Iiiiiit's MARDI GRAS! (I'm such a Southerner.) But seriously, Mardi Gras is awesome. You get four-day weekends and burgers and chips and the early season melons and KING CAKE and get to get slapped in the face with really hard beads. XD And now you guys think that I'm nuts, probably. Oh well. *snickers uncontrollably*
**Important**So, formatting. Bold indicates notes. Regular is stats, like title, word count, summary, things like that. Italics is a snippet or snippets of what I've already written. An actual line break means that I've separated each story from one another. A line break that looks like LINE BREAK means that I'm separating the snippets of one story.
Also, there are fifteen "stories" total. Ten are purely Harry Potter. Five are crossovers of Harry Potter or have no correlation to Harry Potter at all, and are a completely different fandom.
Title: Perception…
Summary: …is everything. Or, in which Evelyn, Girl-Who-Lived, Lady of the House of Potter, goes to Hogwarts as a boy and wages war on the status quo.
Status:
Part I: Boy-Who-Lived—Complete. 32,960 words
Part II: Girl-Who-Lied—In Progress. 7,226 words
Part III: Revolutionary—Not Yet Started. 0 words
Part IV: ?—Not Yet Started. 0 Words
Projected Word Count: 150K-200K
Genres: Adventure, Humor, Family, Drama, Romance, Friendship
"You would be the jewel of Slytherin," the Hat coaxed.
"I would be murdered before the night's out," Evelyn said sourly.
"You would be great," the Hat said. "Make connections."
"I can do that just fine from Gryffindor," Evelyn snapped. "And great simply means 'big' or 'a lot'. Would I be a lot good or a lot evil? I'm not willing to find out, are you?"
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By the beginning of October, Evelyn had spread her connections far enough (much to the consternation of a couple Gryffindors) that she got them all together and pitched her idea for a newspaper for the students.
She'd now had three people demand why she wasn't in Slytherin. She had just laughed at them and said, "Not for the lack of trying on the Hat's part."
But she did have a motive for the newspaper. It was quite simple, actually. It let 'Harry' Potter be public, be seen by people who didn't normally associate with or see 'him'. And it would put to rest some of those bloody rumors. Those things alternately amused her or pissed her off, depending on how stressed out she was.
Little by little, she learned more of her heritage and sway, both politically and publicly. Basically, she was half a step down from Albus Dumbledore.
The Students' Selection dropped jaws with its debut. Fortunately, wizards did not have the racial prejudices that the Muggle world had. It was only against things that were not fully human, Muggles in general, and gender.
Not that big of a deal at all. None whatsoever.
No, actually, she felt like crying.
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Evelyn sneaked into the third floor.
"All that talk about keeping your Gryffindorks from doing something stupid, and here you are, doing something stupid," Blaise's distinctive voice drawled. Evelyn must have jumped a foot. "Hypocrite, much?"
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Notes: Inspired by all the fem!Harry stories that take a perfectly good character and twist poor Harry until he's unrecognizable as a she or a he. Also, I read one story that made fem!Harry all fluttery and shy and oh my freaking gods, I wanted to leave a flaming review. But I didn't. I managed to compliment the actual writing before I proceeded to pick apart the story one plot hole at a time.
Also slightly motivated by TheGirlWithFarTooManyIdeas's Cult Potter story (not inspired, because I started working on this before she published Cult Potter).
I have a few scenes to iron out in Part I, but it's otherwise ready for publishing.
Title: ?
Summary: Before she died, Lily Potter was many things: mother, lover, Seer, genius, and stubborn as hell. After she died though, she became Saviour. Watch as she guides her son from beyond the grave.
Status:
Part I: Lily—In Progress. 1,566 words
Part II: Harry—In Progress. 513 words
Projected Word Count: 60K-100K
Genres: Family, Suspense, Mystery, Tragedy, Drama
Lily had always had visions. For as long as she could remember, she would occasionally be plucked from her physical body and pointed in the direction of somewhere/somewhen else. It didn't happen very often, twice a year at most, and it often happened so instantaneously to the outside world that she passed it off as tripping over thin air to whoever may have witnessed it.
So when she rolled over in bed in the early morning of Halloween of 1979, slightly sore from the previous night's heavy lovemaking with James, she was surprised when she felt the tugging sensation of an oncoming vision. She had just had one not two months before, about an attack that had saved the Prewett Twins' lives.
The redhead settled back into the bed and gave herself over to the vision, popping out of her limp body like a top of a shaken bottle of Coke.
And suddenly, Lily was somewhere else. There was a boy about nine years old, practically drowning in oversized clothing. He was skinny, his bones easily visible. He clambered into the room—perhaps an attic?—that Lily was standing in. He was hunched, defeated, eyes the same startling green as her own dull and downtrodden.
He reached over for a trunk—a startlingly familiar trunk, because it was her own. He hefted it with a grunt and stumbled and dropped it with a thud. The trunk tilted onto its side, the bottom exposed.
Lily got closer. There was something taped to the underside.
The boy evidently noticed it too, because he scrambled up and tilted his head to the side to read the currently-upside down note. Lily was in the same position, but mirror-opposite, her head tilted the other way. Boy and spirit read the heartbreakingly simple note:
Mummy loves you, Harry.
And Lily was thrust back into her body, and promptly burst into tears. She knew, she knew instantly that her little boy was curled up inside her and probably hadn't even progressed to head and body yet, let alone the eight-year-old that she saw.
She curled up in bed, arms wrapped around her gravid abdomen, and sobbed.
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Notes: Don't kill me! Although, honestly, I have some real whoppers planned for this. I don't know what inspired this. No, wait, I do. It was a story called Misdial, which is a BBC Sherlock fanfic about John and Sherlock managing to text one another through the barrier of a year's time. I can't say too much about it without ruining it, but let me tell you: it's a wild ride. I literally screamed at one point. I had to get up and walk off because I couldn't handle the emotions anymore. It's slash, but not very graphic. If you ignore the Christmas Incident and the last chapter, I think you could see it as a heavy bromance. But yes, that is most definitely the inspiration for this.
To answer the question that I know is going to crop up: yes, Lily and James will still die. I actually sat down and calculated how many days that Lily was presumably pregnant and even when I put in exactly nine months, Harry was conceived two Halloweens before his parents were killed. O.O How freaky is that?! I don't know if that was intentional on JKR's part, but if it was, hats off to her.
Title: Master of Death
Summary: Being the wielder of the Wand, the Stone, and the Cloak is a little more challenging and…crazy…than anyone could have imagined. (Myths galore.) Slightly cracky.
Status: In Progress. 3,231 words
Projected Word Count: 5,000-10,000 words. (Maybe more, if I actually come up with a plot and not just straight snark.)
Genres: Humor, Family, Friendship, Drama, (Snark, if that could be labeled as a genre.)
He could feel again. There was a hard stone floor beneath him (tile, his mind identified), grungy with sand and dirt that many feet tracked in. There was light, but there was darkness.
"Open your eyes," a dry voice said. A woman's voice, heavily accented with an Asian language.
Oh, right.
Green eyes blinked open, looking at the Japanese woman crouching above him. Information and memories and identities were trickling into his mind—nothing registered in his on-stun brain.
"Hello, Death."
Right. He died. Sad. Well, no, not really. His life wasn't all that happy. He sat up, looking around for the aforementioned Death, but saw no one but the woman. He looked at her, green eyes silently asking if she could see something that he couldn't.
"You are Death," she said in response. "You gathered the items, did you not?"
She was four steps and a game of hopscotch ahead of him, he felt. He was still processing the fact that he was dead, that he could see his parents and Sirius and Cedric and all of those who had been killed or labeled as missing but everyone knew they were gone, that all he had to do to see his friends again was wait, because death is inevitable, no matter if you make the Philosopher's Stone.
"Hey," she said, poking him with a sharp, manicured fingernail between the eyes. "Are you stupid or just deaf?"
He ignored her, slowly coming up to the present. You are Death, he finally remembered what she said. Dread filled him—death was all-encompassing, immortal, and unchanging. Was he the same if he was Death?
"No," he said in denial, a sharp weight like he'd swallowed a brick resting in his stomach.
"Well then, you could at least deign to respond," she said, irritated. "I know it was a bit of an info dump, I had a migraine for a week, let me tell you, but I was aware."
"No," he repeated, whispering, listening to her and conducting a search of his mind. "No, NO!" He was Hades, he was Osirius, he was Hel, he was Donn and Mors and San la Muerte. He was the ultimate form of a person with multiple personalities. He was tall, dark, and broody, and blueberry-blue and cheerful with kids, he was a woman (and boy did that feel weird) with half his (her?) body rotted, and a man with a decapitated head that liked singing. He was a thief of souls, stealing them away in the night, and an animated skeleton that liked reading. And he was a dead teenager with bad eyesight and messy black hair.
Harry was doubled over, half-yelling, half-sobbing, half-desperate, half-pleading, and he knew that he was out of his mind because four halves did not make a whole.
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There were voices in his head, offering comments—snarky and otherwise—platitudes, reassurances. There were a couple who weren't even talking to him, but someone else in their respective realms. There were voices that he listened to with his ears as well, mostly variations of strongly-worded denials.
What were they denying?
They think you're dead, idiot!
Oh.
His thoughts paused. Voldemort, right. Forgot about him.
One of the other deities snickered.
Other deities. He was a deity? Was he a deity? A god? Blegh. He sounded like Malfoy. Stick with deity. Doesn't sound so conceited.
The snickers in his head increased.
There was the sound of yelling and a taunting, high-pitched voice, and it brought Harry back to his body. Right. Lying in the middle of a warzone. Great idea, Harry.
The snickers turned into laughter.
Shush. Snickers don't help playing my image of being dead.
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Notes: …and it only deteriorates from there. XD Seriously, it's my story, and I crack myself up every time I go back and re-read it. Also, in the above section, the normal is supposed to be italicized and the italicized is normal. But I italicized the whole thing so it flip-flopped everything, making it fairly confusing. I'm sorry, there is a lot of in-Harry's-head discussion.
Also, I don't have a plot for this one. Killing Voldemort is, frankly, quite fun to do in this one. Also, he's killed within the first thousand words…so he's not much a problem in this 'verse…
Title: Working Together
Summary: Potter, it would behoove you to work with me, Snape thought irritably. Dark tunnels for eyes then widened in shock as the eleven year old turned and studied him with those impossibly green eyes, his face serious and impassive. And after a moment of contemplation, the boy nodded once, turned on his heel, and disappeared around the corner. Not slash.
Status: In Progress. 5,110 words
Projected Word Count: 15K-20K
Genres: Humor, Suspense, Drama
Harry felt the headache that normally showed up in DADA, which confused him, because he was standing in the middle of the hallway nowhere near the Defense classroom. What confused him further that it was not nearly as bad, almost like someone in DADA was trying to give him a headache, and here it was merely unintentional.
Slowly, he turned around, looking for Quirrell. Instead, his eyes landed on his Potions professor, whose eyes widened in shock. Shock of what, he wasn't quite sure. He studied the man, curious and more than a little confused. He thought he'd die before meeting Snape and not having the man berate him for nothing. He cocked his head to the side a little. Snape was frustrated, angry, shocked…and it was all directed at him. Why? He hadn't done anything to the professor other than investigate him after the broom incident.
Well, if he had found out that Harry had investigated him, perhaps he had a right to be angry.
His teacher was frustrated, though, and Harry was quite sure that it had something to do with the investigation. The frustration didn't fit in if Snape was the bad guy. Frustrated that none of his students believed him, perhaps.
Harry resolved to look more into the war and ask some of his teachers about his parents. He had a sneaking suspicion that Snape's conflicted emotions was centered around his parents, as petty as it was.
With a nod to himself, he escaped before the Potions master snapped out of his shock.
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Remus John Lupin turned out to be a gold mine of information, and Harry was satisfied with his conviction that Snape was innocent of trying to kill him, and in fact believed the opposite, that Snape had been trying to save him.
Harry read up on Potions, attempting to figure out what made the Potions professor tick. Precision, patience, odd hours, and talented. Snape was the youngest Potions master in four centuries. Potions required a broad range of interests: Care of Magical Creatures, Herbology, and an almost innate understanding of magic. His parents' generation seemed ridiculously talented as a whole. His own seemed to pale in comparison.
"This is ridiculous," Harry muttered, flipping through old Daily Prophets. Damocles Belby, inventor of the Wolfsbane Potion, only six years older than his parents. James Potter and Sirius Black, the terrifying pair who brought in over fifteen Death Eaters by themselves and killed another seven. Lily Evans, budding Charms Mistress and Unspeakable. Severus Snape, youngest Potions master in four centuries. Bellatrix Black, the most feared Death Eater, two years older than his parents. Rastaban Lestrange, Warding master, a year younger. Lucius Malfoy was practically Minister of Magic, five years older. Newt Scamander, youngest Magical Creatures master in a century and a half, two years younger. Andromeda and Ted Tonks, lawyers of the highest regard, seven years older. Severus Snape, Death Eater and acquitted as a spy. For Dumbledore. A freakin' spy. Holy crap.
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Be careful. The former visionary resides behind the turban.
Snape stared at the typed note in shock. How did it get here, who gave this to him?
Slowly, he exited his quarters and climbed the stairs to Dumbledore's office.
"Ah, Severus, come in."
"Sir, I have received intelligence," he said numbly, gripping the note until his knuckles turned white.
"Severus? What intelligence?"
He swallowed and forced himself to let go of the note to give to Dumbledore. The aged wizard frowned. "Who gave this to you?"
"I don't know," Snape admitted.
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Notes: I think that sets the tone fairly well. This was written in honor of Alan Rickman's passing. There's this whole great debate on whether or not Snape was an actual good guy or just a bastard with non-murderous tendencies. Personally, I can see both.
Title: Through the Veil
Summary: Obligatory alternate universe via falling through the veil: a strange place where Voldemort is Headmaster of Hogwarts, Dumbledore is evil, the Potters live, and Bellatrix is insane in the best way.
Status:
Part I: Dumbledore—In Progress. 29K words
Part II: Voldemort—Not Yet Started. 0 words
Projected Word Count: 150K-200K words
Genres: Humor, Family, Friendship, Angst, Drama, Adventure
The first thing Harry saw when he came to was Tom Marvolo Riddle standing over his godfather.
Faster than Harry ever thought that he could move, Harry was out of bed—bed? Harry wondered distantly—and physically kicked him across the infirmary, his wand in hand, his green eyes hard and focused.
The dark-haired man staggered to his feet, shaking his head to clear the daze, his own wand in hand, his other hand pressed to his side, where Harry had kicked him.
Harry fired: stunning, disarming, explosive, tripping, conjuring birds, cutting, and an area-effect shattering spell, dissolving all the glass in the infirmary into shards. Potions spilled into one another, burning through the floor like an acid with a pH of one or setting off rather impressive explosions. Harry banished a bed at the figure, distantly wondering why the shade wasn't fighting back.
A healer burst in, staring, aghast at the damage in her realm. Harry instinctively leveled his wand at the movement. She froze, her hand creeping to her side.
"Don't," Harry said, surprised at how raspy his voice sounded. "I don't hurt people who heal, but if you touch your wand I will knock you out and tie you up."
The healer said nothing, but folded her hands in front of her.
"Merlin," the figure swore in the midst of the destruction. Smoke and ashes cleared as Tom Marvolo Riddle carefully picked through the carnage, definitely looking worse for wear. Harry's wand snapped back to him. Harry backed up against his godfather's bed. "Who are you?" Riddle asked.
Did I obliviate him and forget about it? Harry wondered. "What? Don't remember me? I'm the one who killed you and then foiled three attempts of you attempting to come back to life. You remember me? Harry Potter? The one you gave the scar to the night I survived the Killing Curse and you died?"
Harry's voice started out mocking and turned to confusion and not a little bit worried at the end when the healer looked absolutely horrified at his accusations and Riddle looked confused. And shocked. "That's a stick!" he exclaimed.
Is he deaf? Did he not hear anything that I just said? Harry wondered desperately. "What?" he said evenly.
"How can you cast spells with nothing but a dead stick?!" he asked. "What are you, fifteen?"
Harry glanced down at his wand, saw that it truly was nothing but a sanded, polished stick, and saw his wand halfway across the room. He snorted. "I have a talent for doing the impossible. Are you deaf?"
He looked taken aback. "No."
Harry jabbed the stick at him. "Who are you?"
"My name is Tom Riddle," he said, confirming Harry's thoughts on his identity. "I'm the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
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Notes: So, that was interesting! I'm honestly kind of stuck with this story at the moment. I had someone (I can't remember who) tell me to work with the creatures from the various mythologies from around the world. It was a good idea, but 30K words into a world, introducing a new facet…not as easy as it sounds. If I get through this year, though, then I can get to the fun stuff. *rubs hands together and cackles gleefully*
Title: Abnormality
Summary: Suddenly dropped into a world where he's a completely normal teenager, Harry struggles with normality whilst realizing just how very abnormal he is.
Status: In Progress. 2,536 words
Genres: Family, Humor, Angst, Mystery
Projected Word Count: 40K-60K
"Haaaaarry."
Awake the instant the doorknob had begun to turn to the side, Harry forced himself not to flinch at the teasing voice of his 'godfather'.
Almost a month before, Harry had gone from battling Voldemort to waking up in a blank room that slowly seemed to form a life right in front of his eyes. Empty shelves had books slowly come into existence, various knickknacks clattering from nothing. Posters whispered onto the walls and sweaters and robes and other clothes were woven out of thin air. Three hours went by and Harry seemed to have more stuff than he'd ever owned in his life.
Harry had set up shop behind the door in his pajama pants, wand in hand, and ambushed the first person (or group) that walked through the door. It turned out to be a year-long-dead Sirius, whom Harry had hugged the stuffing out of after verifying that it really was Sirius Black. The shocks just kept on coming, walking down the stairs of the unfamiliar house and coming into a kitchen occupied by a very affectionate James and Lily Potter, the latter of whom was heavily pregnant. The former had twin girls sitting on his feet, arms and legs wrapped around his calves.
(He'd almost died choking on air.)
He'd tried his best to act casual, something that he was normally good at. That first morning, though, he wasn't entirely certain if he succeeded in keeping the "stunned stupid" look off his face.
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Notes: This is very much a man-vs.-himself story: in other words, Voldemort does not exist. But our Harry comes from a 'verse where the big guy does exist, and his experiences with Riddle have made him paranoid. The story will revolve around Harry double and triple checking that Voldemort really doesn't exist, and figuring out how and why he came to be here in the first place. Action is not a huge factor in this story for a change (like the only story I have that doesn't revolve around violence XD).
Title: Parents
Summary: The melancholy wonders of a sixteen-year-old Leader of the Light bring about violent twists of trust, truths, and love.
Status: In Progress. 3,263 words
Genres: Family, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Mystery, Drama, Adventure
Projected Word Count: ?
Harry laughed aloud as Hermione described her parents' reactions to her coming out as right-hand woman to a leader in a war effort—quote, "Oh, by the way, I'm helping my best friend wage a war against bigotry that has already killed thousands. Pass the peas."
Needless to say, they hadn't been very happy, starting with the expected "WHAT?"s, then split-second denials, and then forbidding her to continue it. It hadn't worked very well, against Hermione's stubborn loyalty and determination, especially when Hermione laid out the facts that she was involved whether she or her parents liked it.
Eventually, they had reluctantly given their support, and stating how proud they were of her for standing up for herself and what she believed in.
Hermione had blushed a little, though they couldn't tell under the silvery light of the half moon, when she recounted her parents' gruff praise, leaning her head against Harry's shoulder. Ron propped his chin on her head.
"It's kind of what we expected, 'Mione," Ron said.
"Because let's be honest: your parents couldn't possibly be idiots if they had you," Harry added. "And it would take a true idiot to not be proud of you. Or at the very least respect you."
Ron grinned. "Even Malfoy isn't an idiot when it comes to you."
All three of them chuckled in remembrance of Malfoy's terrified look when she had levelled her wand, not between his eyes, or even at his crotch, but at his kneecaps, her the tip of her wand glowing the red-orange of the blasting curse, preparing to handicap him for life.
They had fallen into a comfortable silence.
"If my parents saw me now, do you think they'd be proud of some of the decisions that I've made?" Harry whispered.
They had both whispered back a resounding positive.
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So when Harry was heading an Order meeting at the end of sixth year and was interrupted by a loud CRACK and sudden, twin, muffled thumps, his first instinct was to look at the Twins, instead of the cause of the interruption. Of course, the Order had all looked at him, and then followed his questioning gaze, to grin a bit at the mock-hurt faces.
"But seriously, Harry, we didn't do it," the one on the left said.
So Harry switched his gaze to the people scrambling to their feet on the Order's dining table, patting down their bodies for some kind of weapon or their wands, cursing fluently, backing up against each other instinctively.
One glimpse of their faces, and Harry's wand was in his hand instantly, pointed squarely at the couple on the table. The older half of the Order's wands were half a second behind his. Everyone else followed suit.
"Whoa, whoa," a very-much-alive James Potter stammered, holding his hands up in a gesture of peace. "Wait, wait, please don't kill us."
"Who are you?" Hestia Jones demanded.
"Why are you here?" Moody growled.
"How did you get here?" McGonagall spat.
"Why are you disguised like that?" Ron yelled.
"Can you get off the bloody table?" Tonks said, exasperated.
"Shut it!" Harry roared.
Attention snapped to him.
"Get off the table," he snapped out. "Hands where I can see them. Moody, disarm them. Tonks, bind them to a chair. Hestia, do you mind fetching our beloved resident Potions master?"
Ron snorted.
"Where's Dumbledore?" Lily asked quietly.
Harry and Hermione exchanged looks.
"Dead," Hermione said finally. "For almost a year."
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Notes: So, there is so much going on behind the scenes that it's crazy. Half of my problem in writing stories is that I'll write out like six thousand words of one story, and then four thousand words of another story, and then I'll wake up in the middle of the night and I'll combine the two (or three, or five, as has happened to me previously O.o) into some monstrous thing. This is one of those. My main problem in this one is characterizing Lily and James, and how they interact with each other. We never really see them actually interact, so it's kind of left to the imagination. I have one version of them for Through the Veil, I have another version of them in Little Brother (something that I've not posted here), and I have yet another version of them in here. I'm still deciding how to write them. :/
Title: Journal of Theatre
Summary: In which Regulus was a master of Theatre, and Harry likes raiding libraries and has an obscene amount of luck.
Status: In Progress. 13,624 words
Genres: Adventure, Drama, Humor
Projected Word Count: 30K-40K
Notes: No, there's no Sneak Peek. I didn't know where to cut it off, considering that the first scene is an absurdly long fight scene and everything after that is an immediate result of that, so you guys would be kind of lost. But the summary actually summarizes it fairly well. Regulus is, of course, dead, but Harry managed to raid the Black Library at one point in the summer after third year. He found Regulus's old journal, and after he cast every detection spell that the Black Library offered (because Harry's history with journals and diaries hasn't been the best), he sat down and read it. He found spells and diagrams that made him a feared killer for Voldemort's side, simply because he was insanely inventive with his spells. Well, Harry took that journal to heart…and when Bellatrix attacked his house, he used the entire arsenal in his fairly extensive repertoire, and he just about flattened her. :)
Title: The Krum Family
Summary: In which fourth year changed Harry's life in more ways than one—most importantly of which, he gets a kind-of-adopted brother and a kind-of-adopted family.
Status: In Progress. 7,083 words
Genres: Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Family, Adventure, Drama, (dealing with the results of) Tragedy
Projected Word Count: 60K-100K words
"Vould you like to come to Bulgaria?" Krum asked Harry after the Tournament. The older teen looked very guilty.
Harry noticed all the eyes on the two and steered Krum away. "You know that it wasn't your fault."
"Vat—"
"Krum, at risk of sounding egotistical, the only person that I know of that's under forty and can throw off the Imperius Curse is me," Harry snapped. "There is a reason that the Imperius Curse is one of the Unforgivables. And I want you to know, from my standpoint, that I do not blame you. I know that it wasn't your fault. We will both grieve over this Tournament, asking ourselves dozens of 'what ifs', and even though I know consciously that 'what ifs' will not help me in the long run unless I act upon each and every one of the scenarios that I've thought out and trained so that I could do each and every one of those, I will 'what if' until the cows come home.
"I will mourn Cedric and ask myself 'what could I have done to not get him killed?' And fall into a billion little tiny pieces. And then, eventually, like I always do somehow, I will patch myself back together using glue and lots of duct tape and support from my friends and continue on with life. But I will remember, and by the time I get done with him, Voldemort will be more afraid of Harry Potter than he will be afraid of death itself.
"And when you go home, you will fall into a billion little pieces all over your family and friends because if they mind then they don't matter, and if they matter they don't mind, and then they will help you up and patch you back together and you will be weak and shaky for what feels like forever and you will hate yourself for being weak and they will smack you 'round the bend and scold you for thinking yourself weak and then you'll stand on your own two feet and you will remember my words when I tell you that you will never forget. You will never forget the fact that you were forced to do horrible things against your will and if the time ever comes that you were faced with that again, you will be stronger and you will show your controller that you have no mercy."
Krum swallowed and nodded, straightening a bit.
Harry nodded curtly. "And yes, as soon as I break out of my own personal little hellhole, I will be happy to come to Bulgaria. You'll have to teach me the language, however."
Krum looked like he'd had a whiplash. Harry smiled a little, even reaching his eyes. "Sorry, didn't mean to switch topics so suddenly, but I was done with my rant and you had a question."
The older teen nodded, unexpected compassion in his eyes. He stuck out his hand. Harry shook it. "I'll see you in Bulgaria, then."
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Notes: This is actually one of my oldest stories, and still one of my favorites to go back and read. (Am I the only one that goes back and reads their own stories? I can't possibly be, because half the time, the reason that we write our stories is because no one else has written it and we want to read it.) Admittedly, I haven't gotten as far on it as I could have, simply because there's really no plot beyond Harry-and-Krum-Family bonding and the whole Killing Voldemort shtick. Which gets old, to be honest. But this started up out of the premise that I could totally see Harry and Krum hitting off spectacularly, between insane Seeking and the fame that neither really know how to deal with. Or at least, Krum doesn't really seem to know how to deal with it. Harry definitely doesn't know how to deal with it.
Title: With a Wing and a Prayer
Summary: It has been long established that Harry has some interesting substances in his body. So when a growth spurt that hits immediately after he goes to the Dursleys goes awry in typical Harry Potter fashion, all he can do is make it up as he goes along.
Status:
Part I: Wing—In Progress. 11,146 words
Part II: Prayer—Not Yet Started. 0 words
Genres: Drama, Humor, Friendship, Suspense
Projected Word Count: 60K-100K
Harry was infinitely grateful that he'd finally gotten a growth spurt on the summer in between his fourth and fifth year. He ached all over and groaned embarrassingly loud when he rolled out of bed and was ridiculously clumsy, but he was growing. His muscles protested the abuse of chores and he'd had to take up a stretching ritual to keep himself from becoming too stiff. One time, he had grown a full three centimeters overnight.
But when he sneezed, or moved too suddenly…uh, ow.
Such was evidenced when he sneezed one day and his shoulders (apparently of their own accord) yanked backwards. What little breath he'd had left in his lungs from the sneeze was expelled in a whuff as his spine popped in about a dozen different spots. He stood there, trying to get his breath back and fully expecting one of his relatives to come in and check on him—the pops had sounded like gunshots in his ears.
By the time the first of July rolled around, his growing had slowed down, but his muscles still protested and he was still clumsier than a drunk Seamus. Something that was made inordinately clear to his relatives when he was dusting the living room, tripped over air, and broke a vase.
Of course, he was promptly chucked into his room with all six locks bolted.
His back ached more than usual, and he kept twisting around, trying to get comfortable on the small mattress his relatives had so graciously given to him. He finally gave up, laying on his stomach and putting one of his cool textbooks on his back in an effort to cool it off.
Harry must have dozed off, because when he woke, it was dark and his textbook was warm. He reached up to flip it over to the cool side and felt…resistance. Like his arm was trapped.
For a moment, he sat there stupidly, waving his arm and looking for resistance. Then he shrugged off the feeling and lifted the book, immediately feeling the resistance almost disappear. He set the book on the floor, sitting up as he realized that his back didn't ache as much as it had and rubbed his eyes.
Something twitched behind him, and he spun around, his wand immediately in his hand. Broken toys, bed, bookcase, more broken toys, lamp. Nothing that could have twitched.
"Whatever," he muttered, putting his wand back on his nightstand. Sighing, he stretched, hands linked and palms facing the ceiling, over his head, his back and legs flexing.
Cool air brushed his back, the feeling of being trapped returning. Frowning, he reached over his shoulder searching for the reason why he was feeling air. Did he have a hole in his shirt? It was entirely possible, he'd only been wearing the shirt since he was eight, and Dudley had been wearing it since he was six.
He patted down the shirt, looking for rips or tears, and then slipped his hand under his shirt to see if there was a seam that had torn. Instead, he felt something that was definitely not his back—scales.
To this day, Harry wished that someone had taken a picture of his face on July 1st, 1994 at around seven in the evening. His face was the epitome of the expression of "What the hell?"
Harry had his shirt off so quickly he heard the stitches breaking. He turned it inside out, searching for the rough, dry feeling of scales. Nothing. Just the cotton/spandex blend.
He patted his back again, searching for the feeling, and found two small things with scales that seemed to be attached to him. They were tiny, less than the length of his hand. Frantically, he flipped the light on and found a mirror.
Wings.
Itty bitty wings that couldn't have held aloft Miss Priss, Mrs. Figg's eight-week-old kitten, but they were still wings and he had no idea what to do with six appendages. He had a hard time keeping his original four attached to him, for Pete's sake.
"You, Mr. Potter," he told his reflection, "are capable of getting into the most ridiculous stuff I've ever seen."
He imagined his reflection saying back to him, "No shit, Sherlock."
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Notes: This is so much fun to write! Confusing Harry is the best. XD
Title: Black Hair, Green Eyes
Summary: In which Percy is called Perseus incessantly, logical Sherlock tries to wrap his genius brain around gods and magic, Loki is skeptical that Sherlock deduced that he was neglected from his hair, and Harry is just staring at the three of them in disbelief. Meanwhile, John and Annabeth watch the quartet closely, and await the inevitable explosions. Crossover: Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Marvel: Avengers, BBC Sherlock
Status: In Progress. 2,649 words
Genres: Humor, Adventure, Drama
Projected Word Count: 5K-7K words
It started with Thor, oddly enough. Or, at least, Loki thought that it was odd when the quartet discussed how the four of them came together. The other three had no frame of reference when it came to the blond giant.
Anyway. It started with Thor. While he was on Midgard ("Earth," Sherlock muttered every time Loki said the word), Thor wanted to meet a hero whose tales of heroism had reached even Asgard. ("I really pitied you when I found out about Thor's enthusiasm.") A hero by the name of Perseus Jackson. So he enlisted the help of his good friend and (occasionally) partner-in-crime, Tony Stark, to find out where he lived.
Percy then got the surprise of his life ("Actually, no, not really. That's more along the lines of when I was eleven and found out that I was a demigod and then was promptly blamed for the theft of something I didn't even know existed.") when three heavy knocks came at the door the following morning, and then was greeted with an enthusiastic and entirely too-awake Thor pumping his hand up and down. Of course, Tony had followed just to see what was up with this kid, and nearly got skewered by a bronze sword being leveled, left-handed, at Thor's chin. ("Oh, shut up, Loki. You'd be jumpy too if you'd nearly gotten your head bitten off by a hellhound the previous day.")
Thor, though not as adept at hints as his brother, immediately got the message and let go of his hand instantly, raising his hands in the universal I'm-defenseless-please-don't-run-me-through posture. ("He is quite familiar with that posture. I speak from experience. He interrupted my projects often.")
"It is six-thirty in the morning," Percy had groused, sea-green eyes sparking in irritation. "Why is a god and Tony Stark knocking on my mother's door at this ungodly hour of the morning? Can't the world be ending at a reasonable hour?" ("Although, it never has before, now that I think about it.")
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Notes: So, I didn't italicize this because there was so much formatting in this that it wouldn't make much sense if I italicized everything. Long story short, it's about three extraordinary men with black hair and green eyes and one with black hair and grey eyes meeting each other and the world ends. No, not really, but people probably would have wished that it had. XD
Title: Contact One
Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Summary: In which Percy is badly wounded but manages to save all of the mortals, someone calls an ambulance to help the hero, and the existence of demigods is revealed to the greater world.
Status: …Maybe Complete? 1,403 words
Genres: Adventure, Humor, Drama
Projected Word Count: 1.5K?
Percy lunged left, almost tripping out of the way of the raging whatever-it-was, and got glanced across the chest with razor-sharp claws.
He grimaced, and tackled the monster from behind as it lunged for the mortals, swinging the thing around and sending it flying into the wall. He grabbed his pen, uncapped it, and threw it at the monster.
He could see the pen changing in mid-air, unfolding and expanding, flipping end over end…and sticking three inches into the brick as the monster avoided being impaled by a hair's breadth.
Percy swore violently, in every language he knew.
The monster whirled towards him, eyes crimson with anger, almost popping out of its head. Percy dodged right, somersaulted, and ran up the wall, knocking his sword to the ground. Two steps in, he pushed off on the third and backflipped, landing solidly on the monster's shoulders. He wrapped his legs around the monster's neck and continued with his momentum, tipping backwards and forcing the monster to comply. He did a handstand, flipped the monster over his body, and slammed them both into the ground.
Percy untangled himself from the monster and pressed a hand to his chest, gasping. He figured, if the monster wasn't dead then it was most definitely knocked out. Personally, he was pretty impressed with himself—that had been the first time he had used that specific take-down maneuver in a combat situation.
He scooped up his sword, eyeing the monster warily. It hadn't dissolved yet, so it wasn't dead, but he didn't think that it was conscious, either.
He was wrong.
Percy got closer, intending to send it back to the Pit, and had an armful of monster. He first registered the battering ram that had hit his chest, breaking at least four ribs. Then he recognized the knives for hands that it had, carving into his chest and stomach. He grunted, raised his arm that was still free and un-knifed, and ran the thing through with his sword.
The monster froze.
Percy yanked the sword up, almost slicing the monster in half. It burst into sand like someone had snap-kicked a dry sandcastle.
He coughed and groaned.
"Oh my god."
"Someone call 911!"
"Did you see that kid fight?"
"How the hell does someone learn how to fight like that? And with a sword!"
"What was that thing?!"
"Is he gonna be okay, Momma?"
Someone knelt beside him. "Help is coming, kid. You hanging in there?"
Percy swallowed. "Do you have any water?" he rasped.
"No, I'm sorry."
He coughed again, and when he went to wipe his mouth, it came away bloody. "Oh, gods," he groaned softly. "Annabeth's gonna kill me."
The stranger laughed a little. "Girlfriend?"
"Fiancé."
"Congratulations. Is she used to this?"
"Sure. Normally doesn't land me in the—shit, that hurts—hospital, though," Percy said, breathing slowly.
"When was the last time?"
Percy gave a snort that could be interpreted as a laugh. "I don't know. Couple of years ago. Got better about it after I turned seventeen. My mother was ecstatic when I turned twenty."
"Why?"
He coughed and wiped more blood away. "Wasn't supposed to live to see my teenage years, let alone get out of them."
There was one last loud siren before an ambulance stopped beside the huddled group around the demigod.
He grasped one of the EMT's sleeves. "Do you have any water?"
"That's not the best idea for you right now," the young man said, frowning.
"If you have water, either you go get it, or I will," Percy growled.
The EMT sighed, signaled to someone else, and ran to go get the water.
When he came back, the cap was already off. The guy was surprised when Percy took the bottle away from him with surprising force (for a man who had probably already lost two pints of blood), and poured it over his chest. Percy grimaced when his ribs moved back into alignment, and resisted the urge to scratch as his cuts itched when they began to knit themselves back together.
The circle of people were bug-eyed at this. The first EMT, showing surprising presence of mind, ran back to the ambulance to get another water bottle.
The people around them were still stunned.
By the time the guy came back with more water, Percy had emptied the first bottle.
"His color is getting better," one of the other medics noted absently.
By the end of the third water bottle, Percy was standing up, swaying a little.
"What are you?" The first medic's voice was a little awed, holding the man's elbow.
Green eyes glanced at him. They were amused, a little. "I'm a demigod. I'm a son of Poseidon, god of the seas."
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Notes: Yeah, I have it pretty much finished…it's just not a great ending. Well, the peek above has a great ending, but the actual story doesn't have that epic ending. :/ Oh well. I'll work on it.
As for the Mist, it got a workout during Percy's teenage years, and there's no reason why the trend wouldn't have continued beyond the books. He's pretty much a trouble magnet. Later, there's a mention of a mutant—yes, that's a reference to the X-Men. My excuse is that the Mist tried to cover up both the mutants and the demigods over the years, and it eventually broke because Percy overworked it. XD
Title: ?
Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Summary: Percy manages to hit Kronos's Achilles Heel—but not without repercussions. Waking up in Camp Half-Blood's infirmary and seeing slight (or major) but definite changes in the people around him, he runs. Now how to get home, when, for all intents and purposes, this familiar but strange place seems to be home?
Status: In Progress. 13,709 words
Genres: Family, Friendship, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Humor, (very little) Romance
Projected Word Count: 60K-100K words
Percy drove the blade home.
An explosion of light. Percy gripped the knife with both hands, the sensation grounding him. Heat blistered every inch of exposed skin, and he could distantly feel a tornado of wind whirling around him and Luke (Kronos?), dust and debris stinging against his raw skin.
And then, nothing.
Percy squeezed his eyes shut, having made his acquaintance with several explosions over the years: normally there was the initial burst, and then there was a pause where time seems to stop and one's heart drops (in disappointment, if one is a pyromaniac, or in fear, if one doesn't like explosions but is well aware of what exactly goes on for one reason or another), and then there was the big one. The one that was a thousand times worse than the initial blast.
He braced himself to be meeting his uncle sooner than he thought.
Power.
Nothingness.
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Percy woke to the ceiling of Camp Half-Blood's infirmary.
"Ah, our guest is awake."
Chiron.
"Strange afterlife scene," Percy croaked, and winced. It sounded like he had a frog for his voice and someone had poured a truckload of salt over the poor amphibian.
"No, no, you are quite alive," the centaur said, chuckling. "You did give us quite a scare, however, appearing like you did."
"How am I alive?" the sea's son rasped. "I fully expected to die…"
"What were you doing?" Chiron asked. He seemed genuinely interested.
Percy struggled to sit up, his sea green eyes locked on his mentor, tracing over his face. He had less stress wrinkles. His face wasn't as lined. His eyes were happier.
"You have no idea who I am, do you?" Percy whispered.
Brown eyebrows lifted slightly. "Should I?"
"You should," Percy confirmed. "I got in trouble often enough."
"What did—"
"Sir?"
Percy swallowed at the voice. A voice that he recognized. A voice that died on a quest at the beginning of the summer.
A dark head, followed by a dark neck, followed by a buff body, entered the room. Percy took a deep breath and exhaled shakily. He patted his pockets; Riptide was there. There was a window behind his bed. He had failed. Kronos was still around, and for some reason they had kept him alive, and now they were torturing him with dead friends and happy mentors, things that would have been if he had died when he was young or if he hadn't been born at all.
"The part for your wheelchair," Beckendorf explained shortly.
"Thank you, Beckendorf," Chiron said, taking the part from the teen's outstretched hand.
The teen exited without a backwards glance.
Percy gathered his energy, shifting in the infirmary bed, muscles coiled.
Chiron noticed. "You have nothing to be afraid of. Beckendorf would have never harmed you."
"I know," Percy said, his voice dead. "I know, because he's dead."
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Notes: So, I don't stroll in the PJO fandom very much, mostly because most of it is all-human AUs, and frankly, there's only a few that I actually like and aren't ridiculously sappy. (Sorry, I'm not a huge romance person.) Also, I'm a girl who loves action and fight scenes. This is reflected in my stories. All-human AUs, not a whole lot of action there. Just saying. But anyway!—I've never seen a "time travel" fic in the PJO 'verse, so I decided that I would do it. It's quite a lot of fun, surprisingly, and I like taking liberties with this world. It's so much fun, it's a little ridiculous. (See, All Together, Cousins. I took liberties from Riordan, crying babies, and the Lady Liberty herself. XD)
Title: The Four Lives of James Tiberius Kirk
Fandom: Star Trek, 2009
Summary: From kid genius to survivor to traveler to Captain, the four lives of a progressively (slightly) insane and (insanely) skilled man. Series of connected oneshots.
Status:
Part I: Jimmy—Complete. 4,291 words
Part II: JT—In Progress. 1,559 words
Part III: Jim—Not Yet Started. 0 words
(Maybe?) Part IV: Captain—Not Yet Started. 0 words
Genres: Humor, Drama, Angst, Drama, Friendship, Drama, Sci-Fy, Drama, Adventure…did I mention Drama?
Projected Word Count: 30K-50K
At the time, it was expected for George Kirk to have his own page in the book of history. Little did anyone know that he would end up as a footnote—as the absent father of one James Tiberius Kirk, whose full story was never recorded. But pieces have since been painstakingly sought out and put together by a dedicated young woman, now one of Starfleet's historians, by the name of Joanna McCoy.
Jimmy I
Marriage license:
Winona Kirk and Frank Vasser
Stardate: May 13th, 2240
Signed: (illegible)
(notation on the copy, in McCoy's writing) Uncle Jim would have been seven.
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Hospital records (having been unearthed from layers and layers of code, presumably set by Kirk):
Stardate: 19 October 2240
Patient: James Kirk
Being: human
Blood type: A+
Eyes: blue
Hair: blonde
Weight: 23.5 kg
Mother: Winona Kirk
Father: George Kirk (deceased)
Here for: multiple lacerations across back over heavy bruising, bruised kidneys, four cracked ribs, a black eye, and several glass shards on the left side of his face.
Doctor's notes: one glass shard had to be removed surgically. Prescribed general antibiotics to prevent infection in the wounds.
Nurse notes: Fell out of a tree, my -ass- butt. This is -fucking- Iowa. No tree on Terra, let alone in Iowa, would do this kind of systematic damage. Recommended: submit abuse report.
(notation on the copy, in McCoy's writing) I like this nurse. If I didn't know better, I'd say that Dad was nurse to Uncle Jim. But he would have been fourteen, so pretty unlikely, unless he was a child genius and I never realized.
(side note, again in McCoy's writing) Oh God. Imagine if he had been. One child genius was enough between the pair of them!
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Frank wasn't great, Jimmy thought, but he never would have guessed that as soon as Winona left, he'd get roaring drunk and then proceed to stalk after his brother with a red face and balled fists.
He had the bratty younger sibling syndrome, to Winona's and Sam's dismay. What he wanted, he got, one way or another.
And right now, he wanted his brother to not get hurt. He marched up to Frank, got between him and his unsuspecting brother, and demanded, "Leave us alone!" with his childish seven-year-old voice.
Frank growled out several slurred epithets—half of which Jimmy couldn't really make out, and the other half of which he noted for later study—and continued to advance. Now, Jimmy was an odd boy, even by Kirk standards. He had no qualms about using weakness against an opponent—verbal, physical, or emotional. So he kicked Frank in the family jewels with absolutely no hesitation or sympathy.
As usual with unsuspecting men, he collapsed like a sock puppet. Jimmy continued to stand there, utterly unsympathetic with the man's plight. Sam still hadn't really noticed anything unusual, earbuds in and tuned into the holovid.
"You little brat," were the next repeatable words.
Then he reached out and snagged Jimmy by the throat and reached for his belt.
It was the first whipping that he'd ever received. It would not be the last.
And fortunately—or unfortunately—it took more than physical pain to break James Tiberius Kirk.
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Notes: So, in case you missed it, the 'McCoy' commenting on the Marriage License and the hospital records—it's Joanna, Bones's daughter, who grew up to be a historian.
This is my first foray into the world of Star Trek: fandom. It's a bit more technical than I expected—huge respect for people like AngelBaby1 and rayrae118, who have written several exquisite fanfics in this fandom. (Probably sending up all kinds of red flags for the people who monitor searches on the internet. XD) But it's pretty entertaining, writing a Little!Jim.
Title: Fury's Stresses Series
Fandom: MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Percy Jackson
Summary: Fury is generally a pretty reasonable guy for the Director of a spy—sorry, intelligence—agency. But even he has to pull out his nonexistent hair when there's HYDRA and a good third of SHIELD's agents' loyalty is to a distant cousin.
Status:
Part I: Loyalty, Family, and Quietness—Complete. 1,826 words
Part II: Loyalty, Family, and Madness—Complete. 1,638 words
Part III: Loyalty, Family, and Snarkiness—Complete. 3,932 words
Part IV: Loyalty, Family, and Deadliness—In Progress. 1,004 words
Genre: Family, Humor, Adventure, Tragedy, Angst, Mystery
Projected Word Count: ?
"SHIELD is compromised."
"Who the hell is this?" Nick Fury demanded.
Dry laughter echoed from the other line. "Does it really matter when it is HYDRA who guards your back and runs your missions?"
"How do you know this?"
Amusement was laced through the other man's voice: "There are those loyal to SHIELD, those loyal to HYDRA, and those loyal to me."
Fury stared at his phone in disbelief as the man hung up on him. His personal phone. The one that only five people had the number to.
Why on earth would someone call him to tell him that SHIELD had been compromised by that someone's people and HYDRA? It made no sense, unless that person downright hated HYDRA and wasn't concerned about that someone's people who were in SHIELD's headquarters. That meant that they were highly trained, by both SHIELD and the person on the phone.
"Phil?" Maria guessed.
"What?" Fury said, jolted from his thoughts.
Maria straightened. "That wasn't Phil."
It wasn't a question.
"No," Fury agreed. "It was a warning."
The only question was whether SHIELD had gained an ally or an enemy.
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SHIELD already had mandatory physicals each year. For the field agents, they had physicals each time they came back from a mission and every six months. No one had had the same kind of physical, and it wasn't uncommon for Fury to sit in on a few.
He had been Director for years. If he hadn't learned how to listen, talk, and do paperwork all at the same time by now, he never would.
Fury started with one doctor, one of the best, whose physical was overseen by Hill. He was given a shot, full of truth serum rather than whatever Hill had told him it was, and asked who his topmost loyalty was to. The man, whose last name was Solace, looked startled at the question and replied willingly: "My cousin. He's my dad's uncle's son, which would technically make him like a second cousin once removed or something, but I refer to him as 'cousin' to keep it simple. He's pretty cool."
"Why is SHIELD not your first loyalty?" Fury asked curiously.
"Because family comes first, no matter the distance," Solace said immediately. "SHIELD is a pretty close second, though, if it helps."
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Over the next few weeks, Fury found it very interesting that all of those who didn't name SHIELD as their first loyalty named a nameless cousin of varying degrees of relation (he'd heard everything from a simple 'cousin' to 'my mother's grandnephew') instead. Or HYDRA, but he wasn't too concerned about it, now that SHIELD's purification process was underway.
Fury had drawn a family tree of the very strange family, as near as he could figure. There were three main people: the man who had a bunch of children, who also had a bunch of children; the woman who had a couple of children; and then the other man who only had the single, solitary child. The single, solitary child was the man they were looking for. Sure, there were quite a few scattered people of relatively the same age that also claimed to be related that were on the far edges (like the three siblings had an aunt, and then those four had children and they were all within a couple of years of each other somehow), but Fury would figure it out.
The man who saved SHIELD would probably not stay very quiet for very long.
And then he would see how on earth this family worked. And where the hell were the parents?
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Notes: So, messing with Fury is so much fun. The above is pieces of the first in the series, and though there's no need to actually know about Percy Jackson for this one, you definitely need to know it for the rest. Also, the Kanes (from the Kane Chronicles, also written by Rick Riordan) will make their appearance, but you needn't have read the books to understand it. I explain it. Or rather, Carter explains it. :)
So there you have it! Fifteen stories that are pretty fleshed out but not completed (for the most part). It only took almost ten thousand words to post this with an adequate sneak peek for fourteen out of the fifteen stories mentioned. If you like one (or two, or three) over the others, tell me! I don't really want to post something that hasn't been completed (because I tend to jump from story to story and fandom to fandom), but I will, given enough of a response.
Also, if you wish to take something of mine and run with it, send me a PM. I'll send you the rest of the story. If you haven't posted the resulting story before a full year runs its course, or if I've posted the story, permission to use my idea is revoked. Full disclaimer.
Toodles!
Ruby