Orange is the new Pink [Nell]

[Deleted]

October 15, 2025
eleanor gwendolen ollivander

Clodagh hadn't really enjoyed a Halloween in a few years. Last year she'd been travel, trying to break the curse. The year before that... Well, she'd been dealing with the curse. But with this whole "Zombie Island" event, she decided to give it another go. It wasn't really a good time of year for her, to be honest. She was so skittish and easily frightened... A holiday all about scaring people was sort of her kryptonite. But let's be honest. What wasn't her kryptonite? But pumpkins was oh so tempting... She loved pumpkin. It wasn't as good as peanut butter, or cheese, of course, but it was definitely on her favorite foods list. 

Though, Clo had the retreating daylight to deal with. In Scottland, sunset was a little after 6pm, currently. So, she only have from like... 4-5, 5:30(ish) to enjoy herself. After then, she'd start dealing with mouse brain and that would make it really hard to get back home before the sunset. Better to just get home before it started to set in. So, Clo arrived shortly after the festivities opened. 

She wandered for the first few minutes, checking out all the activities before spotting the Witch's Brew. And the pumpkin spice hot chocolate. HELL YES. Clodagh hurried over. "Pumpkin spice hot chocolate please!" The student gave her a weird look at how excited she was, but fixed the drink and handed it over. Smithed, she took it in both hands. and continued her wandering, breathing in the beautiful pumpkin smell, and carefully sipping her hot beverage.

[eleanor gwendolen ollivander]

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Finally a day off. Nell knew that August was going to be a hell of a month, it always was with wand sales, but she hadn’t expected so many to be purchased. That left her supply of starter and intermediate wands severely below what she was comfortable with. That also meant that the entire month of September had been spent making new ones, in the anticipation that some of the new students would accidentally break their new wands beyond repair by Christmas time. It always happened and Nell had guaranteed a replacement should that happen. Kids were dumb and not used to having almost foot long pieces of wood shoved in their pockets and robes. Landing on a wand the wrong way was almost accompanied by a sickening crunch.

But September was done, and halfway through October she felt like she deserved a day off. It was her shop after all, she could do whatever she pleased with it. And with all the fliers and posters that had been put up in Horizon over the last few weeks, she decided the day would be best spent at ‘Zombie Island’. She liked the concept, and going during the day would mean less crowds and less things jumping out at her. While she wasn’t opposed to scary movies or haunted houses, she also wasn’t actively seeking them out. Participating in the middle of the day seemed like the best way to mitigate a lot of the scares.

After walking around for a while and checking out some of the events, Nell eventually found herself hungry and made her way towards where the food stalls were. Fall pastries and Halloween themed food had always been one of her favorites, so she was interested in seeing what they had. Before making it too far along, she spotted a woman that looked vaguely familiar, but one she hadn’t seen in at least a year, maybe two. “Clo? Is that you?” Nell called over to her, shuffling around a small group of people as she tried to discern if it was one of her old classmates or just a look-alike.

@clodagh ● 354 ● Monstrance Clock by Ghost

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[Deleted]

October 15, 2025
eleanor gwendolen ollivander

It wasn't the best hot chocolate she'd ever had. But it was the first one of the season, making it memorable. Plus, pumpkin spice was amazing. Could use some cream though. Maybe more nutmeg? Ooooh cinnamon. That'd be perfect! Clodagh was mulling over possible ingredients to make the hog chocolate even better when she heard her name. She jumped, startled, and thankfully managed to keep a grip on her hot chocolate. Though.. She'd been drinking at that moment and the hot drink went down the wrong pipe. She coughed, eyes watering as her lungs burned in protest.

Clodagh blinked rapidly, trying to clear her vision to see who had called her name. When she saw who it was.... Well, she blinked some more. The young woman was older then Clo remembered (but udnerstandably so, it'd been a while), but the features were undeniable. "Oh! Ne-Eleanor!" Clo almost slipped up, using Nell's nickname from school. Maybe she still went by it? Or maybe she'd outgrown the nickname... Who knew. Better safe then sorry?

[eleanor gwendolen ollivander]

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The way the woman sort of jumped when Nell called her name pretty much gave it away that it was Clo. Still as fidgety as ever, it seemed. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not yet, considering it had been over seven years since they had graduated. Habits like that would eventually be grown out of, right? Nell certainly thought she had gotten over her pretentiousness during her school years rather quickly. It was hard to be like that when working under Veronica. But Clo had always been a ball of anxiety, awkwardness, and clumsiness. There was nothing wrong with it though, and it had never directly interfered when it came to being friends with her. Nell didn’t exactly need a dozen friends gung-ho about their careers at the Ministry or gallivanting around the world as explorers.

“Please, you sound like my sister,” she laughed in response to being called her full first name, as she approached Clo. A chilly breeze whipped down the street, causing her to pull her arms in closer to her. It had gotten progressively colder throughout the day, and she definitely wasn’t dressed to last into the night. Either that or a ghost had just passed through her, which for a place called Zombie Island, seemed rather apt too. “How’ve you been? I feel like it’s been a couple years now.” And maybe that was partially her own fault. There had been little time before, while working as an apprentice at Ollivander’s. Now there was even less time with her own shop. At least the commute was cut down considerably, and rolling out of bed and right to work was possible again. That hadn’t happened since the early days in her apprenticeship; working into the wee hours of the morning and staying overnight so that she wouldn’t be caught showing up late by Veronica. Her sister’s wrath superseded anything else she could imagine. “Everything seems to fly by now…”

@clodagh ● 328 ● Song by Artist

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

[Deleted]

October 15, 2025
eleanor gwendolen ollivander

Elenor, or just Nell, almost immediately chastised Clodagh's use of her full name. Sheepishly Clo smiled. "Nell." She finally said, as if to remind her self of the nickname. It had been a lot time since she'd spoken to the Ollivander girl. It was good to see her though. An old and friendly face from her school days. Not everyone Clo had gone to school with would be considered friendly, considering her personality. She'd gotten teased and bullied quite extensively. "Several. Last time I think you were working at your family's shop." Though, Clodagh knew differently. She'd walked passed Nell's wand shop a number of times, since she worked in the same area.

At the comment of time flying Clodagh nodded. "It's still strange thinking that we're adults and out in the world. Instead of students." Sometimes Clo missed those days. No curses. Just books, classes, friends. It had been good, to be so carefree.

[eleanor gwendolen ollivander]

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Slipping into more formal names and settings was harder these days. Nell understood why the usage of Eleanor became popular with her former classmates and new customers. But outside of professors at Hogwarts and her older family members, quite literally no one used her full first name. She didn’t even want to sign the rental agreement for the store with her full name, but the leasing agent hassled her until she did. Unfortunately for legal reasons, she had to use her ridiculously long name on paperwork. There was never really any room on forms to put the whole thing down either, and it usually led to her shortening her middle name since that was the easiest to explain away. But being stuck as Eleanor sucked. And hearing it from old friends sucked even more, especially because it made her realize how much she’d forced herself into work and away from the rest of them. In the end, having Clo call her that, was all on the Ollivander girl. She probably seemed stuck-up, getting into the family business and locking herself away.

“Yeah…got stuck there for a while,” she nodded her head slowly. “Not that I dislike Ollivanders. But it’s not mine.” And it never was, despite what her sister seemed to think. Veronica was never going to get out of that train of thought even with Nell having her own place now. Twenty years of despising one another had tainted that relationship.

Clo agreed with her that everything seemed to be going by quickly now. It was scary, and where Nell used to think she was in a sort of standstill by working as an apprentice, that had turned completely one-hundred and eighty degrees this year. She still didn’t think of herself as a proper adult, despite the fact that she had lived on her own since graduating and now owned her own wand shop. “It’s a lot scarier than I thought it would be,” Nell added on. “But that’s life, I suppose. This whole thing is a nice trip down memory lane.” Seeing students running around not only made her feel old, but she realized that she had probably sold most of these kids their first wands. The current seventh years were probably some of the first she had officially made from Ollivanders, as starter wands were the only things Veronica had trusted her to do for years. “So, what sort of adventures have you been on Clo? You’ve obviously been up to something if I haven’t seen you around.” It had to be exciting, though knowing Clo, she probably could have locked herself away for that entire time and been just as happy with it. Nell had a hard time telling sometimes.

@clodagh ● 454 ● Secular Haze by Ghost

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0