For Splendid Owlet - part 4
SPLENDID OWLET
Title: The Shrieking Shack
Challenge: #4 Free-for-all
Author: Shade
Rating: PG
Summary: Hermione decides Harry needs a safe place to view the memory. Harry decides he wants the other two with him for it. Ron splutters and maybe slyly admits he was watching 'Mione's butt. Inside Hogwarts, Minerva goes to her office, shares an incantation for scrying/spying on the Trio (well, if that wasn't just a spoiler for the next segment!). Dumbledore is kind of full of himself.
Word Count: 836
A/N: #1, The Gift; #2, Caroling Ghosts and Pumpkin-Juice Jumpers; #3, Mistletoe and Tulpas ---- Maybe this shouldn't have turned into a series! It's grown much larger than I expected. I'm going to post this 4th section with a "free-for-all" mention of "winter wonderland" and snow. Once names are revealed, if you wanted, you can read the continuation of the story, for however long it becomes until it's end, in my journal. I hope you've had a festive, joyous season and have enjoyed your kris_kringle stories thus far.
Harry, Hermione and Ron left the library soon after Hermione realized the book she wanted was missing. Both boys kept their lips clamped together, only occasionally sneaking amused glances at each other, while Hermione went on to furiously bad-mouth the cataloging capabilities of Madame Pince.
Hermione's tirade ran out of steam as they reached the Entrance Hall.
"Where are we going," Harry asked her. She was standing with her back to them, facing the wonderland of snow that glittered the tiniest fractions of the sun's rays.
She didn't turn around but with one hand hefted her book sack higher on her shoulder and started to walk towards the Hogwarts grounds.
Snow crunched under her feet, leaving behind an impressed path behind her.
#
Minerva McGonagall walked down the forty-two steps inside the moving staircase that lead to Dumbledore's office. She could have stood still on one step and let the staircase twirl her until the hall was revealed. That seemed a terrible waste of time-just standing about when she could be doing something instead.
It wasn't that she questioned Dumbledore's methods regarding the Potter boy. For as long as she'd known him he had always acted in the same manner. She was simply worried for the boy and all too aware of Albus's quietly played game of Who Knows What? which, in her mind, rankled. He rarely confided everything he knew to her; not that she expected him to.
The staircase opened at her presence and she stepped into the hall outside the stair entrance. She turned to her left to follow a path her feet had taken numerous times, where the nearest moving set of stairs would shift her directly to the outside of her office.
In her haste, she didn’t realize that the fingers of her right hand absently traced the skin of her left where Dumbledore’s lips had pressed.
She would watch Mr. Potter, that’s all; she would watch him as a Mother Hen would. It was her duty to insure, not only his physical safety, but his emotional health as well. Wasn't it? Really, there was no other course of action left to her.
#
The boys trudged in Hermione's wake. Their shoes were soaked through from the snow. The ice-turned-liquid broke around their ankles and toes in cold, squishing compliance as they walked.
Hermione still had yet to answer Harry's question on where they were going, no matter how often he repeated it at the back of her head. Frankly, he was quickly growing bored of her assumptions that where she led, they would follow. Even Ron's protests were growing from snotty mumblings to louder accusations of Hermione being a sadist.
Just as Harry opened his mouth to say something, though, she stopped walking. He hastily halted, nearly running into her because of the suddenness with which she stopped. But Ron did run into her and, of course, started to sputter.
Harry and Hermione both waited a moment, Hermione rubbing the top of her head with a gloved hand, while Ron’s face turned red from something more than the cold. He blustered incoherently with apologies of “Sorry, ‘mione, I umm… you stopped, you know? And I was watching your… and wow and then wham, stars, but I didn’t mean to hit you,” then finally, with a huff of impatience from Hermione, he finished, “Well, you shouldn’t stop without warning a bloke, you know?”
Hermione glared at Ron, who was still mumbling (except now he raised his hand and rubbed at his chest where he bumped into her), then she turned to Harry. “We’re here, Harry,” she said.
“Here,” Harry repeated.
#
Albus Dumbledore opened one of the numerous cabinets in his office. He often looked through the drawers and doors of bottles and tools and instruments of magic. Most of the time he had no real purpose with the tinkering. He just enjoyed hearing glass chink and the methodical counting and placing helped ease his mind when a pensieve wasn’t in order.
It was often the case, too, that he believed himself so far ahead of the game, that he just had nothing to do.
His fingers brushed the side of one particular cork-stopped bottle. It was the same pearly blue that filled the one he gave Harry. He hadn’t forgotten he had it-he had simply misplaced it. That was often the case when you accumulated as many items as he did. But he neglected to remind himself in as many years as it had been, to find this particular bottle.
In his hand it felt cool, just as cool as the one he gave Harry, but it was, perhaps, a bit brighter; the memory within it colored by age and the memory’s owner.
Had it really been almost eighteen years since he corked the memory of Lily Potter’s visit? Eighteen years-before she and James went into hiding; while she was still pregnant with Harry; before Sybill Trelawney’s prophecy.
Eighteen years. Well, that had certainly been long enough.
Title: The Shrieking Shack
Challenge: #4 Free-for-all
Author: Shade
Rating: PG
Summary: Hermione decides Harry needs a safe place to view the memory. Harry decides he wants the other two with him for it. Ron splutters and maybe slyly admits he was watching 'Mione's butt. Inside Hogwarts, Minerva goes to her office, shares an incantation for scrying/spying on the Trio (well, if that wasn't just a spoiler for the next segment!). Dumbledore is kind of full of himself.
Word Count: 836
A/N: #1, The Gift; #2, Caroling Ghosts and Pumpkin-Juice Jumpers; #3, Mistletoe and Tulpas ---- Maybe this shouldn't have turned into a series! It's grown much larger than I expected. I'm going to post this 4th section with a "free-for-all" mention of "winter wonderland" and snow. Once names are revealed, if you wanted, you can read the continuation of the story, for however long it becomes until it's end, in my journal. I hope you've had a festive, joyous season and have enjoyed your kris_kringle stories thus far.
Harry, Hermione and Ron left the library soon after Hermione realized the book she wanted was missing. Both boys kept their lips clamped together, only occasionally sneaking amused glances at each other, while Hermione went on to furiously bad-mouth the cataloging capabilities of Madame Pince.
Hermione's tirade ran out of steam as they reached the Entrance Hall.
"Where are we going," Harry asked her. She was standing with her back to them, facing the wonderland of snow that glittered the tiniest fractions of the sun's rays.
She didn't turn around but with one hand hefted her book sack higher on her shoulder and started to walk towards the Hogwarts grounds.
Snow crunched under her feet, leaving behind an impressed path behind her.
#
Minerva McGonagall walked down the forty-two steps inside the moving staircase that lead to Dumbledore's office. She could have stood still on one step and let the staircase twirl her until the hall was revealed. That seemed a terrible waste of time-just standing about when she could be doing something instead.
It wasn't that she questioned Dumbledore's methods regarding the Potter boy. For as long as she'd known him he had always acted in the same manner. She was simply worried for the boy and all too aware of Albus's quietly played game of Who Knows What? which, in her mind, rankled. He rarely confided everything he knew to her; not that she expected him to.
The staircase opened at her presence and she stepped into the hall outside the stair entrance. She turned to her left to follow a path her feet had taken numerous times, where the nearest moving set of stairs would shift her directly to the outside of her office.
In her haste, she didn’t realize that the fingers of her right hand absently traced the skin of her left where Dumbledore’s lips had pressed.
She would watch Mr. Potter, that’s all; she would watch him as a Mother Hen would. It was her duty to insure, not only his physical safety, but his emotional health as well. Wasn't it? Really, there was no other course of action left to her.
#
The boys trudged in Hermione's wake. Their shoes were soaked through from the snow. The ice-turned-liquid broke around their ankles and toes in cold, squishing compliance as they walked.
Hermione still had yet to answer Harry's question on where they were going, no matter how often he repeated it at the back of her head. Frankly, he was quickly growing bored of her assumptions that where she led, they would follow. Even Ron's protests were growing from snotty mumblings to louder accusations of Hermione being a sadist.
Just as Harry opened his mouth to say something, though, she stopped walking. He hastily halted, nearly running into her because of the suddenness with which she stopped. But Ron did run into her and, of course, started to sputter.
Harry and Hermione both waited a moment, Hermione rubbing the top of her head with a gloved hand, while Ron’s face turned red from something more than the cold. He blustered incoherently with apologies of “Sorry, ‘mione, I umm… you stopped, you know? And I was watching your… and wow and then wham, stars, but I didn’t mean to hit you,” then finally, with a huff of impatience from Hermione, he finished, “Well, you shouldn’t stop without warning a bloke, you know?”
Hermione glared at Ron, who was still mumbling (except now he raised his hand and rubbed at his chest where he bumped into her), then she turned to Harry. “We’re here, Harry,” she said.
“Here,” Harry repeated.
#
Albus Dumbledore opened one of the numerous cabinets in his office. He often looked through the drawers and doors of bottles and tools and instruments of magic. Most of the time he had no real purpose with the tinkering. He just enjoyed hearing glass chink and the methodical counting and placing helped ease his mind when a pensieve wasn’t in order.
It was often the case, too, that he believed himself so far ahead of the game, that he just had nothing to do.
His fingers brushed the side of one particular cork-stopped bottle. It was the same pearly blue that filled the one he gave Harry. He hadn’t forgotten he had it-he had simply misplaced it. That was often the case when you accumulated as many items as he did. But he neglected to remind himself in as many years as it had been, to find this particular bottle.
In his hand it felt cool, just as cool as the one he gave Harry, but it was, perhaps, a bit brighter; the memory within it colored by age and the memory’s owner.
Had it really been almost eighteen years since he corked the memory of Lily Potter’s visit? Eighteen years-before she and James went into hiding; while she was still pregnant with Harry; before Sybill Trelawney’s prophecy.
Eighteen years. Well, that had certainly been long enough.