an arrogant berk

Mon, 03 Nov 2003 05:01:14 GMT

title: i was knocked over by mental blows
author: jackie
couple: Gen
notes: My tenses are bad. So is my crazy person speech.

---

Sirius hates the way everything all seems to move without him knowing it. Things at home would move, enchanted little objects that look sick, disgusting, torrid, what would father want with that? To make it all worse, of course, it has to move, too. Like when he was five, he saw a hand crawl along by it's fingers, past the dinner table as the family would eat quietly. Mother would raise the food to her lips without a sidelong glance to the severed limb that made it's way past the firmament and Regulus would notice and try to kick at it-useless, his feet didn't even touch the floor yet. Father would glance up from his drink and say something like Kreacher, put that back on the mantelpiece. And fetch Pascale some tea. Honey. She would nod and dab the lips that were so red they were either charmed that way or bled to that hue. And Sirius would just gape as if he was the only one seeing it.

He seemed to be so, the only one in Grimmauld Place that couldn't sit still, had to be fighting invisible battles and running imaginary mararthons. Sirius was the only one seeing the wallpaper twitch, repetitive and dark- who sleeps in rooms framed in red strings of patterns that go on into infinity? The patterns that would move and peel and decay like everything else around him. The stairs would hiss and creak under his feet and grabbing the railing just made it so much worse, more noise, more cracks and tears in the foundation around him. It made him want to rip out his fingernails and peel off his hair.

It was why he left, the moving, the constant string of motion that swirled around a house covered in black and red and everything made of silver (Remus could never visit). The constant need to fight whatever it was that made him want to jump through windows and spill out onto the street and run as far as he could. And he ran and stayed with James. Where everything was fireplaces and meals at circular tables and parents that were charmingly loony, quirky, and Sirius loved them as much as he loved. But everything still moved thoguh, faintly, beneath the surface. There was a tug at his stomach when it all got too quiet and Sirius knew he hadn't escaped Grimmauld Place just yet. He still had battles to fight, distances to run.

That was before he got his own flat and left James' house that had carpet, not cold stone. The November after graduation marked when the great Potter manor held His mark and James cursed and screamed that they were dead, He killed my parents, He did this to me, take it back, Sirius, bring them back. Sirius hated how everything moved. Everything changed places and that house with walls of simple colors-not red patterns-had Potter blood running along them and crystal-not silver-was shattered all along carpet-not stone. They had moved forward, James and him, to the Order. It semed like such a good idea at the time, until there was Lily and baby Harry and fighting the good fight moved too fast for a family man and Sirius always felt like he was leaving James behind. He had to stop moving, stop spinning, let everyone catch up. He couldn't do it forever, the stop and go game.

Everything was moving, constantly changing, turning under his feet, under his hands. It was like being at home again, the walls moving, floor spinning, faces appearing just at his blind spot, he could feel eyes on him but no matter how often he turned himself it all moved faster than he could. Someone was spying on them, on James and shit, if it was someone of the Order he'd tear their head off their body-he wouldn't want to he'd have to. October marked when how could it be Peter, what was I think I ruined everything, and how He had killed my best mate, He killed Lily and James and it's only right I take the fall for them.

Nothing moved in Azkaban. Nothing lived under his fingertips, the soles of his bare feet, so nothing could respond. There were no patterns, no solid colors-color didn't exist there, but that helped keep it simple. Even when it was quiet(what are you talking about, it was always quiet?) there was still a solid ground and four walls around him. Nothing moved when locked in boxes. He hated it and loved it's stillness all at the same time.

And Sirius longs for that, lying in wait at Grimmauld once again, fourteen years later. Feeling as if here, here was what drove him crazy, where he lost his mind and the wizarding prison was the only place that had done him any good.

turned is a very interesting word ://

Sun, 20 Jul 2003 02:59:36 GMT

title: and the ground shuddered with you
author: jackie-o
rating: PG
pairing: Mild, mild Will/Jack
disclaimer: arr. i be stealing your movie, ye land-lubber Dis'. .. That was bad, I'm sorry. :/
notes: Now, if this drabble was written in more a Jack focus or POV, the madness of early morning running on no previous sleep might've worked well. But! Some of us have Pirate costumes for Comic-Con to dwell on.

There were flickers. Like a candle under the salt breeze, ducking out to a blue blaze along the wick before they would appear again, just at the more inopportune moment. To barely throw their light over the surface around them, uncertain and faint, easy to hide at the threat of being swiped away. The memories were tricky like that, because he didn't want to think them-no one in their right mind would wish to dwell on the minds of someone in their own wrong state of mind. But whenever he went to drown them under other thoughts, under other memories, the rock of the ships on the sea faded to a dull turn underneath him before disappearing completely, in hopes of preserving the feeling to another time, unexpected.

He went mad with heat and hunger from the marooning-though Elizabeth snorts at that over her needle work but won't tell him why. Will never liked secrets, he liked all his information clearly presented with anything short of picture diagrams and detailed maps. And it was once, at a time before pirates fell into a gray area and the only blemish on his record was throwing rocks through a window. But then he returned to his shop with misplaced tools and a shady looking hat upon them and Jack Sparrow seemed to ruin and repair everything he touched. Every bit and piece he placed his dirty hands upon turned to ashes and molded to gold and Will wasn't sure whether to hate him for it or respect it-clearly from only a blacksmith's point of view.

When Jack Sparrow arrived-captain or none need it be-he took the liberty of taking the neat box Will stored his memories in and threw it clear overboard the whole ruddy boat. He spoke above the row of the sea in a perpetually drunken lilt that everything Will placed hold on, what he had held dozens of accords upon, his own word and honor were all faulty. He wasn't William Turner, blacksmith, son of a merchant William Turner. He was William Turner, blacksmith-turned-criminal-turned-first-mate-turned-criminal-again, son of a pirate William Turner. It made him far more seasick that the ship's movements, though those didn't settle well with him at first either. He assured himself that in time, it would all settle out like his stomach, that the memories didn't really change who he was, because he was always William Turner at least. It was just the fact that no matter how far inland he would get, from there on William Turner-first and second-would still be associated with the mad captian-if only just between them.

Jack was filthy and crazy and evil and wrong, but for the time that ached on like moons when he sailed as a lone duo but rang short looking back, he needed Will. An often inebriated and incomprehensible state of need for a second pair of hands and the occasional comment that Jack was a "barking lunatic" because everyone needed to be reminded of their strong points now and then. With no one else on board there was no one else to call upon but Will-who grew often uncomfortable the way the other man seemed to leer, like he had his Boot-Strap back, alive again. It hadn't been an entirely bad feeling, recalling it reluctantly, but more than mildly unsettling at the time, to be needed by an insane marauder.

And when it seemed the steady ground beneath his feet rolled and rocked like the tossing of the decks upon water, the flickering sort of memory of needing him back resurfaced and bobbed through Will's subconscious at all the most inopportune times.

that's why i fired your secretary

Mon, 23 Jun 2003 22:12:02 GMT

title: Abhorrence
author: jackie
couple: None (mild S/R, S/J for those desperatly in need :/)
notes: set after the dinner conversation w/Harry about the order of pheonix.

---------

"Do you believe what she said?" Pausing with his duvet, he cast the other man a swift glance through a sheet of black hair. Lupin glanced back at him through the reflection in the dressing mirror.

"What said by whom?" He replied mildly, before dropping his gaze back to the messy fingerprints on the pane of glass.

"Molly." Sirius snapped irritably before given the rest of the explanation in a quick flood of words so strung together Remus had to strain to find it coherent. "Saying I act like- what? Harry is James? I know who he is! You know that I know that!" His frustration was further intensified by Lupin's lack of expression- from what Sirius could tell through the wizard's reflection in the mirror as his back was to Sirius. Angrily, he pushed his eyes back to the sheets, so pristine and untarnished by lack of use and preserved time under a filthy comforter.

He only spoke when he was sure his voice was ring with the confidence he was used to.

"I know James is dead." He got the distinct impression Remus wasn't listening anymore, that he was only convincing himself- which Sirius thought was most unnecessary and frankly, ridiculous. Yet Lupin still wore no other expression, bent down to examine the smudges on the dresser mirror, long fingers grazing over fingerprints long since worn into the glass.

Sirius suddenly hated Remus' attention to detail, to every minuscule clue- and his lack of feeling towards the larger picture, to actual people. He had become hardened and colder towards things from his old life in the time Sirius had spent in Azkaban. He couldn't understand it at first, for Lupin was always distant but never cold like this, like he too had been in Azkaban and lost something, though his eyes still retained the same amber fire from their youth. But since Godric's Hollow, something had been stripped from his face, from his emotions and Sirius hated that with almost the same flood of hatred he felt towards passing rats. He never could stand how werewolves 'needed' to be, or how his werewolf had sculpted it's self. He didn't like walls unless he was scaling them, he didn't like barriers unless he was breaking him, and he didn't like mates unless she spoke to him. James always talked. Sirius' heartbeat pounded in his ears.

"I'm leaving tonight." Remus spoke idly about his departure as if commenting on the layers of dust over the antique rug or the cobwebs on the dark patterned walls. Unlike his miserable childhood home's state of disarray, this piece of news did not please Sirius.

"Why?" He asked questions to which he already knew the answers.

"Order work." He also knew that Remus didn't mean for the comment to sound so much like Snape's condescending remarks about his own worth and work- but it didn't stop Sirius from hearing it that way.

"Then go." He glowered at his friend's back, which straightened sharply as it he knew he was under such a survey. Judging from the amber eyes watching him through the hazed glass, Remus probably did.

With a sigh he gathered his robes from a nearby chair and started to slip them on as Sirius crawled under the sheets far too clean for him. He tried to ignore, in turn, Remus' eyes on him as he struggled to compress a pillow that was still too downy for his tastes.

"I understand, you know." Remus most likely understood the derisive snort that came from the huddle on the bed- but more unlikely appreciated it. He wearily continued, shifting the books and parchments he'd gathered in his arms. "I understand that you need time to ... sort out losing him. James."

Sirius hated how Lupin had taken to following the others in their choosing of vague, unobtrusive terms to keep from 'upsetting' him. He also just wanted to throttle the werewolf at how the name of their unspoken Marauder leader so seldom passed through Remus' lips. He had once questioned the other man about it and was thoroughly upset by the answer that James was 'only a part of the old war' and it was 'best not to bring his memory into this mess'. He hated people treating this war like a new and different experience from what was had happened fourteen year prior, as if what James and all the other wizards had done for them now meant nothing with the peacetime the civilians had. But what he especially disliked was Lupin's constant, almost nagging assumptions on how he felt. As barren as his emotions had become, Lupin hadn't gone to Azkaban with him. He could never understand.

"I spent thirteen years in prison," He muttered dryly as he pushed himself up on his elbows, "I found time to 'sort out' what happened at Godric's Hollow." He met eyes with Remus and felt his righteous anger falter as he saw the pained expression fall over his brilliantly colored eyes. He could still feel the pain of words, no matter how far pushed back to actual memory could be. Sirius' felt his anger flare up again as the eyes turned away. "Look at me."

"They're dead." He knew, no matter what the context of the conversation, when Lupin met eyes and said the two same words in that strained, far-away sort of voice, he knew he was referring to the deadened look in Sirius' own eyes.

"That happens." He tried to keep his voice in a quietly commanding tone, as if to force Lupin's eyes back to him. "Anyway, if you're going to act like a child, you should just go now." It was low blow to get Remus' eyes to snap back to him, he knew that as he pulled the blankets up over his head. He had long since learned that werewolf tendencies tend to make bitten children grow up emotionally quicker than most- and the last thing they wanted was to still be thought of as only cubs. Catching Sirius' dark grin from under his mess of dark hair, Remus's own anger flew up as he hissed back to him.

"That's what you were busy with then? Instead of accepting the death of your best friend?" It was more of a blow than a question and Sirius, sitting up with a start, wanted so desperately for Lupin to have only hit him instead. He hated fighting with Remus almost as much as he hated the other man when they quarreled. Sirius gave the mattress a strong punch rather than hitting the other man, dropping his eyes to the sheets and shaking slight under them in anger. He punched it twice-three times- in a sort of desperate attempt to relieve the stress and frustration that he assumed was bottled up somewhere just beyond his knuckles, as it made his fingers twitch.

Striking the bed for the ninth time, the bed springs groaned in a harsh disagreement and Sirius ceased his attack. His fist slowly uncurled and the hand found it's way to let his forehead rest against it, shakily. His dark hair spilled over and around his fingertips, just barely brushing over his collarbone as he drew slow, ragged breaths to steady himself.

"It wouldn't be like this if he hadn't died." He mumbled hoarsely, tentatively brushing aside some askew locks. Lupin started to speak before a sharp look from Sirius told him he had nothing to say. He sighed slightly and droped his glance as he finished clasping the rusted hook over his cloak and stopped just at the bedroom door.

"You can't use Harry as James' replacement." Sirius felt his fingers curl into fists again, his voice far beyond steady.

"Get out."

"You can't get him back. I tried- He's Harry, not James- A different person- Sirius!" Remus struggled to speak above his friend's shouts, Sirius' sallow features drawn up in fury as he fumbled along the beside table.

"GET OUT!" He grabbed the closest thing he could find, a small antique box clock with fingers for it's hands. Throwing it roughly, he reveled in the brief satisfaction the smash produced from clock meeting slammed door. At the crash, however, Mrs. Black started up again, raving and screaming waking up the other half of the house her son hadn't waken up himself. Sirius threw himself down under the blankets again and pressed his ears over his head and, very commonly, thought again of dying in Godric's Hollow.

he had bravery that had long since become foolishness

Mon, 28 Apr 2003 22:25:36 GMT

I'm so infatuated with the long version of that quote. :: Points to title. :: If I ever type up the big ol' Remier backstory thing, I'll be happy to see it in it's etirety in type.

anyway! >/ I dislike hp100, but am I addicted. It gives me good dieas that I must BUTCHER to fit into 100 words, as you can see from the following.

I miss Ced. :/

Title: Like When Your Heart Skipped a Beat
House: Hufflepuff.
Word Count: 100 Exactly.
Character(s): Remus Lupin, Sirius Black.
___________

Remus only waited. The "werewolves don't go to Hogwarts!" that would bellow following the placing of the Sorting Hat. He felt it brush the tips of his hair.

"Gryffindor!" Startled, Remus stepped down towards the table, so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn't notice the pair of eyes watching him.

"Well," he glanced to the boy that, through a mess of tousled black fringe, had a rugged sort of canine look to him, "That didn’t take long." Remus took a seat and managed a smile back to the toothy grin, knowing suddenly and strangely that he was home.

is to be expelled

Tue, 15 Apr 2003 12:45:00 GMT

Another entry for hp100. This challenge was what would your character's Patronus be and eee.. ^^; I got my Cedric muse back. Think it was all in light of new Y!M sn, though I wouldn't mind getting myself another name. Had a very clever idea last night, but can't remember anymore. :// Er. Drabble.

Title: Never Seen a Dementor Stumble
House: Hufflepuff- we won’t lose!! >:O
Word Count: 100 Exactly.
Character(s): Cedric Diggory
_____________
Cedric rarely considered himself as a fast thinker, especially under crisis, but he was finding the idea of Dumbledore allowing a Dementor onto school grounds fairly ridiculous, even for the Third Task.

But that was inconsequential now- Or whatever the word was. He knew he had to act quickly. Looking back on it-in the brief time he had left-Cedric was quite pleased that he’d chosen his happiest memory of all.

The tongue of flame shot high into the air, and from it's tip Dumbledore pulled the third piece of parchment.

"The Hogwarts champion," he called, "is Cedric Diggory!"

at the top of my life, i'm giving it back

Mon, 14 Apr 2003 03:14:28 GMT

Drabble written for hp100's "Dead Letter Challenge". :// I tried to write for Cedric, but the Hufflepuff in me failed. .. I don't like having an inner TMR. Though it's nice to know deep down am I EVER so sexay.

Title: Worry Bears You No Fruit
House: Hufflepuff
Word Count: 100 exactly
Note: .. Hypothetical death will get my entry axed, won't it?
_______________

Dearest Professor Dumbledore,

I'm sure you must count your blessings, having such a 'troublemaker' leave your academy. Rather, most other professors became a bit teary eyed when I left them, so does it strike you odd to be amongst the minority? I have graduated from Hogwarts with honors, with the potential to became as great or-as you assumed it-terrible.

But nothing great or terrible will come from my name, professor. The name I believe you spent nights pacing over what I might become.

Don’t worry, Professor Dumbledore. Nothing will come from a dead name, I promise you.

-Tom Marvolo Riddle