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@esmeraldamacnair
15
15. what is the weakness that would make you fold in an interrogation
Nothing. They're bluffing. If I had to, I would summon the spirits of their dead and frighten them into releasing me. If that seemed too dramatic a ploy I would allow myself to be arrested and assess the best way out from there. Prisons are incredibly rich with angry spirits, you know. Just looking for revenge, and a way out.
schoolsoutevans:
Lily didn’t know what echoed more, the shock that reverberated around the room, or her spluttered, “What?” It wasn’t the words that caused it, surprising though they were, it was the effect of them. Esmeralda took a small, sad flicker of nothing and blew it into a spark. Lily felt it burn through her. It wasn’t painful. It didn’t drag anger with it.
Ten minutes ago she had sat in this room crying alone, wondering, as others had on a nasty radio show tonight, what her value was. She had expected Esmeralda to try and persuade her leaving wasn’t the right answer. To give her a reason to keep her toe off that path a little while longer. It would have been the easier thing to give into and when she’d have put her head on the pillow later that night, she’d have been pleased to still have her show, to be able to ignore that more and more she was having to fight for her own existence. But deep down, she’d have known that in staying, in choosing to ignore it, they were right. She didn’t have any value. Just not for the reasons they thought.
No, the spark didn’t pull anger along with it. It pulled warmth. Because Lily knew three things at once: she wasn’t alone, she could put her toe on that path, and she did have value. The warmth was pride. It was hope. Revolution didn’t always start out in the street, surrounded by darkness, led by pitchforks. Sometimes it was two girls in a small, quiet room, choosing to walk away from something wrong. Perhaps Lily could have done it alone, but for the rest of her life she would always think back to this moment as the very one she truly learnt that two was better one.
~ Le Fin ~
schoolsoutevans:
When: 2nd March
Where: Wimbourne House
Who: Open
Availability: 0/2
Over a year ago, Lily had made a promise to herself never to set foot in Wimbourne House ever again. It was funny how life always had other ideas for you, she thought, as she curled up in the tightest corner and tried to make herself as small as possible. Once upon a time she had planned to be best friends with Petunia forever; first they’d go to the same school, then the same university, then they’d live together as they took their first steps into the working world. But when she was eleven, she had received a letter that had made it so she and Petunia could barely be in the same room together anymore. Life had had other ideas. Another time, Lily had thought she would stay on her show on the HWN till she graduated, and then maybe find a job at the WWN, playing in the big leagues instead of the small ones. But they had started to argue against her, and now she had no show and idea of what she might do after she finished at Hogwarts.
On Halloween 1980, Lily had swore she wouldn’t ever come back to Wimbourne House, that she would have to be dragged there before she would ever go in voluntarily. Then the fires had started. Life had had other ideas. It had been a long twenty fours hours of trying to stay unnoticed and in that time, Lily hadn’t eaten or drunk a morsel. Last time she had been here she’d been poisoned or drugged somehow, she was quite certain of that, and she didn’t trust anything edible in this house. She was beginning to feel quite unwell, dehydration attacking her body, but still she waved off another offer of food. “No, I’m not hungry thank you.” She wanted to get out of this place.
.
Esmeralda was sweating, but you’d never know it from the composure on her face as she made the rounds at Wimbourne House. The sorority had turned shelter as news of this dangerous, quite unnatural disaster gripped the Scottish Highlands. Those who couldn’t make it to the castle hunkered down where they could. Esmeralda had made sure Wimbourne House’s doors were open for that. For anyone.
When her offered invitation of “Biscuit?” from the basket that floated beside her, bobbing up and down waiting to be taken from was met with a decline, she sat down instead next Lily and tucked in to it herself. “I’ve found sweets can be quite comforting in moments of grave distress.” And what was a tornado capable of spewing bursts of flame if not a thing of grave distress?
lorcxn:
asheravery:
Asher barely acknowledged Lorcan’s question, too busy casting a wary glance Esmeralda’s way. He didn’t mean to be rude, there was simply too much defensiveness in his posture with the other person at the table. His hackles were raised. Every wall, or piece of armor he could wear, he was currently donning. Ready to fight off whatever advancement she might wage on him. What greeted him instead of a sword was an admittance that struck a blow almost as brutal.
How strange it was to suddenly be surrounded by so much truth, and know that there was no hiding from it. Even more, how terrifying to hear Esmeralda’s words and find a pang of recognition in them. Fuck. “Most of my experiences with love are rather sudden. I know when I see someone.” He wished he didn’t say it. That the Veritaserum wasn’t working so brilliantly. Maybe then Lorcan’s question could’ve gone unnoticed, and he could shrink back away from Esmeralda’s inevitable gaze.
“I suppose in some ways, I want inspiration, too. Or maybe I just want to stop fucking up, and do better than my father ever did.”
Of all the things someone would come here for, Lorcan was not expecting motherhood to come from her lips, especially one who was paired with him. Not only was Lorcan not ready to be a father— he would never want to pass his affliction on to another. Guaranteeing torment seemed like the most unfatherly thing he could do to a child. Lorcan believed he would be an awful father for many reasons and therefore did not want to be one.
If Esmeralda truly was looking here to find someone to sire her child— whatever animosity there was between her and Asher, he was still likely a better choice. Then he took her words and ran with them. Their similarities became glaringly obvious. For one reason or another, the network had taken the broken things and put them together as a form of tormented entertainment. Perhaps they would all learn from each other, perhaps it would end in murder, only time would tell.
“I’d make a terrible father.” Lorcan admitted, “Even if I wanted to be better than my own— it’s best if I just don’t.” Lorcan had resolved themselves to a loveless and lonely life long ago. “Daddy issues are something I’m intimately familiar with.” He grinned— even under the effects of the serum, his need to be obnoxiously too much in the face of serious matters was ever-present.
Vertitastea turned out to be dangerous in more ways than one. It not only allowed you to spill your own truths, it also didn’t stop you from asking the questions about other people’s truths you wished to know the answers to. And the more Lorcan and Asher spoke, the more questions Esmeralda collected. She kept piling them up, waiting to ask them, until one struck her with such force surprise might have even shown on her face.
It was a question she’d never thought to ask before, because she’d never imagined a future with her child-to-be where it was a necessity. She realized now what didn’t constitute as necessity to her may in fact be necessary to the development of a living, growing child.
“How important do you think a father is to a child?” She was asking not only for herself, but also to better understand them. They seemed to bear twin wounds. For the first time since meeting Asher, she wondered where he had come from. The same could be said for Lorcan, though as a relative stranger it was less weighty an admission.
schoolsoutevans:
“Because if I stay, I’m saying it’s alright.” It was as simple and complicated as that. Simple because there was one path to walk here and Lily already knew it. Complicated because it broke her heart to even think about putting a mere toe onto it. “I’d be turning a blind eye. And even if I used my show to argue against what they’re saying, it’d be half hearted to do it sitting in a room across from them all, using a studio that condones it by allowing it in the first place.” A stifled sob caught in Lily’s throat, choking her, because she was asking a question of this stranger she already knew the answer to. “I’d be condoning it too. Being a hypocrite.” Voices were louder from the outside, she thought, not the inside. Lily knew how these things worked; she’d never had the hopeful belief you could change something from the inside out. Money and power and the status quo talked too loudly for that. What others saw as hopeful, she saw as hopeless.
She looked up at Esmeralda, fingers still holding onto the food. “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.” It was a quote that she had thought was powerful when she had first heard it; now it felt even more so.
.
Esmeralda, on first instinct, was inclined to disagree. She very nearly opened her mouth to do just so, and then was quite pleased to change her mind. Pride had never plagued her; she could concede to a viewpoint different from her own. Even to stay just to speak out against them, they both knew where any revenue would go. “I see.” Esmeralda gave a particularly decisive nod and then lifted the violin case from the floor to her lap. “To whom do I report my resignation?”
schoolsoutevans:
Lily used one hand to wipe her hot, wet cheek as she gave a sniff, the other picked up some food. She didn’t eat it immediately; just held it in her hands, round, bright eyes staring at it. “Money isn’t more important than people. It hurts,” she admitted. She was talking about herself, of course, but she knew she wasn’t the only one who would be sitting somewhere tonight, unhappy. Her mind flashed to Doris. Was she sitting somewhere, lamenting over her own value, like Lily was? The thought ached, because if it wasn’t Doris, it was someone else, and someone else, and someone else.
“I think I should leave the network.” That ached too. It ached because she had worked so hard for her show. It ached because it felt like giving in, like shuffling away from a place she wasn’t wanted with her tail between her legs. It ached because for so long she had loved it here, a second home carved out in this booth.
.
“No,” she agreed. “It isn’t.” It wasn’t to her, and Esmeralda believed truly that many others felt the same. Unfortunately, many others did not mean everyone. And some was all it took to ruin all. “But now a handful of people thinking that it is has allowed something poisonous to grow.”
“Why?” Esmeralda didn’t elaborate. She didn’t try to dissuade Lily from leaving, and she didn’t try to encourage that she should either. Esmeralda didn’t feel that she could do either of those things, not until she had heard more.
lorcxn:
asheravery:
Asher, keeping his eyes trained on the table, and now the cup of tea he was bringing to his mouth, was already filled with more regret than he thought possible. The simplest solution would have been to leave. To put a stop to the nonsense before he said anything that could result in far more than simply secrets being passed along.
The hot tea hit the back of his throat. Too late. The decision had been made by his own idle hands, itching for something to do. “Why am I here?” His voice felt like an echo, barely belonging to himself.
He cleared his throat. The effects of the truth serum already forcing loose his tongue from the roof of his mouth. There would be no hiding today. “Love, I suppose. I wasn’t assuming all of this would be perfect, and it’d be instantaneous, but I wouldn’t have minded if that happened, either.” Above all else, Asher was a horrible romantic, destined to fall in and out of love until it became impossible to do so.
The pink in her cheeks was delightful. He bet it felt warm and the rush of blood wafted off of her in delicious waves overtaking the hints of death that permeated her skin. “I don’t believe in shame. There’s too much life to live to be embarrassed about anything.” Lorcan said simply with a shrug. He had much more life to live— more than most wizards would be granted lest he get himself killed.
Lorcan’s attention moved to Asher, his response intriguing. “And you’ve taken that off the table already have you?” Lorcan asked curiously at the way Asher had phrased the response. Interest peaked in any potential history between his two partners.
“I’m here for inspiration.” He admitted with raised brow as he looked back at Esmeralda. “It’s your turn, love.”
Neither boy’s response was what Esmeralda had expected. She allowed herself a moment to feel some disappointment in that; not in them, but in her own quickness to judge. Once she’d felt it, she let it go. Very nearly she might have even considered a smile.
Love and inspiration and destiny. None of their motives matched up, and yet in a way they were all still looking for the same thing. You could call it love, you could call it inspiration, you could call it anything. They all meant this: purpose. They were each here to fulfil their own life’s purpose. To love, to create, to mother.
“All my life I’ve known what it is that I want above all else. In many ways, maybe knowing that has absolved me of much anxiety, because there is nothing else in the world that matters so much to me. I want to be mother, one day.” It went without saying why she would need a partner—at least in the beginning—for that.
lorcxn:
asheravery:
To say Asher was nervous would’ve been the understatement of the century. His life was one filled with many secrets, facts he didn’t wish for anyone to know under any circumstance. There was too much to say, and never enough words to explain away every horrible thing he had ever done. Maybe if it was just Lorcan he wouldn’t have minded. A stranger in all regards. But Esmeralda?
He could feel the heat of her eyes, even if she wasn’t paying him any mind at all. She discomforted him. Undressed his mind and his soul with just a simple judging glance. “Let’s get this over with.” Asher had wanted love, not the money, and now he knew with certainty he wouldn’t get either.
Lorcan watched the nonexchange with interest. Money was of no object to him— he had entered into this competition with the intent of finding inspiration. Momentary love perhaps though nothing lasting. Nothing ever lasted. Addressing Esmeralda first he grinned, devilish and handsome. “Oh— I specifically requested a threesome.”
Sipping his veritastea as if it were any other Sunday— or whatever day it happened to be, his gaze moved to Asher. “Got somewhere else to be?” He asked as if this task weren’t as much of a risk for himself as it might be for his companions. “I, for one, am looking forward to taking my time with you both. Really getting in there and getting to know you.”
Pink painted her cheeks. Esmeralda Macnair could tell you many things, with or without the tea she sipped now, taking Lorcan’s cue. She could tell you how many bodies she’d prepared for a funeral that week, how to play one of the most difficult pieces of violin work ever composed, and about Hattie Hathaway’s corpse which she had reanimated and was now tied to forever. She hoped to avoid that last topic, but frankly not as much as she hoped to avoid the one she brought up instead.
It was the one thing she could not have said without the help of tea. “I’m actually blushing.” She held both hands out, palms to the boys. A wait, stop motion. “From embarrassment you’d say that aloud.” It did make her wonder about him though. What had brought each of them to this table? To sounded like boredom had been Lorcan’s motivator. And Asher’s... a lost dare? Sex? Esmeralda realized that in the few short moment’s she’d spent in this room with them, all she had done was assume things about both of her companions. It was very unlike the exercise they’d been given. What she should have been seeking from them was their truths.
Esmeralda could, on occasion when the mood struck, be a little high strung.
Whatever reason they were here, judgment wasn’t her motive. Into her seat, and her body, Esmeralda relaxed a little. “Maybe we should start by saying why were here.”
WHEN: 6 February 1981 WHERE: Some empty cafe, somewhere WHO: @asheravery & @lorcxn
Esmeralda’s disappointment was acute to walk into this competition and see Asher Avery, but it would not deter her from her purpose for signing up in the first place. One day she would have a daughter, and though Esmeralda could raise the dead she could not make a child on a her own.
She closed her eyes, counted to three, and then as she exhaled steadily through the nose sat down at a seat between the two men, one foe and one foreign. Esmeralda wasted no time in adding sugar, and lots of it, to her Truth Tea. Only then did she speak up. “I didn’t realize this would be a group assignment.”
schoolsoutevans:
Lily blinked down at the food, surprised by its sudden arrival on the table, but also comforted by it. She stared at it as though it were a lifeline of sorts. Maybe it was. “I don’t care about them” she bit out furiously. It was a lie, she did, and not just a little, but a lot. Her heart felt crushed by the weight of how much she did care. But Lily Evans had always been all bravado— when she was hurling spite at Petunia to prove she didn’t care what she thought about her (she did care) and now with her fury. “But I don’t understand how the network can have them and that,” - she spat the words, - “one hour, and then me the next. I don’t understand how they condone putting it out on their airwaves, as though it’s perfectly normal and okay to talk about anyone as if they have no value.”
Lily’s shame swelled up, a wave she was trapped in, going round and round within it as she desperately tried to get her head above water again, because as she had sat listening to Devil’s Advocate that night, she had felt as though she had no value. She had imagined turning her back on magic and going home for good.
.
Esmeralda gave a nod while she listened. Her long, dark hair falling over her shoulders as she did. Very plainly lain before her, Esmeralda saw just how high on the hill — metaphorically, but factually too — the Macnairs had always lived. It was no wonder, from such a great height, she had not seen the magnitude of the fractures within wizarding society (to say nothing of the mounting tensions outside of it now, too).
It was shocking to see it now, and also to know that even this was just the tip of the iceberg. Something much bigger waited below.
“Money, probably.” Esmeralda answered, though she knew Lily’s complaints where mostly rhetorical. “Money or influence, or blackmail. That’s how the network can do it.” Be that as it may, “It’s not much of a consolation.” And she knew it.
schoolsoutevans:
The question startled Lily. It was distinctly un-British. The usual custom was to pretend the person you barely knew wasn’t very obviously upset, wasn’t it? Her surprise was so great that instead of saying she was fine or that nothing was wrong, she said, with a great heaving sniff, “The show.” She could have been talking about her own and maybe she was.
.
Admittedly, Esmeralda hadn’t tuned in. But she was a Pureblood, President of a centuries old elitist organization, and sister to Walden Macnair. She could guess by the descriptor alone approximately what had aired.
She could guess also, by Lily’s reaction and her name, why it suffered her so.
“Cowards will say anything when their identity is protected. Even they don’t believe the half of what they preach.”
Esmeralda reached into her school bag. “Have you eaten?” From its depths she pulled her dosirak and slid it across the table, leaving it in the middle if Lily wanted it, or didn’t.
schoolsoutevans:
Lily started at the voice, looking up sharply. For a second she panicked it was one of them and it was a relief to see it wasn’t. She sniffed and wiped at her cheeks, turned away to create the illusion of privacy. Of course it was obvious what she had been doing. “No, it’s okay, you can come in,” she said, voice thick.
.
She did, and closed the door behind her in doing so. Esmeralda took the long way around the desk, and sat opposite her peer feeling not like a peer at all, but like a mother. “What’s this about?” It wasn’t why Esmeralda had come into the studio, but it was what she was doing now.
schoolsoutevans:
When: 27th January
Where: HWN
Who: @esmeraldamacnair
Hot tears flooded down Lily’s face. She might begrudge them less, if they were born of hurt and anger, both of which she felt. But they fell down her face out of shame, burning hot— shame she would be so embarrassed and even more ashamed to admit she felt. It was difficult not to though, after an hour listening to people talk about your impact on the wizarding world; if you were stealing more than just magic by existing in it. It was difficult not to when you shared a space with those people, sitting in a room you did your radio show in, just opposite where you sat. Lily could picture them now filing in, the ones who chose not to stay hidden, staring through the door at her in a way that felt pointed. She had wanted the world to swallow her up then and she felt ashamed of that too.
.
“Is this a bad time?” Esmeralda was too kind to bring the tears up directly, in case Lily wanted to pretend they weren’t plainly falling down her face. But she hovered in the doorway of the station’s soundproof studio and kept one foot in and one out. “I can come back after my show.” For which she was early.
mformadness62:
“No, it’s cold and it’s drying out my skin and the clouds make it hard to see. Would you be a dear and hold this still for a second?” Madilyn said without looking at the voice and pointed with her chin to the other end of the massive telescope she was struggling with setting up. Glancing back, she noticed the state of the girl. “Eugh, nevermind. You look awful. Do you want a coffee? I’ve got two. Planning an all-nighter.” Madilyn went back to fumbling with the heavy beast of a telescope. “Take one, seriously. People already think I’m a murderer, I don’t need a limp body beside me if you faint.”
.
“I do, thank you.” Esmeralda was slow to make her way across the tower and towards the telescopes. Every step felt like a battle against the wind. Finally she reached out, wrapping her gloved, chilly fingers around the warmth of the dark drink Madilyn had offered and almost smiled. “The nights can last forever at this time of year.” It was as much an observation as it was a warning. Maybe a question, too. What dedication was it that had Madilyn planning to brave the elements well into winter’s territory?
mformadness62:
Madilyn’s iFlown buzzed and she quickly turned it on and stared at the message. “How many times do I have to say that I don’t want to be disturbed when I’m up here?” she typed, then slowly backspaced and replaced her response with “Busy. Trying to convince Professor that I’m right and she’s wrong.” before sending. It wasn’t their fault she forgot to silence her iFlown. She silenced it and put it back in her black Chanel handbag. Then, she pushed open the large doors to the highest floor of the Astronomy Tower and went back to studying the skies. For her Experimental Astronomy class, Madilyn was trying to convince her Professor that her paper’s thesis was plausible and that it was, in fact, possible to use apparitionists to travel to other planets and Animagus to adapt to their conditions and inhabit them.
.
Esmeralda had made the journey from Wimbourne House in Hogsmeade to the Astronomy Tower only for a moment away to clear her head. Her thoughts had once been a pleasant buzz, like a smooth currant of electricity. Now they seemed to consume her.
She tired easily these days, so it was slowly that she pushed open the doors; it was a surprise to her that she could at all.
“I didn’t expect anyone else to be here.” The January wind howled, as if to assist Esmeralda and pardon her of the burden it would be to explain why she hadn’t expected company. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? All covered in snow.”
jamespooper:
Of course, it was no surprise that for James, half the fun lay in finding a suit more ridiculous, yet stylish, than the last. “A shame. I have fond memories of that horse palace place.” He raised a brow though, at the mention of St. Armand. Thus far he had been more than fine with Esmeralda taking her preferred lead on planning of the events, but this change didn’t sit well with him. “St. Armand? You really think that’s a good idea?”
.
“Is there a reason it wouldn’t be?” Esmeralda looked up from her papers; notes on the event, receipts that would need to go to the Treasurer. She hoped not, as she’d already paid the venue.