KatKnitsStuff!

Here’s mine

okay, but imagine:

wednesday is at the local library with her father, searching the shelves for a book uncle fester told her about dangerous animals in south america. Gomez strikes up a conversation with the elderly librarian mrs. phelps to help wednesday find what they are looking for.

“That one? Or, Mr. Addams - I’m afraid it’s been checked out.”

a squeaky wheel catches wednesday’s attention, and right past her walks a girl with an ENTIRE red-rocket wagon topped full of books. the girl carefully looks over each book and drops them carefully into the book-return

that’s when wednesday sees it - the book she’s been looking for.

wednesday walked slowly up to the girl’s wagon, and touched the cover.

“I just finished that one,” the girl says. wednesday straightens up. “It has a fascinating chapter on the red-bellied piranhas of South America.”

“We’re looking at getting one for Pugsley’s tank,” wednesday says.

“A piranha? It will eat your fish,” she said.

“I’m counting on it.”

“Is Pugsley your fish?”

“My brother.” Wednesday replied.

The girl thought a moment. “You’ll need at least a dozen - they hunt best in schools.”

wednesday just barely smiled, a single corner of her lips turning up. “I’m wednesday addams.” she said, extending a hand.

The next day, the Wormwoods have gone on an indefinite vacation and need the Addams family to watch their daughter while they’re gone.

What? It doesn’t matter where they’re going. Stop asking.

Of course it has nothing to do with the large gentleman and the severed hand who showed up to help Matilda pack yesterday.

And it certainly has nothing to do with the fact that Mr. Wormwood came home to a hungry lion in his living room, with a very calm and very pale woman sitting in his chair, giving the lion a belly rub and saying she “just wanted to speak to you about our daughters.”

@shitpostsampler

So I might have just worked with the supplies that came easily to hand… Still plotting framing and such, but ta-da!

Like.

The Hogwarts students have spent the entire year peripheral to a war zone, with some of the enemy already present and actively tormenting and then hunting them. They have some idea that Hogwarts might be invaded by Voldemort at some point in time.

As part of their ongoing campaign of defiance of all things pureblood-supremacist and to keep up morale, they have a series of movie nights wherein they get everybody together and watch Muggle films on a TV that they’ve gotten Flitwick to charm into working at Hogwarts.

One of these films was Home Alone.

It was such a hit that they watched the other movies in the series.

And somebody, some little first year who’d been Crucio’d six times that month, raises her hand and suggests, “what if when HE came, we were prepared like Kevin was?”

And they spend the next four months booby-trapping every single inch of the castle.

People use the DA galleons to communicate, and the graduates provide supplies and research and high-level spellwork. Fred and George turn their joke shop’s entire production output to the purpose. Muggleborns, despite being on the run from the now-corrupt Ministry, buy technology like video cameras, remote controls, computers, and Muggle explosives, and research every method of sabotage, petty revenge, and dirty trickery they can think of.

When the evacuation order comes, the younger students retreat to the Hog’s Head with their arms full of screens and remotes and VR headsets, each with their assignment of an area to watch and a set of traps to deploy.

When Voldemort arrives with his Death Eaters, giants, werewolves, and assorted other lackeys in tow, and demands Harry Potter, the answer–from Neville Longbottom–is “If you want him, come and get him, you snake-fucking arsehole.”

Minerva has to turn a laugh into a hacking cough, and surrepticiously awards ten points to Gryffindor when nobody’s paying attention.

When Voldemort strides up to the doorway, the lawn collapses and he finds himself chest-deep in a Portable Swamp.

Ginny Weasley, responsible for the first line of defense at her own request, is downright gleeful as she activates the hundreds of freezing charms the students had added to it, and he and several Death Eaters find themselves temporarily stuck in the ice.

Everything is brought to bear. Electricity, zapping some Death Eaters. Tar and feathers, turning some werewolves into a sticky mess. Maple-syrup balloons, hidden in nets suspended from the ceilings. Legos and D4 dice, scattered across the ground after a set of permanent sticking charms that attach the attackers’ boot soles to the floor.

Some traps are magical in nature. The suits of armor, charmed to attack, and both sides of the giant magical chess set that used to guard the Sorcerer’s Stone. Others are purely mundane: tripwires that drop trapdoors full of stones, rotten pumpkins, and metal shavings on the heads of unsuspecting giants. Still more are a spectacular mix: hand grenades that bounce down stairways before exploding at the touch of a button from some second-year in the Hog’s Head.

Hogwarts’ defenders throw spells, gunfire, and molotov cocktails at the enemy, and whenever a Death Eater aims a spell at someone, a trap is sprung upon them by a watchful younger student.

When Voldemort retreats, his robes tattered and dripping with substances he can’t name and his follower count cut in half, there are no deaths among the other side.

He delivers his ultimatum anyway.

Snape, at this point, has awoken and escaped by the simple means of opening a window and flying next door; he tracks down Harry by listening to students talk, and heads to the room of requirement, dodging two or three traps (impressed despite himself) until one of the watchers contacts Harry via radio and Harry says to let the bastard at him.

What the two talk about, only they know. Hermione and Ron grab the diadem while watching them dubiously, and Snape offers to call up Fiendfire to destroy it. This perhaps proves something to Harry, who accompanies Snape to the Headmaster’s office despite Hermione’s and Ron’s, and then Minerva’s, protests.

When they are done, Harry Potter walks out the front door of Hogwarts and duels Voldemort, who starts on the count of two and kills him.

Shock, then hundreds of protests of cheating, and when Voldemort starts to gloat the chants of “CHEATER! CHEATER!” drown him out. He tries to say that it’s irrevelant; Harry Potter is dead, but is heckled in the form of thrown objects. From the shadows, Snape flings the shattered, scorched remnants of the diadem, the cup, and Nagini’s severed head. Voldemort catches the first, and shock paralyzes him long enough to get beaned in the head with the second; his shriek of rage is cut short when the third bounces right off his face.

(The Sorting Hat, begging anyone who will listen to put it on, was listened to by Snape. Being hit on the head a second time did his oncoming headache no favors, but the Sword of Gryffindor appears for bravery, and on his way down, meeting Nagini trapped in something resembling a magical tar pit, he does with the sword what the sword is for.)

There is laughter, and then that laughter becomes a roaring, thundering cheer when Harry Potter stands back up and taps Voldemort on the shoulder. Voldemort turns, and is knocked flat to the ground by a devastating punch that held every bit of misery Harry’s been through in his whole life thanks to Voldemort’s work.

Then when he gets up, Harry makes his request that Voldemort try for some regret. The Elder Wand does its thing. Voldemort falls, never to rise again.

Death Eaters escape, only to find out that some of those traps were full of pigment visible under ultraviolet light, and it is very easy for Aurors to figure out who was present at the attack.

“Hope you’re a harvest god,” Arepo said, and set up an altar and burnt two stalks of wheat. “It’d be nice, you know.” He looked down at the ash smeared on the stone, the rocks all laid askew, and coughed and scratched his head. “I know it’s not much,” he said, his straw hat in his hands. “But - I’ll do what I can. It’d be nice to think there’s a god looking after me.”

The next day he left a pair of figs, the day after that he spent ten minutes of his morning seated by the temple in prayer. On the third day, the god spoke up.

“You should go to a temple in the city,” the god said. Its voice was like the rustling of the wheat, like the squeaks of fieldmice running through the grass. “A real temple. A good one. Get some real gods to bless you. I’m no one much myself, but I might be able to put in a good word?” It plucked a leaf from a tree and sighed. “I mean, not to be rude. I like this temple. It’s cozy enough. The worship’s been nice. But you can’t honestly believe that any of this is going to bring you anything.”

“This is more than I was expecting when I built it,” Arepo said, laying down his scythe and lowering himself to the ground. “Tell me, what sort of god are you anyway?”

“I’m of the fallen leaves,” it said. “The worms that churn beneath the earth. The boundary of forest and of field. The first hint of frost before the first snow falls. The skin of an apple as it yields beneath your teeth. I’m a god of a dozen different nothings, scraps that lead to rot, momentary glimpses. A change in the air, and then it’s gone.”

The god heaved another sigh. “There’s no point in worship in that, not like War, or the Harvest, or the Storm. Save your prayers for the things beyond your control, good farmer. You’re so tiny in the world. So vulnerable. Best to pray to a greater thing than me.”

Arepo plucked a stalk of wheat and flattened it between his teeth. “I like this sort of worship fine,” he said. “So if you don’t mind, I think I’ll continue.”

“Do what you will,” said the god, and withdrew deeper into the stones. “But don’t say I never warned you otherwise.”

Arepo would say a prayer before the morning’s work, and he and the god contemplated the trees in silence. Days passed like that, and weeks, and then the Storm rolled in, black and bold and blustering. It flooded Arepo’s fields, shook the tiles from his roof, smote his olive tree and set it to cinder. The next day, Arepo and his sons walked among the wheat, salvaging what they could. The little temple had been strewn across the field, and so when the work was done for the day, Arepo gathered the stones and pieced them back together.

“Useless work,” the god whispered, but came creeping back inside the temple regardless. “There wasn’t a thing I could do to spare you this.”

“We’ll be fine,” Arepo said. “The storm’s blown over. We’ll rebuild. Don’t have much of an offering for today,” he said, and laid down some ruined wheat, “but I think I’ll shore up this thing’s foundations tomorrow, how about that?” 

The god rattled around in the temple and sighed.

A year passed, and then another. The temple had layered walls of stones, a roof of woven twigs. Arepo’s neighbors chuckled as they passed it. Some of their children left fruit and flowers. And then the Harvest failed, the gods withdrew their bounty. In Arepo’s field the wheat sprouted thin and brittle. People wailed and tore their robes, slaughtered lambs and spilled their blood, looked upon the ground with haunted eyes and went to bed hungry. Arepo came and sat by the temple, the flowers wilted now, the fruit shriveled nubs, Arepo’s ribs showing through his chest, his hands still shaking, and murmured out a prayer. 

“There is nothing here for you,” said the god, hudding in the dark. “There is nothing I can do. There is nothing to be done.” It shivered, and spat out its words. “What is this temple but another burden to you?”

“We -” Arepo said, and his voice wavered. “So it’s a lean year,” he said. “We’ve gone through this before, we’ll get through this again. So we’re hungry,” he said. “We’ve still got each other, don’t we? And a lot of people prayed to other gods, but it didn’t protect them from this. No,” he said, and shook his head, and laid down some shriveled weeds on the altar. “No, I think I like our arrangement fine.”

“There will come worse,” said the god, from the hollows of the stone. “And there will be nothing I can do to save you.”

The years passed. Arepo rested a wrinkled hand upon the temple of stone and some days spent an hour there, lost in contemplation with the god.

And one fateful day, from across the wine-dark seas, came War.

Arepo came stumbling to his temple now, his hand pressed against his gut, anointing the holy site with his blood. Behind him, his wheat fields burned, and the bones burned black in them. He came crawling on his knees to a temple of hewed stone, and the god rushed out to meet him.

“I could not save them,” said the god, its voice a low wail. “I am sorry. I am sorry. I am so so sorry.” The leaves fell burning from the trees, a soft slow rain of ash. “I have done nothing! All these years, and I have done nothing for you!”

“Shush,” Arepo said, tasting his own blood, his vision blurring. He propped himself up against the temple, forehead pressed against the stone in prayer. “Tell me,” he mumbled. “Tell me again. What sort of god are you?”

“I -” said the god, and reached out, cradling Arepo’s head, and closed its eyes and spoke.

“I’m of the fallen leaves,” it said, and conjured up the image of them. “The worms that churn beneath the earth. The boundary of forest and of field. The first hint of frost before the first snow falls. The skin of an apple as it yields beneath your teeth.” Arepo’s lips parted in a smile.

“I am the god of a dozen different nothings,” it said. “The petals in bloom that lead to rot, the momentary glimpses. A change in the air -” Its voice broke, and it wept. “Before it’s gone.”

“Beautiful,” Arepo said, his blood staining the stones, seeping into the earth. “All of them. They were all so beautiful.”

“Oh, poor god,” she said, “With no-one to bury your last priest.” Then she paused, because she was from far away. “Or is this how the dead are honored here?” The god roused from its contemplation.

“His name was Arepo,” it said, “He was a sower.”

Sora startled, a little, because she had never before heard the voice of a god. “How can I honor him?” She asked.

“Bury him,” the god said, “Beneath my altar.”

“All right,” Sora said, and went to fetch her shovel.

“Wait,” the god said when she got back and began collecting the bones from among the broken twigs and fallen leaves. She laid them out on a roll of undyed wool, the only cloth she had. “Wait,” the god said, “I cannot do anything for you. I am not a god of anything useful.”

Sora sat back on her heels and looked at the altar to listen to the god.

“When the Storm came and destroyed his wheat, I could not save it,” the god said, “When the Harvest failed and he was hungry, I could not feed him. When War came,” the god’s voice faltered. “When War came, I could not protect him. He came bleeding from the battle to die in my arms.” Sora looked down again at the bones.

“I think you are the god of something very useful,” she said.

“What?” the god asked.

The god sat in his peaceful home, staring out at the distant road, to pedestrians, workhorses, and carriages, raining leaves that swirled around bustling feet. How long had it been? The world had progressed without him, for he knew there was no help to be given. The world must be a cruel place, that even the useful gods have abandoned, if farms can flood, harvests can run barren, and homes can burn, he thought.

He had come to understand that humans are senseless creatures, who would pray to a god that cannot grant wishes or bless upon them good fortune. Who would maintain a temple and bring offerings with nothing in return. Who would share their company and meditate with such a fruitless deity. Who would bury a stranger without the hope for profit. What bizarre, futile kindness they had wasted on him. What wonderful, foolish, virtuous, hopeless creatures, humans were.

So he painted the sunset with yellow leaves, enticed the worms to dance in their soil, flourished the boundary between forest and field with blossoms and berries, christened the air with a biting cold before winter came, ripened the apples with crisp, red freckles to break under sinking teeth, and a dozen other nothings, in memory of the man who once praised the god’s work on his dying breath.

“Hello, God of Every Humble Beauty in the World,” called a familiar voice.

The squinting corners of the god’s eyes wept down onto curled lips. “Arepo,” he whispered, for his voice was hoarse from its hundred-year mutism.

“I am the god of devotion, of small kindnesses, of unbreakable bonds. I am the god of selfless, unconditional love, of everlasting friendships, and trust,” Arepo avowed, soothing the other with every word.

“That’s wonderful, Arepo,” he responded between tears, “I’m so happy for you—such a powerful figure will certainly need a grand temple. Will you leave to the city to gather more worshippers? You’ll be adored by all.”

“No,” Arepo smiled.

“Farther than that, to the capitol, then? Thank you for visiting here before your departure.”

“No, I will not go there, either,” Arepo shook his head and chuckled.

“Farther still? What ambitious goals, you must have. There is no doubt in my mind that you will succeed, though,” the elder god continued.

“Actually,” interrupted Arepo, “I’d like to stay here, if you’ll have me.”

The other god was struck speechless. “…. Why would you want to live here?”

Sea Water: Water from the sea is great for cleansing and healing rituals. I recommend it for cleansing crystals (but be careful, not every crystal/stone can/should be cleansed in water). It’s also great for banishing and protection spells!

Storm Water: Spells and rituals that has to do with emotional strength, confidence, charge, motivation and force. It’s known for strengthening spells. Storm water is great for curses as well.

River Water: Spells and rituals that has to do with moving on, focusing energy, breaking through rough paths, and warding. Great for powering tools.

Rain Water: This is very multi-purpose, but especially great for growth and rebirth spells. Great for spells that you want to keep gaining power over time.

Snow Water: Great for spells and rituals that focus on purity, endings and change, as well as slow working spells.