(no subject)
harry potter; pureblood genocide series, 1997
pure blood is not a fucking trend (two of nine) 2163 words
Ron found Colin Creevey with his brother, half hidden behind a desk but not well enough; he had tried to be a hero and failed, only Harry had been a real hero and look how well that worked out. There were no heroes left on their side now, save for Hermione, but she was more a hero in the bookish sense.
Ron would rather kiss Professor Snape than allow her to partake in the battles which was something seeing as Snape was looking even more gaunt and horrifying than usual. They all were, though, even Pansy, and she had tried relentlessly to be beautiful amid the death and destruction. Even after Blaise bled through her last white blouse, she had strutted around the castle claiming pure blood was the newest trend.
No one blamed Theodore for killing her, not even Draco, his reasoning being that he would be dead after the war and their marriage would never take place anyway. His explanation of why he was still in the castle instead of outside killing Hufflepuffs was because murder was servant's work. Everyone knew, though, that it was the slim chance of his blood being part of the trend that kept him with them, that seeing someone like Blaise fall at the hands of a mudblood like Penelope Clearwater was enough to bring anyone back to reality.
Ron always thought it would be the other way, like it was the first time around, but Voldemort knew he would lose and with the Boy Who Lived and the rest of the mudbloods and half bloods at his side he was more than unstoppable.
The only mudblood not with him was Hermione, who no longer protested that term, in fact, she used it in regular speech. It was Hermione who had dragged Ginny's body back to the Great Hall, bleeding from the head and heart with her insides spilling onto the perfectly polished floor. They had moved her body but had left the stains of her crimson, Gryffindor blood and the scent of her remained.
Draco complained that all there was was blood nowadays but George just told him to shut up and live with it. It was what they lived by, the prospect of simply living with it. Living with the death and the blood and with each other. If it hadn't been for Harry's sudden inclination to evil and the barricading of Hogwarts, they all would have gone home after the term ended, but even Dumbledore was holed up in his office, unable to leave.
The fireplaces had been removed from the system and the thestrals killed, even Hagrid couldn't be saved when all along they had been told he couldn't be stopped. It was Millicent who found the way out, when her blood dripped through the cracks of the stone in the Slytherin Common Room all the way to the tunnel under the lake that the Marauders hadn't even found.
Theodore and Draco spoke alone, ignoring the twins and Neville and even Hermione, as difficult as it was. They even ignored Snape's blatant attempts to overhear their conversations, but no one understood anyway as it was all Latin. "When the war is over," Draco started, looking over his shoulder, and he finished the rest in a whisper. "Nos ero mortuus."
It was up to Dumbledore to distract the Death Eaters attention while the remaining purebloods and Hermione followed Snape to where it was safe. Of course, now, nothing was safe, but Draco's manor would be the next best thing since Blaise's familiy were dead and Potter had Theo's father under the Imperius curse and Grimmauld Place was torched. That was another reason Draco was with this lot, because his father's severed head had landed in his lap before Granger stabbed Potter with a muggle knife to free him and the rest of the Slytherins.
He hated to admit his debt to her, and so he didn't, instead he just sneered in her general direction and poked fun at her frizzy hair. The tunnel seemed to go on forever, and when the first beam of sunlight hit Snape's face, Draco almost smiled. But smiles are too easy and facial expressions of any kind, other than extreme anger, are unacceptable and Fred got a stunner to the chest before Neville even got a chance to yell.
They had no choice but to leave him behind, but Snape stayed to fight them off; or rather to die, valiantly, against those he taught to fight every Friday with McGonagall in the dungeons. Fucking Ravenclaw ingrates. But at least they admitted the damage they did, not like the brave Gryffindors who feigned Imperius. Theo stopped walking halfway across the barren streets of Hosgmeade, claiming the inability to carry on and Ron punched him in the face and said, "Nos es putus cruorem, nunquam dubium nostrum potestas." And so they continued.
They found the manor in a right state of what Ron exclaimed as "Fucked up." Portraits slashed, house elves bleeding all over the carpet and Draco's mother looking like she was defiant to the end, like being killed didn't matter to her as long as she didn't die a traitor. Draco didn't cry, but Ron knew he must have been wanting to because even though Ron's mother was dead too, he didn't have to see her that way. The Death Eaters had left, not long ago, and taken what weapons the Malfoy's had on display to aid them in the genocide of the rest of the pureblood race.
They were utterly defeated, with no chance of continuance unless, by some miraculous twist of fate Granger discovered a true linage and she and the Weasel had hideous, freckled, frizzy haired children. Theo was undoubtedly having the same thoughts, but he and Draco dared not speak lest Ronald should hear them. Instead they exchanged silent glances and Neville rummaged through the house for Narcissa's finest wine.
George apparated out to find Fred, probably dead, and Ron didn't shed even one tear for the last member of his family. Instead he pulled the camera he took off Colin Creevey's dead body out of Hermione's bag and pressed the stupid muggle button and watched it flash. And George went wordless, leaving a picture to remember him by. Hermione wanted to cover Narcissa up, but Draco insisted they didn't, and he and Theodore pushed her into the fireplace and watched her burn, the scent of her flesh filling the already stifled air. Neville found nothing but several bottles of old firewhiskey and held one out to Draco and said, "Imbibo," the first thing he had said since Seamus collapsed, avada kedavra'd, on him.
Hermione didn't understand the whole Latin thing, nor did she understand how Ron and Draco could put aside their differences when they had spent the last seven years despising each other. Theodore and Neville drank the last of the firewhiskey; Hermione had none because whiskey would only impair her abilities and she wanted to be fully conscious as she read passages of translations from Lucius' library. All in Latin, of course, so she could learn and be part of the stupid boy's club.
"No girls allowed," Ron would tease, but he still served her first at dinner and held her tightly while they slept on the couch, before they could open the rooms. Draco didn't allow anyone to trouble his bedroom and the others were magicked to stay shut until you spoke a password; things like pure and no filthy mudbloods. The password to Narcissa's second bedroom, the one Hermione took, was Draco and maybe, for the first time ever, she felt sorry for him.
Not sorry enough to stop asking him stupid questions, though, like why his family motto (Aut victum vel morior) was Latin and the Black's was French and all four boys told her, "Nunquam rogo infrunitus dubium," but Hermione simply wouldn't be silenced and she went about asking more stupid questions. Ron would have been angry if Draco had cut off her head, but since he only cut off half of her hair there was really nothing to quarrel about. It looked much better short, to be honest, and when she tied it up, she looked less like Professor Trelawney.
Ron photographed her trimming the uneven ends to salvage what hair Draco had left her with and he got Theodore and Neville drunk, singing a song from the Weird Sister's first album. Draco never let him take his pictures, claiming he wanted his soul in his body when he rejoined his family. Ron simply replied that he didn't want to rejoin his family, that he would rather avenge them than stand, perished beside them. Draco said he was stupid and slammed the bedroom door shut. Draco didn't cry, but Ron knew he must have been wanting to because he hadn't come out of his room for three days, not even for meals, and when Theodore finally convinced him to leave it, he wasn't speaking to anyone.
Theodore asked Ron to pass the potatoes but before he could stretch his hand over, Snape apparated into the house, bleeding someone else's blood and looking as though he hadn't intended the manor as his destination. Five wands pointed at his half broken body, the potatoes sitting untouched beside the wine, and Draco wondered why his parents never charmed the place like Hogwarts was; what had stopped people from busting in before and killing them all? Perhaps that was how Potter and the mudbloods got in to murder his mother, the little fucks.
"Accio wands," he spoke in a tone less than a whisper, and shocked as they were to see him still alive, none of them took much notice of his spell, save for Theodore, who had been telling them that the Death Eaters were smarter than they thought and were probably making ployjuice. But they weren't, it was Snape before them, struggling to breathe. It was Snape who snapped all of their wands in several pieces and threw them aside.
Ron surveyed his own wand, broken into three pieces; fourteen inches of unicorn tail hair holding the splintered wood together on the marble floor, and Snape simply said "It's for your own good." Theo sat down and Neville spooned some pasta and potatoes into a new plate and for once, Snape said nothing of his uselessness, but simply joined them for dinner. Ron and Hermione tossed their broken wands in the fireplace with Narcissa's remains. "Don't leave the manor, don't try to use your wands, just stay here. Just-" Snape nodded, and Hermione could have sworn he was crying as he left. Ron snapped a picture of him, to remember him by, and cleared the table with the silent Draco.
No one slept that night, but Theodore had been trying to, even with Hermione insisting he tell her his family motto. He finally broke at three in the morning. "Mortis potius quam ignominia, now will you shut the fuck up and let me sleep?" and Draco finally spoke, as well, saying if he broke that easily with the enemy they would all be dead. "Decus et sanctimonia," Ron said, to shut them all up, but Draco just scoffed and replied with, "Before this war there wasn't one thing pure about your family, Weasel," and rolled over to feign slumber.
Ron would have retorted, but Draco was right, and Hermione had resorted back to the school way of coping; squeezing his hand and telling him to ignore it. And also because Snape hadn't updated them on the goings on of the war and none of them could possibly know just how long they would be together. There would be no use picking fights if they were to spend the rest of their lives until they die in Draco's manor.
No wands, no magic, no interaction with the outside world for their own safety, and no one had gone mental yet. Granted, they were all slightly mental to begin with, but so far, everything was running smoothly. Hermione decided Neville's family motto sounded the best (Futurus, potius quam videor) even though she had no idea of it's meaning. Draco trained her in sword fighting, Theo showed Neville the books on wandless magic and Ronald took his last photographs.
Ron didn't need a wand to appreciate what he had. All he needed was the stupid muggle camera and Hermione, Neville, Theodore and Draco to take pictures of. He caught Neville trying and failing at wandless magic and Hermione putting on Narcissa's lipstick in a broken mirror and Theodore writing letters he wouldn't send to his probably dead father and his mother who had been buried after he was born, and when he asked Draco to smile, he photographed the first tear he cried since Harry turned just before it fell. The pictures did not move, nor did they seem at all interesting. The pictures had no magic, and neither did they.
(the end beginning)
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Written by divvy & the username formerly known as _carlotta, for, well, each other.
Colin Creevey got a fucking polaroid camera before the war, okay, shut up. The joke's on Granger, because even if she did manage to get the boys to tell their family mottos, she had no way of knowing what they meant, being abysmally horrid at Latin, save for prelearned spells. All the books Lucius owned were written in Latin, not about Latin, and were of no help. She is doomed to spend the rest of her days short haired in a house of boys, awaiting her impending, inevitable death. There is no hope, the pureblood race is dead. The five will either kill each other off or die of starvation; I say Theodore kills Hermione, Ron kills Theo for killing Hermione, Draco kills Ron for being a prat and he and Neville starve. Pity, the end.
Draco's family motto: Aut victum vel morior; either conquer or die
Theodore's family motto: Mortis potius quam ignominia; death rather than dishonour
Neville's family motto: Futurus, potius quam videor; to be, rather than to seem
Ronald's family motto: Decus et sanctimonia; honour and purity