Writers Block: 32.1: Song Lyric Voting
Banner by renrenren3
Challenge: Song Lyric
Points: 1st/2nd/3rd/Participation Only: 50/40/30/10 points & 20/15/10/5 knuts, respectively. 2pts for voting.
Deadline: Voting until Monday, May 18th 8AM UTC.
Details: "Oh where do we begin? The rubble or our sins?"
We have 8 wonderful entries! please vote for your favorite stories.
Entry #1
Title: Alignment
My hand contracted at the Potter boy's exhaled affirmation, my nails digging into the throb of his heart.
The world was officially rubble. The Dark Lord's glorious vision was turning out to be a steaming pile of dragon droppings, with us circling like flies in the bloody flux. And my sins -- our sins -- had been great. Too great to contemplate just now. I pushed them aside, sealing them away as the boy's pulse pounded against my palm.
Draco was alive. That was worth everything.
If he was alive, everything else could be fixed. Malfoys were survivors, after all.
I reached inside myself to find the easy poise, dredging the remnants of grace under pressure. It was curiously similar to dealing with the Daily Prophet's barbed questioning from times past...just with far more immediately fatal consequences if things didn't go well.
I swallowed once. "He is dead!" My voice rang clear as a bell with the lie.
Clarity of purpose was a beautiful thing. I would find my Draco again. Lucius and I would find him again, together. And the Potter boy -- Harry -- would be our path to him.
Entry #2
Title: Rubble and Sins
He slides down the wall hitting the floor hard but he's numb to pain now. His nose is flooded with the stench of filth and sickness, and he wishes he could still smell the icy air that blows into the tiny, iron-slatted window above him.
His heart pounds against his chest as his eyes frantically search for any opportunity to escape. The Dementors are going to drive him mad, if he doesn't get out, if he doesn't find a way to cope.
His jagged fingernails dig into his scalp through his dark hair, knotted though it is. It feels as if there's two of him. His mind flickers to a memory of laughing with James in the back garden; the world is alive with green grass and swarming midge flies.
The other him, the one he can touch, is alone staring at a bleak, gray world where there's no one to love him but a tiny boy-who he can hear crying for him but he just can't reach him.
He'll go mad, surely.
Every time the Dementors come around, Sirius thinks of handing little Harry over to Hagrid, of foolishly chasing after Peter and ending up here. He shakes himself free of those memories.
Better to think of the good times: James and Lily smiling proudly as they named him godfather, trusting him above all others to take care of their son. That memory of all of them together at Godric's Hollow for the last time-for the last time-is seared into his mind.
It has all fallen apart. Their beautiful world that was somehow outside the war, even as they fought in the thick of it . . . it's gone. James and Lily are dead, Remus nowhere to be found and Peter, the bastard, hopefully somewhere in pain for all the damage he's caused.
How's he supposed to remain an optimist trapped in a hellhole like this? Not even given a trial? This is no prank that can be scrubbed away. The guards seem to think him guilty of a multitude of sins, and he is, but not the ones they level at him.
He has to pretend it's all okay. He closes his eyes and remembers how things were, remembers who he was. Harry needs him, and no matter how long they're kept apart, nothing will change that.
No lost dreams, no lost friends, no actual sins can come before staying sane. He has to cling to the goodness he's known while he survives in the rubble of what remains. That's his only choice.
He can pay for his sins when Harry is safe.
Entry #3
Title: Nothing Changed
A storm of sound engulfed Zacharias as he slowly stepped into the Great Hall. He stopped, but Justin tugged on his arm, pulling him forward.
“You must join us,” Justin insisted.
“Oh, must I?” Zacharias mocked, trying to imitate Justin’s posh inflections, but his heart just wasn’t in it.
The Hufflepuff table was filled many who wouldn’t normally belong there, and they finally spotted Ernie over at the Ravenclaw table. His plate was piled ridiculously high with potatoes, cuts of various roasts, carrots, and even a thick slice of chocolate cake in the mix. Justin tapped him on the shoulder. Ernie, who had been speaking with Michael Corner, turned around and promptly dropped his fork.
“I’ve found him!” Justin declared.
“God damn you, Zacharias!” Ernie growled. He leapt to his feet and pulled Zacharias into the fiercest, most bone-crushing bear hug he’d ever endured.
“Ern,” Zacharias grunted with effort. “Trying to squeeze me to death?”
Ernie finally let go but kept his hands firmly on his friend’s shoulders.
“Where the hell were you,” Ernie demanded. “We thought you’d been killed!”
Zacharias blinked. “I ran away,” he said numbly.
Ernie shook his head with undue vigor. “Of course you did, you bastard. Now, come eat some food before it’s all gone. I do say, a battle surely whets the appetite,” he said, taking a seat again and gesturing for Zacharias to join him.
Zacharias stayed standing. “I don’t think I should.”
“Nonsense!” Ernie and Justin shouted in near unison.
“You’re alive,” Justin reminded him. “And we’re alive, so Ernie's right. Let’s eat, shall we?”
Entry #4
Title: Where to Begin
Draco stood amongst the rubble of his once beautiful home. So many things had come to an end. The war was over and he didn't know where to start.
Draco had done so many horrible things over the past few years. He needed to fix things with so many people. He had been just a pawn used for someone else's benefit. He hadn't seen it before but now he had wished things had been different. If he'd just been nice, maybe he'd be in a different place right now.
He didn't know how to fix what he'd done, but he could start by rebuilding his beautiful home.
Entry #5
Title: Where We End
Sirius stood in the wreckage of the little cottage in Godric’s Hollow. It had been a second home to him since James’s folks had taken him in. When they died and James inherited the home, Sirius had invited himself in as flatmate. Then James had kicked him out in favor of Evans, but honestly Sirius had been no more scarce then. Once the sproglet had been born, Sirius was there twice a week to watch him while Lily and James were on Order missions. All that had stopped when Dumbledore demanded Lily and James take Harry into hiding under the Fidelius charm. It was obvious Sirius should be the Secret-Keeper.
Too obvious. Sirius wanted to be the Secret Keeper; he trusted himself more than anyone. But even he had the common sense to understand he would be targeted. He was fine with being targeted and would happily die to protect his new family. He didn’t think he would give them away, even under torture. But didn’t it just make sense to be doubly sure? He could never tell what he did not know.
He wanted to cry, looking at the blackened furniture that had once been his own home, and the home of James and Lily and Harry. But he had cried himself insensate over the past week, while the Ministry probed for any scrap of physical evidence that Sirius was the Secret-Keeper, that Sirius had betrayed his family. In the end, even Crouch had to relent. Not guilty, they said. Exonerated. It was the headline on today’s Prophet.
Maybe he was not guilty of intending to betray them, but he was guilty of much. He felt as though he walked in a shroud of shame, wishing no one would see him, wishing he had gone to Azkaban after all, where he felt he belonged.
The crack of Apparition right next to him quaked him from her reverie. Remus appeared, face lined and tired, mouth set in a grimace.
“Sirius.” Remus’s greeting was not the warm, familiar greeting of old friends, but the cool distance of newly-made enemies. Sirius didn’t wince at the tone; he deserved no less. It felt good to be hated, when he knew he hated himself as well.
Remus continued, his tone flat: “Dumbledore placed Harry somewhere, and he thinks it best if you don’t know where.”
A flame of indignation sparked to life in Sirius’s chest, but just as quickly died off as he remembered his own guilt. Dumbledore didn’t trust him with Harry’s location. Dumbledore shouldn’t trust him.
“Alright,” Sirius nodded. He thought he should talk to Remus, get it all out on the table. Grovel, beg, plead, cry-- but he was too tired to confront his sins today. Manual labor would be much better. He hefted the shovel he had brought. “Where do we begin?”
Entry #6
Title: To Fix The Mess
Sirius stood outside the house, staring with blank eyes. It should have been too dark to see but the rubble was illuminated by the Dark Mark high up in the sky. This was his fault, he told himself as he took a slow step forward. He should've been the Secret Keeper. He would've gone to his grave before he would've let anybody near the Potters.
Harry was gone. Sirius had given his motorbike to Hagrid so that Harry might at least be safe on the journey, not trusting the man to get him to Dumbledore in one piece otherwise. Soon everybody would think that Sirius was the traitor. Everybody would believe that Sirius had gone to the Dark Lord with information on his best friend. Sirius reached a hand up, wiping his eyes viciously as he thought about the fact that James and Lily had been so young, had had so much to live for. It wasn't fair.
At least their son lived. Sirius turned around, not able to go into the house again. He couldn't bear to see their bodies again. They would be taken care of later. Sirius knew that they would be. For now, he knew that he had to find Peter. He had to find Peter, make sure that everybody knew that Sirius hadn't been the one who had betrayed them. Find Peter. Make sure that he confessed. And then he would be able to raise Harry, perhaps. So many stories to tell and pictures to see. Sirius knew the life that James and Lily had wanted for him. Sirius would do everything to try to give Harry that life.
Reminiscing was for another time, though. Sirius steeled himself, thinking of times before when he had been young. He had learned it was best to not cry. He brushed away the few tears that had leaked, rubbed his nose and then turned on his heel. He would fix this mess and soon. For Harry.
Entry #7
Title: A Little Bit Of Soul
It takes a little bit of soul, just a little, to start anew. She has been named after the great battle of Hogwarts, and it’s something she has never been too fond of. Why remember the past, when the future is so much more brighter? Victoire understands in some level why all the adults in her family want to remember the times that were, because they lost so much during those grueling days. Still, it’s not fair she has to be the bearer of that burden because of her name. Victoire Weasley doesn’t want to be Victoire anymore. Not if it’s up to her.
Entry #8
Title: My Sins, Your Pain
He didn’t hear her come up beside him until warm fingers slipped between his chilly ones, squeezing tight as if to anchor him, to keep him bound to this world, to keep him bound to her.
“How long have you been here?” she asked softly, her voice just a mere whisper in the faint wind.
“Not long enough,” he replied. His eyes were focused, planted firmly on the brilliant white stone, so bright and noticeable, like he always was, had always been.
“Do you ever think,” he said into the wind, maybe directed at her, maybe at himself, maybe at the monument that would never be grand enough, “that we caused this? That everything we did led to this?”
“No.” She answered his question without hesitation. “It wasn’t your fault. It was a tragedy.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe it was inevitable. Maybe every decision, every bad choice, was just one step closer.”
“If you had made different choices, you might not be who you are today,” she said.
“Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.”
She didn’t speak after that. But she didn’t leave. Neither did he. They just stood there, together, staring, watching, thinking. He felt a weight in his chest, guilt crushing him from the inside out, the truth of what he had done paralyzing him until he could take it no longer.
She kissed his lips that night, laid her head on his chest.
“Fred didn’t die because I kissed you the week before,” Angelina whispered into silence.
George didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. He knew she was lying.
~~~~~
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