status: available
title: nesting in your simmering mind*
love interest: james potter
oc name: corentine* berrycloth*
house: ravenclaw
blood status: halfblood*
timeline: marauders era

𝕔𝕒𝕤𝕥

corentine berrycloth: atikah karim*
james potter: dev patel*

𝕤𝕪𝕟𝕠𝕡𝕤𝕚𝕤*

Her fate had been decided even befor she had taken her first breath, had inhaled for the first time to exhale in a bone-rattling scream. Her mother had cried and her father had cried and she had screamed and screamed and screamed. Corentine Berrycloth was born doomed.

Blood tinted black with ancient magic flooded her body and she hated it, hated every last drop. She despised her mother for carrying her out to full term, that she hadn't taken any potion, hadn't thrown her fragile body down a staircase, hadn't hurled Corentine away as soon as she'd been born. It couldn't be so hard to smother a newborn, could it? Place the baby beneath your pillow and go to sleep, your ploblem will be gone by the time you wake up.

Corentine was alive and sometimes she was nearly able to forgive her mother for that circumstance. These were the moments when she wasn't filled with simmering anger but tears stung her eyes, when sorrow was clawing at her hollow bones and long-gone ghosts were rattling her ribcage. When she remembered her mother's lullabies, the cookies she baked during storms and her warmth when she lay down besides her, telling her a fantastic bedtime story. Her trilling laughter, her stories about flying, about home and foreign destinations and the thrill of the wild wind. That she should not be afraid, that her future wouldn't be the end but a beginning, that it wasn't her fault.

Cita had done her best and she had done it well. Corentine never feared what was lying ahead of her and sometimes she was thankful for that but then she fell back into reality.

Her much too young, sweet, weak Hufflepuff mother should have taken care of her differently but - Corentine wouldn't be able to end a life either, save her own and that made her even angrier.

But no matter how often she screamed, it brought Corentine no relief. Not even if she was face to face with her despised, despised mother. It didn't change anything because she would always just see herself mirrored in the black, beady eyes.

And the storch would flutter in the far end of its golden cage.

A mere animal. No mother anymore.

Corentine always chose screaming rather than crying. Anger burnt nearly like love, didn't it?

Sometimes she was ready to claw her father's eyes out for caging her mother like that, for being her father in general, for being a reason for her life, her damned, rotten life. Sometimes she wanted to hug him for building a whole aviary for a home, for singing her mother the lullabies she once sang for Corentine, for calling her mother Adebar like he was reading her one of his old fables, like he used to when she was still human, with this longing, sad gaze of his.

But sometimes he called Corentine Adebar too and then her bones cracked and his gaze broke and she flew out of the window, just to hurt him more than he hurt her, reminding her of the curse in everyday conversation.

In Hogwarts she wasn't much calmer either but at least Corentine didn't have to think about the inevitable end all the time, she still had to worry about homework and exams after all. From time to time she even enjoyed turning into a storch to haunt the Forbidden Forest, to fly through the night sky and stroll about the grounds. It took her mind of that peculiar issue.

Just like her suspicion that the Marauders were roaming the forest too.

𝕟𝕠𝕥𝕖𝕤

¬avoiding studying seems to awaken my creativity
¬first of all, can we pls speak abt how gorgeous atikah karim is????

¬okay, so if it isn't obvious yet, corentine is a storch maledictus and she absolutely despises it, her mother cita (hufflepuff, undyingly in love with ludwig, resulting in a pregnancy when she still was attending hogwarts) turned into a permanent storch form when corentine was in her second year in hogwarts. when she came home her mother wasn't her mother anymore but an animal and she hasn't come to peace with that shock ever. in defense of her father for not informing her: it's happened the day before holidays started and cita had started turning into her animal form uncontrolledly for longer periods of time recently so he hadn't thought it would be permamently this time even though he had ofc feared it could be the final time
¬corentine has very conflicted feeling regarding her mother but in the end she loves her fiercly and just can't put her mother being reduced to mere animalistic instincts behind her. ofc not, like how should she, even tho she naturally had to expect it but she was still a smol bean u know?
¬cita is malaysian and she was such a sweetheart
¬ludwig is a swiss linguist and except for cita he is also in love with fontane, an author famous for his fables. adebar is the typical name of the storch in fables just like heineke for the fox or isegrim for the wolf and adebar has always been ludwig's nickname for cita and corentine. it's like drilling a finger into a wound but he's an ironic man and it's meant in a sweet, caring way
¬corentine can't handle it tho
¬adebar the storch stands for a studious, prideful individuals, he's ofc also connected to babies
¬the blood curse of the maledictus was casted over the family bc a man of the family was cheating on his wife, his mistress didn't know he was married. she bore a child, he killed it bc he couldn't possibly have a child outside of his marriage and thus she cursed his fam and due to the relation between babies and storchs all of the women eventually turn into them
¬corentine's anger is obviously a coping mechanism bc if she isn't angry she's mostly sad but she doesn't want to be, she kinda thinks that that would be weak of her or some bullshit
¬she's a ravenclaw, she is hungry for knowledge and that makes her even angrier bc she knows that she'll lose all that knowledge once she's permanently turned into a storch
¬she speaks bahasa indonesia and swiss german other than english but both aren't fluent
¬so now to the actual plot:
¬you get to decide if it's playing in their 6th or 7th year, however corentine is in the same year as the marauders
¬she doesn't rlly have contact to them bc she keeps mostly to herself and they only know her as pretty aggressive ravenclaw
¬james kinda fears her on the quidditch pitch bc she's a brutal beater and sores through the air as if she was a bird (oh wonder - however she's not flying like a storch but rather like a hawk on a broom, it comes naturally to her)
¬since she's broken his nose in a game in third year he still resents her a bit for that - gryffindor has lost that game
¬corentine doesn't think much of the marauders, depending on her mood she's either amused or absolutely annoyed by their mischief
¬whilst her night escapades as a storch she sometimes catches glances on the marauders in their animagi/werwolf form but she's never linked the animals to the four of them tho the group dynamics sometimes remind her of each other but then she once catches them at the whomping willow and that ofc sparks her curiousity
¬afterwards she starts to nose around and that throws james off. he always has an eye out for everybody who plays quidditch or has ever played it so he notices pretty soon and he's rlly protective of his friends so he tries to hinder her from finding anything out especially through conversation and he's pretty awkward doing so bc of his jovial nature and - she's actually pretty funny? she sometimes even grunts at his comebacks and he can tell that she doesn't even mean to and that's smt he wants to achieve more often tbh and after some time they actually enjoy talking to each other
¬the marauders r absolutely stunned when james stops rambling abt lily all the time and sirius is absolutely convinced that james has to be ill at first and even brings him to the hospital wing
¬james is rlly rlly good for corentine, being with him is healing for her and they r just so sweet? it's a dreadful slow-burn, don't u dare overcome the bickering, pining stage too early
¬when corentine is at james' place during a break she's absolutely suffocated by his loving homelife and in the beginning she's in a rlly terrible mood and gets grumpy and angry and everything, but in the end she just cries a lot and rlly starts to speak abt her trauma and loss
¬when all of the marauders r at james' place they finally tell corentine abt being animagi and remus tells her abt being a werwolf and they rlly bond over it, afterwards, she and remus r much closer, they share a passion for knowledge and their animalistic problem. james jokes abt them being a pretty tragic couple
¬sirius and corentine have a rather rough start, their tempers r crashing often but in the end they're pretty close, bonding over traumatizing homelife even tho it's on different levels
¬corentine secretly thinks that peter is sweet but he's very intimidated by her, she's still very rough even when she's not full of anger
¬james and corentine are doing their personal quidditch training in hogwarts together before breakfast like the absolute masochists they are
¬just before the newts corentine starts changing forms uncontrollably much more often than before - it just happened when she had very intense emotions - and we all know what that means
¬heartbreak but not only for james but also the rest of the marauders bc they all came to appreciate her as a person and don't forget her father who is left alone with his birdy wife
¬also, "corentine" means "storm"
¬i'm actually pretty in love with that plot, smb pls write that?