More than blood
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❛ Art Deco — Allure in Effect ❜
Date: January 30, 2026 | Words: 845| Dialogue: #aa5713
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Letters were as much a part of Stelle's life as breakfast or the sound of rain pattering against the windows of the family greenhouse. She loved writing them and she loved receiving them. She wrote to her parents even when she had nothing important to say, to her grandparents when she came across some interesting tidbit she knew would pique their interest, and sometimes she would even write entire letters only to discover, when she finished, that what she wanted to say was much simpler than she had imagined. Her father said she had inherited that habit from him. Writing helped organize her thoughts. Her mother maintained that it was a family trait.
That morning, like so many others, she found a letter waiting for her on the breakfast table. She immediately recognized her father's slanted, slightly messy handwriting, which made her smile almost instantly. Her father's letters were unpredictable. Sometimes they contained advice, other times absurd anecdotes about Muggle neighbors who tried to solve simple problems in the most complicated ways possible; on one occasion, he had devoted three whole pages to describing a particularly aggressive squirrel. That's why she began reading without too many expectations, and precisely for that reason, the content managed to surprise her.
Stelle read the passage twice, three times, then looked at the photograph again. The image showed a girl with a serious expression and intelligent eyes. There was something familiar about her. Not an exact resemblance, but that kind of likeness that appears between relatives separated by generations, as if some particularly insistent ancestor had decided to reappear from time to time to remind everyone of their existence. And that was fascinating, because her father rarely spoke about his family. Not because there was some dark secret or legendary feud. She was simply one of those families scattered across the globe, connected mainly through Christmas cards and promises to see each other "someday." Stelle knew names, stories, but she'd never met any relatives after her grandparents. And now she was discovering they shared more than just a distant branch of the family tree; they shared Hogwarts, magic. It was strange to think that someone could walk the same corridors as her, sit in the same classrooms, and even breathe the same centuries-old dust of the passageways without ever having crossed paths. Cousins were interesting, and strangers were even more so, because it was, in essence, a friendship wrapped as a gift by genealogy itself."We were looking through the family albums with your mother, and I remembered my cousin Irene. The last time we spoke, she mentioned that her little girl seemed to have magic, just like your mother and you. She must be a year younger than you. Be good and spend time with her, okay?
I'm attaching a picture of Irene as a child. You look quite alike. Her name is Dido, Dido Bleaklane."
She looked at the photograph again, carefully, and tried to imagine what Dido would be like. Would she be talkative? Would she like books? Would she have a sense of humor? The more she thought about it, the more curious she became, and curiosity was an extraordinarily dangerous force when combined with an excessive amount of free time.
By the time she finished breakfast, she had made up her mind. She was going to find her, not later, not next week. Now. Because adventures had a nasty habit of vanishing when you put them off too long. She pulled her hair back into a high ponytail, slipped the photograph into her robes pocket, and stepped out into the corridor with the determination of an explorer who'd just received a treasure map. Naturally, she discovered almost immediately that finding a specific person at Hogwarts was considerably harder than deciding to look for them.
The corridors were crowded. Students from every house were passing in different directions. Some were running, some were talking, others seemed to exist solely to block stairwells. Stelle made her way through several floors, wondering if the castles had some secret mechanism specifically designed to hide people. After half an hour, she began to suspect they did, but she pressed on nonetheless. The photograph rested in her pocket, and every time she hesitated, she took the picture out again to compare it with the faces she encountered.
None matched. Until she turned a corner, and then she stopped. Not because she was completely sure, but because she recognized something. Perhaps the shape of the eyes, the expression, or simply that strange intuition that appears when you find something you've been searching for. The girl didn't seem to know she was being watched, and for a moment Stelle remained motionless. They shared stories, distant surnames, and forgotten photographs in family albums without even suspecting each other's existence, but that was all. So she took a deep breath, absentmindedly smoothed a few stray strands of hair, and approached.
"Dido Bleaklane?" he asked with a curious smile. "I hope I'm not mistaken for someone else, because I've been looking for you all morning."
@Dido Bleaklane
Last edited by Stelle Mims on 10 Jun 2026, 22:01, edited 1 time in total.
You make me wanna make you fall in love───⊹ |
Stelle Mims - Huffelpuf |
More than blood
OOC note: Reducio1) While everything written is true for Dido, much is intentionally incorrect (eg: Dido is not in Ravenclaw)
Dido had never quite been lonely, but nor had she ever spent a huge deal of time with other girls her age and the small London house she had spent the majority of her life in was never greatly populated by any friends from school. Beyond the occasional ally she made in the classroom, her sole company and confidants were her family. Even they were limited: Dido had no siblings, her Bleaklane grandparents may as well have lived on the moon for all she saw of them and her Uncle Thomas had only recently found the “perfect woman” for him in the form of a recently divorced, joyful lady who seemed perfectly content to just fuss over Dido. On her other mother’s side, there were technically the Murrays and Dido’s grandmother’s family, though, as Irene never even so much as spoke about her family, let alone take Dido to meet them, Dido was left under the impression that they simply did not exist. So, as a child, she had become perfectly content in letting the various adults indulge and spoil her, even if she occasionally mourned for the lack of a cousin or two.
Unfortunately, this ease at dealing with what could have been loneliness only really helped Dido when adoring parents, uncles and grandparents were present to cosset and fuss over her. At Hogwarts, where the closest thing to a loving mother for Dido was the cold and almost-stilted Professor Sauber, this method did not work. So, as it was, Dido was indeed lonely. She couldn’t even bring herself to respond with any genuineness to her parents’ letters, afraid that one small slip or half-truth wouldn’t add up with her carefully cultivated lie: that she had been placed in Ravenclaw. Stripped of the one way she could communicate her inner thoughts and thoroughly missing the almost-friends she had made back at home, Hogwarts was not proving to be the imagined utopic place her mother had described missing out on.
It was not all bad though. She had her room-mates, specifically Angel who was kind, if a little unusual. The girls got on pretty well, though Dido never acted as if their relationship was any more intimate than friendly classmates forced into proximity. She admired the girl hugely, even loved the way that Angel spoke in a light voice which filled Dido with warmth. Dido herself yearned to emulate the care which Angel presented with such ease. But, ever since she had first met the Slytherin and had seen Corrine’s look of terror, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was just off with Miss Dayes. It was enough of a something to stop Dido from opening up to Angel any more than as a sweet acquaintance.
All of this to say, Dido didn’t really have any friends at Hogwarts and so, one morning in late-January, she was standing alone in the corridors, rifling through her satchel for one of the many quill she just knew were lost in there somewhere. Of course, unlike Stelle’s search, Dido’s was to no avail. There were many other things in her bag: several textbooks; the small journal Dido had begun to keep; somehow, one of Angel’s red lollipops; various ball-point pens and, right at the very bottom… nothing. No quills. Dido was just considering whether she ought to just accept defeat and dump out the bag’s contents onto the stone corridor floors when something startled her.
A feeling. A presence.
Dido had been completely unaware of said presence regarding her only moments before, trapped under a microscope, all her focus towards the missing quills. However, as the girl approached, something instantly alerted Dido to her. Perhaps it was the contrasting direction of Stelle’s movement to that of the hordes of students around them. They were all travelling through the corridors, one end to the other. Stelle was walking perpendicular, against the rapid flow of children hauling heavy academic tomes. More likely, though, was the unmissable atmosphere of elegance originating from the girl, clashing against Dido’s own immediate feelings of incompetence.
Elegant was indeed the way Dido would have described the girl heading towards her. A perfect halo of gold-spun curls rested around her fair face, blonde hair immaculately tied back into a pony-tail except for a few strands which, even if unintentional, appeared to Dido like the most perfectly styled look ever. Almost unconsciously, Dido felt her fingers tug at her own dark hair, pulling out a couple of sections in an attempt to imitate the approaching student.
“Dido Bleaklane?”
Dido didn’t even question how the beautiful girl knew her name, only bobbing her head slightly to indicate confirmation that she was, in fact, Dido Bleaklane. Though, on second thought, Dido wondered whether it may have been wiser to feign ignorance and not let the ethereal student before her see this clumsy and uncollected version of Dido as her first impression.
As the girl continued, saying, “I hope I'm not mistaken for someone else, because I've been looking for you all morning,” Dido felt her stomach drop, coherent thoughts finally returning to her. Was she in trouble? Why would she have been searching for Dido? Dido didn’t believe she had done anything drastically wrong over the last few days but, given Hogwarts was a place where students were taught to ride broomsticks fifty feet in the air before they studied cells, anything was possible. Swallowing nervously, anxious to not stumble over her words, Dido replied in an only slightly worried tone.
“Yes er- I am. Dido, that is. Sorry- who are you?” Dido frowned slightly, the confusion building, “I’m not in trouble, am I?”
Dido looked around the corridors, checking for any teachers or prefects before continuing, “I mean- I haven’t done anything wrong, I promise.”
Dido drew the only connection she could. This girl had an almost inhuman quality to her beauty, so great and unusual as to surpass what could easily be imagined. The only person Dido knew who had a similar aura, though for entirely different reasons, was Angel. So, of course, the two girls must have been connected.
“Sorry- Did Angel send you?”
-Dido Bleaklane |
More than blood
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❛ Art Deco — Allure in Effect ❜
Date: January 30, 2026 | Words: 896| Dialogue: #aa5713
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
"Of course not, don't worry."
Stelle's laugh was small and soft, barely a murmur amidst the constant noise of the corridor, but it seemed to carry the same intention as a blanket offered on a cold night. There was something endearing about the other girl's immediate panic. That alarmed expression, that way she looked around for teachers hidden behind armor or prefects ready to drag her away for some reprimand, vaguely reminded her of a rabbit that had just heard a strange noise in the bushes. For a moment, she even had to suppress another smile. Not because she wanted to mock her; on the contrary, that reaction made her sympathize with her immediately.
"Um... I don't know any Angel, sorry."
The answer came with a slight nod. It was curious. Dido had pronounced that name as if it must mean something important, as if Stelle had forgotten a celebrity or a famous teacher. However, no matter how much she searched her memory, she couldn't find any Angel.
She reached into her robe pocket to pull out the letter that had prompted this entire family expedition through the corridors of Hogwarts. But before she did, she found herself observing the girl more closely. It was strange because she already knew who she was; she had seen the photograph and read her name several times that morning, yet she would still discover that a real person was always different. Photographs had the unpleasant habit of simplifying people, reducing them to a single expression, a single instant. Dido was more complex than a photograph, nervous and at the same time trying to analyze the situation with the intensity of someone who had just encountered a particularly hostile riddle. Finally, she produced the folded letter and held it between her hands.
"I think this will explain things better than I can."
She slowly enlarged it, waited for her to take it, and then something happened that often happened to her when she was excited. The words began to escape before she could organize them. Her mother said it was a charming trait, her grandmother insisted it was a bad habit, and her grandfather, of course, thought conversations were much more fun when no one knew exactly where they were going.
“Our parents are cousins,” she explained quickly.
Then she paused briefly. She frowned slightly, mentally counting (though she was actually counting on her fingers).
“Which makes us… second cousins. I think.”
The sincerity of that last word was absolute. Family trees had always seemed suspiciously complicated to her. It was much simpler to love people than to categorize them.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve never met a cousin before.”
Her expression lit up, because that was absolutely true. She had heard about relatives, received Christmas cards signed by people whose faces she could barely imagine, listened to stories during family dinners. But actually meeting someone in her family was different.
“I’m Stelle, Stelle Mims.”
For a few seconds, she watched her. The hallway around her was still bustling. Students came and went, some running because she was probably late for class. Yet, for some reason, all of that seemed to have faded into the background. Because it was a strange feeling to find herself face to face with a stranger and know that she wasn't entirely a stranger.
There was something deeply curious about the family. Her father had always said that the family was like a collection of scattered stories: each person kept a piece, and every now and then, by pure chance, two stories would meet again. Stelle suspected that this was happening right then. Her gaze briefly dropped to the books Dido was carrying. Then it rose again, lingering on her face, her features. They didn't resemble each other in the slightest, not even a little, but there was something in her eyes that somehow reminded her of her father.
"Although I must admit, I expected to find you a little more easily. I really would have given up if it wasn't you."
And she sighed dramatically. Hogwarts had an extraordinary knack for hiding people. You could spend hours searching for a classroom only to discover it was exactly where it should have been all along.
Then she remembered something, and she put a hand in her pocket.
"Oh! My father sent me a photograph of your mother when she was little.He said you looked alike."
That made her smile again. She tilted her head slightly. It wasn't exactly the same face. But there was something, a resemblance difficult to explain. One of those similarities that didn't appear in the individual details but in the overall impression. Stelle found that fascinating, probably because she found most things fascinating.
"I didn't know if you'd be happy to see me or if you'd think I was some strange person who'd suddenly appeared and said we were related. That made me nervous. Which, now that I say it out loud, still sounds pretty strange."
And then she laughed, a light, warm laugh. The kind of laugh that comes when you accept that some of the best stories begin exactly like that. With an unexpected letter, an impromptu search through the corridors of Hogwarts, and an unknown cousin who, until that very morning, had existed only as a name written in ink on a piece of parchment.
@Dido Bleaklane
You make me wanna make you fall in love───⊹ |
Stelle Mims - Huffelpuf |
More than blood
OOC note: Reducio1) While everything written is true for Dido, much is intentionally incorrect (eg: Dido is not in Ravenclaw)
ReducioAlso, feel free to describe the photograph if you'd like! I imagine that Irene looks somewhat similar to Rose Leslie so probably be a ginger child/teen.
Dido’s chest immediately loosened as the girl confirmed that she was, thankfully, not in any kind of trouble. Perhaps Dido usually would have doubted the statement, choosing to remain guarded and slightly panicked until she was certain that they weren’t actually angry with her but, maybe hearing the girl’s soft and warm chuckle or even just instinctively trusting her, Dido’s shoulders relaxed and an involuntary smile pulled at her lips. The deer-in-headlights behaviours she had adapted quickly dissipated. She was ok. Everything was alright. But who was this girl?
The next response didn’t prove at all helpful to the gnawing question as the mysterious student denied any attachment to Angel. Again, Dido might have mistrusted the statement, so convinced by her own leap of logic, but, thankfully, she didn’t press the issue. Instead, she laughed lightly, her brow creasing in a slight frown, smiling with a bemused expression. She stared at the, so far sympathetic, girl, desperately trying to form a connection, to recall a hint of the girl’s presence in her life or even to just puzzle out an easy lie that would allow her to escape the thoroughly mortifying conversation.
“Sorry, this is probably stupid… Have we met?” she finally said with an apologetic tone, her cheeks colouring in embarrassment at somehow forgetting such a memorable girl.
Perhaps in response, said memorable girl withdrew a letter from her robes, offering it in way of an answer to Dido’s confusion. With another mild smile, Dido reached out to take the cream letter, her hand near shaking as the curiosity burned through her veins. Unfolding it quickly, anxious to learn who on earth this girl was, Dido’s eyes skipped straight from the top of the letter, where she learnt the girl’s name was “Stelle”, right down to the very bottom. The letter was from “Stelle”’s father. A flash of somewhat irrational jealousy rushed through Dido, pushing past the curiosity and fascination she had for the girl. It was odd. Dido did receive letters, and plenty of them. She just… never responded in the way she would’ve liked. Of course, Dido couldn’t see or know how Stelle chose to respond to her letters but, seeing what instantly appeared to be honest and loving communication between a parent and a child, Dido envied her. Though the level of utter perfection which almost emanated from the girl couldn’t have made the jealousy any more bearable.
As soon as the undeserved resentment appeared, it was dissipated by the girl’s next words and replaced by even stronger confusion than in the moments before. They were related? How? Dido smiled, a little more unsurely than she had, and, with a characteristically nervous laugh, replied, “Sorry, again. I er- I think you have the wrong girl. I don’t have any cousins. Or, indeed, second cousins.”
That was true. Neither of her mothers had a large family. Andy’s parent’s were only children, much like Dido, and Andy herself only had Thomas. And Irene-
“Or… are you from the Murray family?” she asked, realisation and the sort of smile that comes from solving a problem that had bugged you for years dawning on her, “Or just related to them, maybe?”
To Stelle’s next words, she would shake her head in astonishment, a smile and a laugh building on her face and in her voice. She had a cousin. A cousin!
Stelle introduced herself and Dido’s smile widened even further. It was perfect. With a twinkle of happiness in her eyes, Dido mirrored the introduction, slightly less succinctly though just as enthusiastically.
“I’m Dido! Or- you knew that. Wow. I’ve never had a cousin either!”
As Stelle mentioned the difficulty in finding Dido, the searched-for girl looked carefully at Stelle, analysing her face, searching hopefully for any indication of similarity, any sign that Dido looked at all like the beautiful girl. To her dismay, she found nothing, the girl’s round and soft features clashing with Dido’s own angular and sharp face, Dido’s dark mess of hair in contrast with the golden locks, Stelle’s height at odds with her own short frame. The pair were utterly mismatched in all ways but their apparent blood relation. Though, glancing back down at the letter in her hands, perhaps the slant of the writing stirred some recognition in Dido. Maybe the g’s had a similar loop to Irene’s. Or… was that the same capital “A”? Dido couldn’t tell if it was just wishful thinking but, looking between the somewhat familiar letter and the owner, she let herself believe, even if only for the moment, that there might be some similarity in the way the girls carried themselves.
Only Stelle’s sudden exclamation let Dido snap back to reality, interrupted her focus on exactly how similar or, more fittingly, dissimilar, the two were. At the mention of a photograph, Dido was even more intrigued. Sure, she had seen plenty of baby photos of her mother, Andy, the fat little toddler face almost imprinted on Dido’s memory but, until then, she had never known what her other mother had looked like. It didn’t seem weird to Dido, that she hadn’t seen photos, and, while she knew Irene didn’t speak to her family, the knowledge never quite extended to the realisation that Irene had no photos of herself when she was little.
Smiling softly, Dido asked, quietly, “Could I have a look? I’ve never seen any photos of my mum when she was younger.”
As she listened to Stelle’s comment, Dido joined in the laughter, freely. This was her cousin. Her cousin. And this cousin had such an infectious joy, it was difficult not to join in. Almost giggling, Dido responded, “Well… I sort of thought you were! I almost began to plan my “late to class” excuse!”
-Dido Bleaklane |
More than blood
|
You make me wanna make you fall in love───⊹ |
Stelle Mims - Huffelpuf |
More than blood
OOC note: Reducio1) While everything written is true for Dido, much is intentionally incorrect (eg: Dido is not in Ravenclaw)
2) So sorry for the delay!!!
Stelle was fun.
Not in the way some people are funny, throwing out puns and wry commentary every moment of the day, but fun with a different, more warm approach. Her cousin’s words felt light and jovial but still meaningful, each sentence leaving behind a sweet, comforting impact on Dido. Dido laughed at the girl’s words, something which felt like a release of tension but surely hadn’t been. After all, the Slytherin was enjoying Hogwarts. No matter what the undiagnosed tightness in Dido’s chest was, talking with Stelle and seeing her happy smile was certainly alleviating some of the pressure and, now naturally matching the second-year, Dido grinned back.
When Stelle got the photo out from her bag, Dido couldn’t help but immediately stare at the image, sitting in Stelle’s hand. For a second, none of the last few minutes felt real. While the photograph was still held by Stelle, the entire connection could still be untrue or, worse, a lie. Fighting back the urge to snatch it from Stelle, Dido waited until the girl handed over the photo, before immediately drawing it up to her eyes and scanning over the children in the image while saying a quick, “Thanks.” There was a red-headed girl laughing with a roughly similar-looking boy. While the two were clearly related, their most similar feature in the moment the photo had been taken were the enchanting sparks of joy in both of their eyes.
After taking in the full image, Dido let out a quiet gasp as she finally grasped that the red-haired child sitting on the picnic basket was, in fact, her own mother. The girl was almost alien to Dido, her expression of pure and utter delight didn’t stir any recognition within the snake and, to Dido’s dismay, she realised that she had never actually seen her mother laugh with such abandon in all the years she had seen her. The girl in the photograph somehow looked more like Andy, Dido’s other mother, than Irene, despite the lack of physical similarity. On the other hand, as she glanced back up at Stelle, Dido became utterly convinced she could see parts of the young boy in the girl’s beautiful face, preserving his youth as truthfully as the photo.
“They look so… happy,” Dido breathed, a frown of concentration still evident on her own face, “I’ve never…” She paused, not letting herself finish the sentence. Of course Dido had seen her mother happy; she was a happy person! Just because Irene looked slightly older now didn’t mean that she wasn’t as joyful. Right?
She looked back up at Stelle, imagining herself in her mother’s place, having fun with her cousin.
Her cousin. Dido had a cousin, who was wonderful. It was so brilliant and it was going to be so-
It’s unfair.
In the blink of an eye, her utter joy shifted to grief, mourning the years the girls could have spent together, the photographs they could have had. Unwanted and undeserved tears threatened to build up in her eyes, stinging the back of her nose as she clenched her jaw, just for a moment. Why had her mother never introduced them? What if Dido had more cousins, even closer relations than Stelle? Why did Dido know nothing about her mother’s life?! What-
“My father said it was one of his favourite photographs.”
Dido drew herself back from the anger which had begun to grow within her and, looking at Stelle with a more curious expression, listened without forcing herself. It was such a trivial fact, Stelle’s father kept things. That her grandparents did. That Stelle did. It was such a small thing. And yet, those tiny details immediately made Dido feel all the more connected to Stelle and her life, covering over the sadness with little cross-hatched shading, each line tying Dido closer to the family she had never even met.
She thought of her own preservation attempts, no memories intentionally captured through photographs or letters but instead thousands of words inked into her journals and writing. Was that the same? Dido chose to accept the similarity, even if her writing sometimes, only very occasionally, felt a little uncomfortable, wrong. It was the same.
Dido was probably right. After all, saving things for preservation and saving t hings for inspection weren’t all that dissimilar.
“I think.. I write… In journals and stuff. To save moments,” she said quietly, not hugely confident in her logic.
Dido remained silent for a moment, letting the air rest. A politer girl might have asked a follow-up question but Dido instead looked back down at the photograph in her hands, at the smiling pair of children, so unbothered by life. She glanced at Stelle.
“Do you think I could keep this? Just for a little while?” she asked in a soft voice, her heart almost pleading with itself.
As Stelle described her difficulties in finding Dido, the younger girl blushed and laughed lightly, embarrassed to have cost the girl so much effort. She smiled sheepishly and added, “I hope I was worth it!” in a mostly jocular tone, only the slightest tremor betraying any hint of her anxiety that Stelle didn’t like her.
She was just beginning to revert to her earlier state of joy when Stelle asked her final question. To know something about Dido. Dido opened her mouth with a large smile, about to happily tell the girl about the torment of spending nights in the dungeon and how, once, she had seen the giant squid in the lake when she froze, stumped. Dido couldn’t tell Stelle about Slytherin. There was too much risk that the news might somehow get back to her parents. She blinked before starting to reply about her difficulties in lessons and how she “absolutely hated” that Charms teacher’s constant vexing sweetness. But Dido stopped herself again. She couldn’t tell this perfect cousin that she was struggling at casting spells. She opened her mouth again, likely looking like a vapid goldfish by then.
“I really want to play Quidditch?” she finally forced out, brightening as soon as the words left her mouth. It was true, Dido really, really wanted to play Quidditch. "What about you?" she asked.
It was nice, finally finding something she could be completely honest about. It was even nicer knowing that she was being entirely truthful to someone in her own family, a refreshing contrast, really. She looked at Stelle again, a hopeful expression resting on her face, not at all hidden by the wide smile stretched across her features. Her hands moved behind her own back, fiddling slightly as she worked out how to ask a question she truly cared about.
“Could.. Do you think… Maybe we could send letters to each other? Not during term time- obviously… But during the holidays?”
-Dido Bleaklane |
More than blood
|
You make me wanna make you fall in love───⊹ |
Stelle Mims - Huffelpuf |
More than blood
OOC note: Reducio1) While everything written is true for Dido, much is intentionally incorrect (eg: Dido is not in Ravenclaw)
2) So sorry for the delay (again!)!!!
Stelle had a diary. Like Dido. They both kept diaries! The grin which immediately came to Dido’s face was involuntary but, goodness, she wouldn’t have held it back for the world. More than that, Stelle kept a diary which her parents had given her, just like Dido. For a moment, Dido let herself imagine Stelle, quill in hand, staring down at the book before her. In her head, the diary was beautiful, elegant- not quite as ethereal as the wondrous cousin standing in front of Dido but close- unlike Dido’s own blue-dyed leather journal, the imagined diary was more floral, more cheery, more Stelle. She wondered what the girl wrote in it. Details of her days at Hogwarts? Stories about the adventures she got up to? Simple tracking of plans made and homeworks due? For the sanctity of her vision, Dido dismissed that last idea, deeming it too “boring” to fit. Then, another thought occurred. Would Dido feature? Would her name grace the cream pages, swooping handwriting scratching the letters into the precious book?
At Stelle’s generous suggestion that it was somehow a family trait, Dido managed to snap out of her daydream, offering a quiet laugh in return, and stared back down at the photograph in her hand. Her mother really did look happy.
“Are you sure? It’s such a lovely photograph- I promise I won’t get it damaged or anything!” Dido spoke fearfully, already picturing how Stelle would snatch the moment from her hands and- But that wasn’t Stelle. She wouldn’t do that. Dido frowned before reversing her expression into a slight smile and slowly beginning to fold it back long the long-sinced creased lines down the middle. “Thank you,” Dido finished sincerely as she tucked the folded picture into her pocket, “It really means a lot.”
Stelle laughed when Dido admittedly she liked Quidditch and, for a second, she became convinced that the laugh was directed at her but, as the giggle finished and the second-year began to reply, Dido recognised the joyful hint of kind playfulness in each short sound, proving that it was well-meant. At that point, Dido began to wonder whether her cousin could be angry or sad- or anything but utterly lovely. She didn’t dwell on it though and quickly chimed in, “Well don’t worry- I’ve crashed a couple of times in the lessons but you generally end up pretty safely in a bush or similar. Though the other day I did get this nasty-“ Dido paused, a bemused smile appearing across her features, “What am I doing? I want you to play Quidditch too!” She let out a breath before trying to nod sagely and, in her best impression of the Headmaster, say, “Quidditch is a wonderful sport where no student ever gets injured.”
As Stelle went on, Dido’s eyes widened and she took a short step back, her mouth agape. “You grew up with magic?! That’s… incredible! How was it? Did you ever do spells at home?” Dido grinned as she listened to the rest of Stelle’s story. The Grandmother sounded like a real character- the grandmother. Was that on her mother’s side or her father’s? Was this her- Dido counted mentally- great-aunt? The most important question popped into her head: Could her mother have been magic too?! Thankfully, before she asked, Dido dismissed the idea. There was probably about a ninety-nine percent chance that the “grandmother” and the respective magic were on Stelle’s mother’s side and that small one percent chance wasn’t likely enough for Dido to be willing to risk Stelle’s impression of her.
Though, could she be sure it was good? Stelle seemed lovely and like she was having fun but what if she were like that with everyone, whether they were entertaining or not? As the doubt set in, a cloud began to appear in Dido’s head, filtering out the brightness of the world around her until-
“I'd love to. In fact… I think it would make me very happy.”
Stelle was going to write to Dido. And Dido was going to write back to Stelle. It was all going to be perfect. Dido’s grin exploded into a full on beam, teeth filling her face almost scarily as the pure joy threatened to overrun her thoughts. The happiness was wonderful, sure, but a small part of her just wished it would display itself a little less, perhaps sticking to “Charming smiles” and “Kind eyes”. As soon as this thought entered Dido’s head, the smile did indeed fade minutely, but nothing could have stopped it for long. She was going to write. To. Her. Cousin.
“Thank you! Genuinely that’s so…” Dido trailed off, the words not quite able to sum up her gratitude, “Thanks, Stelle.”
Just as Dido was about to continue speaking, she was suddenly brushed past by a reckless student haring through the corridors. A flash of something perhaps like anger darted across her vision. How dare someone interrupt her meeting with her cousin? Especially when the corridors were empty and they easily could have-
The corridors were empty.
All the students had gone to their classes.
All the students had gone to their classes.
“I-I have Charms- I can’t be any later. The professor already-“ Dido glanced at Stelle, another smile forming even as she pulled her bag back up, “Thank you so much, again. For the photo, the letters- for everything. I really can’t wait to talk more- and to write! See you soon!”
Leaving the thread unless stopped
-Dido Bleaklane |