#apparently draco knows german a bit??? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

exxa1812 · 2 years ago

Text

Voldication: A Vacation with the Riddles and Malfoys:)

Notes:

I used to play this with my friends when we were younger. Do NOT take this seriously. We had and probably still have mental issues. Have fun reading this. Sorry for the loss of braincells.Btw my first language isn't english. Sorry for any mistakes

Oma: german word for grandma [Om•ma]

Bussle: german word for a van for 7 people. not a bus! [Bus•sle]

Summary: Lord Voldemort needs a break from killing muggles. So he decides to take his family on a vacation to Italy. There is a lot of family fun and fluff and a Pool.

Chapter 1 : Oma ist KEINE Alkoholikerin (Oma is NOT an alcoholic)

I'm Delphi Riddle. My parents are Lord "Voldi" Voldemort and Bellatrix LeSTRANGE. This is the story of my family who went to Italy for summer vacation and things got a little bit out of hand when I was five years old.

Day 1.

The journey from London, England to Bucine, Italy was horrible. The bussle was packed with my dad, my mom, Narcissa, Lucius, Draco and me.

We could've apparated but DAD insisted on the whole experience. So we had to drive 4000 hours to Italy in a really crowded bussle without air conditioning.

When we FINALLY arrived I was sweating like a monkey in a shed. The house was nice and big. I even had my own room. There was this beautiful garden with lots of different flowers and plants. And behind the house there was a pool.

Since it was already late, we decided to eat dinner consisting of grapes and raisins because we didn't buy any food and because my dad is an idiot who forbid magic for the whole vacation.

So we just ate what was left for our trip. The wasn't much so everybody got a grape and 2 raisins except Draco he only got 1 raisin. After dinner I went to bed. It was already past my bedtime while the grown ups stayed up late which was really unfair.

Day 2.

When I woke up the next morning I already had the feeling that this was going to be a horrible day. This feeling turned out to be true when I found Oma sitting on a chair at the house bar with a glass of a weird clear liquid in her hand. Her wand was holding up her hair.

I always loved her hair. It was mid length and gray but in a certain light it looked lilaclightblue. I didn't know what she was doing here. Or how she got here. Suddenly I heard a lout gasp and a even louder and high pitched "MOMMY!!!" I turned around to see my dad standing in his with yellowish night gown in the door frame mouth hanging wide open and eyes comically large.

He was stuttering out a lot of questions like "What are you doing here, Mommy?" or "Really, Vodka?! It's only 9am." But Oma ignored him and yelled:"Have you lost your mind? How could you do this to me. To our family name. You stopped killing muggles for a vacation in Italy. You are a disgrace to this entire family." " I-I-I j-just thought it w-would be a good i-i-dea."

"You just thought! Well clearly you didn't. And for your information. I'm not drinking Vodka. It's water. I'm not an alcoholic."

Yeah, that's right. Oma is NOT an alcoholic. Just like uncle Lucius isn't one either. My dad just stared at her and said again "What are you doing here?"

"I'm part of this family and this is a family vacation. So of course I'm here. Somebody has to make sure you haven't gone completely insane. And I also wanted to see my granddaughter again." Oma answered slightly annoyed but smiled at me. Well, I think she did. You never know with her.

"Where are the others? Is the rest of the lazy folk still asleep?" Oma complained and took a big swing of her water.

"Bella is up. The rest, I don't know." Dad said unsure. "What are the plans for today, daddy?" I asked. Dad seemed to think before he answered: "Today is our first day here, so I thought we chill here a little bit and do some watersports."

"Yay!!! I love watersports. Especially waterball!!!" I said excitedly, while jumping up and down. "Of course that's your great plan for today. To do absolutely nothing. You are so lazy." Oma said with a very disappointed look on her face, while she poured herself another glass of water.

"It's not lazy. We just want to spent some family quality time. And we don't have to do a lot because it is vacation." Dad tried to defend. "Yeah, yeah, what ever" Oma said dismissively.

Then mom came. She was as equally shocked as dad when she saw oma. "Oma, what are you doing here?" Mom said with a forced smile. "And are drinking Vodka? We said no alcohol around Delphi" she added with a disapproving tone.

"Like I already explained to my lovely son. I'm here because this is a family vacation. And I'm family. It's water that I'm drinking, not Vodka. I don't drink."

Mom groaned really loud and dad walked quickly over to the bar to pour himself a glass of a brown yellowish liquid. I assumed it was apple juice. Dad emptied the glass and looked like he wanted to die.

Then Narcissa and Draco came in. Narcissa was pleasantly surprised when she saw Oma. Draco didn't seem to notice her presence. He was busy staring at his phone. "Lovely seeing you here, Oma." Narcissa said. For some reason Narcissa was the only adult who got along with oma. Oma always criticized dad. She didn't like mom because Oma is her mother-in-law. I don't know about Lucius. Oma never talks about him. I don't think I've ever seen them in one room.

But Oma didn't respond to her. She just stared at Draco, who still didn't notice her. "What is that?! Is that one of those muggle phones?! Why do you have this?!" Oma shrieked and started to completely freak out. She screamed things like "Stupid muggles." And "Stupid technology." To my surprise she didn't go for Draco. She went for dad. "And you allow this. That your nephew owns this muggle trash. Unbelievable!"

"Mommy, please. I didn't know he had it." Dad exclaimed quietly. "Boy, why do you own such horrible device, that is contaminated with muggles." Dad asked Draco in a strict voice. For the first time Draco lifted his head and saw Oma. His eyes went wide and his skin even paler as usual. "I uh need this for uh school."

He stuttered out. "I use it to uh submit my school assignments because uh owls don't fly to Italy. You know owl policy and stuff." He then explained a little bit unsure. "Oh, I didn't know Hogwarts uses now muggle trash. But I mean it is for school so I guess it is fine." Oma said understanding.

"I'm hungry." I said because I couldn't stand the fact that the attention wasn't on me. I mean I'm the main character after all. "Well Lucius went shopping for food. He actually should be here by now." Narcissa said.

"I had a long journey and I'm tired. I'm going to bed." Oma said with a yawn and left. But not before she took two bottles of her favourite brand of water. Five minutes after Oma left. Lucius came back from shopping and we all got to the dining area to eat breakfast.

The rest of the day was not that eventful. We stayed at the house and chilled. We all played some watersports. I didn't see Oma for the rest of the day. Mom said it's because she is tired and has a male cat (Hangover). Whatever a male cat has to do with this.

At the end of the day we had a beautiful dinner in the garden. Dad made pizza, which wasn't even that bad. Then I went to my room because I had to go to bed.

#harry/draco #harry potter #dumbass #fuck dumbledore #oma #oma ist keine Alkoholikerin #Lucius malfoy in a wig #grapes #character death #enemies to lovers #italy #i dont deserve to live

2 notes · View notes

missnight0wl · 3 years ago

Note

Is Helena and Jacob's mother language English? I think there are many buddies in our gang have other languages as their mother languages, such as Rowan, Chiara, Tulip, Ismelda, Andre, Jae, Badeea, Liz, Diego, Murphy and Rath. Are there any others?

Yep, Helena and Jacob’s mother language is English! Now, since Jacob Kowalski is their grandfather, I like to think that they know some Polish. We know that Jacob emigrated when he was young, but it seems that he was very close with his grandmother who passed on him the love for baking and cooking – and she most likely spoke Polish. Still, I’m not sure if Jacob would use Polish much in the future or teach it to his children and later his grandkids. That’s why I assume it’d be very basic. However, the Ellis siblings know a lot about Polish cuisine (and some other traditions, too).

Back to your question though. Hm, to be completely honest, I think that English should be the mother language for all of our friends, and that’s because of the technical aspect. I mean, I’m nit-picking here a bit, but there was that one interview with Rowling where she said, "Hogwarts just serves Britain and Ireland". That’s why you can always see on HP wiki the nationality being stated as “British or Irish” (unless more precise information was given somewhere else). Yes, Draco could’ve been sent to Durmstrang, but apparently, it simply means that Durmstrang is not as restricted in this area as Hogwarts. The wizarding schools can have different policies.

Of course, I see your point that all of those students seem to be from multicultural families. Still, I think that their mother language should be English if we assume that it was more relevant for the place where they lived – and considering that “the mother tongue is the language spoken most often to a child at home”.

But that being said, some of them might just have two mother languages, meaning that they’re simply bilingual. It’s hard to tell for sure, though, because people might have a different approach to it. Some parents will teach their kids two languages simultaneously; in other cases, a bilingual parent will teach their kids only basics. For some reason, I think that Diego is the most likely to actually be fluent in both languages. Not only because he’s quite stereotypically Spanish already, but more importantly because we learnt in the “Cook-Off” TLSQ that tradition is very important in his family. I imagine it could involve language as well. As for the rest, I’d say it could be either way.

Also, I admit that I’m stupid because I’ve spent like five minutes wondering why you included Ismelda in your ask. But then, I remembered my own post about a possibility of Ismelda being part French (because of Tulip’s comment about Bauxbatons), so… yeah. Still, I’m a bit confused by Murphy and Rath, probably because I don’t follow the Quidditch content. But could someone explain to me what I’m missing here, please? I assume that “Rath” might be German as my quick research suggests, and “Erika” is a spelling commonly used in German, too (though not only). But Murphy? Both “Murphy” and “McNully” are Irish, aren’t they? As I said, I might simply not know something from the game, so that’s why I’m asking.

Now, I think the only person I’d add to your group is Orion Amari. Although he became an orphan probably at a pretty early age, it’s also kind of hard to say how it might’ve looked like here exactly.

#hogwarts mystery #hphm #hphm mc #jacob's sibling #helena ellis #hphm jacob #jacob ellis #jacob kowalski #diego caplan #ismelda murk #erika rath #murphy mcnully #orion amari #ask #anonymous

10 notes · View notes

dracolunae · 3 years ago

Text

I posted 1,618 times in 2021

42 posts created (3%)

1576 posts reblogged (97%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 37.5 posts.

I added 593 tags in 2021

#art - 169 posts

#cat - 122 posts

#dragon - 51 posts

#minecraft - 46 posts

#music - 41 posts

#loz - 38 posts

#yugioh - 36 posts

#tma - 33 posts

#useful - 30 posts

#funny - 27 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#things disappear from registering when they are in a place but also the only way my brain will get random moments of ‘oh yeah that thing!’

My Top Posts in 2021

Luna does it make sense when I say that Techno gives off like old vibes but it’s very contradictory? Like you have multiple friends and colleagues of his who watched his vids before (Tommy, Wilbur, Dream, Ranboo) and looked up to him but he’s only 22. He’s been in YT since 2013, and he was only a teenager during that time. Techno speaks as if he’s been around for a decade (well close to) and seen tides change and witnessed channels rise and fall and he’s still really young. And his deep voice and cadence doesn’t help. For me it’s easy to forget he’s only 22 b/c of that. It’s very weird but also interesting to me b/c I feel like that’s such a rarity. To have someone that young who was part of the OG MCYT years. What do you think? -arah fren

@tinyheinz

Yeah, honestly Techno does totally give off old vibes.

Like, so many of the CCs that actually know him thought he was way older than he actually is! Notably that one Quackity clip where he freaks out at the fact that Techno is only a year older than him.

As well with the whole “Who is the older twin, Wilbur or Techno?” So many people said Techno even through Wilbur is, like, notably older than Techno!

He just has the vibes of just knowing shit bc he’s just been around that long, probably because in internet terms he has been around for quite a while!

I think the fact that so many CCs look up to him as a mentor/fear-worthy op veteran plays into this vibe a lot too.

It probably also doesn’t help that chat has tried to claim him as a dad figure for several years now KEKW

Man’s just radiates mentor/dad (apparently)/older brother vibes.

It is very funny though, to see very old Techno clips and hear baby Techno swear up a storm with a tiny little kid voice.

12 notes • Posted 2021-11-26 01:16:33 GMT

COMRADE

20 notes • Posted 2021-02-01 13:03:33 GMT

Starting my own picrew tag chain! With this picrew!

Tagging: @maybewren @jdc1717 @inkedmyths and anyone else who wants to join in! I really enjoyed this one, it’s so abstract!

23 notes • Posted 2021-08-04 01:55:14 GMT

Hi, you can call me Luna, or Draco, or whatever nicknames you wanna give me! (I’ll let you know if any make me uncomfortable.)

I mainly use she/her and they/them pronouns but I’m fine if you wanna use other pronouns including any added to my pronouny, though I’d prefer not to be genuinely referred to by it/its pronouns (it’s okay if it’s a lighthearted bit or smth).

I’m 19 years old, German/Australian and identify as an Ace Demigirl! I am suspected to have ADHD and an anxiety disorder but I do not have a diagnosis yet.

My main/more static interests are liguistics, mythology, world-building (especially in a fantasy context), dragons, cats, owls/corvids/misc. birds/wings, ceramics (especially German Westerwald Steinzeug), Welcome to Night Vale, Origami, Minecraft, Mushrooms

Current interest(s):

Dream SMP and adjacent MCYT

Other Interests I’m especially open to talking about:

Sonic (especially any sort of lore and the comics)

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure

Witch Hat Atelier

Avatar: Journey to Pandora

Yu-Gi-Oh! (Especially the card game)

Bee and Puppycat

Saiki K.

Hellboy (especially the Guillermo del Toro movies)

Inuyasha

The Legend of Zelda

TMA

Boundaries and general info:

Please do not sexualise me or make jokes about me being into someone sexually if I don’t know you (mutuals get more of a pass to joke about this one, I’ll tell you if I’m uncomfortable)

Empty blogs that follow me get blocked, unless they state that they just follow from a main they don’t use. I don’t like having empty followers, sorry.

I am fine with playful insults and banter, especially if we’ve talked before! I’m okay with die jokes if we’ve talked before or you make you it’s obvious you’re joking.

Feel free to send me asks if you just wanna say hi or chat about something! Or even just to infodump about a shared interest!

If you follow me and need me to tag something I can do that! I tend to organisationally tag most things anyway!

Feel free to tag me in things! I’ll reply/reblog if I feel like it but I’m always happy to get tagged because you thought of me or something :D

This blog is my main for posting a variety of things!

Sideblogs I post on:

MCYT things: @antarctic-empires

Blogs I am a moderator/admin on:

@technoblade-updates

See the full post

24 notes • Posted 2021-08-02 00:36:43 GMT

Tumblr is advertising me pretty knives, since when does the algorithm know me so well <3

I mean, it’s mostly advertising them in French but it’s the thought that counts

36 notes • Posted 2021-11-06 12:35:11 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

3 notes · View notes

glasgowgreywitch · 4 years ago

Text

RICH WITCH

Margaretha Hönin had a bad reputation. Even though she lived in the late 16th century, we know that her neighbours, the people of Coburg in Thuringia, despised her for being a parvenu and a money-grabbing miser. Hönin was also said to be a witch who met regularly with a dragon. For her neighbours, her economic behaviour was clearly linked to the visits from the dragon. But today, the connection between her miserliness and her witchcraft is obscure. Why was the link so obvious to her contemporaries? What was the relationship between economic behaviour and accusations of witchcraft?

It makes sense to focus on Germany when we talk about witches. Conditions for witch trials were, unfortunately, very good in large parts of the Holy Roman Empire. The country consisted of hundreds of principalities, and most of these could pass their own criminal laws. They had their own criminal courts, many staffed by incompetent lay judges who were nevertheless empowered to use torture. About half of all the people executed for witchcraft in the early modern period came from Germany.

When investigating witchcraft, one needs to differentiate between real and imaginary magic in the early modern period. If we want to understand the connection between the imaginary magic of the witches and economic behaviour, we need to deal with the connection between the economy and the real magic practised by ‘common’ people. In pre-industrial Europe, magic was a part of everyday life, very much like religion. People didn’t just believe in the efficacy of magic, they actively tried to use magic themselves. Simple forms of divination and healing magic were common, as was magic related to agriculture. The peasant household used divination to find out if the time was right for certain agricultural activities. Charms were supposed to keep the livestock in good health. Urban artisans and merchants also used economic magic to increase their wealth. Of course, the shadow economy of gambling and lotteries was obsessed with magic well into the 20th century.

Of all the forms of magic, magical treasure-hunting had the greatest economic significance. Treasure hunters drew on a vast magical arsenal. They had spell books of any description, divining rods available in any kind of wood, amulets to protect them against evil spirits, and lead tablets etched with magical signs. Most treasures were thought to be watched over by some kind of spirit, and treasure hunters tried hard to come into contact with these. To the utter horror of the ecclesiastical authorities, they invoked angels and saints. Treasure hunters talked to ghosts. Some of them even tried to conjure up demons.

Another magical strategy for finding treasure (used in 17th century Swabia) was to write down mysterious characters on parchment, and leave it on the ground where the treasure was thought to be: if it erupted in flames, the hunter had found his riches. When the place where the treasure was buried had been located, the wizard would draw on the ground with a sword magical circles adorned with magical symbols. He then put birch twigs on the edge of the circle, apparently a new addition to the magical routine meant to strengthen the circle. After that, he said a lengthy conjuration in a foreign language that he read from a bit of paper, apparently an excerpt from a spell book. Only then was digging allowed to begin – and always in strictest silence.

Treasure hunting came close to being a magical mass movement. There were thousands of treasure hunters in early modern Europe and almost all of them tried to use magic. However, only a tiny minority was ever accused of witchcraft. As a rule, treasure hunters simply had to pay a fine or do some penal labour for a couple of days. Common people simply didn’t see treasure magic as witchcraft, and most of the judges agreed. It’s telling that the strictest law ever enacted against treasure hunting, Henry VIII’s so-called Witchcraft Act of 1542, was quickly abolished and doesn’t seem to have had much of an impact on the local level, at least as far as treasure magicians were concerned.

Separate from these real forms of magic, there was the imaginary magic of the witches. Nobody was ever (or could ever be) guilty of witchcraft in the full sense of the word, which was defined by the late Middle Ages as a crime that consisted of five elements: a pact with the devil; sexual intercourse with demons; the magical flight (on a broomstick or a similar device); the witches’ dance (often referred to by the antisemitic term ‘witches’ sabbath’); and malevolent magic. Early modern Europe and Britain treated witchcraft as a capital crime.

At first glance, the relation between the economy and the imaginary magic of the witches seems to be entirely negative. Witches were often accused of attacking livestock. They magically made frost, storm and hail, and thereby caused crop failure. Indeed, their weather magic was said to endanger the economy of entire regions. Still, at least in the majority of the witch trials on the European continent, the witches didn’t profit from their magic. Weather magic especially looked like a strange form of auto-aggression because the hailstorms the witches supposedly conjured up damaged their own fields as well. As a rule, the pact with the devil as it appears in trial records was not a contract like that of Goethe’s Faust, which was mostly about the wishes of the magician. Rather, it stated simply that the witch submitted to the will of the demon. She did what a demon told her and became the instrument of the demon’s abyssal hatred of all creation. Witchcraft was mostly about destruction for destruction’s sake, not about the personal interests and wishes of the witches, let alone their economic advantage.

However, there were exceptions. When Martin Luther wrote a short survey of economic magic, he began the discussion with a reference to ‘the brides of the dragon’ (‘Drachenbräute’). At first glance, this might seem like an allusion to the Biblical allegory of Satan as a dragon. However, Luther had a very specific form of witchcraft in mind: the witches that were said to be in contact with a dragon. Even though the belief in this form of witchcraft was widespread in early modern Germany, eastern Central Europe and the Baltics, it was, to the best of my knowledge, virtually unknown elsewhere.

The dragon (in German, Drache) in question was not the giant monster of medieval epics but rather a household spirit. (Its alleged ability to fly and its affinity to fire might have suggested transferring the name of the medieval monster to this rather peculiar spirit.) A number of people maintained that they had seen the dragon: it looked like a long burning beam with a thick, cow-like head that soared through the night sky. Flying into a house through a window or through the chimney, the dragon brought its master or mistress money as well as other readily usable or saleable goods such as grain, milk or butter.

A dragon was a cloud of burning gas that was attracted to the smoke emerging from the chimneys of houses

It was quite clear where the dragon got the goods, and our sources emphasise this point: everything the dragon brought its master had been stolen from somebody else. Dragon magic was about magical theft. Indeed, the dragon seems to be an embodiment of transfer magic, that is, any kind of magic that takes some good, including fertility or energy itself, out of one context and transfers it into another context. The milk witch who conveys the milk from her neighbours’ cows to her own livestock, or the vampire that takes life energy itself away from others would be good examples of transfer magic. And the dragon delivered not only various kinds of produce. It brought money. The very idea of the dragon had adapted to the rising market economy.

The household dragon was feared and probably coveted by people living in the vast area between Bavaria and Estonia. The house dragon was mentioned not only in trial records from witch hunts, we encounter it in very different sources, too: some early modern Scandinavian and German scientists at least knew the rumours about household dragons and commented upon them. They provided an alternative explanation for the dragon sightings. For them, draco volans – the spirit that looked like a burning beam with a thick head in the night sky – was clearly a meteorite. Others insisted that the phenomenon mistaken for a dragon was really a cloud of burning gas that was somehow attracted to the sooty smoke emerging from the chimneys of houses where they burned too much green wood. This would make the dragon a preindustrial smog phenomenon.

As usual, hardly anyone listened to the academics. At least till the 18th century, scientific explanations of dragon beliefs had little impact. Most people saw the dragon simply as a demon, just another shape the devil could take on. In 1536, the first Saxon witch trial was held that mentioned sexual intercourse with a demon. It was maintained that the devil had appeared in the form of a dragon. In 1652, a woman from Saxony who claimed to be clairvoyant and thus able to identify witches explained to the authorities that she’d seen a number of women from her neighbourhood having sex with a flying dragon. When a woman from Saxon Fichtenberg identified the dragon as a ‘milk devil and grain devil’ that same year, she stressed the diabolic nature of this spirit.

Given the tradition of the Biblical dragon, it was of course all too easy to see the dragon as the embodiment of Satan, so it comes as no surprise that people rumoured to have a dragon ended up at the stake. German folklore confirms that the dragon and the witch were birds of a feather as it suggested the same remedies against dragons and against witches trying to interfere with one’s property. In 1636, the German-Baltic theologian Paul Einhorn wrote about flying, fiery spirits ‘today still owned by many’ that steal ‘grain and goods’ for their masters. Einhorn believed in these ‘evil and horrible idols of wealth’ and condemned their cult as demon worship.

Our sources don’t suggest that the supposed dragon witches really used any kind of magic to make money. In fact, the women and men said to own a dragon were all fairly affluent. What distinguished them in the eyes of their neighbours, though, was that they had a uniformly bad reputation for reckless profit seeking, usury and even fraud. Their fellow villagers considered these people greedy and highly aggressive. The accused replied that they were the victims not just of slander, but of envy. So the rumours about dragons were really attacks on profit seeking; the rural ambassadors of the rising market economy were denounced as immoral and greedy, reviled as dragon owners. The state didn’t protect them.

The most prominent example of a dragon witch is probably Margaretha Ramhold from Coburg whom Johann Matthäus Meyfart mentioned in his witchcraft treatise. The Lutheran theologian Meyfart (1590-1642) published his criticism of the witch hunts Christliche Erinnerung in 1635, seven years after Ramhold’s death. Ramhold came from a family of modest artisans. However, by tapping two new sources of income – they sold beer and milk even though they owned only one cow – the Ramholds became relatively affluent. In time, the family began lending money on interest. Rumours of witchcraft quickly followed, focusing on the mistress of the household, and the authorities were duly informed that there was a dragon in the Ramholds’ house. Margareta Ramhold was executed in 1628.

Gerber’s entrepreneurial activities depleted food supplies to the disadvantage of the poor

There was a second kind of witch that instilled fear and loathing in the people of early modern Europe: the significant minority of wealthy people assumed to be witches. In fact, the ‘rich witches’ were rumoured to be the most powerful and most aggressive disciples of Satan. And indeed, we do find a relatively high number of affluent people among the defendants of early modern German witch trials. Rich witches were mostly male and many of them were parvenus who had profited from the agrarian crises in the 16th and 17th centuries. Others were officials who enriched themselves through straightforward corruption. A great number of these people – the newly rich and corrupt officials – were accused of witchcraft.

Arguably the most prominent witch of 16th-century Germany was Dr Diederich Flade, executed in 1589. Flade was a corrupt official who had supported the prince archbishop of Trier in a conflict with Trier’s secular authorities. He was also a notorious money lender. Flade seems to have specialised in small loans he gave to the peasants from the impoverished villages surrounding the relatively well-off town of Trier. He became fabulously rich (and influential) in only a couple of years. Then came his sudden downfall. At least 28 so-called witches denounced Flade in their confessions: they presented him as a demonic figure presiding over the Sabbath. When the prince elector of Trier explained why, after months of hesitation, he’d finally decided to have official charges brought against Flade, he said that Flade was ‘notoriously avaricious’. The prince elector accepted the idea that Flade’s economic behaviour indicated that he was in league with Satan.

Another rich witch was Martin Gerber, a merchant and burgomaster of the Swabian small town of Horb. After having made a fortune in trade, Gerber took up brewing. When he purchased large quantities of barley to brew beer, he not only displaced small-scale brewers but also triggered such a substantial price increase for barley that the price of bread became inflated too. Gerber’s entrepreneurial activities depleted food supplies to the disadvantage of the poor. The people of Horb felt that Gerber’s behaviour was especially objectionable because, instead of supporting his poor fellow townspeople with his money, he sought further profit and thereby rendered them poorer still. From 1597 onwards, suspicions of witchcraft developed not against Gerber himself, but against his wife and his daughter, who had vociferously supported him. Gerber’s daughter was arrested and tortured. Even though she never confessed and was eventually released from prison, she fought against accusations of witchcraft for the rest of her life.

Now, we can put the dragon magic into the wider context of treasure hunters and rich witches. The treasure hunters alone really tried to use magic, but they weren’t accused of witchcraft. Rich witches and dragon witches don’t seem to have really used any magic, but they were certainly rumoured to have a pact with the devil. The dragon witches were said to owe their wealth to magical theft perpetrated for them by a demon in the shape of a dragon. The demonic figure of the dragon and the magical thievery associated with it establish a direct connection between economic advancement and suspicions of magic. The rich witches are much more difficult to understand. They were not said to have become rich because of their magic. Their wealth as such provoked rumours of witchcraft.

Of course, there is a gender aspect to all of this: treasure hunters were almost exclusively male. Among both the rich witches and dragon witches we find women and men. There seem to have been more men than women among the affluent victims of the witch trials. Greed and witchcraft were not exclusively attributed to women. What unites all three, however, was social mobility.

The dragon witches and the rich witches were not simply rich. They were newly rich. While the treasure hunters tried to join their ranks, the signal difference was not that they’d failed in doing so. It was that the treasure hunters tried to tap a source of wealth outside of society. They hoped to find a treasure, which by definition meant valuable objects of which nobody could rightly claim ownership. The treasure belonged to the spirit world. Spirits controlled it; spirits could reveal it. Where the treasure came from was so unimportant to the early modern mind that most trials against treasure hunters don’t even ask the question. The money the treasure hunters wanted to get didn’t come out of the resources of the village or region they lived in.

Here the model of the ‘limited good’ is useful. People in pre-modern agrarian societies behaved as if all goods are available only in limited quantities. The economy is a zero-sum game. One person’s gain is necessarily everybody else’s loss. Therefore, innovation and profit-seeking are strongly discouraged. Treasure hunters are excellent examples of persons who accepted the world view of the limited good. They didn’t openly seek profit by working more or working more effectively. They sought profit by using magic. They dealt with the spirit world. Rather than alienating their neighbours, they faced ghosts and demons in order to get the spirit world to hand over its money. This is why the magic of treasure hunters was punished so leniently: even if they used magic, even if they conjured up demons and tried to talk to ghosts, they still didn’t deviate from the standards of economic behaviour of early modern rural society.

Did the rise of capitalism marginalise the belief in witchcraft?

Dragon witches and rich witches were the complete opposite. We know from the historical record that they’d become affluent recently and had therefore done everything the treasure hunters avoided. They had engaged in competition, often quite aggressively. They had tried to make money, no matter the opinion of their community. And their fellow villagers knew how to interpret this type of behaviour: dragon witches and rich witches were essentially greedy. They were slaves to avarice, and their avarice made them evil. After all, the Church taught that avarice was one of the Seven Deadly Sins. So both dragon witches and rich witches belonged to the devil because they were avaricious – even before they had made a pact. As a Swabian source put it: ‘Because of her avarice’ a suspect was thought to be a witch, and ‘if she is not one yet, she will certainly become one.’

Rich witches and dragon witches are two sides of the same coin. Both were condemned as greedy and reckless by their fellow villagers and townspeople. Their social advancement, denigrated as profit-mongering, was the very reason why they were believed to be witches in the first place. Of course, the belief in dragons expressed this disdain for economic gain more directly, and more brutally, by directly denouncing the profit as the result of a demonic form of theft. Whatever the dragon brought to its master or mistress, it stole it from somebody else. In contrast to the treasure hunters, the dragon witches and the rich witches seemed to satisfy their greed by harming their neighbours. It was their seemingly aggressive economic behaviour as such that invited suspicion. When people of the early modern period looked for witches, they regarded a record of antisocial behaviour as a clue. Many suspects of witchcraft were simply aggressive or unruly people whom the village considered ‘evil’.

Given the fatal risks, one might ask why some people engaged in economic competition at all, if early modern society was dominated by the limited good mentality. Would the notion of the limited good not preclude that type of behaviour in the first place? According to the American anthropologist George M Foster, limited good is best seen as a mentality, not as a positive conviction or dogma-like belief. It is at the back of the mind a basic assumption that colours the understanding of society as well as individual conduct. Limited good described the framework of expected behaviour. Individuals who were courageous (or reckless) enough might choose not to adhere to society’s norms and not to fulfil its expectations of behaviour. Some people ignored the norms of the limited good worldview and did what they thought was in their best interest anyway.

There was not just a moral but also a magical economy. Economic behaviour caused suspicions of witchcraft. It’s best to see witch trials not simply in the context of magic – indeed they seem to have remarkably little to do with the other traditions of magic. Witch trials should be seen in the context of the values and codes of behaviour of local communities. If we try to put the results of this study into a wider context, it seems to be imperative to ask another, much bigger question: did the rise of capitalism marginalise the belief in witchcraft? This might sound like the very last gasp of neoliberalism or like a parody of Max Weber. Nevertheless, if we accept that the fear of witches had strong economic overtones, we must at least wonder if significant changes in the economic structure and the economic mentalities of Western societies connected with the rise of capitalism contributed to the decline of the witch hunts. Was the establishment of the market economy in Europe among the factors that brought about the end of the witch hunts?

Witch trials sanctioned social and economic behaviour rather than magical practices. All of the German treasure magicians referred to in this text survived their trials. Margaretha Hönin, however, had a bad reputation for being a miser and a parvenu – for challenging a dominant mentality that required everyone to stay firmly stuck in their God-given place. She was found guilty of witchcraft and burned at the stake in 1580.

#witch community #grey witch #witchcraft #witchlife #witch

4 notes · View notes

harrypotterfanfictionwriter · 5 years ago

Text

An owl breeder and a reporter

Thanks for the beta @primavera-cerezos ♥️

Read it on AO3 (<-clicky) or on Tumblr:

Draco was just putting the final touches to his latest article, when Luna walked inside, a big smile on her face.

"Oh Draco! I'm so glad you're not home yet. I have a new job for you,” she said, while waving around with the papers in her hand.

"And what would that be Miss Lovegood?" he asked, looking up.

"Silly it's Luna, not Miss Lovegood. And you get to interview the most famous owl breeder of the whole Wizarding World at the moment. He finally agreed to an interview for the Quibbler!" At this point, the papers were placed on his desk.

Quickly he read through them. "Luna, this is in Germany, Sauerland. I don't speak German."

"I know. Don't worry you will get a hotel to stay at, including food. It’s truly beautiful there, with the mountains and all. You can stay as long as you need. Well, with a maximum of 2 weeks as we do need to print the article!" the blonde answered, apparently ignoring the fact that he would have to go to Germany, while he didn't speak a word of German.

"Alright. But when do I leave?" he agreed.

"Tomorrow morning, don't worry you can take the portkey on the way back. " and with those final words, she was walking away again, a quick "good luck" added.

Draco sighed, shaking his head, before deciding to get some questions ready to ask the man. According to the file Luna gave him, he would be the first reporter ever to interview him and it would also be a great honor for the Quibbler to print it. Something he wouldn't ruin.

After he had sat out his house arrest, the Ministry's punishment for him as he had been a child and forced into it all, he had needed a job and a place to stay. The Ministry had taken away the complete Malfoy fortune, the Manor they had allowed him to keep, but he would rather sleep on the street then step foot inside there again. He eventually had given the grounds to Hermione Granger, after he had torn down the complete building. Right now they were running a house elf orphanage, for those who didn't have a master or mistress or were abused.

Luna had been the one to give him a chance, to work together with her for the Quibbler. At first he had been hesitant, but he quickly learned he loved to interview people and write stories. So now 3 years later he was still here and apparently going to Germany.

He looked through the files one last time, to print the Apparition coordinates in his brain, before leaving his office and going home. This was going to be more difficult than most interviews. But with a bit of luck he would be done within a day and the owl breeder would speak English.

Draco placed his hands on his knees as he leaned on his arms, panting.

He was on his way to the Wizarding World's most famous owl breeder, for an interview with this person for the Quibbler. Even if Luna had given him the apparition coordinates, and had told him the environment would be with mountains and forests, she had failed to mention that the most famous owl breeder lived apparently on top of one of the mountains.

He took one deep breath before moving further up the mountain, he hadn't dared to try to Apparate as he didn't know where exactly he would land or which wards would be around the building he was going to. When he was only ten metres away from the building - which reminded him of the Burrow - he could feel the shiver of the wards as he passed.

Once in front of the door, he raised his hand and knocked.

"Coming," a voice called out and truly that should have been Draco's first clue. Then the door opened and he was greeted by the sight of Harry Potter with a small owl on his head.

"Ah Draco, Luna mentioned you would be coming by for her interview."

"Potter what are you doing here? Wait, you're the most famous owl breeder?" the words left Draco's mouth fast after each other.

The other man just laughed and led him inside. Here he was taken to what Draco guessed was the living room, but it was full of owl treats and books about owls.

Both of them took place on a chair, while Draco still looked around. Once he finally stilled his curiosity, he looked back at Potter, after grabbing his quill and parchment from his bag.

"So Potter," he started only to be cut off.

"Please, it's Harry. No one actually still calls me by my surname. At least not here. In articles I go by HJP or Prongs."

Draco swallowed, before starting over again.

"Alright, Harry then. Why did you choose this job?"

"Well after the war I pretty much got sick of the press and the way everyone thought they knew me just because of the articles of the Prophet. I wanted to live in peace, so I moved here. An old man offered me a place to stay as long as I helped him with his owlery. As Hedwig - she was my owl - always had been a great companion I saw no harm in helping the man. So he taught me everything he knew and, well... Yeah, now we're here. "

Draco nodded, soaking in all the information, before writing it down.

"I can imagine that, but I don't think we should mention the war part right? That way people will probably know who you are."

Harry nodded, seeming to be thankful that Draco had understood the need to remain anonymous. Draco smiled, before asking the rest of his questions.

When they were through all questions and Draco had all the information he needed, Harry seemed to ready himself to say something he wasn't sure about.

"Don't you want to stay a few days? Get to know more about my company and the job. Maybe even help a bit?" Harry eventually asked, not quite looking him in the eye.

Draco pondered for a bit. It would be nice to be away from Britain for a bit and owls were one of the few animals he truly liked, also Luna wouldn't mind as she had given him a maximum stay of 2 weeks. Especially not when he brought in all the extra information. There was just one little problem.

"That would be lovely, but I didn't pack clothes or anything for a longer stay than a day."

"Oh that's no problem. There is a small village nearby where you can buy the necessary items and the rest you can get from me!" Harry was quick to offer.

"Alright then. I guess I can stay for a bit," Draco smiled.

"Great, let me show you where you can sleep."

18 notes · View notes

dramafanforever · 5 years ago

Text

Enemy in an Alien World

First chapter of my new Drarry fanfiction (translation from German)

Summary:

After 3 years in Azkaban Draco is allowed to finish his sentence in the muggle world on probation. He’s a broken man and does not know anything valuable about the muggle world. The ministry assigns him an apartment in Camden. Unfortunately (?) his neighbour is Harry Potter who is the owner of a café on the ground floor. What will be the outcome of their forced proximity and what will Harry do when he becomes a witness of Draco’s unability to handle the world of muggles?

- Chapter 1 -

The day Draco Malfoy moved into the rooms next to Harry's apartment was a day like any other, yet it should turn Harry's world upside down like no other event since Voldemort had brought himself down with his own death curse.

It was a Monday, 1st October 2001. That year terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in New York, Wikipedia was founded and Prince William met Kate Middleton at a Scottish university. Douglas Adams had died and bands like Outkast, Linkin Park and Blue stayed in the top 10 of the charts for weeks. Millions of fans were eagerly awaiting the premiere of the first part of the “Lord of the Rings” and billions of text messages were sent worldwide via Nokia and Ericcson cell phones.

Harry was well informed about the muggle world because he owned a small café in the bustling Camden district of London, not far from Camden Market, which was popular with Londoners and tourists alike. The café was in a busy little street called Parkway. It was one of the few places in England where the wizarding and the muggle world were allowed to mix, a place where squibs, muggles and wizards, connected by love or kinship, could meet without going against the statute of secrecy. It was also a shelter for those who needed help to process all the feelings that an encounter with the other culture could cause. In the evening discussions were held for muggle parents who didn't know how to deal with the accidental magic of their children. Mixed couples spoke about their everyday problems and siblings who had been denied the chalice of magical talent could vent their disappointment without being judged.

Harry's apartment was on the first floor on the left just above the café. After the death of Mrs Pentriss, Harry's next door neighbour, her apartment stayed uninhabited for three months. Mrs Prentiss had been a teacher at a public muggle school and had passed away peacefully at the age of 93. She had no relatives and since the Ministry of Magic, which owned the building, could not find any heirs to get her things out, the apartment was going to be rented out furnished from now on.

Harry had known that the apartment would be occupied again in October. What he hadn’t known was the fact that the new tenant was his old arch enemy Draco Malfoy. He found out about that on the day Malfoy moved in.

Harry was tidying up his café and just about to wipe a table by the window when three people appeared in front of the building and stopped undecided. They wore ill-fitting, out-of-style muggle clothing and moved as if they felt watched. Harry only had to look once to see that they were wizards. One of the three was a tiny woman. She pointed to the front door and talked to a bulky middle-aged man who was standing next to her. The older wizard had his fingers wrapped around the arm of a skinny, tall guy as if to prevent him from running away, although the younger man showed no intention to move at all. He was waiting impassively for his companions' decision to enter the house or not. A long, beige trench coat slithered around his thin body and the black hood of his sweater jutted far above his head. A few strands of white blond hair peeped out from the sides. He clutched a brown, almost ridiculously small suitcase and kept his head down. Harry was not able to see the man’s face, but something about his attitude sparked Harry’s curiosity.

Before the three of them disappeared through the front door, the blonde man suddenly raised his head and looked through the window into the café. His eyes met Harry’s and for a moment the time seemed to stop. The young man was Draco Malfoy, though he didn't show any sign of recognition when he stared into Harry's eyes. A few heartbeats later the older wizard pulled Malfoy out of Harry's field of vision.

Harry slumped into the nearest chair. What was Draco Malfoy doing here? He was supposed to be in Azkaban. Harry had last seen him at his trial. That was three years ago and Malfoy had looked just as sickly as now, lean and pale, with deep-set eyes and an apathetic expression on his face.

A terrible notion spread through Harry. He got up and ran to the side door of the café that lead into the stairwell of the house. He opened it as quietly as possible and listened.

"Here it is," the witch's voice came down to Harry from the first floor.

Harry heard her fumbling with a key. Apparently the lady was not used to opening muggle locks. After a short while a familiar squeak indicated that Mrs Pentriss’ door was opened.

"In now!" The older wizard ordered. A rustle and some stampling, then the door was closed. Harry sighed and went back to the front premises of the café. No more than ten minutes later the witch and the older wizard appeared on the pavement next to the big windows. There was no sign of Malfoy. Harry hurried to intercept the two wizards before they could disappear again.

"Good morning!" He greeted almost breathlessly.

"Good morning ... Harry Potter! What are you doing here?” the witch asked, her voice raised in a mixture of surprise and delight.

"I was shopping." Harry wasn't going to tell just anyone where he lived and worked. "Was that Draco Malfoy you had with you?"

The two wizards looked at each other as if they didn't know if that information was confidential. Apparently they came to the conclusion it wasn't and replied, "Yes, Draco Malfoy."

"I thought he was kept in Azkaban."

"He was - until yesterday. The ministry released him on parole.”

"Didn't he get five years?" Harry had testified for Malfoy at his trial, but that hadn't stopped the Ministry from imposing the maximum penalty for underage criminals on him.

“Yes, five years, but due to his good behavior his punishment has been reduced. He will be living in the Muggle world for the next two years.”

"It's cheaper for us than keeping him in Azkaban," the wizard informed Harry in a smug voice.

"Does that mean he's moving in here now?" Harry waved at his house.

"Yes, but don't worry, he doesn't have a wand and he is only allowed to use magic in case of an emergency or for his defense - if he can do wandless magic, that is. He can’t harm anyone and will be checked by his probation officer regularily. Otherwise, he can move around freely as long as he doesn’t enter the wizarding world or leave the country.”

“You know, this building is owned by the ministry and an apartment has become vacant. Malfoy will receive a monthly allowance. He’s quite lucky, I guess, for being a death eater and all,” the wizard added.

“But...” A feeling of impending doom swept through Harry’s body. Something dark and dangerous was piling up on the horizon and Harry didn’t know how to stop it. He wanted to protest and urge the two wizards to get Malfoy out of his house. Harry had built himself a nice and peaceful life here. Being in Malfoy’s vicinity, living in the apartment right next to him could only mean trouble. Harry didn't know how to make the two wizards understand that and he suspected it was futile to try. He wouldn’t be able to change the Ministry's decision.

Harry’s relationship with the minister of magic was a bit strained since he had refused to act as a puppet for the new Ministry. Instead of becoming an Auror right after the war and appearing as the radiant or tragic hero at galas and memorial events, Harry had repeated his 7th year at Hogwarts and then withdrawn from the public by opening his little café in muggle London. He didn’t want to act as an advertising figure for wizards who still were prejudiced against muggles and didn’t really try to change their corrupt ways.

Harry did a lot of good for wizards and muggles, but his desire to bring the two worlds closer together was not well received by the new minister. Melbroke wanted Harry to focus on the wizarding world exclusively.

Harry couldn't change it and he didn't really care what others thought about him. He had done his duty and was happy with his life. He had kept his old friends and made a few new ones. He had created a niche in which he could live in peace and with the feeling of doing something useful. Now, Draco Malfoy was threatening to destroy all of this, and Harry didn't know what to do.

That’s Parkway in Camden, London.

(My English is not good enough to write full-length stories, but I wanted to show a piece of my writing to the community here. Don’t expect to ever read the whole story in English.)

#Harry Potter #Fanfiction #Drarry

9 notes · View notes

draconia-bsd · 6 years ago

Text

Tag game~

Rules are to answer these 21 questions and tag people you want to get to know better.

I haven't played one of these in ages. Thank you @bebryzy for tagging me!

Nickname: People on tumblr call me either Draconia or Draco, irl I don't have a nickname.

Zodiac: Capricorn

Last movie I saw: Love Actually (it was Christmas ok xD)

Height: 154cm aka 5'0" lmao

Last thing I googled: Lyrics to a song from a band which name I couldn't remember atm (turned out to be Lebanon Hanover)

Favorite Musician(s): oh boii I am not into solo artists much so here are my fav bands- Breaking Benjamin, Nightwish, Avantasia, Eluveitie, Arch Enemy...

Song stuck in my head: Keane- Is It Any Wonder; and Eluveitie- Alesia

Do I ever get asks: I get a few every now and then. ^-^

Following: 277 on this profile and 356 on my main

Amount of sleep: I can't sleep more than 6 hours apparently lol

Lucky number:1

What I’m wearing: Blue unicorn pyjamas (ah, I'm so goth)

Dream Trip: I guess London, Germany countryside (it's been ages since I went there), Japan (especially seeing their castles)...or just go to the Bermuda triangle to get abducted by aliens xD

Dream Job: Doctor or a Nurse. (I got into medical uni and a nursing school)

Do you play instruments: When I was a lot younger I tried to play piano by mimicking concerts I saw on TV because my parents had no money for a piano tutor. In the end, they figured out I was secretly using the old piano in the theater dressing room and I got banned from the theater for a year lol. That's when my stupid ass decided to purposely never learn notes...

Languages: I'm fluent in Serbian/Croatian (since they are my native lol) and English...I can speak a bit of French too. I plan on learning German in the near future...and maaaaaaybe Japanese.

Favorite songs: Too many...

Random fact(s) about me: My eyes are dark green but a lot of people irl think they are blue (?), Edgar Alan Poe and Janis Joplin are my birthday twins, I can't write a message to someone without putting 'xD' or 'lol' at the end (remnant from my emo days ahahah), I had a literal crush on Raskolnikov from "Crime And Punishment" when I first read it.

Describe yourself as things: Scent of the young summer night, breeze during a sunny day, blood on fragments of glass, deep dive in the cold sea...

I tag: @thecoffetogo @ratzzsblog @cryptidsandcatacombs @luminasderpyart and anyone else who wishes to to this. ^-^

#tag game

5 notes · View notes

fvckyouimaprophet · 6 years ago

Text

All Summer Long | Chapter Three

Summary: AU where Draco Malfoy gets stuck in his Animagus form, and Harry Potter unsuspectingly takes him in. Set post-war. | Prologue | Chapter One | Chapter Two

Author’s Note: To elaborate on something I should have at the beginning, I visualize Draco as a Berger Blanc Suisse. In my mind, Sirius looks like a black German Shepherd. Part of what made Harry so drawn to Draco is that he looks almost identical to Sirius but white.

By the time Draco woke up, Harry was at work. As relaxing as he wanted his newfound freedom to be, it turned out that hours alone did little more than drive him stir-crazy. He knew if he could get out of the apartment, things would be better, but the rain outside did not relent. Regardless, Harry’s fenced in backyard could only provide a little amount of relief.

So Draco spent most of the morning hopping from the couch in the living room to Harry’s bed. At some point, he found himself halfway between sleep and consciousness when he heard the bang of the door.

Draco’s head shot out, and he leapt off of the bed toward the living room, only to find Harry, drenched from the rain. Back so soon?

“Hey there, boy,” Harry said, crouching down and stretching out his arms as if waiting for Draco to come toward him. I’m not Lassie, Potter. Harry seemed to quickly give up on the idea of Draco running towards him because he got up, kicked his shoes off, and made his way toward the kitchen.

“I figured that you and I could spend some quality lunch time together. I usually spend it with Hermione and Ron, but…” If his conversation with Hermione had been anything to go by, Draco knew that it had to have been a while since he had lunch with Ron. Harry cleared his throat. “Besides, you have to be hungry.”

Harry ran a hand through his hair as he rummaged through the fridge. “I don’t even know what to feed you?” He hummed as Draco stood behind him, trying to look past him to see what Harry had, but before he could, Harry had pulled a few things out and had shut the door. “You’re a dog. Dogs like bacon, right?” he asked as he tore open the package.

I’ll just be thankful it’s not Weetabix. Draco laid down on the other side of the kitchen, giving Harry enough room to move around as he cooked. Draco yawned as he laid down, and Harry caught it.

“Must be a tough life, just lounging about and getting fed,” Harry joked, an affectionate smile spreading across his face.

Yeah, not as relaxing as you’d think being trapped as a fucking dog. Draco huffed, and Harry raised an eyebrow.

“You know, I think Hermione was wrong about you, which – you don’t know Hermione, but it’s rare. She’s always right. It’s usually pretty great, but sometimes it’s awful because –“ Harry frowned as he turned to grab a spatula to push the bacon around the pan. “Never mind. The point is that I think you can understand me.” Harry set the spatula and turned around and crouched to make himself as close to Draco as possible. Draco lifted up his head.

“Okay, boy. Bark once if you can understand me.”

Under any other circumstances, Draco would have been having the time of his life. As Harry stared intently at him, Draco could almost hear the gears in his head working. If the circumstances were any less dire, Draco would have gladly messed with his head, but he couldn’t afford to risk any chance he got at resolving this. But the moment must have passed for Harry in Draco’s hesitation because he began to get up.

Fuck. Draco let out a belated bark, and Harry paused.

“Bark twice if you can understand me?” he tried, his voice sounding much less certain than it had just seconds earlier.

Draco barked twice.

Harry’s brown furrowed, and his stare deepened. After a moment, his relaxed and shook his hand. “Or maybe I’m crazy.” He shook his head and paused turning around to say, his voice light and mocking, “Bark if you know where Draco Malfoy is.”

Holy shit. Draco stood up barking and lunging at Harry.

“Ow! Merlin! What are you doing?” Harry stepped backwards and knocked into the handle of the pan. “Fuck.” He cradled his elbow and looked at the damage before snatching the spatula and pointing it at Draco. “Bad dog!”

I will murder you in your sleep, Potter. I swear –

Draco bit the leg of his pants and pulled again. You dim-witted goddamn idiot.

“Protego!” Draco slide back against the invisible barrier and growled. “What’s gotten into you?” Harry asked, cupping his burn on his elbow with his free hand. “Go!” He pointed away from the kitchen, toward the living room. Judging by the look in Harry’s eyes, Draco knew he wasn’t going to win this fight. His eyes stayed locked with Harry’s for a moment, and he bore his teeth before turning on his heel and moving to the living room.

I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. Draco jumped on the couch and spread out, resting his head on his front paws. If you don’t figure this out soon, so help me God. Draco stared blankly ahead as Harry cooked. He could hear the sizzles and movement from the kitchen, and it was only a few minutes before Harry stepped out, a plate of bacon in one hand and a B.L.T. in the other. I’m going to dehydrate just looking at that.

“How are you doing?” Harry asked, keeping a safe distance. “Still angry?” Draco huffed and looked away from him. “This is what I mean when I say that I swear you can understand me.” Harry must have decided that it was safe because he began to step toward the couch. Draco lifted his head and barked loudly, snickering – or something similar to it – when Harry jumped.

“You’re going to be the death of me.” Harry scowled and set the plate down on the table before motioning to where Draco’s hind legs were kicked out behind him. “And what’s this?”

Draco threw a look over his shoulder at them but otherwise didn’t move.

“I’ve never met a dog so committed to being petty.” Harry pushed Draco to one side of the couch and sat down. Draco kicked his hind legs out again, whacking Harry’s thigh. “So help me God, when I find your old owner, I am going to have some strong words with them.” He took a bite out of his sandwich.

“Mmhph! I hab sometin’ to helb.” Harry jumped up – the sandwich still in his mouth – and moved over to his satchel. He dug for a moment before pulling out a camera.

I am not letting you plaster photos of me all over, Potter. Draco jumped down from the couch and ran towards the kitchen, but Harry pulled the sandwich out of his mouth and moved faster, blocking him.

“So you’re camera shy! There’s no need to be worried. I just need one good photo, and –”

Absolutely not! Draco dove between his legs.

“Hey, come back!” Harry set the camera down on the table before running after him. Draco made his way into the bedroom and tried to nudge the door shut with his muzzle, but before he could, Harry came in. “Got you!” Harry jumped down on top of him, his arms enveloping him, and before Draco took a moment to think, he licked his face.

“Ugh, gross!” Harry wiped his face, oblivious as Draco froze. “I guess you have some dog in you, after all.” He sniffed his hand and mimed barfing before looking over at Draco.

Draco could feel the tension across his whole body. What if I turn into a dog because I’m one for too long? Rationally, he knew it wasn’t true, but all he could think about was licking his face. When Harry’s hand ruffled the top of his head, it felt as if he was watching himself from outside as he turned to face him.

“Relax, buddy. It’s fine. I mean, your breath definitely stinks, but it’s really okay.” Harry bent forward and pressed a kiss to the top of Draco’s head.

With his eyes shut, all Draco could picture was Harry’s face last night – teary and crushed. As awkward as it was, having his hair – or fur, as it were – ruffled by none other than Harry Potter, it was a small price to pay for a roof over his head with – he hoped – the person who could help him undo this damn curse.

“Who knew this is what it took to get you to stop taking yourself so seriously.” Draco opened his eyes to see Harry staring at him. “Now, come and eat because I have to go in like five minutes.” With one last pet, Harry got up and made his way toward the living room.

Well, all right, then. Draco sighed and got up as well, shaking himself off before making his way into the room. No sooner had he stepped out of the hallway then was he met by a bright flash.

“Aha! I got a picture!” Harry beamed and took another bite of his sandwich.

Motherfucker.

“Now I just gotta put these up. Because if you were in Diagon Alley, that means whoever owns you can’t be a Muggle.” He bopped a stunned Draco on the nose before grabbing his satchel and stepping toward the door. “I’ll catch you later, bud.”

- - -

Unsurprisingly, no one came forward about the photos, and about three weeks later, Harry seemed as if he had given up. At times, Draco was almost positive that Harry didn’t want to find someone. They had developed a schedule of sorts, and Draco had to admit that it wasn’t half-bad – or rather, as half-bad as it could be considering the circumstances.

Harry came home every lunch break. Sometimes he cooked, but mostly he seemed to stop by the grocery store to grab sandwiches and sausage rolls. Draco thought that he watched the TV an awful lot, especially after work, but after watching a few episodes of what appeared to be a show called Game of Thrones, Draco could see the appeal.

Regardless, as much as Draco hated to admit it, it could be nice at times. Harry’s loneliness shone through at times when he would talk to Draco about something that had happened at work or in the store. No new moment had popped up for Draco to bark some sense into Harry to reveal who he was, but Draco had to admit that he felt oddly confident that he would work something out.

“I’m going to see Ginny this weekend,” Harry said, stabbing at his chicken tikka masala with his fork. Draco lifted his head up from his plate of it, waiting for Harry to continue. “Apparently Ron’s waiting to see how it goes to reach out. So Hermione said when we got coffee, but I’m hoping it’ll go okay.” Harry set his fork down and clasped his hands together in his lap. “Can I tell you something?”

I’m guessing you will anyway. Draco stretched out on the couch and adjusted himself for a long speech. He gave a half-hearted bark and prepared to tune out.

“I knew it was a bad idea when I kissed Rhys, and I know it sounds stupid, but I felt like if I didn’t do it, I would go crazy.”

Rhys? Draco lifted his head and started intently at Harry. You made out with a Rhys? That’s why Ginny left you?

“I know it’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever done, but I don’t regret it.” Harry picked at the skin around his nails and looked down in his lap as he spoke, but Draco felt as if the couch fell out beneath him. “If anyone would get it, she would, but I still couldn’t tell her. I don’t know. I’m like the worst bisexual ever, right? Like isn’t that what they all say – bisexuals cheat and are greedy and –” Harry’s jaw clenched, and Draco could tell he was focusing his energy on keeping a straight face.

Holy shit. Draco just tried to keep still. The moment felt fragile, as if he breathed too loudly or moved even an inch, Harry would stop. So Draco took shallow breaths and was careful not to move.

Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath in. “I loved her, but things felt different. She kept on wanting me to talk about everything that had happened in the war, and I just couldn’t. There’s was all of this distance between us, and we were fighting half the time, so I kept on thinking, ‘What if this is it? What if we spend the rest of our lives together, and I never know what it’s like to kiss or to fuck another guy? What if I’m actually gay, and I don’t know it? Or what if I just never stop thinking about it, and it ruins the relationship anyway?’ But then I slept with Rhys –”

Slept with?!

“—and I couldn’t not tell her. It was like as soon as it happened I realized that I should have talked to her anyway, dealt with all the shit that had happened. As soon as I did it, I realized what an absolute prat I was.” Harry put his face in his hands. “I don’t think we would have worked out anyway, but that’s not the way I wanted things to end, you know? She was the first person I loved, and she deserved better.”

For the first time, Harry opened his eyes and made eye contact with Draco.

Oh, Potter. Harry could barely hold back tears. He reached up, wiping his hand with his sleeve. “Who needs a therapist when you have a dog, am I right?” Harry sniffled and tried to smile, but it quickly faltered.

You and I have more in common than I think you realize. Based off of the conversation with Hermione, Draco had assumed that Harry and Ginny must have broken up over something along the lines of cheating, but he had never assumed that this was it.

Draco steadied himself as he stood up and shifted on the couch. If there had ever been a moment he wished he could speak – removing the obvious – this was it. Had anyone told him it even a few weeks ago, Draco knew he would have scoffed at the suggestion, but for the first time in a long time, perhaps even years, Draco felt something close to kinship. You shouldn’t have to get vulnerable to what you think is a dog because you can’t talk to your friends. As Draco placed his head in Harry’s lap, Draco could feel Harry tremble.

The movement must have removed the last of his ability to keep from crying because before Draco could look up, he felt a tear drop onto the top of his head.

“I’m so scared to see her. I don’t know how to say I’m sorry and have her believe it,” Harry said. “I know I fucked up, and maybe it isn’t fair, but I need her to forgive me. Hermione and Ron too. I mean, Ron and I have gone months without speaking before, but somehow it didn’t feel so much like just my fault then. But now…”

For perhaps the first time, Harry did not look like Harry Potter to him. He looked human and fragile. You can cry, Potter. It’s okay. Draco nudged his head against Harry’s clasped hands, and a small laugh bubbled out of Harry. “I’ve tried to get you to like me enough to let me properly pet you for the past month, and this is what it takes? You are one strange dog.” Harry began by petting the fur around his face before moving down to his chest and sides. Draco pushed away the instant desire to jump back and instead tried to relax and enjoy the sensation.

It had been so long since he had let anyone touch him. With someone from the Ministry watching him like a hawk at all times, it felt foolish to try to start anything. He had thrown himself into work instead. It had always been easier that way. There had been a kiss or two at the bar, a few men in back rooms, one in his apartment.

But this was different, new. Certainly, to call it romantic would have been a stretch. For all Potter knows, he’s petting a real dog. Nonetheless, it took all of Draco’s energy to just let himself relax and let the moment wash over him. All he wanted to do was talk. I know what it’s like not to want to tell anyone, to close yourself in. But he couldn’t, so he just let the comfort of his touch speak instead.

“I wish you could tell me your story. I feel like it’s kind of unfair how much of the talking I do.” Draco snorted. You do talk endlessly, Potter. “Like how did you get a scar like this? Was it a fight? Did another dog bite you?” Harry reached down and ran a hand over his chest, and Draco’s throat tightened.

The moment slowly crumbled as he stood up and jumped off of the couch. You gave it to me. He had noticed how prominent the scar was the first few times he had transfigured, but he had forgotten since then. Draco’s breath caught in his throat as he remembered being thrown back against the tiled floor, getting colder.

“Buddy?” Harry had been calling him that lately as if that were his name. But Draco couldn’t look back. What’s the point in getting comfortable? As soon as you find out who I am, it won’t matter. You’ll go back to your life, and I will have to deal with whatever they throw my way.

He could hear Harry stand up, but he made his way to the glass door to the backyard and pulled it open. Deep breaths. As soon as he crossed the threshold, Harry must have realized that there was no way to salvage the moment, and when Draco turned around, Harry had already left.

Draco waited out there long enough until the light in the living room and kitchen went off – long enough to be sure that Harry had gone to bed. He nudged the door to the outside closed as best as he could and walked over to the bedroom. The door was cracked, and even from outside, Draco could hear Harry snoring.

Draco pushed the door quietly open and walked in. Even in the darkness, he could faintly see Harry’s face. You can do this. Maybe they wouldn’t be friends after all was said and done, but if there was anything that was obvious, it was that Harry needed someone right now. And as complicated as it was, Draco tried to push it out of his mind, at least for tonight.

He jumped up on the bed and burrowed his head under Harry’s arm. Harry’s snores cut off, and he mumbled as he woke, if only for a moment. “Buddy?” Their eyes met for a moment before Draco broke their gaze and lay his head down on Harry’s chest. Harry’s arm tightened around him, and Draco listened as Harry’s breath slowed and eventually got deeper as he fell asleep.

- - -

Draco knew that there was no way to go back to sleeping on separate pieces of furniture after that, and sure enough, Harry called him over to the bed the following night. And Draco had to admit, there didn’t seem to be any point in fighting it. He had already slept next to Harry, and regardless, there was nothing to do about the fact that Harry had already seen him in dog form. You’ve won this round.

Besides, since discovering that Harry was queer, things had felt slightly different. He’d been young enough when he’d realized that his initial assessment of Harry as the boy who had everything might have been too generous or blind. But since he’d seen Harry cry – twice now – it had been impossible not to see someone else.

You’re really quite softer than who you pretend to be.

The rest of the week flew by quickly with no more heart-to-hearts, and Draco found that he was sleeping better than usual, something he figured had more to do with the fact that he was sleeping on the bed than it had to do with him sleeping with Harry’s arm draped over him. Nonetheless, when the weekend came and Harry left to go see Ginny, Draco felt oddly nervous.

He didn’t know what he expected, but a part of him, no matter how much he tried to push it down, couldn’t help but wonder if there was some outcome to this conversation that ended in Ginny coming back and him getting kicked out. After all, there wasn’t enough room in the apartment for him, Ginny, and Harry. And there wouldn’t be any reason for Harry to talk to him or hang out with him if Ginny were there.

Snap out of it. Harry owed him nothing. There was nothing tying Harry to him other than loneliness. It was why he had him in the first place. Luck had it that Harry ran into him like this. There was no reason that it couldn’t disappear just as easily.

The hours dragged on, and Draco made his way in and out of the kitchen to look at the clock built into the stovetop. It was almost one in the morning by the time the keys slid into the lock. Draco ran into the living room from the kitchen.

Do I look too eager? He barely had time to make it to the couch and rest his head before the door opened. Why the fuck do I even care? Even as he wondered, he did his best to lift his head and try to look droopy, as if he’d just been woken up.

However, with the lights off, it was impossible to tell what the expression on his face was. Draco was sure Harry would flip the switch on and start talking immediately, but he moved slowly as if he was trying not to wake someone. He shut the door in slow motion and leaned against the back of it for half a minute before reaching for the switch. Take your sweet-ass time. Sure. Merlin, you’re frustrating.

As soon as the light turned on, Harry looked in Draco’s direction and yelped. “I thought you were asleep.” His hand went up to his hair, which was already a mess, and tugged at it. “But you’re not, are you, buddy?” He laughed and shook his head, and it took Draco a moment to smell it, but his dog nose couldn’t miss it.

That’s a lot of alcohol.

Harry shook his head as he tossed his keys at the table and missed by at least an arm’s length. “Fuckin’ hell, that actually went better than expected.” You could’ve fooled me.

Harry stumbled his way over to the couch and collapsed backwards on it. “She forgives me, I mean.” Harry let out a strangled laugh. “I don’t know why, but she does.” When Harry burps loudly and winces, covering his mouth, Draco knows that Harry has to be in for a rough night.

You, Harry Potter, are a train wreck. Draco felt half-bad for wishing the worst upon him. As far as Draco could tell, Harry seemed perfectly capable of keeping resolution far out of reach.

“She’s also dating someone.” Harry threw his head back into the couch with purposeful vigor as if to hit it. “I feel so fucking guilty for being jealous. I don’t have any reason to be jealous, do I? But I still am, even though her girlfriend may be the sweetest person I’ve ever met.”

Did she bring her girlfriend? Well, no wonder you’re such a mess. Draco sighed and got up, moving his head to Harry’s lap and licking Harry’s hand as he moved it closer to scratch behind his ears.

“I just can’t believe it’s Luna.” Draco lifted his head and perked his ears up. Lovegood? “I mean, I’m happy for them. I truly am, but I’m just so fucking sad and alone.” Harry slumped over and groaned. “My head hurts. I can’t do this.”

Up and at ‘em. We need to get you in the shower. Draco pulled Harry up by his sleeves as Harry groaned.

“Why can’t you leave me be?” Harry whined, but he still followed Draco’s lead. He stumbled his way to the bathroom, and it was only once he was there that he seemed confused by what Draco was even doing. But when Draco jumped into the tub and tugged the metal handle until the faucet started running, Harry got the gist.

“I don’t know who owned you, but it’s really fucking strange that you’re basically taking care of me while I’m drunk. Like it’s almost like you’re not a dog.” Draco sighed. If you weren’t pissed out of your mind, I would murder you right now.

But Harry could barely stand, and Draco was certain that he had already forgotten what he had said. Harry leaned over to move the water from the faucet to the showerhead and nearly slipped. Draco bit onto his shirt and tugged, steadying him.

“Buddy, what would I do without you?” Have the world’s worst hangover. He smiled at Draco and began taking off his shirt. After a moment of being tangled in its fabric, he managed to get it off.

This seems like my cue to leave. But as if reading his mind, Harry leaned over and pushed the door shut. The round handle on the door was not one that Draco could open, and he glanced anxiously around the small space, trying to bury himself in a corner and give Harry some privacy.

It wasn’t the first time he’d seen Harry naked. It had happened a few times now, when Harry had changed in the bedroom while he was in it. But it always seemed easier to roll over on the bed or just close his eyes there. Here, Harry was mere steps away from him. When he heard Harry stumble, he jerked his head up from the wall towards him and barely had time to prepare as Harry caught himself, half against the wall and half on Draco’s back.

Who knew you could be such a disaster? He wondered whether it was better that he was here because he doubted it would be the last time Harry slipped and almost fell. Draco nudged Harry’s legs toward the bath, and he waited until he heard the shower curtain close behind him before turning around. It felt wrong to watch Harry’s silhouette, but he did anyway for a moment as Harry ran his hands over his face and through his hair. Eventually, he settled to look away again, letting there be as much privacy as there possibly could in such a small space.

You’re going to have so many regrets when you find out.

Harry ran the water for a good twenty minutes before he stepped out and wrapped a towel around himself. He looked more like himself when Draco looked up at him, and even though the smell of alcohol lingered even after he brushed his teeth, he looked like he could be sober soon.

Draco barked for Harry to open the door and made his way to the bedroom as Harry finished getting ready. By the time Harry joined him on the bed, Draco was struggling to stay awake.

“Can I tell you something kind of bad?” Harry asked as he wrapped both arms around Draco and buried his face against his fur. Draco swallowed thickly at the sudden burst of affection. “I hope we never find your owner.”

Draco closed his eyes as he tried to understand why his heart felt like it couldn’t stop fluttering.

- - -

Draco knew something had to be wrong when the clock moved past 19 o'clock on Wednesday, and Harry hadn't come home yet. Even when he had extra work, he frequently tried to finish it at home. Nonetheless, Draco didn't start worrying until he saw the neon numbers read: 22:47.

Where the fuck are you? He didn't understand why he was even assuming the worst. If nothing else, Harry had proved himself fully capable of taking care of himself over the years. But whatever the case was, Draco knew it could be cause for concern.

Deep breaths. He's going to be fine. He's an Auror! Of course he's working weird hours. Honestly, it's weird he hasn't worked these hours before.

Still, he watched as the clock changed from 23:59 to 0:00 and felt a cold dread settle in. Come on.

As it turned out, the door remained quiet and untouched until 2:23. By that point, he was certain every possible ill thought had made its way through his mind. If something happened, no one would bother to tell a dog. I'd never see him again and never get a chance to say goodbye. Even if he was in the hospital, Draco knew no one had any reason to check in on him. A dumb dog would be the last thing on anyone's minds. No one's going to come check in on me, and then I'll starve. Or if they do come check in on me, they'll probably put me out on the street. No one would want me, and I'd be stuck a dog. Fuck.

So when the keys made their way into the lock, Draco's head swerved up. The door creaked a few inches before slamming open the rest of the way. Draco jumped off the couch, but no sooner had he made a few steps then was he hit by a wave of alcohol significantly more intense than that of Saturday.

"Shh, my dog is probably sleeping," Harry shout-whispered.

"I think your dog will be fine." The low voice was not one he recognized. Draco started moving slowly toward the door, but before he could, Harry and the mystery man came into sight.

"He's a weird dog. Very particularly," Harry said, and Draco felt a small knot form in his stomach.

Fuck you too, Potter.

Draco watched as they stumbled in, their hands reaching for each other's hair, face, arm, whatever they could touch. A hot wave of shame and something else hit him as Harry pressed his face against this man’s face with nothing short of desperation.

Draco barked.

"That dog, you mean?" the guy asked, pointing at Draco.

"Shh, down boy," Harry said, not even bothering to look in Draco's direction.

The knot in Draco's stomach felt like it could not stop growing. Had it been a possibility, he was sure his face would have been flushed. He clenched his jaw and looked this stranger up and down before barking again. Who do you think you are?

But they both ignored him. The guy seemed cute and perhaps a year or two older than them, but something about him made Draco tense all over. The only reason he's interested in you is because he's miserable and lonely and drunk as he, but you wouldn't understand. Bet you'll turn to Rita Skeeter with the hot gossip first chance you get.

Draco barked again, louder than before and ran forward, knocking into the man. Both he and Harry stumbled, but while the man laughed, Harry swerved to look at Draco for the first time. "Why are you so crazy? Why can't you be a normal dog for once in your life and go away?"

The words stung more than Draco expected to, and he reeled back, looking between them. Harry took the opportunity to grab the guy’s arm and move them towards the bedroom. Harry watched as they disappeared and flinched as the door slammed.

Fuck you and your stupid messes. I’m done cleaning up after you, Potter. Draco’s heart would not stop pounding, and he paced the floor, trying to calm himself down, but nothing seemed to be working. I should have known it was only a matter of time before you stopped caring.

All Draco could think about was the panic he had felt in thinking something was wrong. Instead, Harry was off having a life, as he was allowed to do, and Draco had never felt so stupid. And no matter how he tried to settle himself on the couch, he could not get comfortable. I can’t wait until I get out of here.

His mind would not stop turning. By the time the sun rose and the door to Harry’s room opened, he had barely fallen into the lightest sleep. He woke to the man’s voice as he made his way across the apartment, Harry behind him.

“Man, I wish we didn’t have to run off to work.”

“Who are you telling?” Harry asked, laughing. “Feel free to shoot me a text if you’re free this weekend.”

Text? Draco wondered what that was code for.

He looked them up and down. Even though the man was dressed up and ready to leave, Harry was wearing nothing more than an untied bathrobe that Draco was relatively sure he had only seen in Harry’s closet. They paused in front of the door, and the man reached out, tugging Harry forward. Draco looked away.

Soon, he told himself. Soon, as soon as he figured out how to get Harry to see, he’d be able to go home to the privacy of his own flat and never deal with this again. Or at the very least, even if the Ministry had to have his way with him, he wouldn’t have to be stuck here.

He waited until he heard the door close to look up again. Harry crossed the room to the couch and plopped down. “Merlin, I really needed that,” Harry said as he stretched out. He reached to pet Draco, but Draco jumped down and made his way toward the bedroom. He ignored Harry’s shouts of protest and jumped up on the bed, hoping that he’d finally be able to get some rest.

- - -

Chapter Four

#drarry #draco malfoy #harry potter #harry x draco #hp #my drarry #my fics #fic: asl

10 notes · View notes

lilaflyy · 6 years ago

Text

Fictober Day 5 - “Take what you need.”

I really like this one because Preciosa, after Maddy, is also one of my favourite characters. I know I’m being unfair to Sunny and Drako here, but they can be my OTP for all I care, the best single characters are still Maddy and Preciosa! <3

character info: Preciosa is Draco's twin sister who lives in Milan (Italy) and is a model. She is utterly wasted in that setting though since she actually is a brilliant strategist.

PS: I was in Meran (Italy) in August for an afternoon and it was very nice there! <3 I went to the same café that I described and I also got a pistachio-hazelnut sundae while my father complained about the dangers of pistacio nuts :’D

Preciosa

Meran was a nice city if you liked small towns in the north of Italy. I personally appreciated the cafés and the view of the river Passer. The elegant designs of the street lamps combined with the white benches in between the trees on the side of the river made for a nice place to stop and sit down for a bit.

While my parents would be furious to find out how far away from Milan I was, this little day trip had still been necessary. Three hours of a car journey later and I was enjoying a well-deserved breath of fresh air and the soothing sound of the water. I did not expect anyone to recognize me, sunglasses or not since there were a lot of models in this world and while famous, I was still just one of many.

“How is it going sorella gemella?” Well, at least one person seemed to recognize me. At least there was no doubt to his identity and his presence was a welcome one. He was the reason I had travelled up here in the first place.

“Stressful but I won’t complain,” I replied without taking my view off the rushing water below. He sat down on the bench next to me, leaning his head on my shoulder.

“Won’t or can’t? Go ahead and vent if you want, I won’t tell anyone,” he offered and I both heard and felt his grin. It drew a smile out of me too.

“Maybe another time il fratellino. You’re here because of something else.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t be a good brother.”

I let out a laugh and shook my head.

“You don’t ever change, do you?”

“More than I’d like to, but that’s not what I was getting at. I really hate to ask, you know that, but…I need a favour.”

“You know, when it would be some other rich family and I’d hear that the daughter’s brother only ever comes to see her when he needs a favour, I would say he’s exploiting her,” I said. Had he been anyone else or had I been anyone else, he would have defended himself and denied it, but my brother was my brother, so he just sat there and chuckled.

“Well, yeah. Seems like you got me after all.”

“I have always been the smarter one of us two.”

“Which is unfair, since one would think that twins each get an equal share.”

“You’re smart enough on your own accord. I’m just better.” I had missed the friendly teasing. Sarcastic comments and jabs being thrown back and forth in a loving way only siblings could. It felt like I was complete again after a long while of only existing as a half. What some people said about twins being two parts of a whole seemed true to us, which made the forced separation even worse.

“Anyway, whatever you want can surely also be discussed in a café. I just drove three hours and look forward to a sundae. I saw a nice little café with a view of the fields and mountains just at the other side of the river, so come on,” I said and stood up without another word. When he started walking beside me, I hooked my arm with his and threw him a knowing grin.

“So, I have been hearing rumours and now I’m curious if they are true.”

“If by ‘rumours’ you mean things Rylon told you, then don’t believe a word of it.”

“It is still the first time I have ever heard even remotely something along the lines of ‘Draco found a girlfriend’.” When he blushed, I knew that there had to be at least some fragment of truth at it.

“I…uh…she’s not my girlfriend,” Draco stammered and I could only hardly hold back a mischievous snicker. Teasing my brother was way more fun than strategically predicting the outcomes of social events.

“Let’s say that’s true, then what is it that makes her different from the other girls you never even glanced at?”

He sighed. “First off, she knows things she should not know and she also meddles in things that are not her business.”

“Interesting,” I said as I got the meaning behind what he was saying. So, this girl, whoever she was, knew about faeries and interfered with strictly non-human things. Daring. I had to commend her on it; to do what I could not do.

“She sounds like quite the catch. What’s the holdup?” I asked further as we crossed the bridge, which curiously seemed to be half in construction.

“First off, she hates me,” Draco said and I could not hold back the snort.

“Fair point. I like her already.”

Draco just rolled his eyes. “Secondly, she thinks of me as two separate people and can’t even remember half of our interactions most of the time.”

Well, my brother was still a hopeless idiot. Despite what he might say, he really had not changed much over the years. What he had said translated itself to me as: “I keep talking to her as ‘Phoenix’ and of course she can’t remember that, but she hates ‘Draco’.”

“Well, no offence, but that sounds reckless.”

“I never said it was an easy situation to be in. On the one hand I have to do what I have to do, but on the other hand I have to keep her out of harm’s way because she’s about to get herself killed one of these days.”

“So, you have a thing for the stubborn yet brave ones. Gotta remember that for the next time I plan to play matchmaker.”

Draco groaned. “Please not you too! Rylon is already on the case and he has even gotten himself some enthusiastic help. It would be nice to have someone who is on my side for a change.”

“It’s my meaning of life to tease you, you know that,” I said with a shrug as we neared an empty table at the café and I sat down. Draco followed suit and pushed the menu over to me.

“You don’t want anything?” I asked, knowing that his journey here had been much longer and much more stressful than mine. If anyone deserved some sweet treat, then it was him.

“I’ll order you a Latte Macchiato if you don’t choose for yourself,” I warned him while I went through the selection of sundaes.

“Sure, do that,” he said as he glanced into the distance. His mood had shifted suddenly and I knew better than to disturb him while he was like this.

We spent some time in a comfortable silence until a waitress came over to us, asking in German for our order. I replied in Italian, ordering a pistachio hazelnut sundae and, as threatened, a Latte Macchiato for my brother.

“You do know that you can get cancer from pistachio nuts, right?” Draco asked and I just rolled my eyes.

“Eating them once a year or so won’t kill me,” I replied, being used him worrying about my frail mortal body. There had been a time where we have been the same, but that was almost ten years ago when we had still been kids. Ever since he had found out about the curse and knew that the same would happen to me if my life would meet a sudden end, he had become frantic about preventing it. Under no circumstances would he let me go through the suffering he had endured. It would have been sweet if it had not become repetitive and even a little annoying over the years. It had ranged from things like ‘please don’t go skydiving or freeclimbing’ to now ‘don’t eat pistachio nuts’.

“Anyway, we are seated and I guess we both have to go back to Milan and the UK respectively soon, so better say what you came here for now before we run out of time.”

“This might sound stupid, but…I need a car.”

I had not expected that.

“You’re right, it does sound stupid. With how often you move it would really be a hassle, wouldn’t it? Except you’re now telling me that you intend to stay in England for longer than a year.”

“You know I can’t promise anything like that, but I’m planning to, yes.”

“Okay then.”

“Okay? Just like that?” Draco asked. He apparently had thought that it would have taken some more convincing to get me to agree.

“I said it to you years ago and I’m saying it again: Take what you need.” It had been something we had agreed on when he had first needed to move away. Moving was expensive and so was living in general. I had been more than willing to help him out with a little money. What he needed to live and function was honestly not more in the drop in the fortune of our family. It would not even be missed. Draco could just take whatever he needed and I would make sure that it would not be noticed. This was our deal and it had worked very well so far.

“It has to be a black and inconspicuous car though. I don’t want to draw a lot of attention,” Draco said, knowing better than to further question my motives.

“Consider it done,” I said just as the waitress with his coffee and my sundae arrived.

“Alright, so you have grilled me about Sunny, so it’s only fair that I return the favour,” Draco said as a poured a small package of sugar into his beverage.

“Her name is Sunny, huh?” I just replied with a smug grin while spooning some pistachio ice cream. Seeing Draco freeze for a moment when he realised what he had let slip was amusing to watch. He quickly regained his composure and threw me a grin back.

“So, tell me, when Rylon is so generous about giving you information about me, I wonder what else you two are talking about.” I let no emotion slip over my face but internally I panicked just a little.

“That is none of your business,” I, therefore, said, buying time to collect myself and think of something appropriate to say. Draco chuckled and I did not like the grin on his face. It was what I had dubbed his faerie-grin since it gave me an eerie and uneasy feeling.

“Really? Because just last week he said something about his girlfriend being an Italian model.”

I almost spit out my ice cream. The shock must have been written on my face for a moment though because my brother’s grin just grew. My uncaring façade slipped on a second later though and I cleared my throat.

“Tell him that I am very capable of committing a murder where one would ever find his body.”

#Lila's writing #Unseen #drabble #fictober18 #Preciosa #Drako | Phoenix

2 notes · View notes

hilunawrites · 6 years ago

Text

Meet the Writer III, IV, V, and VI

Thanks so much for the tags @whataremetaphor, @allisonaldridge, @killer-badass, and @swaynewrites!

Rules: Answer the 10 questions, write 10 questions, then tag 10 people. ** From @whataremetaphor: 1.) Who are some of your favorite authors? JK Rowling, Perry Moore, Audrey Niffenegger, Alex Sanchez, Julie Anne Peters, Nancy Garden, John Green… 2.) Pen and paper or typing? Honestly typing. My handwriting is illegible and I type really fast. 3.) What’s your character development process? I mostly have an idea for a character already in mind and I let them loose into the story. They usually figure themselves out on the way, but if I feel they need a little boost or more details to make them seem more rounded, I’ll fill out little character development questionnaires or free-write about them for a while. 4.) Favorite words? English: silly, serendipitous, onomatopoeia, plethora…(mostly coz they feel nice in the mouth to say. There’s probably way more). German: gumpendorfer, ausgezeichnet, Eichhörnchen, frühstücken 5.) Do you have a “type” for characters (either ones you write or ones you like? If so, what is it? Hmm… I guess I tend to write characters that are slowly figuring out who they are and how the world works. So characters who are coming-of-age. 6.) Music or no music while writing? If so, what kinds? Sometimes, sometimes not. If I do listen, it’s whatever YouTube spits out at me. 7.) What first got you into writing? Kindergarten. My teacher said my story of the day was good enough to “publish.” We wrapped a piece of colored construction paper around it, stapled the sides and I made a cover for it. I was ecstatic XD For those interested, my story way: “Today I walked up the driveway to the mailbox and got the mail.” A literary genius at five years old hahahaha. 8.) Vampires of werewolves? (or magical creature of your choice?) Vampires 9.) Where did you get the inspiration for your current WIP? Augh, don’t hate me. I originally started my WIP as a gay Twilight Fanfiction… 10.) Most difficult part of writing? Keeping up motivation and self-confidence.

** From @allisonaldridge: 1.) What is your favorite writing snack? I don’t eat a lot when I’m writing. If I do, it’s junk food. Pringles (sour cream and onion) Oreos or other cookies. 2.) Would you want to visit the place or world you created for your WIP? The world is basically ours with a little fantasy twist. So yeah, totally. 3.) If you were stuck in a room with one of your OCs, who would you choose? Hmm..tricky…Probably Teresa because we have the most in common. 4.) What movie would you relate closest to your WIP? Twilight, Love Simon. 5.) Do you watch any Authortubers on Youtube? I watch a bit of John Green, does that count? I gotta check out more of these Authortuber people apparently.. 6.) Traditional publishing or independent? Hopefully traditional. I might publish some things independently though. 7.) What is your main OC’s fashion sense? Basic hahaha. Jeans and a shirt. 8.) Where do you keep all your story ideas stored? In my head or on a file on the computer. 9.) Are you working on more than one WIP right now? Not currently. I want to get the first draft of this one finally finished (been working on it for years) before I write anything new. 10.) Coffee or Tea? It is very important. I have to say both, I love them both. ** From @killer-badass: 1.) What is the cutest couple in your current WIP? The only couple in my WIP: Daniel/Vaughn. This WIP has been dubbed my Daniel/Vaughn story since 2007 :P They are beautiful. 2.) Would you rather have your WIP made into a movie or a TV show? Hmm…probably a movie at this point. 3.) Who would you want to direct said movie or TV show? God, I dunno…I would like it to feel like Love, Simon so maybe Greg Berlanti? And also Chris Columbus or David Yates for the fantasy parts. 4.) What TV show character would your protagonist of your current WIP be? These questions are hard for me, I don’t know why! Maybe…Marco from Degrassi. 5.) What is your favorite song to write to? Don’t really have one…I usually put on something like “Castle on a Hill” first and just let the YouTube algorithm do its thing. 6.) What is your protagonist’s theme song? Oh jeez, I haven’t thought about any of this. Perhaps “Brave” by Sara Bareilles.

7.) What marvel character is our protagonist like the most? Spiderman 8.) Your favorite movie? The Princess Bride 9.) Your favorite TV Show? So many. Right now, Brooklyn 99. 10.) What genre is your current WIP? Realistic fiction mixed with fantasy. ** From @swaynewrites: 1.) What is your favorite book, and your favorite author? Harry Potter, JK Rowling. This series has affected me so much, how can I not still answer this question like this? 2.) What’s the longest time you’ve spent working on a WIP? hahahaha, current WIP I’ve been working on since 2007. 3.) What’s your favorite character that you have ever created? Hmm I actually have a lot of feels about Ariel from my short story “My Life with Ariel.” Strange I didn’t choose someone from my main WIP, but there you go. 4.) Have you ever based a character on someone you know? (family, friend, coworker, etc.) I always take bits and pieces of personality from people I know and add them to my characters. 5.) What is your favorite WIP you’ve written? Completed WIP that would be “My Life with Ariel.” We’ll see if I make it into a novel or try to publish as is. 6.) What’s the best response you’ve had to one of your WIPs? One person told me they literally stopped breathing during one scene they were so enraptured by what was going on. This compliment felt so good, because it’s always what I’m going for! 7.) What’s the best film/television show you’ve seen based on a book? The first two Harry Potter movies. Hmm.. Though some things were changed from Love, Simon I felt the atmosphere of the book was captured so well. 8.) Have you ever written something as a joint project with a friend or a fellow writeblr? If you haven’t, would you want to? I don’t think so…but I would absolutely love to! HIT ME UP PEOPLE, LET’S DO THIS! 9.) If you could change something about a popular book series, what series would you change and what would the change be? Twilight. I would eliminate all the abuse in her relationships with Edward and Jacob. 10.) For the Harry Potter fans out there, what is your favorite character/spell/scene? (If you haven’t read or seen Harry Potter, I’d recommend it. LUNAWRITES NOTE: I don’t just recommend it, I demand it hahahaha) Favorite character(s): Draco, Luna Favorite spell: Accio, Not a spell but also Apparition Scene: The chapter in book 6 where Harry confronts Draco in the bathroom and then later has his first kiss with Ginny in the common room. ** My questions for YOU: 1.) Who are three writeblrs you love? 2.) What book has made you cry? 3.) What’s the first book you remember being read as a child? 4.) Where do you read fiction the most? (magazines, journals, books, tumblr, archive of our own) 5.) How do you feel about new novels that remind readers of other popular books? 6.) What are three things you look for in a good novel? 7.) How much of your week do you spend writing? 8.) If you’re imagining publishing your current WIP, being accepted by a publisher, what does that feel like? 9.) What are your three greatest fears about writing? 10.) How can you fight those fears? Tagging: @theouterdark, @damnwrites, @crucioandcoffee , @jess---writes @theaberrantwritergirl, @somnambulant-directives @wondersofwriting00, @smile-everything-is-alright, @greenandwords @rainbowsaw

#tag game #writing tag #about me #authorbio #writeblr #writing #amwriting #writers on tumblr #writing positivity #lunawritesoriginal

5 notes · View notes

turnsoutnoonewasexaggerating · 7 years ago

Text

Part 13 of The Sam Diaries

Summary: Meet Sam, a sweet confused unfit demisexual, as he encounters his celebrity crush Andrew Minyard time and time again despite, or perhaps because of the fact that he doesn’t actually like Exy all that much. (That or because his girlfriend owns the ice-cream place Andrew’s obsessed with. One or the other.)

Chapter summary: Sam's origin story, or, at least, the origin of his friendships

Read on Ao3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/10507836/chapters/28723324

“Well you know what, fuck you guys, because that makes three of us!” Nicky exclaims, to everyone’s confusion. A second ago Neil was sure Nicky was about to cry at Andrew’s (for him) heartfelt thanks, and now he looked a second from tearing his hair out.

Neil and Erik shared a look. Sometimes he hated being part of this family.

“I had to find out from fucking YouTube that you’d been outed to the press, you little asshole.” Nicky continues, pointing a finger at Andrew accusingly. “And, you!” Nicky shouts, now stabbing the finger at Aaron, who doesn’t back down on his glare at Andrew but somehow still manages to look sheepish. Erik and Neil both slowly edge out of the car, and Katelyn also attempts to sneak away from the trio, but Aaron won’t let go of her hand so she settles for sending pleading looks Neil’s way instead. “You got engaged?! MONTHS AGO?!” Neil’s slightly worried Nicky’s going to strain his shoulder with how sharply he’s gesticulating. He looks around for Erik, his main support here, but Erik’s talking to what he assumes is one of their co-workers, smiling a bit forcefully and trying to turn their attention away from his angry husband. “So if a fucking family intervention is what I had to stage to get the two of you to fucking talk to me that’s what I fucking did! Fuck you!” He frowns. “It’s been a while since I’ve spoken English. I feel like that was too many fucks.”

“You’ve always given too many fucks.” Andrew deadpans, with a hint of the double-edged sense of humour that sends thrills down Neil’s spine, at the same time that Aaron says, “Why are you dressed as a pilot?”

Nicky makes an inarticulate noise of frustration, throws his hands in the air, and stalks off to Erik, which is ten times more dramatic because of the sequined vampire cloak he’s currently supporting.

Andrew is still in the car.

When Sam Goldsmith had arrived at university, he’d been quiet. Quiet, scared but sweet had been most people’s first impressions of him. At first, his roommate had thought Sam was just socially awkward, but after politely but firmly being turned down repetitively to go out to a party, he figured Sam might just be really into his studying.

Everyone liked Sam well enough; he kept his room clean, he took out the bins when it was his turn, he didn’t smoke weed in his room and despite his thick Southern accent he didn’t appear to harbour any racist or homophobic beliefs that everyone attributed to the south. Nobody knew Sam; perhaps if pressed they could recall he had a fairly standard home-life, expressed no interest in exercise and liked Harry Potter enough that he knew what house he’d be sorted into (Hufflepuff, obviously) but generally he was unremarkable.

There was a boy two floors above Sam’s that gave him smiles and Christmas presents after Sam had helped him build a shelf. There was a girl who spent most of her time in the library being sexiled that always shared her crisps with him after Sam had run up three flights of stairs to get her inhaler for her (thankfully it wasn’t in the room she’d been sexiled from). There was even a professor who awkwardly smiled at him every time they passed each other on campus because Sam read to their mother once a week at the old people’s home down the road, and it always made the lady’s day.

And then there was Yasmin.

Katelyn soon-to-be-Minyard is an incredible doctor. She can keep calm and collected even during the most panicked life-or-death moments (and none of her colleagues believe that it’s from years of Cheer practice (possibly because it’s not entirely from that; but trying to explain her almost brother-in-law’s slightly knife-happy tendencies without making him sound insane is mostly impossible)), but for some reason, standing in a parking lot, freezing her tits off in her ‘sexy Doctor’ costume that she likes to make fun of and likes how Aaron always eyes her thighs in, with her fiancé who’s locked in a stare-down with his brother that she, even after all these years, still doesn’t know whether it’s mostly just to rile up Nicky, makes her blurt out the first thing that comes into her head.

Andrew on-bad-days-still-sometimes-forgets-his-last-name-is-now-Minyard, hasn’t wanted to kill his brother’s partner for years (Katelyn may be unsure about that but Andrew’s not. He’d never be unsure about something that concerned Aaron’s safety). And yet, as soon as he registers the words that Katelyn has just spoken, he has a split second of longing for a present where he’d just done away with her all those years ago (a feeling Neil would mock him for and say was ‘regret’ but Andrew doesn’t believe in it), but finds it difficult to put into practice when he is still in the fucking car and can’t leave until one of the people who own keys for the vehicle comes back to lock it up (he doesn’t think Nicky lives in a particularly bad neighbourhood but it’s not like he was concerned enough to Google it before he came so who knows. Maybe German bad neighbourhoods look really fancy).

Aaron on-bad-days-still-wishes-his-name-wasn’t-Minyard, loves Katelyn very much. So much, in fact, that her words make him break his stare-down with Andrew to stare at her in confused delight (not that he hasn’t wanted to be staring at her for the past five minutes anyway, because if possible he’d like to live in a world where his eyes would never have to leave hers, but glaring at Andrew has become as ritualistic as fist-bumping Nicky nowadays).

“You really missed an opportunity to come as skeletwins.”

Sam didn’t like parties. He didn’t like clubs. But he wasn’t completely averse to alcohol (no-one except him had twigged that he was averse to crowded places filled with sex and no escape seeing as that was most freshman’s dream come true) which is how he managed to be at the pub (a sensible mile from campus) at the same time as Yasmin Harris, who, among other things, was stoned out of her mind.

“We should fuck.” Is what Yasmin says to him, sitting down next to him at the bar like that’s a normal greeting. Sam shoots a mournful look to his roommate who’s chatting up the girl on his other side and resigns himself to having to deal with this. He glances at Yasmin and finds himself blinking slightly in surprise. He’s been at university, away from his family, for more than a semester now, and he’d thought he’d seen just about every version of whacky looks possible. Yasmin Harris might be about to take the cake however. She’s tall, unusually tall for a girl, like a good head and shoulders taller than him and he’s not exactly short. She has a very sharp face (Sam finds himself comparing her to Draco Malfoy before he can stop himself), bright purple contacts that absolutely do not match her sunshine yellow hair that is so bright it almost hurts to look at. She also has a fairly impressive burn scar on one side of her face that she’s drawn round in black sharpie, to show it off. It mars one of her nostrils oddly, and twists the left corner of her mouth into a grimace. He meets her eyes eventually and when he does she snorts, and he doesn’t understand why.

“You reek of virgin kid.” Sam’s brother had said that to him, at Thanksgiving Christmas dinner. Then he’d showed off a hickey he’d got (apparently) off some leather-clad biker dude that ‘reeked of Derek Hale almost as much as you reek of virgin’ and Sam had pretended to not be hurt by the way his mother had been absolutely scandalised at the ‘sinful’ gay activity but not at how Sage was being a dick. Sam also didn’t know what to do with the information that his brother is apparently still watching Teen Wolf, or began to watch it in the first place. Sam’s hoping this girl isn’t going to go down the same route. “My name’s Yasmin Harris. You’re Sam Goldsmith, the nice kid who’s even nice to fucking wheezy Winter.” Sam narrows his eyes.

“No-one calls her wheezy Winter.” Yasmin shrugs, and then grins, her tongue lolling slightly out of her mouth like a dog’s. “I don’t want to have sex with you.” He adds.

“But,” Yasmin says, and pokes one ridiculously long talon-like fingernail into his chest, “Do you want to have sex with anybody?” Sam feels his chest seize slightly and forces himself to relax. He’s a freak, but he’s not a liar.

“Not particularly.” He says, eventually.

“If you stop reeking of virgin I’m going to have to kick someone’s ass now, aren’t I?” Yasmin sighs, looking worn down all of a sudden. Sam blinks.

“What?”

“Because we’re friends now, dickhead.” Sam thinks with longing about the next day, where presumably Yasmin is going to completely forget this happened and Sam can go back to being quiet, scared and sweet.

Surprisingly, or not, Andrew doesn’t kill Katelyn. It is only, as he’ll admit to Neil later, 50% because he’s still stuck in the car. Instead, Erik comes back to lock the car up with a grumpy Nicky standing very pointedly off to the side and eventually they all go into the party.

“I’m expecting an apology. From both of you. And an explanation.” Nicky finally says, sniffing, and Andrew and Aaron share an conspiratorial look of smugness that Nicky cracked before they did. Both of them pretend like these looks never happen.

“I wanted to tell you in person.” Aaron says, when Andrew doesn’t speak.

“I didn’t even know you were thinking about it!” Nicky huffed, grabbing Katelyn’s hand to look at the ring. He introduces his family to a co-worker who taps him on the shoulder in German, barely even looking at her. When he looks back up from Katelyn’s hand he’s a bit teary and Aaron thunks his head on the table in defeat.

“I am not drunk enough to deal with you being sappy.”

“It’s not my fault I’m already on edge from Andrew’s fucking speech in the car.” Nicky says, more than a little choked.

“Why’d you make him cry?” Aaron says, frowning at his twin, disapproving. Andrew shrugs.

“Just said thanks. Not even to him.” Andrew huffs, the words partially muffled in his whiskey glass as he drains it.

“Neil’s been holding out on an Andrew who’s actually nice and has emotions.” Nicky stage-whispers. Aaron raises an eyebrow, disbelieving.

“Nicky I am never going to thank you again.” Andrew deadpans.

“How about an apology?”

“I don’t do apologies.” Nicky glares at him. “Neither does Neil.” Andrew argues confidently. Neil winces a little beside him, but when Andrew turns to look Neil’s looking at Aaron of all people. “What?” Andrew snaps.

“That’s not quite true.” Neil hedges, still looking at Aaron.

Yasmin doesn’t forget in the morning.

Instead, she turns up at Sam’s door in a very tinted pair of sunglasses and a bikini, with a cocktail in one hand and Winter White in the other. Winter White is the girl Sam has been sharing crisps with in the library, and apparently he’s just found the roommate that’s always sexiling her. She’s waves to him, sheepishly, and Sam’s roommate groans at him to close the door because it’s letting in the light from where he’s lying face down in bed.

Sam obediently moves into the corridor. If Sage’s mysterious hickey-giver had been Derek Hale then Winter is the female version of Stiles Stilinski, all lean and freckled and nerdy, with geek glasses that frame warm brown eyes and very fidgety hands. Sam doesn’t know why he’s still thinking about Teen Wolf.

“Wheezy here’s all hung up on that guy who couldn’t get a shelf up on his first week here. And don’t worry, I’ve already warned her all about if he can’t get a shelf up there might be other things he can’t get up too but she’s adamant that he’s the one and apparently you know him. Jesus. I think I’m the only one with balls around here. Anyway, you’re going to introduce them because god knows I owe Wheezy a few nights of shagging and she’s pretty much the sweetest so if you try and get out of this I will cut off your non-existent balls.” Sam thinks about this.

“Stop calling her wheezy.” He offers back, and Yasmin does that grin again, where Sam’s kind of wondering if she’s only been smiled at by dogs before because no human being smiles like that.

“I know you were a sweetheart. Here’s the deal; you go help this darling with her romantic troubles and then the four of us are going to be A Group. Like a clique. It’s going to be a thing.”

“What if Anders already has friends?” Winter points out, quietly. ‘Anders’ is referring to the guy who couldn’t fix a shelf, who goes by his last name ‘Anderson’ and has so far refused to tell anyone what his first name is.

“He doesn’t.” Sam and Yasmin say in unison. Yasmin holds her hand up for a fist bump and Sam is already bumping her fist before he realises he’s moving his arm.

“How do you know?” Winter argues.

“No-one knows what his first name is.” Sam points out. “Which means no-one knows him well enough to ask.”

��Shrewd, Sherlock.” Winter concedes, with a small smile. Sam wonders whether he might have had a friend this whole time and just hadn’t realised. When he thinks about Anders, upstairs, and the exchanged Christmas presents and the smiles, he feels heat rising in his face.

Yasmin makes a noise like she’s physically pained. “Ugh. Can we keep him? Please?” She stage-whispers to Winter. “He hasn’t even asked about my face yet.”

“How strange. Not asking people personal questions as soon as you meet them.” Winter deadpans, and how did Sam not know she was sarcastic? Yasmin scoffs, unoffended.

“In my defence, I was high as a kite.”

“When are you not?”

“Now who’s asking personal questions?”

“Anders?” Sam cuts in, when their banter doesn’t subside. Winter immediately starts trying to back down the hallway but Yasmin’s got her scary nails wrapped round Winter’s wrist before she’s taken two steps.

“I’m in A Group with cowards.” Yasmin sniffs. “Sam barely leaves his room, Winter’s been crushing on a guy for like High-School long without saying anything and this Anders guy can’t even tell people his first name.”

“I leave my room.” Sam mutters, affronted.

“Yeah, barely.” Yasmin snaps right back, and Sam feels sort of like he should be taking offence at this woman who he’s only known the best part of twelve hours judging him but she’s not exactly wrong.

So much for quiet, scared and sweet. Looks like he’s going to have to settle for slightly social instead.

“Matt’s out.” Is what Aaron says as soon as he opens the door to Neil’s knock, already preparing to close it.

“Cool. I came here to talk to you though.” Aaron’s face immediately pinches tight with worry.

“What’s happened to Andrew?” He demands, opening the door wider.

“Nothing. As far as I know.” Neil brushes past Aaron into his old dorm, ignoring the fact that Aaron didn’t invite him in. “He’s in class.” Before Aaron can ask what the Hell Neil is doing, Neil’s looking at his Biology notes with a weird blend of queasiness and interest. The notes are spread out all over the floor because Andrew might have an eidetic memory but Aaron didn’t get that particular blessing/curse, and he has midterms he actually cares about unlike apparently everyone else on this sodding team.

“What?” He snaps, when Neil doesn’t explain why he’s staring at his notes like it’s a particularly disgusting museum display.

“I remember having to learn all the different arteries and veins, how close they were to the surface, all that stuff.” Despite himself, Aaron’s a little intrigued; he genuinely loves Biology and it doesn’t take much to get his interest.

“Did you do Biology at Milport or something?” Neil looks startled.

“Ah, no. I got taught this stuff by Lola. When I was eight.”

“Not in this level of detail.” Aaron argues, slightly affronted. Neil’s expression lifts, become more humoured.

“No. Didn’t need to know how the circulatory system worked just how to sever it with a particularly sharp knife.” His voice is for a second distant yet hard, and then he blinks and his normal closed-off expression is back. “Anyway. I came here to talk to you about this.” Neil gestures between the two of them with a grimace.

“There is no this.” Aaron scoffs. For some reason this startles a laugh out of Neil.

“You really are twins.” He muses.

“What?”

“That’s what Andrew says whenever I refer to our relationship.” Neil says, almost fondly. Aaron narrows his eyes at him.

“You’ve been… Dating for what, a year now? And Andrew refuses to acknowledge you have a relationship?” Neil frowns.

“Not like that he just. Doesn’t do it verbally. It doesn’t matter.” Aaron really thinks it does matter but he’s learning to ask before he asserts his own judgements. He’ll bring it up next time they go to see Bee. He knows what it’s like to be called nothing. To some extent, he even knows what it’s like to be called nothing by Andrew. He knew now, in some capacity, Andrew had done and had been doing more to protect Aaron than he ever knew at the time, but that didn’t change how little he’d valued Aaron’s opinions or existence in general. It wasn’t so much that Andrew had not lived up to Aaron’s expectations as subverted them completely. While Aaron doesn’t like Neil and he definitely doesn’t trust him, he also doesn’t want Andrew to drive Neil away because of stubbornness when Neil’s clearly the only person who Andrew can stand for long periods of time.

“Hurry up Josten I need to get back to studying.”

“I wanted to apologise.” Neil says, eventually. Aaron was expecting a gun to his head more than he was expecting this. “Except I’m kind of shit at that. So I thought maybe I could teach you how to drive as an apology instead.”

“An apology for what?” Aaron asks, baffled. Neil pulls a face.

“Are you going to make me list it?” When Aaron just continues to stare blankly at him, Neil sighs. “For throwing Tilda in your face, for interfering in your relationship with Katelyn, for lying, for endangering everyone on this team, for persuading Andrew to go to the Hemmicks, for not talking to you much afterwards and for stealing one of your shots last week. Did I about cover it?” He asks, sarcastically.

“The shot was the real grievance.” Aaron shoots back, unimpressed. “You don’t have a car. How are you going to teach me to drive?”

“I bought Andrew’s car. I get a key.” Aaron’s eyes widen.

“You bought Andrew’s car? What the fuck Neil?” Neil shrugs sheepishly.

“I thought I was going to die at the end of the year so I didn’t need the money anymore.”

“Andrew doesn’t accept gifts that aren’t food related.” Aaron disagrees. Neil, if possible, looks even more sheepish.

“I traded him for not taking cracker dust anymore. Wanted to limit his addictions.”

“Why didn’t you take him off cigarettes they’ll kill him much faster.” Aaron complains. “Bastard.” He adds, almost as an afterthought.

“It’d ruin his aesthetic.” At that, Neil Josten succeeds in the previously impossible and makes Aaron laugh.

“Oh thank fuck you also think the all black is a little much sometimes. You know he wore a skull cap to meet the team on our first day here?”

“What’s a skull cap?” Aaron sits down by his laptop and does a quick image search for him. The vindication he feels when Neil I-am-physically-repelled-away-from-fashionable-clothing Josten looks horrified is the most satisfying feeling he’s had all day. “I don’t think I’d wear that even if I had no other clothes.”

“I would if only because everyone would think I was Andrew.” Aaron admits. “I’ve bought the same tie as him for this year’s Christmas banquet just so I can pretend I’m him if anyone tries to talk to me.”

“Can you even do a good Andrew impression?” Neil asks, not convinced. Aaron does his best to shut down all his facial expressions and stare blankly at the wall in front of him. “Oh my goodness! It’s almost like you’re tw-”

“Don’t.” Aaron cuts him off, unamused. Well, maybe a little amused but Josten doesn’t need to know that. “Is Andrew ok with me learning to drive in his car?” He asks, suspicious.

“When I asked he said I’d never convince you so it didn’t matter what he thought.”

“Are you any good at driving?” Neil’s hand goes to the side of his stomach for a second, rubbing at the skin there.

“I’m better than Nicky and obey more traffic rules than Andrew.” Neil offers.

“Good enough.”

Almost two semesters later and Sam’s not entirely sure he remembers what it was like to not be in A Group. Anders’ (who still goes by Anders to everyone except Winter, who he lets call him ‘Tal’ but all of them at least know what his first name is) parents have lent him their apartment for a couple of weeks while they join in on some sort of pilgrimage (Anders hadn’t explained and only Yasmin had asked, only to be shut down) so Anders had invited the three of them up to stay with him. It was nice, because Anders could have just invited Winter but he was as invested in their Group as much as Yasmin was, as much as all of them were to be honest.

Sam was more comfortable being around them than he was anywhere else, but he was still an introvert at heart. Which meant he got up early and went for a walk by himself round the city every day, just to clear his head. He went a different way every time, because for some reason he was falling more and more in love with this city (city? Town?) every time he discovered something new about it, and he wanted to explore it all.

There was a café he found, after about half an hour of walking, which he was about to go in to until he saw a sign for what looked like an ice-cream parlour round the corner. Sam felt the way the sweat was beading on his forehead in the heat and his stomach concurred with an emphatic grumble so he went there instead, pushing his way through the door eagerly.

Inside was bright and colourful, with tables and chairs that looked slightly rickety but very homely. Even though this town was pretty large, it was clear this place was the kind of place that had regulars and meant something to the community. There were so many homely vibes coming from the whole place. Sam loves it immediately.

“Hi there! Can I help you?” Sam stops taking the place in and looks behind the counter. There’s a young woman stood there, around his age, her hair held back by a simple headband instead of the hairnets he usually associates with people dealing with food. There’s something about the dark circles under her eyes and the weary slant of her posture but real, genuine smile that makes Sam want to draw.

He’s not sure even his Group knows about his drawings. It’s not something he was encouraged to do; his father was sure it was going to lead him into being ‘one of those prissy little gay boys’ so it’s become something he does only when the need to draw overcomes the weird lingering bad feeling he gets whenever he does.

He blushes, realising he’s been staring for slightly too long and shuffles closer to the counter. Luckily there’s only a couple of other people in the store to witness his embarrassment, and they seem far too interested in shoving their tongues down each other’s throats to care about him. “Um, do you have a recommendation?” Sam manages to stutter out, gesturing at the ice-creams on display.

The woman sucks her bottom lip into her mouth thoughtfully, looking him up and down. Sam thinks the heat must be getting to her too, if the way the back of her neck is going splotchy is any indication. “You look like the kind of person who’s into vanilla-ry things, right?” She smiles at him again and then her expression blanks before he can return it, looking mortified. “Oh my goodness I’m so sorry I meant in terms of ice cream I wasn’t trying to- Shit.”

“What else would it be in terms of?” Sam asks, bewildered. The woman buries her face in her hands, her hair sweeping past her shoulders at the bottom to help. She peeks at him through her fingers and then waggles her eyebrows, comically enough that Sam finds himself laughing even before he’s made the connection between that and the looks Anders and Winter give each other when they think no-one’s looking.

“I promise I wasn’t trying to be creepy.” The woman says, laughing a little with him but still looking embarrassed as hell. Sam thinks it’s adorable. Now he’s closer to her he can see the pretty impressive muscles she’s got in her arms, that he doesn’t think are just from scooping ice-cream, and the freckles that dot all over her visible skin.

“Don’t worry.” Sam assures. The woman bites her lip again.

“So, ice-cream? I think you’d like something classic, like Honeycomb or maybe the white chocolate and raspberry?”

“They both sound good.” Sam admits. “Can I have a scoop of each?” The woman rings up the order and then freezes.

“Ugh I meant to not charge you for this-”

“It’s fine.” Sam says firmly. The woman seems unsure.

“Can I at least buy you a coffee sometime? To apologise?” Sam smiles shyly at her.

“Can I have a name to go with that coffee?” He replies, as she scoops out his ice cream, and Sam is more than a little impressed by the way her muscles ripple as she does.

“Eunoia.”

“Sam.” He offers back. She hands him the ice cream, but doesn’t quite let go of it yet.

“Sam.” She says, testing the name. “It suits you.” Sam doesn’t know whether that’s a compliment or not. “You free now?” Sam blinks at her, perplexed.

“Are you?” He says, pointedly looking at the counter separating them.

“I’ll be done by the time you finish your ice cream.” Sam wonders what weird shifts they have going on at this place but doesn’t question it, finding himself excited to get to know someone, for quite possibly the first time in his life.

And if he spends most of the time that he’s supposed to be eating the ice cream doodling Eunoia in his sketchbook, well, only the two of them are going to know.

And maybe that couple in the corner if they’d stopped to disengage their mouths.

“You actually taught Aaron how to drive?” Andrew says, a little bit stunned and trying not to show it.

“You said I could.” Neil says quickly and Andrew nods, but sends him a look that clearly says ‘I didn’t know though’. “We had the same free blocks on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Plus Aaron’s a fast learner. We just took the car out when you were in class. I figured you knew.” Andrew narrowed his eyes at Aaron.

“You could drive for our last two years? Why was I stuck driving you everywhere?”

“You didn’t?” Aaron replies, frowning. “The only time you drove me places was to go to practice or to Eden’s.”

“Yes but if you could drive why would you still come to Eden’s with us?” Andrew says, genuinely confused and not liking being so. Even Neil looks like he knows the answer and Andrew’s being particularly dense.

“Because I wanted to.” Aaron answers, shortly, and Neil and Nicky and Katelyn all grin at each other because; progress!

“It doesn’t feel complete without Kevin here too.” Nicky says after a moment where Andrew’s still glaring at his glass like it’s offended him as he tries to wrap his head round this new information.

“Maybe next time you scheme us all into a surprise reunion you can get him too.” Aaron says sarcastically. At Nicky’s excited expression Aaron points his finger in Nicky’s face. “No, nope that was not an idea-” Nicky’s already bounding off to talk to Erik, shouting something about ‘Weihnachten’. “Fuck.” Aaron says, thunking his head on the table again. Katelyn runs a hand through his hair comfortingly, although it’s shaking slightly because of how much she’s laughing.

“We’re having Christmas this year.” Andrew says, in the same tone of voice one might deliver the news of a death, and everyone on the table looks at him in surprise. “Can you come?”

“Does coming mean I have to do Christmas next year?” Aaron says, shrewdly.

“It’s Wymack’s next year.” Neil assures.

“Has it really been another five years since we beat the shitty prick already?” Aaron muses. “They always say you get fonder of dead people as time passes but…”

“Yeah no Riko’s still a massive asshole.” Neil agrees, and how in holy hell did Andrew not notice his brother doesn’t hate Neil anymore?

Christ, he’s getting old.

#my writing #my fic #TSD #aftg #tfc #andreil #andrew minyard #neil josten #nicky hemmick #erik klose #aaron minyard #My OC Sam #my OC Eunoia

8 notes · View notes

greeneyedsnake · 7 years ago

Text

At the Quidditch World Cup with the Malfoys

As a reward and a thank-you to everyone who has been so patiently waiting for the fourth part of the Green-Eyed Snake series, here is a brief excerpt from an early scene in the book. (Note that this is a rough draft version and may be edited or altered prior to being officially posted as part of the story!)

They trudged up the sunny field between long rows of tents. Most looked almost ordinary; their owners had clearly tried to make them as Muggle-like as possible, but had slipped up by adding chimneys, or bellpulls, or weather vanes. However, here and there was a tent so obviously magical that Harry could hardly be surprised that Mr. Roberts was getting suspicious. One had two big braziers with color-changing fire on either side of a solid wooden door; another had window boxes filled with flowers that chimed like bells in the breeze. The wizards and witches they passed were in the same boat as the tents: most had obviously made an effort to dress like Muggles but had failed spectacularly. One old man wore a woman’s lacy nightgown and a traffic cone on his head; another had put trousers on under his kilt. One witch for some reason had wrapped toilet paper all over herself like a mummy and another was wearing perfectly ordinary Muggle jeans and a band t-shirt but had three live canaries perched on her pointy hat.

The Malfoys did not seem to have made any efforts to pass as Muggles at all, Harry realized, looking sideways at the pale family. He wondered why none of the Ministry wizards had scolded them but a look around told him that they all had bigger problems to worry about. The Malfoys might be wearing robes, but at least they weren’t actually shooting off sparks or riding on broomsticks. Compared to some of the wizards he saw, they were downright unobtrusive.

There were a few empty spots scattered throughout the tents for those who had yet to arrive. They stopped outside a large patch of grass midway across the field with a small sign hammered into the ground that read MALFOI. They stared at it for a moment, Harry wondering if Mr. Malfoy had forgotten they would need a tent like he had with the Muggle money. None of the slim bags they were carrying looked like they held more than a single change of clothes.

“It’s going to be a bit cramped, isn’t it?” Mrs. Malfoy observed dubiously.

Mr. Malfoy shrugged. “At least we’ll have tolerable neighbors. I made sure of it.” He grinned and opened up a small green bag. “Stand back, boys,” he warned, and drew his wand. “Erecto,” he said, and out of the bag spilled an impossible amount of cloth and poles which swirled and clattered around in a chaotic, self-contained whirlwind of stripes and silk that resolved themselves, after only a moment, into a fully constructed tent.

At least, it was something like a tent. It looked more like a miniature palace made of striped silk. Mr. Malfoy waved his wand again and a number of peacocks tumbled out of the tent, their long leashes wrapping themselves to hoops along the entrance. The peacocks fluffed their feathers back into place and started strutting around, exploring the area with every appearance of calm contentment, as though they were used to being packed-up inside a magical tent and pulled out again.

Harry’s jaw dropped open.

“There we are,” said Mr. Malfoy. “Home sweet home—or at least, the next best thing for the moment.”

“Come on, Harry,” Draco said, eagerly leading the way inside, “I’ll show you our room.”

“Our room?” Harry repeated. He followed Draco inside and his jaw dropped again. Instead of walking into a tent—even a sprawling, elaborate, impossible tent—he felt like he had entered an actual palace. The walls seemed to be made of silk rather than wood or stone, but there were walls, and doors, and different rooms. There was even a delicate ironwork staircase leading to a second floor. There was a small chandelier hanging from the middle of the ceiling. The tent, big as it was, had not looked even halfway large enough to contain all of this from the outside.

“Come on,” Draco repeated, and Harry followed him up the staircase, trunk bobbing obediently at his ankles. His head was spinning. Harry had never been camping in his life; the Dursleys had never taken him on any kind of holiday, preferring to leave him with Mrs. Figg, an old neighbor. However, he was certain that Muggle camping was nothing like this.

“What do you think?” Draco asked, spreading his arms wide. The upper floor of the palatial tent was more of a loft than a proper second floor, a long low-ceilinged sprawling room of silk, with two cushy-looking beds piled high with pillows and feathery-looking comforters. There was a washstand and dressing table with a mirror in one corner and a short bookcase in the other. It looked like more weight than the thin wooden floor ought to be able to hold, especially given that Harry hadn’t seen any proper supports for the floor on his way up the stairs. He hesitated on the top of the steps, unsure about trusting his weight to such a precarious perch.

“It’s not as big as the other rooms,” Draco apologized, “but I like it because you can peek out through the flap and see what’s going on outside. See?” He bounced over to the silk wall, apparently not at all worried about the flimsiness of the floor, and lifted a patch of silk that let unfiltered sunlight stream in. Harry swallowed and stepped forward, wincing as he moved off the solid metal stairs, but the floor underfoot didn’t so much as tremble at his steps. Harry relaxed a little and peeked out through the flap that Draco held open for him.

He could see the rows of tents stretching away across the cluttered field; he seemed to be looking out from beneath the crenellated border of silk between the wall of the tent and its sloping roof. It gave him a weird feeling of vertigo when he thought about space. He didn’t feel like he was any higher up than it looked like the tent reached from the outside, but he knew he had climbed higher than that on the stairs to get here. Harry swallowed hard and backed away from the window. “Neat,” he said weakly.

“I thought you’d like it,” Draco said, and dropped the small bag he had been carrying on one of the beds. “Leave your stuff—let’s go look around!” He bounded back down the stairs. Harry took a deep breath to steady himself, then followed.

“Father! Mother!” Draco called pompously, “Harry and I are going to go look around!”

His parents came bustling out of one of the side rooms, both of them now lacking their traveling cloaks. Mrs. Malfoy had a hairbrush in her hand and a frown on her face. “What?” she cried, in a voice that sounded very much like an objection, but Mr. Malfoy chuckled and said, “Oh let them go, Cissy, they’ll be fine. There’s Ministry wizards running all over the place, and plenty of our friends in attendance too. Nothing’s going to hurt them if they do a bit of exploring.” His voice suddenly sharpened. “You both have your wands?” he asked.

“Of course,” scoffed Draco, looking as though it was the stupidest question he had ever been asked.

“Er,” said Harry. His was still packed in his trunk from his time at the Dursleys. He felt his face go hot. “I’ll just—run and get mine.” He took the steps two at a time on the way up and jumped the last three on the way back down. By the time he ran back over to the Malfoys, Narcissa had been convinced to let them go out.

“Oh very well,” she was saying, “but be careful, Draco. Don’t go too far away. And don’t talk to anyone—you know, unpleasant.” She wrung her hands, hairbrush and all.

“We’ll be fine, mother,” Draco said, rolling his eyes.

“Well all right then,” Mrs. Malfoy sniffed. “But I want you back here in an hour—”

“Mother!”

“Fine, an hour and a half. We’ll have dinner together.”

She spoke with a finality that could not be argued. “All right,” Draco said, and darted for the door. He had to endure a hug and a kiss from his mother and a clap on the back from his father before they would let him go. Harry forced a smile and ignored a sudden funny, cold feeling in his stomach, and followed.

Once outside he immediately forgot his discomfort. There were too many strange things and people to look at. One group of wizards sat around a fire that gave off bright purple sparks, passing around a newspaper that had them all very excited and talking in something that sounded a lot like German. All three of them had neat beards and were wearing sequined evening dresses. A tent on the other side of the path kept changing colors from red to green to blue to pink and back again. Two harried-looking wizards stood outside it, trying to convince their very small daughter to land her broomstick and give them back daddy’s wand so they could fix it. A group of middle-aged American witches sat gossiping happily beneath a spangled banner stretched between their tents that read: THE SALEM WITCHES’ INSTITUTE. Further down the row two African witches in bright skirts and headscarves were arguing in cheerful French with a portly white woman wearing a yellow shower cap and a raincoat. Someone somewhere was yelling at someone else in Italian and when they crossed to another row he and Draco were almost mowed-down by a stray firework tumbling along like a purple tumbleweed. Harry caught snatches of conversation in strange languages from the inside of tents they passed, and though he couldn’t understand a word, the tone of every single voice was excited.

Upfield they stumbled into what Harry realized belatedly must be the Bulgarian section: a large white, green, and red flag was fluttering in the breeze overhead and each and every tent had the same poster attached to it: a poster of a very surly face with heavy black eyebrows. The picture was, of course, moving, but all it did was blink and scowl.

“He seems popular,” Harry observed.

Draco laughed. “Of course!” he exclaimed.

“Who is it?” Harry asked, feeling stupid.

“Viktor Krum of course,” Draco said. “Bulgaria’s Seeker. Haven’t you heard of him?”

Harry gave a helpless shrug. “Not all of us got to spend all summer listening to Quidditch matches on the wireless and reading Which Broomstick and Quidditch Quarterly,” he pointed-out bitterly.

“Well he’s brilliant,” Draco said, not sounding at all abashed. “One of the best Seekers of all time. He’s the strongest part of Bulgaria’s lineup—as all their fans know,” he added, waving a hand at the posters. “He’s really young, too. Still in school, if you can believe it, but of course Bulgaria knew they didn’t have a chance of winning the World Cup without him so they recruited him straight from Durmstrang.”

“Durmstrang?” Harry repeated. The word sounded familiar.

“It’s another wizarding school,” Draco said.

Harry gaped but didn’t voice the amazement he felt at hearing about the existence of other Wizarding schools. He supposed, now that he saw representatives of so many nationalities in the campsite, that he had been stupid never to realize that Hogwarts couldn’t be the only one.

Fortunately Draco was still talking and didn’t notice the shock on Harry’s face: “Father actually considered sending me to Durmstrang rather than Hogwarts, in fact,” he drawled. “He knows the headmaster, you see. A much better person than mental old Dumbledore. They’ve got stricter standards of admittance, too. But mother didn’t like the idea of me going to school so far away. Father says Durmstrang takes a far more sensible line than Hogwarts about the Dark Arts. Durmstrang students actually learn them, not just the defense rubbish we do….”

“That might have come in handy a few times,” Harry said mildly, thinking about Peter Pettigrew.

Draco nodded. “Right? I can’t see the Weasleys being any good at it anyway, so it would definitely give us a leg-up on those brutes. Not to mention all the Mu—other Gryffindors. They tend to turn their noses up at sensible, practical magic like that. Say they’re too good for it,” he sneered, “but of course the moment they end up between a rock and a hard place they’ll whip-out whatever spell they need to get out of it, all without ever letting their self-righteous hypocrisy take so much as a dent.”

He lowered his voice and added in a breathless whisper, “That’s where Gellert Grindewald went to school, you know. Durmstrang. Although they expelled him before he could graduate, so some people say he shouldn’t be counted as a proper alumni—but still.” Draco’s eyes glittered. “Pretty creepy, no? Personally I wouldn’t want to be in Ireland’s shoes; a lot of things can happen on a Quidditch pitch beyond just Bludgers….”

“Mmm,” said Harry, noncommittally. He was wracking his brain trying to think if he had ever heard the name Gellert Grindewald before. He missed having Crabbe and Goyle around; one of them could usually be counted on to ask at least half the stupid questions Harry wanted to, saving him the embarrassment.

Draco rolled his eyes. “Come on,” he said, “Gellert Grindewald? You know, only the most fearsome Dark Wizard to ever walk the earth until the Dark Lord himself claimed the title?”

“Oh right,” said Harry, “that Gellert Grindewald. Of course.”

Draco snorted and led the way between the Bulgarian tents. By the time they reached the end of the section Harry was starting to get properly creeped-out by all the posters of Viktor Krum scowling at him. He was relieved to return to the regular mish-mash of magical tents whose idiosyncrasies varied between well-intentioned mistakes and deliberate, ridiculous violations of the Statute. Harry liked the latter more; since he wasn’t a Muggle who would be frightened or confused by the sight of a tent with a turret or a birdbath, he enjoyed looking at the elaborate structures that his fellow witches and wizards had erected to show off their magical prowess.

He did feel a little unsettled when everything went green.

They had walked into a patch of tents that were all covered with a thick growth of shamrocks, so that it looked as though small, oddly shaped hillocks had sprouted out of the earth. Grinning faces could be seen under those that had their flaps open. Two of those faces were familiar: Seamus Finnigan, whose thick Irish accent should have made his presence here no surprise to Harry, and Dean Thomas, Finnigan’s best friend. They were both in Gryffindor House at Hogwarts in the same year as Harry and Draco and, as was traditional for Slytherins and Gryffindors, they did not get on well together.

Since Finnigan and Thomas hadn’t seen them yet, Harry pointed at something in the distance and said loudly, “What’s that?” He started walking faster, forcing Draco to run after him. Harry wasn’t scared of the Gryffindor boys of course, but Draco’s mother had told them to be careful and they didn’t have Crabbe and Goyle with them right now. Harry didn’t want to go back to the Malfoys’ tent with a Draco who had a bloody nose or a black eye; he had a feeling that Mrs. Malfoy’s lectures would be even scarier than those of his head of house, Professor Snape, if Draco got hurt and she found out about it.

Harry didn’t slow down until they had left the forest of shamrocks far behind.

“What’s what?” Draco asked, annoyed.

“I don’t know,” said Harry, “it left. Sorry.”

Draco rolled his eyes but didn’t complain; there were so many other fascinating things to see that skipping half of the Irish supporters’ section—which had all seemed to be more of the same, anyway—was no great loss. They easily whiled-away their allotted free time staring every which way. Here and there they saw more familiar faces: other Hogwarts students with their families. Cassius Warrington, who had joined the Slytherin Quidditch team last year, pulled them over to show-off to his parents that he really did know Harry Potter. Next they met the Greengrass sisters outside a neat little tent that would have looked quite normal if not for the flower-wrapped trellis and balcony protruding from the side. Daphne was a fourth year in Slytherin like them and she introduced them to her parents with studied diffidence but Astoria, who was starting her second year at Hogwarts, went bright pink and didn’t say a word. Then they were greeted by Blaise Zabini, who pointedly ignored Harry the whole time he talked to Draco, and a little farther on they saw Cho Chang, a very pretty girl who played Seeker on the Ravenclaw team. She waved and smiled at Harry, who tripped over a stray tent stake when he tried to wave back. More to stop Draco from smirking than anything, Harry horridly pointed out a small group of teenagers whom he had never seen before.

“Who d’you reckon they are?” he said. Trying to sound like somebody who wasn’t ignorant of most of the magical world he added casually, “Students from Durmstrang maybe?”

Draco looked over at them. “No,” he said, “they’re speaking Japanese, I think. Probably from Mahoutokoro.”

That made Harry feel even stupider. “Right,” he said, and resolved to keep his mouth shut about other wizarding schools from then on.

When the light started to dim they returned to the Malfoys’ tent. There was an elaborate dinner waiting for them there: plates and plates of food, from braised quail with blackberries to hasselback potatoes with gouda to gooey ambrosia salad with mangos and coconut. Harry stared. He had been expecting sausages roasted over a campfire, not a dinner table set with more forks than he knew what to do with and dishes so fancy he didn’t recognize half their names. Mr. Malfoy poured both he and Draco each a glass of nutmeg sangria and Mrs. Malfoy kept urging both of them (but mostly Draco) to have another helping of everything. It was almost as good as a meal at Hogwarts; there wasn’t as broad of a selection—thankfully, because there were only four of them to eat it all—and having two concerned adults pay attention to what Harry was eating and which fork he was using to eat it with was more scrutiny than Harry was used to, but part of him liked it. It was almost like being part of a family, albeit one that cared a lot more about salad forks than any family Harry had ever heard of.

The strangest part of the meal was who, or rather what, was serving them: the Malfoys had brought along a house-elf. (Harry wondered if it had been packed-up inside the tent like the peacocks, shuddered, and tried not to think about that again.) At first that had made Harry nervous, because the last time he had encountered a house-elf it had not gone well for him. In his second year at Hogwarts, a weird little elf named Dobby had been responsible for one of the most difficult, and most painful, Quidditch matches that Harry had ever flown; he would never forget the strange creature and had had no desire to meet any others of his species.

This house-elf was smaller than Dobby and hardly spoke except to say, “yes mistress,” or “no master,” or “right away young master,” as it scurried around clearing plates and replacing dishes. The Malfoys didn’t seem to pay it any attention except when they wanted it to do something; Harry tried to ignore it like they did, but it was hard when he kept seeing it move out of the corner of his eye. It made him feel twitchy and he was glad when the delicious meal was finally over; he had a crick in his neck from turning to watch the elf. It melted away to some other part of the tent as soon as they finished eating, along with all the half-eaten dishes and dirty silverware.

By the time night fell Harry was feeling pleasantly full and sleepy, despite his sore neck, and he happily followed the Malfoys outside. There was a campfire in an elaborate stone pit that had suddenly materialized in front of the tent just out of reach of the now-dozing peacocks. Harry lounged in a plush armchair near the fire while the Malfoys told stories about people he didn’t know. He firmly decided that anyone who went camping without magic was a fool. He was almost sorry Dudley wasn’t here, just so he could be jealous of Harry for once.

He barely remembered climbing the ironwork staircase to their loft bedroom and snuggling down into the big, squishy bed. He was asleep almost before he closed his eyes.

#slytherin harry #slytherin!harry #hp fanfiction #harry potter fanfiction #hp fanfic #ges4 #spoilers #ges4 spoilers #extras

1 note · View note