Round 1, Challenge 9 - Drabbles and Voting!
Behind the cut you will find the drabbles for the Slash challenge.
I am now changing the voting, partly because there are only 5 participants left but partly because hate the concept of voting for a least favourite. Each drabble will now be given a mark out of 10.
When voting please list the mark out of 10 you award each drabble in the text box below.
If you are a participant, you may vote but you must not give a mark for your own drabble.
All voters are asked to base the decisions for their vote upon the quality and the creativity of the writing. You should never vote against a drabble solely because it contains Het, Gen, or Slash elements, or because the chosen pairing isn't something you usually care for.
Voting will remain open until I wake up on Sunday morning, at which point I will tally the votes and announce the winner of this challenge.
Good luck to all our participants, and have fun voting!
#1.
Title: The Bodyguard
Author:
Rating: PG
Featured Characters/Pairings: Ron/Kingsley
Word Count: 389
Ron couldn't decide whether being the personal bodyguard of the Minister of Magic was a good thing or a bad thing.
But then, it seemed, neither could anyone else.
It had started off as a thing where everyone said he had barely scraped through Auror training, and was only tolerated for the sake of his best mate, and that he wasn't good enough for actual investigations, or missions, so he may as well be a distinctive blob of red hair, at the Minister's shoulder, to remind people that the Minister did actually have a bodyguard, even if it was a twenty-one-year old boy whose combat trousers never seemed to stay up properly, and whose hipbones probably needed a Permanent Sticking Charm slapped on them.
Everyone being the Daily Prophet, in this case.
His mum had shouted and thrown things into saucepans and his dad had quietly said that Kingsley wasn't stupid and Harry had done his Bolstering Ron's Confidence routine and Ron's ears had flushed red as he claimed it didn't bother him, anyway, not in the slightest.
He knew he'd done just fine in his exams, and that the Minister had asked for him, personally.
But then he'd saved the Minister's life and taken a rather revolting curse for him, and the papers had changed their tune.
Brave Auror Weasley, Order of Merlin First Class, rumoured strategy genius, war hero and right hand man of the Chosen One.
Minister Shacklebolt was lucky to get him.
Lucky to have such loyal and passionate staff.
So brave, so young.
Dashingly handsome.
Ron was rather sick of seeing his picture in the paper, especially as he had taken the curse in a rather sensitive area, and the close up photographs of his arse, accompanied by lurid speculation on the current state of the said area, was mortifying and not as funny as Harry and George seemed to think.
Being a bit slow to notice these things, he was also a bit embarrassed at Kingsley's solicitous speculation on the current state of the said area.
It wasn't until he was bent over a large map, discussing the route the Minister would take between Preston and Burnley, and felt a large hand solicitously cup his left buttock, that he decided that being the personal bodyguard of the Minister of Magic was bloody brilliant.
#2.
Title: Death by Potpourri
Author:
Rating: T
Warnings: Fluff, swearing
Featured Characters/Pairings: Ron/Harry
Word Count: 499
Author's Notes: Set early into Harry and Ron's relationship.
'What's this?'
Harry looked at Ron over his shoulder and then turned back to the telly.
'Potpourri, Hermione's doing.'
'Dare I ask what potpourri is?'
'Smell it.'
Ron stuck his nose in the wooden bowl filled with pink and purple stuff. He inhaled and instantly started coughing, dropping the bowl as he tried to rid his lungs and nose of the smell. Harry snorted.
'Fuck... me! Why is it all over the house?'
'I told you, Hermione's doing.'
'And why,' he coughed once more, 'is Hermione trying to kill me with this awful stuff?'
Harry once again turned back to the telly.
'I'm pretty sure that if Hermione wanted to kill you she'd find something more effective and less obvious than death by potpourri. I do know though, that she feels that the flat smells, and I quote 'too boy-y'.'
'Too boy-y'? Hermione can't have said that, it's not proper English.'
'I think the smell of your trainers and our work boots rendered her incapable of reaching her normal level of intelligence.'
'Ah.'
'Hence the potpourri.'
'Right. Maybe we do need a woman's influence around here.'
Harry turned his head towards Ron and raised his eyebrows.
'For cleaning purposes only!'
Harry snorted. 'Can I tell Hermione you said that?'
Ron's eyes widened. 'No, death by potpourri would be better than her reaction to that sentence.'
'I have to agree with that.'
'Wait, don't take that comment as I'm regretting breaking up with Hermione, 'cause I'm not. At all. I wouldn't-.'
Harry held up his hand.
'What?' he asked, obviously confused and amused.
'Well, when I said maybe we needed a woman's touch... I just don't want you to think that I love Hermione.'
'But you do love Hermione.'
Ron rolled his eyes. 'Okay, yes I do love her but I'm... I'm in love with you.'
Harry grinned.
'Good.'
'Good?'
'Problem?'
'All I get is 'good'?'
'Sorry, I'm in love with you, too.'
'You're sorry you're in love with me?'
Harry threw a cushion at Ron. Ron dodged it and grinned.
'So, do we keep the potpourri, then?' Ron asked.
'Well considering it got you to tell me you were in love with me, I don't mind it staying.'
'Hmm. Best not tell Hermione she's inadvertently the reason for that, she'll be way too smug for the rest of time.'
'Yes she will. I'll not tell her.'
'Good. Can I take it out the bedroom, though? It's just wrong.'
'You can try but Hermione charmed it so it will only disappear when the room smells as nice as she deems suitable.'
Ron sighed.
'Bloody hell! The woman was less involved in our bedroom activities when we were together.'
'Oh good, you brought bedroom activities up.'
'Why is that statement worrying me?'
'It shouldn't do. I just thought it would be good to celebrate your revelation.'
Ron grinned. 'We have to leave for The Burrow in fifteen minutes.'
'So shag me quickly then.'
'Even with the potpourri?'
'Even with the potpourri.'
#3.
Title: It Will Pass
Author:
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence
Featured Characters/Pairings: Ron, Ron/Harry
Word Count: 300
Author's Notes:
Your own carelessness is the reason they catch you.
One moment, you are checking the parameters of the ancient manor, and a moment later, a well-aimed spell makes sure you don't resist when they carry you inside and bind you to a chair. You are disoriented from the lack of light and more so from repeated blows to the head.
You want to smack yourself. But you can't; rough ropes chafe your wrists and prevent you from moving even after the spell is lifted.
Your hooded captors know that Aurors come in pairs. They want to know where your partner is. You laugh at them until they split your lips and break your nose.
Then you laugh a little more.
Teeth can be replaced. Broken bones can be mended.
You know pain. It will pass.
A pair of green shoes, an unusual table, a strong accent, a woman yelling behind a thin wall, a name dropped during a muffled conversation - you're good at noticing details, and in your mind, you repeat them over and over again.
Pain is temporary.
They promise to let you live if you spill where he is. They'll spare your life if you rat him out like a good little captive.
You can't breathe, but you smile. Blood is running down your forehead and blurring your vision.
They have no idea who your partner is.
They have no idea that he is your life.
They don't know that if you can't save him, there is no reason to save yourself.
They have no bloody idea that Harry Potter is going to rip this house apart, stone by stone with his bare hands.
You laugh again, and then you scream as the Cruciatus curse tears through your body and your mind.
Pain is nothing. It's faithless, untruthful, limited, and it will go away. Unlike Harry.
#4.
Title:He Loves Me
Author:
Rating:PG-13 for F-words
Warnings:None
Featured Characters/Pairings:Harry/Ron
Word Count: 400
Author's Notes: None
He loves me.
Dunno why, honestly. Fred and George once said that I had a face only a mother could love, and Ginny always told my my feet smelled worse than a troll's, and Hermione said I lacked direction, and some mad portrait at St. Mungo's said I was covered in spattergroit, and Mum always went completely spare because I'm right old slob who never, ever managed to put my pants in the laundry basket.
And that's not even mentioning my boss, who will loudly tell anyone who asks that I can't be arsed to follow directions, and my former teachers, who called me lazy (if not stupid), and the last bloke I dated (after Hermione and before I finally got my head on straight) who claimed that all I ever wanted to do was shag, eat, and sleep, and that I was incapable of commitment.
Well of course I was--he wasn't Harry, was he?
The thing is; Harry doesn't try to fit me into a mould the way the others did. With Harry, it's always been simple. Oh, I know, we had our rough patches--times when I envied him his fame and talent or (momentarily) lost my faith in him. And there was that awkward bit of time when we fought so hard against what we felt that we damn near killed ourselves, not to mention each other.
But Harry's never needed me to be anything other than myself. He laughs at my stupid jokes and he knows to give me space when I'm in a foul mood and he knows not to even bother trying to get an intelligent word out of me until I've had at least two cups of tea and a slice of toast. He couldn't give a fuck if I talk with my mouth full and there's no one on earth that I'd trust more than him to back me up in a fight.
But the best part of it is that he needs me. Not what I can do for him, not who I'm related to, not to stroke his ego, not even for the sex, which--let me tell you--is pretty fucking brilliant.
He needs me. Just me, warts (or freckles) and all. How could I not love someone who sees more in me than I see in myself?
#5.
Title: Epiphanies
Author:
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Featured Characters/Pairings: Ron/Unknown OMC, mentions of Dumbledore/Grindlewald.
Word Count: 476
Author's Notes: Um....
It all came to a head because of Harry.
No, not like that.
He wasn’t attracted to Harry, Godric no.
That would have been about as likely as him lusting after Hermione. The three of them will forever be the best of friends, that is undeniably true…they are bound by bonds forged out of shared experience that are untouchable by others, but there has never been anything romantic going on between any of them, despite the protestations of those who would like to believe otherwise.
But he told me once that it was Harry who’d first helped him understand it…by chance really. Ron had said that Harry’d made some passing remark about Dumbledore one day - not long after the war had ended - to the effect that despite all the lies and half-truths that Rita Skeeter had cooked up to try to sell her biography of the former headmaster, she’d actually been spot on with her insinuation that Dumbledore had been in love with Gellert Grindlewald. His best mate. His male best mate. He’d never clarified how Harry had been sure that Skeeter was right, but even if he didn’t trust Skeeter, he trusted Harry, so…
Ron told me he’d initially balked at the idea even though it had also captivated him. But he eventually realized that his hesitancy wasn’t over the idea of the widely beloved headmaster fancying another bloke; it was the fact that Grindlewald had been evil that had bothered him. But hearing about Dumbledore brought Ron to a place of epiphany. Ever since he’d understood what attraction was, he’d carried a feeling with him - unnamed, deep-down - that he wasn’t interested in girls, he didn’t understand them and didn’t really care to. But other blokes? They made sense, they were familiar, welcome, right. But he told me that he’d never thought that there would be anyone else who understood that. And so he hid it. He’d always been so insecure and worried about what others thought of him that he was fearful of giving his detractors another way of wounding him.
Hearing Dumbledore’s story changed all that. In fact, he has often repeated the idea that came to him the summer that he learned of it - that if such an amazing wizard, someone so powerful…if a person like that could prefer the company of wizards and still be so well-respected, then maybe he’d been afraid for no reason. He finally embraced who he truly was, completely and fully.
So, you see, I am very grateful to Harry, and to Dumbledore, really.
For without them, I don’t think he’d ever have had the courage to pursue what we now have, and it seems like I need him more and more every day. Life without him no longer makes sense to me.
I’m proud to say I’m Ron Weasley’s boyfriend, and I’m a very lucky bloke.
Poll Round 1, Challenge 9 - Slash
I am now changing the voting, partly because there are only 5 participants left but partly because hate the concept of voting for a least favourite. Each drabble will now be given a mark out of 10.
When voting please list the mark out of 10 you award each drabble in the text box below.
If you are a participant, you may vote but you must not give a mark for your own drabble.
All voters are asked to base the decisions for their vote upon the quality and the creativity of the writing. You should never vote against a drabble solely because it contains Het, Gen, or Slash elements, or because the chosen pairing isn't something you usually care for.
Voting will remain open until I wake up on Sunday morning, at which point I will tally the votes and announce the winner of this challenge.
Good luck to all our participants, and have fun voting!
#1.
Title: The Bodyguard
Author:
Rating: PG
Featured Characters/Pairings: Ron/Kingsley
Word Count: 389
Ron couldn't decide whether being the personal bodyguard of the Minister of Magic was a good thing or a bad thing.
But then, it seemed, neither could anyone else.
It had started off as a thing where everyone said he had barely scraped through Auror training, and was only tolerated for the sake of his best mate, and that he wasn't good enough for actual investigations, or missions, so he may as well be a distinctive blob of red hair, at the Minister's shoulder, to remind people that the Minister did actually have a bodyguard, even if it was a twenty-one-year old boy whose combat trousers never seemed to stay up properly, and whose hipbones probably needed a Permanent Sticking Charm slapped on them.
Everyone being the Daily Prophet, in this case.
His mum had shouted and thrown things into saucepans and his dad had quietly said that Kingsley wasn't stupid and Harry had done his Bolstering Ron's Confidence routine and Ron's ears had flushed red as he claimed it didn't bother him, anyway, not in the slightest.
He knew he'd done just fine in his exams, and that the Minister had asked for him, personally.
But then he'd saved the Minister's life and taken a rather revolting curse for him, and the papers had changed their tune.
Brave Auror Weasley, Order of Merlin First Class, rumoured strategy genius, war hero and right hand man of the Chosen One.
Minister Shacklebolt was lucky to get him.
Lucky to have such loyal and passionate staff.
So brave, so young.
Dashingly handsome.
Ron was rather sick of seeing his picture in the paper, especially as he had taken the curse in a rather sensitive area, and the close up photographs of his arse, accompanied by lurid speculation on the current state of the said area, was mortifying and not as funny as Harry and George seemed to think.
Being a bit slow to notice these things, he was also a bit embarrassed at Kingsley's solicitous speculation on the current state of the said area.
It wasn't until he was bent over a large map, discussing the route the Minister would take between Preston and Burnley, and felt a large hand solicitously cup his left buttock, that he decided that being the personal bodyguard of the Minister of Magic was bloody brilliant.
#2.
Title: Death by Potpourri
Author:
Rating: T
Warnings: Fluff, swearing
Featured Characters/Pairings: Ron/Harry
Word Count: 499
Author's Notes: Set early into Harry and Ron's relationship.
'What's this?'
Harry looked at Ron over his shoulder and then turned back to the telly.
'Potpourri, Hermione's doing.'
'Dare I ask what potpourri is?'
'Smell it.'
Ron stuck his nose in the wooden bowl filled with pink and purple stuff. He inhaled and instantly started coughing, dropping the bowl as he tried to rid his lungs and nose of the smell. Harry snorted.
'Fuck... me! Why is it all over the house?'
'I told you, Hermione's doing.'
'And why,' he coughed once more, 'is Hermione trying to kill me with this awful stuff?'
Harry once again turned back to the telly.
'I'm pretty sure that if Hermione wanted to kill you she'd find something more effective and less obvious than death by potpourri. I do know though, that she feels that the flat smells, and I quote 'too boy-y'.'
'Too boy-y'? Hermione can't have said that, it's not proper English.'
'I think the smell of your trainers and our work boots rendered her incapable of reaching her normal level of intelligence.'
'Ah.'
'Hence the potpourri.'
'Right. Maybe we do need a woman's influence around here.'
Harry turned his head towards Ron and raised his eyebrows.
'For cleaning purposes only!'
Harry snorted. 'Can I tell Hermione you said that?'
Ron's eyes widened. 'No, death by potpourri would be better than her reaction to that sentence.'
'I have to agree with that.'
'Wait, don't take that comment as I'm regretting breaking up with Hermione, 'cause I'm not. At all. I wouldn't-.'
Harry held up his hand.
'What?' he asked, obviously confused and amused.
'Well, when I said maybe we needed a woman's touch... I just don't want you to think that I love Hermione.'
'But you do love Hermione.'
Ron rolled his eyes. 'Okay, yes I do love her but I'm... I'm in love with you.'
Harry grinned.
'Good.'
'Good?'
'Problem?'
'All I get is 'good'?'
'Sorry, I'm in love with you, too.'
'You're sorry you're in love with me?'
Harry threw a cushion at Ron. Ron dodged it and grinned.
'So, do we keep the potpourri, then?' Ron asked.
'Well considering it got you to tell me you were in love with me, I don't mind it staying.'
'Hmm. Best not tell Hermione she's inadvertently the reason for that, she'll be way too smug for the rest of time.'
'Yes she will. I'll not tell her.'
'Good. Can I take it out the bedroom, though? It's just wrong.'
'You can try but Hermione charmed it so it will only disappear when the room smells as nice as she deems suitable.'
Ron sighed.
'Bloody hell! The woman was less involved in our bedroom activities when we were together.'
'Oh good, you brought bedroom activities up.'
'Why is that statement worrying me?'
'It shouldn't do. I just thought it would be good to celebrate your revelation.'
Ron grinned. 'We have to leave for The Burrow in fifteen minutes.'
'So shag me quickly then.'
'Even with the potpourri?'
'Even with the potpourri.'
#3.
Title: It Will Pass
Author:
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence
Featured Characters/Pairings: Ron, Ron/Harry
Word Count: 300
Author's Notes:
Your own carelessness is the reason they catch you.
One moment, you are checking the parameters of the ancient manor, and a moment later, a well-aimed spell makes sure you don't resist when they carry you inside and bind you to a chair. You are disoriented from the lack of light and more so from repeated blows to the head.
You want to smack yourself. But you can't; rough ropes chafe your wrists and prevent you from moving even after the spell is lifted.
Your hooded captors know that Aurors come in pairs. They want to know where your partner is. You laugh at them until they split your lips and break your nose.
Then you laugh a little more.
Teeth can be replaced. Broken bones can be mended.
You know pain. It will pass.
A pair of green shoes, an unusual table, a strong accent, a woman yelling behind a thin wall, a name dropped during a muffled conversation - you're good at noticing details, and in your mind, you repeat them over and over again.
Pain is temporary.
They promise to let you live if you spill where he is. They'll spare your life if you rat him out like a good little captive.
You can't breathe, but you smile. Blood is running down your forehead and blurring your vision.
They have no idea who your partner is.
They have no idea that he is your life.
They don't know that if you can't save him, there is no reason to save yourself.
They have no bloody idea that Harry Potter is going to rip this house apart, stone by stone with his bare hands.
You laugh again, and then you scream as the Cruciatus curse tears through your body and your mind.
Pain is nothing. It's faithless, untruthful, limited, and it will go away. Unlike Harry.
#4.
Title:He Loves Me
Author:
Rating:PG-13 for F-words
Warnings:None
Featured Characters/Pairings:Harry/Ron
Word Count: 400
Author's Notes: None
He loves me.
Dunno why, honestly. Fred and George once said that I had a face only a mother could love, and Ginny always told my my feet smelled worse than a troll's, and Hermione said I lacked direction, and some mad portrait at St. Mungo's said I was covered in spattergroit, and Mum always went completely spare because I'm right old slob who never, ever managed to put my pants in the laundry basket.
And that's not even mentioning my boss, who will loudly tell anyone who asks that I can't be arsed to follow directions, and my former teachers, who called me lazy (if not stupid), and the last bloke I dated (after Hermione and before I finally got my head on straight) who claimed that all I ever wanted to do was shag, eat, and sleep, and that I was incapable of commitment.
Well of course I was--he wasn't Harry, was he?
The thing is; Harry doesn't try to fit me into a mould the way the others did. With Harry, it's always been simple. Oh, I know, we had our rough patches--times when I envied him his fame and talent or (momentarily) lost my faith in him. And there was that awkward bit of time when we fought so hard against what we felt that we damn near killed ourselves, not to mention each other.
But Harry's never needed me to be anything other than myself. He laughs at my stupid jokes and he knows to give me space when I'm in a foul mood and he knows not to even bother trying to get an intelligent word out of me until I've had at least two cups of tea and a slice of toast. He couldn't give a fuck if I talk with my mouth full and there's no one on earth that I'd trust more than him to back me up in a fight.
But the best part of it is that he needs me. Not what I can do for him, not who I'm related to, not to stroke his ego, not even for the sex, which--let me tell you--is pretty fucking brilliant.
He needs me. Just me, warts (or freckles) and all. How could I not love someone who sees more in me than I see in myself?
#5.
Title: Epiphanies
Author:
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Featured Characters/Pairings: Ron/Unknown OMC, mentions of Dumbledore/Grindlewald.
Word Count: 476
Author's Notes: Um....
It all came to a head because of Harry.
No, not like that.
He wasn’t attracted to Harry, Godric no.
That would have been about as likely as him lusting after Hermione. The three of them will forever be the best of friends, that is undeniably true…they are bound by bonds forged out of shared experience that are untouchable by others, but there has never been anything romantic going on between any of them, despite the protestations of those who would like to believe otherwise.
But he told me once that it was Harry who’d first helped him understand it…by chance really. Ron had said that Harry’d made some passing remark about Dumbledore one day - not long after the war had ended - to the effect that despite all the lies and half-truths that Rita Skeeter had cooked up to try to sell her biography of the former headmaster, she’d actually been spot on with her insinuation that Dumbledore had been in love with Gellert Grindlewald. His best mate. His male best mate. He’d never clarified how Harry had been sure that Skeeter was right, but even if he didn’t trust Skeeter, he trusted Harry, so…
Ron told me he’d initially balked at the idea even though it had also captivated him. But he eventually realized that his hesitancy wasn’t over the idea of the widely beloved headmaster fancying another bloke; it was the fact that Grindlewald had been evil that had bothered him. But hearing about Dumbledore brought Ron to a place of epiphany. Ever since he’d understood what attraction was, he’d carried a feeling with him - unnamed, deep-down - that he wasn’t interested in girls, he didn’t understand them and didn’t really care to. But other blokes? They made sense, they were familiar, welcome, right. But he told me that he’d never thought that there would be anyone else who understood that. And so he hid it. He’d always been so insecure and worried about what others thought of him that he was fearful of giving his detractors another way of wounding him.
Hearing Dumbledore’s story changed all that. In fact, he has often repeated the idea that came to him the summer that he learned of it - that if such an amazing wizard, someone so powerful…if a person like that could prefer the company of wizards and still be so well-respected, then maybe he’d been afraid for no reason. He finally embraced who he truly was, completely and fully.
So, you see, I am very grateful to Harry, and to Dumbledore, really.
For without them, I don’t think he’d ever have had the courage to pursue what we now have, and it seems like I need him more and more every day. Life without him no longer makes sense to me.
I’m proud to say I’m Ron Weasley’s boyfriend, and I’m a very lucky bloke.
Poll Round 1, Challenge 9 - Slash