#700 follower fics

There are many reasons why she is drawn to Rolf. The way he radiates peace, a still pool of calm in the middle of the wild storm the world makes as it goes by. The way he tilts his head just so and smiles, lopsided and with crows feet forming at the corners of his eyes. The way he simply smiles when she wears her homemade charms to ward off the nargles, does not sneer - does not even think to sneer. His pure, childlike naivete as he watches the world.

It is his love for the stories, however, which truly draw her to him. Stories the rest of the wizarding world harshly dismisses, shutting their ears and calling these storytellers animals, creatures, inhuman.

It is the stories no one else wants to tell, says her father as he bends over his printing presses, making sure the spells laying the typesets in place are working without any glitches, that we must tell.

And there are so many stories, she knows, that the wizarding world will never tell. Stories which she has spent her life listening to as she drifted through school, lonely and estranged from her fellow classmates. Stories a house elf named Dobby tells her. Stories a centaur named Firenze tells her - and later, other centaurs will learn to trust the fae-like young wand-waver who dares enter their forests, for she is unlike other wand-wavers for she listens. 

There are stories that have nearly killed her - the time she nearly drowned, staying underwater without breathing charms, absorbed in the tales a friendly mermaid had to tell, for example, or the time Grawp (yes, she knew about him) nearly attacked her. Stories that she has reluctantly charmed out of recalcitrant tellers - goblins at Gringotts grumbling at this curious witch yet always eager for a chance to tell their story, fae-folk hidden away in their woods long relegated to the pages of myth and legend wondering if this dreamy young child is secretly one of their own.

These are stories they have longed to tell, longed to be heard. Stories of injustices and miseries. Stories of persecution and war and genocide. Stories which tell of the past, present and future in their own words. 

She collects them all, precious gems, each with stories behind them. Stories upon stories upon stories. One day, when she and Rolf are ready, when the magical people behind these stories are ready, they will tell these stories to the wizarding world.

But it seems, Luna thinks, that the time for waiting is over; the time to tell these stories has come.

(Pics:1,2,3,4. For imgonnashoottothrill.)

It’s all fun and games and pureblood extravaganza until Lucius Malfoy, aged seven and having carefully inspected Miss Bellatrix Black, decides to proclaim his findings on the young lady in question to all and sundry in the piercing voice of the very young.

Bellatrix Black is an ugly hag.

Druella Black grabs her husband’s arm, and hisses something about Bellatrix and temper.There is a moment of tense silence where no one dares move, as everyone present tries to decide which course of action would avoid beginning a blood feud between the Blacks and Malfoys.

Narcissa Black, age six and usually considered the darling of the family - always well behaved, never been a trouble in her life - surprises everyone by taking matters into her own hands and picking the cake from the side-table, lobs it straight into Lucius’ face.

My sister is the bestest, she says fiercely, you’re nothing but a – a stupid oaf!

Lucius bursts into tears and there is a flurry of activity during which Cygnus Black, poorly concealing his laughter, picks his youngest daughter up – still scowling like a young and angry tigress – and takes her out of the room. Druella wrings her hands apologizing profusely while Abraxas Malfoy struggles to keep a straight face. Bellatrix looks torn between laughter, being touched at her sister’s fierce love for her and anger over the loss of a perfectly good cake.

(The Lestrange brothers solve that particular dilemma when they start to pick pieces cake off Lucius and eat it. If a LestrangeofLestrange Place can do it, so can milady Black, Bellatrix reasons.)

Narcissa, meanwhile, bears her scolding in stoic silence and refuses to apologize to Lucius.

He’s a rude little boy and he deserved, you saw what he called Bella, papa!

Papa concedes that his youngest daughter has a point, but young ladies do not throw cakes in young gentlemen’s faces.

But he’s not a gentleman!

 Cygnus sighs and decides that there is no reasoning with Narcissa when she’s in high dudgeon over an insult to either Andromeda or Bellatrix – or for that matter him or Druella.

You’ll be sent to Gryffindor if you don’t apologize, he says in a half-hearted threat.

Narcissa returns, chin tilted high and apologizes, but with a glint in her eye that lets everyone know that she is doing this because her Papa, who is a gentleman asked her to very nicely and not at all because she means it.

It is this same fierce protectiveness for family and this wild disregard for the rules by which people play that she will carry with her into the future.

She learns, however, to disregard the rules like a ladywould.

(Narcissa Black-Malfoy requested by jjh2456)

If you think browbeating your children into being good little purebloods is what it takes,then you have failed to understand what it means to be a Black.

We are transgressive by nature, us Blacks. Others may make rules, but we live by no rules but our own - have you not heard, have you not known? Foolish woman.

Consider this your reward for your folly. One son, a whimpering ball, ready to come and go at the slightest move of your finger - aye, you have him well-trained. But he was no Black. Blacks do not bow their knees to other men, certainly not half-breeds. Or have you forgotten your proud ancestry? Poor lad, I could have made much of him. One treats that sort of boy gently, one wins their trust and knowing them in and out, one knows how to better lead them in the straight and narrow. Alas, he is dead and so goes the last of our line; a snivelling piece of work with far too many secrets for his own good.

Ah but the other one could have truly revived our fortunes. He had gumption. An enterprising mind. Precisely the sort of son our ancestors would be delighted to have. But you, my dear, you pushed him away by beating him when you ought to have mollycoddled him. Do you not understand the minds of children? They must be led, not pushed and pummelled into shape. He could have been great, had you known howto raise him to choose for himself, when the time came, the ways of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Instead he turned blood-traitor and now he is in Azkaban and therefore, will amount to nothing. A worthless young fellow and you are entirely to blame.

Excellent. I’m sure you are quitedelighted with your handiwork. You have, after all, singlehandedly wrought the downfall of our family. I must commend you for having managed in but twenty years what others have failed to accomplish in centuries, yea millennia. They will all laud and fete you beyond the veil and demand to know how you did it.

Ah, but you want advice, is it? Ah. Charming. Should I part with my words of wisdom or shall I keep them to myself knowing that you will simply fail to understand what it is I am saying?

Had I been in your place I would have given my children something to be proud of. A name to bear with pride, to raise one’s head high. Not a bloated, pompous ideal that even a five year old could see through. Oh the dark magic isn’t the only thing that characterizes us, Walburga dear. We’re not like the others; pompous old windbags with no good to their names. I would have taught your eldest - er, Sirius, wasn’t it? Quite, quite - about the goodwe had done. Charities and fundraisers, forward thinking progressives who believed women could rule families just as much as men could - no, no, no, you mustn’t interrupt, you know as well as I that the sons and daughters of Morgana, Morgause, Elaine and Arthur could hardly believe that a woman should allow her husband to place his foot upon her neck ‘an he choose to do so. I would have told him how we were the ones who first reformed the Ministry classifications system and made them create a new class of people called beings. One has to reason with stubborn children, to show them that you are not yourself a stubborn child - you are an adult and possessed of an infinitely great fount of wisdom. It is the only way to treat with stubborn young Gryffindors, not to berate them and beat them and hope that they will see the wisdom of your path. No, you must lead them to choose your way, only then will they be all the more loyal to it.

Ah and the other one. I would have drawn him out of his shell and made him talk. Silent obedience is, as you would know if you had listened to the wisdom of your fathers, inevitably a sign of the silent rebellion that surfaces at the most inopportune moments.

What’s that? Oh, I was unpopular was I? How surprising. Those damn fool witches and wizards and their wishy washy dreams of an all inclusive society didn't like having their children labelled idiots and shipped off to the Centaur Liasion Office. Merely doing my duty by my country, for shame, is a man to be punished for doing his duty? Heaven help us all, this is the end of England as we know it and it’s all yourfault.

Of course, it is easy to be wise in retrospect and chide me for not foreseeing how little their parents or indeed they would love me for my foresight, just as it is easy for me to tell you how you have failed your sons. Merlin, what do they teach you in school nowadays? What do you mean but Phineas? I know no Phineas save myself - no there is no Phineas, cease your prating woman! No doubt it was your wagging tongue which sent Orion early to his grave - no for the last time no there is no Phineas but I! Phineas Nigellus Black, the first of his name and head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black!

I am tired. My head aches and I am fatigued to the bone. The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black will crumble and fade away and be as but dust in the wind.

You may leave.

 (Phineas Nigellus Black requested by inkyhooves)

“A toilet seat? Really? Is it toomuch to ask for onenormal Valentine?”

“I don’t know. I like it. I’d dismantle the Ministry for you,” Angelina folds the note and tucks it away, “It’s touching.”

Alicia glares at her.

“It’s fitting,” Angelina continues, “We’re not normal.”

“Clearly.”

“Aberrations of the bell curve. At least if the troll-turd lot is to be believed.”

“We don’t have to be. Abnormal.”

“It’s a lot more fucking fun though, innit? Someone’s willing to take on this shite Ministry, sitting in Malfoy’s pocket, just for us. It’s romantic.”

“I worry for you sometimes.”

“Touching, ‘Licia. I’ll be here, fucking their shit up. Whipping my braids in their troll-faces.  Dumbledore’s Army.”

“It’s a good thing.”

“Yeah. Not normal, though. Normalpeople stick around waiting for Ministry flyers. Get flowers for Valentines.”

“All right, all right, you’ve made your point.”

 “About fucking time.”

Her hand goes up to her hair. Worms. But then, she’d have to be normal, like the rest of them. Forget and hide, always weak.

She didn’t have time for that. No one had time for that. No one with sense anyway. Quidditch. NEWTs. War. Normal people worried about normal things instead of the things that really mattered. The big things. The statistical outliers. The Ministry.

Well, she worried about them. The toilet seat and the accompanying note was a touching reminder. I’d dismantle the Ministry for you. The kind of love note a smart witch loves to get.

None of them were normal. None of the people who wore red, anyway. Not Fred, not George, not Katie, not Alicia, not Lee, not her. Somebody had to be abnormal, if normal meant a life of corruption and violence and slurs thrown about casually as though they were not intended to make some people less equal than other people.

“Wearedoing the right thing, right?”

“Yeah,” Angelina considers the toilet seat on the bed in front of her, “Should tell Fred this doesn’t mean he can skive off Quidditch practice though.”

(Angelina Johnson requested by anon. Valentine+ toilet seat born of discussion between essayofthoughts and myself.​)

“So how’re you going to tell Ma?”

“I’m going to tell her.”

“That’s it, then? ‘Ma I’m shagging my best mate who happens to be a girl’, no sugar-coating?”

“Uh. Yeah?”

“Ma’ll yell.”

Parvati shrugs, “She’s lucky we’re still alive.”

“Point. But you do know she’s been talking with people. Who are Interested.”

“Well she can stop her matchmaking. Lav and I aren’t ending anytime soon.”

“Suit yourself. Don’t come running to me when she has hysterics and asks Pa to make you behave. Or when Pa decides to disown you for ‘bringing dishonour on the family’.”

Parvati sticks her tongue out at her twin, “Pa doesn’t care - daddy’s little girl 'member? 'Sides I’m a Gryffindor,” she flicks Padma between the eyes, “It’s what we do.”

(gay/bi wix of colour requested by anon.)

It was not as though she did not know what she was, or as though she was afraidof the petty prejudices of wizards.

But perhaps it was better to keep some things secret, purely for convenience’ sake, you understand. It was not as though she was so very different from them.

Sometimes, yes, she heard her girls whisper behind her back, looking at her askance. And sometimes, yes, some families would rather send their daughters elsewhere - else find tutors for them (tutors, ironically, she herself had taught). But in the end, they would always come to her, her girls, and ask her whether they ought to have damask or brocade robes, robes of silk or robes of tafetta - and she always knew, far better than those ri-di-cul-ousmagazine, which robes were en vogue.

So how could she be very different from them? She was one of them. She was not a violent, barbaric, barely intelligent creature. Madame Maxime simply kneweverything, therefore, normal. So how could they, the girls she had taught how to dress and how to walk, how to bow and how to deliver an insult just-so stand by and quietly let their headmistress be called barbaric?

Yes, there was method to her madness.

Behind every succesful Ministry man, after all, was a Beauxbatons witch.

(Madame Maxime requested by storylinecaroline)