#471 words

[asheespiquantpeculiarities]

Ottersquabbles

CRASH. My ear and head twitched when I woke up from it. Slowly, I raised my head from under the massive amount of pillows and blankets. I suspected I looked the tiniest bit ruffled, since I hd slept here over night. And some devil convinced me not to put my hair together. (the devil was me, I was too lazy to find a brush in his flat, wasn't even sure he had one). But back to that noise. It seemed to repeat, albeit a little less urgent-sounding. Now that I was a little more awake, I also heard scratching and sliding sounds. I squinted a little in the direction of the floor. I didn't want to move. But Allan wasn't in bed anymore, so I had to assume he actually took his appointments seriously today... So, I had to deal with a... critter in his home. Probably.

Ugh. Draping a blanket around me, I crawled out of bed and started the journey through the flat. Apparently, my panties had ended their journey inside in the floor already. Huhm. Well. I slipped them on and dragged onwards, until I found his shirt. It was nice and soft and huge. It would suffice as hunting gear. I pulled it on... it went almost down to my knees. Sometimes I forgot how ridiculously tall he was. For that one moment that I wasn't reminded, at least. I let the blanket fall where I stood and continued. Most likely, it came from the kitchen... which also had the coffee machine, so... Yawning, I tapped over on bare feet. Floor heating was a beautiful thing, even in summer. Switching on the machine, I looked around and... yes. There was cutlery on the floor. That might have made the crashing noise. On the other side of the kitchen, there was a little more plastic laying around. Whisks and spatulas. I grabbed the cup of coffee, stepped over the plastic and followed the path of 'destruction'. When I stepped into the living room, I could hear scratching noises. I blinked slowly, sipping.

A little brown slinky ran past at the back of the sofa. To be honest, I was a bit flabbergasted. I ran over the floor and skidded, trying to stop and crashing into the wall. It apparently... wanted to run. This... was this... I frowned deeply. Was... was this an otter?!

What in the world does an otter do in a flat in the middle of town?! After it shook itself,it stood up and... yeah. Definitely an otter. I sipped a little more coffee. ... I decided to go back to bed. There I grabbed my phone and wrote a message to Allan: 'Allan, there is an otter in your flat. Why. Should they stay?' It... it was too early for an otter in the city.

[olive-the-queen-blog]

The Truth Will Set You Free || Self Para

Olivia took a deep breath, filling her lungs until they’d burned. His aunt had sent Theo on an errand, and Olivia decided to take a risk. She could see how much Theo hated keeping this secret, and it was her fault they were in this mess. So knowing full well that she may be sent to Azkaban, or worse, never be welcome back, Olivia did what she had to do. As soon as they were alone Olivia went straight in, knowing that if she hesitated for even a moment she would never get it all out.

“Look, I need to tell you something and just preface it with I’m so sorry. I-I killed Jeremy Nott. It was an accident, really. See I found out a little while ago that because I’m Veela I can turn into a wolf, and anyway so we came here because Theodore was picking up a book and I was waiting in the kitchen and suddenly this hand was on my throat just cutting off my breathing and he lifted me off of the stool…survival instinct kicked in and I changed…and I…I killed him. And it’s killing Theo to keep this secret, so I’m trying to fix…well that at least.”

Catelyn stared at her for almost a minute before she burst out laughing. “Honey, that old fool deserved to die, hell it wouldn’t have been so bad if you’d drawn it out a bit. Nobody liked him and for good reason. He may have been my brother, but that man was not family. Never did anyone any good when he was around.”

Suddenly Olivia was able to breathe again, she gulped in the air greedily after realizing she hadn’t taken a single breath while Catelyn had been talking. But suddenly she was so relieved she could actually feel the tears pricking at her eyes. She felt the couch shift beside her as Catelyn joined her on, pulling her into a warm embrace. Quietly she said many calming things, not that Olivia could make any distinction between the words, all she could focus on was Catelyn gently stroking her hair. Theo walked in to find them like that, and Olivia could see that he knew she’d told. He sat on the coffee table in front of them and leaned forward, putting one hand in Olivia’s hand, the other in his Catelyn’s.

“No more secrets young man, no more.”

“I promise, there won’t be anymore.” He sounded almost like a scolded child and Olivia smiled. So much weight had been lifted, weight she’d grown so accustomed to feeling that she’d forgotten it was there. But now it was gone, and she could see her relief mirrored in Theo’s eyes. They’d officially been through hell and back and only come out stronger. Olivia knew they could make it through anything now.

[soup-god]

In five hundred words or fewer, write something about John and Harry as kids.

“Harriet, come meet your new brother.”

Harry ran into the room, pink with anticipation. She had been told for months now that she would be an older sister. Not that she had to be told, the constant preparations made by her parents were glaringly obvious.

The first sign came when her game room was cleared out for a small cot. She was told that it would be where she would be sleeping from now on.

“Your old room will now be your brother’s room.”

“Why?”

“It’s so that we can be closer to the baby.”

Secondly, Harry had started noticing that her parents started caring less, and less about her, and more about the new baby.

“Mummy, I drew a picture of you today.”

“Hm,” Mummy hummed, “that’s nice, Harry. Could you go play outside? Mummy has to finish knitting this jumper for your little brother.”

The final sign that Harry was no longer of significant importance was the week before Mummy had to go to the hospital. It was after she brushed her teeth, taking special care with each tooth, and gingerly poking the gap where she had lost her first tooth. She was reveling in the minty freshness of her breath while she picked a book from her shelf to be read as a bedtime story. It was something her father did every night. She took comfort in hearing the low hum of the story being read as she snuggled into her soft covers and slowly slipped into unconsciousness.

“Harry, can you please get into bed?”

“In a minute, Daddy, I’m picking out a book.”

“Not tonight, sweetie,”

“Why?”

“I’m tired from having to drive Mummy to the hospital so early this morning.”

“But she wasn’t even having the baby!”

“I know, but we still had to go.”

“This isn’t fair.”

“Get into bed, please.”

“No, I want my story.”

“Harry, I don’t want to play any games. I’m tired.”

“So am I! I want my story.”

“Well, if you don’t want to act your age, then you’re not being tucked in.”

And with that, he left the room.

The week after, during Mummy’s labor, Harry and her father had waited in the hospital. During this wait, Harry’s stomach had twisted into so many knots that she ended up throwing up, and being collected by her aunt.

She had delayed the inevitable meeting until today.

The squirming baby was lowered into her arms.

For a minute, she felt peace in that pink wrinkly face. That was before she felt a sharp tug on her hair and she realized that the baby had wrapped his surprisingly strong fingers around her brown locks and was in the process of pulling as hard as he could.

The first exchange that ever occurred between the two was five minutes of high frequency screaming.