Round 2, Challenge 10: Voting
Just a reminder for this week and the remaining two Participants are no longer allowed to vote in the competition. Ta :)
I promise I won't be mean next week... Hands up if you believe me...
Below the cuts are the drabbles and the poll for the tenth challenge of Round 2 of rwhg_ldws.
If you wish to submit your scores as a comment, please feel free to do so, the comments to this post are screened.
• Please mark the drabbles out of 10
• Please mark all of the drabbles. If you don't, none of your scores will count.
• If you are taking part please do not vote.
• The order of the drabbles is random.
Challenge 10: Drabbles
Drabble 1
Author: wanderhomeagain
Title: Untitled
Rating: PG
Word Count: 500
A/N(optional): Warning: Second person. I apologise.
"It's not supposed to happen like this," she says as the two of you climb into bed. You are worn out after such an awful day, and exhausted already at the thought that tomorrow will be much, much worse. "No mother should have to bury her child."
You lie awake together, clinging to each other in the darkness. You ache to make love to her, hold her, comfort her.
To have her comfort you.
You hesitate, though, in a way you haven't in years.
It doesn't seem right.
Not like it did when Fred died, and making love for the first time seemed a little irreverent and just the sort of thing Fred would have encouraged. Or when Hermione's mum died, and she needed you to anchor her, to ground her. To remind her that she was still alive.
This is nothing like that.
This is a horror that you never thought you'd have to live through.
You lie awake, snug in your bed, listening to the sounds of her breathing.
It is nearly dawn when she says your name.
"Ron? Rose and Hugo-"
"-are fine, love. They're here, just down the hall."
"Ron, we almost-"
"I know. Hermione, I know."
"If they'd left the pub five minutes later."
"I know, Hermione."
You cringe at your tone and at the loss of her body next to yours as she rolls away from you.
"James is- was- barely twenty-one."
You cringe again when she corrects herself.
"I can't imagine what Ginny and Harry are going through." She sits up and searches for her dressing gown.
"Where are you going?"
"I have to see my babies."
You follow her out of your room and to the end of the hall. She opens the door to Hugo's room first and you hear her gasp. Looking over her head, you see that he is not in his bed.
You catch her as she sags against you.
"Don't panic," you whisper, even though you're panicking yourself. "He's around here somewhere. He wouldn't have left."
You try Rose's room next, sticking your head in through the crack in the door so that Hermione will not forget how to breathe if your daughter isn't in there.
She's not.
Your heart thuds in your chest and you try to keep from being sick as you race back towards the sitting room, Hermione clinging to your hand and trying desperately to keep up.
The air explodes from your lungs as you open the kitchen door to find the two of them sitting at the table, clutching mugs of tea. They look up at you guiltily as Hermione starts to sob.
"I didn't know where you were," she says over and over, clutching Rose and Hugo and weeping.
Your wife is crying, and your almost grown-up babies are crying, and tomorrow your best friend and your sister will bury their oldest child.
And there is nothing you can do about it except gather your family to you and cry, too.
Drabble 2
Author: queenb23more
Title: Penitence
Rating: PG
Word Count: 500
“No!”
Hermione jerked awake from a fitful sleep and sat straight up, her cheeks streaked with tears as she was overcome by another round of sobs.
She had wanted to see it…had needed to read it for herself…before she could believe the news she’d been given by the man now occupying their business address. But reading the words - Wendell and Monica Wilkins of Wollongong were killed when their car collided with a tour bus - had been even more devastating than hearing them spoken. There was a finality from seeing it in black and white, and Hermione wished that she had listened to Ron and not searched out Illawarra Mercury’s 27 December 1997 edition to confirm it for herself.
“Ron,” she wailed as he sat up in bed next to her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders, and she buried her face into his chest, clinging to him as if her life depended upon it. “I can’t believe they’re gone. And it’s entirely my fault.”
“Hermione -” Ron’s voice sounded tentative and almost reproachful.
“It is my fault. If I hadn’t…if they hadn’t come here, none of this would have happened,” she interrupted, needing to verbalize the guilt she’d been feeling since first hearing the news earlier that morning.
Ron pulled her closer but didn’t reply, and Hermione continued, grateful that he seemed to understand her need, “And it was nearly seven months ago! At Christmas, when Harry and I were…we were so miserable, but then you came back and it was all I could think of…but that was the night my parents…that they were…”
She began to hiccough, unable to actually say the words out loud.
“And they didn’t know me, Ron…when they…died,” she whispered finally, fresh tears flowing down her face and her chest heaving. “They didn’t know who they really were or anything at all about me.”
She could barely hear him muttering “Shh” as she wept, although she felt one of his hands stroking her hair and the other rubbing her back, comforting her as he had been doing for hours…days…months…years…and not for the first time, Hermione thanked God and Merlin and the Fates and everyone and everything else who she could think of to thank that Ron loved her. There were very few things that Hermione was sure of at that particular moment, but she knew that she couldn’t have made it through the past several hours without him.
“Thank you,” she mumbled once she regained the slightest measure of composure, placing a soft kiss against his bare collarbone.
“’s all right,” he replied into her hair, tightening his hold on her when she shivered. “Want me to-?” he asked, gesturing to the open window.
Hermione shook her head and nestled her body against his, sighing when he started rocking slowly. It was cooler than usual for July, but the chilly breeze was soothing, and soon, between it and Ron and the rocking, her tears subsided, her eyes closed, and she was able to sleep.
Drabble 3
Author: belladonna803
Title: So Much Love
Rating: G
Word Count: 500
A/N(optional): None.
Hermione felt buoyant, like she was being supported by invisible ocean waves. It was warm, and the searing, awful pain was gone. What had it been? Her mind stretched out around her, searching. She sorted through the fuzzy, tangled bits of thought...wait...there it was.
Her body was so frail, lying on the bed at St. Mungo's. Her hair, once rich and thick, was a matted, stringy grey mass. Overly prominent cheekbones and sunken eyes made her face almost unrecognisable. But it was her...wasted away by InFlooenza. The Fire Flu, they'd called it. It had become an epidemic, and Rose too had fallen ill, mending quickly. Hermione had not been so fortunate.
Hermione looked down at her family, and the body that'd been hers. It had been her body; this should be a terrifying notion. Somehow, it wasn't.
Rose stood and bent over Hermione's face. She kissed her Mum's forehead, and Hermione was not surprised when the sensation of it didn't come. “Rest now, Mum. Okay?” she said, and relief flowed from Rose, mingled with such love and sadness.
“Bye Mum. I love you,” said Hugo. He reached for his sister's hand and squeezed, tears streaking his cheeks. He couldn't bear to touch his Mum, because that would make it real. Hermione knew this like it'd come from her own mind. Her children...grown, with families of their own. They will be all right, she realised. It gave her peace.
Ron was in a chair by the head of her bed, looking more haggard than he had ever done. His grief rippled off of him like heat waves on the air, and they washed through her. She wanted to take away his pain, but knew that she couldn't...that was not the way of things. Hermione watched as Rose stooped and wrapped her arms around him. He stood and embraced her more tightly, her head tucked under his chin.
They stayed like that for a few moments, and then Ron pulled Hugo into an equally fierce hug. Hugo sobbed into his father's shoulder...and then time seemed to skip a beat, because suddenly her children were gone, and Ron was alone.
All vestiges of strength were gone, and he was beside her bed again. Her bony hand looked so tiny in his larger one.
“Hermione...” he said again and again in a shaky whisper. “Hermione...Hermione...”
His shoulders shook with anguish, and the desire to ease his suffering came from all around her. It surged into tangibility, and she reached out with it to touch Ron's cheek. He gasped and his eyes searched the empty room.
Her energy was waning. She must go, she knew. Summoning every particle of herself that she could gather, she projected it towards him. All at once she felt him, every fibre of him. So much love. He closed his eyes and she could see the joy in his smile.
And then she was fading; traveling. His voice reverberated within her. “See you soon, luv.”
Drabble 4
Author: shocolate
Title: So Foul and Fair a Day
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 407
A/N(optional):
The amount of blood was appalling and Hermione's hands slid through it as she tore his sleeve open and pressed them against his mangled arm.
"Harry," she moaned, "quickly, the Dittany."
"What am I looking for?" he asked, one hand rummaging inside her bag.
She pressed harder and Ron's head tipped back and he cried out in pain, before going limp.
"Little brown bottle," she snapped, tying the ripped strips of cloth around his upper arm and twisting hard. "Harry, please."
The bleeding lessened, but was that because her makeshift tourniquet was working, or because... because Ron's strong heart had been beating so fast, as they ran.
As they fled, dragging the Death Eater with them, as Hermione led the Death Eater right to the doorstep of Grimmauld Place and away again, twisting through space and landing in this silent place, ripping Ron's arm open.
This was all her fault and his face was so, so pale.
Harry flung himself to the ground, beside her, opening the bottle with shaking hands and handing it to her. She tried to take it, but it slipped through her bloody fingers and she wasted precious seconds wiping her hands as best she could.
Trying once more, she held it over Ron's arm and tipped it carefully, three drops splashing on the wound; green smoke clouded her view and she batted it away. Surely it seemed better; the bleeding had stopped, hadn't it?
The wound looked dryer, days old.
Scrambling to Ron's head, she lifted it onto her lap and placed her fingers on his throat, feeling for a pulse.
"He's okay, isn't he?" Harry asked, from somewhere far away as her fingers slid against cool, pale skin. "Hermione, he's going to be okay."
"I... I can't find a pulse," Hermione muttered, raising her frantic eyes to meet Harry's. "Harry, I can't..."
"No," Harry said, grabbing Ron's undamaged arm, his fingertips digging into the blue tinged skin at his wrist. "No, no, no, that's not possible. Hermione, do something."
"I... there's nothing else I can..."
She bent low, wrapping both arms around Ron's head and shoulders and holding him against her.
"Hermione!" Harry cried. "Do something."
She pressed her lips to Ron's cheek, her hands crossing on his chest, once more soaked in his blood.
There was no way she could go on, not from this, not without him.
This was all her fault.
And his blood was on her hands.
Challenge 10: Voting
Poll Round 2, Challenge 10: Voting
I promise I won't be mean next week... Hands up if you believe me...
Below the cuts are the drabbles and the poll for the tenth challenge of Round 2 of rwhg_ldws.
If you wish to submit your scores as a comment, please feel free to do so, the comments to this post are screened.
• Please mark the drabbles out of 10
• Please mark all of the drabbles. If you don't, none of your scores will count.
• If you are taking part please do not vote.
• The order of the drabbles is random.
Challenge 10: Drabbles
Drabble 1
Author: wanderhomeagain
Title: Untitled
Rating: PG
Word Count: 500
A/N(optional): Warning: Second person. I apologise.
"It's not supposed to happen like this," she says as the two of you climb into bed. You are worn out after such an awful day, and exhausted already at the thought that tomorrow will be much, much worse. "No mother should have to bury her child."
You lie awake together, clinging to each other in the darkness. You ache to make love to her, hold her, comfort her.
To have her comfort you.
You hesitate, though, in a way you haven't in years.
It doesn't seem right.
Not like it did when Fred died, and making love for the first time seemed a little irreverent and just the sort of thing Fred would have encouraged. Or when Hermione's mum died, and she needed you to anchor her, to ground her. To remind her that she was still alive.
This is nothing like that.
This is a horror that you never thought you'd have to live through.
You lie awake, snug in your bed, listening to the sounds of her breathing.
It is nearly dawn when she says your name.
"Ron? Rose and Hugo-"
"-are fine, love. They're here, just down the hall."
"Ron, we almost-"
"I know. Hermione, I know."
"If they'd left the pub five minutes later."
"I know, Hermione."
You cringe at your tone and at the loss of her body next to yours as she rolls away from you.
"James is- was- barely twenty-one."
You cringe again when she corrects herself.
"I can't imagine what Ginny and Harry are going through." She sits up and searches for her dressing gown.
"Where are you going?"
"I have to see my babies."
You follow her out of your room and to the end of the hall. She opens the door to Hugo's room first and you hear her gasp. Looking over her head, you see that he is not in his bed.
You catch her as she sags against you.
"Don't panic," you whisper, even though you're panicking yourself. "He's around here somewhere. He wouldn't have left."
You try Rose's room next, sticking your head in through the crack in the door so that Hermione will not forget how to breathe if your daughter isn't in there.
She's not.
Your heart thuds in your chest and you try to keep from being sick as you race back towards the sitting room, Hermione clinging to your hand and trying desperately to keep up.
The air explodes from your lungs as you open the kitchen door to find the two of them sitting at the table, clutching mugs of tea. They look up at you guiltily as Hermione starts to sob.
"I didn't know where you were," she says over and over, clutching Rose and Hugo and weeping.
Your wife is crying, and your almost grown-up babies are crying, and tomorrow your best friend and your sister will bury their oldest child.
And there is nothing you can do about it except gather your family to you and cry, too.
Drabble 2
Author: queenb23more
Title: Penitence
Rating: PG
Word Count: 500
“No!”
Hermione jerked awake from a fitful sleep and sat straight up, her cheeks streaked with tears as she was overcome by another round of sobs.
She had wanted to see it…had needed to read it for herself…before she could believe the news she’d been given by the man now occupying their business address. But reading the words - Wendell and Monica Wilkins of Wollongong were killed when their car collided with a tour bus - had been even more devastating than hearing them spoken. There was a finality from seeing it in black and white, and Hermione wished that she had listened to Ron and not searched out Illawarra Mercury’s 27 December 1997 edition to confirm it for herself.
“Ron,” she wailed as he sat up in bed next to her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders, and she buried her face into his chest, clinging to him as if her life depended upon it. “I can’t believe they’re gone. And it’s entirely my fault.”
“Hermione -” Ron’s voice sounded tentative and almost reproachful.
“It is my fault. If I hadn’t…if they hadn’t come here, none of this would have happened,” she interrupted, needing to verbalize the guilt she’d been feeling since first hearing the news earlier that morning.
Ron pulled her closer but didn’t reply, and Hermione continued, grateful that he seemed to understand her need, “And it was nearly seven months ago! At Christmas, when Harry and I were…we were so miserable, but then you came back and it was all I could think of…but that was the night my parents…that they were…”
She began to hiccough, unable to actually say the words out loud.
“And they didn’t know me, Ron…when they…died,” she whispered finally, fresh tears flowing down her face and her chest heaving. “They didn’t know who they really were or anything at all about me.”
She could barely hear him muttering “Shh” as she wept, although she felt one of his hands stroking her hair and the other rubbing her back, comforting her as he had been doing for hours…days…months…years…and not for the first time, Hermione thanked God and Merlin and the Fates and everyone and everything else who she could think of to thank that Ron loved her. There were very few things that Hermione was sure of at that particular moment, but she knew that she couldn’t have made it through the past several hours without him.
“Thank you,” she mumbled once she regained the slightest measure of composure, placing a soft kiss against his bare collarbone.
“’s all right,” he replied into her hair, tightening his hold on her when she shivered. “Want me to-?” he asked, gesturing to the open window.
Hermione shook her head and nestled her body against his, sighing when he started rocking slowly. It was cooler than usual for July, but the chilly breeze was soothing, and soon, between it and Ron and the rocking, her tears subsided, her eyes closed, and she was able to sleep.
Drabble 3
Author: belladonna803
Title: So Much Love
Rating: G
Word Count: 500
A/N(optional): None.
Hermione felt buoyant, like she was being supported by invisible ocean waves. It was warm, and the searing, awful pain was gone. What had it been? Her mind stretched out around her, searching. She sorted through the fuzzy, tangled bits of thought...wait...there it was.
Her body was so frail, lying on the bed at St. Mungo's. Her hair, once rich and thick, was a matted, stringy grey mass. Overly prominent cheekbones and sunken eyes made her face almost unrecognisable. But it was her...wasted away by InFlooenza. The Fire Flu, they'd called it. It had become an epidemic, and Rose too had fallen ill, mending quickly. Hermione had not been so fortunate.
Hermione looked down at her family, and the body that'd been hers. It had been her body; this should be a terrifying notion. Somehow, it wasn't.
Rose stood and bent over Hermione's face. She kissed her Mum's forehead, and Hermione was not surprised when the sensation of it didn't come. “Rest now, Mum. Okay?” she said, and relief flowed from Rose, mingled with such love and sadness.
“Bye Mum. I love you,” said Hugo. He reached for his sister's hand and squeezed, tears streaking his cheeks. He couldn't bear to touch his Mum, because that would make it real. Hermione knew this like it'd come from her own mind. Her children...grown, with families of their own. They will be all right, she realised. It gave her peace.
Ron was in a chair by the head of her bed, looking more haggard than he had ever done. His grief rippled off of him like heat waves on the air, and they washed through her. She wanted to take away his pain, but knew that she couldn't...that was not the way of things. Hermione watched as Rose stooped and wrapped her arms around him. He stood and embraced her more tightly, her head tucked under his chin.
They stayed like that for a few moments, and then Ron pulled Hugo into an equally fierce hug. Hugo sobbed into his father's shoulder...and then time seemed to skip a beat, because suddenly her children were gone, and Ron was alone.
All vestiges of strength were gone, and he was beside her bed again. Her bony hand looked so tiny in his larger one.
“Hermione...” he said again and again in a shaky whisper. “Hermione...Hermione...”
His shoulders shook with anguish, and the desire to ease his suffering came from all around her. It surged into tangibility, and she reached out with it to touch Ron's cheek. He gasped and his eyes searched the empty room.
Her energy was waning. She must go, she knew. Summoning every particle of herself that she could gather, she projected it towards him. All at once she felt him, every fibre of him. So much love. He closed his eyes and she could see the joy in his smile.
And then she was fading; traveling. His voice reverberated within her. “See you soon, luv.”
Drabble 4
Author: shocolate
Title: So Foul and Fair a Day
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 407
A/N(optional):
The amount of blood was appalling and Hermione's hands slid through it as she tore his sleeve open and pressed them against his mangled arm.
"Harry," she moaned, "quickly, the Dittany."
"What am I looking for?" he asked, one hand rummaging inside her bag.
She pressed harder and Ron's head tipped back and he cried out in pain, before going limp.
"Little brown bottle," she snapped, tying the ripped strips of cloth around his upper arm and twisting hard. "Harry, please."
The bleeding lessened, but was that because her makeshift tourniquet was working, or because... because Ron's strong heart had been beating so fast, as they ran.
As they fled, dragging the Death Eater with them, as Hermione led the Death Eater right to the doorstep of Grimmauld Place and away again, twisting through space and landing in this silent place, ripping Ron's arm open.
This was all her fault and his face was so, so pale.
Harry flung himself to the ground, beside her, opening the bottle with shaking hands and handing it to her. She tried to take it, but it slipped through her bloody fingers and she wasted precious seconds wiping her hands as best she could.
Trying once more, she held it over Ron's arm and tipped it carefully, three drops splashing on the wound; green smoke clouded her view and she batted it away. Surely it seemed better; the bleeding had stopped, hadn't it?
The wound looked dryer, days old.
Scrambling to Ron's head, she lifted it onto her lap and placed her fingers on his throat, feeling for a pulse.
"He's okay, isn't he?" Harry asked, from somewhere far away as her fingers slid against cool, pale skin. "Hermione, he's going to be okay."
"I... I can't find a pulse," Hermione muttered, raising her frantic eyes to meet Harry's. "Harry, I can't..."
"No," Harry said, grabbing Ron's undamaged arm, his fingertips digging into the blue tinged skin at his wrist. "No, no, no, that's not possible. Hermione, do something."
"I... there's nothing else I can..."
She bent low, wrapping both arms around Ron's head and shoulders and holding him against her.
"Hermione!" Harry cried. "Do something."
She pressed her lips to Ron's cheek, her hands crossing on his chest, once more soaked in his blood.
There was no way she could go on, not from this, not without him.
This was all her fault.
And his blood was on her hands.
Challenge 10: Voting
Poll Round 2, Challenge 10: Voting