Unworn Laurels
Laura Hawthorne grew up in a house that was never loud. It did not echo with shouting, nor was it weighed down by cruelty in any obvious form. It was a house just like any of the other prestigious, pure-blood families— measured voices, careful footsteps, and expectations so deeply rooted that they did not need to be spoken aloud for its presence to be felt. The Hawthorne mansion stood tall and immaculate at all times, the halls polished, portraits aligned, its inhabitants composed and mannerly. Disorder was not forbidden, exactly — it was simply unthinkable.
Laura Hawthorne
The House Before Everything
Beatrice Hawthorne loved her daughters deeply, she would say, but love, in her mind, was synonymous with refinement . Laura was dressed with intention from the moment she could stand on her own two feet, her posture corrected before it could learn to be incorrect, her tone softened before it could sharpen. Beatrice did not raise her voice when Laura erred; experience had taught her that actions spoke louder than words and had ingrained that into the very fabric of her being. Beatrice Hawthorne would only smile, the kind that suggested disappointment rather than anger, ans that would made the little girl’s stomach twist painfully. Praise came when Laura performed well, when she mirrored the elegance expected of her. Affection followed success, never preceding it and Laura learned this pattern even before she had properly learnt to walk, even if she never fully understood it.
Samuel Hawthorne, by contrast, was distant in a quieter way. He spoke to Laura with civility and patience, but always as though she were already grown, like a mentor. His questions were never about her feelings, but almost always about her progress. He asked her what she had learnt, what she planned to master next, how she intended to represent the family when the time came. Laura admired him the way one would admire something vast and immovable, something untouchable, but she never felt known by him, by the person who was meant to be her father. Approval, when it came, was brief and conditional. Silence was far more common.
If Laura found warmth anywhere in the Hawthorne household, it was in her sister. Amy Hawthorne was older and sharper, quicker to read the room and quicker still to adapt herself to it. A role model in all ways. The sun to her moon, the light to her dark. Where Laura asked questions, Amy learned which ones not to ask. Where Laura lingered in thought, Amy acted. As children, they shared a room, and at night Amy would whisper explanations of the world their parents expected them to inhabit. She taught Laura how to nod at the right moments, how to keep certain thoughts to herself, how to soften her curiosity into something palatable. Amy protected her in ways Laura only understood years later.
The house itself never quite felt like home to Laura. It was beautiful, yes, but beauty there was curated and untouched. Unnatural and creepy in a way her young mind could not accept. She preferred the garden, where things were allowed to grow imperfectly. There, among the flowers and herbs, Laura actually felt alive. She spent hours tending to the plants, learning which needed sunlight and which preferred shade, which bent easily in the wind and which broke if handled too roughly. The house-elves noticed her gentleness long before anyone else did. They spoke to her softly and allowed her small kindnesses without comment. Laura thanked them every time.
By the time Laura was old enough to understand what was expected of her, she had already learned how to comply. She learned how to sit still, how to smile appropriately, how to be agreeable without surrendering herself entirely. She learned that love could exist without warmth, that silence was often safer than honesty, and that perfection was not something you were — it was something you performed.
What Laura did not yet understand was that one day, this careful obedience would become a cage.
And when she finally stepped outside its bars, the house that had raised her would perhaps be the one to break her.
As a child, Asher Graham learned to navigate a world that thrived on curiosity and resilience.
The Man Who Chose His Own Name
The Ashers were a regular family, the kind that you never hear about in the news, with two kids and two adults. The Ashers lived in a neighbourhood where everyone knew each other by name and people even left their doors open during the day. Growing up, his life followed a daily routine. He would go to school in the morning. His mom would pack him a lunch. He would study when he got home in the evening. The Ashers would all eat dinner together. There was no pressure to excel for the sake of appearances, only a quiet, gentle insistence on kindness, honesty, and effort, the kind more concerned with character than trophies.
Asher's school life was pretty interesting. He really learning about literature and history and excelled at math. He would often find himself lost in his books for a time after school was over. However, when it came to sports or working in groups he had a hard time figuring out where he fit in. The other kids in his class thought he was a quiet boy who did not talk much, but those who actually got to know Asher liked him a lot and found that he was funny and a loyal friend. Eventually, he developed a small circle of close friends, learning to value depth over numbers, and these relationships would remain strong well into adulthood.
Reading was a hobby he developed during his childhood. He liked to read about people and what they did. He would read biographies and newspapers and stories about people who lived different lives. He wanted to know what people were thinking and why they did things. He also wanted to know what made them make the decisions they made. As he grew older, he developed a taste for detective stories and murder mysteries, which helped him think clearly and pay attention to details. He also liked the excitement of trying to figure out what would happen next in the story. He then discovered his love for writing — a passion that would later bloom into a career.
Aurelia , more than ten years his senior, acted as both an anchor and a moral compass. She was like a rock that he could depend on. She also helped him figure out what was right and wrong. She did a lot of things for him when he was little, walking him to school helping him with his homework and telling him when he was doing something even if he did not know it was wrong. She was strict but she was also fair and Asher learned to trust what she said and he trusted her completely. Aurelia was the prime example of the kind of person he could be when he grew up someone who was kind and had a lot of experience. It had felt inevitable to him when she chose to become a kindergarten teacher; she had always possessed the patience and clarity required to guide others, and had always loved children. Their bond only deepened with time, evolving into a quiet mutual reliance that neither ever named aloud.
Soon after, Nathaniel came into Asher's life. He was like a breath of fresh air. He was really different from Aurelia because while Aurelia was about teaching Asher to be organized and follow the rules, Nathaniel was all about having fun. They would play board games and have competitions and friendly arguments that blurred the line between fun and learning. Nathaniel never talked down to Asher, even when he was young, and that respect left a lasting impression. Nathaniel taught Asher that learning can be fun and that is something that Asher never forgot. It was with Nathaniel that Asher first learned that intelligence didn’t have to be serious to be real, that joy and curiosity were not opposing forces.
By the time he reached secondary school, his path was beginning to take shape and he joined the school paper. Writing felt natural to him, a way to organise the thoughts that constantly crowded his mind. He learned to step out of his shell, to talk to people, finding an innate pleasure in asking them about their lives, their opinions, their stories, and listening. Especially listening. People had so much to say. Reporting gave him the permission and freedom to do so.
University followed, and with it the decision to pursue journalism properly. Asher gravitated toward reporting rather than opinion, toward facts grounded in human experience. He wanted to tell the truth, specifically the quiet truths — the ones that mattered deeply to individuals even if they barely registered on a larger scale. His work called for frequent travel, and he welcomed it—each new destination unfolding into an entirely new, unknown world.
Family remained family. Aurelia and Nathaniel were never too far away, and later, when Caleb joined them, Asher found himself softened by the presence of a child again. He delighted in being the indulgent uncle, the one who bent rules slightly and laughed a little too loudly. He never imagined, then, how deeply fatherhood would change him — or how fiercely he would love his own child one day.
Last edited by Pamela Graham on 6 Jan 2026, 13:04, edited 3 times in total.
"I'd rather be heartless, than have my heart in pieces"
-Calming Presence- The Muggle Condition
iNPC: Hikari Fujimoto
Unworn Laurels
Her mother would never forgive her if she found Laura standing outside a muggle shop, preparing to go in.
Laura Hawthorne
The meeting
Curiosity had gotten the best of her. The bookstore smelled of old paper and ink, a familiar comforting scent that had reminded Laura of quiet afternoons at Hogwarts, tucked away in the protection of the library. The difference that had drawn her in was the absence of the magic she was accustomed to at home, and at Hogwarts. It had only been two years since she had finished her Seventh year at Hogwarts, and she missed her school with a kind of pain that sometimes felt almost physical. In seven years it had become a home for her in a way that the Hawthorne Estate never had, bringing to her a kind of freedom she had never been able to experience under her parents’ watchful gazes.
It was all gone now.
Laura stepped inside and was immediately struck by how ordinary everything felt—and how unsettling it was. There was no hum of magic beneath the floorboards, no wards woven into the walls, no quiet awareness that the space itself was alive and watching. The air was still, heavy with the scent of paper and dust, and for the first time she became acutely aware that nothing here would respond to her if she needed it to. No wand tucked in her sleeve could smooth things over unnoticed. No spell could be muttered under her breath without consequence.
It left her feeling strangely exposed.
She moved carefully, probably too carefully, as though the shelves might recoil if she brushed them the wrong way. Her parents had always deemed muggle places unworthy of their attention. Growing up, she had been taught, never explicitly, that muggle places were inefficient, fragile things, held together by inconvenience and noise. And yet here she was, surrounded by books that had been written, printed, and preserved without magic at all. The realization unsettled her more than she expected. It forced a quiet, uncomfortable respect she hadn’t been raised to feel.
She had left before she could linger too much on the unfamiliar, dangerous feelings. The shopkeeper, a cheerful old man with a head covered with completely white hair, waved her out.
But fate would lead her right back to a shop about two months later.
——————
The second time, she found herself standing in front of the wooden doors in the heart of winter. Snow clung stubbornly to the edges of the pavement, half-melted and grey and nearly covering the board bearing the name of the store. Laura vaguely noted the fact that a spell would've been used to keep the white away from the board had the shop been magical.
She told herself she would stay only for a moment. Just curiosity, nothing more.
Entering felt less jarring the second time, less like she'd stepped into a place she wasn't meant to be in, and the smell of paper greeted her as she stepped in. The warmth settled around her snugly and Laura blinked, startled by the difference in temperatures. Did the muggles have a device that could moderate temperatures? Made without magic? No way, it didn't seem possible.
Laura allowed herself to wander between the shelves, trailing her eyes along the rows of books and waiting for one of them to call to her. Would they call to her? She wondered if non-magical books could call to a person.
She eventually came across a bookshelf which seemed to be dedicated to only one author. The placard above read “Agatha Christie”— the name was unfamiliar, an author she had never heard of, never seen cited in any of the library books she had read so far. She traced a finger along the spines, the repeated name, the consistency of it. Five…. ten… fifteen… could a single person write so many books? Was it humanely possible? Laura would've never believed it.
She had lost track of how much time she spent in front of that shelf, scanning over the multitude of colors and titles, and that one author name.
“If you want to read those, you should start with the first book.”
Laura flinched at the intrusion, hand darting to her wand before she even had the time to register the newcomer's words. He took a step back, hands raised, “Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you.”
There was nothing remarkable about the stranger at first glance, and that was precisely what unsettled her. No sense of hidden magic, no sharp awareness prickling at her skin. Just a man in a winter coat, eyes warm and curious, as though he truly belonged in this quiet, ordinary place.
He was a muggle, Laura realised. It was clear as daylight.
The boy had picked out a book from the shelves and was holding it out to her with a patience Laura was sure the majority of the wizarding population did not possess. She took it hesitantly, and glanced at the name, “A mysterious Affair At Styles”.
Laura thanked him and left before she could second-guess her decision.
At first, Asher thought she was simply out of place. But then the girl managed to read ten books in the next fifteen days.
The Art of Listening
The second time Asher met the blonde haired woman, she was on her third book, then her seventh, and then had finished her tenth. Asher would have wondered if she had been reading them at all, had he not caught her gushing about the plot to her…. cat?
She had seemed embarrassed at being caught and had promptly disappeared.
The two eventually warmed up to each other, and soon the bookstore served as their usual meetup spot.
———
In all honesty, he noticed her questions before he noticed her.
They came hesitantly, framed with politeness and a sense of apprehension, as though she was dabbling into something she shouldn't be, like she worried that they might be intrusive even when they had no reason to be. How ticket machines worked. Why newspapers were stacked the way they were. Why certain things cost more than others. She listened closely to the answers, committing them to memory with an intensity that felt almost reverent. It made him slow down, choose his words better.
There was something oddly disarming about the way she trusted him with her not-knowing.
Asher appreciated how she had the courage, and the simplicity to ask and admit to her lack of knowledge. In a world where people could never admit to their faults, it was a refreshing change. She didn’t pretend, she never laughed it off. She would admit to it outright if she didn’t understand something, her eyes alert, her brow frequently knit in intense consideration. It was an honesty that had so apparently been ingrained in her.
Her questions would lead him to respond with an interest he did not recall having in quite some time. He explained to Laura the way the world worked, how queues worked, law and order and all the unspoken things people did subconsciously.
Occasionally, he’d catch himself thinking about her family. Laura was curiously isolated from the world around her, unaware of things people took for granted, things Asher had grown up with. However, it seemed to him that what she needed was not common sense but experience.
Even odder, he felt was the gentle way she bore that lack of experience. There was no shame in her questions, only an eager focus that spoke of a life confined by excruciatingly small walls. She spoke politely, listened intently and didn’t press for details or arguments, as though she assumed he would be gentle and honest with her even when she hardly knew him. It left Asher silently pondering on how someone so clearly well-raised could know so little about how the world worked.
———
Gradually, over time, Asher noticed the minute changes in himself as he spent countless moments explaining and showing and simply listening to her; their time together had started to feel …different. There was a warmth in the way he awaited her visits, a soft eagerness that made him linger by the counter just a little longer, anxious for her to enter through the door. It wasn’t mere curiosity about her questions anymore — but about her, her mannerisms, the way her head tilted when thinking, the brightness in her eyes when she happened upon something new, the careful calibration with which she took things in before responding.
Then, one evening, she showed him.
A whisper of a word, a gentle glance, azure flames dancing on her palm. Wandless magic, she explained softly, hushing away his fears with the soft voice he had come to trust, before telling him of something entirely new: that she was capable of doing things he could neither explain nor understand, things that didn’t follow the rules of a world he had always known so intimately. Magic.
He listened as he always did, with a combination of fascination and disbelief, and far beneath these emotions, a deepening recognition of everything fitting into place. His questions, every puzzled glance, the stark contrast of her knowledge and demeanor coalesced into a whole new perspective with a meaning that finally made perfect sense.
The flame died, and they were engulfed in dim illumination, with only the hum of the shop for company. This—this was her world, her magic, and he realized this was what he was lacking. He didn’t say a word. He just observed, realizing with a quiet understanding that everything he knew about understanding a person had all changed.
"I'd rather be heartless, than have my heart in pieces"
-Calming Presence- The Muggle Condition
iNPC: Hikari Fujimoto