31 Days of Flash Fiction Repository
Summary: Short stories for 31 Days of Flash Fiction
Beta Love: Dragon and the Cold Water Bottle Torture, Dutchgirl01 the Busiest Bee that Ever Buzzed, Commander Shepard the Winter Soldier
A/N: FF dot Net is not responding today. It will only be posted here for now
Warning: Death of Major Character
Junk
The ignorant mind, with its infinite afflictions, passions, and evils, is rooted in the three poisons. Greed, anger, and delusion.
Bodhidharma
Prompt: An enchanted needle is a valuable thing. It can sew clothes that will never rip, or, it can stitch wounds that should have killed.
People died.
And it all came down to one singularly selfish act.
One act that someone thought quite insignificant—
"Where's my sewing kit, Ron?"
Ron gawped at her. "I dunno."
"WHERE IS MY SEWING KIT, RONALD?!" Hermione seethed, and her magic rose with her hair that started to clump together and writhe like something alive.
"I sold it for a broom!" Ron finally admitted. "I really needed the broom, and you never used the bloody kit. He said he'd give me a broom and all the accessories for it! It's how I found you in the woods, so don't say it wasn't worth it!"
"That was MY healing needle, Ronald!" Hermione yelled. "You ONLY take it out when the situation is DIRE!"
"Why the HELL didn't you use it on Dobby!?" Harry cried, grabbing Hermione and shaking her violently by the shoulders.
Hermione choked as Harry's fingers dug deep into her throat. "Because," she gasped out. "It. Was. Already. MISSING!"
Her eyes flicked to Ron.
"Don't you DARE blame Ron!" Harry yelled angrily. "You didn't TELL us what it was FOR!"
"It. Shouldn't. Have. Mattered," Hermione garbled, her face rapidly turning blue. "It was. Mine."
Harry's face was purple with rage, and his hand spasmed, causing the hyoid bone in her neck to snap under pressure as her airway gave out and her body went limp.
As her body fell, Harry stared at her stunned. He stared at her, his hands, and then back to her.
Molly ran up, huffing. "There you two are! Where is Hermione! She said she had something to help Fred! He's getting worse! Where is she?"
Ron dropped Hermione's beaded bag with a gawping look on his face as Harry turned and gave Molly a tormented expression.
Molly's eyes settled on Hermione's glassy eyes and purple tongue and screamed.
Man-Who-Slew-Voldemort Harry Potter Confined to St Mungos For Psychiatric Evaluation After Suspicious Sudden Death of Female Best Friend and War Heroine Hermione Granger
Temple of Athena Demands Ronald Weasley Return Their Sacred Needle
"The needle was given as a boon from the most wise Athena," the priestess said before the Wizengamot, "with the stipulation that Hermione Granger return to us with the needle and undertake studies at the temple after the war's conclusion."
"You couldn't have known she would survive!" the Weasley's barrister protested.
The Greek-robed priestess turned her steel-grey eyes to the barrister. "As long as the needle remained in her possession and she did not speak of it to anyone save those she healed, Athena's blessing would have kept her and those closest to her protected."
"And why would a goddess think one mortal any better than another for her blessing?"
The priestess narrowed her eyes. "Her eyes see more than you can, mortal. Are you saying that our goddess could not recognise her chosen future priestess?" The priestess curled her lip. "Perhaps, what you really want to ask is, why did a young Muggleborn girl rate the boon of a goddess while your pureblood clients did not?"
The barrister set his jaw, looking ready to say something in retort when the Head Mudwump rapped his wand against the lectern. "Enough. It is quite clear to us that Mr Ronald Weasley took the needle without asking and sold it in exchange for a broom—that was the real reason he left his supposed friends out in the forest alone, and it had nothing to do with jealousy of the nature he spoke of. Worse, Mr Weasley did not even attempt to stop his friend from murdering their supposed best friend when Mr Potter assumed Miss Granger was lying to him about the needle being stolen."
The Head Mugwump sighed deeply. "While it is obvious that no one has been left unaffected by this terrible war, we have decided that both Mr Potter and Mr Weasley be evaluated thoroughly at St Mungos. When they are deemed physically and mentally fit by their team of healers, they will serve out their respective sentences for voluntary manslaughter for Mr Potter and involuntary manslaughter for Mr Weasley. At no point was this an act of war nor was it carried out in the heat of it. This act was emotion-driven, yet it was utterly unreasonable and unconscionable. The fines for these offences will be paid in full to Gordon and Julia Granger, the parents of the victim."
"As for the crime of the theft of the sacred needle and the forcible breakage of the pact and sacred bond between the goddess Athena and Her chosen, Ronald Weasley is sentenced to seven additional years on top of whatever is decided for the formal charges following his evaluation at St Mungos. After which, he will be released to the Temple of Athena for justice as befits their goddess."
If Ron had expected any help from his family, all he saw was his white-faced mother rocking back and forth, clutching at her hair, and his father wearing a look of mingled grief, disbelief, and grave disappointment.
"Aurors, please escort the defendants to St Mungos."
For once, the Wizengamot chambers went dead silent.
A lone, pale-skinned man knelt beside the lonely gravestone after the Granger parents left the cemetery in floods of tears. They were all Muggle—not one magical had come to mourn her, save for one family: the Krums.
They had faithfully protected the Grangers as a favour to Hermione—and her guess that they would be in trouble was not wrong.
What Hermione could not have predicted, however, was a betrayal from within.
She had always been far too trusting of her so-called friends.
Too naive to recognise their self-centeredness and treachery.
He sighed. It was a gift to be so. That innocence, even after a war, was something truly precious.
He closed his eyes, bit his wrist, and let the blood drip down to the earthen mound.
"I am here, beloved," he whispered. "Come, and let me hold you again."
After a few minutes of silence, a fair hand burst free of the dirt, and he pulled it free, taking Hermione into his arms as she coughed and spat out a mouthful of dirt.
"That was awful," she complained.
"At least they didn't try to bury you with a stone between your teeth and a bounder on your chest," Severus said as he gently soothed her.
Hermione grunted. "Thank the gods for that," she muttered.
Severus tilted her head up. "Be still," he said as he took his wand and produced a stream of cool water to wash away the traces of dirt and leaf litter. He pressed his mouth to hers. "I am sorry that your Turning was—"
"Pretty much as you expected?" Hermione asked wryly. "It's okay. I was a naive fool."
"They are fools to have let you go," Severus said. He tched as droplets of blood streamed from his eyes. "Bother." He sliced the side of his neck with one talon. "Please satisfy this obnoxious bond before I bleed myself a ruddy lake."
Hermione laughed and shook her head. He gently put her mouth to his neck and she drank thirstily, allowing him to swallow her up in his embrace even as his traitorous Lethifold slithered onto her shoulders from his. There was a rush of heated magic as her willing acceptance of his blood and bond cemented.
When she pulled away, his eyes were crimson, his long claws gently brushing her cheek. "I suppose we move to Greece first—to satisfy your apprenticeship with the temple, though I have a feeling my Lord Hades will have his own say in it."
"Shared custody amongst the gods," Hermione mused. "How terribly exciting."
"Tch," Severus said. "At least you were wise enough to heed your Goddess' warning and come to me."
"As you were bleeding out!" Hermione protested.
"Awkward, yes," he admitted. "At least—I wasn't going to die."
"That was hardly an option in my mind seeing you like that!"
He grimaced and held her to him. "And yet you seemed terribly calm about me bleeding from the eyes even as I bled from everywhere else."
"I read a few books on it," Hermione said, waving her hand. "It was either Ebola or you were a vampire."
"Romantic, I'm sure," Severus said.
"For a vampire, I'm sure it's very romantic," Hermione said. "When they are expecting it."
"Athena did not exactly leave you unprepared," Severus argued.
"Cryptic phrases like 'the one who shares your soul bleeds for you,' were hardly specific," Hermione protested. "I shared a tent with two boys that bled all over the place."
Severus chuckled. "But not for you, love."
"That and you were my professor, and there was a little adjustment to swallow in the fact that you could feel anything but utter loathing at the very sight of me."
Snape sighed. "There is little fighting the biological trigger," he said after a while. "Thankfully it waits until both parties are physically and mentally mature for such things. And I will admit I did not make such revelations particularly easy for you—or me for that matter."
"I guess I couldn't exactly say I realised you were an actual vampire," Hermione confessed. "I dismissed it as mere rumour. Hearsay."
"Well, I didn't exactly react to a hundred or so cloves of garlic and other rot that various people left out for me," Severus said. "And I did enjoy the poppy seeds on bread and an occasional lemon poppyseed cake."
Hermione scoffed. "I felt your emotions when you gave me blood," she said. "That was more truth than I'd ever had from anyone.
"Someone had to tell you what you were in for," Severus replied.
"An eternity with your snark?" Hermione mused.
"It's a gift," Snape said with a grimace.
Hermione touched his cheek. "The blood told me all I needed to know, but I look forward to getting to know the real person behind the mask you wear. Even if biology gave us a head start."
Severus pulled her close to him, "I have something for you."
Hermione furrowed her brows as she took the box he extended. Her eyebrows shot into her hairline as she saw the Needle of Athena within its crystal case. "How?"
"It's worthless to those not touched by Athena," he replied. "They couldn't even open the seal on the case. They murdered each other for the diamond case—and Mundungus picked it up off their corpses."
"However did you convince him to give it to you?" Hermione said with wonder, clasping the case to her chest.
"Mundungus is many things, but he values his life the most," Severus said. "My reputation was far more than his greed."
"I think I may love you," Hermione whispered.
Severus' lips twitched as he extended his hand. She placed hers inside his, and they Disapparated with a crack so soft, it might have been a whisper across the graves.
The path to Athena's temple was well-travelled and beautiful, but no Weasley ever took pleasure in it. They came to pay their respects to the goddess in the hopes that, while Ronald was being punished, no further ills would plague their family.
Many came—perhaps, too, in order to beg the gods' favour to at least, if nothing else, not curse their family as those that had been implicated in the purchase and subsequent battles over a holy artefact. Perhaps, too, there were some faithful amongst the pilgrims, even if it was spurred on by fear.
The rivalry between the Temple of Hades and the Temple of Athena faded away, but no one outside the temples seemed to know why. But th0se that lived within them never failed to see the love between one Priest of Hades and the Priestess of Athena or the wedding that occurred one full moon night in the joined gardens. Fortunately, perhaps, for the Weasleys, they never saw the nocturnal members of the sacred temples.
The temple staff weren't exactly complaining.
As for Harry Potter, lauded hero and as dubbed by the Daily Prophet , the Man-With-A-Violent-Temper, they say he lived a remarkably long life as a hermit, banishing himself to a very remote locale so that no one really knew if he was alive or dead
For those that knew him before the war, he became a cautionary lesson in what prophecy did to a person, and how even heroes could become corrupted by darkness—not necessarily magic, but a dark that grew and festered from within, twisting truths, and bringing ruin to the mightiest of friendships.
But for two newly mated vampires in the service of their god and goddess, their reward for their faith was in finding each other despite adversity and confirmation that their divine patrons were not completely heartless.
Though—certain wizards might disagree.
While Harry Potter suffered in self-imposed exile, his neighbours at Grimmauld Place often called the police upon hearing "an agitated man yelling nonsense" at odd hours through the walls. The legend of the haunted townhouses grew with each passing year.
If Athena had "blessed" Harry Potter with Her own type of punishment, no one was speaking of it.
As for Ronald—
He was being forcibly taught the ways of learning, wisdom, medicine, handicrafts, poetry, the arts, commerce, and war—all the branches of Athena's most divine auspice.
And every time he said no to a task or disrespected a member of the temple, he gained a new physical attribute of a spider.
It was perhaps the only time his family knew him to study hard—lest he gain yet another unwanted arachnid appendage as evidenced by the permanent mirrors that made up his chamber walls.
Many wondered what the terms of his release were, but Ronald wasn't telling.
And the temple staff would only say it was by Athena's judgement, so shall it be.
And so it was— for however long it was destined to be.
"Dad, who is that guy in the temple with so many blue eyes?"
"An idiot," Severus drawled to his spawn.
Hermione thumped her mate with the back of her hand. "Really?"
"Well, it's true," Severus said with a shrug. "I don't lie to my spawn."
"Why do you call me a spawn?"
"Because you're inhuman, and defy all reason for existence," Severus said.
Hermione burst into laughter as her daughter looked like she was going to explode with more questions. "Selene, sweetling, you're a child of two vampires that walk in daylight. That makes you very special. But arguably—inhuman, as you were never human to begin with."
Her daughter puckered her lips, smoke coming from between her ears.
Thump.
"Go play with your Uncle Rada," Sanguini said as he bonked her over the head with a soft temple pamphlet.
Selene giggled, pounced and wrapped her arms around Sanguini's neck, hugged him, and then scampered off at Mach 2.
Severus sighed. "Here to make a plea to the gods, or is this a social call?"
"I believe Lucius Malfoy is coming to the temples next week," Sanguini said. "I wanted to give you a heads up in case you wish to contemplate homicide."
"Not currently, but give it time," Severus said dryly, handing Sanguini a goblet of "wine." Any particular reason I might wish to kill him?"
"His son is infertile," Sanguini said. "You know how much that chafes magical pureblood families."
"Unless Draco wishes to swear himself to the service of the gods, I hardly see them granting such a boon on a whim," Severus observed with a sigh. "Draco was never one for the gods. The old ways were merely rituals to be memorised, hardly felt. Lucius himself, however, was more gods-fearing in his soul. Much of what he did was to preserve the magic in his family from being taken from the gods. He probably thinks that if Draco does something out of line—whatever that line is—that they might birth a squib. I will admit that his motivations and how he went about his life baffled me."
"I have a feeling that a squib is better than no child at all," Sanguini speculated.
"The shame amongst the greater magical community would be—a great problem," Severus said pointedly. "I will arrange for us to leave the temples for a time. The last thing we need is for Lucius to get wind of my survival—or Hermione's. Even if our more nocturnal habits leave us off the radar of most."
Sanguini nodded. "Do you wish for Rada and I—"
"If it would not be a bother."
Sanguini shook his head. "We will see to her safety until you can return to the temples. I have a feeling Lucius will be looking for you. Well—looking for anything that might help him. Finding you would help him greatly, but the risk in what he'd ask would be unknown. And Selene is anything but subtle in who her parents are. He would need only a look to know."
Severus nodded. They clasped arms together. "Thank you, brother."
Sanguini smiled. "Be safe," he said. "I will send word when he and whoever he may have hired to be his eyes and ears are gone."
"Uncle Sanguini! Come join us!" Selene called from up the stairs. "Uncle Rada wants to visit the baths!"
"Yes, he does need a bath, I'm sure," Sanguini quipped with a wink.
Severus rolled his eyes. "He's going to throw you into the baths, you know."
"Either way, it will be fun," Sanguini said with a laugh as he vanished up the stairs.
"I'm glad you have such good friends," Hermione said, leaning in to give her mate a kiss.
"They are your friends too, now," Severus said with a twitch of his lips. "Far better than what you have had historically."
Hermione snorted and smiled. "Setting the bar pretty low considering mine tried to murder me."
"We all tried to murder each other back in the day," Severus said softly. "We, at least, grew up. Or at least grew out of whatever homicidal phase that was."
"Life in Roman times," Hermione said.
"We were an Empire of war," Severus admitted.
Hermione sighed thoughtfully. "We are always at war. It is simply a matter of who and over what and if weapons of mass destruction are involved."
"Athena knows war as Hades knows death," Severus said. "What a pair we are."
"I love you," Hermione said with a warm smile.
"I love you too," he replied as he embraced her. "Let us make our arrangements. The temples will have to do without us for a while. We can make our prayers and offerings to our gods before our journey and leave tonight. Selene will be so drunk on her Uncles' spoiling, she won't protest as much."
Hermione nodded. She placed her hand in his and squeezed. "The gods bless us, and I am thankful for you and that our child can grow up carefree despite her parents' drama."
Severus smiled genuinely as his mouth covered hers in a heartfelt kiss. "That is the wonder of being a vampire, love. "We can outlive our drama eventually. And we will still be together. Always."
Selene's excited squeal came from above, and both parents smiled.
For now, they would let her have her fun and enjoy being a child. A loving gift from two parents whose childhoods were anything but peaceful. They may have been baptised in blood, death, and war, but she would live the life they couldn't have.
It was enough.
Crazed Maniac Attacks Tourist at Temple of Athena!
Lucius Malfoy was attacked in Greece, yesterday, by none other than Ronald Weasley, former friend and co-conspirator of the notorious Harry Potter. The Grecian Ministry is holding both men for trial since the ensuing battle spilt out into Muggle areas and hundreds had to be Obliviated.
Updates when we hear more!
Severus shook his head as he threw their latest copy of the Prophet into the fire. "Idiot."
Meanwhile, back in Athena's temple, the High Priestess plunked a plump cricket into her new terrarium and the starving, bright orange tarantula pounced upon it in all due haste.
And they lived safely ever after. Dun Dun DUUNNNN…