"My mother was a pure blood witch until I killed her with hours of the [C]urtius [C]urse." –Eme-Malfoy-Black, "The Lost Sister"

"Ὑλία, sole," Elen Riddle gasped. "Goth. sulja… σανδάλιον, ga-suljan… θεμελιοῦν, OHG. sola. –Scarlet, please, have mercy, I beg you…"

"Mercy?" Scarlet laughed – a cold, harsh witch's cackle. "Curtio!"

Her mother's eyes bulged with horror as the spell overpowered her again. "Xαλῑνό-ς (Aeol. χάλιννο-ς)!" she screamed. "Skt. khalīna-s, khalina-s, bit of the bridle (?)! –No! Scarlet, please…!"

"Curtio!"

"Aagh! Ψύλλα, ψύλλο-ς, flea! Lat. pūl-ex! OHG. flôh… ChSl. blŭ-cha… Lith.… Lith.…"

But the Lithuanian form never made it past her lips. Three hours' compelled recitation of Greek etymological derivations had at last taken their toll; with a ghastly, gurgling rattle, Elen Riddle fell forward onto the cold stone floor, and lay as dead as Queen Anne.

Her daughter smirked, and slipped her wand back into her sleeve. "That'll teach you to sneer at the spells I invent, you old pure-blood hag," she hissed. "So a 19th-Century Muggle philologist can't contribute anything to Dark magic, can he? Maybe now the rest of your stinking family will be a little more respectful of the Curtius Curse."

"Sirius Orion Black, how dare you address me in that manor!" –MargaritaVille108, "The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black"

"You've been holding that in way too long, Mum," Regulus smirked.

Mrs Black ignored him. "You know our rule, Sirius!" she said. "If you want anything from me during a visit to the Malfoys, you send me a message through that elf of theirs! Never – never – are you to address me directly in their manor!"

"Mum, all I said was please pass the potatoes!" Sirius protested.

"That doesn't matter!" Mrs Black snapped. "If Lucius Malfoy sees my children speaking to me, he may get the idea that it's all right for him to speak to his mother – and then where will we be?"

"Um…"

"Exactly! Don't try to excuse yourself, young man; you're already in enough trouble without it. I'm going to go speak to your father; he'll decide whether your offence merits a good caning, or whether it's enough just to ground you for the rest of the month." And Mrs Black stalked off in the direction of her husband's study.

Sirius glanced quizzically at his younger brother. "Reg," he said slowly, "am I missing something here?"

Regulus gave him an insufferably superior look. "It's just possible," he said. "Maybe next time you'll actually listen when Dad goes on about the geasan of the old wizarding bloodlines, hmm?"

"'Harry[,] why didn't you tell us you were a parcel mouth?' Ron asked." –ponyrellabellasara, "Victorious at Hogwarts"*

I was afraid, Harry mouthed. (Being only a parcel mouth, with no attached parcel vocal cords, of course he couldn't speak aloud.) I thought if you knew, you'd never write back. It's happened to me so often: people act as though they want to be my friends, but then they find out that I'm a human orifice unnaturally grafted onto a piece of packaging, and they get frightened and start finding reasons to avoid me.

"Well, sure they do," said Ron. "They're Muggles, aren't they? But it's nothing so unusual in our world; Dad has a co-worker who's a box nostril, and one of Bill's best mates at Hogwarts was a burlap-sack sweat pore."

"Sure," Ginny agreed fervently. "And then there's Uncle Marcel, who nearly married a crate…"

Ron coughed loudly. "Um… Ginny, you're not supposed to know about that," he said.

"Oh." Ginny blushed. "Right."

A crate what? Harry enquired.

"Nothing," said Ron firmly. "Nothing at all."

"The government advises against any contact with people who love across the country as it's still not clear what areas are the most affected by the epidemic –" –GilGalen, "Need to Survive"

"How many new cases reported today, Witherspoon?" said Fudge dully.

The head of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes consulted a parchment in his hand. "134 confirmed, according to the latest figures from St Mungo's," he said. "That's probably an under-estimate, though. The early-warning signs have been popping up everywhere; only yesterday, I had to send two of my own subordinates in for examination. Patience, kindness, failure to deal perversely – the works."

"I know," said Fudge. "My own wife's been showing an uncomfortable tendency lately to rejoice with the truth. Not badly, but enough to worry me."

He shook his head. "Insidious thing, this love epidemic. The victims seem so attractive at first, the mass of people can't see that there's any danger… and then when the advanced symptoms emerge – when they start denouncing sexual licence, rejecting unbridled material selfishness, and just generally undermining the whole basis of contemporary society – so often it's too late, and their friends and family are already infected. I'm afraid, Witherspoon, I admit it."

"Don't be, sir," said Witherspoon firmly. "We have the Ministry's whole propaganda arm working round the clock, making sure everyone in Britain knows that caring for the good of the other as other is the mark of a diseased psyche. We'll get this thing beaten, don't you worry."

Fudge sighed gratefully. "You're a good man, Witherspoon," he said.

*Crossover with Victorious.