bellonablack

A gift from Mai <3

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 05:43:35 GMT

I hope it's okay to share these, Mai! Mai ( arbor_vitae) has an awesome thing she does, making dolls, and I love them, too, because she's so good at it! <3333 She gave me Sylaire!

Just wanted to share, they are so cool! XD

-BB

So...still crazy

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:07:00 GMT

So. Concrit-meme. Taking the plunge.

If there's any area you think I need improvement on, characterization, description, pacing, etc, I'd like to know. :-) I'll not be rude, or anything, either. I uh, thrive on correction. LOL.

On other hand, I have a new teacher today. Uh. Maybe the other dude was too laid-back! But he seems nice too.

I also bought the Enneagram for Dummies! It's the best book yet, honestly!

-BB

EDIT: It might be more effective unlocked. LOL.

I'm behind on the times but.

Wed, 21 May 2008 03:20:42 GMT

Nokomis wrote not one but two awesome fics I think people should check out.

One is about Luna, and the pairing is Luna/Ollivander. I think its' a really spiritual fic in a way, and it's Luna at her best. She's wise, and the simple humanity both characters share is worth the read. It's two people in a desparate situation finding hope in one another. It's also something very relatable.

http://nokomis305.livejournal.com/148851.html#cutid1

Another is about Harley/Batgirl, and this one is for me! XD XD

I requested this one, and she did a great job! Harley is Harley. Very all her layers. Few people who try Harley do that. Babs Gordon was also in character, and one thing Nokomis does the best at is with the heroes and making them human. I love all her presentations of the Bat family, and this one was especially true to form. And she kept alot of humanity in it, as well.

http://nokomis305.livejournal.com/149258.html

Two challenging pairings done beautifully!!

-BB

For Nokomis Part 6

Tue, 20 May 2008 18:01:05 GMT

“Are you quite sure this is safe?” Luna asked. The boat had remained the same in its pitch black glory. Tom had merely added wings. “I’m allergic to feathers…”

“Foam wings aren’t as practical or aesthetically pleasing.”

They had been floating about for a bit and they were both getting colder. “The baby is kicking,” she muttered and had a horrible feeling she knew why. Rigor mortis all around him…she was a cheaply brought coffin.

He wasn’t being friendly at all, either. Not one, little bit. He stared off in the distance, stared past her, and crossed his arms. His jaw was set and as straight as the horizon.

“I think you’re being silly…” she offered. Her mood could be poor too.

“Hmm. From you, that’s a compliment.”

“I wasn’t trying to be any way. You know that.”

“I know you were trying to punish me with your vendetta. Such childish pride, to think your little, insignificant feelings are the center of the world, such self-absorption, such pitiful, clinging passive-aggressive tripe. You live for it, don’t you? To live at the bequest of every one else and revel in your--.”

He seemed to be so angry that he was beyond himself. She blinked, slipping.

“To show me and then hold it over my head,” he said coldly, focusing back in on her like she was the worst person that he’d ever had the misfortune of meeting. .His worst enemy. “I see through you.”

“To what you want to see.” This had gone from bad to worst, and she had an empty, hollow feeling in her chest. She looked past him, now, and tried not to think.

He stared at her, unblinking, and it seemed as if she was dismantled by his gaze, in hateful detail. A horrible, enraged stone idol of a god. Not a real boy by any measure.

“I sincerely apologize for any misunderstanding. I didn’t mean to do you any harm. That’s the…that’s the last thing I wanted. It’s my fault.”

“Shut your mouth,” Tom said coldly, his arms crossed.

“You’re being…a bit of a baby about this,” Luna said, her long dormant feelings overriding her—and at the time, it was a realization.

And then things fell apart.

He hissed in pain before he could object to her opinion and Luna felt rather than saw the figure in the shroud race by them at such a maniac speed that the boat rocked in its wake.

She gasped at the wound in his shoulder. “Are you all right?”

“Do I look-.”

There was a blur by the side of the boat. In retrospect, Luna would call what Pan did a barrel-roll. She merely saw that the wings were in his chubby hands and that there was a smile on his cherubic face.

“Finders, keepers,” the birl said happily.

They seemed to hover for a moment, stunned, and then they fell like a stone. She lost contact with the boat completely, and she felt herself flung through the air. The gravity appeared to have multiplied with intent to make her zoom down to earth and leave a crater. What weighs more does fall faster.

Tom zoomed by her, his robes flapping behind him…well, if there was a way for robes to possibly flap eloquently with speech, that would be it.

On a broom. Where did he hide a broom, she had time to wonder, before she saw him quickly transfigure a piece of driftwood into a broom and rather carelessly tossed it at her. She grabbed for it—nearly lost it—but managed to pinch a bristle and drag it towards her.

She floated there, in midair, nearly out of her mind at the idea of her still being alive.

“Pay attention!” Tom yelled, and Luna jerked her head back just in time to avoid Pan’s sword. The birl grinned at her, with eyes with something foreign and cold behind them that did not match his smile. Demon. It had to be.

Then she felt bad for it. Tom, on the other hand, was in heavy competition. Pan was a good flyer and to her surprise, so was Tom. They had to outdo each other, and the result, she feared, was both of them being undone.

Pan was like mercury, a glaze of silver, as he moved through the net and mesh of curses like a needle through cloth. It seemed as if hitting him before he got you would be an impossible feat (fate), especially with all the taunting involved.

Tom, however, was just as resourceful as he was with the spider. He nearly-nearly-so close it almost counted-got Pan when he let some curses gather behind the child as he was merrily and smugly avoided all the curses. Then he pulled them back with a simple flick of his wand.

Pieces of shroud and not-quite-blood went everywhere but Pan emerged. Somehow unharmed. Then he started to yell and flail about.

The curses must have held fragments of feelings, she observed. Peter Pan was…falling apart was the polite term. He was regressing to what he had been at the time of death, and her heart…she started to regret what they had done.

He had just wanted to live.

Pan seemed stuck and in pain, and Luna suddenly knew that a feeling of some sort was missing. An important one. The last key ingredient.

She felt the presence and the weigh and the feeling of life within her. Then she knew for sure what it was.

Luna raised her hand towards the struggling figure—Tom was giving no mercy this time—and thought and willed as hard as she could.

“No child born is ever unwanted,” she said.

And with that, Pan fell.

Tom had stopped his countless curses to watch Pan’s descent, his good robes draped lightly around his knees.

She realized, looking at him up above her, that he was angry because she…

Luna felt like she had changed. She used to be a Peter Pan, brought forth to be a Wendy by hardship and misfortunes, and it hadn’t twisted her like it had him, all those hardships and loneliness and want. The feeling that the world has nothing to satisfy the curiosity, the heart, the mind, and it wouldn’t want you, spitting you out of the womb of life unto death. As soon as possible.

She discovered that she did have something that made her, that she wouldn’t change for the world. It must have been love, and she realized now, one moment too late.

He smiled lightly at her, a promise that he would remember her, and he kept that promise. Tom Riddle started to fade into the blue, the deep, and she felt the tugs of the Other Selves waking up, leaving this world.

Everyone was leaving.

She blinked and he was gone, and she had been born too late to make a real difference in his life, his fate, his end. Always dreaming, she had dreamt too late, grown up too late.

She had failed him and felt it, the emptiness burrowed in her chest, her heart: it carried.

Luna woke up in tears.

***

She thought it was over. That it was gone like the dream.

Rolf was surprised at her change, and he began to constantly chant ‘Pregnancy hormones’ like a mantra. Luna could feel again. In a way, Tom had saved her. Whether it was in the middle of his things to do or the last possible thing he meant to do, he had done it. She was happy with being a mother.

But she thought that was as far as it went. She should have known better. She should have known the minute her son began to kick so ferociously that she thought she’d end up with a hole in her stomach. He was very, very eager to get out.

She caught a clue when her very blonde Rolf asked her in a falsely cheerful voice, “Did anyone in your family have dark hair?”

What a lark.

What had it been like, her time in captivity? She wouldn’t know, she couldn’t recall. Methodical Tom had taken something away from the dream. He was always learning, just not always the right things. So late in the date did not change the fact of an act. There was a reason they had met. Free-will was made by one’s nature, and what one was, one is. It was Fate, after all.

Luna tried to think of all the angles, staring up at the St. Mungo’s hospital ceiling and seeing the cracks. Clever, clever Tom, going in a full circle.

When the baby was placed in her arms, looking so small, his dark hair already showing, she thought he could just be clever in his corner. He had given her a gift, no matter what his intentions…Better than the best.

What his complex, web-like intentions were~ Her mind thought in possibilities, and his, realities in the impossibilities. Conceding: he was the cleverest. Far more. She saw his bone-whites smile in the darkness, in the silence, in the loneliness. He had her remorse. What better could he find her with, even in death which always remembers, and it seems.

When she met her son—with his eyes— little Luna was a lost girl.

To end this story on a happier note:

She was very good mother.

Credits:

"No child born is ever unwanted"--> is from the movie The Locker, J-horror.

The spiral mentions--> from Uzumaki, J-horror. There are alot of spirals in the world, seriously.

"I do unto others as they do unto me. Only worse". --> Jimmy Hoffa, I believe.

Peter Pan is by J.M. Barrie, and 'The cleverness of me' is his line. The three Fates were influenced by Neil Gaiman, with some additions of my own. The Lost Boys were influenced by the old movie the Brood. The vampire's less than healthy birth theory is from Poppy Z. Brite's Lost Souls. The disintegrating chicken image is from Robot Chicken.

And that's it. :-)

For Nokomis Part 5

Tue, 20 May 2008 17:53:46 GMT

They reached the place of center and it was a spiral.

“It resembles a storm,” she muttered, awed.

“No. No, missed that one, dear. It resembles an umbilical cord.”

Luna stared around, her eyes wide, and she moved closer to him, in the shadows. They were Under. She sensed it in the heaviest of the air. The sky was in fragments above them, and things were fragile and complex. The web was thickest here, and there was a tremble of a note.

They both listened hard, and it seemed that the women appeared out of whispers. Three women, their hair down up in spiral corners. Spirals in finger tips, spirals in ears. They were everywhere, they were nature, they were the Pull.

The trio was doing just that—pulling red threads from a nest, a mess, and aligning them on the web in micro details. A life in a dot. The web was the reflection, and it stretched for those unreal as well as real, as choices bow to nature. As independence lies in the direction of an invisible switch. The air is not free: space won’t have it.

She jumped as the women lifted their heads in unison, as one. Their eyes were rich and cold like the Fall.

“Visitors,” one, the youngest said.

“What do.”

“.you seek.”

She had no clue. “Uh,” she began, placing a fingertip to her lips.

“Don’t you say a word,” Tom said, nudging her.

“Silence, then,” one said, smiling, and their bodies were all angles.

“Odd,” he said, breaking the silence like a raider in a temple would break the statue. “This is the wrong place for things no one believes in.”

“You don’t.”

“.Believe.”

“.In feat.”

“.In fact.”

‘.In fate.”

“It’s what luckless people cling to. It’s the path of the least resistance. You might as well be debris and flotsam floating in a river. Oh well, rubbish begets rubbish.”

“He says.”

“Sisters, that he-.”

“Oh, he, of all--.”

“.People.”

“But that’s-.”

“Every person.”

Luna got the joke: it counted only when it concerned oneself. Like dreaming. Like life. So close, these dots, but they connect off glances, and the whole of life is seen through a tunnel. Life was lonely, and in her heart, she still feels the ashes of her hate.

“Have you cut the—“

“Artery with your--.”

“.Blood in it.”

Tom was quiet, in control, but his lip twitched.

“We’ll come for you then,” they said as one. “Thoughts like arrows will then become like ghosts.”

Madness, they were saying. She was mad on his behalf, as a matter of fact. No one messes with thoughts like that! “I don’t believe in you either. And the teacher of your subject is a bit of a joke, everyone knows so.”

“It might be-

“A bit more of a le-

“sson, legion, lesions,”

“Learned with a bit-

“of pain.”

Then they drew close. “What are they doing, Tom?”

“Uh…” he said, raising an eyebrow.

“Merging,” Luna said, answering her own question. “Good,” he replied, sounding relieved. She didn’t quite know how he was relieved, when their limbs turned into multiples of eight, of infinity, and their angled smiles gave way to fangs, a demon in a Cheshire cat suit. They had a red hourglass on their back. A spider.

“Such a poor choice before me. Before me, of all people,” he gloated, spreading his arms and smiling. Luna was properly lost and moved to the side, preferably behind the nearest tree. “Knowing so much and knowing so little. You only know a certain way to go, like the feeble clay pawns of Muggle imagination. You lack my instinct, and-.”

It hurried toward him and almost bowled him over in mid-boast. She was sure it has squished him in the fatal way before he scrambled out from under it.

“Carriage before the Threstral, Tom,” Luna called out from behind her tree. Then he started to get serious—or so she hoped—and went for their many legs. He cut them all in one wave and the spider rolled…

But the spider wasn’t Fate. She looked at the eight in the web, the hunger of the gleam, and knew that was the place of power. The spider was up in an instant, with more legs for the road, and attacked him again. He deflected it easily but he would tire, eventually.

Luna had an idea. “Tom!” she called.

“Shut up!” he said back. They were friends now, she imagined. Only a friend would tell a friend to shut up.

“The web! You should give the images free-will. Put a portrait spell on them!”

He made a face, and she wondered at the look. Then. “I don’t know that spell.”

“How come?” she asked. He ran backwards a few steps and sliced the fangs of the spider neatly. He hissed, and it drew up, flailing, and Tom darted underneath it, as nimble as a cat. He cursed it and the thing howled.

It seemed as though something was inside the spider now, withering under the skin. He smiled and then remembered her question.

“I don’t believe in the idea of mere pictures remaining behind,” he yelled, out of breath. “I don’t need it! I refuse to know that crutch!”

She pointed, and he dodged the spider’s return. “Just a polarity reversal. Spiders eat their young. This time, the young can feast on the spider.”

Luna shuddered. It wouldn’t work, though. She just knew it. “Well, the spider might want to know the spell. Spiritio infinitam.”

Riddle threw up his hands and made a rude gesture in her general direction. She was thrilled! They were friends.

The battle seemed to go on forever, and Luna noticed with a frown that Tom seemed determined not to use the spell. He panted and cursed and hexed and killed a few times over but he refrained from that spell. She waited and glared at him as hard as she could.

When he finally cast the spell, Luna jumped for joy and yelled out happily. A little loudly. The spider turned in her direction, but the spell had worked. The dots were pouring and pulling every which way! The web was gone in a blink of the eye and Tom cast the Killing Curse one last time.

Its mouth opened and thousands of tiny spider poured towards her like the Red Sea, fully ready to quench her life. She froze, panicked.

Tom murmured something under his breath without hesitation, and the red hourglasses on their backs turned over. They flooded back to the mother and died with her.

Something about the flow of time, she was sure. Moreover, she wouldn’t have thought of it in a million Evers.

“You are very, very clever!” Luna said, running up to him, and so lost was she in the general joy de vivre, that she touched his arm in goodwill. Tom was taken back by her happiness that he was still alive—though technically speaking—and he flinched. She remembered herself and retreated, but still held his gaze, smiling warmly. “Everything you did was just perfect. Imagine, you defeated what some would consider the most powerful of gods.”

“Clay birds, was all they were. People do have a tendency to breathe life into the most common place things, and lose their own in the process.”

“Life must not be worth every Knut, then. Life tends to go when it is needed the most.’ She had no idea she was speaking ill of a dear friend but then again, life was funny.

“Your…idea was…adequate,” he replied slowly, his expression resembling someone who was savoring a lemon, and he cuffed her on the shoulder. It rather hurt.

“Really!” Luna beamed and clasped her hands some more, wringing them in delight.

“Really,” Tom said, looking amused.

“I don’t think I would have done as well, though, with the wand work.”

He tended to think so himself and smiled; for the context, it was a real smile. For the context, Luna remembered who also thought they were very clever and it dampened her spirits considerably.

***

“You’ve never felt a baby kick before, have you?” Luna asked casually, tilting her head.

“No,” Tom said, looking wary. He had made a pretty blue-flamed fire for them to sit by, and she was comfortable.

“Well, he’s kicking now. Would you like to feel before he gets tired?” She motioned to her stomach. She believed he considered it and gathered the end of the nightgown with her hands.

“I’ll pass.” She was disappointed and slumped.

“Who is the father?” Tom pried, the thought in his mind, most likely wondering if it was a last name of prestige. He squinted at Luna’s rather round stomach, as if searching for a clue. “What does he do?”

“Do?” Luna asked, stalling.

“What’s his position? His job. His work. Skill, if any.”

“Oh, well. You might have heard of his father. His father wrote Fantastic Beast and Where to Find Them,” she said, nodding and bobbing her head, and in actuality, she was proud of this fact.

“I remember that book. The organization of that book was atrocious. Written, in some ways, from a Muggle perspective. The magical natural world written with the view from the gutter. I hope you didn’t marry the son for his writing ability.”

“I think the book was lovely and organized very professionally.”

“And your maiden name?” Pry, pry, pry.

“Lovegood.”

“…I’ve heard of that family.” He gazed off the fire, as if confirming something. “That…explains a lot. I suspect, with that combination of blood, the child will certainly be...known. He’s not starting on the ground with the rest of us. He’s under the bloody sea level. Poor, pitiful fool.”

“All right,” Luna said. “I happen to disagree, but you know, there are worst places to start.”

“Yes. From the center of the earth. Not quite that pitiful.”

“I prefer that!” she said, amazed. “Then, he could just go anywhere around the world. Ah, that’s nice.’

He chuckled. Just a little bit, or so she thought. “So, it’s just Luna and a so-and-so against the world. I like those odds.”

“His name is-.” That’s when she really stepped in it. Because at the moment, she had no clue what her husband’s first name was, is, has been, will be. It felt kind of silly and awkward as she had been sharing the bed for a bit. Riddle caught on and then truly did burst out laughing.

“Ah, true love. The strongest bond in the world. I guess names don’t matter, then.” He got up and decided to relocate around the fire, just to see her humiliation all the better.

“It begins with an R.”

“Ralph, Rupert, Roger, Roldophus…Rudolph.”

“Close!”

Tom looked at the sky intently, and she had the feeling he was too amused to stay serious. “Rudolph… may have something to light his way in the bedroom, especially when going south.” He kept his mouth hidden behind his hand, in the mockery of thought.

“No need. The sheets are glow-in-the-dark,” Luna said vaguely, trying to think of the name. He turned completely away from her and seemed to be undergoing some fatigue again with his shoulders shaking. Poor Tom.

She thought and thought. “Ah-hah! It’s Rolf.”

“Because that’s so much better. How do you keep up with him, without knowing the man’s name? That’s odd. You must know that’s odd. It’s just basic human intelligence to know a person’s given name, even if you regard them less than…worthy of a name. He’s a sperm-donor to you?”

Well, goodness. “No, no, no. He’s a very nice, good man. He’s given me everything he could. He never held back.”

His mouth twitched. Luna was of the opinion he should calm down, but he was younger than her in this time.

“I can tell he left a lasting impression.”

“I do know him, I just wasn’t myself for all these years. I cheated him.”

Riddle looked intrigued, raising an eyebrow. “How ever did Ms. Scamander manage to do such a subtle thing?”

Luna smiled sadly. “I said it already. I was not myself. I’m sure you can understand.”

He grew quiet, still intrigued. She explained.

“I don’t have anything to offer him,” she said, truthful and watchful. He was watching her, too intently, and she directed her look to the flames. “I think I married him because I have nothing to offer—no true feeling of love, you know. At that time in my life, after so much. No ability for it, no taste for it—so he wouldn’t expect anything and be disappointed with me.”

“You’re not supposed to offer him anything, Luna. You’re a woman.”

“Oh!” she said. “That’s a bit chauvinistic.”

He laughed. “Old-fashioned. Sounds to me that he married you because you believe you don’t have anything to offer. Anyone can tell. In fact, if you could feel, you’d wonder why anyone would want you.”

“If I could…” she trailed off.

“Women should be treated…”

“Like a prize,” she griped.

“Like a treasure,” he answered, running a finger down her arm. She remembered her earlier actions: the problem with riddles are that they always come full circle.

“I’m not, and please, no flowers.” Luna remembered that story of him too. Riddle comin’ a courting was as good as death wooing you. Especially if he brought flowers for the grave.

“I won’t. Beautiful gifts don’t seem to fit,” he answered. She winced. “But as far as women go, you aren’t what anyone would want at first sight. Then you do have aspects that are surprising. You are deeper than you appear. Normal gifts would be demeaning. I’m of the opinion that you deserve better than the best.”

Luna said nothing because this, this was terrifying. Her heart sputtered around and she found the fire the most fascinating thing in the world.

“At first sight, no. Absolutely not. But upon reflection, why not? It’s that case. I think you more tolerable than most girls. I wouldn’t have gotten…far at all with any other. In fact, I might have had to take care of them myself, to avoid the trouble.”

“…Thanks for not taking care of me, Tom. I do appreciate it.”

“Don’t bother, it’s nothing. Now about your lack of feelings…that interests me. I’m the same.” He leaned against the log and didn’t mind telling this. It was the first time he had told anyone.

“You seem to have plenty,” she answered, remembering him in life.

“I seem to. Seem. But there are few things that satisfy me, there are few things that give me…joy is the word I’m looking for, there. I believe. I feel everything and nothing. Like this love you were talking about lacking…I’ll never understand it. To me, it’s just…seeming. That’s all there is.”

“Maybe you could understand it here.”

“Never, remember.”

“No, that’s precisely why,” Luna answered. “What is never in real life is ever in Never-Never-Land. In my opinion.”

He paused, looking up through his eyelashes, perturbed. To say the least. It was true, and now he was afraid. She hated her way with people. Everyone always became uncomfortable.

“That’s…interesting.”

“Would you like…to try? I can try and remember what it was like when I loved.”

“I’ve…well, I’ve got nothing to offer in exchange. And it’s just...I don’t think I’d like it.”

“Really?”

“It’d be hell for me,” he answered, plainly, turning to her. “I know it would be hell.”

“In real life or here?”

“Both,” he said. “For me. Both.”

“You’ll never know until we give it a go.”

“…What are you saying, little girl? You think you’re in love with me? Is that what you’re saying? I’ve had all of that I can stand.”

“I’m certainly not little. And I’m not going to say that, I wouldn’t say right now. But I’m at the point. I can fall. Would you believe that ironically, no one has seen me like this? With my shadow and my fear. And you did stay. You weren’t exactly…polite, but you did stay. I find that worth falling for. This is a dream, to boot. We can take it in stride. All just one big dream.”

“Because I had to. I stayed because you’re my leverage.”

“And you said just a moment ago that you’d have taken care of any other girl. Don’t be upset, Tom. It can’t be worse than the other things here. And when you see it and it’s silly, you can say you felt it and thought it ridiculous. You’ll have evidence for your claim.”

He looked at his hands. “Well, that’s true. I would, wouldn’t I? I could tear it to pieces. I could paint it as the lie it is. Just as fleeting as the unreal.”

Luna smiled to herself. She was sad for what he said, but this was what he was. She had stayed with him, too.

“All right. Show me.”

“Come closer.”

“I’ve had that before,” he said, sounding bored.

“It’s not just that. I warn you, that sometimes love is painful.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful. Just perfect for the ending of this whole fiasco.” He did sit down, however. He sat right besides her and looked at her expectantly. She was suddenly the most nervous girl that ever was. Her hands were like water, all a flutter, and the sensation of her heart was unbearable, as so good it hurts kind of balance. She was very small, for this.

“Um…”

“Cold feet.”

“Absolutely not.”

With that, she did what she could. What she was best at. She imagined and took his hand, and then took him into her life, with the blink of her eye, and this land was reflective as a mirror. Her love was…

Deep. She showed him what it was like, with her mother, and what it was like, with her father. She showed him what it was like, in the garden by the village and the woods by her house. She showed him her failed loves, like the love of Hogwarts and herself, and how the world inside of her seemed much larger than the outside.

Then she discovered friends.

In the three levels of their existence, the real life, the dream life, and Luna’s dreams, in the middle, she kept his hand in hers. She didn’t make it up. She didn’t lie about its goodness, its ability to satisfy. Sometimes it was the opposite, in her loneliness. Then she let him feel it in small pieces.

Doses and tastes, and she felt him too, besides her and being her. It was similar, perhaps, to having something click into place, or seeing color for the first time. The color, though, could be terrible as it was beautiful. And it did start to hurt, giving her life for others, willingly, living and learning to fall, like a running silk band under the skin, and he stayed there longer than she thought he would.

It hurt to give someone the ability to hurt you.

Shaking violently, he pulled back, and then she knew she had lied to him.

For Luna had said she would never say that, in this time. But she didn’t quite want to let him go.

They were silent for a long time, him on the other side of the fire. In that silence, she thought he had been right after all.

“You didn’t like it?” she ventured, terrified of the answer.

“It’s time to deal with the problem at hand. No more fairytales.” He looked ragged, in pain, in a rage concealed in a Gringott’s vault.

“That’s all right…what do you…suggest?” she asked, hurting.

“That. That is what I’m suggesting. A little…dose of those feelings. I doubt a figment would survive it.”

“A bottle of feeling?”

“Exactly. I can take from you your echoes, at least, of those emotions. In the manner of a pensieve. I know the spell.”

“Well, it’s a try. I suggest we challenge him. Flying, maybe. He’ll surely come around if he believes that we are better at it.”

Riddle stood up, and she promised herself that she would look at him one last time. This was a dream. Any seeds of goodness she had spied surely had to be lies. Some traces of humanity, echoes. He was handsome, though, and clever and could have been wonderful.

“I have one last…uh, request for you.”

“Spit it out.” He hated her. She quivered.

“Remorse. Let me feel some remorse for you and you can bottle it. I don’t know if we can keep the things, but you can keep the memory of it. Keep it in the back of your mind at all times, as if keeping the bottle on your person.” She hoped the rules of horcrux-breaking weren’t terribly specific.

“What should I do with such a worthless thing?”

“Just in case. It may come in handy.”

He smiled, still wincing. “Why not? Perfect trinket to remember you by…”

“Do you hate me?” she blurted out. She knew she possibly loved him now because she had never waned to hit a person more in her life. She was willing to be violent.

“I don’t hate you. I could never hate you.” It wasn’t a good thing. She frowned and it was difficult to feel anything at the moment, but at his persistence, she was able to manage and soon, there were seven bottles.

She picked up the one that was a pale yellow and handed it to him. He took it with a graceless smirk.

She looked away quickly to hide her stricken expression. It was like holding a storm in a chipped teacup.