WiP meme
Snatched from rushingwind:
Post a sentence/paragraph/snippet from every* wip you can find. No explanations allowed, just the excerpt.
Every WiP? *stares at WiP folder fearfully* Oh dear lord, here we go...
Note: These include stories I'm actually working on and projects that will probably never see the light of day, just FYI.
“It seems that you have adopted a baby from Britain,” he said. “A baby who was placed with his lawful relatives and -”
“Ah, you mean little Harry,” she cut him off. “Yes, my son and daughter-in-law offered to take Harry off of his aunt and uncle’s hands, as it was clearly not working out and thus it was not a hospitable or safe place for Harry to grow up.”
“Well, I’m afraid that I must ask that he be returned,” Albus replied, and stared at her expectantly.
This was what Melinda couldn’t stand about Albus Dumbledore, or the British wizards in general. She knew Americans were known for being arrogant and full of themselves, but as far as Melinda was concerned, they had nothing on the British, always expecting everyone to cater to their whims and beliefs no matter what other people thought. Dumbledore had no authority in this matter, and yet he still expected her and her family to bow and scrape to him.
“How are we going to handle this?” Harry asked as he and Hermione sat onboard the Hogwarts Express. They’d gotten there early, and various families were only beginning to trickle in.
“If we want to meet the Weasleys, maybe we should just go outside into Kings’ Cross and meet up with them?” she replied.
He shrugged. “Works for me.” Despite his laid back attitude, though, Harry was nervous. The Weasleys - his family. Or rather, they had been. Whether or not they would be again remained to be seen. Molly might very well take to him again, she took to just about any kid. Things were different though. Percy was going through his ‘the world will be my and the Ministry’s bitch fear me’ stage, something he wouldn’t grow out of for some years yet, unless he was given a few helpful nudges along the way. The twins - dear god, Fred was alive! - were as brilliant and scary as ever. George especially was whole again, with his brother at his side. Ron was a nervous eleven-year-old with an inferiority complex the size of Ireland, something that would bog him down for years and cause a lot of heartache for everyone involved. Ginny… well, right now, Ginny was a fangirl.
After several moments, her heart leapt. There, in the tree in the back corner of the yard, was a dark brown owl. Helena slipped off the patio quietly and made her way across the yard. The owl didn’t startle at her approach, just sat on the branch and stared at her solemnly.
“Are you the one?” she asked, hardly daring to talk any louder than a whisper. “I have a letter for Professor McGonagall. Can you take it to her?”
The owl flapped its wings importantly and took to the air. It came down to just in front of her and held out its leg, where Helena quickly spotted a string. It took some doing, but she managed to tie her folded letter to the owl’s leg, and then it soared into the air and was soon out of sight.
“Stand aside, you silly girl! Stand aside, now!”
“NOT HARRY!”
“Fine, then. AVADA KEDAVA!”
Lily had only a split second to see the green light racing toward her, but she did not move and allowed it to slam directly into her chest. Suddenly, her blood was on fire and she howled in agony. She could feel the magic coursing through her body, but there was something else, something mingling with the magic… Then all went dark.
When Lily opened her eyes again, her first thought was that she wasn’t dead. Heaven surely could not look like a dark, half-destroyed room. Then it came back to her.
James. Peter. Voldemort. Harry.
Harry!
She struggled to her knees, finding herself at the foot of the crib. Frantically, Lily looked in, terrified she would find the corpse of her baby -
“Mrs. Dursley, I presume?” Minerva inquired. The only response she received was a frightened squeak, so she continued. “I am Minerva McGonagall, professor of Transfiguration and Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This,” she gestured to the half-giant glowering at Mr. Dursley, “is my associate and the Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts, Rubeus Hagrid.” Still nothing more than a whimper. Minerva raised an eyebrow. “Please, allow me to convey my belated condolences on the death of your sister and brother-in-law. Both were excellent students, some of the best I ever had the pleasure of instructing.”
Finally a response. “Y-You k-knew her?”
Minerva nodded. “Indeed. I taught Lily for her entire tenure at Hogwarts. Now,” she said, changing the subject, “we are here to see your nephew. Where is he?”
Camelot is fallen. Gwen is dead. Lancelot is dead. Hell, most of the world is already dead. Arthur and Morgana are no longer enemies, but companions, and have been so since that day. Neither of them can see much of anything of what they used to be in each other anymore.
The world itself is dying. Arthur can feel it.
Because Merlin isn’t here, because he died.
“I should retire,” she says, putting her goblet down. She smiles at him teasingly. “Kings need their beauty sleep, after all. No need to frighten Merlin out of his wits tomorrow. I’m sure you’ve done that enough as prince.”
Arthur rolls his eyes at her and mutters, “Yes, yes, very amusing, Morgana. And how many times has your morning appearance made Guinevere run from your chambers in terror?”
Morgana tosses her head mockingly, but when she stands up to go, Arthur also rises to his feet. He grasps her hands, making her stop and look at him. He peers at her with a strange, inscrutable expression on his face.
Unbidden, her heart speeds up a bit and she wets her lip before speaking. “Arthur?”
He does not answer in words, his blue eyes locked with her green. He moves closer. She doesn’t step back.
“Morgana,” Arthur whispers just before their lips meet.
Merlin doesn’t know how long he stands there, staring at them in shock. “Y-You know?” he sputters. “You remember?”
Both Arthur and Elena snort. “Of course we do, Merlin,” Arthur answers patronizingly. “’Lena and I grew up together, lived only three houses away from each other. We started remembering when we were about thirteen. The memories returned over time. By the time I joined the RAF and ‘Lena entered Oxford, we remembered almost everything.” He shakes his head. “The tactics of old actually proved fairly useful when I was in her Majesty’s service.”
Merlin hears Arthur’s words, but his attention is on Elena. She stares back at him, her green eyes expressionless. “I’m sorry,” he finally says, “I don’t recognize you, ma’am.” That’s always something that he’s relied on, being able to recognize the souls of his old friends, comrades, and even enemies, no matter what their new bodies look like on the outside.
She shrugs indifferently. “I’m not surprised, Merlin Emrys,” she replies. “You and I never met in those days. You only knew a few members of my family.” Merlin cocks his head at her curiously, and she elaborates, her voice even more inflectionless, “You knew my husband of that time, as well as my son. Lancelot and Galahad.”
When Arthur awakes, he fully expects that the first person that would be there with him would be Merlin. As the fog of centuries of sleep begins to lift from his mind and he tries to take a full measure of his body and mind, at the same time he is also looking around at his surroundings, expecting to see the sorcerer standing nearby, grinning at him and with some impudent comment on the tip of his tongue.
Only, he is not. Arthur is in a cave which is - strangely enough - lit by about a dozen or so torches, but he is alone.
It is all singularly frustrating.
He forces himself to sit up and throw his legs over the side of the bier he has been resting on, only to find himself regretting it as pain shoots through his head. Arthur cringes a bit and rubs wearily at his forehead. His mind is filled with knowledge, things he had never known in his life before. Centuries upon centuries of history. Camelot fading away to become little more than myth and legend. Albion falling under the rule of brutish Normans who, ironically enough, bring the country into a larger world on a larger stage. Albion becoming the heart of an empire that the sun never set upon. The world being so much larger than anyone ever dreamed.
Arthur shakes his head, struggling to clear it. There is so much to make sense of, but the overriding fact remains that he is awake. He recalls his last waking moments, of the overpowering voice that told him he would awake only when he was truly needed again. He is awake, therefore he is needed, and where the hell is Merlin?
“No, Merlin, not like that,” Arthur snaps irritably. He bats her thin, awkward fingers away. “Now, watch again.” He reties the cords that hold his armor together at what seems like a snail’s pace. “Do you see?”
“Yes, Sire. Thank you,” she says through gritted teeth. Arthur wonders if Gaius has warned her about keeping her temper in check, hence explaining the restraint she’s kept her impudent tongue under. If he has, then Arthur imagines that the old physician’s warnings will not last much longer. She looks like she wants nothing more than to hit him with the armor and stomp out of sight.
He tries not to laugh. She’s really quite amusing when she’s angry, he thinks.
Once Merlin finally finishes, Arthur takes up the two swords lying on the table. He holds one out to her, but she just eyes it quizzically. “Take it,” he orders her impatiently.
She does so, grasping it gracelessly by the scabbard in one hand and by the hilt in another. “Let’s go,” he says, moving toward the door.
“What?” she sputters from behind him. “Where?”
“Where else, Merlin - the training grounds. If you’re going to serve me, you need to be passable with a sword.” He snorts. “I like to have people around me who are able to defend themselves.”
She follows him, of course, but she mutters the whole way about princely lunatics.
Arthur smirks.
Unsurprisingly, it takes little time for Arthur to earn her ire. Morgana sees him strutting about the castle with his friends, laughing when they trip up the servants or cause some other kind of trouble. No one scolds him, which irritates her.
It is when they try that kind of behavior on Morgana’s nurse that she erupts. Glaring furiously, she storms into her rooms and pulls out the wooden swords she secreted in one of her trunks that came with her. Grabbing also the gloves she is supposed to wear - which Morgana finds ridiculous because they are so fragile that they would crumble the first time she climbs a tree - she runs out to the court, where Arthur and his friends are still teasing her nurse.
Morgana glares at him and plants herself between Arthur and the other woman. The swords in one hand and the gloves in the other, she slaps him with the gloves right across the face, then flings them at his feet.
Everyone around her is watching, the servants and guards all silent with shock. Morgana barely notices. Instead, she hisses the first words to come out of her mouth in over a month.
“Pick. Them. Up.”
No one thinks to stop Arthur. After he does so, she tosses one of the wooden swords to him and orders him to defend himself. He laughs in her face, but not for long.
He is no novice at using a sword, but then neither is Morgana. Her advantage is that by the time Arthur sees that he should take her seriously, she has him on the defensive. She pushes him back continually, all over the court, hardly ever letting him attack her. He trips over bales of straw, water buckets, and a myriad of other things. Finally, she gets tired of playing with him and ends it by knocking the sword from his hand and sending him crashing to the ground.
She leans down and growls, “Next time you want to put someone down, remember how it feels and think again.” She then picks up the other wooden sword and walks away, leaving Arthur on the ground, staring after her and the gloves still in his pocket
She enters the castle, her head held high, just as Uther arrives, no doubt having been alerted by one of the guards or servants.
Ultimately, he scolds her for ‘unladylike’ behavior, but Morgana just glares at him and says, “Someone had to teach the spoiled brat a lesson!”
Post a sentence/paragraph/snippet from every* wip you can find. No explanations allowed, just the excerpt.
Every WiP? *stares at WiP folder fearfully* Oh dear lord, here we go...
Note: These include stories I'm actually working on and projects that will probably never see the light of day, just FYI.
“It seems that you have adopted a baby from Britain,” he said. “A baby who was placed with his lawful relatives and -”
“Ah, you mean little Harry,” she cut him off. “Yes, my son and daughter-in-law offered to take Harry off of his aunt and uncle’s hands, as it was clearly not working out and thus it was not a hospitable or safe place for Harry to grow up.”
“Well, I’m afraid that I must ask that he be returned,” Albus replied, and stared at her expectantly.
This was what Melinda couldn’t stand about Albus Dumbledore, or the British wizards in general. She knew Americans were known for being arrogant and full of themselves, but as far as Melinda was concerned, they had nothing on the British, always expecting everyone to cater to their whims and beliefs no matter what other people thought. Dumbledore had no authority in this matter, and yet he still expected her and her family to bow and scrape to him.
“How are we going to handle this?” Harry asked as he and Hermione sat onboard the Hogwarts Express. They’d gotten there early, and various families were only beginning to trickle in.
“If we want to meet the Weasleys, maybe we should just go outside into Kings’ Cross and meet up with them?” she replied.
He shrugged. “Works for me.” Despite his laid back attitude, though, Harry was nervous. The Weasleys - his family. Or rather, they had been. Whether or not they would be again remained to be seen. Molly might very well take to him again, she took to just about any kid. Things were different though. Percy was going through his ‘the world will be my and the Ministry’s bitch fear me’ stage, something he wouldn’t grow out of for some years yet, unless he was given a few helpful nudges along the way. The twins - dear god, Fred was alive! - were as brilliant and scary as ever. George especially was whole again, with his brother at his side. Ron was a nervous eleven-year-old with an inferiority complex the size of Ireland, something that would bog him down for years and cause a lot of heartache for everyone involved. Ginny… well, right now, Ginny was a fangirl.
After several moments, her heart leapt. There, in the tree in the back corner of the yard, was a dark brown owl. Helena slipped off the patio quietly and made her way across the yard. The owl didn’t startle at her approach, just sat on the branch and stared at her solemnly.
“Are you the one?” she asked, hardly daring to talk any louder than a whisper. “I have a letter for Professor McGonagall. Can you take it to her?”
The owl flapped its wings importantly and took to the air. It came down to just in front of her and held out its leg, where Helena quickly spotted a string. It took some doing, but she managed to tie her folded letter to the owl’s leg, and then it soared into the air and was soon out of sight.
“Stand aside, you silly girl! Stand aside, now!”
“NOT HARRY!”
“Fine, then. AVADA KEDAVA!”
Lily had only a split second to see the green light racing toward her, but she did not move and allowed it to slam directly into her chest. Suddenly, her blood was on fire and she howled in agony. She could feel the magic coursing through her body, but there was something else, something mingling with the magic… Then all went dark.
When Lily opened her eyes again, her first thought was that she wasn’t dead. Heaven surely could not look like a dark, half-destroyed room. Then it came back to her.
James. Peter. Voldemort. Harry.
Harry!
She struggled to her knees, finding herself at the foot of the crib. Frantically, Lily looked in, terrified she would find the corpse of her baby -
“Mrs. Dursley, I presume?” Minerva inquired. The only response she received was a frightened squeak, so she continued. “I am Minerva McGonagall, professor of Transfiguration and Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This,” she gestured to the half-giant glowering at Mr. Dursley, “is my associate and the Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts, Rubeus Hagrid.” Still nothing more than a whimper. Minerva raised an eyebrow. “Please, allow me to convey my belated condolences on the death of your sister and brother-in-law. Both were excellent students, some of the best I ever had the pleasure of instructing.”
Finally a response. “Y-You k-knew her?”
Minerva nodded. “Indeed. I taught Lily for her entire tenure at Hogwarts. Now,” she said, changing the subject, “we are here to see your nephew. Where is he?”
Camelot is fallen. Gwen is dead. Lancelot is dead. Hell, most of the world is already dead. Arthur and Morgana are no longer enemies, but companions, and have been so since that day. Neither of them can see much of anything of what they used to be in each other anymore.
The world itself is dying. Arthur can feel it.
Because Merlin isn’t here, because he died.
“I should retire,” she says, putting her goblet down. She smiles at him teasingly. “Kings need their beauty sleep, after all. No need to frighten Merlin out of his wits tomorrow. I’m sure you’ve done that enough as prince.”
Arthur rolls his eyes at her and mutters, “Yes, yes, very amusing, Morgana. And how many times has your morning appearance made Guinevere run from your chambers in terror?”
Morgana tosses her head mockingly, but when she stands up to go, Arthur also rises to his feet. He grasps her hands, making her stop and look at him. He peers at her with a strange, inscrutable expression on his face.
Unbidden, her heart speeds up a bit and she wets her lip before speaking. “Arthur?”
He does not answer in words, his blue eyes locked with her green. He moves closer. She doesn’t step back.
“Morgana,” Arthur whispers just before their lips meet.
Merlin doesn’t know how long he stands there, staring at them in shock. “Y-You know?” he sputters. “You remember?”
Both Arthur and Elena snort. “Of course we do, Merlin,” Arthur answers patronizingly. “’Lena and I grew up together, lived only three houses away from each other. We started remembering when we were about thirteen. The memories returned over time. By the time I joined the RAF and ‘Lena entered Oxford, we remembered almost everything.” He shakes his head. “The tactics of old actually proved fairly useful when I was in her Majesty’s service.”
Merlin hears Arthur’s words, but his attention is on Elena. She stares back at him, her green eyes expressionless. “I’m sorry,” he finally says, “I don’t recognize you, ma’am.” That’s always something that he’s relied on, being able to recognize the souls of his old friends, comrades, and even enemies, no matter what their new bodies look like on the outside.
She shrugs indifferently. “I’m not surprised, Merlin Emrys,” she replies. “You and I never met in those days. You only knew a few members of my family.” Merlin cocks his head at her curiously, and she elaborates, her voice even more inflectionless, “You knew my husband of that time, as well as my son. Lancelot and Galahad.”
When Arthur awakes, he fully expects that the first person that would be there with him would be Merlin. As the fog of centuries of sleep begins to lift from his mind and he tries to take a full measure of his body and mind, at the same time he is also looking around at his surroundings, expecting to see the sorcerer standing nearby, grinning at him and with some impudent comment on the tip of his tongue.
Only, he is not. Arthur is in a cave which is - strangely enough - lit by about a dozen or so torches, but he is alone.
It is all singularly frustrating.
He forces himself to sit up and throw his legs over the side of the bier he has been resting on, only to find himself regretting it as pain shoots through his head. Arthur cringes a bit and rubs wearily at his forehead. His mind is filled with knowledge, things he had never known in his life before. Centuries upon centuries of history. Camelot fading away to become little more than myth and legend. Albion falling under the rule of brutish Normans who, ironically enough, bring the country into a larger world on a larger stage. Albion becoming the heart of an empire that the sun never set upon. The world being so much larger than anyone ever dreamed.
Arthur shakes his head, struggling to clear it. There is so much to make sense of, but the overriding fact remains that he is awake. He recalls his last waking moments, of the overpowering voice that told him he would awake only when he was truly needed again. He is awake, therefore he is needed, and where the hell is Merlin?
“No, Merlin, not like that,” Arthur snaps irritably. He bats her thin, awkward fingers away. “Now, watch again.” He reties the cords that hold his armor together at what seems like a snail’s pace. “Do you see?”
“Yes, Sire. Thank you,” she says through gritted teeth. Arthur wonders if Gaius has warned her about keeping her temper in check, hence explaining the restraint she’s kept her impudent tongue under. If he has, then Arthur imagines that the old physician’s warnings will not last much longer. She looks like she wants nothing more than to hit him with the armor and stomp out of sight.
He tries not to laugh. She’s really quite amusing when she’s angry, he thinks.
Once Merlin finally finishes, Arthur takes up the two swords lying on the table. He holds one out to her, but she just eyes it quizzically. “Take it,” he orders her impatiently.
She does so, grasping it gracelessly by the scabbard in one hand and by the hilt in another. “Let’s go,” he says, moving toward the door.
“What?” she sputters from behind him. “Where?”
“Where else, Merlin - the training grounds. If you’re going to serve me, you need to be passable with a sword.” He snorts. “I like to have people around me who are able to defend themselves.”
She follows him, of course, but she mutters the whole way about princely lunatics.
Arthur smirks.
Unsurprisingly, it takes little time for Arthur to earn her ire. Morgana sees him strutting about the castle with his friends, laughing when they trip up the servants or cause some other kind of trouble. No one scolds him, which irritates her.
It is when they try that kind of behavior on Morgana’s nurse that she erupts. Glaring furiously, she storms into her rooms and pulls out the wooden swords she secreted in one of her trunks that came with her. Grabbing also the gloves she is supposed to wear - which Morgana finds ridiculous because they are so fragile that they would crumble the first time she climbs a tree - she runs out to the court, where Arthur and his friends are still teasing her nurse.
Morgana glares at him and plants herself between Arthur and the other woman. The swords in one hand and the gloves in the other, she slaps him with the gloves right across the face, then flings them at his feet.
Everyone around her is watching, the servants and guards all silent with shock. Morgana barely notices. Instead, she hisses the first words to come out of her mouth in over a month.
“Pick. Them. Up.”
No one thinks to stop Arthur. After he does so, she tosses one of the wooden swords to him and orders him to defend himself. He laughs in her face, but not for long.
He is no novice at using a sword, but then neither is Morgana. Her advantage is that by the time Arthur sees that he should take her seriously, she has him on the defensive. She pushes him back continually, all over the court, hardly ever letting him attack her. He trips over bales of straw, water buckets, and a myriad of other things. Finally, she gets tired of playing with him and ends it by knocking the sword from his hand and sending him crashing to the ground.
She leans down and growls, “Next time you want to put someone down, remember how it feels and think again.” She then picks up the other wooden sword and walks away, leaving Arthur on the ground, staring after her and the gloves still in his pocket
She enters the castle, her head held high, just as Uther arrives, no doubt having been alerted by one of the guards or servants.
Ultimately, he scolds her for ‘unladylike’ behavior, but Morgana just glares at him and says, “Someone had to teach the spoiled brat a lesson!”