#accepting ideas

[sunshinegaybe]

writing hucklerobby with a blood kink like it's my duty on earth

[mothinthegutter]

what if windows were horror trope.

its 2:57am and the moon has been hovering outside my window for the last hour and i do not think. it is supposed to be there. i think there is supposed to be a building blocking it. i am so sure that i will look at this in the morning and there will be a building there.

what if windows were corrupted or used as vessels for the madness and trickery and horror.

you hear rain, a soothing lullaby, but it's only tapping on your window. you see the moon, or stars, or the sun, or a distant light from a streetlight or other house, something where it most definitely should not be. you look outside and see a thick forest swamped in fog, but you live in the city. your curtains grow fucking teeth or eyes or sentience and close on their own to plunge the room into darkness. it's bright daylight outside but your clock says it's the middle of the night or vice versa. the little lever things unlock on their own.

update on the moon; it has shrunk to a single glob of white in the pitch blackness. it is either sinking below the house and being covered, or the eye is blinking.

[tex-now]

If I was an object what would I be hmmmmm

[disvain]

give me ideas/suggestions to draw my personal sona (seal-otter) doing

could also be outfit ideas if you have any

[monstrsball]

man i feel like i should just create a tag for the hq kids my mutuals and i have been talking about...

[thisawkwardmachine]

I might have a little bit of time at home to shoot some pictures tomorrow, but I have no idea what I want to shoot 🤔🤔🤔

[kiwiparallels]

Townhouse, part I

Harry closed the door behind him, feeling the light rain that had started falling when he got to London. The townhouse stood there, the windows still silent, lights out, as it was still empty. He knew, though, boxes were now scattered through the floor, half open, some clothes spilling out, his few possessions thrown around as he started to unpack. He should have brought everything in his trunk, as he had said, but Hermione thought he had to have boxes, so he got boxes.

He sighed. The street was calm, only a few people wandered by, and he started to walk towards the closest take out. It was thai, and he felt a little warm inside thinking how mundane his life could be right now. It was a random thursday night and he would have thai. In his house. In muggle London. The vague memory of the months before the wedding came running back to him. After the war, his face was everywhere, everyday. His very green eyes mixed up with the fine print in the newspaper and made even less sense than the words. The trials were a collage of blurry scenes, noisy voices and solemn silence. Sometimes, he was the one speaking, but he could only hear his speeches as they were someone else’s. Diagon Alley was too loud, too full. The whispers still haunted him when he was in silence. “That’s Harry Potter!”, “Harry, a picture, please!”, “A word on Greyback’s sentence?”.

Grimmauld Place was, again, a solitude fortress. He knew people were starting to go back to their lives. Hermione and Ginny went back to Hogwarts after the reconstruction, to take their final year and get their N.E.W.Ts. Ron was looking after the shop with George, as he was in no condition to do it by himself. And Harry was just there. He read his owls as they came, answered sometimes - but Shacklebolt’s kept piling up, sometimes unopened, full of polite requests to meet the Head Auror for a job position, and even politer offers of help. Help, how would he ever need help? There was nothing else to do - or to say - anymore. It was over, done. His wand felt foreigner in his hand, his magic was unstable. Everyone knew his name, his face, his hair and his eyes, and everyone seemed to think he was wise and sure of what was right and what was not. And if you asked him, few months before, he was so sure. He knew what was right: coming back, defeating Voldemort, keeping people safe. But then? Nothing he did could change this world anymore.

So he didn’t do anything.

Ron was in and out of Grimmauld place at first. Molly and some of the boys would visit eventually. Hermione and Ginny came by during the winter break, and the first Weasley Christmas Dinner was easy to avoid. Fred wasn’t there. No one could really celebrate, not yet. When that summer arrived, though, and the girls came back from school, Ginny had been selected by the Holyhead Harpies, and went directly into training. But even as worked up with the Ministry’s business as Hermione got when she was asked to sit in the Magical Beings Law and Diplomacy Office, she was always the one to start noticing things. He put on quite a show on the first few months, changing outfits, keeping the cupboards full, even renovating some of the dark rooms in the old Black Manor. But soon she sat with him, with that know-it-all look on her face, to ask if he had actually been out of the house. He looked at his cup of tea, and hadn’t bothered to answer.

That was when the interventions started. The Weasleys sent him invitation after invitation, to dinners, teas, breakfasts, brunches, any and everything. Neville kept sending him a few plants to look after, sometimes with beautiful pictures of him travelling the world to study tropical magical flora. Ginny tried to come over more, talk to him, ask him - begging, even - to watch her matches, but he wouldn’t make it through the door. And he saw it was driving her mad. Eventually, between angry shouts, desperate sobs, warm hugs and kind words, they broke up. It was okay, honestly, he couldn’t see anything for him in the world anymore. But she had the right to live her life.

Ron and Hermione were his constant company. He knew those two would never back out on him. One day, they came to announce their wedding. He could see they were both so happy for it, but so sad they knew their best friend would not make it there. In one or two glances, he noticed part of them blamed him too. It didn’t really affect him - it was his fault from the very beginning. What was there to do? That was until the first time Luna came by. She never tried to take him out of the house, she just stayed for some time, drank some tea, and talked about the last discovery she had published at The Quibbler. Once, though, he asked her if one of those could explain why he couldn’t get out of the house. “Oh, Harry, there’s nothing magical keeping you inside”, she laughed soundly, “your problem is you can’t get out of your head”.

Not long after that, Hermione managed to convince him to start therapy. Mr. Argus, a mediwizard in his forties, started to come for an hour everyday. After a few months, Harry was given some challenges. Going out to Ron and Hermione’s new flat, for example. That came to be his second home. His improvement seemed to add up to his best friends overall happiness, he gave ideas about the reception, and they had great dinners every thursday. Seeing other people was a setback. But those dinners started to get crowded, full of loving faces of people he could only feel affection and gratitude for. Even Gin got used to this new state of things. They were then headed to a friendship they never really had before, in which she wasn’t anyone’s sister, and they didn’t have to keep up with each other’s romantic expectations.  

His public appearances, though, were a whole new story. People didn’t really stop him or touch him at all. They stared, with startled eyes, to the Saviour of the wizarding world. Some were curious, most were afraid. Every single stroll to a wizard street ended up in the next day’s morning newspaper. As he would save them again from a dark wizard while he got a coffee from the cafe in Diagon Alley. He was getting used to it, slowly. He decided to wander around Muggle London, as people did look at him too - he knew since a young age his dark complexion, tall figure, topped with messy hair and bright green eyes were an attention getter in any place of England, no matter how little magic was around - but they did so with the acknowledgement that he was no more than a funny looking stranger. He savoured this word in every look - it felt so good to be ordinary again.

When he noticed, he had accomplished his last challenge: attend the wedding. It was a night full of kindness, he could see how the love poured out of the bushy-haired girl and the freckled tall boy he had met ten years before. Their magic danced around the place, binding them up in a union that was far from bureaucratic. It wrapped every single guest, every family member, in sparkling energy that started to soothe some of Harry’s wounds. Some he didn’t know he had to start with. Some things, then, started to fall into place. The new couple’s house couldn’t be his refuge whenever he felt like Grimmauld Place was pulling him in again. But going back to where he was after the war was not a possibility. He started to make visits. He was going from house to house, showing them how they ended up helping him in the end. He started visiting the graves of the friends he had said goodbye to, but hadn’t really let go.

Andromeda’s place was one of the last houses to visit, and definitely the hardest. Teddy was already three years old, and while he knew Andromeda would never let anything come in the way of the little boy’s happiness, he was also aware that the blue-haired kid was his responsibility too. He made himself swear to her - but mostly to himself - that he would be present, see his godson grow up, and make sure his parents memory grew up with him. He went back to Hogwarts, once. Let the emotion come up to him as he watched the quidditch practice from the stands. In this place lived a ingenuous kind of happiness that didn’t belong to him anymore. And never would. But Harry made peace with it. And when he came back to Grimmauld’s Place, he decided it was time to sell.

The muggle townhouse should help him forget all about houses flooded with magic that pull you in when you are at your darkest moment. But it wasn’t as much as the house as it was the rain or the promised thai food. He was feeling peaceful in being by himself for the first time in so long. His steps echoed in the sidewalk, and even though he could feel the weight of his wand in the loop sewed to his hoodie’s right arm, no one else in the street could tell. It was his secret to keep. It was his secret to share.

When he went by the door of a fresh-looking pub, he felt like coming in. Everyone there seemed to be around his age, even the blue eyed girl who gave him a half-smile when he approached the bar.

“Hey, what are you having?” she poured two pints and slided them towards a couple in the right side of the bar.

“Do you have anything to eat?” and soon after she offered him the options in their pizzeria, he saw his slice come accompanied with a pint of their local brew. He ate in silence, taking in the sound of the laughing in the background, the bets over darts in one corner and the soft music that made the place feel warmer.

“You’re new around here, aren’t you?” she asked, as she motioned to refill his pint, to which he nodded. “I figured, most of our clients are locals, but you are a fresh face. I’m Ellie, by the way.”

“Harry” he said, taking a sip. “I just bought a house a few blocks down here, I was going to get some take out, but this place seemed nice. Is it yours?”

“You just bought a house? But you look so young! Well, it’s mine, Jack’s,” she pointed at a man with shaggy hair and a big smile in one of the tables, “and Chiara’s, who’s in the kitchen. She’s the cook, I’m a bartender, and Jack’s the kid with the money, like you, I guess. What do you do?”

“Hm, nothing to be honest.” he gave her a sad smile, thinking about how that would soon be a poor excuse if he kept interacting with muggle people as he intended. He lifted his hand to grab his cup absentmindedly, but ended up knocking it to the floor. He stopped the fall and levitated it back to his hand out of instinct, wandless magic that seemed to pour out of him as needed some times. Maybe it was the whole dying-and-coming-back-thing, but it was sure a problem in a muggle bar. Ellie was clearly startled, but he saw the relief in her face, as he placed the cup back in the counter, almost as full as it was before. “I tend to break things up, though.”

“That catch was impressive, actually. You must be a private school jock, am I right? Let me guess? Lacrosse?”

“Well, not really. I’m just a wizard, Ellie.” She laughed wholeheartedly, his truth-joke coming out with the exact intention he had. He smiled with her. “Is guessing what people do a hobby of yours?”

“It gets quite boring here sometimes. When someone knew comes in, I like to imagine their stories. It’s good to memorize the faces too.”

They chatted up a little more, between orders and customers, as the young woman seemed to not notice how Harry kept dodging her personal questions. It seemed more obvious to him now how it was so hard to witches and wizards to make friends with muggles. Absolutely no questions was answerable: what do you do? Oh, casual dark lords defeating. Where have you been to school? Your usual magic castle up in Scotland. Where’s your family? All dead in the First Wizarding War. Why did you move? Post-war panic syndrome. Nope, it didn’t sound like good conversation at all. It sounded more like an imminent owl coming from the Ministry to attest he had broken the Statute of Secrecy and should turn in his wand immediately. This was going to be more complicated than expected.

Harry payed up, and left the pub slowly. It was far from empty, and the young crowd already seemed to be not so sober as they were when he arrived. When he bumped into one of the guys and took more than necessary to regain his feet, he noticed he was probably more on the drunk-ish side too. As he looked to the door, he noticed how the muggle people seemed so carefree on the street. They smiled and played around as no war had ended only three years ago. Well, for them, it didn’t, he thought, with a little envy. The only exception was the guy leaning on the doorframe, his shoulders broad and stiff, brows furrowed, as he had had his own share of real stress. He was typing quickly in one of those muggle phones pressing each button a couple of times before getting to the next to one. His face was half hidden by the long white-blond hair, but his pointy features were softened by a stubble and  an easy smirk.

He standed like so many people Harry had met before - the ones who were thought how to stand, where to put his shoulders, with the royal posture the should go with their names. Like Sirius used to, though, there was a conscious effort to slack, maybe aided by the plain white tee and the beat-up jacket. He looked like the pictures he had seen of his parents and their friends when they were young, celebrating christmases and halloweens, with their cool looks even in the middle of the Order’s tasks. The high cheekbones and strong jaw really looked like one of the Blacks, if only Sirius could ever pull off blond hair. He smiled with the possibility. The guy got off his position and, pulling one of the strands of his hair out of his face, disappeared in the noisy streets.

Harry got the hint and started walking again, noticing how the faces he was used to in the wizarding world were not common among muggles. There was something, maybe it was their magic, even, that used to make every witch or wizard stand out. He knew his unusual features got him stares, but he also knew it was not only that. Muggles could notice, as the Dursley’s did, there was something about him. He felt little tingles of magic, as he used to when it seemed to work by itself, running up and down his warms, rolling around his chest, wrapping up every single hair. Somethings you just couldn’t deny. And that guy, why did he remind him so much of Sirius? He didn’t have his hair, or his eyes, or laughed with loud barks. He smirked instead. He clearly hadn’t been locked up for twelve years, either. Maybe, a voice said inside of his head, he was just a wizard. It could be, he didn’t seem to notice Harry, to react to him in any way, as wizards would, so he had no way to know. He remembered the easy smile and careless hair fumble. Or, maybe, the voice went on, he was just bloody fit. [to be continued: part II, part III, part IV]