gwendolyn vane. (gwrach) wrote in disorderic, @ 2017-09-22 00:27:00 |
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Entry tags: | angelina johnson, gwendolyn vane |
WHO: Angelina Johnson and Gwendolyn Vane
WHAT: Practising Patronus charms and being very serious adults
WHERE: Angelicia's living room, Tinworth
WHEN: Thursday 21st September
It had been a while since Gwendolyn had practised charms. New spells were not something she encountered every day, not something she needed to know. She was a journalist: her daily exercises included using a thesaurus, restructuring sentences, and cursing wordcounts. She didn’t need to know complicated spellwork. Honestly, her fingers clutching her wand, Gwen was starting to doubt whether she needed to know this at all. The spell was hard and there was a sneaking voice in her head telling her she simply wasn’t going to get it, no matter how encouraging Angelina was. Making a frustrated noise, she slashed her wand through the air and it sparked. “Who even knows what their happiest memory is?” Angelina pulled a face and took an exaggerated step back, away from Gwen’s sparking wand. “What memory was that?” “That time I got to punch creepy Tommy,” Gwen said and sighed loudly, as if she had expected it to be better. “I felt on top of the world!” If she was pouting slightly, she didn’t care. This was much harder than she thought and she’d already built it up in her head. “I guess I should try another one. Without violence maybe.” “Probably,” Angelina agreed, giving her cousin a sympathetic smile. “My happiest memory is probably always going to be the first time we won the Quidditch Cup. Because it was Oliver’s last year, Harry had only nearly died once, and we trounced — we trounced Slytherin. 230 to 20?” Angelina kissed the tips of her fingers and aimed a grin at Gwen. It definitely wasn’t the first time she’d recounted that season of quidditch, even outside of patronus practice. Laughter bubbled up in Gwen’s chest and spilled out of her mouth, deep and throaty. She’d heard the story so often she could have told it in her sleep and her smile slipped its way into teasing as she said, “Do you still have that lucky underwear from the match hanging around as well, then?” “Obviously,” Angelina said matter-of-factly. “They’re lucky!” “I hope you’ve managed to wash them,” Gwen said, wrinkling her nose. “I know what you’re like.” Angelina pulled another face and looked away, pointedly saying nothing. She definitely hadn’t, but that had more to do with superstition than her personal laziness. “So! What happy memory are you going to try this time?” she asked, abruptly turning her attention to Gwen again. The sigh that Gwen let out was even heavier than her previous ones. It was surprisingly hard to think of something really happy — or happy enough. She couldn’t stop second-guessing herself. “Maybe when I got my first house keys,” she said, frowning. “I remember that really well. I thought it was going to be the best adventure of my whole life.” Nodding enthusiastically, Angelina gestured for Gwen to go ahead. “Oh, but hold your wand a little looser. It looks like you’re trying to strangle it.” “I’m just trying to make sure I have a good grip,” Gwen started, defensively, and then she took a breath. Angelina was just trying to help her — and she knew the spell. She just had to listen. She nodded at Angelina and then rolled her shoulders, loosening her grip on her wand. Gwen pressed her fingertips against the wood and took another big breath, focusing on the memory in her mind. She tried to conjure forth the feel of the keys in her hand, the way the metal had felt, how hard she’d gripped them. Gwen could remember the feel of the air, the levitating pile of luggage behind her, how quick she’d been to rip open some boxes. She’d wanted the place to feel like home: she’d felt so full, so happy, so relieved. She focused on the feeling and said the words of an unfamiliar spell. Her eyes were screwed shut and she said it again and felt it: nothing happened. Her stomach dropped. “Rubbish,” Gwen said and contemplated throwing her wand onto the ground. She made a move to before quickly aborting it. It felt like Gwen was onto something with this memory, though, and Angelina had watched her closely while she attempted the spell. “You still look really tense,” she said. She stepped behind Gwen so she was out of her line of sight and lowered her voice, aiming for something soothing. “Don’t close your eyes. Hold onto how you felt holding those keys in your hand for the first time. Take a deep breath and then cast.” Gwen still felt tense. It was hard not to, when she knew that this was hard, when she couldn’t stop thinking about how she’d nearly completely bungled up her charms exam at NEWTs. It wasn’t productive, though. A deep breath and she tried to focus on Angelina’s voice, its different pitch. This time, she kept her eyes open and tried to focus hard on everything she’d felt. She tried to remember everything and she cast the spell again. Wisps formed, barely smoke, but something. Gwen stared. Angelina stared, too, peering around Gwen at the tip of her wand. And then she nudged Gwen a little roughly with her shoulder, breaking the calm, quiet spell. “See? See? That’s how it starts! Try it again!” Gwen bit down on her lip, a smile blooming slowly but surely. “Does it actually? Was that a thing? It wasn’t just a dumb spark?” “Yeah!” Angelina insisted, buzzing with excitement for Gwen. “Some people never even manage a corporeal patronus, but if Harry managed to teach all of — me, I’m sure with some practice we can find out that your patronus is…” She studied Gwen seriously for a moment. “A cow.” She gave her cousin a teasing grin after a beat. Gwen tilted her head at Angelina, her nose wrinkling, and then she reached out to lightly shove at her shoulder. “You’re the cow,” she said brightly, but there was no heat to it. She trailed off into laughter and looked at the air where moments before wisps of magic had been. Wisps that were a non-corporeal patronus. That she’d done! Gwen was very glad that she hadn’t thrown her wand in frustration. “I can’t believe your chosen one non-boyfriend who was definitely turned on by your bossiness is helping me.” Angelina managed a loud, exaggerated gasp, unable to resist shuddering at the very thought of Harry Potter getting turned on by anything about her. “This is slander! I’m suing!” “I’m your lawyer and I’m telling you that you don’t have a case,” Gwen told her, in her best impression of a lawyer’s voice. It sounded very posh and pretentious. “You’ll have to just accept this, I’m afraid.2 Crossing her arms over her middle, Angelina shook her head, a badly suppressed smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “I don’t accept this,“ she said. “He’s a small baby and Romilda tried to love potion him once so she clearly has dibs.” The sheer mention of a horrible past that Gwen mostly pretended hadn’t happened was enough to cause her notable distress. Her mouth thinned out and her nose wrinkled, her head dropping back like she could ask the ceiling why God, why had such a thing happened in her family? “Romilda has always had very bad taste in both men and plans,” Gwen said, after a suitable pained groan had left her. “But if Harry Potter ever flirted with you I think her head would explode and bits of her would go everywhere. She’d be so upset.” Gwen’s distress seemed to perk Angelina up, though. “She regularly asked me when I was captain if I would snap a pic of him in the showers,” she said, lifting a beleaguered hand and shaking her head in remembered dismay. “To which I replied, no, Romilda, I would rather violently blind myself than objectify Harry Potter’s trouser Firebolt.” A loud gasp echoed through the room. “No she didn’t! She must’ve been like thirteen! She’s not even supposed to know about that stuff!” “I regret to inform you that, unlike Jon Snow, Romilda knows everything.” “I never want to think about her thinking about Harry Potter’s trouser firebolt again,” Gwen said, with a weary tone. “Honestly this is more than I ever thought I’d talk about it before.” “You started it,” Angelina said with an innocent smile. She eventually wrinkled her nose, though. “But I think this wrecked any chance either of us have of performing the patronus today or possibly every day forever until the end of time. Thanks, Harry. Now dementors are going to try and make out with us.” “I’m really good at making out at least,” Gwen said, after a beat. “That dementor is in for the tonguing of his life.” |