Writer's Block 42.3 - Voting!
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Challenge: Let Them Talk
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 Thursday, November 29 @ 11pm UTC.
Details: Vote for your top 2 favourite drabbles. Do not vote for yourself or have other people vote for you.
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A.
Title: Because of You
The words stuck like thorns on my tongue, but by God, I would get them out for her sake. “Lily…”
Lily looked up from our Potions assignment. “Sev? Why the serious voice?”
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
She put her quill down and raised her eyebrows. “What’s so terrible?” A storm roiled behind her brilliant green eyes. “Did that arsehole James do something again?”
“It’s not him. It’s everyone.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m...I’m not good for you, Lily. I drag you down. You’d do so much better without me around.”
Her jaw clenched. “Says who?”
I waved at all the hissing murmurs around us in the library, the ones that followed us no matter where we went. “Everyone.”
She blinked slowly, tuning to the susurrations that paused and bucked at her attention, poised to pounce on her slightest reaction. Then she lifted her chin. “And why exactly do you listen to them?”
I dropped my head, hot wetness building at the corners of my eyes that I couldn’t let her see. “Because they’re right. You could soar so high here, Lily. Be so popular, so...happy.”
Her voice could have shattered mountains with its certainty. “And who says I’m not happy right now, Severus, here, with you?” Her hand touched mine, the heat of her fingers a wonder against my cold skin. “Who the bloody hell says?”
The stone in my throat refused to move. God, I love you so much, Lily. So much.
She took my silence for uncertainty. “Listen to me, Severus: let those buggers talk. They don’t matter. You know who matters? You matter. I matter. And that’s bloody well it when it comes to our friendship.” She rapped her knuckles against mine. “Do you hear me?”
I looked up at her finally, my chest tight even as my lips quirked up in a smile. “Yes. Loud and clear, Lil.” And I swear by the heavens above and the earth below that I will be worthy of your faith in me one day.
B.
Title: The switch
With one last glance for his wife, Bartemius Crouch exited the cell, pulling the door closed behind him. He walked a few steps down the hall, taking deep breaths to calm his racing heart. The Dementors were staying around the corner, on his orders, but the air around him was still cold, hopeless.
As he was pacing, counting the seconds that had passed, a man turned the corner and walked briskly towards him, glancing between Crouch and the door to his son’s cell.
“You left them alone in there?” he asked, pointing towards the cell. He made as if to continue to the door, but Bartemius raised a hand, stopping short of actually touching the guard’s chest.
“Let them talk,” he said. “My wife is ill, this may well be the last time she can come see Barty. She asked me for a few minutes alone with him, to say goodbye privately.”
The guard glanced again from Bartemius to the door, and Crouch felt a drop of sweat start rolling down his back despite the cold. This had been his wife’s idea. “Leave the cell while Barty and I take the potions, that way if we get caught, you can say you didn’t know about it.”
Finally, the guard shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir, but your son is dangerous.” He walked around Crouch, but as he reached the door, Barty’s mother’s face appeared in the barred window.
With a large smile, the like of which Bartemius had not seen in years.
“All ready, sir.”
As the guard opened the door to let her out, Bartemius saw his son, sitting down dejectedly on his pallet. He raised his head and smiled weakly. Reaching him, his wife pecked his cheek and slipped her strong hand in his.
He hoped he had made the right decision.