JANUARY CHALLENGE~ The Doorway

[Russia Snow]

This months challenge requires a little... imagination. (Which is actually my favourite kind of -ation!)

From Wikipedia:
January is named after Janus (Ianuarius), the god of the doorway; the name has its beginnings in Roman mythology, coming from the Latin word for door (ianua) – January is the door to the year.

This got me thinking about doorways in Harry Potter, and the first thing that came to mind was the veiled archway that Sirius *sniff* falls through.

So this months challenge is to write a drabble of between 300 and 500 words based on or around this archway. It can be set in any era and you can use any characters you want.

The Catch:
Because this has all the signs of being a very depressing challenge, and because January is all about new starts, I want you to make your drabbles fit with the theme "New Beginnings". This could be someone through the veil letting a loved one go, or the person through the veil starting a new beginning of their own on 'the other side'. It can be whatever, as long as it fits with new beginnings.

This challenge will close at 10pm GMT February 1st.

Form for your drabbles:
[B]Name:[/B]
[B]House:[/B]
[B]Title:[/B]
[B]Ratings/Warnings:[/B]
[B]Word Count:[/B]
[B]Favourite thing about January:[/B]
[B]A/N:[/B] 

Any questions to the "Ask a Barmaid" thread =)

Happy New Year!

Love Madam Russia and Madam Carole xxxxx

[iMusic17]

Name: Ellie (iMusic 17 & iLuna17)
House: SLYTHERIN
Title: Letting Go
Ratings/Warnings: 3rd-5th years/(attempted) suicide/mental disorders (insomnia/slight eating)
Word Count: 500
Favourite thing about January: Taking a break from running outside
A/N: Teddy is fifteen, and he snuck down in the Department of Mysteries while Harry was working. (And I'm a sucker for extreme drama/dramatic death scenes)

“TEDDY!” Harry bellowed, sprinting towards his godson.

“NO! I can hear them! They’re calling to me!” Teddy answered shakily, still walking towards the veil. He had come with Harry to the Ministry, intending never to leave.

“They wouldn’t have wanted you to do this!” Teddy kept walking in his trance, and Harry kept running down the rows, trying to reach his godson in time. Teddy’s hand was outstretched, almost touching the veil.

“I can hear them. I can hear my parents,” he confided, his voice nearly a whisper. Right before he was about to leap, Harry tackled him. Teddy immediately began to struggle. “Let me go!” Teddy screamed as he writhed under Harry’s restraint.

“Teddy, stop!” Harry ordered, his voice livid. “They died so you could live in a better world. Your dad told me so himself. How is this repaying them? Throwing yourself after them won’t solve anything!”

“No! You’re lying! They’re right there; they’re not dead! Let me see them!” Tears were streaming down Teddy’s face.

“I can hear them, too, you know. Your parents, my parents, Fred, Dumbledore . . .and Sirius. I watched Sirius go through the veil. He couldn’t come back. If they really were there, would they keep you waiting? Sirius never did; your dad reminded me of that.” Teddy calmed, finally realizing the truth, tears still streaming down his face. Harry let go of Teddy, who sat up, defeated.

“All I’ve wanted ever since you told me about my parents was to go after them. It consumed me; I couldn’t eat or sleep because I was thinking about them. I haven’t slept soundly since I was seven,” Teddy said, looking down, letting it show. His normally turquoise hair was a dull brown, he was skinny and pale, and there were deep circles under his eyes. He had hid all of it from everyone for so long, no one had known.

“It’s not what they’d have wanted, Ted. They died fighting for a better world; one where people didn’t have to live in fear.” Teddy’s eyes darkened.

“Stop saying that! They shouldn’t have died in the first place!” He shouted, running his hands through his hair.

“Teddy, they’re at peace. You can’t go chasing after them; they didn’t leave you because they wanted to, but they don’t want you dying just to be with them, or trying to bring them back. Think about someone else for once. What would your gran do if you died? Me? Ginny? The kids?” Harry asked, and Teddy looked at the floor.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone, Harry. I just want to see my parents,” he whispered, and Harry put his arm around his godson.

“You will, Ted, when it’s your time. Come on, I think we should go home.” And so they left. Harry couldn’t help think about himself at Teddy’s age. At fifteen, he hadn’t been much better than his godson. Right now, though, Harry was relieved. Teddy had turned the corner.

He had let go.

[FearlessFlyer]

Name: Martha
House: Hufflepuff
Title: New Beginnings for Wormtail
Rating/Warnings: 1st-2nd years, mild profanity
Word Count: 386
Favourite Thing About January: The way the mid-afternoon sunlight looks as it comes through my window.
A/N: Wormtail has just been strangled by his silver hand - what a shame .

Thank you to my beta, Alice/TheBlackSister.

The mist is gradually clearing; if I look closely I can begin to make you out. Look - I’m waving to you right now! Hello James, Sirius – it’s me, Peter! Don’t you recognize me?

I’m ready to admit that I did some damned unspeakable things. You have every reason to despise me and doubt my sincerity, but hear me out. I’m sure I can make you understand once I explain.

I shouldn’t have sold you and Lily to Voldemort, James, and I betrayed you, Sirius, not once but twice. I got fed up, you see, with the way you treated me at school and while we in the Order together. Sure, I was part of the Marauder gang, but I was always on the edge of things. You never respected me, and I resented that.

The Dark Lord and his followers were able to promise me much. I was seduced by their assurances of the riches, power and glory that awaited me once he came to power. I was his Most Loyal Servant; I remained with my Master when all others had hidden or fled. I alone helped the Dark Lord regain his corporeal body. This alone should have given me great rewards, but it did not.

Uncontested obedience and devotion was required of the servants of the Dark Lord, but many of us served him out of fear as well. In spite of everything, I obeyed my Master’s orders without question. I was bullied, threatened, and assigned the most menial tasks, never being held in the regard I deserved. Even when I went to live in that bin of a house on Spinner’s End, old Snivelly had the cheek to order me to serve drinks to his guests and treat me like I was his sodding house elf. I was virtually used as a prison guard at Malfoy Manor. I gave everything, gave up everything, and still it was not enough. It must have been fated that I was never to come near the glorious life I’d been promised.

So what do you say, my friends? I’ve paid my dues. It really wasn’t my fault. James, I’m standing right here in your face, mate. Why are you looking straight through me? Sirius, can’t you hear me speaking to you?

Doesn’t anyone believe in second chances?

[Gmariam]

Name: Gmariam
House: Ravenclaw
Title: A New Life
Ratings/Warnings: Character death
Word Count: 420
Favourite thing about January: A certain bamf television event...
A/N: No, not really

She stares at the veil before her, insubstantial yet so completely, utterly final. One step and she will be leaving everything behind to start a new life. One step and she will return her to her familiar home, and yet it will be so very different now.

"Please don't go," her mother begs. Her father extends his hand, imploring her to stay, but she cannot. She must go back.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs. "I'm sorry for everything."

Her mother--so strong, so proud--nods with tears in her eyes. "I know, dear. I know you are. But it's over now. You do not need to go back."

"I cannot stay here," she replies, equally strong and proud. She is her mother's daughter, after all.

"Why?" demands her father. "You are not thinking this through. Once you cross back, you cannot return. You will be lost to us forever."

She swallows but nods. "I understand. But I must go back. I am not ready to die." It is half the truth, for she craves knowledge and it cannot be had there, with them. But she also cannot face her mother after what she has done, and she refuses to stay with him. He stabbed her in the heart; why would she stay? She has another to return to.

"I'm sorry," she says once more. "But it's what I want. It is for the best."

Her mother breaks down and sobs, but she knows. She knows that her daughter is stubborn and willful and cannot be changed. She knows this is the end and turns to her husband, unable to bear it. He encircles his wife with comforting arms and nods at his daughter.

"Then go," he says, his voice breaking. "Go and be content, my child. You will be missed."

She does not say goodbye, but turns to the veil with a small smile upon her lips. Her heart, though no longer beating, still feels as if it is racing in excitement as she walks toward her destiny. She steps through the shimmering barrier, and finds Godwyn Gryffindor waiting for her.

"Welcome back, Helena."

She takes his hand, and they drift away, to roam the castle together forever. They do not see the blood-stained spirit who follows, a set of chains hanging from his hands in penance, his black eyes filled with envy and grief.

He, too, is beginning a new life now--a life of penance and sorrow for the death of the woman he loved but would never love him back.

[Free_Elf]

Name: Free_Elf/Bec
House: Hufflepuff
Title: Namesake
Ratings/Warnings: 1st-2nd years, implied character death
Word Count: 496
Favourite thing about January: Summer holidays. 'Nuff said.
A/N: The only thing I have written in months. Hopfully it makes some kind of sense...


He sat on the lowest step and stared at the archway. This was where Sirius had fallen. Every tale his parents had ever told him ran through his mind. The friendship, the pranks, the betrayal, the sorrow.

Perhaps it was his imagination, but one of the whispering voices seemed to grow stronger, louder than the rest. It could be Sirius’ voice. If only it was possible, that by thinking about one of the lost, they could be brought so close as to be just on the other side or even come back through, as long as the thoughts were strong enough or loving enough.

Of course, that was fantasy. Once a person was dead, properly dead, they should stay that way. There were always consequences to messing with Death.

The dead appeared so important. To his parents, his uncles, everyone old enough to remember the wars. They were all still hanging on tightly to the dead, afraid of forgetting, until they were almost obsessed. The dead were everywhere: on monuments, in photographs, in names. Years ago, he had decided that if the dead were so important, there must be something pretty special about them. He took great interest in his namesakes, nagging until he was told every story.

He tried to emulate their pranks at Hogwarts, to honour them. People expected a person carrying half the Marauders in their name and whose uncle was a Weasley Twin to have a talent for mischief and humour. So he had tried.

He succeeded, but only to a point. What nobody realised was that nearly all of his pranks depended on an endless supply of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes’ products. Nobody figured out that he only beat his namesakes’ detention records because he was entirely incapable of maintaining the Golden Rule of pranksters: “Don’t Get Caught”.

Sitting in front of the veiled archway, feeling the presence of Sirius more than ever before, he had to face the truth. He had been desperately hiding those facts from himself for many years.

He was no prankster.

He had no love for creating mayhem.

In trying to live up to the unconscious expectations stemming from his name, he had spent the better part of his life pretending to be someone he was not, pretending to be the person he thought he should be rather that the person he really was.

No more. It was time to let Sirius go. He did not need to be Sirius reincarnated; there was no legacy to be carried on. He needed to be James Sirius Potter, whoever that person turned out to be.

His name may have weighed as heavily on him, unnoticed, as much as the hated “Albus Severus” did on his brother, but there was a difference between “James Sirius Potter” and “Sirius Orion Black”. It was time to start living that difference.

He did not look back as he climbed the stairs away from the archway, away from the whispers and away from Sirius.

[Equinox Chick]

Ooop's let's close this as it's February.

Thankd for entering.

Results soonish

~Carole~

[Equinox Chick]

Very,very late with the judging so thousands of apologies and free Butterbeers for the participants.


Okay, because there were only four entries, I'm only awarding 1st and second place.

1st Place - Gmariam ~Ravenclaw ~ A New Life -15 points
2nd Place - Free Elf ~ Hufflepuff ~ Namesake - 10 points


Gryffindor - 0 points
Hufflepuff - 10 points
Ravenclaw 15 points
Slytherin - 0 points


Madam Carmerta

Points will be posted soonish.