InsaneJournal

WHO: Damien Collingwood and Esther Wolowitz.
WHAT: Acceptance/Rejection Letters.
WHEN: April 11th.
WHERE: The Collingwood Residence, Cambridge.
STATUS: Complete.
RATING: PGish.

When Esther estimated that it wouldn’t be long after Charlotte received her response letter from the Phineas admissions office that hers would be delivered, she wasn’t wrong. Between the neighbourhood circulars and her mother’s Readers Digest subscriptions were two crisp envelopes bearing the Phineas crest, emoting such understated significance that even Mrs. Wolowitz, who had little to no understanding of their meaning, felt compelled to slip them onto Esther’s nightstand when she left for her morning shift at an obscenely early hour. Esther played with the idea of opening them herself once she’d awoken to see them, or at least writing something on the journals about them through a couple private hexes so that she’d be convinced to open them, but she chose to wait instead. She placed them in her bag, leather and decorated with studs and other punkish embellishments, and made a conscious effort to forget about them as she toiled through the first half of her day in a state of understated anticipation for the second.

Damien’s parents were following his older sister back to her university and had decided to make it an overnight trip, so as Esther understood it, the evening would provide an ideal occasion for her to open her letters with a receptive audience. She Apparated close to his house but far enough that she was able to walk for some of the way, making the visit feel a little more normal, as if Damien lived ten minutes from her house instead of a hundred and something miles. Seven years had passed since she was introduced to magic and all its possibilities, but there were little things about what she was raised to believe an “ordinary life” was that she clung onto.

She’d visited his home once before, to meet his sister, so she didn’t stare at the little ornaments and family antiques that dotted the place when she was inside, removing her hooded jacket at the coat-hanger. Esther never knew what to say when people teased her about Damien besides adding her own joke to the bundle, because more often than not, the things that people had to say were correct. Whether they were cute was relative, but did she love him? Yes. Did she dislike sleeping alone? Yes. Their banter was light and her camera remained safely nestled in her bag as they ate the meal that Damien had concocted, a burnt and slightly odd-tasting creation that had Esther sincerely laughing after every second or third mouthful out of amusement that she couldn’t quite identify what she was eating.

But these moments were nice. To her.

“How long does it take Alastor letters to get sent out, Damien?” she asked absently in her common drawl, one hand lifting her half-emptied glass of water to her mouth as she sat on one of the sofas. Her other dug into the pocket of her jeans to discard the alert that caused it to vibrate and buzz. It was turned off and thrown flippantly toward another armchair. “Something like three or four weeks, isn’t it?" Three words Esther hated to hear or speak in a sequence, "I can’t remember.”