Drabble Challenges
From behind the couch...
By kokopelli
Author Notes:
Yet more from my LJ
Can you give us a scene with Jasmine after TLOS?
Jasmine didn’t care for London, it was too cold. Things with Beckman, however, were quite warm, which made London a few steps above bearable. She was a witch with a tidy Gringotts account, a bright future, and she was in love. Notwithstanding all of this fluff, she still found number twelve Grimmauld Place to be cold, stale and depressing. “Depression in a can,” was the phrase the Ginny had used when they first discussed it. She couldn’t wait to get out of there, so she picked up her cloak, fastening it in the style currently in vogue with young witches, and pushed the door open.
A hook-nosed man with long, stringy hair looked up from where he was leaning against the opposite wall. He ran his eyes over her, stopping in the places men usually stopped when appraising her physical charms. “It’s about time,” he drawled with impatience. Whatever conversations were ongoing in the library ceased. Whatever privileges Severus Snape may have enjoyed with the Headmaster, they did not extend to this particular project.
Looking squarely at him, she murmured, “Good day,” and pushed towards the door. That was when she felt the touch on the outer rim of her consciousness. She twirled, grabbing his hair in one hand, pulling his neck back and placing her blade against his larynx. “I dress as a modest woman, Severus, and I’m quite used to men looking at me, but my mind is my own. If you try that again you will part with your voice-box. Have I made myself clear?” she whispered in a voice that only he could hear.
Severus nodded. Jasmine released him, wiping her hand upon her cloak, and then pushing the front door open with a bang.
~+~
“Quite clear, Miss Kadakia,” Snape murmured to no one in particular before going into the Library for the next meeting. He would have to seek some other avenue to discover what this project was all about.
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Can you write something Canon?
Starting at Page 750 (American Edition)
It was no surprise to anyone that after leaving the Headmaster’s office, Harry slept for more than 20 hours. The linchpin to this feat was putting one weary foot in front of the other, climbing the stairs up to the seventh-year dormitory in Gryffindor Tower. Once he finally awoke, he found his glasses on the nightstand, along with his watch. He didn’t remember getting into bed, actually, so this was a bit of a surprise. Coming back from the bathroom, he noticed Kreacher, who nodded gravely. Kreacher was wearing what looked, at first glance, to be the usual Hogwarts tea-towel, but Harry noticed that instead of the Hogwarts crest, the towel was marked with the Black emblem. He could not fail to notice that the faux-Horcrux locket gleamed in the dim light, polished as if it were the crown jewel of a minor nation.
“Master Harry’s clothes are spread out upon the bed. Kreacher will dress Master Harry if the master desires assistance, but Kreacher knows that Master Harry cares not for this sort of thing. Master Harry’s friends are in the Great Hall, but Kreacher is sorry to say that dinner is over. Master Harry, of course, knows that he will be fed well upon arriving at the kitchens.” Kreacher then returned to the bed, pulling one pair of trousers from the wardrobe to replace the pair that were already on the bed.
“Thank you, Kreacher,” Harry said.
Kreacher continued to mutter to himself, folding and refolding the shirt that was next to the trousers.
Harry figured that he was in one of his hard-of-hearing moods, so he repeated his thanks.
Kreacher drew himself up straight, but did not turn around.
“Kreacher heard Master Harry the first time, but if Kreacher was but a young elf, Kreacher could not live long enough to thank Master Harry enough for what he has done,” he grumbled. Kreacher then took a deep breath and turned around. There were tear streaks on his dark, wrinkled face.
Harry nodded, which evidently was the right thing to do.
“If Master Harry wishes to see his consort, Kreacher will make sure that the youngest Weasley will be waiting in the kitchens when he arrives,” Kreacher intoned gravely. He stood there, stock still.
Harry eventually twigged to the notion that Kreacher was waiting for a reply.
“Yeah, yeah, I’d like that a lot,” Harry finally replied.
The faintest flicker of a smile passed over Kreacher’s face before he turned again to leave the dormitory. “Kreacher has kept the secrets of the Ancient and Honourable House of Black for four generations. Now Kreacher keeps the secrets of the Ancient and Honourable House of Potter, but Master Harry had best not dally if he expects Kreacher to serve the next generation.”
Harry goggled at this, and then laughed.
Kreacher’s time may be limited, but Harry knew that he now had all the time in the world, which meant that he wasn’t going to waste a moment of it.
Can you write something from Ever After?
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The list
All of Hermione’s life now fit neatly into two categories – before “that day” and after. Ginny had scheduled a week in advance for a luncheon date – not all that unusual. Now that the children were, for the most part, grown and launched, the relationship they’d started back when they were mere slips of girls at Hogwarts continued to set down roots. They could go a month or more without seeing the other and restart a conversation as if it had been a mere matter of minutes. Ginny had seemed out of sorts, but that wasn’t all that unusual; she’d been out of sorts most of the year, starting sometime shortly after Christmas. When she arrived, the house was tidy and the table already set. She paid no particular attention to the fact that the Floo was deactivated, and a number of charms were activated that would make their conversation difficult, if not impossible to interrupt.
Ginny began to talk, the words pouring out of her like an overflowing rain barrel. She explained a number of things that Hermione had always known in some way, but they’d never discussed which in hindsight made perfect sense. Then she tackled the real story, breaking down several times until she got through the recriminations, the confessions, the absolutions and the assurances. Ginny had slightly more than a year left to live; Ron had a similar amount of time. No, she wasn’t sick; she was in good health, actually, notwithstanding the contextual depression she’d been weathering. Learning that your husband is soon going to become a widower tends to take the bloom off of the rose, don’t you know.
Hermione cycled through the usual stages, trying at first to reckon this like a particularly stout puzzle, but in the end, she accepted it. Before that day, her relationship with Ron had slid into a lazy groove, each of them living their lives in parallel, checking in from time to time to a familiar comfort. That wasn’t good enough anymore.
Ron hadn’t minded – once she got her head around the new reality after that day the sex was terrific. She would tear away from school (not particularly difficult during the summer holidays) and ambush him at work. Ron started coming home on time; even leaving early so they could catch a show, or have dinner with friends. Ron put his finger on it succinctly: “When you know that you can only put so many things on the list, you dare not put junk on it.”
And so she’d been living with a short list. It was bittersweet when Autumn came – knowing that by this time next year, she’d be a widow; but Ron took more leave from work that year than he’d taken in the prior five years. They made the most of the time. She’d considered taking a Sabbatical year, but Ron sensibly pointed out that she loved teaching almost as much as she loved him; so now she could teach like she was living with a short list.
Spring was the usual sweet and sour combination of rain and crocuses; but she saw both with new eyes, now that she was living with a short list. June and July had been crowded and hectic, but the first of August came with the realization that summer was almost over.
She had a tingle of regret when she went away on a day trip to Switzerland for a educator’s conference, knowing with awful clarity just what the jangling of her bracelet meant when the terrier began to glow with a terrible red light. The charm next to the terrier was a portkey, prepared in advance for the occasion. She wasn’t surprised in the least when the portkey opened up into the shock-trauma ward at St. Mungo’s. She was surprised, however by the cold glare she received from Harry on her arrival.
“I’m sorry,” he said, meeting her eyes for a moment before looking away. “He passed quickly – but not so quick that he didn’t have time to remind me to tell you on his behalf that he loved you.”
What little light remaining in Harry’s face extinguished as he said those words. He bit his lips, nodded to her as to a vague acquaintance, and then left the room.
It was only then that she realized how alone she was in the world. She’d reached the end of the short list.
++++++++
What happened when Jasmine and Beckman got together?
Basic Black
She’d given a lot of thought into what she was going to wear. Beckman Gupta was in London now, and it was cool in London this time of year, so that meant wool. Looking up in the mirror, she inspected how she looked in the third choice, a black cashmere sweater, three-quarter length sleeve, accompanying a black pleated skirt and black pumps. The fitted skirt would have looked better, but it hindered her movements, and a lifetime of training made her value mobility over style, every time. Her hair was piled up behind her head, held in place with two sticks. Only the closest of inspections would reveal that one stick was her bamboo wand, while the other was a sheathed stiletto. She decided that her look was too funereal, so she picked up her black silk shawl, charming a scalloped scarlet border to relieve the black-on-black monotony.
Mrs. Paprikash gave her a knowing look as she walked through the kitchen on her way to the garden.
Her stomach gave an odd flip as she passed through non-space into the International Apparation point and then onto the public Apparation point near Langham Place. His flat had been easy enough to find, just a bit north of the Oxford Circus. She cocked her arm to knock on the door, pulled her hand away, and then condemning herself for cowardice, rapped on the door firmly.
The look on Beckman’s face when he opened the door was priceless. The smile that followed melted something inside of her and drove all of the rehearsed lines from her short-term memory.
“I’ve missed you, Jaz,” he breathed, softly, so as to not scare her away.
“And I, you,” she replied earnestly. How he ended up pulling her hand from the doorframe she missed somehow, the thought possibly being washed away when he turned her hand over to kiss her palm.
“I thought I’d hear back from Ravi,” Beckman said and he pulled away, beckoning with one hand for her to come in.
“Ravi doesn’t like you as much as I do,” Jasmine replied.
“How convenient, I prefer your company to his,” Beckman replied glibly.
“I’m not to let my feelings run away with me this time,” Jasmine warned.
“And I’m not going to let you get away, either,” Beckman said firmly.
Whatever had she been thinking? It was way too warm in here for wool.
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What happens "the next day" at the Burrow in Cold Fusion.
I'm going to decline this drabble, but I will tell you what happens. They return to the Burrow - there's a Prodigal style feast for the Trio. Harry and Ginny finally get some time alone to sort things out. They emerge with a slightly clearer understanding (seasoned with some snoggage). The trio then mount an assault on Voldemort's hideout, accompanied by the Order. So the story ends, compliant with HBP, but not with HPDH - no Deathly Hallows, for one thing.
Lost and Found – how did Hermione get the chocolate sauce?
Neville received the message from the District Superintendent while Hermione was in the shower. He related the gist of the conversation to her as he made their breakfast, pausing to give a passable, if implausible impression of a French Veela conducting a fire-call.
Once he’d left for the day, she determined to do what she could to move things along.
“It’s funny how missing something can make you value what’s been lost,” Hermione mused to herself as she walked along High Street in Edinburgh. She was attired in Muggle clothes, suitable for a married woman in her late twenties; respectable, adult, but not dowdy. The only dowdy thing was the cane, which she still carried because she would still tire after an afternoon on her feet, and the cane allowed her mobility and independence – both things that she’d lost. She had walked through several confection shops before finding the dark chocolate brick she’d remembered from a foraging expedition during the Horcrux hunt, a memory from her prior life, before she’d been hospitalized and given up by most of the Wizarding world as nearly dead, beyond hope.
In the bag along with the brick was a kilo of sugar, a kilo of butter and a half litre of vanilla extract. The brick was destined to melt in her cooking cauldron at home this evening after her return; the remaining ingredients, along with some water, would be added before it cooled, and then it would be decanted into two glass jars, one of which she planned on sending away to Marseilles while it was still warm.
The other bottle was going to live on the nightstand on Neville’s side of the bed.
That was a thought that kept her warm all the way home.
++++
I'd like to ask a question of Lily Evans from 'The Unexpected Horcrux', if Harry wouldn't mind turning control over to his mum for a moment.
Actually the question is from Rita Skeeter; she asked me to act as her proxy, since she's a bit nervous around Harry, particularly if 'that Granger girl' is nearby.
Dear Lily ... Kokopelli's readers couldn't help but note some tension between you and Ginevra Weasley. Can you tell us what you thought of Miss Weasley? Do you approve of your son's match? We hear that the wedding is scheduled for this summer, once Miss Weasley has graduated from Hogwarts. Had you anyone else in mind as a paramour for Harry?
Your readers also noted that Ginny had a '*very* smug' smile on her face after a long heart-to-heart with you. What went on in that conversation? Why was Weasley so pleased after the interrogation by her boyfriend's mother that she'd been seemingly dreading?
No, it wasn't just the passage of time that made this a weird-fest, it was being dead, and then being alive again, in a body not my own, added to the weird environment my son was living in, etc.
It's a marvel that I didn't lose it more often than I did.
You’ve got to look at things from my perspective – one day I’m a young married woman in my twenties with a little tot of a boy, still in nappies, and the next day, after a sixteen year nap, I’m awake, in the body of my seventeen year old son. Oh, by the way, in the interval between these two days, my husband and I were murdered.
So I’m alive again, after a fashion, in a body that looks familiar, but I don’t quite recognize it. Add to the total weirdness of this is the fact that I was born a woman, but now I’m in a body that’s not. It was good to see RJ (Remus John Lupin) again, but everyone else around me was a stranger.
My son should be in school, but instead he’s on the run from the madman who killed my husband and then killed me. He’s apparently living with two other teenagers, a boy and a girl – Ron and Hermione.
Ron was pretty easy to figure out – he was Harry’s best friend – but what of this Hermione? She was apparently very familiar and comfortable with Harry, but she was equally familiar with Ron.
After a few blunt questions, and some explanations from Hermione and RJ as to just what the hell had happened after I died, I got a fair picture of the present. The stories fit together, but RJ’s story was far more sketchy than the information I gained from this girl Hermione, which validated my hunch that she was best friend material, not a future Mrs. Potter.
RJ then dissolved a small layer of the magic that was separating my remaining essence from my son’s soul, which made things rather weird – or weirder, if that’s a word. For the prior sixteen years, I’d been asleep – in a dream state as it were. I caught glimpse of a few things, mainly times when Harry was in great peril, but it was distant. Now, after RJ’s meddling, I was inside my son’s head in a different way – at least when he was dreaming. My teenage years were pretty recent in my perspective, and I’m aware that from about fourteen on, lads are thinking of lassies pretty much most of the time, but this didn’t prepare me for Harry’s dreams.
Let’s just say that they were very, very explicit, and all involved a thin slip of a girl with brilliant red hair. I knew that some of them were just dreams, as I don’t think he’d really go at it on a broomstick, above the Quidditch pitch, during a match, but there was enough corroborating evidence that I had to wonder.
And so I began my inquiry into just who this Ginny Weasley was, and what her intentions were towards my son.
At my request, she was brought to our little working sanctuary. Harry got first crack at her, which was only right. From what Hermione had told me, they’d been apart for quite a while, and he was missing her something fierce. On the next day, I got a chance to interview her. She looked like a duck going out to lunch with a mink – she wasn’t going to enjoy the process, and she wasn’t likely to survive it either.
I suppose I did everything but tie her to a tree and interrogate her under Veritaserum. I did consider using Legilimency to validate her answers, but even I have my limits.
It turned out that she wasn’t a little bint trying to trap the scion of an Ancient and Noble house – you don’t want to know how many of the vapid cows I went to school with who shamelessly ran after the pureblood heirs, hoping that they could catch one by hook or by crook. A number of these cows chased after James during his sixth and seventh years at school, but he eventually caught on – but I’m digressing, aren’t I?
Ginny’s okay – more than okay, really. She loves Harry, not for his fame, or for his name or what’s sitting in his Gringotts vault, but she really cares for the boy I rocked to sleep sixteen years ago. From what I knew about Harry, he reciprocated her feelings. After a rocky start (okay, truth be told, a wretched start) we made a truce and started over.
As to whether or not Ginny had a “smug” expression on her face when we returned to the cottage, I couldn’t say. That’s probably how Hermione interpreted it, but if I had to guess, I’d say that she was more relieved than smug – she’d gone walking with a slightly mad dragon and lived to tell the tale.
Dear me, what were your other questions? Do I approve of Harry’s match – I can’t say that I was ever asked about it, but if Harry had come to me, I think that I would have eventually given my blessing. Ginny is awfully young, and still has immature fits of temper. I would have preferred that they have a very long engagement – say more than a year, but by that time, I was no longer in their world.
Anyone else in mind? It’s not like I had a very clear view of the field of candidates. I like Hermione, once I got past her I-have-to-be-a-swot nature, but I can’t say that I would have tried to throw them together if I’d been alive at the time. Not enough data, I guess.
Thanks for asking, and give my regards to Rita. Is she still colouring her hair? She’s not a real blonde, you know.
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Making Change - WHAT WAS HARRY'S DECISION?
Oh yeah, I remember that moment. One of three times at Hogwarts when I was certain I was going to wet my pants – the other two being my personal encounters with the Mountain Troll and Umbridge, but I digress.
We walked in silence through the halls, not close, not touching, not looking any different than any of the other students walking the halls. Harry led me out onto the grounds, cutting behind the greenhouses and through a copse of trees that I never knew were on the grounds until we were on a small, plain field, away from prying eyes and listening ears.
“I can’t bear the thought of losing you as a friend, Hermione,” Harry began.
I tossed my hair back, quickly capturing it in an elastic I’d dug up from my pocket.
“You’re stuck with me, Harry,” I replied.
“I’ve thought it out,” he said after a long silence walking together. “I’ve decided.”
Then he froze.
I’ve known Harry for years.
He’s brave, but he’s not fearless.
On the Quidditch pitch he’s simply insane – nothing else can explain the risks he takes to grab that little winged sphere.
Off the pitch, if someone’s in danger the people-saving-thing kicks in and he’s off in a flash, but if that behavioral button hasn’t been pushed, I’ve seen him lock up any number of times. It’s as if he were standing on the roof of a building, pondering if he really can jump across to the adjoining building’s roof.
He was trying to talk, really he was. He’d probably rehearsed what he was going to say, but now that I was standing there in front of him, his soliloquy either sounded really stupid, or it had vanished like morning dew on a sunny day.
“Would it help if I turned my back, or if you shut your eyes?” I asked mischievously.
“Probably not,” he replied.
I stood there smiling at him. It was unworthy, but I was enjoying his discomfort, just a little, for all the anxiety I’d burned in the last two weeks.
“You know, you’re really not helping this,” he said.
I reached for his face, cradling his cheek in my hand. I adjusted the tilt of his head a bit – Harry’s short for a guy, but he’s still taller than I am.
“There’s nothing you can do that will ever make me leave you, Harry,” I said, knowing what it was that he needed to hear.
He took a deep breath and relaxed a bit – he wasn’t on the precipice any more.
“Kiss me, Harry,” I instructed.
He did, and that was that.
It is said that love, enduring love, is friendship that’s caught fire. I haven’t enough data to pass judgment on that hypothesis, but that’s the day that our friendship caught on fire.
That was twenty-seven years ago; we’ve been married twenty five years. There have been moments since then that I’ve wanted to beat him with a Beater’s bat, but on the whole, it’s been worth it.