» [ upside down ], p r i v a t e

[Mercy Hatchitt]

ʽ ʽ and as my mind beings

TO SPREAD IT'S WINGS THERE'S NO STOPPING CURIOSITY I WANT TO TURN THE WHOLE THING UPSIDE DOWN I'LL FIND THE THINGS THEY SAY JUST CAN'T BE FOUND - - - - - - - - - - - - -

TAGGED: AURORA | WORDS: 340 | WEARING: NOT UP YET

Mercy had made it a point to never read the newspaper. The few times she had picked up a newspaper were because one of her siblings (most notoriously Gabe) had been mentioned in it. She found absolutely nothing intriguing about the news and, in fact, thought that all the haughty gossip was just plain silly. Who really cares about things that have no effect on anyone’s lives? Pish posh. There’s so much more important things. Even more, she hardly listened to the silly gossip of people that read the stupid things in the Daily Prophet. However, earlier that morning there were people talking about a vampire hunter coming to Hogsmeade. That was… well, that was certainly different. As far as Mercy was concerned, vampires were things of legends. She had never seen one, and as far as she knew, no one in her family had come in contact with a vampire.

So, as far as twelve year old Mercy Hatchitt was concerned, vampires just absolutely did not exist.

Yet, she was sitting with her feet curled under her on a couch in the Hufflepuff common room, staring at the latest Daily Prophet article. There was a woman, a very pretty woman, on the page and it said that she feared for her children. She was apparently a vampire, but she didn’t look like a vampire. The woman didn’t look overly pale, nor did she look like she wanted to suck out anyone’s blood. And, if Mercy was right (though she doubted she was because she was only middle class and didn’t know much about the upper class or fancy businessmen), her husband wasn’t a vampire. “This is just silly,” Mercy said out loud, yet to herself. She was certain there was no one around in the common room, but she couldn’t be too sure. Mercy unfolded her legs and nearly crawled off of the couch, tossing the newspaper into the fire. “There. Be gone, silly writings!” She smiled as she watched the edges of the papers curled up.

[Aurora Fairclough]

Aurora had come into the common room while Mercy had been busy with the newspaper. Normally, she would have gone over to the other girl and started chatting right away. She was the type of person who rarely passed up an opportunity to socialize with her peers. Today, however, Aurora had just come from the library. It wasn’t a room in the castle that she commonly visited, but there was an assignment that she was running out of time on and Aurora hadn’t even started it yet. She didn’t really like doing schoolwork, though. It wasn’t her fault, though. School was just boring, so Aurora usually put off her work until it was too late. And this particular assignment had finally reached that point where Aurora needed to finally get down to business. So she’d taken her trip to the library and checked out a book that she thought she could use for it. Just the one. She didn’t want to do too much reading.

With the book in hand, Aurora had returned to the common room and taken a seat near a window so she could start reading. Not long after she’d opened up the book and zoned out of what she was reading, Aurora heard Mercy’s little conversation with the newspaper. She gladly looked up from the book, and then made her way over to get a better look in the fire. It was hard to tell what was on the paper now that it was quickly burning up, but Aurora was still curious about what was on it.

“What did it say?” she asked. Normally, she didn’t pay much attention to the news, either. It was like school: it bored her. There never seemed to be anything in the newspaper that had any affect on a 12 year old girl, and if any of it did then she was too young to realize it right now. A lot of the students she saw with copies of the Daily Prophet were older, so Aurora just figured it was something that would come with time. When she was old enough to worry about it, she would. Still, Aurora couldn't help being curious after hearing Mercy's reaction.

[Mercy Hatchitt]

ʽ ʽ and as my mind beings

TO SPREAD IT'S WINGS THERE'S NO STOPPING CURIOSITY I WANT TO TURN THE WHOLE THING UPSIDE DOWN I'LL FIND THE THINGS THEY SAY JUST CAN'T BE FOUND - - - - - - - - - - - - -

TAGGED: AURORA | WORDS: 352 | WEARING: NOT UP YET

The edges of the paper curled into themselves as they burned and turned to ashes. Mercy had never understood the phrase “ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” but after watching the paper in the fireplace, she thought she might have a better understanding of the meaning. Perhaps it had something to do with dust coming from ashes. Either way, it was of no matter. She felt terrible for the picture of the nice blonde lady that claimed to be a vampire, but Mercy was glad that she was getting rid of the silly writings of the Daily Prophet. News and gossip were so silly. Why couldn’t everyone just play around and enjoy the day? Live life day to day? That’s how she did things and she was perfectly normal and fine.

Mercy seized up and let out a squeak when someone asked what the paper said. She had thought she was alone, and the sudden appearance of another person had scared her. Mercy turned to look at a blonde girl standing next to her, only to find that it was none other than Aurora Fairclough. “Oh, Aurora! You gave me such a fright,” the small girl said, smile returning to her face. She knew that Aurora must not have been up and up on the news, as Mercy hadn’t been until she overheard people talking about there being vampires in Hogsmeade.

“It was just silly stuff,” Mercy said, waving her hand in the direction of the fireplace before heading back to the couch and curling up into a corner. “Apparently there are vampires in Hogsmeade and the van Helsings are vampire hunters and their father came to Hogsmeade in order to get rid of the vampires.” The bubbly brunette scoffed as though she could never believe such things. “Really, do they think that there are actually vampires in Hogsmeade?” The question was more to herself than anyone else in the area, but her pulled her eyes away from the couch and looked to Aurora. “I mean, there aren’t vampires in Hogsmeade, right? Vampires don’t exist. They’re just stuff from stories.”

[Aurora Fairclough]

Aurora hadn’t meant to surprise Mercy, and she certainly hadn’t expected to get such a reaction in return. Mercy’s surprised squeak scared Aurora as much as she had appeared to scare the other girl. She jumped and took a step back in surprise, quickly saying, “I’m sorry!” Still, she couldn’t help giggling a little at both their reactions. It had all felt so sudden that it was kind of funny to her. She did feel a bit terrible about scaring Mercy like that, but hopefully her fellow Hufflepuff found the situation somewhat amusing as well.

The book she had brought from the library had been left by her seat near the window when Aurora had gone over to the fire. She forgot about it now as she followed Mercy over to the couch and sat with her. The story in the newspaper seemed much more interesting that anything she could have to do for class. Her homework had waited so long to finally get done, it could wait just a bit longer. They probably couldn’t talk about the newspaper for too long. After all, it was more of a concern to the grown-ups of Hogwarts and Hogsmeade than it was of two little girls. At the mention of vampires, though, Aurora couldn’t help feeling a little worried.

Mercy’s attitude made her feel as silly as the writings her friend had just sentenced to the fire, but Aurora did believe in vampires herself. It was from her parents, she supposed. They had told her stories about vampire since she was a child, mostly to keep her out of the forest and make sure she behaved. The stories could easily have simply been stories to do just that, and vampires might not exist at all, but Aurora had always felt that her parents truly believed the stories too. “Well of course they’re not Hogsmeade,” she told Mercy, silently she was thinking to herself that the vampires were supposed to be living in the forest. Why would they need to go to Hogsmeade? The answer came to her right after Aurora thought the question, but it was too scary for her to really want to think about it. “…The stories could be true, though, couldn’t they?” she carefully asked, not wanting to earn herself a reputation as a silly little girl at school, "I mean...all stories come from somewhere."

[Mercy Hatchitt]

ʽ ʽ and as my mind beings

TO SPREAD IT'S WINGS THERE'S NO STOPPING CURIOSITY I WANT TO TURN THE WHOLE THING UPSIDE DOWN I'LL FIND THE THINGS THEY SAY JUST CAN'T BE FOUND - - - - - - - - - - - - -

TAGGED: AURORA | WORDS: 330 | WEARING: NOT UP YET

It had honestly never occurred to young Mercy that the contents of stories had to come from somewhere. No one had ever thought of explaining that to her, and as she believed herself to have a great imagination, Mercy often just assumed that everyone else had exceptional imaginations as well. "I never thought about that," Mercy said, a bit of luster drained from her voice. Although her home had caught on fire when she was a child, and although she had once seen a man change to a werewolf (although, in all honesty this bit could've been hallucinations- after all, she had been up way past her bedtime when she had seen that happen), Mercy still couldn't bring herself to believe that there were really vampires.

Vampires killed people. They drank their blood. They lived practically forever. No one can live practically forever. Except Mister Flamel, as he and his wife actually do exist but if her siblings and parents were to be believed, he had some sort of fancy stone he invented and that keeps him alive. How interesting. As far as Mercy knew, though, none of the stories she was told about vampires ever involved such a stone.

A few moments of silence passed between the girls as Mercy pondered her friend's concerns, and began to worry herself. Mercy nibbled at her lower lip, staring at the newspaper in the fire that was no more than burned up bits of black char. "Well," Mercy said, breaking the silence, "do tell me what you've heard about vampires." Mercy was now afraid that she had been gravely under prepared for the events that were currently transpiring in Hogsmeade. Though she was often bubbily and curious at the same time, her generally bubbily and outgoing nature was tempered by her fear of vampires. She hardly knew anything about them, and worried that, if anything were to happen, she would never be able to save herself, let alone her friends and family.

[Aurora Fairclough]

Aurora felt incredibly uncomfortable during their silence, but she tried not to let it show. She wasn’t usually one to feel that way around other people, but Aurora had the terrible feeling that she had just ruined something for Mercy. And that wasn’t a very good feeling to have. Mercy was a nice and friendly girl, and Aurora didn’t like hearing the excitement leave her friend’s voice as she spoke. Aurora was about to apologize when Mercy asked her what she knew about vampires, which resulted in further silence as she tried to remember everything.

The young girl concentrated on the ground for a minute as she tried to remember every rumor she had ever heard about vampires. For a second, she was afraid that she wouldn’t be able to come up with anything since she was being put on the spot, but everything started to come back to her soon enough. “Well,” She started with the most obvious stuff she was sure everyone knew about vampires, “They have to drink blood and they live a long time. They really hate the sun too, I believe. It hurts them, I’ve heard. And they don’t like garlic either, but I don’t know why.” That last part sounded a bit ridiculous, but it was what she’d been told. Garlic wasn’t very pleasant to Aurora either, but why would all vampires hate it? Perhaps they were all allergic to it.

“I’m sure we have nothing to worry about, though,” Aurora told her fellow Hufflepuff, “Especially since we’re here in the castle.” She felt the need to assure Mercy of this, as it appeared that her friend was feeling less secure with the knowledge that vampires were real. This was yet another reason why Aurora was feeling terrible. She was the one responsible for telling Mercy about them. “And they’re supposed to live in the forest anyway. I’m sure of it.” They couldn’t be in Hogsmeade, Aurora was sure of that. And she was also sure that no vampire would ever be allowed to attend Hogwarts. They were perfectly safe where they were, probably.