Post by Cassie Lewis on Feb 1, 2014 1:29:16 GMT -5
[presto]
EIGHTEEN
FEMALE
EX-GRYFFINDOR
HALFBLOOD
HETEROSEXUAL
ALISON BRIE
CASSANDRA ANDROMACHE LEWIS
 hullo! my name's cassie. well, actually, it's cassandra andromache lewis, but that's a bit of a mouthful. though i guess, technically, it could be cassandra andromache lewis-robins. or robins-lewis, i'm not really sure. my parents aren't married, see? so i've got a bit of leeway with surnames, i guess. i just go by lewis, but one of my brothers goes by robins. if your name was the mouthful mine is, though, wouldn't you just go by cassie lewis? the lewis comes from my dad, daniel. he's a muggle archaeologist with an insane passion for his job and the past. my mum, a pureblood named demelza robins, met him in south america, where he was on an excavation and she was travelling. my mother loves to travel, and she's as passionate about exploring new placs and cultures as dad is about unearthing those of the past, so they were a match made to travel. of course, travelling is much easier when you aren't saddled with three kids, like my folks were. not that i blame us; like we could help being born. but it did put some pressure on everyone, yeah. while my mum gallivanted around the world, her parents' health was failing. the news that she was practically eloping with a muggle middle-class archaeologist was not welcome news, and nor was the announcement of mum falling pregnant to him out of wedlock. my grandmother died before my elder brother was born, my grandfather following a few years after, when my younger brother was born. i was one, and our elder brother was about three. anyway, when her parents died, mum inherited the manor. the robins family - despite the less oldblood surname than say, the malfoys - was a proud family of pureblood lineage. honestly, i don't know if they were supremacists; they could have been, but i mean, i doubt it. nothing about my mum's ever suggested that she grew up in that sort of environment. what they definitely were, however, was high class. like, extraordinarily. apparently they were very refined and reserved purebloods of the old sort, where your reputation and public image were the important things in life. as such, they owned a very large ancestral manor, and house elves that aided within. mum hates the manor. or at least, she has no love lost for it. i think that if it weren't her folks' - she is their sole heir - and if it weren't such a good place to deposit all the artifacts she and dad have collected from digs over the years, she'd have gotten rid of it. as it is, whenever she and dad are in the country, they tend to stay in an apartment. the manor's my home, though. as pretentious as living in a manor sounds, it is where my brothers and i really grew up properly. in our hogwarts years, our parents spent very little time in england, if any at all, and we needed somewhere to live, which ended up being the manor. we looked after each other, but most of all, the house elves looked after us. when we were younger, i remember we were so indignant at the idea of having to rely on house elves to look after us because all our travelling with mum and dad had given us an inflated sense of our own independence, but really, we needed their help. when we were younger, we also had a live-in nanny named elsa; once all three of us were attending hogwarts, there was no need for elsa to attend to us anymore, so she hasn't worked for my family in years, but i go visit her sometimes in my holidays. she's very sweet, and honestly, she's the closest thing i've ever really had to a parental figure. i mean, i have parents, i know i'm dead lucky, but they've never really been good at being parents. for the two years between leo going to hogwarts and me going, elsa took care of me and my little brother, and every time leo and i came home during the year my brother wasn't attending hogwarts when we were. i don't exactly announce to the world that i live in a manor with two other people and some house elves, and previously a live-in-nanny, because for one, i am halfblood, and two, i'm not rich. i mean, we aren't a poor family, but it's not like we sleep in piles of galleons. dad makes a decent amount, but most of that, if not all, goes towards whatever is fascinating him and mum at any given moment. my brothers and i have sort of been living off of the robins inheritance and our own personal trusts (my grandfather was savvy enough to realise we'd probably need someone to provide for us, given mum and dad's behaviour) since mum and dad left us alone properly for the first time. now that we're all seventeen plus (though my little brother still has one more year to go at school), we work for money as well. i guess that some time between us believing ourselves independent and now, we actually became somewhat independent. we are sort of dependent on each other, but only in the sense that for a long time, we were the only people each other had. it's more a fierce loyalty, to be honest. i love my brothers to absolute pieces, and i know they'd do anything for me too. the same goes for my friends, really; i have some completely fantastic friends. most of my close ones were gryffindors like me, though sebby, lorcan, aggy nd rox are amongst my favourite people in the entire world and they're quite definitely not gryffindors! but for the most part, i met my best friends in first year when we were all sorted into gryffindor. i am so grateful for this group, man; if you were me, you would be too. as it is, you might be jealous. i don't really get jealous, but if i were the type, and if i wasn't friends with all these glorious people, i'd probably be jealous! we've all just graduated from hogwarts which is really completely terrifying. i mean, it's not terrifying in the sense that i've gone and bludgered up my life, because i was one of the kids in our year that actually did my work and studied and all that, so my newts marks were ultimately brillopad. it's just, the last seven years, hogwarts has been my home and summer holidays been just that - a holiday away from home. hogwarts is so ingrained into my life, it's weird to think i'm never going back again; at least, not as part of my gryffindor group. we were a demented bunch at times, not gonna lie. the hewster loved us dearly, though! as much as he probably wanted to whack us on the head with a textbook sometimes, he's a wonderful head and really cares about the kids. i'm pretty sure he secretly liked us. after seven years of us, though, i'm sure every class is going to seem too quiet from now on! he'll be hauted by paranoia that they're all planning something, i bet, because quiet with our lot never meant something safe. i'm having a bit of a dilemma with my future, though. i mean, i've done travelling to death, right? and as much as i adored care of magical creatures, i don't think i'm the right kind of person for the job, because i simply cannot spend twice as much time with animals as humans - nothing against animals, i love them! i just love humans a lot too, and would miss them, and a job like that deserves and requires your complete focus, you know? and there's only four career tracks i really considered during my careers consultation with hewer before selecting newt subjects (i continued with all of them, because i am both indecisive and insane, apparently) and they were: working for the prophet, applying for auror training, becoming a trainee curse breaker, and a job at the ministry, probably involving magical law or study of magic itself, like spells and everything. pros of auror training? as quidditch seeker, i wasn't required to work out the most or anything - i was at an advantage being smaller, actually, so i could fly faster - but i ran a lot during training, because it wouldn't seem so, but a lot of the breathing techniques and muscle development that one improves when running are also the same as the ones that make you that slightest bit quicker on a broom when hurtling through the air. so i'm fit, and i work hard, and i know i have the appropriate marks in the required newt level subjects. the only problem is that i am clumsy as fuck. i'm fine on a broom, and i'm remarkably good at staying fine on a boat or anything, but on land? fuck, i couldn't even begin to guess at a number large enough to describe how many times i fell over at hogwarts, or got myself stuck in a staircase, or fell onto a portrait and disgruntled an occupant or got myself landed in the hospital wing for some ridiculous little thing. the injuries were never serious, but they were frequent and frankly, embarrassing. the thing is, i could pass an agility test or anything because quidditch keeps you agile, especially as a seeker like i was, but knowing my luck, i'd probably be walking back after finishing the test and fall over and knock into the instructor or someone. so as much as i would dearly love to be doing something useful with my life and helping others, i don't think auror is going to be the way to go. as for the prophet, i don't think i'd be able to do it so young, you know? i think young journalists are fantastic, don't get me wrong, but i don't think i could be one right now unless i was running some sort of opinions column, because i am far too opinionated about some things to always be fair in my assessments of newsworthy situations, which is an evidently important trait of a journalist. at least for a place like the prophet; there's a cool paper run outside of the prophet, and i think it's fantastic, though i don't think the writers would think i had enough world experience to write for them. which is a bit funny, considering the extent of world experience i've actually had. life experience, yeah, that's a different matter. curse breaking. okay, straight up - ancient runes and defense against the dark arts were my second best subjects, right after charms. i love the concept of curse breaking; the magical lore, working out how to 'crack the code', as it were, and just generally solving mysteries and problems. that stuff is all fantastic. it's just the concept of being away from my family and friends that drives me mental, especially my family; i love my brothers to the ends of the earth and i would jump in front of a curse for them in a heartbeat. but not only that, i would be training. which i think is fantastic, but sort of defeats the purpose of joining the workforce and being independent and taking care of myself. i mean, i've known how to take care of myself from age nine better than most people at age eighteen, but that doesn't mean i shouldn't still strive for it. and here's the clincher: i honestly love the thought of magical law, because it means i am helping people. professor hewer encouraged me to apply for one of the internship positions in magical law - i want to get the experience and into the system and eventually work law on behalf of minority groups and people who need it, like the "part-humans" who still suffer from discrimination, amongst other things. if anyone who knew me had been told two years ago that cassie lewis would be planning on entering the field of magical law and learning the laws and politics and help with trials to eventually aid minority groups and activist groups, they would have said the person telling them was completely barmy. i know i've never struck anyone as a particularly serious person, and at the end of the day, i'm not, really. which may be a bit odd for someone going into magical law, but i'm really not serious. i'm pretty easy-going and i love to have fun with my friends and family and partake in ridiculous antics and follow my impulsive heart, but at the end of the day, i honestly care about the laws - both their failings and strengths - and the people who can't defend themselves, and i want to help them. that's not me suddenly becoming an incredbly serious person; it's not, i promise. it's just me caring about something, because when i think something's important, i give it the attention it deserves. so yeah, i'm still the clumsy, eclectic, impulsive girl that raced down the stairs of gryffindor tower; i just know what i want to do. i've found something that honestly intrigues me and inspires me, and i think that's a good thing; i may not know the exact details of what i want to do, but i've found a thing that inspires me but doesn't force me to change myself from who i am innately, and i think that's sort of what growing up is. not that i have much experience with that concept; my parents are basically gleeful toddlers or hyperactive thirteen year olds with a new obsession, and leo's only two years older than i am. but still, i think growth is happening. i turned eleven six days before christmas, so my hogwarts letter was like a christmas, birthday and coming-of-age present all wrapped up into one. mum and dad had just popped back from some egyptian dig, and they'd brought me back a book of lore, an anthology detailing all the curses they'd discovered there to date, and this lovely golden bracelet that i promptly misplaced for three and a half weeks. of course, my birthday is often bundled up with christmas; you get used to it. everyone's usually too busy doing christmassy things to hang out with me on my birthday, but it's the holidays so i always manage to see at least one person, which is always fabulous. receiving my hogwarts letter was an exciting rite of passage, though nowhere near as exciting as actually boarding the hogwarts express; i was pretty devastated to ditch my little brother—it was literally just him, elsa and the house elves for a year—because for the past two years, we'd been waving bye to leo together and hanging out a lot, but now it was just him. i wrote to him a helluva lot in first year, now that i think about it; it was really weird to go from him being the only person around my age i saw every day for two years, to being surrounded by a bunch of them, yet none of them being him. upon arrival, i was sorted into gryffindor. i was one of the first sorted into gryffindor; nik went before me, but chloe, nicola, dom and rose all came after. anyway, it was a pretty swift sorting, and i wasn't exactly surprised—i've always been a wee bit reckless, but i'm mainly just impulsive. brain-to-mouth filter isn't something that usually kicks in for me, and i've always been outgoing and lived by my heart and not my head, i guess. first year was a blast. i had loads of fun and got to make so many lovely new friends! it was a drastic change, going from just my brothers—and whoever leo would invite over in holidays and whatnot—to all these brilliant people. obviously, i wasn't friends with everyone—scorpius malfoy comes to mind—but it was a dead fun time. i made reserve seeker in my second year, which was amazing for me—the current seeker was a seventh year, so there was a fair chance i'd be the permanent one in third year, though my chance came early when the seventh year ended up in the hospital wing and was forced to quit by his mother; it sucked for him, and i actually made him a card and bought him sweets—merlin, i never realised i had manners—and he was really cool about it, so that was good. he even helped me out with seeker training, which was fabulous. 'course, i was utterly terrified in my first game, which didn't help by being against slytherin, whose seeker was albus potter. all right, confession: albus and i get along decently now. we're friends, even. friends who bicker endlessly and often disagree on principle as opposed to opinion, but honestly friends. six years ago, though? a more accurate word would have been rivals. he could always beat me in defence, but i held the upper hand in charms, yet transfiguration was our even playing ground. he'd beat me by a minuscule margin in potions and history, and come third year, i would be inching ahead in care of magical creatures and ancient runes. throw in our houses, and the fact that we were both seekers for our house team, as well as some mutual friends and acquaintances, and you had a full-blown rivalry, complete with snark and prank wars. this changed some point after fifth year, which isn't surprising, seeing as everything changed in fifth year. everyone started hooking up; chloe started dating camden phillips, rose was with kaycee o'malley, aggy ended up with damien malfoy, and roxanne got with scorpius. it was all pretty fucking intense. oh, and i started dating james potter about halfway through that year. it was pretty wonderful; he's really close to rose, but in general, he's a wonderful person and i'm close friends with a bunch of his relatives, and then we were on the same quidditch team and only a year apart in the same house, as well as both being, while occasionally dramatic, genuinely chilled out human beings, so it was inevitable that we'd become friends. honestly, i'm not sure what changed; one second, he was the nicest bloke on my team, and mighty fit too, the next, bianca hanafiah's teasing me in the common room and conversations with jamie start making me tingle. we're not together anymore—we ended it the summer before my seventh year, the one right after he graduated. it was as friends, though! which i am so glad about, because i couldn't bear it if we weren't. i honestly loved him, but being a teenager in love is all about that rush of emotions and falling in love again every day, and somewhere along the way, that spark faded. i still loved him to death, and i always will, but it was a love lasting beyond that spark, the sort of thing that makes him one of the greatest friends i'll ever have. i don't regret a second of it, and i refuse to entertain the idea that i ever will. of course, i think he's pretty much the best bloke a girl could have, so i probably have really high expectations of anyone he'll ever get with, but as long as he's happy, really, then i'm happy for him. he was my first boyfriend, and the only guy i have ever had sex with—i'm glad i did, because even if we're not together now, i still trust him to death and i was honestly in love with him at the time, and what more could i ask for? anyway, some point after james and i started dating, albus and i stopped being quite so antagonistic and bonded over things i'd never have dreamed of discussing with him before dating his brother. he's still a bit of a prick, but he's a bit of a prick that i call my friend. anyway, i adore sebby and it's not as if he's always got the moral highground. hogwarts was just really fun, you know? best years of my life. i came out of it with some kickass friends, some ridiculous memories—if anyone ever brought up the phrase "platonic tickling" in front of me and lorcan, i think i'd die of laughter—and some stints in the hospital wing due to my own clumsiness on land and general mishaps i got myself mixed up in, but on the whole, it was absolutely brilliant. 10/10 would recommend. now, i'm still at the manor, with my brothers, and i'm very excited about this internship; i think it'll be grand. it's super weird not seeing my friends every day, and knowing that i still won't be, come september, but i'm sure i can always see them—they're everywhere, after all, so spread out!—and i have complete faith in all of us. maybe not in surviving as real, adult human beings, but as friends, i have no doubt that we'll all be fantastic. sometimes i look at us and think we're the same kids we were, age eleven, except with more sarcasm, swear words and sexual endeavours, of course. that shit is not appropriate for eleven year olds, eurgh. anyway, thanks for listening to my ramble! mucho love, and stay glorious! xx JANE SEVENTEEN GMT+12 |
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