“ that seat’s not taken, you’re more than welcome to sit there, if you’d like. ” being a regular at the leaky cauldron, she knows how busy the place can get during this time of the night. still, it was only a few minutes away from the daily prophet, and once the night cleaners kick her out of her office ( no doubt a case of christina working overtime again ) , she’d find herself at the leaky cauldron, working the night away. even with all the noise and laughter, she still found it a better place to work at than her own flat, where she had to
she forces on a tight smile; she’s only trying to be friendly, is all ( though she admits she wouldn’t take kindly if someone had just randomly asked her to sit at their table ). there’s a pile of work papers scattered around the table, which she quickly gathers and tucks into a folder. “ no, really, i don’t mind. ”
Sunset was Lavender’s favourite time of day. Hogsmede was still pretty full, but no one was rushing around. It was much calmer, almost cheerier. Perhaps it was the day at work she’d had, it was always nice when she had mostly nice predictions, but everything about this evening seemed to be going well.
“What about you, then?” Lavender asked to the person nearest her. “Busy night ahead, or just another quiet one in? I’ve got a date with a good book and a piping hot cup of tea that I’m rather looking forward to.”
there’s a frown on her face, which seemed to be a permanent fixture on her for the the past few days. christina wouldn’t voluntarily travel all the way to hogsmeade unless it was something important — or if it were related to her job. unfortunately, it had been the latter, sent off to catch some fresh, hot goss ( her editor’s words, definitely not hers ) because apparently some famous quidditch player was traipsing around the town with a special someone on their arm ( though why hogsmeade, out of all places, christina didn’t really know ).
somehow there was no news of any sightings of said quidditch player or the special someone, hence the frown. “ catch up on work, probably, ” she mutters, voice bitter under her breath, “ merlin, i can’t believe i wasted an entire afternoon here. ”
“careful, my dear―” her voice has a hint of a waver to it, and this coupled with the usual vacant look in the brown eyes magnified exponentially by coke bottle glasses gives an altogether eerie effect. this WAS sybill trelawney, though ; such a performance - even on the winding streets of diagon alley and far from the smoky classroom that doubled as her home - was to be expected. “i see a great fall in your future. a word to the wise : you would do best to skip over broken cobbles.”
her brows raise, and it’s more of surprise than anything else, really, but christina shouldn’t have expected any less from her former professor — ‘should i even call her professor nowadays?’. granted, trelawney wasn’t exactly one of christina’s favorites in her hogwarts years, but christina was raised better than to ignore the woman, even though she still found it strange to find her ( former ) professors in places that were not hogwarts. “ isn’t it a bit too early for the predictions, professor? ”
status: open
location: diagon alley, uk
date and time of day: 13th august, early afternoon
her cane goes flying from under her as a group of young students-to-be fly past her, hands flying out to grab onto the first available place of stability as she begins to buckle under the weight and pressure on her left leg. muttering a string of curses under her breath, melodi attempts to lower herself to the ground to grab her cane, but finds herself just out of reach.
“e-excuse me, i hate to be a bother, but could you possibly pass me my cane? i’m afraid i’ll have to crawl everywhere without it.”
see, christina used to be a fan of back-to-school shopping, bouncing from one store to the other to purchase items she’ll lose within the first month of the term. her excitement wore off some time between her fifth and sixth year, now seeing the practice as bothersome, especially with the amount of incoming first and second years running around.
she’s distracted, busy typing away a new article on her phone, when a flurry of kids fly past her, almost making her lose her balance ( and almost making her swear in front of a bunch of eleven to twelve-year-olds. ). she hears a soft thud behind her and she turns, quickly bending down to pick up melodi’s cane and handing it to her. “ you okay? ” she asks, voice soft, before looking over her shoulder. “ i hate going through diagon alley this time of year— kids, you know? ”
⧼ natasha liu bordizzo, cis female, she/her / class of 2013 by mitski + late nights in coffee shops, ink-stained hands, the clicking of a typewriter's keys, messy desks, midnight walks just to clear your head, trying so hard but never getting there, . ⧽ ━━ hey, isn’t that CHRISTINA YI? i read a daily prophet article on them, once ; the TWENTY-FIVE year old half-blood WITCH is a HUFFLEPUFF alumnus who has gone on to be a JOURNALIST FOR THE DAILY PROPHET. i’ve heard they can be quite ARDENT & ELOQUENT, but i don’t know… they came off very RESENTFUL & HEEDLESS in that interview. it really is hard to know what to believe these days though, isn’t it?
there is a clear distinction, a clear contrast, in christina’s life: there is before and there is after. before is her mother’s eyes, the greenest she’s ever seen. before is her father’s laugh ringing through the halls.
in the after there is silence.
BEFORE
she is born in the springtime, in the morning of a wispy april day. outside the early colors of pinks and oranges fill the sky ; when the rays peek through the blinds she is bathed in sunlight. anointed in sunlight. they name her christina.
her parents absolutely adored her, they had thought they would never have another child, not after their first one.
compared to her older sibling, who was sickly, christina was the golden child, spritely and bathed in sunlight, and the comparison was always made. the, why can’t you be more like christina?’s asked more and more as she grew older and achieved more.
her mother was a muggleborn who embraced wixen culture like it was her own, and even ran a small shop in diagon alley, tina’s tiny trinkets, selling novelty items and the like.
the family lived in commoratio alley for as long as christina could remember, their small brood of four sharing meals and stories in a three-bedroom flat on the second floor of a rickety old building with creaking wooden floorboards and doors that needed a hard push to open.
her early life was idyllic, to sum it all up. she played tag with all the kids in their street, sat on her father’s lap as he manned the counter of their little novelty shop just at the edge of diagon alley and knockturn alley.
fun fact : she was a near hatstall at her sorting ceremony, begging the sorting hat not to sort her into slytherin like it intended— her parents were both hufflepuffs, and she had insisted the hat put her there.
she stuck mostly to her extracurriculars during her time at hogwarts, joining multiple clubs and even being elected club president for some of them ( her most notable — and probably most embarrassing — club would probably be the rat race club but, hey, she was a first year when she joined ! )
all these were in the effort to plump up her resume— she wanted to be a journalist ( and a good one at that ), and recruiters always loved an all-around applicant, or at least that’s what she thought.
february 14th, 2014 was a bittersweet day for christina, though more so on the bitter aspect of it. after months of unemployment and rejection notices, christina finally lands a job. it’s an assistant job at the daily prophet, really, and the pay is absolute shit, but it’s a job and in a rather reputable (HA!) publication. it would also be the worst day of christina’s life.
DEATH TRIGGER WARNING START. it was a death eater attack, plain as day. tensions were already high when news of you-know-who coming back broke out, especially on her mother, who was a muggleborn that operated a shop so close to knockturn alley that it was a miracle they stayed open for that long. it was a death eater attack, christina knew, but the aurors in her case dismissed it, said it was a robbery gone wrong, and that her parents had been in the way.
( it wasn’t a robbery, she knew that, because if it were then they would have taken the money in the register, or any of their more expensive items, or anything. chris knew they were targeted, she just didn’t know it would end up like this. )
INTERLUDE
christina is inconsolable after the funerals of both her parents, and her older sibling handles everything she can’t : handles the paperwork, plans the ceremonies, even sells the shop they both grew up in because times are hard, chris, and neither of us know how to run a business. DEATH TRIGGER WARNING END.
AFTER
her mourning is cut short, because she’s got a job now and she has bills to pay all of a sudden. her superiors take pity on her ( thank merlin they did ) and assign her to work on a different story.
she’d like to say that she’s moved on, that she’s grown and working on other things now, but who is she kidding? she might not have been the most spritely before, but she’s barely functioning outside of work now.
really, it’s true. she lives in a flat with three other people who haven’t seen much of her at all since she moved in with them. her best friend thinks it’s a miracle if they see her once a month.
in truth, chris has thrown herself into her work, rising up the ranks from assistant to junior journalist to a being a proper journalist— though being a journalist is not really all that.
she’s written countless of articles for the daily prophet, though most are unpublished, because maybe news reporting isn’t for you, dear. have you considered the gossip column?
( it’s not the best job, and she knows her worth is much more than trailing wix celebrities and rumors about their daily lives especially in the political climate they have now, but a girl also has to pay rent. )
rita skeeter probably doesn’t know who christina yi, begrudging gossip columnist, is, but christina knows a lot about rita skeeter. christina knows that rita doesn’t deserve all that power and fame, knows that it should have gone to good journalists instead, should have gone to her. tl;dr: christina probably runs a rita skeeter hate blog. she literally can’t stand her ???
DEATH MENTION TW. on the side, however, she uses her resources to dig more into her parents’ deaths— what she’ll actually do with the information, she doesn’t know, but she just needs to know what actually happened to them.
she’s passionate about what she writes though, be it an investigative piece or a GOSSIP TOPIC™️, even going as far as writing a scathing gossip piece on a certain wix actor’s attitude in his latest stage play.
she just wants to be a successful journalist ! that’s why everything in her mind is all work, work, work, which doesn’t help her social life at all. she’s also really passionate about what she writes and is prone to write alexander hamilton-esque pieces if someone ever crosses her, though fortunately her editor never publishes them.
wanted connections.
OLDER SIBLING. preferable faceclaims are PHILLIPA SOO, CHLOE BENNET, JANEL PARRISH, REMY HII, JORDAN CONNOR, JING BORAN, or any faceclaim that is half-white and half-chinese. must be older than 26. christina and her older sibling have a strained relationship. where christina was the golden child, their older sibling was the black sheep, always compared to her and her achievements. she tries to connect with them, and while their parents never meant any harm by comparing the two, their relationship is still strained, even more so now that their parents are dead and christina's launched herself into her work. still, christina tries to arrange dinners for the two of them when she can (which is rare), and check up on them every once in a while.
BEST FRIEND. must be around 25-26, no preferred faceclaim. because someone has to look out for our girl! it’s a miracle someone’s put up with her for that long. it’s a must that they meet up for lunch at least once a month to catch up. they’ve been best friends since their hogwarts years, and have always been each other’s biggest fans, though with chris diving into her work and not coming up for air for weeks at a time, it’s getting harder and harder for them to connect.
EX/es. preferably around 25-29, no preferred faceclaims. said best friend probably convinced her to go out on a date and pursue an actual relationship every now and then, to which christina actually agrees to, but it always ends up in flames because apparently she’s always busy with work, which she already thought was a given going into their relationship. she probably has 1-2 exes post-graduation.
WORKMATES. pretty self-explanatory ! bonus if they also have a dislike for rita skeeter ( or at least put up with christina’s long tirades about how rita skeeter isn’t even a good writer!!!!! )
