Fanfic - Meme'ing Two fics written for Open at the close
I've been meme'ing lately, http://anythingbutgrey.livejournal.com/797887.html#comments is a prompting, ficcing thing of wonderful in honour of the end of Harry Potter, all books and movies have been released. Its time to accept or rewrite history. The idea is the fics be post-war or during etc.. in the spirit of the end of Harry Potter.
I've written two so far, they are unedited.
Fic: Daylily
Prompt: It would be wonderful to say you regretted it. It would be easy. But what does it mean? What does it mean to regret when you have no choice?
Teaser: This began before he was born and would last until the day she lay in her grave- just like Lily.
Character: Petunia Dursley
Rating: PG
The first time she thought she was over it was when he came to their safe house in person telling them they could go back home, the war was over. Their keepers looked at him in awe. The boy who cleaned up after them and had been kept in a cupboard stood proud and weary just like the stories on the telly of soldiers back from war. It was what he was she supposed but it didn't change the surreal feeling it gave her.
She considered apologizing for their treatment over the years. She considered telling him all manner of truths but looking into his eyes he knew them already. This began before he was born and would last until the day she lay in her grave- just like Lily.
------
She rocked Dudley's child her grandson and watched as things moved without any kind of remote control or windup in the nursery. She pretended not to take notice when Dudley's wife left citing post-partum depression as the cause of the end of their marriage. He saw the look in her eyes. She had seen it mirrored in her husband's and her own once upon a time. The eyes that saw something unnatural, a freak.
She couldn't call her out on it. Dudley threw himself into his work and hardly ever saw his son. A boy who would never know of his grandfather Vernon, except in pictures. Her husband had died not even a year after that war where they could return home. The stress of it all had just overwhelmed his heart and took him out one summer morning.
She sung children's songs that she learned to sing to her baby sister when she was little and then sang to Dudley. She knew now about obesity, and health and what spoiling could do to a child and neglect. She didn't buy her grandson outrageous gifts instead she just loved him and sang to him. There wasn't any competition to be had anymore.
-----
She was much to old to be chasing small boys every day but she tried anyhow. Which was something to say for her grandson cheated something fierce. If she didn't remember to hold his hand she might find him to have popped off. She hadn't noticed Lily ever doing it while they were children, and had not been close enough to Harry despite him living in her home to know. Still each time it happened her heart skipped a beat and she worried she would never find him again. That he would have skipped off into that world and left her behind.
When he was back in her arms he would laugh and smile ginger hair and blue green eyes and say "I'm sorry nana, I won't do it again." It was a lie of course, but she would nod her head and thank whatever brought him back to her.
----
Dudley died like his father on a summer's morning, obesity and overwork they said. She stood by the coffin weeping as her nearly eleven grandson tugged at her dress and asked her if she was alright. She shook her head and sobbed that she should be asking him that. He shrugged and said "I hardly knew him."
Petunia saw two people flash in her mind instead, a redheaded woman she refused to know after she turned eleven and a boy with greener eyes than her grandson who she had refused completely.
She wasn't young, and one day the little boy she gave all the love she had forgotten about over the years might need someone other than her one day.
That night she cradled the phone to her ear and remembered she had no way to contact that world.
----
A letter came and then she knew she had been right. Her little one looked at her with such terrified eyes and the knowing face of reprimand on the school's representative, she ignored the green eyes that bored into her and looked to her grandson kissing his forehead. She wondered if she had ever really had a choice at all, or if she just made all of the wrong ones in her life.
"He isn't taking you away forever, this man is family, an uncle of sorts. He has been busy like your father had been. He's magical just like you. I will see you every summer and even on the holidays if you want to come back. I will love you whatever you choose to do, but that place when you go there, you will be happier than anywhere else you could be here luv." Petunia watched as the man's face softened and his features relaxed, he nodded once before sitting on the chaise.
"Do you remember the stories about the little red witch and the boy in the cupboard?" she said and knew that Harry had tensed in shock.
"The dancing flowers were my favourite, its sad the red witch didn't live happily ever after." her brilliant little boy said. She knew when she had told him this story he had tried to copy it and even succeeded a few times.
"The boy in the cupboard?" Harry asked voice deep and curious. Her little one nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, my friend Bobby said its a bit like nan took the story of Cinderella, and then added some boss badguys and Hitler-stuff. I was even able to figure out the moral all on my own now that I am bigger and she told me how it ends." Petunia smiled and Harry leaned in and made an Oh sound to encourage him on.
"Its about the difference between what's right and what's easy." he said proudly.
---
Harry and her met every few months, and occasionally more than once a week. She found his wife delightful if odd. His children went to school with her boy. When Harry explained the merits of Hufflepuff to her she wasn't shocked that is the house her grandchild was in.
He adjusted well and made many friends and sometimes in the summers he still made the flowers dance. Only a little so as not to be reprimanded by the ministry and its statutes.
When she lay on her deathbed wishing she had lived just a year more to see him graduate he came to her side and first made the flowers in the vase come alive for her, more brilliant than any other time she had seen it. Then he opened a piece of parchment that became a fantastic three dimensional map of the school. He had apparently had help from his housemates and Harry's children and almost everyone it sounded like.
The map was so detailed it felt like she was really there, as if she had walked those halls herself.
Tears of joy fell down her face as she held hands with Lily and saw the wonders magic could bring as they entered the gates of the fabled school of witchcraft and wizardry.
Summer turned to fall and if the groundskeeper ever told someone that the plants on the grave of Petunia Evans Dursley had a mind of their own well it may be so
Fic: Adventures Ahead
Prompt: Every single day that I can breathe, you changed my philosophy
Teaser: He slept in one of the worker tents a couple of hours here and there.
Character: Luna Lovegood/ Draco Malfoy
Rating: PG-14
Draco's hands were bloody and his robes torn, sometimes someone would walk up and hand him a pepper-up potion or a balm for his hands. No-one had tried to stop him from working on the castle though or interrupted his work. So much had to be done by hand, and many wizards were not up to the task. He had started out frailer in body than a conventional construction worker but muscles grew from use. He slept in one of the worker tents a couple of hours here and there. Others worked on rebuilding and seemed to make it therapeutic for themselves, they would lift bricks together and weave runes of protection and love into the stones. Draco worked on foundation areas. His runes and his work were more brutal. He lay traps and tricks and things that would see to it any fool who dare lay siege on this castle and the children therein would have another thing coming. When he lay down his stones he remembered the tortures this school brought on him and it's freedoms and how to make the latter more than the former for new students.
He lay down a a warded foundation piece that would assure the castle freedom from evil spirits or memories entering, no more horcruxes, no more hallows in these halls. It was a hell of a lot of spell work for one handcarved stone but it was worth it. Harry would have appreciated something like this looking out for him during his years here, he would have welcomed it. He had also modified the sorting hat about a month ago. The trio and all the other do-gooders appreciated the work. It honestly wouldn't have been doable without that batty lovegood. The houses would remain but all staff including the headmaster would need to be vetted by the hat which would make sure they were appropriate for being around children. The board of governors would also have to put on the hat to assure that their interests were truly in line with the school and its' philosophies. It would have set off more waves if everything about their politics and culture wasn't in some state of upheaval and renewal.
Luna slid up to him as he finished locking the stone into place praying it would hold up as many years if not more than the castle had before the battle. "You've done enough here Draco." she said with a light voice that danced like nymphs over still waters.
He considered protesting, demanding he be allowed to serve the school just like any other. He was only stopped by looking her in the eyes, it wasn't a reprimand and it wasn't a punishment. He just didn't know what it was.
"We leave for Belize tomorrow, you'll need to clean up." She said as if she knew he had little left to pack with all the ministry removed from his family's ancestral home and vaults.
---
It was weird at first. He never saw her as much while at school, he knew she had been held by his family at some point and her spellcasting at the final battle had been nothing short of bizarre *though effective*. Still, here was this brilliant batty woman dragging him around the world and somehow he began to find it fun. They looked for things he knew shouldn't exist or went extinct ages ago and on those rare occassions they would find it? There was nothing comparable. Her face would light and he would flush and everything was just that much clearer.
It was the day he held a live crumple horned snorkack in his hands, only just a baby. He will always remember the awe in her face and her hands wrapping around his waist. After reuniting the mother and infant creature He remembered kissing her and then just the soft dewy grass and smell of nature and Luna.
When they had their first child in the midst of a hurricane he remembered holding them both close and murmuring to her "every single day that I can breathe, you changed my philosophy."
Luna looked up at him with a tired smile as the winds howled and rain poured and their meager shelter seemed to be but a piece of paper between them and an Avada Kedavra.
"We're still naming her Harriet." she answered.
He kissed her forehead, "Damned"
Harriet cooed and he supposed her name was suitable and wouldn't it just drive Potter up the wall next time they hit England.
"Can her middle name be Hermione?" Draco grinned.
"I'm surprised you didn't ask for Minerva." Luna said yawning and letting Draco hold their daughter, "Harriet Minerva Lovegood." he mused.
"Much better than Malfoy." he said barely hearing his lovers of course before she drifted off to sleep.
Tomorrow, weather permitting they were heading to China.