I Give You Power (Charlie)

[monday meadow weekly]

February 13, 2026

Monday didn't mind that the field trip to Hy-Brasil involved some educational components that differentiated it from, say, summer camp. It was interesting so far and had certainly engrossed a number of her fellow students, but the content had left a sour taste in her mouth. More specifically, it was the seminar on Druid history with which she took issue. Her first night on Hy-Brasil, standing near to the Druids' shrines, and they were talking about how their culture prohibited the use of Dark magic. That was well and good, Monday thought at first; she didn't enjoy Dark magic, either, and she didn't think that the majority of the school did. What had her seeing red, however, was the mention of beings such as vampires and werewolves as Dark.

Though fuming, Monday waited until the seminar had finished to say anything about it. She didn't want to come across as rude, considering that they were guests on Hy-Brasil, but she was in disbelief. Obviously, there were some really terrible werewolves and vampires out there who did bad things and could be considered Dark without a doubt. To paint all of them with the same brush, though? Especially when she had younger siblings who fell into that category? She wasn't going to stand for that. Discrimination in the rest of the magical world was bad enough, but Hy-Brasil was on a different level.

She tried to remain as polite about it as she could as she spoke to one of the Druids holding the seminar, but the answers she got were relatively brusque, to where she could tell that they weren't really committed to addressing any of her concerns. It was frustrating, but it was also hardly the first time that she had gotten such a (non-)response. Hogwarts should have known better than to facilitate such trips with people who wouldn't have cared about people like her siblings if they weren't only temporarily on their island. They were a temporary problem, a minor inconvenience for a weekend. But what about Druid werewolves? Druid vampires? Surely the Druids could get it into their heads that it wasn't their faults. For half-vampires, too, it wasn't as though they could control how they had been born. Couldn't the Druid gods or whatever they were recognize that?

Sighing heavily, Monday began to walk away from the Forest Shrines with some of the other students who had lingered behind. "This is so stupid," she groaned aloud. "Like, Merlin's beard… They're using their culture and religion to justify their bigotry, as though people have any kind of control over if they're a vampire or a werewolf or not! Ugh." She kept her jaw clenched, careful to watch her footing with her wand illuminated as she began the walk back towards Boudicca's Grace in the dark.

charlie marie weekly

[charlie marie weekly]

▲

Sleep was for the weak and Charlie was still running at one-hundred and ten percent despite being awake for close to thirty-six hours now. There had been no feasible way for her to sleep the night before, with the trip to the druid home island coming up, and her excitement had led her into a fervor of annoyance that her classmates had probably never seen her in before. Siblings for sure, but her constant rattling off about the animals she hoped to see while they were heading to the island and then once they got there was absolutely insane even for her. Keeping her mouth shut while their druid hosts were talking and explaining about how they needed to respect the island had her rocking on her heels excitedly all afternoon. She could see creatures everywhere but was subjected to just that. Except for a niffler that got a little too close and tried to yank her watch right off of her wrist. Charlie had never met a niffler that bold before, and was sort of aghast by its aggressiveness and intent to getting away with it. She quickly cast a glue charm to it so it would stay where it was on her arm, and then carried the creature away from the group of students by the scruff of its neck.

By the time evening rolled around, she attended a meeting about druid culture and history – none of which she was the least bit interested in, but had to go to since the sun was too low for her to animal watch anymore. Once it finished, she felt sort of gross. The way they talked about people that weren’t wholly human made the exhaustion that had been creeping up on her immediately go away. Monday, who was somewhere in the crowd of students at the seminar, spoke up about it before she could get her own hand up, but it didn’t change anything that had been said. As the seminar wrapped, Charlie immediately started pushing her way towards where she had seen her sister, catching up to her in time to hear the complaints starting up. “Mo…” she said through an exasperated breath, the brief run getting the best of her. “Trust me, I get it, but nothing any of us say will get them to understand. It’s like those freaky fundamentalist no-maj’s back home. Except once we leave here, we won’t have to deal with druids anymore.”

monday meadow weekly ● 409 ● I Know The End by Phoebe Bridgers

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[monday meadow weekly]

February 13, 2026

"Mo…" Monday could hear, though fortunately it was only her younger sister Charlie, albeit audibly out of breath. "Trust me," she said, "I get it, but nothing any of us say will get them to understand." She probably had a point, especially when she likened the Druids' positions to that of the fundamentalist No-Majes back home in the United States. The benefit was, as Charlie mentioned, that they wouldn't have to deal with the Druids once they had left Hy-Brasil.

"I guess," Monday sighed heavily, shrugging her shoulders as she glanced at Charlie. "But they really thought that it was a good idea to send us here as an 'educational experience'?" she questioned, knowing full well that Charlie hadn't been able to shut up about how much she'd been looking forward to all of the different magical creatures that inhabited the island. It had seemed like a good idea, anyway, until it wasn't. Was this trip a Board of Governors decision or a McGonagall one? She wanted to get to the bottom of it. "Like, how is it fair that they'd probably give a Niffler more rights than a werewolf? And then they're saying all this… stuff as though there aren't students listening to this who are actually going to be affected by it." It wasn't just them, either. It was every student affected in some way by lycanthropy or vampirism. In her year alone, just off the top of her head, that wasn't an insignificant number of people. "It's hella gross, Chuck."

charlie marie weekly

[charlie marie weekly]

▲

Admittedly, Charlie probably wouldn’t have heard from the professors if there had been a warning like Monday was talking about, only because her head had been in the clouds since the trip was first advertised. Her sister wasn’t wrong though. The school had a duty to protect its students and allowing werewolves and children of vampires onto the island absolutely wasn’t the right move. At the very least they should have been told ahead of time so they could at least know what they were walking into. While the druids seemed to tolerate it, she didn’t want any of her siblings to get into scuffles and arguments simply for existing. That wasn’t any of their fault. Saturday and Sunday didn’t choose to be werewolves and Thursday couldn’t control the fact that she required blood in order to function properly, even if it wasn’t a whole lot needed. Educational or not, there were still a lot of risks involved by allowing students like her siblings on this trip. Some of the others she knew of didn’t seem to be around at all, like the loud werewolf girl that was Mo’s roommate, but that didn’t mean she skipped out altogether. Maybe the Weeklys simply didn’t get the memo…

“I’m sorry I didn’t speak up with you. I don’t think it would have made a difference, but it was jarring hearing them talk about it so nonchalantly like that. It caught me off guard.” The weird zoned out feeling she got in her head during that whole portion of the talk had left her shocked in the moment. She was sure there were others like that in the crowd of students, Monday was simply the fastest and most vocal to hit back. There were a lot of ways to play devil’s advocate in this sort of situation, like how the druid’s relative seclusion from the rest of the world or that their reliance on old magicks probably led to beliefs like this. Charlie didn’t want to go there though, because even though Monday knew she didn’t think like that, voicing any of that wasn’t going to accomplish anything. Simply put, the druids were behind the curve. Exposure and understanding would hopefully get them to where they needed to be, just like with how long the rest of society took to get there. Still, she didn’t want to minimize it either. “When their kids come to school in a few months for exams, we’ll just have to be super buddy buddy with them, okay? Strike a movement in them!” Charlie yelled loudly, drawing a few shadowy heads to turn in their direction.

monday meadow weekly ● 438 ● Ruby by Ira Wolf

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[monday meadow weekly]

February 13, 2026

Monday appreciated Charlie's apology for not speaking up along with her, and she readily accepted it. It had been uncomfortable to listen to, and they weren't even the ones at the biggest disadvantage from the Druids' positions on Dark magic. Still, Monday didn't want to create absolute chaos. She had just felt the need to point out that what they were advocating for really wasn't going to fly with a bunch of American visitors, and especially not ones who had personal ties to the very conditions that they were choosing to stigmatize.

"When their kids come to school in a few months for exams, we’ll just have to be super buddy buddy with them, okay? Strike a movement in them!"

Grinning at her sister's tactic, Monday pumped her fist a little bit in spite of the weird looks that they were getting. Charlie had yet another good point. If the adult Druids' minds couldn't be changed so easily, maybe their children's minds could. Monday wondered if they could petition to establish some sort of program wherein each of the Druid kids had to be paired with a so-called "half-breed" for the duration of their time at Hogwarts for their OWLs or NEWTs. After all, there couldn't have been that many Druids who needed to come to the school for their exams—or at least not too many that it would be impossible to get two or three of them to a Hogwarts student. Even just recruiting her own siblings, Monday thought, would be a step in the right direction.

"Yeah! If we can't convince them by explaining why they're wrong," Monday agreed, "we can show them. You know, just, like, hang out with them and prove that their stereotypes and whatever are totally wrong." Besides, the Druid kids had never been to a real school before, and the ones in their sixth and seventh years had only been there once. It wouldn't be the same as sitting a bunch of them down while they were there on the island and explaining why vampires and werewolves were actually extremely cool people and didn't deserve discrimination just because of their vampirism or lycanthropy, but getting two grade levels' worth of students to see the errors of their elders' ways was better than nothing, wasn't it?

charlie marie weekly

[charlie marie weekly]

▲

Charlie didn’t inherently believe that all druids were in the majority about absolutely hating werewolves and vampires. There were the obvious points where their lack of exposure to both meant that they had very little understanding that werewolves were only truly dangerous under the full moon once per month and most had been unwillingly turned at a young age, and vampires were just super cool pale people that lived long, had fangs, and drank blood. They both functioned well in society now and she felt that her siblings all did well enough at Hogwarts because there were already students there that had both afflictions. Exposure and education was the best way to go about it, and she had no problem taking up the task if no one else wanted to do it. It wasn’t like she had anything better to do at school right now.

“From everything I’ve seen so far, they seem like good enough people. It’s just their religion or whatever. I bet they’d love to meet Sunday,” Charlie mused. His enthusiasm would maybe be a bit overbearing, but if they wanted to introduce Thursday, they could do that too. A half-vampire was even easier for people to understand, since it wasn’t like they had a choice in what they were either. There didn’t seem to be a whole lot of druid kids around, but she was sure that if she got in their ears when they visited, she’d have them flipped to the right side by the time they left Hogwarts.

Charlie slung an arm around her sister’s shoulder as they walked, already forgetting where they were supposed to be going after this. She had been so busy trying to catch up to Monday that she’d followed the crowd. Were different years supposed to be attending different events? “What now? We can game plan for when they visit us, or we can find something else to do before lights out,” she offered. There seemed to be an overabundance of stuff to do on this island, though their programs did their best to keep them from wandering off for too long. That was probably for good reason, because she absolutely could not see past the edge of the trees that lined the path they were walking. It was a far cry from the constant noise of LA and the echoing halls of Hogwarts.

monday meadow weekly ● 395 ● April to Death by Flower Face

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[monday meadow weekly]

February 13, 2026

As annoyed with the Druids' views as she was and as much as she hated that one of her younger sisters was having to be her voice of reason when it should have been the other way around, Monday continued to feel that Charlie was right. They weren't going to change centuries of beliefs in one field trip, but having exposure to the very people they didn't trust and having the opportunity to see that they weren't all bad or Dark or whatever their gods told them they were would hopefully get some of them to think differently about their views.

"Dude, they'd love all of us," Monday told Charlie in response to her point about how much they'd love Sunday as her sister's arm wrapped around her shoulders. "We're like the monsters under their beds or something."

"What now? We can game plan for when they visit us, or we can find something else to do before lights out."

Thinking about it for only a second, Monday tilted her head. "Nah," she considered, "we don't need a game plan." She didn't want to end up doing anything that she would later regret, and cooling down sounded like the better option at that point in time. "But we can't, uh, use our phones or anything," she continued, dismayed, "so…" It was inconvenient and would make the night way more boring than it could have been. "Do you think anybody brought, like, a deck of cards or something?"

charlie marie weekly

[charlie marie weekly]

▲

Monster under the druids' beds? Perfect! A cackle came out from deep within Charlie when her sister said that. Did druids even sleep on beds though? All she'd seen in their accommodations were hammocks or beds made out of leaves (and the likes). She assumed those were comfortable, or charmed to be so, otherwise that wouldn't make them very good hosts. Already she couldn't wait to see the druid children come to Hogwarts, and then take the time out of her schedule to show them around. Technically she wasn't even the best person for the job, only on her second year there, but she'd still offer up her services. Druids liked animals and so did she. It was essentially a match made in heaven. "Let them be scared. That'll make the smart ones realize how stupid their policies are." Charlie rolled her eyes before continuing, "And anyways, they have freaking dragons on this island. Literally one of the most dangerous magical creatures out there, and they have the gall to throw shade at our family." Despite her harsh words, she'd kill to see one of those dragons though. Literal dream come true if it happened.

"Probably. Or games from one of the joke shops." If she had any forethought about potentially being bored on the island of Hy-Brasil, she would have brought some playing cards or a book. Or even a game of Exploding Snap. Someone would have to have one of those at the very least. "I was thinking of maybe trying to tempt some of the nifflers with a sickle later. You know, for research purposes." They seemed friendlier than the ones she'd come across off island. And getting a close-up sketch of one would be a cool addition to her notebook. Unfortunately it also required making it look like she wasn't teasing the creatures, and knowing nifflers, they'd probably steal the coin and run off before she could even get her pencil on to the paper.

monday meadow weekly ● 329 ● Song by Artist

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[monday meadow weekly]

February 13, 2026

Coming to Hy-Brasil was even more of a culture shock than coming to the United Kingdom had been. Monday knew that the magical community in the United States was more progressive when it came to non-wizards, but they tended to draw more lines at No-Majes. Monday didn't consider anyone in her family to be particularly No-Maj-averse, but marrying or having a child with one as a Druid sounded like a one-way ticket to ostracism.

Charlie just said to let them be scared, since that would prove to the smart Druids that their policies were stupid. That didn't sound like a terrible plan of action. Even their siblings who could have theoretically hurt someone wouldn't dare, and Charlie pointed out that there was no point in the Druids' being so afraid when they had dragons on their island.

Without much to do to entertain themselves (and not electronically whatsoever), Charlie also supposed that someone must have brought cards with them or maybe something from one of the joke shops. (Could the Druids take a joke?) Charlie, at least, seemed to have concocted a plan to keep herself busy: For what she called "research purposes", she wanted to try to tempt Nifflers with a Sickle.

Monday started laughing only because she knew how typical that would be for her sister—or most of their siblings, honestly—to do something like that. Tempting a Niffler with a shiny object definitely wouldn't hurt it. They loved shiny things. "They don't even use money here, right? Do you think the Nifflers here have actually seen, like, coins before?" Something shiny that a Niffler wouldn't be forced to relinquish? That was probably Niffler heaven.

charlie marie weekly

[charlie marie weekly]

▲

Someone always had a game of exploding snap with them. Or wizard chess. Charlie wished she had been the one with the forethought to bring those, as it would have gotten her some brownie points. At least the Hogwarts students didn't know her as the weird snake girl yet. She made sure to keep her pet on the down low when the family made the trek over the previous year. Plus it didn't always seem fully believable that her best friend was a reticulated python. Even a deck of cards, as Monday had suggested, would have been fun at this point. How did anyone ever survive before cellphones?

"I'm sure they have," Charlie stated confidently. She had zero proof of that, but did she really need it? Nifflers were resourceful little creatures. If a coin so much as existed on this island, she was positive that it would be uncovered and taken by one of them. "I remember reading that there were a lot of magizoologists that came over after the island had its little mishap and the animals escaped. I bet a few of them left their coin purses laying around and it was stolen by a niffler." Other than coins, what other shiny things could possibly exist on Hy-Brasil? The druids didn't exactly look like they had many worldly possessions in the same vein as most people back home did. Sure, they were more in tune with nature, but that didn't mean both they and the nifflers were ignorant of what London and the rest of the world had to offer.

Yawning as they continued their walk, Charlie suddenly felt tired. "Merlin, I might not make it much longer. Being outside all day is finally catching up to me." The island had been overstimulating, and she was only just now feeling the full effects of it. Twelve hours of nonstop walking, being outside, and learning about the druids. The only way it would be better was if she could see a dragon. But that wouldn't happen.

monday meadow weekly ● 338 ● Song by Artist

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[monday meadow weekly]

February 13, 2026

Charlie raised the point that the Nifflers probably had seen coins before, if only because of outsiders like they were. The Magizoologists who had come to Hy-Brasil right after the barrier that protected the island had been broken must have had coins with them and left something for the Nifflers to find, she supposed. Monday knew that that was probably a safe assumption, come to think of it. The Druids didn't seem particularly flashy with what they wore, nor did many of them seem like they actually had the money to purchase anything that a Niffler would want to steal for itself.

"Merlin," Charlie yawned as they kept walking, "I might not make it much longer. Being outside all day is finally catching up to me."

Monday nodded. She wasn't used to it, either, and it had begun to dawn on her just how badly she'd be hurting in the morning. "Ugh. My legs are gonna be, like, so sore tomorrow," And they were going to have to get up early on a weekend just to walk more. "The Magical Creatures seminar is first thing, though, right? That should be cool." It was better to look on the bright side. "Hopefully they show us something that's actually, like, worthwhile." Something that they didn't have at Hogwarts or back home would fit that description.

charlie marie weekly

[charlie marie weekly]

▲

Waking up bright in early for the Magical Creatures seminar wasn't going to be a problem for her. If sleepiness was going to take hold of her in the morning, she'd fight tooth and nail against it. That was literally the one thing she wanted to do on this trip. Monday brought up that she hoped they'd be shown a creature to make being up that early worthwhile, and Charlie nodded her in agreement as she yawned again. "Like a dragon." Realistically she knew that wouldn't happen. Even if it was a dragon used to the druids being around, it was a dragon nonetheless. Very few breeds could handle more than a couple humans at a time being in their space. At least that was what she had read. To her though, just seeing a dragon from off in the distance would be cool enough. There was this prevailing thought that dragons only existed to burn everything to the ground, and she knew that wasn't true. They were fascinating creatures that deserved to be respected and revered.

"It'll probably be something that's less skittish, to be honest. It's hard to gauge how the creatures here are different from the ones we can run into. Being around people that wholly respect them and treat them equally might mean some are more trusting of us," Charlie mused as their lodgings, the enormous Tranquil Oak, came into view as they wrapped around a corner. Was it ironic that druids could peacefully handle dragons and griffons, but shied away from humans afflicted with lycanthropy and vampirism? Absolutely. That thought had been buzzing through her head for a while now. She knew that if they were given enough exposure, they'd come to realize how wrong they were. Not all of them chose to be that way, and she certainly saw the side effects of it. "We still have to walk all the way up the tree dont we?" she whined as the oak grew bigger in front of them. "I completely forgot about that..." At least they got to walk down the ramp when they woke up in the morning? Her legs didn't agree with that exchange right now though.

monday meadow weekly ● 365 ● Song by Artist

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[monday meadow weekly]

February 13, 2026

Charlie yawned again, although it came as no surprise to Monday that her younger sister brought up the possibility of being shown a dragon. If there were any way at all that she could keep a dragon as a pet instead of or in addition to her snake, well… It would have happened already. The creatures expert that she was, though, Charlie said that it would probably be something that wasn't as skittish. Monday knew that she was probably right. Whatever they would be shown would have to do well in front of a group of non-Druid teenagers, and that probably wasn't easy for a lot of the creatures living on Hy-Brasil, admittedly.

Tranquil Oak, where they were staying for the weekend, was back in their sights, and Charlie asked if they had to walk all the way up it again. Unless it had a way of moving people up it like the staircases at Hogwarts, Monday thought, then that would be a yes.

"I'm sorry I can't pick you up," Monday apologized with a laugh, not that she had ever been capable of picking up any of her younger siblings. Theoretically, she knew that she could try to levitate Charlie, but she didn't think that she'd appreciate that very much. It wouldn't be very comfortable, anyway. Still, Monday considered her options. "Should I drag you?" she teased. Charlie wasn't so heavy that that was completely impossible, but it would take a lot of effort.

charlie marie weekly

[charlie marie weekly]

▲

The thought of Monday struggling to pick her up was hilarious. That had never once been an option, as even when they were younger Charlie still towered over her sister. It would be so top-heavy if Mo tried to lift her up that they'd end up toppling over instantly. And she wasn't anywhere close to being the biggest person out there either. She joined in with a laugh of her own, throwing an arm around her sister and pulling her in closer. "If you can carry me all the way up the entire ramp to my room, I'll do all of the homework you have for a subject of your choosing for the rest of term," Charlie challenged her. That was an impossible task, and she knew that. Plus, having to do NEWT level class work absolutely wouldn't work at all. She knew her stuff but not that well. Unless it came to magical creatures, then maybe she could hack it.

"I'm already dragging my feet as it is," she commented as the ramp and tree loomed before them. This was really going to suck. Her feet were so sore already that she was going to have to stomp her way up it. "I hope the druids have some natural remedy to make my feet hurt less. Think they have like, a magical spa pool or something? Their skin is flawless so the water here has to have benefits to it." She was trying to distract her brain from wandering to how tired she actually was. All she had to do was put one foot after the other, and climbing the tree wouldn't be that much of a problem. Looking ahead, it seemed like there were other students in the same situation. Tired from a long day of walking and being outside, the complete opposite of their normal days of classes inside a castle. This absolutely beat doubles in Potions class.

monday meadow weekly ● 321 ● Jigoku Dayū by Ibaraki

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[monday meadow weekly]

February 13, 2026

"If you can carry me all the way up the entire ramp to my room," Charlie bargained with her, "I'll do all of the homework you have for a subject of your choosing for the rest of term."

"If you're trying to kill me, just say so," Monday giggled, though she managed to lower her voice so that no Druids would overhear their conversation and think that Charlie had been threatening her life for real. On Hy-Brasil, that wouldn't fly. "Besides," she laughed, returning to a more normal volume, "you're a whole grade behind me. You really wanna do my homework already?" She was in her final semester of her final year of school. Charlie couldn't possibly want a head start on NEWTs that badly.

Charlie stated that she was already dragging her feet as it was and added that she hoped that the Druids had some natural remedy to make her feet hurt less, a magical spa pool or something. Honestly, Monday considered, they probably did have something like that.

Her first thought, though, was that they didn't need their mother to find out about whatever remedies the Druids had up their nature-obsessed sleeves, and she almost immediately laughed. "If you find the Druids', like, fountain of youth or whatever," Monday joked, "Mom'll get the next Portkey from LA just so she can bottle it." That and whatever else she could learn about on Hy-Brasil, Monday knew. Her own middle name was "Meadow", for Merlin's sake; she could probably blend in with the Druids… Well, there was also the matter of her part-goblin-Mexican-American-ness that felt very much at odds with how all of them seemed to look, but she could dye her hair red.

charlie marie weekly