#prompt posse
So back in December, I picked up a couple of books full of writing prompts in the discount section of Barnes and Noble and thought it would be fun to share a prompt a week on the Harry and Ginny Discord. Just as a little something to encourage writers or those who are thinking about writing to get creative. This week’s prompt was: “You hate your best friend’s new partner. They are besotted. Do you pretend to like them or come clean?” This is what I came up with.
Harry looked at one of his best friends and sighed. “Are you really going to see him again tonight?” he asked, not really expecting any sort of answer. “I mean, he’s hardly the sort you would usually associate with.” He looked around the room. “Although I suppose there’s something to be said for proximity.”
A cool breeze blew in through the open window, raising the small hairs on on the back of Harry’s neck. He heard soft rustling as Pigwidgeon flew into the Hogwarts owlery, a mouse almost as big as him clutched in his beak.
In front of him, Hedwig hooted in owlish delight, her yellow eyes seeming to gleam brighter as her tiny owl suitor landed on the floor, dropping the morsel in front of her perch. Swooping down, Hedwig snapped up the mouse in her sharp beak, throwing her head back to swallow it whole. Harry could have sworn that Pigwidgeon swelled twice his size with pride.
“Fine,” Harry said as the tiny owl snuggled up to Hedwig as she preened her snowy white breast feathers with her beak. “If he makes you happy.”
Hedwig looked at him, fixing him with her golden gaze and blinked once. “I, uh, guess I’ll leave you to it, then,” Harry said, wondering if this was how fathers of newly dating daughters felt. He left the owlery, looking back at the happy couple once more.
Things have been busy with the holidays and I haven’t posted anything in a while. Here’s something I’m working on for the prompt posse on the HarryandGinny Discord. I don’t know how far it’ll go, but it’s fun so far. :D
Ginny walked quickly down Montague Street, her head down and chin buried in her scarf against the chill morning. Just a few more minutes and I can stop at the cafe for a lovely hot mocha. Stepping onto the pathway that ran through Russel Square, she saw something completely unexpected.
A thestral stood on the winter-brown grass, its skeletal figure seeming somehow appropriate for this gray, dismal day. Ginny slowed her walk and stared at the creature, the mocha no longer quite as important as it had been a short time ago. What is one of those doing here? As she watched, the pupil-less white eyes seemed to grow sharper and the leathery wings shivered.
A squirrel shot out of the flowerbed and the thestral pounced, looking like a bony, leathery cat with wings as it crushed the unfortunate squirrel beneath its hooves. Ginny let out a shocked gasp and stood, transfixed as the animal bent its neck down, scooping up the morsel in its beak-like mouth, tossing its head back and swallowing the squirrel whole.
“Well, that’s not something you see every day,” Ginny murmured as she continued on to the cafe. The thestral was strolling slowly around the park, its wings tucked close to its body. Glancing around, she saw that no one else seemed to see the beast and she briefly wondered if she should shoo it away. The ones at Hogwarts were friendly enough, but those had been handled by Hagrid all their lives and she didn’t feel confident enough in her Care of Magical Creatures marks to walk up to a wild thestral and convince it that a park in the middle of London might not be the best place for it.
Shrugging, she went into the cafe and ordered her drink, her thoughts turning to her busy day at St Mungo’s, forgetting all about the strangeness of the squirrel-hunting thestral in Russel Square park.
