The Boy Who's Livid

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@hollowedhorcrux | @veritasmaleficarum | @severelysnapped

Ugh, so Holmes is actually kind of? My favourite person?

So the thing is like, I kind of came back to the HP RP community not knowing what to expect, and feeling a little bad just because like, I came in with this complicated, completely different AU, I’d been on this huge break away from the community, and I was like, fuck...

And Holmes sort of immediately was like, okay, get me up to speed, let’s chat - and like, I cannot name a blog that puts in more focused, detailed attention to building up individual characters in the realistic, three-dimensional way they ought be built up. Just looking at @veritasmaleficarum, I’m always astonished to see so many very different muses developed in their very different ways, with so much focus upon stuff like canon details, world-building, historical accuracy, and straight up creative forethought!

     ‟ Something like that. Afraid I’m not at liberty to say much either, mate. ”

      There was something knowing in his eyes as he glanced back at him, wondering how Harry might take his deliberate test. Given his own line of work, he couldn’t be too careful; having a well-known investigative journalist sniffing too closely around his line of work was flirting too closely with the idea of TROUBLE. Operating under the radar of the Ministry was difficult enough.

      ‟ Who’s your guide? Strait-laced seems like a rather dull trip out to me. ”

                  “Captain HANNON,”

Harry speaks mildly, doing his best to keep the small element of distaste out of his voice: he hadn’t at all cared for Hannon, an American ex-navy man, who had talked at length about the wonders of war, and how he wished to be called to action. It had left Harry with a bad taste in his mouth, particularly when paired with Hannon’s biting adherence to schedule and naval discipline. He leans back in his seat, taking a sip of his drink, and he quickly scans the room, keeping a look out.

                                 “A DULL TRIP, I’m sure it won’t be,                        though I admit, I wish I could just do the trip on my own.”

※ MAD MEN 1x01 SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES SENTENCE STARTERS ※

                                 “They know what kind of guy I am.”

He takes a drag of the cigarette, turns to the younger man, GRINS. 

             “That red carpet wasn’t carpet, Regulus,                                    and it wasn’t here before I arrived this morning.”

Behind them, the house is tall, and at a gust of wind, the windows rattle. There’s a scent of blood in the air, and Harry is in exceedingly good spirits.

※ MAD MEN 1x01 SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES SENTENCE STARTERS ※

                                     “It’s either that or hold a knife to your throat.                I thought alcohol more fun.”

The retort comes in a mild tone, friendly and light, and is even ended with a soft chuckle, but Harry’s expression is distracted, and even as he sips from his own bottle, he stares out over the side of the ship. The sun has long since set, and the sky is an expanse of deep black, stars twinkling in the distance, a crescent moon lighting the water.

Harry thinks of Albus Dumbledore’s robes, embroidered with the moon and stars, and he tastes the burn of rum in the back of his throat. Perhaps that joke was too far: Jack has seen the way Harry uses a knife by now, and perhaps it’s a little too close to a real threat. 

The promise comes as a sudden afterthought: a peaceable assurance. 

                                                             “I wouldn’t hold a knife to your throat.”

“At least she’s home sometimes this year, was worried she’d tire herself out by being out and about all the time– ‘course, she’s also too stubborn to let it show so you never really know…” shrugging, he gives the plant he’s working on one last pat before moving on to a slightly more stubborn one.

OPINIONATED!

That’s the word for Augusta Longbottom if ever there was one, and Harry grins a little, pulling himself up onto the sill and settling there. Victor Langley is a friendly sort, handsome and tall and charistmatic - he tends to introduce himself, especially to potential readers. Harry wonders if Neville does read Wizard’s Staff, or any of the other teen magazines.

Somehow, he can’t quite imagine it. 

Fate/Apocrypha starters ep 18 & 19

Harry is very quiet. 

It is raining outside, and the heavy patter of the drops on the window is welcome in the silence of the room, and he leans with his shoulder against the cool stone of the outer wall, watching the grassy banks outside. Professor Andrews’ office is as nice as any of the professors’ offices, but most important is the window that Harry can sit by. He had considered leaving the door ajar when he’d first entered, but that would have seemed strange: the window, at least, offers the illusion of an open room.

Harry didn’t have to return to Hogwarts. He had completed his O.W.L.s, and legally he might have applied for recognition as a legal adult, despite being only sixteen. He had fought Voldemort in the war, after all, and fought Death Eaters alike: even if the full story of his involvement isn’t known to the vast majority of the wizarding world, he had been involved enough.

How many lives has he taken in the past two years? Thirty seven. Thirty seven - and those are just the ones he outright killed, face-to-face, with a spell or a weapon. That doesn’t count the Death Eaters that died by each other’s hands because of Harry’s machinations, or the more indirect murders, or those that Sirius killed, that Remus killed. 

It had been Minerva’s idea that Harry be given a mentor of sorts on the Hogwarts staff for his sixth year - a member of staff, he didn’t have too much contact with during the war, someone he could trust, someone who would be able to offer him guidance. Horace Slughorn has returned to Hogwarts, reprising his role as Potions Master, and Aurora Sinistra is Head of Slytherin House. 

Severus Snape is dead, after all. 

FIRST NAMES. That’s the first big problem - he knows most of the staff too well, now, for them to be entirely objective. Minerva, Filius, Albus, all, he knows in ways he wouldn’t were he a normal student, had the last year gone very differently. But a year long war - hadn’t they been lucky? Harry doesn’t feel lucky.

She’s talking. What had he asked her? He doesn’t remember.

He is aware, suddenly, of the wetness on his cheeks. He reaches up, touches the tears, stares blankly at the wetness clinging to his fingers as if looking at an entirely foreign object. His eyes don’t feel connected to his head: he doesn’t feel connected to himself. 

                       "I strive for a world where all children are loved.”

Harry turns to look at her. Professor Andrews is taller than Harry is: he’s grateful that she’s sitting down, even if he would prefer a desk between them. He doesn’t like to be too close to anybody right now, and can barely stand the intimacy of sharing a bedroom with Draco down in the Slytherin dormitories, even with his curtains tightly closed. Where all children are loved... Yes, Harry wants that too. Isn’t that what all the war was about? Making sure children were safe? Loved? Alive?

                “I see why Theodore thinks so highly of you.                                        He loves children, but you’d know that, I guess.”

Harry tightens his fist slightly, feeling the slow drag of his finger pads across his palm and focusing on that sensation. Theodore talks highly of all the other Jewish people at Hogwarts, but Professor Andrews especially - always. 

                                                        “He’s going to be a great rabbi.”

Why is he talking about Theodore Nott? He’s supposed to be talking about himself, isn’t he? He doesn’t want to talk: that’s the issue at the heart of it. He wants to crawl into the lake and lie on the bottom, stare up at the lake’s surface, where no one will look at him, talk to him, brush against him in the corridors.

And what can he tell this woman anyway? That he killed thirty seven people? That he would have killed more, if he had to? That the war has crashed and burned around him, and that he doesn’t know what to do now, without it?

That last bit sounds okay.

                     “I didn’t expect to live this long.”

No. Too blunt. Too harsh. Too shocking. Why can’t he just write this down? At least he can temper things, then, make them simpler. 

                                                    “I mean-- That’s not what I meant.                              I meant I meant to die.”

That’s worse. For fuck’s sake, he’s coming across as suicidal, and he closes his eyes tightly, pressing his head against the cool stone. 

                                       “Not what I meant either. What--                               What happened to Severus. To Severus Snape.         Him dying, Voldemort dying.                         I didn’t know he was going to do that: I was going to do that.”

Harry clenches and unclenches his fists, gritting his teeth and staring furiously out of the window: why is he talking like this? He sounds like a mirror that’s losing its enchantment, nonsense tumbling out of his mouth in waves. And to a basic STRANGER.