Post by MARLENE MABLE MCKINNON on Aug 20, 2014 14:33:16 GMT -6
[googlefont="Yanone Kaffeesatz:400"]
“His family lived next door to us and every day he would walk into his yard in the middle of the afternoon and sit in the grass and play with some dumb toy and I would go out and stand in my yard and watch him. Most of the time he was silent, and ignored me. But I’m not really the sit there and be quiet sort of person so I would always carry on a conversation with him, which was typically one sided, and he probably didn’t understand half of. But on the afternoon after the book was introduced into my life, I walked outside and walked right up to the fence and told him that he was going to be my prince and that someday he would rescue me, and we would get married, and we would live happily ever after. And wouldn’t you believe it, the kid looked right at me, and shook his head ‘no’. As if I wasn’t good enough for him or something ridiculous like that. I am a grown woman to this day that story haunts me. It was my first rejection. The first time love had spurned me. The last time I ever flat out told a man on our first date we were going to live happily ever after. Perhaps not the last time I ever proposed to a man.
“The second boy I thought I was in love with didn’t come until a few years later. After the whole Hogwarts thing happened. Because really, as a Pureblooded witch, it was bound to happen. I mean, both of the parents there which is totally fine by me. What wasn’t that great was the idea that Finley would be there. And it wasn’t so much that I disliked him, it was just the idea that my older brother was at the place I was going didn’t sit well with me. I mean, the entire concept of older brothers doesn’t actually sit well with me. Because it meant that I had something to live up to. Some sort of legacy to uphold once I stepped through the door. Other people could just sort of go through life doing their own thing, but me, I had a reputation proceeding me, and that was a scary thought. Hell, even now it’s a scary thought. He’s all successful, and probably going to get married and start popping out grandkids like nobody’s business, and here I’ll be. The middle child, always squished between the Golden Boy and the troublemaker and never sure which one I feel like identifying more with. To say that my family is a bit stretched at this point would be a fairly true statement. We all go round mum’s for holidays and whenever else she can convince us to come, but we don’t see each other a lot extracirricularly. But I was talking about school, and about how I went there, and about how, as always, I was fairly certain I’d fallen in love.
“This story is actually fairly boring, so I’ll gloss over most of the parts. He was a few years older than I was. He picked up my books for me once when I feel down a stair or two. I don’t think I ever even got his name, but he was a cute one. And he’d come to my rescue. And I really liked that in a guy. At least at that point I did. But I was eleven years-old, and still dwelling in the past. I soon found that I had a shadow to claw my way out of. And actual friends to be making instead of stalking random young men who I never formally meet. I was young then, and I just needed to grow up a little. That and I really needed to start picking better men.
“My first real boyfriend shouldn’t be included on this list, because I knew for a fact that I didn’t even actually like him that much. It was third year and boys were just starting to get over that thing where they didn’t like girls. Sometimes, I feel as if they’re still in that stage. Some say it’s commitment issues, I say it’s cooties. But those were issues I didn’t have to deal with when Steve asked me to walk next to him to class that day. Or to eat lunch with him that afternoon. Or to be his potions partner. He was really the first guy who’d expressed interest in me so naturally I jumped at the prospect. We were together for about one week, and during that time he pretty much did nothing but find excuses to spend time with me. Which was cute at the time, but now something we would call desperately clingy and not redeeming in the slightest. But then you know, flattery could get you everywhere, or it could at least get you a girlfriend. I was at my weakest when he’d asked me. I had been discussing something with Marcus which never puts me in a good mood because he’s almost as good at arguing as I am. And I was just huffy when I walked through the portrait hole and Steve asked if we were together since we’d been spending so much time together, and because I didn’t know any better at fourteen. I agreed. And then, I did the next most logical thing, and kissed him. Which probably surprised him only slightly more than it surprised me. Our relationship lasted about four hours more, before I decided to call it quits. My first heart breaking experience. It was only a little exhilarating to watch him cry. Not in the Oh he’s crying. sort of way, but rather the Oh, your words matter and can cause people pain and such. sort of way. I mean, I imagine that everything that comes out of my mouth should be written down because it’s all so brilliant, but knowing that I wasn’t the only one who put at least some store in the things I had to say was an important thing to me.
“So talking became a bit of an addiction for me. And I know that sounds strange, but most of the time I literally could just not shut up. In class, I’d ask far too many questions and then debate about the answers with the professor as if I actually had some clue as to what I was doing. Most of the time, it was just a way to get out of listening to a lecture or whatever, but sometimes it seemed to be a straight shot to detention. But I didn’t go to detention for the reasons that Marcus did. I wasn’t necessarily a bad kid. I didn’t hex people randomly. I didn’t throw punches. I just liked to talk my problems out with the world, and sometimes professors found it to be a terrible trait of mine. To be honest, I think it’s a lovely thing. Talking makes more sense than violence. Like right now. If Dumbledore could just sit down and buy the other guy a pint and talk about our issues… Well, one of them would probably end up dead as soon as they walked into the pub. But the idea remains. I think that we should just sort of… talk it out. Makes me pretty worthless when it comes to fights though. I mean, I can hex you into oblivion. I just… choose not to. I reserve that for very special circumstances, like the next boy I was sure I was in love with.
“He was an interesting fellow to say the least. And one day he just got to be a bit too much to handle. I think that suggesting we take our polite conversation to a broom cupboard to talk it out there was outrageous. I think that he was far too insistent about the fact that that’s what he wanted. And yes, I still stand by the fact that he looked better without hair. And with a broken nose. And a few missing toes. I was angry, what was I supposed to do? He was being irrational and talking just wasn’t going to get through to him. There’s only so far that pacifism can go, and at the moment I’m sort of stretching my limits. It’s one thing to hex someone who has personally wronged me, but going into battle solely for the purpose of hurting people seems, well, it doesn’t seem productive to me. That’s why I take on the more passive assignments for the Order now. That, and they make me feel a lot more important that those people running around, blood thirsty and wanting to just put another notch in their lipstick cases.
“Plus Marcus showed interest in joining the cause, and I’ll be damnned if I let my little brother do something before I do. Turns out, he only mentioned it once and I sort of jumped the gun with an owl to Dumbledore including a glowing review of myself. But you know, you can’t ever be too sure about brothers trying to steal your thunder. It was just easier this way. At the time, I didn’t really think I had a whole lot to offer. After school, other than moving out of my parent’s house, I didn’t do much. Obviously, I had to live somewhere, and that involved a job. And I knew the only things I was really good at were talking my ass off and taking shots. That led me to Tom the Barman’s door. And that man is a saint if I’ve ever seen one. He agreed to let me work for him, but he also asked around until he found an empty flat over one of the stores next door. So not only did he give me a job, but he found my first solo-home. And that’s something I’m not ever going to be able to repay him for. I’ve tried of course, but he’s very anti-baked goods. But I was pretty sure I was in love with him at the time. I mean, honestly, talk about a knight in shining armor. So he was a bit… older than me. He had knowing eyes and could drink more whiskey than I can. It was like a match made in heaven or something. But one that never came to much. But there were plenty of young men crossing their way before me every night. I didn’t lose much sleep over the Tom thing.
“One of those men actually got me my gig with the Order. Not because he was particularly fond of them, but because he was very… opposed to them. But when you put enough liquor in a person, goodness only knows what they tell you. I wasn’t sure that this one and I were really going to work out. But I let him buy me a few drinks. And then I let him walk me home. And that was around the time I realized that something was up. I really think I realized that something was up when he felt unsure of taking his shirt off once upstairs. I mean, I couldn’t TECHNICALLY tell, but I was sure whatever was underneath wasn’t that disappointing. But he had a bit of a tattoo problem. And that problem had manifest itself on his forearm. The tattoo issue wasn’t a big deal to me. The Death Eater thing was a bit hard to handle. That was a rather short-lived relationship. But, it gave me plenty of ideas on how to proceed with the Order issue. I mean, I don’t know how Dumbledore really felt about extending an invitation to someone who had shown little-to-no combat experience, and whom most assumed was fairly unintelligent. I mean, I got a few NEWTs. But they were in rather worthless subjects like Divination. Not that I’m not smart, it’s just that I’m more… street smart than book smart. So when my next letter to Dumbledore was about how many of “our friends with awesome tattoos” had crossed the threshold of my establishment from the Wizarding to the muggle world to wreak havoc, things got a bit interesting. It also wasn’t that hard when they would start bragging over drinks after particularly vicious attacks. They didn’t say things outright, but I knew enough to figure out what they had “taken care of” on their last trip into London. And those conversations always got to be very interesting. That was all information that the Order might want to end up with. But let’s just say… that gig was fairly short lived.
“I mean, I loved my time at the Leakey and I’m still forever indebted to Tom. And I still live next door, and I still visit often. I just had to sort of… terminate my employment on the request of the gentleman I was with. Because let’s face it. I was getting older. I mean, it’s one thing to work there when you’re eighteen, but by twenty-one, you’ve sort of got to find a real job. And I was looking for a lot more than a real job. I wanted a real family, with children and a husband and all that jazz. And picking up bar rats was never going to get me there. A fact that serious boyfriend number eleven, and the man I was nearly dead sure I was going to marry sort of pointed out to me. Obviously, I didn’t quit immediately, and I ran the issue by the powers at be who’d been gnawing over my intel for years. But there were other places in the world that I could collect information about people from. Trying to pinpoint Death Eates and all. That was my specialty. And when the muggleborn that had been working the desk at St. Mungos turned up missing, I casually guided my way into her position. It paid better and it was basically the exact same job without the copious amounts of alcohol. That, and I could take a list of known injuries inflicted by Order members in battle, and compare them to records of recent patients to see if I could identify any names. That wasn’t technically legal, but after serious boyfriend number eleven, who ditched me even though I quit my job on his request, I found a young man who was fascinated by me. In the records department.
“So I’d moved up in the world. Welcome Witch at St. Mungos. Single, even though the rest of them are all running around getting married and having children. It’s not that I resent the married ones or whatever, it just makes me feel rather awful that they’re all married and have happy families and I don’t. I mean, that seriously makes my blood boil. Jealousy most likely. But also justice. As in, “this is a grievous injustice, that they found good men and I have not”. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop looking. I mean, that’s just the sort of person I am. Some might assume me to be a bit flighty or whatever, but I don’t fall into bed with men unless I think it’s got potential. Unfortunately, the potential only lasts for a month or so, before I’ve got to go ahead and find more. I think it’s an issue of my falling into things too easily, a habit I’ve really got to get out of. But it’s also sort of an issue of I’m still looking for someone. Which, in all honesty, I probably don’t really need to. The whole serious relationship thing hasn’t worked for me yet. So perhaps I’m looking for love in all the wrong places. Perhaps I need to seriously rethink my life. And perhaps I need to stop offering to babysit, because spending that much time with children makes me want one. Bad.
“But maybe it’s just that I’m not smart enough. Or perhaps that I talk too much. Or maybe that I don’t like violence, even though I’m knee deep in a war. Maybe it’s because I have no social filter and believe that honesty is the best policy. Maybe it’s because my mother keeps nagging me for grandchildren since Finley won’t get married and Marcus is too young to ask. Maybe it’s because I’m just not wife and mother material. And there just isn’t a knight in shining armor that can handle all of that. At least not one that I’ve been able to find.”
[/PTab={background-color:#444; font-size:9px;padding:5px;color:#fff;tab-hover-background-color:#000;tab-selected-background-color:#000;}][/PTabbedContent={width:400px;color:#fff; font-size:9px;animation:fade;tab-hover-background-color:#000;tab-selected-background-color:#000;tab-background-color:#000;}]
marlene m. mckinnon
riff || est || aim: mugglescanfly
[PTabbedContent][PTab=I]twenty four
order member
pure
hufflepuff
welcome witch
emma stone
[/PTab={background-color:#444444; font-size:9px;padding:5px;tab-hover-background-color:#000;tab-selected-background-color:#000;}height:82px;][PTab=II]▼
“The first boy I thought I was in love with was Little Jimmy Riggins from next door. I was about six and has just finished reading some fairy-tale, princess nonsense my father had picked up in a muggle bookstore. I mean, this guy had nothing on Beedle, but it was an interesting read nonetheless. It also convinced me, at least for about five seconds, which was the extent of my attention span then, that I needed to find a prince. That, right there, is where my first mistake was. If my father had perhaps refrained from buying me that book, I wouldn’t have had all of these problems in life. But no. He bought it. I read it. All hell broke loose. That and it also taught me that my mother was supposed to be terrible to me. Mind you, those were all step mothers, and she was certainly the woman who had given birth to me, but the sentiment remains. I was ruined in both my personal and familial life by this book when I was six. But back to Jimmy.“His family lived next door to us and every day he would walk into his yard in the middle of the afternoon and sit in the grass and play with some dumb toy and I would go out and stand in my yard and watch him. Most of the time he was silent, and ignored me. But I’m not really the sit there and be quiet sort of person so I would always carry on a conversation with him, which was typically one sided, and he probably didn’t understand half of. But on the afternoon after the book was introduced into my life, I walked outside and walked right up to the fence and told him that he was going to be my prince and that someday he would rescue me, and we would get married, and we would live happily ever after. And wouldn’t you believe it, the kid looked right at me, and shook his head ‘no’. As if I wasn’t good enough for him or something ridiculous like that. I am a grown woman to this day that story haunts me. It was my first rejection. The first time love had spurned me. The last time I ever flat out told a man on our first date we were going to live happily ever after. Perhaps not the last time I ever proposed to a man.
“The second boy I thought I was in love with didn’t come until a few years later. After the whole Hogwarts thing happened. Because really, as a Pureblooded witch, it was bound to happen. I mean, both of the parents there which is totally fine by me. What wasn’t that great was the idea that Finley would be there. And it wasn’t so much that I disliked him, it was just the idea that my older brother was at the place I was going didn’t sit well with me. I mean, the entire concept of older brothers doesn’t actually sit well with me. Because it meant that I had something to live up to. Some sort of legacy to uphold once I stepped through the door. Other people could just sort of go through life doing their own thing, but me, I had a reputation proceeding me, and that was a scary thought. Hell, even now it’s a scary thought. He’s all successful, and probably going to get married and start popping out grandkids like nobody’s business, and here I’ll be. The middle child, always squished between the Golden Boy and the troublemaker and never sure which one I feel like identifying more with. To say that my family is a bit stretched at this point would be a fairly true statement. We all go round mum’s for holidays and whenever else she can convince us to come, but we don’t see each other a lot extracirricularly. But I was talking about school, and about how I went there, and about how, as always, I was fairly certain I’d fallen in love.
“This story is actually fairly boring, so I’ll gloss over most of the parts. He was a few years older than I was. He picked up my books for me once when I feel down a stair or two. I don’t think I ever even got his name, but he was a cute one. And he’d come to my rescue. And I really liked that in a guy. At least at that point I did. But I was eleven years-old, and still dwelling in the past. I soon found that I had a shadow to claw my way out of. And actual friends to be making instead of stalking random young men who I never formally meet. I was young then, and I just needed to grow up a little. That and I really needed to start picking better men.
“My first real boyfriend shouldn’t be included on this list, because I knew for a fact that I didn’t even actually like him that much. It was third year and boys were just starting to get over that thing where they didn’t like girls. Sometimes, I feel as if they’re still in that stage. Some say it’s commitment issues, I say it’s cooties. But those were issues I didn’t have to deal with when Steve asked me to walk next to him to class that day. Or to eat lunch with him that afternoon. Or to be his potions partner. He was really the first guy who’d expressed interest in me so naturally I jumped at the prospect. We were together for about one week, and during that time he pretty much did nothing but find excuses to spend time with me. Which was cute at the time, but now something we would call desperately clingy and not redeeming in the slightest. But then you know, flattery could get you everywhere, or it could at least get you a girlfriend. I was at my weakest when he’d asked me. I had been discussing something with Marcus which never puts me in a good mood because he’s almost as good at arguing as I am. And I was just huffy when I walked through the portrait hole and Steve asked if we were together since we’d been spending so much time together, and because I didn’t know any better at fourteen. I agreed. And then, I did the next most logical thing, and kissed him. Which probably surprised him only slightly more than it surprised me. Our relationship lasted about four hours more, before I decided to call it quits. My first heart breaking experience. It was only a little exhilarating to watch him cry. Not in the Oh he’s crying. sort of way, but rather the Oh, your words matter and can cause people pain and such. sort of way. I mean, I imagine that everything that comes out of my mouth should be written down because it’s all so brilliant, but knowing that I wasn’t the only one who put at least some store in the things I had to say was an important thing to me.
“So talking became a bit of an addiction for me. And I know that sounds strange, but most of the time I literally could just not shut up. In class, I’d ask far too many questions and then debate about the answers with the professor as if I actually had some clue as to what I was doing. Most of the time, it was just a way to get out of listening to a lecture or whatever, but sometimes it seemed to be a straight shot to detention. But I didn’t go to detention for the reasons that Marcus did. I wasn’t necessarily a bad kid. I didn’t hex people randomly. I didn’t throw punches. I just liked to talk my problems out with the world, and sometimes professors found it to be a terrible trait of mine. To be honest, I think it’s a lovely thing. Talking makes more sense than violence. Like right now. If Dumbledore could just sit down and buy the other guy a pint and talk about our issues… Well, one of them would probably end up dead as soon as they walked into the pub. But the idea remains. I think that we should just sort of… talk it out. Makes me pretty worthless when it comes to fights though. I mean, I can hex you into oblivion. I just… choose not to. I reserve that for very special circumstances, like the next boy I was sure I was in love with.
“He was an interesting fellow to say the least. And one day he just got to be a bit too much to handle. I think that suggesting we take our polite conversation to a broom cupboard to talk it out there was outrageous. I think that he was far too insistent about the fact that that’s what he wanted. And yes, I still stand by the fact that he looked better without hair. And with a broken nose. And a few missing toes. I was angry, what was I supposed to do? He was being irrational and talking just wasn’t going to get through to him. There’s only so far that pacifism can go, and at the moment I’m sort of stretching my limits. It’s one thing to hex someone who has personally wronged me, but going into battle solely for the purpose of hurting people seems, well, it doesn’t seem productive to me. That’s why I take on the more passive assignments for the Order now. That, and they make me feel a lot more important that those people running around, blood thirsty and wanting to just put another notch in their lipstick cases.
“Plus Marcus showed interest in joining the cause, and I’ll be damnned if I let my little brother do something before I do. Turns out, he only mentioned it once and I sort of jumped the gun with an owl to Dumbledore including a glowing review of myself. But you know, you can’t ever be too sure about brothers trying to steal your thunder. It was just easier this way. At the time, I didn’t really think I had a whole lot to offer. After school, other than moving out of my parent’s house, I didn’t do much. Obviously, I had to live somewhere, and that involved a job. And I knew the only things I was really good at were talking my ass off and taking shots. That led me to Tom the Barman’s door. And that man is a saint if I’ve ever seen one. He agreed to let me work for him, but he also asked around until he found an empty flat over one of the stores next door. So not only did he give me a job, but he found my first solo-home. And that’s something I’m not ever going to be able to repay him for. I’ve tried of course, but he’s very anti-baked goods. But I was pretty sure I was in love with him at the time. I mean, honestly, talk about a knight in shining armor. So he was a bit… older than me. He had knowing eyes and could drink more whiskey than I can. It was like a match made in heaven or something. But one that never came to much. But there were plenty of young men crossing their way before me every night. I didn’t lose much sleep over the Tom thing.
“One of those men actually got me my gig with the Order. Not because he was particularly fond of them, but because he was very… opposed to them. But when you put enough liquor in a person, goodness only knows what they tell you. I wasn’t sure that this one and I were really going to work out. But I let him buy me a few drinks. And then I let him walk me home. And that was around the time I realized that something was up. I really think I realized that something was up when he felt unsure of taking his shirt off once upstairs. I mean, I couldn’t TECHNICALLY tell, but I was sure whatever was underneath wasn’t that disappointing. But he had a bit of a tattoo problem. And that problem had manifest itself on his forearm. The tattoo issue wasn’t a big deal to me. The Death Eater thing was a bit hard to handle. That was a rather short-lived relationship. But, it gave me plenty of ideas on how to proceed with the Order issue. I mean, I don’t know how Dumbledore really felt about extending an invitation to someone who had shown little-to-no combat experience, and whom most assumed was fairly unintelligent. I mean, I got a few NEWTs. But they were in rather worthless subjects like Divination. Not that I’m not smart, it’s just that I’m more… street smart than book smart. So when my next letter to Dumbledore was about how many of “our friends with awesome tattoos” had crossed the threshold of my establishment from the Wizarding to the muggle world to wreak havoc, things got a bit interesting. It also wasn’t that hard when they would start bragging over drinks after particularly vicious attacks. They didn’t say things outright, but I knew enough to figure out what they had “taken care of” on their last trip into London. And those conversations always got to be very interesting. That was all information that the Order might want to end up with. But let’s just say… that gig was fairly short lived.
“I mean, I loved my time at the Leakey and I’m still forever indebted to Tom. And I still live next door, and I still visit often. I just had to sort of… terminate my employment on the request of the gentleman I was with. Because let’s face it. I was getting older. I mean, it’s one thing to work there when you’re eighteen, but by twenty-one, you’ve sort of got to find a real job. And I was looking for a lot more than a real job. I wanted a real family, with children and a husband and all that jazz. And picking up bar rats was never going to get me there. A fact that serious boyfriend number eleven, and the man I was nearly dead sure I was going to marry sort of pointed out to me. Obviously, I didn’t quit immediately, and I ran the issue by the powers at be who’d been gnawing over my intel for years. But there were other places in the world that I could collect information about people from. Trying to pinpoint Death Eates and all. That was my specialty. And when the muggleborn that had been working the desk at St. Mungos turned up missing, I casually guided my way into her position. It paid better and it was basically the exact same job without the copious amounts of alcohol. That, and I could take a list of known injuries inflicted by Order members in battle, and compare them to records of recent patients to see if I could identify any names. That wasn’t technically legal, but after serious boyfriend number eleven, who ditched me even though I quit my job on his request, I found a young man who was fascinated by me. In the records department.
“So I’d moved up in the world. Welcome Witch at St. Mungos. Single, even though the rest of them are all running around getting married and having children. It’s not that I resent the married ones or whatever, it just makes me feel rather awful that they’re all married and have happy families and I don’t. I mean, that seriously makes my blood boil. Jealousy most likely. But also justice. As in, “this is a grievous injustice, that they found good men and I have not”. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop looking. I mean, that’s just the sort of person I am. Some might assume me to be a bit flighty or whatever, but I don’t fall into bed with men unless I think it’s got potential. Unfortunately, the potential only lasts for a month or so, before I’ve got to go ahead and find more. I think it’s an issue of my falling into things too easily, a habit I’ve really got to get out of. But it’s also sort of an issue of I’m still looking for someone. Which, in all honesty, I probably don’t really need to. The whole serious relationship thing hasn’t worked for me yet. So perhaps I’m looking for love in all the wrong places. Perhaps I need to seriously rethink my life. And perhaps I need to stop offering to babysit, because spending that much time with children makes me want one. Bad.
“But maybe it’s just that I’m not smart enough. Or perhaps that I talk too much. Or maybe that I don’t like violence, even though I’m knee deep in a war. Maybe it’s because I have no social filter and believe that honesty is the best policy. Maybe it’s because my mother keeps nagging me for grandchildren since Finley won’t get married and Marcus is too young to ask. Maybe it’s because I’m just not wife and mother material. And there just isn’t a knight in shining armor that can handle all of that. At least not one that I’ve been able to find.”
