Apologies for the lateness of this. A combination of RL frickery, general niceness by the barmaid, and certain sites just NOT CO-OPERATING :mad::mad::mad: , have made this a fraught few hours for me.
This week things are a bit different. The brawlers had to set each other prompts, and thus they wrote two each. You get to vote twice. You vote for your TWO favourite drabbles, and your TWO least favourite. I will total up the scores and the brawler with the least votes will be leaving us.
When you vote, please bear in mind the prompt set and how well the brawler coped with it - because knowing these witches as I do, this was blooming hard for all of them. (And it also showed how evil they are - ha ha ha)
There is a comments field. I would like you to use it. I would like you to tell me which prompt you thought was most evil - heh heh. Thank you.
Now read the drabbles and vote .... all of you!
Evil Prompts Link here
Deadline is Tuesday 8PM GMT
Title: Goodbye
Rating/warning: 3rd-5th years; Sexual Situations.
Word Count: 433
Prompt:
Quote:
In this drabble, I’d like you to feature a Marauder Era Slytherin (as there are few characters whose houses are specified, you are allowed to make an educated decision as to who fits the bill, but nothing canon contradictory) who was approached about joining both the Death Eater Ranks AND the Order of the Phoenix. By the end of the drabble, the character’s decision must be made clear, whether it is to join the former or latter. However, this character cannot be Severus Snape, Regulus Black, Bellatrix Black Lestrange, Lucius Malfoy, or Narcissa Black Malfoy.
She presses her lips to his and all he can think is
this is it, this is what he wants. He’s never felt so alive and never so sure of himself.
He’s never felt so wrong.
“Come with me,” she says, her breath hot against his neck, hands trailing down and down and down until he can barely think. “After Hogwarts. You don’t have to go back to him, you don’t have to be your father, Evan.”
He pushes the sick, unwelcome feeling down and kisses her again to shut her up.
“Listen to me, Evan!”
He groans her name into her skin.
Marlene, Marlene, Marlene.
“I’m joining the Order,” she whispers. “Come with me. They can protect you, you don’t have to…”
He twists around so that she’s pressed hard into the wall and covers her mouth with his own until there’s no more talking, no more hoping.
No more lies.
They fall.
After, as he watches her brushing down her robes, smoothing her hair, removing any evidence of
him, he pulls out the letter that arrived at breakfast. The flames that shoot from his wand startle her but all he can look at is the parchment burning on the floor and the Rosier family crest as it flares bright red before fading to black.
“Goodbye, Evan.”
Their eyes meet.
She leans down for a kiss, then turns and walks out of the classroom without another word. He watches her go, knowing that it is the last time. The words from his father’s letter drum throughout the empty classroom like an endless heartbeat, an endless threat.
Evan,
Did you not feel the need to reply to my last letter? I am not a man to be kept waiting, and neither is the Dark Lord. Remember who you are, my son. You are a Rosier and you will make this family proud, whatever is asked of you.
I'm also writing to inform you that your mother is ill. If you do not come home I doubt that she will survive the summer.
Something sharp twists in his chest like the slap of a palm across his cheek, or the crack of a cane across his fingers. The message is clear. The message is understood. He stretches out his left wrist and traces shapes into his skin. Skulls and snakes and her.
Marlene, Marlene, Marlene.
His fingers brush against his lips, remembering the imprint of her body pressed against him, the taste of her, the heat. Tomorrow he will leave Hogwarts and he will leave her. It’s not what he wants.
But he’s never felt so right.
Title: The Snowball Effect
Rating/Warnings: 3rd/5th Years – Character death (?)
Prompt:
Quote:
Write an Umbridge-centric drabble in which she is portrayed in a sympathetic light. It should be set during the time she was at Hogwarts during OOTP, and must be from the perspective of a canon character who isn’t Filch, a Slytherin, or a Death Eater. No flashbacks, please.
* * *
Bane could not help but shake his head at his captive. “It has been a long time, Dolores Umbridge. You should not be here.”
Nose upturned, Dolores retorted, “I hardly think you have the power to decide where I do and do not go,
half-breed.”
He smiled at her vitriol. Though it had been years since their last encounter, Bane could see that she had bittered with age rather than mellowed. “You know the danger if the others realise you have returned to the forest. You will not be safe.”
Sneering, Dolores replied evenly, “That was a long time ago.”
“And Magorian’s memory is faultless,” Bane shot back coldly. “He will never forgive what you did to Arwen, not in a thousand moons.”
“I do not seek forgiveness from crude
animals like your sort. Only a
monster would do what that nag had done. Sub-human, barbaric filth!”
Though her words were full of bile, Bane couldn’t muster the sort of hate he should have for someone of her ilk. His own kind had contributed to it, and though his sympathy had been mellowed by time, he had not forgotten that mangled clump of fur and the human girl wailing over it. He had been but a colt then and far more forgiving.
It was not long before recognition dawned in Dolores’s eyes. “You! You took me out of the forest after that horrible beast killed . . .”
“It was by mistake.”
“And she laughed at me! At Snowball!”
Bane shook his head. “Your feline was unwise to venture into the forest, as were you to attack the chieftain’s mate. One does not need a clear view of Jupiter to see that.” Noticing that the volume of the conversation was not conducive to privacy, he said in a low voice. “You must leave before they are finished with Harry Potter. Magorian would love nothing more than vengeance, and he would do far worse than the childish hex of an immature wand-waver.” Looking around carefully, he hissed, “You must go now!”
Helping a wand-carrier was tantamount to treason for a centaur, to which his brother Firenze could attest, but Bane could not dispel the memory of a crying child from his mind. “I will tell them you overpowered me with your witchcraft. They will suspect nothing.” He mentally congratulated himself for playing along when his pack encountered the humans.
However, as soon as Dolores appeared ready to heed Bane’s sage advice, thundering hooves began to bear down on them, freezing the former in fear. Magorian trotted up to Bane and said, “You have done well. I have hoped to encounter
this human for several cycles.”
“You remember her, then, my liege?”
Pointedly regarding Dolores, Magorian said, “Indeed I do. I shall take great pleasure in this.”
With that, Magorian raised his bow in the air and bellowed, “For Arwen!”
As his brethren closed in on Dolores, Bane vowed to never meddle in human affairs again. Pity was not a vice he could afford.
Title: Bravery School
Rating/Warning: 3rd-5th
Word count: 499
Prompt:
Quote:
Write a drabble set at Hogwarts during Harry’s Horcrux Hunt. It must be in the perspective of a student that was at no point in Dumbledore’s Army but was, at some point, a victim of one of the Carrows’ cruelty. Said cruelty does not have to occur during the drabble’s timeline, but it does need to be alluded to clearly. Just in the interest of interestingness, make this student a canon character (interview or book canon — your choice) no older than a sixth year.
A/N: According to the Lexicon, Laura Madley was a girl sorted into Hufflepuff during Harry's fourth year.
Laura pressed her back against the stone wall and let the cold seep into her. When she closed her eyes, she could see down the hall and around the corner: if she moved quickly, she’d be in the common room in less than twenty seconds. She knew this, but couldn’t get her feet to move.
She’d waited too long to leave the library. Snape’s curfew required all students to be in their dormitories by eight—the same time the library closed. She usually remembered to leave early, but tonight she’d been working with a friend and lost track of the time. The sight of Madam Pince approaching them with a panicked look on her face and an eye toward the clock had turned Laura’s heart to water. Could they possibly make it back without being seen?
With a bit of luck, she’d made it safely down several flights of stairs, hoping with every step that Lydia had got back to Gryffindor without incident. They both knew very well what would happen if caught by the wrong person. Laura had almost made it to the common room when the sound of footsteps drove her into a dark corner to hide. She’d heard about people being paralyzed by fear, but she’d always considered it a figure of speech, a metaphor for something that happened on the inside of a person.
She’d thought that until yesterday.
She’d thought it until the moment Alecto Carrow’s eyes had fallen upon hers in an early morning class. Now the pictures on the walls of her mind were those of the ceiling in the Dark Arts classroom and the black behind her own squeezed-shut eyes as she absorbed the Cruciatus Curse for the first time. She doubted she’d ever shake the sensation of fire under her skin and white pain shattering her nerves.
All at once, an invisible hand gripped Laura’s upper arm and a silencing charm was whispered against her face in the shadows. Her heart slammed against her chest as tried to jerk free.
“It’s okay. It’s me, Ernie.”
Her mind raced to make sense of it: Ernie Macmillan... an older housemate.
She let him pull her into the corridor, half-dragging her to the safety of the common room.
Hannah Abbot was waiting for them. “Susan?”
“No, it’s me,” he said.
Hannah flicked her wand and Ernie became visible. “I found her in the corridor. Where’s Susan?”
“Right here,” said a voice near the entrance. Another flick from Hannah’s wand, and Laura saw Susan Bones looking quite relieved. “You’re all right?” she asked Laura.
Hannah put an arm around Laura, causing her to cry. “We heard what happened yesterday.”
“I was scared. I heard something and hid, and then I just… couldn’t move,” Laura said helplessly. “I’m sorry… I’m not very brave, am I?”
The older students exchanged knowing looks as Ernie sighed and dropped heavily into a chair by the fire. “Give it a couple of months,” he said darkly. “You will be.”
Title: Back to the Shack
Rating/Warnings: 1st/2nd Years – None
Prompt:
Quote:
Write a drabble set on the last day at Hogwarts for the Marauders. Your drabble must feature all four Marauders but they mustn't mention Lily at all and it should end on a happy note.
* * *
Remus sat on his bed in Gryffindor Tower for the last time as he watched Peter, James, and Sirius quickly stuffing their belongings into their trunks, a task they had put off until the last minute. Remus had completed it the night before while they booby-trapped the first years’ dormitory. The sound of banshees echoing far and wide had been quite a wake-up call when the hapless, sleepy-eyed Lyle Arpin opened the door.
As the sounds of The Great Sock Hunt filled the room, Remus peered out the window over the trees and to a very familiar point between the school and Hogsmeade. It was hard to believe that he would never see it again. The Shrieking Shack had been a place of pain and anguish, but it had become so much more than that. In the past couple of years, it had developed into a hub of adventure and companionship that Remus had thought he would never find.
His thoughts engrossing, Remus was jolted when a hand clapped his shoulder. The accompanying chuckle behind him identified the hand as belonging to Sirius. “Merlin, Moony. A bit tetchy, are we?”
A denial was on his tongue, but Remus instead opted for a shrug. The tell-tale sounds of packing had only reminded him of a painful truth he had tried to put off for weeks: he was leaving the one place he could be himself without the fear of judgment. Everywhere he went, he felt eyes staring at him, condemning him for who and what he was, but when he was around his three best friends, his Marauder brethren, his life-altering affliction really did just seem like a ‘furry little problem’.
As if he had peered straight into Remus’s mind, James said, “You know, we have a couple hours before we have to be at Hogsmeade station. We could go one last time.” A warm feeling overtook Remus, and he could’ve floated all the way to the Shrieking Shack and just about did. Before he knew it, his hand was pressed up against the siding, its peeling paint a sign of character rather than flaw.
It was wretched and beautiful all at once, but nothing could compare to what Remus felt when Sirius, Peter, and James put their hands on the wall near his. He glanced over at Peter, who gave him a small smile and a nod. Then to Sirius, who waggled his brows, and then to James, who grinned and blew a shock of hair off his forehead.
Remus finally realised why he was there. It wasn’t the Shrieking Shack he would miss; it was losing those precious nights of fraternity to the real world. “Everything’s going to change now, isn’t it?”
“Maybe,” James mumbled, seemingly slipping into his own thoughts.
Peter made a noncommittal noise, but Sirius scoffed. “Bollocks. We’ll always have each other.”
Fervently hoping that Sirius was right, Remus mused, “You think?”
James snapped out of his reverie and said without hesitation, “Until the very end.”
Title: Requiem
Rating/warning: 1st-2nd years; Character Death.
Word Count: 500
Prompt:
Quote:
Write a drabble in which Snape is paired with a female Hogwarts professor from the trio era. They don’t need to be in love, but there should be genuine positive feelings involved (not just a sexual relationship). A fanged Frisbee must have significance in the scene.
A/N: *Excerpt taken from Chapter One of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
There is a quiet comfort in his impassivity. When he shuts off his mind everything feels so clear and fragile and right. It’s a change from the dull haze he has lived in since the Dark Lord fell.
When he walks into Malfoy Manor to see a woman suspended above a long and ornate table, it is with a ruthless calm that he looks her in the eye and feels absolutely nothing.
---
The staff room is quiet when he enters, just a mere hiss from the fire in the corner, the occasional sound of a turning page. She is waiting for him with a book on her lap, alone.
He moves over to her and even though she doesn’t look up he can tell that she knows. There is a slight shift in her posture, the way her lips move upwards even though what she is reading looks heavy and dull. The way she doesn’t have to say anything at all. He sits down beside the fire and closes his eyes.
There are days when he cannot stand to be around anyone. There are days when he wishes everyone would disappear into nothing and then he could roam the earth alone with only his ghosts for company.
And there are days like this when he needs someone to sit with and just be. Charity Burbage is tolerable and for Severus that is enough.
“I have what you asked for,” she murmurs.
Charity holds out her hand and he looks down at the sweets lying in her upturned palm. Even the wrappers are the same as he remembers. He thinks of summer afternoons by the river, running hand in hand through the park, chains of twisted sweet wrappers braided through red hair.
Of sun and grass and Lily.
“I was visiting my sister and picked these up from the corner shop. I’m curious, though. When did you ever try Muggle sweets?”
“Thank you, Charity,” he replies, ignoring the question. “How much do I owe you?”
She smiles, shaking her head, and he hates her for it.
“Nothing. Consider it a gift. From friend to friend.”
Friend. Perhaps.
It is then that he notices the bandage on her other hand.
“Your fingers?”
“Ah,” she says with another smile. “I tried to confiscate one of those Fanged Frisbees from the Weasley twins.”
“Children,” he replies with a sneer. Charity chuckles and goes back to her book. Silence returns.
He unwraps a sweet and pops it into his mouth. The gold paper threads through his fingers until it’s twisted so tight that it rips in two. He reaches out towards the fire and lets go.
---
“Severus… please… please…”*
When the tear-stained face revolves around to face him once more, and as her lips open in one final plea, no one sees the slight flicker in his eyes, no one watches as the mask cracks if only for a second.
There is a flash of green, a hidden cry, and then the calm returns once more.
Title: Nine Letters
Rating/Warning: 3-5th
Word count: 496
Prompt:
Quote:
Who knows what the professors get up to in the staff room? Write a Marauder-Era drabble in which Severus Snape is caught hiding in the staff room by someone other than Dumbledore or McGonagall. Why he was there and what he saw or overheard is up to you.
A/N:
Snape watched as Slughorn left the staff room wearing a befuddled expression that likely meant he’d forgotten something in the dungeons. Snape would not have much time; he quickly moved between the gargoyles that flanked the doorway and slipped into the empty room. The bag Slughorn always carried to class was propped on a chair near the window. After a quick glance toward the door, Snape tried the clasp. Fortunately, the Potions Master had not considered magical protection for his things: the bag opened easily.
Snape flipped through essays, a couple of vials and a flask, then swallowed his frustration and began to search the smaller compartments. He cursed Avery under his breath as he worked. Imbicile. Snape had thought nothing of it when Slughorn had confiscated the parchment upon which Avery had been doodling for most of class this morning. But then Avery’s face had drained of color and he’d met Snape’s eyes with a look of serious concern.
As it turned out, the idiot had been making a list—a list that Avery thought most professors (even Slughorn) would find at least curious, and at worst, incriminating. While Avery fretted and paced and wrung his hands, Snape considered the problem thoughtfully, remembering that Slughorn had dropped the parchment into his bag at the end of class.
“The solution is simple, is it not? We must retrieve it.”
In the staff room, his hand passed over a wrinkled bit of parchment in the bag as he heard shoes scrape the stone floor in the corridor. Snape hastily closed the latch and stepped back, pocketing his find in the hope that it was indeed the one he sought.
The door creaked open.
“Severus, my boy,” said Slughorn, looking disoriented. “What the devil are you doing in here?”
Snape worked his face into a relaxed expression. “Waiting for you, Professor. The door was left open, so I wandered inside. I apologize.”
Slughorn's eyes darted around as he ushered them both out in haste. “Students aren’t permitted in the staff room.”
Snape apologized again and immediately launched into a question about the merit of using runespoor eggs in potions, considering that runespoor was a protected species. The teacher bit hard on the bait, and the student knew he’d escaped scrutiny.
Half an hour later, Snape pulled the crumpled parchment from his robes in a deserted classroom: there were seven names. His chest tightened as he read down the list, knowing what was coming. Sure enough, the last one… nine letters that made his throat ache…
Avery hadn’t told him what it was about, but now he would have to know. He didn’t care about the others, but that last name…
He shoved it into his robes, but could still see the handwriting in his mind: Lily Evans. He blew out a long breath, seeing the eyes that belonged to the name… allowing himself a moment of indulgence.
Then he squared his shoulders, and went to find Avery.