Challenge #100 First Day
Title: Bellatrix Black's First Day
Rating/Warnings: PG
Characters/Pairing: Bellatrix Black
Summary: see title
Word Count: 401
Author's Notes:
Registered purchases?: none
Bellatrix Black had never been so excited. Now, finally, she was going to Hogwarts! She had packed and repacked her trunk, fed her new owl treats, looked through her textbooks. She wasn’t even upset about having to walk through Muggle King’s Cross to get to Platform 9 3/4. She sprinted through the barrier and reveled in the noise and excitement of students and their families parting for their first extended period. She quickly kissed her startled mother goodbye and rushed onto the train, claiming an empty compartment. Let them find her to sit with, she’d not make the first move.
Thankfully only fellow Purebloods sat in her compartment, and they discussed expectations for the school on the way there. They’d all grown up on stories of Hogwarts and they shared those stories now. Once they were at school they rode across the lake on candle-lit boats, and bellatrix was overwhelmed with the absolute large-ness of the entire experience. It was so beautiful and majestic.
Once inside the castle Bellatrix didn’t have long to wait; a perk of having a name that started with B. She eagerly placed the Sorting Hat on her head, already certain of the result.
“Ahh...” said a voice inside her mind, “I see cunning and ambition to be sure, but also a capacity for fierce loyalty, an imporessive intellect, and brave determination in the face of insurmountable obstacles. But you know where you belong, hmm? Or at least you think you do. Very well, have your way, I hope you enjoy your time in Slytherin!” The last word was shouted across the Great Hall and Bellatrix smugly made her way to Slytherin table, sitting and unaffectedly beginning the feast as though she had been there from the start.
After the feast, a Prefect showed her (well, all of them, but what did she care for the others?) where the entrance to the Common Room was, told them the password (sang pur) and led them to their new dormitories.
Bellatrix flung herself onto her bed, looking up at the green canopy and allowing all of the experiences of the day to coalesce into memory. She changed out of her school robes, and burrowed under the covers, secure in the solitude and silence of her curtained bed and eager to start another day. She clutched her wand in her hand under her pillow and drifted off to sleep.
Title: Argus Filch Hates Students
Rating/Warnings: PG
Characters/Pairing: Argus Filch
Summary: see title
Word Count: 492
Author's Notes:
Registered purchases?: none
Argus Filch hated first days. All the excited, snot-nosed children coming in from the lake, mud on their boots, rushing into the Great Hall not even stopping to wipe their feet on the entrance mat. Those same snot-nosed children making a mess in the Great Hall, then touching anything and everything on the way to their dormitories, leaving fingerprints just about everywhere. No, Argus Filch was not fond of the brats in the slightest.
However, over the years of working at Hogwarts he had found an excellent solution to First Day Syndrome: alcohol. Yes, that’s right, he would take the first day of the new term and get absolutely wasted. He had, of course, gotten the go ahead to take this night off every year from Dumbledore. Protocol and order was very important, after all. And then, every year, the week before school, he would devote some time to picking just the perfect bottle of Firewhiskey. Now, don’t worry, he wouldn’t drink the entire thing in one go. It took him about 6 hours to get through it all. And by the end of that bottle of whiskey he didn’t care one whit about fingerprints or mud or anything at all.
After drinking the whiskey and drunkenly prancing around his rooms for a bit, he would grab a pillow and a blanket and curl up in front of the fire with Mrs. Norris, because there’s really just nothing quite as comforting as being accepted by a cat. Cats, he knew, were picky creatures, and he felt quite honored that Mrs. Norris had decided to behave as his familiar even though he had no magic. It almost made him feel like he wasn’t a complete disappointment, that maybe deep down inside he had the makings of a wizard in him.
And if he was honest with himself, wasn’t that really what bothered him? It wasn’t the fingerprints, and it wasn’t the mud, it was the magic. Each of these little unappreciative brats was going to start learning magic the next morning, and live a life full of wonder and easy solutions to chores and everyday situations. They would be able to light a room with a flick of a wand, fly, travel hundreds of miles in an instant. And here he was, Argus Filch, caretaker. Squib stuck at a school of magic.
He resolved to himself not to drink next year, that self-realization was even more depressing than just dealing with children and their messes, but of course he would forget that by the morning. Yet another wonderful thing about Firewhiskey; you didn’t have to live with the truths it told you about yourself.
The next morning Filch awoke with a horrible headache, which was fixed with a handy potion Snape had prepared for him. There was a good man. Snape understood; he hated the children too. Well, he’d better not dally. There were messes to clean up and children to yell at.
Title: Peeves the Poltergeist is Underappreciated
Rating/Warnings: PG
Characters/Pairing: Peeves
Summary: see title
Word Count: 405
Author's Notes:
Registered purchases?: none
Preparation started a week before school did. All the water balloons must be collected, buckets placed in their proper spots, doors to dangerous rooms left precariously open, and stairways cajoled into always making students late for class. The life of a poltergeist was always busy if you asked Peeves, playing tricks on people was quite time-consuming. But he really felt as though his act was getting a bit stale after all these years. That’s why the first day of school was so important.
The ickle first years had mostly never seen a ghost before, much less a poltergeist. Peeves continued to exist just to see their reactions that first day of school when their torment began. He always picked a particularly boring looking student to dump the water on, or one that seemed too full of themselves. He tried to be the great equalizer here at Hogwarts. No matter who you were, there was no escaping the torment of Peeves the Poltergeist.
The professors thought they knew all his tricks, but only some of the things Peeves did were ostentatious. He took pride in his subtlety, masked by the garish displays he often engaged in. It wasn’t all about obvious tricks, sometimes it was just the small annoyances that made all the difference. Things that were so insignificant that the students wouldn’t even think about there being outside influence until they began to pile up. Sometimes he’d focus on one student a week.
On Monday, their tie wouldn’t be where they left it. On Tuesday, the wrong books would be placed in their satchel from the night before in preparation from class. On Wednesday they couldn’t find two matching socks. On Thursday none of the stairways would take them in the right direction. On Friday the portraits all whispered behind their hands when the student passed.
It would seem like such a small thing, but Peeves had to go through so much trouble to make it work, and it was always such a feeling of accomplishment by the end of the week. The student would be helplessly frustrated with no target for their anger but themselves, although some of them would begin to suspect outside involvement and usually blame their dorm mates. But Peeves wasn’t cruel, he only messed with them a week at a time, and the next week they’d go back to normal and chalk it up to just a slightly off week.
Rita//Slytherin
Points: (2 fics @ 13, 1 fic @ 16) 42 points for Slytherin
Rating/Warnings: PG
Characters/Pairing: Bellatrix Black
Summary: see title
Word Count: 401
Author's Notes:
Registered purchases?: none
Bellatrix Black had never been so excited. Now, finally, she was going to Hogwarts! She had packed and repacked her trunk, fed her new owl treats, looked through her textbooks. She wasn’t even upset about having to walk through Muggle King’s Cross to get to Platform 9 3/4. She sprinted through the barrier and reveled in the noise and excitement of students and their families parting for their first extended period. She quickly kissed her startled mother goodbye and rushed onto the train, claiming an empty compartment. Let them find her to sit with, she’d not make the first move.
Thankfully only fellow Purebloods sat in her compartment, and they discussed expectations for the school on the way there. They’d all grown up on stories of Hogwarts and they shared those stories now. Once they were at school they rode across the lake on candle-lit boats, and bellatrix was overwhelmed with the absolute large-ness of the entire experience. It was so beautiful and majestic.
Once inside the castle Bellatrix didn’t have long to wait; a perk of having a name that started with B. She eagerly placed the Sorting Hat on her head, already certain of the result.
“Ahh...” said a voice inside her mind, “I see cunning and ambition to be sure, but also a capacity for fierce loyalty, an imporessive intellect, and brave determination in the face of insurmountable obstacles. But you know where you belong, hmm? Or at least you think you do. Very well, have your way, I hope you enjoy your time in Slytherin!” The last word was shouted across the Great Hall and Bellatrix smugly made her way to Slytherin table, sitting and unaffectedly beginning the feast as though she had been there from the start.
After the feast, a Prefect showed her (well, all of them, but what did she care for the others?) where the entrance to the Common Room was, told them the password (sang pur) and led them to their new dormitories.
Bellatrix flung herself onto her bed, looking up at the green canopy and allowing all of the experiences of the day to coalesce into memory. She changed out of her school robes, and burrowed under the covers, secure in the solitude and silence of her curtained bed and eager to start another day. She clutched her wand in her hand under her pillow and drifted off to sleep.
Title: Argus Filch Hates Students
Rating/Warnings: PG
Characters/Pairing: Argus Filch
Summary: see title
Word Count: 492
Author's Notes:
Registered purchases?: none
Argus Filch hated first days. All the excited, snot-nosed children coming in from the lake, mud on their boots, rushing into the Great Hall not even stopping to wipe their feet on the entrance mat. Those same snot-nosed children making a mess in the Great Hall, then touching anything and everything on the way to their dormitories, leaving fingerprints just about everywhere. No, Argus Filch was not fond of the brats in the slightest.
However, over the years of working at Hogwarts he had found an excellent solution to First Day Syndrome: alcohol. Yes, that’s right, he would take the first day of the new term and get absolutely wasted. He had, of course, gotten the go ahead to take this night off every year from Dumbledore. Protocol and order was very important, after all. And then, every year, the week before school, he would devote some time to picking just the perfect bottle of Firewhiskey. Now, don’t worry, he wouldn’t drink the entire thing in one go. It took him about 6 hours to get through it all. And by the end of that bottle of whiskey he didn’t care one whit about fingerprints or mud or anything at all.
After drinking the whiskey and drunkenly prancing around his rooms for a bit, he would grab a pillow and a blanket and curl up in front of the fire with Mrs. Norris, because there’s really just nothing quite as comforting as being accepted by a cat. Cats, he knew, were picky creatures, and he felt quite honored that Mrs. Norris had decided to behave as his familiar even though he had no magic. It almost made him feel like he wasn’t a complete disappointment, that maybe deep down inside he had the makings of a wizard in him.
And if he was honest with himself, wasn’t that really what bothered him? It wasn’t the fingerprints, and it wasn’t the mud, it was the magic. Each of these little unappreciative brats was going to start learning magic the next morning, and live a life full of wonder and easy solutions to chores and everyday situations. They would be able to light a room with a flick of a wand, fly, travel hundreds of miles in an instant. And here he was, Argus Filch, caretaker. Squib stuck at a school of magic.
He resolved to himself not to drink next year, that self-realization was even more depressing than just dealing with children and their messes, but of course he would forget that by the morning. Yet another wonderful thing about Firewhiskey; you didn’t have to live with the truths it told you about yourself.
The next morning Filch awoke with a horrible headache, which was fixed with a handy potion Snape had prepared for him. There was a good man. Snape understood; he hated the children too. Well, he’d better not dally. There were messes to clean up and children to yell at.
Title: Peeves the Poltergeist is Underappreciated
Rating/Warnings: PG
Characters/Pairing: Peeves
Summary: see title
Word Count: 405
Author's Notes:
Registered purchases?: none
Preparation started a week before school did. All the water balloons must be collected, buckets placed in their proper spots, doors to dangerous rooms left precariously open, and stairways cajoled into always making students late for class. The life of a poltergeist was always busy if you asked Peeves, playing tricks on people was quite time-consuming. But he really felt as though his act was getting a bit stale after all these years. That’s why the first day of school was so important.
The ickle first years had mostly never seen a ghost before, much less a poltergeist. Peeves continued to exist just to see their reactions that first day of school when their torment began. He always picked a particularly boring looking student to dump the water on, or one that seemed too full of themselves. He tried to be the great equalizer here at Hogwarts. No matter who you were, there was no escaping the torment of Peeves the Poltergeist.
The professors thought they knew all his tricks, but only some of the things Peeves did were ostentatious. He took pride in his subtlety, masked by the garish displays he often engaged in. It wasn’t all about obvious tricks, sometimes it was just the small annoyances that made all the difference. Things that were so insignificant that the students wouldn’t even think about there being outside influence until they began to pile up. Sometimes he’d focus on one student a week.
On Monday, their tie wouldn’t be where they left it. On Tuesday, the wrong books would be placed in their satchel from the night before in preparation from class. On Wednesday they couldn’t find two matching socks. On Thursday none of the stairways would take them in the right direction. On Friday the portraits all whispered behind their hands when the student passed.
It would seem like such a small thing, but Peeves had to go through so much trouble to make it work, and it was always such a feeling of accomplishment by the end of the week. The student would be helplessly frustrated with no target for their anger but themselves, although some of them would begin to suspect outside involvement and usually blame their dorm mates. But Peeves wasn’t cruel, he only messed with them a week at a time, and the next week they’d go back to normal and chalk it up to just a slightly off week.
Rita//Slytherin
Points: (2 fics @ 13, 1 fic @ 16) 42 points for Slytherin