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Old 06-03-2019, 12:17 PM   #8 (permalink)
Stormdancer


DMC & DMAC
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Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Scotland, [GMT]
Posts: 10,058

Hogwarts RPG Name:
Bennett Potter
Slytherin
Sixth Year

Hogwarts RPG Name:
Atlas Ward
Ravenclaw
First Year
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Toto * RotiSila * ToRo * Braveheart * Grandma & Mama Tori

Round One WINNING Submission Entry
written by Cassirin




It wasn’t past curfew, but Queenie found herself slipping in and out of the shadows in the hall like she’d just escaped the hoosegow. Around a corner, up the stairs, a pause before crossing the patch of moonlight streaming from the Charms classroom. She crossed it like a frozen river, great sliding steps to the far shore of shaded safety. The dark felt safer, the light a constant risk of exposure.

She paused to listen if there was anyone else about. Not just to listen, but to hear. Queenie went still and slowly, agonizingly, removed the mental wall. It was just like a real wall, this fabricated idea that Queenie learned from her older sister Tina, and it came down like the genuine article. One brick removed, then another, and another, until the entire thing gave in on itself.

Voices poured in, and Queenie clutched the bundle in her arms closer to her chest. She always had to remind herself that covering her ears didn’t help. The voices weren’t real, or at least, they weren’t real to anyone else. They were all the whispered half thoughts and ideas leaking from the minds of her classmates, mixed together and cacophonous.

Someone a floor above was writing a love letter.

Someone a floor below had Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral stuck in his head, except that was the only part of the song he knew.

Someone was studying Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, Runes.

Someone was crying her eyes out, rehearsing arguments in his head, reciting worst case scenarios.

Happy, sad, terrified… so many people and so many feelings. All at once. But it didn’t seem like any of those feelings were particularly close, and Queenie began to pick her way along the hall again.

The wall went back up, always harder than tearing it down, and it was likely the distraction of building an entire wall in her mind that kept Queenie from hearing that sound at first. Or maybe it was all the noise in her head – it was really hard to hear something quiet when everyone at Ilvermorny was thinking so loudly.

She was just feet away from the entrance to the Puckwudgie common room and safe passage for her bundle when she heard the singing. Softly, tunelessly, and it took a moment for Queenie to recognize the song. Everyone could carry a tune in their own mind, but less so in real life.

“Too ral loo ral loo ral too ral loo ral… too ral loo… too ral too.” Tucked into the tiny space between the stone castle wall and a stuffed chair was a first year Puckwudgie. Aidan Cobb. She knew him from around the common room, although she didn’t make a point of hanging out with first years.

Queenie froze, unsure of what to do with her hands. Her full hands, so it wasn’t like she could stick them into her pockets or tuck her short blond hair behind her ears. Maybe if she held very still, she’d become invisible. Was that a secondary side effect of being a Legilimens? Invisibility?

“Queeeeeeenie.” Apparently she wasn’t invisible. The first year made grabby hands at her, and Queenie inched backwards. “D’you know that song?”

“Sure, kiddo. I think there are more words, though.” None that she could think of at the moment… No-Maj songs were so weird.

Aidan scooted out into the corridor, and Queenie took another step back. No touching. Nope. Touching made the quiet thrum of his thoughts that much louder. Plus she wasn’t about to trust her bundle to those grabbing baby hands.

“I can’t remember anything else. What you got there? It smells… good.” Aidan lunged again, pulling back the starched white napkin and revealing the perfectly browned crust of a loaf of bread. Queenie had just spent hours perfecting the charms needed to mix, knead, and bake it, and she was on her way to deliver it. And no needy, hungry first years were going to talk their way into a slice of it.
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