steady, steady, steady

mere yaxley, xv, slytherin, fifth year // oh god i'm only human and i'm helpless

[mymindisfuckinginsane]

[virusmeadow]

Smoke Stories || Veronika Gilkova

[vethox]

[daeum]

Flat check hur skirt_JEYK (NAVY)

40,000원

[chxrlottes]

It was one of the last warm Saturdays of the season and while Charlotte’s friends were all outside, appreciating the weather, the seventh year sat alone in the library, hunched over a stack of second year Transfiguration quizzes that needed to graded by Monday. She had been assisting Professor Bainbridge in classes at the beginning of her fourth year and last year, Charlotte began teaching a portion of the first and second year Transfiguration classes under the professor’s supervision. It wasn’t that she minded grading papers, Charlotte actually loved teaching and planned on returning to Hogwarts once her inevitable professional Quidditch career ended. But on a day as beautiful as it was, she would much rather have been lounging about by the lake or racing one of her friends on the Quidditch pitch. Charlotte looked out the window she sat next to and took a deep breath of fresh air before turning back to the quiz she had been grading. “Merlin,” she spoke to herself, “there is no way that my spelling was this terrible when I was a second year.”

[mereyaxley-blog]

Most days, Mere avoided the library like the plague. It tended to remind her of her total lack of talent academically, and she wasn’t the sort of person who liked to face a challenge head-on. She’d much rather avoid the problem until it became inevitable, and then hope somebody took pity on her and gave her a hand.

Today, however, she’d received a letter from her father. Iain Sr.’s letters always followed the same format: rare, terse, and interested only in her recent studies. Frantic with the need to try to please, Mere had rocketed straight off to the library to try to write something clever. Surely there was a book here that could help her?

Rounding a corner, she nearly crashed into somebody sat down. She contorted herself to avoid the chair and the student on it, just about saving herself before she fell into the other girl’s lap. 

“Oh, goodness, I’m so sorry,” she said hastily. As she was speaking, her brain caught up to the fact that this girl must be the one who had uttered the sentence she’d heard a moment ago. Daringly, much more bold than she usually found herself able to be, she added, “My spelling probably was, though. It’s really terrible.”

[whitepawn-blog1]

laurinka and mere; were we angels after all?

        Despite the annoyance this large school caused, what with its turning staircases, winding hallways, and hidden classrooms, Laurinka quite enjoyed the new scenery. For the past two years she had been dying to get away from anything she knew as ‘home,’ and this trip had been just the perfect opportunity. Though she was uncomfortably hot in her furs, and stood out too harshly in her blood red uniform, it was a fine trade for the freedom. 

        It was on her mind today, however, just how much she had run away from. She never returned her mother’s owl post, and it had begun to pile up beside her bed at Durmstrang. She wondered if the owl was still coming weekly to a now vacant dormitory, dropping the tear, and wine stained envelopes in their rightful pile, never to be open. She feared how many there would be by the time she arrived back. 

       But there was more than just her mother, Loretta. There was Mere. Laurinka often told herself she didn’t need her, that she could fall away among the rest of her buried past. Make her own friends, make her own way. She had always looked to Laurinka for guidance, for companionship. After all, being the daughters of lost war had its own troubles no outsider could possibly understand, and though in her youth she often pushed Mere away, she couldn’t help but wonder what became of that young girl. Surely, she must be about fifteen now. 

      Her heart seemed to skip a beat as she heard the voice of her memories ring aloud the corridor. It couldn’t be real, Laurinka thought, before she was quite literally crashed into a realization. She was here. Laurinka felt daft for not thinking about it sooner. Of course she was here. 

     “Mere…” she spoke her name slowly as she weakly returned the hug. She was much to blindsided. Releasing the hug, Laurie gazed at the grown girl before her. Mousy and delicate as she remembered, though it was clear Mere had grown into some of her features.

     “I can’t believe it, I haven’t seen you in what feels like ages,” one of her hands still rested on Mere’s shoulder as she spoke. “I’ve…I’ve been away. After my father passed I had to take care of some things – But, you’ve grown so much in two years, I hardly recognized you, M!” she said cheerfully, wanting to put the least amount of attention on her own absence as she could. 

[mereyaxley-blog]

Mere could barely breathe from the excitement. It was washing through her veins like a tidal wave—she’d depended so much on Laurinka’s friendship when she was younger, and to have her right here opened up that clingy part of her again. 

She released her from the hug reluctantly, one hand darting up to hold Laurinka’s in place on her shoulder. She’d forgotten how just being in front of her made her feel braver. It was like Laurinka could make her stronger just by being so herself.

“I know,” she said sadly, “I missed you.” 

And she had. Mere had few enough friends that she poured her heart and soul into the ones she did have, and it had upset her so much when Laurie disappeared without a trace. She’d spent weeks convinced it was something she’d done wrong—something that had made Laurinka hate her. Time had begun to disabuse her of that notion, but it still bubbled up every now and again.

“You’ve grown too,” she said, shooting her friend a brilliant smile—always so ready to forgive and move on, to let people direct the conversation wherever they wanted, “Did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire? I thought I’d see you, maybe, but I didn’t.”

[early-am-deactivated20151020]

[suckybl0g]

[alehandramilk]

[peaceshaker]

I just want to pour my soul out on someone and not have to worry about the mess I’ve made.

(via neutral)

[fmako]

[cattleyalabiata-blog]

jace and mere; some dark alleys in my own head:

    Jace frowned slightly. She hadn’t meant to startle the girl. She looked as if the wind might blow her away, and to Jace, who was skinny already, that was a feat. Not the type to force her company where it wasn’t wanted, she wondered if maybe she should leave. Yet something compelled her to stay. Something trapped behind the other girl’s eyes in the brief moment she’d seen them that assured her there was more than fear in her. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on Jace’s part – she couldn’t be sure.

             “Keeping a steady hand like that is a talent in it’s own right,” Jace offered. It was a trait she herself possessed, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t admire it in others. She, too, enjoyed things in their proper places, symmetrical and neat. She suppressed a sigh, however, when the other girl smashed her breakfast artwork into pieces. It was clear she was self-conscious, though Jace didn’t see any reason to be. 

      The question caused her to smile slightly. “No, I think I’ve got that down by now,” she replied, “but thank you.” It seemed like a little bit of reaching out from someone who didn’t look very inclined to do so. “I’m merely familiarizing myself with how this school works. Often times it’s better to talk to those who seem quiet, because they might be seeing the most.”

[mereyaxley-blog]

Mere continued to poke at her porridge. Giving her hands something to do made her feel less fluttery and nervous—around her family she’d always keep them twisting in her clothes so they didn’t fly about and embarrass her. 

The girl’s accent was pretty. It reminded Mere of Laurinka’s, with the rough edges to words and the novel way her mouth moved around them. What Mere couldn’t wrap her head around was how nice she sounded. Her default position was to expect other people to be abrupt. It was a belief that had been reinforced often over her life—especially when they were girls as pretty as the one in front of her.

So she just shrugged a tiny shrug and replied, “Thank you,” in a small voice. Honestly she didn’t consider it much of a talent. She’d rather have the ability to dance or do spells as easily as some people seemed to do them.

She glanced up at the other girl as she spoke again, her brows drawing down slightly in disbelief. The expression was barely a flicker, gone before you could be sure it had been there, but the doubt remained lodged in her stomach. It had taken Mere upwards of two years to learn this castle, and it still surprised her sometimes. And this girl thought she had it down in a couple of weeks? Mere wasn’t sure about that. All the same, she was hardly about to say anything about it, so she pushed the feeling away and focused on the latter part of what the other student had said.

“Oh, well, I suppose,” she said uncertainly, staring down at her porridge again, too shy to take a bite in front of a stranger, “I don’t know, though. You’d probably be better off talking to somebody else. I don’t—I just spend time with my friends, really. I don’t see much. All I really do is choir.”

[classybrocom]

[mereyaxley-blog]

i just wanted to apologise for being so absent - work experience absolutely exhausted me, i haven’t had the energy to do much of anything the past couple of days!

i have the whole of tomorrow free so i’m going to work on replies and a starter then; so sorry for the delay!

also i finally got hold of mad max so i may finally be able to make some gifs to use hallelujah

[arerue4pic]

[mereyaxley-blog]

laurinka and mere; were we angels after all?

Mere had been slip-sliding around the foreign students for what felt like an age. They had bled into the school like milk into tea, swirling in paler and paler spirals until they had become an indistinguishable part of the seething mass of students that rocketed from classrooms to common rooms and back again. They all set Mere’s heart beating rabbit-fast—how glamorous and strange they seemed, with their beautiful languages and unusual uniforms. 

Her friends seemed to be getting along with them wonderfully, and in lessons those strange words faded into songlike English, muted with foreign accents, revealing personalities as eclectic and charming as the more familiar students she’d been living with since she was eleven. But Mere couldn’t get past her own shyness to properly converse with any of them, and in the corridors she walked fast with her face turned down to avoid accidentally meeting anybody’s eye.

It was for this reason that she’d gone so long without catching sight of Laurinka. A sheet of shiny brown hair had caught her eye from time to time, a prickling ache to it that she’d not been able to identify before the owner of the hair disappeared from her eyeline. Today, though, that was due to change.

She was meandering down the empty corridor near the Charms classroom, blessed with a free period, half of her thinking that she ought to head to the library and the other half drifting wistfully back towards the warmth and comfort of the Slytherin common room. She came to a deer-sudden stop a third of the way down it, still and surprised as if she’d caught baying hounds on the wind. Then she let out a shriek of joy and took off at a sprint towards the girl who’d appeared coming in the other direction.

“Laurie!” she yelped in pure delight as she crashed into her old friend, winding her arms around the other girl’s neck and pulling tight. “I have missed you! Where have you been?!”

[cattleyalabiata-blog]

jace and mere; some dark alleys in my own head:

  While Jace had taken to sitting with any of the four tables on any particular day, she found herself drawn back again and again to Slytherin. The traits and atmosphere at the house seemed to mirror her own more than any of the others, though Ravenclaw held incitement for her as well. Her quiet ambition and desire to look out for those who belonged to her at absolutely any cost made her wonder if this was where she would be placed, if she put the sorting hat on her head.

      Some of the students embodied some of the things she hated most about Durmstrang, the blood purity and cruelty around every corner, but many were nothing like the stereotypes she’d heard from other houses about them. That morning she decided to seek out some of the shier groups in the house, trying to learn more about how people were sorted and how people within each house differed from one another. 

       As she studied the table with avid interest, one girl in particular stood out to her. She sat small and meek, with her shoulders hunched in and staring avidly at her porridge. It wasn’t an image she associated with her own views on Slytherin at present. Moving forward, she set her robes down on the bench beside her and sat, studying the perfect spirals of honey. “That’s incredibly symmetrical,” she commented, because it was true and she wasn’t in the business of keeping it to herself when she noted something interesting. 

[mereyaxley-blog]

Mere jumped as some robes flopped onto the bench opposite her, her spoon slipping from her hand and landing with a clatter in her bowl. Her eyes flew up to the girl sitting down—a stranger, tall and dark-haired, with such arresting blue eyes that Mere felt a wave of jealousy arrow up her spine. She’d always wished for blue eyes like her siblings—so pretty, so oceanic—and this girl’s were the bluest she’d ever seen.

Warily, unable to guess what the girl might want from her, Mere glanced down at her breakfast when the girl spoke.

“Um,” she offered eloquently, her shoulders drawing in a little more, unconsciously trying to make herself smaller, “Thank you? It’s—I like it to be neat.” Self-conscious of it now the other girl had announced that she’d noticed it, Mere picked up her spoon again and started mashing the porridge around, stirring the honey in and making the shape she’d created vanish. She stirred in silence for a moment or two longer, still utterly unable to guess what the girl wanted.

“Are you...do you need directions to a class?” she asked eventually, figuring that maybe she was lost and worried about being late. Her accent and clothes had immediately marked her out as one of the foreign students, and Mere knew that Hogwarts was confusing, even to those of them that had been at school here for years.