Voting: Round 4, Challenge 8

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.