Anchor // The Three Musketeers

[attr="class","mirrormirror"]

[attr="class","nuggettitle"]anchor

[attr="class","nuggetsubtitle"]took the breath from my open mouth

[attr="class","nuggetwords"]It was almost the end of the year. Things were creeping up on them so quickly! Was it nearly a year ago that she had stopped speaking to her brother? Was it nearly a year ago that her auntie had become her main parent? It was hard for her to think of things like that, but it was true. Her mum had been gone from England for quite some time, and her father had gone this time last year as well. It wasn't something that she liked to think of. She would have preferred to have everyone under one roof again, now that they seemed to be agreeing on things. But now, it was hard to imagine. It was hard to understand. She had let things get so strange, so weird... Why? She knew that it was out of stubbornness, mainly. She was mad at all of them. She needed to see if she still needed to be mad. She needed to see with either herself or with her auntie. Did it make sense to hold so much of a grudge? To her, it did. She was older than they were treating her, and she understood more than they thought. So she was right to be frustrated with them, in her opinion. But it had been so long. Sometimes, she felt more English than Singaporean. Her mother would be furious. She needed to talk to auntie to figure all of this out, because otherwise things would keep floating up in the air. And auntie would know. Besides, she ought to owl to see if she liked her present. She had put a lot of thought into it. Auntie Ginny had to have followed the entire letter thoroughly; otherwise it would not have been perfect. And it had to be perfect. She wanted her auntie to have lots of good luck this year.

Lizzy hoped she had had noodles for dinner, too. Long ones. She didn't know what weird ang moh traditions her new auntie had, so she hoped Auntie Qiu would follow everything the normal way. She had had good, real food for her birthday, too. She had been specific about that. She might not have been home, but they were going to do things just that way. She hoped that her auntie had done something like that, too. But then again, she had been rather insistent that she was Scottish, too. So maybe she did something for that. Either way, the thoughts were making her a bit homesick. But for which home? She didn't know. Lizzy grumbled to herself. She would deal with all of that later. For now, she was walking down to the lawn to meet up with Henry and Carin. They were supposed to go bond with the tree today. It was almost that time--they were due to climb pretty soon, and Lizzy wanted to make sure that they did their due diligence. Well, they all wanted to make sure of that. She was just feeling exceedingly bossy today. She had her usual map of the school in her pocket-- she had worn pants today, for once. It made climbing easier, and she wasn't really feeling up to wearing the shorts under her skirt. She had already shed her class robes up in the Gryffindor common room. She was a bit late, which probably wasn't shocking for either of her friends.

She loved Hogwarts's grounds. That was an easy enough thing to say as she went darting from the castle. Everything was so pretty, and it gave her a real sense of adventure. It helped that she was going to go do something potentially dangerous. That was definitely the Gryffindor in her. She was excited for the adventure, the danger, and her friends. It was scary, but so were a lot of things! She was thrilled to have the chance... The opportunity... Lizzy hopped over a log, beaming as she finally made it to the two Hufflepuffs. "Alright, I'm ready!"

[attr="class","nuggetnotes"]664 - Henry James Blanchet & Carin(a) Rowan Flint - hi