《A Fiery Love: A Charlie Weasley Love Story》Chapter 20: Not Ready
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The pearl on my bracelet turned an icy blue as I stared out the window watching kids play in the snow. Winter break was in a few days and Charlie and I were planning on spending it at the Burrow along with everyone else. The Weasley family seemed to be growing and growing. Everyone seem to have someone, even Percy has said he’s been talking to a girl and that he invited her for Christmas morning breakfast.
My thoughts were interrupted when someone walked into my classroom.
“Hey.” His voice sounded tired, but happy at the same time.
“Hi.” I smiled as Draco walked towards me.
“This was my desk.” He walked to the farthest chair to the right in the third row. “I used throw things at people and from this chair you could pretty much hit anyone!” I cracked a really big smile as he recalled his memories.
“I used to sit here.” I walked over to the chair in the middle of the second row. “Kids used to distract me when I sat anywhere else. Ced used to tease me and call me a nerd.” I could still hear Cedric running down the hall calling me a nerd while I chased after him.
“Well you were kind of a nerd.” He laughed. “Why weren’t you in Ravenclaw? I mean you were so smart!”
“The Sorting Hat said I was too kind and loyal to be in Ravenclaw, so I was put in Hufflepuff.” For some reason I looked down at my chest expecting to see my Hufflepuff emblem.
“You are loyal; you stuck by that guy for so long even though he didn’t deserve you.” I had heard this before. Back in my sixth year when I was helping Draco out in Transfiguration.
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“He was a good guy up until the end. Then he… changed.” Sebastian started yelling at me over every little thing. Even though Cedric was gone he still would say that I compared him to Ced.
“That Diggory kid loved you, you know that right?” He looked me in the eye. Of course I knew that, everybody knew that.
“Cedric was my second friend here, but he was so popular and I was just that nerdy kid.” Though he was in my year we hardly ever talked. One day I ran into Cedric while going up the stairs. I almost fell over but he caught me. After that we became friends. I guess you could say I was always torn between the two; my closest friend and my boyfriend.
“Any guy would have killed to be with you.” He smiled at me.
“Yeah but you didn’t see me through my awkward stage. I was an ugly little kid!” I laughed remembering my glasses and my crazy hair. “Draco what are you doing here anyway? Not that I mind!”
“I… um…well I…” He stuttered for a while then chuckled. “Ok, I just came to see you. I wanted to check if you were ok, you know with the whole father thing?”
“Oh! Well I haven’t…”
“Oh.” He stared down at his feet. “You probably think I’m some kind of creep just showing up here.”
“Nah, it was a nice gesture. Thanks.” I gave him a small smile.
He got up from the desk and moved to one that was closer to me. I looked into his grey eyes and remember the first time I actually talked to him.
The library was pretty empty, only a few people were there. I heard a funny noise behind one of the bookshelves. I walked to see a small boy tearing up paper and throwing it across from him.
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“I’m never going to get this!” He sighed.
“You ok?” He was shocked to see me standing there.
“No! I mean yes! I mean… I’m just having a hard time with this stupid spell!” He looked a the book in front of him.
“The whistle into the watch and back spell?” I asked looking at the page.
“Yeah, what’s it to you?” He snapped.
“Nothing. Bye.” I began walking away.
“No, wait.” He stopped me. “I really want to get this. I need to get my marks up in that class.” I walked over an sat on the table.
“The trick to this one is to be completely focused. Think about the ticking of a clock and the shape of a pocket watch.”
He looked at the whistle and studied it hard. He said the spell and it changed into a watch.
“I did it!” He smiled up at me.
“See not so hard now is it?”
After that day I began helping him and not just in Transfiguration, but other classes he has a hard time with. He was a pretty ok kid, until he hung out with his friends then he became a butt face!
“You really helped me out those two years.” He smiled.
“It wasn’t a problem. I like helping people out.”
“I should be going. Have a great break, and I hope things go well with your dad, when you’re ready of course.” He was so different. He’s matured a lot since we were in school.
“Merry Christmas Draco.” I smiled as he left.
“Happy Christmas to you too.”
He left my class, but not before looking back at me and giving a half smile. I think there might have been more to him visiting than just checking up on me.
Charlie was home when I got back. He was in the bathroom taking care of a new burn. He never really liked to use magic to fix him up. He liked his ‘battle scars’ as he called them.
“Charlie, I don’t know why you won’t just let me fix you up.” He looked over his shoulder and stuck his tongue out at me.
“Don’t worry about me.” He started to get a concerned look. “Is everything ok with you?”
I explained what had happened earlier with Draco, but I kept getting off track talking about Sebastian and Cedric. Charlie didn’t mind though, he liked hearing about my life and the things that happened.
“Do you think he knows something about your father? He seems worried about it.” Asked Charlie.
“He probably does, but I-I don’t know if I’m ready for the truth just yet.”
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- In Serial20 Chapters
Sword System Academia
2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. I mean, if you are Mozart or even Eminem, your jam session is good enough to sell, but for an amateur beginner like myself, haha, no. If I want to publish something, I feel like I need to go the proper route of practice and rehearsals, which might be more similar to a classical concert performance. With SSA, I work from worldbuilding notes and a loose outline, but what you are essentially getting is the first draft with lots of so-called pantsing. Pushing out a web novel like this also means it is very difficult to go back and improve things without breaking everything else downstream. I wanted to try this "jamming" approach, as it was a good way to teach me about another aspect of writing, but to move forward, I think I need to hone my "classical" techniques, which emphasize rewriting, or at least, revising outlines. 3) While I intend to try to make $$$, my actual current goal is to "get gud". I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. The elven mage researchers are figuring out how to imbue heroes with power, while the heroes are trying to figure out how to use the powers that they gain. Humans are the best hero templates because they are blank and have no intrinsic magic. Or at least that what the elves thought. The human MC has his own secrets... There will be some similarities with litrpgs, but I would call it more a progression fantasy or gamelit story. For example, the stats are very low, at least initially. Say we have a stat called Str. Going from Str = 1 to Str = 2 is a huge deal. Also, going from Dex = 0 to Dex = 1 is an even bigger deal. I guess you could call it a "low-stat litrpg", haha. Also, the heroes won't be gaining stats simply by killing things or leveling up. You can't increase stats arbitrarily, either. There will be rules to how stats can increase, and how they work with each other. The elven mages will be figuring out these rules in order to craft stronger and stronger heroes. Some inspiration will be from cultivation magic systems, but there won't be overt cultivation, at least for now. A theme I really want to explore is the idea of interactions. That includes things like hero crafter vs hero, tactics vs strategy, skill synergies, racial interactions (dwarves, elves, etc), and son. Yeah, so hero crafting. I'm super excited about this project and venturing into publishing. If you want to check out the upcoming story, you can follow my RR author profile to see when it drops here. Finally... THANK YOU TO EVERYONE! I'm very sorry that SSA is stopping, but I hope at least some of you will find the next story at least as enjoyable, if not more. Thanks to all the readers who gave SSA a shot. Big hug or solid fistbump to all of you, whichever you prefer! I hope this message is not a downer but an upper, because I am psyched!! -purlcray -------------- BLURB: Talen, youngest Master of the Koroi, makes his way to the Empire's capital to salvage his clan's fate. But the bustling city has few opportunities for the traditionalist. For the old sword clans are fading. With the rise of alchemy, gold can purchase strength that ordinarily took years of training to cultivate. Sword artists, once rare and accomplished, are quickly growing in number, especially among the wealthy noble class. Even with such alchemy, though, no one has advanced to the rank of Grandmaster in countless years. Talen's true dream is to walk the path of a sword artist to the very end while fulfilling his clan duties. And then the Swordgeists return, fabled founders of all sword arts, gods who had touched the world long ago and vanished. These myths turned into reality warn of a coming threat. Alongside this warning, they issue an invitation to the Sword System Academy, a path to power beyond the mortal realm. But first, they will hold an entrance exam... Story notes:Sword System Academia blends elements of western and asian fantasy such as xianxia and litrpg. I took parts from different genres I enjoyed and twisted them into my own creation. There will be an explicit system, both of the litrpg kind and the hard(ish) magic kind, but it is embedded within an academic structure that will develop over the course of the story. This is my attempt to design a unique type of system, the System Academia.
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