Winter Shorts

[outflewtheweb]

Title: History to the Defeated
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG
Pairing: AS/S
Fandom: Harry Potter
Author's Notes: Written for the AS/S Winter Shorts fic challenge.
Summary: Draco, at the end of the plague.
Beta: masterofmidgets - thank you very much, as always.

          Candles flicker, sending shadows through used books and dried flowers, gleaming from the lens of a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. A braid of hair, black and white, a finger long, rests beneath a picture of two boys with the universe in their smiles. One was the last of his line, and the other became so, as the plague swept everyone away, regardless of their dreams. They never had a chance; old scores can never be erased and history can never be rewritten.

          In the darkness, for a moment, the light gleams off liquid, small and fragile. Then the fire comes.

Title: In This Ornamental Winter
Word Count: 998
Rating: PG
Pairing: AS/S
Fandom: Harry Potter
Author's Notes: Written for the AS/S Winter Shorts fic challenge.
Summary: Everyday things.
Beta: masterofmidgets  - thank you very much, as always.

He’s always said everyday things don’t matter, laughing at his sister, who swears that the exception to the rule is the inconsequential thing. She says that the things people do once, out of the blue, spontaneously, capriciously – those things don’t matter, because they’re an aberration and are therefore the exception to the rule. They don’t define people. He says, “The awful daring of a moment’s surrender/Which an age of prudence can never retract/By this, and this only, have we existed.”

She glares at him, but it’s terribly difficult to argue with T.S. Eliot, so she shakes her head and tells him that he’ll see one of these days. He hates it when she says that; there’s nothing that he can say in response that doesn’t sound terribly childish. So he lets her walk away, shaking his head wisely at her foolishness. She tosses a smile over her shoulder and vanishes into a shaft of sunlight.

That sunlight is extraordinary. One of the slightly dusty beams, visible and striated, bright and pouring golden over the floor even though it’s winter and the light is cold and white. He watches it for a while, sitting in the niche he claimed as his own first year (filled with blankets and pillows in reds and rich browns and velvety purples. He might be a Slytherin, but it’s always cold here, surrounded by stone, and the warm colors make him feel warmer). Of course, when he looks away for a moment, the picture changes.

Now there’s someone standing in the light, washed in gold. His breath catches, and he doesn’t know who this is, strange and stunning and it only takes a moment really to realize that this is his old friend. That moment is enough to shift the world over, just a little, and he thinks to himself even as he’s awash in this startling new perspective that Lily was so infinitely wrong, she had no idea. His friend walks toward him out of the light, and he swallows, because the light seems to cling to him, but it’s just who he is and by the time he reaches the niche Albus finds that he can stop staring and speak normally. Scorpius doesn’t even realize something has changed.

That night, the gleam of candlelight off of Scorpius’ hair as he brushes it causes his throat to tighten. The way he picks up a fork at breakfast makes him swallow, hard. He finds himself watching his best friend write, watches him carefully not bite his lip or tug on his hair because he’s a Malfoy and Malfoys don’t fidget, even though everything about him is movement, so all that shift and slide and sheer smooth energy is poured into his pen. He finally realizes why Scorpius’ handwriting has always been so beautiful, and Lily jabs a quill into his spine because he’s been staring at his best friend for ten minutes now and doesn’t he have notes to take? When Scorpius writes him a note, just a comment on the lesson, he gets a new scrap to respond on and shiftily slips the tattered parchment corner into his bag because he wants some of that intensity so badly.

He finds, over the following days, that the way Scorpius ties his shoes makes his mouth go dry – why does he place his foot on the wall and bend over? When he asks, Scorpius laughs and says he gets in a stretch this way. Albus does see the measuring, slightly confused look Scorpius sends his way, but he pretends he doesn’t because Scorpius can get anything out of him with it. He tries not to look at Scorpius over breakfast, and every morning he’ll catch that hand curl around his morning juice or the slide of his shoulder as he leans to pick up a platter or the brush of hair against an ear and he’s staring again. Scorpius doesn’t mention it, but other people do. Lily’s starting to look smug, and he wants to tell her that it’s all because of that sunlight and has nothing to do with these ordinary, everyday things. It was that moment when he wasn’t thinking, just looking at the light, completely open, that changed his world, not a quick smile or a slanted glance.

When Scorpius finally calls him on this constant staring, he does so very simply, just leans over one day and brushes his mouth against Albus’ before sitting back again and watching him expectantly. Albus, eyes wide, rests his fingers on his lips for a moment before reaching for Scorpius, trailing a finger down the side of his face. He doesn’t want to move too much or too fiercely, because that might startle this moment away, and Scorpius finally gets frustrated, puts his hands on Albus’ shoulder and pushes and suddenly he’s lying on his back being kissed and it’s an everyday thing because he knows that this will happen again and again and they will never stop until they die.

Now he’s not the only one watching light slide on hair and clothes, looking to catch the end of a smile and pull it towards himself. He’s not the only one whose throat goes dry from a curl of fingers or a casual, natural movement like leaning over a table. He starts tying his shoes, ‘for the stretch’ he says, and doesn’t look at Scorpius, who is carefully not looking at him. Anymore, that is. He sees Lily in the hall, and she grins amusedly and says it is the everyday things that matter, isn’t it, and he laughs and says it is and it isn’t and she’ll understand one day.

Title: You Charm the World
Word Count: 1056
Rating: PG
Pairing: AS/S
Fandom: Harry Potter
Author's Notes: Written for the AS/S Winter Shorts fic challenge.
Summary: Potions class and innovation.
Beta: masterofmidgets  - thank you very much, as always.

          Given a few moments, a stapler, a pencil, and an orange, Albus could make the most tedious day interesting, or, if in the mood, the most stoic individual screech. Given his boyfriend and a potions classroom, Albus – was waiting for an opportunity. Usually, he just threw in a bit of this and a bit of that, and saw what happened, but sooner or later, there would be an Opportunity.

Naturally, when it came, he took it.

“What’re we covering in Potions today?”

          “Some sort of illusion potion, I think, although the syllabus was a little fuzzy on that point.” Scorpius replied calmly, and arched an eyebrow. It was rare for Albus to forget the Potions syllabus – that was, after all, the class he had the most fun in. “Did you run into the wall again?”

          “Maybe.” Albus opened his textbook, and scanned the familiar material. “Probably this one, the evocation of your favorite space. You know, the psychology-based one, where people use the rooms the potion causes their minds to project for meditation purposes?”

          “Doesn’t sound too bad.” Scorpius mused mistrustfully. The professor walked in, and gestured at the board. A list of ingredients and instructions appeared, and Scorpius jotted them down, handing Albus the list of ingredients.

          Blue vervain, mandrake, anise, basil, dove feathers, swan blood, a pearl, rose leaves, mugwort, a hair from my head – ok, a safe dream. Ha, I was so right. Albus thought, walking over to the ingredients. This just confirmed it. Today was the Opportunity he’d been waiting for. He could have a few hours... alone… with his boyfriend, and no one would be able to interrupt. He could prove his genius to himself yet again. Best of all, it would be completely undetectable. A plot worthy of a Slytherin, indeed.

          Scorpius, heating the cauldron absentmindedly, watched Albus cross the room. On his way back, he was surprised to see his boyfriend grin at him and mime a horn spiraling out of his forehead. Shaking his head, he filled the cauldron with unicorn water, instead of the distilled water they were supposed to use. Presumably this would be more fun than last time, when they’d both ended up coated in blue butterflies, sprouting pink feathers from their heads. Albus had promised Socrpius that he would never do something like that again. Even if it was funny.

          Scorpius thought his boyfriend needed therapy for that sense of humor, but didn’t bother mentioning it.

          The aventurine looked just like the green pearls, and grabbing rose petals instead of rose leaves could’ve happened to anyone. The ginseng was a little less easy to explain, and the veela hair was well-nigh impossible, but once it was on the table with Scorpius’ hair it looked all right anyway, and he hid the ginseng under the mugwort. Ha. Perfect. If boring-old-prof looked over here, she’d see nothing wrong.

          An hour later, they were each holding a vial filled with a pretty sea-green colored liquid, just like all the other vials in the room, and Scorpius, who knew just how different this potion was, looked at it suspiciously.

          “Look, just put some of my hair in instead of yours when it’s time to drink it, ok? I promise you’ll like this…” Albus slid a heated look towards him, and he gulped. Dreams, eh. He knew all about those.

          “Please place a single one of your hairs in the potion and drink it. You will want to be seated.” The professor instructed.

Albus confidently took one of Scorpius’ hairs and let it sink into his vial before tossing it back.  Immediately, he was walking down a leaf-strewn path in a forest, shafts of light illuminating the pine needles and painting the leaves richly copper. A spangled spiderweb, sparkling with dewdrops, crossed the path. He touched it gently. It didn’t move. Its droplets didn’t even twitch. Frowning, he poked it harder. It wafted for a moment, then settled right back where it had been. The droplets sparkled smugly at him.

          “Stupid thing.” Albus muttered, ducking under it and continuing down the path. Scorpius was in here somewhere, and while he was amused by the contents of his boyfriend’s mind (who knew that he fantasized about sex in a forest?), he didn’t want to waste this interlude.

          “So, Albus. What exactly did this potion do?” Scorpius drawled, watching his boyfriend amble towards the clearing he was currently in. “And why is there a plaid blanket?”

          “Because it’s more comfortable than trees, of course. And I’m sure you know exactly what this potion does.” Albus sauntered towards Scorpius. “What I really want to know is, is that poisoned comb here?”

          “What?”

          “The poisoned comb. In case of intruders. It grows up into an impenetrable forest so tightly woven with veela hair mortal man (or woman) can’t come near.” Albus said, as if this were obvious.

          “Right.” Scorpius glanced around. There were some shiny bits of fluttery stuff he thought was probably veela hair. The potion had apparently had to try really hard to mix his open forest with Albus’ super-protected one. “I think it’s already been enacted, more or less. Are you really that worried about being interrupted?”

          “Scorpius. We live in a dorm. I never, and I repeat never, have any time with you in anything resembling comfort unless we’re on vacation or at your place. Remember when Morris came in, just when we’d decided to go all the way?”

          Morris Bulstrode was exactly like his aunt. Scorpius shuddered, and returned his attention to Albus, who, in his moment of abstraction, had been busily undressing. He now lay bare on the plaid blanket, bathed in sunlight, and Scorpius was very, very glad that they had all the time in the world.

          Some time later, while they were looking at the clouds and talking, curled around each other, reality resumed. The dungeon was full of relaxed students, and the professor, who had filched some from their cauldron while they were out of it, was leaning back in his chair. He woke up a moment later and raised an eyebrow at them. They looked back innocently, and he turned his attention to Cynthi Brocklehurst, who was blue and gold and blowing iridescent soap bubbles.

          Albus turned to Scorpius and made a little victory sign under the table. His eyes were very soft.

Title: She Who Measures
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG
Pairing: AS/S
Fandom: Harry Potter
Author's Notes: Written for the AS/S Winter Shorts fic challenge.
Summary: Fate.
Beta: masterofmidgets  - thank you very much, as always.

                The war left his father broken, destroyed. He fished the pieces of himself out of the muddy waters of a victorious world, reeled them in slowly from the sharp stone shores of his tenuous sanity, pasting them together grimly, without hope. Scorpius thanks Narcissa for his father; had she not married him off so quickly in the aftermath, while he was still shrieking with nightmares, unable to look anyone in the eyes, he doubted his father would've survived a year. Not suicide – Malfoys don’t die by their own hand. They do die from despair.

                A wife gave his father someone to put himself together for, and, however it happened (and Scorpius suspects his grandmother was involved again, because he doubts his father had any interest at the time), the birth of his son gave him something to hope for. He knows that his father swore as he held Scorpius the first time that his son would never know the pain of having all his illusions destroyed. He’d asked the portraits, once, wondering why his father was so bleak.

                He knows that this vow is the reason he’s never been the Slytherin Prince. He’s certainly beautiful enough, smart enough, sly enough, but he doesn’t have glittering dreams and his world is the one right here, right now. No one wants that world, and so no one wants him. Sometimes he doesn’t want himself, but he knows quite clearly that he’s going to keep himself for a while yet whether he wants to or not. He’s seen it, seen a thousand futures, and in all of them he is older, and in all but one he is alone.

                His classmates don’t like it when he replies honestly, sees them clearly, without mercy, without cruelty. They don’t want to know themselves, and they don’t like it that he sees them despite their walls and masks. He stopped telling them, once he learned that, but even the ones who never experienced his honesty find him unsettling. He is raw, he is exposed, and he cannot be hurt because he knows everything that is present within him already.

                It’s rather odd, then, that his best friend is a compulsive liar. Albus lies through his teeth, lies all the time, for the joy of it, he says. Scorpius knows better. He has seen Mr. Potter look sideways through the crowd, completely honest even in this evasion. He has seen Mrs. Potter loop her arm through her husband’s, smile brightly, draw him back to her. Mr. Potter wants and does not want – he loves and he is in love, and he chooses to love instead of being in love. It’s perfectly reasonable, and he makes no attempt to hide it. He tells his children that they should not lie, and he presents them with an excellent example of honesty, likeable, uncomplicated man that he is. Scorpius wonders how he manages to be so loved – it’s something he’s never managed. Honesty, however, does not provide all the answers.

                It’s Mrs. Potter the Potter children emulate, though. Mrs. Potter is the consummate liar. She grins and her smile is one of the most beautiful things Scorpius has ever seen, full of light and false as Gilderoy Lockhart’s shining teeth. He wonders, sometimes, how it would look if she were truly happy, and sometimes, dreaming, he sees the past and the future and he knows why Mr. Potter loved and loves her. She tells the world that she is happy and she tells herself she is happy and she tells her children she is happy. She builds a beautiful lie, as she has done since she was eleven and wandered into the darkness for the first time. Everyone thought she’d escaped unscathed, and she let them think that, encouraged them to think that, because that darkness was her bane and her blessing. The nightmares gave her strength; the strength gave her knowledge; the knowledge gave her wisdom. She was wise, and she was broken, and she’s never changed.

                Albus lies like his mother, for whom the lie represents another world that she wants and doesn’t want. Because he wants it, it is real; because he doesn’t want it, there are so many more worlds he can have. Albus lies to himself and lies to the world and lies to his friends – he lies to Scorpius, in an easy and complicit way, like it’s a joke they share because Scorpius always knows when he’s lying. Scorpius has never contradicted him, because he wants that empty security and the fantasy that beckons, cold water on a hot day. All his surety about the past and future has ever gained him is an infinite series of unnerved people. He’s also seen Albus a few years from now, and the image made his mouth go dry, but it’s his one unlikely future and so he forgets it because hope is a thing with feathers and he has nowhere for it to fly.

                So he’s never mentioned the lies, and he’s never told him why he’s lying, but now Albus is trying to solidify his illusion, and Scorpius wants so much to show him that Albus has other dreams. He tells him he’s lying, and Albus contradicts him – he’s not lying, for once. Scorpius tells him that it’s not that, not this news (freezing him inside, now), but that the entire illusion itself is a lie. He asks him if he wants to give the world a smile like his mother’s while his wife glances sideways through the crowd, and he tells him that one day he will lose his illusion, as pretty as it is, because it isn’t truth and as unpleasant as truth is, it lasts. It lasts. He feels tears well up in his eyes, and for the first time in his life he doesn’t know exactly precisely to the very last cold degree why.

                Albus kisses him, and that one future straightens, stands shakily but firmly on the lines of time.