Random Gen Fic
Random HP fic I wrote today. I don't know why. Actually is more scene than fic, I suppose.
Gen, 1200 words, set between 6th and 7th year.
Before They Sting
Under a rock in damp conditions, there are often nasty creeping crawling things underneath.
This isn't news to Harry; he's spent plenty of time amusing himself with such pursuits as watching a centipede make its way from point to point because he isn't allowed to touch any of the toys.
Apparently it is news to Dudley, who has just picked up a great jagged stone, as big as his pudgy hand can manage, which is quite a bit as he is twice Harry's size and coming up fast on Uncle Vernon, with the clear intent of hurling it at Harry's head.
It's hardly Harry's fault if the instinctive magics he used as a child still sometimes assert themselves to protect him. The millipede clinging to the underside grows fast and runs faster, up Dudley's arm and into his sleeve as he shrieks and drops the rock and shouts for his mummy.
Harry doesn't look toward him, but rather, continues what he's doing, which is trimming the edges of the garden because lying on his belly watching centipedes is no longer an acceptable activity.
Somehow, even without the wand, he convinces the world to re-shrink the millipede. It isn't his fault, isn't his fault, the insect is perfectly natural and Dudley must have been imagining its size and speed, his upset fueling his imagination.
Harry keeps trimming, manages not to smile, and ignores the way Dudley's arm and neck are covered in egg-size red bumps where the thing punched in with enlarged fangs and increased venom, when he finally is allowed to come to the table--after the trimming is finished, and after he is deemed suitably clean by his aunt.
At least he gets cabbage and the last of the steamed carrots, and he knows Dudley is far too wasteful to have bothered eating more than three-quarters of the meat on each of the half dozen chicken breasts piled on his plate. Gluttonous, but lazy, the wanker is, which works out well for Harry since he'll be the one doing the dishes and therefore able to snitch the scraps. It's kind of gross, though not as gross as that bug, but then, given how hungry his uncle likes to keep him, Harry's long since decided there are more important things.
One week, he thinks. One week, and he'll be seventeen, and be able to choose where he stays. He knows where that has to be, of course; the choice is only an illusion. Still, he likesHogwarts, even when classes aren't in session. Especially when classes aren't in session, and when the blood protection runs out next week and he has to take refuge behind the school's shields, at least he'll be of age, and allowed to perform magic. It's all arranged.
He stares up at the wall and considers how it will be to stay alone in his dark tower room, bed-curtains parted, no one but the staff--and by no means all of them-- present.
Quiet, he expects it'll be, and if he were Hermione he'd spend the month tucked up in the library, completing his fist draft revision for NEWTs.
Course, he isn't Hermione, and he'll spend the time flying and playing with the giant squid.
Unless someone assigns him something else, which he admits is possible. He'll probably wind up spending thirty-one solid days locked up in remedial potions and Occlumency tutoring.
He wakes up suddenly the next morning with a sense of dread in a room filled with the pink light of bright early dawn. He blinks and puts on his glasses, and only then realizes this is because the side wall of the room is ripped open, jagged and rubble-filled and frightfully, eerily silent.
Apparently, he will be going now. He hasn't a bloody fucking clue how to Apparate, but instinct saves him again, and all at once he just is, outside the gates of Hogwarts, photograph book in his pocket, feet bare, broom and school books floating beside him.
There's no reason to try to go back, and he hopes for the best for his only blood family even as he knows they were probably dead before he woke. He sets one foot in front of the other and hobbles several steps on the rocky path before it occurs to him to simply mount the broom and go.
The Whomping Willow is green and active as he goes past, and the doors are closed.
He raps at the door and waits, counting his heartbeats, dancing from foot to foot because even in July, it's cold in the shadow of the castle at dawn. Finally he hears footsteps inside, hears the bolt being drawn, sees Filch's sneering face. It takes less than a second for the caretaker to reach an accurate conclusion as to what sort of thing would bring Harry here like this, and he finds himself hustled up the spiral staircase to the Headmaster's office before he manages to stammer out that they need to keep an eye out for Hedwig and he'll be needing some clothes.
He is startled to find the Headmaster awake and pacing, with Snape and Professor McGonagall in his office and Kingsley Shacklebolt's head in the fireplace. They seem less surprised to see him, and Snape sneers and tells him he's been expected, but he should have come up directly.
Harry doesn't understand what that means, but before he can ask, the building shakes and the Headmaster looks at him sharply. "They are attacking us here--I expect they meant to have this place in ruins when you fled, in case they missed you at your aunt and uncle's home. Which, apparently, they did."
Harry gapes for a moment, then stops and asks, "Where? Are they coming from?"
"Underground. Deep. Somewhere they've found a weakness in the protections. We don't know how to get to it." Snape's tone is sour, his expression worse.
Harry nods, and asks for a map. "I feel them. On my skin." He isn't willing to explain further, the degree to which the deep slithering crawl of them unsettles him, or how much he wishes Occlumency would block it, and in any case, they give him a map. "And where to the protective charms reach?"
The map glows blue, an arch over the castle and the grounds, lavender where it intersects the parchment. Harry spins the map until it aligns with the castle, then frowns. "What's here? Oh! The great boulders."
"Yes."
"They're outside the charms."
No one says anything, and Harry goes on. "Turn over the rock. You'll find nasty creepy crawlies." He looks up and reminds them. "I feel them. From that way. Like bugs, in the back garden."
No one questions this, though he gets a sardonic glance from Snape, but then the castle quakes again and they have to take his word for it and do something.
He's thought, a few times, that he might die, but recently, it's seemed as though he might reach seventeen first.
Perhaps he still will, he tries to think, as he follows the faculty and the Auror to the boulders. Perhaps he still will.
If they can crush the bugs before they can sting.
Gen, 1200 words, set between 6th and 7th year.
Before They Sting
Under a rock in damp conditions, there are often nasty creeping crawling things underneath.
This isn't news to Harry; he's spent plenty of time amusing himself with such pursuits as watching a centipede make its way from point to point because he isn't allowed to touch any of the toys.
Apparently it is news to Dudley, who has just picked up a great jagged stone, as big as his pudgy hand can manage, which is quite a bit as he is twice Harry's size and coming up fast on Uncle Vernon, with the clear intent of hurling it at Harry's head.
It's hardly Harry's fault if the instinctive magics he used as a child still sometimes assert themselves to protect him. The millipede clinging to the underside grows fast and runs faster, up Dudley's arm and into his sleeve as he shrieks and drops the rock and shouts for his mummy.
Harry doesn't look toward him, but rather, continues what he's doing, which is trimming the edges of the garden because lying on his belly watching centipedes is no longer an acceptable activity.
Somehow, even without the wand, he convinces the world to re-shrink the millipede. It isn't his fault, isn't his fault, the insect is perfectly natural and Dudley must have been imagining its size and speed, his upset fueling his imagination.
Harry keeps trimming, manages not to smile, and ignores the way Dudley's arm and neck are covered in egg-size red bumps where the thing punched in with enlarged fangs and increased venom, when he finally is allowed to come to the table--after the trimming is finished, and after he is deemed suitably clean by his aunt.
At least he gets cabbage and the last of the steamed carrots, and he knows Dudley is far too wasteful to have bothered eating more than three-quarters of the meat on each of the half dozen chicken breasts piled on his plate. Gluttonous, but lazy, the wanker is, which works out well for Harry since he'll be the one doing the dishes and therefore able to snitch the scraps. It's kind of gross, though not as gross as that bug, but then, given how hungry his uncle likes to keep him, Harry's long since decided there are more important things.
One week, he thinks. One week, and he'll be seventeen, and be able to choose where he stays. He knows where that has to be, of course; the choice is only an illusion. Still, he likesHogwarts, even when classes aren't in session. Especially when classes aren't in session, and when the blood protection runs out next week and he has to take refuge behind the school's shields, at least he'll be of age, and allowed to perform magic. It's all arranged.
He stares up at the wall and considers how it will be to stay alone in his dark tower room, bed-curtains parted, no one but the staff--and by no means all of them-- present.
Quiet, he expects it'll be, and if he were Hermione he'd spend the month tucked up in the library, completing his fist draft revision for NEWTs.
Course, he isn't Hermione, and he'll spend the time flying and playing with the giant squid.
Unless someone assigns him something else, which he admits is possible. He'll probably wind up spending thirty-one solid days locked up in remedial potions and Occlumency tutoring.
He wakes up suddenly the next morning with a sense of dread in a room filled with the pink light of bright early dawn. He blinks and puts on his glasses, and only then realizes this is because the side wall of the room is ripped open, jagged and rubble-filled and frightfully, eerily silent.
Apparently, he will be going now. He hasn't a bloody fucking clue how to Apparate, but instinct saves him again, and all at once he just is, outside the gates of Hogwarts, photograph book in his pocket, feet bare, broom and school books floating beside him.
There's no reason to try to go back, and he hopes for the best for his only blood family even as he knows they were probably dead before he woke. He sets one foot in front of the other and hobbles several steps on the rocky path before it occurs to him to simply mount the broom and go.
The Whomping Willow is green and active as he goes past, and the doors are closed.
He raps at the door and waits, counting his heartbeats, dancing from foot to foot because even in July, it's cold in the shadow of the castle at dawn. Finally he hears footsteps inside, hears the bolt being drawn, sees Filch's sneering face. It takes less than a second for the caretaker to reach an accurate conclusion as to what sort of thing would bring Harry here like this, and he finds himself hustled up the spiral staircase to the Headmaster's office before he manages to stammer out that they need to keep an eye out for Hedwig and he'll be needing some clothes.
He is startled to find the Headmaster awake and pacing, with Snape and Professor McGonagall in his office and Kingsley Shacklebolt's head in the fireplace. They seem less surprised to see him, and Snape sneers and tells him he's been expected, but he should have come up directly.
Harry doesn't understand what that means, but before he can ask, the building shakes and the Headmaster looks at him sharply. "They are attacking us here--I expect they meant to have this place in ruins when you fled, in case they missed you at your aunt and uncle's home. Which, apparently, they did."
Harry gapes for a moment, then stops and asks, "Where? Are they coming from?"
"Underground. Deep. Somewhere they've found a weakness in the protections. We don't know how to get to it." Snape's tone is sour, his expression worse.
Harry nods, and asks for a map. "I feel them. On my skin." He isn't willing to explain further, the degree to which the deep slithering crawl of them unsettles him, or how much he wishes Occlumency would block it, and in any case, they give him a map. "And where to the protective charms reach?"
The map glows blue, an arch over the castle and the grounds, lavender where it intersects the parchment. Harry spins the map until it aligns with the castle, then frowns. "What's here? Oh! The great boulders."
"Yes."
"They're outside the charms."
No one says anything, and Harry goes on. "Turn over the rock. You'll find nasty creepy crawlies." He looks up and reminds them. "I feel them. From that way. Like bugs, in the back garden."
No one questions this, though he gets a sardonic glance from Snape, but then the castle quakes again and they have to take his word for it and do something.
He's thought, a few times, that he might die, but recently, it's seemed as though he might reach seventeen first.
Perhaps he still will, he tries to think, as he follows the faculty and the Auror to the boulders. Perhaps he still will.
If they can crush the bugs before they can sting.