Writer's Block 42.1 - Voting!
banner by renrenren3
Challenge: New Beginnings
Points: 2pts for voting. 1st/2nd/3rd/Participation Only: 50/40/30/10 points & 20/15/10/5 knuts, respectively, for winners.
Deadline: Voting until Wednesday, September 26 @ 11pm UTC
Details: Vote for your top 3 favourite drabbles. Do not vote for yourself or have other people vote for you.
Fill this out for voting
First Place:
Second Place:
Third Place:
NAME/HOUSE OR SIGTAG
A.
Title: A New Hope
This was it. The war was finally over. Voldemort was defeated and everyone could live in peace again. Or at least that's what Harry hoped. He was sick and tired of being the Boy Who Lived, the one meant to save them all.
But he had failed - not everyone was saved in the end. Cedric, Remus, Tonks, Sirius... just a few names in an ever-growing list of casualties. It was Harry's fault they were all dead.
Perhaps now Harry could finally have the chance to live a normal life, to be like anyone else in the wizarding world. He had done what had been expected of him, and no one needed him anymore. It was time for the new beginning.
B.
Title: Doing Our Parts
I pressed my hands into my eyes, willing the caffeine to give me inspiration for how to solve the current mess at the Ministry. The whole thing gave me a headache. Tradition this, long-standing custom that, and I just wouldn’t understand with my background, though of course they understood I meant well.
“I can’t believe they’d serve such scum here. This is a coffee shop for decent people.”
I looked up. That was a comment meant to be overheard. Ah, there we were - a witch about two meters from me looking particularly self-righteous as she tsked to her friend and cast a venomous glance behind me.
I caught her eye and she smiled, so very pleased to be noticed by the war heroine. With a concerted effort of will, I managed not to roll my eyes before I turned around to see who her target was.
Ah. Of course. I’d know that blonde hair anywhere. It had always surprised me that he’d never dyed it, given how distinctive it was.
The expression on his face froze me - I’d seen that expression too often on Azkaban inmates. No one should lose all hope like that. Not even Malfoy.
Ms. I’m-So-Sodding-Righteous sniffed behind me, waiting for me to bestow my approval upon her. It was the hypocrisy that did me in, really. She’d wait breathlessly for me to acknowledge her oh-so-loyal act and then think nothing of sneering at my Muggle heritage later with her witless friend.
Well, sod them.
I rose, walked over to Malfoy’s table, and planted myself across from him. “Hey, Draco.”
Surprise flickered briefly in his eyes. “Hey...Hermione.”
Behind me, there were twin high-pitched gasps of horror. I smiled. “I was wondering if you could lend me a hand at work tomorrow. You know the Ministry - like herding bloody cats over there.”
He nodded, letting a casual smile flutter across his lips. “Need a ferret, perhaps?”
“You do have such a way with officials. I really don’t know how I’d get along without you these days.”
I heard the manic click-clacking of high heels rapidly leaving the coffee shop. My smile turned just a touch meaner.
Draco sagged and looked down into his frothy coffee drink. “Thanks for that, Granger.”
“You can keep calling me Hermione.”
He looked up sharply, silence curling between us.
“And I actually could use your help at the Ministry if you’re up for it.”
He swallowed. “What, am I one of your rescue cases now?”
Damned right. “Of course not. I’m trying to use you selfishly for my own ends. Better?”
His smile was small but real. “Much.”
C.
Title: Going Back
The store was as dark and gloomy as he felt when he pushed the door open, a ray of light from the just rising sun shining down on one small area.
Everything looked the same as the last time he had been there. Products glistened on shelves. Floors shined like they had just been scrubbed. But it felt emptier, sadder, darker.
George moved deeper into the shop he loved so much, looking around at the items he had spent hours perfecting - items that had once been his whole world. Items that had once been Fred’s whole world.
Fred.
He looked around the silent shop, hearing Fred’s laugh echo in his mind, seeing his grin the day they signed the papers to officially make this place their own, remembering the nights they stayed up until the sun was shining because they were so close to getting something exactly how they imagined.
His eyes flitted toward the back room. Tucked in a cabinet back there were all their plans - drawings and notes and half-written ideas scrawled on crumpled parchment. The suggestions for future product lines. The ideas they wanted to try out. The demo products that were done but needed a tester.
George looked around the shop again. How could he do this alone when it had never been something to do alone? It had always been theirs. Their idea, their dream, their future. They were going to run their shop and raise their families and grow old together making people laugh.
And now … they weren’t. Fred was gone. And he was alone with a shop he wasn’t sure he still wanted and without his best friend in the world.
But he wasn’t a quitter. And Fred had never been a quitter. And deep in his heart, he knew what his twin would say.
You have to try. You have to live our dream for the both of us.
George took a deep breath and turned toward the front door. The ray of sun across the floor was getting wider, casting a golden halo across the shelves. Fred always said their shop looked best first thing in the morning.
George lifted his wand. It had been a month since Fred had died. It was time.
He pointed his wand at the sign on the door, watched as the letters spelling out closed changed into ones spelling out open.
He didn’t know where he was going to go from here, but it was time to find out.