Written for The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, Round 13
Team: Holyhead Harpies Position: Captain
Length: 1020 words, excluding A/Ns
DISCLAIMER:
No matter how much I wish, I shall never be J.K. Rowling
No matter how much I beg, I shall never own Harry Potter.
Quickly, but neatly, she copied out the title of her essay on to the parchment.
'Witch Burning in the Fourteenth Century Was Completely Pointless — discuss.'
She turned her head towards her text book and looked at the first source.
*'Non-magic people (more commonly known as Muggles) were particularly afraid of magic in medieval times, but not very good at recognizing it. On the rare occasion that they did catch a real witch or wizard, burning had no effect whatsoever. The witch or wizard would perform a basic Flame-Freezing Charm and then pretend to shriek with pain while enjoying a gentle, tickling sensation. Indeed, Wendelin the Weird enjoyed being burned so much that she allowed herself to be caught no less than forty-seven times in various disguises,' *it read.
She dipped her quill in the pot of ink and began to write on her parchment:
*Non-magic people, also known as Muggles, were particularly afraid of magic in medieval times. Fortunately for wizards and witches alike, they were not very good at recognising it. *She paused and dipped her quill in the ink again, wondering how to continue the paragraph.
She was already bored, and looking at the large pile of homework she had been given to do over the holidays didn't make her feel any less-bored. She didn't want to study. Homework was dull. She wanted to do anything but homework… maybe she could draw instead… After all, drawing was her favourite pass time and her hobby.
She peeped out of her room, James and Al were downstairs, listening to the radio as they had done every night since the new Quidditch tournament had begun. Harry was working and Ginny was cooking in the kitchen. None if them would notice if she stopped doing her homework for a while, she thought as she opened her drawing pad.
She went through the pages slowly, she had drawn her family, flowers in the garden, Hedwig the second (their pet owl) as well as some other birds and even the rabbits that sometimes came into the garden.
But this time, she felt like drawing a doe. Ever since she had seen the doe in the forest near their house, she'd been intrigued by the beautiful creature. She found does majestic, yet, kind and gentle. She knew that they had been killed a lot in the past, hunted down by Muggles and they were still killed, sometimes, for fun. But she never understood why though, why would anyone ever want to kill something so beautiful and innocent?
The thoughts continued in her mind as she finally arrived on a blank page. She ran her hand over the rough parchment, closing her eyes and picturing the doe in her head, she could picture its shape and colours in her mind very well but didn't open her eyes until she was sure that she could do it, draw the picture.
Only then did she pull out one of her many pencils (a kind of Muggle drawing tool which you could rub out eithout magic) and start to draw the doe on the parchment.
First the head, with its oddly shaped ears and blackish brown eyes. Next she drew the body, with each of its pretty white spots, and finally the long thin legs. She was adding more detail to the drawing when Harry entered her room.
"Lily, that doesn't look like you're studying," he said with a laugh, kneeling down next to her to take a better look at the drawing. "Wait, what's that you've drawn?" he asked.
"A doe," Lily replied. "It's not great but I love them, they're such majestic creatures, don't you think?" she asked.
"Yes- yes they are," Harry replied slowly, not taking his eyes of her drawing.
"Do you like it?" she asked, slowly.
"Yes, I love it." Harry replied.
"Dad…" she said again, turning around to face him. "Dad, are you crying?" she asked, forgetting about her original question.
"No!" Harry replied a bit too quickly. "No, of course I'm not."
"You're not very good at lying, you know," she said to him. "Why are you crying?" she added, out of pure curiosity.
"Lily-" Harry began.
"No excuses, tell me, please?" she asked.
"Okay," Harry replied, clearly not wanting to talk about 'it' but she didn't realise this and just stared at him eagerly. "As you know, you were named after my mother, your grandmother, Lily." She nodded, looking into his green eyes. She knew that her grandma Lily had the sane green eyes Harry and Albus had.
"Her… her Patronus was a doe," he said slowly his eyes becoming watery again.
"I- I," She felt horrible, she would've never drawn a doe if she had known that it was her grandmother's Patronus. She would have never asked her Dad why he felt so sad when seeing the picture of the doe. She felt truly horrible.
"I'm so sorry," she finally whispered.
"It's okay," Harry said. "You didn't know. Now how about drawing a stag to match up with the doe? That way you'd have drawn both your grandparent's Patronus," Harry said smiling at her.
"Sure," she replied with a smile. That meant that her grandparents were soul mates, she thought, everyone knew that the Doe and the Stag were meant to be together, and so were her grandparents, the thought of it made her smile.
"But," Harry said to her as she picked up my pencil again. "Only after you've finished doing your homework."
"But Dad," she whined.
"No excuses Lily, you were supposed to study not draw," Harry said sternly.
"Fine," she replied, dropping her pencil and picking up her quill.
"And just in case, I'll be taking your drawing materials too," Harry added picking up her book and pencils.
"That's not fair," she said again
"Homework and then drawing," Harry repeated in the sane stern voice.
"Okay," she said giving in and turning back to her History of Magic essay on 'Witch Burning in the Fourteenth Century' almost immediately longing to get back to her drawing.
What do you think? I was inspired by a post on another website!