Round 7 Challenge 1: Voting
Round 7 Challenge 1: Voting
SIX
FIVE
THIRTY
Are you ready to see Draco's prezzies? He's certainly ready to open them!
A couple of things to remember when deciding which drabbles to vote for (most and least favorite):
Guidelines:
As a voter, you have the option of leaving a brief statement about why you voted the way you did, for both most and least favorite. Your feedback will then be given to the drabble writer (if they want the feedback) ANONYMOUSLY.
Example: Most - #40: the ending was brilliant - OR - Least - #57: the ending fell flat
Please remember writers, that you may not vote for yourselves.
Here we go for week one!
Choose your favorite and least favorite drabbles. Favorites will receive +1 point per vote, and least favorites -1 point per vote.
Voting ends at 11:59pm, Friday, May 7.
Prompt:
Home is where the heart is.
Draco is away on business at Plopsaland De Panne on his birthday.
Pick a fact - any fact (historical, a festival, local color - whatever) from the highlighted link and incorporate it into your drabble (feel free to use the external references listed on the link page, such as the amusement park's website, if need be).
(from round five, ch all)
1
Title: Coulrophobia
Author: bookishwench
Rating: PG
Warning(s): see title
Word Count: 499
He was going to kill Potter and Weasley very slowly and painfully, possibly using some combination of the Cruciatus, rabid nifflers, and a liberal application of Weasleys Wizarding Wheezes very worst itching powder. No jury could convict him after they’d seen this place.
“Hallo!” bellowed an overly cheerful costumed character who appeared to be wearing a folded lampshade on his head.
Draco just barely suppressed the urge to jinx him and instead gave him a scowl so dark it sent the weirdly dressed Muggle scurrying towards a group of children at the farthest end of the square.
“That doesn’t even vaguely resemble a gnome,” Draco mumbled to himself. “They really don’t know anything about anything, do they.”
According to Pothead and the Weasel, some dark creature had taken root around this ridiculous amusement park and was scaring Muggle children silly; hence, he’d been dispatched to this lunatic asylum to fix the problem without drawing undo attention to whatever was causing all the trouble. They’d neglected to tell him either that Plopsaland De Panne was so relentlessly happy that Draco would want to throw himself under the roller coaster tracks in order to end the pain or that he would be required to go on his birthday of all days.
“I should be home with Hermione, eating prime rib, drinking a lovely cabernet, and looking forward to a long, luxurious night unwrapping my present,” Draco told himself as he scanned the park carefully, “and I don’t mean the kind from Flourish and Blotts.”
Another character started approaching him, and Draco was suddenly filled with horror. What idiot would think that thing was appropriate for a children’s playground? It was a clown with a white face and red nose, vertical black slashes going through its blank, staring eyes, and an abnormally tiny smile that looked suspiciously like it might suddenly snarl and show gigantic fangs. Draco had never especially liked clowns. In fact, if he was honest with himself, he was more than a little disturbed by them, and this one was just so… so… And then he realized.
“Riddikulus!” he yelled, brandishing his wand fiercely at the horrifying clown of death, waiting for the hideous Boggart to dissolve.
Absolutely nothing happened except for a few children laughing hysterically and the clown patting him on the head as though Draco were a bit off and then moving on.
Draco was mortified.
When Draco finally found the Norwegian Ridgeback that had taken up residence in the foundations of the park’s coffee cup ride, he took great delight in stunning it for the Belgian branch of the Department for Control of Magical Creatures. Then he went home to his wife, determined never to tell anyone about his mistake.
When he came to work the next day to find that Potter and Weasley had plastered the office walls with moving pictures of his courageous battle against the clown, Draco smiled benignly. Then he owled Hagrid to see much a few dozen nifflers would cost.
2
Title: The North Sea
Author: ilkee
Rating: G
Warning(s): None
Word Count: 499
The North Sea is cold like the glaciers that created it.
Draco looks to the west and imagines he can see a line, like a rope, stretched taught over the Strait of Dover. It’s shallow here, for a long way out, and he imagines he can walk across it. Imagines his flat in London. Large and empty. Cold like the sea.
The sand is still holding on to the last of the day’s sunshine, and he digs his toes into it.
He’s been undercover here for three months. Tracking a small but deadly group of Death Eater hopefuls who haven’t realized the Dark Lord really isn’t coming back this time. (No, really.)
Tomorrow he’ll go home.
Fourteen insurgents were captured. Six by Draco himself. They were young and Draco feels his age in his bones. Not that he’s old. (It’s his birthday today, did you know?) But he feels as though he’s lived too many lives for one person.
She was there at the end. She’s always there at the end, with her hair wild and a hundred flicks of her wrist and a fire in her eyes that makes him hold his breath.
He touched her leg.
It sticks out in his mind like an out-of-sync color in a painting. Nine solid hours of battle and this is the only thing he can remember. Three months of garish colors and cartoon music and children toppling their honey-flavored ice cream cones too close to his shoes, and this is all he remembers.
Cool, smooth skin sliding against his palm, and the warm, secret place behind her knee as he helped untangle her. It couldn’t have lasted more than two seconds before they were fighting again.
Draco takes a deep breath and watches it uncurl in the cold air.
It always happens like this. When he’s weighed down by fatigue. Weary of strange cities and translation spells and living out of a suitcase with clothes that aren’t even his. It’s these times when he thinks of home. Of fog and nighttime and narrow streets and Hermione Granger. Hermione Granger. Hermione Granger.
She is always there at the end.
Draco looks down at his feet lost in the pale sand, both glowing in the moonlight. When he looks up again, she’s walking toward him. Measured, hesitant steps until she is standing, barefoot, next to him. He’s holding his breath again.
She’s awkward now. Her fingers clumsy without her wand, swiping at the curls the wind throws forward. Draco’s thoughts stutter and he shifts from one foot to the other, the sand falling away under him, leaving him unbalanced.
“It’s my birth¬-”
And she’s kissing him. Her mouth is hot and the air on his face is cold. And that line stretched across the cold sea snaps and wraps around him, tangles with her arms and his arms and it’s safe and soft and warm, and he doesn’t care where he goes next as long as she’s there at the end.
3
Title: Love Again
Author: terrayn
Rating: PG
Warning(s): none
Word Count: 499
Before
She quotes some poncey bloke, “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
He grits, “Who the hell takes consolation advice from a poet?”
Hermione leaves their wasteland of a bedroom with things he’ll never look at the same way again:
1. conch seashell (foot-cutter and awkward conversation-starter)
2. pressed red roses (‘How cliché,’ she said on their first date. ‘I’m traditional,’ he replied, chucking chocolates in a nearby flowerpot.)
3. greasy takeaway menu (‘Of all the stupid-screw this,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t be so ethnocentric, they’re only chopsticks,’ she sighed.)
4. cracked snow globe (‘He called me a Mudblood to my face. You just stood there!’ she yelled, throwing the nearest object. ‘I don’t know how to change him. He’s my father,’ he whispered, ducking.)
5. paper bracelets (‘Seriously? Glued-together paper is proof we paid?’ he asked. ‘Stop stalling. I’m queuing up for the rollercoaster with or with you,’ she grinned.)
After
She and Tennyson can pontificate all they want on love, loss and the linearity of time. What he remembers is not the slow burn of falling in love in spite of himself but a scratchy jumper scrunched around slender shoulders, hitching up with every step to reveal the mole above her hip he’ll never kiss again as she walks out into a life without him.
Now
“What are you doing in Belgium?” she asks, bewildered.
Striking a casual pose, Draco takes in the amusement park with one sweeping look, pausing on a signpost. “Wizzy en Woppy. Really?”
Hermione frowns. “Yes, it’s the-”
“Name of a deformed house-elf?”
She scowls. “What do you want? What happened to being too good for ‘backpacking, hostels and homeless people sandwiches’?”
“You said this was your continental tour,” He sheds any pretense of composure and grips her elbow, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Our last chance at youth before we have to be parents.”
“Parent. As I recall, your idea of fatherly delight was gaping, then disappearing for three days and showing up blacked out in the foyer. Not so much father of the year material.”
“You expected me to rejoice in knocking you up?”
“No. I expected you not to cut and run.”
“I came back, didn’t I? But you were already on your way out.”
She sighs. “Why are you here?”
“After you left, I…tried to sleep in my bed, read in my favorite chair, take tea in the garden, but none of it was-everything felt off.” Draco glances at a blond boy tugging his parents to a rollercoaster. “I’m a year older today. I still don’t know if I’m ready to be a parent or parents with you, but I do know that while you’ve been hitchhiking God-knows-where, I’m the one who’s felt homeless. No offense to your poet but I’ll take the third option. It’s much better to love, lose and love again.”
Hermione laughs and cups his face. “Trying to improve upon a classic? How typical.”
4
Title: The Definition of Home
Author: floorcoaster
Rating: G
Warning(s): None
Word Count: 495
Working with Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes was exhausting. Draco observed that as a general rule, they spent eighty percent of their time playing. This wouldn’t typically bother him, except when he was required to travel with them for business deals. What could have been covered in one day of meetings took at least a week because George Weasley wanted to have fun.
And Draco, as the Chief Financial Advisor, couldn’t say no.
He’d taken the position as a favor to Hermione, but it turned out to be a brilliant match. His financial savvy and business sense melded perfectly with George’s magical savoir-faire and fantastic ideas. The Weasley joke shop was the most profitable Wizarding venture in the last century.
But Draco hated the business trips. Entertainment had its place, sure, but it had been three days since the first meeting, and it would be another two before the final one. In the meantime, George and Ron had planned non-stop activities for everyone involved. The trip to the amusement park was supposed to be for Draco’s birthday, but he wasn’t in a celebratory mood.
Draco shoved his hands in his pockets and walked out of the Plopsa Outlet Store. The Dancing Fountains leapt to life, shooting water straight up to the delight of the children running through the water. He’d hoped to find something unique in the shop for Hermione.
No luck.
Plopsaland De Panne simply wasn’t the place for a meaningful, I-missed-you-like-crazy, souvenir. It was for kids of all sizes, but Draco didn’t feel like playing.
He sat own on a park bench on the Village Square, feeling more annoyed with each joyful, animated shriek.
Staring unseeingly at the dancing water, he didn’t notice someone approach until his line of sight was completely obscured. He looked up, a rude comment on the tip of his tongue, but as soon as he saw her face, the words melted.
“Hello, stranger.” Her smile was as bright as the sun.
“Hermione?”
She grinned wider and sat beside him, crossing her legs as though nothing were out of the ordinary. As though she was supposed to meet him at an amusement park in Belgium.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Ron sent me a message, said you were spoiling all their fun with your brooding. He thought you could use some cheering up.”
Draco felt his tension melt away. Suddenly the sky was brighter, the sun warmer, the children tolerable, and there seemed to be music on the breeze. “Did he now?”
Hermione nodded, pushing her hair out of her face. “He mentioned that maybe it wasn’t right for you to be all alone on your birthday, so far from home.”
Draco shook his head, stunned at Ron’s thoughtfulness. “I didn’t know he was capable of such acute observation.”
“Since you’re stuck here, I thought I’d come to you.” She bit her lip.
He felt his heart threaten to burst through his chest and kissed her. “Now I’m home.”
5
Title: Honey and Turrets
Author: ayane_tsurugi
Rating: G
Warning(s): Silliness.
Word Count: 391
If side-along Apparating was annoying, then doing so while blindfolded could only be described as highly unpleasant.
“Granger, is this entirely necessary?”
He heard his girlfriend ‘tut’ disapprovingly. “Oh, Draco, don’t resort to last names just because I won’t tell you where we’re going.”
“You’re perfectly aware that I hate surprises. I don’t see why you feel the need to inflict one on me on my birthday, of all days.” He was well aware that he was pouting and just how unbecoming it was, but really, she deserved it.
“You look like a five year old, pouting that way.”
“Better than looking twenty-nine.”
“Thirty,” she corrected.
“Shh,” he insisted. “It’s a blasphemous number, and I won’t have it spoken in my presence.”
He practically heard her eyes roll. “Whatever you say, love.” He made to protest again, but curiosity overtook his words as she grabbed onto his arm, standing close, and he felt them Apparate.
The first thing that hit him when they arrived was the smell. He could distinctly smell water and…fried food. He ripped off the blindfold before Hermione could stop him. “It’s a castle,” he said blankly, and she grinned at him.
“It’s a theme park!”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “You brought me to a theme park?”
Her face fell. “I asked your mother where you liked to go as a child. She said there was a theme park in Belgium that you’d liked, near De Panne. I thought this had to be the place!” Her expression scrunched, like she was considering just where her research had gone wrong.
Finally comprehension dawned and he let out a laugh, casting a confused glance at the Medieval turrets. “Where are the bees?”
Hermione looked at him like he’d sprouted another head from his shoulder. “Bees?”
“When I was a kid, it was a park about bees. And honey. My mother thought it was cute.”
After a long moment, she pressed her lips together, holding back a laugh, but swallowed it. “Well, I’m sorry it’s no longer a theme park about bees. That kind-of ruins my present.”
For a moment, she looked genuinely put out, and he sighed. “Do they have funnel cakes?”
She looked at him, a smile curving the corners of her mouth. “I think so.”
He grabbed her hand. “Lead the way then, my good lady.”
6
Title: Muggle Wilderness
Author: midnight_birth
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): Alcohol use.
Word Count: 499
She spotted him stuffed into a corner of a small booth, his fingers playing with the abandoned burger’s wrapping. She smiled to herself. No matter how many times she had dragged Draco out into the “Muggle Wilderness”, as he still called it under his breath, the picture seeing Draco Malfoy eating a fast-food burger was bizarre and unnatural every time.
“This place is ridiculous,” he said, without raising his head, and she startled. It was no wonder that Draco was an incredible Hit Wizard - the man had senses of a cat. Presently, however, she could smell that he was not in his best working form. ““Do you know what is the weirdest thing about this place? There are people dressed in furry bodysuits running around grabbing children left and right.” He looked up at her and frowned. “It’s like stumbling into Wonderland, but creepy.”
Hermione rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, glaring down at him half-heartedly. “I have two questions for you. One, how and why are you drunk and on the job, not to mention in a children’s amusement park, and secondly, you’ve read Alice in Wonderland?”
Draco waved his arms around him vaguely. “There’s a spell… I don’t remember what it is, but basically, they don’t really notice me, so I’m not disturbing them, though I think it’s worn off now that you entered and broke it. I told them that I do not work on my birthday. I drink on my birthday, I want to be home on my birthday! This will show them.”
Hermione made a face. “Yes, this will show them what a stubborn, inflexible, strange person you are. What is it with you and foreign countries? This is worse than the Hermitage incident.” She got up and seized Draco’s hand, pulling him up with her. “The people with the bodysuits outside are people dressed as famous Belgian and Dutch children’s characters. I know it’s weird, but… we can be at home here together. Home is anywhere, why does it matter?”
“I liked it there,” Draco declared, looking over his shoulder longingly at the burger. “I deserve to celebrate my birthday! And yes, I did read it, it was my nanny’s favourite, she told it to me secretly. And it does matter.”
She smiled. “Come back to the hotel room and we’ll get you some coffee, and a good way to really celebrate and feel at home.”
“And sex?” Draco asked loudly, causing all the parents in the restaurant to turn and glare at them.
Hermione blushed furiously and walked faster. Draco didn’t handle birthdays very well, or kids, or Muggle things that he simply could not understand, and she should have known that. She chastised herself inwardly for yet another lame attempt to make Draco’s birthday more special, and made a mental note to send a note to Harry to pretend that Draco’s fake assignment existed all along. She definitely wasn’t telling him she made it up as a romantic get-away, now.
ooo
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Poll Round 7 Challenge 1
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FIVE
THIRTY
This Week: Home is Where the Heart Is
Voting ends 11:59 EST (GMT -4) May 7th
****Also, don't forget to log your Winner's Predictions at this poll before Saturday May 8th, noon eastern time, when results go up.****
Please spread the word and thanks for dropping by!
SIX
FIVE
THIRTY
Are you ready to see Draco's prezzies? He's certainly ready to open them!
A couple of things to remember when deciding which drabbles to vote for (most and least favorite):
Guidelines:
- Which drabble best incorporates the prompt?
- Is the drabble clever, different, fresh? Does it evoke an emotional response (good or bad)?
- Does the drabble contain grammar, canon or spelling errors?
As a voter, you have the option of leaving a brief statement about why you voted the way you did, for both most and least favorite. Your feedback will then be given to the drabble writer (if they want the feedback) ANONYMOUSLY.
Example: Most - #40: the ending was brilliant - OR - Least - #57: the ending fell flat
Please remember writers, that you may not vote for yourselves.
Here we go for week one!
Choose your favorite and least favorite drabbles. Favorites will receive +1 point per vote, and least favorites -1 point per vote.
Voting ends at 11:59pm, Friday, May 7.
Prompt:
Home is where the heart is.
Draco is away on business at Plopsaland De Panne on his birthday.
Pick a fact - any fact (historical, a festival, local color - whatever) from the highlighted link and incorporate it into your drabble (feel free to use the external references listed on the link page, such as the amusement park's website, if need be).
(from round five, ch all)
1
Title: Coulrophobia
Author: bookishwench
Rating: PG
Warning(s): see title
Word Count: 499
He was going to kill Potter and Weasley very slowly and painfully, possibly using some combination of the Cruciatus, rabid nifflers, and a liberal application of Weasleys Wizarding Wheezes very worst itching powder. No jury could convict him after they’d seen this place.
“Hallo!” bellowed an overly cheerful costumed character who appeared to be wearing a folded lampshade on his head.
Draco just barely suppressed the urge to jinx him and instead gave him a scowl so dark it sent the weirdly dressed Muggle scurrying towards a group of children at the farthest end of the square.
“That doesn’t even vaguely resemble a gnome,” Draco mumbled to himself. “They really don’t know anything about anything, do they.”
According to Pothead and the Weasel, some dark creature had taken root around this ridiculous amusement park and was scaring Muggle children silly; hence, he’d been dispatched to this lunatic asylum to fix the problem without drawing undo attention to whatever was causing all the trouble. They’d neglected to tell him either that Plopsaland De Panne was so relentlessly happy that Draco would want to throw himself under the roller coaster tracks in order to end the pain or that he would be required to go on his birthday of all days.
“I should be home with Hermione, eating prime rib, drinking a lovely cabernet, and looking forward to a long, luxurious night unwrapping my present,” Draco told himself as he scanned the park carefully, “and I don’t mean the kind from Flourish and Blotts.”
Another character started approaching him, and Draco was suddenly filled with horror. What idiot would think that thing was appropriate for a children’s playground? It was a clown with a white face and red nose, vertical black slashes going through its blank, staring eyes, and an abnormally tiny smile that looked suspiciously like it might suddenly snarl and show gigantic fangs. Draco had never especially liked clowns. In fact, if he was honest with himself, he was more than a little disturbed by them, and this one was just so… so… And then he realized.
“Riddikulus!” he yelled, brandishing his wand fiercely at the horrifying clown of death, waiting for the hideous Boggart to dissolve.
Absolutely nothing happened except for a few children laughing hysterically and the clown patting him on the head as though Draco were a bit off and then moving on.
Draco was mortified.
When Draco finally found the Norwegian Ridgeback that had taken up residence in the foundations of the park’s coffee cup ride, he took great delight in stunning it for the Belgian branch of the Department for Control of Magical Creatures. Then he went home to his wife, determined never to tell anyone about his mistake.
When he came to work the next day to find that Potter and Weasley had plastered the office walls with moving pictures of his courageous battle against the clown, Draco smiled benignly. Then he owled Hagrid to see much a few dozen nifflers would cost.
2
Title: The North Sea
Author: ilkee
Rating: G
Warning(s): None
Word Count: 499
The North Sea is cold like the glaciers that created it.
Draco looks to the west and imagines he can see a line, like a rope, stretched taught over the Strait of Dover. It’s shallow here, for a long way out, and he imagines he can walk across it. Imagines his flat in London. Large and empty. Cold like the sea.
The sand is still holding on to the last of the day’s sunshine, and he digs his toes into it.
He’s been undercover here for three months. Tracking a small but deadly group of Death Eater hopefuls who haven’t realized the Dark Lord really isn’t coming back this time. (No, really.)
Tomorrow he’ll go home.
Fourteen insurgents were captured. Six by Draco himself. They were young and Draco feels his age in his bones. Not that he’s old. (It’s his birthday today, did you know?) But he feels as though he’s lived too many lives for one person.
She was there at the end. She’s always there at the end, with her hair wild and a hundred flicks of her wrist and a fire in her eyes that makes him hold his breath.
He touched her leg.
It sticks out in his mind like an out-of-sync color in a painting. Nine solid hours of battle and this is the only thing he can remember. Three months of garish colors and cartoon music and children toppling their honey-flavored ice cream cones too close to his shoes, and this is all he remembers.
Cool, smooth skin sliding against his palm, and the warm, secret place behind her knee as he helped untangle her. It couldn’t have lasted more than two seconds before they were fighting again.
Draco takes a deep breath and watches it uncurl in the cold air.
It always happens like this. When he’s weighed down by fatigue. Weary of strange cities and translation spells and living out of a suitcase with clothes that aren’t even his. It’s these times when he thinks of home. Of fog and nighttime and narrow streets and Hermione Granger. Hermione Granger. Hermione Granger.
She is always there at the end.
Draco looks down at his feet lost in the pale sand, both glowing in the moonlight. When he looks up again, she’s walking toward him. Measured, hesitant steps until she is standing, barefoot, next to him. He’s holding his breath again.
She’s awkward now. Her fingers clumsy without her wand, swiping at the curls the wind throws forward. Draco’s thoughts stutter and he shifts from one foot to the other, the sand falling away under him, leaving him unbalanced.
“It’s my birth¬-”
And she’s kissing him. Her mouth is hot and the air on his face is cold. And that line stretched across the cold sea snaps and wraps around him, tangles with her arms and his arms and it’s safe and soft and warm, and he doesn’t care where he goes next as long as she’s there at the end.
3
Title: Love Again
Author: terrayn
Rating: PG
Warning(s): none
Word Count: 499
Before
She quotes some poncey bloke, “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
He grits, “Who the hell takes consolation advice from a poet?”
Hermione leaves their wasteland of a bedroom with things he’ll never look at the same way again:
1. conch seashell (foot-cutter and awkward conversation-starter)
2. pressed red roses (‘How cliché,’ she said on their first date. ‘I’m traditional,’ he replied, chucking chocolates in a nearby flowerpot.)
3. greasy takeaway menu (‘Of all the stupid-screw this,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t be so ethnocentric, they’re only chopsticks,’ she sighed.)
4. cracked snow globe (‘He called me a Mudblood to my face. You just stood there!’ she yelled, throwing the nearest object. ‘I don’t know how to change him. He’s my father,’ he whispered, ducking.)
5. paper bracelets (‘Seriously? Glued-together paper is proof we paid?’ he asked. ‘Stop stalling. I’m queuing up for the rollercoaster with or with you,’ she grinned.)
After
She and Tennyson can pontificate all they want on love, loss and the linearity of time. What he remembers is not the slow burn of falling in love in spite of himself but a scratchy jumper scrunched around slender shoulders, hitching up with every step to reveal the mole above her hip he’ll never kiss again as she walks out into a life without him.
Now
“What are you doing in Belgium?” she asks, bewildered.
Striking a casual pose, Draco takes in the amusement park with one sweeping look, pausing on a signpost. “Wizzy en Woppy. Really?”
Hermione frowns. “Yes, it’s the-”
“Name of a deformed house-elf?”
She scowls. “What do you want? What happened to being too good for ‘backpacking, hostels and homeless people sandwiches’?”
“You said this was your continental tour,” He sheds any pretense of composure and grips her elbow, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Our last chance at youth before we have to be parents.”
“Parent. As I recall, your idea of fatherly delight was gaping, then disappearing for three days and showing up blacked out in the foyer. Not so much father of the year material.”
“You expected me to rejoice in knocking you up?”
“No. I expected you not to cut and run.”
“I came back, didn’t I? But you were already on your way out.”
She sighs. “Why are you here?”
“After you left, I…tried to sleep in my bed, read in my favorite chair, take tea in the garden, but none of it was-everything felt off.” Draco glances at a blond boy tugging his parents to a rollercoaster. “I’m a year older today. I still don’t know if I’m ready to be a parent or parents with you, but I do know that while you’ve been hitchhiking God-knows-where, I’m the one who’s felt homeless. No offense to your poet but I’ll take the third option. It’s much better to love, lose and love again.”
Hermione laughs and cups his face. “Trying to improve upon a classic? How typical.”
4
Title: The Definition of Home
Author: floorcoaster
Rating: G
Warning(s): None
Word Count: 495
Working with Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes was exhausting. Draco observed that as a general rule, they spent eighty percent of their time playing. This wouldn’t typically bother him, except when he was required to travel with them for business deals. What could have been covered in one day of meetings took at least a week because George Weasley wanted to have fun.
And Draco, as the Chief Financial Advisor, couldn’t say no.
He’d taken the position as a favor to Hermione, but it turned out to be a brilliant match. His financial savvy and business sense melded perfectly with George’s magical savoir-faire and fantastic ideas. The Weasley joke shop was the most profitable Wizarding venture in the last century.
But Draco hated the business trips. Entertainment had its place, sure, but it had been three days since the first meeting, and it would be another two before the final one. In the meantime, George and Ron had planned non-stop activities for everyone involved. The trip to the amusement park was supposed to be for Draco’s birthday, but he wasn’t in a celebratory mood.
Draco shoved his hands in his pockets and walked out of the Plopsa Outlet Store. The Dancing Fountains leapt to life, shooting water straight up to the delight of the children running through the water. He’d hoped to find something unique in the shop for Hermione.
No luck.
Plopsaland De Panne simply wasn’t the place for a meaningful, I-missed-you-like-crazy, souvenir. It was for kids of all sizes, but Draco didn’t feel like playing.
He sat own on a park bench on the Village Square, feeling more annoyed with each joyful, animated shriek.
Staring unseeingly at the dancing water, he didn’t notice someone approach until his line of sight was completely obscured. He looked up, a rude comment on the tip of his tongue, but as soon as he saw her face, the words melted.
“Hello, stranger.” Her smile was as bright as the sun.
“Hermione?”
She grinned wider and sat beside him, crossing her legs as though nothing were out of the ordinary. As though she was supposed to meet him at an amusement park in Belgium.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Ron sent me a message, said you were spoiling all their fun with your brooding. He thought you could use some cheering up.”
Draco felt his tension melt away. Suddenly the sky was brighter, the sun warmer, the children tolerable, and there seemed to be music on the breeze. “Did he now?”
Hermione nodded, pushing her hair out of her face. “He mentioned that maybe it wasn’t right for you to be all alone on your birthday, so far from home.”
Draco shook his head, stunned at Ron’s thoughtfulness. “I didn’t know he was capable of such acute observation.”
“Since you’re stuck here, I thought I’d come to you.” She bit her lip.
He felt his heart threaten to burst through his chest and kissed her. “Now I’m home.”
5
Title: Honey and Turrets
Author: ayane_tsurugi
Rating: G
Warning(s): Silliness.
Word Count: 391
If side-along Apparating was annoying, then doing so while blindfolded could only be described as highly unpleasant.
“Granger, is this entirely necessary?”
He heard his girlfriend ‘tut’ disapprovingly. “Oh, Draco, don’t resort to last names just because I won’t tell you where we’re going.”
“You’re perfectly aware that I hate surprises. I don’t see why you feel the need to inflict one on me on my birthday, of all days.” He was well aware that he was pouting and just how unbecoming it was, but really, she deserved it.
“You look like a five year old, pouting that way.”
“Better than looking twenty-nine.”
“Thirty,” she corrected.
“Shh,” he insisted. “It’s a blasphemous number, and I won’t have it spoken in my presence.”
He practically heard her eyes roll. “Whatever you say, love.” He made to protest again, but curiosity overtook his words as she grabbed onto his arm, standing close, and he felt them Apparate.
The first thing that hit him when they arrived was the smell. He could distinctly smell water and…fried food. He ripped off the blindfold before Hermione could stop him. “It’s a castle,” he said blankly, and she grinned at him.
“It’s a theme park!”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “You brought me to a theme park?”
Her face fell. “I asked your mother where you liked to go as a child. She said there was a theme park in Belgium that you’d liked, near De Panne. I thought this had to be the place!” Her expression scrunched, like she was considering just where her research had gone wrong.
Finally comprehension dawned and he let out a laugh, casting a confused glance at the Medieval turrets. “Where are the bees?”
Hermione looked at him like he’d sprouted another head from his shoulder. “Bees?”
“When I was a kid, it was a park about bees. And honey. My mother thought it was cute.”
After a long moment, she pressed her lips together, holding back a laugh, but swallowed it. “Well, I’m sorry it’s no longer a theme park about bees. That kind-of ruins my present.”
For a moment, she looked genuinely put out, and he sighed. “Do they have funnel cakes?”
She looked at him, a smile curving the corners of her mouth. “I think so.”
He grabbed her hand. “Lead the way then, my good lady.”
6
Title: Muggle Wilderness
Author: midnight_birth
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): Alcohol use.
Word Count: 499
She spotted him stuffed into a corner of a small booth, his fingers playing with the abandoned burger’s wrapping. She smiled to herself. No matter how many times she had dragged Draco out into the “Muggle Wilderness”, as he still called it under his breath, the picture seeing Draco Malfoy eating a fast-food burger was bizarre and unnatural every time.
“This place is ridiculous,” he said, without raising his head, and she startled. It was no wonder that Draco was an incredible Hit Wizard - the man had senses of a cat. Presently, however, she could smell that he was not in his best working form. ““Do you know what is the weirdest thing about this place? There are people dressed in furry bodysuits running around grabbing children left and right.” He looked up at her and frowned. “It’s like stumbling into Wonderland, but creepy.”
Hermione rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, glaring down at him half-heartedly. “I have two questions for you. One, how and why are you drunk and on the job, not to mention in a children’s amusement park, and secondly, you’ve read Alice in Wonderland?”
Draco waved his arms around him vaguely. “There’s a spell… I don’t remember what it is, but basically, they don’t really notice me, so I’m not disturbing them, though I think it’s worn off now that you entered and broke it. I told them that I do not work on my birthday. I drink on my birthday, I want to be home on my birthday! This will show them.”
Hermione made a face. “Yes, this will show them what a stubborn, inflexible, strange person you are. What is it with you and foreign countries? This is worse than the Hermitage incident.” She got up and seized Draco’s hand, pulling him up with her. “The people with the bodysuits outside are people dressed as famous Belgian and Dutch children’s characters. I know it’s weird, but… we can be at home here together. Home is anywhere, why does it matter?”
“I liked it there,” Draco declared, looking over his shoulder longingly at the burger. “I deserve to celebrate my birthday! And yes, I did read it, it was my nanny’s favourite, she told it to me secretly. And it does matter.”
She smiled. “Come back to the hotel room and we’ll get you some coffee, and a good way to really celebrate and feel at home.”
“And sex?” Draco asked loudly, causing all the parents in the restaurant to turn and glare at them.
Hermione blushed furiously and walked faster. Draco didn’t handle birthdays very well, or kids, or Muggle things that he simply could not understand, and she should have known that. She chastised herself inwardly for yet another lame attempt to make Draco’s birthday more special, and made a mental note to send a note to Harry to pretend that Draco’s fake assignment existed all along. She definitely wasn’t telling him she made it up as a romantic get-away, now.
ooo
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