PV Guinevere Russetwood take me home where i belong (i can't take it anymore)

12 Jul 2026, 03:18

_{banner by Lily McCoire}

_{early September 2026 - evening}

This was pointless.
Evgenia had been sitting in the study room for probably two hours, trying to wrap her head around multiple classes' worth of homework. Charms? Defense Against the Dark Arts? History of Magic? And don't even get her started on the potions class - it was all so . . . bizarre. She knew she had to be awake, conscious, functional - but she still didn't quite believe that she wasn't dreaming all of this up. Who else would believe it? Yet, most everyone Evgenia saw here accepted it happily - even skillfully. She had no idea how to prop herself up amidst the vast expanse of unfamiliar waters she had been thrown into. Evgenia had always been a decent student, but this was far too much. Witchcraft? Wizardry?
She missed her home. She missed her mother. She missed the rink. She missed letters to and from Papa and Susanna. What could she even tell them? How could she explain the address of a ridiculously-named school that they had never even heard of - that they wouldn't even be able to see? She just wanted to skate again.
She flipped back and forth between a couple pages of homework, resisting the urge to bang her head on the table. What even was the point of this anyway? She should just quit and go home. Evgenia had never quit at anything in her life, nor had she ever truly wanted to - but she felt that this was a valid drop. She stared at the pages again, then dropped her pencil onto the table and leaned back in the chair, letting her head droop over the edge of the chair. This is so ridiculous. Not to mention downright impossible to understand, because the entire premise of the transfiguration class was impossible.

_{@Guinevere Russetwood}

Last edited by Evgenia Starkova on 18 Jul 2026, 01:28, edited 1 time in total.

13 Jul 2026, 02:40

tldr; pondering | #215f3c - speech | ooc: hi
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---One of the better things about being a sixth year was that Guinevere no longer had the pressing worry of OWLs upon her mind. One of the less pleasant things about being a sixth year was that the girl now constantly fretted about her certain future as a professional failure; unemployed, floating around, without anything purposeful to do. This did, of course, only come after pondering how she would tackle these "Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests" come seventh year. It seemed as though the only thing in her life was tests.
---They were, however, not the reason that Guinevere was haunting the study room on this mild evening. The culprit was a certain lesson that had occurred in her Defense class: dementors and the Patronus Charm. That, and attempting to learn how to target multiple opponents with a singular spell; it had only happened to her once, in a bout of sheer luck. Moments later, she was wiped out on the dueling club floor- but that was besides the point.
---The study room was unusually crowded for this time of day- or night, rather. Guinevere was lucky to find a seat adjacent to a small Hufflepuff - a first year, likely, as she had never seen her before - to crack open her textbook. Out of the corner of her vision, she noticed the girl had barely done anything except for flip pages around and sigh.
---“Stuck?” she asked. “Might be wise to write down some notes. That’s what helps me.”

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@Evgenia Starkova

Guinevere Russetwood, Y6, Slytherin
sta • 10 | eva • 12 | str • 6 | wis • 7 |arc • 10 | acc • 11

Akane Shimizu, Y6, Mahoutokoro
sta • 10 | eva • 10 | str • 5 | wis • 10 |arc • 10 | acc • 10

13 Jul 2026, 03:05

_{banner by Lily McCoire}

Zhenya startled slightly as she heard the voice from across the table, looking up to see a much older girl. "Oh -" she blurted, face flushing briefly. "Well, uh." That would be the smart thing to do, if she actually understood what to take notes on. "Yes. Problem is . . . I'm not exactly sure where to begin." Understatement of the year. "I don't really understand any of this." Zhenya's flush returned at the admission. She was quite out of her comfort zone, and she was sure it was fairly obvious.
The older student wore green. Slytherin. That was the house that blasted talking hat had considered sorting Evgenia into. Should she confess that she had little to no idea what she was doing? That seemed like a good way to get laughed at, but Evgenia wasn't sure she really cared about that. The multiple pages of homework taunted her out of the corner of her eye. Mama would think this ridiculous. Charms? Potions? Mama didn't believe in either of those, Zhenya knew that for sure. And what was she supposed to do with Transfiguration? That alone seemed to go against everything that Zhenya deemed common sense.
She sighed, thumbing through her Defense Against the Dark Arts assignment. "It's impossible," she muttered, mostly to herself.

_{@Guinevere Russetwood}

17 Jul 2026, 18:57

tldr; pondering | #215f3c - speech | ooc: hi
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---Guinevere felt the need to hit herself the moment the words left her mouth. Could she really just not shut up and let the kid struggle on her own? It wasn’t like she had any good advice, and it certainly was not her business, but she was too far down this situation to back out now. "Here, pass me that," she conceded, gesturing to her assignment. It looked like it was from Defense class; likely her strongest. She remembered when Moon had perched on her head in the middle of summer, clutching a thick envelope in her beak. Upon tearing off the red Hogwarts seal, Guinevere was greeted with a line of O's going down the paper, only obviously tainted by her E in Potions. What could she expect? The previous year, her lack of proficiency in the subject had led her to a burned arm, as well as the exchange with that first year in the hospital wing... anywho.
---Back to the situation in front of her. "You know, for most of this content, it's not necessary to understand every part of it. One just has to firmly believe that the spell, or potion, will work." She tilted her head curiously. "Are you... um." She paused. She had never actually asked someone their blood status before, and any way that she thought of had seemed too much like an interrogation. "Muggle-born?"

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@Evgenia Starkova

Guinevere Russetwood, Y6, Slytherin
sta • 10 | eva • 12 | str • 6 | wis • 7 |arc • 10 | acc • 11

Akane Shimizu, Y6, Mahoutokoro
sta • 10 | eva • 10 | str • 5 | wis • 10 |arc • 10 | acc • 10

17 Jul 2026, 23:22

_{banner by Lily McCoire}

Evgenia slowly held her assignment out to the Slytherin, the words on it swimming past her eyes to bounce around her brain. She scrubbed at her temple with one hand once the homework was handed over, green eyes flicking back up to the older student's face. "Uh . . . yes. Yes, that's what I've been told, anyway." As far as Evgenia had been able to figure out so far in these first couple weeks of school, 'Muggle-born' was the term for wizards and witches who weren't born to other wizards and witches - who were born to normal people, which were termed 'Muggles'. The mere thought of ever addressing her mother as a 'Muggle' had made Evgenia snort to herself more than once. "It would probably explain why pretty much everyone in my classes is light-years ahead of me." This was said on a low breath with plenty of bitterness heaped in. It wasn't that the girl minded struggling - struggling and then figuring it out was good for your brain. But struggling this badly for this long was something foreign to her, and to make matters worse she hadn't skated in weeks. It was a crime if you asked Evgenia. "I'm pretty sure that any day I'm going to be kicked out of this odd school."
. . . Why was she even telling a stranger all of this? Well, that stranger already had Evgenia's homework. Why not go all in at this point? You're too chatty, Evgenia, her mother would probably grump. This culture is chatty, Mama, Evgenia would probably say back.

_{@Guinevere Russetwood}

22 Jul 2026, 03:24

xxxxxx

6th year | sept. xx '26 | study room
with: @Evgenia Starkova
SWEET AND SOUR MOTIVATION

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---It was the Art of Labelling. One could so simply place a neat box around something to more conveniently pick it up and move it around. Although sometimes despicable and oftentimes irrelevant, they were also, frankly, true. At least it was the case for the labelling of blood type. "Well, that makes more sense," she mused, not judgementally. "It's a lot to take in."
---Being a half-blood, Guinevere was grateful that she'd been exposed to the magical world of things beforehand, and that she had stayed in touch with the normal - muggle - world as well. She could not manage life without her phone addiction in the muggle world and her butterbeer addiction whilst at Hogwarts. Speaking of butterbeer, she could really do with one at this point... She was not very sure if it truly was an alcoholic drink, but perhaps due to the power of a placebo effect, it would conk her right out. Either way, she was already sixteen, and had heard somewhere that in Scotland, one her age could legally drink. But that was besides the point. If it was one thing Guinevere loved, it was getting sidetracked.
---Back to the figuratively wide eyed girl in front of her. She took the girl's homework in her hands. Aww, she thought. She remembered this assignment.
---"Here, tell me exactly what is confounding you," Guinevere said. "and it doesn't seem very likely that you'll be kicked out. Your grades can't be that bad," she added airily.

xxxxxx

---Guinevere tried to think back to the last time the school kicked out a kid. The closest she could think of was the Incident back in year two. It seemed that every class had their own Incident, and Guinevere was almost proud to say that she was a side character in hers. There had been some action with some rule breaking, name calling, knife wielding... and even then no one was expelled. Surely an academically struggling child would be shown sympathy by her teachers. Or not, and she was telling the pure truth. Who knew?
---Now was the worst part of getting to know people: the questions. Holy hell, it was unending questions, but they were necessary, and Guinevere hated how it always felt like an interrogation. As a temporary remedy, she inspected the girl's homework. It was double sided: simply dreadful. She set it down upon her own textbook, which was being ignored for the time being.

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WISH I COULD KEEP CONCENTRATION
ooc: sorry late reply
perfectionist | 6th sense | prod. dada | blindvision | advanced casting

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xxxxxx

Guinevere Russetwood, Y6, Slytherin
sta • 10 | eva • 12 | str • 6 | wis • 7 |arc • 10 | acc • 11

Akane Shimizu, Y6, Mahoutokoro
sta • 10 | eva • 10 | str • 5 | wis • 10 |arc • 10 | acc • 10

22 Jul 2026, 03:44

_{banner by Lily McCoire}

Evgenia sighed, eyes on the paper the older student was holding. "Mostly the stuff about spells and potions and magic. Magic in general. I don't understand magic." It seemed impossible, even as she saw otherwise-unexplainable things right in front of her daily. "Half the time we try spells in classes, I get it to work but I don't even know how I did it! And the homework assignments are miserable. I usually end up just making things up." It had seemed to work for Evgenia so far - she usually ended up hitting on something that got her the points - but she knew that wouldn't always be the case. They were not far into the school year at all. Things would be changing.
The girl had said Evgenia's grades couldn't be so bad as to get her expelled, but she wasn't so sure about that. What even was the breaking point, the one that said you were too dumb for a wizard school? Evgenia slumped in her seat. She eyed the girl, now setting the Defense Against the Dark Arts homework onto her textbook. "It feels like learning how to stab germs with knives," she muttered somewhat bitterly. "You're told the threat is there, that it's dangerous and will harm you, and you need to negate the threat. But you can't see it and maybe you've never even heard of it."

_{@Guinevere Russetwood}

27 Jul 2026, 02:04

xxxxxx

6th year | sept. xx '26 | study room
with: @Evgenia Starkova
SWEET AND SOUR MOTIVATION

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---Guinevere huffed a slight chuckle at hearing the girl's first words. "Well, that's about everything you'll learn here," she said. She didn't even mean to be condescending. It was just the way things were. "At least you're getting it to work, right? I mean, you know what they say, fake it 'till you make it?"
---She handed the girl back her homework. Though the owner herself did not trust her magical abilities, Guinevere was quite sure that she would be all right. But how could she get her to figure this out; and was it even necessary for her to do so? That was the real question. Plus, an additional smart Hufflepuff to contribute to their house's House Cup tally... being quite competitive, Guinevere decided to drop the topic of studying then.
---Meanwhile, she simply nodded at the girl's likening of magic to germs. She was reminded of Plato's Allegory of the Cave. She was not one to get too poetic, but sometimes philosophies of ancient scholars just seemed fitting. Take the cave. A number of prisoners sit, chained in such manner that they may only face the wall. Behind them, the guards move puppets around across the wall, and further behind the guards is a fire, creating shadows. The prisoners' reality is the shadow, not the puppet, and much less the outer world. One guy comes out of the cave, and his eyes are pained from the sun. Guinevere forgot how the story went after that, but she got the gist enough to make a connection. But that was besides the point, as for now. "As for germs," she started jokingly, then pivoted to a serious tone.

xxxxxx

---"You might want to stick with hand sanitizer. Like, stick with what you know. They could tell you to stab 'em with your silverware, but you know sanitizer works, so why not use that? Or, you know to use sanitizer to kill germs. But it does not concern anybody how the sanitizer works. Don't lose the forest 'cause of the trees."
---She sighed. "It's probably time to talk about something else, 'cause I'm making myself confused now. And I don't even know your name yet." She put it out as a statement, not a question. Whether the girl would share her name, that was up to her.
---She caught sight of her bitter expression. "Cheer up! It's really not that bad. Do you play sports?" She responded to her own question after a moment's pause, just to give enough time for her to respond. Guinevere noticed herself talking a lot. Love of the game, she supposed. "Pshh, who am I kidding. Everyone plays sports. So it should probably be obvious that the only way out is through."

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WISH I COULD KEEP CONCENTRATION
ooc: sorry late reply
perfectionist | 6th sense | prod. dada | blindvision | advanced casting

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xxxxxx

Guinevere Russetwood, Y6, Slytherin
sta • 10 | eva • 12 | str • 6 | wis • 7 |arc • 10 | acc • 11

Akane Shimizu, Y6, Mahoutokoro
sta • 10 | eva • 10 | str • 5 | wis • 10 |arc • 10 | acc • 10

27 Jul 2026, 04:25

_{banner by Lily McCoire}

Evgenia made a face at the 'fake it till you make it' part, not very fond of that being brought up. "Well, yeah," she said through an enormous sigh. "I've just never really had to fake it until I make it, or if I do I can figure out what's not working, fix my approach, and get it right. Faking it brings unacceptable levels of uncertainty. But with this it's even more uncertainty, because I just got introduced to it and none of it makes any sense!" She didn't remember a time she'd struggled this much with anything since trying to learn her toeloop at five years old, which was . . . six years ago. "It's all dumb." "Calling tasks names doesn't get them done for you," Evgenia's mother had told her when she was seven years old, and would say now if she were even here (which she wasn't). Evgenia knew that, but it didn't really help right now.
The older girl started talking about germs and hand sanitizer and forests, and Evgenia found herself squinting up at her. "What is it all the hand sanitizers say? 'Kills 99.9% of all germs'? Well, this is the 0.1% of germs my usual sanitizers don't kill." She didn't even know where to start with the forest part.
"Evgenia Starkova," she told the girl after the mention of not knowing Evgenia's name. Her Russian accent slipped out in full force, enunciating her name how a native Russian would enunciate it. Kazakova if you ask Papa. She knew Papa had never liked that Mama had changed Evgenia's surname to her own. And yet, all either of them would say on their divorce whenever Evgenia asked was that they had fought, and Mama would add that she had realized that they couldn't continue to be together. Bullcrap, if you asked Evgenia (and nobody had, ever). There was surely at least one way they could have, if Mama had actually tried at all. Evgenia herself knew that much from her years of balancing school and training. When there was a will, there was a way. When there was no will, there was no way. "I don't know your name, either."
Evgenia's expression had turned bitter again at the thoughts of her parents, causing the girl to start speaking again. Evgenia's entire face lit up at the mere mention of sports. "I'm a figure skater! I've been training since I was five. And no, not everyone plays sports. My mother didn't. A lot of my classmates back in Edinburgh don't."

_{@Guinevere Russetwood}

27 Jul 2026, 17:44

xxxxxx

6th year | sept. xx '26 | study room
with: @Evgenia Starkova
SWEET AND SOUR MOTIVATION

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---At once, Guinevere decided the girl jumped to conclusions too much. She shrugged when she responded something about it all being dumb. Perhaps it was the length of time she had been at this kooky school, but she didn't think it was dumb. Tedious and boring, yes, but there was a surprisingly large capacity of things she could ignore in order to achieve her academic goals. "Up to you, I guess. So what are you going to do about it?" She faintly smiled and remembered a time when her coach had said something similar.

---"I popped five jumps in my free," Guinevere had groaned. There were only six jumps in total. "And my spins were straight shit."
"So what are you going to do about it? Else you are just whining," her coach had responded.

---The girl was called Evgenia. She pronounced it with such force that Guinevere wondered if they were in an accent comparing competition. In that case, Guin would bust out her Korean name, but there was no need. Guinevere would suffice, at least for now. "Guinevere Russetwood. Good to meet you, Evgenia." She extended a hand to shake.

xxxxxx

---At the mention of Evgenia being a figure skater, Guinevere did not even care about the slight pushback on her statement about sports. She believed it was true; even if one did not play sports at an elite or high level, exercise, games, and low-stakes sports were a central part of childrens' lives. She also thought that it was true for both muggle children and magical children. But she was sidetracked by the prospect of meeting someone who legitimately figure skated too.
---"Nahh, you're kidding. No way, I started when I was five, too. Skating, I mean. Quit a couple years back. No time with school and dueling." She still missed it, but understood that certain things only had a certain timeframe in her life. And the window for skating had passed.
---"What jumps do you have?" she asked. She wondered if Evgenia still skated. To Guinevere, it seemed that there were quite a few skaters at this school, and briefly pondered she could start a skating club. She quickly let the thought go; she would not have the energy do that. After experiencing the frantic OWL grind the previous year, she would also like to allocate some time this year to preparing for her seventh year NEWTS.

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WISH I COULD KEEP CONCENTRATION
ooc: xxx
perfectionist | 6th sense | prod. dada | blindvision | advanced casting

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xxxxxx

Guinevere Russetwood, Y6, Slytherin
sta • 10 | eva • 12 | str • 6 | wis • 7 |arc • 10 | acc • 11