The Fool's Journey

Egads, an update,

2008-06-08T00:10:53Z

Obviously, I have not been around a bit, or writing drabbles. I apologize a bit for that, folks.

On the personal front, I'm in the transition of moving myself and my entire life back home for the summer, or possibly longer. My thesis situation is, well, just as frustrating as ever. The job situation is not going well either. So, in the meantime, I am just trying not to stress myself out. I hate moving, absolutely hate it. I'm slowly getting things packed up and moved 200 miles in the back of a station wagon. *rolls eyes*

On the up side...I'm the proud owner of two (soon to be Two) new pets. I have a grey tabby female cat that my da rescued from his workplace. I have named her 'Feral,' or she has named herself Feral. And of course, the name suits the cat. Her name sounds more like 'Farrel' when my da pronounces it. She is really small, but weaned...and half-wild. She is warming up, not hissing and spitting at me every time I reach for her to pick her up.

And, I have been preparing to bring home a new puppy I picked out at the local animal shelter. She is a female, Jack Russell/Feist mix puppy, and is mostly white except a brown spot around her left eye and a black spot on her left flank. She is super cute, and her name is Sulley--meaning 'keen eye.' I will be picking her up in about a week since she is in the process of being weaned. I will have to then get her spayed (since she is so young I have to wait a bit, but by WV law and because I signed a contract), and her rabies shot.

I am really excited, first with a new kitten, which will be more for the family, and the puppy, which will be mine alone (a companion for me on summer road trips, camping, etc.)

Okay...on the writing front.

I'm working on two ideas, both I had mentioned before...a SS/HG, and a Charlie/HG fic. I'm still outlining a bit, thus I cannot really say when I will post anything. As for other things, drabbles...as soon as I can get settled, the move over, I will get right back to plugging away at finishing the drabble table.

I have a lot of suggestions yet to address for my drabble table, and thanks to those who have come up with some fantastic ideas/pairings.

Please forgive the lack of activity, hopefully I will be back writing non-stop and maniacally again soon!

Prompt #18 - Black (Rodolphus/Bellatrix, DRABBLE, MA)

2008-05-18T21:22:31Z

Title: Black
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: MA
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Drabble
Warnings: DubCon, Dark!fic, M/F, first time.
Summary: #18 – Black. After tonight, she would not longer be a Black.
Word Count: 995 words.
Author's Notes: Drabble: a slice of fic in less than 1500 words.

Prompt 18 – Black

“Don’t rip it!”

He disobeyed as he ripped the ties of her corseted dress, his large hands wrenching away the offending fabric that kept him from the deathly white skin he had wanted to touch.

He had promised himself that his wedding night would be the night he released his pent up frustrations upon her. For years, he wanted her, only to be told that she was “saving herself.” What utter tripe. Bellatrix Black had been entertaining some hope that he, Rodolphus Lestrange, knew would never come true.

They had married at the behest of their parents. There were proud tears, firm handshakes; the blood purity of their family lines had been affirmed.

When he ripped her skirts open, she cried out. He knew that she had enjoyed the roughness of his touch, but had no clue as to how rough he was going to be when he finished tearing away her wedding dress.

Bella, as he had always called her in school, was mad. Very much like her aunt Walburga Black, Rodolphus knew that the only way he could insinuation himself into her mad brain was in imprint himself deep inside Bella’s body. He would breech her maidenhead, and never let her forget that he was her husband.

Their relationship had always been strained in school. Rodolphus was a handsome boy, black eyes, black hair, fair skin, and Bella—Bella had been the mad Black sister. She was not pretty, not handsome like Andromeda or Narcissa, but she was intelligent beneath the insanity that marred her features.

Grasping her long, black hair, Rodolphus threw Bella’s small frame into the bed that would be theirs for the rest of their marriage. The Lestrange Lodge was Rodolphus’ now that he was married, having dispatched his father the year before with a few drops of poison in Radaghast Lestrange’s usual evening goblet of elf wine.

Bella was nude on the white bedding, her skin almost indistinguishable for the sheets. As she twisted on the bed, Rodolphus was confronted by her blazing, angry eyes, and dark nether curls, he wondered if his cock could get any harder. He had wanted this for a long time.

To fuck a Black—he grinned and he shrugged out of his robes and toed out of his shoes. Bella’s eyes watched him, her red painted mouth curling downward. Bella was the only Black sister who had not lost her virginity in school, but Rodolphus was going to take it.

When he kissed her, she tried to bite him.

It was clear that she truly did not care for him, she had protested the marriage, but knew that there was no better alternative. Rabastian would not have Bella in a manner that would allow Bella to live long after her wedding night. Rodolphus knew Bella would not stand much of a chance with his brother no matter how mad she was. In the very least, in his black heart, Rodolphus cared for Bella.

“You will submit,” he growled, pulling away from their slightly bloody kiss.

Bella spat a curse and tried to hit him, but Rodolphus crushed his weight down upon her, his large right hand trapping her thin wrists together between their bodies.

“You will submit, and I will make you something more than the mad Black sister. I will fuck you, you will bleed, and for that point on, you will no longer be a Black. You will be my wife…” he growled, his breath hot upon her face.

Bella’s eyes widened as Rodolphus jerked her to sit up on the bed, he moving with a practiced grace, his muscles rippling under pale skin appearing gold in the candlelight of the bed chamber.

Bella whimpered as she found herself straddling Rodolphus’ hips, trying to put as much distance between herself and the thick, erect cock pointing upward from the black curls around the base.

Rodolphus smirked. Bella should be afraid, he thought. He did not care if she were aroused, did not care if she loved him, he was going to make her bleed, and have her taste it off his cock later. The perversity should suit her, he thought.

Holding her wrists with one hand, he shifted so that in a moment he would push her down upon him—impale her, kill her with a rending of thin flesh.

She spat another curse as the tip of his cock brushed along her slit, finding only a small bit of moisture there. When he found the notch of her pelvis and the tight orifice of her pussy, he wedged the tip inside.

“I hate you!” she hissed, trying uselessly to twist away. She was too small, too weak to ever escape him.

“Not for long…” he whispered malevolently as he grasped her hip.

“No…” she whispered, her lips trembling.

“Too late, my dear,” he answered.

And with a grunt, Rodolphus pushed her down while rising up. There was a pop and a tremble, and suddenly, he was inside Bella. He ignored her howl and cry, his hand crushing her wrists together at the sheer heavenly sensation of her body around his. He felt more moisture, knowing that it was her blood, but still he began to move. What did he care about her pain? She had been his source of pain for so long.

When he finally released her wrists, Bella seemed to reciprocate a bit more, moving her hips to meet his while he maneuvered her to her hands and knees. He held her bony hips, thrusting mercilessly into her tight, small body, grasping the back of her hair roughly to thrust more soundly.

She still cursed him, and he knew she would for sometime yet. Blacks were proficient at cursing, but as he stared at the bumps of her curved spine, he smirked at the thought that before long Bella would crave his touch, and that, after that night, she was not a Black any longer. She was his.

Prompt #74 - Dark (Harry-Erebus DRABBLE, T) FEH Compliant

2008-05-18T21:12:31Z

Title: Dark
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: T+
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Drabble
Warnings: None
Summary: #74 – Dark. You can hide anything from anyone in the dark, but the darkness knows.
Word Count: 845 words.
Author's Notes: Drabble: a slice of fic in less than 1500 words. FEH universe.

Prompt 74 – Dark

It was so dark.

Harry Potter thrashed when a hand touched his shoulder, and suddenly he was awake.

“I’m sorry to wake you, sir, it’s just…”

Harry Potter rubbed his eyes, realizing, slowly, where he was. He was in a chair by a fireplace in a hovel of a house with rain pounding the ground outside like a fist pounding against a hollow chest of a corpse.

“What is it Creevy?” Harry asked hoarsely, glancing about the room and the faces that had been watching him sleep.

“The one I was telling you about, Aidoneus, he’s here, and he would like to speak to you.”

Harry sighed. He was hungry, and he wanted those eyes to stop staring at him as if he were some kind of god.

“Send him in…”

Dennis Creevey moved into Harry’s line of sight, and for the first time, Harry saw someone familiar.

“We will have to leave you alone with him…it is the only way he will speak to you…”

Harry straightened in his chair, adjusting his old, ragged clothes and feeling for his wand in his sleeve.

“Then do it! Enough talk, just send him in!” Harry hissed.

His head hurt, and his vision dimmed slightly as he heard feet scuffing upon the stone floor and bodies moving away from him. The number of people wanting to be near him was suffocating, he hated it, the people squeezed out the light and left him in the dark.

He hated them, but they always did what he wanted them to… Harry stopped asking why long ago.

“I am Aidoneus.”

Harry glanced up at the door and blinked. All he could see was darkness.

The dark had found him.

Harry stood, knocking his chair back and drew his wand. “What are you?” he hissed.

The darkness had taken the shape of a person, a man, and it was far too like a Dementor in Harry’s eyes.

“I am Aidoneus, and that is all you need to know, Mr. Potter.”

The voice was otherworldly, as was the black smoke that seemed to swirl about what should have been a man’s face.

“I am here because Mr. Creevey tells me you need assistance.”

Harry stared into the darkness, losing himself in it, but at the word ‘assistance,’ Harry blinked and shook his head violently.

“Yes. Yes… Assistance.”

The darkness shifted slightly as Harry lowered his wand, the Elder Wand. He moved stiffly, picking up his chair and sitting again by the fire. Slowly, the light of the fire soothed him even as darkness hovered near the doorway.

Harry considered making a motion that the creature called Aidoneus sit, but though better of it. The figure seemed to hover resolutely before the door.

“The nature of this assistance involves Hermione Granger and her connection to the Department of Mysteries, does it not?”

Harry’s emerald eyes narrowed.

“What do you know of her?” he growled, and he felt a hot jealousy trickle into his chest, damping the spark of his anger.

“I know many thing, Mr. Potter. Please explain what it is you intended to do, and perhaps I can assist you with the information I can provide.”

Harry tamped down the revulsion he felt at the sight and sound of the figure.

“You are a creature of information, is that it?”

The darkness seemed to nod, but Harry could not be sure.

Harry stared into the dark of the face of what should be a man’s, or a monster’s. There was something in the darkness that ebbed and flowed, obscuring something underneath. There was also something true about that dark, something that soothed Harry Potter though he was at a loss as to how to explain it.

“I need Hermione.”

Harry blinked at the sound of his own voice, but continued.

“I need her to get to the…” Harry trailed, considering Aidoneus again. “If you are a creature of information, you already know what I need, and why I need it.”

The darkness shifted slightly as the head nodded again.

“Do you even know how to begin, Mr. Potter?” the phantom asked.

Harry’s eyes narrowed.

“By injuring Hermione Granger, you have only set a great obstacle in your path. Her hate for you will fuel her to hedge your every move.”

The odd, otherworldly voice seemed to flow over Harry’s disrupted mind like a balm.

“If you are so determined to have her as key to what it is you desire, the only way to do that is to capture her.”

Harry’s face contorted. “And how can I do that? I have no idea where she is!”

The phantom shifted again.

“In two days she will be outside of Hogsmeade on the lane to the Shrieking Shack.”

Harry’s eyes widened.

“How do you…”

“I know because it is my role and my duty to know, Mr. Potter.”

Harry said nothing.

Yes, the dark knew everything, every secret whisper, and every fibre of a man’s being. In the darkness, you could hide anything from anyone, but you could not hide from the dark itself.

Tiny update.

2008-05-18T18:48:55Z

Well, the formality is over. I graduated last night, was hooded, shook hands with the dean of the College of Creative Arts, switched my tassel...graduated. Now, the real work begins. I have got to go around my the CAC and taze my professors for a reaction to my thesis...revisions, defense. Haven't I been through this already? Ugh.

My parents and sister came to my graduation, took pictures...etc.

Yesterday was just an all around bad day when it should have been a glorious day. I ended up wearing two sets of heels and two dresses...one to go to my brother-in-law's graduation from dental school, and another dress to my own graduation. I was having such an off day, that I could barely smile. More than once I snapped at someone. I had a panic attack at my brother's graduation ceremony and high-tailed it in 3 inch heels to the car as if the devil were on my heels. I did not get a nap. I could not get my main man/lover/friend to make an appearance when he said he would. I did not get to talk to my profs. after the ceremony because they literally, and I am not joking, ran away from me.

I just want this nightmare to be over.

On the fanfic front.

I have been just too tired to write much in the past couple of days. Drabbles are even a chore. I'm sure it is just my emotional anxiety finally affecting everything else going on in my brain and body.

The Hermione/Charlie fic I mentioned, is going to be put on hold for a short while. Instead, I have been trying to formulate a shorter SS/HG ficlet. Both ideas are quite involved, and I keep trying to work on them simultaneously...which will not work. So, it is one, then the other.

I want to thank every one for just simply reading my fics, commenting, or even lurking. I have more online communication with the world than I do in person. ^_^

I apologize for not getting as much written this past week as well. Hopefully, this lull will end and I snap out of my 'funk' soon.

Prompt #85 - Hate (DM/CC, DRABBLE, MA)

2008-05-13T19:27:57Z

Title: Hate
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: MA
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Drabble
Warnings: M/F, Dark!fic
Summary: #85 – Hate. Until he could find someone to love, he was content to hate her.
Word Count: 937 words.
Author's Notes: Drabble: a slice of fic in less than 1500 words. Suggested by michellecpk.

Prompt 85 – Hate

Every time he thrust inside her thin, pale body, she always expressed the depth of her hatred for him. If Draco Malfoy did not know any better, Cho Chang was singing her love for him.

He was not kind to her body, and he was in no way gentle as his hands pressed bruises into her knees pushing them back so he could slide his cock in deeper. She winced, her dark eyes burning with hatred at the way her body reacted to him. He knew that as much as she hated him, she loved the way he fucked her.

The tiny noises she made were all but ignored, because, in truth, Draco hated her just as much.

Stroking deeper, Draco leaned into her pelvis, the slick sound of his penetration and subsequent withdraw the only sound he cared to hear.

“You not even trying, Chang,” he muttered through gritted teeth, annoyed that her pussy was not clamping tight enough around him and that the angle was affording too much effort on his part.

“Fuck you, Malfoy,” she grunted.

“That is what you should be doing,” he spat, sliding out of her, releasing his hold on the backs of her knees.

The sticky dampness trailing between their bodies did not amuse or arouse him. It never had. It was the hate that did it for him, the fight to see who could outlast the other. And that afternoon, he was in the mood to hurt her more than usual.

With rough hands, Draco twisted Cho’s thin slip of a body so that she was pressed face down into the mattress of her rickety bed in a filthy Diagon Alley flat. How Chang could have sunk so low was beyond Draco’s care. All he cared about was getting off, and getting on with the rest of his day not so ready to explode at the next person to come into his sight. Cho Chang was only an outlet.

Cho hissed as Draco rammed inside her again after lifting her ass into the air, old bruises still marring the white perfection of her skin. Draco hummed to himself, satisfied at the tightness of her core and the angle in which he stroked her. Grasping her hips, he stroked deeper, harder, and faster than before. Cho fisted the rumpled sheets under her, her small breasts swaying with every thrust.

She hated him, and it was evident in the way she clamped her inner muscles down around him, hoping that he would climax first and leave her alone. Then again, it had been she who had called him to her flat…

A particularly violent thrust caused Cho to wail and begin to sob. She knew she was closer.

Draco continued to ignore her voice, finding it obnoxious and in no way conducive to finding his fill in her body. He hated her because she felt so good, so tight, and he hated her because she was little more than a galleon whore. She was pretty when she was painted and dressed, but just as jaded and terrible as she had been after Cedric Diggory died.

Draco grasped her hair in retaliation for his idle thoughts, arching her back so he could soundly fuck her so she would not have the energy to hate him when he was walking out the door.

Sweat trickled between his pectorals to his hard belly, and with a grunt, he pulled Cho back to her knees, thrust into her body as if he were the master of her soul. Cho came first, a throaty scream breaking over sound of the bed springs squealing.

Releasing her hair, Draco allowed her body to fall forward into the bed again, but did not stop his movement in and out of her body. He did not care if she needed time to recover, he did not care much about her at all.

When she came again, her dark eyes distant, her mouth open in gasps, Draco finally let himself go, clenching his teeth as he grasped his cock before filling her. He hated her too much to ever give her his seed in a manner befitting a good woman. With open-mouthed grunts, he stroked his damp cock until streams of pearly cum landed upon her hip, her back, her hair.

For a moment he stared at her tangled limbs and wild, ebon hair, thinking that even thoroughly done, she was still pretty. He had always thought she was pretty in school, but now, years later, she was nothing but a shell, a warm body with no soul. That was the main reason why he hated her. She was nothing.

He did not bother casting a Cleansing Charm on the pale woman, but dressed without a word, glancing into a cracked wall mirror to see that his short, platinum hair was not out of place and that there was no rubbish on his expensive Armani suit.

“I hate you,” she whispered from the bed, not moving, and barely breathing.

“Thanks,” he muttered, smirking at himself in the mirror as he adjusted his tie.

“Don’t come back,” she sobbed.

He rolled his eyes. “If I can find a cheaper whore, I don’t plan on it, Chang.”

He heard her scream in frustration as he had reached the landing halfway down the stairs and out into Diagon Alley. Draco wondered if she hated him so much why she bothered to open her door to him at all.

In the end, Draco knew, it did not really matter. Until he could find someone he could truly love, he was satisfied with hating her completely.

Prompt #47 - Moon (TL/VW DRABBLE, MA)

2008-05-13T18:36:32Z

Title: Moon
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: MA
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Drabble
Warnings: Semi-Dark!fic, insinuations
Summary: #47 – Moon. There was a wolf living inside him.
Word Count: 993 words.
Author's Notes: Drabble: a slice of fic in less than 1500 words. A Teddy/Victoire idea. Suggested by lisiapple.

Prompt 47 – Moon

There were times that he felt as if the moon would turn him into something more than a man. It frightened him, it angered him, and Teddy Lupin hid his face from the full moon.

“It is silly, Teddy, really silly.”

Victoire, or Tori as he called her, always told him how silly he was when it came to the moon.

It had become habit ever since they started dating in his sixth year at Hogwarts that they sit atop the Astronomy Tower every night of the full moon. It had been Tori’s idea, always so forward thinking, never shirking responsibility, and never letting fear get the better of her.

They sat on the stone floor of the Tower, leaning back into the battlements as the moon began to rise over the mountains. Teddy was approaching his last full moon at Hogwarts, and soon he would have to leave Tori behind. She still had two years left, two years to forget about him if she wanted.

In the brightening moonlit sky, Tori glowed silver, her pale red hair shimmering like bloody silver satin, and her nearly colourless eyes reflecting everything around her, even his face.

“We have been through this a million times. Lycanthropy is not genetic, not unless your father was born a werewolf, and he was not. My dad is not a werewolf, he was not bitten, but he still has some of benign traits.

In your case, with your father being a werewolf and your mother a Metamorphagus, you might simply feel the genetic disposition to hide from the moon. It is silly though, you have never changed into a werewolf, and you are a Metamorphagus who never morphs—you’re just Teddy…”

Tori was trying to make him feel better, her hand slipping into his, but Teddy did not have the heart to tell her that she sounded like her grandmother, berating him for no good reason.

Teddy’s chocolate brown eyes widened as he saw the top arc of the rounded moon lift from behind the mountain. He did not care what Tori said, the sight of the moon made his blood race and his skin prickle. Every time he was near Tori while they watched the moon, Teddy had to clench his teeth and keep his mind shut tight from the silent voices telling him to do things to the girl he loved.

There was a wolf living in him.

As a boy, his grandmother told him almost nothing about his parents, fearing that Teddy would somehow develop a ‘complex’—which Teddy later learned was his grandmother Andromeda’s fear that Teddy may have inherited some of the less favourable Black family traits. It was not until Teddy went to Hogwarts did his grandmother sit him down and tell him everything about Remus John Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks. Teddy was bewildered at first, then excited. His parents had been war heroes, they had been special, and they had been loved by all that knew them. However, what his grandmother did not tell him, and possibly did not know, was that as Teddy grew older, grew into maturity, some of his father’s traits were beginning to push through to the outside.

The wolf living inside him was getting stronger.

Teddy felt pain as the moon was halfway up from behind the mountain, and he knew he was crushing Tori’s hand in his own. It always happened this way, but Tori never said a word.

How she could be so understanding, so ignorant to the danger she was in by being near him?

The moon, the wolf, it wanted to hurt her, fuck her, bite her, tear her apart…

Teddy never changed, not into the beast his father had been, but Teddy could feel change inside. He knew his eyes were different though he would never show Tori. He knew his eyes were not changing because he was a Metamorphagus. He knew that he was stronger during the full moon, his magic more potent. He knew that every moon that would come would only make the wolf inside stronger.

He was too mortified to tell Tori how wrong she was.

“There…” Tori whispered, “The moon is up. Now, look at it Teddy…”

It was the same words she used every time, and every time, Teddy did as she wished.

He did not truly fear the moon, he feared himself.

Uncle Harry had told him about his father, and his father’s struggles to reconcile the beast and the man. What would Uncle Harry say if Teddy told him that the struggle had continued from father to son?

Teddy pulled his hand away from Tori’s and rose, his school robes falling about his ankles. His Head Boy badge caught the moonlight as he moved toward the door leading back down into the castle.

He ignored Tori’s protests, wishing to get as far away from her as possible before he did something he knew he would regret. As he ran down the steps, he forcefully changed his eyes again, no longer yellowed with suppressed power, but brown again. He could not let anyone see him so disheveled, or so ready to attack another person if only to satisfy the howling in his blood.

Slamming the door shut to his chambers, ignoring the Ravenclaw Head Girl in the Head’s common room, Teddy tore at his clothes until he stood naked in the moonlight streaming in the window.

His blood boiled, his skin rippling as if to morph. The moonlight burned him and soothed him, and grasping his shaggy brown hair, he fell to his knees into the moonlit square on the floor, the light striking his muscular back.

Teddy wished his parents could help him, he wished his parents had warned him, and he wished his parents could explain what was happening to him. The moon made his blood battle, the wolf or the man, the wolf or the man. It was making Teddy Lupin insane.

Prompt #97 - Heal (SS-centric, DRABBLE, T+)

2008-05-13T17:39:27Z

Title: Heal
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: T+
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Drabble
Warnings: None
Summary: #97 – Heal. With her, he could begin to heal.
Word Count: 994 words.
Author's Notes: Drabble: a slice of fic in less than 1500 words. FEH universe. Suggested by juju84

Prompt 97 – Heal

It was hard for him to reconcile the girl with the woman. Every time he looked at her young face, Severus Snape could only see tiny indications of the woman she would become, and it annoyed him.

The girl had nearly died following Potter into the Department of Mysteries, and Severus stood over her hospital cot watching her sleep a dreamless and painless sleep. Severus was angry—angry with himself for not doing more to stop Potter from acting the fool and walking into a trap, and angry that the girl, Hermione Granger, would be so grievously injured in the process.

Severus shook his head; he was getting ahead of himself. First, Potter would save the world, then Granger. All the same, Severus knew if the Department of Mysteries were any indication, that Granger would need assistance if the future were to remain free of any more complications due to Potter’s existence.

Minerva made a sound from near the ward’s door, and Severus stiffened, his black eyes casting about the screened in portion of space around Granger’s bed. Minerva was trying to tell Severus to hurry, Poppy would be back at any moment, and if they were caught… Severus frowned, drawing his oak wand from his sleeve.

Severus felt like a teenager doing something that he should not, he was sure that Minerva felt the same.

Plots within plots, conspiracies within conspiracies, Severus felt a bit of satisfaction that he was doing something without the bidding of a master. He had the girl to thank for that feeling.

With a deep breath, Severus began weaving his spell.

He pictured Hermione Granger, the girl pale and near death below his wand’s movement, and, in his mind’s eye, remembered Hermione Granger, the woman.

She had been like a vision, that was, until she touched him.

It had been in his chambers, the pain of his Dark Mark thumping through his body. She and Draco Malfoy revealed themselves to him in a manner that seemed almost otherworldly, claiming that they desperately needed his help to stop Harry Potter from destroying their world. Severus had not believed, not fully, until afterwards, until the Dark Lord had left Little Hangleton and several events Granger and Draco described played out.

Severus began incanting silently as streams of visible magic; blue in colour began drifting down to encapsulate the girl’s body.

When she had touched him, it was like touching a warm current of electricity, a humming that stirred something deep inside his soul that he had believed had died long ago.
Desire.

So full of vitality and determination, the woman’s eyes glowed when they looked upon him. Severus wondered what she saw when she looked at him.

In her eyes, he saw himself reflected back in copies of darkness. In her voice, he heard tenderness, respect, and affection, all of which he wondered what he could have done to deserve. In her touch, he felt love, forgiveness, and power. He knew he was not deluding himself when he felt her love, Severus stopped deluding himself the day Lily Evans left his world to marry James Potter.

The spell was beginning to pain him, as he knew it would, but he set his jaw and continued, ignoring the blaze of pain that seared through his head. His pain was healing the girl’s wounds, and Severus knew that with every intricate movement of his wand, he was giving a piece of his life, his soul, to her.

Surely, that night almost a year earlier, the woman had been carrying a piece of him inside her, a piece that had kept her alive to meet him in that moment. The woman would not have been able to tell him that the reason he could not peer into her mind was because all he would see was himself, staring back at him. Surely, she could not tell him the things he had deduced in the time he left her in the graveyard at Little Hangleton to that moment.

Severus knew that he would live to see the Dark Lord’s demise. It had been little things, body language, gestures that had clued him into that fact. Draco Malfoy had been particularly stiff and wooden while the woman had been exuding warmth. He knew he had not survived to see their future.

It did not matter. Severus was used to playing the martyr although he hated it, and wished every other minute of everyday he could simply run away. In his darkest fantasies, he would find a woman much like Hermione Granger, and live his life. The Fates, however, had a different path in mind for him, and the spell that was beginning to pain him worse than the Torture Curse, had much to do with that path.

Sweat trickled from his temple, as did blood from his nose, but he continued.

He had fallen in love with the woman who the girl would become, and for her, as he wished he had done for Lily, he would sacrifice anything for a brighter day. Severus would heal the wrongs, or try to, by giving a slice of himself to the girl who would teach him what it was to hope and love again.

When the spell was over and the girl’s body glowed blue once more, Severus fell to his knees at her bed side, his forehead resting on the edge of the cot, his stiff hands touching her forehead and her hip.

Lily had been a fool—that was what Severus saw and heard in Hermione Granger’s eyes and voice. Severus could put Lily’s memory where it belonged, in the ground next to her dead lover. Severus had hope again with the girl under his hands.

He had to heal the wounds inside, and hope, that when the time came, that at his death, his soul would live on to care for Hermione Granger, seeing the world through her eyes and love through her heart.

Carnivàle Drabble #26 - Touch (Ben/Sofie, MA)

2008-05-13T06:10:58Z

Title: Touch
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: MA
Disclaimer: Carnivale and its characters are the property of HBO and the show's producers; no copyright infringement is intended.
Genre: Drabble
Warnings: M/F, S.2 spoilers
Summary: #26 – Touch. To touch was to heal, to touch was to kill.
Word Count: 742 words.
Author's Notes: Drabble: a slice of fic in less than 1500 words.

Prompt 26 – Touch

“Don’t you touch me!”

Ben had heard that phrase wheezed at him most of his life, and yet, as his mother lay dying from the dust pneumonia, he wanted nothing more than to feel her thin arms about him.

He knew, as she knew, what his touch could do, but what she did not know was he had no desire to heal her. Ben wanted his mother to die because it was her wish to go.

Besides the one phrase his mother always said, the others were epithets of Scripture she was obsessed with from the day he was born. If he was not some devil-spawn, he was an angel of death, born to rain plague upon an already plagued world.

It had taken eighteen years for Ben Hawkins to learn the rules.

To touch was to heal, to touch was to kill.

From the kitten he had resurrected to healing the disease in the little girl’s maimed legs, Ben had almost believed his mother’s words that he was, indeed, something of the Devil. It was not until much later that he realized that by touching someone he could simultaneously give life and take it away, over and over again.

Touching Sofie was like that.

His attraction to her started long before he saved her from being raped in the gas station near Milfay, it had started with dreams he had when he was fourteen or fifteen. Those dreams had been vague then, and it was not until Lodz and Management that he knew who the girl had been in the white salt flats, kissing him as if to swallow him for food, or breathe him like air.

When he touched her, he could feel the darkness inside her, the broken parts needing to be fixed, but he just touched her. Just to touch to feel her, and she felt like heaven.

There had always been something about Sofie, and it was not just because something magical whirled around her. There was something about the way her skin felt. Ben could not compare it to some lovely thing, but to him, touching her was like touching the end of a nightmare.

Ben realized that he liked to touch her. There was something sacred about her.

He could not articulate the other sensations of her body, her taste, her smell, Ben only knew how to feel by touch.

When he wrapped his arms about her, his palms sliding over the planes of her shoulder blades, sliding over the curve of her hip to her round bottom, Ben wondered if he would ever want to touch anyone else.

Sofie was not scared even though Ben’s heart pounded against his chest as if to rip through and spill his blue blood over her body in a type of baptism. He had never been allowed to touch before—not even with Ruthie…

The inside of her thighs, the dark mass of curls at the angle, his rough fingers touched it all. She did not recoil, she did not scream at him to stop, Ben felt Sofie arch into his touch. He almost wanted to cry.

Ben groaned into her hair when he thrust inside, the tight confines of the cab of the truck not the best place to worship such a beautiful thing as Sofie. Ben pushed the thought aside, too elated to be touching her in a manner that let him feel free of the yoke his father and Management had put upon him. Inside Sofie, touching Sofie, all he could see was her—kissing her in the white plain.

Sofie whimpered as he moved, her fingers digging into his spine as they rocked together, the windows fogging as outside the temperature dropped.

Her touch, his touch, Ben wondered if he could die in that moment and never have a bad dream of dark men, of war, of cornfields, of Scudder, again.

Ben murmured incoherently into Sofie’s hair, his lips trailing down her cheek to take her mouth again. Lips touching, Ben felt a pleasant shock ripple through his body from the base of his spine upward, and Ben felt Sofie’s body clamp around his organ—the deepest, most intimate touch Ben would ever know.

And Ben was gone, just as the sounds of raindrops pelted against the metal roof of the cab and against the windows.

To touch was to heal, to touch was to kill, and with Sofie, it was to become whole.

Carnivàle Drabble #23 - Afterlife (Iris, T)

2008-05-13T04:10:48Z

Title: Afterlife
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Carnivale and its characters are the property of HBO and the show's producers; no copyright infringement is intended.
Genre: Drabble
Warnings: S.2 Spoilers
Summary: #23 – Afterlife. Iris knew she was going to hell.
Word Count: 580 words.
Author's Notes: Drabble: a slice of fic in less than 1500 words.

Prompt 23 – Afterlife

Iris Crowe truly did not believe in heaven, but she did believe in hell. She lived in hell everyday, and in the afterlife, she would reign there as well.

She had told Norman this, once as a child, and just that moment, standing over the man she had known as “father” most of her life. Norman could only weep silent tears, as Iris cleared away his meal, moving into the kitchen to place dishes into the deep bowl of the sink.

Iris rested her palms on the edge of the sink for a long while, staring out the kitchen window toward the valley of New Canaan below. Yes, Iris would be in hell for all eternity, and the only solace was that Justin would be with her. In hell, Justin would hold her without a conscience to divert his mind. In hell, Iris could love him as she wished, and hate him just the same.

Justin’s time was nearly over, and Iris could feel some great crescendo approaching. She did not have her brother’s powers, she never wanted them, but Iris Crowe could feel a storm break from a hundred miles away, and she could feel that a storm was about to break over New Canaan.

Wiping her forehead with the back of her hand, she turned and went to Norman again, smiling wanly as she maneuvered his wheelchair to the door to let her old mentor get some fresh air. Norman made no sound as the wheels squeaked and rattled over the wood floor. Iris winced once as her knuckles scraped between the doorjamb and the back of the wheelchair before stepping into the cooler breeze of the porch.

Together, she and Norman sat, looking across the valley, at the tiny specks of people moving, migrants setting up camp, men working on the foundations of Justin’s church. The movement and the people scared Iris. As she glanced to Norman’s bright blue eyes, she knew it scared him as well.

Iris wondered if hell would be the same, people coming in all the time, taking up space, taking up air. Would hell smell as bad as the migrants? Would hell sound as terrible as hundreds of ragged migrant voices singing ‘Bless Be the Ties that Bind?’ Iris shivered in the heat, and she knew Norman had noticed.

Iris tried to smile again, but found her lips trembling.

She was not scared of the afterlife, her sweet Alexei would be with her, always. In hell, Alexei would be a prince, and she would never know fear in his embrace.

Iris knew fear as she watched the valley, because she knew that something was coming, something that would be the end of her brother, and possibly herself.

It was death she feared, the transition from living to dead, from this world and the next. She feared it because Justin feared it.

There would be no afterlife for either of them, not really. Just a continuation of the hell that had begun the day their mother took them away from their father, the day that the train had wrecked and their mother had died.

The only consolation Iris Crowe had was that she would once again be Irina Belyakov, free of the mantle she had assumed as a pious Christian woman. And Justin would be Alexei again, and forever—the ‘usher’ of an end of a dynasty of madness.

Together, in hell, forever and a day, and Iris closed her eyes in anticipation.

Carnivàle Drabble #1 - Defiant (Sofie, T)

2008-05-13T04:09:58Z

Title: Defiant
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Carnivale and its characters are the property of HBO and the show's producers; no copyright infringement is intended.
Genre: Drabble
Warnings: S.1 spoilers
Summary: #1 – Defiant. She would try to be defiant to the end.
Word Count: 627 words.
Author's Notes: Drabble: a slice of fic in less than 1500 words.

Prompt 1 – Defiant

“No, Mama!”

Sofie’s dark eyes burned into her mother’s paralyzed face, trying to convey in more than words her anger at what her mother suggested.

“I can’t do that,” Sofie uttered with less force as the whisper of Apollonia’s astral voice flitted in and out of Sofie’s head.

Sofie brushed her mother’s dark luxurious hair a little harder than before, Apollonia said no more.

You don’t get a chance to meet many men worth marrying in the carnival, Apollonia had said, Clayton Jones would make any woman happy. Sofie disagreed. Didn’t Mama see how awkward it was for her?

Another soft whisper, a plea, made Sofie stop and regard her mother’s eyes.

“It is not right, Mama. Jonesy and me—it would be…”

Sofie closed her eyes after setting her mother’s brush aside.

“If you can’t tell me why, Mama, then don’t even talk to me about it,” Sofie growled, whirling from her mother’s bed and stalking through the bus they called home to fall into her usual chair at the table she usually served the customers.

It had started after Babylon, and everyday Apollonia’s pleas grew more and more insistent. The catatonic woman wanted Sofie to marry, wanted Sofie to leave the Carnivale, wanted Sofie to die…

Sofie knew that her mother would never tell her why, but Sofie had had a feeling, ever since Milfay, that her mother feared something great and terrible.

Another whisper, a plea and a warning, and Sofie covered her ears for lack of knowing what else to do to stop her mother’s voice from seeping into her mind. However, as the words grew stronger, Sofie slapped her hands on her knees and jumped to her feet.

“It is not like that, Mama. He’s just some dirt-farmer boy from nowhere. I don’t…” she yelled, but trailed as Apollonia’s mental voice shouted back at her daughter.

“No! I’m sick of this, Mama. I told you once, and I’ll tell you again: Ben Hawkins means nothing to me!”

Sofie was sure that everyone in the camp heard her words, as loud as they were, but it was more important to Sofie that Apollonia hear.

Sofie closed her eyes again just as Apollonia’s moved toward her, not seeing how the woman’s lips moved just a little, to curve around half-formed words that would never be heard by Sofie’s ears.

With a groan, Sofie spun on her heel and kicked at the doors of the bus, running outside. Sofie had learned long ago that if she ran far enough, she could be free of Apollonia’s voice in her head. And so, Sofie ran, past the rousties, past the cook tent, out into the stark nothingness of the New Mexico flats, red dust kicking off the backs of her heels.

Ben Hawkins—the boy did not know which way was up, and Sofie had no time for boys like that. For her mother to suggest that…

Sofie stopped running, looking across the flats to the craggy rocks on the horizon, a bloody sun setting in the west. There was something in the west her mother feared, and something Sofie felt calling her Roma blood. Apollonia’s warnings and pleas had something to do with the west, but Sofie could not see her mother’s dreams as she used to—it had been Milfay, it had been Ben Hawkins that clouded everything.

Sofie stared at the bloody sun, setting her face against it. It did not matter what her mother said, Sofie would defy her mother’s empty warnings. She knew herself, and she was not totally defenseless.

All the same, Apollonia’s words haunted Sofie’s thoughts.

You will try and be defiant, Sofia Agnesh, defiant to the last. But when the ‘last’ comes, you’ll fall just as we all will.

Carnivàle Drabble #15 - Hands (Justin/Sofie, T+)

2008-05-13T04:08:49Z

Title: Hands
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: T+
Disclaimer: Carnivale and its characters are the property of HBO and the show's producers; no copyright infringement is intended.
Genre: Drabble
Warnings: S.2 spoilers, insinuations
Summary: #15 – Hands. His hands knew blood.
Word Count: 851 words.
Author's Notes: Drabble: a slice of fic in less than 1500 words.

Prompt 15 – Hands

His hands were so large, obscuring hers inside his. Sofie stared at the fingers over hers, fingers so foreign and strange to her. No calluses, no dirt, no blisters, just large, warm softness holding her palms together, overlapping in prayer.

“Pray with me,” he had said, his deep voice booming through her chest, echoing in some empty place inside.

Sofie did not know how to pray, but she could not voice that thought, not when his eyes peered down at her on her knees before him. The knelt together, and Sofie could feel the heat of his body just as warmly as the heat of his hands enveloping her own.

She wondered what he did with those hands, had they ever known work?

Closing her eyes, she bowed her head and slowly her forehead came to rest against his hands. She did not pray, though she knew he did, whispering praises to a God she never cared to know. It was his voice that made her want to know then.

In her mind’s eye, she knew that the hands that held hers had felt blood, felt fire, and felt cold hard metal of evil weaponry. Those hands had held flesh, hipbones, and throats. Sofie frowned, her forehead crinkling against his fingers. She saw a tree, a mangled, terrible tree, and blood like that she had never seen before, blue, trickling down the rough grain of the grey wood.

“Amen…”

Sofie said nothing, but slowly raised her head and opened her eyes.

Brother Justin Crowe still held her hands between his. Sofie gazed into his blue eyes and tried to smile. She felt safe near him, for a reason she could not explain. She had to believe that the feeling that had led her to Brother Justin’s house had been because something, God, had willed it so.

Helping her to sit on the couch again, Brother Justin’s hands shifted over her, his thick, long fingers weaving between her own.

“Your hands should not be so rough, Sofie,” he whispered, turning her left hand over to touch the hard calluses at the base of each of her fingers.

Sofie bowed her head. Even weeks after leaving the carnival, she still bore some marks of that life.

Shivering as his forefinger moved to her right hand and the hard spots on her forefinger and thumb, he asked the question she had feared.

“You aren’t a migrant, and you were not always a maid, Sofie, how did you get such hands?”

Sofie swallowed thickly even as Brother Justin’s arm moved around the back of the couch so he could lean closer to her.

She could not tell him that she had made a living most of her life reading cards. Sofie was sure that fortune telling was something that a man like Brother Justin would frown upon. She also could not tell him that in many ways she was a ‘migrant,’ moving from town to town, living off what she could take from people who barely could rub two pennies together.

“I worked doing a lot of different things, anything I could get to get by,” she whispered, knowing that her words were not exactly a lie, but not exactly the truth either.

“I see,” he said in what Sofie would have considered a deep purr.

She could feel his breath against her cheek and smell the dinner she had made for the Crowe family upon it.

There was something almost profane in the manner he touched her hands, something that stirred her deep inside, something that reminded her of Ben Hawkins. In fact, there were many things about Justin Crowe that reminded her of that dirt farmer who had made love to her in the Chevy truck. It had been Ben Hawkins who had made sex something Sofie thought about more often than she liked. It had been Ben Hawkins who had made sex something wonderful.

That feeling was what she felt when Justin Crowe touched her hand that in some ways it felt wrong in a manner that made it all seem so right.

“You have been doing such a wonderful job with us, Sofie, with Norman too…” Justin whispered, the fringe of her dark brown hair rustling at his words.

His fingers moved to her wrists, sending obscene tingles straight down her body to her core.

“Have you cared for an invalid before?”

His voice was like an intimate caress, but the words, the question, brought Sofie back to the moment, her eyes widening from their lazed stare at the coffee table. She felt as if she were waking from a hypnotists’ sleep.

“My mother.”

Brother Justin cooed in sympathy, and spoke again as the arm that had been resting on the back of the couch wrapped about her shoulders. Sofie heard no more of his words, just felt the timbre of his voice. She answered appropriately, but she was lost in the airy caress of his large, fiery hands. He smelled clean, earthy, and Sofie let herself go again, and allowed those hands, those hands that knew blood, touch her skin.

Prompt #80 - Lost (BZ/GW, DRABBLE, T+)

2008-05-12T03:21:12Z

Title: Lost
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: T+
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Drabble
Warnings: Semi Dark!fic
Summary: #80 – Lost. He could see that she was lost.
Word Count: 783 words.
Author's Notes: Drabble: a slice of fic in less than 1500 words. Suggested by an Anon!

Prompt 80 – Lost

“Are you lost, little red bird?”

She hated him, and she hated his pet name for her.

“Let this old raven show you the way home,” he would purr.

He had found her skulking the corridors near the Slytherin Common Room, of course, not know how close she was to the serpent’s pit. It was cold in Gryffindor Tower, and it was warmer near the dungeons. With Snape as Headmaster, and the Carrows turning the school into a prison, Ginny Weasley found herself a little too cold, and a little too hungry.

She had been hugging her mother’s knit cardigan about her arms when Blaise Zabini found her. He had been in the corridor, in the shadows, smoking a long black cigarette leaning against a suit of armor, blowing smoke into the visor.

“I am not lost,” she said, straightening her back and lifting chin.

Blaise grinned, his perfect teeth so white in the muted torchlight in the corridor. “It is too late for pretty red birds for you to be out.”

Ginny sniffed. “That’s none of your business, Zabini.”

Pushing off the wall and crushing the cigarette under the heel of his expensive Italian leather boot, Zabini stood before Ginny, hands in his pockets, verdant eyes examining her face.

“It is not safe to be here, now, and alone, Weasley. So, I think you are lost.”

Ginny took a step back, smelling the aromatic scent of cloves on his breath.

“You need a wash, some clean clothes, and sleep. You Gryffs have it hard, and you, you are a Pureblood, a blood-traitor, but a Pureblood…” he muttered, his eyes taking the frayed state of her clothes, the dirt smudged on her cheek and the dark circles under her eyes.

Ginny smirked. “And I suppose you’ll offer me all that?”

Blaise nodded once, his long dark plaits sliding over his wide shoulder clad in impeccable robes like hundreds of tiny black snakes.

“For what in return?”

Blaise’s green eyes widened slightly, as if he were shocked that Ginny would suggest that he could not be charitable.

Ginny narrowed her eyes, hugging her arms tighter about her body. “For what?”

Blaise grinned again, his face like an ever-changing mask of ebon beauty. “Sleep with me.”

Ginny turned on her heel and started to stalk back to the deplorable conditions of Gryffindor Tower and the hopelessness there.

“I did not say sex, Weasley.”

Ginny stopped, staring down at the frayed hem of her skirt, the dinginess of her socks and scuffs on her shoes. Since the Carrows, since Harry left, everything, Hogwarts, had gone to hell.

Slowly she turned, her eyes blazing.

“After a hot meal, a private bath, a clean night dress—sleep with me.”

Ginny watched the mask change, the muscles stretched over high cheek bones relaxing, sculpted lips loosening from a tight smirk, eyes softening. It was a ploy, Zabini was a poser, but as he stretched out his hand to her, Ginny found herself taking it.

In truth, she had been lost. She had been lost when Harry and Ron had left. She had been lost since Snape and the Death Eaters came into the hallowed halls of Hogwarts. She had been at a loss of what to do.

Zabini fed her, let her bathe, and gave her a soft white night dress to wear. Her tattered uniform was replaced, and her mother’s cardigan cleaned. The Slytherins had private rooms, private baths, and Ginny felt as if she had stepped into another world, or someone’s dream.

It was a dream, a dream that she knew she should not have.

Lying next to Blaise Zabini in an obscenely large four-poster bed with only a warm fireplace lighting the room, Ginny did not feel his fingers playing through her hair as she lay against his bare body.

She was lost and spiraling downward to hopelessness.

Ginny had been left behind to become lost. It was unfair, all of it, but as she pressed tighter into the warmth of Blaise’s side, she simply wanted to feel warm again. Her cheek rested against his shoulder, his arm about her, cradling her small body against his warm and solid form. His eyes were closed, his bare chest rising and falling in a gentle rhythm.

And with a breath, Ginny realized, as if waking, that she was betraying someone, everyone, everything that she believed in and had been fighting for simply by relishing the warmth and closeness of Blaise Zabini’s embrace. However, she could not will herself to fight it.

Ginny Weasley was lost, and in being lost, she could continue to spiral down to some new truth as Blaise Zabini slowly warmed her from the inside.

Prompt #33 - Too Much (RW/Pansy DRABBLE, T)

2008-05-12T03:07:33Z

Title: Too Much
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: T
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Drabble
Warnings: None
Summary: #33 – Too Much. It had been too much for the both of them.
Word Count: 1,100 words.
Author's Notes: Drabble: a slice of fic in less than 1500 words. FEH universe.

Prompt 33 – Too Much

Ron Weasley tried not to spill his drink all over his nice dark blue suit as he wove through the group assembled in the small gallery space somewhere down a dark street in New York City. He could not see for all the cigarette smoke, the people, and the lack of light in the cellar-like space. There were lights pointed to the walls, upon the paintings all had assembled to see. The light was not bright, and some of the light actually came from the paintings people clustered around and gazed upon with awe.

Ron carried his drink over the heads of most of the indistinct figures until he slowly made his way to the crowning jewel of Pansy Parkinson’s show ‘At the End of the World.’ He knew he could find his lover speaking with her American friends and Wizarding art critics trying to get an edge on how Pansy managed to reveal painting after stupendous painting to the world.

Pansy stood next to her painting while feigning her smiles, as people seemed to crush in upon her petite form. Ron watched over the heads of most, waiting for the telltale sign that Pansy would need rescuing. The sign was very simple to Ron, having known her for years—the deep line between dark brows. When that line appeared, Ron knew that Pansy was about to lose her composure, and the last thing she needed was to have an episode before the critics.

“Can you tell us the Charm you used to have the faces of the Fates change with every viewer. As I look at it, I see the face of my mother, in three states in time as my version of the Fates…” one short, male American critic asked, his Muggle voice recorder moving toward Pansy.

The line appeared and Ron sighed, tipping his gin and tonic to spill down the back of the critic.

“I am so sorry!” Ron gushed, his deep voice booming over the sound of the conversations all around, startling everyone to silence. “Sir, perhaps if you will just head to the lavatories…” he began, but did not need to go further as the mortified critic quickly extracted himself from Pansy’s line of sight.

The other critics seemed to know that Ron’s ‘accidental’ spill meant the end of the evening’s questions to the artist, and dispersed.

Pansy leaned back into the wall next to her painting, her chin falling to her chest. Her short bobbed, ebony hair obscured her delicately made up mask of professionalism, and Ron knew that he needed to take his lovely Pansy home—soon.

Pansy wore a short black cocktail dress her arms bare, and as Ron Vanished the remains of his glass wandlessly, he took her into his arms.

“Too much, Ron, it is too much,” she whispered into his chest.

Ron knew she was not just meaning the gallery opening, but the paintings on the walls. They were Pansy’s paintings, but not her subjects. The painting before him was the vision Hermione Granger had had at the end of time, of the Fates, of Hermione’s journey. The other paintings were taken from Draco Malfoy, Charlie, and everyone living who had been near Harry Potter and his madness. Only Pansy and Ron knew the significance of Hermione’s vision at the end of time, and Draco’s vision of a future when humanity would be wheedled down to almost nothing.

Pansy was empathic, and to see the paintings together and feel the reaction of the viewer was too much for her. Other shows had been similar, but this show, chronicling the events of over a year before, in a place far removed from a trendy cellar gallery in New York City was taking a toll on Ron’s lover.

There was too much innocent wonderment where there should have been reverence and grief.

Pansy had listened to Hermione’s recounting when Hermione had lived in New York the year previous. Pansy had listened to Draco’s recounting at the wedding, as well as Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy’s recounting of the attack on Malfoy Manor. From all of those people, Pansy had painted as if possessed to give the last, dark time of Harry Potter’s existence a kinder, more artistic revue of what would bethe bluntness of history. However, as Ron slowly walked Pansy toward the exit of the gallery, fending off questions from Pansy’s ‘artsy’ friends, and richer admirers, Ron knew that Pansy needed to get away.

It was not just the crowd of people crushing in on her, it was not just their reactions, it was the lack of true perspective the viewers had.

Into the cool night air of the city, Ron held her trembling body tight against his even as she whispered to him.

“I cannot keep doing this—feeling this, Ron, it is too much.”

He kissed her forehead. Pansy was brilliant in every way and that was part of why he loved her. What was too much for her was the weight of her talent and the truth she saw through her eyes and wrought with her own hands.

Ron suggested that he take her home, but Pansy refused. He tilted her face to his in the darkness of a Soho alley, his thumb running between her brows to sooth away the line that had formed there.

“But with you, only with you at my side, it is never too much,” she whispered into his silk tie. “The truth is almost too much, but it must be borne by people like me who render it for all to see.”

Ron sighed and tried to smile so her dark eyes could see.

Ron was not an artist, he was a F.O.I.L. agent, and he saw the truth without the beautiful colours and delicate treatment. For Ron, the colourless, ugly truth was too much, but for Pansy who saw and felt everything with such deep empathy, he could only try to understand the depth of her inner torment though she be so far removed from the devastation his old friend had inflicted.

“What should we do, my dove? Go back in? Go home?”

Pansy’s arms snaked upward to wrap about his neck.

“I need to make this better, Ron, I need to make it right,” she whispered.

She kissed the end of his chin, the closest part of his face to her lips.

“I need to paint one last work, the last work that will set everything toward the truth of the lives of the ones we love…” she trailed.

Ron did not understand.

“I need to paint his death.”

Prompt #65 - Time (Draco-centric DRABBLE, MA)

2008-05-11T23:46:19Z

Title: Time
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: MA
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Drabble
Warnings: Insinuations, crude language.
Summary: #65 – Time. Time had been his jailer.
Word Count: 925 words.
Author's Notes: Drabble: a slice of fic in less than 1500 words. FEH universe.

Prompt 65 – Time

Time was every man’s enemy, however, for Draco Malfoy, time was more a cruel jailer.

When Lem Nix pulled the bandages away from his eyes, Draco wished in his deepest of hearts that she would be the first thing he would see. He wanted to see her again, with both eyes—only to be disappointed.

Two years apart from her, not knowing what became of her, only knowing that time had swallowed her before his very eye—singular, at the time. As he looked at Lem Nix’s kind, strange face, Draco knew it was time to go.

Time was a jailer and a puzzle.

Draco stood in the Forbidden Forest looking at his hands, scarred, calloused, dirt engrained so deep into old blisters that it would stain his skin for all time. He had a peasant’s hands, and he knew that there had once been a time he thought he would live a life of ease and frivolity.

His prison had changed, time had trapped him in the fifteenth century, and he built her home for her just as he remembered it. And in that house he built with his bare hands, Draco touched every surface, knowing that in five hundred years, she would touch the same spots.

He slept in the bed they had once shared, the bed where he had saved her from bleeding to death. In that bed five hundred years from that point, he would taste her skin, hear her voice, touch the softness of her flesh, and see her face glow with ecstasy. In that bed, he would say that he loved her.

He loved her every night, stroking himself with his rough, calloused hands, the image of her face engrained into every synapses of his brain. He had to get back to her; he could not live in the cottage alone with just a ghost of a memory yet to occur in time.

So, his jailer let him slip a little closer to the one he loved.

When he arrived in his own time, January 2008, he knew he could never see her, not until that night in the cemetery. Draco knew that he may only have the chance to see her one last time that night…the night Hermione Granger killed Harry Potter.

Erebus had struck her, he remembered, Erebus had kept her on task.

“You would not betray me, would you Erebus? You have been my steadfast one, my constant shadow,” Harry Potter had said before Draco/Erebus released the latch on the Time-Turner to send them back to June 24, 1995.

He said nothing to Harry.

Time had proven to Draco that Harry Potter was not as mad as many would like him to believe. Harry Potter was obsessed, that much was certain, and he would stop at nothing to see his obsession become reality—that was where many thought the man insane. Draco found Harry methodical, thorough, but foolhardy at times, whose mind was like that of a child’s.

Harry had never suspected that the dark shadow that had told Harry how to get a Time-Turner had been Draco Malfoy all along, and as far as Draco knew, Harry would never know.

All that mattered was that time release him, that time returned him to her, and her to him. All that mattered was that they could move beyond Harry Potter, and the need to keep time in mind. He was tired of time, and all he could think of was her.

When she reappeared before the chapel, spewing sickness into the grass, he felt every nerve and muscle in his body twitch to touch her. When she moved about the dangling body of her old friend, searching instead for his past self, he let his eyes follow the way her body moved. She was stiff, weary, and her face was pale, but she was alive, and nearly unchanged from the last time he remembered her. Her face had been vicious and determined when she buried the stiletto into Potter’s heart. Her face had been stone when Potter breathed his last breath, swearing love to her. Only a tear had marred that face, and Draco knew, somehow, that it was not for Potter.

Time had separated them; time had stolen him away from her side.

It was only when she would listen to reason that he could tell her that her precious Draco was not lost. He had never been lost, in reality, just imprisoned. Her shock was much as his had been nine years before. He could see the blankness in her eyes, her hesitancy, her pain; it was all too much, too fast.

To watch her trying so hard to understand made Draco want her more, crush her against his body, wrap himself around her, inside her so that time could never hurt either of them again.

Time had taught him control, it had taught him patience, but when he finally kissed her in the groom’s quarters, time had made him nearly insane with need. Violent visions coursed through his head, all the old fantasies he had had, Draco had to squash them lest he fuck her soundly upon the floor or on the bench without her consent.

Time he could give her, time he could give himself, as soon as she had returned to replace herself into the timeline, Draco Malfoy had been freed.

Time had finally rewarded him when she came back to him to stay, to be his only forever and a day.

Hermione Granger had been time’s great reward to him.

The Fool, the Emperor, and the Hanged Man Master List

2008-05-09T03:10:37Z

The Fool, the Emperor, and the Hanged Man - Strong MA, HG/DM

Quick links:

The Story - Canon - Pending Complete Beta Versions

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15
Part 16
Part 17
Part 18
Part 19
Part 20
Part 21
Part 22
Part 23
Part 24
Part 25
Part 26
Part 27
Part 28

Supplemental

The Empress and the Emperor - Extended Ending

Drabbles - in chronological order to Canon with varied pairings

Heal
Snow
Beginnings
Years
Dark
Time
Journey
Fire
Too Much

More drabbles to be added soon!