 Main activity post 3 (sorry it got so long...) Lil' gooz | Sarangel | Junior Dweeb
Norah had sat down. Again. Except this time she wasn't on the floor and she wasn't playing with glitter or anything so really that was progress if you thought about it. Or maybe it wasn't progress because without the sparkly swirlies it wasn't apparent how she'd be able to get happy enough to cast this darn patronus anyways. That bit didn't even make SENSE because she had been much happier before she'd started trying to cast this spell, which was all sorts of counter-intuitive. She didn't even take a second to smile at the fact that she could use big words in her head and actually know what they meant. And THAT'S how she knew that this was a big big big problem. Stupid patronuses (or lack thereof) ruining everything. If only they weren't so CUTE.
She sat on top of her desk swinging her legs and beginning her attempt to regroup. Start fresh. All that jazz. That was what her mum told her to do whenever she tried to learn something new, and even though it hadn't really worked when she'd tried to learn to knit, draw stuff that didn't just look like blobs, plait her hair, or really ANYTHING else, it was going to work this time. She'd decided, and fourteen year old decisions were big enough to matter. The fourth year trained her mind to exciting things instead of looking at all the people going into the maze or making puffs of white come out of their wands. She thought of sparkles and hugs and kittens and camels and plants and swimming and getting all the way to the top of a tree. She thought of when she ran so hard the wind whistling past made her ears feel like they were going to fall off. She thought of the big chocolate cakes her mum would make her on her birthdays and being a detective with Hayden and when her potions turned out right and the first time she got to go to Diagon Alley all by herself. Norah swung her legs one last time as she thought and thought and thought about all of those things, before sliding off the desk and onto her feet again. She stood up tall with her wand in hand as she came up with more and more good thoughts that swirled around in her head like a tornado. As her eyes found Toby, she imagined that she could blow all those thoughts right out of there and so she did, because her imagination was in charge, remember? Fourteen year olds got to be in charge. Norah exhaled in Toby's general direction, imagining that he could catch some of the happy thoughts even if he was all the way on the other side of the room. That didn't matter.
She exhaled and exhaled until she started to feel dizzy but she didn't stop until there was only one thought left in there. The tornado was over and she had her memory. The Hufflepuff raised her wand as she let this memory take up the entire space of her brain again, but this time she didn't try to force it to be happy enough. She just let it be there, taking up space and making that space warm and lovely with images of little Sebby, baby Marcel, and all of them together with the book and the smiles and the pride and the peace and the power. She held her breath, not wanting to breathe this thought out like she had with the rest. "Expecto Patronum! With her mouth shut tight again, she traced a circle in the air with her wand which proceeded to clatter to the floor right after emitting the teeny weeniest puff of white vapor in the history of the whole entire universe. But guess what. It was THERE for a second before it disappeared and Norah's wand and jaw both fell all the way to the floor. At least her jaw was nearER the floor, anyways. Same difference.
Not bothering to pick her wand back up again, she climbed onto the top of the desk and pulled both knees up, now covering her mouth with both hands to keep from shrieking aloud. She did something. She made a whole entire teeny weeny puff of white vapor that was good for a grand total of zero things but that wasn't the point. The point was that she'd done something. Norah uncovered her mouth and used her hands to stabilize herself as she craned her neck to see if Professor Dakest had seen. She'd done something. SOMETHING. SHE'D DONE IT.
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