#ecllectics

         𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐧’𝐭 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠. what in under nimue would bring them here? oh wait: just one. that’s odd. still, one shouldn’t count one tornado instead of two as a blessing. last time they rolled through, she’d seen clementine flume cleaning the first floor of honeydukes for an hour and a half. but her mother would have none of it. she shoved valentina in his direction, armed with a menu, and both hands on her hips. 

❝ table for one? ❞ she grumbled, eyeing him with a hefty measure of suspicion. 

                ❛  hear me out ---   ❜      her eyes drooped slightly as she rested her head on the great halls table.    not caring much about the FOOD due to her LACK OF SLEEP.     breakfast was  the LEAST of her concerns.     wood could shove his quidditch schedule where the sun don’t shine.  she looked up at  GEORGE,   she could tell them apart... she had to see their UGLY MUGS everyday.     teasing - even without words,    it was just the way they were.          ❛  you do something stupid so we can get out of quidditch practice --- ?  ❜  

sharon looks at him for a moment;  she doesn’t believe him,   and it’s clear through the protest of two brows knitting together.    it’s as though she’s looking right at herself  –––  like her rookie-days-self has just uttered those five words,   and the oddest sensation clasps fingers into tight fists at her side.    perhaps a little advice would help.    

“  if you’re too afraid of making mistakes,  you won’t be able to do anything.  ”    her voice comes from a place of unsanctioned reveries.    sharon stands so that their eyes are level,    “  but how do you know you can’t do it if you haven’t tried ?  ”

i love you, skins edition meme + @ecllectics // lily

Summertimes are some of her favourite, now. Especially now that they’re out of school, and the world is looming, the weight of it a near CHOKEHOLD against them all, as the expectations of their soon-to-be adult lives was coming, as, Lily herself, seemed to be preparing for what big news was to come; that she and James would be married, the way that a happily-ever-after ought to be. Love, in the standing wake of the horrors that haunted them, seemed the appropriate fuck you to a world that seemed their love unseemly, as if there was anything, anything at all that could be said in detriment to one Lily Evans.

They had their jobs lined up - their futures, seemingly otherwise on hold, outside of the wedding. And Marlene was here in secret, away from the McKinnon estates in Scotland as her parents would have rathered her to be for a visit, in between their work stints with the Ministry. But with what precious few weeks of freedom that she had left, she’d rather spend them with, the ones that made her feel loved, feel safe. Before the NEW CHARADE was to come and wrap them up whole, and, Marlene would have to spend significantly less time with her sisters in arms, the both of them now, crashed, against Lily’s bed within her muggle home, Marlene’s head cradled within the other’s lap.

buzzfeed unsolved meme + @ecllectics // lily

Now, wasn’t that the thing? Ghosties and beasties out in the dark depths of the castle, waiting to be found by night. But this was not news, and they were no longer the starry eyed pre-teens that they’d been when walking through the doors of Hogwarts, amazed by the fact that there were ghosts, and creatures, all, here to teach, to learn, to live. That the things that moved about here in the night weren’t simply pictures and portraits that had a life of their own, but people who had lived, and died in this place. But as they grew older, the dazzling truth of ghosts only faded to a horror in the background, where, nearly headless nick was simply a man who had been murdered, brutally, outside these walls, where Moaning Myrtle had once had a full name, an a life ahead of her.

That instead they were looking at lives cut short, and that their future would be filled with them, and little known to them, their own, too. And they would not have the luxury of being able to see or haunt their loved ones, either all gone with them, or left to wonder what could have been. These were stories that could have gone on, but the writer had lost interest, had found a cheaper way out, and they could only watch from a distance, together. Within the pitched walls of the flat that they’d meet at, in secret whenever Marlene had come to slip bits and bites of news that she’d gathered from those suspected of being apart of his army, did they see the ghosts of those of later years...

i love you, skins edition meme + @ecllectics // lily

That’s one way of looking at it. But then again, they’re whizzes at being able to turn a bad situation on its head - it’s just what they do - perhaps out of a survivalist need, or simply because they refuse to allow ANYTHING to serve as a blemish against their pristine academic records. And while she wouldn’t ordinarily find such use for such things, appearances were key, and what mattered here was that it mattered to Lily, and that was cause d’jour enough for Mars and the other girls to get their shit together when the moment called for it, so that they could reclaim some sense of proclaimed innocence to their name.

                                  (regardless of the truth of the matter)

“Well nobody died.” is her droll response to the matter, fingers combing through her hair, picking out with it the remains of the forest floor that had come as a result of their rather tremulous tumble with the things that lived, in the deep, dark, UNKNOWN. An exploration made out as an adventure, but ending in, well, then potential for an arrow from a group of Centaurs that had, apparently, no wish for human intervention or interaction, patting herself back into natural order. Emmeline heaving at their side, Marlene leaving over idly to help brush and hold her hair back, so that she could make her own mess without getting too much of it on herself.

a sudden hug meme + @ecllectics // lily

Fifth year’s KIND OF DRAMATIC, isn’t it?

Or it hadn’t really been before tonight, when during the middle of their first real party where, they spend time in Lily’s room, smudging cherry bomb red lipstick on their lips, and, holding clothes up against themselves to be judged, drawn, and quartered, the rolling of worn out sneakers and the endless rolling of fishnet stockings over faded bruises on their legs from all their rather ruckuous extra curriculars, laughter dissolving fizzy on their lips, all of them a little drunk from the first few sips of liquor that they’d stolen thanks to Lily’s potions and Marlene’s swagger, with Dorcus and Emmeline in the wings, sweeping in for the right distraction at the right time, as they all, together, convince Lily afterwards that this is going to be fun, and just for one night, so can she let go of the Prefect business for just one night?

Of course that was the START OF THE NIGHT, when things were still easily defined by that taste of sugar used to dull the taste of fire and liquor within their stomachs, not knowing yet that that was the kind of combination that would leave them retching by the end of the night. Instead they’re holding hands and running through the dark, into the deep woods, to places unknown, unseen, Marlene laughing, the sound echoing amongst the trees, as they rise up, specters, as terrifying as expected, an ode to the boredom of teenaged girls, ready to face the prospect of being women, knowing nothing of its burdens.

Lily’s palm sticky within her own, as they wind about bonfires burning bright, and, everything’s fun, the smell of smoke and weed in the air, and, Marlene finding fury when she catches the Seventh year that she’s been seeing making out with some Slytherin girl at the back of some tree where they feel that they won’t be caught, and while Emmeline tries holding her back, Mars manages to POP ONE OFF. Fist connecting to his face, bruising, feeling that split against her knuckles as she spits on him for good measure before she throws off the hands that attempt to grapple her still, disgust in every footstep that she stomps into the earth in what she would call her graceful retreat.