[potter round] 57; oc/oc; for kikimay
fic: 57
fandom: harry potter
characters: Pat, Qetsiyah (original characters)
word count: 988
rating: G
recipient: for kikimay who wanted House Politics post 2nd war, boundaries, interaction between people of different houses, cold
summary: the path to Hogsmeade is cold, maybe it is just the memories
The trek to and from Hogsmeade was always cold. Even when the sun was shining bright through the trees and the birds were insisting that it was late spring and summer was around the corner. With or without wind, with or without sun, the air brought a chill down Pat’s spine every time she linked arms with her friends and they all trooped off towards a day of butterbeer and chocolate frogs.
Pat raised her shoulders to her ears and brought her arms in closer to her body, trying to conserve her body heat.
She contemplated sending an owl to her brother, studying Physics at a prestigious Muggle University and the apple of her parents’ eye. He hated and loved her letters. The owls were hard to explain to his roommate, the scraps of parchment and her sloppy handwriting (six years and she still hadn’t fully mastered the art of a quill despite her best efforts, she had just completed the typing program her father had brought home on the evening that she received her Hogwarts letter - in one hand, a printout telling her parents that she could type at 70 words per minute and in the other a letter that made the weeks of practice no longer pertinent). According to her brother, most undergrads received an email or two from their siblings back home for the first semester and then communication had a way of petering out. Daily owls perching in his window or letters popping up regularly would make him appear odd.
Rick hated to be perceived as odd.
He took after their Muggle step-father in that respect.
“I’m no Squib, Patty,” he’d declared at the ripe old age of eleven, when his letter did not appear and he found Pat crying under her bed. “I’m a Muggle through and through.” In his mind there was a clear distinction between being a wizard lacking their magic and a Muggle that didn’t need it, and he never took kindly to anyone implying he was not enough. And then he’d dragged her outside to play football in the garden until their mother complained about the state of her roses.
Pat wondered what he’d say, if she asked him about the air, would he talk to her about cells slowing down, about the butterflies that after thousands of years still veer to the left to avoid a mountain peak that no longer exists, about magnetic hotspots? Would he sit down and type out a clear and concise letter explaining the science of the world and lament her limited Wizarding education (his favorite topic)? Would he send more books, foreign and strange and thick, and quiz her on the contents of them over the holiday with that broad smile on his face?
Would he understand that when she wrote it’s cold in this space that what she’s saying is five years ago I ran through a tunnel that is just below my feet and my friends died and the world ended and now I’m walking through the grass above it but the air remembers and it is always cold?
“You always bundle up like it is the middle of winter,” Qetsiyah remarked, falling in step with her.
Pat shrugged, looking up for the first time to realize that the other girls from her room in the Gryffindor tower had run ahead, their laughter and hoots of joy muffled and at odds with her current train of thought.
The Ravenclaw’s hip bumped up against Pat’s, and it felt easy, comfortable, like they’d walked this route together a thousand times.
Pat glimpsed the dark line of a tattoo behind Qetsiyah’s ear as the wind blew her dark hair around her head. She knew what it was without looking too hard.
They walked in silence, Qetsiyah’s hips bumping against Pat’s occasionally.
The things that she knew about Qetsiyah wouldn’t win her a round on Jeopardy or anything. She knew Qetsiyah was one of the few Muggle-born Slytherins, and that her family emigrated from South Africa when she was a toddler. When she was angry or scared her accent slipped out and it was beautiful and harsh. She liked bright colors, and maybe liked to be different and stand out but Pat couldn’t say for sure. She had a soft laugh and could duel better than anyone in her year. She was shorter than Pat and almost as broad.
But no one had hips like Pat.
She blamed her great-grandmother for that, a diminutive witch from India with a rear-end she sometimes had to slide sideways through narrow doorways and an incomprehensible Scottish accent only her children and husband could correctly interpret.
Pat figured Qetsiyah knew even less about her. And that was fine. Most of the seventh years kept to their own Houses.
They parted ways at Hogsmeade, Qetsiyah re-joining her dorm-mates and Pat doing the same. Pat lifted her hand out of her pocket, unsure whether to hug the other girl or wave or what, but feeling instinctively as though her hands needed to do something. Qetsiyah’s eyes caught on the small black number tattooed on Pat’s right hand between the second and third knuckle and she instinctively reached up to touch her own on the back of her neck.
Pat tried to think about the warmth of the day and the smell of fresh baked pies wafting over from the new stall in the town center. Buried deep in the part of her brain that told her the air on the path to Hogsmeade was always cold, stayed the memory of Qetsiyah’s small hand in hers, the two of them clutching each other as they ran through an underground passage, the sound of death and fighting and screams nipping at their heels, and tears running down their cheeks.
Five years later, not saying something meant never saying anything and maybe they weren’t strangers, but they weren’t nothing.
Or something like that.
author's note: [Spoiler (click to open)]according to the wiki, there were 50 unidentified Hogwarts deaths in the Battle of Hogwarts. Pat and Qetsiyah (and presumably other survivors) have tattoos of the number "57" - I rounded up a bit and took some creative license. This could EITHER be the death toll, OR the number of younger students that made it through the secret passageway together. It's up to you to decide which number hits you more strongly.
fandom: harry potter
characters: Pat, Qetsiyah (original characters)
word count: 988
rating: G
recipient: for kikimay who wanted House Politics post 2nd war, boundaries, interaction between people of different houses, cold
summary: the path to Hogsmeade is cold, maybe it is just the memories
The trek to and from Hogsmeade was always cold. Even when the sun was shining bright through the trees and the birds were insisting that it was late spring and summer was around the corner. With or without wind, with or without sun, the air brought a chill down Pat’s spine every time she linked arms with her friends and they all trooped off towards a day of butterbeer and chocolate frogs.
Pat raised her shoulders to her ears and brought her arms in closer to her body, trying to conserve her body heat.
She contemplated sending an owl to her brother, studying Physics at a prestigious Muggle University and the apple of her parents’ eye. He hated and loved her letters. The owls were hard to explain to his roommate, the scraps of parchment and her sloppy handwriting (six years and she still hadn’t fully mastered the art of a quill despite her best efforts, she had just completed the typing program her father had brought home on the evening that she received her Hogwarts letter - in one hand, a printout telling her parents that she could type at 70 words per minute and in the other a letter that made the weeks of practice no longer pertinent). According to her brother, most undergrads received an email or two from their siblings back home for the first semester and then communication had a way of petering out. Daily owls perching in his window or letters popping up regularly would make him appear odd.
Rick hated to be perceived as odd.
He took after their Muggle step-father in that respect.
“I’m no Squib, Patty,” he’d declared at the ripe old age of eleven, when his letter did not appear and he found Pat crying under her bed. “I’m a Muggle through and through.” In his mind there was a clear distinction between being a wizard lacking their magic and a Muggle that didn’t need it, and he never took kindly to anyone implying he was not enough. And then he’d dragged her outside to play football in the garden until their mother complained about the state of her roses.
Pat wondered what he’d say, if she asked him about the air, would he talk to her about cells slowing down, about the butterflies that after thousands of years still veer to the left to avoid a mountain peak that no longer exists, about magnetic hotspots? Would he sit down and type out a clear and concise letter explaining the science of the world and lament her limited Wizarding education (his favorite topic)? Would he send more books, foreign and strange and thick, and quiz her on the contents of them over the holiday with that broad smile on his face?
Would he understand that when she wrote it’s cold in this space that what she’s saying is five years ago I ran through a tunnel that is just below my feet and my friends died and the world ended and now I’m walking through the grass above it but the air remembers and it is always cold?
“You always bundle up like it is the middle of winter,” Qetsiyah remarked, falling in step with her.
Pat shrugged, looking up for the first time to realize that the other girls from her room in the Gryffindor tower had run ahead, their laughter and hoots of joy muffled and at odds with her current train of thought.
The Ravenclaw’s hip bumped up against Pat’s, and it felt easy, comfortable, like they’d walked this route together a thousand times.
Pat glimpsed the dark line of a tattoo behind Qetsiyah’s ear as the wind blew her dark hair around her head. She knew what it was without looking too hard.
They walked in silence, Qetsiyah’s hips bumping against Pat’s occasionally.
The things that she knew about Qetsiyah wouldn’t win her a round on Jeopardy or anything. She knew Qetsiyah was one of the few Muggle-born Slytherins, and that her family emigrated from South Africa when she was a toddler. When she was angry or scared her accent slipped out and it was beautiful and harsh. She liked bright colors, and maybe liked to be different and stand out but Pat couldn’t say for sure. She had a soft laugh and could duel better than anyone in her year. She was shorter than Pat and almost as broad.
But no one had hips like Pat.
She blamed her great-grandmother for that, a diminutive witch from India with a rear-end she sometimes had to slide sideways through narrow doorways and an incomprehensible Scottish accent only her children and husband could correctly interpret.
Pat figured Qetsiyah knew even less about her. And that was fine. Most of the seventh years kept to their own Houses.
They parted ways at Hogsmeade, Qetsiyah re-joining her dorm-mates and Pat doing the same. Pat lifted her hand out of her pocket, unsure whether to hug the other girl or wave or what, but feeling instinctively as though her hands needed to do something. Qetsiyah’s eyes caught on the small black number tattooed on Pat’s right hand between the second and third knuckle and she instinctively reached up to touch her own on the back of her neck.
Pat tried to think about the warmth of the day and the smell of fresh baked pies wafting over from the new stall in the town center. Buried deep in the part of her brain that told her the air on the path to Hogsmeade was always cold, stayed the memory of Qetsiyah’s small hand in hers, the two of them clutching each other as they ran through an underground passage, the sound of death and fighting and screams nipping at their heels, and tears running down their cheeks.
Five years later, not saying something meant never saying anything and maybe they weren’t strangers, but they weren’t nothing.
Or something like that.
author's note: [Spoiler (click to open)]according to the wiki, there were 50 unidentified Hogwarts deaths in the Battle of Hogwarts. Pat and Qetsiyah (and presumably other survivors) have tattoos of the number "57" - I rounded up a bit and took some creative license. This could EITHER be the death toll, OR the number of younger students that made it through the secret passageway together. It's up to you to decide which number hits you more strongly.