Once again, Liz was sitting at the gazebo by the shore quietly reading by herself, the steady roaring and hissing of the waves and the cries of birds blotting out the noise of other people out in the gardens, when a Delacour came to find her. Except instead of Fleur, this time it was Doriane — which was about equally uncomfortable, honestly.
Their silly pre-Task stuff with the Champions and their families had gone more or less smoothly so far, if really not fun for Liz in particular, but thankfully they were almost done. The play had been pretty boring, honestly — the story was theoretically interesting, but Liz thought she would rather have taken it in in written form (though she guessed some of the effects were neat) — and she'd made the mistake of eating at the restaurant after. It hadn't occurred to her that, obviously, whatever place the organisers had bought out for the evening probably wasn't accustomed to cooking for Seers. Which wasn't really a surprise, when she thought about it — Seers as sensitive as she was generally didn't do things like go out to restaurants, so, they simply weren't prepared for it. She had asked the waiter, who'd apologetically said he really had no idea whether their food would be safe for her at all...and after wavering for a moment, she'd decided to order anyway.
In case she hadn't had enough proof already of how much of a difference avoiding bad echoes made for her general mental health, her sleep that night had been awful. She'd been woken up by a nightmare only a couple hours after getting to bed, and after calming herself down by practising channelling exercises from that book Severus gave her ages ago and reading for a bit she'd managed to get back to sleep...only to be woken up again. Because of course.
She'd gotten maybe three hours of sleep total, by the time they were leaving for the festival thing at the Refuge she'd already been tired. Between, just, not feeling well, and there being too damn many people on the Hill, both physically and magically noisy, it hadn't taken very long before Liz had been completely miserable. She'd ended up leaving early, passed out for a while before waking up after midnight. After puttering about for a bit, wandering around the gardens or reading, she'd eventually managed to get back to bed — she would have missed breakfast, but apparently the event at the Hill had gone on late, and a bunch of their group got pretty drunk and whatever, so 'breakfast' had ended up being more of a slightly early lunch.
She did feel better now, finally — and she wasn't going to make the same mistake tonight that she'd made on Sunday. On Monday morning, realising already how badly she'd fucked herself eating normal people food the previous night, she'd talked to Severus, and then they'd talked to one of the staff people at the house, and then he'd put Nilanse in contact with the people who were preparing the silly formal dinner this evening. Nilanse had told her while she'd been awake stupid early this morning that they had it figured out, Liz shouldn't have any problems tonight...as long as she only had the stuff specifically served to her, and didn't take things from the shared dishes set out, anyway. Feeling vaguely self-conscious about making more work for everyone, having to prepare her dinner separate from everyone else's, she planned on asking Nilanse to pass along a tip for the people involved, just, she knew it must be a pain to have to make such changes on short notice, that was all...
(Though it was possible she was partly motivated by randomly remembering Petunia screeching at restaurant staff — if she had a single consistent principle, it was to not become Petunia — but she kept that thought to herself.)
Honestly, Liz suspected minimising her exposure to psychometrically toxic stuff was weakening her resistance to that sort of thing when she couldn't avoid it, but she felt the trade might be worth it. She had been feeling pretty good this spring, all things considered, even with the Tournament hanging over her head. (Except for that bit toward the end there, but still.) In retrospect, it really did make a noticeable difference for her mood, so, it might be a pain having to deal with what was effectively a medical dietary restriction, but she could live with it. The clothes though, ugh, that was going to be a fucking pain...
She had a vague idea of getting Hermione to help her figure out, like, bras and shite over the summer — not realising until after she'd already been considering it that she'd probably seen herself showing up at Hermione's house to do exactly that when crystal-gazing a while ago, so — but she had a nasty feeling it wasn't going to be a very successful trip. It was frustratingly likely that anything they were going to find at muggle shops around would be too offensive for her to wear anyway, so. Still worth trying, she thought, but she wasn't optimistic.
Learning how to make her own clothes really would be a good idea, she should get on that...
Anyway, over the last couple days Doriane had made a point of talking to her multiple times, which was, just, confusing and uncomfortable. Confusing because Liz didn't know why she kept doing this? Like, she didn't know, maybe Doriane was just friendly, but it didn't seem like it, like Doriane had some reason to try to talk to Liz. She was never explicitly thinking about it at the time, or at least not loudly enough for Liz to pick up on it, so she didn't know for certain, but the feeling she got was that it wasn't...purposeless. Not that Liz could guess what the fuck the purpose was supposed to be — it never seemed like she wanted to talk about anything in particular, it was weird.
And it was uncomfortable because Doriane was fucking distracting. Liz was trying not to embarrass herself by obviously perving on Fleur's cousin, but it was difficult.
Liz felt the familiar mind approaching, took a centring breath before glancing up — Doriane was sauntering up the path toward the gazebo, only a few seconds away, the breeze off the wind tossing her short messy hair and tugging at her shirt. Since the foreign students had showed up, Liz had noticed that the ones from Beauxbatons seemed to have trouble dealing with the Scottish weather, the major exception being the veela and lilin. She assumed that their innate fire magic must keep them warm, and apparently that effect extended to Doriane too, somehow, despite being human...if she was human, Liz still wasn't sure about that. Despite that it was June, it was hardly warm here, especially with the wind coming off the sea — and yet Doriane was wearing a button-up blouse, left hanging open, the vest underneath not even reaching her waist, leaving a band of skin all the way around her middle exposed between her vest and her muggle-style denims, about a hand-span wide.
Doriane hadn't even reached the gazebo yet when Liz caught herself staring, wrenched her eyes away to glare out over the water, biting her tongue. That just wasn't fair.
"Hello again, Liz," Doriane said (in French) as she stepped up under the gazebo.
"Doriane."
Plopping down into one of the chairs next to her, Liz could see Doriane was slouching back a bit, her legs crossing at the knee — in her peripheral vision, didn't want to embarrass herself staring again. "What do you have there?" Liz hesitated for a second, before folding her book closed and turning the cover toward Doriane. "Ah...Competency prep? I didn't think you did Competencies in Britain."
"We don't." She cut Doriane a glance, before looking away again with a roll of her eyes. "Fleur might have told you how fucking ridiculous people can be about me."
With a low hum, there was a shiver of some kind of feeling from her mind, but Liz really couldn't guess what. Sympathetic, maybe? "Transferring out, then?"
"That's the idea." She didn't think Doriane knowing was going to result in the news getting out — which she was not looking forward to, people were going to be so frustrating about that — and she might have caught a glimpse of Liz's book regardless, so it didn't hurt anything telling her. Actually, she felt unreasonably confident Doriane wasn't going to gossip about this, which was odd, must be a Seer feeling.
"Any idea where to?"
"Somewhere small and quiet, preferably. Maybe Durmstrang, or Syracuse."
"Syracuse is nice, I have relatives who've gone there. If you want quiet, there's also Studio Ravenna, and... I forget what the academy in Baden is called."
"I have a list I'm applying to, don't have it on me."
"Right. Well, good luck with that."
"Mm." And then they just...sat there for a little bit, Doriane's thoughts quietly flickering away. Liz was feeling increasingly self-conscious, twitchy — she couldn't help it, okay, Doriane was fucking pretty, and Liz was absurd sometimes. She didn't manage to hold out very long before she blurted out, "So, um...did you want something?"
There was a flinch in Doriane's head...self-directed irritation? "We're having tea soon. It seems dinner is going to be late — there's going to be some mingling first."
"Ugh, hate this stupid fancy shite..."
"Yeah, I hear you," Doriane said, and edge of a laugh on her voice, but her mind oddly sharp and simmering. "I've been dragged off to a fair few events myself. I'd say I'm nearly as well-known among the People of the Song as you are in Britain."
Liz frowned, glanced over at Doriane — she had a crooked, uncomfortable sort of smile on her face, staring unfocussed out over the water. "Who are you?" Nothing so far that she had noticed had suggested at all that Doriane was anyone important. The Delacours were pretty influential in certain circles, but she could hardly be much older than twenty...
"My mother's eldest." After a couple seconds, when she didn't react to that, Doriane explained, "Lise Delacour. Once upon a time," abruptly switching to obviously accented English, "she was called Elizabeth Potter, but nobody has used that in some time. And I think that would be a little confusing in present company, don't you?"
...Oh.
Okay, Liz was pretty sure she knew why Doriane kept making a point of talking to her now.
After a second of blinking back at the older girl, something else clicked, Liz perking up a little. "Oh! You're half-veela!"
One of her eyebrows arching up, confusion sparking in her mind and pulling her lips into a funny half-smile, Doriane said, long and slow, "Yes?"
"I was just— I knew your magic felt different, but I couldn't figure out why, it was bothering me. That explains that, never mind." She wasn't sure she'd ever met a half-veela or half-lilin before, there really weren't very many out there. They weren't compatible with humans, reproductively, the rumour was it was done with blood magic, only achieved in the last couple decades. In fact, if Doriane was Lise Delacour's eldest child, that would mean she was literally the first veela-human hybrid ever — Lise Delacour's experiments had been done on herself, so. Which would also explain why Doriane was so well-known in their circles, yeah, all that made sense. "Is that not something people are happy about? People like you, I mean." The vibe she'd gotten from how Doriane had been feeling earlier was that, yeah, she got dragged to formal events and shite, but...
Doriane shrugged. "It's mixed. The People of the Song were hit hard by the conflict going into Secrecy — the population still hasn't fully recovered, centuries later. There are some...concerns, that playing around with this sort of thing might lead to the Song being bred out of existence."
"Ah, right, I guess that makes sense." There'd arguably been an attempted genocide against the veela and lilin, so, it wasn't a shock that some of them might be sensitive about that.
"It doesn't, truly. My human mother having me and my sisters shouldn't stop my veela mother from hearing the Call — these things, they have nothing to do with each other. We don't exist instead of children with the Song, but in addition to. But these things often come down more to passion than reason, and so it is."
"What's the Call?"
Doriane gave her a coy little smile...which was honestly making Liz feel a little warm, ugh, why was she so fucking hot? If her fucking hormones could shut up for five fucking seconds, that'd be great... "Can't tell you that one. Some things aren't meant for outsiders."
"...Fair enough." From context, Liz could guess it had something to do with veela/lilin reproduction, which, yeah, that did seem like the sort of thing they'd try to keep secret, given the whole attempted genocide thing.
"Besides, Mum means to fix that too."
Fix people being paranoid about veela being bred out, she meant? "How?"
Doriane opened her mouth to speak, then stopped, a flinch flashing through her head. She straightened in her chair, turning to glance over her shoulder — her body twisting, Liz had to tear her eyes away again, uugghhh... "Keep a secret?"
"I—" Liz had to pause to clear her throat, fuck. "Um. If you keep mine about transferring out."
"All right. Some of us haven't been dealing very well with the...in-between existence that we live. It's a problem that's come up some, with the other children, but Maëlie has it especially bad. That's my youngest sister, Maëlie — she's eight. Have you ever seen a six-year-old so deeply depressed she can hardly even get out of bed?"
"I don't exactly see a lot of six-year-olds at all, but no."
"Sure, but it's not pretty. Biţa told Mum to fix it." Glancing around them again, Doriane lowered her voice a little. "She's been working on a ritual to trigger the metamorphosis — she thinks we should be able to test it before the new year."
Liz turned to arch up an eyebrow at Doriane — by trigger the metamorphosis, she must mean turning a half-veela into a full veela, with the bird form and the fire magic and everything. "We?"
"I'm to be the first subject, again. My mother is very good, but there are always risks. The way we are doesn't trouble me, truly, but I'm not letting Maëlie take that risk."
...
So, unless Liz was horribly misunderstanding something, Doriane was volunteering to undergo an experimental blood alchemy procedure to change species, which could go horribly wrong in who knew how many different ways...not because she wanted it, but just so Lise Delacour could work out the kinks before trying it with her baby sister, who did want it. That was...
...kind of badass, honestly. Liz would never do that, it was insane, but—
Ugh, why was Doriane so fucking hot?!
It took a moment for Liz to struggle against her completely inappropriate reaction, to come up with something halfway normal to say. "Um. Good luck with that?"
Doriane smirked (which was not helping). "Thanks."
"That's why you're here, isn't it? Sorry, I mean Lise Delacour being your mum, you came to meet me."
"It is." Doriane slouched back in her chair again, her feet sprawling out in front of her and her arms folded over her hips — once again, Liz's eyes were drawn to her middle for a second before she could forcefully wrench them away, god dammit. "I've been assigned, you might say, by Biţa, to sound you out. It was... There was never any true sense of closure for the whole ordeal, being kicked out of the family and all. If you asked her, Mamà would say she isn't troubled by it anymore — it was decades ago — but Biţa thought to use this as an opportunity to...try to resolve some things."
"So...what's your mum looking for from me, exactly?" From context, Liz was pretty sure "biţa" was mum in the language the veela and lilin used among themselves, which she'd only heard snippets of a handful of times. Which implied this little scheme was actually being arranged by, um...Chloé? She thought it was Chloé. (Liz had met her briefly, once, back at the Weighing of the Wands — Artèmi had mentally informed her who Chloé's wife was, very awkward.) In fact, she had a feeling that Lise might not even know Doriane was here at all.
"Just making contact for now. Though, the long-term goal would be...some kind of reconciliation, I think."
Yeah, Liz had guessed as much. "That's not happening."
There was a flicker of surprise from Doriane, Liz felt her attention fix on her, sharp and cold against the side of her face. The texture was sort of unpleasant, but she didn't think it was from any real hostility — that was just the veela magic carrying through, she was pretty sure — most of what she was picking up seemed more, like, taken aback, confused. "Oh?"
"No. I don't—" Liz cut herself off with a stiff sigh. She realised her reasons to not want anything to do with Lise were...not the best in the world. But also, she didn't really need to justify herself to Doriane, she just didn't want to get into an argument about it. "Chloé was at the Weighing of the Wands, Artèmi told me who she was. I decided then I wasn't interested in meeting Lise, and I haven't changed my mind since."
Doriane considered that for a moment, her mind turning and...rather uncomfortable. Whether it was because Liz was reacting badly, or if she'd never wanted in on Chloé's scheme in the first place, Liz couldn't tell without intruding. (And she assumed someone who'd grown up around veela would be more likely to notice her snooping, so.) After several seconds, she asked, "May I ask why?"
"I'd rather not say."
"Why not?"
Liz glanced at Doriane only long enough to roll her eyes, before turning to glare back out over the water. "Because I realise it's not exactly rational, and also I don't owe you or your mother an explanation, so you can piss off."
Surprisingly, there was a flicker of crooked, creeping amusement from Doriane, Liz wasn't looking in that direction but she could feel the smirk regardless. "Fair enough. I'm not trying to change your mind, you can be as irrational about it as you like, but you might want to give me something to bring back to Biţa. She's going to keep trying if I don't give her a reason not to — Biţa is stubborn like that."
...Fine. "I just— You've seen the shite about me in the papers, right?"
"Some of it. Are you talking about something specific?"
"My relatives."
There was a sudden sharp stuttering in Doriane's head, Liz could feel her wince. "Ah... Yes, I had heard about that."
"I was told I didn't have any family on my father's side," she said, a bit rushed, forcefully moving on. It had felt like Doriane had maybe been about to say something else, but Liz just wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible. "I used to think, maybe they were wrong, or maybe lying, maybe there was someone out there. I used to imagine them, just, showing up one day and...well, rescuing me, I guess, if you want to put it bluntly. I stopped, eventually, when I got older, and it was obvious how fucking useless, like, the teachers at school were, and the neighbours and whoever, got used to the idea that no one was coming. When I found out Lise existed, I was angry — because my father had a sister, and she never came.
"And I know that's irrational," Liz admitted, glancing back at Doriane. Steadily staring at her, the older girl's mind was dark, and quiet, thoughts grindingly turning over too far out of reach to see. "Like, she probably just assumed I was fine, wherever I was, along with practically everyone else. Severus did, and I don't blame him for it, like he kind of thought I might." That part, yes, they'd talked about that a while ago now, but he'd been even more certain she'd be angry with him over the whole thing with the prophecy, had been very taken aback when she, just, wasn't — a bit exasperated over people taking the stupid thing seriously, maybe, but. Honestly, she didn't know why she wasn't angry with Severus but was with Lise, what the difference was, but feelings were weird and random sometimes, so.
Well, no, actually that did make sense: Severus had helped her, once he was aware she needed it; on the other hand, despite technically being 'family' (for whatever that was worth), she hadn't even heard from Lise directly yet. And, it felt like ages ago, but she did remember hoping someone from her father's side of the family would... It felt personal, in a way Severus intervening maybe a bit late simply didn't. Irrational, sure, but it didn't come from nowhere.
But anyway, she'd been in the middle of a thought. "And I know she was disowned and all, decades ago by then, she probably just didn't think I was any of her damn business. Which, I get that, yeah, but... I don't want to talk to her. I don't think I'd be able to play nice, and, I'm still figuring out my own shite, I just don't want to deal with it, on top of everything else. If that's good enough to convince your mum to drop it."
"Yeah, that should do the trick." There was a low note on Doriane's voice, she... She definitely wasn't happy, but, Liz didn't think she was annoyed with her at all — that edge of frustration was mostly aimed at other people, she was pretty sure. Mostly she just seemed...vaguely sad. Not an intense, immediate feeling, but... "I'll tell her, try to convince her it's not happening. Sorry to bother you."
"No, it's all right, I—" Liz let out a little huff. Turning to meet Doriane's gaze for a second, she said, "I'm annoyed at Lise, not at you. Trust me, I've had far more uncomfortable conversations than this one."
A thin crooked smile pulling at her lips, a bouncy lilt slipping through her mind, Doriane drawled, "What, not uncomfortable about me turning out to be your cousin?"
Liz grimaced — it hadn't been explicitly spelled out, but she could still tell what she meant. "Noticed that, did you."
"I don't know if anyone's told you, Liz, but you're not subtle."
"...It's come up." Honestly, the strongest feeling Liz had about Doriane turning out to be her cousin was wondering if it said something about her that she didn't feel weird about her thoughts turning to whether Doriane had piercings places she couldn't see while she'd been getting off early this morning. Or the fact that she still thought Doriane was distractingly attractive, despite knowing they were related now, and pretty closely at that — it seemed like that was the sort of thing that should bother her, but it just...didn't.
Though, she did kind of feel like an idiot? In retrospect, the hair should have been a hint.
But she obviously wasn't going to be admitting any of that to Doriane herself, so. "Anyway, you said something earlier about tea, right? We're probably late by now."
"Not yet, I don't think," Doriane said, cooperating with the change of subject smoothly enough. It didn't show on her face or voice at all, but Liz was a mind-reading cheater, so she could tell Doriane thought her bluntly ending the conversation like that was funny, but at least she wasn't drawing attention to it. "We should get going in, though."
"I'll catch up in a minute."
"Sure." Doriane rolled up to her feet, smooth and languid. "See you later, Liz."
"Yep."
Liz mostly managed to not stare at her half-veela cousin as she walked off. Mostly.
(Honestly, at this point she was starting to wonder if she had a thing for older women — "older" here being relative, of course...though that was probably actually a good thing? It was obviously better for her to think proper adults were especially sexy, that didn't seem like something to worry about, really...)
After tea, she went back up toward their rooms. She didn't urgently need to start getting ready...though she didn't have that much extra time, honestly. The plan was to treat her hair again, so hopefully it'd at least be relatively cooperative, and that shite needed to soak for a little bit to work properly. That practically required having a bath, and showers were still her preference, but sitting in the tub naked for however long like that didn't bother her anymore like it used to — her whole desensitisation scheme had been useful for multiple things, turned out. Giving the potion time to work was tedious, yes, but it did make her hair more manageable — it would still resist charms, because of course, but other than that — and she could float a book up over her head so she could read while she waited, it wasn't the worst thing in the world. There was still time in the schedule for her to stall a little, but she might as well get started right away.
When Liz walked into the little common room, she found Severus and Síomha sitting together on one of the sofas. She hadn't seen them at tea, but there was a coffee pot and a couple cups on a nearby table, a plate that might once have held biscuits — apparently they'd decided to stay up here instead. Glancing over the remnants of their tea, Liz was already a few steps into the room when she belatedly noticed they were both somewhat underdressed. Severus was in a pair of soft casual trousers (magical make) and a tee shirt (muggle make), which Liz knew was a normal thing for him to be wearing around home when he didn't need to be anywhere, and Síomha was in a bloody dressing gown. They were sitting close on one of the sofas, Síomha practically leaning against Severus, a section of the Herald spread open across both their laps, muttering over something.
...Liz was pretty sure they'd just been having sex not too long ago. That was as good a reason as any to skip tea with everyone else, she guessed.
Mind shifting and dark, Severus seemed somewhat self-conscious, now that she'd caught him in the middle of...whatever this was. But Liz just ignored it, heading for her room. She'd admit, in the privacy of her own head, that she was kind of curious about their relationship, because she could be a nosey bitch like that sometimes, but she'd rather avoid making Severus uncomfortable. It was only fair, after all — he'd mostly stayed out of her business with Daphne, she didn't want to establish a precedent he might use with Katie.
She was most of the way to the door when Síomha called her name, Liz hitching to a stop. The sofa they were on was facing the opposite direction — Síomha had twisted around to look at her, her head tilting back at a kind of funny angle. In Gaelic, she asked, "It occurred to me earlier, but are you going to need a hand?"
"What with?"
"I was thinking of your hair, primarily."
...Oh. Liz's eyes flicked to the back of Severus's head — how good was his Gaelic, exactly? She didn't actually know, she couldn't remember it ever coming up. "Um... Help with my hair might...be good. I can manage the rest myself, but my hair is annoyingly magic, and resists styling charms."
"All right, just tell me whenever you're ready."
"I was going to have a bath..."
"Sure. I'll be in our room, Severus is using that one," she said, pointing to a different door. Getting ready in different rooms so they didn't have to coordinate use of the shower or sink or whatever, Liz guessed. "Just come in whenever you're ready."
"Um, okay." For a second, she just hung there, like there was something she meant to do or say that just wasn't coming to mind, before lurching into motion and slipping into her borrowed bedroom. She closed the door behind her, and then just stood there for a moment, staring blankly at the floor.
This was going to be so awkward...
For this silly fancy dinner, she'd decided to go with the formal robes she'd gotten for her first appearance at the Wizengamot, um...fuck, that was over a year ago now. Not that it mattered, she'd barely grown in that time. She was maybe taller, slightly, and her hips and arse had filled out a bit — enough that the pants she would have worn under those robes that day didn't fit comfortably anymore — but that wouldn't make any difference for these robes, so. When she'd tried them on before packing to make sure they'd fit, she'd been rather taken aback by how extremely unpleasant the fabric felt on her skin, cold and spikey, making her skin crawl — she remembered feeling really uncomfortable previous times she'd worn these robes, but she'd thought that was just because she didn't want to get dragged around to bloody formal events, she hadn't realised it was a Seer thing.
Yeah, avoiding things that bothered her was definitely weakening her tolerance. Still thought it was worth it, though.
And this particular problem was easily solved: she just wore one of her psychometrically-clean linen dresses under the robes. Robes had an internal and external layer to begin with, and the cloth was thick and heavy, the extra layer was unnoticeable, and the enchantments in the robes prevented her from getting overheated. Thankfully, the lining of the matching boots and gloves didn't bother her nearly as much — she did notice a little bit of numb tinging when she tried them on, but it was very subtle, not really any worse than some of the jewellery she wore on a regular basis. She thought she'd be fine.
After her bath, she wrapped her hair up in a towel she'd charmed to speed along the drying — another downside of the potion treatment, using charms to dry it might fuck it up — Liz set to doing her nails. Cosmetic charms were all well and good, for most purposes, but they did have weaknesses. She could circumvent some of those by tying them off, but even then they could be interfered with by magic in the environment, or even Liz's own magical activity — casting too much magic could fuck them up very easily, and the spellform tended to...drift, just left by itself. (Well, not by itself, it was her fucking noisy aura doing that, but whatever.) Back on Sunday, she'd needed to dip into the toilet at the theatre during intermission, the gold tips she'd put on her nails had started slipping, developing weird shimmers of colour that weren't supposed to be there. That sort of thing tended to be more noticeable when she wasn't doing just plain matte colours, and trying to get a bit of a shine to it, or even reflection effects, or glitter, fuck, that sort of thing was very easily messed up.
For, like, smoothing out blemishes, and eye makeup in particular, it didn't really matter, she could use the charms at an event like this and not have any issues. Even when using a sparkly effect around her eyes, that was still fine — it didn't matter if the sparkles wandered a bit, or if how they reflected colours shifted, the overall effect would remain more or less intact. (And she could always take a quick second to reapply it if necessary.) Her nails and her lips, though, were more difficult, with some of the light effects involved in getting them to look right. For very fancy events, it was safest to use actual cosmetics.
Of course, then Liz immediately had the problem that she couldn't draw for shite — her handwriting was still awful — and this sort of thing required a steady hand to do properly. Luckily there were women out there who'd already come up with workarounds for her. She'd talked to Padma and Hannah and Lisa about it, and Hannah had given her a catalogue, from which she'd ordered a false nail kit. Muggles had these too, she was vaguely aware of the concept (if mostly from Petunia's opinion of the kind of women who wore them) — Lisa was pretty sure that was where mages had gotten the idea, actually. It didn't take zero work, she'd had to cut the things she'd been sent down to the size and shape she wanted — that she'd done with charms, which she found far easier to get precise results with than working by hand — but now that they were ready she just had to dab on a bit of glue and carefully settle them in on the proper spot over her real fingernail, a quick tap of her wand to dry the glue, and there, done.
These ones were blue, but a glittery kind of blue, sparkling like gemstones with tiny little flecks of rainbow colour, and when preparing them she'd already applied a thin band of gold foil that'd come in the kit along the tip of each. (Actually alchemised copper, she was pretty sure, but it looked like gold.) She thought they were pretty, and should go with her dress? But she'd admit she didn't exactly have the best instincts when it came to this kind of thing.
The lip stuff was kind of a pain, very carefully spreading it over her lips with a tiny little brush — she did fuck it up a little, accidentally getting a little bit onto her skin around her mouth, now and then grabbing her wand to clean it off, and it'd been too thick in some places and too thin in others, smoothing it out a bit with some charmwork. She thought that looked about right? It wasn't, like, really obvious or anything, just a bit redder and shimmering slightly in the light, but, yeah, she thought that was good enough. Drying it with an underpowered charm — the first time she'd completely dried it, and it'd cracked, crumbling off of her lips like dry clay — and sure, that would do. Doing the eye 'makeup' was much quicker, all done with glamours, just some subtle lining, and then some faintly blueish shadow, putting some sparkles in it, made a few quick adjustments until it looked right, and then tied the charms off. Good enough.
Liz got dressed then, leaving her hair in the towel for now. She did think these robes at least looked pretty, if too fancy to wear practically ever (and also shite for Seer reasons, turned out). The folds of heavy cloth were a pure snowy white, a few panels a pale sky blue, golden thread worked in curling designs all throughout the fabric — held close up to her face she could see the loops and spirals, but from distance it almost seemed to form a regular texture like waves on water. The gold thread was polished well enough to shine, the slightest movement changing the angle the light hit, drawing out glitters and shimmers. The thick fabric had a bit of a weight to it, which she found inexplicably comfortable, tightening the laces on the base layer brought it hugging close around her. Not as firm as some of her other clothes, but nice.
She hadn't planned on pulling on the matching boots and gloves until just before they were about to leave, but the sleeves and skirt brushing against her arms and legs (below where the protective linen of her dress cut off) was unpleasant, so she went ahead and did that right away. These boots were the first shoes she'd ever worn with a real heel to them, and she did like feeling taller...even if everyone else at these sort of things would also be wearing heels, so it didn't actually make any difference. Anyway, quick getting the silvery dangly earrings she'd picked out for tonight and her mother's necklace — which didn't really match, but she didn't care — she took a quick glance in the mirror. She did look a little silly with her hair still wrapped up in the towel, but...she thought that was fine? Yeah, fine. She did like these robes, all bright and sparkly...
So...now there was just her hair left. Which meant it was time to go see Síomha.
She unwrapped the towel, finding her hair mostly dry, her fingers smoothly slipping through it without much resistance. Right, good. She'd just...go over there then.
Hopefully Síomha didn't make this weird...and hopefully Liz didn't either, for that matter...
By the time Liz got back out into their little common room, the door into Severus and Síomha's room was already cracked open — assuming Síomha wouldn't have left it open if she were, er, indecent, Liz stuck her head in. This room was a mirror of hers, Síomha sitting in an armchair by the windows overlooking the gardens. One of the windows was open, Síomha writing a letter — with what looked a lot like a muggle biro, surprisingly enough — a tawny owl sitting on the sill, waiting. Um...
Her voice a bit unfocussed, occupied with her writing, she said, "Elizabeth. I'll be done with this in just a minute." Her eyes flicked up to Liz, quick ran over her head to toe before turning back to her letter. "Did you have a hat or pins or something you meant to wear?"
"Oh, um... I do have a...thing, I'll be back."
When she'd gotten these robes, she'd been in a phase of being very insistent about always protecting her neck from her hair with a scarf or something. That was less important these days, since the potion treatment she'd figured out now made the texture smooth enough it didn't bother her anymore, but it was pretty and it matched the robes, so she might as well use it. A, like, shawl or veil or something (she wasn't entirely certain of the correct term), the fabric very thin and delicate, semi-transparent and showing lacey patterns here and there, thick with gold thread like the robes themselves, making it go all shiny and glittery. She'd meant to come back and put it on after Síomha fixed her hair, but she guessed Síomha kind of needed to know what she was planning on, so.
By the time she got back, Síomha was on her feet, closing the window, the owl gone. Liz hadn't gotten a good look at her sitting in the chair — she hitched to a stop just inside the door, blinking at her. "Are you going to this silly fancy dinner thing in the Saoirse uniform?"
Though, it wasn't the normal Saoirse uniform, a more formal version of it maybe? The heavily-enchanted leather armour was gone, instead a long, loose-sleeved tunic in white, golden embroidery along the hems and the neck — the details tiny, but Liz could make out spirals and crossed spears and leaping wolves — over that a thick sleeveless jacket falling to her knees, the heavy fabric dyed a rich verdant green and stitched with twining Celtic-knot-looking tracery in yellow. The buttons were shining gold (probably bronze), oversized starbursts, against the green of the jacket reminding her of the nationalist flag, which was definitely intentional. The jacket was only buttoned down to her waist, below that the panels parted by her hips, below the hem of the tunic deep earthy brown trousers tucked into knee-high duelling boots, the leather decorated with little designs of sunbursts and snarling wolf heads, glinting with bits of bronze here and there, matching the bracers hugging each forearm which definitely doubled as wand holsters...
Seriously, what the hell? Was that even allowed? There were, like, dress codes and shite...
Síomha glanced down at herself, and then turned a raised eyebrow up at Liz, a subtle shade of sly amusement slipping through her rigid occlumency. "I am a warrior — it's only appropriate that I dress like one."
...Well, yeah, sure, she guessed. She realised mages had some old-fashioned shite around that kind of thing — "old-fashioned" as in literally mediaeval — just, most of the nobility didn't really consider themselves warriors anymore, so she didn't see it very often. Though, Lady Ingham sort of dressed like this at the Wizengamot, when she thought about it — in a similar colour scheme, even, since the Ingham colours happened to overlap with the Gaelic nationalist ones. "You know, there are going to be a lot of Ministry types there, who probably aren't going to like the nationalist theme much."
Síomha smirked. "Is that so? That thought hadn't occurred to me."
Even with her mind blocked off, the sarcasm was still extremely obvious — Liz didn't quite stop herself from laughing out loud.
(At least someone was having fun with this stupid thing.)
"So, a veil," Síomha said, walking over toward where Liz was standing. "Did you have any thoughts on what you wanted?"
"Um, I don't know, I thought it'd just...plait it, and wrap this thing around, like..."
"Mm." Her attention focussing in on Liz, sharp and cool and observant — which was a little uncomfortable, making her fidget a little, but it wasn't that bad — Síomha started taking a little loop around her, looking her over. Pausing behind her, she felt movement, her spine and shoulders tensing, but Síomha just gently lifted up a bit of her hair and let it fall again, slipping through her fingers. "How about something more like this?"
An illusion appeared in front of Liz — it was clearly supposed to be herself, viewed from an angle behind her to her right, though most of the details were washed out, only her hair in focus. The shawl thing was wrapped loosely around her neck and draped over her head, the ends hanging down her back under her hair, which had multiple plaits in it, a couple wider ones and a few thin ones, but between the plaits some of it still hanging free, showing the bit of waviness the potion stuff left her with. "Um...that looks fine, I guess?"
Sounding a little amused, "Was that a polite fine, I guess, or...?"
"Sorry, I mean we can do that, yeah. I'm just not that strongly opinionated, is all."
"All right." Síomha stepped around her back into view, a flick of her wand conjuring a wooden stool over by the windows. "Go ahead and sit down, and we'll get started. Ah, did you bring any embroidery wire? Silver."
"...No? Why would I have?"
Her lips twitched. "Why, indeed. One moment, I might have some you can use..." While Liz shuffled over to the stool, Síomha dipped into the bathroom. She came back out a few seconds later, with a snarl of wires in one hand and an unfamiliar tool in the other. "If you could prime these while I get started?"
"Um, what does that mean?"
"Right, of course. Here, hold on to this," Síomha said, setting the wires on Liz's lap. The angle her legs were at had them immediately start tumbling off, she caught them with one hand, pulled her feet up to the next post so they would stay. It'd looked like a big tangle at first glance, but she could see now there were several different curls of wire, linked into each other in places but not really tangled together too badly. Síomha extracted one wire, drew it through her fist to work out the worst of the kinks, before showing Liz the tool in her other hand. It sort of looked like a pair of scissors or pliers or something, with the shape of the handle, except the swivel was way at the opposite end, instead of a blade a flat length of metal with multiple holes in it. "See this hole here, right above the handle?" Squeezing the halves of the handle together, Síomha slid something back with her thumb, a panel in the side of the business end (whatever the hell that was for) sliding out of the way. She fed one end of the wire through the hole she'd pointed out — there seemed to be some resistance, Síomha needing to force it through. The wire stuck out of the other end...and seemed to droop a little? Swapping the tool over to her other hand, Síomha grabbed onto the drooping end of the wire, and yanked it through, little sparks of magic sizzling in the air—
"Oh that's so cool!" When the opposite end was released, the wire dangled from Síomha's hand, swinging with momentum and bouncing. Liz reached for the end, Síomha let go, she ran the altered wire through her fingers — it was impossibly pliant, bending and swinging like a spaghetti noodle, but still hard and smooth to the touch, it— "What is this?"
Smiling — maybe internally laughing at her a little, but Liz was too fascinated to care right now — Síomha said, "It's an alchemical process, I don't understand it myself. It isn't a permanent alteration, it only lasts for twenty-four hours or so, but it won't be affected by interference of any kind. Or at least, not any we're likely to be exposed to tonight. It's common practice in the textile crafts, makes metal thread for easier to work with."
"I can see that, fuck. So, just pull it through the hole?" She held her hand out for the thing, their fingers touching as Síomha handed it over — and Liz tensed, grimacing against a sudden sharp, hot, prickling feeling, under it a deep, creeping chill...
Síomha frowned, an almost wary wiggle slipping out of her head. "Is something wrong?"
"No, just, um...Seer moment." Liz hesitated for a second, before admitting, "You're going to kill people, felt that." Which wasn't exactly a surprise, what with the war coming up and all.
"...Ah." Straightening, Síomha backed off a step. A cool, lurching, discomfort echoing across the air (unsettled enough her occlumency had slipped), she just stared down at Liz, uncertain. Finally, she asked, "Is that...going to be a problem?"
"Probably not." Severus had killed plenty of people too, and that didn't bother her. "Here, try again," she said, holding up a hand. With a surprising degree of obvious reluctance, Síomha reached to take her hand — after a brief flare, the painful heat quickly dribbled down to nothing. She could still feel a bit of a chill (reminding her of the moment after casting the Annihilation Curse, the lingering presence of death), but it was quiet, not a big deal. Honestly, Síomha's discomfort, much louder now with skin contact, was worse than the Seer echo. Worming her hand out of Síomha's, she said, "It's fine, just took me by surprise at first."
"If you say so."
Liz frowned — there was no reason to sound so sceptical. "I do say so."
Síomha was slow to get started from there, her discomfort thick and prickling and nauseatingly warm around Liz — because of course now her occlumency had to slip — but after a moment she pushed past it, sidled around behind Liz to start combing through her hair. By that point she already had two more of the wires 'primed', laying the finished ones to dangle over her arm, this was still so cool...
She should see if she could find one of these things in that catalogue of craft shite she had sitting around — chances were she'd flipped right past it with no idea of what it was. Some of her enchanting work on her clothes in the past had actually been done with metal wire, but she'd just forced it, not realising there was a way it was meant to be done, like an idiot. And, well, why she was thinking about making her own clothes in future was primarily for comfort reasons, but there was no reason she couldn't make shite pretty while she was at it...though, hopefully she could do the stitching with charmwork, she didn't think she had the artistic ability or the patience to do complicated embroidery by hand...
It seemed like Síomha was trying to avoid actually touching her, at first, worried about bothering her for Seer reasons, but as she got going and Liz didn't keep cringing every time, she got less cautious about it. Honestly, having Síomha's mind intermittently slap loud against hers was worse than the psychometric shite — her occlumency was mostly back in place, cool and smooth and featureless, hardly overwhelming, but it was still uncomfortable. Standing this close behind her, Liz was also entirely enveloped in her aura which...wasn't that bad, actually? Thick and tingly, warm and cool at the same time, like a gentle breeze on a sunny spring day. It wasn't unpleasant in itself, no, but it was intense, big...
Kind of making Liz feel uncomfortably exposed, honestly. At least in part in an effort to distract herself, she said, "Surprised you know what you're doing, like, even got silver wire sitting around to put in your bloody hair."
"Is that surprising?"
"I dunno, I guess I just...didn't expect you to be all into girly shite? Don't seem the type, is all." When they went to that play and fancy restaurant the day before yesterday was the only time she'd seen Síomha in a dress...though she had nailed it, so.
A flutter of slanted, wry amusement leaked through the metallic smoothness of her mind — much louder than Liz was used to from her, since Síomha's knuckles happened to be touching the back of her neck at the moment. "I may be a warrior, but I'm a woman too."
...Fair enough.
"Here, could you hand me one of those?" Liz picked up one of the dangly silver noodles (still bloody fascinating), held it over her shoulder for Síomha. "I think you're the sort who would understand that...ambivalence, let's say."
"What do— Oh, girly shite, right. Yeah, I guess, I do, um..." For a second, she hesitated, wondering how much she was comfortable admitting to Síomha. She suspected a fair part of being kind of put off by anything too feminine when she'd been younger had been related to Dursley shite, as she'd gotten better about that she'd gotten more comfortable with it. (And there was that bit of the Dark Lord she'd subsumed ages ago, because apparently the Dark Lord was unexpectedly girly.) Not comfortable admitting that much, probably. "I didn't used to care about it much, but like the last year or so, I— I don't know, it's fun."
"I do remember being your age," Síomha drawled, more amusement licking at her skin.
Liz was pretty sure she was specifically thinking of puberty, and hormones and shite. "Oh shut up. But yeah, I get it, just... I really don't like getting dragged to stupid formal events and whatever. Which sucks for me, because I'm going to get roped into noble parties basically indefinitely, but whatever. Getting prettied up for other stuff is fine, but...I don't know, it kind of sucks the fun out of it? Don't know if that makes sense."
"No, I understand." For a moment, she focussed on whatever she was doing back there, taking a couple more threads of silver to do...stuff with. Working them into the plaits, presumably. Her occlumency was still pretty solid, but from this close Liz could feel motion inside, thoughts churning away — the opaque shell around her mind was enough to block out any of the details, but Síomha was definitely mulling over something. Finally, she said, "Even something you enjoy, to have it demanded from you is...different. Just now, I'm reminded me of how I felt yesterday. It isn't the same, quite, but I guess it's still on my mind."
"You mean the thing at the Hill?"
Síomha just let out a little hum, reaching for another length of silver...and didn't explain any further, focussing on her work back there, her mind darkly churning.
"...Was that bad? I was kind of out of it yesterday, but..."
"They have little enough respect for us in Britain—" The English- and Cambrian-speaking parts of the country, she meant. "—believe we are somehow less civilised than they. And they aren't shy about it, near any time one holiday festival or public wedding comes along you'll hear snide comments about those boorish, intemperate Gaels, condescending hand-wringing about public safety, even paranoia about illicit rituals. I can't tell you how many Brits out of London or Anglesey—" Associated with the Ministry or the Wizengamot. "—have spoken down to me almost as they would a child. Spoken of us, in the papers or in London or occasionally even in the law, as though we are a nation of children, immature in a way they are not. And the kind of public celebrations you see now and then throughout the year are an example they use as proof.
"And yet, when it suits them, they still wish to use us. They wish to put on a show for their foreign guests — trying to prove that they are as civilised as the rest of Europe, especially after the disaster of the World Cup. And, the national question is beginning to draw attention, attention London does not want. They can't hide the Gaels from foreign eyes — especially as Scáthachluain is itself stolen land, our international allies would ask awkward questions — but the picture they want to show is one of harmonious coexistence. And so they put a Gael on the judges' panel, a comfortable woman of conservative politics, with connections in Anglesey and London, who will not cause too much of a scene.
"And when it is asked of us, we are expected to perform our culture for their foreign guests. They don't respect us, they don't understand — that sort of celebration is only for certain holidays, weddings, or other rare events, the settlement after a war. They don't care, they demand we do it anyway. I'm sure the priests have their reasons for agreeing to it, but I'm insulted, found the whole thing distasteful. I'm hardly the only one, either."
...Oh. Well, that...made a lot of sense, actually. Liz guessed she just hadn't thought about it that hard. But then, she wasn't one of them, so, it made sense that sort of thing might not occur to her. Maybe that whole event had been a bad idea, when she thought about it? Pushing past the funny squirming in her stomach, Liz siad, "If they're trying to convince you lot you don't need your own country, they sure seem to shoot themselves in the foot all the fucking time."
"They do at that, don't they," Síomha drawled, more dark amusement echoing through her. "Severus has mentioned you plan on transferring overseas. That's not a bad idea — things are going to get messy here soon."
"Yeah, I know. I'm a Seer, remember?"
There was a little flutter of surprise. "Ah...there you are, then." Not sure what was going on in there, that Liz knew there was a war coming up shouldn't come as any great shock — Síomha had just said as much herself...
While Síomha was busy having some kind of reaction to that, Liz was distracted with her own thoughts. The squirming in her stomach had only gotten worse, her fingers fidgeting with her robes, it... She was feeling weirdly guilty — weird, because she didn't know what the fuck that was about. It'd been sparked off by Síomha admitting she'd, well, kind of hated yesterday — her occlumency was very good, exceptionally good, but Liz had felt the simmering behind the wall through the whole little rant, "insulted" had been kind of underselling it — but it wasn't like that was her fault. She hadn't even known Síomha was going to be here! Didn't know what the fuck she had to feel guilty about, and, a prickle of anxiety spreading across her shoulders, wondering about Severus asking her along, and...
She didn't know, it was confusing. Sometimes, how fucking opaque even her own bloody feelings could be was just frustrating.
It just didn't seem fair, she guessed? Síomha didn't even need to be here, and... She didn't know, putting up with that shite because Severus asked her along just...kind of sucked, that was all.
...
Liz couldn't fix that, of course, but it was belatedly occurring to her that there was something else that was hardly fair going on, and that one was her fault. It was hard to say whether it was a wise thing to say, really — there was no telling how Síomha would feel about it — but with nerves still crawling over her skin and her insides squirming, she didn't– it—
She had no idea if telling was a good idea, but hopefully it'd make her feel better. This stupid formal dinner was going to be fucking uncomfortable just on its own — feeling inexplicably guilty and vaguely nervous through the whole thing would only make it worse.
She hesitated a long moment, her fingers tapping at her thighs, her lip ring clicking against her teeth. "Um. I'm a Seer."
"Yes?"
"I..." Trying to fight down the feeling that telling her this was a bad idea, actually, Liz cleared her throat. "Did Severus ever tell you about our bet?"
"I don't think so, no. What bet is this?"
Right, she hadn't thought he would have, just checking. "It's, ah. That last night of the World Cup, I got a feeling he was going to meet someone important."
There was a little wiggle from Síomha, too indistinct for her to interpret. "Oh?"
"Yeah. And I, er..." Just, tear off the bandage, Liz, come on. "I've known since, er, October that you two are getting married."
The little tugs on her hair as Síomha did whatever suddenly stopped. Thoughts churning away in her head, occlumency too opaque for Liz to see any of it, for a moment she stood frozen, silent. And then she said, just, "Ah," and...went back to plaiting Liz's hair.
...What, was that it?
After a long silent moment — Liz wondering if she'd just fucked it up, if Síomha was quietly freaking out over there or, she didn't know, something — she asked, "How certain are you?"
"I'm– I don't want to say one hundred per cent because, you know, Seer shite isn't like that..."
"That sounds like you mean you're very certain."
"...Yeah, pretty sure." And it didn't seem like Síomha had anything to say to that, going back to fixing Liz's hair, still quietly thinking something in there. When she did say something, it was just to ask for the rest of the silver threads. Sitting there trying not to fidget, Liz said, "Sorry, I, er... Should I not have said anything? Just, I did tell Severus, and, seemed fair, you know..."
"I do appreciate that. I don't mean to worry you, I'm only—" Síomha cut herself off, with a little lurch Liz didn't know how to read. "Well, I'm not that surprised, honestly. You two have a bet?"
"When I told him, he was sceptical, because he can be a stubbornly pessimistic bastard like that, and it was making me a little annoyed, so I bet him twenty galleons."
Síomha let out a little scoff. "Well, that was foolish of him. If you're going to bet against a Seer, never wager gold."
...She really didn't know what to think of this reaction, but it didn't seem like Liz had accidentally fucked it up for him, so. Probably fine.
"All right, fhéileacáin, I'm about finished here. Let's get that veil on, and see what you think of it."
Liz had set the thing down on one of the armchairs, out of reach. She summoned it over to her hand, while passing it over her shoulder she turned to frown up at Síomha. "Did you just call me butterfly?"
Her lips twitching, just a little, Síomha arched up one eyebrow. "Sure. Should I not?"
...Well, it was just a little bit awkward, she guessed. It was a cutesy nickname — some people used it for girls who made themselves up all colourful and flashy, to Muirgheal think more, like, little girls all prettied up for church or whatever — which wasn't really bad, just, slightly embarrassing. Also, Síomha was using nicknames with her now? What?
But it didn't bother Liz that much...actually, she thought she might prefer Síomha calling her féileacán above Elizabeth. (She didn't know why, that was just a Severus thing to her, it was always weird whenever anyone else did it.) So, whatever, she just shrugged it off.
When Síomha was done back there, she cast a couple mirror charms so Liz could see. That did turn out pretty neat — each of the plaits had silver threads worked into them, outlining the pattern of the weave, and there were more threads through the sections of her hair left loose, the alchemically-treated wire swaying with everything else when she moved her head, different threads covered and uncovered, glinting and shining in the light. The polished silver against the solid black of her hair was a pretty cool effect. Adding the metal glint to her hair was really neat, actually, she might have to pick up some embroidery wire to start doing this herself...though, after the blood alchemy thing, she should probably use gold instead, better for her future hair colour...
"That's really good, thanks." Liz had no idea whether that was enough of a thing to say, with as much work as Síomha put into it, she was so bad at this kind of thing.
Síomha didn't seem offended at least, just gave her a little nod and dismissed the mirror charms with a flick of her fingers. "Good. Remember to get the wire back to me tomorrow, please — it's not mine, I borrowed it from an aunt in the first place."
After a second of hesitation, Liz drawled, "Tomorrow? What, plan on being busy tonight?"
"Something like that."
"Right, well, don't forget the privacy charms."
"Oh quiet, you..."
(Multiple times that night, she caught Síomha watching Severus. And she wasn't the only one to notice, either — Severus would occasionally give her a look back, confused. Probably thinking about, well, what Liz had told her, and stuff. It was hard to read Síomha in general, and with something this subtle, it was really impossible to guess what was going on in there.)
(Liz still wasn't sure whether telling her had been a good idea, but it was too late to take it back now.)
And there's the other half. I did not expect this much out of this point on my outline, that shit keeps happening to me ._.
Anyway, Final Task is next, see you then.