rynne | Class / challenge / reclist update / drabble night!

Okay. I had my first college class ever today. Japanese 111. *digs out old hiragana and katakana sheets from Japanese Club last year* But my teacher has a very thick accent, and it was at times hard to understand her. She says Engrish XD.

I did make that Hallowe'en challenge community. I also posted about it in

hp_ficathons, and somehow it posted four times and will not let me edit to delete them o_O. I emailed

fluffyllama, though, so I hope she gets rid of the extras. Stupid LJ. Anyway, find the community and all information at

halloweenfics.

The R/S reclist has been updated with another four fics, giving it a current total of 176. To see which ones are newly added directly, look for the red "New!" in front of the links.

All right! Tonight was also

queerditch_pub drabble night, and I wrote all five challenges. Note: both of my threesome prompts ended up being more-than-vague R/Hr, which sorta baffles me because umm. Look at the pairing prompts. No R/Hr in them at all. Yet those two drabbles have R/Hr as well as the pairing prompted so *shrug*. Also, I think the last one is stupid!angst and don't like it. But here it is anyway. *g* Theme tonight was countries. Again, all are a collective G/PG.

*

If Severus didn’t want to be thought of as a vampire, Regulus thought, then he really should make the effort to get out in the sun and show he wouldn’t turn to dust.

“The sun is not going to kill you,” Regulus explained patiently. “Not unless you want to tell me that those ridiculous rumors my brother spreads around are true?”

Severus glared at him. “Of course they aren’t!” he replied hotly. “I just burn very easily, and do not find anything enjoyable in prancing around in very few clothes on overcrowded beaches.”

Regulus raised an eyebrow. “Not even to see me prancing around in very few clothes on overcrowded beaches?” he asked, grinning lasciviously.

Severus appeared to give the matter a little thought, then shook his head slowly, appearing sad, though Regulus could see the hint of a grin on his lips. “Lobster isn’t really my color,” Severus said dryly.

Regulus put his hands on his hips and pouted. Attractively. Blacks did not pout unattractively. “No, your colors are black and more black,” he said tartly, rolling his eyes. “Severus, it’s Italy. Go bask on the beach.”

“Italy has nothing to do with it,” Severus retorted. “We’re here on assignment, if you would remember, and the Lord does not particularly like dawdling!”

Regulus grinned. “He doesn’t have to know,” he pointed out. “Besides, if you come with me, you get to slather sunscreen all over me. And I get to do the same to you.” He waggled an eyebrow.

“Well,” Severus said, tapping a finger against his chin thoughtfully, “I suppose, for that…”

Regulus dragged him out the door before he could finish the sentence.

*

When she was younger, before she went to Hogwarts, Hermione loved the Chronicles of Narnia. She loved Aslan the most (and how unsurprising that she was Sorted into Gryffindor then?), and always had a soft spot in her heart for Lucy and Reepicheep. Her parents bought her the whole set, and she devoured them and anything to do with Narnia.

She put aside her books when she went to Hogwarts, though. Could she have brought a fantasy inside a fantasy? Magic had never seemed real to her—such a fun thing to read about, but in the end, only something to read about, and something to put aside when one was done reading. No enchanted wardrobes ever took her to Narnia.

No, enchanted wardrobes came later, when Luna charmed them all to dance around the room to make Hermione laugh. She always said that Hermione didn’t laugh enough, and dancing wardrobes were so silly! And when they stopped dancing and Hermione opened the door and stepped inside (carefully not closing it, because one should never shut a wardrobe door behind one) and buried her face in the fur coats, breathing in the smell of her childhood, she smiled.

Later, she told Luna about Narnia. Narnia was just the sort of thing that Luna would believe in, a country that didn’t exist outside of imagination, but oh! what imagination could do, especially in Luna’s hands.

Because later, when a laughing Luna took Hermione’s hands and led her to the wardrobe, bringing her inside and not closing the door behind them, Hermione stepped on mothballs-that-were-not and saw the lamp-post in the distance and had no idea how Luna had done it, but didn’t care. She laughed and swung Luna around in her arms in the snow, and Luna laughed with her.

*

Ron liked having someone to bicker with. He was just used to it, after years with Hermione.

The only thing was that Harry and Viktor wouldn’t. They just calmly sat, drinking tea and discussing Quidditch.

Not that Ron didn’t like discussing Quidditch. He may not be playing on a professional team, but discussing Quidditch was one of his favorite things to do.

Except that Hermione would always bicker with him about Quidditch. Harry and Viktor would argue about scores, but he never had to try and convince them of the worth of the game, and somehow he missed arguing at the top of his lungs about why Quidditch was the best sport in the world.

He missed Hermione, period. Things never were the same without her around, and they never would be.

Maybe that was why he let Harry and Viktor curl up on his sides at night, all three of them sweaty and smelling like sex. They were the ones who reminded him so much of her, of how she dressed up to dance with Viktor and how she’d cheer herself hoarse for Harry in the stands. Except that they were so damn neutral, and wouldn’t give him the little battles that he craved right now, and still tomorrow and the next day and the day after.

But still, somehow, Harry and Viktor were the closest things to Hermione he had left. And he couldn’t let them go.

*

“It’s an Auror thing,” Kingsley explained as he and Bill raced from cover to cover, shooting off hexes as they went and dodging other hexes. “I expect this kind of running back and forth dodging hexes doesn’t happen in Egypt.”

“Less people hexing me,” Bill said, ducking under a stunner, “and more old buildings hexing me. Though things were a bit easier to dodge there. Old buildings generally don’t move.”

“Only generally?” Kingsley asked, shouting a spell and turning back to grin at Bill, teeth very white against his dark skin.

Bill shrugged as well as he could while running. “It is Egypt,” he said philosophically. “No telling what kind of things the old pharaohs told their buildings to do. A sarcophagus, completely sans mummy, once hopped after me and tried to crush me. It was very slow.”

“That’s not a building, though,” Kingsley pointed out. “Stupefy!” In the distance, a black-cloaked figure fell.

“Guess not,” Bill said cheerfully. “Oh well.”

Then they broke through the bushes, and the hexes stopped coming.

“Finally some No Man’s Land!” Kingsley grinned. “The hexes are an occupational hazard, but it doesn’t mean I have to like them.”

Bill grinned too. “Know what you mean,” he said. “I get rid of them for a living. Very lucrative. And I get to see the sights.”

“What sights do you like best?” Kingsley chuckled.

“Oh, definitely the scantily-clad dark-skinned people,” Bill replied, raising an eyebrow ever so slightly.

Kingsley’s grin widened.

*

Hermione wanted to say that her soul was like a Siberian wasteland, but she winced at the cliché even in her thoughts, and refused to voice it.

“Hermione?” Remus, in front of her, gently pushed a tendril of hair behind her ear, while Sirius looked over his shoulder.

In bed with two of the most wonderful men in the world—Remus, ever so considerate and one of the few men she could have an intelligent conversation with; Sirius, so good at making her laugh and smile—how could she have a Siberia inside her? There wasn’t any, she tried to tell herself, and it’s purple prose besides. She was perfectly happy the way she was.

“I miss Ron,” though, was what escaped her, even though she tried to hold it back. And then she buried her face in Remus’s chest, not wanting to look at him. His hair wasn’t red. And there wasn’t any way that brown and grey could even be mistaken for red.

“Hermione, it’s all right,” Remus said, pulling her closer and stroking her hair. Sirius, behind him, kept one arm around Remus’s waist and put the other on Hermione’s hip, trying to give her some sort of comfort. That was why she was here, after all. Comfort. Yay. She groaned inwardly at her own moribund thoughts.

“If I say any more,” Hermione said, “I think I will just be putting my foot in my mouth.”

“They’re very cute feet,” Sirius offered. Hermione couldn’t help but smile.

“I think I’m just going to depress us all,” she said. “So I’m going to sleep. Good night.” She turned around, still held within Remus’s arms, with Sirius’s warm hand now on the other hip. They were silent the rest of the night.