Challenge: I <3 OC's

[Diamond Quill]

Username: Diamond Quill
House: Gryffindor
Character: Regulus Black
Word Count: 534

'I'm sorry- I never meant it to be this way…'.

That's all he said to me as he left. One rushed sentence, a few insincere, hasty words. 12 years and he couldn't even say goodbye to me properly. We were supposed to be brothers, friends even. I knew he hated me, I knew he was ashamed to be part of our family, but I never thought he would leave. There was too much history there.

When we were kids we were so close. I remember how we used to spend hours in the attic playing wild, exciting, fantastic games that he had made up and we promptly acted out. They were always Sirius's ideas. He used to think that I was either too shy or too unimaginative to come up with my own, but the truth was that I preferred to just watch and listen to him. I still remember the look on his face as he'd jump around excitedly, the fire in his eyes as he would bossily tell me his plans and then impatiently explain them again as I pretended not to understand. Most of the time his ideas didn't work or they were too wild and got us in to trouble, but I didn't care. I'd go along with it all just to see that look on his face.

It wasn't just in the games that Sirius took the lead. When we used to sit up at night in the bedroom that we shared (we refused to be separated) and listen to the sound of our parents fighting in the rooms below, Sirius would always be the one to distract us. He'd always be the one to talk loudly and determinedly about something completely irrelevant, anything, as long as it blocked out the sound of the hatred in the house. He always kept up the pretence of not hearing them and in doing this he almost persuaded me that I couldn't hear them either. Almost.

When he first returned from Hogwarts everything changed. He didn't want to play our games anymore; he didn't want to talk at night anymore. In a few weeks he went from being the perfect son to a delinquent tearaway. He hated our parents. He hated our family. In short, he hated anything that tied him down to the beliefs we had held all our life- that blood was important. It was Hogwarts that changed him. It opened his eyes to a different world, a world with exciting new possibilities and people. A world without me.

Once he said to me that we'd always be a team. He said it was written in the stars. He didn't know anything about astronomy but I still believed him. I liked believing Sirius. We used to play a game based on our 'star names.' I was the little king and he was my faithful pet dog. It's ironic, because in the end it was me who was always following him, not the other way round. I tried so hard to trap him down, to keep him to myself. But Sirius could never be forced to do things he didn't want. He wanted to be free, to shine with the stars.

[Valentinia]

I think it's still the 30th...

Username: Valentinia
House: Ravenclaw
Character: Petunia Evans, 8 years old
Word Count: 252 (Petunia: 235)

Never Lied Before

“Promise you’ll be back, Lily?”

“I promise. I’ll never forget you.”

What’s a promise worth, though? People say I’m too incredulous. But I like that word, and so I’m happy when they say it. Of course I don’t believe things right away, ‘cause if I did, then people could trick me. And I don’t want to be tricked. I don’t believe things unless I know why I should believe them. Like if Lily tells it to me, I believe it, because Lily’s older than me, and she’s smart, and knows everything, I think. Or I believe things if it’s in a book. Well, a real book. Not a fairy tale, not like those books Lily reads. I guess that’s what made it so hard to understand that Lily was really going to leave me and go to learn magic. Real magic. But that’s not the hardest part. The hardest part is Lily leaving. I always am with Lily, she always listens to my ideas and she never makes fun of me. And, even though she’s cooler than me most of the time with other kids, she never tries to be better than me. Everyone else, they see that I’m pathetic, and they try to outshine me. Not Lily. And plus, what Lily tells me is always true. She never lies.

“We’ll always be sisters and we’ll always be best friends, Petunia!”

And even though I’m mostly an incredulous girl, I believe this simple promise, because Lily has never lied to me before.

[Mind_Over_Matter]

Hopefully, I'm not too late. And the time limit includes December 1st.
This has really messed up how I'm writing.

Username: Mind_Over_Matter
House: Ravenclaw
Character: Barty Crouch Jr., in his last moments of sanity.
Word Count: 337 words
Entry: Must be the Kiss: Glory

I’m laughing. I’m smiling.
At least, I think so. I got hit hard – a few spells, I think. I’m not sure how many. A few spells though. Then potion, then I talked. That didn’t help.

Didn’t need a setback.
Didn’t want a setback.
No thank you. No thank you indeed.
Potter’s death is further away now, again. The Dark Lord won’t be happy, again. Glory’s a little further away now.
Again.
Setbacks? No thank you indeed.

Still laughing. Still laughing.
Still laughing at them.
They see what I’ve done. See what’s been done by a dead man, don’t they now?
They see now.
I see troubled people. All troubled. All scared. They’re terrified.
I did that. That was me.
The dead have arisen – the Dark Lord and I.
They’re terrified.
I’m laughing at them.

I’ve stopped laughing. Have I stopped? Think so.
Suddenly Glory seems a million miles away.
Why? Why does Glory seem a million miles away?
Now is bad. Worse than bad. Mother’s death bad. Azkaban bad. Dark Lord’s disappearance bad.
Now is bad. Now is doom. There’ll never be hope again.
Glory is gone.

I see now. Of course.
Dementor. Dementor.
Dementor to bring it all back.
Even without Dementor, Glory would be gone though. No success, no life and no Glory.
Get rid of Dementor!
Leave! Leave!
But Dementor is approaching.

I see now, it’s approaching.
I can’t run. Can’t. There’s no hope.
Close. Close.

Sucking. Sucking. I’m going mad.
Kiss. Kiss. The Dementor’s here.
Sick. Sick. They’re all here. All terrified.

Hopelessness leaving. Why? Can’t say.
Must be the Kiss. Sucking. Sucking.
I feel it now.
Glory. Glory. The Dark Lord lives and I live. Because of me, the unthinkable has occurred.

I’m laughing again. Or laughing still? Don’t know.
Must be the Kiss. Sucking. Sucking.
Can’t suck the Glory.
Feel nothing else. But feel the Glory.
Feel the Glory, though all else fades.
Must be the Kiss.
All else fades…
Must be the Kiss.
All else…

[kumydabookworm]

Username: kumydabookworm
House: Gryffindor
Title: Secrets
Character: Augustus Rookwood
Word Count: 638

Just yesterday, Barty, I was sitting in your office sharing one of the Unspeakables' secrets with you - how the Department of Mysteries was researching ways to tell if someone was being controlled through the Imperius curse.

Now, you're looking at me as though you'd like to kill me in front of the entire Wizengamot. You've chained me in this chair after knowing that I helped to create it through my research. You want power, and yet, you ignore its most obvious source - the Dark Lord.

You even killed your son a few days ago, I heard, chasing after that power. An absolutely unnecessary loss. You could have easily swayed the public to believe your son was innocent - and saved your own heroic image as well. Murdering your own son does tend to cast a bad light on you, wouldn't you say?

Maybe, you are mad after all - though these Ministry fools won't see it until it's too late.

These fools can't see that I'm invincible, either. But you all have nothing to implicate me but slender strands of hearsay. You have the testimony of a man reknowned for his injuries from Bludgers, and notorious for his stupidity. Ludo Bagman won't put a man like me in Azkaban.

I know how to read the symptoms of the body when a person is wavering. The shift of muscles in their hands, the flickering of eyes, even the way their pulse throbs at their temple. I know how to sway a crowd, how to convince them to believe me.

How else do you think I got the Dark Lord to spare me from the Dark Mark?

Even if I am imprisoned, I've researched for years the way to force the body to a death-like state. I've planned for every possible outcome. I know how to keep a dementor's mouth from fully touching me if I am sentenced with the Dementor's Kiss.

There's so many things I haven't told you, Barty. I've discovered realms of power unknown to the common wizard - secrets I will share with no one - not even my Master. I've made you think that you knew everything going on in the Department of Mysteries - when you barely skimmed the surface, and I manipulated the Dark Lord into believing my spies were the only way he could control the Ministry.

Neither of you know about the rooms that hide within rooms in the Department of Mysteries. Neither of you has learned how to hear ancient prophecies or how to control the mind. You look at the orbs of glass in the Hall of Prophecies, or the tank of green liquid in the Brain Room in my memories and you see nothing of importance.

Neither of you know my secret.

The power of the one who works on neither side will rise above good and evil - the Hero and the Master - and shine effervescent above them all.

They say that Cassandra Trelawney was the greatest seer that ever lived. You've never listened to her prophecies, have you?

No one knows what goes on in the Department of Mysteries. Not you, Barty Crouch, and not the Dark Lord. No one knows the power I have, the things I know. No one is invincible in this War - they've shared all their secrets with someone or the other.

But I know. I am invincible.

No one knows the true path of power. Absolute isolation, absolute genius. You, Barty, you and Voldemort both, allow passion to blind you. Only I have stood above you both, and soon, I will rise effervescent above them all.

In the end, you will learn that passion is not power, but knowledge is. Only then, it will be too late.

You see, I have all the secrets.

[whittyleah]

Username: Whittyleah
House: Gryffindor
Title: Questions
Character: Draco Malfoy
Word Count: 196

A/N: I am very sorry that I am posting this so close to the deadline. I have been swamped! Writing a thesis can do that to a girl.

'Why am I doing this? I am going to get myself killed, or worse.

‘You are doing this for your family! You are the head of your house with Father gone. You have to take care of Mother, and she will die if you do not do this. You are the leader now, the one who must sacrifice.

‘But I do not want to die, which is the most likely thing to occur. Why did I agree to this? I don’t want to kill or be a Death Eater, I want to… I don’t know what I want to do yet, but I will never have that chance – I am going to die or be branded evil for the rest of my life.

‘What have I gotten myself in to? Picking on Mudbloods and teasing Potter is one thing, but killing is another something all together. I don’t think I can do this.

‘What if I can’t? What if I can’t look him in the eye and kill him? What if I can’t do what I have been raised to do my whole life?

‘Calm down. You are going to this, you have to do this.’

[solemnlyswear_x]

Username: solemnlyswear_x
House: Gryffindor
Character: Andromeda Black
Word Count: 208
Entry: Old Enough

I am eighteen, old enough to understand that as soon as I walk out of the front door, I will leave behind my life.

I will leave behind everything I have ever known. My home, my mother, my father, and my sisters. My sisters will be the hardest to leave.

This evening, I told them that I had to get away from this house. I just can’t take our parents’ foolhardy notions about purebloods anymore. I can’t take the fact that I wouldn’t be able to see Ted Tonks if I stay, and instead would be forced to marry someone like Lucius Malfoy. Someone who I don’t love. So I told my sisters that I would be leaving tonight, as soon as Mother and Father fall asleep.

Narcissa is only eight, too young to understand what my leaving truly means. Bellatrix, however, is fourteen, the right age to understand that it means I won’t ever come back home.

And I am eighteen, old enough to understand what this decision will cost me, but also what this decision will give me.

It will give me my freedom, my beliefs, my laughter, and it will give me Ted.

I am eighteen, old enough to understand that this is worth it.

[Vardy]

Username: Vardy
House: Gryffindor
Character: Sirius Black
Word Count: 153 (without narration)
Entry: Nothing Can Stop the Inevitable

Sirius threw the book against the wall, loose pages fluttered slowly to the ground.

How on earth could this have happened? His little brother had joined them. There had been a chance for him, a chance to escape. Yet now, he was beyond help, he had become a Death Eater.

Sirius slumped against the wall as tears threatened to fall from his eyes. He could not cry. It was a sign of weakness. Besides, his brother was dead to him now. Dead.

After all, Voldemort was a monster, and what he was trying to do was bloody ridiculous. And if Regulus had decided to follow the man, if he could even be called that, then he would go down with the rest of them.

Sirius slammed his hand on the ground, and gazed at the ceiling. If he hated his brother so much, why did it hurt? He hated what his family stood for. Hated what they believed and lived by. Yet this, he had hoped, in the back of his mind, that his brother would not follow them. And now the inevitable had happened. His brother was his brother no longer.

[TiaBlue]

Username: TiaBlue
House: Gryffindor
Character: Cormac McLaggen
Word Count: 169
Entry: The Party
(* Embarrassing myself for Kumy and the home team. Thanks for all of your help, Kumy.)

“Well, as I’m not invited to any parties, I think I’ll go to bed.” (HPB, pg. 235)

Ron Weasley is going up to bed now. He seems shocked that he isn’t invited to any of Sluggy’s parties. I’m shocked that he’s shocked, actually. His father is a nobody at the ministry, and his family is as poor a church mice. Just look at the state of his clothes and books! The only decent connection they have is Harry Potter.

I can’t believe Potter chose Weasley for Keeper. The sole reason Weasley made the team is because he’s Potter’s best friend, and Potter told everyone to go easy on him.

My Quidditch skills far outstrip Weasley’s any day, and the team will certainly mutiny when Weasley fails them. Then, Potter will be begging me to take the job. It’s incomprehensible to me why Potter and Granger keep company with Weasley: There’s simply no advantage to it. In my book, Ron Weasley just doesn’t matter. Besides, Slughorn invited me to his Slug Club party. I’m good enough to stand alongside Granger and Potter.

Weasley – he wasn’t even invited.

[megan_lupin]

Username: megan_lupin
House: Gryffindor
Character: Lucius Malfoy
Word Count: 324
Entry: Was It All Worth It?

Is it possible, reasonable, for one decision to change a life? Yes. Can everything change in one night? Yes.

My entire life, I was the one in control. I was the one who had people bow down to me, and mine were the orders that were followed. Others were subservient to me, not the other way around. It was never supposed to be the other way. But that did not last long.

In this world, power is everything. The more power one has, the more right they have to rule over others. The power was what drew me to him, I remember, when I was young. At seventeen, power of his amount is, unquestionably, strongly desired. And he knew just want to promise to get me in . . . I wanted the power, he promised it to me.

I should have seen the hidden falsity in his words then. He used the same tricks, the same slippery words and honeyed promises that I do. And yet, I was still unable to see it. Perhaps those who buy into my words are not as foolish as I first believe them to be? Anyone can be fooled, correct . . . No, that is not right. Fudge and the other Ministry officials really are as gullible as they look.

But, back to the original thought:

In one night, the tables had turned. With one decision, I was the one bowing down to someone; I was the one in the deferent role. I was not the Master; rather, I had a Master. My knees in the dirt, my head lowered, and a brand on my arm . . . all signs of the shifting power.

And for the first time in my life, I wonder . . . oh, I have thought about it before, but never as much as through this past year . . . and my mind wonders,

Was it all worth it?

A/N: No, Lucius isn't regretting his choices, per se, but a year in prison has just provided a lot of thinking time, and such usually results in one's mind going to areas that it would not usually dwell over. Lucius is still Lucius , and I wouldn't ever dream of changing that!

~**~

Username: megan_lupin
House: Gryffindor
Character: Narcissa Malfoy
Word Count: 432 (total) 176 (monologue)
Entry: A Good Thing?

She knew something was just not right; in fact, something was downright wrong. For the past several weeks, she had simply been feeling different, not herself. At first, she had passed it off as feeling just slightly under the weather, but it hadn’t ceased.

So now, here she sat, in St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, waiting for Healer Frederick to come in and speak with her. The walls surrounding her were that annoyingly bright white colour that made up the magical hospital, and there was absolutely nothing at all to do while she waited. I do wish she’d hurry up. I don’t have all day to sit here. Finally, though, Healer Kathy Frederick came in and sat down opposite her.

“Well, Mrs. Malfoy,” she began, a smile on her tanned face, “I think congratulations are in order, so, congratulations; you’re pregnant.”

Narcissa did not respond right away. In fact, she wasn’t even sure that she still retained the ability to speak. The last two words that Healer Frederick had spoken kept reverberating through her mind.

“No, I’m sorry. There has to be a mistake. I can’t be pregnant.” Really, I can’t. I’m nowhere near ready to be a mother, and Lucius is not any closer towards being ready to be a father than the first time we talked about this.

“I assure you, Mrs. Malfoy, that you are, indeed, pregnant, and several weeks along, too, by the results of the tests.”

There was no way that Narcissa could argue that magic would produce faulty test results. If the tests said she was pregnant, then she was.

Okay, breathe. Just breathe . . . nice and slowly, she thought. Maybe this isn’t such a bad thing. A baby could be a good thing, a good addition to the family. Perhaps it’s just what Lucius and I need to make things better . . .

But the other part of her mind was screaming just the opposite. Of course this is bad! I’m not ready to be a mother, I said! Lucius isn’t ready to be a father! Those are not just made-up excuses; they’re facts!

Okay, so we’re not ready just yet, she thought, arguing with herself, but there’s nine months before the baby’s born. In nine months, we could both be ready. Besides, Lucius has wanted this for awhile, now, and once he knows, things could get back to the way that they were before . . . back when everything was good . . . when everything was perfect.

Yes, a baby could indeed be a good thing.

~Megan

[Lycanthropist]

Gryffindor - 55 Points in Participation to:
TheMadMuggle
kehribar
tc015
Madame Marauder
Diamond Quill
kumydabookworm
WhittyLeah
solemnlyswear_x
Vardy
TiaBlue
megan_lupin

Hufflepuff - 25 Points in Participation to:
Gonz
MorganRay
Lupinpatronus
miss padfoot
P r o n g s *

Slytherin - 35 Points in Participation to:
Sly Severus
Masked One
lily_16_evans
Cheshlin
Viv
cmwinters
crazy_purple_hp_freak

Ravenclaw - 20 Points in Participation to:
Gmariam
AshNight
Valentinia
Mind_Over_Matter

The Winners of this Challenge:
First Place [15 Points]
cmwinters, Slytherin
Monologue: The Dark Lord

Second Place [10 Points]
Mind_Over_Matter, Ravenclaw
Monologue: Barty Crouch, Jr.

Third Place [TIE! 5 Points Each]
kumydabookworm, Gryffindor
Monologue: Augustus Rookwood

MorganRay, Hufflepuff
Monologue: Tonks

[Note from Jenna (GringottsVault711): Winning monologues were chosen on based on characterisation, not only through what was being said, but through the voice it was portrayed with. Also, winning monologues showed a better portrayal of the pattern of speech/thought throughout the writing.]

Total Earned:
Gryffindor - 60 Points
Slytherin - 50 Points
Hufflepuff - 30 Points
Ravenclaw - 30 Points