Post by Snežana Knežević on Mar 20, 2016 21:42:16 GMT
snezana iskra knezevic
Female | 17 |
Serbian | Demisexual |
173 cm | 61 kg |
Pureblood | |
personality
[attr="class","profileboxscroll"]Snežana's personality is made of fire and ice. Those closest to her would say that she is passionate, the sort of person who is warm and caring with her friends and can erupt into anger like a volcano when provoked. Those who don't know her very well, on the other hand, would say the opposite: that she is cold, unemotional, thoroughly in control of everything about how she presents herself to others. Neither impression is precisely wrong, either--they only see different sides of her.
Ice. It's only appropriate that a girl with a name like "Snežana" would have an icy side to her. She tries to project a cool, collected sort of persona, one that's calm, rational, and controlled. In fact, she is really quite intelligent, and does like to be in command of things; she's happiest when people treat her like she's important, since her parents (her father especially) taught her that she really was. Maybe her head is a little inflated as a result, but she has the talent and drive to back her ego up.
Of course, all of that makes her sound like a spectacularly bad fit for House Sureau, doesn't it?
Fire. For all Snežana can be cold, once you get to know her it becomes clear that she's got a fiery side too. She is not necessarily easy to anger, but once anyone has managed to arouse her fury, they will surely live to regret it. Despite her excellent self-control, she has a burning mess of emotions hidden just under the surface, and when she trusts someone she will lower her defenses enough to let them see this; she is generous, extremely competitive, harbors a well-nigh Romantic fondness for the dramatic and the epic in both life and literature, and cares deeply about others, especially those whose luck is bad. Scratch her and you find she's naturally impulsive (though she hides it well, having been more or less trained out of it, and now has a conflicting impulse to overthink everything) and loves to take care of people who are young or weak.
Water. She can burn and freeze, but Snežana does have the capacity to be simply calm. She has a peaceful, intellectual side, one that her schooling frequently brings out, which means that she is usually a very good student. It ties into her Romantic tendencies, as well: she loves knowledge for its own sake, and especially arcane or even forbidden knowledge. Being "in on" a secret appeals to her very much, for reasons having to do with both her love of drama and her fondness for being important. However, she doesn't always trust that forbidden knowledge to be real, and does not often depend on it. For this reason, she tends to do badly in her attempts to study Divination, since she overthinks it and gets stuck.
One other thing that's probably worth noting: Snežana can sometimes, figuratively, get "tunnel vision," where she doesn't necessarily see the big picture very well because she's so focused on a small thing. Sometimes this can be good, as it may allow her to get one thing done very effectively, but the disadvantage is that she misses outside confounding factors and in some cases may forget to let her empathetic side work.
Ice. It's only appropriate that a girl with a name like "Snežana" would have an icy side to her. She tries to project a cool, collected sort of persona, one that's calm, rational, and controlled. In fact, she is really quite intelligent, and does like to be in command of things; she's happiest when people treat her like she's important, since her parents (her father especially) taught her that she really was. Maybe her head is a little inflated as a result, but she has the talent and drive to back her ego up.
Of course, all of that makes her sound like a spectacularly bad fit for House Sureau, doesn't it?
Fire. For all Snežana can be cold, once you get to know her it becomes clear that she's got a fiery side too. She is not necessarily easy to anger, but once anyone has managed to arouse her fury, they will surely live to regret it. Despite her excellent self-control, she has a burning mess of emotions hidden just under the surface, and when she trusts someone she will lower her defenses enough to let them see this; she is generous, extremely competitive, harbors a well-nigh Romantic fondness for the dramatic and the epic in both life and literature, and cares deeply about others, especially those whose luck is bad. Scratch her and you find she's naturally impulsive (though she hides it well, having been more or less trained out of it, and now has a conflicting impulse to overthink everything) and loves to take care of people who are young or weak.
Water. She can burn and freeze, but Snežana does have the capacity to be simply calm. She has a peaceful, intellectual side, one that her schooling frequently brings out, which means that she is usually a very good student. It ties into her Romantic tendencies, as well: she loves knowledge for its own sake, and especially arcane or even forbidden knowledge. Being "in on" a secret appeals to her very much, for reasons having to do with both her love of drama and her fondness for being important. However, she doesn't always trust that forbidden knowledge to be real, and does not often depend on it. For this reason, she tends to do badly in her attempts to study Divination, since she overthinks it and gets stuck.
One other thing that's probably worth noting: Snežana can sometimes, figuratively, get "tunnel vision," where she doesn't necessarily see the big picture very well because she's so focused on a small thing. Sometimes this can be good, as it may allow her to get one thing done very effectively, but the disadvantage is that she misses outside confounding factors and in some cases may forget to let her empathetic side work.
history
[attr="class","profileboxscroll"]Once upon a time, a long time ago... well, more like seventeen and a half years ago, Snežana and her twin sister Melanija were born to an apparently happy and normal couple by the names of Petar Knežević and Božena Župan. One of them was the couple's first child, though their parents never did let them in on which was the older twin. Aside from that rather unusual secret, their early childhood was fairly normal. They figured out all the basic skills of sitting and standing and walking and eating. They learned to call their parents Mama and Tata, and then later Majka and Otac once they had a bit more of a handle on talking. In general, they started figuring out who they were and how the world worked.
Despite being twins, the two of them were no more alike than any other siblings--at least with respect to personality. Sure, they looked very much alike, but nobody who had gotten to know them would ever have trouble telling them apart; even when they weren't standing next to each other so that you could see how Melanija's hair was lighter, they were clearly such different people that their similar faces hardly mattered. They were sisters, and sometimes played together, but at the same time they didn't have the sort of matching personalities or mental links that people frequently associate with twins. Rather than finishing each other's sentences, they argued (though they almost always made up by the next mealtime). Rather than dressing alike, they wore different colors all the time--Snežana preferred blue, while Melanija had a fondness for dark shades of red--and often drastically different styles as well, as soon as they had any control at all over their outfits. From the start, they were clearly different people, but they did love each other in spite of their frequent disagreements. They were sisters, after all.
Two days after the twins' fourth birthday, a third child joined the family. The baby was introduced as their new little sister Zora. Melanija wasn't especially interested in the baby, but Snežana absolutely was. What wasn't fascinating about a baby? Zora's hands were almost as tiny compared to her own as Snežana's hands were to Majka, and she marveled at the idea that something so small and fragile could also be so alive. The baby seemed to be forever confused, as babies frequently do, and the proud elder sister took delight in explaining the workings of everyday objects as if they were the deep secrets of the universe.
For the ensuing years, Zora was like Snežana's shadow. Strangers were frequently surprised that Snežana was so much closer to the little one than to her own twin, but in truth she felt almost like she was Zora's mother, the one who protected the child from everything, the one who was always there even if Majka couldn't be.
That was a good time, when their lives were generally peaceful and content. Snežana misses those days now for several excellent reasons.
The first major problem that arose began with a very loud and very unexpected fight between their parents when Snežana was ten years old. None of the three children ever figured out how it all started, but one way or another it came to light that Zora had been born to a different father than the twins. Melanija ended up listening in on the fight, trying to tease some sense out of the confusing muddle of voices, while Snežana did her best to distract Zora with out-of-the-way activities in order to keep the unfortunate six-year-old from getting caught in the (thankfully metaphorical) crossfire.
After that, things got harder. Snežana and Melanija weren't directly treated any differently by either of their parents, but living under the same roof as two adults, much larger than oneself, who do not like each other can be quite stressful in its own way. And as the "little mother" to the unfortunate object of contention, Snežana was deeply troubled by the fact that it seemed Zora could go hardly go anywhere at certain hours without attracting some sort of opprobrium or another. At home Otac was always unhappy to see the child who was not his own, who seemed to have transformed in his eyes from an innocent child to something little more than a trinket left behind by Majka's lover. And yet, if Zora went outside, then that only meant that the other children in the neighborhood (who, as it turned out, had gotten the idea from a certain somewhere) had access to an acceptable target for whatever sort of mischief might occur to them.
Snežana's solution to the problem was childishly simple and crude, yet possessed of a certain nobility: she simply put herself between Zora and everyone else. At the age of ten, she was also starting to get partial control of her magic, and if she let that interfere with some of the fistfights she got into as a result of her choice... well, she didn't have full conscious control of it yet (after all, she didn't even have her wand yet), and besides, more than half the time she was outnumbered or outweighed by the target(s) of her righteous wrath, so it was only fair that she take whatever equalizing force she could get. She couldn't fight Otac outright--she surely didn't dare, more because he had every advantage over her than out of any sense of filial duty--but she could absolutely hit neighborhood bullies of all shapes and sizes, and she figured it was better that she be the one who came home in the evenings with cuts and black eyes, rather than leave that fate for the smaller, frailer Zora. Over time, she even found some fun in it. When her parents questioned what she had been doing, because of course they did question it, she told them she was learning to win. That was a good enough explanation for her father; in private, when Otac was away and Zora out of earshot, Snežana confessed to Majka that she had gotten all those injuries from protecting her baby sister. Majka didn't entirely approve of her methods, but commended her goals. Since no better method seemed to be forthcoming, the one she had would just have to stand for now, and her mother's healing skills got a good bit of renewed practice on a wider variety of bruises and abrasions than even three curious little ones had ever managed to inflict on themselves.
The summer Snežana was twelve, a better way to protect Zora finally appeared, but she had to admit that she didn't like it at all. The way Majka explained it, it sounded like Zora's real father had offered to take his child in, which would get her out of danger but would also mean that their family would be split up. To make matters worse, as soon as Otac caught wind of the idea, he made it clear that he would never let Zora back into the house once she was gone, and neither would Snežana or Melanija be permitted to pay visits. It was many kinds of painful to deal with, but also quickly becoming the only option. So Zora left, amidst tears and carrying a favorite doll that Snežana would probably have outgrown soon anyway but that still represented the dearest and most meaningful gift she could give to the sister she had been promised she would never see again. (Majka made it a little better. Majka said they still could write letters, and that once Snežana was grown up she could go wherever she wanted, so while "never" still meant a long time, it didn't really mean never.)
Snežana did not like the rest of the summer very much, but by that fall she realized that she could live with what had happened, if only because she was going away to school. Zora wasn't anywhere near old enough to go to Beauxbatons (nor even the other magic schools that started younger) anyway, so they would have had to communicate primarily by letters no matter what, and this way her little sister was safe while she was away. And the school--what a school it was!
The first impression Snežana had of Beauxbatons was that it was one of the most beautiful places she had ever seen, and that was saying something, because she had been to some stunningly beautiful places. She clutched her wand as if she feared she might drop it (whether from nervousness or excitement, even she didn't know) as the new students were introduced to the school. There were four Houses, they were told, with different qualities, and this magical fountain would help them identify which suited them best...
In retrospect, it probably should have taken longer for the fountain to decide where Snežana would go, because she didn't really fit all that closely with any one House, but at twelve years old she had one really defining thing in her self-image: she thought of herself as Zora's mother. After considering the matter briefly, it decided that this was enough to fit her to House Sureau. She had the potential to become almost anything she wanted, so if what she wanted was to be a protector and nurturer, she would go into the House for that
Life as a Beauxbatons student was actually pretty awesome, Snežana concluded eventually. She wrote to Zora religiously, telling fun stories and responding to the letters she received equally regularly in return, and to Majka with similar consistency, so she found that she did retain a connection with the family members from whom she was apart. Her classes were interesting, so she always had plenty to talk about. And she found herself making friends with some of her fellow students, both within her own House and outside of it. Special mention goes to her friend Mihai from House Rosier, a creative and rather mischievous Romanian with unusually sharp teeth and what seemed to Snežana like a gift for ferreting out some of the stranger secrets of magic. They became friends the time they accidentally caused an explosion in Potions class and promptly scurried to write down what they had done just in case they might need to know how to do that again. She started calling him Mi, and he took to calling her by a name that sounded to her like "Neška," though he wrote it a little differently. The friendships Snežana made during her early years at Beauxbatons, and really that one in particular, were what carried her through when her home life took a sudden and astonishing turn for the worse.
She doesn't remember what year it was, anymore--funny how the mind latches on to some details and discards others. What she does remember is that it was somewhere around the end of January that Majka's owl showed up one morning with a short letter informing her that Zora had been attacked by a werewolf and promising a follow-up letter as soon as Majka herself was sure what would come of it.
The follow-up letter never arrived, and neither did any other message from either Majka or Zora ever again. What she received instead, two days later, was a letter from Otac claiming that Zora had died of her injuries and Majka had abandoned the family. His words said that Majka had been overwhelmed by grief and couldn't face her surviving daughters, but upon reading more closely, Snežana suspected that there was more to the story, that perhaps something terrible had befallen her mother as well. She reread the letter three times trying to make sense of it, and each time she thought she understood it better, but it stubbornly refused to stop saying that Zora was dead and Majka was gone. Zora was dead, and Majka wasn't coming back. Zora was dead...
Snežana's grief and horror flashed over into anger, and she spent the next several hours in a helpless rage. She screamed and swore and set things on fire (not necessarily on purpose, either--she was still young; her magic could still break out of her control sometimes, and the results might have proven quite disastrous if Mihai hadn't shown up and started extinguishing the fires), she exhausted her knowledge of suitable French profanities and reverted to Serbian, she blamed herself and Majka and a man she had never met for failing to protect Zora, she blamed the werewolf for daring to attack a little child and even Healing itself for not saving her sister, she knew logically she was being unfair to everyone and everything in her rage but her heart hurt too much to control herself. In that moment, she would have happily traded her own life to save Zora's if that had been possible, but she was hundreds of miles away and two days too late: there was nothing she could do, nothing at all, no matter how she wanted to. That utter helplessness might have been the worst part of all: if only she could have tried to do something, then maybe she would have been able to deal with failing, but instead she was far away and only learning about the matter third-hand when she wanted desperately to have been right in the middle of it.
Once she had burned through her rage, Snežana discovered that she had run out of feelings entirely, or so it seemed. She went through the next several months as if on autopilot, only doing things like eating meals and attending classes because that was the done thing, not because she knew or cared what she was eating or studying. How long this lasted, Snežana herself couldn't have said. What she couldn't have put into words was that her mind was wounded badly, in a way that truly healing from would require time even if there had been some magic that would speed it up, and that this was the kind of damage that would surely leave a scar no matter what.
She came back to herself, more or less, with time--or rather, she adjusted to the new way she had to live, and built up her ability to do other things in spite of the pain. She applied herself to her studies again, tried to catch up on the details she had missed while in her robotic state. She reconnected with those friends she had drifted away from, and thanked the very few who had stuck by her for their help. When Mihai ran into his own troubles of a similar sort, Snežana did her best to return the kind of sympathy and help he had given her. Over time, fragments of her original personality returned; when her competitive side came back, she tried out for her House's Quidditch team. Things started to look up, and the better she felt the more she threw herself into things that helped her feel even better. It was working.
In her last year of study, which is to say the present year, Snežana joined the delegation (or whatever you may wish to call it) of Beauxbatons students who would be heading to Hogwarts for the Triwizard Tournament. She wanted to compete; surely she thought she had a shot, and even if she weren't to be a champion, to learn about the other Wizarding schools was too excellent an opportunity to pass up.
Despite being twins, the two of them were no more alike than any other siblings--at least with respect to personality. Sure, they looked very much alike, but nobody who had gotten to know them would ever have trouble telling them apart; even when they weren't standing next to each other so that you could see how Melanija's hair was lighter, they were clearly such different people that their similar faces hardly mattered. They were sisters, and sometimes played together, but at the same time they didn't have the sort of matching personalities or mental links that people frequently associate with twins. Rather than finishing each other's sentences, they argued (though they almost always made up by the next mealtime). Rather than dressing alike, they wore different colors all the time--Snežana preferred blue, while Melanija had a fondness for dark shades of red--and often drastically different styles as well, as soon as they had any control at all over their outfits. From the start, they were clearly different people, but they did love each other in spite of their frequent disagreements. They were sisters, after all.
Two days after the twins' fourth birthday, a third child joined the family. The baby was introduced as their new little sister Zora. Melanija wasn't especially interested in the baby, but Snežana absolutely was. What wasn't fascinating about a baby? Zora's hands were almost as tiny compared to her own as Snežana's hands were to Majka, and she marveled at the idea that something so small and fragile could also be so alive. The baby seemed to be forever confused, as babies frequently do, and the proud elder sister took delight in explaining the workings of everyday objects as if they were the deep secrets of the universe.
For the ensuing years, Zora was like Snežana's shadow. Strangers were frequently surprised that Snežana was so much closer to the little one than to her own twin, but in truth she felt almost like she was Zora's mother, the one who protected the child from everything, the one who was always there even if Majka couldn't be.
That was a good time, when their lives were generally peaceful and content. Snežana misses those days now for several excellent reasons.
The first major problem that arose began with a very loud and very unexpected fight between their parents when Snežana was ten years old. None of the three children ever figured out how it all started, but one way or another it came to light that Zora had been born to a different father than the twins. Melanija ended up listening in on the fight, trying to tease some sense out of the confusing muddle of voices, while Snežana did her best to distract Zora with out-of-the-way activities in order to keep the unfortunate six-year-old from getting caught in the (thankfully metaphorical) crossfire.
After that, things got harder. Snežana and Melanija weren't directly treated any differently by either of their parents, but living under the same roof as two adults, much larger than oneself, who do not like each other can be quite stressful in its own way. And as the "little mother" to the unfortunate object of contention, Snežana was deeply troubled by the fact that it seemed Zora could go hardly go anywhere at certain hours without attracting some sort of opprobrium or another. At home Otac was always unhappy to see the child who was not his own, who seemed to have transformed in his eyes from an innocent child to something little more than a trinket left behind by Majka's lover. And yet, if Zora went outside, then that only meant that the other children in the neighborhood (who, as it turned out, had gotten the idea from a certain somewhere) had access to an acceptable target for whatever sort of mischief might occur to them.
Snežana's solution to the problem was childishly simple and crude, yet possessed of a certain nobility: she simply put herself between Zora and everyone else. At the age of ten, she was also starting to get partial control of her magic, and if she let that interfere with some of the fistfights she got into as a result of her choice... well, she didn't have full conscious control of it yet (after all, she didn't even have her wand yet), and besides, more than half the time she was outnumbered or outweighed by the target(s) of her righteous wrath, so it was only fair that she take whatever equalizing force she could get. She couldn't fight Otac outright--she surely didn't dare, more because he had every advantage over her than out of any sense of filial duty--but she could absolutely hit neighborhood bullies of all shapes and sizes, and she figured it was better that she be the one who came home in the evenings with cuts and black eyes, rather than leave that fate for the smaller, frailer Zora. Over time, she even found some fun in it. When her parents questioned what she had been doing, because of course they did question it, she told them she was learning to win. That was a good enough explanation for her father; in private, when Otac was away and Zora out of earshot, Snežana confessed to Majka that she had gotten all those injuries from protecting her baby sister. Majka didn't entirely approve of her methods, but commended her goals. Since no better method seemed to be forthcoming, the one she had would just have to stand for now, and her mother's healing skills got a good bit of renewed practice on a wider variety of bruises and abrasions than even three curious little ones had ever managed to inflict on themselves.
The summer Snežana was twelve, a better way to protect Zora finally appeared, but she had to admit that she didn't like it at all. The way Majka explained it, it sounded like Zora's real father had offered to take his child in, which would get her out of danger but would also mean that their family would be split up. To make matters worse, as soon as Otac caught wind of the idea, he made it clear that he would never let Zora back into the house once she was gone, and neither would Snežana or Melanija be permitted to pay visits. It was many kinds of painful to deal with, but also quickly becoming the only option. So Zora left, amidst tears and carrying a favorite doll that Snežana would probably have outgrown soon anyway but that still represented the dearest and most meaningful gift she could give to the sister she had been promised she would never see again. (Majka made it a little better. Majka said they still could write letters, and that once Snežana was grown up she could go wherever she wanted, so while "never" still meant a long time, it didn't really mean never.)
Snežana did not like the rest of the summer very much, but by that fall she realized that she could live with what had happened, if only because she was going away to school. Zora wasn't anywhere near old enough to go to Beauxbatons (nor even the other magic schools that started younger) anyway, so they would have had to communicate primarily by letters no matter what, and this way her little sister was safe while she was away. And the school--what a school it was!
The first impression Snežana had of Beauxbatons was that it was one of the most beautiful places she had ever seen, and that was saying something, because she had been to some stunningly beautiful places. She clutched her wand as if she feared she might drop it (whether from nervousness or excitement, even she didn't know) as the new students were introduced to the school. There were four Houses, they were told, with different qualities, and this magical fountain would help them identify which suited them best...
In retrospect, it probably should have taken longer for the fountain to decide where Snežana would go, because she didn't really fit all that closely with any one House, but at twelve years old she had one really defining thing in her self-image: she thought of herself as Zora's mother. After considering the matter briefly, it decided that this was enough to fit her to House Sureau. She had the potential to become almost anything she wanted, so if what she wanted was to be a protector and nurturer, she would go into the House for that
Life as a Beauxbatons student was actually pretty awesome, Snežana concluded eventually. She wrote to Zora religiously, telling fun stories and responding to the letters she received equally regularly in return, and to Majka with similar consistency, so she found that she did retain a connection with the family members from whom she was apart. Her classes were interesting, so she always had plenty to talk about. And she found herself making friends with some of her fellow students, both within her own House and outside of it. Special mention goes to her friend Mihai from House Rosier, a creative and rather mischievous Romanian with unusually sharp teeth and what seemed to Snežana like a gift for ferreting out some of the stranger secrets of magic. They became friends the time they accidentally caused an explosion in Potions class and promptly scurried to write down what they had done just in case they might need to know how to do that again. She started calling him Mi, and he took to calling her by a name that sounded to her like "Neška," though he wrote it a little differently. The friendships Snežana made during her early years at Beauxbatons, and really that one in particular, were what carried her through when her home life took a sudden and astonishing turn for the worse.
She doesn't remember what year it was, anymore--funny how the mind latches on to some details and discards others. What she does remember is that it was somewhere around the end of January that Majka's owl showed up one morning with a short letter informing her that Zora had been attacked by a werewolf and promising a follow-up letter as soon as Majka herself was sure what would come of it.
The follow-up letter never arrived, and neither did any other message from either Majka or Zora ever again. What she received instead, two days later, was a letter from Otac claiming that Zora had died of her injuries and Majka had abandoned the family. His words said that Majka had been overwhelmed by grief and couldn't face her surviving daughters, but upon reading more closely, Snežana suspected that there was more to the story, that perhaps something terrible had befallen her mother as well. She reread the letter three times trying to make sense of it, and each time she thought she understood it better, but it stubbornly refused to stop saying that Zora was dead and Majka was gone. Zora was dead, and Majka wasn't coming back. Zora was dead...
Snežana's grief and horror flashed over into anger, and she spent the next several hours in a helpless rage. She screamed and swore and set things on fire (not necessarily on purpose, either--she was still young; her magic could still break out of her control sometimes, and the results might have proven quite disastrous if Mihai hadn't shown up and started extinguishing the fires), she exhausted her knowledge of suitable French profanities and reverted to Serbian, she blamed herself and Majka and a man she had never met for failing to protect Zora, she blamed the werewolf for daring to attack a little child and even Healing itself for not saving her sister, she knew logically she was being unfair to everyone and everything in her rage but her heart hurt too much to control herself. In that moment, she would have happily traded her own life to save Zora's if that had been possible, but she was hundreds of miles away and two days too late: there was nothing she could do, nothing at all, no matter how she wanted to. That utter helplessness might have been the worst part of all: if only she could have tried to do something, then maybe she would have been able to deal with failing, but instead she was far away and only learning about the matter third-hand when she wanted desperately to have been right in the middle of it.
Once she had burned through her rage, Snežana discovered that she had run out of feelings entirely, or so it seemed. She went through the next several months as if on autopilot, only doing things like eating meals and attending classes because that was the done thing, not because she knew or cared what she was eating or studying. How long this lasted, Snežana herself couldn't have said. What she couldn't have put into words was that her mind was wounded badly, in a way that truly healing from would require time even if there had been some magic that would speed it up, and that this was the kind of damage that would surely leave a scar no matter what.
She came back to herself, more or less, with time--or rather, she adjusted to the new way she had to live, and built up her ability to do other things in spite of the pain. She applied herself to her studies again, tried to catch up on the details she had missed while in her robotic state. She reconnected with those friends she had drifted away from, and thanked the very few who had stuck by her for their help. When Mihai ran into his own troubles of a similar sort, Snežana did her best to return the kind of sympathy and help he had given her. Over time, fragments of her original personality returned; when her competitive side came back, she tried out for her House's Quidditch team. Things started to look up, and the better she felt the more she threw herself into things that helped her feel even better. It was working.
In her last year of study, which is to say the present year, Snežana joined the delegation (or whatever you may wish to call it) of Beauxbatons students who would be heading to Hogwarts for the Triwizard Tournament. She wanted to compete; surely she thought she had a shot, and even if she weren't to be a champion, to learn about the other Wizarding schools was too excellent an opportunity to pass up.
rp sample
[attr="class","profileboxscroll"]Normally, Snežana loved poetry, even in languages she didn't speak very well. She loved the rhythm of it, the way the sounds fit together, the thought and artistry that usually went into making it. Reading a poem was a bit like having a secret pact with the poet, or embarking on an adventure, to discover layer after layer of reasons why this word was the right one. Yes, under most circumstances she loved poetry very much, and that included the poem that she was supposed to be reading aloud right now.
It was the "reading aloud" bit that was the problem. Not because it was in English, exactly, since the only person in this room who spoke the language that much better than she did was their instructor. She was comfortable with her ability to read most things, and to understand what she was reading. The problem was that she understood the content of this particular poem rather too well.
But, of course, explaining the matter would be more trouble than it was worth, and the only other way to stop everyone staring at her like that was to read the thing and have done with it. With an internal sigh, she began, in the mildest tone she could manage:
It wasn't long, though, before it became painfully obvious why Snežana had kept her tone so steady at first. She continued reading, but on the third stanza her voice began to shake and crack:
Dimly aware that she was attracting an entirely different kind of stares than before, Snežana forged on anyway, hoping to just get the poem over and done with. Two stanzas went by as she slowly broke down, but the last was the hardest:
It was the "reading aloud" bit that was the problem. Not because it was in English, exactly, since the only person in this room who spoke the language that much better than she did was their instructor. She was comfortable with her ability to read most things, and to understand what she was reading. The problem was that she understood the content of this particular poem rather too well.
But, of course, explaining the matter would be more trouble than it was worth, and the only other way to stop everyone staring at her like that was to read the thing and have done with it. With an internal sigh, she began, in the mildest tone she could manage:
"It was many and many a year agoShe got that far before the teacher admonished her that she should not read so flatly. English was a language where the words emphasized could change the meaning very much, and no emphasis meant she would not be understood. It wasn't a true tonal language--not like some others one might mention--but it was close enough that she would have real trouble communicating with, say, Hogwarts students if she spoke without stress like that. Wasn't that right?
In a kingdom by the sea
Where a maiden lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee.
And this maiden, she lived with no other thought
Than to love--and be loved by--me."
It wasn't long, though, before it became painfully obvious why Snežana had kept her tone so steady at first. She continued reading, but on the third stanza her voice began to shake and crack:
"And this was the reason that, long ago,At that point, Snežana's voice gave out entirely for a moment, and she had to swallow hard before she could finish the last two lines, "to shut her up in a sepulchure/in this kingdom by the sea." She had looked up what that word, sepulchure, meant, and knowing that, she understood this part of the poem well enough to break her heart.
In a kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of the cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepul--"
Dimly aware that she was attracting an entirely different kind of stares than before, Snežana forged on anyway, hoping to just get the poem over and done with. Two stanzas went by as she slowly broke down, but the last was the hardest:
"For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreamsShe was crying outright by now, as much as she didn't want to be. It was hard to get the words out; between the inherent sadness of the poem and her own memories that resonated just that little bit too well with it, Snežana couldn't keep herself under control anymore. She did know what it was like, to miss someone constantly like that, and to know that the person she missed would never be back except in her dreams. She had all-but-lost months to being crushed under that feeling, and while it was a sister she missed instead of a lover, it was still close enough that the poem hit her in that soft and painful part of her heart.
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee..."
"And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the sideHaving finished the poem at last, she put the book down, buried her face in her hands, and let the tears run their course. What anyone else thought of her for it could wait until she was done crying. She was too busy missing Zora, and even envying the poem's narrator the little luxury of knowing where his beloved was buried, to care about much else.
Of my darling--my darling--my life and my bride,
In her sepulchure there by the sea--
In her tomb by the sounding sea."
other
Wand | |
Chimaera scale/Augurey feather | Holly |
12¾" | Unyielding |
Strongest Subject | Weakest Subject |
Transfiguration | Divination |
Familiar | Patronus |
Silver tabby cat | Wolf |
SAKURAKO KUJOU from A CORPSE IS BURIED UNDER SAKURAKO'S FEET | |
KOKO | |
