persephone_kore (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
persephone_kore) wrote2005-07-04 11:50 am
persephone_kore) wrote2005-07-04 11:50 am
Entry tags:
More HP100 reposts
Challenge #93: Miss
Title: Minus One
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Founders
It was much quieter after he left.
They started to remember how and why they had worked together for so long.
House competition went on, but there was at least an effort to reduce the venom.
The Muggle-borns were grateful for a less hostile teacher, but wished the new one were as expert.
His students blamed the Muggle-borns.
Rowena tried to duplicate the twists he'd brought to puzzles. And wrote letters.
Helga did what needed doing, and tried to play peacemaker, and didn't speak of betrayal on either side.
Godric, who'd shouted loudest all along, did not complain of heartache.
Title: Should Have Been
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Ginny
Author's Note: Inspired partly by FernWithy's story "I Hear Him Laughing" -- at least, that's where the part about Remus came in.
Ginny feels guilty and horrified when she first finds herself missing the diary. The friend who would listen to her pouring her heart out in ink was feeding on her; it was all a lie.
At last she realizes that she misses what he should have been instead of pretending.
And at last she talks to Professor Lupin, and she listens to how Dumbledore speaks of more than one of his former students, and for NEWT-level History she reads dusty, obscure, erratically spelt preserved letters from three of the Hogwarts Four.
And she understands that this sorrow is worth feeling.
Title: Valentine
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Percy, Fred and George
When Percy realized the Valentine was from the twins, it was already singing.
Always her favorite, brightest and best,
Was our Percy, the Prefect, the perfect, the pest.
A fine mama's boy, her pride and her joy,
Till he followed Fudge into You-Know-Whose ploy.
Now, we're not too happy, you've known all along,
But at least you can't go on pretending we're wrong.
You've made our Mum cry,
For which most men would die,
Or at least have to go somewhere foreign.
But that wouldn't pay,
And it's time that we say,
She loves you. Get back here, you moron.
Title: Deathday
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Nearly-Headless Nick, Trio
It was very kind of them, really. Very kind indeed, to miss the Halloween Feast for his Deathday.
It had been a long time since Nick was alive, but he was aware, when he stopped to remember, that the company of ghosts gave limited pleasure to the living, especially when there were many more ghosts than living. He knew that the food left to ripen and rot and strengthen its flavors until a ghost could almost (almost, almost) taste it was repulsive to living senses.
Well, living human senses. They'd had to chase a rat off the table.
Very kind.
Title: Goofing Off
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Helga and Rowena
"Missed me, missed me!" Helga sang out, casting a spell wordlessly under cover of the distraction.
Hers missed too, as Rowena dodged, rolling her eyes in a way she certainly would not have done in a more serious duel. "You've been spending too much time around the children! I suppose next you'll tell me that means I have to kiss you."
Helga laughed. "I love you dearly, my friend, but I'm not the one you have to duel for that privilege."
"Silencio! You'll scandalize the apprentices."
"You're the one who brought it up! Tarantallegra!"
Neither landed; the duel went on.
Title: Wouldn't Miss It
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Ginny, unnamed classmate
Author's note: Set during PoA
"You'll come cheer for us against Slytherin, won't you?" one of her Hufflepuff classmates had urged. "You can't like them that much better than we do, and maybe your favorite Seeker won't be on the pitch, but you've got to admit ours is pretty fit."
"Harry Potter's my brother's friend," Ginny had said, not liking to discuss him too much with someone who would reduce the hero of her childhood and of Ron's stories, who'd saved her life, to somebody really famous who could fly like anything, "but you're right, I don't like Slytherin a bit. I wouldn't miss it."
Title: Spectator Sport
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Ginny, Quidditch players
Author's note: Could follow "Wouldn't Miss It," but independent
Ginny pushed her hair back and hastily (but carefully) cast a charm to make it stay out of eyes despite the wind. It was a more exciting match than she'd expected; Hufflepuff was putting up a decent fight, and she was eagerly yelling encouragement (and a few things in Malfoys direction that her mother would not have approved).
She supposed Cedric Diggory was fit, if tall and heavy for a Seeker. Certainly better than Malfoy, not that that was hard. And they were both diving--
The wind carried her shriek away, but that didn't matter; Malfoy had missed the Snitch!
Title: Purple Thumb
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Snape, Sprout
"You have given me defective plants. How am I to make potions with these?"
Professor Sprout scanned the tray of seedlings as Professor Snape slammed it down. "Something does seem to be missing," she observed drily. "Flowers. Leaves. Strangely, the others germinated at the same time seems to be fine." She sighed. "These plants require highly specialized care. If you'd just let me walk you through the process--"
"I do NOT require someone standing over me like the Granger brat spoon-feeding Longbottom!"
"It's amazing what a student can accomplish alone after competent instruction. Neville's been growing these with no trouble."
Title: World That Wasn't
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Founders
Without one another...
Godric Gryffindor took magical children who would have been merely rash or reckless and made heroes of them, who chose worthy battles and survived most.
Helga Hufflepuff taught all she found; when her hands grew too full she set apprentices to teaching. All did more than they'd known they could.
Rowena Ravenclaw and her apprentices made a great library preserving learning and invented enough magic to fill another wing.
Salazar Slytherin taught a select group of the children of family friends, sharp-eyed dreamers, all of whom went on to do great things.
Yet each missed something unnamed.
Title: ACK!
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Hermione
Author's Note: Set during PoA.
No. No. Oh, no no no no no.
She'd only closed her eyes for just a minute. Just a minute! She'd been so tired. She had thought she would wake up again in time. Of course she should have known better. Tired enough to want a nap so badly meant tired enough not to wake when she should. Why hadn't she thought of that?
Professor McGonagall would be so disappointed. And she'd have to face Professor Flitwick. She'd insisted she could handle it!
She couldn't turn back time and attend, because she already hadn't been there.
Hermione had missed Charms.
Title: Fang and Sword
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Basilisk
Hunger and bloodlust drove her, rage she couldn't name. Her master hissed his commands.
Song rose around her, beating against her skin.
Pain stabbed deadly eyes; she was blind, agony burning and blood running down.
And the song.
And "Smell him!"
And the song.
She struck. Missed. Again.
She wanted to be whole again, wanted sating, wanted a master who was sane again and didn't make her hunt those she dimly remembered were precious.
She would kill.
She struck again; pain bit up into her mouth, a metal tooth that tasted of her master's brother.
Or clean death would do.
Title: Minus Three
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Salazar, other Founders mentioned
His life was going well enough. He had most of the things he wanted. Comfort, prestige, freedom to study his magic as he liked. Serpents from common to exotic. A quick-witted wife with a warm smile. Children.
But much of the prestige was tied to accomplishments he'd walked away from in icy civility after hot words, and there were fewer children than he'd grown used to, and his greatest serpent hibernated forever under stone.
He had left behind a quick-witted witch and a fierce warm one, and a bold wizard, who had all dared reach for the stars with him.
Title: Teacher and Student
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Will be stated in drabble.
Author's Note: I started both the drabbles in this post with the same first line (obviously), a second in mind, and no further clue where they were going. They developed rather differently. It was fun.
"Don't be afraid."
"I'm not."
"You are."
"Don't tell me how I feel."
"Don't lie to yourself."
"I'm not afraid," a long pause, "for myself."
"Oh?"
"Others, if I err--"
"That's not all."
Slowly, he admitted, "I fear... guilt, pain, if others come to harm through me. Worse, what I'd be if I didn't feel them."
"You'll not stop caring." Gentle words. "Nor is it your nature to stop acting. You have grown."
Albus Dumbledore looked wearily at Nicolas Flamel. He had never realized how much of alchemy took growth to learn. "I miss being smaller, then. I feel overstretched."
Title: The Last One
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Helga, Godric
"Don't be afraid."
"Why not?!"
A weak, startled laugh. "Um... you can handle it? It's only natural?" A pause. "It won't do any good?"
"If I thought it would, I'd be scared with all my heart."
Helga only sighed and smiled this time, looking up from her deathbed at Godric. "From you, that means quite a lot."
He sighed in answer, taking her hand in both of his. "I would. I am. I'll miss you."
"You'll do fine. Even as the last of us here."
"I'll miss all of you."
"I know." She squeezed his hand. "We'll wait for you."
Title: Precautionary Measures
House: Not for credit.
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Professor Sprout
Author's Note: Thanks to the King of the Plotbunnies,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rexlapinii, for the idea. I couldn't resist....
The path to the Plot-Bunnies'-Burrow was among the greatest, best-kept secrets of Hufflepuff House.
House legend said Helga's children had found it. It was unclear whether this meant her sons and daughters or her apprentices. Plot-Bunnies liked students.
Helga herself had left instructions on the proper care of Plot-Bunnies. Sometimes it was respect that was needed. Sometimes it was a robust sense of humor.
Dreams tended it.
Bees oversaw it.
Badgers guarded it.
And Professor Sprout settled back with tea and honey, satisfied with her precautions as the other three Heads of House marched boldly off to the decoy burrow.
Challenge #94: Valentine's Day
Title: Unusual
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Valentine's Day
Characters: Trio
It was Valentine's Day of sixth year, and Harry was finding Hermione incredibly distracting.
She didn't look unusual.
She didn't act unusual.
To the eye, there was nothing out of the ordinary at all, except Ron kept smiling.
The air around her seemed different, though. Harry completely failed to eat breakfast. He ate lunch only because Hermione had vanished into the library.
At dinner, he finally got up his nerve to ask the question that had plagued him all day.
"Hermione, why do you smell like peppermint?"
"I'm wearing the perfume Ron gave me Christmas before last. It's very unusual."
Title: It's Not All Hearts and Flowers
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Valentine's Day
Characters: Trio
Author's note: The list is taken directly from the Saints Index at http://www.catholic-forum.com -- I'd never have guessed some of those!
The decorations weren't nearly as alarming as Lockhart's, but the corridors of Hogwarts were curiously floral. And the house-elves had brought doves.
"I've been doing a little research," Hermione announced, surprising no one. "It's not all romance. Officially, St. Valentine of Rome is the patron saint of affianced couples, against fainting, bee keepers, betrothed couples, engaged couples, epilepsy, fainting, greeting card manufacturers, greetings, happy marriages, love, lovers, plague, travellers, and young people."
Ron and Harry exchanged a worried look. "Fainting and against fainting," Ron began cautiously, "but not against plague?"
Hermione blinked. "Er...."
"Explains a lot," Harry said thoughtfully.
"Harry!"
Title: Cheesy
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Valentine's Day
Characters: Peter Pettigrew, OC
"Rho?" Peter whispered, crouching by the library table in lieu of clearing a chair and upsetting what was probably an elaborate, if obscure, organizational system. "Got Nipper."
Rhododendron Jasper, a Ravenclaw of eccentric and botanical family, looked up distractedly from mid-February homework. "Oh! She was loose again? Thanks loads; I worry, with the cats, but every week she's out...."
"Rats are clever that way." But this one liked Wormtail. Peter liked her mistress.
"Rats are underrated," Rho declared proudly, scritching Nipper.
"Yeah." Peter chuckled, looked furtively toward the desk, and sneaked the rat a bit of cheese. "Happy Valentine's, Nipper."
Title: Foot
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Valentine's Day
Characters: Helga/Salazar
Author's Note: OK, thought of another. May be related to some previous drabbles on these two. I think I've got the wooden-bowl custom a bit anachronistic and probably not quite the right procedure; at this point they probably ought to be drawing saints' names if anything. I think. Just go with it.
Helga turned the small wooden carving over in her hands, puzzled, then looked warily up at Salazar's smile. As was the custom, everyone at the school had drawn the name of someone of the opposite sex from a bowl as a Valentine. She suspected Salazar of having rigged it.
"Well?" he asked, lips twitching. "Do you like it?"
"It's just what I always wanted," she replied, then gave up and laughed. "All right: why did you give me a wooden foot for St. Valentine's Day?"
He grinned. "I thought you liked trick steps."
The artful puzzle-box yielded after a week.
Challenge #95: Root
Title: Time and Heart and Earth and Word
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: Hogwarts, I guess
The roots of Hogwarts run deep.
A thousand years deep in time, or more, to the Founding, the Founders, and their own roots that shaped the Hogwarts Four.
Deep in the earth, stories deep, cellar and dungeon.
Thousands of words deep, millions, in stories tell the tale. One boy's life, two more around him, all the lives that touch theirs stretch back and spread and trace at last back again to four. And out from there.
(And ahead, shadow and light and not-quite-yet, deep in time that has not been.)
Voldemort cannot dig them up, no matter how he tries.
Title: Curses
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: Hermione
Hermione realized, resentfully, that she did not always think well on her feet. She could set a teacher's robes on fire, boil a cauldron over a toilet bowl, but in between forget to set a hostile plant alight.
But she could plan.
While her internal organs swam in potions after the Department of Mysteries, she resolved to learn as much as she could before next time. She learned magical theory. She learned curses. She invented more, poring over Muggle medical texts.
On her first try, a Death Eater screeched as the roots of his teeth speared out gums and cheeks.
Title: Preparation
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: Luna
Wand. Check.
Sheet music and lyrics. Check.
Charm variations to get just the right effect from the music. Check.
Small fireworks. Check.
Charm variations for the fireworks. Check. Perhaps she should offer to sell those to the Weasley twins; they might find some appealing, and she could use the pocket money. Her father was saving for a trip to find the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, and they were probably endangered, so this was the time to start fundraising.
Warm robes. Check.
Roaring lion hat. Check. Unlike her usual eagle, it lacked the range to bite.
All set to go root for Gryffindor.
Title: Grudge Matches
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: OCs, future generation
Author's note: Come on, how could I resist?
"I don't understand," said the first-year, unwinding yellow ribbons from her black hair after Hufflepuff's second Quidditch match of the season. "Why's everyone rooting against us?"
Her fifth-year sister, one of the badgers' victorious Beaters, just laughed. "Oh, we keep winning, so everyone wants us to lose. It's always like that when one House does well for a while. Wasn't always us." She lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Just before Harry Potter started Hogwarts, it was Slytherin."
"You're kidding me!"
"Nope. Anyway, don't worry. They root against us because we're just that good. Call it grudging respect." A grin. "Very grudging."
Title: The Naming of Hogwarts
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: Founders
It was clear, once the four friends had determined to create a school, that at some point it would need a name. So they settled down outdoors one morning to think on the matter, under a charm to keep off the drizzle.
Several discarded suggestions and a long silence later, all eyes turned toward a grunt and rustle that belonged to a boar rooting for his lunch. At once, all cried out together, "Hogwarts!"
With such unanimity, there could be no further question, though there was some delay while the illustrious Founders finished their uproarious laughter, which frightened the pig.
Title: Not His Best Subject
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: Neville, Snape
Author's Note: Antonia's version of this was rather more exciting, but I'm posting mine anyway.
Neville had thought, going into the lesson, that this might be one of his better days in Potions. The assignment was a largely herbal potion, closely related to some plant tonics he'd brewed with no problem for extra credit in Herbology. (Not that he needed extra credit in Herbology.)
He'd been fine right through the stinging nettles and reconstituted slug slime, though the potion was a little sludgy.
Then he'd added the chopped dandelion root.
His green thumb had taken over.
Everyone stared at the rangy plant in Neville's cauldron.
"A weed," said Snape.
A root cracked through the metal.
Title: The Properties of M. mimbletonia
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: None really
Author's note: Supposed to be a sort of plant-book entry.
Mimbulus mimbletonia is a hardy plant of many interesting and some useful properties, but is not recommended as a houseplant, nor for the casual grower. Its appearance is more exotic than attractive, and its behavior is downright problematic. Rough handling, for example, can lead to the projectile expulsion of Stinksap. This is one of the comparatively minor possible inconveniences.
The careful harvest and consumption of a small fragment of the root is known to induce temporarily the ability to converse with plants; the first sentiment one is likely to hear under these circumstances is, "How dare you eat my root?"
Title: The Weed
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Characters: Tom, Ginny
Tom seemed kind at first, reassuring, a little lonely. He wrote ruefully how he hadn't quite thought through all the consequences of leaving a copy of his personality in a book, and at least portraits could visit others' frames.
He seemed like a fantasy older brother, warm and never mocking. Child that she was, Ginny noticed too late that he spoke with veiled cruelty of others and never warned when she was wrong.
He put out roots into her heart; they bit deep and cut. When she bled and wept, they drank her heart's blood and her tears, swelling fat.
Title: Plumber's Snake
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: Godric, Salazar
"This plumbing business," Godric said thoughtfully, staring at a root-choked pipe, "is more complicated than it looks."
"I could breed a basilisk."
"How would that help?"
"I wouldn't make the sort whose breath destroys stone--"
"I should hope not!"
"--But even the gentler version should be able to wither roots," Salazar continued, unperturbed. "We'll enchant the pipes to let her pass."
"We could go back to the hypocaust. That worked."
"Too much trouble now."
"Point. But we need to seal and prevent cracks. I don't think a snake will do that."
"No," Salazar said wistfully, "but it would be fun."
Title: Helping Hand
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: Neville, OC
"Oh, no...."
The desperate whimper from the corner of the common room drew Neville's attention. He found Josephine Brown, a Muggle-born first year, examining her cauldron.
"What's wrong?"
"It's cracked." She looked up at him. "It was by a potted Sorcerous Spearmint, and a root speared right through. And... with the exchange rate... Mum can't.... Snape'll be...."
"Take mine," he said swiftly.
"I can't--!"
"It's not bad without the exchange rate," he assured her. Not that he knew the exchange rate. "I ruin cauldrons all the time; I'm rubbish at Potions. I've extras. Besides..." He grinned. "I like Herbology too."
Title: Mandrake Propagation: Sexual
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: Another plant entry.
Author's note: For those who don't know, a perfect flower has both male and female parts (stamen and pistil) in the same blossom.
Mandrakes, like most plants, are capable of both sexual and asexual reproduction. Unlike most plants, mandrakes cross-pollinate at the fork of the root rather than through an aboveground flower, cone, or spore with wind or animal vectors assisting. The mandrake is almost invariably either male or female, but not both; the "perfect" mandrake is an extreme rarity.
In the open ground, mandrakes will fertilize one another by "walking" through the soil toward the nearest representative of the opposite sex and engaging in direct contact. When cultivated in pots, they will attempt to visit.
Mandrakes are restorative agents and induce fertility.
Title: Mandrake Propagation: Asexual
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: And yet another plant entry.
It is not always desirable to permit mandrakes to reproduce sexually. Like many other plants, some of their useful properties are lost if they go to seed; also, asexual propagation assists maintaining consistent characteristics.
Cross-pollination is inevitable if the mandrakes are left in the ground. If kept in pots, they must be restrained on approaching sexual maturity.
Despite their superficial resemblance to human beings in appearance and behavior, do not anthropomorphise: mandrakes have no more sensation and feel no more pain upon division than any other plant. Opinion differs on whether the head, heart, or extremities are best for seed.
Title: Down the Burrow
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: Helga, Salazar
Author's note: And now for something completely different.
Helga was rooting contentedly along the floor of the tunnel she had dug in her Animagus form when she first smelled a venomous serpent. She raised her head, expecting an adder. She bared her teeth.
It was no adder. It was too big, nothing native. Which meant it was one of Salazar's... only they didn't stray.
Panicked, it struck. She dodged. Then, gambling, she transformed.
So did the serpent.
Both changed back to make their way to the surface. "I didn't know you were an Animagus too, Salazar."
"Only lately. What were you doing down there?"
"Digging, naturally."
"...Of course."
Title: Pepper-Up
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: Madam Pomfrey, Hermione
Author's note: Once I realized wasabi was a root, or at any rate a rhizome, I couldn't resist.
Hermione gulped down the potion as rapidly as she could, trying to swallow it before the fierce burning could make her gag. "I've never researched Pepper-Up Potion," she gasped out as tears sprang to her eyes and searing smoke blasted her lungs, ears, nose, throat, and sinuses clean. "What's in it?"
"Well, plenty of peppers, of course," Madam Pomfrey said cheerfully. "All the traditional cold remedies, too; angelica, chicken stock, that sort of thing. And wasabi."
"Wasabi?" Hermione wheezed.
"Oh, yes. Wasabi, habanero... curing the common cold is quite the intercontinental project. Wizards have always had easier communication and travel."
Title: Minus One
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Founders
It was much quieter after he left.
They started to remember how and why they had worked together for so long.
House competition went on, but there was at least an effort to reduce the venom.
The Muggle-borns were grateful for a less hostile teacher, but wished the new one were as expert.
His students blamed the Muggle-borns.
Rowena tried to duplicate the twists he'd brought to puzzles. And wrote letters.
Helga did what needed doing, and tried to play peacemaker, and didn't speak of betrayal on either side.
Godric, who'd shouted loudest all along, did not complain of heartache.
Title: Should Have Been
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Ginny
Author's Note: Inspired partly by FernWithy's story "I Hear Him Laughing" -- at least, that's where the part about Remus came in.
Ginny feels guilty and horrified when she first finds herself missing the diary. The friend who would listen to her pouring her heart out in ink was feeding on her; it was all a lie.
At last she realizes that she misses what he should have been instead of pretending.
And at last she talks to Professor Lupin, and she listens to how Dumbledore speaks of more than one of his former students, and for NEWT-level History she reads dusty, obscure, erratically spelt preserved letters from three of the Hogwarts Four.
And she understands that this sorrow is worth feeling.
Title: Valentine
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Percy, Fred and George
When Percy realized the Valentine was from the twins, it was already singing.
Always her favorite, brightest and best,
Was our Percy, the Prefect, the perfect, the pest.
A fine mama's boy, her pride and her joy,
Till he followed Fudge into You-Know-Whose ploy.
Now, we're not too happy, you've known all along,
But at least you can't go on pretending we're wrong.
You've made our Mum cry,
For which most men would die,
Or at least have to go somewhere foreign.
But that wouldn't pay,
And it's time that we say,
She loves you. Get back here, you moron.
Title: Deathday
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Nearly-Headless Nick, Trio
It was very kind of them, really. Very kind indeed, to miss the Halloween Feast for his Deathday.
It had been a long time since Nick was alive, but he was aware, when he stopped to remember, that the company of ghosts gave limited pleasure to the living, especially when there were many more ghosts than living. He knew that the food left to ripen and rot and strengthen its flavors until a ghost could almost (almost, almost) taste it was repulsive to living senses.
Well, living human senses. They'd had to chase a rat off the table.
Very kind.
Title: Goofing Off
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Helga and Rowena
"Missed me, missed me!" Helga sang out, casting a spell wordlessly under cover of the distraction.
Hers missed too, as Rowena dodged, rolling her eyes in a way she certainly would not have done in a more serious duel. "You've been spending too much time around the children! I suppose next you'll tell me that means I have to kiss you."
Helga laughed. "I love you dearly, my friend, but I'm not the one you have to duel for that privilege."
"Silencio! You'll scandalize the apprentices."
"You're the one who brought it up! Tarantallegra!"
Neither landed; the duel went on.
Title: Wouldn't Miss It
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Ginny, unnamed classmate
Author's note: Set during PoA
"You'll come cheer for us against Slytherin, won't you?" one of her Hufflepuff classmates had urged. "You can't like them that much better than we do, and maybe your favorite Seeker won't be on the pitch, but you've got to admit ours is pretty fit."
"Harry Potter's my brother's friend," Ginny had said, not liking to discuss him too much with someone who would reduce the hero of her childhood and of Ron's stories, who'd saved her life, to somebody really famous who could fly like anything, "but you're right, I don't like Slytherin a bit. I wouldn't miss it."
Title: Spectator Sport
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Ginny, Quidditch players
Author's note: Could follow "Wouldn't Miss It," but independent
Ginny pushed her hair back and hastily (but carefully) cast a charm to make it stay out of eyes despite the wind. It was a more exciting match than she'd expected; Hufflepuff was putting up a decent fight, and she was eagerly yelling encouragement (and a few things in Malfoys direction that her mother would not have approved).
She supposed Cedric Diggory was fit, if tall and heavy for a Seeker. Certainly better than Malfoy, not that that was hard. And they were both diving--
The wind carried her shriek away, but that didn't matter; Malfoy had missed the Snitch!
Title: Purple Thumb
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Snape, Sprout
"You have given me defective plants. How am I to make potions with these?"
Professor Sprout scanned the tray of seedlings as Professor Snape slammed it down. "Something does seem to be missing," she observed drily. "Flowers. Leaves. Strangely, the others germinated at the same time seems to be fine." She sighed. "These plants require highly specialized care. If you'd just let me walk you through the process--"
"I do NOT require someone standing over me like the Granger brat spoon-feeding Longbottom!"
"It's amazing what a student can accomplish alone after competent instruction. Neville's been growing these with no trouble."
Title: World That Wasn't
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Founders
Without one another...
Godric Gryffindor took magical children who would have been merely rash or reckless and made heroes of them, who chose worthy battles and survived most.
Helga Hufflepuff taught all she found; when her hands grew too full she set apprentices to teaching. All did more than they'd known they could.
Rowena Ravenclaw and her apprentices made a great library preserving learning and invented enough magic to fill another wing.
Salazar Slytherin taught a select group of the children of family friends, sharp-eyed dreamers, all of whom went on to do great things.
Yet each missed something unnamed.
Title: ACK!
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Hermione
Author's Note: Set during PoA.
No. No. Oh, no no no no no.
She'd only closed her eyes for just a minute. Just a minute! She'd been so tired. She had thought she would wake up again in time. Of course she should have known better. Tired enough to want a nap so badly meant tired enough not to wake when she should. Why hadn't she thought of that?
Professor McGonagall would be so disappointed. And she'd have to face Professor Flitwick. She'd insisted she could handle it!
She couldn't turn back time and attend, because she already hadn't been there.
Hermione had missed Charms.
Title: Fang and Sword
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Basilisk
Hunger and bloodlust drove her, rage she couldn't name. Her master hissed his commands.
Song rose around her, beating against her skin.
Pain stabbed deadly eyes; she was blind, agony burning and blood running down.
And the song.
And "Smell him!"
And the song.
She struck. Missed. Again.
She wanted to be whole again, wanted sating, wanted a master who was sane again and didn't make her hunt those she dimly remembered were precious.
She would kill.
She struck again; pain bit up into her mouth, a metal tooth that tasted of her master's brother.
Or clean death would do.
Title: Minus Three
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Salazar, other Founders mentioned
His life was going well enough. He had most of the things he wanted. Comfort, prestige, freedom to study his magic as he liked. Serpents from common to exotic. A quick-witted wife with a warm smile. Children.
But much of the prestige was tied to accomplishments he'd walked away from in icy civility after hot words, and there were fewer children than he'd grown used to, and his greatest serpent hibernated forever under stone.
He had left behind a quick-witted witch and a fierce warm one, and a bold wizard, who had all dared reach for the stars with him.
Title: Teacher and Student
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Will be stated in drabble.
Author's Note: I started both the drabbles in this post with the same first line (obviously), a second in mind, and no further clue where they were going. They developed rather differently. It was fun.
"Don't be afraid."
"I'm not."
"You are."
"Don't tell me how I feel."
"Don't lie to yourself."
"I'm not afraid," a long pause, "for myself."
"Oh?"
"Others, if I err--"
"That's not all."
Slowly, he admitted, "I fear... guilt, pain, if others come to harm through me. Worse, what I'd be if I didn't feel them."
"You'll not stop caring." Gentle words. "Nor is it your nature to stop acting. You have grown."
Albus Dumbledore looked wearily at Nicolas Flamel. He had never realized how much of alchemy took growth to learn. "I miss being smaller, then. I feel overstretched."
Title: The Last One
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Helga, Godric
"Don't be afraid."
"Why not?!"
A weak, startled laugh. "Um... you can handle it? It's only natural?" A pause. "It won't do any good?"
"If I thought it would, I'd be scared with all my heart."
Helga only sighed and smiled this time, looking up from her deathbed at Godric. "From you, that means quite a lot."
He sighed in answer, taking her hand in both of his. "I would. I am. I'll miss you."
"You'll do fine. Even as the last of us here."
"I'll miss all of you."
"I know." She squeezed his hand. "We'll wait for you."
Title: Precautionary Measures
House: Not for credit.
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Miss
Characters: Professor Sprout
Author's Note: Thanks to the King of the Plotbunnies,
rexlapinii, for the idea. I couldn't resist....The path to the Plot-Bunnies'-Burrow was among the greatest, best-kept secrets of Hufflepuff House.
House legend said Helga's children had found it. It was unclear whether this meant her sons and daughters or her apprentices. Plot-Bunnies liked students.
Helga herself had left instructions on the proper care of Plot-Bunnies. Sometimes it was respect that was needed. Sometimes it was a robust sense of humor.
Dreams tended it.
Bees oversaw it.
Badgers guarded it.
And Professor Sprout settled back with tea and honey, satisfied with her precautions as the other three Heads of House marched boldly off to the decoy burrow.
Challenge #94: Valentine's Day
Title: Unusual
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Valentine's Day
Characters: Trio
It was Valentine's Day of sixth year, and Harry was finding Hermione incredibly distracting.
She didn't look unusual.
She didn't act unusual.
To the eye, there was nothing out of the ordinary at all, except Ron kept smiling.
The air around her seemed different, though. Harry completely failed to eat breakfast. He ate lunch only because Hermione had vanished into the library.
At dinner, he finally got up his nerve to ask the question that had plagued him all day.
"Hermione, why do you smell like peppermint?"
"I'm wearing the perfume Ron gave me Christmas before last. It's very unusual."
Title: It's Not All Hearts and Flowers
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Valentine's Day
Characters: Trio
Author's note: The list is taken directly from the Saints Index at http://www.catholic-forum.com -- I'd never have guessed some of those!
The decorations weren't nearly as alarming as Lockhart's, but the corridors of Hogwarts were curiously floral. And the house-elves had brought doves.
"I've been doing a little research," Hermione announced, surprising no one. "It's not all romance. Officially, St. Valentine of Rome is the patron saint of affianced couples, against fainting, bee keepers, betrothed couples, engaged couples, epilepsy, fainting, greeting card manufacturers, greetings, happy marriages, love, lovers, plague, travellers, and young people."
Ron and Harry exchanged a worried look. "Fainting and against fainting," Ron began cautiously, "but not against plague?"
Hermione blinked. "Er...."
"Explains a lot," Harry said thoughtfully.
"Harry!"
Title: Cheesy
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Valentine's Day
Characters: Peter Pettigrew, OC
"Rho?" Peter whispered, crouching by the library table in lieu of clearing a chair and upsetting what was probably an elaborate, if obscure, organizational system. "Got Nipper."
Rhododendron Jasper, a Ravenclaw of eccentric and botanical family, looked up distractedly from mid-February homework. "Oh! She was loose again? Thanks loads; I worry, with the cats, but every week she's out...."
"Rats are clever that way." But this one liked Wormtail. Peter liked her mistress.
"Rats are underrated," Rho declared proudly, scritching Nipper.
"Yeah." Peter chuckled, looked furtively toward the desk, and sneaked the rat a bit of cheese. "Happy Valentine's, Nipper."
Title: Foot
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Valentine's Day
Characters: Helga/Salazar
Author's Note: OK, thought of another. May be related to some previous drabbles on these two. I think I've got the wooden-bowl custom a bit anachronistic and probably not quite the right procedure; at this point they probably ought to be drawing saints' names if anything. I think. Just go with it.
Helga turned the small wooden carving over in her hands, puzzled, then looked warily up at Salazar's smile. As was the custom, everyone at the school had drawn the name of someone of the opposite sex from a bowl as a Valentine. She suspected Salazar of having rigged it.
"Well?" he asked, lips twitching. "Do you like it?"
"It's just what I always wanted," she replied, then gave up and laughed. "All right: why did you give me a wooden foot for St. Valentine's Day?"
He grinned. "I thought you liked trick steps."
The artful puzzle-box yielded after a week.
Challenge #95: Root
Title: Time and Heart and Earth and Word
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: Hogwarts, I guess
The roots of Hogwarts run deep.
A thousand years deep in time, or more, to the Founding, the Founders, and their own roots that shaped the Hogwarts Four.
Deep in the earth, stories deep, cellar and dungeon.
Thousands of words deep, millions, in stories tell the tale. One boy's life, two more around him, all the lives that touch theirs stretch back and spread and trace at last back again to four. And out from there.
(And ahead, shadow and light and not-quite-yet, deep in time that has not been.)
Voldemort cannot dig them up, no matter how he tries.
Title: Curses
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: Hermione
Hermione realized, resentfully, that she did not always think well on her feet. She could set a teacher's robes on fire, boil a cauldron over a toilet bowl, but in between forget to set a hostile plant alight.
But she could plan.
While her internal organs swam in potions after the Department of Mysteries, she resolved to learn as much as she could before next time. She learned magical theory. She learned curses. She invented more, poring over Muggle medical texts.
On her first try, a Death Eater screeched as the roots of his teeth speared out gums and cheeks.
Title: Preparation
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: Luna
Wand. Check.
Sheet music and lyrics. Check.
Charm variations to get just the right effect from the music. Check.
Small fireworks. Check.
Charm variations for the fireworks. Check. Perhaps she should offer to sell those to the Weasley twins; they might find some appealing, and she could use the pocket money. Her father was saving for a trip to find the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, and they were probably endangered, so this was the time to start fundraising.
Warm robes. Check.
Roaring lion hat. Check. Unlike her usual eagle, it lacked the range to bite.
All set to go root for Gryffindor.
Title: Grudge Matches
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: OCs, future generation
Author's note: Come on, how could I resist?
"I don't understand," said the first-year, unwinding yellow ribbons from her black hair after Hufflepuff's second Quidditch match of the season. "Why's everyone rooting against us?"
Her fifth-year sister, one of the badgers' victorious Beaters, just laughed. "Oh, we keep winning, so everyone wants us to lose. It's always like that when one House does well for a while. Wasn't always us." She lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Just before Harry Potter started Hogwarts, it was Slytherin."
"You're kidding me!"
"Nope. Anyway, don't worry. They root against us because we're just that good. Call it grudging respect." A grin. "Very grudging."
Title: The Naming of Hogwarts
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: Founders
It was clear, once the four friends had determined to create a school, that at some point it would need a name. So they settled down outdoors one morning to think on the matter, under a charm to keep off the drizzle.
Several discarded suggestions and a long silence later, all eyes turned toward a grunt and rustle that belonged to a boar rooting for his lunch. At once, all cried out together, "Hogwarts!"
With such unanimity, there could be no further question, though there was some delay while the illustrious Founders finished their uproarious laughter, which frightened the pig.
Title: Not His Best Subject
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: Neville, Snape
Author's Note: Antonia's version of this was rather more exciting, but I'm posting mine anyway.
Neville had thought, going into the lesson, that this might be one of his better days in Potions. The assignment was a largely herbal potion, closely related to some plant tonics he'd brewed with no problem for extra credit in Herbology. (Not that he needed extra credit in Herbology.)
He'd been fine right through the stinging nettles and reconstituted slug slime, though the potion was a little sludgy.
Then he'd added the chopped dandelion root.
His green thumb had taken over.
Everyone stared at the rangy plant in Neville's cauldron.
"A weed," said Snape.
A root cracked through the metal.
Title: The Properties of M. mimbletonia
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: None really
Author's note: Supposed to be a sort of plant-book entry.
Mimbulus mimbletonia is a hardy plant of many interesting and some useful properties, but is not recommended as a houseplant, nor for the casual grower. Its appearance is more exotic than attractive, and its behavior is downright problematic. Rough handling, for example, can lead to the projectile expulsion of Stinksap. This is one of the comparatively minor possible inconveniences.
The careful harvest and consumption of a small fragment of the root is known to induce temporarily the ability to converse with plants; the first sentiment one is likely to hear under these circumstances is, "How dare you eat my root?"
Title: The Weed
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Characters: Tom, Ginny
Tom seemed kind at first, reassuring, a little lonely. He wrote ruefully how he hadn't quite thought through all the consequences of leaving a copy of his personality in a book, and at least portraits could visit others' frames.
He seemed like a fantasy older brother, warm and never mocking. Child that she was, Ginny noticed too late that he spoke with veiled cruelty of others and never warned when she was wrong.
He put out roots into her heart; they bit deep and cut. When she bled and wept, they drank her heart's blood and her tears, swelling fat.
Title: Plumber's Snake
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: Godric, Salazar
"This plumbing business," Godric said thoughtfully, staring at a root-choked pipe, "is more complicated than it looks."
"I could breed a basilisk."
"How would that help?"
"I wouldn't make the sort whose breath destroys stone--"
"I should hope not!"
"--But even the gentler version should be able to wither roots," Salazar continued, unperturbed. "We'll enchant the pipes to let her pass."
"We could go back to the hypocaust. That worked."
"Too much trouble now."
"Point. But we need to seal and prevent cracks. I don't think a snake will do that."
"No," Salazar said wistfully, "but it would be fun."
Title: Helping Hand
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: Neville, OC
"Oh, no...."
The desperate whimper from the corner of the common room drew Neville's attention. He found Josephine Brown, a Muggle-born first year, examining her cauldron.
"What's wrong?"
"It's cracked." She looked up at him. "It was by a potted Sorcerous Spearmint, and a root speared right through. And... with the exchange rate... Mum can't.... Snape'll be...."
"Take mine," he said swiftly.
"I can't--!"
"It's not bad without the exchange rate," he assured her. Not that he knew the exchange rate. "I ruin cauldrons all the time; I'm rubbish at Potions. I've extras. Besides..." He grinned. "I like Herbology too."
Title: Mandrake Propagation: Sexual
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: Another plant entry.
Author's note: For those who don't know, a perfect flower has both male and female parts (stamen and pistil) in the same blossom.
Mandrakes, like most plants, are capable of both sexual and asexual reproduction. Unlike most plants, mandrakes cross-pollinate at the fork of the root rather than through an aboveground flower, cone, or spore with wind or animal vectors assisting. The mandrake is almost invariably either male or female, but not both; the "perfect" mandrake is an extreme rarity.
In the open ground, mandrakes will fertilize one another by "walking" through the soil toward the nearest representative of the opposite sex and engaging in direct contact. When cultivated in pots, they will attempt to visit.
Mandrakes are restorative agents and induce fertility.
Title: Mandrake Propagation: Asexual
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: And yet another plant entry.
It is not always desirable to permit mandrakes to reproduce sexually. Like many other plants, some of their useful properties are lost if they go to seed; also, asexual propagation assists maintaining consistent characteristics.
Cross-pollination is inevitable if the mandrakes are left in the ground. If kept in pots, they must be restrained on approaching sexual maturity.
Despite their superficial resemblance to human beings in appearance and behavior, do not anthropomorphise: mandrakes have no more sensation and feel no more pain upon division than any other plant. Opinion differs on whether the head, heart, or extremities are best for seed.
Title: Down the Burrow
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: Helga, Salazar
Author's note: And now for something completely different.
Helga was rooting contentedly along the floor of the tunnel she had dug in her Animagus form when she first smelled a venomous serpent. She raised her head, expecting an adder. She bared her teeth.
It was no adder. It was too big, nothing native. Which meant it was one of Salazar's... only they didn't stray.
Panicked, it struck. She dodged. Then, gambling, she transformed.
So did the serpent.
Both changed back to make their way to the surface. "I didn't know you were an Animagus too, Salazar."
"Only lately. What were you doing down there?"
"Digging, naturally."
"...Of course."
Title: Pepper-Up
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Root
Characters: Madam Pomfrey, Hermione
Author's note: Once I realized wasabi was a root, or at any rate a rhizome, I couldn't resist.
Hermione gulped down the potion as rapidly as she could, trying to swallow it before the fierce burning could make her gag. "I've never researched Pepper-Up Potion," she gasped out as tears sprang to her eyes and searing smoke blasted her lungs, ears, nose, throat, and sinuses clean. "What's in it?"
"Well, plenty of peppers, of course," Madam Pomfrey said cheerfully. "All the traditional cold remedies, too; angelica, chicken stock, that sort of thing. And wasabi."
"Wasabi?" Hermione wheezed.
"Oh, yes. Wasabi, habanero... curing the common cold is quite the intercontinental project. Wizards have always had easier communication and travel."