24 Jul 2024, 14:14
The Crowning Achievement (redux)
🅵 I N N E G A Nxx🅲 O N N O R
xxxGRYFFINDOR SECOND YEAR SUMMER CAMP TENT
The Crowning Achievement TBD of X 2024
Winnie Harper had always been easy to spot. It wasn’t just her shock of copper hair or her fondness for pastel pinks and greens and frilly dresses. It wasn’t even the sweet scent trailing after her like ghostly puffs of breath in the winter air, nor the obvious trail of paw prints in the snow leading into the tent. What stood out most about Winnie Harper was her voice, loud and boisterous most of the time, but quiet now that she had found herself a corner and a book? Or was she journalling? Maybe quietly practicing a spell. From where he lay, throwing only the briefest of glances in her direction, he couldn't rightly tell what she was up to presently.
For a few days now, he had watched her whenever he could without seeming to stare. Unlike any other girl he knew, she had been easy to understand. Her love of pink was clear from the start, and her affection for sweet-smelling flowers was only slightly less intense than her doting on Mattie. Somewhere on the heels of those things came her love for animals and poetry. For once, he hadn’t needed to exchange whispers with Rebecca to figure all this out. Winnie Harper wore her heart on her sleeve and practically announced it all herself. In truth, it seemed like Winnie Harper loved a lot of things, but whether that included nearly-third-year Gryffindor boys remained to be seen.
He had thought about picking flowers for her, but they were hard to find under the winter snow, and conjuring a bouquet wouldn’t have the same charm as handpicking them. Nevermind getting the incantation right under pressure. Being a boy, he had nothing in his trunk shaded remotely pink enough to gift, and giving her pet treats for when she shifted into her puppy form just didn't seem that romantic.
His eyes flickered to her every so often, before he'd inevitably re-read the sentence he'd been stuck on for minutes now, only to chew down on his lower lip and glance at her again. What if she didn’t like him back? What if she thought he was just a silly kid? The frightening downside to Winnie's outspoken demeanour was that she could laugh him out of the tent, and come nightfall, all the other members of the tent would know every detail of what had occured. He sighed inwardly, this wasn't getting any easier and the longer he waited, the more likely it was someone would rudely interrupt their quiet moment together.
At the faint sound of the kettle coming to a boil, he moved over to take it off the fire and put some tealeaves in it. Now more than ever he wished he'd read ahead on Divination so he could read the tealeaves before risking his heart. Perhaps he ought to consult the latest's Hogwarts Headliner Horoscope in advance?
It wasn't until he'd snatched a cup (they had legs and kept trying to run away) to pour himself some tea that he finally mustered the courage to break the silence. Maybe the best thing to do was to take a page from Winnie’s book and simply speak his mind. One deep breath later, he spoke up and-
"Would you like some tea?".
Not at all what had he intended to say, but the words had already spilled out of his mouth. Offering tea was so much easier than asking if she'd like to hang out with him.
Regardless of her answer, he would eventually retreat back to his bed, steaming cup in hand, back to the safety of his book over rim of which he could quietly spy on her. It was so much easier to be impassive and let their awesome romance play out in his head. Only after the third scolding-hot sip of tea did the solution pop into his head.
"Hey Winnie," he started out of nowhere. "Can I ask you something?" He had spent enough time with Rebecca to know that what he was about to say next was irresistible bait for any girl, especially a Ravenclaw. "I need your advice..." He had picked his words carefully and threw in one final touch. Lowering his voice, he leaned forward slightly and in a husky tone said, "You can keep a secret, right?"
If she took the bait and looked his way, she would find him lying flat on his bed, resting his chin in his hands and kicking his woollen socks back and forth, much like how she wagged her tail when he first saw her in her puppy form. "It’s about a girl And, well, you’re a girl." After this stunning observation, he continued, "There’s a girl I really like. She’s very pretty and sweet, I think..." A faint, almost bashful smile appeared as he twirled the small necklace hanging from his neck, a souvenir from his holiday to spain. "Well, I’d like your advice on how I could go about talking to her, get to know her and stuff. See, I think I know a thing or two about her, but I’m just not really sure, you know? It's possible she already has a boyfriend, though it could be a pet too, I'm really not sure."
"He's a dweeby chocolate bar lip smacking nerd" - Evelynn Decipio
1 Aug 2024, 03:22
The Crowning Achievement (redux)
‿︵‿୨✿୧‿︵‿
Interacting: @Finnegan Connor
Mentioning: @
The spot that Winnie had decided to set up camp in was less a show of rugged camping and more a luxurious glamping experience, considering the amount of pillows, blankets, and padding the girl had placed beneath her once plain sleeping bag.
Lost in her typical field of daydreams, she lay stomach first, painted toes swaying rhythmically behind her as she got lost in her book. She had read 'Emma' many times before, but never seemed to grow tired of it. Her cat Pumpkin lay on one of her fluffy pillows, emitting a thrilling purr of contentment every time the Irish girl reached over to scratch his head.
Draped in a puff sleeve floral dress, pink cardigan, and sandaled high heels, she was ready for cozy day of tent-bound leisure, but it seemed everyone had other plans. Well, everyone but the Gryffindor boy she recognized from the Quidditch team. She had grown to respect him for his unyielding spirit in the face of his team's certain doom.
"Ah geez..." Winnie sighed as the boiled kettle broke her literary trance. She sat up to spread her arms to stretch them before bending back and forth to coax her muscles into compliance. "I was actually wondering if you were going to offer me some! I love tea." She couldn't resist teasing the younger boy. Pumpkin meowed in protest when she pushed herself up and almost knocked into him.
The Ravenclaw plopped her body down next to the Gryffindor, brushing her cascade of strawberry-scented locks out of the way before she ended up sitting on them (that was never a fun experience). Poor Finn might have been at the mercy of her flowing tresses.
"Wait... What kind of tea are you making?" She preferred fruity teas, but she didn't know what kind boys liked, other than Mattie of course. She thought he liked strawberries because he always had strawberry-flavoured something on him. "Maybe I should have asked that before I took over your space." She joked, leaning over to playfully shove his shoulder. Blissfully unaware of the fanciful thoughts dancing in Finn’s mind, Winnie just assumed most people were her friends until they were mean to her.
They sat and sipped their tea in what Winnie presumed was companionable silence, until Finn asked the best kind of question, 'Can you keep a secret?' The chaser's eyes instantly lit up, and she whipped her head around to stare at the younger boy, practically vibrating with excitement, "YES! I mean... Yes, I am... I am quite good at keeping secrets." She actually couldn't recall ever spilling a secret.
The anticipation was hardly bearable as Finn stared wistfully up at the tent's canvas, a masterpiece that mimicked the universe's own talent. "It’s about a girl And, well, you’re a girl." The younger boy said.
"I am, thanks for noticing?" If Finn's only requirements for sharing this secret was being female and being present... She was really glad their tentmates had decided to go do other things that day. That's right, this was HER secret! Well, it was Finn's, but it belonged to her now too.
Dammit, she had to focus. Pretty and sweet, uh huh. That didn't narrow it down for her. Was it possible he was talking about Rebecca? She had to bite down on her lower lip to keep herself from interrupting the poor lad. Especially upon the grand reveal; she possibly had a boyfriend! Gasp! The drama.
"What do you mean boyfriend or pet?" Winnie asked with a tilt of her head. That was really an odd 'either or', "If you know what she likes you can use it to break the ice with her. Oh! You should also write everything you know about her down somewhere, so you never forget!" Because that's what she had done with her friends and boyfriend, just Winnie things®.
Reaching a hand down, she excited grabbed his forearm and begin to shake him. "OH! WAIT! I know! You should write her a poem to confess your feelings! Girls love poetry," Well, she did, but what girl didn't want to be romanced? "I can help you write it! I love to write!" It was truly a mystery why Winifred was surprised to discover her animagus form was a dog.
│ │ | │ │ | STA: 15 • EVA: 18 • STR: 8 WIS: 11 • ARC: 7 • ACC: 17 | │ │ | • Healing Sage • Muggle Condition • Paragon of Health • • Poison Resistance • Animagus • Wandmaker • Lovely Creature • | │ │ | │ │ |
1 Aug 2024, 17:58
The Crowning Achievement (redux)
🅵 I N N E G A Nxx🅲 O N N O R
xxxGRYFFINDOR SECOND YEAR SUMMER CAMP TENTThe Crowning Achievement TBD of X 2024
That went well, he thought. "Cinnamon spice and apple," he said in a husky voice. "With a hint of apple, do you like-"
A curtain of copper red was drawn before his eyes, but it was the fleeting touch of her arm brushing past his own that made the sentence catch in his throat. Up until that moment, everything had been going exactly to plan. Should've knocked on wood, he thought, but as usual, his mouth was ahead of his brain.
"-it?" he finished on a high pitch, pretending he hadn't just felt summer on her skin or smelled it in her hair. A memory of orchards and sunshine, red fruits and ice-cream drifted wisp-like through his mind before he remembered to pour her tea. Thankfully, she seemed too preoccupied with the tantalising promise of a secret to notice his lapse in composure.
"Well," he restarted, his face half-hidden behind a cloud of soft, fragrant mist that spiralled up and up toward the winking sky overhead. "It's the way she talks about him, makes him sound like a pet, but I'm afraid he's real." He wondered if he should fight Mathias, just by courtesy of the boy being a Slytherin alone, no tender summer romance required. Frankly, the biggest challenge would be to get him to show up. After all, the last Slytherin that had challenged him to a duel had chickened out, the one before that had turned into a s'more, and the one before that had yet to emotionally recover.
"I know at least one thing she likes for sure," he grinned, without bothering to explain himself further. "But I can guess at others. She might like animals, for example. I do too, I've got a hedgehog at home, anyway-"
Loath to get up now that she sat so near to him, he stretched and reached around, squeezing his lips in effort yet never leaving her side while he grabbed the necessary writing utensils. It was a good thing he hadn't uncapped his inkwell yet when she shook him like a fruit-laden tree. "They do?" his voice cracked a little. "Like poetry, I mean? Hmmm..." Now I know several things she likes, he thought to himself. While letting Winnie write a romantic poem to herself was an entertaining thought, he figured he ought to put in at least some effort himself. "Alright, I'm trusting you on this." He gave her his best impression of a parental stare before he moved to lay down on the flat of his belly and placed the parchment and ink on the floor before him.
"Dear girl," he said out loud while putting those words down. "No, I'm not telling you who," he noted preemptively. Not yet, anyway. "When I think of you, I think of..." Pink?hairs? The smell of strawberry-scented shampoo? None of those sounded quite flattering enough. "...summer," he concluded after a thoughtful pause. For a short while he brushed the feathery tip of his quill over his lips, then stole a cheeky sideways glance at Winnie and continued writing. A faint smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Don't peek, not yet, just let me... let me..." his voice drifted off into nothingness, leaving only the sound of quill scratching over parchment. Should Winnie try to read anyway, he'd shield his handiwork with his free hand, or otherwise angle himself to prevent her from looking. With his tongue squeezed between his lips he wrote and wrote before suddenly-
"OK, I'm stuck," he admitted, finally letting her have a look at his handwriting. The spacing was even, the lines thin and sweeping, and every first letter of every line had been penned with some decorative, curly flair.
ReducioDear girl,
When I think of you, I think of summer
Of blossom and sweet flowers
Of golden sunset hours
Of warmth and haybarn slumber
Of lightning and thunder
You struck me in a flash
"Now all I can think of is mash, you know, mashed potatoes? She doesn't remind me of those though." He squinted at her, playfully booped her nose with the quill's feathers, then sighed deeply as he dragged his eyes back to his poem so far. "Crash, maybe? Like a car crash? 'I love you like a car crash' seems a bit off though," he wrinkled his nose and chuckled. "Help?"
"He's a dweeby chocolate bar lip smacking nerd" - Evelynn Decipio
2 Aug 2024, 04:51
The Crowning Achievement (redux)
‿︵‿୨✿୧‿︵‿
Interacting: @Finnegan Connor
Mentioning: @
The Ravenclaw's light blue eyes flickered back to the younger boy's face. "Is something wrong with your throat?" She asked with a brow furrowed in concern. He hadn't sounded so... Raspy minutes before.
Oh well, it mattered not because this tea was delicious! She had to hand it to Finn, the boy had good taste in teas. The only thing she’d change about the tea is that it would be strawberry, with no cinnamon... Actually, maybe everything about it. "I'm still drinking it, so I think that would be a yes!" She said playfully, winking at the boy.
The more Finn explained himself, the more Winnie was starting to understand. She did have a habit of calling Matt by pet names, or adding an 'ie' and making his name sound cuter. Plus some couples called each other 'baby' and she had definitely heard her mum call one of her dogs a baby before. Huh... So Finn was afraid that this girl (possibly Rebecca???) had a boyfriend and it wasn't him. "Well, I mean... It would be sad if she had a boyfriend, but you know... She's young and indecisive, she might change her mind?" Because Winnie was so much older and wiser and definitely makes great decisions now... Right? "If it's meant to be, the universe will bring the two of you together."
A frown tugged at her lips. How could Finn only know one thing about his crush?! She had written an entire notebook's worth about Matt by now. She would give him a pass, just this once, because it was likely his first crush, "You need to do your research on this girl." At least she managed to hide her disappointment in him. You gotta work on your crush game, Finn.
"She must have friends, right? Could you not first befriend them and then slip in some subtle questions about her? What about if she's on a team, you could ask her team mates? Look her up in the old yearbooks they keep in the library, maybe she's a member of a club." Said Winnie, truly spilling straight wisdom that was not creepy at all. She had forgotten (courtesy of Mathias) about her tendency to lean on the side of the stalking approach when it came to her past crushes.
"Finn, everyone loves poetry. The people that don't like it just haven't found their kind of poetry yet." This was something the Ravenclaw truly believed. Poor Finn had just activated Winnie's hyperfixation. "Are we not human beings? Do we not endure the raw, relentless struggle of our existence? Do we not feel burdened by our malady-stricken hearts?" Thank God only Finn was present to witness Winnie's special brand of cringe.
Gasp! How could Finn sit there and use a quill dipped into his blood to scritch sweet nothings onto a parchment while telling Winnie she wasn't allowed to look? THIS WAS CRUEL! Finn was about to owe Taylor Swift some money because she was one tortured poet.
She could have leapt joyfully when the Gryffindor finally asked for her help. "One moment!" She jumped up and scurried over to her trunk, digging through the cloud of pink clothing before pulling out a book. A book of rhymes. She also grabbed her own journal full of poems and tucked it under her arm.
She offered the book of rhymes to her tentmate once she had made her way back to him. Whether or not he took it, she would sit back down. Should Finn decide to take the book and flip open the cover, he might notice a few stamped words above a hand written message.
ReducioGOBBLEDEGOOK BOOKSTORE
Winnie,
I hope this book helps guide you in your poetic journey. We've had it sitting around the muggle section for ages now. Apparently they use something called the in-the-net to look things up?
- Grandma
"Mashed potatoes don't really paint the picture you want, Finn. You have to think... What would you like to hear her say? How does being around her make you feel? You pick a rhyme that flows with your idea, and go from there. For example, after 'you struck me in a flash', we have to consider the theme you are creating. She makes you feel good, but in loving, there is suffering. 'My sanity has burned to fields of ash', is something that could follow the theme in the new stanza you've started."
She released a breath she hadn't realized she was holding before inhaling to continue, "Your rhyme scheme seems to be ABBAA, which is sort of an enclosed rhyme scheme but I've never seen anything quite like it. I would take out the 'Of lightning and thunder' and add it in to your new stanza, keep it four lines. We could keep the ABBA format and then swing to ABAB too."
│ │ | │ │ | STA: 15 • EVA: 18 • STR: 8 WIS: 11 • ARC: 7 • ACC: 17 | │ │ | • Healing Sage • Muggle Condition • Paragon of Health • • Poison Resistance • Animagus • Wandmaker • Lovely Creature • | │ │ | │ │ |
5 Aug 2024, 17:46
The Crowning Achievement (redux)
𝓕 I N N E G A Nx𝓒 O N N O R
２ＮＤ ＹＥＡＲＧＲＹＦＦＩＮＤＯＲThe Thread 1st of September 2024
Starting this summer, he had spent more than a wink in front of the mirror, putting disobedient strands back in place, violently brushing his teeth, and noticing with startled horror the first pimple-shaped red blemish on his jaw, just below his ear. God, his ears, his awful, squarish ears. Crumpled and folded in on themselves like stepped-on cardboard.
God, bemoaning his office job, must've made him on a bleary-eyed monday morning, because The Big Man had left most his features on default, drawn his lips at a careless slant, crumpled his ears, and applied the default inverse square law to his nose. The longer he looked, the more mistakes he noticed, but heaven didn't do refunds.
One of the few things that had not yet made it onto his Negative Rizz List was his voice. Sure, he'd noticed he didn't sound as cool played back as he did in his head, but it had never bothered him before. Not until Winnie had punched a heart-shaped hole in his confidence. "This is just my voice?" he retorted, forcing his pitch up a bit. She had already shifted her focus back to tea, but that didn't stop him from scratching his throat.
"I hope she does change her mind," he said, "Her boyfriend's a mank knob and he's a Slytherin, so that's a big L." The lopsided grin that followed had little to do with Mattie @Matthias Pride and more to do with her remark that the universe would bring them together if it was meant to be. If the poem and his blinding, radiant charm couldn't get the job done, she had just given Cupid another arrow in his quiver to use against her.
"I am doing my research, Winnie!" The temptation to admit his devious plan and just tell her was growing by the second. "It's easy for you to say, I'm the one who's doing it now." Like most advice he'd ever been given, hers went in one ear and out the other, except for the bit about friends. To be frank he wasn't sure who Winnie's friends were. There had to be very many and the prospect of getting to know them all was a bit daunting. "That'd take ages, bet. I think I'd rather just take her out, get to know her that way, you know?"
He was rewarded the very next instant. The way she lit up about poetry spoke volumes. "Malady-stricken hearts..." he repeated pensively. "What's malady mean?" It all sounded rather dramatic, but it was a welcome change to the stiff, measured language June @June Selwyn tended to use. Winnie's heart and passions were right there, like ripe fruit fallen from a tree, waiting to be picked up. June had scribbled her passions in coded language on a scrap of parchment, locked it in a box, thrown it to the bottom of the ocean, put a mean curse on the key and then made him dive for it.
She very nearly exploded when he finally let her help him. True to her house, she returned armed with several books which Finn feared she was going to make him read. Thankfully, she handed him just one for starters. He gingerly took it into his hands, felt the cover, traced a stubby index finger along the spine before carefully opening it. He flared his nostrils in amusement upon reading her grandmother's note, though it left him wondering if Winnie was or wasn't Muggle-born. He'd always just assumed she was.
The threat of being forced to read dwindled to nothingness when Winnie spoke up again, beseeching him with her best advice. "Well, when I'm around her..." he put his quill in the inkwell, propped himself up on his elbows and turned to face her, sitting on his heels. "I feel...happy?" No, that wasn't quite it. Happy was getting ice cream for dessert when you weren't expecting any; happy was grabbing the Quaffle and scoring a goal against Howard White @Howard White despite the other's legendary skill. He cocked his head at Winnie and considered her question carefully. With luck, he would merely seem thoughtful to her. "It's not happy exactly — happiness doesn't last. It's better than that. It's like... like being exactly where you need to be, without worry, and thinking you could tell them anything and everything."
Well, almost anything.
He squinted at her suggestion. Sanity burned to ash? He didn't feel insane, though maybe it was a bit mad to try and date her when he knew she had a boyfriend. Picking up his quill again, he struck through some lines and rewrote others, then began to put down the next stanza. ""sanity... to... ash..." he muttered between writing each word down.
ReducioDear girl,
You remind me of blossom and sweet flowers
Of golden sunset hours
Of warmth and haybarn slumber
Of lighting and thunder
Because lighting is brightening
And you struck me in a flash
Turned my sanity to ash
Made me think and act so rash
Now my heart, that sand and dust
Must part with its old crust
Can I take it from my pocket?
Can I lift it from its locket?
Can I gift my heart and stake it?
Can I trust your hand to take it?
"There..." He put the quill back down and stretched his fingers a few times against the onset of a cramp. "I changed a few things, didn't want to just take your line and, you know, steal your thunder." He grinned while he handed her the parchment. "Now I'm stuck again though. What was that about ABBA? Should I write her a song instead? I'm not sure she'll love my voice and I only know five, maybe six chords on the guitar and-" Noticing his own rambling, he forced his jaw shut and regarded Winnie with intense anticipation. He really hoped she wouldn't take offense to his adjustments, though he supposed she could hardly argue with his efforts to make the poem truly his own. "How bad is it?" he blurted all of a sudden.
"He's a dweeby chocolate bar lip smacking nerd" - Evelynn Decipio