Round 6, Challenge #7: Voting
Confused about which fork to use? Generally speaking, you start with the outermost one, and work your way in. Don’t forget to put your napkin in your lap … It’s time for the week [#] Feast of Love!
Welcome all to the sumptuous 14 course meal of No Love Sincerer.
A couple of things to remember when deciding which drabbles to vote for (most and least favorite):
Guidelines:
As a voter, you have the option of leaving a brief statement about why you voted the way you did, for both most and least favorite. Your feedback will then be given to the drabble writer (if they want the feedback) ANONYMOUSLY.
Example: Most - #40: the ending was brilliant - OR - Least - #57: the ending fell flat
Please remember writers, that you may not vote for yourselves.
Here we go for week 7!
Choose your favorite and least favorite drabbles. Favorites will receive +1 point per vote, and least favorites -1 point per vote.
Voting ends at 11:59pm, Friday, April 2nd.
There is no love sincerer than the love of food. ~George Bernard Shaw
1
Title: A Close Race
Author: ayane_tsurugi
Rating: PG
Warning(s): None.
Word Count: 498
Hermione jumped nearly a foot in the air when she opened her office door after lunch to find her chair already occupied. Her fiancé, however, was much less flustered. And he wasn’t smiling.
The shock faded and she stepped inside, setting a thick stack of parchments on her desk. “What are you doing here, Draco?”
“I thought I would surprise you,” he said, leaning back in the chair and crossing his arms. “My meeting ended early for once.”
She took in his stance and her eyes narrowed. “Well, for this to be an attempt to surprise me, you don’t seem very pleased to see me.”
“Ah,” he said, holding up one finger before pulling open the top drawer of her desk and taking out a box labeled “Honeyduke’s Finest.”
She visibly brightened at the sight, reaching forward to take them. “Oh, Draco, you know I love these! I can’t believe you ordered them for me!”
“I didn’t.”
She felt her face heat up. “Oh.”
“Yes, ‘oh.’” He raised an eyebrow at her. “The secretary who brought them by was very surprised to see me sitting here. Asked me why I didn’t just bring them by in person this time.”
“I…” she started, trailing off when she couldn’t decide where to start.
“She became very nervous when I didn’t claim them. She even tried to sneak the tag away before I saw. She almost managed; I’d say she deserves a raise, the loyal bint.”
“Draco,” she admonished, but he waved it away.
“So, who exactly is this ‘Secret Admirer’ masquerading as me to your poor secretary? And how long have I been sending these manifestations of my affection?”
She set the box down on top of the parchments and sighed. “They started coming a couple weeks after the Prophet ran our story. Honestly, I thought they were from you until one showed up with an extra message inside suggesting that I ‘dump the Death Eater scum.’” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know who’s sending them, and I haven’t asked.”
His expression changed and he looked down at the desk. “I’d have figured you’d hex the poor bloke’s bollocks off. Save me the trouble.”
She leaned across the desk and angled his face up into a kiss. “I love you, Draco. You know that.” She let herself fall back into the chair opposite her desk and tugged the box of chocolates open. “Almost as much as I love these chocolates.” He snorted derisively and tried to grab them away, but she dodged him. “No really, it’s a close race.” She popped one into her mouth with a laugh and he dove, nearly toppling the desk and sending the parchments flying.
On the other side of the door, only one particular secretary heard the short scream and peals of laughter. She flicked her wand at the door twice, once to cast a silencing charm and another time to post a “Do Not Disturb” sign.
She really did deserve a raise.
2
Title: A Matter of Taste
Author: vox_rowan
Rating: PG-13 (?)
Warning(s): one little swear
Word Count: 486
“Well… it’s an admirable go, I’ll say that much, Granger.”
Draco was an excellent liar in everything--with the exception of matters concerning me. I suppose that’s what charmed me into going on my first date with him, which he labeled a “consultative meeting between Ministry officials”. I joined him in all sorts of meetings, powwows, and little chats until during a “work-related coffee break” I grabbed his tie and yanked his great, silly head down so that I could kiss the nonsense to an end.
At the moment I wished that I’d wrapped up a helping of tact for him along with the candies. Instead I stewed in my rage and humiliation as he carelessly smirked down at the box of truffles that I had shyly presented to him only moments before.
“Ginny and I made them yesterday,” I muttered. “She said it’s a tradition in Japan. Some of her fangirls gave her these adorable little boxes of homemade chocolates and I thought that you might want some too.”
“Last Christmas it was an itchy wool cap two sizes too small. Now chocolates… tell me, Granger, which craft are you planning to assail next with your unique talents?
I’ll admit it. I can count the number of times that I’ve slapped him on two hands now. The number of times that one of us has stormed out for an angry walk after slamming the door is a bit harder to pin down.
When I returned the house was completely dark except for the faintly smoldering embers in the hearth. I crept upstairs with a faint terror that the bedroom would be equally cold and empty.
“Draco?” I whispered softly as I pushed the door open and peeped into the room.
A long, lean, lump moved slightly on the bed.
“Draco?” The lump moved again and moaned a bit.
“Are you alright?” I murmured, stealing over to the bed and placing a hand lightly on the covers.
“No, I am not alright, Granger. My stomach feels like a herd of hippogriffs just took a collective shat down my throat.”
I frowned at the crude analogy and softly cast Lumos before pulling back. The glow revealed his pale face, which was curiously streaked around the mouth. As I flicked my eyes over the scene, I saw the chocolate box, open, empty, and slightly crushed as if he’d rolled onto it at some point.
“The chocolates.”
“Weren’t as awful as they looked.”
“You...” I stared down at his streaky mouth. “Oh you idiot you’ve gone and made yourself sick haven’t you? No one told you to eat the whole box in one go, you little pig. ”
“Well next time don’t make so many,” he grumbled. “Now douse that light and come to bed.”
I bent over, kissed him softly, and then laughed. “Draco Malfoy, you are the worst liar that I’ve ever known. You taste horrible.”
3
Title: Our Life
Author: terrayn
Rating: PG
Warning(s): none
Word Count: 499
People are strangers until they're forced to live together.
This, Draco learns when he moves into Hermione's flat, and it's an unmitigated disaster. He's a man of simple wants and needs. That isn't the problem.
She is.
He's an afternoon, scotch, cigar, and dark, bitter chocolate man. She's a morning, fruity wine, cancer stick out of my face, and floss! floss! woman. Had either asked their friends, none of them mutual, how likely their relationship was to survive cohabitation, they would've been laughed out. On some subconscious level, they knew this and didn’t ask.
The first week, they’re both on their best behavior - toilet seat up, no hair clogging drains, clothes folded and hung. The sex, of course, is fantastic. This, Draco thinks, is the life.
The second month, he always forgets tea coasters (which makes her scream), she constantly borrows his razor (which makes him see red) and neither of them can agree whose turn it is to do the chores. He tentatively suggests hiring-hiring for God's sake-a house-elf and his ears ring for days. This, Draco thinks, is hell.
The third time he is forced to sleep on her lumpy, tattered couch with only Crookshanks for warmth-he doesn't care how gobsmacked with bliss they are, Potter and Weasley are too young to get married-he begins to rethink the impulsive decision to move in. Relationships, his mother once told him, are made or broken on the backs of compromise. Having been all of seven at the time and spoiled so rotten he's still surprised at his turning out to be such a wholesome-he doesn't care what Hermione says on this subject-tactful man, he grimly acknowledges his mother may have been onto something.
This, Draco thinks, calls for a compromise.
“Maybe you should move out,” says Hermione over takeaway that night.
And somehow he completely forgets he was going to tell her the same thing. “No,” he says instead.
“Whatever this is,” she gestures between them, “it isn't working. I need-we both need space. Just for a while.”
“No,” he says again, cold with the certainty that 'for a while' is code for 'forever.'
Her brows arch in exasperation. “What do you mean no?”
“I mean, no, I'm not leaving.”
“But this is my flat.”
“Not anymore.”
“Not anymore-?”
“We made a deal,” he tells her, throat scratchy as sandpaper. “We’d live together until one or both of us fell out of…out of-”
“Love?” she finishes. “See, you can't even say it!”
“Well, I haven't,” says Draco. “Have you stopped loving me?”
She crushes her eyes closed. Her silence is a terrible, wretched thing that claws the insides of his chest. “No. I still do. Very much,” she says at last.
“Then we don’t have to live like this.” Heart soaring, he shows her the brochures he hid beneath their plates. “Look, this one’s even got two showers.”
Hermione laughs and grips his hand.
This, Draco thinks, is our life.
4
Title: The Trouble with Truffles
Author: bookishwench
Rating: G
Warning(s): none
Word Count: 499
“How daft do you think I am?” Hermione said angrily.
Draco stammered, pointing at the box of chocolates on her desk, his mouth open in confusion. Of all the reactions he’d considered to the gift he’d gotten her for the day after their first date, this hadn’t been one. Mentally, he raced through a list of reasons for the dagger looks being shot at him. Was the chocolate elf-made? No, he’d checked that. Did she think he was saying she was fat? No, she’d definitely said “daft,” not “fat.” Maybe she thought he was trying to kill her? Assassination via chocolate ganache filling?
“I thought you’d like them,” he eventually got out.
“Oh yes, because when women see chocolate we lose all reason and begin gulping bonbons like crazed Nifflers! You really believed I’d fall for this?” she said, walking around the desk to poke him in the chest with her finger.
“Fall for what?” he said, getting angry himself. “What unforgivable crime have I committed by giving you a mixed assortment box from Honeydukes!”
“I am perfectly aware it’s April Fool’s Day, and I’ll lay odds that those,” she said, pointing accusingly at the chocolates, “are from Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes! This one is obviously a Canary Cream.”
She picked up one chocolate and squinted at it critically. Draco understood going through the war might have made her a little paranoid (he had a lingering fear of anything reptilian himself), but this was too much.
“I am not pranking you!” Draco said. “It’s really just a simple, ordinary, non-incendiary box of chocolates! I enjoyed our dinner last night, the walk in the park, and the kiss on your doorstep, and I wanted to show I was thinking about you. That’s all!”
“Really?” she scoffed. “Well, if that’s the case, eat one yourself!”
“Fine, and you’re going to owe me a big apology!” he said, snatching the chocolate from her hand and throwing it in his mouth.
He chewed it almost viciously as Hermione glared at him with crossed arms.
“See?” he said, swallowing. “Nothing!”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth when he began to feel itchy.
“What the…,” he said, and then he immediately sprouted bright yellow feathers. He stared at his arms, now wings, then began waving them wildly in protest. “I didn’t do this! Really!”
Hermione’s face remained stormy, but then abruptly she snorted and began giggling, then guffawing until tears rolled from her eyes.
“Got you!” she said, snapping the box shut.
“You switched them?” he said, noting happily that he was already beginning to molt.
“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t resist,” she said, still giggling.
“You, Ms. Granger, should’ve been in Slytherin,” he said. “That was completely evil.”
“Mm-hmm,” she admitted.
“I like it,” he said, his eyes glinting lasciviously, and he drew her into a kiss.
She didn’t notice only one of his hands was wrapped around her. The other silently reopened the box and slipped a chocolate into her tea.
ooo
REMEMBER: Vote for the NUMBER of the drabble, NOT THE NAME. It just makes it easier on the mods!
Please leave both a MOST favorite and a LEAST favorite vote. We must have both in order for your votes to count.
Poll Round 6 Challenge 7
For readers, supporters, lovers of everything dramione -
Copy & Paste from the Box
http://community.livejournal.com/dramione_ldws/73415.html" _fcksavedurl=" http://community.livejournal.com/dramione_ldws/73415.html">
http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q243/pokeystar/comms/ldwsvotingbannercopy.jpg" _fcksavedurl="http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q243/pokeystar/comms/ldwsvotingbannercopy.jpg"> Eat, Drink and Be Merry at the Feast of Love! Click the Ticket to Read & Vote! This Week: Voting ends 11:59 EST (GMT -4) Friday, April 2nd
To Get this Pretty for your Journal - Spread the Drabble Love!
< pimp code >
Please spread the word and thanks for dropping by!
Welcome all to the sumptuous 14 course meal of No Love Sincerer.
A couple of things to remember when deciding which drabbles to vote for (most and least favorite):
Guidelines:
- Which drabble best incorporates the prompt?
- Is the drabble clever, different, fresh? Does it evoke an emotional response (good or bad)?
- Does the drabble contain grammar, canon or spelling errors?
As a voter, you have the option of leaving a brief statement about why you voted the way you did, for both most and least favorite. Your feedback will then be given to the drabble writer (if they want the feedback) ANONYMOUSLY.
Example: Most - #40: the ending was brilliant - OR - Least - #57: the ending fell flat
Please remember writers, that you may not vote for yourselves.
Here we go for week 7!
Choose your favorite and least favorite drabbles. Favorites will receive +1 point per vote, and least favorites -1 point per vote.
Voting ends at 11:59pm, Friday, April 2nd.
There is no love sincerer than the love of food. ~George Bernard Shaw
1
Title: A Close Race
Author: ayane_tsurugi
Rating: PG
Warning(s): None.
Word Count: 498
Hermione jumped nearly a foot in the air when she opened her office door after lunch to find her chair already occupied. Her fiancé, however, was much less flustered. And he wasn’t smiling.
The shock faded and she stepped inside, setting a thick stack of parchments on her desk. “What are you doing here, Draco?”
“I thought I would surprise you,” he said, leaning back in the chair and crossing his arms. “My meeting ended early for once.”
She took in his stance and her eyes narrowed. “Well, for this to be an attempt to surprise me, you don’t seem very pleased to see me.”
“Ah,” he said, holding up one finger before pulling open the top drawer of her desk and taking out a box labeled “Honeyduke’s Finest.”
She visibly brightened at the sight, reaching forward to take them. “Oh, Draco, you know I love these! I can’t believe you ordered them for me!”
“I didn’t.”
She felt her face heat up. “Oh.”
“Yes, ‘oh.’” He raised an eyebrow at her. “The secretary who brought them by was very surprised to see me sitting here. Asked me why I didn’t just bring them by in person this time.”
“I…” she started, trailing off when she couldn’t decide where to start.
“She became very nervous when I didn’t claim them. She even tried to sneak the tag away before I saw. She almost managed; I’d say she deserves a raise, the loyal bint.”
“Draco,” she admonished, but he waved it away.
“So, who exactly is this ‘Secret Admirer’ masquerading as me to your poor secretary? And how long have I been sending these manifestations of my affection?”
She set the box down on top of the parchments and sighed. “They started coming a couple weeks after the Prophet ran our story. Honestly, I thought they were from you until one showed up with an extra message inside suggesting that I ‘dump the Death Eater scum.’” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know who’s sending them, and I haven’t asked.”
His expression changed and he looked down at the desk. “I’d have figured you’d hex the poor bloke’s bollocks off. Save me the trouble.”
She leaned across the desk and angled his face up into a kiss. “I love you, Draco. You know that.” She let herself fall back into the chair opposite her desk and tugged the box of chocolates open. “Almost as much as I love these chocolates.” He snorted derisively and tried to grab them away, but she dodged him. “No really, it’s a close race.” She popped one into her mouth with a laugh and he dove, nearly toppling the desk and sending the parchments flying.
On the other side of the door, only one particular secretary heard the short scream and peals of laughter. She flicked her wand at the door twice, once to cast a silencing charm and another time to post a “Do Not Disturb” sign.
She really did deserve a raise.
2
Title: A Matter of Taste
Author: vox_rowan
Rating: PG-13 (?)
Warning(s): one little swear
Word Count: 486
“Well… it’s an admirable go, I’ll say that much, Granger.”
Draco was an excellent liar in everything--with the exception of matters concerning me. I suppose that’s what charmed me into going on my first date with him, which he labeled a “consultative meeting between Ministry officials”. I joined him in all sorts of meetings, powwows, and little chats until during a “work-related coffee break” I grabbed his tie and yanked his great, silly head down so that I could kiss the nonsense to an end.
At the moment I wished that I’d wrapped up a helping of tact for him along with the candies. Instead I stewed in my rage and humiliation as he carelessly smirked down at the box of truffles that I had shyly presented to him only moments before.
“Ginny and I made them yesterday,” I muttered. “She said it’s a tradition in Japan. Some of her fangirls gave her these adorable little boxes of homemade chocolates and I thought that you might want some too.”
“Last Christmas it was an itchy wool cap two sizes too small. Now chocolates… tell me, Granger, which craft are you planning to assail next with your unique talents?
I’ll admit it. I can count the number of times that I’ve slapped him on two hands now. The number of times that one of us has stormed out for an angry walk after slamming the door is a bit harder to pin down.
When I returned the house was completely dark except for the faintly smoldering embers in the hearth. I crept upstairs with a faint terror that the bedroom would be equally cold and empty.
“Draco?” I whispered softly as I pushed the door open and peeped into the room.
A long, lean, lump moved slightly on the bed.
“Draco?” The lump moved again and moaned a bit.
“Are you alright?” I murmured, stealing over to the bed and placing a hand lightly on the covers.
“No, I am not alright, Granger. My stomach feels like a herd of hippogriffs just took a collective shat down my throat.”
I frowned at the crude analogy and softly cast Lumos before pulling back. The glow revealed his pale face, which was curiously streaked around the mouth. As I flicked my eyes over the scene, I saw the chocolate box, open, empty, and slightly crushed as if he’d rolled onto it at some point.
“The chocolates.”
“Weren’t as awful as they looked.”
“You...” I stared down at his streaky mouth. “Oh you idiot you’ve gone and made yourself sick haven’t you? No one told you to eat the whole box in one go, you little pig. ”
“Well next time don’t make so many,” he grumbled. “Now douse that light and come to bed.”
I bent over, kissed him softly, and then laughed. “Draco Malfoy, you are the worst liar that I’ve ever known. You taste horrible.”
3
Title: Our Life
Author: terrayn
Rating: PG
Warning(s): none
Word Count: 499
People are strangers until they're forced to live together.
This, Draco learns when he moves into Hermione's flat, and it's an unmitigated disaster. He's a man of simple wants and needs. That isn't the problem.
She is.
He's an afternoon, scotch, cigar, and dark, bitter chocolate man. She's a morning, fruity wine, cancer stick out of my face, and floss! floss! woman. Had either asked their friends, none of them mutual, how likely their relationship was to survive cohabitation, they would've been laughed out. On some subconscious level, they knew this and didn’t ask.
The first week, they’re both on their best behavior - toilet seat up, no hair clogging drains, clothes folded and hung. The sex, of course, is fantastic. This, Draco thinks, is the life.
The second month, he always forgets tea coasters (which makes her scream), she constantly borrows his razor (which makes him see red) and neither of them can agree whose turn it is to do the chores. He tentatively suggests hiring-hiring for God's sake-a house-elf and his ears ring for days. This, Draco thinks, is hell.
The third time he is forced to sleep on her lumpy, tattered couch with only Crookshanks for warmth-he doesn't care how gobsmacked with bliss they are, Potter and Weasley are too young to get married-he begins to rethink the impulsive decision to move in. Relationships, his mother once told him, are made or broken on the backs of compromise. Having been all of seven at the time and spoiled so rotten he's still surprised at his turning out to be such a wholesome-he doesn't care what Hermione says on this subject-tactful man, he grimly acknowledges his mother may have been onto something.
This, Draco thinks, calls for a compromise.
“Maybe you should move out,” says Hermione over takeaway that night.
And somehow he completely forgets he was going to tell her the same thing. “No,” he says instead.
“Whatever this is,” she gestures between them, “it isn't working. I need-we both need space. Just for a while.”
“No,” he says again, cold with the certainty that 'for a while' is code for 'forever.'
Her brows arch in exasperation. “What do you mean no?”
“I mean, no, I'm not leaving.”
“But this is my flat.”
“Not anymore.”
“Not anymore-?”
“We made a deal,” he tells her, throat scratchy as sandpaper. “We’d live together until one or both of us fell out of…out of-”
“Love?” she finishes. “See, you can't even say it!”
“Well, I haven't,” says Draco. “Have you stopped loving me?”
She crushes her eyes closed. Her silence is a terrible, wretched thing that claws the insides of his chest. “No. I still do. Very much,” she says at last.
“Then we don’t have to live like this.” Heart soaring, he shows her the brochures he hid beneath their plates. “Look, this one’s even got two showers.”
Hermione laughs and grips his hand.
This, Draco thinks, is our life.
4
Title: The Trouble with Truffles
Author: bookishwench
Rating: G
Warning(s): none
Word Count: 499
“How daft do you think I am?” Hermione said angrily.
Draco stammered, pointing at the box of chocolates on her desk, his mouth open in confusion. Of all the reactions he’d considered to the gift he’d gotten her for the day after their first date, this hadn’t been one. Mentally, he raced through a list of reasons for the dagger looks being shot at him. Was the chocolate elf-made? No, he’d checked that. Did she think he was saying she was fat? No, she’d definitely said “daft,” not “fat.” Maybe she thought he was trying to kill her? Assassination via chocolate ganache filling?
“I thought you’d like them,” he eventually got out.
“Oh yes, because when women see chocolate we lose all reason and begin gulping bonbons like crazed Nifflers! You really believed I’d fall for this?” she said, walking around the desk to poke him in the chest with her finger.
“Fall for what?” he said, getting angry himself. “What unforgivable crime have I committed by giving you a mixed assortment box from Honeydukes!”
“I am perfectly aware it’s April Fool’s Day, and I’ll lay odds that those,” she said, pointing accusingly at the chocolates, “are from Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes! This one is obviously a Canary Cream.”
She picked up one chocolate and squinted at it critically. Draco understood going through the war might have made her a little paranoid (he had a lingering fear of anything reptilian himself), but this was too much.
“I am not pranking you!” Draco said. “It’s really just a simple, ordinary, non-incendiary box of chocolates! I enjoyed our dinner last night, the walk in the park, and the kiss on your doorstep, and I wanted to show I was thinking about you. That’s all!”
“Really?” she scoffed. “Well, if that’s the case, eat one yourself!”
“Fine, and you’re going to owe me a big apology!” he said, snatching the chocolate from her hand and throwing it in his mouth.
He chewed it almost viciously as Hermione glared at him with crossed arms.
“See?” he said, swallowing. “Nothing!”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth when he began to feel itchy.
“What the…,” he said, and then he immediately sprouted bright yellow feathers. He stared at his arms, now wings, then began waving them wildly in protest. “I didn’t do this! Really!”
Hermione’s face remained stormy, but then abruptly she snorted and began giggling, then guffawing until tears rolled from her eyes.
“Got you!” she said, snapping the box shut.
“You switched them?” he said, noting happily that he was already beginning to molt.
“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t resist,” she said, still giggling.
“You, Ms. Granger, should’ve been in Slytherin,” he said. “That was completely evil.”
“Mm-hmm,” she admitted.
“I like it,” he said, his eyes glinting lasciviously, and he drew her into a kiss.
She didn’t notice only one of his hands was wrapped around her. The other silently reopened the box and slipped a chocolate into her tea.
ooo
REMEMBER: Vote for the NUMBER of the drabble, NOT THE NAME. It just makes it easier on the mods!
Please leave both a MOST favorite and a LEAST favorite vote. We must have both in order for your votes to count.
Poll Round 6 Challenge 7
For readers, supporters, lovers of everything dramione -
Copy & Paste from the Box
To Get this Pretty for your Journal - Spread the Drabble Love!
< pimp code >
Please spread the word and thanks for dropping by!