Weekly Drabble Challenge - A Thousand Words: Finding Myself - Results

[h_vic]

Name: h_vic
House: Hufflepuff
Title: Not Yet
Warnings: I suppose technically there's very mild swearing, but nothing that isn't found in HP itself
Words: 500

“Katie, wait! Stop!”

But I didn’t stop; I kept running, or perhaps it was more like stumbling in those stupidly showy heels that had never been my choice, just like nothing about that day had been my choice, other than the man who I was fleeing from. Oliver Wood would always be my choice.

I ran now from the pain and bewilderment in his voice, but I didn’t get far. Familiar fingers closed around my elbow, stopping me abruptly and spinning me back towards him.

One silly kitten heel finally snapped, trapped by the damp earth, and I pitched forwards, caught by strong arms just inches from his chest.

“Katie, I don’t understand … I thought … why?” He righted me as he spoke, and I kicked the wretched shoes off beneath the enveloping folds of my dress – my first delicious taste of freedom from all the overwhelming expectations that everyone had had of me all day. Expectations that were as heavy a burden as my sodden dress had become.

I couldn’t bear to meet his eyes though; I couldn’t bear the hurt that darkened them. I didn’t want to hurt him. That had never been my aim, but I couldn’t go through with this.

“You don’t need to understand,” I all-but-whispered, looking anywhere but at him as the cruel rain chilled me and slicked my oh-so-painstakingly-arranged hair back against my head.

“What the hell do you mean?” he demanded angrily, his fingers tightening on my arm more viciously than I knew he must intend, no matter how furious he was. “Two minutes ago we were stood at the altar, and yet you never got further than ‘I—.’ The least you owe me now is a bloody explanation.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, the first tear streaking from below my lowered eyelids, “but this isn’t about you, Olly.” He stared at me, incredulous. “It’s about me.”

It’s not you; it’s me. Oh so original, Katie, I berated myself, but it was true. For once in my life, this was about me.

“I don’t know who I am. I’ve gone from one relationship to another since I was fourteen, and I don’t even know what there is of me without a man there beside me. How can I become Katie Wood, when I don’t even know who Katie Bell is? I have to stop running from myself, because there’s nobody else for me to be! Please, Olly,” I begged him. “You have to understand. I never meant to hurt you, but I stood there and finally I knew: I couldn’t do it, not yet.”

“Not yet?” His voice was low and somehow dangerous. Involuntarily, I took a step backwards, and his fingers fell away from my arm, slack and nerveless. “And what if I’m not here when you come back?”

The tears began to spill more freely down my cheeks, mingling with the rain. “I hope you will be,” I breathed, the words a fervent prayer. I turned again and ran.

[bertiebott12]

Name: bertiebott12
House: Gryffindor
Title: Medicine
Warnings: None
Words: 337

He worked everyday, as a way to find himself. He had been lost for years now, an obvious victim of grief, sadness, and desperation. After losing what mattered most in the world, he was sitting in a hole of darkness, clouding his face from the true world around him. Trying to take his mind of her was harder than he imagined it, eleven years ago.

Even from when he was a teen, she was always more than a girl. A plain old girl would have forgotten him when they were sorted into rivaling houses. But she didn’t. The red-haired beauty knew the potential that lied inside of him. That was the potential that he had started to doubt among her murder.

From then on, he sat in the bookshop, seeking books to be his fortress. Students were just distractions on his mind, people that, in appearance, attitude, and even posture, reminded him of her. He had his own special corner, his door that closed him away from the world during the summer months. His face was constantly buried in the philosophy books, seeking an answer of life. Life was what pained him everyday. He had his horrible life, but hers had been ripped from her. How ironic.

The philosophy books were a medicine to him. They were a window into Lily; a way of showing her that he was trying to make the best of it. It helped somewhat to show him that life did have a meaning. Depression was what broke him down. When the Dark Mark burned, the cloak that hid him from the shop was opened, and he would go out. Then, hours later, he would re-enter. It became a cycle.

His heart slowly was torn all over again when her son came to Hogwarts. Everyday the pain was experienced, and he didn’t control his emotions. Images of her flashed through his mind. And then he would go to the bookstore once summer came. His medicine, his life. All worthless, all wasted.

[andromeda_tonks]

Name: andromeda_tonks
House:Hufflepuff
Title: Herbology
Warnings: DH spoilers
Words: 496
Picture chosen: Train station

I’ve always like trains. My grandmother hates them; she says that they are loud and unnecessary. Well, I suppose that they are unnecessary to a witch of her calibre, she can transport herself miles in an instant, so why should she need trains? I am perfectly capable of apparition too, but if I am not in a hurry I much prefer trains. Their rhythm feels like a second heart. My heart and mind dance with the train’s rhythm, discovering new thoughts and remembering old hopes and dreams, faded now into a past that I often forget.

The train I am waiting for now is different, though. I am back on platform nine and three quarters. This time, though, I am going back not to learn, but to teach. I barely hear the approaching train under the tide of memories washing over me; memories that I thought I had forgotten. The face of Draco Malfoy swims before my eyes. Oddly, I am not remembering the wittier, more cunning insults of later years. I am thinking of an eleven year old boy sitting at the back of a potions lesson hooting to the class at large, “Longbottom can’t do anything. He has no brain, or he has no sense. Longbottom, why are you in Griffindor? A wimpy coward like you has no right to be in Griffindor, why don’t you go and ask if they’d take you into Hufflepuff? I’m sure you’d be much happier there”

Draco’s insults had been far from ingenious, but they had hurt me. I had grown up in a family desperate to make sure that I was a wizard. No prepared me for the possibility that I might not be very good at magic once I got to Hogwarts. So I had pretended that I was not myself, I had tried so hard to understand the lessons that made so little sense to me, but I simply could not understand. My grandmother was angry and, worse, disappointed. She couldn’t understand the fog that seemed to fill my mind in Transfiguration, she couldn’t see that my desperate attempts at potions really were the best that I could do. She said that Herbology was of no use to anyone, it wasn’t worth my effort.

The train is coming now. I can hear the rhythm pounding along the tracks. Ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom goes the train, and boom-ba, boom-ba, boom-ba goes my heart. I know now, though, that I am not useless. Draco Malfoy can get out of my mind right now, because I have made my grandmother proud of me. I have proved that I am not useless. I've finally stopped running away from myself. Who else is there better to be? I’m Neville Longbottom, and I killed Voldemort’s snake and helped Harry Potter to save the world. But, more importantly, I’m Neville Longbottom and I’m going to stop pretending that I’m someone else and go and teach Herbology at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy.

[Gin_Drinka]

Title: Fog on the Road
Name: Gin_Drinka
Warnings: None...
Words: 499
House: Hufflepuff!

Ding Dong, the church bells ring. The people wait. The dress hangs loose.

Narcissa has lost a few pounds since her last fitting. She was skinny then, what must she look like now? She looks sickly, she knows it. She looks as if she were about to die, the unhealthy look partially concealed by layers and layers of powder and paint and a veil laced with crystals.

She is about to walk down the carpeted aisle and die a beautiful, aesthetic death.

Ding Dong, her feet are hurting. The people stir. Her eyes are glass.

The blue iris stands out against her pale skin. It is striking and lovely. But it isn’t real. She looks like a porcelain doll, or a princess out of a book of fairytales. And her beautiful prince is waiting in the other room.

Ding Dong, the music starts. The doors are open. The people turn.

This is the life she’s dreamed of. Her prince is rich and strong. Her parents are proud.

All of the people stand and look amazed as she walks in, the long folds or her dress trailing gracefully, loyally behind her. She had her stunning smile rehearsed and now, it is perfect.

The world sees her smile, and that is all they see. That is all anyone’s ever wanted to see. The rest doesn’t matter anyway. She will never change…

Ding Dong, she’s halfway there. His smile is strange. The music plays.

She doesn’t like that smile on his face. It scares her slightly. She doesn’t want to look at it anymore.

She wants to see another man where he stands. A man she knew a long time ago… or maybe it was a boy… or maybe he was not at all. Maybe… maybe she wants to run away and find him.

Ding Dong, there’s fog outside. The road is long. Her feet are hurting.

The priest has begun to speak; they stand side by side, somehow solemnly. Her heart is beating so fast. Her body is prepared to run, but her mind has not yet decided.

She wants to run. She won’t care that he will yell, the music will stop, the people will whisper, her parents will shout. She wants to run away, into the fog that hangs over the road toward that someone else she can’t see.

She wants to run…

Ding Dong, the mass is over. She’s in his arms. The fog has lifted.

She didn’t run. She doesn’t know why. She did not run.

The other face has gone missing again.

She tells her self that she has done the right thing. She tells herself, I’ve stopped running away. I’ve stopped running from myself. Is there anyone better to be?

Ding Dong, the baby cries. He walks away. The lights go off.

There had been someone else… but she is gone now. That girl that bolted from the church and disappeared into the fog that hung over that terrifying road, to find the faceless boy.

I adapted the quote a bit. I think I read that that was okay...

[mudbloodproud]

Name: mudbloodproud
House: Hufflepuff
Title: Alone
Warnings: reference to character death
Words: 500
Picture used: Train Station

He sat alone in the corner of platform nine and three-quarters. No one knew he was there. He watched as excited children boarded the train for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. How he envied them. Just a few years ago, he would have been one of those students saying goodbye to his parents, anticipating the coming year. Though then, he would not have been alone. He would have been planning for a year of pranks and jokes with his twin. Now Fred was gone and he faced going through everything alone. He felt he was only half of what he used to be.

He saw Ginny and Hermione looking for an empty car. They were walking with Ron, Harry and his mom. He had the urge to go over and say goodbye to Ginny and Hermione, but he couldn’t bear to see the sorrow on their face when they looked at him.

So he sat, alone.

After the train pulled out, and the smoke from the engines cleared, he saw Ron, Harry and his mom talking. He saw Ron look around and focus on him. Ron said something to his mom and Harry. His mom hugged Ron, and then both she and Harry turned on the spot and disappeared.

Ron walked over to his brother, “Hey bro. What are you doing here? Why didn’t you come over to say goodbye to Ginny and Hermione?”

Ignoring the first question, George answered the first, “Just thinking. Were you serious when you said you were going to come and work in the shop with me?”

“Well, yeah. Of course I was serious. Why, don’t you want me to?” Ron asked. There was confusion clear in his voice.

“I do, as long as you aren’t doing it out of pity, or because you feel like you have to.” George looked at Ron half expecting Ron to tell him that was exactly the reason he was going this.

“Of course that is not the reason. I want to help. I miss him, too. I think we need to make sure the shop stays open for him.” Ron’s eyes held a slight sheen of tears.

“As I sat here, watching everyone leaving, I was thinking about being back at school. I can honestly say over the past few months, I thought about closing the shop. But, I realized something as I sat here. I have to keep it open. I have to stop running away from myself. After all, who better is there to be?”

Ron’s face clearly showed his confusion. He didn’t know what to say to this. So, he didn’t say anything.

Standing George looked at his little brother. Smiling he said to him, “We better go. The shop should have been open hours ago. I will have to dock your pay because you weren’t there to open it on time.” Laughing, George turned on the spot and was gone.

Ron shrugged his shoulders, smiled to himself and followed his brother to work.

I've just been in a Fred and George mood lately. So, here's another drabble focusing on George dealing with life after Fred.

[Black_Dust]

Name: Black_Dust aka Kasey
House: Slytherin
Title: A Tearstained Lily
Warnings: There's a few swears in it, and its kind of depressing I guess *would insert some sort of smily-type face here just to cheer the place up but alas; no such wonderful buttons to push so... --> *
Words: 500 (it was cut down a lot he he...)
Picture used: A Rainy Day...

“Be careful you idiot!”

The pimply-faced imbecile of a conductor had slipped on the wet step and grabbed on to the sleeve of my muggle jacket for support.

“ ‘orry ‘bout that ‘ir,” he said brushing himself off.

Glaring loathingly at him, I paid as quickly as I could then watched as the Knight Bus jerked ahead, leaving me cold and alone in a rainy back alley.

Sighing, I turned around to get on the main street. What a painfully wretched night this was going to be. With no umbrella and no way to use my wand with all the muggles around, something was telling me I was destined to be miserable for the rest of my life.

Turning off the wet street and into a fenced field, I slowed my pace. Each step I took was a pain; both equally throbbing and numbing. Rain splashed down my neck and down my black clock soaking me. But the ghost of past visits directed me and I reached my destination easily in the dark.

Squatting down, I brushed some dead vines away and read the words squalled on the gravestone for the millionth time and laughed bitterly.

James Potter
March 27, 1960 - October 31, 1981
Lily Potter
January 30, 1960 - October 31, 1981

I didn’t laugh because it’s funny; I didn’t laugh because I wanted to. It’s just truly amusing how many times that arrogant bastard could ruin my life. I could deal with the humiliation that stuck-up ass Potter and his friends made me go through. I could even deal with knowing that maybe, perhaps, he was better at qudditch than me. But I could never, and would never deal with the fact that my Lily loved him more than me.

After all the times we spent inventing new spells and sneaking out together at midnight just to talk, after all the years when I was her best friend and she was my…only friend, how could she possibly not forgive me for one slip of the tongue? How could she possibly believe he was better than me? How in the world is it fair that Potter gets to spend all eternity with her while I’m stuck here in hell saving their son’s ass?

Lily and I hardly talked after “the incident” at the lake, but one time while passing in the halls in our seventh year I managed to blurt out “Why Potter?”

I remember she paused and stared at me for awhile with those beautiful, emerald eyes before replying with a quote she’d quoted before

“I've finally stopped running away from myself. Who else is there better to be?”

That was it, she turned away from me and left with a quote I never understood…I’m not sure if we ever said another two words to each other after that.

This was just too much. Sighing again, I wiped my eyes and placed a perfect, tearstained lily on top of the gravestone and walked away into the rain.

Wow! Don't you hate when plot bunnies spring up at inconvient times? I was nearly done writting a version of this story where Snape went to see his mom's grave instead but then the idea of Lily's grave came up that I liked slightly better so I had to rewrite! *takes out a wack-a-mole hammer in order to prevent any more plot bunnies from attacking and making me stay up any more past my bedtime*

~~Kasey

[Pondering]

Name: Pondering/Tash
House: Ravenclaw
Title: Unnecessary Assistance
Warnings: None
Words: 480
Picture used: Bookstore

A magical bell tinkled when Hermione Granger stepped into the premises of Flourish and Blotts. It woke me from my nap; I had dozed off next to the register after assisting an elderly lady with a cookbook. We didn’t get many customers at this time of year.

But now Hermione was here, and I knew she would be here for quite a while, as she hadn’t visited for ages. After her high-profile wedding with Ron Weasley had been announced, she hadn’t been around in public anymore.

Her eyes skimmed right past me and fixed on the new arrivals. The section was still messy and I sweated a bit, remembering that it was my job to make sure the books were lined up correctly. It would be hard for her to find anything in there without my assistance, I reasoned with myself, and I found myself standing by her side in a matter of seconds.

“How may I help you?” I ask smoothly, the classic line of a shop assistant. Ever since I started working here two years ago, I had uttered that sentence many, many times.

Without even looking at me, she replied, “Just looking, thanks.” I knew, however, that Hermione Granger—the ring on her finger glitters at me—no, Weasley, could ever set foot in a bookshop and just look.

“You haven’t been here in a while,” I said, persistently trying to make conversation. I expected her to ignore me, or mumble that she’s been busy, with her job and her wedding, but she doesn’t.

Instead, she looked up at me and smiled, her fingers trailing down the spine of a leather-bound book. “I've finally stopped running away from myself. Who else is there better to be?”

The response made no sense, and I must have looked so confuse that she felt the need to elaborate.

“You see,” she replied, “after everyone found out about our wedding, I was expected to be a role model to young girls. And young girls don’t want to read books. They want to know how to look pretty for boys.” There was a bitter tone to her voice that I understood very clearly.

In my shock, I replied, “But don’t they know that they always look prettiest when reading?” I couldn’t believe I said that; the blush creeping up my neck was threatening to burn me.

Hermione, much to her credit, didn’t laugh in my face. She smiled. “I came to that conclusion, too. Now I’m doing the right thing. I’m turning a generation of young girls onto reading. More patronage for you I suppose.” Her eyes skimmed up and down the aisle of books; she picked out five of them and followed me back to the register.

Obviously she hadn’t needed my help after all. Why did I have to make such a fool of myself in front of Hermione Weasley?

[MissyQuill]

Name: Sammy/MissyQuill
House: GRYFFINDOR!!!
Title: Finding Me in You.
Warnings: None
Words: 396
Picture used: The runaway bride

You are disturbed from your restless excuse of a slumber in the armchair by a knock on the door. But not just any knock - a knock that begins so silently that you would have thought it imagined, or worse, hopefully imagined. The knocker, however, seems to take encouragement from the slight sound that reverberates to the even quieter surrounding and becomes slightly louder.

Wondering why on earth someone would be knocking steadily loudly on your door at this time of the night, as the only ones who would come at such a late hour are not courteous enough to knock, you head to the door. You do not feel particularly curious, however. You doubt anything will ever pique your interest any time soon, if ever.

By the time your sore and stiff muscles arrive at the door, the knocking is nothing short of banging, and your door appears to be in serious danger of falling over inwards and on top of you. You reach for the knob and open the door.

You are greeted by what your sleep-deprived eyes perceive to be a white puff ball, and then open in shock as they see red… and a little bit of green, nearly indecipherable after having been washed with so much grief. That is all you have time to notice before the knocker throws herself in your arms.

And all you can do is hold her as she sobs away. You don’t even wonder why she is here, on this night of all nights. All you want to do is make her stop crying, and if that means you have to hold her in this chilly weather for a millennium, that seems a ridiculously small price to pay.

Finally, her sobs subside to sniffles and then to little hiccups which die down in a few minutes as well. She gently disengages herself from you and looks up, her emerald gaze meeting yours.

“I tried to find myself, everywhere I could think of. And wouldn’t you know it? I was here all along, with you.”

And with that, she buries her head in your chest again, and for the first time ever, you know what it is like to feel perfectly content with your life, and unable to think of anything that could possibly make it better. Because to find herself, she had to come to you.

[cirelondiel]

Name: Chelsea/Cirelondiel
House: Hufflepuff
Title: Running
Warnings: One little bit of Language. And it could be interpreted as Mental Disorders... but I personally see Andromeda's experience as a period of lucidity rather than insanity.
Words: 406
Picture used: Runaway Bride

The wind and rain lashed like fierce ice-cold beasts, assaulting the landscape with bitter frozen teeth. But they did not numb her body: her senses were each one heightened a thousand times beyond normal, her heart beating a frenzied ostinato in her chest, her every nerve coursing with sheer exhilaration as she ran down the endless black road.

Folds of ivory fabric whipped and swirled and billowed around her like a cloud, giving the impression that she was as much a force of nature as the elements battling it out around her.

And she ran, with such enormous energy she could only have drawn it from nature itself: she ran and she ran and she ran with no sense of how much time was passing or even if maybe she was going so fast that the world around her had stopped.

And finally she dropped to her knees and looked to the sky and knelt there, body heaving and shaking and some strange sound pouring from her lips.

Not a sound of pain or fear or anger, but release.

And as she gazed heavenwards the clouds overhead seemed to swirl and mutate and she could see faces in them: familiar faces, and they parted their grey lips and spoke to her.

Cissy, pale and delicate, chewing her lip in that nervous way of hers.

“Please, Annie, please come back; think what you’re doing to mother and father…”

Their darker-featured sister interrupted. “You’re disgracing the family name, that’s what! You’re tarnishing the respect the name Black has commanded for generations! Everything our ancestors - ”

“So blast me off your bloody tree, Bella!” screamed the girl on the ground. “Remove me from your pitiful existence! Do it, Bella, do me that favour…”

Her cloudy mother joined the terrible screeching in the sky. “You can’t run from yourself, Andromeda! You can’t leave everything that you are behind!”

“But I’m NOT, Mother! That’s what I’ve been doing all these years, trying to be what you want me to be, but I can’t do that any more!” With a final, definitive dose of steely determination, the wet and bedraggled girl stood and drew herself proudly to her full height. “I’ve finally stopped running away from myself now, Mother. Who else is there better to be?”

And the faces and their shrieks dissolved into indistinguishable clouds as the girl turned and continued calmly down the road in her now-useless wedding dress.

[mugglemathdork]

Results are in! XD

1st Place
coolh5000

2nd Place
mudbloodproud

3rd Place
bertiebott12

These writers showed a unique perspective on the pictures they chose, and their drabbles met MNFF submission standards.

You guys did awesome!
Points will be posted by MQ -- keep an eye out on it.

~Ebil One