Destruction [Jamie + open]

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The castle was a madhouse. Students were running everywhere. Curses were being flung about willy nilly, bouncing off walls and destroying statues and suits of armor. Masked men chased students around the halls. Everyone was screaming and shouting. But none of that mattered to Harper. She only had one thing on her mind, and that was finding a particular Hufflepuff student.

She wasn't entirely sure where to start. Jamie could literally be anywhere around the castle. There was too much chaos and too many distractions to pinpoint where the petite little blonde could be. Harper almost wished she was a werewolf. Then she could at least smell out the girls location. Harper made her way down to the Great Hall, where many Hufflepuffs were fleeing from their basement common room near the kitchens to either fight or run away. If Harper knew Jamie, she would be among those fighting. Harper ran among the students, calling out Jamie's name while trying to avoid being hit with a spell. Occasionally, a student would acknowledge her and shrug helplessly. That didn't help her much.

Before Harper could go any further, she found her path block by a man in a mask. "Well, that's cute, coward," she snarled, slipping her wand from the sleeve of her robe and gripping it tightly in her hand. "Stupefy!" she shouted, aiming her wand at the masked man. He dodged the spell and shot one back at her, which grazed her arm and left it badly burned. She cried out in pain and shot another spell at the man. "I don't have time for your crap," she said angrily, hoping against hope that wherever Jamie was, she was safe.

@jamie
@open

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Everything was loud. Her ears hurt. The wolf was tearing at her insides, demanding to be let out, and Jamie wished that she could let it. She wouldn’t transform, since it wasn’t the full moon, but she would be…merciless, she decided. She would be an animal, and then she would be no different from the people who were attacking her. So she shoved the animal back into its corner, chained it up and hoped that she was strong enough.

Jamie was forced to follow the flow of the crowd, up the stairs and towards the source of the noise. There were so many people, and a knot was beginning to form in Jamie’s stomach. It was true that she had friends in her first years of Hogwarts, but no one like Harper. She needed to know if the redhead was okay. In thinking of redheads, Jamie’s mind was pulled to Lily, and then Adrian. Her brothers. She knew Adrian could hold his own in any fight – or at least hoped so, from what she had heard of him – but she had a younger brother, too, and as much as she hated to admit it, she cared about him. She had never met him, true, but she wanted that to change. She wanted her family.

She nearly ran into someone’s back. He was dressed in long, black robes that weren’t fitting for a student, and if Jamie had to guess, he was one of the aggressors in this situation. She heard him mutter a spell, and then heard a familiar voice cry out in pain. He was attacking Harper. The wolf did not like that, and the chains holding it in place rattled ominously. “Stupefy!” Jamie shouted while the man’s back was still turned. He dropped to the ground, and Jamie was leaping over him before he even hit the floor, flinging herself at Harper. “I’m so glad you’re alright!”

@harper

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Between the pain in her arm and the sound of Jamie's voice, Harper could have cried. She watched with a smug grin as the wizard she was dueling fell over, stunned from Jamie's spell. She aimed a swift kick to his gut as revenge for her new battle scar. The force of her kick made the man expel all of his breath and he lay still. Not dead, of course, but out of the fight for awhile, if not for good. The professors could deal with him.

Harper grabbed Jamie in her arms and hugged her tight, being careful to avoid her injury. In the midst of all the confusion and chaos, she had never been happier. Jamie was safe, and they had been reunited. "I'm fine. I'm glad you're okay, too," she said softly, glaring at the stunned wizard on the ground. Lucky for him that Jamie had appeared, or she would make his life much more difficult. He would have a hard time eating when she punched all the teeth out of his mouth or hexed him into having a duck bill; she couldn't decide which would be more fun.

Turning her attention back to the Hufflepuff girl, Harper uttered, "We shouldn't stay here. There will be more of them soon." But before she could turn to leave, the two of them were cornered by another pair of masked wizards. "You're coming with us, Weasley," one of them threatened. Harper rolled her eyes. Would this nightmare never end?

@jamie

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Watching Harper kick the stunned wizard in the stomach was a sobering experience; there was a lot of anger there, and Jamie wasn’t sure if she liked it. Then again, she wasn’t one to talk about anger management when she had nearly decided to go feral wolf on everyone. Being pulled into Harper’s arms halted that train of thought before it could get any more macabre, and Jamie let out a small sigh. Now that she knew Harper was alright, she could start looking for her brothers. She retreated out of Harper’s arms and was just about to ask the redhead if she had seen Adrian – she wasn’t sure if the other girl even knew what Maxwell looked like – when Harper began to speak again. She was right, of course; staying here would only mean trouble.

It was too little, too late, though. There were two more of the masked guys, and Jamie gulped. She reached out a hand and softly laid it on Harper’s arm, hoping that the other girl got the message to stay quiet, at least until Jamie had tried talking them out of this one. “Do you know who my father is?” She snarled, trying to sound as wolfish as possible. If only she hadn’t cut her fingernails this morning. Jamie couldn’t see the men’s faces because of the masks, but they weren’t saying anything, so that must have been a no. “His name is Fenrir Greyback.” She peeled back her lips in the most feral smile she could muster. “And he’s taught me a thing or two about how to…bite.” She gnashed her teeth at the men, and one of them actually ran away. Jamie was so stunned that she didn’t even notice that the other one was brandishing his wand. Oh, bother.

@harper

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Harper opened her mouth to threaten the wizards, but quieted when Jamie laid it on her injured arm. She glared at the wound. It had blasted off most of the constellation tattoo she had there, and that made her angry. She had spent a lot of money on that tattoo, and had Jamie not been talking to the wizards at that exact moment, she would've had a few choice words to say herself.

Jamie was doing an impressive job of being intimidating. Harper had always thought of her as a "little" girl - which was odd enough, considering that Jamie was taller than her - but the Hufflepuff looked downright ferocious as she spoke about her father. It even made Harper uncomfortable, and she knew Jamie better than most. But watching the girl, she was almost certain that the wolf was about to lash out and rip the masked wizards to shreds. It was enough to scare one of the men away. Harper sneered out his cowardice. Werewolf or not, Jamie was relatively harmless as a human unless she could actually get her teeth around the man.

But Harper wasn't so enraptured by Jamie's rant that she didn't notice the other wizard pulling out his wand. "Oh, no you don't," she hissed, aiming her own wand at him. The redhead was already angry about her ruined tattoos and skin. But now this guy thought he could just aim a wand at Jamie and get away with it? Oh, hell, no! "Lacarnum Inflamarae!" Harper shouted, using the power of her voice to urge the spell on. The remaining wizard's cloaks burst into flames. Normally, Harper would have only let the flames sit for a short while before dousing the flames and finishing the man off with a stunning spell. But now she was angry. He had dared try to curse Jamie while she wasn't looking.

Let him burn.

@jamie

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It was difficult for Jamie to say what she valued in life; her life had changed so much in the past three months, and for the first time, family would probably be on the list. She wasn’t exactly buddy-buddy with her brothers, but she cared about them. She had thought of them, after all, when the chaos had started. She valued love, as scary as the idea of it was. No one was going to catch her using the l-word anytime soon, but she was beginning to feel it for more than one redhead. More than either of those things, though, Jamie valued mercy. She heard stories of her father; he had not been merciful. As much as she pretended to enjoy sharing blood with him to scare of their attackers, it was far from the truth. He was despicable. And now Harper, who was kind but brash and hotheaded, was refusing to show mercy. It hurt.

It was instinct, more than anything, that caused Jamie to fling out her wand. The spell got caught somewhere between her throat and her mouth, but apparently all the time she had spent practicing nonverbal charms was paying off, because a jet of water streamed from her wand nonetheless. She quickly followed it with a stunning spell before wheeling around to face Harper, arms crossed over her chest. Loyalty she understood; she was, after all, a Hufflepuff. But what Jamie could understand was ruthlessness, mercilessness. Once again her words caught in her throat, and Jamie was left waving her hands senselessly before she finally spat out a single word. “What?”

@harper

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Harper watched the man go up in flames with a sadistic gleam in her eye. She could hear his screams like music in her ears. He deserved to suffer for what he had done to Hogwarts, for what he tried to do to Jamie. But suddenly the person in question was dousing the screaming wizard with water, quenching the fire that Harper had cast. The redhead let out a cry of disgust and watched furiously as the man was taken down with a stunning spell. Then the young blonde turned on Harper, and Harper could have cowered under a table from the girl's intense glare. She didn't like the look Jamie was giving her. All of her rage was gone. She just felt embarrassed.

"He was trying to curse you!" she whined, and her voice sounded desperate and pathetic, even to her. Had she really just tried to kill a man? Even if it was over Jamie, that wasn't Harper. She couldn't even smash the spider she found on her bed frame that morning, let alone kill someone in cold blood, regardless of that person's actions. She didn't want Jamie to see her as some rage-crazed murdered. Her head hung low with shame, and she muttered, "I'm sorry."

@jamie

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Jamie was smoldering. Harper looked at her as if she had done something wrong by saving the man’s life, before desperation overtook anger. There wasn’t any good way to respond to what had happened. Even with the apology, Jamie felt like her insides were on fire; if they killed indiscriminately, then they were no better than their enemies. They were no better than her father had been. “You don’t think I know that?” She snapped. The words were harsher than she intended, but it felt good to let just the slightest bit of anger out. She was sick to her stomach with how strange this entire situation was, how hypocritical this lecture felt. “Maybe you haven’t heard, but I don’t believe that death is ever an acceptable punishment.”

She balled her hands into fists and released them, the blood stinging her fingers. “There are people who think that I should die for what I am. For who my father is. They would see me dead for his mistakes. How is that any different from killing someone for the mistakes that this man made today?” She raised her hand, not yet done with her sermon. “That’s not something you can undo, Harper. What if you had killed him? Any amount of apologies would not bring him back.” Jamie didn’t realize she was shaking until she looked down at her trembling hands. She didn’t mean to be a preacher, but Harper had almost done something irreversible. Few people had an idea of what irreversible was, Jamie thought, but she lived with it every day. She lived with it every full moon. And she would not let Harper destroy herself; there was enough destruction already.

@harper

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Jamie couldn't have picked a worse time, with the castle and their fellow students being attacked, to engage Harper in their first argument. And although Harper could argue with the best of them, she didn't want to argue with Jamie. Something about the girl's fury made her feel very small and insignificant. She wanted to be angry; she didn't deserve to be yelled at like a child, especially when she was trying to save Jamie's life. Death hadn't been her intention, but it could have easily been the man's.

The more Harper thought about it,and the more Jamie yelled at her, the angrier she got. It finally got to the point that Harper snapped. Rounding on the other girl, she raised to her voice to the point that other occupants of the room paused their fighting to listen. "Well, excuse me for trying to save your life!"

It was irrational to yell, and everything Jamie was saying made sense, but Harper had never been fond of being scolded and she always reacted violently to it. Even when he parents chastised her for taking Ondina outside, it usually resulted in Harper throwing an enraged tantrum. She usually got over it, but it took time. And now wasn't a good time.

@jamie

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Jamie wasn’t used to arguing with people. Her mother’s style of argument was the cold shoulder, which was nothing like the shouting match she and Harper seemed to be having. Other than her mother, there had never really been anyone to argue with, so this was strange. Really strange. Normally she was good with comebacks, but with Harper, all Jamie could do was gape like a fish out of water. She knew how she felt, but everything she could think to say sounded like something straight out of a telenovela. After about ten seconds of flipping through a list of possible responses, Jamie settled on the least offensive one. “I can take care of myself!” Her voice caught on the words, and Jamie was surprised to hear that the snarl had returned to her words, the way it had when she had been threatening the masked men. She didn’t like it.

She needed to say something else. The problem was that she didn’t know what else to say that wouldn’t dig her an even deeper hole. She cleared her throat to help rid her voice of the snarling quality, and took a deep breath, hoping that whatever came out of her mouth next wasn’t going to make Harper angrier. “I just want you to be safe, okay?” Well, if that wasn’t patronizing, nothing was. “I love you.”

@harper

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Harper readied herself for another retort. She was already mentally preparing what she would say next in her head, however Jamie decided to respond. As Harper suspected, Jamie whipped out the "I can take care of myself!" Harper had heard Ondina use that same exclamation many times after their parents caught her outside (which was usually Harper's fault). Her parents' answer was always the same, usually following on of Dina's perpetual asthma attacks. Harper could practically hear her mother in her own voice as she snapped back, "Looks like you were doing a great job of that."

Harper wasn't really sure what had gotten into her. She had never been so combatant and angry toward another person. She was usually the one that tried to make light out of confrontational situations, and yet, here she was in the middle of one. She glared at Jamie and opened her mouth to start another angry statement.

"I love you."

What? Harper froze. Surely, she hadn't heard the correctly, and if she had, it didn't make any sense. Jamie was in love with her? The redhead took a step back, away from the younger girl, her mind racing to try to process what was going on. She and Jamie were close, sure. And she liked Jamie. She really liked Jame. But love? Harper wasn't even sure she could comprehend the word. She wasn't sure if she was ready for that stage in her life, to let herself get that close to a person. She daydreamed of falling in love with someone, but now wasn't the time. Now really wasn't the time.

"I...I..." Without finishing the thought, Harper turned and ran.

@jamie

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Jamie knew that Harper wasn’t really trying to hurt her. It was the middle of the fight, a fight that had escalated extremely quickly, probably due to the tension that was thick in the air of the battle. No matter how much she told herself that the goal in this argument was not to hurt one another, Jamie couldn’t help but feel stung at Harper’s retort. It was true – she wasn’t doing a good job defending herself. That was probably because she was trying her damndest not to hurt anyone. Her family’s legacy was already stained with the blood of a lot of innocent people, and she didn’t intend to add to that. She had a little brother who needed to know that werewolves weren’t all heartless killing machines.

She knew that was the wrong thing to say. Knowing it and seeing it were two entirely different things, though. The silence hurt even more than the words did. The step back. It was like she was a wolf again, but this time, instead of welcoming her and taking care of her, Harper was scared of her. She didn’t feel the same way, that much was obvious. Jamie had expected it, but she was only now gaining people that she thought she could love. Harper was one of them. If she only ever told one person in the world that she loved them, she was glad it was Harper. She knew no one else who was more deserving of love than the redhead.

When Harper ran, Jamie let her go. There was no sense in drawing this out; there was a battle going on, and Jamie intended to fight.