Last Drabble Writer Standing

And the winner is...

_pinkchocolate — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 23:30:24 GMT

Twenty participants, nine challenges, and hundreds of votes later, we've reached the end of Last Drabble Writer Standing, round 4. First of all, I'd like to congratulate ifanciful and anothersaturday for making it this far. I know this has been said several times already, but both of you are extremely talented writers and definitely one of the most talented final pairs we've ever had.

and anothersaturday.

Before I announce the results, I'd like to say thank you to the following contestants, all of whom never missed a week until their elimination:

lady_game
mossy_jade
sellthelie
eerisedda
ronhermione33
ladeida
sisika
romaine24

All of you are welcome to enter round 5 :)

Also, I'd like to extend a big thank you to all of the readers and voters. This competition wouldn't be the same without you guys, so thank you!

This week, the viewers' choice awards once again went to the same person. The person this week is...

anothersaturday! Congratulations, anothersaturday :)

And now for the final results. The winner was chosen based on how many total votes she received (1 for each vote in the first and second polls, 2 for each vote in the third poll). After all the votes were counted, the last drabble writer standing is...

anothersaturday! Congratulations, anothersaturday, on becoming our fourth winner! :D *insert cheesy coronation song here* And congratulations to ifanciful, our wonderful runner-up!

Thus, the fourth round of LDWS comes to an end. Once again, thank you to everyone who participated: the contestants, the readers/voters, the commenters. You guys are fantastic, and I hope to see all of you back for the next round (which I will announce, so keep watching this community).

Banners:

Voting closed

_pinkchocolate — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 06:44:22 GMT

Voting is now closed, and I'm working on counting the votes and making the banners. Results will be posted tomorrow :)

Voting: Round 4, Final Challenge

_pinkchocolate — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 04:06:44 GMT

Thank you to ifanciful and anothersaturday for getting your drabbles in! It was tough, and both of you just barely made it, but the drabbles are all outstanding.

Identities will NOT be screened this weeks in hopes that readers will take into account not only this week's drabbles, but also both contestants' previous drabbles when voting.

The rules for voting are as follows:

1. There are two groups of entries. The first consists of drabbles written for the prompts the authors came up with for each other, and the second consists of free choice drabbles. You will be asked to vote for your favourite of each group, and then vote for which author you believe should be the last drabble writer standing. Each vote in the first two polls counts for one point, and each vote in the third poll counts for two.
2. The drabbles are all rated PG and may contain hints of femmeslash. Proceed no further if that offends you.
3. Read with an open mind, and vote fairly. Please try to remember that the length and pairing of a drabble should not affect your judgment of its quality.
4. Contestants are not allowed to vote for themselves. If you vote for yourself, your vote will not be counted.
5. ** PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF THIS ** Voting will remain open until Thursday, June 26 at 11 PM EST. This should give readers time to both review authors' past drabbles and read this week's drabbles. The final results will be announced on Friday.

Challenge 1

anothersaturday's challenge: Pensieve
The drabble should focus on EITHER a character placing a memory into the pensieve (which memory? why? etc.) OR a character viewing somebody else's memory in the Pensieve. Characters, genre, etc. are at the writer's discretion.

Title: Clarity
Author: ifanciful
Rating: PG
Warnings: None.
Word Count: 498

There simply wasn’t room for four rowdy fifteen-year-olds under one invisibility cloak, so when James’d pulled it from under his robes, he’d grinned, saying at least two poor buggers would be out of luck if Filch popped up.

That was six minutes ago, but it was also six years.

Out in the corridor, moonlight poured around them from the high windows as easily as honey from a jar.

Glass clinked together, sharp as the prick of a quill, where James and Peter where under the invisibility cloak, where Remus saw nothing but stone floor, and he turned away. Behind the dark armour were him and Sirius, and even pressed to a wall, Remus looked to be falling all over himself. It came to him then, how true this was to the future: Remus cornered and Peter and James gone; Filch finally appeared as Remus yanked himself away from the memory.

He floated steadily to the surface of the Pensieve like a drowned corpse, its lungs still too full of oxygen to keep under.

It was still dark, but the moon came softer, muffled behind semi-closed curtains, coloured black as if stained from the darkness. Several vials were lined up across the table before him like silver bullets, and the wallpaper was tearing away, curling like the worried letters from his father.

They were letters Remus couldn’t answer yet, because for Merlin's sake, he had to know. It was an objective perspective he needed, though even with the Pensieve, he could hardly whittle away his judgments or the dry sting at the back of his throat turning the memories like curdled milk before he had even broken the surface.

Remus rolled his fingertips over the vials; it didn’t matter which one was next, stalling already came with the routine: he was fettered to the feeling that his veins were run over with some dry weed averse to any forward motion, but averse to the past also.

Though his need for some vestige of understanding pushed him forward. When he finally plunged into another memory - more like cringing forward than anything – it was toward events coloured bitter with knowledge, knowledge he reminded himself was futile to whisper to his past self. They walked through each other, both feeling nothing, only one realizing what would come that day:

Sirius was grinning, throwing his head back to laugh as he tossed wadded parchment into the air, catching it lazily, but it was the day he sold Remus out to Snape, just one step in the long trail to selling James to Voldemort.

Not for the first time, Remus was full-up with a rush of anger stampeding just below his skin. Brimful with frustration, he clawed toward the surface again, wondering what they all would think if they saw him now, then remembering there was no-one left to. Remus fumbled for the stop of another vial as he pulled the Pensive toward him, still not able to comprehend what exactly went wrong.

Challenge 2

ifanciful's challenge: It's clear that House Elves have distinctly different minds that separate the way they view life from the way a witch or wizard might. Likewise, they have a separate culture of their own, despite living in accord with (or as most of them would believe, to serve) wizards. We've seen shades of this in the book, though never in much depth.

So my challenge: A lot of what the norm is when it comes to House Elves was displayed through Winky in GOF. Write a drabble from her PoV, set anytime after she is released from the Crouch family's service.

Title: The Galleon
Author: anothersaturday
Rating: PG
Warnings: Elf angst? :D
Word Count: 421

i.
One by one, the doors slam shut in her face. It does not occur to Winky to be angry: not even in secret, not even silently behind the closed cage of her teeth. Each time she raises her knobbly fist to knock on a door, she is already picturing it closing. There will be nothing behind it, for her; no respectable work, no rest nor comfort.

One by one, the doors slam shut in her face. What she thinks is, It is just as Winky deserves. She believes in justice. She believes that is what has been meted out.

Bread scavenged from a wastebin mostly just tastes like waste. Tears taste like salt and terrible weight. Shame, in her mouth, tastes as rich and round as fruit.

She believes in justice. One by one, the doors slam shut.

ii.
It is four days since she's been free, since the first door closed. Her clothes feel like another, rougher skin atop her own. She cringes against the feel of them.

The sour stone in her stomach is hunger. It is nothing to do with why she wants work so badly. She wants work because she can think of nothing else worth wanting: she can think of no other use for her hands, her blood, her breath.

Her hands, her blood, her breath are heavy and useless. They are only reminders of her disgrace. Her failure is dirty grey, and clings like heat to her skin.

It is just as Winky deserves. She believes in justice.

iii.
She looks down, now, when she walks, her chin folded into her chest, so it is no surprise that she spots it straightaway: the Galleon wedged between the stones of the street, its gold dulled by a thick shroud of grime. Without thinking, she bends to pick it up, attracted only by its strangeness. When she realizes what she is holding, she cries out, and lets it clatter to her feet.

She would not like to be seen holding it. She might be mistaken for a paid elf, and she could not bear that shame on top of the shame she has earned. It is almost a consolation: she is not yet sunk as low as that.

The sour stone in her stomach is hunger. The soft ache just above it is her heart. Quickly as she can, Winky kicks the Galleon away. She barely slows her steps.

She believes in justice. It is just as Winky deserves. One by one, the doors slam shut.

Free Choice 1

Title: At the Seaside
Author: anothersaturday
Rating: PG
Warnings: None.
Word Count: 472

The restless back-and-forth lurch of the sea is like the pacing of some great caged beast. It is louder than Amy expected: she had been able to hear the waves even in the village, their shushings and weight, but here they are deafening. The sound seems to crash against her own thoughts, making them unsteady, and hard to hold onto. When Tom turns to speak to her, his words are lost beneath the ocean's complaint. But his smile, as bright and neat as plastic: she can make that out even through the grey-green dusk.

He speaks again, and this time she hears him. "Not much farther now."

Dennis frowns and glances over his shoulder, his eyes tracing the slim row of lights they've shed like skin. "We aren't meant to sneak off," he mutters, and his gaze skitters towards the jagged splinter of cliff before them. "We aren't meant to leave the village. Mrs. Cole said."

Amy narrows her eyes. Dennis Stupid Pratface Bishop, with his nervous hands and always-running nose: he ruins everything. He cannot know what he's doing, cannot possibly understand how important this moment is. Cause Tom Riddle has noticed her at last. The handsomest boy at the orphanage, the handsomest boy she's ever seen outside of a movie magazine; and he asked her, plain old Amy, to nick off to the beach with him. He asked her. "Nobody made you come, tag-along," Amy hisses to Dennis. It's the truth. He only smirks.

Loud enough so Tom can probably hear, he singsongs, "Amy li-ikes Rid-dle."

Amy spares him one last scowl before turning to race after Tom, who has not stopped to wait for them. The ground is becoming rocky, slick, beneath her feet. She presses her tongue to the roof of her mouth and tastes the wistful saltiness of the sea below.

"We're almost there," Tom calls back to them. "Wait till you see, it's awfully good."

He is almost to the cliff's edge; still, he turns around and walks backwards, seeming quite unafraid. He smiles once more, generous and wide, and looks as though he's holding back laughter as he shouts, "It's just this way."

Dennis peers dubiously at the cliff. "I don't think we can get to the beach from here."

"Yes, we can," Tom insists, and now he is laughing. "I know a shortcut." When Dennis hesitates, Tom rolls his eyes. "Don't tell me you're scared. I bet Benson isn't scared. You aren't, are you, Benson?"

Tom's hand is so white in the blackness all round them. Amy doesn't know when it got so dark. "C'mon," he says again, proffering his splayed fingers like a flower. Amy hardly pauses before grasping their coolness. Still, she trusts him absolutely. Still, she is so young. She cannot know, just yet, how she will never trust anyone again.

Free Choice 2

Title: Antitheses
Author: ifanciful
Rating: PG
Warnings: Femmeslashiness
Word Count: 484

The night feels heavy, laced in sweetness thick as treacle and gathering the two of them against it as the Fluttering Flashwhethers weave through the darkness before them, like a troupe of tiny stars had come down from the heavens to dance only for them. Luna admires their fluid motions while weaving her fingers through Hermione's hair and putting her lips at the soft skin near her ear, asking what feels more real now: that which can be seen or that which can be felt. Hermione presses closer, but her words still come more true to a skeptic; she knows what Luna's on about:

"They're not the same sort of feelings, a physical touch and your intuition."

The words sound short of breath, and Luna's lips involuntarily curl into a smile, the way a lazy cat stretches in a patch of sunlight. Hermione’s head is tipped toward the long veils of light dangling from the moon, and when Luna leans back, she sees Hermione's hair illuminated around the edges, like the silver lining, which manifested in February:

“It’s absolute rubbish, and I don’t believe a word of it.”

Because it was only that time that Luna had answered differently: "So I’ll help you to"

Hermione's hair is hanging around her like a sandstorm, and it tickles Luna's nose. She feels a fluttering of paper-thin wings brushing the lining of her stomach, and she smiles. Luna asks about love then, and how it fits into Hermione's logic.

"You know it's there, but only because you feel it," Luna says, possibly for the hundredth time. "It’s here.” Luna can reach then, in one way she couldn't last February: she places her hand over Hermione's stomach, curiously feeling for signs of fluttering, and Hermione makes a tiny surprised noise, almost like a mouse. "There's nothing to calculate," Luna whispers very close to Hermione's ear, like she’s placing the words in carefully, afraid they'll scurry away.

And it's all very well with things like the Fluttering Flashwhethers about.

Instead of her usual exasperated response, Hermione replies that the Fluttering Flashwhethers are ordinary fireflies, nothing more.

Later that same mouth is curving against Luna's, and it breathes the words that maybe give her hope: “Nothing feels more real, nothing at all.” They're encased within the quick pulse of warm breath against Luna’s neck, and Luna feels exhilaration spread though her, like the moonlight crawled under her skin, warming her bone-deep with the force of a bursting dam.

The night unravels to tumble over itself in reds and pale golds as morning hurtles in, sharpening the lines of Hermione’s smiling face and dulling the Fluttering Flashwhethers who zip out like a tide. Hermione’s fingers twine into Luna’s hair, mirroring their fluent, twining motions, recalling the warm tangle of their limbs and the knots of a rushing, fluttering feeling (paper-thin wings brushing the lining of her stomach), most solid of all.

View Poll: Round 4, Challenge 9: The Final Challenge

Reminder

_pinkchocolate — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 21:36:43 GMT

This is just a friendly reminder for our final two authors, ifanciful and anothersaturday.

Your drabble entries are due tomorrow. Please post them as comments on this post before 11 pm EST tomorrow (that's 10 pm on Friday if you're in the midwest, 8 pm on Friday if you're on the west coast, 4 am on Saturday if you're in the UK, and 1 pm on Saturday if you're in Sydney), or you'll be disqualified.

Thank you, and good luck writing

Challenges for the finalists

_pinkchocolate — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 03:57:23 GMT

Thank you to both anothersaturday and ifanciful for getting your challenges in on time :)

anothersaturday's challenge for ifanciful:

Pensieve
The drabble should focus on EITHER a character placing a memory into the pensieve (which memory? why? etc.) OR a character viewing somebody else's memory in the Pensieve. Characters, genre, etc. are at the writer's discretion.

ifanciful's challenge for anothersaturday:

It's clear that House Elves have distinctly different minds that separate the way they view life from the way a witch or wizard might. Likewise, they have a separate culture of their own, despite living in accord with (or as most of them would believe, to serve) wizards. We've seen shades of this in the book, though never in much depth.

So my challenge: A lot of what the norm is when it comes to House Elves was displayed through Winky in GOF. Write a drabble from her PoV, set anytime after she is released from the Crouch family's service.

ifanciful has requested an extension, which means the deadline for both drabbles will be moved to Sunday, June 22 at 11 PM EST. Don't forget that drabbles must be submitted as comments on this post.

Good luck writing!

Reminder

_pinkchocolate — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 06:29:28 GMT

This is just a friendly reminder for ifanciful and anothersaturday. Your challenges for each other are due later today (Friday, June 13) at 11 PM EST. Please email them to shmexsay@yahoo.com. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask :)

Round 4, Challenge 9: The Final Challenge

_pinkchocolate — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:49:14 GMT

Challenge 9: The Final Challenge

For our last LDWS challenge, contestants will, once again, submit two entries. Anonymity will not be maintained, which means that for the first time, readers will know who they're voting for.

For the first drabble, we'll continue the tradition of having the participants challenge each other. Each of the final two must come up with a challenge for her opponent and email it to shmexsay@yahoo.com by Friday, June 13 at 11 PM EST. This is to ensure easy back-and-forth discussion of the challenge if needed. Once I've checked the challenges and deemed them equal in difficulty, I'll post them to the community. Both contestants must then post their drabbles as a comment on this post by Friday, June 20 at 11 PM EST.

The second drabble is, once again, free choice. Contestants may submit their free choice drabble any time between now and the June 20 deadline.

- Challenges for the first drabble must be emailed to shmexsay@yahoo.com, NOT posted as a comment. The deadline for challenges is Friday, June 13 at 11 PM EST.
- Drabbles must be between 100-499 words.
- Comments on this post will be screened. Please comment with your submissions and the following template:

- Both entries are due by Friday, June 20 at 11 PM EST.
- Please do not post your entry anywhere else until voting is over.
- If you have any questions regarding the challenge, feel free to comment on this post with them. All questions will be left unscreened in case anyone else is curious about the same thing.
- To ensure that all challenges and entries are turned in on time, please let me know if you need an extension. I am willing to extend both deadlines a few days if needed.

Results: Round 4, Challenge 8

_pinkchocolate — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 07:39:32 GMT

Remember to check out the voting post to see who wrote your favourite drabbles.

It's been two months since the beginning of round 4, and now the end is finally in sight. By the end of this post, we'll have our final two. All three drabble writers are extremely talented and should be very proud of themselves for coming this far. Even so, one contestant stood out this week, raking in not only the most total votes, but also the viewers' choices for both groups of drabbles. This contestant is...

ifanciful! Congratulations, ifanciful, you're one of our last two drabble writers standing :)

Unfortunately, as always, we must say goodbye to someone. The participant whose two entries collected the least total votes this week is...

lady_game. Congratulations on getting this far, lady_game! It was great having you with us for a second round, and you're always welcome to come back in the future :)

This means our final two contestants are anothersaturday and ifanciful. Who will be our fourth Last Drabble Writer Standing champion? Tune in two weeks from now to see ;)

Banners for lady_game and ifanciful:

The final challenge will be posted shortly.

Voting: Round 4, Challenge 8

_pinkchocolate — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 05:38:01 GMT

Thank you to all three finalists for getting their drabbles in on time! This week, they each had to write two drabbles, the prompts for which can be found here.

The rules for voting are as follows:

1. There are two groups of entries. The first consists of drabbles written for one of the three prompts given, and the second consists of free choice drabbles. In both groups, entries are listed in random order, which means Prompted 1 isn't necessarily written by the same author as Free Choice 1. To vote, you must read all six drabbles, then answer ALL FOUR QUESTIONS at the bottom of the post.
2. The drabbles are rated PG-13 and may contain slash. If that offends you, proceed no further.
3. Read with an open mind, and vote fairly. Please try to remember that the length and pairing of a drabble should not affect your judgment of its quality.
4. Contestants are not allowed to vote for themselves. If you vote for yourself, your vote will not be counted.
5. You're free to post about this competition on your personal journal, but do not tell your friends which drabble you wrote. It's unfair to your own writing abilities and to the other participants.
6. ** PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF THIS ** Voting will remain open until Monday, June 9 at 11 PM EST. Results and the final challenge will be posted later that night.

Prompted 1

Title: The Prank
Author: lady_game
Rating: G
Warnings: None. Based around the 'Regret' prompt.
Word Count: 202

There is a range of descriptions that can be applied to Sirius’s actions and expressions in the days immediately following the incident. Anger is his initial attitude to James when Sirius realises his best friend stopped Snape; it turns to defiance when James snaps back. Faint disbelief is expressed whenever anyone tries to impress upon him the gravity of what he’s done. Bravado is what holds his head up when he first enters the Common Room; it is kept up by pride at the adoring looks given to him from the first years. They don't know what he’s done, but they know that it must be good seeing as how much trouble he’s in. Penance comes from Dumbledore’s wrath in the form of orders to volunteer at the Murawally Centre for the Dispossessed, many of whose clients are werewolves with nowhere else to go. Annoyance is all he shows when everyone is cold to him for weeks after, when his lupine friend rejects his apologies.

Remus won’t accept his apologies for the simple fact that he knows that they’re empty. Because the one expression that he never sees in Sirius’s eyes is regret, and that is something he cannot forgive him for.

Prompted 2

Title: Unsent Letters (Percy Weasley: a Backwards Chronology)
Author: anothersaturday
Rating: PG
Warnings: None (mod's note: written for the "Epistolary" prompt)
Word Count: 498

28 April 1998
Dear Mum and Dad,
I suppose it goes without saying that I've been a bit of an idiot. I know it, which is not the same thing as being able to explain it. What I keep telling myself is, I was quite young and stupid when it began, which is not to say that I've got much older, or one bit cleverer since. ~~I think I only~~

~~I just wanted to be~~

I can't explain what I wanted, or why it seemed so awfully important at the time. I can't explain it well enough to justify the risk of contacting you, at any rate. One must be sensible after all.

***
15 March 1998
Minister Thicknesse:
It is with no small regret that I must tender my resignation, effective immediately. The Ministry was once a beacon of order and right, and it has been with the greatest dismay that I have watched it become nothing more than a puppet government under the thumb of Vo You-Know-Who. I cannot countenance nor participate in the current campaign of terror, violence, and misinformation. I realize that in taking this stance I am inviting the most terrible retribution, but I don't care because

Only I do care actually. Oh, what's the use? I'll never send this letter. The others might, the twins or Ron would, but I won't.

***
22 January 1998
~~Dear~~ Mum and Dad,
~~I was wrong~~

***
24 November 1997
Dear Penny,
What a surprise to hear from you, but of course I was glad. Congratulations on your engagement, I'm really very pleased for you. It seems to be going around a bit, my eldest brother was married this past summer ~~though obviously I wasn't there~~.

My job is going terribly well, thank you. I suppose I have, as you say, risen through the ranks rather quickly, but you know that is what happens when one shows exceptional talent and work ethic. Your pointed remarks were not lost on me, of course, especially given the excessive underlining, but I assure you I've nothing to do with any of that. The Commission is Dolores's lookout, and I think it's entirely the wrong line for the Ministry to be taking, truth be told. It's all a load of old rubbish, isn't it? I'm sorry you've had to go into hiding, sorrier than I can say, ~~but what am I meant to do?~~

~~but it is only another example of how the Ministry's gone downhill ever since~~

~~and you're right to blame me at least a bit, because I'm still here, aren't I?~~

but what am I meant to do?

***
3 September 1997
Father--
I suppose you'll take some ridiculous line on the recent changes in the Ministry, and since I've no hope of stopping you, can only entreat you to be quiet about it. As I'm placed a bit higher than you are, I can assure you, there's no call for concern. It's only wartime politicking, you'll see. Everything is fine. It's all quite as it should be. Everything is fine.

Prompted 3

Title: Love-Ridden
Author: ifanciful
Rating: PG
Warnings: Amortentia
Word Count: 499

I.

His ability as a wizard is undeniably impressive -- potentially dangerous. Severus hears it from his mother first, her hand running through his hair like twigs caught in rain-soaked cobwebs, just after she laments his inheriting her looks and unfortunate condition.

Later Severus drifts around his cauldron with springy, wet smoke that smells of Lily’s skin, creating possibility from thoughts which began formless and scattered as soot, building until his walls were buckling in desperation. Though it's the process he's after; the thin, fleeting facade of potential fulfillment. The challenge of brewing something as complex as Amortentia.

He would never feed it to Lily. Severus thinks this, and yet the potion falls into a glass vile like melted-down pearls.

He wants her.

II.

Lily traipses heavily through the water, her skirt rucked up at her thighs; pockets thick with sweets hover like full moons at her sides. The shallow river shoulders past, sloshing by like the great, shifting muscles of hundreds of hoofed things, and she falls at their feet, though not gracelessly. Lily tips her head back and laughs.

She's warm, soaked, and flushed; and she places her hand in the crook of his elbow when he anxiously helps her up, facetiously calling him a fussbudget. Severus quirks an eyebrow the way she says makes him look like the cartoon characters she made him watch once, and she laughs harder.

He feels the vile he inexplicably pocketed colder now. Lily’s always warmed him with an intensity to rival her bright hair, only leaving his bones aching and frigid in her absence.

He needs her.

III.

Lily’s sprawled lazily over warm grass beside him, her eyelids like heavy red-fringed blankets, her damp hair against her throat like crushed petals in an alabaster pestle. Looking down at her, Severus thinks of maybes: red hair curling around his fingers like vines, Lily's grinning face tilting towards his -- pearly liquid that whispers an unbearably dormant possibility.

If it were but a drop -- only one. He wonders this from the hollowed-out place that knows only nonfulfillment.

Soon Severus clumsily fingers the cork stopping the vile, and in a desperate tumble, his fingertips emerge soaked with the potion.

Lily appears serene, eyes now fully closed as light falls gracelessly through trees overhead, spreading over her in a whisper of scattered diamonds. He reaches toward her, and the scent hanging so near tips her face toward him like a drunk and drowsy flower pressing to the sun.

Severus' name drags sluggishly against his wet fingertips as he moves to touch her mouth: it's like steam from a sweet tea, though it sounds hollowed, like the bones of a bird. But bones that would shatter to reveal nectar within.

Today, she could reach back.

Lily’s face remains unchanged as Severus wrenches away, turning roughly to plunge his hand into the soil beside him. Lily yawns drowsily, saying she could lay there forever; Severus feels her body shift beside his and wants to cry.

He loves her.

Free Choice 1

Title: The One Who Remains
Author: ifanciful
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Word Count: 499

Somehow she was the one who remained. Somehow she’d outlived them all.

The house was empty; where it once shined, pride and joy went sour to change her home into something ugly and lifeless. Though it was stately as ever, glowing like the inside of a crystal vase.

The house of her fathers.

Walburga’s niece visited every Sunday with the family she’d built. The resemblance between Narcissa and her son was evident: both bright, like the constellations were woven through their pale hair. Walburga’s sons had possessed hair the color of coal, not extraordinary, but something they'd all shared nonetheless. She trembled as she held the scant heft of the child, murmuring a lullaby about Blood -- the honor of being a Black.

Though the child was, above all else, a Malfoy, and the name of Black would die with her eldest in Azkaban.

When they’d gone, Walburga visited the tapestry, looking for patterns of their misfortune in the gold threads and finding nothing but puzzles.

Her family had all died or betrayed their names, leaving her to shrivel like an old, shelled clam thrown onto the hot pavement. The bitter feeling stung, old now, but stretched over time to manifest in the deepening lines of her face -- the hollow sockets around her eyes.

Like every Sunday, Walburga ordered Kreacher to change the sheets on their beds; she was thankful for his presence, and she stroked the wispy hair from his face when he was through. He gratefully called her Mistress, but there was no one left to call her Mother.

**

The house finally comes to reflect the filth harbored within, like the years alone had allowed it to reveal its true nature.

Sirius remembers its days occupied like a nightmare: Mother prowling through, always speaking of honor and Blood, running her fingers along the family tapestry the way she ran them through Regulus’ hair.

The Order uses it now, weaving through the downstairs halls like a mad flock of birds. Remus comes to clap his shoulder, muttering, “Keep strong, Padfoot. For Harry,” but is gone the next moment.

Sirius stomps up to Buckbeak, taking him ferrets and letting the blood spread over Mother’s bedroom like his anger. He speaks with her that day, hurling himself downstairs after attempting to tug the family tapestry from the wall and wrenching the curtains cloaking her portrait apart like a gaping wound.

Mother only screams, her hollow face reflecting his own, and he hollers back at the top of his lungs, slurred curses made sodden with the sting of firewisky.

Hours pass, or days, or his entire life, all whirling by fast, and the lack of fight picks Sirius clean. He waits, the barren walls of his family home pressing down on him.

Trapped, Sirius thinks, swiping the family silver from Kreacher’s passing hands and hurling it toward the wall.

He’s the one who remains. He outlived his entire worthless family, yet he feels no less dead than they are.

Free Choice 2

Title: Unbreakable
Author: lady_game
Rating: G
Warnings: None, except for excessive pessimism.
Word Count: 439

It was an unusual act of devotion, but everyone present knew it was not uncalled for – James and Lily were so deeply in love that no one could image them being apart in any way. It had been James’s suggestion; it was the first thing that came into his head when Lily told him that Muggles called their promises of love and faithfulness “wedding vows”. As he gripped her hand tightly in his and stared into her eyes, he didn’t think he’d ever seen anything as beautiful as her face lit up in the glow of the fiery strands that constituted their Vow. They knew that they would love each other until the day they died and now, with the chains of flame encircling their intertwined fingers, they had no choice.

-------------------------

Lily woke up to find the other side of the bed empty and cold. James was sleeping on the couch again. The last fight - like the one before it and the one before it and the one before that - had been bad. It was war, and it was stressful, and being cooped up in a house that was visible to no one but Peter was taking its toll. James wanted to get out and fight, Lily wanted to get out and live and they both wanted a break from looking after Harry.

The baby was wearing Lily out, but she fed him and watched him and played with him because she loved him. His father was wearing her out too, but she cooked for him and cleaned for him and tried to soothe his temper but sometimes she wasn’t sure why she did it anymore. She remembered how much she had loved him at the start of it all, how she would have gone to the ends of the Earth and back for him, but that was fading to a memory. She squeezed her eyes tight against the tears and told herself to get a grip. Marriages went through tough times, it was how you worked through them that counted.

Shaking her head she got out of bed and began thinking about what she needed to do for the day, and realised she had to start cleaning the pumpkins if she wanted to get them done by tonight. Harry had loved the jack-o-lanterns she had made last year so much, and she liked making them too. In fact, she and James had always loved Halloween – they found the irony of witches and wizards celebrating it rather hilarious. Lily hoped that tonight after Harry had gone to sleep maybe, just maybe, they could figure something out.

Free Choice 3

Title: (At the Start)
Author: anothersaturday
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Slashy makeout scene!
Word Count: 209

When it happens the first time, it's not what Remus expected. They're in the loo at the Hog's Head, for one thing, and it reeks of sick and lager piss. They are both pretending to be drunker than they are, which is why Remus can let Sirius grip him hard round both wrists; why he can let Sirius shove him against the splintery wall all covered in obscene graffiti and whispers, "I mean, it's not as though we're a couple of fucking poofs." Remus has never kissed anyone before, and he is surprised by the slick softness of Sirius's tongue, by the teeth pricking at his lower lip. He's surprised by his own greed, the way it burns up his spine. The sound he makes is nothing to do with language: it is all greed, and the rawness of his wanting.

In the moment of breaking apart, Sirius is grinning, and Remus feels nothing but exposed: what he is, what he wants. He is cross-sectioned, so that anyone can see through him. It doesn't occur to him, yet, that the same is true for Sirius. The thing giving way somewhere beneath his ribs: it is only wild sharp happiness. It would be just as true to call it despair.

View Poll: Round 4, Challenge 8: The Final Three

Deadline extended

_pinkchocolate — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 10:24:25 GMT

Though everyone probably already knows by now, the deadline for the final three contestants to submit their drabbles has been extended to June 7th at 11 PM EST. That's exactly one day after the original deadline. Please refer to the reminder post below this for time zone conversions.

ifanciful, lady_game, and anothersaturday: please post your drabbles as one comment in the challenge thread. Make sure you fill out a header for each drabble.

Reminder

_pinkchocolate — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:38:48 GMT

This is just a friendly reminder to our final three contestants:

ifanciful
lady_game
anothersaturday

Your drabble entries are due in about 26 hours. Please post them as comments on this post before 11 pm EST tomorrow (that's 10 pm on Friday if you're in the midwest, 8 pm on Friday if you're on the west coast, 4 am on Saturday if you're in the UK, and 1 pm on Saturday if you're in Sydney), or you'll be disqualified.

Also, if you need an extension, please let me know before the deadline, and I'll arrange it for you as long as the other contestants have no objections.

Round 4, Challenge 8: The Final Three

_pinkchocolate — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 01:26:03 GMT

Challenge 8: The Final Three

First of all, congratulations to the remaining three drabble writers! All of you are extremely talented and deserve to be where you are.

This week’s challenge is a little different. Each of you will have to submit two entries.

For the first drabble, you must choose one of the following three prompts (make sure to note which one you chose in your warnings):

1. Regret
2. Epistolary
3. Amortentia

The second drabble is free choice.

- Drabbles must be between 100-499 words.
- Comments on this post will be screened. Please comment with your submission and the following template:

- Submissions are due by 11 pm EST on Friday, June 6.
- Please do not post your entry anywhere else until the challenge is over.
- If you have any questions regarding the challenge, feel free to comment on this post with them. All questions will be left unscreened in case anyone else is curious about the same thing.
- To ensure that all entries are turned in, please let me know if you need an extension. I am willing to extend the deadline a few days if needed.

Results: Round 4, Challenge 7

_pinkchocolate — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:58:33 GMT

As always, don't forget to check out the voting post to see who wrote what.

This week, we had four incredible entries. Unfortunately, one talented author must leave us tonight. Before we get to the elimination, the winner of this week's voters' choice award is...

"The Unseen (the Absolute)" by anothersaturday! Congratulations on receiving the most total points for the second week in a row, anothersaturday :) You can relax; you're safe.

Now, the results. Since there are only four participants left, the bottom 2 will not be announced. Instead, we'll cut straight to the elimination. The drabble writer leaving us this week is...

mossy_jade

Congratulations on a great run, mossy_jade! You have a lot to be proud of. Keep writing, and I hope you come back in the future :)

This means the top three contestants are ifancifiul, anothersaturday, and lady_game.

Banners for mossy_jade and anothersaturday:

We're now down to three contestants. There's no doubt that this is one of the most talented top threes we've ever had. Who'll be the last drabble writer standing? Well, it all depends on how the voting goes in the next two weeks :D

Challenge 8 will be posted shortly.

Voting: Round 4, Challenge 7

_pinkchocolate — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 02:04:36 GMT

Gah, again, I apologise for the late voting post. My internet always seems to have problems Friday night, and I was out all of today. Voting will be extended to 8 PM EST tomorrow to make up for the lost time. I think I might just make the voting deadline later from now on, since the time period seems to work better for most people -- we got twice as many votes as usual last week. That way, I can post the challenge immediately afterwards.

that_september has been eliminated for not turning in a drabble on time.

The rules for voting are as follows:

1. The drabbles are all rated G and should be fairly safe.
2. Read with an open mind, and vote fairly. Please try to remember that the length and pairing of a drabble should not affect your judgment of its quality.
3. Contestants are not allowed to vote for themselves. If you vote for yourself, your vote will not be counted.
4. You're free to post about this competition on your personal journal, but do not tell your friends which drabble you wrote. It's unfair to your own writing abilities and to the other participants.
5. Voting will remain open until Sunday at 8 PM EST.

Drabble 1

Title: Common Ground
Author: ifanciful
Rating: G
Warnings: None.
Word Count: 499

Malfoy was bitter, but appreciatively bitter; that much was clear.

After the war, Narcissa and Draco appeared at Andromeda’s, talking about family and how it was important now. Harry'd caught Malfoy there occasionally after that, mostly leaving through the back door.

There was nothing to say anyway; they were strangers with a history that’d been once set to hang outside where it got sodden and tattered. It wasn’t forgotten, but it couldn’t quite be brought back inside anymore.

Though none of that stopped Harry from seeing Malfoy at the Ministry, nodding stiffly from outside his office in the new Experimental Charms Division, or from Malfoy needing Auror assistance on one of his outings for the Ministry.

There was nothing but uncomfortable silence as Malfoy worked rigidly, though when everything’d gone suddenly dark, and icy tendrils tugged the worst bits of the war from behind Harry’s eyes, Harry knew they’d stumbled upon a group of rogue Dementors.

Somehow he’d stumbled, dropping his wand into the darkness just as he was getting the incantation past his lips, and Malfoy was sputtering something that made Harry believe he was trying to imitate the words, only his voice shook so much as Harry scrabbled through blackness.

Though the words came, just as Harry felt a cold hand scrape his back. A delicate whirl of diligently fluttering silver shot toward him, and the Dementor recoiled. Harry was able to see his wand in the streaks of light, and his stag joined what he made out as a tiny bird.

When it was over, Malfoy stared dumbstruck at his wand before the bird went and hung before him, making his eyes glow silver.

It twisted away suddenly like bright smoke, and Malfoy remembered himself. “Don’t you say anything about it, Potter,” Malfoy hissed. “I’m not the bravest. I know - I’m not anything, but –“ He suddenly stopped, looking exhausted.

Harry suddenly remembered his hands being slapped away from paintings at the Dursley’s: hummingbirds hovering over bright, gaping flowers. He thought of the narcissus and then Narcissa - her standing alone against Voldemort to save her son. His own mum, doing the same.

Malfoy stared, and Harry wondered if he’d spoken aloud. Malfoy had his hand out suddenly before a look of horror passed over his face, and he tried to wrench it away, but Harry’d already reached out and grabbed it before realizing the significance.

As soon as Harry stood, Malfoy let go and turned away. “We should get back and report this. I’m not waiting for more Dementors.”

Harry nodded, and they walked toward the exit. “I was a prat,” Harry blurted. I just – I hadn’t any friends before, and then Ron – and then you came in acting like – wait.”

Malfoy looked at him steadily and smiled, though not unkindly. “What are you raving about, Potter? You were always a prat.”

After a moment, Harry smiled back, unease uncoiling itself from between them, so he suddenly wondered why they hadn’t done this sooner.

Drabble 2

Title: The Unseen (the Absolute)
Author: anothersaturday
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Word Count: 498

(There are some things solid and absolute: the ground beneath Luna's feet, the insistence of blood and bone. There are other things that are real even if you don't have proof just yet-- Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, and also the world to come. A shadow is slipping round the edges of her mind, weightless and fragile as soot, like the long ashes that curl up and drift away from burning parchment: she cannot prove now that it was ever real. She cannot believe it was not.)

"The happiest memory you can think of," Harry is saying. He is back in the part of the world that can be proved to exist, pacing the Room of Requirement. He taps his wand absently against the palm of his hand as he speaks, not seeming to notice the sparks falling from the tip. "You have to concentrate."

(Her mother's hands were warm, and usually bandaged, from some spell gone wrong, some potion that had turned out more caustic than expected. That day they were fluttering like birds; adjusting the collar of Luna's robes, braiding her hair, patting her cheek fondly. She was talking, too, but Luna can't remember anymore everything she said. She said "love," and "clever girl.")

Harry says, "It probably won't happen the first time you try," but it will for Luna. That's something else she believes.

("We'll have a lovely day, just us girls. We'll make a picnic in the back garden."

Luna had said, "And then can we hunt for nargles?"

Her mother's laugh was brighter than actual light. "Nargles? You're a mad little thing, Luna, like your father." She was smiling as she bent down.)

There is something pressing at the back of Luna's throat that is like tears, only bigger: it is the fine silver glow of old happiness. When she speaks the incantation, this glow seems plaited into her words: as she knew it would, it spills out the end of her wand, tumbling in midair, resolving into a vibrant form she cannot make out just yet.

(There was sun pouring through the windows like rain, and Luna's mum pulled her into a hug. Luna buried her face in her mum's shoulder, but she could still see the sunlight. It was shapeless, tasteless, without heft: it was only air. It was something living inside her own chest. She was so small, then, too small to understand about time, which is mostly pretend anyway. She had believed against all logic that this moment could stay with her forever: and it has, it is. It is as real now as it ever was, though she's a hundred miles away, and older, with her feet planted firmly on the ground.)

"Brilliant, Luna," Harry says, and she turns her smile to face him. But the smile is not for him. It belongs to something invisible, and solid as oak. Over her head a silver otter capers and stretches, as though basking in an unseen ray of the golden sun.

Drabble 3

Title: The Weak of Heart
Author: mossy_jade
Rating: G
Warnings: none
Word Count: 496 words

Carly Symms was playing a game, slowly twisting her way down the low brick wall on unsteady feet. Every time she spun around once more she would become a little dizzier, a little closer to falling onto the cobblestones below - but she had the reckless abandon of all six year olds, and so continued to play. After one particularly violent wobble, Carly almost considered stopping. Even though the point of the game was to spin until you fell off the wall, her knees were already skinned and she didn’t really want to fall off again.

All of a sudden, the most horrible feeling froze her where she stood. It was like the time that her big sister had poured a bucket of ice water over her except a hundred times worse, because the cold seeped right through her skin and into her core, drowning her heart and lungs even as it turned them to ice. And she remembered the excruciating agony from when she had tried to cut up her apple with a sharp knife, could feel the blood pouring out of her fingers as the blinding white light of pain stole her vision.

Sobbing hysterically, Carly tumbled off the wall and shrank into a ball, clutching her hand to her stomach as if to stem the flow of imaginary blood, skinned knees forgotten.

‘Lily!’ A voice roared from behind her, barely intruding upon her consciousness. And then arms, thin but strong, picking her up off the ground and clutching her to a bony black chest. ‘It’s okay Lily, it’s going to be fine, I can protect you,’ the voice said frantically, and Carly wrapped herself around the person, continuing to sob into the thin cotton that covered it. And then her face was firmly pressed further into the fabric, and the same voice bellowed, ‘expecto patronum!’

Carly wrenched her head up in time to see what looked like a delicate silver doe galloping forward, the beautifully glowing creature colliding with two unseen objects before shimmering and disappearing. She gasped, all pain and cold forgotten in her mesmerisation; yet even as she strained to catch another glimpse of the doe, a gentle blackness crept upon her, and she sank into exhausted unconsciousness.

A young man stepped out of the shadows, staring at Severus with a piercing intensity. ‘The Dark Lord Is serious about having you join his ranks, Snape. I hope tonight’s demonstration has convinced you of that.’ He tilted his head, a strange expression on his face. ‘Forget about Lily Evans. The Dark Lord has no mercy for the weak of heart - and if you are mistaking muggle children for her, then you are most certainly are.’

Lucius disapparated, leaving Severus to gaze down at the tiny limp body he held in his arms. From behind, the child had looked like Lily; but once he looked closer he realised that no one could compare. This little girl was nothing more than Lily’s shadow.

Drabble 4

Title: Pack
Author: lady_game
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Word Count: 494

In seven years of Hogwarts, Professor MacIntosh was the first decent Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher Remus had had. Not only was she actually competent, but being aware of the current climate, she had started an advanced class. It was a seminar usually –students came with questions about things they’d seen in the Prophet, and that would be the topic for the day.

Over the last week or so, the subject had been Dementors. The attack on the mixed Wizard and Muggle town in Bath had shaken both worlds to their cores. Of course, after general discussion about the foul creatures, talk had turned to of self-defence.

“Happy thoughts, boys and girls.” The Professor wandered the room, correcting wand positions. The students were discovering what countless witches and wizards had found before them – regardless of however much theory you learnt (in this case five solid hours over three days), casting a Patronus was never easy.

Remus looked around the room. If the climate wasn’t so serious it would be comical. The whole class had their faces screwed up in concentration, with the odd puff of white smoke being emitted from a wand.

Remus cast his own mind back, trying to think of something to use. He closed his eyes gently, and tried to think of something happy, but all he could think of was losing his soul to a dead looking mouth.

“Remus? Are you stuck?” He jumped in surprise, his descent into waking nightmares having made him oblivious to the professor approaching behind him.

“No Professor, just thinking.”

“Happy thoughts, Remus. Something recent maybe?”

Recent… recent… the only recent event that had occurred was the full moon. Closing his eyes and imagining running through Hogsmeade, he whispered the spell. To his surprise, a dense wall of fog suddenly appeared in front of him, and the next thing he knew he was flat on the floor being fed chocolate.

“Excellent work, Lupin.” Professor MacIntosh smiled at him. “Do you want to try again? Something happier?”

He stood up shakily, the eyes of the whole class on him. Happier… He closed his eyes again, reconstructing in his mind the first time he ran with his pack. For the first time, the moonlight was warm and not threatening, the smells assaulting his brain were sweet and not overwhelming, and the wolf and the little boy inside him not at war. Keeping the image in mind, he closed his eyes and said, a little more forcefully, “Expecto Patronum.”

His hand jerked back in reaction as a large, impossible animal shot out of his wand. Everyone gasped in amazement as the antlered, bald-tailed dog ran once around the room. Lily gave him a hug but it was Sirius and James he wanted to see, to see if they understood. He turned to face his friends, his family. James whooped in amusement but there was recognition in his eyes, and Sirius’s smile said everything Remus needed to know.

View Poll: Round 4, Challenge 7: Expecto Patronum

Reminder

_pinkchocolate — Thu, 29 May 2008 23:29:00 GMT

Posting early today since I'm at work :)

This is just a friendly reminder to all five of the remaining participants:

that_september
ifanciful
mossyjade
lady_game
anothersaturday

Your drabble entries are due in a little less than 28 hours. Please post them as comments on this post before 11 pm EST tomorrow (that's 10 pm on Friday if you're in the midwest, 8 pm on Friday if you're on the west coast, 4 am on Saturday if you're in the UK, and 1 pm on Saturday if you're in Sydney), or you'll be disqualified.

Round 4, Challenge 7

_pinkchocolate — Mon, 26 May 2008 01:16:15 GMT

Challenge 7: Expecto Patronum

For the seventh challenge, write a drabble in which a canon character casts a Patronus for the first time. Why are they casting it? Which positive memory are they using? What shape does the Patronus take? These are all questions to consider, although it’s not mandatory to answer all of them.

- Drabbles must be between 100-499 words.
- Comments on this post will be screened. Please comment with your submission and the following template:

- Submissions are due by 11 pm EST on Friday, May 30.
- Please do not post your entry anywhere else until the challenge is over.
- If you have any questions regarding the challenge, feel free to comment on this post with them. All questions will be left unscreened in case anyone else is curious about the same thing.

Results: Round 4, Challenge 6

_pinkchocolate — Sun, 25 May 2008 23:40:57 GMT

The authors of the drabbles have been revealed in the voting post, so make sure to head on over and check out who wrote what!

All of the authors wrote incredible drabbles this week, and the voting was extremely close. Every drabble was selected as a favourite at least once. The entry that gathered the most total votes this week is...

"A Lucky Man" by anothersaturday

Congratulations, anothersaturday! You're safe, so you can breathe easy :)

Unfortunately, as talented as all of our authors are, we have to say good-bye to someone. Since there are only six left, I will only be announcing the bottom 2 this week. The drabbles in the bottom 2 are...

"The Trail" by mossy_jade

"The One That Remains" by sellthelie

The person eliminated is...

sellthelie

We're sorry to say good-bye to you, sellthelie. You had a great run, and hopefully you'll return for future rounds! Keep writing :)

Banners for sellthelie and anothersaturday:

Congratulations to the top 5! Challenge 7 will be posted shortly.

Voting: Round 4, Challenge 6

_pinkchocolate — Sat, 24 May 2008 21:02:15 GMT

Sorry for the lateness of this voting post! My internet has been acting up, and I wasn't able to contact any of the other mods about posting the voting for me. The voting will be extended to 6 PM EST tomorrow to make up for the time lost.

The following participants have been eliminated for not turning in their drabbles on time:

my_quorum (dropped out)
i_claudia

Please note that if you did not turn a drabble, you've been disqualified and will be banned from participating in round 5.

The rules for voting are as follows:

1. The drabbles are rated up to PG-13 and should be relatively safe.
2. Read with an open mind, and vote fairly. Please try to remember that the length and pairing of a drabble should not affect your judgment of its quality.
3. Contestants are not allowed to vote for themselves. If you vote for yourself, your vote will not be counted.
4. You're free to post about this competition on your personal journal, but do not tell your friends which drabble you wrote. It's unfair to your own writing abilities and to the other participants.
5. Voting will remain open until Sunday at 6 PM EST.

Drabble 1

Title: Freddy
Author: lady_game
Rating: PG
Warnings: None, adult themes
Word Count: 287

Through the camera lens, Ginny watches while Freddy blows out his two candles. It’s a difficult feat for so little a boy, and the cold February wind doesn’t help. Angelina stands smiling in the background while George almost shouts his encouragement; they hold hands behind their son’s head.

Later, Mrs Potter and her brother watch while little Fred runs around with Victoire, the two of them lost in memories. After the silence has gone on for a while, she asks a question across the open air.

“What’re you thinking about?”

He smiles a little sadly. “Fred.”

She looks across at the over excited toddler. “He’s beautiful, George.”

“Oh.” George looks disoriented for a moment. “Not that Fred.”

For a while Ginny doesn’t know what to say, and the first thing that she thinks of is horribly inane. “He looks like you.”

A little laugh escapes her brother’s lips, and if she’s not mistaken it’s slightly bitter. “And I look exactly like Fred did.”

“George…”

“Listen Ginny, I’ve always thought you had your suspicions.”

She wants to say she doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but she does. She thinks back to George and Angelina’s wedding, the December frost thick on the ground and Angelina’s swollen belly. Months aren’t too hard to count…

“Yeah, I have.”

Her brother says nothing.

“Did Fred know?”

Tears fall from his eyes. “Yeah, he did. He always said he’d propose when the war was over.”

“But you did it for him.”

George breathes deeply, shuts his eyes and wipes them. “It is what it is, Gin. It works.”

She thinks she can’t understand, but as she watches the little boy so happy, she realises that maybe she can. “Yeah George, it does.”

Drabble 2

Title: A Lucky Man
Author: anothersaturday
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Technically, I suppose it's sort of dub-con.
Word Count: 498

He has little basis for comparison, never having known the sting of misfortune firsthand; still, he believes himself extraordinarily lucky. He's lucky to have found a flat so reasonably priced, two poky rooms over a pub, all full of sunlight and the sultry smell of day-old smoke. He's lucky to have no place special to be, and lucky that the fistful of money from his father's safe has lasted so long. Mostly he is lucky to have her: a prize rare and luminescent as pearls. She is like some delicate flame, and everything around her seems to glow. In her blessed presence, nothing is as it was. Even the water he takes from the clay jug on the sideboard seems to have a strange, faint sweetness. It tastes, to him, like the salt of her skin.

He had not believed himself capable, in the time before, of loving anything so well. Her face hangs behind his eyes, like the moon. At night he tangles his fingers into her hair, which is soft, and no particular color. He rests the flat of his hand on her stomach, in the place where it is just beginning to swell. She believes the child will be a boy; she would like to name it for him. He himself isn't bothered what they call it. He can make himself think of nothing but her.

***
Of course he fails her, being unworthy. It pains him that she does not seem to notice: he would like to be punished, to atone, but she seems incapable of anger. Or perhaps not: there is a morning he steps in water, spreading like sorrow over the floor of the dingy kitchenette. The jug has been smashed, while he slept, into a shrapnel jagged and almost white. He thinks of foxes, which he used to hunt, the splintering of bones after the hounds were through with them.

***
All that day he feels out-of-sorts: it is like struggling from sleep, and in the end he goes to bed early. She is beside him when he wakes, a mound of flesh in the brighter pallor of moonlight, and he understands something is terribly wrong.

"Merope," he begins to say, and then understands that he doesn't want to wake her. He doesn't want to see her face. He recalls all in a moment, like a great lungful of air, what she is. What he is, or was. He thinks of the thing slouching towards life inside her-- his child, theirs-- "Taken in!" he hisses, maybe only to himself.

Tom does not feel guilty, as he packs his valise. He thinks how he is ill-used, and clean of blame. The love he felt clings still to the inside of his skin: only as ugly, now, as love always is. He can feel it, when he moves: the terrible heft of dead weight.

Drabble 3

Title: Desired Constellation (Summer of 1974)
Author: ifanciful
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Word Count: 499

Regulus knows what comes undone can’t help but slip away indefinitely. He watches his family ties unravel, unfurling and shaking themselves out with a lazy ease that recalls the way his brother shakes out his hair.

The sunlight framed in the window flickers under the expanse of large, pulsing wings, and Mother languidly takes three letters from the owl, her spindly fingers twining around a bone-white envelope like a spider draining its prey; for just a moment, her eyes come alive with what she's absorbed, only to be snuffed back into twisting grey when the owl beats his wings to depart. She bows her head, speaking low with Father about whether there's a way to revoke Sirius’ permission to Hogsmead, though Sirius is still her son, and she seems not displeased to hear from him.

When Regulus' name leaves her lips, she hands him a similarly-addressed envelope that makes revulsion claw up his throat, curling his mouth like it’s soft dough.

“You won’t read what your brother has to say?” Mother asks, and Regulus drops it lazily near his toast, scowling darkly at bright pools of yellow on his plate as he asks to be excused. He knows how that letter will read, knows Sirius hasn’t thought anything pleasant about them all summer.

Regulus touches the banister on his way up the stairs, letting the memories etched into the wood soak through his fingertips – Sirius clutching the railing, and him clutching Sirius to keep from falling as Sirius laughed close to his face, and it was more like barking when Sirius told him he wouldn't let him fall, not ever, right before they both tumbled down the stairs.

He climbs.

The dark wood of his desk is cold when he leans his forehead against it, though not so cold as looking into Sirius' eyes before they’d exited the Hogwarts Express. Regulus'd seen leafy distances flitter by, greens the shades of curses woven into the silver of Sirius' eyes where his face was reflected, framed by the colours that shadow his brother's abhorrence. “I hate the lot of them,” Sirius’d said, getting too close, so for a moment Regulus saw nothing but black hair and sharp edges that could have belonged to Mother. “And if you keep going down that way, Reg, I’ll hate you too. You tell them I’m not writing.”

Regulus wrenches a drawer open, smoothing the arc of his back like he’s ironing cotton.

The sunlight meanders in like spun gold, twisting and hanging from the windows, and Regulus wants to grab on but needs to grab something solid. He can't let Sirius fall either.

He takes out a quill and parchment, reminding himself to fold out the words like lines stamped onto a face by careless laughter and not to let the ink-lined tip linger. Regulus lets the quill run over the parchment, tracing turns that are becoming more familiar, tracing lies that make him sick, as he writes another letter:

Dearest Mother; With Love, Sirius.

Drabble 4

Title: The Trail
Author: mossy_jade
Rating: PG
Warnings: AU Char Death
Word Count: 445 words

I have been in many wars. Too many, one could say. The battles I have been in stretch behind me, a winding trail of stale blood and splintered glass that follows no logical path but is, nonetheless, a depiction of my past.

Somewhere along that path, the blood became a little thinner on the ground. Not that there was any less of it - the number of people killed never lessens, the slaughter never ceases - but it was weaker. Watery. The blood a mere stride behind me was so faint as to be a dawn-pale pink. Along the trail the blood had slowly become diluted as I had learned the true value of life in war. I had realised how much every death should cost me.

At Hogwarts, fighting for Harry as I once fought for James, I have finally learned that it does not matter who dies. They will inevitably end up being people that I love. I have learned that in war, the value of life is naught, and so each death should cost me the same. Death is absolute and unavoidable - but life is evolving, changing and controllable. It is not the death that matters, but the life that preceded it.

I have also learned that there are many ways in which one can die. Death can be quick, slow, sharp, painless. It can be an accident, an illness or at the hand of an enemy. Death may be beyond our control, but the way we reach it is not. And sometimes, the way we reach it can mean everything in the world. While I have learned not to pay for the deaths of those around me, every painful or terrible last moment slashes through my veins, keeping the trail going.

I look at my wife, pink hair almost glowing, and know that she will not survive this battle. She will not live to see our son again. That, I know, is beyond my control. But her life is not. Is it not infinitesimally worse to die tortured by an enemy than quickly and painlessly in the arms of your lover? Is it not a far more fitting, meaningful, better, to pass on in that manner?

‘Nymphadora,’ I call, and my wife turns around, her face set into hard, focused lines.

‘Remus?’

‘I love you.’

I pull her to my chest, and as I see Dolohov appear at the very end of the hallway, I point my wand at the back of her head and whisper, ‘Avada Kedavra.’

I take another step on the trail, and behind me shines a puddle of water, not a speck of blood in sight.

Drabble 5

Title: The Usual Suspect
Author: that_september
Rating: PG.
Warnings: Nothing too major--it'll give away the surprise if I say!
Word Count: 498.

Nobody was quite sure where the fireworks came from at first.

They seemed to appear out of thin air, going off sporadically during classes, dinner, in the Slytherin dormitories, at one in the morning—it never seemed to end. The entire student body was lectured at least ten times the first week, and when no one came forward, teachers started calling all the usual suspects in for questioning and randomly taking away house points, depending on what group of students had been spotted nearest the source of the rogue fireworks.

This led to no answers, an increase in fireworks, and, strangely, all the house point hourglasses being emptied of their jewels and filled with chocolate pudding.

Minerva McGonagall was the first one to suspect that perhaps this was not the work of a hapless student.

She found Nearly Headless Nick the third time a round of firecrackers woke her up in the middle of the night, following a nasty hunch. Gryffindor House’s ghost was drifting along outside the library when Minerva, clad in her favorite tartan robe, marched up to him.

“Where is he, Nick?” she barked. Nearly Headless Nick surveyed her warily, eyes darting nervously.

“I wanted to tell you, Headmistress!” Nick said hastily. “I did! But the Bloody Baron said it was no business of ours to meddle…I tried reasoning with the boy, but it’s no use. He makes Peeves look like a timid, unsuspecting Hufflepuff first year!” Minerva sighed heavily, rubbing her temples.

“I’ll repeat, Nick: where is he?”

--

Minerva found him on the third floor, floating aimlessly along the corridor. He turned when he heard her footsteps, and his hair was just as fiery red as it had been in life.

“Hullo, Professor,” he said, grinning as irreverently as always. “I wondered when you’d figure it out.”

“Mr. Weasley.” Minerva rubbed her temples again. “Why…?”

“Long story short,” Fred Weasley said lightly, “I like it better here. Got to make sure no cheeky little git out-pranks good old George and me.” Minerva didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“I just have two questions,” she said after a moment. “One: where did you get the fireworks?”

“We stashed a big supply of them in one of the abandoned secret passages.” Fred chuckled reminiscently. “We’re bloody lucky nothing set them off before now.”

”Quite,” Minerva agreed dryly. “Now, two: when are you planning to stop driving us all barmy?”

”Never,” Fred replied, his smile widening. “That’s what I’m here for, isn’t it?” Minerva rolled her eyes despairingly.

“See that you stop waking me at three in the morning, at least,” she said, turning to leave. “Good night, Mr. Weasley.”

“G’night, Professor!” Fred called after her. “Don’t worry. I’m planning to use up the rest of the fireworks tomorrow in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. I’ve been saving these ones for last—they’re waterproof, you know.”

Despite herself, Minerva McGonagall chuckled fondly, heart aching a little less, and left Fred Weasley to do what he did best.

Drabble 6

Title: The One That Remains
Author: sellthelie
Rating: G
Warnings: Nil
Word Count: 329

He stood stoically watching the train pull from the station, all around him parents and assorted family members walked away. Some of them were crying as they realised they wouldn't see their children for months, and some seemed almost happy that they were finally free.

Harry wasn't sure what he felt, he knew that he was going to have fun at Hogwarts, almost as much as he had had all those years ago. It was a strange feeling, he didn't want him to stay, he wanted him to learn, and make friends. He just didn't want him gone though, he wanted him close by to remind him of what he once had. To hold on to the people that he had loved, and lost.

He heard them shuffling around behind him, he turned towards them.

They smiled at him, "It's not like you'll never see him again, before you know it it'll be Christmas."

Harry sighed, glancing into the distance at the locomotive, "I know. Doesn't mean I won't miss him."

"It'll do him good," they started to pull him away from the tracks. "He needs to make friends that aren't seventeen years older than him, you know that."

"I do," he muttered, stepping through the barrier with him.

"Then," Draco smiled, pulling the hat down over his hair to keep him unrecognisable. "Let Teddy go, you need to start living properly, not hanging onto the past through his son. They are gone, and he's not them."

Harry scowled, "I know that."

"Do you? I think you forget sometimes," Draco said, starting through the Muggle crowd.

Harry stood still as he walked away, the feeling in his heart heavy. He knew he was hardly the best company at times, but there were two good things in his life; and with one now motoring a thousand miles away, it was time to focus on the one that remained.

View Poll: Round 4, Challenge 6: Twists and Turns

Reminder

_pinkchocolate — Fri, 23 May 2008 03:22:33 GMT

This is just a friendly reminder to all eight of the remaining participants:

sellthelie
that_september
ifanciful
i_claudia
mossyjade
lady_game
my_quorum
anothersaturday

Your drabble entries are due in less than 24 hours. Please post them as comments on this post before 11 pm EST (that's 10 pm if you're in the midwest, 8 pm if you're on the west coast, and 4 am on Saturday if you're in the UK) tomorrow, or you'll be disqualified.

Thank you, and good luck writing!

Round 4, Challenge 6

_pinkchocolate — Mon, 19 May 2008 00:38:16 GMT

Challenge 6: Twists and Turns

JK Rowling is known for introducing unexpected changes in the direction of the plot of her books to keep her readers hooked and guessing. For challenge 6, write a drabble that includes a major plot twist. Drabbles can be about anything you want, as long as the specified literary technique is used.

- Drabbles must be between 100-499 words.
- Comments on this post will be screened. Please comment with your submission and the following template:

- Submissions are due by 11 pm EST on Friday, May 23.
- Please do not post your entry anywhere else until the challenge is over.
- If you have any questions regarding the challenge, feel free to comment on this post with them. All questions will be left unscreened in case anyone else is curious about the same thing.

Results: Round 4, Challenge 5

_pinkchocolate — Sun, 18 May 2008 16:09:29 GMT

Results are early this week :) As always, make sure to head on over here to see who wrote what.

We had some truly amazing entries this week. Each and every one of them was a joy to read, and it's a shame we have to say good-bye to someone.

First of all, before we get to the results, this week's viewers' choice award goes to...

"one's not half two. It's two are halves of one" by i_claudia

Congratulations, i_claudia! It was well deserved :)

Now, without further ado, your bottom three this week is...

"Love Apart" by eerisedda

"You Could Be Happy" by lady_game

"Fantasy Fallen" by my_quorum

And the person leaving us this week is...

eerisedda

We're sorry to say good-bye to you, eerisedda, but keep writing and definitely try to stop by every once in a while in the future!

Banners for eerisedda and i_claudia:

Congratulations to the remaining top 8! Challenge 6 will be posted later tonight.

Voting: Round 4, Challenge 5

_pinkchocolate — Sat, 17 May 2008 03:17:30 GMT

Sorry for the reminder being late -- I was flying home, so I had my fellow mod post it for me.

The following participants have been eliminated for not turning in their drabbles on time:

immovinout
savepureness

Please note that if you did not turn a drabble, you've been disqualified and will be banned from participating in round 5.

The rules for voting are as follows:

1. The drabbles are rated up to PG-13 and contain language and hints of slash. If any of that offends you, proceed no further.
2. Read with an open mind, and vote fairly. Please try to remember that the length and pairing of a drabble should not affect your judgment of its quality.
3. Contestants are not allowed to vote for themselves. If you vote for yourself, your vote will not be counted.
4. You're free to post about this competition on your personal journal, but do not tell your friends which drabble you wrote. It's unfair to your own writing abilities and to the other participants.
5. Voting will remain open until Sunday at noon EST.

Drabble 1

Title: Love Apart
Author: eerisedda
Rating: R
Warnings: language, hints of slashy infidelity and other infidelity, use of lyrics as narrative (tweaked a bit to fit.)
Word Count: 496

The parchment sat, tearstained but otherwise untouched.

It had been a hard couple months, but Ginny hadn’t actually believed it would end like this.

She hadn’t even expected him to find out, or maybe she’d just hoped. The fact that he was just as guilty as her, had been looking for the same thing in someone else hurt her.

All those years, ever since she was a little girl, she’d set him apart from everyone else, done all she could to get him to see her. She’d found him, but even when she’d thought he’d seen her, he’d still been looking for something else.

When he’d found her out, she’d felt guilt eat at her at the sight of Harry’s wide green eyes, but when he’d laughed, actually laughed at her and her lover in their bed, she’d felt so lost.

She had expected the typical reaction of any husband finding their wife in bed with another man. It had been logical for her to expect it. She’d thought of it as a science, like potions or something. She’d only been guessing, like in school when she’d guess at numbers and figures, trying to solve a puzzle and getting a different picture, the wrong picture.

The picture had been very different from what she’d thought. Vastly different. He’d revealed his affair with, not another woman, but another man, and then she’d done the stupidest thing she could have done: she’d fought with him. She’d screamed and shouted and the children had been sent to their Aunt and Uncle’s home.

The next day he’d sent the divorce papers. They’d sat there for ages it felt like, mocking her with their perfect parchment and the beautiful, curly writing that detailed their divorce and the demands of her soon to be ex-husband.

To add insult to injury, Harry’d gotten not only the best lawyer, but his lover to handle the divorce.

Ginny didn’t want to sign the papers. She wanted to talk things through, try and forget about their affairs, especially her husband’s. As far as she was concerned, he’d done her more wrong than she’d done him.

She just wanted to go back to the start, to the very beginning, because it was such a shame for them to part; images of him from their past haunted her; she wanted him to come back, tell her that he still loved her, but that was all just a fantasy. Truly, she’d always lived in a fantasy when it came to Harry Potter.

She walked to the table where the parchment sat, waiting to be signed. There was the end of her marriage, written in perfect letters by his hand, staring at her, waiting for her to sign, or fight it. The quill was in her hand before she knew it and she signed her name, right below the name of her now ex-husband and his lover.

In reality, they’d always loved apart, even when they’d loved each other together.

Drabble 2

Title: Back to One
Author: sellthelie
Rating: G
Warnings: -
Word Count: 433

I hover outside the door for a few minutes, trying to figure out what I'm going to say to her. To make her stay, I'll beg if I have to. Things haven't been perfect, and that isn't her fault, I think it's both of us. At the start we tried so hard, then I don't know what happened, but I know that it all fell apart.

She's going to leave, I'm sure of it. In my head I can hear the perfect argument to make her stay, to promise to be better, that it will be better. The tree down the park is very impressed, but now that I'm home, and have to deliver I'm blank.

I open the door and slip into our little flat, as I approach the living area I see Hermione stand up. She's fidgeting, her fingers pulling on the ends of her curls, she only ever does that when she's anxious.

I drop my keys on the bench, and start towards her, almost tripping over the bag on the floor. It's her bag, and it's full, the last time I saw it was when we went away for that week all those months ago.

"Hermione?"

"It's just for a little while, not permanent," she said quickly, her fingers pulling faster on her hair. "I love you, I do, I really do. You don't have to be blind though to see that this isn't working all that well at the moment."

"But, you can't go."

"Why?"

I stand in front of her, taking her hands in mine, her eyes look so deeply into my own, but I can't find the words. "Just don't."

"That's not a reason, we need some time apart. We need to get back to where we were, to the beginning when it was perfect. We lost that." Her hand comes up, and touches the side of my cheek, before she walks by me, picking her bag off the floor. "I wish someone had told us that this wasn't going to be easy."

"They sure as hell didn't say it would be so hard."

"Ron..."

"Right, language."

Hermione turns back to me, "Just because I'm leaving doesn't mean we can't see each other, maybe, dinner?"

"Like a date?"

"Exactly," she beams at me. "We never did that, we moved so fast, barely took the time to catch our breath."

I feel the smile come over my face slowly, "I like the sound of that."

Drabble 3

Title: You Could Be Happy
Author: lady_game
Rating: G
Warnings: No lyrics, just the spirit of it. Book 7 spoilers
Word Count: 269

The red ponytail flashes through the portrait hole and the Fat Lady shuts with a firm loud thud. Its inhabitant looks down at the sullen, angry, greasy haired boy and speaks to him sternly – “Now young man, get back to your own common room.” – but he doesn’t. He leans against the opposite wall of the corridor and melts into a puddle on the floor.

There’s nothing more he can do. He did the unthinkable and came up to the Gryffindor common room, to enemy territory, to talk to her, but she would hardly condescend to be spoken to. He told her he was sorry but she wouldn’t accept it. He wants so desperately to tell her the other things he’s always felt, that she’s always been too blind to see, but what chance does he have of that now?

It’s always been like this, though. Missteps and misunderstandings, offences unintended. He thinks back to the first time he spoke to her and cringes. It had all gone so horribly wrong, and he would give anything to go back to that point and change it, but they had worked through it. They can do it again.

Slowly, the Severus-shaped puddle reforms itself into something resembling a man. A leg solidifies just enough to support his weight and stand, an arm gains enough substance to haul himself up off the floor. He knows what to do, he’ll just start again. It will be hard and painful but she’s worth it, she always has and she always will be. They will work it out and then, just maybe, life will be good.

Drabble 4

Title: Reverse
Author: mossy_jade
Rating: PG
Warnings: Lyrics from The Scientist borrowed in this fic.
Word Count: 425

Remus Lupin had been alone most of his life. A lot of the time, it didn’t really bother him. He accepted it as a part of his life. But sometimes, like now, he couldn’t help but feel bitter about it. And he couldn’t help but reminisce about the few moments where he hadn’t been alone.

Come back and haunt me

There were three times that Remus had kissed Lily Evans. He always remembered them in reverse.

Come back and haunt me

James was dead, Sirius was chasing after Peter, and Lily was lying on the floor at his feet, dead. Remus sank to his knees, pulling her head onto his lap and stroking the hair back from her face so gently it was almost painful. Her death had left her unmarked, and Remus was grateful for that. It gave him some sense that Lily was still preserved, that her beauty would live on. Drying his own tears, he bent down and fluttered the lightest of kisses across her lips, afraid to make the farewell any deeper, scared of disturbing sleeping memories.

Come back and haunt me

Tomorrow they would go into hiding. A sealed envelope that would break open in the event of the Potters’ deaths, a few desperate, clutching hugs, and they would be gone. Possibly forever. James, unable to deal with such delicate things as emotions, had already left the room with Harry. Only Lily remained, hanging back for one uncertain moment, before rushing forward. Before Remus knew what was happening, she kissed him fiercely, desperately, lingeringly.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, burying her face into his shoulder. ‘Goodbye, Remy. I love you.’

And then she was gone.

Come back and haunt me

On Hogsmeade weekends, Remus almost felt normal. Outside of school he could blend into the crowd a little better, be less afraid of drawing attention to himself, be a little more daring. This time, he had danced with Lily at the Three Broomsticks, James laughingly cheering him on from a corner. At the end of the song, Lily leaned forward and gave him his first kiss, brief but so achingly sweet. She smiled impishly at him, patting him on the cheek, and then pulled him into another dance.

Come back and haunt me

When he could not help but remember, Remus always remembered in reverse. For a few brief moments after the memories faded, he could almost believe that that was the true order; that she had been dead, but was alive once more.

Oh, take me back to the start

Drabble 5

Title: Fantasy Fallen
Author: my_quorum
Rating: G
Warnings: none
Word Count: 487

come up to meet you
tell you I'm sorry

She’d Apparated here before even catching her breath, her chest heaving as her feet flew up the cobblestone path, a flustered peacock bursting into perfect ivory bloom.

you don’t know how lovely you are

His hungry silver gaze caused her nerves to bristle. She’d known he was leaving before she’d come, but it was all too palpable here, every beat of her own heart thundering in her ears, reminding her of the inevitable, excruciating passage of time.

I had to find you
tell you I need you
tell you I set you apart

“God, Draco, I -”

Words fill her mind but the ability to speak them falls away. He’s tearing her apart the way they’d always said he would. Don’t leave – take me with you – I need you.

... I love you.

tell me your secrets
and ask me your questions

It was in his eyes. He knew and maybe he just wasn’t capable of caring, maybe her boy of silver and ivory and marble was just as cold as the marble, the ivory, the silver. Words spilled from her lips as she watched his mercurial eyes watch her wine red mouth, distance etched into the sculpted lines of his face. Her chin rose as his rejection took hold.

“You can’t possibly be leaving.”

“Nobody said it was easy,” he murmured, killing her softly with each syllable.

it’s such a shame for us to part

“Nobody ever said it would be this hard,” she whispered.

tell me you love me
come back and haunt me

She saw something move behind his impenetrable gaze, and it wasn’t for her.

“You’re not giving him up.” The words were torn from her mouth, and as soon as they tumbled off of her tongue she knew she didn’t want to see the answer in his eyes.

“It’s a shame, Pansy. We made an attractive pair.”

She looked up; he was leaving, wand in hand, a sort of shallow disappointment darkening his brow.

And as he disappeared before her eyes, charcoal robes swirling about his aristocratic figure, her future dissolved into nothing with him. She’d never foreseen this scenario. She hadn’t known it would end like this. She hadn’t known she was right all along, and she didn’t know how to picture the rest of her life without this once permanent fixture.

She sat on the very edge of his bed, remembered a tangle of legs and arms and mouths and sank back into the mountains of satin pillows, silk sheets, too spent to grieve her loss.

It had just been an impulse. She’d known he’d been on a first name basis with the green-eyed monster of her past for months.

I was just guessing
at numbers and figures
pulling the puzzles apart

But somehow she hadn’t guessed until now that Harry Potter had taken her place in Draco Malfoy’s future.

Drabble 6

Title: Back to the Start
Author: that_september
Rating: PG
Warnings:I used both a bit of the meaning behind the song and the lyric "back to the start".
Word Count: 499

The woods were just as he’d remembered them—sprawling, full of towering trees, sparsely beautiful. This wasn’t a thick, dark forest, like the forbidden one at school.

Severus stuffed his hands into the pockets of his trousers, and stared gloomily around. If he hadn’t managed to botch everything up a few months back, Lily would already be here with him, lounging under their favorite tree, waving her summer homework around in his face, complaining about Petunia…

As it was, she wouldn’t even look at him. The train ride home in July had been absolutely miserable—Severus had sat alone, staring gloomily out the window. Usually, he’d have been holed up with Lily, sharing sweets, laughing, maybe debating the best potions ingredients.

Lily had made it perfectly clear to him: it was over. Seven years of friendship…gone.

Now, here he was, and Merlin, it was so bloody hard to think that this was the place his friendship with Lil really began—that this was where she’d chosen to talk to him after that first meeting, that this was where they’d shared hours of their childhood. That he’d almost kissed her here during Christmas...and that maybe, she might have kissed him back.

The worst part of it all was that Severus supposed he’d known all along it would have to end like this. From the beginning, they had been polar opposites, he and Lily; she was radiant, beautiful, bold…and he was all dark, dingy and skulking, squinting in disbelief at her brightness. It came down to their differences—perhaps it was true, what everyone said…perhaps Slytherins and Gryffindors really couldn’t mix. And still, he’d hoped…

I’m shaking, Severus realized, staring down at his trembling hands. He sunk to the ground slowly, resting his back against the broad trunk of a tree, letting his face fall to his hands.

She wasn’t going to come—he’d known that all along, too. Since they’d first gone to Hogwarts, they’d met here the evening before school started at exactly 7 pm. Even though Lily hated him now, he’d thought maybe…

Quite suddenly, there was a sharp crack from behind him. Severus scrambled to his feet, spinning around just in time to see Lily’s wide green eyes staring at him, disbelief written across her pretty face.

”I didn’t think you’d come,” Severus managed hoarsely.

“Me either,” Lily said, voice breaking a bit. “I suppose it’s habit now.”

“Lil—”

“I don’t want to hear it, Sev.” She took a step away. “Just…don’t.”

“Can’t we go back to the start?” Severus asked before he could stop himself. “Please, Lily. You don’t know how sorry I am—I’d do anything if you’d just…” He trailed off as Lily met his gaze almost painfully, eyes bright with unshed tears.

“There’s no going back, Sev,” she whispered. “Not from this one.”

He watched her go silently, hands still shaking, a sour taste filling his mouth, as what was left of his sad, hardened heart, broke just the tiniest bit more.

Drabble 7

Title: In Circles
Author: anothersaturday
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: A bit of language. This is based on the last verse of the song ("Running in circles/Chasing our tails/Coming back as we are") rather than the overall meaning.
Word Count: 422

(Running in circles)
There is the madness of being confined, and a raw place in his chest where he knows he is abandoned. They’re meant to be here. He doesn’t know why they don’t come. It is nothing to do with precedent, or the things they’ve promised: it is an animal’s instinctual sense of rightness, or else wrong.

The other wrong thing is the scent, sweat and nervous stomach, unfamiliar; the hot staccato of blood beneath papery skin. It’s coming closer. The wolf lets a long sound pour from his throat. He braces his claws against the splintery floorboards, and waits. In his mouth, hunger and rage make a jagged knot.

(Chasing our tails)
”Only I’m sorry,” Sirius says. There is a desperate edge to his voice, but also a bit of impatience: as though if only Remus would understand this point, the matter would be sorted.

"I said that doesn't matter, though," Remus hisses. When he shifts in his narrow hospital-wing bed he feels a jolt of pain, and winces against his own unsettled flesh. "You told, you told Snape, of all fucking people--"

"I'm sorry."

Remus closes his eyes. They've been saying the same things for hours, just finding new ways to phrase them. They are only going round and round, and failing to take hold of whatever it is they're after. There is the madness of being confined. There is the raw place where he is abandoned.

(Coming back as we are)
He will be forgiven, he tells himself. On the long walk back from the hospital wing, Sirius repeats the words like a mantra, till they are only sounds. Moony will forgive him. He's always done, before. Sirius thinks of that old Muggle story, the bloke whose liver gets eaten every day by birds. He thinks of reincarnation, and feels as though they're living the same thing again and again, a million lives in one because they never learn. They can only be who they are: Sirius mucking things up, and Remus forgiving him.

There was the night when it started: I won't tell, though, swear, he'd said. Gen up. He remembers his little-boy glee at having worked out the secret, the thickness of fright in Remus's eyes. This was at least a hundred lifetimes ago, and he'd still believed, then, he might change for the better.

He will be forgiven. It will be alright. This is no pattern that they can escape.

Drabble 8

Title: The Bitterest Herb
Author: ifanciful
Rating: PG
Warnings: One swear word. Lyricus dialogueus! Or lyrics used in dialogue.
Word Count: 499

“It’s too late,” Remus pushed through a grimace. His pale eyes were clouded, the lids beneath holding the burden of blackened, half-moon bruises. “I’ve taken something. I can’t Apparate back.”

Sirius’d found him wrapped into the corner of an overturned semi-trailer that’d been detached from a lorry and thrown outside the Death Eater’s camp, only ten minutes before the Prewetts were scheduled to begin a big stir.

It was a lucky guess.

Remus looked as if he’d been handled the same way as the semi, though if the Death Eaters had gotten him, he wouldn’t have looked so alive. Which wasn’t saying much.

Sirius muttered something unbecoming of a Black heir. But then, civility was unbecoming of a Black heir, so perhaps not. “Tell me it wasn’t Belby’s half-formed idea involving that monkshood concoction, Moony. You know how he is.”

Remus trembled where he sat across from him. “I had to,” he shuddered. “They have Greyback, Padfoot, and it’s our first battle with the Order. It’s important. How did you even find me?”

Remus looked so far away that for a moment, Sirius wasn’t sure he’d found him at all. “I was just guessing,” Sirius breathed. “Think of it as pulling puzzles apart.”

“You mean putting puzzles together?”

Sirius leaned his forehead against Remus’ and shook his head. “Apart.” It was the one word that was right. He was staring into storm clouds. “Look, as soon as it’s over, we’ll bug off. You and me, Moony. Romping in meadows -” Remus trembled; Sirius grabbed his face. “Chasing our tails,” he breathed, keeping him steady.

Remus let out a painful-sounding laugh. “Padfoot. There are always uncertainties with these things –“

Sirius looked at him as if to say, No shit, but he could tell Remus was hurting for this. For them. “Uncertainties? You mean questions of science?” he said grandly. “Science and progress?”

Remus snorted, grimacing afterwards. “You know only Muggles call it science, Sirius.”

There was a crash and a tangle of shouts before the sky went ablaze.

“All the better,” Sirius grinned savagely. They waited. Lights whirled by, a new battle birthed into blazing tides beyond the metal walls, and Sirius itched with exhilaration. Somewhere he heard the unmistakable cackle of Bella. “Tell the moon to hurry, Remus.”

Remus’ hands coiled around Sirius’ wrists, peeling his hands from his face like something rain-soaked. “I won’t have to,” he grimaced before he slumped over, his fingertips twining into the ground. “Change,” he said, all broken edges. “Now.”

The arc of Remus’ back caught a flood of moonlight, and Sirius curled and stretched into his paws.

Two tawny eyes blinked back at Sirius inquisitively, and he would have thought Belby’s potion worked if not for the feral vacancy there. Light sloughed off nearby curses bounced off the wolf’s coat as he leapt away, and Sirius bounded after him, feeling exhilarated. He would change back soon, but now he sprung toward the tumbling, crashing riot, yelping and barking the entire way.

Drabble 9

Title: one's not half two. It's two are halves of one
Author: i_claudia
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: References to (canon) character death; contemplation of suicide. The overall mood and theme of The Scientist definitely influenced this drabble, but I decided to use just a few of the lyrics to really inspire it – they’re written below (but not part of my word count).
Word Count: 487

(The title is from an E.E. Cummings poem of the same name.)

Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
Oh take me back to the start

I was just guessing
At numbers and figures
Pulling the puzzles apart
Questions of science
Science and progress
Did not speak as loud as my heart

After the Battle of Hogwarts, he locked himself in their flat, lying inert on the sagging mustard yellow settee they’d found on the side of the road one bright day just after they’d left school. All the days had been bright then – the sun had smiled at their exploits. So young, so successful; the world had been their oyster, and they had known it.

George didn’t feel young anymore. He was an empty husk that the war had sucked the soul out of more effectively than a Dementor; only one half of an entire whole.

His brothers came by now and then with bits of news or food from Mum. Someone – he thought it might have been Ron – had taken over the shop, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Inventions, pranks, Wheezes… they were nothing more than ashes of those brighter days. He said nothing, ate nothing, refused to move, and ignored them all until they left. When Mum came and dissolved into tears, he turned away and burrowed further into the scratchy wool of the settee cushions.

He didn’t go to the funeral, though he had to fight off his entire family when they tried to manhandle him out the door. Sitting on the cold floorboards after dodging Ginny’s parting Bat Bogey Hex, he stared at the ceiling and counted the cracks in the plaster, trying not to think. Memories slipped unbidden into his mind: Fred turning Ron’s stuffed bear into a spider, Fred finding a way to make all of their ideas for Wheezes actually work, Fred’s face indelibly etched into his mind in that last, frozen, horrible laugh.

He squeezed his eyes shut, but the visions kept flooding in. Fred woke him up in the middle of the night to tell him about the idea for a Hogwarts swamp. Fred carried him out of the shop when an experiment backfired and melted all the bones in his legs. Stop, George thought fiercely, pressing his palm against his forehead. He needed to make it stop. His siblings had only lost a brother – how was he supposed to go on when half of himself had been ripped away?

He grabbed his wand, feeling determination for the first time in months. It was so simple. A few words and it would all be over. Mum might take it hard, he thought, but they’d learn to get along. They’d coped with so much already; one more death wasn’t that much to ask.

His fingers trembling, he raised the wand, placing it against his temple. He took a breath to steady himself and –

The wand gave an almighty squawk and turned into a rubber chicken. George looked at it, momentarily stunned, before finally giving into helpless peals of choking laughter.

“Okay, brother,” he whispered, the ache in his chest not gone, but no longer unbearable. “You win.”

He got up, unused muscles protesting, and searched for his coat.

View Poll: Round 4, Challenge 5: The Scientist

Challenge 5 Reminder

avada_k — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:54:51 GMT

Sorry for the lateness of this post, but this is just a friendly reminder to the following participants:

that_september
immovinout
ifanciful
i_claudia
lady_game
my_quorum
savepureness
anothersaturday
mossy_jade

Your drabble entries are due in less than 24 hours. Please post them as comments on this post before 11 pm EST (that's 10 pm on Friday if you're in the midwest, 8 pm on Friday if you're on the west coast, 4 am on Saturday if you're in the UK, and 1 pm on Saturday if you're in Sydney) today, or you'll be disqualified.

Round 4, Challenge 5

_pinkchocolate — Mon, 12 May 2008 02:17:04 GMT

Challenge 5: The Scientist

The fifth challenge involves writing a drabble inspired by the song “The Scientist” by Coldplay. You can choose to incorporate EITHER a lyric (at least one full line) from the song OR the meaning of the song into your drabble. That is, if you choose to use a lyric, you aren’t required (but are allowed) to use the meaning of the song as well, and vice versa. Please indicate in the warnings which of the two you decided to do.

Interpretations of the song can be found here. To download the song, click here.

Come up to meet you
Tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are

I had to find you
Tell you I need you
Tell you I set you apart

Tell me your secrets
And ask me your questions
Oh, let's go back to the start

Running in circles
Coming up tails
Heads on a science apart

Nobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
Oh, take me back to the start

I was just guessing
At numbers and figures
Pulling the puzzles apart

Questions of science
Science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart

Tell me you love me
Come back and haunt me
Oh, and I rush to the start

Running in circles
Chasing our tails
Coming back as we are

Nobody said it was easy
Oh, it's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard
I'm going back to the start

- Drabbles must be between 100-499 words.
- Comments on this post will be screened. Please comment with your submission and the following template:

- Submissions are due by 11 pm EST on Friday, May 16.
- Please do not post your entry anywhere else until the challenge is over.
- If you have any questions regarding the challenge, feel free to comment on this post with them. All questions will be left unscreened in case anyone else is curious about the same thing.

Results: Round 4, Challenge 4

_pinkchocolate — Sun, 11 May 2008 21:15:12 GMT

Here they are! As always, remember to head on over here to check out who wrote what.

We had several great entries this week. Of them, the voters handed the title of viewers' choice to...

"Credit" by anothersaturday!

Congratulations, anothersaturday :) You're the fifth person to win the award, which just goes to show that we have a number of great writers among us!

Unfortunately, as always, we have to say good-bye to one participant. The bottom three this week consists of...

"Future Friends" by ronhermione33

"Like Father, Like Son" by eerisedda

"Purple Boots" by immmovinout

Of those three, the contestant who received the lowest votes is...

ronhermione33

I'm sorry, ronhermione33, but this is the end of the road for you. Thank you for joining us, and keep writing! :)

Banners for ronhermione33 and anothersaturday

We're now down to 11 contestants! I'm thinking of adding an extra element to the competition come top 10, but I don't have any great ideas yet. If any of you have a suggestion, feel free to voice it here.

Challenge 5 will be posted later tonight.