@Bulwersator: thanks for the links. I prefer DLP prompts, though. They make for good words.

Here we go. About 3k words. Hope you enjoy:

#

Whispers of Death​

#

The day is cool, unnaturally so for a late afternoon in August in Santa Fe, and a stiff breeze blows in from the Sangre de Cristos. Sitting on a high steel chair on a second story balcony at the Marble Taproom, he looks out over the Plaza. Hawkers, lay-abouts, street musicians, art-hungry tourists and their art-fatigued spouses, a man and his wife trading verbal barbs on the fast-track to divorce, a child punching his sib, a mother grabbing his arm roughly, nails biting into white flesh, a howl of pain and a quick silence at her glare and muttered words. He’s reminded of Petunia. A few blocks away, bells ring from a Cathedral whose stones are red in the evening twilight.

He sips his Imperial pint.

Below, the plaza buzzes, alive in a way that makes him feel more separated from the humanity, that much less of a man; that much more. American Indians or Chicano wannabes peddle handmade jewelry made from diluted silver and artificial turquoise. Rows of fetishes, some magical, some not. Lines between the worlds, blurred. His paperback sits unopened upon a glass tabletop.

He watches. And waits.

She will come.

That she will. And when she does, it’ll be fucking glorious.

His magic tenses and there is a succubus in the doorway. Sashay and salaciousness, desire incarnate. Muggles on the patio, slack-minded idiots, look groggily from their smartphones and a hush falls as two dozen eyes find her and find themselves, man and woman alike, wanting.

Dark lips grin sardonic. The next challenger.

In the local lingo, which he’s begun to amuse himself by picking up, hot damn, that’s a fine piece of ass.

As his baser nature stirs hungrily, his magic thrills at the challenge. Another part of him, the darkness buried deeply within his soul, rouses.

Oh, yes.

She sits opposite, elbow on the table, chin tucked into her palm, her tight, black leather jacket creaking softly. Amethyst eyes meet emerald and he smiles back, an eager one, full of promise. And of pain.

She hums to herself for a moment, unperturbed, and speaks, her voice musical and altogether otherworldly.

That’s an interesting stone you wear in that ring, Harry Potter. I don’t suppose you’ve a cloak and wand to accompany it, do you?

Oh fucking yes, game on.

#

Fragments of his wand lie upon Dumbledore’s old desk, inert holly angled like an insect’s leg ripped from its body. Hermione looks on pensively, worrying her lower lip, bruises from what they’ve already begun to call the Battle of Hogwarts livid against pale skin.

He takes the Deathstick from the breast pocket of his robes and pauses as his fingers thrum with power: cold, terrible. Though he’s its master, he feels a vague sense of vertigo, a thrill of fear, of temptation, of succumbing to rage and desire, of taking the wand—and taking on the world.

Something tugs at him from within and there’s a slow hiss, drawn like a last exhalation in death. He almost doesn’t hear it, but a part of him does.

Try…

Reparo. The tip of the Elder wand alights with swirling lisles like spider webs wrapping about the lesser wand, joining the fragments. There’s a humming as pieces fuse together.

A trilling sounds in his mind, a side effect of the facility of doing magic with the Deathstick.

Merlin, why must he part with this?

He reaches for his other wand, slowly, feeling the Elder wand shudder as he does. Motes of black unseen in the dimness drift from his fingertips, landing upon the lesser wand, seeping in like poison. A faint sound, a muffled scream, and he draws his hand back quickly.

What was that?

What was what, Harry?

Nothing. I just… I thought I heard something is all.

He gives his friend a sheepish look and reaches for his old wand again, taking it up carefully. A swish and flick, a shower of red and gold sparks.

Yet no feeling of rightness like before. Something still feels off.

#

And then Mandy said she’d hex him if he tried to…

Ginny’s voice was light and happy, comforting in the way he needed right then. Being an Auror is hard enough normally, but having inconsistent magic made it doubly so. He was just barely getting by, as of his last performance review, and has landed on probation. Again.

Sharing a Hogsmeade weekend with his fiancée was a balm for his worries, the only bright spot in a week of disappointment.

He opens the door for her and she walks in, proud of his company, yet a bit more reserved than the last time, a bit more distant. He looks about, distracting himself by reviewing the repairs. Rosmerta’s place has been renovated well following the desolation of the months before.

His fiancée chooses a seat at a table a bit too close to the Slytherins for his tastes, but he doesn’t say anything, instead fingering his increasingly erratic wand holstered at his waist.

And Mum says that of course June weddings are traditional, but maybe July would be better? What do you think, Harry? Would you wish to make an honest woman of me in June or July?

Ginny glances over his shoulder to the other table as she speaks.

I think either would be fine. Whatever’s more convenient, I guess.

But don’t you have a preference?

He suspects there’s no right answer to this. Merlin, he loves her so and wishes he could be with her now, not in June. She takes his hand in hers and she looks into his eyes. They share a moment together. A precious moment, as all is right in the world. Then she glances elsewhere.

Well, earlier would be better, I suppose.

He swallows.

I love you, Ginny. I want you.

I know you do.

She’s still distracted. Harry turns quickly and catches Nott looking away just then.

Ginny, is Nott—

Don’t, Harry. Don’t go there.

But—

It’s nothing, okay? He’s just a friend.

It doesn’t seem like nothing. Is there something going on? I mean, if—

Harry! I said drop it.

Fine.

Fine.

She’s lying.

She is.

You should kill her.

But I love her.

All the more reason.

#

Blasting curses on my signal. Jameson and Parney are sweeping behind;we’ll meet inside. We goddamned need to bring this wall down fast, Potter, you hear? No more bullshit. Are you up for this?

Yes, sir. I’m good, sir.

He readies his wand, but as he does, a cold feeling settles over his fingers. Goddammit, no, not now!

Yes.

Fuck!

Mark!

Confringo. He flicks his wand. Only pale sparks. Confringo. Nothing. Bloody hell!

Desperate, he drops his holly wand and draws a spare, a pine and unicorn thing from the bin that was the best, if still poor, match. It lasts for four, relatively weak blasting curses before it too is rendered inert.

He finishes the mission using his superior’s spare wand, which he also ruins.

The wall does not come down in time.

Parney receives a hero’s burial and a posthumus Order of Merlin Second Class.

He receives a dressing down and a painful hexing from Parney’s widower.

It would prove the beginning of the end of his career as an Auror.

#

The old wandmaker still disturbs him as much as he did the first time he saw him, but he suffers it, given the stakes. The man grasps his wand hand and yanks it hard into the light, peering at it closely under a magnifying lens. After several minutes, the man snatches his old wand from the bench and raps it a few times against the surface like a drumstick. The sound is oddly hollow.

How very curious. You say this has happened with all of the wands you’ve used? Even the eleven-inch mahogany and dragon heartstring that I sold you last week?

Yes. Have you ever encountered anything like it.

Pity, a good wand, that. Mmm, interesting.

The old man putters about eyeing down the length of his old wand, slashing it at the air a few times. No spark. Nothing. It may as well be a Muggle dowel for all the magical response it gives.

There’s nothing for it. I’m afraid your wand is dead, Mister Potter. The wand chooses the wizard, but this one is in no position to choose much of anything anymore. You’ve killed it, I’m afraid.

Killed it? How can wands die, apart from breaking them, that is?

It’s a rare thing, queer, but possible. Wands are sentient, Potter. You have destroyed that which makes them magical.

He peers intently at Harry.

However did you manage to kill them, Harry Potter? I’m quite curious, you see.

I don’t bloody know, that’s why I’m here!

I do.

Shut up.

He tries to keep his face impassive at the voice inside his head, but something in his expression gives him. The old man pauses and looks up at him with pale, milky eyes.

Very curious. What you’ve experienced, Mister Potter, has happened but once in all of my years of wandmaking, and even then, the wand was merely damaged, not killed outright.

Sir?

Albus Dumbledore, shortly after he defeated his own Dark Lord. I’m afraid your magic is crippled, just like his was back then. His wand, one of the finest that my father had ever made, went into remission, just barely a spark to be had. It was decades before it recovered.

What happened? How did he—

Well, I imagine Dumbledore found a remedy, as he was quite the wizard after that despite his handicap.

What was that remedy?

I do not know. I’m afraid he never told me, though I do have my suspicions, Harry Potter.

The man taps the side of his nose.

Come to me, Harry. It is time. I hunger.

#

The whisper campaign in the Ministry has become harder to ignore. With Skeeter’s article, it’s increasingly apparent that the Boy-Who-Lived is functionally little more than a Squib, that his diseased magic destroys wands almost as fast as he can draw them.

He walks the halls, ignoring their pitying stares. Bitterness gnaws at his insides and the voice in his head becomes harder to ignore the more his myriad failures manifest.

Come to me, Harry.

Ginny has broken off the engagement. Even being the Boy Who Lived and the Vanquisher is not enough to erase the stigma of Squibhood.

Merlin, he’d begged her to reconsider. On his knees even.

Old blood, they say, is the least tolerant.

A Society page photo in the Prophet shows her in the arms of Michael Corner. The moving photograph embraces and kisses one another.

It’s Spell-O-Taped to his desk, a gift from his co-workers, who have not forgotten his incompetence in the field.

You should kill her.

Perhaps.

#

A word, please?

Minister?

We’ve talked about this before, Harry, that if things didn’t improve—

Look, I know, my magic has been inconsistent. But I’ll fix it, I promise.

This isn’t just something that I can just overlook, Harry. You can’t go out in the field as an Auror if you can’t be trusted to hold your end. Please, there’s no shame in going back to Hogwarts.

Absolutely not.

At least consider it as an option. I can’t let you go out in the field any more with your magic as it is. I won’t send my Aurors out to die, not for friendship, not for anything.

Look, I don't need a partner. Just let me go solo. I can do this. You know I can.

I can be your partner.

No, Harry. We’re not sending a junior Auror with spotty wandwork out into the field without backup. They’d have my hide. Harry, please—just consider a medical leave. Go see the Healers, see what they can do. Promise me that much.

I’ve already been to St. Mungos more times than I can count. And Ollivander. Even the bloody Unspeakables. Nobody can tell me why every goddamned wand I pick up seems to—

Die?

Yeah.

There is one wand…

He ignores the voice, a corruption leeching from the recesses of his consciousness, a black miasma that smothers him at night in dreams of destruction and malice.

He is not insane, he tells himself.

Not yet. Soon, perhaps.

I’m sorry, Harry. I know how much being an Auror means to you, but until this is resolved, there’s nothing I can do.

So after all this, I’m sacked? Is that it, Kingsley? I’m to be shoved aside, now that Voldemort is gone and things are back to normal, I’m no longer needed?

I’m very sorry, Harry.

#

Ginny looks positively radiant in her chiffon Bridemaid’s dress. Merlin, his heart aches to see her so. He misses her so damned much.

And she’s out there on the dance floor with that arrogant fucking prat, Finch-Fletchley, his hand on the small of her back. And she’s looks up at him with unmasked affection, her eyes promising so much, eyes that used to look up to him that way.

Kill.

He takes a long pull from the bottle, his second of the night. Against his better judgment, he stands and staggers onto the dance floor.

For once, he gives in to the whispers.

#

He’s groggy as he comes to, an icepack on his head weeping down the side of his cheek. His shoulder feels like someone has shoved an icepick into it and his leg tingles, as if the bones were recently mended. Music plays off in the distance. He’s in Ron’s old room, judging from the fading Chudley Cannon posters that wave and wink at him. A greying man is next to him clears his throat and he feels about three inches tall.

I really buggered this up, didn’t I sir.

That you did.

Arthur Weasley, one of his few remaining role models, sighs and stares out the window.

Look, Harry, I understand that you’re heartsick. Believe it or not, I was in the same situation once many years ago, and I appreciate your pain at seeing the one you love with someone else, but you have to let it go. You have to let it go. You have to be the bigger man and just… let it go.

You should kill her.

He winces.

Yeah. Let it go.

Kill her.

His magic stirs.

Today was supposed to be a special day, for Ron and Hermione and their union and new lives together; for Molly and me, with our new daughter; for Kent and Clara, with their new son. Ron and Hermione invited you here because they love you, Harry. They do, and this won’t change that. Ginny still loves you too, though not in the way you want. We all do, Molly, George… But you can’t keep doing this to her and you can’t keep doing this to yourself. It isn’t healthy. You have to move on, Harry.

Coming here was a mistake, wasn’t it?

No, but downing two bottles of Firewhiskey and deciding to take on the entire wedding party with a fake wand might have been.

Fake wand?

Here.

He tosses him a wand, which he recognizes as his latest. He sighs, realizing he’s destroyed yet another.

Ron and Hermione are going to kill me, aren’t they.

Oh, I doubt they’d take it quite that far, but you might be better off giving them a bit of distance, for a little while, at any rate.

Right. Can I have my other wands?

Can I trust you to use your head about things and not your heart?

Probably.

Here then, but Harry?

Sir?

Maybe you should think about going away. Get away from here, find your bearings, that sort of thing. I know things are hard now—trust me, I’ve walked in your shoes—but we have to find a way to keep going.

Find a way, Harry.

Right. Thank you, sir.

#

He stares at his bloodshot eyes in the mirror. He’s nothing: friendless, jobless, not even a fucking wizard anymore.

Fuck it.

Do it.

Yes.

#

They will come for you. They will never cease. You will never know rest for the remainder of your days.

Let them try.

He fingers the Resurrection Stone, set in a ring about the middle finger of his left hand. His father’s cloak is about his shoulders. It’s time to fulfill his destiny.

He peels the first warding off quickly, feeling the heavy weight of the charm shatter the core of his first wand, walnut and Phoenix feather, destroyed. He drops it and draws a second, attacking the next ward. It’s a tricky one, designed to subtly alert the Aurors that the Headmaster’s tomb has been compromised. It proves harder to unravel and Rowan and Dragon heartstring put up a valiant effort before expiring.

A pulse of magic spurts out. He has only moments.

A third, balsa and Unicorn hair, shatters instantly. A fourth. A fifth. He cares not anymore what dies, what doesn’t. All that matters is that he recover what’s rightfully his.

Hagrid’s voice sounds in the distance. He’s with Flitwick and McGonagall. He closes his eyes for a moment, sad at what he must do.

A sixth and seventh wand expire moving enchanted earth.

An eighth. The mausoleum is open.

Apparition pops in the near distance. Aurors and Hit Wizards. Time is short.

He steps inside, braving the stink of death, and sees an elderly man in repose atop a dais. Flamboyant robes stained with the seepage of a spent corpse, his former mentor’s beard is white in the moonlight, his skin taut against a dessicated frame.

I’m sorry, sir, but I need this now.

He reaches for an Elder twig, cradled in the dead man’s hands.

There’s shouting outside, but he ignores it.

Yes.

Something changes inside him, shifting, a sense of powerful forces aligning, and Harry Potter, Master of Death, turns to his adversaries with a cold, inhuman glare. In years to come, he would hope to pretend that the bloodbath that followed claimed no lives, that no innocent life was lost.

He would hope to believe so, just as he would hope to believe that he had nothing to do with her murder. But he doesn’t.

Let them come.

Edit: May be continued...

 

Awesomesauce Pers!

 

The Master of Death has come. This is so fun to read. It would be nice to see more snippets of this universe, particulary, Harry's descent into - more - insanity after acquiring the wand.

 

Can someone give me one?

I'm looking for a scenario where I can run with mostly action and minimum plot.

Has to be something that gives me leeway to make the character either very lucky or very good at what they do; preferably Harry.

Shot

 

@Perspicacity

should be "behind; we’ll"

Very interesting one, especially the ending.

 

A fair approximation of Cormac McLaggen McCarthy, Pers. Not a huge fan of him myself (particularly his dialogue, which I always feel reads like the characters are communicating telepathically), but it was clearly his style.

 

Yeah, I don't think I'm quite ready to lose dialogue tags just yet. It's a bit too extreme and frankly a pain to write, forcing me to pepper too many name-drops "Listen, Harry..." to keep things even remotely clear.

Thanks again for the prompt!

Edit: Edited version up on FFN.

 

Prompt: "You're under arrest for treason and fourteen counts of murder. Come quietly Potter."

Length: ???

Time: ???

Someone want to give me a prompt, please. I've looked through all the old ones and nothing there caught my interest.

 

conflicted time travellers

 

@Peace:

They called him Undesirable Number 1. By God he earned that title.

 

Love it. That has some potential for awesomeness. That said:

Length: whatevs
Time: bang away at it.

Scenario: Three wizards.

Two wands.

One objective and time is of the essence.

Blow me out of the water, Peace!

---------- Post automerged at 17:51 ---------- Previous post was at 13:59 ----------

Prompt: "You're under arrest for treason and fourteen counts of murder. Come quietly, Potter."

You know how stories go from okay to completely stupid in 1k+ words? Well, this is it.

It's not funny enough to make you laugh, but it's weird enough to read.

Please excuse ze mistakes, I aint that good at grammar and all that…

So yeah, let's spiral down to hell with this!

-----

"You are under arrest for treason and fourteen counts of murder. Come quietly, Potter!"


Yeah, he's heard it all before. Blame Harry when the dip goes sour, when the minister leaves the milk out and it gets spoilt. Harry is the kid they all point at when the teacher glances around the class for the little bastard who stole her coffee change.

He's born to take the shit. He killed Voldemort at the age of one, at the age of seventeen and every night, he kills him again and again and again.

He stands at the harbour, gaze fixed on the ship that draws nearer.

Aurors behind him, a big ship in front, he has no choice but to take the latter.

He makes it, landing on the deck, wand out.

He turns, deflects spells, and returns fire. People scream, run in panic as wands light up the night.

In a time of war, there are always casualties. He didn't understand that back then but he does now.

He raises his wand and blows the railing to shrapnel. Aurors scream, attempting to duck for cover. Blood fountains into the air, splinters of wood carried on the crimson tide. It hurts him not at all to spill the blood of his own soil. His country fucked him over long time ago.

"Potter!"

Shacklebolt is at the forefront, sonoroused wand raised to his throat. He appears unaffected by Harry's spe-

He senses it before he hears it. Something big and heavy heading for his head. He turns, diving comically to the floor. The deck of the ship around him is peppered with a barrage of spells.

He gets to his feet again, beholds a portly muggle trying to swing a champagne bottle at him. Even the ignorant hate him.

He summons the cork, sets the champagne on fire, summons the bottle from the man's hand and sends it back at him like a missile.

The bottle connects with the man's forehead so hard that it shatters, glass driving deep and glancing off his cranium.

His face gets blown to hell a moment later as soon as the fiery liquor ignites and billows and swells and connects with the man's skin. He doesn't even have time to scream.

He's on the deck of the boat and the deck catches alight, apparently dry enough or at least not too wet.

He hears a spell stick into the railing behind him like the drilling of an arrow. He spins, his arm whipping to the left and directing a barrage of lethal fire their way. They bring up shields and return the fire in kind.

Then permission to use lethal force is given and a killing curse blazes into the railing and its burning kindling. He adds a flame-freezing charm to his robes and listens dispassionately as muggles try to put the fire out behind him.

He leaps off the deck of the boat and back onto the peer.

He comes nose to nose with the squadron of waiting aurors.

They stop firing, watch the burning ship behind him.

"Oh, the lives you destroy, Harry Potter," Shacklebolt says, his wand levelled between Harry's eyes.

"Like the life I'm going to destroy now, you traitorous cunt!"

Kingsley blinks; and bursts apart like a hand grenade with its pin pulled. He nods to a hooded figure in the group, but the others don't see that nod. They are too busy staring down at their boss, or the shattered remnants of him.

They turn to unleash their wrath upon Harry, but he's the hell out of there.

He takes off, running parallel to the peer, heading toward the beach where it's more crowded.

He drops a disillusionment charm over himself, extends his wand behind him to flick away spells that come too close for comfort.

He hits the beach at a sprint, springing over irregularities in the sand. He accidentally kicks a poor dear in the face with one of his flying boots, knocking her cold.

He reaches the showers thirty seconds later, takes a woman hostage for a moment to shower and wipe the sweat and exertion from his body.

The aurors attempt to circle the shower, but he turns his hostage into a flying, flaming canon ball that heads for the bigger body that stands directly ahead of him.

He takes advantage of the gap and hits the parking lot, leaping over the hood of an on-coming car. By now, the charm has faded and some wet-behind-the-ears auror tries to perform the same manoeuvre, slips, gets run over by that same car.

He hits the road, speeding past little shops that cluster the sidewalks. He snatches a Frisbee from a vender, transfigures it into steel and sends it spinning through the air behind him.

Someone is decapitated and the head falls at the dumb-struck vender's feet.

But Harry's left the scene.

He disappears down a side alley two hundred feet ahead drags a dumpster toward a wall and leap-frogs the high gap, landing on the other side, knees bent.

He's in a shittier part of town and he can smell it fast. Food blazes on spitting grids, burnt and flicking fat in all directions. A small division of Aurors manage to keep up and are joined a moment later by ten more. He figures he's got about fifteen on his arse now.

He turns, uses his wand to hurl one of them into the flames. The poor bastard smells much better than the shit they are frying on their nice little grills. Reminds him of the smell of Narcisa as he fucked her while she burned.


Harry hits the inner workings of the food community, a restaurant cluttered with slutty waitresses who'd shag you for a few quid.

Tables; occupants.

The tables go ape, flip-ricocheting through the air, rebounding off heads and torsos and breaking fragile bone and cartilage. The occupants are used to batter-ram the kitchen door open, make quick work of the chefs and the kitchen door.

He's out, thirteen after him, hitting the wall at a dead sprint, his boots clearing the top of the wall. Sprains his ankle from a bad crash-landing.

It’s now catching me if you can and shield, no time to fight Harry with stupid spells that he deflects anyway.

He lands in an alley that appears to be a dead end to a block of shitty, squat houses that hauled straight arse out of the third world. He heads straight... through a kitchen window. He heels off the plate off a stove, swings on an open kitchen cupboard, spring-boards off the kitchen table and damn near breaks his leg on a chair.

The aurors surround the house and he stops, swinging in mid-air, knees bent, hanging from a string that when tugged, turns the light on. Each time he swings back and forth, the string jumps in his hand and the light flickers on, off, on, off.

"Damnit, Janice!" a man shrieks from somewhere in the house. Just because you're pregnant, doesn't mean you have to rip the whole fucking house apart!"

"I didn't do anything!"

A woman the size of uncle Vernon's old car walks out of the bathroom, skirt bunched around her ankles. "What the-" "I'm gonna kill you, you motherfu-"

His eyes widen. He kicks off the wall, allows the string to trapeze him through the door way and into the living room where his feet hit the arm rest and he slips.

He falls, hitting his head on the corner of the wall-unit by his head.

He blinks away the stars, hears Janice come into the living room. He turns and looks at her.

She looks like the product of giant incest and he wouldn't be surprised if she was.

He walks backward, till he feels the cool glass of the window against his back, then raises his hands. "Bring it, bitch!"

She brings it, lunging for him, fists raised. At the last moment, he steps aside, letting her plough through her living room window. She lands amidst a torrent of glass and scrabbles to her feet amongst a pile of four aurors who had cushioned her fall.

She turns to face Harry, shouts through the shattered window, "bring it, old man!"

Harry turns his back on her, sits down on the couch. He waits. She barges through the front door, not wanting to injure herself more. At that moment, Harry flies through the window and takes off again.

He hears her and the aurors lumbering after him. He rounds a bend and enters a larger body of more upper-class houses. Keeps on going.

He was beginning to get tired, though.

Idly, he thinks of summoning her foetus - the one that the boyfriend talked about - to halt her in her tracks. He dismisses it immediately. One beast lumbering after him was enough. He didn't want to have a cock-fight with the offspring, too.

He begins to slow. He can't continue like this. She plucks a post box off someone's wall and hurls it at him with a deep-throated battle cry. He dodges, and dodges the second. The third clips him on the ear.

Pain, his ear begins to ring and he knows his race is run. Nobody has ever managed to throw post-boxes at him, ever! No one!

He turns and raises his hands above his head. "Please," he mutters feebly.

XXXXX

This bit's not part of the story and is stupid but I couldn't resist.

XXX

Three weeks later.

"Madam, you are to be awarded the order of Merlin, first class, for stopping the most notorious wizard who has ever lived."

Janice will shrug, say, "meh, screw the award, I just kicked his arse because, back in his day, he didn't stop my dad Graup from impregnating my other dad, Hagrid. Him and his friend, Herm- whatever, just giggled and were betting on who'd win the wrestling match..."

The wizard delivering the speech will look up in alarm and will raise an eyebrow. He'll say, "err... that's not possible?"

She'll cackle madly and say, "eh, with the wizarding world, all kinds of things are possible; even mpreg..."

-----

Couldn't resist.

 

Can you change font to default? It is unreadable on default theme.

 

I... managed to read through that, but what did I just read?

"Harry? What are you doing with a razorblade, a Weasley sweater, and a candle?" the voice of one Hermione Granger, the resident bookworm and second best-friend he possessed, was faint with what sounded to be equal parts amusement and actual concern.

"Honestly, Hermione, this is hardly the worst situation you've found me in," Harry Potter countered smoothly without actually answering her.

He turned his gaze back to the aforementioned objects, one held in his hands, one resting on his lap, and the last sitting on a copper platform to catch its drippings. He ran the razorblade down a sleeve of the sweater and carefully, with the utmost attention to his work, sliced away another thin fiber. When he was near the end he stopped just short of actually severing it entirely, but the connection was of only the thinnest millimeters.

It looked like he had a mop in his lap rather than the bulky cloth it had begun as. With methodical precision he began again, ignoring her curious stare.

"Er, Harry... are you alright? Has the stress been getting to you?"

He shrugged idly in response just before he started on the next thread. It was very important that he not cut them off until the right moment, and he glanced to the candle to be sure it was still burning at the right temperature - a mild clover green flickered back and forth, neither too eye-searingly lime as it had begun as half an hour ago, nor pond-scum dark as it would when starting to falter.

Hermione frowned at him and took another careful observation of the Gryffindor boys 4th year dorm-room. Aside from a few rumpled bedsheets and dividers here and there, the room was otherwise pristine, which would have impressed her had she not known something was amiss, especially at noon on a Sunday.

And, sure enough, Harry fidgeted and leaned forward as he worked, and she just caught a glimpse of a page peeking out from beneath his heavy-cloak.

"What book is that, Harry?" She asked him more seriously.

"What book? I'm just slicing some of the deeper layers off of Mrs. Weasley's last sweater, Hermione. It's a bit larger than I need these days."

One eyebrow arched imperiously as she drew her wand and, before he could do much more than try to adjust his posture, intoned loudly, "Accio!"

He toppled over backward as the hidden book was drawn to her waiting hand, but in an instant he was scrambling upright and lurching forward to try and snatch it back, mindful enough to avoid dumping the frayed sweater across the flames. His outstretched hand just managed to graze the spine before it had landed in her own grip, and she hopped backwards out of his reach entirely.

"'Hoodoo Hex's, a southern guide to cursing minor and major'," she read aloud, staring down at the black leather binding and the title embossed in faint red lettering. Flicking open the book to the marker he had placed, she read through the instruction list with growing alarm.

"'Bind the ties between target and focus. Cautious skinning is best accomplished with a used razor edge, preferably of the target. Be aware of the time of your slices and keep them tenacious as may be made, the closer the scalping desired. When sufficiently prepared, swirl the tether together atop the wicked flame and allow to slowly simmer down to the roots; when well handled the itch with blaze to life immediately and last across the entire day.'" Hermione uttered the last piece faintly, as if unable to believe what she was reading.

Her widened eyes turned up just before she caught the smell of burning fabric. The razorblade had been set aside and the tangled mop of threads lifted upright by Harry's wand, and even as she watched the tips came alight in rapid succession; the first few alight spread to their neighbors in under three seconds, so that the whole was lit up like a hundred muted motes.

Down in the common room, a violent shriek of agony erupted at the very instant the last thread caught flame. Hermione flinched and dropped the vile book to the floor, turning a sick look upon her - now potentially former - best friend.

Harry was smiling a satisfied smirk as the voice of Ronald Weasley echoed off the walls in increasingly loud wails. "H-Harry..." unable to complete the sentence, the accusation, she turned on her feet and rushed down to the common room.

Gradually rising to his own feet, Harry snatched up the dark book Sirius had recommended and tucked it away in the bottom of his trunk, alongside the specially-charmed candle and sweater.

Even if Hermione did report him to the Headmaster, the rules of the Tournament granted competitors virtual immunity to outside interference; it wasn't likely any of them they would survive long enough to be tried.

===

About 800 words and an hour and half, with what I wrote one day back in March already factored in. Crikey this one was a problem to get anything out for, but at least its off my metaphorical back.

New challenge, please?

 

Length: 1000 words+

Time: an hour or two, more if you're inspired.

Prompt: He knew the Veritaserum wouldn't last much longer. He said, "Tell me Bellatrix; why do you have no children?"

 

“Tomorrow you'll get me a lot of money love, but tonight, we ride in style.”


Been seriously stuck for nearly a week with a long Room of Requirement short story I've been writing, so I went hunting for some old unfinished thing I could take a crack at. Found this in a little doc with a paragraph written. And it all spiraled from there. I haven't gone back and edited, I can't, so there are likely to be some grammatical errors, if not more.



This may just be the most fucked up thing I have ever written.



***


She was a quiet presence in the corner of the room.



He ordered another round of firewhisky, and watched the bottles rise and pour their gleaming liquids into a glass. It still astounded him sometimes, when he thought about it. The small glass came to rest between his splayed fingers.



There were people all around him, but they were irrelevant. All but her.
She was a strange thing, all quiet and demure in her public dealings, but he knew what lurked within. This was a bounty they wouldn’t even have had to pay him for, though of course they would and he’d gladly accept. Still, seeing her undone would be recompense enough.



She sat in a slightly darkened corner, and the shadows left by charms that effaced the light, effaced her. He knew though, she had brown hair coiffed in a popular muggle style that fell to slightly below the hard lines of her jaw. Her skin was pale and contrasted sharply with the black of her eyes. Her mouth was wide, and when she smiled, which she didn’t often do, since it made her look demonic.



Which she kind of was, wasn’t she?



The bar was loud, as usual, but that didn’t really bother him anymore. He’d long learned to separate his streams of thought, so while one heard and slowly catalogued the noises issuing from the ugly mass of wizards and witches congregating here like flies on carcass, the other was firmly focused upon the magic he’d cast upon her table.



She was a monstrous thing and in the two weeks that he’d been following her, he’d been privy to what she could and would do. The first had been a muggle, a young kid, maybe still in school. She’d disguised herself, of course, and since he hadn’t yet had his full regalia of magical spies upon her, she’d escaped him. He’d run around looking for her for nearly an hour, stumbling around bars before he’d stumbled onto an unintrusive magical signature and gone to investigate.



And there they were. It was a single bed the kid was lying upon, and above him she towered. He didn’t know whether she’d removed her glamours for he could only see the curve of her back leading down to the swell of her hips. There was a silencing charm that he couldn’t risk breaking it in fear of alerting her to his presence. So he just stood, and watched.



She bent down slowly, her wand disappearing between their bodies, and her long hair pooling by the kid’s face. For a moment he thought she was speaking to him, but then the kid began trashing. His arms were tied around the shoulders with straps and they were frantic, twisting and trying to slam into her back, but they hadn’t the mobility.



While he stood and watched. Later, he wondered why he hadn’t intervened – it was, after all, the perfect time to capture her. But he hadn’t. And then she’d come up, and stretched her neck, and he’d seen a long strip of the kid clutched within her teeth, falling to below her chin.



He watched.



She didn’t go for anything vital. Skin, bits of muscles from his arms, and twisting him to gouge into a plump buttock. The way he saw it, she was gentle mostly, giving the kid some pain-numbing charms, but not enough since he still trashed and shook.



When he’d taken the case, he’d thought it was all perversely sexual, and kind of feminist. Dwight, the old peddler than ran a bar in Knockturn had told him about her fondness for eating male genitalia.



“Man-eater,” the old man had laughed.



Somebody had fucked her up as a kid, and now she went around eating people. It wasn’t the worst story he’d heard.



The alleyway was silent. He’d erected enough wards that he knew he wouldn’t be disturbed, but as the polyjuice ran out and he began to shift, bones creaking and straining as they turned back into his smaller, shorter frame, he realized he’d forgotten to silence it from the inside.



Thankfully, she didn’t notice. Her jaw was red, with drops of blood scattered across her breasts like freckles. She went down for another bite, taking her time with the neck. He’d always thought eating was a messy affair, but this wasn’t that. People ate their dead things safe in their comforts. She hadn’t. She’d hunted. And now she devoured.



She was thinner than she should have been, given her diet. He could almost see her bones strain against the skin of her back as she rose onto the bed, lapping at a small cavity she had made, and then, standing on the other side and cleaning her fingers.



It seemed that she was done.



She ran her wand over herself, cleaning the bits of the boy that hadn’t found their way into her mouth. She padded to the chair at the other end of the room, rolling her shoulders and tying up her hair into that muggle style. It took her a moment to return, and when she did, she was clothed.
He was breathing as if he’d been punched in the chest, his face almost against the glass. She put her wand to the boy’s head, and he didn’t even flinch at the contact. The kid was turned away from Harry so he couldn’t see the face, but he could see the pale shadow of his own reflected back at him in the mirror as her wand lit blue and the kid’s wounds began to heal. She ended with an Obliviate.


The room was clean again by the time the kid woke. He was gorgy for a bit, rubbing his eyes, but stiffened as he realized where he was. Harry saw them talk for a moment, then stumbled back as the kid took her hands, beaming at her, and she began to walk him out of the room. And that was when his stomach finally protested.



He’d visited Hermione after that.



The stupid Weasley clock had apparently tattled because she’d had a meal prepared for him before he entered through the door. The room was sparsely furnished, mostly red with pale golden trimmings, and from the round table by the kitchen the heavy scents made him realize how absolutely hollow his stomach felt. She sat down a moment after he did, wrapping some vegetables in bread as she’d taken to doing. He felt absurdly glad that she didn’t say a thing.



But she did, as he took another helping of the pudding to soothe his tongue. Her food has gotten far too spicy in recent months.



“It’s the middle of the day, Harry.”



He paused at that. That’s was not quite what she usually said after his hand pointed towards near death. He looked at her, observing the negligent drape of her robe over her shoulders and how it slightly parted, revealing an off-white camisole. She kept pushing her hair behind her ears, her face tilted as she ate, like She had done.



“You okay?”



She took another bite, chewing down hard on the bread, and shook her head. “It’s… nothing. Just… don’t appreciate you coming here after your sexual exploits, Harry. It feels…” she shrugged her shoulders.



He blinked at her, food forgotten. “What?”



She gestured with her head towards the clock. Ron had replicated most of the old states, but added a few of his own. “Updating the family magic, y’know. Gotto keep current,” the fool had grinned at him, conveniently forgetting about it when he got it on with a teammate before coming home to a volcanic Hermione.



“You hand,” she said around another bite, “was pointing at that stupid ‘In media res amor.’”



Her words seemed to echo.



His chair crashed against the floor. He saw snippets of the room, her wide eyes, the heaviness of the door as he pushed against it like a man desperate to be free. The heat bit at his neck, accusing and he disapparated. The next few hours were a blur. Drinks came and went in. He stumbled around and up to the rooms, Dwight serving him with deferential, “Yes, Mr. Potter, anything you want”, and he wanted to shout it out, his secret little bounty hunter identity, but he had other needs to fill. The women kissed against him, their eyes lighting up at his scar, their fingers moving into his pants, thumbing a part of him that refused to get hard at their bright eyes, soft skin, and the delicious pointed curves of their chests.



He kicked them out when the headache refused to subside. The day crawled into night and then out again.



He needed answers.



It was easy to bug her. She was smart, but apparently had missed some basic techniques in how to throw off pursuers. Every time he followed her apparition trail, he half expected to be directed to some far-off wasteland where an ambush lay in wait. He didn’t vet the signatures, forgoing all his usual safety precautions and followed her.



It took him a day to pierce through her glamours.



She was a day nurse at St. Mungo’s and worked there six days a week. The seventh day, and the only holiday, randomly assigned to her, came four days after the last one.



This time she went for a smaller town.



She apparated into a room with another alleyway. It looked clean from the outside, with a long narrow bed, a chair, and not much else. Like the last one… She strode out of the door.



This time it was a girl. Older, with pink rangy hair. She strapped her onto the bed again, leaving the arms with limited freedom to strike against her. She was using her wand more this time, a holster strapped to her forearms. She woke the girl up with a kiss to the forehead, and then slowly, like a surgeon going in for the cut, pulled her wand over the girl’s blouse, wrenching the buttons out and revealing even more of the pale brown skin.



The girl stiffened, and then shook, her fingers somehow clawing over her face, leaving little streaks of red. She pulled back, scowling.



Still shaking her head, she went in for the first bite.



No numbing ch-…


The girl’s back arched into a half-moon. She moved down to the legs, keeping them restrained with magic. He could see the blood making patterns on the floor, little stories of its own.



It took an hour, and he was hard for most of it.



He left as she began the healing, and dove back into the bar, guise up and drank deep as Dwight rambled about how impotent Potter had visited.


The next day he went back to watching her.



He visited her on the ninth day. She ushered him into her room at St. Mungo’s and had wide eyes and a slightly breathless tone as so many women did, as she asked him about where he’d sustained his injuries.



“Here and there,” he smiled. “Work’s been interesting.”



“Oh,” her wand ran down his fingers, slowly moving towards the insides of his arms. She blurted, before blushing, “But you quit the aurors, didn’t you?”



He let her squirm for a moment. The white robes hid most of her from view; the rest was done by this sweet voice. It had been years since he’d gone for a woman that seemed this sweet. And of course, that was all she did: seem.



“That’s given me,” he replied finally, “enough time to take you out on a date.”



It took her another three days to go out for the third time. And there was another similar room, another obliviated kid. How long had she been doing this? How many had she done this to? It was hard to fathom, impossible to count. Every muggle kid could have been half-eaten by people like her, and nobody would be any the wiser. It almost made him stumble as he thrust himself out of the bar on the fourteenth day since he’d seen her, and conjured a coat and cleaned himself.



It was their fourth date, even though she hadn’t been aware of any of their previous ones. She’s a nice one, He’d told Hermione when she’d rushed at him with her wand raised. You’d like her.



He should turn her over.



But he waited by her door.



She was lovely in red, and though he noticed the dip of her shoulders, her skin was still too dark and her face still seemed to be covered in a mask. He wanted her to drop the act and the glamours and return to her nightly self. But she smiled, so he did too, instead.



It was easy enough to overpower her apparition. They appeared in the first room, back where it had all begun with her stunned. The bed was cold.



That was another lapse, he realized. He had never examined these scenes for clues after she had been done. It didn’t matter. He tied her down, but she was significantly more dangerous than her muggle victims. Her wand found his way into his clothes, neatly folded on the chair.



He was hard, already. It was slightly embarrassing.



The bed was a sparse one, no padding and with just a simple wooden frame. The room was colder than he’d expected, and quiet too.



She woke as he was removing her dress, with panic-stricken eyes and a franticly shaking head. “No, No…,” she mumbled, “How can you do this.” And then she screamed, “Help!”



It was silly, he thought. She surely should have figured it out by now: it was, after all, the same room, the very same everything. She had trapped his manhood in her rituals, made it slave to her perverse little passions and now that he was replicating it all, she completely refused to recognize it.


What was she trying? Did she want him to do it exactly like she did? He couldn’t do that. He had watched it done – but that was far removed from doing it.



“Don’t play.” His voice was gruff, heavy with arousal that hit him with an intensity it hadn’t in weeks, months. “I know it’s you.”



She tried to play the calm, condescending victim. “What’s me?” she asked, taking deep breaths in between sentences. “Mr. Potter, Harry… I don’t…”



She spoke and she spoke and he realized that that was exactly what she wanted, him to replicate before she would grant him relief. So she knew what he was going to do, and was prepared for it. She’s probably taken enough numbing potions to put down a quidditch them, he thought, and laughed at the image of Ron falling unconscious from his broom into a maw gapping wide on the pitch.



She was quiet. She knows it’s time. He approached her from the side, wand at the ready in case she had any ticks at this final moment. Her skin glimmered in the diffused light of the room, wiping the shadows off her belly button. He would do it, he thought. After weeks of being… impotent without her, he would do it, Obliviate her, and getting this thing over with. Over with it all – the bounty hunting, the drugs, the foolish stints in a public bar as Harry Potter. All done. And nobody would even know.


“Tomorrow you'll get me a lot of money love, but tonight, we ride in style.”



He bit down onto the belly button, biting down deep and wrenching it out. It didn’t taste like a button, which felt strangely weird. He spat it out, and turned towards her reclined, shaking screaming form. “Enough? Ready to admit?” But she wasn’t even close to coherent.



He went deeper, the blood soaking into his tongue and running down his throat. He spit it out again, coughing, his eyes watering.



“Fuck, fuck…” he screamed, “fuck, fuck, fuck!”



Two weeks, of nothing but the paleness of her skin and the redness of her jaw and the glinting rubies on her breast. Why wouldn’t she stop this? She had to know by now, he knew. She may always have – she had been too careless, and didn’t happen with a bounty that had gone uncollected for two years. She must have known he had been watching. What was she waiting for?



I haven't swallowed.


He walked back to her. She was shivering, whimpering softly, or was that the blood that was roaring through his ears, muting her, rushing into and out of him like a river. His third and final bite was gentle in comparison, almost loving, like how one would kiss a beloved, nipping the lobes of their ears, just deeper. The flesh seemed to wiggle as it went down his throat.
She continued to scream.



He stared at her, waiting for the curtain to drop. The claps surprised him.

“Not even a numbing charm, how atavistic of you Harry.” She stepped out from within the shadows, pale skin and bright eyes. “His polyjuice will be wearing off soon,” she said. “The poor imperio-ed little boy.”

----------

Was trying to read Crossed, but it just seemed silly and excessive. There's so much shit there, it just numbs you and fades into the background. To actually be horrifying, it's gotto to be localized, and, ergo, She was born.

Also maneater. It's a stupid term, but quite close to what I'm feeling these days.

So, despite the fact I'm never going to try and look at this again, it is actually quite cathartic. I pushed it out in one, long-ass sitting, which has never really happened with me, either. So, hope you guys -- liked is not the right word -- were affected by it too.

 

For people wanting to write more humorous challenge.

Length: 1000-2000 words
Situation: Tonks is on her guard duty protecting Dursley's household. She gets bored and decides to visit Harry in his room. She catches him masturbating. Hilarity ensues.

 

Anyone want to send a prompt my way? (No comedy/crack please).

---------- Post automerged at 01:44 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:11 AM ----------

So apparently I have to prompt myself...

Harry in South America.

Harry gets drunk for the first time.

The Dementors disturb a memory best left forgotten.

Crossover: Harry/Sansa

Harry spends a "normal" day with Luna.

Harry/Fleur affair.

Edit: Or there's always silentclock's. Anyone else?

 

Prompt: "You did your best, Harry." Dumbledore coughed, crimson blood dribbling from his mouth to his beard. "More than we had any right to ask."

Behind him, Hogwarts burned.

 

Silentclock's it is.

Going to take something of a liberal interpretation.

 

Someone throw me a prompt, something serious, and preferably something with an action bent (and anything Dumbledore will be a huge plus). I have a away soccer game tomorrow and I can do it on the bus.