Challenge 58: Grimmauld Place
Title: Staying On
Rating/Warnings: G/none
Characters/Pairing: Number 12 Grimmauld Place
Summary: Number Twelve carries on
Word Count: 659
Author's Notes: Houses can be characters, too.
Registered purchases?: here
London was one of those cities that constantly built and rebuilt upon itself until everything was at once recognisable and foreign. Through the modern constructs, there were always glimpses to the past. The neon-bright clubs surrounding Leicester Square were in thin alleys, reeking of piss and sweat and of the more traditional pubs that flanked them on either end. A walk down Fleet to the City was dotted with all sorts of calls to the past, though the architecture rising up from either side of the street was of a more contemporary bent. If you strolled up Charing Cross Road, just north of its intersection with Shaftesbury Avenue at Cambridge Circus, and paused at one of the medians in the road and looked down through its grates, you would see a sign marking the Victorian street fifteen feet and more than a century below you. London: Past, Present and Future.
There was a little square near to the centre of London that seemed somewhat forgotten by world racing round it. Yes, it still had the takeaway boxes and old Tesco bags littering the front gardens (if paved slabs peppered with broken tiles could be considered gardens), and the once proud and stately Georgian town homes had long since been converted into dozens of little flats, demands of housing being far more important than preservation of non-important history, but this dilapidated square remiss of most of its former glory was the site of the family home of the Blacks. The rest of the square, though shabby in appearance, did not lack in population, nor did it look poised to be relieved of its occupants any time soon, but the same could not be said for the seemingly absent Number Twelve.
Number Twelve had weathered the abandonment of its human inhabitants before. Ten years in the first stretch, and another following a year of having people once more firmly ensconced within its walls. Then people returned, and Number Twelve felt useful once more and was quite happy to host them, but they disappeared all too soon. Number Twelve patiently awaited their arrival back, settling peacefully, and relaxing, but when a year had gone by, Number Twelve began to doubt the certainty it had had about the humans’ return, but still maintained the hope. After all, ten years had gone by the first time, the house reminded itself. One was not so much to miss (though it hurt all the more after being occupied again after such a long stretch of sitting abandoned, for all intents and purposes). The house-elf had not returned, either, and the house’s loneliness was amplified by such a realisation. Still, the house had been there since George had been king, and it would wait.
A further decade had passed when Number Twelve next lamented the lack of company. The portraits inside had long grown quiet, restful. They no longer engaged each other in conversation, Number Twelve could feel the return of infestation in its darkest corners and alcoves and dust gathering in thick blankets lining the corridors, but it carried on, resolute on keeping such pests at bay as much as it could without assistance.
When fifty years had passed, Number Twelve began to despair of ever having human occupants again. What good is a house that is not also a home? It seemed pointless to keep up the fight against infestation. It seemed that it was fate that Number Twelve should moulder away, hidden like the rest of forgotten London. Number Twelve had let the first brick fall, resigned to its doomed fate, that November, but upon seeing it lay uselessly upon the ground, devoid of any meaning and not at all representative of what it once was, Number Twelve found itself resolving once more to soldier on content in the knowledge that one day, its masters and their children would return, and they would find their home there and ready to comfort and welcome them.
Nic, Gryffindor
659/50 = 13.18, + 10 (bonus), or 23 points.
I believe I need a tag =)
Rating/Warnings: G/none
Characters/Pairing: Number 12 Grimmauld Place
Summary: Number Twelve carries on
Word Count: 659
Author's Notes: Houses can be characters, too.
Registered purchases?: here
London was one of those cities that constantly built and rebuilt upon itself until everything was at once recognisable and foreign. Through the modern constructs, there were always glimpses to the past. The neon-bright clubs surrounding Leicester Square were in thin alleys, reeking of piss and sweat and of the more traditional pubs that flanked them on either end. A walk down Fleet to the City was dotted with all sorts of calls to the past, though the architecture rising up from either side of the street was of a more contemporary bent. If you strolled up Charing Cross Road, just north of its intersection with Shaftesbury Avenue at Cambridge Circus, and paused at one of the medians in the road and looked down through its grates, you would see a sign marking the Victorian street fifteen feet and more than a century below you. London: Past, Present and Future.
There was a little square near to the centre of London that seemed somewhat forgotten by world racing round it. Yes, it still had the takeaway boxes and old Tesco bags littering the front gardens (if paved slabs peppered with broken tiles could be considered gardens), and the once proud and stately Georgian town homes had long since been converted into dozens of little flats, demands of housing being far more important than preservation of non-important history, but this dilapidated square remiss of most of its former glory was the site of the family home of the Blacks. The rest of the square, though shabby in appearance, did not lack in population, nor did it look poised to be relieved of its occupants any time soon, but the same could not be said for the seemingly absent Number Twelve.
Number Twelve had weathered the abandonment of its human inhabitants before. Ten years in the first stretch, and another following a year of having people once more firmly ensconced within its walls. Then people returned, and Number Twelve felt useful once more and was quite happy to host them, but they disappeared all too soon. Number Twelve patiently awaited their arrival back, settling peacefully, and relaxing, but when a year had gone by, Number Twelve began to doubt the certainty it had had about the humans’ return, but still maintained the hope. After all, ten years had gone by the first time, the house reminded itself. One was not so much to miss (though it hurt all the more after being occupied again after such a long stretch of sitting abandoned, for all intents and purposes). The house-elf had not returned, either, and the house’s loneliness was amplified by such a realisation. Still, the house had been there since George had been king, and it would wait.
A further decade had passed when Number Twelve next lamented the lack of company. The portraits inside had long grown quiet, restful. They no longer engaged each other in conversation, Number Twelve could feel the return of infestation in its darkest corners and alcoves and dust gathering in thick blankets lining the corridors, but it carried on, resolute on keeping such pests at bay as much as it could without assistance.
When fifty years had passed, Number Twelve began to despair of ever having human occupants again. What good is a house that is not also a home? It seemed pointless to keep up the fight against infestation. It seemed that it was fate that Number Twelve should moulder away, hidden like the rest of forgotten London. Number Twelve had let the first brick fall, resigned to its doomed fate, that November, but upon seeing it lay uselessly upon the ground, devoid of any meaning and not at all representative of what it once was, Number Twelve found itself resolving once more to soldier on content in the knowledge that one day, its masters and their children would return, and they would find their home there and ready to comfort and welcome them.
Nic, Gryffindor
659/50 = 13.18, + 10 (bonus), or 23 points.
I believe I need a tag =)