![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
persephone_koreThis was the first ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
hp100 challenge I participated in. I didn't realize I'd started that early in the game. Huh. Anyway, it was around the end of the school year, and the challenge was to "Write 100 words about that sad, sad day when Harry and his friends (or James and his friends, or whatever generation you wish) leave Hogwarts to become full wizards and witches." (posted by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
it_rained)
This was also the second challenge Hufflepuff won.
Challenge #12: Leaving
Title: You're Planning to Do What?
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: Tom Riddle's Mother. Rubeus Hagrid's father.
Author's note: Tom's mother's name is courtesy of Alan Sauer, one of my cowriters, and appears in a series I'm writing with him and another I'm writing with Andrea13. We know what happened to these characters in canon, at least generally; if you want to know what happened in the AU I started thinking about their backgrounds for, go here and here.
"Mind if I share your table, Hagrid?" Since it had the only free seats in the Three Broomsticks.
"Not if yeh don' mind the pets."
"I've worse at home."
"Ah, right, Salazar's youngest brat and her monster vines. Keep hangin' about those and yeh'll give birth to a monster, Echidne."
She smirked. "I'm in less danger of that than your wife would be. But they can look after themselves for a while."
"Got plans?"
"Don't we all?"
"I'm apprenticin' with the Magical Creatures Preserve. You?"
"I'll be living as a Muggle for a while."
Tavish Hagrid choked on his butterbeer.
Title: Last Day
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: Salazar Slytherin and the first Muggle-born at Hogwarts
"Are you leaving," a voice asked softly, "or are they kicking you out?"
Salazar spun and glared at the boy. No flinch. He was the first child of Muggles to find them. Salazar couldn't fault the lad's determination, nor had he shirked weary hours spent teaching the child to read and all the little things about magic that seemed like telling someone how to breathe.
He had however nicknamed him "Headache," and now the other three insisted on looking for more of them!
"Yes," he snarled, "and it's your fault."
The departing journeymen-wizards were surprised when Salazar left with them.
Title: Not What You'd Think
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: Remus Lupin
There was a lot about Hogwarts that Remus was going to miss.
Secret passages, secrets of his own, friends who would keep secrets for him and learn magic most never did to keep him almost sane.
Well, he wouldn't lose them, not entirely. They had promised to come keep him company in his new home -- and that was where the problem lay. Most places simply weren't equipped to handle a werewolf.
So looking up that evening at the almost full moon and knowing he had to reinforce a safe place within the next two days....
He'd miss the Shrieking Shack.
Title: Just and Loyal
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: Helga, mostly
Author's Note: Yeah, I have Founders on the brain too.... Here, the first set finish their training at a budding Hogwarts.
Helga surveyed their first handful of apprentices with pride. A handful indeed. They four had gathered five children and a basketful of dreams; all had poured themselves into all the students and into groundwork for something even greater.
Granddaughter of an aetheling abbess, she presided. She'd taken two apprentices first, and now both beamed at her across the table as their teachers raised goblets to them.
"Remember," she told them before they left the little school. "Betrayal is among the worst things you can do. A worse disservice yet can be to give favor unjustly. Be true... but not blind."
Title: Expectations
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: Peter Pettigrew
He'd done his last exams. The expectations were over.
McGonagall's surprise when he took a N.E.W.T. in Transfiguration had annoyed him, though he didn't really blame her. Spending all his time with her star students couldn't look impressive.
Still. It wasn't everyone who could become an Animagus at fifteen, even with professional help, never mind student tutoring.
Well, they knew. She couldn't.
Worse than assumed incompetence was known inadequacy. It would be good to get away from Gryffindor....
Except... it wouldn't help.
The Hat had Sorted him based on what he thought important.
It was his own standards Peter had never measured up to.
Title: Just, Loyal, Hard-Working, and Did We Mention Stubborn as the Proverbial Ox?
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: Cedric Diggory
Everyone had been terribly disturbed when he came back. He'd felt dreadfully guilty, of course, but really, what else was he supposed to do?
Cho had burst into tears at sight of him. He'd kissed them, and they had frozen on her cheeks.
Harry Potter had paled and backed away, refusing to listen to reassurances. Hufflepuffs, however, were notoriously persistent.
Fudge had unwillingly believed.
Professor Binns, curiously enough, had finally started remembering his name.
They'd all grown used to it eventually. They'd come to view his finishing school as a small victory against Voldemort.
Cedric set a record for posthumous N.E.W.T.s.
Title: No Rest for the Wicked
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters:Harry, Dumbledore, Voldemort
Harry's victory had come with his mother's voice ringing in his ears; he'd fallen afterwards and waited for the milling Dementors.
Silver had shot to his rescue, but after Dementors were gone and Patroni all faded, one last silver form had hung over the battlefield with a lost expression on its face. He'd been corralled and towed back as evidence of his own permanent death.
One new ghost watched the former seventh-years celebrate in Hogsmeade.
"Is being dead as bad as you feared?" Albus Dumbledore asked softly.
"Let me know how you like it." The newest ghost's eyes gleamed red.
Title: White Elephant
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: Salazar Slytherin, Herpo the Foul
"I've brought you something!"
Salazar controlled the impulse to wince. Unfortunately, young Herpo the Greek's exuberance and Parseltongue were accompanied by a fondness for monsters and an inexplicable neglect of bathing.
"It's a going away present, master, since I'm done here." Herpo's voice lowered excitedly. "It's an egg."
Salazar peeped into the box. "It looks like a toad."
"That's hatching it. It will be a great serpent that kills prey with a glance!" Herpo looked proud. "I invented it."
Some teachers, Salazar thought wearily to himself, had students who brought them apples. Now where was he going to KEEP this?
Title: Celebration
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: The Fat Friar
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Wonderful, isn't it?"
"Absolutely. I can't believe he did it."
It was the end and the beginning of another Hogwarts year, with new pupils arriving and apprentices who'd completed their terms preparing to depart. This year was special, and they were holding a feast during the overlap to celebrate with as many students as possible: one of their own had followed his magical education by becoming a friar, and by dint of pleasant disposition and determination had then negotiated open friendliness with the local Church.
They toasted him; he raised his goblet in return.
"Hogwarts will always be my other home."
Title: No One Stays Forever
House: Hufflepuff, if this one counts
Word Count: 100
Characters: Founders
Salazar wasn't the only one who left. He was only the first.
It wasn't all arguments.
The Hogwarts Four were old when they began to teach, when they had enough experience that parents would send children to receive the knowledge passed down.
It wasn't that they gave up on the school. Only that they grew, one by one, too weary to continue it themselves, and passed the torch. Much of the anger over Salazar's leaving had been because he felt that first, though the quarrels didn't help.
As time passed, they understood.
As students finished and became teachers, they stepped aside.
Title: Constant Vigilance
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: Alastor Moody
~~~~~
Last day. Last exam. Last N.E.W.T. Last term.
Alastor Moody was done with Hogwarts and on his way to enter training as an Auror.
Most people looked at the present peace as a victory, as a time free of dangerous Dark wizards or at least of Dark Lords.
Alastor was different. He looked at it as a lull.
He thought the potential Dark Lords were biding their time, though granted, he couldn't tell you where.
He'd find out.
He caught a stray ball flung from the celebrations behind his back without looking and grinned.
Constant vigilance.
He'd be the best.
Title: Bright
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: Tom Riddle
They said he had a bright future.
Slytherin's golden boy (or silver), he was. Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless but so brave.... It was truly amazing what one could accomplish with excellent public behavior and a little tolerance for pity. And for the occasional Gryffindorish descriptor.
Blood trumped upbringing -- blood trumped mud -- and he excelled in the magic that was the birthright he hadn't known for eleven years.
Tom licked honey off his fingers one by one at the end of his last meal at Hogwarts and smiled.
They said he had a bright future.
They had no idea.
Title: Bad Advice
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: Sirius Black, Severus Snape
Author's Note: I got this idea from somewhere, but I can't remember where or whom.
"I still remember what you did."
Sirius Black arched an eyebrow and scratched his head. "Which thing?"
"You know perfectly well."
He did.
No one else was around to hear, though it was now too late for either of them to be expelled over it.
"Look, Snape, how was I to know you'd actually do it? No, I shouldn't have told you about it, but I didn't think you were stupid enough to go somewhere I told you to. Fine time for you to start listening to me."
"Don't try to blame me." The words were spat. "I won't forget."
Title: Sentiment
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: Hermione
She was going to miss Hogwarts.
Well... she wouldn't miss everything. She certainly wouldn't miss having one of her best friends attacked every year by the megalomaniac who'd finally been defeated.
She wouldn't miss being ridiculed by Snape, especially when every sneer made her feel foolish for having sat enthralled for the first few moments of Potions that first day.
She wouldn't miss getting lost, though she had grown fond of the shifting corridors.
She wouldn't miss the magic; she'd carry it with her.
She wouldn't miss her friends; she'd keep in touch.
It would be Hogwarts alone she'd miss.
hp100 challenge I participated in. I didn't realize I'd started that early in the game. Huh. Anyway, it was around the end of the school year, and the challenge was to "Write 100 words about that sad, sad day when Harry and his friends (or James and his friends, or whatever generation you wish) leave Hogwarts to become full wizards and witches." (posted by it_rained)This was also the second challenge Hufflepuff won.
Challenge #12: Leaving
Title: You're Planning to Do What?
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: Tom Riddle's Mother. Rubeus Hagrid's father.
Author's note: Tom's mother's name is courtesy of Alan Sauer, one of my cowriters, and appears in a series I'm writing with him and another I'm writing with Andrea13. We know what happened to these characters in canon, at least generally; if you want to know what happened in the AU I started thinking about their backgrounds for, go here and here.
"Mind if I share your table, Hagrid?" Since it had the only free seats in the Three Broomsticks.
"Not if yeh don' mind the pets."
"I've worse at home."
"Ah, right, Salazar's youngest brat and her monster vines. Keep hangin' about those and yeh'll give birth to a monster, Echidne."
She smirked. "I'm in less danger of that than your wife would be. But they can look after themselves for a while."
"Got plans?"
"Don't we all?"
"I'm apprenticin' with the Magical Creatures Preserve. You?"
"I'll be living as a Muggle for a while."
Tavish Hagrid choked on his butterbeer.
Title: Last Day
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: Salazar Slytherin and the first Muggle-born at Hogwarts
"Are you leaving," a voice asked softly, "or are they kicking you out?"
Salazar spun and glared at the boy. No flinch. He was the first child of Muggles to find them. Salazar couldn't fault the lad's determination, nor had he shirked weary hours spent teaching the child to read and all the little things about magic that seemed like telling someone how to breathe.
He had however nicknamed him "Headache," and now the other three insisted on looking for more of them!
"Yes," he snarled, "and it's your fault."
The departing journeymen-wizards were surprised when Salazar left with them.
Title: Not What You'd Think
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: Remus Lupin
There was a lot about Hogwarts that Remus was going to miss.
Secret passages, secrets of his own, friends who would keep secrets for him and learn magic most never did to keep him almost sane.
Well, he wouldn't lose them, not entirely. They had promised to come keep him company in his new home -- and that was where the problem lay. Most places simply weren't equipped to handle a werewolf.
So looking up that evening at the almost full moon and knowing he had to reinforce a safe place within the next two days....
He'd miss the Shrieking Shack.
Title: Just and Loyal
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: Helga, mostly
Author's Note: Yeah, I have Founders on the brain too.... Here, the first set finish their training at a budding Hogwarts.
Helga surveyed their first handful of apprentices with pride. A handful indeed. They four had gathered five children and a basketful of dreams; all had poured themselves into all the students and into groundwork for something even greater.
Granddaughter of an aetheling abbess, she presided. She'd taken two apprentices first, and now both beamed at her across the table as their teachers raised goblets to them.
"Remember," she told them before they left the little school. "Betrayal is among the worst things you can do. A worse disservice yet can be to give favor unjustly. Be true... but not blind."
Title: Expectations
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: Peter Pettigrew
He'd done his last exams. The expectations were over.
McGonagall's surprise when he took a N.E.W.T. in Transfiguration had annoyed him, though he didn't really blame her. Spending all his time with her star students couldn't look impressive.
Still. It wasn't everyone who could become an Animagus at fifteen, even with professional help, never mind student tutoring.
Well, they knew. She couldn't.
Worse than assumed incompetence was known inadequacy. It would be good to get away from Gryffindor....
Except... it wouldn't help.
The Hat had Sorted him based on what he thought important.
It was his own standards Peter had never measured up to.
Title: Just, Loyal, Hard-Working, and Did We Mention Stubborn as the Proverbial Ox?
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: Cedric Diggory
Everyone had been terribly disturbed when he came back. He'd felt dreadfully guilty, of course, but really, what else was he supposed to do?
Cho had burst into tears at sight of him. He'd kissed them, and they had frozen on her cheeks.
Harry Potter had paled and backed away, refusing to listen to reassurances. Hufflepuffs, however, were notoriously persistent.
Fudge had unwillingly believed.
Professor Binns, curiously enough, had finally started remembering his name.
They'd all grown used to it eventually. They'd come to view his finishing school as a small victory against Voldemort.
Cedric set a record for posthumous N.E.W.T.s.
Title: No Rest for the Wicked
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters:Harry, Dumbledore, Voldemort
Harry's victory had come with his mother's voice ringing in his ears; he'd fallen afterwards and waited for the milling Dementors.
Silver had shot to his rescue, but after Dementors were gone and Patroni all faded, one last silver form had hung over the battlefield with a lost expression on its face. He'd been corralled and towed back as evidence of his own permanent death.
One new ghost watched the former seventh-years celebrate in Hogsmeade.
"Is being dead as bad as you feared?" Albus Dumbledore asked softly.
"Let me know how you like it." The newest ghost's eyes gleamed red.
Title: White Elephant
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: Salazar Slytherin, Herpo the Foul
"I've brought you something!"
Salazar controlled the impulse to wince. Unfortunately, young Herpo the Greek's exuberance and Parseltongue were accompanied by a fondness for monsters and an inexplicable neglect of bathing.
"It's a going away present, master, since I'm done here." Herpo's voice lowered excitedly. "It's an egg."
Salazar peeped into the box. "It looks like a toad."
"That's hatching it. It will be a great serpent that kills prey with a glance!" Herpo looked proud. "I invented it."
Some teachers, Salazar thought wearily to himself, had students who brought them apples. Now where was he going to KEEP this?
Title: Celebration
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: The Fat Friar
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Wonderful, isn't it?"
"Absolutely. I can't believe he did it."
It was the end and the beginning of another Hogwarts year, with new pupils arriving and apprentices who'd completed their terms preparing to depart. This year was special, and they were holding a feast during the overlap to celebrate with as many students as possible: one of their own had followed his magical education by becoming a friar, and by dint of pleasant disposition and determination had then negotiated open friendliness with the local Church.
They toasted him; he raised his goblet in return.
"Hogwarts will always be my other home."
Title: No One Stays Forever
House: Hufflepuff, if this one counts
Word Count: 100
Characters: Founders
Salazar wasn't the only one who left. He was only the first.
It wasn't all arguments.
The Hogwarts Four were old when they began to teach, when they had enough experience that parents would send children to receive the knowledge passed down.
It wasn't that they gave up on the school. Only that they grew, one by one, too weary to continue it themselves, and passed the torch. Much of the anger over Salazar's leaving had been because he felt that first, though the quarrels didn't help.
As time passed, they understood.
As students finished and became teachers, they stepped aside.
Title: Constant Vigilance
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: Alastor Moody
~~~~~
Last day. Last exam. Last N.E.W.T. Last term.
Alastor Moody was done with Hogwarts and on his way to enter training as an Auror.
Most people looked at the present peace as a victory, as a time free of dangerous Dark wizards or at least of Dark Lords.
Alastor was different. He looked at it as a lull.
He thought the potential Dark Lords were biding their time, though granted, he couldn't tell you where.
He'd find out.
He caught a stray ball flung from the celebrations behind his back without looking and grinned.
Constant vigilance.
He'd be the best.
Title: Bright
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: Tom Riddle
They said he had a bright future.
Slytherin's golden boy (or silver), he was. Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless but so brave.... It was truly amazing what one could accomplish with excellent public behavior and a little tolerance for pity. And for the occasional Gryffindorish descriptor.
Blood trumped upbringing -- blood trumped mud -- and he excelled in the magic that was the birthright he hadn't known for eleven years.
Tom licked honey off his fingers one by one at the end of his last meal at Hogwarts and smiled.
They said he had a bright future.
They had no idea.
Title: Bad Advice
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: Sirius Black, Severus Snape
Author's Note: I got this idea from somewhere, but I can't remember where or whom.
"I still remember what you did."
Sirius Black arched an eyebrow and scratched his head. "Which thing?"
"You know perfectly well."
He did.
No one else was around to hear, though it was now too late for either of them to be expelled over it.
"Look, Snape, how was I to know you'd actually do it? No, I shouldn't have told you about it, but I didn't think you were stupid enough to go somewhere I told you to. Fine time for you to start listening to me."
"Don't try to blame me." The words were spat. "I won't forget."
Title: Sentiment
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: Hermione
She was going to miss Hogwarts.
Well... she wouldn't miss everything. She certainly wouldn't miss having one of her best friends attacked every year by the megalomaniac who'd finally been defeated.
She wouldn't miss being ridiculed by Snape, especially when every sneer made her feel foolish for having sat enthralled for the first few moments of Potions that first day.
She wouldn't miss getting lost, though she had grown fond of the shifting corridors.
She wouldn't miss the magic; she'd carry it with her.
She wouldn't miss her friends; she'd keep in touch.
It would be Hogwarts alone she'd miss.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-03-20 08:35 am (UTC)Much love as well to White Elephant. XD Salazar wasn't trying to hide a killer monster in the school; it was just that all the closets were full! Adore.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-20 02:19 pm (UTC)I'll see if I can figure something out, though, and I'm really glad you liked them. I hadn't thought of expanding the Voldemort-ghost one, but it's true that a bit more explanation and description could get it to archivable length. Thanks for the thought. :)
no subject
Date: 2005-03-20 10:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-20 02:14 pm (UTC)