Prompt: Yuki-onna

Motivation, where art thou?

Probably died of heat.

So because I have absolutely no motivation, I thought I’d force myself to do another one of these and I’m going to write it directly in my blog. As such, this is going to be totally unedited.

Okay, I did look up how many people die or go missing in Japanese mountains (apparently 2022 was a record year), Japanese mountain huts, and the radio devices that receive and transmit signals… which apparently are transceivers?

Still, massive artistic licenses were taken with all of that.

Yuki-onna literally means ‘snow woman’. They are said to dwell in the mountains, freezing unwary travellers to death. They’re supposed to be supernaturally beautiful but I didn’t go with seduction this time.

Words: 466

∞

Yuki-onna

The wind howled outside. The storm rattled the shutters as if trying to force its way inside.

Torahiko had made it to the mountain hut in time to get it ready before the enormous wall of snow-burdened clouds swept across the mountain. Torahiko smacked the transceiver; the weather broadcast crackled once before going back to static.

He exhaled an irritable breath and went to the kitchenette. He supposed it didn’t matter. He had provisions for days; he could wait the storm out.

Torahiko sat in front of the fireplace to eat. A fire burned in the hearth, fluttering from side to side in the whistle of wind coming down the chimney. He set the dishes on the table and leaned back in the chair, staring at the flames’ flickering hues of orange and yellow.

He must’ve dozed off because he startled awake abruptly. Torahiko looked around the dim hut, feeling disoriented. The fire was guttering in the hearth and the chill had crept inside. He got up and absentmindedly added logs to the fire. The wind was wailing, tearing at the walls and windows. Torahiko picked up the dishes and made for the kitchenette, shivering despite his sweater.

He stopped dead, a sudden unease prickling down his back. Torahiko turned his head, staring at the transceiver on the desk.

It was still on, crackling away imperceptibly. He approached it with wary steps, sure he’d turned it off earlier. He reached out his hand, about to switch it off, when the noise changed. Almost as if–

Torahiko leaned down. There were words in the crackling. He frowned and tried to increase the volume.

“…..it’s cold.”

His heart pounded apprehensively at the sound of that quiet, feminine voice.

The transceiver hissed and crackled, and the voice spoke up again. “…..it’s cold.”

Torahiko glanced at the frequency and belatedly realised the numbers were flickering wildly.

“…..it’s cold,” the feminine voice in the transceiver repeated, her words louder as if she was getting closer. Torahiko flinched with startled surprise, his insides knotted tight with inexplicable dread.

He pressed the power button and then rammed it repeatedly when the crackling didn’t stop. Torahiko gritted his teeth and moved to yank the cord off when something slammed against the hut and the fire went out, leaving him in the dark. The only light was the faint glow of the frequency on the transceiver.

Torahiko cursed, fumbling for the flashlight still in his pocket.

In the darkness, the voice in the transceiver spoke again, the words so clear as if she was right behind him.

“…..let me in.”

Torahiko shuddered, holding his breath.

The transceiver went dark.

He stood in the pitch black, his heart pounding in his ears.

He felt a chilling breath on the back of his neck–

–and then nothing.

fin

That was honestly painful and it probably isn’t all that good but hey, at least I managed to write it even under self-inflicted duress. So ✧˖°.good job.°˖✧ me.

Thank you to those who might read. ❤

More Slytherin Ron

Well, it’s that season again.

My nemesis: summer.

Theoretically, I like summer. I mean, it’s all bright and clear skies and you can get better pictures, and everything is all pretty and green.

But.

Then there’s the heat.

And I’m just,

So because of that, I’ve been really slow with — well, everything and I feel bad about it.

I mean, I still haven’t finished Seiken Densetsu 3, which is annoying because I have like five minutes of that game left. I was supposed to do reviews of sorts of those games but I played the first two last year and I haven’t touched the third one since… December? They’re not bad games, I even jokingly think they’re the only Final Fantasy games I like, I’m just… all over the place.

I haven’t finished Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets bookmarks and notes either (and edits). I just. Really don’t want to read those books even though I probably should re-read some parts occasionally for that rewrite fic which is going to be a very slow work in progress.

I haven’t watched Avatar: The Last Airbender since January, I think. And the longer I take with that, the more I think I should re-watch Seasons One and Two — or at least read the scripts. But I just… really don’t feel like doing that, ha ha. I mean, I still haven’t watched Season Three but my overall score for that show is: okay. It’s okay. It’s just. Okay. It’s not offensively bad but it’s really not as amazing as everyone raves either. And I don’t think Season Three is going to change my mind because Seasons One and Two messed up in a lot of ways, and things don’t get better on a messy foundation.

It’d also be nice to finish a writing project or two or at least make more progress. Or even post a fic again. I mean, the last fic I wrote was in January and it’s almost June.

How is it almost June?

So obviously my brilliant solution to his lack of progress was free writing Ron/Ginny. Because evidently I’m determined to write stuff that no one would leave kudos or comments on. Because that does wonders for motivation and self-esteem. *still side-eyes the mysterious hundreds of hits on my Ron/Ginny fics*

But what can I say, that crackship is really easy to free write for. Though, this time I had to try three different things before I finally managed to settle on one (for now).

So I thought I’d share a bit again about Slytherin!Ron and Draco. You know, to show why I can’t deny my favourite dork the hilarity that is Ron/Ginny. There’s a brief scene of platonic deniability between Ron/Ginny to set up the scene between Ron and Draco, ha ha. Also, I was free writing this so it might seem abrupt.

By the way, the reason that so many of these free writing exercises have them sleeping in the same bed is that it’s a good way to show that their relationship isn’t quite usual without being explicit, it’s cute, and I have this headcanon that Ron is Ginny’s emotional safe space. Which is why I keep writing that she went to Ron after nightmares and stuff.

∞

Ron stirred at the insistent whisper of his name. He didn’t bother opening his eyes and grunted into the pillow, still mostly asleep.

Ginny nudged him, her small hands persistent and questioning. “Did you wake up? Is it okay if I sleep here?”

Ron groaned, frustrated, and fumbled for her and pulled her into bed. He tucked her into place and draped his arm around her because Ginny had a bad habit of tossing and turning. She squirmed slightly and then settled, huffing out a breath. Ron exhaled heavily, sinking back to sleep.

He woke up early the next morning. Ginny was nestled in his arms, her breaths tickling his neck. Ron blinked at the top of her head, momentarily disoriented. He vaguely remembered waking up to her insistent whispers and tugging her into bed, his sleep-addled mind thinking that they were at home.

But they weren’t at the Burrow.

They were at the dormitory, and indefinable, cold fear seized Ron at the thought of the other boys catching them like this.

He tried to breathe past the choking terror in his throat and told himself to calm down. Malfoy had an obnoxious habit of waking up hideously early and making it everyone else’s problem but it was still quiet. Maybe Ron still had time to get Ginny out of the room before anyone noticed her there.

Ron turned around to get up — and then his heart nearly imploded when he saw Malfoy standing in the gap between his curtains, a look of unholy glee on his face.

Ron stared, completely frozen. Then one of the beds creaked and Malfoy abruptly yanked the curtains shut.

“It appears that Weasley has uncharacteristically got up already,” he announced to the room at large. “It must’ve been the sweet calling of breakfast. I heard there are thestral sausages today. It all goes to his height. Or feet. I’m not sure which but the git is for sure a bottomless pit.”

Ron listened with sickening dread as the other boys grumbled sleepily, his heart trapped in his throat. He waited until he heard them shuffle out and the door thud shut before he frantically set out to wake up Ginny.

She grumbled sleepily and burrowed under the blankets, and Ron had to all but drag her out of bed. She stood rubbing her eyes as Ron helped her slippers on her feet and tucked her dressing gown around her.

Then he bit out, “Don’t come here again.”

He had to bite his tongue to stop himself from taking it immediately back when Ginny looked up at him with betrayed brown eyes.

“That’s nice,” she huffed and stomped out, slamming the door behind her.

Ron sank on the edge of his bed, put his face in his hands, and let out a long shaky groan.

—

“It’s not weird,” Ron said defensively as soon as he caught Malfoy alone.

Malfoy raised his eyebrows, the picture of polite inquiry even though he knew exactly what Ron was talking about, the infuriating git.

“Look,” Ron gritted out, frustrated. “She has nightmares, okay. It’s not something weird.”

“I’m not saying anything, Weasley,” Malfoy said, the corner of his mouth crooked faintly. Ron wanted to punch him.

“You’re such a fucking prat,” he snarled. He scrubbed both hands over his face and through his hair, agitated. “Look, it’s not anything you’re thinking about so would you just not? This one bloody time?”

Malfoy quirked his eyebrows. “You’re still the only one talking here, Weasley.”

Ron stamped down on the urge to throttle him. “Fine,” he bit out. “Just. Forget about this morning.”

He turned around to stomp out of the unused classroom when Malfoy’s sly amused voice stopped him. “Tell me, Weasley, what exactly is it that you thought I was thinking of? Of course it’s normal for the Weasley Fluff to rely on her big brother,” he said, and Ron eyed him warily over his shoulder because Malfoy being agreeable about anything usually preceded something terrible.

Malfoy’s mouth curved like a knife. “I’m curious, though. Are you sure she has nightmares?”

Ron opened and closed his mouth, something precarious shifting in his gut. He didn’t remember how or when it’d started. Just that they’d both been small, and their mum had always been busy with Fred and George and she’d often asked Ron to look after Ginny before she’d gone to yell at them for one thing or another. So Ginny’d come to him after hurts and nightmares, and it’d — felt nice, being relied on and needed.

“Shut up, Malfoy,” Ron rasped. “I don’t know what you’re on about.”

He stomped off before Malfoy could say anything else and slammed the door.

fin (for now)

Weasleys and their stereotypical tempers.

You know, the nice thing about posting stuff on my blog is that it kind of forces me to finish these little snippets. I actually had both of these scenes sitting unfinished but since I decided to share, I also managed to finish them. Though, if this Slytherin!Ron series is ever going to become an actual thing, I’m so going to have to edit it, ha ha.

So anywho, that’s that for today. Thank you to those who might read. ❤

To be honest, I also want to get back to reading Chinese and Japanese poetry. You know, I should just do that. Who cares if I have other million things unfinished?

Prompt: Kurozuka

I have for now given up on taka onna. Not because I’m unfamiliar with the history of Japanese prostitution but because I realised that my two entries on taka onna contradict each other. One says that they’re a reference to the high price of the second-floor courtesans. The other says that they weren’t prostitutes — or courtesans — at all but… female incels? And since fandoms are using ‘incel’ as a catch-all insult nowadays towards people they don’t like, I don’t mean it as an insult. I mean it as a legitimate word with its legitimate meaning: someone who is involuntarily celibate.

As an aside, this is one of the reasons why I don’t like this moral outrage at words, especially from people who are still name-calling everyone they dislike or disagree with about fiction. They’re just doing it with words that are deemed “acceptable” and which conveniently imply that the people they’re name-calling are not only wrong but also morally reprehensible, which essentially reduces real people into outlaws.

Old English utlaga “one put outside the law” (and thereby deprived of its benefits and protections), from a Scandinavian source such as Old Norse utlagi (n.) “outlaw,” from utlagr (adj.) “outlawed, banished,” from ut “out” (see out (adv.)) + *lagu, plural of lag “law” (see law). Formerly it was lawful for anyone to kill such a person.

A person who is excluded from normal legal rights.

And they’re doing this because of disagreements about fiction. They’re usually also the same people who like to lecture others on how you’re supposed to talk about fictional anything. Which is both absolutely insane and ironic.

But I digress.

So I decided to skip it and landed on kurozuka which are old hags who feed on the livers of unborn babies. So keep that in mind before and if you want to read.

Thank you!

Words: 984

∞

Kurozuka

Her mum was late.

Asura glanced at the clock on the microwave, glowing in the gloom of the kitchen. It was almost eleven.

She turned back to the window, peering outside through the ghost of herself. The street was still empty, a nearby lamp flickering on and off intermittently. Asura exhaled fretfully, her chest tight with nameless foundless apprehension.

“What’s taking mum so long?” she muttered and paced away from the window again, tugging on her hair with restless hands.

Her mum had gone out to the store, saying she wanted a snack and fresh air. The pregnancy made her crave all sorts of whims. She’d asked Asura to go with her but she’d been busy texting with her friend. When she’d left, she’d said she’d only be a minute but that’d been over an hour ago.

Asura stopped in the middle of the living. The television was still on, droning on almost inaudibly. She stared at the screen sightlessly, abruptly jerked, and came to a decision. Asura turned off the television before she went to the entrance, slipped on her shoes, and went out into the night.

She shoved her hands inside the pockets of her hoodie and half-jogged along the deserted streets to the nearby store. It shone in the darkness, garish and overbright.

Inari, a college student living next door, said her mother had left over half an hour ago. As Asura rocked on her heels, he frowned and asked, “Want me to help look for her? I can close the store for a while.”

A flush climbed up from the soles of her feet despite the worry gnawing at her insides. “It’s okay,” Asura said hurriedly. “Mum wanted some fresh air so she’s probably just taking a longer route.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, she’s probably back home already.”

Asura waved as she all but rushed out of the store, berating herself mentally. She turned left at the corner and stopped, putting her face in her hands and muffling a cry. After a moment, she exhaled a breath and moved along, hopping up the stairs to the road that curved along the root of the mountain.

She flicked nervous glances at the nemorous hills, towering steeply upward. The dark wall of trees bowed in the gust of wind, the rustle of leaves sounding unnervingly like whispered voices. Asura shivered and tucked the hair whipping over her face behind her ear. Her heart jolted when she saw two headlights approach her but the car drove past her without slowing down, the hum of its engine fading.

After a while, Asura stopped before she even realised what she saw.

Underneath the distant street lamp, on the first step of the stairs leading up into the mountain, was a shoe on its side.

Asura stared at it, struggling to breathe past the abrupt tightness in her chest. Her heart pounded in her ears, drowning out the sound of her steps as she approached it slowly, half-dreading and half-hoping that it’d disappear.

It was her mother’s shoe.

Asura drew a painful, short breath and looked up the moss-covered stairs, illuminated with intermittent street lamps. The trees grew thick and close to the dirt path, their shadows strange and amorphous between the lights. Asura took a shaking step up the stairs and then another, climbing the mountain.

It was unnaturally quiet.

She couldn’t hear even the insects.

Asura barely dared to breathe, her pulse a dizzying fast beat. She stopped beneath the faded, decrepit torii and stared at the trail leading off the path. The grass and shrubs were crushed, flattened, as if something big had been dragged through. Something human.

With nerveless fingers, Asura fumbled for her phone and belatedly realised she’d left it on the sofa at home.

She darted a look down the stairs and then into the dark, her stomach a hollow pit of dread. Asura thought of her mother, missing and alone and pregnant. She followed the narrow, trodden trail into the woods.

She smelled it, first. A strange, metallic scent in the air. Then she heard it, the wet crunching noises. Asura’s steps slowed to a crawl; she tugged her sleeve over her fingers and put her hand over her nose and mouth, her stomach twisting into a terrified knot of revulsion. Her skin prickled with instinctive fear.

Abruptly, she stopped.

A shadow was moving in the copse ahead, blacker than the surrounding night, its head bobbing disturbingly up and down as if it was tearing into something. In the choppy patches of moonlight that ponderously seeped through the tangled branches, she could just about make out another figure lying on the ground, something odd and unsettling in the angles of its limbs.

Asura gasped before she could stop herself, a scream gnawing its way up from the pit of her stomach and snagging in her throat, closing off her breath.

It was her mother, her eyes gleaming glassily in the gloom, her face white and uncannily rigid.

Asura was barely aware of the shadow’s head jerking up and turning around, the wet gloss around its mouth. It stood up, its posture eerie and stooped in the dark.

Something dropped to the ground, something small and pale and bloodied, and Asura’s stomach turned with horror as she realised what it (she) was.

Her legs gave out.

She wasn’t aware of sobbing, her voice high and pleading and futilely calling her (dead) mother.

The shadow stalked towards her, its movements disconcertingly noiseless and sinuous despite the gnarled hunch of its shape, its yellow eyes shining underneath the filthy, matted hair.

Asura crawled clumsily backwards, bits of gravel and detritus biting into her palms, leaving small trails of blood.

Her senses fragmented into seconds that lasted hours. Her heart drummed so fast she thought it might give out.

Asura could smell the air of decay on its flaking skin.

Everything went dark.

fin

As usual, I can’t really say how I did with the ~horror~ because I don’t feel anything about my own writing. But I think I did pretty well with the adjectives and adverbs this time? I think I was a bit in the “zone” too since I had to go out right before I finished this, and I felt so irritable and anxious about it afterwards, ha ha.

Also, I wish I could find a good horror ambience to listen to while writing these. I was listening to a video but after a few minutes I was like, “shut uuuup” and closed it, ha ha. So no luck with that one.

I’m not sure if listening to horror ambience helps with writing horror, though, or if it just feels that way because I’m listening to it, ha ha.

Oh well, whatever. At least I finished something and it turned out relatively long too. I mean, considering my current writing skills.

Thanks for reading if anyone did!

Writing Progress!

I think.

I was free-writing Ron/Ginny, as you do. I’m not going to share it since, well, they’re older and the dialogue is a bit more explicit than the platonic childhood scenes I’ve posted here.

…..okay, I’ll share just a short bit because it’s funny. As a warning, Ron is canonically a total guttermouth and I can’t deny him in fan fiction so there are a few curse words. Also, I seriously couldn’t care less about Hermione and making fun of Harry and Harry/Ginny gives me life. I can’t help it, it’s like a compulsion! So what I mean is, that kind of colours how I write this ship, ha ha.

∞

Ron couldn’t sleep.

He stared at the ceiling of his room, listening to Harry mutter incomprehensible, vaguely disturbing things in his sleep the way he did. He kept thinking back to earlier that day, about Harry in Ginny’s room, what Ginny had been trying to do. He knew he shouldn’t and he hated himself for it but he just — he couldn’t.

Ron glanced at Harry from the corner of his eyes. He was fast asleep, curled up underneath the blanket, his back to Ron. He hesitated for a moment and then he eased himself up, holding his breath as he snuck out of his room and downstairs.

He shuffled into the kitchen to get a glass of water when he noticed the door to the back garden was ajar, a mild wind drifting inside. Ron saw a glimpse of long red hair through the crack and paused abruptly, his chest going tight with too many conflicting emotions to name. And then, because he never could stop himself when it came to Ginny, he went to the door and stepped out.

She was sitting on the step, staring at the small dots of light floating in the air over the hedge. She looked small and unhappy and exhausted.

After a minute or two, she lowered her head and sighed. “What do you want from me, Ron?” She tilted her head, looking up at him. “I’m — I’m trying. I’m dating Harry like you wanted. I’m trying to make it work. And you just—”

“What, by trying to fuck him while everyone is in the house,” Ron blurted out angrily, reminded of that moment in the afternoon again, and immediately wished he could learn not to put his foot in his mouth.

Ginny flushed, embarrassed and guilty, but her eyes flashed dangerously. “That still doesn’t give you the right to butt in,” she said coldly. “And if you hadn’t—” She snapped her mouth shut before she could say more and looked away, her jaw clenched.

“It’s my fault now?” said Ron incredulously. “What did I do? I don’t remember telling you to fuck Harry when you’re not even together and everyone is in the fucking house.”

Ginny jerked up, pacing back and forth the cobblestoned path in whatever frustrated anger she’d been holding in. “What,” she snapped back. “So you can do whatever you want, you can have Hermione all over yourself, but I can’t even kiss the boy you wanted me to date?” she hissed, her voice shaking.

Ron felt himself go red, vaguely recalling Hermione throwing herself at him on the night they went to get Harry. Ginny stopped and looked at him, her eyes wide and pleading and desperate.

“What do you want, Ron? What… what am I supposed to do? What more can I do?”

Ron stared back at her, torn and pained and terrified. Ginny waited for him to say something but he couldn’t, at least not anything that wouldn’t be either damning or lying, his throat closed off. After a while, she huffed out a humourless laugh and put her face in her hands, her shoulders slumped.

“Forget it,” she said when she dropped her hands, sounding hollow, and moved to get past Ron inside.

Ron’s hand darted out without thought and grasped her wrist, holding on too tight. She frowned but before she could say anything, he started pulling her towards the gate and out to the grove by the river.

He let go of her wrist and paced back and forth before he stopped, his head tipped back to look up at the clear star-strewn sky. He took a few deep breaths and dragged both hands through his hair, all the while Ginny eyed him warily as if he’d gone mad. Ron felt mad, on the verge of something terrifying. “Okay,” he declared abruptly, and looked at her. “I’m gonna do something really selfish now. You can punch me or hex me if you want to.”

∞

I’m not sharing the awkward first/second kiss, though, ha ha. To be honest, I have way too much fun writing this little crackship for various reasons. Which is probably why free-writing it is so easy.

But anywhoo~ The important bit isn’t that I was free-writing Ron/Ginny, as you do. The important bit is this sentence, particularly the bolded part:

He hesitated for a moment and then he eased himself up, holding his breath as he snuck out of his room and downstairs.

This is a little embarrassing but I’ve tried writing this exact same sentence in that Tom/Hagrid fic that I will get to any day now. I tried writing it in a million different ways because I started doing that inner self-loathing thing until I had to stop lest I go mad.

But this time I just wrote it and kept going, and I — I honestly feel so happy. The magic of Ron/Ginny perhaps? My hilarious crackship, I have much fondness for you.

You know, there’s this poet who’s internet (in)famous for having written wincest (Sam/Dean from Supernatural). It would be hilarious if someday I’ll become the writer famous for writing Ron/Ginny, ha ha. Or I guess Cassandra Clare is already (in)famous for that but to be honest, I think this is a lie from people who dislike her and do that “oh my god, look at what a morally reprehensible ~sexual deviant~ she is for *checks notes* shipping fictional siblings fictionally!”

Because what you write and read sure determines what kind of person you are. I guess we should all just enjoy being terrorists, serial killers, genocidaires, etc too.

In other words for those who don’t get it: writing or reading about murders does not, in fact, make you a murderer. You’re welcome for this important life lesson. You can find them here for free.

The other progress I’ve made is that I finally sat down and wrote Tommy’s backstory for that Harry Potter rewrite that I will get to any day now. Well, okay, I already sort of started it and — it’s not giving me psychical damage yet? So should I feel relatively confident?

I have two problems regarding Tommy, though. The first one is that I wrote basically everything but what happened to him during the first war. Like, I honestly don’t know. I’m planning on keeping the Potters alive for this rewrite so I can’t exactly have the dude kill himself on a toddler. So I was thinking about it and then I thought, what if he just died? What if someone just got a lucky shot at him? It’s not as if it needs to be some significant thing? And then I need to figure out what happened to his corpse, ha ha. *despairs*

Another problem is that I’m planning on making that Tom/Hagrid AU a part of this rewrite. Because as far as I’m concerned, it’s practically canon, Rowling just didn’t even think to go there. But the problem is that I think the snake was stupid, okay? Like, I can’t even begin to explain how stupid the basilisk plotline was. But if there’s no snake, there’s no Tom/Hagrid AU. So I’m wondering if I can make the whole basilisk thing better somehow? Maybe Tommy just bred it himself? If the dude had ingenious dark powers, he should’ve done a bit more with them than just splitting his soul and killing himself on a moronic brat repeatedly? Or maybe he found it in the forest since there’s everything in that forest?

Or maybe I should just forgo the basilisk altogether and have Tommy attack people using his own powers? Wait, no, but then how would he frame Hagrid? No wonder I can’t get a start on this thing. *sighs*

So I guess that writing progress was one step forward and two steps backwards after all, ha ha. Whatever, I’m tagging it anyway because of ✧˖°.positive thinking.°˖✧.

Also, I’ve been thinking about those Tom/Hagrid and Ron/Ginny fics. They basically have no readers, at least readers who would comment. *side-eyes the mysterious 2000 hits on my only mature Ron/Ginny fic*

The thing is, with fan fiction you can post it while it’s still a work in progress. People usually do this to get feedback and comments and to keep their motivation going. But with these two ships, it’s basically pointless. So I need to practise keeping my motivation going by my lonesome.

And I think this is even more important for original fiction I want to write since I — don’t really have any writer buddies or someone who would read my stuff for me. And I can’t exactly post my original stuff as a work in progress online in the hopes of feedback and comments. I mean, I guess I can since I’m pretty sure there are sites for that but. I don’t know. Seems weird. I don’t mind posting the short writing exercises, though.

Never mind that I don’t want a repeat of Incandescent Snow that’s still! sitting unfinished. But hey, if things keep going well, I might be able to finish that ghost too.

Free-writing: Draco & Slytherin Ron

So I did mention I might share more of these little practice snippets. This time I managed to practise free writing Draco and Slytherin!Ron. I had way too much fun writing this so I figured I’d share, ha ha.

And like, let’s be real. If Rowling was even remotely serious as an author, one of those kids should’ve been sorted into a house (Slytherin) they didn’t want to be sorted into so they could start dismantling their prejudices and bring about actual unity.

This is basically a disconnected snippet without a real beginning or end because, as I said, I’m practising with free writing. But as a bit of background: Ron was sorted into Slytherin and all sorts of shenanigans ensue. Hopefully, all this practice will eventually help me write all of those long(er) fics. But before then, I’ll just share short stuff here.

∞

“I want to bully him!” Draco cried. “You don’t understand, Weasleys are made to be bullied, not — not slummed with!”

Morag gave him a level, considering stare. “You know, it’s really sweet how loyal you are to your housemates.”

Draco made a sputtering sound of pure outrage. “Take that back!” he demanded. “I’m a Malfoy! Malfoys aren’t sweet! We’re terrible and conniving and amoral!”

“Oh yes, you’re a terrible corrupt conniver,” Morag said but Draco thought she sounded unnecessarily dismissive.

He made sure to trip Weasley up the next day because he had a reputation to keep and besides Weasley’s feet were so large he might as well be tripping up on them anyway, the gangly git. Evidently, the rumours that the Weasleys didn’t have enough money to feed their litter of unfortunate accidents were a complete lie.

“Malfoy! Will you stop doing that!” Weasley raged at Draco in the common room later because clearly he had weasel rabies from that hovel he called a house.

“You are so right, Weasley, you should be more careful of your enormous feet,” Draco said agreeably, and used the leg-locker curse on him next time.

“MALFOY!” Weasley howled in the middle of the corridor, much to everyone’s alarm, and Draco cackled all the way to the Transfiguration classroom.

“You know, you’re losing Slytherin house points with your strange little feud,” Morag pointed out because she had a perverse need to kill Draco’s fun.

“Oh, hush. I’ll earn them back,” Draco said, and smirked when Weasley stomped into the classroom two minutes late, furiously red. For a kid who looked like an ugly Yule offspring with his red hair and green robes, he sure didn’t have a lot of cheer.

Professor McHarridan gave him a cold stare and took five points from him, and Weasley shot Draco a look full of hate. “I’m going to kill you, Malfoy,” he hissed under his breath as he threw himself into a seat like a lumbering bear.

“I’m shaking with terror,” Draco drawled. “How will I ever outwit the witless.”

fin (for now)

If it’s not obvious, I adore this dumb dork, ha ha. ❤

I also need to practise writing Slytherin!Ron from Ron’s point of view.

You know, I did say that I never want to build a story from disconnected snippets again but I guess even that is better than re-writing the beginning over and over until you can’t write it at all?

Prompt: Ubume

Yay, finally a yokai I could write about. Honestly, I had to skip so many of them that I feel bad.

Words: 689

∞

Ubume

Chizuru hated night shifts.

The desolate darkness outside turned the windows into opaque mirrors, the artificial lights harsh and overbright. Most of the customers were either shifty as hell or drunk, crawling back home from drinking parties. If she had one more old man tell her how much he’d like to see her servicing him in his house, she wouldn’t be held responsible for her actions.

At least it was raining, she thought, glancing at the ghost of herself in the window. It was flooding down, pattering hard on the roof like bullets. Chizuru doubted anyone was out in a weather like that.

She turned back to the manga she was boredly reading. The one good thing about night shifts, she supposed, was that the boss wasn’t there to get on her case for slacking off.

She flipped a page when she heard the automatic doors slide open. Chizuru started hastily upright. “Wel–“

Her voice died in her throat.

The girl who stepped in was drenched, her bare feet leaving wet grimy tracks on the floor. Her long hair was tangled, veiling half of her face, uncannily black against the white tint of her skin. Her dress was unclean, the hem ragged, clinging soddenly to the bone-thin curves of her body.

Chizuru watched her shuffle to the shelf of baby food, an inexplicable shiver crawling down her spine and settling uneasily in the pit of her stomach. Water was dripping off the girl, each drop sounding inordinately, disconcertingly loud in the shrinking confines of the store. Chizuru averted her eyes, unnerved, darting apprehensive glances at her. The girl picked up boxes of formula and Chizuru struggled against the instinct to bolt when she shuffled towards her, her every nerve screaming.

She stopped. Chizuru kept her head down, her eyes to the side.

“I need these,” the girl said in a hollow quiet voice as if it was coming from the bottom of a well.

“Ah, okay,” Chizuru said, her voice too thin. She checked out the boxes, her hands unsteady and nerveless. “That’s nine thousand yen.”

“Here you go,” the girl said in that same hollow quiet voice that screeched against Chizuru’s mind. The girl held out her hands, the tips of her fingers tinted blue.

Chizuru shuddered as she felt a pile of dead wet leaves drop into her hand. She stared at them with blank incomprehension for a moment. “Wait, you can’t pay with these,” she said without thought.

The girl stopped.

Slowly, she turned to look at her through the tangle of her black hair. Chizuru started, averting her eyes, and then gasped with debilitating pain as cold fingers clutched around her wrist, the touch burning like ice.

“Help me,” the girl said, and all the lights in the store began to flicker violently. In the flashes between darkness, Chizuru saw blood dripping down the inside of her thighs. “Help me,” the girl repeated, her fingers digging into bone.

Chizuru screamed, jerking backwards. She hit the shelves behind her, the items tumbling down to the floor in loud thuds.

She dropped into a crouch, hiding her head in her arms, her breaths quivering too fast and unstable. After a while, when she became aware of the silence, Chizuru tentatively peeked up. The items were still scattered on the floor around her. The formula and pile of dead leaves were still on the counter.

The girl was gone.

Chizuru eased herself up against the wall, her legs trembling and weak. She hissed as pain seared through her arm. She glanced down and saw the dark pink mark around her wrist, shaped exactly like five clutching fingers.

There was still water and blood on the floor behind the counter.

Chizuru closed the store early that night, leaving her resignation letter in her boss’ office. She never went near that store again, but two weeks later she saw in the news that the police had found a missing girl in a nearby house. The owner had kept her locked up for years. She’d died giving birth.

The child had been found dead too.

He’d been only two weeks old.

fin

I actually re-wrote bits of this for sharing purposes. But, I don’t know, I don’t really feel anything about my own writing? I think I need to get more creative with adjectives and the like. Even though I don’t consider Lovecraft’s tales horror, he did have a knack for describing the emotion of horror.

✧˖°.Positive thinking.°˖✧, though. At least these scribblings are slowly becoming longer? *checks* Well, they kind of average around 600 words so never mind.

But I am slowly accumulating possible cases for my japanese ghost detectives to investigate so I’m tagging this as writing progress anyway. Low self-esteem can’t stop me!

Also, disclaimer: I did check what baby formula would cost in Japan but I have no idea if this is legit information so take it with a grain of salt.

Free-writing: Draco

I’ve been feeling tired again lately and unmotivated, but I managed to free write Draco finally, that small massive dork. ❤ This one’s short but it turned out pretty cute so I thought I’d share here, ha ha. I guess it’s not that big of a deal but I don’t know about sharing these short scribblings at AO3?

Well. I mean, not that I’d get a whole lot of reactions here or there so I guess it doesn’t matter either way?

But ✧˖°.positive thinking.°˖✧. At least I got a bit more practice writing the Malfoys.

∞

“Harry Potter is said to be starting Hogwarts this year,” Lucius said.

Draco stared blankly at his father and thought about telling him that he was already eleven and thus he didn’t care about celebrities whose only dubious merit was not dying and getting scarred, and besides, he was already friends with Viktor Krum and Krum at least had wicked flying skills.

He started plotting ways to get Krum to transfer to Hogwarts and drawled somewhat distractedly, “Is that so?”

“It would be… beneficial to our family if you were to gain his acquaintance,” Lucius added.

This got Draco’s attention. His father rarely involved himself in Draco’s friendships or told him who to get acquainted with. Maybe there was more to this Harry Potter than disfiguring scars.

“Well, all right. I’ll see about if I can find him,” Draco said, and then he spotted Crabbe and Goyle, and forgot all about undead celebrities for the moment.

They boarded the train, and Lucius levitated their trunks to a compartment, and afterwards Draco leaned out of the window to say goodbye to his mother who looked forlorn that he had to go.

“Don’t worry, mother,” Draco said. “You raised me with impeccable manners. I will make everyone at Hogwarts my minions.”

Narcissa smiled fondly and leaned up to kiss Draco on the cheek before he could dodge. His cheeks went pink with embarrassment but he figured he could put up with her public displays of affection since his poor mother wasn’t used to him being gone.

“Have fun,” she said gracefully.

Personally Draco didn’t know how much fun he could have since his father had dismissed his brilliant plan to smuggle a racing broom to the school, but he was sure he could figure out something else. He had spotted Longbottom in the crowd before they’d boarded the train. He could bully him to pass the time. Just a bit. His reactions were always fun and Draco had earned a little compensation after Longbottom had dumped him like so much rubbish earlier that year.

“I’ll see you at Yule,” Draco said.

As the train started moving, he waved at his parents until they were gone.

fin (for now)

Not sure if anyone has noticed or cares but I was trying out posting once every other day. But then I realised that if I do it that way, it’ll take way too long. So I’ll just post whenever but I’ll try to limit myself to once a day so I won’t annoy anyone excessively. People can just toss the posts they don’t care about in the trash bin. Though, I’m sure people already do that which is kind of funny because I’m terrible at coming up with titles for these posts so I hope no one is missing out on the stuff they subscribed to me in the first place.

Also, since I’m practising ✧˖°.positive thinking.°˖✧ as well, I can tag this as writing progress, right?

Free-writing: Ron & Ginny snippet

I did some more free writing as exercise. I don’t know why these two dorks are so easy to free write for? But I can’t apply this to the fic I actually want to write for this pairing? It’s totally brain damage, isn’t it? Also, I’m not — really happy with Ron’s dialogue? But I guess it’s fine, making the characters mine~ and all that.

Maybe free writing these two dorks is so easy because — for all that Harry Potters are basically character-driven books because there is no plot and certainly no world-building to speak of — Rowling still didn’t do anything with any of them? So there is a lot to dig into?

I thought I’d share because, to be honest, these Ron & Ginny or Ron/Ginny snippets are whatever. No one reads or writes that ship — well, except me. And honestly, I’ve been feeling kind of misplaced and disconnected again lately so… maybe sharing this will help me back in the groove of things?

Never mind that those yokai prompt exercises have been going badly again but, like, weasels? Tanuki? Akaname? Amikiri? How am I supposed to write horror about any of those?

Also, I consider this platonic if a bit on the intense side? But this takes place post-Book Two so Ron’s feelings towards Ginny probably would be rather intense since, hey, his little sister almost died. Which ties back to what I mentioned above about Rowling not doing anything with any of these characters.

∞

“Ron!“

Ron started out of a doze when he heard Ginny’s scream. He jerked upright on the grass, his heart pounding wildly in his chest, and saw her standing in the shallows of the river, her face pale and her eyes wide with fear.

“Ron!” she called out again, her voice high and thin, and Ron was already up before he realised he’d moved, the water splashing as he rushed next to her.

“What? What’s the matter? Did you get hurt?” he asked urgently as he grasped her arm, ready to pull her away from whatever that’d scared her.

Ginny turned her body towards him and pointed at the pebbled shore, her arm shaking slightly. “Can you–” she asked, her voice gone very small, and it was then that Ron noticed the reddish-brown snake. It was basking in the sun, its head tilted up as if it was enjoying itself.

Ron huffed out a shaky breath, stupidly relieved that Ginny hadn’t got hurt. “Yeah,” he said. “Wait a second.”

He waded back to the shore and picked up the snake with practised ease. He carried it off and let it down in a nearby thicket where it couldn’t be seen, and then went back to Ginny.

She was standing exactly where he’d left her, still pale and shivering in the sun. “Better?” Ron asked and touched her arm, rubbing his hand up and down as if she was cold.

Ginny made a face, looking embarrassed. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s stupid, right? It’s not as if it even looked like the–” She stopped and lowered her head, looking down at the translucent water. She clutched her arms around herself, impossibly small.

She’d seemed fine on the train but ever since they’d got home, she’d been having worse nightmares than when they’d been little and seeing snakes made her panic.

Ron hesitated and licked his lips, thinking of what to say. “It’s not stupid. Hey,” he added, nudging her a little. “You always deal with the spiders for me, yeah? D’you think it’s stupid?”

They lived in the countryside and those creepy hairy fuckers found their way inside all the time. Ron could deal with the ones that straggled into sinks because he could just flush them down, but the ones in the rooms made him quickly step out. The twins just jeered about it and their mum was too busy to deal with them. Ginny giggled about it, too, but she always carried the spiders back outside for him.

Ginny frowned and darted a look up at him through her fringe, shaking her head. “No,” she said, a fierce stubborn undercurrent in her voice as though she’d fight anyone who thought that. “It’s not your fault. It’s not as if you can help it.”

Ron’s fingers twitched with the urge to brush her hair away from her eyes and he listened to that impulse without thought, inexpressibly awed and relieved and thankful that she was alive and breathing and whole. He didn’t think he’d ever forget those long, long hours after she’d been taken to the Chamber, the suffocating dread that she was dead. Ginny blinked, colour coming back to her cheeks.

“Yeah, it’s the same thing, isn’t it,” Ron said. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t mind.” He’d carry off all the snakes for the rest of his life if it meant Ginny was alive and okay.

Ginny looked up at him for a moment and then giggled, her arms finally relaxing. “Yeah. I guess that works. I’ll deal with spiders and you’ll deal with snakes.”

Ron glanced up at the sky. “Wanna head back? Mum must be ready with dinner by now and I’m starving.”

He swung his arm casually around her shoulders as she giggled again. “You’re always starving, Ron.”

“I’m a growing boy,” Ron pointed out.

“Yeah, and you sound like an old man when you complain about joint pains.”

“Hey, you try growing up inches at a time.” He glanced down at her. “Oh, wait.”

Ginny giggled and shoved him but left her arm comfortably around Ron’s waist. She kind of nudged her head against him and said, very quiet, “Thanks.”

And Ron just — He pulled her in closer and ducked down to press his mouth on the top of her head. It wasn’t quite a kiss because that was embarrassing, but she was alive. She was warm, and breathing, and giggling, and chattering his ear off, and Ron never again wanted to feel as if she could be anything else.

“Don’t mention it,” he murmured, his voice rough.

fin (for now)

I don’t know about sharing this on AO3 (yet) because I’m not sure if I want to add to this? Like, I really want to write a scene from Book Three where Ron gets absolutely mad at the twins for not using the stalker map to find Ginny in Book Two. I mean, that’s what he should’ve got mad about instead of lampshading what a Mary Sue Harry is for getting the map.

You know, I should try free writing Draco too.

Also, don’t try picking up snakes with bare hands at home.

Prompt: Jorogumo

It’s late and I need to go to sleep. Like, now. But I finally finished jorogumo and since I had such a hard time writing this, I figured I’d share (and make it everyone else’s problem too, ha ha). I say that with fondness. ❤

Since it is late, this is totally unedited. I’m not going to bother with this further. However… well, aside from the horror this is slightly more suggestive, I think? Like, sexual content suggestive? I blame the whore spider (or the bride spider if you want the euphemistic name).

Anyhow, here it is.

Words: 299

∞

Jorogumo

He saw her, leaning on the bar.

Her long black hair cascading like silk down her bare back. Her skin smooth and pale like jade.

She stood alone, men hovering in her peripheral, the most gentlemanly ones pretending not to stare. She tipped a shot back and then glanced over her shoulder as if sensing his stare, her eyes dark like acorns and her mouth painted red.

She smiled, slow like an unfolding flower, and Hibiki felt himself blush all the way down to his toes. He quickly looked away and caught the edge of her laugh from the corner of his eyes.

When he chanced a glance up, she was there, her smile like a crescent moon. The world around her blurred, the noise of the club becoming a meaningless murmur. Hibiki couldn’t remember a word she said, what they talked about. All he remembered was the light touch of her hand on his wrist, the low cadence of her voice.

He remembered the tilt of her head when she asked if he wanted to go to her place, the sway of her hips when she got up and walked away, and the jittery disbelief of his luck when he followed her.

He remembered the wet heat of her mouth when she straddled him in the taxi, the fleeting incredulity at the sprawling old house, which he forgot as soon as he stepped inside after her and she slipped out of her dress.

He didn’t remember the door closing behind him.

He remembered the strange furtive rustling in the ambient darkness and the cut of her shadow on the wall in the wan light of the moon.

The last thing Hibiki remembered was her seemingly crawling out of her human body and multiple flailing limbs reaching for him.

fin

Also, I’m sorry, Japan, but I referenced Chinese poetry in this. Well, I guess it’s fine since there are loads of Chinese influences in Japanese culture? Although I’m not exactly sure if they still like someone saying that even though it was a point of elitism in the earlier centuries? Particularly among buddhist monks.

I hope this came across even as a bit creepy.

Free-writing: Ron/Ginny snippet

I’ve been having some trouble with the next yokai entry which is kind of weird because it’s jorogumo. You’d think that a whore spider (its original name) that preys on unsuspecting men would be easy to write about but nope. So instead, I did some Ron/Ginny free-writing because the heart wants what it wants~, ha ha.

I don’t know why but Ron/Ginny is really easy to free-write? But this is not the case with the fic I actually want to write for that ship? Is it brain damage like I suspect? Or is this normal for everyone in artistic endeavours?

Anywho, I thought this turned out pretty cute but I’m not sure if I’ll ever manage to put this in a fic somewhere and I’d feel bad about letting it languish forgotten in my files. So I figured I’d share. And hey, who knows, maybe I might convert someone else into Ron/Ginny if I share my free-writing snippets! *totally delusional hope*

Also, I say Ron/Ginny but this happens right before Ron starts at Hogwarts so they’re eleven and ten respectively here. So no dubious shenanigans for these two. Besides, I do like writing platonic scenes more even if the feelings might be undefinably dubious. Which is what I find the most fun to write, to be honest.

∞

Ron stirred when he felt insistent, small hands nudge him. He groaned, frustrated, but shifted towards the wall and felt Ginny settle under the blanket next to him.

Ron rolled over and without opening his eyes he reached out and patted her head. “Did you have a nightmare?” he muttered half-asleep, the words slurring into each other.

Ginny must’ve understood because she nodded. She was quiet for a moment, and Ron felt himself slip in and out of sleep. He jolted more awake when she said, her voice small and choked, “I want to go to Hogwarts, too.”

Ron heard what she didn’t say. I don’t want you to go.

He dragged his eyes forcibly open, frowning at Ginny. Even in the ambient darkness, Ron could make out her miserable expression, the suspicious gleam in her eyes. He blinked and cleared his throat, trying to gather his sleep-frayed thoughts. “Hey,” Ron said, low and reassuring. “You can go next year.”

Ginny sniffled, and Ron’s heart constricted horribly. “I don’t want to stay here alone,” she said, finally honest, tears in her voice. “Everyone else has already gone to Hogwarts and now you’re going too, and I don’t want to be by myself for a whole year.”

Ron propped himself up on his elbow, the blanket rustling. “C’mon, Ginny,” he said, helpless and urgent. “I’m gonna write you loads of letters, okay. You won’t even notice I’m gone.”

“It’s not the same,” Ginny said tearfully, that stubborn undercurrent in her voice that Ron was intimately familiar with.

Ron reached out for her instinctively, and hesitated. He remembered mum saying that they were too old for this, they were both starting at Hogwarts soon, and then he thought fuck it. How was he supposed to just ignore her when her voice was wavering like that.

“C’mere,” he said, tugging her closer until Ginny burrowed her head into his chest, trembling with stifled sobs. He petted her hair with a lifelong habit and eventually she calmed down, going lax in his arms.

“Feeling better?” he asked, his voice low.

“No,” Ginny muttered, stubborn as ever.

Ron felt a ridiculous fondness fill his chest and briefly wondered if it was weird to think that he had the cutest little sister in the world.

After a moment Ginny went on haltingly, “Promise? About the letters?”

“Yeah,” Ron promised.

“Okay,” she said, and then shifted and moved around until she rested with her head over Ron’s heart, his pyjama top clutched in her hands. It was the same way she fell asleep after her nightmares.

Ron didn’t mind, already used to it.

The ghost of his mum’s words chased him into sleep, the strange, almost shameful admonishment that they were too old for this.

Ron ignored it. After all, he was going to start Hogwarts tomorrow and this was going to stop anyway.

fin (for now)

Post-Canon Horror Fic Draft, Part 1

So I’ve been free writing fan fiction lately because, well, why not? I get to practise writing and I get to practise writing Harry Potter characters for that rewrite AU. I’ve also been a bit lazy with the blog again so I figured I might as well share a snippet (and complain, ha ha). This is basically an idea for a post-canon horror fic I got after reading the last chapter of Book Seven.

∞

“I’m pregnant.”

Ron fumbled the mug. It clattered on the counter, spilling tea everywhere. He cursed loudly, and picked up his wand and vanished the mess.

He stared at the bustling muggle street out the window for a moment afterwards, over the green hedge skirting the house. Hermione had wanted to move here since it was closer to the Ministry of Magic. Ron hadn’t had the heart to tell her that he hated it.

Then he told himself to stop being a miserable coward and turned around.

Ginny was sitting at the kitchen isle, staring at nothing in particular. She held a mug of tea between her hands, looking exhausted in the wan light from the window.

Ron licked his lips and tried to come up with something, anything to say.

“Congrats,” he rasped after a pause. “A baby. That’s—”

His throat closed on the words.

It was a good thing, right? This was what he’d wanted for her? A real relationship. A real family. And Ginny was going to have it with Harry. His best friend. The Boy Who Lived. Twice, as it were. She could have everything she wanted with him. It was a good thing.

Ginny turned towards him, dark shadows beneath her eyes, the usually bright brown dull. Ron felt an ingrained, bone-deep urge to brush her hair behind her ear and comfort her. He clutched the counter behind his back, leaning on his hands.

Ginny stared at him wordlessly for a long moment and then she looked down into the mug of tea as if she couldn’t really see it. She huffed out a humourless laugh that made Ron’s chest ache. “I thought I should tell you first.”

Ron didn’t ask why.

He opened and closed his mouth, and then said the past the obstruction in his throat, “Ginny. Are you happy?”

She didn’t look happy. She looked like a ghost of herself, and Ron couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her smile.

Ginny didn’t answer.

“Are you? Happy?”

Ron thought of the house and furniture and appliances that Hermione had picked out, of being constantly surrounded by unfamiliar muggle things and muggles, of hardly seeing his family anymore or Hermione even though they lived together. The most company he had in his spare time was Crookshanks. He’d had to leave Pig at the Burrow because there was no way he could keep him in the middle of a muggle city.

He thought of Ginny, the way he did whenever his mind wandered.

Ron didn’t answer either.

—

“What’s this about, Neville?”

Neville looked up from the flotsam of papers as Harry stalked into his office, Ginny trailing in after him. He set the quill down, and picked up his wand with absent-minded habit and conjured a pot of tea and a plate of biscuits.

“Hey,” he said. “Thanks for coming so late.”

“You said it was serious.”

Neville waited until they were seated, his usually cheerful expression awkward. “Yeah. It’s about James and Lily. We’ve — heard some worrying rumours about them lately.”

“Rumours?” Harry asked, his voice flat, and Neville remembered he’d been a constant subject of rumours during their days at Hogwarts.

He hesitated and then told himself to just say it. Like kicking off with a broom. “A student says he caught them behind the greenhouses. Kissing.”

Harry and Ginny stared at him blankly for a moment, and then Ginny went alarmingly pale and Harry scowled. Neville reminded himself that he hadn’t been terrified when he’d faced down Voldemort and he wasn’t going to be terrified of Harry, the Boy Who Lived, either.

“That’s a lie,” Harry said, his voice dark with anger. “You really called us here for some nasty, malicious—”

“Harry,” Neville interrupted, serious and apologetic. “It was Albus. Albus told us that he caught them. I know he has his problems but I don’t think even he would go so far as to lie about something like this.”

“Albus,” Harry repeated, blank. “That’s—” He gave a short bark of a laugh. “James is her brother. Lily’s thirteen. There’s no way—” He stopped again, the strangest shadow of an expression crossing over his face.

Neville frowned, staring at him. He went on, slowly, “We figured it was best to separate them until you’ve talked to them. Lily’s in—”

Harry jerked up abruptly, the air around him crackling and flickering violently. His voice was cold when he demanded, “Where’s James?”

fin (for now)

The first part was easy enough to free write but then I got to that bit with Neville and all the free writing in the world died a swift, screeching death.

I’m not sure if I’ll share this on AO3 even if I finish writing this because, well, basically the idea is this post-canon horror fic about the consequences of Harry’s madness and obsession, with these characters’ flaws turned up to a hundred, told in achronological order.

Most people write and read fan fiction for self-indulgence but evidently, I’m not ready to be kind to these characters, ha ha. This might come off as out of character, too, but I don’t know, almost all the Harry Potter fics are ooc anyway so probably no one would care about that?

Prompt: Nekomata

(And bakeneko.)

I realised yesterday that I really hate my tags. ( ╥﹏╥ ) Like, there are so many of them. I don’t know what to do about it. And as a result, it honestly made me less interested in using this blog, ha ha. I guess I could just — stop using it because it’s not as if I’m obliged to and the initial reason why I got this in the first place has kind of lost its meaning? Also, the internet is a graveyard of defunct and missing blogs so what would one more be?

Hm… I guess I need to think about what to do. And if I ever want to start anew here or somewhere else, I guess I need to invest in a blog that’s better for showing off pictures. Because this layout doesn’t really work for that, I think.

Anyhow~ Here’s today’s prompt writing exercise. I actually ended up rather liking this one so I decided to share, ha ha. I think I’ll make this into a case too in that ghost detective story. And this time it’s even an originally evil yokai. Or well, since evil is kind of a loaded term that I don’t want to use lightly, let’s say “not human-friendly yokai”.

But recently I noticed that there are actually quite a lot of stories that tell about people investigating ghostly crimes. On the one hand, I suppose that’s good because it indicates that people are interested in reading them? But on the other hand, it’s like… can or will I stand out?

I — guess I’ll think about that when it comes time for that bridge?

But anyhoo, here’s a very short story about a creepy cat. ❤

Disclaimer: While writing this, I realised that Kiki from Kiki’s Delivery Service also had a black cat but the name was a total coincidence, ha ha.

Words: 541

∞

Nekomata

Kiki had always found the cat strange. As a kid, she’d thought it was scary, always staring from the shadows with its unblinking, blue eyes.

It had been her grandmother’s first. She’d always loved cats, and had got it from somewhere in her old age as a companion. Kiki could no longer remember the details or if her grandmother had even said anything at all.

She’d died six months ago, and Kiki had somehow ended up taking the cat in. Her flat was the only one that allowed pets. Not that it mattered. Two months after her grandmother’s funeral, her parents had died too. And then her cousins had started dying.

Kiki hadn’t understood and she’d tried going on in spite of the relentless, inexplicable tragedy and death. Then the gossip started, at work and around the neighbourhood. People whispering and whispering and whispering whenever she passed, avoiding her gaze and presence.

Cursed, they said. An omen of death.

It’d been six weeks since Kiki’d gone to work or outside.

She lived in her own flat like a ghost, her only company that cat. Every night as she went to sleep, it stared at her with its unblinking gaze, the shadow of its long tail splitting in two in the wan light of the moon coming in through the windows. It flicked and swayed somnolently, hypnotisingly, until Kiki fell asleep.

Every night, she had disturbing dreams.

She dreamed of shadows walking past her flat, beneath the flickering lights of the street lamps, familiar shapes slumping and shuffling. She dreamed of the faces of her family in the windows, rotting and decomposing. Sometimes she would wake up to loud, violent knocks at her door and she’d huddle under the blanket until they stopped.

At other times, when she hovered on the boundary of sleep and wakefulness, she thought she heard a voice in the flat. A furtive, unsettling voice that stopped as soon as she woke up fully. On those nights, she’d get up and go through the flat but the only thing she found was that cat. It would sit in front of the windows, staring outside intently.

Gradually, Kiki started thinking that there was something intelligent, something sinister in its gleaming blue eyes.

She thought about getting rid of it. Taking it to the doctor to be put down. Snapping its neck. Drowning it in the bath.

How old was it again?

Kiki stopped eating, and sleeping. She lay awake in the bed, staring at the iridescent flicker of its eyes in the darkness. The cat stared back, something maliciously amused in the ceaseless flicking of its tail, as if it could read her thoughts.

There was only so long she could resist the weight of sleep, her eyelids growing heavier until she simply lost consciousness.

She never woke up.

Not even when the cat jumped noiselessly off its perch on the sideboard and padded over to the bed. Its shadow on the wall grew, and grew, and grew and then its enormous jaw unhinged.

In the morning, the cat got up off the bed and went into the bathroom. The face of Kiki stared back at it from the mirror, her usually dark eyes now an eerie, gleaming blue.

fin

I usually don’t like making my tales very explicit so if some parts seem confusing, I suppose you’d need to know nekomata lore? Well, if anyone has questions, I will answer them.

It’s late and I’m too tired to proofread this so mistakes and all that, ha ha.

Hm… I don’t know, did I manage to make it sound creepy? I can never really tell with my own writing because it honestly doesn’t make me feel anything?

Prompt: Yamauba

Hee, for once I have good news that probably interests no one. I’ve been doing those “prompts” which are just me picking a japanese folklore creature from the yokai books I read last year and free writing it. A few days ago, the prompt was yamauba which are basically these mountain hags. They’re not necessarily evil since, according to some accounts, they might be similar to baba but I’m trying to do horror so horroresque it is.

Anyhow, as I was writing the prompt I started thinking, oh, I actually rather like how this is turning out. So I think I now have an idea for a case that my ghost detectives can investigate! I rewrote some bits of the prompt and figured I might as well post it here. So without further ado for those it might interest.

Words: 813

∞

Yamauba

Azuri was never going to forgive Kaneta for talking her into this.

The beam of her flashlight swept over the threadbare walls, stained dark with spreading patches of mould. Fallen leaves and bits of earth littered the gnarled floors, rustling inordinately loudly as she moved apprehensively further in.

“’Let’s do a test of courage, Azurin’,” she muttered under her breath, repeating what Kaneta had said to her. “’It’s going to be fun, Azurin’.”

She flinched when she felt a breath on the back of her neck and whirled around, her heart pounding sickeningly fast. The corridor behind her was empty, long veils of gossamer swaying soundlessly by the flashlight. Azuri exhaled, scrubbing her hand over the prickling on her nape. “It was just the draft,” she said to herself, and ignored the slight waver in her voice.

They were on a field trip in the mountains and the girls in her class had got the idea of doing a test of courage. It was just a thinly veiled excuse to have a date with the boys because what better way to start a young love than wandering around in the middle of the night in search of ghosts and abandoned huts. Azuri hadn’t been that excited about it, and she’d been even less excited about it when it’d turned out that they had an uneven number of boys and girls and she’d pulled the short end of the stick and had to do the test alone.

She should’ve just gone back to the room, Kaneta’s pleading expression and crush on Yukuri be damned.

The black holes in the shoji seemed to stare at her, the shapes of the shadows queer and sinister. Azuri kept flicking her flashlight at them, her breathing tense with increasing anxiety and fear. “Okay,” she said, her voice unconsciously low. “Okay. I think this is far enough. Time to go back.”

When something pattered quietly on the roof, she jumped and dropped the flashlight. It clattered to the floor loudly, the beam spinning over the time-worn walls. “Shit,” she said, picking it up with nerveless fingers. She listened for a moment and then let out an explosive breath, pressing the flashlight against her forehead. “It’s the rain, Azuri,” she told herself, and after a pause opened her eyes in alarm. “Wait. Rain?”

Azuri rushed back to the entrance and stopped on the engawa outside. The few drops she’d heard inside had turned into a torrent, sheets of water falling down the edge of the eaves, splashing the porch. Azuri stared into the blurred darkness despairingly; she could barely make out the trees looming over the hut, the long drooping branches scratching the roof and the walls.

“How am I supposed to get back like this?” she cried, dropping down into a crouch and putting her face in her hands.

Did anyone even wait for her or had they all run back inside?

The wind picked up, tearing through the trees and banging the branches against the hut. Azuri flinched, huddling more in on herself. She shivered, and then she thought she heard something. She looked up warily, the beam of her flashlight angled at the underside of the roof. Azuri listened, her head tilted. The rain was so loud, all other noises drowned beneath the relentless hammering.

She heard it again, muffled and distant, piercing through the night.

“…what is that?” she asked, haltingly. More noises followed, similar but different. Azuri was inordinately aware of her heartbeat, pounding with increasing unease. The thought hovered in her mind but she didn’t want to voice it.

The noises sounded a lot like screams.

Abruptly, they stopped as if cut off. The hair on the back of Azuri’s neck prickled, her body aching with unexplained tension. She clutched the flashlight, her knuckles white. She inhaled a quick sharp breath, and instinctively clicked the flashlight off.

She thought there was something moving in the dark.

Barely daring to breathe, Azuri strained her eyes. A shape seemed to move in the rain, a prowling void against the black outline of trees. It moved oddly, unevenly. It reminded her of Kimotsuki when she’d broken her leg. Azuri wasn’t aware of trembling, shivers wrecking through her.

She blinked, and the shape seemed to be gone.

Slowly, Azuri looked around. She couldn’t see anything except for the glint of rain by the flashlight and the swaying outline of trees.

“It’s okay,” she muttered. “It’s okay. It was just the wind. Or an animal. Or you’re delusional.”

She exhaled tremulously, her thumb hesitating over the flashlight’s button.

There was a sound behind her, negligibly small. A creak as if someone had stepped out on the engawa. Azuri stared ahead, petrified. A childish thought filled her mind that if she didn’t look, there would be nothing there.

The last thing she felt was cold, gnarled fingers sliding over her throat.

fin

Mostly this was a free writing exercise as well so mistakes and all that.

Can I tag this as writing progress if I haven’t actually written the progress yet? I guess it’s fine, positive thinking~.

Prompt: Yamabiko

Yesterday’s prompt was tengu but I didn’t post it because I did another Harry Potter chapter instead, ha ha. Well, it’s okay, it was even shorter than this one anyway.

These are actually kind of hard because most of these yokai aren’t evil. For example, yamabiko are this cross between a dog and a wild monkey. As far as I know, they are quite harmless. They like to mimic sounds and are said to be responsible for delayed echoes in the mountains. They do sometimes unleash terrible screams so there’s that, I guess.

But as I said, I’m practising for horror so… horroresque it is. This was actually rather fun to write because it went surprisingly smoothly. I wrote it just now because, as I said in yesterday’s post, I was away for the whole day (and I guess it’s good to practise writing at different times of the day since it’s not like I can always do it first thing in the morning). At first, I was going to skip this but since I’m trying to do better this year, I felt guilty about it and wrote this anyway before bed.

So here for those who might be interested.

Words: 459

∞

Yamabiko

As Fuyuka opened her eyes, pain throbbed through her whole body. She gasped, her ribs aching with it, her vision blackening for a few seconds.

When the world slowly came back to focus, she saw the wreckage of her car a little ways off. She must’ve crawled out and fainted.

Fuyuka breathed carefully, becoming aware of other details in incremental snippets. She was lying down on the ground, her cheek pressed against cold, wet leaves and dirt. Dark coniferous and deciduous trees loomed above her, swaying susurrously in the wind. A steep precipice cut a jagged outline against the far-off streetlamps on top. Fuyuka could just about make out a tear in the railing.

She had no idea what had driven her off the road, though. Or how she’d survived the fall.

Fuyuka risked moving, the pain making her quiver and sweat and pant raggedly. After what seemed like an indefinite amount of time, she collapsed against the trunk of one of the trees.

“Handphone,” she muttered, and clumsily fumbled her pockets until she found it. Her hands wouldn’t stop trembling.

A crack fractured the screen. Fuyuka kept pressing the power button futilely, her breath catching in her throat. It didn’t work. She let out a sob, pressing the phone against her forehead.

It was dark and chilly. The wind whispered in the trees and far away something cried. Fuyuka flinched, looking around the dense woods uneasily.

She heard it again. It sounded vaguely like a voice. Like someone calling hello.

“Hello?” Fuyuka tried, her voice hoarse and almost inaudible. She cleared her throat, gritted her teeth against the pain, and tried again. “Hello!”

She waited.

The voice came back after a pause, more distinct. “Hello — hello — hello,” it said.

She stared into the darkness. All she could see was the diminishing outline of trees. Her heart was pounding.

“Who’s there?” she called.

Another pause, and then her words came back to her. “Who’s there — there — there?”

She exhaled a harsh breath, disappointment and despair crushing in their suddenness. It was just her echo. There was no one there, no help close by. Fuyuka made a harsh sound and gingerly curled her arms around her legs, her forehead pressed to her knees.

But wait, she thought as she tried to ignore the pain pulsating through her body and head. Echoes didn’t take that long to come back…

…did they?

Fuyuka lifted her eyes. She imagined the shadows between the trees moved in ways that shadows shouldn’t. She opened her mouth, wavered, her voice catching in her throat. “Is someone there?” she called after a few tries.

It was quiet, pressing against her ears. Even the wind didn’t seem to breathe.

Then.

“Is someone there?”

It was right above her.

fin

And now I’m going to go to sleep. I’m not sure if I should ask for likes (a girl craves interactions on her silly writings, okay!) because I’m not sure how many people even read my blog? But if someone does leave a like then thank you. ❤ I hope this one was a fun read even if it is short.

Also, susurrously is probably not a real word but since English isn’t my mother language I can do whatever I want with it. *hides*

Hopefully, by doing these exercises I will eventually figure out crimes for my detectives to investigate.

Tonight’s Writing Exercise

Well, I recently wrote about 4,000 words of this Ron/Ginny fic (unfortunately, not the one I’ve been complaining about in other posts). Here: Dark Night of the Soul if anyone is interested. So I kind of optimistically thought that yay, maybe I’m finally getting over my writer’s block. But as it turns out it was probably just that Ron/Ginny fic because that little crack pairing has a surprising wealth of material to explore.

I tried starting that canon!AU today again but I just — I seriously can’t get past this first sentence:

Harry didn’t think he was in Surrey anymore.

So since that didn’t work out, I wrote this 200-word exercise about how Hogwarts would appear to muggles instead. It’s very influenced by Lovecraft because, as far as I’m concerned, Harry Potter is a horror story presented in the most vacuous way possible.

But here’s tonight’s writing exercise because I’m in a sharing mood.

∞

Hogwarts

The hills east of Dufftown have always been a bit queer. The heathered slopes are shrouded in perennial mists and preternatural shadows lurk in the deep woods to the southeast. A mountain rises on the shore of the twilit lake and when sunlight falls on the jagged cliffs in a particular way they conjure uncanny suggestions of handcrafted structures.

The locals shun the place. Most of the young folk have moved away, and the old folk whisper about voices in the foothills and odd lights up on the mountain at night and glimpses of nightmare shapes in the dark woods. They whisper about people going missing near the nemorous hills; many are never found but others turn up days, weeks, months later disoriented and confused.

People outside of Dufftown dismiss these as superstitious talk of rustic folk. For in their eyes, even the locals are a bit queer, dull and vacant-eyed. But even the rare traveller or a visitor who passes through the town doesn’t like to get too close to the hills or linger too long.

Whatever the truth, the hills to the east remain untrodden and the shadowed woods undisturbed. And if chilling howls shred the air on the nights when the moon hangs full in the sky, well, it’s likely just the wind.

fin

I posted this on AO3 too because it’s “finished”. Here: Hogwarts.

Honestly, I’ve been feeling so anxious and nervous about the new stuff that I’m starting on Monday that it’s probably affected my ability to write. Like, anxiety does not help with writer’s block!

Oh, but there was one thing that made me happy: someone bookmarked two of my original writing exercises that I’d posted on AO3, ha ha. Thank you, mystery bookmarker, even if I can’t thank you directly. ❤

Adventures of Trevor the Toad

Honestly speaking, I’m feeling a little depressed and other annoying things so I figured I’d share a snippet of something inconsequential I’ve been writing. I really want to write a short story starring Trevor the Toad from Harry Potter because I’m stupidly fond of that indomitable little toad and his zest for freedom and madcap adventures.

∞

Adventures of Trevor the Toad

The first time Trevor escaped he was just shy of five months old. He’d grown out of his tadpole phase three weeks ago and the witch manning the register that morning had forgotten to shut the lid when a new patch of kneazles had started making a racket.

Trevor looked up at the temptingly ajar lid and decided to take his chance at freedom and adventure like his ancestors before him. He climbed the vines along the wall and hopped out on the lid.

It was a pandemonium of creatures; softly rustling owls, twittering little birds of every colour, grooving rats, kittens and dogs in their cages, reptiles and snakes hanging on the trees in their terraria, and—

Trevor paused.

She was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.

She was a frog in the corner of the shop, beautifully blue with black spots and black eyes, the smallest and most delicate creature. She was bathing in her terrarium, basking under the light. Trevor had to get to her and maybe serenade her. He’d been practising his croaks a few times.

He peeked over the edge of his terrarium and then started making his way over terraria, cages, glass jars, boxes of food and shelves of toys. Trevor was just about to reach the tempting frog angel when huge pale hands snatched him up and he came face to face with the most appalling sight of his young life.

It was an old man with white tufts of hair growing out of his ears and over his eyes. He was looking at Trevor with a distressingly besotted expression and Trevor smacked him in the eye with his tongue out of sheer principle and self-preservation.

To his alarm, the old doddering human laughed in delight. “Look at this handsome fellow, Neville,” he said, and Trevor had to puff out his chest a little and preen at the word ‘handsome’. “I used to have one like it. What do you say about getting a toad?”

‘Neville’ was a young round-faced boy who looked like a bit of a wimp. But he was looking at Trevor with tentative joy so maybe Trevor could forgive such minor mistakes.

He felt less forgiving when the humans actually did buy him — along with a terrarium, decorations and a jar of delicious-looking beetles — and carried him out of the shop. Trevor struggled and squirmed in the Wimpy Boy’s hands, trying to get one last look at his beautiful blue frog, but then the door fell shut and Trevor experienced his first broken heart.

fin

For now. And this… will probably change a lot if I ever get it to the point of posting it.

Also, fun fact: apparently toads are philopatric, meaning that they return to the same breeding grounds where they spawned. So Trevor’s constant escape attempts are probably him just trying to get laid, ha ha.

Dead Exit

I thought I’d share another free writing exercise. Though, I wonder why my free writing exercises more often than not end up leaning towards horror? Is my subconscious trying to tell me something?

Disclaimer: All mine, mistakes included. English isn’t my mother language so I hope you’ll be lenient with me.

Words: 781

Theme: Exit sign, I guess?

∞

Dead Exit

It was late.

Cassia looked up, a shipwreck of papers and notes and open books around her. The clock gleamed on the far wall opposite of her, the hands at ten to twelve. She groaned, rubbing at her eyes. She’d stayed longer than she’d meant to and she looked about her, shifting the flotsam of research lethargically.

“Whatever,” she muttered, deciding that she’d clean it up some other time.

She stood up, picking up her notes and shoving them in her bag.

It was quiet in the library, the gaps between the massive bookshelves dark with shadows. Everyone else had already gone home but Scattergood, the janitor, had let her stay later than usual. Cassia had a deadline coming up and she’d promised him a week’s worth of pastries from the nearby shop that he liked.

She shouldered her bag and then glanced around one more time to check that she hadn’t missed anything important. The bookshelves stood, undisturbed, the dark wood gleaming in the ambient light. A lamp in another nook downstairs had been left on, the green-tinted light flickering. Cassia would have to mention that to Scattergood.

She sighed, flicked her own lamp off, and then made her way down from the balcony. She walked to the nook, her steps creaking on the varnished wood floor. She grasped the pull chain, and then glanced over her shoulder. It really was quiet, the statues between the shelves looking odd and unfamiliar in the near dark.

Cassia pulled the chain, the click inordinately loud. For a moment all she could see was vaguely shaped shadows in the ambient light from the large arched windows. She rummaged in her bag until her fingers closed around her phone. She took it out, turned on the flashlight and then headed for the back exit.

She walked down the steps, the sound echoing off the bare walls and floor. The exit sign glowed green in the black ahead.

Cassia walked towards it and then, after a while, she stopped. Unease prickled down her back, her insides knotted with apprehension.

The green glow wasn’t getting any closer.

It shone ahead alone in the blackness, almost mockingly.

She stood still, indecisively, her heart thumping loudly in her ears. She glanced back over her shoulder, darted another quick look at the green glow of the sign, and then slowly turned around. She walked towards the stairs, the back of her neck prickling. Cassia’s steps quickened unconsciously and then she was running, tripping up the steps, rushing through the door. She slammed it shut and leaned against it, breathing fast and shallow.

There was only silence behind it.

Cassia reached for the handle, her hand shaking. She opened the door slightly and peeked through the crack.

There was nothing there.

The exit sign was a green pinprick in the yawning blackness.

She shut the door again quickly and stood, shivering, until she caught her breath.

“What am I doing?” she muttered.

She adjusted the bag on her shoulder and headed for the front doors through the empty, dark corridors.

The light in the entrance was still on. Cassia crossed the lobby, feeling inordinately relieved. The glass on the doors reflected the interior until she got close enough to see the empty courtyard outside. The street ahead was empty, illuminated with sporadic streetlamps.

Her hand was on the handle, the small flick of the lock, when the light behind her flickered.

Every hair on Cassia’s body stood on end, unexplainable, primal fear climbing up from the pit of her stomach.

Without thought, she shoved through the door, slammed it shut, and stared. The pale light was glowing steadily in the entrance, the corridor beyond the lobby pitch black. Cassia huffed out a breath, putting her face in her hands. She felt stupid and paranoid, like a child who’d woken up in the middle of the night and thought everything was strange and off-kilter.

She dropped her hands, and paused.

There was a smudge of frost on the glass, expanding and contracting, on her eye level. As if something had pressed itself against the glass, staring right at her. The light was flickering idly on the ceiling and for one insane, indescribable moment Cassia thought she could see the outline of misplaced air in the blinks between light and dark.

Before she even thought about it, she was already running. Across the courtyard, down the street, until she couldn’t see the old university library anymore and she had to stop and breathe.

Cassia stayed at her sister’s place that night. She lay awake until the small hours of the night, imagining unexplained, mad things pressed against the windows and staring inside.

fin

Thanks for reading, if anyone did. ❤

The True Golden Rule

I — wasn’t sure what to do with this, to be honest. I wrote the first thousand words of this yesterday as a sort of free writing exercise and I guess it works as that exercise of taking a chapter from a book and writing it from another character’s point of view as well. I always wanted to try doing one but I never got an idea for it before now.

I wasn’t going to post this because it’s fan fiction as well as a writing exercise and I’m not sure if I will or can continue this. But on the other hand, leaving my stuff rotting in my files seems kind of silly too? I guess I’ll post it on AO3 if I ever finish this one?

So, the free writing exercise of the past two days! Warnings: completely unedited and this isn’t supposed to be all that serious, ha ha.

∞

The True Golden Rule

His mother asked if he was going to be fine by himself. Draco was already eleven and thus no longer needed his mother to accompany him, and said as much. Narcissa smiled indulgently and smoothed his hair in her light, pleasant way. Not that Draco appreciated these public displays of affection since he was practically twelve, but he supposed his mother needed the reassurance. She wasn’t used to leaving him off on his own.

“Of course,” Narcissa said, and left up the street while Draco went inside Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions.

He kind of regretted telling her that when he was standing still on the footstool and the doddering proprietor dressed in violent mauve was taking forever with his robes. The woman was utterly incompetent; how long could it even take to pin the proper length of his robes? And Draco was the only one in the shop and couldn’t while away time chatting with someone, and he certainly wasn’t going to chat with Madam Malkin who kept calling him my dear as if Draco was hers or a particularly slow-witted child.

So when the bell chimed and another boy stepped into the shop, Draco perked up immediately. He eyed the boy curiously through the mirror; he was dressed in odd muggle clothes that looked more like overgrown discoloured rags and he was wearing broken, taped glasses askew on his nose. He looked thin and unkempt, with messy black hair and shoes that Draco’s mother would never have let him wear.

He was obviously a muggle, Draco thought, and then reminded himself, Don’t assume! Lots of pureblood families had started wearing muggle fashion even though it was so — unrefined. Father always said that nothing good came from associating with muggleborns or muggles but, well, Draco’s father wasn’t always right and Draco wasn’t going to believe his words without seeing for himself first. After all, Uncle Severus was a magical genius and he was from a half-muggle family. He never really talked about it but it was obvious from his looks and behaviour.

The boy stood up on the footstool next to him and Draco decided on a neutral approach.

“Hullo,” he said, “Hogwarts too?”

The boy glanced at him askance, his expression a bit unpleasant for some reason. Maybe he was just nervous, Draco thought. He could get that, he tended to get offensive too when he got upset. Not that he got upset obviously, he added hastily. Because only little kids did that.

“Yes,” the boy said shortly.

“My father went to get my books and my mother’s up the street looking at wands,” Draco divulged. “I’m going to drag them off to look at racing brooms next.” I think, he added silently in his head but didn’t say aloud because it wouldn’t do to show weakness in front of strangers. Besides, Draco just had to convince his mother who would convince his father. “I don’t see why first-years can’t have their own. I think I’ll bully father into getting me one and I’ll smuggle it in somehow.”

He could already see it in his mind, too: everyone would be awed and ask him how he’d done it, and then he’d further impress them with his mad flying skills and become the first first-year seeker in a century. It’d be grand!

Draco blinked away this momentary daydream and then waited for a beat for the boy to divulge where his parents were but he just kept looking at Draco with that same faintly unpleasant expression.

When he didn’t come forth with anything, Draco asked, “Have you got your own broom?”

He didn’t really think so — even if the boy didn’t look obviously muggle, he looked poor — but again, he couldn’t just assume. That’s what all the Daily Prophet articles said too when writing about muggleborns and muggles. They’re just like us! they declared. You’d be surprised how much they actually know of the wizarding world! Maybe muggles had a second-hand broom shop; they certainly seemed to use brooms for sweeping the ground, funny enough.

“No,” said the Boy of Monosyllabic Replies.

“Play any quidditch at all?” Draco inquired, still reminding himself not to assume and judge.

“No,” said the Boy of Monosyllabic Replies, even more flatly than before.

Draco was momentarily stumped, trying to imagine what muggleborn kids even did for fun then. He waited for another beat to see if the boy would come forth with any hobbies of his own but when he didn’t Draco just went on by himself. No one could ever call him a quitter even if this was the most one-sided conversation he’d had with someone.

“I do — Father says it’s a crime if I’m not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree. Know what house you’ll be in yet?”

Surely the boy had to know that at least, right? They explained that in the Hogwarts letter, didn’t they?

Again, the only reply he got was a flat no. The boy’s expression was getting increasingly closed-off and unpleasant. Draco was forcibly reminded of how people looked at him when they heard his family name but he ignored the nasty feeling in his gut.

He curbed his increasing frustration and tried a different approach. “Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they,” he said, going for bracing reassurance. “I know I’ll be in Slytherin, though, all our family have been.” Draco was hit with a sudden anxious thought. “Imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I’d leave, wouldn’t you?”

Everyone knew Hufflepuff was the house of rejects, the ones who didn’t fit in any of the other houses. Even the Sorting Hat sang so — or so Draco had heard. He couldn’t even imagine getting publicly told that he didn’t fit in anywhere and being sorted into the house of leftovers. It sounded like the most humiliating thing ever but maybe Hufflepuffs were just masochists.

“Mmm,” the Boy of Monosyllabic Replies said, the most unenthusiastic and disinterested answer in the world. Forget about knowing anything about Draco’s world, he didn’t even seem interested in any of it.

Desperately Draco cast about for something to talk about that the boy had to respond to in more words than one. He noticed a gigantic stranger standing outside the front window, holding two cones of ice cream and grinning at someone inside — presumably the boy next to him. Because if he was grinning at Draco, he should have to get his parents or an auror as they’d instructed him about creepy strangers. Not that he should trust the aurors either, Lucius had added, which had seemed needlessly self-contradicting even if understandable in light of his father’s — er — history with law enforcement.

Somewhat relieved, Draco said, “I say, look at that man.” He nodded towards the window, eyeing the boy’s expression carefully out of the corner of his eyes and for once there was a hint of recognition and emotion in his face. Aha, he thought. Finally.

“That’s Hagrid,” the boy said. “He works at Hogwarts.”

Actual sentences! Draco cheered. He’d started to suspect that muggles didn’t teach their children rhetoric. Not that he was assuming. Think of Uncle Severus, he reminded himself. He had an eloquent way with words that Draco hoped to emulate someday.

“I’ve heard of him,” said Draco, pleased that they finally had some common ground to talk about. “He’s a sort of servant, isn’t he?”

“He’s the gamekeeper,” the boy said flatly, eyeing Draco as if he’d said something distasteful and rude.

Draco stared at him blankly for a moment and almost said, “That’s what I said, didn’t I?” Instead, he rummaged around in his mind for something else he’d heard about Hagrid. The adults sometimes talked about their time at Hogwarts during the soirées his parents hosted at the manor and he was pretty sure someone named Hagrid had featured in them — and then he remembered something he’d always thought sounded unbelievable and funny.

“I heard he’s a sort of savage—” Draco said in tones of scandalised interest “—lives in a hut in the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic and ends up setting fire to his bed.”

Most pureblood children got control of their magic by the time they were eleven. Draco couldn’t imagine this at all.

“I think he’s brilliant,” said the boy, utterly cold.

And that was it.

Draco tossed out all thoughts of Uncle Severus and those rubbish Daily Prophet articles from his mind and sneered right back. He didn’t get what was this rude brat’s problem.

“Do you?” he said, equally cold. He had the dark, private thought that if the brat liked that gamekeeper then Hagrid couldn’t be all that either. They were probably two uncivilised peas in a pod. “Why is he with you? Where are your parents?” he asked impatiently, thinking that he should have words with them about their brat’s utter lack of manners and upbringing. He was also thinking if this was one of those ‘stranger danger’ situations he’d vaguely heard about because why would this brat be walking about with a school gamekeeper of all people?

“They’re dead,” the Utterly Rude Brat said, sounding peculiarly cold and emotionless about it.

Draco blinked, momentarily at a loss for what to say. He couldn’t imagine sounding that blunt about the death of his parents. “Oh, sorry,” he said off-handedly for the lack of anything better. “But they were our kind, weren’t they?” he demanded because, dead parents or no, he wanted confirmation. Forget about not assuming, that was stupid anyway.

Besides, the war had been ten years ago. Everyone had dead parents. This kid wasn’t special.

“They were a witch and wizard, if that’s what you mean,” the kid said, which didn’t really answer Draco’s question.

Were they muggleborns? he thought. Half-bloods?

He couldn’t imagine any pureblood raising their children without any sort of manners but then, his father had mentioned people like the Weasleys who apparently had so many children they hadn’t had the time to discipline them all. “Vulgar riffraff” had been Lucius’s exact words, Draco thought.

“I really don’t think they should let the other sort in, do you? They’re just not the same, they’ve never been brought up to know our ways,” Draco goaded, trying to hint at what he thought of this brat’s manners and disinterest in his world that he was invading. “Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter, imagine,” he added, giving the brat a reproachful look down his nose even though he at least seemed to know what Hogwarts was if nothing else.

“I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families,” Draco finished off, repeating what Lucius usually said to people who were concerned with public respectability. At least then Draco wouldn’t have to deal with rude muggleborn strangers day in and day out. He narrowed his eyes. “What’s your surname anyway?”

He needed to know so he could avoid him at school and quite possibly judge his entire family while he was at it.

But before Draco could get his answer, Madam Slower Than a Geriatric Turtle rudely interrupted. “That’s you done, my dear.”

The brat hopped off the stool and went for the door without another word.

“Well, I’ll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose,” Draco called after him because he just — could not. His mother had raised him better than that even if her exact teachings had been, “Never be rude first, Draco. You’re above that. But make sure you finish it and break their nose if they ask for it”. Besides, if Draco didn’t get the last word, it’d bother him for the rest of the day.

He fumed silently in his thoughts for a while and when Madam Oh You’re Here Too Draco started fussing at the hem of his robes again, he snapped, “And would you hurry it up too?”

The woman had the audacity to give him an offended look and Draco scowled right back. “If you didn’t start serving other customers while still working on my robes, I’d already be out of here,” he pointed out acerbically.

“Well, aren’t you a pleasant young man,” Madam Never Heard of Customer Service said coolly and for a moment Draco considered kicking her in the knee but no, that was for vulgar riffraff. He settled on glaring at the woman so she would get a move on. He was surrounded by gits and incompetents!

His father did say that Diagon Alley wasn’t what it used to be. It was a disgrace.

The bell chimed again and this time a young girl stepped inside with an air of indifference. She, too, was dressed in muggle clothes even though her clothes looked much more expensive and refined. She noticed Madam Malkin, shifting her long dark auburn braid over her shoulder. “Good day,” she said, and even her diction sounded better than that brat’s. “I’m here for school robes.”

“Of course, my dear,” Madam Malkin said, seeming relieved to get away from Draco’s disapproving, demanding glare. “I have everything here — step right there and we’ll get you robes in a jiffy.”

“Wouldn’t that be the day,” Draco drawled just loud enough to be heard. Madam Malkin gave him a cool look and then slipped robes over the girl’s head.

Draco side-eyed her suspiciously. He wasn’t sure if he was all that interested in trying to talk with another muggleborn but at least this girl seemed more well-bred than that Utterly Rude Brat. Whatever, he decided. If this girl turned out to be rude as well, he’d just never talk to another muggleborn ever again. Except for Uncle Severus — even if he was a half-blood but it was practically the same thing anyway.

“Are you going to Hogwarts?” he drawled.

The girl glanced at him, her eyes dark like Uncle Severus’s. In spite of himself, Draco relaxed just a bit. “Unfortunately,” she said in a clear, distinct voice.

Draco gave her an inquisitive, mildly surprised look. “Father does always say that the place has gone to the dogs,” he declared, commiserating.

“I can see why. They really wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“Father wanted to send me to Durmstrang,” Draco offered.

“Durmstrang?” the girl inquired. Her expression was impassive but not hostile, and Draco didn’t mind so much.

“It’s another wizarding school in central Europe,” he supplied, slowly warming up to her. At least she knew how to string together sentences that consisted of more than one word, wasn’t inexplicably rude, and seemed interested in his world.

“I was going to go to Wimbledon High School,” the girl said in turn.

Draco had never heard of it. He frowned, feeling slightly dubious. “Is that a muggle school?”

“Yes.”

“You weren’t going to another wizarding school?” he asked, feeling rather perplexed. He’d always heard that muggleborns were excited about having magic — as if it was something to be excited about instead of something that just was.

“I didn’t really see why I should,” the girl stated. “I don’t need magic much, I should think. I prefer a more hands-on approach anyway.”

Draco frowned, unsure if he should feel insulted — because imagine saying that you didn’t need air — but instead curiosity won. “What do muggles even do in a school?”

“The usual, I imagine. Music, drama, sports, debate.”

Well, it didn’t sound so different, Draco supposed — except for drama. He found himself demanding, “What’s drama?”

She explained.

It — it sounded so interesting. Draco was going to have to do performances in the Slytherin common room. Crabbe and Goyle could help him. He could make them play props because Draco didn’t think they could read scripts, let alone memorise lines.

He was busy imagining all the glorious plays he could do when Madam Rude To Customers suddenly declared that he was done. Draco noted that she didn’t add my dear and gave her a haughty look down his nose. “It’s about time,” he declared and stepped off the footstool.

He regretted it immediately when he had to look up at the girl and his voice came out slightly tentative. Malfoys didn’t do tentative. “I’ll see you at Hogwarts then?”

“I imagine so,” the girl said, and Draco thought he could see her mouth quirk in a faint smile.

He left the shop and rushed up to his mother as soon as he saw her walking towards him in the crowd. “Mother, guess what! I think I made a new friend!” he drawled excitably, and then his expression crashed into a terrible scowl. “But first let me tell you about this horrible rude brat I met in the robe shop,” he said and launched into a rant, feeling much better when he could vent.

Narcissa listened indulgently and took his hand as they headed for the bookshop down the street to meet up with his father. Draco let her because his poor mother must’ve felt quite anxious in that horrible wand shop by herself.

Fin

For now~. I think this is my longest free writing exercise to date! Or does it still count as free writing if I do it over two days? Are there rules about it?

By the way, the girl is Lara Croft (the original and only). I will get those two in the same universe eventually even if it kills me, ha ha.

Can’t post this as original fiction and I kind of don’t want to put this in the Harry Potter category either. So I guess writing it is.

Free Writing Exercise

Today was an unproductive day so I thought I’d post another free writing exercise. It’s… not finished, really, because I don’t know what else to write for it. But hey, if literary estates can sell people’s unfinished, unpublished works then I can post them online for free. Also, since AO3 has a category for original works I was wondering if I should post my scribblings there too? Who knows, maybe I’d get feedback? Probably not, though.

*sighs*

Life is sad.

Free Writing Exercise (unfinished)

She keeps them in her box. Carved from unknown dark wood and nailed with iron, it rests locked inside the glass display case in the library. The servants don’t like it. They whisper about the sinister, furtive aura around the box or the way they believe they hear it rattle at odd hours of the night.

The butler has a habit of checking up on it as he goes about at night, extinguishing the last of the lights before he heads to bed himself. He peers at the box in its display case from the doorway, but it never moves nor makes so much as a sound. If the shadows seem to linger about it, he can’t rightfully say. The lights aren’t the most reliable in their ancient home and often play tricks on the weary.

The mistress often takes it out and sits at the massive desk as the moonlight falls queerly through the diagonal panes of the great window behind her. She always keeps the door closed, but the servants walking past swear they can hear her converse with it. And if they stop and listen, they think they can hear another voice answer.

Where she got the box from is a mystery. One day in December she unexpectedly left and just as unexpectedly came back one night in August eight months later. She shoved the box at a servant boy and told him not to damage it, she’d paid good money for it. He said the box was heavier than its size suggested, the dark polished wood strangely cold even in the humid heat of late August. There was another incident that the servant boy never told a soul but that had him resign a few weeks later.

The mistress, too, hasn’t quite been the same. She’s always been eccentric, prone to flights of fancy and collecting queer things from unremembered ages and places. But there’s something unwholesome about the way she moves these days, the mocking edge of her smile, and the way her eyes frequently appear darker than they should be.

fin (for now)

I actually rather liked how this one turned out which is why I’m posting it. I think it has that ~spookiness~ I’ve been trying to tap into so maybe my exercises are finally paying off? Ha ha, until I try to write something else probably.

Writing Exercises, Part 2

(It’s actually my third post with the same name but let’s ignore that~.)

As it turned out, I did manage to write a continuation to my very first free writing exercise. Here, if anyone is interested. Maybe I’ll even manage to turn it into a Harry Potter horror fic. Harry Potter does, in fact, lend itself well to horror if you write the things as they are instead of “they’re funny and inconsequential until the Bad People^TM do them”.

But first, I’ll ramble about the exercises a bit. I started doing them in January this year as a way to get over my writer’s block. I have written more consistently these past two months than I have in… the past several years. I have written these Harry Potter chapter codas as I’ve been re-reading the books, but that was very sporadic and in fact I haven’t written another chapter coda since December. So evidently they weren’t exactly the best way to exercise my dubious creative talents.

Buuuut I also think that these exercises are making me a bit complacent. I usually try to write at least 100 words every morning even if they’re totally disconnected gibberish, but sometimes as soon as I hit that 100 words mark I’m like “Okay! And I’m done!” and don’t do anything else for the rest of the day. It’s good to have regular hours even in creative endeavours, I think? But it would be nice to get to the stage where I can maybe write those 100 words per morning for one of the longer projects I want to write. (Or finish Incandescent Snow even if it’s “just” fan fiction.)

I also feel like I’m sometimes doing these free writing exercises wrong. For example, I was writing this Japanese yokai thing as a free writing exercise the other day but I had to stop every three words to check something up. I’m fairishly certain I’m not supposed to do that?

Well, it’s an uphill struggle, I guess.

Free Writing Exercise, Part 2

It was a coincidence that Halifax saw him at all.

He’d been just about to leave for the night, saying goodbye to Thaxter the receptionist, and there he was. He looked about uncertainly, a man of thirty years or so, lean stature, light hair and blue eyes. Handsome in an understated way. His eyes happened on Halifax and he approached, eyebrows furrowed.

“Good evening,” he said, his voice unassuming. “I need to talk to the police, I think.”

Halifax raised his eyebrows but he took him to a private room. Under the artificial light, he noticed the pallor of his face and the tightness around the corners of his eyes.

“What’s this about?”

“Ah, yes, I–” the man started and crossed his hands on the table, knuckles white. Before he could go on, the door opened again and Thaxter stepped in, a cup of tea in her hands. She gave it to the man with a sympathetic smile. He thanked her and she padded out again, closing the door with a quiet click.

The man clenched the cup between his hands. His gaze kept wandering, darting over his shoulder. “This is going to sound mad. And who knows, perhaps I have gone mad.” He paused suddenly, seeming startled. “But I forgot to introduce myself. Peter Leghorn. Thank you for meeting me.”

Halifax nodded. “Basil Halifax.” They shook hands. “Why won’t you start from the beginning, Mr Leghorn?”

“Yes, well — I married my wife, Margaret, when I was twenty-two. I’d dated her since we were thirteen. I’m thirty-four now so I’ve known her for over twenty years.”

Halifax kept his face impassive, wondering where this was going.

“I want you to understand, Mr Halifax, that there is not a person in this world whom I know as well as her.” Abruptly Leghorn leaned forward, something wild and terrified in his eyes. “I don’t think she’s the woman I married any more,” he said, hushed and desperate, and then stilled with the horror of someone who’d felt the truth of his words.

Halifax frowned, slowly. “What do you mean?”

Leghorn leaned back, dragging the back of his hand over his mouth. “It’s — her expressions, her voice, her tics, her personality, everything that makes a person besides looks. It’s as if — as if the nerves, muscles and bones don’t quite fit the, the thing wearing Margaret’s skin.”

Skin.

Incongruously Halifax’s mind flashed back to the body they’d found two weeks ago, now stored in the morgue. She’d been missing her skin, as well as her organs, eyes, nails, teeth and hair. Suddenly alert with unexplained instinct, he straightened up. “When would you say this — change started?”

Without hesitation Leghorn answered: “Three weeks ago.”

Around the time of death of the unidentified body.

“It’s not — She still has her memories,” Leghorn went on, an undercurrent of latent panic in his voice. “But there’s just something off. The way she talks about them sounds like someone reciting something they’ve memorised. And looking at her repulses me.” He looked up, his eyes wide and shining as if willing Halifax to believe him. “I’ve never felt that about Margaret. Not ever.”

He stopped, placing his face in his shaking hands.

“Listen, Mr Leghorn, do you have a place where you can go for a while? I don’t think you should go home for now.” Whether the man was mad or not didn’t matter, the situation nevertheless sounded like a domestic murder ready to happen.

“Yes, yes,” Leghorn said, nodding jerkily. “I meant to do that anyway. I told her I’d be going on a business trip.”

“Good. Get some rest. Meanwhile, I’ll go talk to your wife.” Halifax couldn’t exactly put it on file; he didn’t think there was a way to explain that he suspected someone, something had harvested the unidentified body to live her life.

“So you believe me?” Leghorn asked, sounding relieved.

Halifax regarded him for a moment. “We’ll see. I’ll let you know if I find out anything.”

fin

And that’s part 2!

If I turn it into a Harry Potter horror fic then spoilers: it’s the polyjuice potion. You see, little miss Merope was using a love potion to snag herself a helpless muggle man. So the way I see it if some stalker wizard or witch really wants a committed woman or man (and hey, single works too), they’ll either use the love potion or the polyjuice potion. You might wonder about the ingredients but from what I know the ingredients aren’t particularly rare and there’s quite a lot of human hair on the body. And apparently the potion doesn’t even necessarily need human hair.

But anyway, I don’t know yet what I’m going to do with this, ha ha. It’s just a free writing exercise after all.

Also! I tried to make it creepy but… maybe it’s because I don’t feel anything about my own writing but I don’t think I managed? I need to practise my mastery of the English language.