Open What's a Girl To Do When She's Not Strong?

[Celia Vu]

It had taken Celia three unlocked classrooms and nine locked ones to find what she was looking for. There had been multiple false alarms — cats lurking in shadowy corners, a rat trapped in a forgotten box. But as soon as she had spotted the rattling desk drawer, she had known this was the one. There was nothing rational about this knowledge — just a primal instinct that urged her to turn and flee.

It was an instinct Celia decided to ignore. There were just four days left before the next DADA lesson. Four days to determine her biggest fear and learn to defeat it before she potentially had to face it in front of all her classmates. She had worked so hard over the past two years to repair her reputation, and she wasn't about to let this unknown variable wreck all her progress.

Celia raised her wand, took a step forward and yanked open the drawer. For a second, nothing happened. And then a figure materialized in front of the desk. It was... her. But not a version of herself she had ever seen before. This version of Celia was slumped forward, dressed in stained, garish clothing. Her features were grotesque, every one of her body insecurities exaggerated.

And then the laughing started. Celia could hear it echoing around them, and she understood then that this was what everyone saw when they looked at her. No, not what they saw, but what they were seeing. Convinced that they had suddenly acquired a whole roomful of witnesses, Celia felt her cheeks burn in humiliation. "Riddikulus!" The other girl stumbled and fell to the floor, and Celia realized with a new sense of horror that she quite literally could not laugh at herself. She just couldn't. "Riddikulus!" The girl flopped onto her back, spittle dribbling from the corner of her mouth. As the laughter increased in volume, Celia acted instinctively, leaning down and trying to block the girl from everyone's view. "Get up!" she hissed. "Get up!" Why couldn't the girl see that she was embarrassing them in front of everyone?

 

[Rene Tofilau]

René didn't like to think he was moping about their most recent Quidditch match. He hadn't even gotten to play but it still stung that they'd already had their chances for the cup dashed. Not wanting to bring the mood down in the common room, he'd gone for a lazy wander around the castle, idling by some of the less ornery portraits on the second floor when he heard noise from a nearby classroom.

"Hey, are you alright?" René asked poking his head in the doorway tentatively, getting the distinct impression he was walking into something maybe he shouldn't. Celia was crouched over someone on the floor and René could have sworn he'd heard someone laughing when he'd been outside, though the room seemed empty outside of Celia and the figure she was struggling with on the floor. For a brief moment he wondered if Celia was fighting with someone, stomach dropping at the idea; Celia definitely intimidated him, but he didn't think she'd get into a fight somewhere off the Quidditch pitch. At least he was reasonably confident. "Do I need to get a nurse or something-" He started, moving to try and see who had fallen to the floor, brow furrowed in concern.

 

[Celia Vu]

Between the blood rushing in her ears and the phantom laughter that seemed to reverberate around the room, Celia didn't hear the door open. Panic had fully seized her by this point, and her heart pounded as she tried to figure out what to do. She needed to get this girl to stand up — no. She needed to get rid of the boggart — no. She needed to flee. A half-crazed glint in her eyes, Celia looked up and realized someone was standing by the door. Even worse, it was someone she knew.

"NO! Get out!" Celia shrieked as she scrambled to stand and face the newcomer. She swung her wand wildly so that it pointed towards him. As she focused on René, she had a brief moment of clarity. He was real, realer than the disembodied laughter, realer than the girl lying behind her. The moment soon passed, however, leaving Celia with a new task. She needed to get René out before he saw too much. "No nurse, just leave!" She was fully prepared to blast him out of the room if needed. It did not matter that hexing him would likely result in the school taking her wand away. It did not matter that she risked a lengthy in-school suspension, if not expulsion. There were a thousand pairs of eyes watching her — eyes that belonged to witnesses she could not see. She couldn't do anything about them, but she could do something about René.

Celia was so focused on René that she didn't notice that the boggart behind her had stood up, revealing the form it had taken with her. Annoyed that it was no longer the center of attention, the creature advanced.

 

[Rene Tofilau]

René flinched at the look in Celia's eye, the concern that something was wrong in the room heightening to an actual fear twisting in his gut. He swung his hands up when she pointed her wand at him, suddenly a lot less sure that Celia would hex someone, or pointedly wouldn't hex him. "Okay, okay, stop, I'm leaving," he said, voice ratcheting up in response to Celia's own apparent desperation. There was no way he wasn't going to immediately go tell someone about this, possibly Professor Carter, but before he could step away his blood went cold at the sight of whoever was behind Celia. "Oh god... Who is that," he said meekly, stepping back into the door frame. He didn't know what Celia had done to the girl behind her, but something was clearly wrong with her. René flicked his eyes between the girl and Celia, desperately trying to make sense of what was happening as the girl shifted oddly behind Celia's back, the impending sense of danger and unease lodging in René's throat.

 

[Celia Vu]

Celia kept her wand trained on René, not wanting to lower it until he had left the room. Still, she was relieved that he didn't try to object. Once he was gone, she could figure out how to defeat the boggart. She was already starting to feel a little more clear-headed now that she was no longer face-to-face with it. But the moment was short-lived. At René's question, Celia instinctively turned around, and a fresh wave of shame and fear washed over her. Except this time, it was made worse by the knowledge that René had seen the girl.

"Riddikulus!" The spell, without the accompanying visualization, sent the other girl flailing to the ground, but she remained unchanged in appearance. If anything, the girl looked uglier, her features even more distorted. She's not real, Celia tried to tell herself. Except the edges of reality were starting to blur. René, who was very much real, was watching all of this, and if he could see this, then who was to say others couldn't? Especially when Celia could hear their laughter and feel their stares. She switched tactics. "Stupefy," Celia said, the word catching in her throat a little because this felt a lot like shooting a spell at herself. A jet of red light shot from Celia's wand and passed harmlessly through the girl, who stood back up and took another step towards them.

 

[Rene Tofilau]

[HUGE apologies for leaving this so long I have no excuse ]

René shrunk against the wall as Celia spun to face the disfigured girl lurching towards her across the room. He didn't think he'd felt more useless in his life, cowering as Celia tried to fend it off. When Celia's first spell hit, René had a moment of clarity, recognizing the spell from DADA. "Is that a boggart?" He asked in alarm, voice rising to break as he shrunk more against the door. "Why is there a boggart in here??" René flinched as Celia launched another spell, watching as the boggart got back to its feet and advanced. Celia had always seemed daunting and competent both in class and on the pitch and at first René had figured she could handle herself with this too but the longer he watched her, the more he started to realize that maybe that wasn't quite true. The thought was as sobering as it was alarming and René blanched as he managed to push himself forward, reaching out to grab Celia's arm and hopefully tug her out of boggarting range. He couldn't remember what happened if a boggart got you, but no way did he want to watch it happen. "We should go, like now," he said weakly, grimacing as he made eye contact with the boggart and hurriedly glanced away. It was bad enough seeing it as whatever Celia was afraid of, the last thing he wanted was to get the same treatment before they could get out of the room.

 

[Celia Vu]

René's question made her flinch, and she glanced at him for a fraction of a second, face stricken with despair. There was no denying it now. René knew what the creature was. Though Celia had experienced her fair share of embarrassing incidents in life, nothing rose to this level of mortification. The shame of knowing that he could see a map of her insecurities and could probably piece together her greatest fear was excruciating. Whether the girl in front of them was real or not didn't matter. By bearing witness, René had made her fear of humiliation a reality.

Without realizing it, Celia's wand arm slumped down. The stunning spell hadn't worked, and the boggart was growing stronger. She knew she had to move before she ended up completely paralyzed by fear, but she couldn't. The laughter, the stares — they were inescapable. Something pulled at her arm, and Celia looked up in surprise, having momentarily forgotten that René was still there. The now familiar feelings of shame flooded through her once again, but as she registered his words, a new emotion burned in her. Anger. It was one thing for René to know that she was afraid of not being seen as capable; it was another for him to actually think it.

"NO! I CAN BEAT IT!" In staring at him, something had clicked, and Celia wrenched herself free to face the boggart for the last time. "RIDDIKULUS!" The disfigured version of herself transformed into a disfigured version of René. The sight of the boggart's new form was not funny. In fact, she felt a little sick with guilt. But she forced herself to laugh, causing the boggart to disappear back into the drawer with a crack. Celia rushed forward, slammed the drawer shut, and pointed her wand. "Colloportus," she muttered, her hand trembling. "Colloportus, colloportus, colloportus."

 

[Rene Tofilau]

René flinched at the ferocity in Celia's voice as she pulled away from him, withdrawing his hand quickly, unwilling to be even a few centimeters closer to the boggart. He really didn't want to get eaten by a boggart today, let alone in front of someone like Celia, so he really hoped she knew what she doing, trying not to hide behind her obviously as she rounded on it again with her wand.

René tried to tamp down a whimper caught in his throat when Celia's spell connected this time, the image of his own contorted face staring back at him equal parts confusing an disquieting before Celia was able to finally force the creature back into a drawer as Celia manage to let out a sharp sounding laugh at it.

The room suddenly felt empty with the boggart gone, Celia muttering locking spells frantically in the corner as René tried to regain his composure. He'd been sure Celia would hex him earlier and now he wasn't so sure that still wasn't a possibility with the immediate danger passed. "Do you uh... Wanna talk.. about it?" He asked her after a beat, glad he didn't have to immediately look her in the eye.

 

[Celia Vu]

Her stupid hands wouldn't stop shaking. It was an easy problem to focus on now that the boggart was locked away, thanks to the ten-odd charms she'd placed on the drawer. Celia set her wand down and gripped the edge of the desk, waiting for the aftershocks of fear to pass. She tried shutting her eyes, but that just brought visions of the boggart, and she quickly opened them again.

Celia was acutely aware that she was not alone — yet another problem she had to deal with. Ideally, the ground would open up and swallow her whole, and she would never have to face René or a boggart again. But it seemed God was not in the business of answering her prayers (he never was), and her mind leapt to increasingly drastic solutions: Forgetfulness Potion, the Memory Charm, a Time-Turner — anything to make René forget what he'd seen.

René was the first to break the silence, and her hands curled into fists. "Do I want to talk about it," Celia repeated flatly. She couldn't believe he had just asked her that. If he had an ounce of sense, he'd leave her alone before she tried giving him a concussion severe enough to cause memory loss. Celia quickly pressed the back of her hand to her eyes and made sure they were dry before picking up her wand and turning to face him. "You know what? I'd love to talk about it," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "What should we go over first? My deepest, darkest fears or my pathetic reaction to the boggart? Or maybe you'd like to share your thoughts on witnessing all of this," she said, gesturing to their surroundings with her wand, "because I'm dying to hear them."

 

[Rene Tofilau]

René had annoyed his siblings enough to know that someone using that tone of voice was infinitely scarier than someone yelling at you and he instinctively took a step back, wondering if it was too late to pull his own wand or not. "I mean, I would say... Pathetic," René offered weakly, raising his hands in some vague attempt of placation or possibly surrender. "I mean, you beat it, right," he said, trying to be encouraging which was especially difficult with the way Celia was looking at him. "I'm just glad no one's hurt, aye" He added, taking another hasty step away from Celia and nearly tripping over his own feet, not quite willing to look away from her. No one was hurt, but no way was René not immediately running to Professor Carter or maybe Professor Drage immediately after he got out of here. He didn't think fighting a boggart was against the rules, strictly speaking, but something about this definitely warranted some adult intervention.

 

[Celia Vu]

René took a step back, which made Celia think that maybe he had gotten the message and was finally going to leave. But then he opened his mouth and started babbling. She glared at him. "I don't need your pity," she spat. Because that's what this encouragement was — an attempt to make her feel better after panicking in the face of her boggart. She scoffed when he tried to claim that no one had gotten hurt. Her image had been hurt, and that was far worse than any physical injury. That kind of damage lingered.

He seemed pretty intent on getting out of there, but Celia knew she couldn't let him leave just yet. "If you tell anyone about this," she started, her voice low and cold with conviction, "I will make sure you spend the rest of your time at Hogwarts regretting it. Got it?" A rather dramatic threat, perhaps, but one that Celia fully intended to follow through with if necessary. She didn't actually think René was the gossipy type, but she knew who his friends were — and they were perhaps the last people on earth she wanted knowing about this. If he told them about the boggart, it wouldn't be long before the whole school knew too.

 

[Rene Tofilau]

René had pasted on a smile in the an attempt to come across as non-threatening as possible, something that used to work alright on his parents and older sister though less so on his brother and, apparently, on Celia. The smile became strained at Celia's tones, René was almost certain he could feel his own backbone slinking somewhere down near his shoes as she threatened him, nodding emphatically. "Got it,. 100%. Who'd I even tell? Tell what?" He said weakly, backing towards the door. He'd been planning on telling Professor Carter immediately, and right after that Caleb and Louis, whoever he could find first, but he was quickly reconsidering. René didn't put it past Celia at all to make good on her threat and the last thing he wanted was to spend the rest of the year looking over his shoulder for her. "I'll just... Go?" He offered, ready to flee the second he was sure Celia would let him go.

 

[Celia Vu]

Celia fixed René with an icy glare as he stumbled his way through a reply. She knew she wasn't very physically intimidating — quite the opposite, in fact — so it was good to know that he seemed to be taking her seriously. If he did tell someone about the boggart, she could of course retaliate, but that wouldn't change the fact that the information would be out there. Celia had enough experience spreading rumors herself to know how quickly gossip could travel. It was better if it never reached that point in the first place. She nodded as he backed away. "Just... leave." As René left, she wondered if she was making a mistake. But what else could she do? She didn't know the Memory Charm. Aside from issuing threats, she couldn't strong-arm him into silence. Once he was finally gone, she collapsed into the nearest desk, burying her face in her hands.