Author's note: As my regular readers know, I have made it a hobby of late to take passages I find on Harry Potter stories that have one crucial word misspelled or misused, and then write stories in which these malapropisms are taken literally. Now, we all know that such passages are not confined to the Harry Potter subcategory; hence, the present collection of Miraculous tales. As in the original "Minuets", the attributions may or may not be verifiable when you read this, since the authors in question may choose to correct their syntax, change their pen names, and/or delete their stories; still, you have my word that these passages have all really appeared in this subcategory.
A word about technique. Obviously, none of these vignettes actually reflect the intentions of the authors quoted, and in many cases the whole context of the passage has been radically altered. However, I have made it an ironclad rule that any pronoun will refer to the same person or thing in the Minuet as in the original story, and any direct quote will be attributed to the same character. (And of course this applies to OCs and historical figures as well as to canon characters.)
Disclaimer: Miraculous belongs to Zagtoon; the stories quoted belong to the authors named; the cover image is by Filippo Baratti; various other allusions to works and persons not my own abound. The stories themselves, however, are strictly my own work.
Other Minuets collections: If you enjoy these tales, you may also wish to look into "Minuets in Aeolian Mode" (Percy Jackson and the Olympians), "Minuets Assemble!" (Avengers [Movies]), "Minuets by Brain Matter" (NCIS), "Minuets by John Williams" (Star Wars), and "Minuets with Bombadil" (Lord of the Rings) – and, of course, the Harry Potter series that started it all, "Minuets in B Minor". All are currently available on my profile.
"I'm untying you, but you'd better not peak. Got it?" –marauderluverz, "How to (Accidentally) Kidnap a Teenage Super Model"
"Little late for that, Bugaboo," said Chat. "I'm pretty sure I peaked years ago."
Ladybug rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean," she said. "Don't go blurting out Professor Richard's akuma name again and summoning your power ahead of time. I need you to be on hand if we're going to take him down."
"Oh, that," said Chat, flushing slightly. "Right, sure. No problem."
"Okay, then."
With that, Ladybug got to work. The knots binding Chat to the lamp-post were a little tricky, but she forced herself to stay calm and work them out rationally, and it paid off; within minutes, she had successfully untangled the greater part of the rope. "How's that?" she said, with one final tug.
Chat gave his torso an experimental wriggle; the ropes fell off around him, and he leaped to his feet with a grin. "Seems good to me," he said. "Much obliged, milady. Now let's go see about teaching Cataclysm a thing or…" He trailed off, and glanced down at his suddenly green-burning hand. "Oh, shoot."
Ladybug groaned. "Really, Chat?" she said. "Really?"
"The art room's door hadn't lasted long… Nathaniel had watched it get ripped from the doorframe and splitter as it collided with the metal handrail opposite." – Free .Spirit140*, "NathMarc November 7th"
From her perch on a nearby park bench, Ladybug watched in horror as the akumatized Ferrari smashed blindly through the wall of her school, trailing a screaming melee of her classmates in its wake. Clearly there was only one thing to do; she hated to waste her power on a subsidiary matter, rather than the capture of the actual akuma, but there was no help for it. With the art room's doorframe stuck to the splitter of his car and covering its windshield, Grand Prix was liable to mow down dozens of innocent people before she could stop him long enough to return him to normal; that had to be taken care of somehow, and Chat's mysterious absence left it up to her.
"Lucky Charm!" she cried, and flung her yo-yo upward. The usual radiance of power surrounded it, and she held out her hands for its gift – and then she stared at the red-and-black refrigerator magnet that fell into them.
"What's that for?" said a voice behind her. Nathaniel Kurtzberg had evidently taken shelter behind Ladybug's bench; now he was staring up at her Charm-ur with the same puzzlement she was used to seeing Chat display.
Ladybug frowned, and glanced around. In quick succession, her Coccinella-Vision illumined her yo-yo, the knob on the art-room door, and the railing around a Metro-station stairway on the opposite side of the street; the idea clicked in her mind, and she grinned. "You'll see," she said. "By the way, do you have any food on you?"
Nathaniel frowned, and fished in his pocket. "Um… just this," he said, bringing out a rather battered granola bar. "Why, are you hungry?"
"No, but I know someone who will be in a minute," said Ladybug, snatching the bar from his hand. "Thanks a million."
"Uh… any time."
Without further ado, Ladybug leaped into the middle of the street, and attached the magnet to her yo-yo. "Hey, Grand Prix!" she shouted. "Over here!"
Grand Prix, hearing her voice, whirled his car around and drove wildly forward, visions of a seized Miraculous dancing in his head. Ladybug, in her turn, darted the rest of the way across the street, secured herself behind the railing, and flung her yo-yo; the magnet latched onto the doorknob, and, with a dexterous flick of her wrist, she managed to turn the knob and pull the door at the same time, causing it to swing open just in time, and just wide enough, to strike the edge of the railing at 44 meters per second and be torn from its hinges by the force of the impact.
Once the splinters had stopped flying, Ladybug ran forward and detached her yo-yo from what remained of the door. Now all she had to do was un-transform, feed Tikki, re-transform, hunt down Chat, and find some way of subduing a man whom, so far as she could see, she couldn't even approach without being splattered across the Place de la Concorde. Just another day in her superheroic life.
"Marinette almost choked, as she realized Alya though she was so down because Adrien wasn't there." –Kazel Menra, "Cat's Closet"
"Tikki," said Marinette, her voice trembling on the brink of hysteria, "didn't you and Master Fu say that my new realization power depended on my emotions – that I could only make my mental images into reality if I had a present wellspring of intense, untainted happiness to draw on? Didn't you say that that was why I didn't need to worry about bringing my own private demons to life – or, worse, allowing Hawkmoth to do it for me? Didn't you say that?"
"Yes," said Tikki, wondering. "Yes, of course we did, Marinette. Why shouldn't we have? It's true."
"True!" Marinette shrilled. "True! Great! So how come just now, while I was outside mooning about Adrien being away –" (and that told Tikki there was definitely something amiss, since ordinarily Marinette would have eaten rat poison sooner than admit that so bluntly) "– I happened to say out loud that I wished Alya at least were here, and she was?"
Tikki stared. "She was?"
"She was!" said Marinette. "I could have reached out and touched her! And then I let out this little strangled gasp, my attention wavered, and she was gone! Tikki, what's happening to me?"
"I… don't know, Marinette," said Tikki slowly. "I've never heard of anything like that before. But, whatever it is, you mustn't let yourself worry about it; that's only going to make things worse. And, anyway, I'm sure there's nothing to worry about; if anything was going seriously wrong with your powers, then I, as the source of those powers, would have to know about it. And I don't, so there can't be."
Marinette took a deep breath. "Right," she said faintly. "Right, that's… that's logical, isn't it?"
"Of course," said Tikki, trying not to think about the possible ways in which it wasn't. "You just need to relax, Marinette – go read a nice book, or something. Nothing's going to happen, if you just keep calm."
"See how [L]adybug wavered a little to long seeing Adrien hanging on the rooftop." –justwritting1moretime, "Where Is Adrien?"
"All right, I think that's everything," said Ladybug to her broker, M. Comte. "I want to go long in wheat and cocoa, short in adzuki beans and feeder cattle, and hold steady in oilseeds and palladium."
"Very good, miss," said M. Comte. "What about milk? Did you want to take a strong position in that?"
Ladybug considered. "I'm not sure," she said. "What do you think? Is cheese becoming more or less popular over time?"
"Oh, definitely less, miss," said M. Comte, who was lactose-intolerant. "Especially Camembert; no-one likes that smelly stuff."
"I see," said Ladybug. "Okay, then, I guess I'll go short in…"
At this juncture, she heard a tapping sound from the window, and turned to see Chat Noir dangling by his baton from the roof of the brokerage building, shaking his head frantically and extending his arms as wide as they would go. She hesitated, wavering. "Well, actually, maybe I should… or at least… that is…"
M. Comte gazed at her expectantly.
"Oh, never mind," said Ladybug. "Yes, short on milk, too."
After all, she reflected, what does that crazy cat know about high finance, anyway?
*Properly without a space before the period, but this site's software won't let me transcribe that.
