All we like sheep…

[wemyss]

Right. One may as well be in the fashion - although ‘lines’ always has a school-days ring to it, doesn’t it. At any rate: one-and-twenty first lines, in the order of posting / completion at AO3, most recent first (which is not necessarily or always the actual order of completion and posting at LJ).

1. HM Principal Secretary of State for Magical Affairs, the Right Magical the Minister for Magic and Member of Moot for Avebury Trusloe, was speaking, by a secure Floo, to his counterpart in Sankt-Peterburg.
2. At 5.1 of a wild, wet, windy winter gloaming, the keeper’s house of the West Linga Light, Northern Board of Maritime, Floo, and Apparating Lumosity, Department of Magical Transportation, welcomed a score of Witches and Wizards and several musically-inclined local Wulvers for a musical evening in aid of lighthouse funds.
3. Rita Skeeter had been most unwillingly eclipsed as the most contemptible goss columnist in Rom Street until what time Violet Crummles had returned to her native Australia.
4. It had been a clear, bright, crisp, still day, after a misty morning that had made London an ink-and-wash Chinese painting, shan shui: perfect for all that they had in hand, his young wife and he.
5. Of all those seated in the - rather unfortunate and damnably uncomfortable, if historic - pews of the Chapel of the College of Our Lady, SS Wilfrid and Oswald, and the Venerable Bede of the founding of Master Blaise of Northumbria, in the University of Domdaniel, Hermione, Lady Weasley (or, rather, and insistently, Dr Granger) was the least comfortable - and the least comforted.
6. The Feast of the Apostle, the first of the Disciples to have been crowned with martyrdom, St James the Greater, the son of Zebedee, occurs, of course, on 25 July.
7. ‘It happens,’ said Harry, between his teeth, ‘to be the anniversary of my parents’ murders.’
8. The young, in love, writhe as if they cannot bear to touch and cannot bear to refrain from touching and being touched, sinuous and urgent, panting with need, hands everywhere, desirous of ultimate merger, with desperate open-mouthed kisses and devourings.
9. Dudley nowadays took up a good deal less space than he had done - his wife Elspeth, Millie’s Squib cousin and a born Matron, saw to that - but however much or little space he occupied, it had been his determination for some years to make certain it wasn’t wasted space.
10. Of the numerous people - still more of the numerous Witches and Wizards - whom Dudley Dursley never though to see standing at his door during the summer hols, the Malfoy boy was somewhere near to being joint first.
11. Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only.
12. Rum thing, being thirty, Dudley thought - very quietly and very much to himself.
13. Neville, Harry, and Dudley - a sight by now common in their maturity, firm friends who moved seamlessly between the Muggle and Wizarding worlds and enriched both by their presence - were in the Long Room, Harry and Nev in their eggs-and-bacon ties and Dudley, although himself an MCC member nowadays, in his Primary Club tie, never more proudly worn than there and then.
14. The children of the Wizarding world - unless they be exceptionally unfortunate - know only Diagon.
15. Kingsley was, at the moment, discernibly not ‘Kingsley’, nor ‘Shack’, nor anyone’s old mate and butty; he was quite imposingly and formally HM Principal Secretary of State for Magical Affairs.
16. The annual knawel had set its last flowers and gone to seed.
17. Arthur Weasley’s family represented the last and most junior branch of the Weasleys: at once the cadet branch, and the only surviving branch.
18. One cold, glacial, grey eye looked out - and, to Harry’s secret amusement, one unruly tuft of ice-blond hair poked through - from beneath duvet, quilt, comforter, and enough extra woollen blankets to have equipped Scott’s expedition in warmth and comfort.
19. My Dear Reggie, … I’m very glad to hear that you’re not too greatly troubled by your old injuries: any man who can yet, under the circs, cast a fly and land his fish is doing well enough.
20. ‘You’re mad. Barking. Have you been hexed?’ Harry drew his wand, preparatory to casting Detection Spells.
21. The clock ticked, the hands moved, the day changed.