Harry Potter: Helga Hufflepuff 14-15/100
Feb. 25th, 2007 03:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
persephone_koreTitle: Meet the Phoenix
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Helga, phoenix
Prompt: #52 Fire
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG
Summary: Helga meets a phoenix after a battle. Actually, that's about all I know about it.
There was a soft trill and a feathery-hot weight on her chest. Helga felt energy returning to her body before her mind caught up to where she was and what had happened.
She was lying on her back in watery mud, and she felt bruised all over. She remembered their foe falling, screaming, after Salazar had stripped out the spells that had protected him from his own fouler workings.
Even Salazar had looked a little green, between when the screaming started and when the shockwave had knocked them all over.
Something pricked the skin over her heart. Helga pried her sticky eyes open and looked up into the fiery face of the enormous bird sitting on her chest.
It peered down at her, opened its beak wide, and sang.
She caught her breath and offered it her arm. It regarded her muddy sleeve until her cheeks went hot, then stepped over, still far too lightly for its size, as if it were made of flame instead of flesh.
Helga braced herself squelchily with her other hand and struggled up to sit, blinking through hair that had come loose and straggled across her face. She was tempted to wipe her eyes, but looked at the mud on her hand and thought better of it.
"I would offer you a fairer perch, handsome bird, were we at my home," she said. "If it please you, though, I welcome your company while I seek my friends."
It closed its bright eye and turned its head to show her the other still open. It had winked at her.
Helga laughed in delight, suddenly feeling that everything -- everyone -- would be all right.
Title: Bowl and Fang
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Helga, Sigyn
Prompt: #36 Smell
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG
Summary: Helga seeks a teacher.
Helga lay in her bed at sundown, and closed her eyes, and did not know for certain whether it was her body that rose at midnight or if she left it behind.
She had been searching for this cave for months. She had found it once before, but the ground had bucked beneath her and the rocks had screamed, and she had fallen to hands and knees and clung, bleeding, to the stones that cut her until dawn. She could not find it in daylight, but tonight the moon-rays picked out the jagged rocks in a wash of silver, and showed her one tarnished shadow deeper than all the rest. There.
She clambered barefoot over the rocks. If this were a dream, she wished her sleeping mind had clothed and equipped her better. In case it was not, she had worn a shift to bed, though she wondered if she might do better to approach her goal alone, bared, unarmed and empty-handed. But she made a light with her wand nonetheless, when she was too deep for the glimmer of the moon to follow her, and the heavy stone basin she carried banged against her leg.
The air grew hot and heavy and snatched the moisture from her nose and mouth and eyes, and there was a sharp acrid smell in her nostrils.
And there was light ahead.
Helga killed her own spell and moved forward more quickly. She did not want to be caught here when the screaming began again.
She edged around the last bend, barely able to get the basin through, and the light spilled around her. The air was worse here, dry and caustic and choking. A woman easily twice her own height knelt over a man even taller, who lay chained on a bed of stone, with the stillness of exhaustion.
White arms like columns of marble supported a bowl near to brimming between the man's face and that of a serpent with dripping fangs. The serpent flung its head up and hissed, its venom arcing past the man's feet in a fine spray to pit the stone before Helga's.
Helga flinched and wished she had thought to try talking Salazar into joining her. Possibly they hadn't known each other long enough for that sort of suggestion, but he might have been interested.
Instead she sank down to her knees and bowed with her face to the stone. "Lady Sigyn," she said, "I beg leave to serve you, and hear your teachings."
Sigyn's head turned toward her, and Helga felt her head pulled up as if by the hair, her mortal gaze jerked up to meet the Ásynja's in a way she would have been hard put to dare alone. After a long moment, Sigyn said, "What would you do?"
Helga rose to sit back on her heels and held up her basin. "I am only a mortal woman, but I am a witch and I am strong from work. I would take your place while you empty your basin of venom, to keep it from your husband's face."
Sigyn's mouth twisted. "Do you not fear Loki?"
Helga blinked. "Of course I do. But I want your teaching more."
A slow, slow smile. "Come and try it now. If you succeed, you may stay until your bowl wears through."
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Helga, phoenix
Prompt: #52 Fire
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG
Summary: Helga meets a phoenix after a battle. Actually, that's about all I know about it.
There was a soft trill and a feathery-hot weight on her chest. Helga felt energy returning to her body before her mind caught up to where she was and what had happened.
She was lying on her back in watery mud, and she felt bruised all over. She remembered their foe falling, screaming, after Salazar had stripped out the spells that had protected him from his own fouler workings.
Even Salazar had looked a little green, between when the screaming started and when the shockwave had knocked them all over.
Something pricked the skin over her heart. Helga pried her sticky eyes open and looked up into the fiery face of the enormous bird sitting on her chest.
It peered down at her, opened its beak wide, and sang.
She caught her breath and offered it her arm. It regarded her muddy sleeve until her cheeks went hot, then stepped over, still far too lightly for its size, as if it were made of flame instead of flesh.
Helga braced herself squelchily with her other hand and struggled up to sit, blinking through hair that had come loose and straggled across her face. She was tempted to wipe her eyes, but looked at the mud on her hand and thought better of it.
"I would offer you a fairer perch, handsome bird, were we at my home," she said. "If it please you, though, I welcome your company while I seek my friends."
It closed its bright eye and turned its head to show her the other still open. It had winked at her.
Helga laughed in delight, suddenly feeling that everything -- everyone -- would be all right.
Title: Bowl and Fang
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Helga, Sigyn
Prompt: #36 Smell
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG
Summary: Helga seeks a teacher.
Helga lay in her bed at sundown, and closed her eyes, and did not know for certain whether it was her body that rose at midnight or if she left it behind.
She had been searching for this cave for months. She had found it once before, but the ground had bucked beneath her and the rocks had screamed, and she had fallen to hands and knees and clung, bleeding, to the stones that cut her until dawn. She could not find it in daylight, but tonight the moon-rays picked out the jagged rocks in a wash of silver, and showed her one tarnished shadow deeper than all the rest. There.
She clambered barefoot over the rocks. If this were a dream, she wished her sleeping mind had clothed and equipped her better. In case it was not, she had worn a shift to bed, though she wondered if she might do better to approach her goal alone, bared, unarmed and empty-handed. But she made a light with her wand nonetheless, when she was too deep for the glimmer of the moon to follow her, and the heavy stone basin she carried banged against her leg.
The air grew hot and heavy and snatched the moisture from her nose and mouth and eyes, and there was a sharp acrid smell in her nostrils.
And there was light ahead.
Helga killed her own spell and moved forward more quickly. She did not want to be caught here when the screaming began again.
She edged around the last bend, barely able to get the basin through, and the light spilled around her. The air was worse here, dry and caustic and choking. A woman easily twice her own height knelt over a man even taller, who lay chained on a bed of stone, with the stillness of exhaustion.
White arms like columns of marble supported a bowl near to brimming between the man's face and that of a serpent with dripping fangs. The serpent flung its head up and hissed, its venom arcing past the man's feet in a fine spray to pit the stone before Helga's.
Helga flinched and wished she had thought to try talking Salazar into joining her. Possibly they hadn't known each other long enough for that sort of suggestion, but he might have been interested.
Instead she sank down to her knees and bowed with her face to the stone. "Lady Sigyn," she said, "I beg leave to serve you, and hear your teachings."
Sigyn's head turned toward her, and Helga felt her head pulled up as if by the hair, her mortal gaze jerked up to meet the Ásynja's in a way she would have been hard put to dare alone. After a long moment, Sigyn said, "What would you do?"
Helga rose to sit back on her heels and held up her basin. "I am only a mortal woman, but I am a witch and I am strong from work. I would take your place while you empty your basin of venom, to keep it from your husband's face."
Sigyn's mouth twisted. "Do you not fear Loki?"
Helga blinked. "Of course I do. But I want your teaching more."
A slow, slow smile. "Come and try it now. If you succeed, you may stay until your bowl wears through."
