Gryffindor
Captain & Chaser 7th Year
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Post by Liz Reeves on Jun 29, 2016 20:20:00 GMT -5
Liz had been having a good Saturday as she came in to the Great Hall smiling with her broom over her back. Laughing with the two other chasers on her team, a both seventh years as well. As they sat down and started eating the other two got distracted by the mail from home. Liz never got mail, especially not from her parents. But as she started eating her bacon, her family’s eagle owl landed right in front of her making her jump and swear at it. Realizing it had something for her she took the letter off of its leg as it started eating her food. She stared at the elegant script that was her mother’s hand writing. Opening the letter she knew it couldn’t be anything good. She didn’t know just how bad it was until she read it. Once and then again, staring at the letter with incomprehension. She’d gotten out of her last engagement with a lot of pain caused to her. And now her parents had placed her in another one. She wasn’t having this. Standing up she noticed her intended reading a letter as well. Maybe he was as clueless about this as she was. Leaving the place with her broomstick in hand she kicked off as soon as she left the Great Hall. Flying out of the castle and up and up, diving and spinning and flying as fast and as recklessly as she could so that her thoughts didn’t catch up. Finally landing, when the sun was significantly far up in the sky, she started heading towards the castle. She needed to talk to someone and the best someone she could think of was her quidditch coach. Making a beeline for Zach’s office area, place thing, she swung open the door without knocking, finding him inside.“Did your family ever try to marry you off?” she asked him, huffing as she sat down in nearby chair.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2016 20:57:26 GMT -5
youmakeeverythingokay* Take me high and I'll sing Oh you make everything okay. We are one in the same, Oh you take all of the pain away. Save me if I become my demons Liz Reeves It had been another long day of classes and Zach had mountains of pointless tests to go over. Who would have thought that there would be so much paperwork with flying? His first year students for the semester had a quiz about the history of the broomstick, and so far he was pretty pleased with the results. Then again he was grading all the Ravenclaw submits first, he sorted them by house and loved starting with the most likely to succeed. It gave him hope, eventually he would make it to the bottom of the pile and wonder how could anyone be that stupid! He leaned back in his chair and stretched as his quill graded furiously and he looked out his office window. "Liz? " he questioned himself softy. Outside he could see her flying rampant and immediately wanted to get her off the broom, she was a danger to herself like this. But years of friendship had told him that something was very wrong and she just needed to ride it out.
"Aw, that was my last Ravenclaw, " he sulked to himself as he grabbed for his stack of Gryffindor tests, trying at this point to do them alphabetically by house. Funny how OCD works sometimes. He straightened the stack of papers and heard a loud smack on his door as Liz's hand hit the old wood. She looked upset and was huffing as she took a seat. Zach looked at her confused for a moment and shrugged, "No, can't say that they have. Why? What's going on? " His eyes searched hers, his face concerned. "Is it one of your sisters? "
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Gryffindor
Captain & Chaser 7th Year
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What exactly are you trying to do here?
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Post by Liz Reeves on Jun 30, 2016 23:54:36 GMT -5
One of her sisters? She wished. Erica would be thrilled to get engaged and while Maddi would be pissed, she knew how to get out of them. No, she was the one with a f*cking fiancé she’d only met once at a party and who was by all accounts, a book loving snooze fest. “If only,” she replied, “No, my mother informed me this morning that...”She let out a sound that was part sigh, part growl and all exasperation. She couldn’t even say it. Pulling the very crumpled letter out of her pocket, she shoved it towards him. Thinking back to Edmund at the party and how he'd been flirting with Llewellyn, he was very possibly gay. Though knowing pureblood families that probably wasn't out in the open. She wanted to have a life! It was Erica's dream to get married and have kids at seventeen, not hers. It had also been something Erica, hadn't been able to do. Ugh, when she got home Erica was probably going to either be pissed at her or ecstatic for her. There was no in between with her sister. She hated this. She didn't want to have to exist only as a pawn to further her family's gains. She wanted to be able to choose something for herself. For once in her life, she wanted to do something that didn't involve hiding who she was.
Noticing the papers on the desk that she assumed Zach had been working on, she pulled her chair closer. They looked to be first year quizzes on, she turned the papers towards her, broomstick history. Something she actually knew, was good at, and was comfortable with. She needed some modicum of normality in her life right now.“Want help grading?" she asked, having already taking up a quill and started marking answers correct or incorrect, “I need to take my mind off this before I go completely insane.”
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Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2016 18:09:30 GMT -5
youmakeeverythingokay* Take me high and I'll sing Oh you make everything okay. We are one in the same, Oh you take all of the pain away. Save me if I become my demons Liz Reeves Zach watched as Liz pulled the crumpled parchment from her pocket and shoved it at him. A confused look swept his face as he took the paper into his hands and began reading. And re-reading. And re-reading again. "Yeah grade away, " he mumbled to her as he re-read the letter again. Was this even legal? Zach felt like his brain was out of control but his expression did not change as he read it again. "What the fuck? " Zach finally blurted, looking up at her and realizing his slip he covered his mouth, he usually didn't like to swear in front of students like that. At least it was Liz, someone he felt comfortable around. He whispered in total shocked, "what the fuck...."
This time he read it aloud, as if that would somehow make it clearer in his mind. The words pained him to read, Zach could feel his eyebrows furrowing as he read. Each time he went over those quill marks he became more and more flustered. Finally he looked up to Liz, reading her expression. He searched her eyes as he read the last of the letter from memory, "your loving mother, Beatrice Edith Reeves. "
He paused for a moment, as he leaned back into his chair. "How can they do that to you? " said trying to hide his anger, chucking the letter back onto the desk. Why was he so angry? Oh, maybe because this girl had a life of her own! Had a raw talent for quidditch that she should pursue. And maybe because he was slightly jealous of this boy? Zach shook his head, trying to clear his mind of this realization, no- she's got plans, she's gotta go pro he urged in his mind. "You should be on a broom not in some kitchen...like a housewife or something! "
His words came out feeling very jumbled and he placed his hands over his face and bounced his chair forward and backward until he felt calm. Once he uncovered his face he leaned forward onto the desk and grabbed a quill and one of his tests and began grading. "Screw it, we can live in a fantasy land where that letter doesn't exist and we'll grade papers all day if you want. " He smiled up at her, denial was always a great defensive strategy. And the best offense was a good defense! Zach was sure that she didn't want to answer the twenty thousand questions he had zooming through his mind, so if mundane is what she required it was what they would do. A heavy sigh left his chest and he looked down at the test he had grabbed.
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Gryffindor
Captain & Chaser 7th Year
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What exactly are you trying to do here?
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Post by Liz Reeves on Jul 1, 2016 19:41:26 GMT -5
She watched as he tried to comprehend the letter. Seemingly having an even harder time than she had. I mean, she should have seen it coming. She’d just expected her mother to find matches for her other two sisters first. Or be distracted enough by Freddie and Markus that she’d stay away from her youngest daughters business. As he swore, it simply reignited the anger she already felt. But it was anger she could do nothing about. She needed her family. She didn’t know how to live without them. Even Maddi, who flouted the rules, still behaved well enough that her parents continued to pay for her lifestyle.
As he read her mother’s letter aloud she focused very hard on the paper she was grading. A Gryffindor first year who from the doodles of brooms and quidditch games on the borders of the test was very enthusiastic, had retained next to nothing on the history of the broomstick. As she finished with a very sad F and a note telling the student that while his pictures were wonderful, he should pick up a copy of Quidditch Through The Ages, which was a great read while he was waiting to join the team next year. Finally he read her mothers salutation and she let out a dry laugh.
“What my mother knows about love would fit into a thimble,” she said bitterly.
Then Zach started getting angry on her behalf, that calmed her down a bit. Nothing like being forced to take the person your mad at side to force you to calm down and think rationally.
“We’re an old pure blood family,” she said grabbing another ungraded test, “they’re thinking about our family's future. Not mine.”
She finally looked up. She wanted to join the Harpies, fly on her broomstick, concuss any pureblood asshole stupid enough to propose to her with her broom. Really, her parents should have realized something was wrong, or more accurately right, when their daughter she’d started worshiping Gwendolyn Morgan. But Zach had gone back to grading now, looking as unhappy as she felt.
“I don’t know any way out of it,” she said quietly, “at least not while remaining on good terms with my family."
Looking at him she realized he look like he was about to explode. He was rarely this quiet and never this un-opinionated. He was holding back, possibly for her sake. But he didn't need to. After her ride on the broomstick, and more importantly after showing him, she'd been able to calm down. At least as calm as she was going to get knowing she would be married that summer to someone she hardly knew.
"You can ask your questions," she said with a forced smile, "I know pureblood families are stuck in the eighteen century. I just wish I could get out of it."
But the only way out was to run, or refuse. Either one of which would leave her disinherited and leaving Hogwarts. She'd be completely on her own with nothing to fall back on if she failed. And she had no idea how to move forward without her family name behind her. What would she be without it?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2016 20:33:12 GMT -5
youmakeeverythingokay* Take me high and I'll sing Oh you make everything okay. We are one in the same, Oh you take all of the pain away. Save me if I become my demons Liz Reeves "Clearly, " he mumbled about her mother's knowledge of love. Zach was not much of an expert either, he was always too busy with quidditch to ever have a real relationship. His one and only love was his broom and the pitch. This much he did know, Liz was a good girl doomed to a life of prestige. She worked hard at her goals and he felt sorrow in that he felt that this may take away from them. There was nothing that he wanted more than to be able to go see her play a game, a real game. Not against students, but dedicated athletes. And he wanted to watch her leave them in the dust. But most importantly he wanted her to be happy, and right now she was anything but.
At this moment he felt calm again, having shoved his feelings aside. Maybe it was the grading that had calmed him. Either way he could feel a smile warm up on his lips and he glanced at the paper Liz graded and watched curiously as she wrote a note to the student. He opened the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a small booklet with a picture of a snitch on it. "Write that kid's name down, " he chucked pushing the booklet toward her, ignoring her explanation of pureblood customs. "He might come in handy next season. " Zach knew that pureblood families were strange, his father had been pureblood and from what his mother had told him he had been disowned for having married her. It was something that seemed so odd to Zach, disowning family for something so petty. But it wasn't petty to them, it was all about lineage and power. One drop of unpure blood could collapse an entire family.
"Ok, " he cleared his throat. "Question number one. " Zach gazed at Liz for a moment, noting her obvious discontent to have him ask. "What organization sets regulations the use of brooms? " His eyes flickered as he joked with her, reciting the first question on the tests they had been grading. The air felt heavy and it was a feeling he did not much like- laughter would surely help but he was still sorting through questions in his head. Piles of figurative 'ask' and 'do not ask' stacked in his mind.
Zach turned his focus back to the paper and graded a few short questions. At least this student wasn't entirely lost, they had recieved a B mark. "So real question...what's your plan? " His eyes darted to her and back at the papers, he grabbed another test. "Are you going to try to get out of it? Just go through with it?...Run away to Russia, change your name and build your own quidditch pitch? " he trailed trying to make light of the heavy question. He promised himself that he would be supportive of whatever she chose to do- even if he did not agree. "Edmund, " he scoffed. "He doesn't even play quidditch! "
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Gryffindor
Captain & Chaser 7th Year
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What exactly are you trying to do here?
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Post by Liz Reeves on Aug 22, 2016 2:20:06 GMT -5
She smiled, as she made a note of his name for Zach, and a note for herself. Maybe he’d go pro after Hogwarts and she’d see him then. Though that would be a number of years down the line, and she wouldn't be able to go pro if her mother had her way. She laughed at his first question. At least some things didn’t change. How she wished to just stay like this. Not having to worry about anything. She wouldn’t asked for anything else if she could just have this.
But that wasn’t possible. No magic she knew of could pause time, in fact she doubted such magic existed. If it did exist, the cost was probably far too high for any sane person to pay. As he continued talking she sighed. What was she going to do? She couldn’t run away. At least not without a plan. She had no idea how to live on her own. No money to get started. If she’d realized they were going to do this to her, maybe she’d have had time to plan. But now…
“Maybe I can talk to him,” she started, her hand running through and pulling at her hair, the twist it had been in this morning had come out during her one of her crazier corkscrews, so her hair was now a bushy, tangled mess, “I got out of the last one, maybe I can find something in his family past to cancel the marriage. All I need is a documented muggle somewhere in the family line to have my parents…”
She stopped, her lips pressed together. Her parents weren't the type to make such a mistake. There really might be no way out of this. The weight she'd been running away from since she'd read that accursed letter finally hit her. She felt the need to scream, or cry, to do something, anything. A laugh bubbled up out of her throat, as she moved to cover her mouth with her hands. No, she wasn’t going to lose control here. Not now. Not in front of him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her left hand still over her face, “It’s just ridiculous. All of this is just ridiculous. And the best part? There’s nothing I can do, I mean not really."
She let her hands fall into her lap, as she stared at them, thinking. There really wasn’t anything to do about it now. Even if she wanted too, the reality was falling on her like a weight as she continued.
"Like in theory I could try to run away but there’s nowhere for me to go, no place for me to stay if I did run. The best I can do is to hope someone else makes a decision that gets me out of this." Before she could give up entirely an idea occurred to her: she might not be able to get out of this own her own but she could work to create a situation that would get her out of it. The weight she'd felt before lifted at the idea.
“Unless,” she started, looking up, “unless, I can create a situation that gets one of my parents, his parents or him to choose to cancel the engagement.”
That was it, she only had to convince one of them. The disagreement of one of those people could get this whole thing cancelled. The weight on her shoulders felt bearable now that she had a plan.
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