(no subject)
Keywords: Ron's Yule ball robes (hurrah GOF pics!), Crookshanks in a major role, gold ink, frilly little tooth picks, and a scientific formula for the art of Transfiguration.
My apologies for being a bit late: just pretend I live somewhere where it's still Friday. *shuffles feet* It's also a little short, so, to be fair, my next story'll be longer and actually submitted on time, promise!
PG-13, for implication.
Beware the AU.
Life After Birth
They’ve been normal for 357 days.
Harry still writes his letters in gold ink, which Zacharias thinks is fucking idiotic.
Zacharias uses the phone.
*
They don’t call themselves ‘muggle’, because that would come far too close to admitting a flaw. Just because they’re normal now, doesn’t mean they’re inferior.
*
Zacharias spends a lot of time not remembering. He doesn’t remember being able to fly, or conjuring food out of mid air. He certainly doesn’t remember spending a week trying to make tooth picks grow tutus with a wand that lay dead in his hand.
Harry likes to relive the past. Zacharias wishes he could still do the spell which would turn Harry’s glasses pink. It would be apt.
*
It’s ironic that, in this, the least magical era since pre-history, some of the most startling magical breakthroughs are being made. Theory of magic has taken on a whole new meaning, with wizards and witches desperate to find another way of reconnecting with their lost power. There’s a scientific formula for Transfigurations, now. Of course, whether or not it would actually work is debatable.
*
It’s been over a year since Harry last saw a centaur. They started disappearing around the same time the wizards discovered that gesturing with a bit of wood was somewhat lacking in effect. No one knows where they are, any of the magical creatures. Unicorns, giants, dragons, house elves, goblins, werewolves…Harry hopes Hagrid and Remus are happy, somewhere. Zacharias always looks scornful when Harry says that.
A white owl still pecks stupidly on his window at night.
*
6x10^23 of marbles would cover Great Britain to a depth of 1500 kilometres. This is a fact, however trivial, and Hermione clings to it in the dark.
*
When Zacharias bends Harry over the end of the sofa, he thinks of what he’ll have to buy from the supermarket in the afternoon and feels like his father.
They’re so ordinary now, it defies belief. Well, it would, if anyone believed in it at all.
Lesson 1: It’s not temporary.
*
On the 64th day, Zacharias found a bible in the house they were squatting in. Apparently, another Zacharias was a tax collector who hid in a tree and then had tea with Jesus. Which makes about as much sense as anything.
*
What he misses most, Harry decides, is wizarding clothes. It’s all shapeless sacks now, once the magic bled out of the fibres. He does double takes at muggle women in the street, the ones in flowing, garish dresses that remind him of Ron’s dress robes. That little habit earns him a lot of odd looks from hippies.
He misses the grip and slide of fabric charmed to cling to the line of a thigh, the ripple of colours, the outrageous styles and ridiculous hats. He misses.
*
You’d need more than seven million telephone lines to connect up the entire wizarding world. This is the sort of thing Hermione knows now. She is practical and capable and plans for the future. Except sometimes she just holds Crookshanks and tries to remember when he was more than just a cat. Then he scratches her face, or throws up a hairball down her back, and Hermione reaches for the cat food.
*
They all live together, the left over students, in a pallid mockery of school life.
Harry tries not to look at the others.
*
Crookshanks winds his way around a forest of ankles, dragging his mouse with him. The tiny corpse leaves red smears along the floor, before Crookshanks abandons it to meow at the door. Hermione waves an irritable hand at the mess, before remembering that doesn’t work anymore.
The blood stays on the floor for three days.
devkel's next five keywords: Cats with wings, Sophocles, contraceptives, a german dictionary and grass skirts.
My apologies for being a bit late: just pretend I live somewhere where it's still Friday. *shuffles feet* It's also a little short, so, to be fair, my next story'll be longer and actually submitted on time, promise!
PG-13, for implication.
Beware the AU.
Life After Birth
They’ve been normal for 357 days.
Harry still writes his letters in gold ink, which Zacharias thinks is fucking idiotic.
Zacharias uses the phone.
*
They don’t call themselves ‘muggle’, because that would come far too close to admitting a flaw. Just because they’re normal now, doesn’t mean they’re inferior.
*
Zacharias spends a lot of time not remembering. He doesn’t remember being able to fly, or conjuring food out of mid air. He certainly doesn’t remember spending a week trying to make tooth picks grow tutus with a wand that lay dead in his hand.
Harry likes to relive the past. Zacharias wishes he could still do the spell which would turn Harry’s glasses pink. It would be apt.
*
It’s ironic that, in this, the least magical era since pre-history, some of the most startling magical breakthroughs are being made. Theory of magic has taken on a whole new meaning, with wizards and witches desperate to find another way of reconnecting with their lost power. There’s a scientific formula for Transfigurations, now. Of course, whether or not it would actually work is debatable.
*
It’s been over a year since Harry last saw a centaur. They started disappearing around the same time the wizards discovered that gesturing with a bit of wood was somewhat lacking in effect. No one knows where they are, any of the magical creatures. Unicorns, giants, dragons, house elves, goblins, werewolves…Harry hopes Hagrid and Remus are happy, somewhere. Zacharias always looks scornful when Harry says that.
A white owl still pecks stupidly on his window at night.
*
6x10^23 of marbles would cover Great Britain to a depth of 1500 kilometres. This is a fact, however trivial, and Hermione clings to it in the dark.
*
When Zacharias bends Harry over the end of the sofa, he thinks of what he’ll have to buy from the supermarket in the afternoon and feels like his father.
They’re so ordinary now, it defies belief. Well, it would, if anyone believed in it at all.
Lesson 1: It’s not temporary.
*
On the 64th day, Zacharias found a bible in the house they were squatting in. Apparently, another Zacharias was a tax collector who hid in a tree and then had tea with Jesus. Which makes about as much sense as anything.
*
What he misses most, Harry decides, is wizarding clothes. It’s all shapeless sacks now, once the magic bled out of the fibres. He does double takes at muggle women in the street, the ones in flowing, garish dresses that remind him of Ron’s dress robes. That little habit earns him a lot of odd looks from hippies.
He misses the grip and slide of fabric charmed to cling to the line of a thigh, the ripple of colours, the outrageous styles and ridiculous hats. He misses.
*
You’d need more than seven million telephone lines to connect up the entire wizarding world. This is the sort of thing Hermione knows now. She is practical and capable and plans for the future. Except sometimes she just holds Crookshanks and tries to remember when he was more than just a cat. Then he scratches her face, or throws up a hairball down her back, and Hermione reaches for the cat food.
*
They all live together, the left over students, in a pallid mockery of school life.
Harry tries not to look at the others.
*
Crookshanks winds his way around a forest of ankles, dragging his mouse with him. The tiny corpse leaves red smears along the floor, before Crookshanks abandons it to meow at the door. Hermione waves an irritable hand at the mess, before remembering that doesn’t work anymore.
The blood stays on the floor for three days.
devkel's next five keywords: Cats with wings, Sophocles, contraceptives, a german dictionary and grass skirts.