the stars crumbled [cordelia]

[Deleted]

Theodosia was a woman on a mission. The day previous she had met one of her Hufflepuff pets at Hogsmeade, and that only made her more determined to find her other Hufflepuff. Since Theo wasn't the type to plan meetings or send letters, that meant trying to happen across the Hufflepuff accidentally. The easiest way to do that was by traversing high-traffic areas, and more importantly, areas that the Hufflepuff would want to be. Since Theo had met the other girl outside of the library, the only idea that she had was waiting outside of Flourish and Blotts. The thing was, Theo couldn't act as if she was waiting, because Slytherin didn't want for anyone, let alone a Hufflepuff, so she had to make a list of errands that would take her around Diagon Alley, and cross her in front of the book store as many times as humanly possible so she could peer inside the windows and see if she could catch sight of a freckled face and blonde hair. Theodosia was mentally reviewing her list and how she could best complete her objective - including thinking of an excuse to talk to the Hufflepuff - when, to her surprise, she caught sight of a blonde head. It couldn't have been that easy, Theo thought, creeping close to see if the blonde really was her Hufflepuff.

cordelia regan smith

[cordelia regan smith]

@theodosia

Finally she had escaped the clutches of her parents. They had brought her to Diagon Alley to get a head start on school shopping. Three months ahead was quite the start, but apparently she needed new robes, books, etcetera, etcetera. Cordelia was completely fine with the ones she had, and they had been taken care of over the last few years, so she didn’t understand why new ones were suddenly necessary. The day trip had been brought on out of the blue by her father a few days earlier, and despite her protests, here they were in the shopping district. Turned out that he actually wanted new robes, and that going under the guise of getting his daughter something new meant it would be easier to pull off. Sometimes Cordelia wondered why her mother put up with him, but it probably had something to do with his ability to be dreadfully charming at times. She preferred to call it overbearing to the point where it felt like he understood her at surface level and nothing more than that.

Regardless, she had managed to get new robes in a blink of an eye because nothing had changed from the last time she was there. Her father, on the other hand, needed a complete re-sizing. She had been shooed away by her mother, who was trying to hold in laughter, because this process was going to take forever. Not wanting to be caught up in the endless complaints of her father saying the sleeves were too long, or it was hemmed in the wrong place, Cordelia gladly escaped via her free pass, and made it back out into the main area of the alley. She didn’t even know where to start. Her digital camera had been brought along, stuffed neatly away in a small backpack, in the hopes that she would get away while on the muggle side of London to take a few pictures, but it was completely useless while here. Magic jammed up all the electronic functions and prevented photographs from being written to the memory card. Other than that, she could still use the dials and manual functions, just taking an actual photo was impossible. Without her main source of entertainment, that meant she was left to her own devices, which quickly devolved to her aimlessly wandering around the alley hoping to find something interesting to do in one of the stores. Stopping to look into the window of one she didn’t recognize, Cordelia squinted to get an idea of what was inside. If it looked like it would kill time, she would go for it. For now, all she could do was press her face closer to the window as her eyes had to adjust through the glare on the glass, and the dark, shadowy insides of the store.

[Deleted]

There was something that was terribly funny about approaching someone from behind when they had no clue that you were there, and as Theodosia crept closer she found that the blonde head she had spotted was indeed none other than the Hufflepuff she had been searching for. Some would say that Theodosia’s search had been desperate, but Theodosia would deny ever being desperate in anything, much less searching for a Hufflepuff. It was true that she was bored, and she would prefer to find something to do so that she wasn’t bored, but she definitely was not desperate. In any case, Theodosia’s search had paid off for her, because she saw the Hufflepuff peering into a shop – a shop that looked like it was closed, if the darkened insides were anything to go by. Theo hoped that her reflection didn’t show in the glass as she walked up behind Cordelia and tapped her on the shoulder. She much preferred genuine surprise to her victim actually knowing that she was coming. “Hello, darling.” Theodosia purred, in case the tap hadn’t been enough to capture the Hufflepuff’s attention. “What on earth are you doing looking into a closed shop? Nothing nefarious, I hope?” She asked. Theodosia would eat her own foot if the Hufflepuff was scoping out a robbery or something equally illegal, but a nice, teasing question was a good way to start the conversation with her darling pet.

cordelia regan smith

[cordelia regan smith]

@theodosia

The tap on her shoulder sent a shiver down her spine before she even heard the voice that followed. The first thought that had popped into her head upon the physical contact was that she wasn’t supposed to be staring into the window, or that the shopkeeper was afraid she was going to smudge it with her hands or face if she got too close. But this was Diagon Alley, and literally hundreds of people an hour did that on every single one of the shop displays. If it was Knockturn she would understand though. In the end, the voice that came after the tap certainly didn’t sound like it belonged to a shopkeeper so Cordelia felt her shoulders relax. The only problem was that the girl she turned to face looked familiar, yet the Hufflepuff couldn’t put a name to it. There was the thing about being called ‘darling’ that she remembered, but from where she couldn’t place either. Somewhere at school was the obvious answer but also too broad to make any connections, especially with how many students there had been at Hogwarts last year.

“H-Hello…” Cordelia said slowly, her head tilting to the side as the other asked if she was doing anything nefarious by looking into the shop window. Nefarious? Her? The Hufflepuff was pretty sure she couldn’t do anything bad even if she meant to. Well, except for the pig thing in the kitchens. That was definitely weird. But she didn’t think there was anything wrong with staring into a window of a shop regardless of if it was closed or not. “I d-d-don’t think so?” she responded, still unsure if she was in the wrong somewhere. “J-Just ch-checking if it w-was uhh open. B-But it d-doesn’t l-look like it is…”

[Deleted]

Oh, the stutter. Theodosia detested stutters, mostly because they made conversations take longer. But, stutters were also charming, in a vulnerable sort of way, and everyone knew that the Slytherin enjoyed when there was someone vulnerable in her vicinity. She had to remind herself of her ultimate goal: rid the Hufflepuff of her stutter and make the girl forever indebted to her in the process. Maybe it was a lofty goal, but Theodosia had always made a point of chasing after things that others thought undesirable or impossible. The Hufflepuff said that she didn’t think that she was doing anything nefarious, and Theodosia had to suppress a chuckle. If only laws were so restrictive that you could break them accidentally, like this nervous Hufflepuff seemed to think. Sometimes Theodosia went out of her way to do something outside the law and she still didn’t manage to get into trouble for it (though perhaps that was partially due to Elaine’s influence), so she hardly thought that the other girl had much to worry about. The Hufflepuff said that she was checking to see if the shop was open, and that it wasn’t. Theodosia giggled. “Astute observation.” She commented. It didn’t take a genius to see the shop was closed, but then again, few Hufflepuffs were geniuses to begin with. “I guess that just means you have time to spend the whole day with me.” Theodosia said brightly – or at least as brightly as she could manage.

cordelia regan smith

[cordelia regan smith]

@theodosia

Cordelia wasn’t sure why the other girl giggled when she said that it didn’t look like the store was open. Did she say something the wrong way? There were instances where she sometimes wondered if she actually did misspeak, or if her stutter simply made it difficult for people to understand what she was trying to say or convey. It was normally pretty obvious because she understood what blank stares at her meant, being an expert in them herself. Retracing her words from her last sentence, Cordelia couldn’t come up with anything in particular that stood out as being off. That meant that the girl was laughing at the fact that the store wasn’t open and Cordelia could only figure it out by pressing her face to the glass, right? It really didn’t matter, since it was impossible to tell either way by looking through the store front. Plus not all stores had bright lights in them. Some of her favorite muggle bookstores had low lights during the day. She had always found the cooler settings more welcoming (and not to mention quieter). Regardless, the store was closed and Cordelia was starting to feel weird that it was quite obvious it had taken her a while to figure it out.

She figured the encounter would end right there. Having her camera with her meant she could run off to the muggle part of London if she so desired – the camera being as useful as a paperweight whilst she was in Diagon Alley. But the other girl spoke up before Cordelia could excuse herself and she felt her escape dissipate in front of her. “The whole d-day?” she asked, a frown beginning to form on her face. “There c-can’t be that m-much to d-do around here…” That was a wonderful way to show that she wasn’t interested in hanging out. Absolutely genius. She knew it would come back to bite her, those sorts of comments always did when it had to do with her. “Wh-Why would y-you want to spend time with m-me anyways? I’m n-not interesting or…” And couldn’t finish her sentences either. But really, between this girl and a few others throughout the school year, people kept bugging her for some reason. She didn’t even have her camera out this time.

[Deleted]

The Hufflepuff stuttered out a question about Theo spending the whole day with her, and the Slytherin girl shrugged. “If you only want to say with me for an hour, I suppose I can find it in my heart not to be insulted.” Even if Theo said she wouldn’t be insulted, the truth was quite the opposite – she would remember that the Hufflepuff hadn’t wanted to spend time with her, and eventually, she would pay for it. Of course, the retribution wouldn’t come today. That would defeat the point of what she had just said, especially since Theo had a vested interest in staying in the Hufflepuff’s good graces. Maybe, Theodosia thought, she could use Cordelia as the key of sorts she needed to get into the Hufflepuff common room, so that her pursuit of Zita could get even closer to home. Cordelia said that there couldn’t be that much to do there, and Theo raised her eyebrows. “There’s enough to do if you look in the right places.” Sure, no one could spend the entire day in the bookstore without losing their mind, but it wasn’t like Diagon Alley only had a few shops – it stretched on for ages, but some people ignored all but the shops that they considered important.

Cordelia asked Theodosia why the Slytherin would want to spend time with her, citing a lack of importance, and the Slytherin snorted. “How do you think people become important? By shoving away everyone that wants to spend time with them, or accepting that others may see something more in them than they see in themselves?” If it had been anyone other than Theodosia talking, that last sentence might have even sounded like a compliment. As it was, Theodosia was the one speaking, and the question sounded less like a rhetorical compliment and more like a genuine test of knowledge. In any case, Theo wasn’t sure what she did see in the Hufflepuff – she doubted that saying she saw the other girl as a plaything would get her very far.

cordelia regan smith

[cordelia regan smith]

@theodosia

An hour. That wasn’t that long. Their previous encounters, at least the ones she recalled, had never lasted to that extent and consisted of brief conversations about classes and books. Mostly it was the other girl talking and Cordelia either apologizing or trying to reason the enjoyment she got from going to the library. Both of those times had been hurried; slowing down to an hour long stretch of listening to the other girl ask questions about her thoughts on this and that would probably be difficult. That wasn’t her fault though. It was purely an issue with Cordelia and her shyness. But an hour was shorter than all day, and that, she would have never been able to do. “That works,” she finally said after thinking it over for a bit. “B-But I m-might have to l-leave before that if m-my p-parents finish their th-thing f-first.” That was a fair warning. The last thing she wanted to do was get the other girl’s hopes up that she was all in for an exact hour. There was no telling how long it would actually take for her father to get fitted for his new robes. At the rate they had been going when she left, it was going to be excruciatingly slow.

The other girl added that there was enough to do if they looked for it. That was true. Cordelia liked keeping to what she called her safe zones – the places she had been to before and knew the best. She wasn’t all that keen on wandering into Knockturn and her parents would kill her if she ever did that. “I s-s-suppose so…I d-don’t come here often s-so I uhh st-stick to the same p-places.” Branching out wasn’t really her thing anyways, so doing so was always an adventure and not always the positive kind. She knew that if she wanted to bail at any point in time she could, even if the other girl found it rude for her to do so.

She listened to the reasoning for becoming important, and still didn’t get it. People were only ever interested in her if they needed help with charms or wanted to see her pictures. There were friends sure, but she didn’t think that they were the kind that the girl was describing. That concept still seemed foreign to her. Cordelia’s frown continued throughout the explanation, not changing much from when it first started. “B-But that has to g-go b-both ways, right?” She didn’t even know the other girl’s name, something that had been omitted from their other encounters. Shouldn’t that have been the first step to actually wanting to spend time with another person? Skipping that part seemed almost silly, especially after the spiel the girl had just given.

[Deleted]

Theodosia was pleased that Cordelia agreed to come along with her. It would have been quite the scene if Theo had had to convince the Hufflepuff to come with her using other means, especially since she was still underage – what a drag. The Slytherin took a deep, steadying breath when the Hufflepuff said that she would have to leave early if her parents finished with their engagement before their hour was up. Theo had a feeling that she wouldn’t like the Hufflepuff’s parents; anyone who allowed their daughter to continue on with such a bad stuttering problem and a frighteningly low self-confidence didn’t deserve to be parents in the first place. And, since the girl was a Hufflepuff, it wasn’t likely that her parents were purebloods in the old way, which meant they didn’t even have the necessity of reproduction to excuse their having a child when they weren’t competent. Despite all of her less-than-pleasant thoughts, though, Theodosia gave Cordelia a smile. She needed her pet to continue under the assumption that she was an all-around good person, and that wasn’t possible if she made a snide parentage comment. “That will be just fine.” She doubted that the girl’s parents would be able to find them, anyways. Not that Theodosia would take her anyplace too dangerous, but if they expected their daughter to be in her normal haunts, that definitely wasn’t going to be the case.

Cordelia said that she didn’t come to the alley often, and that meant she stuck to the same places. Theo was curious as to why any wizarding child wouldn’t come to Diagon Alley often – it was the hub for many jobs, so even if the kid wasn’t interested in shopping, they’d likely visit there when their parents took them to their work or something like that. “We’re going to get out of those same places.” Theodosia declared, leaving no room for argument. She didn’t want to do the same, boring things. Gryffindors were, all in all, horrendous, but they did have one thing right – a life lived without pushing the limits wasn’t a life at all. Theo couldn’t believe that her pet didn’t realize that… but then again, given everything she knew about the Hufflepuff, she definitely could.

The Hufflepuff kept frowning at Theodosia, and the Slytherin looked back with fire in her eyes – not malice, exactly, but displeasure at being contradicted, or at least, not fully accepted in what she was saying. Cordelia asked if the interest between two parties had to go both ways, and Theodosia shook her head. “If one person is determined enough, they can do just about anything in this world.” Theo said. That was the Slytherin motto, after all – with enough work, and cunning, and perhaps a dash of manipulation, anything was possible. The world was her oyster, and Cordelia was a little pearl within it.

cordelia regan smith

[cordelia regan smith]

@theodosia

Cordelia was sure the other girl would be fine with her skipping out early if she had to – it would be ridiculous if she wasn’t allowed. The problem wasn’t really with the other girl though, when it came to that. It was herself. She would feel awful having to duck out, especially if she hadn’t said anything beforehand, which thankfully she had spoken up about sooner rather than later. That was a step in the right direction in regards to her social issues. And from the look of it, the other girl seemed to be fine with it, saying so herself. That eased some of the concerns that Cordelia had about all of this. While at school it didn’t really matter where she went or what she did, but she was here with her parents, and they would definitely find it strange if she up and ran off right after she told them she would be in this area of Diagon. Except now the other girl was saying that she was going to get Cordelia out of the usual places she spent her time. The Hufflepuff fidgeted slightly, biting down on her lower lip as she nodded her head that it was okay to leave the area. She wouldn’t necessarily get in trouble for leaving. Those years were long behind her. As long as she made it look like she got carried away taking pictures, she could make a convincing story. The camera was a muggle one, so it wasn’t like it would work in Diagon to begin with. The only problem was that her mum always saw right through her…but that could be dealt with later if it ended up happening.

She listened as the girl said that determination could help anyone accomplish whatever they wanted to do. Cordelia supposed that was true, but it wasn’t like a person needed others around them in order to become important. Maybe she didn’t understand as much as she thought, these sort of theoretical ideas always confusing her more in the end than she thought they would. “Okay…s-so where are w-we g-going uhhh…” Cordelia realized that she had forgotten the girl’s name. Did she even know it in the first place? They had ran into each other a few times, but she couldn’t recall it ever being brought up, and if it had been, she had definitely missed it. “S-Sorry I-I forget your n-name…” she said, turning her head to look away from the girl, feeling her face redden in embarrassment. Of course she would forget. It wouldn’t be her without something awkward happening.