minerva

Florence Welch’s sweet voice filled the lab with lyrics Mary knew by heart, so she sang softly as she took notes. It wasn’t unusual that Mary spent her day in the lab, completely ignoring the world outside, even turning her phone off just to focus on her work only. That day wasn’t the exception, only that this time she had a very particular reason to do so.

She had been playing with her new Digital Binocular Microscope for hours, like a kid with a new toy, yet Mary couldn’t help herself. It was true that her mother was Head of Science Department, but Mary didn’t get any special treatment out of it. In fact, it made her work harder than any other student just to prove herself. So it had taken her a while to get the new microscope and the wait had been worth it. It was a real beauty. With the LED illumination and the USB camera, it truly seemed like she had brand new eyes. It was almost better than sex. Almost.

When she heard the door closing, Mary sighed loudly, looking at her laptop screen to make sure the picture had been taken right. “This is a closed lab, you shouldn’t be here.” Mary reached up to take off her safety glasses. “Look, I don’t know who let you in, but the door is locked for a reason.” She was in possession of dangerous substances that could blow up the entire building if they weren’t careful, and she seriously wanted to finish this so she could go home and binge-watch Sense8. “Is there a reason why you decided to come here and interrupt me?”

For some time she stood at the archway, waiting to ask her daughter if she wished to join her for lunch, a silent woman, even today, she could only seem to walk as a ghost, and given pause at the sight of Mary admiring the microscope brought back her own memories of being given her own equipment, those she never dreamed of being able to afford with money of her own, only able to push herself through school and fund the care of Mary on her own with the help of a mass of scholarships, partly fueling a secret wish of making sure Mary had access to everything unknown to them once Minerva was finally creating a stable income, she’d give her the world, if she could, would also rather help Mary be able to take the world on her own.

look-a-rp-meme:

Send… 😊 for a flirty text 😍 for a love text 😱 for a hyper text 👎 for an irritated text 😳 for a sexy text

Here’s some more because I obviously love emojis and text memes:

😞  for an anxious text

     [ text ] i think there’s a guy that followed me out of the club     [ text ] i don’t WANT to mace him if i don’t have to      [ text ] but i think i might have to

💩  for a shitty text

     [ text ] –image attachment–     [ text ] i didn’t know who else to text     [ text ] should eris’s shit be this orange?

🤐  for a gossip text

Other kids talked about her daddies, the games they played together or the stories they read to them every night. Mary had that, but it was her mommy the one who played with her and read all those stories about princesses and magic. There was always a prince who married the princess and Mary had wondered why her mommy didn’t have a prince. And Mary really liked going to the Kindergarten, leaning so many new things was the greatest thing ever, and she had friends! But they all have daddies and she didn’t.

At first she hadn’t known what a daddy was until one of her friends told her that she should have one, because mommies and daddies had babies together, and there was no way her mommy had her alone. It was confusing, but Mary hadn’t given it much thought about it. After school, her mommy was taking her to the park and they were getting ice cream, and that was pretty much everything she cared about.

But she was curious. Her mommy had once told her that she could ask her anything she didn’t understand, or that she could ask her teacher, but her teacher, as pretty as she was, she wouldn’t know where he dad was, right? “Mommy,” she called, reaching for her sippy cup. Apple juice was her favorite and she didn’t understand why mommy make her drink orange juice in the mornings. “Where is daddy?”

This young girl held to much light to be half of Minerva, or in the least, this is the way it seemed, though her hair was as thick as her brother’s used to be, and holding her hand was as if she was touching her own skin, and everything else belonging to her father. There would always be something surreal about her daughter, as if she didn’t deserve her, and she spent so long wondering if she should have given her away, though could never find herself to do so, even though she might have been safer, food-wise, money-wise, life-wise, she could never follow through with such an act, would never be able to, as Mary would also be the best thing she could ever create, the person she wouldn’t dare run away from, even if times would be all the more challenging as Minerva didn’t know how to raise a child, not in the way Mary deserved as Minerva was given no example in her own raising, as if she was going into motherhood figuring it out with her own child, beginning first when she was still a teenager, working the only jobs she could find, a permanent surname finally chosen only in the months before Mary turned five, money saved and enough scholarships written in the past year that she could finally put them both through school.

“Dear?” She responded to the call, waiting for an inquiry she knew would follow. The questions she did expect from her daughter on the way to class were about what they were going to do that afternoon or what the teacher spoke about in class yesterday or, in terms of today, the ice cream Mary was getting after school let out ( a treat as the young girl would be waiting with one of the biology professors while Minerva took an exam, unable to sit with her in the classroom as some professors didn’t mind, and after the exam, the park on campus ). She would have rather taken many of those before answering anything about her father and due to this, for some time, there was silence, for while she did plan for such things, was prepared, it also wasn’t planned to take place on the street where Minerva still walked as if she should be watching over her shoulder, turned to others who walked beside her and thought of how she could escape from them, fight them. By now, she thought she would grow out of such panic, such fear, though in some days, they only grew with the remembrance of another to take care of.

( No one knew of Mary’s father, or at least, this is how Minerva made it to be. It was a simple story, in it all. Her brother was killed, and she ran, wouldn’t fight for a cause if it ended her family, no matter the cost, no matter if they tried to find her - the words of an eighteen-year-old that just turned nineteen. Her brother had one friend in the next city over, met at a coffeeshop, a one man who was kind, spoke only broken English, and this is why Minerva liked him, he was so far away from those who she knew all her life. He proposed quickly, a month into letting her stay with him, and she had known him for years, knew he felt such things, knew she couldn’t stay. Slipping away, the morning following a proposal was meant to save him, let him forget her, except when his obituary arrived in the paper some days later, suicide, except she found the autopsy, and knew the signs, knew their ways, followed them before after an interrogation revealed too much, where she then knew too much. Minerva was a name chosen some weeks later, when a pregnancy was discovered by some cheap box bought at a gas station and the whole of an apple juice carton downed, about all she drank while pregnant with Mary. Minnie was what he called her, the father, his favorite name in English, the funny mouse on the television, he told Minerva she was cuter, and she would ask why she was compared to a cartoon. He was kind, Mary should receive that trait. )

There would never be an easy way to tell Mary the answer she wished, it shouldn't be easy, wasn't meant to be, thus after a long moment of watching her daughter, pausing at the edge of the sidewalk, uncaring of those that had to now move around them, Minerva bent down to speak to Mary at her level, never talking to her in the 'baby talk' many did with their children, Minerva finding such things foolish, rather, she spoke to Mary as if she was already an adult, as if she could understand such things, though they may need explaining, and with the way Minerva was exposed to the world, expressing emotions wasn't a talent, understanding them was something she was still learning herself, something she also especially tried to do for the sake of her own daughter when she would need to comprehend her own mind. When she spoke next, she began with a quiet voice, to be unheard if someone was walking behind them, "Mary, I'm going to ask a question for you, alright," a beat, "Is there something you heard while at school?" She wanted to know what the other children said about their own families before explaining, giving Mary the details that the two of them will be different.

ANONYMOUS TIME!!!! (or ask in character!)

HYE have you ever?

FMK fuck marry kill

KHC kiss hug cuddle

NML a night, a month or for life?

AMA ask me anything

HON hot or not?

WWY well would you?

WYR would you rather? 

TOD truth or dare?

TOT this or that?

WIS who I ship? (with myself, or with others – specify) 

How was she to explain if she couldn’t talk about the person who’d been in the way? The entire reason she was in detention was because she’d hexed another person; to take them out of the equation was to remove the entire reasoning for her being sat there in front of a professor without a clue as to what was going to happen in the next second. It was as if the woman was asking Alecto to make a quilt out of the stitches alone, with no patches of fabric to bring together. It’d be pulling a needle through the air as the thread clung to nothing - pointless. “I feel you’ll be the one who needs to explain more,” Alecto muttered, brow creasing as she realized how much time had passed in silence since the professor spoke and she hadn’t given an answer. She didn’t have an answer to give. Her words only lacked their usual sting because of the unforeseen bewilderment that completely overtook her. What did this have to do with writing lines? Or cleaning a classroom or washing some nasty desks or cleaning out the stalls or owlery or just about any other form of detention she’d been through? “You must have heard a different story if you think it could be told any other way.”

It was a quiet thing, not expecting a comment on the action she was about to perform, the way Minerva lifted her wand and pointed it at Alecto, casting a silent spell that gave her clothes more fabric, made them reach her ankles, a temporary thing if she didn’t cast the right spells just after, however, she’d remind them to Alecto later if she wished for the clothes to stay that way, let it be her choice. She did believe that the attire wasn’t created out of wishing for a statement as Minerva wondered what clothes her parents provided her, especially for those who have grown. Once putting away the wand however, she responded to the girl's puzzled expression with raised eyebrows, giving her another moment to see if she would offer a justification to her behavior. Alecto was a smart girl, a seventh year, Minerva didn't believe she would have needed to explain herself further, though she was a stoic woman, her meaning wasn't always so clear.

"I expect you to think harder about your actions, Ms. Carrow.." A pause, gaze unwavering from Alecto's own, gauging her features, her reactions to the words, noting the lack of a punch the younger woman's usual statements could give. Perhaps this discussion would have been more understood if they were speaking just after a greater incident, more hurt in the process rather than just a hallway conflict, however, with the build up of such behavior, Minerva has been wishing for this conversation. She spoke to Alecto as those she were an adult, though one still under her care, and with expectations, no words accompanied by a condescending tone, though they did give a command, it was a combination produced with all the years Minerva worked as a professor. "What we are going to do here is speak of the reason for your behavior, which is your own doing. What I hear now is that a first year boy decided your actions for you." This wasn't entirely true, he was more of a catalyst, perhaps, though she was also speaking of the other incidents that brought Alecto detention. She, also,  did believe this would prompt Alecto to speak.

"We'll begin again, why was your solution a hex?" This was more than the usual detention, however, as the normal punishment given for such actions seemed to hold no effect on bringing such behavior to an end, this wasn't something to be expected, and Minerva knew this, though didn't add to her words that Alecto wouldn't be polishing trophies today, letting that be another part of the conversation.

Such requests were usually made in jest, merely to prod at his particular affliction, rather than put it to good use. Perhaps here, under such necessary circumstances, it would not be an affliction, but rather a tool to be used and honed; Nikolai had never been given such an opportunity, a chance to practice with the monster at the tips of his fingers. Once or twice, he’d been able to do something useful with his talents affliction, but more often than not a spark which was meant to do no more than light a candle blazed into an inferno that could only be quelled by a fitful dive into the dust, a nearby body of water, or a swift toss of a bucket at his head. Nikolai had spent more time standing beneath a near constant stream of water than doing anything useful with his strange set of abilities. 

But Minerva – Professor McGonagall; he refused to call her anything less for fear of overstepping a line from which he could not retreat – seemed quite content to recruit him despite his reputation for a lack of control. He blinked a few times, blank and utterly dumb in the face of her requests, before nodding assuredly, fingers playing madly at his bandages. For a moment, he made quite an event of adjusting his wand, which he’d situated in his belt, for he was quite nervous to be working alongside someone who he’d been so firmly allied against for years. His fear of Minerva McGonagall had never faltered – and it certainly wouldn’t now. His fear manifested in an almost ridiculous show of respect; Nikolai had come close to bowing as she approached, but she surely would have been disillusioned by such a thing, and so he refrained. 

As he followed her forth, Nikolai’s hands snapped to his sides, cheeks burning an ostentatious crimson. “Er, sorry,” he muttered, “Sorry. Just don’t want to – what’s beneath ‘em isn’t exactly –” The scolding voice at the back of his mind had never been so loud; he was already quite ashamed that some of the younger members of the Order had regarded him with such shame and apprehension, simply because of the fading, muddled mark upon his arm and it certainly didn’t help that he was making such a fool of himself simply in an attempt to cover it up. He’d taken the Unbreakable Vow before them all, under the watchful eye of Minerva herself, and yet he still felt quite like an outsider; it was the monster’s voice, perhaps, who made him feel as if he could not fully settle into their presence. 

“So is this going to be a, er, a wall of fire?” he asked anxiously, wondering just how out of control that could possibly be, “Or is it more… like a ward? A sigil, or something like that?” He sounded horribly daft, ridiculously thick, in comparison to his companion, but his curiosity was genuine. Nikolai had never been involved in strategy, so this was a new experience – perhaps he could learn something.

If he was also there, he would be put to use, with all the members of the Order they had left, no one would be able to sit aside, Minerva wouldn’t let them either way, and she doubted many of them wouldn’t wish to work, they proclaimed their side in this war for a reason, to fight for it, even those such as those who had more of a mind for gardens than battle found their way here, for what they believed in, let it be a person or a belief, and they would take who fell into the Order’s hands. 

Minerva knew well his lack of control, however, it was loyalty that mattered to her, if he put his word into her people, into protection, and she would keep a sharp eye on him to assure such things. Still, if he kept his loyalty, she would hold her’s, and her word was close to bond, the old cliche that was tied as well to the rest of the Order, the reason also that if he did betray them, threaten them, she’d probably end him before the Vow. ( Either way, if he was a traitor in disguise, she doubted the enemy would decide to send over someone who would act such as this around her, and in evaluating every aspect of Nikolai, she did ponder this, and the way he looked at her supported the conclusion. And at this point, he’d be a kamikaze attack, if he was here for another purpose. )

"You don’t have to tell me what it is, Nikolai,” her words almost a snap at the idea of what his Mark might have been. As if a bandage was keeping it any more of a secret, rather, hiding it in such a way spoke for itself, even it wasn’t the statement he meant to say, others would read it in all sorts of ways. Vocalizing her thoughts, however, would be postponed due to his second question, “I create the wall, you place the fire inside, will you be able to do it?” This wasn’t spoken as harshly as they could’ve been, how they would have been on paper, rather, they were given as a question, as if he was giving him a difficult question to answer for homework and present to the class, it came with expectations, and she had plans to fortify the flames, spells for the two of them to cast for this to do as she wished. “It won’t burn, unless attacked, and we create its barriers.” She believed this could answer his questions on if it was a sigil, which was a viable question, however, it was more protection for those they were keeping safe inside the castle, something if the shield charms she casted weren’t enough.

“Nikolai, you are now going to explain what use you believe those bandages will achieve?” She knew, but she wanted him to articulate it for himself. Things could be given more perspective if they were spoken aloud and to another, one had to prove their point then.

So he ignored her at first. A childish rebellion in the mists of a fight in a burning building that played down his thoughts on healers in any capacity. James couldn’t possibly think that many steps ahead. Survival was all on his mind, his left arm numb from the pain of a hex that had sliced it open– but that wasn’t important either. He was fighting to prove a point. To scare his enemies. He wanted to rattle the room with his pent up rage, he wanted to prove to them that the next time (if there was to be) James Potter would be a hurricane of a problem for them.

But her words echoed. Penetrated into his mind while he deflected a spell into the crumbling wall. 

“I’m not leaving with out you–” he said moving a few paces away. Readying his stance– the soot and ash from the near by flames making his chest ache and every little cut scream. “So well go together alright?” James awarded his old mentor with a beautiful smile, a sheen of white teeth against the horrid landscape. A smile that was once used to shroud his involvement in a prank against Slughorn or the night he spiked the punch at the Gaia. 

The movement was quick from their only open flank in the room. Not enough to catch him off guard, James’ reflexes taking over. His pupils dilated in readiness. A feline shuttered of instincts rippling over James as he wiped his wand to barely deflect– but successfully sent it wordlessly away from them. 

In every story, there will be someone who bleeds, cracks formed from something that never should have happened, but it is up to them who is the victim and how much blood is drawn. In Minerva's case, she'd rather bleed, willing to attack who she needed to protect those who didn't deserve to drain out. She'd start a war to keep one of her own safe, or she'd try to end one. )

However, even with such thoughts, with Minerva's mind one for strategy, fitting the name she was given, while she did wish for her students to never run away from a fire, she also expected them to remain safe, to think beyond the recklessness she knew at such a young age as well, to battle and fight, but with wisdom and preparation, courage wasn't always born of impulsive, pure will alone supporting them could be its own killer, what brought along the struggle of the Order of the Phoenix. Become a hurricane, but one that can't be touched, reacting more to the world that instinct of survival or anger, and find ways to prepare for the fights one can't expect, and those will always be discovered.

From here, Minerva didn't speak much, replying to his question with a curt nod, especially as she already planned to ensure his safe apparition away from the siege, as if she'd ever let him face this alone, any of them, which was why she would have stayed there, passed on what she meant for James to complete at Hogwarts if he went at all, that stubborn boy, foolish boy, grinning in a battlefield, the same one she knew so well, over a decade of exposure so such an expression. She expected as much either way, as well, knowing that he would perhaps rather create trouble where there was none. ( What also bothered her about the expression is that to her, it didn't belong in such a war. It was something belonging to a boy who shouldn't have known a war, to a first year who ended up in her office after his potions class, it wasn't meant for this type of ruin. )