Voting! Week Eight
VOTING CLOSED
Please read the voting rules:
1. Do not vote for yourself and do not ask others to vote for you.
2. If you entered the challenge, you are REQUIRED to vote.
3. Vote for a MOST and LEAST favorite drabble. Votes for just Most Favorite will NOT be counted!
4. Please vote for the NUMBER of the drabble, not the name of it. Just makes it easier :)
5. Please remember the prompt when voting: Open windows and drabble must be 250 words exactly
6. Voting will close Wednesday at 11:59pm EST
Results will be posted Thursday. Have fun!
1.
Author: deathlydragon
Title: Bad Poetry
Words: 250
Rating: PG
The heat and humidity made Victoire restless, tossing on sweaty sheets and dozing in the dark. Her window stood open, the curtains not moving in the windless night. A charm kept insects from coming in and buzzing over her head, but it didn’t help against rocks. Little stones were thrown through her window, hitting her head for the third successive time.
Victoire bit hard on her bottom lip and stood up, suspecting to find Teddy Lupin in the backyard with another imploringly appeal to try it a third time. But as she sat down on the windowsill it wasn’t Teddy standing under her window; instead the light of the wand illuminated the face of James Sirius Potter, her bratty annoying cousin, who pulled out a piece of paper as he noticed the figure appearing at the window.
James cleared his throat just as Victoire wanted to say something. “I know, it’s utterly embarrassing and… well, if you laugh, I’ll run away and leave you forever in peace.
A whisper in your cousin’s ear
It doesn’t make it real
I know how you feel
Ashamed, they couldn’t deal…”
“James, please,” Victoire interrupted, the deep blush that painted her cheeks made the heat even harder to take. “It’s very cute, even if you should have read it out loud to find the rhythmic instabilities before you disgrace yourself.”
“Victoire?” James asked, confused.
“Uhm, yes?”
“Oh…” James raised his glowing wand. “Oh, sorry, wrong window!” He waved wildly and disappeared in the dark.
2.
Author: saurab
Title: Secrets
Words: 250
Rating: G
The Burrow had many secrets. It appeared to the outside world as a place where all family members were welcome, where no one held anything against the other, where peace and love reigned.
It was all a lie.
Victoire Weasley was certain she was the only one who had noticed, or the only one who cared enough to see them, the lies and deception.
Harry Potter and Ginny Potter were planning a divorce. Lily Luna had overheard them and in turn told Victoire about it, struggling through her tears. No one else knew.
Uncle Charlie was suffering from a fatal disease. Everyone knew. They all pretended it had never happened, though. That was easier.
Victoire couldn’t forget; Uncle Charlie’s tired smiles reminded her every day.
Victoire herself had a secret as well. She was in love with her cousin. And not any cousin: James Sirius Potter of all people. But she was with Teddy, and whenever she looked into Teddy’s happy, trusting eyes, she would feel like such a cheater. A liar. He deserved better, he deserved someone honest, but her selfishness prevented her from letting him go.
That day, as she gazed out of an open window in her temporary room at the Burrow, Victoire spotted James with her brother, Louis, lying on the grass together, and with a sinking feeling she recognized the expression on Louis’ face as he and James smiled at each other. Adoration. Love.
The Burrow had many secrets. But that one hurt the most.
3.
Author:open_atclose
Title: Your Air
Words: 250
Rating: G
James Potter knew what it was like to be different, what it was like to walk the halls of a school that was airy and suffocating all at once. What it felt like, walking into a room and realising as the people around you suddenly broke off in the midst of their conversations that they had just been talking about you.
He was the first, and, for that moment, the only, Potter child at Hogwarts, and despite the warnings from his parents about the whispers of other students and that he shouldn’t worry about them, he was worried. He didn’t want to be an outcast before he’d even made friends.
Victoire Weasley knew what it was like to be a child of the golden trio from the war. She, who had been at Hogwarts for longer than James, was used to the whispers and the stares, and she had become accustomed. Indeed, she’d blossomed in the wake of them. Still, when she found her cousin crouched on the ledge of an open window, Victoire understood.
“You know, my mum would say that open windows invite trouble in,” James announced, hearing the door close behind the girl and knowing, without turning, who it was. He didn’t want to talk about the trouble he was having. Victoire, a very perceptive young woman, understood that, too.
“True,” she said, the tinge of a French accent inherited from her mother accentuated for the attention. “But you could say that they also provide your air.”
4.
Author: lenina20
Title: crashing in into my little world
Words: 250
Rating: pg
-
He watches her from his bedroom’s window as she walks across the moonlit school grounds, towards the lake where the giant squid jerks his tentacles and yawns, squirming right bellow the surface. The water splashes, milky silver and dim starlight, just like her curls.
The other boys sleep; James presses his palms against the cool windowsill. He doesn’t get on his broomstick and flies after her because there’s nothing as pathetic as being punished by his little brother, a Slytherin prefect, smirking while he sings, twenty points from Gryffindor.
He could get caught. She might report him.
Being sixteen and having a stupid crush on your cousin is embarrassing enough as it is.
He’s old enough, mature enough to understand it is wrong. She’s a teacher (young, and part Veela, and too beautiful) and she is his cousin. Every boy at Hogwarts is in love with her and he can’t even boast about sharing cupcakes with her during the Christmas holidays. It’s humiliating. Family reunions make him think of her lilac-coloured dress and how nice she always is to him and Al and Lilly when Teddy brings her over.
He blushes, jealous and infatuated.
Until he turned fourteen and fell in love, James had always admired Teddy. Older and cooler and a metamorphmagus - he had been impressed. Now, he watches Victoire smile at the squid as she fidgets with her ring, and he only wishes he could push Teddy right into the monster’s jaws.
They are getting married in spring.
5.
Author: literaryspell
Title: On Talents
Words: 250
Rating: G
Victoire was a lot of beautiful things. She could be compared to any number of flittering, fluttering, fleeting things.
But Victoire Weasley, for all her considerable charms and talents, could not sing.
Under normal circumstances, it may have gone unobserved. After all, James himself couldn’t carry a tune in a cauldron, and no one had ever noticed.
But alas, the problem was not that Victoire could not sing, oh, no. The problem was that Victoire wholeheartedly disagreed with that assessment and intended to prove that she could sing, and moreover, that her talent was so considerable that everyone should take note and applaud.
Laughing was not an option, but it was a desire never so strong before.
James was approaching his uncle’s house, broomstick in tow, hoping for a game of Seeker’s Quidditch with his quick and lithe cousin. Sing, no; play, yes.
He heard something that began as a warble and ascended (or descended, depending on one’s perspective) into a screech through an open window on the top floor.
“Horrible!” he shouted.
“How would you know?” a voice called back, haughty and snide, but with a smile in the sound.
“Because it sounds worse than me, and I’m the worst singer I know,” he responded, feeling silly for shouting in the yard.
“But I love to sing,” Victoire said, appearing at the front door.
James tossed his Snitch into the air, grinning at her immediate focused gaze. “Then you should sing,” he decided.
And it really was that simple.
6.
Author: down_thedays
Title: Eyes Wide Shut
Words: 250
Rating: PG
He wants to possess her forever. This is his cousin, his beautiful and exotic cousin, and she will be his.
Victoire grasps his face between both hands and asks, “D’you see the real me?” voice soft and low and wrapped in uncertainty.
She moves a hand to his shirt, the warmth of her palm seeping and spreading like fire. Her fingers curl into the thin fabric, dragging him closer and closer until her breath brushes along the pink of his lips.
“Do you?” she whispers and all James sees are pale eyelashes fluttering, framing brilliant blue eyes. Her hand moves to her heart, pressing hard, but all he knows is the delicate beauty of the irises staring so hopefully at him. Open windows to the soul, he thinks, finding tiny speckles of grey amongst a sea of blue.
He leans forwards, lips parting and eyelids closing, but her fingers rest on his shoulder, pushing him gently away. He sighs as he leans backwards and lets his eyes sweep over her, over the white summer dress flowing between them, over her long pale limbs dusted with freckles and the soft curve of her small waist.
Eyes back to hers, he blinks. A voice rings on a loop inside his mind,< i > All you have to do is open your eyes< /i >, but they’re wide open, searching and searching and searching, and there’s nothing, he can’t see anything. But there, just there, vulnerability shines so he takes a deep breath, smiles and says; “Yes,”.
7.
Author: drcjsnider
Title: Advice
Words: 250
Rating: PG-13
Victoire Lupin was feeling very mature. Now that she’d been married three years, her cousins were finally coming to her for relationship advice. Until today, everyone had gone to Aunt Audrey when dealing with matters of the heart. Therefore, when James had shown up looking dejected, she’d jumped at the opportunity to rescue him from potential heartache.
“What’s wrong?” Victoire asked.
“It’s a girl,” James admitted.
“Is she not interested in you?”
“She’s interested.”
“Is it… um… sex?” Victoire whispered.
“Ur… no. The sex is great.”
“Then why are you here?”
“How do I tell the family?”
“You’re parents don’t know you are dating?”
“Neither does hers.”
“Is she unacceptable?” Victoire asked.
“No, she’s amazing. The family already loves her.”
“I’m confused.”
“It’s Rose.”
“Rose? Our cousin?”
“Yeah.”
“You want to know how to tell the family that you’re dating a cousin? You don’t tell them! You break it off immediately!”
“No way! You married Teddy and everyone got over it!”
“Teddy wasn’t my cousin!”
“He might as well be. I was listening at the window and heard Dad say how inappropriate and unnatural it was since the two of you had grown up together.”
“Unnatural?!” Victoire gasped.
“You and Teddy survived telling the family. How did you do it?”
Victoire realized this was her one shot. If she mucked this up, no one else would ever come to her for love advice. Taking a deep breath, she looked James straight in the eye and answered, “Go ask Aunt Audrey.”
The End
xxxXXXxxx
Poll Next Gen Drabbles Week Eight
Please read the voting rules:
1. Do not vote for yourself and do not ask others to vote for you.
2. If you entered the challenge, you are REQUIRED to vote.
3. Vote for a MOST and LEAST favorite drabble. Votes for just Most Favorite will NOT be counted!
4. Please vote for the NUMBER of the drabble, not the name of it. Just makes it easier :)
5. Please remember the prompt when voting: Open windows and drabble must be 250 words exactly
6. Voting will close Wednesday at 11:59pm EST
Results will be posted Thursday. Have fun!
1.
Author: deathlydragon
Title: Bad Poetry
Words: 250
Rating: PG
The heat and humidity made Victoire restless, tossing on sweaty sheets and dozing in the dark. Her window stood open, the curtains not moving in the windless night. A charm kept insects from coming in and buzzing over her head, but it didn’t help against rocks. Little stones were thrown through her window, hitting her head for the third successive time.
Victoire bit hard on her bottom lip and stood up, suspecting to find Teddy Lupin in the backyard with another imploringly appeal to try it a third time. But as she sat down on the windowsill it wasn’t Teddy standing under her window; instead the light of the wand illuminated the face of James Sirius Potter, her bratty annoying cousin, who pulled out a piece of paper as he noticed the figure appearing at the window.
James cleared his throat just as Victoire wanted to say something. “I know, it’s utterly embarrassing and… well, if you laugh, I’ll run away and leave you forever in peace.
A whisper in your cousin’s ear
It doesn’t make it real
I know how you feel
Ashamed, they couldn’t deal…”
“James, please,” Victoire interrupted, the deep blush that painted her cheeks made the heat even harder to take. “It’s very cute, even if you should have read it out loud to find the rhythmic instabilities before you disgrace yourself.”
“Victoire?” James asked, confused.
“Uhm, yes?”
“Oh…” James raised his glowing wand. “Oh, sorry, wrong window!” He waved wildly and disappeared in the dark.
2.
Author: saurab
Title: Secrets
Words: 250
Rating: G
The Burrow had many secrets. It appeared to the outside world as a place where all family members were welcome, where no one held anything against the other, where peace and love reigned.
It was all a lie.
Victoire Weasley was certain she was the only one who had noticed, or the only one who cared enough to see them, the lies and deception.
Harry Potter and Ginny Potter were planning a divorce. Lily Luna had overheard them and in turn told Victoire about it, struggling through her tears. No one else knew.
Uncle Charlie was suffering from a fatal disease. Everyone knew. They all pretended it had never happened, though. That was easier.
Victoire couldn’t forget; Uncle Charlie’s tired smiles reminded her every day.
Victoire herself had a secret as well. She was in love with her cousin. And not any cousin: James Sirius Potter of all people. But she was with Teddy, and whenever she looked into Teddy’s happy, trusting eyes, she would feel like such a cheater. A liar. He deserved better, he deserved someone honest, but her selfishness prevented her from letting him go.
That day, as she gazed out of an open window in her temporary room at the Burrow, Victoire spotted James with her brother, Louis, lying on the grass together, and with a sinking feeling she recognized the expression on Louis’ face as he and James smiled at each other. Adoration. Love.
The Burrow had many secrets. But that one hurt the most.
3.
Author:open_atclose
Title: Your Air
Words: 250
Rating: G
James Potter knew what it was like to be different, what it was like to walk the halls of a school that was airy and suffocating all at once. What it felt like, walking into a room and realising as the people around you suddenly broke off in the midst of their conversations that they had just been talking about you.
He was the first, and, for that moment, the only, Potter child at Hogwarts, and despite the warnings from his parents about the whispers of other students and that he shouldn’t worry about them, he was worried. He didn’t want to be an outcast before he’d even made friends.
Victoire Weasley knew what it was like to be a child of the golden trio from the war. She, who had been at Hogwarts for longer than James, was used to the whispers and the stares, and she had become accustomed. Indeed, she’d blossomed in the wake of them. Still, when she found her cousin crouched on the ledge of an open window, Victoire understood.
“You know, my mum would say that open windows invite trouble in,” James announced, hearing the door close behind the girl and knowing, without turning, who it was. He didn’t want to talk about the trouble he was having. Victoire, a very perceptive young woman, understood that, too.
“True,” she said, the tinge of a French accent inherited from her mother accentuated for the attention. “But you could say that they also provide your air.”
4.
Author: lenina20
Title: crashing in into my little world
Words: 250
Rating: pg
-
He watches her from his bedroom’s window as she walks across the moonlit school grounds, towards the lake where the giant squid jerks his tentacles and yawns, squirming right bellow the surface. The water splashes, milky silver and dim starlight, just like her curls.
The other boys sleep; James presses his palms against the cool windowsill. He doesn’t get on his broomstick and flies after her because there’s nothing as pathetic as being punished by his little brother, a Slytherin prefect, smirking while he sings, twenty points from Gryffindor.
He could get caught. She might report him.
Being sixteen and having a stupid crush on your cousin is embarrassing enough as it is.
He’s old enough, mature enough to understand it is wrong. She’s a teacher (young, and part Veela, and too beautiful) and she is his cousin. Every boy at Hogwarts is in love with her and he can’t even boast about sharing cupcakes with her during the Christmas holidays. It’s humiliating. Family reunions make him think of her lilac-coloured dress and how nice she always is to him and Al and Lilly when Teddy brings her over.
He blushes, jealous and infatuated.
Until he turned fourteen and fell in love, James had always admired Teddy. Older and cooler and a metamorphmagus - he had been impressed. Now, he watches Victoire smile at the squid as she fidgets with her ring, and he only wishes he could push Teddy right into the monster’s jaws.
They are getting married in spring.
5.
Author: literaryspell
Title: On Talents
Words: 250
Rating: G
Victoire was a lot of beautiful things. She could be compared to any number of flittering, fluttering, fleeting things.
But Victoire Weasley, for all her considerable charms and talents, could not sing.
Under normal circumstances, it may have gone unobserved. After all, James himself couldn’t carry a tune in a cauldron, and no one had ever noticed.
But alas, the problem was not that Victoire could not sing, oh, no. The problem was that Victoire wholeheartedly disagreed with that assessment and intended to prove that she could sing, and moreover, that her talent was so considerable that everyone should take note and applaud.
Laughing was not an option, but it was a desire never so strong before.
James was approaching his uncle’s house, broomstick in tow, hoping for a game of Seeker’s Quidditch with his quick and lithe cousin. Sing, no; play, yes.
He heard something that began as a warble and ascended (or descended, depending on one’s perspective) into a screech through an open window on the top floor.
“Horrible!” he shouted.
“How would you know?” a voice called back, haughty and snide, but with a smile in the sound.
“Because it sounds worse than me, and I’m the worst singer I know,” he responded, feeling silly for shouting in the yard.
“But I love to sing,” Victoire said, appearing at the front door.
James tossed his Snitch into the air, grinning at her immediate focused gaze. “Then you should sing,” he decided.
And it really was that simple.
6.
Author: down_thedays
Title: Eyes Wide Shut
Words: 250
Rating: PG
He wants to possess her forever. This is his cousin, his beautiful and exotic cousin, and she will be his.
Victoire grasps his face between both hands and asks, “D’you see the real me?” voice soft and low and wrapped in uncertainty.
She moves a hand to his shirt, the warmth of her palm seeping and spreading like fire. Her fingers curl into the thin fabric, dragging him closer and closer until her breath brushes along the pink of his lips.
“Do you?” she whispers and all James sees are pale eyelashes fluttering, framing brilliant blue eyes. Her hand moves to her heart, pressing hard, but all he knows is the delicate beauty of the irises staring so hopefully at him. Open windows to the soul, he thinks, finding tiny speckles of grey amongst a sea of blue.
He leans forwards, lips parting and eyelids closing, but her fingers rest on his shoulder, pushing him gently away. He sighs as he leans backwards and lets his eyes sweep over her, over the white summer dress flowing between them, over her long pale limbs dusted with freckles and the soft curve of her small waist.
Eyes back to hers, he blinks. A voice rings on a loop inside his mind,< i > All you have to do is open your eyes< /i >, but they’re wide open, searching and searching and searching, and there’s nothing, he can’t see anything. But there, just there, vulnerability shines so he takes a deep breath, smiles and says; “Yes,”.
7.
Author: drcjsnider
Title: Advice
Words: 250
Rating: PG-13
Victoire Lupin was feeling very mature. Now that she’d been married three years, her cousins were finally coming to her for relationship advice. Until today, everyone had gone to Aunt Audrey when dealing with matters of the heart. Therefore, when James had shown up looking dejected, she’d jumped at the opportunity to rescue him from potential heartache.
“What’s wrong?” Victoire asked.
“It’s a girl,” James admitted.
“Is she not interested in you?”
“She’s interested.”
“Is it… um… sex?” Victoire whispered.
“Ur… no. The sex is great.”
“Then why are you here?”
“How do I tell the family?”
“You’re parents don’t know you are dating?”
“Neither does hers.”
“Is she unacceptable?” Victoire asked.
“No, she’s amazing. The family already loves her.”
“I’m confused.”
“It’s Rose.”
“Rose? Our cousin?”
“Yeah.”
“You want to know how to tell the family that you’re dating a cousin? You don’t tell them! You break it off immediately!”
“No way! You married Teddy and everyone got over it!”
“Teddy wasn’t my cousin!”
“He might as well be. I was listening at the window and heard Dad say how inappropriate and unnatural it was since the two of you had grown up together.”
“Unnatural?!” Victoire gasped.
“You and Teddy survived telling the family. How did you do it?”
Victoire realized this was her one shot. If she mucked this up, no one else would ever come to her for love advice. Taking a deep breath, she looked James straight in the eye and answered, “Go ask Aunt Audrey.”
The End
xxxXXXxxx
Poll Next Gen Drabbles Week Eight