#That leprechaun father is worst than his son

[cyarsk52-20]

She slandered a black woman for that monster for $3k. That’s not even enough for surgery to unbig that back. like you ruined your entire life and bag over some abuser ding a ling and 3K? I could never be like that.

That girl TOLD YALL if you was sick of her to stay on bed rest cause she finna fuck up the rest of your year and now look

I’ll never be so strung on someone so problematic that I’ll lose my money, my pride and the respect of others, I tell you that. I maybe 26 in a couple of weeks but I’m not that dumb

[phoebehalliwell]

how would you rank the seasons from least to most favourite?

alright okay right off the bat worst season season 7. for starters i think this season has no staying power i mean like since i’ve been running this blog 4 so long now my knowledge of charmed is encyclopedic and insanely vast more than like it ever need be but for the longest time. i could not remember season 7. like wtf even happened there?? evidently leo became human??? cole returned? the avatars??? like all of it was just. it’s not even necessarily forgettable it’s just i straight up could not remember it for the longest time. and i’ve said it before the concept of utopia was way to advanced for a show like charmed to tackle i am not watching charmed for moral philosophy i am watching bc i love these girls ♥ hee hee hoo hoo magic adventure ✨ tho if i am to offer a single comment on utopia: it’s awfully rich for a show to go on about destiny and fate and then take a stand against utopia in the name of free will. but w/e. i don’t like leo in the avatars i don’t like his dynamic with piper in this season i don’t like whatever phoebe’s doing this season there’s like leslie?? maybe there’s someone else? boring & flavorless they should have been setting up her endgame instead of puttering around. and kyle. zoo wee mama. could have been a great antihero. morally gray. duplicitous. self serving. but no. they gave him all those traits and called him hero/love interest. s7 left a lot to be desired out of the characters and their relationships also gave us phat L’s such as the charmed ones are werewolves don’t worry about it and feminism peaked with naked women. shout out to zankou: demon, dilf, dub & the noir episode.

you know what? fuck it i’ll say it second worse season 5 genuinely fuck season five. this is probably a Very Specific beef 2 me But. i hate what they did to the charmed universe. this was the season that marked the transition of charmed from supernatural drama to campy soap which like. i love camp! i do! but fr. fuck this season and what it did to the worldbuilding. the early season have Such A Vibe to them man with warlocks and witches and just a couple niche monsters from assorted lore that the show took and made their own. season five opens with mermaids goes directly into fairytales then gives us superheros whatever the fuck was going on in that mummy episode the sandman leprechauns and nymphs. and i hate it for that. it takes away from this urban fantasy things that go bump in the night what lurks in the shadows of the back alleys of san francisco in favor of the ugliest cinderella dress ever put to television and an onslaught of horrible irish accents for a full episode. other issues with season five: cole’s still here? why? they don’t know and neither will you! we’re not redeeming him! phoebe’s not getting back together with him! yes he died we just refuse to let him go! the cherry on top of course being a cole-centric 100th episode. shout out to. hmm. lemme think about what i actually liked about this season. i like jason dean as a love interest i don’t remember what he did in s5 but i know he was there. the season finale i’ve talked about how stupid & shitty it was but idc i still love that episode and then shout out to bacarra the only original villain this season that was a proper serve. the crone gets second place.

next on this come on we all saw it coming season 8. it’s a bad season! and i get bts there was a whole lot happening budget cuts missing actor etc. but it goes beyond that. it was a bad season. billie and christie were bad. and i’ve said this before but billie in herself is not an inherently bad character. she was just the literal worst for the show. she was a dollar store buffy blonde confident cocky skilled and ready 2 fight evil But. we are not following her like we followed buffy we are following her mentors. it’s like if we had a show called giles that aired for seven seasons And Then buffy showed up. billie was insanely irritating to watch from our perspective and in general wasn’t like. well written. attempts to humanize her / give her more depth often fell flat. and then christy. oh nelly. oh my god. barely a character. not well acted but hey it would have been a miracle if she was. negatives include dumain who was a mess omg bringing back the triad bringing back the source billie & christy obvi and also involving homeland security. which is season 7′s fault which is why it’s the worst. dubs on the other hand include both coop and henry i really liked them the shoehorned love interests weren’t great but i like their characters i though the way the got rid of leo to save on the budget was really creative and gave us a great piper episode and of course the sugary sweet finale i love it i do what can i say.

yet another controversial choice aptly coming in fourth is season 4. i respect what season 4 set out to do. i think it was a good idea. long form narratives, keeping a darker tone, focusing on character-driven drama and growth. too bad it fucking failed miserably at all of this. cole as the source and phoebe as the queen of hell was just so so botched. they had a very unique opportunity following the death of prue to explore these characters and what it means to them to be charmed, to be witches. they saved the world but the cost is insanely high. they’ve lost an older sister. they’ve gained a new sister. how do you even begin to cope with all this? episodes such as hell hath no fury and brain drain fuck so hard because they work with exactly that. had the whole season been like those episode season four would sit at number one with flying colors absolutely no competition. but alas. we can’t have nice things. the show got so bogged down with phoebe & cole, in a way that was just so, so messy. for starters, whether you loved cole or hated him before, we can all agree source!cole sucked. he was such a strong 180 from what we had seen that the show had to make the source some type of possession to justify half the shit they were trying to pull. and then to pit phoebe and paige against one another over a man was just. disgusting. and the ending of course felt rushed because it was! they wrapped up that entire issue in a nice little bow much faster than they reasonably should have been able to. it could have been a great season. it was definitely not. shout out to the seer an iconic mastermind on barbas levels, as previously stated brain drain and hell hath no fury Specific shout out to piper’s scene at prue’s grave shout out to paige as a character i like what they did with her and um. yeah that’s it.

okay we’re exiting the shit tier in favorite of the good tier welcome to the upper half. kicking us off is season 6. season 6 did what season 4 could not in that it gave us a long form plot that still left plenty of room for like. normal demon of the week episodes. i love phoebe early in this season with her faboo haircut her brand new empathy power and her relationship with jason dean. obvious strikes against for whatever the fuck that baby crazy stint was and also the mata hari episode. yikes. i love paige’s hair color in this season nothing paige as a character necessarily stands out to me however i like how they seem to have hit the blend of work-magic with paige where she wants a life and career outside of magic however she still loves the craft and embraces is with an open heart and mind. season six also gives us chris who was a very fun male lead imo we really didn’t have many like him he’s bitchy. he whines and bitches a lot he’s got an agenda he’s a bit secretive but at the end of the day he just wants a family i like him. i like the character growth we see out of piper i like seeing her try to move on from leo i love seeing her get back together with leo i like her dynamic with chris and her fears about motherhood. i also liked richard but that one takes a lot of justification. L’s are witchstock hyde school reunion used karma off the top of my head also the paige/richard/addiction plotline was so tone deaf. also the girls were mean to darryl : ( he deserved so much better. dubs were chris as a character, tbh the episode little monsters, phoebe with empathy specifically saying i love you too to jason i could write a dissertation on that line alone also the courtship of wyatt’s father and i thought the reveals of evil wyatt and chris being piper and leo’s son were both fun and interesting plot twists.

coming in third is actually season 2 a season i really do love it’s just. it lacks structure. imo there is a lot to love about season 2 morality bites and pardon my past are both delightful time travel episodes we get jack sheridan and bane jessup two of my personal favorite prue love interests we get p3 h2o and a great prue plotline regarding the death of patty we get the super cute cupid episode it’s a great. collection of episodes. it’s not a great season. there’s just imo not a strong enough thread connecting the stories together it’s mainly held together by having the same characters in it over and over again i really liked dan personally but like. i knew we were wasting time there. he was just an obstacle. a super cute loving and caring obstacle who’s great with kids but lbr piper and leo were always endgame. wasting our time on dan was stupid. i do love the sister dynamics in season two “gotta hand it to those pesky little demons they sure have brought us closer together” but again. this season could have benefitted from a rex and hannah type or even like a cole or zankou. this season is less of a season and more of just like a handful of episodes, and while there are some fat dubs, there are also some definite swings & misses. shout out to the time travel episodes the prue centric episodes phoebe’s character growth and maturity throughout this season (e.g. her going back to college) and i also think the fashion got a lot more fun this season.

second place i’m saying season one season one was a really strong start and gave us these really compelling characters with interesting relationships between one another But. a lot of it just kinda falls flat. and credit where credit is due it was a brand new show getting its feet under it but the fourth sister feats of clay which prue is it anyway they just simply aren’t dubs imo. also i don’t like that 70′s episode bc again i am an asshole concerned about The Lore i can’t believe one bitch ass warlock caused the Charmed Ones to grow up without powers. it just really bugs me. all in all the plots as a whole like aren’t great imo they’re nothing to write home about (save for from fear to eternity) it’s really the characters that make this season so goddamn good.

first place congratulations to the one the only season three. this is just because it kinda hits all my requirements in that it has some banger one offs (e.g. all halliwell’s eve, the good, the bad, and the cursed) it has an overarching plot at the exact same time as the source becomes more prominent and obvi cole is also there with murderous intent i like the character growth we see especially from prue i like piper and leo finally get married overall i really like the aesthetic of this season that blends a darker urban fantasy tone with still some charmed fashion and whimsy. strikes against tbh phoebe and cole’s relationship i am insanely picky with my enemies to lovers and the do not come remotely close to cutting the mustard in fact they are almost immediately disqualified however from afar i can see and respect The Drama. shout out to recasting victor prue with pistols death as a character and shannen directing episodes

[halothenthehorns]

THE DARK MARK

"Here you go Padfoot," James finally handed over his prize, the widest most stupid smirk still happily planted on his face.

Sirius eyed it, before stretching leisurely and saying, "nah, I'm good, I think I like being skipped. It's technically Harry's turn, have at it pup."

Harry didn't argue the point as he flipped to his chapter, ignoring that stupid little bubble that was trying to burst his good mood and inform him that nothing would be pleasant for much longer now that the Cup had ended.

Mr. Weasley was cautioning the twins not to go telling their mother they'd been gambling as they headed back to the stairwell.

"Oh that's nice," Lily muttered, "encourage them to lie to their mother."

"It's not lying," Remus said at once.

Even not having heard what Lily had said, Sirius agreed with him at once, "it's just keeping information from those who don't need it, a rather kind endeavor really, you should be thanking us."

"I'm sure that was your motto at school," she snorted at him.

"No," James smirked, "it was 'I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.'"

Harry burst out laughing, even Lily couldn't stop a little smile as she shook her head at the lot of these boys.

      Fred promised that wouldn't be a problem, as they both had big plans for this gold and didn't want it being confiscated. Mr. Weasley hesitated for a moment, like he wanted to ask for details, but seemed to decide against it.

"I want to know," Sirius pouted, still happily bouncing in place in hopes they were going full throttle with that joke shop idea.

They were soon back in the crowds, heading back to the tents through the lantern path once again, leprechauns commonly cruising by above still happily laughing.

"That's going to be happening the rest of the night," James snickered.

They reached their tent and as no one was ready to settle down, they all got some cocoa ready, and were happily still arguing about the game.

"What kind of arguments were these?" Sirius demanded at once.

Harry opened his mouth to start saying the many spiraling conversations that had been going on, but Lily quickly elbowed her way in saying, "not now boys. How many times do I have to tell you, we are not spending hours just sitting around talking about Quidditch, I want to hear this."

"But, Quidditch," James turned pleading eyes on his wife.

"And the World Cup at that," Sirius nodded fervently.

Lily didn't budge though, so Harry turned back to his chapter.

It wasn't until Ginny fell asleep at the table did Arthur cut in it was time for them to get some sleep.

"Well that's not fair," Remus smiled lightly, "making all of them go to bed just because one fell asleep."

"They might have to get up early again," Lily offered.

As Hermione roused Ginny and they went to their own tent, they heard a small bang from the Irish side of the campsite, and Mr. Weasley happily said how he was pleased not to be on duty tonight, he didn't envy those who had the task of telling the Irish to settle down.

"I can only picture the bravest of souls taking up the challenge," James said solemnly.

"And the beautiful responses said Ministry employees will receive," Sirius cackled.

Harry lay in his bunk, watching the tent ceiling which occasionally still had a flash of color flying overhead. He was fantasizing about flying his own Firebolt when he got back to the Burrow, wanting to try out that Wronski Feint.

Lily groaned, placing her face in her hands and cursing his Quidditch father, broom giving godfather, and whatever else felt the need to encourage her son to continue with that insane sport.

Remus gave her a light pat on the shoulder in comfort, trying his hardest not to burst out laughing at the boys on the couch who were all laughing lightly at what they felt was an overreaction from her.

Harry was surprised Wood have never told him of this technique.

"Well it is rather advanced," Sirius nodded sagely. "I can understand if he hadn't even shown it to you yet."

"With the broom and experience you've got though," James hadn't thought it was possible for his mood to keep soaring, but speaking of this was doing so! "I wouldn't be surprised if you pulled it off first try."

"You are literally encouraging our son to ram himself into the ground as hard as he can until he pulls that off," Lily got out, her face still buried in her fingers.

"Ah, it won't cause any permanent damage," Remus snickered, "James seems mostly intact after his many attempts."

"Mostly?" James demanded with a challenging brow but, still snickering lightly, Harry decided to keep going himself now.

His daydream continued to morph, so that he was now performing that move in front of the stadium they'd just left, with Ludo Bagman calling out the name Potter to the cheering crowd.

"So now you actually want the attention?" Remus laughed.

"It's for Quidditch," Sirius said like it was obvious. "If Harry goes on to remember he joined the professionals, I wouldn't be surprised one little bit. That's the kind of fame I'd never be worried about him getting."

"You're all fired from giving him advice," Lily said stoutly, finally pulling her face out of her hands so they could see her rolling her eyes.

Harry wasn't sure if his mind's eye changed to actual dreams,

Harry was trying very hard now to force himself to relax. He'd gone to sleep after all, surely whatever was trying to creep up and ruin his mood wasn't going to happen...

but the next thing he heard was Arthur shouting at the lot of them to get up, this was an emergency!

The four who weren't reading felt terrible little twists inside of them, but at once tried to convince themselves they were being paranoid. They'd had an excellent run thus far, there was no way something to bad could be happening...

Harry sat upright and was lucky not to hit something harder than canvas above him as he muttered what was going on? He could still hear in the background some banging noises, but somehow they felt different, and he could hear people screaming now.

Lily began gnawing on her lip again at once, picturing all sorts of terrible things like a fire breaking out. In that kind of crowd it could cause a stampede and get someone hurt. Or worse the rival team and someone had started a riot, one drunk thing had gone too far, or...her mind kept offering up one worst thing after the other, and judging by the boy's faces, she wasn't the only one.

Harry slipped out of his bed and began trying to find a change of clothes, but at Arthur's insistence there was no time, he simply bolted out of the tent after Ron, and ran into a nightmare.

There were several camp fires still burning, now lighting his surroundings with ghostly shadows, and loud noises like gunshots coming closer.

"What on earth?" Remus muttered, his mind spinning to try and understand what Harry's half-awake mind couldn't process yet.

Harry couldn't answer, even if he wanted to. There was a hard knot of dread forming up inside of him, making it hard for him to concentrate on the words and keep going.

There seemed to be a large ring of people, all looking up and laughing at something, then there was another flash of light, and Harry could see that there was something hovering in the air above the crowd...people. Directly below them was a condensed group all wearing masks.

"Oh, oh no. Oh no, no, no, no," Lily was shaking her head so furiously to insist upon her brain she hadn't just heard the worst implication, that her hair was flying into her face and she didn't care.

"It doesn't necessarily mean," Sirius tried, but even his voice failed him and he couldn't keep it going.

"What, what's going on?" Harry demanded, as clearly they understood something.

"It, they-" James tried furiously to get the words out, but he'd switched from cloud nine to the worst form of agitated fear so quickly, he was having trouble processing anything.

"They're called Death Eater's,"* Remus was the first to get out, new worry lines appearing around his suddenly dark eyes. "They're what Voldemort calls his followers. Horrid people who do whatever their master commands-"

"Often while enjoying doing it," Sirius added on.

Harry was looking between all of them, now wishing more than anything they could just go back to talking of Quidditch. He'd sadly worked this out for himself, this wasn't the first time they'd mentioned Death Eaters, but only in passing. He'd long guessed for himself what they must be referring to, but now he was getting a firsthand account of their work, and he did not appreciate it.

When the silence dragged on though, Harry knew he may as well keep going, to get through this chapter and this terrible event and just hope nothing like it came up again. They may even be wrong after all, then again, how many groups of people wore masks and would be doing a thing like this?

High above them, floating along in midair, four struggling figures were being contorted into grotesque shapes.

Lily gasped, her hand coming up to cover her mouth to muffle a scream at who those people must be. Muggles, or Muggle-born, being put on display, and- she realized she was shaking then, but not in fear as Remus throwing her a concerned look suggested, but in rage. In her last few years at school it had been made more clear than ever that her parentage made her stand out, and while there were those who couldn't care less, there were those who only cared about that. Those second groups were most likely the current Death Eaters, in her own time and in Harry's. She'd stepped in many a time to stop terrible fights breaking out, now she was having to listen to her son witness such a thing happening!

The other boys looked just as outraged at hearing this, and Lily was almost sad to see Harry was as well, because she'd have rather seen him confused. She wanted to shield him from that terrible knowledge that people would act this way towards each other, but then she realized she was feeling all the more proud for the reaction she was seeing. If she couldn't protect him from this, at least she was warmed that he knew how terrible this was, how much worse her son could have turned out if he'd been under the influence of someone like the Malfoy's.

Harry did not want to keep going one little bit, but as always he knew he may as well get the experience over with and just hope they turned out okay.

It seemed the masked people below were holding their limbs in invisible magic, and two of the four were very small.

"They've, got, children, up, there," Remus said slowly and dangerously, his hands curling into such tight fists the tendons were showing.

Harry wanted more than anything just to deny that one thing, but the words failed in his throat as he turned morosely back to the book.

More wizards were joining the marching group, laughing and pointing up at the floating bodies.

"How is that funny?" James seethed. "I, just, you don't-" his temper kept tampering off his words, leaving him a spluttering mess, while his face slowly grew more and more red from outrage.

Tents were being smashed to pieces as the group grew closer, either blasted out of the way or being trampled by the ever growing cheering crowd. The ones that did remain standing were caught on fire, and the screaming kept growing louder.

While Sirius deeply regretted forcing Harry to read this, and was fighting back the impulse to wrench the book away from him to prevent it continuing, he recognized he may not have been able to get these words out himself as his throat kept vibrating with repulsion, forever unable to kick away the mental image of his little brother, and now someone he'd once called a brother, joining in on this group.

The people above were suddenly illuminated as they passed over a burning tent and Harry recognized one of them, Mr. Roberts.

There were many times in the past where Harry actually regretted understanding why he'd felt a missing memory and did not appreciate having it returned, and this was definitely one of them. His feelings went beyond just pity for poor Mr. Roberts and his family, who had done nothing to deserve this treatment, but a righteous fury was quickly coming in as well, making him want to draw his wand, his body acting without his conscious mind telling him to go and help those people, you had the experience. He forced himself to shake that off though, blinking until the words below him came back into focus, and recognized that however he felt now, he could only deal with the then.

The others were most likely his wife and two children, all were receiving the same vile treatment. Mrs. Roberts was suddenly hung upside down, unable to stop her dress falling with her, leaving her flashing the crowd below.

Harry wasn't entirely sure he'd gotten through all of that and been completely understood, but he was sure they all got the gist of it by the murderous looks on their faces somehow increasing.

Ron managed to spit out how sick that was as his eyes followed one of the children being spun on his head like a top.

"Please be asleep, please let that poor thing be asleep," Lily murmured to herself, her nails digging into her own palm she was wringing her hands so hard.

Hermione and Ginny came out of their tents then, and Mr. Weasley then instructed all of the underage kids to get into the forest, while Percy, Bill, and Charlie were already running towards the mass with their wands out.

Each of them felt torn in half at that news. Of course they wanted Harry to get out of there, but they wanted Mr. Weasley to stay with him incase things somehow got worse, which seemed impossible at this point but as they'd all thought that before and it still somehow happened they weren't putting it past anymore. Then the other side, which was grateful relief that Arthur and his boys would blow those bloody Death Eater's sky high for what they were doing and make sure Mr. Robert's family was fine.

Harry reluctantly turned away as Fred and George each took one of Ginny's hands, and Ron and his two friends quickly followed them into the path where most of the other bystanders were running. Harry took one last glance behind and saw several ministry people were trying to muscle their way through the crowd to get to the masked people,clearly not wanting to curse anyone in fear it would make the Roberts family fall.

"Understandable that, can't apparate to their side either without risking getting blasted to smithereens, have to be a group effort," Remus was muttering under his breath, tapping away an insane rhythm on his knee in pure agitation he couldn't be helping.

The lanterns from before had been put out, the people shoving into one another along the dark path was causing just as much mayhem inside the trees, children could still be heard crying and still more anxious people were screaming into the night.

James and Sirius remembered their earlier joke about how they'd wanted to start a riot between the two rival Quidditch teams, and how that had somehow been turned on its head into this catastrophe, and now they just wanted to hear that everyone made it out of this night alive!

Harry felt himself being pushed hither and thither by people whose faces he could not see. Then he heard Ron yell with pain.

Lily yelped so painfully, she sounded like she'd been sat on, but she couldn't even pretend to be okay when they all gave her anxious looks. She was picturing those Death Eater's catching up to her son, gagging and dragging him back to that decrepit Voldemort, or any other number of terrible things all because Ron had somehow gotten hurt!

Harry wanted to reassure her, he may feel dread for this night but he wanted to calm them all down that nothing too bad was going to happen to him, but that felt like he was dismissing what had happened to Mr. Robert's family, and he wasn't even sure if he was completely right, so he decided to keep going instead.

Hermione cried out for him, and when he didn't immediately respond she lit her wand to find Ron just a bit off the path lying in the dirt.

"He's going to get trampled like that," Sirius muttered, still jittering in a wholly different way than he had been in just the previous chapter.

He grumbled that he'd just tripped as he got back to his feet.

That was such a mundane thing compared to what they'd been afraid of, it almost caused them to laugh in surprise. Almost. They still felt wound up and wretched, but at least it was a breath of fresh air reminding that everything must turn out okay.

Someone began laughing at this misfortune, and Harry didn't have to look hard to find Draco Malfoy,

"Of course," James spat, his hazel eyes lighting furiously. "Why am I not surprised, it was probably his parents idea to do all of that!"

"Won't find anyone in here disagreeing," Harry muttered with such a vicious flip of the page he nearly tore it out.

leaning against a tree in the most casual of manners, clearly watching the show back on the campsite.

"Oh he's being real subtle," Remus sneered. "May as well go out and wave a sign around."

"Please have Hermione punch him again, please," Lily growled.

Ron told Malfoy to do something that Harry knew he would never have dared say in front of Mrs. Weasley.

"I don't know," Sirius rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, though his tone wasn't up to its normal teasing levels even in appreciation of that statement. "I think she might just turn a deaf ear in light of what's going on."

Malfoy hardly reacted, saying they'd better keep running before Hermione was seen.

Harry felt himself stiffen up in even further disgust, the thought of Hermione up there with Mr. Robert's family making him want to retch, but he drew on every last drop of confidence he could muster that wasn't going to happen to his sister.

At that moment the loudest bang of all went off, green light flooding their surroundings.

Lily shuddered in renewed horror, the color green taking on a whole new light with what could be going on back there.

Hermione snapped back she demanded to know what he was on about, and Malfoy just laughed that those people out there were after Muggles. So unless she wanted to show off her knickers next, which would be pretty funny.

"You can't spot a Muggle just by looking at them!" James ground out through gritted teeth.

"Though I wouldn't put it past Malfoy, either of them, to shout it out," Remus seethed.

Harry snarled back that Hermione was a witch! Malfoy's smirk just widened, saying that if they wanted to test how well someone could spot a Mudblood, they should stick around.

Harry felt an acrid taste burning his tongue as he said that for the first time in his life, now knowing how his father felt. Even when you didn't mean it, it would always feel wrong to say.

Ron shouted at him to watch his own language!

"Do the slug curse again," Sirius suggested viciously, "you've got a proper wand now!"

"That's being kind, but a nice start," Remus nodded.

Hermione didn't seem to care too much, as she grabbed the back of Ron's shirt and began pulling him away.

"Or just punch him," James smirked, "I'll take either."

There was another bang, getting closer every time, and even more people screaming. Malfoy just continued to laugh.

It did not surprise them this was his reaction, not after everything he'd said and done previously, it was just all the more loathsome to continually hear about it.

He mocked the people around him for scarring so easily, then demanded of Ron if his dad was one of the idiots trying to save those Muggles? Ron shot back that Malfoy's dad was probably one of those keeping the Muggles up in the air.

"So proud of you, that's exactly what I was going to say," James sighed.

Malfoy's smug expression didn't even twitch as he said if his dad was out there, he wouldn't be telling them.

"Just put a big ol' sign up to say he was right why don't you, it would be much subtler," Remus hissed.

Hermione was really trying to get the two boys to walk away now, saying they'd gotten too far away from Ron's siblings. Malfoy laughed as she convinced them to start leaving, mockingly tossing back to keep her head down.

"Can't believe Hermione actually did manage to pull you both out of the way after all of that," Lily sighed in honest disappointment. Harry couldn't be out there helping Arthur, but he could at least get his own payback on this pompous child.

"We really did want to get Hermione out of there after that though," Harry muttered darkly.

Ron was still muttering about how he was sure Lucius was one under those hoods.

"Am not taking that bet," Sirius agreed.

Hermione was trying to sooth that the Ministry would most likely catch them, while still looking around desperately for the other three, who'd vanished.

"Of course you got separated from them," James groaned, rubbing furiously at the ridge of his nose and nearly knocking his glasses off he was already so upset by this set up. Nothing good had ever came of these three getting separated!

They kept pushing through though, running into a few random people along the way. One girl caught sight of them and ran up, asking them something in pure French, only the name Madame Maxime coming through.

Harry successfully butchered that so well, it took Remus a moment to ask, "was that French?"

"Err, yes," Harry muttered with a slight blush.

Whether he'd done it on purpose or not, probably not, that actually managed to cause genuine smiles back on all of them for at least this small and funny little distraction.

When they responded back in English, the girl muttered an apology and walked back to her group, muttering something about 'Ogwarts. Hermione said Beauxbatons as they kept walking,

After the last chapter he'd heard about involving several of the foreign schools, Harry didn't need much to put together that must be the French equivalent of Hogwarts.

explaining for the boys that was the French Academy of Magic. She'd read about it in An Appraisal of Magical Education in Europe.

"Of course she did," Remus gave a soft snort of delight, remembering how both he and Harry had thought earlier that's how Hermione would come across that information.

Harry agreed with disinterest, while Ron lit his own wand and rose it above his head to look for his siblings. Harry went digging for his own to help, when he realized he couldn't find it.

"It what!" James squaked in alarm.

Harry was gaping down at the book like a fish out of water, patting his own pocket now and feeling comforted his wand was at least there now!

"You, you left it in the tent, or," Sirius began stammering, eyeing Harry like he'd instead said he'd left his glasses behind. Even that would have made more sense.

"I, no I don't think so, the last time I remember having it-" he struggled, his mind floundering because he never used it on his summer holiday, but he always kept it in his pocket, so it was an unconscious feeling. He hadn't used it his whole time while at the Burrow, but he'd brought it along to the Cup. He hadn't used it there either, but it had always been in his pocket. There was an alarm bell going off in the base of his skull, something painful telling him he should know quite well where it had gone, but that was missing like any other important thing he tried to remember!

His frustration was clearly growing on his face, so James quickly jumped in by placing a calming hand on his shoulder and soothing, "relax Harry, I know you find it, and I also know you didn't just leave it lying around." He struggled for a moment, trying to understand what could have happened to it, as a wizard's wand was akin to an extra finger, you were never without it. He couldn't fathom what could be going on, but still persisted, "so let's get to that part where everything gets better again."

Harry nodded without any enthusiasm, but at least appreciated they weren't all badgering him about losing it.

The only thing on him was his Omnioculars. Harry exclaimed in fear it wasn't there, and Ron and Hermione froze as they looked on the ground for it now. Harry kept patting himself down, but it was nowhere around.

"Be a little worried if it was just randomly lying around," Remus muttered, as wands weren't know for just randomly falling out of pockets. If it had been him who'd tripped over a root, that would have been one thing, but no, he was sure something else besides dropping it was going on, that Chamber must have taught Harry about throwing his wand any old place.

Ron suggested it had been left in the tent, while Hermione offered he may have dropped it while they'd been running.

They shifted uncomfortably, finding these fair enough answers, but still as unusual as it could get, and just as unlikely coming from those two as themselves.

Harry absently agreed, suddenly feeling naked. He never went anywhere without his wand, and now felt ten times more vulnerable.

"Glad you agree," Lily murmured, those horrible visions from before still twisting away behind her mind's eye, now more terrible than ever that her son couldn't magically defend himself.

There was a rustling noise to their left, and then Winky came stumbling out. She was moving odd, like she was trying to run forward but something was pulling her backwards.

Harry choked as he got that out, going incredibly wide eyed all over again, but whatever he felt for that description was gone in a flash and his mind was back to gnawing on what had happened to his wand, something that was causing him an equal amount of pain in his head, no need to add more. Then why was something trying to warn him these two things were connected...

She was muttering to herself about how bad wizards were around, people being lifted in the air, and how she wanted to get out of there! She managed to struggle into another clump of bushes and vanish again. Ron asked why she'd been acting like that, and Harry offered it was probably because she'd been doing something without permission.

Even as Harry said that...(again...this time travel thing made that annoying,) he could feel something wasn't right, this was the wrong answer, and still he couldn't grasp hold of it for any reason and instead forced himself to concentrate on the print, much less painful.

His mind was on Dobby, who often acted the same way when he disobeyed a Malfoy order. Hermione was frowning after the little thing indignantly as she said how bad house-elves had it.

Harry nearly sobbed in relief at finally something much lighter for his conclusions to settle on, though he did wonder what about Hermione speaking of house-elves would lead to. He greedily latched onto it though, as he'd nearly developed a second pulse behind his eyes he'd been thinking so much about things he should know better of by now.

Speaking of how that was slavery. Mr. Crouch had forced her to go up to the stadium even though she'd been terrified to do so,

"Did he even show up?" Lily muttered randomly, that never having been noted at all. It was quite rude of him to force his house-elf to go up there and never even bother to show. Surely nothing so important could be going on during the actual cup.

and now she couldn't even run when all the tents were being trampled.

"She's not bewitched," Sirius snorted. "She didn't get permission, and was probably told not to leave the tent for some reason. That's just part of how they are."

"So you're okay with Winky getting hurt, just because Crouch didn't release her from that command before he ran off?" Lily demanded of him in blistering tones.

Sirius threw his hands in defeat at once, saying, "hey, I'm just saying he didn't do it on purpose."

Lily still had her eyes narrowed at him, and while Harry would have been more than happy at this rate watching them bicker about this, he also noticed Remus quickly trying to wave him on before the argument could escalate as well, so he sighed and kept at it.

Demanding of nobody why hadn't this been stopped long before now. Ron just shrugged that the elves were happy the way they were, but Hermione turned on him at once that it was people like him who were too lazy-

"Lazy?" James raised a brow in surprise. "He's just saying it like it's always been for thousands of years. I really don't see what Hermione's so strung up about either."

Lily ground her teeth together, but shook her head in furious silence. She understood completely where Hermione was coming from, after watching poor Dobby for a whole year and now this, she was really regretting her own life that she hadn't looked into this more. All she'd ever known were the house-elves at Hogwarts, treated perfectly well and never a care, and she'd naively believed that all were treated the same. She now realized how ignorant that was, and quite agreed with where she was positive Hermione was heading, there should be a standard for their living as much as anybody's.

There was another bang from behind them cutting off the rest of her words, and Ron suggested they keep moving with a worried look at Hermione. Harry couldn't help but agree, maybe there had been some truth to what Malfoy had said and Hermione was in more danger than them.

Sadly, that really was true. Honestly all three made wonderful targets for any Death Eater. The son of a blood traitor, who readily stood by his father and family. The Muggleborn, though not obvious Malfoy at least could point out. And the Boy Who Lived, which went without saying, and wandless! All three of them really needed to keep their heads down.

They set off again, Harry still searching his pockets, even though he knew his wand wasn't there.

Sadly that pain popped right back into Harry's temple the moment he was reminded of that, somehow doubling since it had gone away in its persistence he should be remembering something.

They continued down the dark winding path still keeping an eye out for more Weasley's, but all they passed were some goblins laughing over a sack of gold,

In his current mindset, he didn't even notice the light flutter he felt that this detail may have been important later.

and then a large group of veela,

"Guess they're not worried about anything," Lily rolled her eyes.

surrounded by a gaggle of young wizards, all of whom were talking very loudly.

"Well that'll make you forget what's going on behind you," Sirius snorted with derision. Even he had to admit this was a terrible time to be flirting.

They were all shouting nonsense at the veela, one saying how he made a hundred Galleons a year!

"Congratulations," James rolled his eyes, "you should be richer than the richest by next month."

Another was yelling how he was a dragon killer!

"Not everyone appreciates that kind of boasting," Lily sniffed, finding that far more sad that this was a needed job then brave or whatever that numbskull was going for. She wasn't even the biggest fan of dragons and she wasn't fond of the idea of killing them.

A boy right beside him called him out on that lie, shouting that he was a dishwasher at the Leaky Cauldron, but then boasted his own that he was a vampire hunter!

"Right, and you happen to be friends with a dishwasher. Good of you to keep the company," Remus muttered.

One who stuck out to Harry who had pimples all over his face shouted next that he was slated to be the youngest ever Minister of Magic.

"I'm sure he'll do a better job than the current one," Sirius snorted, while Harry randomly thought he should find that funny, giving a slight snort as he recognized this young man, and finding irony that he in fact would do better.

Harry snorted with laughter as he recognized him, Stan Shunpike, a conductor on the Knight Bus.

"Oh that's brilliant," Lily snickered. She understood it was the magic of the Veela forcing them to want to impress making them act like fools, but she still found it sad that the way they went about it was lying. At least James never resorted to that in his mad attempts to gain her favor. Not that she was dumb enough to believe half of this bullocks, so it was a moot point.

Harry meant to tell Ron this, but then Ron chose that moment to begin shouting that he'd just invented a broom that could make it all the way to Jupiter.

"Now that I'd like to see," James laughed. "What's the brand you're calling it then, the Zeus model?"

"I'll let you know if he does," Harry promised with an easy smile, thanking once again this lighthearted switch for the reprieve he was getting, no matter how short.

Hermione sniffed as she and Harry grabbed hold of Ron's arms and dragged him away.

"I noticed you weren't affected that time," Remus pointed out.

Harry just shrugged, muttering, "wasn't really paying attention till I heard Stan speak up, then I was too busy laughing."

By the time all of that yelling had faded away, they were now mostly alone in the dark forest, things seemed to have gotten quieter.

Lily felt like goosebumps were smothering her as she said, "well, then perhaps you should go back and laugh at the Veela's admirers a bit more. It's not good for you to be so far out by yourself. Plus, you never caught up to Ron's siblings, I'm sure they're worried about you."

Harry wanted to agree, to voice that he had gone back into the more populated areas of the forest, but the words wouldn't come, something he knew he'd regret.

Harry was looking around as he said they should just wait where they were, they could hear anyone coming.

The four of them sighed in disappointment. Why did Harry have to be the one to suggest that? Was he trying to make their life more miserable by seeming to go out of his way in his younger self to cause these situations?!

He'd hardly got done saying that when Bagman burst from the trees, looking quite disheveled.

Sirius was frowning in concern for someone he'd almost call an idol, wondering what on earth could have happened to him. He hadn't been mugged had he, he'd been carrying around an awful lot of gold for his betting. Had he perhaps run into a not happy customer about a big loss? He really hoped he was okay, or had Bludgeoned whoever it was, causing that other person to look far more than strained.

He caught sight of them and asked what they were doing out here? Ron pointed back towards the campsite and said they were hiding from the riot. Bagman blinked in shock before demanding 'what?'

"So, he didn't know?" Lily raised a brow in surprise.

"What's he been doing this whole time, it's hardly been subtle," Remus agreed.

"Maybe he found an old friend and brought her along for some privacy," James smirked, thinking there were plenty of reasons he could be looking tossed around.

They began to explain, but once they were done Bagman swore in surprise,

"A very appropriate reaction honestly," Sirius huffed.

said 'damn them',

"Them?" They all asked in surprise, Sirius now thinking he may have been closer than he thought, but hopefully Bagman would file a report of it later and get back whatever he deserved.

and then Disapparated away. Hermione was frowning where he'd just been, saying how he wasn't on top of things much.

"You can't blame him for not being on high alert twenty four seven," Sirius muttered, grains of pity still lingering for him.

Ron just shrugged and said that he'd been a great Beater,

"Because that just made everything better," Lily snorted.

his old team the Wimbourne Wasps won the league three times when he'd been playing for them.

Sirius was more than happy to make a triumphant noise in delight at this news, hoping Harry and Ron would whittle away the boring hours until Arthur found them with Quidditch talk.

He took his figurine of Krum out of his pocket, set it down on the ground, and watched it walk around.

Giving all of them a nice laugh as well. They were still tense and uneasy, they couldn't help it until Harry was back out of that forest and safely back at the Burrow, but it was nice that he had Ron and Hermione there in the meantime to keep up distractions like this from the worst of their thoughts.

Ron sat down in the leaves to watch it pace around, and silence lingered for a few more moments before Hermione again voiced that she hoped the others were okay. Ron assured they were all fine, and Harry voiced that he hoped Arthur caught Lucius in the act.

"This whole ordeal will be worth it if that's true," Sirius nodded.

Ron agreed that would make his life, while Hermione whispered how bad those poor Muggles had it, wondering if they would get down okay?

"They will," Remus said at once at the uneasy look on Harry's face. "Then they'll make sure they're okay, before most likely giving them a powerful memory charm to erase this terrible instance from their mind."

"A kindness honestly," Lily sighed, "otherwise they may have gone mad from this."

Ron once again assured her everything would be fine. Hermione then changed to pointing out how mad those masked people were to have pulled this with so many Ministry people around.

"While true-" Lily sighed.

"They don't care," James finished for her with an ugly look in place. "It's all about making a statement with that lot, so long as there were more of them then the Ministry who would help, with a nice loud distraction which I'm sure they easily got, they'd keep at it till they had no other choice."

Harry was frowning sadly out the window, now wondering just how often events like this occurred in their time.

Neither boy got a chance to respond as they heard someone in the nearby blackness stumbling around.

They all went ramrod straight, their hands going instinctively towards their wands, a stupid but involuntary reaction as they heard some stranger was around Harry at this time.

Then the footsteps stopped, and Harry called out if anyone was there? **

James looked like he was visibly restraining himself from snapping as he said, "Harry, did you really just ask that! You're supposed to be quiet and stay out of sight at this time, not go yelling 'hey I'm over here!"

Harry was frowning at him, half feeling chastised that it probably had been a bad idea in retrospect, but also wanting to defend himself that at the time he hadn't seen himself in that much danger. He suppressed it though, they were tense enough and he really didn't want to pick at this.

Another long beat of silence, then a voice shouted out the spell 'Morsmordre.'

"Don't recognize that," Sirius muttered to himself, not that this made anyone feel any better. There were plenty of terrible curses out there these people had never heard of because they wouldn't go out looking for them.

Something vast, green,

Lily felt a scream rearing up in her throat at the thought of any green spell being set off around her baby, again!

and glittering erupted from the patch of darkness Harry's eyes had been struggling to penetrate; it flew up over the treetops and into the sky.

Then she felt foolish and embarrassed when he finished, sounding more puzzled than anything. She was being jumpy and paranoid, he was sitting there reading it, of course he hadn't had the killing curse set on him. It still wasn't helping her nerves one bit though. Maybe she'd made more a noise then she'd intended to, maybe Sirius was just getting to fidgety with all of this built up angst and he knew he was upsetting his charge, but the next thing Lily knew she had her baby in her lap which quickly calmed her down far better than anything else could.

Ron gaped in shock as it continued to rise above the treetops, looking much like the leprechaun formations from before. It transformed itself into a skull, with a serpent coming out of the mouth.

Harry was blinking in puzzlement as he finished the description, just knowing he should know what this was called, but when he looked up expectantly in hopes someone would tell him, he instead found all of them with sickly pale skin and gaping at him like he'd just turned into a corpse.

"Y-You're within shouting distance of a Death Eater!?" Sirius' throat couldn't seem to decide if it was going to fail him or release a rumbling growl as he got that out.

"That's what you got out of that?" Harry asked in surprise. "From some snake in the sky?"

"Th-that's, the Da-Dark Mark. Voldemort's symbol!" James managed to stutter out, wondering far too often for his liking how his son had survived to his current age. "Only a Death Eater knows how to produce it, so yes. That is understandably the first thing he, and the rest of us, grasped on."

"Oh," Harry simply muttered, unable to think of anything else to add to that. None of this explained what his ever growing agitation was, something building in the back of his mind that was quite insistently saying he should know this particular Death Eater, but that must be ridiculous. Hopefully he never got any closer to one of Voldemort's henchmen then he was in that moment, otherwise his family really might have a stress heart-attack.

Deciding to keep reading rather than watching them gasp for air, Harry forged on.

It seemed to grow brighter, like a new constellation forming, and then the screaming began again, louder than ever. Harry had no idea why, though he linked it to the glowing image in the sky. His eyes went back down to where it had been cast, and he again called out for who was out there.

"Harry James Potter, you stop that before you give me a heart attack!" Lily half screeched, only able to strangle off the full volume because even that scolding of her elder son made his younger counterpart begin crying in protest.

Harry was watching her with severe worry, remembering the last time she'd told him off for something he'd done in the past. At least then the other boys had helped her to laugh it off, as it had already happened long enough ago her snapping wouldn't do any good. Looking around now though, he saw they were quite in agreement with her exclamation, which wasn't making him feel any better. Desperately hoping now he had stopped shouting out or he'd probably regret it in this time, Harry tried to keep going in as calm a voice as possible to remind them all he was perfectly fine.

Hermione was trying to get them to move again, tugging on his shirt and begging him to run.

"Least one of you lot has some bleeding sense," Remus hissed, now wishing more than anything Harry hadn't been split off from Arthur, or Sirius had come, or if he'd bothered to keep in contact, anything then this constant mess that was Harry's life seeming to find the most danger when he was at his most vulnerable.

Harry asked what her problem was, as she'd gone white faced with fear.

"Does she know what that is?" Sirius asked in surprise, at least that distracted him from picturing that thing being cast right over his little pup's body while he was on the opposite side of the world.

"I guess I can see how," James muttered through almost chattering teeth as he was picturing much the same thing. "Wouldn't surprise me if the marks shown up in a book or two about Voldemort's reign."

Hermione told that it was the Dark Mark, You-Know-Who's sign!

"Right in one Prongs," Remus muttered, shifting his weight with continuing agitation, no matter how much it aggravated his injuries, that flare of pain was a constant reminder he was in the hear in now, listening to Harry read this rather than picturing it go a more gruesome way.

Harry tried to ask for more, but Hermione just begged them to start walking. Ron paused to pick up his Krum,

"Priorities," Lily mumbled, bouncing her infant in her arms to keep them both calm.

but the three of them only made it a few steps before there were about twenty pops of wizard's apparating into their space, surrounding the three.

Harry hadn't believed they could be more upset than they had in just the last book, but when he read that and their first thought was to jump to the fact that Harry was now surrounded on all sides by Death Eaters like that had been a calling, he was pretty sure his dad having vomited back during the Chamber would be a kind look back.

Harry recognized all wands were pointing at them,

Harry was quite glad he was the one reading, as when he glanced up all he saw was a mask of shocked faces on convulsing throats like they were all fighting back the urge to scream some more, most likely their own voices would have failed them at this point. All Harry remembered feeling at the time was shock, and the urge to hit the deck.

and he reacted first by seizing his friends necks and pulling them to the ground, screaming 'Duck!'

"Anaticula!" Sirius suddenly yelped at his side.

Harry looked at him with great concern, like he thought his godfather had finally lost his bleeding mind, but it had the desired effect of causing James and Remus to snap out of their comas and burst out laughing.

Lily looked just as confused as he felt, but Harry still had more sense about him as he demanded, "what's that mean?"

Sirius had to shake his head a couple of times to make sure his head was on straight and clear, before putting on a farce of his carefree nature and explaining, "it's a curse that makes your wand only able to produce ducks for the next few spells. Great laugh while you're running away." He managed to say all of that with only a few minor spasms of shock still wearing off from picturing all of this being directed at Harry.

"Remus used it on us once," James added on when it seemed Lily was finally calming back down as well, and hoping to keep them all breathing on this subject for as long as possible he turned mock angry eyes on Remus and finished in a 'huffy' tone, "in the middle of dinner. McGonagall wouldn't believe we hadn't done it on purpose, gave us detention that night, forcing me to reschedule one of my Quidditch practices."

"You two deserved it," Remus shot back, an old satisfied smirk in place his friends hadn't seen in awhile. "It was one of you lots fault I got strung up by my foot and missed my Care of Magical Creatures class that day, and since neither of you would tell me who did it, you both deserved it."

Lily was watching between the three with an actual smile in place now, unable to believe she could hold the expression in light of what was happening to her son, but had actually quite enjoyed during school watching the Marauders pick on each other much more than watching them go after their prank victims, so hearing retellings like this were always a treat.

The distraction had worked, they were all much more grounded and feeling at least less likely to have heart failure as Harry continued.

They slammed into the ground,

"Thank Merlin for those Quidditch reflexes," James murmured.

just as all the voices shouted as one 'Stupefy!'

At least that made them all feel better at the situation Harry was in. Certainly not content, but it was nicer to hear he only would have been stunned then something far worse.

Beams of red light went whizzing above their head, ricocheting off of trees and going every which way, and only ceasing when one voice called out above the rest for them to stop, that was his son!

"Arthur," Lily nearly sobbed in relief, knowing that couldn't refer to anyone else.

"So it was the Ministry who went there," James agreed, still looking fairly faint but at least some color returned to his face as he realized that.

Mr. Weasley came stumbling towards them, looking more terrified than Harry had ever seen him as he asked if they were alright?

"I can imagine," Remus nodded, knowing Arthur would have felt the same way they just had of finding his son under that mark.

Someone snapped at Arthur to move,

"Bite me!" James snapped at once, riling up at anyone trying to get in Arthur's way as he checked on those kids.

which turned out to be Mr. Crouch.

"I'll second that," Sirius agreed with a nasty look still in place, wanting to crack all twenty of those ministry fools over the head for shooting at his pup.

He and the other Ministry people were coming in closer as Harry got to his feet, facing Mr. Crouch who had his face drawn with fury. His wand was pointing at all three intermittently as he demanded which of them had done it.

"He actually just looked you in the face and demanded that?" Lily growled, her eyes narrowing furiously. "You? The bleeding Boy Who Lived."

"Plus a Weasley and a Muggleborn, the only ones they caught sight of, oh yeah it's hard to tell who has more motive in that group," Remus snarked.

"I'm just hoping they did manage to stun, incompetently but still, the one who did do it," James grumbled, hoping at least some good came of their heart attack moment.

Harry frowned in confusion as he said they hadn't done that while gesturing up above. Ron agreed they hadn't done a thing while looking indignantly at his father.

"He's the one defending you," Sirius snorted. "What's he glaring at him for?"

"Mr. Weasley looked just as shocked as anyone else," Harry shrugged, "maybe to Ron it looked more acquisitory."

While demanding to know why they'd been attacked.

Crouch snapped at Ron not to lie, while adding on a sir.

"At some point you can drop the manners," Remus muttered with an eye roll.

His wand now pointed right in Ron's face, his eyes popping with fury.

All of them scowled heavily at that, finding it completely uncalled for to be pointing a wand in Ron's face, when he hadn't even drawn his own to defend himself!

A witch in the back reminded Crouch that these were just kids, they couldn't have done that. Arthur turned on his charges and asked them where had the Mark come from?

"At least there are some sensible adults around," Lily sniffed.

Hermione pointed to the space, saying an incantation had been shouted. Crouch turned on her now, shouting about how she seemed well aware of how to make the Mark appear.

"Oh goodness me, you use an incantation to summon a magical image in the sky, who would have thunk it!" Remus snapped, not being able to press any more sarcasm into that if he'd tried.

No one else paid Hermione a second glance though, instead all wands turned to where the kids had pointed.

"Great, good to know it's only one out of twenty we should be really worried about," Sirius grumbled.

The same witch from before sighed it was no good, that person would have Disapparated by now.

"Probably at the exact same time they appeared, so you wouldn't have even heard it," James sighed, mostly in relief whoever that was, wasn't around his son anymore.

Then another spoke up saying he didn't think so, and Harry recognized Amos Diggory,

"Oh great, now I get two people in one clearing to piss me off," Sirius mock cheered, making Harry already long for the carefree chapter they'd just had and see them really happy again.

saying how they may have got a lucky shot with their stunners, they had gone through those trees. He walked off to go check himself, with several people behind him calling out warnings to be careful.

"Or, you know, at least a few of you could go with him!" Lily snapped, taking every last bit of her self-restraint not to facepalm in exasperation. They outnumbered that one lone person who was back there, and even if there were more, it was still more safe than just sending one person.

Mr. Diggory shouted back a few moments later that they'd caught someone,

"Finally, some good news," Remus sighed, actually sagging back in relief, thinking that was one less problem they had to worry about.

Harry though, was wondering why his first reaction was to think Mr. Diggory was wrong, they hadn't gotten anyone that night... but the thought flew away almost at once and he simply agreed with Remus instead.

but then he trailed off in surprise as he seemed to recognize whoever it was.

"That didn't seem like a good reaction though," Sirius frowned in concern.

Crouch did not sound convinced as he demanded who,

"He really still thinks it's those three kids?!" James snapped in disbelief, wanting more than anything to smack Crouch a good one.

as Diggory walked back in, with Winky in his arms.

"What?" All five of them yelped at once.

"There's no way that little elf did that," Sirius snorted in disbelief.

"The voice didn't even match," Harry agreed, still frowning deeply as he gently tried to understand why his earlier feeling was clearly right now.

"What was Winky even doing in that area though?" Lily's frown kept deepening the longer she thought about this. "We heard a Death Eater's voice in that direction, it's impossible Winky would be following them around as she belongs to Crouch."

Harry opened his mouth to reply, then thought better of it and quickly shut it before he vomited instead from the stress of repressing his response. The truth was, none of them had any idea what was going on, and absolutely none of them wanted to find out. They didn't care about this mystery, didn't want to sit on the idea any longer then they had to, because they didn't want it to have anything to do with Harry. They kept hoping any second now Arthur would jump in and say that these kids were no longer needed and take them away back to the Burrow for some actual peace!

Crouch froze as Diggory placed Winky at his feet. Crouch muttered this must be some mistake as he walked off to that same area, going out of sight but could still be heard searching the bushes for another culprit. Diggory called back that he'd checked, Winky was the only one there.

Harry had to blink hard a few times to keep some bright spots out of his eyes, but then kept on after a moment, now working harder than ever to ignore whatever feeling that gave him for whatever reason.

Diggory was shaking his head sadly as he muttered what a surprise this was, for Crouch's elf to have done this.

"They can't really think she did it?" James raised an even more disbelieving brow, somehow managing to find this more ridiculous than them thinking it was Harry. "She's a house-elf!"

While Lily agreed with him it was every kind of ludicrous, she didn't much like his tone of saying it.

Mr. Weasley scolded this was ridiculous, he couldn't really be serious in saying it was an elf to have done this.

"Now why would he think it was me helping the elf?" Sirius quickly inserted, ignoring all accompanied groans. "I like to think mine's gone off and died by this point."

Harry gave him a smile, still not having grown tired of that joke yet, but didn't linger on it either.

Reminding you had to have a wand to summon the Dark Mark, and Diggory agreed she'd had one.

"Had a what now?" Lily demanded, sure she'd heard that wrong.

They all turned surprised eyes at that, as Diggory said she'd had one in her hand, in direct violation to a code stating that non-human creatures weren't allowed to carry such a thing. Ludo Bagman Apparated onto the scene just then, gasping about the Dark Mark!

"Thank you, I hadn't noticed," Lily rolled her eyes.

"Where's he been this whole time?" Sirius asked in confusion, some of the misty eyed awe of a Quidditch star starting to wear off. "I thought the last time he Disapparated away was to go help with the riot. He should have seen it at the same time as the rest of these twenty people and come then."

"Search us," Remus sighed, thinking they'd had more questions from this chapter alone already building up, and it was clearly driving Harry mad as he once again went cross eyed in pain at being unable to answer them. He, along with everyone else, really wanted this chapter to be done with already.

His eyes flickered to Barty, who was coming back into sight, but then he added on another question of why he hadn't been at the match?

"So he never did show up," James murmured.

"That's incredibly odd for him," Lily explained to Harry, who was watching all of the boys holding a puzzled expression. "He was a big hand in putting this event together, he was expected to show up for it. Crouch does not miss that type of thing, it wouldn't look good," she finished with a sniff of distaste.

Harry felt like he was getting a little tick at the base of his skull, a muscle that just kept spasming every other sentence now as more and more of what he was hearing he was sure would come to bite him in the arse later, but for now he thanked his mum and kept going.

Reminding that his elf had been saving him a seat, but then Bagman caught sight of Winky and yelped in surprise what had happened to her? Crouch explained that she'd been stunned, and it took a moment for Bagman's eyes to flicker to her, then up to the Mark, before understanding took him and he gasped in surprise she couldn't have done that! She'd need a wand! Diggory repeated she'd had one, then asked Crouch if it was okay they unstun her to get some answers.

All four of them mumbled something about how it was bleeding obvious from the start she hadn't a thing to do with this and they should be out looking for who really did, but none of it was articulate enough Harry stopped.

When the spell 'Enervate' was used on her and she sat up, Winky burst into tears instantly. Diggory snapped at her to look at him, reminding of his position as a member of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.

"Is he trying to scare her?" Remus' scowl deepened at this, finding this more than uncalled for of the clearly innocent creature.

"He's certainly not going out of his way to pretend otherwise," Lily nodded in agreement.

Then he demanded an explanation of what she'd been doing. Winky sobbed she hadn't done anything, while Diggory flashed the wand for all to see and snapped at her to explain where she'd found this. Harry caught sight of it properly for the first time, and exclaimed that was his!

"What?" They all yelped, finding that all too common an occurrence recently!

"How in Merlin's underpants did your wand end up in the same clearing as Winky, and a Death Eater!?" James gasped out first.

"That sounds like the bad start to a joke," Sirius moaned, rubbing furiously at his forehead to stave away a growing sense of doom.

"I-but-you-when-" Lily could not get out more than one word before her voice failed her and she just kept looking at her gobsmacked son, but he shook off the shock quicker than she did and continued in a hurry now.

Everyone turned startled eyes back to him.

"Guess that wasn't the best time to go shouting that when they all think it's you," Remus muttered.

"There really isn't a good time to say that in this circumstance," Sirius reminded.

Harry repeated that was his wand, that he'd dropped it. Diggory repeated that back in absolute disbelief. Demanding of Harry if that was a confession, that he'd thrown it aside after he'd conjured the Mark?

"Yeah, that's what he said," Remus snorted, his eyes darkening more and more every second the longer he heard about Diggory. His jumping to conclusions attitude along with his no good character was making Remus edgier the longer this carried on.

Arthur jumped in angrily then, demanding Amos think about what he'd just said to Harry Potter. Diggory agreed he'd gotten carried away.

"Damn right you did," James snapped, happy at least Arthur was keeping that man in check.

Harry then explained he hadn't dropped it anywhere around there, he'd only noticed it was missing when he came into the woods.

"But," Lily finally managed to collect herself to get out a real question, "does that mean Winky did take it from you in the Top Box? She's the only other person outside of your group who had the means to do it. I just cannot for the life of me imagine why."

"If not, then it's a really big fat coincidence," James sighed, running his hand through his hair in agitation. Of all the people who could be suspected of taking Harry's wand, as the more they heard of this the more they believed Harry hadn't simply dropped it, and it simply wound up in the grip of a Death Eater to use in the conjuration of the Dark Mark, this was beyond words unbelievable.

Diggory instead turned back on Winky, demanding of the elf that she'd found it and decided to have some fun.

"No one's going to question that she just, found it!" Sirius scowled, knowing the elf probably didn't have a better answer than that, but he wanted one anyways.

Winky wailed that she hadn't done anything!

Lily began wriggling around in displeasure now, feeling bad she'd thrown out a question regarding Winky herself now, and she wasn't even there. The elf clearly had no more to do with this then Harry, couldn't they lay off her?

She'd just picked it up!

Hermione jumped in then, going pink in shock when all eyes turned to her, yet still insisting it wasn't Winky.

"Can't say I'm surprised," Remus gave a small smile, "she's shown time and again she'll do and say what she thinks is right."

"In this case, I'm grateful for it," Lily nodded in agreement.

Explaining that Winky's voice was high pitched and squeaky, and the person they'd heard summon the Mark was definitely male. Diggory did not look impressed as he said there was a way to check and see what the last spell was used on a wand, directing this at the elf.

"That doesn't prove anything," James snorted. "She just said she found it, and she's got witnesses proving it wasn't her who used it last. It's been established Harry's wand was the one to use that spell, showing that off doesn't mean a thing."

Diggory then placed his wand tip to Harry's and used the spell 'Prior Incantato.'

Harry's heart gave a very hard twist when he read that, for some reason leaning just slightly closer to his dad and glancing up at his mother for a moment, but only had a moment to wonder why before he kept going.

Both parents were still so wound up over the situation at hand, neither noticed Harry's second of hesitation.

Sprouting from Harry's wand came a smaller resemblance of the glowing mark in the sky, which Diggory seemed to think proved his point as he shouted in triumph Winky had been caught in the act!

"I am going to punch him." Sirius scowled, beginning to tense up on the spot the longer he kept going. "I don't even like elves and I don't talk to them like that. Use some brains man, she's obviously not got a thing to do with this."

"Thinking he doesn't need to be working with Magical Creatures much," James agreed with a serious nod. "He clearly looks down on them too much."

"He's much too quick to blame as well," Lily added on in the same tones as them.

Remus couldn't help but give them a light smile they hopefully didn't see, he knew for a fact they could get overly touchy about this without even realizing it.

Arthur cut in then though, reminding how few wizards knew how to summon such a spell, where on earth could Winky have learned to do so? Crouch snapped that Diggory was implying he'd taught his elf this?

"Ooh, snappy," Sirius raised an imperious brow, feeling his point had been made quite well, and he didn't even like the man who'd done it.

Diggory went horrified with shock, stammering out of course that wasn't it to Crouch.

"Little late for backtracking you hobnocker," James huffed.

Crouch pressed in though, telling off Diggory for now having accused the two people in this clearing least likely to have done this, Harry Potter and himself! Surely Diggory knew of who Harry Potter was? Diggory agreed in uncomfortable tones everyone knew that.

"Glad someone put him down," Lily gave a soft laugh, not having thought she'd be rooting for Crouch any time soon, but at least she found he was useful for something.

Then Crouch also reminded he'd shown time and again the lengths he'd gone to prove how against Dark Magic he was!

Harry felt a stirring in him again, like earlier when he'd felt something was off about Crouch speaking of his perfect unbreakable vows about rules. There was something there that Harry knew he should have a puzzle piece to, but it faded through his conscious like his brain was filled with cracks.

Diggory tried to protest, saying he'd never meant to accuse Crouch.

"You suggested his elf did," Remus smirked, "and that's as good as."

Crouch shouted back that to accuse his elf was to accuse him!

Diggory tried to say she could have picked it up somewhere else,

"Oh yes, I'm sure Death Eaters pop by all the time selling cookies and just give a friendly tutoring session of how to do that in the meantime," Sirius snorted.

but then Arthur agreed Diggory had spoken true on that one. He turned his own attention on Winky, the first person to call her by name and kindly meet her eyes, but Winky still flinched away from him like all the rest,

Lily couldn't help cooing again, wanting to do something to help the poor dear relax, as she knew there was no way she would be getting in trouble for anything, or at least she shouldn't be.

as Arthur asked where she'd found the wand? Winky's voice still came out watery as she said she'd just found it lying there in the leaves. Arthur stood back up to face Diggory, saying clearly what had happened was that the person who'd cast the Dark Mark had simply used Harry's own wand then Disapparated away. It was actually clever not to have used their own wand. It was just Winky's misfortune to come across it moments later.

"While I don't think he's wrong," James's frown just got deeper as Arthur drew the same conclusions they'd been forced to come to.

"That hardly explains anything," Sirius grumbled.

"It actually just raises more questions," Remus sighed.

Diggory gasped that this must mean that Winky had seen the person who had done all of this!

"That," Lily struggled for a moment before grudgingly admitting, "is a really good point."

"Wish she'd started with that," Sirius huffed, "this could have been going a lot better."

Then he turned on Winky and demanded of the elf if she'd seen anyone!

Winky's eyes flickered to her masters as she whispered she hadn't seen anyone.

Harry had a mad desire to laugh, like he knew Winky was telling the truth in that moment...but leaving something off...

Crouch seemed to decide that was enough, as he addressed Diggory by telling him that he was aware the normal course of events would be Diggory to take her into his department, but if he'd allow him to take his elf home? Amos clearly didn't want to agree, but clearly Crouch was such an important person he wasn't going to argue.

"I'm truly shocked at how pleased I am," Remus frowned in pity for the poor thing, finding just a grain of irony that the very thing she'd feared would happen to Dobby was in fact being hung over her head this very same night, but at least her own master would be a better option.

Crouch added on though that she would be punished for this night.

"Ouch," Lily winced. After hearing about what the Malfoys had done to Dobby, she was actually quite afraid for Winky and what might become of her now.

Winky began sobbing in shock, begging her master to reconsider, but Crouch's face was like stone as he snapped at her that he'd commanded she stay in the tent, and she'd disobeyed! This meant clothes!

"Wow," James blinked spastically like Crouch had just started swearing in Mermish. "That was harsh."

"Yeah," Sirius had his head cocked to the side, his eyes narrowed like he was trying to study Crouch in person. "She did disobey, but it's hardly so grievous she should be sacked like that."

Remus and Lily exchanged a surprised look, considering their usual attitude towards elf's they would have honestly expected those two to agree with Crouch, but for all their laughing at the creatures, they clearly weren't as hard on them as they would lead.

Harry may have input his opinion on them, but he was too busy fighting back word vomit. There it was again, something involving Crouch and Winky that made him want to spew out something like a huge silent chunk of conversation had been taken place right in front of him, but he had nothing to offer except to read what was in front of him.

Winky wailed, crawling to Crouch's feet and begging for anything but that! Crouch shook her off in disgust, but then Hermione jumped in by trying to defend the elf! Saying she'd been frightened, and shouldn't be blamed for running!

Lily looked very much like she would get up and hug Hermione now, as well as shield her, for standing up to Crouch like that in front of everyone.

Crouch did not remove his disgusted eyes from the elf as he told Hermione off to, saying he had no use for a servant who didn't listen, who ruined his reputation!

"Oh I get it," Remus gave an ugly sneer now as his eyes flashed. "He's not getting rid of her because she didn't listen to him, she's getting the boot because she got caught and dragged Crouch into this."

"This is terrible," Lily scowled. "I don't even understand why he's reacting like this, no one's going to look twice at him now that everything's out in the open. Everyone there knows he's nothing to do with the dark arts, he shouldn't be taking all of this out on his elf like this!"

"While we agree," James sighed, feeling like they were hearing about a Dobby all over again, how often were these other house-elves treated like this? "It's no good shouting about it now dear."

She shot him the stank eye, but didn't pursue the point.

Hermione may have kept going, but Arthur put himself back in then, saying Harry should have his wand back, which Diggory did, and then began escorting the kids away. He had to call twice before Hermione would follow, and the moment they were out of sight she began rampaging about the lot of them and how they'd been treating Winky! Everyone just referring to her as 'elf!'

Sirius and James shared a surprised look, they hadn't even noticed that part.

How dare Crouch do that to her, treating her like she wasn't even human! Ron did point out that technically she wasn't.

Sirius closed his mouth sheepishly, he'd actually been about to say the same thing, but was now happy he hadn't gotten it out at the flashing look Lily gave the book for Ron's comment.

Hermione turned on him and began shouting he wasn't acting any better than those- but Arthur cut her off by saying she could go on about elf rights later. Then he asked where the rest of his kids were? Ron said they'd gotten separated, then asked what that skull thing had been?

"I'm actually a little more surprised Ron didn't know," James quirked a brow. "Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful he's never seen it, but still. You'd think his parents would have mentioned it."

"Not necessarily," Remus shrugged. "In the same concept as Ron not saying Voldemort's name, Ron and the kids of his generation would have been told as little as possible of what would have been a common occurrence to their parents, err us, whatever. The next generation of kids would have been shielded and told as little as possible of the horrors of this war."

James pondered that for a moment, not really in agreement as he didn't think this should just be glossed over, but couldn't argue the point much either. They were only fourteen, James wasn't even happy Harry was so involved with this at that age, so he let the matter slide.

Mr. Weasley didn't relax one little bit as they made it back out of the forest, but were bombarded almost at once by a group of people demanding questions of Arthur, asking if anyone had been caught, who'd done that Mark, and was it Him? Arthur snapped back of course it wasn't You-Know-Who, and the perpetrator had Disapparated away, then he escorted himself and his kids off to bed.

"Snappy," Sirius gave a small smirk.

"Probably still worried about the rest of his kids," Lily added, thinking that as soon as Ron was back at the tent Arthur would probably go looking for the twins and Ginny, most likely as his eldest three were now doing.

Arthur escorted the three to the tent, but upon their approach Charlie poked his head back and called out to his dad that the other three had gotten back, but he didn't know where the others were.

They all released a sigh of relief. They hadn't exactly been worried for their safety, but it was good nothing had happened none the less.

Arthur sighed in relief as he entered the tent, and Harry spotted all three of the eldest Weasley's sporting bloody injuries.

Harry's tone was already pitching in surprise, but he read out;

Bill had a sheet to his arm where it was quickly turning red, Charlie had a large tear in his shirt, and Percy was trying to stop a bloody nose.

before he asked, "what could have happened to them?"

"Probably some of the Death Eaters shot some spells back," Remus sighed. "Either that or the riot got a little more hands on then wands."

The twins and Ginny weren't harmed, but looked white with shock. Bill asked if his Dad had caught whoever had done the Mark?

"Well Bill at least knows what it is," James muttered to himself, thankful that it clearly wasn't going to be erased from history what was going on now. He'd be satisfied if only the older type of kids knew about it then.

Arthur said they hadn't, but instead explained that they'd found Crouch's elf holding Harry's wand, which had been used to make the Dark Mark. They still had no idea who'd done it.

"That about summed it all up, yeah," Lily sighed, running a hand through her hair in agitation.

"Was a lot more bloody traumatizing to hear about it," James grumbled.

All of them yelped in surprise, Fred repeating the part about Harry's wand, while Percy in response to Crouch's elf.

"I can't decide who more deserved what was caught on," Remus snorted.

"Fred," Sirius said instantly, knowing he'd happily side with the twins then their immediate older brother any day.

The four who were present explained more fully the entire situation, and when they were done, Percy swelled with indignation.

"I'll agree with you now," Remus rolled his eyes.

Saying Crouch had been perfectly correct in his actions! Hermione snapped at him at once, causing Percy to take a step back in surprise. She and Percy usually got along pretty well, better than with his own brothers most days.

"Well that's just sad," Lily frowned slightly, always having suspected Percy didn't get along with his brothers very well, but for an outsider of the family like Hermione to so obviously be doing a better job, really got to her in that moment.

He pulled himself together quickly though and said that Crouch couldn't be seen going easy on an elf running amok with a wand.

"Run amok?" Sirius repeated in disbelief. "I'm still confounded what Crouch did, blowing that out of proportion. Though I guess I'm not that surprised Percy's agreeing with his boyfriend," he finished with a rude little curl of his nose.

Hermione shouted back that Winky hadn't done anything, but Ron butted in saying that he still wanted that Mark explained. Hermione turned on him and said that was You-Know-Who's symbol, something she'd read about in a book.

"Of course she did," Lily snorted, that felt like Hermione's answer to everything.

Arthur quietly added on it hadn't been seen in over thirteen years, it made perfect sense why people had panicked, it felt like seeing You-Know-Who back. Ron was still frowning though, saying it was just a symbol. Arthur tried again, telling that this mark was left over people who You-Know-Who had killed.

Causing the four around Harry to shiver, leading him to wonder and smother the question all at once who they'd found this mark hovering over. He decided he didn't want to know.

Trying to explain how much fear it instilled in people, coming home to your house and seeing that, knowing the very worst was inside...

Lily paled to the color of new snow, cuddling her baby all the closer to her.

Remus and James winced like they'd just been socked in the gut, but Sirius had the worst reaction. He'd lived that nightmare vividly in his dreams the previous night, coming over to find James and Lily...the only reason that mark had been absent was because no one was left alive to cast it...coupled together with the one responsible for it. He made a keening noise, shaking his head violently to get rid of that. He kept seeing it every time he closed his eyes, no need to dwell on it when he could give an unconvincing smirk to them now that he was just fine and could play this off as long as he dared.

it was everyone's worst fear.

"Okay, I'm appeased, Ron and Harry get it now," James murmured, deciding he'd never complain again about something Harry didn't know involving this type of thing.

There was a thick silence in the tent before Bill finally spoke up again, saying that whoever had cast it tonight had done them at least one favor. It scared the Death Eaters away, they all Disapparated the moment they saw it, and they'd only just caught the Roberts in time.

Giving them all a sigh of relief again. They had not forgotten what had started this whole mess, and it was a very good thing that Bill hadn't mentioned they'd been injured.

Explaining they were having their memories fixed now.

"Best thing that can happen to them," Remus gave a sad shake to his head, wanting to strangle every last one of those Death Eaters all over again at the thought of those poor Muggles suffering through that.

Harry repeated back the term Death Eaters in surprise, and Bill said that's what You-Know-Who's followers had called themselves. The ones they'd seen tonight were those who'd wriggled themselves out of Azkaban. Arthur tried to say there wasn't any proof it was them,

"Who else would it be?" Sirius asked, wishing to mock, but the tone wouldn't come as he would have been glad for an alternate answer.

but then relented it probably was. Ron perked up then, telling everyone what Malfoy had said to them about his Dad being out there. Harry then asked what was the point of doing that to those Muggles.

'Please stay that naive forever' Lily mentally sighed, brushing her baby's hair from his forehead for just a moment, as a reminder that scar wasn't there yet. While she never wanted it to, it was clear how much fiction that dream was since Harry hadn't even asked this now. He hadn't questioned this terrible act, even at his regrowing pace of learning he was already so much more aware of the crueler side of the world then Lily would ever wish her child to know.

Arthur looked sadly at Harry as he said the point had been for fun. What those Death Eaters had done tonight was their idea of entertainment. Ron then asked if those were You-Know-Who's supporters, why would they run at the sight of You-Know-Who's symbol? Shouldn't they have been happy? Bill told Ron to use his head,

"I thought it was a fair question," Harry said with a shrug, as he'd been wanting to ask it as well, but wondering if Ron would for him since he'd had a similar face to what Harry was feeling at the time.

explaining those Death Eaters were the ones who'd gone out of their way to denounce and say You-Know-Who had forced them to do all of that. They'd be as afraid as anyone if You-Know-Who came back, they'd have some retribution to pay.

Sirius gave a twisted little smirk that honestly scared the others, they didn't really want to know what his mind had jumped to, but it wasn't hard to picture either. One Death Eater in particular stuck out to all of them now, picturing that pathetic little rat and his hatred of being returned to his master. Those other loose Death Eaters would probably get much the same treatment if they ever found out any remnant of Voldemort existed. Not that they hoped this at all, the less people out helping Voldemort, willingly or not, the better.

Hermione then asked of the person who had shown the Dark Mark tonight, had they done it in support, or to scare off those Death Eaters?

"My guess is a combination of the two," Lily offered with a small frown, still hating to linger on this subject, but that was a good question. "They'd be showing off that they were winning, but warning it was time to go as well."

"I'm still trying to shake the feeling it wasn't left over a dead body," Remus shuddered, "and that individual wasn't doing some old time celebrating of his own."

"Thank you Sunshine," James groaned.

"That one was terrible," Sirius snorted in true amusement again. "I never understood why you tried to pitch an opposite of our nicknames that day."

"Thought it added an extra layer of mystery," James shrugged, managing to return the smile.

Arthur sighed her guess was as good as anyone's. Then he ushered they should all try to get some shuteye before they went out soon to grab a Portkey. Harry crawled back into his bed, but this time no Quidditch fantasies came to mind to help him relax. He instead let his mind spin back, to three days ago when his scar had awoken him with a burning pain. Now tonight, Voldemort's mark had appeared again. What did it all mean?

Lily's teeth started chattering as she huddled into herself, keeping her baby wrapped protectively in her arms and never wanting to let go. None of them had put those two things together until just now, but Harry was right, and they couldn't have felt worse about it.

'Nothing good' was the one thought that ran through all of their minds for his thought, and yet none of them could bear to say it in hopes they were wrong.

He thought of the letter he had written to Sirius, would he have gotten it yet?

For the first time since this had started, James felt no spike of jealousy in hearing Harry's first thought of help flit to Sirius. He'd happily take the idea Sirius was out there worrying about Harry like this.

James decided right then he wanted more than anything for Harry to work out with Dumbledore and the Weasleys that he'd in fact gotten a new dog and it would be with him at all times now! He'd take every minor annoyance in the world from his brother if he could have some more reassurances Harry would just be that little more safe.

Harry hoped he'd get a reply soon, and was left wondering on these things the rest of the night.

Harry gave one last deep sigh of discontent, already longing for that happy mood of the last chapter as he gave the book to Remus.

HPHPHPHPHP

*I recognized Harry should have questioned this long before now, it has been mentioned many times before, but even I forget sometimes Harry shouldn't have some knowledge that seems obvious. Can't go back and fix it now, just put all previous mentions of them not being questioned by Harry down to the fact that he worked it out himself considering the light they were being discussed in.

**No, really though, did anyone else besides me read this moment and think 'Horror movie alert' Harry is officially the dumb blonde of the series.

[shirtlesssammy]

7x14: Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie

Then:

Send in the clowns (much to San’s utter horror)

Now:

Our intrepid hero, Sam Winchester runs down a dark alley away from CLOWNS. And honestly, I can’t blame him. They are scary! A couple corner him in an abandoned warehouse while he mutters, "If it bleeds, you can kill it."

60:00:00 Earlier

Dean battles the germs of a phone booth to talk with Frank. He’s got, as Sam puts it, “dick on Dick”. Sam has a potential new case though, and since Dean’s just coming off of his Amazon baby mama drama, he swears this time there will be “No bars. No booze – no hot chicks of any kind.”

Wichita, Kansas

At the morgue they’re presented with a corpse covered in red boils. Apparently a Giant Pacific octopus did this to the man, in Kansas. The coroner surmises that someone staged the hickies and then bled the victim dry. “So what are we looking for? An octovamp? A vamptopus?” Dean wonders to Sam later.

They head to talk with the victim’s widow.

They ask her all the routine questions and she tells them they should talk to Stacy, the nanny. She was with him the night he died. The boys discuss why the wife would summon such an excessive monster while they leave the house. Dean heads to interview the “naughty nanny” while Sam stays to check out the wife’s house after she's gone.

At Stacy’s, Dean learns pretty quickly that the nanny mainly dealt with Deborah and that Stacy was working late because Brian was working late. It was their daughter Kelly’s birthday and the party was at Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie and Brian showed up for 5 minutes while Deborah didn’t show up at all. Another kid told Kelly that her parents didn’t love her. Dean asks the usual questions and Stacy admits that Kelly’s afraid there’s a monster in her closet.

Dean later calls Sam to see if he can interview the daughter. Sam gets in a brief conversation with Kelly where she tells him that she tried to warn her dad that the monster would get him before her mom calls her back inside.

At night, a man in a bathrobe runs for his life away from a galloping horse. He jumps a fence and rests a beat against the fence only to have a golden spire pierce his chest. He falls over dead while the camera pans over the fence to reveal a majestic unicorn. It’s horn is glistening blood and as it turns and speeds away, rainbows shoot out of its butt. (This REALLY has is it all.)

Now

Sam’s battling the clowns. He tries shooting one of the clowns but his gun only shoots glitter.

The clowns continue to laugh and mock him, and then start laying punches.

36:36:08 Earlier

Dean inspects the unicorn murder. After asking the victim’s wife some questions about their son, he learns that the father and son were at a friend’s birthday party. Dean calls Sam and asks if he remembers Plucky Pennywhistle’s. Sam’s face goes blank and he say, “No.” He quickly counters that when he admits that he hated them as a kid. Dean would dump him to go “trolling for chicks.” Dean made a connection to the place and the murders though and suggests Sam check out the local Plucky’s while he talks to the latest vic’s son. Sam hastily suggests he interview the kid. Dean laughs and wonders if this is about Sam’s “clown thing.” Sam weakly denies this, but Dean sees right through him and advises him, “If it bleeds, you can kill it” before hanging up.

Sam heads inside to face his nightmare.

(I’m sorry, but what’s with the skeletor clown in the front? How much fun did Jerry Wanek and Co. have this week?) He sees a frazzled mom working while trying to convince her son to just “stay sane for three more hours.” He sees a wall of “Draw your worst fear... Plucky will make your fear disappear” drawings. The manager, Jean, finds Sam. He asks about the drawings and she gives him the explanation that it’s supposed to help kids cope with their fears, otherwise they can affect kids well into their adulthood (*cough* SAMMY *cough*). Sam asks about the latest kid’s story and the manager tells him that the dad threw a fit about leaving early.

Sam is then approached by a skittish maintenance worker who tells him to come back after closing.

At the motel, Sam fills Dean in on the mean parent trend and the worst fear drawings.

Dean has some war flashbacks to fighting leprechauns. Dean then shows Sam what the boy drew --a unicorn impaling his father.

At Plucky’s, just as Saul, the maintenance man, is leaving for the day, Jean tells him that a kid puked in the ball pit. It’s gonna need a complete sanitization. And I’m sorry, but why are you waiting to tell him at the end of the day?! I’m side eyeing you HARD, Jean.

Saul is next in the ball pit, sucking the balls up one at a time (seems a tad inefficient, but then I have no clue how those places are cleaned. Probably aren’t --so, gross.) The camera pans behind him, Jaws-esque music starts, Saul cries out and reaches for his leg. His hand comes away bloody.

He’s then sucked under the balls. Welp.

Sam and Dean arrive to find the cops taking away the body.

*Classic Dialog Alert*

DEAN: Cops have a theory?

SAM: Yeah, they think the ball washer did it.

DEAN: The what?

SAM: The... ball washer.

DEAN: The what?

SAM: The ball –

Dean shows Sam the victim and they both agree that it was a shark bite. Dean knows a bit more due to his excessive Shark Week research. They head inside the darkened Plucky’s.

Inside, they stop by the wall of worst fear drawings. Sam notices that the shark drawing is missing this time. “Dractopus. Seabiscuit the impaler. Land shark – what's next?” Dean asks. (Seabiscuit the Impaler is my wrestling name.)

The next morning the waitress, Libby, pulls up to Plucky’s with her son Tyler. They’re both tense - the mom is late for work and the kid’s irritated and on his own to catch the bus. As they part grouchily, the camera zooms in on his drawing: a giant killer robot shooting laser eyes. Um. HERE FOR THIS.

Back in the present, Sam continues to get the glitter kicked out of him by the two killer clowns. (I find them far more annoying than frightening.) The only thing more aggravating than a villain with a smug grin is one with a grating chuckle.

Back in the past, Sam and Dean toss out theories. It’s time to put the hammer down on the investigation. Dean is SUPER excited to be given the job of the creepy loner dude hanging out at Plucky’s while Sam plays Fed. (But also, he really is?)

At Plucky’s, chaos reigns. It’s full of kids and the bloody murder ball pit is “roped off” for the day. Yikes. Dean spots a kid walk by playing with a giant slinky and suddenly all thoughts of the investigation leave him.

And immediately Dean WANTSES THE SLINKY. (Please imagine that I’ve just written eight tons of meta about Dean’s missed childhood wrought by his father and later, by himself.)

He asks to buy one at the prize counter, but the chirpy clerk tells him that he has to earn it - he can’t just buy one of the prizes. Dean heads off to ski-ball his way to giant slinky glory.

Meanwhile, Sam interrogates Jean about the guy’s death, spooking her and sending her running from Plucky’s. Dean demonstrates his adult priorities, ditching ski-ball to stalk his quarry. He discovers Jean’s terrible secret. She’s unwinding with a quick joint behind the building. So… not really a criminal magical mastermind.

Sam moves on to the cheerful clerk. “Special agent? Wow!” he says excitedly, while reading Sam’s business card. Sam scowls at Mister Sunshine-and-Light and amps up his bad-cop routine.

While Sam snarls at suspects, Dean teams up with Tyler to properly police the correct game-play of ski-ball. They bond over it and the kid’s mom arrives with a plate of greasy pizza for his dinner. Dean tells the frustrated kid to cut his mom some slack. His dad “hauled him places” too. (I mean, crime scenes, crappy motels, and monster dens, but sure.)

Dean notices Tyler’s killer robot drawing but before he has a chance to comment on it, the lion-costumed guy Sam was interrogating splits. After a harrowing chase set to 70’s style cop-show-music Dean pins him down. The guy sort of confesses to manufacturing meth in the past, but is also PRETTY SURE he hasn’t been using kids’ nightmares to kill people. (He sounds a little uncertain on that last point.) He mentions a sub-basement of the building with creepy sounds coming up from the boiler room near the vents. Well, we know that only good things happen in boiler rooms.

They head back to Plucky’s. Inside, Libby loses her cool. It’s time to leave but her son resists - someone stole his killer robot drawing. Dean immediately hones in on that. Awww yeah KILLER ROBOT TIME. (In a subplot, Dean communicates nonverbally with Tyler, encouraging him to communicate better with his mom, who in turn communicates better with her son. I’m glad we were all here to share this after school special.)

The sub-basement is eight levels of creepy, stacked with crap and featuring an open pit of flame. “Well, that’s perfectly normal,” Dean comments. And...yeah. The boiler room does appear to be problematic. Posted up on the wall are kid drawings and on tables, occult books. Dean examines a book and finds the missing robot drawing. He turns to find the chirpy clerk, Howard, training a gun on him. He orders Dean to drop his gun.

Dean compliments him on his magical prowess. It’s gotta take some serious mojo to make a unicorn. “There's power in fear,” Howard tells him. “And when a child draws what he's afraid of, a little of that mojo ends up on the page.” All of his victims deserved what they got, Howard maintains. He’s targeting Libby for sure, but tonight’s not the night for killer robots. Instead, his current target is Sam-the-Fed.

Cue the clowns!

Now that our timeline has nearly caught up, Sam stalks Libby and Tyler back to their house, only to be confronted by a creepy clown. Nooooooo!

While Sam gets beaten by evil clowns, Dean discovers that Howard is angry that he lost the management job to Jean. He’s deranged, and thinks all the kids are better off without various parents in their lives. Oh, and he’s got some fun buried trauma of his own. His brother drowned while his parents ignored (or didn’t take seriously) his cries for them to help.

Dean chucks Howard’s old drawing of the drowning into the magical fire, plus a clown statuette, and suddenly a drowned child appears, looking vengeful. Howard whimpers pleas for mercy to no avail. Before Dean’s astonished eyes, the clerk drowns in front of the phantom of his dead brother. Y I K E S. Destroyed by his own fear, anger, and guilt. (Looks directly into the camera.)

Elsewhere, Sam’s about to get clown sandwiched when they explode into harmless glitter bombs.

Welp.

Later, Sam pulls up to meet Dean. When he gets out, we see that he’s absolutely covered in glitter (and, apparently, seltzer from the clowns’ flowers).

Dean just about dies laughing at the sight. He then apologizes for “psychologically scarring” Sam, and ditching him when they were kids. Hey, all’s forgiven. Sam pulls out a present for Dean - a giant slinky!!!!

Dean is overjoyed. He gets out a gift for Sam as well - a clown doll.

Er. Thanks, Dean. Sam treats it with the appropriate reverence and gratitude.

_____________________________________________________

Everybody Loves a Quote:

So we got dick on dick?

You spawn a monster baby, see how quick you want to dive back in the pool.

If it bleeds, you can kill it.

So now unicorns are evil?

A whole week of sharks.

Watch out for evil lunch ladies.

_____________________________________________________

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive! 

[marshalldodger]

oh hi there, welcome to holiday, MARSHALL “DODGER” VAN DER BYL. you’ve been here for ONE MONTH? awesome! you look just like BERK CANKAT, it’s crazy. oh, so you’re a/an THIRTY-THREE year old AVIATION SYSTEMS TECHNICIAN. and you’re CISMALE and use HE/HIM? okay, just checking! oh, people say you’re QUICK-WITTED & TRUSTWORTHY but IMPULSIVE & STUBBORN? well, i’m sure that you can prove yourself here. you’re looking forward to the CHRISTMAS celebration? that’s a good one, you’ll love it. i have to get going now, bye!

Marshall Van Der Byl was one of those children who knew what he wanted to be the moment the question was presented to him. He adored planes, more than anything in the world and knew his future was in the sky. 

His father was a military man and brought home with him a sense of national pride that he instilled in his son. Though his words always came with a warning: Marshall was too young to understand what service meant, and would not be permitted to serve until he had ( at the very least ) completed university.

So the idea floated from Marshall’s head for a number of years. The passion for aviation was still there, but he allowed himself to explore other options. He wasn’t dead set until he was forced to watch Wings (1927) in his history class. It seemed he was the only kid in class that actually picked up on the movie’s meaning, That it was a love story between two pilots -- even going so far as to show the first gay kiss ever in american cinema. ( receipts -- this shit is gay ).

but Marshall’s dad was still against it. He didn’t think his son would have the stomach to serve when the going got tough. He managed to get into his head.

The thing was, Marshall was just as passionate about the mechanics of the planes as he was about flying them. When it came time for university, he enrolled himself in two programs at two schools. One for piloting, and the other for aviation systems management at a local college. To fall back on, as he explained to his family. It was hell for four years, doing night classes and getting his courses cut down to the minimum so he could handle his work load. He managed to pass both, somehow. 

When he was ready, after a year off to rest, he joined the military. Aged 23. He was a member of the air force, enlisting for a six year run.

The badge almost went to his head. He got cocky and brash, pressed on by his fellows, who had much the same attitude. In time he thought he was beginning to loose his sense of self. not to mention how...hard it was too see hardships of war. He couldn’t help but think that what he had seen wasn’t even been the worst of it. That every day he might be put into a situation -- a dog fight, a rescue mission -- that might really fuck him up. He wanted to preserve his sense of self.

When his six years were up, Marshall applied to be an AST instead. A year later, he was running out to the planes to do maintenance as the pilots climbed out of their seats. 

that’s all i have for backstory rn. there’s def something else there but.....i don’t know what yet. maybe he gets conned. maybe he has a scandal idk

HEAVILY subject to editing when i’m less tired/have his back story sorted out better!! and i’ll....rb it when i do that

Marshall still uses the hanky code in the year of our lord 2k19

def part of the NGPA (National Gay Pilots Association) man he’s j like that

his callsign: “dodger” is a play on “dodge her” because there was a girl lusting after him first year that he avoided like all hell

but now they’re besties 

has a pet cat! his name is Wilbur and he’s actually evil. will sit on his chest and knead if he sleeps in

big yes to coffee big no to tea

can drink a leprechaun under a table

beard vs. no beard are different moods for him

has so many tattoos but some include: a triangle with a depiction of the sky, a bar code on his thigh, a sound wave and a compass on his right breast.

this is........a mess.....im working on it ok

[riddledeep]

H.P.’s Full Character Profile

🗄️  Pixie holotype

🗄️  Successful business owner

🗄️  Anti-Cosmo’s best friend and/or worst nightmare

🗄️  Son of Ambrosine and Solara (Never turned out to be the Wish Fixers therapist his dad wanted)

🗄️  Father of 507 or so (Inadvertently)

Slight Riddleverse ‘fic spoilers. Your mileage may vary.

OVERVIEW

Full Name: Fergusius Alexander Whimsifinado

Title(s): Head Pixie the First / Pixie holotype / Pixie 001

Preferred Form of Address: H.P.

Alternate Forms of Address: Esteemed Head Pixie / Mr. Whimsifinado / Fergus S. Whimsifinado / Fairy-Fergus / Fergus Prime / Boss / Sir

Aspiration: Build something great that will last in the hands of his descendants long after he’s gone

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Born: Winter of the Fallen Mountain

Zodiac: Soil

Birthday: February 12th

Hometown: Novakiin - Small, wealthy town in Fairy World; features Wish Fixers and the science museum seen in “When L.O.S.E.R.S. Attack”

Came Into Adult Wings: 153,887 (Slightly earlier than average)

Age During Frozen Timestream: 744,699 (Mentally 66)

Age As of “Live For the Moment”: 892,130 (Mentally 79)

Age As of Devil’s Backbone: 907,959 (Mentally 80)

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Race: Fae (Seelie Court)

Species: Pixie (Formerly classified as Fairy)

Ethnicity: Originally classified as a crossbred common fairy, but technically a full-blooded pixie (Faedivus quadratum). He has fairy, leprechaun, imp, nix, brownie, and will o’ the wisp ancestry.

Nationality: Formerly Ildáthachian (Obtained at birth); automatically changed to Spriggish shortly after the War of the Angels when Pixies became recognized as their own class

Patron Insect: Polistes dominula (European paper wasp)

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Mindset: Gyne (Dominant)

Alpha Retinue Drone: Ennet Sanderson (Firstborn)

Previous Alpha Drones: Cosmo Waterberry (née Higgins), Buck Banister, Ren Hasten, Luis Magnifico, Rupert Roebeam

Pheromones: Switched into maturity [unusually late in life] after pairing with Kalysta Ivorie in the Year of the Charged Waters. His pheromones smell of orange and cinnamon.

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Counterparts: Dame Head > H.P. > Anti-Fergus 

Core: Laser cannon (“The Fairly Oddlympics”) - Overprotective and quick to strike; knows exactly what he’s aiming for and commits full-force

Core Color: Purple (Layer 1: Red; Layer 2: Blue)

Core Trait: [REDACTED; see the Origin of the Pixies chapter “The Makings of Greatness”]

Anti-Pixie: Tough-love backwoods type turned whiny emotional eater

Pixie Refract: Religious PTA mom

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Stats:

Power: Below Average

Endurance: Average

Wisdom: Average

Adaptability: Below Average

Charisma: Below Average

Openness: Below Average

Conscientiousness: Above Average

Neuroticism: Below Average

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Magic:  Tomte  |  Unstable  |  Weak  |  Average  |  Strong  |  Luz Mala

Crown Lift: Very low

Breathing Lines: Triple fishtail braid

Karmic Weave: Frayed  |  Sparse  |  Plain  |  Average  |  Thick  |  Elaborate  |  Royal  |  At Equilibrium  ||  Manifests as coronation robes

Fagiggly Color: Lavender

Preferred Shapeshifting Form: Goose

Signature Tactic: Disarming Kick - Literally kicks weapons out of people’s hands and catches them as they fall. More effective in his youth; not so much anymore with his older body.

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Wand Type: Ulkroot / Gold

Struggles to use other wand varieties as his is a handicap booster to help him channel his limited magic. Chews on it when stressed (if he isn’t in public).

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Family: High status and wealthy (Whimsifinado)

Creed: Páistí refracta foirfe daoine - “Heirs don’t make mistakes.”

Caretaker Spirit: His Glory Twryth (The wild hog)

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Permanent Residence: Pixies Inc., Inkblot City; Pixie World

- Has the penthouse suite at the top of the Headquarters building

- Central Star Region (Purple)

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Occupation: Head Pixie / CEO of Pixies Incorporated / Junk hoarder

Ruled: Year of the Dipping Moon - Present day

Heir: Markell Longwood

Previous Employment: Wish Fixers intern, worked in a bookstore during high school, butler to the Blue Robe, owner of a small tourist shop, owner of a small paperwork company, owner of Wish Fixers, worked under Santa Claus at Kringle Inc.

BACKGROUND

Self-Perception: That underappreciated guy who keeps the universe in order when the Fairies and Anti-Fairies go full chaotic mode.

Alignment: Neutral Evil

MBTI: ENTJ

Deadly Sin: Pride

Heavenly Virtue: Diligence

Love Language: Quality time

Reinforcers: Attention; he thinks getting scolded in public is funny

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Personality: Very laid-back, although hot tempered in his youth. Has a sassy tongue and little shame. Likes to get his way and be the center of attention, and will undermine anyone who attempts to dominate over him. When H.P. is around, he makes sure you can’t miss him. Very organized, with a few small OCD tendencies that flare up worse when he’s stressed. Major procrastinator.

H.P. views the world in goal-oriented terms, and constantly tries to tackle large conquests without gaining experience from side-quests first. He’d prefer to try and fail at the boss fight over and over instead of backtracking to form a new strategy, the way Anti-Cosmo prefers.

A lawyer at heart, H.P. would rather fight enemies on level ground through the legal system (aided by the occasional random blessing of chance) than maneuver political obstacles that simply force you to concede beneath social pressure. There’s no glory in an unfair fight.

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Special Note - Compulsions: H.P. does not have obsessive compulsive disorder in the human sense of it; his half-insect brain makes him immune to such a human thing. True, he does likes to keep things orderly, and he always rewrites all his notes on a new page of his notebook rather than cramming a note into the margins.

Many other pixies show similar preferences. However, they do not experience compulsions in the same way a human with OCD might; H.P. is not plagued by reoccurring thoughts and does not have regular rituals. His experiences are closer to zoochosis (expressing repetitive behavior patterns with no obvious goal or function; generally seen in zoo animals when they don’t receive enough stimulation).

H.P.’s organizational tendencies ebb and flow depending on his mood and current levels of stimulation; his compulsions are not as stable as obsessive compulsive disorder would be. When he becomes stressed, they flare up intensely and he’ll lock himself into stereotypic behavior patterns. Without someone like Sanderson around to redirect his attention, he can easily get stuck in the same repetitive task (like scratching a gash in a wall or picking at a thread) for twelve hours straight. If confronted, he’ll defend himself by saying he’s a “master procrastinator.”

He tries to avoid talking about it since he’s reluctant to accept his behavior patterns might be destructive. Because he was raised by a therapist, he’s extremely paranoid about sharing his feelings with one and refuses to think too much about his internal struggles in general.

On a normal day of only mild stress, he can walk past a bookshelf without reacting to it. If he’s uncomfortable with the thoughts on his mind, he’ll stop moving, hesitate, then turn around and reorganize it as a way of calming down. Notably, in the 130 Prompt “Minion,” he nearly left the grocery store successfully, but turned around to rearrange bouquets by color when the anticipation of meeting with his crush overwhelmed him with nerves.

Technically he doesn’t organize things until he begins settling down; at first he moves them around and measures them against each other and moves them around and around and around as a way to focus on the physical world. Once he’s no longer stressed, then he can finally clean up and put things in whatever order he likes.

H.P. does not have a specific way everything must always be; some days he prefers organizing by color, others by size. Usually if he took everything off a shelf, it was already organized so he invented a new pattern for it while trying to relax and he’ll put it back in a different way.

The shelves he sees on a regular basis are orderly and won’t throw off his groove unless something is out of place. If just one item is wrong, he’ll dump everything and start from scratch; shifting just one thing around doesn’t work for him.

Vice President Longwood’s kleptomania leads him to shift things around in H.P.’s territory as a subtle way of expressing dominance, so the two often clash over this.

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Education: Helped organize paperwork at Wish Fixers for the majority of his young life.

Attended school up until he dropped out of the Fairy Academy (within the first month). He later returned to school in order to receive a degree in food sciences, which he puts to use baking cake and bread.

His magical focus is essential sensories, allowing him to visualize places he’s about to ping right before he commits to pinging there.

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Spellementary School: Completed his Spellementary education in the expected amount of time.

Was considered an oddball child due to his genetics and being born out of wedlock. He didn’t really have friends; his neighborhood pals Marina and Sunglow were older and younger than him (respectively) so they weren’t in the same cohort during school.

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Middle School: Received average grades; did not particularly excel or fall behind.

Viewed as a quiet and studious child unless you said something he disagreed with, in which case he was prone to arguing loudly. A hard worker at school, but lacked motivation for homework.

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High School: His vision began deteriorating, causing his procrastination habits to worsen further. Reading (an activity he’d once loved) became difficult. His grades started slipping lower in classes he couldn’t be bothered to care about; by this point, Fergus knew his father would pay his way into the Fairy Academy whether or not his grades were good.

He spent years as Magalee Dustfinger’s lab partner in potion classes (she later went on to be the will o’ the wisp ambassador and Idona Ivorie’s mentor).

No longer seen as the quiet, studious kid he once was, Fergus developed a reputation for arguing and causing trouble. Easily bored by the subjects most kids loved, he slept through or skipped a lot of classes.

Due to his large build and aggression, faculty often encouraged him to try out for sports teams, though he rarely had enough interest to do so and struggled to meet application deadlines anyway (That, and his unstable magic was a barrier). His father pushed him to date several damsels during this time as he searched for a wife, but no one clicked.

Halfway through high school, Fergus let slip to his roommates that he thought it would be nice to marry a Refract instead of a Fairy and was blackmailed by his roommate’s brother for centuries because of this. Also worth noting that he worked in a bookstore throughout high school.

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Further Education: Sent to the Fairy Academy by his father to earn a degree in psychology so he could eventually become a therapist and take over Wish Fixers someday. Tensions rose when Fergus secretly changed his focus to the law program; he ended up dropping out of school after his father confronted him about it, and spent the next 300,000 years avoiding Ambrosine on Earth.

After the birth of his first several pixies, he finally picked his schooling up again and earned a culinary degree. No, he is not happy Pixies are banned from participating in the annual bake-off between the Fairies and the Anti-Fairies.

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Favorite Magic Subject: Sensory Distance Analysis

Least Favorite Magic Subject: Advanced Transformation Sciences

Favorite Non-Magic Subject: Further Studies of Da Rules

Least Favorite Non-Magic Subject: Fae Reproduction II

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History: Born out of wedlock, unwanted by his mother, nearly drowned by his grandfather simply for having freckles, Fergus was raised by his adolescent father and, for the most part, seen as an outcast of society for being sickly, inbred, and square.

Though heir to Wish Fixers, he didn’t find therapy his calling and quickly dropped out of the Academy. After that, he spent much of his life on Earth, eventually became infected with the Wolbachia pipientis bacteria, and gave birth to Sanderson shortly afterwards (much to his confusion).

Sanderson was nursed by a will o’ the wisp, who kept Fergus around as part of her harem for a year until he was able to win his freedom. He returned to his father’s home and began working his way towards supporting himself independently. After his third pixie was born, Fergus married a selkie named China Mayfleet, although they divorced 1,500 years later.

After the birth of his seventh, the cherubs learned of Fergus’ strange condition and brought him in for intense study and laboratory work. Cupid’s mother eventually helped him declare himself his own species, making him the holotype for the pixie race, and the first ever Head Pixie too.

Most of his adult life has been spent juggling his duties as CEO of Pixies Inc. with his parental duties. He also participated in the War of the Angels (the war from the episode “Balance of Flour”), and was captured by the Anti-Fairies as a prisoner of war.

Nowadays, H.P. asexually reproduces on a regular cycle, manages Pixies Inc., and lives in constant fear that Pixie society will fall apart after his death. Having no idea if his pixies are fertilized with short-term purple magic instead of permanent yellow magic does not soothe this fear whatsoever. Secretly convinced his offspring will die with him, he’s begun to hatch a plan... but that’s a story for another day.

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Notable Likes:

- Chewing on wood

- The color purple

- Orange flavoring (But not orange sherbet)

- Rave parties

- Drinking soda

- Massages

- Silk

- Oatmeal raisin cookies

- Child-proof locks

- Owning the latest technology

- Running a tight ship

- Puns and witty innuendo

- All the memes

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Goals: 

- Unlock the secrets of immortality

- Live to see as many of his descendants as possible

- Get the Fairies to pay attention to him

- Finally beat Anti-Cosmo at cricket

- Continue holding the universe together through the almighty powers of bureaucracy and endless paperwork

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Beliefs:

- The stars are Fairy warriors

- He’ll become one with his counterparts in the afterlife

- Fairies are rude and unprofessional

- Coffee is a godsend

- His kids are idiots but they’re doing amazing

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Fears: 

- Being forgotten and/or misremembered. H.P. strives to leave a paper trail behind him and secure his place in the memories of those he interacts with on a regular basis.

- He’s also afraid of heights and will avoid them at every opportunity. Those penthouse curtains are usually pulled shut.

- Fireworks.

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Upsets: 

Frustrated by rebelliousness

Stressed by lack of control

Flustered by PDA and by children being exposed to things he believes they’re too young for (Swearing, reproductive knowledge, etc.)

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Comforts:

Thumb-sucking, chewing wood, having circles rubbed into his palms

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Indulgences:

Enjoys the party atmosphere. He prefers soda to candy.

EXTERNAL

Verbal Notes: Uses very short sentences. Sometimes fragments. Really. Dialogue is very casual and includes phrases such as “Get with the times, dude.” Likes to refer to things as “cute” and “adorable,” not always sarcastically. 

Constantly makes demands, and is generally oblivious to others’ culture and overall just plain rude. One of his quirks is a tendency to focus on the wrong or unimportant parts of sentences. For example:

“Look what I found in my sock drawer!”

“Why do you have a sock drawer?”

H.P. has a tendency to state the obvious. His dialogue is often unnecessary but he does what he wants anyway. If he shows you a photo, he will make a point of informing you “That’s you, that’s me, and that’s your husband,” even when it’s obvious. It’s his dull and boring way of initiating playful banter.

In general, he can easily separate literal and figurative language and is an expert at identifying sarcasm. He has a special knack for reading someone’s tone of voice even through a screen.

H.P. adapts to new phrases quickly. For example, before he met Emery in Origin of the Pixies, he would say “Wait a wingbeat” in conversation. After spending time around her, he picked up saying “Wait a second” instead. He also picked up “Roger that” from China and “Dude” from Sparkle.

That said, he tends to jump the gun on using new slang terms before he fully understands the appropriate context for them- For example, he once referred to Anti-Cosmo as “hot” instead of “cool” and got a few weird looks.

H.P. asks questions as rarely as possible (without going out of the way to specifically avoid them). He asks through observations instead; rather than “Is it lonely?” he might say “You seem lonely” and await agreement or denial. “I heard” and “My understanding is” are other common ways to make inquiries without technically asking them like questions. When he does ask questions, they’re mostly meant as jabs (See also, “Why are we in jets when we can fly?”)

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Language: Dry wit. Throws vulgar language into his speech, but tries to censor himself around kids. Fluent in Snobbish, Elrulian, Chif, and En. Can speak some Milesian. Milesian phrases occasionally slip out when disciplining his pixies.

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Physical Notes: I’ve always struggled drawing his pointed forehead, so in my style he’s just very tall. He’s big, with wide hips (owing to the fact that male Fairies give birth in FOP canon). His freckles were pale in his youth, darkened in his adult life, and paled again in his old age. His arms are covered in magical tattoos.

And, obviously, he is infected with Wolbachia pipientis. The changes that bacteria made to his body are all internal.

Handedness: Perfectly ambidextrous.

Body Language: Regularly places one or both hands on hips. Places his right hand over the knuckles on his left and rubs them when nervous. Carries himself in a relaxed way.

Hair: The swirl in the back of his hair is referred to as “the Whimsifinado family cowlick.”

Teeth: Small but extremely sharp; must chew on solid things in order to keep them from growing into his brain.

Wings: Pixie wings mimic those of the Polistes dominula. Pixie hindwings are stunted compared to most Fairies’ wings.

Gyne Freckles: Average dusting on face and throat, light dusting on back of shoulders, heavy dusting on upper arms.

Scars: Right palm is very scarred, as is his right cheek.

Notable Tattoos: Logo and “001” on underside of left wrist; piggy bank and Soil symbol on left shoulder, blue fox and rat further down left arm, commelina wrapped around left wrist, paper wasp on right shoulder, flying fox bat and purple crowned fairy wren on back of shoulders. Tattoos are capable of “burrowing” under his skin if he wants to hide them.

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Style: Crisp. Well-dressed. Dull colors. He wears a 4x2 double-breasted, single-vent suit. He owns several, with different interiors (some fully lined for extra warmth, others unlined to prevent overheating).

Regular Clothing: Usually in his suit when in public.

Casual Clothing: Often attends casual events still dressed in his full suit. Alternate outfits include a sleeveless gray and white shirt that says “Pixie Holotype” across the chest.

Preening Clothing: Normally wears a simple gray or white shirt, usually with pajama bottoms (Pixie Holotype shirt is a common choice).

Nightwear: Often sleeps shirtless. Mint green is his preferred nighttime color, as he says that color is the only thing he actually finds boring. Sometimes wears the Pixie Holotype shirt to sleep.

Ceremonial Clothing: Red robes decorated with scattered golden stars; only worn during deep preening rituals with important political figureheads.

Other: Also dresses in rave clothes on occasion, which for him usually means gray floral shirts and short sleeves. He loves kandi bracelets. At the beginning of the War of the Angels, he wore white and blue.

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Height: 4′1″ (Tall for a fae)

Hygiene: Bathes or showers every evening, but not in the morning. Generally very clean, but touches his face frequently and still puts his thumb in his mouth on occasion when no one is watching.

His pixies do his laundry and dishes for him, or else they probably wouldn’t get done (even with magic). Sanderson takes care of his wings by regularly scrubbing and brushing them.

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Morning Schedule: Usually awake by 7:00. Sanderson arrives for morning retinue duties around 7:15- he prepares H.P.’s breakfast (including coffee), cleans his wings, and helps him dress for the day.

Most days, H.P. briefly preens Sanderson so Sanderson can spread his pheromones to other drones throughout the company. H.P. is usually ready to start work for the day by 8:30 (though most of his pixies are ready by 6:00 or 7:00).

He usually has reports from the previous day that need to be delivered, and will either hand them out himself or find someone else to do it depending on his mood.

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Typical Day Schedule: Now that his pixies are older and can handle things on their own, H.P. isn’t as involved in the inner workings of the company as he was when he was younger. Most of his job involves touching base with his employees, spreading pheromones, and just generally being his territorial queen bee self.

He tries to focus on a handful of employees after lunch each day, preferring to hear about the workings of the company directly from workers, not just supervisors. Sanderson frequently massages his shoulders after lunch, sometimes extending the session as a full back massage, and he might take a nap.

He visits Talon at the Water Temple twice a week on average, just to check in. Some days, he meets with important political figures. Other days, he works on schemes to take over Fairy World. He reads a lot of memos and writes a lot of performance reviews. When he’s not procrastinating, anyway.

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Evening Schedule: Touches base with Vice President Longwood every few weeks. Sanderson’s retinue duties begin at 9:00. If H.P. hasn’t met with an important figurehead for dinner, he’ll probably eat something while Sanderson brushes his wings.

Some days, he and Sanderson preen together, in which case H.P. will have to write another feedback report before bed. He prefers to be in bed by 10:45, but preening with Sanderson usually pushes that time off to 11:30. Even when he does crawl into bed, he’ll probably flick through his phone for another two hours before falling asleep with it in his hand.

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Sleep Schedule: H.P. is a light, restless sleeper, owing to a lifetime of raising young pixies who might cry out in the middle of the night. He usually sleeps on his side or stomach, resting his head on his arm (He has to sleep on his back if he has a nymph nursing in his pouch, much to his annoyance).

For most of his life, H.P. has slept alone, but when he does share his bed with a romantic partner, he rests his hand on theirs. He’s not a cuddler, but he enjoys that slight hand touch. On nights he and Sanderson have traveled away from Pixie World (vacations, business conferences, political meetings that require visits to Anti-Fairy World, etc.) the two sometimes share a bed (though H.P. will undoubtedly critique Sanderson’s cold feet and excessive wing twitching in the morning). 

H.P. is always the last one to fall asleep if he’s sharing a room with other people, so Sanderson feels quite safe when he curls up near his boss. H.P.’s territorial instincts spike when he shares a room with his drones, so he has an extremely difficult time lying down and will sit on the bed keeping watch for at least an hour after the last person in the room has gone to sleep.

Sharing rooms isn’t H.P.’s favorite, but he’d rather be anxious and share a room with Sanderson than have Sanderson stay in a separate room at an unfamiliar place. Much easier if they need to wake each other up in an emergency.

PERSONAL

Relationship Status: 

He’s more or less given up on romance by this point. He’s abandoned sex (which he was never crazy about anyway) and gets his social needs met by his pixies, Anti-Cosmo, Anti-Wanda, and Jorgen. He has a massive crush on the Fairy Elder, but that might just be thanks to her overpowering pheromones.

He’s head over heels for Anti-Cosmo in a “Dude, let’s go out for lunch so we can swap guy talk and show each other memes” type of way. He sees Anti-Cosmo as his closest friend - something like a brother-in-law - and is blatantly possessive of him around everyone but Anti-Wanda, whom he defers to.

He and Sanderson are committed preening partners who respect one another, although Sanderson values physical touch in preening more than H.P. does and that makes their relationship rocky at times.

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Ideal Relationship: Living with someone whom he can trust to take his side and have his back during difficult confrontations. Someone who is willing to be around him and simply “hang out” without making him feel pressured or guilty that they aren’t “doing anything exciting.”

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Sexuality: Perhaps romantically attracted to Seelie Courters but with a very low drive. Not entirely opposed to relationships with Anti-Fairies. Asexual.

On paper, he’s akoiromantic asexual- Drawn to people, but doesn’t want the attraction reciprocated (and attraction tends to fade when it is)

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Attractiveness: Growing up, Fergus wasn’t considered a very attractive fairy even though he came from a high-class family. His various health problems affected his looks and magic, and on top of that his social skills were terribly lacking (he was once told he “flirts like he’s conducting a job interview”).

As an adult, his brute strength, ever-increasing dominance, and the novelty of being holotype of a brand new race began to attract attention. As he progresses through his elder years, he is considered highly attractive by Fairy standards and most people would be shocked to learn he ever wasn’t. Nowadays he’s considered the “soft pretty boy who doesn’t like to get his hands dirty.”

By Pixie standards, he is likewise considered very attractive and always has been. Pixies gravitate towards the most dominant figure in the area and H.P. easily qualifies. By Anti-Fairy standards, his brains and influence make him attractive from afar, though his mean, sarcastic humor often rubs them the wrong way.

H.P. is so neutral and so incredibly influential in the universe that his karmic weave - an invisible “coat” of delicious luck that Anti-Fairies can sense around living beings - is considered the most attractive in the cloudlands today, and definitely one of the most attractive of all time.

His weave is only visible to Anti-Fairies at certain times, but when it’s visible they tend to drool over it. The reigning High Count always has dibs on “sipping” the luck from his weave by biting a certain point on his neck, but only with permission.

H.P. has allowed both Anti-Bryndin and Anti-Cosmo to sip from his weave on multiple occasions, which they consider an absolute honor. H.P. doesn’t see the appeal, but it makes them happy, so... whatever.

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Intimate History: Attempted to court several damsels in his adolescence under his father’s insistence; all fell through. Mary Black was his crush for millennia (possibly just because his father didn’t like her).

Considers his first sexual experience to be with Kalysta Ivorie, the will o’ the wisp who nursed Sanderson. Was also intimate with the selkie he married for a time. At one point in his adult life, he attended parties constantly and recklessly slept around.

He also had an emotionally intimate relationship with the High Count before Anti-Cosmo (Anti-Bryndin) and is most likely projecting the expectations of that former relationship on Anti-Cosmo. Later in life he pursued a relationship with another damsel, but after that came crashing down, he swore off sex and romance permanently.

At present, H.P. is the only political figure known to have preened with an Anti-Fairy (He’s preened with both Anti-Bryndin and Anti-Cosmo). Because of this, and because he’s seen as a figure who embodies neutrality without playing favorites, it’s widely assumed he’s had affairs with both Jorgen and Anti-Cosmo and switches between them depending on where Pixie loyalties lie at the time (or perhaps the loyalties of his race switch according to how well his affairs are going).

H.P. spent a lot of time in his younger years arguing with the media and vehemently denying it, but by this point he’s given up. He still loathes the implication, but tries not to let it get to him (It totally does). Jorgen will pound anyone he hears insinuate such a thing, but Anti-Cosmo finds the gossip entertaining and sometimes teases the media deliberately.

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Turn-Ons: Physical touch, actually. Like getting scratches behind his ear (He melts over those). Having someone cup his cheek in one hand, gently kiss his lips, or trace their fingers along his upper arms. Something that wouldn’t occur on accident, or while preening with a drone. Something that feels undeniably “Yes, this is what people do when they’re wooing someone.”

He’s a little oblivious to emotions and you have to be super blatant about your intentions to get through to him, so direct physical touch is the way to go. 

Despite his massive ego, fawning over him is actually a turn-off; he gets satisfaction out of pleasing his partners, but thinking about his own reactions paralyzes him with dismay.

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Reproductive Status: Infected with Wolbachia pipientis; reproduces asexually every 500 years, menopause kicks in ~1,000 years post-Season 10

H.P.’s Family Tree: HERE

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Children: The list of Gen 2 pixies can be found HERE.

Notable Grandchildren: Aspen Longwood, Cavatina Sanderson, Blackwood Longwood

Godchildren: Unknown ancient humans, IX (“Nine”), Dale Dimmadome, Flappy Bob, Gary Cabrera, Betty Lovell

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Foster Parents: Raised by “Mama Gidget” and “Papa Reuben” for his first 29 years while Ambrosine fought in the War of the Sunset Divide

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Father: Ambrosine Alexander Whimsifinado

Grandfather: Praxis Whimsifinado

Grandmother: Nettle Whimsifinado (née Gumswood)

Aunts: Adrina, Amalia, Ara; two married, no children, all deceased

Uncle: Alik Whimsifinado

Notable Ancestors: Windshine Whimsifinado (Once held the position of Purple Robe on the Fairy Council); Ezekiel Whimsifinado (Earliest ancestor the Whimsifinado family have written record of)

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Mother: Solara Lavender Wurpixiz

Grandfather: Beckham Wurpixiz

Grandmother: Corinna Posy

Uncle: Hugh Posy

Cousin: Sparkle Posy

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Sister: Emery Dakota Ranen (née Whimsifinado)

Met at age 491,535 

Brother-In-Law: Logan Ranen

Nephew: Chrysanthemum “Zan” Ranen

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Firstborn: Mister Ennet Sanderson Chipixie

Met at age 491,535

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Ex-Girlfriends: Don’t get me started

Met in youth

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Ex-Captor: Kalysta Lola Ivorie

Met (officially) at age 491,535 (encountered at age 157,344)

???: [REDACTED; see the Origin of the Pixies chapter “Fruitful Fruition”]

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Ex-Wife: China Cassandra Mayfleet

Met at age 491,535

Wing Notches: Scoop (Care) / Scoop (Diligence) / Slit (Spirit) / Scoop (Unity)

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Former Platonic Partner: Anti-Bryndin Kitigan Anti-Coppertalon

Met at age 494,529

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Former Platonic Partner: [REDACTED; see the Origin of the Pixies chapter “How Not to Bake Brownies”]

???: [REDACTED; see the Origin of the Pixies chapter “The Fading of Light”]

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Major Political Ally: High Count Anti-Cosmo Julius Anti-Cosma

Met at age 491,535

“Stepson / Nephew”: Anti-Westley Talon Anti-Lunifly

“Stepdaughter / Niece”: Larkspur Shiny Mayfleet

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Celebrity Crushes: Venus Eros; Ilisa Maddington

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Current Love Interest: Unrequited crush on the Fairy Elder

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Other Important Relationships: Sees the anti-pixies as his nephews and sees the pixie refracts as his nieces; dislikes Anti-Sanderson. 

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Sanderson - H.P. values Sanderson as useful, but considers him emotionally unstable; he firmly believes Sanderson can only be a good leader if watched over by another leader figure, which limits his promotion opportunities in the workplace.

Nonetheless, H.P. does care for Sanderson and values the perspective he brings to the table; Sanderson would sooner give an honest opinion than blatantly suck up, and H.P. respects that immensely.

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Longwood - Vice president of Pixies Inc. and H.P.’s heir. H.P. considers him a little wishy-washy, especially with his tendency to flirt with damsels and hesitation to bond with his coworkers (not to mention his dream to keep Pixies a strictly neutral species someday), but admires Longwood’s creativity and dedication to his job.

H.P. sets regular time aside to teach Longwood the ropes of being Head Pixie and holds him to a high standard; he’s quicker to lose patience with Longwood than with most.

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Smith - On paper, Smith is one of the subordinate gynes at Pixies Inc., though his pheromones flicker in and out of dominance depending on how strongly H.P. presents himself that day. H.P. and Smith have had a number of bad clashes, and Smith has even overthrown him in the past.

Smith and Longwood do not remotely get along, meaning H.P. has to keep Smith outside the inner workings of the company, meaning Smith is outside the normal range of his pheromones and therefore a dominant gyne more often than not.

H.P. respects Smith’s strength, but is wary of his bloodlust. They keep the peace by taking turns with Sanderson’s free time and pretending they don’t.

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Anti-Cosmo - H.P. admires Anti-Cosmo for clawing his way to a leadership position at such a young age and, minus the emotional instability, considers Anti-Cosmo a hard worker and excellent role model for his pixies. He sees Anti-Cosmo as his best friend and shows his affection by roasting him with quick wit and dry sass.

H.P. had a close relationship with Anti-Cosmo’s predecessor and is probably projecting the feelings of that relationship on Anti-Cosmo; H.P. doesn’t let go of friends easily and clings to Anti-Cosmo as his main source of support outside of Pixie World.

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Anti-Wanda - H.P. and Anti-Wanda share a love for sass and innuendo and get along well. Anti-Cosmo tends to take H.P.’s teasing personally, and while his reactions are funny, sometimes H.P. wants to hang out with a friend who gets his sense of humor and won’t require follow-up apologies to calm down.

He and Anti-Wanda enjoy the occasional party together, or at least playful banter over lunch (See also, “No Absolutes”).

Anti-Cosmo frets that H.P. is flirting with his wife, but reluctantly accepts that H.P. isn’t going to go away any time soon (and that he needs to trust Anti-Wanda to make her own decisions about her friends).

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Jorgen - H.P. and Jorgen get along best when business and money are being discussed; they share a lot of political opinions about order and discipline. They work well together when they see themselves as a guest in the other’s home and the dominance hierarchy is clear-cut, but clash when cultural norms expect them to work out a pecking order in neutral territory.

They simultaneously respect each other while having no moral issue with tormenting one another. During times Fairy World and Pixie World are officially aligned against the Anti-Fairies, Jorgen and H.P. have a very close relationship as H.P. treats Jorgen as his closest friend (even above Anti-Cosmo) and Jorgen tries to prevent him from swinging back to the “dark side.”

TRIVIA

- His legal name is Fergus, not Fergusius; he had it and his middle name legally changed when he turned 200,000.

- His in-story namesake is Fergusius Mór mac Eirc, also known as Fergus the Great, the legendary king of Scotland. In reality I named him after my brother’s stuffed triceratops, who is very cute and widely underappreciated in this household.

- Without his cohuleen druith (magical hat), he would die after about an hour of mildly strenuous activity (i.e. walking or flying). It’s not really a concern when he’s in bed for the night or sitting quietly at his desk.

- This hat also grants him the ability to breathe underwater in addition to being filled with squid ink (thus it’s also a pen).

- Anti-Fairies show up to break his back when his pixies step on cracks.

- Not good with hugs because of the whole “bees cuddle their queen to death when she’s no longer useful” thing. Paranoia game is strong.

- He’s borne more offspring than any single Fae drake in history, although it’s possible future pixies will usurp this title from him.

- Absolutely plays favorites and makes no attempt to hide it.

- Along with all pixies, he has much higher tolerance for caffeine and sugar than the majority of fae do.

- His pride is his downfall; he hates being thought of as weak or cowardly and can’t resist a dare. His desire to show off and impress others often outweighs his common sense.

- He’s extremely honest and sneers at the idea of telling lies- even white lies. He tends to speak his mind regardless of the consequences.

- His blood is purple 95% of the time due to his neutral emotions. Most fae bleed blue (irritation), pink (knee-jerk reactions), or green (misery).

- He chews his fingernails. And sticks. And a lot of things.

- He’s deathly allergic to honey, so he can’t actually use Fairy World’s contraceptives (which are all honey-based). His Refracted counterpart runs a honeywheat mill.

- Wolbachia pipientis prevents him from bearing children the traditional way. It also blocks all other STDs. Win some, lose some, I guess.

- Wears watches on both wrists. One is set to the Pixies Inc. time zone and the other is set to the time zone of Fairy World’s capital city (Faeheim).

- There’s a joke to be made about his friendship with Anti-Cosmo and smoke’s calming influence on bees, but you didn’t hear that from me.

APPEARANCES

Main Blog Tag - #I’m wasp dad trash

Sideblog Tag - #RD Head Pixie

Sideblog Masterpost

AO3 Tag - #Head Pixie

130 Reasons Why I’m Fairy Trash - 130 Prompts series

Rainbow Train - Pieces that aren’t in the 130 Prompts series

[flokidokie]

The Gancanagh - Chapter 16

Fandom: Downton Abbey

Chapter Summary: The love between Aiden and Thomas is the worst kept secret at Downton Abbey.

Read the whole story here or under #thegancanaghfic. For more of my stuff look at #flokileroux or #flokiwrites.

Tagged: @jolieblack @irrationalgame

Chapter 16 - The pride of a father

It took some time until Aiden had recovered enough to leave the bed again, after he had passed out cold during the cricket match. It hadn't been the best opportunity, but he and Thomas had finally have the chance to talk about the train wreck of relationship they had going on, clearing more than one misunderstanding on the way.

Aiden still loved Thomas and Thomas still loved Aiden, it was as easy as that, after all.

The young lord hadn't recovered from his treatment yet, but he made progress, slowly. Talking to Thomas and seeing that he would not abandon him for his involuntary feelings, had lifted some of the tension he had felt and he had not realized how much he had missed sleeping next to Thomas. No matter what the doctors had conditioned him into feeling, in Thomas' arms he still felt safe.

He hadn't heard a lot about what happened at the Abbey for the last few days, his only source of information being Thomas, who visited him daily, and his aunt, who didn't want to agitate him. Edith had been snuck in once, telling him Thomas was walking on eggshells around Lord Robert, but was skipping happily through the hallways, when he thought no one was looking. Other than that he had missed out on daily gossip of the servants and he was thrilled to join them in the lounge again.

„My lord.“, he heard Carsons voice through the door, after a knocking. „Are you decent?“

Aiden grinned.

„Morally? Never.“, he replied. „But I'm wearing trousers, if that's what you're asking.“

Carson opened the door and greeted him with an disapproving look.

„I know you must be feeling well, when you talk like this again.“, he said, closing the door behind him.

Aiden smiled at him fondly, putting his sketch book into his desk. His ability to draw had improved again since there was not much else to do, while being under bed rest. Also Thomas made a great model to practise on.

„I wanted to tell you something, my Lord.“, Carson began to speak. „And I think I should have told you a long time ago.“

Aiden crossed his arms, furrowing his brows in suspicion.

„Do I have to worry?“, he asked, half as a joke, but Carson looked at him with such seriousness that he actually started to worry.

„I know you don't remember much about your father, but I knew him well.“, Carson said, ignoring his question, as if what he wanted to say had burdened his conscience for a while now. „He loved you and your sister very much, but he always wished for a son. All what you did and all that you have become... I can assure you, he would be very proud of you. As am I.“

Aiden was speechless. He silently blinked at the butler before him, biting his quivering lip, willing the tears away, that threatened to spill over his cheeks. Carson was right, he didn't remember much about his father. He also couldn't remember anyone saying these words to him, since he had been six years old and finally overcome his fear of leprechauns.

„I may have been unkind to Thomas for a long time and I yet have to apologize for that.“, Carson continued. „But I want you to know, that Downton Abbey will always be your home, for both of you. I can't change how society will see your kind of relationship, but I'll make sure that this house will be safe.“

Aiden sniffled and found no words. He felt like his throat was closing up and he sensed a headache coming with all the tension that had build up in his head, caused by the efforts not to start wailing like a baby. Not sure what to do or to say, he made his way to the butler, hugging him tight.

„Thank you so much...“, he said quietly into the shoulder of a father figure for the second time this week, trying hard to get himself under control again. Carson awkwardly patted his back.

„You have to tell Thomas.“, Aiden said after he had peeled himself from the man, straightening his clothes after the sudden display of emotional instability. „You are the closest thing to a father he has, and he needs to know that you think differently than his real father did.“

Aiden knew that Thomas needed to hear this more than himself. The young lord called too many people in Melbourne his friends, to think he was alone with the way he was living, but Thomas did not. Everything he ever heard was to be foul and perverted, unnatural... These words did hurt being said by strangers and even more being said by people one was close to. Thomas deserved to hear that he was loved, that people cared for him, despite and for his differences.

Carson nodded, visibly growing uncomfortable.

„I will, my lord.“, he promised, straightening his back. „If you'll excuse me now, I'll must prepare breakfast, before his lordship grows impatient.“

Aiden watched the butler leave, glad that he still had time to dry his tears before going downstairs too. His family worried enough about him already, more tears would only cause them to worry more.

When Aiden eventually stepped into the dining room, the whole family was assembled. He didn't remember the last time, when everyone had gathered to eat breakfast together at the same table. Even Mary and Lady Cora had decided to join them.

He awkwardly walked to his seat, wishing them a good morning, before sitting down.

„I'm glad to see you among the living again, Aiden.“, his uncle said, smiling at home across the table. „You gave us quite a fright.“

„Sorry for that.“, Aiden replied. „But don't worry, I really don't want to repeat that.“

He poured himself a cup of coffee, ignoring the way his cousin Rose grinned in her tea. Aiden furrowed his brows in suspicion, knowing the face she made when she planned something. Rose MacClare, the youngest daughter of his uncle Shrimpie, had been living with them for a while now, causing chaos wherever she went. The young lord saw himself in his cousin sometimes and he was sure, they would have been so much better friends now, if he hadn't lived through a depressive episode for the last months. He ignored her for now, as she had done nothing yet and he had noticed something else entirely.

„I don't think I have ever seen you without your hair up, Aunt Cora.“, he said, watching her with a tilted head. „Are you going trying something new?“

Lady Cora sighed into her tea.

„O'Brien quit last night. Left without a word to become Lady Flintshires new maid in India, can you believe it...“, she replied, putting her cup down.

Aiden raised both eyebrows, being positively surprised.

„Oh?“, he asked, lifting his cup to his lips. „Would you look at that...“

„You don't happen to have anything to do with it, do you?“, his aunt asked him with a knowing look, causing the young lord to smile innocently into his cup.

„No, I didn't do anything.“, he said truthfully. „I wish I did, though.“

Aiden could confidently say, that he hated few people as much as he hated Sarah O'Brien. The former maid could have gone to the end of the world and he still wouldn't find her being far enough. After all the things she had said, he wished her a nasty sun burn at least.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Aiden saw Thomas entering the room, carrying a fresh pot of hot water. He shot him a smile, blushing only the faintest bit, before turning his back on him, tending the breakfast tea. Aiden sighed enraptured before tearing his eyes away, not wanting to get caught staring.

„So...“, Rose said loudly into the silence at the table. „You and the underbutler, hm?“

Aiden could stop himself from choking on his coffee, but he jumped nonetheless when he heard a clattering of cutlery behind him. With wide eyes he looked at his grinning cousin, who didn't even try to hide her face behind a napkin.

„Yes... Yes, me and the underbutler.“, Aiden confirmed before quickly turning around to Thomas. „Are you okay?“

Thomas wore the same expression Aiden had at her words, now crouching down to gather the lost spoons.

„I'm alright, my lord.“, he replied, not looking at him. Aiden turned around again, pondering if it was proper to go and help him.

„I'm so glad this is out in the open now.“, Edith said relieved. „I don't know how much longer I could have pretended I didn't know.“

Lord Robert looked at her in disbelieve, slowly lowering his newspaper.

„You knew?“, he asked his daughter. „Since when?“

Mary rolled her eyes, while buttering a piece of toast.

„Papa, everybody knew.“, she said amused. „It was hard not to notice.“

Aiden swallowed when his uncle turned to him, his face a mixture of confusion and irritation.

„How long has this been going on?“, he asked with a stern look.

„Well, that depend entirely on what you consider as a start...“, he began, fumbling with the edge of the table cloth. The young lord suddenly felt very small, as his uncle did not stop looking at him expectantly.

„How long?“

„Maybe since the dinner with Mama...?“, Aiden said quietly, not looking at him.

Lord Robert exhaled loudly, shaking his head in disbelieve.

„I can't believe it... in my own house... and I never knew...“

Aiden shot a look to Thomas, who still stood in the background. He had straightened himself again, watching the floor, spoons still in hand. Aiden didn't need to see his eyes, to know they were full of fear.

„I love this man, I love him dearly.“, Aiden said with all the authority he could muster. „And I will not abandon him, no matter what you say. If you choose to throw me out, I'm taking him with me. Just so you know.“

The young lord had stubbornly lifted his chin, locking eyes with his uncle, who still seemed to process the fact that there were things happening in his home, he had no clue of. Then he remembered, that Thomas still had a say in this matter.

„If he would want to, that is.“

When Aiden turned around, he found Thomas staring at him, eyes wide and mouth agape. He looked almost exactly like the morning, when Aiden had woken up in the former footmans bed for the first time. Stunned, mortified and a little bit afraid. He swallowed hard, before speaking. With a stern face he turned to Lord Robert.

„I don't think I could bear staying somewhere, where he isn't.“, Thomas said seriously, before looking back to Aiden. „Fire me, if you must, but that won't keep us apart. My heart is with him, always.“

Silence laid itself onto the room. This hadn't been the first time that Thomas had confessed his feelings to Aiden, but it had been the first time he did it publicly and he chose to say it right into the face of his lordship, who happened to be something like his father-in-law now and also had threatened to fire him for less personal matters in the past.

„Awww, this is so romantic...“, Rose cooed, folding her hands over her heart. „Like in these romance novels.“

Mary had to laugh at her reaction.

„You should've have seen the drama, that came before this confession.“, she said with an amused smile.

„Or the drama, that will come after it.“, Edith added.

Lord Robert inhaled and exhaled again, nodding slowly, pondering.

„Well, good to hear, that both of you are committed.“, he said eventually and not a word further.

Aiden waited a few seconds, just to be sure, but as his uncle only continued his breakfast, the young lord looked helplessly to Thomas.

„So, you are okay with this?“, he asked carefully, making his uncle sigh.

„I don't need to tell you, that a relationship like this is highly unconventional. In more than one way.“, he said, looking up to him. His expression was gentle. „But I already lost a daughter because of my intolerance. I don't indent to lose a son.“

Aiden needed a few seconds to process the fact that he had just gotten his uncles blessing to not only pay court to a man but also an underbutler. A smile growing wide in his face he almost jumped out of his chair to run over to Thomas. He knew a kiss right now would be over the top, but he had to feel the other man to make sure this was not some kind of fever dream and he was still recovering in bed.

„However, I must insist on some rules.“, Lord Robert added, when Aiden had reached the underbutler. „First rule: I understand, that I can't keep you out of each others rooms, but please stop sneaking around the house in the middle of the night.“

Thomas' grip was strong, when Aiden took his hand, as if he would fear the young man would disappear, if he didn't hold on to him, fearing, what he heard was to good to be true.

„Understood, we'll decide on one bed and stay there. What else?“, Aiden replied, brushing with his thumbs over Thomas wounded hand. He had told him about this injury, what he had done to come home to him. Aiden still felt bad, that he hadn't been there, when Thomas returned, after all that he had done. The fair leather glove was a daily reminder.

„Second rule: Be discreet, if we have guests over. And now off with you.“

Not a second after his lordship had ended his sentence, both men hurried out of the room, Aiden pulling the still baffled Thomas after him. Lord Robert shook his head, softly smiling.

„What is it with the children of this house, running off with commoners?“, he asked, while Lady Cora patted his hand in sympathy.

„Times are changing, my dear.“, she said. „Who knows, maybe someday the Queen of England will be a commoner as well?“

His lordship shot her an unamused look.

„Now, that this matter is taken care of, let's talk about one last problem.“, Lady Cora said, putting chin onto folded hands. „How do we stop the wedding?“

[queennicoleinboots]

Day 7 of Xara and Peter's "Curse"

A/N: Unedited

Xara's smartphone refused to stop playing Irish Rock. It played steadily for 15 minutes before Xara answered the phone. Joebear was growling at the phone.

"Fuck you, too! What the FUCK IS THIS E-mail?!!!!!" Peter W. Parker screamed over the phone.

"Hello... that E-mail mentioned appointments and beatings. Why are you screaming at me?" Xara asked sleepily. She was incoherent and grumpy.

"Because I can't fucking wait until Wednesday! My mother is sick and can't cook. And because YOU, you fucking bitch, cursed me, I can't fucking cook, either!!!!" Peter yelled at the top of his lungs.

"Couldn't you order out?" Xara said as she yawned.

"No! I tried that! The food ends up all fucked up. Why the fuck did you do this to me?!" Peter yelled as something slammed in the background.

Joebear growled, rolled over, and went to sleep.

"I didn't mean to! It happened because I can't handle stress. I'm sorry, Peter," Xara said as she got out of bed and went to get coffee. She was cursed. Waking up to anyone, much less Peter W. Parker, screaming at her over the phone was the worst possible way to wake up.

"Neither can I! I can't stand the taste of food anymore. I can deal with peanut butter and bananas, but that's about it! Why the fuck am I cursed?!" Peter screamed as he was beating his fist against a table.

"Because you were tainted with my poop. Sorry," Xara said as she was heating a cup of coffee for herself.

"Oh Jesus. That makes sense. Goddammit. I have had fuck luck all my life, but this is unreal!" Peter said as he put his head in his hand while holding his black flip phone tightly against his considerably small head.

"True," Xara said before she heard the microwave beep at her. She took the coffee out of the microwave, sat down, and had a sip. "I legitimately did not mean to do this to us."

"Well, it happened. Please talk to the Giant NOW and make an appointment TODAY!!!!" Peter yelled before he snarled. "If I have to look at another jar of peanut butter, I'm going to turn into an ape!"

"Okay, Peter. Jesus. It's too early for this shit, Peter!" Xara said as she drank her coffee.

"Fuck you. You're not the one with fucked-up taste buds. Call him NOW, or I will (or won't) disable your already malfunctioning BRAIN!!!" Peter yelled.

"Yes, Pete," Xara said as she stole Peter Parker's trademark sigh.

"Good. Bye," Peter said as he slammed the parts of his flip phone together. Peter then took a paint mixing stick and started beating the table until it broke.

When the phone had hung up, Xara said while singing to DarkSydePhineas's remix "Megaman's an A-Hole," "He's a fucking ass. He's a fucking ass." She continued to drink her coffee before she called The Giant. "Fuck me."

The Giant answered the phone with a bellowing voice. "What the fuck do you want?!"

"A lot of things, actually, but my main priority is magic spices. I can't wait until Wednesday. I have an important dinner coming up and need them TODAY! It just kind of sprung up. May I have some, please?" Xara asked.

"I DON'T FUCKING HAVE ANY! My supplier is late on his delivery, goddammit! I used it all on Saturday!" the Giant yelled over the phone.

"Are you fucking serious?!" Xara asked with an exasperated sigh.

"YES I'M FUCKING SERIOUS!!! WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU TAKE ME FOR?!" the Giant screamed.

"I don't know, dude. I'm just fucked right now! I have this big dinner, and I can't cook because I'm fucking cursed," Xara said.

"Goddamn right you are. Your shit's affecting me. Instead of going about our scheduled meeting, I have to go find this leprechaun and beat the shit out of him until I get the magic spices! Jesus God!" the Giant said. "Because that's what the fuck I want to do. Leave my lair in the sky and hunt jackasses. This is bullshit."

"Dude, I understand. I don't want to deal with this shit, either," Xara said. "Damn."

"But I have to for the sake of magical sanity. See you next week! I am cancelling all my appointments," the Giant said.

"See you next week," Xara said.

The Giant hung up the phone and threw it clear out of the window on the other side of where he was. The phone landed on some other poor fuck's roof, probably the Keebler Elf's roof again.

"Jesus Christ!" Can I make love to a woman without hearing some bullshit hit my roof?" asked the Keebler Elf who was only wearing his green elf cap while his butt was sticking out of the sheets. He was on top of Lady Smurf.

When the phone was hung up, Xara shuddered and took a deep breath. "Peter is going to go ape shit," she said to herself as she dialed his number.

"So, did you get that appointment today?" Peter asked with a goofy smile on his face.

"Um. No. Not only that, but he cancelled everything this week. He's on a hunt," Xara answered.

"Oh what an asshole!" Peter yelled as he threw his hands in the air.

"Well, Peter, he ran out of magic spices, and his supplier is late on the delivery," Xara said as she put her head in her left hand.

"Oh what an asshoooooole!" Peter sung.

"Yeah, it's bullshit," Xara said.

"You're an asshole," Peter said flatly.

"I know. I'm sorry... We'll have to be patient and deal with this curse," Xara said.

"Yep... but until then, I'm going to go outside and go ape shit," Peter said as he spoke through clenched teeth.

"You go do that. I'm going to go get ready to *not* deal with your bullshit," Xara said.

"Thank you. I want to massacre you," Peter said darkly.

"I know," Xara said.

"See ya," Peter said.

"See ya," Xara said.

Peter slammed the two parts of his phone together. "I'm surprised this phone isn't broken yet," Peter said. As soon as he opened his mouth, the phone broke in pieces. Peter just stared at the remnants of his once-proud flip phone with his jaw dropped. "Yep. I'm going ape shit now."

At that moment, Peter stood up and starting beating on his chest rapidly with both fists while jumping up and down like a literal ape. He was making ape noises similar to when his novels done turn. Out the way he wants them.

When Peter was a normal human being, he was a writer, actor, artist, and drywall finisher. But when he was acting like an ape, well... under Xara's curse, he was literally transforming into an ape.

His hands and feet were growing even bigger and more muscular than they already were. His nails were becoming thicker, and his brown curls were getting thicker and longer. His teeth were growing inside of his mouth, which was also growing with a full set of pink lips to boot. Speaking of teeth, Peter now had a massive underbite with one large saber tooth at each bottom corner of his mouth.

In fact, his whole head and torso (and dare we say his penis, testicles, and ass) were becoming encased with a large amount of muscle density.

His radiant green eyes grew in proportion to his now large head, which meant his glasses broke off of his face. The only thing that remained somewhat small despite his new proportions was his pug nose.

His legs were now muscular and even longer than they were before. He used to be 7'4," but now he was "8'6" even with his back curving like an ape's would. His arms were also elongated and muscular like a typical ape's arms.

A side effect of his transformation was that he outgrew all of his clothes and was completely naked. Luckily, he grew a bunch of hair where apes normally have hair, so his man junk wasn't too obvious for people to see.

The clothes he was wearing were torn in shreds and were lying in a pile on his screened-in back porch.

Peter looked down and freaked out. "Holy Shit! I'm actually an ape!" he screamed. Then he smiled and shrugged. "But at least I have an excuse to only like bananas now."

His mother, Godiva, walked over slowly and hunched over because her back was killing her to see what the commotion was outside.

Peter was worried that she would freak out, so he tried to hide.

"Peter? Where are you?" she asked as she looked for him.

"You sure you want to know?" he asked with a deeper voice than usual.

His deeper voice subconsciously made her smile and bat her blue eyes. "Absolutely," she said a bit more seductively than she should have.

"Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you," Peter said with his deeper voice.

She really wanted to find her son then, and maybe plant kisses on him when she does. "Okay," she said with a giggle.

Peter emerged from his hiding place to greet his mother. "Hi, Mom," he said in his deeper voice.

She stood there dumbfounded and with butterflies in her stomach. She breathed heavily and stared at him softly, "Oh wow...." Something about his ape form really mesmerized her.

"Yeah, ummm... I don't really know how to explain this," he said with a booming laugh.

She laughed as well. "I didn't ask you to," she said as she walked up to him with a better posture than she was able to maintain all day. She had forgotten all about her achy back when she saw him.

"Good... because I have no idea how it happened..." he said with an awkward smile.

His awkward smile really drove her wild. If he weren't over three feet taller than she was, she would have totally kissed him right then. She came closer to him and touched his right arm. "I still love you no matter what you are," she said as she looked deeply into his eyes.

"Thanks, Mom," Peter said as he hugged her.

Godiva leaned into his hug and rubbed along his sides. Peter pet his mother's head softly.

"Do you still like your back scratched?" she asked as she was trying to hug around him. Her body was tightly wrapped against Peter's.

"Yeah, but I feel bad asking for it from you, considering all you do for Dad," Peter said as he looked into her blue eyes that were behind leopard-print glasses.

Peter's father was Jamie Parker, a 84-year-old retired man who still wished he could work. He installed drywall for a living and generally worked out of Atlanta, GA. He typically worked 80 hours a week when he was working.

Jamie made a nice life for his family and made it possible for Peter to be slightly spoiled. Generally, Jamie was a nice guy, but he had a disconnect from his artsy and feminine son. He was definitely fond of Peter, but being a conservative Republican fundamental Christian, he struggled to understand his liberal Democratic agnostic son. Truth be told, Jamie made more attempts to connect with Peter than Peter did with his father.

Unfortunately, about 16 years ago, Jamie fell out of bed and broke his right hip. He was now bound to a wheel chair and could barely do anything for himself. His wife now takes care of him full-time.

Godiva started scratching Peter softly. "Peter, you're my son. I'd do anything for you." she said softly as her delicate hands moved up and down his back. "Besides, I love scratching your back." She kissed his chest. The taste of his gorilla scent was driving her wild.

"Oh well... I wouldn't want to take any attention away from Dad... in his delicate situation and everything," Peter said as he rubbed her back softly with just his right hand.

"Oh please do!" Godiva said as she continued to scratch his back. She could feel herself start to feel younger when she was touching him.

She was transforming into her younger self. Her hair was turning from gray, short, and straight to brown, curly, and long. Her skin was becoming more vibrant. Her back became straighter, and her clothes were fitting around her newfound curves in flattering ways. Her blue eyes were becoming more vibrant and her lips a more pure pink. Her nose was pointier just like she was when she was 54 years old.

Peter looked down at his mother, and his jaw dropped awkwardly.

Godiva was a bombshell in her younger days. Her 36B-cup breasts complimented her perfect hour glass waist and hips that were the same circumference. Her floral top brought attention to her chest and her pull-on jeans hugged her waist tightly.

"Maybe I might have to take your attention away from him after all," he said with a big smile as he fingered one of her curly strands and looked her straight in her bright blue eyes.

[closetofanxiety]

Show Review: Northeast Wrestling - “Lucha Mania”

It’s been almost a year since I’ve been to a Northeast show! What the heck is wrong with me? What the heck is wrong with US? Let’s take a look.

What: Northeast Wrestling, “Lucha Mania”

When: Friday, April 20 (haha, 4-20, weed, reefer, jazz cigarettes, etc.)

Where: The Police Athletic League building in a section of Waterbury, Conn., than a charitable realtor might describe as “having lots of potential”

Who: I’m bad at estimating crowds, but no fewer than 300. Maybe 400? If not a sellout, it was close. The building was packed.

Show notes: I went with Mark, and before the show we tried to get dinner, but as it was a Friday night and we don’t know Waterbury well, the only thing that was nearby and didn’t have a wait was a TGI Friday’s. This was a major defeat. I haven’t set foot in a Friday’s since, I think, 2004. There’s no need, really. I had a salad. It was fine. The less said about their nachos, the better.

Opening Banter: There’s a new ring announcer since the last time I saw a Northeast show. Where’s, I think his name was, Vince? Vince the Prince? New guy has a weirdly nervous smile, like he’s doing the ring announcer gig because someone is holding his family at gunpoint. He announces the changes to the card: Mandy Leon and FKA Emma are hurt, Ron Simmons had a family emergency. There’s a 10-bell salute to Bruno Sammartino, Paul Jones, and Johnny Valentine. The national anthem plays. FKA Emma comes out to say she’s bummed she can’t wrestle, but sure does like the fans, etc. Casey Katal, a local heel on the rise, comes out to badmouth FKA Emma. FKA Emma is like, surprise! My friend Karen Q is here to wrestle, just in case a local heel on the rise spontaneously interrupted my “sorry I can’t wrestle” promo.

Karen Q vs. Casey Katal

A decent but unspectacular last-minute addition to the card. Karen Q is terrific, but Katal is still very green, and this match featured a lot of awkward pauses as people tried to get in position for spots, clunky exchanges, kicks that visibly missed their mark but were sold like they hit, etc. The crowd was into it, which always helps. Katal won by using the ropes illegally for leverage. 

Rating: Two Sad Nachos.

“Red Lion” Chris Battle vs. “Sexy Beast” Bull Dredd

This match sapped my will to live, so let’s talk about something else. Let’s talk about the woman sitting near me in the bleachers who had kind of a pixie-cut hairstyle and was there with a small child I imagine was her son. They were attending with another mom and her similarly aged boy. As I get older, I find myself more and more attracted to women with kids. Maybe it’s because I realized too late I wanted to be a father. Maybe it’s just, praise God, age appropriate attraction. I tend to think after a few laps around the block, people are more realistic about what they want, or perhaps know themselves better. I do, anyway. I have no idea if Pixie Cut Mom is single, but I found myself wishing I knew a way to communicate to her that I am a responsible person who won’t come home drunk or spend the utility bill money on scratch cards. I want to meet women who are into that kind of bland predictability, because that’s my top-dollar best. Should I start bringing printouts of my FICO score just in case? One thing I know is, I’m striking out in this endeavor. The last date I went on, the woman was nice, but not only wasn’t she a mom, she spent the evening talking about a crisis of religious faith she was experiencing, which is pretty intense first date banter. There has not been a second date. I want to just skip all that stuff and appeal directly to someone who’s turned on by a partner who has a low-interest home equity loan and a stable office job. This is a confusing romantic landscape to occupy. My advice is to get married when you can, because the longer you wait, the weirder you become. That’s just a hard truth. You never reach an age where you magically become someone else, you know? At some point you have to realize that “what I want to do with my life” is not a goal, it’s a reality: whatever you’re doing right now is what you are doing with your life. This match sucked, by the way. 

Rating: Dud

“Man Scout” Jake Manning vs. Sam Adonis

Sam Adonis is Corey Graves’ younger brother and working a heel gimmick in Mexico as a Trump supporter. In Waterbury, that would not make you a heel. There are conservative towns, and then there is Waterbury. There used to be kind of a fascist paramilitary group in town called the Defense Survival Force that allegedly infiltrated the police and fire departments. They were mixed up in the famous 1968 raid on the Voluntown Peace Farm, where the “patriots” ended up shooting it out with state troopers.

So, like I said, the Trump thing won’t work here. Adonis is a good heat-drawing heel in the old sense, working the microphone well and insulting the crowd about our lack of physical attractiveness (fair point, except for Pixie Cut Mom) and our putative status as welfare cheats. One older woman was LIVID and kept running up to the railing to point and scream at Adonis, who gave it right back to her. The crowd was thus primed to welcome his opponent, and Jake Manning got a HUGE babyface pop when he came out. The energy kept up pretty much throughout the match, as the crowd roared with approval every time Manning got some offense in, and lustily booed all of Adonis’ eye-gouges, back rakes and similar heel chicken shittery.

Manning is a tremendously underrated wrestler and Adonis is game if not exactly sensational. This was a fun, old-fashioned wrestling match. Adonis won, because Manning is doing a thing where he never wins in Northeast. Supposedly he’s at 0-60. My hope is that somehow they bring in Goldberg for him to break his streak.

Rating: Three Sad Nachos

Rey Fenix vs. Christian Casanova

It’s been a while since I’ve seen Casanova, and he has improved tremendously. He’s dropped the Michael Jackson impersonator gimmick in favor of a less distinctive but more believable cocky heel gimmick. He also worked like a heel, which I appreciated; Casanova is a lithe athlete with a lot of high-flying offense, but the story here was him trying to slow the match down and force Fenix onto the match, depriving the crowd of a sensational but superficial battle of two babyface flyers. Fenix is one of the best in the world right now, though, and he kept breaking through with the kind of jaw-dropping stuff he’s capable of. There were a few botched moves, but honestly that doesn’t really bother me that much; if anything, it enhances the realism. Fenix wins with a spinning Michinoku Driver, which was a hoot.

Rating: Three and a half Sad Nachos

INTERMISSION

I went to get my picture taken with Penta and Rey Fenix. There was a super long line for Penta, but virtually none for FKA Emma. Maybe she was there before the show? Anyway, I used to scorn photo ops, but you know what? I want to live a little. After all, it is my mission to SUPPORT THE BOYS.

King Brian Anthony and the Royal Graysons vs. Adrenaline Rush (Keith Youngblood and “Dangerous” Daniel Evans) and Ron Zombie

Hoo boy. NEW has a King of the Ring-esque tournament every year, and I guess the current king is promotion stalwart Brian Anthony, who was a Cena-esque goody-goody for a long time, then had a stint as a dark and tormented heel, and is now an arrogant, lordly heel. The Royal Graysons are two cruiserweights who were standard issue babyfaces last time I saw them in NEW, which I guess was almost a year ago. Now they are Brian Anthony’s sniveling toadies, coming out dressed in his trademark white and neon green colors.

The color scheme made me think how much more I’d be into this match if Anthony’s gimmick were that he’s the top leprechaun, and the Graysons were his leprechaun attendants. Call them the O’Shamrock Brothers, Shillelagh and Darby. Every match would be a Pot O’ Gold Match, with the goal being to take control of Brian’s gold and force him to grant three title shots instead of three wishes. I would be ridiculously into this. I would wear Brian Anthony “They’re Always After Me Pot o’ Gold!” shirts to work. Although, now that I think of it, in actual Irish folklore, leprechauns are typically said to wear red. Go figure.

Anyway, whatever else can be said about Brian Anthony, the man knows how to be a professional wrestler. He’s a good worker, good on the microphone, and knows how to draw heat from the crowd. It’s pretty much that skill that prevents this match from being a slog. The good guys are popular, particularly Ron Zombie, but they don’t exactly click as a three-man team, and there’s not much to lift this from the doldrums of a perfunctory six-man tag match. The good guys have it wrapped up, but then Casey Katal from the first match runs in to distract Zombie, who’s then superkicked by Hale Collins, a guy Zombie has been feuding with. This is maybe the worst superkick I’ve seen in my life; it missed Zombie by about a foot. But down he went, enabling the Leprechaun Connection to steal the match.

Rating: Two Sad Nachos.

“Big Bacon” Brad Hollister and Josh Briggs vs. “Kingpin” Brian Milonas and Wrecking Ball Legursky w/ Jared Silberkleit

Not a lot to love here. Milonas and Legursky are both big dudes, somewhere in the 350-400 lb. range, so their ability to have a lengthy, intricate match is limited. I thought this was going to be a squash, but they actually dragged it out for a long time, which was a poor choice. Milonas and Legursky are impressive as big dudes who come in and trash little guys, or who battle other big dudes in hoss fights. Hollister and Briggs are both big, but not compared to their opponents. Some positives: Hollister has a lot of potential as a fired-up babyface. Built like the proverbial brick shithouse and with an arsenal of suplays, he could quickly establish himself as a 21st century Taz, or an unproblematic Mike Elgin. I also thought Silberkleit did OK as the shitty heel manager. His narrative is that he used to be the humble timekeeper until he reached the age where he could collect a vast trust fund, which turned him evil. Normally I spurn “rich asshole” gimmicks, because they’re so implausible: I’m a millionaire, so I’m going to do what ALL millionaires do: Make $100 for a wrestling match in a rural town hall! But I’ll say this: Silberkleit wore a suit that actually looked tailored. I appreciate the commitment. The bad guys won when Silberkleit distracted Big Bacon. If you’re counting, that’s three screwjob finishes in just six matches.

Rating: Two Sad Nachos

NEW Championship Match: Travis “Flip” Gordon (c) vs. Penta El Cero Miedo

Well this was just a tremendously fun professional wrestling match. NEW Flip is not the comedy Flip of “Being the Elite”; he’s more like an Arthurian knight, and Penta is a fucking monster from the darkest part of the woods. Penta is no high flyer, but instead of using the traditional heel tactic of trying to ground his exciting opponent with mat-based submissions, his approach is to knock nine bells of shit out of Flip with insanely hard strikes. They did a great job of establishing the dynamism of those strikes by subverting our expectations: they’d go into the setup to a standard spot - Flip doing a reverse handspring off the ropes, with the expectation that he’ll finish with a back elbow or cutter - only to cut it off midway, with a jumping dropkick or superkick from Penta. I’ll say this, too: Lucha Underground did a fabulous job of getting Penta’s inverted armbreaker submission hold over as a match-ender. He never got to apply it in this match, but even the attempt to go for it made the crowd go completely bananas. The match ended with both guys trying to put each other through a table, and as the anticipation built, people started running from one side of the gym to get a closer look; I even saw the previously bored fire marshal jogging over, and the merch guy from Highspots standing on his chair. Flip won not long after hitting a 450 from the top rope to a table outside the ring. Hugely impressive match from both guys, and one of the best matchups I’ve seen in person. 

Rating: Four and a half Sad Nachos

[sunshineweb]

Winning the Doctor Lottery

By ANISH KOKA, MD

A poignant piece recently appeared in the journal Health Affairs and was rapidly devoured on social media by the health policy community. The story is a harrowing first person account of a woman’s multiple interactions with doctors. The doctors in the story are either very good or very bad. One pediatrician turns the author and her sick son away on three consecutive days with colic, only to have a more careful partner sound the alarm and discover pyloric stenosis. The author then recounts the tale of her father’s death at age 42 due to a surgeon who operated for diverticulitis unnecessarily.

My family and I haven’t always won The Doctor Lottery. My father’s surgeon, for instance, had pushed him to have the bowel resection to “cure” him of diverticulitis, a disease in which the colon’s lining becomes inflamed. He stitched up my father’s intestines with a suture known to dissolve in patients who’ve been on steroids and hadn’t read my father’s chart to see that his internist had recently had him on cortisone. Nor did he look at the list of medications my father had carefully written down on his patient intake forms. When the sutures dissolved, my father, who had a bleeding disorder, went into shock. His abdomen was distended and hard.

My mother asked the nurse to page the surgeon. “My husband is in so much pain!” she said. The surgeon, who was playing golf, told the nurse to tell my mother, “Pain after surgery is normal.” By the time my father developed a fever, and peritonitis, it was too late. He died of a heart attack.

It’s a moving anecdote with a tragic ending that has the requisite story elements – arrogant uncaring doctor ignoring patient and family concerns while on the golf course – that policy folks use to argue for remaking the current health care system into a more patient-centric world. Unfortunately, medicine is hard, and while there are certainly errors that are avoidable, many are not. The best surgeon, the best system, and the best medical care are at times no match for the randomness of life. A certain percentage of patients will have an infection after an abdominal surgery despite every current safeguard that is known. The vast majority of patients with abdominal pain and distention after surgery do not routinely need to be reoperated on. Deciding who to reoperate on is often challenging. Is a good surgeon one who takes every patient who has abdominal pain and distention back to the operating room? Is it feasible to have an attending surgeon on hand to evaluate every complaint of abdominal pain? Should we ban all surgeons from playing golf for 48 hours after they operate?

None of these questions have answers that don’t involve tradeoffs in the real world. In policy world, however, solutions are magical constructs that don’t involve robbing Peter to pay Paul. In this fantasy world Peter and Paul find a leprechaun with a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. As a result, the solutions proposed to ‘ending the doctor lottery’ involves fostering strong patient doctor relationships that align incentives based on number of patients seen rather than the value of care delivered. Apparently, what promises to save us is a large order of payment models based on value, with teams composed of generous helpings of social workers, behavior health experts, and cute puppies.

It is with this noble intent that our physician overlord masters in the Center for Medicare and Medicaid services , at the bidding of the public and congress, have applied themselves to the small task of assigning value to physicians. There are many prongs to this worthy desire to measure the nation’s doctors, but a particularly sharp prong advanced by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality is the patient-centered Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS). The CAHPS tool is actually a standardized survey that has been in use since 1997 to measure and report on the experiences of consumers with the health care services they come into contact with. More recently, a sister to the CAHPS tool was born so that physicians in office settings may be measured by their patients – this was named the Clinician and Group – CAHPS survey (CG-CAHPS). The stated goal of this tool is to publicly report survey results to allow patients to choose good doctors.

The assessments are performed by practices and health care systems. Patients receive surveys that seek to get to the heart of what everyone wants in a physician – Does your physician listen carefully? Did your physician spend enough time with you? It appears that practices have some latitude in how the question is asked, what questions are asked, as well as how to interpret the results.

Value-based care sounds good, and enjoys widespread support among every non-clinician that seems to matter in the world of health care policy. Physicians seem generally apathetic, though overconfident about the coming valuations – after all, it’s always the other guy that sucks. Not surprisingly, the worst physicians have the least insight into their own limitations, and suffer the most from delusions of grandeur. While physicians may be excessively poor at grading themselves, the physician community that loves gossip about as much as the Real Housewives of Atlanta are much less forgiving. Yes, that’s right – there is general widespread agreement among physicians of the worst among us.

So, imagine my surprise when one of the good guys that I worked and trained with called to tell me that he had the lowest CG-CAHPS scores in his group and he may need ‘remediation.’ Value-based care takes on a whole new dimension when you’re the one that carries the 21st century version of the scarlet letter.

Unpacking the genesis of a bad CG-CAHPS score is an exercise in revealing the idiocy that results from the many good intentions in healthcare. In this particular case, the hospital sends out a survey to patients that have come into contact with its physicians. Those who respond to the survey select answers that range from ‘always’ to ‘most of the time’ to ‘never’. Only ‘always’ counts towards a ‘Top Box’ score, and this Top Box score is then compared to a national average to generate the provider’s percentile. For instance. if 9 out of 10 patients checked off ‘always’ to ‘Did Provider listen carefully to you?’ your Top Box score is 90% – but if the national or health system average for that category is much higher – that score may still put you in the 50th percentile.

The problems with all of this are legion. Of the 1500 unique patients who this physician saw in the prior year, 120 patients took the time to respond to the survey. I’m always surprised that anyone fills out any surveys – I fill out one every 2 years. Regardless, of the 120 patients who responded, six chose not to select the top box, resulting in this physician being labeled a problem in need of remediation. Beyond the problem of generalizing from 120 patients who have an unnatural affinity for filling out surveys in the mail, one wonders if there is more to a physician’s worth than her ability to communicate? As a medical student, I recall a surly surgeon who minced few words in his communication with patients, but was technically brilliant. Many a grateful patient or family was indebted to him for a life saved, but I recall a smattering of patients put off by an approach that had little time for the worried well.

In the name of transparency, CMS plans to publicly share this quality information via an online physician compare tool to allow patients to finally win the doctor lottery, and perhaps more importantly, tie reimbursement to value.

Health systems nervous about decreasing reimbursements related to their bad physicians need not worry because riding furiously to their rescue are health care consultants, who for a pretty penny, promise a smooth transition to this new world. These words from the Studer-Huron health care consultancy appear designed to allay the health system executive’s fears:

“Plenty of evidence shows that patient experience and clinical quality are two sides of the same coin. You already want to provide the best possible care. And now that Clinician and Group Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems is here, there’s a new reason to focus on patient perception: CG CAHPS will impact ACOs, PQRSs, PCMHs, and many other programs, and survey results will link to payments in 2015.”

These same consultants lined up not long ago to help hospitals achieve pay for performance metrics. It surprises no practicing physician that pay for performance metrics and value based payments as currently designed were an abject failure. While there are some like Ashish Jha (Harvard School of Public Health) who have noticed and publicly called out the failure of value-based payment, the answer disappointingly appears to be ever better patient-centered metrics. The latest idea that relates to my scant enthusiasm for basing value on patient surveys, unfortunately, comes from no other than Dr. Jha, who wrote recently in JAMA on a proposal to query Medicare patients 30 to 60 days after discharge on the quality of care they received, and tie up to 10% of a hospitals reimbursement to these scores. I can almost feel the frisson of excitement travel through the offices of the Studer-Huron group at this latest opportunity to manage patient perception and save the day.

I fear a noble profession has lost the plot when it chooses to measure value based on patient satisfaction simply because it is the easiest and most politically correct metric to measure. It seems that the vision of measuring value is what’s important – it matters not that the value quantified by these wonderful tools is the health care policy equivalent of fake news. What matters is that surveys measure something that can be quantified, regressed, risk-adjusted and published. The truth may be shrouded in darkness, but falsehoods found where the light happens to shine now comes to masquerade as the truth.

When it comes to one’s health, the desire for an assurance of quality is an understandable one. We are supposed to assure quality by making medical school admission a privilege reserved for those who have demonstrated intellectual vigor, board certifications that test competency, and continuing education to attempt to demonstrate maintenance of competency. Unfortunately, we live in a time where acceptance into medical school relates more to virtue signaling than intellectual horsepower, and board certification is a mechanism to siphon dollars from physicians to take tests that have little to do with the practice of medicine, and certainly don’t weed out the bad.

The medical profession has done itself few favors by having a remarkably anemic approach to ferreting out physicians who fall egregiously below professional standards. There are no perfect solutions, but I would suggest with much bias that having a healthy pool of primary care physicians not employed and beholden to health systems are vital to improving the chances patients have to win the doctor lottery. I understand the public desire for guarantees when it comes to those we trust with our lives. The only thing the current approach guarantees is the health of the bank accounts of health care consultants, but protecting patients from bad doctors? What a joke.

Anish Koka is a cardiologist in private practice in Philadelphia. Most of the opinions he has aren’t put on surveys, but can be found on twitter @anish_koka

Winning the Doctor Lottery published first on your-t1-blog-url