flectere si nequeo superos, acheronta movebo - if i cannot move heaven, i will raise hell.
aster - daintiness; trusting
They name her Anise because she is covered in flowers when she is born. Gabriel says her tiny, premature body reminds him of the Jardins de Luxembourg, in Paris, and Elise doesn’t say anything, so he signs the birth certificate with Anise Desdemona - named after the muggle heroine who gave up her life for love, and the flowers that he’d pick in the garden, before he met Elise, before his life changed. Gabriel thought it was for the worse, but seeing the baby girl in his wife’s arms, watching her hand curl around his pinky finger, his mind changes.
When Elise learns of the girl’s name, she scowls. She scowls because the girl’s name was to be Louise or Anna, after her maternal grandparents, but when Gabriel looks at his daughter, he sees only an Anise - an Anise covered in purple flowers stemming from her heart. Sometimes he’ll put his fingers on the petals and rub them between his thumb and forefinger, watching as she coos and giggles.
white lilac - youthful innocence; memories
One of Annie’s favorite memories is of being a muggle. She’s known about magic all her life, and yet it’s muggle Paris, at midnight, which she remembers the most fondly. She’s seven, and she shouldn’t be up - Gabriel knows that, and so does his mother, who chastises him when they get home.
But it’s Paris at midnight, and Papa takes her up to the Pont des Arts to see the Eiffel Tower in all its glory. She thinks it’s beautiful, and Papa holds her little hand as they walk across the bridge. She begs to go on the manege, with the horses, but it’s closed now. Papa puts Annie on his shoulders and she watches, eyes wide, as the tower lights up.
He smiles, and like magic (which she knows is real, but she also knows he doesn’t have), he produces a lock out of his pocket. He says, will you lock it with me, ma fleur?, and she giggles, nods, and he puts her down. She takes one look at the lock, and it turns bright blue, her favorite color, instead of the silver it was.
Gabriel’s shocked. He knew his wife could do that, but for some selfish reason, he hoped that Annie wouldn’t. He’d hoped that Annie would be a… what was it called, a squib, so that she wouldn’t have to be like that family. She had his name, she should have been like him, because if she was, he could have taken her away. He could have kept her here, with her grandmere and her cousins who were actually her age.
But Annie squeals with glee and touches the lock, trying to change it to a different color, but she could only do it once. Gabriel promises her that Mother will teach her soon, when she’s a little older, and her eyes brim with tears. She wanted to do magic like Julia and Isla! He quickly distracts her with the key to the lock, and they lock it together. And soon enough, where his hands are on top of hers, white lilac grows.
When they come back, Clementine Montfort is still awake, and she speaks harshly to Gabriel in rapid French, and still, Annie understands. But Grandmere takes one look at the lilacs on Annie’s hands, and she knows. She puts Annie to bed and shows her the blue tulips on her heart, and plucks one for Annie to keep under her pillow.
arborvitae - everlasting friendship
Annie is eleven and Roscoe has gone back to his dorm, and she is a Ravenclaw. Annie knew she’d be a Ravenclaw. There was no doubt in her, or her mother’s, or her grandmother’s mind, even though the Hat told her she’d do well in Slytherin. Annie disagreed. She is eleven and she wants to be different from her parents, but she misses her Papa and the double life she got to live in Paris the year before.
She’s eleven and alone, and she’d say hello to her roommates, but they don’t seem to like her too much. She’d talked and talked at the feast, and even the prefects had been annoyed at her. Annie finds herself a place in the little library, in a nook on the side. There’s someone across from her, but she ignores him as she takes a long look at her Potions book, but what the heck is a dittany? Annie furrows her brow and stares at the page for way too long, until she spots the tall boy with really big glasses across from her. He looks smart, smarter than her, but he also looks engrossed in… Alas, I’ve Transfigured my Feet? What?
Annie bothers Werley until he relents to teaching her, then listens to Werley drone on out of the “kindness” of his heart. As she watches him, arborvitae leaves grow around her thin arms.
She doesn’t really understand why - once Grandmere had learned of her condition, she’d given Annie that weird French book on Victorian flower meanings, saying that it was genetic through Montfort girls -- but Annie wasn’t a Montfort.
Grandmother had told her that she was a Castellaine, and that she was only Montfort by name. “Nothing else,” Grandmother would say, as she inspected the blossoms on Annie’s hands. “You are nothing like your father or his kin. You are a Castellaine, like me, like your grandfather, like your mother before you. You are a witch - in everything but name.”
But from Grandmere’s book, her muggle book, Annie knows that arborvitae is a type of coniferous plant, and that it means everlasting friendship. If the flowers said so, it would have to be true. In that moment, Annie decides that Hadrian Werley (he’d tell her his first name later) would become her best friend. It didn’t matter if he had others.
linaria bipartita - please notice my feelings for you
Annie meets Brighid in her fourth year, and everything changes.
Brighid’s in her Arithmancy class, and Annie’s noticed her before, she has. She’s noticed dark brown hair falling down the girl’s back, she’s noticed thin wrists writing while Annie wasn’t, she’s heard her voice, but not much, she wasn’t outspoken - and she’s definitely noticed pursed pink lips when Annie was called on to answer a question that Brighid obviously knew the answer to.
But Annie’s not gay. She’s not. She likes Cahal a lot; he’s really nice, but she won’t let him kiss her. Kisses on the cheek are fine, but she doesn’t let him touch her more than that. She doesn’t know why he doesn’t protest. It might be because of the way he looks at Babineaux when he thinks Annie isn’t looking.
Brighid begins to tutor Annie in Arithmancy, and Annie notices more. She notices how passionate Brighid is about this godforsaken subject, and she doesn’t understand how. She notices how pretty her eyes are when that specific light from that specific window next to the table in the back hit them. And worst of all, she begins to think about how those pink lips would feel pressed against her own.
Linaria bipartita flowers grow up her ribcage. She tells Hadrian first.
marigold - pain and grief
October ninth was set up to be a normal day, but when Sairish Hadad comes frantically into the Ravenclaw common room, everyone can tell that something is wrong. She calls for Montfort, and just then, Annie comes downstairs in her school robes. It’s a normal day, and she fiddles with the pleats on her skirt. Professor Hadad meets Annie’s eyes, and gestures for her to come with her.
Annie is in trouble, she knows it. Her grades had dropped in DADA -- but Hadad looks scared and sad, not disappointed.
As Annie is lead to the tower, there is a cup of tea for her there. She’s sat down in front of Hadad’s desk, and spoken to very gently.
Those first moments don’t feel real. She stares at Hadad for a long, long moment, and then bursts into tears. Papa is dead, and she is here. She can’t go home - but it wasn’t as if she wanted to. Mother wouldn’t be sad, Grandmother might even be triumphant. It sickened her to think of it, but as she cried, Professor Hadad pulls her into a tight hug, but Annie can’t hear anything.
Grief is hard, Anise, she says. You’re a strong witch, she says, but Annie can’t feel a thing. She can’t feel a thing as she plucks each white lilac from her hands and fingers and watches as dark marigolds grow in their place.
blue tulip - respect; tranquility; trust
Annie meets Morgaine Selwyn the next month and then promptly tries to pull her wand on the woman. Hadrian stops Annie, but she’s furious. This woman must have killed her father, or knows who did, with all of the blood-supremacist bullshit she’s spewing.
But Superbia is kind and calm with her. She explains everything, she apologises, promises her that it everything will be worth it - as long as Annie is loyal.
The Vindication gives Annie place and a purpose. They say destroy her favorite professor’s tower, and she does. When she asks Superbia why, after, Superbia tells her that it was a test. They were making sure she was loyal; that she wouldn’t leave. She wouldn’t. Annie doesn’t question anymore. She never gives them a reason to distrust her loyalty after that.
Blue tulips grow behind her ear, up her temples, and she wears them like trophies.
honeysuckle - devoted affection; bonds of love
Annie kisses Brighid in the rain after the Halloween dance, and all seems right with the world. Brighid’s hand in hers is perfection, like the warmest blanket on a cold day, and she smells like the jasmine essence from the prefects’ bathroom.
Annie kisses her and kisses her, and she doesn’t let go until Brighid pulls away. She tells Annie that she isn’t sure about any of this, that she isn’t sure that she wants commitment right now. Annie says she isn’t sure either. That is a lie. Annie says kiss me until you are. That isn’t.
Honeysuckle blossoms grow up her ribcage. She’d pick them all for Brighid.
red dahlia - betrayal; dishonesty
They tell the Elder Futhark to kill Alis Murray after a tea party. Annie starts to doubt once again. She doesn’t mean to, they’ve done so much for her already, but she doesn’t understand. Annie doesn’t know how to kill anyone. She’s not powerful. She’s never used a killing curse or even a jinx for real.
Ira tells Annie she isn’t being creative enough. She tries again, but it’s too late before the four older kids have figured something out. Annie’s angry. They were supposed to do this as a team, she says, why don’t you want to be a team?
Davis hits a cursed bludger at Murray during a Quidditch match. She survives, and Annie wants to punch Gemma Watts. She wants to punch Gemma Watts right in her stupid, smug face, and tell her that she was wrong. Annie knows she was right, that they’d have to work together, but Annie also knows that Gemma Watts wouldn’t care.
They form a plan. They execute that plan practically flawlessly. Locke makes the potion. Davis puts the potion into chocolate. Annie gets Alis Murray to take her back to the classroom where Murray will die, from Professor Cavanagh giving her those chocolates. Murray gives Annie a music box to give to her Brighid, for Valentine’s Day, she says. Red dahlias grow up Annie’s spine.
Her Brighid kills Murray. Her beautiful, stoic Brighid kills a woman, and Hadrian does too. Then, after, they pretend to go ice-skating.
begonia - beware; a fanciful nature
They tell her to spread the ideals, so she does. She becomes powerful, leading a group of people at a tea party, telling them about the eradication of wizards without magic. She tells her proteges how much better the world would be if magic was not just given away.
She finds herself not wanting to be like her father anymore. She finds herself wanting to be pure, like her mother. She wishes she’d never been to France, and that her father hadn’t robbed her of her birthright. The marigolds stay.
And when she sees herself in the mirror, she can barely recognize the platinum-haired girl staring back at her, with begonias across her shoulders. Anise likes it better this way.
