Alicia Bauer
November 15, 2012 3:15 PM
Overachieving. by Alicia Bauer
One of the perks, Alicia reflected, of being a monitor rather than an assistant someday would be the extra comfort she would feel when it came to taking liberties with the library furniture. In the end, she had finally moved two tables together, but it had only been after a few minutes of unprofitable dithering, time that she didn’t have to waste if she wanted to get as much work done today as she had come to the library planning to complete.The two tables she'd chosen had been arranged into a T, one running north to south so she could unroll most of five feet of parchment out over it, the other horizontal so she could spread the books which didn’t fit on what was left of the other, holding the scroll down along its sides, out in two long rows, each opened to a different page and most of them with scraps of parchment marking still more pages in them for ease of flipping back and forth. Her chair had been pushed back, about an inch from the shelf behind it, and she was standing over the two tables, her head tilted at an uncomfortable angle as she leaned over the vast blank expanse she had left to fill in to look at the foot and a half she had drafted so far, her quill in her hand and her wand lying about half a foot beneath the end of what she’d written. She had, exclusive of time spent pacing up and down the aisle to give her brain a moment to process something she had just read and how it might fit in with the paper she was working on, been working on her Transfiguration paper for about three hours, and though the first hour had just been spent reading, double-checking what she had been reading for the past week and getting into some of the material she had scribbled a note to herself about looking at but hadn’t gotten to in the intervening days, she still felt a little frustrated as she looked over what she had, feeling that there should have been more of it by now, especially since half of it was just the introduction, and that was the only completed part. She had a second roll of parchment, for the final draft, all ready to go, and a lot of individual sheets for revising each part, but there was no point in working further on the introduction until she had more of the paper proper in the works, so she was sure of her thesis. In the first half of the year, she’d had two papers drift after she started on them. Revising something right now would feel good, but she needed to actually do useful things more than she needed to do good-feeling things.
The problem was that challenge Professor Skies had thrown before the class when she assigned this paper on Switching Spells: the dare, almost, for them to get the paper done before the term was half-gone. Most people, Alicia knew, would hand in a rough draft if they handed in anything at all, but that was what made them just ‘most people;’ they lacked ambition, they lacked dedication, and – most importantly of all – they lacked an awareness of appearances, of the power of perception. She would have wanted to start the assignment early anyway, just to get it going while it was fresh on her mind and she didn’t have a lot of other big projects to think about, but now she had to write it at least three times in half a semester, so it was nearly as good as what she would have normally handed in as a final draft when she let Professor Skies see it. And then she’d have to write it maybe as many again in less time after she got it back. And keep up with the rest of her work. To do anything less would be to fail, at least in her own estimation, and she was not someone who failed.
She thought she had a good plan, doing regular assignments in the evenings, researching in bed at night, and then working on her major projects, including this one, on weekends as she was today, but she knew that things were going to go wrong eventually. She had to keep up with her friends. There were going to be nights when she was too tired to stay up with her wand lit behind the curtains so she could read and make notes. Major projects would come into conflict, or there would be a week with an unusual amount of regular work, or….Something would happen, she was sure of it. It would get harder and harder, even if she was right and she hadn't actually just bitten off more than she could chew. That was why she wanted to get as much done right now as humanly possible, to cut down on the amount of work she would have to do later. Even if it involved certain sacrifices.
She had gone in for a very early breakfast and then left a note for her roommates and sent them to her other friends, letting them know, in short form - In library today for Skies. Alicia – where she was going to be, in case anyone wanted to see her or come work with her, but she was glad she had gotten some things done on her own, without interruptions. Another foot or so, and she thought she would be glad for company. She had gotten through the preliminary reading, she had gotten through reviewing all her notes to figure out what she thought she was going to write about, and she had started writing; once she finished her first point, moved into her second, and got at least well into her second foot, she thought she might even move from the Potions section to the Transfiguration one, where people she wanted to see, on the basis of the note, might be likely to find her. But first, she had to get more done; the amount she had written was not enough to really count as progress toward a decent first draft, and she wanted to look like she was making a firm case against all Transfigurations being switches by the time she talked about her work with her friends and roommates. It wasn’t just professors, after all, who the power of perception existed with; Selina Skies might have held the power of grades over Alicia’s head, enhanced by the thought of who she had been about the time Alicia was born, but she was still only moderately-placed on the list of people it really mattered to her that she impress.
She began to write again, leaning closer to the parchment. Her left foot rose from the floor and her hair fell forward, getting in her eyes. Tsk-ing angrily, she straightened up and then knelt on the floor to go through her bag for a barrette, wondering why she had thought it was a good idea to start wearing her hair straight again now that she was back at school. It was so much quicker to use its weight against her that way, and she wasn’t even too sure it made her look that much better.
Finding one, she got up and pinned her bangs back with the silver clip. Then she turned and found that she now had company. "Oh, hi," she said, a little breathlessly between the surprise and having just gotten off the floor.
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Alicia Bauer
Overachieving.
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Alicia Bauer
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Cepheus Princeton
November 17, 2012 1:29 PM
You Aladren. by Cepheus Princeton
When Cepheus had received Alicia's note, he had firstly realised he hadn't properly thanked her for her thoughtful gift. Cepheus wasn't at all done with it yet with the loads of work he had walked into upon coming back to Sonora for the second term. He was horrible at getting himself motivated to do work and found that while he was more productive working alone, he was less motivated to work. He enjoyed study parties and study breaks, and it helped that he was mates with Aladrens. In fact, most of them were Aladrens.The second thought he had was that he hadn't seen Alicia since he'd been back, that being the reason why he hadn't thanked her yet. He decided he would get off his lazy bum and go to the library to get some much needed work done. Knowing her, she'd most likely be halfway through the essay they had to do for Skies. Merlin. He wasn't certain that a toffee apple was worth the amount of research he would have to do in order to make his essay the best. Besides, it wasn't like he had time to start his research now. Or so he said.
Walking into the library, books in hand and in his book bag, he spotted Alicia straight away. She had put the tables together conveniently; however, it made it near impossible for him to see anywhere he could join. He stood there for a moment, ideas running through his head, before finally going and taking another table to make it a monstrously sized desk. It looked more like a backwards gamma symbol now. "Hey, mind if I join?" he asked as he pulled a chair over as well and sat down. He would have been surprised if she turned him away.
"How's your Transfig essay coming?" he asked as he put down his books on Charms and Transfiguration. The essay of the week for Charms was going to kill him, he had decided. "I haven't even started working on it," he said, grinning sheepishly. He expected her to either be appalled or completely judge him. He didn't really mind either; that was why he needed friends to motivate him. Cepheus was not an Aladren at heart. "I also wanted to say thanks for the book. It's really great. My grandfather had a field day when I opened it. Said he was glad I'm making friends; it was as if he doubted my social skills."
Cepheus mocked a look of offence, but quickly dropped the act as he ruffled through his book bag for parchment and a quill. "I'm only a third into it because of all the work we've got to do for classes. Who knew our third year would be so insane? I can't imagine being a fifth year with CATs and all." He shook his head and pulled out a quill. "Sorry if I'm disturbing. I'll try and work quietly." He smiled, feeling a little more at home studying with a friend.
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Cepheus Princeton
You Aladren.
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Cepheus Princeton
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Alicia
November 21, 2012 12:12 PM
*Blushes at the compliment.* by Alicia
Alicia hadn’t been quite ready to show anyone her work, but she smiled as Cepheus moved another table in to join hers. “No, not at all,” she said, gesturing warmly toward the area he was setting up in. “I was hoping someone would, I need people to bounce ideas off of.”Of her friends, Cepheus was the one she felt the second-most affection for and empathy with, and yet at the same time had always felt a little unsure of where she stood with, and she thought most of that went back to that relationship being based, for her, on one specific event. That wasn’t normal for her, and that one event had been something impulsive, something she hadn’t considered doing before she did it, something she thought she probably would not have chosen to do if she had thought about it before hand, so she was left wondering even more than she usually did what the other person involved really thought.
However, she thought it was safe to assume it wasn’t anything too bad, or at least not bad enough for him to want to start drama by bringing it up since they had a friend in common in Thad as well, so she could live with that. She had, as angry as it made her when she thought too much about it, begun to accept that she would never really have a clear idea of what other people were thinking, nothing she could be sure of, anyway. Maybe they were friends, or maybe he used her for her brain; either way, she could live with it, and so she would.
In spite of this acceptance and resolve, though, she bit her lower lip when he said he hadn’t started the paper she was working on yet, not sure if he thought she was trying too hard or if, if that was the case, if her trying too hard was something he dismissed as an Aladren thing (and thus as something she not only didn’t have to worry about, but could even be a little proud of) or taken as a sign that she was truly inferior in some way and trying to compensate for that. She told the truth, though, working under the first assumption. “I think I have all my main points worked out, but I’m not even done with the first draft of the write-up of the first one,” she said, gesturing to the long scroll she was writing that first draft on to make sure that, if all else failed, she had something which was long enough to hand in. “I think it’ll speed up once I really get it flowing, but right now, it feels like it’s going so slowly.”
She rested her hand against the back of her head, the edges of the barrette she’d just put in uncomfortable against her palm, as she tried for a second to think of a quicker solution to that problem and, once again, failed, shrugged, and moved on. “Which side of the problem are you going to argue for?” she asked. “I’m arguing against them all being switches, but you’re welcome to share my research either way, I read up on both, and it might mean bonus points to talk a little about the one you’re not supporting anyway, what do you think? Would that look good or just like we were stalling to take up space?”
She’d definitely ask Thad before she made any firm, final-draft-oriented decisions about that, and maybe write Anne as well for advice, but she valued Cepheus’ opinion on this, too. He wasn’t an Aladren, but she liked him, which automatically gave him credit in her mind that other Crotali would have to work harder to be granted. Besides, it could never hurt to gather more information, to have more perspectives when she was considering something important, as long as the people offering them weren’t complete idiots. She would never, for example, ask Kate about something like this, but Cepheus was all right.
She flushed, pleased, when he thanked her for the book. She had worried about that one more than any of the other gifts she’d handed out this year. Her expression turned to one of mild indignation, though, when he said his grandfather might be doubting his social skills. “How unobservant of him,” she said. “The last I’d checked, you already knew everyone worth knowing in the year.” She shook her head, seeing that he was only faking offense and thus acting as though she had been miming indignation as well, throwing in a sideways smile. “I’m glad you’re enjoying the book,” she said, going back to her first look, of being pleased her gift had been well-received.
She listened as he talked about how the work load this year was affecting him. “Don’t worry about it,” she insisted when he apologized for talking. “I kept catching myself talking to myself like a crazy person when I was here by myself. Now I don’t have to worry about some Teppenpaw prefect deciding to drag me off to the hospital wing.” She wrote a few more words on her own essay. “I’ve actually loved this year so far,” she remarked. “But I kind of like things busy, so for me, it’s basically been the best year ever.”
Except, of course, for not having a clue what was up with Thad this year, and having to interrupt her good year by going home for midterm, but those…There was nothing she could do about those things right now. They were what they were. "Did you have a good time at home?" she asked, finishing her sentence on the page and moving over to one of the more distant books she had to consult one of the marked pages for a fact for her next one.
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Alicia
*Blushes at the compliment.*
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Alicia
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Cepheus
November 23, 2012 3:59 AM
Right, that was a compliment. by Cepheus
It was nice to know that Cepheus wasn’t completely disturbing Alicia in her work, but he hoped she didn’t expect to bounce ideas off of him too much. He was slightly impressed with how studious she was. He hardly bothered with first drafts, usually turning essays in as quickly as possible himself. If she thought her work was going slowly, he wondered how she’d feel in his polished dragon-hide boots. She would have been done with his work long ago. The biggest difference between them. There was a reason why he wasn’t an Aladren.Cepheus wasn’t exactly sure what she was asking, but he nodded along, allowing her question to process in his brain before answering. “I was going to argue about switched foods being safe to eat, but I don’t know if I actually agree with that. Looking at it from both sides would be helpful, definitely. It would make your argument well-rounded, I think.” Cepheus was most likely not going to do that unless he needed to fill more space just to save himself from doing unnecessary amounts of research. But he knew, for an essay at least worth the toffee apple at the end of the term, an argument had to be looked at from different points of view. Alicia was on the right track and Cepheus didn’t want to sway her from it just because he was too lazy to do it himself.
Though Cepheus was joking, somewhat, it was comforting to know that Alicia thought he was sociable enough to know the important people, whoever those people were in her mind. He valued her opinion, feeling like they had some sort of secret connection because of their little impulsive rendezvous. He didn’t think she would want other people to know, and so he’d kept it to himself. He liked keeping secrets anyhow no matter how petty they were.
He let out a heavy sigh as he opened up his Transfiguration textbook. Since Alicia was working on that essay now, he might as well begin on it too. Charms could wait a bit longer. Cepheus was unrolling some parchment to take notes when Alicia asked him about his midterm. He nodded as he cut off about a foot of parchment. “It was fantastic,” he replied honestly. “I love the winter holiday. My mum, brother and I went to London for Christmas Eve. She was doing some shopping – really last minute, I know – and it was fun walking around in the city for a change. My grandfather was a bit of a downer, though. He kept reminding me about—” Cepheus was about to blurt out the secret of his betrothal, and quickly caught himself. “—my Quidditch losses,” he finished, approaching a topic that was still somewhat sensitive and one he hadn’t meant to talk about at all. “But it’s over,” he replied, though his chest felt tight just talking about it. His competitive spirit wouldn’t be able to take much more losing. He didn’t want to start any intense Quidditch rivalries with his friends either.
Cepheus wrote his name on the top of the parchment, practising the calligraphy he so enjoyed, wondering when he was going to tell his friends that he was now betrothed. A good chunk of people here knew about it already, and Cepheus wanted to keep it from spreading any further. Perhaps it wouldn’t matter; maybe they already knew and Cepheus was just making a big fuss about it on his own. It was extremely inconvenient that his betrothal came during the time he was starting to notice that girls were more than just, well, playmates. Ending his name with a swishy ‘n,’ Cepheus’s light eyes flicked up to Alicia’s. “How was your holiday?”
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Cepheus
Right, that was a compliment.
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Cepheus
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Alicia
November 26, 2012 9:10 AM
What else could it have been? by Alicia
After a week of reading, Alicia was already uncomfortably familiar with the feeling that she wasn’t completely sure she believed in the stance she was taking for this paper, but her reaction to that was not the same as Cepheus’ at all. He seemed at least prepared to consider switching focus, where she was determined to stick to her Bludgers and write the paper on what she had set out to write it on. Anything could happen, of course, especially in light of the comments they were going to get from the professor when they were halfway through, but she knew herself well enough to know it wasn’t likely to. Unless Professor Skies tore her entire argument to shreds and heavily implied she would fail for the term if she didn’t change it all up, she was likely to stick with what she had out of sheer stubbornness even if the initial reaction was only lukewarm, determined to prove that she had been right and could persuade others she had always been right.Besides, she had the evidence, anyway, and was planning to recreate at least one fairly simple experiment to prove her point further. She wasn’t yet sure how she would document that, she would have to discuss that with Professor Skies, but she was going to do it, and hopefully include it in her paper. It looked so much more serious, she thought, to actually independently validate what she read, rather than looking like a naïve little first year who had no problem accepting things as the books presented them without any question. She had all the respect in the world for received learning, but it was always better to get as close to the original sources as possible, just to be sure.
“I hope so,” she said when Cepheus agreed with her about how acknowledging the other side, even if it was in the context of ripping it to shreds, would make the paper well-rounded, rather than overstuffed. “I guess she’ll tell us after she looks over the drafts, but – “ Alicia shrugged with a self-deprecating smile. “Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m still half-hoping I’ll hand in this super awesome paper halfway through and she won’t have anything bad to say about it. It will never happen, but I still think I’ve just got to try. You can laugh now.”
She noted with approval, as he started opening things up, that Cepheus seemed to be planning to work on the same essay she was, and smiled thinly as he talked about how much he loved the winter holiday. She couldn’t, she shouldn’t, hold that against him; that was normal, that was what people with real families and people who were not cursed in general did with the winter holiday. It was not her friend’s fault that he had been born to one set of parents and she to another, far inferior one; Alicia had no doubt in her mind that, however the soul came to exist, no one chose what family to be born into, because there was no way she would have ever picked hers in a million years. She had learned valuable lessons from it, but she could have learned them just as well and much less painfully in a real family, and she would have gotten to enjoy her life a lot more, rather than constantly feeling like she was walking a high wire with no one standing with a wand below to catch her if she fell.
Not, of course, that doing that was always intolerable. There was a certain exhilaration that came, at times, with doing it. Alicia could no more deny that than she could the color of her eyes; both were just parts of her, she would be someone different without them. Still, though. She could have, she was sure, found other ways to get her thrills if she’d had the chance, and she would have taken the chance gladly, if it had been offered to her. But it hadn’t been.
She glanced up when he said his grandfather had given him a hard time about Quidditch, deciding she officially did not like that man. There was absolutely nothing she could do about it, of course – he was even further from her reach than most of the other people she especially disliked for one reason or another – but she felt it just the same. How did grandparents expect anyone to do any better, just hearing over and over again about how they hadn’t measured up one specific time? “He sounds like a real downer,” she said. “Worse than mine, even. Does he ever come to the States? I could curse him for you, if you liked.”
She said it lightly, jokingly, but she did like the idea – of just tossing caution to the winds and standing up and blasting everyone who was a trouble to her or her friends out of the way, confident that there would be, that there could be, no negative consequences to her actions. Of having power, instead of just having to wriggle through cracks in the system, and the ability to use it however she pleased. Of being protective and free.
She lifted a shoulder when he asked about her holiday. “It was fine,” she said. “My eldest sister and my little brother are still annoying, but I didn’t really expect that much to change in just a few months – “ she laughed as she said that, taking the edge off her distaste for her siblings – “and I got a lot of work done, and it was good to see my step-grandmother again.” She smiled and tilted her head a little. “I just can’t wait until next year, though. I’ll be fifteen, so there’s at least a chance my mother will let me visit the libraries on my own. It’s so irritating, having her reading over my shoulder, asking questions about why I’m looking at every little thing.” To put it mildly. It was also very hindering, because her mother thought of her as a sweet youngest girl, and it was obvious she was having trouble reconciling that with Alicia’s work ethic as it was. Plus, Alicia didn’t consider her studies any of her mother’s business, because if anyone around her was not qualified to speak about what someone should do in school, it was her…well, actually, it was her father, since he hadn’t even been a very accomplished student before he left, but her mother came in a close second place. “I guess it just goes with being the youngest for a while, though. You're lucky, being the eldest.” And also a boy, she suspected, but he couldn't help that any more than he could his blood, and she didn't mention it.
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Alicia
What else could it have been?
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Alicia
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Cepheus
November 29, 2012 1:34 PM
Nothing less than a compliment to you. by Cepheus
What made Cepheus grin at Alicia’s hope to turn in the perfect essay was not her dream, but that she cared about the essay so much. Making the perfect marks had never been Cepheus’s top priority, though his parents did care about them. He wanted to succeed, of course, and anything less than an E was absolutely unacceptable, but he didn’t care much if he received an E on his draft.“I think that’s a plausible dream for you,” he said, trying not to send off the wrong message by his grin. “Sorry, I just think it’s completely inspiring how dedicated you are to the essay,” he teased lightly. He wanted to make a joke about her doing his homework, but he wasn’t sure she’d take that too well. From his experience, Aladrens took their work quite seriously.
Alicia didn’t look thrilled by Cepheus’s holiday, but he didn’t take it personally. It made him wonder what her holiday had been like. He didn’t know much about Alicia’s home life, and he realised that though they were good friends, they never really talked about really serious things. He sometimes felt uncomfortable talking about that sort of thing with his friends, but girls were the best listeners when it came down to it. Father had told him not to spread around the Princeton woes, though, since they were supposed to show a united front. He couldn’t help complaining about his grandfather, however, from time to time. He had to let off all that pressure and frustration toward him somehow.
However, Cepheus was scandalised by Alicia’s offer to curse the Princeton patriarch, although he tried not to let it show. Though Cepheus didn’t have a very solid relationship with him, he was still the patriarch. He wasn’t sure how to react to her offer, so he gave a little smirk. “Thanks for the offer, but I don’t think that will be necessary. He wouldn’t dare step foot on American soil. Got too much pride in England to go anywhere else.”
Cepheus didn’t mention that his family owned land in France and Sweden and in much of Western Europe, or that his family had been, for the longest time, afraid of stepping outside of their comfort zone and onto a new continent altogether. Princetons weren’t scared of anything, but, as Cepheus was coming to realise day by day, they were afraid of many things, the biggest one being change of any kind.
It came as a surprise to Cepheus that Alicia had siblings, even more so that she was the middle child. She was like Rupert, in that sense, though they were two very different people. “Siblings are always annoying,” he said, wrinkling his nose slightly. “But you’re right, that’s expected.” He smiled. “Merlin, can you imagine if your mother was here now? Listening into our conversation and asking you a question about every single thing you’re writing in your essay?” He smirked at the thought of having an older, nosier Alicia looking over the shoulder of the Alicia he knew. “My mum isn’t that nosy, but she does want to know everything that’s going on. Usually she’s pretty well-informed. I wouldn’t be surprised to find eyes in the back of her head.” He sighed, wishing just a little that she would be a little less over-protective than she was.
“You’d think being the eldest would be good, but I think you’re rather lucky being younger. My parents are always on my back for every little thing.” He shrugged, fiddling with his quill. “But it comes with the territory, I suppose.” He looked up at Alicia, not wanting to go into the pressures the adults in his family had been putting on him recently. Getting away from any reminders of such things was like a breath of fresh air and he didn’t want to think about it. “You’re the middle child, then? How is it having one older and one younger?” he asked curiously. It wasn’t like he would ever ask his younger brother directly, but he did want to know.
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Cepheus
Nothing less than a compliment to you.
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Cepheus
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Alicia
December 03, 2012 6:05 PM
Good answer. by Alicia
Alicia sighed slightly and put a hand to her chest when Cepheus teased her about being an inspiration, but a small smile was still hovering on her lips; the comment about how her dream might not be so implausible as all that, however untrue she knew it to be herself, had pleased her. “I know,” she said. “It’s my calling in life. Inspiring Crotali to write better essays.” She laughed and lowered her hand again to look, reminded by her own mention of Crotali, for a section in one book about cautions one should keep in mind while performing Switches over a distance. She wasn’t completely sure it was relevant to her argument, but there was one quote she knew she could work into this paragraph. Her tone dropped back into that of someone talking about actual things, rather than teasing. “Yeah, I flutter around a lot while I’m working, so if I get in your way, just tell me to move,” she said.It did not occur to her to see any dissonance between offering this permission to a friend and meaning it and how utterly offended she would have been if someone she did not consider a friend had presumed to take her up on such an offer even if she made one. It never did. To her, the categories of people she liked and other people who just happened to exist were so completely different from each other that there was need to ever think of such a thing.
Because of this, she saw it as perfectly normal to think of family as less important than her friends, and so she did not notice that Cepheus was scandalized by her casual, if aggressively-phrased, offer of support. “The one place I can’t go,” she said, still lightly. “My mother’s half-sister married someone over there, and my aunt – “ she shook her head, again in a bit of theater. “Well, now she thinks she’s far too good to speak to any of us.”
Which, in fairness, she probably was, the rest of the family being almost entirely composed of lowlifes and failures in Alicia’s opinion, but she wasn’t going to say that to Cepheus. She didn’t even remember Aunt Helena, who she had only met a tiny number of times while she was very small before Helena had run off to England, very clearly, but Helena was nearly tied with Anne on the list of her role models, with even her having to debate which woman ranked higher when she thought about the matter. Both of them had been born into very low stations and had risen on the basis of nothing but brains and sheer willpower; Helena in some ways higher than Anne, it was true, but that had been a matter of personal choice, and her aunt also wasn’t nice to her and was not remembered for her academic prowess as well as her political abilities, which tipped the scale a little in ways it otherwise wouldn’t have been.
Alicia pictured for a moment the scenario Cepheus proposed involving her mother, then squeezed her eyes shut. “One of us wouldn’t leave alive,” she predicted. “I’ve still got nearly four feet left on this draft.” She neglected to mention how her mother would fuss about how she worked too hard, and why didn’t they go do something fun for a while and she come back and work later….It was sometimes very like her mother had forgotten all about how she herself had not exactly just sailed into something right on the border of respectability, but rather, had had to, from what Gramma Alma had told her about those days, work very hard to compensate for her own youthful stupidity in the matter of Alicia’s father.
Unless, of course, she did remember, and was trying, with all her mollycoddling of them, to get her children to have no work ethic so they could never do better than she had. Alicia had considered that option before, too. Most of the time, she thought it was a little too paranoid to seriously consider. Most of the time.
At least, though, she wasn’t, as far as Alicia could tell, as well-informed as Cepheus was saying his mother seemed to be. At the very least, she seemed to accept all the lies Alicia told her on a daily basis when they were together. She was the one on her own back about every little thing, which she thought must be much easier than having someone else standing around with a whip in hand. She would have eventually cracked up and wanted to strange the person with it by now, she was sure. “Two older, one younger,” she corrected Cepheus when he asked about her siblings, wondering which of her sisters he remembered. If it was Rachel, the former Head Girl, which was all right, or if he knew that Kate Bauer, the Teppenpaw Seeker he played against from time to time and no proper lady, was her sister, too. “Since my brother is the one who’s younger, I usually get treated like the youngest. My mother tries to coddle me to death.”
That was not as far from the truth as she might have liked. Her mother’s desire to spoil her was strong, and the way she went about it was far too overbearing, at least for Alicia’s liking. Being treated like an infant or an idiot either disgusted or infuriated her, when it didn’t do both, and was one of the reasons why she was in such an agony to escape home whenever she was there. And in general, really; even here, at school, where she was happier, she sometimes thought about the future, where she would be able to stay wherever she liked forever instead of eventually having to go back to her parents and siblings for weeks or months at a time again.
Her mother, she supposed, she might make herself visit from time to time once she was free, and Isaac and maybe Rachel could eventually be useful friends, so she would at least send them cards, but her father and Kate, she planned, as soon as she possibly could, never to see ever again. “As annoying as he is, that’s why I’m glad have a little brother,” she continued. “Most of the time, anyway. Otherwise, if he weren't still under her feet, she wouldn’t have anything to distract her from trying to drive me crazy even here, since she just lives one state over.” She smiled a little uncomfortably, realizing how much she was saying about her family life, something she normally avoided as a topic of conversation altogether. "I guess you don't have that problem," she remarked. "With most of your family on the other side of the ocean and all."
16
Alicia
Good answer.
210
Alicia
0
5
Cepheus
December 12, 2012 2:57 PM
I have quite the charming disposition. by Cepheus
Cepheus couldn’t understand how Alicia’s aunt could think she was far too good for Alicia’s family, but then again he didn’t know much about her family in the first place besides her parents’ divorce. He was familiar with the English pride his relatives always advocated for, but he didn’t think a witch who hadn’t been born and bred there had the right to take so much pride in England. At least not so much as to stop talking to her family.This was all, of course, based on Cepheus’s opinion mostly only concerning Alicia’s aunt. Cepheus really didn’t know a bit about her aunt. He was getting defensive on Alicia’s behalf alone and it was all in his head. Merlin. Really, he was getting worked up over nothing. It was enough to make him laugh at himself.
Alicia’s reaction to Cepheus’s hypothetical scenario made him laugh. Merlin, he’d barely even started on his draft. He was impressed with how quickly she was getting it done. Though he didn’t loathe essays like his younger brother, he wasn’t a quick writer. But he knew having his mother look over his shoulder while he was working would make him even slower. It was bad enough that his mum didn’t buy his lies and seemed to know everything that was going on. It was sort of her job, he supposed, since she was the receptionist at the Princeton Hospital in Surrey and needed to know everything that was going on there at all times. He was thankful that she seemed to just know things and didn’t need to visibly poke her nose into his business when it didn’t need to be there.
It made sense that Alicia’s mum would want to coddle her, she being the youngest daughter. Cepheus couldn’t really relate first of all because he was the eldest, and second of all because he only had brothers. His youngest brother was the baby of the family and was treated as such. However, he did know how it felt to be coddled to death because he was the eldest and the ‘important one’ since he was going to become the patriarch someday and ‘rule’ over all the Princeton branches. When he thought about it that way, it was a bit scary, and he was getting to the age where he wanted to rebel against everything, including that storybook life his ancestors had planned out for him before he’d even been born.
Merlin, it made him sick. Even having younger brothers didn’t take all of the attention away from Cepheus. “Parents are crazy,” he agreed, unsure of which bit he was agreeing to. “You’d think they’d lay off a whole ocean away, but it’s quite the opposite,” he groaned. “They expect owls twice a week on how I’m doing, who I’m hanging out with, what sort of marks I’m making, how Quidditch is going, etcetera etcetera. I’m the oldest, my youngest brother isn’t even in school yet, there’s a hospital to be run, and still my father has time to read all the bloody letters I send him and comment on every bit of it.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Don’t get me wrong, they’re all right, but sometimes they drive me mad. I couldn’t imagine them being only a state away,” he said sympathetically. Thank Merlin for Alicia’s younger brother for her sake.
Not only were his grandfather and father overbearing, but Grandfather was always comparing Cepheus to Corvus. It was hard to compare with his picture-perfect father who had been Head Boy, Seeker and Quidditch captain all at one point in his academic career. Father, who had never lost a Quidditch match in his 7th year. Father, who had found the right, respectable witch and fell in love before marrying her. Father, who, once he had started working with the hospital’s finances, had helped improve the place and increase profit somehow. It was enough to make Cepheus want to run away from it all knowing that he could never be the sort of wizard his grandfather wanted him to be. A whole ocean couldn’t be enough to escape the rigid expectations his family had of him. Cepheus wanted to crawl back into his childhood and stay there.
He hadn’t meant to let all that out, but Cepheus had been holding it in for quite awhile and Alicia had pushed the right button. He knew that his grandfather would be disappointed in his lack of self-control. Lesson number 1: Never do or say anything to shame the Princeton family. Cepheus found he could care less about ‘lesson number 1’ at this moment. “I’m not the best study partner, am I?” he said, smirking slightly.
0
Cepheus
I have quite the charming disposition.
0
Cepheus
0
5
Alicia
December 18, 2012 7:19 PM
I quite agree. by Alicia
Alicia’s eyes flicked up, suddenly intent, for one second when Cepheus griped about his father reading every word of letters that included information about who he’d been hanging out with and then commenting on them, but though her heartbeat still felt a little irregular from the momentary spike of alarm, the thought that it did not matter caught up with her in time for her to get her reaction back under control. Considering that, when Alicia had first met him, the man’s son had not even known the names of the states, Alicia thought it was really unlikely that Mr. Princeton had an exhaustive knowledge about families in the United States and which ones did and did no count, at least not enough to catch her out, and Aunt Helena wasn’t likely to change that for him, either. Even if the Princetons and the Whittingtons were old chums, always sent their children to Hogwarts together and spent a week at each other’s houses after Christmas and who knew what else, her aunt had no reason, even if Cepheus’ friends came up at some tea with floral china, to remark that Alicia was…that Alicia’s father was actually common, Muggle-blooded gutter trash.Alicia’s father was, after all, Helena’s ex-brother-in-law. Admitting that her niece was related to such a person was to admit that her sister had once been related to such a person, and therefore that Helena herself had once been related to such a person, which was not the sort of admission a social climber like Helena was ever likely to make. Even the ‘ex’ factor would have been embarrassing, in a society where, if what Alicia had read was anything to go by, poisoning one’s unwanted husband was considered much more tasteful than divorcing him. No, Aunt Helena would keep her mouth shut, Alicia was almost sure of that. It was against her own best interests to let her distaste for them overrule that, and Alicia was quite sure that her aunt would not have gotten as far as she had, in spite of or because of being in a different place, if she did not always put her self-interest first. Alicia very much admired her that, when she didn’t resent her for effectively closing a country to her that Alicia thought she might have liked very well otherwise. They did things differently there, and she thought she could have worked with that better than she could have the system here.
But she had been too young. That was always the problem for her. She was always too young, and in the wrong place, and, of course, always held back by blood, here in a place where the pureblood class – who’d trickled in from a dozen countries two centuries ago, then set to building up fake credentials, painting their noses until they forgot their real faces, butchering anyone who got in their way, and generally making the American dream during that one short, sharp moment of time when it had been feasible – was large enough to sustain itself without an unreasonable degree of inbreeding and still firmly, if quietly, in charge. And kept very good records. And so she was stuck….
For now. Only for now. There was always a way, if one looked hard enough, if one tried hard enough.
She felt calmer as her thoughts reached the end of the obsessive cycle they were so often sent into. Getting to the end always settled her nerves, at least until the next thing that put her on guard and set the whole chain of thought off again. She so wished, sometimes, that she could get it all out of her head. Just for a solid week. Even now, in the happiest year of her life, Alicia didn’t think she ever went through a full week without once thinking of it, at least for a minute. Someone in her family wrote at least that often.
“It could be worse,” she said with a small smile when Cepheus seemed to be sympathizing with her plight of having them close by. “At least the headmistress doesn’t encourage visitors.” Alicia had, to her great pride, had enough of a Classical education so far to know that killing one’s parents was a seriously risky proposition that involved the cosmos turning on one in all kinds of interesting and painful ways, but if her mother had been visiting every weekend, and her father even occasionally, she might have had to think about the potential upsides. “Family, though, right? You can’t live with it –“ can’t Avada Kedavra it, she added silently – “anywhere.”
She shrugged when he said he wasn’t an ideal study partner. “Yeah, but I like you, so that’s okay,” she said, almost matter-of-factly. “Besides," she added, more lightly now, "you need my good example to inspire you, remember?”
16
Alicia
I quite agree.
210
Alicia
0
5
Cepheus
December 21, 2012 5:07 PM
You're quite charming yourself. by Cepheus
One thing Cepheus was grateful for was that his parents usually took his word about his friends and their blood status. They didn't have much of an idea about the American pure-bloods unless branches had emigrated there from Western Europe. When he'd told them about the Bauers and said Alicia was a pure-blood, they hadn't questioned it. They trusted him to make the right sort of friends. Now that he was getting older, however, and that he was betrothed, they wanted more information about how his meetings with his betrothed were: how well they were getting along and whatnot.It actually was easier being an entire ocean away from his relatives only because he couldn't feel or see them breathing down his neck. It had gotten worse now that his English friends were staying at school over the holidays, and they were beginning to drift apart. Cepheus was upset about that, but he wasn't sure if he wasn't part of the reason, being so far away and not writing frequently enough. Sometimes he missed them, but other times he was too busy writing to the friends he'd made at Sonora. Though he had grown up with his three best mates in England, there were too many things happening that couldn't be completely articulated in writing.
Alicia's statement was completely true concerning family and Cepheus groaned. "Yes, unfortunately." He sighed, not really wanting to think about going back to Europe where his family would be everywhere. It was bad enough there were so many Princetons in England, but he couldn't even escape to France or any other country in the West.
But Cepheus had to look at the good bits of having such a pure-blooded family. He received loads of attention from his family even if it felt over-bearing at times, he was filthy rich and could spend Galleons on whatever he liked and he enjoyed being seen as a respectable pure-blood. It only came at a price, but one that he didn't absolutely loathe at times. He could buy himself a new broom or something when he felt overwhelmed.
Cepheus smiled after Alicia claimed she enjoyed his company. "I seem to be a bit more inspiring than you at the moment," he teased. But he was a little glad they weren't doing work. He'd rather learn more about Alicia and her family than write essays any day. At least essays could be pushed back to the last minute. "I'd like to hear more about your family, though, if you don't mind being distracted for a moment more. You don't talk about them much," he said, feeling a bit self-conscious that he had said so much about his own family. "What's your father like?"
0
Cepheus
You're quite charming yourself.
0
Cepheus
0
5
Alicia
December 21, 2012 6:25 PM
I try my best. by Alicia
Alicia felt herself retreating at Cepheus’ mention of her family, but bit her tongue rather than going for the obvious solution, which was to snap at him somehow, put him down, do something to distract him from it. That wouldn’t work with her friends. The people she really cared about were ones with some self-respect, some pride; they wouldn’t tolerate that sort of thing. So she had to do something else.“I don’t mind,” she lied. “I suppose I don’t talk about them much – I don’t think about them much, to tell you the truth.” Another bald-faced lie; that one amused her enough, given the use of the word ‘truth’ in it, that it distracted her from the black, tumultuous storm of feelings that usually cam with thinking about her relatives. She lowered her eyelids, hiding the expression in her eyes, as she marked a place on her essay that she already knew she wanted to write differently in the final version before she sat down at last. She moved the chair closer to the table, so she didn’t feel as exposed and vulnerable as she had where her chair had been. “My life’s really here now – with you guys – not there, so I don’t really have a reason to think about them much when I'm here.”
In a perfect world, anyway, she wouldn’t. She was always happiest when she forgot about them, when she was so busy with her life here that the fact she had relatives didn’t seem very relevant. This year, she really had not thought of them a lot except when proof of their existence was right in front of her, or she’d had to deal with someone who struck a special nerve, like Arabella Brockert. If this had just been the Concert year, instead of last year, she thought third year would have been perfect, since that would have distracted her friends, too, from whatever it was they had seemed less than happy about at other times in the year.
She shrugged when he asked about her father, making herself look at him instead of at the floor and resisting the urge to fiddle with her thick hair. “He’s all right,” she lied smoothly. “He's the one in the family who looks a lot like me, just more - " she raised her hands to her shoulder level, gesturing outward with them before tilting them in again toward her face for a second before lowering them - "manly, of course. He writes to me about once a month, a little note, you know, to see how I’m doing…Who I’m talking to….” Her father didn’t know the name of any of her friends, and he disapproved of everything he did know. He was jealous, she knew. An envious little man who knew he was nothing and didn’t even have the good grace to admit it, and who was doing everything in his power to keep his daughters from making anything of themselves because he’d never had a chance to. That was what her father was like, in her opinion. “I’m closer to my stepfather, but I see Father over both holidays, in the winter and the summer.”
When she had no other choice, anyway. She flushed, thinking of how much she hated him, how he disgusted her. She knew she could never love her children, if she had any – they would be like her, tainted, they would never be really whole – but she thought she could at least be a big enough person to not make their lives a living hell just because she was what she was and what they were was a little better than that. It was beyond low, doing something like that to a natural superior just because the power arrangement was out of balance for the first sixteen years of the superior’s life.
“He and my mother went to school together,” she added. “He was a Teppenpaw, she was a Crotalus…I was more like my grandmother, my mother’s mother, than either of them, Gramma Claire was an Aladren, and Uncle Geoffrey. He was Head Boy here about…ten years ago, I guess? We’ve had a lot of those in the family. He’s studying with one of the best potions masters in the country right now, in South Carolina. I like him a lot.” She folded her hands together and smiled, sitting back in her chair as though she were more comfortable than she was. “Anything else you want to know?” she asked. "I'm not sure what's interesting and what's not."
16
Alicia
I try my best.
210
Alicia
0
5
Cepheus
December 22, 2012 3:57 PM
Now that we've agreed... by Cepheus
Cepheus couldn't believe that Alicia didn't think about her family much. He thought about his all the time, not always deliberately. Family was just always there wherever he went. He carried the Princeton name and with it had to carry the attitude his family expected of him. But perhaps their situations were different. Alicia, after all, was not the next patriarch and did not come from the same society as he. Perhaps the American pure-bloods were a bit more relaxed than the English ones. He didn't understand it, but he nodded, watching her as she told him about how much she didn't think about her family."That's a gift, that is," he said with a little sigh. "I wish I could stop thinking about my family when I'm here." It didn't help that his brother was here and his cousin was going to be attending the year after. His family was going to slowly begin a branch here. At least Cepheus knew now that he wasn't expected to live here in the States. But that would mean leaving all of the friends he had made here and that would be difficult. But he had years to think about all that. A few, anyway.
It was interesting hearing about Alicia's father. He had never heard her utter a word about him, so trying to imagine an older, male Alicia was a bit difficult. He noticed she didn't say she wrote back to him once a month. It didn't sound like she and her father were very close and Cepheus could not imagine that again. He couldn't think of any of his relatives who were divorced. Divorce was looked down upon by his family because arranged marriages were quite popular with them. If one married in a family for financial and social reasons, then divorce was nearly impossible. Cepheus, for example, when he married Megan, would never be able to divorce her. He was the patriarch and so was supposed to keep a respectable appearance even if deep inside he hated her.
Alicia leant back in her chair when she finished and Cepheus found himself having a bit of trouble with her pronouns. "Your stepfather is the one studying with a potion's master in South Carolina?" he asked, unsure of which father she had been talking about. He didn't know how one could have so many parents. With her somewhat oppressive mother and a father she wasn't completely fond of, he was glad that she at least liked one of her parents, though he wasn't blood-related to her.
"I think you've told me a lot, thank you," said Cepheus with a little smile. He fiddled with his quill. "I enjoy hearing about your family even if it means you have to think about them." He didn't want to nose about any more than he already had. That would be considered rude even between friends. He didn't want to push Alicia away or press her to say something she didn't want to. "Now are you going to inspire me to start working on my essay or what?"
0
Cepheus
Now that we've agreed...
0
Cepheus
0
5
Alicia
December 24, 2012 5:04 PM
We shall proceed. by Alicia
“Hm, I’d say it’s more of a talent,” Alicia joked when Cepheus said it was a gift to be able to ignore her family. Gift or talent, she would have taken it either way; if she had known of anything she could do that would have allowed her to live her life without having them bubble up, like something rotten in the bottom of a swamp, in her mind every now and then, she would have done it in a second. “It does help, though, that none of my relatives are ever going to be in our classes. If I’d been born a month earlier, I’d be in classes with one of my sisters this year.”It was hard not to shudder just thinking of her near miss. Kate wasn’t really a problem, not least because she wasn’t smart enough to be one, and as long as her second sister stayed out of her way, Alicia really didn’t care one way or the other about her, but Kate was not someone Alicia ever wanted to associate with, especially in front of her friends. If she ever did, Alicia strongly suspected that at the end of the encounter, she would no longer have friends, and between Kate and her friends, she’d take her friends every time. She hadn’t done a bad job, that much was obvious, but when she thought back, she had no idea how she’d kept from going crazy before she came to school.
She laughed as she realized her pronouns had gotten too male-heavy at the end there. “No, my uncle is,” she said. “My mother’s brother. My stepfather’s a lawyer. Among other things.” Alicia tried to know as much as she could about the business side of the family, but there was only so much she really understood even since she had figured out how to break into desks to read papers they thought were none of her business.
Some members of it thought her mother’s family was cursed. Alicia chose not to think so – if it was, then there was no way she could ever escape, and more pertinently, the alleged curse always kicked in when someone left school, and as far as she knew, nothing had gone wrong for anyone since Rachel graduated – but she could see why they thought so. One after another, they all did well, extremely well, even, and then, all at once, the bottom dropped out from them one after another and they were left as nothing, with nothing to do but dream up ways to make the next generation fare better. With the sheer amount of ambition and talent in the family, they should have been powerful and respected in every way by now, but somehow it never seemed to work out for them.
Once or twice, when she had been at her father’s, Alicia had wondered if maybe everyone had been as sure as she was that they were the evolution of the family’s tendencies, the one who could see everyone else’s successes and mistakes and finally be the one who had more of the former than of the latter. In the end, though, she had decided she didn’t need to worry about it. Maybe they had been sure, too, but that didn’t matter, because they had all lacked one thing she had, and that was money. There was, as Jeremy said, nothing under the sun that couldn’t be bought and sold. And since the people she cared more about than any others in the world happened to be the best sort of friends anyone could have, too, Alicia didn’t see how anything could ever go irreparably wrong.
She realized something had gone a little wrong, though, when Cepheus apologized for making her think about her family. “It’s all right,” she said. “I don’t mind thinking about them – “ she could never decide if she loved or hated being a very good liar – “I just usually don’t – think to think about them, I guess. Does that make any sense?”
Still, she was glad when the subject turned back to the essay. “Here,” she said after a moment of looking over her books of research, picking up one of the shorter, newer texts. “I’ve got some passages marked with those little scraps of parchment, there’s good arguments for both sides in there, so it’s a good starting point,” she said, handing it over to him. “I’d rather not hold a wand to your head or anything, but if you really need me to, just let me know,” she added with a teasing smile before looking back down at her own essay and writing another sentence. She was going to finish, she decided, this first draft today, no matter how long it took; it was the only way to keep ahead.
16
Alicia
We shall proceed.
210
Alicia
0
5