around with your brain and your body just for kicks, come back from death easy as anything and only get more powerful as the years go on. One of them has a huge tower held up solely by their willpower, whatever. They’re a horrible, immovable fixed point in society.

Then one day mechanisms and techniques start showing up that can kill them and ignore their powers. Just out of nowhere. And these methods are super-simple to do and also start to spread.

What happens?

Lame lame lame lame lame.

“Did all of you miss what I told you at the start? The nature of what was used to kill Dennis?”

Blank looks. They had listened, but they had promptly forgot. It hadn’t seemed important.

That it was important and that this should have been obvious had passed them by. John gritted his teeth and straightened up, reaching around to a nearby trolley and - carefully - picked up a kidney-shaped dish resting on it and bringing it around so they could all see its contents. In the dish rattled several small, dark, sharp bits of what sounded to be metal. These the wizards peered at.

“He was killed by something that not only ignored his magical protections and ignored them completely, might I add, but which also then drained his body of even the merest trace of magic and severed whatever connection there might have been between his mortal shell here and anything beyond the material. Did you listen that time? Would you like me to say it again? Would you like me to go slower?”

More blank looks, though some were starting to get less blank. Some were getting confused. Some were getting worried. They’d actually paid attention this time.

What was I THINKING?!

Indulgence

This was me just doing a re-write of one of my secret, shameful pieces of fanfiction, with the fanfiction elements removed. Because why not?

[REDACTED]

Nope, not even a little bit.

Stupid! Next!

N/A

Some random thing in first person about following some rambling lady across some bridges and getting some weird book I don’t fucking know.

Where did all this water come from, anyway? And where did it go? I could see the vast lakes below us, of course, stretching off as they did towards wherever these caverns terminated, but did those lakes drain anywhere? The flow of water from above never ceased, and yet the levels below never rose. What maintained this equilibrium? Or was the scale involved simply so great that no change could ever or would ever be observed?

I do wonder why I wonder about these things sometimes. The answers to these questions wouldn’t benefit me in any way.

Yet still I wonder.

Who ccaaaaaarrreeeessss? Next!

Delicious Godmeat

A long, long time ago in some faraway land in another universe or whatever there was some vague, vaguely benevolent overgod. They had of children and they looked after all the normal people and blah blah all was well.

One day those children decided to devour their parent and split up their power between them, so they could care out their own little demenses and rule things the way they thought they should. So that happened.

However, the biggest, juicest bit of godly meat went missing somehow, much to their chagrin. They looked and looked but they never found it. Because it fell through time and space in a way that’ll never be explained, and ended up here. And now, by accident, some random young lady touched it.

Whoops! You’ve got a chunk of a dead god stuck inside you now! Better go free the land of those rapaciously evil children, absorb their power and try to bring some goodness back to this land! Whatever that means! Figure it out! You’re basically a demigod now!

Have fun battling the alien feelings of a dead deity and an ever-increasing level of godlike power!

“Sooner or later you’re going to have to make a choice knowing that whatever choice it is you end up making it is going to make a lot of people very, very upset with you.”

“Can I just do nothing?”

“Sadly, no. Someone in your position chooses not to decide, that’s still making a choice.”

“Gah! I can’t win!”

CONCLUSIONS

Awful. Awful awful awful awful. They’re all awful. They’re all terribly. Sweet Jesus what a waste of time, every last one of these is a stinking, rancid turd now fouling my Google Docs with their stench. Awful awful awful.

Know what’s missing in all of these? Well, lots of things, but you know what crucial element hobbles each and every one of them from right out of the gate?

No fucking characters! Just a half-baked idea shoved out and left to die in the sun! No-one involved I give even the merest whiff of a shit about! Not a one! And no situation I care about either! None of these do anything for me! They leave me cold! And everyone in them leaves me colder! Frozen!

A setting isn’t worth shit if you’ve got no-one to do anything with it! Settings just sit there, inert, characters make it happen! Characters make the story! AND YOU’VE GOT NO CHARACTERS YOU WORTHLESS SHITHEAD! YOU’VE GOT NOTHING! JUST THE SAME WORDY BASTARDS OVER AND OVER AGAIN! JUST A THOUSAND COPIES OF YOU! I HATE ME! THAT’S USELESS!

I’m dead inside now!

Well, deader than I was before!

Awful! Awful awful! Eurgh!

Oh well! Same time next year!

#NaNo 2020 #NaNoWriMo #Amwriting #Writblr #Writeblr #Writing

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nevillelongsbottom · 5 years

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disaster boy pairing: credence barebone x percival graves word count: 1722 links: ao3 for the @hogwartsmysterynet secret santa: for @angelinajonson

Credence crashes into the side of Ilvermorny in the winter of 1926, and, as Head Boy, it’s Graves’s responsibility to take care of him. Credence doesn’t take well to authority: not only the school board, but even less so to the MACUSA officials, and though he refuses to say a word to Graves, the fact that he isn’t trying to murder Graves is a start. Abernathy is cleared out of Graves’s dorm room, and Credence moves in with nothing to his name but a complementary uniform from Headmistress Picquery.

He isn’t half as talkative as Abernathy; but it means that he isn’t anywhere near as annoying. Credence keeps to himself entirely, spending his time reading various textbooks or Muggle fiction. He confides in Graves one night that he isn’t very good at reading, that his Ma only taught him enough to scrape by. Graves reads to him, Credence’s eyes wandering the wordscapes and taking in as much new information as possible. It’s the first time he talks to Graves beyond exchanging names, and it soon becomes a nightly ritual, after dinner.

Credence accompanies Graves to every meal of the day except for lunch, which is brought to Credence by one of the house-elves. Graves doesn’t intend to abandon his social rituals for Credence, and rather hopes that it’ll give Credence the chance to socialise, so he continues to sit with his friends. Queenie makes conversation every evening with Credence; she isn’t put off by his monosyllabic answers, by his inability to even look up at her. Graves wishes he could be anything like her. Sometimes he feels detached.

It is with Queenie’s help that Graves begins to draw Credence from his shell. It’s a particularly cold day mid-December when he catches Credence shivering in his shirt-sleeves, and offers him his old Quodpot sweater. It takes him almost two hours of negotiation before he finally succeeds: Credence pulls the jumper over his head, and Graves almost has to look away. He looks so sweet in it, the sleeves drifting over his knuckles. It’s so easy to forget that Credence is dangerous, and Graves begins to wonder if there’s a difference between dangerous and scared, and if MACUSA knows that difference.

Beyond that, Graves starts taking Credence into the common room. Though Graves is technically a Thunderbird, Pukwudgie are a kind house with no qualms about who they let in, and he lets himself in one weekend for Gobstones with Newt and Queenie, who take it in turns to teach Credence how to play. He’s no good - Gobstones is a game of experience as much as anything else - but he seems to enjoy it. He smiles, and Graves even hears him laugh: a gentle sound, but one with presence, like the ringing of church bells. In the moment, Credence seems to have found peace.

“I’ll miss you,” he says, the day before Graves is due to go home for Christmas. Graves’s heart lurches. If it were up to him, he wouldn’t leave at all.

He gets a cushy Christmas in the family manor, and Credence gets weeks of interrogation by officials.

“Don’t miss me too much,” Graves says. “I’ll be back.”

He’s caught up by Picquery just before school resumes. Over the festive break, MACUSA has decided that the safest method of handling Credence would be to teach him to channel his powers in one-to-one lessons; and on the other hand, they hoped to remove his obscurus altogether by letting him form the bonds of friendship in his dorm and also by enrolling in less spell-orientated classes such as Herbology and History of Magic, all of which he would have with students he identified as friends. Graves is surprised to hear that the Congress have been reasonable.

“The Scamanders made a real push for kind treatment,” Picquery says. “They brought it up with the Ministry in Britain, and with that kind of pressure on MACUSA after the mess of his initial discovery, they acquiesced. So you have Newt to thank.”

Graves passes his thanks on to Newt, who refers them further to Theseus, but who also flushes gently.

Credence has been sorted into Pukwudgie, according to his new and embroidered uniform (which also accommodates for Credence’s healthy weight gain). Graves chuckles to himself as he walks into their dorm room, and Credence looks at him, seeming distinctly worried.

“What?” he asks.

“Pukwudgies are usually social,” Graves says. He wonders if Credence will take offence, but he smiles, letting out a short laugh; and Graves feels a little more relaxed. The world is always alright when he’s able to coax a laugh.

He has History of Magic with Credence, and Newt and Queenie have Herbology and Divination with him respectively. History of Magic is generally Graves’s driest subject, but Credence seems to throw himself into learning, asking Graves for help with his supplementary reading. Credence is allowed to work at a more casual pace, but he doesn’t shirk: Graves sometimes doesn’t see him immediately after classes, and hears from Newt that it’s because Credence is staying behind to learn more and help out in the greenhouses - and soon enough, Credence starts to bring cuttings of plants home, growing them on the windowsill of their dorm room. He remains quiet, shy by heart, but Graves watches him engage with life at Ilvermorny, ignoring the threat of his obscurus and the pressure of MACUSA for him to successfully reform. He seems to be engaged, simply, in progressing at his own pace.

For a boy who crashed into Ilvermorny and wiped out about half of the Wampus dorm a few months ago, Graves thinks Credence is doing pretty well. A testament to the Scamanders, he hopes, and to their humanitarian push.

Graves has done well at sorting out Credence, so far.

Sorting himself out is another matter entirely.

Easter comes and goes. Credence’s dependence on Graves is rapidly decreasing, and though Graves knows he should be happy for his friend, he can’t help but feel a slight pang of jealousy and loneliness. He’s jealous of Credence’s independence, he supposes. He misses the time they spent together. Credence doesn’t need Graves anymore, and so they don’t spend as many evenings together. It leaves Graves with too much time on his hands.

It leaves him open.

Open to Abernathy coming over, both unable to look Graves in the eye and demanding to know why Graves seems to be pretending that they never had a relationship. Open to Graves admitting that he feels a little lost in his own skin, that he feels like he’s wandering a predestined path that he didn’t get the luxury of deciding. He admits that he doesn’t know if the push of his family into an Auror job is what he wants.

He admits he used the opportune arrival of Credence to avoid the issues. Avoid worrying for days on end if where he was going was where he wanted to be. He didn’t have to worry about himself when there was someone else to worry about.

Abernathy says he knows that Graves likes Credence, knows that he is an afterthought. (He has never been an afterthought.) But despite it, he touches his hands to Graves’s cheeks.

Abernathy touches and he feels like the surface of the sun, and he kisses Graves. “I’d always be here for you,” he says. “You know that.”

As he leaves, Credence steps in from behind the door. He says nothing, just waters his plants and sits down to read, and Graves doesn’t know if he wants Credence to speak or not. The silence hangs heavy in the air.

You can’t control him, Graves tells himself. But sometimes he wishes he could just peer inside Credence’s mind, and hear what he’s thinking.

“What did he mean when he said you like me?”

Graves sometimes wonders if Credence experiences time differently, if he’s immortal or has the lifespan of a faerie. It’s been days since Abernathy came over, days for Graves to painstakingly mull over the conversation and wonder if he should accept the fate of his parents, become an Auror and kiss Abernathy behind closed doors at the Magical Congress when nobody’s looking and make do with that life. But Credence feels like an opportunity, a chance for Graves to be something more. If Credence can start rebuilding his life, then who’s to say that Graves can’t?

“What do you think he meant?” Graves asks.

“I don’t know,” Credence says. “Do you like me like - he likes you?”

The honest answer that pops into Graves’s mind like the crack of thunder is yes. But he shouldn’t. He’s meant to be the responsible Prefect, the Head Boy, some official face for Ilvermorny kindness. There’s no room for his personal feelings when he’s meant to be an ambassador. So he just looks back at Credence.

“I like you,” Credence says. “I know I’m not supposed to. I feel like I’m not good enough.”

“You’re a better man than me,” Graves says, and shifts his weight away a little - but Credence is firm, a little truer to himself. Graves suspects that Queenie has been teaching him well: in response to her legilimency, she’s become somewhat of an expert in interpersonal relations. And she’s bold. She sticks up for what she believes in. Credence clearly does, too.

“That’s not true,” Credence says. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you. And then you helped me learn things, and helped me with class. I’m sorry I’ve been at the greenhouses. I didn’t mean to make you lonely.”

He takes a step forward, and then another, again until he’s right in front of Graves: and with superhuman confidence, he puts his arms lightly around Graves. He’s surprisingly warm: a little firecracker, Graves always thinks. Or maybe Credence has a slumbering dragon in his chest.

“We can work things out together,” Credence urges as Graves returns the hug, Credence nuzzling his shoulder. He doesn’t know, yet, the full weight of what he’s saying; he doesn’t know about the Graves family name, the pressure, the worry, the feeling as if he’s about to stumble into the wrong life. But Credence looks determined, and his arms are tight round Graves’s chest.

Graves did not expect the boy he rescued to be rescuing him - and yet, it feels comfortably fitting.

#i write shit #hmnsecretsanta #gradence #gredence #fbawtft #percival graves #credence barebone #graves x credence #credence x graves

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seriouslycromulent · 5 years

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(Lengthy) Thoughts on Fantastic Beasts 2: Crimes of Grindelwald

I don’t really plan to write a full review of FB2, but since I said I was more excited for it than Widows, Aquaman, and Bohemian Rhapsody, it feels wrong not to share some general thoughts on the second installment of the Fantastic Beasts franchise.

Especially since I just got back from seeing it a second time in the theater.

As usual, I haven’t read any reviews, nor do I plan to. I think I’ve established by now I don’t care what critics think. Never have. The only opinion that truly matters in how I view any work of art or entertainment is mine, so if you’re mostly expecting to see me repeat or refute any critics’ opinion of the film here, you might want to keep scrolling. (I address a few at the end. But it’s very cursory.)

Anyway, here are some of my reactions to FB2. And yes, there are spoilers below. I tried to keep them vague as to not give too much away, but I was not as successful in doing so as I might have hoped. You’ve been warned.

And away we go ...

Overall, I enjoyed the film greatly. It didn’t give me the warm fuzzies at the end that the first FB did, but it’s not supposed to. It’s not the first chapter that kicks off the story. It’s the next chapter that leads us down the darker path in the tale that introduces us to true struggle and turmoil that we’re going to have to deal with through the remaining 3 films.

It’s not meant to be shiny. It’s not meant to be sweet. But it is meant to present us with a few twists, turns, and new information to keep us invested in the story. And with that in mind, I was not at all disappointed.

I don’t know if I’ve communicated this yet, but I truly love the look of Fantastic Beasts in general. The 1920s is one of my favorite eras when it comes to design and history. From fashion to automobiles to architecture to hairstyles to music to literature to advancements in technology, etc., I think it’s a very underrated era when it comes to human ingenuity and cultural significance. And to set the second film in 1920s’ Paris was just brilliant. In the first film, I got to enjoy the ‘20s of New York, but now we get a splash of NYC and London, but mostly Paris as our backdrop, and the visual design and production were even more amazing.

I was nervous that they were going to use Leta Lestrange to drive a wedge between Newt and Tina, and even though they sort of did, I was happy to see it was a bit of a red herring. And she was never any real threat to Newt and Tina. Crappy love triangle averted!

Now with that out of the way, I really did feel sorry for Leta. Once we learn her backstory, it all comes together and makes sense. When she says the line, “Newt, you never met a monster you couldn’t love,” I was shook by the accuracy of that.

Newt was probably drawn to that ever-present, misunderstood sadness in Leta that he quite honestly sees in Tina as well. I like Tina, but she does have her terminal anxiety covered by that fake-it-til-you-make confidence that allows Newt to see a bit of himself in her. And I think in no small part, plays a role in their attraction to one another.

I do find it unfortunate that I’m seeing so many people rush to show concern for Queenie’s character and express empathy for her, wanting to protect that character going forward, but I see so little of that consideration and empathy shown toward Leta. Which is ... telling.

While we’re also on Leta Lestrange, I was pleasantly surprised by Zoe Kravitz’s performance. I’ve been a bit hard on her for the past year or so. Not because I don’t like her, but because, frankly, I’ve yet to see her deliver a great acting performance worthy of all the love and praise she gets from fans. I feel like most people just like her because of who her parents are, and they want to see her succeed in Hollywood because of it. But she’s yet to really impress me with her acting at all. I’m not saying she’s changed my mind entirely in FB2, but this performance was definitely one of her better and stronger ones. So kudos to her.

Now I’m not disappointed in terms of performance, but a part of me is really annoyed by Queenie in this. I get that she wants to marry Jacob, and the Ministry in America says no, but what was she thinking in enchanting Jacob?! Like he said, when was she going to wake up him? After they were married and had 5 kids? Come on, Queenie! How was that the answer to your problem?

Yes, I’m upset she joined the dark side in the end. But I’m trying to be understanding because Grindelwald is making some enticing points on why people should join him. For Queenie, she thinks that if Majs are in charge, they can get rid of this silly rule about who can marry whom. But at the same time, she knows Grindelwald is dangerous. Does she think Majs will gain control over the No-Majs without casualties? Does she even care? And with her telepathic abilities, she’s going to make Grindelwald a powerful operative -- as we saw in the end when he asked her about Credence’s mental state. Damn it, Queenie! Why did you have go to the dark side?!

It does make me wonder: If Queenie had known what Grindelwald had done to the family that originally lived in that Paris apartment, would she still have joined him? Is she willing to see innocents killed (even children) in the name of creating Maj rule just so she can marry Jacob?

Also, can someone explain to me why it was OK for Queenie to call Jacob a coward -- especially since we know he fought in the war -- but it wasn’t OK for him to think she was crazy? Why is she allowed to insult him, but he’s not allowed to insult her? Again, she annoyed me with this.

Going back to the look of the film, I not only enjoyed the production design, but I also loved the many special effects. From the Kappa (the Japanese water demon in the tub at the circus) to whatever that giant deer with the enormous jaw Newt was feeding in his lab to the Zouwu (the giant Chinese New Year dragon-meets-Falcor from Neverending Story creature) to the simple stone statue of the woman in Paris who hid the underground entrance, I thought most of the special effects were ... well, quite fantastic.

The only effect that threw me at all were the protective felines, Matagots, at the French Ministry. They not only looked disturbing, but they also didn’t look real enough. They almost felt like they stepped out of a video game. And not one of today’s video games either, but one from like 2013. Perhaps it was intentional because they’re meant to be a bit surreal with their huge eyeballs, but I’m afraid that also made them appear just a tad less believable. Which is odd considering all the things we’ve seen in the Potterverse that skirts the concept of realistic. Oh well. It wasn’t enough to make me dislike the other special effects, so I’ll shrug it off.

Shallow moment reveal: I want Tina Goldstein’s leather trench coat and I don’t even wear leather.

I adore Jacob Kowalski. That is all. Change nothing about him.

I love that their solution to showing Young Dumbledore even younger is to remove the strands of gray he has from his beard.

This is going to sound odd, but Callum Turner’s face is perfect for this film. Why? Because he has that classic bone structure we used to see all the time in old films from the 1920s and 30s. Seriously, put a straw boater hat on Theseus and give him a bamboo cane, and he looks like he walked out of the background of a Buster Keaton movie. Maybe it’s just the combined effect of the movie’s setting and wardrobe. Maybe it’s the fact that Callum’s skin is so damn tight across his cheekbones he looks like if he sneezes, he’s going to rip his jawline from the bone. I don’t know. But I do know that he has the perfect face for this film.

When I heard that J.K. mirrored Grindelwald’s speech at the cemetery after some of the things Hitler used to say in his speeches, I knew he was going to be a great villain. In the first Fantastic Beasts, Grindelwald is really just a boogie man. What we know of him is more in relation to how people react to him. Even when it’s revealed that he was wearing a Percival Graves-glamour to hide while doing his dirty work, we still don’t truly see him as the dangerous menace that he is. In that respect, he was a man seeking power (and Credence) to get his ultimate plan underway. The rest are newspaper headlines.

But to see Grindelwald talk to his minions in the Paris apartment and at the cemetery with such effortless manipulation was somewhat jarring. Especially when you think of present day parallels with the rise of more authoritarian regimes around the world. Grindelwald uses seductive language to coax his followers into believing their desires are born from love and a need for safety, not born from hate and fear. He tells them that No-Majs are not worthless, but simply of “other value.” He softens the declaration of war by painting what could be an impending genocide by insisting it’s for the betterment of all mankind.

This is a villain for a story written for adults. Voldemort is for children. He doesn’t get the window-dressing and subtlety of true real-life villainy. Grindelwald, on the other hand, can exist in our world today. Voldemort cannot.

Now I’m aware that a lot of people are talking about the reveal regarding Credence’s lineage -- which was the truth bomb that left quite a few people stunned while the credits rolled. Understandably. But until I see someone piece together a theory on how Credence can be a Dumbledore (although it would lend itself to explaining his Obscurial nature), I’m inclined to believe that Grindelwald was just lying through his teeth.

When he says that the Phoenix comes to Dumbledore family members in their time of need, why did the bird that Credence was nursing suddenly transform into one? At that moment in time, Credence was not in his most need. Why wouldn’t the Phoenix have shown up in New York prior to Newt’s visit? Why didn’t the Phoenix show up after Credence had gone ballistic and ripped up half of NYC and retreated into the subway?

Hopefully, at some point in the next film, Credence will question Grindelwald and demand some sort of proof. But even if he does, I can see Grindelwald manufacturing something semi-credible to manipulate Credence further. We’ll have to wait and see.

One of my favorite lines: The line where Dumbledore says he and Grindelwald were more than brothers ... I see what you did there, J.K. ... I see what you did there. ;-)

You know what I want for this film series now? More Nicolas Flamel in future FB films. :-)

I also want more Dumbledore, but I suspect that wish will be easily granted as the series continues. And if we can have more Dumbledore with Grindelwald, I would like to order that as well.

I’m not sure of the name of the actor who played a young Newt Scamander in the Hogwarts flashback scenes, but wow! Talk about matching the perfect youngun’ to the right adult actor. That kid was completely believed as a young Newt. Hell, he’d be believable as a young Eddie Redmayne.

Notice how when Credence goes to Grindelwald in the cemetery, he puts his head on Grindelwald’s shoulder? He did it just like he did when Credence thought Grindelwald was Graves. It was a nice, but subtle callback to the connection these two formed -- even if temporary -- in the first film. And back then, Grindelwald was manipulating him just like he is manipulating him now, by filling a void disguised as love, affection and genuine concern. And Credence is still susceptible because he’s spent most of his life devoid of that.

Although I feel like he would have shown more hesitation at the idea of leaving Nagini behind. But maybe he figured since this is what they were working toward all along, she might understand with time.

I did see some people complain about the exposition scene where we learn of Leta’s secret, Yousef’s oath, and Credence’s connection to the Lestrange family. I thought they did a wonderful job getting the audience through that level of detail without making it boring. You hear a narration, but the visuals communicate the story perfectly. For such a tragic tale to be included in a film where some may think it’s all about love stories and magic wands, I appreciate the inclusion of how evil like Grindelwald’s exists in every generation. And its lasting effects helped create the situation everyone is struggling with in this current story. That is some expert-level storytelling.

Can I just say I love the relationship between Newt and Theseus? It’s not perfect, but it’s not mean-spirited. When Newt says, “This is probably the greatest moment of my life,” after Tina uses her wand to tie Theseus to a chair so they can escape, you can see that these two brothers have had a bit of a rivalry in the past, but you also see love there in the beginning when Theseus warns Newt that the ministry is watching him. And when Theseus is heartbroken after Leta tries to take down Grindelwald, that hug from Newt with the line, “I’ve chosen a side,” really says it all about their relationship. They’re brothers who love each other, even if at times, like many brothers, they don’t always like each other.

It was sad to see the poor Niffler get hurt because of the whole blue fire scene, but it’s also awesome that he snagged Grindelwald’s keepsake. One of the trailers said “No nifflers were harmed in the making of this movie.” Better not be. ;-)

OK. I think that’s all I have for now in terms of original reflections on the film. I’m sure more will come to me as I am exposed to other’s feedback. Like I said, I don’t read reviews. But I do hear different things being uttered by others on social media and in casual conversations. And to that, I say this: I’ve yet to hear one complaint about this film that I agree with. Not. One.

For example:

I don’t agree with the complaint that it had too much plot. (What the f*ck does that even mean?!)

I don’t agree that Queenie was acting out of character. (How is that possible if the person who created the character wrote her doing those things in the script? Not liking what a person does is not the same as acting out of character.)

I don’t agree that J.K. didn’t do a good job with the screenplay. A) She wrote the screenplay for the first one, and B) That’s utter bullsh*t because your desire to not think when you go into a cinema doesn’t have to translate into a script that caters to your desire to not think.

Johnny Depp did a phenomenal job, as expected. And no. He should absolutely not be replaced or recast.

And no. Leta Lestrange was not a disappointment. Quite the opposite.

I try to stay away from reviews, because mainly, I enjoy thinking for myself. So I honestly don’t know what all the critics are saying. All I keep hearing is that the movie is getting “mixed reviews.” So clearly some people like it. While others don’t.

I don’t know what others were looking for, but I do know that this film was exactly what the next act in this story should be. I look at Fantastic Beasts like a 5-act play. The Crimes of Grindelwald is the second act, and it did what a second act should do. The second act introduces a significant complication, develops the primary and secondary characters’ personalities further, and increases the action on all fronts in the plot.

I think it’s unfortunate that some critics (and perhaps fans) thought that they were going to walk out of FB2 feeling the same way they did when they walked out of FB. And I can’t help but feel that some of the criticism being lobbed at J.K. has more to do with trying to take her down a peg and attempting to find a flaw in her skillset than it is about a genuine critique about what appears on the screen in Fantastic Beasts 2.

I don’t support mindless entertainment. I don’t even want my cartoons and action films to be mindless. It’s a sad state when we see critics demanding films cater to the lowest level of attention spans and depth. And I’m happy to see J.K. not give over to that idea.

As I said in the beginning, I enjoyed the film greatly -- enough to see it twice in 4 days. So you’ll likely see me praising the movie as much as the previous one until the next chapter (or Act 3) is ready for me to enjoy.

#fantastic beasts 2 #fantastic beasts #fantastic beasts 2: the crimes of grindelwald #the crimes of grindelwald #newt scamander #callum turner #zoe kravitz #jude law #albus dumbledore #tina goldstein #queenie goldstein #jacob kowalski #fb2 #eddie redmayne #johnny depp #johnnydeppismygrindelwald

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under-the-lake · 5 years

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Crimes of Grindelwald - First Impressions

WARNING: THIS PAPER IS FULL TO THE BRIM WITH SPOILERS

I went to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - The Crimes of Grindelwald on 14th November, when it was released in Switzerland. I had read quite a lot about it before, had asked a lot of questions (see this paper for them; it was written before the final trailer was out: http://under-the-lake.tumblr.com/post/176871006891/it-has-to-be-you-fantastic-beasts-the-second ), and got some answers and quite a number of new questions. Here’s a first and short delivery of my mind ramblings, but I need to see the film a couple more times to have all the details ready for a deeper delve into it.

The title of that first paper on Crimes of Grindelwald was It Has to Be You. I was sort of gutted because it seemed that this series was going to be The Chosen One all over again, but IT IS NOT, which makes me very happy. I liked the film, and I’m curious to see how the plot develops from here. I thought there would be more plot development, but actually this second film is preparing the Chessboard for the real action, I guess, narrowing the focus and clarifying loyalties and challenges.

The Crimes of Grindelwald (CoG) is, on the whole, the start of the Real Thing. Only the start, mind. Seeing the trailers and all the online theorising made me think that Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was only some sort of prologue to the other four films. After having seen CoG, I reckon it’s right. If we compare with Tolkien’s Lord of the Ring, Fantastic Beasts was the first 500 pages, until the Company reaches Rivendell, and CoG is the bit from Rivendell to Lothlórien and the journey on the Anduin to the Falls of Rauros. So a bit slow, but setting everything that needs to be set for the rest of the plot to actually get going smoothly.

The film starts at MACUSA (and NOT the American Ministry of Magic, as stated in the film and unfortunately in the script as well- it was not canon), with Grindelwald being moved to Europe for trial. A couple of things happen here that were sort of easy to figure out would: Grindelwald escapes (that was obvious), with the help of Abernathy (which wasn’t obvious for everyone, I guess), and he has the Elder Wand and a pendant that holds some kind of blood-coloured moving liquid. You might ask why I thought Abernathy was going to betray MACUSA. Well, Abernathy (pic below) was always too oily towards Percival Graves not to be the local Pettigrew, wasn’t he.

Grindelwald’s pendant is a bit weird, at the beginning, because it apparently serves Abernathy to save his own life when he puts it into his mouth? Of course, later in the film we learn what it is, namely a blood pact of nonaggression between Dumbledore and Grindelwald, that they made when meeting in Godric’s Hollow, 30 or so years before. So THAT is the reason why Dumbledore cannot attack Grindelwald. Unless he destroys it, which we can guess he’ll end up doing because otherwise the Chocolate Frog Cards and A History of Magic are lying. Newt’s Niffler sees to the pendant’s being stolen from Grindelwald during that Germania-type meeting in the Cimetière du Père Lachaise at the end of the film, that is so reminiscent of gatherings of Nazi or Fascists during the rise of extremist governments after WW1.

I LOVE Newt’s basement. Just LOVE it. Even that Kelpie I was so very skeptical about. Those animals are great. I’d have loved to see more of them, and also more of the baby Nifflers, but they are all cute. The funniest, though, must be the Augurey, particularly because of the interaction it has with Jacob. Bunty, on the other hand, is just a flat version of Lavender Brown, and doesn’t seem to fill any role in the film. Is she going to be there later? Meh, for the moment I couldn’t care less.

About the new creatures we see in the film, they are really cool. Apart from the Matagots. I mean not the creatures per se, but the way it is so obvious they are CGI compared to the rest, which are brilliant work.

The Kelpie is great, but I still don’t get how Newt can have domesticated it as an underwater creature. It goes against all the lore and even against his own book. Or is it that it’s one more creature he’s nurturing back to health? Still, they tend to eat humans, Keplies do.

The star of the creature show, apart from the Niffler, who’s discreet but capital, is the Zouwu (see picture above), a sort of Chinese dragon, that Newt frees from his chains and that becomes a valuable ally. It is really amazing.

Now Queenie and Jacob. Well, that was sort of foreseeable, wasn’t it? I mean that they end up together. I (and other people online as well) had thought that since the Swooping Evil Venom used at the end of the first film didn’t really Obliviate people but only erased bad memories, Jacob couldn’t have lost his, since they weren’t bad. The last scene in his bakery at the end of the first film is clear enough about that. What is a bit far-fetched to me is the fact that Queenie thinks it obligatory to charm Jacob to make him follow her. Why? Because he wouldn’t leave his flourishing business? He does love her, so much so that he doesn’t want her to risk her liberty for him. She says it’s because of the laws: in the USA, relationships of any kind between the magical community and Muggles are strictly forbidden, and thus a marriage would end up with Queenie in prison and Jacob properly Obliviated (this time).

The use of a spell to enchant her lover reminds me a bit of Merope Gaunt, I must say, with the minor difference that Tom Riddle Sr. didn’t love Merope, and therefore her using a potion (yeh I know, Queenie used a spell) is more ‘understandable’. Plus, if the couple actually travels to Europe, why not marry there where the laws aren’t that primitive? Queenie suggests it, at some point, but Jacob still refuses. This is a complete mystery to me, I must admit. I mean the logic doesn’t fit.

BUT. If there was one of the four heroes who should rally Grindelwald, I thought it would have been Queenie, because she’s got a different sense of right and wrong, because she’s got that weakness when it comes to feelings, and because, on a more ‘evidence’ point of view, her head is straight under Grindelwald’s logo in the San Diego 2018 ComicCon poster. IT WAS QUEENIE. I’m glad she does. We’ll see how it gets going though, I’m rather curious about her future. Will she realise that whatever Grindelwald’s promises, Jacob is not part of them? And how come she doesn’t read his mind? Is Grindelwald using Occlumency against her? But she’s not a canon legilimens, whatever Rowling tries to explain about that. She can’t access people’s hidden stuff. Hmm…

However, I don’t think, as many reports do, that Queenie has turned evil. I reckon she’s only desperate to get above those MACUSA laws that prevent her marrying Jacob. She doesn’t think much, though, does she. Yet she’s been showing wit and presence of mind in the first film, where she plays an instrumental part in saving her friends: when she blackmailed that MACUSA official to get Jacob back, and helping the lot out of the building inside her suitcase. She knows how to use her charms with some cleverness and à-propos. So why the ruddy hell does she let herself draw in by Grindelwald? Why doesn’t she question his statements, while she knows who he is perfectly well? This is really weird. I mean she’d be the perfect character to show that it’s not because someone looks like the local Betty Boop she is a peabrain, and can do nothing of her life but be idle. She’d be superbe at that. Maybe she will, in the end, because she needs to travel through darkness to find her own light. Maybe we’ll have a spy again. Maybe… dunno. Maybe she’ll just stay with Grindelwald. Hope not, though.

About Obliviation…. I didn’t know that it also meant ‘removing only the bad memories off the head’. That sounds weird. So what the Swooping Evil Venom does is wipe off bad memories. That’s what Newt says in his suitcase to Jacob, in the first film (scene 46). Later, when the whole of New York needs to be Obliviated, he suggests the use of that same venom. If everyone in New York had their bad memories wiped off, that means they are starting a completely new life based only on their good memories from the whole of their lives. That’s a bit harsh, like a memory genocide. I mean imagine the whole city waking up and not knowing what bad things had happened, who is your foe or why you can’t get to do something you wanted? Plus, I’m sure that some people had good memories related to seeing creatures in Central Park or things like that. So they would still remember them. This isn’t canon Obliviation, and furthermore, doesn’t stick to the USA law that says wipe off ALL memories of magic from Muggles, not only the good ones. Mind you, how would it have looked like if they had been really Obliviated? A whole city of strangers? Big Loophole, I reckon. Which brings us back to Jacob’s situation. He apparently hasn’t forgotten about everything. But how could you say that being chased off by an Erumpent across Central Park could be a good memory? Yet Jacob hasn’t forgotten about them magical rhinos, since we can see Erumpent pastries in his bakery window display. This is all very strange. Kikimora suggested that actually after the canning factory (that sucks all the life out of him), having such an adventure can’t be a bad memory. I reckon she’s got a point here :P

Leta. Hm…. Well, she sacrifices herself in the end. Is that going to provide some kind of protection to the Scamander brothers? Or was it only because she couldn’t make up her mind between them or between light and darkness? Or because she was feeling too guilty? However, I’m glad that she’s not related to Credence, and that the Lestrange thing is something different. Leta is a complex character, and I’d have liked her to develop a bit more in the future films. It seems like a waste, for the moment.

Now there’s one question, from one snake to another. The Maledictus is Credence’s friend (or whatever you want to call that relationship of two scarred souls). She doesn’t really have a part to play in this film, but I guess that she’s not there for nothing, because of her name, for one. Nagini. That’s Voldemort’s pet snake, that Wormtail milked to feed him when he was trying to survive in Goblet of Fire, which makes me wonder, by the way: how can a snake be milked, unless the final transformation the Maledictus goes through is not complete, and that at the moment of transforming she is with a baby and breastfeeding. Plus, she’d be over 90 years old when Voldy uses her. That’s a lot of interrogations. And second, she’s been separated from Credence at the end of the film, because he was once again lured by Grindelwald, who claims he knows his true identity. She can’t just see him go and that’s it, can she. Third, HOW THE BLOODY HELL COME that seeing this, she would end up joining Voldemort? HOW?

Credence… well. He’s alive, no big deal there, and starting to control both his Obscurus and his magic. He’s joined that weirdo circus because it was travelling to Paris, and he knew there were answers to his quest about his true identity on the Old Continent. He knew about that half-elf, Irma, who had taken care of him on his journey to New York when he was a baby (so it must have been around 1904, right?), so he goes looking for her with the Maledictus after they escape from the circus. Now I don’t get it why he’s drawn to her. Why are they escaping together? Maybe only because they’re both outcasts, and both being in an abusive environment they can’t stand.

Then there’s this Ministry of Magic (MoM) bloke who took the job to track him down and kill him (the job that was offered to Newt but which he flatly refused - You’ve never met a monster you couldn’t love), but he kills Irma instead. Like WHAT? Why? So that she wouldn’t tell him the truth? As if she knew it. We learn later in the film that Credence is the baby she delivered to MaryLou Barebone in New York, but that is should have been little Corvus Lestrange, who was apparently killed by Leta herself on the journey, because she swapped the babies (her brother Corvus was whining too much, and she couldn’t stand it anymore, so she swapped it with another baby, but then the boat sank).

That Ministry bloke is apparently secretly working for Grindelwald because the MoM policies are too soft (see scene under the bridge). So he probably was afraid that Irma’s hugging Credence would lessen his powers since love and family are -again- the remedy to the curse of the Obscurial…

In the end we learn, via the fact that Credence is having a baby Phoenix first (twice in the film, actually), but then because Grindelwald tells him, that he’s actually Dumbledore’s brother Aurelius. Right. I think I’ll keep that discussion for the second batch of reflections, because it needs a bit of digging. Still, I couldn’t resist adding a picture of the cover of the Crimes of Grindelwald screenplay, where it is obvious that a phoenix (or two) are hiding.

Flamel. Something weird about him. ‘We don’t keep food in the house.’ WHAT? Of course he and Pernelle are rich enough with the Stone not to have to cook themselves, but seeing how Flamel moves, I can’t imagine him rambling around Paris to go to restaurants thrice a day. Even climbing into a motor might be something of a challenge. Some could argue the Flamels don’t need to eat. Yeh. Well, since when does Immortality and Wealth dispense you from eating? That’s not consistent with the story around the Stone, be it only the glimpse we see in Philosopher’s Stone or the reality of the alchemical achievement. I’m a bit disappointed in the part the character has to play. Just a safe home for Yusuf to recover and have his water dragon parasite removed from his eye, and that’s about it? We do get a glimpse of the Philosopher’s Stone, and yes, Flamel has some kind of Palantir he uses to see what happens outside, and yes he’s at the Père Lachaise for the final scene, but still I’m like so that’s it right? meh.

We go back to Hogwarts. The young Newt is played amazingly well, given that he had to match Eddie Redmayne. Well done Joshua Shea (and David Yates for casting him and not using visual effects to make Redmayne look younger)! Apart from the pinch when you see Hogwarts appear from above with the Dark Lake and all, it’s nothing special. Leta takes a tour, which leads her to speak with Dumbledore and this dialogue is probably the one worthy of attention during all the Hogwarts sequences (apart from ‘would you like a cup of tea’ in the end) - and adds to the ‘why did you kill her?’ question.

Young McGonagall is completely out of character. Sounds like she’s been taken straight from Cursed Sh***... that was a disappointment. She’d never behave as she does in this scene.

And I still haven’t got over the fact that Dumbledore is teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts. No explanation is given in the film. I’m annoyed.

The French Ministry of Magic is accessed via a fountain. As said in my previous paper, I was wondering how people would be entering it in a non conspicuous way, because apart from shrinking themselves in the middle of the street and jumping into the plumbing… well. Apparently they vanish and the fountain sprouts some kind of railings? Come on people, this is a heavy breach of the Statute of Secrecy. Muggles wouldn’t see people disappearing?? No way. It is already bizarre enough at King’s Cross. Second thing is that again, the location tag on the screen reads ‘French Ministry of Magic’. Well, that’s not in accordance with what it is called everywhere else, namely Le Ministère des Affaires Magiques de la France’. Why??

Same question in the USA: Why, in the name of Merlin’s most baggy pants, is MACUSA referred to as ‘American Ministry of Magic’? First of all, America is a continent, not a country. Referring to it as ‘American’ (YES, I know it’s common to do that but it still irks me) means that there are no other countries that can claim to be American in all three subcontinents. Try and tell Canadians that they don’t live in America, or Brazilians, or Mexicans. That’s not right. Well. If we set this ‘detail’ aside, the name of the United-Statesian Ministry of Magic is The Magical Congress of the United States of America, and NOT The American Ministry of Magic. Rowling made it quite plain in all her writings on Pottermore, for instance. So why WHY change that now? It only makes canon void of sense and nomenclature confusing.

Apparently, there’s a whole Wizarding layer to Paris, unlike London or New York, that you can enter via a statue of a woman sitting on a column (pic above). The Paris you enter has exactly the same map as the Muggle one, but it’s a parallel Paris. A bit weird, but probably the only way to manage a magical travelling circus without having to make yourself unplottable. Mind you, the Hogwarts Express can’t be seen by Muggles. So why couldn’t the same technique be used on a circus?

I’ll save Grindelwald, the raven and the Lestrange vault for my second piece, as well as Newt, Tina and Dumbledore, I think. I thought I’d leave the Deathly Hallows for the second bit too, but no. WHERE ARE THEY? They are everywhere from the title of the film to all the artwork by MinaLima, but not once are they mentioned in the film. Apart from the Elder Wand, in the hands of Grindelwald. Like the Potter films. Me. Is. Lost.

Many people around me or online have been complaining that this film had killed the wizarding world. Well I reckon it hasn’t, quite the contrary. It’s embedding Hogwarts in the Wizarding World, and not the other way round, folks. Rowling always stated that the Fantastic Beasts series would not be a children’s film series. She also often spoke about this as an allegory of the Interwar period, meaning the rise of extremism in Europe, culminating in WW2. It’s not a fairy tale, and not meant to be so.

Some more questions remain unanswered from before, or some details from this film, regarding the things discussed - or rather said - in this bit of writing:

Why didn’t Grindelwald kill the MoM official at the beginning, and ‘only’ made him fall into the Hudson river?

How come people can Apparate on the Hogwarts Bridge while all sources tell us you cannot Apparate on the grounds?

Why is a bloke called Travers the head of the MoM delegation sent to Hogwarts?

Why is the man replacing Newt to track down Credence so ambiguous? What’s his real role?

What’s Credence’s real family tree? Is he Dumbledore’s brother or half-brother? What’s the story behind this?

Phoenixes come to the Dumbledore family members when in dire need of help. Are there two phoenixes or is the one that comes to Credence actually already Fawkes?

So many questions, and so many more to come... when I get time enough to write the second part of this. Happy thinking, and please comment below with your own thoughts, agreements, disagreements, etc...!

Sources

Rowling, J. K. (2016). Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - The Original Screenplay. Little Brown, London, UK.

Rowling, J. K. (2018). Fantastic Beasts - The Crimes of Grindelwald - The Original Screenplay. Little Brown, London, UK.

#louhi #J. K. Rowling #Crimes of Grindelwald #Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them #Queenie #Jacob #Flamel #Credence #Leta #The Maledictus #Abernathy #First Impressions

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easyhairstylesbest · 3 years

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Lauren Oyler on Writing a Book 'Good Enough So People Can't Hatchet-Job You'

Lauren Oyler is the kind of literary critic who makes thin-skinned writers think twice about putting their thoughts onto the page. She once questioned if New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino had ever met someone who wasn’t pretty (yikes!) and asserted that the best-selling novel American Dirt could have “perhaps used a little more self-doubt” (…fair). With bylines in the London Review of Books, New York Times, The Baffler, and more, Oyler often reflects on online phenomena like the popular rise of astrology and the destabilizing effect of social media on our collective mental health. More than one of her pieces of criticism have gone viral, a feat for the genre in its own right, but all the more extraordinary for their lack of sensationalism. Though her critique is often sharp-edged, it does not sacrifice nuance.

Now, she’s turned efforts to her own novel, Fake Accounts, which distills much of her critical musings into a timely premise, with a protagonist who feels like someone you follow on Twitter—an Internet writer who lives in New York City. The unnamed narrator discovers that her boyfriend of several years has been hiding a second life as a popular online conspiracy theorist on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration, but as she roves the sea of pink pussy hats at the 2017 Women’s March that same weekend, her boyfriend dies in a freak accident before she can confront him. Left in a social media-hazed mania, the narrator flees to Berlin, embarking on a truly deranged online dating spree and other expat follies.

The book mirrors details from Oyler’s own life—a writer, often for the internet, who lives part-time in Berlin—and parodies the contemporary literary trends she often critiques, like autofiction and the fragmented structure popularized by Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation, to explore the tension and lack of distinction between our real and online personas. If, like much of the population, you are addicted to social media, the book resonates in a very specific way.

ELLE.com talks with the author about how she deals with her inner critical voice, her lukewarm feelings about social media detoxes, and how she found empowerment in blurring the lines of her online persona through fiction.

I first heard about your book after seeing a tweet from Emily Gould that calls you an “enormous bitch” but then praises the novel as “unimpeachably great.” How do you unpack a comment like that?

Ha! I don’t think Emily meant that being a bitch is a bad thing necessarily. We’re so used to seeing more or less positive criticism or only tepidly questioning criticism, but not a ton of harsh book criticism, so I seem like more of a bitch than I think I am. But I mean, that’s totally what I was going for—make the book good enough so people can’t hatchet-job you, right? That’s what everybody is going for, I hope.

I imagine that task was really challenging as someone who reviews books. How were you able to shut off those critical voices and write?

I think a lot of people are probably feeling pressure from hypothetical critics now. Social media puts everybody in this position where you’re constantly imagining how something is going to be taken the wrong way, or the least generous reading of something that could possibly be made. How likely is it that someone will make it? There’s an aspect of the novel where the narrator is constantly anticipating the reader’s thoughts, and she is trying to justify her thinking or how she’s behaving. So I think that’s a broader issue and not just related to the fact that I’m a “bitch.” [Laughs]

AKA critic! Reading your criticism, I have been struck by the level of authority you assume—as a writer, I always struggle with “what’s my right” to say any of this. I’m curious where that comes from for you.

I think it does come in part from growing up in a place where people were not quite interested in the same things I was. I grew up in Hurricane, West Virginia, a small town between Charleston and Huntington, and I was not a total misfit, but I wasn’t encouraged the way I might have been if I had gone to a nice private school in New York City. I had to learn to trust my process of thinking through objections and criticism and shoring up all sides—because I do feel, and maybe some people would disagree, that I think quite a lot about things before I say them, and that’s part of where the sense of confidence comes from. But I do have social media-inflicted paranoia.

You’ve written a lot about social media as a critic—what made you want to approach the topic from a literary standpoint?

There’s this idea that floats around periodically that the realist novel is not equipped to respond to the pace and technology of the day, and you can’t put the Internet in a novel and have it still be literary because the Internet is inherently tacky and ephemeral and nothing on it matters and everyone on it is kind of stupid. We have this idea about literary fiction, that it has to be very elevated and concerned with the greatest issues of human life, but I think the compulsion to be sort of ephemeral and the willingness to be stupid in public without thinking much about it is a very human impulse. I was interested in this idea of the realist novel and the quote-unquote “traditional novel” that is supposed to be inimical to the Internet and social media.

What was your writing process like?

When I started thinking about writing this novel, the voice didn’t come to me immediately. I was really struggling with it. And then I wrote a version of the first paragraph, which has this much more cynical, slightly complicated tone with an inherent ironic quality that is really appealing to me, and then went from there.

One thing I thought about a lot is the possibility that people will read the book autobiographically in some way and take something about me from the protagonist. I started to feel very empowered by that, building up this fake persona that was still definitely connected to my real self.

That sounds absolutely terrifying to me.

I think it’s personally empowering because I don’t think I care if someone thinks a certain detail or one of the things the protagonist says is attributable to me. It may be attributable to me, or it may not be, and keeping both possibilities alive throughout the text is something I was concerned with. I think what is compelling about experiencing art and also making it is that it allows you to create your own agency. You can, within the confines of the work, do more or less whatever you want. I think it’s very important for people to have at least one sphere of life where you can sort of control how it works.

I have listened to and read a lot of interviews with authors who get frustrated with the notion that some part of their novel is autobiographical, and they have a point, but I also think the process of writing a novel is one in which you are pulling all sorts of things from your life. You only have what’s in your mind, what you can imagine or experience. Now, increasingly, we live in a time where we just know a lot about each other, and what I try to show in the book is that the construction of online persona versus the construction of a quote-unquote “real persona” is a very fluid process. You can’t point to any one thing and say that’s real and that’s fake. There are definitely things that are straightforward lies, but there are lots of ways to fudge things without lying and, in some way, you’re being more truthful by not being completely honest, which is the nature of fiction traditionally—that it’s saying something true by saying something false.

As a literary critic, how do you hope your book is received?

First of all, I know this is a trick question, but I hope it’s not just seen as a commentary on social media, because I think that discussion of social media even now can be siloed, like, “Oh, that’s what’s happening on the Internet. That’s an Internet writer.” I would ideally not be considered a quote-unquote, “Internet writer.” I would be considered a writer, one of whose themes is the internet.

“I started to feel very empowered by that, building up this fake persona that was still definitely connected to my real self.”

Has your relationship to social media changed since the pandemic?

I’ve got to say no, but that’s because I didn’t have a job before, so I was always on the computer at my house and I continued to be on the computer at my house. I’m kind of disappointed that I haven’t had an awakening that allows me to get off it for good. I did take a five-month break last year, and that was sort of nice, but it didn’t change me as much as I hoped. I obviously get quite a lot out of social media—my career definitely has a lot to do with having been on Twitter for ten years—and I think it’s very fascinating just to watch people and see what they do on it and how they respond and interpret things. It’s an amazing opportunity to watch this many people just behave.

What books or authors do you think people should read more of?

As far as contemporary authors go, I think Miriam Toews deserves much more attention. I loved Patrick deWitt’s novel French Exit, which didn’t get very much attention when it came out (and looking it up just now, I had no idea it was made into a movie). More people can always be told about The Last Samurai and Helen DeWitt (no relation to Patrick, I think). Joan Silber, Percival Everett. I think it’s safe to say that most authors in translation who aren’t extremely famous deserve more attention; it’s hard to go wrong with translated books in the U.S. because so few authors get translated, and the ones who do are usually some of the most renowned authors in their own countries. Which is a problem, because in the U.S. we have no idea what’s going on with contemporary literary culture in other countries, but it’s a useful way to narrow your search. Daša Drndić, Jenny Erpenbeck, Alina Bronsky (I liked The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine). Tove Ditlevsen’s memoirs, The Copenhagen Trilogy, are being reissued by FSG in January, and I wrote about them and loved them. I still think about the book Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami, who has a few other books out here, too.

Annie Werner Annie Werner is a writer from Texas living in New York.

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Lauren Oyler on Writing a Book 'Good Enough So People Can't Hatchet-Job You'

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arlessiar · 7 years

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Eleven questions

I’m incredibly late with answering this, but it took me a while and then the whole Kingsman SDCC thing happened in-between. So no idea if people are still interested in this, but now that I’ve written it I also want to post it. :)

I was tagged by @notbrogues @hartwin-af and @spockri

rules: 1. always post the rules. 2. answer the questions given by the person who tagged you. 3. write 11 questions of your own and tag 11 (or however many) people to answer them.

Questions by @notbrogues

1. Describe your least favourite character.

In general, the pointless love interests, the boring villains, the almighty and flawless heroes, the dumb and helpless females

(And just in case, the opposite – my favourite characters are the caring doctors, the smart geeks, and the loners, misfits and underdogs *g*)

2. A go-to comfort meal/snack/treat.

When my Mum crumbs meat or veggies to fry them she always makes a small fried bread/omelette from the rest of the eggs and breadcrumbs. She adds salt, pepper and some cheese. It’s an old Silesian tradition, my Gran always did that and we still do it today. It means home and comfort for me and I love it and I’ll defend it from every other hungry person in the house. It’s mine. My precious. Me eats it alone! *eg*

Apart from that – Avocado. Chickpeas. White chocolate. Chocolate digestives.

3. Describe a perfect vacation, with no limit on funds or how long you can stay there.

I go there quite often, but still, London. It’s been my happy place for years. And from there I’d go to Cornwall, to the Lake District, the Brecon Beacons and the Highlands. With unlimited funds I’d take my parents with me or my BFF, and we’d spend lots of time visiting all the manors and country houses!

4. Do you listen to podcasts? If so, what are you favourites?

Listened to the Three Patch Podcast in the Sherlock fandom, but only a few times. Not really my thing in general.

5. One widely accepted fanon headcanon that you just don’t agree with?

Hmm, I like most of the fanon and can live with the rest. Not so keen on Percival being Roxy’s Dad. Distantly related, yes, but I can’t imagine him as her father.

6. One story/movie/song/album/piece of art that resonated with you and that you will never be able to forget?

There’s so much I could write here, but I have to make a decision, so:

Stories, movies – too many to count!

Song and album – R.E.M., Automatic for the people, “Everybody hurts”. My fav forever band, and that song saved my life during a very low phase I went through in my teens. Oh, and Jeff Buckley’s version of Cohen’s “Hallelujah”. Listening to that for the first time was a revelation.

Piece of art: My favourite picture is Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer above the sea of fog. I could stare at it for hours. Also, seeing Van Gogh’s Sunflowers for real in the National Gallery had blown my mind and I’ll go to look at it every time I’m in London.

When I was a teen there was an exhibition in my city with photographs from Nan Goldin. Our art teacher took us there and most of my classmates weren’t prepared for this rather explicit art. For me though a gate had opened, I finally understood the art of photography, and it’s been a passion of mine ever since.

7. If you have a day off, no responsibilities or pressing matters to attend to: what are you doing for the rest of the day?

Three words – Lego, AO3 and tumblr.

8. Favourite past trend that you are most nostalgic for?

I honestly never really followed trends a lot, so I’ve no idea what to say here. ^^ What I really really miss is the way they made computer games in the Nineties. Give me a good old fashioned Adventure with tricky puzzles and I’m happy.

9. What’s a hobby/skill you’ve always wanted to learn?

Playing the harp or the violin. And archery. Might still try the latter one day.

10. Where do you see yourself in ten years?

So sorry, but I have to skip this one... I don’t dream much anymore. The only thing I can say is: Hopefully still surrounded by the people who I love more than my own life.

11. What was your first fandom? First OTP? First NOTP? Any memorable experiences from those early days?

My first fandom was Star Trek, around 1991. I always blame my Dad for me becoming a geek because it was him who told me to watch TOS. :) Wrote my first story in a notebook when I was twelve, no OTP though then, it was rather Mary Sue-ish. ^^ Then we got our first computer, and I had moved on to DS9. More stories, now on computer, still no OTP but lots of h/c. Then we got internet in 1996, and I was having some sort of epiphany – there was this world-wide phenomenon called fanfiction! I was not alone! An amazing discovery! Saw my first slashfic at that time, Garak/Bashir, and I was 16 and all like ‘ewww’ and backed away from it (so that was probably my first NOTP).

Being a Tolkien fan for years I easily fell for the LOTR films later and wrote FF for that and published my first stories. Arwen/Aragorn was my first fandom OTP I guess. Saw more slashfic, Legolas/Aragorn, and I was still not convinced, but I read one. While I never shipped that pairing, slashfic in general suddenly started to look appealing. Well, and today I say “all I’ve learnt about sex, I’ve learnt from fanfic”, because those years were really educational… ;)

Next fandom was Stargate Atlantis (OTP McShep), my online fan-life started in earnest then with the Gateworld forum and LJ, then Torchwood (OTP Ianto/Jack), then Sherlock (OTP Johnlock). And here I am now, in the Kingsman fandom, with Hartwin and Merhartwin being my OTPs.

Now @hartwin-af

1. Who are your favourite artists/actors/fictional characters?

I admire Viggo Mortensen both as an actor and as an artist. And Colin Firth has been one of my favourite actors for many years. Closely followed by Chris Pine and Matt Damon. I also think Meryl Streep is a goddess.

Fav fictional characters: Aragorn, Sherlock, Mr Darcy and tons of others, among them right now Harry Hart :)

2. What are your favourite tv shows/movies?

Fav TV shows from the past: Star Trek DS9, Torchwood, MASH, SGA, Sherlock, Flying Doctors, Diagnosis Murder, Queer as folk

Recent TV shows: Agents of shield, Poldark, The Handmaid’s tale

3. What/Who do you fear?

Dying alone

4. What are you looking forward to the most?

At the moment my summer holiday and Kingsman 2.

5. What’s your biggest pet peeve?

The acceptance of ignorance you see nowadays. It’s ok to lack knowledge, but one shouldn’t be proud of it. It’s no badge of honour to boast about. There’s something you don’t know – go and look it up.

6. If you could make one thing canon in your fandom, what would it be?

DAISY UNWIN

7. Do you hoard usernames?

Nope. In fact I’m known for having the same username for decades and almost everywhere…

8. Coke or Pepsi? Tea or Coffee? KFC or McDonald’s?

If at all, Coke. Coffee, with tea being a close second. McDonald’s, but rather Burger King!

9. What would make today better?

Less humidity. Apart from that it’s been a pretty fine day. :)

10. What’s your favourite scent?

Privet when it’s in bloom.

11. What’s your proudest achievement?

Finishing my university degree (MA)

And @spockri

1) Are you a morning person or a night owl?

100% night owl

2) What is your OTP (and you can only pick 1!) and why?

Currently Hartwin. It just… happened. Love the fact that they’re so different and yet so similar, and that there’s tons of chemistry between them.

3) What is your favorite thing about Colin Firth?

His smile. Absolutely.

4) What’s your favorite book and how would you recommend it to someone who’s never heard of it?

That is in fact Atwood’s “The handmaid’s tale” and has been for years. I would recommend it as a book that’s become scarily relevant again in the light of the current political situation in the US.

5) Where is your favorite place to read?

Used to be my bed, but the older I get, the less comfortable it becomes. So today it’s my desk chair. And Parliament Hill when I’m in London.

6) What was your last impulse buy?

Clothes. I have way too many clothes… send help! Or Livia Firth, so that she can rip me a new one. Or Colin so that he can rip my clothes off… ok, wait, I need to stop.

7) What is/was your favorite subject in school?

That was English and Art

8) Are you an introvert or extrovert?

Introvert, INFJ. And an HSP.

9) Do you have any trips/vacations planned this year?

Most likely London again in August, and a short trip within Germany to visit two wonderful friends in October

10) What would you do if you saw Colin Firth walking on the other side of the street from you?

In my dreams I’d work up the courage to walk over to him and smile and say hello and ask politely for an autograph… depends on the situation though. So in reality I’d most likely try not to bother him to respect his privacy and just stare at him from afar… while silently hyperventilating

11) I probably know you because we’re both into Kingsman, so when did you first watch Kingsman and what drew you to it?

When it came out I saw many posts about it on my tumblr dash and had no idea what it’s about. Thought it must be a big thing though and decided to watch it one day, but ignored it then on tumblr in order not to spoiler myself accidentally. It was on my list for a while and I finally bought the DVD in November 2016. Watched it with my parents. Was hooked in a second. This rarely happens to me, but I liked that the movie didn’t take itself overly serious but was still believable, and that the story had no loose ends. Also, suits and Savile Row (love a man in a good suit), and Colin Firth. Sold. The rest is history.

- - - - -

Now, eleven questions from me, just in case anyone still wants to do this and isn’t sick of this meme already. :)

1) What did you want to become as a child, and what did you become?

2) If you were allowed to dress your favourite actor however you’d like, who would it be and what would she/he look like afterwards?

3) Did you ever cry while reading a book or watching a film, and if yes, when was the last time that happened and why?

4) What is your favourite piece of jewellery that you own?

5) If you could invent and play any kind of yet non-existent role in an existent movie, who would you like to be?

6) You have to share a room with a Kingsman character for one night. Who will it be and why?

7) Did you have a comfort toy as a child and if yes, what happened to it?

8) What is the colour/design of your bedclothes?

9) What was your happiest fandom moment so far?

10) The last film you saw in the cinema

11) You invite your favourite fictional character for dinner and you’re having pizza. They say it’s your choice – what kind of pizza would you order for them?

You all probably did that already, I’m sorry!!

@agentdagonet @ripgalahad @jeherion @jesspaw @londongypsy @letmecomealong @galahadthelate @solarrift @lady-mephistopheles @fideliant @deepdarkwaters

#meme #eleven questions #arlessiar's replies

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