I debated on whether or not to open this up to Tumblr, and lucky you~ You can join the fun~
Introducing...
👻 Boo-grams! 👻
For those who participated in the Valentine's Day candy-grams, this will function pretty similarly. You will provide up to five prompts through this Google Form. On Sept. 27/28, depending on your time zone, writers and artists will be able to pick the prompts they want to fulfill.
As long as one prompt has been claimed for each prompter, you are welcome to claim whichever prompt you like -- even if someone else has already claimed it. You can still post prompts after Sept.28, but they will probably be less likely to get chosen, and aren't included in the above requirement.
You do not have to submit prompts to participate in the writing/arting portion of the Boo-grams.
I'm going to suggest fics be a maximum of 1,000 words and art be fairly simple/unrendered, but now I can actually say you're all adults, you can decide what kind of time commitment you feel like putting into this. The intention is to fulfill a couple prompts and keep the creative output short n' sweet, but do what you feel comfortable doing.
Fics and art can be posted any time in October. There is an AO3 collection you can post to, or you can post on Tumblr with the hashtag #corpse candy and/or #boogram.
You can stick with the autumnal theme: harvest, Halloween/Samhain, the change of seasons, spooky stuff, etc., etc. Or you can keep the topic more broad and general. Just remember that these are meant to be snackable! Keep the scope of the prompts tight and/or simple.
Please note that the assumption is the main pairing will be tomarrymort unless otherwise stated. Happy candygramming!
Autumn has arrived! (For the northern hemisphere at least.) The dog days of summer are fading, the leaves are falling, the girlies are fight
Ritual sacrifice but the sacrifice comes back | 766
a boo-gram for the VERY spooky @floatingdandelionseeds! hope u enjoy 💕👻
With shaking hands, Tom fit his key into the lock of his apartment, still half-delirious from the intensity of the ritual.
He had done it. It’d taken him years of slaving away at Borgin & Burkes, years of kissing ass and simpering up to pureblooded fools who carelessly neglected the priceless artifacts in their care, years of scouring through forbidden tomes bought secondhand in the dregs of Knockturn Alley. He’d fended off the veiled jabs and digs from his Hogwarts peers, the insulting pity in Abraxas’ missives, the concern in Orion’s messages feeling more like mockery than care.
But finally, he’d learned exactly how to obtain immortality, getting his hands on each individual component required for a successful sacrifice.
And it did take a sacrifice, one he was all too pleased to make.
Harry Evans, a whirlwind of a boy, messy on the best of days and a wreck on his worst, had foiled far too many of Tom’s schemes. He’d crash into the shop when Tom had just been about to coax a ritualistic dagger from a dementia-riddled old woman who probably wouldn't even remember losing it, or snag the last of the books on immortality right before Tom stopped by his usual sellers, or even try to subtly hex him each time he saw him — Tom was certain that Harry had charmed Tom’s hair a disgustingly neon pink right before Borgin had returned to the shop, his belief becoming far more fervent with how cheerfully Harry denied it each time he brought it up.
It was childish. Petty behavior, more fitting for Hogwarts rivals than adult men with responsibilities. Tom felt no need to put up with it any longer.
He’d torn Harry apart on a ritual altar, carved runes into his skin, created a spell powered by blood and bone and death and sacrifice. He’d watched the life leave Harry’s eyes, the bright, piercing green fading into something glassy and dull, without a trace of mischief or daring.
And he’d luxuriated in the rush of immortality, the power zinging through his veins, the electric strength of his magic.
He hadn’t bothered to regret the loss of Harry. So what if he’d never get the chance to argue with him again, never again know the thrill of dodging Harry’s attempts to thwart him? Harry was an inconvenience who had made his plans unnecessarily difficult, even if he’d never felt more alive with anyone else — there was nothing at all to mourn.
He’d wandered Knockturn for a bit afterwards, riding the high of immortality, pleased to be able to leave the shithole now that he’d gotten what he needed from it. Watching the hags and harpies cringe away from the death magic surrounding him had been a foreign thrill, one he was prepared to experience for the rest of his life. Soon, everyone would bow as he passed. Soon, the world’s submission would become his eternity.
The key finally turned in the lock; Tom stumbled into his apartment.
“Welcome back!” came a cheery voice from Tom’s threadbare sofa.
Tom blinked rapidly, unable to process what he was seeing for a beat too long.
Harry could not be sitting on his couch, wearing a baggy Gryffindor jumper and Muggle denim jeans. He could not be grinning fiercely at Tom’s confusion, aggravatingly pleased with himself. He was dead, and Tom had killed him.
And yet, there he was.
“You really fucked up that ritual, Tom,” mused Harry, crossing his legs under himself. He was wearing fluffy socks with cartoon ghosts printed on them. The sight was too surreal to believe. “See, it’s a good thing I snagged The Power of Darkness the Light Knows Not from you, huh? You screwed up your runes irreversibly.”
“How?” croaked Tom, frozen in the doorway, his world crashing down around him.
“Remember the sowilo you carved into my head?” asked Harry, horribly entertained. “You made me an integral part of the ritual. Instead of being just the sacrifice, you marked me as an equal.”
Tom blanched. Could it possibly mean…
“That’s right, Tommy-boy!” laughed Harry. “You made me an immortal, too!”
Tom stared blankly ahead, blocking out the sound of Harry cackling in front of him.
His dreams of the glory of immortality were dashed in an instant.
This was no feat of power —- it was an unbreakable curse, dooming him to hell with the greatest thorn in his side, forcing him into miserable, eternal comradery with a man whose only joy seemed to be watching Tom suffer.
He’d gone upstairs following the battle, found a bed in the Gryffindor dorm that might’ve been his if he’d spent the past year at Hogwarts instead of on the run, and fallen asleep on top of the blankets, out before his head had hit the pillow. Blissful unconsciousness. But it hadn’t lasted long.
The sun is properly up now, more than just the pale dawn light that had lit the Great Hall for his final duel with Voldemort. (It doesn’t feel real, somehow. Hard to believe the dark wizard is actually gone, even after seeing the light leave his eyes.) The castle is still and quiet as he creeps through the corridors, the combatants and other inhabitants either also asleep or departed for the moment, most likely. He avoids the Great Hall, uncertain when he’ll be able to stomach going inside. Something leads him to enter another doorway near the castle’s entryway.
Voldemort’s body is laid out on a table in the room Harry’d gone to after being announced as a Triwizard champion. Voldemort had been imposing, larger than life in height and presence, even at the end. Now, without that essence animating his flesh, he’s smaller, somehow. It feels… wrong, to see him like this. Even worse to imagine others seeing him so diminished.
And so Harry comes to a decision.
He casts a disillusionment spell over the corpse and wraps his invisibility cloak around himself and, levitating the body behind him, begins to walk across the wreck of the castle grounds towards the Forbidden Forest.
Harry knows he hadn’t paid attention to the path he took into the forest last night, but his feet guide him to that same clearing where he’d met with Voldemort and his Death Eaters.
(Where he’d died.)
It seems a fitting resting place.
Finite-ing the spells on Voldemort's body and transfiguring a nearby fallen branch into a shovel, he begins to dig. The strain of physical labour helps to quiet his mind, which is desperate to avoid thinking of what comes next. He’s still so exhausted, but once he goes back to the castle he knows the world will once again begin to move forward, and he’s not ready for that yet.
He digs as deep and as large a hole as he can with all the old growth roots and rocks filling the soil. It’s not the best grave that’s ever been dug, but for a man who had been determined to never die nothing would be enough, and since his corpse would otherwise end up examined endlessly or incinerated, it would have to do.
Swiping a hand across his brow to keep the sweat from running into his eyes, smelling of spellfire and streaked in dark, loamy soil, he’s certain he looks a sight, but he’s not here to stand on ceremony. Voldemort might not deserve it, but this is a kindness Harry feels compelled to give him. He’s letting him remain near Hogwarts, his first and probably only home. It’s all Harry can offer.
He moves Voldemort’s limp form closer to the grave. It seems a little too callous to simply tip the corpse into the hole, so Harry jumps down into it and hefts the body in with him, laying it down as gently as he can when it’s so ungainly and his arms have begun to shake with exertion and fatigue. Now he just has to fill in the hole.
Harry has been able to ignore the way his chest and head throb up until this point, or dismissed them as simply the physical fallout of the past twenty-four hours and months on the run with little food. But he suddenly finds he can no longer maintain that pretense when he can’t convince himself to get out of Voldemort’s grave.
Not only is he burying his own personal bogeyman; the man who had ruined any possibility of happiness and peace for him; one of the most constant parts of his life. He’s also burying a piece of himself.
(Harry had come to this clearing to die mere hours before. He may have gotten back up, but a part of him had perished for good.
He finds he’s not quite ready to let it go.)
Once he leaves this clearing, he will never return. He will walk back to the castle and offer to help with the rebuilding efforts, and reckon with the grief and pain of the Magical World, and shoulder being a public figure in a new and likely even more permanent, invasive way.
So if he lays down, if he tucks himself into the curve of Voldemort’s corpse and closes his eyes and gives himself a few moments to mourn, no one needs to know.
Fooling around alone in a graveyard, caught by the gravekeeper | 872 words
a boo-gram for the ONE AND ONLY @known-concepts! maybe less sexy than you'd intended, but hopefully the creepiness makes up for it - happy spooky month! 👻
Tom knelt over the grave of his father, the engraving on the man’s tombstone easy to identify under the light of the full moon. He had killed the man last summer, slaughtering probably the only living family he had left in his fit of rage now that Morfin had finally rotted away in Azkaban.
He didn’t regret it. He was above regret – he had already ascended past the boundaries of magic, already begun to carve out a completely unique place in the world, one above the mundanities of death and age.
And yet, as he sunk his hands into the dirt over his father’s body—a man who had shared his sharp cheekbones, his almond-shaped, downturned eyes, his natural frown—he wondered just how different things could have been if he hadn’t cast to kill. Perhaps he wouldn’t need to dig up the man’s grave for a sample of his blood. Perhaps his father could have learned to respect him and his power, could have learned to bow to his will. They could have been amicable.
But Tom was above regret, and with a shake of his head, he began to reach for his wand. He’d harvest the blood from the body, save some of the grave dirt, and with all his ingredients gathered, he’d be free to finally—
An absurdly bright beam of light flooded his vision, and Tom covered his eyes with a gasp.
“The cemetery is closed at sundown to all except the dead and me,” said a mild-mannered voice in front of him. “Are you among the dead, sir?”
Was that a threat?
A jolt of fear electrified Tom, though he knew it was unreasonable. The man in front of him was likely just an older Muggle gravekeeper, patrolling his grounds to keep order, harmless and stupid as all Muggles were. There was no need to resort to violence, not yet.
Though logically, he knew that the man in front of him couldn’t do a thing to him, he did cut an imposing figure, all shadow and midnight darkness behind the blinding flashlight held in his hand.
“I’m so sorry, sir,” said Tom, putting on his most pitiful expression, helped by the way his eyes had begun to water in the light. “It’s just– my father died this past summer, you see, and I’ve been away at boarding school. I just wanted to visit his grave.”
A gust of wind rattled the trees around them, the clash of the bare branches harsh and unsettling in the quiet of the cemetery. Slowly, after a pause, the man lowered his flashlight, leaving Tom to blink his vision back.
“You’re just here to visit your father?” said the man quietly, voice soft. “We get a few delinquents every year, you see, trying to dig up my graves.”
“I would never,” responded Tom, face contorting with offense.
The gravekeeper nodded once, apparently willing to buy Tom’s lazy story, as feeble-minded as all Muggles were. “I won’t trespass you, then, but you do need to leave now. Come back in the morning to mourn.”
“Of course, sir,” said Tom, bowing his head. “I’ll leave right away.”
This had become far too much of a pain. With a sigh, Tom reached for his wand, preparing to Imperio the idiot and send him on his merry way — he needed to be back to Hogwarts by daybreak, and time was running out.
But before he could get a firm grasp on his wand, it came flying out of his hands, caught in an instant by the gravekeeper.
"Someday, Tom,” sighed the gravekeeper, twirling Tom’s yew wand between his fingers, careless and unhurried in his movements. “In some universe, you’ll learn not to lie to me.”
Fuck.
Tom scrambled to his feet, thinking furiously on what he could do. He’d be severely disadvantaged without a wand, only capable of doing basic spells wandless, but he couldn’t just run when the man held his loyal wand captive. Could he bargain, arguing for his way out? Apologize again, more sincerely? Promise to never come back, and bide his time before trying again?
“Who are you?” said Tom instead, the words tumbling out of his mouth on instinct before he had the chance to think them over.
The man in front of him tilted his head, a pleased smile playing over his face. With a single step closer to Tom, the moonlight danced upon his face, illuminating piercing green eyes and a sharp, jagged scar cleaving his face in two. He was no human, Tom realized immediately — there was something inconceivably wrong with him, an understanding behind his smile that no human could mimic, a complete and utter separation from mortality. “I’m the Master of Death. And in this universe, that means ensuring that the only ones in my cemetery after dark are myself and the dead.”
“I’ll leave now!” said Tom frantically, giving up all hope of recovering his wand. “I’ll leave, and never come back, I promise!”
“You have no respect for death,” frowned the Master, his eyes narrowed. “You desecrate the graves of your ancestors, split your soul, lie to me…it’s my responsibility now to teach you.”
And with a wave of the Master’s hand, Tom’s world went black.
"Autumn is very windy. It is, Harry thinks, the perfect time to learn flying." | 412 words
a short & sweet boo-gram for @justcasuallylurking as a part of the corpse candy halloween party! hope your october is souper! 💕🍂
“So you need to keep an eye on the Bludgers at all times,” said Harry, a skip in his step. “You’ll naturally want to just look around you, but you need to remember that they can come from above or below, too. Some people think it’s easier to just constantly be changing their orientation in the air so that when they naturally scan from left to right, they’ll also get a feel for what’s above and below them, but it’s not quite as beginner-friendly.”
Tom, dragging his feet beside Harry, looked a little green at the explanation.
The weather had begun to cool, the students beginning to throw on scarves over their robes, the leaves of the Forest turning crunchy and dark. The autumn air was crisp and refreshing, with biting, chill winds moving in wild directions, stirring up messy hair and flushed cheeks.
It was, Harry thought, the perfect time to learn flying.
And Tom had promised to give it a try.
“So if you’re hit by a Bludger,” began Tom, voice hesitant.
“When,” corrected Harry with a smile. “Not if. When.”
Tom blanched, paling slightly. “When you’re hit by a Bludger, how do they make sure you’re not knocked off your broom?”
“Oh, they can’t do that,” laughed Harry, his eyes lighting up at the sight of the Quidditch pitch finally within a few paces. “You just have to hold on for dear life! Use those leg muscles!”
“I can’t do that,” responded Tom, horrified. “Harry, are you trying to murder me?”
“You’ll be fine,” said Harry, rolling his eyes. He reached out to grab Tom’s hand, freezing cold in the autumn air, and gave it an encouraging squeeze. “I’m here to watch over you, yeah? I won’t let you fall.”
Tom looked down at their joined hands, eyes wide. “You won’t let me get hurt?”
“Never,” promised Harry, voice soft. “Not if I can help it.”
Tom was not a natural flier. His thin legs didn’t grip properly onto the broom, and he became dizzy quite quickly after only a few flips through the air. Even as an eleven year old, on a broomstick for the first time, Harry would have easily flown circles around Tom, coltish and shy in the air, shaky and white-knuckled.
But Harry had kept his promise. No matter how many times Tom swerved or lost control, Harry had caught him.
And Tom really hadn’t gotten hurt.
Perhaps they’d go flying together again next week.
