30 Days of Writing – 12: Knowledge

Knowledge

(If Them’s the Rules)

This drabble contains mild spoilers.

–

“You misunderstand,” Grindelwald says, and his voice is soft and compassionate. “It’s just an excuse. A back-up. It doesn’t matter if you’re not as smart or strong or beautiful as a foreigner – as long as you have the genes you do, you’ll still be better. The rich an influential like that way of thinking. It serves a purpose-”

“Your purpose.”

“That’s irrelevant. Nobody likes being irrelevant, Harry Riddle. Nobody likes to be at disadvantage. And that is the core of the racist way of thinking. Where your pride in yourself as an individual fails you, you cling to the self-defined quality of your dna. Hitler’s agenda was never truly about creating a race that is hundred percent aryan, no. His goal was to establish the superiority of what he calls the aryan race.”

“And you’re using that to drive your own agenda,” Harry says, glaring tiredly at the Dark Lord, who nods with a small proud smile on his face.

“The question is, Harry,” Grindelwald says. “What will you do with what you know? Human minds are weak – you will not be able to wipe them clean of all insecurity.”

“No,” Harry replies. “And neither do I intend to try. Some things will run their course, Grindelwald. Despite what you’ve seen in me, I’ve seen nothing in you that would inspire me to take action.”

“You… you would do nothing with this information?” Grindelwald demands to know, clearly surprised. Harry shrugs, and nods.

“Not all knowledge needs to be acted upon.”

“Are you any better than me, then? To know that you could save lives, yet you choose not to?”

“This wouldn’t help me save lives, you know that,” Harry says. “Find someone else to play games with. I don’t want to.”

“You are a strange man, Riddle,” Grindelwald says after a few silent moments. “Strange indeed, but that will not save you in the end.”

30 Days of Writing – 11: Prepared

Prepared

(The Train to Nowhere)

This drabble contains spoilers.

–

“Nikolai isn’t here,” Heidi says, and he turns to look at her. She’s dressed in her white wedding gown, looking breathtakingly beautiful. Harry smiles sadly, not knowing what to say.

“I’m not surprised – I didn’t expect him to come,” Heidi continues, walking forward. She took a deep breath, and leaned closer to the open window Harry had been looking out of. “I just. I don’t know what I wanted.”

“I think you do know,” Harry whispers, and she gives him a shaky, tearful smile.

“I used to love how beautiful I looked,” she says, and shakes her head. “I know people kept calling me arrogant because of it. They kept and still keep saying that beauty does not make me a better person – they keep saying that beauty does not define a person – and yet they think it makes me worse.”

Harry remained silent, not knowing what to tell her. It was true – Heidi was and still is one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen… and she had suffered for it. Worse yet – she was going to suffer for it even more.

“Don’t pity me,” Heidi tells him. “Really. I… I’ve been prepared for this. I… it’s not entirely unexpected.”

“Does not make it any easier to bear,” Harry says quietly, and the woman makes a sound he does not want to understand. It hurts him, regardless.

“I’m prepared for this,” Heidi insists with tear-filled eyes. “This wedding will not be the end of me.”

“If anything happens, though,” Harry starts, reaching to touch her shoulder gently. “Come to me. I… I can do something for you, Heidi. I know we’ve never been the best of friends, but I care about you.”

“That helps,” Heidi whispers, looking up at him tiredly. “Prepared as I am, it’s good to have… to know this. And I am prepared, Harry. I know what awaits me.”

“He’s a cruel man.”

“He’s the man I will marry.”

“He-”

“I have told you, Harry. I am prepared. For better or for worse.”

30 Days of Writing – 10: Silver

Silver

(If Them’s the Rules)

This drabble contains mild spoilers.

–

“Silver,” he sneers, pushing aside what he now can only view as cheap trinkets. “You’re giving me silver?”

“Are you an idiot?” Eileen asks him in return. “No, I am not giving you silver. I’m telling you to keep your both eyes on the silver I have temporarily put on the table. Lose sight of them, and I assure you that you’ll soon after lose your sight entirely.”

“What are you two even up to?” Rosier asks, scowling at the pile of silver. “I don’t think-”

“Don’t strain yourself,” Tom says, not looking up from the potion he’s brewing. “We all know how tedious thinking is for you. Al, hand me the snails.”

“I wonder what it’ll end up tasting like,” Avery mutters, handing Tom a small jar of powdered snails. “What does it even do?”

“It’s not an edible potion,” Eileen cuts in, and coming from her, every word manages to sound like an insult. “Honestly – look at the ingerdients we have lying around. Do you consider silver something edible?”

“I don’t know what you’re making, so it’s hard for me to say what you’re going to be throwing into the cauldron before you’re done. I don’t even regocnize the recipe.”

“You wouldn’t,” Tom says. “It’s not a well-known recipe.”

“Did you squeeze the information out of your precious Harry?” Rosier grins, and Tom glares at him.

“No.”

“Pity. At least you’de be squeezing something out of him.”

“Just focus on the damn silver and shut up.”

30 Days of Writing – 9: Move

Move

(Post Mortem)

This drabble contains mild spoilers.

–

Harry doesn’t like dancing with Draco.

It has nothing to do with whether or not he likes dancing. It has, also, nothing to do with whether or not Draco dances well (he does, of course he does). Perhaps rather than to say that Harry doesn’t like dancing with Draco, it would be more correct to say: Harry doesn’t like to dance with other boys. He isn’t sure how to hold, how to move – he feels clumsy and out of his depth.

Draco is confident in his movements, and Harry envies him for that. Then again Draco is not adverse to being the centre of everyone’s attention. It’s yet another thing that is so different between them.

“Relax,” Draco murmurs, his pink lips forming a small grin. Harry tries to offer a smile in return, and knows before Draco’s slightly disappointed expression that he failed in conveying the illusion of enjoyment.

“I’m sorry,” he says instead. Draco shrugs.

“It’s alright. I just… I just wish I knew how to make you have fun, Harry.”

“I do have fun,” Harry replies. “Sometimes.” When he’s with Ron and Hermione, that is.

“Is it me then,” Draco asks, his voice suddenly sad. “Is it me who keeps you from being happy?”

“No,” Harry assures him. “I just. Draco, it’s so crowded and noisy and bright here. I’m just not used to this. I’d rather…” Be at home, alone. “…spend time with a considerably smaller number of people.”

And Draco – sweet, delusional Draco – once again reads more into Harry’s words than he ever meant. The Malfoy heir’s expression brightens, his smile turns into something akin to tender, and he slips his hand into Harry’s own.

“Come, then,” he breathes, and starts pulling Harry off the dancefloor. “I know where we can be… I know a private place, if that’s what you prefer.”

30 Days of Writing – 8: Companion

Companion

(The Train to Nowhere; Post Mortem)

This drabble contains spoilers.

–

The train slows down, and for a moment Harry wonders if he has arrived to his destination. It’s too soon, though. He knows it’s too soon, and so he doesn’t move.

Instead, someone comes in.

Someone whose magic shakes and swirls around him in a way not even Tom’s magic could do. If danger could be a cloak, it would wrap around the newcomer like an armour, cover his limbs and warn off those who have half a mind of stepping in his way. Harry remains seated.

The stranger stands still until the doors of the train close and it starts moving again. Then he turns.

He turns and Harry sees a face he has seen in numerous mirrors, countless of times. And he knows, knows, knows who this person is. He thinks of Peter, thinks of what he already knows, and then he’s already standing up. The stranger stares at him, green eyes aglow with something Harry cannot relate to.

There are words Harry knows he’ll want to say – afterwards. At some point when he believes that this actually happenined, he’ll say “I should have done this,” and regret a missed chance. Now, though, he doesn’t know which words to say, which questions to ask or what to do.

So he moves to stand in front of… in front of a Harry who had stepped into the train from another station. Stands in front of who could have been him, but isn’t. He stands and says nothing, and it takes him the distance of two more stations to realize that maybe nothing needs to be said.

Maybe it’s enough that they’re both there, and neither of them is alone.

Maybe it’s enough that now they know of each other, and even if they remain silent and never exchange a word, part ways to never see one another again, they would know that they are not alone in this madness.

30 Days of Writing – 7: Formal

Formal

(Creative Cruelty)

This drabble contains spoilers.

–

The black cocktail dress fits her perfectly, and her make-up is elegant and perfectly done. She walks on the high heels easily – a feat that does not surprise Naruto.

“Are you ready?” she asks, taking in the sight of him in his black suit. She’s pale, but not nervous. Naruto remembers fondly the days when she’d shake in his presence.

“I am,” he replies. “Remember your part, darling.”

“You needn’t worry about me,” she tells him, and the smile on her face does not suit it at all. “You’re not the only special snowflake here anymore, remember?”

“I liked you more before you died,” Naruto reveals, and she lets her cold hand rest on his forearm.

“Is the car ready?”

“It has been for quite a while now.”

“Naruto,” she says then, looking troubled for the first time that day. “Sasuke will be there, won’t he?”

“Yes,” Naruto replies and smiles. “Yes. He will be there.”

“He knows I’m dead.”

Naruto’s grin widens at that – it is his reason for attending this boring, pointless party, decked in an uncomfortable suit of all things. He cannot wait to see Sasuke’s face once he arrives, accompanied by the first woman Sasuke ever killed.

30 Days of Writing – 6: Flame

Flame

(Yours, Unfaithfully)

This drabble contains spoilers.

–

The house is on fire, and Sasuke can do nothing but stand and stare. Naruto, he thinks. Naruto. Naruto’s somewhere there. Somewhere in the fire.

He thinks of the movies he’s seen, movies that echo a scene like this one, except that there the lover waiting outside tries to get in. Sasuke doesn’t. Sasuke doesn’t want to burn. Not even with Naruto. Or maybe it’s not that at all – maybe he would burn with Naruto, but Naruto wouldn’t want Sasuke there with him. Naruto wouldn’t want to spend his last moments with Sasuke.

“I can’t blame him for that,” Sasuke tells himself. Not after everything that has happened.

There are people around him. People he has seen with Naruto. His own friends and colleagues. Even Sakura is there, her green eyes taking in the sight of flames before she turns to look at him. It takes him a moment to remember why they’re here. Why even Sakura is here.

And maybe Sasuke – no, Sasuke definitely – now understands what she’s been feeling since the beginning. Sakura never hated Naruto, no. The one she despised and held such strong contempt for had been Sasuke. Sasuke. Always Sasuke.

Gaara is being held back by two people Sasuke doesn’t recognize, and he knows that if they were to let go, he would go running into the house and into the fire to either pull Naruto out or burn with him. But they don’t let go, and Gaara cannot move.

“Why isn’t he jumping out of a window?” someone sobs behind Sasuke. “Why isn’t he getting out of there? He could. He could.”

Maybe he’s waiting for something, Sasuke thinks, and it’s absurd. Who’d wait for something in the fire?

30 Days of Writing – 5: Haze

Haze

(Post Mortem)

This drabble contains spoilers.

–

The sigh of haze covering the woods and hills surrounding Mordred’s Mend is unsettling. The air is cold and the sky is grey, and the cloak Theo is wearing does not keep him from shivering.

He coughs, the illness overwhelming his body, making him bow down and fight to breathe. When he manages to stand up again, he’s very nearly sobbing.

“I see the house,” he says aloud, to the emptiness that keeps him company. As he is now, more dead than alive, he could perhaps make his way through the woods to the house faster than an ordinary person could. He knows he won’t last for long, but survival was not his aim any longer. All he wanted to do – needed to do – was to deliver the information to Harry.

Harry would know what to do with it. Maybe not immediately. Maybe not years from now on. But one day, some day, he’d be perhaps pacing through the dark and shadowed hallways of his house and look for a solution only to think of Theo, because Theo has finally managed to be of use. Useful. To Harry, like he never was to his own father.

The folded parchment, hidden between the skin of his throat and the tight collar of his shirt, would be valuable. He’d need to tell Harry this. He’d need to tell him to not lose it, never lose it, because Theo is dying for it. Dying in an attempt to be significant somehow. To someone.

The haze parts before him, and he sees the front door of Mordred’s Mend now. Not long, now. Soon he’ll be there, knocking at Harry’s door. And Harry would open, pull him inside and Theo would, Theo would-

Theo would die, like he always knew he would, too soon. But he wouldn’t spend his last moments alone, and that, that was more than he had believed to have.

“Forgive us where we fail in truth,” he whispers, pressing his shaking hands against the wooden surface of the closed door. “And in thy wisdom make us wise.”

30 Days of Writing – 4: Snowflake

Snowflake

(Yours, In Murder)

–

The mere thought of comparing love to snowfall makes the tea turn sour in Tom’s mouth, but he does so anyway. He does so before realizing it, even, as he stands by the window watching snowflakes fall on the ground and melt – disappear. He stands long enough to see them pile one over another until the white sheen doesn’t melt anymore.

He thinks: this is how it happened.

He kept falling for Harry again and again until the feelings became too solid to ignore, and much too real to vanish. All the little things and the big things had overlapped in ways too complicated to untangle. The lust and obsession he had felt in the beginning were now no less than what they had been then, but the suffocating fondness brought a new, admittedly unwanted, dimension to everything.

He wanted Harry and he has him now. He wanted Harry to love him and now Harry loves him. He didn’t – and still doesn’t – want to love Harry in return. Not this way. Not the way other people love.

He cannot say that he wouldn’t have this any other way. He would, if he could. Being in love is scary, and he fears that one day Harry will want someone else. That his brilliance will not captivate Harry anymore, that his looks will spark no attraction and his presence would rouse no desire.

Each day he spends loving Harry feels like a risk. A risk he stumbles to take anyway.

30 Days of Writing – 3: Restless

Restless

(My Homicidal Prince)

This drabble contains mild spoilers.

–

Sometimes he’s too tired to do anything, yet too awake to sleep. He sits on the bed wishing he was somewhere else, all the while unwilling to move away from it. He wants to do nothing and yet the need to get something done is keeping him from the comforts of slumber.

“Your thoughts are pissing me off,” Naruto says, looking up at him with a sleepy, annoyed look. Her golden hair is a mess and her arms are hugging her pillow. “Go have a walk or something.”

“You can’t read my thoughts,” he says and sighs heavily. “I’m bored. And tired.”

“I really don’t care. I’m sleepy, and you’re being annoying.”

“Let’s go have a picnic,” he suggests suddenly, and the Jinchuuriki all but sneers at him.

“It’s well past midnight,” she says. “And I want to sleep. Go die.”

“You’re a shitty friend sometimes, Naruto.”

“Whatever.”

He looks down at her as she sighs, yawns, shifts, stretches and turns so many times that he cannot help but feel amused. He knows he won’t be able to sleep for quite a while, and yet perhaps this kind of restlessness is best spent watching over his sleeping friend.

Who knew what tomorrow would bring, after all.