Montly Drabble Challenges - 2007

[Dill]

Name: Dill
House: Ravenclaw
Title: Bad Boy
Warnings: None
Words: 335

For all his life, he had been the good son, the good friend, the man who everyone turned to when they needed a bit of calm in their busy day. He had always been seen as a person who would never do anything out of the ordinary, and frankly, he was tired of restraining his wild side.

He walked confidently into the jewelry shop, whistling a random tune. The man at the counter gave him a strange look, but he could care less. He sauntered up to the man and greeted him cheerily. The man returned the address and introduced himself as Billy.

“What can I do for you, sir?” Billy asked, tilting his head up.

“Your sign,” he pointed. “Says that if I buy a pair of earrings, I receive a free piercing.”

“Oh, yes,” Billy replied brightly. “You can choose any pair you want. Then, I’ll get the studs that we use to pierce your ears with. You’ll be able to put in the pair you bought in about two weeks.”

“That sounds wonderful,” he said in a calm voice.

Billy allowed him some time to browse the earring section. Finally deciding on a pair of flashy gold earrings, he pointed them out to Billy. He received another strange look.

“An unusual choice,” the salesman observed. “But I approve. I’ll go get the gun, then?”

“Gun?” he asked, alarmed.

“The piercing gun,” Billy explained.

“Oh” was the reply. Billy chuckled when he saw his customer release a sigh of relief. He ran into the back and grabbed the piercing gun. Returning, he asked the man to sit down. He took a black marker out and made a mark on his ear, asking him if that was where he wanted the piercing. His customer nodded in reply.

“This won’t hurt a bit,” Billy assured him.

Moments later, he emerged grinning from the shop with a single stud in his left ear.

At work the next day, Kingsley Shacklebolt was going to turn some heads.

[Gin_Drinka]

Pen Name: Gin_Drinka
Title: Try
Warnings: None
Words: 420


Kinsgley Shacklebolt hated funerals. He wondered who in their right mind would like such a thing. But in the course of their life time every person attended at least a couple of them. Everything had an end, but no one ever liked to be around to witness those. Watching a beginning, attending a wedding, everyone liked things like that. Unfortunately for him, Kinsgley was surrounded by endings.

The Ministry had sent a representative of the Auror Department to every burial since the beginning of the war. They wanted to make it seem like they felt the loss as well. They liked to play games of pretend. To them it was impersonal, but to him it hit home. The little boy being buried had been a victim of a werewolf attack that had gone too far. Kingsley's baby sister, years ago, had died the same way.

The look on the mother’s face as her son’s coffin disappeared into the earth and from the eyes of men for ever would have melted a heart of stone. He felt desperate for her, while at the same time he remembered that those guilty of the death had hearts of wood. There had never been a way to melt wood.

He was grateful when it ended and he apparated back to Order Headquarters. And at the same time he was ashamed of being grateful.

Remus Lupin, pale and drawn, sat at the kitchen table reading the Daily Prophet.

“Anything good in there?” Kingsley asked, taking a seat across from his friend.

Remus folded the paper, looking disgusted.

“Some Ministry workers are giving interviews saying we should just give into Voldemort’s will.”

Kingsley shook his head, not very surprised. He conjured some toast as he said, “It’s things like that that make me want to give up. Sometimes I think there isn’t anyway the Order can help these people. They don’t want to be helped. They want everything the easy way. It’s disgusting.”

Remus looked at him sympathetically. “How was the funeral?”

Kingsley watched the way his friend looked pained and knew he understood as well. He sighed and rubbed his hand over his eyes.

“Horrible. But it’s things like the look on that mother’s face that make me remember why I am here. I never want to see something like that again; I never want anyone to see that. It was never meant to be seen. How can things have gone so horribly wrong…and all we can do is try and fix it. We can try.”

[MithrilQuill]

*drumroll*


First place:

Where did the People Go? by crazy_purple_hpfreak

And

The Light in the Hallway by kumydabookworm


Second Place:

A Photograph by Mind Games

And

Good Enough by solemnlyswear_x


Third Place:

From the Eyes of a Cannon by Kehribar

[social loner]

Name: Social Loner
House: Hufflepuff
Title: A Moments Rest
Warnings: none
Words: 235

I sighed with bliss as I slowly sank into the plush feathered sofa, allowing the soft cushions to mold to my body. I closed my eyes and focused on the steady breath that escaped from my nose; in and out, in and out.

I smiled gently as I let my mind be temporarily ridden of all my troubles and worries, of all the woes and monstrosities of the war. For one hour I forgot the constant struggle of good and evil in the wizarding world; I dismissed the lingering fear of death around every corner. For one hour I allowed myself to dream of a possible future; a dream most men rarely indulge in for fear that it may never come true.

I drifted in space, going farther and farther away with the hope and intention of becoming lost. I created my own alternate reality in which I could escape and pretend to be ignorant of the pain and suffering around me, a place where ignorance was bliss.

"Kingsley!"

Reality tugged at my mind. It pulled and manipulated until dark storm clouds started to roll over the clear sky of my alternate universe, an ominous reminder of ignorance lost. I desperately tried to hang onto my dream, my blissful ignorance, but reality grabbed me by the ankles and slowly pulled me back into its shadowy depths.

"Kingsley! Wake up!"

My eyes shot open. Reality had once again emerged victorious.

[ThessalyRose]

Name: Thessalyrose
House: Gryffindor
Title: Heartburn
Warnings: None
Words: 476

Kingsley Shacklebolt sat at his desk with his fist pressed into his chest, trying to will the fire behind his ribs to subside.

Someone dropped something heavy on the desk beside him. He turned away from the wanted poster blinking at him from his cubicle wall to find a scroll of parchment that was thicker than his thigh threatening to collapse his desk. He glanced up at the intern who had dropped it there and was frowning at him disapprovingly.

“All right then?” said Miss Tonks. “You don’t look so good.”

“Heartburn,” Kingsley said, rubbing his chest. “I can’t understand it; I’ve been taking my potions, and it just gets worse.”

Miss Tonks leaned closer and said mysteriously, “Maybe your heart’s trying to tell you something.”

“Not likely. Was there something you needed?”

“Yes, actually.” She had an annoying habit of bouncing on the balls of her feet in his presence, which at this moment was not helping his irritable mood. “I finished going through the Black file—“ she waved at the enormous scroll, “—making a list of possible contacts, like you asked, only I can’t find the transcript of his trial.”

Kingsley sighed and returned to the report he was trying to read. “That’s because there wasn’t one.”

“No transcript? Why not?”

“No trial,” he corrected her.

There was a long silence. He turned to see if she had gone away or merely stopped bouncing.

She was still there, gawping at him. “He went to Azkaban for life without even a trial?”

“That’s what I just said.”

“But – doesn’t that bother you?”

“Not especially.”

But Miss Tonks looked deeply bothered. “I just thought – everyone got a trial.”

Abruptly, Kingsley stood up. “Here.” He hefted the gigantic scroll back into Miss Tonks’ arms. “New assignment. Read and summarize all fifty eye-witness accounts from First November, 1981.”

She staggered under the file’s weight. “What? Why?”

“Because I want you to understand what he did!” He tapped his long index finger on the scroll for empahsis. “Thirteen people died! Muggles, whose families will never know what really happened to them!”

Miss Tonks’ eyes had grown to enormous proportions. “But, even so—shouldn’t he—I mean, doesn’t everyone deserve—“

“He deserves nothing!” Kingsley took a deep breath, and said, with a little more civility, “Look, Miss Tonks, you’re one of the best trainees in your class. But you’ve got to learn that Aurors who listen to their hearts and not their heads are the ones who go home in a box. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” she said in a small voice, and turned to shuffle away, clutching the heavy scroll to her chest.

Kingsley sat down and glared at the wanted poster in front of him, rubbing his breastbone. If his heart was trying to tell him something, it must be bloody bad news.

[bewitching]

Name:Bewitching
House:Hufflepuff
Title:A Muggles Veiw
Warnings:None
Words:225

I sat quietly in the park, snapping my newspaper open and sitting down to read the funnies. It was a perfect stress reliever after a long day at the office and staring blankly into a computer. I laughed appreciatively and settled into the gracious shade a large loping tree had provided for me, every once and awhile looking up to snap at a loud passerby. But one particular man caught my interest. He was tall and muscular, with skin as dark as ebony. I stared unblinkingly when the man, seeming not to notice my presence, muttered something in what sounded like Latin, and raised a stick into the air. I stood slowly and turned on my heel, beginning to rush away, figuring he was just another neighborhood loon, but stopped in my tracks when I saw a flashing red light, and suddenly, after a loud THUMP, found a man lying in a heap where I had just been sitting beneath the tree. I slapped my hand over my mouth, suppressing a gasp, my eyes shifting to look for other witnesses to this event, but finding no one around. I began to slump off quietly, but spun and ran when the man’s attention switched to me. He yelled another loud Latin word and I fell to the ground, forgetting the last ten minutes in its entirety.

[garyf]

Name: garyf
House: Ravenclaw
Title: Number 10
Warnings: None
Words: Yes, I believe that's what I used (499)

“Good morning,” chimed an overly-cheerful female voice as Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt headed up the grand voraginous staircase at 10 Downing Street, faces of past Prime Ministers lining the wall.

As he approached the first floor he glanced back down at the huge door that served as the entrance to the most famous residence in Muggle Britain. For all its blackness on the outside, it was a stunning cretaceous on the inside; a tall, immaculately-dressed man stationed beside it, an ear-piece visible. He laughed heartily to himself. They have a man to open the door for people.

He had been assigned to the Muggle Prime Minister by the Minister of Magic, and had met his new boss just once, in a fleeting encounter after it had been announced he would be his new secretary. The Minister’s words were almost phemic, yet Kingsley considered him to be psilosophic.

He entered his new office; his place of work for the next few months at the end of a short corridor with several doors with names he had learnt the week before. His office was larger than that he was used to at the Ministry; modern, largely alien to him with its technology and Muggle artefacts.

A large mahogany table greeted him, a neat pile of paperwork awaiting his attention beside a computer. He had little knowledge of such Muggle technology, and it frightened him.

He sighed deeply at the fruitless task ahead of him, having to guard a Muggle Prime Minister and his snobocracy.

The wizard had absolutely no interest in the papers on his desk and felt uncomfortable in his solferino rumchunder suit, acquired reluctantly from a tailor in central London. Kingsley continued to survey his new surroundings, a set of huge oak doors sat to his left – the Prime Minister’s office. A corridor ahead of him to another wing of the building, he had yet to explore. It looked exactly like the one he had walked down to get to his office; bright, lavish, unnecessary.

“Hello, again,” chimed a familiar voice appearing from his right.

“Hello,” Kingsley replied, looking bemused at the young woman.

“I’m Ursula,” she offered, smiling at him. “Ursula Todd. Press Officer. I work out of the first door on the right.”

He paused, staring at her smiling face. “Erm, Kingsley Shacklebolt,” he blurted. “New secretary.”

“Yes, I thought you were. Is there anything you need?”

How about getting me out of here? he thought, but took a moment to think, glancing around the open office. “How does the – erm, computer – work?”

Her smile quickly disappeared at his request, her jaw dropping slightly at something so absurd.

“Y-you...don’t know how to use a computer?” she checked, still astounded.

“That’s right,” laughed Kingsley, nervously, his hands fidgeting at the cuffs of his jacket. “I’ve never had to use one, ever.”

“Oh. Well let me show you how,” she enthused, reaching for the computer, her toothy smile returning.

Kingsley beamed; perhaps this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

[Visceral Love]

Name: Visceral Love
House: Gryffindor
Title: Shiver
Warnings: Character Death, Violence
Words: 448

It was cold, but he did not shiver, nor did he draw out his wand and spell the air warm. He did not allow himself to shiver, or even stiffen. He merely moved like fluid through the Muggle alleyways and sidewalks. Kinsley Shackelbolt was on his way out from work, and though he had long since jogged down the spiral staircase out onto the busy London streets you could still smell a hint of paperwork and magic on him. He was not dressed in the usual barely blue robes, but instead in a simple black suit with a red pin. He A Muggle street-performer wailed out a dim version of My Funny Valentine even though February wasn’t for another four months and Kinsley flipped him a smile.
Unlike many other wizards Kingsley had no problems hailing a Muggle cab, and speaking in the easy gestures of muggle money. “Just follow my directions please.” There was something soothing about that voice, commanding.
“Cor,” replied the driver. After a few hasty lefts and tight rights they arrived at a thin street surrounded on both sides by small ethnic Muggle shops. The driver gave him an odd look as he stepped out of the cab and handed him the precise amount of the fare had cost. “You make the trip often?” the driver asked with the correct measure of apathy and politeness.
“Too often,” was all Kingsley said before stepping out onto the curve and glancing carelessly at the addresses and pulling a small piece of paper out of his pocket, glancing at it, and shoving it back in. Pocketing the scrap he began to walk to the nearest shop, a antique store.
The door opened with a light jingle. “Hello m’am, I’m here to take report on a murder.”
Sobs greeted him. “Oh god, George there was this flash of green light and then--” She was crouched in a corner, near the body, shivering. It was warm in the store almost eighty degrees, but she still shook like a half loose leaf in autumn.
“I’m sorry for your loss.” And he really was, you could see it in the softening of the corners of his eyes and the loss of the small upturn in his lips. He approached her.
She shrivled violently beneath his shadow, folding onto the floor. “Are you with the cops or something?”
“Something like that,” he said, whispering out his wand. Steadily he offered her an arm up. She took it tentatively looking him in the eyes with a mixture of grief and greatfullness.
“Obliviate." There was a split second where she shook so violently he was afraid she was seizing. Some Muggles had allergic reactions to magic, but as she stopped and her expression blankened into an expression of customary politenes. “How can I help you sir?”
And he did not shiver, did not blink even as he watched this woman forget her husband's death, forget love. It scared him that he could not find it in himself to cry for the dead, the dying. “I don’t think you can m’am.” But then it was just how these things went, if he shivered even once he might as well never stop.

[FlightofthePhoenix]

Name: FlightofthePhoenix
House: Hufflepuff
Title: A Different Type of Job
Warnings: None
Words: 389

“Wonderful, just wonderful Mr Shacklebolt,” said the Prime Minister pleasantly, placing the piece of paper face down on the desk. “You are a perfect person for the job, but unfortunately there are several other candidates for the job Mr Shacklebolt.”

The Prime Minister smiled kindly at Kingsley who frowned slightly.
“No, no, no, you see Mr Prime Minister,” Kingsley said. “You will give me the job.”
Kingsley pulled a long, slender piece of wood from the pocket of his muggle suit and waved it in front of the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister’s expression went blank then an understanding washed over him and he smiled softly. He picked up the Fellytone that rested on his desk and pressed a single button.
“Miss Carla, please contact the other candidates for the Secretary Job and tell them that the position has been filled,” the Prime Minister and Kingsley smiled.

“Mr Shacklebolt, welcome to your new job, Secretary to the Prime Minister,” the Prime Minister said warmly. “Now, if you could take these papers and fill them out, then we can get you started on your work.”
Kingsley took the carefully shuffled papers and stood, thanking the Minister.

He took a seat at the desk outside the Minister’s office. He closed the door after flashing the Minister a smile. Once he had taken his seat, he patted his pocket and felt his wand and his precious gold hoop earring. Arthur had made him take it out before he came. He said he had to look good in front of the muggle Prime Minister and men wearing earrings was not good.

He stared blankly at the strange box in front of him. Kingsley pulled a scrap piece of paper from his other pocket and read it silently. On it, Arthur scrawled instructions of how to use different non magical appliances, like computers and Fellytones.

He pressed the button Arthur had written about and jumped as the computer started. Kingsley let out a small shout as the Fellytone rang suddenly. The Prime Minister stuck his head out of his office.

“Are you alright Mr Shacklebolt?” he asked curiously.

“Just fine Mr Prime Minister,” answer Kingsley quickly.
The Prime Minister shook his head slightly and pulled it back inside his office and Kingsley sighed.

‘This is going to be a difficult job,’ he thought sadly.

[MithrilQuill]

This month's character is Seamus Finnigan. He hasn't had the biggest role in the books, but he's had his moments. Any aspect of his life can be covered in the drabbles from his life before Hogwarts to a look at what he might do in book seven and afterwards.


Have fun and please use the following form:


Name:
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Winners will be awarded points as usual. That's 15, 10 and 5 points for first, second and third place respectively.