Written For:
- Day 16 of 366 Days of Writing Challenge: Genius
- February Event: Teamwork Exercise: (title) She's The Man, (object) Ribbon
- Gringotts Prompt Bank/Charmed: (Scenario) Forbidden love, (Object) Charm Bracelet, (Word) Snake, (Word) Spider, (Action) Tearing a page out of a book, . (Action) Writing in a diary
- Gringotts Prompt Bank/Secret Diary of a Call Girl: (word) Moonlight, (dialogue) "I didn't think there was much point wearing knickers."
Pairings/Characters: Cassiopeia/OC (Felinda Longbottom, c. 1915)
Word Count: 1,016
She's The Man
I got so scared, I thought no one could save me, you came along, scooped me up like a baby.
Dear Diary,
I've not spoken to Felinda for at least a week. It hurts, but I know it's for the best. Father would lose his mind if he learnt about our private relationship. I can't risk my future within the House of Black for a girl.
Cassiopeia leaned away from her diary, studying the words she had just written. As she did so, her sister Dorea mumbled in her sleep from the bed a few yards away from the desk, and she sighed. It was a ridiculous idea to try writing down one's private thoughts when one shared a bedroom with one's sister.
With a sigh, she tore out the page from her diary and scrunched it into a ball, before aiming it over at her own bed and throwing it. It skidded along the floorboards and vanished under the bed.
Cassiopeia looked out of the window, staring out into the street, which was illuminated by moonlight. Even though it was dark, she saw a couple over by the nearby park holding hands as they walked, and this only sent another flurry of pain to her heart. Why couldn't she be like that? Why couldn't she hold hands and show her fondness in public to the girl she loved?
It didn't take a genius to work it out. The problem was that Cassiopeia loved a girl. It didn't matter that Felinda was a Longbottom, and therefore a woman from strong, Pureblood lineage. What mattered was that Felinda was female, and it would break her mother's heart if she found out that Cassiopeia was homosexual.
It wasn't that Cassiopeia hadn't tried forcing herself to be attracted to men; she had. She had allowed her sister-in-law to set up courtship with her brother; Victor Crabbe. Victor was a tall, heavyset man, much like his sister Irma, and many women found him immensely attractive. But despite how politely Victor scouted her about London Town, Cassiopeia couldn't make herself fabricate an affection for him.
She didn't want someone with muscles and broad shoulders; or clipped hair and the scratch of stubble against her fingertips. Cassiopeia wanted to hold a person with soft curves, feel the fleshiness of warm hips and breasts under her hands, run her fingers through tresses of long, silky hair, and kiss the supple lips of a woman.
A twinge of arousal pulsated through her as she thought of Felinda's long, chestnut coloured hair, and the way her wide hips swayed as she walked. The sound of something tapping against her window broke her daydream, and she quickly looked up, staring out onto the street. Her heart skipped a beat.
Felinda Longbottom was standing beneath the window, wearing a wide, lopsided grin. She was wearing a dark, long-sleeved dress, and had her hair fastened up on top of her head, but loose, curly tendrils escaped and hung around her ears. Cassiopeia quietly pushed open the window and looked down at her lover.
"What are you doing here?" she whispered into the dark, peering over her shoulder to glance at her sister. Luckily, Dorea was sound asleep.
"Don't worry—I borrowed my brother's invisibility cloak!" Felinda hissed back. She held up a folded cloak that had been slung over her arm, and shook it out, before wrapping it around her shoulders. It was an invisibility cloak—albeit, a cloak with a fading invisibility charm cast upon it. Cassiopeia could still see dark patches against the street, where Felinda's dress was visible through more patchy areas of the cloak. But it was good enough. Cassiopeia nodded, and backed into her bedroom, moving away from the desk.
She waited patiently as Felinda quietly climbed up the vines on the brick of the house, and then slipped inside the bedroom, clambering first onto the desk where Cassiopeia had been writing, and then hopping down onto the floor. She reached over, still with her invisibility cloak on, and shut the window.
Quietly, Cassiopeia kicked off her house slippers and climbed into bed, and Felinda jumped in too, taking the side that was nearest the wall. The girls pulled the covers over their heads, and then Cassiopeia squirmed underneath the invisibility cloak too. It was hot, and it would soon become difficult to breathe, but Cassiopeia felt the most comfortable she had in a while.
"I wanted to bring you your present," whispered Felinda excitedly, and Cassiopeia raised her eyebrows into the darkness. "For Valentine's Day?"
"Oh, yeah..." she cursed herself for forgetting stupid holidays like this, but Felinda didn't seem perturbed by her forgetfulness. She quietly murmured a spell, and Felinda's wand tip glowed, illuminating their little bedsheet den with a soft, yellow glow. Cassiopeia's eyes landed on a small, neatly wrapped package, fastened with a bright pink ribbon. Felinda handed it to Cassiopeia, and she unwrapped it carefully, allowing a small chain to fall into her hand.
It was a delicate silver bracelet, with several empty links around it. A few links already had charms on them—Cassiopeia examined a tiny, curled up snake with minuscule emeralds for eyes, and a black widow spider, with a ruby for the mark on it's back. "It's beautiful," she whispered, feeling tears welling up in her eyes.
Felinda took the charm bracelet and fastened it carefully to Cassiopeia's wrist. "There's more space for other charms. We can get more for it as our life goes on."
Even though Cassiopeia's rational brain told her that she needed to stop this relationship before things got too far, she felt too much in love with Felinda at that moment in time. Without even responding, she thrust her head forward and kissed her, hard.
When they finally broke away for breath, Felinda was flushing. "So, what are we going to do now?" asked Cassiopeia, running her finger along the underside of Felinda's neck.
Felinda grinned, and took Cassiopeia's hand, pushing it down her chest and past her hips. "Well, I didn't think there was much point wearing knickers."
