Slytherin4Queen

imagine Walburga sitting for tea with her brother and Narcissa is like "he didn't actually do it, did he?" and Walburga scoffs and goes "our Sirius? not in a thousand years". and Cygnus asks "should we do something about it?" and she says "pffft no let him rot in there"

Maybe Hermione Jean Granger’s parents were a little less like Ron’s parents and a little more like mine. That drive to succeed at all costs, the breakdowns, feeling like she couldn’t talk to anyone – I see myself in her, and my fiancée, and the experiences of so many others who couldn’t prove abuse, but were implicitly told that “living up to their potential” was their only purpose in life. So –

Give me a Hermione Granger whose parents suggested to her, ever-so-gently, that to remain in magical school it was best that she came top in her year. “To dispel prejudices against, um, what was it that professor said? Muggle-borns,” they told her, but she knew why.

Give me a Hermione whose parents succeeded in a career that was very difficult to enter, and expect the same of her.

Give me a Hermione who came second, or third, or fourth or even plain old middling in a subject she just hated in primary school, and was lectured until she cried. (Hence her mania to do well in History of Magic.)

Give me a Hermione who thinks she can’t trust teachers, especially since Minerva McGonagall doesn’t suspect anything about her parents’ request to send home a progress report every few weeks. This is, after all, not a skinny and defiant Harry Potter, but a girl who just loves to succeed – and what’s wrong with that, after all?

Give me a Hermione whose fanatic organizational system is a result of being grounded if she forgot a homework assignment.

(This is the brightest witch of her age, still – I must say it here. Don’t get me wrong. But school is not everything, and brightness can shine in unexpected places. There are simply other reasons for why she is how she is, in addition to brains.)

Give me a Hermione who is weak-kneed with relief that the Sorting Hat at least offered her Ravenclaw, because she can tell her parents so.

Give me a Hermione who is frightened whenever classwork or homework seems too easy, because what’s coming next? She studies far ahead to compensate.

Give me a Hermione who wishes she had an excuse to stay at Hogwarts over holidays, because her parents sit her down and “discuss” anything in her progress reports they don’t like until she breaks down in tears.

Give me a Hermione who in second year screamed “No!” when exams were canceled, because it was the only way to prove to her parents that she was still doing well even after she was “irresponsible” enough to get herself Petrified.

Give me a Hermione who lets Harry and Ron copy off her despite her annoyance, because although they seem happy, she has no idea what they might have to deal with at home should they fail. No matter how many times Harry exasperatedly explains that the Dursleys don’t care (when she asks in veiled terms, of course, because she can’t tell), she still wants to help. The same, of course, goes for Neville and his potions.

Give me a Hermione who wishes with all her heart that she can drop at least one of her subjects third year, even though she enjoys most of them (except for Divination, of course).

Give me a Hermione who forced herself to envision McGonagall instead of Mum and Dad when the boggart came up to her during third-year exams, because there was absolutely no way she was letting Lupin know.

Give me a Hermione whose parents insisted that she go through years of jaw pain and expense and ridicule to fix something that was genuinely giving her problems, just as they had, despite a magical solution – and who was so relieved when Snape gave her an excuse to do just the opposite.

Give me a Hermione who likes Viktor for his eagerness to talk with her about how interesting the contents of her books are, rather than how many there are.

Give me a Hermione who, in a tiny, guilty part of her heart, knows that she Obliviated her parents both for their safety and her own. They wouldn’t hesitate to hurt her in every verbal way they knew how if they heard she was dropping out of school.

Give me a Hermione who finds happiness in whatever career she chooses. Whatever person. Ron with his easy intelligence and love of logic and kindness. Viktor with his curiosity and willingness to teach her how to fly. Anyone and everyone, anything and everything, as long as it makes her happy and content. Give her free time and hobbies and smiles.

Give me a Hermione whose parents, years later, deny that they ever did any such things to her – “Your marks were fantastic!” – and give her the courage to tell them the truth.

The only scenes they appeared in in the movies were for school supplies shopping at the start of second year and in the summer after sixth year when they get obliviated. In both scenes they don’t talk and we can’t see anything about them, the way they talk or their personalities. Easy to think the movies mostly forgot about them, like Peeves, Winky, Andromeda Tonks… Except that’s not it. They don’t appear much in the books either. How can the parents of one of the main character can just not appear if not because they aren’t much present in her life from the beginning?

They don’t send her gifts on her birthday, only some money so Hermione can buy herself something which is the most impersonal gift ever. We don’t hear of them when Hermione gets petrified, and the list goes on and on. How come they never noticed her being in pain after she almost died under Dolohov’s curse?

They let her go to the Weasleys for Christmas holidays, no matter that they therefore don’t get to see her for the whole nine months of the school year. Then they let her leave for the Weasleys for the end of the summer (the only time they get a chance to spend time with her) in third and fourth year and then most of the summer before fifth year.

Besides, we never hear of them through Hermione except for the fact they are dentists and took her skiing in fifth year. Ron, Ginny and the twins talk from times to times of childhood memories, of the way their mother worries about Charlie or the way she might react if she heard of what they were up to in school. Hermione never does that.

They're not edgy. They have servants, fine jewelry and Manors. They're the equivalent of our rich kids who believe taking the subway would be a dangerous adventure.

Draw Pansy and Daphne with precious headbands, soft makeup and Mary Jane's. Picture Draco and Blaise with ridiculous collections of neckties, golden brooches and silk shirts.

According to me

- Makes their own study guides because others can’t be trusted to do as good of a job

- Coffee in the morning to wake up, decaf black tea at night to relax

- Always has a reusable water bottle

- Crying in secret from stress but never telling anyone (maybe their mom)

- Study playlist on Spotify that’s mostly classical music but also some motivational songs

- Quick dance parties when they have to pull an all-nighter to wake up

- Calling/FaceTiming friends for support

- Going to the older part of the library to feel like they’re in Hogwarts

- Can’t study in groups because no one studies like them

- Pretends they don’t care about school but actually cares a lot

- Fear of disappointing family that are super proud of them

- Becoming friends with professors and teacher assistants because they’re actually cool

- Huge sweaters when the cold comes around

- Still wears lipstick even when they aren’t looking their best because it makes them feel good

anyone with a clear mind would tell you she’s so beautiful it has to be magic. no one has a clear mind around taya.

there is a price for everything. there is a price for magic. there is a price for beauty. she knows this more than anyone. she was born to convince and collude, to trade and barter - her mother was a smooth talker from the big city, her father some remnant of french nobility. her blood is purer than even the gold she wears around her fingers, and her family says that matters. her family says that matters. she isn’t so sure, but she doesn’t say either way in more than a whisper. she will come out on top no matter who wins. she will never be caught unawares.

her mother was, once. elasanna was when her frederick - her dear, devoted frederick - left her for another, packed up in the middle of the night and didn’t look back. twenty-one and pregnant and clinging to old money, ela named her daughter after the only woman she ever trusted and held her hands tightly and told her that she would be beautiful. she would be beautiful, and no one would ever dare, ever dream of walking away from her.

taya is five and spoon-fed potions, spoon-fed poison, charms mixing with blood, altering every part of her at a fundamental level - eyes darken, bones straighten, lips curl. she is beautiful, and young, and it hurts.

there’s always a flaw. there’s always some small detail that needs to be fixed. nothing less than perfection is accepted. nothing less than divinity is perfection. humans are not meant to be holy, but that is nothing to a zabini. zabinis, elasanna says to taya, are meant to be stunning, rules be damned. and so they are.

no, no, wait - ela slowly crumbles as she ages. ambition eats away at her. she gives all her spark to taya. it hurts. it hurts. it hurts. taya keeps her head up, proud and untouchable, and she refuses to be seen as anything else.

she refuses to be seen as anything else, and so tragedies go untold. she is beautiful and young and the world is cruel to women when they are beautiful and young. she is beautiful and young and stubborn and straining under the weight of her mother’s world, and so tragedies go untold. she knows the best spells to cover up a scar, manipulates magic and makeup to turn tear stains into a goddamn masterpiece, and it is quite alright that way.

she remembers the last pureblood party she ever saw sirius black at. he knocked back three glasses of champagne and snuck out back to smash the head off of a statue, and she envies him for it, just a little bit. he destroys, she creates - creates her own destruction. in that, he gets an honesty she never will.

she’s fifteen when her mother is too hollowed out to take another breath, when blood replaces oxygen. taya inherits two properties and three vaults at gringotts.

she goes to stay with her father.

frederick is found at the bottom of his own lake two months later.

taya summons up cold, clear crocodile tears, presents a new and improved will that leaves her with three boats and five deeds and so much money she could imitate her father and drown in it. there is never any suspicion cast on her. there never will be.

there are moments that shape lives, and this is taya’s: she watches, oddly removed, as her father’s fingers trace their way up her leg. no one would ever walk away from her. she curls her fists and shoves without a second thought, watches him fall off the pier. no one would ever walk away from her.

someone once told her that we inherit our parents’ trauma.

1000 Picspams Challenge | #29 - The Silver Trio

Hufflepuff: wants to work hard / gets bored easily / has to reward themselves as good motivation / splits up the time in their head / “if I study for an hour, that’s just two half-hours, and I spent fifteen minutes watching a YouTube video, so four of that is really nothing!” / will get it done on time, no matter what

Ravenclaw: loves learning, hates studying / adds colour and pictures onto their notes to make them more interesting / will probably stop at some point to research something totally unrelated / has large periods of procrastination followed by blind panic / they still get stuff done, but they’re never quite satisfied with the result

Slytherin: plans before studying / will not waste time on unneeded material / switches between “school is useless and a social construct“ and “what the heck, I need to get an A on this!” every second / gets angst about studying / insists on having perfect studying conditions, will not work f these are not met

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