I would kill you. ✧ I would physically hurt you. ✧ I would attack you unprovoked. ✧ I would manipulate you. ✧ I dislike you. ✧ You annoy me. ✧ You scare me. ✧ You intimidate me. ✧ I hope I intimidate you. ✧ I pity you. ✧ You disgust me. ✧ I hate you. ✧ I’m indifferent toward you. ✧ I’d like to get to know you better. ✧ I’d like to spend more time with you. ✧ I’d like to be friends with you. ✧ I’m unsure what to think of you. ✧ I’m unsure how I feel about you. ✧ You are my friend. ✧ You are my best friend. ✧ You are my mentor. ✧ I look up to you. ✧ I respect you. ✧ You are my hero. ✧ You inspire me. ✧ You are my enemy. ✧ You make me happy. ✧ I want to protect you. ✧ I would fight by your side. ✧ I consider you an equal. ✧ I think you are beneath me. ✧ I think you are above me. ✧ I would lie for you. ✧ I would lie to you. ✧ I would sleep with you. ✧ I would sleep by your side. ✧ I would hug you. ✧ I would kiss you. ✧ You are family to me. ✧ I would die for you. ✧ I would kill for you. ✧ I would trust you with my life. ✧ I would trust you with my most precious belonging. ✧ I would trust you with a secret. ✧ I would trust you with my biggest / darkest secret. ✧ I love you (platonically). ✧ I love you (romantically).
I would kill you. ✧ I would physically hurt you. ✧ I would attack you unprovoked. ✧ I would manipulate you. ✧ I dislike you. ✧ You annoy me. ✧ You scare me. ✧ You intimidate me. ✧ I hope I intimidate you. ✧ I pity you. ✧ You disgust me. ✧ I hate you. ✧ I’m indifferent toward you. ✧ I’d like to get to know you better. ✧ I’d like to spend more time with you. ✧ I’d like to be friends with you. ✧ I’m unsure what to think of you. ✧ I’m unsure how I feel about you. ✧ You are my friend. ✧ You are my best friend. ✧ You are my mentor. ✧ I look up to you. ✧ I respect you. ✧ You are my hero. ✧ You inspire me. ✧ You are my enemy. ✧ You make me happy. ✧ I want to protect you. ✧ I would fight by your side. ✧ I consider you an equal. ✧ I think you are beneath me. ✧ I think you are above me. ✧ I would lie for you. ✧ I would lie to you. ✧ I would sleep with you. ✧ I would sleep by your side. ✧ I would hug you. ✧ I would kiss you. ✧ You are family to me. ✧ I would die for you. ✧ I would kill for you. ✧ I would trust you with my life. ✧ I would trust you with my most precious belonging. ✧ I would trust you with a secret. ✧ I would trust you with my biggest / darkest secret. ✧ I love you (platonically). ✧ I love you (romantically). ( “i could fall for you.” )
“ didn’t know we were aimin’ for romance, rosier ” he felt himself sink further into the mattress, blankets softer than they’ve ever been before. he grabbed her hand, smile wide and loose as he tugged her down with him. “ feel this, ” he whispered, moving her hand to his pillow. “ s’fuckin’ soft ! ”
“i’m always aiming for finding the romance in life. as if you didn’t know, please.” the words slurred out of her lips as she grinned, letting her body fall down next to him. “wow.” eyes closed, victoria let herself feel the fabric. “this almost feels like my silk robes, fuck.” she laughed out, a hand at the pillow, a hand covering her mouth.
Have we really survived our fathers? Flora didn’t have an immediate answer, nor an immediate feeling. She asked that herself time and time again, usually when a particular longing for home, or rather of what felt familiar, came like an avalanche. Very few were allowed into those thoughts. She wasn’t quite sure if Victoria should be one of them. Her second question made her pensive frown soften, partially replaced with a small smile. It had the poetic edge she just couldn’t help but smile at. “That’s the point, isn’t it? Fastened together in an intricate lock. We don’t have nearly enough to hold ourselves together.” She leaned back slightly, her head now resting against the wall - the last thing Flora wanted to do was get up and leave in that moment. Victoria had the kind of words that filled her ears and soul.
“That’s why people need people, I guess. Can’t fall apart if there are more than two hands holding.” She had Hestia. She had Rhia. Perhaps, just perhaps, she had enough pressure to stick together for yet another day. What more could she want? What other need could ever be so desperate? Her lips rose slightly again, a potential answer not too impossible to imagine.
Enchanting. Victoria Rosier found one of her favourite poems enchanting. Maybe even more than just the words themselves. That smile just couldn’t leave her lips, and Flora had long stopped minding it. At least while she didn’t think about it, the smile felt genuine, something that she could hold onto, something else holding her together. “I don’t know, do you recall me reciting poetry to Nott?” A laugh, as soothing as a low hum, came right after her words, but it quickly died out as she bit her lip, the smile still very much stuck on her face. Don’t overthink it. Don’t search for answers. Her mind could so often work against her, and Flora was determined to not let it get in the way - not right then. Not anytime soon. She turned her head a little to the side in order to properly look at the Rosier, making absolutely no effort to erase the smile, the bite, the enjoyment; and rummaged through her mental library until she found something satisfactory. “I am inhabited by a cry.” The pause between lines was longer than expected since Flora’s memory failed her for just a few seconds. “Nightly it flaps out, looking, with its hooks, for something to love.” The words flowed gently, almost like a song, and always very quiet - anyone a few steps away wasn’t invited into their private moment. “I am terrified by this dark thing that sleeps in me.” Her eyes analyzed Victoria’s reaction to the words. “All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.”
“and yet -” she started, hugging her knees, eyes following the twirling images of scattered light in their shared space, “and yet we pretend we’re enough for ourselves, when there is nothing that can hold us together but... each other.” with a glance at flora, victoria found herself lost in her memories of the people she considered family, once - of the people she shared her secrets with, the people she had the privilege to connect with. how could all her connections break so easily, with one single choice, one single mistake that had already ruined her life? she had spent her entire life pretending that she was strong enough to hold herself together - threads of self-consciousness buried deep under a familial code, strings of doubt that had placed themselves within her subconscious when she was barely old enough to recognise what doubt meant - and in that moment, with flora’s words ringing in her ear, goosebumps colouring her skin, she could almost feel the control shatter. when would she be allowed to have someone to hold her together? how could she find someone that would forgive her for her father’s sins? would flora provide her the absolution she needed - would she take the responsibility of restitching her strings together?
“can’t be too sure of that,” victoria mumbled. in the morning, once she remembered this conversation with the exact details of when flora’s breath hitched or the way her hand moved to her hair to pull it back, once she remembered the way her own words echoed in this empty space, she would be ashamed of letting her guard down like this - of recognising that she had insecurities of her own, of opening up, of being afraid. now, her heart beating carefully, timidly in her hands, she looked at flora, eyelashes fluttering. “sometimes you fall apart because you’ve got other people.” a sigh, a look upwards - “sometimes the people you’ve trusted to keep you together tear you apart.”
the way flora filled the space she occupied when she was more confident in herself was almost unbelievable; gone was the blurry image of a girl who would feel comfortable hiding herself in the shadows of other people’s pasts, replaced by a presence that was unashamed of being present. was this what passion did to people who were afraid of it? would victoria ever be as brave as flora was in that moment, opening her libraries of introspection to an almost-stranger? would she be able to share a part of her soul like this? thoughts for another night. “depends. you surely must know some poetry about the... ethereal nature of death, something that romanticises morbidity. he’ll like that.” she replied with a small shrug and a twist of her lips, as the humour slightly melted the tension away. she hadn’t expected the new lines of poetry, though - she hadn’t expected her heart to begin slipping between her fingers as flora went through the words as if she was pulling them one by one out of the lines of her very being, looking at victoria as if she held all the answers to the suffering they shared. her words - was this how she felt, every single day of her life? victoria could remember waking up feeling as if something had placed itself within her blood, something had stuck in the very depths of her physical being when she had marked her body with an eternity of judgement - but she had found absolution in the way she had repressed the darkness, the confusion that ate at her - had flora ever been capable of doing that? “is that one of your own, seeing as you’re always somehow poetic with your suffering, or did you find a poet that painted you on paper with their words?” accusatory, almost, but mostly curious.
victoria’s got her legs crossed as she awaits her monthly doom, staring at her fingernails as the usual background noise of the building’s occupants keeps her distracted from the quiet sounds of potentially demonic chatter that comes through the door. she’s been raised to hide any signs of discomfort and anxiety beneath layers of confidence and charm - that was how she got through years of public speaking and useless chatter with important people during her youngest years. her father would be disappointed to see her here, of course - but at least he’d know that what he taught her about the art of misguiding people stuck to her.
she pulls at the hem of her skirt, and thinks of wildflowers. the ones that covered their gardens during off seasons, and the ones her father made bouquets out of when her mother was feeling particularly under the weather - the african daisies that should never have been able to grow in the climate of their grounds, and the pink cornflowers her father would stick into her hair when he was feeling particularly charmed. now the only flowers she ever sees are the occasional azaleas and cheap, dead roses on the street - she thinks of wildflowers, and how she used to be one. the door opens, footsteps echo into the corridor, and macdonald calls a soft but stern “miss rosier?” into the air.
victoria coughs, barely audible as she straightens her back and stands. she grabs her purse from the seat next to her, and listens to the sound of her own heels clacking against the ground as she enters the living room, sick of the already familiar smell, and the potential hour she’s going to be spending here, stuck with a person who’s got nothing but judgement for her. she thinks of setting the place on fire, and clears her throat as she sits across this month’s executioner. macdonald looks unimpressed, which is also a familiar sight - she always feels like these inspectors always think that she’s got more to atone for than the rest of them, with the sway of her hips and the way her name rolls of her tongue, unashamed. a hand falls at her pearls around her neck, and the other wraps itself around her waist. she smiles, deadly.
“so, miss rosier.” it almost sounds like an accusation. she knows it’s one, and wonders if her father was responsible for the death of any of her loved ones. “how are you feeling? how’s your job?”
victoria feels her head tilt just slightly, and tastes the distant aroma of her lipstick as she speaks. “i’m quite alright, thank you.” she wishes she could have a glass of champagne to accompany this hell, but goes along with this persona instead. they don’t want her to be her, anyway - if father didn’t want her to be her, why would the ministry? “my job can be somewhat taxing, sometimes, but i have come to... accept it, if i dare.” another tight smile follows her words - she talks sweet, but her body language tells a different story. she knows that if she were to really enjoy what she was doing, if she were to feel anything other than distaste, they would be suspicious. she raises her chin in retaliation, waiting for her to question her motives in her job. when the questions don’t come, she sits back, empowered, if only slightly.
macdonald pushes her glasses back on her nose, and looks up at her after her endless scribbling. probably notes about how much of a smartass she is. victoria wants to laugh - she doesn’t. “do you feel integrated into society? a job, a house. how do you think you’d fare outside of the r program?”
she taps her fingers against her waist, thinking the question over. “i’ve always been integrated to society. i never had any intentions of isolating myself, or disintegrating my identity.” she’s always given the same answer to this question and similar ones, because it’s true. “i’m good at my job. i talk to people at work, i socialise, i take care of myself and the people around me. i’ve always been capable of taking care of myself, and it’s no different now.” macdonald’s gaze burns into her skull as she begins writing, not looking down at her words. victoria knows she’s playing with fire here, but she doesn’t really care - they’re not going to send her to azkaban, not after the names she’s given them. she wouldn’t admit it to macdonald, or any other investigator, but she wants her freedom back. she thinks of wildflowers, and twirls her pearls around her neck.
macdonald stops writing. she purses her lips, raises her eyebrows - “have you, in any way, been in contact with known war criminals? or, to the best of your knowledge, have the other residents in the past or currently been in contact with known war criminals, shown any desire to attack muggles or muggle-sympathizers? have they joined any suspicious groups?”
she has to bite back the laughter that forms at her throat - does she think any of them would do something so stupid after all the things they lost in the war? does she really think any of them would tell the truth, even if they did, without a drop of veritaserum? she shakes her head, arms crossed. “as i am not allowed to visit the half of my family members who are in azkaban, and that the other half is dead, i haven’t had the opportunity - or, the thought, mind you - to contact any war criminals. i don’t want anything to do with the ones you already haven’t found, and they’d probably kill me if they knew what i did.” the cold, harsh truth. macdonald knows it. victoria knows it. she doesn’t understand why the ministry wants answers to questions they know the responses to. “i hardly think any of us would be stupid enough to do that,” she says, as macdonald writes. “even if something has happened - something that would be malicious towards muggles, i don’t know of it. i doubt it would happen, and i also doubt that anyone would be telling it to anyone else in the building.”
macdonald thinks it over, and for a moment looks dissatisfied with her answer. victoria challenges her again, with the tilt of her chin, the cross of her legs, the raise of her eyebrows. when she turns back to her notes with an aloof expression, victoria knows she’s won again. or, at least, macdonald’s allowed her to win. once she’s written half a novel about her words and body language, victoria suspects, she raises her head to look at her again. here comes the more difficult of questions: “your presence here is the sign of the benevolence your actions didn’t show. if i’d brought in a relative of one of the many permanently injured or murdered by death eaters, what would you say to them? would you hide your mark?”
there’s always a question like this in the investigations: if she wants absolution, if she would do it again if she ever had the chance, what she would say to her father if she was presented the choice once again - they are never easy, but rosiers have been trained to make uncomfortable look smooth. she takes her time with the response, the words rolling off her tongue with practiced nonchalance with a hint of apathy. “nothing i would say to them would make any difference. i wouldn’t hide my mark, because i don’t want to pretend that i didn’t make questionable choices in my past, and i don’t want to lie just to make somebody else feel good about themselves. nothing i would say would change the way they saw me - a murderer, a representation of the reason for their loss. i’m not the one to show the greyness of the world to strangers, neither am i one to save them.”
macdonald looks almost affronted: victoria’s sure something’s happened to her or her family in the war, now. she obviously didn’t expect this - this honesty that victoria has allowed herself to share with the people who don’t expect it from her, the people who want her to be victoria rosier. who need her to be a rosier, just so they can condemn the name once again, just so they can prove that there is no good that can come from families that have made mistakes. she’s already accepted that she’s made mistakes - but being ashamed of them will never solve the problem, will it?
the sight of a newspaper clipping is different - victoria raises her eyebrows as macdonald taps on the table, looking at her face as if to dissect any suspicious piece of expression. “i’m sure you’ve heard about this.” she pronounces, deliberately expressed syllables as victoria examines the article. “do you think anyone in here would be susceptible to this? what would it take for them to convince you to join them?”
she should have known something like this would come up in this month’s interrogation: the moment she saw the article, the moment her boss told her they would be covering it in an episode the week later, she knew this would be talked about. “the radio show i work for covered it last week,” she says, unimpressed. is she trying to shake things up, make her spill? surely, this is no way to startle a rosier who knows her way around research. “as i said, i don’t think anyone would be stupid enough to do anything about this. we’re not malicious people, we’re kids that were sidetracked during their parents’ war.” perhaps the truth, perhaps a lie - for a while, victoria knows she believed in her father’s cause. but she believed in it simply because it was what her father believed in, and now the memory almost brings her to tears. she shakes her head. “there’s nothing left for me in that world. there was nothing for me the moment i saw my father in the battlefield, and that’s why i left.” famous last words.
macdonald looks at her, examining once again, and nods. looks pleased. it’s not that victoria hates her father, now - it’s just that she wants to make the ministry think that she hates her father, because it makes things easier. she hates it, but she wouldn’t know what to do if she met him ever again, either.
she is kept inside for what seems like an eternity, going over every single response she’s ever given to a ministry official, ever - macdonald must really hate her, if they’re talking about her job applications in detail. she laughs once when she asks her if she ever thought of poisoning any of the residents with her cooking, and tells her that she’s just that nice. macdonald doesn’t buy it, but moves on, asks her about her boss, his affiliations with the death eaters in the previous war, and she tells her about how he fought alongside the ministry in the second one, how he risked his life so that the world wouldn’t be the place they both fought for when they were misguided. macdonald seems sure that she doesn’t deserve the job, or that they’re conspiring something together - victoria tells her to listen their episode on parent influence in traditional, pureblood families next wednesday. macdonald looks at her, and tells that she will. after that, it’s routine: she asks, victoria answers, lies, tells the truth, pretends she is the rosier they want her to be for a while.
when she leaves, exhausted and angry at the world for nothing and everything, she feels the gaze of mrs. macdonald at her back. she hopes she never comes back to this place, ever again.
“ you’d be surprised at how FEW girls i invite in ” his eyes were slipping closed now, potion starting to take effect. he felt dizzy and light, like the room was spinning and he was falling through it, down and down but never quite hitting the ground. he was blinking rapidly, a weird sort of head rush that left him with a hazy look. “ dinner, huh ? thai ok ? you’re payin’ though. ” he slurred, smile easy, open, soft.
“oh, ronan, you enchant me with your words.” she could feel the liquid flow through her system - her words were followed by a sincere laugh that was unusual to her, and her feet took her next to him, laughing along the way. “i was thinking italian. far more romantic, and classy, and cheaper if you -” a giggle - “find the right place.”
that was the thing about victoria - when she wanted a fight, she tended to get one. she’d push and push until temper took over, even more so when it came to her. she knew rhia far too well, knew exactly which buttons to push. ‘ are you done yet? ‘ rhia asked, a thin veneer of bored indifference, trying to keep her cool. she had to bite her cheek to keep from retorting, so hard she swore she could taste blood. ‘ i’m not in the mood for whatever you’re trying, so…maybe you should just run along. ‘ unlikely that she’d listen, but was worth a try. ‘ though i’m not sure you could run in those shoes without falling on your face. ‘ what was that about not rising to her bait, again?
“your efforts at being condescending are... adorable, but you and i both know i invented the game.” with a tight smile, victoria looked down at rhia. once, that face would remind her of the taste of pumpkin juice during autumns and butterbeer during the coldest of winters - now all she felt was disappointment - and admittedly, anger - in the friend who had turned her back before recognising what life had presented victoria with. “oh, how hilarious that you should mention that - i recall you couldn’t put on heels without falling on your face?” she laughed, just barely - “and believe me, i’ve done more than run in these heels. have you ever duelled in anything other than sweatpants?”
“perhaps you should shut it and accept people at their word.” she snapped, she couldn’t help it, she was not fond of being accused of being a liar. The smoke didn’t bother her much, her father used to go through two cigars a day and the smell of the tobacco was ALMOST comforting. A snort escaped her mouth, unladylike in the extreme and she cleared her throat a moment later to make up for the moment. “Tired is the wrong word.”
victoria bit back a condescending laugh - it was particularly amusing to see people take offence in her words, and even more so when it was someone as hotblooded at tracey. “calm down, davis, i’m humouring you.” a drag of her cigarette, a shrug, and a glance at the sky above them - she sighed. “exhaustion forms itself in many ways. for example, exhaustion caused from the bullshit nature of the very place we are located in is giving me terrible back pains.”
She shared a knowing look with Victoria before turning to face the slatted railing again. It was true about both those things. It was easy to catch Flora reminiscing over their old home with the green pastures and old cobblestone walkways and rough masonry when it was just the two of them in their flat. Her twin held most of the nostalgia for that place for the both of them, which was fine.
“In any case he sure acts like a prince. He’s held me hostage long enough to make me start believing it. So long as he keeps spreading some mischief about, I don’t mind.”
And mischief in one particular direction, on one particular floor in a flat with a particular occupant by the name of Ronan. She would be a liar if she didn’t admit she didn’t enjoy seeing the grump squirm every once in a while over the furball.
“Sounds like you have a princess.”
She leaned back on her palms then, letting the old medal dig grooves into the skin. “It’s been a bit on the long side. I’ve had an unquenchable thirst as of late.”
Though that thirst only popped up with less people than she could count on one hand. It was the same amount of people she could actually hold more than a one sentence conversation with and she was sitting next to one of two.
“does flora ever not pout?” a small smile formed at her lips at the thought of the other carrow twin; the pouts could be considered cute... in objective nature. dismissing the thoughts that she would repress even further later, victoria looked at her hands, now focusing on odysseus; an easier task. he had been the piece of home that she had needed when she spent the nights replaying songs that her father would during momentous occasions of the pleasant kind. she could imagine him now, rolling around on her sheets, giving laszlo a hard time if he wasn’t in the mood. she could only grin at the thought, really.
“oh, we all know how you like your mischief. really, it’s quite admirable. makes you seem more... human. though moros might disagree with that.” the teasing could go either way with hestia; she could be in the mood and play along, or ignore her all together.
with an overdramatic gasp and a hand at her chest, victoria looked positively affronted - “i’m the only princess in this relationship. you can’t just throw the role at odysseus, he’ll crumble under the pressure.”
“too bad good champagne is so expensive. both in muggle money and our money.” they hardly got paid, the r programme was strict about their alcohol usage, and victoria didn’t want to spend her entire excuse of a salary on champagne, however much she wanted to. but she missed the thrill of it; the way they would defy everything their parents wanted them to be for mere minutes, the way she would find herself laughing at hestia’s driest jokes, the way the moonlight reflected at their bottles.
“would wine suffice? hardly. but at least the company’s still the same, isn’t it?”
At what point did they? At what point did she? Flora liked to claim an understanding of what were simply pretty words and her own state of mind separated, but that was never the case. When she read love poems filled with hope and naivety, she imagined herself saying those words, recognizing their sweetness in her mind. When she read tragic poetry, describing emptiness and misery, regrets and guilt, all the terrifying thoughts she had, she envisioned herself in those pages, as the long dead sad poetess who spit out life and men in the same line, all clouded under cigarette smoke. She was the words she read. Without projecting, Flora was a canvas, blank and aimless.
Perhaps we’re fighting different things, but we’re still fighting. Her brows knitted in a frown. She was quiet, pensive, absorbing each word and not letting go. Perhaps that was what was missing from her life, the inexplicable hole that made her days longer - some fight. Flora’s solution was always to run away, to be silent and adapt when escape was no longer possible. In many ways, she was spineless. A few sparks of fight came around her sister, when her protective sensed kicked in, but besides that, there was no fighting. Flora knew who she was and she did, and most importantly, what she didn’t do. What was she fighting then? The staircase fell silent once Victoria stopped talking, and Flora kept on thinking, searching for something that would keep her awake at night with a will to fight. Something more energetic than the reasons she did not sleep. A flame. She breathed in deeply before words flowed out of her mouth as if she’d read them a thousand times, her turn to recite coming. “And tonight our skin, our bones, that have survived our fathers,” a discreet smile appeared briefly on her lips, “will meet, delicate in the hold, fastened together in an intricate lock. Then one of us will shout, ‘My need is more desperate!’”. Her tone indicated the quote was done. She left out 'and I will eat you slowly with kisses even though the killer in you has gotten out’. She hadn’t forgotten about it.
victoria bit her lip as she gave herself to the sound of flora’s easy pronunciation of the words - apart from dinner conversations about contemporary magical art, and the background information she had about artists that her father had asked her to impress, she was supposed to have no particular interest in anything artistic - but she could listen to this forever, feel the chill on her spine move upwards as flora’s tongue rolled around the syllables of her poems. perhaps their poetry belonged in confined spaces like this; the slow melody of jazz in the background, the taste of firewhiskey on their tongues, separated from the fathers and the mothers and the skeletons they had survived. she wished she could capture this feeling of belonging, of being understood, in a jar to keep; to remind herself of when the fighting seemed too difficult to endure, when the company was too familiar to forget - and forgive - her past. for now, she could only settle for the practiced ease, the memory of her words, and the hope that she would hear them again in the near future.
“have we really survived our fathers?” she mused, barely audible. something she would never admit to if she were around anywhere else - something she would never admit to herself, really - the impact that the bones of her father had left on her skin. she would be torn, broken - she had been, countless times, nights where she wondered why she had to be an invention instead of a discovery - at the thought of a father she had forced herself to love, and at the bruises he had left behind. never had he struck a hand on her flesh, never had he raised his voice at her mistakes; but it was implied in the way he took a longer pause between his words, a bigger sip from his firewhiskey. “do we have enough flesh left on us to hold together?”
fingers interlocked with each other, victoria could barely hear her own thoughts as the meaning flowed through her senses. would she ever be able to form any intricate locks with anyone again? a glance at flora, a bite at her lip, an intake of breath - “that’s... quite enchanting. and strangely appropriate. do you have more poetry about past death eaters with questionable morality in that library of yours, or am i just that special?” back to flirting - a defence mechanism that victoria was sure a four year old could recognise in the tone of her voice. at least it wasn’t insincere.
She didn’t care for smokers, or being around them. She didn’t much care for the smell of nicotine or the health risks. She didn’t smoke. Often, at least. She didn’t care enough to truly start and even if she did she wouldn’t care enough to really stop either. She was stuck in yet another limbo with that one, a perpetual back bend that never straightened or collapsed one way or the other. Social smoker would have been the right term for that, but it hardly covered her habits. She wasn’t too much of a social creature either.
“Moros is nothing but a prince,” she said as she drew one leg up close to her once she was comfortably seated on the rickety platform. A mischievous, temperamental prince at that, who only liked a few people by the name of Carrow and no one else. Her outstretched foot shifted back and forth between the spaces in the railing, the untied laces at the top of her boot whipping lightly at her shin. “I got tired of being under indoor house arrest.” That, and she was putting off the half stack of papers still waiting for her to fix and tweak and scan over with her skillful eyes. Oh well. She made her own schedule. “How’s Odie?”
“you’re delusional, if you think that demon of yours is royalty in any way.” she laughed out in-between drags, running a hand through the mess that was her hair in the process. “and we’re all delusional if we think that the house arrest will ever cease to haunt us.” she missed her home - she missed the smell of antiques and fresh orchids, she missed the sight of her father reading the daily prophet with a snicker on his face every morning, she missed the silk sheets of her bed. alas, the only thing close to home was her cousin, her cat, and the occasional reminder of stolen bottles of champagne when she saw hestia.
“now, odysseus on the other hand, is an actual prince.” with a look at her companion, she shrugged - “you know him. running through our clothes, bothering poor little laszlo, but an absolute delight as always. i think i won the cat lottery, compared to you guys, don’t you think?” one of these days hestia would tell her that she talked too much; perhaps it was an inherited quality for the carrows to speak less around rosiers. neither flora, nor the memories of the twins’ parents seemed particularly conversational around her family name. “how long has it been since we last shared a bottle of champagne, anyway?”
The air was a foggy grey when she climbed out the window of her apartment- why use a door when there was a perfectly good window and someone had told you not to do it. She hadn’t brought anything with her, a pair of headphones settled on her neck that weren’t attached to anything. Sometimes a girl just needed to sit outside and stare at the brick wall next door under cloudy skies with or without the aroma of nicotine in the air. Huh.
She looked up by a few floors, squinting for a quick moment to follow the invisible trail of cigarette smoke all the way to the body suspended on the slat of railing above her.
“No thanks. I’m borrowing your stoop,” she said matter-of-factly as she began the climb up the rusted old ladder towards the other girl. Sometimes you just needed to sit outside and stare at the brick wall next door under cloudy skies with a Rosier. Hestia Carrow was not one that minded much, but she didn’t mind Victoria Rosier.
the sight of hestia was what she was met as a reply to her words, and victoria couldn’t help but scoff just lightly - the company would do both of them good, most probably. especially if victoria’s habit of frying her lungs to escape didn’t affect hestia’s own. she watched as the visage of the carrow twin got closer, inhaling as the other sat down next to her. they had all come so far from the days of hogwarts, the pleasantries that no one really meant, and the shit-talking behind their parents when they sneaked out into whomever’s gardens with a bottle of firewhiskey. she could almost smile at the memory.
“be my guest,” was her reply, as she took another drag. the day would come to an end, her work would still be in progress, a draft - but with the cigarette against her lips, highlighted passages fading in the background of her mind, she believed she could enjoy the moment. she turned her head towards the company she had, eyebrows raised:
“too crowded in that apartment of yours, or did that feline of yours finally drive you out?” odysseus would be waiting for her in her room when she got back - but with the impending doom of her boss, she couldn’t give him the attention he deserved. for now, she could spare some of her time for hestia.
Almost mirroring Victoria’s smirk, a smile appeared on her lips when confronted with her well-known book preferences. “All words are melancholic if you project.” A few words, by now instinctively suppressed, with no clear meaning. Flora’s speech pattern was almost as consistent as the books on her hands. She spent the rest of the time in silence, the remnants of the smile still very present, her eyes following Victoria’s movements, but always somewhat avoiding eye contact. Flora almost closed her eyes once the other started reciting Hamlet - there was something far too comforting but yet magical about hearing others saying out loud the words she’d read. She could drown in it. “He does.” Part of her wanted to ask for more. Recited something back. Flora was able to hold that back for the moment, and ask the question that would not leave her mind. “Does your fighting keep you awake? I thought we were supposed to leave all that outside of this building.”
“and at what point do we stop projecting?” she challenged with a small tilt of her lips, almost laughing at herself. she couldn’t help but notice flora’s instinctive reaction to her small round of recitation - it was almost as if she was losing herself in her words, and victoria knew this would be a sight that she wouldn’t easily get out of her head. “depends on the night. and the precise measurement of firewhiskey in my system.” she replied with a small shrug, “and you know i wouldn’t be the one leaving my fighting behind. perhaps we’re fighting different things, but we’re still fighting, aren’t we?” a small sigh, a look at the empty space around them - “we’re fighting ourselves. each other. our pasts. our futures. our mistakes. surely, some of that fighting ought to keep someone awake.” but the firewhiskey did help, mostly; if not, she could listen to old records and bake, and pass out on the couch in the living room. the fighting, on the other hand, would never end.
