#Did I pick this moment because I wanted to highlight that missed moment when Ginny sat on Harry? Yes. Yes I did.

[narukoibito]

since feeling is first who pays any attention — chapter two

Summary: Ginny has done her fair share of watching Harry over the years.

AO3 | FF.net

Note: Thank you all for the wonderful birthday wishes last time! Hope you enjoy a glimpse of Ginny during Prisoner of Azkaban!

ii.

Ginny leans out of the train window, the cold metal and glass pressing against her stomach, waving to Mum and Dad as the train speeds away. The wind whips strands of her hair into her face, but that has nothing to do with the tears that well in her throat. She swallows them down, waving harder until the train turns a corner and blocks her parents from view.

She tries hard to not feel like a cloud has blocked the sun.

Ron stops waving beside her and turns his head toward Harry and Hermione.

“Go away, Ginny,” says Ron suddenly. His voice isn’t unkind, but the words sting.

“Oh, that’s nice,” Ginny huffs.

Her eyes flicker to Hermione’s apologetic smile and then to Harry’s green eyes for just an unbearable second before she automatically looks away. She holds her breath, but neither says anything.

Right then. Ginny lifts her chin and stalks off, anger and sadness churning inside her.

You would think saving someone’s life might bring you closer to them. Form a bond, perhaps. But as always, that would be asking for too much, wouldn’t it? Instead, her embarrassment around Harry Potter has only worsened over time.

All summer, she bottled up the scorching Egyptian sunlight, letting it spread through her body to dispel a haunting coldness that resided in the darker corners under her skin. It was easy to block out what happened when she was surrounded by family; Dad’s warm hand on her head, Mum’s soft hugs, and even her brothers’ annoying hovering were a comfort.

Each day, blinding gratitude pulsed through her. Apparently nearly dying does that to you. Puts things in perspective; makes you hyper aware of all the things often taken for granted.

This summer was ablaze with life and love, each new breath a fresh flame.

But here, on the train clanging its way back to Hogwarts, a chill starts to seep back in. She puts one foot in front of another, away from Ron, Hermione, and Harry Potter.

The compartments are filled with happy students reuniting with their friends after a long summer. There are also the eager first years, bright eyed and flushed with excitement. Her heart sinks as she makes her way down the corridor. None of the compartments seems any more inviting than the last.

The sight of Fred and George’s hair sends a shot of hope through her, but they’re fully immersed with other members of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Everyone is laughing, probably at something the twins said. They might be telling them about Egypt and how they tried to lock Percy in a tomb. She could join in, maybe do that impression of Percy that had them in stitches. She hesitates in front of the compartment window, wondering if they will notice her.

Go away, Ginny.

Stomach clenching, she goes on.

With dread, she nears the end of the train. That’s when she sees a few of her fellow second-year girls in a compartment, a mix of Gryffindor and Hufflepuff that she recognizes from Charms. She searches her mind for their names: Demelza, Robin, and…maybe Lucy? The empty spot next to Demelza signals that there’s enough space for her.

All Ginny needs to do is open the door and ask. It’s easy, she tells herself, even as her heart starts to pound. It’s easy.

But she can’t move.

What if they ask about the things she doesn’t remember? The memories she longs to forget? The nightmares she can’t escape?

One of the girls throws her head back in silent laughter, the sound swallowed up by the train’s engine and metal sliding over metal.

Cold slips down Ginny’s back like a shard of ice, even though her skin feels unbearably hot. The overwhelming juxtaposition of hot and cold makes her sick.

She stumbles forward, unseeing, bashing her elbow against the food trolley as it pushes past. The glimpse of the trolley witch’s wide-eyed gaze that only makes her chest seize with more panic. Her breathing sounds labored and harsh to her ears, like the air can’t get through her tightened throat. She slides open the door to the loo and shoves herself inside, her numb fingers fumbling against the lock until it takes.

She leans over the small sink, feeling the blood pumping through her veins. She wants to scream, she wants to cry. Fighting back the urge, she bites her quivering lip, refusing to give in. Not now, not here, not again.

Focus, Ginny.

Her eyes cast about, trying to find an anchor, but when they land on her reflection, she knows it was a mistake as she grazes against an unwanted memory—hollow eyes staring back, bright blood on her hands that won’t come off. She slams her eyes shut. Flashes of icy fear and hot shame flare through her aching chest.

She focuses on the memory of Bill in Egypt, the way the sun glinted on his fang earring, the soft warmth in his eyes behind his familiar smile.

Focus, he said, leading her through a dark tomb. His steady hands guided hers through the motion of new spells. Ginny was never afraid of the dark, but that was before nightmares that had her waking to strangled screams, sounds of hisses and laughter ringing in her ears. Trust yourself; you’ll find the way out.

That sunlight in the darkness.

Her breath finally evens out. Her legs are shaky, and she slumps back on the closed toilet lid. She feels drained, weak.

The sweat on her brow begins to cool her overheated skin. How long has she been here?

It dawns on her where she is. A short laugh escapes her lips, echoing in the loo.

A flicker of anger stirs her blood. She has spent enough of her time alone in girls’ loos, a shell of the person she used to be.

Ginny spent a year under the thumb of the darkest wizard in the world, fading with each day.

Nothing else will ever compare.

She won’t let Tom take more from her. He has already taken too much. Steeling herself, she stands and opens the door.

Before she can head back toward Demelza’s compartment, the train jolts to a hard stop. The momentum topples her over. Her hands feel tender and raw against the train floor. Sounds of students yelping and thuds of luggage falling in disarray fill the air.

Without warning, the lanterns go out, throwing the entire train into darkness. Everything goes quiet.

That momentary strength inside Ginny flickers.

The inky blackness sends her heart racing. For all the sunlight she has tried to trap inside her, the fear creeps back in whenever the sun dips beyond the horizon. Stupid little girl. She hates proving Tom right, but she hasn’t been able to sleep alone since the Chamber. The only thing that has helped is sneaking into Ron’s room. He always opens the door without a word, his face drawn. He doesn’t tease her, even if she cries. Even if she screams in her sleep. Aside from Harry Potter, Ron is the closest one who knows the pipes, the freefall, the plunging darkness.

Ginny gags. It’s almost as if she’s choking on the rotting stench of Basilisk skin.

Ron.

Through the eerie silence, a compartment door opens and—is that Harry’s voice?

Ginny blindly hurries toward the voices, her screaming instincts guiding her. Her fingers pull a door open, but then someone slams right into her, and they let out two squeals of pain.

“Who’s that?”

“Who’s that?” she returns.

“Ginny?”

Relief makes Ginny weak. “Hermione?”

“What are you doing?”

“I was looking for Ron—”

“Come in and sit down—”

Ginny rushes into the pitch-black compartment, her knees buckling under her. She immediately sits, but the seat is surprisingly bony and warm.

“Not here! I’m here!” says Harry, his voice squeaky.

Her system overloads with embarrassment. Did she just sit on Harry bloody Potter?

She leaps up and trips over a pair of legs.

“Ouch!” says a boy she doesn’t recognize.

She finally falls into a miraculously empty seat when a wizard shouts, “Quiet!”

Her heart pounds in her throat. What is an older wizard doing here?

There is a soft click and light floods their surroundings, revealing a ragged, tired-looking wizard holding a handful of flames.

“Stay where you are,” he orders, as if Ginny came here only to leave. But before he can move, the door slowly slides open again, and she can’t help but think surely this compartment can’t fit yet another.

She smells something putrid before she sees anything. But as a darkly hooded figure appears at the door, the smell of decay intensifies. It draws a long, slow, and rattling breath, as if to suck in more than air from the environment.

An intense cold overtakes her. It penetrates deeper than her skin, straight to her core. It’s so cold, it radiates from within her. To her horror, she recognizes this feeling.

It’s the painful drawing of a soul from her body.

Ginny gasps. It sounds like a wet sob, but the air is so cold it hurts to breathe. That lack of air makes her body shake.

It’s like she’s back in the Chamber, helplessly sobbing and pleading. Tom leers down at her, turning more solid the colder she becomes. Panic surges through her, amplifying her tremors.

Destroy the diary, her mind screams, but her hand refuses to move no matter how she tries.

In the weak light, Harry falls from his compartment seat, and her heart seizes up in despair.

Her vision blurs. Everything is a wash of fluid dark watercolors. Harry, lying on the Chamber floor, unmoving, blood pooling around him.

“Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain,” Dad said, but what does where it keeps its brain have to do with anything? A person turned monster created that diary.

Is there anything she can trust?

A thick white fog swirls inside, dragging her down. Her body descends to the damp floor, the cold seeping into the back of her robes feels warmer than her own skin—

The intense cold starts to recede, and noises return to her muffled ears. The horrific thing has drifted away, the wizard standing guard at the door, his wand still raised and ready. The lanterns flicker back on, and the floor begins to shake underneath them once again.

Slowly, Ginny begins to register activity. Almost from afar, she watches as Ron slaps a ghastly pale Harry, trying to wake him. How is it that everyone else can move?

Colin Creevey, Mrs. Norris, Nearly Headless Nick, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Penelope Clearwater, Hermione Granger, and now—Harry Potter is dead.

He’s dead and it’s all my fault.

But then Harry stirs. His green eyes blink open, and thick tears blur her vision once more.

“What happened?” he asks, voice small.

Ginny makes a strangled noise, her freezing hand covering her mouth. He’s alive. She doesn’t know what happened to the hooded figure, but Harry Potter is alive, they aren’t in the Chamber, and Tom is gone.

These realizations don’t seem to be enough to stop the tremors still shaking through her. Her body doesn’t seem prepared to recover yet.

She huddles her knees closer as she chokes back a sob. She hears someone coming over and then feels someone’s—Hermione’s—arm around her. She needs to get a hold of herself; later, she will feel hot shame over falling apart in front of Ron’s friends, yet again proving she doesn’t belong. But right now she feels raw and hollowed out, and she can’t help but lean into the warm touch and comfort.

Eventually, she pulls herself together enough to force down some chocolate. It helps, but she can’t shake the lingering chill.

She glances through her lashes, guiltily, at Harry. He was the only one affected worse than her, and she wonders if he thought of anything or anyone, Tom’s laugh, Basilisk blood. She wants to ask, but he doesn’t look her way. He stares out the window as rain runs past the pane, a haunted look in his eyes.

Ginny bites her tongue and looks away.

#since feeling is first who pays any attention #Did I pick this moment because I wanted to highlight that missed moment when Ginny sat on Harry? Yes. Yes I did. #ginny weasley #harry potter #ron weasley #hermione granger #missed moments #canon compliant #prisoner of azkaban

[ickle-ronniekins]

meet you there

PLEASE DO NOT REPOST MY WORK WITHOUT MY CONSENT. likes/reblogs/comments are perfectly fine!

prompt: this actually wasn’t a request but it was a fic title prompt from my 4k sleepover that @accioxreparo sent my way -- the title she came up with was ‘meet you there’ and i’ve picked freddie. you can view the original idea here, if you please. general reminder that my requests are currently CLOSED

pairing: fred x ravenclaw!reader

word count: 2.6k

warning(s): character death

A/N: i’m real sorry

tag list: @mintlibri @seppys-return-to-madness @how-do-life-does @fopdoodledane @fredd-weasley @iprobablyshipit91 @semmelsemi @cottageoflove @laneygthememequeen @snakesonaplane-7 @lupinsx @keoghans @helloallthethingsilove @waschbiber @acciotwinz @the-hufflepuff-of-221b @62442-am @wtfweasleyy @thoseofgreatambition @harrysweasleys @sleep-i-ness @shadowsinger11 @shadychaoticcollection @haphazardhufflepuff @afriendlyneighborhoodhufflepuff @kageyama-i-want-tobiors @letsfightsomeorcs @theweasleysredhair @purpleskiesstorm @hxfflxpxffs @wand3ringr0s3 @finecole @angelinathebook @highly-acidic @purplefragile @90shermione @zreads @susceptible-but-siriusexual @hollands-weasley @andromedaa-tonks @bbstrawberry0421 @princessof-theuniverse @cappsikle @mytreec @imseeinggred @idont-knowrn @flyingserpxnt @auroraboringalis57 @godricsswords @jejegu @annasofiaearlobe @starlightweasley @alwaysasadaesthetic @thisismysketchbook @izzytheninja @imboredandneedalife @hemmoporro @valwritesx @heavenlymidnight @hannolannno @msmimimerton @oh-for-merlins-sake | message me to be added or removed! [lots of tags not working for me today idk i’m sorry!]

Ages 8 and 7

“Freddie! Did you see? Did you see what I did?”

Eight year old Fred squealed with delight as you did a tiny little backflip on your broom in the air outside the Burrow. The pinks and purples of the sky were melting together, and he knew that night was growing nearer. “I did, Y/N! Can’t wait ‘til we both get to Hogwarts and can play Quidditch together. You’re going to make a fantastic Seeker. That was bloody brilliant!”

“Frederick Weasley!”

Molly’s voice was shrill, but she peered out through the window of her kitchen and shook her head, as if she were trying to guess how many times she’d scolded Fred already today. She sighed, choosing to fight a different battle than that of his language. “It’s supper time, Freddie.”

The both of you flew gently to the ground and landed. You tossed Fred the extra broomstick and wiped the sweat from your forehead. “See you tomorrow then?”

“Nah, later,” Fred replied. He nodded toward the other end of the large field in front of his house. “After dinner, let’s go up the hill and look at the stars for a bit. My dad says there are supposed to be wicked constellations tonight!”

You giggled before pulling your hair back off of your shoulders and turning to head back toward your own house just around the bend. “Don’t let you mum see you!”

“Don’t worry,” Fred told you with a mischievous glint in his eyes, “I won’t. Meet you there!”

Ages 11 and 10

It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair. How come Fred would get to start at Hogwarts without you? Your mum told you it was because he was already eleven. You still had a few months until your birthday. But it still wasn’t fair!

You slumped on the couch next to the empty fireplace as Fred attempted to bring his huge trunk down the steps. They both hit the floor with a loud thump!

“Bloody help me, won’t you?”

“Not when you talk to me like that,” you frowned. It didn’t take long before the two of you were erupting into giggles, though.

Fred placed himself beside you and gently elbowed you in the ribs. “Hey, don’t be so sad. You’ll be at Hogwarts in just a year’s time. And besides, aren’t you excited that I’ll know my way around the castle, and I’ll be able to tell you all the places to avoid and the best times to sneak out of the common rooms?”

You huffed and kicked his foot before beginning to tug at the hem of your shirt. “You wouldn’t! You’ll get me into all sorts of shenanigans, and.. and.. probably detention.. and probably turn my hair bright green or something!”

“Only if you’re placed into Slytherin,” Fred grinned. The sunlight flooding the windows highlighted the dimple on the right side of his face. “So it’d better be Gryffindor.”

You rolled your eyes. “And how are you so sure you’re going to be placed in Gryffindor, mister?”

Fred pointed at himself, as if to say, isn’t it obvious? “The whole lot of my family has been in Gryffindor for years! George and I aren’t going to break that streak. What kind of Weasley d’you think I am?”

“The annoying kind?”

“That’s plain rude,” Fred replied before thwacking you with a throw pillow. The two of you began hitting one another incessantly before Mr. Weasley’s calls came from outside. It was time to go. You were embarrassed at how quickly the tears welled up in your eyes, and you turned toward the fireplace so Fred wouldn’t see.

“Hey, it’ll be alright,” his voice was softer than before. “When you get to Hogwarts next year, I’ll show you all the secret passageways and let you know what the best sweets are, and I promise to not turn your hair bright green. Even if you are placed in Slytherin.”

A gentle smile tugged at your mouth, but it didn’t stop the tears from coming still. Fred continued when you didn’t, “I’ll miss you, you know.”

You sniffled and bit down on your wobbling lip. “I’ll miss you, too. Have fun playing Quidditch.”

Fred’s eyes went bright as the two of you wandered outside to meet the rest of the Weasleys. “That reminds me! Be sure to keep practicing here, yeah? With Ron and Ginny. I reckon mum’ll let them play a little bit with you. Promise?”

“Promise.”

Fred tugged his trunk and placed it into the back of Mr. Weasley’s Ford Anglia before pulling you into a bone crushing hug. Mr. Weasley was calling his name again. Fred gently elbowed you in the ribs once more before bopping your nose with his finger. His grin was brighter than the sun. “Meet you there!”

Ages 15 and 14

You stared in the mirror at your very obnoxious coloured blue hair. It resembled that of your Ravenclaw tie. You so wanted to be angry at him. You wanted to be angry, but you had to admit -- he was kind of brilliant.

As promised, he hadn’t turned your hair bright green when you’d arrived at Hogwarts a year after him, especially after you’d been placed in Ravenclaw, and not in Slytherin. He forgave you for not being placed in Gryffindor, though. He’d said he was excited to pummel Ravenclaw to the ground in Quidditch, anyway.

You knew the counter spell, but you kind of wanted to show off this new look of yours. Plus, wouldn’t he be absolutely floored if you waltzed into the Great Hall, not batting an eyelash at anyone who was brave enough to give you a look?

You plopped yourself down at the Gryffindor table during breakfast after making a few heads turn -- including three sixty head turns from the house ghosts. George spat out his tea and was not-so-subtle when it came to trying to hide his laughter. Fred raked his bottom lip through his teeth and smiled brightly.

“Ah, good morning,” he said before turning back to his porridge, “and how are we?”

“We are brilliant,” you picked a piece of his toast off of his plate and bit into it. When he threaded his eyebrows together and tried to get it back from you, you just stretched your arm back. “Oh, I’m sorry, is this yours? I figured, you know, since my hair now matches the colour of my robes, I was allowed to take your breakfast since you’ve been a foul little git.”

At first, his eyes widened in horror. But when he saw the faint smile on your lips as you continued to scarf down his breakfast, his shoulders relaxed. He raised his eyebrows, “Was worried you might be mad at me for a second there.”

“Mad? Never.” you replied. “Now if it had been green, well, that’d be a different story. But I’ve got to say, Weasley, I reckon blue suits me just fine.” You flipped your hair over your shoulder and started to laugh.

Fred yanked the half eaten slice of toast out of your hands and shoved the rest of it into his mouth. Your jaw dropped dramatically as he licked his lips and took a long slug of his tea. “Couldn’t agree more, Y/N,” he began and you rolled your eyes. Always the jokester, he was. But when he looked at you with a new type of admiration and serenity in his eyes, you froze. “You could have blue hair and purple eyebrows and I’d still think you were the most beautiful girl on this earth.”

It was just a small moment, one shared between the two of you, when he grinned so earnestly you swore he might spill out all his heart’s desires to you. But as quickly as it appeared, it had vanished, and he went back to wiggling his eyebrows at you teasingly and eating his porridge. “Hey, wanna run some Quidditch drills after this?”

“Sure,” you replied a little too quickly, trying to catch your breath. You stood up from the table to get some breakfast of your own. “Meet you there. Oh, but first, Freddie?”

“Yeah?”

You smirked. “Before anything else happens today, it’s my turn to dye your hair.”

He thought on this for a moment before reaching out for a high five. He loved how you’d come to negotiate with him over the years. He guessed it was from being on the receiving end of tons of his pranks. He swallowed down his nerves and replied, “Deal.”

Ages 17 and 16

“Fred! Bloody hell, what’s gotten into you?”

“Just have to get you alone, don’t I?” he smirked.

The two of you were stumbling giddily, alone in a back corner of the desolate girls’ dormitory in the Ravenclaw common room. Most everyone were either in lessons or out on the grounds on this gorgeous day, but the two of you chose to be locked inside, for you didn’t exactly know how much time you’d be able to spend alone before he left. Especially with Toad Face breathing down your necks every chance she got.

His lips were locked with yours for what seemed like hours. It was slow and easy and comforting before he reluctantly pulled away and started tracing circles onto your hands, trying as he might to lot let you see the glassiness in his eyes.

“Promise me something,”

“What?”

He sighed. “Next year, bring home the cup. You were robbed this year, love. Bloody Umbridge banning us from matches, and now the entire schedule is all wonky. Bring it home. But I swear if you tell any Gryffindors I said that, I’ll deny it.”

You raked your bottom lip through your teeth before poking him in the stomach. “You? A Gryffindor, hoping a Ravenclaw wins the cup? What would the other students think?”

“I reckon they’d think I’m out of my mind.”

You snorted. “Well, yeah, you are.”

The laughter faded away after a few moments, and Fred peered lovingly into your eyes. You could tell how much his nerves were eating at him -- leaving this all behind, not finishing school. The wrath of his mother. The unknown of how the shop will do. You traced the freckles on his cheeks and nose.

“You’ll be okay, you know. Actually, more than okay. It’ll be bloody brilliant, alright?”

Fred swallowed thickly before squeezing your hips. “You promise?”

“I promise. Do you promise to wait for me once you get there? I’ve got some exams to finish up.” You winked.

Fred laughed lightly and pulled you into his chest before placing light kisses onto your head. He took a long, deep breath and continued to caress your hair as you both tried not to think about the upcoming weeks. You squeezed your eyes shut and tried with all of your might to focus on the sound of his heartbeat, but each thump of his pulse was just another reminder that you were one second closer to him leaving.

“I promise,” he echoed you. “I’ll meet you there, won’t I?”

Ages 20 and 19

“Of course we’ll win! We’re bloody brilliant, aren’t we? Reckon Voldy won’t even be able to stand a chance, ruddy pumpkin head, he is.”

“Fred, please, just -- can’t you be serious for one moment?”

“Haven’t got a serious bone in my body, I’m afraid.”

“Freddie.”

His sigh had sounded different. It had a strange sense of urgency to it. He turned over in bed, took your head in his hands and pressed his lips together. He began to gently caress his thumb over your jawline. He’d never looked so serious in all his life. “I promise that everything will be alright. But you’ve got to try and get some sleep, darling.”

“But I can’t --”

“You’ve got to try. I’m right here.”

You swallowed down your tears and nuzzled your face into his chest. You breathed in the all too familiar smell of Molly’s washing detergent, and squeezed his fingers in yours. The two of you lay wide away in the darkness of the night, your breathing finally in sync with one another.

“When this is all over, we’ll be a proper family, alright? You and me. I promise.” He pressed a kiss to your forehead before laughing again. “You didn’t really expect one of us to leave without getting married first, did you?”

He groaned a bit when you teasingly punched him square in the stomach.

That was just last evening.

How had everything changed so drastically in less than twenty four hours? Why had those few precious hours in bed gone by so quickly?

Why hadn’t Fred been able to keep his promise?

You and George both had your arms wrapped tightly around one another, probably to help one another stay upright. You didn’t quite know how you were able to still walk, not when your body felt like all of the blood and oxygen had been drained from it. The two of you fell to the floor beside him; Fred’s body was still warm, his skin so soft, as though he were simply asleep.

You wanted to go back in time. Any amount of time, just to get more of it with him. Just to hear him say he loved you, to tell you he couldn’t wait until you both would get married, just to hear him say your name.

He’d managed to fight without gaining but a scratch. His hair was still perfectly messy, just like it always was, his hands folded neatly across his chest. It was miraculous, really, that there were so many others here, in this room, alive, who looked far worse than he did. And yet it was him who was dead.

It was him who’d had his life stolen out from underneath him, like a cruel joke.

You turned to George, blurry through your vision, and choked out the only few words you were brave enough to speak. “He didn’t keep his promise.”

George dropped his head and let his hoarse cries rattle through the Great Hall. He squeezed your hand and lay across his brother, begging him to wake up, just wake up. You tried to pull George back to his feet, but his body felt much heavier than it had just a few hours ago. Percy pulled him into a hug and let George cry, very similarly to the time when you were all very young and he’d fallen off of his broom and broken his ankle. And who had made him feel better? Fred, of course.

Fred looked so tranquil, it was almost terrifying to look at him. And yet, you couldn’t look away. You tried, through your blurry vision, to memorize everything about him -- the arch of his eyebrows, the way his eyelashes brushed gently against his cheeks, the spattering of freckles across his nose, the way his one ear was slightly crooked from the other. You wanted to remember the way his fingers felt interwoven with yours, like they’d been crafted that way because they were meant to be there, the way his lips always felt so soft. You ran a hand through his hair to try and push down that one stubborn part, but it sprang back up, just like always, and you managed a small chuckle. You couldn’t forget. You just couldn’t. You didn’t want to forget a single thing about him, and you were afraid that as soon as they took his body away, that you would.

You traced a gentle line over his freckles again. It must’ve been hours that you’d been lying there, because he felt cold now. Your body froze at the contact and you had to use every single ounce of strength you somehow had left to not crumble to pieces. But you managed to place one last, gentle kiss to his forehead as the sunlight of a new day flooded the Great Hall.

“I’ll meet you there one day, Freddie.”

#fred weasley #george weasley #fred and george weasley #weasley twins #fred weasley x reader #fred weasley x you #fred weasley reader insert #fred weasley imagine #fred weasley fanfic #fred weasley fanfiction #weasley twins imagine #weasley twins fanfic #weasley twins fanfiction #fred weasley angst #hp imagine #hp fanfiction

[annerbhp]

I'm reading The Changeling for probably the fifteenth time and I have a question. "“He was necessary,” she says. She can tell Harry doesn’t understand. Not really. But that’s okay. Because she thinks she’s finally starting to, the lesson this place has been trying to teach her all along." Can I ask which place you're referring to? The cloister? Hogwarts? And what's the lesson? Thank you!

I was trying to refer to Hogwarts, but really, her school career. This last moment in the cloister with Harry after the final battle is important in a lot of ways for Ginny to understand Snape a tiny bit more, but really this is about Ginny, with Snape and his actions as a proxy. She’s finally beginning to see why the Sorting Hat, and by extension, Hogwarts itself, put her in Slytherin in the first place. That the person she is now because of that sorting was necessary too. Both so she could survive, and she could do the things she did to keep others safe. She hasn’t completely come to terms with it, as we see in the Armistice Series, but this is the beginning of it, the final acceptance of the path she’s been on. That maybe it was all supposed to happen this way.

In the earliest chapters of The Changeling we have Ginny always thinking of her short-comings. Like she hadn’t been able to fight Tom or save herself from the Chamber and she thinks, “Maybe if she’d been a Gryffindor, she would have been able to.” Or when at first she is too scared to stand up to Draco in chapter 3. (She isn’t her brothers. That probably makes her a coward. (Not a Gryffindor, at the very least.) Or even overhearing the twins basically saying that Percy is awful and should have been in Slytherin. She’s learned over the series slowly that being in Slytherin isn’t a deficit, a character flaw, but that last scene with Harry in the cloister really lets her see it and embody it as an asset. As who she is.

I tried to create parallels between the first chapter of The Changeling and this last year to show that. The second to last scene in chapter one is of Harry and Ginny down on the Chamber of Secrets.

“It’s all right,” Harry says, patting her shoulder awkwardly, clearly more comfortable with basilisks and evil wizards than hopeless little girls. “Riddle’s gone.”

What does that fix, really? She stares down at the ruined diary bleeding ink across his lap. Her words—her secrets—blurred and tarnished as they ooze out on the floor.

She shakes her head, pulling her legs hard into her chest. Harry never should have come down here. Not for her.

“Ginny,” he says, bewildered concern weighting his tone.

“I’m a Slytherin,” she mumbles miserably into her knees. Just like Tom. Just like Pansy and Malfoy and every dark wizard who has ever fallen.

More than anything she wants to hear Harry say, ‘So what?’, to tell her it doesn’t matter. But he just stares back at her, confusion furrowing his brow. For the first time he doesn’t look like a hero, but rather a scared little boy. She isn’t sure what to make of that.

Aberration, comes Tom’s dying whisper, thorns still dug in and holding despite the fact that he should be gone. You don’t fit his careful columns of good versus Slytherin. And yet he was the one they all suspected.

Ginny wants to shake the voice away, claw it out of her skull. There’s painful anger here over something she does not understand, things she’s too young to grasp, just knows that for all she poured into Tom, he poured some things back.

These are not the sorts of things a little girl is supposed to feel.

We compare that to this scene at the end of chapter 10 between them, with Ginny not seeing these things are foreign to herself, or bad, but as more parts of herself that are necessary.

I wish…  had been his last words to her. She isn’t sure she knows how to wish anymore. She feels a lot like this cloister, shattered and transformed and something that maybe can never be put back together again.

She’s done things, seen things, things she can’t put into words, things she doesn’t even know how to feel about. How she  should  feel about them. She looks into Harry’s face and feels a thousand miles away from the girl he kissed the summer before.

She doesn’t know how to put any of that in words though, so instead she finds herself saying, “I’m a Slytherin.”  

Harry’s expression doesn’t shift, still staring straight back at her with nothing of confusion or surprise. “I know,” he says.

Not ‘so what’ or ‘who cares’, but an acknowledgement, an affirmation. Like he couldn’t even imagine it any other way.

There’s quite a few things like that in the chapters because the fic is ultimately about Ginny’s growth, so seeing her in similar situations can kind of highlight the ways in which she is the same, the ways in which she is different, and the ways it may just be her approach or perspective that has changed--of Hogwarts, of herself, of Harry. 

I’ve always like this one:

The Changeling, Chapter 1

“Miss Weasley,” she says crisply. “Your table is on the end.”

Ginny glances at the dark sea of green and silver at the far end, the way the entire table seems tucked into the shadows of the edge of the hall. No. No way. This is a mistake.

She turns her head to the Gryffindor table, meets the wide-eyed, horrified stares of her brothers, and stupidly waits for George to crow that it’s just a joke, and wasn’t it impressive that he could pull a prank this convoluted on her? He’d spent all summer making a fake hat!

George just shares a glance with Fred, faces identical all the way to the pale shock of their cheeks.

“Miss Weasley,” McGonagall repeats, her voice no longer sharp. There’s a buzz of sound building in the room, people turning and whispering to each other as Ginny refuses to give up her seat.

Move, she orders her frozen limbs. Just get up and move.

She finds her feet, tries to lift her chin as she walks the great distance to the far table, but the faces waiting there for her are closed, hostile. They whisper behind their hands as she approaches.

She perches on the very end of the table, and doesn’t let her hands tremble. Much.

The Changeling, Chapter 6

The remaining Death Eater grabs her hair, twisting it as he forces her face up to look at him. “If I find out you’re lying… I won’t just come back for you.” He jerks his head back towards the tent. “I’ll take out your whole blood traitor family. And I’ll enjoy it.”

He lets go of her, Ginny falling forward to the ground. She flinches at the crack as he Apparates away, her arms protectively wrapped around her head. She stays crumpled in the dirt for long moments, trying to breathe through the remnants of pain and fear.

She eventually becomes aware of her family calling her name.

She lifts her head, trying to get to her feet, but immediately falls back down, retching into the dirt.

“Ginny!”

Get up, Ginny, she tells herself. Just get up.

Pushing to her feet on shaky legs, she somehow manages to stagger back inside the tent. She finds her wand under the edge of the table, picking it up. She feels bile pushing at the back of her throat, but makes it to Bill’s side before her legs give out. With trembling arms, she lifts her wand, cutting the ropes.

I like the cyclical nature of things.

#the changeling #slytherin!ginny #character growth #anothercountrysong

[torestoreamends]

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child NYC Recap 28/09/18 (Part Two)

Once upon a time the original cast gave me my favourite ever Part Two, in a show performed on a Friday night almost two years ago, and last Friday’s performance reminded me of why their Part Two shines so much. There was so much about it that lived up to the bright but distant memories I had of what they used to achieve when they were on form, as well as some gorgeous new details that made the show sing. So here, without further ado, are my as many highlights as I can remember from last Friday’s show: 

-It’s quite clear how much Anthony respects Alex and enjoys acting with him. The second they were in a scene together he came alive (hilariously Anthony thought that office scene was his worst scene of the show — it was not). That office scene was precisely what I needed for closure with these two, and it was a lovely thing. I forgot that Alex doesn’t face Anthony when Draco and Scorpius are close up and talking about Astoria, instead he faces off the front of the stage, with Scorpius to his left all small and hunched with his shoulders up and his arms folded like he wants to disappear. And as they talk they’re shining with that silver light, and they’re uncomfortable with each other but there’s so much desperate love there, with Scorpius hanging onto his dad’s words the way he does with no one else. 

-I noted the Rakie influence when Noma did the ‘I’m minister for magic’ line. It’s not quite as vindictive, but it is an authoritative statement of power to Snape and it’s beautiful.

-Floorpius. Everywhere. I finally remember how Anthony inspired that mess, because he IS Floorpius. Most of the Voldy timeline was spent with him lying on the floor, and in Snape’s office he actually crawled across to the door before he got up to go through it. He also sat on the floor by the lake during the Patronus scene, and once he was out of the lake and back in the real world, he stayed on the floor. He was down there saying hi to everyone, and sort of kneeled up to say hi to his dad, who threw the robes right in his face, knocking him back to the ground. Then when he realised the Time-Turner was missing he lay down on his front by the lake and scrabbled at the water with his hands. There was more later on, but that sequence was the best Floorpius I’ve ever seen in my life. The people around must have been so confused about why I was laughing so much throughout the entire thing... 

-Time to continue gushing about Jamie and James! I missed Jamie’s angry Harry so much. When he explodes, he really goes (having said that this might be one of the most restrained shows I’ve ever seen from him, which was cool), and there was a moment in this scene when he fired up so much that Albus actually flinched, shuffling back, head bowing, body hunching up small. I’m always astounded by how tiny the Albuses can make themselves, and James is one of the tiniest I’ve seen. More on those two later.

-The first fuck up of the day was when the jump scare didn’t work — the hand went before the sound. I’ve seen worse, but it was less than ideal. 

-Jamie Parker reacting to Harry’s dreams. I love this man so much. When his Harry starts to spiral he crashes to rock bottom so fast, and this was the start of the spiral. He woke up screaming and convulsing and clutching his scar, absolutely panicked, unable to breathe. You know he’d rather be alone with his nightmare but it made me glad Ginny was there to take care of him, because he was lost to it. And then of course the second he realises what the dream means, Harry takes off running, because Jamie’s Harry is the quintessential action hero Harry. He’d rather be doing than standing around waiting. If he can feel like he’s doing something, influencing something, then he’s marginally more okay. (The way Jamie Parker runs — a hundred times faster than anyone else on stage, leaving them all in his dust — is one of my favourite things about his Harry.)

-This was a fun dorm scene. It was the start of the adorable little Scorbus moments, and by that I mean the physical signs of a ridiculous friendship. There was so much larking about between the two of them, and the scene ended with the sort of play fight that I’ve been desperately missing since the original cast left. The handsiness, I’m pleased to report, continued on throughout the rest of Part Two, especially in Godric’s Hollow. 

-One of my (many) favourite James Romney moments came in the Owlery Scene. Albus handed Delphi the Time-Turner, and the second she took it he sagged in relief and buried his face in his hands. It was clear even from the dorm scene prior that he didn’t want responsibility for it, and that he was desperate to find someone who would help them — Delphi was his someone. He called her, she came, and he was so glad to have an adult in charge of the object that had ruined worlds. I’ve never seen an Albus so pleased to have the thing out of his hands, to be taken care of by someone. In fact it might be one of my favourite ever little Albus things, because it fits so perfectly with so much of what’s going on with him at that point in the show. 

-Paul knelt for the reproposal and my heart melted. It was also so good to hear him say Scrupius again (and to see everyone’s reactions to Ron’s infuriating speech in that scene — he was having so much fun talking about getting drunk). 

-The maze was the first time a bit of blocking on broadway made me jealous. Although the maze itself has been lifted and brought to London now, the blocking is very much not the same. My biggest complaint about the London blocking is the amount of time the boys spend offstage — Krum hovers at the front of the maze for a while unnecessarily, so the boys aren’t onstage for the line ‘what heroes do we have within our midst?’ Whereas in New York, Krum leaves the stage before that line, and the boys arrive back onstage during it. On the night we saw it, Scorpius stopped and hid with his back to the hedge, while Albus peered down the other pathway, they then whispered the next couple of lines. I’ve never seen an Albus and Scorpius really trying to hide like that before. I’ve seen them panicked and running and hoping they’ve got away, but never truly believing it to the extent that they’d try and hide. 

-Because of the new blocking, Albus ended up on the other side of the stage during the second bit of torture, and the ensuing encounter with Cedric. It was strange to watch it in reverse, but I didn’t mind it at all. I actually think that Ben might be my favourite Cedric. The pacing of this encounter was beautiful. There were so many long pauses that were held perfectly still. Ben and James worked magic with this moment, and Ben had exactly the right poise and nobility to him. I also really loved how Albus reacted to having his bonds released. He gave this little hiss of pain and relief and rubbed his wrists. 

-Another great result of the new blocking is that now, when Albus says ‘no, wait!’ as the walls pull back to reveal Delphi with the time-turner, it actually does make some sense. He sees what she’s doing and it seems as though he’s trying to work out what to do about it before they rush into something. I remember talking to Theo at one point about that line, and how Albus can’t see what’s happening, and I definitely prefer it when the walls peel away simultaneously and it’s very clear that Albus can see Delphi at the same time as Scorpius. 

-The second fuck up of the day was the Time-Turner noise not working as the boys went back in time with Delphi. At first I thought this was deliberate, and I actually really liked it. It made it sound as though something was wrong, like they shouldn’t be doing what they were doing. You could hear the reverb of their voices (‘your dad loves you very much’ etc.) but not the ticking of the clock. However, when the voices faded and there were still no clock ticks and no smash of sound when they arrived in the past, it was clear that something had gone wrong. That arrival in the past is way less effective without the smash of sound: the boys just sort of hurled themselves away and kept going, but it didn’t have the same impact. However, there was some great acting thereafter, particularly when Albus ran at Delphi and tries to grab her foot to pull her down. I also loved the amount of Time-Turner glitter that rained down on the boys once Delphi started flying up.

-The blacklight section at the Lyric is really cool. In London not every surface is covered with writing, and the stuff written on the ceiling seems to be a projection rather than bona fide blacklight writing. However, in the Lyric they’ve covered everything and it’s all genuine. From the balcony I could see everything, all the boxes lit up, and the ceilings and the walls, throughout the entire theatre. The most exciting thing I spotted during the short time we had to take everything in was a huge snake drawn on the ceiling above my seat. 

---

This cast come into their own in Act Four. I suspect that’s how it’s always been, but I never had anything to compare it to. It’s also worth noting that the best shows I’ve ever seen them do have been on Friday nights. So basically we picked the right show to go to. 

-The one time Jamie P resists being action hero Harry is at the end of the second EGM. When he’s wheeled offstage then, he sits on the steps in despair, and you could fully believe that Harry would just stay there for a while, sitting alone on the steps and feeling utterly hopeless and helpless before going off to his office to start reading those papers.

-I actually didn’t mind the Broadway station master! He was incomprehensible at least, which is always fun. 

-The Broadway pumpkin transition is a lovely thing. I haven’t seen such a joyful Sorting Hat since Ged left. He threw the snow up in the air above his head, so it sprinkled gently down onto the stage as he walked away. The other highlight was that James and Lily actually interact during the scene. After they play with the snow together they put their arms round each other, and they’re the last couple to walk offstage as the boys run on. It’s so sweet, and it’s the most interaction they’ve ever had in any version of the show. And as they leave, the doors fall into a new, jumbled formation, leaving Lily and James’s door (red, with a lion’s head knocker) right at the heart of the street. 

-Some Albuses run after Lily and James when they leave the house, some fall after them like they’re tied by a string; this one walked trancelike in their wake until Scorpius caught him and pulled him back. 

-For those unfamiliar with my current interests, Lily and James’s door in New York remains lit with this white spectral light, even when the scene moves away from Godric’s Hollow. This gives the effect in other scenes of the ghosts of Harry’s past haunting him. It basically destroyed me. If anyone’s interested in the full meta (which includes ramblings about the doorway as a link between Harry and Albus), it’s here. 

-I basically paid $400 and flew to New York just to see Jamie’s office scene again, and it really did not disappoint. It’s not the sob fest of London (and actually the second part with Draco was the more powerful for me on the night) but oh it’s still wonderful. One of the papers fell on the floor and he angrily snatched it up. He slammed his hand into the desk on ‘years! Years I spent there’ just the way he used to. Although there was more terseness, a Harry closing himself off from Dumbledore, rather than the emotion of London, every single decision, no matter what it was, come right from the core of Harry. Perhaps the only person in the world who understands Harry better than Jamie Parker is JK herself. He just gets it on a profound spiritual level, and everything he does works for the character. This scene (this whole act, the entire show in fact) is one of the best acting performances I’ve ever seen. Jamie is just stellar and professional and a cut above. It was a true joy to see him again. Also shoutout to Edward, who was a great Dumbledore and supported the scene beautifully. 

-I forgot how much I love Alex’s version of the second half of the office scene. He didn’t do the ‘mwahaha’ at the start, which was sad, but instead he did this limpid laugh, like he started off laughing evilly and then realised how pathetic he sounded given the situation so it turned into a mockery of itself. Draco mocking his own behaviour as an adult is great, it shows how much self awareness he’s gained. As the scene goes on, Alex and Jamie get to flex their considerable rapport, and Alex gets to show off his emotional side. I’d forgotten until halfway through the scene that when Alex is acting emotional he makes himself sound on the verge of tears (when he actually cries there’s no indication in his voice), and he absolutely got me with it. This was another scene full of long pauses and lots of space. Harry hesitates, wanting to say yes, that they should go, but when he thinks about it logically he knows it doesn’t make sense, and if he’s to protect his son he needs something that will really work, not just get more people hurt. This is one of the moments when Harry and Albus are just so similar — their realisation that rushing into things has got people hurt, and the guilt they feel for that. 

-The Lyric Theatre stage is pretty huge, and the Godric’s Hollow doors are pushed nearly all the way to the back. I’m pretty sure this is part of the reason why, on Broadway, Albus doesn’t do his traditional thing of starting the central Godric’s Hollow scene sitting on the doorstep. Instead the boys start the scene sitting at the front and centre of the stage, right on top of where the lake normally is. It made for a more intimate scene, and I actually loved the realism of it. It felt like they were two boys who had been out in the cold for hours and were running out of energy and ideas, sitting together on the freezing ground and grasping at straws. This was also the scene where they most felt like friends, with a healthy dose of play fighting, high fives, and messing around. This, for me, was the scene where the Scorbus came into its own, and it was the best friendship I’ve seen Anthony play out with a cover. 

-At stage door after the show, Poppy said that she and Jamie had been trying some new things that night, and undoubtedly the scene where they find the blanket was one of the scenes where that was in evidence. There’s a different rhythm to these scenes now, different and fresh, but they’re just as emotional as they ever were. In this one they knelt together for a long time without speaking, clutching each other, in tears. When Harry finally picked up the blanket and realised that it was damaged, Ginny was so heartbroken for him that she didn’t move away from him to look at the blanket for a long time. She held his hands and comforted him, before finally acknowledging the problem and looking at the blanket. 

-One thing that’s relevant to this scene that I forgot to mention in my Part One recap is how this cast rewrites lines to suit them. They say some of these lines in ways that aren’t written in the script and in ways that no one else will ever say them, and that is in no way a criticism. One such line comes in the blanket scene — ‘and maybe I can come and find it, and you, on Hallow’s Eve’. Jamie rewrites that line to centre it around Albus, whereas the line as it’s written focuses on the blanket. I love that his Harry is making that effort to make this about Albus, he’s trying, and that minute bit of phrasing is an example of how true he is in his love for his son. 

-Back to Part Two, and I just want to acknowledge the fact that Jamie still does my favourite thing ever, and it’s still breathtaking. When Albus throws the blanket up in the air for Ginny to catch and goes sprinting off, Harry’s head whips round, like he’s felt the ghost of his son running by, like he can feel Albus’s presence in the room with him, and he’s going to keep staring at the spot where he knows Albus disappeared because it’s everything he has to hang on to. It was stunning when I first saw it, it’s stunning now, and I missed that moment so much. 

-I enjoyed the blocking changes when the adults arrive in Godric’s Hollow. Ron is placed with Hermione between him and Draco. When Hermione says her line about old times it’s clearly not directed at Ron, which makes complete sense because he was never in Godric’s Hollow. It also means she can act as intervention between Ron and Draco, and that’s exactly what Noma does. She stands between them, a powerful presence who won’t let them fight each other when there are bigger things at stake. It really does give her a greater sense of authority over the scene, and I love that.

-That. Malfoy. Hug. Somehow in the last year and a half I’d forgotten about the magic, the genius sleight of hand, that Alex does with the Time-Turner to somehow have his hands completely free and unimpeded when Anthony comes running at him, so he can just hug, unencumbered, and keep hugging and holding for the rest of the scene. It’s something that no one else has ever been able to accomplish and I still don’t understand how he does it, but he does. Anyway, Anthony comes flying at him hard enough to knock him over, and Alex grabs him and catches him in the air, and there are legs everywhere and it’s so emphatic and joyful and it’s so Draco and Scorpius. That hug is everything. It’s the world and it’s beautiful, and it gets such a reaction and rightly so. And once the hug is over they keep going, holding each other’s hands, Draco ruffling Scorpius’s hair, more hugs, foot nudges, everything, because now they’re together again and everything is okay they can’t bear to be physically apart from another second. 

-It’s a different story with the Potters. Ginny accepts her son into her arms with such utter relief. She squeezes him so tight and in this performance he looked so tiny, even next to her, small and swamped in his mum’s arms. Then, Ginny reaches desperately out to Harry, who hasn’t yet joined them, and she keeps reaching out. He looks at her, then he draws his cloak around himself, adjusts his cuffs, and turns away. He’s not ready yet. They’re not safe, Voldemort is still there, he still has so much to feel guilty for. He can’t. And that is the story of how the Potters broke my heart at the exact same time as the Malfoys were trying to heal it. 

-This show was all about pacing. Careful, slow, deliberate. The cast had all the time in the world to play with. The scene between Ginny and Harry while Albus was sleeping on the bench had every ounce of that slow deliberacy. It was such an intimate conversation, different again to how it’s felt to me before — Ginny was a bit harder with Harry (that was sort of a theme of the whole show actually), but he thrives on that and they get there in the end, to that place where they’re holding each other again. That’s how they always end up, because they’re a team, and they’re facing everything together, no matter what. 

-I think the Transfiguration may have been done in a different order here, but I didn’t keep a note of who joined the spell when so I can’t be sure. I suspect Hermione may have joined earlier, as she was on the other side of the church in the preceding scene (standing right behind Scorpius so their impeccable connection on ‘you’re right’ was all the more impressive and sweet). 

-One thing that I noticed for sure with the Transfiguration was that every time someone joined the spell and there was that awful sizzling sound, Albus flinched, like just seeing his dad in pain was giving him pain. I also very much noticed that as well as the strobe lights that we have in London, which illuminate Voldy as he emerges from Harry’s robes, in NYC there’s a matching strobe light shining directly into Harry’s eyes and onto his face. How Jamie handles that I do not understand. It looked painful. 

-We travel halfway round the world and we still get Paul’s Ron checking in on the Malfoys while they’re keeping watch by the door to Godric’s Hollow. He just can’t resist interfering with their business. You also get Draco touching his son on the shoulder not necessarily affectionately, but more to tell him to remember to keep watch. 

-I missed grumpy Ron lingering outside the door to glare at Draco after the ‘mildly enjoying it’ line. Thornley really makes his point with that one (as he always has)

--So in London, Jamie B runs directly at the Expulso flame, so he’s painfully close to it when it erupts out of the ground. He seems to end up right on top of it, deliberately going towards it, and while I acknowledge that this is for dramatic effect, it’s still very stressful, and I swear he gets much closer to it than is reasonable. Anyway, Harrys wanting to set fire to themselves is clearly an international problem, because Jamie did the same thing. It did look a little safer on Broadway, but I suspect that was partly to do with my distance from and angle to the stage. One day someone’s going to slip or run an inch too far, and then it’ll be the bench all over again except there’ll be fire involved this time.

-I dearly missed Jamie’s screams in the death scene. No one can scream like Jamie P. He’s a master of it. He channels every ounce of Harry’s pain until you feel it like it’s your own pain. I’d like to say that I know exactly what Paul and Noma and Alex and Anthony were doing in this scene, but let’s be honest, I was clinging to my seat as the Potters ripped my heart out. 

-This was actually the site of another of my favourite little Albus things too. When Harry fell, Albus didn’t go with him straight away, and he lost all physical contact with him in the process. He stayed standing, awkwardly, sort of glancing at the house like he didn’t know what to do. Then he slowly bent down and hovered his hands over his dad’s back, like he desperately wanted to touch him but wasn’t sure if he was allowed. Finally he dared to touch his dad’s back, and when he did he melted down onto the ground next to him and that was how they were when the lights faded, father and son, finally connected. 

-I never thought I’d use this word to describe Anthony or his Scorpius, but there’s only one way to describe his descent down the stairs towards Rose in the penultimate scene: smooth. Of course smooth is a very relative term. Basically what I mean is that when he hurled himself down the stairs he didn’t look like he was putting himself in physical danger like he used to. There was no falling, no awkward splits, he just ended up sitting on the step with his cloak wrapped round himself, attempting to look suave. But there was something impressively slick about the manoeuvre. It’s been well practiced.

-I forgot how much I love the slow hug. I remember very clearly the first time I watched that one (it might have been the first time it happened because I remember not being alone that day and I remember everyone else also freaking out). Scorpius slowly, deliberately walking up the stairs to Albus like he’s doubting himself every step of the way but that he won’t be stopped by anything. And when he gets to Albus he stands on the step below and he reaches out and awkwardly leans in and administers a tight hug that wraps round Albus’s body and arms, and renders him incapable of hugging back or escaping until Scorpius realises what he’s doing and runs away. That was the quality of the hug on Friday night, and I wasn’t prepared to be reminded of how much I miss it.

-I’m sure I’ve mentioned the back wall of the stage in recaps before, once I was going to write a full on meta post about it but I never finished it, but if you haven’t seen me talk about this before, here’s some context. In the final scenes of the play (once upon a time from when the burning bed emerged from the floor but now only for the very last scene) the brick wall at the back of the stage peels away from the wood panelling below it to create a gap. In London this always gave the impression of extra space, but mostly of the stage becoming the ruins of Lily and James’s house and then a sort of framework, a scaffolding or structure for Harry and Albus to grow their new relationship around. Everything had been torn away, destroyed when Voldemort cursed the baby Harry, and now they were left with the raw materials to start over. In New York, where the stage is enormous and the wall pulls back a lot further, I got a different feeling. It made the space Harry and Albus meet in during the final scene feel very much outside, but somehow contained, like the sunlight was streaming through cloister windows or over a garden wall. It felt like the graveyard was contained within a courtyard at the centre of the castle or perhaps a walled garden in the grounds. It gave the final scene such a strong sense of setting, and it was beautiful. That scene felt new and unique, airy and bright, which is appropriate because it is absolutely all of those things.

-I have always loved with a passion the way Jamie does the ‘and I know that heart is a good one’ line. He did it differently in this performance, with a ferocity, no pauses, tearing straight through like he had to make his point and have Albus hear him. When he zipped up Albus’s jacket and ruffled his hair he was almost rough with it, rough and forceful and desperate, but then when he was done there was a long moment where they just looked at each other, Harry and Albus, shining in the golden sunlight, Albus hearing from his dad that he’s a good person and actually believing him for the very first time. The long beat of silence felt so bright and warm and hopeful, and then Albus bowed his head in a nod and Harry knew he’d understood and they moved on. I suppose the point of this description is to say that it was different but no less beautiful than ever before. 

-Of my favourite James Romney lines, the pigeon racing line has to be well up there. I’ve talked about the pacing in this performance before and how masterful it was, well this was one of the bits where the pacing of lines really changed how the characters reacted. Here Albus said ‘I’m not going to be a wizard dad’, and then he stopped for a good second while his dad’s expression changed to confusion and horror. He toyed with him for a moment before finally making it clear that he was joking: ‘I’m going into pigeon racing’, and Harry was flooded with relief as he realised his son was teasing him. I think that might actually be my favourite pigeon racing line. There was that something to it that made it more than just an awkward joke. 

-I can’t not mention the final hug, which was one of those ones where Harry took hold of Albus and hugged every inch of him, squeezing his body tight and cradling his head. I love it when they give us those hugs at the end of everything, and it’s pure beautiful relief. 

*

To sum up, I’m so glad I went. There were things that I didn’t like about this performance, which I haven’t mentioned above and don’t really intend to discuss apart from in person. But on the whole and on reflection, I got everything out of my trip to New York that I wanted. I saw Jamie and Poppy and Paul again. I fell in love with Noma in a new way. I got my closure on Alex and Anthony. And I met a wonderful new Albus (I have now seen every Albus so far). There was nothing more I could have wished for from it, and I know that other people haven’t necessarily felt the same, but that was my personal response. 

This performance gave me everything I always want in a performance of this show: it taught me new things about the characters and allowed me to explore in new ways the story I love. It also let me reconnect with a cast that I’d forgotten how much I love. The original cast do something to me, they give me this ability to see the show with such clarity, they sharpen my focus and my memory, and when I see them they make me want to write and write and keep writing until I’ve chronicled every tiny detail of their immensely rich performance. I love that about them. It’s unique to them, and no other cast will be able to do that for me. Cast two felt like home, cast three make me so immersed in the story and emotionally connected to it, and the original cast bring out some kind of intellectual depth in the show that captures and fires my imagination. They did that for me over two days in New York and I’m immensely grateful for that.

It’s also worth saying that I’ve thought a lot about the fact that James Romney will be the only Albus I ever see just once. I’m certain I’ll see Ryan again in London, and all the others I’ve seen multiple times. At first I didn’t know how I felt about it. I loved his performance so much that I thought I would be sad or feel like I was missing out, and I do a little bit. I wish I could see him many more times and find every little nuance in what he does. But actually, now, I’m happy that I get to have these glowing memories of his performance. He will always be the Albus whose performance is locked in my memory, that I will never be able to go back to. The memories will remain untarnished, unexplored, because I can’t look further than I did in those five hours, and that’s kind of cool. I will see his Albus though rose-tinted glasses, and maybe I’ll forever love him unreasonably, but that’s alright. Maybe that’s how other people who only see the show once and love it feel about everyone and everything involved. It’s fun to be able to get a glimpse into that world for once...

#Harry Potter and the Cursed Child #Cursed Child #hpbway #HPCC NYC #Jamie Parker #James Romney #anthony boyle #alex price #Poppy Miller #Noma Dumezweni #Paul Thornley #these people made me very happy #and the Lyric is beautiful #I'm so glad I got to go #I feel very lucky to have got to see these wonderful people again #and to have seen James for the first time #worth every cent #Keep The Secrets #Notes from the show #Have I ever mentioned that I love this show a lot? #Because I really do

[ohscorbus]

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Saturday 24th June, 2017

So I had the absolute pleasure and privilege of seeing the new cast again and let me tell you, they were phenomenal. From the very first scene to their last, I was fully immersed in the story and loving every second of it. The comparison between the show I saw in their first week to the show I just saw now is mind blowing. Part of me was wishing that this is how I should have seen them that first time, but now I’m glad I didn’t because it means I got to see them grow. They’re noticeably more comfortable on stage and more familiar with their characters and it’s made all the difference. I never got to see that with the original cast (not in the beginning anyway) so that was wonderful to see with this one. It has made me love and appreciate this cast even more!

Today’s performance was particularly special for me as I was sat in the riiiight in the middle of the front row. Squeeeak! I was snowed on, soaked with water, hit with winds from the train, blinded by the fire, lit up by the lights, and brushed past by Voldemort. It was an experience. 

But anyway, more on that later. I’ve got a Theo to gush about *cracks knuckles* right...!

I have to start with Theo because that boy has blossomed into an incredible Albus. Where I only saw glimpses of his full potential last time, I was smacked right in the face (and the feels) with it in this show. He was totally mesmerising to watch. Not in the distracting kind of way Scorpius can be with his billion little mannerisms (not that that’s a bad thing), but for how Theo completely embodies Albus’s pain. He’s crushed by it in those scenes and watching him break apart on stage had me in tears over and over again. Which you know, is super embarrassing considering the cast would have seen that : / Moooving on. From an Albus fan point of view, I LOVE how he’s the one that people are leaving the theatre and talking about. All I’ve ever wanted is for everyone to love and understand Albus. It kills me how people are so quick to write him off as a spoilt angsty teenager when that’s not the case at all!!! There’s so much more going on there and Theo is showing that brilliantly. There’s always been an honestly about Albus I’ve admired but now there’s a fearless vulnerability to him that just makes me want to mother him. I’ve always been protective of Albus but Theo has made it a thousand times worse. THANKS THEO.

I spoke about Samuel a lot in my last recap and I adore his Scorpius just as much today as I did back then. He’s nerdy and awkward and loveable and everything I want for Scorpius Malfoy. Samuel gives us so much. There’s so many little things he does that really bring the whole character together. He makes Scorpius very real on a whole other level. (I’m not going to be able to describe this well at all but here goes...) I’ve never once seen or thought about ‘Samuel’ when he’s on that stage. He’s pure Scorpius and his Scorpius acts like he would as if he’s really been around for the fourteen years he’s suppose to have been. All those little Scorpius things are so completely natural to him. It’s really the most amazing to watch.

As for the Scorbus-y stuff because you know, username and all, these two are actually adorable. There's an innocence to this Scorbus that makes me want to single handedly and wandlessly take on Delphi myself. They appear and act a lot younger than Anthony and Sam’s Scorbus ever did. It also means it feels like they need each other more because of that. So it makes sense that there’s a ri-dic-ou-lous amount of touching between these two. If they don’t have an arm around the other then they’re holding onto an arm or patting a shoulder. It’s really the sweetest thing you’ll ever see. You know how really young kids will meet someone new and instantly declare them their best friend and then refuse to let go for the fear of losing them? It’s like that. Which to be fair, their first handshake does go ooon and oooon... : ) Today Albus actually reached for Scorpius’s hand back and instigated another handshake. Apparently one was not enough. To be fair, it wasn’t. The first time I saw it their handshake went on foreverrrr, but today it was quite short. Albus was having none of that. Bless.)

Riiight. The recap! So the super duper @torestoreamends has written a 17k+ recap (Part One / Part Two) of this show so there isn’t much point in writing the same things over and over again. I haven’t read it yet but I know, without a doubt, that she’ll have described it in waaay better than I ever could. So instead I’m going to pick out a few of my favourite things and other little tidbits I picked up on from the front row. 

Act One, Scene Two

So you know when Albus is sat on the front of his trolley at King’s Cross? Well the trolley kept threatening to tip over and my heart was beating out of my chest for him. I thought @thatwasdramatic​ was about to get a lap full of Theo any second :’) He did manage to balance himself better after the trolley’s third attempt at freedom but by that point I had lost where I was in the scene.

Act One, Scene Four

Scorpius was crossing his fingers on both hands as he nervously waited for the Sorting Hat’s decision. His arms were down by his sides so his hands were slightly hidden by his robes. It meant the finger crossing was just for him, not for the whole school to see. Bless this child.

In contrast to that, Albus is also visibly nervous but his hands were balled up into fists. My poor, anxious little bean.

Transition sequence between Act One, Scene Six and Seven

I REALLY love hearing the stuff the mics don’t pick up. That’s definitely one of the highlights about sitting so close. During this transition, there’s a moment here where Albus walks to the very edge of the stage, right in the middle, and he stands there for a second or two. The stage is mostly dark (Ginny is watching him from further back while things are moved on and off stage) but there’s a spotlight illuminating him from above/behind.

So imagine, there I am, looking up at this character who means the world to me. He’s right there in front of me. Less than a metre away. I could hear the heartbreaking sigh (there’s music so I don’t think you would have heard it otherwise). I could see his face and body drop with exhaustion and hurt as he let his head fall back slightly (he’s about to have that argument with his dad and you could sense it coming). He’s all backlit and surrounded by this stunning white light and it’s probably the nearest I’ll get to a religious experience I honestly wanted to cry??? I think it was because there was nothing else happening, no script, no props. Just Albus. Albus Severus Potter ♥︎

Act One, Scene Seven

This scene didn’t work for me last time (it’s one of my favourites too) but it blew me away today. I felt Albus’s pain 100% here. He was upset, anxious about his return to Hogwarts the next day, and it manifested into the outburst of anger that Harry bears the brunt of.

Talking of sighs again, the two of them are sat next to each other on Albus’s bed until there’s pause in the conversation. Harry then got up and walked off so he was turned away from Albus when he said, “Do you want a hand? Packing.” It meant he missed Albus’s reaction. The reaction that broke my heart. You could see the words register on his face as his dad spoke you and then he just... broke. He dropped his head into his hands and he let out the biggest, most pain filled sigh. I don’t think he’s angry at Harry specifically here, not really, or he’s at least not fuelled by his resentment in the way Sam’s Albus was. He’s more despairingly frustrated than anything else. Theo’s Albus is tired of the strained conversation and wants to be left alone in peace. Harry turning the conversation to Harry Potter and to how wonderful Hogwarts is antagonised him because it meant his dad wasn’t hearing him. Really hearing him. Specifically...  : (

Act One, Scene Sixteen

They’ve stepped the Polyjuice transformation up a gear and the audience really eats it up. My faaavourite little bit was when Scorpius’s own arms start to retract back into his robes (Harry’s arms then come through instead) and as they were slowly disappearing, Scorpius let out a panicked ‘nononononono’ as he stared down at them. The fear was real.

Act One, Scene Twelve

Like I said, there were certain parts of the show that made me feel as if I was actually part of the action from where I was sat. This scene was one of them. Everyone is crowded round and looking up at Hermione and Harry up on the stairs and we were having to do the same thing. Peering past the heads of the wizards in front of us to see. I really felt like one of the crowd. It was awesome : )

The same thing happened every time anything took place at the front of the stage because then the lights would be on us too. It made me feel a liiiiittle bit exposed : | But anyway, those lights get warm after a while. The actors must melt after five hours!

Act One, Scene Nineteen

“This is going to be good” - This line was so go-oooooo-ooo-ooo-ooood’ because it was said/sang exactly like that. Bless you Samuel, bless you.

Act Two, Scene Nineteen

“Consider me engorgimpressed” - It took him a second but Scorpius did look a little embarrassed by this today. Albus was confused but there was a hint of a smirk on his face. This was iiiiinteresting, considering they didn’t play with this line at all last time.

Act Three, Scene Three

Draco held Scorpius by the chin and looked at him. I mean, really looked at him. The stage direction says ‘Draco studies his son’ and that’s exactly what he did. Scorpius was unprepared and was probably expecting the worse. Instead he got, ‘there’s more of her in there than I thought’, which I think will mean a lot to him when he processes that. Given the fact they aren’t talking about her back in their reality and all. But yeah, I really loved that chin hold. It wasn’t particularly gentle, nor was it violent like when he held him down on the desk. (The way Draco looks at his hand after that like he can’t believe he did it pains me.) But it was an interesting and somewhat touching moment between father and son. I really liked it. Reeeally hoping it stays...

Act Three, Scene Nine

As soon as Umbridge makes her appearance, Scorpius runs and hides behind a tree and IT’S THE BEST THING I’VE EVER WITNESSED. He stays there until Umbridge mentions his name because of course she knew exactly where he was. But that boy hid anyway :’)

Scorpius reached out to touch Snape’s doe Patronus and it was a really beautiful moment. There was so much wonder in his face. (It makes me wonder if that’s the first time he’s seen a Patronus? Or at least up close? If Draco still can’t conjure one and Astoria being so weak? Although I like to think he can by now...) It meant his next line, “thank you for being my light in the darkness”, had a much greater impact. Or it did on me at least.

THE LAKE.

So the theatre has an actual splash zone (no, seriously) and while I joked about whipping out my emergency poncho at the beginning of this scene, I really should have. I say this not to complain about getting wet, but to thank Samuel for being a flaily little fish in the water. It wasn’t even just the once though? We were repeatedly splashed and it was the best thing ever!!! (I never thought I’d be so ecstatic about being soaked by lake water but here we are! What has this play done to me...)

Oh! So I nearly forgot the most important part! The water is warm. Like, a nice bath kinda warm. It surprised me so much I literally jumped back in my seat. It goes to show how lost you get in the story because I’ve always presumed that water was cold, like a lake should be. I’ve never given it a second thought. Although obviously now I’m thinking about it, It can’t be cold otherwise they actors would be sick all the time. Duh.

Another thing, you could hear the water sloshing about as Theo must have been getting in the water from under the stage. (The tank is still hidden at this point so you know, not good.) Someone must have been shining a torch down there for him too because you could see the light through the gaps in the stage. It was kiiiind of distracting since it kept moving around but to be honest (although I’m sure your ‘normal’ theatre goers didn’t notice), I was just excited because it meant Albus was coming back :’) Also, I find the bits you aren’t meant to see super interesting. The special effects are amazing but I LOVE seeing how they’re done. So yeah, if you don’t want to see wires and whatnot, don’t sit near the front!

Act Three, Scene Eleven

This was another outstanding scene from Theo. And Jamie. They portray the fragile state of Harry and Albus’s relationship so brilliantly. It’s full of painful misunderstandings, poorly timed outbursts, and misguided anger. And tears. So many tears... *glares at Theo* But I know there’s love there. They make that obvious too. They’re both sat on top of a suitcase and even though they’re turned slightly away from each other, they’re still so close. It’s clear that neither of them want it to be this way, they just don’t know what to do to fix it. It’s the awkwardness of their relationship that hurts them. It makes me so sad because you see they weren’t like that before Hogwarts. Before the bullying. Watching that bond deteriorate through those quick glances of his school years breaks my heart. I can’t imagine what that must be like for Harry. To know he’s slowly losing his son but everything he tries to do to bring him back just pushes him further away...

But back to Theo because he was destroying me here. Albus was crying actual tears and pulling down on the sleeves of his jumper. It’s like he’s trying to hide himself, like maybe if he wraps himself up then it won’t hurt as much.

Fun fact: it still hurt me. Thanks Theo.

As if I wasn’t already crying, Albus’s last “no” was utterly broken. He was so honest with it and no attempt was made at hiding those emotions from his dad. THAT’S WHAT I LOVE ABOUT ALBUS SEVERUS POTTER. That boy might wear his anger as a shield but he also wears his heart on his sleeve.

Act Three, Scene Fourteen

This is one of my favourite scenes to watch and Samuel never fails to keep me captivated.

I love that when he’s wheeled on stage in his bed, he’s wide awake and clearly plotting how to wake Albus up. Or he’s counting down the minutes until he’s allowed to wake Albus up. (I totally believe he was given an ‘absolutely not before this time’ talk and will clock watch.)

“Albus... Psst... Albus. ALBUS!” - Aaaand the most quoted line of the entire play goes to... *drumroll* Scorpius’s little whisper-shout of “Albooooos” as he tries to wake Albus up. The pillow fight still happens too. Although it was less of a fight today and more of an attack. Albooos was seeking his revenge.

“Bring back Moldy Voldy and have him torture me?” - So as he said this, he pulled his duvet up over his head and wrapped it around himself (like it’s a hooded cloak) and made creepy ‘Voldemort’ hands at Albus. Kinda like....

...THAT! Except less menacing because this is Scorpius we’re talking about. He did this last time and I’m so glad he’s kept it because the parallels are TOO GOOD. Honestly, these Malfoys and their Potters :’)

Act Four, Scene Two

When the station master talks and the boys look confused, Albus looked between Scorpius and the station master before taking a step or two backwards. He then gestured at Scorpius as if to say, ‘you can handle this, he’s all yours’, and it was hilarious. I love the idea of Albus just going noooope whenever he doesn’t want to deal with something and smiling at Scorpius, hoping he’ll sort it out. (They both must know Scorpius can’t refuse that smile.)

Imagine though. The bowtruckles have wandered off and Professor Longbottom asks Albus to help him round them all back up. Scorpius is packing his things away, thinking about which essay to start first since they both have a free period next and then to his left he hears a sweetly whispered “Scorrrrrpiuuuus” in a near perfect imitation of his own singsong voice. He turns and sees Albus flash him this big toothy grin... aaand Scorpius kisses goodbye to his hour in the library. I bet Albus has dragged him into some right situations- OH WAIT.

Also, can you imagine how giddy Scorpius is going to be around Neville after the events of CC? The whole of history rests on his teacher! Squeeeak. But also imagine Scorpius wanting to adopt ALL the bowtruckles. Eventually one is going to bit him but he won’t care, he’s so excited. He’ll turn to Albus with his newly bitten finger up in the air and he’ll say, “I can’t wait to tell my dad about this!”, and poor Neville will fear for his life. Oh if only Hogwarts held a parents’ evening...

Transition sequence between Act Four, Scene Two and Three

I loooove this transition ♥︎ There’s pumpkins and snow! Oh the snow! You get snowed on when you’re sat at the front #blessed

*whispers* psst....I may or may not have kept a piece of snow... I say ‘kept’, it obviously drifted on down into my bag :p

No but really, you do get a little bit snowed on in these seats. It’s really quite cool.

Act Four, Scene Ten

While the adults transfigured Harry into Voldemort, Albus and Scorpius were stood further back and Scorpius was holding onto Albus’s arm/inner elbow. I’m not sure if he was comforting Albus or if it was because he was tiny bit scared himself (one or both of them flinched back as Harry cried out) but I loved it all the same.

Aaaaand a few more things because if I don’t add them as quick last minute bullet points then I’ll still be here writing about this performance two months from now. Not that that’s a bad thing. You could easily talk about it for that long. It really was one of the best and most enjoyable shows I’ve been too.

The Scorpius torture scene was A+ on everyone’s part, Albus was really shouting for Scorpius this time and I felt that like a stab in the chest.

Can we talk about Delphi please? That pendant on her choker definitely looks like a bird skull. An Augurey perhaps? I like to think it’s her mothers since Bellatrix wore a necklace with the same(?) pendant in the movies. I know she says the tattoo come from the pet bird but I’m far more inclined to believe it’s a nod to Bellatrix. The name too. Maybe it’s the only thing she has of hers?

EDIT: So Annabel says it is in fact an Augurey skull. Niiiiice.

You should all know that me and @thatwasdramatic resisted the urge to make Voldemort do the limbo (we were on either side of aisle) as he walked between us. Next time!

Oh and Voldemort felt even closer this time. His wand was literally centimetres away from my arm and I’m not sure how I felt about that : / It was a liiiittle bit too close for comfort. At least he didn’t hiss at me this time.

Ok. So. Real talk. I’m a tiny bit scared about just how on top form these two already are and we’re only a month into their run. A month. It makes me really, really, really excited about the rest of the year : ) That goes not only for Theo and Samuel, but the whole cast. I know I barely mentioned anyone else but every single one of them were brilliant. I struggled seeing some of their characters that first time (a poor combination of their nervousness/newness and me still holding onto the old cast) but that’s long gone now. It took time but I realised you don’t move on from an original cast, you just accept another one into your heart alongside them. 

This cast are particularly special though. I love how invested in the show and their characters they are. You see it on stage and hear it in their words at stage door. So much care and thought has gone into everything they do, even the little things 95% of audience won’t see and/or notice. I hope they know how much it means to those of us who do notice though. I hope they know that we go into the theatre and purposely look out for those things. Just like I hope they know we go home with a smile on our face because of it. Muggles People always ask me why I keep going back to see it again, and the answer is simple. Nothing makes me more enthusiastic than a cast who love their characters (and the story) as much as I do. That’s the magic of the show.

Well, that and who wouldn’t want to spend the day in the same room as Harry Potter?! Seriously though, I’ve read the books, seen the movies, worn the robes, met the actors, visited the sets etc, and it’s this show that makes me feel the closest to the magic. It’s not trapped flat behind a screen or locked inside my head. It’s right there in front of me. For someone who’s loved HP for twenty years, it’s been a dream come true.

#TCCleanne #cursed child play #not even 4k words I feel ashamed #(this is a jumbled mess that's 80% rambling sorrryyyyy)

[efnewsservice]

Highlights from the Mixed Cast panel at Storytelling Con, Barcelona, April 22, 2017

Please note I missed the first 10 minutes of this panel... 5AM is early to get up on a Saturday :)

Favorite scenes for each actor:

Gil:  “I guess I have to go with meeting Ariel.  I’ve had some nice scenes but that was really the special one.  It was the first scene that I shot.  Walking down the stairs and seeing Ariel and falling in love.”

Sean:  “It’s difficult to pick one because there are lots of scenes that I enjoyed.  But there is an episode [4.17] where I’m riding a horse down a street in New York.  And obviously you can’t ride a real horse on concrete because it’s dangerous.  So they have this pretend mechanical horse which is just a big rocking horse and they put it on a truck and they drive it down the street.  So I’m on a big pretend rocking horse driving down a main street and there are all these people in Vancouver looking at me going what is that guy doing?  And I was like... I’m Robin Hood.”

Beverley:  “My favorite scene was in Red Handed, when Ruby was just about to attack Peter and I threw the cape on her... that was so exciting because we were outside in the snow it was beautiful it was tense and we were fighting and I had to throw the cape on her and turn her back into Ruby.”

Bex:  “I have two favorite scenes.  My first one I love the scene with Zelena and Regina in the episode... I love all the stuff that explores the relationship between the sisters.  And there was one episode in season 5 called Sisters... there was a very emotional scene with me and my sister and our mommy when she made us hold hands and close our eyes and we remembered that we had known each other all along.  That was my first one and my second one was the musical which you haven’t seen yet!”

Gil sang A Whole New World to Deniz as if he was Ariel.

Bex best moment as the Wicked Witch:  “My song in the musical was so much fun!  I don’t even know what to do with myself.  I keep looking at the calendar is it May 7th yet?  That was the best moment for my character because in this song it tells my character’s whole story in one three and a half minute song.  One of the best days of my life.”

The most touching moment filming scenes:  

Gil:  “Getting to kiss Ariel.  Multiple times.  I was like ‘can I get one more?’  They are like Gil it doesn’t need to be an open mouthed kiss.”

Bex:  “One of the most emotional scenes I shot was when I had to give up my baby to Robin and Regina because I was hurting her and I had to surrender her that was really...”

Beverley:  “When they were going through the gate back to [the Enchanted Forest] and I had to say goodbye to Roland.  [...]  I was holding the baby and I kissed his head that was very touching.  Raphael is a gorgeous little actor.”

Sean:  “Obviously working with Raphael.  I started working with him before I became a dad... because I was a child actor myself I felt very protective over him.  It was one of the first days I was filming with him I had him in my arms and he was only 5 at the time and I have lots of nieces and nephews and I’m very touchy feelly and I kissed him on the head.  We weren’t filming and he turned around and said ‘did you just kiss me?’  And I was like yes, yes I did.  I’m not sure if I’m supposed to do that... why is this strange man kissing me... from day one we had a really strong bond, we got along very well.  He’s just a very sweet boy and I love him.”

Faustino:  “When we have these little glimpses of nature cutting in.  We were shooting a scene [in 3.02] by the river with Snow White and Charming and all the dwarves and in comes a deer.  Just starts walking.  Walking ... walking and we’re just kind of doing our scene and the deer is in the scene.  Everyone at that point was .. and then at that point the deer was right there and Ginny goes ‘oh my god’ ... and on the wedding scene we had some birds that snuck in the building while filming we had those glimpses of nature setting in...”

Deniz:  “I was always a big fan of the cartoons of Aladdin and on the first day we actually got to do the scene where I fly in and Jasmine’s in the hourglass and Jafar’s there with the staff and I’m in the cartoon I’ve watched four hundred million times...  And I got to be Aladdin and save her...”

What do you love most about Once Upon a Time:

Gil:  “That I got to play a Disney prince.  Because honestly I was shocked that I got that part.  I feel honored and humbled.”

Deniz:  “That I got to work with all these lovely people.”

Faustino:  “I love the message.  It’s a message of hope and ah that message is represented through all of you.  Thank you.”

Bex:  “The best thing about Once Upon a Time is how it’s brought all of us together.  The fandom has created a community.  Like no matter what happens we’ll always have each other.”

Beverley:  “I love that it took these fairy tales that we all knew as children and then gave this life and history which connected all of us together.  And that it’s international.  The cast is international and now we get to travel the world and have this international community.”

Sean:  “I just like that I get to wear leather head to toe all day and they pay me.”

Will Zelena be a good person or will she just be a wicked witch:  “I think Zelena is going through a massive transformation... I think becoming a mother has made her heart softer.  You’ll see throughout the rest of the season what happens with Zelena’s relationship with Regina but I think no matter how redeemed my character becomes there always be a little bit of wicked in there.”

What UK food does Bex miss the most:  “A good bloody cup of tea!  Like a proper cup of tea with milk and sugar!  Like a lady!”

For Sean:  What do you like most about playing a Disney fairy tale character?  “Well I thought of Robin Hood as a character by itself before Disney made a Disney movie of Robin Hood.  I just liked the fact that I got to play a ...  just getting to play the legend of Robin Hood.  It’s just one of those characters that any male actor would really enjoy.”

What do you think about fans that follow you around the world [at conventions] are they crazy?: 

Bex:  “I think it’s amazing that people get on a plane to come and meet us.  It’s mental.  We are very very honored and it really means a lot to us.”

They were asked to dance the Macarana.  Bex attempted to decline saying she needs more coffee but Beverley made them all get up and do it.  The editor at this point is having 1990s PTSD flashbacks...

Favorite same sex love interest for your own characters:

Sean:  “I don’t want to disappoint the gents here because they’re strapping men every one of them but I’d have to say my old pal Colin O’Donoghue.  When he raises that eyebrow I just fall to pieces.”

Gil:  “Aladdin here.  He’s got long hair .... something to grab hold of....”

Deniz:  “I’d have to go with the one and only Prince Charming.  He’s the prince of Charming.”

Faustino:  “Charming absolutely.”

Beverley:  “I just feel strange because I’m a grandmother... of course Zelena would be number one but my tied for number one ... Jasmine ...”

Bex:  “I think Zelena might have a crush on Belle.  She’s so little!  I can pick her up she’s so cute!  In really life I think Rebecca Mader would go for Lana Parrilla we’re not sisters in real life so it’s not wrong.  It’s not weird.”

How long does it take to become the Wicked Witch:  “Three hours.  Seven coffees.  And lots of snapchat, twitter and instagram.  But once the green makeup is on it can stay on for 17 hours and then it takes half an hour to take off.  And then I look 16 at the end because it’s taken all the skin off.”

Who is your favorite scene partner:  

Beverley:  “I love hanging out with Archie and Geppetto.  We have a nice little trio and the three of us [talk a lot].”

Gil:  “Again there are just so many to choose from.  I’m going to say Joanna who plays Ariel.  Though last time I was up there I got to work with Karen David and she was absolutely wonderful.  Do you want to trade?” [to Deniz]

Deniz:  “Karen David’s my answer.  Actually no Jafar.. Oded is so fun to work with.  He’s so evil and so lovely in person.  It’s kind of cool to see him switch.”

Faustino:  “Since I play dwarf I’m going to say my dwarf brothers.  Because we have a lot of fun all the time.”

Sean:  “I can’t pick one person.  All of us became good friends.  Bex is like my sister, Colin is like my brother, Mikey Raymond-James who left the show a little while ago is one of my best friends.... it’s a tie.  Lana obviously ... I can’t pick between all of my favorites.”

Bex:  “Lana Parrilla!  Two reasons I like working with my sister the most.  One when we’re in character we play and each take is different.  And number two she makes tea like a British lady.  I spend a lot of time in her trailer drinking her tea and eating her chocolate.”

If you could play any other character:

Sean declines to answer because they were all well cast.  “I’m very happy I got to be Robin Hood because I think I would have been a terrible Queen of Darkness.”

Bex doesn’t want to play anyone else but her.

Beverley:  Rumple.

Deniz:  “I’d like to play Zelena for a day.  Just for a day.  One day get green...”

Gil:  “Prince Charming because he’s gotten to do way more episodes than me.”

Faustino: “Hook, that’s an interesting character.”

#ouat spoilers #april 2017 #convention panel #beverley elliott #beverley elliott convention panel #granny lucas #sean maguire #sean maguire convention panel #robin hood #rebecca mader #rebecca mader convention panel #zelena mills #gil mckinney #gil mckinney convention panel #prince eric #faustino di bauda #deniz akdeniz #sleepy #deniz akdeniz convention panel #aladdin #faustino di bauda convention panel

[shinewithalltheuntold]

So, I had the pleasure of attending the Once Upon a Time panel at Phoenix Comicon today.  Sean Maguire, Karen David, and David Anders.  I expected to be entertained.  I did not expect to almost ruin my makeup because they made me laugh so hard I cried.

Seriously, I cannot overstate how flipping funny these three were together.  And adorable and thoughtful and just...this was one of the best panels I have been to in a long time - which is saying a lot because I’ve been to some really good panels.

A few highlights Many highlights under the cut because OMG they were just so entertaining:

- Karen David trying to come up with a way not to spoil people in the audience who hadn’t seen the finale yet (the mod rightly pointed out that anyone going to a panel without having seen the finale of a show knows what they’re getting into.  Still, Karen was adorable about it.)

- David made a comment about Sean looking cooler with his bow and arrow than Stephen Amell and the audience all gasped.  David took mock offense because they were at a Once panel and not an Arrow one.  He then randomly dropped references to Stephen Amell for the rest of the panel.  So funny.

- Sean of course got asked about Robin’s death.  He said he was obviously disappointed about it, but emphasized that an actor’s job was to serve the greater story and that as a writer he understood that (didn’t know he was a writer so that was an interesting tidbit.)  He sounded more zen about the whole thing than the interviews I read at the time - understandably so.

- He then made joking references to Robin’s death off and on, including that if Robin had been in the musical episode the only thing he could have sung about was being in a box.  This led to David Anders singing a Robin Hood theme song.

- David Anders can sing. Both he and Karen sang during the panel.  Sean sort of halfheartedly sang at one point, but he deferred to the other two.  Karen serenaded us with a Galavant song. It was glorious.

- Karen and David would have loved to be in the musical episode, but Karen pointed out that the regular cast has a lot of talented people and they should take center stage over recurring characters.  Sean would not have wanted to be in the musical episode, but was happy it was well-received and that his castmates did well.

- Karen enjoys teasing Colin.  He apparently tried to get her to crack at various points and she took that as a challenge so now it’s a bit of a thing with them. (She apparently tweeted a picture of a ham to him at one point.)  Also, apparently someone tweeted “#pantydropper” to Colin once and it makes him turn red whenever it’s mentioned. So Karen makes sure to mention it.

- Oh, and in the finale scene where Hook calls Snow ‘mom’, the first few takes apparently Colin played it all over the top sexy just for laughs.

- David enjoyed working with Sean on the couple of scenes they had together.  He was impressed with Sean’s ability to cry (holding Peanut) and not break character even when dealing with cheesy lines.

- Sean finds that the more serious a scene is, the more he wants to joke around (which I so relate to).  He made a comment about that possibly being the reason he was let go.

- Karen was really excited to with Ginnifer Goodwin in her first episode.  She shared a care package her dad sent to her with Ginny.  And then gave little care packages, including tea, to her castmates a lot.  She stopped when she realized how expensive it was going to be.  She apologized to Sean because she stopped it before he came back.

- She talked about what a pro Lana is and how when she’s playing the Evil Queen she is totally into it.  But in the diner scene where the Evil Queen is force choking Jasmine, Karen made this really weird, loud choking noise that she broke character and apologized for.  Lana cracked up, and Karen said she had to be looking away in the rest of the takes so she wouldn’t laugh.

- When asked about props or stunts that were memorable, Karen said she absolutely loved the flying carpet stuff.  And working with Joanna.  She is totally in love with being a Disney princess; she referenced it a lot.  It was too cute.  Sean talked about riding the fake horse in the streets of “New York” and how ridiculous he looked and how the people watching the filming looked at him like he was nuts.  He also talked about how sometimes the arrows he used were CGI because “apparently the producers didn’t want him accidentally shooting his castmates.  Or the crew.  Or random citizens of Vancouver.”  David joked that the heart he used in his scenes was real, donated by someone named Doug who died and donated his organs to Once.

- They all love Eduardo and his costumes and what he did for their characters. Sean talked about how it helped him find the character.  Karen said Eduardo told her she’s be on a liquid diet to fit into her costume so she loved when wore the cape because she got to eat that day.  David loved the steampunk look to his costume.

- Someone asked what spinoff they’d like to do for any of the roles they played.  David said there had been talk of a Sark spinoff for Alias at one point.  Sean said he’d love to play the version of Ian Fleming he played in Timeless in a spinoff.  Karen just said she wanted more Galavant - maybe a movie or a musical.

- All three of them geek out whenever they get the chance to act with Robert Carlyle. They all think he’s amazing.

- David doesn’t know how to play anything but villains.

- David and Sean were fucking savage about Trump.  Sean did an impression of him that I’m pretty sure was the start of my tearing up from laughing, and when asked which real life hero or villain he would be he said he would be Trump so that he could shoot himself in the head.  Then at the end when they were asked who they’d take a magic carpet ride with, David said Trump so that he could push him off.  Sean said that David stole his answer verbatim and then looked out and said that they might as well do it right so he would take Pence on his carpet ride.

- Sean’s favorite thing to do besides acting is napping.  A highly underrated pastime. (Clearly a man with a small child.)  Karen likes going into the studio to make music, and is learning golf.  David agreed to help teach her.

- Karen is moving into Sean’s neighborhood.  Sean is helping her move.  Karen joked that she just wanted to see Sean in a tank top and then Sean talked about as actors how they’d all have the perfect “moving day” outfits and that if his clashed with Karen’s husband he’d have to go home and change.

- David moved recently as well into a “cooler” neighborhood and apparently someone wrote something about hipsters not being welcome in the neighborhood.  He left it up because it amused him and was actually kind of cool looking. He referenced Banksy in describing what it looked like.

- Sean liked doing Once Upon a Time in Wonderland because it let him develop his character a bit more.  And because getting two paychecks is always good.

- Now that I’m thinking about it, Karen did reference wanting to do a spinoff called “Once Upon a Time in Agrabah.”  She said she would take the magic carpet with Hook, and pick up Robin and Whale on the way because after spending the weekend with Sean and David she was bummed that she never got to have scenes with either of them.  (Seriously though, they seemed to have hit it off really well.  They were having a great time together and were really comfortable with each other.)

- A gentleman talked about how his wife had been battling cancer and Once was a godsend to her because it helped keep her mind off the pain of chemo and he was really grateful to the show for being so important to her.  Sean said something really lovely about how he thought he spoke for all the cast that being able to create something that was so meaningful to so many people and to hear stories like that was what made their jobs worthwhile.

- Karen talked about her parents and how inspirational they were to her.  They weren’t allowed more than $20 when they emigrated first to England and then to Canada.  Her dad framed the $20 to remind her and her sister of how important it was to work hard to achieve your goals and how supportive and awesome they were.

- She also talked about being bullied growing up and dealing with racism and how seeing Disney princesses like Jasmine and Mulan and Pocahontas helped her to recognize that those things she was being bullied for were what made her special.  When she was done talking, David leaned over and gave her a hug.

I’m sure there’s more stuff that I’m missing because the panel was pretty much an entire hour of amazing and I am so so glad I went.  Karen David is sunshine personified, Sean Maguire is witty and sweet and charming, and David Anders is so much funnier than I was expecting (and also had moments of sweetness.) I highly recommend attending any panel any of them do, separately or together.  But especially together because it was just truly delightful.  (And I am really bummed that I missed the chance to do the photo op with the three of them together now.  Alas.) 

#phoenix comicon #ouat #sean maguire #karen david #david anders #the whole weekend was fun #but even if it had been total crap #it still would have been worth it #for that panel alone