#potterverse

americanwizarding:

The first time a Muggle boy shouted at Amarice Kelley on the street, she was so startled, she hardly knew how to respond.

Pure of blood and strong of will, Amarice had grown up ensconced in an all-wizarding community. There and at school, she knew everyone by name, knew what to expect from them. It had been lovely, safe, but so small. She loved the big Muggle city she now worked in, loved the noise and the bustle and the smells, loved the ingenuity of the Muggles she moved among, their resourcefulness and cleverness and humor. But this – this, she had not expected, such open vulgarity, and from a stranger.

The second time, she delivered a hexing so thorough it sent the portly electrician to St. Dymphna’s, and only a friendly cousin working at the DSO spared Amarice an uncomfortable inquiry and embarrassing mention in the Sorcery Standard.

Thereafter, Amarice learned to temper her vengeance.

A memory charm on the man who stroked her thigh on the subway made him miss his stop and an important appointment. A drop of tentacula essence in stale beer retaliated for a forced kiss at a party. A rearrangement charm cost the banker who propositioned her half a day’s work in sorting out his files. Little things, hard to trace, nothing that would draw attention from the authorities. They satisfied the momentary urge to bite back, Amarice found, but did little to quell the fury in her heart.

What baffled her even more was that the Muggle women hardly ever fought back, hardly even seemed to acknowledge the slights.

When Amarice, home on holiday, asked her parents about this strange quirk of Muggle culture, her father had huffed superciliously. “Of course they don’t know better, these Muggles,” he said. “Our boys grow up seeing what witches are capable of. That breeds respect. Muggle men might think so little of Muggle women, but wizards don’t think that way about witches.”

Her mother had a different response. She sighed, hardly looking up from her case files, and said, “Of course we’re not immune, sweetheart. It’s just difficult to express it so openly when a witch can fight back the way… well, the way you did. But it’s there. Of course, it’s there.”

And Amarice thought of the boy who’d refused to speak to her for the rest of the year when she’d turned him down as a date for the spring dance. She thought of the teacher who’d suggested that she’d overloaded her schedule in her EWE years, yet hadn’t given the same council to the male classmate with the same goal and lower grades. She thought of the mothers of several of her friends, who stayed home and kept house while their husbands jockeyed for position in the bureaucratic hierarchy.

Amarice wondered how she’d missed it until it had been shouted at her.

[Mod Note: This post is a wizarding-world response to the #YesAllWomen phenomenon that has dominated Twitter trending for several days.]

[Bringing this back for International Anti-Street Harassment Week
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beifongkendo:

Cherry blossom viewing at night.

The warmth came too early that year, far too early. Tank tops and sundresses might be an enjoyable surprise in mid-February, but they are out of the rhythm of things. Denizens of the mid-Atlantic know better than to pack away the closed-toed shoes and wool coats before April, no matter how many pops of color are starting to find their way into the natural world.

Many plants are hardy things. A daffodil will wilt and pop back up a dozen times. A crocus hardly minds a little coating of ice. Bright-burning forsythia defies a freeze.

But other blossoms are more delicate.

So they made a project of it, the visiting students from Mahoutokoro and the Herbology-specializing upper house students from RPI.

Warming charms, long-practiced in the greenhouses and fields surrounding the Randolph-Poythress Institute – but miniaturized, a specialty of many Mahoutokoro students. A charm nestled inside each foolish bud, staving off the sudden freeze that followed the suspicious false spring. A charm that could hold for weeks, until warmer weather arrived to stay.

It took most of a week and an extended field trip, but working in pairs (under the watchful eyes of the DSO), a herd of fifteen-to-seventeen year olds saved the cherry blossoms of Washington, DC, preserving their beauty from getting nipped in the bud.

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Like many modern “fads” and “trends,” most forms of body modification actually have long and cultured histories that reach around the world. The art of tattooing, for example, has been a common cultural staple in many societies since neolithic times. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, of course, that the practices of Muggles and their magical neighbors would not be so different, even if Mages around the world were able to create effects their mundane peers couldn’t imagine.

In the modern AWC, many of these ancient arts have met and merged in the great cultural crossroads that is North America. The wayfaring inks of the Philippians met the battle wode of the ancient Celts, breeding new and fascinating enchantments the likes of which their creators had not imagined. Recent advancements in subdermal implants have been adapted into ancient sorceries that believed one’s shape inherently affected the expression of one’s magic, and numerous young Mages have found that whether it is psychological or thaumaturgical in nature, having the shape of a devil has cast a fiendish flavor to their magic.

Other transformations are more practical, but just as startling. Transformations to give a Mage the sight of a cat, or piercings that can sense the flows of back-ground magic have become very popular amongst young Mages across the AWC. Hair dyes that emote color or allow one to control the shape of their locks and tresses have flown off the shelves of magical shops, even as recipes for home brews circulate through classes and schools.

A warning must be given to any Mage, young or old, however, who pursues these sorts of transformation. While most of these effects can be achieved without surgical magics, the effects cannot always be removed without more serious and invasive procedures, and a great many of them also count as breaches of the Statute of Secrecy if they come to the attention of Muggles or their authorities. Having the night vision of a cat might be extremely useful, but when one’s eyes glow in the dark it can be quite distressing to our non-magical neighbors, and most Muggles do not see steel barbs erupt along their jaws in the presence of dangerous spirits and hostile ghosts. Even now the Department of Secrecy and Obfuscation is reviewing guidelines for which of these procedures should be outlawed and which may be allowed under special license.

inneroptics:

 Joseph Ducreux’s 18thcentury “Le Discret,” the subject cautions the viewer to be discreet.  Or has the subject – Ducreux himself – transgressed and wants you to keep his secret?

Charles Attenborgh, 1770-1866

One of the AWC’s unsung heroes, Charles Attenborgh was one of the founding members of the Association of Magical Librarians and an early proponent of the public libraries that are now enjoyed by the magical public of all Seven Districts. Attenborgh was himself a Muggleborn Mage of no small distinction - having graduated from the Salem Institute at the age of 17, Attenborgh attended the then youthful Muggle institute of the University of Pennsylvania where he grew enamored of the school’s founder, the Muggle polymath Benjamin Franklin.

It is believed by magical historians that Attenborgh was deeply affected by Franklin’s death the year following his admission into the University, and took to his philosophies of public service with gusto. Upon graduation, Attenborgh returned to the Salem Institute where he established and organized the then ramshackle excuse for a school library - utilizing wand, index card, and occasionally whip, he created a cataloging system that took into account the many complexities and unique concerns with running a magical library, and became the norm for magical librarians across the entirety of the AWC.

In 1842, Attenborgh successfully garnered enough support to petition the Counsel of Northeastern States to open a public-lending library in Philadelphia. The Library was a huge hit with the public, and Attenborgh found a strong advocate in James Smithsonian, the founder of the Smithsonian Institute for Magical Knowledge (SIMK). A half-blood himself who wanted to leave his philanthropic touch on the AWC, Smithsonian used his wealth and influence in Congress to make the libraries a permanent sub-department of the SIMK, complete with federal funding.

Now there are 14 public libraries spread across the AWC, not counting the 7 libraries held by each school and the one forbidden archive held directly by the SIMK. Attenborgh passed away in 1866, where he died heroically defending a library located in Atlanta, Georgia, which had been caught in the cross fire of the opposing forces. The library survived, but Attenborgh did not. His statute guards the Atlanta branch to this day, and his portrait hangs in the library of the Salem Institute, where it is famed for assuming what was considered Attenborgh’s favorite pose in life.

[From the CMR archived files, 1973]

… The Dakotan Drop-Ear was easily subdued and evinced neither fire-breathing nor venomous properties, further confirming that it cannot truly be classified as a proper dragon. What, then? Did some of the larger Asian or European species migrate here long enough ago to take an entirely different evolutionary path? Or is this perhaps the result of dragons inter-breeding with some hitherto unknown megafauna during the last Ice Age? More study is clearly necessary, and it would be a simple enough thing to disguise the investigation as an archaeological or paleontological dig…

[From the DSO archived files, 1973]

…We were able to convince the local Muggles that they had not seen a dragon – that, of course, would be a ridiculous fiction. Several, however, maintained firmly that they had witnessed a UFO preparing an attack on the Badlands (why they imagine an invasive alien species would attack there instead of a populated area, I cannot begin to fathom). Others asserted that it was a dinosaur, either rediscovered as a remnant species or unearthed from the tar pits and reanimated with electricity and gears. In true American fashion, no sooner did this rumor spread than one enterprising young man set up a roadside stand selling tickets to see the extinct curiosity, much to the irritation of his neighbors, who have now had to contend with tourists tramping through their fields…

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Even in the Sixth Borough, people stared.

“It’s not that I mind them being that way,” the barkeep would mutter, “but d’they have to be so muchthat way, all in front of everyone? Even a… a traditional couple would blush, to carry on like that.”

They all thought it was Fran, leading Lilian astray, of course. What could you expect from a vaudeville illusionist, who turned magic to the most frivolous and ostentatious purposes? Lilian, though, she was a good girl; had worked in her mother’s apothecary shop since she’d been old enough to stand, carefully measuring out mandrake roots, powdered moonstone, and squill bulbs. It was only when she started frequenting that theatre – not the proper one, the new, trashy one, that Merlin’s House of Mysteries (and what a tacky name, only a Muggleborn could come up with that) – that she bobbed her hair, shortened her skirts, and started whistling as she walked down the street.

Would they laugh, or be scandalized, if they knew? That it was Lilian’s soft hands, Lilian’s sweet lips that had drawn Fran down the primrose path. Those sweet eyes, gazing up during the illusions, that had captivated Fran even through the glimmer and haze. Hers, the first move – a rose which unfolded into a love note, such a pretty charm.

And after that… if they couldn’t feel free to be themselves in a gin joint behind a theatre in 1928, when and where on earth could they?

–

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