The day I had no inspiration.
By Alex Hanson.
I was sitting on my bed, trying to find a way to come up with a fan fiction story. Of course I couldn't come up with anything, as usual. In the background the radio was playing and I stared at the low blue table in the center of my room. Covered with things which didn't belong there. My chaps, a pair of dirty socks, a formal looking envelope addressed to my best friend (but she never got it and I didn't know how it got here instead), deodorant, clean underwear, a little notebook: "useful phrases in French" for on vacation and a wooden crate filled with shoe polish implements.
I smiled, my father once told me how he enjoyed singing Christmas carols, while riding his bike to the grocery store, in the middle of summer and that he couldn't understand why people were looking at him. Now, here I was, sitting in my room, making up a story, while listening to my favorite Christmas CD, in the middle of July.
Come to think off it, my family has always been a little strange. My sister is highly interested in extraterrestrial life forms, while our dog gets a seizure every time someone tries to leave the house. My dad enjoys singing Christmas carols in July and my mom is obsessed with some kind of therapist. And I happened to be a witch. Right out of the blue. I had been attending Dassenburcht for four years now and I simply loved it there. It was a Dutch school, but also a few Dutch-speaking Belgian students were attending it. It was a smaller version of Hogwarts.
I figured out about Hogwarts when I read JK Rowling's stories on Harry Potter. She was a muggle writer who could sketch such a vividly picture of the wizarding world that you just had to believe it! And so some muggles did believe it and started writing their own fanfics.
I gave a sigh. I just couldn't think of anything. A girl falling in love with Harry and turning out to be Voldie's daughter? Nah, that would be boring, done before, old. Harry killing Peter and Voldie? Nope, old as well. Everything seemed to be done before. Everything. Rowling seemed to be the only person to write a decent Potter story. And then fan fiction writers would come up and write perfect stories as well. People like Eliza Daiwna Snape, or Draco, or, or... But they had and advantage, they were English, or American, I wasn't sure. And I was just the simple Dutch girl. Which was, I mean is a disadvantage for me. All I have is my English spelling checker. My grammar sucks and so does my vocabulary. Blegh! And yet I keep on trying. I once wrote a fanfic about Hanson, a looooooooooong time ago, and asked my English teacher what he thought about it. I was lucky he was a decent man and told me it was nice. I re-read it just a few days ago, when I was cleaning the mess under my bed and found it. It was awfully bad. I can't believe I actually let anybody read it. But back then I was really proud of it.
My dog walked in and jumped on my bed. I stroke his white fur and he rested his head on my lap. "Have you got an idea for a good story?" I asked him. He looked up to me and blinked. If a dog could smile, he was. I smiled and pushed him over. He rolled over and jumped up. Wagging his tail he barked at me as if to say; "Come follow me, I know the way!" He ran down the stairs, through our living room almost bumping into the door leading to our hallway. He scratched the door, his way to show me he wanted me to open it. In less then a minute we were outside. I strolled down the road, my dog running along in front of me, stopping now and then to bark for me to hurry up. We lived near a forest, behind the forest lay Bays. It was a small town, where nothing ever happened. My dog seemed to head for the forest, I followed him. I inhaled deeply and let out a sigh. Apparently it had just rained, for the ground was wet and raindrops fell from the tree's leaves. A cold breeze stroke my cheek. I hopped over a fallen tree. The path my dog and I were walking on was still covert in autumn leaves. The birds were singing their songs, but the sun refused to shine this summer. There had never been a colder summer than this one. We were lucky it wasn't freezing yet, I joked to myself. I noticed my dog had run out of sight, oh well, he would come back in a moment.
I had gotten to a point where a bridle path crossed the path and I checked to see if any horses were coming. There weren't. Or... I heard the trampling of hoofs and a horse came running straight at me. I stopped dead in my tracks and didn't know what to do. Apparently the horse had bolted and its rider was screaming madly while trying not to fall off. In his attempts to, he had let go of the reins. Screaming only caused the horse to run faster. I drew my wand and pointed it at the horse, which was now only a few seconds away from me. "Petrifius Totalus!" I screamed. My spell was well aimed and hit the horse right at its chest. The horse stopped right in front of me, but its rider didn't and flew with great speed from his stallion into a puddle of mud next to me. Suddenly I realised I had been really stupid. I used magic in front of a muggle! Quickly I undid the spell on the horse and calmed it down. How stupid could I actually have been! We weren't allowed to use magic during summer vacation. Oops...
The rider crawled up. He was covered in dirt.
"Are you alright?" I asked him in Dutch. He frowned at me and brushed some of the mud from his face. I noticed he was my age.
"I don't speak Dutch." He snarled in English and grabbed his horses reins. He probably was an English tourist. For he spoke with a funny English accent.
"Are you alright?" I tried again, this time in English. The boy looked at me and smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. It was cold, it was as if the boy looked down on me. As if he thought he was superior to me. I hated that look.
"My stallion just bolted, I'm covered in dirt and you ask me if I'm alright?" He sneered. I frowned. How rude, I had just stopped his stallion, as he called his horse.
"Hey, I was only trying to be helpful! And besides, if you could handle that stallion of yours he wouldn't have bolted!" Now the boy didn't know what to say anymore, it took him a few seconds before he spoke again.
"Are you saying you can do better?" He challenged me.
"Duh! Everybody knows to never let go of the reins or scream when your horse had just bolted! That only makes things worse."
Suddenly the horse got really nervous and I noticed it was because of my dog. He was affright of dogs.
"Is that your dog?" The boy asked me. I nodded.
"That filthy creature just caused my stallion to bolt."
"He is not filthy, you are ten times filthier, you are covered in dirt." I shot back at him.
He threw his head back and laughed. What the? I thought. He's nuts. He's lost his marbles. Definitely.
"I like you," He said, this time giving me a real smile. "what's your name."
"Alex." I said and calmed the horse down, by whispering words, this way I drew it's attention.
The boy looked at me and said nothing. I pretended not to notice. Stupid twit.
"Aren't you going to ask me what my name is?" He asked me slightly offended.
An evil grin spread across my face. Now it was my turn.
"No." I said. He looked even more offended. "Why would I want t know the name of someone who can't stop his stallion from bolting?" Apparently he didn't like the way I said stallion, for now he even looked angry.
"Well, if you think can ride him go right ahead." He said crossing his arms over his chest.
I threw him a smile and got on his horse. Eight years of riding made me a pretty good rider and I had no problem with the horse. To great surprise of the boy, who got more angry every second.
After a few minutes of showing off, I got off his horse and shot him an evil grin.
He sneered. "Give me my horse back." He said and grabbed the reins. His expression changed from angry to curious. I looked him in the eye. He had cold gray eyes. They reminded me of someone, but I couldn't remember who.
"Where... Are you a witch?" He suddenly asked me. I gulped. Here comes the trouble!
He didn't wait for my response. "What school are you attending?" I figured he knew about wizards and stuff, for he asked me really casually.
"Dassenburcht." I said. He frowned.
"What school is that?"
"It's like Hogwarts, only smaller. And only Dutch students." I explained while stroking the horse, which now seemed totally at ease.
"I think your horse likes to act up." I pointed out. He frowned again.
"What do you mean?"
"I think he's pretending to be scared of dogs. Look, my dog is sitting here and your horse is totally calm."
The boy nodded then smiled.
"Since you are still not asking what my name is, I shall tell you myself." He said importantly. "My name is Draco Malfoy." He waited for my reaction. I pretended not to know him. But I did know him, from Rowling's books.
"Oh, that's nice." I said dryly.
"Well... As a matter of fact it isn't." Draco said sternly. He was trying to catch my eye, but I was still kind of ignoring him. Suddenly he didn't seem to look so self-assured. He looked kind of sad.
"Oh." I said again, not knowing what to say else. There was an uncomfortable silence. Draco looked at me. I looked at the horse, avoiding eye contact. He brushed a stroke of hair from his eyes. Then coughed. I looked him over.
"You need clean clothe." I pointed out. He nodded.
"Come on." I said and started walking back. Draco followed me, but stopped.
"I need to go the other way, we're staying at Bays."
"Your wet and dirty if you stay outside to long, you might get hypothermia. Besides, my place is closer. I'll borrow you some clothe." I said and continued walking.
Alex, how can you be so stupid! Your taking a complete stranger home, so he can borrow some clothe. What will- Draco interrupted my thoughts.
"I'm attending Hogwarts, but I don't like it there. To many mudbloods." He said with a sneer.
Ouch, that hurt! For I am a 'mudblood'. I noticed he was just like Malfoy from Rowling's books, just as rude.
"Can you tell the difference between a mudblood and a pureblood then?" I asked him.
He said nothing.
"And what is there to like less about a mudblood? Do they get lower grades?" I continued. Draco still didn't say anything.
"Tell me why then." I demanded. Draco looked at me for a long time, pondering this matter carefully I suppose, because he didn't say anything for a while. I didn't break the eye contact, but challenged him with it. Then he looked down at his shoes and shook his head.
"I don't know." He sighed. "I suppose because I was toughed to hate them."
"Your father?" I asked carefully. He nodded.
"But if you feel so bad about it, then why do you still hate them? Well... I mean, can't you try not to hate them?" I tried. Draco looked at me again with this typical look. This 'I'm reading your soul' kind of look. This 'are you playing a game' kind of look. This... This Draco look.
"It's not that easy. You can't just stop hating something." He said and stared of to point in space.
"Yeah, but you can atleast try to understand and respect it. These mudbloods might find the sudden change in their lives of figuring out that they are magicians very difficult. I know I did four years ago."
He didn't look at me, but I could tell he felt bad. I could tell that he thought that I was a pureblood, and I could tell he wished he'd never started this conversation about pure and mudbloods.
"I wish I never started this conversation." He said guiltily.
"Geez, that's nice to know." I felt angry, not at Draco, but at the fact that more people felt the way he did. At the fact that more people were thought these feelings. Angry that there had to be a difference. Angry at the fact that these differences caused so much trouble sometimes.
Apparently Draco was surprised by this answer and let out an audiensable squeak.
"I'm sorry..." He said softly. His look turned from sad to angry. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry for not being perfect! I'm sorry for hating things! I'm sorry for not being perfect Mr. Harry Potter!" He threw up his hands in despair.
"Why are you sorry for not being Harry?" I asked while I took over his horses reins.
"Because," he said between gritted teeth "he is perfect."
"No he is not." I said promptly.
"Give me one good reason why he isn't!" Draco said pointing a finger at me.
I shrugged. "He has untidy hair." I waited for Draco's reaction. He smiled weakly.
"A perfect person wouldn't have untidy hair, a perfect person would have perfect hair." I continued. Draco laughed. I was glad he did so, for he seemed to have a lot of psychological problems. I couldn't really tell why, but somehow I knew.
We walked through the gates of our farmhouse and walked over to the stables, behind our house. Draco looked around interested. Swift, my own horse, greeted me by neighing loud.
"You have a horse as well?" Draco asked me. I nodded as I let Draco's horse enter a spare stable.
"His name is Swift. He's a Pinto." This probably didn't mean much to Draco for he only nodded.
"Come on, lets get you cleaned up." I said, again Draco nodded, took a last look at Swift and his own horse and followed me.
When we entered the house it appeared to be empty. There was a note on the table.
'Alex, we went shopping and we will return before dinner, love mom and dad.'
"What does it say?" Draco asked me, reading over my shoulder.
"Curiosity killed the cat, you know!" I teased him. He stuck out his tong.
"The bathroom is in there, towels are in the closet in there and here are some clean clothes." I said and handed him some of my most boyish clothes.
"Thanks." He murmured, slightly embarrassed.
"I'll be in the stables if you need me." I said and left him alone.
By Alex Hanson.
I was sitting on my bed, trying to find a way to come up with a fan fiction story. Of course I couldn't come up with anything, as usual. In the background the radio was playing and I stared at the low blue table in the center of my room. Covered with things which didn't belong there. My chaps, a pair of dirty socks, a formal looking envelope addressed to my best friend (but she never got it and I didn't know how it got here instead), deodorant, clean underwear, a little notebook: "useful phrases in French" for on vacation and a wooden crate filled with shoe polish implements.
I smiled, my father once told me how he enjoyed singing Christmas carols, while riding his bike to the grocery store, in the middle of summer and that he couldn't understand why people were looking at him. Now, here I was, sitting in my room, making up a story, while listening to my favorite Christmas CD, in the middle of July.
Come to think off it, my family has always been a little strange. My sister is highly interested in extraterrestrial life forms, while our dog gets a seizure every time someone tries to leave the house. My dad enjoys singing Christmas carols in July and my mom is obsessed with some kind of therapist. And I happened to be a witch. Right out of the blue. I had been attending Dassenburcht for four years now and I simply loved it there. It was a Dutch school, but also a few Dutch-speaking Belgian students were attending it. It was a smaller version of Hogwarts.
I figured out about Hogwarts when I read JK Rowling's stories on Harry Potter. She was a muggle writer who could sketch such a vividly picture of the wizarding world that you just had to believe it! And so some muggles did believe it and started writing their own fanfics.
I gave a sigh. I just couldn't think of anything. A girl falling in love with Harry and turning out to be Voldie's daughter? Nah, that would be boring, done before, old. Harry killing Peter and Voldie? Nope, old as well. Everything seemed to be done before. Everything. Rowling seemed to be the only person to write a decent Potter story. And then fan fiction writers would come up and write perfect stories as well. People like Eliza Daiwna Snape, or Draco, or, or... But they had and advantage, they were English, or American, I wasn't sure. And I was just the simple Dutch girl. Which was, I mean is a disadvantage for me. All I have is my English spelling checker. My grammar sucks and so does my vocabulary. Blegh! And yet I keep on trying. I once wrote a fanfic about Hanson, a looooooooooong time ago, and asked my English teacher what he thought about it. I was lucky he was a decent man and told me it was nice. I re-read it just a few days ago, when I was cleaning the mess under my bed and found it. It was awfully bad. I can't believe I actually let anybody read it. But back then I was really proud of it.
My dog walked in and jumped on my bed. I stroke his white fur and he rested his head on my lap. "Have you got an idea for a good story?" I asked him. He looked up to me and blinked. If a dog could smile, he was. I smiled and pushed him over. He rolled over and jumped up. Wagging his tail he barked at me as if to say; "Come follow me, I know the way!" He ran down the stairs, through our living room almost bumping into the door leading to our hallway. He scratched the door, his way to show me he wanted me to open it. In less then a minute we were outside. I strolled down the road, my dog running along in front of me, stopping now and then to bark for me to hurry up. We lived near a forest, behind the forest lay Bays. It was a small town, where nothing ever happened. My dog seemed to head for the forest, I followed him. I inhaled deeply and let out a sigh. Apparently it had just rained, for the ground was wet and raindrops fell from the tree's leaves. A cold breeze stroke my cheek. I hopped over a fallen tree. The path my dog and I were walking on was still covert in autumn leaves. The birds were singing their songs, but the sun refused to shine this summer. There had never been a colder summer than this one. We were lucky it wasn't freezing yet, I joked to myself. I noticed my dog had run out of sight, oh well, he would come back in a moment.
I had gotten to a point where a bridle path crossed the path and I checked to see if any horses were coming. There weren't. Or... I heard the trampling of hoofs and a horse came running straight at me. I stopped dead in my tracks and didn't know what to do. Apparently the horse had bolted and its rider was screaming madly while trying not to fall off. In his attempts to, he had let go of the reins. Screaming only caused the horse to run faster. I drew my wand and pointed it at the horse, which was now only a few seconds away from me. "Petrifius Totalus!" I screamed. My spell was well aimed and hit the horse right at its chest. The horse stopped right in front of me, but its rider didn't and flew with great speed from his stallion into a puddle of mud next to me. Suddenly I realised I had been really stupid. I used magic in front of a muggle! Quickly I undid the spell on the horse and calmed it down. How stupid could I actually have been! We weren't allowed to use magic during summer vacation. Oops...
The rider crawled up. He was covered in dirt.
"Are you alright?" I asked him in Dutch. He frowned at me and brushed some of the mud from his face. I noticed he was my age.
"I don't speak Dutch." He snarled in English and grabbed his horses reins. He probably was an English tourist. For he spoke with a funny English accent.
"Are you alright?" I tried again, this time in English. The boy looked at me and smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. It was cold, it was as if the boy looked down on me. As if he thought he was superior to me. I hated that look.
"My stallion just bolted, I'm covered in dirt and you ask me if I'm alright?" He sneered. I frowned. How rude, I had just stopped his stallion, as he called his horse.
"Hey, I was only trying to be helpful! And besides, if you could handle that stallion of yours he wouldn't have bolted!" Now the boy didn't know what to say anymore, it took him a few seconds before he spoke again.
"Are you saying you can do better?" He challenged me.
"Duh! Everybody knows to never let go of the reins or scream when your horse had just bolted! That only makes things worse."
Suddenly the horse got really nervous and I noticed it was because of my dog. He was affright of dogs.
"Is that your dog?" The boy asked me. I nodded.
"That filthy creature just caused my stallion to bolt."
"He is not filthy, you are ten times filthier, you are covered in dirt." I shot back at him.
He threw his head back and laughed. What the? I thought. He's nuts. He's lost his marbles. Definitely.
"I like you," He said, this time giving me a real smile. "what's your name."
"Alex." I said and calmed the horse down, by whispering words, this way I drew it's attention.
The boy looked at me and said nothing. I pretended not to notice. Stupid twit.
"Aren't you going to ask me what my name is?" He asked me slightly offended.
An evil grin spread across my face. Now it was my turn.
"No." I said. He looked even more offended. "Why would I want t know the name of someone who can't stop his stallion from bolting?" Apparently he didn't like the way I said stallion, for now he even looked angry.
"Well, if you think can ride him go right ahead." He said crossing his arms over his chest.
I threw him a smile and got on his horse. Eight years of riding made me a pretty good rider and I had no problem with the horse. To great surprise of the boy, who got more angry every second.
After a few minutes of showing off, I got off his horse and shot him an evil grin.
He sneered. "Give me my horse back." He said and grabbed the reins. His expression changed from angry to curious. I looked him in the eye. He had cold gray eyes. They reminded me of someone, but I couldn't remember who.
"Where... Are you a witch?" He suddenly asked me. I gulped. Here comes the trouble!
He didn't wait for my response. "What school are you attending?" I figured he knew about wizards and stuff, for he asked me really casually.
"Dassenburcht." I said. He frowned.
"What school is that?"
"It's like Hogwarts, only smaller. And only Dutch students." I explained while stroking the horse, which now seemed totally at ease.
"I think your horse likes to act up." I pointed out. He frowned again.
"What do you mean?"
"I think he's pretending to be scared of dogs. Look, my dog is sitting here and your horse is totally calm."
The boy nodded then smiled.
"Since you are still not asking what my name is, I shall tell you myself." He said importantly. "My name is Draco Malfoy." He waited for my reaction. I pretended not to know him. But I did know him, from Rowling's books.
"Oh, that's nice." I said dryly.
"Well... As a matter of fact it isn't." Draco said sternly. He was trying to catch my eye, but I was still kind of ignoring him. Suddenly he didn't seem to look so self-assured. He looked kind of sad.
"Oh." I said again, not knowing what to say else. There was an uncomfortable silence. Draco looked at me. I looked at the horse, avoiding eye contact. He brushed a stroke of hair from his eyes. Then coughed. I looked him over.
"You need clean clothe." I pointed out. He nodded.
"Come on." I said and started walking back. Draco followed me, but stopped.
"I need to go the other way, we're staying at Bays."
"Your wet and dirty if you stay outside to long, you might get hypothermia. Besides, my place is closer. I'll borrow you some clothe." I said and continued walking.
Alex, how can you be so stupid! Your taking a complete stranger home, so he can borrow some clothe. What will- Draco interrupted my thoughts.
"I'm attending Hogwarts, but I don't like it there. To many mudbloods." He said with a sneer.
Ouch, that hurt! For I am a 'mudblood'. I noticed he was just like Malfoy from Rowling's books, just as rude.
"Can you tell the difference between a mudblood and a pureblood then?" I asked him.
He said nothing.
"And what is there to like less about a mudblood? Do they get lower grades?" I continued. Draco still didn't say anything.
"Tell me why then." I demanded. Draco looked at me for a long time, pondering this matter carefully I suppose, because he didn't say anything for a while. I didn't break the eye contact, but challenged him with it. Then he looked down at his shoes and shook his head.
"I don't know." He sighed. "I suppose because I was toughed to hate them."
"Your father?" I asked carefully. He nodded.
"But if you feel so bad about it, then why do you still hate them? Well... I mean, can't you try not to hate them?" I tried. Draco looked at me again with this typical look. This 'I'm reading your soul' kind of look. This 'are you playing a game' kind of look. This... This Draco look.
"It's not that easy. You can't just stop hating something." He said and stared of to point in space.
"Yeah, but you can atleast try to understand and respect it. These mudbloods might find the sudden change in their lives of figuring out that they are magicians very difficult. I know I did four years ago."
He didn't look at me, but I could tell he felt bad. I could tell that he thought that I was a pureblood, and I could tell he wished he'd never started this conversation about pure and mudbloods.
"I wish I never started this conversation." He said guiltily.
"Geez, that's nice to know." I felt angry, not at Draco, but at the fact that more people felt the way he did. At the fact that more people were thought these feelings. Angry that there had to be a difference. Angry at the fact that these differences caused so much trouble sometimes.
Apparently Draco was surprised by this answer and let out an audiensable squeak.
"I'm sorry..." He said softly. His look turned from sad to angry. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry for not being perfect! I'm sorry for hating things! I'm sorry for not being perfect Mr. Harry Potter!" He threw up his hands in despair.
"Why are you sorry for not being Harry?" I asked while I took over his horses reins.
"Because," he said between gritted teeth "he is perfect."
"No he is not." I said promptly.
"Give me one good reason why he isn't!" Draco said pointing a finger at me.
I shrugged. "He has untidy hair." I waited for Draco's reaction. He smiled weakly.
"A perfect person wouldn't have untidy hair, a perfect person would have perfect hair." I continued. Draco laughed. I was glad he did so, for he seemed to have a lot of psychological problems. I couldn't really tell why, but somehow I knew.
We walked through the gates of our farmhouse and walked over to the stables, behind our house. Draco looked around interested. Swift, my own horse, greeted me by neighing loud.
"You have a horse as well?" Draco asked me. I nodded as I let Draco's horse enter a spare stable.
"His name is Swift. He's a Pinto." This probably didn't mean much to Draco for he only nodded.
"Come on, lets get you cleaned up." I said, again Draco nodded, took a last look at Swift and his own horse and followed me.
When we entered the house it appeared to be empty. There was a note on the table.
'Alex, we went shopping and we will return before dinner, love mom and dad.'
"What does it say?" Draco asked me, reading over my shoulder.
"Curiosity killed the cat, you know!" I teased him. He stuck out his tong.
"The bathroom is in there, towels are in the closet in there and here are some clean clothes." I said and handed him some of my most boyish clothes.
"Thanks." He murmured, slightly embarrassed.
"I'll be in the stables if you need me." I said and left him alone.