sink ships

Where: Ravenclaw House table, Great Hall When: 9th January 1978, breakfast Who: Dirk && @qvickquill​

Where around him were classmates catching up on work or studying they had forgotten about over the holidays, Dirk had finished all of his homework and done a reasonable amount of extra reading. Others were yawning, the first morning back to classes after the Christmas holidays always a difficult one for many to wake up for, after so many late nights and busy days. Again, Dirk’s holidays had been quiet. Low-key. He hadn’t even taken up his usual job position at his dad’s workplace and his only late night had been New Year’s Eve, when he had gone to bed at twenty minutes past midnight. He glanced around the table looking for something to do or somebody willing to strike up a conversation and saw a copy of the Daily Prophet folded up on the table near one of the seventh years. “Any chance I could borrow that paper?”

"If you fancy yourself readin’ absolute garbage, be my guest.” There’s a bitterness in her tone, never one to consider herself a morning person. However, gaze hovers over the top o’ the paper and Rita cannot help but let out a lightened laughter as she stares at it. "Y’know they’re probably just sending us fake papers at this point.” Tossing the parchment towards Dirk, she takes a sip of the last bit of coffee left in her goblet. “Can’t bring themselves to cover what’s really goin’ on over here because they’re cowards.” Cowards with a fake agenda in which Rita couldn’t quite stomach. Sure, she’d allowed herself to delve into mindless gossip if only because she’d found it a great way to pass the time. However, now, the world around them was lit aflame and she’d stood idly by as she’d watched everyone manage to eat up every ounce of fake news in which the Prophet had been publishing. 

dorcas & rita // @qvickquill​ // january. ravenclaw dorms.

Dorcas had managed to find peace in her dorm but she wasn’t sure how long it would last. The absence of her dormmates left the room considerably quiet, enough for her to pour herself into the book that Severus had gotten her for Christmas. She had been too scared to touch it at home, afraid her mother would find it and start asking questions she couldn’t answer. Or, well, wouldn’t answer until she got answers of her own. Dorcas sat rather oddly on her bed, legs up against the headboard, almost as if she were stretching for Quidditch practice and trying to read about Unforgivables simultaneously. It was when she heard the door open that she shoved the book under her pillow, looking over at Rita as she walked in. “Skeeter,” she greeted, not necessarily a nice greeting but also not the worst she could do. She didn’t bother moving, watching the other girl from her position, the rest of the room slightly upside down. “I guess this is where I ask if you’ve had a good holiday?”

Where: Great Hall, dinner. With: Emmanuelle Delacour & Rita Skeeter

She was still learning the names of everyone she ran into, and it was no secret with the amount of students who fell infiltrated into mass groups—Emmanuelle was struggling. Not that she couldn’t keep up, but half of them didn’t speak to her, and the other half reigned in between struggling to understand her, or the fact that some mocked her accent. Both of which she didn’t care, and fight, it felt useless. But it didn’t help that now she needed to seek out one of the unfamiliar faces. She was sure she could pinpoint the woman as she looked around the Great Hall—she was a Ravenclaw. Scanning the hall—she picked up the familiar faces, having been told the girl was well off with Bertha. Gabby Bertha—something about a rumour where she didn’t know how to stop. Emmanuelle found her delightful thus far. Crossing the space, footsteps near-floated to her destination, as she tapped the girl on her shoulder. “Hi—you are Rita, right?” She asked delicately. “Katherine—I think she is in your dorm, she asked me to pass on these notes to you from Transfiguration class. She let me borrow them but said you had been asking for them. Sorry for—for keeping them from you.” She extended her hand to the woman, bound papers in her hand to offer.

@qvickquill​

"The one and only.” Her vocals are practically a purr as she turns to put a face to the voice breaking through her senses. She’d found herself heavily eavesdropping on a conversation between two fifth years on they’d believed the Shrieking Shack to be haunted, a cautionary tale if there ever was one. She’d known, neigh, accepted the fact that the ghoul that plagued such a rundown shack was nothing more than a menace. Much like Peeves. The girl was blonde, beautiful, a vision in the drab Hogwarts robes that surely weighed her down. However, Rita extended her arm all the same, reaching for the parchment before smile grew. Warmth arising within her core as she’d placed notes upon table. “Thank you, Katherine’s saved me from quite the studious evening.” A charade if there ever was one. She’d known she could do Conjuration in her sleep. However, she’d always been quite good at playing the part, not allowing others to know of her knack for Transfiguration, especially not the women she’d managed to hide her secrets from for the entirety of their time together. “I’m afraid my talents are needed for something much more entertaining tonight.” Investigations, scouring the castle in hopes she’d run in to Peter Pettigrew himself or, if she were lucky, James. “Please, sit.” Patting the empty seat beside her, she shuffles slightly as her tone is masked as kind when her words were anything if not demanding. “Emmanuelle Delacour, transfer student from Beauxbatons, Art Club, Frog Choir, Duelling ––” Lithe digits push blonde strand behind the girls shoulder as she finishes. “I’ve done my research.” 

Location: Corridor outside the Library Tagged: @qvickquill​

It was hard to stomach that someone she went to class with set off the Dark Mark, that someone she knew had openly expressed their allegiance. It seemed…surreal. Weren’t they all just children moments ago? Eager to learn about magic and the happiness it could bring? Then as the years rolled by, the world decided to crash around them, break the glass ceiling and expose them to the horrors that lurked in the shadows. 

Rita would have the answers, Rita would reassure her chaotic mind. Even if the Ravenclaw was someone she wanted to befriend, she wasn’t quite sure how or wasn’t sure where that feeling of uneasiness came from anytime she was around. “Did they…did they find out who it actually was who set off the–you know?” She had hope, it was fragile but there.

"I wouldn’t count on them to find out much of anything.” It’s delivered with nonchalance, a simple shrug rolling from her shoulders as she approaches the woman. Charity Burbage, quiet as a mouse and as quaint as such. “Let alone allow the rest of us in on whatever it is they’re investigating. Not after the debacle with Potter.” James Potter and his band of merry men could start a revolution and Rita was sure that there’d be a following of lemmings ready to fling themselves off nearest cliff for his approval. “It’s not like they’re about to publish every ounce of evidence to make themselves vulnerable.” She’d admired Charity’s determination, however she’d known and accepted as well as the next person that the Ministry and the papers had sought to cover up whatever was happening at Hogwarts. The world had turned into a firestorm of misinformation, leaking stories here and there that were surely bought and traded in the promise of immunity in the up and coming destruction. Rita had seen it before, had heard men in their high towers offering one another deals if only to remain unscathed as nations suffered, as people suffered, and whilst chaos was something in which she’d thrived in, she’d be damned if she’d allow it to happen to those she’d held closest. “The Prophet knows more than they’re letting on, o’course. As does the Ministry, it’s all between the lines.”