Bless The Telephone

[Delilah Richarde]

Delilah scorned the weakness she had been cursed with, from child to child in her family the females were all killed off by order of birth and being the last born her time was close and she knew just from the frilly name she was given, the clothes she was told to wear, and her physicality that she would not be the one to defeat the omen that hung over her. While she did feel sad because of a side-affect of dying, though most things were, Delilah knew that she could not infect this feeling upon others if she wished to live before she died. It was this knowledge, Delilah found, that had placed her in Ravenclaw. Her poor, frail mother was too consumed by grief that made her too careful. It was the reason why the brunette girl was restless; even in the castle walls in a foreign country when any other girl would be jumping around from pure joy. Delilah found that she was not the jumping around type of person but as she prepared for the day in a flesh coloured, pleated dress, Delilah found herself wanting to enjoy the day as normally as one could. Without classes and friends in general she decided that she would write a letter, she felt like telling someone about her experiences at Hogwarts thus far. She wished to tell the other girls and boys, who were the children of powerful leaders across the wizarding world and the only friends she had, about the many friends she had made which would be a blatant lie but their parents did it all the time, what would this matter? So the eleven year old cut a silver piece of ribbon and tied her brown locks away from her face, with the same gentle actions her mother had practiced on her hair for years, and then left with a piece of parchment and a quill.

The walk from the Ravenclaw Tower to the Owlrey was all of ten minutes for Delilah but in that time she found herself doubting who to write and just before she walked up the steps to the Owlrey she realized that these other children wouldn't care. Truth be told, Delilah would not have cared either so with a sad sigh she walked towards the terrace, her fingers rubbing against the parchment with an irritating pang of self-pity and self-loathing. For a girl who was so watched Delilah was very alone in her life and she decided that perhaps it was best this way to avoid anyone else being in danger and getting the curse she had been born with. Delilah was sure there were many children, even the eldest in the school, who wrote their parents and the idea had occurred to her but like the other children she had met at fancy dinners that had bored her to tears her father would not have cared or if he did he would not have the time to and her mother... well you know what Delilah thought of her and so she leaned her stomach against the cobblestone and looked over the green wistfully.​

 

[Jay Bennet]

The springtime breeze, Jay noticed, whirled most crisply around the towers of the Hogwarts castle. So much so that the eleven year old instinctively popped the collar of his plaid shirt to abate the nibbling chill against his neck. It wasn’t often that the Hufflepuff found himself dwelling in this part of the school, granted he had only been a student here for more or less a month but already preferred a lazy spot by the lake over the peaks of the castle. But this wasn’t merely a leisurely stroll, Jay had promised to keep his family in the loop of his first year at Hogwarts New Zealand but that was easier said than done. He dug a hand into the pocket of his jeans and absentmindedly fingered the feather of his quill, checking that it had not somehow wriggled out of the denim. He would be in need of it after all, the letters he had to write were plentiful; one to his mother, Fletcher and his baby sister, one to his Uncle Izaak and Aunty Aly, one to Uncle Tristan and another to his grandmother, perhaps even one to Gabriel if his hand hadn’t fallen off by then. But surprisingly, the young boy wasn’t complaining. It wasn’t all that long ago when his mother and Izaak were the only family he’d had. Slicing them each a portion of his free time did not bother Jay in the slightest.

The first year had already begun to consolidate the events that had occurred since the last time he had wrote his family when his azure eyes fell upon a familiar head of hair pulled up neatly into a ponytail; Delilah Richarde was dwelling up ahead. Jay’s worn converse sneakers continued a steady path towards the Ravenclaw, a friend of his simply by default. He doubted they would have said a word to each other if it weren’t for Alexis and Izaak and even now he felt like he knew very little of the brunette; that was something he wanted to change. “Hey Delilah,” Jay smiled as he reached the girl’s side. “What’cha up to?” The boy settled his back against the stone and threaded his arms comfortably across his chest, hoping that he hadn’t disturbed her.

sorry, i'm so rusty.

 

[Delilah Richarde]

Whilst Delilah had been looking over the lawn she caught sight of two frisky teenagers. Initially she cringed but eventually just began to the many awkwardness and splendor of young love. But she did feel strange, as if she was interrupting a personal moment that although was done very publicly was not something she would have ever done herself. Of course things were different for the Ravenclaw, while most had to be cautious of what they did or said Delilah had to be trained on how to act. She was one of the world's most watched children and even if her father was slowly finding his way into obscurity the media just couldn't get enough of the tragic Richarde family and whether she would follow suite of her sister's because the media had also found a pattern, thinking that Zachary was not part of the family because he was a squib. She sighed softly, not because of her self-pity over her family but because she would never be able to move past the stage that the couple Delilah was observing were in, she would be in eternal teenage-hood. A fate worse than death, she thought, Well it is death but still. Delilah's thoughts swirled onto a John Donne poem and various other topics relating love, wealth and the great equalizer - death - when they were interrupted by words directed at her which they were done sparingly since she had begun Hogwarts.

Delilah turned her gaze from the couple, who were already beginning to bore her, to Jay Bennet. She smiled slowly as if it was something quite foreign in her mouth, like she was learning to smile for the first time before she said, "Hello Jay." Her Californian accent was thick in the same places where Jay's Australian one was as she said, "Observing the many stages of life at Hogwarts." She turned her head towards the green where there was Professor Cruz walking along, the frisky couple several feet away, a studious boy sitting alone just as Delilah often did and several first year girls walking along the edge of the Forbidden Forest trying to see if they could dare themselves to enter. She brought her gaze back to the Hufflepuff and said, "And yourself?"​