Fictional character from the Harry Potter stories
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For centuries, witches have cast their spell on our imaginations and enchanted our stories. Throughout folklore and pop culture, some pointed-hat witches have established their unforgettable characters, both evil and good, from the Wicked Witch of the West, in the 1939 “Wizard of Oz” film, and Hermione Granger in the “Harry Potter” series. So, why are witches so popular? And why can't pop culture seem to get enough? Coming up Friday at 9 a.m., MPR News host Jacob Aloi, reporter Alex V. Cipolle and editor Max Sparber spend an hour exploring witches across history and culture. With their guests, the MPR News arts team will talk about the witches in one of Shakespeare's best-known plays, as well as witches in TV, film, music and books.
Es war Halloween! Doch im Hause Snape, da wurde Halloween seit je her nicht wirklich gefeiert. Auch wenn Mrs Snape sich alle Mühe gab, diesen Tag trotzdem für ihre Kinder schön zu gestalten, so konnte sie nichts an der Abneigung ihres Mannes für diesen Tag ändern. Allerdings verstand sie warum er diesen Tag nicht mochte. Dennoch hatte sie, unter dem mürrischen Blicken ihres Mannes, zusammen mit den Kindern einen Halloween-Kürbis geschnitzt und ihn mit einer Kerze vor die Haustür gestellt.
Ein Schüler provoziert Hermine zu einer sehr ungewöhnlichen Tat. Wird sie den ersten Schritt machen und auf Severus zugehen? Und ist sie emanzipiert genug, um Severus zu beglücken - mitten in der großen Halle? Hört selbst
Special guest Grace Candido-Beecher joins Aureo, Sam, and Sierra to discuss the 15th chapter of the Harry Potter series: The Forbidden Forest. We talk about unreasonable detentions, the centaurs, and other creatures in the Forbidden Forest. Join the discussion on our website In this episode: The betting tails of Minerva McGonagall “But all my fwiends are angry with me!” Once again, Quidditch confuses us Dumbledore's master plan is the reason for this detention Filch is a poltergeist McGonagall's woo-woo meditations Do we want to fix Draco or make him worse? What do you think are the effects of the cursed life from drinking unicorn blood? Resources: Voldemort: The Definitive Study of Tom Riddle by Grace Candido-Beecher Contact: Website: https://threebroomstickspod.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/threebroomstickspod/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/threebroomstickspodcast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/threebroompod Email: 3broomstickspod@gmail.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/3broomsticks
Hogwarts Tränkemeister widmet sich der interessanten Frage, wann und wie er sich eigentlich genau in diese verrückte Gryffindor verliebt hat, mit der er seit einigen Jahren Tisch und Bett teilte. Gute Frage, aber nicht leicht oder einfach oder gar schnell zu klären. Die Antwort ist eher vielschichtig und ein bisschen vertrackt, und letztlich kann sie nur global betrachtet gefunden werden!
Halloweenfeier in Hogwarts mit einem Kürbisschnitzen, zahlreichen Streichen und einer unerwarteten Zusammenkunft.
Cabin Cousins: Part 6 Saying Goodbye; for now. Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Connections. Chapter Twenty. On the drive home, I felt good, like really good. I felt like things were actually going to start changing for the better. Reveling in this feeling, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision. I stopped my car in a random parking lot and pulled out my phone. One of the guys that I used to work with, Carl, liked to go to this little bar in Superior to hang out with friends and have a few drinks. There was a whole group of guys from work that would go regularly, but Carl was the only one who never stopped asking. For one reason or another, I never took him up on it, and I haven't seen any of them since I stopped being able to go to work. He answered after a few rings. "Hi, it's Charles, from work." "Charles? Hey buddy! How are you doing?" He sounded happy to hear from me. "Oh, I've been hanging in there. How's the store since I left?" At the time of the accident, I was the yard manager at the same store I had worked at since I moved to Duluth. It didn't pay a lot of money, but it was enough to get by, and I liked the job. I still felt bad about how I left. As the years went on and my depression spiraled downwards, it had become too hard to mask. My job performance was terrible, and people began to ask questions I didn't want to face the answers to. One day I scheduled myself to take all my vacation days, and then with that in the system, I put in my two weeks' notice. I never went back. "They made me assistant store manager if you'll believe that," Carl said. "Still a lot of the same faces around here. All the young kids come and go. You know how it is." "Yeah." I chuckled. In a store like that, you could count on about half of the employees to be lifers. They'd never leave. The other half seemed to be a completely different mix of people every couple of months. "So, what's up?" Carl asked. I could hear the store's advertising jingle blaring over the loudspeakers in the background. "Do you and the guys still go to that bar in Superior?" There it was. I said it. Now if he says yes, I'll have to ask if I can go, and then I'll have to go. "Yeah! But it's usually just me and Matt. Brian got married, and his wife has him on a short leash. Joe goes to AA. The other guys, just kinda stopped going for one reason or another. Tonight is the night we usually go." "Mind if I come with?" I asked. "Of course, man! We're going to leave here at about six." "Cool, I'll see you there." "Looking forward to it. It'll be good to see you again." And now the awkwardness of ending a phone call. I've heard that it's a Midwestern thing, but everyone seems to do it better than I do. "Okay, bye." "Bye." I went home, set out some clean clothes, and got in the shower. Sometimes I forget how good it feels to be clean. But then, I knew exactly why it was often too hard to motivate myself to get into the shower. The shower brought memories of Melissa and the possibility of pain. I stood still, letting the near-scalding water cascade over me. The fruity scent of the same brand of body wash Melissa had during our first shower together was strong, and I remembered. I closed my eyes and started my breathing exercise with a deep slow inhale. Melissa's hands scrubbed my lower back and slid down to squeeze my ass. Breathe out, the pain and hurt waft away like steam in the shower. My fingers follow the lines of her muscles and up her inner thigh, she looks at me with serene contentment. Breathe in. She turns, arches her back, and sighs as I enter her from behind. Breathe out, the pain is gone, and there is only joy. She moans as my soapy hands cup her firm tits, holding her tight against me as we make love. Breathe in. I gasp and hold my breath as we both climax. Breathe out. I catch my breath and look down, my hand was still grasping my quickly softening manhood, and the oozing result of my orgasm was slowly washed into the drain. I finished cleaning up, turned the water off, and stepped out of the shower. I looked at myself in the mirror as I toweled dry. It had been quite a while since I had exercised, or gone to the gym, but I still had a good amount of muscle on me. Granted, a bit more flab than I liked, especially on my belly, but overall I still liked the way I looked. Melissa liked the way I looked too. I patted my belly, and there was a slight jiggle. I really should work out again, I thought. When was the last time I went for a run? I couldn't remember. My eyes strayed from my body to my face. I was still slightly pink from the hot water. I studied the slight age lines beginning to appear around my eyes and noticed that I seemed to have a larger forehead than I used to. When did I start losing my hair? I put my hands on the edge of the sink and leaned close to the mirror. It's a strange thing, looking yourself in the eyes. Despite how good I felt at the moment, all I could see was the pain deep inside. I knew it hadn't always been there, and obviously, I knew when it started. What bothered me was, I couldn't remember what it was like to not have this pain. I could remember every little detail about Melissa, her face, her body, the conversations we had, the things we did together, everything. But if I focus on just me... I can remember being a skinny awkward teenager falling in love and beginning a perfect life, then this, an aging man being crushed by the weight of a tragedy. Every memory between, of what it was to be me, was just gone. Lost to the gray. At the same time, I knew that this person staring back at me in the mirror wasn't me. Once, I was happy. Once I was me, whoever that was. Would I ever get me back, or did I just have to come to grips with the fact that I was now a completely different person? In heavy contemplation, I got dressed. I put on a faded Iron Maiden concert tee, a token from the time Melissa and I had driven to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to see them perform, and some blue jeans that seemed tighter around the waist than I remembered. I checked my bank balance and determined that If I was going to have drinks at the bar with Carl, I had better eat at home beforehand. I had a cup of ramen noodles, and cut slices off of a brick of cheddar cheese, as I wasted time watching random crap on YouTube. Finally, it was five thirty and time to go. Well really, I didn't need to hurry, as it was only a five-minute drive across the bridge to Superior, but there was no way I was going to be late. I parked behind the bar and didn't see any vehicles I recognized. I listened to the radio for a little while, then at ten to six, I got out of the car. The hard part is done. I'm here. I walked in and scanned the place for Carl. I know he had said he was leaving work at six, but I didn't want to miss him by mistake if he was early for some reason. Not seeing him or anyone else I knew, I took a seat at the end of the bar. The place wasn't very busy at all, with maybe a dozen people spread out throughout the whole place. A red-haired waitress came and took my order for a Grainbelt beer, and I watched her go to the cooler to get the bottle. She was cute, if a little thick around the middle, and when she handed me the beer, she flashed me the smile of experienced waitresses everywhere. The kind of smile that says, "I'll be sweet, and yes, maybe even flirt with you a little, but this is my job and you better not take it as more than a professional courtesy". I respected that. Good bartenders were hard to come by, and this one seemed proficient so far. I sipped my beer, and surreptitiously watched the other patrons. There was the same general mix of people you see in bars like this on a Tuesday evening. A few older couples, quietly enjoying dinner and a glass of wine, a fifty-year-old high school prom queen and her steroid-pumped boyfriend, slamming cheap beer, faces wind burned from riding a Harley all day, a table of college frat boy types laughing too loudly at offensive jokes, you know the kind of place. I faced the bar again, and in the mirror, I could see that one person was sitting alone at the table right behind me. She was facing away from me and seemed engrossed in something on her phone. She was wearing a maroon sweatshirt and had bushy dark brown hair that immediately reminded me of a young Hermione Granger. I watched her in the mirror, not being a creep, just out of curiosity and that I had nothing else to do while I waited for Carl. She never turned or sat up straight, just stayed on her phone, occasionally typing furiously. After a while, I looked at the time on my phone. It was twenty after six, Carl should have been here already. I ordered another beer from Cassie, the bartender, and gave him ten more minutes. I called Carl, and it took four or five rings for him to pick up. "Hey dude," Carl said right away. "I am so sorry. I have a big issue I've got to manage here." I could hear people talking loudly in the background and the beep of a forklift. "Hey," I said. "What's up?" "One of the kids knocked over a shelving unit in the garden center, and they all collapsed like dominoes. It's a big fucking mess." There was a scuffing noise as he held his phone aside and yelled at someone. "Don't bother saving that stuff, it's all junk now. Scan it, then throw it in the dumpster!" His voice became clear again. "I don't remember being this stupid when I was that age, do you?" "No, not really. So, are you going to be late or..." I asked, starting to feel a little dumb for getting my hopes up for a fun evening with old friends. "Sorry, man, this is going to be an all-nighter." "Oh, okay," I said, feeling like I just got punched in the gut. "Take a rain check for next week? The first round is on me." "Yeah, that's okay. Next week it is." I couldn't believe it. I got myself so excited to do normal people things with normal people, and this happened. I don't know why I bothered. "Alright man, gotta go." Before Carl ended the call, I could hear him start to yell. "Careful! If you knock that over too, I'm gonna" As I stared at my phone, not knowing what I should think or do, I heard a voice to my right. It was the woman with the brown hair. "You get stood up too?" I glanced at her. She was standing at the bar a few spots down from me, waving her empty glass at the bartender. "Huh? Yeah." "Sorry for eavesdropping. So what was her excuse?" In the corner of my eye, I could see the waitress return with a full glass. The girl took a drink right away. It was something creamy, Bailey's maybe. "Problems at work." I didn't mention that the 'her' was a 'him'. As secure enough in my sexuality as I was, straight guys just didn't say things that could give a woman mixed signals. "Typical." She took another long pull off her drink. "This is the third date in a row that has left me sitting. I take the time to get ready and then sit here waiting. I've got homework I could be doing." She sighed. "I don't know why I bothered." "Right." Her last words had struck a chord with my thoughts, and I turned to face her. Our eyes met, and the world stopped. We stared at each other, each of us with furrowing brows. My heart began to race, and I felt like I just got a shot of adrenaline. Slowly, she set down her drink, and I set down my phone, but our eyes remained locked. Eventually, she whispered. "I know you..." My throat was dry, and I struggled to get enough air to respond. "I don't think we've met..." She was pretty, and younger than I had expected. There was something strikingly familiar about her, but I knew I had never met this person before, and probably hadn't ever seen her. Her maroon sweatshirt had the big yellow UMD (University of Minnesota, Duluth) logo on it. There was something in her eyes, her icy blue eyes, that told me that I knew this person. "Who are you?" She whispered. The confusion on her face gave way to a look of fear. "Charles," I said woodenly, trying to make some sense of what was happening. This wasn't like the times you see someone in a crowd that looks like someone you know. I knew this person, have always known this person, and yet, nothing about her was familiar. "What is going on?" She asked, glancing at the bartender who was eyeing both of us in turn with raised eyebrows. "You're real? You're really real?" Her look of fear gave way to panic. "I've got to get out of here. This can't be happening." She slowly backed away from me, then turned and fled towards the door. I scrambled to put some cash on the bar for my beer, then followed after her. When I got outside, she was standing near a car with her head in her hands. She looked up at my approach. "Don't come any closer." She warned me. "What's going on?" I asked. "How do you know me? How do I know you?" "You know who I am?" She asked, hand on her car door, ready to flee. "When I saw you, I felt like I've known you my entire life, but I've never seen you before." I shook my head, more confused than ever in my forty-two years. "Well, I know you, Charles Larson." "How do you know my last name?" I asked, taken aback. I was pretty sure I hadn't said it at all earlier. "If you're really you, then I know everything about you." Her fear was transforming into anger, and she was almost shouting now. "How?" "Because I dream about you every night! My first memories are dreams about you! I close my eyes, and I see your face! I see your life! Every day, every night!" She was holding her head again and had started pacing side to side next to her car. "Oh my God. All these years, all the therapy, all the drugs to get you out of my head, and I find you sitting in a dive bar. This can't be real." My car was parked next to hers, and she watched me wearily as I slowly walked over and sat on the hood. "If you're really Charles Larson, tell me about yourself." She was looking at me like she was seeing a ghost. "I grew up in Minnetonka..." I was confused to the point of being numb, so I just started talking. I told her about my family, where I went to school, everything up to just before I fell in love with Melissa. Her face was pale, but she had stopped pacing and was just staring at me. "What was her name?" I looked at her sharply, surprised by the question. "Your second cousin, the one you married." Shocked, I replied. "Melissa." She took a tentative step towards me. "The two of you lived in a tiny apartment off of Grand Ave." She stepped closer. "You lived there together for fifteen years until..." She was right next to me now, and she picked up my right hand, turning it over to see the backside. She traced a finger down the scar that ran lengthwise behind my index finger. "Someone at your work dropped a piece of metal gutter, and the end sliced your hand open. It bled and bled, and you had to go get it stitched up." "How do you know these things?" I asked with something I could only describe as awe. "Because I saw it happen. I was there, in my dreams." "I feel that we are connected somehow, but, I don't even know who you are." She shifted her hands and grasped mine in a handshake. She looked at me with a shy smile. "I'm Kate Winters, and I've been waiting to meet you my whole life." Chapter Twenty-one. "You're older than I thought you would be." Kate was eyeing me from across the table. We had gone back into the bar and had taken a booth near the back. The frat boys were gone, and there was no one else nearby. "How old do you think I should be?" I asked, head still spinning. "When I was growing up, every dream was different. The time wasn't the same, the days weren't one-for-one. You were getting older faster than I was. For the last couple of years though, I've had the same dream. It's the same scene every night." She looked at me with empathy, expecting that I wasn't going to like what she was saying. "You were thirty-three, and it was nine years ago." A wave of non-specific dread washed over me. "What scene, What dream are you having over and over?" I already knew what she was going to say, and I didn't want to hear it. Kate closed her eyes. "We are in your truck, we had just been at the movie theater. You were telling me how you never liked Matt Damon, but in this movie, he was pretty good. Then,” "Stop," I said, probably a little too forcibly. "I'm sorry." Her eyes were glistening with tears. We sat in silence for a long time, each wrestling with our thoughts. Finally, I asked. "You said I was speaking to you?" She sniffed and nodded. "When the two of you were apart, it was kind of a third-person view, like watching a movie. But whenever you were with her, I saw you through her eyes. I felt what she felt, I thought what she thought. I think,” She looked at me apprehensively. "When the dreams started, it was the summer she figured out that she loved you. I was five and didn't really understand what I was seeing. I started using bigger words, and acting like I was thirteen because you two were thirteen." My thoughts swirled like a hurricane around that night nine years ago. There was the crash, and my truck crumpled up like a beer can. I was dazed, and there was glass in my eyes. I struggled to reach Melissa. The door had crumpled in and crushed her into the seat, into the tight space between what had been the dashboard and the back of the cab. Her eyes opened as I touched her cheek. She tried to speak, but no noise came out. Her mouth kept moving until suddenly she went still. Her heart stopped, and the spark of life left her eyes. My love, my life, was gone. Tears were streaming down my face, but somehow I had the composure to speak. "If you thought what she thought, did she blame me?" One thing that I had thought I had come to a resolution on, was the thought that the accident was my fault, that; had I not been looking at her at that moment, I might have been able to avoid the other car. Kate was crying too. "Of course not. You know what she was trying to say?" She reached across the table and held my hands tight in hers. "She was saying "I love you" over and over. She knew she was dying, and her only thought was that you would be alone." Still holding Kate's hands, I buried my face into my arm and cried hard, shuddering with every sob. I don't know how long I cried. At some point, I heard the waitress come by, and Kate whispered "We're okay." I felt Kate start running a hand through my hair, massaging my head. Exactly how Melissa used to. It felt good, but it also felt wrong. It wasn't Melissa's hand, It was Kate's. She was some random college girl I had never met, and I was plenty old enough to be her father. At the same time though, some part of me, deep down, was screaming that this was Melissa. I raised my head from my arm and looked at Kate. I felt no apprehension or shame in meeting her eyes, eyes that were so much like Melissa's. I studied them intently. They weren't just similar, they were identical. The patterns of blue were the same, and there was even that tiny green speck in the iris of her right eye. No one but me had ever noticed it. As insane as it sounds, I swear that I could feel Melissa's soul staring back at me through Kate's eyes. "So, what now?" I asked. "Maybe we should go somewhere more private and figure this out," Kate replied, her eyes moving to the people walking into the bar. "I still live in the same place." I couldn't believe that I had just said that. Did I just ask this girl to come home with me? Yes. She may be half my age, but there was something supernatural to the way I was drawn to her. She was not Melissa, I knew that, but in some intangible way, she very much was. Kate led the way, and I followed her back to my apartment. For some inexplicable reason, I thought of the day Melissa sat next to me on the rocks, and tearfully explained her past. The words I had spoken to her came into my mind as clearly as I had just said them. "None of what happened was your fault. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. I love you, I will always love you. Nothing in the past, present, or future will stop me from loving you until the end of time, and when we're both gone from this world, I'll find you in the next and keep loving you!" Is there such a thing as reincarnation? But no, Kate was in her early twenties, and Melissa died only nine years ago. The words continued to echo in my mind, and I realized that at some point it had stopped being my voice that was speaking. It was Melissa's. I bumped the door shut with my back and watched Kate as she surveyed my apartment. It occurred to me that not a lot had changed about the place in the last nine years, since the last time Kate would have seen it in her dreams. The couch was faded and threadbare, but comfortable, and the decorations were pretty much how Melissa had left them. The biggest difference, I noticed with some shame, was the general disorder of the place. Dirty dishes sat in a pile on the counter near the sink, and empty food containers covered the rest of the flat surfaces in the kitchenette. A pile of dirty clothes partially blocked the narrow hallway. Kate turned slowly, taking it all in. She stopped, facing me. "It looks exactly how I remember." I studied her face. I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing. She pointed at a picture on the wall beside the door. "I remember when that was taken. We, You went to a big concert in Wisconsin..." I could see at her collar, that she was wearing a tee shirt under her sweatshirt. "Take off your sweatshirt." I should have realized the creepy way in which that could be taken, but I wasn't thinking like that. I wanted to see her, to see if my eyes could help solve the mystery that had so thoroughly confused my heart and mind. A small part of me was surprised ,as Kate complied without hesitation. When she pulled the sweatshirt off, the bottom of her tee shirt was pulled up enough for me to get a glimpse of her flat belly. Her clothes were tight-fitting, and my eyes roamed her body. She was the same height as Melissa, had the same overall shape to her frame, and seemed to be in very good shape. She wasn't as muscular as Melissa had been, but then again, Melissa never had to try as hard as others to build muscle mass. Kate was watching me study her. She didn't look afraid or apprehensive at all. Rather, what came across to me was a sense of absolute trust. Melissa had looked at me like that, like she would put her life in my hands without hesitation, safe in the knowledge that I would never willingly hurt her. Her hair was very different, in color and style, and her skin was pale, like she didn't spend a lot of time outside. I stepped closer and tentatively raised a hand to her face. She didn't flinch or pull away. My hand cupped her cheek, and she closed her eyes, pressing her face into my gentle touch. Her features were softened by youth, but the shape of her face, the structure of her bones, was eerily familiar. "You do look like her," I said softly. "Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I see her face looking back at me." I felt her hands on my waist as she stepped close. Our faces were inches apart. "This must be difficult for you," She whispered. "I've lived with this my whole life. I've had time to deal with it." Seemingly of their own accord, my arms wrapped around her in a hug. She pressed herself against me, and I could feel that her heart was beating as rapidly as mine. "Through the years, I began to love being her." My face nestled against her neck, fitting perfectly. I breathed in deep. Her scent, my God, it was her scent! "I began to love you," She whispered into my ear. "I love you the way she loved you." My thoughts were muddled; like I had been drinking all day and her words were hypnotizing. The rational part of my mind, dazzled as it was; still held to the fact that this was not Melissa. The rest of me wanted her to be Melissa, needed her to be. "I'm so alone." My words fell out of my mouth like a sob. "You don't have to be alone," She said soothingly. "You deserve to be loved." I brought my head up and looked into her eyes, Melissa's eyes. Why had she used those specific words, those words that had floated into my mind not ten minutes ago? They were my words, and it seemed as though Melissa was speaking them. "Do I?" I asked. "Everyone deserves to be loved, but you especially." I thought of the stranger I saw when I looked in the mirror. "You haven't seen me since the accident. I'm not the same person I was before. I don't know who I am, but it's not the Charles you knew." She cupped my face in her hands. Her eyes seemed to penetrate my very soul, reading the truth that had been obscured from me for so long. "I see you, Charles. You are kind and gentle, caring and considerate, fiercely loyal and honorable. You are truthful and funny, wise and brave. Most of all, you are loving. You would selflessly give the last of yourself if the one you loved needed it." The way Kate was looking at me, the love and knowing in her eyes, made something click in my mind. Bubbling up from the depths, came feelings I thought were gone forever. I remembered the way my heart fluttered when Melissa smiled at me, even after fifteen years of marriage. I remembered how it felt to fully give myself to her, and how my greatest pleasure was seeing the pleasure I gave to her. I remembered the sense of unity, the self and the other made whole. I remembered love, pure and bright, untainted by the weight of the world. Melissa and I had given ourselves to each other and became something greater, one being in all ways, body, heart, mind, and soul. That is who I was, who I am, and who I will forever be. Now standing here with this woman in my arms, I felt that connection again. I felt the bond we had forged, stronger than the foundations of the Earth, stronger than the very fabric of space and time. Though I hadn't seen it for years, it had not dissolved, had not forsaken me. What were a few years compared to that kind of power? "Are you my Melissa?" A faint sense of doubt passed through her eyes. "I don't know. Yes? No? Neither?" She looked away from my eyes, confusion, and memory clouding her face. "Have you ever read about schizophrenics? My mother thought I was one because when I started writing in diaries, I didn't have just one. I had three, one for me, one for Melissa, and one for you. I wrote down everything, all your conversations, and all your emotions. It was mostly just you at this point, with a few precious dreams of your weekends at the cabin with Melissa. Mom brought me to more doctors than I can remember, and they all said that I wasn't schizophrenic, as I didn't have trouble being myself. Apart from my dreams, I was a normal, healthy little girl. They read my journals, determined that I was suffering from an advanced form of multiple personality disorder, and medicated me accordingly. They were stumped though, how a little girl could write with such detail and realism." She looked down and fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. I watched how her fingers moved and the posture of her body. She moved like Melissa. "The drugs they gave me didn't do anything but make me feel like shit all the time. I didn't know where my dreams were coming from, but I had to believe that nothing was wrong with me because they felt so right. I enjoyed them and saw them as a gift or a blessing. As strange as it may seem, you were my best friend, and I went to sleep happy every night." She stopped fidgeting and looked at me. "When I was thirteen, I had a dream about that most special weekend at the cabin. It was several dreams actually. I experienced every single moment. I felt the bond Melissa made with you, and not just while I was dreaming. The following days, I buzzed with giddy excitement and cried from the sheer joy of it. It was then that I knew without a shred of doubt, that I wasn't ill." She said this last word with derision. "Nothing that felt that right and pure could be sickness. I stopped taking the medication that day. My waking mind cleared, and I knew joy like I hadn't imagined possible." She sighed. "I never knew for sure if what I experienced in my dreams was happening to real people, or if it was all just for me alone, and I didn't want to find out." She placed my hand on her chest and I could feel her heart pounding. "What I do know, is that as time went on and I grew older, I became more like Melissa. Her personality and insecurities, likes and dislikes, her thoughts and dreams, all merged with my own. When I was old enough to start dating, I went out with a lot of guys. It never worked out, and rarely even got close to physical intimacy, because none of them were you." Her chest was heaving as her heart beat even faster. "I couldn't find love, because I was already in love. I don't know if I am Melissa. I wasn't born as her, so maybe I'm not. But in every way that truly matters, I think that I am her." I read her eyes with the ease that I had been able to read Melissa's. Her love for me was evident, as was her passion and desire. No one but Melissa had ever looked at me the way she was now. Like Melissa's had, Kate's eyes also held insecurity, self-consciousness, and hurt. Kate said that she had dreamed about the accident for years now. Seeing it, feeling it play out over and over. The pain of my recollection of it was pushed aside by an immense surge of empathy and compassion. I only had to live through it once. I couldn't imagine having it waiting for me every night, to see and feel it in perfect clarity, untarnished by the fog of memory. My hand slid from her heart, and she shuddered involuntarily as it settled gently on the side of her neck, just below her jawline. At that moment, I didn't see Kate. I saw the girl I had fallen hopelessly in love with so many years ago, and the woman I had married. I saw my warrior queen, fierce and confident, but at the same time so gentle and insecure. I saw her soul, eternally bound to mine. I saw Melissa's inexhaustible sexual desire for me, roaring hot as a blast furnace, as mine did for her. I tilted her face up and kissed her. She moaned softly, as her lips opened and our tongues met. The kissing was slow and gentle, neither of us wanting to scare the other with our need for intimacy. We both gasped as our mouths parted. She held my face, and her touch, despite my three-day-old stubble, was soft and familiar. "Maybe we shouldn't,” She held a finger to my lips. "I need you and you need me," She whispered. Slowly, she pulled her tee shirt over her head and dropped it to the floor. Eyes locked with mine, she unzipped her pants, shimmied, and kicked them away when they fell to her ankles. She wore a matching set of light blue panties and a bra. They were pretty, lacy things that accentuated her toned body in a way that screamed sensuality. Without another word, she took my hand in hers and led me to my bed. Later, I watched Kate sleep peacefully in my arms. I reached to the bedside table, and turned out the light, plunging the room into total darkness. I turned back to Kate, who I could see in my mind's eye with crystal clarity. This girl, this woman, who was at the same time achingly familiar and disturbingly foreign, had arrived in my life at the head of a rampaging horde of swirling thoughts. Was it possible that Melissa's soul had somehow made its way to Kate, and led her to me? Amid our passion, as years of longing and desire burst forth from both of us, it felt like I was with Melissa, in every way I could perceive. She moved and kissed like her, smelled and tasted like her. She felt like her, outside and in, and even moaned and cried out like her. I felt like I could give in and accept it. I could acknowledge that this was, in fact, Melissa. We could continue our life together as if the real Melissa had never died. We could be happy, and grow old hand in hand. It was so tempting to lose myself to the idea. My heart ached for it. But something wasn't right. The whole idea seemed unnatural as if it had been manipulated by a higher power whose intent could not be known. This doubt had the feel of truth, jagged and persistent. I knew that I couldn't ignore it, that it would be an eternal festering mote, no matter how sweet a fantasy my life would seem. There was a riddle here that needed to be solved, that demanded to be solved. Above all the confusion and jumbled emotions, there was an overarching feeling that there was an answer just beyond my grasp. I knew that if I could reach it and see just a glimpse of what was beyond, if only for a split second, I would know the truth. I lay there in the dark, willing with every fiber of my being for the universe to give me an answer. The darkness seemed to acquiesce to my silent pleading. I fell through the dark, free of my bed, free of the Earth and reality, into a cozy warm sleeping bag. I spoke to Melissa as night became morning. "You know me better than anyone. Being with you makes me feel complete, in a way I didn't know was possible. I am yours, in all ways, forever." Bright as a star, the light of love flashed in her eyes, bathing all existence with its brilliance. "Hold on to that moment, use it as a refuge." Sandy blonde hair glowed like golden fire in an autumn sunbeam. "You're real," Melissa said as we embraced outside her apartment. We evaporated into smoke, wafting on a lazy breeze through the pines, and condensed again, lying in Melissa's bed. "Have you been that lonely?" I asked. "For as long as I can remember" Melissa flung herself into my arms. "Am I okay? Charles, this is a dream come true!" A small glass bottle was held out for me to smell. I leaned close and howled as I was sucked into the bottle, down, down, down, into the swirling, bubbling liquid. "We remember scents much better than we think we do. Sometimes all we need is a little hint, and it's brought right to the front. Scents are all connected in our minds, and are rooted deep down at the very foundation of memory." My howl became the biting wind, as cold as the water crashing its way through the rocks. The grayness of the sky seemed to leach all color and emotion from the world. "None of what happened was your fault. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. I love you, I will always love you." The wind rose, howling becoming screeching, becoming screaming, as tires slid, glass broke, and metal crumpled. "I love you. I love you. I love you..." A sudden silence as the flying glass became a sea of stars. "Nothing in the past, present, or future will stop me from loving you until the end of time..." The endless expanse of the cosmos loomed, comforting in its infinite possibility. "...and when we're both gone from this world, I'll find you in the next and keep loving you!" I stood alone in a bright sunlit clearing, within a cathedral of Red Pines. Above, a billion, billion suns twinkled in the vast dark. My mother hugged me. "Oh, Charles. Love is so precious. It doesn't matter where you find it, but when you do, you hold on with both hands and never let go." Mother became Melissa, whispering my words back to me. "I'll find you in the next and keep loving you." Our sacred pine grove faded as her whisper echoed through infinity. "I'll find you in the next, in the next, in the next..." I floated alone. The self, the other, and the one were all gone. Joy and sadness were words without meaning. Light and dark had no definition. Space had no direction. Time held no sway. Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 2 parts, for Literotica.
Cabin Cousins: Part 6 Saying Goodbye; for now. Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Connections. Chapter Twenty. On the drive home, I felt good, like really good. I felt like things were actually going to start changing for the better. Reveling in this feeling, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision. I stopped my car in a random parking lot and pulled out my phone. One of the guys that I used to work with, Carl, liked to go to this little bar in Superior to hang out with friends and have a few drinks. There was a whole group of guys from work that would go regularly, but Carl was the only one who never stopped asking. For one reason or another, I never took him up on it, and I haven't seen any of them since I stopped being able to go to work. He answered after a few rings. "Hi, it's Charles, from work." "Charles? Hey buddy! How are you doing?" He sounded happy to hear from me. "Oh, I've been hanging in there. How's the store since I left?" At the time of the accident, I was the yard manager at the same store I had worked at since I moved to Duluth. It didn't pay a lot of money, but it was enough to get by, and I liked the job. I still felt bad about how I left. As the years went on and my depression spiraled downwards, it had become too hard to mask. My job performance was terrible, and people began to ask questions I didn't want to face the answers to. One day I scheduled myself to take all my vacation days, and then with that in the system, I put in my two weeks' notice. I never went back. "They made me assistant store manager if you'll believe that," Carl said. "Still a lot of the same faces around here. All the young kids come and go. You know how it is." "Yeah." I chuckled. In a store like that, you could count on about half of the employees to be lifers. They'd never leave. The other half seemed to be a completely different mix of people every couple of months. "So, what's up?" Carl asked. I could hear the store's advertising jingle blaring over the loudspeakers in the background. "Do you and the guys still go to that bar in Superior?" There it was. I said it. Now if he says yes, I'll have to ask if I can go, and then I'll have to go. "Yeah! But it's usually just me and Matt. Brian got married, and his wife has him on a short leash. Joe goes to AA. The other guys, just kinda stopped going for one reason or another. Tonight is the night we usually go." "Mind if I come with?" I asked. "Of course, man! We're going to leave here at about six." "Cool, I'll see you there." "Looking forward to it. It'll be good to see you again." And now the awkwardness of ending a phone call. I've heard that it's a Midwestern thing, but everyone seems to do it better than I do. "Okay, bye." "Bye." I went home, set out some clean clothes, and got in the shower. Sometimes I forget how good it feels to be clean. But then, I knew exactly why it was often too hard to motivate myself to get into the shower. The shower brought memories of Melissa and the possibility of pain. I stood still, letting the near-scalding water cascade over me. The fruity scent of the same brand of body wash Melissa had during our first shower together was strong, and I remembered. I closed my eyes and started my breathing exercise with a deep slow inhale. Melissa's hands scrubbed my lower back and slid down to squeeze my ass. Breathe out, the pain and hurt waft away like steam in the shower. My fingers follow the lines of her muscles and up her inner thigh, she looks at me with serene contentment. Breathe in. She turns, arches her back, and sighs as I enter her from behind. Breathe out, the pain is gone, and there is only joy. She moans as my soapy hands cup her firm tits, holding her tight against me as we make love. Breathe in. I gasp and hold my breath as we both climax. Breathe out. I catch my breath and look down, my hand was still grasping my quickly softening manhood, and the oozing result of my orgasm was slowly washed into the drain. I finished cleaning up, turned the water off, and stepped out of the shower. I looked at myself in the mirror as I toweled dry. It had been quite a while since I had exercised, or gone to the gym, but I still had a good amount of muscle on me. Granted, a bit more flab than I liked, especially on my belly, but overall I still liked the way I looked. Melissa liked the way I looked too. I patted my belly, and there was a slight jiggle. I really should work out again, I thought. When was the last time I went for a run? I couldn't remember. My eyes strayed from my body to my face. I was still slightly pink from the hot water. I studied the slight age lines beginning to appear around my eyes and noticed that I seemed to have a larger forehead than I used to. When did I start losing my hair? I put my hands on the edge of the sink and leaned close to the mirror. It's a strange thing, looking yourself in the eyes. Despite how good I felt at the moment, all I could see was the pain deep inside. I knew it hadn't always been there, and obviously, I knew when it started. What bothered me was, I couldn't remember what it was like to not have this pain. I could remember every little detail about Melissa, her face, her body, the conversations we had, the things we did together, everything. But if I focus on just me... I can remember being a skinny awkward teenager falling in love and beginning a perfect life, then this, an aging man being crushed by the weight of a tragedy. Every memory between, of what it was to be me, was just gone. Lost to the gray. At the same time, I knew that this person staring back at me in the mirror wasn't me. Once, I was happy. Once I was me, whoever that was. Would I ever get me back, or did I just have to come to grips with the fact that I was now a completely different person? In heavy contemplation, I got dressed. I put on a faded Iron Maiden concert tee, a token from the time Melissa and I had driven to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to see them perform, and some blue jeans that seemed tighter around the waist than I remembered. I checked my bank balance and determined that If I was going to have drinks at the bar with Carl, I had better eat at home beforehand. I had a cup of ramen noodles, and cut slices off of a brick of cheddar cheese, as I wasted time watching random crap on YouTube. Finally, it was five thirty and time to go. Well really, I didn't need to hurry, as it was only a five-minute drive across the bridge to Superior, but there was no way I was going to be late. I parked behind the bar and didn't see any vehicles I recognized. I listened to the radio for a little while, then at ten to six, I got out of the car. The hard part is done. I'm here. I walked in and scanned the place for Carl. I know he had said he was leaving work at six, but I didn't want to miss him by mistake if he was early for some reason. Not seeing him or anyone else I knew, I took a seat at the end of the bar. The place wasn't very busy at all, with maybe a dozen people spread out throughout the whole place. A red-haired waitress came and took my order for a Grainbelt beer, and I watched her go to the cooler to get the bottle. She was cute, if a little thick around the middle, and when she handed me the beer, she flashed me the smile of experienced waitresses everywhere. The kind of smile that says, "I'll be sweet, and yes, maybe even flirt with you a little, but this is my job and you better not take it as more than a professional courtesy". I respected that. Good bartenders were hard to come by, and this one seemed proficient so far. I sipped my beer, and surreptitiously watched the other patrons. There was the same general mix of people you see in bars like this on a Tuesday evening. A few older couples, quietly enjoying dinner and a glass of wine, a fifty-year-old high school prom queen and her steroid-pumped boyfriend, slamming cheap beer, faces wind burned from riding a Harley all day, a table of college frat boy types laughing too loudly at offensive jokes, you know the kind of place. I faced the bar again, and in the mirror, I could see that one person was sitting alone at the table right behind me. She was facing away from me and seemed engrossed in something on her phone. She was wearing a maroon sweatshirt and had bushy dark brown hair that immediately reminded me of a young Hermione Granger. I watched her in the mirror, not being a creep, just out of curiosity and that I had nothing else to do while I waited for Carl. She never turned or sat up straight, just stayed on her phone, occasionally typing furiously. After a while, I looked at the time on my phone. It was twenty after six, Carl should have been here already. I ordered another beer from Cassie, the bartender, and gave him ten more minutes. I called Carl, and it took four or five rings for him to pick up. "Hey dude," Carl said right away. "I am so sorry. I have a big issue I've got to manage here." I could hear people talking loudly in the background and the beep of a forklift. "Hey," I said. "What's up?" "One of the kids knocked over a shelving unit in the garden center, and they all collapsed like dominoes. It's a big fucking mess." There was a scuffing noise as he held his phone aside and yelled at someone. "Don't bother saving that stuff, it's all junk now. Scan it, then throw it in the dumpster!" His voice became clear again. "I don't remember being this stupid when I was that age, do you?" "No, not really. So, are you going to be late or..." I asked, starting to feel a little dumb for getting my hopes up for a fun evening with old friends. "Sorry, man, this is going to be an all-nighter." "Oh, okay," I said, feeling like I just got punched in the gut. "Take a rain check for next week? The first round is on me." "Yeah, that's okay. Next week it is." I couldn't believe it. I got myself so excited to do normal people things with normal people, and this happened. I don't know why I bothered. "Alright man, gotta go." Before Carl ended the call, I could hear him start to yell. "Careful! If you knock that over too, I'm gonna" As I stared at my phone, not knowing what I should think or do, I heard a voice to my right. It was the woman with the brown hair. "You get stood up too?" I glanced at her. She was standing at the bar a few spots down from me, waving her empty glass at the bartender. "Huh? Yeah." "Sorry for eavesdropping. So what was her excuse?" In the corner of my eye, I could see the waitress return with a full glass. The girl took a drink right away. It was something creamy, Bailey's maybe. "Problems at work." I didn't mention that the 'her' was a 'him'. As secure enough in my sexuality as I was, straight guys just didn't say things that could give a woman mixed signals. "Typical." She took another long pull off her drink. "This is the third date in a row that has left me sitting. I take the time to get ready and then sit here waiting. I've got homework I could be doing." She sighed. "I don't know why I bothered." "Right." Her last words had struck a chord with my thoughts, and I turned to face her. Our eyes met, and the world stopped. We stared at each other, each of us with furrowing brows. My heart began to race, and I felt like I just got a shot of adrenaline. Slowly, she set down her drink, and I set down my phone, but our eyes remained locked. Eventually, she whispered. "I know you..." My throat was dry, and I struggled to get enough air to respond. "I don't think we've met..." She was pretty, and younger than I had expected. There was something strikingly familiar about her, but I knew I had never met this person before, and probably hadn't ever seen her. Her maroon sweatshirt had the big yellow UMD (University of Minnesota, Duluth) logo on it. There was something in her eyes, her icy blue eyes, that told me that I knew this person. "Who are you?" She whispered. The confusion on her face gave way to a look of fear. "Charles," I said woodenly, trying to make some sense of what was happening. This wasn't like the times you see someone in a crowd that looks like someone you know. I knew this person, have always known this person, and yet, nothing about her was familiar. "What is going on?" She asked, glancing at the bartender who was eyeing both of us in turn with raised eyebrows. "You're real? You're really real?" Her look of fear gave way to panic. "I've got to get out of here. This can't be happening." She slowly backed away from me, then turned and fled towards the door. I scrambled to put some cash on the bar for my beer, then followed after her. When I got outside, she was standing near a car with her head in her hands. She looked up at my approach. "Don't come any closer." She warned me. "What's going on?" I asked. "How do you know me? How do I know you?" "You know who I am?" She asked, hand on her car door, ready to flee. "When I saw you, I felt like I've known you my entire life, but I've never seen you before." I shook my head, more confused than ever in my forty-two years. "Well, I know you, Charles Larson." "How do you know my last name?" I asked, taken aback. I was pretty sure I hadn't said it at all earlier. "If you're really you, then I know everything about you." Her fear was transforming into anger, and she was almost shouting now. "How?" "Because I dream about you every night! My first memories are dreams about you! I close my eyes, and I see your face! I see your life! Every day, every night!" She was holding her head again and had started pacing side to side next to her car. "Oh my God. All these years, all the therapy, all the drugs to get you out of my head, and I find you sitting in a dive bar. This can't be real." My car was parked next to hers, and she watched me wearily as I slowly walked over and sat on the hood. "If you're really Charles Larson, tell me about yourself." She was looking at me like she was seeing a ghost. "I grew up in Minnetonka..." I was confused to the point of being numb, so I just started talking. I told her about my family, where I went to school, everything up to just before I fell in love with Melissa. Her face was pale, but she had stopped pacing and was just staring at me. "What was her name?" I looked at her sharply, surprised by the question. "Your second cousin, the one you married." Shocked, I replied. "Melissa." She took a tentative step towards me. "The two of you lived in a tiny apartment off of Grand Ave." She stepped closer. "You lived there together for fifteen years until..." She was right next to me now, and she picked up my right hand, turning it over to see the backside. She traced a finger down the scar that ran lengthwise behind my index finger. "Someone at your work dropped a piece of metal gutter, and the end sliced your hand open. It bled and bled, and you had to go get it stitched up." "How do you know these things?" I asked with something I could only describe as awe. "Because I saw it happen. I was there, in my dreams." "I feel that we are connected somehow, but, I don't even know who you are." She shifted her hands and grasped mine in a handshake. She looked at me with a shy smile. "I'm Kate Winters, and I've been waiting to meet you my whole life." Chapter Twenty-one. "You're older than I thought you would be." Kate was eyeing me from across the table. We had gone back into the bar and had taken a booth near the back. The frat boys were gone, and there was no one else nearby. "How old do you think I should be?" I asked, head still spinning. "When I was growing up, every dream was different. The time wasn't the same, the days weren't one-for-one. You were getting older faster than I was. For the last couple of years though, I've had the same dream. It's the same scene every night." She looked at me with empathy, expecting that I wasn't going to like what she was saying. "You were thirty-three, and it was nine years ago." A wave of non-specific dread washed over me. "What scene, What dream are you having over and over?" I already knew what she was going to say, and I didn't want to hear it. Kate closed her eyes. "We are in your truck, we had just been at the movie theater. You were telling me how you never liked Matt Damon, but in this movie, he was pretty good. Then,” "Stop," I said, probably a little too forcibly. "I'm sorry." Her eyes were glistening with tears. We sat in silence for a long time, each wrestling with our thoughts. Finally, I asked. "You said I was speaking to you?" She sniffed and nodded. "When the two of you were apart, it was kind of a third-person view, like watching a movie. But whenever you were with her, I saw you through her eyes. I felt what she felt, I thought what she thought. I think,” She looked at me apprehensively. "When the dreams started, it was the summer she figured out that she loved you. I was five and didn't really understand what I was seeing. I started using bigger words, and acting like I was thirteen because you two were thirteen." My thoughts swirled like a hurricane around that night nine years ago. There was the crash, and my truck crumpled up like a beer can. I was dazed, and there was glass in my eyes. I struggled to reach Melissa. The door had crumpled in and crushed her into the seat, into the tight space between what had been the dashboard and the back of the cab. Her eyes opened as I touched her cheek. She tried to speak, but no noise came out. Her mouth kept moving until suddenly she went still. Her heart stopped, and the spark of life left her eyes. My love, my life, was gone. Tears were streaming down my face, but somehow I had the composure to speak. "If you thought what she thought, did she blame me?" One thing that I had thought I had come to a resolution on, was the thought that the accident was my fault, that; had I not been looking at her at that moment, I might have been able to avoid the other car. Kate was crying too. "Of course not. You know what she was trying to say?" She reached across the table and held my hands tight in hers. "She was saying "I love you" over and over. She knew she was dying, and her only thought was that you would be alone." Still holding Kate's hands, I buried my face into my arm and cried hard, shuddering with every sob. I don't know how long I cried. At some point, I heard the waitress come by, and Kate whispered "We're okay." I felt Kate start running a hand through my hair, massaging my head. Exactly how Melissa used to. It felt good, but it also felt wrong. It wasn't Melissa's hand, It was Kate's. She was some random college girl I had never met, and I was plenty old enough to be her father. At the same time though, some part of me, deep down, was screaming that this was Melissa. I raised my head from my arm and looked at Kate. I felt no apprehension or shame in meeting her eyes, eyes that were so much like Melissa's. I studied them intently. They weren't just similar, they were identical. The patterns of blue were the same, and there was even that tiny green speck in the iris of her right eye. No one but me had ever noticed it. As insane as it sounds, I swear that I could feel Melissa's soul staring back at me through Kate's eyes. "So, what now?" I asked. "Maybe we should go somewhere more private and figure this out," Kate replied, her eyes moving to the people walking into the bar. "I still live in the same place." I couldn't believe that I had just said that. Did I just ask this girl to come home with me? Yes. She may be half my age, but there was something supernatural to the way I was drawn to her. She was not Melissa, I knew that, but in some intangible way, she very much was. Kate led the way, and I followed her back to my apartment. For some inexplicable reason, I thought of the day Melissa sat next to me on the rocks, and tearfully explained her past. The words I had spoken to her came into my mind as clearly as I had just said them. "None of what happened was your fault. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. I love you, I will always love you. Nothing in the past, present, or future will stop me from loving you until the end of time, and when we're both gone from this world, I'll find you in the next and keep loving you!" Is there such a thing as reincarnation? But no, Kate was in her early twenties, and Melissa died only nine years ago. The words continued to echo in my mind, and I realized that at some point it had stopped being my voice that was speaking. It was Melissa's. I bumped the door shut with my back and watched Kate as she surveyed my apartment. It occurred to me that not a lot had changed about the place in the last nine years, since the last time Kate would have seen it in her dreams. The couch was faded and threadbare, but comfortable, and the decorations were pretty much how Melissa had left them. The biggest difference, I noticed with some shame, was the general disorder of the place. Dirty dishes sat in a pile on the counter near the sink, and empty food containers covered the rest of the flat surfaces in the kitchenette. A pile of dirty clothes partially blocked the narrow hallway. Kate turned slowly, taking it all in. She stopped, facing me. "It looks exactly how I remember." I studied her face. I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing. She pointed at a picture on the wall beside the door. "I remember when that was taken. We, You went to a big concert in Wisconsin..." I could see at her collar, that she was wearing a tee shirt under her sweatshirt. "Take off your sweatshirt." I should have realized the creepy way in which that could be taken, but I wasn't thinking like that. I wanted to see her, to see if my eyes could help solve the mystery that had so thoroughly confused my heart and mind. A small part of me was surprised ,as Kate complied without hesitation. When she pulled the sweatshirt off, the bottom of her tee shirt was pulled up enough for me to get a glimpse of her flat belly. Her clothes were tight-fitting, and my eyes roamed her body. She was the same height as Melissa, had the same overall shape to her frame, and seemed to be in very good shape. She wasn't as muscular as Melissa had been, but then again, Melissa never had to try as hard as others to build muscle mass. Kate was watching me study her. She didn't look afraid or apprehensive at all. Rather, what came across to me was a sense of absolute trust. Melissa had looked at me like that, like she would put her life in my hands without hesitation, safe in the knowledge that I would never willingly hurt her. Her hair was very different, in color and style, and her skin was pale, like she didn't spend a lot of time outside. I stepped closer and tentatively raised a hand to her face. She didn't flinch or pull away. My hand cupped her cheek, and she closed her eyes, pressing her face into my gentle touch. Her features were softened by youth, but the shape of her face, the structure of her bones, was eerily familiar. "You do look like her," I said softly. "Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I see her face looking back at me." I felt her hands on my waist as she stepped close. Our faces were inches apart. "This must be difficult for you," She whispered. "I've lived with this my whole life. I've had time to deal with it." Seemingly of their own accord, my arms wrapped around her in a hug. She pressed herself against me, and I could feel that her heart was beating as rapidly as mine. "Through the years, I began to love being her." My face nestled against her neck, fitting perfectly. I breathed in deep. Her scent, my God, it was her scent! "I began to love you," She whispered into my ear. "I love you the way she loved you." My thoughts were muddled; like I had been drinking all day and her words were hypnotizing. The rational part of my mind, dazzled as it was; still held to the fact that this was not Melissa. The rest of me wanted her to be Melissa, needed her to be. "I'm so alone." My words fell out of my mouth like a sob. "You don't have to be alone," She said soothingly. "You deserve to be loved." I brought my head up and looked into her eyes, Melissa's eyes. Why had she used those specific words, those words that had floated into my mind not ten minutes ago? They were my words, and it seemed as though Melissa was speaking them. "Do I?" I asked. "Everyone deserves to be loved, but you especially." I thought of the stranger I saw when I looked in the mirror. "You haven't seen me since the accident. I'm not the same person I was before. I don't know who I am, but it's not the Charles you knew." She cupped my face in her hands. Her eyes seemed to penetrate my very soul, reading the truth that had been obscured from me for so long. "I see you, Charles. You are kind and gentle, caring and considerate, fiercely loyal and honorable. You are truthful and funny, wise and brave. Most of all, you are loving. You would selflessly give the last of yourself if the one you loved needed it." The way Kate was looking at me, the love and knowing in her eyes, made something click in my mind. Bubbling up from the depths, came feelings I thought were gone forever. I remembered the way my heart fluttered when Melissa smiled at me, even after fifteen years of marriage. I remembered how it felt to fully give myself to her, and how my greatest pleasure was seeing the pleasure I gave to her. I remembered the sense of unity, the self and the other made whole. I remembered love, pure and bright, untainted by the weight of the world. Melissa and I had given ourselves to each other and became something greater, one being in all ways, body, heart, mind, and soul. That is who I was, who I am, and who I will forever be. Now standing here with this woman in my arms, I felt that connection again. I felt the bond we had forged, stronger than the foundations of the Earth, stronger than the very fabric of space and time. Though I hadn't seen it for years, it had not dissolved, had not forsaken me. What were a few years compared to that kind of power? "Are you my Melissa?" A faint sense of doubt passed through her eyes. "I don't know. Yes? No? Neither?" She looked away from my eyes, confusion, and memory clouding her face. "Have you ever read about schizophrenics? My mother thought I was one because when I started writing in diaries, I didn't have just one. I had three, one for me, one for Melissa, and one for you. I wrote down everything, all your conversations, and all your emotions. It was mostly just you at this point, with a few precious dreams of your weekends at the cabin with Melissa. Mom brought me to more doctors than I can remember, and they all said that I wasn't schizophrenic, as I didn't have trouble being myself. Apart from my dreams, I was a normal, healthy little girl. They read my journals, determined that I was suffering from an advanced form of multiple personality disorder, and medicated me accordingly. They were stumped though, how a little girl could write with such detail and realism." She looked down and fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. I watched how her fingers moved and the posture of her body. She moved like Melissa. "The drugs they gave me didn't do anything but make me feel like shit all the time. I didn't know where my dreams were coming from, but I had to believe that nothing was wrong with me because they felt so right. I enjoyed them and saw them as a gift or a blessing. As strange as it may seem, you were my best friend, and I went to sleep happy every night." She stopped fidgeting and looked at me. "When I was thirteen, I had a dream about that most special weekend at the cabin. It was several dreams actually. I experienced every single moment. I felt the bond Melissa made with you, and not just while I was dreaming. The following days, I buzzed with giddy excitement and cried from the sheer joy of it. It was then that I knew without a shred of doubt, that I wasn't ill." She said this last word with derision. "Nothing that felt that right and pure could be sickness. I stopped taking the medication that day. My waking mind cleared, and I knew joy like I hadn't imagined possible." She sighed. "I never knew for sure if what I experienced in my dreams was happening to real people, or if it was all just for me alone, and I didn't want to find out." She placed my hand on her chest and I could feel her heart pounding. "What I do know, is that as time went on and I grew older, I became more like Melissa. Her personality and insecurities, likes and dislikes, her thoughts and dreams, all merged with my own. When I was old enough to start dating, I went out with a lot of guys. It never worked out, and rarely even got close to physical intimacy, because none of them were you." Her chest was heaving as her heart beat even faster. "I couldn't find love, because I was already in love. I don't know if I am Melissa. I wasn't born as her, so maybe I'm not. But in every way that truly matters, I think that I am her." I read her eyes with the ease that I had been able to read Melissa's. Her love for me was evident, as was her passion and desire. No one but Melissa had ever looked at me the way she was now. Like Melissa's had, Kate's eyes also held insecurity, self-consciousness, and hurt. Kate said that she had dreamed about the accident for years now. Seeing it, feeling it play out over and over. The pain of my recollection of it was pushed aside by an immense surge of empathy and compassion. I only had to live through it once. I couldn't imagine having it waiting for me every night, to see and feel it in perfect clarity, untarnished by the fog of memory. My hand slid from her heart, and she shuddered involuntarily as it settled gently on the side of her neck, just below her jawline. At that moment, I didn't see Kate. I saw the girl I had fallen hopelessly in love with so many years ago, and the woman I had married. I saw my warrior queen, fierce and confident, but at the same time so gentle and insecure. I saw her soul, eternally bound to mine. I saw Melissa's inexhaustible sexual desire for me, roaring hot as a blast furnace, as mine did for her. I tilted her face up and kissed her. She moaned softly, as her lips opened and our tongues met. The kissing was slow and gentle, neither of us wanting to scare the other with our need for intimacy. We both gasped as our mouths parted. She held my face, and her touch, despite my three-day-old stubble, was soft and familiar. "Maybe we shouldn't,” She held a finger to my lips. "I need you and you need me," She whispered. Slowly, she pulled her tee shirt over her head and dropped it to the floor. Eyes locked with mine, she unzipped her pants, shimmied, and kicked them away when they fell to her ankles. She wore a matching set of light blue panties and a bra. They were pretty, lacy things that accentuated her toned body in a way that screamed sensuality. Without another word, she took my hand in hers and led me to my bed. Later, I watched Kate sleep peacefully in my arms. I reached to the bedside table, and turned out the light, plunging the room into total darkness. I turned back to Kate, who I could see in my mind's eye with crystal clarity. This girl, this woman, who was at the same time achingly familiar and disturbingly foreign, had arrived in my life at the head of a rampaging horde of swirling thoughts. Was it possible that Melissa's soul had somehow made its way to Kate, and led her to me? Amid our passion, as years of longing and desire burst forth from both of us, it felt like I was with Melissa, in every way I could perceive. She moved and kissed like her, smelled and tasted like her. She felt like her, outside and in, and even moaned and cried out like her. I felt like I could give in and accept it. I could acknowledge that this was, in fact, Melissa. We could continue our life together as if the real Melissa had never died. We could be happy, and grow old hand in hand. It was so tempting to lose myself to the idea. My heart ached for it. But something wasn't right. The whole idea seemed unnatural as if it had been manipulated by a higher power whose intent could not be known. This doubt had the feel of truth, jagged and persistent. I knew that I couldn't ignore it, that it would be an eternal festering mote, no matter how sweet a fantasy my life would seem. There was a riddle here that needed to be solved, that demanded to be solved. Above all the confusion and jumbled emotions, there was an overarching feeling that there was an answer just beyond my grasp. I knew that if I could reach it and see just a glimpse of what was beyond, if only for a split second, I would know the truth. I lay there in the dark, willing with every fiber of my being for the universe to give me an answer. The darkness seemed to acquiesce to my silent pleading. I fell through the dark, free of my bed, free of the Earth and reality, into a cozy warm sleeping bag. I spoke to Melissa as night became morning. "You know me better than anyone. Being with you makes me feel complete, in a way I didn't know was possible. I am yours, in all ways, forever." Bright as a star, the light of love flashed in her eyes, bathing all existence with its brilliance. "Hold on to that moment, use it as a refuge." Sandy blonde hair glowed like golden fire in an autumn sunbeam. "You're real," Melissa said as we embraced outside her apartment. We evaporated into smoke, wafting on a lazy breeze through the pines, and condensed again, lying in Melissa's bed. "Have you been that lonely?" I asked. "For as long as I can remember" Melissa flung herself into my arms. "Am I okay? Charles, this is a dream come true!" A small glass bottle was held out for me to smell. I leaned close and howled as I was sucked into the bottle, down, down, down, into the swirling, bubbling liquid. "We remember scents much better than we think we do. Sometimes all we need is a little hint, and it's brought right to the front. Scents are all connected in our minds, and are rooted deep down at the very foundation of memory." My howl became the biting wind, as cold as the water crashing its way through the rocks. The grayness of the sky seemed to leach all color and emotion from the world. "None of what happened was your fault. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. I love you, I will always love you." The wind rose, howling becoming screeching, becoming screaming, as tires slid, glass broke, and metal crumpled. "I love you. I love you. I love you..." A sudden silence as the flying glass became a sea of stars. "Nothing in the past, present, or future will stop me from loving you until the end of time..." The endless expanse of the cosmos loomed, comforting in its infinite possibility. "...and when we're both gone from this world, I'll find you in the next and keep loving you!" I stood alone in a bright sunlit clearing, within a cathedral of Red Pines. Above, a billion, billion suns twinkled in the vast dark. My mother hugged me. "Oh, Charles. Love is so precious. It doesn't matter where you find it, but when you do, you hold on with both hands and never let go." Mother became Melissa, whispering my words back to me. "I'll find you in the next and keep loving you." Our sacred pine grove faded as her whisper echoed through infinity. "I'll find you in the next, in the next, in the next..." I floated alone. The self, the other, and the one were all gone. Joy and sadness were words without meaning. Light and dark had no definition. Space had no direction. Time held no sway. Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 2 parts, for Literotica.
Chemistry that works like Hermione Granger's magical handbag won a Nobel Prize this week. How an Indigenous inventor is working to preserve her tribe's language. A wildlife photographer is making sure hermit crabs in Japan have proper homes. A man was dead for five minutes at a comedy show – what happened next was really special. Plus, a surprising call leads to a heartwarming reunion. Sign up for the CNN 5 Good Things newsletter here. Host/Producer: Krista Bo Polanco Producer: Eryn Mathewson Showrunner: Faiz Jamil Senior Producer: Felicia Patinkin Editorial Support: Nick Blatt, Samantha Lindell, Clare Duffy, Dan Bloom Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Irvin, Sam, and Sierra discuss how the Harry Potter series would change if Hermione was evil. They talk about the evil doings of Hermione, her victims, and if her motivations absolve her actions. Join the discussion on our website In this episode: Pyromaniacs aren't necessarily evil Shame on Hermione for not paying writers! How to root out a traitor? What's the worst thing Hermione did in the series? The more corruption she sees, the more radicalized she becomes Teen hormones: the root of all evil Could the locket have brought out the evil in Hermione? Would Hermione be more or less evil in a different Hogwarts house? She does all the bad things for all the right reasons Resources: Hermione's Revenge by Irvin Scary Side of Hermione Granger by Irvin & Lorrie Kim The Pub's Jukebox: Marietta's a Sneak by Hawthorn & Holly Contact: Website: https://threebroomstickspod.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/threebroomstickspod/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/threebroomstickspodcast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/threebroompod Email: 3broomstickspod@gmail.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/3broomsticks
Chemistry that works like Hermione Granger's magical handbag won a Nobel Prize this week. How an Indigenous inventor is working to preserve her tribe's language. A wildlife photographer is making sure hermit crabs in Japan have proper homes. A man was dead for five minutes at a comedy show – what happened next was really special. Plus, a surprising call leads to a heartwarming reunion. Sign up for the CNN 5 Good Things newsletter here. Host/Producer: Krista Bo Polanco Producer: Eryn Mathewson Showrunner: Faiz Jamil Senior Producer: Felicia Patinkin Editorial Support: Nick Blatt, Samantha Lindell, Clare Duffy, Dan Bloom Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Hermine Granger wollte nur eines: Ruhe. Doch in den versteckten Korridoren von Hogwarts läuft sie ausgerechnet Draco Malfoy in die Arme - ihrem größten Rivalen und Experte für sarkastische Kommentare. Was als hitziges Wortgefecht beginnt, entwickelt sich schnell zu einem Spiel, das mit jeder Sekunde intensiver wird. Zwischen bissigen Kommentaren, funkelnden Blicken und jeder Menge Anziehung spürt Hermine, dass Draco sie mehr reizt, als sie zugeben möchte. Aber mal ehrlich - wie schwer kann es schon sein, einen Malfoy abzuwehren?
This year's Nobel prizes in chemistry, physics and physiology or medicine have celebrated work that paves the way for the next generation of quantum technology, the creation of porous materials that have been compared to Hermione Granger's handbag and the discovery of the hidden army inside us that helps to keep our immune system in check. To find out more, Madeleine Finlay talks to our science editor, Ian Sample, and correspondents Nicola Davis and Hannah Devlin. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod
Hermine findet den totgeglaubten Remus Lupin auf der Straße und nimmt ihn mit nach Hause. Was dann passiert?
Hermine schreibt Briefe an einen Unbekannten. In Hogwarts will sie nun herausfinden, wer er ist...
Hermine Granger ist eine hochintelligente vierzehnjährige Hexe, die sich schulisch unterfordert fühlt. Mit Professor McGonagalls Hilfe gelangt sie an einen Zeitumkehrer, der es ihr ermöglicht, zeitgleich mehrere Fächer zu belegen. An Halloween geschieht jedoch ein Unglück und Hermine findet sich plötzlich zwanzig Jahre in der Vergangenheit wieder. Ihr erster Impuls ist Flucht aus dem Internat, doch Albus Dumbledore kann sie davon überzeugen, dass Hogwarts noch immer der sicherste Ort für sie ist, wenn sie nur eines beherzigt: dass Zeit möglichst nicht verändert werden darf. Hermine fügt sich in ihr Schicksal, nimmt sogar einen neuen Namen an. Doch kann sie tatenlos zusehen, wie ihre beste Freundin einem sicheren Tod entgegengeht, Seite an Seite mit einem zukünftigen Massenmörder leben oder ihre Gefühle für jemanden unterdrücken, der dunkler, geheimnisvoller und verhasster nicht sein könnte?
Die Zeit wird knapp. Der Krieg steht quasi vor der Tür. Hermine macht sich Gedanken darüber, wie sie aufgewachsen ist. Die Zeit verging viel zu schnell. Sowohl ihre als auch Harrys und Rons Kindheit war kurz und ganz anders als die der anderen Schüler. Seit ihrem ersten Jahr haben sie gemeinsam gegen Voldemort gekämpft - neben der Schule. Doch ihr kommen auch andere Gedanken.... Gedanken zu einer bestimmten Person. Was wäre, wenn seine Kindheit anders gewesen wäre?
Hermine Granger ist eine hochintelligente vierzehnjährige Hexe, die sich schulisch unterfordert fühlt. Mit Professor McGonagalls Hilfe gelangt sie an einen Zeitumkehrer, der es ihr ermöglicht, zeitgleich mehrere Fächer zu belegen. An Halloween geschieht jedoch ein Unglück und Hermine findet sich plötzlich zwanzig Jahre in der Vergangenheit wieder. Ihr erster Impuls ist Flucht aus dem Internat, doch Albus Dumbledore kann sie davon überzeugen, dass Hogwarts noch immer der sicherste Ort für sie ist, wenn sie nur eines beherzigt: dass Zeit möglichst nicht verändert werden darf. Hermine fügt sich in ihr Schicksal, nimmt sogar einen neuen Namen an. Doch kann sie tatenlos zusehen, wie ihre beste Freundin einem sicheren Tod entgegengeht, Seite an Seite mit einem zukünftigen Massenmörder leben oder ihre Gefühle für jemanden unterdrücken, der dunkler, geheimnisvoller und verhasster nicht sein könnte?
Die Zeit wird knapp. Der Krieg steht quasi vor der Tür. Hermine macht sich Gedanken darüber, wie sie aufgewachsen ist. Die Zeit verging viel zu schnell. Sowohl ihre als auch Harrys und Rons Kindheit war kurz und ganz anders als die der anderen Schüler. Seit ihrem ersten Jahr haben sie gemeinsam gegen Voldemort gekämpft - neben der Schule. Doch ihr kommen auch andere Gedanken.... Gedanken zu einer bestimmten Person. Was wäre, wenn seine Kindheit anders gewesen wäre?
Do you think fame makes people happy? Would you give up money for peace of mind? Today, Jay sits down with Emma Watson, actress, activist, and UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, for a rare and deeply personal conversation. Beloved around the world as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films, Emma has since become a powerful voice for gender equality and sustainability. In this exclusive interview, Emma reflects on her decision to step away from Hollywood and shares how time for study and self-discovery has allowed her to redefine success, find fulfillment, and reclaim her voice. Emma shares the challenges of growing up in the public eye, carrying enormous responsibility from such a young age, and the courage it took to step back from a thriving career to prioritize her health and personal growth. She reflects on how fame blurred the lines between who she was and the roles she played, and how learning to embrace vulnerability, discomfort, and imperfection has become central to her growth. Together, Jay and Emma explore the power of speaking truth with kindness, the importance of creating art from personal experience, and why building authentic relationships rooted in honesty and care matters more than any external achievement. In this interview, you'll learn: How to Be Honest With Yourself How to Learn From Discomfort How to Embrace Failure as a Starting Point How to Separate Who You Are From What You Do How to Build Truly Supportive Friendships How to Step Away While Staying True to Yourself How to Speak Truth With Kindness How to Live Aligned With Your Values Every day is a chance to pause, return to what matters most, and take even the smallest step toward living with honesty and purpose. You’re allowed to evolve, to begin again, and to create a life that feels whole and meaningful, one choice, one conversation, one truth at a time. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty Join over 750,000 people to receive my most transformative wisdom directly in your inbox every single week with my free newsletter. Subscribe here. Check out our Apple subscription to unlock bonus content of On Purpose! https://lnk.to/JayShettyPodcast What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 02:35 Choosing to Show Up for Yourself 05:50 Designing a Life You Truly Enjoy 09:09 Admitting When Life is Challenging 11:06 Rediscovering the Joy of Learning 17:27 Why Discomfort Can Be Your Greatest Teacher 21:13 Taking Accountability With Grace and Courage 23:10 Sensitivity as Your Superpower 26:16 Lessons From a Nontraditional Childhood 30:38 Do You Still Need the Spotlight? 34:16 The Healing Power of Taking a Pause 41:38 Living Under Intense Public Pressure 44:55 Living Between Two Worlds 49:15 How Did You Become Hermione? 54:03 Separating Self From the Role You Play 57:54 The Hidden Cost of Never Slowing Down 01:07:40 Dating is Complicated For Everyone! 01:09:57 Revealing the Real You to Others 01:11:44 Emma’s One-Woman Play 01:20:08 What is Real Love? 01:26:27 Finding Love Beyond the Fantasy 01:32:35 Facing the Question: Why Are You Not Married Yet? 01:38:47 Trust Versus Telling the Truth 01:41:29 Choosing Partnership, Not Obligation 01:44:56 Asking Yourself the Hard Questions 01:48:25 How Fame Reshapes Everyday Life 01:51:44 What Did It Really Take to Step Away? 01:56:45 Learning to Trust Your Inner Voice 02:00:21 Loving Yourself Without Judgment 02:05:45 Finding Acceptance in Community 02:08:00 What Makes a Real Friend? 02:13:58 What Work Are You Avoiding? 02:32:20 Honoring the People Who Shape Us 02:44:01 Remembering Our Shared Humanity Episode Resources: Emma Watson | Instagram Emma Watson | FacebookSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
'Murderbot' star Noma Dumezweni joins the show. Over pumpkin curry and pad see ew, Noma reflects on the joy of finding success in mid-life and why it's never too late to dream bigger than you imagined. She opens up about tough days growing up as a refugee in the UK, her unexpected and acclaimed turn (and Tony nominated role) as Hermione Granger in ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,' and the lessons she's learned about trusting timing, family, and herself. Noma also talks about becoming a familiar face in prestige TV dramas (‘The Undoing,' ‘Presumed Innocent'), what it's like to spar on screen with Alexander Skarsgård in the Apple TV+ sci-fi hit ‘Murderbot,' and why she loves being in awe of her fellow actors. This episode was recorded at Sukh in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Welcome to The Three Broomsticks' most NSFW episode to date, where Irvin, Sierra, Sophia, and a returning special guest, Leah, have the best time combing the Harry Potter series for the best pick up lines and innuendo. What else did you think they would do for episode 69? Our youngest listeners might need to skip this one. Join the Discussion: https://threebroomstickspod.com/episode-69-innuendo-in-the-harry-potter-series-the-climax-you-say/ In this episode: Does Hermione make deliberate innuendos or unintentional ones? Sierra teaches us some new slang Would serious Quidditch players use the school brooms? “Sir Cadogan is a d***-swinger if I ever saw one” Percy's love life is the reason Ginny gets possessed Myrtle/mermaid/Cedric throuple - our new OTP! Where are the twins' boils? Harry is a boobs guy Why did Ron want to see Uranus? The safe word is “peacock” Contact: Website: https://threebroomstickspod.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/threebroomstickspod/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/threebroomstickspodcast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/threebroompod Email: 3broomstickspod@gmail.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/3broomsticks
Ein Kampf - und nicht nur ein Kampf der Gefühle. Manchmal braucht es etwas Zufall und etwas Wagemutiges, damit man deutlich erkennt, was man schon lange weiß. Hermine denkt an ihrem vorerst letzten Abend in Hogwarts nach und wird sich über einiges klar. Der Professor für Verteidigung gegen die dunklen Künste wollte auch nachdenken, doch es kommt zum Kampf und er muss feststellen, dass Verteidigung gegen Liebe und Gefühl nicht so leicht ist wie die Verteidigung gegen die dunklen Mächte.
Bei Merlin, da war das Verlieben ja das reinste Kinderspiel gewesen, wenn man sich dagegen das zweite gemeinsame Jahr unserer beiden Helden in den Kerkern von Hogwarts vor Augen führte. Dabei war letztlich alles nur ihre Schuld! Jawoll! Dass er z.B. einfach seine Finger nicht von ihr lassen konnte und sie mehr als einmal reif für die Geschlossene des St. Mungos war. Grundgütiger! Wo sollte das nur hinführen? Nun, zu allem Möglichen und Unmöglichen, vor allem aber zu vielen schwierigen Entscheidungen und natürlich zu diversen Abenteuern und wilden Nächten. Alles in Allem wirklich nur etwas für Fortgeschrittene!
This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Go to http://betterhelp.com/super to get 10% off your first month. Today J dives into the Wizarding World of Harry Potter to talk about a character we all love, Hermione Granger. Her academic brilliance, her bravery, her books and cleverness, but there's one part of her life that remains a complete mystery: her parents. Why do we never see them? Why does Hermione spend so little time at home? And could her strange absence from family life actually explain deeper parts of her personality, like her boggart, her struggles with the Patronus, and her passion for house-elf rights? THROUGH THE GRIFFIN TOUR MIDWEST Tickets ON SALE NOW! https://supercarlinbrothers.com/events/ Midwest Tour Dates: Indianapolis, IN - 9/16 St. Louis, MO - 9/17 Des Moines, IA - 9/19 (SOLD OUT) St. Paul, MN - 9/20 (SOLD OUT) Milwaukee, WI - 9/21 Chicago, IL - 9/23 Detroit, MI - 9/24 Cleveland, OH - 9/25 (SOLD OUT) #HarryPotter #SuperCarlinBrothers Written by :: Jonathan & Ben Carlin Edited by :: Ethan Edghill
This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Go to http://betterhelp.com/super to get 10% off your first month. Today J dives into the Wizarding World of Harry Potter to talk about a character we all love, Hermione Granger. Her academic brilliance, her bravery, her books and cleverness, but there's one part of her life that remains a complete mystery: her parents. Why do we never see them? Why does Hermione spend so little time at home? And could her strange absence from family life actually explain deeper parts of her personality, like her boggart, her struggles with the Patronus, and her passion for house-elf rights? THROUGH THE GRIFFIN TOUR MIDWEST Tickets ON SALE NOW! https://supercarlinbrothers.com/events/ Midwest Tour Dates: Indianapolis, IN - 9/16 St. Louis, MO - 9/17 Des Moines, IA - 9/19 (SOLD OUT) St. Paul, MN - 9/20 (SOLD OUT) Milwaukee, WI - 9/21 Chicago, IL - 9/23 Detroit, MI - 9/24 Cleveland, OH - 9/25 (SOLD OUT) #HarryPotter #SuperCarlinBrothers Written by :: Jonathan & Ben Carlin Edited by :: Isybelle Christley
Help MuggleCast grow! Become a MuggleCast Member and get great benefits like Bonus MuggleCast! Patreon.com/MuggleCast Grab official merch! MuggleCastMerch.com Pick up overstock merch from years past, including our 19th Anniversary Shirt! MuggleMillennial.Etsy.com On this week's episode, we discuss the events of Chapter 33 of Order of the Phoenix, “Fight “and Flight Join Andrew, Eric, Micah, and Laura as they cover the removal of Professor Umbridge from the equation of the greater Sirius rescue mission. Chapter-by-Chapter continues with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 33: Fight and Flight. Our Time Turner segment takes us back to Episode 471 of MuggleCast, titled “Punk'd.” Does the Ministry really value Umbridge's life over Harry's, as she claims? Could Hermione have reasonably predicted to run into the Centaurs, and what was her plan exactly? Overall how brilliant is Hermione's attempt to be free of Umbridge? It works, doesn't it? Does Hermione's talk with Bane show us that she's prejudiced, when compared to her earlier comment on Firenze to Lavender and Parvati? Do we feel bad for Grawp? A number of threads can be connected between this moment in Book 5 and the end of Book 3. Micah and Laura find a few. Is it right for Harry to allow Ginny, Neville and Luna to tag along to London? Could he have stopped them? Who SHOULD Harry have taken with him to London instead? The hosts discuss. Our Lynx Line patrons answer the question, “Hermione obviously chose the wrong thing to say to the Centaurs explaining why they led Umbridge into the Forest. What should she have said instead? [Wrong answers only]” Quizzitch: Psychologically, human beings respond to threats in one of four ways, all starting with the letter F. TWO of them are “fight” and “flight,” what are the other two? Join in on the fun! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Rachel Christopher brings a poet's heart and a scholar's mind to the stage eight times a week as Hermione Granger in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. In this conversation, she opens up about her lifelong love of language, her background in translating ancient Greek poetry, and the deeply personal connection she feels to storytelling—both on stage and off. Whether she's talking about her time at Epcot or reflecting on how imagination shaped her childhood, Rachel reveals just how much joy and intention she pours into her work. From cooking lamb meatballs and tending to her city garden to revisiting classic Greek texts, Rachel's passions outside of theater are just as vibrant as the characters she portrays. She shares what it means to step into the legacy of Hermione, how theater expands what we imagine is possible, and why making space for community and curiosity is at the heart of her artistry. Rachel Christopher is an actor and poet currently playing Hermione Granger in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway. Her stage credits include For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf and Jaja's African Hair Braiding. Her screen credits include The Girl on the Train and The Upside. A graduate of Vassar College, she double-majored in drama and classics, and has collaborated on stage adaptations of The Aeneid and The Iliad. This episode is powered by WelcomeToTimesSquare.com, the billboard where you can be a star for a day. Connect with Rachel: Instagram: @rachel_e_christopher Connect with The Theatre Podcast: Support the podcast on Patreon and watch video versions of the episodes: Patreon.com/TheTheatrePodcast Twitter & Instagram: @theatre_podcast Facebook.com/OfficialTheatrePodcast TheTheatrePodcast.com Alan's personal Instagram: @alanseales Email me at feedback@thetheatrepodcast.com. I want to know what you think. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this episode, Mel, Sam, and TC chat about a potter relationship that is rarely brought up... Hermione Granger and Phineas Nigellus Black (the painting). Did Hermione they ever talk on slow lonely nights camping? Did Hermione return the painting to Grimmauld Place or keep it? Did Phineas the painting have the ability to see muggleborns differently after spending time listening to them? Why did Phineas help them? Listen and decide! Don't forget to visit our social medias to answer this episode's Show Host Question: “If they were gourmet chefs, what would be each golden trio member's signature dish?” *** Spoilers, Adult Language, Adult Themes Music note: All music are excerpts of the Pottership Shanty (Copyright: Darwin Ray and the Pottership Podcast.) Follow us on Facebook and Instagram! Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or iHeart Radio podcasts! Or send us a message at PottershipPodcast@gmail.com
HBO has announced the actors playing the three leads of Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger in its new adaptation of the Harry Potter book series by J.K. Rowling. I had big problems with their casting choice for Snape, as it deviates too far from the text, changing the character and introducing themes to … Continue reading "188 – Be Nice to Hermione"
En nuestro episodio 351 Gabriel y El Watcher conversan sobre la noticia de que Arabella Stanton, Alastair Stout y Dominic McLaughlin interpretaran a Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley y Harry Potter en la serie de "Harry Potter" que estrenará en "HBO Max" en el año 2026 y de su experiencia viendo "Lilo & Stitch" (2025), el final de "The Handmaid's Tale" (2017), "Overcompensating" (2025) y séptimo y último episodio de la segunda temporada de "The Last of Us" (2023) titulado "Convergence" en el segmento "Wachin' con Wacho!" y hablan sobre todo lo relacionado a la película "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning" (2025).¡Se la diferencia en la vida de los niños de la Fundación de Niños de Puerto Rico! Aporta con tu donativo aquí: https://www.extra-life.org/participant/Cultura-Secuencial-2025¡Subscríbete a nuestro canal de YouTube! Visita: https://www.youtube.com/culturasecuencial¡Síguenos y Suscríbete a nuestro canal de Twitch! Visita: https://www.twitch.tv/culturasecuencial¡Síguenos en Instagram! Visita: https://www.instagram.com/culturasecuencial¡Síguenos en Facebook! Visita: https://www.facebook.com/CulturaSecuencial
HBO has announced the cast for the key roles of Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley for the upcoming TV series. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
ICYMI: Hour Two of ‘Later, with Mo'Kelly' Presents – The Magic of ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' at The Hollywood Pantages Theatre (now in its final weeks/tickets on sale at Ticketmaster) Actress Ebony Blake, who portrays Hermione Granger in an entirely new story that takes place 19 years after the 7th book, and continues the beloved story of Harry Potter, now grown and with kids of his own…PLUS – Thoughts on the idea of a ‘Rambo' origins story AND a closer look at the story involving a member of the French Press grabbing actor Denzel Washington on the red carpet at Cannes, and Washington's response - on KFI AM 640…Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app & YouTube @MrMoKelly
ICYMI: ‘Later, with Mo'Kelly' Presents – The Magic of ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' at The Hollywood Pantages Theatre (now in its final weeks/tickets on sale at Ticketmaster). Actress Ebony Blake, who portrays Hermione Granger in an entirely new story that takes place 19 years after the 7th book, and continues the beloved story of Harry Potter, now grown and with kids of his own - on KFI AM 640…Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app & YouTube @MrMoKelly
If there's one thing Hermione Granger is good at, it's using magic to fix her problems. And this time, her problem is sex.Luckily, she has the perfect solution: a locket enchanted with the Patented Daydream Charm. Whenever she opens it, she'll find herself in Dreamland, where she can live out all her filthiest fantasies risk-free.The magic is a bit tricky, though. For some reason, Malfoy keeps showing up there with her. Thank goodness it's only an illusion—if that was really him, she would never live it down.Meanwhile, Draco is determined to figure out who the fuck is cursing him to suffer through highly realistic, erotic hallucinations of his secret childhood crush. When he finds the culprit, there will be hell to pay.Originally posted on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50510668Listen to more from The Wizard Wheezes here: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jiQ2LHY9IdBV2deYkBHPq?si=03fcd7810a49490d
THE PENULTIMATE CHAPTER!If there's one thing Hermione Granger is good at, it's using magic to fix her problems. And this time, her problem is sex.Luckily, she has the perfect solution: a locket enchanted with the Patented Daydream Charm. Whenever she opens it, she'll find herself in Dreamland, where she can live out all her filthiest fantasies risk-free.The magic is a bit tricky, though. For some reason, Malfoy keeps showing up there with her. Thank goodness it's only an illusion—if that was really him, she would never live it down.Meanwhile, Draco is determined to figure out who the fuck is cursing him to suffer through highly realistic, erotic hallucinations of his secret childhood crush. When he finds the culprit, there will be hell to pay.Originally posted on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50510668Listen to more from The Wizard Wheezes here: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jiQ2LHY9IdBV2deYkBHPq?si=03fcd7810a49490d
If there's one thing Hermione Granger is good at, it's using magic to fix her problems. And this time, her problem is sex.Luckily, she has the perfect solution: a locket enchanted with the Patented Daydream Charm. Whenever she opens it, she'll find herself in Dreamland, where she can live out all her filthiest fantasies risk-free.The magic is a bit tricky, though. For some reason, Malfoy keeps showing up there with her. Thank goodness it's only an illusion—if that was really him, she would never live it down.Meanwhile, Draco is determined to figure out who the fuck is cursing him to suffer through highly realistic, erotic hallucinations of his secret childhood crush. When he finds the culprit, there will be hell to pay.Originally posted on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50510668Listen to more from The Wizard Wheezes here: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jiQ2LHY9IdBV2deYkBHPq?si=03fcd7810a49490d
If there's one thing Hermione Granger is good at, it's using magic to fix her problems. And this time, her problem is sex.Luckily, she has the perfect solution: a locket enchanted with the Patented Daydream Charm. Whenever she opens it, she'll find herself in Dreamland, where she can live out all her filthiest fantasies risk-free.The magic is a bit tricky, though. For some reason, Malfoy keeps showing up there with her. Thank goodness it's only an illusion—if that was really him, she would never live it down.Meanwhile, Draco is determined to figure out who the fuck is cursing him to suffer through highly realistic, erotic hallucinations of his secret childhood crush. When he finds the culprit, there will be hell to pay.Originally posted on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50510668Listen to more from The Wizard Wheezes here: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jiQ2LHY9IdBV2deYkBHPq?si=03fcd7810a49490d
If there's one thing Hermione Granger is good at, it's using magic to fix her problems. And this time, her problem is sex.Luckily, she has the perfect solution: a locket enchanted with the Patented Daydream Charm. Whenever she opens it, she'll find herself in Dreamland, where she can live out all her filthiest fantasies risk-free.The magic is a bit tricky, though. For some reason, Malfoy keeps showing up there with her. Thank goodness it's only an illusion—if that was really him, she would never live it down.Meanwhile, Draco is determined to figure out who the fuck is cursing him to suffer through highly realistic, erotic hallucinations of his secret childhood crush. When he finds the culprit, there will be hell to pay.Originally posted on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50510668Listen to more from The Wizard Wheezes here: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jiQ2LHY9IdBV2deYkBHPq?si=03fcd7810a49490d
If there's one thing Hermione Granger is good at, it's using magic to fix her problems. And this time, her problem is sex.Luckily, she has the perfect solution: a locket enchanted with the Patented Daydream Charm. Whenever she opens it, she'll find herself in Dreamland, where she can live out all her filthiest fantasies risk-free.The magic is a bit tricky, though. For some reason, Malfoy keeps showing up there with her. Thank goodness it's only an illusion—if that was really him, she would never live it down.Meanwhile, Draco is determined to figure out who the fuck is cursing him to suffer through highly realistic, erotic hallucinations of his secret childhood crush. When he finds the culprit, there will be hell to pay.Originally posted on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50510668Listen to more from The Wizard Wheezes here: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jiQ2LHY9IdBV2deYkBHPq?si=03fcd7810a49490d
If there's one thing Hermione Granger is good at, it's using magic to fix her problems. And this time, her problem is sex.Luckily, she has the perfect solution: a locket enchanted with the Patented Daydream Charm. Whenever she opens it, she'll find herself in Dreamland, where she can live out all her filthiest fantasies risk-free.The magic is a bit tricky, though. For some reason, Malfoy keeps showing up there with her. Thank goodness it's only an illusion—if that was really him, she would never live it down.Meanwhile, Draco is determined to figure out who the fuck is cursing him to suffer through highly realistic, erotic hallucinations of his secret childhood crush. When he finds the culprit, there will be hell to pay.Originally posted on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50510668Listen to more from The Wizard Wheezes here: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jiQ2LHY9IdBV2deYkBHPq?si=03fcd7810a49490d
If there's one thing Hermione Granger is good at, it's using magic to fix her problems. And this time, her problem is sex.Luckily, she has the perfect solution: a locket enchanted with the Patented Daydream Charm. Whenever she opens it, she'll find herself in Dreamland, where she can live out all her filthiest fantasies risk-free.The magic is a bit tricky, though. For some reason, Malfoy keeps showing up there with her. Thank goodness it's only an illusion—if that was really him, she would never live it down.Meanwhile, Draco is determined to figure out who the fuck is cursing him to suffer through highly realistic, erotic hallucinations of his secret childhood crush. When he finds the culprit, there will be hell to pay.Originally posted on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50510668Listen to more from The Wizard Wheezes here: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jiQ2LHY9IdBV2deYkBHPq?si=03fcd7810a49490d
If there's one thing Hermione Granger is good at, it's using magic to fix her problems. And this time, her problem is sex.Luckily, she has the perfect solution: a locket enchanted with the Patented Daydream Charm. Whenever she opens it, she'll find herself in Dreamland, where she can live out all her filthiest fantasies risk-free.The magic is a bit tricky, though. For some reason, Malfoy keeps showing up there with her. Thank goodness it's only an illusion—if that was really him, she would never live it down.Meanwhile, Draco is determined to figure out who the fuck is cursing him to suffer through highly realistic, erotic hallucinations of his secret childhood crush. When he finds the culprit, there will be hell to pay.Originally posted on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50510668Listen to more from The Wizard Wheezes here: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jiQ2LHY9IdBV2deYkBHPq?si=03fcd7810a49490d
If there's one thing Hermione Granger is good at, it's using magic to fix her problems. And this time, her problem is sex.Luckily, she has the perfect solution: a locket enchanted with the Patented Daydream Charm. Whenever she opens it, she'll find herself in Dreamland, where she can live out all her filthiest fantasies risk-free.The magic is a bit tricky, though. For some reason, Malfoy keeps showing up there with her. Thank goodness it's only an illusion—if that was really him, she would never live it down.Meanwhile, Draco is determined to figure out who the fuck is cursing him to suffer through highly realistic, erotic hallucinations of his secret childhood crush. When he finds the culprit, there will be hell to pay.Originally posted on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50510668Listen to more from The Wizard Wheezes here: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jiQ2LHY9IdBV2deYkBHPq?si=03fcd7810a49490d
If there's one thing Hermione Granger is good at, it's using magic to fix her problems. And this time, her problem is sex.Luckily, she has the perfect solution: a locket enchanted with the Patented Daydream Charm. Whenever she opens it, she'll find herself in Dreamland, where she can live out all her filthiest fantasies risk-free.The magic is a bit tricky, though. For some reason, Malfoy keeps showing up there with her. Thank goodness it's only an illusion—if that was really him, she would never live it down.Meanwhile, Draco is determined to figure out who the fuck is cursing him to suffer through highly realistic, erotic hallucinations of his secret childhood crush. When he finds the culprit, there will be hell to pay.Originally posted on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50510668Listen to more from The Wizard Wheezes here: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jiQ2LHY9IdBV2deYkBHPq?si=03fcd7810a49490d
If there's one thing Hermione Granger is good at, it's using magic to fix her problems. And this time, her problem is sex.Luckily, she has the perfect solution: a locket enchanted with the Patented Daydream Charm. Whenever she opens it, she'll find herself in Dreamland, where she can live out all her filthiest fantasies risk-free.The magic is a bit tricky, though. For some reason, Malfoy keeps showing up there with her. Thank goodness it's only an illusion—if that was really him, she would never live it down.Meanwhile, Draco is determined to figure out who the fuck is cursing him to suffer through highly realistic, erotic hallucinations of his secret childhood crush. When he finds the culprit, there will be hell to pay.Originally posted on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50510668Listen to more from The Wizard Wheezes here: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jiQ2LHY9IdBV2deYkBHPq?si=03fcd7810a49490d
If there's one thing Hermione Granger is good at, it's using magic to fix her problems. And this time, her problem is sex.Luckily, she has the perfect solution: a locket enchanted with the Patented Daydream Charm. Whenever she opens it, she'll find herself in Dreamland, where she can live out all her filthiest fantasies risk-free.The magic is a bit tricky, though. For some reason, Malfoy keeps showing up there with her. Thank goodness it's only an illusion—if that was really him, she would never live it down.Meanwhile, Draco is determined to figure out who the fuck is cursing him to suffer through highly realistic, erotic hallucinations of his secret childhood crush. When he finds the culprit, there will be hell to pay.Originally posted on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50510668Listen to more from The Wizard Wheezes here: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jiQ2LHY9IdBV2deYkBHPq?si=03fcd7810a49490d