#hpfearfest2022

[cavendishbutterfly]

the new generation

Rated T | 50 words | for the @hp-fearfest prompt, “rot”

Harry never dies, but the elder Malfoys do. Fifty years later, he visits the Manor. Chipped foundations, rotting fruit trees. He pushes open the heavy, unlocked door. “Didn’t expect me, did you?” The voice is not quite Draco. Not quite human. “On the contrary.” A slow grin. “I’ve been waiting.”

[phoebe-delia]

Orion's Will

I don't usually write horror. But I saw the "The Shivers" prompt from @hp-fearfest and couldn't resist once I thought of this! cw: mcd, cw: illness, cw: curse, cw: grief, cw: unhappy ending

They tried warming charms; tried scalding cups of tea and baths with water that turned Harry's skin bright pink. He wore layers of thick, wool clothes and wrapped himself in blankets while sitting in front of Grimmauld Place's hearth, until he gave up after realizing the flames—whether lit by magic or matches—only lasted a few seconds. Healers at St. Mungos looked at them with more pity in their eyes with every visit, until they were finally told to stay home.

Draco held Harry in their bed as he shivered and shook, vibrating from head to toe, teeth chattering so hard Draco feared they would break. "Y-you should s-sleep in the g-guestroom," Harry said through the tremors. Draco just shook his head and squeezed Harry tighter against him, turning out the light with a whispered, "Nox."

Eventually, the shaking slowed, along with Harry's breathing. Draco tended to him throughout the day until he stopped trembling; stopped moving altogether.

He called the authorities, and their close friends and family. He signed the paperwork and then cried into Hermione’s shoulder as Harry’s body was carried out. And when it was all over, Draco forced himself to the guest bedroom, unable to face their bed, and collapsed on top of the covers.

The next morning, Draco woke with a bone-deep grief and twisting anxiety at the thought of starting the rest of his life without Harry. He rose from the bed on unsteady legs and made his way to the kitchen for a cup of tea.

Minutes later, he had a steaming cup of earl grey in his hands. He turned from the kitchen counter and glanced into the living room, eyes catching on the wall high above the hearth— Draco’s teacup clattered to the ground, hot liquid scalding his bare feet.

But he couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Just stared at the bright red writing on the wall in terror.

By Blood or Bond alone are Masters made to reign. May interlopers quiver ‘till they perish from the pain. It is Orion’s will that False Masters face attack, By the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black.

[moonstruckwytch]

written for @hp-fearfest day five: ghost story | M | TW Major Character Death | thank you to my beta @m0srael

He woke to his dead husband floating above him. His neck was bent at an odd angle, his face mottled blue and purple–visible despite his ghostly transparency. He closed his eyes tightly, attempted to cover his ears as the familiar gasping sound of his husband’s last breaths filled their bedroom. Every morning it was the same, and every morning it was just as unbearable.

It had started innocently enough – a game of hide and seek in their first home, with their friends–the first thing they did as newlyweds. But now, months later, he still didn’t know where the body was.

read my writing for this year's fearfest here ⚰️

[alexandra-emerson]

New WIP

New Dramione WIP for prompt #8 in the @hp-fearfest. Read the first chapter here.

[lumosatnight]

A Ghost's Funeral

Cedric/Fred, G, 1.1k

I wrote this for @hp-fearfest for the prompts ghost story and family, and although it might not exactly be horror, it still has ghosts in it! Ghosts and angst (lots of angst). Happy spooky season 👻

Summary

A story about life and love when life is already gone.

Read it on AO3 or under the cut!

~

victory is a lie

it is a lie we tell our children at night

a lie the papers will shove in our faces over mourning coffee

there is no true victory in war

only the dead, the dying, and the grieving

trapped together

watching the world burn

~

It starts right after the Battle of Hogwarts, so many new spirits roaming the grounds, lost with nowhere to go. Cedric grabs his broom and flies out to meet them. He holds their hand, gently guides them down the path, watches them disappear into the ether beyond—a place he will never see.

“Need any help with that?” It’s one of the twins, hair as red as the blood that covers the walls. His outline shimmers like he’s there but not quite.

“Sure,” says Cedric, tossing him a broom. Fred catches it one-handed and smiles. He has a beautiful smile.

He soars off without a backward glance, and Cedric watches him go, his heart heavy, his steps light. He turns to the next soul in line, a small Ravenclaw girl with tears still glistening on her cheeks and nettles caught in her hair.

“Are you ready?” he says, holding out his hand and pulling her onto the back of the broom.

Weightlessness is an odd feeling, one he still hasn’t gotten used to.

He’s there, but he’s not. He takes up space, but the space is empty. He is, but he isn’t.

The girl curls her small hands around his waist. He feels them but not really, more like the imprint of them. “Will it hurt?” the girl says into his back. Quietly. Softly. Maybe, she hasn’t said anything at all.

“I wouldn’t know,” Cedric replies, and they rise into the sky.

~

It takes them hours, flying high and low, swooping fast and slow. Fred does a tuck-and-roll, his blood-red hair shifting in the nonexistent breeze. He smiles over at Cedric. Effortless. Free.

“So, how long have you been doing this?” he says, coming to a stop by Cedric’s side.

Cedric raises a single eyebrow.

“Ah,” Fred says, instantly chastised. He looks out onto the empty grounds. The castle’s inhabitants—or what’s left of them—are long asleep or transported away. Back to their fallen homes, back to their loved ones, back to familiar life.

“Do you miss it?” Fred rests his elbow on the broom, a precarious balancing act. One push and he would careen toward the ground. But it wouldn’t matter because Cedric would be there to catch him before the impact.

That’s his job now. That’s what he does.

Cedric looks away. “Do you?” he says instead of answering.

“I wouldn’t know yet,” Fred says, lips curling into a smirk. “I’ll let you know when I decide.”

“Yes, please do.”

Cedric kicks off from the ground and flies into the sunrise.

~

The funerals are always difficult. Memories and magic permeate the air, swirling around in golden trails, wrapping everyone in filtered light and gentle caresses.

Cedric floats between the guests, seen and unseen, there but not quite.

Today is the day of Fred’s funeral, and Fred is nowhere to be found. Neither is George. Neither is Harry.

Harry is the easiest to find. Cedric recognizes his head of black hair sitting calmly at the edge of the lake. He goes to sit beside him, almost close enough to touch but not quite.

“You aren’t like the others,” Harry says, looking out into the distance, into the clear tranquil lake. Unmoving. Unchanging. Deceptive, really. No matter how calm the surface, there is always life teaming underneath.

“I’m not,” Cedric agrees.

“Why?” asks Harry, turning and staring right at him. 

It’s been so long since someone’s seen him—really seen him—that Cedric wants to cry. Harry never used to be able to see him. Back in the graveyard after Wormtail’s curse. Back in the cave when he helped Dumbledore hold the Inferi at bay. Back during the battle when he flew by Harry’s side.

“Why not?” Cedric says because even if he knew the answer, he wouldn’t know what to tell him.

“Am I dead?”

“Am I alive?”

Harry huffs. He fiddles with the cuff of his sleeve. He’s always been uncomfortable in dress robes, fidgeting and stiff. “Will I see you again?” he asks finally. “What about the others? Will I see them?”

Cedric reaches out a hand, gently places it on Harry’s shoulder. Featherlight. Fleeting.

“I think it’s best not to.”

Harry’s face falls, but after a moment, he nods. “Alright,” he says. He stands from the ground and brushes off his robes. He glances back at Cedric, shimmering next to the lake, liquid and air, incorporeal and real.

“I hope you’re not alone,” he says.

Cedric smiles, his body going warm—more of a feeling than anything, light and love and the warm glow of acceptance.

“Thank you, Harry.” He dips his head. “And for you as well.”

Harry nods. He walks away and returns to mingle with the living.

~

Fred finds him later, sitting in the same spot by the lake. The yellows of the day have faded to the blues and blacks of the night. Cedric never changes colour, not anymore.

Fred stands by his side, doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything.

He knows this is hard. He remembers his own funeral, watching his father cry, watching him fall to the ground and curse the heavens. He remembers coming closer and closer. Hugging him, crying with him.

His father did not see him. No one saw him.

“I think I’ve made up my mind,” Fred says, licking his lips. His head is tilted up to the sky. Trillions of stars, but there is only one Earth. Billions of people, but there is only one you.

“What did you decide?”

“I don’t miss it,” Fred says, “so much as I miss him.”

“I see,” Cedric says.

Fred angles his head down to look at him. “You don’t agree?”

Cedric shrugs. “Missing him won’t bring him back. Won’t bring you back.”

“No,” Fred says slowly, “but it’s what brings us together.”

“Is it?” Cedric says.

Fred looks at him, his gaze blank, his brow pinched. “It will,” he says, voice firm. Confident. Hopeful.

All things have an end—a place that they go when everything is said and done, when the last of the castle walls fall, when the Earth erupts in a ball of light and sound.

But what of Cedric? What of Fred?

It is their end, and yet, they are still here.

“Care for a swim?” Cedric scoots closer to the edge and dangles his feet off the side.

“Sure,” Fred says, stepping closer.

They dive, clothing and all. They do not make a splash when they fall.

~

Also available on AO3!

[dracopetal]

Prey

@hp-fearfest Day 17 Prompt: Hunt/ Bloodsuckers

Read on Ao3

wordcount:799

Draco’s lungs are burning, his legs are aching and he’s seconds from vomiting up his heart, that or it’s going to pound its way through his ribs and his skin and slip out of his chest with a wet squelch, and he imagines that when it does it will still be warm and thumping.

He focuses on the image of his heart torn from his chest, trying to desperately ignore the urge to stop, to slow down. His body is screaming at him to, but he can’t.

Fenrir must be close. He can’t hear him over the sound of his feet thumping through the estate and his own rapid breaths, but he knows that he’s close. This is nothing but a game to him, a bit of enjoyable terror to inflict on a Malfoy. There’s no way that Draco can outrun him, but he can’t stop trying.

High above him, the moon is almost full, luminous and white against an endless black sky. It offers Draco a little light in return for casting frightful shadows.

That’s why they locked him up for weeks after his failure. He had thought that was his punishment - to be imprisoned in his own dungeons. But no, the Dark Lord planned a far more terrifying fate: to allow the Malfoy heir to be hunted through the gardens that he played in as a child.

He doesn’t even know what Fenrir will do. Kill him, turn or maim, eat his flesh? Draco’s head is full of the dozens of horror stories he’s heard whispered, and tonight he believes every last one.

The night air is just barely warm, and he can feel sweat pouring over his face. Fenrir can smell him. Fenrir is waiting somewhere, hiding within a shadow, baring sharp teeth and terrible claws, something out of a childhood nightmare.

A living, breathing nightmare creature.

Draco makes it through the gardens and into the woodland that surrounds the estate, hoping that the trees will lend him some cover, give him somewhere to hide.

And it’s there, amongst those trees, where Draco makes the biggest mistake of his life.

His boot catches on a root, and he stumbles, arms flailing uselessly, and crashes face-first into a tree. The bark is hard and sharp against his tender skin, and he feels the intense burst of pain of a dozen tiny cuts. 

He tries to right himself, but his ankle is twisted unnaturally, and sends an agonising bolt of pain through his leg. Mouth dry, he manages to stifle the rising scream, and then tries to stagger upright. He leans onto the tree speckled with his blood for support, and he’s almost there, is so close to limping away, further into the woods, when claws stab into his twisted ankle and drag his back down.

Draco can’t hold in the scream this time. What’s the point? The predator has the prey in a death grip.

Draco can smell that awful smell of unwashed flesh and urine that follows Fenrir like a cloud. It fills his lungs and he screams again, and the scream turns into a shriek, and becomes something else, something animal and desperate that’s lurching up from a deep pit at the bottom of his stomach. He can’t make it stop, not as Fenrir drags him back out from the dark woods on his belly. He spits out mouthfuls of mud and dirt and twigs and leaves, but the mud coats his teeth, leaving an earthy taste on his tongue.

Draco can’t stop until Fenrir rolls him over, the action surprisingly gentle. But no: it’s not surprising, Fenrir is playing with him.

Fenrir falls onto his chest, his knees trapping his arms, knocking the breath out of Draco. Draco heaves, but has nothing to come up. The shadows playing on Fenrir’s face make him look even scarier, more like a child’s bogeyman, and Draco doesn’t think he’s ever been this close to him.

He closes his eyes, squeezing them tightly shut and whimpering with terror. He doesn’t want to see anymore. He doesn’t want to know what’s coming for him.

Draco feels the beast lean down, and Fenrir’s nose touches his own. Draco flinches away but there’s nowhere to go. Fenrir is everywhere. The smell fills his lungs with rot. A wet, horrid tongue licks the blood from his cheek. Fenrir leans down further then, and sharp teeth latch onto his ear, and Draco makes a choked noise as the skin splits slowly, and then is ripped off entirely, and gushes hot blood down his neck.

Draco is marked now. Fenrir swallows his flesh, and then latches onto the mangled ear, and Draco feels him lap up his blood. Toujours Pur. Always pure.

Draco sobs, and Fenrir’s breath is vile when he laughs. 

“Got you.”

[chamomileteafuel]

Restoration

________________________________________________________ For the @hp-fearfest prompt - From the Deep || Buried Rated M | 204 words | cw: implied necromancy, character death, illness, gore, grief. ________________________________________________________

Three broken fingers. Six exposed nail beds. Skin of his knuckles surrounding their seeping wounds like ill-cut drapes. He spits soil onto dewy grass, droplets glistening upon their blades, his bare flesh stinging against the frigid night air. A familiar hand open and reaching, pulling him upwards and away from the grave he just crawled out of. Hands that had often cherished endless, archaic tomes, loaned from the library of his ancestors. Slender fingers traced every line, eyes scrying over every page for an answer. They would flash silver in their slow burning mania, and Harry could no longer soothe it away with words, nor with the soft caresses they had grown so accustomed to. Not while the ill-fated curse ate him away from the inside and out, weathering him into the husk of a saviour, once so revered for both strength and persistence. “I can fix it,” Draco would say in false certainty, smile wavering in the morning light of their rooms while long fingers encircled a frail wrist over plush blankets, the sweet scent of decay lingering between them and growing stronger every day. “I’m good at fixing things.” Harry had never doubted him. He just wished he could have stopped him.    

[xgardensinspace]

HP Fear Fest 2022

Day 1 - Body snatchers || Heart

Neville reached inside his open shirt, gently prodding and scratching at his skin. The flesh tearing and exposing lovely shades of red. Tears fell gently over his cheek as he reached inside his ribs for the item he was looking for.

He gently took his heart out and presented it to Ron, as a symbol of their newfound love. Ron could only stare in awe at the gift being offered. He took it gently upon his hands with caution. Neville enveloped his hands close by; Blood dribbling from his soft pink lips as they embraced each other.

Hi,hello... Yes I am aware of how late this is, but to my defense, October is my bussiest month. I hope my colour choices make up for the tardiness? And also the lil writing I added at the top :b I’m not an excellent writer (especially for horror, even though it’s my favourite genre), but I tried to spice up my artwork :b Also, I know it’s not as spoopy a theme, but I wanted to do something lovely as well because I love these two so much xD

I also played and loved the look of the pink shadows and blood on the hands bits when I messed with the contrast so I’m adding them below. Enjoy!

For the @hp-fearfest​ :)