Black Magic

Секреты Колдовства, Беспощадные техники Ритуалов, Тайны Магии, Заговоры на Практике.

2012-02-04T15:35:35Z

xxxgeraldxxx.livejournal.com/637.html

is a shameless pimper

2008-03-05T09:47:26Z

So, here's the first part of my Twinkle Challenge, it's Lily/James, incredibly long (for me), and I like it, so please comment. =]

14th February, 1979

The Astronomy Tower

“Lily?” James asked curiously, his voice only just audible above the sound that his worn boots were making as they grated across the stone floor. Lily sat in the corner, her born contorted so that she hunched over her knees, as though they were a safety barrier, protecting her from the outside world.

“Go away Mary.”

“It’s not Mary, it’s James.” James couldn’t help but wonder why he was so forthcoming, Lily was an enigma

“Then let me correct myself.” Lily’s voice was stained with the sound of dripping

tears as she mumbled almost incoherently. “Piss off and never talk to me again.” It amazed James that she could still be so brutal and that her words still ached like a kick in the nether regions when she was so upset.

She leaned up against the wall, arching her back slightly and tossing her hair over her shoulders. It was so bloody unfair. Everything was unfair. She resisted the urge to storm across the room, and rip James Potter’s bloody hazel eyes from his bloody face, and then step on them and feed them to whatever vicious freak Hagrid was breeding this week. They were distracting, the way they bored into her.

“Trust me Evans; you don’t want me to do that.” James had made quite a few changes to his personality this year, but there were some things that wouldn’t change fully, and the fact that he just had to flirt with Lily Evans was one of them.

“And you don’t want me to brutally mutilate your face, do you? No matter how much your mother would find it an improvement …”

Lily berated herself for responding, as she sank further into the floor, a few lone tears still dripping from her face. It wasn’t Mary’s fault Brett had asked her to the upcoming Spring Dance, but it was so unfair.

“No it’s not; you never told her how you felt.”

“Only so she wouldn’t accuse you of denying your feelings for Ja-Potter.”

“But she’s your best friend.”
”Doesn’t mean she wouldn’t have an unappreciated opinion …”

The battle raged on in Lily’s head, swords crossed each other, both digging deep into the recesses of her heart, before sliding back out again, allowing its beat to throb on, filling the uneasy silence that floats across the Astronomy Tower.

Friends. Love. Friends. Love.

Mary. Brett. Mary. Brett.

Friends. Love. Friends. Love.

What the bloody hell is James Potter doing here?

“That’s mean,” James laughed, finally crossing the threshold and stampeding over the top of the invisible barrier that lay between them; it was threaded together by Lily’s vulnerability and her determination to push away emotional support.

“Doesn’t mean it’s not true.” Tears continued to drip down her face, soaking into front of her t-shirt. She shivered slightly; it was cold up here in just her pyjamas, a world away from her heated dormitory and her half-finished potions homework.

Lily felt the ground shake as James fell to the floor beside her, the dirt seeping into the seat of his pants and his disgustingly musky scent infiltrating her nostrils, causing her to gag.

“Please, just piss off.” Her voice was husky, and much of her infuriation was masked by sobs.

“Why? It’s Valentine’s Day, and everyone deserves someone to cuddle.”

“All you deserve to cuddle is your own bullshit.”

If Sirius was here, he would have retorted eagerly, making James laugh, but Lily seemed much too fragile to be smacked across the face by sarcasm and a few words with points like knives.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Lily snorted, shifting her body to the left, out of range of James hand, which was dangling precariously close to hers. She was sure it was a nice hand, but the last thing she wanted was it caressing her, Valentine’s Day or not.

“Right, nothing’s wrong. Then care to explain why you’re sitting in the Astronomy Tower at midnight, crying.”

James knew exactly what was wrong – everybody but Lily Evans herself had realised exactly how much this Valentine’s Day was killing her inside – but he didn’t dwell on it, for pasts were pasts and what happened in the present was what determined the future.

“My boyfriend just proposed, and they’re tears of happiness.” Her sarcasm made him laugh, but he quickly composed himself. Chuckling at Lily was never a wise move (unless you were Sirius, who seemed to enjoy irritating the ‘chick with the hair that’s only good for strangling her with’), especially not when she was irritated and in desperate need of tissues and chocolate.

“But the astronomy tower?”

Lily allowed a slight smile to grace her face as a few tears dissipated, but she kept it well out of James Potter’s eyesight; the last thing we wanted was for him to think was that he had some sort of control over her emotions, something more than PMS at any rate.

“I love the night time,” she said, allowing a small snippet of truth to fly from her mouth and hang in the air, smothering them both with similar feelings of confusion. Lily could not help but wonder why she’d shared this, shared anything with Potter; he was just going to use it against her in yet another fruitless attempt to ask her out.

Even if he hadn’t done that once since Christmas break …

“I don’t get it. Night is dark, and there’s no Quidditch, no sunshine to brighten your hair – which is looking especially stunning, despite the fact that it stinks of tears – no life.”

“Have you ever thought that I like it just because you don’t?” Lily snapped, clambering up off the floor and storming across the room.

“Yes, but that’s such a cliché Lily Evans answer that I skipped over it for something deeper,” James said, pushing himself to his feet as well and staring at her, hands on hips and hazel eyes wide.

Lily just stared back at him, not really registering the fact that was there, he was just a haze in her mind, a haze ready to be discovered and then conquered and defeated. She wasn’t quite sure if was the jovial tone of his voice as he’d replied to her, or the comment on her long red tresses, which glowed in the moonlight, but she was furious.

“I will brutally maim you and make sure you can never have kids.”

Normally, James would have made quite a loud comment on how she’d be denying herself children (once she got over the fact that she was denying herself him, at any rate), but now, he tried a different tack.

“It’s midnight, Lily. My chance for this year’s Valentines trip to the Hospital Wing is over.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t have a happy February fifteenth trip.”

“True, but it also means you miss out on the satisfaction of seeing me get Valentines from my horde of admirers and being unable to hex them because my arm is in a sling.”

Lily couldn’t help but laugh at that one, remembering last year’s Valentines Day and the flood of soppy cards James had received after having two of his fingers fall off in the middle of the Great Hall at breakfast. She had never had the stomach for horror movies, but obviously blood and a lot of profanity was a turn on for some people.

“So why do you like night?” James’ question, which was filled with longing – but this was a different longing, he didn’t want her, he wanted her, the real her, the one with thoughts and feelings and a sarcastic personality, not the her with wine-red curls and eyes that sparkled like diamonds – jolted her back to reality.

“It’s so peaceful, serene … and you’re destroying it.”

He wasn’t really; it was nice to have company, even if that company happened to be a 6”2 arrogant prick by the name of James Potter.

“So you like night because it’s peaceful. Couldn’t you just buy a sleep mask and curl up in bed, instead of freezing your arse off?”

“I don’t know,” Lily said honestly, shaking her head at the bluntness of his question. “I guess it’s just the stars I like, and the moon. The fact that they’re so far away, but so bright …”

James nodded, half of his face was shrouded in darkness, the other half as bright as one of the stars that Lily admired so much. And in that moment he understood …well, everything, really.

He understood that she was a person, a person with an eternal heartbeat that pounded inside her, powering her, a person who had a soul that wanted to be loved and cherished.

She wasn’t just Lily Evans, object of James Potter’s affections anymore, she was Lily Evans, person. It was such an epiphany, and yet it just washed over him like a breaking wave, leaving him to suspect only one thing: he’d always known. And yet, it had only become apparent now. James could have slapped himself.

“They seem to be everlastingly blissful, while we’re trapped amongst the mundane, day to day happenings, just waiting to die.”

“Lily Evans, marry me and I’ll make everyday blissful, it won’t be shit anymore.” James winked at her, figuring that after all they’d been through tonight – he was still reeling from shock over the fact that they’d had an actual conversation which didn’t involve hexes and potions for relieving headaches after concussion – he could flirt with her at least once, but she didn’t notice, sliding to the floor on the other side of the room and smacking her face against her upturned palms. The wind whistled through the room, grabbing Lily and James in its icy clutches, dragging them to its lair.

“Now there’s a proposal and a half. Marry me because I used bloody obscene language to comfort the poor little redheaded girl cowering in the Astronomy Tower. Your answer: no.”

Lily glared at James, lifting her head from her hands and wrapping her arms around herself to keep warm. At first she wondered why James wasn’t cold, but then she remembered the atrocious weather at some of those Quidditch games she’d sat through, watching Mary, and she realised.

Why did he do this? That was the most puzzling question. Lily had always found Potter easy to read, but now, she was the simple one, laying all her cards out on the table so he could predict her future, and ultimately imagine himself in it. For someone who’d always prided herself on keeping her emotions in check, that was like admitting insanity.

And this was insanity, because in no other world would Lily ever talk to James Potter like this.

“Fine, I’m not the sort to get hitched early anyway. What do you say about a date?” James winked at her, those searing hazel eyes radiating amicable flirting, something he’d tried a thousand times before and never succeeded with. James knew he was risking everything, winking at Lily, and Remus’ voice echoed in his head: deflate or die, James, to put it bluntly.

Maybe this was one instance where instinct could defeat rational logic.

“Piss off.”

Or not.

“Come on Lily,” he said, grinning at her, “it’s now past midnight, and you’re sitting up here watching the stars because you’re depressed for some weird reason, when really, all you need is a little humour injected into your arse because your head is so far up there.” James quickly realised that a blatant insult probably wasn’t the best method of wooing a girl either, but he couldn’t help it, and it seemed to shake her from her stupor.

“Go ask Mary why I never laugh anymore,” she said, waving her hand in the direction of the door and glaring at him.

“Oh, oh,” James said as he was smacked fully in the chest by a wave of understanding. This was about Brett. That good for nothing, cheating, lying scumbag that Remus said Lily was infatuated by. James had waved off the threat, because after all, Lily wasn’t the sort to date someone who got a ‘T’ in Potions, but obviously, he’d underestimated the enemy. “This is about Brett and Mary and the fact that they snogged in the Great Hall, isn’t it?”

He was sick and tired of playing games with her, they’d danced around each other for the last seven years, both making strategic moves to defeat the other and wear them down. Now, all James wanted was honesty.

“They SNOGGED!” Lily screeched, her arms flailing and her hair entangling itself around her neck as she stormed across the Astronomy Tower; her hands went directly to James throat, squeezing him until he turned a deep shade of purple.

“I-ry.”

“Sorry James, I didn’t – they snogged?” Lily’s voice was softer, but still poisonous; James could almost taste the venom on her breath as it wafted over him; her mouth was but inches from his face.

“Er, didn’t you know that?” James was finding it very had to concentrate with Lily’s face in such close proximity to his.

“NO, I BLOODY WELL DID NOT KNOW THAT!”

“Oh,” was the only coherent thought James could muster as she blew his eardrums apart. Didn’t everyone know that? Mary was a brilliant friend (or was; he doubted that stealing the man Lily Evans wanted made you awesome by anyone’s account). “Well, yeah, they did …”

“Kiss me,” Lily demanded, sweat dripping down her face, anger and hatred etched into every crease of her face.

James stumbled over his words; they lodged himself in his throat, choking him. He’d always wanted this, always wanted to feel his lips upon hers, to taste that citrus scent she exuded and to know exactly what she could do with that tongue of hers, but not … not like this.

James Potter may have lacked a lot of qualities – temper control, good behaviour and the ability to stop flirting with the girl who currently wanted him to kiss her among them – but he was most certainly a gentlemen.

And gentlemen did not kiss girls who were drunk with loathing and envy.

“Kiss me,” she demanded again, her voice saturated with desire. “Kiss me so I’m not the only one who hasn’t been kissed.

“No.” James’ voice wavered, but he had to be strong. Lily seemed so vulnerable, so fragile, and he didn’t want to break her, no matter what the personal gain. “You’re being irrational, Lily. You don’t like me, remember?”

“Just kiss me. It’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it, Potter?”

“Yeah,” James admitted, his eyes cast towards the ground in an attempt to avoid her domineering, hungry eyes. “But not like this. This is the Slytherin version of the fairytale I’ve always wanted.”

Lily gaped at him, her eyes tainted with shame.

“Just … just forget it James, okay. We’re never going to be a fairytale. Just because I told you my thoughts on stars and told you to kiss me, it doesn’t mean anything,” she snapped, her head a whirlwind of emotions.

Why the hell did she want to kiss Potter, of all people?

“No, Lily, it means everything, more than you’ll know,” James said, marching quickly across the floor and planting a tender kiss upon her lips, drinking in her scent, before scurrying away.

Lily touched her lips gently as he left.

</div>

Being shamless again...

2008-01-13T00:57:23Z

Meh... I am so overpublicising this, but it's my favourite piece of FF that I've ever written! *begs for reivews/comments* Plus, the community was starting to look a liittle abandoned, so I thought I'd do something new... ^^

oO00Oo

d e m on s

oO00Oo

“You’re lying,” he says bluntly, turning away from Narcissa and continuing to pack. She is stood behind him, clad in all silver and shimmering green. She is ice cold, and he cannot stand the sickly sweet smell emanating from her. Slytherin Princess. He is in denial; he knows the truth, has always known it, has been wondering how long it would be before Andy finally snapped. Personally, he’s always thought Ted was a pretty nice guy, but he’s not seeing from behind the clouded, greyscale eyes of a Black. He’s Black himself, of course, but his family lies beyond the stone walls of Grimmauld Place.
“I don’t lie,” she states. Truthfully, actually, Sirius has to admit. She does not lie; she twists the truth around her perfectly manicured little finger. She is the mistress of secrets, the ultimate cunning manipulator. What you don’t know she knows, she doesn’t need to tell you…
He mutters something under his breath that sounds an awful lot like ‘scheming bitch’. She sighs, grabbing his shoulder and twisting him round to face her. He slaps away her hand, feeling its unnatural frost through the fabric of his thin, cotton shirt. He does not understand how anyone can freeze his skin so in such sultry July weather. There is a humorous sparkle in her midnight eyes as she pulls back her hand, inspecting her claw-like nails carelessly. She means well, clam down. He takes a deep breath; he chokes the air straight back up as he feels another presence behind him. Narcissa laughs openly as the new arrival leans forward to place her elbows carelessly on top of his head, chin resting languidly atop her folded, ivory hands. Bellatrix still towers over him; she stoops to attain such a position, bent in the middle and smiling caustically at nothing in particular. He shivers at her touch, not daring to wriggle out of her seemingly innocuous grasp. She is colder than her sister, chilling him to the heart, painfully frosty fingers on his head. Narcissa leaves the room, giggling acidly. There is a bitter undertone to the sound, a note of agony vented only in solitude.
“I’m not afraid of you, Bellatrix.”
“Why would you be, Mr Black?”
“Bella… where’s Andy?”
“Gone.”
“Where?”
“Hell, for all I care; she ran off with that darling mudblood of hers.” Her voice drips sarcasm, but her eyes betray her sour, broken hurt as she shrugs indifferently.
“Muggle-born, Bella, not mudbl-- but you don’t care, what does it matter…”
“Don’t go getting any big ideas about going to find her, now, my little Gryffindor traitor, because we will go after you, you know.” He knows whom she is talking about; she is already a Death Eater, a creature of the night now, and she no longer has to act alone.
“I’m fifteen, I can look after myself. Besides, why would the big, bad Death Eaters waste their time chasing a teenage blood-traitor schoolboy around London when they could be busy killing innocent children, or torturing Muggles just for the fun it?” He smiles humourlessly at the opposite wall, not flinching as her nails dig involuntarily into his scalp.
“Oh, the things I could tell you about innocent children… or maybe you’d like to hear about how they beg and cry, and scream for their mothers when you hex out their filthy little guts? When you rip out their--“
“SHUT UP!” He wrenches himself from beneath her cold arms, horror painted across his features and hands over his ears. He shakes his head obsessively, burying his face in his hands and sobbing hot tears for this lost girl. It is one thing to hear of such gruesome activities in the news, or in passing while eavesdropping on your mother’s whispered conversations to her pureblood, socialite friends, but it’s quite another to be in a cramped room with a killer, so be leant upon by a murderer with a passion for revenge against a race which has done her no harm. She is laughing at him, but he pays her no heed, his world is spinning, spinning, spinning… “Stop the world, I wanna get off,” he mumbles, unable to remember quite where he’s heard that before. Some drunken night with James and Remus, no doubt, stumbling about the red and gold common room in a firewhiskey induced stupor. Peter would’ve been in bed.
“What was that?” she mocks, delighting in his misery and confusion. He is still reeling from the not-quite-shock of Bellatrix’s preferred pastimes. Her high-pitched giggles rip through his head, imprinted on his mind for many a year to come. He stumbles to the bed, dropping onto the mattress; he hears glass crunch and plastic snap under him, but he does not care, why should he? Nothing matters anymore, not material possessions, not feeling nor pain, because surely all have been betrayed now.
He never forgives her for shattering his perceptions of the world through a child’s eyes. He never forgives her for sweeping out of the room, still laughing manically and marvelling at his innocence.
“Where’s Andy?” he chokes out, vaguely aware of her disappearing form in the hallway.
She has to shout over the noise of her mother’s calls to leave, yelling her answer back over her shoulder in the portrait-lined corridor.
“Dead.”
(he never forgives her at all)

-x-

Moment pass, and he is five and rosy-cheeked again, observing his new object of interest with a comically studious expression.

-x-

“What is it, Bella?”
“It’s a puffskein, Sirius. It’s called Kubbly.”
“It’s ugly, Bella.”
“I know, Sirius.”
Silence.
“Bella?”
“Sirius?”
“Why does mummy say I shouldn’t talk to strangers?”
“Well, you never know who the stranger is… you’re only little, and it might be someone nasty like a murderer, or a kidnapper, you know.”
“What’s a murderer?”
Silence.
“Someone who… someone who hurts people, makes them cry.”
“Oh… I don’t like murderers anymore. They’re not very nice.”
“Not really, no…”

-x-

Twenty two years later, she has not changed in the slightest; he is maybe the only one to still see her face beneath the mask, for she wears two these days. He cannot delude himself for much longer though.
She is not the same person underneath it all.
She will show no mercy.
Oh, surely this is it… he is trapped between the wall and Bellatrix, neither being the preferable option, and she is closing in for the kill… her wand is raised… she opens her mouth to speak those deadliest of words… then…
“What’s a murderer, Bella?” He speaks in desperation, words from times long gone coming back to him now. She hesitates for a fraction of a second, confusion in her eyes.
She advances.
She stops. There is something like recognition stirring within her.
She smiles. It is not the smile of the pretty girl from so many years ago as she introduces her young cousin to Andy’s new pet. Sirius doesn’t know whose smile it is, but it is not the smile of warmth, of friendship or remorse, of mercy or regret.
“Someone who hurts people, Sirius, makes them cry.”
“I don’t like murders anymore, Bella; they’re not very nice at all.”
“Not really, no.”
She is remembering times of her childhood, of whispered promises to lost sisters that she would never leave, of curling plaits and pretty dresses, petty fights over nothing, and rare visits from exciting, well-travelled uncles. She is remembering the smell of mother’s homemade ginger cake, of father’s leather shoes and Cissy’s freshly washed hair; wet silk and peaches. She is remembering times of chasing the rainbows with Andy, running across fresh, damp grass to find her pot of gold at the other end, of unladylike snowball fights, and holding her baby sister for the first time, the wonderment of the tiny hands and feet clinging onto her fingers as if they would never let go…
And, this time, he escapes; he almost defeats her, with her glazed look and vacant eyes, but she is remembering the time he first pushed her away, the time she first knew he would never join her. She is out to kill.
“You shouldn’t talk to strangers, Sirius; you never know who they might be.” Then he is laughing wildly, because he does not know who this stranger is, does not care anymore.
(because you really shouldn't talk to strangers, you know)

-x-

“Andy?”
“Hmm?”
“I don’t suppose… I don’t suppose you’d know where to find Bella, would you?”
The atmosphere turns frosty now.
“I left Bellatrix behind me three years ago, her whereabouts are of no interest to me.”
“I’m sorry Andy, I shouldn’t have brought it up… it’s just, I need to give something back to her that she left behind at the house one day.”
She is intrigued as to what Sirius could possibly want to return to her sister.
“Oh yes?”
“Yeah…”
“What’s that then?”
Her daughter is squirming in her lap, reaching pudgy arms out to her coudin and gurgling irritably. Sirius takes the child in his arms, setting her upon her knee and jiggling her up and down.
“Her heart.”

-x-

Nineteen years later to the day, Sirius Black is dead.
(the end) </div>

Can also be found here... :)

Hmm, I'm thinking about a challenge... How about something like prompts, but with a specific theme?

Maybe:

1) Moon
2) Starlight
3) Midnight
4) Shooting star
5) Black

Hmm... hmm... ? *is indecisive*

*decides* Okay, so using those prompts, you can pick a character or pairing, and write a five-shot about them... sound good? Post anywhere, no deadline, no rating limits, no specific length needed, any character you like. Okay then...

I think I'm going to choose... Regulus. I'm currently going through an obsessive phase with Regulus. I like Regulus... ^^

(You can choose the same character as someone else if you like, but try to be original!)

'Kiss' Sneak Peek... XD

2007-12-21T20:11:01Z

Because writing a oneshot longer than 300 words is currently killing me, I decided to post the first part here to get some opinions... (click below) Technically, it is a Black story, if you count the end part that isn't actually posted here yet... XD

s h u d de r

(because there won’t always be time for a fairytale romance)

The house is not by any means old, but it looks as if it’s been through a million bitter wars; a whole side has been blasted away, fragments of wood litter the ground, and the gate is hanging a little off its hinges. What pains him the most, though, is the body lying in the exposed bedroom, thrown aside so carelessly to rot along with her husband and child. The little house across the cobbled street is indeed a sight to behold. A light autumn breeze wafts down the road, bringing with it the smell of decaying flowers and death; he can still detect her perfume through the stench, strawberries and cinnamon on the wind. He shivers in the cold night air; a singular tear freezes on his cheek, glistening, crystalline, in the moonlight. A lone, choked sob escapes him, an animal sound of pain and indescribable misery.

-x-

He’s closer now. He’s hovering in the doorway to the bedroom where the child lies sleeping and his love lies dead. He longs to hold her again, to protect her and adore her. And he does not remember the last time they met, no instance of solace greets him through the night; consolation does not come to him in a moment of clarity, because this is no fairytale romance, and he knows that sleep will not visit these eyes for many nights to come. The wind has picked up now; it’s whistling through the derelict house, strong gusts blowing smouldering debris away from the bare shell of a once loved place. He wishes he could say he hears her voice on the air, whispering to him from beyond the soul, but all is silent. Her hair flutters about her head, loose strands whipping across her deathly white face and into her glazed, staring eyes. The house is but a void; a place so utterly empty and broken, stripped of all joy and life, happiness and light.

-x-

Closer still. Lightning flashes across the sky, a streak of dazzling white against the harsh, midnight black. Thunder rumbles overhead. Rain pelts down on the desolate village, ashen storm clouds swirling above. His breath comes in short, sharp gasps, wispy clouds of vapour appearing before him at every outward wheeze. He’s beside her now, kneeling over her still body. He will not brave the cold for much longer; his mind is blank, but the icy tendrils of frozen air still seep into him, chilling him to the bone and slapping mercilessly at his face. He’s on autopilot now, nothing will stop him. His knees sink into the sodden carpet as he leans down for one last kiss. His face is a millimetre from hers; he can see every last beautiful detail, every single line, every premature wrinkle (stress-induced, he knows, but she does insist on calling them ‘laughter lines’). Her eyes are wide, in terror, anticipation or shock, he will never know, but they’re still that intoxicating shade of malachite green, still stunning emerald lakes of bittersweet wisdom and experience, but the light is gone; the flickering, fiery sparkle is now woefully absent, the window to this soul now closed. She lacks her once inspiring defiance. His own recalcitrance evaporates in this moment, as he truly begins to realise that maybe, just perhaps, she might really be gone.

-x-

(looking back, in later years, he cannot quite fathom where it began and where it ended; was it when she fell through the water-logged, dilapidated floorboards in that magical split second where he genuinely believed that he could have one last opportunity to hold her again, to protect her and adore her, or was it when he looked brokenly through that gaping hole, and first noticed his best friend’s defeated body lying sprawled across the hard, unforgiving ground?)

-x-

</div>

Concrit much-loved...

blackmagical @ 2007-12-19T17:12:00

2007-12-19T17:21:38Z

Hi Cuba! I shall read that as soon as I a) finish my homework, b) have time, c) put up the xmas tree, and d) calm down from being pissed about a certain watersports holiday to Turkey becoming a certain watersports holiday to the South of France... :/ Lol, I know that's like, the other side of the world to you Cuba, but it's just the other side of a ferry to me... XD But no, we're going to go on a bloody BUS! 19 hours! I've been on a 13 hour coach journey to Paris, and I promised I'd never do it again... :/

Fic: A Sign of Ignorance

2007-12-18T02:17:27Z

Just because I can ... and because as usual, I have plans to take over everything. =D

Title: A Sign of Ignorance

Author: cuban_sombrero

Genre: Drama

Characters/Pairings: Regulus & Kreacher

Summary: On Christmas night, Regulus and Kreacher share a game.

Rating: K+

Warnings: None

Notes: This is part of my ongoing series The Spirit of Christmas, which can be found here.It was written for huffle_the_puff 's 12 Fics of Christmas, the Quaffle prompt, which can be found here.

Regulus sits at the dining room table, his back rigid and aching and from hours of decorum and proper behaviour for the ‘cherished son.’ He knows he should be thankful not to be Sirius, because everyone knows that the insane ones die first and are torn apart by the hatred that lies inside them, nothing more than a steak colliding with angry jaws and a rumbling stomach, but at least they go out with a bang. Regulus, on the other hand, is left behind to do nothing but sit and gently stroke the Quaffle he was gifted for Christmas. The room, ornate yet reeking of dust and mould, is shadowy; his parents are asleep, their snores echoing throughout the vicinity and the only light leeks from the end of his wand, a stagnant golden firework.

Somewhere in the gloom of the kitchen, Kreacher is potting around, Regulus can hear his groans as he scraps away the leftovers of Christmas dinner, undoubtedly salvaging what little he can for his own dinner among his rags, sodden with years of mildew and cold sweat. He can feel the soft leather of the Quaffle, discordant under his callous fingers as he rubs his hand along it, rhythm is the best relief he can find. Everything looks different from here, the chair typically granted to the oldest son. He is the loved one, now. The Quaffle is just as much a sign of ignorance as it is pride and love. His parents know nothing of Quidditch beyond the fact that their son is going to make them proud, they cannot even distinguish between Chasers and Seekers. Regulus doubts they even care about the game at all, only about the honour that their son will bestow upon the Black family name when Slytherin wins the Quidditch Cup. He wishes that once, just once, he could receive that radio he spotted on one of the rare family outings to Diagon Alley for Christmas, something that was not redolent of expectations and family conceit.

Stretching slightly to alleviate some of the attention in his unyielding back, Regulus scrambles from his chair and tiptoed into the kitchen, the Quaffle clutched tightly in his pale hands, a white hue spreading from the dry skin that covered the knuckle outwards.
“Master Regulus,” Kreacher says as he comes through the door, bowing. His nasal voice disturbs the young man every time, it echoes hardship and despair. He remembers when the voice was directed at Sirius, harsh words spitting from the elf’s mouth like bullets from a Muggle gun, easily able to kill. It was Sirius who taught him about guns, their tale etched into a Muggle newspaper stolen from a bin outside and hoarded. Its pictures scared him, they looked like corpses. “Kreacher,” he replies, sinking to the floor, which is grimy and drowning beneath layers of dust; Regulus doubts it has been caked in shining sunlight for years. He tosses the Quaffle into the air, his heavily lidded eyes trained on it as .it curves across the room like a rainbow painting itself across the sky. Only this rainbow is tarnished not just by the dark, but by something much more sinister: family.

He loves his family; it’s close to impossible to abhor those who created you (he thinks that Sirius could manage it, because it comes with the insane Gryffindor label), but they are suffocating, where Sirius was dragged into the deepest pits of insanity, Regulus is being dragged into a mute, fathomless existence of conformity.
“Can I get you anything?” Kreacher asks, his skin is much like that of his mistresses, sagging and wrinkled, a slightly loose coat that has never been ironed.
“Some of those mince pies would be great, thanks Kreacher.”
“Certainly master.” Kreacher watches for a moment as Regulus flicks the Quaffle again, catching it clumsily as his hands automatically reach for a Snitch, and then shuffles across the kitchen, his feet scraping against the filth that no amount of scrubbing has ever been able to penetrate.

Regulus watches, filled with a silent pity as Kreacher stokes the fire with his poker; smoke billows throughout the tiny room, flooding both Regulus’ nostrils and Kreacher’s small bedroom, to which the door is slightly ajar. A moment later, he scurries back towards his master, the mince pies born loftily in front of him; the greatest Christmas gift a house-elf can give is obedience and whatever their masters want.
“Thanks, Kreacher,” he says again, his voice seems to float about the room, drifting towards the ground like one the snowflakes Regulus can see gracing the other side of the window pane. His left hand reaches for the tantalising smell while his right strikes the Quaffle again; it has fallen, abandoned, to his side in favour of his pondering.

“Kreacher,” he says suddenly, “go to the other end of the kitchen and stand there, facing me.”
Kreacher looks affronted at such a suggestion, and Regulus can see his taut cheeks widening, ready to protest, but then he just nods, his head aimed directly at the ground, and mutters, “as you wish, Master Regulus.”
Regulus faces him, the Quaffle born in front of him. Slowly, he tosses it, watching it curve through the air. Motioning to Kreacher, he says, “Catch it.”
Kreacher’s spindly arms, frail from so many years of overuse, stretch up, and suddenly, the ball drops straight into his hands, which shudder in shock.
“Now throw it back. Come on, we'll play a game”

Maybe, just maybe, this sign of ignorance can be turned into a memory of Christmas cheer for one diminutive house-elf and his master.</div>

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2007-12-18T01:37:54Z

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