19 Jun 2024, 03:19
Look What You Made Me Do
ππππ ππππππππππ.
πππ πππππππ πππ.
β°β°β°
β« but I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time β«
β« honey, I rose up from the dead β«
β« I do it all the time β«
πππ πππππππ πππ.
β°β°β°
β« but I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time β«
β« honey, I rose up from the dead β«
β« I do it all the time β«
The world moved on from their OWLs soon after they were taken - another day, another drama. But not for Aly. All she thought about was the letter arriving, the soft flap of an owl's wings, and an envelope to tear open, her future awaiting her inside.
One could assume that receiving her results would have Vanished the topic from her mind, perhaps bringing a wave of relief to wash over her and let her enjoy the rest of her summer, school gone from her thoughts. The opposite had turned out to be true. Now that the letter was here, the soon-to-be-sixth-year had hardly let it out of her fingers in the hour since breakfast had ended, only now managing to steal a quiet moment to herself and simply exist with the scrap of paper that told her her worth.
That's not to say that Aly wasn't enjoying her few days here in Windermere, holed up with Peri and Eve in the latter's formal farmland estate. The Ravenclaw girl had never been on a real farm before - barely knew what they were, really, from Muggle Studies class - and though she had only been here for two days, it already felt so... homey in a way that the Salinger manor never quite did anymore. Part of that was probably due to Eve's mum - a serious, but slightly kooky, Muggle woman with whom Aly could definitely see similarities to her Gryffindor friend. (The teenager was still getting used to the fact that Eve - probably the most buttoned-up, posh, solemn, and ancient-pureblood-like person she'd met at Hogwarts - was a Muggle-born, that she'd grown up in this life of Muggle wonder. Some things were hard to believe, sometimes.) Part of it had, of course, been Aly's friends, with their laughter that warmed her through to the bone. But part of it had also been the house itself: the sunshine, the garden, the barn, and of course the main building with its stone and brick and plenty of little nooks in which she could hide.
The brunette had found one of these nooks now, a window-seat nook with a built-in bench in the middle of the library - this house had a library!!! - and here she now sat, perched birdlike upon the bench seat with her knees tucked up under her chin, thighs against her chest. Green eyes gazed down upon the parchment clutched in her slender fingers, the top of the envelope torn open from the morning's impatient grab for their grades. She'd opened it during breakfast with Peri and Eve, of course. And she still, even now, couldn't believe what she'd seen.
Aly slid her fingers into the torn opening and pinched the slip within, withdrawing it from its enveloping imprisonment, her bewildered mind once again taking in the beautiful script lettered so carefully there.
She wondered, now, looking at the meaningless scribble of a signature that was supposed to be a name of some sort she couldn't quite make out, who had graded her examinations. Had it been someone elder, someone with many years of experience in the department? Had they recognised the name - Salinger - paired with its straight Outstandings?Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry---------Wizarding Examinations Authority
ππ―π‘π¦π«ππ―πΆ ππ¦π·ππ―π‘π¦π«π€ ππ’π³π’π© βπ’π°π²π©π±π°
---------- Pass Grades: Fail Grades: ---------- ---------- Outstanding (O) Poor (P) ---------- ---------- Exceeds Expectations (E) Dreadful (D) ---------- ---------- Acceptable (A) Troll (T) ----------
ALYSSA HESPER SALINGER HAS ACHIEVED:
-------------------- Astronomy: O -------------------- -------------------- Charms: O -------------------- -------------------- Defence Against the Dark Arts: O -------------------- -------------------- Divination: O -------------------- -------------------- Flying: O -------------------- -------------------- Herbology: O -------------------- -------------------- History of Magic: O -------------------- -------------------- Muggle Studies: O -------------------- -------------------- Potions: O -------------------- -------------------- Transfiguration: O --------------------
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HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT & WIZARDRY
Headmaster: Solomon Lear
Twenty-two years before, another Salinger had managed perfection in his fifth-year exams: Aly's father, Benjamin. A brighter star had never shone in the Ravenclaw house, or at least that was what Aly had grown up believing - until the fall of 2022, when a Muggle car took the star away for eternity. Only then had his daughter realised the truth: that without Benjamin Salinger's perfect grades, he would never have caught Hesper Livingston's eye. He could have had a life, a real life - done bigger and better and brighter things than marrying an Auror and settling into the Department of Magical Accidents & Catastrophes, the very thing his existence would one day become. An accident. How ironic that a single Exceeds Expectations could have saved him.
Now, here Aly was - a splotched report card, equally astonishing, blurry before her. With her free hand, she hastily scrubbed at her face, smearing the mascara she'd so carefully applied into smoky black streaks beneath her eyes. Great - now she'd have to clean up before going back to join the others for their trip into London today. How hard she'd worked, how much sleep she'd lost, how many books she'd reread for the sixtieth time, how much she'd begged and prayed and wished for good grades over five years of schooling - suddenly, it was all a waste.
The accomplished academic was what Hesper wanted - in a husband, in a child. Why couldn't Aly get away from that image, pressed to perfection, even now, with Benjamin gone? Look what Hesper had made her do, through years of stress and pressure, molding her coal lump of a daughter into an obedient, shimmering, outstanding diamond, like it was all her doing. Why had everything done by Aly's hand, every aching finger, every broken quill, every practiced spellcasting, turned out to be because of Hesper? Why weren't Aly's accomplishments because of Aly?
No. No. They couldn't be because of Hesper, because Hesper hadn't studied through sleepless nights. Hesper hadn't spent countless hours in the potions classroom outside of class time, brewing over and over again. Hesper hadn't written pages and pages of notes, repeating incantations and dates and names until her fingers bled. That had all been Aly, and she hadn't done it because of Hesper, or for her. She had done it in spite of her.
Aly's achievements were all her own. They were for her, and no one else.
Clutching the tear-stained parchment to her chest, Aly hiccuped slightly, taking a deep breath in to try to regulate her heaving lungs before returning to the civilisation of the Decipio house. She turned her head to lay one cheek on her knees, staring out the window at the farmland and grounds below, peaceful and quiet and happy most of all. It occurred to her, suddenly, that her father would have very much hated this place, with its lack of hustle and bustle and its distance from everything loud and wild.
It occurred to her, suddenly, too, that she was not her father.
She could score Outstandings for herself. She could grow up and do something more meaningful than sitting at a desk job that would eventually literally kill her. Sure, she was a Salinger, but the old Aly - the girl who followed her parents' wishes so blindly into the depths - was dead. And here, in the bench seat in Windermere, she was reborn, a phoenix who rose from the window and wiped away her streaky mascara. Aly was her own person, damn it, and she'd die before she let anyone think otherwise.
β« and then the world moves on, but one thing's for sure: β«
β« maybe I got mine, but β«
β« you'll all get yours β«
β°β°β°
β« maybe I got mine, but β«
β« you'll all get yours β«
β°β°β°
Reducio
Proof:
Aly doesn't take CoMC or Runes, but she aced the rest! (In-game and out-of-game!)
Aly doesn't take CoMC or Runes, but she aced the rest! (In-game and out-of-game!)
Mentions: @Pericles Dralt & @Evelynn Decipio
| Aly Salinger's ency |
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STA 10 | EVA 14 | STR 5 | WIS 19 | ARC 7 | ACC 18 Charmer β’ Keeperβs Catch β’ Paragon of Health β’ Lovely Creature β’ Foulplay β’ Keen Eye who's afraid of little old me? |
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