Peter Pan
Outfit | @samuel

It was still early, Anicka had only been here since four, and she had known that the students and the staff would all be finishing dinner soon enough, but she was wandering the halls in silence. Medici came with her, and she didn't know who had taken that up with Flint, but Anicka would not step foot in the castle without the dog. She didn't go anywhere without the dog, and that was rather ironic really. She hadn't asked for him, she had been more than a little surprised when Ares had handed him to her that day... but she had taken him, and he knew what his job was. He knew that no one got to touch her. Most of the time he didn't let anyone near her. Family, family got to come near her, and he wouldn't openly go after anyone else, not until she told him to, but keeping a firm hand on him was something that she thought was essential really. She had been surprised how well he had taken to Pippa, but he had... The fact that her eight month old Rottweiler out weighed the six year old was nothing to joke about, but he was good with her. The fact that there was nail polish on his toenails was a testament to that... Something that Anicka doubted anyone else really noticed, but that she had noticed, because she was pretty sure that it had been her red Chanel nail polish that had been used... 

She didn't mind, not really, she was glad that Pippa had accepted her the way that she had. Anicka was in love with her father, and all she could hope was that Pippa would take to her too, and she had. The little girl seemed to love her, or at least Anicka hoped that she loved her. Pippa wasn't the only Nott woman that Anicka wanted to love her. She knew that she still had the long road ahead of her of getting Talia to like her. Malcolm's mother was probably the one person on the planet that had the power to intimidate her now that her own otec was dead... She wanted the woman to like her, because if Malcolm's mother disapproved of her... Well she thought that that was the one thing that could have the potential to end all of this in a heartbeat and she didn't want that. She didn't want to go anywhere... She had accidentally said that she wanted forever the other day, and she was glad that they had moved on from that... She had said it, and he had said 'Me too.' And she had been shocked, and they had moved on. Because in the last week emotions were running a little higher than they had been before, things were... Crazy... And the last thing that they had needed was more crazy, but that had been exactly what they had gotten. 

When he had told her this morning that he had to go get his brother Anicka hadn't had to ask which one... There was really only one option there, and there was a reason that they didn't talk about Dorian... The fact that he had to go get him meant that he hadn't come back from Romania when he was supposed to, and she knew better than to think that Malcolm was going to be in any sort of mood to talk about anything. She knew not to push. She had been told that they didn't talk about Dorian, and so she wasn't going to go there. He didn't give her orders, or even rather strong suggestions very often, and when he did she listened. One of those things that they didn't talk about was Malcolm's younger brother... Younger in the case that Anicka thought that she was old enough to be Dorian's mother really... She just didn't think that she would have the patience that Malcolm had with him, that Talia must have with him... If she had to hear that her son was frequently so strung out that his sibling had to come and get him out of whatever hell hole that he found himself in, she didn't know how she would react... But she doubted that it would be pleasant... 

She didn't actually know that Dorian was in another drug den, but she had a feeling that that was exactly where Malcolm was going to find him, because that was what Malcolm thought was going to happen when he had told her that he had left Pippa with his mum and that he was going to go and find his brother. Part of her had almost wanted to offer to go with him, but she knew that he would never have let her go, and she had to be here anyway. She was here, and she had something shrunk down and tucked in her pocket that she didn't know if she was going to actually deliver or not. She wasn't going to make a point of hunting him down or anything, but if she came across him Anicka thought that there was no harm in bending her brother's rules just enough for this. If he wanted to fight about it, he could come and see her, but he had worded that incredibly carefully, and there was no mail being delivered to anyone, there were no owls involved at all, and that had been what he had said. No owls... Anicka was lost in her own musings when Medici cut her off mid-step and she looked up to see who was coming down the hall from the other direction... 

When it had just been Samuel on his own and he had been single, he had his own routines at Hogwarts. Quite often they had involved him staying at the castle, despite him having his own flat. It made sense really, he was the head of house and he felt the need to be on hand for his lions. When he and Calli had first gotten together, he still wanted to be there for his students. Samuel knew that this was a immense responsibility, given that he had seen just how volatile the magical world could be. But he wanted to go home at the end of the night. Now that he was a father there was nothing more that he’d look forward to at the end of the day or of an evening then going home and seeing his son. He missed Jeremy terribly when he was at the castle and he couldn’t wait to go home and see him and play with him, as much as anyone could play with a near three month old baby that is. Samuel now just couldn't wait to get home and wrap his arms around Calli and his son. He would not be letting them go. It was far too much. He had valued having them in his life before but now he just valued them even more, something which he hadn’t thought was possible. The evening he had left that evening to come to the dance he could not have foreseen he wouldn't have been going home hours later.

Samuel just had to bide him time. But that was easier said than done, especially with the school year actually over. Exams were done and they were marked, at least his were out of the way but he knew that was the case for most of his colleagues too. Samuel had nothing to do, he was bored, just like Esther had been a few weeks ago. The two of them had talked and it was nice because the two of the despite having a history were friends still. He didnt want to turn to her each time he was bored. He was a grown man and was capable of finding his own amusement. But he just wanted to keep to himself. The elves at Hogwarts understood that. One in particular, just knew the man needed a cup of tea and would simply bring one to his office of an evening, the two of them would chat briefly and Samuel would be alone for the rest of the night until his head finally hit a pillow. So many mornings he felt guilty for having been able to sleep. If he was right in his assumptions he would have known that at home his witch would be unable sleep. But he had to sleep for two reasons really. One, he had to be on alert if anything should happen at the castle and he would need to act quickly and secondly when eventually he did make it home he would need to look after son and take over from Calli and allow her to finally get some rest.

It was another night at the castle, another dinner being had in the Great Hall. Normally Samuel would stay until the hall was empty of students but these days he would head back to his office as soon as he saw fit. He wasn’t skiving off his responsibility as a professor but he just preferred to be by himself. If of course a student wanted to see him, Samuel would happily to do so. They took preference over his wanting to be alone. Making his way along the very familiar first floor corridor, he stopped in his tracks when he saw a dog up ahead. It wasn’t the husky he normally sighted at home but it was a Rottweiler and it was with someone. Samuel recognised the woman as a Death Eater. She’s probably on patrols he told himself as he took a deep breath. ”Good evening Ma’am, may I help you at all?” he asked, speaking slowly.

Getting lost in her own head was something that had happened far more often in the last week… It had only been last Saturday that everything had changed so completely. A week… It had been a week, and she still wasn’t sure that everything had fully sunk in for her yet. Her otec was dead, and Malcolm had killed him, and that didn’t really bother her. She didn’t think all that much of death, and dying, and all of that. It was the fact that he had killed him to protect her… That was something that she had let stick with her. That was something that she had thought was going to stick with her for the rest of her life. Someone had deemed her worthy of protecting… Someone had thought that she was worth the risk, and she had never had anyone do that for her before. She was the one that did that for the people that she loved. She had never been loved enough to think that someone was going to jump in the line of fire for her, and that had been exactly what he had done. He had gone to battle for her in a way, and she was grateful. The fact that they had both come home, Malcom and Ares had both come home, was something that she knew without a doubt she had to be thankful for for the rest of her life too. She had to not take any of that for granted because she could have lost one of them. She could have lost both of them, and she didn’t think that she could have handled that. It wasn’t just that they had come back though… It was the fact that they had brought Issadora back with them.


That was the part that Anicka truly couldn’t get over. She didn’t think that she was going to be able to really understand how that had happened for awhile yet, and even if she could wrap her head around what it had taken for all of that to have occurred, she wasn’t sure that she was going to be able to forgive herself for it. It was her fault. No matter what anyone else said, or did, or tried to make them believe, this was Anicka’s fault. She was the one that had said that the body was Issa’s she was the one that had said that she was dead. It had been her that had been called back to Prague over and over again, and she had smelled the perfume, she had seen the glint in her otec’s eyes that she didn’t know the whole story, that he was holding out on her. But she had never expected this. She had never even had an inkling that she was alive, that she was right there, so close, and yet she had never been able to put the pieces together. This was her fault, and she would have understood if Issadora didn’t want anything to do with her. She didn’t think that she would have been able to look at her the same way, knowing that she could have rescued her for all of these years… There were a lot of things that she was going to have to try and work through, and she knew that she wasn’t ready… They had gone to the beach, and they had talked, for a moment, but she wasn’t ready… Neither one of them were ready…

She had to go back to Prague, and Malcolm had gone to Romania after Dorian and they were going on like normal. That was how they had to do this now. They had to go on, they had to just try and get back to normal… She had to try and get back to normal. Because if they weren’t normal… Well if they couldn’t get back to normal then she didn’t keno what they were going to do. They had to do something, she had to do something, anything, that was normal. When Medici cut her off walking down the hallway Anicka looked up. She hadn’t thought that it was going to be just as easy to find Samuel as it had been to talk to Calliope. She hadn’t thought that she would actually be delivering the letter in her pocket at all, but when she had looked up she knew that it was him. She had seen him in the baby that she had been cooing over for weeks now… She wanted to help Calliope, but she didn’t know that Samuel was going to trust her enough for this at all. “Mr. Copeland… I have something for you actually...” Anicka’s voice was silky smooth in the dark hallway, she knew who he was, even from a distance, but that was no guarantee that he was going to know her. She had killed the last Minister in front of the entire country, she was a Princess of the Czech Republic, she owned and ran one of the leading magical magazines in the country, and she was so broken that she didn’t expect anyone to know her at all…

If anything the biggest struggle of being under lockdown for Samuel was working out what to do with all the time he had on his hands now. Of course normally the spare time he had now would normally be time he would spend with Calli and Jeremy but all that had been robbed from him with the lockdown coming into force. Samuel wondered if the minister was really understanding just how this lockdown was affecting others. He was not affected, he could come and go from the school as he pleased, in fact he was free to come and go from anyplace anywhere. Samuel like those who were also stuck here were dreaming of the moment they could leave the castle. He hoped hit came soon. The daily patronises he was sending to Calli were not how he wanted to be communicating with his fiancé. It was not how any couple house be communicating with each other. It was far from ideal and no one deserved to be facing this. Samuel not impressed with this. He hated to seeing the children hurting so much. He knew of what the muggleborns were facing on the outside and as the son of a muggleborn he was greatly bothered by it.

The man was managing to keep his emotions under check for the most part. He had to be there for the Gryffindor and he was there reassuring them and trying to keep them positive. It was difficult though when he had little information to pass onto them. Esther was in the same boat (as far as he knew) and so it was unlikely that she could help him much where that was concerned. Samuel was also trying to steer clear of the Death Eaters where possible. There were times where that was unavoidable as Samuel did have to speak to the Headmaster at times. But he liked to keep to himself when the Death Eaters did their patrols around the castle. He didn’t want to speak to people he didn’t trust more than he had to. It was likely that they didn't’ trust him in return since they knew just how he felt about them. Samuel had his reasons, he had seen people hurt during the battle as a twelve year old and he could not forgive them for that and now with his mum’s life under threat it just strengthened the man’s displeasure for the group.

The last thing he had expected to see this evening was a witch from the group being accompanied by a Rottweiler telling him that she had something for him. Samuel didn’t recognise her from where he stood and so he took a few steps towards her looking puzzled. He looked the dog and arched his brows at noticing that it’s nails were painted….okay. Samuel looked again to the witch still unsure who she was. ”May I ask who you are?” He would to know her name if she had something for him, though he growing curious as to what it could be.

Anicka didn't believe that she deserved things. That just wasn't who she was. She didn't think that she was worthy of protecting, she didn't think that she was worthy of loving, but she knew that he loved her back. That was what was so perplexing about all of what had happened. He had thought that she was worth protecting, and he had thought that she was worth loving. He had told her not to go. He had stopped her from leaving for Prague that morning, and he had gone in her place. He and Ares had gone together, and she hated to think that Ares would have just stood back and let her go, but she knew that he would have. He would have let her go, because he had never bothered to look further than the front that she had put up for years. There should have been more to the story. He should have looked at her, and realized that she was trying to keep things from him. But he didn't. He had cared about the girls, and he had cared about the things that he had cared about, but she knew that she had never been one of them. At least not like that. She hadn't been someone that he had worried about like that, because Andrew was supposed to have been responsible for her. He wasn't supposed to have to worry about his little cousin when she had a husband to do that for her. Little did he know...

She couldn't be focused solely on herself right now though. She knew that they were in this castle for a reason, and no matter what it was that she was trying to figure out for herself, she still had a reason to be here. Patrols. She was here on patrols, and she was defying her brother just a little bit with what she carried in her pocket. But there were times in her life where being a mother came first. Where she knew that she cared a little too much to have ever made her otec truly proud of her. She had killed to impress him. She had bore five children to try and please him, and Andrew, and Louis. She had tried for her entire life to be what they wanted, but she knew that that was never going to really work. She would never be enough for them, and that was just something that she had to get used to. Something that she had no chance of fixing. Not that she really had to worry about it now... But there were still things about it that bothered her. There were a million unanswered questions that she didn't know how to give voice to, because what if the answers made all of it worse? She wasn't good enough, she had never been good enough, no matter what they tried to make her do or be...

Right now though, she could focus on what was right in front of her, and Samuel was what was right in front of her. She had something for him from Calliope, and she thought that he would rather appreciate it, even if he didn't appreciate her role in their lives. She doubted that the man standing in front of her knew how much time she had spent with the girl over the years. She assumed she had been pitched as her boss to the Gryffindor, and not as the maternal figure in Calliope's life before Samuel's own mother had come along. Anicka had taken it upon herself to keep an eye out for Calliope, and she was doing exactly that right now. She was making sure that she was taken care of, even when it was her brother that she was defying to do so. Anicka knew that he wouldn't deny her anything right now, and this was a liberty she was going to take. The smirk on her face when he asked who she was was enough for her to ignite a fire all around her, letting it lick against her skin and play with the ends of her hair. "Anicka Wentzell..." She thought that if he thought about it for a moment, and with the new light in the hall, he would realize that that was really all the explanation he was going to need.

This whole lockdown was stupid, that was Samuel could say about it and really he thought it was the best way he could sum it up. Of course that came down to him missing being at home with Calli and Jem and wondering how the two of them were going. He should have been there and he knew in hindsight he should stayed home no matter how much Calli had insisted he come to the end of school year dance. Samuel had been to many school dances before and he didn’t think it was a big deal if he missed one. If the headmaster was going to have a problem with him not attending then the man was going to have to question his definition of family. He had told Samuel that he had been busy raising his or looking after his younger brother and that had to stand for something surely with the man. Whether it did or not was the least of Samuel’s concerns, he now had a duty to get on with and that was to ensure that all the students were safe and he was not going to discriminate against anyone from a particular house because this was not the time to pick favourites and while he may be head of house, he was not like other staff, he was here fall all students and right now they needed helped with whatever not favouritism thrown in their face.

The school year was over technically though they were all forced to still remain within the school grounds. At least the weather warming up was in their favour. It wasn’t much but at least the staff and student could head outside to spend time on the lawns or by the lake. He was happy to be outside. His best friend no longer taught at the school and so he had taken a lot of time to visit the animals that formed part of the magical creatures enclosures. It was strange that spending time with them calmed him but it did. He didn’t get anxious often but at times during the lockdown he had. He just wanted to be home, it wasn’t a hard or a big ask but he was doubtful he would get it. Samuel’s patience was definitely being tried with all that he was going through. Sure he had Esther and the two of them were friends but he had better places to be. .

With all the Death Eaters making their rounds at different times of the day around the castle Samue just never knew how to approach them and if they knew on which side of the fence he sat on when it came to the group, he was unlikely to come out of an encounter well. As he caught sight of who the woman was he nodded and smiled at her faintly, albeit a little anxiously. ”Hello Lady Wentzell…” he chose to use her proper title, primarily because of her brother but he knew his fiance would just chuckle about considering Anicka had always been someone that Calli had looked up to. ”Please tell me what you have from me is from Calli?” he asked her hopefully as he slowly strolled over to where she was.

Knowing who she was, and who her brother was, and just what influence she could have on this regime was enough for her to feel powerful. She knew that she was powerful, but right now she just thought that it would have been easier to feel powerful if she didn't feel like her entire life had been turned upside down. She knew that she wasn't solely responsible for what had happened to Issadora, but she thought that she was more to blame than anyone else was. She had been the one that had said that she was dead. She had been the one that had made that call... And now she had to answer for it. Now she had to try and deal with the consequences, with the guilt, of being wrong. Because she had been wrong, and her own otec had held the other woman prisoner for years. Decades, even. She didn't know how she was going to deal with that, not now, and not in the long run. It wasn't something that she was of the mental capacity to handle right now. She thought that she was going to stress herself out thinking about it too much, and being in the castle helped with that. She had to stay on her toes here, she had to be aware, not of what was going on in her head, but in the real world. She had to think about what was happening right here in front of her.

There were plenty of the children that had no idea who she was. She was just another Death Eater in their school. She was just someone else that they didn't want there. No one really realized that she was a Wentzell. No one realized that she was the Minister's sister. That she was the one that was responsible for killing Durant last fall. It wasn't all that difficult to piece together if you knew anything about her at all, but Anicka was doing her best to keep the fire to a minimum. She didn't want to be alone in the castle, she didn't exactly trust a lot of the other Death Eaters, she had a problem when it came to trusting men in general, and she really would have liked Malcolm to have been there with her. But that wasn't an option, and being needy wasn't going to get her anywhere. She just couldn't help the fact that she was often scared by their presence. Too many of them had done too many things that she couldn't have let herself think about without walking out of her right now. She knew that her brother would be mad at her for that, and she thought that they were going to have enough problems without her directly disobeying orders... That wouldn't have ended well with anyone.

Especially not when she was already bending his rules just a little bit. Calliope had had a baby, and she knew that her favoritism of the halfblood was not something that would have been looked on all that kindly, but it wasn't the girl's fault that her father was who he was, and it wasn't her fault that she hadn't been raised the way that she should have been. She thought that the girl would have done better with a mother in the picture, but Anicka could have only done so much. She wasn't her mother, and she wasn't going to push too far, but she had been to see her. She had been to see her, and she had brought something to Samuel for her. Anicka knew that her brother was going to be angry if he found out, but she didn't see any reason that he was going to need to find out what it was that she had done. She smiled at him and she nodded when he addressed her by her title, that was the only fitting way to address her in here after all. "It is. I went to see her, and Jeremy the other day. I took her gifts, and she gave me something for you." Medici moved in front of her, putting himself between the man approaching, and Anicka, and she reached out to rub behind his ears. He wouldn't move from that position, he just knew she didn't like being approached by men. Certainly not men he didn't already know. Lately Malcolm was the only one that could approach her without him moving to protect. She was on edge... and he knew it.

Samuel rarely struggled with many things in life but his relationship with his father and now there was the lockdown. He had to be strong though because he had many students looking to him for support and a reassuring word. The man was determined to do just that. He just hated being separated from Calli and Jeremy. At times, though a little over dramatic he felt like his heart was hurting from being away from the people he loved. Despite being locked up here without any outside word he had gotten word about the muggleborn registration and it made him feel worse, normally he would rush to help her but he was far from doing that. Right now he was bound within the gates of the school grounds and never did Samuel think he would ever have to deal with such a restriction. Yet, here he was and he was not coping well. He was meant to be home right now and playing with Jeremy and trying to make him laugh instead he was here trying to keep the smiles on the faces of the students. It was definitely a harder task given who they saw around the school. He had faced times with Death Eaters at the school before and he knew given how some of the students were, it would not be easy. Samuel had been about their age when the battle had taken place.

The man only hoped it didn’t come to that this time around. Admittedly it was scary not knowing what to expect or when to expect it. Samuel knew he just had to remain vigilant and that was what he had done every night since the lockdown had begun. That was not to say that bad things didn’t happen during the day but from experience and his years at Hogwarts (no matter what capacity) he knew that all the bad things happened once the sun set. He just had more people he had to care for now. It was not just himself and Hannah now, there were hundreds of others here he had to watch out for and protect. With that being said, with a known Death Eater now headmaster of the school he knew it would be would safe for the students but still knew there were students that didn’t agree with their practices or their beliefs and he knew that was going to have to be curbed. It could not be rectified because if that was the case then Samuel would be the one out of job too. If ever it got that far he would have ot find a new job almost immediately. Samuel had not given it much thought and would only get to thinking about it when it got to that stage. Maybe that was a little reactive of him but that was the way he was seeing it. He had bigger issues to deal with right now.

Samuel not expected to ever actually talk to any relative of the minister himself and yet here was. He didn’t want to be thinking about Ares Wentzell right now incase the witch before him had the ability to read his mind. It was not a trait that was visible at first glanced in the magical world. The man sighed slightly as he saw the dog move in front his master. Samuel looked over the beast and arched his brow at seeing their nails painted….how odd. He normally expected that of children but okay….. He nodded as she spoke of seeing his family…..the only people he really was dying to see right now but he knew what was required of him right now while he was here. ”How are they? I miss them so terribly much” he stood and frowned as he ran his hand through his hair. ”If I’m honest this lockdown is such a mess and it’s taking it’s toll on people, the students especially” he told her plainly. There was no way to sugar coat that or no need to.