afternoon oasis (lottie)

[leleti fatuma truelove]

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leleti truelove

Seventh year hadn’t gotten off to a very good start for Leleti.

She’d managed to get a grip on the bad thoughts, as she called them, for the most part, but she still had yet to break out of feeling sorry for herself. Leleti felt almost guilty about it, there were others that had lost just as much, if not more than, herself. But she couldn’t stop. For the first time in her life, her grades were slipping. The professors were more than understanding about her handwriting of course, her right hand still wasn’t up to being the dominant by default. Try as she might to work on her fine motor skills, writing was a challenge, her letters were shaky and misshapen. Though it was her wand that was betraying her more.

Perhaps it noticed her confidence was gone, the core able to sense the awkward grip of her remaining hand. Spells that Leleti had once been able to weave with ease were difficult now, often fizzling out in a shower of sparks befitting an overconfident first year trying to do something they weren’t ready for. It was embarrassing. Shy to begin with, Leleti had retreated even further in class, never once raising her hand. She didn’t even have Quidditch as a distraction. Cayden had insisted she at least fly with the team, but she hadn’t figured out how to play with one arm. How was she supposed to hold onto both her broom and the quaffle?

The distraction Leleti did have, however, was Lottie.

The girls had grown close, and Leleti considered it an absolute blessing that Lottie had taken up an internship under Professor Fawn so they could still see one another. In the afternoons in the time between her last class and dinner, Leleti had taken to keeping Lottie company as she tended to the creatures. Sometimes helping, others picking at her homework and chatting at whim. Today she’d settled herself outside the pen where Lottie was to tend to the blast-ended skrewts. “You will be careful, won’t you?” said Leleti as the blonde entered the enclosure. She knew it was a foolish question, Lottie was a natural with all the creatures, but Leleti didn’t trust the ones with pincers, stingers, and fire shooters.

lottie pandora scamander ● 377 ● no notes

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[lottie pandora scamander]

we're all mad here

❝

Graduating had come with a ringing note of uncertainty for nearly everyone in her year. There was no finality to it, no distinct honoring of the accomplishments and milestones they had all worked towards. Just a lingering feeling of tragedy, one that grew in magnitude with every passing day. It was only natural to not know what to do.

Except Lottie had always known. She may not have known the exact path she’d take, but she knew. Creatures were always going to be her destiny. Professor Fawn suggesting she apply for the internship had only been the nudge she had needed to take the first step towards that goal. It let her remain at Hogwarts, where some of her friends still attended school, which had recently resumed.

And it kept her close to Leleti Truelove. Lottie wasn’t quite sure when the lines had blurred between them, but they had. It wasn’t upsetting in any manner, it simply was. Much of Lottie’s existence happened like that, and it suited her just fine.

Like the free periods that the Ravenclaw student spent with the newly-minted intern before supper. They had slowly become the blonde’s favorite part of the day. And for that particular afternoon, Lottie was going to be taking care of the blast-ended skrewts.

You will be careful, won’t you?

Lottie swung the other leg over the fence and shot a cheeky smile in Leleti’s direction as she dropped to the dirt in the pen. “Probably,” she answered dreamily, sweeping her ice-blonde curls into a messy pile at the back of her head. “You don’t have to worry your pretty head over it. That’ll make them nervous.”

leleti fatuma truelove ● they're so soft ● 276

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[leleti fatuma truelove]

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leleti truelove

Lottie seemed to navigate life with an ease and acceptance that was remarkable. She seemed so content to take things as they were, it spoke to a rare sort of maturity that Leleti had seen very little of. She wondered how it worked, how someone could simply just be in the way the Scamander girl was- but Lottie wasn’t a riddle to be solved. She simply was. Leleti had found it growing on her, their afternoons together had become something to look forward to, a reason to keep going. Maybe she might figure things out.

The optimism was fickle, fragile, but Leleti would take it where she could find it.

“Probably,”

Leleti wasn’t sure if it was meant in jest, but she found her unease increasing. Lottie was a natural, sure, but there were certain creatures that one definitely did not want to mess with. Leleti could only watch as Lottie put up her hair in anticipation of her task.

“You don’t have to worry your pretty head over it. That’ll make them nervous.”

She looked up from the transfiguration textbook she’d only been paying half attention to with a sheepish sort of smile. “Right, sure, I’m sorry,” said Leleti, feeling herself blush. If creatures could sense nerves she’d have to force herself to relax, which would only serve to make her more tense, which would then make the creatures nervous… Leleti took a deep breath, hand instinctively going to her mouth where she bit a fingernail. But despite the nerves she couldn’t help a peculiar sort of fluttering in the pit of her stomach at how Lottie had attempted to soothe it. Lottie thought she was pretty?

lottie pandora scamander ● 278 ● no notes

MADE BY VEL OF GS

[lottie pandora scamander]

we're all mad here

❝

There was nothing set in stone about life except one thing: death. And even that was not entirely true - vampires, after all, lived without that certainty. But Lottie was no vampire - not that she held anything against them. It was not a life she wished for herself. With that one certainty for her own life in mind, Lottie lived a little less…rigidly. Change was as natural as breathing. She’d taken the losses she was dealt and moved with them rather than raging against them. It was something very few people were able to do - she’d gotten more than a strange look or two about how she was celebrating Lysander rather than mourning him.

Of course, Lottie missed her elder brother. She was upset - some days she felt like he was taken from her physically far too soon. But he still stayed with her. If she only remembered him in bitterness, what good would that do anyone?

But it was her way of thinking, and she could not force that on all the others trying to process something different. Leleti, for example, the brilliant and beautiful Ravenclaw, had lost an arm the same day Lottie had lost her brother. Completely separate entities, both with different expectations of how to heal and move on. Lottie did not impose her own thoughts about Lele’s situation onto her - she just let her friend exist, let her figure things out on her own terms. While Lottie knew that quidditch was effectively done for Leleti, she also knew that several other opportunities would come up, once she opened herself up to them. But there was no set timeline for that. No set timeline for anything.

Right, sure, I’m sorry.

“Sorry for what?” Lottie asked with another smile. “You apologize too much. And don’t say you’re sorry for that, either!” She added with a grin and a shake of her pointer finger in Leleti’s direction. “Or I’ll have to find someone else to ask to be my date to Professor Clarke’s meteor shower viewing.”

leleti fatuma truelove ● middle priority ● 337

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[leleti fatuma truelove]

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leleti truelove

Lottie’s confidence was something that Leleti often found herself in awe of. Especially when she traipsed into the enclosures of the school’s more dangerous creatures without an ounce of trepidation. Leleti had worked with the skrewts before in class, though always from a more healthy distance than the blonde who could feed the terrifying beasts by hand. Even before the attack on Hogsmeade when she’d lost her limb she’d been afraid of losing fingers. That went doubly so now.

“Sorry for what? You apologize too much. And don’t say you’re sorry for that, either!”

Leleti managed a small, nervous sort of giggle. It seemed as if Lottie had read her mind, indeed the Ravenclaw’s lips had parted to offer another apology before the other girl had cut the statement off before it began, wagging a finger at her as if apologizing unnecessarily were something she ought to be scolded for. Maybe she ought to be after all. Leleti was still unaccustomed to the notion that she could exist without feeling sorry for it- indeed she felt more burdensome than she had any business being- but Lottie didn’t seem to mind. She’d been there through it all, and Lele was grateful for it.

“Or I’ll have to find someone else to ask to be my date to Professor Clarke’s meteor shower viewing.”

The next of Lottie’s statements took Leleti entirely off guard. Her eyes briefly widened and she felt her face burn. She’d never had words to quite define what she and Lottie had, it was fledgling, it was unique, but to go on a date? The idea was both exciting and terrifying. It was the first step either of them had made toward putting any sort of label on it- though Leleti found she didn’t mind, and rather liked the idea. “You were going to ask me on a date?” Leleti asked, as if she couldn’t believe it, though she smiled shyly regardless.

lottie pandora scamander ● 323 ● no notes

MADE BY VEL OF GS

[lottie pandora scamander]

we're all mad here

❝

There was a grief in Leleti. It was only natural. She had quite literally lost a part of herself. That type of wound, while physical, also tended to carve out a piece of one’s soul. Lottie knew grief, but not Leleti’s kind of grief. She supposed they were all similar, in a way, but to compare them would be unfair.

But what was more unfair was that Leleti felt like she needed to apologize for everything. To live in her guilt, wallow in it until it consumed part of her just like her grief. The two together were a very toxic mix, and while Lottie would not force her optimism or company on Leleti, she did truly believe - or at least hope - that being together was helping.

Not just Leleti, but Lottie herself, too. Losing Lysander had been a pain unlike anything else. Just as she did with everything, Lottie was handling it in her own way. But in her time with Leleti, she couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming gratitude. Lys would have been happy for his sister, she knew it. He would not want her to bar herself from that happiness because he was gone.

Watching Leleti’s face darken as the blood heated her cheeks only made her feel more secure in that. They were happy together. They made each other happy. To Lottie, that mattered more than anything else in the world.

You were going to ask me on a date?

Nervous, shy disbelief colored Leleti’s tone, and the other Ravenclaw couldn’t help but grin. “Of course I was,” she insisted. “I mean, I know it was mostly for the students, but I don’t think she’d mind.” Lottie shrugged nonchalantly.

“So what do you say? Will you be my date?”

leleti fatuma truelove ● so soft ● 293

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[leleti fatuma truelove]

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leleti truelove

Lottie looked back at her with a broad grin, Leleti found her heart fluttering in response. It felt good to be the one to put that smile there, the pair of them had both seen and felt too much, these shreds of normalcy were the things worth sticking around for. Moments like these, it didn’t feel so heavy, losing everything she had lost. Eventually the burden would return to her shoulders, both metaphorically and physically, the tension of her grief snaking up her spine and clamping at the space where her neck met her torso.

But for now, Leleti felt light.

She slipped a scrap of parchment into her textbook, closing the cover, suddenly no longer that interested in her school work. There would always be time to circle back to it later. Leleti pushed herself off the ground, dusting off her seat before cautiously approaching the fence of the enclosure. One of the skrewts put its snout to the air, sniffing warily, so she stopped just short of the fence post. Maybe it could smell her wariness.

“Of course I was. I mean, I know it was mostly for the students, but I don’t think she’d mind.”

Lele found a grin of her own, her cheeks still felt hot. She supposed she should have known better, but Lottie had made her point in the same gentle way she always did. Lele never felt stupid or silly around her, something which the Ravenclaw was very grateful for. She just wished she knew how to put it into words without sounding the part.

“So what do you say? Will you be my date?”

She beamed again, a tangled mess of emotions generating butterflies in her stomach, but for once she was entirely certain of her answer. “Yes, yes, I would like that very much,” said Leleti.

lottie pandora scamander ● 305 ● no notes

MADE BY VEL OF GS

[lottie pandora scamander]

we're all mad here

❝

Being shy or nervous wasn’t part of Lottie’s nature, it had never been. She’d always been a happy child. Confident, in her own way. Like her mother. So like her mother. Soft-spoken, yes, and curious, with a taste for the fantastical, but never once had she let the opinions of others give her any pause. Leleti, it seemed, cared quite a great deal about these things. It wasn’t something that made Lottie like her any less. But if Leleti thought that Lottie had those opinions, it was easy enough to make it perfectly clear about how she felt without hurting any feelings.

And, of course, Leleti could say no and it wouldn’t change Lottie’s feelings about their friendship. But she hoped that Lele would say yes. Lottie wasn’t extremely familiar with romance, especially how people could be cruel and the things they said about her. But she knew that she liked Leleti. Really, really liked her. To a point where being around her, or finding ways to spend time with her, became a subtle priority.

Watching the meteor shower together was a step in that direction. It certainly sounded romantic, and Lottie had heard other students gossiping and gushing about who they wanted to go with. It had made her think a little about it.

So, she asked.

Leleti took a moment to respond, but she was smiling. And it was that smile that Lottie hadn’t seen in a while, that looked so warm on a face that had been full of contemplative sorrow for too long.

Yes, yes, I would like that very much.

“It’s a date!” Lottie declared, curls bouncing as she bounced on her toes in happiness. “I can bring the blankets, and you can bring the snacks. I’ve heard meteor showers bring out moon frogs. I’ve always wanted to see one. Now, we can see one together!”

leleti fatuma truelove ● we can wrap this up or keep, up to you! ● 311

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