it's a god-awful small affair

Xenophilius Lovegood | 30 | they/them in search of the truth “Did you inherit a sickness? Did you blame god? Do you believe in God? Do you believe in yourself? Are you still on fire? Did you ever put out the fire?”

[xenoslovegood]

cxradoc‌:

They sound so sure. They always do. From the very first moment that Xenophilius laid eyes on her, they behaved as if they knew her down to her very soul. They were sure their first meeting was destined, too lost souls in the night, drawn to one another through the dark. And she couldn’t deny the spark of connection she had felt then. They made her feel found, unearthed, like something people would want to hoard for themselves. Their voice now, quiet and intense and earth-shattering, like someone in prayer at an all-night vigil. It shakes her, almost as much as the words do. 

They sound so sure, and Caradoc wants to let herself get caught up in it, so she does. Xeno isn’t wrong about the things they say, the ways in which people raise themselves up on pedestals. Dumbledore acted like a God, like he was playing a chess match with all of their lives. Caradoc had been nothing to him but another voice on the other side, a girl with a wand and the spirit of a warrior. She thought now that he always knew how it would end, always knew that she’d never be able keep herself from snapping eventually. 

She wants to give them the things they seek, she wants to do it so badly. Power. Clarity. A peace fo mind that she can only imagine. She wondered sometimes what she would feel, if she ever placed their diadem on her head. Would she see the world through new eyes? Would she understand the things that plagued her in the night? Would the world become something clean and crystalline, sprawling out before her in endless possibilities. Other times, she wondered if Xeno wasn’t as good for that as any crown could be. They made her feel changed, after all. And in moments like this, she felt as if the ever present fog in her mind was being lifted. She didn’t feel scared. She didn’t feel helpless. She didn’t feel alone. Caradoc Dearborn wasn’t a ghost, on nights like this, and neither was Xenophilius Lovegood. 

Sometimes, she feels like she’s been looking for them forever. 

When they finish speaking, she feels herself exhaling a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. A shuddering thing, something full of so much wonder. The cogs are turning inside their mind, plans being made on an invisible map. And then the gears stop, her offer hanging in the air for a moment while Xeno processes it. 

A smile, then, blossoms on her face. A soft thing, giddy. She ducks her head for a moment to mask it, grateful for the relatively dim light in the room. “Good. Good.” And she’s grateful. Wordlessly grateful, that they’re willing to do this beside her. Caradoc wants to reach up, brush her fingers against their face, clenches their hand a little firmer instead. She feels like the hero of this story, for once in her life. Feels like she was born for more than she ever believed. It was all practice, then, to make her strong. Doesn’t the hero always have to suffer before they can come into their full potential? Don’t they always reach the lowest of their lows before the climb to the greatest heights? 

Her voice trembles, just the slightest bit, as she carries on, raises her head again to look at them. “You can be my Merlin then. Lead me on an epic quest, oh wise and powerful one.” The slightest hint of a tease, though it doesn’t sully the greater sentiment of the words. “I’ll follow, if you can tell me where to start. Just promise not to be too disappointed if I don’t turn out the way you expected I would.” She tries not to let the last part sound sad, tries not to fall into a pit in her mind that would have her believe the disappointment is unavoidable. If she’s going to paint herself as a King of legend, she ought to have the confidence to go with it, even if it’s just a game of pretend played in a room of that barely exists. 

The smile on her face at their response sends a warmth through their body that perhaps they should wish could be wholly attributed to the blazing fire across from them, but no, it’s her. It’s always her. It’s a feeling that they had forgotten was possible, over the long months since they had lost their partner and their clarity. So wrapped up in the hunt for anything that might lead them to the answers, so encased in their own thoughts, they had allowed themself to forget how good it can be to be outside of them. They tried, of course, offered their assistance to the good fight, but none of the others were as prepared to go as far as they were, and so it hadn’t been enough to distract them, or better ground them.

This, though? Her smile, full of a pure joy they rarely see, her hand in theirs, warm and soft, grip firm and certain, it is more than enough to keep them on their feet, more than enough to clear their mind and make them certain that this is exactly where the pain and confusion was meant to lead them. They don’t necessarily believe in destiny the way those lovers of divination among them do, but they’ve seen too much to doubt that the universe moves the way it does for specific reasons. There’s a reason that their paths crossed in the corridor just outside the door that night, a reason something sang in their soul when they looked in her eyes. And now, it is their time to influence that themselves, together.

It’s a thrilling feeling, to suddenly be given purpose again. Perhaps it shouldn’t be so simple, to look at a ring they barely understood, without a true connection given yet to the very thing they had been obsessing over for years, and to make the decision to follow that string. But when they look at Caradoc, see the mirror of their own being in hers, and feel the strange, unexplainable connection between them, it’s impossible not to follow the pull. They’re certain her purpose and theirs are intricately entangled, that following the path set ahead with a simple symbol will lead them both to what they need. And in the meantime, this, here, is more than enough to sustain them, they think, perhaps a little selfishly.

So simple to be brave, to be something beyond the fear of humanity, when not even Death will be able to stand in her way, their way.

A small, knowing smile spread across their lips, mirroring hers, as she calls them her Merlin. That they are certain is an honor they don’t yet deserve, but they’re also certain they will do much of anything to live up to that role for her. “I suppose, then, that I am going to help make you King. And a glorious king you shall be,” Xeno hums, raising an eyebrow. The teasing doesn’t diminish the trust behind the words, or the hint of her own doubt at the mention of disappointing them.

“There is very little you could do that would ever disappoint me, Caradoc, that I promise. I revel in the unexpected, as long as it is you,” they say, with a slight  shrug, as if that’s that. In their mind, it is. And perhaps for some proof of that truth, perhaps some proof of something else their finger hasn’t quite landed on yet, they bring her hand in theirs to their lips, ghost them across the ring, brushing her knuckle.

“We start at the very beginning, I think. We must find King Arthur her sword.”

[xenoslovegood]

cxradoc‌:

Eventually this breathing problem is going to become embarrassing. She wishes they would stop stealing the very breath from her lungs, that their words would lose the power they have to make her heart beat just a little bit faster in her chest. It’s her soul that’s singing under her skin, at the feeling of meeting a mirror image of itself. The words that slip from her lips are a dare, almost a plea: I’ve done so much on my own. Don’t make me do this alone too. “I’ll be braver if you will.”

Their eyes catch on the ring when she pulls it out, and if it were anyone else she would want to pull it back, to selfishly hoard it close to her chest. All she feels when Xeno reaches out to touch it is the swell of electricity, a low boiling heat. She almost shudders when their fingers land on hers, the ring holding them together in unholy reverence. And when Xeno talks like this, Caradoc can’t help but get caught up in it. Their voice is made for epic tales, sweeping legends. They were made for other worlds, for magic and wonder and awe. Their breathless affirmation of the validity of her hypothetical quest is enough to paint the smile back on her face, brighter and fonder than before, something crafted specially for them. She finds herself nodding along to their words, enraptured at every syllable. 

It’s startling when they pull away, a strange sense of loss when their fingers leave hers. She shifts to watch them as they move, as they find the book and bring it back to her. Caradoc leans in when Xeno falls to their knees beside her again, tucking her hair behind her ear as she leans in to look at the book in their hands. With delicate fingers she reaches out, trace the hidden symbol on the page. “Oh.” She breathes, and that’s as much as she can manage in the moment. There’s a surge of something in her stomach –– hope, completion, the thrill of destiny making itself known. She feels drunk with it, almost, though the feeling isn’t uncommon in present company. 

Master of Death. The power implicit in the title. And isn’t that what she’s been struggling the most with, ever since they took her and kept her and broke her down? The fear, the pain, the desperate wish to never feel that weak again. She lets out a shaken breath, swallows thickly around the lump in her throat. Isn’t it what she’s wanted, all this time, deep down inside her? To make it so that no man and no god could hurt her again, so that nothing she loved could be taken from her arms. Too many nights she sat in bed awake, wondering if Ben would be dead and gone in the morning, wondering of Xeno would be there to meet her the next time they planned to. Master of Death. Someone with power like that could take war in the palm of their hands and put an end to it. 

Her hands are shaking, now. She slips the ring onto a finger, though it will always be too big for her to wear. It’s a revery she has to pull herself from, to look back up and meet Xeno’s eyes when they search for hers. She hears everything they leave unsaid, allows it to hang heavy in the air between them. It would be too simple, for this ring to mean so much more than any of them considered it might. And there Xeno goes again, stealing her breath from her. Take it, she thinks. You can have it all. 

She reaches forward, instinctually, lays her fingers back over theirs and holds their warm hand in hers. Caradoc finds herself shaking her head before she can think better of it, a small voice reminding her that she’s nothing more than a girl who’s starving for more than she can have. There are so many things she wants, and she doesn’t think the world will allow her to have any of them. “Whoever set me free and gave me this…they meant for James to have it.” There’s something sour in the sound of his name, though he’s been nothing but a good friend to her in the last few weeks. “I’m just…” A pawn. A carrier pigeon. A tool to bring glory to a man who’s never had to suffer the way she has. There’s the bitterness again. A broken girl will never become a god. She lapses into silence, knows that Xeno would never take those words and allow them to stand. Caradoc still feels the thrill of it, the fact that Xeno can look at her and see something as glorious as that. They found her when she was lost, and they’ve never done anything but make her feel like her destiny is hers for the taking. 

“I don’t know if it’s meant for me.” She says, after a moment. “But if it was, I would share it with you.” 

It’s somehow so simple to choose the bravery they both speak of when she asks. They’re fairly certain that there is very little they would not do, if she asked them to. And the weight the words carry now, as their mind fills with the images of the long forgotten obsession of theirs, the Deathly Hallows, what finding them could mean, what having even just one could do. It’s an incredible amount to take in, a monumental breakthrough they could not have imagined when they came down to the castle tonight, but it feels right, as if this was exactly when they were both meant to have the realization, and not a moment sooner. They are ready for this challenge, and for the power that could come from it, together. 

Watching the realization of it all wash over her is nearly as thrilling as discovering it themself. To see her realize the power she was meant for is a glorious thing; perhaps it should be stranger to realize that they do not care about having it themself if she can possess it, but it is not. Their journey, everything they’ve done, it was to start this, something much greater than themself, or simply the diadem alone. “We will be brave,” they say, voice an excited whisper, as they watch her slip the ring on. There’s something else, though, doubt that is not fair, a doubt the world has long tried to push on their shoulders, and now more than ever they cannot let it settle on hers.

Her hand finds theirs again, and the contact sends fire through their veins, as if something had been missing, those brief moments their hands had not been touching. It was a strange thing to realize it was something they craved, the physical connection which felt even more imperative because of all the other ways they were already connected. They turn their hand over, palm to palm with hers, and lace their fingers together because it feels right, the ring on her finger pressing against theirs. Perhaps its to try to calm the shaking, the uncertainty they can feel from her, even before her words, but perhaps it’s something a little more selfish, the feeling of electricity thrilling.

She doesn’t have to finish her sentence for them to know what she’s thinking, and they shake their head before she’s even finished, squeeze her hand.

“And why are you so certain that person was right? You do not know who they are, or what they want. There are people in this world who play at mastermind, play at savior for their own selfish purposes. So many of our own friends have fallen victim to it, in different ways. These people want you to feel like you are only as much as the use they have for you, but they are wrong,” Xenophilius insists, voice quiet, intense, as they hold her gaze. “Now is not the time to doubt yourself, why else would the world have brought us together, but to give us both the chance for the power and clarity we are meant for. The only thing you can trust is your own intuition. And intuition tells me you are more than anything they could want you to be, and I would put all that I have on that being the case.”

They finish, thoughts running rampant, already trying to think of where they should begin their search, how it may be connected to the diadem, if the ring could be the stone, but then she speaks, and it all stills. She manages so easily to set them at peace. Her words make their breath catch in their throat, and it’s even more impossible not to stare. She would share. Perhaps if the words had come from anyone else, they wouldn’t have believed they were sincere, but they knew better than to doubt the sincerity or truth of anything that Caradoc said to them. That was not something they often found, and it meant even more, somehow, knowing how simple it was of a statement for her.

“I do not know if I am worthy of such an honor, but I am confident there is no one I would rather take the quest to find out with. And there is no one I would rather share such power alongside.”

[xenoslovegood]

cxradoc‌:

She’s basking in this, every inch of it. The flickering of the firelight setting her hands on fire as they shift from cold to warm, the plush cushion she’s settled herself on, the lull of their voice as Xeno replies and the addictive feeling of glee she always gets when she manages to make them smile, even just the slightest bit. 

“Let’s just say that a pack of wild horses couldn’t have kept me away for very long.” Caradoc allows herself a smile, bashful, almost sweet, expression playful as she watches them. They were right, after all. The snow hadn’t slowed her that much. She’d pushed through it, aware of the fact that if she had her wand it would have been a lot easier. Occasionally on the walk up she mused that she’d have to get Remus to teach her a wandless warming charm. Mainly, she thought about Xeno, how every step brought her closer than this. The snow could only keep her away for so long, when her prize waited for her. 

“Our hearts must be pretty fond by now.” A hint of a laugh. “We don’t get to do this enough.” Too honest, it speaks of longing. More often than not, Caradoc would be embarrassed for saying something like that, for implying that the time they have never feels like enough. With other people, it would feel like begging. With Xeno, she always gets the impression that they’re on the same page, and with their intensity she feels safe in the fact that it won’t feel like too much. 

She listens to them, as she always does, with rapt attention. Reverent, like an all night vigil, it always feels like they should be surrounded by candles and songs and offerings to a savage god. Sometimes, when she listens, she feels a bit breathless, feels full, feels overwhelmed by this. “The ring.” She utters when she catches her breath for a moment. Caradoc leans closer, an inch, hooks her finger around the chain that holds the ring and gives it a pull so that it slips from beneath her jumper. It’s warm from her skin, it catches the light. She holds it in the fingers of both hands, delicate and warm, holds it between them like an offering, still attached to the chain around her neck. 

It’s odd. She’s been growing more and more possessive of this every day she has it. She shudders at the thought of letting it go. But she thinks that if Xeno reached out now, she’d be okay with it. They could take it, take the chain around her neck, and she would let them. She trusts them, and that’s the most dangerous thing about this. Her voice is quiet, like she’s sharing a secret. “Look, there, on the stone. James pointed it out, last time we met.” Another movement, tilting it in the light. “There’s a carving, but we can’t figure out what it is.” 

Caradoc looks away from the light glinting on the stone, up again to meet their eyes. It’s like a black hole she keeps getting sucked back into, every time they’re here together. Her smile is a bashful, giddy thing. “I don’t know why,” She starts, like another secret, self-deprecating. “But it makes me feel like we’re on the brink of something. A clue, an adventure, a quest.” 

It’s easier to offer as close to a smile as they come to around her than any other living soul besides their Luna. Misunderstanding and cruelty discourages anything of that sort, and they’ve long learned that any hint of anything less than morbid sincerity makes their thoughts taken even less seriously. But that’s not something they find themself ever worrying about when in her presence, because she offers her own honesty. The knowledge that they’re correct in that, hearing the words from her own tongue, drifting into the air, heavy, perhaps more meaningful than she means, but perhaps not, it sends a wave of that familiar fire through their chest.

“Exceptionally so, I think,” they hum, in agreement. They don’t get to do this nearly often enough. They wish they could spend nearly every moment of their waking life in her presence, searching for their truths together, reveling in the intensity of the pull they feel, savoring the relief that comes from it. But the fear of what might happen if they allowed themselves to follow is in their mind always; slowly, more slowly now, so that there is no chance of the power overwhelming them, hurting her. Already, in a matter of weeks, they are confident this path is what should have been, clarity all the closer. But the temptation is strong. “There is nothing that says it cannot be more often, but our own fears, and our humanity. Two things that threaten to make us cowards. We don’t have to be.”

And when she leans an inch closer, utters the single word that has come to live in their thoughts nearly as much as the other, it feels nearly foolish to even consider thinking of fear or humanity. She holds it up so delicately, so reverently, with such awe reflected as her eyes move from theirs to the ring that it feels quite like looking in a mirror to their own reflection when they had the diadem. Their heart beats a rapid rhythm against their chest as they look. They don’t reach out until she shifts it, voice soft like a prayer, pointing out an engraving, and then they merely reach long fingers out to tilt it towards them, fingers grazing the stone, resting on hers. And they’re not quite sure if it’s the stone, the knowledge, or her that sends the jolt of clarity through their mind, but it’s thrilling, and terrifying, and beautiful, and they grin back at her as her eyes meet theirs.

“You’ve brought a memory, indeed. Never doubt your instincts, Caradoc; a feeling can mean so much more than concrete fact when it comes from the right person, and you are the right person. This? This is a quest, you were right to think so,” Xeno breathes, words tumbling out of their mouth quickly. They don’t want to let go, but they do. Their thoughts are racing too fast for their body to possibly keep up, and they nearly knock over the rapidly cooling teapot to get to the bookshelf next to the fireplace, knowing already that the book they were in search of would be there for them to share. Sure enough, they pick the spine out easily, the thin, colorful children’s book standing out starkly amongst the old, serious tomes. Coming back to her, they kneel down next to her, and flip to the correct pages.

“The Tale of the Deathly Hallows, perhaps you’re familiar; most believe it to simply be a children’s tale, but it’s instructional. The Hallows are real. There are dozens of wix who spend their lives attempting to track them down, but it seems you've come even closer without meaning,” they say with a breath of bewildered laughter. Perhaps this was the purpose all along, perhaps they had been searching for the wrong solution. They show her the page, the symbol hidden in the illustration. “The Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone, and the Cloak of Invisibility. Each immensely powerful on their own, but united, the three Hallows make the possessor the Master of Death. My research on the subject fell by the wayside, once I’d found the diadem again, but it seems that it should be brought back.”

They pause, at last, looking in awe back to the ring, then to Caradoc, a little breathless with the excitement of the discovery. “It must be connected. I wonder if the ring...” they trail off, something inside themself keeping them from saying it out loud, knowing the implication, knowing how quickly hope could be dashed if they let themself possess it. “Perhaps you are meant to master Death. And perhaps my aid might bring its own gifts.”

[xenoslovegood]

cxradoc‌:

It’s anticipation. The feeling in the pit of her stomach. 

It’s been days, and she feels like she’s starving for this. Caradoc keeps turning around and expecting to see Xeno there, keeps daydreaming about these secret nights and their secret fascinations. She keeps longing, keeps waiting, keeps wondering what new delights will be made known to her when next they speak. She finds herself carefully hoarding knowledge, fragments of information gathered so that she may offer them as a gift. And it feels like a betrayal, sometimes, when she finds herself sharing tea with Molly and wishing she were somewhere else, looking into dark eyes and drowning in tales of lost and forgotten things. 

Caradoc herself is a lost thing. It isn’t her fault that Xeno makes her feel found and remembered, like a delicate artefact long buried in dirt and sand only to be uncovered by the luckiest of archeologists, like a sword buried deep in a stone waiting to be pulled free again. 

She is sharp when she stands before the door to a room that shouldn’t exist. Ready to be uncovered once again. When the wooden frame appears to her the anticipation blossoms into a flurry of excited fireflies burning deep inside her. 

There’s a moment when she lips through the door where Xeno hasn’t shifted from their position. Just a moment, but it feels like an eternity as Caradoc looks at them. Their silhouette is striking against the firelight, their hair ablaze. Something in Caradoc is on fire too. The fireflies are catching against her jagged edges. This is dangerous, a familiar voice tells her. When Xeno looks up to greet her and eyes find eyes,  the stronger voice of two chimes in, this is what being alive feels like. 

Her reply comes in the form of a graceful shrug, slow and easy as the fire inside her thaws her from the inside out. There’s a magnetic force that Caradoc is getting used to now, something that pulls her toward Xeno, something she never really wants to resist anymore. It pulls her until she’s perched carefully on the edge of the empty armchair they’ve left waiting for her. 

“It’s snowing.” She says, after a moment. “Slowed me down.” 

Those eyes, looking at her. It’s too easy to get lost in them. At the start of this, Caradoc kept shying away. Averting her gaze. Looking away. She doesn’t do that anymore. She looks straight back and gets lost in them. Something slow and teasing sparks up in her, the way it does around Ben now too, James occasionally. Xeno feels like a holy thing, but she should be able to tease them, just a little. “But no, I get it. Every moment without me is unbearable torture. That’s my fault.” 

There’s a graceful ease that she possesses that feels ethereal. It brings with her the wisp of a distant memory, something that feels entirely essential to their quest, but too far to grasp fully. It’s very nearly impossible to consider much else, after all, once their eyes meet hers once again after too long without. It feels like the first breath of cool, crisp air in the fall, rejuvenating, enlightening, recalling a feeling that was forgotten since it was last felt. Odd, how only a few days can feel like a small eternity.

But her she is, and here they are, found again, for at least a few merciful hours, although they wish they could ask for longer. The world outside nearly falls away in the confines of their private study. Nearly. Reality threatens to slip through the cracks at any moment, making every second there feel all the more important. Even if all they could have was the feeling, it would be enough to know that it was real.

She crosses the room, takes a seat in the empty armchair, and something relaxes in them, shoulders losing some of their ever present tension as she rests closer to them. Snow slowed her, and she slows them, their racing thoughts finally calming enough in her presence to be something understandable. Lately, their breakthroughs only happen after seeing her.

“Now, now, don’t pretend you don’t feel quite the same. You didn’t allow the snow to slow you that greatly,” they hum, raising an eyebrow, the corner of their mouth turning up just slightly. 

Other people don’t joke with them, and it’s not something they’ve ever particularly minded. Before Pandora, no one else seemed able to quite wrap their head fully around the way they act, the way they speak; when confusion could so easily slip into hostility due to fear of that which they did not understand, joking isn’t often the response. Their own brand of sarcasm goes unmet, or misunderstood as seriousness, when it does appear. But Caradoc doesn’t have that fear, that confusion. She looks, and she sees, and she isn’t afraid of honesty with them. And they know well that honesty can mean something as simple as comfort.

It feels a lot like being understood for the first time since they had lost those two meaningful things. It feels a lot like a gentle roar of fire just beneath the surface, waiting to burn through.

“What do the sentimental amongst us say? Absence makes the heart grow fonder, I believe?” Xeno posits, mock thoughtfully, before letting out a breath of laughter. A smile crosses their lips as they shift to the edge of their seat, unconsciously ever closer. They wave their hand absently. “The days grow shorter, and our nights become all the more precious. I've found it increasingly difficult to put my mind to rest. Now more than ever I feel we are on the brink of something. Tonight, it seems you’ve brought memory with you, dear Caradoc, something I’ve long forgotten and can’t quite place yet. Have you come upon anything, since our last visit?”

[xenoslovegood]

night, the room of requirement, december 18        @cxradoc

Time passes and little changes to prove it, only the slow deaths of leaves and grass around them, the sudden chill of the air, and the growing ache of hunger in the pit of their stomach. It’s comforting, in a way, to realize their mind hadn’t crafted the pull in their chest, that it was real, something to hold onto when all else feels so flat. Their mind thrives. At times it feels unfathomable, so unlike anything they’ve felt that they can scarcely believe it’s real. But then it settles into something wholly familiar, so wholly appealing that it’s nearly terrifying, in the most beautiful way. 

Clarity, a step closer every day, for both of them.

It’s tempting to insist on having every moment they can with her, something they haven’t felt since the diadem, since Pandora creeping up their spine, but they know history repeats itself, and they have enough fear that they could misstep again and ruin both of their chances at something greater than to do so. And somehow that makes every moment all the more powerful. The anticipation of the feeling of seeing their hunger reflected in her eyes is nearly as sustaining as the feeling itself, somehow.

Even if empirically they seem no closer to finding the diadem once again, they find that that doesn’t matter, a little voice in the back of their mind telling them that what it takes to get that understanding and enlightenment back is half of the purpose. All they know is that their mind is full of the diadem and her, her and the diadem, and every moment is a moment closer to that which was lost. How they’re connected, what they both mean, how it feels as if she is the key to that clarity, that she is the only way to find it, and that only they can help her have that power, too. The diadem and Caradoc. 

And the ring.

Tonight, they are not in the room of lost things, but a study of sorts, full of books about legends, and things long forgotten, a fire roaring in one corner, pot of tea still warm, but untouched next to armchairs. They’ve already been here for some time, Luna staying with the Weasleys for tonight, they’re already lost in a tome, searching for mentions of these things together, that idea at the forefront of their mind tonight. Little could draw them from their work once its begun, but she does easily, the sound of her entrance drawing their eyes away from the knowledge to something more precious. 

“Ah, hello, Caradoc, I was hoping you would arrive soon,” Xeno says, straightening up to greet her. Eyes find eyes and the pull moves from a dull ache to a pleasant blaze. 

[xenoslovegood]

mmollyweasley‌:

She loves her husband, mild and often strange, settled in the person he has always been. A peacekeeper at heart, because Molly Prewett needed that in her life, needed a calm counterpart like Gideon had Fabian. He was easy to love, her Arthur, and their relationship radiated the meant-to-be feeling that had prompted them to elope at seventeen. She hadn’t seen that kind of love in anyone else until the Lovegoods–somehow too suited for each other, like they had always lived in orbit of each other. And Luna, too, once she came along, the tides pushed and pulled by Xeno’s moon.

Molly’s found herself thinking, more than once, sometimes voicing aloud to Arthur, that she hopes someone like Pandora comes along to love Xeno and Luna like they deserve. Xeno is not the type to mesh themself in with the Weasleys like the Potters have or the Tonks, even–they drop Luna off and disappear, return at odd hours with no explanation of what they might have accomplished in the time. Molly worries they are filling the void of losing Pandora with something less than savory. Something they can’t in good conscience bring Luna along for. And if Luna didn’t look as well-cared-for as she is, Molly might worry more, but as she’s pointed out to Arthur before, people are allowed to have hobbies that aren’t tenable for young children, and at least this means Luna is getting socialization.

Maybe it’s her hearing, but sometimes Xeno makes next to no sense. She can’t look to Arthur for help, because he’ll have made no more sense of it than she, given his habit of half-listening when Xeno talked about his obscure works. Sometimes he’d be in a pleasant enough mood to equate it to whatever Muggle contraption he was working on enchanting and start on about that, and Xeno would–well, humor him, it seemed to Molly, but perhaps they were more interested than she could perceive. Those conversations didn’t happen frequently enough for Molly to be able to tell.

But children she can speak well enough about. Easy, to talk about children, easier than to discuss the halves of the Lovegoods’ research that she was never part of. She’d helped Pandora here and there, but she’d never fully grasped what they were working on–too late now. Xeno was far less likely to give any straight answers. “Children are often smarter than we give them credit. Luna is a credit to you and Pandora both.”

The necessity in the community they had come to reside in of being just that is something they’re still not fully used to, something they don’t think they’ll ever be truly used to. They were raised in such solitude from others, taught such different values than it seemed most of the families around them had, that even once they had found Pandora, it had not been entirely possible to get used to the expectation of camaraderie. They were self aware enough to know that, since she had disappeared, they had reverted somewhat into the protective shell of research and lone inspiration that they had clung to before having a family of their own.

But Luna needed more than that, and there was an opportunity here to do something with their knowledge, with their passion. Even without thinking of that which they so desperately longed for, the clarity and inspiration they missed just as greatly as their partner, they were realizing that their research and passion could get nowhere alone. They still aren’t certain, though, how others can aid them in what they’re hoping to create, when so many are fractured, as it is, among them.

“That is very kind of you to say, although, I’m certain most of it is her own natural intelligence,” Xeno hums, with a gracious nod, still preoccupied with the itch to leave, to go to the hidden room and search again, as they always did, as if tonight might give them something different. Perhaps, though, it would give them another chance meeting. Eyes skirt to the doorway, as if expecting to see her there, hungry to see her there, only just realizing she was likely somewhere in the house. 

“Perhaps I can make more time for...this sort of thing,” they add, a little haltingly, not used to willingly saying something like that. “I worried, for a time, that without Pandora, I might be lost––and I’m self-aware enough to know that I am not infallible, of course, I make my mistakes––but in a way, perhaps, it feels as if this was what was meant for me, and Luna, too. In tragedy, there is rebirth. I feel as though my eyes have been opened, recently, to that knowledge.”

[xenoslovegood]

cxradoc‌:

She listens with rapt attention, fixated and focused and moved. She thought when they started talking that some of her hunger for this would be sated, but she’s only more and more caught up in it and them and power she can scarcely fathom. She thinks back to her days in the hospital wing, back further to the dungeons. Thinks about how powerless she felt, how much she wanted to feel strong again. She doesn’t know what they’re talking about. but she wants to hear more, wants to feel that. If she was hungry before, she’s starving now.

It feels like the bottom of her stomach drops out, as they continue in their tale. The sadness, the tragedy. Someone they loved, just vanished along with the power they coveted. Left alone with a little girl and a mystery they can’t ask for help with. She almost feels bad for asking the question in the first place, but it seems like a fair sacrifice in exchange for the closeness she feels inside her. Looking at them, knowing this part of them, being given something private and secret to the rest of the world. Why they told her, she’ll never understand. She’s a stranger. But then again, she thinks there are very few things she could stop herself telling to them if they asked her to. 

“I’m sorry.” She says, quiet as a breath. “For your losses.” For the person and the clarity both. 

Maybe its a shitty thing, to apologise for the latter. But she knows that losing a feeling can be as hard as losing a person. To fixate on something you might be able to regain instead of the hurt of never seeing someone again, it’s a preferable choice. She’ll never get her family back, never find the friends she lost, and she’ll never stop being damaged by all of this. But she might be able to feel strong again, might be able to find a purpose in her life. 

She gets the idea that Xeno might help her. She reaches out to take their hand, squeeze it with something like comfort. She should be worried that they did something to hurt the woman, she should be worried about a loss of time and the lack of answers as to what really happened. She isn’t worried at all. She can’t bring herself to be scared this time, beyond the worry and fear that always lives inside her chest, the whispered worries and anxieties and the quick beating of her heart at the slightest sound, beyond the call of nightmares around every corner and behind her eyes. She’s less scared than she has been all day, and honesty slips out through the crack of it. 

“Maybe we were meant to find each other before you can get it back.”

When she speaks, voice quiet, barely even audible with the sound of the children playing in other corners of the house, it feels as if a wave of warmth runs down their spine. Losses. How strange, to hear it put like that, to hear their own thoughts spoken aloud by another, so easily, without judgement or horror. Because it is the truth. They lost two things that night, and perhaps they should feel more ashamed that in their mind both losses hurt equally. It should be simple; to lose a love, to lose someone who understands you as no one else before has, that should be the worst heartbreak. But to lose clarity, to lose knowledge, the thing grounding you, and lifting you up, that feels just as earth shattering. And it’s easier to think about the latter, because they can’t do anything to bring Pandora back, but they just might be able to have that power again.

They want to say something, but thank you feels wholly inadequate to say to someone who seems to understand them so easily, without judgement. For once, their voice is caught in their throat, an unfamiliar amount of emotion creeping up as they feel so wholly seen, exposed, but perhaps not in an unpleasant way. They’re not used to offering such honesty, but somehow it was easy, no second thought to telling her what she had asked for. It’s a comfort, to hear that she understands, but they’re certain that even without her words, they would have been able to tell that was the case. She understands the need they have, and it means something to hear it.

And to feel it.

Touch is not something very usual to them. Their childhood was spent at an arm’s length from their parents, and their teenage years were no different, separated enough from their peers that it took years to find something like affection, and even then they hadn’t sought it out. With Pandora, it had taken time, but they had come to enjoy it, and once she was gone, that had gone with it. Now, there was only Luna. So the touch of her hand when she takes theirs, certain and comforting, sends a jolt through their arm, something so familiar and so utterly different in one. It makes it easier to swallow, easier to look back at her again, eyes finding eyes. It feels as it should be. Clear.

They squeeze her hand, hold on tighter, an agreement with her words even before they fully leave her lips. Even less possible to look away from her, now, as she speaks so openly about their meeting being nothing like coincidence. “I think you’re right. There’s something you have, that I need,” Xenophilius said, without needing to consider the words, knowing the truth behind them just from the feeling, from the pull, the hunger. They knew something else for certain, too. “And vice versa, I think. Perhaps...what I’ve lost is meant to help you, too. Perhaps, I’m meant to help you.”

“Have you ever felt power the likes of which I described? No...that’s not the question...Do you wish to?”

[xenoslovegood]

ben-fenwick‌:

The wix was right, their name gave him no further insight into just who exactly they were. It was enough of a mouthful that it would have clearly stuck out in his memory should he have heard it before, no matter the circumstance. This fact should have eased his mind, and a year ago it likely would have. Now though, he was all too aware that the biggest of threats weren’t the ones you knew of, but rather the ones that lurked hidden in the shadows. 

It didn’t surprise him how much they seemed to know about him and Caradoc, news like two escapees crossing the border was sure to spread like wildfire among the various social circles in Scotland. What had gave him pause though was the question that followed, a question he wasn’t entirely sure the meaning behind. Had this wix come to reveal some kind of dark secret of Caradoc’s? To make him question himself on how well he truly did know the witch his fate had been entangled with? Or rather, were they themself looking to find some insight on her? Either way, Ben felt his defenses draw up. He’d delivered on his promise in escorting her safely across the border, but the bond they formed through their shared ordeal made him still protective of her. 

“I know enough,” he replied flatly, not wanting to take the bait if that was indeed the question’s purpose. Looking over to the wix, he gave them a quick once over, before casting his gaze back out towards the rest of the pub, taking another long drink of his beer as he did. “You seem to know an awful lot though, there a reason?” 

A dozen different scenarios ran through his mind as he waited for the wix’s response, ranging from they were an old school friend, simply curious as to her well-being, to ones far more sinister. None though quite explained why they’d have come to him, rather than Caradoc herself. 

Times like these, they wished that their interest in legilimency had lasted longer than a few months, or that it had yielded anything but the certainty that they were never going to be particularly skilled at that aspect of magic. It would have been much easier to simply peer into the mind, search for the information that they sought, as they weren’t even certain that he would have it. It sounded from the whispers that he had only met her on their escape together, there was nothing to say they would know such details of each others’ lives. But then, such harrowing circumstances often bonded people, truths slipped from the tongue more easily in the face of death. So perhaps he would know if she had any connection to what they believed she did.

But to find out, they would need more tact than they had ever possessed. There was little to do but try, though, and already he was something of an amusing subject himself, with the way he turned the question back around on them, searching for his own information first. Xeno was long used to the judging gaze of others, but they wondered what he was searching for as he gave them the up-down.

“Do I?” they asked, raising a curious eyebrow, a hint of amusement in their voice. Perhaps that was telling, perhaps not; just a way to hide whatever it was he himself knew until their intentions were clear. They had very little plan of making that the case, though. “Surface level, perhaps, but nothing deeper. Nothing that matters. Not enough, like you. I was a year ahead of her in school, different house, never heard much about her before now. But I was properly introduced the other night, and I suppose I find myself curious. A very human curiosity.”

Not a lie, not the truth. Was it human, the feeling they had gotten when they had seen her? They thought not. No, it had reminded them too clearly of what they felt with the diadem, and they were certain that was not human. Something wholly human couldn’t cause such clarity, such pain. “I wonder if she mentioned a strange experience across the border; a clarity of sorts, or perhaps losing time, the pull of an object, even? I’m afraid she may not remember herself, which is why I’m asking you.”

[xenoslovegood]

mmollyweasley‌:

Arthur shuts the door behind Xeno, and while he’s situated behind their visitors he gives Molly a look that is distinguishable only in the language of a couple married for nearly twenty years. A look that says one cup of tea only, Molly, because he knows his wife and Molly will keep Xeno for a multi-course teatime and pudding too. Whether that’s out of sheer inability not to overstuff her guests or obligation to Pandora–or both–is anyone’s guess.

Molly doesn’t return the look, keeping her grin as she waves Xeno towards the table–there are always empty chairs there, now, with three children gone at the castle, and their live-in guests rarely join for family meals, preferring the solitude of leftovers later in the night–and goes to prepare the tea. And biscuits, of course. She considers that included under the umbrella of a cuppa.

The Lovegoods have been a topic of conversation multiple times in the Burrow, especially since Pandora’s death. Or disappearance, as Arthur darkly said once, when it was just them talking in the kitchen, an opinion never repeated after Molly’s returning glare. Arthur might have a point that the circumstances around her death were odd–Molly herself insisted that Pandora wasn’t careless enough to get into an accident like Xeno described–but Molly refused to believe anything against her old friends, no matter what oddness Xeno sank into without Pandora around. They are grieving, Molly has always insisted. Pandora had been a wonderful person, and it was no surprise that coping with a small child and no spouse is difficult for them.

“Working late tonight?” Arthur asks conversationally, settling his hands on his stomach and leaning back in his chair. Supper mostly concluded, Molly waves her wand to start the cleaning up and joins them at the table with steaming cups. “It’s been too long, dear,” she adds, and if a little bit of guilting them slips its way into her tone, she’s certain Pandora would forgive her.

They oblige, following the waved invitation to take a spot at the table. The art of casual conversation was something that they had never quite learned. Their own parents hadn’t been interested in that sort of thing, much too worried about their work, and then their financial struggles, the failings of each other, to truly drive home the idea that perhaps there was something to just chatting with other people. No, they had spent their childhood in the company of old intellectuals, devouring words and blocking out the sounds of shouting from their parents in the next room of their too small apartment. By the time they were at Hogwarts, it was a little late to change their view on needing other people and their trivialities in their life.

But things change, and they’re learning more and more, as the days pass without Pandora, that they cannot stay in the private world if they want a good life for Luna, and selfishly, if they want a chance at finding their clarity again. And so they offer Molly a gracious, but practiced smile and nod of thanks as they take their seat, folding their hands on the table in front of them, the energy to go put into their leg bouncing beneath the table.

“Some business can only be conducted in the moonlight, I’ve learned,” they said simply, about as much explanation as they ever offered anyone for the work they did when they dropped their daughter off at various babysitters around the village. Xeno knows well enough that they must offer something, though, or else Molly won’t be satisfied with their absence––and even then, that tone will likely never quite leave when she’s speaking with them, they imagine. “Yes, it has been quite some time. As the tides have changed, so has the nature of my work. I’ve been so busy working on a setting the groundwork for change with the little influence I do have in a very specific circle of thinkers, it scarcely leaves time for much else, especially with a child to look after on my own, I’m afraid. I’ll relish the day she’s old enough to fully understand my work, although, she’s already more intelligent than I could have dreamed a child so young could be.”

[qalbimuneeb]

Visit Original Link

Weezer - Undone - The Sweater Song

Watch me unravel, I’ll soon be naked. Lying on the floor, Lying on the floor! I’ve come undone.

[xenoslovegood]

cxradoc‌:

They’re as enthralling as the other day, rather annoyingly. Caradoc is ashamed of how often her thoughts have turned to Xeno, the mystery and pull she felt. She’d only had two dreams since she came back that weren’t nightmares. They haunted her through one of them, back in that hallway, stepping through a door that led to an abyss. She’d been scared when she awoke, but in a different way than usual –– less visceral, with less gnawing teeth and gasping breaths. It was no pained recollection of the dungeons, or the trek through the woods with Ben where her mind twisted things until he was dead beside her. 

Xeno is so odd, she thinks still. But it’s an oddness that only draws her in, the tug of it in her chest yanking at her. Cautiously, she comes and perches herself on the edge of a couch cushion, lets them speak words that would have her backing away if it were anyone else. She is flattered, when she thinks of it. Perhaps she should be more worried, perhaps she should tell them that their behaviour is verging on that of a creepy stalker. They’d unsettled her, at the end of their conversation before, but here in the light of a late October evening, there didn’t seem to be anything menacing about them at all. 

She offers them a shadow of a smile, the feeling of it unnatural on her face these days. Xeno was right –– her body was getting better, more so every day. It was all just skin and muscle and organs, with time and attention they would always mend to create something whole again. She’d have scars, and she’d have to pick if she wanted to keep them or not. The wounds on her mind were the ones that didn’t know how to heal themselves, and magic couldn’t do much to aid them in their journey. “I blame Ben.” She says, a little too quiet into the space. She should be proud of her own survival, but she knows she wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for him. He was the one who had gotten them through the woods, he was the one with the wand and the will and the way. “He’s the strong one, I’m just riding his coat-tails. Stubborn might be a better word for me.” 

She looks at Xeno, long and thoughtful, entranced by their eyes and their presence and the feeling of destiny in the air. “Isn’t it a little unfair, that you know what caused my wounds and I don’t know what caused yours?” 

The hint of a smile on her lips is something refreshing, makes everything feel a little more concrete, seeing her in such a mundane place, with some of the veil lifted, a normal thing like a smile crossing her face, even if it’s only a shadow of what she might’ve been able to offer before her harrowing journey through the other side. And she does sit, this time, even if only barely, as if ready to bolt at the first hint of danger, and that’s not something they blame her for. But they do plan to do what they can to change that, show that they’re not the danger, but perhaps being without what it is they both seek is. “Stubbornness bears strength, if used correctly, I think. And I have a feeling Ben would say something similar about you; neither of you would have made it without the other’s strength,” they say simply, with a small shrug, the statement of a fact, not postulation.

She looks at them, doesn’t break from they eye contact, and again they find it nearly impossible to look away, like perhaps if they look for long enough, they’ll both be given some secrets the universe has been keeping safe in the other, meant only for their eyes. When she breaks the silence, her question is a surprise, makes them raise an eyebrow, but they consider the words carefully. If they want to be trusted, they have to show trust. “Perhaps you have a point,” they hum, thoughtfully. “Luna, my love, why don’t you and Ginny go find Ron to play until dinner.” The little girl looks up, almost as if she had forgotten their were adults around at all, before nodding, and the two run out of the room.

There’s a choice to make, between the story they’ve told everyone around them, and the truth. It isn’t a surprise that looking back at her, the choice is easy, and unusual. No one else knows about this, after all, perhaps it’s dangerous to admit it, even if they don’t know if they’ll tell her just what it was they had found, yet. “I’ve been interested in the unravelling of unanswerable questions for a very long time. Even as a child, I was more interested in gathering all of the knowledge I could, rather than the ordinary problems of those around me,” they explain, slowly. “When I was in my seventh year, I found what I believed would be the answer to those questions. For years, I was given clarity and insight, I was given a power that you can scarcely fathom unless you have felt it yourself.”

A pause, used to study her expression, looking for any hint of recognition, or understanding. It feels as if she is intimately connected to that part of their life, but they’re not sure how, not sure if that’s quite right. For once, though, they think honesty about this moment might give them what they need. Instead of judgement and suspicion, it may give them the clarity they’ve been so desperate for for so long, or at least start them on that path with her. Because she needs it, too, even if she isn’t fully aware of it in the way they are yet.

“Something unexpected happened, though,” they continue, finally tearing their eyes from her. They’re not sure they can say it all out loud with such intensity staring back at them. “I found someone I wanted to share that clarity with. It took years to make the choice, but I finally shared the knowledge with her, and... I’m not quite sure what happened. All I remember is a pain unlike anything I’ve ever felt, and a fury, too, and then I was alone. She was gone, the source of that clarity with her. That was earlier this year. I knew, even with no evidence, that she was dead. It’s something you can feel, I think, when you share so much with another person. Like she took a little piece of my soul with her, somewhere I can’t follow... And it feels as if another piece was taken with, too, but I think I might still be able to get that piece back.”

“I hope that feels a little more fair. And now you know what it is I was seeking that night you found me. An otherwise unshared secret.”

[xenoslovegood]

mmollyweasley‌:

Unannounced visitors are common at the Burrow, but not usually after supper has already started. She doesn’t hear the knock, occupied with spooning out stew into bowls (and sending those bowls to the table safely), but a flicker of lights on the wall has Arthur up and at the door before their guests can consider them rude.

“Xeno!” Arthur sounds surprised, but he covers it quickly. “And Luna, how nice of you to stop in.” Ginny’s by his side in a second, earning her an “oi!” from whichever twin whose toes she stepped on to get there.

“Luna!” Ginny grabs her friend’s hand and tugs her inside. No reticence here, with her long hair and quick feet. “You can sit by me.”

“You too, Xeno,” Molly calls, and Arthur echoes her. “Sit, have tea at least.”

Things have changed, since Pandora’s loss. Xeno has changed. They’re expected to, grief being what it is, and the Lovegoods had been such a connected couple. Losing that kind of love–well, it was unfathomable. It should make sense, Xeno’s altered state, but somehow–Molly hasn’t managed to reconcile things, yet. Even with the grief, they seem more changed than they ought to be.

But it wouldn’t do to disrespect Pandora’s memory and neglect them. Nor Luna, of course, dear little thing. No, Pandora had been her friend, and Molly was going to do everything in her power to make sure Xeno was taken care of.

“Apologies for dropping by unannounced,” they nod, although it’s more of a pleasantry, a thing they know they should say, than anything they truly feel. A small smile does slip over their lips as Ginny grabs Luna’s hand and pulls her inside. They’re grateful that Luna has been allowed to grow up surrounded by other children, it takes some of the pain away from losing Pandora, they think, makes it easier than it would have been if it had just been the two of them left.

They purse their lips, considering the invitation that always tends to come when they stop by to drop Luna off. After they had met Pandora, even when things were just beginning––although, it was impossible to call any part of it less than intense––she had started taking them places, introducing them to her friends, asking them to do things like stay for tea. It wasn’t something they felt was particularly necessary, had never really bothered with anything of that sort before, when there was so much work to be done always, but they did it, because it made Pandora happy, and they learned to sometimes enjoy it as well.

It was easy to revert, though, after she was gone. No reason to keep that sort of thing up when all it did was remind them that she wasn’t here, and it was likely their fault. Better to focus on solving the mystery, and finding the diadem. The mundane, ordinary interactions of everyday life could come back into focus once they had a solution. 

Unfortunately, though, Xeno was realizing more and more lately that perhaps they wouldn’t be able to have what they needed without help. So maybe a short stop could be helpful, instead of a hinderance.

“Alright. One cup of tea, then I truly must be on my way,” they concede, gesturing to follow Arthur and the gaggle of kids inside.

[xenoslovegood]

ben-fenwick‌:

The Burrow had been- well exactly as he’d imagined a house equipped to handle seven children would be. Even down half their numbers it took some getting used to, in a blink of an eye he’d gone from living in complete isolation to suddenly having to share a bathroom again like he was back in the dorms at Hogwarts. He was glad to have the bed, and Molly’s hospitality extended above and beyond what he expected, but he still caught himself here and there needing a break from the bustling home. Like it once was, The Hogs Head had turned into a frequent haunt of his again, somewhere to clear his head in the anonymity a crowded pub could provide.

As with most evenings he found himself there, he was huddled in a far flung corner of the bar, back flush against the wall with the rest of the pub and its patrons fanned out in various tables around him. It was the perfect spot for someone who wasn’t comfortable yet leaving his back unguarded, and still jumped far too easily at every unexpected sound or tap on the shoulder. 

When the small bell above the door jingled with the arrival of a new patron, Ben’s gaze darted up to get a look at them. They weren’t anyone he recognized, but his eyes stayed on them regardless, waiting for them to take a seat next to someone they were meeting or to head in the direction of the bar. They didn’t do either of those though. When the wix’s gaze locked with his own, Ben could feel his shoulders tighten as a flash of recognition passed over their features. He hadn’t known them, but clearly, and for whatever reason, they had him. For a brief moment a spike of fear rushed up his spine, thinking maybe this was someone Riddle sent to collect him. Or that whoever decided to free Caradoc figured he’d served his purpose and he was simply a loose end that needed tied up. 

The wix didn’t give off the appearance of a Riddle follower though, their clothes stood out too much, if they were a Death Eater come to collect they would have made themself blend in more, to erase the possibility of a future witness to whatever was to come. No, he thought to himself, whoever this was didn’t mind having eyes on them, and likely enjoyed the added attention. Their use of his name, confident with no question as to whether he was the man they sought, only confirmed his earlier suspicions. They knew him, enough to know his face as it appeared now, a stark contrast to the clean shaven mug he’d had a year ago. Most notably though, they knew they could find him here of all places. 

“You got until this bottle runs dry,” he replied, lifting the ale to his lips he took a large swig, “better make it fast.” 

There was suspicion in his eyes, but that was no different from anyone who knew them, even, at this point, and was thus never a true deterrent to them. In fact, this was perhaps for the best in this situation, since it seemed he also was unaware of who they were. Better that he had no impression, had heard nothing about them, or what the crueler amongst their community liked to think happened to their partner. Giving someone already primed for suspicion, with very good reason, considering what they had heard he had come from, even more reason not to be honest with them was the least helpful thing they could do if they wanted a chance at insight.

They were in their element, though, even if the location itself was out of the ordinary for them. Having a question that wanted for an answer was when they thrived. All the better if the question seemed to have no answer at all. And this was one that seemed to hold no obvious logic. They were convinced, yes, that the answer lied with their search for the diadem again, but why was she connected, when she herself even seemed confused. Sometimes others knew more of a person than they could themself. And so, the man sitting here was a good starting point, as he seemed to be the only one with any connection to Caradoc.

Perhaps to some people, his words would seem like a reason to leave, or a reason to rush anxiously through, but for them, it was merely invitation to forget any attempt––which likely would’ve failed anyway––at pleasantries, and dive directly into things.

“Easy enough. I’m Xenophilius Lovgood, although I’m not egotistical enough to think that name might be anything but nonsense to you, considering our very different histories,” they nodded, gesturing vaguely with a hand. Only fair, that he could have their name, too, even if they didn’t think it mattered. “You came across the border with Caradoc Dearborn, you were in the hospital wing up at the castle together, now you’re both staying with the Weasleys. Do you know much about her?”

[xenoslovegood]

cxradoc‌:

Caradoc hovers in the doorway for a moment too long. She’s been doing that a lot, lately. Hovering at doors and outside of rooms, cautious and uncertain of her place in the world. She’s a ghost, sometimes, or maybe it just feels that way. This kind of hesitation would have been unnatural for her, before, but now she isn’t sure she’ll ever grow out of it again. Molly has been so kind, so generous. Ben has been a rock. She still has to build herself up before she walks downstairs, especially if it sounds like more than one person is knocking about. 

There is distinctly more than one person in the kitchen. She sees Xeno and wonders if it was this pull that made her come downstairs, as opposed to the distant idea that she should be hungry by now. She judged her need for food by the sound of Molly cooking, if she could hear the sounds it was probably time to eat, even if it felt heavy and alien in her stomach. She feels childish in the way she freezes there, stuck on the precipice. 

Of course they turn to look at her before she can screw her courage to the sticking place and step over the boundary of the room. She pulls in a long breath, moves inside the living room and curses herself for not heading straight to the kitchen. She’d learned not to offer help to Molly, by now. The woman never allowed it. She was a guest, after all. And she was wounded, still healing, more on the inside than the out.

     “Xenophilius.” The name comes out as if its been on the tip of her tongue since the last time they spoke. “Not entirely sure if I should be flattered that you found me again, even by coincidence.” Is it? Is a coincidence what this is? Xeno may just be friends with Molly, may do this often, come and stay for dinner with their daughter. The universe putting them together could be a happy accident. Caradoc isn’t sold, but she isn’t self-obsessed enough to believe the alternative: that they’re here just for her. She fixes her gaze on the little girl, hesitant again though the children don’t seem to care much about her presence. When a friend is over, it’s difficult to care for the company of grown ups. “She’s cute.” 

There’s a hesitance this time in her that they only saw at the end of their first meeting. It makes them wonder if maybe, after time spent thinking on the strange occurrence, the bizarre pull that they know she felt too, she might be afraid of what it means. Fear, they’ve learned after so many years, comes from the unknown, comes from not understanding, and it keeps people from so much. Perhaps that is why they’ve spent their life trying to answer questions that had no discernible answer, to purge fear from their own mind, and from the minds around them. They know no such thing as a delicate touch, but they’re determined not to frighten her with whatever strange connection there is between them, if it’s possible. If she keeps her distance, neither of them will ever understand, and if they can’t understand, it feels as if that might keep them from ever finding the lost diadem again. It might keep her from whatever it is she lost.

She steps forward, though, after some hesitation, and that feels like a small victory, given the way she backed away so quickly last time. Perhaps it feels a little less terrifying in the light, in a warm home, full of the sort of love they wished came easily to them, the pull that exists in the air between them. Everything is less mysterious in the light of day, even as it dies into the night.

They make a tsk-ing noise with their tongue. “I told you to call me Xeno, please, none of this formality,” they say with a wave of their hand. They find it very hard not to look her in the eye now that she’s in front of them again. They can still see it there, the reflected image of their on hunger, although perhaps not quite as conscious, yet. It makes them wonder if she has seem the diadem herself, but without understanding attached.

“There’s no such thing as mere coincidence, Caradoc. And nothing that I do is by accident, there is purpose in each and every word I speak, and action I take. I think being flattered is appropriate,” Xeno nods, a slight quirk of the corner of the mouth, amusement in their eyes. It takes effort to look away from her, and back down at Luna. “And intelligent, too.The best of her mother and me in one perfect child, none of the bad... It’s good to see you’re healing, physically. I know firsthand, though, how wounds linger in the mind. It’s impressive when someone manages to continue on, despite it all. You’re very strong, I can see that.”

[xenoslovegood]

22 october, late afternoon, the weasley home         ( @cxradoc​ )

Molly is always trying to get them to stay for tea, or dinner, or anything else at all, when they come by to unceremoniously drop Luna off, when they choose the Weasleys as their unwitting babysitters for whatever business they have attending to. It rarely works, as once they have a clear plan for their time, nothing but divine power might intervene. This afternoon, though, that is exactly what they plan to do. If there are other intentions behind the choice, if, perhaps, they come a little early, when they know Molly will likely be very busy with dinner, and nighttime responsibilities, there is no need anyone else needs to know it.

Because their mind is full. The ache they feel in their chest, the hunger in the pit of their stomach only seems to be growing, and they can’t concentrate on much else. Even their attempts at putting focus on working at the articles promised for the Insurgency haven’t worked, the words hard to draw forth, when all they can think of how it had been like looking at the answers to questions they hadn’t been asking, but were perhaps even more important, coming face to face with Caradoc Dearborn.

So they attempt the pleasantries, say an emphatic yes to having a seat and a cup of tea, perhaps even staying for dinner, while Luna played with Ginny. And they wait. It’s impossible to keep their leg from bouncing up and down, their heart seems to know that feeling of clarity is near, the way it beats so hard, even as they sit on the worn sofa, only absently watching Luna. 

They feel the presence before they see her, and they turn towards the doorway, teacup gripped perhaps a little too tight in their hands.

“Hello, Caradoc. I’m glad to see you’ve escaped,” they say, standing to greet her, unable to help themself from taking a step toward the doorway. It feels strange, seeing her here, in the light, in such ordinary circumstance, but they can feel the pull still, and that sets something in their ablaze, to know they hadn’t been imagining it. “This is my daughter, Luna. Molly invited us to stay for dinner, kind as she is.”

[xenoslovegood]

17 october, early evening, the hog’s head          ( @ben-fenwick )

A fledgling interest born from a long loved obsession, it was easy to let their mind be taken over with something so new and intriguing, that felt so familiar and clarifying. The abrupt ending to the night had been a disappointment, had made something in them twist in a way they weren’t used to. To feel as if they had been peering at their answers, a haze clearing, and to suddenly be ripped from it, it made them ache even greater for whatever it was they had seen.

They were not so easily deterred, though, and even if the weak excuse to run from insight and understanding, the assurance that would be tomorrow had not been followed through on, they were busy with their own research. It wasn’t difficult to find information, when you knew where to look, and they had long ago perfected the art of research. A name was all they needed, after all, and the information swelled before them, as they asked, concerned voices easily giving up knowledge. That lead to another name, a name that apparently lived side by side with hers, and perhaps might lead to a better understanding of what strange power she held behind her eyes.

It wasn’t difficult to find the man, Molly kindly directing him to the Hog’s Head, and allowing them to, once again, leave Luna in her care for an undetermined amount of time. They weren’t one to frequent pubs or bars, no desire to cloud their mind with the sort of libations people usually came for, but they could endear for information. And sure enough, there information sat at the corner of the bar alone.

Xeno wasted no time in going over to him, and taking the seat next to him, eyes fixed on that man. “You’re Benjamin Fenwick,” they said, a statement, not a question, looking him up and down. Not yet full healed, that was clear from the way he sat, even. 

“I need to speak with you.”

[xenoslovegood]

cxradoc‌:

Her eyes are glued on them, a scary kind of gravitational pull that makes her want to be closer. Something hungry and curious pushing her. “Xeno.” She mirrors back, testing it on her tongue. “No, it’s interesting. I like it.” It suited them, a nonsense name for a person who felt like a fairytale in her mind. 

Their pacing is something strange, has her raising her eyebrows and sighing out a little breath of questioning. The door appears, and she takes a slow step back in surprise. She’d heard a Ravenclaw boy whisper once, the the library, about how his grandfather told him of a room that only appeared when you needed it to. A wondrous thing. Their gaze seems heavier, the request sitting in the air between them. 

What’s the harm? Part of her things, a powerful tug at something in her chest. Go play, go talk, go get to know this stranger and the powers they seek. Something in her feels settled, happy at the outcome. Another part of her feels distinctly the opposite of that. It feels too strange, they feel too strange. Something sensible in her poses her the question: when is a door not a door? When it’s a trap, of course. Caradoc has spent too long in rooms she didn’t intend, with people who took every chance to hurt her. 

Trust isn’t something that comes easy, anymore. Ben must have been the strangest kind of fluke, a man as damaged as she was. There’s a sadness behind Xeno’s eyes that speaks of pain, but boundless ambition and want too. Another step carries her further away. 

     “Maybe some other time.” And it’s work to keep her voice normal, work to say it, her fingers clenching tighter around the ring in her fist. “I need to go back to the hospital wing, now.” Too quick, a flimsy excuse. “I’ll…escape tomorrow, instead.” And she takes another step, then another, until they carry her back the way she came and out of Xeno’s sight.