Hi, itās me again. Yes, the author who somehow managed to write a multi-arc fic about Resurrection, Regret, and Romance⦠and then promptly forgot the plot of 3Rs: Revive, Redeem, Romance.
I opened my own doc the other day and it felt like Shen Qingqiu waking up in Bingheās bed:
āWhere am I, who are you, why is everything on fire, and why are there so many mushrooms?ā
I swear I had an outline. I swear it made sense. Now itās just me staring at my own prose like itās a Cursed Array and hoping a Peak Gremlin in the comments will remind me what chapter Iām in.
Until my memory comes back (or I make up a new outline entirely), Iām focusing on my other two fics: Why Canāt You Look At Me? and Where The Shore Never Comes. Yes, Iām still juggling multiple Angst Universes. Yes, itās my fault. No, I donāt know how to stop.
Thank you to all my Peak Gremlins for waiting patiently while I do this Resurrection Ritual on my own brain. I promise when 3Rs returns itās going to hit even harder, because nothing says Devotion like rewriting your own plot from scratch šš
ā Your Author, currently in Qi Deviation over their own fic
To my Peak Gremlins: Youāre the only thing keeping this Author alive. Thank you for letting me be Shen Yuan about my own stories šš
Now here's a little sneak peek of the next chapter of Why Can't You Look at Me
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Endless weeks upon weeks of working at Weasleyās Wizarding Wheezes under a polyjuice potion while the real āRoseā rotted in a hole in the ground...
And this was how it ended.
Holy water cannot help you now.
Thousand armies couldnāt keep me out.
I donāt want your money, I donāt want your crown.
See Iāve come to burn your kingdom down.
It started with a chance meeting in the street. This girl - āRoseā - dying? It was entirely an accident, and entirely the reason why Melinda had picked her and given her that name in the first place. See, she had gone into Diagon Alley to pick up a few things, and there this girl was, dying. Choking on what was undoubtedly some stupid, sugary cavity waiting to happen. She had raised her brows for a moment, questioning her own lack of pity for just a split second before a foreign instinct took over her and she shrouded them both with a quick spell so that passerbyās would walk right past the alley the two were in without noticing a thing.
It started with an idea. So vague, then, Roxanneās name not even on the horizon yet. But there it was, clear in her head as day:Ā
Dead people must be a terribly good source for polyjuice potions.Ā
The polyjuice potion sheād been thinking about for a while, admittedly, but Melinda had trouble coming up with uses for Scarletās hair and found using her friendās identity freaked her out too much each time she did so. But polyjuice had been on her mind since using it at the Selwyn-Marks wedding. Polyjuice allowed you to be someone else for a while; to reveal secrets or play tricks on people. She was angry she hadnāt used it back in school, back with Colin, to confirm her suspicions about him and Roxanne. Then nobody could have denied it. Polyjuice was special.Ā
And she was good at it. Not just the potion, but the acting. She truly believed she had one of the best poker faces in existence. She could be anyone she needed to be, whether the personality matched the face... or the person itself.Ā
She didnāt knowĀ āRose.ā Not just the real one, but this nameless, soon to be āRose,ā who choked trying to ask her for help while Melindaās mind went blank, and she started magically snipping pieces of hair off with the knife she had in her boot.Ā
Magic is nice. Powerful, too. Physical violence is sometimes more appealing, though.Ā
But no, she didnāt slash her neck just to see all the blood. This wasnāt her mess to create. The girl was already suffocating when Melinda saw her. All she had done was make sure she had a fresh haircut for her funeral.Ā
It started with a rumor. WWW was looking for new employees. At first, Melinda had simply laughed. Desperate for help, she thought. But then, it was like her brain fit together two pieces of the puzzle.
It started with an interview. Surprisingly easy to get and even easier to ace. She knew Roxanne (or at least, all the facets of Roxanne she remembered from the days they were best friends, and the qualities sheād made up) and so of course she aced the interview. From there on, it was all fun and games: Annoy Roxanne. Spy on the competition. Slowly make her store look like it was losing its control and its customers. Loose hats turned into missing inventory and coins. Escaped insects (which hadnāt even been her - or at least, not her idea)Ā turned into unorganized or damaged product and happy accidents. (She called them happy only because no one ever got seriously hurt, after all. Just some minor scrapes and bruises.)
Of course, Melinda also wasnāt stupid. As her antics upgraded over the coming months, she knew that she neared the end of her probationary period and she was going to be fired any second. The trouble lied in trying to figure out what way she planned on going out.Ā
It started with losing the world.
Or at least, it had felt like it. Like for a moment, her crown had fallen off of her head in the silence of it all, clanging to the floor with such a sudden violence that the world shook around her. And then it was all so silent again.Ā
Darius was a solider. A guardian. Darius was brother, and protector, and teacher, and friend. Darius was all she had in the world when Christian was preoccupied with his work, and the days were empty with anyone else but him around.Ā
She never thought sheād lose him. Sheād been too confident, maybe. Or perhaps sheād underestimated Roxanne all along. Melinda always knew she had balls. She just never expected Roxanne to have even bigger ones, let alone that sheād shove them down Melindaās throat.Ā
Then again, Roxanne always had been the worst person sheād ever had the misfortune of knowing.
How could she do this? It was a question her mind only whispered once, when she saw Darius, in the hospital bed, looking like he was the younger sibling in some odd twist of fate. He was so hurt and so lost and so confused. He remembered so little he could hardly remember Melinda sometimes. Could you imagine - to look in your familyās eyes, and see them not recognizing you?
She ruins everything, was the simple answer that grew from the anger in her chest, swelling with a hatred that did more than simply light a single flame.Ā
It started with conviction.
It started with determination to get everything right. She could make no mistakes here - not just because she was almost out ofĀ āRoseāās hair, but also because she couldnāt risk getting caught.Ā
Sheād waited. Sheād bide her time. Sheād watched for news to travel and suspicion to arise - Darius is in the hopsital? Wonder who got to him. Couldnāt be his biggest enemy, Roxanne Weasley, no. Obviously not. - and rather than smile or agree, sheād just let the roaring fire in her eyes grow, stoked on every whisper.Ā
She doubted the Aurors were even bothering to question anybody. Let alone perfect little nihilist, Roxanne Weasley.
It ended with a closing shift. Just Rose and the store and the money and the merchandise. It almost seemed to easy, what sheād practiced, night after night ever since Darius wound up in the hospital. The second the last customer left and her coworker was off, leaving her alone to do inventory, she dropped all smiles and facades. She didnāt wear Rose on her face with all of her developed clumsy mean-welling and incessant smiling. Everything just went blank, and she switched into auto-pilot.Ā
Clicking through the store in her heels, Melinda waved her wand casting spells. Doors locked, lights turned out, and the whole building went silent and soundproof. Then, because it was inventory night and she wanted the street to be emptier anyhow, she went about her rampage, which started so gently at first.
She knocked a product off the shelf. Then some more. And more, and more, blank expression gaining emotion as she begun to kick at displays and throw things around.
She didnāt make it to the center of the store. All of her destruction stayed almost completely directed at the front. And then, because it was getting late and she remembered Roxanne had mentioned something about stopping by to check on her since the last time sheād screwed up closing alone, she stopped. She stopped kicking, stopped throwing, stopped launching herself at displays.Ā
She turned around, face slowly going blank again as she looked at the entrance to the store. She remembered Roxanneās curls in her face as they laughed under the sun and ran down the halls. She remembered sneaking out with her in the middle of the night to do the things they were told they shouldnāt. She remembered Ā the pair copying Roxanneās homework and staying up too late every night before school talking about so many unnecessary things.Ā
She remembered Darius in a hospital bed.
It ended with a tremble of her lips as tears rose, and a scream ripping forth from her throat. She felt everything - the loss of Roxanne, the loss of Colin, the loss of everything that createdĀ her brother. She felt it all, all at once, and raising her hands in the air with flames roaring all around herĀ ---------------
She let it all go.Ā
It ended with fire swallowing the doors and displays and even the Weasleyās Wizarding Wheezes sign whole. And it ended withĀ Rose being the last one there, seen leaving heading the opposite way of Melinda and Scarletās apartment.
Holy water cannot help you now.
See, Iāve come to burn your kingdom down.Ā