25 Feb 2019, 23:11
Owl Rights Reserved
Private with: 𝒫haedra 𝒮tavrou
𝒜madea clutched the parchment between her fingers as she headed up to the owlery. This paper, this one piece of parchment was one of the only reasons she was getting through the school year. Not to be dramatic, but Amadea was feeling very overwhelmed. There seemed to be a constant flow of classes, schoolwork, and other extracurricular activities, so much, in fact, that Amadea felt as though the only time she spent in the Hufflepuff common room was when she was sleeping in her dormitory.
No matter how busy her schedule became, though, Amadea always made sure to carve out enough time to check the owlery for a letter from her sister and write one of her own. Even if Kat hadn't sent back a response yet, Amadea always had a new letter to send. One perk of a packed schedule was that there was always something new to write about: the latest adventure she embarked on, complaints about professors, or just her activities in day to day life.
Writing and receiving these letters was one of the highlights of Amadea's life. Her sister was her best friend; Amadea had spent her entire life beside Katerina. When Amadea received her Hogwarts letter, her main concern (besides the having magical abilities part) was being away from her sister. How was she supposed to have her late night conversation with Kat as they fell asleep? How was she supposed to rant about drama going on and listen to Kat talk about problems of her own?
These letters were the best the two Campbell sisters could manage. Amadea had her weekly letter gripped tightly in her hand as she reached the top of the spiral staircase that led to the owlery. Immediately, Amadea was blasted with a gust of cold wind. Shivering, she made her way over to the birdbath where the owls were sitting. She found one quickly, and attached her letter to its leg. Amadea watched as it flew out of the owlery into the open air. She hoped it would return quickly with a letter.
With one half of her task done, Amadea walked over to the letter boxes to complete the other half of her mission. She scanned the boxes, looking for the one with her name. When she found it, she pulled it out and looked inside. She wasn't expecting to find anything inside; while she made sure to write Kat on a weekly basis, her sister was quite busy as well with her Muggle schoolwork and only managed to write to Amadea about once a month. Amadea didn't mind; any correspondance from her sister was better than nothing.
Surprisingly, Amadea pulled out the box to find a slip of parchment rolled up inside. Had her sister written another letter already? Confused, Amadea pulled it out of the box and unrolled it. When the words were revealed, Amadea felt even more confused. The letter writer was someone whose name Amadea didn't recognize and by reading the first sentence of the letter, Amadea was able to deduce that it was written to Phaedra. Amadea recognized the name; she knew that the girl was in her year and they had mutual friends. However, Amadea herself had never interacted with Phaedra.
Amadea wondered how Phaedra's mail had gotten mixed up with hers. After all, their names were not similar in the slightest. Whoever had sorted the mail hadn't done a great job. Because Amadea had never talked to Phaedra before, she decided she would simply find Phaedra's box and put the letter inside instead of seeking the girl out in person. She figured it would be less creepy and easier for the both of them. Just as she began searching for the box labeled with her name, Amadea heard footsteps and turned as a figure appeared in the doorway.
7 Mar 2019, 04:13
Owl Rights Reserved
Most of the letters Phaedra exchanged with her family were formal, but sometimes, if her parents were feeling nice, she'd manage to deviate the conversation away from her school marks. Last week, Phaedra asked how her cat was doing, and apparently, Cleopatra had started up her habit of misplacing clothes throughout the house again, to which Phaedra's mother had expressed her discontent. The feline had always disliked being cooped up indoors; she was very agile and needed fresh air and birds to chase. With how busy her parents were, Phaedra imagined there wasn't much time for them to walk her through the gardens any more.
But besides the back and forth letters from her parents, her oldest uncle had sent her a basic note and some pocket money for spending. The polite thing to do would obviously be to thank him, even if she barely knew the man (he made a recent comeback into her family's lives). As Phaedra stepped into the stale smelling room, she adjusted the scratchy beanie at the top of her head, the Scottish cold even more biting at the Owlery's higher altitude. Phaedra made brief eye contact with a girl who had turned at the sound of her entering, but the student's presence and the screeching welcomes of several owls were of little interest to the Ravenclaw as she made a quick beeline to her designated cubby.
Wordlessly, she bent to reach inside, her hands shooting back in puzzlement after realizing that it was empty. How strange. She was supposed to receive something from her parents around the middle of every week if it didn't at least arrive during breakfast. All that remained inside the box was a stray, white feather. Phaedra swept it away with her arm, frowning.
She slowly spun around, her boots scraping on the straw and ice covered floor, and looked at the only other human being in the circular room as if she could explain the missing correspondence. Glancing from the Hufflepuff back to her own postbox again, Phaedra stuffed her hands back into her pockets and took a step backwards, thinking. There was no reason for her to suspect the muggle-born girl.
She cleared her throat. “... Freezing out, yeah?” she asked lamely over the deep coos, not actually caring either way. As she began pacing along the tower's wall, Phaedra eyed the boxes of other students for a familiar, intricate wax seal. Perhaps an owl had placed her letter in the wrong place by mistake, or even worse, perhaps the message and the owl carrying it were both been lost to the harsh elements. It wasn't too far-fetched - the Scottish Highlands were rough terrain - and if the letter truly was gone she knew she'd receive a follow-up from her guardians in no time at all. She wasn't looking forward to that. “Seriously...” she mumbled under her breath.
Phaedra walked past the middle of the bottom row of postboxes to a stairwell that led up the owlery. After flinching from a large owl swooping far too close for comfort, the girl recovered to pull her shoulder bag over her head. She still had a thank-you note to write. Opting to sit on a nearby stair that appeared the cleanest, she dropped her book bag by her feet to dig for paper and quill.
11 Apr 2019, 19:38
Owl Rights Reserved
𝓘t was if fate was playing some twisted game with Amadea. As she turned toward the doorway of the owlery to see who was approaching, Amadea was quite surprised to see that it was Phaedra herself in the flesh. Frozen in place, letter gripping her hands together like a vice, Amadea stared at the other girl as she walked across the owlery and stuck her hand into her cubby. She came up empty, which Amadea could have predicted, due to the parchment she held between her fingers. Amadea turned back to her own cubby, mind racing over her options. This wasn't...suspicious, was it? After all, it wasn't like Amadea was going to read the letter. She was just trying to place it back in the box of its rightful owner.
Amadea tensed as Phaedra began pacing the owlery, looking at all of the other cubbies. As her voice broke the silence, Amadea fought the urge to shiver. "Um, yes, it is quite brisk out," Amadea said in what she hoped seemed like a polite and innocent tone. Her mind was racing; how could she put the letter back without things seeming too suspicious? Amadea watched from the her peripheral vision as Phaedra walked toward the stairwell. Amadea felt a spark of excitement run through her. Maybe she was leaving now.
Unfortunately, Amadea's spark of hope was put out as soon as it had been created as the girl sat down on the stairs to begin writing a letter. Her back was turned, which meant Amadea had some options. She could try to put the letter back while Phaedra's back was turned. That led to some new problems though. It wasn't like a letter could magically appear in the cubby, especially since there were no owls in sight. It seemed as though her only other option was to present the letter to Phaedra herself. At this point, Amadea had felt as though it had been hours since she had begun assessing the situation. Was it too late to go over to Phaedra? Would it seem too suspicious?
Amadea still had no idea what to do but all she knew was that she had to do something quickly, before more time passed. Finally, she decided to just tell the truth. After all, she hadn't done anything wrong. Phaedra couldn't be mad at Amadea for something that she didn't do. This seemed logical. Satisfied, Amadea headed over to where the girl was sitting, writing her letter. Hoping that she wasn't disrupting Phaedra's train of thought, Amadea took a deep breath and tapped the girl on her shoulder.
"Um, sorry to interrupt you," she said hesitantly, "but I came up here to send a letter and was checking my cubby and found this in it. Whoever was sorting the mail must have accidentally put it in the wrong cubby." Amadea was about to launch into a long winded explanation about how she was going to put it back in Phaedra's cubby but decided against it. Instead, she just held the letter out. "So uh, here you go. It's kind of perfect timing, isn't it?"