Words Make A World Out Of Paper And Ink

Title: Getting Home
Fandom: Anita Blake
Characters: Bernardo Spotted-Horse
Prompt: #90: Home
Word Count: 100
Rating: g

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Title: Not This Time
Fandom: Anita Blake
Characters: Bernardo Spotted-Horse
Prompt: #88: School
Word Count: 100
Rating: pg

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Title: Home After Work
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: a Ministry worker
Challenge: Patterns

It’s dark outside; the shadows dance in the flickering light from the lantern her husband left on the porch and as she hurries up the path she can, for a moment, see faces painted on the walls. Then she takes another rushed step forward and the pictures have faded back into the indistinct pattern of dark and light that they really are.

Pushing the door open she nearly falls into her husband’s waiting, welcoming arms. She feels the bone-deep horror of the Death Eater cases that she has been working on fade away in his comforting embrace. Home at last.

Title: The Banner
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100
Characters: ? a deliberately vague Gryffindor
Challenge: Patterns

He watched the pencil in his fingers dance across the page; drawing always felt like another kind of magic to him. Simple lines came together to create an image of something, as realistic as the artist wanted. Of course a camera could be used but a photograph always seemed so impersonal. Besides, a banner this size needed a much bigger picture than just a photograph on it. That was why he was drawing the Gryffindor lion for the Quidditch match. His hand kept on tracing out the picture; the lion became more and more detailed, ready to support their team.

The hush was complete; the silence before the storm. For a second that stretched into infinity nobody moved except to stare at the body in a bloody heap on the floor beneath the pitch. Then the medics appeared.

The fans were yelling and shouting, their delight at the Quidditch game ruined. The fallen player’s team were distraught and even the opposition were afraid for the man as he was slowly straightened out onto a stretcher by the medics.

It looked worse than it was, though. He would be alright, the medics said, but his team lost the game without him.

When he husband screamed inside the house the woman took her two infants and ran. He had tried to keep his family safe, siding with the Death Eaters and then playing one against another so that he could rise in the ranks.

She had warned him that he wouldn’t get away with it. That it was a bad idea was now evident, his screams dieing on the air as she ran.

Tears stung her eyes and she stumbled in the soft clay of the riverbank. Then the spell hit her between the shoulder blades; she died silently, body washed downstream.

It was raining - hard. Diagon Alley was starting to flood and all of the customers had crowded into the shops, packed like sardines around the racks of goods. In Eyelops Harry was pressed against the cage of a disgruntled-looking eagle owl while next to him Ron was nearly inside an empty cage. Hermione, on the other hand, had cleared a little space around herself by piling her bags all around her; it didn't get her much but at least she could breathe without pressing against a stranger. Outside the rain fell, unconcerned by those people trapped inside, flooding the street with merry abandon.

Hermione was having fun. Her old best friends had helped paint her bedroom, and they had been doing more laughing and joking than painting. Actually, it reminded her of being at Hogwarts and she had come to the conclusion that Ron’s ability to enjoy himself had rubbed off on her.

The walls were a riot of colour. Not what she had expected but as the girls lay on the carpet surrounded by covered furniture it seemed perfect. A reminder that no matter what happened, no matter how long friends were apart or what occurred in the interim, friendships went on.

The chocolate was everywhere when Lily finally returned from shopping. Sirius had given Harry one little square of chocolate and somehow it had multiplied, over and over again: besides Harry and Sirius (who both looked like they had taken a bath in the sticky mess) the walls were coated, the ceiling was speckled, the floor was half an inch thick with melted goo and the window was opaque with the rapidly solidifying treat. Aghast, Lily almost screeched at Sirius but stopped as he pointed at the happily grinning baby.

"First sign of magic, mate." He gave a lopsided grin. "Congratulations."

Falling over the strange lumps of who-knows-what yet again the owner of Diagon Alley’s very own clock shop was about ready to scream. Six times in the past two days he had fallen over those weird components that his partner claimed were necessary for his private project. And for that matter, should a private project be done at work?

But all the same, his working partner was also his best friend and he couldn’t begrudge the man the chance to make a self-adjusting, family-member-recognising, activity-recording clock as a wedding present for Arthur Weasley and his fiancé (soon to be wife).