#gryffindor!penny

[halfbreed-hawkins-blog]

resort challenge : the wolf in a lion’s pelt

Penny Hawkins was filled with anger, in another world maybe she learned to rein it in. Learned to bring her feelings and make it productive. Turn her violent tendencies into poetry. Curb her fists and create peace.

This is not that world, instead of peace reining free it is war. 

In this world Penny grew up angry, fighting back as much as she was hit, never once thinking of the consequences of her actions, of taking people to the curb and into back alleys for a fight, though she lost more than she won. In this world, her brother wasn’t sure how to handle his younger sibling, who was tormented by memories of the London Riots, who was haunted by blood running in the streets, dreamed of death, who never seemed to be able to wash the blood that stained her skin and who longed to avenge their father more than she wanted to preserve his memory. Gryffindor came loud and fast, for her actions were filled with righteous action, recklessness, and primal rage. She called rebellion to her, wanting nothing more than to fight for her people, vehemently vocally bitter about not being a werewolf. In another world, Penny was bullied viciously, in this one they tried (didn’t get far), and when others tried to bully those weaker, different, it was Penny who came howling. It was Penny who rose to the occasion to protect. Her mind was fine tuned and magic ran deep in her veins, excelling in Charms and Transfiguration, an artist who painted the Hogwarts walls with graffiti and had more detentions than the staff knew to do with it. She came into the power of words later than she did in the other world, and graffiti poetry became calling card. During her summers she ran more and more with rebellious werewolves, learning to fight, learning to hide, learning how to bring order and chaos equally. Learning to lie and what it meant to be a wolf (or at least one way). At seventeen Penny is nothing like the Penny of the other world. Instead of neat hand-me-downs and a prefect badge, neatly kept hair and bookbag, in order, hiding a tempest under her skin. This Penny wears her furs and leather like armor, this Penny rips her hand-me-downs until they hang from her body in shreds like her shredded world, she wears blood on her fists like ink on her fingers in another world and howls freely, she wears the horror of the world on her skin and is wounded more deeply than anyone can imagine. The Penny of this world became the tempest- vibrant, hellish, charismatic and filled with fire.

The Penny of this world longs for war, and peace is but a faded dream.

[halfbreed-hawkins-blog]

I used to be better | Gryffindor.

There was a time years ago when she picked flowers and wrote poems in her father’s lap. 

There was a time years ago when she swore she could hear the words on the wind and among the trees.

There was a time years ago when the Moon called her, and the Sun warmed her skin.

There was a time years ago when the house was alive, beating, pulsating with love and warmth.

There was a time long ago when she was soft.

There was a time long ago when she was weak.

So long ago, like a faint moonlight memory.

There are days she can’t rub her hands clean. There are days her fingers itch with dried blood beneath her fingers. When the itch in her stomach, the bile in her throat, the twitch of her eyes can only be aided by indulging the rapid rabid rage in her breast. 

There are days she can’t hardly speak, her lips part and all that bursts forth is pained howls. There are days where the hole in her heart seems to swallow her whole. There are days where she hears the voice, and she is forced to drag her fingers through her hair, trying to replicate calloused fingers braiding her hair. Trying to curl her arms around herself. Trying to feel, anything, at all. It calls to her, like the Moon did as a child, it calls and whispers and pleads with her to fight. To be brave. To be Father.

She’s so cold.

There are days when she is caged, where she is entrapped, where she cannot flee, where she cannot quiet the storm in her chest. There are days where the tempest of her memories drives her mad. She wonders if she could free herself, and wonders what she should do to be unhinged. Lawrence whispers no, Lawrence gives her rules, Lawrence holds her hand, Lawrence keeps her safe, Lawrence shields her. Lawrence can’t always be there. 

Lawrence leaves for a castle and she is left to the sheep.

There are days where she remembered that one day. That day her brother wasn’t there. That day, so very long ago. 

The day no-one was there and she was alone.

They trapped her, a plaything, a thing to take their spite out upon, to paint her with their own fear. On a mourning child, unable to defend, unable to fight, weak, small, childlike, peaceful. She was old enough to fight, old enough to make her own choice, old enough to run away, old enough to learn that violence was never the answer if she wanted to survive. 

Lawrence isn’t there to whisper otherwise.

That sharp wildness, that pounding in her veins. Reflex- it’s what she tells herself as blood runs red, when it goes drip, drip, drip. Sinking into the ground and suddenly she is brave, and there is strength.

The fear quiets and they run, she knelt there, blood running over her fingers, staining her hands, drying on her skin. The rage quiets under her skin for the first and she cries. 

Drip, drip, drip.

It’s hard to forget, blood and screams, carnage in the streets. Blood straining her skin red and flaking from sun-kissed hair. Fear knotting her stomach, tears tracking down a scarlett stained face, hiding in the shadow of a fountain, huddled in the dust and blood, piss drying on her jeans. Alone. So alone. Death, so near, so close, it howls. The sound roused her, it brought her peace, in it’s loving rage.

It’s harder to remember.

“Da is dead.”

The Sun no longer speaks. There are no longer words in the wind, there is no more poetry, no veiny calloused hands running through her hair, no more warmth, no more laughter. It’s quiet and dead like the dried flowers she picked and crackled like childish poems and ink crumpled on forgotten hallways dusted with cobwebs and the pitter patter of feet is empty from the house. It creaks with age and not laughter, the youngest occupant avoids the memories and prowls the forest, yearning to hear that which she remembered. To re-find the beauty that her father showed her so long ago.

This home is filled with ghosts and she can’t make it stop.

She can make_ them_ stop. The beat and cackle, she fights them back, unwilling to die, unwilling to be a forgotten lone splash of blood on the pavement. They hunt her down, and she hunts them back, a dangerous game the children play, a dangerous game with a willing wolf-pup. The seek easier prey, in squibs and the foolish. They are cruel and impassionate, and fearful. She can’t stand it any more than when they bleed her. 

She can make them bleed like she bleeds.

Make them hurt like she hurts.

There is solace, there is peace, in finding no peace. There is solance in fighting against those who’d harm another for pleasure, or fear, or ignorance. There is peace in the brutality.

The quill is forgotten on the floor, and a poem is lost. 

“He died fighting for what is right.” 

“I shall do the same.”

The girl was soft, the girl was weak, the girl was loved.

The girl was the rage, the girl bleeds, the girl hated.

She was supposed to be better.