Harry Potter 1. Death

**Challenge:** The Eclectic Bookworms' _19,000 Prompt Challenge _on HPFC; Cheeky Slytherin Lass's _Fanfiction Scavenger Hunt Competition_ on HPFC.

**Characters:** Ginny Weasley

**Prompt:** Death; 38. A oneshot collection of 5 (each over 500 words)

**Word count:** 1,239

* * *

_**Death: n. **1__.1 The state of __being dead: _'even in death,  
she was beautiful'. _  
1.4 The destruction or permanent end of something: _'the  
death of her hopes'.

* * *

Ginny had never quite worked out how to deal with death.

When she was six, her Great Uncle Billius, Fred and George's favourite relative, passed away. He had been losing his mind, the adults whispered when they thought she couldn't hear; he had said that he'd seen the Grim,, so obviously he was completely and totally barmy. Really, they said, it was a mercy that he'd slipped away.

So, to six year old Ginny Weasley, being dead was mercy. She didn't know what 'mercy' was, though, not then, not exactly. She had a vague concept of the word as being neither good nor bad; it was just a term that expressed something that should be. A concept, as she saw it, that existed and should exist, if her mum spoke of it so highly, but didn't really matter right now in her life.

* * *

She started Hogwarts five years later, her eccentric, insane uncle's death a ghost in the back of her mind, a memory on the wind. The school became her second exposure to death. There were ghosts everywhere, hovering in the halls, floating through walls and hanging around.

The Fat Friar, Hufflepuffs' house ghost, was the only cheerful one. Oh, Nearly Headless Nick tried, but in the end he was depressed and unpretentious, and he couldn't feign happiness. The Bloody Baron was creepy, covered in shining silver blood, and almost never spoke. The Gray Lady was even more silent: dignified, graceful and constantly mournful.

Moaning Myrtle was the worst, though. She was loud in her misery. It was in her bathroom, where almost no one dared to go, that Ginny met death first-hand.

Tom Riddle's diary fell into her hands inside an old book with pages more worn than the floorboards at the Burrow. The book itself, an old Transfiguration spellbook, was of no real interest to her at all. Upset and mourning a relationship that didn't exist and probably, in her mind, never would, she started to write.

She never expected that Tom Riddle would write back.

She continued to write throughout the year, panicking at one point and believing it good and gone, only to steal it back from the new owners, an addict to the written words of a boy who no longer existed.

Her year became fragmented. Blood dripped from the hall walls at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and Ginny Weasley was lost to a darkness so complete that even the unshakable Albus Dumbledore began to fear her death. It was a miracle that Harry Potter had reached her in time to save her.

* * *

Dementors in her second year taught her what mercy was: mercy was an end to the endless, viciously penetrating cold of the creatures' presence. In her third year, it was Cedric Diggory, laid stiff and bare beneath her weeping saviour, that made death finally seem like a real, reachable force.

It wasn't until fourth year, though, that she discovered that death was a very real thing. Watching Harry's brokenhearted reaction as Sirius Black, his godfather and last remaining family member, plummeted into the Veil, stole her warmth. Seeing someone she had actually known disappear like that, with barely any sign out in the world, had set an idea of what death really was in her mind.

Unforgiveable. Unending. Absolute - and unyielding. Once you were dead, you were gone.

Nothing could bring you back.

* * *

It was her sixth year, finally, that just about killed her.

The Carrows were hell, she'd known that. They would torture you to the brink of insanity, but they would stop before they completed the deed. They couldn't afford to spill a single drop of magical blood, those orders were absolute an inarguable. There was no changing the way things were.

Knowing that Ron, Hermione and Harry were all on the run had been worse. What, though, was worse than hell? She didn't know, but she thought she'd found it.

Every day, she was terrified that she would hear they had died. Hundreds of muggle-borns and blood-traitors, decent people who had dared to oppose the Dark Lord, died with nary a whimper. No one mourned their passing, because they were too afraid to. Sadness was weakness.

If the Golden Trio - any member of them - was killed, then there'd be a bang. The wizarding world would end, and there'd be no hope at all.

If that was worse than hell, though, then what was this?

Hogwarts was a wreck. The once grand structure was crumbling around them, huge portions of stone cluttering the grounds, blocking staircases and halls alike. In some sections, the roof had been caved in, and a wide hole was like a mouth void of teeth, opening into the seventh floor. Ginny, like everyone else who was still alive, was standing in the front courtyard, in a cluster of witches and wizards who were standing across from the Death Eater army, too small to pose a threat.

Inside, the meaning of death was already beginning to rot despite their best efforts. Dozens of magical folk had fallen, far too many on Harry's side to be fair. Remus Lupin and Tonks had left their newborn son an orphan, as alone against the world as his godfather had been what felt like a hundred lifetimes ago, before Ginny was anything more than a hope in the mind of Molly Weasley, who wanted nothing more than a daughter. Fred, her brother who had secretly always been her favourite, even though he and George were identical and, like every one else, she had been unable to tell them apart until the loss of George's ear. Little Colin Creevey with his muggle camera, who should have fled, shouldn't have been at Hogwarts at all under the new regime. Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, Gryffindors and teachers - too many lives lost for her not to understand, at last, that death was the absolute end.

Her heart was in her throat, though, hope buried deep in spite of the mourning she was already preparing for. She would not greet Fred's death as flippantly as she had Uncle Billius's, because George and everyone else would need her to mourn. All she had to be thankful for was that the war would be over in the next twenty-four hours, because there was no way they could hold out longer. If they were not victorious, they would be dead, and that was that.

She'd have no use for mourning if she was dead, she thought, and then shook it away like an errant insect. She couldn't do that to Harry, couldn't do that at all.

Then Voldemort's dreaded voice echoed through the castle and the courtyard, and she had to be sure. She shoved through the crowd, tall enough to see from several rows back but unwilling to believe her eyes until she saw it clearly. _No_, she thought, and then began to chant aloud, "No no no no no no..."

Within the huge arms of Rubeus Hagrid a small, unmistakable head of hair was visible, dangling limply over the stained moleskin-covered arm of the whimpering half-giant. A broken cry rang out, first Hermione and then Ron and then, weirdly, Professor McGonagall. It was that cry that finally broke the dam building within Ginny Weasley, and she felt her heart swell to the point of being painful, and then, as suddenly as though jabbed with a pin, popped.

"HARRY!"


	2. Never Leave Me Again

**Challenge: **The Eclectic Bookworms' _19,000 Prompts Challenge_ on HPFC; Dobby Rocks Socks' _I've Never... competition_ on HPFC; Cheeky Slytherin Lass's _Fanfiction Scavenger Hunt Competition_ on HPFC.

**Characters: **Narcissa Black/Malfoy, Peter Pettigrew

**Prompts: **_Never leave me again_; Week 1: _I've never written a crack!fic_; 38. A oneshot collection of 5 (each over 500 words)

**Word count: **773

* * *

She couldn't do anything about her obsession. It kept her up at night, polluted her mind and tainted her dreams. These dreams were many things, could be anything at all, and varied in eroticism, but they were never prophetic, not once. A part of her resented that.

Whispers as sly as darkness itself filled every instant, corrupting her mood the next day. "Never leave me again," they would chant, and then, as she teetered on the edge of a fall she knew she would cover from, she would hear, every single time: "Go on, do it. You know you want to, Narcissa Black, so just do it. Go on. I won't tell anyone."

Then she'd jerk awake, shuddering as though death itself was hot on her heels and she was run - run - running for her life. Lucius would wake up and grant her with a cursory glare that always softened into a mockery of concern, an emotion he would never feel, but pretended to, for her sake. She would soothe his mind and coax him back to sleep, and then lie awake, staring mutely at the ceiling.

It wasn't that he was smart; he never had been. He wasn't clever or brave in the least, not at all like his friends. His sense of humour was immature at best, his pranks ineffectual and often crass, as were his insults. He wasn't even attractive: his front teeth were so large as to protrude beyond his lip, or at least seemed to, and his skin was splotched unevenly with shades of gray and red, even when they were young and attending Hogwarts together, several years apart. He was weedy, short and plump, and she doubted even an Imperius curse could make him graceful.

Nevertheless, dreams of Peter Pettigrew continued to keep her up at night, unable to get comfortable and unwilling to submit to the reprieve granted by dreamless sleep potion. She didn't want to have to explain consumption equal to that of an addict to her husband and son.

* * *

She could remember perfectly the first time she'd actually bothered to notice him. It was after she'd tripped on robes a centimetre too long, as the latest fashion had dictated, and she'd fallen down the last few steps of the Entrance Hall, headed back to the dungeons at the end of the day. An engorged mass had cushioned her fall and, when she opened her eyes, she'd found herself nose to nose with the single most hideous creature she'd ever had the misfortune to gaze upon - and she was in seventh year Care of Magical Creatures.

"Why, my _liege_," he'd tittered in a horribly unpleasant squeak, "how nice of you to fall for me."

Her pale cheeks became heated and she withdrew quickly, but this was worse.

If her position had been awkward before, then this - _this_ - was humiliating. Her palms were flat against his oddly fleshy chest, stunted legs spread wide between her knees. She drove her pelvis forward as she shifted, grinding unintentionally - or so she told herself - against his - his _thing_ - and sensing it begin to excite beneath her.

"Narcissa, _what_ are you doing?"

Her head shot up and she stared at her cousin, one of the weedy midgets Gryggindor friends. It took a moment, but she collected her thoughts - _naugty _Narcissa, wherever _did_ you learn to think of using the Imperius curse like that? - and, with as much dignity as possible, snarled at him,

"Don't just stand there watching, Sirius, help me up!"

The troublemaking buffoon tilted his head, then grinned impishly. "Nah. I don't think I will."

"Oh, in the name of Merlin, Black," another voice muttered, and a pale hand with ragged nails extended before her. She took it, purely for dignities stake, not even glancing at the person who owned that hand.

"Thank you, Lupin," she said shortly, turning on her heel and leaving.

* * *

Narcissa slipped out of bed just as the sun was touching the horizon in the distance. Lucius did not stir, he rarely did unless her writhing interrupted his own dreams. She pulled a black silk robe around her and drew it close, wondering to the sun room and staring out at the garden, where a silver hand topped the fountain.

"You'll never leave me again," she whispered to the ghost of Peter Pettigrew, her obsession and her burden. "Not as long as I live."

No words were spoken in reply. How could they be, when he had died by his own gifted hand, a curse in itself, in her own home?


	3. Debugger

**Challenge: **The Eclectic Bookworms' _19,000 Prompt Challenge _on HPFC; Cheeky Slytherin Lass's _Fanfiction Scavenger Hunt Competition _on HPFC; SunlightHurtsMyEyes' _The Fault In Our Stars Competition_ on HPFC

**Characters: **Draco M., Hermione G.

**Prompt: **Debugger; 38. A oneshot collection of 5 (each over 500 words); _Hazel 7: "I'm a grenade and at some point I'm going to blow up."_

**Word count: **552

* * *

**Debugger: n. **_A computer program that assists  
in the detection and correction of errors in other  
computer programs._

* * *

"Oh, bloody hell! Granger, this thing's broken!"

Hermione chuckled, coming over to check on it. She'd been washing the dishes in the next room while he struggled to work out the basics of muggle technology. "It's called a computer, Draco. You just managed to open the debugging tool."

"The _what_?"

"Never mind, it's just something I take care of whenever it becomes necessary. Think of it as medicine for the computer."

"But _why_ is it on the screen? It wasn't there before! And I didn't click on anything!"

She tilted her head, brushing a lock of bushy hair out of her face. "Did you search for something you shouldn't have?"

His silver eyes flickered, and Hermione smirked smugly, realising exactly what had happened. "So what if I did?"

"What did you search for?"

"Nothing specific. I mean...it wasn't doing what I wanted, so I hit it."

Hermione stared at him, her left eye twitching; she was trying incredibly hard not to laugh. _Only Draco could hit the keyboard and end up finding the most obscure tool installed on the thing_, she thought to herself, leaning around him. She managed to pin him so that he was trapped, with nowhere to look but the screen before him.

"You must have hit the _start _key," she began, prodding the little flag with her finger. "If you hit it, probably with your palm. Then you somehow started to type something that actually made sense to the computer." Slowly, demonstrating her point, Hermione tapped the _d_, then _e_, then _b_, key, and then tapped _enter_. "You must have hit _enter_ after that, probably with the tip of your finger. And then it would have loaded." She said all of this slowly, for her, which was really just the normal speed for humans to speak.

She had made Draco Malfoy feel - and look - like an idiot.

"Why do I have to know how to use this damn thing, Granger?" he growled, annoyed at his inability to grasp the simplest of muggle technologies. He wasn't willing to admit that to her, though - not when she was already so smug.

"Because you want me to be thankful, love."

"Don't call me that!"

Obligingly, Hermione withdrew her arms for either side of him. She made no effort to argue with him: he was in one of his moods and would be insufferable for as long as he wanted. She sighed and reclaimed the towel she'd entered the room with, pausing to glance back at her boyfriend.

"You're a grenade, and at some point you're going to blow up. You have before, we both know that. And if one day you blow up so bad you manage to get rid of me - something that's probably never going to happen - but _if_ it does, _if_ I leave, then I want you to be able to survive alone. And since the Ministry is starting to implement muggle concepts, then this is what you'll need to know."

She left the room, leaving Draco alone with his thoughts and, not long after, his guilt. He crept up behind her and snaked his arms around her waist, resting his chin on her head. "This isn't me apologising, Hermione."

She smiled to herself, not trying to correct him. "If you say so."


	4. Revenge

**Challenge: **The Eclectic Bookworms' _19,000 Prompt Challenge _on HPFC; Cheeky Slytherin Lass's _Fanfiction Scavenger Hunt Competition _on HPFC.

**Characters: **George Weasley, Angelina Johnson, Fred Weasley, Hermione Granger.

**Prompt: **Revenge; 38. A oneshot collection of 5 (each over 500 words)

**Word count: **578

* * *

**Revenge: n. **_1. __The action of hurting or harming someone_  
_in return for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands.  
1.1 The desire to repay an injury or wrong._

* * *

"You screwed up, Gred."

"What'd _I _do?" George Weasley looked up from the potion he was trying to make for the complex class. He frowned at his twin, bothered by the unusual tone. Usually Fred reserved _that_ tone for trying to talk George out of committing dangerous pranks that he thought were likely to get one or both into trouble - more than usual, at least. Except neither of them had pranked anyone recently: they'd been too busy working on new products for Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.

"Angelina's pissed at you, mate. Sorry."

"Angelina? But I didn't - _oh_."

"Yep. Her face is still purple, George. She's really not pleased at all."

"It wasn't even a real game! She didn't _have_ to be there."

"That's not the bloody point, and you know it."

"Weasley! If you and your brother have something to discuss, it can either be shared with the class or you can keep quiet for the remainder of the lesson."

George suggested that Snape take his quiet lesson and shove it somewhere that was anatomically improbable, particularly since the lesson wasn't exactly a physical construct.

When George got assigned detention with Filch, Fred did, too. Worse luck for him; they'd been assigned separate things. George would only have to scrub some bathroom.

Fred would be going into the forest to help Hagrid with something.

* * *

"BLOODY HELL!"

Fred groaned, sprawling face-first across the couch he'd collapsed onto upon returning from helping Hagrid find some escaped graphorn, procured for a Care of Magical Creatures class. The thing had been vicious and led them on a hell of a chase, eventually tackling Fred. "Aw, 'e likes yeh," Hagrid had crooned in a horribly gruff voice.

Fred didn't feel liked. In fact, he was fairly sure that crushing his head in a vice would be less painful than whatever this 'liking' was.

"You better have a damn good reason for screeching like a bloody banshee," he grumbled, pulling a cushion over his head.

"FRED WEASLEY, IF THIS IS YOUR DOING -"

"Shut up already," a new voice, this one belonging to Hermione Granger, snapped. "Honestly, you'd think you were raised in a barn, the way you two carry on."

"Can it, Granger!"

Fred wondered if this was what his mum felt like all the time. He silently vowed to be a more obedient son from here on out. No more experiments in his room. No more refusing to de-gnome the garden. No more pranks. Well. No more _big_ ones. Certainly no toilet seats sent home in the owl post.

After trying and failing to block out their infernal racket for a good ten minutes, Fred looked up, glaring towards the heated debate. Then he stared harder.

Hermione looked the same as ever. Her ridiculously bushy hair was fraying and going everywhere, giving the impression of a s recently shocked witch before him, textbook that must have weighed a tonne clutched in her arms like a shield - or, he knew, a weapon.

George was the interesting one. His hair was bright red, identical to Fred in every way. Except for one crucial difference...

"Why is your skin blue?"

"Oh, like you don't know!"

"He doesn't," came a third voice, and all three heads turned towards the closing portrait hole. Angelina straightened her robes, shaking out her braid distractedly. "He's got no clue."

"_You_!"

"George Weasley, you consider this your warning: hit me with a bludger again, this little trick is going to be the least of your worries."


	5. Never Ask A Fox To Mind The Hens

**Challenge: **The Eclectic Bookworm's _19,000 Prompt Challenge_ on HPFC; Cheeky Slytherin Lass's _Fanfiction Scavenger Hunt Competition _on HPFC

**Characters: **Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger, George Weasley, Ginny Weasley, Fleur Weasley/Delacour, Fred Weasley

**Prompt: **"Never ask a fox to mind the hens"; 38. A oneshot collection of 5 (each over 500 words)

**Word count: **1,236

**A/N: **This was heaps of fun to write, but this is the last of TEBW's prompts. I might have to leave off, at least for a while. I've got about...45 other things to write.  
Minimum.

* * *

Draco couldn't say what possessed him to go inside the bright store. Orange and purple were everywhere, colours that he knew made him look even more washed out, particularly in his navy robes. He didn't want to be seen in such a lowly place, particularly given the owners were blood traitors who certainly deserved his patronage.

Unfortunately, it was the only store that neither the Greengrasses nor Malfoy families' would think to search for him in. With luck, they'd turn to Knocktorn Alley and unwittingly give him time to escape properly; until then, the shelves of visually offending joke products would do for a place to hide.

The store was quiet for once, probably because Hogwarts had resumed a month earlier. It was eleven in the morning, work hours for most witches and wizards. No one was free to supervise their impish children as they rushed around, causing as much trouble as was physically possible for such a tiny creature.

At least, those were his thoughts. But he thought he could hear some quiet babbling from the back of the store...

And where were the proprietors? Fred should have been out of the hospital by now, and Draco didn't expect him to be at work yet, at least if the _Daily Prophet_ was to be trusted. But where was the other one - George?

As though summoned by his thoughts, a vivid red head suddenly appeared from a bright purple door at the back of the shop. Panic and then relief shot across his face like lightning, and if he was less dignified, Draco would have gaped at him. A _Weasley_ was relieved to see _him_?

"Malfoy! C'mere."

_Things keep getting stranger, _he mused, but was too shocked by the order to fight. "What the hell's going on, Weasley? You look like it's a _good_ thing I'm here."

"Well, that's 'cause it is. What're you doing in here?"

"I'm -" He caught himself just in time. "I don't have to explain myself to the likes of _you_."

"So, hiding. Right. Oh, don't look at me like that, I read the _Prophet_, and even I think that set of tits don't make Greengrass marriage material. I need a sitter."

Draco frowned at the unfamiliar term. "You want me to... sit?"

"Yes, exactly. Watch the kids."

"Kids?" This was making less and less sense. Why would he sit and watch the kids? What kids? And wasn't there a muggle expression about not leaving a fox with the hens? Couldn't that be applied to this exact situation, if the fox was a dashing snake and the hens a bunch of small humans?

"Yes, the kids." And George let him into the back room.

If he'd thought that the shop itself was a mess, than this was hectic. Ingredients, boxes and finished products were scattered everywhere, cluttering every available surface. And right of the middle of the chaos sat three little girls - _oh, he wants me to play nanny._

One was probably another Weasley, with bright red hair and too many freckles. She was playing with some blocks alongside a second girl. This one was pale as him, though her skin seemed to glow and her hair was like silver, trailing down her back in a neat plait. And the third was -

"_Granger?"_

The little girl looked up, crinkling her nose in disgust. "Ew, ferret!"

Understanding clicked into place, and Draco turned to George. "You slipped them a de-aging potion?!"

"Unintentionally! There were these chocolates they were in, but I didn't have them labelled, and I guess they got mixed up with the ones Ginny brought from muggle London. I swear this was unintentional, Malfoy."

"...And you want me to cover for you?"

"No! The potion should wear off in an hour or so, but they've got the mentality of kids. And I'm not a good influence on little tiny humans. But you are." Seeing Draco's raised eyebrow, he backpedalled slightly. "Alright, not actually, but I really do need to go to Gringott's and the Ministry and inform them that Fleur and Hermione have, um, taken ill. I'd ask you to do it, but again, bad at handling kids, and besides, you're here trying to hide. Where better for Draco Malfoy to hide than the back of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes with a bunch of five-year-olds? And who'd believe you if you suddenly showed up informing them that a muggleborn and blood-traitor are too ill to work, anyway? They'd assume you killed them or something."

Draco exhaled, breath exiting with a rude noise. "Fine, I'll keep an eye on Granger and the other two brats. But you better hurry it up, Weasley. I'm charging you for my time."

George was gone, though, yelling his thanks over his shoulder and locking him in with his sentence.

Muttering insults that were not fit for the ears of a child, he looked back at the girls. All three of them were staring at him. The little blond - Delacour, he realised, the one who was in the Triwizard Tournament - seemed to be deciding whether or not he was worth noticing. The Weaselette seemed somehow angry, though he couldn't imagine why. Granger just looked..._curious_.

"What're you gonna do, Malfoy?" she asked in a weirdly squeaky yet soft voice, staring at him unblinkingly.

He had no idea. What did tiny witches do when they didn't have to take etiquette and flying classes? "What do you _want_ to do, Granger?"

"Tell us a story."

That was the last thing he'd expected, to be honest, but he wasn't about to complain about an easy reprieve. Raising his wand, he transfigured a chair into a couch, and sat on the couch, waiting for all three girls to crowd around him.

"There was once a handsome, rich and talented young warlock..."

* * *

Fred was late getting back to the shop from the walk he'd gone on, leaving George in the capable hands of Hermione Granger and the two Weasley women. His twin had taken his near-death harder than he himself had, so Fred was reluctant to leave the unstable wizard alone. So he'd called Hermione over and asked her to watch him, and she'd brought Ginny and Fleur, who she'd apparently been having tea with.

"Gorge, Hermione, I'm bac - oh. What's this?"

He'd opened the purple door to their lab, then promptly jerked it shut. There were two little girls in the room on a gray couch that hadn't been there before, one that looked like his sister from nearly fifteen years ago, and one that looked like a childhood photo of his sister-in-law on the mantle at Shell Cottage. They sat at either end of the couch.

In the middle, between them, Hermione had fallen asleep. What surprised Fred, though, was who she'd fallen asleep on.

"Malfoy! Malfoy, I've got the c - oh. Hi, Fred." George had the decency to look abashed when his twin crossed his arms, smirking.

"So why is our Hermione asleep on the ferret?"

"She's _what_?!"

Some familiar screaming started up from the other room, screaming he recognised from before he'd started Hogwarts. Five-year-old Ginny was having a tantrum.

"Merlin, Weasley, just _shut up_! I was asleep!"

"And I was comfy," a quieter, angrier voice complained, startling the sitter into silence.

Fred and George exchanged a look.

They were still laughing when the potion finally wore off of the last witch.


End file.

Harry Potter, Humor, Romance