Formally Announce Solo Fin

This is part of Aly's Cast the Bronze storyline. You can find other portions here: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

If you're still unsure, let me lie for a day
before they formally announce me dead...

On the morning of her eighteenth birthday, Aly Salinger celebrated the dawn of her special day with a trek up to the Owlery before breakfast. Normally, she'd have complained about a long trek up multiple flights of stairs to visit a room that often smelled like stale hay and owl droppings, but this time felt different - exciting, even. Perhaps she was maturing, finally growing up. Or, more likely, it was just the enthusiasm that often came along with celebrating her birthday, her favourite day of the year.

Not that she was expecting much, this time. The Ravenclaw seventh-year hadn't heard a peep from her family since having left their manor herself in April, a not-so-subtle way of disavowing them as her blood relations. Her mother, her grandparents, her aunt, her beloved great-grandfather, even her tutor Lady Prudence - it was almost as if all of them had properly ceased to exist, and while Aly's heart still panged on occasion at the thought of having finally gained a big family and a fabulous life of grandeur only to lose it all a year later, she knew it was for the better. Anyone who willingly treated others as if they were beneath them simply because of money or blood... well, that wasn't the type of folk with whom Aly wanted to be associating. Good thing she was an adult now, with her own bank account and legal liability, both in the Muggle and magical worlds (well, at least for the liability part - she'd have to figure out how to set up a Muggle bank account at some point soon); that meant that she didn't have to rely on Hesper, or any of the other Livingstons, for anything. She could just... be.

Still, she decided to be the type of person who went up to the Owlery anyway, just to check if anyone had sent her anything. Most of the folk from whom she expected presents and celebrations were here at Hogwarts, the usual bunch with whom Aly could often be found celebrating another lap around the sun: @Dealla Prince, @Pericles Dralt, and @Evelynn Decipio, for the main three. The little quartet would probably end up traipsing off to Hogsmeade on this fine Saturday later in the afternoon for a celebratory butterbeer, but other than that, Aly hadn't planned anything, and neither had the other three, as far as she was aware - their upcoming N.E.W.T.s had all of the seventh-years properly tied up in knots with studying and revisions. But that was okay. Aly no longer felt like she needed an extravagant party or fancy invitations; she'd had enough of those for one year. Just a simple existence with those she loved most in the world was all this teenager really needed.

It was odd, almost, to find two letters waiting for her when she finally clambered up the last stair and into the open, airy circle of a room. Could she have just waited another hour to let them deliver them to her at breakfast? Perhaps, yes, but if there had been no letters at all, she really didn't want to have to deal with questions. But there were letters, a pair of them, both emblazoned with her name. Her real name. Aly Salinger, written in dual fonts, one familiar and poetically loopy, and the other equally familiar, small and distinct, and yet surprising.

Saving the best for last, she opened the envelope from her great-grandfather first.

Aly hadn't been quite sure what to expect from this communication, but an olive branch had been fairly low on her list of guesses. She knew that her great-grandfather Keithen was a kindred spirit, a kind soul; she had always known it, and he had never been one to hide his affection for his eldest surviving great-granddaughter. Twin Ravenclaws; his face had lit up when they had met for the first time and discovered that fact. They shared an insatiable sweet tooth and a love for learning that could only have come from Keithen's past life as a librarian, before his daughter had married into the prestigious Livingston jewel empire. He had escorted her (most of the way, at least) at her debut ball the previous summer, and for the art auction in November that had first begun to sour Aly's relationship with the rest of the family, but not with him. He had seemed nearly proud of her after the family caught her at the Diagon Alley protest in the winter, and definitively proud of her at the end of March, when she had Flooed out of the Livingston manor to flee to Peri's place for the rest of the Easter holiday after effectively disowning herself. Aly hadn't heard from him since, despite their mutual promise to write, though she now understood that it had been out of necessity rather than choice; his letter explained, in careful penmanship, that a furious Darcy had been utilising all of the owls in the house to send out various letters to all of the families with which she claimed Aly's disappearance would "ruin" their relationship. She suddenly wished she'd sent along an extra owl in her letters to him over the past month; Hogwarts creatures were notorious for forgetting to wait for their addressee to write a return, often abandoning the destination for the flight back to their home here at the castle after a single owl treat.

But nevertheless, Keithen's letter was full of well wishes and birthday regards, as well as updates on the state of the Livingston family after her leaving, which was about as chaotic as Aly had expected. She skipped over most of that, her eyes falling to two postscripts at the bottom:

P.S. I have included a cutting of the family's official statement on your disappearance, just in case you have not yet seen it. I feel you deserve to know what my daughter has been saying.
P.P.S. I couldn't get enough owls to handle a package, so I've just deposited your birthday gift directly into Gringotts instead. I've enclosed the key to your new account, and no one from our side of the family except for me can so much as touch it. Happy birthday, my dear.

The cutting was, well, rather cutting.

We are devastated to announce the passing of Alyssa Livingston, the seventeen-year-old heiress apparent to the Livingston jewelery-making dynasty and one of Britain's most elegant pureblood families. Though it is unclear exactly how she met such a young and tragic end, the Mrs. Darcy Livingston has requested "peace and quiet to mourn", adding that "Alyssa is no longer with us"; this marks the second eldest granddaughter that the Livingstons have lost in just a handful of years, following the untimely death of Verity Livingston in the mid-2010s. A seventh-year who was due to take her N.E.W.T. examinations this coming June, Alyssa burst unto the scene in a dramatic debut ball in August...

They'd rather claim me dead than admit I left willingly.

The laugh that escaped her lips was no longer bitter, at least, but rather something akin to relieved. If the pureblood world considered her dead, then let her be dead, at least to them; in a way, Darcy had given her the purest of birthday gifts: freedom. No longer could she be tied to the Livingston name, or to their blood pearls, or to their cruelty. Finally, at last, Aly was free to be herself once more - to be a Salinger.

She turned the key that had fallen from the envelope over in one hand, slender fingers grasping the cold silver metal that was engraved with her new vault number. Now she truly was an adult. Aly made a mental note to check exactly how much money her great-grandfather had deposited there for her next time she was in Diagon Alley; knowing his tendency to dote upon her, it was almost certainly an inordinate amount. Not that she needed it, what with a job offer on her shoulder and the promise of the seas on her personal horizon, but it was nice to know that she had something to fall back on, should her dream career become a nightmare.

The seventh-year then turned her focus to the more promising letter: Kavi's. She knew that brown ink and beautiful cursive anywhere by now, although by this point it came with memories: sunshine and surf, ballroom dancing and silver crowns, and, most recently, his warm lips underneath a cool moon, the fear of rejection dancing the jitterbug in his dark brown eyes. Her own personal tortured poet, @Kavi Kattimani, had not forgotten her birthday. Her own eyes lit up with excitement as she tore into the letter, devouring it, her eyes scanning rapidly line by line as her heartbeat continued to build, faster, faster, faster.

There was no present involved, he claimed, and yet, she felt like the luckiest girl in the world by the end. A childish grin spreading across her freckled face, Aly allowed herself a girlish squeal, clutching the letter to her chest and kicking one leg excitedly against the ground.

Finally!

And then, as if a switch had flipped, she grabbed her things and turned and ran. If she was quick about it, perhaps she could write him a return letter and have it ready to go for when the morning post was delivered to breakfast within the hour - a letter saying yes, saying thank you, saying of course I'll be yours. But maybe that was too strong. Time to workshop it on the long trek back to the Ravenclaw dormitories...

The Owlery | May 9^th, 2026 | #C47DDB