don't take your guns to town

He laughed and kissed his mom And said your Billy Joe's a man I can shoot as quick and straight as anybody can But I wouldn't shoot without a cause I'd gun nobody down But she cried again as he rode away Don't take your guns to town son

[goldengirl-lewisworth-blog]

"But it’s got to! You have to learn how to do it really well, so then you can show me how." Lila turned her lip down pouting blinking her big eyes. "Pretty please Timmy darling." Lila nodded as if he had said something grave and she supposed he had, but it didn’t really register with her. "It could have been that fairy tale romance that I’m always badgering you about yeah? First glance perfection filled with feverish skin and sweaty palms. But I heard that love isn’t supposed to feel like that. "

"Goosebumps are good. You desereve all the goosebumps and stomach flips and other random feelings you get with fancying someone. Take a chance on the girl."

[timmyflint-blog]

"Maybe one day, perhaps." If all his dreams came true and a happily-ever-after came his way, after all the shit he'd waded through. Perhaps one day he'd be able to produce a true patronus. 

He gave a wry smirk. That fairly tale romance chased him up and down the quidditch pitch, all quivering heart and anxious knees, but none of those girls could say the same for him. 

"I think you deserve the goosebumps, Lila. I've had enough of them. Anyone flip your stomach in the past 24 hours?"

[goldengirl-lewisworth-blog]

"A patronus?! That’s amazing Timmy. Imagine when you could do a corpreal one. A beaver sounds odd though. I always pictured you with a very big foreign cat. Like the ones that live in trees and have pretty coats to camouflage themselves."

  "But if you like her and your parents would like you to wed there isn’t any reason to not to. Weddings are so romantic and beautiful darling. I wish that’s the only kind of parties there were. That’s great! Oh my, you’re going to go aren’t you?" 

[timmyflint-blog]

"Thanks, but I don't think that's going to happen." He refrained from explaining what led up him trying to master the spell. 

How could he explain so Lila would understand? "Because everything my parents tell me to like turns into shit? If I'd seen her from across the courtyard, it could be different. I want to like her because my parents like her, and my parents only like people with ink on their forearms."

"I don't know. Love before, felt like it reached forever. This, I get goosebumps."

[goldengirl-lewisworth-blog]

"Neither Bunny or myself would ever do something like that ! We munch on carrots and hop through life." Lila flashed him a bright smile before squealing in delight. 

"Oh Timmy that’s so great! That must mean she’s nice right? I’m nice. Oh you’ll make the best couple. Do you think she would mind meeting me? I mean I know being a muggleborn isn’t the best thing to be but I would very much like to meet your fiance."

[timmyflint-blog]

"Referring to yourself as Bunny already?" Timothy shrugged. "I cast a non-corporeal patronus over break that looked like it might've been a beaver." 

"She invited me to a gathering? We're not a couple. It's not as though we're getting married. But she's nice. I like her. We didn't get too far into the whole pureblood dilemma, but she can't be into muggle burning like the rest of my lot. She invited me somewhere."  

[goldengirl-lewisworth-blog]

"I know! Isn’t it wonderful? I’ve always wanted to be an animagus…what kind of animal do you think I’d be? Maybe a bunny? Well yes of course there’s me, but that rock does nothing but complain so I wouldn’t go to him."

"Oh? Is she pretty? Do you fancy her?" 

[timmyflint-blog]

He grins. "Dunno, a bunny seems about right. Adorable balls of fluff that know how to go for the jugular." 

"She's a lot of things. Kind of reminded me of you."

[goldengirl-lewisworth-blog]

I was referring more to stroking and speaking to cats with little to no reason. Of course there isn’t anything wrong with speaking to cats if that’s where you find the best company. They are impressive listeners. 

[timmyflint-blog]

"There's a lot wrong, because something like 2% of them are unregistered animagi. If I need to talk to someone, there's you and there's the massive rock next to the broomshed." 

"But there is something. I ran into my f--the girl my dads picked for me to marry yesterday."

[blackhearting-blog1]

"—Mr. Kitty is a cute name..and I’m sure that Professor Mcgonagall would have made sure you didn’t touch her?"

[timmyflint-blog]

"Touché. And that's six years of avoiding all contact with cats, for nothing..."

[goldengirl-lewisworth-blog]

Is that becoming a common occurrence in your life Darling?

[timmyflint-blog]

Do you mean picking up cats or sitting in very impressive wooden thrones chairs?

[timmyflint-blog]

"Yes Mr. Kitty. I know it's sad she's gone, but now I can pick up any cat in the castle and be sure I don't have a former Headmistress on my lap."

[penelopexnott]

His list of courses are impressive but they are probably manageable since Timothy is a 6th year. Sixth year is awkward, since you aren’t taking your OWLs or your NEWTs but it is probably amazing, due to the fact that you don’t have to be buried in a library at all times. “Charms, Potions, Transfiguration, Care of Magical Creatures, and Muggle Studies,” her own list isn’t even close to being that impressive. It kind of makes her feel embarrassed. “Do you ever have any time to sleep?” she pauses to nod towards his bag. “You do realize that you can cast an Expanding Charm on that so all of your books will fit, right? What do you want to do when you graduate?” Pen laughs lightly. “How many of the pureblood ideals do you share with your fathers?”

She tucks some hair behind her ear, feeling somewhat embarrassed. “Would you like to come to a gathering with me?” she asks. “If not, we can identify Bowtruckles on Wednesday night.” Timothy didn’t seem anything like Xenia’s betrothed and for that, she was grateful. Pen hates him with a fiery burning passion and she always made sure that something conveniently went wrong at pureblood gatherings. “What else do you like to do?”

[timmyflint-blog]

Timothy glided through this courses with Acceptables and a handful of Poors in his NEWT courses (Care of Magical Creatures, Charms, and Potions) and spent most of his concentration on this elective courses: perfecting the charms to bring his frog into allegro or whittling his Xylomancy twigs just so. 

He listened to her courses and wondered if her serious course choices reflected on her temperament, but decided it rude to ask outright. 

"I manage. Muggle Art's pretty neat, but yeah, suppose hauling around this canvas is taking a toll on my bag." He laughed to hide his insecurity at having never been able to perfect that charm. "Don't really know what I want to do with my life. I know a lot of what I don't want to be. What about you?"   

"A gathering?" Timothy hadn't expected that. Not even the classmates he considered his friends invited him places, although that didn't stop Timothy from showing up anyway. "Er, yes." He leaned forward a little, stunned. "I don't want to bore you with what I like, they'd have to make a mandrake draught to revive you. What do you like??"

[penelopexnott]

Her gaze drifts to the books in his hand and she was suddenly curious. “What courses are you taking?” she asks, nodding towards them. Penelope herself should be worrying about her OWLs but they are not her favorite thought, nor are they her most important one. A sharp laugh emerges from her lips. “I doubt that it’s that simple. I may not have them, that’s true. But I’ve got a pureblood mother with ideals dating back to the Dinosaur Age and a father who will go along with them.” 

She looks at him, reluctantly. “I ‘pose that I wouldn’t mind marrying you. I just wish that I’d been given something that resembled a choice.” Her mother’s voice echoes in her head, bringing words of encouragement to the surface. Get to know him. “What are you doing tomorrow night?”

[timmyflint-blog]

It catches him off guard and before Timothy know it hes rattling off, "Frog choir, Care of Magical Creatures, Charms, Potions, Xylomancy, Muggle Art, Alchemy, Magical Theory and Alchemy. There aren't any real classes for it here, but I want to do something out of the ordinary." He finds a portrait on the wall staring down at him and Timmy can't help but shrug back. "We've got to be more than our parents, don't you think?"

It still doesn't settle with him that this might be the girl he would actually end up with for all eternity. Already he'd miraculously skirted the family tradition of Slytherin in favor of Hufflepuff, despite all the bedtime stories to the contrary. Something about her, something screaming get to know her convinced him to answer again. 

"Nothing, I mean, unless you'd like to come out and help me identify Bowtruckles?"

[penelopexnott]

"And some of them never really lose them," Penelope mutters, thinking rather darkly of her sister. She studies him out of the corner of her eye before realizing that she ought to focus on walking. It isn’t good to crane her neck up that far. He’s incredibly tall. It’s unnerving— especially since she figures that she can’t take him in a fight. 

"I could say the same about you, you know," Pen points out, fingers of one hand burying them deep inside of a pocket to ward of cold. It’s not like that will do much, however, Hogwarts is a chilly castle. "If we both object to it, we can probably get arranged to more suitable marriages." Or she could slit her mother’s throat while she was trying to forge a new marriage contract and call it a day. "Penelope Nott, Fifth year Ravenclaw, and, obviously, pureblood. Not my favorite thing about myself though."

[timmyflint-blog]

The strap on his bag cut into his shoulder and Timothy readjusted his handle on his books. "Wouldn't matter much to my dads if I objected or not. They'd put it down to 'nerves' or  'lack of female influence', like they do when I complain about anything. You're the girl. And one of your fathers isn't a halfblood with a 'penchant' for questionable post-Victorian interior decoration. All you have to do is say and we're through." Timothy wasn't certain if this were true or not, but it sounded right to him.

The future wasn't a tense his mind regularly used. And certainly not alongside a girl this sharp. 

[penelopexnott]

She stares at him, more than a little surprised at the fact that he just handed to her and feels a little indignant. “I knew that,” BUt then her voice falters and she scratches at the back of her neck. “No, I didn’t, really.” She is now intrigued by this strange giant and so she keeps pace with him, book clutched in one hand. 

"And are you disappointed?" It’s a vapid question. One that she doesn’t really like saying but it comes out anyways. A smile stretches on her lips, unbidden. "You’ve made your point. Now how about official introductions?"

[timmyflint-blog]

"A guess, really. Babies have pretty big heads?" 

He ducks his head, catching the sharpness of her eye and glances away. "Disappointed? Guess I didn't believe we've ever be of age. I mean, you're a person. Not some pureblood ideal of my dad's anymore." Married was a term he used frequently, but always on his own terms. "Timothy Flint, Sixth year Hufflepuff and, as I've been told to introduce myself, pureblood. I have the certificates to prove it."

[penelopexnott]

She arches her eyebrows at him. Of course her parents had to choose a pureblood who would use the words ‘you have more in the body department.’ What was she— a cow meant for breeding? For the record, her sister Xenia was the one who resembled a cow. An evil one, at that. 

"I’ve got more in the brain department as well," she replies, shutting her book and giving him her full attention. "Now where do I use the letter ‘z’ in normal conversation?" She pauses, realizing that she’s never quite had a full conversation with him. "Is there something you wanted?"

[timmyflint-blog]

"Actually, I believe you will find that the brain mass ratio to body mass decreases as one grows from infant to pubescent.  We gain mass, e.g., a meter in height, and our heads don't balloon to the size of mars."

Timothy lowers his head and keeps on his way. "Nothing, expect I looked up and realized that you were the you my dads told me about. Now, er, I've got to go find a dizzy zone with zebras before they bronze our pizzas."

[penelopexnott]

His statement caused an eye roll as she flipped from one page to the next in her book. “Awhile as in thirteen years? It has been a long time since I was two." 

[timmyflint-blog]

It begins to occur to him that the contents of his Magical Creatures textbook are too dull to merit repeating in his notes. 

"Er, yeah? For instance, you have...more, in the body department. And when you talk you use all 27 letters of the alphabet."

[timmyflint-blog]

penelopexnott started following timmyflint

"Been awhile since the announcement, hasn't it?"

[justlikebacon-blog]