Looking for Answers PV Robyn Finley Closed

Interacting with @Lydia Cooper

Today was one of those days where Robyn avidly avoided being behind the desk. She needed to stretch her legs, visit the students, just be mobile. There were days where the paperwork seemed to be never ending. This was a day where she felt comfortable to glide around the library, taking a little bit of returning work off of the Assistant's hands. She wasn't one to defer all the responsibilities onto them, she wanted to make sure she had a hand in all of the duties required to running a library so in case one of the sections needed extra help she could be there.

It was also nice. To be able to have the books pass through her hands back onto the shelves to be picked up for a student later. Occasionally she checked in to her regular's tables, seeing if they needed any new books, passing on books that she think they might be interested in anyway. It brought her a special kind of joy to see a student's eyes light up when she seemed to place the perfect book within their hands. Once the book returns were mostly caught up, she got set to start pulling some of the requests that students had put in. The librarian could sometimes be hard to track down as she flitted between the shelves like a hungry hummingbird.

One student was able to stop her in her tracks. With gentle words Robyn stopped in her tracks and turned towards the one speaking. Her usual smile faltered slightly when she asked about Veela's. Coincidence right? She hadn't been found out. Everything was fine. She pulled out her wand and wordlessly maneuvered the books to her desk that was just within her sight line. "Oh, of course. Veela's are quite the... interesting subject. Can I ask what brings them up?" She beckoned Lydia as she started walking towards the section she thought she might find some more. "This isn't a requested topic that often, which is why I ask. But, no pressure to share if you don't want to." She looked over her shoulder with what she hoped to be a comfort on her expression, but it was hard to keep up the front when a small pit of panic was growing in her stomach.

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- Interacting with @Robyn Finley -

Now that Lydia was close to the Librarian, she realised that she was actually taller than she had remembered; the Hufflepuff herself was not the tallest, so she had to look up, her head tilted back a little. She gave the woman a polite smile, her attention stolen by the books floating in the air without the need of any spell. "So that's how non-verbal magic works," Lydia wondered, still slightly in awe of that. Of course during her first year at Hogwarts she had seen plenty of things flying around, but this was probably the first time that she had seen non-verbal magic at work, and so up close.

She looked back at Miss Finley, her eyes slightly widened; she hadn't expected that question, even though she should have. After all, it was only natural to ask that, especially with these kind of subjects. Shifting her gaze down to her hands, Lydia thought about her answer; should she tell the truth, or maybe lie? Since finding out about her family, the young girl still wasn't too sure about how she should feel about it; on one side there was her Grandmother, a proud Veela, that wanted her to be like her, to embrace this side of her, while on the other side her own mother had a more cautious approach, and wanted Lydia to yes, be proud, but to never forget her wizard side.

As Miss Finley kept talking, Lydia shook her head and slightly smiled again. "It's okay," she said and followed the Librarian between the bookshelves. "I'm doing a research on them. My family- my Grandma is one, a Veela I mean," she said, her voice sounding a little bit nervous. She took a deep breath as she scratched the back of her neck, her cheeks pinker than before, "They told me about it this summer and, well... I want to know more about who I am. They did explain to me everything they thought I should know, but I want to make sure I really know everything there is to know,"

Realising that she had been definitely oversharing, she awkwardly smiled again, tying her best to focus her eyes on the books that were surrounding them. The young Hufflepuff was too focused on her embarrassment to notice the Librarian's expression, but maybe it was better that way, otherwise she would have started overthinking everything, and regretting asking for help.

Interacting with @Lydia Cooper

The wonderment that adorned students eyes as they witnessed magic that was inaccessible to them was a joy. The reason Robyn worked towards non-verbal magic wasn't for show, but for necessity. Her incantations were usually stuttered causing various issues to come with her spells. Non-verbal was a circumvent, although harder when it came to active concentration. To be in awe of magic was something Robyn wished she could have back, after awhile the magic well... faded. Nothing was new anymore, it was a practiced skill that now became a necessity in her way of living. She was often one to do something with magic rather than without it. Full-blooded Veelas weren't able to do magic like this, so it almost felt like another rebellion against her bloodline.

The librarian did quick math when Lydia mentioned that her Grandma was a Veela. "That would make you a quarter-Veela, correct? Significantly less potent than a full-blooded, or even a half-Veela. I don't know if that gives you more or less comfort. But the effects are still there." How much information could she give without it seeming too suspicious about how much she knew? She wanted to help the girl through this. If she had the same concerns about people liking her for who she is, about how people might react to the natural charm that she had. Those feelings were all too familiar and she wanted to help work her through them when no one had done that for her.

"I actually did quite a bit of research on Veelas when I attended Hogwarts. The race interested me, so if you'd like to ask your humble librarian some questions I can help enlighten what I can. I understand reading the same information over and over can be a bit exhausting." They seemed to get to the section that Robyn was looking for as she expertly plucked a few books from the shelves in front of her. These books were all too familiar. Books that had undergone her own scrutiny a little over ten years ago. They seemed to linger for a moment in her hands before she passed them onto Lydia.

Something about what Lydia said seemed to linger in her head, an echo of knowing who she was. Robyn was still figuring it out, but had completely shunned that part of herself in being part of her. She wanted nothing to do with it, she didn't choose to have it be a part of her. She hated that it almost seemed like an obligation forced upon her. As a kid she wondered if she should carry around a card that said 'Hi, I'm Half-Veela your adoration for me is fake have a good day.' Instead, she just distanced from every one in general. Not many people to fawn over her when she pushed them all away constantly. She even shunned her brother for most of her life, but in their adulthood they had grown quite close.

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- Interacting with @Robyn Finley -

When the Librarian correctly stated that she was a quarter Veela, Lydia's head snapped up to look at the woman; so far she hadn't met a lot of people that properly understood the genetics and how much of a veela she actually was -mostly because she had talked about this with kids her age, that did not know a lot, if anything, about veelas- so she couldn't help the surprised expression that appeared on her face. The more she talked with Miss Finley, the more she seemed to surprise Lydia -first with the non-verbal magic and now with this- and the Hufflepuff girl felt extremely happy she got the chance to have this talk with someone as the Librarian.

She nodded as she walked after the woman, before a small sigh left her lips without her realising it. "To be completely honest, I still don't know how I feel about it," her voice had gone quiter, softer, almost as if she was admitting some kind of secret that nobody else should have heard. "My Grandmother tells me that I should be proud of who I am, that I shouldn't hide it, while my mother... she thinks I should be more careful about it, that I never know how people will react," the struggle was clear in her voice, and it also showed on her face: her eyebrow furrowed, mouth slightly pouty, Lydia kept looking at the floor as she spoke. Since the moment she had found out about her veela part, the young girl's head had been a mix of contradicting thoughts, negative mixed with positive and even neutral ones, that kept confusing the girl more and more each passing day. "Some days I wake up and I feel like telling even to the walls about my heritage, others I regret having told my closest friends,"

Stopping beside the Librarian, Lydia listened to her talking again, and in her head a million questions started forming, some of those even wondering why Miss Finley had been so interested in Veelas. She silently took the books that the woman passed her, her eyes looking at them as if they held all the answers to her doubts. But what if there were no answers for her questions, what if nobody has ever bothered thinking about them?

"I have a lot of questions and doubts," she admitted as she adjusted her grip on the books. "But I think there is one that's more- not important but... relevant?" Lydia's eyes quickly looked from the books to the Librarian, only to go back over the volumes in her arms. "How can I understand if someone cares about me for real? How do I know that they're not just... infatuated, hypnotised by me?" another sigh left her lips, as her eyes got a little sadder. "I just- it seems like a lot of people I used to talk with last year just either forgot I exist, or have disappeared from the school. I have a friend in Gryffindor, and we used to be quite close, but I haven't seen her yet since we came back to school. I wonder if being away from them, my friends, has made my... influence on them disappear, so that they don't care that much about me anymore,"

Lydia slowly relaxed her hold on the books a, her knuckles extremely happy about the feeling of relief and freedom; she didn't eve realise she had tightened her grip like that, her mind too busy vomiting out thoughts, doubts and words. She looked up at the Librarian, a small, apologetic smile -for the questions? or maybe the incredible amount of words she had said in one time- on her face.

Interacting with @Lydia Cooper

Lydia's amazement came once again, this time in regards to correctly assuming her genetic proportion of Veela. This would be a careful conversation, one that she had to carefully calculate unlike her other conversations with curious students that usually came naturally. This kind of curiosity was something that Robyn dreaded having to deal with, but she knew it would come eventually. Just not this soon into her time at Hogwarts. Luckily, she had spent years developing an adequate poker face, and with Lydia still being quite young hopefully it would be hard for her to see through her vast knowledge. After all, she was a librarian. She had expertise in many subjects that would surprise students, why couldn't Veela's be one of them? Not like she had extensive knowledge on any other race which might seem suspicious but the young Hufflepuff just seemed interested in the one for now, so it was a safe cover-up.

Robyn slowed her pace to walk side by side with the girl since her voice had become quite quiet in personal contemplation of the mixed messages that she had been told. She experienced some of the same feelings when it came to growing up with her mother and father. It was oddly flipped on it's head, with her father encouraging her to embrace who she was and her mother constantly berating her for not being a prime example of Veela's, a shame on the bloodline itself. A single glance at the girl's face told Robyn everything she needed to know about how exactly she was feeling about the conflict. She was stressed, confused, ashamed possibly. Feelings that were all too similar. The ache to tell the girl pulled at her heartstrings, a battle she was sure to lose in time. "Has there been an occurrence to make you regret telling someone?" If anyone were to insult this young Veela in any way, Robyn was already ready to go to battle for her and give whoever it was a little talk.

After handing her down the books, she leaned lightly against the bookshelf as the girl spouted the question that Robyn knew was coming. One that even she still didn't have an answer for, something that she had been questioning her entire life. One that resulted in Robyn attempting to push away anyone that dared get close to her, especially after a disastrous romantic relationship she had just a few years prior. Robyn needed more time to think about how exactly she wanted to handle this. Her own mind was a whirlwind of questions of how to tackle this issue. Did she continue to tiptoe and cite vague books about Veela experiences to justify her own personal answer? Did she admit that she was a Veela? A secret that she had attempted to keep since she was 13 years old. Unraveled by a single distressed girl. For only being here a short amount of time, she was slowly unraveling herself and her life in bits and pieces for everyone that came to her.

So, she lifted herself up from the shelf and started walking deeper into the shelves of the library. She paused to whisper something to one of the assistants before continuing on. She was going to a section she knew students didn't often roam unless they were deep in their studies. She wanted Lydia and her to be able to speak openly about what was going on without concern that other students would walk in. Perhaps... she should've told Lydia what she was doing and why but her lips were tightly pressed together, her eyebrows furrowed in a similar fashion to the girl's just minutes before. It was a conundrum indeed.

Once she felt like they were adequately away from the crowd she slid into a seat at the table, gesturing for Lydia to take a seat as well. After a couple moments of silence... Robyn broke. "I'm a Half-Veela. My mother is a full-blooded Veela that broke from the family's wishes in procreating with a Vodyanoy and instead married my father who is a wizard. I have an older brother, Felix, who is also a half-Veela." A deep sigh escaped her lips as she averted her gaze from Lydia. Her history of being a Veela was steeped in shame and embarrassment, hiding from it. Something that she didn't want the other girl to go through. "I am still looking for answers in the questions that you're posing, and they're not answers that you'll find in books. I've been hiding the fact that I'm a Veela ever since I learned the hair-coloring charm. Surprise~ I'm not a natural ginger, but my father is. As a child I looked the most like my mother, now I'm a spitting image of my father which is quite exciting for me. I have reasons, for not wanting to be perceived as a Veela, one's that I don't want to push onto you." Her hands folded up anxiously in her lap, out of Lydia's view they were fidgety and anxious.

"Truthfully, everyone will be under the effects of our glorious charm." She rolled her eyes and let out a small huff that was akin to a frustrated laugh. "Some will be quite ridiculous with their attempts to impress, gain our interest, et cetera. But, in my experience, the ones that truly come to care about us tend to not go for extravagant means. Maybe, initially, they're under the charm and eventually the source of the charm moves from being because of the Veela part, to the us part. Who we are, who we've shown them outside of that." A hand ran frustratingly through her hair. "We don't know. We have to trust that they're in our lives because we want them to be. But, that's a trust that can be hard to build for ourselves. I have to say, at your age, friendships may not last long in general. Veela or not. People drift after not seeing each other for awhile." She glanced down at the books. "Truthfully, those won't give you the answers that you're looking for. Trust me, I've read through all of these at least three times. But, I'm willing to talk and answer what I can. Just know I may not have all of the answers, or the answers that you're hoping to hear." She gave a small smile, her eyes soft and almost a bit sorry. Robyn knew that she would not be the Veela she hoped to talk to at her age, but her knowledge was the one she could offer and she could only hope that was good enough for Lydia for the time being.

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- Interacting with @Robyn Finley -

For a good ten seconds, Lydia remained silent as she thought about Miss Finley's question. Had there been an occasion that made her regret telling someone? Well, a couple of people had barely talked with her since she had opened up about this part of her, adding up to the list of people that seemed to be walking away that year, "I've told my best friend and some other friends about this, but not all of them still talk with me," she admitted, her eyes trailing on the floor, as if it had suddenly become incredibly interesting. "I guess... they probably see me as someone else, or fake or like I was forcing them to be my friends? I don't know," her voice was confused, almost frustrated, but she couldn't help that; while she tried to understand why they had stopped talking with her, she just couldn't completely comprehend it. She was still the same Lydia as before, why couldn't they see that?

After she was done showering the Librarian with the question, Lydia looked at her with an apologetic smile and some trepidation in her eyes; she wondered if Miss Finley had an answer to her doubts, if maybe she would have been able to suggest some readings, or anything that might make her feel better about the whole topic. So when the woman started walking deeper into the library, Lydia quickly followed her, not wanting to either get lost or lose her tracks. Her heart was beating faster than before, as she felt some kind of excitement rise inside of her; maybe that was the day she would have finally found some peace, maybe she would have been able to calm her mind for a little while. As they walked the Hufflepuff girl noticed that there were way less students in that section of the library they had just walked into, and when she saw Miss Finley sit down at an empty table, she quickly did the same, occupying the seat in front of her.

For a second Lydia wondered why they had to go so deep inside the library, only to sit at an empty table, but then she remembered that Miss Finley had stopped for a brief second to have a chat with one of her assistants. Maybe she had asked them to bring them some books, and that was why they were now sitting at the table. However, when Miss Finley started talking, Lydia's face showed her surprise, as she tried her best not to look like a fish with her mouth open. She promptly closed it, paying as much attention as she could to Miss Finley's words; her mind was going so fast, her excitement trying to win above everything else. The Librarian was the first Veela -or well, half-Veela- that she talked with that wasn't related to her; it was so exciting for the young Hufflepuff, and if she already really liked Miss Finley, this made her like her even more, and not because she was part Veela, but because it was someone that could understand what she was going through.

Lydia let her talk, not wanting to interrupt what she had to say. She listened closely, trying to keep an open mind and understand her story, where she came from, and trying to absorb every bit of knowledge that the Librarian was sharing with her. By the time that Miss Finley finished talking, Lydia's excitement had calmed down, letting her more realistic side take over; the Librarian's words were both scary and comforting at the same time: since she had learned about her Veela side, the young girl had turned to books for answers and comfort, and knowing now that they wouldn't have been able to help her was kind of scary. But, at the same time, knowing that there was someone at Hogwarts, someone that already went through what she was going through in that moment, someone that was not linked to her family and wanted her to pick a side to be on, made her feel better.

"My dad's a ginger too, like me," was the first thing she said as she softly smiled, "My sister has my mom's and grandma's blonde hair, just like my two cousins. I kind of like that I'm different from them," she added with a little shrug of her shoulders. Then Lydia's face turned more serious as she looked back at Miss Finley. She had noticed that, while she was talking, the woman had said that she had been hiding that she was a Veela, so Lydia felt the urge to reassure her that her secret was safe with her. "I won't tell anyone about you, Miss Finley. I would never want that to happen to me, so I'd never do that to anybody else,"

Then, Lydia took a deep breath as she tried to collect and organise her thoughts. "So what you're saying is that... after a while those that really care about us kind of become... used to our charm, and they get to see us for who we are? That we have to trust that they are with us because they want to? That's... a little scary." she admitted, as she felt her cheeks become slightly red from embarrassment. "I mean... I can barely understand myself, or trust what I can do- how can I learn to trust other people to do that, when I'm the first one that isn't able to do it?" The last question was more rhetorical than a real one, but the Hufflepuff girl couldn’t help it. All of this was so confusing to her sometimes, especially whenever she started doubting herself; she would let all of her insecurities take control, twisting her thoughts and making her feel insecure about every single thing. "Mis Finley... could I ask you... Will these doubts, these insecurities, ever get better? How can I make that happen?" Lydia's eyes were now glued to her hands, as she felt her face become even redder; she sounded so stupid in her head asking those things, knowing well enough that those were personal questions, and that the Librarian would have had every right not to answer them. But at the same time, Miss Finley was probably the only adult she would have felt comfortable enough talking about this in the whole school, if not in general; she definitely couldn't see herself having this kind of talk with her mother, not with how upset and betrayed she still felt towards her, or with her grandmother, since she would have tried to minimize the whole situation, and she would have told her to be proud of who she was, no matter what other people said.

Interacting with @Lydia Cooper

There was a part of Robyn that wanted to run seeing how elated Lydia was, how excited and happy she was to meet another Veela. She was not the example. To her mother, she wasn't even really one at all. It made her wish that she could swing her brother in through the wide library windows to give Lydia good news. That the allure could be used to advance careers, to get out of sticky situations, to capturing his wife's heart at first sight. Instead, Lydia found a recluse. Ashamed and slowly peeking her head out to see the sun that had burned her one too many times in trying to own who she was. There was a reason she was hiding it from students, other staff. Would this be the beginning of a long unravel that couldn't be knit back together? The decision had already passed, it had already been made. It's not like she could just obliviate a child. That had to be against some kind of rule, and incredibly cruel to Lydia to rip away a sense of having a source answers when she had barely asked the questions.

So for now, Robyn put on a gentle smile of encouragement. A blank slate for Lydia to project her emotions of anxiety on, as if the thrum of it didn't course through Robyn's veins. There was especially something that softened when she agreed to so fiercely protect Robyn's secret. "Rumors spread, if it somehow gets out I wouldn't put the blame on you either." Secrets slipped and spilled, and she wouldn't hold it against someone still so young and just trying to figure out who she was. Robyn's hands slowly eased in the amount of fidgeting as the initial fear slowly dissipated. A slow nod to encourage her thoughts that seemed to becoming cognizant as she spoke. "It is scary. But it's not unlike non-Veelas, hm? Don't we always put on a sort of mask when meeting new people. Hoping that we can make good impressions before letting them see more about us? That's what makes friends so lovely, there's no need to hide anymore. We just don't have the ability to turn it on and off, it's just kind of always there." She was truly flying by the seat of her pants.

To give advice that even she didn't believe in felt like some underhanded lie, but truly she wished she could believe the advice that she gave in the first place. Maybe thinking this way at Lydia's age would've changed the outcome about who she felt she was now. "To trust yourself is something that won't come for many years, especially since you're so young. You have so much to discover about yourself and others. To put so much on stress on yourself right now? To figure it out right this second?" Robyn left out a heavy sigh of familiar feelings. "you're going to kill yourself a thousand times over trying to do that."

With her next question, she seemed ashamed. She couldn't meet Robyn's warm eyes, and she looked like an absolute tomato. Robyn moved beside her to place a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Sadly, there is no formula for how to do this better. Or what to do to make it better. They will get better. There will be a time where you don't believe you can't have true friends because of this part of you. That when things go your way, it's because of the work you put in and not your allure. But you must give yourself a breath to let that belief come to you. It is not something that can be forced." Robyn knew she had a long way to go before that was realistic for her. "What you can do is continue to be a hardworking student, a caring friend, and a positive influence to yourself. You can talk to me about things that are worrying you about this. But you also have your Head of House, Mr. Browne you can seek out as well. There are many avenues for you to not go on this journey alone." Isolation had been Robyn's biggest downfall when it came to figuring out herself. She'd be damned if she watched Lydia do that to herself too.

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