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Some progress pics of My 12 dancing princesses castle in Tiny Glade! Ive been working on it for 15 hours now and Im not even half way done. Im currently locked out of it because steam isnt syncing but hopefully I'll keep working on it soon!
Five years ago, my dumpy pre-T ass went to Washington DC
I wore the Sharpie drawn Kahmunrah patches I'd done with pride. I cried when I visited the Smithsonian Castle and at TV and Media I raced over and plopped my simp ass down at the foot of Kahmunrah's throne, again, wearing my hand drawn sweatshirt.
Oh the cringe, but I remember being so happy.
x
late, Ravenclaw tower corridor, Hogwarts
“Hey, wait,” Hermione said. “We’re not done yet.”
“I am,” he said, not turning around.
“No you’re not!” said Hermione. “Professor McGonagall wanted both of us to do this.”
“I bloody know what McGonagall said,” shouted Malfoy turning around. “There’s no one out here. Everyone is in bed. This is a waste of my time and I have better things to do.”
“It’s just 30 more minutes. You seriously can’t hold out for a half hour?” Hermione threw her hands in the air and started to walk away from him. “What is so bleeding important that you can’t stand to be around me for 30 more minutes?”
“I didn’t say it was because of you,” he said more quietly from behind her. “I just..” he hesitated. “I just have something I need to work on.”
“At midnight? On a Tuesday?” she said turning back to him.
“It’s none of your damn business, Granger!” he shouted, now walking towards her. “Why are you like this? All pushy and bookish and so bloody noble? Why can’t you just keep that muggle nose out of my business? What I do with my time is for me to decide.” He was in her face now, slowly backing her towards a tapestry on the wall. “We aren’t friends. We don’t even have the decency to be cordial to each other. We’re enemies. We’ve always been that and we’ll always be that.” Hermione could see flecks of blue in his eyes. He stopped. She was almost against the tapestry now. “I can’t handle being around you.” He said forcefully, but softer. All the malice had gone from his eyes. He bowed his head and lifted his arm to brace himself against the wall when several things happened very quickly.
His arm did not hit tapestry or wall like he had expected. He had meant to lean heavily against it but instead found himself leaning right into a bewildered Hermione. His hand slid right through the fabric and stone as if it weren’t there at all and he felt Hermione tumble backwards with him. She screamed and locked her fingers around his sweater at his waist. Stumbling he caught the back of her head with one hand and braced himself for the fall with the other. They hit the ground with a lurch and he crushed her beneath him. He dropped his head next to hers, breathing heavily. She was still clutching his sweater, her breath coming in short pants. He did not immediately let her go.
“Dear god Malfoy,” she panted. “What the hell did you just do?” She was blinking and staring up at the ceiling above them.
“I didn’t do anything,” he spat, lifting his head and looking around squinting. Whatever they had fallen into, it was brighter and and a golden blue haze seemed to pulse from the source of the light. “What are you laughing for?” he asked, looking down into her face. Her nose was scrunched up and she had begun to shake with silent giggles. “This isn’t funny, Granger. You could have been seriously hurt!”
“There you go again,” she said through her laughs. “Worrying about my safety. And I thought we weren’t friends.” She fixed him with a serious expression, then burst into laughter again. Malfoy felt her hands twist up in his sweater some more. He pulled his hand out from under her hair swiftly and smirked in satisfaction at the crack that was her head hitting the floor. She stopped laughing. He pulled her hand off his sweater and stood up looking around.
“What is this place,” he said. Hermione pushed herself up into a sitting position.
“Ow, you prick,” she said, rubbing the back of her head.
She began looking around and her eyes got wider and wider the more she saw. They were in a narrow tower, three stories high. In the middle of the room was a small circular desk, surrounded at the opposite end by a half circle bench covered in fluffy blue and gold pillows. Rising on the walls all around them were shelves and shelves of small cylindrical objects, each with a colored jewel set into the round wooden end. At each floor level, there was a narrow balcony and a dusty old ladder that stretched up to the next level. The ceiling of the tower was a deep blue and upon it were hundreds of twinkling stars. A small glassy orb hung on a thin chain from the middle of the bundle of stars. Inside of the orb, glittering smoke rotated casting thin wintery light against the adorned ends of the objects.
“Scrolls,” Hermione breathed from the floor.
“What?” Malfoy asked staring down at her.
“Those are scrolls,” she said pointing and getting to her feet. She walked to the closest wall and ran her fingers down the colored jewels, finally landing on deep red one. She pulled it from the shelf with awe. “This is a library,” she said in a hushed voice, not looking at Malfoy.
Malfoy looked back up at the tower walls. Every now and then, between each bundle of scrolls, there was a solid gold plaque. He followed his eyes to the nearest one that he could read and saw a thin letter ‘D’ etched into it. It was a library. He looked back to Hermione. She had unfurled the scroll and was chewing on her lip as her eyes sped across the page. She looked back up at him.
“These are centuries old,” she said, her eyes alight with joy. “I didn’t know this was here. I mean, did you know this was here?” she asked him.
“No, I didn’t,” he said looking at her, torn between anger and amusement. He was reminded suddenly of her in the first floor cove and of the knight in the stained glass that she couldn’t take her eyes off of. Magic was first nature to him. He had grown up in it, experienced it all his life, and while all of this was impressive and ancient and beautiful, he just didn’t share the wonder that she so clearly felt. Something else altogether was erupting inside of him as he watched her walk slowly along the edge of the tower, and it was new to him.
Vine With Purple Pods, Enid Haupt Garden, Castle Building Behind, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 2014.
While I would guess it is a member of the rather large pea (Fabaceae, Leguminosae or Papilionaceae) family, I have no further idea of what the vine is. I could not find it this year to check - the Smithsonian is good about labelling plants in their gardens, but I failed to make a note when I took this photo.
battle, stranded, 2 years after school
Her breath was coming in quick shivery gasps. She could feel her heart in her ears, bursting behind her eyes. He didn’t remember her.
* * * * * *
“Yes you do Draco. You pulled me in then erased my memory like a coward,” she said shoving him.
“I am NOT a coward,” he shouted at her.
“You were then! I remember everything now, but they got to you. They took me out of your memories so they could continue to use you as a weapon.” Hermione grabbed his wrist. “You taught me this,” she said, flipping her palm open against his. Light flooded the ends of her fingertips and cast a glow on the room they were in. Somewhere in the distance Hermione heard another wall crumble.
He blinked at her.
“Wandless magic,” she said throwing his hands down. “Much weaker than yours, but the same thing you just used to move that debris back there, the same thing that makes you so valuable to him.” She closed her fingers into a fist and the light went out. “Do you realize what you are to them?” She waited for him to say something, to move. It was darker now, and all she could see was the outline of his face in the half light. She gripped his robes at his waist.
“I love you,” she said in a rush. “I know that you sleep on your stomach. I know you have nightmares. I know that you’d rather drink coffee over tea. I love you,” she said again. “And that’s the only time I’ve told you that, but it’s true. I love you and they took me from you and we planned for this dammit, so fucking dig deep Draco because WE are in there and I need you to remember that..” She griped the sides of his head in her hands. “You’re weren’t supposed to forget me, please just..”
She didn’t get to finish her sentence. He had closed the space between them in a breath and she was once again pressed up against the wall, but this time the strong set of arms had cradled her head in his palm. He held her there, breathing against her lips, pressing his forehead into hers. He consumed her, he had her full attention, and the noise and the smells, and the flashes of light disappeared and it was only him and the breaths he was taking.
“Hermione,” he mumbled against the corner of her lips. She heard the wands fall to the ground behind her.
“I’m in there, I promise,” she said running her hands through his short hair.
Tiny Glade is so fun, despite the few prop items there is available in the game as of now. Honestly it makes me miss streaming because I'd love to be able to share the quiet, cosy atmosphere paired with the creative freedom.
Tiny Glade FGS 2023 gameplay trailer
We could totally see a couple of the Geek Cave staffers chilling out and messing around with this relaxing castle-building game. Tiny Glade is due out on PC next year.
