I Get Harry That Harry Wanted To Name His Kids After People He Loved And People Who Died Protecting Him.

Modern!Making a Gingerbread House Would Include...

A/N: i’m posting twice today to make up for not posting yesterday lmao, so uh day 2 of christmas (even though it’s day 3)

Both you and Edmund attempt to make gingerbread houses every year

It’s one of your favourite traditions during the Christmas season with Edmund

A few days before you two go shopping, you two would go online and look at inspiration for your decorations

“Oh, look at this one Edmund!”

“Y/N, I love that you believe that we’re this talented with gingerbread house making but we aren’t.”

Once you two settled on a theme, you would go out to the store and get a gingerbread house starter

Once you were home, you would play christmas music while Edmund unboxed it and looked at the directions

You and Edmund being somewhat clumsy putting the base together

“Careful love.”

“I’m trying, my hands are shaky.”

Once the base was together, you both would start decorating

“Okay, you do the roof and I’ll start the front.”

You humming to the christmas songs while making the windows

edmund being lowkey good at decorating

“Why are the windows... lopsided?”

“Uh... A for effort?”

Edmund eating the gumdrops once the icing was on

“Stop eating the decorations!”

“But it’s good!”

The gum drops and other candies kept slowly slipping off

“We need more icing.”

Edmund applying more icing

By the end of finishing the gingerbread house, you two would wash your hands

“You know, I think this might be the best gingerbread house we’ve made.”

“Even with the lopsided windows?”

“Especially with the lopsided windows.”

You would laugh at Edmund’s encouraging teasing and you’d pull him into a kiss

Suddenly you two would hear a crack and something falling apart

When you guys would turn around you would see the ‘best gingerbread house so far’ in pieces

Both you and Edmund would glance at each other before laughing at your failed attempt

I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled. I could not control the world I was in, could not walk away from things or people or moments that hurt, but I took joy in the things that made me happy.

— Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Harry isn’t quite out of his teens when it fully hits him—the war, the blood and the guts spread across the corridors of Hogwarts, the screams and sobs, the nightmares, the shadows that never seem to leave him.

It’s too much.

He gets a flat in London—Muggle London. Hermione and the Weasleys give him space. Kingsley ensures the wizarding world gives him privacy. Not that some aren’t reluctant. Rita Skeeter releases articles every day, wondering when their Boy Who Lived will return.

But Harry doesn’t see those articles.

He tries to forget who he is for awhile.

His flat is cozy. He stuffs it with plants and paintings and books. He has a cat (or three). He wears sweaters and blazers with corduroy pants. He goes to the market every morning to buy fruits and vegetables. That’s where he meets the kindly old woman who lives down the street.

She lived through World War II and so many other wars, wars that Harry has never experienced but can only imagine.

She goes to his house and she goes to hers. There’s always tea and small cakes and dinners and cocoa—apparently she believes that a teenager needs cocoa—and baking and reading and knitting.

Harry uses magic to brew the cocoa one day, not realizing that she’s standing in the doorway. She calms him by telling him that she knows all about magic. 

Their conversations shift after that. They talk about their favorite creatures and how hard it was to watch them perish before their eyes. They talk about the wall that seemingly gave way to let them enter the magical world. They talk about lions and friends and family and love and betrayals and life and death.

“When did you leave?” Harry asks one day.

She pauses, a hand resting on his cat’s head. After a moment, she looks up with a heaviness in her eyes, a heaviness that Harry sees when he looks in the mirror everyday. 

“I was young,” she says. “Younger than you are now. But I had already grown up. I didn’t want to leave, not really, but it became too much.”

“Do you regret it?”

“Some days I do, some days I don’t.” 

“Yeah…”

It’s a few months later, when he’s helping her shovel the first snow from her walkway, that he asks, “Did you ever try going back?”

“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t,” she says, shoving a cup of cocoa into his hands. “I was shut out as soon as I hesitated.”

He pauses, nearly dropping the cocoa, before whispering, “That’s horrible.”

“What about you?” She escorts him inside, her cane tapping against the floor that he’s magically heated to warm her feet. “Would you be welcomed back?”

“Oh, yeah,” Harry says. “Til they turn on me because they don’t like the color of my shirt or because I sneezed the wrong way or because—you name it.”

She laughs and he smiles.

“Imagine that,” she softly says. “Rulers of our worlds and we’re not even allowed in them.”

“Imagine that.”

He does go back to the wizarding world, of course, but he never forgets his London flat. He visits the street from time to time, knowing that Susan Pevensie will be there, ready to push a cup of cocoa into his hands.

Ravenclaw: Physically, I'm here.

Ravenclaw: Mentally, I'm in a pirate AU fanfic, fighting alongside my rival turned lover.

Blue Admiral (Kaniska canace), family Nymphalidae, found in South and SE Asia

photograph by rajesh_kumar_photography

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Not that I was expecting much otherwise, but Shark Week has just started and they kicked it off by having a convicted rapist force a caribbean reef shark into tonic immobility.

This is incredibly stressful for the shark and there was no scientific data being collected - they just strap a camera to the dorsal fin for extra content.

Now let’s talk about how ridiculous these assholes look.

They’re in FULL CHAIN MAIL. All these theatrics about how dangerous and scary these REEF SHARKS are, acting like they’re going to be savaged if something goes wrong. It’s all theatrics.

When I worked at the aquarium, my colleagues wore chain mesh gloves and a wetsuit when feeding and handling grey nurse/sand tiger sharks.

These Shark Week dumbasses think they’re so big and tough harassing these reef sharks that are just trying to go about their day.

And this is going to inspire so many idiot divers to copy this stunt to prove how brave they are. 

Shark Week has become an absolute garbage pile of sensationalist rubbish rather than any sort educational conservation programming. 

Putting this on tv is going to encourage idiots to copy the stunt and continue to treat sharks as something to ‘conquer’ rather than the important apex predators that they are.

moodboard for a ravenclaw bi girl @seal-of-unknown

-Pastel

When you think of perception, there’s a million versions of yourself out there that people think are actually you. You can be upset about that or make the best of it.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ -Hawks