CHALLENGES #093, #053, #087
Title: Guarding the Bloodline
Rating/Warnings: PG, angst.
Characters/Pairing: Narcissa Malfoy, reference to other Blacks, Malfoys and Riddles.
Summary: Narcissa Malfoy will do anything to protect her son, and she reflects on how things ended up like this.
Word Count: 695
Author's Notes: For Challenge #93 'Mother's Day'.
Registered purchases?: Both
There was only one thing more painful than watching your child die, and that was watching your child being tormented before they died and being powerless to do anything.
It was strange, being brought up in the Black household. Narcissa didn't really give it much thought until she was at Hogwarts, watching the students in Slytherin house treat her with some sort of natural reverence, as though reputation had preceeded her; the students in the other houses never knowing where they stood with her, as she was cuccooned so tightly by her friendship group. She didn't know things any other way, nor did she need to: she wanted for nothing, and never would.
Her father had always encouraged her to guard her blood purity jealously. He had warned her that it was something that should never be polluted; one mistake was all it would take for her body to be sullied irreversibly. This was, as best as Narcissa knew, the reality of her life as she grew up. She knew she would become a mother one day (her instructions had essentially reduced to: "Keep going at it until you produce a male heir"), and naturally, the Malfoys were perceived as a desirable fit (her mother had joked about finding a man with hair as light as her own). The idea of parenthood wasn't scary to Narcissa. It was expected of her since birth. The world was full of Muggle filth, and like cockroaches they spread. The need to counter that with pure-blooded children was a natural remedy to that; her parents knew that one day, someone would come along to restore that rightful position.
Bellatrix seemed to have found him. She and her husband, together. They didn't even try to stop her running after him, so long as she stayed true to her own lineage.
No, Narcissa's parents were not fools. They knew the man who promised pure-blood supremacy was concealing things about him, things Bella was so keen to overlook in her zeal. Her parents knew he was not a pure-blood himself. After all, the Blacks were as well-connected as they came. If a pure-blooded advocate of pure-blood supremacy had arisen, they would surely have known the family of old!
Yet there was absolutely no trace. None whatsoever. Naturally, being a Black came with certain social obligations; society would never forgive them for knocking down such a useful, powerful rallying figure so early on. So they kept their lips sealed and their thoughts to themselves.
Pure-blooded families all over were encouraging their children to sign up to his cause like cattle, a race to gain status and favour, but a blinkered one. Narcissa's parents, and, in turn, her aunt and uncle, had told their (remaining) children to only sign up for the proper reasons, not because society was pressuring them to do so. This was why only two people who had ever borne the Black name, Bellatrix and Regulus, ever stepped forward. The parents knew the role of their offspring was greater than that of a common footsoldier.
And now, Narcissa started to feel her parents had been truly justified. Out of favour, her husband had urged Draco to take the Mark to reclaim some honour to the shamed Malfoy name, but now they were paying the price. Society was crumbling around them, and Draco had chained himself to the monster that would devour him when he became too tired, or fell lame, or simply was no longer needed.
It tore her up inside. And it was that pain, the pain of a mother vainly trying to stop her only son from dying, that drove her forward to master Occlumancy.
Should the time ever come, she would have to protect her son from the impure hypocricy of the Dark Lord.
Her parents always taught her that the pollution of a non-pure-blood violating her was a shame that could never be undone.
Right now, she wanted to guard her child from being abused in the same way.
To do that, she would have to close her mind, whatever the cost. This was her day, as a mother, to ease the pain of one she loved.
Title: Sweet Relief
Rating/Warnings: PG i guess? Angsty.
Characters/Pairing: Stan Shunpike, OC teacher cameo
Summary: Stan reflects on the Imperius Curse
Word Count: 722
Author's Notes: For Challenge #53 'Minor Characters'
Registered purchases?: Both
Stan Shunpike had never been particularly good at academics, leaving Hogwarts with only a handful of O.W.L.s. Ironically, his best grade had been in Defence Against the Dark Arts. It was very tricky considering the subject switched hands so many times, but given the circumstances, he considered that a badge of Honour. He had gained an Oustanding in that, when only a handful of others in his year had managed to do so. It may have been aided by his particular liking of Professor Berrycloth (not to mention her baked goods), but he tried to do his best to impress her. Sure enough, when he visited her a few years later, she had noted her pride at his skill in that subject.
He kept quiet about how he had failed five of his subjects, and of the ones he had passed, the only one with an Exceeds Expectations had been Divination.
Regardless, he hadn't seen this coming. It flew in the face of everything he had learned in his time at school.
They only did the Unforgiveable Curses near the end, when it was deemed proper for students to understand them. One thing he remembered about the Imperius Curse was that it obscured your senses, made you feel carefree and senseless, and like all similar anaesthetics, the subject can build up resistance to it over time.
This was why he wasn't worried when they first Imperiused him. He didn't worry about anything (he couldn't!), he knew that sooner or later, the curse would lift, and he would be able to fight back, bit by bit.
Because of that, he never tried to resist it. He liked living a life where he didn't really have to worry about anything any more. Not even eating, or using the toilet. The curse took the worries and inhibitions away from him, and what was best, it also thought on his behalf: all he ever had to do was lift his wand and do its bidding.
But no, the curse was lifted eventually, the day they took him away to Azkaban. He had pleaded his innocence, the curse having robbed him of his judgment and morality, but they weren't listening! It was a show trial, something he had heard about from his worried father from the First Wizarding War, when the government were after scapegoats to cover up their own shortcomings. Not once did he ever believe that it would be him in the firing line. And yet.....
He remembered every minute of that trial so clearly (mostly because it was replayed in his head over and over whenever Dementors passed by his cell door). They had asked him if he had any memory of performing the events. He told them he did. He did, and at the time, he felt no remorse about them because that was the way the Curse worked. He had tried to plead his position, but the Wizengamot had argued that because people can fight off the Imperius Curse, it must mean that he chose not to, to a certain degree.
And he couldn't deny it. In his heart of hearts, he knew he enjoyed the blissful wiping of his brain of mundane worries about money and work and small talk with old ladies on the Knight Bus.
That much had been him, and the Curse had taken advantage of the insecurity.
He couldn't blame anybody but himself.
And over and over and over and over again, the Dementors passed by his door, and he could now recount every single thing that had happened to him, every horrid detail of every awful thing he had seen, everyone he had hurt, everyone who had hurt or shamed him. Growing up, as an adult, under the curse, all that remained was a swirling grey noxious cloud of misery and guilt and despair that whipped around him in a maelstrom as he lay huddled on an Azkaban cell floor feeling nothing but remorse and terror.
They say that people build up a natural resistance to the Imperius Curse over time. When he was subdued by it for a second time all those months later, he welcomed its warm embrace and, albeit unconsciously, decided he would rather choose to obey its bidding until his dying breath than to ever return to the reality he left behind.
Title: Checking for Nargles.
Rating/Warnings: G.
Characters/Pairing: Neville/Luna implied. It's a friendship fic mostly.
Summary: Luna has been in Neville's broom closet for four hours, and he's getting suspicious.
Word Count: 686
Author's Notes: For Challenge #87 'Closeted'
Registered purchases?: Both
"Luna? What are you doing in there?"
"Checking for Nargles."
Neville shook his head. In the years that had passed since Hogwarts, he had learned to understand Luna and her..... eccentric mannerisms. This was certainly one of them. She had grown out of saying some of the silly stuff she had while at school; she would now say some of them with a coy, self-debasing irony that would make him chuckle privately. "Looking for Nargles" had become one of her bywords for: "None of your business".
"You've been in that broom closet for nearly four hours now," Neville said. "Are you okay?"
"Yes, yes, everything is fine," Luna said breezily. "There are certainly Nargles in here. I can feel them making the air all moist. Moisture is bad for clothes."
A pause. "Are you sure that's not your breathing?"
"Nope, it's a Nargle."
Neville decided to stop pursuing the matter any further. He had spent the morning at his grandmother's, who was strongly suggesting he pursue his interest in Herbology further; he had done a course on some of the more exotic plants when he left Hogwarts, and went on a brief tour of Africa with Luna (three months was plenty long enough to put away any ideas of taking things further with this girl; he had to curse a Muggle poacher when she walked in front of him without a wand, persuading him to "leave the poor Crumple-Horned Snorkacks alone, at least until mating season was complete"). These days, he enjoyed her company, but didn't count talking to her through a thick oak door as "company".
"Okay," Neville said, returning after about ten minutes. "I'm going to come in there unless you tell me what's going on."
There was a silence. Neville tried listening through the doors, all he could make out was a faint fuzzy sound within his own ears. Suddenly, Luna's voice penetrated the darkness: "I thought you could do with some more space in the closet for your clothes, so I've been trying to expand it with Undetectable Extension Charms."
"Oh, not that again," Neville groaned, rubbing his head. "Last time you did that we ended up in a forest full of fauns."
"Well, practice makes perfect, right?" Lunaa said airily. "I've got it sorted now."
Neville turned away, but suddenly spotted something. "Why would you be putting clothes in here at all? It's a broom closet."
"Oh, ah, well..."
"That's it, I'm opening the door," Neville said, grabbing the handle at once to find it unturning. "You charmed the handle? What are you doing in there?"
"Looking for Nargles!"
"Nargles!" Neville shouted hotly, finding his wand. "Alohomora!"
The door clicked and he kicked the door open with a flourish. Luna was stood a foot back in the darkness.
"Luna," Neville said suspiciously. "What's going on in here? Why have you made it all so big?"
Luna swayed on the spot on tiptoes, a big grin on her face. "Are you ready?"
"For what?"
"Not you, silly," she smiled, turning her back on him. "Three, two, one!"
A click and a flash of light. Orbs of glowing energy replaced themselves all over the broom closet, and Neville caught sight of nearly two dozen people stowed away in there.
"SURPRISE!" They all yelled in unison.
"What?"
"Happy birthday, Neville," Luna said sweetly, kissing him on the cheek. "We wanted to surprise you."
"And Hermione made a cake!" Ron yelled from the back of the room, waving his Deluminator cheerily. "I wanted to use Kreacher, but..."
Hermione elbowed him. Neville glowed with pride at the faces all there in the darkness, people he hadn't seen in years, old friends, people with shared history, all gathered together in his broom closet. Hannah Abbott, one of the old Hufflepuff girls, cantered forward to give him a hug and attach a badge to his chest when she was within range. He was lost for words, and held that hug for a little longer that was necessary.
Feeling nothing but gratitude toward Luna, he stood in awe as the faces chanted Happy Birthday, and shared the food around.
695 + 722 + 686 = 2103
2103/30 = 70.1
Rob//Gryffindor//70 points + 30 bonus GET!!
Rating/Warnings: PG, angst.
Characters/Pairing: Narcissa Malfoy, reference to other Blacks, Malfoys and Riddles.
Summary: Narcissa Malfoy will do anything to protect her son, and she reflects on how things ended up like this.
Word Count: 695
Author's Notes: For Challenge #93 'Mother's Day'.
Registered purchases?: Both
There was only one thing more painful than watching your child die, and that was watching your child being tormented before they died and being powerless to do anything.
It was strange, being brought up in the Black household. Narcissa didn't really give it much thought until she was at Hogwarts, watching the students in Slytherin house treat her with some sort of natural reverence, as though reputation had preceeded her; the students in the other houses never knowing where they stood with her, as she was cuccooned so tightly by her friendship group. She didn't know things any other way, nor did she need to: she wanted for nothing, and never would.
Her father had always encouraged her to guard her blood purity jealously. He had warned her that it was something that should never be polluted; one mistake was all it would take for her body to be sullied irreversibly. This was, as best as Narcissa knew, the reality of her life as she grew up. She knew she would become a mother one day (her instructions had essentially reduced to: "Keep going at it until you produce a male heir"), and naturally, the Malfoys were perceived as a desirable fit (her mother had joked about finding a man with hair as light as her own). The idea of parenthood wasn't scary to Narcissa. It was expected of her since birth. The world was full of Muggle filth, and like cockroaches they spread. The need to counter that with pure-blooded children was a natural remedy to that; her parents knew that one day, someone would come along to restore that rightful position.
Bellatrix seemed to have found him. She and her husband, together. They didn't even try to stop her running after him, so long as she stayed true to her own lineage.
No, Narcissa's parents were not fools. They knew the man who promised pure-blood supremacy was concealing things about him, things Bella was so keen to overlook in her zeal. Her parents knew he was not a pure-blood himself. After all, the Blacks were as well-connected as they came. If a pure-blooded advocate of pure-blood supremacy had arisen, they would surely have known the family of old!
Yet there was absolutely no trace. None whatsoever. Naturally, being a Black came with certain social obligations; society would never forgive them for knocking down such a useful, powerful rallying figure so early on. So they kept their lips sealed and their thoughts to themselves.
Pure-blooded families all over were encouraging their children to sign up to his cause like cattle, a race to gain status and favour, but a blinkered one. Narcissa's parents, and, in turn, her aunt and uncle, had told their (remaining) children to only sign up for the proper reasons, not because society was pressuring them to do so. This was why only two people who had ever borne the Black name, Bellatrix and Regulus, ever stepped forward. The parents knew the role of their offspring was greater than that of a common footsoldier.
And now, Narcissa started to feel her parents had been truly justified. Out of favour, her husband had urged Draco to take the Mark to reclaim some honour to the shamed Malfoy name, but now they were paying the price. Society was crumbling around them, and Draco had chained himself to the monster that would devour him when he became too tired, or fell lame, or simply was no longer needed.
It tore her up inside. And it was that pain, the pain of a mother vainly trying to stop her only son from dying, that drove her forward to master Occlumancy.
Should the time ever come, she would have to protect her son from the impure hypocricy of the Dark Lord.
Her parents always taught her that the pollution of a non-pure-blood violating her was a shame that could never be undone.
Right now, she wanted to guard her child from being abused in the same way.
To do that, she would have to close her mind, whatever the cost. This was her day, as a mother, to ease the pain of one she loved.
Title: Sweet Relief
Rating/Warnings: PG i guess? Angsty.
Characters/Pairing: Stan Shunpike, OC teacher cameo
Summary: Stan reflects on the Imperius Curse
Word Count: 722
Author's Notes: For Challenge #53 'Minor Characters'
Registered purchases?: Both
Stan Shunpike had never been particularly good at academics, leaving Hogwarts with only a handful of O.W.L.s. Ironically, his best grade had been in Defence Against the Dark Arts. It was very tricky considering the subject switched hands so many times, but given the circumstances, he considered that a badge of Honour. He had gained an Oustanding in that, when only a handful of others in his year had managed to do so. It may have been aided by his particular liking of Professor Berrycloth (not to mention her baked goods), but he tried to do his best to impress her. Sure enough, when he visited her a few years later, she had noted her pride at his skill in that subject.
He kept quiet about how he had failed five of his subjects, and of the ones he had passed, the only one with an Exceeds Expectations had been Divination.
Regardless, he hadn't seen this coming. It flew in the face of everything he had learned in his time at school.
They only did the Unforgiveable Curses near the end, when it was deemed proper for students to understand them. One thing he remembered about the Imperius Curse was that it obscured your senses, made you feel carefree and senseless, and like all similar anaesthetics, the subject can build up resistance to it over time.
This was why he wasn't worried when they first Imperiused him. He didn't worry about anything (he couldn't!), he knew that sooner or later, the curse would lift, and he would be able to fight back, bit by bit.
Because of that, he never tried to resist it. He liked living a life where he didn't really have to worry about anything any more. Not even eating, or using the toilet. The curse took the worries and inhibitions away from him, and what was best, it also thought on his behalf: all he ever had to do was lift his wand and do its bidding.
But no, the curse was lifted eventually, the day they took him away to Azkaban. He had pleaded his innocence, the curse having robbed him of his judgment and morality, but they weren't listening! It was a show trial, something he had heard about from his worried father from the First Wizarding War, when the government were after scapegoats to cover up their own shortcomings. Not once did he ever believe that it would be him in the firing line. And yet.....
He remembered every minute of that trial so clearly (mostly because it was replayed in his head over and over whenever Dementors passed by his cell door). They had asked him if he had any memory of performing the events. He told them he did. He did, and at the time, he felt no remorse about them because that was the way the Curse worked. He had tried to plead his position, but the Wizengamot had argued that because people can fight off the Imperius Curse, it must mean that he chose not to, to a certain degree.
And he couldn't deny it. In his heart of hearts, he knew he enjoyed the blissful wiping of his brain of mundane worries about money and work and small talk with old ladies on the Knight Bus.
That much had been him, and the Curse had taken advantage of the insecurity.
He couldn't blame anybody but himself.
And over and over and over and over again, the Dementors passed by his door, and he could now recount every single thing that had happened to him, every horrid detail of every awful thing he had seen, everyone he had hurt, everyone who had hurt or shamed him. Growing up, as an adult, under the curse, all that remained was a swirling grey noxious cloud of misery and guilt and despair that whipped around him in a maelstrom as he lay huddled on an Azkaban cell floor feeling nothing but remorse and terror.
They say that people build up a natural resistance to the Imperius Curse over time. When he was subdued by it for a second time all those months later, he welcomed its warm embrace and, albeit unconsciously, decided he would rather choose to obey its bidding until his dying breath than to ever return to the reality he left behind.
Title: Checking for Nargles.
Rating/Warnings: G.
Characters/Pairing: Neville/Luna implied. It's a friendship fic mostly.
Summary: Luna has been in Neville's broom closet for four hours, and he's getting suspicious.
Word Count: 686
Author's Notes: For Challenge #87 'Closeted'
Registered purchases?: Both
"Luna? What are you doing in there?"
"Checking for Nargles."
Neville shook his head. In the years that had passed since Hogwarts, he had learned to understand Luna and her..... eccentric mannerisms. This was certainly one of them. She had grown out of saying some of the silly stuff she had while at school; she would now say some of them with a coy, self-debasing irony that would make him chuckle privately. "Looking for Nargles" had become one of her bywords for: "None of your business".
"You've been in that broom closet for nearly four hours now," Neville said. "Are you okay?"
"Yes, yes, everything is fine," Luna said breezily. "There are certainly Nargles in here. I can feel them making the air all moist. Moisture is bad for clothes."
A pause. "Are you sure that's not your breathing?"
"Nope, it's a Nargle."
Neville decided to stop pursuing the matter any further. He had spent the morning at his grandmother's, who was strongly suggesting he pursue his interest in Herbology further; he had done a course on some of the more exotic plants when he left Hogwarts, and went on a brief tour of Africa with Luna (three months was plenty long enough to put away any ideas of taking things further with this girl; he had to curse a Muggle poacher when she walked in front of him without a wand, persuading him to "leave the poor Crumple-Horned Snorkacks alone, at least until mating season was complete"). These days, he enjoyed her company, but didn't count talking to her through a thick oak door as "company".
"Okay," Neville said, returning after about ten minutes. "I'm going to come in there unless you tell me what's going on."
There was a silence. Neville tried listening through the doors, all he could make out was a faint fuzzy sound within his own ears. Suddenly, Luna's voice penetrated the darkness: "I thought you could do with some more space in the closet for your clothes, so I've been trying to expand it with Undetectable Extension Charms."
"Oh, not that again," Neville groaned, rubbing his head. "Last time you did that we ended up in a forest full of fauns."
"Well, practice makes perfect, right?" Lunaa said airily. "I've got it sorted now."
Neville turned away, but suddenly spotted something. "Why would you be putting clothes in here at all? It's a broom closet."
"Oh, ah, well..."
"That's it, I'm opening the door," Neville said, grabbing the handle at once to find it unturning. "You charmed the handle? What are you doing in there?"
"Looking for Nargles!"
"Nargles!" Neville shouted hotly, finding his wand. "Alohomora!"
The door clicked and he kicked the door open with a flourish. Luna was stood a foot back in the darkness.
"Luna," Neville said suspiciously. "What's going on in here? Why have you made it all so big?"
Luna swayed on the spot on tiptoes, a big grin on her face. "Are you ready?"
"For what?"
"Not you, silly," she smiled, turning her back on him. "Three, two, one!"
A click and a flash of light. Orbs of glowing energy replaced themselves all over the broom closet, and Neville caught sight of nearly two dozen people stowed away in there.
"SURPRISE!" They all yelled in unison.
"What?"
"Happy birthday, Neville," Luna said sweetly, kissing him on the cheek. "We wanted to surprise you."
"And Hermione made a cake!" Ron yelled from the back of the room, waving his Deluminator cheerily. "I wanted to use Kreacher, but..."
Hermione elbowed him. Neville glowed with pride at the faces all there in the darkness, people he hadn't seen in years, old friends, people with shared history, all gathered together in his broom closet. Hannah Abbott, one of the old Hufflepuff girls, cantered forward to give him a hug and attach a badge to his chest when she was within range. He was lost for words, and held that hug for a little longer that was necessary.
Feeling nothing but gratitude toward Luna, he stood in awe as the faces chanted Happy Birthday, and shared the food around.
695 + 722 + 686 = 2103
2103/30 = 70.1
Rob//Gryffindor//70 points + 30 bonus GET!!