Tumgik
#except of course for the light orange under her chin and the little orange sock on her left paw
nyaahilism · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Everyone say hi to the new addition in my family! Our beautiful baby girl is a 10 week old purebred Maine Coon Kitten. She's just the sweetest most loving little thing of all time.
And her name is: Setsuna
(the Japanese word for "moment," just fits her so well because she just melted into the crook of my arm the instant I met her)
125 notes · View notes
imaginaryparachute · 5 years
Text
and the cold was as sharp as my baby
Rating: E
Read on AO3
No phone has ever rung at 2:23 AM with good news, and this was no exception.
“Karen. It’s me. You still living in Tribeca?”
“I–Frank? How did y–”
“Meet me at Pier 25 in half an hour.”
The last thing she heard was Frank taking three sharp breaths, as if he were steeling himself for something, before the line cut out.
-
In the three months that Karen Page had lived in this building, she had established a reputation for herself as a woman who did not show up in the lobby at the witching hour with the dripping wet arm of a black-clad man slung across her shoulders. It seemed it was time to reset the counter on that one.
The doorman gave her a profoundly skeptical look. “New...boyfriend, Miss Page?”
A strangled attempt at a carefree chuckle escaped her throat as she worked to school her expression from determination into an approximation of embarrassment. “Yes, yep, he’s my new, uh, new guy,” she said, chancing a glance at Frank as she did. His lips had gone from purple to white and, somewhere along their shambling walk here, he had stopped shivering. They did not have time for this.
Just as she began to make her excuses for them, he slurred, “K’ren, ‘m not–”
“Drunk!” she said sharply. Too sharply, in fact. She tempered her tone to something like exasperation as she looked back at her doorman. “He had a little too much on an empty stomach, so I’ll just head up to let him sleep this one off.”
The doorman still looked a little suspicious, so she opted to dazzle, as a last resort. She ignored the frigid cling of her own coat all down the side that had been pressed up against Frank soaking up water for the past twenty minutes. She quieted the alarms in her mind that had been blaring since her phone rang almost an hour ago. Then, she sent her elderly doorman her most dazzling smile as she said, “I really do appreciate your concern, Mr. Martin, but we’ll be fine, I promise!” 
“Well, sure, Miss Page, no need to worry about me,” Mr. Martin mumbled, cheeks reddening as he was a little dazzled in spite of her less-than-polished appearance. “Will you be needing any help getting him up the stairs?”
Karen stopped halfway to the, apparently, still out-of-order elevator at the far end of the lobby. “Nope!” she said, bright and just a little edged in desperation. As she steered them both toward the stairwell entrance, she muttered, “What is it with us and elevators, Frank?”
-
Six stumbling flights later and Karen’s hand barely shook as she unlocked her array of deadbolts with practiced familiarity, only a little hindered by keeping an arm around Frank’s waist as he tried to push away and stand upright on his own. He only relented after Karen gritted out a quiet, “You called me for help. Let me help you, goddammit.”
This mollified him for the next ten feet of stumbling across her miniscule living room, but just as she reached for her bedroom door, he managed to free himself her and, promptly, collapse to the floor. “Frank!” she whisper-shouted, feeling, for a moment, like she really was trying to get a drunk friend into bed as she strained to lift him from the armpits. “You’re hypothermic. No need to be hypothermic and an idiot.”
This was not, strictly speaking, a particularly fair thing to say; confusion and clumsiness were both symptoms of hypothermia, so being an idiot sort of came with the territory. Still, Frank grudgingly allowed her to put his arm over her shoulders again and steer him over to stand beside her bed. This success filled her with enough triumph and relief to carry her into giving her next command, which was, “Take off your clothes.”
The balloon of confidence in her chest didn’t burst, but it did start to deflate when Frank just stared at her. “...‘m sorry, what?” he mumbled, one eye squinting in an expression that might have been comical if it weren’t on such a pallid face. She fumbled with the proper words for a response for a moment, but then his expression cleared. He nodded and began to try to shrug out of his heavy canvas jacket, movements jerky. “Ri’, ri’, makin’ me cold. An’ stupid.” This last was added on with an eyebrow raised in her direction, which might have been more effective if he weren’t struggling to remove his jacket at the same time.
This unusual display of vulnerability was enough to shake her out of whatever immaturity had gripped her a moment ago. Karen let a protective layer of cool, clinical, nurse-like distance fall over her, brusquely reaching over to pull the stiff material off of his broad shoulders. It was heavy in her hands, still dripping, so she let it fall to the ground and kicked it toward the wall. 
His signature body armor was, thankfully, missing, and he wore only a black thermal shirt, which was also soaked through. “Arms up,” she said, and he rolled his eyes but unlocked his arms from around his chest and lifted them. For all his bulk and presence, he only had an inch or two of height on her, which was fortunate in this case as she was able to pull off the long-sleeved shirt with relative ease. Their similar heights also kept them at eye level with each other, which was part of why–no. Cool, clinical, nurse-like distance. She’d need it for this next part. She took a deep breath.
“We need to take off your boots, but you’ll have to be sitting down, and I don’t want you to get the blankets too wet, so your pants will have to come down first.” Her voice was clipped, and while that had certainly been a run-on sentence, she hadn’t stuttered while speaking it. He didn’t seem to be in an editorial mood, anyway. They made eye contact that Karen immediately regretted, but then he nodded and looked away, stuffing his hands into his armpits.
She undid his belt and fly, face smooth; before she could second-guess herself, she gripped the waistbands of both his black jeans and the underwear beneath them, shoving them down his legs to his ankles. “The bed is behind you; sit,” she said, keeping her eyes on his knees as he wordlessly complied. His skin was a bloodless, waxen yellow beneath the dark hair that was beaded with moisture. This sobered her. Cool, clinical, nurse-like distance.
Her fingers were sure and steady as she unlaced the combat boots and pulled them from his feet. She carefully peeled off shockingly normal white tube socks, followed by the sodden mass of denim and cotton at his ankles. Just like that, she had a naked Punisher sitting on her bed. She cleared her throat. “OK, lie back”
He lifted his legs with some difficulty, managing to get his head on a pillow. She pulled the blankets over him and tucked them around him. He looked surprised. “It’s warm?”
“Electric blanket,” she said, but he had begun to shiver almost violently and didn’t reply. 
For the next hour, she perched on the desk chair she had rolled into the room, lips pressed together into a hard line as she watched him. His body-wracking tremors had subsided into normal shivering after a few minutes, and then he appeared to fall asleep. 
-
Two hours and eighteen minutes later, Frank’s breathing stilled. She glanced up in time to see his hand slip under the pillow and took that as a cue to roll her chair about two feet backward. A heartbeat later he burst upright, pointing a gun at her face. 
“Karen?” he said, eyes dazed, then, hotly, “Jesus, Karen, I could have…” He trailed off from that desolate line of thinking, staring at the weapon in his hands whose nonexistent safety he had been attempting to engage. Only then did he seem to notice that the gun was made of vibrant blue, white, and orange plastic that was currently creaking in his white-knuckled grip.
“It’s not loaded,” Karen joked feebly, pulling an orange foam dart from her pocket. Abruptly, she spun in her office chair so her back was to him. “Also, you’re naked. Your shirt and boxers are on the nightstand along with some sweats that I think should fit.”
She looked down at the legal pad in her lap, where she had just written Towel at the bottom of a list. Ten long seconds passed in which she heard no rustling of fabric. A quick glance over her shoulder found him still sitting in bed, staring at the toy gun with an expression so dumbfounded that she rolled back toward him in order to place a hand on his forehead, wondering if she had misjudged his improvement. “Frank? Are you feeling dizzy, confused, or short of breath? ”
He shook his head wordlessly. His eyes were black in the pale light of early morning. She cleared her throat and ran the hand that had been on his face through her hair. “Good, that’s good.” When his silence persisted, she gestured lamely at the sweatpants she had donned while he slept. “I ran our clothes–or, the clothes we were both wearing earlier through the building’s dryer down the hall. Not your jacket, though; that’s hanging in my bathroom and probably won’t be dry for a day or two. I didn’t find any weapons.”
“Dropped them while I was swimming,” he said, voice hoarse, then seemed to remember the toy he held. He set it on the nightstand beside the aforementioned stack of neatly folded clothing before turning back and meeting her gaze steadily, purposefully.
“Swimming.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“In the Hudson.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
This was familiar territory. She met his gaze easily now, raising her eyebrows and lowering her chin. “And what, precisely, were you doing in the Hudson at two in the morning in February?”
He winced. “Well, there were these drug runners in Hoboken–”
“Hoboken? Did you swim across the Hudson?”
“No, I snuck onto their boat on the Jersey side. Wasn’t planning on confronting them on the water but…” He trailed off with a grunt and a shrug. “Didn’t have a lot of time to decide what direction to swim.”
“Because?”
“Boat was sinking fast.” Another grunt. Another shrug.
“Of course.” Karen gripped the notepad on her lap. “And you chose not to swim back to Jersey.”
“I could see the lights of that park on the pier.”
“And you knew,” she said, nostrils flaring, “that I live a few blocks away from that park.” He had the grace to look a little rueful at that, but she wasn’t finished. “So you thought you’d just give me a call from a literal sinking ship.”
“Misjudged the distance, to be honest with you, ma’am. It was farther and colder than I thought.” Her face must have looked as unimpressed as she felt, because he finally looked away and rubbed his eyes. “I, uh, I like to know where to find you. In case you need help. Case either of us needs help.” He looked back at her, one corner of his lips raised. “Don’t suppose you got any coffee? Still feelin’ a little cold.”
“Right there,” Karen said, pointing to the thermos on the floor by the bed. He huffed something that might have been a laugh and took a swig. His expression immediately soured, and he swallowed as if he had a mouthful of mud. 
She covered her mouth and turned to the side to hide the smile she couldn’t stop. “That,” he said, sounding properly dangerous for the first time in hours, “is not coffee.”
After taking a moment to school her expression—cool, clinical, nurse-like—she turned back to him. “No,” she agreed, “it’s chamomile tea.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Warm drinks help with mild hypothermia, but they shouldn’t contain alcohol or caffeine.” It sounded like it was being defensively recited from a textbook because, well, it was, but she couldn’t help that. 
She raised her eyebrows at him challengingly, ready for him to laugh at her or argue, but he did neither. He looked from her face to the thermos in his hand. He set it on the nightstand and then pressed both palms to the blanket that had pooled precariously low around his waist. “Electric blanket on the lowest setting?”
“Yeah.”
He smoothed a wrinkle in the pilled fabric. “It was on already when we came in. I remember.”
Karen swallowed, suddenly in choppier waters. “Yes,” she said, carefully. “I got it out from the closet after you called.”
“And,” he said, also careful, “the tea?”
Another time, she might have laughed at the way he said that like a cuss word. “Made while you were sleeping.” He held her gaze as he placed a deliberate hand on the Nerf gun and cocked an eyebrow. “I figured,” she said, licking dry lips, “you’d be less likely to tackle me if you found a gun where you were expecting to.”
He nodded, ran a hand down his face, and then very slowly reached toward the legal pad in her lap. She closed her eyes for one breath, two, and then handed it over. 
His dark eyes ran down her list, which began with Suture kit and ended, as of quite recently, with Towel. “I didn’t anticipate your being wet,” she whispered, feeling suddenly as though she were the naked one. 
Mercifully, he kept his eyes on the paper. “Why a kitchen blowtorch?”
“It goes with the sterilized knife that’s next on the list,” she said much too quickly.
His eyes flicked up to hers, but he didn’t comment on the fact that she had the list memorized. The look on his face was complex and somewhat familiar, though she couldn’t quite place it. “Cauterizing ain’t like it is in the movies, white-hot knife sizzling on a bullet wound and all that,” he said offhand. 
Her jaw fell open. “I know that. Heat blade to brick red and allow to cool until no longer glowing before applying to the wound in one- to two-second bursts until bleeding stops,” she rattled off snappishly. “It’s a last resort, anyway, Frank Castle, as I’m sure you noticed it’s after the suture kit, superglue, and duct t—”
The words stuck in her throat. She had finally recognized the expression. It was a lot like the look he had given her across that diner table. A .38 shows thought. It also looked a little like, Still got that hand cannon? 
Like that, but also different. Because his expression right now was also on fire, and she could feel the flames licking inside her chest. “Tell me why,” he said, gravelly and low.
“You know why,” she said, voice steady. 
“Please.”
She wanted to close her eyes but didn’t. “I told you in that hospital room. I know who you are.”
Her voice caught as Frank reached out lightning quick and pulled her chair toward him. She put a reflexive hand on his shoulder and said, “Don’t.” His hand dropped like he had been scalded, but hers stayed where it was, tightening a little as she stared at it and tried to think of what she had been about to say.
Don’t pity me? Don’t take me for granted? It was obvious he did neither from his expression that was naked with want and wonder. Don’t leave again? She could finally admit, here at the breaking point, that she would rather not know his response to that one.
So she met his eyes, quirked a half-smile, watched his pupils dilate and his head tip back, and said, “Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”
For the barest moment, he gave her a small, sad smile. Then his gaze caught fire again as he sat up on his knees. She barely had a moment to appreciate the wide, scarred mass of him before he gathered her to him in an embrace. He slid one hand into her hair at the back of her head and the other inside her sweatshirt low on her back, just above the swell of her ass. “Jesus, Karen,” he groaned, nose cool at the base of her neck, “you feel like a furnace.”
“You felt like a corpse,” she whispered back. 
He lifted his face to meet her gaze, resting his forehead against hers in a familiar sort of nuzzle. “Not just yet,” he said. “Not just yet.”
Then they kissed. Like so much that had happened between them, in this Frank was relentless but accepting, holding her tightly but taking as good as he gave. She was once again grateful for her height as she felt his cock hardening at just the right place to apply a little pressure to the front of her mound. She pushed her hips forward as she slid her tongue into his mouth and was thrilled to hear the groan that tumbled from deep in his chest in response. 
Both his hands came to the sides of her face as he pulled away to look at her, eyes black and hungry.  “Take off your clothes.”
“Trying to level the playing field, Castle?” Karen said as she pulled off the sweatshirt and shimmied out of sweatpants she had changed into as he slept. They were baggy, so it was quick work. Just as she was tossing the pants away, she looked up to find his expression dizzy. In spite of the moment, a flutter of concern cooled her. “Frank, are you OK?”
“Thought I was ready. Feels like I just took one on the jaw. C’mere.” He sat back on his knees, hands at his side. Karen felt more than a little pleased to have dazzled Frank Castle and climbed into bed with him. She wrapped her arms behind his neck and pulled herself into his lap, her thighs straddling his as she kissed him again. His arms came up her back, hands tight on her shoulders as he crushed her to him. 
“Karen, can I eat you out?” he gasped like it was being pulled from him. 
She had wanted to keep kissing, actually, but the edge of something like desperation in his voice sent an impossible heat pooling between her hips; she actually felt herself get wetter. “Yes.”
He pivoted immediately, lifting her with ease to lay her down on the bed. He moved down her body and used his thumbs to spread her outer lips. She thought he would dive right in or say something, but he did neither. He just...looked. 
For a moment, the urge to close her legs and hide almost overtook her. She might have done it if it weren’t for the fact that she could see his cock getting thicker and redder with every long breath of gazing at her; she might have done it if it weren’t for the way his jaw ticked with roiling tension. 
Here was a man whom she had known and been known by in so many different shades of bloody. Here was a man who saw the hell in her. She felt anything shy within her evaporate off of her skin. Something dark and wild settled in its place that made it easy for her to tilt her chin and catch his gaze. “Well?”
He smiled, all feral delight, and surged forward, running the flat of his tongue all the way up her opening before twisting around her clit. She gasped and bucked her hips, and he immediately slid both arms beneath her ass, keeping her pelvis tilted up. Then his pace settled into something languid and meandering, a journey that knew of but was not desperate for its destination. 
She felt her orgasm coming from a mile away, and only when it was close did she begin to speak, little gasped directives like, “Don’t stop,” and, “There, there, right there.” When she came, it was one of the good ones, rolling through her slow like thunder on the prairie. Her back arched, her breath heaved out, and her thighs tightened on his head. 
Her first thought after the orgasm was that she wished he had longer hair for her to grab, maybe a beard to rub against her thighs. Her second thought was that maybe next time, he would. Her third thought was, No, no, Karen. None of that.
When she looked down, he was gazing up at her, chin resting on her stomach. There was something knowing and a little sad about the tilt of his lips again, and she gave in to the urge to press her hand against his craggy cheek, running her thumb along a fading bruise under his eye. With her other hand, she pulled a condom from the box at the front of her nightstand drawer and handed it to him.
The moment he took it, she sat up and wrapped her fingers around his cock at last, gratified to feel it surge heavily in her hand as she started to jerk him. “Is this OK?” Her voice was quiet as he panted open-mouthed against her shoulder.
“Yes,” he breathed in response. His teeth grazed her collar bone, and she felt a thrill of pleasure pass over her at the sharp tug of it. Her skin pebbled and her hand stuttered in its rhythm around him. He went...very still. Then he pulled back to look at her. She set her jaw and let a little more of her darkness show on her face, a little bit, I shot him seven times because the clip ran out. There was no blood in Frank Castle’s mouth at this particular moment, but there might have been from the wild light in his eyes. He leaned forward and bit her earlobe. She gasped, and his cock jumped in her hand. 
“Frank,” she said, suddenly desperate, “now.” In spite of her urgency, his movements were deliberate as he unwrapped the condom and rolled it on, his eyes continually shifting back to meet hers. The moment it was on, she pulled herself flush against him, knees on either side of his hips, and said, “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” he said, and lined himself up against her. When she felt the head of his cock slip in, she sank down on the rest of him in one quick movement. He wrapped his arms around her torso so tightly that it hurt a little bit and groaned out a long string of curses. She smiled faintly and arched her back as much as she could, brushing one breast along the side of his face as she squeezed her inner muscles around him. His mouth fell open and he looked at her almost accusingly. Then he turned his face and nipped the side of her breast. Her hips jerked. He smiled.
Then she set a pace, not so languid as that of his eating her out, but steady and consistent. He set about trying to break her rhythm, experimentally sucking on a nipple (which didn’t do much to thrill her) and rasping his stubbled chin across her sternum (which did). When he slid a hand between them to rub circles on her clit, she picked up the pace as she felt another orgasm coming on much more quickly. “Come on, Frank, come on,” she gasped, reaching down to rub her own clit, “come with me.”
With both hands now free, he gripped her hips and began lifting her hips as he drove into her at a bruising speed. Just as she was getting close, he let out a gasping groan and bit down, hard, where her shoulder met her neck. She made a funny sound like a hiccup and came, lightly rubbing her clit through it. 
They stayed there upright in the middle of the bed with their chests heaving for a dazed minute. Then Frank stirred, holding on to the base of the condom as he pulled out of her. He pulled it off and began to look around, but then she took it from him and dropped it into the wastebasket on the floor on the far side of the bed. He shook his head with a single, amused huff, and then he flopped onto the pillows.
She knelt for a moment longer, looking at the half of his face that wasn’t pressed into the pillow. He watched her with one, steady eye. “Ah, well,” she said, resigning herself to maybe just a little more heartbreak, and stretched out beside him.
Frank pulled the blankets over both of them and pulled her close. They arranged themselves wordlessly with her head on his chest and their breaths synced up. Some minutes later, Karen drifted to sleep, her right hand resting over the steady thump of his heart. 
14 notes · View notes
krissewrites · 7 years
Text
À Triomphe - BTS AU
AU:  Art Thief!Bangtan
Description: You are a curator at one of the many museums in Paris, and have finally earned the bosses trust.  But after a strange meeting with a new coworker and his friends, you begin receiving messages from an unknown party.
Part:  Five / Four / Three / Two / One
Warnings: Violence, Swearing.
Tumblr media
Text Message from Unknown Number
I can’t stop what will happen next but Don’t let Jeon see you
Jin stopped in front of the back entrance of Maillol, quick to avoid the transport trucks parked in front which carried in the latest paintings bought from various markets around the world.  He stood, feet together, staring at the moon as it shone over the cityscape of Paris, leaving a glow against his skin that left you breathless.
“Ah, this was fun, (y/n).”  Jin took a moment from admiring the moon to glance at you, smiling as soon as he did.  He took a step forward, his nimble fingers grazing the nape of your neck.  “I hope you’d want to see me again,” he hummed.  
A loving smile inched it’s way onto your cheeks, leaving a red tint as you chuckled to yourself.  “I’d love to, Jin.”
Jin stood taller, happy with the news of a guaranteed second date.  “Well, then, princess, I think you should get back to your castle.” You laughed, covering your gummy smile as he himself began to snicker.  “Why are you so shy?”  He quizzed.
A small sigh escaped your lips as your hand fell back to your wallet and the small box of macarons, half of which had been eaten on the way back. “I’ve never had that good of luck with guys, honestly.”
“Am I the exception?”
“For sure.”
Jin grinned, gently removing the box of macarons from your grip and rattling them.  He placed the small parcel under his arm as he moved his hands to sit gently on the nape of your neck, bending over slightly to leave a kiss on your forehead. Jin brushed out your hair before removing his touch from you, bowing slightly and waving goodbye as he turned the corner.
You backed against the brick wall that was the tail end of the Maillol, clutching your chest as you sighed.  “God, what are you doing to me?”
You quickly gained your composure, removing your hand from your now ruffled shirt to the inner pocket of your jacket.  Nothing.  Your heart stopped momentarily.
You had left your keys in there, hadn’t you?  Hadn’t I? you thought.  Your hands began to roam every inch of your body, furiously patting as you began to grow more frustrated by the minute. You could’ve easily ignored it and walk home, had that very set of keys contained the only key to your apartment.
Click.  It hit you.  You must have left them at the café.  Duh, you muttered, I didn’t lose them, you thought.  Although they were important, they weren’t important enough to trek another hour back to the café at night.
Your hand instinctively gripped the back of your head, lightly tugging on your hair, as it was a nervous tick you gained while working in retail some years ago.  It never seemed to leave you.
A lightbulb went off, smiling as you had remembered the carrier truck parked out front. In a matter of minutes, you found yourself doubling back onto the main street and to the front doors of Maillol, stopping to grasp the edge of the carrier truck to catch your breath. A man of rugged texture, with a clean shaven beard, stood in front of the door, his back to you.  He began to fidget with the locks, before turning promptly.  You quickly rose back to your full posture, shouting as you waved your hands for his attention.  “Ah, sir, please stop!”
He stood, staring suspiciously as you approached him abruptly.  “Sir, I work here and I’ve misplaced my keys, could you please let me in?” He stood, still, almost timid to walk away from you.  Had it not been for your uniform, you were sure he wouldn’t have tolerated your beratement.  But he quickly turned, letting out a small groan as he began to fidget with the lock once more.
You smiled, jumping in your socks as you thanked him repeatedly.  He opened the door for you, nodding with a small grin as he watched you enter before turning, and leaving.
You stood in the front room of the Maillol; a scene completely different to that of a serene environment.  A small sound made what seemed like a million echoes on the marble flooring of the complex, only made worse by the narrow and shallow halls leading to many of the exhibits.  You sighed, placing your wallet on the reception desk as you quickly took off your jacket and setting it down, as well.  You flipped the light switch on.
Your kitten heels clicked as you paced across the floor to the nearest employee office, which had been locked.  A groan escaped your lips.  The next best place for you to sit in peace would be the director’s office.
Slowly opening the director’s door, you inched yourself across the room to the desk, sitting as you let yourself rest before reaching for your phone to call a cab.  You pulled the string hanging from the bosses decorative light, which only brought in a little light to the room.
After you had made the call, you began to play with the different apps on your phone, finding anything to entertain you for the period of time it would take for the cab to get to the outskirts of Paris.
As you had just begun watching oddball videos on youtube, your phone glitched.  The screen turned black.  
Of fucking course, you thought to yourself.  Could this get any worse?
You looked up from your now useless gadget to stare at the door, out of sheer instinct;  the lights had turned off, as could be seen from the crack leading to the outside of the office. You turned on the lights, hadn’t you?
You pushed yourself up from the desk slowly, walking towards the door as you gently began to turn the knob.  Your heart stopped.
“God damn it, Jimin, help me!”
Jimin?  Your mind raced to hours before.  The small man, his hair as orange as the sunset and a smile that could charm millions.  There’s no way, you stood baffled.
The footsteps got closer, as did two new voices.  “Yah, you jackass, it’s not that heavy.  I’ve carried tons of heavier things.”  
The disembodied voice boasted on the number of things he had stolen, the number of weight he can list, how heavy a human body was after the loss of consciousness.
“Shut the fuck up, Guk. If you're such a strong man, help me.”
You removed your hand from the knob, quickly holding your breath in as you tried to calm yourself down.  It can’t fucking be, you groaned.
Four years.  Four years I’ve worked here, and not a damn robbery had happened.
But it seemed the night you were most vulnerable was the night most eligible for this act to be carried out.
The voices and footsteps echoed as they got farther away, farther and farther; soon out of earshot.
You quickly, and quietly, opened the door, staring out into the pitch blackness to see flashlights glowing in the distance.  You rushed yourself across the floor into the other direction; an amateur mistake you regretted as soon as you had made it.
“Who the fuck is there?”
“Don’t fucking stand there, go get them!”
You yelped as you looked over your shoulder, seeing a bulky man jogging as he came down his end of the hall. You doubled across the Picasso exhibit and into a small hallway leading to and from the Degas room.  You stood at the corner of the Degas room entrance and the dead end hallway.  This was the only room in the entire museum that didn’t lead to another room, and thus was also one of the most reclusive exhibits.  The position you chose was cloaked in darkness; you hoped for the best.
“Come here, I won’t hurt you.”
The lights in the hall seemed to strobe over you but never landed in a precise enough position to give you away.
“I just want to help you out of here, you’re safe with me.”
The voice mocked you; how sweet and coddling it was.  His boots walked in an eery rhythm, keeping you on your toes with every inch.  You held your breath, pushing yourself flat against the wall as the footsteps engulfed you.
One. Two. Three. Four.
As the boots clicked closer to your corner, your sanctuary, your hideaway, you grew more anxious.
What did he want? For fuck’s sake, what did he want? And why aren’t I getting any fucking service?
You fidgeted with the buttons on your phone; your hands shaking, the clock ticking as he gained on your position.
Clunk. Your phone teetered on the floor, the screening cracking on impact.
Shit, you thought, fucking shit, you muttered. His footsteps halted.
“There you are, baby,” the gravelly voice cooed.
You panicked, letting out a curdling scream before a harsh impact sent you falling.  Your vision went black.
You could hear everything.
“Oh smart, Jeongguk, the poor girl might have a concussion.”
“Did you want was a witness?  Because, hehe, last time I checked, you fucking hate witnesses.”
“I’m not the one who clobbered a girl with the blunt end of a flashlight.”
Your head nodded back and forth as you began to rock in the cold, metal chair.  You felt your wrists grow itchy as you gained feeling in your extremities.  
“You asshole, why’d you do this?”
“Oh, you go on one date with the girl, because it’s your fucking job, and suddenly she means the world to you?  Grow some balls Jin, this is how we work.”
“We don’t work to give girls comas, we work to get money.”
Your eyes slowly fluttered open, only to be greeted with blurred vision.  You couldn’t recall much of what happened, only the immense pain pulsing from the back of your head.  “Get out the way, idiots.”
You felt a strong grip grasp your chin, as your vision slowly came to a focus.  A man with familiar caramel colored skin was staring you in the eyes, pushing his tongue against his cheeks as he examined you.  It was Theo. “Her pupils are reactive, she’ll be fine.”
Another boy, a little shorter than him with dark brown hair let out a small growl.  “I still think we need to take her to a doctor or something.” Another, in a black v-neck and boots, barked back, “I’ll die before I let her rat us out.”
A laugh echoed from the corner of the room before coming into sight.  “Settle down, Jeongguk… you go on a couple heists and got a taste for blood again, I see?”
The boy named Jeongguk visibly winced at the saying, memories seeming to flood his thoughts as he let out a small groan.  “All I’m saying is we can’t trust her, Namjoon.”
Your eyes rolled involuntarily as your head fell limp.  The restraints on your wrist seemed to grow tighter.
“She doesn’t look fine, Tae.”  
Jeongguk came close, his feet carrying the weight of a thousand different personalities it seemed, lifting your chin back up to see you losing consciousness once more.  
“My poor baby,” you heard him mutter.
Degas: A famous French artist
Picasso: A famous Spanish artist
159 notes · View notes
Text
Fic: Voices Carry ch. 1
Summary: Leonard Snart thought his life was coming together — well, as together as it could for a criminal. His alias, Captain Cold, was allowing him to commit whatever crime he wanted unchecked. Then, Sara Lance, the homicide detective assigned to apprehending him moved in across the hall, and with her is a little girl with messy hair and shining eyes, and they remind Leonard that a put-together life might never be possible.
Read on AO3
Read on Fanfiction.net
“So what’s happening at work today?” Lisa Snart asked her brother Leonard.
“I appreciate you calling larceny ‘work’,” Leonard replied.
“Hey,” Lisa put her hands up, “it pays your half of the rent.”
“And your half when you can’t pay it.”
Lisa rolled her eyes, “By the way, someone finally moved into the apartment across the hall.”
“Am I supposed to care?”
“You’re supposed to care long enough to say hello and then you can go back to ignoring them like all the other neighbors.”
Leonard sighed dramatically and stood from the barstool he’d been sitting on.
“What are you doing?” Lisa asked.
“Going to say hello,” Leonard gestured towards the door, “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Lisa shook her head in exasperation and followed him out of their apartment and to the door across the hall.
During this, Sara Lance was sorting through a cardboard box filled with clothes. She needed to leave for work soon and the shirt she’d planned on wearing was at the bottom of one of the many boxes she hadn’t yet unpacked.
The process of moving into her new apartment was taking longer than expected, probably because she had to work at the same time. She’d been in her new apartment for two days now and the only unpacking she’d gotten to do was opening boxes when she needed to get something.
Just as she found the shirt (buried at the bottom of the box, just as she’d expected),  she heard a knock on the door. She hurriedly pulled the grey v-neck t-shirt over her head and went to the front door.
She wasn’t particular surprised that someone was at the door. Most of the neighbors on her floor had already stopped by to welcome her to the building, the exception being the residents of 3D — the apartment across the hall.
Sara unlatched the door and pulled it open. There were two people standing on the other side, a man and a woman, and judging by their similar faces, they were siblings.
“Hi,” Sara said, leaning against the door.
“Hi,” the woman replied, “I’m Lisa Snart from across the hall. This is my brother Leonard. We just wanted to say hello.”
Sara looked the siblings over. Good genes ran in their family. They were both tall; the brother, Leonard, was at least a head and a neck taller than she was. They both had brown hair — Lisa’s long, layers cascaded down her back, her brother’s cropped and dotted with grey — and the same narrow, icy blue eyes and an expression on their faces that made them look permanently up to something.
Sara found it rather intoxicating, especially as Leonard’s eyes met her own, giving her the feeling that he wasn’t just looking at her, but reading her, understanding the inner workings of her thoughts before even she could.
She smiled.
“Well, thanks,” she replied, “I’m Sara Lance. C’mon in.”
Sara led Leonard and Lisa into her apartment.
“Sorry it’s a bit of a mess, I haven’t really had time to start unpacking yet,” she apologized.
Lisa shrugged, “It’s probably still better than ours.”
“I wonder who’s fault that is?” Leonard raised her eyebrows at his sister. Before Lisa could answer, he turned to Sara, “So what’s a pretty girl like yourself doing in a neighborhood like this one?”
“Len!” Lisa rolled her eyes, “Ignore him. He’s an asshole.”
“No, it’s okay,” Sara replied, shrugging, “I’m here because it’s cheap and it’s pretty close to where I work.”
“And where might that be?” Leonard asked.
“Down at the police precinct. I’m a homicide detective.”
Leonard’s eyes flashed suspiciously and Lisa sent a warning glare to her brother, daring him to say anything.
Leonard’s criminal work happened under the cover of an alias, Captain Cold. That and a heavily hooded parka and goggles covering the majority of his face kept his true identity under wraps. If a CCPD detective hadn’t yet made the connection, his disguise was clearly working.
“Detective, huh,” Leonard finally said, “You must know Barry Allen.”
Sara nodded, “Yeah, he comes along on some of my assignments and he works a lot of the forensics for my cases. How do you know him?”
“We go back a ways,” Leonard replied cryptically.
If Leonard was being completely honest, he’d say that Barry Allen was one of the few people who knew who Captain Cold truly was, and the only reason he wasn’t spilling was because Barry had his own secret identity, that of the red speedster, The Flash. However, Leonard was rarely completely honest, so he wasn’t going to say anything.
Sara raised an eyebrow skeptically but before she could say anything, they heard the quiet pitter-patter of little feet.
“Daily bubble, Mommy!”
Leonard’s head swiveled in time to see a little girl appear from a bedroom off the hallway. She looked remarkably like her mother, with big eyes a brilliant shade of blue. She had mop of thick, curly light brown hair that barely fell past her chin. Her nose was small and thin and turned up slightly at the end, She was dressed in a burnt orange jumper and cream colored blouse. On her sock-clad feet were a pair of shiny Mary Jane shoes.
Upon seeing the new people, she tucked herself behind her mother’s legs.
“Don’t be shy,” Sara whispered, taking the girl’s hand and pulling her out from behind her legs. She straightened and turned back to Leonard and Lisa, “This is my daughter, Avery. Avery, this is Leonard and Lisa. They live across the hall.”
“Hi,” Avery said quietly, her head tipped almost all the way up to look at the tall strangers standing in her living room
“Hi Avery,” Lisa smiled, crouching down to Avery’s level, “How old are you?”
“Four.”
“Wow, that’s so big!”
Leonard raised his eyebrows at his sister, although he wasn’t exactly surprised by her behavior.
Lisa had always been good with kids, more so than Leonard at least. Kids always just seemed to like her more than him, and he didn’t exactly blame them.
He tried to listen to the conversation between Avery Lance and Lisa, which he was sure was sickeningly sweet, but his eyes keep wandering to the girl’s mother, Sara.
She was beautiful, Leonard couldn’t deny that. She was dressed in a plain t-shirt and jeans, but the simplicity suited her. She was small, but built; he could see muscle lines on her bare arms. She and her daughter had the same deep turquoise eyes, but while Avery’s eyes were wide and shining, Sara’s carried a look of permanent suspicion that all cops shared.
He never would have suspected she had a kid. She was young, maybe the same age as Lisa; too young to have a four year old, especially since there was no evidence of the father anywhere.
Normally, finding out that a woman had a kid would send Leonard running, but for some reason, with Sara he didn’t want to. That scared him, and if there was anything that did make Leonard run, it was being scared.
And then something even worse happened.
Sara eyes flicked from her daughter to him and her gaze met his. Leonard froze. He wanted desperately to look away, but didn’t want to be the one to break the eye contact. Thankfully, his sister unknowingly rescued him.
“What’s a daily bubble?” Lisa said, pulling Sara’s eyes off of his.
“It’s something we’ve done every day for a while,” Sara said, looking down at her daughter. She ran a hand over Avery’s hair, “We make a really big bubble and see if we can beat our record for how long it lasts before it pops.”
“Wanna see?” Avery asked, her head tipped back so she could look up at her new neighbors.
“Of course,” Lisa exclaimed. She stood and followed Avery and Sara deeper into the apartment. Leonard reluctantly trailed behind. If he had known what “meeting the neighbors” really ensued, he may not have been so gung ho about getting it over with.
They stepped out onto the balcony, where the only furnishing was a metal table, on which was resting a large bubble wand and a plastic tupperware container filled with a soapy liquid. Sara lifted up Avery and sat her on the table, where she picked up the container and carefully removed the lid. Sara took the bubble wand and let it rest in the liquid momentarily. Then she lifted it and dragged it through the air. The bubble that was created was huge, bigger than the size of a beach ball. It seemed to bounce through the air, it’s shape changing with the wind. Avery immediately started counting.
“One…”
Sara joined in for, “two…three…”
Even Lisa added her voice to the mix for, “four…five…”
And then, silently, it popped, leaving only a few drops of the bubble liquid hanging suspending in midair for a few seconds before they too disappeared, gravity pulling them towards the sidewalk below.
“Aww,” Avery said, looking to the ground in disappointment.
“What’s your record?” Lisa asked.
“Eleven seconds,” Sara replied. Lisa nodded.
“It was nice meeting you,” Leonard said, cutting off Lisa before she had time to start, “But I’ve gotta get to work.”
“Yeah, I probably should head out too,” Sara replied, “I have to get Avery to preschool. Thanks for stopping by.”
Leonard nodded once, not breaking eye contact.
“It was really nice to meet you,” Lisa added, “and if you ever need anything, we’re right across the hall.”
“Thanks,” Sara smiled. She turned to Avery, “Say goodbye to Leonard and Lisa.”
“Bye,” Avery said quietly, her eyes still on the sky as if the bubble would suddenly reappear, falling out of the sky from the clouds.
Sara dropped Avery off at school and continued to the police precinct.
“Lance,” her boss Joe West called as she exited the elevator, “How’s the new place?”
“Good,” Sara nodded, walking with Joe in the direction of her office, “Haven’t even tried to start unpacking yet, but good.”
“Avery’s settling in well?”
“Yeah,” Sara shrugged, “She was a little upset when she realized we wouldn’t be seeing Grandma everyday, but otherwise she’s fine.”
“Good,” Joe said, “That’s good. Look, you know how I am. If something ever comes up and you need a day off, just let me know. I’ll make it happen.”
“Thanks Joe,” Sara said appreciatively.
“No problem, Lance. Congratulations for doing something I’ve been trying to get Barry to do for a year,” he went to leave her office, but turned at the door way, “Speaking of Barry, he’s in his lab analyzing that evidence you found from the last Cold scene. He said he’ll be down to go over it with you you as soon as he’s done, so I’d say you’ve got, oh I dunno, an hour or so to kill before he’s ready.”
Joe left the room chuckling at his own joke. Sara sat behind her desk and switched on her computer. She was grateful for the spare time; she had something she had to do.
Sara pulled up the police database, the system that held information about nearly every citizen of Central City.
She glanced up, her eyes swiftly passing over the precinct. When she was sure she was unwatched, she typed the name Martha Higgins, the occupant of apartment 3A and Sara’s neighbor two doors down, into the search bar.
Was checking up on her neighbors morally right? No. Was it an abuse of power? Probably. But, was it justified because she was doing it with the safety of her daughter in mind? As much as Sara wished the answer was yes, she also knew that even in Avery’s best interest, using the classified police database to perform background checks on her neighbors was probably not morally correct.
Sara, however, had never really cared about being morally correct.
There was nothing on Martha Higgins, nothing on the man in 3B who’d brought her a pie when they first met. Samuel Barnes — in 3C — had a few parking tickets, but they had all been paid on time. Everyone was clean, at least until she reached the occupants of 3D. Sara had a funny feeling that the Snart siblings wouldn’t be as clean as the rest of her neighbors.
She was right about that.
Leonard Snart had one of the longest criminal records she’d ever seen. It began when he was twelve years old, and included a little bit of everything, from grand larceny to first degree murder to arson. His sister’s list wasn’t quite as long, or as diverse — she mainly dealt in petty thievery, but she had a few overlapping crimes with her brother.
Both of their records halted in late-2014. Sara wasn’t entirely sure why — she’d only be accepted to the force in 2015 — but for whatever reason, Leonard and Lisa had turned away from a life of crime and never looked back.
Or so she thought.
“Don’t you know who that is?” Leonard seethed, pacing across the living room, “That’s the head of the Captain Cold case. We live across the hall from he woman who is actively trying to put me in jail. We have to move.”
Lisa was slumped on the couch, her eyes following Leonard as he walked from one end of the room to the other.
“We’re not moving,” she said, “and anyway, if she didn’t recognize you now, maybe she never will.”
“I don’t want to take that risk,” he replied, “I have a bad feeling about this.”
“So do I,” Lisa shrugged. Leonard came to a stop in front of the TV.
“You do?”
“Yeah, you couldn’t keep your eyes off her,” Lisa smirked as her brother blanched, “Now move. I wanna watch TV.”
Yes I know, another kid fic. Fight me.
11 notes · View notes
readbookywooks · 7 years
Text
Triwizard Tournament
Through the gates, flanked with statues of winged boars, and up the sweeping drive the carriages trundled, swaying dangerously in what was fast becoming a gale. Leaning against the window, Harry could see Hogwarts coming nearer, its many lighted windows blurred and shimmering behind the thick curtain of rain. Lightning flashed across the sky as their carriage came to a halt before the great oak front doors, which stood at the top of a flight of stone steps. People who had occupied the carriages in front were already hurrying up the stone steps into the castle. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville jumped down from their carriage and dashed up the steps too, looking up only when they were safely inside the cavernous, torch-lit entrance hall, with its magnificent marble staircase. "Blimey," said Ron, shaking his head and sending water everywhere, "if that keeps up the lake's going to overflow. I'm soak - ARRGH!" A large, red, water-filled balloon had dropped from out of the ceiling onto Ron's head and exploded. Drenched and sputtering, Ron staggered sideways into Harry, just as a second water bomb dropped - narrowly missing Hermione, it burst at Harry's feet, sending a wave of cold water over his sneakers into his socks. People all around them shrieked and started pushing one another in their efforts to get out of the line of fire. Harry looked up and saw, floating twenty feet above them, Peeves the Poltergeist, a little man in a bell-covered hat and orange bow tie, his wide, malicious face contorted with concentration as he took aim again. "PEEVES!" yelled an angry voice. "Peeves, come down here at ONCE!" Professor McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress and head of Gryffindor House, had come dashing out of the Great Hall; she skidded on the wet floor and grabbed Hermione around the neck to stop herself from falling. "Ouch - sorry, Miss Granger -" "That's all right, Professor!" Hermione gasped, massaging her throat. "Peeves, get down here NOW!" barked Professor McGonagall, straightening her pointed hat and glaring upward through her square-rimmed spectacles. "Not doing nothing!" cackled Peeves, lobbing a water bomb at several fifth-year girls, who screamed and dived into the Great Hall. "Already wet, aren't they? Little squirts! Wheeeeeeeeee!" And he aimed another bomb at a group of second years who had just arrived. "I shall call the headmaster!" shouted Professor McGonagall. "I'm warning you, Peeves -" Peeves stuck out his tongue, threw the last of his water bombs into the air, and zoomed off up the marble staircase, cackling insanely. "Well, move along, then!" said Professor McGonagall sharply to the bedraggled crowd. "Into the Great Hall, come on!" Harry, Ron, and Hermione slipped and slid across the entrance hall and through the double doors on the right, Ron muttering furiously under his breath as he pushed his sopping hair off his face. The Great Hall looked its usual splendid self, decorated for the start-of-term feast. Golden plates and goblets gleamed by the light of hundreds and hundreds of candles, floating over the tables in midair. The four long House tables were packed with chattering students; at the top of the Hall, the staff sat along one side of a fifth table, facing their pupils. It was much warmer in here. Harry, Ron, and Hermione walked past the Slytherins, the Ravenclaws, and the Hufflepuffs, and sat down with the rest of the Gryffindors at the far side of the Hall, next to Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost. Pearly white and semitransparent, Nick was dressed tonight in his usual doublet, but with a particularly large ruff, which served the dual purpose of looking extra-festive, and insuring that his head didn't wobble too much on his partially severed neck. "Good evening," he said, beaming at them. "Says who?" said Harry, taking off his sneakers and emptying them of water. "Hope they hurry up with the Sorting. I'm starving." The Sorting of the new students into Houses took place at the start of every school year, but by an unlucky combination of circumstances, Harry hadn't been present at one since his own. He was quite looking forward to it. Just then, a highly excited, breathless voice called down the table. "Hiya, Harry!" It was Colin Creevey, a third year to whom Harry was something of a hero. "Hi, Colin," said Harry warily. "Harry, guess what? Guess what, Harry? My brother's starting! My brother Dennis!" "Er - good," said Harry. "He's really excited!" said Colin, practically bouncing up and down in his seat. "I just hope he's in Gryffindor! Keep your fingers crossed, eh, Harry?" "Er - yeah, all right," said Harry. He turned back to Hermione, Ron, and Nearly Headless Nick. "Brothers and sisters usually go in the same Houses, don't they?" he said. He was judging by the Weasleys, all seven of whom had been put into Gryffindor. "Oh no, not necessarily," said Hermione. "Parvati Patil's twin's in Ravenclaw, and they're identical. You'd think they'd be together, wouldn't you?" Harry looked up at the staff table. There seemed to be rather more empty seats there than usual. Hagrid, of course, was still fighting his way across the lake with the first years; Professor McGonagall was presumably supervising the drying of the entrance hall floor, but there was another empty chair too, and Harry couldn't think who else was missing. "Where's the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?" said Hermione, who was also looking up at the teachers. They had never yet had a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher who had lasted more than three terms. Harry's favorite by far had been Professor Lupin, who had resigned last year. He looked up and down the staff table. There was definitely no new face there. "Maybe they couldn't get anyone!" said Hermione, looking anxious. Harry scanned the table more carefully. Tiny little Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was sitting on a large pile of cushions beside Professor Sprout, the Herbology teacher, whose hat was askew over her flyaway gray hair. She was talking to Professor Sinistra of the Astronomy department. On Professor Sinistra's other side was the sallow-faced, hook-nosed, greasy-haired Potions master, Snape - Harry's least favorite person at Hogwarts. Harry's loathing of Snape was matched only by Snape's hatred of him, a hatred which had, if possible, intensified last year, when Harry had helped Sirius escape right under Snape's overlarge nose - Snape and Sirius had been enemies since their own school days. On Snape's other side was an empty seat, which Harry guessed was Professor McGonagall's. Next to it, and in the very center of the table, sat Professor Dumbledore, the headmaster, his sweeping silver hair and beard shining in the candlelight, his magnificent deep green robes embroidered with many stars and moons. The tips of Dumbledore's long, thin fingers were together and he was resting his chin upon them, staring up at the ceiling through his half-moon spectacles as though lost in thought. Harry glanced up at the ceiling too. It was enchanted to look like the sky outside, and he had never seen it look this stormy. Black and purple clouds were swirling across it, and as another thunderclap sounded outside, a fork of lightning flashed across it. "Oh hurry up," Ron moaned, beside Harry, "I could eat a hippogriff." The words were no sooner out of his mouth than the doors of the Great Hall opened and silence fell. Professor McGonagall was leading a long line of first years up to the top of the Hall. If Harry, Ron, and Hermione were wet, it was nothing to how these first years looked. They appeared to have swum across the lake rather than sailed. All of them were shivering with a combination of cold and nerves as they filed along the staff table and came to a halt in a line facing the rest of the school - all of them except the smallest of the lot, a boy with mousy hair, who was wrapped in what Harry recognized as Hagrid's moleskin overcoat. The coat was so big for him that it hooked as though he were draped in a furry black circus tent. His small face protruded from over the collar, looking almost painfully excited. When he had lined up with his terrified-looking peers, he caught Colin Creevey's eye, gave a double thumbs-up, and mouthed, I fell in the lake! He looked positively delighted about it. Professor McGonagall now placed a three-legged stool on the ground before the first years and, on top of it, an extremely old, dirty patched wizard's hat. The first years stared at it. So did everyone else. For a moment, there was silence. Then a long tear near the brim opened wide like a mouth, and the hat broke into song: A thousand years or more ago, When I was newly sewn,There lived four wizards of renown, Whose names are still well known: Bold Gryffindor, from wild moor, Fair Ravenclaw, from glen, Sweet Hufflepuff, from valley broad, Shrewd Slytherin, from fin. They shared a wish, a hope, a dream, They hatched a daring plan To educate young sorcerers Thus Hogwarts School began. Now each of these four founders Formed their own house, for each Did value different virtues In the ones they had to teach. By Gryffindor, the bravest were Prized far beyond the rest; For Ravenclaw, the cleverest Would always be the best; For Hufflepuff, hard workers were Most worthy of admission; And power-hungry Slytherin Loved those of great ambition. While still alive they did divide Their favorites from the throng, Yet how to pick the worthy ones When they were dead and gone? Twas Gryffindor who found the way, He whipped me off his head The founders put some brains in me So I could choose instead! Now slip me snug about your ears, I've never yet been wrong, I'll have a look inside your mind And tell where you belong! The Great Hall rang with applause as the Sorting Hat finished. "That's not the song it sang when it Sorted us," said Harry, clapping along with everyone else. "Sings a different one every year," said Ron. "It's got to be a pretty boring life, hasn't it, being a hat? I suppose it spends all year making up the next one." Professor McGonagall was now unrolling a large scroll of parchment. "When I call out your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool," she told the first years. "When the hat announces your House, you will go and sit at the appropriate table. "Ackerley, Stewart!" A boy walked forward, visibly trembling from head to foot, picked up the Sorting Hat, put it on, and sat down on the stool. "RAVENCLAW!" shouted the hat. Stewart Ackerley took off the hat and hurried into a seat at the Ravenclaw table, where everyone was applauding him. Harry caught a glimpse of Cho, the Ravenclaw Seeker, cheering Stewart Ackerley as he sat down. For a fleeting second, Harry had a strange desire to join the Ravenclaw table too. "Baddock, Malcolm!" "SLYTHERIN!" The table on the other side of the hall erupted with cheers; Harry could see Malfoy clapping as Baddock joined the Slytherins. Harry wondered whether Baddock knew that Slytherin House had turned out more Dark witches and wizards than any other. Fred and George hissed Malcolm Baddock as he sat down. "Branstone, Eleanor!" "HUFFLEPUFF!" "Cauldwell, Owen!" "HUFFLEPUFF!" "Creevey, Dennis!" Tiny Dennis Creevey staggered forward, tripping over Hagrid's moleskin, just as Hagrid himself sidled into the Hall through a door behind the teachers' table. About twice as tall as a normal man, and at least three times as broad, Hagrid, with his long, wild, tangled black hair and beard, looked slightly alarming - a misleading impression, for Harry, Ron, and Hermione knew Hagrid to possess a very kind nature. He winked at them as he sat down at the end of the staff table and watched Dennis Creevey putting on the Sorting Hat. The rip at the brim opened wide - "GRYFFINDOR!" the hat shouted. Hagrid clapped along with the Gryffindors as Dennis Creevey, beaming widely, took off the hat, placed it back on the stool, and hurried over to join his brother. "Colin, I fell in!" he said shrilly, throwing himself into an empty seat. "It was brilliant! And something in the water grabbed me and pushed me back in the boat!" "Cool!" said Colin, just as excitedly. "It was probably the giant squid, Dennis!" "Wow!" said Dennis, as though nobody in their wildest dreams could hope for more than being thrown into a storm-tossed, fathoms-deep lake, and pushed out of it again by a giant sea monster. "Dennis! Dennis! See that boy down there? The one with the black hair and glasses? See him? Know who he is, Dennis?" Harry looked away, staring very hard at the Sorting Hat, now Sorting Emma Dobbs. The Sorting continued; boys and girls with varying degrees of fright on their faces moving one by one to the three-legged stool, the line dwindling slowly as Professor McGonagall passed the L's. "Oh hurry up," Ron moaned, massaging his stomach. "Now, Ron, the Sorting's much more important than food," said Nearly Headless Nick as "Madley, Laura!" became a Hufflepuff. "Course it is, if you're dead," snapped Ron. "I do hope this year's batch of Gryffindors are up to scratch," said Nearly Headless Nick, applauding as "McDonald, Natalie!" joined the Gryffindor table. "We don't want to break our winning streak, do we?" Gryffindor had won the Inter-House Championship for the last three years in a row. "Pritchard, Graham!" "SLYTHERIN!" "Quirke, Orla!" "RAVENCLAW!" And finally, with "Whitby, Kevin!" ("HUFFLEPUFF!"), the Sorting ended. Professor McGonagall picked up the hat and the stool and carried them away. "About time," said Ron, seizing his knife and fork and looking expectantly at his golden plate. Professor Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was smiling around at the students, his arms opened wide in welcome. "I have only two words to say to you," he told them, his deep voice echoing around the Hall. "Tuck in." "Hear, hear!" said Harry and Ron loudly as the empty dishes filled magically before their eyes. Nearly Headless Nick watched mournfully as Harry, Ron, and Hermione loaded their own plates. "Aaah, 'at's be'er," said Ron, with his mouth full of mashed potato. "You're lucky there's a feast at all tonight, you know," said Nearly Headless Nick. "There was trouble in the kitchens earlier." "Why? Wha' 'appened?" said Harry, through a sizable chunk of steak. "Peeves, of course," said Nearly Headless Nick, shaking his head, which wobbled dangerously. He pulled his ruff a little higher up on his neck. "The usual argument, you know. He wanted to attend the feast - well, it's quite out of the question, you know what he's like, utterly uncivilized, can't see a plate of food without throwing it. We held a ghost's council - the Fat Friar was all for giving him the chance - but most wisely, in my opinion, the Bloody Baron put his foot down." The Bloody Baron was the Slytherin ghost, a gaunt and silent specter covered in silver bloodstains. He was the only person at Hogwarts who could really control Peeves. "Yeah, we thought Peeves seemed hacked off about something," said Ron darkly. "So what did he do in the kitchens?" "Oh the usual," said Nearly Headless Nick, shrugging. "Wreaked havoc and mayhem. Pots and pans everywhere. Place swimming in soup. Terrified the house-elves out of their wits -" Clang. Hermione had knocked over her golden goblet. Pumpkin juice spread steadily over the tablecloth, staining several feet of white linen orange, but Hermione paid no attention. "There are house-elves here?" she said, staring, horror-struck, at Nearly Headless Nick. "Here at Hogwarts?" "Certainly," said Nearly Headless Nick, looking surprised at her reaction. "The largest number in any dwelling in Britain, I believe. Over a hundred." "I've never seen one!" said Hermione. "Well, they hardly ever leave the kitchen by day, do they?" said Nearly Headless Nick. "They come out at night to do a bit of cleaning...see to the fires and so on....I mean, you're not supposed to see them, are you? That's the mark of a good house-elf, isn't it, that you don't know it's there?" Hermione stared at him. "But they get paid?" she said. "They get holidays, don't they? And - and sick leave, and pensions, and everything?" Nearly Headless Nick chortled so much that his ruff slipped and his head flopped off, dangling on the inch or so of ghostly skin and muscle that still attached it to his neck. "Sick leave and pensions?" he said, pushing his head back onto his shoulders and securing it once more with his ruff. "House-elves don't want sick leave and pensions!" Hermione looked down at her hardly touched plate of food, then put her knife and fork down upon it and pushed it away from her. "Oh c'mon, 'Er-my-knee," said Ron, accidentally spraying Harry with bits of Yorkshire pudding. "Oops - sorry, 'Arry -" He swallowed. "You won't get them sick leave by starving yourself!" "Slave labor," said Hermione, breathing hard through her nose. "That's what made this dinner. Slave labor." And she refused to eat another bite. The rain was still drumming heavily against the high, dark glass. Another clap of thunder shook the windows, and the stormy ceiling flashed, illuminating the golden plates as the remains of the first course vanished and were replaced, instantly, with puddings. "Treacle tart, Hermione!" said Ron, deliberately wafting its smell toward her. "Spotted dick, look! Chocolate gateau!" But Hermione gave him a look so reminiscent of Professor McGonagall that he gave up. When the puddings too had been demolished, and the last crumbs had faded off the plates, leaving them sparkling clean, Albus Dumbledore got to his feet again. The buzz of chatter filling the Hall ceased almost at once, so that only the howling wind and pounding rain could be heard. "So!" said Dumbledore, smiling around at them all. "Now that we are all fed and watered," ("Hmph!" said Hermione) "I must once more ask for your attention, while I give out a few notices. "Mr. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me to tell you that the list of objects forbidden inside the castle has this year been extended to include Screaming Yo-yos, Fanged Frisbees, and Ever-Bashing Boomerangs. The full list comprises some four hundred and thirty-seven items, I believe, and can be viewed in Mr. Filch's office, if anybody would like to check it." The corners of Dumbledore's mouth twitched. He continued, "As ever, I would like to remind you all that the forest on the grounds is out-of-bounds to students, as is the village of Hogsmeade to all below third year. "It is also my painful duty to inform you that the Inter-House Quidditch Cup will not take place this year." "What?" Harry gasped. He looked around at Fred and George, his fellow members of the Quidditch team. They were mouthing soundlessly at Dumbledore, apparently too appalled to speak. Dumbhedore went on, "This is due to an event that will be starting in October, and continuing throughout the school year, taking up much of the teachers' time and energy - but I am sure you will all enjoy it immensely. I have great pleasure in announcing that this year at Hogwarts -" But at that moment, there was a deafening rumble of thunder and the doors of the Great Hall banged open. A man stood in the doorway, leaning upon a long staff, shrouded in a black traveling cloak. Every head in the Great Hall swiveled toward the stranger, suddenly brightly illuminated by a fork of lightning that flashed across the ceiling. He lowered his hood, shook out a long mane of grizzled, dark gray hair, then began to walk up toward the teachers' table. A dull clunk echoed through the Hall on his every other step. He reached the end of the top table, turned right, and limped heavily toward Dumbledore. Another flash of lightning crossed the ceiling. Hermione gasped. The lightning had thrown the man's face into sharp relief, and it was a face unlike any Harry had ever seen.It looked as though it had been carved out of weathered wood by someone who had only the vaguest idea of what human faces are supposed to look like, and was none too skilled with a chisel. Every inch of skin seemed to be scarred. The mouth looked like a diagonal gash, and a large chunk of the nose was missing. But it was the man's eyes that made him frightening. One of them was small, dark, and beady. The other was large, round as a coin, and a vivid, electric blue. The blue eye was moving ceaselessly, without blinking, and was rolling up, down, and from side to side, quite independently of the normal eye - and then it rolled right over, pointing into the back of the man's head, so that all they could see was whiteness. The stranger reached Dumbledore. He stretched out a hand that was as badly scarred as his face, and Dumbhedore shook it, muttering words Harry couldn't hear. He seemed to be making some inquiry of the stranger, who shook his head unsmilingly and replied in an undertone. Dumbledore nodded and gestured the man to the empty seat on his right-hand side. The stranger sat down, shook his mane of dark gray hair out of his face, pulled a plate of sausages toward him, raised it to what was left of his nose, and sniffed it. He then took a small knife out of his pocket, speared a sausage on the end of it, and began to eat. His normal eye was fixed upon the sausages, but the blue eye was still darting restlessly around in its socket, taking in the Hall and the students. "May I introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?" said Dumbledore brightly into the silence. "Professor Moody." It was usual for new staff members to be greeted with applause, but none of the staff or students chapped except Dumbledore and Hagrid, who both put their hands together and applauded, but the sound echoed dismally into the silence, and they stopped fairly quickly. Everyone else seemed too transfixed by Moody's bizarre appearance to do more than stare at him. "Moody?" Harry muttered to Ron. "Mad-Eye Moody? The one your dad went to help this morning?" "Must be," said Ron in a low, awed voice. "What happened to him?" Hermione whispered. "What happened to his face?" "Dunno," Ron whispered back, watching Moody with fascination. Moody seemed totally indifferent to his less-than-warm welcome. Ignoring the jug of pumpkin juice in front of him, he reached again into his traveling cloak, pulled out a hip flask, and took a long draught from it. As he lifted his arm to drink, his cloak was pulled a few inches from the ground, and Harry saw, below the table, several inches of carved wooden leg, ending in a clawed foot. Dumbledore cleared his throat. "As I was saying," he said, smiling at the sea of students before him, all of whom were still gazing transfixed at Mad-Eye Moody, "we are to have the honor of hosting a very exciting event over the coming months, an event that has not been held for over a century. It is my very great pleasure to inform you that the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place at Hogwarts this year." "You're JOKING!" said Fred Weasley loudly. The tension that had filled the Hall ever since Moody's arrival suddenly broke. Nearly everyone laughed, and Dumbledore chuckled appreciatively. "I am not joking, Mr. Weasley," he said, "though now that you mention it, I did hear an excellent one over the summer about a troll, a hag, and a leprechaun who all go into a bar." Professor McGonagall cleared her throat loudly. "Er - but maybe this is not the time...no..." said Dumbledore, "where was I? Ah yes, the Triwizard Tournament...well, some of you will not know what this tournament involves, so I hope those who do know will forgive me for giving a short explanation, and allow their attention to wander freely. "The Triwizard Tournament was first established some seven hundred years ago as a friendly competition between the three largest European schools of wizardry: Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang. A champion was selected to represent each school, and the three champions competed in three magical tasks. The schools took it in turns to host the tournament once every five years, and it was generally agreed to be a most excellent way of establishing ties between young witches and wizards of different nationalities - until, that is, the death toll mounted so high that the tournament was discontinued." "Death toll?" Hermione whispered, looking alarmed. But her anxiety did not seem to be shared by the majority of students in the Hall; many of them were whispering excitedly to one another, and Harry himself was far more interested in hearing about the tournament than in worrying about deaths that had happened hundreds of years ago. "There have been several attempts over the centuries to reinstate the tournament," Dumbledore continued, "none of which has been very successful. However, our own departments of International Magical Cooperation and Magical Games and Sports have decided the time is ripe for another attempt. We have worked hard over the summer to ensure that this time, no champion will find himself or herself in mortal danger. "The heads of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving with their short-listed contenders in October, and the selection of the three champions will take place at Halloween. An impartial judge will decide which students are most worthy to compete for the Triwizard Cup, the glory of their school, and a thousand Galleons personal prize money." "I'm going for it!" Fred Weasley hissed down the table, his face lit with enthusiasm at the prospect of such glory and riches. He was not the only person who seemed to be visualizing himself as the Hogwarts champion. At every House table, Harry could see people either gazing raptly at Dumbledore, or else whispering fervently to their neighbors. But then Dumbledore spoke again, and the Hall quieted once more. "Eager though I know all of you will be to bring the Triwizard Cup to Hogwarts," he said, "the heads of the participating schools, along with the Ministry of Magic, have agreed to impose an age restriction on contenders this year. Only students who are of age - that is to say, seventeen years or older - will be allowed to put forward their names for consideration. This -" Dumbledore raised his voice slightly, for several people had made noises of outrage at these words, and the Weasley twins were suddenly looking furious - "is a measure we feel is necessary, given that the tournament tasks will still be difficult and dangerous, whatever precautions we take, and it is highly unlikely that students below sixth and seventh year will be able to cope with them. I will personally be ensuring that no underage student hoodwinks our impartial judge into making them Hogwarts champion." His light blue eyes twinkled as they flickered over Fred's and George's mutinous faces. "I therefore beg you not to waste your time submitting yourself if you are under seventeen. "The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving in October and remaining with us for the greater part of this year. I know that you will all extend every courtesy to our foreign guests while they are with us, and will give your whole-hearted support to the Hogwarts champion when he or she is selected. And now, it is late, and I know how important it is to you all to be alert and rested as you enter your lessons tomorrow morning. Bedtime! Chop chop!" Dumbledore sat down again and turned to talk to Mad-Eye Moody. There was a great scraping and banging as all the students got to their feet and swarmed toward the double doors into the entrance hall. "They can't do that!" said George Weasley, who had not joined the crowd moving toward the door, but was standing up and glaring at Dumbledore. "We're seventeen in April, why can't we have a shot?" "They're not stopping me entering," said Fred stubbornly, also scowling at the top table. "The champions'll get to do all sorts of stuff you'd never be allowed to do normally. And a thousand Galleons prize money!" "Yeah," said Ron, a faraway look on his face. "Yeah, a thousand Galleons...." "Come on," said Hermione, "we'll be the only ones left here if you don't move." Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred, and George set off for the entrance hall, Fred and George debating the ways in which Dumbledore might stop those who were under seventeen from entering the tournament. "Who's this impartial judge who's going to decide who the champions are?" said Harry. "Dunno," said Fred, "but it's them we'll have to fool. I reckon a couple of drops of Aging Potion might do it, George..." "Dumbledore knows you're not of age, though," said Ron. "Yeah, but he's not the one who decides who the champion is, is he?" said Fred shrewdly. "Sounds to me like once this judge knows who wants to enter, he'll choose the best from each school and never mind how old they are. Dumbledore's trying to stop us giving our names." "People have died, though!" said Hermione in a worried voice as they walked through a door concealed behind a tapestry and started up another, narrower staircase. "Yeah," said Fred airily, "but that was years ago, wasn't it? Anyway, where's the fun without a bit of risk? Hey, Ron, what if we find out how to get 'round Dumbledore? Fancy entering?" "What d'you reckon?" Ron asked Harry. "Be cool to enter, wouldn't it? But I s'pose they might want someone older....Dunno if we've learned enough..." "I definitely haven't," came Neville's gloomy voice from behind Fred and George. "I expect my gran'd want me to try, though. She's always going on about how I should be upholding the family honor. I'll just have to - oops..." Neville's foot had sunk right through a step halfway up the staircase. There were many of these trick stairs at Hogwarts; it was second nature to most of the older students to jump this particular step, but Neville's memory was notoriously poor. Harry and Ron seized him under the armpits and pulled him out, while a suit of armor at the top of the stairs creaked and clanked, laughing wheezily. "Shut it, you," said Ron, banging down its visor as they passed. They made their way up to the entrance to Gryffindor Tower, which was concealed behind a large portrait of a fat lady in a pink silk dress. "Password?" she said as they approached. "Balderdash," said George, "a prefect downstairs told me." The portrait swung forward to reveal a hole in the wall through which they all climbed. A crackling fire warmed the circular common room, which was full of squashy armchairs and tables. Hermione cast the merrily dancing flames a dark look, and Harry distinctly heard her mutter "Slave labor" before bidding them good night and disappearing through the doorway to the girls' dormitory. Harry, Ron, and Neville climbed up the last, spiral staircase until they reached their own dormitory, which was situated at the top of the tower. Five four-poster beds with deep crimson hangings stood against the walls, each with its owner's trunk at the foot. Dean and Seamus were already getting into bed; Seamus had pinned his Ireland rosette to his headboard, and Dean had tacked up a poster of Viktor Krum over his bedside table. His old poster of the West Ham football team was pinned right next to it. "Mental," Ron sighed, shaking his head at the completely stationary soccer players. Harry, Ron, and Neville got into their pajamas and into bed. Someone - a house-elf, no doubt - had placed warming pans between the sheets. It was extremely comfortable, lying there in bed and listening to the storm raging outside. "I might go in for it, you know," Ron said sleepily through the darkness, "if Fred and George find out how to...the tournament....you never know, do you?" "S'pose not...." Harry rolled over in bed, a series of dazzling new pictures forming in his mind's eye....He had hoodwinked the impartial judge into believing he was seventeen....he had become Hogwarts champion...he was standing on the grounds, his arms raised in triumph in front of the whole school, all of whom were applauding and screaming...he had just won the Triwizard Tournament. Cho's face stood out particularly clearly in the blurred crowd, her face glowing with admiration.... Harry grinned into his pillow, exceptionally glad that Ron couldn't see what he could.
0 notes