girls just wanna have fun [Heleen]

[Sienna Aurélie Linslee]

20 June 2026

The basket Sienna was filling at Honeyduke’s looked like the shopping list for a kid who’d been left alone for the weekend, but she swiftly ignored that fact as she dropped another box of sugar quills into it. Tonight was Roommate Chill Night, after all, and she and Heleen always indulged their sweet tooths for it without remorse. It had become one of Si’s favorite traditions since the pair had moved in together in March, and it was without a doubt one of the best decisions she’d made all year. It just made sense every way she looked at it. Living alone had its perks, but it could get expensive for a potioneer who didn’t spend much time at home anyway (since the apothecary could be quite demanding at times). And Sienna and Heleen were basically the same person with many of the same hobbies – collecting interesting-looking recipes for magical sweets from Witch Weekly, watching soapy Muggle TV shows at home, and spoiling their pets by encouraging the most pampered and lazy lifestyle a cat and lizard had ever enjoyed in their life. So moving in together had just made sense, and the thought was still exciting to Si months later.

And Roommate Chill Night was still the best, since it was dedicated time every week to do all of their favorite things and just catch up with each other after a chaotic week too. And it was nice to have at least one guaranteed night a week where Si wouldn’t be alone – she’d struggled with that after the break-up with Gus. First she’d found herself alone an awful lot, spending late nights at the apothecary bent over her cauldron and tweaking the recipe for Aware Wolf to avoid thinking about why she was alone. After that, she’d made a conscious effort to see her friends more, or at least go to the same bar and nurse a glass of wine all night to enjoy the ambient noise around her. And now? She’d found a new normal she quite liked, and Heleen could always cheer her up anyway. Who needed guys when she had one of her oldest friends around instead? Things had been quiet since May, since that awful story had broken in the papers about Hogwarts, and they had a new Minister of Magic too. Maybe things were finally turning around in the UK?

Si shot a sheepish smile at the cashier as she finally checked out, and turned on the spot to Apparate home. She still had an hour or two until they’d officially start their night, and Sienna wanted to take it to review the latest data from the werewolves testing Aware Wolf. She glowed with excitement at the thought of how widespread the potion’s use had become, and how consistent the results were across all the different test subjects. And she and Rob had found a way to add it to drinks, so Rhys could enjoy it with a shot of whisky and young werewolves could take it with their pumpkin juice. Being a werewolf would never be easy, but Sienna fervently hoped that Aware Wolf would at least make the experience less stressful. Less pain during the transformation, less awkwardness when it came to acquiring the potion every month. Si started to rifle through the folder as she balanced the bag of sweets in one hand and the heavy stack of werewolf testimonies in the other. “Oh, gorgons!” she swore as she accidentally dropped the papers while fishing for her key, and then spilled the chocolates trying to catch the falling papers. Si immediately dropped to her knees to collect everything before she remembered she had a wand, and levitated it all as she entered the apartment. Being a witch definitely had its perks. “You…didn’t see any of that, right?” she checked with Heleen as she finally closed the door behind her with a sigh of relief.

@seph

[Deleted]

Life since moving in had finally felt easy. It was a feeling that Heleen was completely unfamiliar with and at times she worried about what it meant. Was easy just the time that stretched between variations of hardship or was easy what the baseline should be? At this point she had no idea, but she knew she liked living with her old friend. Sometimes it was almost like the simpler times when they'd gone to school together. They'd instated a weekly tradition between the two of them where they could discuss their week and just watch some good old muggle TV. While Heleen herself came from a magical household she had a muggleborn mother and had thus been introduced to all the regular comforts of muggle life long before she met Sienna. It had helped the girls bond as Heleen understood Sienna in ways that most magical kids couldn't due to simply not understanding certain references.

Heleen had been behind her computer, which was kept as far as possible from magical influences in a dedicated room with the rest of the technological pieces that simply didn't suffer magic. She'd been trying to play an old game. Well, old by muggle standards. She wasn't great at it but well, she enjoyed it and since it was innocent she never worried about being spooked. She'd gone to the living room for a drink when Sienna came in with a whole lot of stuff, dropping half of it and grabbing her wand to fix it. At that point Heleen made a point to respectfully look away. She'd informed Sienna about her... affliction shortly after the fall of Hogwarts. Or well, the full extent of it. She'd been absolutely shocked to hear her own boss was involved in it all somehow and well, she'd been shaken. She'd been very much on her guard and had trusted Sienna with her deepest secret. Naturally it had not changed a thing, except that Sienna was probably a little more aware of her use of magic.

"I saw absolutely nothing. You know I only see things if they're not remotely embarressing. I see you brought the candy?" She asked, her eyes instantly glinted with poorly concealed desire for the extreme amount of sweets. "I need Chill Night this week. Like, desperately. Work has driven me nuts this week and this weekend was a bust. I'm like seriously considering joining a dating site or getting us another five cats to keep us company." She complained, although it was all very light hearted. Despite the fact she wanted to find love, she was perfectly happy in her current stituation. She'd already accepted the possibility that she was going to end up living on her own with a horde of cats around the age of fifty and die in an elderly home at some point. At least she had Roommate Chill Night and candy to keep her mood light throughout the week. It was always a highlight she absolutely looked forward to.

Sienna Aurélie Linslee

[Sienna Aurélie Linslee]

The apartment might look strange to anyone who wasn’t familiar with it, because it was clearly trying to be both a Muggle and magical apartment. It had all the delightful perks of the Muggle lifestyle – TV, computers, any and all modern technology that Sienna couldn’t believe some wizards went their whole lives without using. That had been a baseline need, since the magical world was slowly becoming more modern and the girls needed an apartment that could handle their technological involvement. So it had been a no-brainer to choose a mixed Muggle-magical neighborhood, close to Diagon Alley but with Muggle neighbors just next door. But it was also clear that witches lived here. There was a cauldron set up in the corner, with stacks of Si’s potions magazines carelessly stacked here and there. And of course, while Heleen couldn’t exactly bring her work home, they’d still plastered the apartment with posters of their favorite magical celebrities and souvenirs from magical tourist attractions. And there was the dish currently washing itself in the sink too – couldn’t exactly bring a Muggle in to see that.

But there was Heleen’s affliction to think about, although Si winced at the word. She didn’t know exactly how to describe it because she’d never quite heard anything like it. Her jaw had dropped when Hel had sat her down to explain the basics of what had happened to her in the Department of Mysteries, and Sienna was still trying to wrap her head around it. But minimizing the magic she used around the house? It wasn’t such a hard request for a Muggleborn, especially if it meant making things even slightly easier for Heleen as she figured out how her life would be affected by it. Sienna wasn’t entirely sure what she saw exactly (because ‘seeing magic’ was kind of new to her), but if she had to walk twenty feet instead of doing a Summoning Charm…well, she’d live. It was no different than the occasional trip home to see her father, since she also had to restrain her use of magic. Yeah, he was allowed to know about the existence of the magical world given his daughter's place in it, so the Statute of Secrecy wasn't a big concern there. But he might still have a heart attack if he caught her using a broomstick for anything other than cleaning.

A laugh bubbled out of Si and she shot Heleen an appreciative grin at her roommate’s declaration. “That’s the right answer for someone who wants some candy,” Sienna informed her as she unceremoniously dropped the hoard of Honeyduke’s onto the counter and messily slid the werewolf testimonies onto the desk she reserved for her out-of-apothecary potions work. “And, uh, how’re you feeling? You know, with the whole…” Si trailed off a bit as she tapped her fingers on her temple to visually explain the whole magic affliction thing. Sure, there were measures the girls could take to keep their apartment as clean of magic as possible, but they only lived a short walk away from the entrance to Diagon Alley. And Heleen worked at the Ministry of Magic, which was literally the beating heart of magical society in the United Kingdom. They were surrounded by magic, and that could be equally beautiful and draining.

She snorted at the thought of adding more cats to the eclectic mix of people and animals they already had in this apartment. “Careful what you wish for,” she warned, “Or I’ll leave right now and go visit the cat café. And I'll come back with ten cats.” Sienna dropped herself onto the couch next to Heleen, and breathed a sigh of relief at finally being able to get off her feet and chill for the rest of the night. Yeah, she also really needed Roommate Chill Night this week. Heleen complained about the weekend being a bust, and Si shot her a sympathetic look. “So…new boss not working out?” The fact that the last Head of the Department of Mysteries had been a Purifier was common knowledge by now, and it had shaken the Ministry and anyone who read the Daily Prophet. He’d since been replaced, but it must’ve been a tough transition for the whole department – and the Ministry too, since they had something to prove now (that they weren’t just corrupt bureaucrats after all). And Heleen, as an Unspeakable, had unwittingly gotten caught up in all the drama. Si was just a normal witch, and far removed from all the behind-the-scenes good versus evil battle that had been apparently happening all these years. Heleen wasn't so lucky.

@seph

[Deleted]

(I'm so sorry this is like a century late. I'm sure you know how insane immigration can get x.x)

Sienna was without a doubt the most precious person in the universe. Without a doubt. She brought candy and looked after her and on top of all of that, she was a fun roommate to have. It meant girls nights and generally making sure they were both okay. Heleen had been feeling a lot better in general since moving in with Sienna and since they were both rather single, it worked rather well. "You know I have a soft spot for sweets." She said with a big smile as she stole one of the smaller sweets from the pile and popped it in her mouth before grabbing a few bowls to put the various treats in. They were sure going to need them for their evening of entertainment after all.

She paused for a moment as Sienna asked about her condition and shrugged a little. "It's improving steadily." She mused for a moment, considering for a bit. "I've been working on controlling it better so it's not like... 'on' all the time? Occasionally it'll just be like a glimpse from the corner of my eye and then it kind of goes on auto pilot. It's also started to get a bit less bad with the spells I'm familiar with the most. Like my brain is adjusting to the new situation?" She shrugged a bit. It was rather hard to explain. Especially when she knew it made her a freak in the wizarding world.

"Ten new friends? Don't threaten me with a good time, please." She said with a laugh at the mention of ten new cats. That would indeed be quite an overkill, but it was amusing at least. Though she doubted that Spock would feel the same way about it. He wasn't really built to be around cats after all. Poor gecko. Oh well, she could always get a cat at a later point, or charm the terrarium for Spock so any cats would be unable to get to it.

She pulled a face at the mention of the new boss. "It's not the person. It's the trust. For a bunch of people that are already severely inclined to keep almost everything secret, it doesn't do well to have our trust broken like that. Everything seems to be a lot more distrustful since and everybody seems suspicious of each other, at least where work in concerned. Now most can separate work from life easily enough but there's a lot of tension in the air." That was hardly the kind of secret that could cause problems. Now the part where all of it also meant a lot more work in terms of security? That wasn't the kind of thing she felt she could simply share, even if it was almost a given at this point.

Sienna Aurélie Linslee

[Sienna Aurélie Linslee]

Now that she was finally off her feet, Sienna took her time to stretch and unceremoniously drop her feet onto the coffee table. It wouldn’t last long, since that was the designated spot for the candy, but she’d been on her feet all day and the ability to lie back – well, it was priceless. She sighed and undid her hair from its messy bun so she could run her fingers through and massage her scalp as she watched Heleen set out the bowls and steal a sweet. But as Hel began to explain how she’d been feeling and the slow process of getting used to her new condition, Sienna sat up to listen more closely. It sounded exhausting to see magic all the time, but… “Hopefully you haven’t been getting those headaches lately? It might even be useful once you get used to it,” Sienna offered, trying to inject a bright tone into her voice.

She didn’t quite know how to be optimistic about a condition she’d never heard of before, but Sienna really wanted to see Hel happy. Her roommate had been navigating a difficult time, walking around with dark bags under her eyes and trying to manage the pain that came after focusing too hard on a thread of magic. So seeing her smile, and pick up a handful of candy, and confirm that it was becoming easier to manage with time? It was the best, and Heleen deserved the best. So Si smiled at her as she selected a Sugar Quill and began to unwrap it carefully. “Do spells look different? Like, can you tell apart Accio and Alohomora?” Si asked curiously. She tried to picture it in her mind. Spells did come with different bursts of light and sparks, but it didn’t linger long after it had been cast. And a latent charm, like robes that had been spelled to show shooting stars zoom across the fabric – well, there wasn’t any visual indication of that magic at all.

Her threat didn’t work as well as Sienna had intended, as Heleen gleefully pictured the good time they’d have with ten new cats in the apartment. “Actually, where is my good time?” Si asked as she craned her neck to search for her cat. There was no sign of Giselle, which probably meant her lazy cat was curled up somewhere in Sienna’s room. She did see Spock lounging on his pillow nearby, so Sienna blew a kiss to the gecko before turning back to Heleen. She couldn’t do much more than nod and listen as Hel explained the tense work environment, because Si had never even seen the Department of Mysteries, let alone know what they actually did there. “It’s been tense in Diagon too,” Si commented, a frown pulling at her lips. “We’ve been getting a lot of orders for Fire Protection and Wiggenweld Potions.” She completely understood why – news of the fire at Hogwarts was still all over the papers – but it kept a heavy and tense atmosphere over the shopping district. “Merlin,” Si groaned as she ran her hand over her face, “Is it going to be like this forever?”

@seph

[Deleted]

Heleen shrugged a little as Sienna asked after her headaches. She'd been having them, yes, but they'd slowly begun to get a lot less common. "Only occassionally. I think I mostly have it under control by now." She said thoughtfully for a moment. There was no point in lying about it, so Heleen had been as truthful as she could be to her best friend and room mate. And perhaps she was even right and it would turn out to be quite useful along the way. Who knew?

She thought for quite a long moment about how to explain the difference between spells and charms that Sienna mentioned. She frowned a little as she thought it over. "They do. But that is also because Alohomora is designed to pretty much break another spell most of the time. Spells that lock locations or doors have a shape of sorts that Alohomora, as a spell, can fit into in order to unravel it. It's hard to explain." She said with a shrug. "Accio is more like throwing a magic lasso around something and reeling in the room. Not a very high level of finesse to it. Being able to throw a magic lasso you can't see is a lot more complicated than creating a magical key of sorts. That's why the one is easier to cast than the other." She said with a bit of a shrug before stuffing her face full of candy again. She wouldn't actually be all that surprised if cowboys had been the one to invent the accio charm considering their reputation with lasso's.

Heleen smiled slightly as Sienna complained that the entire affair had impacted her shop as well, especially in the things people now ordered. "It'll calm down again. People can't live with that much fear and tension in the front of their brain too long or they'll go crazy. It fades to the back of their minds eventually, unless they keep being reminded of it constantly or keeping feeling as though it may happen again. If they even make it to that point some will try to take up action of some sort to prevent it in hopes of avoiding active insanity and others will more likely enter a state of denial to protect their sanity." She sat down and turned on the TV. "It would be ever so interesting to be able to study that though." She said with a bit of a sigh. It'd be very interesting to know what was going on inside peoples head, to see what they thought. Although, if she thought about how that'd look to her? Probably a little like a bad horror movie and she was not quite interested in finding that out.

Sienna Aurélie Linslee

[Sienna Aurélie Linslee]

“That’s wicked,” Sienna said admiringly as Heleen explained what she could see with the two spells Si had brought up randomly. She’d always known her friend was a Charms prodigy, and even in school Hel had shown an early talent for understanding not only how to use the spells but how they worked. It was almost an inevitable conclusion for her to end up in the Department of Mysteries, considering how interested she was in the theory of magic and how it was all put together. Even if she couldn’t see the magic herself, Sienna would definitely imagine a little lasso every time she used Accio in the future. “A cowboy came into the apothecary once,” Si remembered with a laugh now that the subject was on her mind. “An American Auror. He asked for some tricky potions, I actually had to put in a special order to one of our suppliers in France since our gurdyroots weren’t producing enough juice.”

That made her roll her eyes slightly – British weather was famously terrible on an average occasion, but it was impossible to grow good quality potions ingredients here. Sienna had a little herb garden set up in the planter box outside her window, but it wasn’t the same as what she could grow back home. But that was a familiar complaint, and Si didn’t want to get into it again after a long day of shop talk with different clients. Not to mention the technical discussions she and Rob would have sometimes, whenever they were bored or talking about Aware Wolf. So instead she nodded thoughtfully at Hel’s insightful comments, and giggled slightly at her roommate’s forlorn sigh. “No mad scientist talk here,” she warned as she scooted away on the couch, “My brain stays inside its body, thank you very much.” That was one thing the Oppedyk siblings had in common – they were both far too curious for their own good.

Si studied the TV and gave a hum of interest at the episode of Potterwatch that was on. “I follow the host on Vibe, her feed is hilarious. She just posted a pic of a pyramid, wonder what that means,” Si thought out-loud as she glanced idly at the TV. She hoped Hel was right and that everything would calm down again soon. It felt like they’d been living in wartime for years, with occasional breaks of peace that would evaporate the minute the Prophet came out with their newest headline about a dragon attack or an explosion. Sienna just wanted things to feel normal again. She suddenly remembered the magazine in her bag and snapped her fingers. “Oh right, Rob wanted me to give this to you.” She assumed it was for the baking recipes in the back, although maybe there was some inside joke she didn’t know about. She rifled through her bag until she could gently toss the magazine in Hel’s lap and scoop up a handful of Honeyduke’s.

@seph

[Deleted]

Heleen had always been interested in just about everything to do with magic. From the way it worked down to all the nitty gritty details of how magic spells and charms interacted with each other. Why did certain magics work well to block certain while others could ignore shielding charms. There was so much that people took for granted about the inner workings of magic and she just loved digging deeper into the secrets of the world. It had only been natural for her to be drawn to the department of mysteries. She was shook from her revery as Sienna mentioned a cowboy coming to shop. "You're shitting me." She said with a big grin on her face. "Did he have a hat and boots and a huge belt buckle? And the accent?" She was practically hanging on the lips of her roommate at the completely odd and out of this world experience. Well, maybe it wasn't quite as strange as she felt it was but she wasn't sure she'd ever seen a cowboy in real life.

Then she mentioned some of her plants didn't produce enough juice and Heleen had to confess she was fully out of her debt when it came to potions and herbology. She could understand them better since her condition, but well, it was still very different from the kind of magic that had her talents. Brewing? It was something she was sufficient in but growing ingredients? Certainly not. "I'm guessing it's a climate thing?" She asked a bit hesitantly, mostly because she didn't want to sound stupid. Despite her job requiring a certain amount of intelligence, she could be very insecure about her capacities as an intellectual.

"Are you calling me mad?" She asked a bit confused. Despite her dips into the muggle world she was hardly as aware of it as her roommate. She was pretty sure a scientist was a muggle type of researcher so she couldn't take too much offense at that part but her knowledge of pop culture was a bit less... broad. "I don't need to take your brain outside of your body to study it, you know." Hel mumbled, almost disappointed. "I'm pretty sure I could find a way to get some sort of device flung together to see brain activity as it takes place without taking your brain out. It'd be quite interesting to see in which part of the brain the magic shapes, if that is even a thing. It has to come from somewhere, since muggles can't see it or use it." She blinked a few times and opened her mouth and closed it a few times, like a fish out of water. "Do you think that the part of our brain that processes magic is somehow connected to our eyes? That'd explain why squibs can't see dementors..." She instantly took out a notebook and started making a lot of notes for herself to pick up far too many books to try and see if she could find anything to support or test that theory.

She'd been so absorbed in her work that it took her a few seconds to process what her roommate had said. Blinking dumbly a few times she smiled and shrugged a bit. "I have no idea? Vacation blog? That's a thing in the muggle world right? Maybe she's doing something similar?" Heleen suggested, hoping that was somehow helpful. She would probably have to get herself invited to watch it. She needed more normal hobbies than theorising the contents of peoples brains. She had a feeling that was hardly a conversation starter. She then looked at the magazine her brother appartently had wanted her to have. She'd read it more fully later but so far it seemed like it was bound to have something of interest in it. Just not something she wanted to focus on during girls night. "Cool, I'll have a peek later. Today it's candy and acceptably bad choices in terms of candy." She said with a playful wink. She really could use a day off.

Sienna Aurélie Linslee

[Sienna Aurélie Linslee]

“Like he just walked off the ranch,” Si agreed with a giggle as she thought about the American Auror that had wandered into the store one day. She’d been obsessed with horses as a girl – little figurines on her dresser, posters on the wall, stuffed animals on her bed. The whole nine yards. Over the years, the focus of that interest had shifted slightly from the horses to the fit cowboys who’d lasso and ride them shirtless – according to the movies at least. Sienna met a wide variety of people at the apothecary, but an honest-to-god cowboy was a rare gem and she relished the chance for a little gossip now. “It’s a shame he didn’t stay longer,” she continued, rolling her shoulders in a little shrug. She’d been disappointed to see that he’d been quite efficient with his purchases, and Si had had to run to the back anyway to take care of a potion that had bubbled over the edge of the cauldron.

Despite Heleen’s assurances that Si’s brain could stay in her body while she studied it, Sienna made a giant ‘X’ with her arms and scooted away on the couch a little. “It’s not an issue of what you could do,” she argued with a smile at the look of disappointment on Hel’s face, “Obviously you could do anything you wanted to my brain, you’re smart enough to figure it out. But should you?” Si paused before mouthing the word ‘no’ and then taking a decisive bite out of the chocolate frog she’d just picked up. She’d faced the same debate with her potions before, because magic could be easily exploited in many ways to do less-than-ethical things. In her own field, there were all sorts of ethical boundaries when it came to Polyjuice Potion, Veritaserum, Felix Felicis. Yes, it was drilled into a potioneer’s head early on that some things were just off-limits.

She had to stop and consider Heleen’s question for a moment, taking advantage to make some progress with the chocolate frog and examine the card in the box. Morgana – Si already had five of those. “Is that what happened to you, then? The connection in your brain between magic and eyes got…strengthened or something?” She wished she could have phrased it more nicely, but Sienna was somewhat a novice in the field and certainly compared to Hel. She certainly didn’t pretend that she had anything more intelligent to offer than the occasional insightful question. Si finished off the chocolate frog and nodded vaguely in response to Hel’s guess – it probably was a vacation blog or something of the sort. Normal people actually did things like take vacations, although Sienna wasn’t sure any influencer could possibly be called normal. “Anyway, your choice to pick next,” Si said with her mouth full as she picked up a handful of jellybeans. Their roommate nights could have any number of activities, and they always changed – watching a movie, doing their nails, gossiping about work or mutual friends. Si felt brain-dead, that was for sure, which would probably make her useless for anything that required active thought. But it was Hel’s choice.

@seph