At long last, the resumption of HP100 reposts
As a note, I think I fell out of the habit of HP100 drabbling before HBP came out, so all of these are from before it.
Challenge #96: Prompt
Title: Only Once
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Prompt
Characters: Hermione
Author's Note: Set during PS, before the troll comes in.
Hermione had always been the perfect student. Her homework had always been done; she had always been prompt to every lesson and the first to raise her hand to answer questions.
She had tried magic at once when she'd had the chance. She had so looked forward to coming to Hogwarts.
But she was alone here too, and she felt it keenly. That Ron Weasley hadn't had to SAY it. He looked as if he could be nice, if he wanted....
Now she wasn't on time for her lesson. She was hiding, crying, instead.
But it was only the once....
Title: Shopping List
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Prompt
Characters: Godric
Author's Note: Because somebody mentioned a Founders' shopping list
Godric reviewed the list mentally. First he'd go to the Muggle market; the items there wouldn't draw nearly as much attention in the wizarding market as vice versa.
Bolts of wool: as much as possible, at a good price
Apples
Grain
Other foodstuffs according to judgement...
Hogwarts had its own orchard and cornfields, but there was only so much room with the forest for concealment, and too much space-twisting affected the grain badly.
Four good cauldrons
Dragon's liver
Dragonhide if any is to be had
Mooncalf dung...
And he'd better step quickly if he wanted to arrive promptly at dawn.
Challenge #97: Stuffed Including what may have been the first appearance (with multiple origins!) of the recurring stuffed basilisk.
Title: Explosives
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Author's Note: She hasn't started over the development after OotP, but Ozma's Filch stories are wonderful.
Filch stifled a groan as he found yet another cache. He was ready to swear that this was in misguided "honor" of the bloody Weasley twins. He'd LIKE to bloody the Weasley twins, and whoever thought this latest trick was a matter for pride and laughter.
Every keyhole, every nook, every crevice, and a fair number of the closets in Hogwarts were stuffed full of what seemed to be dungbombs in ribbon form.
It was revolting.
Nauseating.
And trying to dislodge and dig it out without magic meant it was very likely to explode into a cloud of stinking muck.
Title: After the Feast
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: That's a good question, as I don't think this can actually take place any of the years Harry's been at Hogwarts. Accordingly, it's someone else.
"But we're stuffed!" groaned the Beaters in unison.
"Ate loads at the feast --"
"It's dark out!"
"Yeah, there's a reason matches start in the morning, you know."
"I don't care," snapped the captain crisply. "If you puke, it's your own fault for gorging yourselves. I want you out on the Quidditch pitch in five minutes."
"It's not booked!"
"Nobody else will try right after the feast."
The captain whirled and stalked out of the common room.
This happened in two common rooms.
Five minutes later, Gryffindor and Slytherin jockeyed sluggishly and rather queasily for position across a dark pitch.
Title: Teasing
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: Helga/Salazar
Author's note: Cut for sex.
Their work was done for the day. Teaching and chores would be taken up again come morning.
In the meantime, blankets and charms and a roaring fire defeated the chill of the winter night, and Salazar arched over Helga, grinning down (and panting a little).
"And how are you feeling?" he asked teasingly, tilting his hips into hers.
Helga grinned wickedly and ran her gaze down the length of their bodies to where they met, before their legs entwined. "Oh... stuffed quite full."
And here she discovered that it was possible to make Salazar Slytherin blush Gryffindor red in bed.
Title: Sinusitis
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: Voldemort
Author's note: Cut for ick.
It seemed something of a waste, in a way, to use such a relatively harmless curse.
But a subtle curse had stood a better chance of making its way past his defenses, and thus a carefully and thoughtfully designed one had wended its way to Voldemort.
It had begun quietly, with minor irritation and faint congestion and pressure.
It had blossomed into a full-blown sinus infection. The Dark Lord's face was stuffed full of mucus and pus, congealing into an utterly revolting gunk.
It seemed to be impairing his judgment.
Harry, tracing his scar, thought Voldemort quite deserved the headache.
Title: Unpacking
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: Godric, Salazar
"What on earth is this for?" Godric asked.
Salazar looked over his shoulder in exasperation. "Isn't it enough that I've left the school? Did you have to come pester me while I settle in here? What's what for?"
"This. And I'm helping you unpack. Least I can do." Godric handed over an almost perfectly intact snakeskin, the few tears meticulously repaired, the body stuffed with dried herbs.
"...It's not for anything."
"...Storage?" Godric sniffed. "Smells like mint."
A sigh. "It was a toy, when I was a child."
"Oh, I see." Godric laid it across the head of the bed.
Title: Childhood Companion
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: Salazar
Author's Note: Prequel to "Unpacking," but stands alone.
Salazar Slytherin's parents, being of a longstanding wizarding family, considered it only natural that their second son, like the first, should be magical.
The Parseltongue, as rare among wizards as magic among the general population, took them a bit longer to figure out.
Salazar would keep turning up with snakes. Grass snakes were one thing. Adders were a bit more worrying.
After taking one away from him (and releasing it unharmed, or he would have had a fit), his elder sister took its last shed skin, stuffed it with dried herbs, sewed it up, and charmed it never to tear.
Title: Leaving Feast
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: Founders
They had a stuffed goose, and quite a large boar: just the right amount to go around, now. Plenty of ale, naturally, and mead for those who wouldn't let the stronger drink go to their heads.
It was a feast in the grand tradition of Hogwarts feasts, a fine send-off from his friends.
It was the first meal in years no one debated or quarreled over.
It was the last one he would ever attend.
It was a dignified and solemn occasion, with less cheer than your average funeral wake.
Salazar rather thought it was a waste of good cooking.
Title: Parting Gift
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: Salazar, OC
Author's note: If read in context with the others, either this is an alternate origin for the thing, or he's got two of them.
Salazar hadn't been expecting a parting gift from a Muggle-born Hufflepuff. Particularly since it turned out to be a shed snakeskin stuffed with dried herbs. He sniffed at them, and memory washed over him.
"You were a good teacher," she told him, "even if you didn't like us."
"It's not you I don't like, lass." He turned the stuffed serpent over, studying the workmanship. "It's the risk."
She shrugged. "We'll look after the herb-beds for you."
After she left, he examined her gift in great detail. Her grandfather had been known, after all, for entirely non-magical poisons.
He kept it.
Title: The Man Behind the Curtain
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: Sirius
Sirius was smothering.
It wasn't that he didn't understand. He understood the need to keep hidden, though he'd evaded capture in the open for a year. He understood that the House of Black was not remarkable for its hospitality to outsiders, and they needed someone of the blood there much of the time just so the rest of the Order could survive entering.
It was just that the place wasn't remarkable for its hospitality to him, either.
It was stuffy, draped in heavy, doxy-infested curtains.
He felt as stifled as if he were behind the curtains with his mother's painting.
Title: Heirlooms
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: Sirius
Sirius felt crammed into 12 Grimmauld Place.
The very air crowded him, remaining musty and close and stuffy no matter how he tried to air it out. He suspected the curtains of conspiring against him; something in them bit him the first time he touched one. After that he dug out an old wand and used that, though it buzzed against his fingers. They still stank of dust and mold. Probably half rotted.
His old family home, filled to bursting with tastefully arranged, filthy articles of wealth and dark magic, centuries old.
Priceless junk.
There was no room for him here.
Title: Guide to Moderately Uncommon Magical Artifacts: Introduction
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: None really
The Guide to Moderately Uncommmon Magical Artifacts is an introduction to the "stuff" of the wizarding world, specifically those magical artifacts too unusual, expensive, regulated, or hazardous to be handled regularly by the wizard on the street but not quite enough so to prevent the odd irregular encounter.
CAUTION: This work is intended as a survey only. Reading this book no more qualifies you to operate an unfamiliar and potentially dangerous artifact than reading Newt Scamander's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them qualifies you to tame a Hippogriff. Please see bibliography for written and personal sources of in-depth instruction.
Title: Guide to Moderately Uncommon Magical Artifacts: Pensieve
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: None really
Author's note: This was the one I thought of first, but then I decided to write the introduction. This and any future "excerpts" will make sense alone, I think, despite the conceit of being fragments of a larger work.
The Pensieve is, as the name suggests, a device for sieving thoughts. It is used when the brain is stuffed so full of thoughts that they haven't room to sort themselves out. Thoughts or memories are removed from the brain and placed in the Pensieve for more objective examination.
Construction: a shallow basin, generally runed, containing silver or white fluid known as thoughtstuff. Cracks or crazing may or may not reflect on the owner's state of mind.
Cautions: Handling your thoughts outside their natural habitat without competent instruction indicates that your thoughts are already defective and probably no great loss.
Title: Breathtaking
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: Tom Riddle
When Tom Riddle first opened the Chamber of Secrets, it took his breath away. Overly excited, he temporarily abandoned prudence and slid incautiously down into stale, dead air. He nearly smothered.
It took him a long time to wake the basilisk. It later told him this was a protective measure: when there was inadequate air or food or drink to sustain it, magic sleep held it safe, needing nothing.
The scent clung to the fine hairs in his nose long after he dislodged it from his robes. He spent weeks stuffed up and longer smelling the Chamber.
He didn't mind.
Title: The Music Box
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: Ginny, mostly
The music box had clearly been enchanted to spring open and play when disturbed. Ginny thought the first notes irritating, putting a sour taste in her mouth, but before she could reach to stop it, the sound seemed to change, to become ethereal rather than empty, beautiful in its simplicity rather than bland.
Though they'd aired out the house as best they could, the atmosphere in the room seemed to thicken; everyone stood dreaming. Ginny's head felt stuffed with the lightest down, soft, as if she could float away.
Her breath slowed.
Her thoughts slowed, but crawled to realization.
SLAM.
Challenge #98: Me, Myself, and I
Title: I Would Have My Students Bold
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Me, Myself, and I
Characters: Godric
I would have my students bold, to stand for what is right.
I would have my students dare what others may not, walk into danger, neither blindly nor heedlessly, but with their eyes open when they would rather have them shut.
I would have them protect those who are weaker, whether for a life or a moment, and claim no debt or repayment for it afterward.
I would have them remember how to laugh in the dark.
I would have them put aside fear when it grips them and despair when it threatens to devour, and do what needs doing.
Title: I Would Have My Students Strong
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Me, Myself, and I
Characters: Helga
I would have my students strong, to stand firm against wind and tide.
I would have my students make the most of time and of themselves, yet I would have them know there are better things than glory.
I would have them judge fairly, and not in haste. I would have them be faithful, and worthy of faith, even when others betray. I would have them lean on each other.
I would have them give their lives to their chosen work.
I would have them turn their hands, despite fear or disgust, disregard or difficulty, to do what needs doing.
Title: I Would Have My Students Curious
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Me, Myself, and I
Characters: Rowena
Author's Note: Luna may fit more definitions of "curious" than Rowena had in mind, but I wouldn't be too sure.
I would have my students curious, to seek understanding.
I would have my students care for the mind and for learning. I would have them thirst to know, to understand the world and what it means, both for the power of knowledge, what they may do, and its worth in itself.
I would have them preserve the knowledge others have gathered, gather some anew, create more, and teach it all, for with this charge we are blessed.
I would have them ever wonder.
I would have them think and act with thought, to know and to do what needs doing.
Title: I Would Have My Students Sure
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Characters: Salazar
I would have my students sure.
I would have my students make the most of themselves, of their lives. I would have them know what they want and what they want to be, and I would have them not only reach but grasp it, whatever it takes.
And I would have them want all life offers.
I would have them part of tradition, but not bound by it. I would have them come of good families and raise them.
I would have them know what matters.
I would have them act on that knowledge, and do what needs doing.
Title: Sorting Song
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Me, Myself, and I
Characters: And now for the Hat!
A Thinking Cap, the Sorting Hat am I
Created by the Four your minds to eye.
Legilimens I am, a Pensieve too,
But neither quite, and I'll be Sorting you.
For bold protectors, Gryffindor is right:
Though fear arise, you'll not concede to fright.
Our scholars enter Ravenclaw to learn,
Where brilliant minds and thirst for knowing burn.
Ambitious? Then a Slytherin you are,
Who'll do utmost to reach the brightest star.
For other works, then Hufflepuff is true:
With faith and justice, make the most of you.
Remember nonetheless, divided stream,
The Hogwarts Four all shared a common dream.
Title: Holding Pattern
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Me, Myself, and I
Characters: Hermione, with Ginny and Harry
Author's Note: I have no idea where Ron is. The other characters would really like one.
Her hands are on my shoulders, then her arms around me, strong and solid, but shaking. A little. I can feel muscles under the softness. Even from here I can tell they're knotted tight.
I was trying so hard not to cry.
Harry is here, going mad with waiting. If Ron were here, he would look uncomfortable and make tea, and only hug me if I grabbed him. Nobody is making tea. I'm crying on Ginny, and it's her brother who's missing. That can't be right.
I might do a lot of things that aren't right, to get him back.
Title: Breath
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Me, Myself, and I
Characters: Dementor
I hunger.
No, I do not hunger for your joy. I do not hunger for your memories, scented tantalizingly with pleasure, joy, love, happiness, delight, satisfaction, glee, contentment.
I breathe those, drawing them in and away until the sour ones lurch up in their place. I strip the freshness from them and breathe them back out into you as despair. I breathe those. (And like oxygen for you, too much will burn.) Azkaban is as suffocating to me as to you, like stale air until someone new brings a fresh breeze.
I eat less often. My food is your soul.
Title: Defiant
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Me, Myself, and I
Characters: Ginny
Don't even think about it.
I know who you are.
I know what you want.
You can't have it.
Don't think for a minute that just because you could fool me when you were sixteen and I was eleven, you've got a chance now. I'm sixteen; I'm still young, but not as young as I ought to be. I know more about you than I want to, but I still know how to laugh.
You can't have my mind.
You can't have my hands.
You can't have my heart.
You can't have his life.
You'll be left with nothing.
Soon.
Title: Fifteen Inches
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Me, Myself, and I
Characters: Hermione
This is dreadful.
Harry and Ron are laughing at me. Well, that's not the dreadful part: they're not being nasty about it or anything. I suppose they would be happy about this.
Fifteen inches. It's nowhere near enough.
The new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor assigned an essay. That's fine. But fifteen inches! Not "at least" fifteen inches, "at most"!
"Be concise," she said. "Choose relevant material carefully," she said. I can't argue the point, exactly, but there's just so much to say.
Oh, and, "Don't use smaller handwriting than your usual script."
I'd best copy this out again.
Title: Adventure?
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Me, Myself, and I
Characters: Friar
The end of earthly life, so I was ever taught, was a thing to be neither sought nor feared. It was to be a transition, and after a little time, rest and reward rejoicing.
When it came to me, I looked back, and I was not ready to rest.
I have not, I think, given up my hope of heaven; only delayed it, not rejected. At the day of resurrection no soul, even ghosts or Dementors' feed, will be unaccounted for.
I have work yet to do here, though my hands be idle, and I believe it has been blessed.
Challenge #99: Swollen
Title: Gunk
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Swollen
Characters: Neville
The harvest of bubotuber pus was generally considered one of the more satisfying, if disgusting, lessons in Herbology, but for some reason nobody ever volunteered.
Neville drew on his dragonhide gloves. He was lucky, and he knew it; the worst detention Professor Sprout could assign him was better than any detention with Snape. Bubotubers? Easy. Almost fun.
He wrapped his hand around the tip of the squirming black plant, then ran it down, finding a spot, and held the bottle ready. Gently but firmly, with proper technique, he braced the plant and pressed his thumb against the swollen boil.
Splurt.
Title: Insults
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Swollen
Characters: Neville
Author's note: Can be a prequel to the previous one, but I think they stand safely alone.
Neville wiped sweat from his forehead as soon as he was alone. He'd been lucky, no doubt there. He'd drawn Umbridge's wrath, quite by accident, but by amazing good fortune McGonagall had been about. She had breathed heavily through her nose and given an excellent impression of fuming, so Umbridge had turned him over to her.
McGonagall had merely spoken sharply and turned him over to Sprout, by which Neville knew she wasn't really angry.
Neville couldn't think of Umbridge as a toad. He liked Trevor.
All swollen up with disgusting things inside...
No, he just couldn't insult bubotubers either.
Title: Begloomed
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Swollen
Characters: Mr. Lovegood
The Quibbler lay neglected; sightings strange even to wizardkind went uninvestigated. Mr. Lovegood huddled glumly in his favorite armchair, uncheered by its comfort.
His wife was dead, but that wasn't why. He'd mourned, and sometimes grief still caught him out, but not today.
His daughter was about to come of age in a world under Voldemort's threat, but that wasn't why. He wouldn't change the past even if the Ministry didn't rig Time-Turners to prevent it.
He was covered in swellings. That was closer; it had the same cause.
He waited for the effects of the Glumbumble stings to pass.
Title: Snap Dragon
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Swollen
Characters: Ron, Madam Pomfrey
"Madam Pomfrey?"
She looked up to see a freckly, redheaded boy shifting from foot to foot in the doorway, cradling one hand. Ron Weasley. She'd been expecting him. Most professors wouldn't force a student to the hospital wing except in extreme circumstances; it was something they had to learn to recognize for themselves. But she had been given warning. "Yes?"
"I-- my hand--"
Something reptilian had bitten him, taking no flesh but leaving germs and poison. The hand was badly swollen around angry green-tinged marks.
She diagnosed and treated without making him explain.
This way, he'd come back next time.
Title: The Lion and the Unicorn
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Swollen
Characters: Salazar, Godric
Author's Note: Modified from a scene in an unposted fic.
"Explain this to me again." Salazar examined Godric's shoulderblade incredulously. It was cracked right through, but the only swelling was in reaction to the immediate damage and the irritation of shifting bone since. Well, there wouldn't be any festering, if Godric's story was true....
Godric gritted his teeth. "I was gored by a unicorn."
"Why did it stop? I know perfectly well they can kill easily."
"I dodged. Well, partly. And after I shifted back to human, it seemed annoyed but left me alone. So I walked home."
"I knew you were provoking, but really."
"Evidently they don't like lions."
Title: Bitten
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Swollen
Characters: Salazar, Godric
Author's Note: In the interests of fair play...
"What in the world bit you? And why are you asking me to heal it instead of Helga?" Something had bitten Salazar badly, denting several ribs on both sides of his body. Godric examined the swelling and racked his brains for any local monster that wouldn't also have left scorch marks.
Salazar mumbled something indistinct. "You heal well enough."
"Didn't catch the first part."
"...Badger."
Godric raised an eyebrow, beginning the healing spell. "We have giant badgers? You should definitely talk to Helga."
"I was a serpent at the time."
"Have you tried avoiding your natural predators?"
"Oh, shut up."
Title: Duped
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Swollen
Characters: Snape, MWPP
The first-year Gryffindor boys were in a high state of glee when Severus Snape came down to breakfast with his hands swollen from the scrubbing he'd done in the previous evening's detention.
Three nights ago, James and Sirius had dueled and debated half the night in the dormitory until Sirius conceded that he still loved his family, but not the Dark Arts.
Two days ago, Snape had said snidely, "The brightest star of the Black family in Gryffindor... his mother must be so pleased."
Sirius had challenged him to a duel that midnight.
And like a fool, Snape had shown.
Title: Sunshine and Daisies
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Swollen
Characters: Harry
Author's note: Inspired by the discussion of "Light's Fury." One of two related tacks I considered taking -- maybe I'll finish the other one too.
Harry once thought of love as light, happy, trivial.
He knew now.
Love was Ron and Hermione.
Love was Sirius.
Love was Dumbledore.
Love was Neville. Ginny. Luna. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Hagrid. McGonagall.
"Have a biscuit."
Love was stumbling, getting up again.
Love was fighting, making up, learning not to fight.
Love was learning what to fight for.
Love was building life, holding on, letting go.
Love was giving yourself away, priceless, for something worth more.
Love might preserve, often transformed the beloved, always transformed the lover.
Love swelled like a bud grown through concrete or a raging star.
Title: Fraternal Affection
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Swollen
Characters: Godric, Salazar
Author's note: Alan and I are still working on it, but we do have a fic in which Salazar married Godric's younger sister. And believe me, they both got an earful over the split.
"So, you're going to marry my little sister." Godric raised a mug of ale and clinked it lightly against Salazar's, grinning.
"I adore her. And she said yes this morning." They both drank.
"Sal, I love you like a brother," Godric continued in the same idly cheerful tone, "So I give you fair warning, if you ever break her heart, your private regions will swell slowly and painfully until they explode."
Salazar blinked. "And they say I'm ruthless. I won't -- but what would you do, brother, if she were to break mine? In theory."
"Did I say I'd cause it?"
Challenge #100: 100
Title: Foreplay
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Hermione/Ron
Ten to ten strong fingers and ten to ten toes.
Ten to ten slightly knobby knuckles.
Ten down each long arm, trailing goosebumps.
Ten up each lightly freckled calf and slower, slower, up each thigh.
Ten in a double arc across his chest, replacing her ten fingertips one by one.
Nine scattered gradually over his neck, ending with her tongue dabbling in the hollow of his throat as he gasped.
"Ron...."
One on his mouth.
Hermione counted out one hundred kisses.
--On their wedding night, to soothe her nerves.
--On their hundredth anniversary, less supple but no less in love.
Title: Unbound
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Founders
One hundred years she'd lived and worked; one hundred years she'd known them. Three and one, two and two, four all together, and together they belonged. It had been on her seventh birthday she first met the other three; from the age of reason, she counted the best of her life.
Bitterly they fought; they always had. Like brothers and sisters, where too much caring and too much knowing magnifies any dispute. None had ever truly believed they could be torn apart.
One hundred years later, Salazar walked away, and though she walked still onward Helga felt her heart die.
Title: Unbinding
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Godric, Salazar
Author's note: Not necessarily related to "Unbound," aside from the obvious.
"Don't go."
"You're the one who told me to just this afternoon," Salazar snapped.
"I said if. If you weren't willing to consider--"
"I'm not."
"They can learn. You know that."
"They're not born to it. Hundreds are not born to magic. Or scholarship, or valor."
"They are born to magic."
"This isn't their world."
"Do you think it kinder or safer to leave them to their accidents?"
"You never cared for safety, Godric." It wasn't true; Godric would yet die to buy safety for others.
Godric turned away. "You used to know when it was worth taking a risk."
Title: Building
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Founders
Stone on stone on a hundred other stones, and eventually they all lost count except Rowena, who would probably know every speck of gravel until the day she died, or after, when Hogwarts crumbled at last.
"How many do you think will come?"
"At first?"
"One day."
"I think we'll have to stop at a hundred. We've only so many hands apiece, after all."
"I could fix that..."
"No thank you!"
A hundred miles and more, each step on foot, spreading the word.
None of the four saw Hogwarts' hundredth year, but their children of body and mind all assembled.
Title: Luna's Earrings
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Luna
Luna had two great indulgences: her mind, with its many flights of perfectly serious fancy, and her earrings.
She liked them interesting. She liked them unusual. She liked them quirky. She had a hundred different pairs, most of which no one else would ever want to wear, and that suited her just fine.
Many were root vegetables, from carrots to wasabi (technically a rhizome). Luna was excellent with shrinking and preservation charms; she could store a full root cellar for the school in her jewelry box if she wanted. Some were more exotic.
Two pairs had belonged to her mother.
Title: Walking on Air
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Luna
Author's note: Thanks, Jelsemium. :)
Luna's radish earrings weren't her only strange ones. Perhaps the most peculiar of all were the ones that had to be kept in suspended animation.
They were billywigs.
They were illegal, according to the Ministry of Magic, or rather they were legal to possess but not to apply to oneself. Strictly speaking it was not illegal to wear them, although probably doing so in the expectation of being stung was enough to get her in trouble. So she wore them when feeling particularly defiant.
By the hundredth sting, her ears were sore and swollen, but Luna was walking on air.
Title: Birthday Song
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Sorting Hat
The Sorting Hat had earned every bit of its tattered condition. Most hats didn't last a thousand years and more, even if they were well constructed and had been magically reinforced over the years. Nobody wanted to lose it.
It was older than the school, technically; it had been new (at least from its perspective now) when the Four had the idea, and by the time it was a century in age it had been given brains and was choosing their students.
At ten centuries, it sang softly to the paintings in the Headmaster's deserted office, "Happy birthday to me..."
Title: Birthday Wish
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Dumbledore
Author's Note: I may be taking liberties with when exactly he was supposed to be 150...
Albus Dumbledore's magical power had grown with his age and learning, but though his hair was still a warm auburn with only slivers of silver to frost it, time was starting to catch up to his body. He was tired, deep in his bones and his soul. Some weariness would pass; some would never fade.
He was triumphant, victorious. Grindelwald had fallen today, and without his hand his webs must unravel.
Albus plodded onward over snow, knowing better than to Apparate in this state.
It was his hundredth birthday, and all he wanted was to be home. With warm feet.
Title: Birthday Party
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Sorting Hat, teachers
Author's Note: Because the idea of its singing to itself all alone was just so melancholy. (Jelsemium said it reminded her of Harry, actually. And he ought to get a proper party too.)
After the first hundred years of the Sorting Hat's existence, the children of the Hogwarts Four (those still teaching at Hogwarts) had lifted it ceremoniously from its place and thrown a party, figuring that the item entrusted with their parents' choices and judgment probably also deserved a birthday now and then. They had surrounded it with cheerful babble, passing it from head to head for a thoughtful chat.
The custom had fallen away, the date lost... until someone found timely reference to the party nine hundred years ago.
Butterbeer clinked all around the staff room, and the Hat was content.
Title: Birthday Surprise
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Sorting Hat
Author's note: Actually, none of these birthday drabbles seem to go together at all.
The Sorting Hat waited, almost trembling with anticipation.
The Deputy Headmistress carried it to the Great Hall.
Before the assembled students, the Sorted and the hundred first-years, the Hat began its song:
When the Founders first began this school,
They each would choose, but they weren't fools;
They knew that couldn't last,
So in the distant past,
They gave me brains to choose you all by rule.
So I've Sorted you, in yearly throngs
The thousandth now has come along...
So before I do my thing,
Your turn has come to sing!
Of a thousand Hogwarts Sortings come and gone.
Title: Sternutation
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Salazar, very grumpy
Author's note: Halfway there!
Salazar Slytherin took undeniable pride in being a skilled Parselmouth. Like many rare magical talents, it was more complicated than most people assumed. Certainly, it was easier to be born with the knowledge of a language than to study one, but there were nuances belonging to different breeds of serpent... and other intricacies. Parseltongue had intrinsic properties of command, and it was important to distinguish between compulsion and conversation.
It also, after much practice, made his sneezes sound funny. He had sneezed a hundred times this morning alone, and strongly suspected that he had been subtly hexed for someone's entertainment.
Title: Parseltongue
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Salazar
Author's note: Spun off an idea mentioned in Sternutation, but I don't think they depend on one another.
As an inborn magical talent, Parseltongue's difficulty was often underestimated, even by those who knew how challenging magic itself could be.
First, it was messy, until you learned how to avoid actually spitting. (No, Salazar could not spit venom eight feet into an enemy's eyes. Sometimes he really wished he could.)
Second, there were a hundred shades of meaning and control to a hiss. Serpents' hypnotic reputation wasn't undeserved; their natural mode of speech was imperative. It was vital to change that for courtesy to a friend... or to exert it correctly (and strongly enough!) over another's will in conflict.
Title: Awakening
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Ginny, Molly
Author's note: Because I wouldn't be surprised if she'd done it before.
After her first year, Ginny's family tried to be kind. At first she found it irritating because she didn't feel she needed it; the delicious relief of freedom, with everyone restored, overwhelmed all else.
Then she hated being left alone with the blank places in her memory, and their ends. Three times a night, for over a month, she dreamed drifting rooster feathers.
At last, busy and unthinking, her mother sent her to kill a chicken for dinner.
The hundredth time that summer she wrung a rooster's neck in her hands, it was real and had purpose.
Ginny felt better.
Title: Growth
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Basilisk, Salazar
The first time she struggled out of a skin grown too tight, her master and friend praised her, curling her young and gleaming body around his fingers.
By the twentieth, he paid less attention; she grew rapidly in her youth, a ferocious hunter. She was smooth curved death, with eye and coil and fang, and she kept the deep places clean.
At the twenty-fifth, she made him look away, down her tail, and admire her so that she could look up and see the warm pride in his eyes without killing him.
After the hundredth, he told her to sleep.
Challenge #96: Prompt
Title: Only Once
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Prompt
Characters: Hermione
Author's Note: Set during PS, before the troll comes in.
Hermione had always been the perfect student. Her homework had always been done; she had always been prompt to every lesson and the first to raise her hand to answer questions.
She had tried magic at once when she'd had the chance. She had so looked forward to coming to Hogwarts.
But she was alone here too, and she felt it keenly. That Ron Weasley hadn't had to SAY it. He looked as if he could be nice, if he wanted....
Now she wasn't on time for her lesson. She was hiding, crying, instead.
But it was only the once....
Title: Shopping List
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Prompt
Characters: Godric
Author's Note: Because somebody mentioned a Founders' shopping list
Godric reviewed the list mentally. First he'd go to the Muggle market; the items there wouldn't draw nearly as much attention in the wizarding market as vice versa.
Bolts of wool: as much as possible, at a good price
Apples
Grain
Other foodstuffs according to judgement...
Hogwarts had its own orchard and cornfields, but there was only so much room with the forest for concealment, and too much space-twisting affected the grain badly.
Four good cauldrons
Dragon's liver
Dragonhide if any is to be had
Mooncalf dung...
And he'd better step quickly if he wanted to arrive promptly at dawn.
Challenge #97: Stuffed Including what may have been the first appearance (with multiple origins!) of the recurring stuffed basilisk.
Title: Explosives
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Author's Note: She hasn't started over the development after OotP, but Ozma's Filch stories are wonderful.
Filch stifled a groan as he found yet another cache. He was ready to swear that this was in misguided "honor" of the bloody Weasley twins. He'd LIKE to bloody the Weasley twins, and whoever thought this latest trick was a matter for pride and laughter.
Every keyhole, every nook, every crevice, and a fair number of the closets in Hogwarts were stuffed full of what seemed to be dungbombs in ribbon form.
It was revolting.
Nauseating.
And trying to dislodge and dig it out without magic meant it was very likely to explode into a cloud of stinking muck.
Title: After the Feast
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: That's a good question, as I don't think this can actually take place any of the years Harry's been at Hogwarts. Accordingly, it's someone else.
"But we're stuffed!" groaned the Beaters in unison.
"Ate loads at the feast --"
"It's dark out!"
"Yeah, there's a reason matches start in the morning, you know."
"I don't care," snapped the captain crisply. "If you puke, it's your own fault for gorging yourselves. I want you out on the Quidditch pitch in five minutes."
"It's not booked!"
"Nobody else will try right after the feast."
The captain whirled and stalked out of the common room.
This happened in two common rooms.
Five minutes later, Gryffindor and Slytherin jockeyed sluggishly and rather queasily for position across a dark pitch.
Title: Teasing
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: Helga/Salazar
Author's note: Cut for sex.
Their work was done for the day. Teaching and chores would be taken up again come morning.
In the meantime, blankets and charms and a roaring fire defeated the chill of the winter night, and Salazar arched over Helga, grinning down (and panting a little).
"And how are you feeling?" he asked teasingly, tilting his hips into hers.
Helga grinned wickedly and ran her gaze down the length of their bodies to where they met, before their legs entwined. "Oh... stuffed quite full."
And here she discovered that it was possible to make Salazar Slytherin blush Gryffindor red in bed.
Title: Sinusitis
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: Voldemort
Author's note: Cut for ick.
It seemed something of a waste, in a way, to use such a relatively harmless curse.
But a subtle curse had stood a better chance of making its way past his defenses, and thus a carefully and thoughtfully designed one had wended its way to Voldemort.
It had begun quietly, with minor irritation and faint congestion and pressure.
It had blossomed into a full-blown sinus infection. The Dark Lord's face was stuffed full of mucus and pus, congealing into an utterly revolting gunk.
It seemed to be impairing his judgment.
Harry, tracing his scar, thought Voldemort quite deserved the headache.
Title: Unpacking
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: Godric, Salazar
"What on earth is this for?" Godric asked.
Salazar looked over his shoulder in exasperation. "Isn't it enough that I've left the school? Did you have to come pester me while I settle in here? What's what for?"
"This. And I'm helping you unpack. Least I can do." Godric handed over an almost perfectly intact snakeskin, the few tears meticulously repaired, the body stuffed with dried herbs.
"...It's not for anything."
"...Storage?" Godric sniffed. "Smells like mint."
A sigh. "It was a toy, when I was a child."
"Oh, I see." Godric laid it across the head of the bed.
Title: Childhood Companion
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: Salazar
Author's Note: Prequel to "Unpacking," but stands alone.
Salazar Slytherin's parents, being of a longstanding wizarding family, considered it only natural that their second son, like the first, should be magical.
The Parseltongue, as rare among wizards as magic among the general population, took them a bit longer to figure out.
Salazar would keep turning up with snakes. Grass snakes were one thing. Adders were a bit more worrying.
After taking one away from him (and releasing it unharmed, or he would have had a fit), his elder sister took its last shed skin, stuffed it with dried herbs, sewed it up, and charmed it never to tear.
Title: Leaving Feast
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: Founders
They had a stuffed goose, and quite a large boar: just the right amount to go around, now. Plenty of ale, naturally, and mead for those who wouldn't let the stronger drink go to their heads.
It was a feast in the grand tradition of Hogwarts feasts, a fine send-off from his friends.
It was the first meal in years no one debated or quarreled over.
It was the last one he would ever attend.
It was a dignified and solemn occasion, with less cheer than your average funeral wake.
Salazar rather thought it was a waste of good cooking.
Title: Parting Gift
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: Salazar, OC
Author's note: If read in context with the others, either this is an alternate origin for the thing, or he's got two of them.
Salazar hadn't been expecting a parting gift from a Muggle-born Hufflepuff. Particularly since it turned out to be a shed snakeskin stuffed with dried herbs. He sniffed at them, and memory washed over him.
"You were a good teacher," she told him, "even if you didn't like us."
"It's not you I don't like, lass." He turned the stuffed serpent over, studying the workmanship. "It's the risk."
She shrugged. "We'll look after the herb-beds for you."
After she left, he examined her gift in great detail. Her grandfather had been known, after all, for entirely non-magical poisons.
He kept it.
Title: The Man Behind the Curtain
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: Sirius
Sirius was smothering.
It wasn't that he didn't understand. He understood the need to keep hidden, though he'd evaded capture in the open for a year. He understood that the House of Black was not remarkable for its hospitality to outsiders, and they needed someone of the blood there much of the time just so the rest of the Order could survive entering.
It was just that the place wasn't remarkable for its hospitality to him, either.
It was stuffy, draped in heavy, doxy-infested curtains.
He felt as stifled as if he were behind the curtains with his mother's painting.
Title: Heirlooms
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: Sirius
Sirius felt crammed into 12 Grimmauld Place.
The very air crowded him, remaining musty and close and stuffy no matter how he tried to air it out. He suspected the curtains of conspiring against him; something in them bit him the first time he touched one. After that he dug out an old wand and used that, though it buzzed against his fingers. They still stank of dust and mold. Probably half rotted.
His old family home, filled to bursting with tastefully arranged, filthy articles of wealth and dark magic, centuries old.
Priceless junk.
There was no room for him here.
Title: Guide to Moderately Uncommon Magical Artifacts: Introduction
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: None really
The Guide to Moderately Uncommmon Magical Artifacts is an introduction to the "stuff" of the wizarding world, specifically those magical artifacts too unusual, expensive, regulated, or hazardous to be handled regularly by the wizard on the street but not quite enough so to prevent the odd irregular encounter.
CAUTION: This work is intended as a survey only. Reading this book no more qualifies you to operate an unfamiliar and potentially dangerous artifact than reading Newt Scamander's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them qualifies you to tame a Hippogriff. Please see bibliography for written and personal sources of in-depth instruction.
Title: Guide to Moderately Uncommon Magical Artifacts: Pensieve
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: None really
Author's note: This was the one I thought of first, but then I decided to write the introduction. This and any future "excerpts" will make sense alone, I think, despite the conceit of being fragments of a larger work.
The Pensieve is, as the name suggests, a device for sieving thoughts. It is used when the brain is stuffed so full of thoughts that they haven't room to sort themselves out. Thoughts or memories are removed from the brain and placed in the Pensieve for more objective examination.
Construction: a shallow basin, generally runed, containing silver or white fluid known as thoughtstuff. Cracks or crazing may or may not reflect on the owner's state of mind.
Cautions: Handling your thoughts outside their natural habitat without competent instruction indicates that your thoughts are already defective and probably no great loss.
Title: Breathtaking
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: Tom Riddle
When Tom Riddle first opened the Chamber of Secrets, it took his breath away. Overly excited, he temporarily abandoned prudence and slid incautiously down into stale, dead air. He nearly smothered.
It took him a long time to wake the basilisk. It later told him this was a protective measure: when there was inadequate air or food or drink to sustain it, magic sleep held it safe, needing nothing.
The scent clung to the fine hairs in his nose long after he dislodged it from his robes. He spent weeks stuffed up and longer smelling the Chamber.
He didn't mind.
Title: The Music Box
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Stuffed
Characters: Ginny, mostly
The music box had clearly been enchanted to spring open and play when disturbed. Ginny thought the first notes irritating, putting a sour taste in her mouth, but before she could reach to stop it, the sound seemed to change, to become ethereal rather than empty, beautiful in its simplicity rather than bland.
Though they'd aired out the house as best they could, the atmosphere in the room seemed to thicken; everyone stood dreaming. Ginny's head felt stuffed with the lightest down, soft, as if she could float away.
Her breath slowed.
Her thoughts slowed, but crawled to realization.
SLAM.
Challenge #98: Me, Myself, and I
Title: I Would Have My Students Bold
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Me, Myself, and I
Characters: Godric
I would have my students bold, to stand for what is right.
I would have my students dare what others may not, walk into danger, neither blindly nor heedlessly, but with their eyes open when they would rather have them shut.
I would have them protect those who are weaker, whether for a life or a moment, and claim no debt or repayment for it afterward.
I would have them remember how to laugh in the dark.
I would have them put aside fear when it grips them and despair when it threatens to devour, and do what needs doing.
Title: I Would Have My Students Strong
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Me, Myself, and I
Characters: Helga
I would have my students strong, to stand firm against wind and tide.
I would have my students make the most of time and of themselves, yet I would have them know there are better things than glory.
I would have them judge fairly, and not in haste. I would have them be faithful, and worthy of faith, even when others betray. I would have them lean on each other.
I would have them give their lives to their chosen work.
I would have them turn their hands, despite fear or disgust, disregard or difficulty, to do what needs doing.
Title: I Would Have My Students Curious
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Me, Myself, and I
Characters: Rowena
Author's Note: Luna may fit more definitions of "curious" than Rowena had in mind, but I wouldn't be too sure.
I would have my students curious, to seek understanding.
I would have my students care for the mind and for learning. I would have them thirst to know, to understand the world and what it means, both for the power of knowledge, what they may do, and its worth in itself.
I would have them preserve the knowledge others have gathered, gather some anew, create more, and teach it all, for with this charge we are blessed.
I would have them ever wonder.
I would have them think and act with thought, to know and to do what needs doing.
Title: I Would Have My Students Sure
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Characters: Salazar
I would have my students sure.
I would have my students make the most of themselves, of their lives. I would have them know what they want and what they want to be, and I would have them not only reach but grasp it, whatever it takes.
And I would have them want all life offers.
I would have them part of tradition, but not bound by it. I would have them come of good families and raise them.
I would have them know what matters.
I would have them act on that knowledge, and do what needs doing.
Title: Sorting Song
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Me, Myself, and I
Characters: And now for the Hat!
A Thinking Cap, the Sorting Hat am I
Created by the Four your minds to eye.
Legilimens I am, a Pensieve too,
But neither quite, and I'll be Sorting you.
For bold protectors, Gryffindor is right:
Though fear arise, you'll not concede to fright.
Our scholars enter Ravenclaw to learn,
Where brilliant minds and thirst for knowing burn.
Ambitious? Then a Slytherin you are,
Who'll do utmost to reach the brightest star.
For other works, then Hufflepuff is true:
With faith and justice, make the most of you.
Remember nonetheless, divided stream,
The Hogwarts Four all shared a common dream.
Title: Holding Pattern
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Me, Myself, and I
Characters: Hermione, with Ginny and Harry
Author's Note: I have no idea where Ron is. The other characters would really like one.
Her hands are on my shoulders, then her arms around me, strong and solid, but shaking. A little. I can feel muscles under the softness. Even from here I can tell they're knotted tight.
I was trying so hard not to cry.
Harry is here, going mad with waiting. If Ron were here, he would look uncomfortable and make tea, and only hug me if I grabbed him. Nobody is making tea. I'm crying on Ginny, and it's her brother who's missing. That can't be right.
I might do a lot of things that aren't right, to get him back.
Title: Breath
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Me, Myself, and I
Characters: Dementor
I hunger.
No, I do not hunger for your joy. I do not hunger for your memories, scented tantalizingly with pleasure, joy, love, happiness, delight, satisfaction, glee, contentment.
I breathe those, drawing them in and away until the sour ones lurch up in their place. I strip the freshness from them and breathe them back out into you as despair. I breathe those. (And like oxygen for you, too much will burn.) Azkaban is as suffocating to me as to you, like stale air until someone new brings a fresh breeze.
I eat less often. My food is your soul.
Title: Defiant
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Me, Myself, and I
Characters: Ginny
Don't even think about it.
I know who you are.
I know what you want.
You can't have it.
Don't think for a minute that just because you could fool me when you were sixteen and I was eleven, you've got a chance now. I'm sixteen; I'm still young, but not as young as I ought to be. I know more about you than I want to, but I still know how to laugh.
You can't have my mind.
You can't have my hands.
You can't have my heart.
You can't have his life.
You'll be left with nothing.
Soon.
Title: Fifteen Inches
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Me, Myself, and I
Characters: Hermione
This is dreadful.
Harry and Ron are laughing at me. Well, that's not the dreadful part: they're not being nasty about it or anything. I suppose they would be happy about this.
Fifteen inches. It's nowhere near enough.
The new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor assigned an essay. That's fine. But fifteen inches! Not "at least" fifteen inches, "at most"!
"Be concise," she said. "Choose relevant material carefully," she said. I can't argue the point, exactly, but there's just so much to say.
Oh, and, "Don't use smaller handwriting than your usual script."
I'd best copy this out again.
Title: Adventure?
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Me, Myself, and I
Characters: Friar
The end of earthly life, so I was ever taught, was a thing to be neither sought nor feared. It was to be a transition, and after a little time, rest and reward rejoicing.
When it came to me, I looked back, and I was not ready to rest.
I have not, I think, given up my hope of heaven; only delayed it, not rejected. At the day of resurrection no soul, even ghosts or Dementors' feed, will be unaccounted for.
I have work yet to do here, though my hands be idle, and I believe it has been blessed.
Challenge #99: Swollen
Title: Gunk
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Swollen
Characters: Neville
The harvest of bubotuber pus was generally considered one of the more satisfying, if disgusting, lessons in Herbology, but for some reason nobody ever volunteered.
Neville drew on his dragonhide gloves. He was lucky, and he knew it; the worst detention Professor Sprout could assign him was better than any detention with Snape. Bubotubers? Easy. Almost fun.
He wrapped his hand around the tip of the squirming black plant, then ran it down, finding a spot, and held the bottle ready. Gently but firmly, with proper technique, he braced the plant and pressed his thumb against the swollen boil.
Splurt.
Title: Insults
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Swollen
Characters: Neville
Author's note: Can be a prequel to the previous one, but I think they stand safely alone.
Neville wiped sweat from his forehead as soon as he was alone. He'd been lucky, no doubt there. He'd drawn Umbridge's wrath, quite by accident, but by amazing good fortune McGonagall had been about. She had breathed heavily through her nose and given an excellent impression of fuming, so Umbridge had turned him over to her.
McGonagall had merely spoken sharply and turned him over to Sprout, by which Neville knew she wasn't really angry.
Neville couldn't think of Umbridge as a toad. He liked Trevor.
All swollen up with disgusting things inside...
No, he just couldn't insult bubotubers either.
Title: Begloomed
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Swollen
Characters: Mr. Lovegood
The Quibbler lay neglected; sightings strange even to wizardkind went uninvestigated. Mr. Lovegood huddled glumly in his favorite armchair, uncheered by its comfort.
His wife was dead, but that wasn't why. He'd mourned, and sometimes grief still caught him out, but not today.
His daughter was about to come of age in a world under Voldemort's threat, but that wasn't why. He wouldn't change the past even if the Ministry didn't rig Time-Turners to prevent it.
He was covered in swellings. That was closer; it had the same cause.
He waited for the effects of the Glumbumble stings to pass.
Title: Snap Dragon
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Swollen
Characters: Ron, Madam Pomfrey
"Madam Pomfrey?"
She looked up to see a freckly, redheaded boy shifting from foot to foot in the doorway, cradling one hand. Ron Weasley. She'd been expecting him. Most professors wouldn't force a student to the hospital wing except in extreme circumstances; it was something they had to learn to recognize for themselves. But she had been given warning. "Yes?"
"I-- my hand--"
Something reptilian had bitten him, taking no flesh but leaving germs and poison. The hand was badly swollen around angry green-tinged marks.
She diagnosed and treated without making him explain.
This way, he'd come back next time.
Title: The Lion and the Unicorn
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Swollen
Characters: Salazar, Godric
Author's Note: Modified from a scene in an unposted fic.
"Explain this to me again." Salazar examined Godric's shoulderblade incredulously. It was cracked right through, but the only swelling was in reaction to the immediate damage and the irritation of shifting bone since. Well, there wouldn't be any festering, if Godric's story was true....
Godric gritted his teeth. "I was gored by a unicorn."
"Why did it stop? I know perfectly well they can kill easily."
"I dodged. Well, partly. And after I shifted back to human, it seemed annoyed but left me alone. So I walked home."
"I knew you were provoking, but really."
"Evidently they don't like lions."
Title: Bitten
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Swollen
Characters: Salazar, Godric
Author's Note: In the interests of fair play...
"What in the world bit you? And why are you asking me to heal it instead of Helga?" Something had bitten Salazar badly, denting several ribs on both sides of his body. Godric examined the swelling and racked his brains for any local monster that wouldn't also have left scorch marks.
Salazar mumbled something indistinct. "You heal well enough."
"Didn't catch the first part."
"...Badger."
Godric raised an eyebrow, beginning the healing spell. "We have giant badgers? You should definitely talk to Helga."
"I was a serpent at the time."
"Have you tried avoiding your natural predators?"
"Oh, shut up."
Title: Duped
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Swollen
Characters: Snape, MWPP
The first-year Gryffindor boys were in a high state of glee when Severus Snape came down to breakfast with his hands swollen from the scrubbing he'd done in the previous evening's detention.
Three nights ago, James and Sirius had dueled and debated half the night in the dormitory until Sirius conceded that he still loved his family, but not the Dark Arts.
Two days ago, Snape had said snidely, "The brightest star of the Black family in Gryffindor... his mother must be so pleased."
Sirius had challenged him to a duel that midnight.
And like a fool, Snape had shown.
Title: Sunshine and Daisies
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Swollen
Characters: Harry
Author's note: Inspired by the discussion of "Light's Fury." One of two related tacks I considered taking -- maybe I'll finish the other one too.
Harry once thought of love as light, happy, trivial.
He knew now.
Love was Ron and Hermione.
Love was Sirius.
Love was Dumbledore.
Love was Neville. Ginny. Luna. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Hagrid. McGonagall.
"Have a biscuit."
Love was stumbling, getting up again.
Love was fighting, making up, learning not to fight.
Love was learning what to fight for.
Love was building life, holding on, letting go.
Love was giving yourself away, priceless, for something worth more.
Love might preserve, often transformed the beloved, always transformed the lover.
Love swelled like a bud grown through concrete or a raging star.
Title: Fraternal Affection
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: Swollen
Characters: Godric, Salazar
Author's note: Alan and I are still working on it, but we do have a fic in which Salazar married Godric's younger sister. And believe me, they both got an earful over the split.
"So, you're going to marry my little sister." Godric raised a mug of ale and clinked it lightly against Salazar's, grinning.
"I adore her. And she said yes this morning." They both drank.
"Sal, I love you like a brother," Godric continued in the same idly cheerful tone, "So I give you fair warning, if you ever break her heart, your private regions will swell slowly and painfully until they explode."
Salazar blinked. "And they say I'm ruthless. I won't -- but what would you do, brother, if she were to break mine? In theory."
"Did I say I'd cause it?"
Challenge #100: 100
Title: Foreplay
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Hermione/Ron
Ten to ten strong fingers and ten to ten toes.
Ten to ten slightly knobby knuckles.
Ten down each long arm, trailing goosebumps.
Ten up each lightly freckled calf and slower, slower, up each thigh.
Ten in a double arc across his chest, replacing her ten fingertips one by one.
Nine scattered gradually over his neck, ending with her tongue dabbling in the hollow of his throat as he gasped.
"Ron...."
One on his mouth.
Hermione counted out one hundred kisses.
--On their wedding night, to soothe her nerves.
--On their hundredth anniversary, less supple but no less in love.
Title: Unbound
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Founders
One hundred years she'd lived and worked; one hundred years she'd known them. Three and one, two and two, four all together, and together they belonged. It had been on her seventh birthday she first met the other three; from the age of reason, she counted the best of her life.
Bitterly they fought; they always had. Like brothers and sisters, where too much caring and too much knowing magnifies any dispute. None had ever truly believed they could be torn apart.
One hundred years later, Salazar walked away, and though she walked still onward Helga felt her heart die.
Title: Unbinding
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Godric, Salazar
Author's note: Not necessarily related to "Unbound," aside from the obvious.
"Don't go."
"You're the one who told me to just this afternoon," Salazar snapped.
"I said if. If you weren't willing to consider--"
"I'm not."
"They can learn. You know that."
"They're not born to it. Hundreds are not born to magic. Or scholarship, or valor."
"They are born to magic."
"This isn't their world."
"Do you think it kinder or safer to leave them to their accidents?"
"You never cared for safety, Godric." It wasn't true; Godric would yet die to buy safety for others.
Godric turned away. "You used to know when it was worth taking a risk."
Title: Building
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Founders
Stone on stone on a hundred other stones, and eventually they all lost count except Rowena, who would probably know every speck of gravel until the day she died, or after, when Hogwarts crumbled at last.
"How many do you think will come?"
"At first?"
"One day."
"I think we'll have to stop at a hundred. We've only so many hands apiece, after all."
"I could fix that..."
"No thank you!"
A hundred miles and more, each step on foot, spreading the word.
None of the four saw Hogwarts' hundredth year, but their children of body and mind all assembled.
Title: Luna's Earrings
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Luna
Luna had two great indulgences: her mind, with its many flights of perfectly serious fancy, and her earrings.
She liked them interesting. She liked them unusual. She liked them quirky. She had a hundred different pairs, most of which no one else would ever want to wear, and that suited her just fine.
Many were root vegetables, from carrots to wasabi (technically a rhizome). Luna was excellent with shrinking and preservation charms; she could store a full root cellar for the school in her jewelry box if she wanted. Some were more exotic.
Two pairs had belonged to her mother.
Title: Walking on Air
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Luna
Author's note: Thanks, Jelsemium. :)
Luna's radish earrings weren't her only strange ones. Perhaps the most peculiar of all were the ones that had to be kept in suspended animation.
They were billywigs.
They were illegal, according to the Ministry of Magic, or rather they were legal to possess but not to apply to oneself. Strictly speaking it was not illegal to wear them, although probably doing so in the expectation of being stung was enough to get her in trouble. So she wore them when feeling particularly defiant.
By the hundredth sting, her ears were sore and swollen, but Luna was walking on air.
Title: Birthday Song
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Sorting Hat
The Sorting Hat had earned every bit of its tattered condition. Most hats didn't last a thousand years and more, even if they were well constructed and had been magically reinforced over the years. Nobody wanted to lose it.
It was older than the school, technically; it had been new (at least from its perspective now) when the Four had the idea, and by the time it was a century in age it had been given brains and was choosing their students.
At ten centuries, it sang softly to the paintings in the Headmaster's deserted office, "Happy birthday to me..."
Title: Birthday Wish
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Dumbledore
Author's Note: I may be taking liberties with when exactly he was supposed to be 150...
Albus Dumbledore's magical power had grown with his age and learning, but though his hair was still a warm auburn with only slivers of silver to frost it, time was starting to catch up to his body. He was tired, deep in his bones and his soul. Some weariness would pass; some would never fade.
He was triumphant, victorious. Grindelwald had fallen today, and without his hand his webs must unravel.
Albus plodded onward over snow, knowing better than to Apparate in this state.
It was his hundredth birthday, and all he wanted was to be home. With warm feet.
Title: Birthday Party
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Sorting Hat, teachers
Author's Note: Because the idea of its singing to itself all alone was just so melancholy. (Jelsemium said it reminded her of Harry, actually. And he ought to get a proper party too.)
After the first hundred years of the Sorting Hat's existence, the children of the Hogwarts Four (those still teaching at Hogwarts) had lifted it ceremoniously from its place and thrown a party, figuring that the item entrusted with their parents' choices and judgment probably also deserved a birthday now and then. They had surrounded it with cheerful babble, passing it from head to head for a thoughtful chat.
The custom had fallen away, the date lost... until someone found timely reference to the party nine hundred years ago.
Butterbeer clinked all around the staff room, and the Hat was content.
Title: Birthday Surprise
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Sorting Hat
Author's note: Actually, none of these birthday drabbles seem to go together at all.
The Sorting Hat waited, almost trembling with anticipation.
The Deputy Headmistress carried it to the Great Hall.
Before the assembled students, the Sorted and the hundred first-years, the Hat began its song:
When the Founders first began this school,
They each would choose, but they weren't fools;
They knew that couldn't last,
So in the distant past,
They gave me brains to choose you all by rule.
So I've Sorted you, in yearly throngs
The thousandth now has come along...
So before I do my thing,
Your turn has come to sing!
Of a thousand Hogwarts Sortings come and gone.
Title: Sternutation
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Salazar, very grumpy
Author's note: Halfway there!
Salazar Slytherin took undeniable pride in being a skilled Parselmouth. Like many rare magical talents, it was more complicated than most people assumed. Certainly, it was easier to be born with the knowledge of a language than to study one, but there were nuances belonging to different breeds of serpent... and other intricacies. Parseltongue had intrinsic properties of command, and it was important to distinguish between compulsion and conversation.
It also, after much practice, made his sneezes sound funny. He had sneezed a hundred times this morning alone, and strongly suspected that he had been subtly hexed for someone's entertainment.
Title: Parseltongue
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Salazar
Author's note: Spun off an idea mentioned in Sternutation, but I don't think they depend on one another.
As an inborn magical talent, Parseltongue's difficulty was often underestimated, even by those who knew how challenging magic itself could be.
First, it was messy, until you learned how to avoid actually spitting. (No, Salazar could not spit venom eight feet into an enemy's eyes. Sometimes he really wished he could.)
Second, there were a hundred shades of meaning and control to a hiss. Serpents' hypnotic reputation wasn't undeserved; their natural mode of speech was imperative. It was vital to change that for courtesy to a friend... or to exert it correctly (and strongly enough!) over another's will in conflict.
Title: Awakening
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Ginny, Molly
Author's note: Because I wouldn't be surprised if she'd done it before.
After her first year, Ginny's family tried to be kind. At first she found it irritating because she didn't feel she needed it; the delicious relief of freedom, with everyone restored, overwhelmed all else.
Then she hated being left alone with the blank places in her memory, and their ends. Three times a night, for over a month, she dreamed drifting rooster feathers.
At last, busy and unthinking, her mother sent her to kill a chicken for dinner.
The hundredth time that summer she wrung a rooster's neck in her hands, it was real and had purpose.
Ginny felt better.
Title: Growth
House: Hufflepuff
Wordcount: 100
Challenge: 100
Characters: Basilisk, Salazar
The first time she struggled out of a skin grown too tight, her master and friend praised her, curling her young and gleaming body around his fingers.
By the twentieth, he paid less attention; she grew rapidly in her youth, a ferocious hunter. She was smooth curved death, with eye and coil and fang, and she kept the deep places clean.
At the twenty-fifth, she made him look away, down her tail, and admire her so that she could look up and see the warm pride in his eyes without killing him.
After the hundredth, he told her to sleep.