Even the Best Fall Down Sometimes

Present - SPEW 007

2007-08-17T15:23:26Z

This music truly is beautiful.

I got a nudge from msqu (who should write some eloquent Darcy/Elizabeth smut of her own) because I haven't updated in 21 weeks.

To be honest, I haven't been writing all that much. Keeping up with other things, yes, but writing? Idea have been flowing, but not for fanfiction. I miss it!

So this was my SPEW 007 Prompt no.1 from the 6th July. I didn't finish, although now that I have an idea of where I going with this, I wish I had.

Thunder clouds gathered over London, choosing to cluster inconveniently above one small street that went by the name Grimmauld place. As Muggles dodged the raindrops that splattered in large, fat blobs to the paved courtyard in the middle of the brilliant green grass, a girl watched secretly from a house tucked away in a magical corner of the place, waiting. As the rain poured down on the grassy square below the window, Halle considered. The world continued to spin, whether or not one small being was present. While she may be the world to someone, and they might be the world to her, the world was just a mass of flying rock, hurtling through space and time. It didn’t have feelings, emotions or love. It didn’t consider her significant; a person was merely a spec of dust in the scheme of things.

Was her heart still beating? Yes, it was. Was her hair fine? Of course it was. She’d put about a million pins in it. Were her shoes – Sighing, she took them off and threw them at the wall. Sulking around the nursery, Halle caught her reflection in the mirror. Primping for a few seconds before she consciously caught herself and cursed in her head, she wandered over to the dirty window.

Even though the house had been scoured and Scourgified from head to toe, ugly basement kitchen to creepy rickety attic, Halle supposed that, after all the families that had lived there before her, some dirt just didn’t come off.

Pacing again, she scuffed a full circle around the room. Digging her toes into the fluffy carpet, she passed the crib and looked in. He really was an evil manifestation of her parent’s love. Honestly, a good fourteen years after she was born, they decided to have another child? But oh – Oh! When he cooed!

No. This spawn of Weasley was not cute. She hadn’t been cute, apparently, so therefore, Janus did not qualify as cute. Dastardly, yes. Cute, (which by Halle’s definition was ugly, but interesting – making her momentarily pleased she wasn’t considered cute) no. Cute was reserved for those babies with the chubby cheeks and noxious poop. The ones that gurgled, and then spat up on you, grinning and squealing. While Janus was indeed a marvel, managing to turn sweet potato and pumpkin mash into something that made her gag as soon as she walked into the room, he wasn’t cute. He was dastardly. It was a family trait.

Lifting him up under his arms, she again giggled inwardly at the rigid position his body was in, those little bootied feet wriggling in the air, and fingers clinging to her like grubs.

Bouncing the baby around and scuffing her feet, she looked at the clock. Parents, honestly. Balancing the chubby little wonder on her hip, be giggled over to the mirror and patted her hair with her free hand that wasn’t encircling the baby’s back as he tried to wriggle free.

Clapping his hands and narrowly missing her earrings, he caught a pin and with one small tug, undid the whole hair do. Sighing, Halle walked away to the crib, still scuffing her feet on the spongy carpet and went to place him in the crib. Janus squealed unpleasantly as she set him down on his fuzzy lamb blanket, the static travelling from her toes to her fingertips and catching him on the forehead as she lightly kissed him.

Rubbing her lips, and remembering her hair, she scowled. Come on, parents. Hurry up and save me.

Downstairs, (and this literally mean approximately three flights consisting of steps that vanished every now and then, especially when her mother was brining the washing up to her room) she heard the bell ring.

Pleased that Miles was at least on time, she momentarily forgot she looked like hell, or the before of a makeover and rushed downstairs. Halfway down, just before she sank into the missing step’s cavity, she realised she’d forgotten the shoes. But, on a roll, she considered to thunder down the steps, elegantly braking before resuming a calm attitude and opening the door to reveal her boyfriend.

Taking in her disheveled appearance, he chuckled and planted a kiss on her own forehead. Luckily, the rain outside had drenched his hair (which didn’t need fluffy carpet to conduct its own static) and she herself was not shocked. Hearing the creaming coming from upstairs, Janus still was.

Welcoming Miles into the halls of Number 12, Grimmauld place, she rushed back up the stairs, dropping his umbrella into the bucket by the door (the troll’s leg had left with the house’s previous owner’s years ago) and dragging him by the arm back up the stairs to the nursery.

Upon entering the room, they were both hit with such pungency that they were immediately sent reeling.

“I sincerely hope you’re getting paid for this, Hal,” choked Miles.

Snorting derisively, Halle made sure to lift her feet over the carpet, stepping to the cot to pick up Janus. “Unfortunately,” she said fondly as she rocked the fussy boy, “no. It comes with being a built in babysitter.”

She crinkled her nose. “Change time.”

Miles checked his watch. “It’s also time for something else, remember?”

Halle groaned, setting the baby down on the table and pulling out the necessary equipment. “Miles, I know, but they’re not back yet and I can’t leave him with Dobby. Besides the fact that last time, when he tried to get him out of the crib he used Mum’s prized atlases and unpublished manuscripts as a step ladder, he enjoys the baby food and talcum powder more than Janus does.”

“Amusing.”

“Quite,” she said, undoing the nappy. What had been a rather persistent stink before became an overwhelming fume that wafted over the room. Had it been a cartoon, Miles would have actually expected for a vase of daises to die at the smell.

Obviously, Halle had been wrong about Janus being cute. Chubby cheeks and wobbly bottoms aside, Janus had all the noxious poop in the world to qualify him for the title of a cute baby.

“Let’s hope our kids don’t reproduce such an unpleasant smell,” muttered Miles though a blocked nose. Looking thoroughly repulsed that anything that small could generate such a large and overwhelming scent, he stared with disbelief as Halle cleaned and efficiently changed her baby brother.

“You may only be fifteen girlie,” he slowly said, savouring each breath of clean air, “but you must have nose hair of steel to ignore that smell.”

“Now that all the work’s been done,” Halle chortled, dumping Janus into Miles’ arms, “It’s your turn to hold him. And be careful, he’s at the tugging stage.”

Miles eyed his girlfriend’s hair appreciatively. “I noticed.” He bounced Janus a little from hip to hip. “Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good baby? Who’s a nice smelling baby – ow. Ow. Ow!”

Giggling, Halle grabbed Janus’ little thick fingers and unwound them from the glossy strands. “I told you.”

“I love you.” Miles smiled, and she returned it briefly while staring at her disheveled reflection in the mirror. Twirling her wand above her hair, the curls controlled themselves into perfect coils once more.

“Congratulations,” she said as she worked from one side to the other. “You’ve now qualified yourself for the position.” She smirked at his confusion. He warily dodges Janus’ waving hands.

“What position?”

“The one that gives you the responsibility of putting him back to bed before my parents get home. Which –” She stopped, listening to the road outside, from which the house was concealed to all but those who knew of it – “Should be right about now, if that’s my father’s indignant voice I hear now.”

She skipped down the stairs, creating rhythm until she bounced down the last, short flight to skid to a stop millimeters in front of the knocker. Wrenching the door open before her mother got a chance, she sweetly said, “Hi Mum, Dad. He’s upstairs and all yours.”

Turning around and grinning, she yelled up the halls to Miles. “You’d better be ready! And I’ve got the umbrella!” Smiling at her parents as they bustled past her into the entry hall out of the rain, she grabbed the plaid print umbrella and stepped out the skinny door into the square with Miles hot on her heels.

Marie, would you like to beta this? *bats eyelashes*

♥

Can anyone guess...

2007-03-21T11:46:28Z

... what I'm attempting to write about?

** Daylight Savings “spring forward” is in September to this Australian :).

The fog rolls in, curling around itself until it buffers up against my front stoop, furling and searching for another direction to go, now that it has hit the cold, hard barrier of my front steps. The grass is covered with dew, sparkling in the overhead light that is cast down from the street lamps. Ambience is lost in the blue early morning dawn, and birds chirp anonymously in the trees hidden from view by the shadows that creep before the true sun emerges from beneath the water.

As always, the paper boy is late. He’s always late, always lagging by at least an hour every morning. And every morning I insist on being early, sitting in my threadbare chair watching the sun rise and hailing the birth of a new day as I stretch my feet out and curl my toes. I yawn theatrically as he rides up on his blue bike and the sun begins to poke its tentative head above the roof tops and brush the tops of the lopped trees. I call out jovially, “Late again sonny Jim!” and he simply shakes his head as usual and tosses me my paper. The brisk September wind winds its way around my shoulders and pierces the light striped pyjamas and I hobble inside with my paper grasped firmly in hand.

I pad into the kitchen and note the time, pulling my unfinished pot of tea towards me. It’s lovely, sitting here in the sun room and watching the rest of the neighborhood wake up to the fake glow of coming dawn, watching it break over the hills and bring their evening to a standstill. But me, I like to sit back and watch the darkness loom over the houses and chuckle to myself as I wait for my morning paper to arrive.

Kicking my slippers off in my room, I dress for the day, and as always notice the amount of time that is free in my morning. Always, I seem to be asking myself the question – what do I do now? The world is slower when the human is more efficient, I tell myself as I bustle off to the spare room to choose a book to read on the front veranda. I stretch out languidly as people begin to bustle around for work, hopping into their cars and driving off to work. I sigh and bookmark my pages with a leather strip and walk slowly into my home, past the portraits done in water-colours and framed in wood I worked with my own hands. As much time as I seem to have, it flies by, segment by segment until I find myself restless for something new.

Busying myself in the kitchen and then moving into the empty lounge room, void of anything but the most comfortable of rocking chairs and a few sentimental pieces, I walk briskly out of the house and past all of the sleepy houses, as awake as the so named bird that catches the worm.

The walk takes all of ten minutes to the top of the hill and I muse as I deftly sidestep a pair of rollerblades covered in condensation from being left out overnight. Reaching the crest of the hill, I wind myself through the rows of traffic and irked drivers and smile at those who gesture to the cars lined up in front of them like ants to the nest in good spirits. Regularity. Stationary. Stagnation.

I rap smartly on the glass of the small café located on the corner, its body hidden down a slight hallway, and its door welcoming all those who pass by warmly with the scent of coffee beans and freshly baked scones. The owner is only now pulling the chairs down off the tables and motions me in to help him. According to my watch, I’ll be late for work, but as far as Anthony’s broken clock on the wall goes, my time in the café is infinite as time stands still outside, waiting for me.

“You’re a crazy old bugger, you know that. The shop doesn’t open for another half hour,” he laughs to me every day that I stop by and step into the slightly warm timbered cave he has turned a once derelict shop into. The early morning sun smiles through the dusty panes of the café’s curtained windows, catching in the glass and refracting to glimmer on the top of the newly washed mugs lined up on the counter.

As always, I set down my briefcase and readily help him flip the tables, grinning as he repeats the same thickly accented line as he says every day. I respond in kind, just like I always do. It’s a joke between the two of us, one that never gets old – well, not as old fashioned as me, in any case.

“In six months my friend, I can guarantee you’ll all be as crazy as me.”

We chuckle at our inside joke, and after helping him with the last table, he dusts his hands on his apron and motions to a scone, which I take and wave in the air friendlily as I step out into the air which is slowly becoming more and more muggy as the sky turns from a burnt yellow to a glorious outburst of sunlight that highlights the spring weather.

I exit from his world and as soon as my shoes touch the pavement, reenter mine and it is no surprise to see that I’m late by my watch. Quickening my step, it’s not long before I arrive in front of the building to see it locked and the guard approaching the glass with the same disgruntled expression he wears every day as he opens the doors for me and I step inside with a tip of my hat.

“I don’t see why you couldn’t just arrive a little later every day Jack,” he says gruffly, closing the door behind me and following me up the stairs.

“I have too much time at home,” I answer, lugging the briefcase up the stairs. “And besides, that would interrupt my sleeping routine, sleeping later.”

I find it quite funny to see the guard scratching his head in disbelief that I wouldn’t mind enjoying an extra half hour to hour of sleep. And within lies the flaw in his reasoning.

Sitting down at my desk, as always I am the first to arrive. The office, at first, had that dead eerie quality to it. But now, as I happily watch all my fellow employees trickle in through the doors one after the other, it’s a different feeling to when I first started. Somehow, the atmosphere is different. Instead of wrinkling my nose at the musty smell that used to accompany the absence of coffee grinds and perfume from my female co-workers, now it’s become my own personal smell, because all the cleaner smells is his ammonia and then he’s out the door. This smell is for me to enjoy entirely by myself, before anyone gets here.

For part of the time, anyway.

The work day is as it always is. The papers arrive in the IN tray, and bid me farewell in the OUT tray. The day dwindles to a close as I leave first, and arrive at the front stoop of my door as night falls, cascading down over the trees and falling to a stop at my feet. I wriggle off my shoes, push open the door with one hand and walk into the sanctuary of my home, the deep bong of the clock that is built into the wall. No matter how hard I try, I can’t get the clock to budge, so I put up with the persistent resonating sound every hour that I’m at home.

I clamber into bed a short time later. To some, the night is young. But to me, the day is old for it has been repeated day after day, year after year. Weary in body mind and soul, I sink into a half-slumber in which the world moves, but I am to drowsy and too tired to notice it now. I wait for the world to revolve and then back track upon itself as people unknowingly loose an hour from their life, only to expect that when they wake up in the morning, it will be waiting for them six months down the track.

But I face none of that confusion. I never have to feel as though I’ve been cheated by the world, cheated by the universe out of my day. Regularity. Stationary. Stagnation. The powerful stillness of the world beneath my feet is all that I to motivate me when I get out of bed to plant my feet firmly on the ground.

Quite obviously sleep has gotten in the way. Which is annoying sometimes.

♥

New Icon.

2007-03-11T10:47:00Z

We have a shiny new icon for our story, preccciousssss.

It is ours, ours.

Only ours, precciousss.

For our story.

Our icon, for our story... preciousss..

♥

(hugs to grammypat

Change, like secrets on the wind; I hear them whisper Madame Butterfly...

2007-03-06T11:06:07Z

>.>

His fingers ran over the harsh bark of the tree. It was dark in some places, sporadically light in others. Speckled, the tree’s trunk stood strong and tall in the sand near the Lake, its roots digging deeper than the deceptive sand until it hit the bottom of the bank where it wound its tendrils into the ground and took hold.

His fingers scraped off bark, chunk by chunk until he reached the brand new, tender skin of the tree. Running a finger over it, he was surprised when even the slightest touch inflamed the tree, turning it an angry green colour – the color of bruised tree flesh.

Instantly realising what he'd done, James stepped back quickly, recoiling in shame.

Sighing, he looked back at the tree. The tentativeness at which he’d stroked it, the gentle touches. The horror at damaging it. The tree’s inflamed skin and the lurid green colour it had become made him drop his head in dismay.

‘Stop looking so mopey, James. It’s a tree. It’ll grow.’

He spun around to see a girl with the eyes of the trees starting at him. She wasn’t angry, or hurt, or sad. She was green. It emanated from every inch of her face and stole over her lips, down her shoulders to her fingers that stroked the tree softly as if to repair the damage James had inflicted on it.

‘I didn’t mean it,’ he muttered foolishly. He knew he should have walked away, but he didn’t. The green captured him and made his heart soar, strangely. As Lily brushed her fingertips over the missing bark and the raw tree, James felt as though he should run his eyes observed the tenderness she displayed.

‘What.’

‘What?’

‘Yes James, what. What are you doing here?’

He stared at her, confused. The green was fading from her eyes, but he focused in on the tree and it came launching back, slamming into his chest and making his words stagger as they traipsed up his throat and out his mouth before he could stop them.

‘Will the tree be alright?’

She stared at him with incredulity. ‘You must be joking. James, you’re considering someone else, other than yourself for once? The damn tree will grow.’

James shuffled his feet and moved closer. ‘It’ll grow, right? It’ll fix itself?’ He stared at Lily, touching the tree tentatively, wincing when another piece of speckled bark fell from the tree with a touch of his fingers.

‘It was mean to come off,’ confirmed Lily, following his gaze. ‘You scratched it. You scarred it.’

‘But I didn’t mean to.’

‘You don’t mean to do most things, James. A lot of things happen as a result of not thinking.’

She lifted her eyes from the sandy ground to the raw weeping bark on the tree. ‘It’ll be scarred. But it will heal, and with time,’ she caressed the broken, bleeding bark tenderly, ‘it’ll be fine. It’ll grow. It’ll change and it’ll recuperate.

‘I’m not saying you did it a favour.’

He searched her face for something to give her intentions away. He met with her green eyes and all colours seemed to fade away. The harsh blackness of the Lake took on a softer tone, the sky was as tainted as the grass, and the tree assaulted him with the shade and illuminated her eyes. Her hair was the only thing that stood out against the shade of jade, and green, and the hint of lemon…

‘It’ll grow stronger because of you.’

James frowned. It was always the same, with Lily. ‘Why don’t you say what you really mean, Lily. Just because I scratched some bark off a tree, doesn’t mean I’ve aided its ability to grow taller than it is right now,’ he said sarcastically.

Lily’s face changed. James wasn’t exactly sure how to describe it. He’s wasn’t sure if it was good, or a bad. It was just a little different, and the colour in her eyes, the colour all around them changed. Again, he wasn’t sure whether or not it was a better green, let alone a less favourable green, it was just different.

She opened her mouth and closed it again. Her voice was odd when she said, ‘I guess all the intelligent stuff doesn’t work for you, does it James? I guess I can’t skid over things in hoping that you’ll hopefully pick it up.’ She breathed. ‘You never picked things up.’

‘I never picked things up? Things that weren’t perfect for you weren’t good. So you can’t be standing her feeding me all this stuff about growing and changing when you’ve just told me that you haven’t changed. You haven’t grown stronger because of us. Because of what happened.’

Two clouds met in a fury above the grounds of Hogwarts, battling for dominance until they split the sky with lightning. As though a bucket had been thrown over the two of them, the wind brought a sheet of icy cold rain to replace the stifling humidity. It hit them all in one blast, splattering the tree trunk with big, fat blobs that struck his head and her face simultaneously in an assault raining down on them from above.

They both momentarily forgot their dispute and huddled together under the tree while each leaf dripped slowly, soaking them slower than what they would have if they were out in the open beneath the crying sky.

‘I have changed,’ she shot. James hadn’t been listening to Lily. Evidently this was the first thing that she’d said, because she wasn’t at his throat by now.

‘No you haven’t,’ he said in a low voice, observing the way the world seemed to go grey at the touch of the water in the puddles. It rippled outwards, spreading a depressive drear across everything, dulling the colours and just smearing everything into a monotonous mess. What was colour before, bright, vibrant, hopeful, wonderful colour before – something that as so mind numbing and completely confusing was now something James wanted to cling to as the shade of grey consumed the world around him.

‘What do you mean, I haven’t changed, James. Of course I’ve changed. I’ve moved on.’ She turned to him, eyes storming. ‘Obviously, I’ve changed. You haven’t. You’re still bickering with me, isn’t that enough proof?’ she spat fallaciously.

James was stunned. Letting an incredulous note sneak into his voice, he whispered through the raindrops on his lips, ‘Lily. Don’t you get it? Part of the reason I’m fighting with you is because I’m different. There’s been a transition somewhere along the way, Lily. Your stupid inability to realise that you haven’t changed is the worst. You look in the mirror each day, and what do you see? You see some flimsy façade you’ve created because you’ve wanted to change.

‘You’ve wanted to change, but you haven’t been able to,’ he blustered through the rain. ‘Look at you, standing there absolutely soaking! You wake up every morning and you see a different person in the mirror, but you’re still the same old Lily underneath. You still crave the same stuff, and you still do the same things. Everything you think that you’ve changed about yourself, you haven’t. You haven’t, you’ve just tried to.’

Lily’s lip wobbled, and a quivering rain drop fell from her chin. ‘You don’t know me,’ she said, looking up at the brilliant green leaves above them. ‘You don’t know the way I think, or the way I am. You don’t know me anymore.’

James looked out over the Hogwarts ground’s grassy lawn, underneath the pitter patter of the raindrops of the blades of greenery, it was a thirsty green. The same green colour resided in Lily’s eyes, and James stepped forward so all that there was beneath the umbrella leaves of the tree was green, red, black, and pale creamy skin sprinkled with freckles.

‘I don’t know you right now, Lily. I’m working on it. I’m working damn hard so that maybe we can change. Maybe we can get over it.’

‘I just want it to stop,’ she pleaded with her eyes. ‘I’m sick of all the angry thoughts. I’m sick off all the shouting –’

‘What shouting?’

She laughed a weak little laugh, suppressed by the emotion in her chest. ‘There’s the fighting and the yelling no one else but me hears, sometimes you know. There’s a lot to me you still need to learn.’

‘My point exactly,’ James jumped in quickly, murmuring as Lily smiled and graced her face softly with her hand, laughing softly as a rain drop fell through the umbrella of falling leaves.

Feeling the warmth on the back of his shoulders, James motioned to out from under the tree. The steamy feeling had returned. ‘It’s stopped raining,’ he pointed out.

Lily chuckled. ‘Well, yes. Nice observation.’

James grinned and touched the tree on the brilliantly green patch of raw bark before kicking some pungent dirt into the base of the tree and setting out into the renewed warmth.

I just realised that after my brief little trantrum that VV modded the ... unfinished version before I got home to *cough* thwart the system, I forgot to post this.

>.>

Inspired not only by Mar's NEWT Scandals class, but also by the stimulus Year 11 booklet on Change. ♥

SUCCESS

2007-03-01T08:54:18Z

I finally finished it. I think.

Dreams of a Fallen Lotus Petal

No Light, Without Parvati.

In a dark and forgotten room in her home, she is pressing herself into a corner, desperate for something to cling to. Although there are two walls firmly behind her, there is still a vast space before her within the vicinity of the room to needle her mind, to taunt her.

Tears leak from her red-rimmed eyes, and she turns her head to the side. It thumps against the wall and she crumples, sinking to the deeply carpeted floor with choking, wracking sobs as her mouth opens in a mind-manacled silence.

She herself will not cry aloud. She will die inside, but that in itself will not take her closer to her beloved. She is hiding herself in her shoulder, beneath her thick dark hair and drawing in silent breaths of anguish as she presses herself further into the wall. It is her deepest wish to become one with it, for a wall stands for many years and becomes stained with the marks of age.

She is choosing not to live, not to go on, not to step into the empty darkness of the open room. She is choosing not to live.

Parvati will no longer be inflicted with the wounds of life, decides Padma, and neither shall I.

In reality, Padma cannot see that the room is full of light, and it is just like any other day to everyone else. The light streams in through the high windows, streaking merrily across low-seated furniture and colourfully embroidered cushions.

Nevertheless, Padma does not see the light, and instead hides herself in her corner. There should be no light, she has convinced herself. And there will be no light, no light without Parvati.

Every breath is forced out between dry lips. Every rise and fall of her chest is filled with pain, and yet her soul does not part from her body. Not a word escapes her as angry eyes do all the talking and command silence in the room.

People bustle around the room as usual, taking no notice of Padma. They are worried for her, yes, but they hide their pain in a locked vault inside themselves along with another pain, less fresh but still sore to the touch. They choose to ignore the situation, because it is easier.

Padma despises them. She is angry, and angry tears fall onto her hollow, grey-tinged cheeks. She has not slept, has not spoken a word for a week. Hunger eats away at her insides, but not a morsel of food passes between her gritted teeth. It is a personal battle she will not lose.

They whisper in the corners of the room that she cannot see, so she swivels in her chair to glare at them contemptuously. She cannot see, cannot comprehend how they can go on living when they clearly have no control over what happens.

But Padma has all the control. Or at least she thinks she does.

Her eyelids flutter closed and she braces herself as another rolling wave of fresh guilt washes over her mind, and she suppresses yet another thought of her sister.

She wants to forget. Oh, how glorious it would be to forget and pretend, just as they do, that nothing had ever happened. But what Padma has deluded herself into thinking is that they go along forgetting her sister, while in sharp contrast, they still mourn her. They still hurt, but in Padma’s mind, to hurt is not enough.

The lamp flickers in the corner and her eyes are drawn to it, her long, fragile eyelashes quivering as they observe the erratic behaviour. Her liquid brown eyes search the lamp blindly as she searches within herself for reason. She stares at the shade, shadowed in some places, illuminated in others, and feels like weeping. It is senseless. It has no reason, but the light, just the very comforting glow of the light makes her wants to weep. But still, she doesn’t.

Her eyes are the only part of her that are moist. Her skin is parched, screaming noiselessly for hydration in the thick stifling heat of the room. Her hair hangs in lank greasy coils around her, unbraided. All fineries and hygiene are set aside because she is sacrificing them to win her fight.

Padma will win Parvati’s soul back. It’s not where it’s supposed to be, she is chanting inside her mind childishly. It’s not near me; it’s not where it’s supposed to be.

Her head pounds and pain sears across her forehead. She fits in her chair until someone from the room runs with a scream to help her, to pull her back, away from her sister.

The woman’s hands touch her cheeks and cradle her head to her breast, but Padma resists her with stony silence and wills with every fibre of her body for this woman to leave her alone.

She stares at her mother with spiteful eyes, hateful eyes. The day Pavarti died, the day they had taken her sister, was the day Padma had lost all rationality, for what in life made sense without her sister?

The cacophony of endless sound and pain fills her head, throbbing, probing, and demanding. It digs deeper, maliciously pulsing inside her head. It is cruel, unnerving, and just when Padma feels as though she is going to burst, she screams in vain to the walls of her darkened room. She screams in anger, in anguish. She hurts. She shatters, shrieking uncontrollably as she breaks her vow of silence and the pain floods into her mind.

Her wild cries of pain fill the house and those inside turn in wonder at the unearthly sounds she is making because finally, she is feeling it. She is no longer numbed to the pain.

Then, all is calm. All is silent, painless. The only sounds are her erratic breathing and the deafening silence, and it pushes against her ears, forcing her back down onto the bed in exhaustion.

Through delirious eyes and a beneath a sweaty brow, she sees him. Her eyes snake up the coil of rope, noting the angle in which it is held in his hand as she quickly scans up his body, hungry for the sight that will meet her above his neck.

His face stares back at her, and she immediately stiffens in her bed. It can’t be true, it can’t possibly be real and true and entirely fathomable, but still, He is here, and He will help her. Yama stands proudly, swathed in cloth that seems to excrete power as he gives off the faint ambiguous scent of curry and lemon grass. The smells in the room suddenly contrast and Padma shrinks under Yama’s curious gaze.

‘Why have you brought me here, Padma?’ The question is simple, so very simple, and Padma shakes in her bed as she fights to muster the strength to answer him.

The screaming has exhausted her lungs. After so long without speaking, her vocal cords are spent. Her voice comes out in a rasp, and the candles flicker ominously as she speaks.

‘I want Parvati.’

He chuckles deeply in his throat, and Padma can see the ornate jewellery jingling and dancing over his bare chest as he finds amusement in her stark answer. His very face seems to be filled with an ironic joy; after all, he is the God of Death and knows very well what he has done to her sister. Parvati will not have known him, but he would have known her. Padma fights the urge to cry her first tears, the first tears to drip down her face in so long, as his black figure chuckles and laughs at her expense.

‘You know you cannot have your sister, Padma.’ His voice is calm as he rejects her request with the slicing of his hand downwards. As he pushes through the thick air that has accumulated with the smoke, Padma is shattered.

Her voice wobbles, and her head is suddenly filled with voices. Hundreds and hundreds of different keys, different tones. Different keys, different answers. There has to be a way. Her heart is a soaring roller coaster, going down, going up. She can feel a lost hollowness, a tight constriction in her chest. She can feel pain and numbness spreading unpleasantly through her limbs and her scalp prickles on the left side absurdly. She shakes her head slowly. Everything is slow; everything is odd. She looks up into his eyes, past the moustache, past the jewellery. Past all of the extravagance. Past it all, into the eyes that guard the soul she yearns for.

‘Why can’t I have her? Why can’t she be here? She’s me. I’m her. We’re not Padma, or Parvati, or Parvati and Padma. We’re Padma and Parvati Patil. We’re together. We always have been.’

Her voice sinks and her persona is pale and wasted once more. She whispers, ‘She is mine and I am hers. I need her here.’

Yama’s face storms over and he steps closer. The smells are intoxicating, and Padma is drowning in the endless black of the folds of his robe, the rich chocolate brown of his skin. She can see a girl reflected in his medallion, see a face in the rope. She can see herself reflected, and she looks dead. She’s dying for her sister.

‘She was the leader. She was first, I was second, and then we were together. She was always braver. I am weak compared to her. Smarts, where she had bravery. Resistance where she had none. I am worth less. Yamaraj, I beg you, bring her back. Back to me-’ Her voice cracks and she sheds the pent-up tears. She cries in pain, in sorrow and in forgiveness. She’s thought about departing the world to join Parvati, but she knows deep down that –

‘Your sister is beyond your reach, Padma. You know this. You choose to ignore it. You know that she has moved on. Do you not remember you own history?’

Yama interrupts her thoughts, and Padma is stunned. Where is Parvati? If not with Yama in Vaikunta, then where is she?

‘Your sister is not with you anymore. Not in this form,’ Yama intones seriously. His chuckle is gone. All that Padma has imagined about him was a lie, a fallacy all in her mind. He is so different, so powerful and yet so see–through, all at the same time.

‘What form does she take if she’s not here with me?’ Padma cries desperately. Shattered, she grasps the pillows beneath her in anguish. Where is her sister, if she is not in this world?

‘Of your sister’s form, I am unaware. She is no longer your sister. She does not know you. Parvati does not exist. Parvati was a body, a vessel, useless. She does not need it anymore. She simply does not exist.’ His voice is final, kind, and Padma wants to weep at the constant sincerity in his tone. She cannot hate him, for he has done her no wrong. She cannot rejoice at his news, because it is the end of her.

And she cannot be with her beloved, because she does not exist.

‘Who are you?’ she shrieks. Deaf to the world outside of her bedroom, outside of the green walls, she screams. She lets her pain echo and reverberate off the walls. ‘Who are you?’

Yama’s face is in hers in a second. She stares into his eyes, and shocked, realises that they are her own. The spark is one she used to hold, back when she was side-by-side, hand-in-hand with her Parvati.

She recognises herself in his face, and suddenly, he morphs into a healthy version of her and whispers in her own voice, ‘She is still with you. You still have your soul, and she still has hers.’

‘What do you mean?’ Padma whispers to her own face. Searching into her own eyes, she can see a form of sanity, a retention of the old her, the her that had shared her life with Parvati.

‘We are always one with God. Let that comfort you, Padma. Let that be the shield from the pain as you fight for yourself amongst the endless darkness and despair. Let yourself believe that inside, you are all connected. Know that one day, your time will come, and you will be like your sister, freed from this flesh-and-bone prison.

‘One day, you shall eat with our Father. You will be reborn many times, hundreds, thousands – but one day there shall come Moksha and you will be joined with Parvati again. Two beautiful, pure white souls shall be reunited, and you will be Padma and Parvati again.’

Her imagination’s words are so beautiful, and Padma begins to cry. Tears pour down her cheeks like rain. They obscure her vision, blur the smiling Padma dressed in black in front of her and she comes nearer, closer, until they are nose to nose and Padma can smell an intense Lotus scent. She remembers being in the garden with her sister when they were younger. A yellow flower for Padma, and a pink for Parvati. Twins, joined, one.

She stares at her darkening skin as it greedily absorbs the sunlight that she has so long deprived it of. The flowing white clothes hanging off her frail frame only make her skin look darker, make her look healthier. As the days go by, her face takes on more of a round quality and her eyes become less and less prominent.

She can feel the grass under her feet, feel every single strand of grass under them, every small bug that crawls stealthily through the undercover of the blades. She reaches out to one flowering marigold bush and quietly beckons a new butterfly with a crooked finger.

The butterfly flexes its wings, testing the air’s thickness and preparing for its first flight. She reflects back to Yama and smiles as she thinks of her sister emerging in this new world of hers like the butterfly or even, she muses, smiling an actual face-changing smile, that Parvati is this butterfly. She closes her eyes in happiness as she thinks of the freedom that Parvati will have with her wings after emerging from her cocoon. She’ll be able to fly away and come back to the garden.

‘Padma.’

Her mother beckons to her from the door, willing her to come inside with a sad expression on her face. The funeral processions are beginning to start, and Padma knows that when she enters the room, wearing her blessed white clothes to gaze fondly upon the picture of her sister, her twin, her soul, she knows that she will cry.

However, she vows as she tentatively urges the butterfly to begin its new journey into the world, they will not be tears of sorrow as they once were. The tears that will stream proud and freely, unstemmed from her identical brown eyes will be tears of acceptance, of gratitude, and of love.

♥

SPAM

2007-02-21T09:39:24Z

Let me start by saying I should be allowed to *SPAM* in my own journal. ~~even though that's what my personal & private journal is for, isn't it?~~ As long as it's fanfiction related spam.

*nods*

Anyway, with much ado:

The ball bearing in the middle of my keyboard has moved. Why, do you ask, do I have a ball bearing IN my keyboard?

Oh, Maybe because it fell out of the keyboard thingy on my old desk and I had no idea what it was. So, for the looseyourwords picture theme of numbers, I set the ball bearing on a kay and took a picture so that the light would reflect off it. Except, I accidently pushed down on the key and the ball bearing slipped down under the keys.

Now, as a consequence, every so often it'll get stuck and will hinder typing most annoyingly (AKA it pisses me off) and I have to tip the keyboard and hear it roooooooooooooooooooollllll down.

Or across.

Or maybe I should go read Anna's take on Gatsby. Gatsby = ♥ Magnificent Malfoy is sure to be ♥.

/ *SPAM*

♥

EDIT: I think I'm OCD. I just spotted two mistakes in All That Glitters and now I have to go fix them, just in case another SPEWer picks it up. Which would be bad. Because then I'd look... sloppy.

Let's face it. I am sloppy. I just spelt it slopy. Point proven.

EDIT2: Still relative to the journal -- the frogs are weird. Looking back through the entries to tag them, I'd marked one as Horny, just to see what the frog would look like.

It was disturbing. The anxious one is amusing. So, I'm feeling creative but my frog says I'm feeling anxious. *nods again*

Original Fiction?

2007-02-21T09:30:14Z

Was on the bus to Fairfield station. Much like Lys, I saw my own reflection.

As the iron snake wound its was through the city, the inhabitants sitting in the hard, uncomfortable seats caught their expressions of distaste in a reflective surface. On one side, their lives passed in a montage and flitting appearences as their stationary reflections lept from shop window to shop window, trying on clothes as rejecting them as the bus spluttered deeper into the city.

On the other side, a familiar scene was being played out. Bored passengers sat, flicking their wrists and looking at their watches as they tapped their toes impatiently. Some read newspapers, and some sat there, staring out the window.

What would they see, she thought, if they looked into her bus window. Would they see themselves reflected there, just as they are, eyes searching quizzically over a face tinted brown by the sun, and smudged with uncertainty? Would they see her, looking back at them, wondering whether they can see her reflection as their own.

The bus veered sharply to the right, and her thoughts were airborne as she scrabbled desperatley for the back of the seat in front of her for balance as gravity took its toll.

As the bus became a hissing iron snake once more around the streets of the city, she chose to think of the reflections of herself in other's shoes, rather than of her own dowdy, smudged appearence.

♥

Self Analysis - Hr/R of mid 2006

2007-02-21T09:19:41Z

Disclaimer: The “Bumblebee” quote if from the third installment in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, and is quoted from “Mary Kay Ash,” and I can tell you, I thumbed through all three books JUST to find that name, because I remembered the quote, but not the name.

The “work” quote is quoted from the second installment in the Sisterhood series, and is quoted from “Carmen’s Grandmother,” so one can only assume ‘twas Anne Brashares who created it? C’mon, you can’t tell me you’ve never made up a quote before?

She wandered wordlessly through the corridors until she came to a door marked Library. She silently pushed it open, and retreated to a far corner away from prying eyes and concealed couples. She breathed in the heavy scent of pine needles and the raw smell of the exposed wood. She could smell the familiar musty odor of unloved books; not many ventured into this secluded corner, few knew it was even here.

She knew it was here. She had visited it many times. She sighed heavily and reached into her bag, pulling out a shard of glass and placing it on the table in front of her. She blankly watched her expression waver in the reflective surface and thought boldly how blank, how expressionless, how plain she was.

Outside, she could hear the trees singing their sorrow as the wind whistled through them, and she closed her mind to hear her heart inside. She rubbed her temples irritably, and sank into a hazy stupor.

She watched from afar, yet so close. She was analyzing her every move, contemplating her every decision; as if she was one with the girl. Yet, she was detached.

*

She was taking off more than she could chew. She was trying to prove to herself she could do these things, these things she wanted to do to complete herself. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t manage things. She couldn’t complete things. She couldn’t.

She felt like crying; she couldn’t cry. She stared at herself in the mirror, and got no answers. She simply saw herself there, waiting for someone to answer her problems, someone to tell her what she wanted to her; what she needed to hear.

She craved an outsiders input, someone who saw the outside her, the ‘her’ that didn’t over analyze things in her brain. She thought too much about things, things that needn’t be worried about in other eyes. And yet, she deemed these things of great importance, and therefore generated stress.

She liked to escape, escape to worlds where normal things froze and the few things that mattered were in her control. She liked deciding what was happening, when it happened, and what happened. She liked to see peaceful clam in others, and ferociously wished her life was more like “theirs,” “they” being fictional or otherwise. Then, she wondered, do they think the same about me? She doubted it, and the flimsy façade she created around herself. She doubted people saw this façade as the REAL her, perhaps they saw beneath it, unto the soul that had bared so many cuts, so many mishaps, so much disappointment.

“Wish for what you want, work for what you need.”

A valuable quote. She lived on quotes, thrived on the input from others, their points of view. She liked having a point of how the world looked back at her, rather than what she perceived through her own eyes. She wondering, briefly, and something in great lengthy periods, if the world ever thought about her, the way she thought about other people and their “happiness.”

True, other people’s happiness could never be her own. They too struggled with their own battles; she could see that. She also wished she could help them, just as she longed for someone to help her with hers. But then, she would not be in control of herself. Someone would be telling her what to do, guiding her, yet restricting her.

“Aerodynamically, the bumblebee can’t fly.”
“But the bumblebee doesn’t know that, so it keeps flying anyway.”

She wished she was a fictional character. Someone who’s profile could be printed out, black and white, no complications, no heartache. No wants, no needs. She wished her problems could be predictable challenged and solved, and easy as those books she so dearly loved to escape into.

She wished people could uncomplicated things, and yet, she wanted to ramble on, explain everything in minute detail, and still have someone know exactly how she felt. She was impatient; ready for her life to change so that she could find so satisfaction in something.

The simple truth was, she was stretched too thin.

*

She could cry now. Her self analysis was done.

Part I

A dark figure appeared in the sliver of her shard. She whipped her head around to find Ron standing there, his fists clenched at his sides, and his mouth looked dry and parched. His blue eyes roamed over her disheveled appearance.

Hermione folded her arms across her chest and tried to shake the salt tears from her cheeks. She flopped a lock of hair across her face as a physical barrier.

“What are you doing here?” she said in feigned confusion.
She knew why he had come.

“I just … wanted to see if you’re okay,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“Well, you can see, I’m fine. Now leave,” she shot back, turned back and flumping down in her chair again.

He caught her shoulder in his hand.
“No, Hermione. I’m not leaving. C’mon, tell me what’s wrong.”

She lifted her head, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong, Ronald? Everything’s wrong! Nothing’s right! It’s all simply too much! What do N.E.W.T’s really matter in the fight against Voldemort? Why am I wasting my time being bookish when I could be learning to defend myself in the most practical way, the way Harry is right now. He’s out there, risking butt hide for us, for everyone, and what do I do? I sit here! I sit here, wallowing in my own self pity!” Her cheeks were a mottled red, crossed with the silver of her tears.

Ron stepped back and held up his hands in surrender.
“Okay, okay,” he said, his voice wavering. He quickly disappeared behind the bookshelves, and Hermione briefly wondered why he had left so easily. She sank back into her stupor, and laid her head on the desk, and dropped the shard beside her eye. She saw the brown pupil flux then close sleepily. All she needed was sleep.

*

She woke sleepily to find someone holding her elbow. It was a comforting gesture, and she didn’t know whether she was still asleep, or awake. Hermione thought weakly that she was in that between stage when she clung to her dreams, when she tried to hold on the last bits of happiness while she could, until they were gone, and they couldn’t be retrieved. She reveled in her dream for seconds longer, and then she shook her head blearily. She blinked her eyes and was surprised to see blue eyes staring intently at her face, searching for answers.

“Ron,” she mumbled. She didn’t lift her head off the table; that required too much energy.

“Hermione … I couldn’t leave things the way they were,” he said.

“Ron, you didn’t have to come back. I’m sorry for the way I acted. It’s not as if you deserved it.”

“Okay,” he nodded, stuffing his hands in his trouser pockets.

Hermione frowned and lifted her head off the table. She smoothed out the creases in her face,
“That’s it? Okay? Ron, what’s got into you?”

Ron shuffled. “It’s just, Hermione, I don’t know what else to say. You seem to fly off the handle at everything lately.”

Hermione bristled. “Ron, that was the by far the most insensitive thing I have ever heard you say. Even to me.”

Ron shuffled his feet again and looked around at the dusty bookshelves and deserted books.
“Hermione, there’s just so many things to say. I can’t say them all right now.”

Hermione fair stood up now, letting her chair clutter to the ground. “Why, Ron, why can’t you talk to me? What’s keeping you from letting me know what’s on your mind? Am I that insignificant, so oblivious to the world you think I wouldn’t notice you’ve been different around me lately?”

Ron played with a stray thread on his jumper, but now he looked Hermione straight in the eyes.
“I couldn’t bear to hurt you, Hermione.”

Hermione’s eyes blazed with anger, but Ron forced himself to look into them.
“I can’t keep my mouth shut. I can’t tell you what I’ve been keeping from you.”

“Why not, I’m sure you’ve told Harry, and Ginny, and probably anyone else you’ve come across, is that right Ron?”

He had a pained expression on his face. “No, Hermione. I haven’t told anyone. I came here today to see you, and show you what I want to say.”

“Show me, but how -”

Ron didn’t wait for her to finish. He titled her chin up and kissed her lightly on the lips.
He released her chin and she took a step back. She was slightly taken aback, and didn’t know what to say. She put her hand on the desk to steady herself.

“Ron … Is that what you wanted to tell me?” she said faintly, her voice showing the tinniest note of hope.

“No, that wasn’t it,” he said.
Hermione’s face fell slightly, and she ducked her head and shook it slightly.

He grabbed her hand off the desk and held it in his own coarse one. “No. This is what I wanted to show you.” And he grabbed her around her petite waist and pulled her closer. She lifted her head slightly to stare at his chin. Hermione was surprised to see it was trembling slightly.

She gasped slightly and his hands found their way up and down her back comfortably, releasing weeks of pent up stress and pain, and she relaxed into his arms.

The kiss deepened, and she was slightly disappointed that this long awaited kiss, to her felt like nothing. She wasn’t aware of the dusty odor around her, impervious to his cologne he had obviously taken time to apply. Even the sharp smell was dulled to her senses. She couldn’t feel the warmth in his hands, the texture of his jaw against her own, the softness of his tongue against her lips. Should couldn’t feel any of it, and it killed her.

She pushed herself away from him. His eyes widened in surprise, then hurt. Finally, they steeled and he took a step back and slammed into the shelf. Books rained down around him, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was focused on Hermione. She cringed as she heard the dull smack of the covers hitting the ground.

Hermione let out a sniffle as he wrenched his eyes from her own, and stuffed his hands in his pockets moodily. He walked away, not turning around.

Hermione sobbed in anguish and called out his name. “Ron. Ron!”
Over and over again she called, until her throat was hoarse.

She found herself shaking as she woke up, her shoulders shaking as she wept, and the sliver of glass broken on the floor beside her.

*

It had all been a dream.

Part II

Hermione stood, resting her forehead against the cool leather of the ancient school books. She banged her head repeatedly, and the dust that fell from the topmost shelf made her eyes water.

Her thoughts were on Ron, and her eyes were no longer watering. Tears were rolling down her cheeks; at first an over brim, then they tumbled one after the other, silently coursing their way down her pale cheeks and getting caught in her hair.

Why had it only been a dream? For once in her life, she’d grasped something, been able to keep it with in reasonable reach. As soon as she felt truly happy, it turned out her damned mind had been messing with her.

She sat down at the desk again. The pines outside hummed with monotonous dysphoria. Besides the normal healthy chatter of the working students that usually filled the rows of bookshelves, everything was calm and mysteriously quiet. Nothing moved, and Hermione felt like the world had stopped.

Her world certainly had. She allowed herself to dream, and set the standard too high. She set herself up for disappointment, and received her reward regularly.

She sighed. Days melded into one another, weeks into months. It seems eons since she had dreamed about Ron, since she’d had the encounter. It seemed years since she’s spoken a word to anyone. She walked numbly around Gryffindor Tower like a ghost. No one paid her attention, and she stared senselessly back at them with big, haunted eyes.

She did, however sneak a small savory glance at Ron every so often. Whenever she did, his head was bowed in deliberate concentration at the four feet of parchment in front of him, covered in long, loopy disjointed writing. A letter to Harry, she proposed. Harry hadn’t written in months. She knew he was alright; something as loud and well-celebrated about as Harry Potter dying or defeating the Dark Lord would not be a secret from anyone in the Wizarding community. Hermione doubted even the Muggles would not notice a change in atmosphere.

There was a susurrus, and Hermione lifted her head off the cool desk. The overhead sunshine that had been floating in earlier had been replaced with stumpy candles in their holders, and a lantern made its way toward Hermione with briskness and finality.

She didn’t care if she’d gotten caught. She’d surrendered her Head Girl badge to Susan; after all, who wanted a depressive self indulged Muggle-born for a head Girl is such times of trouble?

A freckled and concerned face appeared in the light of the lantern. Hermione’s eyebrows rose in confusion, fright and then lowered again in hazy recognition.

“Ron,” she said hoarsely. The monosyllabic word felt like aloe against the sand paper of her throat. She hadn’t used her voice in weeks, and she liked the sound of it.

“Ron,” she said again. “Ron, why are you here?”

Ron silently ambulated forward, watching her the whole time. His blue eyes were slightly dimmed in the lamplight, but Hermione’s shone.

“I- I felt guilty, Hermione,” he whispered. His eyes never dropped from her face, orange in the glow.

Hermione’s mouth fell open in surprise. “Guilty? Ron, why?”

“I didn’t come back. I was a coward. I ran from you when you needed me.”

Hermione was shocked. She didn’t know what to say. She just sat there, staring into his eyes. She had never noticed how deep and complicated his eyes were; they told a new found knowledge, a new yearning.

“I did need you Ron, but I pushed you away.”

Ron nodded. “I know, but I should have held on fast.”

He took a short step and enveloped Hermione in a hug. She felt her weary muscles relax into his, felt the comfort and safety of his arms. She leant into him, and smelled his scent. This wasn’t a dream, it was happening, and Hermione could feel. She could feel his fabric of his shirt; she could feel the thump-thump of her heart, and she could feel the stillness in the air around them.

“Forgive me, Ron. This is just a dream but I need to be sure…”

Hermione licked her lips quickly and made to raise hers to his, but he reached down and caught her jaw in his hands, and her lips on his own.

To her immense surprise, she melted into him, enjoying his taste, his feel, his presence around her, guiding her, strengthening her…

Her lips tingled. She pressed closer to him, and, if it was possible, they became more tightly bound. It was as if they were two souls residing in the same body, one the same, emotion for emotion.

The kiss deepened, and Hermione could feel every slight twitch as he ran his fingertips lightly up and down her shoulder, tugging at her hair, and massaging her jaw. She could feel his lips against her own, could feel them bruising with the force at which they were joined.

Her senses sharpened as her eyes flew open. Her world exploded, and every doubt, every indurate mental trial melted away into nothing. A supernova erupted in her brain, and after what seemed an eternity, they broke apart. She clung to him, to his feel, to his thoughts, until they broke apart and became two people again.

He regarded her seriously; just looking on for a sign.

First, it was her eyes, they warmed. Then her cheeks, then she let out a soft laugh and grinned. A wall fell, a division crumbled, and Hermione smiled.

“Thank you,” she whispered softly, reaching up to touch his cheek.

Ron nodded, enclosing her petite hand in his own. “You know I’m here.”

Hermione nodded, and indicated to freedom, to outside the books, into the real world.

*

Months passed and Hermione regained her normal position enough to snap at Ron wearily as he attempted to copy her essays. He simply smiled sheepishly, but his eyes twinkled with knowing.

It was in the Hogwarts grounds on day, near the Great Lake they received a letter address to them.

Ron and Hermione,
I am well. It is not wise to converse in such times, but rest assured you will see me soon. Where, I do not know. I suppose fate will bring us together in our travels.

Ron, a better mate no one could have. You’ve been there from the start, and you’ve helped me to where I am today.

Hermione’s hand shook as she leant against Ron. She could feel his body quivering with tension. Her hands shook as she read from the paper.

Hermione, you told me long ago I shouldn’t be able to fly. According to your laws of gravity, my quest was void. You told me so many things were betting against me, and I replied that at least one should be able to beat the odd and prosper. I remember before my last match, you were there, whispering my ear about a bumblebee. Naturally, I had absolutely no idea what you were on about at the time, but now I understand. You take flight like a bumblebee, Hermione. You fight against the odds. You accomplish your dreams, and Ron and I will always be behind you.

It was signed off simply ‘Harry,’ but Hermione gripped the letter close to her chest, and buried her face in Ron’s shoulder. She wept for her friend, and felt Ron’s hands easing her gently. She knew he was thinking the same along the same lines as she was, and she found comfort in the knowledge her friend was safe and whole.

“Ron?” she murmured.

“Yes, Hermione?” Ron opened his eyes and gazed at the lake.

“Do you think he’s really safe? He’s protected from him, I mean?”

Ron sighed, stroking her hair. He focused his eyes on her nose, which could be seen just out from under her hair. “We’ll never know Hermione.”

“Well, of course we will,” she said, sitting up and touching his face. He looked at her quizzically.
“We’ll be there with him soon enough. We’ll fight with him. He’ll be safe with us,” Hermione said with finality.

Harry might not have beaten Lord Voldemort alone, but they were joined mentally now. They would, when the opportunity arose. Together they would rise up against the Dark Lord, and watch him perish beneath their hands.

They would rise up against him in mind, body, and soul.

A/N: This story I now complete. Reviews are very, very nice, but the fact you read my story is very comforting as well. Thank you for sticking around.

A note to new writers: When writing, make sure that you read over it again. Spell check isn’t the best, and the best thing you could possibly do is to get yourself a beta. I know from experience! I unfortunately found out the hard way when my spell check changed itself to French, and couldn’t identify anything.

Could you please let me know, is my dialogue correct? That is to say, would an older Ron and Hermione actually say these things?

Also, do you think I now have too much dialogue and too little imagery? Or is this a fresh change? I’m trying to expand my type of writing, so all comments are appreciated!

-Steph.

All The Same - Sick Puppies Influence

2007-02-08T12:22:41Z

I'd like Rachel / lily_evans34 to view this, please

A piece written and inspired by an Australian band, The Sick Puppies, who wrote a song “All the Same” and made a video based on the Juan Mann video.

The italicized lyrics are from the song, “All The Same”. Juan Mann set out to give the world Free Hugs when, incredibly, he was stopped by police. So, he petitioned for Free Hugs to be legal. He wanted to make a difference in a world that was all the same.

It hurts her inside. It’s a confusing her, the hurt, full of anger and resentment, entirely of herself. Why can’t she be like other people? Why can’t she speak for a strong full minute without receiving an odd stare?

All around her, she observes conforming, and it scares her. So many people around her are so similar in their appearance, and sadly, a lot of them are more than similar underneath. Most of them are the same.

Not because they’ve morphed into other people on the outside, she considers, twirling her blonde hair. It’s more as if they’re all suffering the same pain underneath. They’re all wishing that they were different people, in a different place where they could truly express themselves. She twirls her hair more, and chews on the end slightly. Of course, not everyone is like this. Some, she thinks, would think that it is the strong of mind who are the leaders, the followers.

But, she thinks, it is these people who are the threat. They’re different, unique and special. The only reason, she determines, that they sink into the background is because they’re odd. In the world that they all live in, despair, darkness and similarity, change and difference is the minority, while clustering together and acceptance is the key majority.

Perhaps if there were no threat, if there were no danger, would these people be together? Would they walk through the halls, and sneer at her for being different? Or would they join her, and dance as freely as they could? Would they suppress who they are, for the sake of it?

Her sky blue eyes roam the corridor. To her left, there are boys. To her right, there are girls. All around her is the same as people melt into one another on the surface. She looks at the group on the right, waiting outside a classroom door, and she sees two uneven parts. There are the girls who are laughing heartily, at her it seems, and then there’s the other girl. She’s in Harry’s year, the year above her, and her name is Hannah Abbott. She watches the girls as they point at Luna’s hair, at her earrings, cruelly, and make crude jokes that bounce off Luna, rolling over her like water off a duck’s back. She doesn’t care about the taunting any more. She respects herself and who she is – just because someone doesn’t like her, doesn’t mean that those who tease her are better. On the contrary, she decides as she stares dispassionately at the cluster of giggling girls, it is she that is above them. After all, she has the courage to be different. She can’t deny it doesn’t hurt though, when she flaunts her wealth and people mock her indifferently.

She stares at Hannah, observing the way her straight blonde hair is kinked in places, a sad imitation of Megan Jones, the girl who is in the hysterics at Luna’s knot on the top of her head. Luna fiddles with the piece that’s fallen down, and she frowns more and more as she looks Hannah up and down. Perhaps the reason Hannah’s not laughing is because what Megan is laughing at isn’t all that funny. Or perhaps, Luna thinks, the reason she’s not laughing is because I’m studying her so intently.

Luna’s eyes flicker back and forth over Hannah, and linger on the skirt hem, which has shoddily been hemmed up a couple of inches to reveal pale legs, where Megan’s skirt is perfectly tailored, shoving off trim, taut legs. While Megan’s hair graces her shoulders in elegant ringlets that brush against dark, curly eyelashes, Hannah’s hair hangs limply, freed from its usual pony tails, and what appears to be dark circles under her eyes is in fact makeup, and on first looking, Luna sees the haunted eyes beneath the black smudges in a poor imitation of Megan’s natural grace.

Hannah stares at Luna, observing the way she’s standing, so tall and confident and sure of herself, one hip cocked and one hand traveling up to her shoulder to play with hair that has fallen out of her interesting, albeit a little weird hair do. Hannah side glances at Megan, and sees her glaring at her. Quickly, seeing that Megan is no longer paying attention to Luna, the other girls, including Susan, whom Hannah had once considered a lovely friend with her long curly red hair, and stare at her, waiting to see what move Megan makes next.

‘Don’t you think her hair is ridiculous, Hannah?’ prompts Megan, smiling as if she knew what Hannah was going to say.

Hannah ducks her head and puts her hands self consciously on her hips as Megan nods approvingly at her stance. ‘It looks different,’ says Hannah quietly.

Megan purses her lips, and Hannah sneaks a look out the corner of her eye at Luna to see her standing in the middle of the corridor as boys file into their class. She’s standing there, waiting, staring at Hannah with her brilliantly blue eyes. Hannah raises her brown eyes to Megan’s green eyes and awaits the approval that will never come.

‘Different how?’ presses Megan, egging Hannah on and playing with her effortless ringlets. The girls around her giggle nervously, and Hannah wants to die.

She giggles shrilly and then says, quietly, ‘Just different, I suppose.’

‘I think it looks weird,’ says Megan, sneering in Luna’s direction. She raises her chin and rolling her neck so her heavy lidded eyes look down on Luna from a position of superiority. ‘Do you hear that, Looney Lovegood? Even Hannah thinks your hair is odd. And, well, look at Hannah’s hair.’

Hannah feels like she’s stabbed inside as a cold fear grabs at her chest and slams into her with the harsh reality of rejection. Her limbs shake and she gulps. A dread overwhelms her as she just smiles and picks up her bag and follows the giggling Megan into class.

At the door, she is stopped by Luna. She can see Luna staring at her, staring at the thick makeup that makes her squint slightly, staring at the itchy tendrils that rake their ends against her cheek in obvious mutiny. ‘What do you want?’ she asks nervously, looking around, scared, incase Megan is watching. It would not do well to be seen with Luna.

‘Do you like me?’ asks Luna bluntly, calmly.

‘Well,’ says Hannah skitterishly, fingering the strap on her bag loaded with not only her, but Megan’s books, ‘You do dress a little weirdly, you know.’

Luna ignores her answer. ‘But do you like me?’

Hannah considers. Luna’s a nice girl. And, she discovers as she looks deeper within herself, searching for ever possible reason why not to like Luna, she sees that there is nothing there, nothing stopping her from liking Luna.

‘It’s not that I don’t like you…’ Hannah starts, stalling, waiting for her brain to come up with something so that she can hurry in through the door before someone notices her absence.

‘So why don’t you, Hannah?’ Luna asks suddenly, chopping her off and putting her hand on her arm. Hannah desperately searches for an answer, but she can’t. The truth is, she admires Luna. She admires the way she can stand there, and take people’s slander as if it were nothing more than a poke on the shoulder. People’s criticism kills Hannah, it physically hurts her inside.

‘Is it because you’re Megan Jones’ friend, and not mine?’ inquires Luna, fully knowing the answer.

She can see the struggle that Hannah is having with herself. She can see the pressure she’s putting her under, and she’s hoping that perhaps, just maybe, that she will be able to crack her right open, and let the true Hannah immerge out of this façade, this fake and this image of incomplete adaptation.

‘Yes,’ Hannah whispers. ‘She’ll get angry and ask me questions if she sees me with you. I have to go.’ She barged through the door with a queer expression on her face, and Luna saw, somewhat sadly, that she looked like she was in the verge of tears.

To fix the twist in you. You’ve shown me eventually what you’ll do.

Hannah lies in bed, turning and thinking of the Ravenclaw. Emotions roll over her as her breathing hitches and shallows, just like it does when Megan stares at her with disapproving eyes. As much as Hannah tries to stop it, Megan’s face floats in front of her face and she can she the disapproval in her eyes. Luna’s face swims in front of Megan’s, and compared to Luna’s, Megan’s face is warped, fake, an image, whereas Luna’s contains truth, honesty and purpose.

Hannah is scared. She scared of being herself, of being outlawed. Any hint of personality, any hint of the old Hannah, and indeed the old Susan, and she’s shot down with a sneer, or a sideways glance with a curled lip. She meets Susan’s face with questioning eyes on these instances, and Susan’s face is accepting. While Hannah still retains part of who she is, Susan is gone, lost, the same. All the same, all of them are the same.

Again, Luna flashes in front of her. It was the Ravenclaw’s eyes that were so piercing, so vivid. So real, and so herself.

Wrong of right, if I close my eyes it’s all the same.

The next week, the same day, Hannah meets Luna in the halls again, this time armed with determination. Throughout the week, she’s seen Megan through different eyes, through stronger eyes. She’s been under her wing for too long, it seems, because today of all days seems like a repeat of the previous week as the boys are on the left, the girls on the right, and Susan looks on dispassionately as Luna struggles with odd objects in her pockets.

Suddenly, Luna looks up, and Hannah is jolted. She’s scared, her breathing quickens, and she feels the premature beat of her heart against the front of her chest as she prepares herself for slaughter.

‘Hannah, look at her. She keeps following you around. She’s so silly, isn’t she?’ Megan poses the challenge to Hannah, and Hannah clenches her fists and urges herself to speak, to voice her opinion, to say something that contains even a glimmer of truth, of herself.

‘She’s not silly.’ She exhales, and waits for the pressure to build up behind her eyes as the fear of rejection literally washes over her arms and legs as adrenaline surges its way through her body, making her shake. She doesn’t know if the other girls can see it, but Megan can see it. As much as the other girls try to be like her, Megan is still Megan, and Megan can still see that she’s pretending. She’s not this brave, she’s not this bold.

‘She’s not silly? Hannah, look at her. Look at her hair. Look at her shoes. Look, Hannah. They’re so dirty and so… well. Anyone could tell, just by looking at them that they obviously weren’t very expensive.’

‘Does it matter?’ Hannah asks, gasping and biting back the need to flee as the words escape her mouth and she sees Megan glare.

‘Well of course it matters, Hannah. It matters, because clearly… she doesn’t belong.’

Hannah swallows. It’s now, or never. She steps out of her own shoes and practically feels her feet sigh with relief as her sock clad toes massage the ground gratefully. One foot at a time, she slips the shoes over her heels and hands them to Megan, who recoils.

‘I guess I don’t belong, Megan.’

Megan’s face is shocked as she lets the shoes fall to the ground and bounce on the stone floor. She stares at them, and then up at Hannah, whose face is scrubbed clean and shining both with nervous sweat and glowing pride. Hannah is proud of herself. She slowly walks over to Luna and stands next to her, rigidly, waiting for the feeling to return.

But as Megan sneers at her and stares out through half lidded eyes, judicial and arrogant, she says, ‘You’ll come running back.’

Luna whispers to her companion as she trembles, fighting the instinctive urge, ‘I’ll take you for who you are, if you take me for everything.’

Hannah can feel the fight on either side of her. Half of her longs to run and pick up her shoes, slipping them onto her feel and continuing into the classroom with Luna, but on the other hand, she considers Luna’s words.

Luna can see Hannah working her thoughts, rolling them in her mind, tasting each one of them on the tip of her tongue before suddenly, impulsively, she spits them out and says, ‘You’re going to be late, Megan.’

Megan’s eyes fly open in anger and she stamps her foot slightly before turning on her heel and disappearing into the class. Luna slips off her shoes and offers them to Hannah.

‘You seem to be missing a pair,’ she says kindly, pressing them into Hannah’s hands. Hannah’s hands trembles as she clutches at the leather slip-ons, brushing her fingers over the soft leather and whispering a small ‘Thank you’ as she ducks her head and follows Megan through the door.

Except, Luna notices, this time she takes a different path to her seat. Instead of watching her wind through the desks to the right side where Megan lolls, fully expecting her to sit down and join her, Hannah turns sharply to the left and sits next to the wall, reaching down under the desk to slip on her shoes and curl her toes freely underneath the leather.

A/N: Watch the struggle for change in the world.

Megan Jones according to the Lexicon, one of the “invisible” Hufflepuff girls. Following that link will give you background on her.

I'll take you for who you are
If you take me for everything.

EDIT: Story is now posted on MNFF archive.

♥

Captain Mar's Green Tree Emotive Drabble

2007-01-31T11:16:11Z

His fingers ran over the harsh bark of the tree. It was dark in some places, and sporadically light in others. Speckled, it stood strong and tall in the sand near the Lake, its roots digging deeper than the deceptive sand until it hit the bottom of the bank where it wound its tendrils into the ground and took hold.

His fingers scraped off bark, pit by bit, chunk by chunk until he reached the brand new, tender skin of the tree. Running a finger over it, he was surprised when even the slightest touch inflamed the tree, turning it an angry green colour – the color of bruised tree flesh.

Immediately ashamed of what he’d done – ruined a small chance for the tree to grow quicker – he recoiled and stepped back quickly.

Sighing, he looked back at the tree. The tentativeness at which he’d stroked it, the gentle touches. The horror at damaging it. The tree’s inflamed skin and the lurid green colour it has become made him drop his head in dismay.

‘Stop looking so mopey, James. It’s a tree. It’ll grow.’

She spun around to see a girl with the eyes of the trees starting at him. She wasn’t angry, or hurt, or sad. She was green. It emanated from every inch of her face and stole over her lips, down her shoulders to her fingers that stroked the tree softly as if to repair the damage James had inflicted on it.

‘I didn’t mean it,’ he muttered foolishly. He knew he should have walked away, but he didn’t. The green captured him and made his heart soar, strangely. As Lily brushed her fingertips over the missing bark and the raw tree, James felt as though he should run his eyes observed the tenderness she displayed.

‘What.’

‘What?’

‘Yes James, what. What are you doing here?’

He stared at her, confused. The green was fading from her eyes, but he focused in on the tree and it came launching back, slamming into his chest and making his words stagger as they traipsed up his throat and out his mouth before he could stop them.

‘Will the tree be alright?’

She stared at him with incredulity. ‘You must be joking. James, you’re considering someone else, other than yourself for once? The damn tree will grow.’

James shuffled his feet and moved closer. ‘It’ll grow, right? It’ll fix itself?’ He stared at Lily, touching the tree tentatively, wincing when another piece of speckled bark fell form the tree with a touch of his fingers.

‘It was mean to come off,’ confirmed Lily, following his gaze. ‘You scratched it. You scarred it.’

‘But I didn’t [I]mean[/I] to.’

‘You don’t mean to do most things, James. A lot of things happen as a result of not thinking.’

She lifted her eyes from the sandy ground to the raw weeping bark on the tree. ‘It’ll be scarred. But it will heal, and with time,’ she caressed the broken, bleeding bark tenderly, ‘it’ll be fine. It’ll grow. It’ll change and it’ll recuperate.

‘I’m not saying you did it a favour.’

He searched her face for something to give her intentions away. He met with her green eyes and all colours seemed to fade away. The harsh blackness of the Lake took on a softer tone and the sky tainted as the grass, and the tree assaulted him with the shade and illuminated her eyes. Her hair was the only thing that stood out against the shade of jade, and green, and the hint of lemon…

‘It’ll grow stronger because of you.’

No Light - January/Febuary Challenge WIP

2007-01-12T09:29:18Z

In a dark and forgotten room in her home, she is pressing herself into a corner, desperate for something to cling onto. Although there are two walls firmly behind her, there is still a vast space before her within the vicinity of the room to needle her mind; to taunt her.

Tears leak from her red-rimmed eyes, and she turns her head to the side. It thumps against the wall, and she crumples, sinking to the deeply carpeted floor in silent, wracking sobs as her mouth opens in a mind-manacled silence.

She herself will not cry aloud. She herself will die inside, but that in itself will not take her closer to her beloved. She is hiding herself in her shoulder, beneath her thick dark hair and drawing in silent breaths of anguish as she presses herself further into the wall. It is her deepest wish to become one with it, for a wall stands there for many years and becomes stained with the marks of age.

She is choosing not to live; not to go on, not to step into the empty darkness of the open room. She is choosing not to live. Parvati will no longer be inflicted with the wounds of life, decides Padma, and neither shall I.

In reality Padma cannot see that the room is full of light, and it is just like any other day to someone else. The light streams in through the high windows, streaking merrily across low seated furniture and embroidered, colourful cushions.

But Padma does not see the light, and instead hides herself in her corner. There should be no light, she has convinced herself. And there will be no light, no light without Parvati.

(I like her on the floor as apposed to spontaneously sitting in a chair, so I don’t think the two pieces should be connected. I like the first part as a Prologue sort of thing, but I’m interested in your opinion. The first is a lot more grief stricken than the second, which is a more resolved, hostile piece in my opinion. The above, she is vulnerable, the below she’s started her journey and is closing everyone off, so that’s their differences in my mind.)

Every breath is forced out between dry lips. Every rise and fall of her chest is filled with pain, and yet her body does not part from her soul. Not a word escapes her as angry eyes do all the talking and command silence in the room.

People bustle around the room as normal, taking no notice of Padma. They are worried for her, yes, but they hide their pain away in a locked vault inside of themselves along with another pain, less fresh but still sore to the touch. They choose to ignore the situation, because it is easier.

Padma despises them. She is angry, and angry tears fall onto her hollow grey-tinged cheeks. She has not slept, has not spoken a word for a week. Hunger eats away at her insides but not a morsel of food passes between her gritted teeth. It is a personal battle she will not loose.

They whisper in the corners of the room that she cannot see, so she swivels in her chair to glare at them contemptuously. She cannot see, cannot comprehend why they can go on living life when they clearly have no control over what happens.

But Padma has all the control. Or at least she thinks she does.

Her eyelids flutter closed and she braces herself as another rolling pain of fresh guilt settles over her mind and she suppresses yet another thought of her sister.

She wants to forget. Oh, how glorious it would be to forget and pretend, just like them, that nothing had ever happened. But what Padma has deluded herself into thinking is that they go along, forgetting her sister while in sharp contrast, they still mourn her. They still hurt, but in Padma’s mind, to hurt is not enough.

The lamp flickers in the corner and her eyes are drawn to it, the long, fragile eyelashes quivering as they observe the erratic behaviour. The liquid brown eyes search the lamp blindy as she searches within herself for reason. She stares at the shade, shadowed in some places and illuminated in others and feels like weeping.

Her eyes are the only part of her that are moist. Her skin is parched, screaming noiselessly for hydration in the thick stifling heat of the room during the day. Her hair hangs in lank greasy coils around her, unbraided. All fineries and hygiene is set aside, because she is sacrificing it to win her fight.

Padma will win Pavarti’s soul back. It’s not where it’s supposed to be, she is chatting inside her mind childishly. It’s not near me, it’s not where it’s supposed to be.

[COLOR="Red"]They ruined it.[/COLOR] (This is where I’m dubious as to whether death eaters have done the wrong thing with her body. I think at the moment, that main plot is too complicated so she may just have died as a casualty of war fighting in the OoTP or something.)

Her head pounds and the pain sears across her forehead. She fits in her chair until someone from the room runs with a scream to help her, to pull her back, away from her sister.

The woman’s hands touch her cheeks and cradle her head to her breast, but Padma resists her with stony silence and wills with every fibre of her body for this woman to leave her alone.

She stares at her mother with spiteful eyes, hateful eyes. The day Pavarti had died, the day they had taken her sister was the day Padma had lost all rationality, for what was there in life that made sense without her sister?

(This is a lot further on in the plot than the above two excerpts. This is before she “meets” Yama. This is her about to peak in her insanity.)

The pain fills her head, throbbing, probing and demanding. It dig deeper, maliciously tugging inside her head. It is cruel, unnerving and just when Padma feels as though she is going to burst, she screams in vain to the walls of her darkened room. She screams in anger, in anguish. She hurts. She shatters, shrieking uncontrollably as she breaks her vow of silence and the pain floods into her mind.

He wild cries of pain fill the house and those inside turn in wonder at the unearthly sounds she is making, because finally, she is feeling it. She is not numbed to the pain.

And then all is calm. All is silent, painless. The only sounds are her erratic breathing and

Threads on MNFF BB that are applicable (If you're on the boards, please contribute):

[x]Lurid's Lack of Light.

EoM excerpt - Lurid's Lack of Light

2007-01-12T00:04:13Z

In a dark and forgotten room in her home, she is pressing herself into a corner, desperate for something to cling onto. Although there are two walls firmly behind her, there is still all the space in front of her in the vicinity of the room to play with her mind, to taunt her.

Tears leak from her red rimmed eyes, and she turns her head to the side. It thumps against the wall, and she crumples, sinking to the deeply carpeted wall in silent, wracking sobs as her mouth opens in a min-manacled silence.

She will not cry aloud. She herself will die inside, but that in itself will not take her closer to her beloved. She is hiding herself in her shoulder, beneath her thick dark hair and drawing in silent breaths of anguish as she presses herself further into the wall. It is her deepest wish to become one with it, for a wall stands there for many years and becomes stained with the marks of age.

She is choosing not to live. She is choosing not to go on, not to step into the empty darkness of the open room and risk living. Pavarti shall no longer be inflicted with the wounds of life, decides Padma, and neither shall I.

In reality the room is full of light, and it is just like any other day to someone else. The light is streaming in through the high windows, streaking merrily across low seated furniture and embroidered, colourful cushions.

But Padma does not see the light, and instead hides herself in her corner. There should be no light, she has convinced herself. And there will be no light, no light without Pavarti.

[x]Forums Post

Ravenclaw Exchnage for Vindictus Viridian

2007-01-01T10:13:13Z

Merry Christmas, v_viridian

‘I don’t think you should be an Auror, Harry,’ said Luna unexpectedly. Everybody looked at her. ‘The Aurors are part of the Rotfang Conspiracy, I thought everyone knew that. They’re working fro, within to bring down the Ministry if Magic using a Brand of Dark magic and gum disease.’

Severus felt the derision building up inside him, the Lovegood girl beamed absentmindedly, and Potter drowned himself in his Butterbeer. Likewise, Trelawney was a ridiculous sight, glittering like some over grown insect that needed a good spray of Muggle Fly Spray. He glowered at the two of them and stalked away.

Who did the girl think she was, assuming that it was all the Aurors? Of course, the death eaters had a hand in it. They’d been planning the ambush for Christmastime, plotting from within the Auror headquarters and now will all the seriousness of this new revelation, he’d have to send word to his master that they’d have to carry out their plan… on New Years Eve. See, what the silly girl didn’t understand was that when you’ve been fighting evil for so long, and you’ve seen all the strengths and the effort it takes you to take them down – well, the rewards seem bigger and the grass; the grass is so much greener.

*

‘So how are you plotting to stop them, dear?’ inquired Trelawney.

‘Well,’ said Luna enthusiastically, ‘I was thinking of warm hugs and lots, and lots of toothpaste and floss.’

Those in the general vicinity stepped back slowly. ‘Toothpaste,’ said Trelawney, widening her eyes. ‘What on earth is that going to do?’

‘Well, everyone knows that when you brush your teeth, it only makes up half your mouth, and yours gum are important, pretty, pink and neglected too, so why shouldn’t they have something to combat the gum disease?’

‘Okay, dear.’ Trelawney patted her absentmindedly on the shoulder and opened a small hip flask from which she took a quick swig, smiled unfocusedly and tottered off, slurring slightly and giggling.

‘I was also considering…’ she heard Luna’s voice melt into the crowd as she tottered out of the dungeon and up to her Tower.

Up in the Tower, she went over and tapped the crystal ball on one of those tables. Look at those tables! she thought. They’re so weird! bursting into a fit of giggles, she plunked herself down and closed her hands dramatically.

‘I call upon the ancient powers to warm my hands and stop the wrinkles of age!’ she cried to the empty classroom. The heat from the fire was on her face, and it was making her feel very night, thank you very much.

She caressed the crystal ball lovingly. ‘You’re a pretty ball,’ she said lowering her face to the ball’s surface and whispering sweet nothings. ‘Such a pretty, pretty ball. You know, I could hook you up with that pretty funny looking table over there. Your guys could make sweet, sweet predictions.’ She stroked the translucent surface.

‘I proclaim impending doom, yo?’ screamed the crystal ball. ‘Gum disease… on your knees… begging me please…’

Trelawney stared at the singing, rapping crystal ball. It stayed there, innocently looking up at her. She shrugged and tottered over to the cupboard where she smiled and took out a bottle of sherry. Glancing around, she raised the bottle to her lips and downed half the bottle in one go. Everything seemed… blurry. Blurry was good. That winged chair was good… so blue. Pretty Blue,’ she thought, edging closer and collapsing into it.

Within seconds, the half-empty bottle dropped to the floor with a thunk, and Sybill Trelawney was fast asleep, snoring her head off.

*

‘Wake up!’

Trelawney snorted, sitting bolt upright. Someone had been holding her nose and pulling her eyebrows up. And that person was Luna Lovegood.

‘What are you doing here, my dear?’ she asked groggily, throwing Luna a dirty look with her heavy, half-opened eyes.

‘We’re going to the Ministry!’

‘The Ministry, dear, why?’

‘Because we have to head those Aurors off! They’re planning to corrupt the Ministry and we’ve got to stop them.’

Trelawney stirred and focused in on Luna, which was proving quite difficult. ‘What… what have you got there, dear?’

‘What, this?’ Luna looked down at the basket she was carrying. It was half-full of half-used toothpaste tubes and a few bottles of Listerine. ‘Oh, it’s just to help combat the gum disease side of things.’

‘The gum disease side? My dear, you can’t possibly believe that the Aurors on our side are going to join His side, and be aided by rotting gums!’ She raised one hand to her head and whispered, ‘And please, do be quiet.’

‘Well,’ said Luna from the fireplace. She’d already thrown some power into the flames and had clambered in, clutching her wicker basket full of anti-tooth decay products. The green flames whirled, and Luna was gone.

“Alright my dearie… ouch!’

Trelawney stamped her foot on the ground and scowled at the snickering paintings.

‘You’re supposed to put the powder in first,’ said one smugly.

*

‘Dear, we’re about to get into A LOT of trouble.’

Luna waved her away and opened the door. Aurors were working hard at their desks… and each of them had a pile of candy canes a foot high!

‘Look at them!’ whispered Luna. ‘They’re rotting their teeth on purpose!’

‘I believe it’s called becoming “festively plump”,’ said Trelawney dryly. ‘They can fix that with a bit of Sherry…’ she muttered.

‘Stop right now!’ demanded Luna, pulling two tubes of toothpaste out of her basket and holding them like firearms.

Kingsley Shacklebolt poked his head around the corner. ‘Miss Lovegood, put down your toothpaste as let me get back to my candy canes,’ he said slowly.

Trelawney lurked meekly in the background, because really, she had no idea what the author, or Luna was going to do next. She was still fighting the hangover, and unfortunately, neither the hangover nor Luna had vanished.

‘I’m going to paint this town white,’ said Luna confidently, unflicking or unscrewing the cap of the toothpaste, whatever proved most British.

She leapt upon the nearest Auror, and Trelawney winced as she heard a bang of an office chair hitting the ground.

‘But it’s got a great refreshing taste!’ she heard Luna say brightly to one protesting Auror.

*

‘You know Luna; there are various types of toothpaste now. Some make your teeth whiter, some taste different, and some – why some fight cavities!’ said Trelawney brightly. With her hangover receding and Luna’s antics finished with, with the promise of more sherry waiting back at Hogwarts, she was in high Holidays spirits indeed.

‘Oh.’ They walked through the halls of the Atrium in silence, for a few seconds, anyway. ‘How do you make a hanky dance?’ Luna asked Trelawney.

‘Oh, well, I assume that one would pick up the said hanky and-’

‘Put a little boogey in it!’ said Luna, shaking with mirth.

They were silent again for a moment while Trelawney stared at her quizzically. She opened her mouth a couple of times, but it wasn’t until they were in the elevator and the cool female voice said sleepily, ‘The Atrium. And we’re not antipodean here. It’s nighttime. Now scoot.’ The elevator ejected them out into the Atrium, and spat out their belongings.

‘Hey! It’s THEM!’ one death eater that could have quite possibly been Severus Snape shouted, although it couldn’t possibly have been Severus Snape because Severus Snape was good, and was at Hogwarts.

Luna registered the long sentence and tried again. A death eater shouted, ‘Hey! It’s THEM!’ and suddenly she was in tune with the story again. From her basket, she pulled out what looked like a long ball of sticky twine. It smelt faintly of peppermint and bubblegum…

‘Retreat! RETREAT! They’re got FLOSS!’

The death eaters screamed and ran to hide behind Voldemort. Voldemort grinned and Luna saw with dismay that he was all gums – not a tooth in sight!

‘No teeth, you old gummy?’ teased Luna.

‘I used to have teeth,’ said Voldemort glumly. ‘But hey, I’m like, eighty or something. Shouldn’t I have lost my teeth anyway?’

‘Immortality doesn’t come with teeth or dentures,’ said Luna wisely, nodding her head.

‘Yeah, I guess I should have invested in some sort of dental plan, hey,’ said Voldemort, scratching the back of his baldhead. ‘Oh well. Can’t make much of a difference now. YOU DIE NOW!’

‘I believe the correct term in fanfiction is ‘pwn’, isn’t it?’ Luna asked, advancing towards Voldemort with a tube of toothpaste behind her back. ‘And aren’t you being rather out of character for an evil villain?’

Voldemort looked at her death eaters hiding behind his posterior for back up confirmation. ‘Well, you can hardly blame me for being sore! I never had a grey hair to being to slowly appreciate the loss of my youth – I never had time to adjust! It was all too traumatic! And as for the correct term, I suppose so-’

‘I pwn you!’ cried Luna, jumping up and squirting toothpaste into her mouth. She unsheathed her toothbrush from her skirt and stuffed it in his mouth, working it around to his disgust and latched on tight, ignoring the flailing and saying ‘Now, it’s important to massage gums when children are teething because it stimulates the teeth beneath the gums-’

‘I don’t have new teeth coming in!’ warbled Voldemort, spitting out minty fresh white throth dribbling from his mouth.

‘I know that, silly, but it fights cavities on teeth, roots and GUMS,’ she said, still brushing. ‘And it’s got a nice refreshing taste according to the bottle.’ She moved onto his tongue and he gagged. ‘Now SPIT!’

He spat out on the Atrium floor and stared at her with distaste.

‘Now, rinse with Listerine! It’ll kill any nasties! It fights tartar build up, kills germs that cause bad breath, plaque and gingivitis!’

‘I… I…’ panted Voldemort. ‘I feel… cold. And burning, at the same time. Millions of bubbles or evil Listerine in my mouth!’ All this was said with a tight-lipped struggle against the sloshing Listerine inside his mouth. He swallowed it whole and panted.

‘You… weren’t supposed to swallow it,’ said Luna slowly. ‘Haven’t you seen the add? He explodes.’ She watched as Voldemort froze and burped a blue bubble. He began to shake his head violently, and then stopped. Luna peered into his slitted red eyes. Trelawney hug back, picking up the scattered toothpaste tubes. She accidentally stepped on one, and toothpaste shot all over the floor.

‘Oh, shoot,’ she muttered, wiping it up with her finger.

Meanwhile, Voldemort had dropped to the floor and Luna snorted. ‘Lord Voldemort pwn’d by Listerine.’

Lucius stepped forward. Obviously, it couldn’t have been Snape, because Snape was at Hogwarts, and he was supposed to be good, Luna supposed. What a spoilsport.

‘Isn’t the Dark Lord only supposed to be defeated by Harry Potter?’

Luna considered. ‘Would you believe me if I told you Harry dropped a rare, deadly, invisible, odorless poison into the Listerine?’

Lucius sneered. ‘I daresay it has a rather technical name?’

Trelawney tottered over and came to Luna’s rescue. ‘Why,’ she said dramatically, taking the bottle from Luna’s limp arm, ‘That would be-’ she read from the bottle ‘-Benzoic Acid. 1.5mg per bottle. Strong stuff. Haven’t you seen the add? Makes the pipes blow up.’

Lucius paled.

The death eaters remembered that they too were in the story, and paled.

The author remembered all the Aurors waiting for confirmation and closure, and paled.

‘How about we take this Listerine and end it, and then the author won’t have to finish the story?’ suggested Luna, toying with the cap on her bottle of the Listerine.

‘I say that’s a good idea. Plus, it’ll smell good while it burns a hole in our stomachs. It ‘has a fresh Winter Mint flavour’, apparently. I say bottoms up!’ She lifted the one-liter bottle of blue Listerine containing the ingredient Benzoic Acid 1.5mg/1000mL to her lips and downed the bottle in one go, watching Luna do the same.

‘Phew,’ said Luna, breathing in through her nose. ‘My breath is cold! And it’s…’

Thump.

So, it's an unsual present for a SPEW buddy...

2006-12-23T15:11:29Z

But I adored her card, and thought seeing as the theme was dogs, I should add a little extra detail or two...

Sirius mournfully wandered around the snowed in streets of Hogsmeade. He could see the lights twinkling in the pubs at the end of the street, and as he shuddered, his lean form begged him for shelter and warmth that came with the bar. But not only were Sirius Blacks prohibited in the Hog’s Head, dogs were strictly banned too. Suddenly, his nose smelt a familiar smell, and he rounded a familiar bend. Trotting faster through the freezing snow that bit at his paws, he tried to ignore the frost that was forming on the pads on the bottom of his feet. As he neared the quiet little house, he ducked his head in remembrance and gratitude for the woman that lived there…

*

‘Yeh’ve got another mutt, have yeh Mopsy?’

‘Hello, Rubeus!’ trilled Mopsy, flicking a grey curl out of her eye and behind her ear with one, short, efficient sweep. She smiled, and her cheeks dimpled in the corners. All around her swarmed dogs of every shape and size. One was gnawing on her house slippers, another sniffing suspiciously at the hem of her slightly dirty skirt.

Hagrid pointed to a rather fine looking dog, regardless of the mud caked across its back and the stray whiskers sprouting from its muzzle. ‘New dog, eh? Mebe Fang’ll be wanting someone to have around in the hut. Always thought of getting another dog,’ Hagrid said wistfully.

‘He’s a stray, Rubeus. He’s poorly, starved and malnourished, but once he’s well I’ll send him on over. Just mind that that nasty piece of work Argus Filch doesn’t find him. I swear, that scoundrel and his cat! She’s a piece of work, herself – and she’s a cat! A mangy, dirty, filthy beastly cat,’ she swore.

Hagrid guffawed. ‘I’ll admit she is a pain in the rear. Where’d you find the new one, anyway?’

Mopsy absentmindedly guided the dogs forwards with her hands, towards her little green house on the corner. ‘Oh, I was out walking the puppies one night and came across him staring up at the school. He ran up to me, happy as Larry and ran straight past me into my front yard! I couldn’t help but keep the poor thing, dirty and starving! His poor ribs were sticking out, looked like he hadn’t had a meal for a month or two.’ She laughed affectionately, scratching the black dog under its jaw.

The dog barked happily and its tongue flopped out, waving in the breeze. It casually lopped around, barking insanely until Mopsy gathered him up in her arms, laughing softly. She whistled, calling the other six or seven dogs with her, and Hagrid had to spin on his right leg to avoid one little Scotty dog that was sniffing Hagrid’s left boot, ready to lift his leg.

‘Come on you,’ she crooned, clicking her fingers until the Scotty dog came.

‘I’ll see you another time, Rubeus. And don’t let that cat get the better of Fang!’ She waved to Hagrid, and he chortled a reply.

‘Only if yeh stop taking in strays! They’ll be taking over yeh house soon!’ He walked away, towards the Hog’s Head happily, whistling a tune.

Dark was falling as they neared the end of the lane and turned into the lush, happy little lane. Turning the corner she opened the sweet garden gate and pattered inside, taking care not to step on any of the dogs’ tails, and making sure they weren’t stepping in any of her flower beds. Gathering them all around on the little patch of snowed on, white grass out the front donated to their doings, she frowned. The hedges were covered in white, so it was quite possible that her little whiter dogs could be hiding, but the black dog? Surely he’d be easily distinguishable.

‘Stanley? Stanley?’ she whistled to the newcomer, the black dog. Suddenly, she heard a yelping. Grabbing her wand from her pocket, she ran out into the street, landing heavily on the sidewalk as she jumped over the black dog’s lifeless form.

‘Be gone! Leave here!’ Mopsy brandished her wand at the eerily floating creature. A death rattle sounded in its throat, and Mopsy drove the Dementor back with a fierce jabbing of her wand.

‘Expecto Patronum!’ she pointed her wand at the Dementor and called upon her favourite, dearest memory with all her strength.

Mopsy is just a young girl, flighty and free. Suddenly, a round of applause goes up, and attention is focused on her in the ring.

‘Begin,’ says Mospy, pointing. She gestures towards the dog run, and guides her young Labrador towards the first jump. Amazingly, she completes the whole course perfectly.

Posey barks and stands erectly, wonderfully tall as they present her with her blue ribbon. Mospy grins lopsidedly and bends down to let her prize dog lick her face…

A huge, thundering dog flew out of the wand tip, rearing up and attacking the Dementor with its claws. Bouncing around on its hind legs, like Mopsy had taught her to, Posey barked and threatened the Dementor with her silvery paws.

The Dementor flew back into its guard position at the gate to Hogwarts, and Mopsy grunted, clicking her fingers so that her Patronus would return to her feet obediently.

‘Good girl, Posey! Fighting off the nasty, big, mean Dementor like that! Good girl!’ she patted Posey on the head gratefully, and the dog grinned a doggie grin and faded into silver mist.

‘Stanley! Stanley! Where have you got to, silly doggie?’ Mopsy called across the street. She heard a distant growling and barking coming from her living room and she hurriedly flew across the street in her carpet slippers.

Inside was a nightmare. Dogs were snarling, ripping up the lounge and its cushions with their teeth, snapping and barking at each other – or so it seemed. As Mopsy got closer, she was on the verge of tears. All her precious dogs – Exi, Aska, Anna, Scottie – they were all attacking her newest friend Stanley, and she couldn’t bear it!

‘Stanley!’ she whimpered, stroking his back and waving the other dogs away angrily. They seemed to sense that they had done something terrible and they walked away whining, their tails between their legs and let Mopsy fuss over Stanley, or Sirius, with loving hands and an experienced eye.

‘Nothing I can’t fix, my pet. All I can suggest for now is to let me clean your wounds with what I have and go and get some disinfectant. I ran out last time I let Scottie run wild in my rose bush.’ She patted his flank encouragingly, and Sirius smiled a doggie smile through his obvious pain.

Sirius wandered into the bathroom and curled up into a ball as he heard Mospy fussing around, gathering things to take with her to go buy the required medicines for Sirius. He yawned, and fell into an exhaustion-induced slumber.

He woke up some time later to hear whining of the other dogs and their nails scratching against the bathroom door. They could smell a fake. He straightened up and transformed, grateful to be out of his squashed, Animagus form.

Sirius winced as he peeled off his torn Azkaban robes. Bloody scrapes stretched down his wasted back, over protruding bones and gaunt ribs. Shimmying out of his blood-soaked robes was painful, but he was determined to have a bath and clean up before Mopsy got home and started calling him ‘Stanley’ again.

He was just easing himself into the quaint little tub when he heard the front door bang shut. Too weak to transform into his Animagus form again, he leapt into the half-full bath and turned off the taps with an abrupt yank of his hands on the faucets. He hastily pulled the shower curtain around him, but it was too late. He heard Mopsy’s footsteps coming closer and closer to the bathroom as he sunk deeper into the bath.

‘NO, no! Down Exi! Down girl! Run along and play with Aska! Let me go to the bathroom!’

Sirius’ eyes widened. He peeked past the shower curtain just as the dreaded woman entered. Damning himself and his torn and bloody clothes, he lay even lower in the bath, but held his head above the water so he didn’t gurgle.

The sound of a toilet lid lift and the creak of the seat, as she sat her ample behind down on the toilet, was almost too much for Sirius to visualise. He scrunched his eyes shut and imagined that he was anywhere, anywhere else but a tiny crowded bathroom in which he was hiding in a bathtub and a middle aged witch was doing her business on a toilet five feet away.

He heard the toilet paper spin on the holder and breathed a sigh of relief as the seat creaked and she got up off, flushing the toilet and turning on the tap. Sirius took a few panting breaths as the water stung his fresh wounds, but misjudged the time of the water hitting the basin and took one breath too many.

‘I didn’t forget to pull back that shower curtain, did I now?’ said Mopsy curiously. Sirius panicked and covered himself the best he could, but when Mopsy yanked back the shower curtain with a broad grin on her face, it quickly disappeared and turned into a look of horror.

‘Sirius Black! Sirius Black naked in my bathtub! Oh, woe! Oh, merciless demi-gods! Oh, fiends!’ she screamed, running from the bathroom and Sirius winced as he heard her trip over one of her precious dogs in the cluttered living room.

He pulled himself out of the bath and dressed in his ragged clothes as quickly as he could… if only he could get to her and explain before…

‘Sirius Black! Sirius Black in my bathroom!’ she shrieked to the neighbours.

‘Quieten down, Mospy you old fool! I’ve had enough of those barking dogs, I don’t need an old coot screaming and ranting about an escaped murderer in her lavatory late at night!’ The sound of a slamming door and a furious Mopsy could distinctly be heard from the bathroom. Smirking, Sirius turned back into the large, loping black dog and padded out into the living room. The other dogs observed him warily, smart enough not to engage in another fight.

‘Oh, Stanley you poor thing! Where did you come from?’ Mospy ran up to Sirius and scratched him between the ears on the crown of his head, irritated, he turned away and suddenly, to Mopsy’s horror turned back into Sirius.

‘You… you… ’ Mopsy was speechless, her hands shooting to her mouth in fright. She backed away.

‘No,’ croaked Sirius, stepping nearer hastily. ‘No.’

‘No, what?’ trembled Mopsy. ‘You’re a murderer. You’re going to murder me, and my precious dogs! I knew there was a reason they attacked you!’ She pointed her finger at him, and Sirius almost smiled at the clearly noticeable wobble.

‘I’m not a murderer. And I’m not going to hurt you, or your dogs.’

‘You’re not?’ she fell back onto her tea-cosied lounge but didn’t back away further.

‘No. I just needed a place to hide from the Dementors until I could get into Hogwarts.’

‘You wanted to get into Hogwarts! You wanted to kill the Potter boy! Ooh, you fiend!’ she threw a crotched pillow at him and Sirius ducked, amazed. The dogs growled and closed in around him, digging their claws into the carpet.

‘No,’ he said adamantly. ‘I don’t want to kill Potter. I want to tell him I didn’t kill his parents. Or Peter Pettigrew.’ Sirius was amazed at himself. Why was he telling this old coot all this?

Mopsy’s eyes softened. ‘You were such a good dog, Stanley. Such a good dog. I suppose I can forgive you?’

Sirius shook his head. She was batty. No wonder her neighbours didn’t like her. ‘No… I just wanted to stay long enough to thank you for warding off the Dementors. You saved my life.’

‘You’re welcome any time dear, but first let me clean those scrapes of yours…’

*

Sirius bowed his head as he strolled past Mospy’s house. The lights were off, and the snow was lightly coating the front yard, but if he looked close enough, he could see the bowl of water and dog food that she left out for him every night. Mopsy still took good care of him, and he would eternally be grateful to the dog-crazed woman that saved his life.

Merry Christmas, Hun!

♥

(thanks to Gary and Ilka for betaing!)

An Irreplaceable Gift / Photograph of Admiration

2006-12-18T14:05:02Z

Written for Marie because she was lovely and asked me… very, very nicely to write a pairing I’d never ever considered before.

Colin sighs, and wades his way through the paperwork. It balances on the side of his desk usually, but today it has decided to fall. He reaches down and picks up a piece of paper, and frowns and pushes it into his pocket. Swiftly, his shoes move through the mess of his office at the Daily Prophet. Pictures litter the floor, and slowly float downwards from the neat pile they had been. That is until Colin throws them on the floor in anger.

His prized camera sits in place of pride on his desk, on the two square inches of desk denoted to it amongst all the calamity. He sighs and sweeps everything back into a bundle on his desk. His camera is hidden from view, and again, Colin is ashamed.

Sighing, he walks down the hall mopping his brow. He approaches the front desk of the Daily Prophet and takes the paper out.

Anger runs through his veins as he looks at the name printed on the paper. The sweltering heat of the office is nothing compared to the heat that is flushing his face. His face is fevered, and his fingers scrabble impatiently at the scarf on his neck, and the gloves that thicken his fingers. He’s boiling, inside and out in this infuriating, stuffy office building.

He clenches his hands and thumps them down on the counter. The polished counter top is marred by the marks of sweaty palms, but Colin doesn’t care, he keeps on gesturing to the paper and yelling. How dare they, he says. How dare they invade his privacy?

The receptionist is cool, calm and collected. She says in snippy, icy cool tones that Colin’s boss is nowhere to be seen. And really, she adds, it’s not his problem.

Wherever there is news, there is Colin needed to take pictures.

He turns on his heel, wrenches open the front door, and is hit by a blizzard. He ignores the look being thrown at the back of his head, and steps out into the frigid cold with his hands jammed deep into his pockets.

He pushes through the door to the apartment that he shares with Dennis. There are books and clothes strewn across the lounge, but Colin sits down tiredly, rubbing the heels of his palms into his eyes in frustration.

Harry Potter. The two words that he had least expected. Colin had been told - no, conscripted - to take potentially incriminating pictures of Harry Potter.

His childhood friend, former schoolmate, former idol.

Her frowns and wipes his hands on the cushions. He picks up a magazine, and splashed across the cover is something that Colin is disgusted with. A picture that Colin took, in order to save his job. He’d been so angry. So, so angry. But he’d taken the picture, because his job at the Prophet had depended on it.

Harry is wildly trying to avoid the camera, but he doesn’t succeed. Colin was hiding in the bushes. He had to do his job. The snow is still falling serenely as he throws the cover down on the coffee table.

But still, he’s angry. He hurts. It’s a dull ache inside of him – because he loves Harry. Loves. He adores him. Idolises him. Harry Potter. The picture is black and white, but etched into the pigments is Colin’s pain. The awkward angle, the blurred image. Certainly not his best picture, but Colin doesn’t care. This was a matter of getting the job done, not about producing quality work.

Dennis enters the room and Colin is spent. He looks at his brother’s mousy brown hair and small features, and turns away. He is haggard, old inside. Too many thoughts have worn down his body until he really just feels like an empty, guilty shell inside.

‘After Potter again, Colin?’ snickers Dennis. But Dennis doesn’t understand. Dennis doesn’t know the extremes Colin goes to for Harry in his mind. Colin doesn’t like him physically. It is his mind he admires. It is the inside – the morals, the courage, the immunity – that Colin truly adores. Colin rules his life by standards. He is constantly thinking, will this action discount me from ever being loved by Harry? If I do this, will Harry hate me? He sobers, and thinks forlornly that now, there is no chance that Harry will love him. No chance, because he has broken Harry’s trust.

He stands, staring at the worn paint on the blue door to the apartment. The last thing he remembers is analysing how the paint peels back from the sculpted edge of the wood and curls down to meet the peep hole that Colin has stared out millions of times, hoping that one day it will be Harry Potter’s bespectacled face staring back at him.

He doesn’t know how he comes to be on the streets of London. He vaguely remembers slamming a door. Screaming and yelling, pale, white faces poking out from the neighboring windows curiously. But Colin doesn’t care as he scuffs his toes on the concrete paths. The grass is wet, heavy with the evening dew, and the street lights flicker on and off ominously as he nears the pub that he used to call his home. His camera case bounces against his hip, and Colin wonders furiously what prompted him to bring it – what was it that convinced his subconscious that the root of the problem could be the solution?

He skips off the guttered kerb and onto the road. The dirty streets of London become dangerous in the part he is briskly walking through, his legs pounding their own rhythm, their frustration, on the cobbled path. His feet walk numbly without assistance from his mind; it’s too far away. It’s concentrating on finding one person, on seeking out one special person.

He enters the heavy, damp pub. The air is thick with heat, and Colin’s back is cold as he enters the pub slowly, dusting off his hat and jacket from the late December snow. It blusters in, and he receives filthy looks from those huddled within their own deluded worlds as they imagine the heat they’re soaking up from the pitiful fire in a small grate in the far corner.

He nods at the barman, and the barman, having seen Colin before, steps forward wordlessly. He shows him upstairs to a bedroom, and suddenly Colin is no longer driven. He lies, dead tired on the bed, and buries his face in his hands.

‘What am I doing here?’ he cries to the empty walls, peeling of their paint and shabby in their appearance. ‘Am I in love? Am I deluded? Or am I simply tired?’

But the walls do not answer him. They gaze blankly back at him as he stares, unfocused, out the snow-splattered window. The flakes gather on the windowsill and fog up the reinforced glass. Unseen trains and buses pass through the hidden Muggle streets below, and it is finally his ragged breathing that lulls him into a state of self-security and tiredness as he finally collapses, fully clothed on his bed.

Tomorrow, he decides, will be the day he goes to Harry and asks for his forgiveness, and possibly, his love.

The snow is still slick on the cobbled streets. It’s falling, and melting as it hits the stones warmed by the winter sun. As Colin steps out into the sunlight, he feels as if the sun is melting the cold, frigid exterior of his heart. The frigid and frozen casing that caused him to take such a picture.

Colin is in two minds. He admires Harry. He half wanted to take that picture, to be that close to him. He felt guilty pleasure in balancing that camera in his hands. He had considered turning and fleeing, but as the warm sun cascades onto his shoulders, Colin decides to put all guilty, pleasurable thoughts behind him.

He kicks a small pebble across the street and cracks a smile as it bounces and lands at the door to Flourish and Blotts. He squares his shoulders and steps inside.

A bell tinkles overhead, and Colin is drawn out of his focused reverie. The books. The smells. The people. He searches through the late-Christmas shoppers bickering and fighting. Amongst all the frantic witches and wizards, only two people in the entire shop are calm. Colin balances the camera he brought under his arm protectively as he shoves his way through the crowd.

His jacket catches on a woman’s elbow, and his eyes break contact with the back of a jet black head, and he is lost. But as he apologises to the woman and she turns back to examining the blurb of a thick book, he is amazed to find Harry looking straight at him.

Colin’s face lights up, but the glee dies in his heart as Harry scans vacantly over the tops of the shopper’s heads. He bends down to his books again, and Colin is determined to move his way through the overflow of people.

He reaches up to touch Harry’s arm, and falters. Colin stares into Harry’s eyes as he turns around. At first, Harry’s eyes widen and he starts to brush off Colin’s arms. But then, as if by a miraculous chance – he grins with recognition.

Inexplicably a smile beams across his face, and Colin feels himself melt inside. Not in adoration, but admiration. He suddenly realises exactly what had been lying dormant in the back of his thoughts. He – Colin – doesn’t love Harry. Colin admires him. He admires him for his courage, his personality – honestly, Colin believes he is everything he himself cannot possibly measure up to.

‘Colin,’ said Harry happily. Colin beams, and envelopes Harry in a hug. It feels different, now. He doesn’t love Harry, not in that way.

Fantasies come and go, thinks Colin as he pats Harry on the back and chatters merrily about the Nargle infestation. But, the admiration will always come before the adoration. As Harry questions Colin about his photography, Colin hangs his head, disappointed. He wonders, does Harry already know that Colin took the picture?

Colin can see in Harry’s eyes the forgiveness. He can see the hurt, but he can see that Harry is ready to forgive him, in the deepest sections of those wonderful, entrancing eyes. Harry nods, and Colin is gone. He is floating, free. Freer than he had ever felt. There are no longer any standards. Colin breathes, and it feels free. It feels like his own breath, and as he sees Harry’s gaze upon him out of his peripheral vision, he smiles.

luridfanfiction @ 2006-12-18T23:22:00

2006-12-18T12:22:56Z

The light caressed her face and made her mouth tweak slightly in her sleep. Dreaming was obviously the place to be. She clung to the sheets in an attempt to stay in the lucid dream she happily inhabited, but slowly she regained consciousness and frowned as she rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands.

She sat up and saw the clock. The unforgiving glare of the digital red numbers read 05:45. She sighed and banged at it several times with her open palm for the snooze button.

Grinning satisfyingly, she fell back into her sleep, one hand under the base of her neck and the other somewhere under the heavy blankets that were wrapped around her body.

Her feet stuck out the other end and she shivered slightly. Opening one eye cautiously, she eyed the clock again. 05:47, it read. She groaned. She wasn’t going to get back to sleep again. Not now, anyway.

Taking a great effort and moaning to no one in particular other than herself and the cursed alarm clock, she threw back the covers and shuddered involuntarily as the chill hit her toes.

Thumping her way to the bathroom and wincing at the light pouring in through the bedroom window, she looked out her open bedroom door and down the stairs. The kitchen was just as she’d left it the night before, with the melted bowl of ice cream on the bench and the spoon lying next to it, reflecting the morning sun off the surface.

Stepping into the shower, she undid her hair from the loose ponytail and rolled her neck as the water sprayed out from the faucet and each little drop hit with a vendetta against the sore, over stretched muscles in her back.

Feeling slightly more human as she stepped out of the shower into the steamy bathroom, she yawned as her stomach grumbled. She pulled an oversized man’s shirt off the back of the door, considered a dressing gown, and passed over it in favour of the old, holey button down shirt.

She half fell, half thudded down the heavy wooden stairs of her small terrace house. There were so many small rooms, and so many interesting features to the house that before long, Anna had started to call it a home. The taps were always leaking whenever they were screwed on as tightly as possible, the carpet on the top of the stairs worn and dirty, and the mirror in the bathroom and bedroom spotty with dust and dirt in the corners. Her dressing table full of different smelling creams and smells, and her bathroom cluttered with an array of useless products, tampons, toilet paper and the occasional magazine, Anna felt as though she lived and breathed her very own, special air when she was in her own home.

Padding into the kitchen, she opened the fridge and stood there, the edge of the shirt brushing against her thighs. Reaching out and selecting a carton of milk, she blanched when the sour odour hit her nose.

“Bleugh.” She chucked it in the bin with a look of distaste on her face.

Breakfast having been decided, she ran back upstairs, ducking when she came to the landing from the level above her. She nearly almost hit her head on the roof. It wasn’t always good being hellishly tall.

Pushing open the bedroom door, she almost screeched with impatience at the clock. It now read 06:23. She sighed and considered calling in late for work. She also considered her water bill. She needed the money more than the sleep. Stepping over a pair of underwear and a sock, she moved towards the wardrobe and pulled out a pencil skirt and blouse. Rooting through her knicker drawer, she secured a pair of pantyhose and stepped into the skirt, then the heels.

Getting down on her hands and knees she said, “Ha!” as her arm reached out and grabbed the leather suitcase under her bed. Blowing her hair out of her eyes as she fell back onto her knees, she decided she could skip the makeup this morning.

Stepping quickly down her stairs one at a time in her heels, she skittered across the hall and out the front door, grabbing her keys as she went. Closing and locking the door, she then ran down the front path and yanked open the door to her car. Not thinking what she was doing, she started to pull away from the curb without putting her seatbelt on.

Taking a moment to compose herself, she said, “Anna. Your brain is fried. You need food.” Instead of turning right like she had anticipated, she pulled away from the curb and took of down the street at a smooth, rolling pace to her favourite coffee shop.

Rolling up beside the small café, Anna checked her watch. She didn’t remember putting it on, but supposed rather that she’d slept in it and it’d gotten wet in the shower. She tapped it, and pushed in the heavy glass door with her shoulder, turning around to lock the door to her car with a flick of her hand and a press of the button on her key.

“Morning Ant! The usual, thanks, and a cinnamon doughnut.”

“Right you are, Anna! Mochaccino, two sugars and a doughnut coming up.” Anna smiled gratefully and waited while Antonio foamed the milk. She’d been in here so much in the past year she didn’t wonder why his face lit up whenever he saw her. She’d spend hours in here if she could, drinking coffee in her window booth in the corner if she could. She could pay for his children’s college education with coffee, at the rate she was going.

“Gracias!” she said, grabbing the drink container and doughnut and exiting the warm, coffee-smelling shop.

Footing it to her car, she jumped inside, took a slurp of the foam and this time, put her seatbelt on. Putting her drink into the cup holding she drove off at a furious pace to her office.

---

Driving into the underground car park, she, for what seemed the umpteeth time closed the door with no hands but rather her posterior, and swung her handbag up over her shoulders.

Walking quickly and checking her watch with her eyes and she struggled to hold a bag of doughnuts, coffee, a handbag and the hold on her sanity, she dinged the elevator with her elbow and waited impatiently.

As each second passed, Anna got more and more frustrated as the lift didn’t come. Glancing around, she drew back her pointed toe and kicked at the door, snarling with pain as her foot made contact, and the doors rolled open.

Humming as the elevator wound it’s way up the floors, she sipped some more froth from her mochaccino, and inhaling the scent of her sweet doughnut, she stepped out of the elevator with increasing confidence and poise.

Sighed and pushing open the door with her bottom once again, she almost ran into a woman as she was exiting through the same door Anna had just shuffled her way through.

“Anna dear! Late again!”

“I’m sorry, Marge. I’ll be here earlier tomorrow.”

“You’d better, Anna dear. There are too many sad kids out there.” Her plump face lost it’s cheeriness and rosy cheeks as she frowned. “I’ve got to go find Ed. Excuse me.”

As she bustled off through the door, Anna quickly walked through the scattered desks and offices, past the people talking on their phones whom she merely smiled at because she couldn’t wave, and the grouchy people that her heels moved past faster than any other part of the office. There were some people just not cut out for social working, and working with children. Some just didn’t have the patience, and some just didn’t have the compassion. They only had the job requirements and the skills.

Plopping down into her worn desk chair opposite the notice board, Anna placed her coffee on a CD that was acting as a coaster, and flipped on her monitor. Stowing her handbag under the desk, she kicked off her shoes happily and took a huge chunk of her doughnut in her mouth.

Getting into her work, she fell back into her chair and lolled there, reading her emails and typing occasionally. She read through page, after page, after page until Marge came and tapped her on the shoulder.

“Anna dear, you lunch break started about ten minutes ago. You can tack it onto the end, if you want.”

“Thanks,” she said gratefully. Marge really was a compassionate boss, who understood a girl really did need to eat even when she was watching whatever food passed into her stomach with a scrutinizing eye that watched for unhealthy substances filled with preservatives and food additives. Snapped out of her day dream, she said, “Alright, I’ll be gone in a minute. Anyone would think you didn’t want me working!”

Marge chuckled, patting Anna on the shoulder. “Of course not, dear. We love the work you do here. And tell Patrick his document is due on my desk on the way out.”

Anna frowned, sweeping her blonde hair out of her face. “Couldn’t you tell him yourself on your way out?”

Marge sighed. “No. I’ve got to have a word with Ed. The poor guy is pushing himself.”

Anna nodded and swiveled in her chair. “I’ll be sure to tell him.” Edward really was a sad case. She never really ever got to talk to him. He always put his work before his family, and Marge put her employees before her paycheck.

Waving to Marge with one hand as she stuck her head under the desk, she grabbed her handbag and shoved her feet back into her shoes.

Walking briskly past the offices and desk again, she poked her head in the through the glass door of one office. Patrick was throwing a small squishy ball against the wall as he talked on the phone. Motioning to Anna to let her know that he’d acknowledged her presence, he continued to talk with a furrowed brow.

“What do you mean not until Friday? That poor kid’ll have to spend another night in a home. What? Yes, I’m fully aware of that. But this child has been promised – Yes. Alright. Thank you.”

He hung up and turned to Anna. “Case workers. Can’t live with them, can’t live without them. Now, what was it that you wanted?”

“Marge says she wants some document of hers on her desk by the end of the day. And I’m going to lunch. Care to join me?”

He drummed his fingers on the desk as he thought, and then smacked himself on the forehead, turning back to his computer and clicking furiously with his cordless mouse. “Oh, shit, Anna. Thanks. I totally forgot. And, I’m sorry but I’m going to have to take a rain check on that offer. How’s tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow’s fine,” she said gently. She saw the frustration written all over his noble looking dark coloured facer and sighed. Patrick was one of those with the will to work for the children, often forgetting to work for himself. He did everything possible for the kids that he worked with, but forgot about the things he dedicated himself to personally. Tall, with his cheekbones and chocolaty skin, Pat was in Anna’s eyes a very nice guy. It was a pity that the men he admired didn’t feel the same way as he did.

Closing the door and waving through the glass, she passed other work associates and nodded her head as she passed them on her way out.

Down the hundreds of stairs, Anna found herself in the building’s cafeteria. Picking a small, yummy looking roll with basil leaves poking out of the sides, she settled in the very corner of the cafeteria. She focused her attention entirely on her work upstairs, but downstairs in her free time she liked to admire the people around her.

The woman in the corner sat with a fussy child. Every two minutes or so, the mother would swat the little girl’s hands nastily, telling her off. The child would then fall back into her chair with a pout on her face, unsure of what she’d done.

Chewing her roll thoughtfully, she passed over several teenage boys wrestling over a chocolate bar, an elderly man reading through a stack of papers with big, thick glasses on.

Anna touched her own new frames and was grateful for the fact they were slender and complimented her face, although she thought perhaps her optometrist thought so as well, which was slightly disturbing. Finishing her roll, she rubbed her hands together and looked at her watch. It was still ticking, so Anna presumed that the water hadn’t disturbed the little cogs working overtime in the back of it.

Noticing she still had about five minutes remaining until she would have to start climbing the stairs again, she reached into her handbag and brought out a notepad with squiggles all over it.

Flipping it open, she came to the front page. Nothing. Flipped to the second page, also nothing. Pulling out a biro, she started to write.

‘Sitting in the restaurant made her hungry for not only food, but for company. It was so lonely, sitting in the middle of the tables filled with lovers and families. She smoothed the napkin in her lap and smiled sadly as the waiter brought a lone plate over from the kitchen.

“Enjoy your meal,” he said kindly, bowing and walking away.’

Frustrated, Anna could continue no longer. Tapping the paper with her pen, she groaned. The name just wouldn’t come to her! Stowing her paper away in her bag, she slung it over her shoulder and as she walked out dropped her remains of her roll into the bin.

Huffing as she reentered the office, she found her way back to her desk finally and sat down, pensive. Reaching into her bag and pulling up a file on her computer in the Fiction folder, she flipped to the page with her slanty scrawl. Pulling her keyboard towards her again, she began to type. She only got out the word ‘Sitting’ out, and had to stifle a sigh as someone knocked on the wall across form her open office.

“Have you noticed the work function picnic this year, Anna?” The overweight, slightly sweaty Paul stood grinning over at the notice board. Anna looked wistfully at her keyboard before turning around. There’d been enough disruptions in her day already, and she was keen to get back to work, or for perhaps the first time in the year that she’d been working there, get back to her writing.

“Nope, Paul haven’t seen it.” She thought it best just to let him talk.

“Well, it’s supposed to be at that small Thai restaurant down the road. But, I said to Marge, I said ‘Perhaps we should have it at the Indian one down the other end of the street’ and Marge just looked at me funny! Imagine that!”

“Imagine that,” said Anna smiling to herself. Paul really was a nice guy, but he tried too hard to be funny. And he has a weird fetish for Indian and Suvlaki food that Anna was all too careful to stay away from.

Putting his hands into his pants pockets, he rose up onto his toes. “Well, Anna, best be letting you get back to your work.”

Bemused at the impromptu and random conversation she turned back to her monitor. She sighed. There was a lot of work to do before she could get back to writing. Closing her document, she pulled up another file and an Internet Explorer browser. Fiddling with her mouse, her eyes ranged over her desk as she fought to keep concentrated.

Deciding it wasn’t going to happen, she brought up the Fiction file again, this time rolling her chair in and kicking off her shoes. Typing up what she’d just written with quick fingers, she paused.

“It’s giving the character the name that’s the hard thing,” she mused, tapping her pencil against the side of her mouth. Suddenly the thought struck her that the pencil in her fingers was completely irrelevant and of no real importance. A pencil wasn’t really al that useful to someone with a laptop. She poked it back into the tin and sighed.

“A.” Chewing her lip, she held down the Shift key and pressed A.

“Choosing a name is a wild decision, because it has to be just right,” she murmured to the room. And myself, she supposed with a giggle. She was jittery; excited with getting the first letter down.

Pressing Enter several times, she began to type more surely after what she had just written. ‘For an outgoing character, a name like George or Mary just wouldn’t fit. Likewise, a name that’s exotic for a character with brown hair and brown eyes – it just wouldn’t seem real. ’

She paused thoughtfully, contemplating what she had just written. Smiling, she continued, ‘If you name someone they influence that name with their personality and their actions. The name becomes them, shadows them. ’

She smiled. She was getting somewhere. Something was nagging at the back of her head. It was so frustrating, living alone. What made it worse was the strain her brain was now taking. Who would have thought it so hard to write something after years of meaningless drabbles?

Glancing around the dimly light workplace quickly, though she hadn’t needed to considering it was near dead, she reached for her pencil and a piece of paper. Quickly, on the notepad she jotted down ‘Try not to name someone after a friend of yours. ’ All inhibitions lost, she ploughed onward, her pencil writing furiously.

‘Unless the character is completely and utterly based on that friend, the name will start to influence the person. ’

She considered for a moment, tapping her mouth with the pencil again. It was actually proving useful, not that she’d let her colleagues know that. She usually scorned those who drafted their final stages of argument on paper with pencil or ink. It was helping her think, now that she, well, thought about it. The tapping of the pencil against her temple worked quite well, actually.

She pursed her lips and in cursive, purposely wrote ‘My name is Anna Turrents. Have I influenced the name, or has it me? ’

“There are plenty of other Anna’s, Anna,” she said to herself, giggling and shaking her head at her own absurdity. She caught her reflection in the ornate gilded mirror in the small nook of her desk and laughed. It wasn’t really ornate, or expensive. She was just handy with colour #000024 and some Estapol from the local hardware store.

“You, Anna. You will be different from the other Anna’s. You are different from them.”

She brushed her short blonde hair out of her eyes. Straightening the thick frames of her new glasses, she reached under the desk for her black leather handbag. Knocking her elbow on the way up as she swung the bag on to her shoulder, she swore slightly.

Turning around, her breath caught in her throat. She dropped her handbag to the floor and took on a well-practiced attack stance. When the person fell into relief, she sighed and grinned at her co-worker.

“Stalking me Alastair?” She smiled. The man standing in front of her could barely be classed a man. Tall, with narrow hips and shoulders, Alastair was still taller than Anna, even when she wore her tallest, most favourite pair of heels. His under developed arms were wrapped around himself securely, thought whether it was from the cold or another person Anna could never tell.

Her eyes wandered over his hair lightly, taking in the spiky gelled up strands. She realised he was talking to her, and when he stopped she realised with a dreading feeling that he was waiting for her to answer him.

Faking a smile on top of her discomfort, she said lightly, “Oh, nothing much. Mostly just tying up ends tonight.” She hoped with all her heart that Alastair had asked her something along those lines. In a desperate attempt to appear as if she had been listening, she added devilishly, “Working on my novel.”

Alastair’s eyebrows rose into his spiky brown hair. “You’re writing a novel, Anna?”

Turning around and picking up her handbag again, she looked over her shoulder to see Alastair drop a file on her desk.

“What’s this?” she teased him, “More work on top of my soon-to-be award winning novel?” She picked up the file and looked at it with interest. The name ‘Megan Cornwall’ was printed in uppercase letters across the top where the paper poked out of the manila folder.

“Her name’s Megan Cornwall,” said Alastair, kicking a small wad of paper into her economy sized, space saving waste paper basket. The wad hit the rim of the bin and plopped in neatly. He grinned. Continuing, he changed facial expressions. “Abandoned. Mother took her to school one day, happy as Larry, and when the daughter got home, the mother was gone. Father was dead long before that.”

“I can take her,” Anna said quietly, patting him on the back and taking the file. “I’ll read over it tonight.”

“Oh, and the paper goes in the recycling bin.” She waved and smiled at him. “You need help locking up?”

He laughed. “No, Edward’s here. He’ll close up tonight.”

Anna laughed too. Edward was a work-aholic whose relationship with his wife was pretty much as bad as it could get. Every morning he came into the office, a droopy glum look on his face, and a rigid backbone. Every morning, without fail he came into the office in a bad mood and left happier. It was a vicious cycle, and feeling guilty for having laugh, Anna sighed in pity for him. “He’s here hiding from his wife again?”

“You bet your morning coffee he is. Anyway, see you tomorrow, Anna. And good luck with that novel.”

“See you tomorrow, Al, and thanks. Make sure Ed doesn’t stay here all night. Sleeping on the coach like he did last week can’t be good for him. Or the cleaners. I imagine it would give the poor people a bit of a fright.”

She exited thought the door and walked calmly to the elevator. She pushed the down button and waited for the elevator to ding. When the low-key sound vibrated from the speakers set into the wall above her and the doors remained shut, she frowned. Impatiently, she pushed the button again. When it dinged again without opening, she bashed at the button with her fist.

Exercising some self-control, she calmly, fingers twitching, knocking on the elevator doors. They opened innocently to reveal an empty carriage.

Smirking to herself the whole way down, she strolled form the elevator to the door, purse swinging over her shoulder and she walked with a bounce in her step. A dark green Calais with peeling tinting stickers and the distinct smell of her musky perfume mean tit was the perfect car for her. Chucking her bag down on the passenger seat floor, she reached over and tugged on her seat belt a couple of times.

Stretching over into her bag, she pulled out the file. “Megan,” she murmured. Flipping through it, her pity for the younger girl intensified.

She’d been moved from home to home. Occasionally, it’d be a home with family with a loving foster mother, father, and beds that didn’t creak and threaten to cave when you sat on them, or bounced in your sleep a little. Included with the reports was some very negative feedback. Reading through one, her lips moved soundlessly.

‘Has trouble concentrating in school, and is never open to suggestions made by parents at home…’

She winced painfully as she pictured the girl. Flipping forward a few pages, she came across a picture of a girl with corkscrew curls and a toothy grin beaming at the camera. It was rare that you saw a kid with such a happy expression. She turned back to the file, flipping through the stacks of paper in the manila folder and pitied her.

‘Megan is very destructive. She feels the need to occupy her time with something active in order to reduce her energy, but everything we’ve tried or suggested she’s rejected.’ The poor girl. Anna vowed to herself she’d find the girl a good home. Or at least, an okay home with a playground nearby.

She shuffled through the rest of the papers. All of them looked interesting, and she was hungry to devour them with her eyes, but it was unfortunately thick enough to put her off. She’d read the rest of it at home. Chucking the file onto the passenger seat, she put the car in reverse, and her foot on the accelerator. Looking over her shoulder, she backed out of the car space.

Aussie Based Fic

2006-12-18T11:50:25Z

Fly To Dawn…

The horse’s hooves cantered over the valleys, hills, nooks, and tree roots as the rider urged the horse competitively towards his destination.

The pace quickened, the breathing became more laboured, and the shouts of encouragement and fierce competitiveness melded away into the wind as it soared and dipped freely, touching the back of the rider’s neck lovingly, and caressing his hair with soft fingers. The wind sighed, and the rider urged his horse on.

The sounds stayed the same. The gait never changed. The urge never vanished. The frustration, hurt, and loss of the past months ran down through the hooves and slammed into the ground with insurmountable force.

He stopped and stared into the burning horizon. A rough finger cocked a hat against the glare. An eye stared into the sky, the blood red reflected by the pupil. Bridles and stirrups clinked. Aurora had let go of her stars, and they had began to twinkle. The urge reappeared, and together they flew.

He had once flown together, side by side with someone else. They’d flown together, she and he. He had soared, winged, and dipped with her. He’d been lost in her eyes; her green eyes, so grey in fact they almost seemed ghostly.

The bridles and stirrups clinked again. He dismounted and numbly walked inside. The horse whinnied, but he ignored it.

The light from the candles drew the rich but sweet scent of the bush through the pinewood, and it soothed him. He sat at the scrubbed wooden table that he’d made, with his own two hands. He raised he hands up to his face. Lines, wrinkles, and crevices ran across them, aging them, ruining them. He closed his eyes. She used to sit there, with him, smoothing those creases.

It had been too long, he concluded. It had been too long since he had seen someone, anyone. He hadn’t been into town in months. He had things delivered by a boy on horseback from Mittagong. He was content here, in the bush. It was quiet, bar the sounds of the bush. The birds in the morning, the crickets at night. They woke him, and lulled him like clockwork every night. He didn’t need another to keep him company.

He rarely went to the local pub for company. His horse and the sounds of the bush were enough. Tallong Tavern was full almost every night, full of people he didn’t care to socialise with. Except her.

She had stared at him with her eyes, with those eyes. Her hair had shone under the overhead lights of the pub’s bar. The way her hands had served him the glass, the way they had lingered on the rims, and her smile.

The way she had smiled entranced him. She tossed back her head and the light caught her hair from behind. Red, auburn, gold and copper streaks shone though, and he was captivated.

“My name is Jan,” she had said one evening. He had sat at the bar one night, dirty riding boots kicked up on a spare stool. She had come around the other side of the bar, and had gently pushed them off. She had wiped the seat, and in her best jeans, sat down and introduced herself. He had come here every night, every night for the past month.

“I work here,” she had said.

He had nodded. “I know.”

She’d been one of the few he’d talked to. The rest were drongo’s, drunks, galahs and disgraces. They’d toppled over one another in their drunken stupors, grabbing, screaming, yelling, and slack-jawed.

She’d followed him home that night. Perhaps she saw something in him that the bush was unable to provide for him.

They’d sat, underneath the stars in the hills. Cold and wind did nothing to deter them, they’d simple ignored it and huddled closer. The leaves whipped above their heads, and dirt skimmed at their toes, but they’d huddled together on the blanket.

The Australian winters were fierce at night, but as they stared up at the sky, they had encircled each other with long hyper-flexing arms, and stared into the blustering sky.

“Do you see that?” she had said breathlessly. Her eyes were dancing in the moonlight.

“No,” he had said. “I only see you.”

They’d been together. She’d had an effect on him. Obviously, it was the touch the wilderness could not provide for him. He’d let her touch him. He’d let himself be touched, felt, and understood for this newfound connection. The bush was second best to this woman. All senses were dulled except for touch. Hearing, taste, sight and smell all melded into one, and then vanished into the dark. There was only feeling.

She had touched him, made his skin tingle and bruise the way no other woman had made him feel before. She was strong, and he was controlled. Her eyes never left his. Her fingers, light as the suns rays through the windows, stroked his flesh softly.

She’d left the day after. He had ventured bravely up to Tallong Tavern for a rare visit. He was inquisitive, and was rewarded with answers he didn’t like. She’d gone to Golburn. She’d left, packed up, and was gone. She’d left him.

He mounted the train. He hadn’t known exactly why and where he was going. It wouldn’t take long to get to Golburn. He only hoped she’d be there for him. Not waiting necessarily, but there.

The train ride had been hell. Short as it was, it was all those people who had bothered him. And the seats -they had been lumpy. He hadn’t liked it. He had felt nervous, with all the people looking at him.

He didn’t need the comforts of a woman, the presence of other people. He was happy to stay there, in the secluded Australian Bush. The sights, sounds, and surroundings of the bush were calm, and soothed his nerves. He was happy there.

But, as the train had pulled into Mittagong station, he had realised that he needed Jan. He did need the comforts of a woman.

He didn’t know what drew him to the gallery. He didn’t know how he had stumbled into the small shop with the red wooden door on the Main Street. Moreover, he hadn’t expected Jan to be sitting seriously in front of an easel, painting.

She wore a somber expression. Every stroke was calculated. He had stood there, confused. He had stood there why she had sat, brush in one hand, pallet in the other.

She stood up and walked to the timber door from towards the back of the shop, leaving the easel unattended. The beckoned to him with her eyes; he followed.

In the back room were paintings. Tens, hundreds of paintings. Dots, swirls, snakes, feet, browns, blacks, reds and yellows – all together, they were masterpieces. Big, beautiful black bodies and breasts, intricate swirls, and bright, bold colours caught his eye from every corner, Spears, didgeridoos, and canvases cluttered the corners beautifully.

“You made these?” he had said slowly, turning around and around. She took his hands in hers suddenly.

“I’m dying.”

He blew out the candles and ambled off to his bedroom. Underneath the rough, woolen sheets, he pondered. He’d once shared this bed with Jan, and once she’d lain in this bed, by herself. The stars shone in through the clear, pane glass windows and he stared up at them with clear grey eyes.

She was sickly and thin. Her beautiful red hair had gone, and her green eyes stood out enormously, frightened as she stared up at him from the bed.

“I’m dying,” she said softly.

He refused to say it. “You’re not. You’re coming with me.”

So tentatively, he had lifted her feeble, frail body. She had weighed almost nothing at all beneath the cotton rug.

He rubbed his fingers together beneath the itchy sheets. He could still feel her weightlessness, to the point when she had seemed to comprise of merely vapour and sickness.

He had loaded her onto his horse, wrapped in a blanket into the saddle. He packed a blanket, a thermos, and a pillow.

They had set out for sunrise at a walk. He was very careful not to jostle her, not to cause her any discomfort. She was lying half-asleep on the horn of the saddle, her pale, frail hands clutching it tightly. At the start of sunrise, they reached their destination.

He’d lifted her down gently, again feeling the uneasy weightless feeling. She had smiled in her half sleep, and her eyes sparkled in the morning sun as she lazily opened them

They had sat there, under the dying stars and the waking sun. The hills and trees had burned brilliantly with the new day. With every minute that passed, both Jan and the morning had regretfully gotten older.

He had pulled her into his arms for one last time as the joyful sound of kookaburra’s and cicadas filled their clearing. The sun shone brightly on her face, illuminating her cheekbones, and making her eyes glow.

“So, this is life. This is what it is to live,” she had smiled.

She had taken her last comfortable breath in his arms, dying and the sun was born into the world. She’d died that day, and with her, he had. As she left the world, as did his senses.

She’d been returned to the earth. The casket was lowered, and his tears had rained down on the deprived ground. It sucked them up thirstily. A silk throw was placed on the casket, embezzled with colours, dots, and swirls. One of Jan’s own throws departed the above world with her, and his last, heart-breaking thought was that the sky was crying as it rained down to properly commit her body to the earth.

He shifted in his bed. Her bones were in the earth. She had died. She was part of the earth, and he had died with her. A thousand suns, a thousands pleas and a million prayers could not bring her back to him.

He had sunken back into isolation. He didn’t see the light of day for days. He hadn’t wanted to.

He’d start anew tomorrow. With each dawning day, he’d start fresh.

The sun streamed in through the windows. The stars had gone, and the sun was up. The residue of night had vanished and in its place shone a new beginning, one of hope.

He pulled on his boots. The cabin seemed fuller, of a life that hadn’t been there since Jan. The sun seemed brighter, and the dust specs seemed to frolic in the sunbeams rather than dance.

He clambered aboard his horse, and was off, racing through the hills, weeds, trees, and dirt. It flew up behind him in his haste. Finally, just as the last strings of dawn remained, he reached its spot. Bridles and Stirrups clinked as he dismounted once more, and he murmured to his horse, rubbing it gently on the nose.

He walked silently over to its spot, and sat. He sat against the wind, the sky, the earth and the air and felt the sun on his eyelids. He flew to the dawn, and he smiled. Life was worth living.

SSII

2006-12-17T01:06:21Z

Title: Absinthe makes the Heart Grow Fonder
Characters/Pairings: Lily/James.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings (if any): None
A/N: *giggles*

I thought you had me, Kasey. But don’t you see? I’ve been telling you it was me all along! I swapped stories with Mar, you see. I sent you the rarepair I wrote for Mar, and kept my TRUE SSII a secret! I am a genius! I thought I was a goner when you offered to beta – how could I refuse? But of course, the Steph came up with something BRILLIANT! Something GENIUS! All the while, telling you EXACTLY who you were in relation to my SSII.

I worked hard to keep it a secret. *wiggles eyebrows*

ENJOY!

‘It’s not Potter.’

The glow of the lamp from beside her bed illuminated Lily’s simple features. The excitement and glee and most surprisingly, worry, that was stretched across her face was enveloped in a beautiful glow.

Marie was grinning ear to ear, playing with the stem of the flower in her fingers. Sitting on her bed - which Lily had adopted as her own during such exciting times as this - she could not have been happier for her friend. Dubious, but happy.

Lily grinned despite her nervousness. ‘Really? You don’t think he’s gone too far this time?’

Marie shook her head. ‘No… Potter is blindly in love with you. But he’s not the flower type. He likes to impress you with his manly strength and Quidditch skills.’

Lily laughed. ‘Well, yes, he does. But are you sure?’

Marie placed her fingers on the velvety softness of the lily Lily had been sent. ‘No. Definitely not. Black, maybe. Remus… possibly. Peter? Never.’

‘How about Severus,’ giggled Lily, giddy with happiness. ‘Is he a flower type?’

‘Oh darling,’ said Marie, batting her eyelashes, ‘I’m sure he would search the deepest lakes and bogs for the best mosses and herbs for you, but a flower?’ She sobered quickly, and considered.

‘No, Lily. This guy’s got style.’

*

Marie yawned. ‘Cereal, please.’

Lily, not moving her eyes off the Daily Prophet, passed her the cereal container and stared at the black and white text, as though she half believed it would jump to life, like the gesticulating picture above it.

‘What’s so interesting about the paper, Lily?’

Lily didn’t answer. Her eyes scoured the paper again, and she flipped it sideways, scrutinizing the text. ‘Listen to this:

‘ Lakewater Lily expert, Herbologist Herbert Mucus, Investigates the effects of Murtlap Essence when dripped over the flower itself, rather than the root.
‘The Lily didn’t wilt,’ he said excitedly, ‘It flourished! It seems that in the light of this new found discovery, ‘You’ll be wanting to take my Lily away for examination!’
Mucus, who founded the Lakewater Lily Lovers of Lantana…’

Marie rolled her eyes. ‘Now you’re paranoid. You receive one lily from a random boy, and, may I add – it was left at the common room portrait, so we don’t even know what house he’s in – and now you’re on a coincidence rampage!’

‘It’s not a coincidence,’ she pressed. ‘Look for yourself!’ She pointed Marie to every second line of the text in the newspaper.

‘Holy… Lilies…’

Marie grabbed the paper off Lily who sat there next to her in shock. Reading each line carefully, she read aloud:

‘Lakewater Lily expert,
Herbologist Herbert Mucus,
Investigates the effects of Murtlap Essence
when dripped over the flower itself, rather than the root. ‘The
Lily didn’t wilt,’ he said excitedly, ‘It flourished!
It seems that in the light of this new found discovery, ‘
You’ll be wanting to take my Lily away for examination!’
Mucus, who founded the Lakewater Lily Lovers of Lantana…’

She whistled. ‘Boy, he’s good.’

*

‘Lily!’

A little girl came thundering up the stairs. ‘Lily Evans!’ her bright blue eyes sparkled from underneath a heavy dark chocolate brown fringe. ‘This was at the portrait hole, addressed to you!’

‘Thank you, Michelle. Did you see who dropped it off?’ Lily took the envelope in her hand cautiously. It simply said, ‘Lily’ on it in flowing, neat script. She snorted. It definitely wasn’t anyone she knew. All her friends writing was terribly messy. She should know; she checked and corrected it enough.

‘Is it a secret admirer?’ Michelle’s eyes were wide open with innocence as she stood in the doorway of the seventh-year dormitory.

‘You could say that,’ Lily said quietly, a small smile playing across her lip. She glanced over at the bedside table her lily was resting on. Well, not resting. The perfect crystal vase she had made from a scrap of broken glass reflected the moonlight coming in through the window, holding the flower upright and allowing it to dip its edges in the glow outside of the window.

‘That’s so incredibly romantic,’ Michelle sighed, and flitted out of the room. Lily smiled softly and opened the envelope.

‘I say green.

You say, grass.

I say your eyes.

You say, to see.

I say, to be led blindly.

You say you need independence,

And I say, should you come with me, you’ll finally have independence.’

She let the note flutter to the bedcovers. The ink was still wet.

At that moment, Marie burst through the door. ‘What’s that?’ she asked when she noticed the letter in Lily’s hands. ‘From your family?’

Lily blushed and hugged it to her chest. ‘No. Of course not.’

Marie’s eyes widened. ‘This guy is capable of writing a secret message in the Prophet, and delivering a love letter in the middle of the night, without any one seeing him? Lily pudding, what did you do to attract this man?’

Lily spluttered. ‘I did nothing! Thank god it’s not Potter, though. He seems to have scared any other prospective people off. Thank god this person has the guts to risk getting into a fight with him, when he find out.’

‘If he finds out, you mean.’

‘What?’

‘Well,’ said Marie, in a tone that suggested it was quite obvious, ‘Don’t let Potter find out, and your lover boy will be safe for you to meet.’

Lily folded up the letter and sank onto her bed. ‘You know, I just don’t get Potter.’

Marie laughed and jumped onto her bed. ‘What’s not to get? The boy is in love with you. He thinks he’s a god. He knows he’s a god at Quidditch,’ she added, laughing. ‘But,’ she continued, ‘He’s also loyal. He’s also a royal pain in the arse. He’s a show off. Self absorbed. He plays mean tricks on people, he’s smart, teases that fool Severus Snape-’ She ticked them off, both positives and negatives on her fingers until Lily interrupted her with a filthy look.

‘Yes. The way he treats Severus.’

‘Lils. You may not have noticed, but Severus Snape? Fool. Asshole. Complete and utter racist. How can you feel for that piece of squirmy grime?’

Lily shrugged. She put up with a lot of talk back from people. She always would. ‘Look, I just feel sorry for him because James always takes it out of him. I don’t like him, but I don’t like James, either.’

Marie raised her eyebrows and sunk back into Lily’s pillows, reading the note. ‘Whatever. Just please say you like this guy, whoever he is.’

Lily smirked and turned away. ‘Maybe I do. Maybe…’

*

‘Wonder what amazing gift the admirer will have for the admired today,’ said Marie dryly as the entered the Great Hall.

Lily winced at the sarcastic tone in her friend’s voice. ‘Are you alright, Marie?’

Marie blushed and turned swiftly to sit at the Gryffindor table. ‘Well. Maybe. A little, teensy little bit. But only because I haven’t got one of my own, or a Black of my own.’

Lily raised her eyebrow. ‘Sirius?’

Marie choked on her toast. ‘Regulus,’ she confirmed, turning bright red. Lily clucked her tongue disapprovingly. She wasn’t one to meddle in what people’s families were like, and she tried to judge people by their own personality, and how they reacted around her. The Black boys weren’t evil. She wasn’t sure Snape was, either. Or James. Or Peter. Or any of the boys who were claimed as being death eaters.

‘Lily? Lily? Snap out of it.’

‘Oh, sorry.’ Lily had been staring into space. A space that was occupied by one Sirius Black. She threw him a filthy look. He threw her back a fairly suggestive one, and she sighed and dug into her pocket for the letter.

Marie, who was quite obviously ignoring the opposite side of the Gryffindor table where Sirius was sitting, and angling her neck so that her jaw and right eye were clearly visible to one boy on the Slytherin table, dropped her toast onto the plat in front of her and hissed, ‘Are you serious? You’re bringing it out here? At breakfast?’

Lily blushed again, to the tips of her lovely red hair. She lowered her green eyes and read the flowing script again, and it blurred as it was snatched out of her hands by one James Potter.

‘What’ve you got here, Evans?’ he asked, taking the envelope and speaking loud enough that a few people turned their heads.

‘Give me back that letter right now, Potter,’ she hissed, swiping at it.

‘Now why would I do a thing like that, Lily?’ he teased, flicking it open and pulling out the parchment.

‘Potter, I’m warning you, I’ll–’

‘You’ll what? Take points off me? Off your own house?’

Lily sat there dumbstruck. Marie sat poised in her seat, and shrugged away when Sirius came to sit next to her. Sirius seemed entertained, Marie tense.

‘Potter. I swear-’

‘I say green, you say grass… oh how very romantic,’ James began to read loudly so that his voice carried over to the other tables.

Lily sat their boiling until James reached ‘…you’ll finally have independence. Aww, ladies and gentlemen… isn’t that sweet?’

‘I’ll never forgive you, James Potter,’ she hissed, snatching her letter up and walking erectly and quickly towards the Great Hall doors. No one laughed, no one dared, but they all bowed their heads in conversation, and small irrelevant giggles began to break out in the Hall as normal conversations started up again and Lily and James were no longer the centre of attention.

‘You get away from us,’ Marie threatened at James. He shrugged and gave her back the envelope Lily had left behind. Marie shot Sirius and James a dirty look, and smiled at Remus who smiled back apologetically.

‘I think you blew it, Padfoot,’ said Remus over the top of his book.

‘I’ll fix it,’ he said, confident.

*

‘Bloody… James Potter! Shouted Lily into the open corridor. Her right hand was balled into a fist, while her other hand was cradling the letter.

Marie scuttled closer to her. ‘You forgot this,’ she said quietly, giving Lily the envelope.

Lily accepted it fro her, and shivered as a cold win passed her. ‘Did you feel something?’

‘No?’

‘Something just knocked my arm.’

‘I didn’t feel anything,’ Marie said, confused. ‘Anyway. Let’s go back up to the common room. Maybe he’s left another note. He can’t not have seen that.’

Blushing, Lily nodded and followed her friend up the stairs to the Grand Staircase.

*

‘You’re joking.’

‘Oh snap, this guy’s got style. Another letter?’

‘Direction.’ Lily paled. ‘He wants me to go to The Hog’s Head. Marie, that’s in Hogsmede.’

‘I know it’s in Hogsmede. I also happen to know we’re not allowed out. I’m guessing you won’t be seeing this boy,’ she said hopefully.

‘What?’ said Lily absentmindedly, leaning agianst the wall near the portrait. ‘Of course I’m going.’

‘That’s good – What? You’re going to go out after hours?’

‘Well… if this is the boy that’s game enough to stand up to Potter, then yes, Marie, I’ll be going out.’

Marie stared dumbfounded at her friend. ‘You’re seriously considering breaking the rules?’

‘I enforce the rules, Marie. Doesn’t mean I can’t break them myself. I’m not that anal.’

Marie opened her mouth and closed it again. ‘Not a word, ‘ said Lily dangerously. ‘I’m going to meet this guy… at ten o’clock, inside the pub, it says.’

‘And HOW are you going to get there?’

‘Remus,’ she smirked. Lily smiled devilishly. ‘He admitted he knew a way out, a place to study during the night. There’s a small alcove near the base of the Astronomy Tower he finds quite pleasant for studying during the night. He gave me the location of a tunnel that’ll get me there.’

‘You’re taking the word of a Marauder? You’re seriously going to meet a boy you don’t even know is real’

‘Marie, I’m taking the word of Remus. And I don’t know this boy, but he seems perfectly alright. And besides, maybe it’ll convince James that there really is someone else out there for me.’

Marie sighed, and gave the password. ‘Nitwit.’

The Fat Lady glared at her reproachfully. ‘I think you’re being very stupid, girls, plotting to leave the castle.’

The girls exchanged glances, and Lily tucked away her letter. ‘Please let us in?’

The Fat Lady hurrumphed, but opened her portrait. ‘But I’ll tell you this, girls, I think you’re being the nitwits.’

*

Lily made her way through the snow in the front of the Hog’s Head. Icicles were hanging from the sign, and preventing it form swinging eerily like it usually did. All around her, lights were glowing in windows, and a warm feeling was emanating from the dingy pub in front of her. Wishing that her admirer had chosen The Three Broomsticks, rather that this let down in front of her, she stepped into the pub and was hit full in the face with a slight stench, but a warm blast of air that warmed her down to her frozen toes.

She looked over in the corner and saw a lone figure. She figured it must be him, for the only other man in the pub was the dirty old graying barman, who was sorting through his cupboards and pulling things out, left right and centre.

Lily stepped graciously over to the table in the corner. It was lit by one low burning oil lamp in the middle of the table, and the man’s face was hidden in deep shadow. Weary of whether to say anything, or to sit down, she awkwardly pulled out a chair and settled herself into it.

‘Well… hello,’ she said nervously.

He tipped the glass he was holding towards her. ‘Drink?’

Her nose wrinkled. ‘What is it?’

He laughed, tossing his head back into the shadows. Her brow furrowed. She knew that voice, that laugh. He finished cackling and offered her the glass. A green crystal liquid sloshed around in it warmly. ‘Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder, Lily.’

‘Absinthe?’

‘Why, yes Lily. A Muggle drink. I thought you’d know that.’

She sputtered, putting her hands on the table cautiously. Who was he? ‘Of course I know that. But why are you drinking it. You’re a wizard.’

He chuckled again. The disembodied laugh was starting to irritate her. ‘Why can’t you just come out of the shadows and tell me who you are?’

He rocked back in his chair. Annoyingly, the shadow seemed to follow his face and was permanently settled there. She cursed herself for not thinking of it earlier. Clearly, he’d made sure it was impossible for his face to influence her.

She reasoned with herself. ‘If… if I try your silly Muggle drink, will you tell me who you are?’

The chair and the person in it paused in mid-rock. ‘Well,’ he mused, ‘I think perhaps that could be in order.’ He pushed the crystal glass towards her, and she lifted it to her nose in toast.

‘To my secret admirer,’ she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Tipping the glass slightly by only moving her wrist, she sipped a little, and felt her tongue tingling most unpleasantly.

She spluttered, and scowled. ‘What’s in that foul drink?’

The man laughed, and continued to rock. ‘Well, Wormwood. You should know that.’

Lily felt like hitting herself over the head. What had made her come out on this whim, to meet this stranger?

Oh. Right. James.

‘Well,’ she admitted. ‘I should have known that. But I thought you said it was a Muggle drink?’

He stood up, kicked his chair in and leant against the window. ‘Well, Lily dear, Muggles aren’t as ignorant as we give them credit for. They do use some of our herbs… and Wormwood is quite popular, in spirits.’

‘Spirits?’

He snorted. ‘Not a drinker? What did you think it was, cordial?’

She blushed, and she was infuriated that he could see her expressions, and yet she could only hear the incredulity and scorn in his. ‘Well…’ she trailed off. In truth, she had been feeling quite daring, quite bold.

‘Well?’

‘Well,’ she said, playing with her fingers, ‘I thought that perhaps I could… persuade you. You’ve been so… kind to me. I’d like to know who you are.’

‘Lily Evans, persuading me? Now, why, that’s different and completely unexpected!’

Lily frowned and tossed her red hair over her shoulders. There was something unsettling about this boy. He seemed too confident. More confident than any one she’d ever known. More confident than James, or Sirius. Peter had never in his life been that confident, and Remus… Remus just didn’t have it in him. And besides, what had made her so sure it was a Marauder, anyway?

‘Are you going to hold up your end of the bargain?’

‘My end?’ he seemed confused. ‘What bargain?’

She stepped closer, trying to see deeper into the shadows. ‘You said if I drank that you’d tell me who you were.’

‘No, actually you said it.’

‘You agreed to it.’

‘That I did.’

‘So,’ she said, as he picked up the glass and conjured an identical, full counterpart, ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m the person you’d least expect,’ he said, pushing the glass into her hand.

She pouted, but took the glass. She was swaying, feeling freer and closer to the edge, nearer to the brink of insanity than ever before. Who cared that she’d never drunk in her life? Who really cared about the fact she’d never been like this before? Coy, calculating… flirtatious. She was bored of herself. She was bored of her personality, and she needed a break.

She needed a break from the woes of James Potter.

‘I’ll take that.’ She took the glass and swallowed another mouthful. She shuddered as the bitter liquid burned down her throat, and glared reproachfully at the man who was shaking silently with laughter.

‘You forgot to dilute it.’

‘I forgot nothing, dear admirer. I wanted it straight.’ Never any harm in pretending you were right all along, she noted to herself.

‘The great Lily Evans, drinking spirits straight? I’m impressed. Just remember, I’m not walking out of here with you on my arm, and having you plant your face in the mud.’

Something about the last couple of lines registered in her mind. They seemed familiar. The tone. The casual air that it was said with.

‘She slowly sat down in the chair opposite, and he eased into the next one. ‘I’ll ask you again. Who are you?’

He leaned forward, the shadow still on his face. He splayed his fingers across the table, and Lily saw that they were slightly webbed. ‘I’m the person to take you mind off things.’

Suddenly cautious, Lily only rose the drink to her lips before closing them tightly so that a small amount washed back into the glass.

Her admirer, however, downed another glass. He grinned, and his white teeth sparkled in the dim light.

Lily looked around nervously, suddenly all the more aware of the fact that she really didn't know the person in front of her. Swivelling around to look at the bar, the old grey man was standing in the shadows, shifting various boxes from side to side, but still, he was watching them. Looking around at the other tables, there was no one else there. It was only her, and her admirer.

'I... I have to go,' she said, grabbing her things. His chair dropped to the ground with a thude cried out, 'No! Lily!'

She faltered. swung around and screwed her face up in anger. 'James Potter!'

He sighed, and dropped the shadows around his face. He looked tired, disappointed and genuinly sad. Lily softened. She took in his pleading eyes, his earnest expression and the down turned mouth.

'You sent me all those things?'

He frowned. "Lily. I didn't get Wormtail to think of them off the top of his head, if that's what you think.'

Lily blushed. She squared her shoulders and tossed her long red hair over her shoulder impatiently. The old graying man in the corner of the bar had moved a little closer, and was reaching under the bar for something.

'No, Potter.' She noticed he winced at the use of his last name. 'James. Did you personally write and really mean everything you said to me in those letters?'

He nodded, gulping. She backed away form the table as he tripped over his chair. 'Lily. I meant every single word.'

'I meant every single, blooming word, Lily. I really like you.'

'I used to hate you, James. You stuck to me. You were desperate. You know, I even thought that this person - you as it turns out - had been scared away after the Great Hall incident?'

He had the good grace to blush and pick himself up off the ground. He walked slowly over to the other side of the table.

'Look, Lily, I admit that was to throw you. It may have been-'

'MAY have been? James! You made a fool of me, and evidently, of yourself! Except you, unlike me, were able to hide under your cloak-'

'What cloak?' he asked, confused.

Lily exploded. 'There was no cloak! it was an expression! You didn't get paid out, James! You weren't humiliated! You didn't have to sit there while you teased me about the one person that could have actually cared about me.'

'But I do care about you, Lily,' he said seriously, coming closer again. Now he was eye to eye with her, or rather, eye to forehead with her. he has a good two inches on her. She tilted her chin up, and tears leaked from her eyes.

'I hate you, James. I hate you. You humiliate me. You make me feel like a fool. Hell, Potter, what I just said just then - it confused the hell out of me.

'You confuse me. You make me so angry I feel like I could pummel you in the face. Listen to me! I was talking about you like you were a separate person! But you're not, James. You're not that person that send me the flower, or the poem, or the letter - you're not him, James. That's not you.'

'Bu tit was me, Lily,' he said quickly, reaching down to grab her small hands. She struggled against his hold, but he tightened his grip, keeping an eye on the barman out of the corner of his eye. 'It was me, and it's still me. How can I prove that to you?'

She looked downward, away form his face. 'It doesn't matter, James. Let go of me. You brought me here-'

'Well, you came, I didn't force you.'

'Thank you for pointing that out, James,' she said bitterly. 'But still. you convinced me to come here tonight, and you pretended, to me, that you were someone else. I wouldn't have come if it was James Potter.' She pulled her hands out of his grasp and walked stiffly towards the door. The barman slammed a glass down angrily on the bar and glared at James. Hopelessly, he followed her out the door into the blustery snow.

'But I am James Potter, Lily. I was, and I am. I'm the person that sent you flowers, that send you the letter.' He was speaking furiously now, wading through the knee deep snow to catch up to her. She was walking briskly her wand out in front of her, simphoning away the ice and crunching the snow underfoot. She stumbled again in his haste and fell onto the snow, face first.

Spitting out water, he shouted at her back.

'I'm the person that loves you.'

She turned around and James could see her green eyes were brimming with tears. Her face was blotchy and said miserably, 'You don't love me James. I don't love you.'

‘But Lily!’ said James desperately as he fought his way through the snow, ‘Hate is but love that lost its way.’ He stood there and waited for Lily to come back to him.

She turned slowly, walking towards him. James’s heart was leaping in his chest, beating an erratic rhythm against his sternum. His heart fell when Lily raised her hand and gave him a good, hearty slap on the side of his cheek. He did nothing except register the sting on the right side of his face, and step closer.

‘Hate love that lost its way,’ he repeated again. Lily stared into his eyes, hers dissolving into tears again. She pressed herself against him and sobbed.

‘How could you do it, James? How could you fool me if you really loved me?’

‘I had to show you that I wasn’t just a fool, Lily, that I wasn’t just someone who was crazy about you with nothing to back it up. It’s for real.’

‘For real?’ she titled her face up to his again, and wrapped her frozen hands around his neck, delighting at the warmth she found there.

He lowered his lips to hers and brushed them softly. ‘It’s for real,’ he whispered into her lips.

♥

Story for HHWP?

2006-10-18T12:35:26Z

I doubt I'd be able to write the three chapters necessary for the story to eveolve to the point of the Wizard's Council within the designated amount of time, but perhaps I could lengthen this part to include Rowena and Salazar (I've decided to make them brother and sister.) The title is by no means certain.

Now please, again, your input.

Helga couldn’t breathe. The bubbles were escaping her throat in large, bloated amounts now, but she wasn’t taking any more in to replace that lost to the murky waters of the lake. To take in her surrounding liquid would be fatal. Her lungs felt fit to burst. The water seemed rather balanced by now, she realised as she floated, her mind in turmoil and beating against the insides of her head as she frantically thought of a way to escape. The water wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t warm, either.

She struggled, whimpering against the ropes that bound her to the chair. The chair was being forced under by two strong men, their arms shoulder deep in the water. Helga’s hair floated lazily up on the surface, the great golden lengths of it refusing to sink with their owner.

She pressure on her windpipe was enormous and such panic, indescribable, raw panic settled into Helga. She frantically tore at the ropes, her iridescent blue eyes wide and stinging against the murky water.

Suddenly, the seizing stopped and she floated there, tied to the roughly cut wooden chair placidly. Her head dropped down and the men far above her lessened their hold on the chair, grinning wickedly as they savored their triumph.

Helga bobbed to the surface and tipped sideways before strong, powerful arms and knotted legs plowed through the water to her. An enraged holler erupted from his bearded throat, and his powerful fists smashed into the two men that had been holding you.

They fell with splashes into the water, and Helga’s face was sprayed with murky lake water. Her eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t wake. Her head was waterlogged, and the water thrashed and tumbled in her ears. The newcomer’s muscles strained against the heavy water and Helga’s weight pulled her up out of the water and set her down softly on the lakeside sandy, pebbly beach.

All the while, Helga was drifting in and out of consciousness. She could remember the water, the cold as she came up, and the strong, bearded man’s face, but that was all. Suddenly, she felt her chest lifted by a hand under her back, and the life pour back into her and the bearded man kissed her soundly on the lips and breathed air into her lungs.

For a shocking moment, Helga registered the kiss. It wasn’t just a simple act of saving one’s life. Helga felt a pull to the man that had just saved her life, more than gratitude, more than thankfulness. And as suddenly as the life had been breathed into her lungs, the man removed his lips from hers and looked into her eyes seriously.

‘She lives,’ he, sounding immensely relieved, proclaimed to the villagers that had begun to mill around.

‘Never in all my life have I seen something horrendous,’ said one housewife, wringing her hands in her apron, the bonnet over her honey-blonde hair askew. Children stared wide-eyed at Helga. A small girl reached out her hand to touch Helga’s shivering skin, and her mother swatted it away with a scared expression on her face. The housewife next to her wore a tart expression, as though she’d bitten on a lemon.

‘Yes, that Helga Hufflepuff. Such an innocent girl. I can’t believe they’d ever accuse someone that perfect of being a witch.’ She spat out the last word venomously. Many roared in agreement and raised her arms in anger.

‘No one can honestly say they did not think poor thoughts upon this maiden,’ said the man, his voice like a growling lion. ‘May God have mercy on yours souls for subjecting Miss Hufflepuff to such torture.’

‘She has been convicted a witch, Godric!’ cried one man from the back of the crowd. ‘A witch responsibly for all our hardship in the Hollow!’

Godric’s voice was steady. ‘How dare thee dunk a woman of pure blood? Were it not for my actions, this innocent woman would have drowned in the depths of this vile lake. Be ashamed of yourselves, townspeople.’

The crowd bowed their heads in respect for their leader. Godric Gryffindor, founder of the Hollow was most fearsome when angered. Many feared the wrath of their leader, but lived in harmony beneath him. He was brave, fair and courageous. Godric Gryffindor was the reason they were alive.

‘You have lapsed again into the old, wicked ways. I took you from them, hoping that you would remain loyal to me and my values. I see now that I have held you all in too higher esteem. Go back to your cabins. It is over here now.’

Forgiveness seemed out of reach to the townspeople as they shuffled off miserably. To have angered their leader so much would cause great discomfort within the small community. They would pay their price for their wickedness.

Godric Gryffindor dropped his eyes to the unmoving Helga on the ground. ‘Who be you, maiden? I fear that I have been most ignorant in your presence. I am Godric Gryffindor, and this is my Hollow you have chosen to inhabit.’

Helga’s eyes were calculating. The seriousness of this many basked his tall, sturdy form in uneasiness in Helga’s eyes. This man, though he had saved her, was obviously powerful enough to have some sort of hold over his people. Hold more powerful than any county she had fled from in fear before.

‘Helga Hufflepuff, Sire,’ she murmured, dropping her head. She tried to pick herself up off the ground, but her legs collapsed from underneath her. Godric knitted his eyebrows in concern and gave her his arm to lean on. She gratefully mumbled her thanks, the blonde hair masking her face.

‘I’ll lead thee to your homestead, shall I?’ he said politely, ignoring Helga’s weariness as she lightly leaned on his elbow.

They shuffled slowly through the town. The lake had been on the very edge of the town; hidden behind a wood dense enough that the log houses dwindled off far before it in fear that something that haunted the willow trees coming out and attacking them. The trees loomed upwards menacingly, and Helga clinged, shivering to Godric as hey slowly wound their way through the trees that the villagers had fled through earlier.

They reached the first log cabin, and as they drew even with the door, the candles inside were extinguished and a stifling silence fell over the house. The same happened again and again until, after passing the town square, the pattern became too noticeable to not be questionable. Godric’s brow furrowed and he leaned into Helga’s hair in a very gentlemanlike manner.

‘Miss Hufflepuff, have you any idea why these fine people would believe such an atrocious tale that you are, indeed, a witch?

The casual tone with which he said it surprised Helga. She assumed he would have sided with his town’s people, but, like before, he was surprisingly against the suspicions that she was a witch.

She felt a heat radiating from Godric, and it was more than just body heat. Godric Gryffindor was most surely magical. Helga’s eyes sparkled as she lifted her green eyes to Godric’s brown ones. They were speckled most interestingly with orange, and his irises appeared to be on fire.

Godric closed his eyes as Helga’s voice washed over him. It was the loveliest, kindest voice he had heard in a time. The women of the village were harsh, crude. Life had stricken them with hardships and sorrows. The maidens were all too aware of their freedom within his Hollow, and in their frivolous nature, blackened their natures. Helga Hufflepuff was different.

He opened his eyes and saw Helga glancing at his own quizzically. ‘I must have looked very odd,’ he said lightly. ‘Come, show me which of these cabins is yours, Miss Hufflepuff.’

Dubious, Helga led him further into the village. Again, the lights extinguished themselves as the couple drew nearer. The light grew fainter and the air colder as they reached the very edge of town. Helga shivered and clung to Godric; with every breeze her long, golden hair swung against her bare sun kissed shoulders. They’d practically disrobed her before lashing her to the chair and cruelly dunking her until her soul was purified.

The strands of wet hair flew across her face, whipped Godric in the face. He felt the cool touch of the water droplets on his cheek, and Helga’s hair crossed in his beard. He smiled tenderly, and a chuckle emitted from his throat. Helga was blushing; she was so embarrassed, standing here half-naked and completely abandoned. The will to flee, however, escaped her as she dropped to her knees in front of what had been her perfectly crafted wooden gate.

Helga stiffened against his arm. The path to her small cottage was littered with broken wood. As they drew nearer to the path obscured by brambles that led deep into the wood, the light slowly returned to the cottages in the township.

Godric sniffed the air and snarled. Not only had they almost destroyed one of God’s most beautiful creatures, but they had dishonored him and tarnished their name as good people. Now, they had set alight this poor, innocent woman’s home. He could allow no more.

Dazedly, Helga tripped forward. He hands were over her face in anguish. ‘My… my books, my things, my herbs… my inheritance…’ it was all she could do from crying out ‘My wand! ’

As if my some unknown power, Godric was at her side lightening fast, stroking her hair as he whispered in her ear. It struck him suddenly, that he had known this woman for a mere half hour, and already he was comforting her in her hour of misery? How odd for a man such as he; admired by all women, envied by all men, to suddenly, upon meeting a stranger comfort her without holding himself back.

She turned, and in a moment of weakness, cried into his shoulder. Godric lifted his eye to the Heavens. It was most awkward, having such a beautiful and sweet woman at his side in sad sadness. Helga was really a soft-hearted person, capable of doing someone no harm. Godric could see it in her, and he felt her warm against the furs that adorned his body. She shivered, and he pulled her closer and felt sparks between them. They were not sparks that he had felt before, and he had bedded many women. The sparks he felt were of connection. Without ever previously knowing Helga Hufflepuff, he felt as though they had been companions for centuries. A queer feeling came over Godric, and before his mind could reprimand his voice box –

‘Miss Hufflepuff, it would delight me if you were to return with me to my home. It is warm, and I hope that you will find comfort in the world of kindness I feel for you. You’ve suffered a horrible loss, now please, maiden, come with me to my home?’

Helga lifted her eyes from his now damp shoulder. Through pale, fluttering eyelids and leaking, tear filled eyes she stared at him.

‘Thank you, that would be most kind.’

Thank you. Pick at my work, please and thank you. =] Credit to any one who helps.

Drabbles

2006-10-18T12:30:04Z

A drabble written for the Gideon and Fabian Prewett Challenge in the Three Broomsticks.

A tear slid down her face as she clutched the parchment. Her hands shook as she read from it.

Dearest Molly, it read…

She hadn’t wanted to look at it. She hadn’t wanted to face it.

Her mother was sobbing in the doorway, a handkerchief clenched in her wrinkled hand as a merry Gideon and Fabian bid their little sister goodbye with a kiss…

Molly hadn’t known then it would have been so hard to say goodbye, so horrible…

‘Goodbye Gideon! ’Bye Fab!’ she ran as fast and her little plump legs would take her, running as quickly as her arms would let her, and slowly to a tearful standstill as the train spat bits of coal and smoke into her eyes and made them stream black tears...

She hadn’t known that saying a simple goodbye meant that she wouldn’t ever see her brothers again…

She hadn’t known then that when she said goodbye at her doorstep; farewell – that it would have been the last time…

Fabian’s eyes twinkled as his slender arm wound its way around his little sister’s broad shoulders. Gideon, despite the non-existent age difference, lurched painfully tall overhead both his brother and sister. His hands were placed comfortably on his mothers shoulders. Molly’s hands were around her father’s waist, and the whole picture was clenched painfully tight together, not wanting to let go as the tears coursed down the faces…

She had been the only left …

‘To Molly!’ Gideon toasted them happily, raising his glass, the twinkle in his eyes brighter than ever. ‘To Molly and Arthur!’

Everyone cheered. Her parents sat with small, sad, tight, disappointed smiles on their faces, their arms folded skeletally over their wrist bones. They were fading into the darkness, into the shadows and the corners as her brother’s lit up the room with their happiness. Fabian was grinning ear to ear.

They’d been happy for her and Arthur. They’d been delighted at their children, at their nephews. They’d never gotten to know their niece; their only niece…

The lights in the eyes of two Aurors eyes were extinguished yesterday as a shocking …

The newspapers were all over it. The headlines had told no lies…

The wind blew a gale force against her cheek. Molly could feel Ginny fighting the win in her arms, could feel the resistance, the stance her daughter was holding. Ginny had enough strength for the both of them. As the wind whipped their scarlet hair across their faces, and the dandelions swayed in the breeze in front of the stone, Ginny reached up one small finger and brushed the nameplate softly.

She folded the parchment back up, pressed it into the crinkled velvety soft envelope, and stowed it away in her drawer. There were fresh tears marks on the layers of old ink blotches and tear stained smudges. She’d suppress it for another year.

Attack. Please.

♥

Very First Drabble!

2006-08-27T13:05:16Z

Lol, I had to ask what a drabble was before I could enter this in MNFFBB. (MNFF - Beta Boards)

Hermione chewed her lip. Her hair blew across her face in the sudden gust of wind. Ron shook himself slightly, brushing off the conditions. He hovered in the air, his eyes narrowed towards the Keeper like a hawk tracking its next prey.

How to do it, how to show him? A thought came to mind. Sure, it was lowly and unjustified, but honestly… this was the easiest way to get through to him…

But should she, Hermione Granger, sink to the level of the others? Surely, with the good grades and high morals she wouldn’t attempt it?

But she liked him, didn’t she? She wanted to show him she cared about him, cared about what he did, didn’t she? She supposed maybe he mightn’t even notice, but still, the thought was there, wasn’t it?

She saw the player impatiently zigzagging his way back and forth in front of the goals. Ginny Weasley threw the Quaffle towards the left hoop as hard and determinedly straight as she could, her face screwed up in concentration. Harry simply sat blank-faced on his broom, watching his players every move, calculating. It was now or never.

“Confundus,” she whispered, pointed her wand out at the arrogant Cormac McLaggen. He voice shook, but her wand arm stayed steady. His face slackened and his grip grew wobbly on his broom. She jabbed her wand sharply to the right in an almost vicious manner.

She smiled in satisfaction as he careened off to the right, smashing into the pole. She smirked as he landed on the ground, gritting his teeth in humiliation. She felt an insurmountable feeling of guilt coil itself in her stomach. She felt physically sick.

Ron’s facial features lightened and he grinned. The light seemed to catch in his hair, making it seem on fire, powerful, alive. He beamed at Harry, and flew into position at the goals, bobbing up and down excitedly.

Hermione nearly fainted with relief. She quickly stowed away her wand inside her robes, and squinted down onto the pitch, ignoring the sun and wind that were making her eyes stream.

Ron looked up at her absently; he didn’t seem to suspect a thing. A shiver ran its way up and across her back, as though the fingers of guilt were worming their way into her skin. She shifted uncomfortably, and muttered under her breath.

“C’mon Ron, this is yours for the taking.”

Bbbyyyyeeee! NIIIIGHT!!

*is so done with this and ready for sleep it's not funny*

♥♥

Bend Till you break!

2006-08-27T12:57:09Z

Um.. *hides*

This is posted.... somewhere.... *cough*

I reme,mber trying to write. Trying to write is hard., I prefer just writing.

This is what loosing 30,000 words of Fanfiction can do to an author. *nods*

The glittering smiles of the other contestants shone brightly form the sides of the faded stage. The spotlight was fixed on two tall, glamorous girls. One was extremely tall, blonde and confident, whereas the other a medium sized, brown-haired and entirely ordinary. She stood next to the vacant blonde one, smiling deviously. The blonde’s hair was immaculately pinned, not a single hair out of place, not a single strand of hair escaped from the tightly wound knot in the back of her head, and not a single smudge of eyeliner disgraced the front of her beautiful face. The chestnut, however seemed to have shown up form the street, her bushy hair protruding from beside her eyes in bunches, and her dress wrinkled.

“And now, as we come to the climatic question. Mary Sue, if you please, answer me this: If an open door is called ajar, what is an open jar called?” asked the obnoxious presenter, smiling a matching glittering smile into the main camera, while the attention was taken away from the girl with brown hair. The spot light swung around and focused on Mary Sue, making her look like a deer caught in the headlights.

Mary Sue smoothed the front of her dress meticulously with a small, confident smile on her face. She raised the ridiculously sized microphone to her mouth and she opened her cherry red lips to speak to speak to reveal even, straight white teeth. From the shadows came a flurry of activity, a mumble and a whoosh. Mary Sue’s sparkling smile faltered for a moment as she tried to remember what she was going to say.

“I … I … can’t seem to remember …” she murmured to herself. The presenters smile became a little strained, and you could see beads of sweat trickling down his yellowing face. Mary Sue too was sweating, but as soon as a perfectly shaped bead of sweat formed on her head, it disappeared within the blink of an eye.
The girl in the shadows smiled, nodding her head ever so slightly towards Mary Sue in a toast.
“I … DON’T KNOW!” she screamed, suddenly loosing it. She clutched her perfect hair, tearing little whisps from her bun. She stamped her feet repeatedly, and cried, tears only escaping her brilliant baby-blues before being obliterated from her porcelain face.
“I DON’T KNOW!” she screamed again, turning on the girl in the shadows. The spotlight swung again, revealing the girl to be clapping her hands delightedly before yanking the microphone out of Mary Sue’s hand.

The presenter looked relieved and shoved a sobbing Mary Sue out of the spotlight off stage unceremoniously, and focused instead on the plain-Jane girl in front of him.
“So, Hermione Granger, same question, can you do what Miss Mary-Sue could not and answer provide the audience with an answer?”

Hermione smiled beautifully, raising the over sized microphone to her mouth, and opened her mouth to reveal her buck-toothed pearly whites.
“The answer, of course Bill, is an-open-jar-ready-for-you-to-take-the-coo-ookie-out-and-eat-it,” she said all in one breath, beaming out into the audience and uttering a high fake laugh.
“THAT’S CORRECT!” replied Bill, chucking his palm cards in the air and planting a kiss on Hermione’s glowing cheek. “THAT’S ABSOLUTELY ONE-HUNDRED-PERCENT-CORRECT!”

“Hey!” came the roar from Mary Sue as she stumbled back on stage, blinking as the light hit her eyes. Her make-up was smeared and she looked reading to explode. “What kind of answer IS that anyway? What the hell is a coo-ookie?” she challenged, pointing one perfectly manicured hand towards Hermione. “Huh? Tell me that, huh, HUH!”
“Please, Mary Sue,” said Bill calmly, “Control yourself, or we’ll have to call security!” He bared his bleached teeth in the direction of the camera crew in an ear-to-ear smile.
“Are you getting this?” Rita Skeeter asked of her assistant. “Because this is headline news! I can just picture it now! Deranged Beauty Queen Mary Sue is foiled by extremely ugly Hermione Granger…”

Suddenly, a fanfare sounded, and Hermione was sashaying up and down the catwalk, a huge bouquet in hand, a gold tiara in the other.
“Oh, thankyou, thankyou, all of you!” she cried, flinging her hands out and sending her tiara flying into the audience.
“NO worries,” said Bill smiling contritely, “It was only a cheapy from the corner store.”

“And now,” said Rite Skeeter into the top of her Quick Quotes Quill, “The Newly erm, Un-crowned Miss Universe has something unintelligible to say.”
“The first thing I am going to wish for is of course, World Peace, duh, and after that I want a million Sherbet Lemons EVERY DAY, and my very on jacuzzi bed, and I want an unlimited supply of Oat-Bran and Cornflakes, and …” she droned on and on.

“WAIT!” shouted Mary Sue, who was being restrained by Bill as he smiled convincingly to the cameras. She wrenched herself free and picked up the broken crown and clutched it to her head as though it was the only thing that mattered in the world. “See? I can be a Beauty Queen! I’m perfect, I’m beautiful, I’m FREAKING’ FLEUR DELACOUR ON LITERARY STEROIDS!” she screamed to Hermione who was standing at the end of the catwalk and fanning herself over exaggeratedly with her hand and preening to the boys in the front row.

“Will someone PLEASE get this nutcase off the stage,” muttered Bill into his walkie-talkie. He seemed to have brought it out of no where. “SECURITY!”

“NO!” screeched Mary Sue as the crown was dislodged from her seamless hands. “No, no, no…
she wailed. Suddenly a janitor appeared out of no where and began to shuffle Mary Sue away off stage. The crying stopped, and you could here the crickets.
“Uhh …” said Bill, clearly put off by this extremely embarrassing display. He searched form something to say.

“Hermione Granger everybody! Let’s give her a round of applause!”
Hermione curtseyed graciously. “Thankyou, thankyou …”

“And there you have it,” said Rita Skeeter. “Miss Hermione Granger becomes Miss Universe, totally baffling the audience and certainly this reporter! There you have it,” she repeated.

Back in the Gryffindor common room Harry, Ron and Hermione were clustered in front of the fireplace, admiring the crown with looks of awe.

“Can I touch it?” asked Ron, reaching for the crown. Hermione slapped his hand away with a look of disapproval and looked to Harry.
“What do you think Harry?”
“We-ell,” stared Harry, “It is a pretty crown, all shiny, and yellow and stuff.”
“Yeah, said Ron again. “Shiny.”
“Yeah.”
Hermione pushed her bushy hair over her shoulders. “What do you think about me changing my name? Hermione doesn’t sound very Miss Universe-ish. Got any ideas Harry?”
”I know,” butted in Ron. “’Mione! It’s practically your name and everythin-”
“Yes you imbecile,” snapped Hermione, boxing him over the head with a book. Harry Picked up the book and flipped through it interestedly.
“Hey! Here’s one, how about, listen to this, Sloppy Chuckle-Doodle!” he said, looking from Hermione to Ron excitedly.
“Sloppy Chuckle-doodle,” mused Hermione, stroking her chin. “Could work …”
“Or how about-” Ron consulted the book “- Crusty Dippindunkin?”
“Are you serious?” screeched Hermione. That’s the author’s name! I can’t have the same name as her!”
“Ouch! Okay, okay …”
“Hey,” said Harry, “Look at this.”

On the page was a picture Harry had drawn of Professor Snape. He had a speech bubble protruding from his mouth saying, “Hi! My name is Stinky Severus Snape! I have greasy black hair that I never wash, and I LOVE Minerva McGonagall!”

“Oh … Kay …” aid Hermione, dropping the book back into Harry’s lap. “Well done Harry, that’s erm … great.”
“Wow, thanks Hermione, and gee, look what I found! It’s a code!”
Hermione took the book from Harry and flipped it around the right way. “No, Harry you were just reading it upside down. But hey, here we go.” She consulted the book for a few moments, her lips moving soundlessly as she saved information to her mind.

“Okay,” she said moments later. Tell me what you think of … Dorfus Gizzard-butt,” she finished triumphantly.
“Yeah… Dorfus Gizzard-butt. ‘Gizzy’ for short. I like it,” said Harry.
“Are you nuts? Dorfus Gizzard-butt? You MUST be joking,” he close to shouted at Harry, throwing up his hands.
“What do YOU care Ron?” shouted Harry. “It’s not like you actually LIKE Hermione or anything!”

Ron’s face turned a purplish maroon colour. “Why do you say THAT, Harry? Of course I like Hermione, I LOVE Hermione!”
“NO you don’t, I DO! Just because all those people are saying ‘our ship has sunk’ doesn’t mean it’s true!”
“Well, you’re just a prat!”
“Wow, Ronnikins, did Dobby make that comeback up for you?”
Ron stopped short with his mouth open, because Dobby the House Elf had indeed told him to say that.
“Yeah well, why don’t you just … just… kiss her then!” said Ron loudly, laughing his head of at his fiendish plan. Yes, Dobby’s comeback hadn’t been so crash hot, but this… reverb Pskyoligee that all those Muggle doctors talked about … yes …that would work.

“Please, please boys! Don’t fight over the prettiest girl in the Universe! Please, you might give me a big head!” said Hermione breathily, her hand on her chest.

“Fine, then Ronnikins!” And Harry planted a big smooch right on Hermione’s lips.
“Oh, Harry!” she squealed, and dove on top of him.
“Yeuch… I don’t need this right now,” said Ron, snapping his jaw shut and leaving the wrestling teenagers behind on the ground.

Ron got into bed that night,

I THINK I meant to finish it? But... I decided (with good judgement) not to?

♥

Winter Redemption Challenge Two

2006-08-27T12:51:53Z

*reads through, eyes wide*

*clears throat*

Uh yeah, ddin't finish another one?

"People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone."- Audrey Hepburn

It's New Year's Eve, late at night, and most of the world is out and about, except for two people. One person is lost emotionally, perhaps beyond all mortal repair, and another one is up, unable to sleep, just sitting. What happens when the two meet?

Although it’s brilliant sunshine where I live currently, this is a submission for the Winter Challenge, Challenge One: Redemption Challenge </b>

He pulled her into him, his hands cupping her jawbones, and kissed her passionately. He felt his lips tingle as soon as they touched hers, and after taking a quick breath, he felt her mouth part, and he slipped his tongue into her mouth. He felt her tongue on his before her arms wrapped around him. His hands gripped her face firmly as the kiss continued, each not wanting the other to pull away. They pulled each other closer, wanting the kiss to suffice their hunger for each other, but lightning struck again causing thunder to roll over them.

*twiddles thumbs*

You so can't tell what wa son my mind then... >.>

♦ Haha! Delaney! It works!

EDIT: I'm testing out all the Froggy moods. Horny Frogs are funny to look at!~

Winter Redemption Challenge One

2006-08-27T12:46:43Z

I never finished this in time. *shrugs*

Archiving is fun.

Ginny Weasley wandered through the gardens of the Burrow, delighting in how the snow crunched underfoot, how the icy cold bit her cheeks and flushed them pink with pleasure, and how everything looked as thought it were from a fairytale. Her surrounds seemed to go on forever, an endless supply of frozen flakes, dazzling and bright against the darkness of the trees which dotted the grounds every now and then.

She lifted the many layers of scarves wrapped around her head and shook out her ruby colored hair. Snow flakes dotted the strands, and many grey streaks gave away her true age. She sighed happily and drew in the crisp, cold air and blew out through her nose, just like she did when she was a little girl. She laughed, and again she was engulfed in a hot, steamy burst of air.

She opened her arms and span, span in circles; her own wild dance until the world melted into one shinny white blur, into the Christmases she’d has when she was little, when everyone was living at home in the Burrow.

When she was little, Bill, Charlie and Percy used to help her build snow men, and she fondly remembered Percy’s glasses fogging up. She remembered clearly squealing and running to hide behind Percy as Fred and George pelted him with snowball, the snow clumping and falling to the ground while Ginny laughed hysterically, doubling over at the shocked look on his face as he tried and failing to wipe the foggy mess from the front of his glasses.

“Come on Perce,” she giggled from behind his Weasley jumper, “you can dodge better than that!”
“Yeah, Percy, just park yourself right in front of the snowball, we promise we won’t hit you,” said Fred sarcastically, scooping up another lump of brilliant white snow

Percy.

The icy cold bit through her as fast a knife plunged into a warm block of cheese. She started to sob quietly, and before the tears could reach her chin, they froze and tuned into tiny icicle, and then it was followed by another, and another, until a hot wetness covered her entire face, and the stone seat shuddered with the forces of her shakes.

She looked beyond the fence to where the graves of her late family lay. Ron. Harry. Fred. George. Bill. Charlie. Molly. Arthur. Percy. All of them, gone.

She had run from Harry’s motionless body, the blood dried on her face, and clear rivers of tears streamed down her face. Her body shook violently with her sobs, a cry escaped her throat, strangled and hoarse.

She sat there, rocking back and forth on the stone seat, shaking with pent up grief. Snow flakes

♣ Just to be different..

The Mystic Kettle of Nackledirk

2006-08-27T12:43:03Z

So, uh, short one?

Hermione carefully lifted the tarnished kettle down from the shelf, brushing away some of the dirt with a gloved hand.
She almost dropped it when she read the inscription on the underside, and cursed herself for getting so excited, but she could not stop the pleasurable squirming radiating through her body as she scanned the surface excitedly.

>.>

<.<

Yeah, so that's it...

♥