bad girl augusta. (augusta) wrote in enemies_rpg, @ 2012-12-14 17:54:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! [1942-12] december, algernon selwyn, augusta selwyn |
WHO: Algie and Augusta Selwyn.
WHAT: Being sad about how their mom is dead.
WHEN: 14 December 1942, evening.
WHERE: The Entrance Hall, then the lake.
WARNINGS: None.
The truth was, Augusta didn't think about her dead mother very often. She felt guilty about this, but she didn't have many memories to reminisce on, or much of an idea of what her life had been like before her death. In many ways, Father and the aunts was all she had ever really known. Once a year, on a cold December night, she yearned for a stronger connection to the woman who had given birth for her, though. The mixed sensation of guilt and emptiness pressed down on her chest. Standing in the entrance hall with Algie, she reread the words that she had written on her finest parchment, with her best handwriting: Dear Mother, She folded the parchment and looked up at Algie. "I don't know why Father tells us every year she'd have been proud of us when he's not," she said, a little bitterly. Algie tightened his scarf around his neck and looped his arm through his Augusta's. His own letter was folded up safe in his pocket. He sighed. "But she would've been," he said softly. "And he might've been too. He was different, with her around." More like he was on days like this, he thought. Though Algie spoke from a place of authority regarding their mother, he had only been a year older at the time of her death and only remembered a little more of her than Augusta did. He pressed one gloved hand against the door and pushed it open, leading his sister outside. Their breath puffed out of their mouths in white clouds as they trudged their way towards the lake. Only a week ago, Algernon had stood on this same shore, though the circumstances couldn't have been more different. He let Augusta's arm drop away from his and leaned down to pick up a pebble. Instead of skipping it across the water, Algie took out his wand and transfigured the stone into a single white rose, as close to perfect as he could manage (the stem was still a bit grey). Augusta couldn't really say anything about what their father had been like before their mother had died, though the idea that her death had hardened him seemed to make sense. "Aye," she muttered as they headed down to the lake in uncharacteristic silence. Usually, there was idle chatter between the Selwyn siblings, but tonight, she didn't really know what important things she ought to be saying. At the lake's edge, she shivered a little at the cold breeze blowing off the water as she leaned down to copy Algie, transforming a stone to a white rose. Its appearance was perfect, but it felt too heavy and rigid in her hand to be a real flower. "You know, it's been ten years," she said quietly. "In the scheme of our lives, she's been dead longer than alive." Algie nodded forlornly. "Aye. We were children when we lost her, and now--" He nudged his sister in the shoulder instead of saying exactly what they were now. Grown. Adults. Older children. He reached into his pocket to pull out his own letter. It wasn't crumpled, but the folds weren't quite even. If there was one benefit to the manner of Eglantine Selwyn's death, it was that it didn't matter where those who survived her performed these rituals. Algernon and Augusta's mother was no more in her grave than she was on the grounds of Hogwarts. The Mulcibers had done a fine enough job on the headstone at her gravesite, but there was no body there. Algie smoothed the parchment of his letter with one gloved hand, the stony thorns held fast in his other. He shivered and began to read aloud. "Dear Mother, Wherever you are, I hope you're doing well. I'm the same here, just a year older. Still looking after Gus, still disappointing Father. Do you think you could do something about that, even though you're dead? Cheers. "It's been so long since you've been around that sometimes I forget what life is like with a mother, and I'm sorry about that. I really do miss you, though, and I regret all the things that never happened because you weren't there. When we go home for hols, I will look over your garden again. I wish you could be here to see it. Love, Algernon." Augusta sighed. Even though his letter had been short, she felt that Algie was better at this than she was. She reasoned that this was because he had known their mother better. She stood in quiet for a moment, contemplating the things that she'd never had with her dead mother. Maybe the awkward conversation about developing breasts and menstruation would have been much better than with Aunt Eugenia. And Mother would have taken her shopping and told her how to handle boys. They could've had a laugh about what lads Father and Algie were, too. The brief hesitation over, she read the contents of her letter aloud as well, in a less confident voice than she ordinarily might have done. That done, she tossed the rose and her letter into the shimmering black water of the lake. There was no real logic behind this ritual, besides that it felt ceremonial, and there wasn't much room for ceremony at Hogwarts. "Thanks for listening, Mother. I'll make Algie be a good child, too." Algie looked down at the rose and letter in his hands as Augusta read her own, only glancing up once in surprise at the mention of taking her shirt off for a boy. When she was done, he followed suit, watching as flower and parchment floated out to the center of the lake. The rose, heavier than a real one, slowly began to sink beneath the surface. Algie reached over to squeeze his sister's shoulder. "We love you." Watching her rose disappear into the lake and the two scraps of parchment drift away, Augusta felt the strange, empty sensation inside her swell and leaned into Algie's arm. Another person might have cried, but she remained stony-faced, not wanting to betray even to her brother that she might be genuinely upset. "Aye," she murmured as one of the giant squid's tentacles lazily drifted towards the parchment. The squid dragged one of the letters under the water, too. As if it could read their words for their mother. She turned and gave Algie a proper hug for a moment, squeezing him. "I don't think our mother would want us standing in the cold, freezing our arses off." Algie hugged Augusta back. It was weird to think that, had Eglantine Selwyn survived, she might have been the same size as his sister. Algie remembered his mother being so much larger than him, but he'd always been bigger than Augusta. He pulled away from the hug when she spoke, nodding his agreement. His nose was beginning to feel numb. "Come on," he said, taking one of her hands in his. "Let's go to the kitchens and see if we can get the house elves to pity us enough to give us some hot pumpkin cider." |