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Not Quite Over Him
Author: Don Thomas
Date: 05-23-08 13:34
Don searched her room for her paste. She knew that she had placed it by her other art supplies, but she had rearranged them after the raid of the rooms (as Don called it) and placed them somewhere else. Once she found her paste, she would also find her scissors, paintbrushes, and paints. She just had to find her paste. Don paused to look over what she had already. The plate/wall decoration thingys? Check. The pictures of all four kids (including herself)? Check. All she needed now was her art supplies. She continued looking for the wooden box. It wasn't in the closet. Was it in the hope chest? No. Finally, Don got the great idea and look under her bed. There, near the footboard, was her wooden box of art delight. Don got it out and smiled.
The first thing to do was cut Brody's picture. Don cut a perfect circle out of the photograph, leaving Brody in the center of the circle, and pasted it onto the middle of the first plate. As Don painted Brody's name in maroon paint along the top of the plate and a 'Born 2001' along the bottom of the plate, she looked at the picture. Brody was smiling, giggling. He even lifted a small arm and then slammed it down as he laughed. Don remembered the day this picture was taken. It had been January 1st of 2002, also known as Brody's first birthday party and Don's 16th birthday party. His actual birth date was January 5, 2001, but the Poplars had made his 1st birthday party a little bit earlier to ensure that Don would be there. Brody had enjoyed his birthday, even if Don hated having to share hers. She was over it now and was actually genuinely happy that Brody had enjoyed it.
The next picture that Don cut and pasted was a picture of Lilly. Lilly was a baby in the picture and she was moving her arms. Her facial expression looked as though she would begin crying as her eyes moved all around. Don smiled, writing the name 'B. Lilly' along the top of the plate with a 'Born 1999' along the bottom of the plate. Don thought for a moment about Barnaby Lillian Poplar. She had been born on April 9, 1999. Paul had been investigating something in France when Lilly had been born. Luckily, Don had been on Spring Break. The girl had been one of the ugliest babies Don had seen, but eventually grew into a beautiful butterfly that looked almost nothing like Madeline or Don. Don had even pressured her parents into putting the young girl in modeling, but that wasn't what Lilly wanted. Lilly wanted to be a fairy princess. Not a model.
Picture Number 3 was a photograph of Stefan as a baby. Don smiled as she cut the picture and pasted it on the plate. Stefan had been her first sibling. At the time, Don had been excited to finally have a family as well as a baby sister. Though the marriage between Madeline and Stefan's father hadn't lasted long, Don still had a connection with Stefan that she didn't have with the other two siblings. In the photograph, Stefan was grabbing at the camera and laughing. With a smile, Don wrote Stefan's name along the top of the plate that displayed her picture, along with the words 'Born 1997' along the bottom in green paint. The exact date of Stefan's birth was March 7, 1997. That was also one of Don's happiest days.
Picture Number 4 was a photograph of Don as a baby. Don hated this picture. The picture depicted Don's birth father holding her as a one month old baby while she touched her nose and smiled. It was the only picture Don had of her birth father and it only made her despise him more. The fact that he could hold her, bond with her, and then rip it all away when she got older. Who did that? What kind of adult did that? What kind of adult was so selfish that they couldn't be there for their only child (at the time)? For the longest time after he disappeared, Don had wished he would return. She'd counted on it. When her mother finally began dating again (Don was 8), she realized her daddy wasn't coming back. That realization, hitting a hopeful girl of 8 years old, stung worse than a thousand daggers. It was probably the reason Don had turned out so different from other girls her age. She'd shut herself off from any emotion and picked up Muggle habits and interests. All because of him.
As Don stared at this photo, she slowly cut her picture out. A perfect circle, same size and shape as the rest of them. She pasted it to the plate and put it aside as she took the scissors to the rest of the photograph. She slowly cut her father's grinning face in half. Then again. And again. It was like she was putting the picture through a Muggle paper shredder. The scissors glided through the small bits of picture to create smaller bits. Finally, Don stopped. She looked at the bits and pieces of the picture that had once been her grinning father. She picked up these pieces and threw them away.
"Jackass," Don muttered as she returned to her plate. Along the top, in purple paint, Don wrote her name. Along the bottom, Don inscribed 'Born 1986'. Her true birthday was January 2, 1986.
When she was finished, Don laid back, stretching her body and sighing in relief as the plates began to dry. The feeling swam over her that all was well in her life. All was perfect. Part her was even happy her dad left. If he hadn't, things wouldn't have been as perfect. Though most of her still wished that man would rot in Hell.
Death at Goen Bren
Author: Carys
Date: 05-23-08 18:37
Carys began to head for the dining cabin to help prepare supper for the residents of Goen Bren, shuffling her feet over the dirt path as she went. Little clouds of dust swept into the air with every step, coating the tops of her shoes as each granule settled to the earth again. Carys had no intention of being late to work; she remembered the consequence for being tardy quite well and hoped never again to feel the effects of the Cruciatus Curse again. So far, she'd been quite lucky.
She came to the common square, where people who had a moment's rest could gather. Every time Carys passed through the square, a few people lounged about on hard stone benches, but never were as many people there as now. Her pace slowed to better take in the scene. The crowd congregated in the square seemed to form a circle around something or someone.
As if sensing something was terribly wrong, Carys felt her stomach drop. The thoughts that had been running through her head vanished, allowing her to fully tune in to the solemn dialogue around her. She began gently pushing her way to the center of the crowd, picking up comments and questions as she navigated her way.
"It's so sad," someone murmured.
"But she's better off where she is," someone else said quietly.
"What do you think happened?" asked someone else softly.
"She just withered away and died."
Carys stopped breathing. Only one row of drably dressed wizards remained between her and the victim on the ground. She suddenly had memory of learning of Owain's death and visualized her mother Gaenor's body sprawled over the steps at The Leaky Cauldron. Carys shuddered, sucked in a ragged breath, and emerged from the crowd. She let out a loud wail.
Mairwen Ellis Hanham lay on the ground with her eyes open and her lips parted. The thin skin over her bones looked more translucent than white, and her limbs and fingers seemed so fragile as if the slightest touch would cause them to break.
Carys fell forward onto her knees and started to reach out her hands to touch her grandmother, but then she hesitated and pulled back her arms. She cried, tuning out the sympathetic murmuring around her. She couldn't see anything but the tears stinging her eyes and the memory of her grandmother's corpse.
"What's all this?" shouted a stern voice everyone recognized as belonging to the warden of Goen Bren.
The crowd drew back, leaving a wide gap for the warden to pass through without accidentally touching a mudblood. Carys immediately stopped crying aloud and instead sniffled, attempting to stop her sobs though she found it extremely difficult.
"Get up, girl," the warden barked.
Carys climbed to her feet, her hands in fists by her sides. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
The warden stepped around Mairwen and looked down his nose at her body. He touched the tip of his shoe to her cheek and nudged it, causing it to loll to the side.
Carys fought the urge to scream at him, and instead dug her fingernails into her palms.
The warden looked up sharply and roved his head around. "Back to work, all of you!" He gaze rested upon Carys. "Don't you have someplace to be, girl?"
Carys sniffled loudly. "That's my gr––"
"I don't care who she is. I believe I asked you a question." Already, his hand moved to the wand in his pocket.
Carys glanced one last time at her grandmother's body and then, with a final sob, turned on her heel and fled to the dining hall. Unfortunately, she couldn't escape fast enough and very clearly heard the warden order those responsible for handling the dead to "add the old woman to the pile of rotting corpses."
Marseilles, France: Late Night Thoughts
Author: Bill Weasley
Date: 05-24-08 18:09
Bill stood on the small terrace that made up the back of Coquille Cabanon and leaned on the bannister, gazing up at the midnight blue sky and the silver twinkling stars. With the exception of the crickets chirping in the distance, silence enveloped the entire area. In a word, it was peaceful.
And yet, Bill found that he couldn't rest. Fleur already lay in bed, sleeping as far as he could tell, but he simply couldn't turn away the many thoughts that played havoc in his mind. He worried about his family abroad, especially Ron and Ginny who were more or less on the run from the law. Bill worried about his home in Hogsmeade. Would it be just as he'd left it when––if––he ever returned? He also worried over his position at Gringotts, though it was the least of his concerns. Still, thoughts over whether he'd been replaced and if he could ever find an equivalent position if life ever returned to normal plagued his mind. All he wanted was to be able to care for his family. If he couldn't do that, then what sort of man was he?
The French door behind him opened. Bill didn't turn and continued to gaze up at the night sky. He felt two small arms wrap around him from behind and then the pressure of Fleur's familiar form against his back.
"Won't you come eenside now?" she asked sleepily.
"I don't want to disturb you while you sleep," Bill replied. "I'm afraid I'll just toss and turn."
"I would rather have you beside me tosseeng and turneeng zan not by my side at all," Fleur replied. She squeezed him warmly. "S'il te plaît, mon amour. Viens au lit avec moi."
Bill didn't want to argue with his wife. He turned in her arms so that he faced her and gazed down into her moonlit face. Although she'd been sleeping, she didn't look as if she'd just crawled out of bed. She looked as if she'd spent hours making herself look beautiful, when Bill knew it simply wasn't the case. He kissed her forehead and then her lips.
"All right. I'll come to bed with you."
Fleur kissed him tenderly on the lips and then unraveled herself from his embrace. She took him by the hand and let him back inside to their bedroom, where Marguerite had already made Bill's pillow her bed. Fleur gently shooed the white cat away and then tucked Bill into bed before curling up beside him for the night.
Girls' Night Out
Author: Isolde
Date: 05-25-08 12:38
A throbbing beat pulsed through the nightclub Zenergy, where Isolde and Azaelia had gone for a girls' night out. Only a handful of other wizards were in the building, possibly because it was Wednesday night and most had to work the next day, but more likely because the majority of the wizarding world was behind bars or relocated to Merlin-knows-where. It was precisely for that reason that Azaelia had in recent months received a promotion of sorts. She was now the acting manager at the Hogsmeade Branch Library, her predecessor having been snatched by the RAC.
"We've had to shorten our hours, and we're not even open on Sundays anymore," Azaelia was telling Isolde. "It's just me and two others, so we're extremely short-staffed. Darren told me that Diagon Alley isn't in any better shape." Darren Kensington was Azaelia's former boss and the manager of the Diagon Alley Branch Library.
"Maybe it's just me, but I think this whole thing is hurting us more than it's helping us."
Isolde certainly believed in pureblood superiority, but she could see Azaelia's point. Just because certain individuals held a lesser status in society didn't mean that they couldn't continue to coexist with purebloods. Isolde had seen herself how cutting the wizarding popular in half, or more than half, as the case truly was, had affected her life. She'd lost many members of her Little League team to the RAC and had heard rumor that the teams would be cut in half next season.
"Don't say that too loudly," Isolde warned, placing a hand on Azaelia's arm. "You don't know who's listening?"
"Who can hear me?" Azaelia asked, waving her hand in the air to indicate the loud music in the background. "Anyway, it's not that I disagree with what's going on... it's just that... well... I think it should be somewhat different."
"Well, if you ever become Minister of Magic, you can do things however you like," Isolde replied, with a smile on her face.
Azaelia grinned and sipped her raspberry mojito. "Want to dance?" she finally asked, sliding off the stool she'd been sitting on and seizing Isolde by the hand.
Isolde protested, "I'm too stiff. I can't move the way I used to, you know."
Azaelia wouldn't take no for an answer. "Just come on and have some fun with me." She pulled Isolde off her stool and led her slowly on to the dance floor, where only one other person, a rather nerdy-looking wizard, danced all by himself. He looked as if he were having the time of his life, though his dance moves left something to be desired. Isolde and Azaelia laughed at him and then danced with each other, though Isolde did feel stiff and unnatural as she moved. Still, she had fun.
Bart F. Rohe
Author: Minerva McGonagall
Date: 05-26-08 07:29
"You have a visitor."
Minerva climbed to her feet, tossing the book aside she'd been reading, and crossed the cell in a few steps. A guard stood on the other side of the bars with his wand firmly clasped in one hand.
"You're to come with me."
Minerva didn't argue with the wizard. She longed to get out of her cell, even for just a moment, and she was also very curious to see who might be calling on her. She stood back as the guard unlocked her cell and then allowed him to magically bond her wrists together. He led her out of the cell, down the corridor and from the cell block through seemingly never-ending and ever-changing hallways. Finally, they arrived at the visitation room. It was divided by a row of tables, with chairs on either side.
The room was deserted by for one man, who stood upon Minerva's arrival. She did not know him.
"You have fifteen minutes," the guard said to both Minerva and her guest, before stepping just outside the doorway.
Minerva moved in front of the unfamiliar wizard.
"I don't believe we've met," she said, a million thoughts running through her head, none of which she felt she could voice aloud, knowing that ears were listening intently to the conversation, even if it seemed they were not.
"I think we have," the wizard said, smiling. "Another time, another place. Many things were different then."
Minerva knew the wizard spoke in code but couldn't quite figure out what exactly he meant.
"But since you don't remember me, allow me to re-introduce myself. My name is Bart F. Rohe. That's R-O-H-E. Do you think you can remember my name, Professor McGonagall? Minerva? Just mull it over in your mind and I'm sure you'll recall where you know me from."
Minerva nodded, understanding the name to be an anagram but not quick enough in mind to figure it out on the spot.
Bart sat down, and Minerva followed suit. "First of all, how are you? There are people who want to know," Bart said. "You look like you've lost weight."
"I'm as well as can be expected," Minerva replied, with a shrug of her shoulders.
"Have you seen any of the others?" asked Bart.
Minerva shook her head. "No, and I've heard nothing either. Will you be visiting with them as well, Bart?" she asked, testing the foreign name on her tongue. She still wasn't quite sure who this friend, for she guessed he was one, was.
They talked a bit more idle chit chat before the guard came in and announced that it was time for Minerva to return to her cell.
Bart stood up. "Just as well. I have an appointment to see a man about a goat."
He winked at Minerva and then left through the doorway. Minerva kept a very neutral look on her face as the guard gently gripped her by the arm and led her all the way back on her cell. He undid the magical bonds around her wrists and then shut the door to her cell, leaving her alone with her thoughts. Bart F. Rohe could only be one man, Aberforth Dumbledore.
Wondering
Author: Hermione Granger
Date: 05-27-08 18:17
"Do you think we've stayed too long?" Hermione asked Ron, turning her gaze from the kitchen window to her boyfriend, whose Scandinavian look she still hadn't grown accustomed to, despite having seen him in the very same disguise for several weeks now.
Ron stopped peeling a potato and rested his hands on the counter top. "I haven't once felt like we are being watched... not since coming here... but that doesn't necessarily mean no one has his eye on us. Maybe the Snatchers or whoever are getting smarter, sneakier."
"Or maybe our disguises are better than I ever hoped they'd be," Hermione commented, gazing out he window again. Harry and Janine were outside preparing sausages on a small, blue kettle grill. "Still, I can't help but feel as if we've rested in one place for too long."
"As tired as I already am from even thinking about packing up and taking off again, I think we should ask Harry, Janine and Ginny what they think."
"What I think about what?" Ginny asked, stepping into the kitchen to get a pitcher of lemonade from the refrigerator. She moved to a cabinet and pulled out five tall drinking glasses from the shelf and set them on the counter next to Ron's pot of peeled potatoes.
"Ron and I were discussing whether or not we should move again," Hermione answered. She shrugged her shoulders. "I know things have seemed quiet lately, but I wonder if we're not getting too comfortable here."
"I don't know," Ginny replied, as she filled each glass. "I'd rather have a base of sorts from which we can make plans and actually do something instead of having to add moving and constantly watching our backs to the priority list." She sighed and stopped pouring the drinks. "However, the longer we stay in one place, the more likely we're to be discovered, even if we're in disguise."
"Do you think we should leave England altogether?" Hermione asked.
"We'll be able to do even less to help if we're abroad. I think we're needed here," Ginny answered.
"But what can we really do?" Ron asked.
Before Ginny could respond, Harry and Janine came into the cottage with a plate of sizzling sausages. Harry took one look at Ron's not-yet-finished potatoes and frowned.
"I thought you'd finished by now. You haven't even started!"
Ron made a face. "Forgive me for not yet being fully awake yet. It's barely noon."
Harry rolled his eyes and passed the plate of sausages to Hermione, who set them on the counter. She picked up a peeler and started helping Ron with the potatoes. The conversation she'd just had with Ron and Ginny whirled through her mind as she worked. Where would they go next, if they left the cottage soon? Would the others agree that maybe it was time to go?
Keeping Busy
Author: Ariella Beck
Date: 05-28-08 17:46
Ariella lunged between a pair of bushes and seized a garden gnome by the ankles as it tried to flee into a hole in the ground. It protested terribly as she hoisted herself up and began spinning. When she stopped, she let the gnome fly. It sailed angrily over the fence and landed on its bottom.
"And stay out!" Ariella shouted, placing her hands on her hips.
She heard chuckling from the back door and turned to find Anthony and Lawrence standing side by side.
"You show them who's boss," Anthony expressed, grinning. "And you have a visitor." He clapped Lawrence on the back and then went back inside the house.
"Hi," Ariella said, bounding over to kiss Lawrence.
"Hi," he murmured. He wrapped his arms around her middle. "You seem in high spirits. What's the occasion?"
"Well, you're here. That's a good reason, isn't it?" She squeezed him warmly and then stepped from his embrace. The smile slipped from her face and her shoulders drooped. "To tell you the truth, I'm trying to ignore the fact that today is the last day of the NEWT exams. If things hadn't changed, I'd be finishing up my career at Hogwarts today."
"I'm sorry," Lawrence said guiltily, shoving his hands into his pockets.
"It's not your fault."
"Ye––"
"No, it's not. Not alone, anyway. I'm as much to blame for this as you are." Ariella closed the space between them and hugged him close. Slowly, he pulled his hands free and wrapped his arms around Ariella's body. She sighed against his chest. "I don't want to dwell on the past, on what could have been. Let's just concentrate on moving forward now."
"I like that idea," Lawrence remarked, before dropping a kiss on Ariella's forehead.
She looked up into his face and asked, "Do you want to help me with the garden gnomes?"
He grinned. "Sure."