Second Strike
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SEP. 1st, MON______________________ HOGWARTS EXPRESS
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thinking • speaking • other dialogue@Edwin Westbridge
“President of the
Anti-Werewolf
Assemblage (AWA),”
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Pitter-patter.
When is this light rain going to end?
The unpleasant smell of a slight tinge of sweat intermingling with the air-conditioning loomed inside the enclosed taxi cab. It is such a strong combination that it almost manifested into a physical, tangible being; akin to puffs of breaths filling everyone's lungs whilst it also dominated the space. It is suffocating—especially with the car humidifier pressed against the fan, its vanilla flavour fighting against all odds to push down the terrible smell.
The said cab is headed down to the King's Cross Station.
It is a delightful rainy morning in September, quarter past ten. The gentle touch of rain droplets pooling on the cobbled streets was nothing compared to the rushed and energetic taps of leather boots frantically searching for shelter. Every individual in London always seemed like they had elsewhere to go, paired with hasty steps as though this elsewhere had no patience for dawdling.
This, perhaps, is what it meant to enter adulthood and live it with impregnable endurance. This is also something the young passenger in the aforementioned cab wished to understand. The young passenger had long, curly hair which shared the same colour of burnt coals, the chaotic mess pressed against the blurry cab windows along with her straight nose. According to the notebooks and her stationery possessions stamped with neat blank ink to indicate someone's belonging, the sulking girl's name is Aurelia M. Valentine.
Pitter-patter.
Pitter-patter.
It is supposed to be a delightful, exciting September morning. Supposed to be. September 1st, to be exact—meaning this marks the day whence the new school year starts, a period of time which reminded the Hogwarts students to go back to their educational institution to possibly study the information in store for them. Knowing the Hufflepuff girl who finds learning things necessary for her bright future as a witch, who also finds studying a bit enjoyable and exhilarating; the very act of it sending her to a state of euphoria—the said school perhaps promised gems and inexplicable conditions of high she should anticipate.
However, the dread sitting right at the bottom of her stomach stated the complete opposite. Although the badger refused to give this certain dread some sort of recognition and acknowledgement, she cannot deny the fact that it is still there, patiently lurking and waiting to be spilled out. Waiting patiently to be noticed, its dark eyes staring right at her very soul with its nimble arms tucked behind its back. It is a monster, and it encourages Aurelia to be dishonest with herself.
Something unwelcome lurched in her belly when the possibility of being dishonest to oneself came to mind, her thick eyebrows furrowing in the slightest of ways as her dark eyes continued to stare at the collection of droplets slowly dripping down the surface of the blurry cab window.
There is a much bigger problem that needed to be addressed, only she refused it to be.
Aurelia's black walnut wand. It is malfunctioning—and it is hilarious to refer to it in such a way as though it is just a piece of technology wherein she can only enter repair shops and demand it to be fixed. “Fix my wand!” She could shout—plead, even, to the shop owner of Ollivander's. Nothing will suffice, however. Oh, how she wishes this to be easier. She could not even begin to articulate it out loud.
A shaky breath. My wand—
M-My wand…
A lodge in her throat. A squeak in one heave.
Her black walnut wand started malfunctioning—it needs to start there—ever since the feeling of homesickness smacked her right in the face just in the middle of the school year. That certain feeling was immense, it was almost indescribable. It sneaks up on you, then bites you in your most vulnerable. First, one fateful morning in January when she woke up from a terrible, terrible nightmare which exhausted a lot of her energy, Aurelia wished for her mother's delightful apple cobblers. The dessert deeply soothed her, back in Croydon.
It started in something small, after that she often catches herself wool-gathering about locations in Croydon which she heavily criticised before and now adored and admired for its vintage beauty. Aurelia never considered herself a sentimental girl, she can actually go beyond and say that such things to wonder about leisurely is such a waste of time and also space in one's mind. Nevertheless, the young badger, in all times, wonders and reminisces the littlest of memories.
The children's storybook she accidentally left in the park from the next city over. They did not manage to retrieve it back—a fact that left her mournful for weeks when she was a child. Her mother, Cordelia Valentine, is obsessed with suncatchers and deemed them as lucky charms. Every window of the house, one will see an amalgamation of dangling suncatchers against the windowpane. The most beautiful and gorgeously created are honoured to dangle in their porch. Whenever she could not focus on reading her selected book in one random day, she would stare at the assorted colours beaming down on the wooden floors; very much supported by the sunlight. It was such a rare occurrence, she realised. London was almost never graced by the sun. It is cursed in some way, she thinks.
It was ridiculous and most of all, pathetic. Very much so, especially in this one instance wherein Aurelia snapped her head to the side—a swift movement that could have given her whiplash—as soon as she heard a tinkling sound similar to the wind chimes also dangling near the back door of their house.
The urge to projectile vomit was actually stronger that day when instead of seeing the interior of her house, she was instead greeted by the grey, muted colours of the Hogwarts Courtyard. The sound was someplace else, she was wrong, it was never hers. Nothing was hers anymore—perhaps it was never hers in the first place and she was only being disillusioned.
A tug somewhere made itself known from deep within her.
Her little, poor heart skipped a beat.
One can also add that she was sick to her stomach.
Questions that spiralled in her exhausted mind warranted more bludgeoning tears than actual clarity. She misses home terribly. Did she really belong in the Wizarding World or that professor that suddenly arrived last, last August to tell her that she was meant to be a witch was only pulling her leg? Better yet, where is this certain professor now? Why did she not think this through?
Would she have been better off as a muggle? Why did she immediately jump at the first opportunity to leave her old life behind if she was going to miss it in the end? Who even is she? Did she change for the better or for the worse? What if this all fails and she has to go back to the Muggle World, how is she going to pick up the broken pieces she left without thinking and with a disgusted look on her face?
Aurelia regressed back to this broken psyche of an 11-year old girl. Which she looked down upon. Which she thought she was better off without. It is terrifying. It is, in fact, staring too for good measure. Perhaps demanding for answers too like she did that day. Too bad for the both of them, as such complexities of the mind can only be explained but never curable and repairable. It is a cycle. She will always deem her identity terribly lost.
The young badger is unconsciously destructive to herself—a ticking time bomb—as she thought she found a more seemingly appropriate solution for her problems.
Aha, you actually thought you got me? You can never cripple a resilient girl like me.
And there commenced the Operation: Ignore It And It Will All Go Away. A couple of positive affirmations are jotted down repeatedly in her journal, some of them scrawled neatly in cursive in her sticky note pads. All of them are pure rubbish and dishonest. This girl can only hope these aforementioned affirmations will stick in her psyche any day now.
Aurelia is in the right place.
It was right to leave Croydon and her old life for good.
She embraces these changes as it must be for the better.
Who cares if she did plug the void in her heart a poorly-constructed amalgamation of cheap tapes? Judging other people for their decisions is disgustingly hypocritical unless one is purely blameless. Additionally, these cannot be seen in the physical being. The young badger looks perfectly fine, as though her only worries are how to acquire brilliant accommodations from her professors.
Pretending is a temporary solution, it seems like, as from this point on, her black walnut wand commenced its rebellion for reasons unknown and left Aurelia in the dark. One would think the tool that helps the wielder to focus their magical capabilities could never be sentient but surprise, it might be. As if she did not learn for herself that if she stands very still on the marbled floors, she can feel the very castle moving in slightness, akin to breathing— slowly and sure. The Hufflepuff witch should take it upon herself to expect that most of the enchanted stuff in the Wizarding World might be capable of thinking for themselves.
Aurelia could only take so much in her small plate.
My stupid wand—
It decided to rebel two weeks right before year-end examinations. It was the most perfect timing to add up to her surmounting anxiety. The Hufflepuff girl, at first, thought her spellwork became rusty in such a short span of time—which was almost impossible as she prided herself as a perfectionist and a fast learner too. Her theory that it must be the wand doing tricks solidified as one time, it voluntarily produced bubbles by itself. This happened multiple times. Its power—she can feel deep in her core as though the wand is a part of her—started dwindling. Aurelia could not perform the spells she studied with immense focus properly.
I perfected this spell a week ago. How is this happening? Why?
Normally, she would consult the Hogwarts Library and pore over dusty tomes and books in order to search for the answer as to why. So she could fix it herself. However, she was more nervous about the year-end examinations than this certain issue. She never failed an exam ever in her life, but these doubts recently swirling in her mind like brain-eating parasites encouraged her to pump up and study vigorously.
Until this certain negligence affected her overall performance in the examinations. Of course, it is given that Aurelia aced her written
??
Aurelia was actually horrified.
Get that checked, the instructor recommended lamely. Get what checked? Surely her heart, as it was now filled with the bitter taste of betrayal. However, it performed splendidly in Charms’ practical examinations. The young badger still envisioned that singled-out E in her report card once it arrived at her address. The thought will haunt her forevermore as the instructor praised her work.
There was simply no time to get her wand checked or pore over books in the Hogwarts Library as after the year-end examinations, it was time to go home for the summer. It is required, and who is she to deny herself a trip home? Aurelia was quicker than anyone else to hop in the Hogwarts Express. The girl was in that cushioned seat humming to herself with such joy as her legs swung back and forth. She temporarily forgot her problems as she thought of stuff she missed back from Croydon. The one thing on top of her list is her mother's infamous apple cobblers. This was what she thought about.
The problem reared its head back up again once her report card arrived at her doorstep by owl. The young badger was deeply disturbed by this singular E that she braved assessing her black walnut wand. Aurelia kept it polished, she treated it like it was a heirloom passed down generations to generations. It is still sturdy, onyx-coloured like the messy, frizzy curls cascading down her back. She never threw it around carelessly; the wand was always safely tucked in her hair especially if she kept them up.
What went wrong, exactly?
These questions being left unanswered for weeks on end caused Aurelia such great distress. There are no days in which she pondered about storming out and travelling back to Hogwarts to visit the Library and search for the answers herself. Never mind the consequences. She only desires to ease out her anxieties. Aurelia would be bald with these constant hair-pulling from stress.
The only good factor she can blurt out at the moment is that the black walnut wand did perform no such tricks like it did in the first week of its dwindling powers. It was only quiet, sitting symmetrically on the girl's night dresser.
Polish here. Polish there.
There must be a button here somewhere. No?
In the middle of warm August, Aurelia had the chance to visit Diagon Alley with her mother, Cordelia, to buy all the supplies she needed for the next school year. As boxes are ticked off in her physical list, the young badger gave the wandmaker shop, Ollivander's, a furtive glance with such longing as though she missed the yesterdays within it. She feared the possibility of her actually breaking the wand unbeknownst to her so that she needed something new, and wands from Ollivander's were not sold for only knuts and sickles.
Aurelia went back home disheartened. It was a pitiful sight; an old man almost gave her a dime. She did not want to trouble her mother anymore than she did, especially in this economy wherein Cordelia had to struggle between jobs to keep them both fed and properly supplied with necessities. It was something—the heroic stuff mothers always managed to do.
The young badger decided that she will take up tutoring First Years in order to earn a little something. Food and shelter are already provided by the institution, so she will attempt to fund her basic spending—Daily Prophet subscription, ink-refilling, those are examples—to avoid burdening her mother further than she should.
She was snapped out of her reverie when the black puddle of fur stretched beside her seat. This furry puddle made a loud purring noise as it settled back on its cab seat, the circular green orbs of this feline did not acknowledge her presence as its eyelids fluttered shut for the umpteenth time this rainy morning. This is Stalker, a young midnight stalker which she adopted from the rusty streets of Diagon Alley. It was often stoned by the local children, thus she took pity and urged the feline to be cared for under her wing.
This is no ordinary cat, however. It had a good sense of valuable items which encouraged it to steal—then bury it somewhere and hope that Aurelia would not be able to find it. Stalker had a good grasp of things, that it learned to harbour and nurture grudges. Especially since this summer, both Aurelia and Cordelia had to visit multiple veterinary clinics for him to complete numerous vaccination shots. The black feline did not relent without scratches, struggles, bites, and kicks.
Stalker had been ignoring Aurelia for weeks now. Never mind the tears she shed from the scratches she garnered from all the struggles. It acts like it does not care for such things. Now, Aurelia would shift in her seat, and the black feline made a point to scoot away and settle to nap again.
“You know it was necessary. You will be vaccinated the muggle way since you lived in the streets all your life,” Aurelia whispered, pitiful dark eyes on the feline's back, as it also turned its behind audaciously on her. Of course, it did not respond; the only response she got is from the cab driver, his furtive glances she can see in the rearview mirror.
Another sigh.
Stalker is the only companion she had today, as Cordelia overslept and she did not dare to wake her mother up. She found no issues with it and it is not like she was boarding the Hogwarts Express alone. Her feline pet is there to accompany her, also for the rest of the school year, except it was acting in such an unbearable way. The young witch wondered how long would he act this way as her dark eyes traced the pool of droplets accumulating on the surface of the cab window once again.
Pitter-patter.
Pitter-patter.
The pitter-pattering continued its relentless drizzle outside as soon as Aurelia entered the 9 ¾, pushing the cart of her luggages in front of her. The familiar environment greeted her with so much warmth, like an embrace of a loved one you almost forgot that existed somewhere deep within your little heart, only that it appeared to remind you once again that—
I am here now.
No drizzle of the light rain can be heard at the moment, only the familiar chattering of her fellow Hogwarts students, some of them sporting colourful robes that are trendy nowadays according to Witch Weekly. A cluster of giggling students are hovering over this particular issue, one of them pointing on the glossy page of the magazine .The click of her Mary Janes blends with the monotonous background; the hoots of the owls, squeaks also from somewhere .The wheels of the carts produced a steady sound as it glided on the platform; parents barking orders and whispering in a hush-hush tone, a cluster of them on the other side as they waited for the Hogwarts’ Express arrival.
Toot-toot! Toot-toot!
The blaring horn announced the arrival of the train, just in time, its gears making a loud, mechanical sort of noise as it slid slowly in front of the platform. There it is, the Hogwarts Express, appearing to grace everyone with its glory—the harsh, red and black coat glinting under the light. Many squinted as the monotonous environment escalated into chaos.
“Careful, Stalker. You might get trampled on,” Aurelia whispered absent-mindedly, the focus of her perception on the other students as her fingers toyed with the rough edges of her cerulean scarf.
Does she feel excited?
Of course, she is. That is no lie; the essence of its honesty rattling in her very bones. Excitement can also be attached with dread, because going back means facing the shortcomings she attempted to temporarily forget as the realisation that resources to solve it all will be out of reach as she stayed in Croydon for the summer. Instead, Aurelia immersed herself with finishing the summer homeworks and tests the professors assigned to them, already done by the end of July. Once she acquired the necessary textbooks for the next school year, the young witch also immersed herself with doing her advanced readings. By the end of August, there is nothing left to do but to sulk and worry about her tomorrow. All she does these days is to worry—it is almost never-ending. No one could manage to pull her out of this state.
“I will tell the Prefect—what did you do?!”
After depositing all of her luggages in the last carriage of the train, the corridor was already clogged from the students huddled together in the second carriage. Not known for her tall stature, Aurelia tiptoed to see the commotion, her arms clutching Stalker snuggly as her eyes roamed the vicinity. With all these big heads, she cannot spot anything of high importance. Just like everyone else, the young badger pushed through the crowd, muttering curses incomprehensibly from the muddied shoes stepping on her Mary Janes.
“Stop pushing! Stop pushing!”
“Move! Move! Move!”
Students were already dispersed in the third carriage, and so she marched until she reached the fourth.
Last year, Aurelia settled in Compartment A of the fourth carriage, lugging her heavy suitcases and struggling to place them in the overhead rack. Now that she carries a trusty enchanted satchel, she would have no struggle to pack more books necessary to entertain herself all throughout the journey. This comparison made her feel delighted with herself as she hummed a tune; settling in the empty compartment with her enchanted satchel making clanking noises from within as she went.
Stalker is still snobbish; still nursing a grudge, obvious from the way it immediately jumped out of her arms. Aurelia paid it no mind, since she knew that the feline is mostly behaved than not, and she is also aware that the cat needed space from her. The young badger is averse with needles too, she would do a lot more than ignore her owner if they suddenly made some white-suited stranger force a shot on her skin.
Aurelia was busily rummaging in her enchanted satchel, searching for the Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath she packed earlier this morning. The girl did not notice the scratching noises emerging from the bottom of the compartment door, Stalker clawing at it relentlessly and successfully sliding it to the side millimetre by millimetre.
“Stalker!” Her shrill voice rang out as soon as Stalker bolted out of the compartment, becoming a blur of black fur as he went. A gasp escaped her—before she could process anything, Aurelia already dropped her book, leaving her belongings inside the empty compartment as she followed suit.
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ISSUE NO. 001________________________________________________ 8 SICKLES
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code by the amazing Adeline Spinks
3,637 wc
[ the golden girl; the harshness of such warm light ]
[ aurelia valentine, the golden girl ] † [ lucien de montfort, the deranged artist ]
Visit Lourine's SMITTEN shop for handmade pfps with DISCOUNT—FREE for AI pfp users.
[ aurelia valentine, the golden girl ] † [ lucien de montfort, the deranged artist ]
Visit Lourine's SMITTEN shop for handmade pfps with DISCOUNT—FREE for AI pfp users.