Susan Abulhawa, From Against The Loveless World: A Novel

SADIE SINK for Vanity Fair

Once is Always

The first day back in England, every one of the Pevensie children managed an extravagant fall. 

Their legs are shorter than they should be, but they can’t say this out loud. 

Weeks go by. Eventually, they all relearn how to walk. 

But there are other, stranger things they can’t relearn. 

Like how:

Lucy is eight. 

Lucy is twenty-three. 

She can’t remember how to be small and unimportant, or how to play children’s games. Fifteen years in another world have left her used to being listened to, relied upon. The horrors of war are far less frightening than the horror of ignorance, of tiny uncalloused hands. Or waking in the night remembering the culture, the world she left behind.

Like how:

And Susan is twelve - nearly - thirty.

With small children of her own under her care. She can’t forget the feel of them growing inside her. 

She can’t unlearn the way her ears are always listening for them. Years later she is still celebrating birthdays for people who live only in her memory, only knee high. At night she’d kept awake wondering about the strangers she gave birth too. 

So she keeps trying to forget.

For the boys it is different. But not better:

Peter is thirteen and full of anger. The adults call it puberty. The adults don’t realize the shadow in his eyes is the same shadow in the eyes of returning soldiers. High King Peter, with so many lives under his command now commands nothing, and knows nothing. Responsibility and questions weigh on him. 

But Edmund wakes up one day and realizes that after so many years no stranger can ever go to war with him about a child betraying his family for roses and sugar. His worst mistake weighs only on his mind now. And somehow, it’s this small silver lining that lets him pull their family back from the brink. He is no longer the broken one, no longer haunted by a child he no longer is.

Even so.

The Pevensie’s are adrift in a world of smoke and debris, and the rolling empty countryside. The war here is not fought with swords and fangs, but gas, and fire from above.

A fate worse than death is not being turned to stone. 

There is no Lion coming at the eleventh hour to save them all. No lion except the one they carry inside themselves. 

And that would have to be enough. 

So each Pevensie found a way to matter, to change, to save. 

And a little bit of Aslan crept in around the corners when they needed him most. 

There was a snap and a growl to Lucy her mother had never seen. 

A spine of unyielding stone in Susan. 

A soft listening silence in Edmund. 

And in Peter a flash of fang, and reckless hope. 

The Pevensies are not in Narnia. 

So they took part of it with them. 

Gilbert: *takes Anne’s hand*

Anne: What was that?

Gilbert: Affection

Anne: Ew

Anne: Do it again

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.

I aspire to be like her

hmmm

So someone already asked me about this, but i’m gonna ask the rest of you guys

do some of you want to be put on a permanent tag list? i’ve been meaning to ask this for awhile but i never got around to it

anyway y’all can either comment, reblog, or simply DM me if you want to be

Hufflepuff: So, tell me Slytherin, how did you end up daiting Ravenclaw?

Slytherin: They showed up to a blind date with a Very Serious™ list of deep questions plus hatred for humankind and I thought it was funny as hell so here we are

I’m rereading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and I forgot how much fun it was! love Reepicheep and his constant longing for Aslan’s Country, to the point where he’s willing to die for it; his tendency to always want to do the honorable and knightly thing. (I find all the “bother Reepicheep” comments pretty hilarious, it’s like whenever he opens his mouth they’re forced to agree with him because he makes everyone else sound cowardly and dishonorable in comparison) And then there’s Caspian, always caught up between being king and being a boy, Lucy and Edmund enjoying everything in general and feeling so at home, Eustace annoying and being annoyed by everyone before Dragon Island—I specifically love his diary entries—and those little moments that you don’t get as much of in the other books because usually there’s some kind of important quest or war going on... like hearing them talk about what it will be like to fall over the world’s edge: Reep is thrilled by the idea, Eustace is understandably confused (“are these people flat earthers?” lol) and Caspian just wants to go to a “round like a ball” world which is apparently only a thing in fairytales.

Bald Eagle and texture

Chaos Theory

Pairing: Cedric Diggory x Reader, Reader x [redacted], Reader x [redacted] ;)

Warnings: Swearing

Word count: 3350

A/N: Finally, it’s here. After much planning and many, many drafts, it’s here. I want to state for the record that this is going to be full blown fic, I’ve already got a heap of chapters planned and three have already been written. Also, things are not what they seem. There will be twists and turns and love interests pouring out from the earth because I’m That Bitch. I’m also a sucker for drama. Anyway, enjoy chapter one!!

Chapter One                                                              

Like most complicated things in life, this story starts with a boy, a secret and a smile.

Even in retrospect, they seem like they’ve been scribbled on a scrap piece of paper and blindly plucked from a nice, big bowl of what-else-can-the-universe-thrust-at-me for the sake of twisted arbitrary, but not everything is as it seems, and everything seems ridiculous and inconvenient. But, at the same time, maybe you should have seen this coming. Maybe you should have predicted the shit storm that was going to spin your life into vertigo, like the earth has been tipped off its axis, latitude and longitude slipping and colliding while the corners of the map fade to ash.

It happens, as you would later realize with an impending sense of doom, like this:

In the summer of 1994, you and your friends stumble through the forest, looking for an old boot.

The forest breathes a cool sigh of air against your cheeks as you wander past the trees, eyes glued to the ground for the boot. Every time your mind drifts to the Quidditch World Cup, the excitement begins to bubble up inside your stomach and you can’t fight back the smile that spreads across your face whenever you reflect on the past few days. Staying at the Burrow was always like an improved version of home, but this time, it’s different somehow.

Perhaps it’s the freedom of staying somewhere that isn’t your home. Not that your place isn’t comfortable; you don’t think anyone could deem a Victorian mansion with sprawling, manicured lawns ‘uncomfortable’. But it’s starting to feel more like a sad skeleton with marble walls for skin instead of a home, especially with your father always working and your brother, Luke, staying with his Slytherin friends for the summer.

There’s something about the company, too, that makes this moment so special. Being reunited with the Weasley family and being welcomed into their home is always like visiting relatives. And there’s always something to catch up on with Hermione. Then there’s Harry…

You glance at Harry, who is sifting through the leaves beside you. He’s talking about…something…one hand jammed into the pocket of his jeans, the other swinging by his side, and it’s somewhat refreshing to see Harry so relaxed, so undeniably Harry. Warmth thrums through your veins like honey and you can’t help but smile as you regard him fondly in the late morning sun.

It’s been a while since you’ve shared a moment alone with your best friend. Usually, you’re joined by Ron and Hermione, but they’re currently preoccupied with a debate over…whatever they debate over. You can actually hear them bickering; Hermione’s voice tight and shrill and Ron’s sarcastic remarks muffled by the distance between you and them.

With the sound of their bickering in the background, and the warmth of Harry’s presence forming a bubble around you, the urge to chisel ‘I love my friends’ onto every single rib in your ribcage floods you like a wave of sunlight. It’s essentially how you feel when you’re not saving Hogwarts from corrupt teachers and giant basilisk or helping innocent fugitives escape the kiss of a Dementor. And moments like these remind you just how fortunate you are to have found your friends.

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