Open Just One Moment of Peace

[Delilah Thorne]

Delilah couldn't believe how quickly the break had gone. It almost felt like she blinked and it was over. Their cousin had come to visit briefly but she had the feeling New Zealand was the last place Gemma wanted to be, but she had brought Delilah some of her favorite romance novel which was a nice gesture. The rest of her break was spent doing what she could to fix her wand situation, not that it was much considering they weren't supposed to do magic at home which she found deeply unfair. But all of that meant, instead of resting she had spent her time fretting and now she was back at school and exhausted as she was when she left. She was trying to change that and was taking advantage of the light work load of the first few weeks of lessons and planned to spend the afternoon reading by the lake. It was still cold enough that it was fairly empty and Delilah was enjoying the rare silence. It was so hard to find anywhere that was truly peaceful around the castle.

 

[Harper Alston]

The year had just begun, but Harper already had a long stack of letters to write. The first wave of letters from her friends and family had arrived over the course of several breakfasts, and she knew that each of them would require a response. Some were easier than others. The stuff from her friends and her older brothers was filled with updates from the outside world, football club rankings, bits of school gossip — all uncomplicated topics. Her parents just wanted to know how she was settling in. Again, easy.

The letters to her younger siblings posed a greater challenge. Her sister hadn't even bothered writing, and her brother's letter was filled with questions about Hogwarts and assumptions that he would eventually get to attend. Harper hadn't known what to say, but she was counting on some fresh air to bring inspiration. Letter-writing supplies tucked in her bag, she headed for the lakefront, glad to see that it was relatively empty. She spotted Delilah and gave her classmate a smile and friendly wave before heading a few meters away, looking for a dry spot to sit. A patch of early-blooming flowers caught her eye, and she plopped down next to them before rummaging through her bag.

Harper barely had time to put pen to paper when a loud honking noise shattered the silence, causing her to flinch. It didn't take long to figure out the source of the commotion. The flowers were waving back and forth, emitting strange noises. She stared at the flowers for a second before giving Delilah a baffled look. "Why are they doing that? Did I do something?" It was like her presence offended them, but she hadn't even known it was possible to offend flowers.

 

[Delilah Thorne]

Delilah heard something and turned to see what it was. When she spotted Harper she returned the other girl's wave and tried not to frown. She had wanted to be alone but she tried to not let the sudden company ruin her mood especially when it seemed like Harper was also there to enjoy the quiet. But not even a minute passed before there was a sudden commotion. It took her only a moment to noticed the honking daffodils and sighed. "Did you sit on them?" she asked, raising her voice to be heard over the noise but not wanting move and get involved if she could help it. She also tried not to sound too irritated but she wasn't sure if it was working and took another deep breath. Her grandmother had grown some in her garden when Delilah was a child and used to delight in getting someone to try and pick one. She hadn't thought about that in a while and it made her soften. "They do that when they're disturbed but they stop after a couple minutes." she called out and offered a sympathetic smile. "You can sit over here if you'd like." she suggested a moment later and gestured to the considerable amount of space next to her where she leaned against a tree.

[so sorry this reply took forever]

 

[Harper Alston]

Delilah didn't exactly look thrilled to hear the honking flowers, and Harper felt bad for ruining the girl's afternoon. Even if she didn't think it was her fault. She checked her surroundings quickly before shaking her head. "No... I didn't even touch them." The flowers seemed to take offense to this and got even louder, leaving her to shoot them a look. This was definitely a first; she'd never been accused of lying by a patch of flowers. Thankfully, Delilah offered to let her join her by the tree, and Harper gave her a grateful smile before walking over.

"Thanks," Harper said, taking a seat closer to the other girl. The flowers continued to honk, but they had stopped violently swaying back and forth. Hopefully Delilah was right, and they'd quiet down soon. "I guess they just didn't like me?" she asked with a shrug. "Maybe I shouldn't have dropped Herbology," she joked. After one year spent learning about muggle plants and another taking care of a deadly root, Harper had written the subject off as not being very useful. But maybe it had its purposes.

((don't worry about it!))

 

[Delilah Thorne]

Delilah gave Harper a skeptical look as the daffodils honked in disagreement when she said she hadn’t touched them at all. She also had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing even though the other girl looked truly distressed. She was starting to feel bad for being so annoyed earlier and made sure to scoot over to make room as Harper joined her. “They’re still flowers. I don’t think even magical ones are capable of not liking someone.” she said and hoped that it sounded reassuring. Delilah laughed at Harper’s comment about dropping herbology. “Well don’t look at me. I dropped it too.” she said with another laugh. ”I only know anything about them really, because my grandmother used to grow them.” she explained and offered a bit of personal information to maybe make up for her earlier coldness. Delilah opened her book again but didn't start reading yet. "So what are you doing out here?" she asked tentatively and hoped she hadn't overstepped but she was curious.

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper wasn't sure if she believed Delilah. The magical world had roots with fatal screams, so a flower with a grudge didn't seem that far-fetched. But it was nice of the girl to try and reassure her. "Professor Carter should have prepared us for mean flowers," she said, grinning. "Instead of teaching us about pumpkins." Most of her friends liked Herbology, so it was nice to know she wasn't the only one who had dropped the subject.

She smiled as Delilah explained that her grandmother used to grow honking flowers. "So what's the appeal of the flowers? Did she keep them as some sort of alarm system? Or a prank?" They were pretty, yes, but Harper wasn't sure why someone would want them in their garden. At Delilah's question, Harper gestured towards the pile of paper and envelopes in front of her. "Writing letters. I think I have writer's block, and I was hoping the fresh air would help." She gazed out at the lake with its gently rippling waters. "And it's calmer out here, fewer magical distractions. For the most part," she added, glancing back at the flowers.

 

[Delilah Thorne]

Delilah smiled and held back a laugh when Harper suggested Professor Carter should have taught them some more useful things. She had to agree with that, even if she still would have dropped the class anyways. "I'm not sure." she answered thoughtfully. She wasn't sure why people grew them since they didn't exactly make for the most peaceful garden. "My grandmother did like to prank people with them. So I don't think you're far off with that idea." Delilah admitted with a grin before glancing at the paper's Harper had with her. "And how's that working for you?" she teased lightly and looked back at the letters. "So who are you writing to?" she asked. She didn't really know anything about Harper or her family or who else she might be trying to keep in touch with.

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper grinned. "Really?" She'd tossed out the prank theory mostly as a joke, but she was delighted by the idea that wizards had cultivated their own prank plant. (It helped that the flowers had now quieted down and were no longer actively annoying them. "Your grandmother sounds like a lot of fun." Her own grandparents were very nice, but she couldn't imagine them keeping honking flowers in their gardens.

She laughed lightly at Delilah's teasing and pretend to glare at the flowers. "The whole world," she answered. "At least that's what it feels like." There were her four siblings, of course. And then her parents. Then there were friends and extended family members and anyone else who had decided to pass along a note via her parents. Harper knew she could probably cut down her list, but she was afraid that if she stopped writing to some people, she'd completely lose contact. "I'm currently working on the letters to my younger siblings. They're nine and eleven, so you wouldn't think it'd be hard, but my brother has a ton of Hogwarts questions, and my sister's still upset she didn't get in." Upset was an understatement, but Delilah didn't need to know all the details.

 

[Delilah Thorne]

Delilah smiled. She didn't talk about her grandmother much. She had died not long before they had to move and it still felt weird to think about her. "She was." she said quietly and hoped she hadn't been too cold. She just didn't really want to talk about it, not with a practical stranger.

She raised an eyebrow at Harper's joke until she figured out it was a joke and laughed. She listened attentively as she explained that she was writing her siblings. Delilah could related to nosing little brothers. "My little brother was the same. He was always asking questions but my answers never seemed to satisfied with them." she said with a laugh. Caleb had been insufferable when she would go home for holidays. Always asking her things about the castle and what it was like. She wondered if he found the castle as dull as he did her descriptions. But she hesitated when Harper said her sister hadn't gotten in. She had never been very good at keeping track of her classmate's blood status, even though her parents thought she should. "Do you think your brother will get in?" she asked tentatively. Usually kids showed some kind of magical aptitude before the reached eleven but she guessed it was probably too early to tell.

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper did not miss the way Delilah used the past tense to refer to her grandmother. She gave the other girl a sympathetic smile, not wanting to pry and make her uncomfortable. It seemed Delilah didn't really want to get into it, and the conversation soon turned to their siblings. "Did he also do the thing where he asks a question five different ways, thinking he's being smart, when he's really just being annoying?" she asked with a grin. My brother's currently hung up on the stairs. I'm not sure why, but he wants to hear all about how the stairs work. I guess I should just be grateful he's finally moved past the sorting ceremony." That conversation had taken ages as Harper had struggled to avoid speculating which house he would get, lest she set him up for disappointment. At Delilah's question, she shrugged, trying to give off a nonchalant air, as if she hadn't spent the past few school breaks obsessively watching her brother for any signs of magic. "I don't know. No one's seen him do anything magical, but they also missed all the signs with me. So who knows?" Of course, there was also the matter that no one had been looking for signs of magic when it came to her. But if there was one thing Harper was good at, it was stubborn optimism.

 

[Delilah Thorne]

Delilah was grateful Harper picked up the hint and moved on. She laughed a little as the other girl described her brother's questioning and nodded in agreement. "I guess an all knowing hat is a little weird if you think about it long enough." she said with a tentative smile. She had never really spent much time thinking about how their world would sound like to muggles and she guessed there were plenty of things that would sound absurd. Delilah noticed that Harper seemed uncertain when she spoke about her brother and she pursed her lips as she thought about that too. "Do you want him to be?" she asked gently. If she was in Harper's positions she wasn't sure how she would feel. She felt so different from her brothers and could never understand the easy way the seemed to move through life. It didn't help that she was the only one in a different house and in comparison everything felt so difficult for her all the time. She always felt like she was pretending and at any moment everyone was going to find out. But if she was the only one with magic, if she was the special one, would that make her feel better? She didn't think so. It sounded just as lonely. "That sounds hard." she said with a slight shake of her head.

 

[Harper Alston]

"Honestly, I still think it's kind of weird," Harper said with a laugh. She'd long since learned that when it came to some types of magic, she just needed to accept things at face value and not think too hard about how they worked logically. Otherwise she'd end up driving herself crazy trying to find the "why" behind every new bit of magic.

She nodded at Delilah's question. "Yeah. I mean, he's my brother," Harper answered automatically before realizing that probably wasn't the entire reason she wanted him to be magical. After all, out of all her siblings, her younger brother was the one she was least close with due to the five-year age gap between them. "I guess it'd just be nice to have someone who gets it, you know? Like someone who I don't have to explain every reference to, muggle or magical." Harper knew there were other people at the school with whom she could find that common ground. There was that muggleborn support group, and there was Sky, who also had a muggle sibling. But there were limits to even those relationships, and it didn't change the fact that when it came time to return home, she was alone. She shrugged at Delilah's comment. "I'm pretty used to it by now," she said, smiling to show that she was fine. She'd survived three years in the magical world by herself, what was four more? She wanted her brother to be magical, but she didn't need him to be.